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Monday, July 27, 2026

07/26 Links: Rwanda, Israel and the Inversion of ‘Genocide’; Ruth Was Right; Karim Khan is gone. The ICC’s antisemitism remains; Ex-Dem NY gov compares Mamdani to famed segregationist

From Ian:

Adam Louis-Klein: Rwanda, Israel and the Inversion of ‘Genocide’
False accusations of genocide are nothing new. In 1993 Hutu intellectuals at the National University of Rwanda accused the Tutsi-associated Rwandan Patriotic Front of genocide. They circulated inflated casualty figures in an open letter to Pope John Paul II and others. The RPF did commit war crimes, but these accusations were propaganda. A year later, the Hutu regime carried out a genocide of the Tutsis.

The Rwandan genocide of 1994 was an “anticolonial” genocide. Just as the Oct. 7, 2023, attack was hailed by many anti-Zionists as an uprising against Western imperialism, the Rwandan genocide used accusations of genocide to legitimize its own execution.

I am an anthropologist studying indigeneity, postcolonialism and ethnic violence. On Oct. 7, I had been off the grid for months, pursuing field research in the Amazon. When I logged on to my computer on Oct. 9, I realized to what degree these vocabularies had become a weapon against Israel and the Jewish people.

The genocide accusation against Israel has traveled far and wide since Oct. 7, but its intellectual sources have rarely been scrutinized. Every major iteration of the accusation, I learned, flows from an academic framework that presents the accusation of genocide in Gaza as a consequence of Israel being a “settler colonial” state founded by Europeans who don’t belong in the Middle East. The network of academics behind this framing—whose ideas inform nonprofit organizations like Amnesty International and B’Tselem—is especially conspicuous in the Journal of Genocide Research.

That publication has been a proponent for changing, extending or rejecting the legal definition of genocide enshrined in the 1948 Genocide Convention, formulated by Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin. A. Dirk Moses, the journal’s senior editor since 2011, argues it is useless to distinguish intentional killing of civilians from collateral damage caused by strikes against terrorists. Colonial states are founded on dispossession, he argues—and when indigenous peoples “resist,” they are simply destroyed in the name of security.

Amnesty International turns Mr. Moses’ erasure of moral distinctions into a novel combination: Israel harbors “dual intent,” a neologism reading Israel as engaged in lawful warfare and genocide at once. For a permanently illegitimate colonial state, even legal self-defense spells genocide.

Omer Bartov, an Israeli-American historian at Brown University, is the highest-profile scholar to accuse Israel of genocide. He claims the support of a cast of characters ranging from Raz Segal, who less than a week after Oct. 7 described Israel’s entire history as an ongoing genocide, to Amos Goldberg, who has more frankly acknowledged that depicting Israel’s essence as genocidal doesn’t jibe with legal standards. All of them see Israelis as colonists.

As in Rwanda, anticolonialism and genocide inversion have converged. Israel is imagined not only as a state accused of genocide, but as a people whose identity as foreign settlers makes genocide their destiny.
Ruth Was Right
REVIEW: ‘If I Am Not for Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews’ by Ruth R Wisse
To encounter Ruth Wisse is to learn from her, and I was blessed to be her student for the first time a decade ago. She, an eminent scholar of literature at Harvard, spent a weekend with us, a group of Jewish students in the Tikvah Fund’s then-nascent Collegiate Summer Honors program, doing what comes most naturally to her: teaching. She did so in her inimitable way. One of my friends described it precisely, remarking that Wisse was three-quarters Harvard professor, raising novel interpretations of the texts before us with erudition and articulateness, and one-quarter your bubbe at the Shabbat table speaking plain truths about the world. That persona made her all the more endearing and perhaps even more effective; from among her students that weekend I now count multiple brilliant young litigators, several professors and teachers, and a prolific member of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board.

Declaring what is plainly, if painfully, true about the world is today rarely conceived of as the role of the professor. Wisse’s willingness to do so, that weekend and throughout her career, qualifies her as something more akin to a prophetess. With clear descriptions of the world taking shape in the late 20th century, courageous denunciations of its comforting misapprehensions and false pieties, and a call for Jews (and indeed all Westerners) to examine the crumbling foundation of liberal universalism, Wisse delivered a most unwelcome set of prophesies in 1992’s If I Am Not for Myself. Committing heresy after heresy among liberal Jewish company, she proclaimed that Soviet antisemitism was transmogrifying into Arab anti-Zionism; that "in misguided effort" Jews are "tempted to try to elicit from bystanders and witnesses the same pity" they had seen other victims enjoy; and that antisemitism "continues to be regarded as a disreputable sentiment achieving a certain legitimacy only when it travels under the cover of anti-Zionism."

No wonder the publisher Wicked Son deemed it worthy of republication in 2026, with new front matter including a preface from Wisse herself. These revelations, scoffed at in their time, could have been copied-and-pasted into the bewildered social media posts of Jews after October 7, 2023, confronting the liberal West’s failure to consign anti-Jewish politics to history. Indeed, anti-Jewish politics have only gained prominence since throngs of barbarians gathered throughout the West to celebrate the Hamas-led massacre and blame the Jews for their own misfortune. If Jewish families didn’t want to be burned alive, perhaps they shouldn’t have dared to live in a particular place at a particular time—to be colonizers, the newest category of un-person invented to ensure Jewish children would once again endure medieval horrors without weighing too heavily on the conscience of the enlightened liberal West.

Some definitions are necessary to understand Wisse’s simple but penetrating thesis. She speaks often of "liberalism," by which she means the consensus postwar view that humanity was on a positive moral trajectory, with reason prevailing over dogma and peace generally prevailing over war. Without castigating liberalism’s political manifestations—individual liberty, the rule of law, and so on—Wisse takes aim at liberal universalism, or the view that everyone, even avowed enemies of the Jews, could be reasoned with and ultimately pacified. Once-ubiquitous demands for Israel to give up "land for peace" exemplified this view; in hindsight they would be quaint if they hadn’t been so destructive.
Jake Wallis Simons: Israel’s envoy to Britain: ‘I’ll feel safer back home, where there’s no anti-Semitism’
In April 2025, Daniela Grudsky Ekstein, the acting head of mission at the Embassy of Israel in London, came within inches of a terrorist who was embarking on an attack. "I remember it very well," she says. "I was being urged by security to leave the embassy because I was the last one out at the end of the working day. And as I left, within two minutes he was climbing the fence." She was speaking on her phone at the time and didn't pay any attention when she brushed past Kuwaiti migrant Abdullah Albadri, whose head was wrapped in a red-and-white keffiyeh and sunglasses. Albadri, 34, told his mother, "I chose the path of martyrdom," then traveled to Kensington and tried to enter the embassy armed with two knives. Thankfully, he was tackled by police. In May, he was found guilty of terror offenses.

Grudsky Ekstein says Israel's leadership cannot comprehend the levels of antisemitism on Britain's shores. "Anti-Semitism is on the rise. We've seen the murders at Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester and the stabbings in Golders Green. What Jerusalem doesn't see is such a clear link between those attacks and that permissive environment" which allows antisemitic rhetoric and blatant misinformation - like the lie that Israel has been committing "genocide" - to spread unchallenged.

The media, she points out, plays a major role in this incitement. "Broadcasting 'death to the IDF' chants on the BBC [during the 2025 Glastonbury Festival] was massive, because before that, I wasn't aware of the slogan. Since then, do you know how many protests I have seen with that 'death to the IDF' chant?"

Grudsky Ekstein is relieved to be returning home. On a day-to-day basis, she says, she often feels safer in Israel than Britain, regardless of the threat of missiles and terror. Does she have a final message to Britain before she leaves? "Put yourself in the shoes of Israel," she replies. "I know that there is a great empathy for the Palestinians. I get that. But you should understand that our democracy is also one that needs a friendly hand."


Netanyahu accuses Mamdani of ‘fomenting hate’ by calling for his arrest
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is “fomenting hate” by calling the Israeli leader a war criminal who should be arrested over the war in Gaza if he visits the city for the United Nations General Assembly.

Netanyahu said he intends to be in New York in September to address the annual UN gathering of world leaders, despite the mayor’s suggestion that he is not welcome. Mamdani said last week that while New York City does not have legal authority to execute an arrest warrant issued by the world’s top war-crimes court, he encouraged the federal government to do so.

“He’s supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers — Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone,” Netanyahu said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo. “But he’s trying to turn one group against the other.”

Accusing Mamdani of “supporting the Hamas murderers,” Netanyahu said he would be attending the UN General Assembly “to come and speak the truth, speak for Israel and the Israeli-American alliance from the podium of the United Nations.”

The prime minister has become an increasingly polarizing figure over Israel’s war in Gaza, which was ignited by the October 7, 2023, deadly attack on southern Israel by the Hamas terror group.

Israel also joined the US in starting the war against Iran on February 28 before launching a ground invasion in southern Lebanon in response to fire from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group in early March.

Netanyahu on Sunday dismissed the International Criminal Court’s war crimes charges against him as “bogus.” He pointed to sexual misconduct allegations against the ICC’s top prosecutor, Karim Khan, who was removed from that post on Friday, and said the warrant was an attempt to divert attention.

“He thought, if there’s an indictment, I’m going to have a job. There was an indictment, and he lost his job,” the premier joked.

“He lost his job because he was removed by a vast majority of nations who knew that he was a con job.”




Watch my interview with Fox News, on the eve of my trip to the US


Ex-Dem NY gov compares Mamdani to famed segregationist — as he pushes probe into whether his anti-Israel crusade is inciting violence
Former Gov. David Paterson compared Mayor Zohran Mamdani to segregationist George Wallace as he pushed for a federal investigation into whether Hizzoner is inciting anti-Jewish violence.

Paterson, who is also a former chairman of the state Democratic Party, said Mamdani’s antagonist stance against Israel – including his empty threat to arrest Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – could be a dog whistle to antisemites.

“Mamdani is the 2020s answer to George Wallace,” said Paterson, who is black. Wallace, a four-time presidential candidate and former governor of Alabama, infamously proclaimed,” segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

Paterson said the social media-focused socialist mayor is not explicitly calling for violence in his anti-Israel rhetoric, but like Wallace it could fuel people on the brink.

“It’s taking those people on the edge and making them more likely to commit violence. It’s giving fodder to antisemitic people.” Paterson claimed.

He said he’s co-writing a letter with Dov Hikind, former Brooklyn assemblyman and founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, asking the US Justice Department to investigate whether Mamdani is violating federal laws.

They will ask other elected officials and New York leaders to sign the letter.

The extraordinary move comes days after crazed defendant Raul Morales screamed “Allahu Akbar” while allegedly stabbing an Asian and Jewish man in separate harrowing hate attacks on the Upper West Side on Thursday.


Blakeman, Jewish leaders slam Mamdani at NYC rally for fueling antisemitism before UWS hate crime stabbing
Jewish leaders and New York gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman blasted Mayor Zohran Mamdani for fueling antisemitism and creating a climate that led a madman to stab a Jewish New Yorker and another victim during a rally in Manhattan Sunday.

The “United Against Hate” rally took place around the corner from where madman Raul Morales screamed “Allahu Akbar” while allegedly stabbing a 50-year-old Jewish man, Moshe Yezhak Grunhaus, outside his synagogue at Amsterdam Avenue and West 86th Street on Thursday.

Morales also stabbed Chok Sung, a 57-year-old Asian man — in a separate attack near West 84th Street and Central Park West the same day.

The shocking attacks come as Mamdani’s rhetoric against Israel — particularly his bashing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — is inciting antisemitism across the city, according to Blakeman, who is Jewish.

“There is no question that Zohran Mamdani’s antisemitic rhetoric has fueled all of the antisemitism and the violence we now see in the city,” the GOP gubernatorial candidate said at the rally.

“An Asian man and a Jewish man were stabbed in broad daylight just blocks apart in Manhattan while their attacker allegedly shouted ‘Allahu Akbar,'” he added.

“Let’s stop beating around the bush: this is what happens when the sitting Mayor of New York City actively demonizes Jewish residents and normalizes antisemitism while Kathy Hochul’s disaster of a bail law ensures that hate-mongers walk free before the police report is even typed up.”

Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, also proposed tougher criminal sentences for those convicted of hate crimes, slamming Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mamdani for being too soft on crime.

“You cannot attack the Jewish community with radical rhetoric, close jails and then act surprised when innocent New Yorkers are stabbed on a Thursday afternoon,” the governor hopeful said. “New York’s laws need to change to protect the victims, not the criminals.”


Jonathan Sacerdoti: There is nothing surprising about the Berlin pride attack
Vehicle-ramming as a deliberate terrorist tactic, using an ordinary car, lorry or bulldozer to intentionally strike pedestrians, soldiers, or crowds for the purpose of killing and terrorising, was pioneered and refined primarily through Palestinian attacks in Israel. It is one of their most successful international exports, along with airline hijackings and suicide bombings. The earliest well-documented case of this specific method occurred on 18 February 1987, when a Palestinian driver deliberately rammed a car into a group of Israeli soldiers near Nablus. One soldier later died of his injuries. Additional early cases followed in 1989 and the 1990s.

Sure, the Palestinians did not invent the basic idea of a vehicle as a weapon, but they were the first to turn deliberate ramming of people into a repeated, low-tech terrorist method that proved hard to prevent and relatively effective under the constraints they faced. Al-Qaeda, via its English-language magazine Inspire in 2010, and later Islamic State, would publicly promote vehicle ramming as an easy, low-skill method for lone actors in the West, no doubt inspired by the Palestinian ‘struggle’.

With all these jihadist techniques, they may not have invented them, but Palestinian terrorists adopted, refined, and massively scaled them for imitation internationally (thereby globalising the intifada).

As much as an Islamist attack on a pride parade is not in the least bit surprising, it came as no surprise at all to see that on the same day of the Berlin pride attack, a transgender activist wearing a PLO flag dress lead chants of ‘free Palestine’ at London’s Trans Pride event. Nothing sums up our society’s myopic march into oblivion better than the spectacle of a street parade of people who can’t identify a man from a woman, merrily singing songs supportive of a movement predominantly led and inspired by Islamist terrorists and their sympathisers, all while innocent people in Germany are being killed for celebrating gay equality.

Every time I write one of these articles listing previous Islamist terror attacks, clearly showing the patterns and threats society needs to wake up to, I wonder how many more I’ll have to write before it stops being controversial to mention the elephant in the room. It’s a strange sort of hobby to keep a list of these things, but sad as it makes me, I won’t stop.

Perhaps this time it’ll be different. Perhaps the victims won’t have died and been injured in vain. Perhaps Europe will wake up and start to act to counter this very real threat. Somehow, I doubt it. Those who kill us for our beliefs and values, and their confused supporters who take to the streets to chant in defence of our killers, will keep on marching in our way, smearing us for our pride, and dismissing us for our love of freedom and life. Yet somehow we’re the crazy ones for pointing all this out.
Suspect in deadly Berlin Pride attack shot dead by police after daylong search
The suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attack that left one person dead and 29 injured was shot and killed by police during a confrontation in a suburb of the city, authorities said Sunday evening.

Abdul Ballout, a 21-year-old German citizen with Lebanese roots, was killed following a search that lasted nearly 24 hours after the attack in downtown Berlin. Prosecutors said he had previously sought to join the militant Islamic State group.

He is suspected of driving a van into a crowd the night before near Berlin’s Pride festival, killing one person and injuring several people before apparently stabbing others with a machete in what authorities believe was an Islamic extremist terror attack.

Ballout was tracked down around 6 p.m. Sunday at a garden in Spandau, a Berlin suburb, the city’s police department wrote on X. They said he apparently ran toward officers with a sharp instrument, and police fired at least one shot. He died at the scene.

“Everything we see here points to us dealing with an Islamic terror attack,” Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said before the suspect was found and killed.

Dobrindt put the total number of wounded at 29. The attack occurred a few hundred yards from a party near the Brandenburg Gate that was supposed to close out the city’s Pride festival.

Dobrindt said the suspect had come to authorities’ attention in the past because of numerous previous crimes, of which he did not give details, and also because of “radicalization and belonging to the Islamist scene” in the German capital.

Suspect was previously arrested for ISIS support
He said Ballout was born in Germany, and that his mother was naturalized in 2002 — three years before he was born.

Dobrindt said the suspect had been convicted in Berlin in the past, though he did not specify for what. He said that he had been given a suspended sentence of 1 year and 10 months.

Ballout traveled to Lebanon in 2025 with the goal of going to Syria to join the Islamic State group, Berlin prosecutors said Sunday.

There, he made contact with several people who were presumed members of the militant group — or at least he believed them to be, prosecutors said. He was arrested in Lebanon last year and sentenced by a military court to three months’ imprisonment for offenses including incitement to religious and sectarian conflict.

He returned to Germany after completing his sentence, where he was arrested at the Berlin airport.

In May, a juvenile court in Berlin convicted Ballout of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state, as well as publishing Islamic State propaganda on his Instagram account and other charges, prosecutors said.

The court handed down a suspended sentence of 1 year and 10 months in youth custody, which Berlin prosecutors had appealed.

The court said it took Ballout’s months of pre-trial detention in Germany and Lebanon into account. It also said it considered that Ballout had confessed to the crimes, appeared to distance himself from the militant group and no actual threat had ever materialized.

He was released from detention pending the appeal.


The Australia I grew up in is unraveling as antisemitism shatters a safe haven
These are the larger incidents that have dominated headlines, but what the Royal Commission into Antisemitism has more recently exposed is the quieter, persistent undercurrent bubbling in everyday interactions. The hostility, exclusion, and shocking slurs that rarely make the news, but are shaping the emotional reality on the ground - maybe even more profoundly.

During the Royal Commission, Jews have shared disturbing reports of Nazi salutes in classrooms, workplace bullying, and children being taunted with offensive slurs.

What’s most ironic and deeply distressing is that the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are now encountering this rhetoric in the very country their ancestors once turned to in search of safety, refuge, and belonging.

This is not the Australia I grew up in. This is not the sunburned country where we embraced the melting pot of backgrounds, customs, and cultures that filled our coastlines and parks.

And for that, I grieve. I grieve from afar as I watch the Australia I once knew so intimately unravel - a place where Jewish life felt open and secure, and where belonging was never something we questioned.

I hope the Royal Commission leads to meaningful change. I hope the broader Australian public understands that what is at stake is not only the safety of Jews, but the character of the country itself. And I hope Jewish children growing up there today will one day speak about Australia with the same fondness that I feel.

Qantas, Australia’s national airline, is known for its signature anthem, “I Still Call Australia Home,” which is played on every flight - a gentle reminder that no matter how far Australians travel, there is a longing for home.

But a few years ago, sitting on a Qantas flight and listening to those familiar lyrics, I realized something had shifted within me, too. I no longer instinctively called Australia home, nor did I feel that same pull toward it.

Australia will always hold a deep and special place in my heart, and it also profoundly shaped my views and approach to life. But for me, home is now Israel.
Labor ‘out of touch’ with mainstream Australia
​Sky News host James Morrow says Labor is so “out of touch” with mainstream Australia.

​“Albanese is always talking about becoming the centrist, moderate party of government, but that is camouflage, that’s a cloak; what’s actually happening behind the scenes…is so out of step with mainstream Australia,” Mr Morrow said.

​“They’re so out of touch; that’s why the budget landed with a thud.”




Major win for school principal who posted inflammatory anti-Zionist messages
A regional NSW Islamic school principal who once shared inflammatory anti-Zionist social media posts was denied procedural fairness when he was stood down, the NSW Supreme Court has found, paving the way for his potential return to the job.

The principal of New Madinah College in Young, Sheikh Abdulghani Albaf, launched the action after he voluntarily stood down while earlier social media posts, including one where he said “Zionists should burn in the pits of hellfire”, were subject to renewed investigation after the Bondi Beach massacre that claimed 15 lives.

Acting Justice Monika Schmidt ruled that Albaf’s case succeeded on two grounds: that he had been denied procedural fairness, and that the NESA committee’s conclusion that he was not a fit and proper person to be a principal was, on balance, “legally unreasonable”.

“The evidence does establish that the sheikh was denied the procedural fairness he was entitled to receive, before the committee made and published its determination that he was not a fit and proper person,” Schmidt found.

Albaf was first investigated by the NSW Educational Standards Authority (NESA) in January 2025 over posts he made before becoming principal at the school.

In these posts, he called Zionists “absolutely worse than Nazis. The Zionist terrorist regime is more devilish, evil and atrocious than any other terrorist in history.”

In October 2025, he shared a post stating: “May Allah destroy the Zionist terrorist regime”.

He was cleared of any wrongdoing and took down the posts, acknowledging that while he had a right to political opinion, his language was inappropriate for a school principal.

He was investigated by the authority again in December 2025, after media inquiries following the Bondi terror attack. NESA contacted then-acting education minister, Courtney Houssos, who advised the regulator to keep her informed on the process.

NESA told the school it was investigating if the sheikh was still a fit and proper person and demanded the school respond by January 19, threatening to cancel its registration.

During the case, Albaf argued the committee bowed to the education minister’s wishes and fired him despite having no fair grounds to terminate his employment.


Why Iran will not be another Libya if the regime is overthrown
Prince Reza Pahlavi embodies this experienced future, directly connecting Iran’s deep historical experience to a Western-aligned, stable tomorrow. This historical continuity is not theoretical. It is visible today.

The nationwide demonstrations of 2026 marked a decisive shift in Iranian politics. Protests erupted in every province, major cities, and small towns alike, including regions that historically appeared to have remained outside national political movements.

These demonstrations cut across religion, language, and regional lines. What emerged was not fragmentation, but re-nationalization, a shared political identity centered squarely on the idea of Iran itself.

One of the regime’s longest-standing strategies, dividing society through identity politics, has collapsed.

In Tabriz, the most populous city in the Azerbaijan region, and Kermanshah, the most populous Kurdish city, mass protests openly expressed support for Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, directly contradicting decades of state propaganda claiming that national unity was fragile.

The evidence points in the opposite direction. There is no meaningful risk of internal disintegration. Iran today shows more national cohesion than Iraq and Libya ever did before or after US intervention.

This unity extends beyond Iran’s borders. From Toronto to London, Tokyo to Los Angeles, the Iranian diaspora has mobilized at a scale rarely seen in modern politics. These demonstrations are not disconnected from events inside Iran; they are perfectly aligned with them.

Iranian communities abroad are among the most educated, economically successful, liberal, and well-integrated immigrant populations in the West. They are loyal citizens of their host countries while remaining deeply committed to Iran’s cultural and historical identity.

They often carry both flags side by side, reflecting gratitude to the West and hope for a free Iran. This diaspora offers a living preview of Iran’s future: modern, Western-oriented, anti-extremist, and based on the rule of law.

Strategic and national necessity
Equally important is a reality often ignored in Washington. Iranians are among the most pro-American societies in the world. Admiration for American values, culture, and political ideals is widespread.

Repeated nationwide protests against clerical rule demonstrate a clear separation between the Iranian people and the Islamic Republic. The regime represents an imposed ideological project, not Iran’s authentic historical or social identity.

The level of public hostility and hatred toward the regime has reached a breaking point, especially after the mass killings of tens of thousands of civilians in the winter of 2026.

The scale of anger and moral clarity is unprecedented. With hundreds of thousands of Iranians abroad openly calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, and asking for US military action, this is something without historical parallel.

This is not a case where America would be imposing change against popular will. It would be responding to it.

Removing Iran’s current terrorist regime is not an act of charity; it is a strategic necessity for the long-term national interest of the United States.

Doing so would eliminate the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism that has killed thousands of Americans, and establish one of America’s strongest and most reliable allies in the region.

A post-Islamic Republic Iran would not be a failed state or a permanent ward of the United States. It would emerge as a sovereign, influential power, one with shared interests in stability, economic integration, and opposition to extremism with the US.

Where Iraq and Libya lacked historical continuity, national cohesion, and institutional legitimacy, Iran possesses all three. That is why US engagement with Iran would succeed where Iraq and Libya failed.

History does not repeat itself blindly. When conditions are radically different, outcomes can be too.
Trump denies US running out of munitions, threatens Iran’s Kharg Island in string of social media posts
US President Donald Trump denies reports that the US is running out of munitions in its fight against Iran.

“We have far more munitions than anyone in the world, and far more than we need,” he tells the Wall Street Journal.

The US president also shares multiple images threatening Iran’s energy infrastructure on his Truth Social platform.

One of the images shared by Trump is an AI-generated photo of warplanes bombing an oil facility with the caption “STRIKE ON KHARG,” referring to Iran’s Kharg Island, the main oil export hub for the Islamic Republic.

Trump then posted several images in quick succession, all captioned “It’s Our Oil Tanker now!”

Each one shows an AI-generated image of Trump holding an American flag on an apparently Iranian ship. One version of the post features US soldiers in it as well, and another features both soldiers and what appears to be a depiction of Iranian religious leaders.

He follows up these posts with another captioned “NO MORE ENGINES,” featuring an Iranian ship being blown up.


Ask Haviv Anything: 134: Was Gaza still occupied after 2005?
In our current episode we ask: Was Gaza still occupied after 2005?

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Gaza occupation semantics
00:30 The political use of the occupation term
01:00 Israel's responsibilities in Gaza
01:58 Effective control and legal definitions
02:27 Hamas's rise and control of Gaza
04:21 Israeli blockade and border control
07:37 Legal perspectives on Gaza blockade
08:35 The Supreme Court ruling on Gaza occupation
09:04 Gaza's transformation post-withdrawal
09:31 Strategic motives behind Gaza withdrawal
10:30 Sharon's strategic calculations
12:23 Palestinian agency and internal conflicts
13:22 Timing and political shifts in Israeli policy
14:45 The convergence plan and withdrawal tactics
16:11 Deterrence and regional security
17:34 The resilience of non-state actors
18:30 Responsibility and agency in the conflict
20:18 Rethinking narratives and policy implications




Anne Bayefsky: Karim Khan is gone. The ICC’s antisemitism remains
The lessons here are profound. Khan has been constantly described as a brilliant lawyer, so assuming he isn’t stupid, the highest ranking international criminal lawyer in the world evidently believed that antisemitism was his last best hope. In 2024, for more than five months, he and his friends pressured the victim to recant her allegations on the grounds that it would hurt the Israeli arrest warrants.

The victim herself claimed to have allowed the abuse (including rape) to go on for so long for fear that it would disrupt those warrants. In her own words: “I held on for as long as I could because I didn’t want to f—up the Palestinian arrest warrants.” How sad and twisted that a mutual passion for screwing Israel should have taken priority.

Until the very end, Khan and his followers invoked the perennial scapegoat, the international Jew boy, Israel. As late as June 22, 2026, Khan’s lawyer ranted about his being “forced from office” on account of having “sought arrest warrants in relation to Palestine.”

In response, the victim’s supporters felt the need to make one final move that had nothing to do with the veracity of her narrative. They set out to prove that siding with her would not interfere with the ICC’s vigorous prosecution of Israelis.

And lo and behold, the deputy prosecutor of the ICC, who had been doing Khan’s job while he had been on leave pending Friday’s vote, delivered. While the ASP Executive Bureau was considering Khan’s fate this past spring, the Deputy issued a request for arrest warrants targeting more Israeli leaders, including Cabinet Minister Bezalel Smotrich. This time criminality is pre-determined because the alleged crimes are those written for Israelis into the Rome Statute itself.

The victim’s side celebrated. The main groups produced a Q & A, which posed the rhetorical question: “Does the Palestine investigation depend on the current prosecutor?” And answered with an emphatic “no.” Moreover, readers were told with a wink-wink, what is known publicly about the ICC’s new Israeli targets is the tip of the iceberg.

In other words, to support the sexual assault accusation, the victim’s side was driven to flaunt arrest warrants for Israelis. And yet these human rights charlatans remained totally silent on the obvious implications of this dynamic for the legitimacy of the ICC itself.

Now there is a massive campaign to save the ICC from Khan.

Khan’s detailed request for warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant was considered and approved by the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber in November 2024. So you had a corrupt lascivious scoundrel – who was pursuing Israelis to cover up his other criminal pursuits – busy filing briefs and making legal-sounding arguments as if nothing had happened. Nothing that came out of his mouth about Israelis should have been considered trustworthy. And yet that’s exactly what the Pre-Trial Chamber did.

We are now supposed to believe that Khan’s actions against women made him dispensable, but the actions of this rapist, liar, persecutor, and unprincipled fraud against Jews are indispensable. We are to condemn Khan’s function as chief prosecutor for some purposes and pretend that the exercise of his function is impeccable for other purposes – more precisely, for Israel-bashing purposes.

So the real story of the rise and fall of Karim Khan is not that antisemitism is a failed strategy, but that when it comes to the ICC, the sickness ensnares Israelis every which way.

Consequently, Khan’s undoing should signal the undoing of the ICC, not the replacement of one antisemitic regime with another.


Nick Matau: 1 Zionist vs 10 Pro-Palestine Activists
Nick sits down for a heated 1 vs 10 debate on Israel, Gaza, Hamas, Zionism, Palestinian statehood, October 7th, and the history behind the conflict.

The conversation starts with the claim that there is no genocide in Gaza, then moves into civilian casualties, international law, media narratives, the ICJ, war crimes, antisemitism, ethnic cleansing, and whether Israel’s actions can be defended.

From there, the debate shifts into the West Bank, Palestinian self-determination, occupation, terrorism, the Balfour Declaration, Jewish history in the land, Muslim and Christian perspectives, U.S. foreign policy, Iran, and whether the conflict truly began in 1948 or much earlier.

This is raw, intense, emotional, and packed with arguments from every side.

00:00 Preview
01:12 Introduction
01:12 Prompt #1 – There was/is no genocide in Gaza
18:55 – Israel, Greater Israel & Religion
36:42 – International Law & War Crimes
54:38 – Casualty Numbers & Media Narratives
01:09:17 – Court of Public Opinion & Social Media
01:28:44 – Zionism & Historical Claims
01:46:44 – Prompt #2 – There should be no Palestinian states in the West Bank.
01:48:26 – Military Ethics & Civilian Deaths
02:08:11 – International Law & Intent
02:29:52 – History, Borders & Occupation
02:45:20 – Prompt #3 – The conflict didn't start on October 7th, but also didn't start in 1948.
03:03:41 – Final Debate & Closing Arguments
03:42:28 – Can Both Sides Ever Agree?
03:58:00 Closing Remarks

Throughout the conversation, participants debate topics including:
🔥 Why the Gaza genocide debate comes down to intent, law, and interpretation
⚖️ How both sides argue over civilian casualties and military necessity
🧠 Why social media has changed the Israel-Palestine conversation
📜 How 1917, 1948, 1967, and October 7th all shape the modern conflict
🕊️ Why Palestinian statehood remains one of the hardest questions in geopolitics
💬 How debates about Zionism, occupation, terrorism, and self-determination collide
🌍 Why U.S. foreign policy, Iran, and the war machine keep coming up
🚨 Why this conversation gets so emotional, personal, and explosive


Shimon Blau qualifies for ballot as unaffiliated candidate in 1st Congressional District, will face Melat Kiros
Denver doctor Shimon Blau qualified Friday to be on the November ballot as an unaffiliated candidate in the 1st Congressional District, where he will make a long-shot bid to prevent Democrat Melat Kiros from being elected.

Blau, a first-time candidate, is Jewish and posted on social media that he decided to enter the race in Denver because he was alarmed about Kiros’ statements on Israel and refusal to call the Boulder firebombing last year of a Jewish community rally antisemitic.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office reviewed the signatures Blau collected from voters to make the ballot and determined they were sufficient. He needed 1,500 signatures collected by July 9 to qualify.

Blau began his signature gathering campaign just days before the deadline, after Kiros unseated U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat who was running for a 16th term in Congress.

Also on the November ballot in the 1st District are Republican Christy Peterson, a designer and accountant who works in construction; Libertarian Chad Humphrey, a former Marine who has worked in the tech sector; and Unity Party candidate Critter Milton, an activist and perennial candidate for office in Colorado.


Toronto police probing gunfire, broken window at two locations of Jewish-owned bakery chain Kiva’s as hate crimes
The Toronto Police Service said on Sunday that its hate crime unit and its gun and gang task force are probing incidents, in which two locations of a Jewish-owned bakery train were attacked on Sunday, one with gunfire and the other with damage to a window.

“At this time, investigators are examining whether the incidents are connected and working to identify those responsible,” the police department said. “There have been no reported injuries.”

Olivia Chow, mayor of Toronto, identified the locations of what she said were “targeted attacks” as the Jewish-owned bagel shop Kiva’s.

The attacks are “vile and unacceptable,” Chow said. “We all have a responsibility to stand against hate. I will always stand with Toronto’s Jewish community against antisemitism. We will continue to invest in community safety and the necessary work of confronting hate wherever it exists.”

Melissa Lantsman, a member of the Canadian Parliament who is Jewish and deputy leader of the Conservative Party, stated that “when a Jewish-owned business gets hit twice, it’s not coincidence. It’s a targeted campaign of intimidation on one community.”

“Synagogues, schools and Jewish businesses come under attack again and again. This country needs to wake up to the hatred metastasizing in its streets,” she said. “Canada’s Jewish community isn’t asking for sympathy. They’re demanding action. Find the people responsible, arrest them and prosecute them.”

“Toothless bills, thoughts and prayers and more statements don’t quell a community’s anxiety. They just insult it. Task forces don’t act. No more councils that don’t speak up,” she added. “Just do the results part. Enforce the law.”

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA, stated that every Canadian should be concerned about a shooting and attack targeting locations of a Jewish-owned bakery, “places where families gather.”

“Thankfully, no one was harmed. We are grateful for the swift response of law enforcement and encourage anyone with information to contact Toronto police,” CIJA stated. “These attacks come amid a broader rise in violent extremism across Canada and other Western democracies—a toxic brew of anti-Zionist rhetoric, local criminal elements, Iranian-backed proxies and ISIS-inspired terrorism.”

“Our leaders must be unequivocal: nothing justifies attacks on Canadians,” the Jewish group stated. “They must also ensure police and security agencies have the resources they need to protect our communities and keep Canadians safe.”

Gideon Sa’ar, Israeli foreign minister, stated that he was “following with concern the worrying news from Toronto of further attacks against Jewish businesses this morning.”

“While thankfully none were injured, this is the latest attack in a long and horrifying line of violence and intimidation against the Canadian Jewish community,” he said. “The Canadian government must confront this antisemitic violent wave.”


Herzl’s grandparents will be reburied in Jerusalem
The remains of the grandparents of Theodor Herzl, Shimon and Rivka Herzl, are expected to be brought to Israel from Serbia this week and reburied beside him on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl, an Israeli official said on Sunday.

A ceremonial funeral is scheduled to be held in Jerusalem on Aug. 5, the 77th anniversary of Herzl’s reburial in the capital, according to a report in the Israel Hayom daily. The event will be attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog.

Herzl’s paternal grandparents lived near Belgrade, and his grandfather served as a Jewish community leader, helping shape young Theodor’s early attachment to Judaism and Zionism during his childhood. Shimon Herzl was close to Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai, a Bosnian rabbi, who was one of the influential precursors of modern Zionism.

The remains of the Zionist visionary were brought to Israel in 1949 and buried on Mount Herzl, which was named after him.

“The World Zionist Organization acts out of a deep commitment to fulfilling the wishes of the visionary of the Jewish state, Theodor Herzl, and preserving his legacy,” the World Zionist Organization, which helps preserve Herzl’s legacy through the Herzl Museum at Mount Herzl, said in a statement sent to JNS on Sunday.

“As part of this effort, we have for some time been conducting continuous and sensitive negotiations with all the relevant authorities, with particular intensity over the past four years and through a variety of channels. At this stage, due to the sensitive nature of the negotiations, we are unable to elaborate on or confirm specific details about activities on the ground. We are, however, working tirelessly and hope the prolonged negotiations will bear fruit as soon as possible.”





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Reclaiming the Covenant on America's 250th (May 2026)

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