10/13 Links Pt2: Hamas is terrorising Palestinians once again; The sinister truth about Greta’s selfie ship; How can anyone now deny these are ‘hate marches’?

From Ian:

Andrew Fox: Hamas is terrorising Palestinians once again

The ceasefire with Israel has also allowed Hamas to turn its murderous attention to any opposition to its rule in Gaza. Throughout the war, small groups of Palestinian fighters and local clans have taken advantage of Israeli military bombardment to put pressure on Hamas. Now that a truce is in place, Hamas has started to brutally eliminate these rivals.

Hamas is trying to instil as much fear in the Gazan population as it can. Last month, outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, it publicly executed three men accused of collaborating with Israel. They were blindfolded, kicked to the ground and shot in the head – all to cheers from those who had gathered to witness the executions. Hamas aims to terrorise potential challengers, whether ordinary civilians or members of hostile clans.

Critically, Hamas has openly refused to disarm. A senior official was even quoted recently as saying this would be ‘out of the question’ and ‘not up for negotiation’. Having seized Gaza by force in 2007 and maintained control since then, Hamas is committed to surviving both politically and militarily.

Hamas’s second objective is to influence the court of global public opinion. Hamas has framed the Gaza war as an Israeli-made tragedy of genocidal proportions. This has galvanised international pressure against Israel and partially absolved Hamas of blame for starting the war. Central to this propaganda push is the narrative of a ‘Gaza holocaust’ – an outrageous inversion of reality that casts Israel as a Nazi-like perpetrator and Palestinians as the victims of an extermination campaign. Indeed, Hamas leaders and their media mouthpieces have repeatedly invoked the Nazi Shoah to condemn Israel’s actions. While this media jihad may have been based on lies, it has succeeded in isolating Israel on the world’s stage.

Hamas’s ruthless and malignant nature means it will continue to be a difficult foe. We know it will stop at nothing in order to cling to power. It will use intimidation and bloodshed – and show the same contempt for Palestinian lives as it has shown for Israeli lives.

If Hamas manages to hold on to power in Gaza, any hope for a stable and non-violent future will vanish, at horrific cost to ordinary Palestinian people. It will take real pressure and determination – particularly from Arab countries – to remove Hamas for good.

Regardless of the outcome of the Egypt peace conference, one thing is crystal clear: Hamas’s actions are further proof it is a morally bankrupt, evil organisation. Its aims are not statehood or peace for Palestinians, but the perpetuation of its own Islamist tyranny and terror.

True progress in Gaza remains impossible as long as Hamas continues to poison the well.

Netflix, BBC and Others Sent Legal Letter Over Israel Film Boycott Signed by Joaquin Phoenix, Olivia Colman: ‘Highly Likely to Be a Litigation Risk’

Some of the U.K.’s most prominent studios and screen organizations have been sent a legal warning over an industry boycott of Israeli film institutions.

The letter from U.K. Lawyers for Israel states that the boycott, which has been backed by Hollywood stars including Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Olivia Colman and Mark Ruffalo, is a breach of the U.K.’s Equality Act and may also have a knock-on impact on financing and insurance.

The U.K. outposts of Netflix, Disney, Amazon Studios, Apple and Warner Bros. Discovery are among those who have been sent the letter as well as domestic companies including the BBC, Film4 and ITV. Other recipients include film organizations such as the BFI and Pact, agencies Curtis Brown and United Agents and unions including Bectu and Equity.

“[The Equality Act 2010] is the key legislation in the U.K. protecting against racism and discriminatory treatment,” states the letter, which has been seen by Variety. “If the U.K. television and film industry colludes with acts contrary to this legislation, organizations are themselves likely to be in breach. It also creates a dangerous precedent: one that condones the exclusion of individuals and/or organizations based solely on their nationality, ethnicity, and/or religion.”

The letter also claims that the boycott’s attempt at “selective application — exempting some institutions based on the ethnicity or religion of their members — strongly indicates that [its] operation is based not only on nationality but also on religion and ethnicity.” According to Film Workers for Palestine, which organized the boycott, it does not apply to Palestinian Israelis, for whom there are different “context sensitive guidelines.”

Although the boycott claims only to target Israeli-linked film institutions and not individuals, the Equality Act protects organizations as well as people. This is likely to be particularly relevant in the screen industry, where many actors and producers contract their services through companies.

Studios could potentially be liable for any breaches of the Equality Act carried out by their “staff and agents,” according to the letter. Actors, producers, agents, managers, production companies, producers and “anyone else who instructs, causes, induces, or helps to implement the Boycott– for example, encouraging a distributor not to deal with Israeli outlets, or advising a colleague to insist on a Boycott clause” could also incur liability.

The sinister truth about Greta’s selfie ship

After Israeli forces had detained and removed her from a flotilla supposedly carrying aid to Gaza, all-purpose activist Greta Thunberg arrived at Athens airport on Monday night to a raucous hero’s welcome.

If you listen carefully, though, the crowd seemed less interested in the plight of Gazans than in calling for the death of Israelis. Specifically, members of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Cries of ‘Death, death to the IDF’ were so loud and protracted that they, and other chants, twice interrupted Thunberg’s press conference.

The 40-boat Global Sumud Flotilla on which Thunberg had been sailing had been intercepted by the IDF roughly 100 kilometres off the coast of Gaza. Those on board were taken to the Port of Ashdod in southern Israel, arrested and mostly flown home by Israeli authorities on Monday. Thunberg has alleged ‘abuse and mistreatment’ at the hands of Israelis – a claim that is hard to reconcile with the sight of a healthy, unharmed Thunberg, energetically addressing a crowd late at night after an international flight. Then again, she could hardly have told the crowd that she had been rescued by the very people they wanted to kill.

The crowd’s intense loathing for Israel was evident from the moment Thunberg arrived. A supporter who introduced the Swedish activist to the crowd emphasised the importance of her giving a speech ‘the day before Israelis use 7 October to lick their wounds’ – which is one way to talk about the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. These were hardly the words of someone who ‘believes in human dignity and power of nonviolent action’ – a core principle of the flotilla, at least according to its website.

Other members of the flotilla have expressed views even more repugnant. The public comments of activist Sarah Wilkinson afford a glimpse of the kind of small talk that might have been on offer below deck. ‘The Israelis are not human’, Wilkinson said. ‘They have hands, they have faces, but they are not one of us. They are monsters.’ She described Hamas fighters who took part in the 7 October attack as ‘heroes’, and celebrated the news of Israelis ‘fleeing their homes’. She posted these comments along with a picture of an Israeli woman running for her life from Hamas terrorists at the Nova music festival.

There is a distinct possibility that Wilkinson’s views were the rule, rather than the exception, among flotilla members. This week, an Israeli government department published a report linking several of the armada’s ‘steering members’ with Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The evidence includes members of the flotilla being photographed at meetings with senior members of Hamas and attending the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, the former leader of Hezbollah.

One thing the flotilla appeared to have no interest in, despite its public objective, was delivering aid to Palestinians. Israeli police claimed that none of the ships on the flotilla was carrying food, water or medical supplies. Not an ounce, they said, could be detected of the purported 300 tonnes of vital supplies that the media told us the flotilla was so gallantly conveying to Gaza.

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10/13 Links Pt1: Netanyahu and Trump have been vindicated; We must never forget the ‘progressive’ betrayal of the Israeli hostages; Israel recovers four bodies from Gaza

From Ian:

Elliott Abrams: No, the Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Could Not Have Happened Earlier

How did the Gaza ceasefire happen? The anti-Israel left, and Democrats rushing to explain why former president Joe Biden could not achieve it, have invented the phony argument one can find prominently displayed in a New York Times "analysis" that asks, "Why Now?" and in the sanctimonious X threads of former Biden officials explaining how they laid the groundwork for this historic deal.

It goes like this: Biden offered similar ceasefire plans a year ago. The hostages would have been home in 2024, and lots of deaths and injuries avoided, if Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had not been so nasty and right wing, and had not sought to prolong the war for his personal political advantage.

The truth is that the war ended because Israel and the United States exercised power—political, diplomatic, and military. In June, Israel bombed the Iranian nuclear sites and eliminated many of its top scientists and generals. President Trump followed days later with devastating strikes on the largest Iranian nuclear sites. Israel’s assault on Gaza City, Hamas’s last stronghold, began in late August and taught Hamas that holding hostages would not prevent such an assault. Then on Sept. 9, Israel struck at Hamas leaders in Doha, scaring the Qataris into begging for protection from Trump. He offered it—but it is no coincidence that this was the moment when the Qataris began to pressure Hamas to agree to a ceasefire and to release all the living hostages on day one. It was Qatari diplomatic pressure that brought Turkey to push Hamas for the same concessions.

Democrats acknowledge all this in a backhanded way, though they won’t say it in so many words. Former secretary of state Antony Blinken, for example, told the New York Times that "this is a different moment—we didn’t have then what President Trump has now. Hamas is defeated as a military organization, isolated diplomatically, it’s lost its patrons—Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis ... ." Blinken was silent as to how everything that "Trump has now" came about—that is, the use of military power by Netanyahu and Trump in ways that Biden urged the Israelis against and would never have contemplated himself.

Blinken claims that the Biden administration had a plan that would have achieved everything, but when Trump came in, "the moment was squandered." Some people never learn. There is more candor from former negotiator Brett McGurk, who told the New York Times "the 12-day war with Iran really moved the needle."

So did Trump’s repeated statements that if Hamas did not agree to stop fighting, he would back Israel fully. Trump said on Sept. 29 that if Hamas did not agree to his 21-point plan, he would "let Israel do what you have to do," adding that Israel "would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas." Standing next to Netanyahu at the White House, Trump had—much to the chagrin of some New York Times reporters—delivered "an ultimatum to Hamas."

Seth Mandel: Trump’s Affection for Israel

Why was it a “catastrophic defeat”? Because, Bannon said, the Israelis “pushed this Greater Israel project and it came crashing down around them.” He then ranted about the Mossad for a while and got angry on behalf of the Qataris, par for the woke-right course.

The “Greater Israel” comment is intended to convey worry that Israel is seeking to expand its borders through war, but of course Netanyahu does not want Gaza, just as Egypt was glad to be rid of it and refused to take it back when Israel offered in 1967. Gaza is a millstone not a medal—that’s why we’re in this situation to begin with.

Why would a grizzled veteran of the woke right like Bannon feel the need to pretend this was a “catastrophic defeat” for anybody but his own angry faction of the party?

One reason is the way Trump described the Gaza deal today at the Knesset: “What a victory it’s been, all right, what a victory.” That victory is not just Israel’s but America’s, and therefore it is a victory for the alliance of democracies. American victory is the isolationists’ kryptonite, as it vindicates the idea that America has an important role to play in the world and that it is fully capable of doing so.

Another way of saying “American victory” is “American success,” and the Bannon-Tucker-Owens wing of the right cannot abide American success. They can only tolerate American humility.

The other reason has to do with the sentimental nature of Trump’s attachment to Israel. Bannon and Tucker Carlson and the rest obviously lost their fight against the pro-Israel contingent within the administration, that’s not exactly news. But they could handle their defeat better if the president’s support for Israel in a military conflict at least required him to hold his nose. Instead, Trump is having the time of his life. He loves it when Israel wins. Bannon is the one who is tired of all the winning.

What this past year has revealed is that Trump likes Israel. That the special relationship between the two countries is still there, still holding on, despite the woke right’s attempt to sabotage it. The haters don’t like it, but the fact remains: America and Israel are good together, and together they are good for the world.

God’s Shelter Still Stands By Abe Greenwald

Via Commentary Newsletter, sign up here.
The success of those wildly complicated and audacious operations speaks for itself. But three months later, it’s clear that the miracles never stopped. While media, foreign governments, activists, and NGOs launched a blood-libel campaign about a false Israeli starvation plot, the IDF was busy routing Gaza City of Hamas and fielding the world’s first operational laser-light missile-defense battery. In September, Israel struck at Hamas’s leadership in Qatar, a move that was both broadly condemned and framed as a complete failure. But it was that very strike that would, in time, convince the Qataris to pressure Hamas into a cease-fire and a total release of Israeli hostages.

In a list of Israel’s divine blessings, the presidency of Donald Trump ranks right at or near the top. Neither influenced by the famine fraud nor moved by the stunt of Palestinian-state recognition, Trump stood by Israel for as long as it needed to fight. Once Israeli victory presented the opportunity, however, he coordinated an unprecedented diplomatic effort to initiate the cease-fire and the return of the hostages. And so, here we are.

Nor has Trump been a blessing only to those Jews who reside in Israel. It may not seem like much of a miracle to some, but the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown on anti-Semitism in higher education is something I never thought we’d see.

It can be very hard to see sometimes, but God continues to protect the Jewish people. And, as Sukkot comes to a close, I’m dumbstruck with gratitude. As for the harvesting aspect of the holiday, it feels as if the Jews are about to reap a great bounty. Considering what Israel has accomplished while under deadly attack from all sides, there’s no telling what it will be able to achieve in the wake of a victorious war.

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10/12 Links: The End of October 7 Denialism; Israel won its war, but the West’s is only just beginning; Coleman Hughes: Antisemitism and the Black experience; Mr. FAFO Finally Found Out

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The End of October 7 Denialism

So that’s it—riddle solved, question answered. Every Gazan who stormed through the destroyed border fence that day was a participant in an explicitly genocidal attack with specific encouragement toward heinous crimes against humanity and to document it all so there could be no confusion, no denial, no debate: “Undertake these actions intentionally.”

All of this was obvious from the moment it happened. But the ranks of Western anti-Israel activists are filled with people trained to deny the obvious. Now it is fact, and it is undeniable. Every accusation made against Israel by Hamas’s supporters was pure projection.

One can imagine how frustrating this might have been, at least at first, to Hamas itself. Its top leadership specifically called for the entire world to witness Hamas’s crimes, to know they were intentional, and to inspire others to globalize the intifada along with them. The fact that they inspired more such ghoulishness among Western activists than random Palestinians in the West Bank should haunt us all. Gaza became the last true Nazi citadel, and lots of people in Europe and America thought it was grand.

Moreover, the denialism that crept in was a strategic problem for Hamas. It contradicted the entire point of the operation.

Just as frustrating must have been the slow development of the assumption among many that Hamas’s meticulously planned operation was disordered and disorganized. It wasn’t. It’s just that many Palestinian “civilians” in Gaza joined in the bloodletting, giving the impression of randomness.

Why does it matter that the Hamas attacks were so meticulously organized? Because the idea of “disorganization” has been used by some in the “pro-Palestinian” chorus to claim that the very worst crimes were unintended. Gazans kidnapped and murdered and then mutilated the body of a baby. They were following instructions. Gazans abused defenseless women and children in horrific ways. They were following instructions. Gazans dragged elderly people in failing health across the sand into hellish captivity. They were following instructions.

I suppose “free Palestine” can mean different things to different people. But to those in America, Europe and Gaza, it means everything laid out above.

‘The voice is Jacob’s but the hands are Esau’s’

The October 7 onslaught shattered any pretense that Hamas’s wars were mere repetitions of the past. Unlike previous clashes—from 2008 through 2021—October 7 was designed not to echo history but to reverse it: to reinsert Palestinians into a moral narrative of redemptive violence, where bloodshed could undo 1948. The massacres were not simply acts of terror; they were ritual performances of revenge.

That leap into barbarism shocked the modern conscience but only briefly. In its aftermath, Hamas discovered that atrocity could enhance legitimacy. By obliterating the fragile consensus around “two states for two peoples,” its cry of “Palestine from the River to the Sea” resonated through the Middle East and beyond. Erdoğan defended Hamas; protesters across the West waved its banners in city streets, interrupting classes, graduations, and concerts—all in the name of “liberation.” The massacres were thus reframed as moral theater, violence transfigured into virtue.

To call Israel colonial, racist, and genocidal is to indulge in a narrative detached from evidence but nonetheless seductive. It turns Hamas into a providential force, and its leaders into martyrs of justice. But this mythology traps Palestinians in a cycle of victimhood that precludes the very statehood they claim to seek. Theirs is a political culture that elevates grievance over governance, tragedy over transformation.

Evangelizing martyrdom, Palestinian politics has built its identity around the Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948, rather than around the arduous work of institution-building. Statecraft requires compromise, calculation, and the will to secure material stability—qualities absent from movements that glorify self-sacrifice and see every negotiation as betrayal. State building may be arduous and uncertain, but it is the only one that leads toward independence.

Storytelling, when untethered from analysis, can enchant but it cannot explain. And so, the question remains: when President Trump demanded that Hamas “hurry up or face consequences,” whom was he really warning—the terrorists holding the hostages, or the world still reluctant to confront the myths that sustain the savagery seemingly too costly politically or economically for its leaders to confront?

Only states could broker an agreement to bring back all the hostages and generate the forces to end the Gaza War. States are compelled to engage in rational, strategic calculations to protect territory and resources. Their calculations may sometimes be wrong but they are, at least, subject to bargaining and trading one set of goods for another. The pivot from Hamas to Qatar and Turkey, from terrorist movement to independent states crafted the preconditions for what can easily become another chapter in The Art of the Deal.

Jake Wallis Simons: Israel won its war, but the West’s is only just beginning

The celebrities who spent two years demanding “Ceasefire Now” fell conspicuously silent when Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu secured a ceasefire now. Clearly, they had been hankering only after the kind of ceasefire that followed an Israeli defeat. Or to put it another way, a victory for Hamas.

Was any of this a surprise? The information warfare has been intense. In the heat of battle, the United Nations turned itself into a disinformation machine, endorsing lies of “genocide” and “famine”. Meanwhile, our media erased Hamas, exposing audiences only to pictures of suffering Palestinian civilians. Did nobody wonder how the dead and wounded jihadis had vanished? Any conflict with one side removed makes tragic collateral death feel like “genocide”.

A study by Fifty Global Research Group showed that 98 per cent of mainstream English-language news reports cited Hamas numbers, of which just two per cent were acknowledged as unreliable. By contrast, Israeli figures were cited in only five per cent of reports, and half of those questioned their credibility. No wonder support for the only democracy in the Middle East was left at rock bottom.

Driven by complacency, naïveté and self-regard, the West has driven itself mad. As the dust settles, international isolation may be Israel’s challenge, but that country is resilient. We, on the other hand, have been left with a social rot accelerating our collapse from within.

The excuse of “Gaza” may pass, but after decades of reckless immigration, political sectarianism is here to stay. The hard-Left mobs and Muslim Brotherhood fanatics have won control of our streets, vowing to maintain their aggression regardless of the ceasefire. The Palestine flag now competes with the Union Jack. We don’t know who we are any more.

Donald Trump’s genius has left Israel in a position of great strength. Its society is resilient, its economy booming, its demographics young and growing, its enemies castrated. In the West, meanwhile, we are in great jeopardy on all those counts. Israel’s war may be over, but for us, it is only beginning.

Meir Y. Soloveichik: A Primer for the Promised Land

REVIEW: ‘Explaining Israel: The Jewish State, the Middle East, and America’ by Peter Berkowitz
To have the pleasure of knowing, and learning from, Peter Berkowitz, is to encounter a polymathic mind whose insightful intellect ranges across politics and the academy, law, philosophy, and history. My own experience working with Berkowitz as a member of the State Department’s Commission on Inalienable Human Rights was a true privilege for which I will be forever grateful. The range of Berkowitz’s knowledge can be found in a newly published collection of columns that are ostensibly all about one subject—the state of the State of Israel—but range across 10 years of that country’s controversies and crises, especially on the debate on the future of the Judiciary and the world after October 7.

Some of the reflections regarding the latter subject are especially invaluable. Thus there is Berkowitz’s succinct summary of all that is wrong with the odious International Court of Justice in The Hague. Drawing on his own experience in foreign policy, Berkowitz describes all the true injustices this purported court has ignored. Most noteworthy of all, perhaps, is the "internment of some 1 million Muslim Uyghurs by the Chinese Communist Party."

And then there is a moving description of the author engaging in the unusual activity of teaching the writings of Burke, Mill, and Locke, to a group of adult members of the Israeli Haredi community (often inaccurately rendered "ultra-Orthodox"). I know of no one else who could have the right balance of gifts to lead this unique form of pedagogy. Berkowitz movingly describes the discussion between himself and his students, and reflects how freedom and religion are not "inevitable antagonists," but rather "working partners and perhaps friends."

How is this balance being struck in Israel, and how comparable is it to the cultural moment in America? Berkowitz compares the two countries at various points in the book, but I am unsure the comparison holds. Thus, praising a book by the Israeli intellectual Micah Goodman, Berkowitz describes how secularism can teach Jewish Orthodoxy that too often it fosters "a sense of guilt stemming from the experience of always falling short of God’s commandments." Mutual understanding between the faithful and the secular, Berkowitz concludes, "may have the additional benefit—in the United States as in Israel—of tempering the increasingly entrenched enmity between right and left."

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10/11 Links: How Israel’s Strength Paved the Way to Peace; Burn towns, slaughter, broadcast: 2022 Sinwar memo said to detail Hamas plan for Oct. 7

From Ian:

How Israel’s Strength Paved the Way to Peace

Many Americans have wished the Zionists well, but those warm feelings did not immediately translate into a strategic partnership. Washington only embraced the diplomatic and strategic possibilities created by Israeli military power after Israel repeatedly defeated its enemies. The Americans do not value Israel because they have been manipulated, emotionally or otherwise. Jewish strength made the alliance strong.

Another biblical story, of King David and his mighty men, better captures why Israel matters so much to Americans. Some of these elite warriors were not Israelites, but they nevertheless worked with the Jews to defeat their common foes. At times they were too eager to do battle, and David refused a gift they brought to him after one especially risky mission. Without them, Israel would have been in much greater danger.

Modern Israel is a sovereign country, and the United States is not its king, but there are some important similarities: Just as Jerusalem and Washington share friends, Israel's enemies are America's too. The Israelis are remarkably effective at defeating those enemies, and many of the terrorist organizations Israel has counterattacked since October 7 have American blood on their hands. Like King David, the Americans sometimes can only accept these victories with reservations. The Biden administration in particular tried to slow or halt Israeli counteroffensives.

This story also contains an important warning: David did not always reward the mighty men for their faithful service, and his kingdom suffered for it. His reign began to decline when he betrayed one of them, Uriah the Hittite, and as the consequences cascaded, he spent the rest of his life fending off revolts and dissension.

After one of the worst moments in its history, Israel rallied to protect itself and many others. The hostages, their families, and their countrymen are the first to benefit from this great victory. The Americans are not far behind.

Israel’s war for survival is only just beginning

Over the past two years, anti-Zionism, coupled with an irrational, emotional attachment to Palestine, has become a prominent feature of youth culture. The keffiyeh has become a must-have for self-styled ‘progressives’. To be for Palestine is a way to affirm one’s virtuous anti-Western identity.

In many cases, anti-Zionism in the West has served as a medium for expressing anti-Jewish sentiments. Too often the explosion of these sentiments has been misleadingly blamed on Israel’s conduct in its war with Hamas. Yet the current wave of anti-Jewish hatred is rooted in trends that predate 7 October. The war has merely given anti-Semites a chance to publicly give vent to their prejudices. Indeed, in the form of anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism has even been endowed with respectability.

The very public surge in anti-Zionism has furthered the demonisation and isolation of Israel. Numerous Western governments have felt the need to show that they too are now on the ‘right side of history’ by distancing themselves from Israel. Various tactics have been deployed to this effect, from sanctions and boycotts to the recognition of a Palestinian state. Israel today is far more isolated diplomatically than at any time in its history.

The hostility directed at Israel by Western activists and their supporters among the cultural and political elites is not simply a response to Israel’s war conduct. With Israel treated as the embodiment of all that is rotten about the West, anti-Zionism expresses a sense of estrangement from Western civilisation itself. That is why some of Israel’s most zealous and ideologically committed enemies are to be found on the streets of the capital cities of Western Europe.

Looking back over the past two years, it becomes clear that Israel was always having to wage a war on two fronts: first, against Hamas, and second, against the Western self-loathing that now prevails in Europe and America. For those under the influence of this anti-Western zeitgeist, Palestine represents the moral antithesis of the West. History shows that this profound cultural self-loathing can easily lead to outbursts of frenzied irrationalism. That is why young people who know next to nothing about the Middle East can so spontaneously come under the spell of anti-Israeli hysteria.

Whatever the outcome of the current peace negotiations, the spirit of this anti-Western, anti-Zionist zeitgeist will continue to haunt the Western world. Its power and influence represent a threat to Israel and the West that is no less dangerous than that posed by Hamas and other Islamist groups. Long after this phase of the war is over, Israel will have to fight an existential, cultural and diplomatic war against its anti-Western detractors.

Israel now has no choice but to prepare for war on two fronts. The cultural battlefield in the West is no less important than the military battlefield of the Middle East.

We must tackle the poisonous lies about Israel to stop the rising tide of anti-Semitism

I welcome the Government’s long-overdue pledge to give the police greater powers to ban repeated anti-Israel protests, but, if we’re to have any chance of preventing more attacks like that which occurred last week, it needs a comprehensive approach which tackles the interrelated challenges of anti-Semitism, extremism and the Iranian threat of domestic radicalisation.

First, the Government should require all public bodies to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism in full and without amendment. This explicitly says that criticism of the Israeli government is not anti-Semitism – but it provides some critical guard rails to prevent grotesque comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany or denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination.

This should be allied to the establishment of an independent reviewer of anti-Semitism in the public sector, who should be required to publish an annual report.

As recommended by the Board of Deputies’ Commission on Antisemitism, the Government should host a summit of NHS leaders to tackle anti-Semitism in the NHS. When Jews are removing Star of David jewellery before visiting the doctor, something has gone terribly wrong. The current medical regulatory system is, the Health Secretary has rightly argued, completely failing to protect patients and NHS staff.

A similarly robust stance must be taken towards the anti-Jewish racism on our campuses and at the BBC.

Second, the menace of “hateful extremism”, identified by the Commission for Countering Extremism in 2021, must be taken on. As the former counter-extremism commissioner, Sara Khan, has noted, successive governments have failed to address gaps in legislation which allows Islamist extremists (and a host of other repellent individuals and groups, such as neo-Nazis) to operate just beyond the terrorism threshold. “They are carefully steering around existing laws … openly glorifying terrorism, collecting and sharing some of the most violent extremist propaganda, or intentionally stirring up racial or religious hatred against others,” the commissioner of the Met Police, Sir Mark Rowley, who co-authored the 2021 report, argued at the time. This does not simply stoke violence and hatred, it also creates “an ever-bigger pool for terrorists to recruit from”.

Third, Iranian ideological centres in the UK, which operate through a network of community centres, charities and student organisations, are promoting Tehran’s violent and extremist ideology in the UK. They have even hosted talks by virulent anti-Semites in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. After years of inaction by the Tories, the Government has pledged to proscribe non-state threats, such as the IRGC. It needs to put the necessary legislation on the statute books as swiftly as possible.

But this needs to be just the first step. The Government should develop a cross-departmental task force to tackle the Iranian domestic threat, including through countering its support for radicalisation; declining extremists’ entry; and identifying and sanctioning Iranian regime oligarchs, elites and proxies in the UK. It should conduct a thorough review of links between Iran and the charitable and NGO sector akin to previous reviews of espionage and abuse in the sector carried out with regards to China.

Finally, the Government needs to actively and consistently challenge the effort to delegitimise Israel. It should speak out against the bigotry of the BDS movement – including the manner in which Jewish performers are being excluded from the arts – and make clearer that its disagreements are with the Israeli government, not the Israeli people: decisions such as that to suspend free trade agreement talks send the opposite message.

Ministers should also think carefully about some of the rhetoric they deploy given that Israel isn’t just the world’s only Jewish state, but a key western ally and the region’s only democracy. It’s time that – above all the hate and opprobrium – that message is heard loud and clear.

Hollywood hypocrites Why aren’t all the Israel-bashing celebrities celebrating cease-fire?

Last month, more than 2,000 artists signed a petition pledging to not work with Israeli filmmakers or “institutions that are complicit in Israel’s human rights abuses against the Palestinian people.”

Boldface signees included John Cusack, Joaquin Phoenix and director Ava DuVernay. This week, those three have simply shared videos criticizing Trump and the peace plan.

I expected a huge celebration from Stalter’s “Hacks” co-star Hannah Einbinder, who literally wore an “Artists4Ceasefire” pin to the Emmys and used her win to scream: “Free Palestine and f–k ICE.”

After this week’s news, she initially posted a video of her decrying Zionisim as a betrayal of Judaism and a sad meme about the Eagles losing to the Giants. By Friday night, two days after the fact, Einbinder found the right prepared post to share: “We are elated by the Gaza ceasefire news,” it reads in small type.

Larger are the words, “Now the world must hold Israel to account for 2 years of genocide.”

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. When Hamas murdered more than 1,200 innocent Israelis and kidnapped 251 hostages on October 7, 2023, there was relative silence from Hollywood’s hypocrites. And it eventually became much more fashionable to become a shameless Israel-basher.

Perhaps most shameless of all is Spanish actor Javier Bardem. He has posted a few videos of children celebrating in Gaza, but his happiness was tempered by whinging posts that the ceasefire does not address the real issue of a free Palestine.

Maybe he should take that up with boys from Hamas.

In 2014, Bardem and wife Penélope Cruz signed an open letter, published in a Spanish newspaper, accusing Israel of genocide.

When the actor received blowback, he issued a statement saying, “While I was critical of the Israeli military response, I have great respect for the people of Israel and deep compassion for their losses.”

Fast-forward to the Emmys, when he showed up in a keffiyeh and once again accused Israel of genocide.

When protesters in Madrid disrupted the La Vuelta bike race because Israel’s team was competing, Bardem praised the agitators, adding, “we can’t allow” them to compete.

Guess he never really had compassion for the people of Israel after all.

The goal posts are always moving with this crowd.

In their calls to “free Palestine,” it’s always about Israel — never about Hamas, who turned Gaza into a terror staging ground after Israel withdrew from there in 2005.

The silence today speaks volumes about what sure looks like their real and very sinister aim: wiping Israel off the map.

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10/10 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The return of hope; Biased media fuels American Jewish opposition to Israel; Manchester and the Exodus From Britain

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The return of hope

For the past two years, they and others with a similar world-view — and all four of them desperately trying to appease a Muslim population that is threatening their own countries no less than Israel — have been essential to Hamas in its strategy of psychological and diplomatic war against the Jewish state. These four leaders have led their countries in gaslighting Israel and the Jews, shedding crocodile tears over the hostages and over the rampant Jew-hatred in their own countries, and disseminating wall-to-wall lies and falsehoods produced by Hamas that have been swallowed by the west to defame, demonise and delegitimise Israel as a means to its eventual destruction.

This victory over Hamas has been achieved despite Starmer, Macron, Carney and Albanese; achieved in the teeth of everything they have been so dishonorably doing to ensure that Israel lost this desperate war of survival; and against the background of the Jew-hatred convulsing their own population that they did absolutely nothing to stop and a great deal to foment. Any claim to any moral authority that these four leaders ever had has been shot. No-one should anyone view anything they say with respect ever again.

The war against the Jews is far from over. Iran is re-arming and regrouping. Israel will probably have to go to to war against it once again. Qatar remains an enemy not just of Israel but of the west, which it is assiduously subverting through the Muslim Brotherhood that it leads. And the war against the Jews being waged by the haters of Israel and the west within the west will not only continue but may become ever more frenzied as western countries fall apart through social and cultural division and the accelerating crumbling of their own identity.

In the coming days, the Jewish world will hopefully rejoice at the return of its people from their underground tomb where we all feared they would be lost forever; but it will also mourn.

It will mourn those who have been lost on October 7, in the hellish dungeons of Gaza and in this terrible war.

And it will also mourn what we have so shatteringly learned in the past two terrible years: that when the Jews were faced with a second Holocaust, openly declared by Iran and Hamas, the world either didn’t care or was actually cheering it on.

We learned that far too many in the west were determined to deny the Jews the status of victims. Deny they had been victims of anything; ever. Deny that they were victimised now, on October 7 and in the war of self-defence that followed.

Instead, these western “progressives” were determined to stick it to the Jews, to blame them for their own extermination, to accuse them of being the prime source of evil in the world. They appropriated the word “genocide”, the term invented to describe the unparalleled evil that happened to the Jews under the Nazis and was now being openly threatened against the Jews once again, and instead accused the Jewish state of committing that monstrous crime by waging its war of defence against it.

They have stolen the word “genocide” from the Jews just as the Palestinian Arabs try to steal from the Jews their own homeland and their own history in the land of Israel. The west has aided the genocidal “Palestinian” agenda by turning Israel into the Jew among nations.

For this the west will never be forgiven. The Jewish people owe Trump a debt of gratitude. The four horsemen of the anti-Jewish apocalpyse, Starmer, Macron, Carney and Albanese, deserve nothing but contempt.

Israel is hopefully now emerging from a long nightmare. Western nations are descending into theirs.

The end of ‘the West’

Countries cannot exist without people; economies depend on workers to maintain themselves and avoid collapse. Governments understand this; those suffering from a birth crisis have turned to welcoming migrants into their borders. What they’ve failed to understand is that countries cannot be merely a collection of individuals who live in proximity to each other and pay taxes to the same government. They also require an ethos, produced by a collective memory of a shared history that cannot be imported. When native populations are cut by a quarter—in some cases by half—with each generation and are replaced by a massive influx of people who do not carry with them this collective memory, the ethos fades away. A nation, a people, is turned simply into a population, and societal collapse is sure to follow.

That’s the thing about low fertility rates; both their cause and their effect signal troubled societies. The societal collapse in most of the Western world is already showing on the streets. Major protests in support of Islamic terrorism against not just Israel but these countries’ own governments are emblematic of this. The massive and violent protests in Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States signal trouble for these countries first and foremost, less so for Israel.

While some politicians have tried pacifying these protesters (through, most recently, unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state), this has not helped since the root of this unrest is much deeper. In the United Kingdom, the murder of Jewish attendees at a Yom Kippur service in Manchester, England, took place after statehood was declared by Prime Minister Keir Starmer; in France, the government has collapsed for the fourth time in President Emmanuel Macron’s second term. A new parliamentary election could see his political camp fall apart, with calls for his resignation growing ever louder. His move to recognize “Palestine” did nothing to prevent or alleviate this.

For many of these countries, it’s too late to change course. Too much damage has been done; the current trajectory cannot be reversed. For some, recent events sound a dire warning; they have not yet fallen off the cliff, but are dangerously close to it. Major changes in policy are required. First and foremost, pro-natal ones are necessary to encourage those living in these countries to build new generations of natural-born citizens. Another requirement is for immigration policies to be centered on social and political assimilation, even if this draws cries from advocates of political correctness.

As for our ally Israel, what should it do? The first conclusion, which I’ve highlighted in previous pieces, is to adopt a policy of maximalist self-sufficiency. Jerusalem must realize that many of its traditional partners are no longer the reliable allies they once were. Those who still are, such as the United States, may unfortunately also change for the worse in the coming years, and Israel must be prepared for this.

With time, global trends will give rise to new powers, and with that to new alliances and partnerships. We’re already seeing this, for example, in Israel’s growing relationship with India. The end of the fossil-fuel age will also change global dynamics in Israel’s favor. While I have no doubt that opportunities will be abundant, a change of course and preparation for a tough interim period, spanning several decades, is a must.

Drew Pavlou: The World After October 7

Civilisational Conservatism
Witnessing all this, I personally decided that I opposed the concept of having my own head sawn off by Third Worldist jihadists in the name of race communism.

This is just the stand that I chose to make: opposing the idea that everybody I love should have their heads sawn off by raving jihadists in the name of ‘‘decolonisation.’’ I still supported universal public healthcare, but if my own personal reluctance to be beheaded by jihadists made me anathema to the left, I was fine with that.

Unlike drug-addled depressed communists like Gretchen, I loved life. So I didn’t yearn to bare my neck to the executioner’s blade as some kind of penance for having been born as a Westerner in a first world country.

After October 7, I realised that deep down I was a philosophical conservative, simply because I liked my country, my culture and my civilisation. I didn’t hate myself and crave my own oblivion and destruction. I didn’t hate my parents and my family members and my loved ones. So I rejected the radical left’s deep yearning for personal and collective suicide and self-destruction. And I rejected their blood libel.

October 7 taught me that all their decolonial talking points targeting countries like Australia as inherently ‘‘genocidal’’ settler colonies - it’s blood libel designed to prepare the road for terrorist violence in the West. It’s blood libel meant to justify terrorist violence to destroy liberalism and democracy and Western civilisation more broadly.

Our culture, our way of life, our loved ones - they would heap everything we love onto the bonfire and destroy it if they could. Because they don’t share our morality. Nothing we love has any value to them. We saw what their ‘‘decolonisation’’ looked like and it was demonic.

It’s ultimately as simple as this: if you spent the past 24 months cheering on jihadist pack rape and murder and mass killings while promising that your most ardent desire was to extend this bloodshed to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, all the ‘‘Western settler colonies’’ - we are fucking enemies. It’s as simple as that.

I refuse to go meekly to my grave and offer my neck to the executioner’s blade like Gretchen. I’m not going quietly. I choose Western civilisation over barbaric jihadism and suicidal Third Worldist race communism. And like the Israelis, I choose to fight rather than roll over and die.

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10/10 Links Pt1: Douglas Murray: Trump’s historic peace deal brings joy and relief — but it comes with a bitterly high cost; Why Trump’s Gaza peace plan infuriates the left

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: David Is Goliath, and That’s Great

The peace process that took off soon after would lock this framing into place. Put simply, it held that the Palestinians lived on their own land, so all Israel needed to do was release that land to them and the conflict would subside. No matter that the Palestinian Arabs had always rejected statehood alongside a Jewish state or that they had become a cat’s-paw of the Arab world, whose land and population dwarfed Israel’s. The Arab–Israeli conflict was transmuted into the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In this new framing, Israel was big and strong, the Palestinians small and weak and dependent upon the patronage of others to survive. As if to drive this point home, Hamas named its most recent war strategy in Gaza “Stones of David.”

But is this fair to David? After all, he wasn’t weak—just underestimated. The actual David became king, united the Jews, and expanded his kingdom by winning wars of annihilation that were waged against his people. David Lauter was wrong—Goliath doesn’t win 99 percent of the time. We only know about Goliath because he lost. David beats Goliath every time, otherwise he isn’t David. The enemies of Israel are wishcasting when they claim that Israel has become Goliath. They should be so lucky, because, again, Goliath loses; mere size isn’t enough to vanquish canny innovation and strategic thinking. Instead, they’re stuck with David.

This explains why anti-Zionists needed to think up an entirely new backstory for the Jews and Arabs of Palestine, one in which the ongoing presence of Jews in the Holy Land from time immemorial is a myth and the idea of Israel is simply an outgrowth of 19th-century European nationalism that used stories from the Hebrew Bible to create a false history.

This is what Yasir Arafat told Bill Clinton at Camp David, a ludicrous piece of revisionism considering that the Tel Dan Stele, a piece of carved stone from the ninth century b.c.e discovered in 1993 (seven years before Arafat’s conversation with Clinton), literally mentions “the House of David” in the Aramaic language. Pretending that the Jews are foreign colonizers was and is intended to dissociate them from the Davidic legacy and raises the anti-Semites’ hope that perhaps Israel can be defeated.

Whatever the motivation for the big lie of Israel as a European colony, the implications are unambiguous: The Jewish state must be dismantled in the name of justice. Older generations of American liberals didn’t feel this way. They still liked the Ari Ben Canaan of Exodus, the strapping Jewish man of action who sought to break bread with neighboring Arabs and simply find a place on earth for his suffering people. To them, Israel’s post-1967 expansion was the problem, but Israel’s rebirth in 1948 was still right and just.

The formative domestic experience for those American liberals was the civil rights movement. And since the large majority of 20th-century American Jews became loyal Democrats, the world of left-of-center activism contained a lot of common ground; American Jews sought full rights for American blacks just as they sought full recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

Had that tradition of American liberalism persisted into the 21st century, the aftermath of October 7, 2023, inside the United States might have looked a lot different. In an earlier era, left-wing activist groups likely would have seen it as the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that they would leap to the defense of a Jewish victim just as quickly as they would for any other victim.

But that’s possible only in a world in which Jews could, under the right conditions, be victims. That’s not something the newer generations of progressive activists believe. They had long ago internalized the concept of the irredeemable Israeli. They subscribed to the dogma of decolonization, and October 7 affirmed their worldview. Hamas’s murderous and genocidal spree was, grotesquely, proof to them that the arc of history still bent toward justice.

American Jewish organizations were blindsided by this. Suddenly their calls to other minority-rights groups went straight to voicemail. The decades they had spent building relationships in good faith crumbled overnight.

Should they have expected this turn of events? Those who cast a critical eye on the “David and Goliath” framing certainly did. In 2014, Joshua Muravchik published his extraordinary book, Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel. What begins as a chronicle of the well-known narrative ends with a bit of foreshadowing. Muravchik wrote of the new anti-Zionist realignment taking shape on the left: “As with the proletariat under classical Marxism, the favored groups—blacks, browns, former colonials—were not merely objects of sympathy; they were regarded as the vessels of universal redemption. Not only were Gandhi and Mandela seen in this light, but even, to some, Ayatollah Khomeini. The French social theorist Michel Foucault wrote rapturously of the Iranian revolution in Le Nouvel Observateur in 1978, seeing in it an ‘attempt to open a spiritual dimension in politics,’ a ‘possibility we [Westerners] have forgotten since the Renaissance and the great crisis of Christianity.’”

Under the old regime, victimhood could be temporary. But “former colonials” are forever. One can never stop being a “former colonial,” no matter one’s current station. And the anti-colonialist takeover of American academia ensures there will always be an intellectual framework to prop up this Weltanschauung.

For American Jews, then, the days of apologizing for Israel’s strength should be over. And no matter one’s position on the settlements, the Jewish connection to the land should never be downplayed or denied. Finally, American Jews should remember the difference between criticizing Israeli government policies and painting the state or its government as illegitimate or inhuman. Today’s anti-Zionists are not arguing about what kind of state Israel should be. They want it gone entirely. The American Jewish community must adjust to this new reality and celebrate Israel as David—not the lowly shepherd, but David, the author of the Psalms, the father of a divinely inspired nation, Melech Israel.

Douglas Murray: Trump’s historic peace deal brings joy and relief — but it comes with a bitterly high cost

That deal was a bitter one for Israelis to swallow. But they did swallow it — in order to get their young man home.

Sinwar went back to Gaza and increased his control inside Hamas. His renown among his fellow jihadists was only increased through his time in prison. And then he launched October 7th, 2023.

How will this time be different? How will the Israeli public know that the hundreds of prisoners released in exchange for their hostages will not be the next Sinwar?

There is only person who can ensure that the last two years of bloody conflict and loss is not just the latest Gaza war but the last Gaza war. That man is President Trump.

It is the president who has managed to put together the remarkable regional coalition that appears to be bringing this war to an end. The relationships he has built over many years have often been the subject of criticism, but they will have proved invaluable if this peace deal passes and holds.

And it is that second bit that will matter most. That the deal holds.

Because it is crucial that whatever happens in the next few days, Hamas or similar jihadist groups can never again control Gaza. That they are never again in a position to invade and slaughter their neighbors.

For that to happen President Trump is going to need to remain engaged in the post-war aftermath.

He has already talked of the “Board of Peace” which he will chair and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be on. Blair has his critics, but he also has an unparalleled contact book for the region.

With the engagement of the Arab states it is possible that post-war Gaza could indeed be rebuilt. But it must be rebuilt in the knowledge that the citizens are preparing for a life of peace — not a future of war.

President Trump has brought the people of Israel and Gaza to the brink of peace. Now he has to make it hold.

Seth Mandel: Winning a Small War Is a Big Deal

Small wars are usually insurgencies, which means they are often directed against an occupying power that will pick up and leave if the cost gets too high. Israel’s small wars are the opposite, hence that Golda Meir quote: There is nowhere to go. The Jews have reconstituted their state on the same land where they have done so for thousands of years. There’s no place for the Land of Israel to go. So it either survives or is destroyed.

The indigenous nature of Jewish sovereignty in the land, and the sliver on which Jews can live freely surrounded by the gargantuan Arab world, forecloses every option except coexistence and slaughter. Hamas, as the government of Gaza, chose slaughter, which means someone has to lose.

Hamas chose the nature of the war: the kind for which democracies quickly lose their nerve. And indeed, many democracies did: Only the president of the United States and the chancellor of Germany seemed to understand the threat that would be unleashed if they surrendered to the most evil force the world has seen since the Nazis.

In this atmosphere, Israel’s refusal to back down should be a great point of pride. Even after thousands of years, the Jews are still told by the world that they have a place among the nations only as a subservient minority population. The pressure to conform was immense, the moral and psychological blackmail was taken to obscene levels, and still the Jewish state held to its demands.

There was no honest argument against Israel’s insistence on the return of the hostages, so insane arguments were invented. The “genocide” label was perhaps the most ridiculous of all if only because it was debunked before it was even applied. Israel said “return the hostages you took and concede the war, and we’ll end the operation in Gaza.” Genocidal intent cannot be construed from this even by the cleverest anti-Semite in the world.

And now Israel has kept its word to the letter. Hamas has been defeated and Hamas’s supporters abroad have been humiliated. But you can see why they thought they might not be left looking foolish: Most of the time you can accuse a democracy of committing genocide and that democracy will back out of a small war.

Winning a small war in this environment required incredible fortitude. Israelis were up to the task.

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10/09 Links Pt2: America's Debt to Israel; From 7/7 to Manchester 2025 – the story they refuse to tell; The Hamas death cult has taken over campus

From Ian:

America's Debt to Israel

Two years after Hamas's Oct. 7 atrocities, the U.S. should be grateful to Israel. The Jewish state has begun to degrade America's enemies one by one. Hamas, an Iran-allied Islamist outfit dedicated to killing Jews, no longer exists as a military force. The Israel Defense Forces and Mossad took apart Hizbullah, the most lethal of Iran's terrorist proxies, which has killed many Americans including 241 in the 1983 Beirut bombings.

The Sunni-slaughtering, drug-running Assad dynasty in Damascus - robbed of Hizbullah's help as well as Iranian and Russian troops - collapsed. And in a stunning 12-day aerial duel, Israel badly damaged the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, killing scores of its generals and atomic scientists. Israel's success convinced President Trump to send the B-2 bombers that ensured that Iran's most deeply buried uranium-enrichment site went offline.

Will Washington have the understanding and intestinal fortitude to stand by an ally that has repeatedly enhanced America's influence throughout the Middle East and beyond?

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the CIA, is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

How Disgraceful Anti-Israel NGOs Set UN Agenda

A full-page ad in the Sept. 27 issue of the Globe and Mail, sponsored by the NGO Medecins sans Frontieres/Doctors without Borders (MSF), tots up the many calamities Gazans have endured in the two-year Hamas-Israel war. The ad speaks of civilian hunger, but not of plentiful aid stolen by Hamas. It does not mention Hamas at all - or the hostages taken, or any other cause of the war.

And hanging overall the false accusation that it is Israel that is committing genocide. Genocide requires intent, demonstrably not the case in Israel's defensive war, but which perfectly describes the motivation behind Hamas's rabid pogrom on October 7. Those reading the ad won't register the absence of objectivity of today's MSF as a politicized, biased and untrustworthy source of information.

MSF has not only lied about proven Hamas entrenchment in Gaza hospitals ("we have seen no evidence that the hospital buildings or the compounds are being used by Hamas as a military base") but admitted - following Oct. 7, mind - giving funding to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health.

"Non-governmental organizations" are supposed to be made up of altruistic civic-minded groups that provide expertise independent of the narrow self-interest of political bodies. It is on that ground that they are invited to participate in UN activities. But now retired, anti-democratic Marxist activists have executed the equivalent of a corporate hostile takeover of now corrupted NGOs like MSF, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty.

The superpower NGOs are accountable to nobody, yet in large part they are setting the UN's agenda on Israel. Then, when the UN executes the agenda they have promoted, they endorse it as if it were a coincidence.

The Hamas death cult has taken over campus

Ever keen to remind us of their moral bankruptcy, the keffiyeh cult’s student wing was out en masse yesterday. In the UK and beyond, hundreds of thousands of ‘pro-Palestine’ students walked out of lecture halls and flooded the streets, marking the two-year anniversary of the 7 October pogrom. Not to mourn it, of course, but to demand more death and destruction, by calling for the annihilation of Israel.

Around a dozen British universities held Palestine rallies to coincide with 7 October – often despite the pleas of university administrators to reschedule. Several of London’s top institutions, including King’s College London, LSE, UCL and SOAS, marched through the city centre with flags and placards. Further north, students in Sheffield, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Strathclyde were also on the march. In Glasgow, protesters cosplayed as jihadists. Outside Edinburgh’s student library, the crowds yelled ‘shame’ – a quality painfully lacking among their own ranks. The supposed aim of these demos, as organisers for the Manchester University protest explained on Instagram, was to protest two years of ‘genocide, forced starvation, murder, ethnic cleansing, imprisonment, torture and settler colonialism’.

It is impossible to underestimate the cruelty of staging this spectacle on 7 October. Two years ago yesterday, a tsunami of armed men surged over Israel’s southern border to enact an hours-long campaign of slaughter, sexual violence and ritualistic humiliation. There are 365 days in a year, yet the pro-Palestine sect deliberately chose to beat their drums on this particular day, the day most painful to Jews. Worse, these students have made clear, they see this genocidal pogrom not as a tragedy, but as a valiant act of resistance. ‘Honour our resistance. Honour our martyrs’, read an Instagram post from the Glasgow University Justice for Palestine Society. It invited students to ‘celebrate the glorious Al-Aqsa flood’ – the name given by Hamas to the 7 October massacre. To dismiss this as well-meaning ignorance would be far too generous now.

‘I think freedom will be achieved when the Israelis go back to where they were born’, said a Muslim student in London in an interview on LBC, sounding almost nonchalant. When asked if she understood ‘why Jewish students might feel uncomfortable’ with that view, she was nonplussed. ‘I mean, I understand… but I don’t think that their feelings are valid.’

How emboldened must a young person be to say these things on camera, with her university lanyard hanging around her neck? What does it say about the climate on our campuses? These are the same students who are told constantly to watch their words, that campus is a safe space for minorities and the marginalised. Every minority, it seems, except Jews.

Haya Adam, the president of the SOAS’s Palestine Society (who was expelled back in August following a harassment claim), said she thought yesterday’s actions ‘went brilliantly’, and that ‘anyone with any ounce of humanity’ should have joined in. One wonders if Adam saw the same displays of ugliness that the rest of us did. Her appeal to ‘humanity’ is particularly baffling, given that these rallies not only took place on 7 October, but less than a week after two British Jews were killed during an Islamist terror attack.

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10/09 Links Pt1: Fighting for Peace in the Middle East; Hamas Still Wants to Win the War; The Mob Can’t Survive Peace; Lawful Protest Is Not a Permit to Menace

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Fighting for Peace in the Middle East

The European leaders’ approach to “peace” was, essentially: Please stop fighting for a few minutes so I can get reelected. The shame of France’s Emmanuel Macron, of the UK’s Keir Starmer, of Spain’s Pedro Sanchez and others cannot be understated.

But that is not all of Europe. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has walked a difficult diplomatic tightrope but has done it well, never throwing Israel’s existence under the bus of European populism. He is surrounded by European leaders with little regard for freedom and democracy, however, and those leaders need to see Israeli victory.

Starmer, Macron, and others who fetishize weakness insisted that “peace” meant giving in to terrorists’ demands. Their version of peace was to recognize a state of Palestine that doesn’t yet exist and half of which is in the hands of Hamas. They believe that peace comes through laziness, through empty declarations, through magical thinking, through kissing the feet of one’s pursuer.

In fact, peace requires hard work. In this case, it required an Israeli and American military alliance willing to neutralize threats emanating from Iran. It required American support for Israeli actions in Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria. And it required the mobilization of U.S. military assets in the Gulf region.

Peace is possible at this point only because the president of the United States ignored the isolationists chirping in his ear that the days of American strength were over. Whatever happens now, we are at least closer to ending the conflict than we have been, and that was made possible by military action.

Canada joined the Europeans who weren’t willing to work for peace. But the United States resisted the pull of laziness, of managed decline, of wishful thinking and decadent weakness. And so there is a chance for peace.

Will this lesson be learned? Not as widely as it should be. But the lesson has been demonstrated, and that is what is most important.

Seth Mandel: To Hell and Back

The efforts to bring home captives are part of Israel’s social compact. As I wrote for the March 2024 issue of COMMENTARY:

“There is also a pragmatic reason for Israel’s commitment to redeeming captives. It is a source of legitimacy for the IDF. As a nation with full conscription, the basic deal Israelis make with their government is this: We give you our sons and daughters, and then you give them back. The common expression in Israel is that its soldiers are ‘everyone’s children.’ This is more than a mere sentimental point; it is a crucial source of military and social cohesion.”

The world has gotten more than a glimpse of this phenomenon over the past two years, unfortunately. But this has also perhaps opened the world’s eyes to how deeply wounding it is for Israelis to be locked in conflict with terrorist groups who have molded their entire forever-war strategy around hostage-taking.

Even Israelis, however, have been forced into new territory by the scale of Hamas’s atrocities. In April, the New York Times wrote a story titled: “A New Medical Discipline in Israel: How to Receive Hostages.” It is, as the headline suggests, a new frontier in physical and mental health: “There were few precedents to learn from, officials said, especially as the captives ranged in age from infants to octogenarians.”

Indeed, in his memoir of his time in Hamas captivity, Eli Sharabi recounts a brief conversation he had with a Hamas official, nicknamed Tippy, overseeing Sharabi’s release. The conversation took place after Tippy showed Sharabi a laptop screen with the faces of dozens of hostages:

“I look at their faces. It’s an emotionally charged moment. There are young women I don’t recognize, some very elderly people, a young woman with a little ginger toddler and a little ginger baby girl. I think it’s a girl. I point at the baby immediately and ask Tippy: ‘What’s that? Did you kidnap a baby?’

“‘No,’ he says. ‘The baby was born in captivity.’

“I stare at him. ‘You kidnapped a pregnant woman?’

“I get no answer.”

They did, in fact, kidnap a baby. Surely Sharabi was seeing a picture of Kfir Bibas, along with his slightly older brother and mother. All three were murdered in captivity. Hamas’s atrocities on and after October 7 stretched the bounds of worldly evil. Even the Hamas commander wouldn’t admit it to Sharabi’s face. No one wanted to believe an entity this evil existed—even, at times, the entity itself.

And the survivors of that unimaginable evil are returning to earth from hell. Once again Israelis’ resilience and recovery will pave a path for the rest of the world, all because of the unique hatred to which they are subjected. As one Welfare Ministry official told the Times in April, “We are now writing the theory.”

The Challenges of the Trump Plan

In his approach to negotiating the release of all hostages held in Gaza, President Trump has thwarted French diplomacy and inflicted a severe snub on President Macron, who wanted to precipitate events by first offering a state to the Palestinians, without obtaining any concessions.

Unlike Macron's plan, the 20 points of the Trump plan were written in concert with Israel. The American plan was carefully and skillfully developed by seasoned experts and diplomats, with the aim of isolating Hamas from the outset and gaining the approval of the Arab-Muslim world. While only a first draft, it is a noble work for future relations between Israel and all the countries of the Middle East.

The plan outlines a roadmap, a framework agreement that sets solid milestones to enable stakeholders to clearly monitor the plan's progress. It has the great merit of being able to achieve those Israeli demands that we have been seeking since the end of the Six-Day War in 1967. For the first time, an American president is boldly proposing a different vision for resolving the Palestinian question.

He is taking seriously all the factors supported by the overwhelming majority of Israelis: the historical rights of the Jewish people to their land, no withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines, secure and defensible borders, Jerusalem indivisible under Israeli sovereignty, the Golan Heights under Israeli sovereignty, Hamas and all "resistance" movements against the Jewish state are now terrorist organizations, no to recognition of a Palestinian state before final status negotiations.

Amb. Michael Oren: Hamas Still Wants to Win the War

President Trump's peace plan did indeed promise to achieve all of Israel's goals: the release of the hostages and the end of Hamas's rule in Gaza. The president declared that Hamas had accepted the plan and was prepared for peace. He ordered the IDF to stop firing in Gaza City to facilitate the safe release of the hostages.

Once relieved of Israeli military pressure, Hamas will try to drag the U.S. into protracted negotiations and obtain approval to remain in Gaza and keep its "defensive weapons." In short, in exchange for the release of the hostages, Hamas wants to win the war.

Our goal, therefore, must be to uphold Trump's original plan and not allow Hamas to water it down. We must secure the unconditional release of all the hostages, without allowing Hamas to keep its weapons or take part in a postwar Gaza government.

Gaza Deal Is Not a Total Victory

It may well be that the deal Israel is preparing to sign with Hamas is unavoidable. But it is far from a "total victory." Israel is to release from prison 250 terrorists convicted of multiple murders. Israel rightly sanctifies the lives of its hostages, but at the same time mortgages the lives of its citizens. More than 85% of terrorists released in past decades have returned to terrorism, to attack or kill Israelis again. We are releasing ticking time bombs.

Israel has achieved significant accomplishments: large parts of Gaza have been flattened; we've established a perimeter, eliminated tens of thousands of terrorists, destroyed miles of underground infrastructure, and taken control of the Philadelphi Route along the border with Egypt. But we've also sent a clear message that the way to secure the release of killers is through more abductions.

Our commitment to redeeming captives and to mutual responsibility has now proven to be our weakness, leading to the emptying of our prisons of those who murdered, and who are almost certain to murder again or orchestrate more killings.

The terrorists freed in the 1985 Jibril deal became the backbone of the First Intifada, in which 165 Israelis were murdered. Half of the terrorists released under the Oslo Accords joined the Palestinian terror apparatus, with many playing key roles in the Second Intifada, which killed 1,178 Israelis. Those released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal went on to bring about the Oct. 7 massacre.

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10/08 Links: Trump announces Israel-Hamas deal; 7 October: a war for the soul of the West; Manchester synagogue terrorist pledged allegiance to ISIS in call during rampage

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: What have we learned since Oct. 7?

Oct. 7, 2023, was the worst day in the history of the State of Israel and will be remembered as such for all time. But as New York Times columnist Bret Stephens noted in a column analyzing the lessons of that day and the war that followed, “For all its undoubted horrors, this war may ultimately be remembered as liberating.”

Israel responded to Hamas’s day of genocide by waging war to destroy the Iran axis of which Hamas was a member. Stephens explained how Israel’s war had liberated the peoples of the region.

In Lebanon, thanks to Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah, the people are free from Iran’s proxy for the first time in 20 years. Hezbollah’s decimation fomented the fall of Syrian dictator and Iranian proxy Bashar Assad, providing the people of Syria their first shot at freedom in living memory.

Living under the protection of the IDF, the Druze in southern Syria have an opportunity to navigate their future safely. Following Israel’s successful military operation campaign—joined by the United States— to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and amassing an arsenal of tens of thousands of ballistic missiles, the Iranian people have their best opportunity in 46 years to oust their regime of terror and build a future of freedom for themselves.

And with Hamas crippled, Gazans have their first chance in 20 years to live a life free of the jihadist regime, if they choose to grasp it.

While his list was comprehensive, Stephens shied away from mentioning how Israel achieved this list of dazzling victories following the greatest disaster in its history.

On Oct. 8, when IDF forces were still fighting inside the kibbutzim that had been overrun by Hamas the previous day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his still stunned cabinet that Israel would recover from the savage carnage of the previous day and it would transform the Middle East.

At that same meeting, the top military commander told Netanyahu and his ministers that they must forget about seeing the 251 men, women and children who had been taken hostage the day before ever again.

Netanyahu rejected his claim and insisted that with the proper mix of massive force and negotiation, Israel would defeat Hamas and return all of the hostages. So far, Israel has returned 205 hostages, 148 alive and Hamas is on the verge of total destruction.

Thanks to U.S. President Donald Trump, Israel may see the return of the last 48 hostages within days.

Brendan O'Neill: 7 October: a war for the soul of the West

It was 2023 and they were burning Jews to death again. Once more, humanity found itself scouring the smoldering wreckage of a burnt-down building for some remnant of the Jews that once lived there. Those who call this day of barbarous racism an ‘attack’ have forfeited the right to be taken seriously. Those who call it ‘resistance’ have exposed to the world their own demented sympathy with Jew murder. As the German novelist Herta Müller said, even calling it ‘terrorism’ feels woefully insufficient. It was a ‘total derailment from civilisation’, she says. There was an ‘archaic horror in this bloodlust that I no longer thought possible in this day and age’.

This is what we should be commemorating today. Not an ‘attack’, not a ‘tragedy’ – an act of Nazi-like savagery. A genocidal burning of Jews. The violent intrusion of the crimes of history into our complacent century. The most fitting tribute we could pay to the grieving of 7 October on this second anniversary would be to give this atrocity its rightful place in the black pages of human history. To acknowledge, at last, that it was an epoch-defining crime against humanity, the raw heir to the era of the Holocaust. It compounds the grief of Israel to continue to deny this truth of 7 October.

Then we come to 8 October. That other dark day, two years ago, when mobs danced outside the Israeli Embassy in London in joy at the mass murder of Jews. When Islamists gathered at the Sydney Opera House to cry ‘Fuck the Jews’. When the righteous dusted down their Palestine flags and waved them with abandon, hours after women had been raped under that flag, hours after children had been murdered under it. When students in America cried ‘Glory to our martyrs’. When professors said they felt ‘exhilarated’ by what had happened. When leftists called it a ‘day of celebration’. When that suicidal alliance of genderfluid activists and Jew-hating Islamists took to the streets to call for further ‘jihad’ against the Jewish State. One pogrom was not enough. A thousand dead Jews was not enough. They wanted more.

This horror, this moral atrocity that followed the physical atrocity, continues to this day. On Saturday, a mere 48 hours after two Jews perished in an act of anti-Semitic terror in Manchester, the mob was back on the streets hollering ‘Long live the intifada’. We are not only in denial about the historic inhumanity of 7 October but also about the glee it ignited among those who call themselves ‘progressive’. We would remember if people had poured on to the streets of London to celebrate Kristallnacht – so we should remember that they did so for 7 October, a pogrom in which 10 times as many Jews were slaughtered.

7 October confirmed that Israel faces an existential threat on its borders. 8 October confirmed that the West faces an existential threat within its borders. From a cultural establishment, a liberal elite, a left and an Islamist mob who have turned their backs on the virtues of civilisation and fallen under the spell of barbarism. Israel is winning the war against the fascists that invaded its lands two years ago. We, alas, are not winning the war for the soul of the West. We struggle even to admit we are in such a war. Two years on, the good ship Israel has been steadied while the West still pitches on the high seas of counter-Enlightenment.

There’s one more thing I will recall today: the heroism of the young on 7 October. Alexander Lobanov, who helped evacuate people from the Nova music festival, leading to his capture and later his murder. Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who picked up the grenades that Hamas threw into a bomb shelter and threw them back out again, causing him to lose an arm. Almog Sarusi, who refused to leave his girlfriend’s side after she had been shot, leading to his own capture and his own murder. Shiri Bibas, who held her babies to her breast and comforted them as they were dragged into the hell of Hamas-ruled Gaza. And too many more to mention. There is an alternative universe, one where the West has not yet abandoned reason, where our young wear t-shirts with these people’s faces on them, and cry out their names, and agitate for the erection of statues to these valiant Jews who resisted fascist terror as best they could, just as their forebears in the ghettos did. Making that alternative universe a reality is the task of all of us two years on from 7 October.

October 7 showed Jewish people who their friends are

October 7 unleashed a torrent of antisemitism. Synagogues were firebombed, Jews doxxed, and vile threats were made by nurses, of all people.

Jews arrived in Australia with the First Fleet. Despite being so few, we have contributed mightily to this nation, giving it its greatest military leader, Sir John Monash, two governors-general, Supreme Court justices, scientists, businessmen, winners of the Nobel Prize and Olympic gold and so many of our philanthropists.

Many Australian Jews are now contemplating leaving or at least questioning their place here. Ironically, Israel which has endured two years of war is seen as a safer bet. I regularly get asked for advice on this issue and it’s hard to dismiss people’s safety concerns.

I counsel people that Australia is worth fighting for.

It’s true that October 7 exposed the antisemites in Australian society, and there are many, but it also showed us who our friends are. It’s been heartening to see support from so many ordinary Australians, mostly from the centre and right and often identifying as Christian.

Every other day our office gets a call from the Western Australia wheatbelt or an email from someone in far north Queensland to express support for the Jewish community and outrage at what the government has done.

The Jewish community discovered friends in the conservative media, in politics, from One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson to the entire Coalition. Again, none of this was a particular surprise to my organisation, as these were the people we had already worked with.

October 7 was also a wake-up call for many ordinary Australians. The attacks on Israel were an attack on the West. Anti-Israel actions here often explicitly targeted Australia. The battle against radical Islam and the Woke, is a fight we must all take up, or our country will be next.

Across the West, in countries like Britain and France, millions of patriotic people want to take their countries back. They are crowding the streets and the voting booths.

It’s been heartening to see ordinary Australians take up this battle for our future, with a rapidly growing movement of patriots.

It’s true that there is a loud but small group of neo-Nazis attempting to subvert the movement. Several current and former politicians on the right have also turned on the Jews, thinking that it will give them popularity. The sensible centre must disavow these extremists or risk losing credibility.

October 7 showed Jews who our friends are. It showed us who our enemies are. It showed all Australians what we must fight for if we want to save our country.

Jake Wallis Simons: Israel has never been stronger. For Europe, it may already be too late

Militarily, Israel has probably not been in such a powerful position since 1967. Culturally, it is a nation that understands how to hold a strong sense of peoplehood within the norms and freedoms of a secular democracy.

Economically, it is robust. Its birth rate is one of the highest in the developed world. Its crime rate is remarkably low. Its people are unified and doughty. OK, so the politics and international reputation aren’t so great, but an election will take place within the year. With a fair wind, this could be Israel’s century.

The same cannot be said of the West. After the Second World War, the vow taken by the civilised world could be summed up in two words: never again. But the meaning of this pledge was evidently profoundly different for Jews and others in the democracies.

In Britain and across Europe, a consensus developed that the nation-state was the source of fascism and had to be downplayed or dismantled. For Jews, however, “never again” meant that the nation-state was crucial and had to be defended.

From this single fork in the road, our fates developed differently. While Israel advanced along the path of strength and confidence, meeting challenge after challenge with resilience, the West slipped down the route of self-undoing...

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10/06 Links Pt2: Eli Sharabi: A Hero Of Israel And The Jewish People; Qatar, Under Pressure From Trump, Pushes Al Jazeera To Curb 'Incitement' to Terror

From Ian:

Memoirs of a Mossad Mastermind

REVIEW: ‘The Sword of Freedom: Israel, Mossad, and the Secret War’ by Yossi Cohen
"People with no fantasy," the late Israeli politician Shimon Peres once observed, "cannot create the extraordinary." The Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, has become legendary for its extraordinary feats, some of which could be pulled from a James Bond novel. But as Yossi Cohen reveals in his new book, The Sword of Freedom: Israel, Mossad, and the Secret War, the agency’s stunning capabilities are the result of Israel’s unique place in the world.

The Mossad is uniquely capable because it has to be, Cohen notes. "We have the ultimate incentive to prevail, because our struggle is existential," he writes. And Cohen knows of which he speaks—he had a front row seat for events that shaped the region.

After a stint in the Israel Defense Forces, Cohen spent decades as a Mossad operative before he was chosen by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to serve as his national security adviser. In 2016, Cohen was appointed to lead the Mossad. During his nearly five-year tenure, Cohen oversaw the agency’s operation to steal Iran’s nuclear archive and served as one of the chief negotiators for the Abraham Accords.

Memoirs written by former spies—especially top spies—are seldom revealing. In fact, they shouldn’t be. Readers looking for a "tell all" book, divulging precious secrets and tradecraft, should look elsewhere. No former public servant worth his salt would write one anyways. Accordingly, Cohen is exceedingly careful in recounting his exploits and experience. He also largely refrains from partisan sniping and score-settling—no small feat in today’s hyper-partisan age, let alone in the maelstrom that is Israeli politics.

Yet this isn’t a dull book. Far from it.

Cohen’s account of the operation to retrieve Iran’s so-called nuclear archive is worth the price of admission alone. For decades, the Islamic Republic had been developing a nuclear weapons program. In 2015, the United States and others agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran Deal, which sought to curtail Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Jerusalem suspected perfidy but required proof. Enter the Mossad.

Campus feminists have rebranded rape as ‘resistance’

A glance at the Feminist Library’s ‘statements’ page reveals that it rather likes making them. Its social-justice catalogue is not just limited to support for ‘Palestinian resistance’ – it also includes the entire range of middle-class left causes, from transgenderism to immigration. It remains rather silent on anti-Semitism, however – which is curious considering Goldsmiths admits it has an anti-Semitism problem, for which it has apologised. Due to the pro-Palestine ‘occupation’ of campus last academic year, members of Goldsmiths’ Jewish Society were too afraid to hold any events and effectively had to disband the society. With graffiti across campus featuring swastikas and the phrase ‘gas the Jews’, it’s not difficult to see why. An independent inquiry into anti-Semitism at Goldsmiths published in May provides a damning indictment of the prevalent campus culture.

Goldsmiths is not the only university whose best and brightest will this week don their keffiyehs on the anniversary of the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Not a week after the Yom Kippur terror attack on a Manchester synagogue, students from Queen Mary, King’s College London, Strathclyde and Sheffield will partake in pro-Palestine rallies, marches and lectures.

It seems we are now seeing the culmination of years of ideological capture – and the results are sick-making. Students now issue calls to ‘globalise the intifada’, celebrate ‘Palestinian resistance’ on the anniversary of Hamas’s atrocities in Israel, and suggest that rape is sometimes, in some places, just a teensy bit justified.

In a statement issued after the Southport stabbings last year, the Feminist Library claimed that ‘we understand how fascists use faux concern for the “safety of women and girls” as cover for white-supremacist violence’. Perhaps it’s this faux anti-fascism that salves the conscience of these putative feminists as they turn a blind eye to the hundreds of women who, on 7 October 2023, were hunted, tortured and sexually humiliated, before being thrown into the backs of vans like cattle. One victim was raped by a Hamas militant who then passed her on to a friend. Together they sliced off her breast, threw it into the street and played with it. Another militant then raped her again, shooting her in the head as he ejaculated. This is the ‘resistance’ the Feminist Library and others will be proudly ‘remembering’ tomorrow.

Of course, It’s not just these student pseudo-radicals refusing to look barbarism in the face. It took the United Nations almost two years to concede, in the face of overwhelming evidence, that extensive sexual violence took place on 7 October. In the meantime, UN Women – supposedly the leading global body for ‘women’s empowerment’ – focussed all of its energies on pandering to Western men with pronoun confusion.

It was Maya Angelou who said ‘when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time’. How many times, I wonder, can feminists excuse the rape of Israeli women before they cease to be feminists? How many times do our compatriots have to dance on Jewish graves before we believe they mean it?

It’s time to hold the media to account

The public has a right and a need to know that a dangerous fraud is being perpetrated upon it. Just as the government has required tobacco and alcohol companies to place warning labels regarding the potential harm their products may cause, the public should be informed about the dangers of misinformation from news sources that claim to be trustworthy but that have chosen to present jihadi propaganda as facts.

Consumers have a right to know what product they are purchasing, and when a product is misrepresented, consumers in a democracy have recourse through government entities like the Consumer Protection Agency or Better Business Bureau. They can also turn to the courts for redress. This, however, is no ordinary consumer matter. Issues of free speech play heavily against government intervention here. Who’s to say what’s propaganda and not just an alternative narrative? Who’s to prioritize “factual” over “narrative” journalism? Given the partisan ferocity currently prevalent, surely not the government.

On the other hand, this issue is unprecedented in the history of democracies and their foundational free press: the Fourth Estate. Our current “free press” consistently purveys the war propaganda of a movement profoundly hostile to any form of press freedom and joins them in their attack on the only participant in this regional conflict with a free press. Who could imagine that our news media would align their narrative with a jihadi propaganda campaign promoting a political culture that has eliminated any trace of a free press?

As we have painfully learned over the last 250 years of democracy, rights come with responsibilities. In order to claim the mantle of professional journalism, our “free” press needs to observe professional standards of scrutiny that their current approach systemically violates. At no time in the history of modern journalism has this happened on such a scale and for so long.

We have witnessed a devolution from professional war journalism to wildly unprofessional own-goal war journalism—from providing an honest check on the three branches of government to running enemy war propaganda as news, and from Fourth Estate to Fifth Column. How do we bring this startling inversion of the profession and the news it produces to the fore? How do we assess the danger to a free press that their advocacy constitutes? How do we counter so perverse a trend?

Congress not only has a role to play; it has a responsibility to bring this dangerous and shocking scandal to the attention of the American public. It is time to hold congressional hearings and hold the purveyors of this hateful propaganda to account. Let consumers see how often our journalists take staged footage, and edit and crop it to make it more believable. Let them see things the pack media won’t cover, like the shocking genocidal hate speech that pervades the Palestinian public sphere. And then let the heads of our news agencies explain why they consider these items unfit to print while simultaneously reporting Hamas lies.

We are calling for accountability—for light to be shed on a suicidal brand of journalism that any sane audience, exposed to their folly, can and will reject of their own volition. Let this suicidal, advocacy news media be exposed for their impersonation of journalism. And let the viewing public—the American consumer—choose whether they wish to ingest the poisonous and deeply unprofessional fare our current news media have to offer, or look for other, more honest and accurate sources to understand our current troubling times.

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