Sunday, November 15, 2026
Elder of ZiyonThis article I wrote was originally published by Institute for the Critical Study of Antizionism.
Saturday, November 14, 2026
From Ian:
John Spencer: The Evil of NAZA
John Spencer: The Evil of NAZA
In the entire film, there is no specific strike documented in enough detail to assess the allegation of Israeli misconduct. The viewer cannot reconstruct any attack mentioned, starting from the intelligence and going through approval to its outcome. There was and is no lack of acknowledged strikes. In numerous cases, the IDF has publicly announced what or who was the target and what the precautions were. Yet, because no strike is documented in that detail, viewers are never able to apply the elements of the allegation to anything but their own imaginations.Will former Hague prosecutor compensate captivity survivors?
NAZA’s filmmakers do not tell their audience that assessing expected civilian harm is a requirement of the law of armed conflict—and that formal collateral damage estimates are a regular practice of militaries across the world. This is a required step in the law of armed conflict’s core principle of proportionality. It requires those planning or deciding on an attack to assess the incidental civilian harm expected from the attack and weigh it against any concrete and direct military advantage anticipated to be gained from the attack. The nation or actor considering the strike must refrain from an attack if the expected incidental harm would be excessive in relation to that advantage. As part of the process, it must also take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize incidental civilian harm.
The U.S. military calls the process “collateral damage estimates” (CDE) and has long used intelligence and computer tools to conduct those estimates before an attack. U.S. military doctrine, such as the instruction titled “No-Strike and the Collateral Damage Estimation Methodology,” details how analysts are to use imagery and other intelligence to identify military targets and any civilian presence and/or protected facilities. Automated tools support the assessment, while weapons testing and computer models provide estimates of potential weapon effects.
Where casualty estimates are required, analysts consider building dimensions, construction, the area exposed to those effects, and estimated civilian occupancy during the day or night. The doctrine discusses conducting targeted intelligence collection about civilian activity and that it should replace general-population estimates when available. The CDE process also considers ways to reduce harm through weapon selection, timing, and other precautions. The doctrine explicitly recognizes that these assessments contain uncertainty and cannot predict the exact outcome of an attack.
Calculating expected civilian casualties helps a military meet its legal obligations, but the calculation alone cannot establish whether it has met them. It is not by itself evidence of an intention to kill civilians. All attacks should be assessed based on examining the intelligence, anticipated military advantage, precautions, and decisions involved.
The testimony of the anonymous sources in NAZA alleges deliberate killing, but the film does not supply the records and circumstances needed to test those allegations. Nor does it document the anticipated civilian harm, military advantage, and precautions for any strikes so viewers can assess whether an attack was disproportionate. Most of all, two directors and one anonymous soldier calling the war a genocide does not make that repellent and slanderous assertion true.
The film’s use of Holocaust-remembrance footage leads it into its most insidious strategy. By framing IDF service as a modern version of Nazi complicity, NAZA perpetuates Holocaust inversion. The Nazis constructed an industrialized, systematic killing machine to exterminate millions of defenseless, unarmed civilians, many of whom were citizens of their own country, posed no military threat, had no army, and held no hostages. That comparison erases the distinction between the extermination of defenseless civilians and a war against an armed enemy operating among civilians.
NAZA is misleading even in its title. It takes a military term for collateral damage and presents the effort to estimate civilian harm as evidence of an intention to kill civilians. The film’s flashes of destruction, political speeches, and Holocaust imagery carry the audience far beyond the targeting practices it claims to investigate. It is, instead, designed to depict Israel as monstrous and Israelis as Nazi-like villains. That is why the directors are so cavalier about misleading their audience about military terminology, the law of armed conflict, common military practices, and common sense. All they really want is for people who see it to come away from their disgraceful work substituting the letter “I” from “Nazi” for the “A” in NAZA.
The Jerusalem District Court has ordered Karim Khan, the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, to pay NIS 25 million in damages to Eitan Mor and the families of Avinatan Or and Omri Miran, who were abducted by Hamas.How an evolutionary biologist is taking the fight to the 'mutating virus' of anti-Zionism
Judge Eran Shilo issued the default judgment after Khan failed to file a defense, despite having been duly served with the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed in August 2025, while Eitan Mor, Avinatan Or and Omri Miran were still being held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. All three were released about two months after it was filed.
The lawsuit centered on the allegation that Khan's conduct in his role at the court in The Hague contributed to the hostages' continued captivity. The families alleged that he refrained from taking legal action against Hamas and Islamic Jihad figures whom they held responsible for holding the hostages.
According to the lawsuit, Khan waited eight months before seeking arrest warrants for three senior Hamas leaders: Mohammed Deif, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh. It further alleged that he linked those applications to requests for arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The plaintiffs also noted that Khan refrained from seeking arrest warrants for additional senior Hamas officials and Islamic Jihad leaders, including figures who were outside the Gaza Strip and involved in conducting negotiations with Israel.
The families argued that his failure to act against those figures allowed the terrorist organizations to continue holding the hostages. The lawsuit also alleged that Khan drew an improper moral equivalence between Israel and the terrorist organizations, and that his decisions were influenced by extraneous considerations.
The damages were awarded by default due to Khan's absence, rather than following a full examination of both sides' arguments in evidentiary proceedings.
Flipping the script and building the tool-kit
Rather than trying to convert every casual critic into an ardent Zionist, Expose Antizionism Now aims to equip ordinary people with the language, confidence, and conversational strategies needed to challenge anti-Zionist premises in daily life, whether at a PTA meeting, an HR office, or the dinner table.
“From the position of our organization, we do not need you to be a Zionist,” Spielman clarified. “We just need you to be against anti-Zionism. I’m not trying to convert you to Zionism; I’m trying to get you to recognize that there’s something a little bit sick about the anti-Zionist movement, and that that is a problem.
“We have been taking the bait for a long time,” Spielman continued. “Someone levels an accusation against Israel or Zionism, and because we feel passionately, we launch into a defense. That feels really good to us, but it doesn’t move the needle at all, because the person we’re talking to operates in a completely different factual and emotional universe. By accepting the premise that Israel needs to be defended, we validate the accusation.”
Spielman’s approach focuses on shifting the power dynamic of the interaction.
“Instead of launching into a defense, ask them: ‘Where did you get that idea? Do you know what anti-Zionism is? Do you know where that concept comes from?’” she suggested. “All of a sudden, they have to answer something instead of you. You aren’t going to change someone’s mind in one conversation, but you plant a seed. You make a crack in their worldview.”
To operationalize this approach, Spielman is building a comprehensive tool kit with her volunteer team, which includes their academic adviser, Prof. Andrew Pessin, founder of the Institute for the Critical Study of Antizionism. This includes downloadable community discussion kits, local training modules, and an AI-driven educational tool called Azaryah.
Azaryah allows users to chat interactively with an AI trained on the history, rhetoric, and tropes of anti-Zionism.
“It’s a partner for engaging on these issues,” Spielman explains. “You can chat with it about anti-Zionism’s history, how it functions as an ideology, and get feedback on how to have strategic conversations, set boundaries, or determine if you’re in a safe conversation. It democratizes the learning so people can engage with this information at their own schedule.”
Stripping the social permission: A strategic campaign
Operating in the Philadelphia area, a region experiencing acute political friction over anti-Israel activism, Spielman’s effort is scaling up as a grassroots start-up. Currently run by dedicated volunteers, Expose Antizionism Now is seeking seed funding and donor backing to expand its operations and deploy Azaryah at scale.
For Spielman, the battle against anti-Zionism requires walking away from superficial media outrage and focusing on long-term cultural change.
“We have to embark on that process in a very intentional, strategic way,” Spielman emphasized.
“Instead of playing Whack-A-Mole with whatever Ed Sheeran story of the week there is, we need to focus on what anti-Zionism actually gives people today. It feels good to them. It gives them a social community, a sense of righteousness, and access to elite spaces. It takes a long time for that to be beaten back, but we have to start beating it back.”
To those hesitant to confront anti-Zionist activism directly, she offers a stark historical parallel.
“A lot of the pushback that you sometimes get is, ‘Oh, well, I can’t condemn anti-Zionism because the anti-Zionists are proud of it,’” she noted. “Yeah, they are, because they think it’s a moral stance. But we have shown in the past that the Ku Klux Klan is not a moral stance. We can do this, too. We have that ability.”
Removing that social cover remains the ultimate goal.
“We need a reality where there is no more social permission, and certainly no social benefits, to being anti-Zionist,” Spielman concluded.
“Anti-Zionism’s outcomes are not freedom for Palestinians; its outcomes are the decimation of Jewish communities. It’s time we start beating it back in a deliberate, intentional, and strategic way.
Friday, November 13, 2026
From Ian:
The 'Israel controls America' myth has a long history - and an antisemitic foundation
The 'Israel controls America' myth has a long history - and an antisemitic foundation
Run the test anywhere else. In 1950, North Korea threatened South Korea’s existence and America’s only indirectly. Harry S. Truman sent troops, and nearly 37,000 Americans died. No one accused Syngman Rhee of controlling the White House.Trump says US antisemitism at levels ‘like Germany in 1938’
In 1990, Kuwait’s exiled rulers bankrolled a public relations campaign through Hill & Knowlton. It put a teenage girl before a congressional caucus with a story about Iraqi soldiers tearing babies from incubators. She turned out to be the Kuwaiti ambassador’s daughter, and the story collapsed. That was a foreign government trying to manipulate Congress toward war, on the record. Kuwait never became a “puppet master.” It got a liberation and a thank-you.
Today, American planners openly debate fighting China over Taiwan. The island’s survival matters far more to Taipei than to Topeka or Peoria. No one claims Taiwan controls Congress.
So here is the rule of every alliance in modern American history. The senior, more powerful partner leads. The junior partner follows, lobbies, flatters, and sometimes tries to manipulate, and gets called a client, a beneficiary, or a poodle. Blair was the poodle. Rhee was the client. Kuwait was the beneficiary.
Israel is the only exception. Only with the Jewish state does the far smaller and weaker partner become the “master” and the superpower become the “dog.” No fact explains that reversal. Israel’s population is less than 3% of America’s, and its economy is about 2% the size of America’s. Its air force flies American jets, and its arsenal relies heavily on American munitions. The only thing that can turn the weaker ally into the hidden hand is the belief that Jews wield secret, outsized power over governments.
That belief has a name. The IHRA definition of antisemitism lists it explicitly: the myth of Jews collectively controlling governments. The people repeating “Israel’s war” would never apply the same standard to Britain, Kuwait, South Korea, or Taiwan. Take away the double standard and their argument has nothing left.
Their argument also erases America’s own grievance. Iran made itself America’s enemy without Israel. It held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Its Hezbollah proxy killed 241 American service members in Beirut in 1983. The State Department attributes over 600 American troop deaths in Iraq to Iranian-backed militias. Iranian agents plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington in 2011, and American prosecutors have charged IRGC operatives in plots against John Bolton and President Donald Trump.
“Death to America” was never a translation error. America had its own reasons to fight, written in its own soldiers’ blood.
And Israel has done what no “puppet master” would. For 75 years, from 1948 through October 2023, it fought every war without a single American combat soldier beside it.
Americans are free to argue that this war was a mistake, badly managed, or too costly. Those are real debates. “Israel made us do it” is not one of them. It is Henry Ford’s newspaper and Lindbergh’s speech, reprinted for a new audience with a podcast microphone. The “poodle” never holds the leash. Anyone who insists this one does isn’t describing Israel. He’s describing what he believes about “the Jews.”
US President Donald Trump said Thursday that antisemitism in the United States was at levels “like Germany in 1938,” at the beginning of the Holocaust.Brendan O'Neill: The nauseating hypocrisy of Greta Thunberg
The president was asked by conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt about the recent rise in antisemitism in the US and what his administration was doing to combat it.
“I’m amazed to see it,” Trump said. “This is like Germany in 1938 or whatever. It’s, like, crazy what’s going on. When you look at the attacks on people, the racial attacks and the attacks, they’re, I guess, 57 percent on Jewish people, and you wouldn’t believe it.”
FBI statistics show that Jews were targeted in 63% of all religion-based hate crimes in the United States last year, down from 70% in 2024.
Trump spoke days after the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” the Nazi pogrom of 1938 widely seen as a turning point in the persecution of Jews and a prelude to the Holocaust. By then, Jews had already been stripped of their citizenship and subjected to severe restrictions, boycotts and discrimination by Adolf Hitler’s regime.
On the eve of the anniversary, pro-Palestinian activists in Philadelphia held a bicycle ride promoting a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses they accused of complicity in Israeli military actions. Jewish groups in the city called the event blatantly antisemitic, citing both its timing and its focus on Jewish-owned businesses. Organizers said the timing was coincidental.
Those silly kids. Don’t they know that blubbing over polar bears is so 2019? The Current Thing is hating Israel. The ‘evil’ that now keeps pampered eco-saints like Greta awake at night is not global warming – it’s the Jewish State. The diminutive doom-mongerer long ago switched her narcissistic dread from CO2 to Zionism, trading her yellow rain mac for a designer keffiyeh, and her caterwauling about climate for the headier thrill of screaming blue murder about Israel. Get with the programme, children: the Jewish nation is now the demon that stalks the fever dreams of the young and self-righteous.
Thunberg hasn’t entirely ditched the eco-apocalypse nonsense. She still warbles about rising seas and stolen childhoods every now and then. She might no longer have spasms of infantile fury, howling ‘How dare you!’ at politicians who loved being told off by a smug teen, but she still does the green schtik. She’s currently at COP 31 in Turkey, wanging on about how the planet is being ‘killed’. How interesting that she boycotts Israel but is happy to hang out in a state that mercilessly persecutes the Kurds.
Yet the striking thing about St Greta’s pontificating at COP is how tired and even pantomime it sounds. It feels like she’s going through the motions, singing the old songs for the titillation of fiftysomething Guardianistas. The end of the world just isn’t where it’s at anymore. The end of Israel, on the other hand, the scrubbing from the map of that most demonic entity – now that will get the luxury-belief mob frothing with righteous ecstasy. Over the past three years, virtually all of them, in creepy sync, shifted from weeping over End Times to fuming over the Jewish nation.
Thunberg is now far more likely to be spotted on a boat of seafaring narcissists heading for Gaza than she is outside a parliamentary building yapping about eco-doom. She used to yelp ‘Stop oil’ – now she cries ‘Crush Zionism’. These people once wanted to keep fossil fuels buried – now they want to bury Jewish nationhood, which is all that Zionism means. She isn’t alone. If you’ve ever wondered why the ponces of Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain (remember them?!) are no longer making life miserable for working-class motorists, it’s because they, too, have switched their privileged ire to Israel. They, too, have converted from the bourgeois cult of climate rapture to the bourgeois cult of Israelophobia.
Look at Palestine Action (RIP). Many of those time-rich bozos who cut the fences of Israeli-owned business while shrieking about Zionism in cut-glass accents came from the privileged green movement. Like Greta, the Moan of Arc of greenism, they aren’t actually wedded to a particular cause – they’re just addicted to apocalypse. They crave the cheap thrill of standing up to some monstrous, planet-consuming bogeyman. Last week it was industry, this week it’s Israel. Their mercenary opportunism would be funny if it wasn’t for the fact that their new religion of Ziophobia – ‘Crush Zionism!’ – has created huge hardship for world Jewry.
We really do need a reckoning with the eco-hysteria of the past 10 years. These people told us humanity was doomed. They said billions would die. In 2018 Greta said ‘all of humanity’ will be wiped out if we don’t ‘stop using fossil fuels’ within five years. Five years later, she casually deleted that Nostradamus-lite bollocks. So intense was the doom and dread pumped into public life that kids started to suffer from eco-anxiety. Yet now they’ve all moved on. Now they’re all in the Med saying ‘Israel is evil’. Now it’s mainly Gaza these white saviours want to rescue from the monstrous forces of capitalism, imperialism, Zionism, yada yada. To stoke global fear and then shrug it off is irresponsible in the extreme. What’s more, given their End Times blather was clearly bullshit, why should we believe a word they say about Israel?
From Ian:
The End of US Aid is No Cause for Alarm
The End of US Aid is No Cause for Alarm
Now, ending US aid does not mean that Israel will start to subsidize its domestic armaments industry. What it means is that the US aid has been subsidizing American defense contractors at the expense of Israel’s industry, and that will stop. As a result, Israel’s defense industry will grow stronger.Mossad Director Gofman visits Washington, meets CIA director, pushes to resume war with Iran
In addition to the economic benefits that brings, the IDF’s greater reliance on Israeli equipment will lessen Israel’s dependence on America, while greater exports will increase Israel’s diplomatic influence on the countries it supplies.
The main Israeli proponent of eliminating US aid – the late Moshe Arens, who served as Defense Minister under Begin, Shamir, and Netanyahu – understood all this. By accepting US aid, Israel was sacrificing the long-term strategic advantage of having a stronger defense industry in order to enjoy the short-term benefit of getting some armaments for free.
None of this is meant to imply that Israel doesn’t need US support – both military and diplomatic. But it needs to be clear that the President has no intention of limiting Israeli access to cutting edge American defense technology, cutting off intelligence cooperation, or abandoning Israel at the UN.
Far from distancing the US from Israel, the Pentagon is actively looking for opportunities to replace the aid relationship with far deeper defense cooperation. This is reflected in the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative” proposed as part of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.
The idea is that America will bring its scale and its technology. The Israelis will bring their creativity and the extraordinary “venture capital” ethos they apply to defense research and development. And both countries will benefit.
Finally, it is important for Israelis to understand the internal politics in the US that is driving the President’s decision. Contrary to hysterical media reports, there is strong support for Israel among traditional Democratic and Republicans. Both parties, however, have got…serious problems.
The Democrats face an infestation of “woke” progressivism while the Republicans are dealing with a tsunami of isolation sentiment. What these two perspectives have in common – besides their predilection for magical thinking – is that they are overtly anti-Zionist and covertly anti-Semitic.
Both the progressives and the isolationists gain considerable political traction by exploiting American aid to Israel as a political talking point. While they oppose defense cooperation and intelligence sharing as well, those things aren’t salient to American voters. What voters care about most are their pocketbooks, and it’s easy to say “billions are going to the Jews!” That is a lot more compelling to voters than “we are sharing intelligence with the Jews and they are sharing intelligence with us!” or “Israel is helping us deploy advanced technologies faster!”
So there you have it. Eliminating the aid program will at worst do trivial harm to Israel’s economy, and at best may actually prove to be a net positive. It will lessen Israel’s military dependence on the US and facilitate strengthened defense relationships with other allies. And it will assist Israel’s many genuine friends in America – be they President Trump or soon to be Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries – is their effort to preserve and even strengthen the US relationship with Israel in the face of intense hostility to the Jewish people among a large and influential minority of the American electorate.
There is literally no downside to this, and Israelis – rather than wring their hands – should embrace the opportunities that the end of America’s aid program represents.
Roman Gofman, director of the Mossad, has arrived in Washington, DC, to meet with senior officials from the Trump administration to discuss the war with Iran, sources told The Jerusalem Post.All departing US flights grounded for several hours amid air traffic control comms failure
Gofman's visit comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing US President Donald Trump to return to fighting against Iran.
Yashar party chairman, MK Gadi Eisenkot was not informed about the trip at the political- security briefing with Netanyahu, which was held on Thursday, Ynet reported.
Gofman is meeting with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and will then travel to Miami to meet United States Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, the sources told the Post.
Trump has recently rejected Netanyahu's requests to return to fighting, Axios reported. The leaders discussed US negotiations with Iran in a phonecall on October 31, during which Netanyahu reportedly pressed Trump to strike Iran immediately after the midterm elections.
According to Axios, Trump rejected the idea at that time, preferring to continue with diplomatic negotiations.
Trump's attitude to Iran deal shifts
The president said on November 12 that the US does not need a deal with Iran and directed Vice President JD Vance, who has played a role in efforts to resolve the war, to focus "his complete and total attention" on alleged crime and corruption in Democratic-run cities and states.
His comments on Thursday marked a significant shift from his attitude for the last month, when Trump appeared more focused on striking a deal to bring the eight month conflict to an end.
"We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The US Federal Aviation Administration grounded all departing flights nationwide on Friday for several hours after a communications failure hit air traffic control centers, in only the second such shutdown since the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The shutdown caused chaos at airports, with airlines canceling more than 1,000 flights and delaying nearly 10,000, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. Thousands of aircraft already in the air were allowed to land, while those on the ground could not take off. The disruption quickly spread beyond the United States, forcing the cancellation of flights from Canada and Europe, with all 42 members states of Eurocontrol — which includes Israel — halting departures at the FAA’s request.
The Department of Homeland Security said there were no signs the outage was caused by a cyberattack.
“There is no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack against us. It’s just a telecommunication outage as of right now,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters outside the White House, adding that US President Donald Trump had been briefed.
“There’s no reason for the public to be afraid or scared for your loved ones. This isn’t another 9/11,” Mullin added.
Mullin said the department was examining all possible causes, including a new AI-powered air traffic control system.
The disruption was the latest and most dramatic sign of strain on a US air traffic control system beset by equipment and communications failures, controller shortages and aging infrastructure.
Much of the FAA’s air traffic control technology is decades old. Last week, the agency said it would phase out floppy disks used to provide weather and other critical information at more than 400 facilities nationwide by the end of 2028.
Friday, November 13, 2026
Elder of Ziyon
Anti-Israel activists are mobilizing to fight the provisions in the proposed 2027 National Defense Authorization Act that would increase American-Israeli cooperation in military research, technology development and manufacturing. Some of them are pretending that this is patriotic.
A letter written by Chris Van Hollen, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and nine others said, "The agreements and projects these provisions envision threaten U.S. national security interests by handing Israel leverage over American weapons systems and military technology."
Congressman Thomas Massie described the House defense bill as "a betrayal of American sovereignty."
Congressman Ro Khanna, introducing an amendment to remove the cooperation initiative in June, said, "We need to tell [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu that America calls the shots, not the prime minister of any other country."
AOC said, "This amendment is an existential threat to American sovereignty and democracy," and James Fishback said, "This may be the last straw for American sovereignty."
Wow! A bill to have the US and Israel to cooperate is the beginning of the end of America's very independence!
Activists came up with a catchy name for this cooperation, "Deadly Merger."
There is no merger of the two militaries, of course. This is similar to existing US agreements with the UK. Australia, and Japan. In 2023, the US signed a roadmap with India saying "The United States intends to support the integration of Indian defense industry into global supply chains of U.S. defense and aerospace companies. " The US and Canada have been joined at the hip since the 1950s with projects like NORAD.
Under the AUKUS partnership with Australia and Britain, the United States is already working with those countries on military applications of artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, cyber capabilities, autonomous systems, electronic warfare and hypersonic weapons. The three countries are also sharing some of their most sensitive military technology to enable Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
Apparently, America's sovereignty can survive sharing nuclear submarine technology with Australia but not jointly developing anti-drone technology with Israel.
There is a hidden assumption here: that Israel is not an ally of the US. Moreover, that Israel is a particularly untrustworthy partner for the US. And by surfacing these bogus "dangers" when the exact same issues do not some up with Australia or India the critics are not defending the US but trying to demonize Israel as a potential enemy.
Military experts scoff at these characterizations of the bill. Politifact writes:
“I don’t see how anyone could read this provision and believe that the two militaries were merging in any way,” said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and military specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security-focused think tank. “The section outlines a process for coordinating technologies between the two countries. We do that with many countries.”Rhetoric about merging militaries “doesn’t make sense and wouldn’t hold up legally in any sustainable way that I could imagine,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s foreign policy program.
Anyone who knows anything about agreements knows that any potential dangerous dependencies can and are dealt with in the contracts. Both sides protect their own interests. That's normal for any agreements, military or corporate or when an athlete signs with a team.
So why is my inbox filled with emails from anti-Israel organizations who are opposed to the bill? The Adalah Justice Project, a Palestinian lobbying group, is far more honest as they advertise a webinar:
These provisions would expand joint weapons production and military technology development in AI, quantum, and cyber warfare, and integrate the two militaries’ intelligence and surveillance infrastructure through “data fusion.”We call this initiative The Deadly Merger.In this webinar, we will examine the true dangers of the Deadly Merger and its role in the Netanyahu-led plan to transform the U.S.-Israel military alliance into a structure that is far more difficult to disrupt and dismantle than traditional military “aid.”
Isn't that interesting? The danger is that the United States might benefit so much from its military relationship with Israel that it would become harder for anti-Israel activists to destroy it.
For decades, anti-Israel activists have complained that American taxpayers are subsidizing Israel.
Now that Israel is looking to transition from military aid to a relationship based on technological partnership, we can see how sincere those arguments were. The activists are horrified at the prospect of a relationship that American military officials and defense experts would support on its own merits.
They are not even pretending here that they are looking out for American interests.
As far as the members of Congress and other politicians using faux patriotism to oppose the measure, they should be asked directly: are similar agreements with the UK and Australia and Japan also a danger to US sovereignty and national security? If not, explain to us in plain English the difference.
Israeli technology already protects American lives and improves the US military. Israeli-developed active protection systems protect the crews of American tanks from anti-tank missiles. Israeli missile defense technology has been tested and acquired by the US Army. The two countries have collaborated on developing laser weapons to shoot down incoming rockets. There are obvious advantages to expanding that cooperation, and there is no reason for the United States to pay to reinvent technologies that Israel has already developed.
Yes, this saves the US taxpayer money. Wasn't protecting the taxpayer their main argument only a few weeks ago?
If you look at the groups Adalah is partnering with in their webinar, you see that they are all anti-American. Even the graphic shows that they see both the US and Israel as the enemy.
The irony here is striking. The politicians are claiming that increased military cooperation with Israel would weaken America. The activists are afraid that it would strengthen both America and Israel, making the relationship between them much harder to dismantle.
And somehow they all agree on what Congress should do.
If the politicians are really concerned about American sovereignty, they should be demanding that any agreements with Israel include safeguards to protect American interests, just as they would with any other country. If they are really concerned about American national security, they should be looking for opportunities to give American soldiers the best possible technology. If they are really concerned about the American taxpayer, they should be looking for ways to reduce the cost of developing that technology.
But they aren't demanding better agreements with Israel. They are demanding that there be no agreements.
Adalah has explained why it wants to stop American-Israeli defense cooperation. It wants to dismantle the relationship, and it is afraid that the more the United States benefits from that relationship, the harder it will be to destroy.
What's the politicians' excuse?
Thursday, November 12, 2026
From Ian:
Melanie Phillips: The absolute necessity of fighting back
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.Bond between Jews and Iranians ‘fundamental,’ says exiled crown prince on Auschwitz visit
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.
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”.Brendan O'Neill: The left’s despicable absolution of Hamas
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.
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.
From Ian:
Gen. (ret.) David H. Petraeus: It Matters How the Iran War Ends
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.If You Think War Is Unpopular, Wait Till You See Defeat
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.
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.Elliott Abrams: Where Does the U.S.-Israel Relationship Go from Here?
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.
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.Poll: 71 Percent of U.S. Voters Support Israel over Hamas
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.
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.
- Thursday, November 12, 2026
- Elder of Ziyon
humor, Preoccupied
Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.
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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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