From Ian:
Palestine 36 is an insult to history
Palestine 36 is a new movie about Arab resistance to colonialism in British-governed Palestine in the late 1930s. It is a moving and eye-catching story, but it suffers from a big problem: it is not true.
Annemarie Jacir’s film looks the part, with its mix of beautifully realised life in the hill villages, Haifa townscapes and jazz-age cocktail parties. It is replete with neat production values, paid for with cash from BBC Films and the British Film Institute.
The performances from Karim Daoud Anaya, as young, radicalised journalist Yusuf, and Yafa Bakri, playing a widow called Rabab, are moving. Jeremy Irons, who plays British high commissioner Arthur Wauchope, and Robert Aramayo, as British intelligence officer Orde Wingate, are hiss-worthy music-hall villains.
The account of the conflict on which the movie is based – the events of 1936 to 1939 – is far less convincing. Jacir takes it as read that the British are working on behalf of the Jewish settlers, who are depicted as vicious and rapacious ‘colonisers’. Yet the truth about what is known as the Great Revolt is that the leaders of the Palestinian Arabs were more opposed to Jews than they were to British imperialism – indeed, they said straight-forwardly that they would have supported Britain if only it would stop Jewish immigration to Mandate Palestine.
Throughout the film, it is the Jews who are portrayed as the problem, while Britain is blamed for taking their side. In one scene, Rabab’s daughter, Afra, looks on at the Jewish women building their settlement and asks why they have come. Her mother replies ‘their countries don’t want them… I don’t know why.’
In the film, Jews are shown being allocated land by the British that was confiscated from Arabs. But that was not British policy. Whatever land Jews had in 1936, they had bought from Arab owners. ‘Palestine is not for sale’, say protesters in the movie. But the truth is that it was, and for a decent profit, too, for Arab landowners.
John Cleese apologises to Jewish News for sharing antisemitic posts – vows free Israel show
John Cleese has issued a fulsome apology to Jewish News for inadvertently sharing false and antisemitic content online – as he reiterated his pledge to make good on his pledge to perform again in Israel.
In an exclusive hour-long interview, the 86-year-old comedy icon said he was “extremely sorry” for reposting material he later discovered had been fabricated, including a false quote attributed to former Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely and another suggesting Israel “controls global finance.
“I didn’t check them properly,” he said. “I couldn’t believe some of them had been completely invented. It was a mistake.”
The posts provoked widespread anger among Israelis and British Jews and came ahead of Cleese’s cancellation of three sold-out shows scheduled in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem between 26 November and 1 December.
Initial statements cited “security concerns,” while online speculation claimed he feared BDS pressure.
Cleese said the decision stemmed from anxiety rather than politics. “I was dreading it weeks before the posts,” he said. “I thought someone would ask me something political, and if I didn’t say the right thing it would be unpleasant for the rest of the tour.”
Asked whether he feared for his safety, he replied: “I think there was always a security element… but I didn’t know.”
The Fawlty Towers and Monty Python star admitted to being “naïve” about how easily posts can be manipulated and said he now intends to stop commenting on Israel online. “I don’t understand the internet,” he said. “People create things and don’t care that they can be disproved.”
Cleese condemned Hamas as “the nastiest of all terrorist organisations” and stood firmly by Israel’s right to defend itself, while expressing concern about some actions of the Israeli government. He also voiced concern about record levels of antisemitism in the UK, saying he was deeply saddened by reports from Jewish friends who told him how unsafe they now feel.
Revealed: Police quizzed wrongfully arrested Jewish mother over her faith
A wrongfully arrested mother was interrogated by police about her Jewish faith and involvement in a Holocaust Memorial Day event at her daughter’s school, the JC can reveal.
Citing a claim of “harassment” against her, an officer asked Rosalind Levine, 47, about emails she had sent her daughter’s school in which she offered to help arrange for Holocaust survivors to address pupils and requested the removal of her child from Christian prayer.
Levine and her partner, Maxie Allen, 50, received a payout from Hertfordshire Police earlier this month after the force admitted they had been wrong to send six officers to arrest the couple at their Borehamwood family home in January over complaints the pair had made about their daughter’s school.
CCTV footage captured the uniformed officers hauling the parents away as their three-year-old, Francesca, cried.
Documents seen by the JC now suggest Cowley Hill Primary School cited Levine’s emails relating to her Jewish faith, her Israeli family and her desire to promote Shoah education as part of a harassment report.
Levine said it felt like she had “slipped into an alternative reality” when she was forced to explain her religious rights from inside a police cell. “I felt I was in a weird nightmare,” she told the JC.
Shadow education secretary Laura Trott, said: “The family’s Jewish faith was entirely irrelevant, and questioning them about it was unacceptable. Freedom of religion is a cornerstone of our democracy, and any attempt to threaten it must be fought absolutely.”
Shadow DfE equalities minister Claire Coutinho called on Hertfordshire Constabulary “to come clean” on why Levine was questioned about her religion.
“This appears to be part of a worrying trend of Jewish people being asked about their religion in police interviews in a way that other groups wouldn’t be,” Coutinho said.
Former Attorney General Sir Michael Ellis added: “The appalling way these parents have been treated exemplifies the dire state of British policing at the moment.”
The couple were arrested on suspicion of harassment, malicious communications and causing a nuisance on school property – allegations later dismissed as baseless.
From Ian:
Jonathan Tobin:
Does it matter that they’re lying about Israel?
A curious thing happened last week in Israel. More than 100 military officers from 20 countries attended an international conference hosted by the Israel Defense Forces. Among them were representatives from countries that had falsely accused the Jewish state of committing war crimes, deliberate starvation or even genocide in Gaza during the war with Hamas that followed the Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
While there, they visited the sites of the Oct. 7 massacres and attended briefings about the challenges presented by urban warfare as well as discussions of how the IDF used AI, drones, artillery and medical services for the wounded.
Some nations, like the United Kingdom, whose left-wing government continues in its vitriolic demonization of the Jewish state and has passively accepted the growing mainstreaming of antisemitism in British society, boycotted the event. But others who were just as vociferous in backing up the claims that what Israel had done in Gaza was uniquely awful, such as France and Canada, showed up alongside representatives from friendlier countries like the United States, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
They were accompanied by officers from Germany, Finland, India, Greece, Cyprus, Poland, Austria, Estonia, Japan, Morocco, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. Many have either joined in the international community’s Israel-bashing, recognized “Palestine” as an independent, albeit still non-existent, country or chose not to stand with Israel during the past two years as it fought for its life against genocidal Islamist terrorists.
They don’t really believe the lies
That Israel has much to teach the world about the use of high-tech and intelligence in warfare, added to its expertise in avoiding civilian casualties and how to deal with emergencies, is nothing new. The Israelis have been sharing their knowledge in these and other topics with other nations for decades. So, in that sense, the military conference wasn’t all that newsworthy.
But it matters because it shows that many of those countries that tacitly or openly endorsed the blood libels against Israel during the course of the war that, at least temporarily, concluded with the ceasefire-hostage release deal brokered by the United States in October, don’t really believe the accusations. If they did, they wouldn’t have been there or subsequently, members of their delegations would have spoken about alleged links between Israeli military tactics and the claims of mass murder.
‘Wrong from the very beginning,’ Hungarian minister says of EU Israel policy
Europe has shifted on Israel. Since Oct. 7, 12 European countries, including the United Kingdom, France and Spain, have recognized a Palestinian state and now routinely vote against the Jewish state at the United Nations.
One country bucking that European trend is Hungary, which joins the United States and Argentina as among the only countries to vote with Israel consistently at the United Nations. Hungary is also deemed sufficiently safe for Jewish and Israeli institutions that it now hosts many of the Israeli national soccer team’s home games, even as one Israeli club has been banned from playing in the United Kingdom.
JNS sat down on Nov. 21 with János Bóka, the Hungarian minister for European affairs and its prime ministerial envoy to combat antisemitism, to discuss what sets his country apart.
“I believe that the European position has been wrong from the very beginning,” Bóka told JNS, of the bloc’s position on Israel. “This short sighted approach has tremendously contributed to the European Union being sidelined in the Middle East peace process in general.”
“It’s not a coincidence that the European Union is not at the table where things are decided. It’s not a coincidence that the European Union is not able to influence the political agenda anymore in the Middle East,” he said.
“This is a natural consequence of the wrong policy choices that were made,” he added. “We don’t want to contribute to further wrong choices being made on behalf of the European Union.”
Patel praises Netanyahu after ‘great meeting’ on Israel visit
Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for discussions designed to portray the Conservative Party as a friend and ally of the Jewish state.
Photographed alongside the Israeli PM, Patel wrote on X:”A great meeting with my friend Benjamin Netanyahu and a discussion about how we must stand together to fight for the freedoms and values our countries are founded on.
“Israel is a beacon of democracy and freedom in the Middle East and our friend and ally. ”
In a follow-up video posted on social media, Patel, a strong supporter of the Conservative Friends of Israel organisation, stressed the long-standing history of information sharing between the UK and Israel, especially in security, defense, and trade, adding, “It’s in Britain’s interests to strengthen this relationship.”
Meeting with survivors, hostages, and their families from the October 7 attack during her visit, Patel also said:”Since these horrific terrorist attacks, Israel has seen prolonged attacks from Iranian-backed Hamas-Hezbollah and the Houthis.
“These are groups that oppose the values that we hold, democracy, freedom, and the right to expression.
“Their actions have brought immense suffering to countless people.
“We hope the 20-point police plan will lay the foundations for sustained peace in the region.
“But of course, this can only work if allies, including the United Kingdom, come together to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, to eliminate Hamas, and to tackle the ongoing threats from Iran to deliver much-needed peace and stability.”
From Ian:
Gadi Taub:
The Viral ‘Prison Rape’ That Never Happened
Many unanswered questions remain: While the court probably did not know it was being lied to, why did it accept arguments that were clearly implausible? Why did AG Baharav-Miara not order the arrest of Tomer-Yerushalmi or the confiscation of her phone and her computer immediately after she tendered her resignation? Did she not realize that Tomer-Yerushalmi, who had already done so much to cover her tracks, could use that time to destroy evidence and potentially coordinate testimonies? Baharav-Miara herself will be at least a witness, if not a suspect, in the case. Yet she still refused to recuse herself from overseeing the investigation into Tomer-Yerushalmi, and snubbed the Knesset’s joint session of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, before which she was summoned to appear.
All this prompted Justice Minister Yariv Levin, author of the now-defunct judicial reform, to announce that Baharav-Miara would be barred from the investigation. Her office retorted that the minister had no authority to bar her. To which Levin responded by appointing a special prosecutor—an institution hitherto unknown in Israel. This was a major vindication for Levin: The entire episode—the cover-up, the lack of transparency, the illicit intimacy between law enforcement and the judiciary (over which Israel has no oversight agencies), and the collective contempt for the normal legal process when these agencies investigate themselves—convincingly showed why his controversial legal reforms were necessary.
But Baharav-Miara was not about to relinquish control of the investigation in which she and her subordinates have been implicated, ever since she defended Tomer-Yerushalmi in court. The matter reached the Supreme Court, which decided to bar Baharav-Miara from overseeing the investigation. The judges were clearly not happy to discover they had been lied to by the people whose good name they were helping to protect. Although it ruled against Levin’s special prosecutor based on a technicality, the court authorized him to appoint another (however, it suspended the new appointment last Thursday, to Levin’s understandable chagrin).
When a prosecutor is finally agreed on, it is not clear whether the investigation will manage to get to the bottom of the affair—especially the involvement of Baharav-Miara and her allies in Israel’s various bureaucracies. Nevertheless, the foundations of Israel’s juristocracy have been shaken. Rifts have opened among the various branches of what the Israeli right calls the “deep state.”
Three other dramatic events also recently transpired: Tomer-Yerushalmi was hospitalized after overdosing on medication while under house arrest, in what appeared to be an attempted suicide. One of the Force 100 soldiers, with a distinguished career in combat service, suffered a heart attack. And the president of the military court has recommended that the IDF prosecution accept the request of the defense to halt all proceedings against the Force 100 accused soldiers—now that the alleged victim is no longer in Israeli custody.
There’s also a cultural aspect without which it is difficult to make sense of all this. Israel’s contemporary elites look at the masses with contempt, viewing them as deplorables. In the eyes of these elites and the mainstream press, the riot in Sde Teiman was an attack on the rule of law, which Tomer-Yerushalmi upheld. Here were the right-wing proto-fascists wielding their pitchforks against the gatekeepers of impartial justice. In this view, the Force 100 soldiers and the rioters belonged to the same crowd of tribal ethno-nationalists who share a common contempt for liberal values and human rights. The right saw it very differently: Unpatriotic globalist progressive elites were weaponizing the law in the middle of a war to show the world they are better than the rest of us. Indeed, Israel’s progressive elites have come to define themselves in opposition to those mostly non-Ashkenazi masses, whom they view as too Jewish, too provincial, and too nationalistic.
Tomer-Yerushalmi may argue that her leak was in the wider public interest: to show international jurists that Israel is willing to use force to apprehend its own soldiers and thereby deny international tribunals a legal reason to intervene. Implausible as it seems to most of us, she may well have believed that throwing Force 100 under the bus was a convincing demonstration of Israel’s high-minded moral standards.
Yet it seems that in this case, as in others, identity trumps ideology. To imagine themselves as members of the enlightened global elite, Israeli progressives must define themselves against the Israel that “right-thinking” people abhor. The beautiful people of Spain or the Netherlands or Berkeley, California, don’t particularly care what the facts of Israel’s conflicts with its neighbors are or whether the Israel they have constructed through sloganeering about “colonialism,” “apartheid,” and “genocide” is real or a malevolent fiction. Expressing their abhorrence of a brutal rape that never happened in Sde Teiman was an opportunity for Israel’s elites to show whose side they were on: their fellow elites or the deplorables. Nothing about their choice should be surprising.
300 pack London launch as UK Israel Alliance debuts with Douglas Murray conversation
Around 300 people attended the launch of the UK Israel Alliance (UKIA) in Central London last week, as the organisation – formerly UK Israel Future Projects – unveiled its new name and mission with a headline conversation featuring author and commentator Douglas Murray.
Interviewed on stage by Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson, Murray reflected on reporting from Israel and Gaza after Hamas’s 7 October atrocities, the regional shifts shaped by the Abraham Accords, and the challenges and opportunities facing pro-Israel advocacy in Britain.
The evening opened with tributes from committee members Bernard Shapero and Sir William Shawcross to the late Martin Green, the 92-year-old founder of UK Israel Future Projects, remembered as a committed Zionist and a pillar of the UK pro-Israel community.
Guests included cross-party parliamentarians from both Houses, diplomats, journalists and long-standing supporters of the group. UKIA says its rebrand signals a renewed commitment to strengthening UK-Israel ties by bringing together activists and thought-leaders “from all political, religious and ethnic backgrounds”.
Chaired by Lord Bew, UKIA’s multi-faith committee includes Sir William Shawcross, Tim Vince, Simon Marks, Bernard Shapero and Dr Efrat Sopher. The organisation plans a rolling series of public events with international speakers addressing key issues affecting both countries.
Lord Bew said the launch demonstrated “the depth of support for Israel outside the Jewish community”, adding: “UKIA’s duty is to proactively reach Brits from all walks of life and proudly celebrate the fact that our two countries are stronger together. Israel has been subjected to an appalling smear campaign, but it is abundantly clear that many Brits cherish the shared values our great countries stand for.”
Nas Daily: I’m determined to show the real Israel
Israeli-Arab influencer Nuseir Yassin has described his mission to “show the Israel I want and like” and insisted he was now more hopeful about the future Middle East than at any time.
Known to 68 million social media followers as Nas Daily for his videos chronicling the lives of people in far-flung corners of the globe, he addressed more than 400 guests at Magen David Adom’s annual dinner last night.
In conversation with broadcaster Rob Rinder, he described how he left a safe job in tech almost a decade ago to create videos showing the “exact opposite” of the stories that tend to dominate discourse around the Middle East. Or, as Rinder put it, to “turn the toxicity of social media into something positive”.
“Twenty percent of Israel is Arab,” he said. “One force says you’re Palestinian and you shouldn’t have anything to do with Israel. Another force says we need to share the land and build up the land together. To escape the first force is hard. To call myself Israeli means I love Israel. It means freedom of speech. It’s the work that organisations like MDA are trying to do. This is what we should all be trying to promote, whatever the cost.”
“The most controversial topic in the world today is Israel and Palestine. Each time you talk about it, you pay a price. But you’ve got to humanise Israelis and Jewish people around the world and humanise Arabs as well. If you get to know someone, it’s very hard to hate them.”
He describes this as the safest time to land in Tel Aviv and paints a picture of a time when you could have lunch in Beirut, dinner in Damascus and then head back to Jerusalem in one taxi ride.
As for the two million Israeli Arabs within Israel, he said, they had a decision to make after the horrors of 7 October. “I think a large proportion have decided – including me – that we belong in Israel,” the former Harvard student told the audience. “That is the shock it takes to be able to see clearly. We don’t want to live under a Palestinian or Jordanian government. Despite the hardships, we are all Israelis.”
Oscar-winning filmmaker moves to Israel and trains his lens on October 7 survivors
Oscar-winning filmmaker Richard Trank has been making documentaries about Israel for decades. Today, he finally lives here.
“I wish I had made this decision earlier,” Trank told The Times of Israel about his aliyah to Israel last month, after a lifetime living and working in Los Angeles. “But I can’t change that.”
One of the first films Trank is working on under his brand-new production company, Sea Point Films and Media, aims to tell the story of Israelis recovering from the October 7 attacks and their rehabilitation journeys.
“I started thinking about really a post-October 7 project, because we all know what happened on October 7. We’ve all heard the stories, and it’s important to tell those stories,” Trank said during a recent video interview from his new home in Herzliya. “But I started thinking about, how do you come out of that? How do you rebuild your life?”
That film, titled “The Road Home,” is part of a fresh start for Trank, who spent more than 40 years at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, spearheading its Moriah Films production branch, helping to create an impressive slate of award-winning documentary films on Jewish and Israeli themes.
Trank left the Wiesenthal Center at the beginning of this year, around a year after its founder, Rabbi Marvin Hier, retired from the helm.
“At the end of 2023, new leadership came in, and they made a decision to move Moriah into a different direction, away from documentaries,” Trank said. “And there really wasn’t a place for me.”
The departure marks a major shift for Trank, who wrote and directed 16 documentary films for Moriah, telling stories of Jewish and Israeli life and working with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. His most recent film, “Never Stop Dreaming: The Life and Legacy of Shimon Peres” – narrated by George Clooney – is currently streaming on Netflix.
Prior to that, he adapted Yehuda Avner’s book “The Prime Ministers” into a series of two films that included Sandra Bullock, Michael Douglas, and Christoph Waltz, in voice acting roles. Trank’s film on Theodor Herzl was narrated by Ben Kingsley, and past documentaries also featured Nicole Kidman, Michael Douglas, Dustin Hoffman, and Morgan Freeman.
The last project he completed before leaving the Wiesenthal Center was a long-in-the-making documentary about David Ben Gurion, narrated by Julianna Margulies, which has yet to be released by Moriah.
“It’s really up to Wiesenthal about what they ultimately do with that film,” said Trank. “But I’m proud of it.”
Trank won the Academy Award for best documentary for co-producing 1997’s “The Long Way Home,” about the journeys of Holocaust survivors in the aftermath of World War II.
In many ways, he said, “The Road Home” — exploring the journey of October 7 survivors — mirrors that film’s exploration of how Holocaust survivors started over and rebuilt their lives in the wake of World War II.
From Ian:
You Cannot Build a Stable Peace with a Partner that Openly Prepares for the Next Massacre
Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute, said that Washington's basic assumption that Hamas can be induced into a demilitarized political arrangement is flawed.
"The Americans still believe they can implement the [ceasefire] plan by having the Turks, Qataris, and Egyptians pressure Hamas. They are convinced that with an international force and Arab involvement, Hamas will eventually comply. I think this is naive and wrong. Hamas does not intend to comply."
For Michael, Hamas's behavior during and after the fighting shows that it sees any ceasefire not as an end state, but as a tactical pause. "They continued recruiting people, training them, rebuilding tunnels, and reconstructing their capacities from the first day of the ceasefire."
"They butchered opponents in the streets, they appointed new governors, and they operated ministries. They are reconstituting their governmental and military capacities since day one. This is not the behavior of a movement preparing for demilitarization."
"As long as Hamas remains in control and is committed to another Oct. 7, the American ceasefire framework will not get anywhere. You cannot build a stable peace with a partner that openly prepares for the next massacre. At some point, the United States will have to recognize that Hamas is the obstacle, not part of the solution."
"Israel has to give the Americans the time and space to try their way, so that the responsibility for the failure of the plan falls on Hamas. But in the end, I believe they will move to Plan B, securing eastern Gaza under IDF oversight, expanding it gradually to the west while crushing and dismantling Hamas if it continues to violate the agreement."
"Hamas will regroup simultaneously in Gaza, the West Bank, and other countries, rebuild its capacities, and look for the second opportunity for another Oct. 7. This is exactly the reason we have to crush them and dismantle them. As long as they hold on to their weapons and ideology, no ceasefire framework, American or UN, will produce real peace."
The World's Been Too Rough with Israel
Israel's response to the October 2023 Hamas-led massacres and kidnappings of over one thousand civilians, as well as to missile and drone attacks from Iran and its regional militias, has been vigorous.
Pursuing victory - ending the threats to Israeli towns and cities from Hamas in Gaza, Hizbullah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and the regime in Tehran - requires the application of determined, and at times overwhelming, military force.
In Gaza, Israel's army has been operating in some of the most difficult urban warfare conditions in history.
Tragically, thousands of Palestinian civilians have died during the fighting over the past two years. But here is a simple truth: Hamas's leaders could have released the hostages and ordered their men to lay down their arms at any point.
They knew Palestinian women and children would be collateral damage as they fired missiles and launched attacks from apartment buildings, inviting airstrikes.
Preeminent news outlets routinely accept Hamas's allegations and lies at face value and downplay or overlook the group's actions, whether its use of human shields that have caused thousands of civilian deaths or its vicious tyranny and misogyny.
The coverage and political gesturing in the West have been, at best, disproportionate and prejudiced, and, at worst, dishonest, malicious, and likely to extend the war and the suffering.
From Ian:
Professors Need to Diversify What They Teach
Teaching of Israel and Palestine fits the same pattern. Staunchly anti-Zionist texts—those that question the moral legitimacy of the Israeli state—are commonly assigned. Rashid Khalidi, the just-retired Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia, is the most popular author on this topic in the database. A Palestinian-American and member of the Palestine Liberation Organization delegation in the 1990s, Khalidi places the blame on Israel for failing to resolve the conflict and sees the country’s existence as a consequence of settler-colonialism.
The problem is not the teaching of Khalidi itself, as some on the American right might insist. To the contrary, it is important for students to encounter voices like Khalidi’s. The problem is who he is usually taught with. Generally, Khalidi is taught with other critics of Israel, such as Charles D. Smith, Ilan Pappe, and James Gelvin.
Not only is Khalidi’s work rarely assigned alongside prominent critics; those critics seem to hardly get taught at all. They include Israel: A Concise History by Daniel Gordis, a professor at Shalem College in Israel. Despite winning the National Jewish Book Award, Gordis’s book appears only 22 times in the syllabus database. Another example is the work of Efraim Karsh, a prominent historian. His widely-cited classic, Fabricating Israeli History, appears just 24 times.
For most students, though, any exposure to the conflict begins and ends with Edward Said’s Orientalism, first published in 1978. Said is the intellectual godfather of so many of today’s scholars of the Middle East, thanks in no small part to this classic book. In Orientalism, Said claimed to be the first scholar to “culturally and politically” identify “wholeheartedly with the Arabs,” and he faulted the West for not recognizing the “Zionist invasion and colonization of Palestine.”
Orientalism is among the most popular books assigned in the United States, showing up in nearly four thousand courses in the syllabus database. But although it was a major source of controversy, both then and now, it is rarely assigned with any of the critics he sparred with, like Bernard Lewis, Ian Buruma, or Samuel Huntington. Instead, it’s most often taught with books by fellow luminaries of the postmodern left, such as Frantz Fanon, Judith Butler, and Michel Foucault.
Oct. 7 victim families sue Binance over $1B in secret funding for Hamas, Palestinian terror groups
Families of victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel sued Binance Monday, claiming that the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform — and its recently pardoned founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao — helped smooth the transfer of more than $1 billion to the accounts of terror groups responsible for the atrocity.
The lawsuit was filed on 306 plaintiffs and their family members who were murdered, maimed, or taken hostage on Oct. 7 in Israel or in various terrorist acts afterwards. They brought their claims against Binance, Zhao and senior executive Gunagying “Heina” Chen in Fargo, ND federal court.
The crypto platform had already been subject to criminal enforcement actions by the Department of Justice in 2023, resulting in Binance admitting to charges of money laundering and paying more than $4 billion in fines — as well as a four-month prison sentence for Zhao.
But the nearly 300-page complaint stated that Binance’s conduct was “far more serious and pervasive than what the US government disclosed” during those proceedings — and that the company “knowingly sent and received the equivalent of more than $1 billion to and from accounts and wallets controlled by the [foreign terror organizations] responsible for the October 7 Attacks.”
Those include Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to the suit brought by attorneys at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, Osen LLC, Stein Mitchell Beato & Missner LLP, and Motley Rice LLC.
“To this day, there is no indication that Binance has meaningfully altered its core business model,” the attorneys said in the suit, alleging the crypto platform was “intentionally designed as a criminal enterprise to facilitate money laundering on a global scale.”
Ali Mohammad Alawieh, the son of Hezbollah commander Muhammad Abd al-Rasul Alawieh, is the holder of one of the Binance accounts identified in the lawsuit.
Former Israeli hostage credits faith for survival in Gaza
A former Israeli Hamas hostage last week said it was his faith that allowed him to survive more than two years in captivity in Gaza.
The remarks by Segev Kalfon mirrored other hostages’ experiences. Whether from secular, traditional or religious backgrounds, many have said they clung to Judaism during their captivity.
“I had one percent chance of surviving—and I did,” Kalfon, 27, said in an interview with @LouderCreators posted on X by the Israeli Embassy in the United States.
“A person in this situation has nothing around them,” he added. “All that’s left is to believe. That’s it. Faith. When you believe in something you have something to lean on.”
Kalfon, who was released from Gaza last month as part of a ceasefire deal, said that he witnessed many miracles during his time in captivity. He said he was repeatedly beaten and tortured by his Hamas captors, who tried to convert him to Islam.
“In my darkest moments I knew I was facing a great test,” he said. “And if I survived every single day—and every day there was hell—there was a reason.”
Other former hostages have recounted how they prayed silently in captivity, recited the Sabbath benediction over water on Friday nights, tried to keep the Passover holiday and read from a book of Psalms that was found lying around.
Kalfon was among a group of former Israeli hostages who met with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday.
“In the most difficult moments, when hope faded away, the thought of big America and of your leadership helped me believe that one day, I will be able to leave Hamas captivity,” he wrote to Trump in a personal letter, Israel’s Channel 12 News reported on Saturday. “You, Mr. President, were the light for me in the darkest moments in the dark tunnels.”
From Ian:
David Harsanyi:
Israel should phase out US aid for its own good
These days, Israel has no territorial ambitions. It’s been trying to get rid of Gaza for 30 years, at least. Moreover, American presidents have often pressured Israel to act in ways that undermine its security. Before Donald Trump became president, every successive administration constrained Israel in its battle with the Islamists in Iran, hoping to strike a deal with the mullahs. This isn’t new. Henry Kissinger bailed out the defeated Egyptians in 1973. Back in 1981, Ronald Reagan rebuked and penalized Israel for bombing Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear facility, which was being built with the help of the French government. The Biden administration helped to prolong the Gaza war by continually undermining Israel due to domestic political pressures.
Worse, before Trump, every president in memory has exerted pressure on Israel to accept deals that would have created a terrorist state on two of its borders, even though a Palestinian state doesn’t further American interests in any conceivable way. Each effort only sparked more terrorism, suffering, and radicalization.
Ironically, pro-Palestinian activists advocating that the U.S. drop aid to Israel don’t seem to comprehend that their efforts only make a Palestinian state far less likely. No sane Western nation would create an Islamic state brimming with a radicalized population next door. The end of American aid would likely mean the end of any two-state solution. Which is good news. There is already a 23-state solution in place.
Anyway, with the rise of the pro-intifada progressive faction in the U.S., Israel shouldn’t expect Democrats to be allies for very long. And with the prospects of paleo-isolationists such as Vice President JD Vance being nominated by the GOP, American aid might be on its last legs anyway. Even if I’m wrong about the parties, Israel would do best to be autonomous, relying on the mutual military benefits and merits of its cause to continue its relationship with the U.S.
Finally, I know it might be difficult to believe that with all its space lasers and Rothschild cash, Israel could only extract a lousy $3.8 billion for its troubles. So, rest assured, cutting aid won’t stop paranoiacs from obsessing about Jews. But one of the most popular accusations of the Israel-hater is that tax-funded aid makes the U.S. complicit in the imagined genocides perpetrated by the Israeli military. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a modest and milquetoast bipartisan American lobbying concern, has become the rallying cry for most conspiracists who claim Israel has a grip on American politicians. They have it backward, of course. AIPAC only exists because millions of Americans support Israel and want American foreign policy to reflect their views. Paranoiacs focus on the strawman of AIPAC rather than American Jews or Christian Zionists for the same reasons leftists focus on the National Rifle Association rather than gun owners: They’re too cowardly to say what they mean.
In the end, Israel is a small nation of 10 million people, the size of New Jersey, so it will always need allies. For instance, it lacked the heavy bombers to hit Iranian nuclear sites buried deep in the earth. Only China, Russia, and the U.S. have them. But Israel is also a nuclear power with a high-tech economy and world-class armed forces. “Anti-Zionists” are just spinning their wheels. Israel would be fine standing completely on its own ingenuity and toughness.
Douglas Murray: Saving the West from Its Death Wish
The facts are raw, documented – and unbearable. On the morning of October 7, 2023, while some were just waking up, others were recording – and live-streaming – the glee they took in the massacre. One world watched. Another rejoiced. In New York, Douglas Murray absorbed the words and images, then immediately set off for Israel. From that journey – and the abyss it laid bare – the British journalist and intellectual drew a furious yet lucid essay, On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel, Hamas and the Future of the West. But the book is not merely a cry of anger; it is also a meditation on what it means to defend the West when it no longer knows what it stands for – or whether it still deserves to be defended, let alone saved.
Le Point - From your neoconservative beginnings to your current reflections on civilisation's decline, your thinking has shifted gradually from a strategic defence of the West to a cultural and symbolic one. Does 7 October 2023 represent a new phase in this intellectual evolution ?
Douglas Murray – Yes, I think so. I felt on October 7th the same way as Evelyn Waugh, in Unconditional Surrender, depicts one of his characters feeling at the moment of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact: "The enemy at last was plain in view; huge and hateful, all disguise cast off.” The moment I saw what Hamas was doing on the morning of the 7th, thousands of terrorists raping and slaughtering and kidnapping their way through the south of Israel, live-streaming it all for the world, glorying in death, expressing such ecstasy for death that is something of how I felt.
In your new book, the role of the image is central, and the iconography of horror is considered not as a consequence of violence, but as a driver of it. In your opinion, is this the hallmark of our era: aesthetic terrorism ?
No - that is (in the worst way) such a French way to look at something. The horror of Hamas is not principally about aesthetics or interpretation. It is about evil. Evil in its purest form – from a cult that literally worships death. The challenge for us is not just whether we can recognize and call out evil where we see it, but to dwell on what its opposite might be. What the good is. I met a couple in Canada the other week whose son was at the Nova party on the morning of October 7th. He protected a group of party-goers who were hiding from the terrorists in a shelter. He threw back grenade after grenade before being murdered himself. But as I told his parents, their son exemplified perhaps one of the greatest goods any human being can perform – he gave his life protecting life.
But you refer to images disseminated by terrorists themselves in a paradoxical gesture of exhibitionism. How does this 'perverse modernity' — 'barbarism 2.0' — make democracies even more vulnerable ?
As after Charlie Hebdo, the Bataclan, Samuel Paty and many other attacks, we have to decide whether we will indeed be terrorized by the terrorists: people who use the power of modern technology to broadcast their pre-medieval barbarism. I understand why many people feel fear, but I believe we should raise ourselves to the moment and not show fear but heroism.
Trump signs order to advance labeling Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists
US President Donald Trump on Monday began the process of designating certain Muslim Brotherhood chapters as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists, a move that would bring sanctions against one of the Arab world's oldest and most influential Islamist movements.
Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to submit a report on whether to designate any Muslim Brotherhood chapters, such as those in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan, according to a White House fact sheet.
It orders the secretaries to move forward with any designations within 45 days of the report.
The Trump administration has accused Muslim Brotherhood factions in those countries of supporting or encouraging violent attacks against Israel and US partners, or of providing material support to Palestinian militant group Hamas.
"President Trump is confronting the Muslim Brotherhood’s transnational network, which fuels terrorism and destabilization campaigns against US interests and allies in the Middle East," according to the fact sheet.
From Ian:
700 Million Zionists and the Battle for the Free World
The phenomenon of non-Jewish leaders and influencers, predominantly Christian evangelicals, openly declaring themselves Zionists is expanding. Against the backdrop of eroding values, intergenerational division, and a culture war on the West, there is a need to establish a global Zionist alliance to protect the foundations of Western civilization's bedrock principles of collective freedom and security and personal liberty.
For Christians who define themselves as Zionists, this is a declaration of resistance to Islamist, anti-Western domination and an identification of Zionism as a force leading the global struggle against the collapse of the Free World. Islamists have understood that the path to conquering the Free World would not be achieved through force, but through a systematic, long-term, and heavily-funded perception war for strategic influence. In this war of perception and influence, Zionism is marked as the West's original sin.
In this war, the West has one clear pathway to victory: to use precisely the same tools being deployed against it - building public consciousness, asserting constant aggressive presence on social media and campuses, building new grassroots organizations, and investing in education.
Some 600 to 700 million Evangelical Christians across the globe support the state and people of Israel. They are joined by other groups who identify with Zionist values. They are not merely "pro-Israel" in opinion; they are active partners in the understanding that strengthening Israel means empowering the West.
How Israel's Victory Strengthens America's Hand
The calculations of Middle Eastern regimes are based on concrete questions: who commands intelligence superiority, who can blunt Iranian power, and who remains anchored in the American security system. By those measures, Israel has become indispensable. Its performance on the battlefield and its record in covert operations have only reinforced its value to governments that prioritize their own survival and long-term modernization.
Israel's military successes against Hamas, Hizbullah, and Iran have made it a more valuable strategic partner. States that face Iranian pressure or seek technological and security upgrades are not distancing themselves from Israel, but moving closer.
CENTCOM, which coordinates U.S. military activity in the Middle East, is deepening operational coordination between the IDF and Arab armies - including those of countries that don't have formal relations with Israel. Regional leaders saw the disruption of Iranian assets in five countries, and concluded that Israeli hard power mattered much more than the opinions of Islamist preachers or Western university students.
Israel has shown itself to be the one power both capable of rolling back Iran and willing to do so. Even the American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities were made possible by Israeli intelligence and by attacks that neutralized Iran's air defenses and decapitated its military. Israel's actions matter for America, too, which needs Israel more than ever to help it keep Iran in check and to anchor its efforts to counter China in the region.
Seth Frantzman:
How Israel’s 12-day war on Iran achieved remarkable military success
Another important point was how Israel’s friends helped the state during the war. Fox noted that “a consortium of like-minded nations came together and defended Israel a couple of times; once, the earlier piece: France, UK, Jordan.”
“There’s an indication that there was cooperation with some other nations in the region, and, of course, the United States. That would have been, I think, impossible without the touches within the region of Israel’s Defense Force staffers working with the US Central Command, but also becoming more integrated in the region,” he said.
“It’s just impossible, I think, to describe how remarkable that is. For those of us who spent time in the region, that might not have come out the way that it did,” Fox continued.
This means Israel’s integration into the US Central Command and joint training has been vital. Israeli F-35s, F-15s, and F-16s fighter jets, along with other platforms, were also key to the war.
One issue for Israel is that its refueler fleet is aging. “It’s been a long-standing recommendation of JINSA that the KC-46, the new tanker, be expedited to Israel. They’re on the books to get those tankers. They need them now. The ones they were using, the 707 (the RAM), are old and in need of repair and just not up to the mission,” Wald said.
Ashley agreed, “One of the challenges they did have is really an older fleet of air refuel capability. So that is a challenge that we hit in recommendations. In the way ahead, that’s something that they’re going to need to bolster as they’re going forward.”
He noted, however, that a large portion of Iran’s ballistic missiles were destroyed. “Probably more than half of the launchers were eliminated.”
The report illustrated key aspects and successes of Operation Rising Lion. Iran is weakened, but it could continue to pursue a nuclear program or try to revive its ballistic missiles.
Moving forward, many questions remain. The success of the war demonstrates what Israel can accomplish when it plans for a decisive campaign.
This is in contrast to the challenges in Gaza, where Israel has not had a clear plan and Hamas continues to run half of Gaza. And, as for Lebanon, Hezbollah has not been disarmed yet. The Houthis also remain a threat. Israel has had some tactical success, but overall strategic wins still elude Jerusalem.
From Ian:
The return of the blood libel
The problem is not only the anti-Semitism that Jewish staff and students face. It is also the failure of many universities to acknowledge, let alone take action, against the perpetrators. It is left to Jewish staff and students to raise concerns time and again, while often being ignored altogether. Jews are the only minority group that is expected to fend for themselves against discrimination, harassment and violence.
The UCL blood-libel lecture was only exposed because a Jewish student attended and recorded the lecture, passed the recording to Stand With Us, an organisation that supports Jewish students on campus. It took concerted efforts from Jewish academics, the Union of Jewish Students and the Union of Jewish Chaplains to bring this matter to the attention of UCL.
We mustn’t allow Maqusi’s alleged remarks to be dismissed as a one-off, an aberration. Over the past two years, in universities across the UK, there have been many similar instances of Jew hatred. Just this week, it emerged that the rector at the University of Glasgow, Ghassan Abu-Sittah, accused Israel of harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians. Last month, Michael Ben-Gad, an Israeli professor of economics, was subjected to a campaign of grotesque anti-Semitic abuse by students at City St George’s, University of London.
British universities usually take proactive steps to protect minorities on campuses. This is not altruistic – indeed, it is their legal duty to do so. But when it comes to Jews they are failing. Failing to provide information, understanding and training on anti-Semitism. Failing to identify and address anti-Semitic speakers or events. Failing to take disciplinary action against anti-Semitic staff and students. And failing to take seriously, or even listen to, concerns and complaints raised about anti-Semitism.
It should not be left to Jewish staff and students alone to combat anti-Semitism in their places of work and study, but in many instances that is what is happening. Without concerted action across the sector, these protesters and agitators may well get their wish for Zionist-free campuses.
Ted Cruz’s Finest Hour
The antisemitic right has been successful at taking people’s words and twisting them on social media to advance the view that anybody who supports Israel is somehow corrupt or disloyal to the United States. Carlson’s confrontational interview with Cruz is a case in point. Carlson has been pushing the lie that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is made up of American citizens who advocate a strong relationship between the U.S. and Israel, is actually a foreign lobby. When Carlson challenged Cruz on support he has received from AIPAC, Cruz lamented that from a pro-Israel perspective, AIPAC hasn’t been particularly effective, and further noted, “I came into Congress 13 years ago with the stated intention of being the leading defender of Israel in the United States Senate.” His obvious point was that he was committed to Israel from the get-go, not as a result of pressure by a lobbying group. Yet this quote still surfaces on social media to smear Cruz as being more interested in serving a foreign country than his own constituents.
“I believe I have been the leading defender of Israel in the Senate,” Cruz says when I ask him about the exchange. “What I did not say, which Tucker and his minions claim I said, is that my No. 1 priority in the Senate is defending Israel. Those are very different statements.” He points out that he’s taken the lead on many issues: “I’ve spent 13 years as the leading defender of securing the border and stopping the invasion of illegal immigrants into this country.” Cruz says that his support for Israel flows from his faith as well as his belief that the U.S.-Israel alliance is in the national security interest of the U.S., which is consistent with his commitments to keep Texans safe. “Israel is by far our strongest ally in a very troubled region of the world,” he says. “Israel is a democracy that respects human rights and that shares our values — and those who hate Israel hate America.”
Cruz believes that as hatred of Jews spreads, it induces people to embrace anti-Americanism and other left-wing ideologies: “The slippery slope that starts with antisemitism and attacking Israel frequently leads straight down that line.” As examples, he notes Carlson’s recent defense of Venezuelan communist dictator Nicolás Maduro, his praise for a guest on his show who said that Winston Churchill was the “chief villain” of World War II and that maybe the U.S. should have sided with Hitler, and Carlson’s own statement that he believes that America should have offered condolences to Osama bin Laden’s family.
Carlson also recently claimed that it was “weird” that Ted Cruz “all of a sudden, out of nowhere” started talking about the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, where as many as 100,000 Christians have been killed since 2009. In a wildly false claim, Carlson said that Cruz had “no track record of being interested in Christians at all.” Cruz took to the Senate floor in 2014 to speak up for Meriam Ibrahim, who was imprisoned in Sudan for being a Christian. That same year, he raised concerns about hundreds of mostly Christian girls who had been kidnapped by the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram. In 2018, in another speech focusing on the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, he argued that the U.S. military “must be well equipped to target Boko Haram terrorists.” But these facts are inconvenient for Carlson, who wants to portray the senator as a Christian obsessed with Israel and only “suddenly” feigning concern for Nigerian Christians as some sort of cynical cover play.
Cruz agrees with the sentiment that “the best cure for bad speech is more speech.” Given how lies can spread on social media, he says it is imperative that more voices speak out to counter with the truth.
“We need to see conservatives show the leadership to take this on and refute these lies in a way that the Democrats for the past decade have never been willing to do,” he says. “We need to show more willingness to confront this evil in our own party.”
Two Israels that don’t exist: James Lindsay on how the American Right, and Left, get it wrong
Guiding the far Left and Right beyond the narratives they had established about Israel would be difficult, according to Lindsay. For the Left, there is a deeper belief structure that casts Israel as existing to “oppress the poor Palestinians or Muslims in the region.” The radical Right has also made the issue a shibboleth.
Demonstrating in a concrete manner that foreign actors are proliferating the perceptions of the fake Israels, such as sponsoring influencers, would undermine those voices and the narratives they have been building. Americans generally perceive foreign attempts to covertly influence them as hostile, Lindsay explained. At the same time, creating videos with succinct refutations of the talking points that define the false narratives would also be helpful.
“A lot of Americans literally believe that what the United States is doing is writing Israel a check for $4 billion a year, and Israel just can do whatever it wants with it, most of which is start wars with people that it doesn’t need to. So it’d be very, very easy to just kind of put together a short refutation of claims, explaining [that] the vast majority of the foreign aid is actually through military contracts. And so what’s happening is the United States is giving Israel money to buy weapons from America. That’s over 80% of the aid, which turns out to be $4b. a year. That turns into almost $20b. in profit for American companies employing 15,000 Americans to operate in that business environment,” said Lindsay. “And that’s happening specifically to fight terrorists who chant things like ‘Death to America.’ So it’s in our interest in a multitude of ways, but this is not what the average American right-winger believes. They believe we’re cutting a check to Israel for Israel to just go do whatever they want with, and that if American kids were getting that money instead, they’d be able to buy a house.”
Lindsay also advised that others have to see the real Israel that he had seen – conversations with Israelis, their everyday life. Seeing the daily life of young, Gen Z, English-speaking Israel would show the true Israel. Such materials couldn’t be created or sponsored by the government, Lindsay warned, as otherwise it would be propaganda. Such outreach has to be organic.
Israel has the opportunity to position itself as an example of how to create a culture of strong fathers and loving families with religious children, according to Lindsay. Offering to help Americans figure out how to integrate such cultural features into American life would have appeal to young conservatives. There are many American leaders attempting to figure out how to save their younger generations, and anything Israelis could offer in terms of advice, mentorship, or opportunities would be beneficial to that mission.
“I think there’s a huge opportunity, in fact, to showcase how family oriented and yet like masculine and courageous you have in the men of the IDF,” said Lindsay. “I think the connection between family and religion, especially in the more observant and Orthodox sectors of the society, would also be very charming for people to see how it looks in reality. The focus on children and being a good parent, though, I think would really shine through and resonate.”
The author was struck with how Israeli culture is focused on family and life, even in little ways that are often invisible to the fish swimming in the Israeli current. One example shared by Lindsay was how, when introductions were made at every meeting, Israelis would introduce themselves not by their title and achievement, but primarily with details about their family, such as how many children they had. It is a culture of life which Israelis are ready to defend on the borders of Gaza and Lebanon, and come home to have a Shabbat family meal. This “culture of life” was a chief focus during Lindsay’s November 3 New Discourses podcast, titled “Am Yisrael Chai.”
There are still a lot of Americans who support Israel and Jews, said Lindsay. When the goal is to drive a wedge between two countries or peoples, it takes both sides to give up on the relationship. It would require Americans to become skeptical and angry at Jews, explained Lindsay, but would also require Israelis to turn around and surrender America as an ally because of those sentiments. It would be a “terrible mistake if both sides decide to step into that enmity, when the fact is that the majority of conservative Christians in this country [the US] are still strong allies to Israel, still love Israel, still recognize the difference between civilization and terrorism, and to know which side to stand on.”
From Ian:
The Democrats’ ominous anti-Zionist turn
AIPAC is clearly a lightning rod in left-wing New England. Jewish Insider reported that Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, previously deemed moderate, “would reject any further donations from AIPAC and would return more than $30,000 from the group” the day after launching his Senate campaign. Jordan Wood, a House candidate in nearby Maine, recently said “he would reject contributions from AIPAC” pointing to Democrats’ distrust over how that money affects “foreign aid to Israel”, Jewish Insider reported. Progressive Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner has made anti-AIPAC messaging central to his campaign.
Even “Midwestern nice” has made room for anti-Zionism. Anti-Israel Zeteo asked Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed about “Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state”. He “sidestepped” the question, Jewish Insider reported. El-Sayed also claimed AIPAC’s bipartisan donors are “MAGA billionaires... try[ing] to dictate the outcome for a Democratic primary”.
Down south, Georgia’s gubernatorial primary includes State Rep. Ruwa Romman, whom the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported backed the anti-Israel “‘Leave it Blank’ protest vote [campaign] against then-President Joe Biden” last year. Jewish Insider further reported that Romman “called on Democrats to ‘ban AIPAC funding’ in Democratic primaries”, supported a one-state solution, dubbed the Abraham Accords “disastrous” and opposed “a resolution denouncing Hamas and its [American] supporters”, offering solidarity to American Jews, and affirming Israel’s right to self-defence.
New examples keep appearing. Locations vary, but the details follow familiar patterns. Candidates define themselves in opposition to AIPAC and its American membership or elected Democrats they portray as overly pro-Israel. That is, Democratic candidates are increasingly defining themselves in opposition to Jews, the Jewish state, and Israel’s non-Jewish friends.
Jewish Democratic Georgia State Rep. Esther Panitch told me: “This represents a troubling shift where a vocal minority within the Democratic coalition has made anti-Zionism a litmus test for progressive credentials.” Not coincidentally, that litmus test puts many lifelong Jewish Democratic Zionists in a tight spot. Goldstein, for example, spent decades as an active Democrat, including serving as a delegate to three Democratic presidential conventions. He “couldn’t stand” being “attacked and otherized” by anti-Zionist activists and felt pushed to choose “between my party and my Judaism,” which is “inextricably intertwined with Zionism”. Goldstein left the Party in July.
For Panitch, “The question is whether the Democratic Party will allow this extremist fringe to define its position on Israel, or whether the silent majority will finally speak out. People of good conscience need to make clear there’s a bright line between legitimate policy criticism and the antisemitism of denying Jewish self-determination.”
That’s a distinction with a difference. It’s also a distinction voters should understand but won’t be learning from anti-Zionist elected officials. Zionists will have to urgently fill the gap.
The ‘noble lies’ of the BBC
Our overlords have been similarly deceitful over Gaza because they deem Palestinians to be deserving victims who automatically warrant sympathy against Israel, the oppressor. They have propagated falsehoods on the trans issue because this group is also presumed a persecuted minority, and because they feel they have a right to educate the masses in accordance with their ‘compassionate’ vision. In this new counter-factual reality, a man can get pregnant and a woman can rape someone with ‘her penis’. It matters little if this, or any other esoteric truth they take a fancy to, sounds absurd to normal people. Indeed, the more exclusive the ‘luxury belief’, the better.
The elites revel in determining what constitutes knowledge, and making sure everyone knows the righteousness of the truths they dispense. This is why they get so exercised by ‘misinformation’, or have been eager to dictate what ordinary folk say in private through ‘hate speech’ laws, ‘non-crime hate incidents’ or the Online Safety Act. This is why they double down on ‘offensive’ and ‘inappropriate’ language. They don’t like it when words are used without inhibitions and restrictions and when knowledge is diffused without supervision.
This is why they dissemble, mislead and prevaricate over truths that are inconvenient or unpleasant. Hence the cowardice and dishonesty about the rape gangs in the north of England, or their indignation when a newsreader – someone whose job it is to impart facts – rolled her eyes when prompted to read aloud that fraudulent construction: ‘pregnant people’.
The elites say what they like because they like what they say.
Gaza polemic denouncing indifference to Palestinian suffering wins US National Book Award
A provocative essay collection about the West’s response to the Gaza war and a children’s book about young Iranians helping a Jewish refugee in World War II were two of the big winners at the National Book Awards Wednesday evening.
“One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” by Egyptian-Canadian journalist and author Omar El Akkad, won the evening’s nonfiction prize. Based on a viral tweet El Akkad sent soon after the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza, the book maligns Western liberalism for, in El Akkad’s telling, turning its back on Palestinian suffering.
“It’s very difficult to think in celebratory terms about a book that was written in response to a genocide,” El Akkad said in his acceptance speech. “It’s difficult to think in celebratory terms when I know my tax money is doing this, and many of my elected representatives happily support it.”
He later continued, “And it is difficult to think in celebratory terms when I have been watching people snatched off the streets by masked agents of the state for daring to suggest that Palestinians might be human beings” — a likely reference to cases like student activist Rumeysa Ozturk. El Akkad thanked what he said were “writers who have spoken out,” as thousands of authors have pressured literary organizations like PEN America to take a harder line against Israel.
El Akkad’s book is one of several conversation-starters that have been published as Israel-critical reflections on the war, a crop that also includes Peter Beinart’s “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza.” The nonfiction judging panel included Jewish journalist Eli Saslow, who has written extensively about the rise of antisemitism and white nationalism. Jewish public radio host Ira Glass, who introduced the category in a prerecorded voiceover, noted that it is among titles that “indict the Western world in the ongoing destruction of Gaza.”
From Ian:
Andrew Fox:
‘Weaponized empathy’: Hamas exploits Western ignorance of war, military expert says
Social media has amplified this lack of understanding. Images can reach people’s pockets even as the dust on the ground still settles from an airstrike; and people reach emotional conclusions based on mere seconds of uncorroborated, curated propaganda.
The past two years on social media have been a peculiar mixture of gaslighting and relentless abuse. People deny what I have seen in person, with my own eyes, based on things they themselves have only seen on social media. And because I represent the rational narrative, I am told that I, as with Israel, am uniquely evil – with all the death threats and insults that come as part of that designation.
The bot swarms are also a factor: Mention the rapes of October 7, of which I have seen firsthand evidence, and notifications will swarm with bots denying them. This cumulative effect has one goal: to make it an unpleasant place to defend Israel’s conduct and to deter allies from speaking up.
So why bother? After all, I am neither Jewish nor Israeli. I have no dog in this fight.
However, I do believe, as an academic, that truth has meaning. Simply because social media exemplifies epistemic collapse, this does not mean that the truth loses importance.
I will continue to share what I believe to be true because when the dust settles from Gaza, a just outcome needs the truth in its corner. When this war is over, without the truth there will be no justice and no peace for either Palestinians or Israelis.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:
The Palestinian dilemma: Why Hamas continues to fail the Palestinian people
Ideological dissonance
Many in Gaza still promote ideas that reject Israel, denounce peace, and prioritize “resistance” over nation-building. Yet most who hold these views are not seeking war; they want stability and prosperity. What they fail to recognize is that Gaza’s well-being and prosperity depend on peace and coexistence with its neighbors.
This creates a striking dissonance: Many want the pride of “resistance” while expecting prosperity and a high standard of living.
This was evident after the massacre on October 7, 2023, when some who had initially celebrated Hamas’s attack quickly changed their tone as Gaza plunged into its deadliest chapter in modern Palestinian history.
For some, opposition to Hamas is partly motivated by the failure of the terror group to advance its nihilistic project over the past 30 years.
Whether it was the sabotaging of the Oslo process, the militarization of the Second Intifada, the blockade of Gaza, or a host of useless wars – especially after October 7 – Hamas has delivered continued and sustained misery, failure, death, devastation, and regression to the Palestinian cause and people.
Instead of fundamentally shifting course and realizing the futility of the ideological, nationalistic, and religious narratives and manipulations that underpin Hamas and elements of the Palestinian national project, many are only willing to see Hamas as a failure and shun the group for its lack of effectiveness rather than what it stands for.
Trump Admin Revokes Visa From South African Official Who Spearheaded 'Genocide' Case Against Israel
The Trump administration on Thursday revoked the visa of Naledi Pandor, the South African official who spearheaded a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), spoke by phone with former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh shortly after Oct. 7, 2023, and repeatedly offered support for terrorism, a senior State Department official exclusively confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon.
"Pandor's visa has been revoked," the official said. "Pandor has openly supported terrorism and endorsed violent jihads. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. government will no longer tolerate dangerous foreigners traveling into our country to spread their violent policies."
Pandor, who served as South African foreign minister from 2019 to 2024, just concluded a trip to the United States for the Milwaukee premiere of Muslim Network Television. A senior State Department official told the Free Beacon ahead of Pandor's visit that the department was "aware of this individual's pro-terrorism background" and that the matter was "under review."
The former diplomat, a convert to Islam, has professed her support for terrorism on numerous occasions. She said in September that Muslims "are permitted to engage in jihad when necessary" and told an audience in October that "armed struggle may become a necessity if there is no movement toward fundamental change."
During her time in South African government, Pandor led the country's lawfare campaign against Israel, ultimately filing a formal accusation of genocide against the Jewish state in December 2023. Just 10 days after Hamas attacked Israel, Pandor spoke on the phone with Haniyeh and, according to Hamas, offered her congratulations for the "Al-Aqsa Flood," the terror group's name for its October 7 operation. While Pandor initially claimed the conversation had to do with humanitarian aid, her office eventually admitted that she called to reiterate "South Africa's solidarity and support" for Palestinians.
From Ian:
Antizionism: The Reinvention of a Racist Hate Movement
“Tell me what you accuse the Jews of — I’ll tell you what you’re guilty of.”
This 1959 observation by novelist Vasily Grossman, often quoted by writer Douglas Murray, was vividly illustrated at UCLA last week. An ignominious band of university departments including its School of Law sponsored a talk by Rutgers professor Noura Erakat — an activist posing as a scholar — who teaches the gullible that Israel is a settler colonial project. Erakat’s faux lecture, “Revisiting Zionism as a Form of Racism and Racial Discrimination,” was timed to honor the fiftieth anniversary of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 3379 — the since-rescinded-but-never-dead screed that declared Zionism a form of racism.
Judea Pearl, UCLA professor, Turing Prize winner and proud Israel-born Zionist, had had enough. When he learned of the “Zionism is racism” lecture, he issued a call for a countervailing event on campus the same night, Nov. 13. UCLA’s Jewish Faculty Resilience Group swung into gear, and in little over a week about a hundred people gathered at UCLA’s School of Law for a panel discussion called “Is Antizionism Racism?” Peter Savodnik of The Free Press was a thoughtful moderator, and Michael Berenbaum, Yael Lerman and Hindi Stohl Posy gave sobering, alarming, or stirring presentations. Presumably due to the imposing police presence (thank you, UCPD), antizionist protesters mostly stayed away. At least one professor in the audience felt secure enough from the keffiyeh brigade to pull out her knitting.
As Professor Pearl reported the next day on X, the event was a major success. “Two concrete outcomes became immediately evident,” he wrote. “(1) Zionist faculty and students at UCLA will now be asserting their right to a name, a voice and institutional representation on campus. (2) Antizionist faculty and students will now be facing a new, no-nonsense environment in which their rhetoric and ideology are exposed — and named — for what they are: racist.”
Because what else can you call a movement that exists solely to deny the right of self-determination to one nation — the Jewish one? That screams to isolate, boycott or attack Jews, camouflaged as “Zionists”? That champions an organization, Hamas, whose founding charter calls to kill Jews? That celebrates as “resistance” the largest one-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust?
Jew-haters invariably ascribe to Jews whatever they find most abhorrent. For the Nazis who obsessed about race purity, Jews were polluters of the Aryan race. Medieval Christians hated Jews as the supposed killers of Christ. For communists, Jews were capitalists; and for reactionaries, Jews were communists. Today, when society overwhelmingly rejects racism, progressives who consider it the worst of all crimes scream “Racist!” at Jews who support the existence of a Jewish state. Meanwhile they support the elimination of that same state, making their claim the epitome of projection.
Nicole Lampert:
When Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
Over the last few years, we have increasingly seen the non-apology apology - same concept - especially when it comes to antisemitism. The latest example came yesterday courtesy of Bristol club Strange Brew, which exactly six months earlier cancelled a performance by Oi Va Voi and its Israeli guest singer, Zahara.
The club had come under pressure from the Bristol Palestine Alliance to ban the performance. It knew that it couldn’t simply ban Jews. And that it wasn’t meant to ban Israelis either. Religion, race, ethnicity, and nationality are all protected characteristics under the 2010 Equality Act. (This doesn’t cover Russians who are subject to sanctions from the British state which takes priority).
Instead, the ban was ostensibly because Zohara, a left-wing Israeli with a Palestinian boyfriend, had an album cover featuring her naked at a watermelon farm. ‘We were of the view it could be interpreted as politically offensive, given the ongoing and worsening situation in Gaza and it had already been interpreted as such by the groups who contacted us,’ the club wrote following the cancellation in May. Their statement added that while the band had explained that the album cover was a comment on femininity and nature, ‘We concluded that, regardless of the intended meaning, the use of politically loaded symbolism in this way – by anyone of any background – is ambigious and could therefore come across as politically insensitive and/or offensive to the people of Palestine and by our audiences.’
An ‘ambiguous’ album cover used politically by malign forces does not, it appears, protect anyone from what the Equality Act says. Despite this, a second venue in Brighton also cancelled the band, and for a brief while, it seemed they were musical kryptonite. Dropped. Ironically, one place where they remained hugely popular was Turkey, where they continued to play to some of their biggest audiences.
All of this was at the same time when musical acts were signing mass petitions for Northern Irish band Kneecap – named after an IRA punishment beating – for alleged support of Hamas and Hezbollah. These acts claimed they were for free speech in music. Not one of them came out to support Oi Va Voi. Not one.
As Oi Va Voi said yesterday: ‘The intimidation of the activist groups who wanted Strange Brew to cancel our gig would never be tolerated against any other minority, either in the music industry or elsewhere. Anti-Jewish racism is racism, and racism is injustice, wherever it comes from.
Poll: Majority of British adults are Zionists – but don’t seem to know it
A staggering lack of awareness about the meaning of the word ‘Zionism’ is laid bare by a new poll published today, with five times as many British adults claiming to support the right of Jews to self-determination as identified with the ‘Z’ word.
According to new polling from More in Common, while just 9 per cent of the wider UK population said they were Zionists, 53 per cent said they “support the right of Jewish people to have a nation in Israel”.
Similarly, while 22 per cent identified themselves as having a negative view of Zionists, only 9 per cent specifically had a negative view of “people who support the right of Jewish people to have a nation in Israel”.
In a summary provided by the organisation, which has consistently polled the British public’s attitude towards the conflict over the last two years, “all of this suggests that the public’s perceptions of Zionism have become detached from its literal meaning”.
“People who brand themselves as ‘Zionists’ might mean to be communicating that they simply support the principle of Jewish self-determination, but this is far from what other people may hear when they say this.”
“This disconnect makes it easy for conversations to become heated or accusatory very quickly, because people are often responding to what they think the label implies rather than to the person’s actual position. As a result, the term itself can introduce misunderstanding and tension into discussions that might otherwise reveal more shared ground than disagreement.”
Among those described as “progressive activists”, the numbers are more extreme. More than half – 54 per cent – have a negative view of “Zionists”, with close to a quarter – 23 per cent – having a negative view of “people who support the right of Jewish people to have a nation in Israel”.
General concerns in British society about antisemitism also rose over the last 18 months. In April 2024, about one third of respondents (34 per cent) felt the UK was a mostly or very unsafe place for Jews. That number rose sharply from the summer of 2025, culminating in almost half of respondents (48 per cent) feeling that way in the aftermath of the Heaton Park synagogue terror attack.
Terrorists & tiaras Miss Palestine’s connection to convicted terrorist leader revealed ahead of Miss Universe pageant
The first-ever Miss Palestine contestant in the Miss Universe pageant married the son of Hamas’ most-wanted prisoner, Marwan Barghouti, and even named a child after him, The Post has learned.
Nadeen Ayoub — who claims to be a 27-year-old US and Canadian citizen living in Dubai — is competing this week to represent Palestine, a territory the US and Israel don’t even recognize as a sovereign state.
Strutting through preliminary rounds ahead of the pending pageant, Ayoub has kept most of her personal life under wraps — until now.
Years-old screenshots and social media posts obtained by The Post show she took pains to hide that she was once married to Sharaf Barghouti — son of the infamous Fatah leader serving five life sentences in Israel for orchestrating terror attacks that killed five people in 2001 and 2002.
The convicted murderer’s name resurfaced last month when Hamas demanded his release in hostage-exchange negotiations with Israel — a request the Jewish state flatly refused, citing his participation in the first intifada, leadership in the second, convictions in five terror-related murders and founding of the West Bank’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
A secret life
Social media posts show Ayoub tied the knot with Sharaf Barghouti in 2016, later welcoming a son named Marwan three years later — seemingly in tribute to the convicted killer.
However, it is unclear if the pair remains married. A family member reached for comment confirmed to The Post that the two had been married, but denied knowledge of their current status.
From Ian:
Resolution 2803: A restatement of international law
The resolution effectively negates any recognition of a Palestinian state at present or otherwise outside of the terms of the resolution. This includes the misguided efforts to recognize the P.A. as a state by the United Kingdom and France, as well as other U.N. members, such as Canada and Australia, all of whom are bound by the resolution. Interestingly, there is no explicit legal obligation to create a Palestinian state under this resolution; it merely recites the threshold conditions that must be satisfied to have a pathway for self-determination and statehood.
The resolution also does not recognize that there is or ever was any so-called “occupation,” “right of return,” “genocide,” “starvation,” “apartheid” or “justifiable resistance.” Hamas and its cohorts are the wrongdoers and the resolution is directed against them and in support of Israel’s just defensive war. Indeed, the resolution explicitly notes that Gaza threatens the security of neighboring states. It can well be asserted that all the libels against Israel relating to Gaza and the Palestinians have effectively been debunked as a matter of international law by the resolution. The Resolution is effectively a restatement of international law that exonerates Israel and casts Hamas and its cohorts as the wrongdoers.
Hamas has been defeated militarily and politically. The board and ISF have the clean-up job, with Israel there on-site until the job is fully completed. Thereafter, Israel is entitled to remain with a security perimeter presence until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.
Israel fought a just, defensive war against belligerent, vicious, murderous and terrorist Hamas and its cohorts. The UNSC and those supporting the plan recognize this and, by virtue thereof, the resolution is designed to eliminate Hamas and its cohorts—as the wrongdoers—from having any role in the governance of Gaza, as well as to destroy their capacity to do any more harm to Israel and the neighboring countries.
May the blessings of peace prevail.
Jake Wallis Simons:
President Trump has made a mockery of Europe's Gaza posturing
That is not all. Resolution 2803 also included language that exposed the UN’s claim of “genocide” in Gaza as unfounded and absurd. The International Stabilisation Force, it said, shall enforce security by “ensuring the process of demilitarising the Gaza Strip, including the destruction and prevention of rebuilding of the military, terror, and offensive infrastructure… until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.”
Shamefully, here was the first official recognition from the Security Council that Israel’s campaign in the Strip did not aim to destroy the Palestinian people but to vanquish those jihadi armies who had spent decades turning their territory into a network of subterranean garrisons protected by more than two million human shields.
This statement – passed with 13 votes in favour, including those of Britain and France, and abstentions from China and Russia – directly contradicted the official ruling by the United Nations commission of inquiry that Israel had conducted a “genocide” in Gaza, released in September as part of the lamentable international drive to force an Israeli defeat. What a difference three months make, eh?
Of course, anybody of sound mind who had bothered to read September’s “genocide” report was bound to conclude that it was a deplorable piece of Israelophobic propaganda in the first place. It brazenly airbrushed Hamas from the conflict almost entirely, showcasing the tragic destruction as evidence of a campaign targeting civilians rather than the jihadis hiding behind them. It was like a biased account of the Second World War in which the Nazis had been conveniently forgotten.
All of which is to say: thank God for President Trump! In many ways, not least his attitude towards Vladimir Putin, I’m no fan of the man. But without his intervention at the UN, which has so rudely jolted the West – and the world – out of its inexplicable infatuation with the jihadi agenda, the collapse of liberal democracy would have been all but assured.
But Trump cannot forever be relied upon to save Britain from itself. Israel may be the first domino, but Ukraine is the second. Sooner or later, we must learn to defend ourselves.
Hamas’ Rejection of Peace and the Media’s Convenient Silence
On Monday, November 17, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2803, approving the implementation of the 20-point Peace Plan proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. The resolution outlines how the two parties can advance to the next phase of the ceasefire and begin shifting the focus toward rebuilding the Gaza Strip.
A “Board of Peace,” led by President Trump and authorized by an International Stabilization Force (ISF), would be implemented to disarm terrorist organizations in Gaza and assist in delivering humanitarian aid, among other responsibilities.
Thirteen votes were cast in favor, zero against, and China and Russia both abstained. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas’ patrons Qatar and Turkey also welcomed the resolution.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad reacted to the vote with a statement vowing to treat any international force as a “party to the conflict,” meaning more violence. But Hamas’ opposition is hardly surprising given their insistence on portraying themselves as the victors of the war. The dissonance that the media cannot seem to reconcile is that Hamas claims to be the group that represents and governs over the people the plan is meant to help.
Less surprisingly, but certainly more disappointingly, is the international media’s failure to delve into the details of Hamas’ rejection and what it means more broadly for the future of the peace plan.
The New York Times, for instance, spent an entire article discussing the countries – including several Muslim and Arab nations – that welcomed the adoption of the resolution and its implications in the broader context of peace.
But similar to how Hamas stood alone in rejecting the agreement, The New York Times also chose to gloss over that critical fact. While it’s encouraging that the international community wants to see an end to the war, shouldn’t it be headline news that the party actually waging the war has no real interest in ending it? Shouldn’t Hamas’ absolute rejection of any form of peace deserve, at the bare minimum, one paragraph?
After years of Hamas openly declaring its goals, the media continues to conceal this reality, seeking to portray the terrorist organization instead as peacemakers while shifting the blame for the continued conflict onto Israel. But as the saying goes, when someone – or in this case, a terrorist organization – shows you who they are, believe them.
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
