05/17 Links: Holocaust survivors: Australia is no longer safe for Jews; Eurovision 2026 Highlights Europe’s Israel Divide; Simon Sebag Montefiore on the History — and Future — of British Jews

From Ian:

John Spencer: Absurd Claims of Dog Rape and Genocide

I see a correlation between those who believe absurd claims like dogs were trained to rape Palestinians and those who insist Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Both claims collapse under scrutiny and under mountains of contrary evidence. One ignores biology and basic science, including the reality that dogs cannot rape humans in the way being alleged. The other disregards the legal definition of genocide, which requires demonstrable intent to destroy a people as such. That accusation runs directly against repeated public statements by Israeli political and military leaders after October 7 that the war was against Hamas, not the people of Gaza. It also requires evidence of actions taken to fulfill genocidal intent. Instead, the easily obtained facts show Israel facilitating historic aid deliveries, establishing evacuation corridors, warning civilians before operations, moving populations from combat zones, numerous other civilian harm mitigation measures, and even vaccinating Gaza’s population during active combat under conditions no military has ever faced.

The accusation also collides with another uncomfortable reality. Even critics of Israel’s military campaign have acknowledged civilian-to-combatant casualty ratios that are historically low for dense urban warfare against an entrenched enemy operating from within civilian areas. Using even Hamas-led Gaza Health Ministry figures, the available numbers suggest ratios somewhere between roughly 1.5:1 and 1:1 depending on the methodology used. Those figures compare favorably to many major urban battles and wars, including Manila, Seoul, Mosul, the Iraq War, and the Korean War just to name a few of many.

None of this removes the tragedy of civilian death. War remains brutal even when fought within the law. Yet casualty figures of this kind directly undermine the assertion that Israel’s campaign reflects an organized effort to destroy the Palestinian people.

Public debate around war increasingly turns statistics into instruments of persuasion rather than tools of understanding. Numbers are pushed into headlines before definitions are clarified. Casualty counts circulate globally detached from methodology, sourcing, combatant status, age distributions, or the conditions under which the data was collected. Large numbers create emotional reactions on their own. Most audiences have little ability to independently evaluate how those figures were generated or whether the institutions producing them have political incentives embedded within the process.

Sociologists who study statistics have long recognized that numbers are social products shaped by the organizations and people who produce them. Activists use statistics to elevate causes. Governments use them to defend policy. Media institutions amplify the figures that generate the strongest emotional response and reinforce existing narratives. In wartime, numbers often become ammunition. Selective statistics gain power through repetition long before they survive rigorous scrutiny. Figures themselves do not lie, but people routinely use figures dishonestly. As the old saying goes, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.”

The genocide accusation survives largely because many people begin with the conclusion and work backward from it. Evidence that contradicts the accusation is ignored, minimized, or reframed. Actions that would normally weigh against genocidal intent are treated as irrelevant. Legal definitions become elastic only in Israel’s case. Standards applied to every other military confronting enemies that openly disregard the laws of armed conflict, deliberately embed within civilian populations, and treat civilian suffering as a strategic asset often disappear when Israel is involved.

That dynamic resembles what Natan Sharansky describes as the “3Ds” that distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism: Demonization, Double Standards, and Delegitimization.

One of the major double standards applied to Israel is the way the laws of armed conflict are removed from their actual legal framework and replaced with emotional accounting built almost entirely around casualty numbers. Civilian deaths are presented without operational context, without discussion of the target, the enemy’s tactics, the precautions taken, or what commanders reasonably understood when the action or strike was approved or taken. The numbers themselves become treated as proof of illegality.

The law of armed conflict does not function that way. Military decisions are judged based on what commanders reasonably knew before an operation or action occurred, not through hindsight after the outcome is already known. Legal analysis examines whether the target was a lawful military objective, whether commanders conducted a proportionality assessment to determine that the anticipated civilian harm would not be excessive compared to the concrete and direct military advantage expected from the attack, and whether feasible precautions were taken to mitigate civilian harm under the circumstances at the time.

Much of the public discussion surrounding Gaza reverses that process entirely. Casualty figures are frequently treated as the beginning and end of legal judgment. Civilian deaths become automatic evidence of criminality regardless of the military objective, warnings issued, evacuation measures attempted, intelligence available at the time, the reliability of assessments distinguishing civilians from those actively participating in hostilities, or the enemy’s deliberate integration into civilian infrastructure. Hamas’s use of homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, tunnel systems, and dense residential areas for military purposes is often pushed to the margins of the discussion even though it shaped nearly every operational decision Israel faced.

Jonathan Turley: Why Israel’s lawsuit against Times over ‘blood libel’ has a chance

Does the “Gray Lady” have a “longstanding Jewish problem“?

That question may soon be answered in a Manhattan courtroom as the New York Times stands accused of an alleged attack piece on Israel. This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he would sue the paper and columnist Nicholas Kristof for defamation over the publication of what he called a “blood libel.”

The latest controversy emerged after the Times ran a Kristof column alleging widespread sexual abuse and torture of Palestinians, including the use of dogs to rape prisoners. The government denounced the column as “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press.”

The Israelis allege that the column was intentionally posted ahead of the release of an independent Israeli report that found Hamas had systematically used sexual violence in the onslaught of October 7, 2023.

It is unclear whether the lawsuit will be filed on behalf of individuals, groups, or the nation as a whole. Regardless of the framing, the defamation action could allow Israel to delve into the paper’s journalistic practices and alleged bias.

Under the higher “actual malice standard,” Israeli counsel would likely need to prove that Kristof and the Times acted with knowledge of the allegation’s falsity or in reckless disregard of the truth.

The Times has been accused of such malice for years. A newspaper with an overwhelmingly Democratic and liberal readership, critics have accused the paper of pandering to its increasingly anti-Israeli base.

According to recent polls, two-thirds of Democrats (67%) now support Palestinians over Israel (17%).

The newspaper has been repeatedly called out for slanted and sometimes false reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. For example, after Israel attacked Gaza in response to the October 7th massacre, the Times reported on an alleged Israeli strike that destroyed part of the Al-Ahli hospital. The Times seemed to rush to get the allegation into print, with little supporting evidence.

The story was based on sources associated with the terrorist group Hamas, which is notorious for disseminating propaganda and false stories. It took a week before the Times retracted the claim. (It turned out to be a misfired Palestinian rocket that hit a parking lot).

The Times has been forced to make a series of retractions and apologies for such coverage. After the newspaper ran a column that it later admitted was antisemitic, Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote that “The Times has a longstanding Jewish problem … continuing into the present day in the form of intensely adversarial coverage of Israel.”

In May 2021, a front-page story contained multiple factual errors and biased elements, including the portrayal of a Hamas militant as a civilian child. It also used a stock image of a girl to claim that she was a dead Palestinian child.

New Report Warns WHO Health-Attack Data Is Being Weaponized Against Israel

A May 2026 policy paper by the Center for Medical Integrity argues that the World Health Organization’s Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care is being used in international forums in ways that turn a public-health monitoring tool into a political instrument against Israel. The report says SSA collapses analytically distinct categories of incidents under the single label “attacks on health care,” allowing obstruction, intimidation, and direct violence to be cited together without the legal context needed to assess culpability.

The issue matters now because Gaza hospital cases remain central to diplomatic, legal, and media narratives about the war, while evidence and intelligence assessments regarding Hamas and PIJ exploitation of medical infrastructure are often treated as secondary or omitted altogether.

A Broad Database With a Loaded Label
The report explains that WHO defines an attack on health care as “any act” of verbal or physical violence, obstruction, or threat that interferes with health services during emergencies. Its own examples include heavy-weapons violence, psychological intimidation, obstruction to care, armed searches, denial of services, and “militarization of health care facility.”

That breadth may make sense for emergency monitoring. But CMI argues the word “attack” gives operational data the appearance of a legal finding. WHO has also acknowledged that both high-impact events, such as bombings, and lower-impact incidents, such as verbal threats, are included in the same framework.

The concern, CMI argues, is not merely semantic. Under WHO’s SSA methodology, certainty levels indicate confidence that an incident occurred, but they do not resolve disputed questions about perpetrator identity, legal culpability, intent, proportionality, or whether a facility had previously been used for military purposes. WHO separately says it does not collect or verify perpetrator information and that its objective is to raise awareness of attacks on health care, not to pursue accountability.

How Counts Become Accusations
The sharpest allegation in the report concerns the way WHO-linked data travels through international institutions. According to CMI, at WHO’s 158th Executive Board session in February 2026, WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean regional office cited SSA data to claim that “almost 1,000 people” had been killed in documented attacks by Israel, with nearly half that figure deriving from the disputed October 2023 Al-Ahli Hospital explosion.

CMI’s broader concern is that WHO-linked health data can omit battlefield context relevant to legal assessment. U.S. officials said in November 2023 that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad used Al-Shifa Hospital and tunnels beneath it to support military operations and hold hostages. A later declassified U.S. assessment, reported by AP, said American intelligence was confident the groups used the Al-Shifa complex to house command infrastructure, exercise command-and-control activity, store some weapons, and hold at least a few hostages.

Human Rights Watch later found that the Al-Ahli blast resulted from an apparent rocket-propelled munition of a type used by Palestinian terror groups, while saying a full investigation was still needed. HRW also said it could not corroborate the Gaza Health Ministry’s reported death toll of 471, calling it significantly higher than other estimates and out of proportion with visible damage.

The case illustrates the report’s central warning: an early battlefield claim can enter a health database, continue circulating with institutional authority, and later be folded into diplomatic accusations against Israel even after key facts are contested.

Israel itself told WHO’s Executive Board that the body was in “dire need of reform” and accused the session of fueling “yet another politicized discussion” while ignoring facts on the ground.

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05/16 Links: IDF infantry platoon commander killed by Hezbollah drone; Israel’s Noam Bettan finishes second at Eurovision; Bill Maher : New Rule: No Jews, No News

From Ian:

Why does Jerusalem belongs to the Jews? Because history says so

Facts do not cease to exist simply because anti-Israel ideologues seek to erase them.

Nor should anyone forget what happened when Jerusalem was divided between 1948 and 1967 under Jordanian rule.

During those 19 years, Jews were completely barred from accessing the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, despite explicit guarantees in the 1949 armistice agreements. Fifty-eight synagogues in the Jewish Quarter were destroyed or damaged by the Jordanians. Ancient gravestones on the Mount of Olives, some dating back centuries, were desecrated and used for roads, military camps, and even latrines.

The city’s reunification in 1967 ended 19 years of Jordanian control of eastern Jerusalem, with the Hashemite Kingdom’s annexation having been recognized by only two countries.

Yet, somehow it is Israel that now stands accused of restricting religious freedom.

The truth is precisely the opposite.

Since reunifying Jerusalem in June 1967, after Jordan joined the Six Day War, Israel has safeguarded access to holy sites for all faiths. Muslims pray freely at al-Aqsa Mosque. Christians maintain churches and institutions throughout the city. Jerusalem, under Israeli sovereignty, has become one of the few cities in the Middle East where Jews, Christians, and Muslims all have genuine religious freedom protected by law.

The city itself reflects that vitality.

Today, Jerusalem is home to nearly one million residents, making it Israel’s largest city. It boasts well over 1,000 synagogues, hundreds of churches, and dozens of mosques. It is the seat of Israel’s parliament, Supreme Court, and national institutions. It is a living, thriving capital, not a relic of ancient memory.

And that is ultimately what Jerusalem Day represents.

It is not merely the anniversary of a military victory. It is the celebration of an ancient people returning to its historic heart after centuries of dispersion and longing.

When Israeli paratroopers reached the Western Wall in June 1967, commander Motta Gur famously declared, “The Temple Mount is in our hands.” At that moment, Jewish history came full circle.

Jerusalem was not conquered in 1967. It was liberated and reclaimed.

At a time when lies about Israel spread with alarming speed across campuses, social media, and international forums, it is more important than ever to stand unapologetically for truth.

Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people because history says so. Archaeology says so. Demography says so. And 3,000 years of uninterrupted Jewish memory say so.

The facts are there for anyone willing to see them.

The Covenant and the Wooden Box

Jews in Britain are not a peripheral concern of that threat. They are a primary one. Jewish faith schools in north London closed their doors in October 2023, citing security fears. The phrase “Globalize the intifada” is chanted openly at marches through the capital, month after month, without prosecution. After two men were killed at the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester in October 2025, the prime minister told the House of Commons that anti-Semitism was not a new hatred, that Jewish buildings, Jewish lives, and Jewish children required extra protection, and that he would do everything in his power to guarantee their safety. Then he did next to nothing. The IRGC remained unproscribed. The marches continued. The files stayed closed.

On April 29, 2026, as Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, sat in Madrid discussing Gaza with the Spanish prime minister, a man ran along Golders Green Road armed with a knife, hunting Jews. He stabbed two—a man of 34 and a man of 76. He had been referred to Prevent—the government’s counterterrorism program designed to identify and steer individuals away from radicalization—in 2020. His file was closed the same year. The prime minister visited Golders Green the day following the attack and was met with chants of “Keir Starmer Jew Harmer.”

“Anti-Semitism is an old, old hatred,” Starmer said. “History shows that if you turn away, it grows back.” He was right. Perhaps this time the words will be followed by action, but the word “perhaps” is doing a lot of work here. The record does not encourage hope. And the record matters because of what it confirms: This was not managed ignorance—the filed report, the averted gaze, the truth quietly administered out of existence. It showed something much worse: explicit knowledge, explicit condemnation, explicit promise—and then nothing.

This is the strategic cost—the final destination of the managerial habit that brought about the auction listing for Nelson Street and the conduct of council offices of Rotherham, that wound through the corridors of Broadcasting House, arrived at the gilded antechambers of Buckingham Palace, and came, finally, to the streets of Golders Green. Writing in The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt argues that the decline of the nation-state and the loss of political self-knowledge were not merely cultural tragedies but the preconditions for totalitarian penetration. A society that cannot know itself cannot defend even its most vulnerable children. Britain has not produced totalitarianism. But it has produced, with patient institutional thoroughness, exactly the condition Arendt identified as its precursor: a governing class that has lost the will to know what it is, what it values, and what it owes to those in its care. The Chinese Communist Party understands this with the clarity of a predator that has studied its prey. It targets the gap between what British institutions know and what they have decided, for reasons of procedural calm, to pretend they do not know. That gap—patiently widened over decades by a managerial class that chose comfort over conscience—is now a strategic aperture through which a hostile foreign power has walked into the heart of the British establishment.

Americans reading this would be wise to resist the comfortable assumption that what is described here is a foreign pathology—a peculiarly British failure of nerve from which the New World is naturally immune. It is not. The pipeline that rewards ideological conformity with credentials and institutional authority operates on both sides of the Atlantic. The universities that incubated the assumptions that made Rotherham possible sent their graduates into British newsrooms, council offices, and police commands; their American counterparts sent theirs into the FBI, the Department of Justice, the prestige press, and the administrative apparatus of every major American city. The same spirit of iconoclasm that came for Churchill’s statue came for Washington’s and Jefferson’s, too—pulled down by crowds in Portland in 2020 while city administrators placed them in storage and commissioned reports on whether they deserved to stand at all. A committee reporting to the mayor of Washington, D.C., formally recommended removing or relocating the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial.

The same willingness to brand truth-tellers as extremists—which destroyed Sarah Champion’s career for stating the obvious about Rotherham—was visible in the treatment of every American official, journalist, or academic who raised questions that the managerial consensus had decided were impermissible. Britain did not fail because it was uniquely weak. It failed because its governing class lost the will to know itself—and the consequences of that loss, once set in motion, proved impossible to contain. America’s governing class is further along that same road than it yet knows. The wooden box, in America, has not yet been built. But the administrators who would build it, if asked, are already at their post. The question is not whether it is being constructed. It is whether enough people—in Britain and in America—will recognize the lumber being assembled before all the nails go in.

In the summer of 1940, when every counsel of prudence pointed toward negotiation, one man looked into the abyss and refused to blink. He had spent decades preparing for that moment, honoring a covenant older than the war itself: declaring his support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, fighting the White Paper that would have closed Palestine’s gates to Jews fleeing extermination, prosecuting at the cost of everything the war against the regime whose explicit purpose was to end Jewish life in Europe. He understood that the Lord deals with the nations as the nations deal with the Jews—that England’s fate and the fate of the Jewish people were bound together in a moral order that transcended any government or generation. That conviction did not make him perfect. It made him, at the moment of maximum cost, faithful. He turned down a dukedom.

Those who have inherited stewardship of the covenant—the politicians, police, and civil servants—are failing it right now, if not betraying it outright, in the streets of Golders Green, in the halls of Parliament, in the lecture halls and council offices and police commands where the custodians made the same choice—managed truth over honest reckoning. What remains of that moral order, in the hands of those now charged with keeping it, is not easy to say. It endures—but not in the institutions, which have failed it, or in the bronze, which has been spray-painted, or for much longer in the synagogue, which has all but been sold. It endures in Leon Silver, who could not bear to let go of a building half a mile from where he was born.

It endures in Henry Glanz, who blew the shofar every year for the children who never reached England. It endures in Sarah Champion, who said the plain thing and paid the price for it. “The outside is very plain,” Leon Silver said of the building constructed from its first brick to be a synagogue but that’s now being stolen away to become a symbol of Islam’s triumph over Britain’s Jewry. “But people say the inside is beautiful, which I think so too.” The moral truth Silver might not even have known he was echoing with his words—“the inside is beautiful”—endures in everyone who has named what the governing class could not bring itself to name and everyone who refused to look away from what the governing class chose not to see. The moral truth endures—because covenants of that depth do not dissolve when institutions fail them. They wait.

Nicole Lampert: Why doesn’t Starmer make a video warning about far-Left hate marches?

On Friday night, Sir Keir Starmer took time out of being knifed by his Labour colleagues to warn of an impending threat in a statement posted on social media. He couldn’t have looked more serious; the sinews of his neck were taut. He used his hands in his best headmaster mode to drum home his points.

Soft music, with just a hint of menace, played in the background.

There was going to be a march in London, he warned, organised by people who were “peddling hatred and division, plain and simple”. The march, he added, was “a reminder of what we are up against in a battle of our values”.

Writing on X Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, also emphasised the danger of this march, warning, “if protest turns violent, we will act swiftly, with extra court capacity in place.”

Hallelujah! Could it really be that our political leaders had, after the stabbings in Golders Green, the arson on synagogues and Jewish ambulances, the deadly attack in Manchester, finally woken up to the horror of the “pro-Palestine” hate marches and the anti-Semitic, violent, pro-terrorist, genocidal rhetoric they endorsed?

Of course not.

They were talking about the march with the Union flags, not the ones with flags of Palestine and the Islamic Republic of Iran. If you want to know just how upside down our world has become, we need to look at today: which march was deemed hateful and which one they tried to ignore.

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05/15 Links Pt2: VDH: The Four Horsemen of the New Antisemitism; Face it, Jewish liberals: You have no friends on the left; Jews targeted worldwide as well-funded leftist, Islamist groups join for ‘Nakba 78’ protests

From Ian:

Victor Davis Hanson: The Four Horsemen of the New Antisemitism

Few predicted that blaming Israel and the Jews who support it would flare up in the early 21st century—and in America of all places, where there are nearly as many Jews as there are in Israel.

After all, Israel is the only consensual society in the Middle East. It holds regular elections and maintains tripartite judicial, executive, and legislative checks and balances.

Free speech is found in the Middle East only in Israel, where religious apostasy, criticism of one’s own country, gender equity, and tolerance of gays are guaranteed in marked contrast to all its neighbors.

It was once common knowledge that Israel had survived the huge numbers of its enemies because its tiny population was better educated, freer, more adept at Western technology, more tolerant of dissent—and because it enjoyed the goodwill and bipartisan support of the United States.

True, the recent affluence of the Gulf States has presented a thin veneer of Westernism that has fooled many in the new anti-Israel media. But just because Qatar did not censor a celebrity newsman’s broadcast from Doha does not mean Qatar is a free society. After all, no Western journalist would dare schedule a broadcast from Qatar with a Qatari who had condemned the regime for its intolerance or announced his religious apostasy from Islam.

So why and how did millions of Americans begin to express hatred for Israel and, albeit more subtly, the Jews who support it?

There are four converging fronts in this perfect storm.

Seth Mandel: Can Jewish Democrats Still Save Their Party?

It’s something. But it might be both too little and too late. The time it has taken Democratic Jewish figures to come around to the need to fight anti-Semitism within their own tent has left them forever playing catchup. Worse, it has enabled the rise of the very candidates Soifer now claims to be concerned about.

Additionally, Republicans have on occasion urged voters to back the Democrat in general-election races if the Republican nominee is truly unacceptable. There is no sign any Democrats of influence would follow the same path. Staying neutral is the most backbone they’ll show at this point.

And the party isn’t at all swayed by JDCA finally showing a bit of hesitation about a Democrat. Platner’s name was raised at the conference by Simon Rosenberg, a Jewish Democratic strategist. His position on Platner: “The Maine party is excited, ready to go, and we’re all going to be along the Platner train in a few weeks.”

According to JTA, the “big tent” argument seems to be the main excuse being deployed to convince Democratic Jews to go along to get along: “Ami Fields-Meyer, a former Biden White House adviser who spoke more critically of Israel than most of the summit’s speakers, did not weigh in on Platner specifically. But he echoed Rosenberg’s call for building coalitions that include ‘people we don’t agree with,’ and advocated for the Democratic Party and Jewish community to embrace a wider range of viewpoints on Israel.”

It should go without saying that if Jewish Democrats aren’t going to resist having extremist anti-Semites representing their party, then virtually no one will. If that’s the case, the battle has already been lost.

Karol Markowicz: Face it, Jewish liberals: You have no friends on the left

Where is the outcry from liberal Jews, saying they’ll never read that slop again?

Or from their absent friends, saying they won’t allow vicious lies like that to be spread?

This is not a both-sides issue.

Only one half of our political divide is standing in silence.

On the right this week, non-Jewish influencers, podcasters and politicians have been pushing back on the lies and the violence targeting Jews.

CNN commentator Scott Jennings called the Times piece “a journalistic atrocity that I actually feel stupid reading out loud” and said everyone involved should be fired.

Radio host Buck Sexton, after reading the Civil Commission’s report: “Given the demonic realities of Oct. 7, Israel acted with considerable restraint in its Gaza campaign, and should be commended for it.”

Harmeet Dhillon of the US Department of Justice tweeted video from the Brooklyn riot and promised to “collect evidence and analyze potential charges.”

And sure, there are antisemites nominally on the political right, Tucker Carlson infamously among them.

But so many non-Jews in the conservative world — President Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), commentator Victor Davis Hanson and a host of others — have lined up against Carlson’s foul suggestions that his influence on that side of the aisle is sinking like a stone.

That’s just a tiny sample of voices on the right speaking up for Jews, regularly and often.

Who on the left is doing the same?

This week’s silence should be humiliating.

It should be clarifying.

It should, at last, wake up those Jews on the left who care at all about self-preservation — or that of their children.

It’s long past time to leave this one-sided alliance behind.

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05/15 Links Pt1: After the Ayatollah; Justice Dept seeks death penalty in murder of Israeli Embassy staffers; The anti-Jewish fever dream of NYTs

From Ian:

Jason Greenblatt: After the Ayatollah

What exists now in Tehran is a set of overlapping factions: Mojtaba at the apex on paper, the IRGC running operations, the Supreme National Security Council coordinating, the Foreign Ministry providing the diplomatic interface. The wartime succession has made the fragmentation deeper and not legible from the outside, or from within Iran itself. There is also a possibility worth naming directly: Mojtaba was elevated precisely because he could preserve continuity while remaining beholden to, possibly controlled by, possibly entirely subservient to, the security establishment that installed him. There is a harder possibility still that cannot be ruled out: Whether he is alive and functioning at all remains genuinely uncertain.

When Iran’s foreign minister signs an agreement, the question is not only whether he intends or has the power to honor it. It is also whether that signature binds the IRGC commander who controls the nuclear facilities. Whether it binds the Quds Force officer managing proxy networks. Whether it binds the engineers at the enrichment sites who may answer to a chain of command that runs through the Guards, not through the Foreign Ministry. The JCPOA, negotiated when Iran had a functioning and consolidated supreme leader, was still contested inside the IRGC from day one. The hard-liners who opposed it moved to dismantle its constraints the moment political cover appeared. That was the counterparty problem with a strong leader in place. The counterparty problem now is structurally more severe.

Trump did not inherit this negotiating position. He built it through sustained military and economic pressure that degraded Iranian capabilities to a degree no previous administration achieved. Israel’s military operations were indispensable to that result. He arrives at the table with more leverage than any American president has held on this issue since the revolution.

The problem is that leverage is only as durable as the pressure sustaining it, and a deal is only as durable as the authority of the party committing to it. Whether Iran currently has a supreme leader who can make the system honor a commitment, or whether what exists is a set of competing factions that could fracture the moment pressure lifts or internal power dynamics shift, is genuinely unclear.

That is not a reason to walk away from negotiations. It is a reason to build any agreement on the assumption that the counterparty may not hold. Verification cannot depend on good faith. Enforcement cannot require a trip to the U.N. Security Council, where some have historically shielded Tehran from consequences. Europe cannot be a decision-maker here. Its track record on Iran enforcement is a history of deference dressed as diplomacy, and it has spent two decades prioritizing engagement over accountability. Consequences for breach need to be automatic, pre-agreed, and executable by the United States. If Iran breaks a deal, the response cannot hinge on whether those with a Security Council vote are having a cooperative month.

The best hand in a generation is worth playing. But you need a table and cards and players across from you who can cover their bets. Right now, at least one of those conditions remains genuinely in doubt.

US arrests Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah commander wanted for plots against Jews, US interests

The US has arrested Iraqi national and senior member of the Kataib Hezbollah terrorist organization, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, on Friday. He was charged with providing material support for Iranian-backed terrorist organizations and accused of directing attacks targeting US citizens and interests

On May 15, the US Justice Department announced “the arrest of Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, an Iraqi national and senior member of Kataib Hezbollah,” the department said. “In recent months, Al-Saadi has also allegedly directed and urged others to attack US and Israeli interests, including by killing Americans and Jews, to further the terrorist goals of Kataib Hezbollah and the IRGC.”

The case is the latest in US attempts to go after Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. The Justice Department posted a photo of Saadi with the late IRGC Quds force commander Qasem Soleimani. The US killed Soleimani in a 2020 drone strike in Iraq, also killing Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in the same strike.

In recent months, the US has put out at least four rewards of $10 million each for information on various Iraqi militia leaders.

The Saadi charges appear important and illustrate that the US long arm of justice can reach out and find these perpetrators.

“Al-Saadi was charged by complaint with six counts of terrorism-related offenses for his activities as an operative of Kataib Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including his involvement in nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks throughout Europe and the United States,” the US stated. Saadi is 32 years old, the report says.

He was transferred to the US from overseas, although the US did not specify where he was arrested.

“Al-Saadi was presented earlier today before US Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in Manhattan federal court and ordered detained pending trial,” according to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Blanche added that “thanks to the dedication and vigilance of law enforcement, this alleged terrorist commander is now in US custody… As alleged in the complaint, Al-Saadi directed and urged others to attack US and Israeli interests and to kill Americans and Jews in the US and abroad, and in doing so advance the terrorist goals of Kataib Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

IDF soldier KIA by Hezbollah mortar fire in Southern Lebanon

Staff Sgt. Negev Dagan, 20, from Moshav Dekel in the northwestern Negev, was killed by Hezbollah mortar fire in Southern Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces announced on Friday.

Dagan, a soldier in the Golani Infantry Brigade’s 12th Battalion, was operating near the Litani River on Thursday night when Hezbollah terrorists fired mortar shells at Israeli forces in the area, the military said.

One of the shells exploded near Dagan, mortally wounding him. Combat medics attempted to treat him at the scene but were forced to pronounce him dead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Friday, ahead of the soldier’s funeral, that he and his wife shared in the “heavy loss” and conveyed their deepest condolences to his family.

“We all embrace his family and dear ones at this hour of grief, and salute the heroism and courage with which Negev, of blessed memory, has fought to defend our country,” Netanyahu said. “May his memory be blessed and cherished forever.”

Residents of Dekel remembered Dagan as “the salt of the earth” with “an amazing soul” who was deeply committed to serving in the military.

“We lost a diamond,” a family friend from the moshav told Army Radio on Friday. “He gave all of himself and it was important to him to serve in the army.”

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05/14 Links Pt2: A Day in the Life of a New York City Jew; King Charles meets Golders Green stabbing victims; Britain can’t fight antisemitism without confronting its main driver: hatred of Israel

From Ian:

A Day in the Life of a New York City Jew

After the massive protests in Jewish neighborhoods across New York City over the past few days, I think a lot of people genuinely do not understand what something like that actually feels like for the people living there, so I want to try to walk you through it.

You wake up in the morning and see a message in the community WhatsApp chat. Maybe it’s from the local Jewish council. Maybe it’s from your congresswoman. It’s a warning that there’s going to be a protest in your neighborhood that night.

You open the flyer and see men in keffiyehs holding rifles, militant imagery plastered across something the media will later describe as a “demonstration.” The address is around the corner from your house. The flyer never explicitly calls for violence, but you’ve seen the videos from the last one and the one before that, and you already know there is a very real chance this is going to turn ugly.

Your first thought is your family.

A few months ago, you bought a firearm and locked it in a safe in your bedroom, away from the children. You know that if the day ever comes where you actually need to use it to defend your family, then something has already gone catastrophically wrong, and even if you survive that encounter, there is a very good chance the legal system in a city like New York will spend years trying to destroy your life afterward.

There is not much you can do, so you put your phone away and go to work, spending the entire day trying to keep your mind off what is waiting for you back home.

On the drive home, traffic suddenly stops. Streets are blocked off and police cars are everywhere. Sirens are flashing on every corner. And you remember that your neighborhood is about to be flooded with hundreds of people screaming about intifada and resistance while politicians and reporters insist this is all perfectly normal political expression.

You get home before the kids.

One by one they walk through the door while you keep checking the window to make sure they made it back safely. Your oldest tells you the principal made an announcement warning students not to walk or bike through a certain area after school, but refused to explain why, probably because nobody wants to be to explain to a group of Jewish children that there will be a mob outside their neighborhood later that night chanting slogans that openly glorify violence against Jews.

Report: German Intelligence Agency Documents Secular Pro-Palestinian Extremism

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), released new background material in May 2026 documenting secular pro-Palestinian extremism across Germany, a heterogeneous movement comprising decades-old organizations and groups formed after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, united by their denial of Israel’s right to exist and anti-Jewish agitation disguised as political criticism.

The intelligence service identifies key actors, symbols, and protest patterns, warning that secular pro-Palestinian extremists use Israel-hatred and antisemitism as a bridge between Islamists, German and Turkish left-wing extremists, and Turkish right-wing extremists.

The BfV documents how extremist actors in the scene have appeared in protest activity that has included anti-Israel and antisemitic content, riots, and attacks on police, journalists, and counter-protesters, especially in Berlin

Key Extremist Organizations
The BfV material describes terror-linked and extremist networks, including people from the PFLP milieu and former Samidoun actors, as continuing to influence Germany’s pro-Palestinian extremist scene.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
According to the BfV, people from the milieu of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an EU-designated terrorist organization since 2002 whose members helped hijack Lufthansa Flight 181 “Landshut” in 1977, have regularly helped organize anti-Israel rallies, particularly in Berlin.

The Marxist-Leninist organization openly advocates armed struggle to establish a Palestinian state “within the borders of historical Palestine,” meaning Israel’s complete elimination through what it calls ending “Zionist occupation.”

Samidoun – Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
Germany banned Samidoun, on November 2, 2023, after the group celebrated the Hamas massacre as “resistance.” Founded in 2011 by PFLP members abroad, Samidoun demands release of Palestinians imprisoned for terrorism links and provides propaganda support to the PFLP, Hamas, and the Turkish terrorist group DHKP-C.

Before its prohibition, the network was documented to have exploited pro-Palestinian demonstrations and social media for recruitment, fundraising, and spreading disinformation. BDS and Affiliated Groups

The BfV says BDS-linked groups in Germany have used antisemitic narratives, participated in anti-Israel demonstrations after October 7, and, in some cases, are now assessed as confirmed extremist endeavors. The agency interprets the BDS call to end occupation of ‘all Arab lands’ as a demand for ‘all of Palestine’ and, therefore, the end of Israel’s state existence

The report notes that extremist individuals without formal organizational membership have become key mobilization drivers through extensive social media reach, repeatedly disseminating hate messages and violence calls that fuel radicalization and willingness to use force.

Britain can’t fight antisemitism without confronting its main driver: hatred of Israel

Britain is experiencing a surge in antisemitism, yet much of the public discussion about how to respond to it avoids the central issue driving it. Today’s antisemitism is overwhelmingly rooted in hostility towards Zionism, sustained by false claims about Israel and the war in Gaza. This hostility only makes sense, it only inflames the imagination, because it is everything that has sustained Jew-hatred for millennia, culminating in the Holocaust. It’s effectively the same thing with the same target, even if it has a different new fancy name. Until this reality is openly acknowledged and confronted, declarations of opposition to Jew hatred will continue to fall short.

The sharp rise in antisemitic incidents is not occurring in a vacuum. Nor is it driven simply by ignorance or longstanding prejudice. It is being fuelled by a sustained campaign of disinformation about Israel, Gaza, the IDF and Hamas, and by the moral licence that these narratives grant to those who believe “Zionists” are legitimate targets.

Public figures and institutions frequently express opposition to antisemitism, often sincerely. But these declarations increasingly ring hollow because they fail to engage with how antisemitism actually manifests in Britain today. Statements of concern alone achieve little if there is no willingness to address what is motivating the hostility.

That motivation is frequently explicit. When the extremist group Ashab Al Yamin claimed responsibility for the arson attack on Kenton United Synagogue, it justified the attack by describing the shul as “one of the centres of Zionist influence in the British capital”. Its supposed crimes included hosting a “Kenton for Israel” group, holding events such as “Shabbat for Israel”, and singing Hatikvah. A typical synagogue in suburban London was attacked because it was considered too Zionist. If Kenton United is too Zionist then all of us are and therein lies the point.

Kenton was not an isolated case. Finchley Reform Synagogue and Hatzola have both been targeted for similar reasons. In one particularly stark example, a former synagogue that is in the process of being converted into a mosque was also subjected to an attempted arson attack. A local man interviewed by the BBC expressed confusion: “That synagogue has been turned into a mosque, so I don’t know why someone would petrol bomb it.” The answer lies in the way “Zionism” is now treated not as a political belief but as an inherent moral stain, one that clings to places and institutions even after Jews themselves have gone.

This obsession with “Zionist influence” is viral. Punk artist Bobby Vylan, best known for chants of “death to the IDF” at Glastonbury last year recently took to YouTube to claim that the British Department for Education had been “captured by Israeli forces”. He went on to ask what hope there was of resisting “growing Zionist influence” if even the education system was not free of it. The language is familiar to anyone who understands antisemitism: claims of capture, control and hidden power, updated for a modern audience.

Outside Parliament, activists now regularly gather during Prime Minister’s Questions to distribute fake banknotes headed “Bank of Zionism”. They hold placards depicting senior UK politicians branded with the same slogan and unfurl banners calling to “End Zionism control of UK Politics”. At larger demonstrations against Israel, chants such as “Palestine is Arab” and demands for “Intifada revolution” are common. These are not calls for peace or coexistence. They are declarations that deny Jewish self‑determination entirely and frame violence as justified or even necessary.

The same assumptions are increasingly tested in the courts. Palestine Action, a group that has attacked British defence firms, banks, insurance companies and even a law firm, argues that such actions are justified because these institutions are allegedly complicit in Israeli “genocide”. Whether or not the group is ultimately proscribed, the underlying premise often goes unchallenged: that extraordinary action against “Zionist” entities is morally virtuous.

This brings us to the question many remain unwilling to confront. The claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is false. It does not meet the legal definition of genocide, it is not supported by the facts on the ground, and it is contradicted by serious analysis of Israeli military intent. Yet it is repeated endlessly with absolute moral certainty. That matters, because genocide is not just another accusation. It is the ultimate crime, and once it is accepted as fact, almost anything becomes permissible in response.

Streeting would effectively tackle sectarian politics and rising antisemitism as PM, say allies

Wes Streeting is convinced he can directly challenge and confront the rise of sectarian politics, increased division, and rising antisemitism in the UK as Prime Minister, allies have said.

Streeting resigned as Health Secretary in a move aimed at pressuring Keir Starmer to accept that his time as Prime Minister should come to an end.

Aides said they believe the Ilford North MP would prove to be a more effective communicator if given the chance to lead.

In his resignation letter, Streeting criticised the “drift” at the top of government and told the Prime Minister it is “clear” he will not lead Labour into the next election.

While he praised Starmer’s “many great strengths” and “courage and statesmanship on the world stage,” Streeting continued: “Where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift.”

Jewish News understands that last week’s election results in Redbridge—where Labour held on to the council, beating back the challenge posed by the Jeremy Corbyn-backed pro-Gaza independents—convinced Streeting of the need to attempt a move to replace the PM.

Although Labour suffered significant losses to the Greens and Reform UK elsewhere, Streeting became convinced that effective communication was key to tackling the advance of extremist politics in the country.

Colleagues in Redbridge confirm that Streeting played a “very active” role in the local elections, attending meetings on campaign messaging and taking part in regular door-knocking to listen to local voters for months leading up to the May 7 poll.

Streeting also featured in a couple of online videos urging locals not to vote for the pro-Gaza independents.

In one video, he told residents to remember that they were participating in a vote about Redbridge, “not the UN Security Council.”

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05/14 Links Pt1: The Laughing Monsters; Why did the world look away when Israeli women were raped?; CENTCOM chief says 90% of Iran’s defense industry destroyed

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Laughing Monsters

As for what had made these many Palestinian perpetrators and spectators so happy—well, it’s a dark document. But the patterns are worth pointing out.

Some of the images studied by medical experts and catalogued with the investigating committee:

“The body of a young man lying on a sidewalk outside a concrete public shelter on Route 232, with severe burn injuries concentrated in the groin area.”

“A young woman with her insides protruding out of the groin area.”

“The body of a female victim with what appears to be a gunshot wound to the groin area.”

“The bottom half of a female body with bleeding in the groin area.”

The report is full of such accounts. The above are from victims who were found at the site of the Nova music festival. The scenes were similar at kibbutzim. One typical example: “On October 13th, first responders discovered two abused bodies in a destroyed home, one of them naked. The rescue efforts are documented in several videos and images that are archived with the Civil Commission. One of the first bodies found was that of a female victim. The body appears to be completely naked. Her ankle had been tied with a thick black chord. According to witnesses who provided testimony to the Civil Commission, the body had several nails driven into her lower abdomen and groin area, as well as a metal or plastic object embedded in the groin area.”

Pages and pages and pages of this stuff. Children shot in the face, victims decapitated and dismembered with hoes and shovels.

One video shows a terrorist yelling “God is great” while standing over the dead body of a woman who is naked from the waste down.

In one disturbing crime scene, a man was found “with his genitals cut off, and next to him, the body of a woman, holding his cut-off genitals, in what appeared to be a staged display to humiliate the victims.”

Again, this report is nearly 300 pages long, and it is full of such documented atrocities.

Jew-hatred strips the humanity from whatever it touches. There is nothing else like it.

Katya Sedgwick: Towards a Palestinian Autonomous Region—or Any Other Meaningful Settlement of The Arab-Israeli Conflict

It’s often said that all Left-Islamic unions inevitably end as 7th century theocracies—the Islamic Revolution in Iran is frequently cited as an example here. Yet Soviet—and Chinese, for that matter—history suggests otherwise. The USSR ruthlessly eradicated Muslim religiosity within its borders—and with it, the terrorist fervor. these days, its former Central Asian “republics” are the most moderate Muslim states—even if they are populated by tribes also found in the neighboring Afghanistan.

The Eurasian behemoth’s post-Soviet experience with Chechnya is far less rosy, of course, but even that relationship is currently stable. When religious violence does take place, the authorities squash it with gusto. Responding to the 2024 terror attack in a Moscow suburb, Russians did not hesitate to adopt every measure at their disposal, including—very publicly—torture. The world shrugged. It’s not just that the Kremlin knows about that Gaza pit bull, Russians are, stereotypically, natural dog trainers.

Russia already quietly resettled over a thousand Gazans, mostly in the Muslim regions of Chechnya and Dagestan. They don’t need to take all two million of them—just a sizable number, proudly and publicly. In doing so, they will set an example to the world. In the aftermath of the Ukraine war, Russia has a reputation to salvage—and I can’t think of a better way to approach it than by aiding Palestinians.

If necessary, Trump can sweeten the deal for Putin in Ukraine. It’s hard to see how American interest would change should the border between Russia and Ukraine move in either direction. America does have interest in Middle East peace and global commerce.

If Ukrainians are forced to shake hands on something not entirely to their liking, they can think of it as a payback for centuries of Cossack genocide. Not to mention that the turn of the century pogroms, mostly perpetrated in what is now Ukraine, prompted the creation of political Zionism. The way Zelensky, likely in coordination with Qatar, recently accused Israel of trading in stolen grain echoes the ugliest stereotypes. Perhaps Ukraine would like to resettle a few thousand Gazans?

A simple majority of Gazans want to leave and a plurality have been wanting to leave even before Israel brought the war home. They prefer comfortable Western countries where their clans have already grown roots, but Russia is almost the West and Muslim communities there are numerous. The way Russians today began thinking of themselves as Eurasionists, presupposes a multi-ethnic imperial dynamic that embraces Islam.

Some would object to the measures I am proposing, even calling it, inaccurately, “ethnic cleansing”. Most of them are the same people—and there are many who share that opinion these days, particularly on the left and among the young—that claim that Jews don’t need Israel because Joseph Stalin founded a homeland approximation for us on China’s border. That would be the so-called “Jewish Autonomous Region” of Birobidzhan. It turns out, they support not just ethnic cleansing—a gulag.

Why not create a Palestinian Autonomous Region in Siberia, right next to the Jewish one? This way the two Semitic nations can live peacefully side by side, under the watchful eye of their Russian brothers. Granted, the Jewish settlement of the Far East never took hold so there is hardly a Yid left in Birobidzhan. And there is no shortage of uninhibited land in Russia regardless. And many Muslims in Russia’s capital.

This of course is a crazy idea. But “crazy” is another way of saying “extraordinary” and the Trump Administration is already thinking in these terms.

Half of Gaza is now living in tents; not even their neighbors on the Strip are willing to shelter them. Considering that most terror tunnels are still usable and Hamas is still around, at some point Israel will have to finish the job. Will anyone think of the humanitarian emergency?

Given the current regional power arrangement it’s highly unlikely that Gazans can can be deployed as proxies against Israel anyway—so why bother maintaining them as such? Russia might want to keep that conflict frozen, but it’s highly unlikely that they will be able to thaw it.

Some kind of resolution to the crisis is two years overdue. Right now, time is not on Russia’s side. They may need to settle the conflict quickly and they will accept American demands. Maybe even rejoin the civilized world.

Confronting the Iranian Regime's Holy War: Will the West Rise to the Challenge?

The U.S.-Israel strikes on the Iranian regime are definitive military responses to 47 years of religiously-fueled terror carried out by the world's foremost radical regime of the modern era. This formidable challenge to the West is compounded by the Free World's hesitation to acknowledge the jihad Iran has waged against Israel and the U.S.-led Western alliance since 1979.

Tehran and Washington are both playing for time in a war of economic and strategic attrition. The Iranian regime aims to buy time to rearm its Islamic resistance forces. The Islamic Republic's approach is underpinned by its apocalyptic and radical brand of Twelver Shi'ism.

Some 500 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters had received training in Iran under direct IRGC Quds Force supervision before Hamas's invasion and massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

In the early days of the war, the IRGC's English-language social media output aimed to dismantle the pro-Israel coalition. The Tel Aviv-based firm Cyabra identified more than 40,000 inauthentic accounts originating largely from Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Researchers determined that one in four accounts posting about the war were inauthentic, the largest foreign influence operation against U.S. opinion in the digital era.

The strategic effect has been to invert the moral architecture of the conflict. Hamas, its sponsors, and its supporters have framed jihadist violence as legitimate resistance. To judge their impact, at least 20 countries have recognized "Palestine" since April 2024, including the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, and Portugal.

In August 2025, senior Hamas political bureau member Ghazi Hamad asserted that the Oct. 7 invasion of Israel paved the way for the Western recognition of a "Palestinian state," convincing the world that defeating Israel "is now possible." A Harvard-Harris poll found that 51% of Americans aged 18-24 agreed that Palestinian grievance justified the Oct. 7 killings.

American and Israeli military and counterterrorism gains of the past two years are only partial. The ultimate battle is for the hearts and minds of the Free World. Â The West requires strategic patience, resilience, and determination to overcome jihad's "forever war."

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05/13 Links Pt2: The New Normal for Antisemitism; Jewish group warned police gunman before Bondi massacre; Abe Foxman and the quest for Jewish security

From Ian:

The New Normal for Antisemitism

Ayear before October 7, 2023, reshaped the political landscape, we founded a nonprofit organization called Antisemitism Watch. The decision followed decades of reporting on the Holocaust and its aftermath, and years of chronicling daily antisemitic incidents. What became unmistakable over time was not simply persistence, but normalization—antisemitism embedding itself across wide swaths of society with diminishing resistance.

In a Newsweek op-ed in which we announced the launch, we wrote that “few contest that antisemitism—history’s oldest hatred of a religious and ethnic group—has had an unmatched post-Holocaust resurgence.”1 The data confirmed record numbers of anti-Jewish attacks across the United States, Canada, and Europe, while social media accelerated newer conspiracies blaming Jews for everything from the slave trade to COVID-19.2, 3

Even then, our concern was not only the scale of antisemitism, but the way it was being confronted. The most prominent institutions tasked with addressing it were doing so selectively, not consistently. The Anti-Defamation League had diluted its core mission by repositioning itself as a more generic anti-hate organization and, in practice, mostly focused on right-wing antisemitism while giving a free pass to anti-Jewish hostility from the political left.

In the months following the October 7 attack, antisemitism shed its inhibitions.

What distinguishes this moment is the collapse of stigma. Expressions that would have ended careers a decade ago now generate applause, clicks, and campaign donations. Language that would trigger immediate condemnation if directed at other minorities is routinely excused, contextualized, or ignored when directed at Jews. Hostility that once hid at the margins has migrated inward—into campuses, political platforms, cultural institutions, and digital ecosystems. The result is an old hatred on steroids—newly unmoored from consequence.

This normalization is not diffuse, but has taken shape through two distinct but mutually reinforcing channels. The progressive left frames Israel as fundamentally illegitimate, a country of inherent injustice. That creates an atmosphere in which hostility toward Israel is cast as an ethical obligation. And for many on the left—and their Muslim activist allies—the distinction between Jews and Israelis frequently collapses.

On parts of the populist right, antisemitism has reemerged through the architecture of conspiracy theory. Jews are cast not as oppressors, but as puppet masters—orchestrators of migration, finance, media narratives, and foreign entanglements. The vocabulary differs from that on the left, but the structural function is identical: Jews are assigned exceptional and malign agency.

Prince Harry issues stark warning over Britain’s antisemitism crisis

Prince Harry has weighed into Britain’s antisemitism crisis for the first time, warning that Jews are being made to feel “unsafe” in their own homes as hatred spreads across the country.

Writing in the New Statesman, the Duke of Sussex said Britain was facing a “deeply troubling rise in antisemitism” and warned that “silence is not neutrality” when extremism is allowed to flourish.

In one of the strongest interventions yet by a senior royal on the issue, Harry wrote: “Jewish communities – families, children, ordinary people – are being made to feel unsafe in the very places they call home.”

He added: “Because hatred directed at people for who they are, or what they believe, is not protest. It is prejudice.”

The prince said recent “lethal violence” in London and Manchester had brought the crisis “into sharp and deeply troubling focus”, as he urged Britons not to confuse legitimate criticism of events in the Middle East with hostility towards Jews.

Kenton United Synagogue in Harrow, north-west London, where an attempted arson attack caused minor smoke damage to an internal room but no injuries or significant structural damage.

Harry warned that anger over Gaza risked spilling into anti-Jewish hatred on British streets, saying: “Nothing, whether criticism of a government or the reality of violence and destruction, can ever justify hostility toward an entire people or faith.”

The Duke also appeared to reference his own past controversies, including wearing a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party in 2005, admitting he was “acutely aware” of his “past mistakes”.

He writes: “I am acutely aware of my own past mistakes – thoughtless actions for which I have apologised, taken responsibility and learned from.”

The prince insisted antisemitism and other racisms all “draw from the same well of division” and must be confronted with “the same resolve”.

Giant to be shown in cinemas this autumn

John Lithgow has said he is “thrilled” that the Olivier Award-winning play Giant, in which he portrays British author Roald Dahl, will screen in cinemas around the world.

The Mark Rosenblatt debut play premiered in London’s West End in 2024 and went on to collect three Olivier Awards – including best new play and best actor for Lithgow’s portrayal of the children’s author as he grapples with whether to make a public apology.

The play will screen in more than 900 cinemas across 18 countries, including the UK, US, Canada and Australia, from November 2026.

Lithgow said: “In my 53-year, 25-show career on Broadway, I’ve rarely experienced the kind of audience response that we feel night after night with Giant.

“Mark Rosenblatt has written a play of extraordinary intelligence and humanity, and with every performance I can sense the audience wrestling with its questions in real time.

“This is the unique power of theatre at its best. I’m thrilled that our production will now reach movie theatres around the world, allowing even more people to experience the urgency, impact and emotional force of this story.”

Filmed live at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London, the cinema release features the original West End cast comprised of Lithgow as Dahl and Elliot Levey as British publisher Tom Maschler – a role which won him the best supporting actor Olivier Award.

Aya Cash also stars as publisher Jessie Stone alongside Rachael Stirling who plays Dahl’s wife, Felicity Dahl, Tessa Bonham Jones as housekeeper Hallie and Richard Hope as handyman Wally.

The play was transferred to New York City’s Broadway for a 16-week run from March through to the end of June.

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05/13 Links Pt1: The Anti-Zionist Affliction; America’s Conspiratorial Consensus; Saudi anchor vs. UAE engine: Why the Abu Dhabi-Israel alliance is transcending the Arab League

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Anti-Zionist Affliction

Anti-Zionism is many things, including humorless and anhedonic. I often watch news coverage of anti-Israel activism and hear the voice of Carol Burnett’s mean old Miss Hannigan in Annie: “Do I hear happiness in here?”

There is almost nothing in the world quite as campy as the Eurovision song contest, but instead of getting into character and enjoying the shtick, Europeans are whining year-round about the participation of Israelis. This year, the contest even tried changing the rules to prevent Israel’s entrant, Noam Bettan, from matching the Jewish state’s past competitiveness.

Even that didn’t work as planned, since Bettan has now at least qualified for the finals. Four idiots got themselves tossed out of the audience for protesting Bettan’s existence on this earth yesterday during his performance. The Irish public broadcaster not only boycotted this year’s contest but is refusing to even air it on TV.

After all, if you allow people to watch Jews sing, who knows—it could lead to mixed dancing. Before you know it, impressionable children may be using offensive language, like “Israeli couscous.”

And so, no singing. No dancing. No watching, singing, or dancing. It’s like Footloose with keffiyehs.

What about art? If we can’t have music because the Jews have music too, can we look at pictures? Here I will refer you to the New York Times’ subheadline on an article about the Venice Biennale, the prestigious art expo: “The hottest exhibitions at the world’s major art exhibition were shuttered on Friday as part of a pro-Palestinian demonstration.”

Is that not the tagline of our times? More from the Times:

“When the final preview day opened at 10 a.m., dozens of visitors flocked to Austria’s pavilion, where Florentina Holzinger’s performance ‘Seaworld Venice’ which includes numerous naked performers, had drawn hourslong lines all week. They found the pavilion closed, with a sign outside saying that ‘some team members have decided to participate in the strike.’

“Some of the other buzziest exhibitions at this year’s event, including those by artists representing Belgium, Egypt, Japan, the Netherlands and South Korea, were also shut. Signs outside some of those pavilions read, ‘We stand with Palestine.’”

No dancing, no singing, no art, no immodest mer-people. All “for Palestine.” If only they would do something for the Palestinians instead of doing nothing “for Palestine.”

Seth Mandel: Putting October 7 on Trial

Yesterday, Israel showed remarkable parliamentary unity: A bill was sponsored by members of the governing coalition and of the opposition, and it received zero “no” votes as it passed easily.

What was this magic bill? It was a piece of legislation to approve the establishment of a special court to handle trials against participants in the October 7 slaughter. And, crucially, the trials will be public and televised.

The bill, applauded Justice Minister Yariv Levin, represents “one of the most important moments of the current Knesset. One can feel that we are doing the right thing by finding a way to unite at this moment, even though we are on the eve of elections and despite all the disagreements that exist.”

Indeed it was an opportune time to come together. This morning’s report on Hamas’s campaign of sexual violence was the result of a painstaking, yearslong investigative process. And now the terrorists captured alive on that day will have their day in court for the whole world to see.

The world needs to see it because, especially in the West, its key institutions rallied to the side of the slaughterers. They need to see what they support. But more important, the world needs to be shown what our enlightened professors, elite student bodies, progressive government officials and activists, and the rest cheered.

It will take place in a courtroom, where evidence can prevail. It will be in stark contrast to the fake international courts infamous for their corruption and lawlessness. And it will put to shame the way Westerners have tried to conduct their own trials through op-ed pages and manosphere podcasts.

According to the Times of Israel, only judges who are qualified to sit on the supreme court or are distinguished international jurists of similar qualifications will be on the 15-judge panel. Each case, meanwhile, “would be heard by three judges — one of whom would be a retired district court judge — while a five-judge panel would hear proceedings involving multiple defendants. Appeals would be heard by all 15 judges.”

America’s Conspiratorial Consensus

Ironically, this fixation is being eagerly reinforced by contemporary Russian propaganda, whose messages are echoed across America’s emerging red-brown, anti-Israel conspiracist consensus. These include old Soviet tropes equating Zionists with Nazis; the now-familiar claims that Israel controls Washington and pushed the United States into war with Iran; allegations that Israel is persecuting Christians; and the use of Epstein-related code words for Jews, such as the “Epstein coalition,” as documented by Israeli scholar Nati Cantorovich.

When progressive California Rep. Ro Khanna found common ground with former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene over opposition to the “Epstein class,” champagne corks likely popped in Kremlin propaganda offices. A democracy that chooses to believe that a country the size of New Jersey controls its political system has already lost confidence in its own institutions. Center-left British journalist Lewis Goodall exemplified this mindset recently when he remarked, “Israel is in the driver’s seat, and we—Britain, Europe, the United States—are powerless to determine our fate.”

It’s easy to dismiss such comments as ridiculous, but they carry real consequences. They are demoralizing and disempowering: Why even bother voting if Bibi Netanyahu controls everything? They are also corrosive. Demonization of Israel has long served dysfunctional and tyrannical regimes as a tool to divert attention from their own failures. By importing these ideas into their own democracies, Western elites are helping dismantle them from within. With American elites circulating such brain-rot under the guise of political analysis, America’s adversaries score easy victories in an ongoing campaign of psychological warfare they never stop waging.

Yet anti-Zionist vigilance inevitably turned against the Kremlin leadership itself. One group of Soviet “patriots” warned that Brezhnev’s government was under Zionist occupation and that its anti-Zionist campaign was merely a cover. Why else, they asked, would the country continue to slide into economic decline, moral rot, and alcoholism? The explanation was predictable: The Jewish wives of senior officials were enabling Zionist manipulation from within.

Some of the leading Zionologists themselves succumbed to the logic they had helped institutionalize. Convinced that Zionists were plotting revenge against him for exposing their machinations, Valery Yemelyanov—author of the infamous tract Dezionization, first published in Arabic in 1979 in the Syrian newspaper Al-Ba’ath on Hafez al-Assad’s orders—came to see his wife as the weak link. He murdered and dismembered her with an ax, then burned her body at a nearby construction site. He spent six years in a psychiatric hospital. At his trial in absentia, his supporters claimed he had been framed by Zionists—the real perpetrators of the murder.

It should be clear by now that what is taking shape in American public discourse is in no way a conventional political disagreement over the rightness or real-world effectiveness or this or that Israeli policy. It is the normalization of a way of thinking that flattens reality into a single, self-confirming narrative that has always led to the same place: the mental and political unraveling of the societies that embrace it.

What makes this moment particularly dangerous is that it no longer belongs to the fringes. It has moved fully into mainstream and, having crossed the aisle from left to right, creates the impression of a shared, bipartisan consensus around a modern American version of “the Jewish question.”

Societies that have gone down this path—the USSR, Arab states, Iran—do not emerge stronger, more confident, or more just. They become more paranoid, more dysfunctional, and more prone to turning against themselves. America has not been such a society until now. The question is whether it still has the power to stop.

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05/12 Links Pt2: The Gulf Countries Are Building a Middle East that Iran Cannot Tolerate; France arrests Tunisian for terror plot on Jews; Israel advances to Eurovision final

From Ian:

Dr. Yuval Steinitz: Technological Superiority Led to Israeli Victory in Iran War

Dr. Yuval Steinitz, chairman of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, told a Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs briefing on Monday that "40,000 rockets and missiles were launched at Israel from Lebanon and Gaza alone. Iron Dome intercepted the overwhelming majority of them with a success rate close to 99%."

Without Iron Dome, Israel's major cities would have faced massive civilian casualties, economic paralysis, and severe disruption to daily life and military operations. "There is no parallel technology in the world," Steinitz said, describing Iron Dome as the only system capable of intercepting short- and medium-range rockets, mortar shells, and artillery fire at this scale.

Steinitz described the phases of Israel's Iran campaign, beginning with the elimination of senior Iranian military leadership. Nearly 40 top commanders from the Revolutionary Guards and the regular Iranian army were killed "in less than 10 seconds." "The speed was critical. If it had taken 10 minutes instead of 10 seconds, commanders would have escaped to bunkers and the achievement would have been impossible."

The second phase focused on achieving air superiority over Iran within 36 hours, allowing the Israeli Air Force to operate freely against nuclear and missile infrastructure while defending Israel against ballistic missile attacks.

"For the first time in history, two countries fought each other directly from distances of 1,000 to 3,000 km....The main factor was scientific and technological superiority," he said, noting that while Iran rapidly adapted and improved its systems during the war, "we ran even faster, and the end result is very clear....I don't know a better example of a crystal-clear victory in the modern world than the war between Israel and Iran....The regime was dramatically weakened."

Regarding the impact of strikes against Iran's nuclear program, Steinitz said: "We destroyed most of the enrichment sites and almost all of the weaponization infrastructure." While Iran still possesses enriched uranium stockpiles and the scientific knowledge to enrich further, key components of the nuclear weapons program were severely damaged, including testing facilities, conversion infrastructure, and personnel involved in weaponization.

In his assessment, before the war Iran could have reached a nuclear weapon within months. "Now, it will take them between two to four years to rebuild everything and produce a real nuclear weapon."

Jason Greenblatt: The Gulf Countries Are Building a Middle East that Iran Cannot Tolerate

For decades, Iran's leadership has opposed the direction much of the Gulf has taken politically, economically and diplomatically. Today, that opposition is increasingly being expressed through direct attacks on the states' infrastructure and way of life. Since Feb. 28, the Iranian regime has launched 549 ballistic missiles, 29 cruise missiles and 2,260 drones at the UAE.

The Iranian regime presents its model as the only legitimate form of Islamic governance. Yet, Gulf states have demonstrated that economic growth, global engagement, and religious life can develop together without the same degree of state control.

The UAE also made a decision to establish formal relations with Israel, altering a long-standing regional dynamic and showing that countries in the Middle East can pursue different paths, grounded in national interest and the pursuit of long-term stability and prosperity. It also introduced a precedent that runs directly against Iran's effort to organize the region around confrontation and war.

Iran's conflict with the Gulf extends beyond military confrontation. The UAE stands in direct opposition to Iran's broader ambitions. A country that represents economic openness, stability and independent decision-making challenges the narrative that the Iranian regime promotes about how the Middle East must function. What Iran is trying to damage has not broken under sustained attack, and I do not believe it ever will.

Trump says stopping Iran's nuclear program outweighs Americans' economic pain

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Americans’ financial struggles are not a factor in his decision-making as he seeks to negotiate an end to the Iran war, saying that preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon is his top priority.

Asked by a reporter to what extent Americans’ financial situations were motivating him to strike a deal, Trump said: “Not even a little bit.”

"The only thing that matters, when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon," Trump said before departing the White House for a trip to China. "I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all. That's the only thing that motivates me."

Trump's remarks are likely to draw scrutiny from critics who argue the administration should balance geopolitical objectives with the economic impact on Americans, particularly as cost-of-living concerns remain a top issue for voters ahead of the November midterm elections.

Asked to elaborate on the president's comments, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said that Trump's "ultimate responsibility is the safety and security of Americans. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and if action wasn’t taken, they’d have one, which threatens all Americans."

Trump is under growing pressure from fellow Republicans who fear economic pain caused by the war could spark a backlash against the party and cost it control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate in November.

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05/12 Links Pt1: Two-Year Investigation Concludes Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence; Melanie Phillips: ‘Zack Polanski is an enemy of Jews’; Kristof’s grotesque journalistic malpractice

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The End of Our Illusions

We try to avoid imagining that our ideological opponents are morally inferior. But it can be just as dangerous to convince ourselves that our declared antagonists want the same things we want and hold to values that approximate our own.

That is part of the reason for the pained reaction to Nick Kristof’s opinion column yesterday, in which he claimed (without evidence, obviously) that Israel has instituted a state policy of militaristized bestiality.

Today, a meticulous, harrowing report was released on Hamas’s systematic rape and sexual violence toward Israelis on and after October 7. The commission that undertook this investigation “has examined over 10,000 photographs and videos of the attack totaling more than 1,800 hours of visual analysis.”

We want to believe that Nick Kristof and all the people who defended and shared his article are just like us—believers in honesty, men and women of integrity, a community of truth-seekers with a baseline sense of human decency. We want to believe this in part because of that very sense of human decency.

But we are making a massive error. Kristof’s named sources not only provided no evidence for his lurid bestiality fantasies but themselves were also people with massive credibility deficits.

Conversely, the documentation of sexual violence by Palestinians who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023—the total number of infiltrators was several thousand that day—took years, even though we all watched videos of Palestinians dragging the unclothed bodies of Israeli women through the streets of Gaza, and even though Hamas documented many of their crimes, and even though Hamas members admitted to raping women that day. All of that is what is known as evidence—apologies to Kristof and his readers for using such technical, obscure SAT words—and evidence needs to be compiled, examined, analyzed, and used as the jumping-off point for additional investigation.

That is what Israeli officials did, and that is what those who support the Jewish state’s existence did, and what they called for others to do, because that is what is done when the goal is to obtain the truth. To the anti-Zionist collective, the truth is to be avoided like the plague, and therefore what is rewarded is not evidence but creativity and imagination.

And that is what was on display in the New York Times. We want Kristof and his defenders to be like us. But they are not like us—and they punish us for our good faith.

Israel Is the Weapon By Abe Greenwald

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There’s increasing overlap between the left and right dupes on all these issues. The point is that anti-Semites merely used Israel to turn them into their anti-Jewish foot soldiers. They’ve been recruited to dehumanize Jews online, disrupt Jewish events, and attack Jews around the world. Not Israel—Jews.

Because the aim of the information war is not merely to turn public opinion against Israel—although it’s certainly done that. The idea is to alchemize anti-Zionism into kinetic Jew-hatred in the real world, to instigate a war against the Jews of the Diaspora parallel to the one that Hamas launched against the Jews of Israel.

Many American Jews say that Israel should do a better job fighting the information war—without understanding that war was declared against them. Israel has done an astounding job of fighting its war. We are the ones who’ve been under attack from anti-Israel propaganda this whole time.

We still are, and it’s getting ever worse. No longer do the propagandists bother to sprinkle meager crumbs of credibility over their work. There’s no incentive for them to cover their tracks and every incentive to prevaricate. Photographs of the Gaza famine that never happened earn Pulitzer Prizes. The New York Times now publishes horror stories about Israel that are not only impossible to verify but impossible period—literally impossible. When Nicolas Kristof writes a story about IDF-trained rape-dogs, he’s sending the mob after all of us—including those liberal American Jews who then denounce Israel. What they don’t realize is that accusing Jews of committing impossible crimes is the oldest, most primitive category of anti-Semitic propaganda. It takes us out of the realm of the human, no matter where we are on this planet.

It would be hard for a famous journalist simply to assert that Jews, as a people, have dark powers that defy the laws of nature. But when Israel is your weapon, you never hold your fire.

Honest Reporting: Why They Deny The Crimes of October 7

When Jewish Suffering Becomes Inconvenient
For many people invested in a worldview in which Israel represents absolute evil and Palestinians represent absolute victimhood, acknowledging the sexual crimes of October 7 creates tension. Jewish women cannot be permitted to exist as victims because their reality complicates the narrative. Israeli suffering becomes ideologically intolerable. And so it must be doubted, obscured, minimized, or erased altogether. This is why so much October 7 denialism focuses specifically on the sexual crimes.

Sexual violence carries a specific moral weight in contemporary society. To acknowledge that Hamas terrorists and their collaborators committed widespread and systematic acts of rape, mutilation, and sexual torture would require many activists to confront a reality: that individuals and movements they have celebrated, romanticized, excused, or sanitized committed acts of extraordinary brutality.

We should also recognize the profoundly anti-Jewish nature of this phenomenon. Jews are uniquely subjected to suspicion toward their suffering in ways that have become normalized across political and cultural life. The distrust of Jewish testimony has become so deeply embedded that many people no longer even recognize it as prejudice.

The Crime Continued Through Erasure
The tragedy is not only the crimes themselves, but what their denial reveals about the world Jews inhabit. After the Holocaust, many believed humanity had learned something: that there existed a moral obligation to listen to victims, document atrocities honestly, and ensure genocidal violence could never again be erased through propaganda and denial. Yet within hours of October 7, that promise began collapsing in real time.

The lesson of Holocaust denial should have taught us that evidence alone is never enough against ideologically motivated hatred. There will never be enough footage, enough testimony, enough witnesses, enough forensic evidence, or enough reports for those who have already decided that Jewish suffering does not count.

That is the real connection between Holocaust denial and the denial of October 7. Both ultimately rest upon the same underlying premise: that Jews are uniquely unworthy of belief, uniquely suspect in their suffering, and uniquely undeserving of moral sympathy.

Ultimately, when these crimes are denied, minimized, relativized, or erased, the victims are violated a second time. The murdered are stripped not only of their lives, but of the truth of what was done to them. The raped are stripped not only of bodily autonomy, but of the dignity of having their suffering acknowledged. Denial is never neutral. It is the continuation of the crime through erasure.

That is why speaking clearly about October 7, including the systematic sexual crimes perpetrated against women and girls, matters so profoundly. We cannot bring back those who were murdered. We cannot undo the horrors inflicted upon the victims. But we can refuse to abandon them to silence, distortion, and denial. We can bear witness. We can speak plainly. And we can ensure that those who suffered are not erased by a world that too often finds Jewish suffering uniquely difficult to acknowledge.

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