Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, August 15, 2025

08/15 Links Pt2: Olive tree in France planted in memory of Ilan Halimi chopped down; The Madonna of Gaza; Three Israeli universities ranked in global top 100

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Madonna of Gaza

What church leaders are saying about Gaza has enormous influence, even in post-religious circles. Their message that Israel is a cruel force oppressing the wretched of the earth plays directly into the West’s Christian conscience, even among people who are not believers.

This is wrapped up further with the church’s ineradicable ambivalence toward Jews, which reflects Western society’s own deep-seated antisemitism.

The Islamists, who understand the West better than it understands itself, have grasped the centrality of Christianity to the West, as well as its profound Jew-hatred, and realize that they can manipulate this to their advantage.

That’s why the now-notorious picture of the skeletal Gazan child, prominently displayed in The New York Times and countless other media outlets around the world as allegedly dying of starvation, packed the punch it did. It wasn’t merely that it was a dreadfully distressing picture of a dying child. It was that it was posed to call irresistibly to mind the original Madonna, the mother of Jesus, cradling him in her arms.

This image has been repeated countless times in paintings and sculptures. It is burned into the Western consciousness not only as an iconic image of Christianity but one that identifies that faith with love and compassion for the vulnerable and innocent, represented by the baby in his veiled mother’s arms.

The carefully staged photograph of the veiled Gaza mother holding the skeletal child was thus a diabolical masterpiece of manipulation and deceit.

Not only was the child emaciated, but suffering from cerebral palsy, not from starvation. By inciting horror and revulsion at the Israelis for apparently provoking the suffering of a Gazan Madonna and child, the picture also replaced Jews with Muslim Arabs in the iconography of Christianity.

It thus manipulated some of the deepest feelings in the emotional range of the Western world to embrace an evil lie.

The propaganda war is all about playing on emotion. That’s why these mendacious claims are impervious to facts and evidence.

Christians are among the staunchest supporters of Israel, particularly in America. But many, especially in the progressive Protestant churches, are its enemy.

Even the support of American Christians is eroding, particularly among the young, under an onslaught of secularization and the unprecedented global propaganda war that’s manipulating the Western public into believing that evil is good and goodness is evil.

Their minds have been twisted into believing the big lie that the Israelis, who are defending themselves against an Islamic holy war of extermination, are themselves guilty of the very things of which they are, in fact, the victims.

It is a godless lie. And the Vatican’s support for it is a moral stain spreading backwards into its terrible history with the Jews.

Jake Wallis Simons: This is how Leftist Israelophobia morphs into unabashed anti-Semitism

When Horst Mahler, lawyer, terrorist and anti-Semite, died last month at the age of 89, that nemesis of Germany had become little more than a deranged demagogue who had lost a leg to diabetes and was fatigued by years in prison.

Such is the derangement of the times, however, that Mahler – a member of the notorious hard-Left Baader-Meinhof gang who later converted to neo-Nazism – is more relevant in death than he ever was in life.

With sensible politics around the world challenged by anti-Western fervour, this is increasingly Mahler’s moment. Across the political extremes, his hallmarks are familiar today: conspiratorial thinking; a pathological hatred for the United States, the West and all our old certainties; a cleaving to utopian radicalism; and a loathing for both Israel and the Jews.

Since October 7, this omnidogma has accelerated its advance, reaching for influence in our schools, universities, throughout the arts and media, in our formerly great northern towns and cities, on the streets, in the digital universe and through the benighted corridors of Lanyardistan.

It reached a bloody nadir in Washington DC last May, when two young Israeli diplomats were gunned down in the name of “Palestine”, and in the firebombing of elderly Jews in Colorado by an Egyptian national a few weeks later. In Britain, it has prompted death chants at Glastonbury and the sabotage of RAF aircraft by the bourgeois radicals of Palestine Action, not to mention relentless street unrest. But its spirit has also inspired the far-Right, with figures like the American firebrand Tucker Carlson and European insurgent parties Alternative für Deutschland and Rassemblement National indulging an animosity towards Israel, fondness for the erstwhile Assad regime and adoration for Vladimir Putin.

Anything, in other words, that hurts us.

Rayner ignored complaints about Islamophobia adviser’s ‘anti-Semitic’ tweets

Angela Rayner ignored complaints about allegedly anti-Semitic posts written by a peer advising ministers on the definition of Islamophobia, The Telegraph can reveal.

Baroness Gohir, one of five figures appointed to the working group on defining anti-Muslim hatred in February, previously claimed that Israel “controls” the US in several social media posts.

In April, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA) wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister, whose department is responsible for drawing up the definition of Islamophobia, alerting her to the comments.

It quoted five tweets written from 2013 and 2014, which were public until at least 2022 but have since been deleted, that it claimed met the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

In September 2013, when the US was considering whether to conduct military action against Bashar al-Assad, the then Syrian president, Lady Gohir said: “Will Israel influence the US vote on whether to invade Syria? Are the Americans really in control of their own decisions? #JustAsking.”

A week later, she tweeted: “Who controls America’s foreign policy? ISRAEL – they would be the ONLY beneficiaries of a US attack on Syria.”

The following year, she shared a news article about comments made by Barack Obama issuing a warning to Benjamin Netanyahu over him not agreeing to a peace deal with Gaza.

She wrote: “US warns Israel over Palestine talks failure. I bet Israel are quaking in their boots – NOT! Don’t they control US?”

Also in 2014, Lady Gohir said: “The hold Israel has over world leaders, including Muslim ones, is extraordinary that they continue to murder Palestinians and get away with it.”

08/15 Links Pt1: Whistleblower alleges misconduct by United Nations in Gaza; Gaza Disengagement’s Overlooked Villain; The TRUTH About Hamas, Mahmoud Khalil, and the Palestinian Deception

From Ian:

Whistleblower alleges misconduct by United Nations in Gaza

An international aid worker operating in Gaza has filed a formal whistleblower complaint to the Inspector General of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), alleging "gross misconduct and misuse of humanitarian funds by the World Food Programme and other U.N. Agencies," according to a copy of the complaint obtained by Fox News Digital.

Details of alleged United Nations interference in the delivery of aid to Gazans have been revealed by the whistleblower who was in Gaza in July. The whistleblower confirmed to Fox News Digital the content of the complaint.

The whistleblower’s complaint claims "A firsthand eyewitnessing of senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials offering any support necessary, including security protection and coordination, to representatives from the World Food Programme (WFP) and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) only to have WFP and OCHA respond that they were not prepared to discuss such coordination."

According to the whistleblower complaint, this "raises serious questions as to why WFP and OCHA were unprepared to discuss or accept the assistance offered by the IDF, thereby preventing aid from getting to the people of Gaza."

The whistleblower confirmed to Fox News Digital during an interview the allegations outlined in the complaint. The whistleblower said in the complaint that "the IDF is actively helping the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) get food into the hands of civilians while U.N. agencies, including WFP and OCHA, through their unwillingness to coordinate with the IDF, are inhibiting the distribution of such aid."

The whistleblower continued, "As has been recently shown through openly available imagery, the IDF has provided clearance for thousands of tons of U.N. humanitarian goods that are now sitting inside of Gaza, awaiting distribution. The U.N. must be held accountable to pick up and distribute such aid. I urge you to launch an independent investigation into this matter to determine the extent to which U.N. agencies, by refusing to coordinate with the IDF on essential issues, including security, are abusing U.S. taxpayer funds rather than using them to deliver the aid the American people are donating – and whether such actions are being taken independently by U.N. officials in Gaza or at the direction of the U.N. Secretary General or other senior U.N. officials in New York. "

The GHF, with support from the U.S. and Israel, has distributed 127 million meals to Gazans since May. However, its aid distribution system has been under consistent attack from Hamas and from some unlikely quarters — the world's leading aid groups.

The whistleblower told Fox News Digital "There is a concerted effort to discredit GHF and any attempts to provide aid out of [the] U.N."

A senior U.S. State Department official sent Fox News Digital a lengthy response. The official said, "The fact of the matter remains that GHF is a threat to how Hamas functions and enriches itself because GHF provides meals to those in need with safeguards to minimize Hamas from stealing. This is why Hamas continues to attack GHF aid sites."

Seth Mandel: A Plea for Sanity

Regarding the aid sites themselves, Starr’s essay is well worth reading in full. Soldiers trained for warfare had to adapt to policing strategies with enemy forces, in civilian clothing, still hunting them. The IDF suddenly had a mission of preventing humanitarian disaster while also defeating Hamas, which meant not letting Hamas get hold of the aid that they were simultaneously trying to provide civilians. Nevertheless, Starr writes, “The stories told by some of the more malicious news outlets about Palestinians being shot while peacefully queuing are ludicrous not only because live-fire warning shots were only employed on the extremely rare occasion that Gazans in the aid site yard deviated toward the closed military zone that was out of their way, but also because I never once saw anything resembling a line or queue.”

Instead, “the sites are controlled chaos, with Palestinian aid seekers constantly seeking to overrun the compound, save for the intervention of armed security contractors.” Those contractors would “use stun grenades to warn off belligerent men who attempt to enter the site in situations like when there are special distributions for women or children. Palestinian aid workers have also used mace to repel aid seekers who refused to leave the site.”

Because some items were more valuable on the market than others, Palestinians would set up literal trading posts off to the side of the distribution site. At the end of the day, Gazans were told to stay behind specific concrete roadside barriers to prevent the area from being overrun day and night. Still, many secretly dug trenches in the area and tried to sleep there. There was violence and theft between aid recipients, and a general atmosphere of fear and panic induced partly by Hamas’s threats against the aid seekers and the proliferating stories about the chaos.

Terrorists did mix in among the aid seekers: Starr recalls one throwing a grenade, another stabbing a soldier. At all times, the possibility of a stampede loomed; a crowd crush could kill and injure aid seekers and perhaps even overrun the security around the site. Soldiers used warning shots, which does hold some risk—but so does not firing any warning shots in many of the situations.

“Yet despite all the problems,” Starr writes, “people were getting fed by the SDS sites, and they appreciated it.” Some “Gazan aid seekers were waving, blowing kisses, and performing heart signs with their hands as they left. People in a ‘killing field’ wouldn’t act like that.”

It turns out well-meaning people are doing their best, which is still imperfect. Human, you might say. The narrative one hears from the Western press is far from the reality. A hearty dose of sanity would do everyone some good—and get more Gazans fed, too.

Seth Mandel: Gaza Disengagement’s Overlooked Villain

A new working paper by the cognitive scientist Netta Barak-Corren of Hebrew University sheds some light on this topic, though it isn’t the focus of her research. Barak-Corren was studying aid diversion in war zones, including but not limited to Gaza. But she offers crucial context about the primary aid agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, that paints a clear picture not only of the agency’s problems but of its quasi-governmental status.

“There is abundance of evidence to indicate … that the relationship between UNRWA and Hamas was symbiotic to a degree that UNRWA sustained much of the Hamas apparatus in Gaza, via various methods, allowing Hamas to build and sustain its war machine and authoritarian rule,” Barak-Corrin writes.

The UN agency was Gaza’s largest employer and at one point provided four out of every five Gazans with some form of aid, she writes. It is, alone among refugee agencies, a “permanent state of affairs” rather than a temporary solution to a particular postwar problem.

As such, the UN and Hamas have essentially “formalized” a system of aid diversion. The UN also insists on Hamas-linked escorts for its aid convoys rather than independent security. And it has taken steps to prevent employee-identification policies that aid groups have acquiesced to elsewhere.

Yet the aid problem is almost beside the point when looking at the UN’s activities in Gaza. As Barak-Corrin writes, “the focus on physical aid diversion and taxation is to some extent a distraction from the role UNRWA plays in Hamas finances: Hamas has used its influence to insert its operatives and their family members into UNRWA, so that they account for 49% of UNRWA employees.”

UNRWA also has successfully prevented an independent audit of Gaza aid and refused to report diversion incidents regarding Hamas. That means—and this is really the kicker—that “UNRWA should be seen as a streamlined aid diversion operation enjoying a unique level of international immunity and freedom from accountability.”

That is, the UN agency is itself designed to be an adjunct of Hamas. Except in name, the UN is essentially not only part of the Hamas government but the key to Hamas’s ability to sustain its power over the Palestinian enclave.

What does all this have to do with the 2005 disengagement? As COMMENTARY contributing editor Jonathan Schanzer has argued, Hamas’s program of “Talibanization” of the Gaza Strip began almost immediately and has smothered the enclave in the nearly two decades since Hamas took full control.

But as we see from Barak-Corrin’s analysis, Hamas had a partner in that process: UNRWA. Especially considering the various Western boycotts of Hamas after it dislodged Fatah from Gaza by force, sustaining a totalitarian regime and its war machine wasn’t easy or cheap. The UN didn’t merely abet Hamas; it was designed to be part of Hamas’s key governing infrastructure. Rather than being an aid organization that Hamas took advantage of, the UN agency was constructed as a pipeline to assets and materials and influence on the outside for Hamas.

And Hamas used those resources to take the Palestinians’ best chance at full self-government and turn it into an argument against Israeli disengagement from further territory. It became an engine of war and death, and then on Oct. 7, 2023, it became a symbol of world-historical evil. Gaza since disengagement is a profound condemnation of the UN and its entanglement with Hamas. Both must go before Gaza will ever get another chance.

Euractiv reports on a coalition crisis in Belgium:

For weeks, tensions have been brewing inside Belgium's delicate five-party coalition government, with three of the parties growing impatient with what they see as the executive’s silence on Israel's ongoing war and the humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip.

So far, Belgium has no unified position on whether to officially recognise a Palestinian state, no agreement on whether to sanction Israel over alleged abuses and violations of international law, and no decision on whether to label the situation in Gaza a genocide.

Ahead of the Thursday's showdown, CD&V leader Sammy Mahdi vented his frustration on public broadcaster VRT: "Let’s hope the government meets soon, and that when the ministers return from holiday, they understand that in times of genocide, this is where they should be."

Here we have two sides.

One asserts the absolute morality of their position - there is a genocide in Gaza, Israel is evil, recognizing a Palestinian state will help bring peace.

The other says, we're not so sure, there are a lot of factors, we disagree with some of what you say but we agree there is a humanitarian crisis and we don't like war, we are not comfortable with immediate action.

When it is framed in the media and to the world, one side is moral and the other side is wishy-washy.

What politician doesn't want to be on the side of clear moral lines and a black and white world where they can be seen to be on the right side? What politician wants to look indecisive, weak, or perhaps immoral themselves?

Those who defend Israel are never unequivocal about it. They always add a "but" - we disagree with the government, we hate Smotrich, the settlers or occupation are the real problem. That's because Israel's defenders, even when they are wrong, care about truth.

The other side has no such compunctions. If you don't support their side, you support genocide!

The framing makes people want to trust the absolutist side. The outrage over Gaza makes disagreeing sound callous. The media prefers simple narratives. Social media rewards absolutist rhetoric over nuance.

Even though Israel is morally right, the world never says that - Israel's friends only invoke historic antisemitism, or Israel's right to defend itself within certain constraints.

And that is the problem. Israel's side is never presented in the same good vs. evil frame, even though that is a lot closer to the truth.

When the world is given a choice between absolutes and a bunch of caveats, most people gravitate towards the absolutes. And we are seeing this play out in real time.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Yesterday I posted a secret memo of a meeting that most Gaza humanitarian NGOs attended in New York, including the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and excluding UNRWA.

The memo included:

All agreed that flooding the zone would have multiple benefits - most importantly to those in need, as well as to reduce the desperation and chaos at GHF sites and UN convoys, and to diminish the value aid and the risk of diversion to Hamas.

We agreed further conversations on diversion, how to flood the zone, how working in a complementary way might work, and connecting country-level teams. These issues will be managed at the technical level.

One would expect that increasing aid would hurt the black market, so it seems to make some sense. But that is a poor solution.

We know that the percentage of aid that is diverted in Gaza is an astonishing 95% in recent weeks. This would mean that to get the proper amount to Gazans the NGOs would need to increase the number of trucks by a factor of twenty - from, say, 200 trucks a day to 4,000 - to ensure that the proper amount of food gets to the people.

That is logistically impossible.

It also doesn't stop the Hamas diversion problem. Hamas has many ways to make money off of aid, including taxes, skimming, directly giving aid to its militants in lieu of salaries, Hamas took 25% of the aid before the war. Chances are that more aid would help Hamas far more than it would hurt it.

And just as a reminder, international law says that a party to a conflict can choose not to bring in any aid when there is credible fear that their enemy will use it for its own economic or military advantage. Not to sound immoral, but if Israel would really have imposed a true siege according to the laws of war in October 2023 and held to it, Hamas would have been out of business long ago and the people in Gaza would be rebuilding today with plenty of food.

It isn't the law that stops Israel from doing the right thing. It is politics.

The only solution for the short term is to increase security for the aid. GHF offered to do just that with the UN, and the UN refused. Israel has tried to work with NGOs to help get more aid safely to its destination, and too many of the NGOs don't want to cooperate with Israel because of fears of looking like collaborators or fears of Hamas retribution.

Maybe more aid needs to get into areas of Gaza, but the major problem isn't the number of trucks but the security and distribution of the aid. As long as Hamas isn't defeated, it regards aid as its lifeline and it will continue to foment chaos, theft and murder to ensure that it benefits from aid before the people do.

Which means the truly best, most efficient method to help Gaza is to allow Israel to defeat Hamas militarily.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Al Jazeera (Arabic) reports:

The American Association of Endocrinologists' decision to terminate the membership of prominent Jordanian physician Kamel Al-Ajlouni has sparked outrage in medical and public circles in the kingdom. The decision stems from accusations leveled against him over a lecture he gave in Amman in 2024 titled "Acceptance of the Other in Judaism: Fact or Mirage?"

Critics of the decision see it as a direct attack on freedom of expression and a bias against voices critical of Israeli crimes against Palestinians.

Oh, so he lost his membership just for critiquing Israel?

Here's what he said in his 2024 lecture:

Dr. Kamel Al-Ajlouni stated, “There is no doubt that the events in Gaza preoccupy anyone with even a shred of humanity, let alone an Arab Muslim witnessing the massacres, the killing of infants, women, and the elderly, and the pleasure taken in killing every non-Jewish soul.” He noted that ongoing discussions about Gaza, the shock at Israeli leaders’ statements labeling Arabs as “human animals,” and the complete destruction and displacement of Gaza’s population stem from ignorance of Jewish beliefs.

He explained that these beliefs hold that killing a non-Jew is an act of worship, that non-Jews’ property rightfully belongs to Jews, and that non-Jews are animals created in human form to avoid offending Jewish sensibilities. According to these beliefs, non-Jews are not considered equal, as Jews are the masters and others are slaves.

Al-Ajlouni pointed out that current mainstream media, radio, and global news outlets rarely address these beliefs. He stressed the need for Arabs and Muslims to return to Jewish texts and doctrines to understand their lack of respect for non-Jews and their history of unfulfilled agreements.

...He further noted that economic powers, many academic institutions, and entire nations are under their control. ...“Wake up, Arabs, and stop deceiving yourselves,” he urged.

In conclusion, Al-Ajlouni emphasized that every Arab and Muslim must recognize that, in Jewish belief, non-Jews lack humanity, Jewish superiority is a divine right, and killing others is a religious duty unless their existence serves Judaism. He pointed to the Torah and Talmud as evidence of their documented savagery and tyranny, noting that their heinous and criminal acts, recorded since the 19th and 20th centuries before the establishment of their state, and their treatment of Arabs in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere, serve as clear proof.

Anyone who calls this "criticism of Israel" are themselves antisemitic.

Ajlouni is based out of Jordan and even was the minister of health there for a time, so I'm not sure why he was a member of the American Association of Endocrinologists to begin with.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

08/14 Links Pt2: Communism’s early anti-Zionism campaign; Murdered Hamas hostage Itzik Elgert tortured to death; Toronto film festival backtracks on 7 October documentary ban

From Ian:

Yisrael Medad: Communism’s early anti-Zionism campaign

Izabella Tabarovsky published an important essay last year in Tablet magazine titled “Zombie Anti-Zionism.” Its thesis is that the left is still addicted to “warmed-over Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda from half a century ago.”

That propaganda targeted “the Soviet-sponsored Third World” and started around 1967. Specifically, “the precise language used by the anti-Israel left today to condemn the Jewish state has been a conventional part of left-wing discourse for decades, and that it originated in the USSR,” beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In an earlier piece, she noted that 10 anti-Israel academics and BDS activists had established an Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, a step “toward rebuilding the long-forgotten Soviet discipline of “scientific anti-Zionism” on American college campuses. Its aim is “to support the delinking of the study of Zionism from Jewish Studies” and “to reclaim academia and public discourse for the study of Zionism.”

Tabarovsky is a senior advisor at the Kennan Institute, specializing in Eastern European history, and a scholar of Soviet anti-Zionism and contemporary left-wing antisemitism. In an Instagram post promoting her Zombie characterization piece, she emphasizes that the Soviets, after the Six-Day War in June 1967, revved up a linguistic campaign to undermine Israel. They “equated it with the central cause animating the Western left at the time: the war in Vietnam.”

They used terms such as “imperialist Zionist propaganda” and “anti-colonialism,” and promoted the “progressive and peace-loving” involvement of the Soviet Union. Israel was a “white imperial outpost.”

The Kremlin did indeed write the script. Spinoffs of this theme include a YouTube clip that goes back to the 1950s. However, they did not create, as it were, a Palestinian identity.

True, the idea that the Arab residents of Mandate Palestine viewed themselves as Southern Syrians, into the mid-1920s and on, is an important part of the ideological conflict. In 1926, it was suggested to call the Mandate “Southern Syria,” and back in 1920, at least until December, reunification with the territory of Syria was the local Arabs’ representative demand, as was clearly made.

But what was the role of the Communist ideology? And does today’s progressive approach echo it?

People who don’t believe that Islamists are planning on taking over. Jews who believe in supporting leftist governments. The silent majority who don’t think things are so bad. The not-so-silent minority who believe that Israel is wrong and Hamas is right.

To all of these…
— Rich Toronto (@rich_toronto) August 13, 2025

Seth Mandel: Mamdani Makes It Easy

The DSA held its national convention this weekend and did us all the favor of making clear that it is self-consciously incompatible with public service.

According to the Algemeiner, the first example of this was the passing of a resolution affirming the DSA’s adoption of Thawabit, “the principles originally set by the Palestinian National Council in 1977 and repeatedly reaffirmed since.” Accordingly, the resolution made it an expellable offense to say “Israel has a right to defend itself” or to “have knowingly provided material aid to Israel,” among others.

As a socialist organization, it’s not surprising that the DSA has instituted totalitarian-style Stalinist rules or that the group considers free speech among its primary threats. But I suppose they’ve at least simplified the process by making clear that if you want to know what to do and what not to do, just check with the Palestinian National Council first.

The other notable part of the convention was the existence of a resolution censuring Ocasio-Cortez for being too pro-Israel, which is a bit like accusing Gargamel’s cat of being too pro-Smurf. AOC’s biggest offense appears to be reversing her opposition to Iron Dome, the purely defensive Israeli missile-defense program whose only role in the conflict is to lower the total number of Jews killed by Palestinian terrorists. The resolution was not voted on but may be at a future conference.

Ethan Eblaghie, a co-author of the resolution, told City & State: “What this resolution … aims to do is for us to be able to indicate very clearly with Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s office that this is something that we feel very strongly is unacceptable, and that for us to continue to have any sort of productive working relationship with her, we would like to see her take much stronger positions.”

Eblaghie didn’t seem to think AOC would actually be expelled. The likely reason is that the DSA is too cowardly to do anything about her near-but-not-total disregard for Israeli civilians. But a better reason for her to avoid expulsion would be for Ocasio-Cortez to walk away from the organization of her own free will. Why would any politician want the grand wizards of the DSA exerting influence over them?

More important, why would any politician want their name to be associated with a classic race-war hate group?

Brendan O'Neill: As Bono now knows, you criticise Hamas at your peril

The backlash has been mad. Bono’s statement is ‘word soup’, says the Twittermob. It’s ‘billionaire pacifism’. He’s making excuses for Israel, the nutters cry, having clearly been brainwashed by its ‘right to self-defence’ blather. Yes, how mad to think the Jewish State should have the right to defend itself from an army of anti-Semites hell-bent on its obliteration. Some accuse U2 of ‘dripping in Israeli blood money’, because of course the only reason someone would slam Hamas and defend ‘Israel’s right to exist’ is because they’d been thrown a few shekels.

The Irish Independent wonders if Bono’s comments are ‘too little, too late’. It reports on the ‘furious’ response to his statement, including from academics in Dublin who say he’s giving too much ‘justification for Israel’. Irish singer Mary Coughlan branded Bono’s statement ‘very, very weak [and] very, very measured’. Measured! What a crime. Music journalist Louise Bruton said Bono should have been braver, sooner, like Kneecap.

And there you have it. We must cheer the hip-hop trio who celebrated the butchery of 7 October 2023 by posting a photo of themselves grinning like loons alongside the words ‘Solidarity with the Palestinian struggle’ on 8 October. And we must condemn the band that says Hamas is ‘evil’. Bow down to the balaclava-wearing eejits who yelp ‘Up Hamas’ and rage against the old guard of Irish rock who rightly accuse Hamas of racist mass murder. Cosy up to neo-fascists and you’re a hero – criticise neo-fascists and you’re clearly a blood-moneyed billionaire who deserves public shaming.

You couldn’t ask for better proof that popular culture has fallen under the spell not only of Israelophobia but of Islamo-fascism itself. The slavish conformism of the anti-Israel mania has blinded the cultural elites to balance, truth and basic moral decency. Bono’s true transgression is that he says he didn’t ‘speak out’ earlier because he felt ‘uncertainty in the face of obvious complexity’. Uncertainty? Complexity? These are verboten emotions under the rule of the keffiyeh mob. Only the most brutally reductive and fact-lite posturing is permitted. Israel is evil. Gaza is innocent. The End. Deviate from these cultish diktats forged more from bigotry than reality and you will be branded one of the Jews’ money-grubbing stooges.

Hopefully, Bono now knows there is no appeasing the neo-religious fury of Israelophobia. Only obsequious prostration before their commandments of loathing for Israel will suffice. 7 October was designed to ‘sow the seeds for a global intifada’, he said in his statement. Indeed – and the fruits of that global intifada can be seen in the fact that even an established rocker like you now criticises Jew-killers at your peril. Forget slamming Israel for likes, guys. It won’t work. Instead turn your ire on that very ‘global intifada’ that poses such a dire threat to Jews, liberty, the souls of our young and culture itself.

08/14 Links Pt1: An Allegedly Civilized World Genuflects to Hamas; Brown Study Says Gaza is the Deadliest War Ever for Journalists. It’s a Lie; Uefa accused of promoting Jewish ‘blood libel’

From Ian:

An Allegedly Civilized World Genuflects to Hamas

Suppose we had an incident like what Israel suffered on Oct. 7, 2023. The equivalent of 1,200 murdered in Israel is over 44,000 Americans.

Suppose they, like what Israel suffered through, were not just murdered but violently raped and sexually mutilated.

Would we negotiate with these creatures? Would their demands touch sympathetic chords among our population?

Could we even imagine granting them sovereignty next to us, knowing their great dream is that we are eliminated?

The Israelis would have to be crazy to concede autonomy to a Palestinian state with a history of terror.

There are some 50 majority-Muslim countries in the world. There is one Jewish state.

No solution will be reached if those who pretend to represent the civilized world give credibility to depraved murderers.

Please define, Western leaders, this Palestinian state

Watching France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia announce plans to recognize a Palestinian state is maddening. While 50 Israeli hostages, some alive and some dead, remain trapped in Hamas tunnels in the de facto Palestinian state of Gaza, these Western governments are sending a message: They are not with us.

They don’t seem to care about the hostages. They seem unmoved by footage of an emaciated Evyatar David, an innocent 21-year-old Israeli forced to dig his own grave in a tunnel in the coastal enclave. They ignore the truth that Israel’s war against Hamas is not about land, borders or statehood. These Western leaders are not bothered that the Houthis, from thousands of miles away, continue to fire rockets into Israeli land, despite having no territorial dispute with the Jewish state.

They must know that if the dispute between the Arab world and Israel were simply about borders, then it would have been resolved long ago.

Can French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese articulate where the so-called Palestinian state they want to recognize exists? Can they identify who governs it or where its borders are? These questions remain unanswered, but the mainstream media will not press world leaders on any of this. Why

Because much of the mainstream media agrees with these Western leaders and the more than 140 other nations that, CNN says, have or will recognize Palestinian statehood. Yet such recognition does not advance peace. Instead, it is a political slap in the face to Israel and the Jewish people in their home countries.

Many dismiss these recognitions as legally meaningless—a hollow gesture with no real-world impact—and so they don’t matter.

But they do. Not in the sense of changing facts on the ground but in continuing to shift the global climate against the Jewish state. These proclamations embolden our enemies and further isolate Israel diplomatically. And it serves as tacit support for the wave of antisemitism flooding the streets of their cities.

Western Recognition of a Palestinian State Is a Betrayal of Israel

On July 30, Robert Malley and Hussein Agha, known for their pro-Palestinian positions, published an op-ed in the UK's Guardian warning that Britain and France's recognition of a Palestinian state would actually undermine efforts to end the Gaza war. "This step is completely detached from reality and contradicts its own stated goals. It will do nothing to bring the sides closer to a two-state solution."

Israeli officials said the move amounts to giving a gift to terrorism. A terrorist organization that has effectively become an army, attacking Israel with a level of barbarism unseen since the Holocaust, is now being rewarded. Israel views the recognition moves not merely as betrayal but as active support by Western governments for Hamas and its Oct. 7 massacre. These Western governments have lowered Hamas's motivation to agree to a ceasefire or a hostage-release deal.

The fact remains that the Palestinians have no functioning governing or state infrastructure worthy of recognition. When they have been granted territory and the opportunity to govern, the entity created has descended into violent barbarism. Hamas's brutal aggression is directed not only at Israel but also at the civilians of Gaza, a level of exploitation of one's own population that experts say has no precedent in history.

Robert Satloff: The Twisted Logic behind Recognition of Palestinian Statehood

France, Britain, and Canada have announced their intention to extend full diplomatic recognition to the "state of Palestine" at the UN General Assembly next month. Recognition of Palestinian statehood may address some domestic political needs in Europe and Canada but it will do nothing to assuage the concerns of the constituency that matters most - Israel's voting public - which fears the dangers to its safety that might accompany Palestinian statehood, rejects the idea by a large majority, and has elected successive governments that reflect that view.

It is difficult to see the mechanism by which even near-global recognition of Palestinian statehood translates that concept into fact. The unalterable reality that has governed diplomacy since 1967 is that Israel needs to be convinced that its security will be enhanced, not threatened, by territorial withdrawal and the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state.

This requires winning over Israel's increasingly skeptical public, a fact that countries who choose the easy symbolism of recognizing a Palestinian state seem to ignore. The deeper reality is that the second intifada and two decades of diplomatic stalemate followed by the trauma of Oct. 7 have turned the vast Israeli center against the two-state solution.

Gaza Photographer Must Keep Asking Fat Guys To Stop Blocking His Shot Of Starving Kids (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Gaza City, August 14 - A propagandist responsible for producing heart-rending images of desperate, hungry children, expressed exasperation today at the number of times he has had to yell at overweight men getting in the way of his work.

Anas Sidrati, 34, works as a photographer on behalf of Hamas, charged with setting up and photographing scenes calculated to tug at the heartstrings of gullible westerners, causing the dupes to believe that those children suffer severe malnutrition and deprivation as a result of Israel's alleged blockade of food into the territory - Israel lets in thousands of tons of food each week - even as fat men and women prowl the area where he tries to set his scenes and take the photos, often obstructing the process.

"Do they not realize what I'm trying to do?" he wondered. "It's not just that they get in the way. I understand, it can get crowded, we're out in public places. That happens, and it's annoying, but it happens. The issue is that if they do get caught in a photo, it's not just a bad photo - it undermines the entire message of the photo! How am I supposed to produce images that scream 'Famine!' 'Starvation!' when right next to these supposedly-starving kids there are guys who, no offense, would make a hippo say, 'Dude could stand to drop a few kilos.'"

Anas admitted that so far, even when images with the fat men get shared on social media, the "starvation" narrative prevails. "I don't know whether it's dumb luck, or a fluke, or what," he surmised, "but I do know I wouldn't want to bank on it continuing. I want to do my work properly."

"Maybe if we had some emaciated adults, we could produce a more convincing body of work," he added. "No one here wants to volunteer. We could recruit from elsewhere, I suppose. But because of the blockade, we can't get our hands on any malnourished adults, either. Curse those Jews!"

Gaza photographers and vloggers in general voiced disappointment in the impact their work has had. While many point to the international opprobrium directed at Israel, some question whether the photographs and video clips in particular can claim any credit for the phenomenon: the war in Gaza has not so much created vitriol toward Jews and the Jewish State, so much as allowed people who already nurtured that genocidal hate to feel comfortable expressing it directly.

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Last December, researchers published a paper going into detail on how charity scams work. "Pirates of Charity: Exploring Donation-based Abuses in Social Media Platforms"

Recently, there has been an increase in fraudsters using social engineering tactics to trick people into donating to fake charities or causes. These tricks often include playing on sympathy and asking for a donation. ...Donation fraud, which is also commonly known as charity scam, is where scammers solicit money from individuals in the pretense of a charitable cause, disaster relief, or other seemingly legitimate reasons . ... The scammers deceive donors by pretending to represent real charities or by creating fictitious causes, often using emotional appeals to make urgent donations. Once the money is donated, it is typically diverted for the scammer’s personal use, and the intended cause or individuals in need receive no benefit.

This is a near perfect description of the Gaza aid scam. Except that instead of individual fraudsters, Hamas has managed to partner with NGOs and world governments to give it money in the guise of "aid for Gaza."

A quick comparison:

Scam charities use heart-string stories and photos: a sick child, injured pet, dying parent

Hamas propaganda uses vivid depictions of wounded children, demolished homes, funerals.

Scam charities emphasize that you must give money now, or else there will be catastrophic results.

Hamas propaganda has been saying the same thing since October 8.

Donors cannot verify the truth behind the story on the charity scam site.

Same with Gaza - all the information is controlled by Hamas.

Charity scams say how many people have already donated, to lend legitimacy to the cause.

The Hamas scam relies on world outrage, NGO statements and mass demonstrations to give the same psychological effect that everyone good is already deciding to be on their side.

Questioning a charity scam makes one look like they are cold-hearted.

Questioning Hamas casualty statistics or famine claims get the exact same kinds of responses.

They share the same DNA:

- Emotion before verification

- Absence of vetting

- Illusion of consensus

- Truth fragments repurposed for false conclusions

- Amplification through coordinated timing and mass sharing

When you send money to charity scams, a fraudster gets rich,

When you send money and social support to Gaza, Hamas stays in power.

I'm not saying that there is not misery in Gaza, but I am saying that the way that aid gets there is not transparent.

You wouldn't tolerate that in a real charity. Why does the world accept it when the beneficiary is a terror group?

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From Jordan's Ammon News:

In 1870, Jews revived the myth of the Yarmouk River and established two agricultural settlements on its northern bank in the Jerash Valley: one called Rahil (Rachel) (located between the villages of Duqara and Abu Zighan) and the other at Khirbet Aybta (near Majar, east of Jerash). These were intended as the nucleus for their future expansionist plans. A third settlement, Kfar Yehuda (today called Kfarhuda), was established in the Gilead region, halfway between Salt and the Jordan Valley, still referred to as “the Jew’s land” to this day. The settlers worked in agriculture during the day and stood guard at night, fearing attacks from neighboring residents. Four years later, they attempted to purchase additional lands to expand the settlements and bring in new settlers. At this point, Jordanians recognized the danger of a Jewish settlement nucleus on their lands and resolved to resist and thwart Zionist settlement in eastern Jordan.

In the summer of 1876, a meeting was held in the town of Sakab, known as “Sakab Night,” at the guesthouse of Sheikh Raja Mustafa Al-Ayasra to discuss the issue of Jewish land acquisitions in eastern Jordan. The meeting included sheikhs and notables from the Bani Hassan tribe and some northern Jordanian tribes, chaired by Sheikh Muflih Ubeidat, “Abu Kaid,” the sheikh of Kfar Som. The attendees decided to attack the two Jewish settlements with whatever weapons they had, and indeed, the fighters burned the settlements of Rahil and Khirbet Aybta, expelling the Jews from the area. They then proceeded to Salt and burned the third settlement, Kfar Yehuda. Afterward, the tribal leaders submitted a petition to the Ottoman Grand Vizier, demanding a ban on Jewish immigration to Jordan and Palestine and prohibiting their land acquisitions. This was the first nationalist action undertaken by Jordanians before the people of Palestine became aware of the Jewish threat, marking the first organized military operation against the Zionist idea on Jordanian and Arab lands, led by Muflih Al-Ubeidat. This action prevented Jewish settlement in our lands due to the early awareness of Jordanian tribes of the dangers of the Zionist project.

I've seen this mentioned (and celebrated) in other Arabic sites, but I haven't been able to find confirmation from Jewish sources. It is plausible that Arabs attacked Jewish farms - it happened a few years later at Rishon LeTzion.

This was all before Herzl and the idea of a modern Jewish state. In other words, this was not a coordinated attack on Zionists, but on Jews.

It is hardly surprising that Jews built communities on the east bank of the Jordan - everyone knew that as part of Palestine in the 19th century. The article's pretense that there was a separate "Jordanian" identity is as absurd as thinking there was a Palestinian Arab identity at the time.

So this article is a celebration of ethnic cleansing of Jews from Transjordan in the 19th century.

Not Zionists, not nationalists - Jews.

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Did @Netanyahu get ambushed with a "Greater Israel" question?

From Times of Israel:

Several Arab countries expressed dismay on Wednesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a day earlier that he felt a connection to the vision of the “Promised Land” and “Greater Israel.”

In an interview with i24News aired on Tuesday evening, Netanyahu was asked by network anchor Sharon Gal if he “feels a connection” to a “vision” of the biblical Promised Land, as depicted in an amulet that Gal had just given him. Netanyahu responded: “Very much.”

Gal stressed to him, “It is Greater Israel.” Netanyahu responded, “If you ask me, we are here,” paused, and then turned the subject to the role of his father’s generation in establishing Israel and his own generation’s responsibility to ensure Israel’s survival.

Gal sells the pendants so we can see what he gave Netanyahu. Here it is:

This is a map showing a version of Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates.

But the pendant can easily be viewed this way:

Which, if only glanced at for a second, could easily be mistaken for a map of Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights.

The words "Greater Israel" has two meanings - one roughly the area of British Mandate Palestine and the other the Biblical promise extending from the Nile to the Euphrates. It seems entirely possible that Sharon Gal, who uses the latter definition, trapped Bibi by using the same phrase that could mean two things while handing him in real time a pendant that could be mistaken for the smaller one.

This is a difference between 28,000 and 1.5 million square kilometers.

There is no way Netanyahu supports an Israel that extends over that vast amount of territory, not to mention the 250 million Arabs who live in that area. But some extreme right-wing Israelis do want that, and the Arab world is convinced that this is what all Israelis want - and now they have "proof."

I think Bibi got ambushed to say what Gal wanted him to say, without clarifying what definition of "Greater Israel" was being discussed.

And the media is eating this up.

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Gaza NGOs meet secretly with Gaza Humanitarian Foundation - and @UNRWA is PISSED

Last week, representatives of several NGOs working in Gaza - including UN OCHAA, WFP, UNICEF and the ICRC - met with the head of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation under the auspices of the US UN team. They had a cordial meeting about how the rhetoric against the GHF has not been helpful and starting to explore how they could work together to bring much needed food into Gaza.

When UNRWA found out about the meeting, it sent out an angry memo - how dare anyone treat GHF as anything but a Zionist and American organization that wants to murder Gazans?

Here is the leaked memo of the initial meeting:

From: "Hart, Tom" thart@interaction.org (mailto:thart@interaction.org)
Subject: Confidential read out of meeting with UN and GHF - from Joyce and Tom H
Date: 7 August 2025 at 05:14:45 CEST
To: IASC Chair iascchair@un.org (mailto:iascchair@un.org), IASC Principals IASCPrincipals@un.org (mailto:IASCPrincipals@un.org)

Dear IASC colleagues -

The US mission to the UN, led by Ambassador Dorothy Shea, organized a private meeting with a small group of us and Johnnie Moore, Executive Chairman of the GHF. The full participant list is at the end. We agreed there would be no public comment on the meeting and we were under Chatham House rules.

The conversation was constructive, open, and we believe helpful. We agreed it would be good for all to lower the public rhetoric and to focus on moving forward rather than what has happened or said previously. We agreed the need was far outpacing the response and the crisis required all-hands-on-deck. Everyone should be doing everything they can to save lives.

There was a sense we could and should operate in parallel, complementary ways, each doing what we can. Fuller collaboration was raised without clarity on what that would mean. Several concerns with the GHF model were tabled based on humanitarian principles. All agreed that flooding the zone would have multiple benefits - most importantly to those in need, as well as to reduce the desperation and chaos at GHF sites and UN convoys, and to diminish the value aid and the risk of diversion to Hamas.

Bureaucratic impediments were raised as a major concern, including visas, staff registration, and security, with no resolution but openness to having further conversation. We shared we have seen no appreciable difference in access since Israel announced daily pauses and humanitarian corridors.

We agreed further conversations on diversion, how to flood the zone, how working in a complementary way might work, and connecting country-level teams. These issues will be managed at the technical level.

Joyce M and Tom H

List of Attendees:
USUN:Ambassador Dorothy Shea
Jonathan Shrier
Morgan Ortagus
Ari Wisch
Bo Sim, PRM detail

Johnnie Moore, GHF
Joyce Msuya, OCHA
Ayaka Qureshi, WFP
Amina Elmi, UNICEF
Michele Sison, IOM
Elyse Mosquini, ICRC
Tom Hart, InterAction

This is how humanitarians should act - finding ways to work together and playing to each of their strengths. Notice also that the memo tacitly admits that aid gets diverted to Hamas.

UNRWA's letter was as angry as a diplomatic letter can get. The pro-terror agency that pretends to be humanitarian is extremely upset at any aid program that bypasses Hamas.

For example, in response to the idea that all players should "lower the public rhetoric," UNRWA wrote:

The United Nations and our protection partners have a clear obligation to advocate for and protect Palestinians subject to human rights and IHL violations, including when these are associated with the GHF. Silence in the face of incidents that may amount to war crimes - which have continued since last week's meeting - may be perceived as complicity. This may prompt conclusions that humanitarian principles have been subordinated to political or military objectives, which would have consequences for humanitarian action beyond Gaza. The same applies to any proposed cooperation with the GHF.

As far as cooperating with GHF, UNRWA is no less angry:

It would also be important to clarify the proposed follow up to the meeting last week, including at the technical and operational levels, to prevent a fracturing of the humanitarian community in Gaza and further endanger humanitarian operations and personnel.

This is right out of the Hamas playbook - everyone must be on the same page of demonizing anything remotely connected with Israel, or else.

Remember, UNRWA has cooperated with Hamas for years. It has employed numerous Hamas members. When Hamas tells it to change its Gaza school curriculum, it changes it. It has had its own secret meetings - not with aid agencies but with terror groups.

There is no daylight between UNRWA and Hamas. I mean, literally zero. They both want the exact same thing - aid continuing to strengthen a murderous terror organization, and boycotting anyone who tries to find an alternative.

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08/13 Links Pt2: Human rights orgs. should demand Al Jazeera stop hiring terrorists; Toronto Film Festival Cancels October 7 Documentary; The Evil Idea That Has Taken Over the Woke Right

From Ian:

Israel, Protector of the West, Treacherously Undermined by France, UK, Canada and Australia

Macron's announcement to recognize a fantasy "Palestinian state" not only demolished the negotiations that were reportedly nearing completion for a ceasefire and the return of the 50 remaining hostages; it also might cause the death by starvation, shooting or explosives possibly strapped to them, of the 20 hostages believed to be alive

The Druze -- a small ethnically Arab religious minority that originated as a breakaway from the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam -- do not consider themselves Muslim. Therefore, the other Arabs in Syria do not consider them Muslim either. For months, regime "security forces" have been slaughtering them. Islamic terrorists believe that they are obligated to slaughter anyone not Muslim, based on passages in the Qur'an.

Something appears wrong with this picture. Al-Sharaa promised Trump that he would protect Syria's minorities; so far, he seems to be doing everything but that.

In the latest of these opposition demonstrations, on July 21, dozens of protestors in Gaza shouted "Hamas Out." There is still strong reason to doubt, however, however, if Gazans would be more favorably inclined toward Israel if Hamas were gone.

Israel is already over-extended in defending virtually every minority in the region – while receiving nothing but opprobrium from most of the insensate media and many in Europe. They seem not to realize that they are the beneficiaries of Israel's actions, even as they keep on giving away their continent to newcomers who seem intent on replacing Europe's values with their own.

The question remains, however, if Syria's al-Sharaa in is not still just a terrorist, but in a suit and tie.

Jonathan Tobin: The futility of compassion for those who want to kill you

Validating blood libels
Even worse, it provides Jewish validation for the mendacious Hamas propaganda campaign that alleges that Israel is committing genocide and deliberately starving Palestinians.

Too many Jewish groups, including liberal religious denominations, have chimed in to support a false narrative that the Israeli government’s resolve to continue fighting until Hamas is eradicated is unjust or an act of aggression, as opposed to a defensive war that needs to be won. Influenced by biased liberal media coverage, they take it for granted that blood libels about starvation and genocide are at least partially true, and not just canards rooted in antisemitism.

Israel’s many efforts to trade land for peace in the past didn’t solve the conflict. In fact, it only convinced its foes of the validity of their false claim that the Jewish state’s presence in Judea and Samaria, as well as Jerusalem, was illegal and that the Israelis were behaving as if they were criminals holding onto stolen property.

Rather than a demonstration of Jewish morality, donations aimed at alleviating Palestinian suffering are more likely to convince the recipients and their foreign cheerleaders that they are a manifestation of Jewish guilt and an indication that these Americans feel that they are complicit in Israeli crimes against humanity. In this way, it will buttress the very same blood libel about genocide that UJA says it opposes and help encourage the surge of antisemitism that followed on the heels of the attacks on Israel.

While being charitable sounds like the right thing to do, it won’t do much to help people caught up in the war. But it will be held up as evidence that even Israel’s American Jewish supporters understand that they are part of an evil conflict.

Once the war is over and Hamas eradicated, there will be a time when aid to Gaza might do some good—provided, that is, that the Palestinians are ready to move on from their obsession with an endless, futile war to destroy the Jewish state. Until then, Jewish funds should be exclusively directed toward alleviating the very real suffering of Israeli victims of the war, the wounded and the families of those slain by Hamas, as well as the health of the hostages, and rebuilding the communities sacked by Palestinians who took part in the Oct. 7 invasion and assault.

Doing so isn’t selfish, especially when considering that foreign charities, countries and the United Nations spending so much on Gaza are indifferent to the war’s impact on Israelis.

Compassion, even for one’s enemies, may seem high-minded. And, of course, we deplore all the deaths and the suffering that this war has brought to both sides. However, when it is applied to those who wish you dead, it becomes an incentive for hate, not an act of kindness. Donating to Gaza now isn’t an indication of a healthy moral compass. It’s a particularly dysfunctional indication of having lost one.

JPost Editorial: Human rights orgs. should demand Al Jazeera stop hiring terrorists, not condemn Israel

The evidence seems irrefutable. Sharif may have been a journalist, but he was also a Hamas member. And as such, given his euphoric social media posts on October 7, 2023, praising the Hamas massacre of innocent Israelis, he wasn’t an objective bystander – he was an enemy of Israel. Putting a “press” sticker on his shirt doesn’t give him immunity.

The disclosures about Sharif put Al Jazeera in an even darker light than it found itself in last year when Israel banned the media network from having offices and broadcasting from the country.

However, Israel isn’t alone in being suspicious of the Qatar-funded network. No less than The New York Times, in a Tuesday report on Al Jazeera, acknowledged it, writing that “in 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain all banned Al Jazeera amid a diplomatic spat with Qatar. Along with Egypt, the countries had accused Al Jazeera of backing terror groups.”

Even the Palestinian Authority has outlawed the network, which has no credibility, either inside or outside the Arab world.

Instead of condemning Israel, journalists' associations and human rights organizations should be demanding that Al Jazeera stop employing terrorists in their midst. Its policy of doing so puts bona fide journalists in grave danger.

The issue of whether the military benefits of eliminating al-Sharif outweigh the international pummeling Israel has taken as a result of it is something the army and the government will have to grapple with.

However, to accuse Israel of deliberately targeting journalists and ignoring al-Sharif’s Hamas connection is being disingenuous – but not surprising.