Eugene Kontorovich: Israel’s Rivals in a Fight for Survival
REVIEW: ‘In the War Room: The Inside Story of Israel's Fight Against Hamas and the Iranian Axis’ by Yonah Jeremy Bob and Elliot KaufmanIra Stoll: Take a look inside Israel’s war room on the day Hamas invaded
In the War Room is a detailed reconstruction of how Israel's top officials navigated the three-year series of wars that began with Hamas's invasion of Israel on October 7. The book lets us zoom out, providing structure and narrative coherence to a conflict that is in some ways still ongoing, and that most people know only from daily news stories, many of them deeply inaccurate.
The authors—Elliot Kaufman, an editorial writer at the Wall Street Journal, and Yonah Jeremy Bob, the military correspondent of the Jerusalem Post—had extraordinary access to the central figures directing Israel's war effort. As it happens, those figures were all political rivals. At the top sat Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, whose reputation as a security hawk was profoundly shaken by the catastrophic surprise attack. His defense minister, Yoav Gallant, a former general turned politician, was a senior member of Netanyahu's Likud party, but one who had very publicly broken ranks with him just before the war over the government's efforts to reform the powers of the judiciary.
Another key member of the war cabinet, the affable Benny Gantz, a former general and IDF chief of staff, had for a time led the main rival political party; he joined Netanyahu's government in a show of national unity after the attacks. He brought with him his political colleague Gadi Eisenkot, another former general—and now Netanyahu's biggest rival in the October election. Finally, Herzi Halevi, the IDF chief of staff—a vastly powerful post in Israel—had not even been appointed by Netanyahu, but by the previous, short-lived government of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. Likewise, the head of the internal security service, the Shabak, which had jurisdiction over Gaza, was a holdover from the previous government, and Netanyahu's efforts to replace him would lead to a lengthy Supreme Court battle.
This was not just the proverbial "team of rivals." It was a team of political enemies with little personal connection or camaraderie and deep suspicion of one another—cats in a bag. That they managed to lead such a successful multifront war is remarkable. As the authors tell it, the atmosphere in the war room was deeply unpleasant—though certainly better than the one between General Omar Bradley and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, who tried not to be in the same room together.
The authors trace the crucial decision points of the wars and the debates that preceded them. At every stage, there were marked disagreements about how to handle an exceedingly complex situation. Drawing on firsthand testimony, the authors paint a picture of the shock and disorientation of the war's first days, as Israel's leaders struggled to grasp a situation for which they bore command responsibility. Throughout, some members of the war cabinet favored offensive pushes while others urged caution—though who played which role changed from battle to battle, and even within a single battle.
For example, Gallant favored an immediate attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon to neutralize what was then its massive missile arsenal, which posed the greater strategic threat—even though Hezbollah had joined Hamas's assault only in a limited way. Netanyahu favored dealing first with Hamas and the hostages, the immediate casus belli. Later, Netanyahu would be cautious about launching the ground operation in Gaza, as well as about taking Rafah in the south of the Strip, while his generals favored both operations. Over time, however, Gantz grew more skittish about the Rafah campaign, and Netanyahu more determined to carry it out.
Even after the fact, the participants' recollections differ—several remember the other participants as shaken in the first weeks of the war, but not themselves. Strategic disagreements are almost certainly inevitable in making such high-stakes decisions, and it is difficult to weigh these internal battles in hindsight. While most of the war room figures were politicians to some extent, there does not appear to be any clear correlation between their political leanings and how aggressively they wanted to prosecute the war. Whatever their failings in anticipating and understanding the enemy, these were patriots determined to defeat a genocidal foe.
The clearest mistake in retrospect was Gantz and Eisenkot's readiness to end the war in early 2024, with the Palestinian Authority brought in to serve as a fig leaf for Hamas control of Gaza. At the time, they faced an increasingly hostile international environment and saw no other prospect for the hostages' release. It is now clear that Netanyahu's insistence on fighting on was wise. It led to the decimation of Hezbollah, the fall of Assad, the establishment of security zones in enemy territory, and the repeated degradation of Iran's nuclear and missile programs.
Alongside the highlight reel of Israeli and American accomplishments, this book provides a kind of supercut of retrospectively ridiculous things that Israeli and American politicians have said along the way. The compilation, in one volume, of all these gems is another public service provided by Bob, who is The Jerusalem Post’s senior military analyst, and by Kaufman, who is an editorial board member of The Wall Street Journal.Book Complaining About Israeli Influence Ironically Benefits From Offshore Arab Funding
Israeli politician Benny Gantz bragged to an interviewer in 2018 that as Israel Defense Force chief of staff he had “prioritized cyber and intelligence over infantry and armor,” because “unlike the threat of ground invasion, the threat of cyber is realistic.”
John Kerry, as President Obama’s secretary of state, cited the Afghan army to the Israelis as a model for Palestinian security forces and “an example of how local forces could be trained successfully.”
Kamala Harris, before Israel’s invasion of the southern Gazan city of Rafah: “I have studied the maps,” she said, incorrectly claiming there was nowhere for civilians to evacuate to.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, who has since landed at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he is Kissinger Professor of the Practice of Statecraft and World Order, had written a Foreign Affairs essay “that went to print just before the October 7 attack and arrived in subscribers’ mailboxes later in the month,” boasting that Biden’s policies made the Middle East “quieter than it has been for decades.” He claimed credit for having “de-escalated crises in Gaza” and having “enhanced deterrence” to discourage Iranian aggression.
The book details differences among Netanyahu, his war cabinet members Gantz and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Israel Defense Force chief of staff Herzi Halevi. Those internal discussions — and the parallel dialogues with the Biden and Trump administrations — shaped the outcomes in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. The personalities also reflected the span of public opinion in Israel’s diverse democracy.
The authors are less sure-footed when analyzing US and global sentiment. “Widespread destruction became a key driver of Israel’s diminished global standing,” the authors contend. “Videos of Gazan neighborhoods turned to rubble, with nothing left intact for as far as the eye could see, told a story of their own.” And, “a young generation’s first impression of the Jewish state has been formed by the destruction of Gaza.”
Somehow the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and of Dresden, didn’t diminish America’s global standing for the young generation during or after World War II. Any erosion can be blamed not on the destruction of Gaza but on a sophisticated social-media and on-the-ground campaign by foreign actors to demonize Israel, coupled with social trends in America such as declining church attendance, a flood of Muslim immigration and biblical illiteracy.
The weakest part of the book is an author’s note from Yonah Jeremy Bob. Here, Bob claims Netanyahu “harmed Israel’s name with US Democrats and other parts of the fair-minded West (Germany is another notable example) by continuing the war for too long.”
He goes on: “Whether the war should have ended in late summer 2024, early 2025 or summer 2025 is hotly debated within the Israeli defense establishment. But close to zero of the Israeli defense establishment supported continuing the war beyond that point, and beyond that point is where Israel’s standing took the largest global walloping.”
This timeline does not cohere. It was only in October of 2025 that Hamas agreed to disarm and to return all the Israeli hostages, dead and alive. Count me as skeptical that Israel’s global standing would have been improved had the Jewish state ended the war prematurely, without getting the hostages back and without a plan to disarm and dislodge Hamas. And the sniping by the “Israeli defense establishment” against Netanyahu, an unfortunate feature of Israel’s domestic political landscape, is the rare Israeli export that America might indeed be better off boycotting.
So skip that section and appreciate the rest of the fast-paced narrative. Rerun the dramatic details of how Israel killed all those terrorists, and laugh along the way at Kerry, Sullivan and Harris. The victory may not be entirely total, but for Israel and America it’s already been quite an impressive win, especially considering how grimly this round began. And the war is not fully over quite yet.
The book claims, "It is Israeli violence against Palestinians that increases antisemitism." That ignores that antisemitism peaked during the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust, before there was a modern state of Israel or "Palestinians" with a national identity. It also blames the victims of a hateful bias for a bias that is fundamentally irrational. Israel has tried plenty of nonviolent ways of dealing with the Palestinians—a border fence, unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, Iron Dome, the Oslo Accords. Yet when faced with dedicated Islamist fanatical terrorists determined to wipe Israel off the map and rape, kill, or kidnap the Jewish inhabitants, the demand that Israel restrict its responses to nonviolent ones seems more a symptom of antisemitism than an indication of concern about fueling it.
The book accuses Israel of "the obsessive use of 'terrorist' as an adjective." Actually Israel frequently uses "terrorist" as a noun, because, unfortunately, it is fighting a lot of enemies who are terrorists, a fact this book is determined to minimize.
The authors and their editors seem ignorant on foreign policy and national security issues even beyond the Middle East. They claim, "[b]etween Truman and George H.W. Bush, every American adopted containment as their grand geopolitical strategy." That ignores President Reagan's shift beyond containment to rollback, the strategy that eventually yielded victory.
One could go on. Throughout there's a single-minded obsession with donors and interest groups that favor a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, and neglect of the countervailing donors and interest groups. It amounts to a skewed story. The Anti-Defamation League's antisemitism statistics are dismissed as a "hoax," downplaying or ignoring FBI or New York Police crime statistics that show similar surges in anti-Jewish hate.
The interesting question is how and why a book this gross and full of falsehoods found a mainstream publisher—One Signal, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, which is owned by KKR. The chairman of Qatar Investment Authority, Sheikh Bandar bin Mohammed bin Saoud Al-Thani, met with Co-Chief Executive Officer of KKR & Co. Scott Nuttall in July during a visit to New York, according to a photo released by the government of Qatar. The acknowledgments say, "This book benefited from the generous support provided by Lina and Ali."
Who are Lina and Ali? What sort of "support" did they provide? And why not be fully transparent about it? Eli Clifton's author photo on the book jacket is provided "Courtesy of the Quincy Institute," an institution that lists Clifton as "cofounder and senior adviser." Quincy also lists Ali Munir & Lina Lazaar as donors in the $100,000 to $250,000 category (the same level as the Soros Open Society Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund but a lower level than Koch's Stand Together Trust).
With the last names available, so is more information. The Charity Commission of England and Wales lists Ali Munir as one of three trustees of Ibraaz, a London-based cultural center whose website describes it as "an initiative of the Kamel Lazaar Foundation." The president of the Kamel Lazaar foundation is Lina Lazaar; the website describes it as "a Geneva- and Tunis-based institution." Lina's father is Kamel Lazaar, a Tunisian-Swiss investment banker. Her ex-husband, Hassan Jameel, is a Saudi Arabian billionaire. Corporate registration documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon from the Jersey Islands, the offshore jurisdiction where Munir's Panarae Limited company is based, indicate he is a British national and his full name is Mohammad Ali Munir Ahmed.
There are plenty of foreign powers whose grip is on display here, but Israel is not among them. As I said, it's nauseating. Lina and Ali should ask for a refund. This book is so shoddy it will damage their reputation to be associated with it. No wonder they didn't want their full names in the acknowledgments.
Israeli Reservists Keep Showing Up for Duty
The 21st battalion of the Carmeli reserve infantry brigade, where I serve, was recently called up for its seventh round of duty since the war began.Jordan's Fragile Stability and Israel's Eastern Front
It may be hard to believe, but the number of reservists that arrived in the latest call-up was even higher than the number that showed up after Oct. 7, when there was a greater than 100% turn-out.
This was made possible because more than 100 new soldiers joined the battalion since the last call-up.
Who were these new soldiers? Young men who completed two-plus years of fighting during their mandatory service, were released, and now joined the IDF reserves.
They had just finished fighting and came straight back to fight again.
In 1921, Britain divided the territory of the post-World War I British Mandate, granting Abdullah bin Hussein 78% of the Mandate's territory as the Emirate of Transjordan. In 1946, the emirate gained full independence and became the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, later renamed Jordan.The Psychological Revolution in Iran Has Already Happened
Israel's shared land border with Jordan is its longest - 309 km. The 1994 peace treaty has preserved relative stability for more than three decades, and the two countries maintain close security cooperation, including intelligence sharing. Israel aids Jordan in water and energy.
The regime's traditional power base lies among loyal Bedouin tribes, while the majority of the population identifies as Palestinian. While the Bedouins regard Jordan as their homeland, a substantial part of the Palestinian public views it as a temporary way station or a platform for the struggle against Israel. Jordan also faces religious radicalization influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood and jihadist elements.
Iran and its proxies are increasingly seeking to penetrate Jordan. Tehran sees the kingdom as a vulnerable link through which it can increase pressure on Israel from the east. The Hashemite regime helped block Iranian attacks on Israel by intercepting aircraft that entered Jordanian airspace. The threat to American bases and forces in Jordan is particularly significant.
The Israel-Jordan border is exceptionally difficult to defend. For years, the IDF's border doctrine rested on close cooperation with the Jordanian military. The gravest danger is a scenario where armed terrorists suddenly storm the border at several points at once, or vehicles carrying machine guns and antitank weapons cross open stretches of Israel's southern frontier.
Security cooperation with Jordan remains important, but it cannot substitute for independent Israeli preparedness. At the same time, the stability of the Hashemite regime is a paramount Israeli security interest. Israel has begun building an improved barrier along the Jordanian border.
In the series "Tehran," for me, the hijab was a costume, something I could take off when the scene was over. For millions of other women, you cannot simply call "cut" and return to another life. Jina Mahsa Amini was detained by the morality police because her head covering did not conceal all of her hair. She later died from her injuries.Houthi "Pirate Regime" Now Controls 90 Miles of Red Sea Coastline
Yet she became a catalyst for revolution in Iran. From that moment on, the hijab was no longer merely a symbol of coercion. It also became a symbol of resistance to it. Women removed it in the streets, in front of cameras, police officers, families, and an entire world that had grown accustomed to seeing Iran as a place where nothing could ever change.
Today, hundreds of thousands of women and young girls walk through the streets of Tehran without hijabs and ride bicycles. This represents the greatest degree of freedom Iranian women have experienced in the past 48 years.
The regime is so afraid of new protests because they inspire courage in us as human beings. Once a person sees that someone else has dared to act, something changes within them as well. Boundaries that once seemed permanent begin to look temporary. Fear that was once personal becomes a shared experience, and that shared experience can become a political, social, and cultural force.
Revolutions are psychological. The revolution in Iran has already taken place, in the way people's thinking has changed, both in how they see themselves and how they see reality.
The Houthis are celebrating the 12th anniversary of their violent overthrow of the UN-backed Yemeni government this week, after their forces overran the last government-held enclaves on the Red Sea coastline this month. Now they can reach out and touch global shipping with greater ease than ever before, controlling the coast at the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, astride the shipping lanes.Syrian Leader al-Sharaa Focusing on Arms Buildup
Saudi Arabia looks weak, as do the kingdom's long-established partners (the U.S. and Europe) and its new Mecca Joint Defense Agreement allies (Pakistan and Turkey). None of these military giants did anything to stop the Houthi advance, or to prevent Iran-backed militias in Iraq from crippling Saudi Arabia's east-west oil pipeline with drone strikes earlier this month.
I was embedded with the Yemeni government forces on all main front lines as they confronted the Houthis while researching my military histories about the post-2015 Yemen war. I first saw the Houthis as a bedraggled band of tribesmen being beaten up by the dictator then leading the country. I had a clearer view by the time the Houthis took over Yemen in 2014.
They are quite nasty ethnic supremacists who believe only their caste can rule Yemen. Since the 1980s, their leaders have used Iranian and Lebanese support to try to turn themselves into a clone of Hizbullah. They have now surpassed Hizbullah as Iran's foremost partner.
When the Houthis attacked this month, they employed drone warfare that would put the Ukrainians to shame, and broadcast deepfake withdrawal orders that would make any Russian spymaster proud. The Yemeni front line fell back. The failure to defend the Red Sea terrain is a damning indictment of the feebleness of the dysfunctional coalition that is trying desperately to neuter the Iranian regime and its Yemeni, Lebanese and Iraqi partner militias.
We should not exaggerate; the situation on the Red Sea coast today is not totally transformed from the picture before the recent Houthi offensive. Since 2024, the group has used its Iran-supplied anti-shipping missiles, drones and mines to effectively close off the southern Red Sea on various occasions to most shippers, who are now taking the long way around Africa. It is in no respectable state's interests to see the Houthi pirate regime astride the Red Sea shipping lanes, on a roll, looking for new worlds to conquer.
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has been diverting most of the country's resources, from tax revenues to international aid, toward building a large standing army and acquiring weapons systems while working to conceal its military expansion, according to Israeli security assessments.IDF prepares West Bank mass-arrest operation, demolition of Neveh Tzuf terrorist’s home
Sharaa's operational plans are to reach the point at which he can strike Hizbullah in Lebanon, which he despises, as well as pro-Iranian Shi'ite militias in Iraq.
One security official said, "Ahmed al-Sharaa wants to build Syria under his leadership into a regional power that will look in every direction. The moment he decides to, he will also direct military force against Israel."
A future confrontation is only a matter of time, security sources assess.
The IDF is preparing a mass-arrest operation in the West Bank Palestinian village of Biddu, the hometown of the Neveh Tzuf terrorist captured by the military earlier on Sunday, Army Radio reported.Terrorist kills Netanel Shakron, father of six, in Samaria on Yom Kippur eve
Suspects in the village, which is located near Ramallah, will be arrested, and the terrorist's home will be mapped for demolition, Army Radio added.
According to Army Radio, the operation will further span across the West Bank, with dozens of suspects expected to be arrested.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir visited the scene of the attack earlier on Sunday, describing the attack as a "severe terrorist attack," noting that the IDF "acted quickly" to apprehend the terrorist responsible.
"Our mission is not over," said Zamir. "We will impose a closure on the village and conduct investigations, through which we will reach everyone who assisted the terrorist."
Army Radio identified the terrorist as a 37-year-old Hamas operative, saying that he had visited the attack site on Saturday to prepare.
The Hamas terror organization had praised the attack earlier on Sunday, but did not directly claim responsibility for it, saying that it was "carried out by one of the heroes of our people." Hamas: 'Heroic' attack a 'legitimate and natural response'
"We affirm that this blessed and heroic operation is a legitimate and natural response to the ongoing incursions by settlers and occupation leaders into the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque and their desecration of it," Hamas said. "It is also an affirmation that Jeruslaem and al-Aqsa are worth defending with lives and souls."
A Palestinian terrorist shot and killed Netanel Shakron, a father of six, near Neveh Tzuf in the Binyamin region of Samaria on Sunday, on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.
“Today, six young Israeli children lost their father to heinous terrorism,” the ministry stated, of the attack in the area which is also known as Halamish. “May his memory be a blessing.”
Shakron was reportedly in his 40s.
In the past, news outlets, international organizations and Palestinian leaders have highlighted what they say is Israeli aggression on and leading up to Muslim holidays and holy months. The Oct. 7 terror attack took place on a Jewish holiday.
The gunman reportedly shot at Israeli civilians from a vehicle near a natural spring in the area. The victim’s son saw him get shot, according to reports. Shakron was later pronounced dead at Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah.
Minutes after the shooting, an Israeli soldier near the scene arrived and shot at the attacker, injuring the latter, who fled, the Israeli military said.
Israeli troops later caught the terrorist after he sought treatment at a nearby hospital, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Israeli special forces assisted in the search, and Israeli Air Force craft were deployed to support the operation.
“No terrorist is immune, nor are those who aided them. We will settle the score with all of them. In Gaza, in Lebanon and in Judea and Samaria,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Sunday.
Neve Tzuf terror attack
“I have instructed the IDF and the Shin Bet to operate in Judea and Samaria with reinforced forces, impose closures and conduct offensive operations and arrests to safeguard the security of Israel’s citizens,” he stated. “I have ordered immediate action to demolish the terrorist’s home.”
“On behalf of all the citizens of Israel, my wife and I extend our heartfelt condolences to the family of the victim murdered in the attack and share in their profound grief,” Netanyahu said.
He is the first person to whom the death penalty law passed during the current government's term at Ben-Gvir's insistence is supposed to apply.
— Amit Segal (@AmitSegal) September 20, 2026
Now we'll see whether it's a real law or just PR. https://t.co/qlkHkVYFcJ
Summary of Arab Terror Attacks in Judea and Samaria — September 20, 2026
— Amit Segal (@AmitSegal) September 20, 2026
11:30 — Shooting attack at the Ein Raya spring near Neve Tzuf. A 30-year-old Israeli was killed.
12:36 — Attempted ramming attack at the Ganim checkpoint. No casualties. Israeli forces killed the…
Why the scare quote around ‘terrorist’, @thetimes? Sounds pretty terroristy to me. pic.twitter.com/CfWfOJUZnZ
— Andrew Fox (@Mr_Andrew_Fox) September 20, 2026
⚠️ The IDF didn't shoot a random driver. IDF troops neutralized a terrorist who attempted to run them over with a vehicle.
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) September 20, 2026
Terrorist sympathizers in the media are working overtime to undermine Israel with terrorist propaganda.
Do better, @Reuters. pic.twitter.com/JFMjpgTvHk
IDF says it killed 3 Hamas operatives in Gaza over weekend, including two Oct. 7 terrorists
Two Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel during the October 7, 2023, onslaught and another member of the terror group’s elite Nukhba Force were killed in recent strikes in the Gaza Strip, the military and Shin Bet security agency announced Sunday.
A strike on Saturday killed Yahya Hamdouna, identified by the IDF and Shin Bet as a member of Hamas who invaded Israel on October 7.
The military and security agency said a separate strike over the weekend killed Mohammad Rafa’i, a member of Hamas’s Daraj-Tuffah Battalion who invaded Israel on October 7, and Basir al-Barsh, a Nukhba commander.
The three terrorists had been advancing attacks on troops and Israeli civilians, and acting to restore Hamas’s capabilities, “in systematic violation of the ceasefire,” the joint statement said, adding that they were killed “to remove the threat.”
🚨 BREAKING: AIRSTRIKES REPORTED IN LEBANON pic.twitter.com/A66fVonIrG
— Mossad Commentary (@MOSSADil) September 20, 2026
Dr. Munir al-Bursh is the Director General of Gaza’s Ministry of Health, who has repeatedly accused Israel of "deliberately destroying Gaza’s health system", "engineering famine", "torturing detainees", and even "stealing organs from Palestinian bodies".
— Mark Zlochin - מארק זלוצ'ין༝ (@MarkZlochin) September 20, 2026
Yesterday, his eldest… https://t.co/EdNHcTP1wV pic.twitter.com/HtCINQqJJs
Just one more "healthcare worker" confirmed as a Hamas terrorist. In the case of Mahmoud Hussein Othman, he was a mass murdered who invaded Israel who was killed on October 7th, 2023. https://t.co/GlHS7n1SHa pic.twitter.com/Uk0ggpEyzc
— Leslie Kajomovitz (@kikas6652) September 20, 2026
Yet another post demonstrating @KenRoth doesn't know the first thing about #LOAC.
— Dr. Brian L. Cox (@BrianCox_RLTW) September 20, 2026
Here, he mischaracterizes the law AND misrepresents how it is applied. Strangely enough, the former usually makes the latter much easier to pull off.
So, let's examine how the proportionality rule… https://t.co/E6X9YzdESo pic.twitter.com/BDZGLwGZYH
Proportionality discussed a few days after the Oct 7 massacre. https://t.co/z7F1Y0cwUp
— Nicole Lampert (@nicolelampert) September 20, 2026
Why should you watch “Run, Hide, Fight: Infidels” by @realDailyWire?
— Jake Donnelly (@RedWhiteBlueJew) September 20, 2026
Because it’s a perfect representation of radical Islam.#Islam #RunHideFightInfidels #MovieReview #MovieReviewshttps://t.co/WsDzeZ78PN pic.twitter.com/UN2DEVcb7W
Arabs claim the Yom Kippur war as a great victory because their sneak attack caught Israel by surprise. However, by the end of the war Israel conquered 2100 km of enemy territory and the IDF was within 60 miles of Cairo and 20 from Damascus. It was a total Arab defeat. pic.twitter.com/C4Dv9jP6jc
— Uri Kurlianchik (@VerminusM) September 20, 2026
"Israeli intelligence says that East Yemen are going to invade St George's Island within the next few days." #NeverGreatBritain https://t.co/nnnxSVilmz pic.twitter.com/PrbNJ3BhBc
— Rod Sales 𓀛𓀛𓀛✡︎ (@fortziyon) September 17, 2026
🚨BREAKING: U.S. ally Qatar activated preplanned procedures to evacuate Hamas leaders in Doha before Israel’s 2025 strike.
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) September 20, 2026
Qatar didn’t merely host Hamas. Its security apparatus implemented measures designed to shield terrorists responsible for October 7. pic.twitter.com/6q0BuH3MYI
1:10:00 student Carrie Hororwitz (sp?) nails it, as Kristof's nose get bigger and bigger:
— Prof Gerald M Steinberg (@GeraldNGOM) September 20, 2026
CH "You explained that you felt it was appropriate to publish the dog rape claim because you had heard repeatedly ...people who never speak with each other ,,, When you heard about this…
Report: Trump administration preparing sweeping sanctions against ICC
The Trump administration is preparing a new round of sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court (ICC) that could significantly limit the tribunal’s ability to operate within the international financial system, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
Under the reported measures, most transactions involving the ICC would be prohibited following a six- to seven-month grace period. The restrictions could also prevent the court from carrying out transactions in US dollars.
A decision could reportedly be announced as early as this week, coinciding with the United Nations General Assembly.
The proposed action would expand substantially beyond the sanctions Washington has already imposed on individual ICC officials following the court’s issuance of arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
The United States has previously sanctioned at least 11 ICC officials, including nine judges. Those measures include asset freezes, travel restrictions and limits on the services that US companies can provide to designated individuals.
On Thursday, Prime Minister @netanyahu will arrive in New York and address the United Nations General Assembly.
— Danny Danon 🇮🇱 דני דנון (@dannydanon) September 20, 2026
Six years after the historic Abraham Accords, the message is clear: Israel will continue working to expand the circle of peace and strengthen its partnerships across… pic.twitter.com/HllHbz6CuJ
Michelle Bachelet has ended her bid to become the next United Nations secretary-general after a crushing defeat in the Security Council. UN Watch led the campaign to defeat her candidacy, documenting her record of supporting dictators such as Fidel Castro. https://t.co/OICOxUEtY1
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) September 19, 2026
From the same people that rewarded Hamas while they still had hostages underground in tunnels. This video is so bad. https://t.co/PyBJkHuXkc
— Daniel (@ListenToLewko) September 20, 2026
They stuff up the spelling all the time. Imagine these clowns running the country...https://t.co/PaYOuvcCd9 pic.twitter.com/o88v7orUwB
— Daniel (@ListenToLewko) September 20, 2026
Eve Barlow: Who Verified Gaza?
A question I posed at the beginning of the war in 2023 was: Is there such a thing as free speech in Gaza, and how does that impact the reporting we are seeing in Western media? For the last three years, and beyond, Western media have asked too few questions like this when reporting with extraordinary confidence on the unfolding events. But what was the information environment providing the materials they reported as facts, and were those materials independently verified?
Enter Motaz Azaiza. The prominent Gazan journalist has been interviewed on CNN. His photojournalism in Gaza has been platformed by the BBC. Sky News did a 26-minute segment with him. He’s been on the Mehdi Hasan Show on MSNBC. CBS News invited him on to discuss the Gaza peace plan. The Guardian profiled him extensively in 2024, when he stated:
Al Jazeera has heralded Motaz as a “social media hero” and TIME put him on their TIME 100 list. The New York Times used him as early as November 9, 2023, just a month after the massacre in Israel, putting his Instagram on the map.
Between 2023 and 2025, Motaz became a go-to eyewitness to Gaza, with his photos repeatedly praised with unrelenting certainty as “raw”, “unfiltered” and crucially independent. He was consistently without question lauded as Gaza’s Ernest Hemingway, not merely a Palestinian photographer. “Hailed by many globally as the eyes and the ears of Gaza,” declared CNN in 2024.
Well, two weeks ago a YouTube channel called Podcast Taqarob published a three and a half hour interview in Arabic with Motaz (linked below) in which Motaz reveals the extent to which media in Gaza was produced under duress and with heavy self-censorship due to Gazan journalists’ fear of Hamas. Why he is giving this interview now is anyone’s guess. Regardless, the existence of these sudden revelations have enormous implications for Western media, celebrities and human rights organizations who spent three years of war telling Western audiences to trust the journalists on the ground. Now the questions they should have asked are ours to press, beginning with: was any of the information coming out of Gaza from these journalists subjected to any reasonable verification process?
To me, the most extraordinary part of Motaz’s inteview is not really about what Israel did in Gaza, but what he confesses that he and other journalists in Gaza could not show us. For instance, one of the biggest bombshell moments in the interview is when Motaz says that during October 7, he filmed Israeli hostages being assaulted by a crowd of Gazans. He had that footage and he decided not to publish it. The reason he gives is that he was afraid that the Gazans would be identifiable and killed by Israel.
Whatever you think of the justification he gives, let’s consider what it determines as fact. One of the most prominent Gazan journalists had footage of October 7 that the world has never seen. And we’re only just scratching the surface.
He goes on to make another staggering reveal, in which he describes a Hamas-linked WhatsApp operation called “Smart”. “Smart” was a tool of stage management, directing media coverage to journalists on the ground, then organizing attacks on journalists who broke rank. Journalists’ details would be circulated within “Smart” and anyone who challenged Hamas could be targeted.
The rule against criticizing Hamas wasn’t exclusive to the journalists, of course. It extended to civilians, and so journalists would learn to lower their lens when Palestinians were in shot protesting their authorities. The journalists in Gaza, therefore, did not show us everything they saw. And this is significant when Western media have spent the last three years telling us we have to listen to boots on the ground. Boots like Motaz. Motaz is now telling us that the journalists of Gaza operated in a coercive environment under intimidation and self-censorship. Is everyone still listening?
I can already anticipate the cries from Piers Morgan echoing that CNN line above from Motaz: “But the IDF won’t let foreign journalists into Gaza!” It’s true. Israel has restricted independent foreign press from going into Gaza since October 2023. It’s also true that organizations who defend freedom of press have challenged this openly, and that is a perfectly legitimate issue to scrutinize.
Yet, there’s an element of intellectual dishonesty seeping in. You can’t say that there are no foreign stringers therefore let’s trust the locals if we’re not also asking the initial question I posed three years ago: do Gaza’s journalists have free speech? Motaz says no. He’s telling us they weren’t always free to report what they saw. Now we have a glaring verification issue, because who else is there to corroborate facts? Hamas?
Prominent Gazan journalist Motaz has now revealed that media in Gaza was produced under duress and with heavy self-censorship due to journalists’ fear of Hamas. That has enormous implications for western media, celebrities and human rights organizations who all spent three years… pic.twitter.com/5Zd6I299Yv
— Eve Barlow (@Eve_Barlow) September 19, 2026
Motaz Azaiza Just Said Something About Gaza’s Journalists We Should Hear
During a long Arabic-language interview with Ahmad Biqawi on the Taqarob podcast, the conversation turned to media campaigns and whether they happened spontaneously.
Azaiza’s answer:
“No. They were never spontaneous.”
He carried on:
“It started with… a group called SMART belonging to Hamas. Every journalist in Gaza was in it.”
At that point, my reaction was fairly simple.
What group?
Biqawi apparently thought the same thing. He asked Azaiza what SMART was.
Azaiza described a group containing Hamas media and said its administrator was connected to media operations at the Rafah Crossing.
I’ve been going through Palestinian sources since hearing the interview. SMART turns out to have a history.
In April 2017, Palestinian news agency Safa reported on a meeting at the Smart Media Center in Rafah attended by more than 25 journalists, representatives of local media organizations and rights figures. Its executive director, Wael Abu Omar, spoke about protecting the “internal front” and “unifying the media effort.” The report also said further meetings and electronic campaigns were planned.
That doesn’t answer the question raised by Azaiza’s interview. It makes me want to ask it more urgently.
For much of the Gaza war, international audiences have depended heavily on local photographers and journalists. Their photographs have appeared in newspapers, on television screens and across social media around the world.
As a picture editor, I want to know how that photographic ecosystem works.
Who tells photographers what is happening? How do they know where to go? What information is shared between them? And when Azaiza says “every journalist in Gaza” was in a group he describes as belonging to Hamas, what exactly was being posted there?
Azaiza hasn’t answered that yet.
But he has given the group a name.
SMART.
I think it’s time we had a closer look.
Motaz Azaiza recently revealed how Hamas coordinated all its propaganda in Gaza with the so-called "journalists" in a WhatsApp group called SMART. Do you think there is a WhatsApp group coordinating the over 1,000 "journalists" around the world who are part of Tawasol and are… https://t.co/ewSyLvtFkk
— Leslie Kajomovitz (@kikas6652) September 20, 2026
How many terrorists can a Western-funded nonprofit “training center” for “journalists” have in its network before @SecScottBessent @USTreasury designates it as a terrorist organization?
— Leslie Kajomovitz (@kikas6652) September 20, 2026
While Motaz Azaiza confirmed the existence of a WhatsApp group used to coordinate Gaza’s… https://t.co/PTMmactaQh pic.twitter.com/jZBqf8JnaP
Two days of trending, more than 115,000 posts combined, yet not a single mainstream media organization has covered Motaz Azaiza openly talking about how Hamas coordinates its propaganda through WhatsApp, how he abused the protection given to ambulances to “move easier” around… https://t.co/PTMmactaQh pic.twitter.com/SmS8qDO9CP
— Leslie Kajomovitz (@kikas6652) September 20, 2026
So @thejournal_ie (Irish state funded media) are promoting an antisemite and Hamas supporter.
— ZZ Flop ✡️🇮🇪 (@ZzVvbbbbn) September 20, 2026
No excuses. This guy's record has been well known and documented for a long time. Shane on all of you @SineadOCarroll @DavidSneyd @paul pic.twitter.com/r0pijo694L
Follow up:https://t.co/8YhIOjL088
— Michael Elgort (@just_whatever) September 20, 2026
Cowardly halfwit Ed Sheeran bows to the anti-Israel bullies — why fans are really losing interest in him
Their playbook is simple: Latch on to something or someone successful; demand that they put everything aside and talk only about “Palestine” or else be condemned as heartless or evil; watch everyone walk away in disgust because no one’s buying their breathless lying and relentless haranguing; and then claim to be the real victims before finding something new to destroy.The Letter I Wish Robert Kraft Wrote
Sheeran is one of the world’s most beloved entertainers. His previous tour netted nearly a billion dollars. He could’ve easily crushed the bullies by telling them that if they wanted to talk about “Palestine,” they were welcome to do so anywhere but on his stage, which was reserved for pop, not propaganda.
Instead, he caved, becoming merely the latest victim of this destructive cult of fanatics.
Because that’s what “Palestine” is — a death cult that shrieks and threatens and pressures you into submission.
And when you submit, you must let go not only of your decency and backbone but also of common sense and logic.
Consider Sheeran’s analysis of the situation. Is what’s happening in Gaza truly “unjustifiable”?
Even if you accept the singer’s claim of the war being “disproportionate” — a claim observers who had spent their careers studying war, not crooning about making out in the backseat of a cab, rejected without too much difficulty — you’d have to be totally brainwashed to argue that there was no justification for Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
The Nova festival itself is justification, with 378 young concert-goers murdered by terrorists who crossed an internationally recognized border.
Add to that the wholesale slaughter of entire families, the rape of teen girls, and the kidnapping and abuse of hundreds of civilians, including babies and toddlers, and you’ve all the justification a sane person needs.
Of course, the “Palestine” cult doesn’t care about the facts, which is why it started accusing the Jews of perpetrating genocide on Oct. 8, 2023, about three weeks before Israel launched its ground war against Hamas. They wanted a “ceasefire,” an Israeli surrender, one day after the Hamas-led terror attack.
And tearing up on that stage in Philadelphia, Sheeran showed that he, too, no longer cares about truth, beauty, and anything else that makes for great art.
Ed Sheeran caved to the bullies, and he has the plummeting ticket sales to show for it.
Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it can buy freedom, like the freedom to make decisions without message-testing them against whoever happens to have an opinion and a platform to share it. I have that freedom. I used it to ban Macklemore, a mediocre musician and obvious antisemite, from performing in my stadium. I earned that freedom slowly.After Ed Sheeran Tour Ouster, Macklemore Pledges $1 Million to Gaza Aid Groups With Terror Ties, Watchdog Says
My grandfather was born Krafchinsky. My father shortened it to Kraft in the 1930s, back when it was safer in this country to sound a little less Jewish, and I’ve spent a good part of my life trying to make that trade back in the other direction.
I built my own wealth, dollar by dollar. I took a leveraged buyout of my father-in-law’s packaging company in 1968 that most people told me was reckless. I started a company trading paper and pulp commodities in 1972 out of almost nothing and grew it into one of the largest exporters in the country. I bought the land around Foxboro Stadium in 1985 when nobody else wanted it, bought the stadium itself out of bankruptcy in 1988 for a fraction of what it was worth, and bought the Patriots in 1994 for more money than anyone had ever paid for an NFL franchise, when half the league thought I’d overpaid for a mistake.
The First Amendment restricts what the government can do to your speech, and Jews, Muslims, and all minorities are the biggest beneficiaries of this bedrock American value. But I am not the U.S. government, and the First Amendment does not police who I invite in, or ban, from my home. Macklemore is exceedingly lucky to live in America, where he has rights and freedoms millions of people around the world can only dream of. And it’s precisely because he lives here that he has the right to hold uninformed and wrongheaded views, and to share them with others. What he doesn’t have a right to is my stadium. Nobody does. That’s not censorship, it’s freedom, my freedom. I’m not alone in having it. Thousands of hardworking Americans have built, through sweat and luck, outsized power across cultural, political, media, and financial institutions, and they should use it. Great power comes with great responsibility. People like me are the ones for whom risk and unpopular decisions cost the least. If we can show a bold, unrelenting pursuit of decency, and start cutting out the rot that has overtaken so much of our world, we can actually change it.
The first thing God does in the Torah, before light, before land, before people, is draw a line. He separates light from darkness, waters from waters, day from night. Creation itself begins as an act of distinction, and we learn that before it came tohu vavohu, formless chaos, an endless void. In my stadium, as in all my businesses, as in my home, we have standards. Right from wrong. Truth from fiction. Order from chaos.
I don’t fault Macklemore for ignorance. Ours is a time when any idiot with a selfie stick can inform more people, change more minds, than the most brilliant analysts and thinkers at our brightest institutions. Added to this is the foreign malign interference we know nefarious actors like China, Russia, Qatar, and Iran are engaging in on every algorithm-dependent platform. Macklemore is a victim of an information war he doesn’t understand. But he is not only a victim. He is also a perpetrator.
On Oct. 19, 2023, 12 days after Hamas launched a barbaric slaughter of Israeli civilians, and well before Israel had begun any kind of ground campaign into Gaza at all, Macklemore was already describing Israel as genocidal. In 2014, he went on stage with a beard and an exaggerated, hooked fake nose. And just now, he stood on a stage in front of 80,000 people and showed them images of dead children and said Israel was responsible.
The brain rot that has begun to define this generation has allowed a boggling and terrifying irony: many were silent while Hamas slaughtered musicians and concertgoers in cold blood yet found their energy to speak out when I exercised my right to ban a musician from my own stage. This is not natural. It is the consequence of decades of cognitive warfare waged against American minds by our enemies.
My grandfather lived in an America where he couldn’t get ahead with a Jewish name. We’ve moved past that. I won’t move backward.
Onward,
Robert
Macklemore has pledged $1 million from his earnings on Ed Sheeran’s tour to six aid groups supporting Palestinians, including three with Hamas and other terrorist ties, the Jerusalem-based watchdog NGO Monitor said Thursday, amid a public feud over the rapper’s ouster from the tour.
Macklemore announced the donation after he was fired from the remaining US dates of Sheeran’s Loop Tour following performances at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium in which he chanted “Free Palestine,” accused Israel of “apartheid” and “genocide,” and performed his anti-Israel song “Hind’s Hall” as images from Gaza and of Israeli soldiers appeared on screens behind him.
Macklemore announced on X that he would donate his entire net earnings from the tour to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, HEAL Palestine, Gaza Soup Kitchen, Medical Aid for Palestinians, UNRWA USA, and Anera, while challenging New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft to match the $1 million contribution. Kraft — who owns Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, where Sheeran was scheduled to perform on Sept. 25 and 26 — rallied other stadium owners to pressure Sheeran’s team to drop Macklemore from the tour.
Three of Macklemore’s chosen groups, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), Anera, and the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, appear in internal Hamas documents recovered from Gaza and later declassified by the Israeli military, NGO Monitor said.
An internal 2022 Hamas document cited by NGO Monitor described a senior Gaza employee of MAP as “affiliated with the Hamas movement” and working in “the positive,” terminology the watchdog said was used for Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The document also said he had “allegiance” to Hamas rule.
The watchdog also said MAP was funded by the Abdel Shafi Community Health Association, which it described as founded and directed by senior members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group, while previous Gaza partners included the Hamas-run Health Ministry and an organization funded by Interpal, a charity designated by the US Treasury over alleged support for Hamas.
The October 7th footage needs to be released and entered into the public domain. So that Ed Sheeran doesn’t both sides this issue.
— Jake Donnelly (@RedWhiteBlueJew) September 20, 2026
So that Macklemore looks like more of a fool than he already does. So that Azeez Al-Shaier looks even dirtier than he plays. So that Kyrie Irving is… https://t.co/vWJjWzEx65 pic.twitter.com/VQflGQySAe
Jake Wallis Simons: Ed Sheeran held out longer than most against the ‘Free Palestine’ madness
Sheeran’s speech had all the characteristics of a Soviet show trial, only with no uniforms and better lighting. One worries for him more than ever now. Giving the mob a bit of blood only makes it ravenous for more.The Nissim Black Show: Macklemore Didn’t Sacrifice For Palestine. He Sacrificed Ed Sheeran
Will this apology absolve him? Will it win him quiet? Of course it won’t. These people are not interested in contrition, only submission, and even then, they will not let up until you are destroyed. Get used to it, Ed. You’re now in a world of pain.
His “crime”, such as it was, comprised of failing to join the “free Palestine” bandwagon, along with all the other cretins who do not realise how their energy is supporting the collapse of our societies.
It wasn’t that Sheeran opposed it; he simply kept quiet. Like Cordelia, he protested that he could not heave his heart into his mouth, only to be told “nothing comes from nothing: speak again.” And so he spoke.
These are disturbing times for our democracies. I don’t recall such fascist ideological uniformity across the arts in decades past. Do you?
When Bob Dylan supported the civil rights movement with The Times They Are A-Changin’, or John Lennon opposed the Vietnam war with Give Peace a Chance, or Madonna campaigned with Elton John and George Michael on Aids, they were raising their voices out of conviction.
These days, however, artists – aside from Boy George, perhaps – only raise their voices out of narcissism. Supporting Palestine these days has become a surefire way to win plaudits on the Left, a cost-free exercise in self-fashioning that flattens all moral arguments into a single, immoral one, then basks in applause while crushing dissent.
In the meantime, all our enemies, from Russia and China to Qatar and Iran, nod their heads with approval and quietly increase their propaganda budgets.
If we are going to curb this madness, stars with consciences are going to have to start taking a stand. After all, what has Sheeran got to lose? The fallout of this row has caused his Instagram followers to decline to a mere 47.2 million. That’s it?
He already holds wealth that is beyond anybody’s wildest dreams. Surely, if anybody can afford to be courageous, he can. Just think of what your average young Israeli has to face. It may be no exaggeration to say that the fate of up-and-coming generations depend upon people such as Sheeran.
In a parallel universe, he comes out on stage with a guitar and an Israel flag. He opposes jihadism, authoritarianism and tyranny, he says, and supports Western civilisation and the only meaningful democracy in the Middle East.
He follows this with a basic statement of reality: nobody likes war, but the depravity of Oct 7 entirely justified Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, especially as Hamas used civilians as human shields. It isn’t the flawed and beleaguered democracy that’s the problem, kids, it is the jihadis who wish to murder us all and the states that support them.
That’s what we need. A bit of true courage from people who matter. Then the tide would begin to turn.
Macklemore claims he only "woke up" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after October 7, 2023. But as someone who came up alongside him in the Seattle hip-hop scene, I kept the receipts. In 2017, when Macklemore was scheduled to headline Live Park in Rishon LeZion, he texted me: "Yes sir, let's get up." When ticket sales slowed and BDS pressure mounted, the show was quietly canceled under the guise of "scheduling conflicts."
Now in 2026, Macklemore hijacks Ed Sheeran’s family-friendly stadium tour, uses 90,000 acoustic pop fans for personal activist leverage, and boasts online that he only needed two shows to take the stage hostage. When Robert Kraft and venue operators drew a firm line to protect their property, Macklemore claimed victimhood, pulled off a multi-million-dollar publicity stunt, and left his 13-year friend to clean up the wreckage.
In this episode of The Nissim Black Show, Nissim breaks down the unwritten rules of touring, the performative grift of modern activism, and why real moral courage requires putting your own skin in the game.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - We Came Up Together: My Real History With Macklemore
01:02 - The 2017 Receipt: What Macklemore Hid About His Israel Concert
03:20 - The Rebirth Playbook: Exposing the Virtue Signaling Grift
06:44 - The Contradiction: Claiming He Woke Up After October 7th
09:25 - Same Love to Free Palestine: Manufactured Martyrdom
11:20 - Hijacking Ed Sheeran: The Opener’s Unspoken Code
13:19 - Hind’s Hall & The Columbia University Encampments
17:10 - The Moral Inversion: Ignoring Jewish Victims of October 7th
22:14 - Standing for Causes That Don’t Belong to You
27:05 - Robert Kraft & Gillette Stadium: The Truth About Private Property
28:56 - Emmanuel Acho's Speakeasy: The Media Double Standard
30:52 - The $5M Standoff: Matching Donations and UNRWA Relief
33:28 - Who Actually Loses? Why Ed Sheeran Got Sacrificed
43:27 - If the Roles Were Reversed: The Selective Free Speech Trap
48:24 - Streaming Numbers vs. True Conviction: Sticking to the Story
51:04 - Drake’s "Pray for Gaza" and Cultural Distance
58:36 - Kendrick Lamar Was Right: Why They Are "Not Like Us"
01:02:45 - The Spiritual Void: Why Reality Always Sends the Invoice
Palestine Purity Police are listing Sheeran’s crimes. They’re incandescent with rage.
— Joo (@JoosyJew) September 20, 2026
In entertainment, this is the highest profile failure of the organised “Free Palestine Industry” mob.
Millions of young people realise you don’t have to pretend to be an expert for popularity. pic.twitter.com/lXAEGQwCQA
Everyone is focused on what buzzwords Ed Sheeran used to describe the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) September 20, 2026
For what it’s worth, I think his statement was nuanced and reflected actual thought, as well as his signature empathy.
But what struck me 100x more was his statement at the end… pic.twitter.com/6dcpcEDPMq
BBC Radio 4’s news flagship show this morning cut out Ed Sheeran’s condemnation of 7 October, leaving listeners with only his words on Gaza.
— Campaign for Media Standards (@4mediastandards) September 20, 2026
Why did the BBC choose to make such a biased editorial call? pic.twitter.com/IIs4j3syaz
Hi @AP. Why did you not see fit to also mention Ed Sheeran saying: “What happened in Israel at the Nova music festival on October 7th was horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain.” https://t.co/gbD24J1UFi
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 20, 2026
Why Are Pro-Palestinian Celebrities All So Bonkers?
The London-born pop singer Paloma Faith, 45, told Britain's Channel 4 News last week that when she tucks her children into bed at night, the last thing she says to them is: "Free Palestine!"
She sounded proud of it. Her children are 9, 5, and 6 months, meaning she's chanting "Free Palestine!" at a baby. Will this be his first words?
Perhaps in certain circles this sort of behavior is considered perfectly normal and healthy. For all I know, there are thousands of London mothers who send their children off to sleep each night with half an hour of Palestinian propaganda.
Imagine. "Mummy? Please can we have a bedtime story?"
"Of course, my darlings. Once upon a time, there was a happy, peaceful, tolerant and fabulously LGBTQIA-inclusive land called Gaza. But then one day, along came the wicked Zionists, and for absolutely no reason at all, they..."
"But Mummy, you tell us that story every night. Can't we have something different? How about a nursery rhyme?"
"Very well. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall / Humpty Dumpty had a great fall / All the king's horses and all the king's men / Presented conclusive proof to the UN that Humpty had been brutally pushed off the wall by the IDF as part of Israel's ongoing genocide."
MP Sultana tweets like a frothing jihadi and far right groyper combo.
— Joo (@JoosyJew) September 20, 2026
A Billionaire Jeŵ pulled Sheeran’s strings with what to say (even though this wasn’t even at Kraft’s Gillette Stadium).
Sheeran complied in exchange for “blood-soaked millions” of Jeŵ hush-money. https://t.co/1V6Cjg6vDx pic.twitter.com/A0vkhhQkli
Blower, The Telegraph. pic.twitter.com/4pwB2qiPMA
— Trevor Hughes (@TrevorH53038397) September 20, 2026
Pretty much. pic.twitter.com/mD6BNQvSPZ
— Kosher (@koshercockney) September 20, 2026
New Hampshire travel office promotes event, on Yom Kippur, with anti-genocide group that defends ‘Palestine’
Among the “things to do,” which the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs promotes on its website, is an online “peace and justice” about “U.S. militarism and racism” with an anti-genocide group that says its aim include defending “Palestine.”
The event is slated to take place from 7 to 8 p.m. on Monday, which is Yom Kippur, the most sacred day on the Jewish calendar. According to the Chabad of New Hampshire, the Yom Kippur fast ends at 7:27 p.m. this year—almost exactly in the middle of the event.
According to the event listing on the official state website, Flor Saldivar and Kathleen Chandler, both of Women United Against Genocide, are to speak. The “grassroots advocacy group” focuses on “the intersection of patriarchy, poverty, racism and human rights abuses,” according to the listing, and brings “forward the voices and leadership of black, brown and indigenous women, while organizing intersectional campaigns on issues like missing and murdered women, immigrant rights, defending Palestine and opposing international human rights abuses, honoring victims of U.S. police violence and stop cop city.”
The two will discuss “how U.S. militarism is connected to racism,” per the listing.
The United States doesn’t recognize an independent state of “Palestine.”
Good piece from @LordIanAustin in the Sun today.https://t.co/7zOLPF2g3X pic.twitter.com/5oqBX7QgkI
— Andrew Fox (@Mr_Andrew_Fox) September 20, 2026
Exclusive. Just when you think the Green Party cannot get any worse.
— David Collier (@mishtal) September 20, 2026
Take a look at @TheGreenParty Zionism is Racism motion. Endorsed by antisemites and Islamist extremists around the world.
Uploaded in full here for your reading pleasure. https://t.co/ApVOxlH1qV pic.twitter.com/5xWNZWavsP
The Jews featured in this video represent Jewish Voice for Peace, a group that has called for the “death of Israel.” Right after October 7 JVP declared, “our solidarity with Palestine must encompass any and all modes of resistance,” and stated, “We stand in full solidarity with…
— The Jewish Majority (@JewishMajority) September 20, 2026
"Lesbian Missy and Elaine" are in fact JVP activists
— Joni Job (@jj_talking) September 20, 2026
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is a radical anti-Israel and anti-Zionist activist group that advocates for the eradication of Zionism and the boycott of Israel.
JVP does not represent the mainstream Jewish community, which it… pic.twitter.com/EeL8eOtYkk
Missy's daughter has her very own Canary Mission profile https://t.co/uChWAbuHLchttps://t.co/gHMTCl5sWD
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) September 20, 2026
I asked Adam Mockler a question:
— Shabbos Kestenbaum (@ShabbosK) September 20, 2026
Should Hasan Piker, who mocked victims of sexual assault, called for the murder of capitalists, and believes America deserved 9/11, have a role in the Demcoratic Party?
Adam's answer? Yes. pic.twitter.com/PcGUIOyTqj
Indiana Imam Abdullah Al-Hajj on Anniversary of 9/11: The Terrorists Who Committed the Attacks Were Not Muslims, Islam Is About Peace and Love; Oh Allah, Destroy the Zionists and Their Supporters; Islam Will Enter Every House in the World - Whether You Accept It or Not pic.twitter.com/XYyPqQYMF1
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) September 20, 2026
Richmond film festival doubles down on Israeli films after it was boycotted last year
The Richmond Film Festival defied calls to boycott the Jewish state last year, and doubled its ticket sales in the process, according to the Virginia event’s founder. This year, the event is doubling down on Zionism.Haunted by the Holocaust
Heather Waters, who founded the event which is in its 15th year, told JNS that there are renewed efforts to harm her event due to its support for Israel.
“It is still brewing. We have continued to forge ahead, and in fact, I think due to the last four years or so, we’ve had a lot more submissions from Israel, and so I accepted a lot more,” she said.
“They were wonderful films, and so we probably are programming about triple the amount this year,” she told JNS.
The festival, which will screen more than 180 premiers in theaters, is slated to open on Tuesday and to run six days, through Sept. 27. It will also include live music, panels and other events.
In the past, the Israeli embassy in Washington has covered travel costs for Israeli filmmakers and others to attend.
Among the documentaries to be screened are “UNraveling UNRWA,” about the United Nations agency with ties to Palestinian terror, and “TORN: The Israel-Palestine Poster War on NYC Streets.”
REVIEW: ‘Divine Corners: In the Shadow of the Holocaust on a Catskills Chicken Farm’ by Michelle Friedman
To Friedman, the tales of Regina's escape from Nazi-occupied Poland made her the heroine of her own story. She leapt off a deportation truck headed to Treblinka into a bush, and, when Regina's father never came to meet her and her mother in the designated hideout, the pair secured false documents from a forger and set off into the Nazi-occupied capital of Warsaw. After supplies depleted while she hid with her extended family in a makeshift bunker, Regina volunteered to forage for food but was stopped by a Ukrainian soldier.
"You are a Jew," he said, raising his rifle to shoot her. She rejected the soldier's accusation and, following her recitation of the Pater Noster, he lowered his gun, pulled a chocolate bar from his pocket, leisurely unwrapping it while holding his stare. She led him to a potato farm, where miraculously a school friend was digging. After the friend's sister began flirting with the soldier, he shelved his Jew-killing quest for enough time to let Regina blend in with the others.
Her parents' "survival saga[s]" even pervaded the author's bus rides to school. "I scanned the landscape for hideouts and escape routes in case another war or Holocaust broke out," she wrote. "Would that porch be a safe place?" It even fed into her desire to be a Girl Scout, deciding that she, too, needed to learn to survive in the woods.
The uniqueness of these experiences heightened the insularity Friedman felt, a somewhat secular Jew who disliked the mud almost as much as the rednecks from which she felt disconnected, and the Hasidim, the orthodox (I can confirm those demographics remain the same). But she struggled with a longing to connect to locals of all stripes, especially to her siblings, who gradually slipped away.
Her older sister, Lisa, left for Israel and limited contact. Meanwhile, Jay, a Boo Radley type, departed for Seattle. "Don't call me," he told Friedman after he fell ill with pancreatic cancer. When she finally was permitted visitation, she remarked how quickly the disease had eaten at his body, turning it into "that of a concentration-camp prisoner." Jay wanted his money to go to Planned Parenthood—a possible signal to Friedman that he wished he was never born. And if he could be born again, he would pray for it to be with different people.
His one wish was to be cremated. Friedman obliged her younger brother, defying Jewish law's prohibition and submitting to the situation's morbid irony. She zipped up his body in a duvet from Divine Corners, hand-sewn by their mother years ago. While Friedman's intrafamilial issues were left tangled, she took solace knowing that she was beside Jay as he passed.
Friedman's account details the various strains of erasure—of bloodlines, siblinghood, and friendships. The Nazi genocide overshadowed her life on a farm meant to offer a fresh start. But her musings of the Holocaust ensnared her, "like some black hole of dense gravity." When Friedman traveled back to Wegrow with her father years later, she was struck by the semblance of the landscape to Divine Corners, where just a few miles away was another small farm, tucked into a different countryside.
Back in America, Friedman traveled upstate only to find the site of her first life had disappeared. Both her childhood home and the coops were wiped out as though they'd never existed.
In 2022, one year after I graduated high school, a fire incinerated the rest of Grossinger's, with the structures of lesser-known hotels also on their way out, leaving the memory of the Borscht Belt relegated to its aging former patrons and the youth's desire to keep telling its stories.
Unstoppable NATION of God! 🇮🇱💙 pic.twitter.com/1f4v7I74Tq
— Tal Oran (@travelingclatt) September 20, 2026
This is what solidarity looks like. Thousands gathered in Amsterdam on September 17 to stand with the Jewish community, their voices rising together in the Israeli song "Jerusalem of Gold."
— StandWithUs (@StandWithUs) September 20, 2026
Am Yisrael Chai. 🇮🇱🇳🇱 pic.twitter.com/cUFDWSE1XB
Netanyahu joins 150,000 for season’s final Selichot prayer gathering at Western Wall
Ahead of Yom Kippur, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended the season’s final Selichot penitential prayers at the Western Wall on Saturday night, where he recited a prayer for Israel Defense Forces soldiers and other security personnel. About 150,000 people participated in the gathering, according to the Western Wall Heritage Foundation.
Worshippers began arriving in the early evening, and by time of the main service, crowds filled the Western Wall plaza, nearby balconies and alleys of Jerusalem’s Old City. The service was broadcast on large screens near the Wall, on the walls by Jaffa Gate and at IDF Square for those unable to enter the plaza.
Former hostages in Gaza Eliya Cohen, Rom Braslavski, Elkana Bohbot and Ohad Ben Ami attended the service, along with Supernova music festival massacre survivor Ziv Abud. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was also present, as were Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel David Yosef, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel Kalman Meir Ber, Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch and Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Sunday called on Israelis to remember the values of mercy and forgiveness ahead of Yom Kippur, which begins in the evening.
“May we all merit mercy, forgiveness and open hearts, and may our prayers be accepted with favor,” Herzog wrote on X, wishing the Jewish people a gmar chatimah tova (that they be “inscribed for good in the Book of Life”), an easy fast and “good news, salvation and consolation.”
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee marked Yom Kippur with a message of prayer and reflection for Jews in Israel, the United States and around the world.
“May this holy day deepen our commitment to God and one another,” Huckabee wrote on X, concluding, “G’mar chatima tova.”
Wow!
— StandWithUs (@StandWithUs) September 20, 2026
More than 100,000 Jewish worshipers gathered at the Western Wall in Jerusalem for prayers ahead of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
Video : Western Wall Heritage Foundation pic.twitter.com/7jiUjdcqwU










