Saturday, August 22, 2026

08/22 Links: Islamism and the silence of the ‘progressives’; Why is Iran's regime still standing?; Paramount accuses Mark Ruffalo of using antisemitic tropes; China Erases Its Jewish Past

From Ian:

Islamism and the silence of the ‘progressives’
The confusion concerning the right is almost amusing. Islamism is a movement of the reactionary right upon every criterion anybody has yet proposed: theocratic, restorationist, preoccupied with sexual order and the obedience of women; anti-Semitic across the greater part of its strands, and hostile to pluralism as a matter of doctrine rather than of temper. Abul A’la Maududi (1903-1979), born in what would become Pakistan, wrote that his Islamic state would bear a resemblance to the fascist and Communist states, and that no man might regard any department of his affairs as private. Egyptian Islamist Sayyid Qutb prescribed offensive jihad in order to establish divine authority over the whole Earth. These are not caricatures assembled by enemies but published positions, argued at length by Islamism’s own principal theorists. They would be astonished to discover that European academics account them ‘progressive’ by default.

That so many liberals, leftists and ‘progressives’ should prove incapable of recognising a reactionary movement unless its adherents happen to be European is a parochialism so profound that it has become invisible to those it afflicts. It rests on the unexamined premise that reaction is a white speciality, and whatever that premise may be, it is not anti-racism.

We have been here before, and recently enough that novelty cannot be pleaded. In June 2020, Khairi Saadallah murdered three men in a park in Reading, 17 days after his release from prison. His defence advanced mental illness. Mr Justice Sweeney rejected it, and found the killings to be terrorism, committed for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause. The men were James Furlong, David Wails and Joseph Ritchie-Bennett, three friends who had gone out to enjoy a summer evening in Forbury Gardens. Ritchie-Bennett had lost his husband to cancer six years earlier, while Furlong left a long-term partner. The local Pride organisation knew all three of them. Whether their sexuality had anything to do with why they were chosen was raised at the time and then, by some quiet process of attrition, stopped being raised at all. I too had forgotten their names until the days after the Christopher Street Day attack.

One academic writing on LinkedIn, offered warmly and I am sure sincerely, claimed that when there are atrocities in the Middle East to be marched against, it is Muslims who turn out alongside gay and bisexual and women’s groups, and that all of us ought to bear this in mind. Two things are wrong with that. Firstly, there’s the flippancy of producing it at all within hours of this attack, as though the pressing question were which alliances must now be shielded from the consequences. The second and larger problem is that the claim is not true, except in a few streets in Western Europe. Muslims and gay people do march together in London and Berlin; nobody disputes it. But homosexuality remains a criminal offence across much of the Muslim world, and a capital one in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Mauritania, Brunei and the northern states of Nigeria. A fact about who attends demonstrations in two European capitals has been offered as though it were evidence about a doctrine practised, and enforced, on three continents.

There is worse in the sentence, and I doubt it was intended. Muslims stand alongside gay people, it is stated, as though these were two separate populations, drawn up in ranks against a common enemy, with nobody standing in both. The formulation has nowhere to put a gay Muslim: which is to say nowhere to put the person with more at stake here than anybody arguing about it. Berlin has a queer Muslim congregation, and a mosque founded by a woman who needs police protection in order to run it, and some of those in the Tiergarten on that Saturday night last month will have been both things at once. Nobody decided to leave them out, it is simply that the framework herein has no place for them, so it leaves them out automatically, and it will do so again the next time somebody drives a van into a crowd.

There will be another case of this kind. When it comes, nobody should have to choose between the collective indictment of Muslims and the collective acquittal of Islamism. The first is bigotry and the second is a lie. Name the dead before discussing the electoral consequences of their deaths. State what the murderer believed, who preached it to him and what the authorities already knew. Defend Muslims against reprisals, certainly; but defend also the gay, female, secular, liberal and apostate among them against the reactionaries who claim ownership of their lives. These are not competing obligations and only the dishonest have an interest in pretending that they are.

And do this before the usual people arrive to explain that candour will assist the far right. Nothing has assisted the far right more reliably than the surrender to it of facts that everybody else is too frightened to mention. The next atrocity will be followed by the same liturgy: grief, warning, euphemism, evasion and, finally, amnesia. It need not be. Refuse the first euphemism. Ask the forbidden question before the fanatic supplies the only answer. And when reaction comes disguised as religion, extend it neither the courtesy of silence nor the compliment of lowered expectations. One is not obliged to choose which eye to close. Next time, keep both open.
Before lecturing Israel, Britain and France should look in the mirror
France and Britain like to lecture Israel in the name of Western values. That is precisely why it is time to hold up a mirror to them: Both countries are undergoing profound demographic, cultural and political changes, while political Islam and radical movements are exerting growing influence on public and political discourse. A group does not need to become a majority to influence political parties, elections and foreign policy.

The beginnings of this process can already be seen today, including in the debate over Israel and the Middle East. This does not mean, of course, that every Muslim is an extremist, nor that an Islamist government will take power in London or Paris tomorrow morning. The argument is different: No one can guarantee who will govern either country 30 or 50 years from now, or what values those governments will uphold. Governments change. Nuclear arsenals remain.

Europe, in fact, is currently moving in the opposite direction. France is strengthening its nuclear deterrent and seeking to expand its role in the continent's security. Britain and France are deepening their cooperation, while Germany is moving toward closer strategic cooperation with the French deterrent. But serious security policy does not consider only who controls a weapon today. It must also ask who could inherit it tomorrow.

France and Britain should therefore begin, now, a long, responsible and controlled process that would ultimately lead them to voluntarily relinquish their national nuclear arsenals. Not tomorrow morning, not unilaterally and not at the cost of abandoning Europe's security.

Precisely because such disarmament could take many years, the decision should be made while these countries are still governed by leaders seeking to preserve the liberal and democratic values of the West. Those who wish to defend Western values must also protect the West's most dangerous weapons against the possibility that, one day, they could fall under the control of governments that do not share those values.

Germany bears a particular responsibility in this regard. Germany's commitment to "Never Again" cannot be merely a remembrance of the past. It must also mean an enduring responsibility for the security of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

Exactly because Berlin is now deepening its nuclear-deterrence dialogue with Paris, it should lead Europe in asking the question no one wants to confront: Is it wise to build the continent's security for the coming decades around national nuclear arsenals when we cannot know the future political character of the countries that will control them?
Beware Turkish tanks on the Golan
At the moment, NATO cannot afford a complete rupture with a country that controls the Turkish Straits and hosts US nuclear weapons. But at the very least, a "reciprocity standard" should be applied to Turkey. Contracts with that country must be tied to its foreign policy and military conduct.

Human rights standards should pertain to Turkey too. Erdoğan has jailed more journalists, judges, generals, and academics than any other country in the world, including China. He is building 40,000 new jail cells to handle the overload. He is creating an authoritarian system to suit his imperial purposes.

So, Erdoğan needs to be cut down to size, and his madly ferocious foreign and military policies put in a box. American and European leaders who prioritize stability in the region ought to weigh in against Erdoğan's overly ambitious and aggressive schemes.

They should not be censuring Israel when it necessarily acts to drive Erdoğan back from the brink.

Remember: The past three years of devastating enemy attacks on Israel taught Israelis an important lesson – which is the need to maintain a proactive defense posture including strategic ascendancy against enemies near and far.

Consequently, Israel will not return to the containment policies of recent decades that prioritized restraint and diplomacy over enemy degradation and military triumph. This approach allowed enemies to develop attack capabilities under the cover of diplomatic breathing time; what some Western officials mistakenly called periods of "stability."

That approach blew up in Israel's face, with terror and invasion from the West Bank and Gaza and from Syria and Lebanon, and with the march of Iran's nuclear bomb program to near completion and Iran's ballistic missile array to near-annihilation-of-Israel potential.

The lessons Israel has learned apply to Turkey too. From Idlib to Erbil, Israel will attack, if necessary, not defend. It will insist on jihadist-free buffer zones along its borders with Lebanon and Syria. It will not tolerate the placement on its doorstep of equilibrium-breaking strategic weapon systems nor abide the advance of threatening foreign armies and navies.


Why is Iran's regime still standing?
The IMF projects Iran's economy will shrink sharply this year, contracting somewhere between 5.4% and 6.1% during 2026. Nominal GDP has already plunged around 29% from 2017 levels, and the dollar now buys roughly 2 million Iranian rials.

Which raises the central question: Can economic warfare alone topple the regime?

Brig. Gen. (Res.) Sasson Haddad of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security argues that the answer requires understanding that Iran effectively runs two economies at once. The regime's own economy, he says, is eroding far more slowly than the country's economy as a whole.

His example is the Nobitex cryptocurrency exchange (an Iranian crypto platform used to dodge sanctions), a key node in a sanctions-evasion network that has moved tens to hundreds of millions of dollars into Iran, some of it destined for the Revolutionary Guards and the central bank. The US Treasury Department is tracking these flows and successfully choking off more of them over time.

This shadow economy allows the regime to partially insulate its own survival from the public's suffering. It can redirect resources inward, sideline the ordinary civilian economy, and keep paying off the power centers propping it up, even as the currency, consumer spending and private business activity deteriorate rapidly.

That is why, Haddad argues, a falling GDP or spiking inflation alone won't break the regime. The real breaking point comes only if it loses the ability to bankroll its coalition of power.

A drop in exports by itself won't trigger a regime collapse in the near term. That would take a combination of vanished oil income, prolonged difficulty accessing foreign currency, inflation that hollows out the value of wages, commercial and civil paralysis, and, ultimately, a fracture inside the power coalition itself.
US Gen. Jack Keane said Iran could have been defeated - so why did Trump stop?
It's an important piece of this puzzle, notably because Keane said the goals were doable and would have resulted in a complete regional reset, bringing the possibility of peace and stability between Israel and all of its neighbors – including Syria and Lebanon. Who got in the way of that utopian dream?

That went unsaid by Keane. Not a word nor reference was made to the question that begs to be answered – not even a tiny clue or speculation. It was as if the query was left to the imagination or, in this case, suspicion of the listeners who are scratching their heads as to what actually happened.

According to the Trump administration, the fighting was abruptly stopped in order to resolve the situation with diplomatic measures. But that merely makes us wonder whether US leaders comprehend that they’re dealing with the most masterful liars, manipulators, and bluffers who ever lived.

Why would anyone believe that a deal could be struck or even honored?

Certainly Keane knows that it can’t. Clear-headed and free of illusions, he knows that America is dealing with the best schemers and connivers who will string you along until there is no longer a shred of belief. So why did someone think differently, and who had the power to stop a charging bull that was ready to attack?

There can be only one answer to that question: the man who holds the highest office in the land – US President Donald J Trump.

Never giving a reasonable and plausible explanation for why he suddenly chose the diplomatic route, the president expected everyone to trust his instincts, concluding that negotiating an agreement would be a better solution than finishing a war that had to be fought, and that Iranian leaders were capable of keeping their word.

As time passed and no progress was made, the folly of Trump’s battle halt, right in the middle of landing the hardest punch, was read as a pointless and ill-advised measure, leading to a much-needed break for the IRGC to regain their strength – which is exactly what happened.

Military rule of thumb always says never retreat when you have your enemy on the run. It was the constant adding of precious time, given to Iran, that now has them “ready to widen the war.” Since then, according to a report, “Iran has ramped up production of missiles and drones and tapped hardline figures to key positions.”

Is anyone surprised? Maybe not by Iran’s golden opportunity to take advantage of a generous offer made by what appears to be a naive US administration, but are they really naive?

Probably not, which makes the question all the more pressing to answer. Why was the war stopped midstream as great strides were being made? No one is saying, and that includes Keane.

But make no mistake about it, there is an explanation – just one to which we are not privy. Almost assuredly, someone will live to regret slamming the brakes on what was about to be an undeniable game-changer for the Middle East.

Perhaps the ugly truth is that someone in charge doesn’t really want things to change in this neck of the woods, and that may be why the general is clamming up!
Iran battle could reshape Middle East power map, analyst says
In Pejman Bijan’s view, the battle over Iran is also a battle over the map of the Middle East—and the balance of power far beyond it. The stakes, as he sees them, stretch from the Strait of Hormuz to Europe, Washington, Beijing and Moscow.

The question is not only whether the Islamic Republic can withstand mounting pressure, he told The Media Line, but whether a regional order built on commercial ties, political freedom and new alliances can take shape before a competing bloc gains momentum.

“Today, we are in a moment of reshaping the balance of power, not only of the Middle East but of … world politics,” said Bijan, an Iranian-Italian associate professor of international relations at the University of Trento in Italy and a recent visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the Middle East.

Bijan places the region within a broader contest involving the United States, China and Russia. “There is a sort of soft and sometimes hard clash between these great spheres of power,” he said. The European Union is part of that system, as is the Middle East, which he called “one of the big players.”

Developments in the region over the coming months could help determine “who will prevail in the next years between the United States, somehow like the freedom democracy area of the world,” and the authoritarian rulers and propaganda he associates with China and Russia, Bijan said. Iran and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf are among the central actors.

Europe, in his assessment, is constrained by its own political structure. The continent is “paying the price” for becoming too institutionalized, he said—a democratic system that has failed to act effectively enough in foreign affairs.

“At the moment, … we don’t have a common foreign policy, which is able to dictate an important common line against, on one hand, Russia and China, and also in relation with our ally, which is the United States,” he said.

That has left Europe playing “a weak role,” Bijan said, despite its democratic history and potential influence.


Iran-linked hackers shut down UK power plant
A British power plant was forced offline for four days in what The Telegraph reported on Saturday was an unprecedented cyberattack linked to Iran.

The incident is believed to be the first known case in which hackers affiliated with the Iranian regime successfully shut down a power facility in Britain. Officials reportedly consider it the most successful cyberattack of its kind against UK energy infrastructure.

The attack occurred last month, around the same time as a series of cyberattacks against water infrastructure in the United States that affected 12 states and raised concerns at the White House, according to The Telegraph.

British officials have declined to identify the affected facility, citing security considerations. The plant is understood to have been relatively small, however, meaning the disruption did not threaten Britain's overall electricity supply or energy production. Staff worked for four days to restore the facility.

The government subsequently briefed the chief executives of power companies and contacted businesses with guidance and instructions on how to respond. The incident was also reported to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the public-facing cybersecurity arm of GCHQ.

The NCSC declined to comment specifically on the incident. British and US intelligence agencies have repeatedly warned that hackers linked to Russia, China, Iran and North Korea regularly target critical infrastructure and government systems.

Previous cyberattacks have disrupted NHS systems, schools and industrial operations, including manufacturing lines at Jaguar Land Rover. Foreign hackers have also stolen customer data from retailers and voter information from the Electoral Commission.

Despite those incidents, there had previously been no known case of a cyberattack bringing a British power plant to a standstill.
Netanyahu’s office scorns Turkish regime threat to arrest PM
Israel “has long ceased to be impressed by Turkey’s hypocrisy,” the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem said on Friday, hours after Ankara issued another arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “is an antisemitic dictator who has massacred Kurds, harbors Hamas terrorists, occupies half of Cyprus, and jails record numbers of journalists and politicians who oppose him,” the PMO said in a separate statement in English.

“He now seeks to extend his aggression against Israel into Syria. Israel will not tolerate it,” the statement read.

“Erdoğan’s pathetic attempt to intimidate the leaders and soldiers of Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East, will go nowhere,” it added.

In the Hebrew statement, the PMO stressed that Israel will continue to “act forcefully” against Turkey’s attempts to undermine stability in the region.

Earlier on Friday, Turkey’s Justice Minister Akin Gürlek announced on X the issuance of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, as part of a supposed investigation into Israel’s interception of a Gaza-bound protest flotilla in spring 2026.

Ankara issued its first arrest warrants on July 14 for Israel’s prime minister and another person identified as “Afek Moskovitch”—whose title was not clarified by Turkish authorities—over allegations of genocide in Gaza.

AFP cited Turkish İhlas News Agency at the time as saying that Moskovitch is an Israel Defense Forces soldier who posted footage of himself on Instagram destroying property in Gaza.

Netanyahu, Moskovitch, and 33 other Israelis were mentioned by Gürlek on Friday in connection with the interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla that sought to breach the blockade of Gaza, which aims to prevent the Hamas terrorist organization from acquiring arms to boost its power.

Gürlek wrote on X that Ankara “categorically reject[s]” the notion that Netanyahu’s government is “untouchable and unaccountable.”

Following Netanyahu’s office’s statement, the Turkish Presidency’s Directorate of Communications lashed out at the “outrageous ravings” of the Israeli PMO, saying that they are “devoid of historical fact and political seriousness.”

Jerusalem’s attempt to portray Turkey as a threat is part of a “cheap political strategy” and poses “serious risks” not only to Israeli society, “but also to regional and global peace and stability,” the Directorate of Communications said.
Israel warned Syrian government before attack on airbase, Katz says
Israel issued a warning to Damascus before the Israel Defense Forces carried out an attack on an airbase near Aleppo in northwestern Syria this week, Defense Minister Israel Katz disclosed on Saturday.

“After several discussions that the prime minister and I held with the IDF and the various security agencies, it was agreed that, before authorization was granted, a direct warning would be conveyed to the Syrian regime at the highest levels in an attempt to prevent the move—and that is indeed what was done,” the minister said in a Hebrew language statement.

“At the same time, the intelligence was passed on to the relevant authorities in the United States,” he shared.

Katz added that the Israeli military “several times” recommended to attack the Abu al-Duhur Military Airbase in Idlib in the wake of “clear intelligence” pointing to Ankara’s intent to carry out activities that would threaten Israel’s national security.

Since the warning went unheeded, he and PM Benjamin Netanyahu authorized the strike, which was “successfully conducted” overnight Monday (Aug. 10-11).

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “was caught with his hand in the cookie jar and was forced to back down,” Katz went on to say.

He pledged to act against any threat as the central lesson of the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The attack in southern Syria earlier in the day is a part of this policy as well, Katz noted, referring to the elimination of a terrorist who posed an immediate threat to Israeli troops deployed in the area, according to the IDF.

In addition, the defense minister condemned those in Israel’s opposition, including “parts of the media,” who attempted to frame the strikes on the airbase as “political spin.”

He also criticized U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Presidential Envoy for Iraq and Syria Tom Barrack over recent remarks “riddled with inaccuracies and positions that contradict those of U.S. President Trump himself regarding the status of the Golan Heights.”

On Friday night, Barrack told independent reporter Mario Nawfal that Israel occupies the Golan Heights “against the U.N. resolutions, against all of the international order, which has said the Golan [belongs to] Syria.”
US envoy suggests Israeli strike in Syria sought to ‘bait’ Turkey ahead of elections
US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack suggested in an interview broadcast Friday that a recent Israeli strike on a Syrian military airport, where Israel claimed Turkey was set to deploy troops, could have been an attempt by Israel to “bait” Turkey into conflict ahead of the elections.

In a wide-ranging interview with Mario Nawfal, a Lebanese-Australian entrepreneur, Barrack, who is also US special presidential envoy for Syria and Iraq, directly contradicted US foreign policy, by saying that Israel was illegally occupying the Golan Heights.

Asked about the attack on the airbase, Barrack said that Israel was trying to draw Turkey into conflict was one of two “postulated theories” as to why Israel carried out the strike despite ongoing contacts between Israel, the US and Syria over Jerusalem’s concerns.

Israel confirmed late Tuesday that it was behind overnight airstrikes against a military airport in northern Syria, where it claimed Turkey was planning to deploy forces in violation of agreements between Jerusalem and Damascus.

“One theory is they were just baiting Turkey, and it’s a very aggressive, but maybe well-received, pre-election concept,” Barrack said, implying that conflict between Israel and Turkey would serve Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the elections scheduled for October 27.

Barrack also put forth the possibility that the strike on the base was the result of confusion between various Israeli security bodies. “The other theory is that between the IDF, the Mossad and the Prime Minister’s Office there was a miscommunication,” he said.

The ambassador cast doubt on Israel’s claim that Turkey was moving military assets into Syria’s northwestern Abu al-Duhur military airport, saying US intel did not indicate such action.

Elsewhere in the interview, Barrack also said that Israel “occupies” the Golan Heights, in direct contradiction to the official US position, after Washington recognized Israeli sovereignty over the territory during US President Donald Trump’s first term.


Ra’am’s Abbas says Palestinian state ‘a reality,’ drawing outrage from Zionist parties
MK Mansour Abbas, head of the Ra’am (United Arab List) party, called on Israel to recognize an “independent Palestinian state” during a speech to party delegates at their convention in Tayibe on Saturday, declaring that it was already “a reality, which most of the world recognizes, with the exception of the United States and Israel.”

“We want them to recognize it, and we’ll work to achieve peace, rapprochement and an end to the occupation and conflict,” Abbas declared, calling Arab-Israelis “a bridge for achieving peace.”

Abbas insisted that the traditionalist Arab faction has “put Israeli democracy to a test” by turning an Arab party’s participation in a governing coalition into a “real political option on the table.” He spoke before an internal vote by roughly 1,050 delegates to select the party’s candidate slate for the October 27 election.

Addressing party members, Abbas declared that Ra’am intends to be part of the so-called change bloc of opposition parties, which is running to oust the current coalition.

But Abbas’s comments quickly sparked harsh backlash from both sides of the political aisle, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring that as long as he remains in office, “a Palestinian state controlled by Iran will not be established.”

“The price of a left-wing coalition with the Muslim Brotherhood has been exposed once again,” Netanyahu added, referring to the Islamist roots of the Arab party, which was part of the last government that unseated Netanyahu in 2021 (and which Netanyahu also courted to join his coalition).

Yashar party chief and election frontrunner Gadi Eisenkot of the opposition also rebuked Abbas, insisting that “there is no Palestinian state, and in the government we form, a Palestinian state will not be established.”

Abbas also announced “the turning of a new page in our relation with our brothers in the three Arab parties” — Balad, Hadash and Ta’al — which this week reached an agreement to revive the Joint List without Ra’am. He said he wished to reach agreements on “cooperation and coordination” and the sharing of surplus votes.

The four parties ran together between 2015 and 2021. But Ra’am decided to break off months before the 2021 election and run independently, winning four seats and eventually joining the short-lived Naftali Bennett-Yair Lapid coalition.
IDF says 4 kites apparently flown from Gaza found in Nahal Oz; residents demand response
Four kites apparently flown from the Gaza Strip landed in Kibbutz Nahal Oz over the weekend, prompting concerned residents to demand that Israel take action against what they believed to be a threat to their safety, given Hamas’s history of launching kites carrying incendiary devices at border communities.

The Israel Defense Forces said that one of the kites was found inside the kibbutz on Friday, and the three others were found on Saturday morning. It assessed that the kites, which were attached to kilometers-long strings, were flown across the border from Gaza.

The military stressed that “no suspicious findings were identified on the kites,” and that “at no stage was there any danger to the public,” although this did little to reassure residents of Nahal Oz, who warned that “this was how it started before October 7.”

Kibbutz Nahal Oz was one of the Gaza border communities targeted by invading Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. Some 180 terrorists overran the small community, killing 13 residents and four security personnel, and abducting eight civilians. Many homes were damaged or destroyed amid the fighting, as were the kibbutz’s agricultural fields. The community was then evacuated, with residents slowly starting to return in 2024.

According to Hebrew media reports, the IDF believes that Hamas was responsible for launching the kites, and was doing so to test if and how Israel would respond.

In 2018, Palestinian terrorists regularly launched kites carrying incendiary devices at Israeli border communities, setting fire to wide swaths of land. View of a fire near Kibbutz Be’eri, caused from kites flown by Palestinians, near the border with the Gaza Strip, August 13, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The kibbutz, in a response to the IDF, said that it was taking the incident seriously, despite it posing no obvious threat, and urged the military to do the same.

“This is how it started before October 7. Initially, seemingly innocent kites with Arabic writing on them were sent from the Gaza Strip. Then, when Hamas realized that the kites were falling in our fields, they attached incendiary materials to them, and thousands of dunams of wheat fields were burned,” the statement recalled.

“The next step was explosive balloons intended to harm citizens of the communities, and we saw where it ended,” the statement continued. “We demand that the security forces nip the kites phenomenon in the bud.”


IDF says Hamas tunnel commander and Oct. 7 hostage-holder killed in Gaza strikes
The IDF said Saturday it had killed a Hamas commander involved in efforts to restore the terror group’s tunnel network in central Gaza. It also said it had killed an October 7 terrorist who had held hostages, shot a Palestinian who crossed into Israeli-held territory in the Strip, and detained an armed Hamas operative who breached the same boundary.

The Saturday strike in Deir al-Balah killed Sharif al-Hasanat, whom the IDF identified as a company commander in the terror group’s Deir al-Balah battalion. The military said Hasanat had spent much of the war helping restore Hamas’s underground infrastructure and had recently continued efforts to advance attacks against Israeli troops and civilians.

“Throughout the war, the terrorist led efforts to restore the underground infrastructure of the Hamas terror organization,” the IDF said, adding that Hasanat had posed an “immediate threat to our forces and was eliminated.” The military indicated it viewed that threat as justifying the strike despite the general ceasefire in Gaza.

The announcement came a day after the IDF said another Hamas operative, Sobhi Sami Mahmoud Shahtot, had been killed in a Wednesday strike in Nuseirat, also in central Gaza. The military identified Shahtot as a platoon commander in Hamas’s military wing who invaded Israel during the terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught.

According to the IDF, Shahtot “took part in holding numerous hostages in Hamas captivity during the war” and was seen participating in Hamas hostage-release ceremonies in November 2023.

The IDF justified the attack by saying he had recently been advancing attacks against Israeli troops and civilians and was killed “to remove the threat.”


IDF drone strike in south Syria targets operative ‘in final stages’ of planning attacks
The Israel Defense Forces said it carried out an airstrike in southwest Syria on Saturday afternoon, adding it targeted an operative “who advanced terror attacks in the final stages of preparation.”

The military indicated the man was targeting troops situated in southern Syria, and his activity “posed an immediate threat to our forces.”

Syrian media reported that the strike in Beit Jinn injured one person. It did not report any deaths. The town is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Israeli border.

The local Sham FM radio said the strike hit a car in the town.

Syrian condemned the latest Israeli attack on its territory as a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty and “blatant breach of international law.”

“This attack constitutes a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic and the integrity of its territory, and a blatant breach of international law, and comes in the context of repeated Israeli attacks on Syrian territory,” the foreign ministry says in a statement.

The IDF has been deployed to nine posts inside southern Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024. Most of the Israeli-held posts are located within a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the border between the two countries. Israel said it did so to protect its security given the instability and uncertainty brought on by the rise of the new jihadist-led regime.

Troops have been operating in areas up to around 15 kilometers (nine miles) inside Syria, aiming to capture weapons that Israel says could pose a threat to the country if they fall into the hands of “hostile forces.”

Saturday’s strike came days after the IDF struck a military airport in northwest Syria, where it claimed Turkey was planning to deploy forces.


Senior House Democrat: Israel’s refusal to criminally investigate WCK strike “a miscarriage of justice.”
The ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee called Israel’s decision not to pursue a criminal investigation of a 2024 Gaza strike that killed seven humanitarian workers “a miscarriage of justice.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said on Friday that the move “exemplifies” that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has waged this war, causing maximum destruction in Gaza with minimal accountability.”

The Israel Defense Forces described the strike that hit a World Central Kitchen convoy as “a serious mistake and failure.”

An Israeli military examination of the incident “identified operational failures and took significant command and disciplinary measures,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.

It added that the decision not to pursue a criminal investigation “was made by Israel’s independent military prosecution authorities on the basis of strict professional and legal considerations.”

The legal threshold required for initiating a criminal investigation, which amounts to “reasonable suspicion for criminal misconduct,” was not met, the ministry said.

“Israel, which is deeply committed to international law, subjects its military operations to rigorous legal scrutiny, including standards that exceed those applied by many Western armed forces in recent conflicts,” it said.

DeLauro said that “humanitarian aid workers must be certain of their safety in order to do their jobs and help alleviate this crisis, but Israel’s refusal to properly investigate this attack undermines that trust.”

She added that Gaza “has only recently recovered from a state of famine.”

The claim of a famine having taken place in Gaza, largely drawn from projections from a United Nations-aligned food security agency that were never met, has been repeatedly debunked.
Palm Beach County worker accused of Nazi salute, ‘Heil Hitler’ remark
A Palm Beach County employee driving a county building-services truck allegedly shouted “Heil Hitler” at a Jewish driver and made a Nazi salute, according to the nonprofit StopAntisemitism.

The alleged incident prompted Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) to call the conduct “repulsive” and say it “isn’t welcome in Palm Beach County or anywhere.”

“I’m sure Palm Beach County government is looking into this and if confirmed, he will no longer be working there,” Moskowitz stated.

StopAntisemitism called for an immediate investigation and accountability over the alleged encounter.

The allegation has not yet been independently confirmed, and additional details about the alleged encounter, including the identities of those involved, were not immediately available.


Marvel actors join campaign calling for release of Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti
Over 20 actors who have appeared in Marvel films have joined a campaign calling for the release of convicted Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti, according to an Instagram post published on Friday by the group, freemarwannow.

Among the actors who have joined the "Freedom for Marwan" campaign are Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Doctor Strange; Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk; Ian McKellen, who plays Magneto; and Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, and others.

According to the post, Barghouti's family launched the campaign at the end of last year in coordination with organizations in the UK.

The post included the statement, “We express our grave concern at the continuing imprisonment of Marwan Barghouti, his violent mistreatment, and denial of legal rights whilst imprisoned. We call upon the United Nations and the Governments of the World to actively seek the release of Marwan Barghouti from Israeli prison.”

According to campaign organizers, more than 200 cultural figures, including actors, musicians, writers, and directors, have attached their signatures, showing their support for the movement.

Who is Marwan Barghouti?
Barghouti is a former leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a terrorist organization that carried out many suicide bombings and shooting attacks during the Second Intifada.

According to Israel, Barghouti orchestrated or was responsible for, among others, the following attacks between 2001 and 2002: the murder of a Greek Orthodox monk on the road to Ma’aleh Adumim; the shooting attack during a bat mitzva celebration at a banquet hall in Hadera that killed six Israelis; a shooting spree on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem during which two Israelis were killed and 37 people wounded; a shooting attack in Neve Ya’acov in which an Israeli policewoman was killed; the murder of an Israeli at the Bashkevitz coffee and spice factory in the Atarot industrial zone of Jerusalem; the suicide attack perpetrated by Daryan Abu Aysha at the Maccabim checkpoint in which two policeman were wounded; the shooting spree at the Seafood Market restaurant which killed three Israelis.
Paramount accuses Mark Ruffalo of using antisemitic tropes
The Paramount Pictures film company responded to criticism by actor Mark Ruffalo of its planned merger with Warner Brothers, accusing the Marvel Cinematic Universe star of engaging in "antisemitic tropes."

In a rant he posted to Instagram, Ruffalo attacked Paramount Skydance owner David Ellison for being the son of Larry Ellison, whose company Oracle provided assistance to Israel in the wake of the October 7 massacre committed by the Hamas terrorist organization, in which approximately 1,200 people were murdered.

Ruffalo stated that Oracle is "the company that Larry Ellison is using to fund his son David’s Warner Bros acquisition," and repeated the false claim that Israel's response to the massacre Hamas committed constituted a "genocide."

"They are crushing workers and consolidating the wealth of the world for their own power and concentrated dominance," Ruffalo claimed.

CNN's Brian Stelter reported that Paramount stated in response to Ruffalo that "We are, as always, troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute. Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong - they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe. This doesn't deserve a response in kind - and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone."

The company called "to lower the temperature, not raise it," and stated that "this simply exposes the true motivation of some who have advocated opposition to this transaction."

Ruffalo, best known for his portrayal of Bruce Banner and his alter ego the Incredible Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has been a frequent critic of Israel over the years, while donwplaying the atrocities committed by Hamas. In October 2020, he told NBC News that Israel was committing a "kind of apartheid" against the Palestinian Arabs. He has questioned whether Hamas uses human shields and whether the terrorist group was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in 2014.

In 2021, Rufallo was forced to apologize after he accused Israel of genocide in a previous conflict in Gaza sparked by the firing of thousands of rockets at Israeli cities by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization, a charge he renewed after the latest conflict began with the Hamas massacre.


‘Recognize our humanity and our fear’: Jewish employees’ 2023 plea to Vox Media went unanswered
Not long after Hamas’ terror attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, members of a Jewish employee resource group at Vox Media, known as the Tribe, circulated a lengthy memo alleging several instances of bias against Israel in coverage by New York magazine, which was then a subsidiary, and Vox, the explanatory journalism site.

The document offered editorial guidance for staffers writing about the attack and ensuing war in Gaza, urging colleagues to identify Hamas as a terrorist organization and avoid “both sides” framing as well as “dangerous and factually inaccurate ‘buzzwords’” including apartheid and genocide, which, the authors wrote, “are often used to evoke a visceral emotional reaction in favor of one group.”

The document, recently obtained by Jewish Insider, also admonished staffers to be mindful of promoting ideas that “invoke age-old antisemitic tropes of Israel and Jews controlling the world,” citing examples that the Tribe members felt had violated this dictum.

The authors made sure to clarify that their memo was “not meant to diminish Palestinian suffering or the Palestinian perspective.” But with regard to Oct. 7, “the Palestinian perspective is the only perspective being offered in our coverage,” they argued, “which not only is extremely hurtful towards the Jews, but also does a major disservice to our audience by not painting a clear picture.”

“Recognize our humanity and our fear,” the Tribe members implored. “Vox Media prides itself on being a leader in using inclusive language in our journalism — we are asking you to include us too.”

Nearly three years later, New York magazine is now facing fresh outside scrutiny from critics who say its recent cover issue, dedicated to celebrating New York City’s burgeoning Middle Eastern cultural scene, erased the Jewish perspective from its narrative, suggesting the Tribe memo likely faded from institutional memory.

A representative for New York said the magazine’s leadership took the memo seriously at the time and had met with Tribe members to discuss the feedback, which factored into editorial conversations regarding its coverage of the tumult following the Oct. 7 attacks.

The magazine has run stories incorporating Israeli and Jewish perspectives since Oct. 7 — including by Jonathan Chait, a center-left columnist who in 2024 departed for The Atlantic.

Still, the new package, which has sparked ongoing backlash, underscores the degree to which New York has, in the wake of Oct. 7, increasingly distinguished itself as a leading platform for anti-Israel reporting as well as commentary among its competitors within the mainstream media.

Its direction, which has recently prompted some subscriber cancellations, is a break from what had long been viewed as the magazine’s culturally Jewish worldview, a tacit recognition it was catering to a city that is home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel.

The new issue, a package of articles centered around a controversial cover story, “Habibi City,” explored what its author, Zaina Arafat, termed a “SWANA” renaissance. The feature used the acronym for Southwest Asia and North Africa to characterize what Arafat called a proud and active community of Arab and Muslim trendsetters shaping New York’s social and political landscape.


China Erases Its Jewish Past
For the past decade, police have been stationed outside the door of one of China’s most prominent native Jews. “They see who goes in, who talks. They can hear who is saying what inside the house,” says that person’s sibling, who now lives in Israel (to protect their identities, this article will refer to the one living in Israel as Zhao Lao’er and the one living in Kaifeng as Zhao Laoda). The police monitoring Zhao Laoda’s life are national-level police. “They are like the FBI, not local Kaifeng police.” Several times a year, Zhao Laoda is hauled in by the police for questioning about activities in the Jewish community.

The recent crackdown under President Xi Jinping’s rule has focused on erasing Kaifeng’s Jewish history.

Most of what we know of the small Jewish community in this central Chinese city is carved in stone on four tablets that, for centuries, were located outside the Kaifeng synagogue, particularly the tablets from 1489 and 1512. Those tablets used to be the highlight of the former Kaifeng Museum, drawing foreign tourists willing to pay extra to see them. The old Kaifeng Museum, near the site of the city’s former synagogue, was shuttered early in the crackdown, in 2016. What became of the tablets remained unknown for several years.

A new museum opened in 2018 in Kaifeng’s distant suburbs. All mentions of the Jews had been scrubbed from the new museum, and the tablets were not on display. When Noam Urbach, an Israeli expert on the Kaifeng Jews, visited the new museum on opening day, he asked where the tablets were. Museum staff called around. Eventually they told him, “We have them, but they are not on display.” Later, Urbach learned from a source who entered the closed museum that the tablets had been thrown into an outdoor courtyard. Rebecca Bitterman, a curator at the Israel Museum, once asked Beijing to lend the tablets for an exhibition on China but was rebuffed. “They said they will never leave China,” she says. Today, the tablets China once considered too valuable to leave the country lie in the dirt of an abandoned museum.

This crackdown began in April 2015, when Rebecca Davis wrote about Kaifeng’s Jewish revival for The New York Times. She attended a seder hosted by a mix of foreign and Kaifeng Jews, with one government official present. “That article was a very big problem,” Zhao Lao’er said. Zhao Laoda was interrogated for 10 hours. Around this time, police were ordered to guard the entrance to their house, though a worse fate awaited the official who participated in the seder. “He was arrested,” Zhao Lao’er said.

The pressure spread. Rabbi Marvin Tokayer had been leading Jewish tours to Kaifeng. In 2015, he was stopped mid-tour and was not allowed into the city. Ester Guo Yan, one of the community’s leaders, was harassed by police, who demanded to check identification while she was guiding tours. Two years later, authorities shut down a small, unofficial museum of the Kaifeng Jews that she had cobbled together in an apartment next to the site of the old synagogue.

A month after the Times article, Xi announced a broader campaign against foreign religions. This campaign focused on the larger religions it perceived as foreign, Christianity and Islam, but the Davis article appears to have brought Kaifeng’s tiny Jewish community into the campaign’s sights.

Things grew increasingly frightening. In April 2023, thugs disappeared Guo for five days. Later, she sent an email to The Sino-Judaic Institute, an American group that works closely with the Kaifeng Jews, saying she feared that the next time they abducted her, she would be killed. As the pressure intensified, Chinese officials covered up the city’s Jewish history, sometimes literally. A mikvah, one of the last remnants of the synagogue, was buried. Stars of David and street signs indicating the city’s Jewish past were stripped from walls. Historical markers vanished. The campaign was no longer simply to suppress Jewish life today, but to erase evidence of its long history.

The community has deep roots in China. As best scholars can tell, the Jews arrived in Kaifeng sometime between 1000 and 1100 A.D., when Kaifeng was the largest city in the world. By 1163, as trade networks all over Asia were linking China to far-flung markets, they built the city’s first synagogue.

But over the following centuries, commerce shifted. The Chinese Jews were cut off from the rest of the Jewish world, becoming more Chinese. Blending the Jewish creation story with the Chinese creator deity, the 1489 tablet begins by saying, “Abraham, the patriarch who founded the religion of Israel, was of the nineteenth generation from Pangu Adam.” The community sought to justify Judaism as being as good as Confucianism. They even ditched halachic descent through the mother and instead modeled the patrilineal system in which Jewishness passed from the father.
Hostage survivors join prayer at the Western Wall
Tens of thousands attended the main Selichot prayer service at the Western Wall plaza on Saturday night.

Those taking part included Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, rabbi of the Western Wall and the holy sites; Mordechai (Suli) Eliav, director-general of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation; hostage survivors Noa Argamani, Itay Regev, Omer Shem Tov, Bar Kupershtein, Eliya Cohen and Ziv Cohen; and tens of thousands of worshippers.

During the service, Rabbi Rabinowitz, together with the hostage survivors and the large crowd, recited a special prayer of thanksgiving for their return, alongside prayers for the safety of IDF soldiers and security forces, national unity, and the peace and security of Israel.





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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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