From Ian:
Adam Louis-Klein:
Defeating Antizionism
So where does antizionism come from?
The foundational text is arguably Fayez Sayegh’s Zionist Colonialism in Palestine (1965), published while he directed the Soviet-sponsored Palestine Research Center in Beirut. Sayegh coined the term settler colonialism specifically to describe Israel, redefining colonialism not as a system of economic exploitation, as in classical Marxist theory, but as the mere existence of Jews as an immigrant enclave. Drawing selectively on Marxism, Sayegh preserved the charge of anti-colonial struggle while stripping it of its content, redirecting it toward Jewish particularity itself. Jewish peoplehood was reframed as a colonial fabrication — a “racist ideology” rooted in “biblical chauvinism” and the idea of the “chosen people.” In this way, Sayegh succeeded in repurposing anti-Judaic polemic against Jewish “exclusivity” into a critique of “settler colonialism.”
Settler colonialism did not enter the academic mainstream until decades later. In 1999, Australian scholar Patrick Wolfe revived the framework in his book Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology. In 2006, his now-canonical essay “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” published in the Journal of Genocide Research, explicitly applied this eliminatory logic to Israel — casting Zionism as a project structurally driven to remove the “native” population. This hostile reconstruction marked a critical nexus point: settler-colonial studies fused with the institutional machinery of genocide discourse. Under the editorial influence of Australian scholar Dirk Moses, now at CUNY, the journal became a platform for recasting “Zionism” through Wolfe’s framework.
The Journal of Genocide Research became the institutional hub of this ideological convergence, incubating a cohort of genocide-libel theorists — Martin Shaw, Omer Bartov, Raz Segal, Amos Goldberg, and others — who would rise to prominence after October 7, often citing or collaborating with UN official Francesca Albanese, whose work represents the full application of this logic within the UN’s institutionalized system of antizionism.
Jewish anti-Zionists today continue to ignore this history and genealogy, contending that the antizionist hate movement that stormed campuses and captured the international media, and that has long poisoned human rights organizations, is somehow the same as the rich Jewish political debate that preceded 1948. Simply telling this story should be enough to disabuse anyone of the conflation between the anti-Zionism of the past and the anti-Jewish ideology that is antizionism today. The genealogies are simply distinct. Pre-1948 Jewish debates over Zionism are not the source material for contemporary antizionism, with its three core libels of colonizer, apartheid, and genocide.
Seth Mandel:
The Logical Endpoint of Progressive Paranoia About Jewish Money
Newsom is happy to yuk it up over paranoid fantasies of Jewish power because it’s the price of admission for Democratic officeholders, in the way it is becoming the price of admission for right-wing podcasters. A wild example just this week: A Democratic candidate for a congressional seat in Illinois said he would return a contribution from Michael Sacks, a Democratic donor in the state, because Sacks has donated to AIPAC.
The candidate, Anthony Driver Jr., said he didn’t know Sacks had donated to AIPAC, and why would he? Driver explained how he and Sacks crossed paths: “Michael Sacks has supported community violence intervention work in Chicago for years. I served nearly four years as President of the Chicago Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, helping advance real public safety reform.”
So Sacks does good and important work, according to the candidate returning Sacks’s donation. It’s just that in Democratic primaries, that’s not enough to accept a contribution; the contribution’s bloodline must be free of impurities.
This is next-level stuff. The fact that Democratic candidates must now hesitate to accept support from someone who has given to prominent Jewish causes—if you think this is just about one organization, you are a fool—is a massive escalation in the paranoid style in American politics.
How do we know where this is going? Because in other respects, we’re already there. Progressive “anti-Zionist” mobs are already going after synagogues. Jewish-owned restaurants are boycotted, vandalized, and shut down regularly. The Boston Mapping Project created an interactive doxxing engine to identify and target the area’s Jewish nonprofits. Hamasniks have whipped up a national campaign against campus Hillels.
The guilt-by-Jewish-association game is up and running. Jewish people support Jewish groups that support Jewish causes that include the Jewish state.
How far removed from Jews does one have to be to have a shot at winning a Democratic Party primary? We’re starting to find out.
“Nothing Has Changed For Jews Since Bondi”
The CEO of the Australian Jewish Association says Australia gets failing grades for not standing with the nation’s Jewish community and responding to the warnings since the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023.
Robert Gregory told Vision Radio: “There was a lot of fear since October 7, since we saw some of the ugly riots outside the Opera House, and there was a fear that something like what happened at Bondi would happen.”
“And then when those fears were confirmed I think everyone’s just been very concerned.”
“Some people are reconsidering if they have a future in this country.”
“There’s been a heavy security presence at Jewish buildings, at schools and synagogues, which is a bit of a stressful way to live.”
“If you just want to go to synagogue to pray, you’re passing layers of security.”
“It’s not the Australia a lot of people remember, so it’s been a tough time.”
Robert Gregory lays a lot of the blame at the feet of the nation’s leaders in Canberra.
“I think the government got quite a shock with the Bondi attack, first of all, with the terrible atrocity that was carried out.”
“Maybe they didn’t really believe the warnings that would happen, but also with the response from the Jewish community and the broader community.”
“The prime minister was booed when he came down to Bondi Beach.”
“So I think they realised that there was real anger especially in the Jewish community, and they did shift their words a bit, so their words have certainly been more supportive.”
“I think there’s been fewer attacks on Israel, which we know flames anti-Semitism here.”
“They did accommodate the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, but when it comes to actual policy, I haven’t seen any real changes.”
“We still see a disproportionate number of visas refused for Israeli conservative visitors.”
“We see the government is still taking anti-Israel positions. They’re just doing it a little more quietly.”
From Ian:
The UN’s ‘Never Again’ is becoming ‘Never Mind’
Institutions do not collapse overnight. They erode. They lose authority step by step, each time they tolerate what they were established to prevent.
Meanwhile, antisemitic incidents are rising worldwide, on university campuses, in major cities, and outside synagogues. Jewish communities are on edge. In that climate, a UN official labeling the Jewish state as “humanity’s enemy” is not an abstract flourish. It reinforces a narrative that treats Jewish self-determination as uniquely illegitimate.
Supporters will say this is passionate advocacy. They will argue that it reflects frustration or moral urgency.
But human rights language carries force because it is meant to be principled and universal. Once it becomes a tool for branding one nation as the embodiment of evil, it stops protecting the vulnerable and starts isolating them.
Germany, France, and Italy have spoken. That is a start. But if condemnation is the end of the story, the message is clear. The guardrails are optional. The standards are flexible. The slogan remains, but the substance fades.
“Never Again” was supposed to mean that no people would be placed outside the circle of protection. If the UN cannot recognize the danger in calling the Jewish state “the common enemy of humanity,” then the promise forged in 1945 is being hollowed out from within.
Silence is not neutrality. At some point, condemnation without action becomes complicity.
The question is straightforward. Will the United Nations enforce its own standards, or will it continue to let them dissolve, one incendiary phrase at a time?
Three months after it shuttered, what was the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation?
The first executive director of the foundation, Jake Wood, resigned days later, saying that he agreed with the criticism from the United Nations and international aid groups that “it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence.”
“The day GHF was launched, the U.N. went after the founding CEO. He resigned,” Moore told JNS. “It’s just the worst, and I don’t judge him after the attacks I received from the U.N. I lived under 24/7 protection for months this summer.” His house was graffitied, he added.
“I don’t judge him for resigning, but when he did resign, I got a call from the State Department asking if I would do it,” Moore said. “I said, ‘Of course, I’ll do it.’ How can I not do it? And so I stepped into the role.”
The foundation named Moore its executive chairman on June 3.
Moore was frequently criticized during his tenure for lacking the experience of executives of incumbent aid groups like the Red Cross and UNRWA, a charge that he denied.
“I’ve done stuff in 100 countries,” Moore said, citing his work as an advocate for persecuted minorities around the world with a focus on Christians in the Middle East.
“I’ve met with all the heads of state in the region on multiple occasions,” he told JNS. “I know my way around the Middle East.”
GHF too was criticized for not having a track record of delivering humanitarian aid and for not “abiding by humanitarian principles,” criticism that Moore said ignored what the foundation was actually doing.
“The whole system was designed by veterans of the humanitarian community,” he said. “The guy who ran it on the ground was a 30-year veteran of USAID and other agencies. The veterans on the ground spent time in every single war zone for the last 25 years. These are incredibly, incredibly experienced people.”
“It was all designed from the ground up to comply with these standards, but these other organizations were the ones that were not neutral,” he said. “They were the ones that were partial, and they were politicizing everything.”
The scale of the problems at the United Nations and at UNRWA, which Israel has accused of employing members of Hamas, was revealed to Moore when U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres refused to condemn Hamas’s killing of Palestinian GHF aid workers in June.
“Where my naïveté crashed was that day early on, when Hamas killed 12 of our local Gazans,” Moore told JNS. “These were Gazan volunteers that were helping us feed their own people, and Hamas killed 12 of them and piled them out of the Nasser Hospital, controlled by the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders, and doctors didn’t even try to help them.”
“I wrote a letter to the secretary-general of the United Nations, and I asked the secretary-general if he would condemn Hamas for killing our 12 Gazan aid workers, and the secretary-general of the United Nations refused to do it,” Moore said.
“That was the moment when I realized all of these organizations say they exist for one purpose, but they’re actually politicians under a different name,” he said. “I realized this is something between a mafia and a system corrupt on a scale that was just incomprehensible, and then they tried to shut us down.”
PA paid half a billion shekels to terrorists in pay-for-slay scheme, sources reveal -exclusive
The Palestinian Authority transferred approximately half a billion shekels to terrorists in 2025 under its “pay-for-slay” mechanism, which provides payments to imprisoned terrorists and to the families of attackers, The Jerusalem Post learned on Wednesday.
The information was disclosed during a cabinet meeting convened on Sunday. Of the total amount, NIS 395 million was paid to terrorists currently in prison, while NIS 92 million was transferred to the families of terrorists killed while carrying out attacks.
Ministers were also informed that terrorists released as part of the most recent hostage deals received a “special grant” from the Palestinian Authority.
Since October 7, international criticism has intensified over the Palestinian Authority’s continued payments to terrorists and their families.
PA continues pay-for-slay scheme despite Israeli, US measures to stop it
The Trump administration reportedly threatened last year to impose sanctions on the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority and other senior PA officials if the payments continued.
In an apparent effort to avert such measures, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) dismissed the Palestinian finance minister who had signed off on the transfers. However, it was revealed during the cabinet meeting that the newly appointed finance minister has continued to authorize payments to terrorists.
“All the Palestinian Authority’s theatrics will not help, Abu Mazen himself has said that the Authority will continue paying terrorists’ families down to the last shekel," Minister Avi Dichter said during the meeting.
“Just as Mordechai exposed Haman as a foe and enemy before Ahasuerus, and the great challenge was convincing Ahasuerus, Netanyahu must convince President Trump that Abu Mazen is a foe and enemy," Minister Orit Strock said.
Senior security officials further told ministers that in recent months, salaries of Palestinian Authority employees, including teachers, doctors, and nurses, have been reduced to ensure that payments to terrorists remain unaffected.
From Ian:
The world no longer feels sorry for Jews. Now what?
An overreliance on Holocaust-centered narratives can unintentionally produce what might be called museum Judaism: a Jewish identity organized primarily around remembrance of destruction rather than experience of vitality. A culture defined chiefly by what was lost risks appearing static, even mournful, to younger generations seeking meaning in living traditions.
If Israel is taught primarily as a response to catastrophe, it can come to feel like a historical artifact rather than a living civilizational project. A Judaism organized around death will struggle to compete with cultures organized around life. This does not diminish the centrality of Holocaust memory; it underscores the need to embed that memory within a broader narrative of continuity and renewal.
The Jewish claim to sovereignty does not begin in 1933 and does not depend exclusively on 1945. It stretches back through millennia of continuous identity, attachment to land, liturgy, language, and collective memory.
Zionism was not invented as a reaction to Hitler; it was accelerated by him. To ground Jewish attachment to Israel primarily in 20th-century catastrophe is to truncate a much longer story of peoplehood and purpose. If Israel is understood only as a shelter from persecution, its moral standing appears contingent on Jewish weakness. Yet Zionism at its core is not a plea for safety; it is an assertion of normalcy, of the right of the Jewish People to exercise self-determination in our ancestral homeland. That right does not expire when Jews are strong.
A generation raised to see itself primarily as history’s victim may struggle to see itself as history’s author. When educational frameworks emphasize fragility without agency, they can produce defensive identities oriented toward seeking approval rather than exercising responsibility. The post-Holocaust sympathy world allowed many Jews to assume that understanding Jewish suffering would naturally produce support for Jewish sovereignty.
That assumption no longer holds.
In much of today’s pop culture, perceived power (not history) often determines perceived legitimacy. An Israel that is strong, armed, and assertive will not automatically inherit the moral credit of Jewish victimhood. If Jewish education does not adjust to this reality, it risks preparing students for a world that no longer exists.
This adjustment does not require abandoning Holocaust education; it requires repositioning it within a larger civilizational narrative. The task is to integrate it with meaning. Israel must be taught not only as refuge but as arena: the place where Jewish civilization unfolds in modern form — Hebrew revived as a living language, ancient holidays reborn in public space, ethical traditions translated into the dilemmas of governance, technological and cultural creativity flourishing in a Jewish context. These are not footnotes to catastrophe but expressions of continuity; they represent the positive content of sovereignty.
In a post-sympathy world, Jewish education must mature from a pedagogy of trauma to a pedagogy of covenant and responsibility.
Jewish students must be prepared to engage in self-defense — verbal, social, even physical — rather than shielded from it. They must understand the historical and ethical foundations of Jewish sovereignty without relying solely on the emotional authority of past suffering. They must see themselves not as passive inheritors of tragedy, but as active participants in an ongoing civilizational story. Jewish students must be taught that Jewish particularism is a source of pride, not an apology to make or a permission slip to request from others.
This requires cultivating and renewing civilizational literacy, cultural fluency, and a sense of shared stake in the future of Jewish life.
The post-Holocaust sympathy world represented a rare alignment between global conscience and Jewish necessity. That alignment cannot be assumed in the present or relied upon in the future. As memory recedes and geopolitical perceptions shift, the foundation of Jewish attachment to Israel must rest less on the tears of others and more on the internal coherence of Jewish history and purpose. Sympathy fades. Sovereignty endures.
The challenge for Jewish education now is to ensure that a new generation understands Israel not because the world once pitied the Jews, but because they recognize themselves as heirs to an unbroken national story whose next chapters they are responsible for writing.
With J Street backing, 26 Democrats introduce legislation to impose wide-ranging conditions on aid to Israel
Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) and 25 Democratic co-sponsors introduced a bill on Monday that would implement wide-ranging new conditions and restrictions on U.S. aid to Israel.
The Ceasefire Compliance Act would require the administration to assess and report to Congress every 90 days on whether Israel is complying with the October 2025 ceasefire agreement in Gaza, including halting military operations and bombing campaigns.
The legislation does not appear to contain exceptions for the strikes Israel has taken in retaliation for Hamas’ own violations of the ceasefire deal, nor mention its targeting of individual Hamas leaders.
Under the terms of the legislation, if Israel does not meet the conditions included in the law, the U.S. would be banned from selling or transferring any U.S. military systems to Israel for use in Gaza or the West Bank, any further transfers would be subject to a specific agreement by Israel that the weapons would not be used in Gaza or the West Bank and the administration would be required to reach an agreement with Israel that U.S.-origin systems already in Israel’s possession would also be banned from use in Gaza or the West Bank.
Those restrictions would remain in effect until Israel is in compliance with all conditions. The legislation establishes an end-use monitoring group within the administration to monitor whether U.S.-provided systems are in use in Gaza or the West Bank.
The legislation includes language guaranteeing that U.S. defensive assistance to and intelligence sharing with Israel, as well as provision of missile-defense systems to Israel, are exempt from the conditions. The bill would sunset after five years.
Nick Cave:
The Red Hand Files
Q: At the International Film Festival in Berlin, jury president Wim Wenders sparked controversy, stating that art and artists are “the counterweight to politics, we are the opposite of politics.” He said, artists “have to do the work of people, not the work of politicians.” Any thoughts on this?
A: Dear Rainer,
I have known Wim for over forty years, and his response to the question at the Berlinale moved me deeply. It reaffirmed my understanding of him as a passionately principled, thoughtful, and courageous man — a person who cares profoundly about film and the state of the creative world. His words were a caring, gentle, and protective gesture, directed not only at the artistic community but at humanity itself, and despite the predictable pile-on, I suspect that many artists, maybe most, will genuinely appreciate his words.
Of course, I can’t speak for Wim, but perhaps, like me, he laments the state of art as it has unfolded into this present moment. Perhaps, as the president of the Berlinale Jury, he despairs over the fate that has befallen other film and literary events. The furore around the Adelaide Writers’ Week was happening while I was on tour in Australia. In an almost cosmic display of stupidity, that entire event was vaporised in a mushroom cloud of cowardice, performative outrage, self-righteous posturing, cancellations, counter-cancellations, mob trots and general narcissistic silliness. ‘Political art’, taken to its extreme, became ‘no art’. No art at all, as Australia’s longest running literary festival collapsed under a mass walkout.
Perhaps Wim is trying to save the Berlinale from succumbing to the fate of those festivals that have become little more than a narrowing of the cultural imagination, where the concept of an arts festival as a space for free-ranging and diverse ideas, a place of vitality and originality that encourages disagreement and good faith debate, is being sucked down the sinkhole of a single monolithic ideology — one voice, one cause, one dissent.
From Ian:
Seth Mandel:
How Anti-Zionists’ Knowledge Deficit Shapes the Gaza Debate
Buried deep within a Haaretz article about the EU’s anti-Semitism coordinator is an implicit threat of moral blackmail that explains much of the anti-Israel discourse today.
The article is a hit piece on Katharina von Schnurbein, the head of the EU’s office of the European Coordinator for Combating Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life. Von Schnurbein is the rare EU official who stands again the otherwise nonstop flood of single-minded Israel condemnation from the union’s officials. Haaretz, and the sources who spoke to the paper for the piece, are putting a bureaucratic target on her back in the hopes that she will be reined in.
Von Schnurbein knows that certain criticism of Israel, even when it ostensibly addresses policy, can bleed into anti-Semitic tropes or collective blame. She is therefore a moderating force, but the EU establishment (and Haaretz, apparently) sees her as a threat. Supra-national bodies like the EU and UN thought they had figured out a clever way to lob blood libels at the Jewish state without taking responsibility for them: They would support a network of NGOs and pressure groups who would claim expertise and let those groups, behind a veneer of objectivity, make the harshest accusations.
Von Schnurbein undermines this system of criticism-by-catspaw. And former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell used the Haaretz article to make that clear:
“In an interview with Haaretz, Borrell warned over ‘inflationary misuse’ of accusations of antisemitism against Israel’s critics.
“The Catalonian former chief EU diplomat added that labeling the institutions mandated to uphold international law — including the UN, the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice — as ‘antisemitic’ implies that, by opposing crimes against humanity, you oppose Jews. ‘That is playing into the hands of Jew-haters,’ he says.”
And that’s the scam underlying the entire narrative of the Gaza war: Jews cannot defend themselves against spurious accusations of blood-lust because then they’ll be confirming for the world that “Jews” and “crimes against humanity” are synonymous. You see, even in trying to bat away claims of anti-Semitism, these officials cannot help but express anti-Semitic tropes.
This is called blackmail. Jews must either accept the libelous denunciations of those who seek their destruction or they will trigger an escalating campaign of libelous denunciations.
New Palestinian constitution slams door on Mideast peace
The Palestinian Authority’s recent draft of a shiny new constitution is meant to mollify Western nations who demand an end to the P.A.’s obsession with killing Jews and destroying the Jewish state. But anyone who’s ever uttered the words “Middle East peace” will surely be disappointed with the make-over.
Apparently, the Palestinians can’t help themselves: Their new constitution simply recommits them to the same old jihad they’ve waged for 78 years against Israel. Indeed, the Palestinians’ new document issues no call for peacemaking with Israel—in fact, it doesn’t mention Jews or Israel at all.
This constitution is more like a declaration of war, reaffirming four belligerent policies that have blocked “two states for two peoples” for decades:
1) Insistence on the fictional “right of return” to Israel of millions of refugee descendants who have never set foot in Israel.
2) Continuation of the Palestinians’ terrorist incentive program—“pay for slay”—that handsomely rewards murderers of innocent Jews;
3) Declaration of Jerusalem as the Palestinians’ eternal capital, though it has never been the capital of a Palestinian nation, nor even a Muslim or Arab capital; and
4) Uninterrupted support for [armed] “resistance” against [Israeli] “occupation” of the Palestinian “homeland,” which mentions no sharing of territory with Israel or the Jewish people.
While the new constitution does make promises about introducing some civil liberties for Palestinians, these sops to liberality are like decorative icing on a rotten cake, nullified by the constitution’s commitment to Islamic supremacy.
If the Palestinians really want acceptance from Israel, the United States and the rest of the Western world, they will need to reform—throwing out and thoroughly condemning the goals and policies that deny every possibility for peace with their Jewish neighbors. This means affirming reality by renouncing the “right of return,” acknowledging 3,000 years of Jewish history and heritage in the land of Israel, accepting the right of the Jewish people to sovereignty in their indigenous homeland and renouncing terrorism.
Unfortunately, given new Middle East poll results showing that 91% of Palestinians oppose recognition of Israel, any constitution that approves peaceful relations with the Jewish state will face tough Arab opposition.
PLO secretary-general says Hamas ‘not a terror organization’, slams US demands to disarm
Azzam al-Ahmad, the secretary-general of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestine Liberation Organization, on Monday declared that the PLO opposes the disarmament of Hamas, which he said was “not a terror organization.”
In an interview with Egypt’s Al Shorouk newspaper, al-Ahmad slammed U.S. demands that the terrorist organization that led the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre disarm and cede its power in Gaza.
“They don’t want Hamas to have any role in the Strip,” explained the veteran official in Abbas’s Fatah Party, adding: “We completely reject this, because Hamas is part of the Palestinian national movement.”
Though Hamas has “not yet” joined the PLO, the body has held a “continuous national dialogue with them in order to fulfill the requirements for their entry into the organization,” he said.
The PLO, recognized worldwide as the representative of the Palestinian people, sets overall policy through its Executive Committee, headed by al-Ahmad. It also appoints the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, which administers limited self-rule in parts of Judea and Samaria.
Al-Ahmad stressed Monday that the PLO has “always rejected decisions issued by international institutions or governments to classify [Hamas] as a terror organization, as they are part of the Palestinian national fabric.”
“Everything that is said about disarming Hamas and that it is a terrorist group is rejected by us; Hamas is not a terror organization,” he added.
Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre was a “strategic mistake that inflicted immense damage on Gaza, and we paid a heavy price,” he emphasized.
From Ian:
Jonathan Sacerdoti:
What’s wrong with Zionism, Hugh Laurie?
If Zionism is defined minimally as support for the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, then opposition to Zionism entails opposition to that principle. Israel is home to roughly eight million Jewish citizens. To advocate dismantling the state as a Jewish polity is to propose a fundamental restructuring of sovereignty in a region where minority protection has always ended badly for us Jews.
Judea Pearl, the Israeli-American computer scientist and philosopher and father of the murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, has argued that one should ‘shock the anti-Zionist out of his pompous self-righteousness’. He is right.
His challenge is uncomfortable. If anti-Zionism involves dissolving Jewish self-determination in the only state where it currently exists, what becomes of its population? Are they to entrust their security to political arrangements that have yet to demonstrate durability? Are they to accept permanent exposure as the price of ideological consistency?
Those who identify as anti-Zionist often insist that their position targets a political ideology rather than a people. They frame it as opposition to nationalism, or to specific Israeli policies. Criticism of a government is ordinary political speech. Advocacy for the eradication of a state’s defining national character carries different consequences.
Laurie has not articulated a doctrine. He mourned a colleague and resisted being labelled. Others supplied the ideological frame around his words. But he took the bait and seemed at least to imply his rejection of Zionism by pointedly responding to critics that he had never said he supports it.
When celebrities feel compelled to signal distance from Zionism, even defensively, clarity becomes essential. If the objection concerns government policy, say so. If it concerns the legitimacy of Jewish nationhood in Israel, confront the implications directly and own the full genocidal implications of your beliefs.
Dana Eden’s tragic death remains under investigation. The argument that followed reveals how quickly grief is conscripted into ideological struggle. A tribute became a test of political identity. Before adopting or repudiating a word as freighted as Zionism, one ought to ask what world that choice implies. And whether one is prepared to defend it.
Report: Inside Hamas's Sophisticated Media Empire Waging Psychological Warfare
A recent report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), based on Hamas documents seized by the IDF in Gaza, argues that Hamas maintains centralized managerial, financial, and strategic control over a broad media ecosystem, including outlets presented publicly as “independent.”
The report, published on February 22, 2026, draws from documents captured during military operations in Gaza and provides an unprecedented window into how the Palestinian terrorist organization coordinates its information warfare against Israel and the broader international community.
The Hybrid Media Model
At the heart of Hamas’s strategy lies what Israeli analysts term a “hybrid” media ecosystem—a deliberately constructed system designed to create the appearance of press diversity while maintaining absolute editorial control. According to the report, Hamas operates both official outlets like the Al-Resala media institution, the Al-Aqsa television network, and the Palestine newspaper, alongside news agencies Shehab and SAFA that publicly present themselves as independent journalistic organizations.
“This hybrid media system is not accidental,” the report states. “It is designed to allow Hamas to appear to advocate for media pluralism, while in fact it fully controls the media discourse.” This arrangement also provides the organization with diplomatic and operational flexibility, including the ability to circumvent sanctions and deny association with extreme content by attributing it to “independent” outlets.
The information department, led by Ali Al-Amoudi, maintains oversight of the entire ecosystem through regular inspections and coordination meetings designed to ensure all media activity aligns with Hamas’s broader strategic messaging and tactical objectives.
"The new acting head of Hamas’ political bureau in Gaza."
*released as part of the Gilad Shalit "prisoner deal" in 2011 - was among those very close to Sinwar during their imprisonment and after their release, accompanying him frequently to meetings and events.
v
The report adds that unofficial reports in late 2025 claimed al-Amoudi was appointed acting head of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza and was being discussed as a potential successor to Yahya Sinwar.
It traces his proximity to Sinwar back to their time in Israeli prison: al-Amoudi was arrested in 2004, released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit exchange, and, according to the report, developed a close relationship with Sinwar while incarcerated. The report says al-Amoudi later served as Sinwar’s office manager during Sinwar’s first term leading Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza (2017–2021).
CAIR-Ohio Director Invokes Blood Libel at Ohio Senate Antisemitism Hearing
Khalid Turaani, Executive Director of the Ohio branch of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), appeared before the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee on February 18, 2026 to testify against Senate Bill 87, which would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism into Ohio state law.
During his testimony, Turaani alleged that Israel operates the world's largest human skin bank and that the skin is harvested from the bodies of dead Palestinians. CAIR’s lobbying arm, CAIR Action, and a coalition of other anti-Israel Ohio-based organizations also testified in opposition to SB 87 at the same hearing.
A Modern Blood Libel Before a State Legislature
The Anti-Defamation League has explicitly catalogued claims of this type — that Israel systematically harvests body parts from Palestinians — as a modern iteration of the medieval blood libel: the centuries-old antisemitic conspiracy theory alleging that Jews murder non-Jews to harvest their bodily matter. The ADL notes that in the current Israeli-Palestinian context, organs and tissue are substituted for blood, and that in some cases activists have gone further, alleging Israel deliberately kills Palestinians in order to harvest their remains. The ADL has found no credible evidentiary basis for these claims.
The specific “skin bank” framing Turaani deployed before Ohio state senators has circulated in anti-Israel activist circles since at least late 2023, traceable to social media accounts and pro-Palestinian advocacy networks. The ADL has directly addressed these claims, finding that they lack documented factual support and function as vehicles for antisemitic conspiracy narratives rather than substantiated reporting.
The context in which Turaani made this claim adds a significant dimension. SB 87, which he was testifying to defeat, would codify the IHRA definition of antisemitism into Ohio law. The IHRA definition, which has been used by the U.S. State Department and endorsed by over 40 countries, explicitly lists as an illustrative example of antisemitism: “Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.”
Turaani’s testimony did not remain confined to the hearing room. Ramy Abdu, the founder and chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (EuroMed), amplified the clip on X, stating: “Israel is skinning dead bodies of Palestinians.”
Abdu’s promotion of the claim is notable given EuroMed’s documented record and his own background. Abdu, along with EuroMed’s former chairman Dr. Mazen Kahel, were both named in a 2013 list released by the Israeli government identifying Hamas operatives and affiliated institutions in Europe. The watchdog group HonestReporting has described EuroMed as a “Hamas front org.”
EuroMed’s track record of unverified atrocity claims extends well beyond the Turaani clip. The organization has previously accused the Israeli army of organ theft from Palestinians and of “systematically” using police dogs to “brutally attack, rape Palestinian civilians” — claims that HonestReporting has characterized as part of a pattern of fake news, conspiracy theories, and blood libels the group has championed since the October 7, 2023 attacks.
From Ian:
Seth Mandel:
The End of Anarchy
October 7 and the war that followed seem to have broken the spell. The Temple Mount status quo, for example, has thankfully been eroded. Jews had been prohibited from praying at their own holy site, over which the state of Israel has sovereignty, so as not to provoke Palestinian violence. This overt religious discrimination against Jews was indefensible. Now the “terrorist’s veto” has been withdrawn.
Also frozen in 1967 were land registrations in Judea and Samaria, in expectation of an eventual resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The result was that Israel is met with global opprobrium any time it seeks to enforce land-use regulations against Palestinian scofflaws. (There is no such disapproval expressed when illegally built Jewish housing is removed.) So Israel is planning to slowly resume registration to curb an anarchic state of affairs beyond the green line.
Most important, Israel and the U.S. are making the new “no reset” policy clear to Iran. President Trump has positioned U.S. assets in the region such that pretty much every option for an attack on Iran would be on the table. Trump has come closer to embracing full regime change over the past few months. Clearly, he does not want Iran to be able to revert to its prewar state.
Along those lines, he has been arguably even more hawkish than Benjamin Netanyahu’s government regarding Hezbollah. Iran’s Lebanese proxy has been brought to its knees by the IDF, and both Trump and Netanyahu want it to stay there. Iran doesn’t get to be its old self again. Now, apparently, we live in the age of consequences.
Same goes for Gaza. It would appear the days of unilateral Israeli disengagement are over. In the past, once a round of hostilities ceased, Israel would go back to its corner and wait for the next round. But the recent war ended with a deal, not a one-way Israeli concession. And that deal requires Hamas to disarm if the IDF is to retreat. Trump occasionally seems to waver on the definition of “disarm,” but he isn’t telling Israel to move off an inch of Gaza.
The old status quo, in which Israel’s antagonists were permitted to hit the reset button if they lost a war of their own making, meant Israel was essentially penalized for winning a defensive war. This set up a perverse incentive structure. It also created an atmosphere of anarchy in which the rules could be ignored at will.
The American-led world order lacked order. That is being remedied, and not a moment too soon.
Khaled Abu Toameh:
Who Will Become the Biggest Beneficiary of the Billions of Dollars About To Be Invested in the Gaza Strip? The Terrorist Group Hamas
Although Hamas has expressed its willingness to hand over its government institutions to the NCAG [Palestinian National Committee for the Administration of Gaza], there are indications that the terror group seeks to control the new committee and turn it into a Hamas puppet.
The NCAG is already under pressure from the terror group to incorporate thousands of Hamas terrorists into a newly established Palestinian police force in the Gaza Strip. Hamas, in addition, is seeking to ensure that its civil servants be placed on the payroll of the NCAG.
"There is a prevailing sense within the committee and other parties that Hamas is determined, by all means, to keep its members within the new administrative framework overseeing the Gaza Strip." — Asharq al-Awsat, quoting "sources close to" NCAG, February 14, 2026.
What we are currently witnessing are direct and indirect efforts by Hamas to continue governing the Gaza Strip even after the establishment of Trump's "Board of Peace" and the NCAG.
Hamas... sees itself as an essential part of the post-war arrangements in the Gaza Strip. In the viewpoint of Hamas, the role of bodies such as the "Board of Peace" and NCAG should be limited only to paying salaries, funding reconstruction and ensuring the entry of aid supplies into the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, the terror group will focus its efforts on rearming, regrouping, rebuilding its terror infrastructure, and planning more attacks on Israel.
Anyone who believes that the NCAG will be able to operate as an independent governing body in the Gaza Strip is abysmally uninformed. Its members will undoubtedly be at the mercy of Hamas and its masked thugs.
"The image promoted by some international parties that the committee is a means to remove Hamas from power seems far removed from reality. The facts on the ground indicate that Hamas still maintains military, organizational, and ideological control within Gaza, and that any new administrative body cannot operate independently of its will or outside its sphere of influence. Real power remains in the hands of those who possess weapons, organizational networks, and the capacity for sustained popular mobilization." — Mahdi Mubarak, Arab political analyst, rumonline.net, February 16, 2026
Hamas should have been asked to end its rule over the Gaza Strip and hand over all its weapons before, and not after, the formation of the NCAG. Since that has not happened, Hamas will become the largest beneficiary of the billions of dollars that are about to be invested in the Gaza Strip.
From Ian:
Trump's Board of Peace Must Deradicalize Gaza
President Trump convened his Board of Peace on Thursday, announcing new commitments to fund Gaza's reconstruction and provide troops for a Gaza stabilization force. But so far, everyone's avoided an essential question: How will future generations of Palestinian children be raised and educated - and will they again be indoctrinated with radical hatred of Jews and Israel? If so, then the president's vision of Gaza as a "deradicalized, terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors" will remain a pipe dream.
Many of the Hamas terrorists who stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, were raised on a steady diet of hatred. As children, they watched a Hamas-produced TV show hosted by a Mickey Mouse knockoff named Farfour, who preached jihad and urged the killing of Jews. Surrounded by smiling children, Farfour vowed to "liberate Jerusalem from the criminal Zionists," repeatedly exhorting: "Kill! Kill! Kill!" A talking bee named Nahoul ranted about "the filth of the criminal Jews." That reality helps explain why hundreds of Gaza civilians joined the rampage on Oct. 7, and many more celebrated in the streets.
The urgent question now is whether the machinery of radicalization that produced Hamas will finally be dismantled. If it is not, a return to war is inevitable. As long as Hamas remains embedded in Gaza's institutions, Palestinian children will continue to be indoctrinated to hate and kill Jews - in schools, on screens and at home. If Trump wants peace in Gaza to endure, he should establish a Deradicalization Commission through the Board of Peace, charged with dismantling the entire infrastructure of hate.
Pierre Rehov:
Erdogan's Sunni Noose: Turkey's Bid to Encircle Israel
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has launched an ambitious diplomatic offensive aimed at unifying the Sunni world under Ankara's leadership. The objective is not merely reconciliation with former rivals. It is the construction of a Sunni diplomatic and strategic "wall," or "noose," around Israel, replacing the Iranian "Shi'ite crescent" with a new configuration of Sunni power.
The Turkish-Saudi reconciliation is particularly significant. Following years of tension after the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, Ankara and Riyadh have now moved decisively toward strategic cooperation.
Turkish and Saudi officials increasingly frame Israel as a destabilizing actor in these theaters. The emerging partnership is not merely economic; it reflects coordinated positioning against perceived external threats, with Israel explicitly cited.
Turkey and Egypt have now signed a $350 million military framework agreement covering joint weapons production, intelligence sharing, and military exercises. Turkish air defense systems and munitions are slated for delivery, and bilateral trade is projected to reach $15 billion.
As the guardian of the Suez Canal and a dominant actor in North Africa, Egypt provides logistical leverage capable of influencing maritime routes critical to Israel's economy.
On February 9, 2026, the foreign ministers of Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates issued a joint communiqué condemning what they called "Israeli expansionist policies in occupied territories" and calling for Islamic unity.
Some analysts describe an emerging "Sunni axis," or noose, influenced by Muslim Brotherhood ideology; backed by Turkish military power, financed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and designed, by expanding into Gaza, to encircle and finish off Israel.
The UAE, under the impressive leadership of Sheikh Mohamed ben Zayed al Nahyan, pursues a technocratic, anti-political Islam agenda that diverges sharply from Erdogan's ideological sympathies.... Still, the coalition's ultimate aim, apart from the UAE, unmistakably seems to be "containing" Israel.
Recently, Saudi media have featured openly anti-Israel and antisemitic headlines not seen in years. The kingdom appears to be totally aligning itself with anti-Israel countries such as Qatar and Turkey, while "tensions with the UAE explode."
Egypt, Israel's chilly peace partner since 1979, has reportedly expanded military infrastructure in the Sinai Peninsula in ways that should, under the supposed peace treaty, raise serious questions.
Turkish and Egyptian intelligence services are reportedly coordinating efforts to counter rival influences and restrict Israel's strategic access.
Israeli analysts increasingly describe it as the replacement of Iran's Shiite axis with a Sunni bloc influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood.
The coalition presents itself as promoting regional peace. Yet "peace" may translate into the vaporization of Israel, especially should a future Israeli government prove more pliable.
Erdogan's participation in "stabilization" efforts would significantly expand Turkish influence within the emerging Sunni crescent. Ankara's well-documented support for Muslim Brotherhood networks — which are Hamas's patrons, ideologically and financially – should raise obvious concerns.
Netanyahu's insistence that Israel determine which international actors, if any, operate in Gaza, serves multiple strategic purposes. It prevents Turkish entrenchment in Gaza, maintains Israeli control over post-war arrangements, and signals to Washington that Israel views Turkish expansionism as a long-term threat transcending personal or political relationships.
Whatever the obstacles, Erdogan's direction seems clear: a militarily and economically anchored Sunni alignment to constrict Israel's strategic space.
Ruthie Blum:
Mike Huckabee handles Tucker Carlson’s ‘Gish Gallop’ with grace
By anchoring the exchange in Islamist conduct, Huckabee stripped the argument to its essentials. For instance, asked by Carlson what it cost the United States to “move the fleet off Iran into the Persian Gulf,” the ambassador replied, “A lot less than it would to bury a lot of Americans if [the ayatollahs] ever got a long-range ballistic missile. A lot less.”
He also pointed out that if Carlson cares so much about America, he should be concerned that Iran’s proxies are already “deeply embedded” in the Western Hemisphere.
This back-and-forth was among many fronts in the rhetorical battlefield of Carlson’s crazed conspiracy-theory arena, however. It might even have been the sanest section of the Q&A.
The looniest was his casting of aspersions on the authenticity of Netanyahu’s Jewish roots, since the prime minister’s family hails from Eastern Europe, and his sneering suggestion that Israelis might need DNA tests to prove their biblical connection to the land.
Other jibes were just as jaw-dropping, beginning with his impugning of a brief meeting Huckabee had with Jonathan Pollard after the death of the latter’s wife; declaring that Jeffrey Epstein was known to be connected with the Mossad (adding a lie about Israeli President Isaac Herzog having been a guest on the pedophile’s island—for which he later apologized but may still be sued); citing fabricated statistics about Israel’s persecution of Christians; and besmirching Israel Defense Forces behavior in Gaza. Oh, and insisting that Israel provide free abortions courtesy of U.S. aid.
It’s no wonder, then, that Carlson, who’s built a following among Israel-bashing antisemites, remains a groyper favorite.
It has to be said, though, that Huckabee knew what he was in for with Carlson. The pair had been sparring publicly on social media, which led to Huckabee’s challenging his former Fox News colleague to “come talk to me, instead of about me.”
Because of Huckabee’s naturally cheerful demeanor and impeccable manners, the interview concluded on a cordial note, with his extending an invitation to Carlson to return to Israel and attend his church. It was a magnanimous gesture, to be sure.
But the rest of us would prefer that Tucker Carlson never darken our doorstep—or VIP lounge—again.
From Ian:
Far Left protest planned against Buchenwald Memorial on Liberation Day
A planned far-left protest against the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial on the anniversary of its liberation has sparked outrage across Germany, with officials denouncing the move as an affront to the memory of Holocaust victims.
According to a report in the German Bild, citing Switzerland's Neue Zürcher Zeitung, radical organizations are calling for demonstrations on April 11, the day the camp was liberated in 1945. The groups accuse the memorial's management of "spreading Israeli propaganda" and of not being "hostile enough toward Israel."
The protest is being organized under the slogan "Keffiyehs in Buchenwald." Among those involved are the student wing of Germany's Left Party (Die Linke), the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East and the German Communist Party (DKP).
In statements published by the organizers, the Buchenwald memorial site is accused of promoting "historical revisionism and genocide denial" and of serving as a vehicle for advancing an alleged "Israeli narrative."
The controversy follows an incident last year in which a woman seeking to stage a protest at the site while wearing a keffiyeh, a scarf widely associated with Palestinian nationalism, was denied entry. A German court later upheld the decision. The protest organizers claim the memorial's management is effectively criminalizing pro-Palestinian activists.
According to the report, one of the leading activists behind the campaign belongs to a communist organization that previously expressed public support for the October 7 massacre carried out by Hamas. In a statement issued after the attack, the group described it as a "legitimate uprising by all means necessary."
The remarks triggered widespread public anger in Germany, particularly given Buchenwald's central place in the country's culture of remembrance. Tens of thousands of Jews were murdered at the camp during the Holocaust, making it one of the most significant symbols of Nazi atrocities.
Felix Klein, the German government's commissioner for combating antisemitism, sharply condemned the initiative, calling it "a new low in the reversal of roles between victim and perpetrator." He described the planned demonstration as "a frontal assault on the dignity of commemoration and on the memory of the victims of the Holocaust."
Daniel Finkelstein:
Britain is still our country as well – and we will not be driven out
I understand those people who wish to make aliyah. I respect that decision and understand the emotional pull. But as a move to enhance family safety? I don’t think so.
Until the last five years I might have answered “America” if considering a safe refuge for Jews. But now? I note only that the worst antisemitic abuse I receive originates in that country. And that every extreme trend is worse and more violent there. It seems like a society constantly on the edge.
And nowhere else in Europe is it tempting, either. Or the Middle East. Or Africa for that matter. Jews are a small minority in almost every country we live in and that is inevitably perilous. But I don’t think we are finished here unless someone has a better idea, and I don’t think someone does have a better idea.
But I do have a more positive reason for believing in the future for Jews in Britain. It has become harder for Jews everywhere, we all feel less safe, but a sense of proportion is required. This remains one of the greatest times to be alive as a Jew, and Britain is one of the greatest places.
When I read the story of both sets of my grandparents before they were engulfed by the disasters of the 1930s and 1940s, I could see the warning signs. Absolutely I could. The growth of open antisemitism, the slow rise of violence, the breakdown of taboos. All the things we worry about now did indeed precede the catastrophe.
Yet the difference in extent is as striking as the similarly in nature. The extent of violence and hatred was of an entirely different scale. And Germany, in particular, was a much more unstable country. British democracy and rule of law certainly has its challenges but remains, by comparison, vastly stronger.
When I wrote recently in The Times about my experience of antisemitic abuse I was flooded with kind messages from readers. We certainly have enemies but we also have many allies. There are millions of decent people in Britain who realise that their own safety and liberty is bound up in ours.
Besides, over hundreds of years we have built our own culture and community in this country. It’s not something to give up lightly. I don’t think complacency is warranted. Sadly, it is not warranted at all. But a little defiance is. This is certainly still the place for me.
Jeremy Bowen’s bias is visible from space
It will be of little surprise that Bowen has consistently misrepresented, downplayed or even tried to excuse, Hamas’s use of Palestinian civilians as human shields. Against Israel, Hamas has little choice but ‘to leverage the things that they can leverage in terms of trying to get an edge’, Bowen said in a 2023 podcast episode. In 2014, he claimed to have seen ‘no evidence during my week in Gaza of Israel’s accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields’. This is despite extensively documented evidence to the contrary, showing that Hamas launches rockets from civilian areas and commandeers civilian infrastructure for military ends, including hospitals and schools.
In fact, you can find examples of Bowen’s bias as far back as 2009, when the BBC Trust found him in breach of impartiality guidelines for a 2007 BBC News article on the 40th anniversary of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War.
According to monitoring by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), Bowen has spent decades perfecting a narrative of Israeli aggression while airbrushing the extent of the threats Israel faces. He has repeatedly platformed voices that dehumanise Israelis while failing to challenge the anti-Semitic ideology that drives Hamas. That isn’t journalism: it’s a curated perspective that treats Jewish security concerns with a shrug of indifference.
The BBC is the most popular news source in the UK, reaching a staggering 94 per cent of adults. When its most senior editors trade in skewed narratives, they shape political discourse, social attitudes and the temperature of national debate. And the price of this is borne by British Jews.
Since 7 October 2023, the UK has endured record levels of anti-Semitic incidents. This has included a lethal terror attack and several foiled terror plots. When coverage of serious conflicts consistently falls short, it exacerbates real-world harms for a minority community already under pressure. The BBC’s tendency to amplify unverified Hamas claims – such as wrongly blaming the infamous al-Ahli hospital blast on Israel without evidence, or quoting Hamas casualty figures without qualification – has fuelled hostility towards Jewish communities.
Perhaps most breathtaking is the arrogance with which Bowen continues to showcase his bias with total impunity. The BBC’s internal accountability mechanisms are essentially a closed loop. The broadcaster is, quite literally, marking its own homework. Apologies and corrections are only issued long after the damage has been done and without significant consequences for repeated breaches.
This brings us to the government’s BBC Charter Review, which is exploring the BBC’s governance, public obligations and funding before a new 10-year charter is granted. The way the BBC works now, where senior figures like Bowen are immune to external scrutiny, is a betrayal of public trust. We need a fundamental reset of the BBC’s culture, including tying the renewal of the charter to demonstrable improvements in impartiality and accuracy.
We ought to remember that the BBC belongs to the public – not to the egos of its editors and correspondents.
From Ian:
Alex Hearn:
Reduced to one word – Jew
Comedian. Radio host. Actor. Presenter. Jew.
Only the last one mattered to Thomas Abdullah Bourne. He erased the individual identity and achievements of Matt Lucas until all he saw was a Jew. And Bourne decided that a Jew needed to be publicly humiliated.
There are no exceptions for racists. In the Soviet era, even leading Jewish communists were executed on charges of Zionism after show trials.
Bourne proudly uploaded his video of a Jewish man being harassed for no other reason than his Jewishness. After the backlash, he deleted it along with his account, but the damage was done. Targeting a popular public figure in this way had shown the hateful face of antizionism to the public.
Matt Lucas wasn’t alone. Last week, a Holocaust survivor and other visitors were called “child killers” and harassed by people in Madrid’s Reina Sofía museum because they were visibly Jewish. Instead of receiving assistance, a senior official instructed staff to remove them, saying others were “disturbed” by their presence. The Reina Sofía is considered one of the world’s leading cultural institutions.
Across the west in 2026 Jews are being excluded from museums, harassed on public transport and confronted on the street. And now, incredibly, antizionists could be coming to your home.
In cities including Brighton, Bristol, London and Sheffield, people are going door to door checking whether residents accept their “truth” about Israel – like racist Jehovah’s witnesses. They want people to sign pledges boycotting the world’s only Jewish state. The door-knockers compile lists of those who don’t pass their purity test. What will they do with this information?
Footage from Sheffield appears to show one door-knocker physically attacking a woman who confronted him. When an ideology becomes part of your identity, criticism feels like a personal attack. The door-knockers in Brighton were filmed having a rally by Sky News, with one speaker revealing what appears to be the campaigners’ ultimate goal: to harm Israel “until it shrivels and dies”.
This is the aim of antizionism – the destruction of Israel and the Jews who live there. Some hide behind the fantasy that Israel would be replaced by another democracy, but the Middle East isn’t known for democracy, particularly when it comes to Palestinian leaders. We know what would happen to half the world's Jews in this scenario. October 7, 2023 showed us, when Hamas attempted to implement it.
NGO Monitor:
A Growing Threat in Sweden: Samidoun’s Network and Terror Affiliations
Samidoun, a terror-linked and terror-supporting NGO, is active and expanding its presence in Sweden, raising the spectre of incitement, public unrest, and violence.
Designated as a terrorist entity by Israel in 2021, by Germany in 2023, and jointly by the US and Canada in 2024, Samidoun is closely linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – an EU-designated terrorist organization. Samidoun also promotes other EU-designated groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and openly advocates for Palestinians’ “natural right to armed resistance,” underscoring the NGO’s ideological commitment to violence.
Terror Designations
In February 2021, Israel designated the NGO, identifying it as “play[ing] a leading and significant role in the PFLP’s anti-Israel propaganda efforts, fundraising, and recruiting activists,” and serving as a “front for the PFLP abroad.”
In 2020, Germany expelled Samidoun head Khaled Barakat, and imposed a four-year entry ban; his appeal was rejected, citing PFLP links and “support for a terrorist organization.” As a result of the ban, Barakat was denied entry into the EU in 2022.
In November 2023, Germany banned Samidoun for violating its Basic Law (Article 9(2)) and its Associations Act; namely, it “impairs and endangers the peaceful coexistence of Germans and foreigners,” “advocates and calls for the use of violence as a means of enforcing political interests,” and “supports associations that initiate, advocate and threaten attacks against people or property.”
In October 2024, the US and Canada issued joint statements listing Samidoun as a terrorist entity. The US described it as a “sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization” and designated Samidoun head Khaled Barakat, “a member of the PFLP’s leadership” who played a “critical role[] in external fundraising for the PFLP.”
The Dutch Parliament passed a resolution in the same month calling on the government to designate Samidoun as a terror organization.
Samidoun’s Operational Presence in Sweden
Samidoun maintains chapters in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö, which organize and participate in demonstrations and protests across Sweden, including events in Stockholm (Sergels Torg), Gothenburg (Brunnsparken, Centralstation, Gazaplatsen, Gustaf Adolfs Torg), Eskilstuna (Smortorget, Cityhustorget), Ostersund (Badhusparkens scen), and Vasteras (Stora Torget, Sigmatorget).
Support for Terrorist Organizations and Violence
On November 23, 2025, Samidoun Gothenburg co-organized a demonstration in “support of the resistance,” using promotional materials that featured members of terrorist organizations, including Hamas and the PFLP. The demonstration was followed by a joint event commemorating Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, the Muslim Brotherhood figure who is the namesake of Hamas’s military wing. The gathering honored “the legacy of his resistance.”
Promotional image for the November 23, 2025, Samidoun Gothenburg demonstration
On October 12, 2025, following the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, a Samidoun Gothenburg member gave a speech at a demonstration, stating, “The united armed resistance, led by the al-Qassam Brigades [Hamas’ military wing] and backed by a determined people, has stood strong through all this and forced the occupation to an agreement. The ceasefire is a statement of strength for the Palestinian resistance, and it is worth rejoicing over!”
On July 6, 2025, as Iran launched daily ballistic missile attacks on Israeli cities, a Samidoun Gothenburg member gave a speech at a demonstration stating, “I feel hope as the rockets fall over Tel Aviv.” He concluded his speech by calling out, “Death to Israel! Death to the USA! Glory to the martyrs! Long live the resistance! Long live Palestine!”
On November 29, 2024, a Samidoun Gothenburg member participated in a “cultural evening for Palestine” arranged by the cultural association Solens Port, claiming “PFLP, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the organizations that are building the armed resistance are not terrorists, they are our comrades, they are our heroes.”
PEN America gets captured: organization accepts Palestine as a member and rejects Israel; Jewish chief executive resigns after accusations of being a “Zionist” and not signing on to Israel’s “genocide”
Every day, it seems, another group gets ideologically captured, valorizing Palestine (or Hamas) and demonizing Israel. This is dispiriting for Jews, but the latest such capture—of the free-expression literary group PEN America—is especially depressing.
The decline of PEN American was first evidenced to me when, in 2015, it decided to give a “freedom of expression” award to the magazine Charlie Hebdo, many of whose writers (and a few others) were killed in an attack by al-Qaeda, presumably for making fun of Islam and Muhammad. The award was formally called the “PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award”, and was to be conferred with other awards at a literary gala banquet.
But six PEN members refused to be “table hosts” at the banquet, and then 139 other members (now 242) signed a letter taking issue with the award. Why? Because although Charlie Hebdo is well known to be an “equal opportunity offender,” whose metier is mocking everyone, including politicians and religions, those PEN members said that it was a no-no to mock Islam because its adherents were “already marginalized, embattled, and victimized.”
South Africa pulls out of Venice Biennale after minister pans artist’s focus on Gaza
South Africa will not participate in this year’s Venice Biennale following a dispute between its culture ministry and the artist it had selected, whose planned installation focused on Gaza.
Gabrielle Goliath, a South African artist selected to represent the country at the international culture exhibition, had planned to showcase a performance piece titled “Elegy” that would include a memorial for the Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2023.
Goliath’s selection to represent South Africa at the biennale by Art Periodic, a nonprofit that was running the pavilion on behalf of the country, quickly drew the scorn of Gayton McKenzie, the South African culture minister, who called her work “highly divisive.”
While South Africa has long been among the most vocal critics of Israel, and diplomatic ties between the countries have frayed over the course of the war in Gaza, McKenzie has stood out for his staunch support of the Jewish state.
In January, McKenzie terminated the agreement with Art Periodic, writing in a letter that he would instead feature art in Venice that gave “a positive message” about South Africa, according to the New York Times.
From Ian:
Seth Mandel:
Media’s Belated Truth-Telling on Gaza
From the Now It Can Be Told files come a couple more revelations about Gaza worthy of attention.
The BBC reports what has been true for over two years: Hamas is bleeding Gazans dry while violently cracking down on, as one Gazan described it, “people with opinions.”
The BBC has recently been embroiled in numerous ethics scandals around its reporting on the conflict. This report is an indication of what it might have looked like had the Beeb reported honestly and ethically for a single day during the war.
“At markets across Gaza,” BBC reports, “stallholders describe regular police patrols—and a renewed iron grip on official fees and taxes.” The market sellers can’t really afford what Hamas is demanding. “Should I pay them, or feed my children?” one asks.
As the piece explains, “food and some other basic goods are flowing into Gaza more freely. The few key traders with a license to bring them in from Israel say Hamas have reimposed strict control over taxing the imports. One trader, who agreed to share details anonymously, told us force was used against those who refused to pay.”
Same old story—Israel is letting in goods and food, and Hamas is taking it out of the mouths and pocketbooks of Gazan civilians and disappearing those who put up any resistance. The preceding sentence has never not been true since Hamas took control of the enclave close to two decades ago. If you want Gazans to be able to eat and earn a livelihood, you’ve got to remove Hamas. Because its policies are the same whether it’s peacetime or wartime: there is no such thing, in fact, as peacetime Hamas.
Interestingly, one trader told the BBC “that traders used a code-word for Hamas when discussing tax payments, so that Israel wouldn’t learn that money was being siphoned off to the group.”
Even Hamas’s victims have been helping the terror group cover up its crimes. What that means is simple: Hamas has, all along, been siphoning off a much larger share of goods and food and money than anyone claimed. If anything, the Israelis understated the extent of the problem.
In fact, it’s going to be difficult for anyone on the outside to get the full picture: “Hamas now has a database of all the traders who import goods into the Gaza Strip,” activist Mohammed Diab told the Beeb. “The trader pays in cash, not through bank transfers, so that the flow of funds cannot be traced. It is gradually restoring the system that was in place in the past, but away from the spotlight so it can’t be monitored.”
The longer it takes to disarm Hamas, the longer Palestinians will be immiserated and oppressed. It’s really that simple. And there’s nothing Israel can do to change that unless the world asks it to go in and disarm Hamas itself.
Inside Al Jazeera’s Style Guide, Which Forbids Reporters From Calling ISIS a ‘Terrorist’ Organization
Al Jazeera prohibits its staff from referring to al Qaeda, ISIS, and Boko Haram as "terrorist," "Islamist," or "extremist" groups, instead requiring reporters to use "neutral terms" like "fighters" and "armed groups," according to a copy of the outlet’s style guide obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The guide was labeled "2023-2024 Edition" but appears to have been updated to reference more recent events like President Donald Trump's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America (the outlet tells reporters to use the former). The guide’s treatment of terrorist organizations is one example of how the Qatari state media outlet, which did not respond to a request for comment, presents radical Islam to the world.
"There is nothing stylish or factual about this unholy text, which has a higher spin rate than any Major League power pitcher," said one media insider who has seen the document. "It simply confirms what many right-thinking people have always known: Al Jazeera exists only to parrot narratives that have been carefully crafted by the Hamas propaganda machine."
Below is a compilation of exact quotes from the guide followed by examples of its rules being used in Al Jazeera articles.
TERRORISM/TERRORISTS
We do not use these terms unless attributed.
ISRAEL
It is the state of Israel, not the Jewish state. However, we can refer to the Jewish state when the subject is the religious composition of Israel. Do not use Jewish state as a synonym for Israel. Do not use ‘Jerusalem’ as a synonym for the government of Israel, as one might use ‘Washington’ to imply the U.S. government. With regard to whether we use pro-Israel or pro-Israeli government…care needs to be taken to use the longer but more accurate phrase: ‘pro-Israeli government’. Israeli peace activists will tell you they are ‘pro-Israel’, but ‘anti-Israeli government’. When Israeli politicians address the public, make an effort to find out who they are addressing and report it as is.
EAST JERUSALEM
The term ‘occupied’ should be used wherever it’s necessary.
"Israel to advance plans for 9,000 units in occupied East Jerusalem," Dec. 17, 2025: "Israeli authorities are expected to advance plans to build 9,000 new housing units in an illegal settlement on the site of the abandoned Qalandiya airport in occupied East Jerusalem, in another attempt to cut off Palestinian lands from each other and block any possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state ever emerging."
WEST JERUSALEM
Do not say ‘occupied’. And never refer to it as the capital of Israel.
"Netanyahu finally announces October 7 inquiry: Why are Israelis furious?" Dec. 20, 2025: "The ministerial team tasked with determining the scope of the inquiry is to meet in West Jerusalem on Monday, coincidentally the same day that Netanyahu is scheduled to give testimony in his long-running corruption trial in Tel Aviv."
INCURSION
This is the word we use when Israeli settlers, politicians, religious figures or nationalist groups go into Al Aqsa Mosque compound. Don’t call it a ‘visit’.
"UN says Israel is stoking ‘ethnic cleansing’ fears in Gaza, West Bank," Feb. 19, 2026: "In Jerusalem, Ramadan has brought further restrictions at Al-Aqsa Mosque. The mosque’s imam, Sheikh Akrama Sabri, said Israeli authorities are ‘imposing a reality by force’ by limiting worshippers while allowing extremist Jewish incursions into the compound."
ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS
Should be called illegal on first reference. Settlements are residential areas built by Israelis in the occupied territories. They are illegal under international law: this is the UN Security Council’s position - although Israel rejects this. All settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are considered illegal under international law. There are no ‘legal’ settlements.
"Israeli minister approves gun licences for 18 illegal West Bank settlements," Jan. 22, 2026: "Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has approved the issuance of gun licences to Israelis in 18 additional illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, as the right-wing government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushes to expand illegal outposts that undermine prospects for a two-state solution."
ISRAELI ARMY
Do not call it Israeli Defence Forces or IDF. Also avoid ‘security forces’.
"Israeli army sniper in Chile accused of Gaza war crimes could face justice," Feb. 18, 2026: "A Chilean court is considering a criminal complaint against a former Israeli army sniper who served in Gaza during Israel’s more than two-year-long genocide on the coastal enclave and the Palestinian people."
ISRAEL MILITARY DEATHS
We take a robust approach to censorship of our reporting by the Israeli military. Each case should be considered individually, but our first instinct should be to report the facts. The deaths in combat of Israeli soldiers are of high news value. If we are confident of the facts we should report them, even if the Israeli Army has asked us to wait for its permission. The Israeli Army says it routinely asks us to delay reporting deaths so it can first inform victims’ relatives. This is not a good enough reason for us to withhold news from our audience – provided we do not name the victim. This policy may provoke a reaction from the Israeli side. If it does, we will reassess it.
Josh Hammer:
The Saudi Mask Slips
What the heck is going on here—and most important, what does it all mean for the United States and our very real interests in the Middle East?
First, the much-desired goal of Riyadh joining Abu Dhabi and Manama in the Abraham Accords circle of peace with Jerusalem is, at least for the time being, totally unachievable. A friend of mine who had been involved in the first Trump administration’s Abraham Accords diplomacy efforts once told me that, by the end of the first Trump term, a deal to bring Riyadh into the accords was “on the five-yard line.” This same official believed that, if Trump had been re-elected for a second term beginning in January 2021, Saudi Arabia would have joined the accords within a few months. Now, five years later, the notion of Israel normalizing relations with the state custodian of Islam’s holy sites is, sadly, a pipe dream.
Second, it seems that Riyadh’s recent shift in posturing is motivated less by a sincere ideological cottoning to Islamism—the Brotherhood remains officially banned throughout the kingdom, for example—and motivated more by MBS’s unseemly personal petulance and immaturity. It’s worth remembering that MBS, a nepo baby if there ever were one, has behaved like a spoiled child before. He initiated a high-profile mass arrest of prominent Saudi elites at the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton in November 2017. In October 2018, Islamist “journalist” Jamal Khashoggi was butchered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul; a CIA report the following month concluded that MBS had ordered the hit. Whatever one might say (and I have nothing nice to say about Khashoggi), these incidents were unnecessarily provocative—perhaps even gratuitous.
It seems that MBS is now up to his old tricks. By all accounts, MBS has come to loathe Mohamed bin Zayed, rule of Abu Dhabi and president of the UAE. I’ve heard speculation that MBS now harbors an even deeper hatred of MBZ, and by extension the entire UAE, than he held for Qatar and its ruling House of Thani during the 2017-2021 GCC crisis. Given that the UAE under MBZ has been perhaps the most moderate of all the oil-rich Sunni Gulf states in its general approach to Islam and the most publicly embracing of Israel of all the Abraham Accords’ Arab signees, there is no clear reason why MBS has adopted such a hostile posture—given his years of anti-Islamist crackdowns and purges—other than pure pettiness and jealousy.
It’s juvenile—blatantly, insanely, and disgustingly so. But as Riyadh cozies up to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strongman Islamist regime in Ankara, Ahmed al-Sharaa’s al Qaeda-lite regime in Damascus, and sides against Israel and the UAE on Somaliland’s push for national autonomy, MBS’s spoiled outbursts nonetheless have real consequences for the region.
From Ian:
Noah Rothman:
The Revolt of the Revolting
Review of 'The Revolutionists' by Jason Burke
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez was jubilant upon his return to London in 1971. When the Venezuelan national’s parents had last seen their son, he and his brother had just secured positions to study at Moscow’s Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University—the front from which so much Soviet-sponsored radicalism and militancy was cultivated, refined, and exported. But that had been years earlier. On arrival, Ramírez was chided by a family friend for failing to tell his worried family where he’d been, but the reason for his prolonged absence was simple. “I’ve been in the Middle East,” he confessed, “learning how to kill Jews.”
That certainly explained the low profile. Ramírez embarked on that project under an assumed name, “Carlos,” to which the appellation “the Jackal” would soon be indelibly appended. Although he was perhaps the most famous revolutionary left-wing terrorist and assassin of his generation, Carlos actually had serious competition for the title. He would, however, make an outsize contribution to the bloodshed that bathed the decade to follow.
Although they talked a good game about proletarian solidarity and compassionate self-sacrifice, the violence that the Jackal and his terrorist allies dispensed was more often an outgrowth of narcissistic self-reverence that masqueraded as altruism. The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s, by the British author and journalist Jason Burke, tells Carlos’s story and those of many others like him.
Burke’s rich narrative distills a violent decade to its intellectual concentrate. He chronicles the international Marxist left’s turn from socialist ardor toward nationalism and Islamism. It was a transformation that occurred in tandem with Israel’s progression from a fledgling state into a regional power. The Communist East and its fellow travelers turned on Israel as it evolved from an incipient socialist experiment into a Western-oriented capitalist democracy—one that had had the temerity twice to defeat the coalition of Arab nations in whose success Moscow had ill-advisedly invested substantial sums. The international left’s bitterness did not die when the Warsaw Pact pivoted late in the Cold War from confrontation to accommodation with the West, leading the global Marxist vanguard to throw their chips in with the Islamist radicals still in the fight.
It’s only proper, then, that Burke’s story begins not with the rash of civilian-aircraft hijackings that closed out the turbulent 1960s and set the stage for the violence to come, but in 1948, with the Jewish state’s founding. The birth of Israel was accompanied by the rise of a particular radicalism in the region influenced by “Marxist ideology,” one of the earliest expressions of which was George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, founded in 1967.
Seth Mandel:
The Problem With ‘Epstein Class’
Back in 2017, during the heady days of the Trump-Russia “collusion” accusations, the release of the Steele Dossier supercharged the story. A former British spy had been very clearly duped by the Russians into putting together a file of colorful and compromising tales about Trump. The main effect this had was to turn the American political discourse into a conspiracist circus.
And when that happens, it’s only a matter of time before the sleuthing public finds a way to make it about the Jews.
Sure enough, in April 2017 Politico ran one of the wackiest articles about Jews to appear in a mainstream publication in years. Under the headline “The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That Connects Trump and Putin,” the article intimated that Chabad-Lubavitch institutions were the link between Trump and Putin’s oligarchs. The piece never establishes this, of course, because it’s nonsense. But it conjured a false picture that many people, eager to get Trump on collusion, bought into.
It is an iron rule that conspiracy theories find their ways to Jews if left to fester in the public’s imagination. So while the dossier’s intent had nothing to do with Jews, the irresponsible collation of rumors inevitably ended up there.
So it is with the Jeffrey Epstein files. Led by the bipartisan duo of Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie, Congress forced open the files relating to the well-connected financier who was convicted of sex offenses. Epstein has been the subject of endless but groundless speculation by conspiracy theorists that he was working for Israel.
The Times of London provided a perfect example of the type of conspiracy mongering enabled by the mass release of the Epstein files. “Was Epstein a Mossad agent? New files deepen mystery over Israel links,” the headline promised. Several paragraphs into the story we get this: “An FBI report from the Los Angeles field office written in October 2020 said the bureau’s source had become ‘convinced that Epstein was a co-opted Mossad agent.’”
So now the reader has imbibed this rumor along with terms like “FBI report” and descriptions of certain messages as Department of Justice documents. Which they are—technically. But the “source” is a Holocaust denier and all-around disgraced kook—the report protects his identity, but it is not a secret. Still, the Times gets to play games by painting them as official documents coming from the feds.
Nicole Lampert:
The pro-Gaza luvvies are engaged in their nastiest purity spiral yet
Towards the end of China’s Cultural Revolution, those who had dared to indulge in wrongthink were forced to wear signs around their necks detailing their alleged crimes and dragged into public stadiums. They were tortured and some of them were even the victims of ritualistic cannibalism.
Though not as extreme as the gruesomely violent aspects of the Cultural Revolution, some of the intolerance that characterised that movement can now be found in response to Israel. This week, 80 actors and directors, including Javier Bardem (a keffiyeh-clad poppinjay), Tilda Swinton, Brian Cox and Mike Leigh, denounced the Berlin Film Festival in Variety magazine because its organisers dared to say that not everyone has to express an opinion on Gaza.
They are furious that the Berlinale’s mild-mannered German jury president, Wim Wenders, voiced his belief that filmmakers should stay out of politics. “We have to do the work of people and not the work of politicians,” he said when asked repeatedly about Gaza. In 2026, this counts as bravery.
But the furore was immediate, with Indian novelist Arundhati Roy storming out of the festival, which was due to present a 1989 film she wrote. She described Wenders’ comments as “unconscionable”.
Then came the letter, which had the frankly breathtaking audacity to compare the Berlinale’s stance with that of Germany in the 1930s, because the previous year it had tried to stem the anti-Semitic impulses of too many righteously insane filmmakers who wanted to denounce the Israeli state for daring to defend itself.
What is more, the letter did not just have the usual lie that the war in Gaza is a “genocide”, but the kind of claim that only people who spend too much time in the land of make-believe could come up with – that Palestinians had been “evaporated” by the IDF.
These puffed-up self-righteous celebrities, who have forgotten we only want to see them crying on film and wearing nice clothes on the red carpet, are becoming dangerous with their anti-Zionist conspiracies.
While we may not be quite at cannibalism in this new attempted cultural revolution, in which everyone should bow down to the victimhood of the Palestinians, I fear we are getting ever closer.
Thursday, February 26, 2026
