11/12 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The absolute necessity of fighting back; The left’s despicable absolution of Hamas; Avi Issacharoff: 'I Went Undercover In Palestinian Territory… And Nearly Died'

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The absolute necessity of fighting back

At this exceptionally alarming time, when bad people in Israel and the West seem to have the wind behind them, two developments have lifted the spirits.

A mob of masked protesters wearing keffiyehs and carrying Palestinian flags staged a “bicycle boycott” ride in Philadelphia to target and intimidate Jewish- and Israeli-owned businesses. They hadn’t expected that thousands of people would turn up to defend the Jews and actually outnumber the mob, forcing some of those louts to abandon the demonstration.

The second development involves 13 Republican-led U.S. states that have threatened trade reprisals and divestment measures against the United Kingdom and the Netherlands over their proposed trade sanctions targeting Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria.

In both instances, civilization has begun fighting back against those running interference for barbarism.

The barbarians have gained the upper hand in the West because the decent majority of them haven’t understood that a war is being waged against them and their society in which they must either muster their courage to fight or lose their way of life.

The situation in Iran shows what happens when people flinch from this. In February, U.S. President Donald Trump didn’t flinch. He bombed Iran—albeit only after Israel had risked its own people to make the skies safe for American warplanes.

But then Trump flinched, refusing to allow Israel to continue to attack and thus further degrade Tehran’s ability to lash out. The result was Iran’s seizing control of the Straits of Hormuz, stepping up attacks on neighboring Arab states, and replenishing its ballistic-missile and other military programs.

The high oil price and spikes in the cost of living resulting from this continuing Iranian aggression helped produce the Republican rout in the midterms.

If Trump really had defeated the regime instead of the patently false victory that he has repeatedly claimed, even America’s anti-war public would have been impressed, his enemies on both sides of the political divide would have been unable to use the war against him, and the oil price would have gone down.

Instead, a re-energized Tehran has been gloating that it has defeated America in both the Straits of Hormuz and in Washington, D.C.

And it’s stepping up its efforts to sow terror around the world.

Bond between Jews and Iranians ‘fundamental,’ says exiled crown prince on Auschwitz visit

Iran's exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, has celebrated the historic relationship between Jews and Persians during a visit to Auschwitz, warning that the Islamic Republic wants to “finish what Hitler has done”.

Pahlavi received the European Jewish Association's (EJA) King Solomon Award at a ceremony in Krakow on Monday evening, before joining an international delegation of politicians, diplomats and Jewish community leaders at Auschwitz-Birkenau on Tuesday.

Addressing the gathering, he reflected on more than 2,500 years of shared history, invoking the legacy of Persian King Cyrus the Great, who liberated the Jews from Babylonian captivity and enabled the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.

“The bond between Iranians and the Jewish people is not a matter of sentiment and is not a matter of political convenience. It is older,” Pahlavi said.

“It is a fundamental part of Iranian history that we are truly proud of.”

He argued that the relationship between the two peoples should not be defined by the current Iranian government, but by centuries of shared history and the possibility of a different future.

The award recognised his opposition to antisemitism and his support for closer relations between Iran and Israel.

Brendan O'Neill: The left’s despicable absolution of Hamas

They’re all at it. ‘This is not a natural disaster. This is man-made genocide’, says US congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. These ‘apocalyptic conditions’, this ‘abomination’, is all down to Israel, commentators say. It is ‘pure evil’, said actor John Cusack while sharing what appears to be an AI-generated video of neck-high flooding. What’s being argued here is as insane as it is defamatory. They’re not only saying Israel has been neglectful towards post-war Gaza – they’re saying it has intentionally let freezing waters slosh as part of its fiendish crusade to finish off the Palestinians. Apparently even rain becomes a tool of extermination under the rule of this unholiest nation.

This kind of commentary, so commonplace now, doesn’t only slander the Jewish homeland – it also absolves Hamas. By converting every hardship into evidence of Israeli depravity, Western pundits wipe the moral slate clean for the jihadist gang that actually runs Gaza. They wilfully overlook that the suffering of the people in Gaza, including in these floods, is primarily down to the fact that their ruthless Islamist rulers cannibalised their own municipal infrastructure to fuel their cosmic war on the Jews.

There’s a reason Gaza has poor water infrastructure – because Hamas spent years ripping water pipes out of the ground to turn them into rocket fuselages for their holy crusade against the Jewish homeland. This is not an ‘anti-Hamas smear’ – the army of anti-Semites itself has boasted of its subterranean vandalism. It has proudly released footage of its operatives digging up municipal pipelines, sawing through the metal tubing, and fashioning these arteries of water into weapons of death for the Jews. A pro-Hamas documentary on Al-Jazeera showed the militants making rockets from dug-up ‘metal water pipes’ and ‘unexploded Israeli munitions’.

Hamas has even crowed about the fact that it turned EU-funded pipelines into weaponry. As the Telegraph reported three years ago, some of the ‘30 miles of water pipelines’ gifted to Gaza by Brussels were bent into ‘an arsenal of home-made rockets’. As even the BBC said in 2021, the reason Israel banned the importing of ‘dual-use’ goods into Gaza – including pipes, cement and iron – is because there exists footage showing Hamas ‘ma[king] missiles from water pipes’.

A core reason that Gaza is ill-prepared for storms is because its theocratic rulers converted virtually the entire Strip into an engine of fascistic war. For 20 years in Gaza, civic planning has played a poor second to the logistical requirements of anti-Jewish violence. Hamas chose to build not a functioning society but a staging ground for slaughter. Pipes became missiles, hospitals became weapons depots, schools became rocket-launching facilities. And of course, foreign aid was used to build the estimated 350-mile tunnel system in which Hamas hides and plots as its subjects above ground are forced to flee the missiles of the war Hamas started with its mass murder of Jews.

It is a grotesque lie of omission to leave out such brutal truths in the discussion of Gaza’s suffering. We are witnessing the moral absolution of Hamas by a cultural establishment hell-bent on blaming the Jewish State for everything. This has been the modus operandi of the West’s media elites and activist classes since the pogrom of 7 October, and in fact earlier: to monster the Jewish State and infantilise its enemies. To depict Israel as the sole and evil author of every calamity in the Middle East, and Arabs as wide-eyed, child-like victims.

This is the double racism of Israelophobia. The Jewish nation is defamed as a uniquely monstrous entity, while the Arab side is robbed of agency and treated as the helpless infant of history. Even Hamas. Even an avowedly racist army that turned a whole strip of land into a subterranean fortress of death is let off the hook. The Jews are omnipotent, the Arabs pathetic. This is progressive politics now? That’s what the floods discussion reveals: that Israel and Gaza have been flattened into props for a moral psychodrama penned by bigoted Westerners. The flooding of Gaza is terrible. So is the flooding of Western commentary with lies about Israel and apologism for the Islamo-Nazis that want to destroy it.

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11/12 Links Pt1: Israel targets Hamas chief planning attacks from Nasser Hospital; Elliott Abrams: Where Does the U.S.-Israel Relationship Go from Here?; The intellectual fraud and moral vacuity of Benjamin Moser

From Ian:

Gen. (ret.) David H. Petraeus: It Matters How the Iran War Ends

Everyone wants the war with Iran to end. But how it ends is what matters. A settlement that lets Iran restore its revenue and maritime commerce, continue to threaten navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, rebuild its nuclear program and keep its highly enriched uranium wouldn't advance American and allied interests. It would set the conditions for the next crisis.

The U.S. has three essential goals: restore freedom of navigation through the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, account for and neutralize Iran's nearly 1,000 pounds of uranium enriched to 60%, and impose enforceable limits on nuclear enrichment. None of this requires regime change, occupation or indefinite war. These are the minimum requirements for a durable settlement.

Freedom of navigation can't mean temporary permission from Tehran for favored countries, routes Iran can close at will or a pause in attacks conditioned on concessions. Iran's uranium enriched to 60% could be used in a crude nuclear device without further enrichment or enriched to weapons-grade rapidly. The objective shouldn't be merely to dispose of yesterday's material but to prevent Iran from quickly re-creating the same nuclear threat tomorrow.

The U.S. shouldn't lift the blockade, release substantial frozen funds, or permit renewed Iranian oil exports in exchange for a promise that Tehran will reopen the strait and discuss the nuclear questions later. That would trade concrete American leverage for reversible commitments.

Iran should first stop attacking ships and help clear maritime hazards. It should then restore IAEA access, fully account for the enriched uranium and accept enforceable limits on enrichment. The blockade could be lifted, frozen assets released, and the U.S. force posture reduced only after safe passage is in effect, the 60% stockpile has been neutralized, and the nuclear restrictions and inspections are operating.

If You Think War Is Unpopular, Wait Till You See Defeat

Sometimes good politics is bad policy and good policy is bad politics, which brings me to our current fight against Iran. War is unpopular. It always has been. War is expensive, unpredictable and, most important, deadly. It almost always takes longer than planners thought and is deadlier than experts estimated.

Only a few years after World War II, President Truman made the unpopular decision to send American forces to Korea to prevent the people of the peninsula from falling under the yoke of tyranny. Americans didn't want another war. They were tired of overseas combat and wanted to focus on domestic issues.

Truman paid a price in the 1950 midterms, as his opponents made significant gains in Congress and public support for the war deteriorated. But his backbone in prosecuting the war saved half the Korean Peninsula from totalitarianism and solidified the U.S. position against the Soviets in the Cold War.

History often vindicates difficult decisions that were deeply unpopular in their time. Our fight against Iran will prove no different. This isn't a fight for Israel or Saudi Arabia. It is a fight for Western civilization and the security of American families.

The radical Islamist forces that control Iran and their proxy groups seek the destruction of the U.S. and all Western civilization. They have kidnapped, tortured, murdered and maimed thousands of Americans and many more innocent people worldwide.

They will use all weapons at their disposal to blackmail their neighbors, build regional (and eventually global) hegemony, and forge themselves into a world power that can't be confronted. The war is unpopular, but defeat would be far less popular. We owe it to our country and the West to finish the job.

Elliott Abrams: Where Does the U.S.-Israel Relationship Go from Here?

The U.S.-Israel relationship is under assault in both parties. Both the Senate and the House will have dedicated opponents of all aid to Israel, including even the sale of defensive weapons. They will see moves like an end to military assistance as weak half-measures, when much more must be demanded.

These views do not command a majority in the Democratic caucus, nor are they held by Chuck Schumer, the likely majority leader, or Hakeem Jeffries, the likely House speaker. But they now have a firm base in Congress and in the Democratic Party; policies that were considered fringe and extremist a few years ago will now be seriously debated.

It can be predicted that Democratic leaders will look for compromises that can maintain party unity, and every compromise with the new anti-Israel team will weaken U.S.-Israel ties and Israel's defenses. The DSA crew will fight every line in a new memorandum of understanding with Israel on future military and high-tech cooperation.

They will oppose any U.S. or joint efforts against the Iranian nuclear weapons program. They will adopt the widespread European demand for immediate recognition of a Palestinian state. They will seek sanctions against Israeli military and political leaders, and boycotts that separate Israeli companies and banks from the U.S. economy.

Poll: 71 Percent of U.S. Voters Support Israel over Hamas

A Harvard CAPS/ Harris Poll taken on Oct. 24-26, 2026, found that 71% of U.S. voters support Israel over Hamas, while 75% agree that there are terrorist groups on Israel's borders including Hamas and Hizbullah.

72% say Hizbullah should be required to disarm.

77% think Israel has a right to exist as the homeland of the Jewish People, including 62% of those aged 18-24.

52% would be less likely to vote for a politician who called for the complete destruction of Israel, while 22% would be more likely, including 46% of those aged 18-24.

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Afula Bakery Shocks Public With Product Not Smothered In Sesame (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook and Substack pages.

Afula, November 12 - Northern Israel buzzed today with scandal as reports emerged of a breads-and-pastries establishment that omitted a customary topping, thus calling into question whether the absence of that topping renders burekas, rolls, or crackers even worthy of those names.

Maafiyat HaShlosha on Hertzl Street set out various baked goods this morning without a liberal application of sesame seeds, in violation of generations' worth of local culinary sensibilities that view the topping with a level of obligation that ranges from Divine Commandment to Dying Wish of a Beloved Relative. Most passers-by reacted with horror.

Fortuna Elgazi, 84, collapsed upon seeing the naked baked goods; paramedics took her to HaEmek Medical Center, where, as of this afternoon, doctors had her in stable condition.

A crowd of yelling men, mostly in late middle age, gathered at the HaShlosha display window. Several pronounced Berber curses on the bakery's proprietors; others made loud remarks calling into question the parental legitimacy of the shop's owners going back six generations.

Municipal officials dispatched social workers to the scene to help victims process the trauma. "Right now we appear to have somewhere between fifteen and thirty cases of shock, with one hospitalization," stated Afula Municipality spokeswoman Shoshi Shirazi. "No physical injury has so far been recorded, though paramedics are on scene in case that occurs. Police have come as well. The risk remains high that tempers will still flare over this offense."

Law enforcement personnel have so far kept all but the least-threatening-looking customers out of the bakery, and none of the establishment's staff, which according to locals belong to one extended family, have emerged. One journalist managed to get through to HaShlosha by phone; the business's personnel hung up after admonishing the reporter that the phone exists only for orders, and please do not tie up the line with other pursuits.

Experts have already called the incident the country's most dramatic social faux pas in years. "This almost sinks as low as the Hanukkah jelly donut in Netanya that used real fruit content," recalled Haaretz Research Department Director Alon Schultz. "The school where it happened nearly had a riot. Falling afoul of tradition, snobbishness - the family that brought them for their kid's class was almost run out of town."

Shirazi later confirmed that the bakery had reopened under police escort after the proprietors agreed to apply “an emergency sesame layer of traditional thickness” to all remaining stock. By evening the street had largely emptied, though several men remained stationed outside the window, periodically announcing that they were only there to make sure the coating stayed dense. HaEmek released Fortuna Elgazi later that night; she told reporters she intended to return the next morning “to check if they learned anything.”

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Books by Elder of Ziyon

Reclaiming the Covenant Protocols He's an Anti-Zionist Too! At Ptach Lo (ebook) The Muslim Question (ebook, $8) Sarah Makes the World Better (ages 3-8)

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