Staging Sympathy, Delivering Nothing: The Red Cross and Israel’s Hostages (Judean Rose)

On August 12, four mothers—Galia David, Merav Gilboa Dalal, Viki Cohen, and Sylvia Cunio—traveled to Geneva to beg the Red Cross to do something, anything, for their children, held captive by Hamas since October 7, 2023. I saw the story in Ynet and hoped it might offer a reason for hope—something in short supply these days.

I should have known better. It’s Ynet. There was nothing worth seeing in this story, nothing new—only an anonymous Israeli source claiming the Red Cross hasn’t been cruel or insensitive to the hostages. “An Israeli source familiar with the Red Cross’s work told Ynet that Red Cross officials ‘weren't empathetic enough toward the hostage families mainly because they are Swiss and follow protocols, not because they are anti-Israel.’” In other words, they’re just Swiss—wedded to their protocol, not to saving Jewish lives.

The article suggested that things would be different this time. But instead of coming away feeling better, I felt sick at the thought of the false hope that been fed to these mothers who have been suffering so, so hard, for so long—that something would actually be done this time, that the Red Cross would do its job for once, and do something, anything for our hostages.

A mother’s tears are powerful, but perhaps not powerful enough to sway the “Swiss.”

Oh sure, the mothers came away with hope. They think something has changed. Why should it be different now? It was the awful images we all saw, now burned into our very souls, of Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski, looking like Muselmänner*, like the photos of Jews in Auschwitz, skeletal, skin and bones. Evyatar has lost 41% of his body weight.

In the propaganda video Hamas released, Evyatar is digging his own grave. Rom Braslavski, meanwhile, can no longer stand.

It is hard to believe the agonizing desperation their mothers feel can worsen. But those images of their sons moved them to speak from the rawest place a mother can speak, showing ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric photos of their sons’ faces with hollows where flesh should be. They pleaded for medicine, for food, for a chance to keep them alive until they can be freed. They thought, “Surely these photos will move the Red Cross,” move Spoljaric, who, after all, is a mother herself.

Spoljaric did all the right things—the expected things. She took their hands, leaned forward, and promised to do “everything in her power.” Her expression seemed to hold the right mix of sympathy and resolve, or at least the mothers thought so. They believed they had touched her heart.

But they hadn’t. What they had touched was a performance—one Spoljaric has given before and is almost certain to give again. She said the Red Cross will try to help, but it should be obvious by now that they won’t.

It’s been more than a year and a half since I wrote about the International Committee of the Red Cross and its refusal to do anything at all for the Israeli hostages. Why? They despise Jews. During the Holocaust, the Red Cross knew about the gas chambers and did nothing. They hid behind a label of “neutrality” when they were anything but.

 

PM Netanyahu Meets with ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric, 14.12.2023 © Photo by Amos Ben-Gershom, GPO

What has changed from December 2023—when I last wrote about this—to now, August 2025, when four mothers, evoking the four matriarchs of the Jewish people, went to beg for their children’s lives, for a bit of food and some medical attention for their sons? Mirjana Spoljaric has a son and a daughter. You might think that would make a difference—that she would empathize with the hostage mothers.

But that would be an illusion. The Red Cross holds no empathy for Jews. This is just a cruel new act the Red Cross has added to its repertoire: dangling hope in front of mothers in unimaginable pain, then walking away and doing nothing. Because we know that’s what will happen.

If you want to understand the Red Cross’s true capacity for evil and inaction, remember 84-year-old Alma Avraham. She was released in November 2023 in critical condition: a pulse of 40, a body temperature of 28°C (82.4°F), unconscious and with multiple injuries. Her family had begged the Red Cross—twice—to deliver her life-sustaining medications. Twice, they refused.

Alma spent five months in the hospital fighting for her life. An 84-year-old woman. And the Red Cross looked away and did nothing.

The Red Cross says it “can’t” visit hostages because Hamas will not allow it. But this is not true. It’s not that the Red Cross can’t help the hostages, but that they choose not to. The Red Cross operates in Gaza with Hamas’s blessing. It runs hospitals. It delivers supplies. Hamas gives them no trouble at all. Red Cross personnel have complete freedom of movement under Hamas—except when it comes to saving Jews.

No. The inaction of the Red Cross is not about Swiss neutrality and a need to follow protocol. In fact, the Red Cross is not at all neutral when it comes to Israel and Hamas. It is aligned with Hamas. It respects Hamas for October 7, for the slaughter, for the terror, for the rape of Jewish women and the beheading of Jewish children. It allies itself with Hamas because Hamas has done openly what the Red Cross has always endorsed without saying the quiet part out loud—hurt Jews, mutilate Jews, rape and humiliate them, starve Jews, strip them of all dignity and life.

It’s always been the same Red Cross—the same body that during the Holocaust refused to speak out about the camps, even as Jews were being gassed, starved, and burned by the millions. Back then, the Red Cross played by Nazi rules to keep its privileges because it didn’t care what was done to the Jews—didn’t like Jews. Today, the Red Cross plays by Hamas’ rules for the same reason—and with the same satisfaction.

Remember the Steinbrechers, begging for their daughter Doron’s daily pills, only to be scolded: “Think about the Palestinian side”? The Red Cross is not a powerless observer. It is a willing accomplice—and has been for generations.

This is the same organization that knew about Auschwitz in 1942 but said nothing, claiming it couldn’t jeopardize access to Allied POWs. Roger Du Pasquier, head of the ICRC’s Information Department, even lied about being “ill-informed.” And now, in 2025, the ICRC’s silence on Jewish suffering is once again dressed up as pragmatic restraint.

When lawsuits from hostage families and groups like Shurat HaDin accuse the Red Cross of abandoning Jews, they aren’t exaggerating—they are documenting a pattern. Seventy-six years later, the Red Cross still finds ways to look away from Jewish suffering while keeping its credentials spotless.

And now here we are, with two living skeletons starring in Hamas propaganda videos, their suffering public and undeniable. The Red Cross says they are “appalled” and “reiterate our call for access.” Appalled? Appalled is what you feel when a waiter forgets your coffee order. They’re not appalled. They’re complicit.

From 1930 to 2006, the Red Cross refused to recognize Israel’s Magen David Adom because of “territorialism”—a diplomatic fig leaf meaning no Jewish symbols allowed. The Muslim crescent? Accepted without hesitation. The Iranian red lion and sun? Not a problem. But a Jewish star? Not a chance.

Even now, abroad, Israel must hide its emblem inside the hollow “Red Crystal,” because the Star of David is still not recognized as a protected symbol. A small piece of metal and cloth tells the whole story: to the Red Cross, Jewish identity is something to be concealed, diluted, and finally, erased.

Don’t be fooled. The Red Cross did not meet with the mothers out of empathy or a desire to save lives. They granted a meeting only because the images of those skeletal Muselmänner had leaked out before the public eye. Some show of sympathy had to be made, or it wouldn’t have looked right.

So Spoljaric staged an audience, then sent the hostage mothers packing with the thinnest thread of hope—an illusion of momentum. Did the mothers really think that after seeing those hollowed-out faces someone would care, someone would cry, someone would save their sons?

If so, that’s not what they got.

And now, visit accomplished, the Red Cross can return to business as usual—the business of aiding and abetting the enemies of Israel.

It’s their favorite thing to do.

* Ironically meaning “Muslim men,” but that’s a column for another day.

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The Lie on the Front Page: What the New York Times Chose to Show—and Hide (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

It wasn’t a mistake when The New York Times ran a front-page photo of a skeletal 18-month-old Gazan boy and claimed he was suffering from starvation. It was a deliberate editorial choice — a lie that fit the preferred narrative: Israel is genocidal.

Even Fox News missed the point. Their headline—“NY Times' erroneous cover photo… joins series of media blunders”—called it an error, a media blunder. But this was no “oops.” It was propaganda. And the proof is in the cropping.

Let me just start with other images the media chose not to use. Photographs of Mohammed with his 3-year-old brother Joud. Both mother and brother are healthy and fed.

Any honest journalist should have immediately questioned – and reported - what we were actually seeing. 3/13 pic.twitter.com/FaUsVFsqb2

— David Collier (@mishtal) July 27, 2025

 

The boy’s healthy brother was edited out of the image. The Times didn’t disclose the child’s medical history until days later, after pressure from Israeli officials. Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq has cerebral palsy, hypoxemia, and a severe genetic disorder. He requires specialized nutrition and therapy—not a ceasefire.

Unlike his brother standing by his side, Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq suffers from cerebral palsy.

But BBC, CNN, Daily Express, and The New York Times spread a misleading story using a picture of a sick, disabled child to promote a narrative of mass starvation in Gaza —… pic.twitter.com/UzP5PhNSvU

— Israel ישראל (@Israel) July 29, 2025

 

The Times eventually tacked on a note that the child had “pre-existing health problems,” but the damage was done. The image had gone viral, a global symbol of “Israeli starvation.” The Times knew what it was doing. That’s why it buried the correction in the digital story and posted it from a PR account with under 90,000 followers—not their main feed with over 55 million.

We have appended an Editors' Note to a story about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child in Gaza who was diagnosed with severe malnutrition. After publication, The Times learned that he also had pre-existing health problems. Read more below. pic.twitter.com/KGxP3b3Q2B

— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) July 29, 2025

 

And when real starvation did appear—this time in the form of emaciated Israeli hostages like Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski—the Times’ front page was silent. No photos. No headlines. Just a weak, secondary article headlined, “Hundreds Protest in Tel Aviv After Hostage Videos Surface From Gaza.”

Nothing about Evyatar digging his own grave. No image of Rom weeping, his ribs protruding. Nothing of the horror that millions of Israelis felt—not just a “handful” of Tel Aviv protesters.

As Yaakov Ort, a former NYT staffer, put it: “If the Times had a Jerusalem bureau that reported the thoughts, communications and actions of the vast majority of Israelis… they would have told readers that the reaction… is not fear or protest. It is horror, rage, and resolve.”

The excuse? Mohammed’s condition had worsened due to war. But as Israeli pediatrician Dr. Michal Feldon said, “I’ve been a pediatrician for 20 years and we never see kids looking like this, even very chronically ill children. When we do, we suspect abuse.” Prof. Dan Turner added, “Even patients with background diseases should not be malnourished like that.” In Gaza, it’s not just illness—it’s lack of access, lack of formula, and yes, Hamas theft of humanitarian aid.

This wasn’t bad journalism. It was anti-Jewish narrative warfare—the blood libel of our time, illustrated by a carefully framed photo and a willfully ignored truth.

Because in today’s media: a carefully staged image used to falsely accuse Israel of starvation is front-page news — but the real starvation, suffering, and desperation of Israeli hostages doesn’t make it in at all.

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No Mercy for Jewish Children. Because They’re Jewish. (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Imagine you’re a 14-year-old girl, still floating from the final night of Jewish sleepaway camp. You barely slept—you were too busy singing camp songs, exchanging weepy hugs, and saying heartfelt goodbyes. Still, you managed to pack your duffel bag, lug it through security, and board the flight home from Valencia to Paris with your fellow campers.

You’re tired, but your heart is full. Someone calls out “Lilmod!”—the beginning of a silly chant your bunk invented—and without even thinking, you shout back: “Mashiach!”

And that’s when everything changes.

Because two Hebrew words were spoken, airline staff suddenly see you and your friends not as teenagers but as Jews and as it turns out, they really, really hate Jews. Things get ugly. Flight attendants are yelling. Spanish police are called. And you and your friends are forced off the plane, grabbed by the arms, manhandled. Your phone is confiscated. All your camp videos—all your selfies—deleted.” Your camp director, a young woman trying to protect her campers, is beaten, handcuffed, and bloodied in front of your eyes.

All because two Hebrew words were spoken aloud on a plane.

“She still had bloody marks, red, bright red, on her wrists, because of the handcuffs. It was horrible… It’s the worst experience of my whole life.”
— one of the campers, in a viral video explaining the incident.

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Jewish Childhood Interrupted

The 44 children from Camp Kineret, ages 10 to 15, had done nothing wrong. Vueling Airlines claimed they were “disruptive” and tampered with emergency equipment—but provided no proof. Meanwhile, a passenger on the flight who had no connection to the camp said the kids were “calm.” The real crime? Hebrew words. Kippahs. A visible Jewish identity.

In the aftermath, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli reported that airline staff shouted, “Israel is a terrorist state!” Spain’s Transport Minister referred to the children as “Israeli brats.”

They were not Israeli. They were French. And they were Children.

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"Hide Who You Are"

Another video—less viral but just as haunting—shows a young male counselor on a bus speaking to Jewish campers before they reach the airport. He speaks with authority, but you can tell he’s scared too: “Take off your kippahs. Hide your tzitzit. Pack away your Stars of David and anything else Jewish.”

“Don’t give these antisemites a reason to kick us off the plane,” he pleads.

One small voice responds: “I have a kippah in my bag… What do I do?”

That shouldn’t sit right with anyone. But it did—and it will again. Because it always does.

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What Does Antisemitism Do to a Child?

We know what antisemitism looks like: smashed windows, spray-painted swastikas, or the battered body of a handcuffed Jewish camp director left bleeding on the enclosed walkway leading from the plane to the terminal.

But what about the damage you can’t see?

According to a 2024 Stanford University study, nearly half of Jewish teens in the U.S. reported high stress or fear linked to antisemitism in the wake of October 7. Many said they’d stopped wearing Jewish symbols in public. Some avoided speaking Hebrew. A few even considered changing their last names—just to feel safe.

In the UK, a national survey found that 23% of Jewish schoolchildren had experienced antisemitism either at school or on their commute. These weren’t one-off slurs—they included physical threats, vandalism, and group harassment.

In Australia, researchers interviewed Jewish children who said they’d been called “dirty Jews,” been excluded from class projects, or watched teachers ignore antisemitic jokes. Nearly every single child interviewed had a story.

The research is clear: antisemitism doesn’t just affect Jewish children emotionally—it shapes how they see themselves, how safely they move through the world, and how much of their identity they’re willing to show.

Imagine being that young and afraid that your last name is “too Jewish.”

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It’s Not Only France

The French campers aren’t alone.

In Staten Island, a seventh-grade Jewish boy walked into school just two weeks after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. A group of students surrounded him. They pushed him to the ground, kicked him in the leg and the face, and shouted, “F*** Israel.” No teachers intervened. No one asked what happened. He never went back to that school.

In London, a bus full of Jewish schoolchildren from the Jewish Free School was ambushed by a gang of ten teens. The attackers hurled large rocks at the vehicle while screaming “F*** Israel.” The younger kids screamed in terror. No one came to help. No arrests were made.

In Rome, an eight-year-old Jewish boy wearing a yarmulke went shopping with his mother. An Egyptian asylum seeker spotted his kippah and attacked him. When the shopkeeper tried to intervene, the man stabbed him in the face with a shard of broken glass. The boy survived. The storekeeper was left disfigured.

In Milan, a six-year-old French Jewish boy, his twelve-year-old brother, and their father were surrounded at a rest stop by twenty men. The mob targeted them for wearing kippahs. They stomped on the father, kicked him in the stomach and legs, and screamed “Free Palestine.” When police finally arrived, they didn’t arrest the attackers. Instead, they told the injured father to “tell Netanyahu to stop bombing Gaza.”

Physically assaulting Jews in Italy!
A father and his six year old son, both wearing yarmulkes, were shouted at "free Palestine" and "murderers, go home!" in a restaurant in the Milan area. pic.twitter.com/dQ1hJY2HCj

— Hamas Atrocities (@HamasAtrocities) July 28, 2025

No child walks away from such moments unchanged.

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A Soul Marked Forever

These are not isolated events. This is a wave. A sickness. A shadow falling on Jewish childhood.

One moment, you’re proud of who you are—your Hebrew, your songs, your symbols. The next, an adult tells you to hide that Jewish star necklace under your shirt, to tuck away your tzitzit, and pray no one sees you.

And the worst part?

They do notice.

You’re a child. But to them, the religion you were born into is reason enough to hate you.

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Because They Were Jewish

This was no misunderstanding. It was not a noisy group of children on a plane. It wasn’t even a schoolyard squabble.

It was plain old antisemitism—ugly, familiar, and completely unbothered by the fact that it was aimed at children.

But the kids will remember. They’ll remember the bruises, the shouting, the violence—
and the silence of the bystanders who watched it happen.

And they’ll remember that the reason no one seemed to care…
was because they were Jewish.

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The Children Remember

One of the French campers ended her now-famous video by saying it was “the worst experience of my whole life.”

But she’s wrong.

The worst part will come later—when she realizes that even after being humiliated, even after her director bled on the airport floor, even after she hid her identity and was still thrown off the plane…

The world looked away. Because once you see Jews as less than human—and more like vermin, as Hitler did—their age doesn’t matter. Even a baby cockroach, after all, is still a cockroach. And cockroaches grow up.

And if that’s how you see them—what difference does it make if they’re six, or sixteen, or sixty?

They can’t see Jewish children as children. Only as the next wave of Jews.
And once you see them that way, you don’t have to feel bad when they bleed.

So they’ll remember.
And they’ll grow up knowing what it means to be hated for simply being Jewish.
But they’ll also grow up knowing what it means to belong—to one another, to something older than hate, and stronger.
Not all of them will hold on to it. Many will walk away.
But some won’t.
And that will be enough to keep us going.

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Why I Don’t Care About the Suffering in Gaza (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

The war in Gaza rages on, and the images of destruction and suffering are inescapable. Yet, if truth be told, I feel a profound apathy toward the plight of Gaza’s civilians. My emotions are reserved for the suffering of my own people—Israelis, Jews, soldiers, survivors, hostages, and hostage families. The events of October 7, 2023, and their aftermath, consume all my energy, leaving me unable to muster sympathy for those who, in my view, have aligned themselves with terror.

My feelings are instead completely taken up with the hostages and the 895 IDF soldiers who have died trying to free them. Each soldier’s death ripples through our communities—friends, neighbors, or children of friends. We exchange pained messages on WhatsApp: “Another soldier.” These are not faceless numbers; they are our boys, some barely out of high school, others young fathers or newlyweds. Their sacrifice haunts me, as does the moral calculus: is it right that so many die to save so few?

The hostages, too, consume my thoughts. I can’t linger on the horrors they’ve endured—starvation, beatings, confinement in dank tunnels—without risking my own ability to function. I push away intrusive images of October 7, when Hamas and Gaza’s civilians breached our borders, murdered, raped, and kidnapped. Civilians bragged about their atrocities, spat on our dead, and hid hostages in their homes. They voted for Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, in UN-overseen elections. They allowed tunnels and weapons under their children’s bedrooms. They are absolutely, 100 percent complicit.

You often hear people say things like, “the majority of Muslims are peaceful” and this always makes me roll my eyes. With what authority do people say this? If such a thing could be quantified, one would have to consider the ample evidence that shows the children of Gaza to be indoctrinated with Jew-hate from birth. They imbibe it with their mothers’ milk.

Do I believe every Gazan is evil? They’re complicit! How can they not be? Maybe some woman whose husband will beat her if she doesn’t vote for Hamas is innocent. I have no clue. But unfortunately, people get killed in war. And this war was started by Gaza. Not only by Hamas, but the people of Gaza, headed by Hamas. And it is definitely the people of Gaza who crowd the streets when there’s going to be a hostage release ceremony. They love to see Jews in captivity. They love to watch them be ridiculed. They love to jeer and spit and grab at them. They love to hate them.

So no. I do not believe that most Gazans are peaceful and neither do any of the polls I’ve seen on the topic. The people of Gaza continue to support Hamas and participate in the atrocities.

Now Gaza is rubble, its people hungry and desperate. Hamas shoots those who seek food or escape. Neither Egypt nor Jordan will take them in. No one will. But my focus must be with my own. My people, our soldiers, my son in the reserves, who leaves his wife and three young children to serve, again and again.

I asked my Facebook friends why they do or don’t care about Gaza’s suffering. Their responses were like an echo of my own thoughts, but perhaps offer greater nuance as well as important context I might have missed.

Avi Perez, 57, who made Aliyah from South Africa and lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh, pulls no punches:

“When a potential Middle Eastern Singapore chooses murder, terror, missiles, and more over prosperity and possibility ... mercy for monsters has left the store.”

Tehilla O., 60, living outside Israel, is uncompromising:

“They aren’t suffering. If they are, it’s self-inflicted. All the hostages are released at the same time, it ends. Simple. They know where they are. Even as ‘civilians,’ they are Hamas. And quite frankly, after 7 October and since and what has and is still being done, they can cry me a river.”

Elihu D. Stone, 67, a religiously observant Zionist in Judea, expresses sorrow but places blame squarely on Hamas:

“I care deeply about innocents suffering the ravages of war in Gaza. The agonies wrought upon families who must endure the predictable and anticipated consequences of Hamas’s savagery of October 7th is absolutely heartbreaking. I wish that the global community would back Israel’s war effort against Hamas whole-heartedly and bring immense pressure to bear… to return all those whom Hamas kidnapped.”

Yael Pedhatzur, 76, from Meitar, Israel, sees Gaza’s suffering as their own doing:

“I have very little empathy for the plight of Gaza and the Gazans as I believe their situation is of their own making. No other country has been made to aid their enemy during wartime. As one who wants complete surrender of Hamas, I know it can’t happen as long as we provide them with food and supplies.”

“Hamas obviously doesn’t care about them either as they shoot their people who take the aid.

“I have been saying this for the last several campaigns in Gaza over the past 15-20 years. No electricity, no water, no food. That’s how you end a war.”

Mark Isser Coopersmith, reflecting on past expulsions, is direct:

“We should be starving them until they let the hostages go.”

Toby Dachs from Jerusalem focuses on Israel’s losses:

“My concern and pain is for the hostages and all the families who lost their sons in this horrific war.”

Batsheva Gladstone, a longtime friend, differs from me in that she makes the effort—she actively struggles to find compassion:

“I have to fight to care in the slightest about any palestinians. I have to remind myself almost daily that G-d doesn’t want us to turn off our humanity. And, if there are indeed any innocents in all this horror inflicted upon the Jewish nation we should try to muster up the decency to differentiate between the terrorists, the terrorist sympathizers, and the victims of circumstance. It’s admittedly a tall order, and sometimes I fail, but I try, and sometimes I can…

“Do I think the war is justified? Yes, sadly, 100%, and necessary. ”

Iris Breidbord Langman questions the existence of innocent Gazans:

“My only concern is for our hostages. The perpetual ‘victims’ joined Hamas in brutalizing our people. Is there a difference between them and Hamas? Show me one ‘civilian’ who came forward to help a hostage and I will care about that person.”

Cheryl Mallenbaum-Ninyo would care about the innocent, but finds none to care about:

“I care about the suffering of innocent people in Gaza. But where are they? (That’s a genuine question.) I can’t help but remember that when Israel offered immunity, safety, and a CEO added financial incentive for anyone in Gaza who helps return a captive, not one single Gazan came forward. So I genuinely wonder: Where ARE these ‘good, innocent people’? (Possibly the exception being newborns who have not yet been indoctrinated to needlessly hate and seek destruction.)

“Those in Gaza (or elsewhere) who support Hamas or who raise their children with blind hatred or who think murder, rape, burning, beheading, kidnapping, mutilation, etc. is justified to “bring attention to a cause” or who hold innocent civilians (and dead bodies) for psychological torture? They don’t have my sympathy.

“If the only way to spread your ‘message’ is to harm others, the ‘message’ isn’t worth spreading.”

Alisa Chessler dismisses the notion of civilian innocence:

“I only care about ‘innocent civilians’ and since we are nearly 2 years with NOT ONE person coming forward to identify the location of our hostages, I don’t believe there are any ‘innocent civilians’ in that sh*thole. So therefore, they can turn the place into a parking lot for all I care.

“My only concern is the environmental impact of the garbage there. It needs to be removed to restore the land back to something livable for Israelis.”

Jan Poller contrasts the lack of Gazan compassion with Israel’s pain:

“We care about a lot more than they cared about the men, women, and children they raped and beheaded.”

Deborah K., a 70-year-old Jew from Scotland, feels torn by guilt but still unmoved about the Gazan people:

“I don’t care about the Gazans… but feel guilty because ‘I’m supposed to/I ought to.’ They’ve been offered various options several times over the years to live there peacefully, refused every time, voted in Hamas, and as long as Hamas are around, Israel is in danger. And Israel has to exist.”

Hinda Rochel Anolick-Rachel Ann prioritizes her people:

“I care about the people in Gaza. I care more about my people in Gaza. And I care more about my people period. They come first. However terrible it is there, it is worse for my people who are being held hostage, and to give in to terrorists will result in greater harm to my people. It isn't a matter of caring, it is who I care more about.”

These voices, varied in tone and perspective, reflect a shared sentiment: Gaza’s suffering feels self-inflicted—and distant—when weighed against Israel’s personal, uninvited tragedy. We didn’t choose this war. They did.

So when the sound of planes overhead draws my attention away from work, my thoughts are on the men in those planes—not the hunger in Gaza. I pause and say a few psalms.

The moral weight of this war rests not in Gaza’s ruins, but in the lives of our soldiers and hostages. My heart holds only so much—and its space is reserved for my own suffering people: those who are chained, those who are fighting, those who are grieving, and those still waiting for their loved ones to come home.

One name in this piece has been changed at the request of the contributor.

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Youth Organizations Have Picked a Side—And It’s Not the Jews (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Youth organizations or organizations actively involved with or concerned with youth. When you hear of them, you think of forces for good. You think of mentors giving guidance, steering kids on the skids back on track.

But today, that’s not necessarily the case.

Too many youth organizations or those actively involved with youth—whose stated missions have nothing to do with politics—global or otherwise, are taking a position on the war in Gaza, and it’s not a position that favors the Jews.

We know this because they’ve issued statements to that effect—statements that appear not to recognize that the war that has decimated Gaza, began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas, the democratically elected government of Gaza, launched the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. “Ordinary” Gazans, too, took part in the slaughter, pouring right through that fence alongside Hamas, to take advantage of the opportunity to rape and kill the yahud.

Jewish suffering continues deep underground in Gaza, as the last 20 hostages still languish in captivity, chained, caged, and starved, almost two years on. In spite of this, youth organizations nowhere near the Middle East—organizations charged with molding young minds—have decided to ignore Jewish suffering in favor of the people who gang-rape Jewish women tied to trees.

They claim to be nonpartisan, these organizations, but their statements say otherwise. Some downplay or omit the horrors of October 7. Others have issued proclamations of “solidarity” with Gaza endorsing antisemitic violence as legitimate “resistance.” Still a third group engages in what I call “both siding” it, pretending that violence is violence no matter who suffers, that all are exactly the same, which is just as bad. If you can’t decry what happened on October 7, and understand why Israel fought back, you should stay out of it, instead of poisoning young peoples’ minds.

One has to wonder: what is the atmosphere like at meetings or events for Jewish participants? How does it feel to belong to a group that seems to regard your people’s suffering as inconvenient or deserved? And what will become of the next generation—shaped by organizations that ask them to champion the cause of people who eviscerate pregnant women and burn babies and small children alive?

Here are a few examples of supposedly nonpartisan organizations that have issued statements on the war in Gaza:

1. National Education Association (NEA)

The NEA is not exactly a youth organization, but as the largest teachers' union in the U.S., it certainly has the potential to influence America’s children. Only yesterday, on July 8, the NEA voted to sever ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

From the NY Post:

The largest teachers union in America has voted to cut all ties with the Anti-Defamation League — which called the move “profoundly disturbing” as antisemitic attacks in the US are at a record high.

The National Education Association, which is also the US’s largest union with more than 3 million members, approved a proposal Sunday to drop the ADL as an education partner, accusing the New York-based Jewish civil rights group of using the term antisemitism to punish any and all criticisms of Israel. . .

. . . The group has found its relationship waning with the NEA since the start of the war in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, when the Jewish state was attacked by Palestinian Hamas terrorists and retaliated in a conflict that is still ongoing.

Tensions between the NEA and ADL came to a head earlier this year when the Jewish group slammed the former president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) over a presentation on Islamophobia and attacks against Palestinians.

Merrie Najimy, the former president of the union, was one of four speakers at the controversial presentation, which made headlines and was even discussed in the state’s Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism in February. The Massachusetts Educators Against Antisemitism and American Jewish Committee (AJC) New England ultimately accused the MTA leadership of demonizing Israel and spreading “anti-Zionist propaganda” in the classrooms. . .

. . . Liora Rez, the founder of StopAntisemitism, said, “The most radical fringe has taken over the NEA and they actively promote bigotry against Jews and lies about the Jewish state.

“Rather than trying to educate our children, they want to indoctrinate them to hate each other.”

According to Axios, “The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said it welcomed the NEA vote due to concerns over ADL's "anti-Palestinian bias."

2. Save the Children

Save the Children bills itself as “the world’s first and leading independent children’s organisation – transforming lives and the future we share. We’re proud to work with children, their communities, and our partners worldwide, discovering new solutions to help ensure that the world's most vulnerable children survive, learn and are protected,” but apparently that doesn’t include vulnerable Israeli children, such as those slaughtered on October 7.

Save the Children says it reaches tens of millions of children in more than 110 countries through its “life-changing work,” but based on its statement on Gaza, none of those tens of millions of children are Jews. On a slickly designed webpage titled War in Gaza, the (very long) statement makes offhand mention of October 7, neglecting to mention the slaughter of Israeli Jews or the Jewish hostages still in captivity. The statement cites all the exaggerated Hamas death statistics, and of course, in a breathtaking display of what it means to blame the victim, everything that has happened is the fault of Israel:

Children are paying the heaviest price of this war.

In 2024, the occupied Palestinian territory, specifically Gaza, became the deadliest place on earth to be a child.

Since the beginning of the war, over 18,000 children have been killed, while over 14,000 more children are at risk of dying from severe malnutrition in the coming weeks and months if the conditions imposed by the Government of Israel don't drastically improve. After 19 months of war, children's lives continue to hang in the balance.

Since 2 March 2025, absolutely no humanitarian aid or commercial goods have entered Gaza, putting all 1 million of Gaza’s children at risk of famine and creating conditions incompatible with life.

Children will continue to suffer day after day until the bombing stops, the siege ends and meaningful amounts of humanitarian aid are able to enter Gaza again.

Denying humanitarian aid is a crime under international law and a grave violation against children. The international community must not allow the war to continue and the halt on aid must be immediately reversed.

A definitive ceasefire is the only way to save lives in Gaza and end grave violations of children’s rights. There is no alternative.

The lives of Gaza's 1.1 million children depend on it.

Our response.

Amidst extremely challenging conditions, we’ve been working around the clock to find ways to deliver aid to children.

Save the Children has been supporting Palestinian children since 1953 and has maintained a permanent presence in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) since 1973. Our response has significantly scaled up since October 2023, leveraging our existing footprint, technical expertise, and partnerships to address the evolving humanitarian crisis.

As of 11th March 2025, Save the Children and its partners have reached more than 1.5 million people across the occupied Palestinian territory, including over 1.4 million people in Gaza.

During the pause in hostilities from the 19th January to the 18th March, we provided essential lifesaving aid to over 51,000 people. This included distributing winter clothing to over 15,000 children in Gaza, and food parcels to over 23,000 people. In February, a total of 1,341 children, were vaccinated in our Primary Healthcare Centre in Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis as part of the third polio vaccination campaign.

We have also distributed essential items such as mattresses, pillows, blankets and plastic tarps to families that have returned to northern Gaza, while continuing to provide healthcare services at our two primary healthcare centres and mental health support at our child friendly spaces. Despite this, the needs are vast and ever-growing.

Alongside local partners, we’re distributing vital supplies to families across shelters and households – drinking water, food, hygiene products, mattresses, blankets, learning materials, toys, and games.

We are prepared to scale up further in Gaza to respond to the spiralling needs. But the basic conditions to reach families need to be established by the Government of Israel by lifting the siege and facilitating the safe, unobstructed delivery of aid across Gaza.

Since the pause in Gaza collapsed and the Government of Israel re-imposed a total siege on the entry of aid and goods into Gaza, all that has entered Gaza are bombs and bullets. This complete siege is the longest the Israeli Government has blocked all aid and commercial goods from entering Gaza. Instead of much needed food, clothing or tents to help Gaza’s children survive, airstrikes are being launched into Gaza, killing, maiming, and destroying the lives of children and families.

We are by children’s sides in Gaza and we’ll keep calling for a world that respects their right to survive and be protected. But we can’t do it without your support.

They may be by the side of the children in Gaza, but I’m pretty sure they wish the children of Israel would drop off the edge of the earth.

3. Rotary International

Rotary International is not primarily a youth organization, but it does have several programs focused on youth development and leadership. Rotary International actively engages young people through initiatives like Rotary Youth Exchange, Interact clubs, and Rotaract clubs, aiming to foster leadership skills, promote service, and cultivate global citizenship. The organization says it is nonpartisan: “Rotary is a non-political and non-religious organization open to all people regardless of race, colour, religion, gender, or political preference.”

Its statement on Israel and Gaza tries very hard to be fair to all, but ends up not being very fair to Israel, urging “all parties to seek avenues to peace.” Should the rape victim make up with her rapist? Should the Yarden Bibas shake hands with the people who murdered his wife and children, in the name of peace? Should Israel agree that Rotary’s support for upholding international law is a good thing, fair and balanced, when the ICC calls for the arrest of Israel’s leaders?

Israel and Gaza

Recognizing there has been protracted suffering in the long history of conflict between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza, Rotary International urges all parties to seek avenues to peace.

At the same time, we unequivocally condemn the horrific attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians and are appalled at the number of people who have been injured, killed, and kidnapped.

As the war between Israel and Hamas intensifies, we remain deeply concerned about the potential for further escalation as well as the loss of life and the humanitarian crisis that is occurring in Gaza. We denounce the violence against innocent civilians and support upholding international humanitarian law.

Peacebuilding is both a cornerstone of Rotary’s mission and one of our areas of focus. At our core, Rotary is a common ground for people to come together – across nationalities and religions, cultures and histories – and connect around their shared belief in a better tomorrow. That connection is what humanizes us in times of conflict and builds a foundation for lasting peace.

Rotary remains committed to working with our members, partners, and communities to find long-term, sustainable solutions that support peace and development in the region and elsewhere.

All that talk of peace with the people who rape my people makes me totally sick to my stomach. It’s not possible to be balanced on this subject. It’s just not. There’s a good side and an evil side. You wipe out the evil to protect the good. Hamas is evil.

4. United Way of King County

United Way has a strong focus on youth development and opportunity. The organization says it “works to support young people from early childhood through career readiness, aiming to help them succeed in education, build financial stability, and become engaged community members.”

The organization says it is nonpartisan, and “represents a neutral ground where people can join together for the greater good of the community.” But the King County, Washington branch of the organization which includes the city of Seattle, decided to issue a statement on the war in Gaza on October 11, that is so neutral as to exclude the issues of right and wrong, good and evil, terrorism and those who defend against it. With Israel still reeling from the attack, United Way of King County sidelined what actually happened, and more than hints that Israel shouldn’t respond. Sure. As if us Israelis should just leave our hostages there in Gaza, stay home, and lick our wounds. Like Rotary International, in bending over backward to be fair, United Way of King County is fair to no one, and especially not to the Jews who were massacred so brutally on October 7:

United Way of King County’s Response to the Israel-Hamas War

United Way of King County mourns with others around the world the unspeakable violence and loss of life from the Israel-Hamas War.

We work side by side with communities to build an equitable future for everyone. There are far too many examples—locally, nationally, and globally—that demonstrate we are losing sight of that shared humanity and the common needs and dreams we all share.

We join our local community members who are grieving.

5. Boston CASA

Sometimes a gala speaks a thousand words. At its 13th annual gala event, Transforming Lives, Boston CASA, whose mission is to advocate for abused and neglected children, honored infamous antisemite Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley with the 2025 Susan J. Ganz Award. The event announcement called Pressley “an activist, a legislator, a survivor, and the first woman of color elected to Congress from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Throughout her career, Congresswoman Pressley has fought to ensure that those closest to the pain or the closest to the power – driving and informing policy making,” whatever that means.

As far as I’m concerned, the only thing Ayanna Pressley has fought for is to demonize Israel. She boycotted Bibi’s address to Congress, speaking of Israel bombing “innocent civilians” with no mention whatsoever of October 7 or Hamas.

She speaks of an ongoing “genocide” when the only genocide is the purposeful antisemitic slaughter that occurred on October 7.

 

The fact is, that in honoring Ayanna Pressley, this organization that is meant to advocate for Boston children, fails to advocate for the child victims of October 7. And so I return to my original thought: youth organizations—or those entrusted with shaping young minds—are meant to be forces for good. They are meant to protect the vulnerable, guide the impressionable, and foster moral clarity. But today, too many are doing the opposite. They are modeling moral confusion, justifying barbarity, and embracing those who would see the Jewish people wiped from the face of the earth.

If your mission is to shape children into decent human beings, start by telling the truth. Tell them what happened on October 7. Tell them that Hamas didn’t just kill Jews—they butchered them, raped them, beheaded them, burned their children alive. And if you can’t bring yourself to say that much—if your instinct is to “both sides” it or to preach peace with those who take toddlers hostage—then do us all a favor and get out of the business of working with youth.

Because this generation deserves better. And so do the dead.

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Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

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When Jews Defend Rapists (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Rape denial is always bad, but it’s stomach-turning when Jews engage in rape denial in order to belong to the others—to the rest of the world, the people who aren't Jews. After all, the atrocities of October 7 are well documented. The perpetrators filmed themselves with their GoPro cameras as they raped and maimed, burned and slaughtered Jews. 

If you haven’t seen the footage, it’s because it universally violates community standards. The footage is known to make people vomit, cry, and faint. Also, maybe a young girl wouldn’t want a photo of her bloody crotch to be shown to the world, circulating on the net, forever. Can we not leave her this last shred of dignity?

So when you ask why you haven't see the photos or the footage, that's why.  

Nonetheless, we know October 7 was a massacre. Anyone who says otherwise is delusional. You don’t need to see it to believe it. You can tell when someone is telling the truth. But you have to want to.

Norman Finkelstein: “It warms every fiber of my soul”

Norman Finkelstein doesn’t want to. He will never begrudge those Hamasnikim a chance to use Jewish women until they die. That’s pretty much what Norman Finkelstein wrote of Hamas on October 7, 2023:

“If we honor the Jews who revolted in the Warsaw Ghetto—then moral consistency commands that we honor the heroic resistance in Gaza.  I, for one, will never begrudge—on the contrary, it warms every fiber of my soul—the scenes of Gaza’s smiling children as their arrogant Jewish supremacist oppressors have, finally, been humbled. 

“The stars above in heaven are looking kindly down.  Glory, glory, hallelujah.  The souls of Gaza go marching on!”

Imagine that, a Jew giving glory to God because Jewish women were raped and dismembered, Jewish children burned, and Jewish parents shot dead in front of their Jewish children. Why is it okay, no matter the religion of the victims, no matter their politics? Why does it warm his heart when Jewish women are raped until they die?

It is clear that Finkelstein suffers from mental illness. Alternatively, he could be just plain evil. His beliefs certainly are.

I probably should have saved Finkelstein for last. His betrayal is truly the worst of all the court Jews, all the Jews who go after their own, smearing them as publicly as possible, as if to say, “I’m not one of them, truly! I want to belong!”

Jonathan Glazer: Bashing Israel at the Oscars

Another insane/evil person wanting to belong to the non-Jewish world is unhinged Jewish filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, who won an Oscar in 2024 for his Holocaust-themed film, The Zone of Interest. Glazer used his acceptance speech to—what else—bash Israel. “Our film shows where dehumanization leads, at its worst, it shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation that has led to conflict for so many innocent people.

“Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization. How do we resist?” said Glazer, his loathing for his co-religionists on full display.

Max Blumenthal: Crazy Conspiracy Theorist

And now for Max Blumenthal. In a November 2023 podcast titled What Really Happened in Israel on Oct. 7?, Blumenthal flatly denied Hamas atrocities, calling them lies spun to give Israel a pretext to rid Gaza of its inhabitants:

“We have all these new stories about babies baked in ovens, we’ve heard stories about babies cut out of mothers’ wombs by so-called Hamas terrorists, rape, gang rape, women after being taken, gang raped in the streets in Gaza City... All of these lies were spun out... to give Israel the latitude to carry out this genocidal assault.”

But he wasn’t done. He dissected the story of a baby burned in an oven, spinning a wild narrative involving confused first responders, bags of body parts, and a Hellfire missile:

“He actually had not seen any baby in an oven... It was someone named Eli Moskowitz... who said that he found a small bag with contents of body parts... pressed against a heating element... It was likely a Hellfire missile... body parts blown to bits... put forward as an Israeli baby.”

The level of cognitive distortion here is remarkable — but it’s not meant to persuade. It’s meant to muddy. Because for those who hate Jews, no evidence is necessary. And when a Jew denies rape, it makes it easier to disbelieve — or justify — everything else.

Judith Butler: War Is Peace. Rape Is Resistance.

Judith Butler, the academic known mainly for the length of her sentences and her hate for Israel, ran true to form when she described the October 7 Hamas massacre as “armed resistance.” Called on to defend her statement, she doubled down.

“We can have different views as Hamas as a political party, we can have different views on armed resistance, but I think it is more honest and historically correct to say that the uprising of October 7 was an act of armed resistance. It is not a terrorist attack and it’s not an antisemitic attack, it was an attack against Israelis.”

In other words, it’s not antisemitic when the Jews are Israeli. Got that?

Ilan Pappé: "Policies of Oppression"

Deranged Jew-hating Jewish academic, Ilan Pappé, justified the October 7 massacre as “an effort to dramatically change the balance of power and redirect the world’s attention to the Palestine issue” which had been put on the world’s metaphorical backburner because, you know, Ukraine:

The narrative in the Western media is that the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 came out of the blue and was orchestrated by Iran. This narrative purposely ignores the intensification of Israel’s policies of oppression against the Palestinians, driven by the ideology of the new government, including massive arrests without trial, a shoot-to-kill policy targeting mainly teenagers, the tightening of the siege on the Strip, and encouraging settlers and the police to invade the al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest place in Islam, with the aim of rebuilding, in its stead, a Jewish temple.

The Hamas assault was partly a response to these new policies, as well as an effort to dramatically change the balance of power and redirect the world’s attention to the Palestine issue, which had been marginalised since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

There you have it, all neat and tidy, wrapped up with a bow. That’s how Pappé does it. Mass rape and beheadings conveniently reframed as nothing more than a PR strategy—a PR stunt that gives cover to Israel "true" intent: to invade Al-Aqsa mosque.

The Most Dangerous Jews Are the Ones Who Just Want to Be Loved

What binds these people together — Finkelstein, Glazer, Blumenthal, Butler, Pappé — is not ideology. It’s a desperate yearning to be accepted by the world that hates them. To be seen not as Jews, but as good Jews. Useful Jews. Jews who prove their morality by turning against their own.

They suffer, in the words of scholar Shaul Bar-Haim, from internalized antisemitism: a condition where the “otherness” imposed on Jews by gentile society is accepted and echoed by Jews themselves — often louder than anyone else.

But let’s call it what it really is: betrayal.

Betrayal wrapped in intellectual language. Dressed up as activism. Justified with words like “resistance” and “complexity.”

It’s all a disguise — a way to distance themselves from their own, to prove they’re different, better, worthy of acceptance.

And the damage they do is incalculable — not only to their people, but to humanity itself.

In the end, turning your back on your own is neither courage nor conscience, but cowardice. And cowardice, when dressed as virtue, is the most dangerous kind of lie.

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Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

Read More