From Ian:
The shallow claim that anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism
You can tell if they are serious by looking at their anti-racism policies. Organisations cannot pretend to oppose antisemitism unless they define it. Without a definition they cannot discipline members for racist conduct.
If you cannot define it, you cannot oppose it.
Ominously, many want to shut down any attempt to limit Jew hate. They want a world without boundaries, where anything goes, and anti-Jewish racism can never be called by its real name.
Their first target is the widely used International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has been circulating in various forms since the early 2000s. The global left denounces it because it says that the definition has been used to “wrongly label criticism of Israel as antisemitic”.
Within a day of becoming mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani showed his political priorities by withdrawing the city’s endorsement of the definition.
The precise form of words the IHRA drafters used is that it is antisemitic “to deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour”.
You can argue about that. As I said above, people who want to abolish the world’s only Jewish state need to bend over backwards to prove that they don’t just hate Jews.
Good-hearted left-wing Jewish academics took the complaint seriously, and went out of their way to accommodate Palestinian and leftist concerns.
They produced the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism in 2021. It emphasised that it was not antisemitic “to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants between the river and the sea, whether in two states, a binational state, unitary democratic state [or] federal state”.
All true opponents of racism need to do was oppose anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and race hatred.
A bare minimum you might say. But even this stripped down, permissive, definition of antisemitism is too much for many on the left to bear.
I hoped that the election of the Jewish Zack Polanski to the leadership of the Green Party would mark a break with the antisemitism that so disfigured the Corbyn movement,
Not if a faction among Green Party members has its way, it won’t.
A motion before the Green Party spring conference calls for the party “to reject the IHRA and JDA [Jerusalem Declaration] definitions which have been weaponised to silence legitimate criticism of the state of Israel”.
When the conference starts in March, we will see whether Polanski has the political courage to fight back, or whether he’s just another empty sloganeer.
Turn to the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, and it is the same story,
It too will not even accept the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism because it is “being used to reinforce the illegitimate policing of speech about Palestine and advocacy for Palestinian rights.”
You search its website in vain for examples of the Jerusalem Declaration silencing legitimate debate – and of course there are none. You search for any definition of antisemitism that would be acceptable to pro-Palestinian activists – and of course there isn’t one.
They have no formal means of condemning The Protocols of the Elders Zion, Mein Kampf or the Hamas Charter.
More pertinently from a modern left-wing point of view, they have no means of condemning Nick Fuentes and the antisemites flourishing in Donald Trump’s America.
The Maga movement is loathed by leftists. But at least some on the left would rather give the far right a free pass than accept the smallest restraint on the loathing of Jews.
Seth Mandel:
Can Elaine Luria Handle the Squad’s Heat?
Luria was once the kind of Democrat that party leaders wanted to recruit: liberal but poised, with a military career on the resume. (Luria spent 20 years in the Navy.)
Military experience tended to go hand-in-hand with support for Israel, just as exposure to reality tends to increase support for Israel. Those with national security experience in the field would be much less vulnerable to the paranoid conspiracism of the Code Pink world and campus activists, the thinking went. An inherent toughness could make it less likely they’d bend or break in the face of progressive pressure.
And all of that was true—except that last part. One by one, “moderate” Democrats fell in line. Elissa Slotkin, now a senator from Michigan, entertained the idea that AIPAC should register as a foreign agent. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Marine, folded like a cheap suit in the face of anti-Israel primary pressure this cycle. Accommodating progressive anti-Semitism became the norm, with very few exceptions (Ritchie Torres, John Fetterman).
Luria says she wants to turn back that tide, or at least show it some resistance. The question is how far she is willing to go when locking horns with her party.
During Luria’s time in Congress, she was at the forefront of a group of Democrats criticizing Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism, but she opposed removing Omar from her committee assignments, as Republicans had done with Steve King.
Luria’s willingness to call out some of the anti-Semitism from her own party has the potential to shift the debate if she gets back into office. But the extent of her impact will be decided by where Luria places the limits of her posture. Would she go beyond statements? That is, would she support actual consequences for Democrats who engage in rank anti-Semitism?
Most of the time, Luria seems willing to criticize Omar by name. Will she do the same for Rashida Tlaib, who has been headlining a conference tied to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine? How about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the thin-skinned Squad ringleader and blood libel specialist who may run for president in 2028?
As of now, the odds are in Luria’s favor. Virginia Democrats still nominate ostensibly moderate candidates, and the national mood certainly seems to have swung against Republican incumbents. (Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans, who defeated Luria two years ago, holds the seat.)
Is Luria prepared to be a Slotkin/Moulton Democrat, living in fear of the Hamasniks in her party, or can she envision herself as a Torres/Fetterman Democrat, the much more rare breed with a spine strong enough to stand on principle? The fundamentals of the midterm elections mean we’ll probably soon find out.
Iran's Options: Talking or Fighting
President Trump's ultimatum to Iran calls for it to negotiate away its nuclear program or face a possible attack. Either path risks putting the already weakened regime in a more precarious position. Along with insisting that Iran halt domestic enrichment of nuclear fuel and hand over its stockpile of uranium, Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff has indicated Tehran must accept limits on its ballistic-missile arsenal and abandon its support for militias in the region.
A decision to halt enrichment of uranium would be a humiliating public retreat on a core national priority for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Rebuffing the demand is increasingly likely to prompt Trump to order strikes, further exposing the government's vulnerability.
"Their strategy right now is just buying time," said Alan Eyre, a former senior U.S. diplomat who specialized in Iran and is now at the Middle East Institute. "Their whole strategic outlook is when you're in a weak position you don't compromise, because that invites further aggression."
"The supreme leader is able to do compromises, but those compromises cannot touch the basic pillars of the regime, meaning he won't forgo a missile buildup, he won't forgo helping proxies and he won't forgo enrichment," said Danny Citrinowicz, a former Israeli intelligence officer and a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
Citrinowicz said killing Khamenei or expecting the other members of the regime to turn against him under U.S. pressure is a faint hope, given Iran's unity at the top. Even if Khamenei was somehow removed, the regime would likely coalesce quickly around a new leader, he said. For all the setbacks the regime has suffered, there are few signs it is facing imminent collapse, such as splits within the leadership or defections.
"They still have cohesion. The regime is still functioning," Citrinowicz said. "If they feel this war is aimed at toppling this regime, it won't topple this regime, because to do it will take time, and Trump has no intention to invest that time."
"You could do airstrikes that significantly restrict this regime's ability to control its population and to project power abroad," Eyre said. "But to get from there to a better form of government in Iran? You can't get there from here."
From Ian:
Palestinians Offered Prosperity for Giving Up Dream of Israel's Destruction See It as Humiliating Bribery
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, President Donald Trump's former senior advisor Jared Kushner presented a vision for what Gaza would look like, under the title "Empowering Gazans with Jobs, Training, and Services." This vision is based on real estate deal logic: property improvement, value creation, and bringing prosperity.
Its foundational assumption, held also by Israel before Oct. 7, is that humans are, first and foremost, rational economic creatures. If we just provide Gazans good livelihoods, luxury hotels, a port, and factories, the motivation for terror will decrease until it disappears.
But Middle Eastern reality and Palestinian reality proves again and again that the struggle is not about quality of life. The critical mistake of the Trump-Kushner approach is the attempt to reduce a deep national, religious, and identity conflict to a cash-flow and urban-development problem.
The Palestinian national movement, and especially its extremist branches controlling Gaza, have never placed economic welfare at the top of their priorities. If they had wanted that, Gaza could have become the Singapore of the Middle East a decade ago, with the billions of dollars that flowed to it.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are driven by an ideology that sees eliminating Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel as a lofty goal, sanctifying any sacrifice including poverty and hunger of their own people. For them, the land is not real estate waiting for a developer, but waqf land that must be liberated. When offered prosperity in exchange for giving up the dream of Israel's destruction, they see it as humiliating bribery.
The thought that money will buy quiet is an optical illusion. This is a national struggle. The other side is not seeking a business partnership, but historical victory. A discourse about economic development, without first neutralizing the nationalist-religious aspiration to destroy Israel, is a recipe for repeated disaster.
Hamas Intends to Control Gaza from Behind the Scenes
According to the IDF, Hamas will accept the Palestinian technocrat committee - the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) - with the goal of controlling it from behind the scenes, as Hizbullah has done in Lebanon.
Handing over civilian functions to the NCAG makes Hamas's life easier, as they do not need to invest in civilian issues.
The IDF noted that even though the NCAG will not be formally controlled by Hamas, it will still need to rely on local administrators in the field who are under Hamas control.
This would not truly dislodge Hamas from power absent an additional round of military pressure.
Seth Mandel:
Mansour Abbas’s Dilemma and the Israeli Election
One can better understand the phrase “two Jews, three opinions” by looking at Israeli elections, where there is rarely much strength in numbers and where splitting a party can provide more Knesset seats than unifying parties together.
And like everything else in Israel, it doesn’t just apply to Jews. In 2021, the Ra’am party, led by Mansour Abbas, made history by becoming the first Arab party to establish itself as a formal member of a governing coalition. Though Ra’am had won only four seats in the election, those four seats made the difference by giving the “change government,” led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, a Knesset majority. For first time in a dozen years, Benjamin Netanyahu would not be prime minister.
This time around, Ra’am has agreed to be part of a joint Arab slate, in which the Arab parties all run together. Some polls suggest this Joint List could garner as many as 13 seats. Abbas, however, isn’t thrilled.
Wouldn’t 13 seats—theoretically—be better than four? Not exactly. A joint Arab slate means Ra’am is tying its fortunes to parties that wouldn’t sit in a government. Abbas is pragmatic, the rest of the Arab party leaders much less so. Which means those 13 seats wouldn’t be added to a coalition of Zionist parties that might replace the Likud-led government.
Abbas would rather have four seats and be part of the government than have 13 seats in opposition. Joining a coalition means winning concessions for Abbas’s Arab constituents. Remaining in opposition with more seats would make the Arab coalition louder but mostly irrelevant.
Ra’am has been working to improve its image as a pragmatic party that wants to give Arab voters a stake in the Israeli governing majority, not just its opposition. Abbas has reportedly been seeking a Jewish candidate to join its slate, and a few weeks ago Ra’am announced it was separating from the Shura Council, the religious body of the wider Islamist movement of which Ra’am is part. A technically secular Arab party, perhaps even one with a Jewish candidate, would be another major step toward the normalization of Arab politics on a national level.
But running with the other Arab parties on one giant slate essentially erases all that distinguishes Ra’am ideologically from the other parties. So why would Mansour Abbas agree to the Joint List?
From Ian:
20 Jews murdered, 815 severe antisemitic attacks took place worldwide in 2025
Twenty Jews were murdered worldwide and some 815 severe antisemitic incidents were documented in 2025, according to a report released Tuesday by the Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Ministry.
The total number of attacks was down from 2024, the ministry said without elaborating, while the number of deaths rose significantly from the one confirmed antisemitic murder in 2024, of Chabad Rabbi Zvi Kogan.
The report also recorded approximately 124 million antisemitic posts on X, formerly Twitter, and over 4,000 anti-Israel demonstrations, of which 365 were classified as posing a high or extreme risk to Jewish communities.
Antisemitic activity and rhetoric skyrocketed after Hamas launched its war against Israel on October 7, 2023. The data was presented during the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism, held in Jerusalem on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The highest numbers of incidents were recorded in the United States (273), the United Kingdom (121), Australia (45), France (44), and Canada (37), the ministry said.
The murders included 15 killed in the Hannukah terror attack at Bondi Beach in December, two killed in a Yom Kippur attack in Manchester, two Israeli embassy staff members killed outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, in May, and a woman killed at a pro-Israel vigil in Boulder, Colorado, in June.
Other noteworthy incidents included an Israeli tourist hospitalized in Greece after a pro-Palestinian attacker bit off part of his ear in July; an elderly Jewish woman stabbed in a grocery store in Canada in August; the torching of a Sydney childcare center in January; the beating and attempted kidnapping of an Israeli in Wales in March; and the torching of a Melbourne synagogue with 20 people inside in July.
Belongings of members of the Jewish community are seen at the scene of a terror shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney on December 15, 2025. (DAVID GRAY / AFP)
The data showed a clear correlation between spikes in violence and incitement and international security developments related to Israel’s war in Gaza, the report said without elaborating.
Brendan O'Neill:
Islamists have been given a veto over public life
The Met imposed severe conditions on the UKIP march. No one, they decreed, is permitted to take part in a UKIP gathering anywhere in Tower Hamlets on 31 January. Their reasoning is truly scandalous. ‘We are not saying that the UKIP protest, in isolation, will be disorderly’, they said. But ‘we reasonably believe’ that ‘groups who are hostile’ will ‘find it provocative’. That means there could be ‘an adverse local reaction’ that might include ‘violence and serious disorder’. Strip away all the euphemistic cop-speak and what is being said here is that a right-wing, pro-Jesus rally is likely to piss off Islamists and thus it is forbidden.
If this doesn’t shock you, I don’t know what to say. The dictionary definition of appeasement is ‘giving in to hostile demands’ in order to maintain some kind of peace. That’s what happened here. The Met cravenly bowed to the belligerence of local bigots. They sacrificed freedom of assembly at the altar of ideological menace.
It matters not one iota what you think of UKIP. To prevent anyone from holding a ‘Walk with Jesus’ because you fear a ‘local adverse reaction’ is to play a dangerously divisive game. What the Met should have done is police those that they suspect will commit violence (local Islamists), not punish those who, by their own admission, are unlikely to be ‘disorderly’ (UKIP). In doing the opposite, the Met have made themselves the footsoldiers of Islamism and the enemies of freedom.
Who will now deny there is an Islamist veto over much of our public life? Courtesy of the moral cowardice of our institutions, Islamists enjoy staggering power over who is allowed to assemble in public, where, for how long, and for what reasons. The Met’s capitulation to Whitechapel extremists comes hot on the heels of the Maccabi Tel Aviv scandal, when West Midlands Police banned Jews from Israel from attending a game at Villa Park because they caught wind of the fact that local elements were planning to arm themselves to attack those Jews. West Midlands Police had earlier banned Birmingham’s 2025 Diwali celebrations, again out of ‘concerns for public safety’.
Anyone who’s thinking of gloating at the fact that a UKIP assembly has been forbidden should think again. For the Islamist veto, this trump card of violent menace, has also led to a prohibition on Jews from Israel and the brute prevention of Brummie Hindus from marking the most joyous festival in their religion. No one is safe from the extra-legal powers that our spineless rulers have gifted to noisy Islamists.
Recent history makes it clear where such kowtowing can lead. For what was England’s rape-gang scandal if not a vile byproduct of the elites’ fear of rocking the ‘multicultural’ boat? That industrial-scale abuse of mostly white working-class girls by men who considered them little more than ‘slags’, as police, councils and politicians looked the other way, was a testament to the horrors that can flow from official cowardice. And how does the Labour government respond to all of this? By obsessing over a new definition of ‘Islamophobia’, which will make it even harder for decent Brits – Muslims and non-Muslims alike – to discuss the Islamist scourge.
Tearing up the Islamist veto, shoving it in the shredding machine of history, is one of the pressing tasks of our time. Everyone who values secularism, liberty and equality should balk at the elevation of Islamist feeling over everyday freedom. This is how you respond when Islamists say a UKIP march, Jewish football fans or a Diwali celebration will cause them offence: So fucking what? Get over it. Stop being a baby.
When hate becomes a business: The monetization of antisemitism
Antisemitism has always adapted to its surroundings. Today, it has adapted to the digital economy.
What once circulated through fringe pamphlets or isolated gatherings now thrives online, in an environment where outrage is rewarded, provocation is amplified and attention can be monetized. Antisemitism is no longer just spreading. In many cases, it is being incentivized.
In the modern attention economy, clicks equal currency. Algorithms are designed to reward engagement, not accuracy or morality. Content that shocks or enrages travels farther and faster, and antisemitic material, unfortunately, performs well in that system. The result is not only broader exposure to hate, but a set of financial incentives that sustain and accelerate it.
We saw this dynamic recently in Miami Beach, where videos circulated online of influencers singing Nazi slogans and performing salutes, first in a limousine and later inside a nightclub. They laughed, played to the cameras, fully aware they were being recorded and without a hint of shame.
The episode spread widely because it was inflammatory. In today’s digital ecosystem, outrage fuels visibility. Visibility drives traffic. Traffic brings revenue. Antisemitism becomes content and content becomes cash.
Extremist figures understand this well. For some, antisemitism is strategic. Provocation drives attention. Attention drives donations, subscriptions, merchandise sales and influence. In these cases, hate is not just ideology. It is a business model.
What once existed on the fringes now operates openly on mainstream platforms, supported by systems that reward engagement without evaluating consequences.
When hate becomes profitable, behavior changes.
Repetition normalizes rhetoric that once would have triggered immediate alarm. Over time, the presence of money dulls moral resistance. If content is rewarded, it can begin to feel acceptable, or at least tolerable.
This is where the danger lies, not only for Jewish communities but for society more broadly. Antisemitism has become embedded in a digital economy that prioritizes virality over responsibility and profit over principle.
From Ian:
JPost Editorial:
Now that all hostages are home, Israel must open inquiry into October 7 massacre
A profound chapter in Israel’s national trauma reached a painful conclusion on Monday: the remains of St.-Sgt. Ran Gvili, the last Israeli held in Gaza after the October 7, 2023 attack, were returned to Israeli soil. After 843 days, the state can say that there are no more Israelis in captivity.
Gvili’s story comprises both courage and heartbreak. A 24-year-old police officer who put on his uniform on that horrific morning while on medical leave, he joined the defense of Kibbutz Alumim and was killed while fighting to protect others. That he ran toward danger and became the last to come home should echo throughout Israeli society.
Gvili’s return is rightly mourned and honored. Families gathered in Hostages Square. The symbolic clock counting the days since October 7 has been turned off. Yet closure brings its own burden: a country that has endured this scale of loss still needs to fathom how and why Israel was so catastrophically unprepared.
Government and military leaders also framed Gvili’s return as a statement of national duty. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he told the family, “We will bring Ran home,” and added, “We will bring them all home.”
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir said, “We kept our promise to leave no one behind,” calling it a moment the country “is excited about,” because Ran returned “to be buried in Israel.”
Across the political spectrum, voices have called for a state commission of inquiry into the gross failures of October 7. Many of those calls reflect anguish more than politics. Families who lost loved ones, freed hostages, reservists, and civilians want answers about intelligence failures, operational decisions, strategic assumptions, and the broader policy environment that left communities exposed.
At the same time, concerns raised by opponents of a sweeping inquiry deserve a fair hearing. Israel remains in a volatile security environment, and public hearings can affect operational freedom, intelligence sources, and national cohesion. Some also fear that an inquiry will turn into a political battlefield and deepen internal chasms and rifts at a time when unity still carries strategic value.
No retreat: Now that all hostages are back, Israel must finish off Hamas
Why it's time to finish off Hamas
In this war, two critical dimensions are unfolding simultaneously: the present and the future.
The insistence on returning all the hostages held in Gaza embodied the battle over the present – our moral, ethical, and existential duty to save lives here and now. Every moment in which our soldiers and civilians were held captive was an open wound in the heart of the nation, and every effort to bring them home expressed our commitment to the value of life.
At the same time, the insistence from here onward on the decisive defeat of Hamas embodies the battle over the future. A society that cannot defeat its enemies, uproot the threat of terror, and ensure secure borders for generations to come will remain trapped in an endless cycle of bloodshed and uncertainty. The dismantling and disarmament of Hamas is not only a military objective – it is a vision for a future of stability, security, and prosperity in the State of Israel.
The beginning of Phase II is an integral part of the war, and the determination to dismantle Hamas is not only part of the struggle for life, but also – and no less importantly – for the quality of life. Part of this war for life is the moral foundation that obligates us to do everything possible not to leave hostages behind.
The completion of the phase of returning the hostages from Gaza must serve as a lesson – not the first, but one that must be the last – that it is both a security and moral obligation to decisively defeat Hamas. As long as it exists, the threat of rockets, tunnels, and kidnappings will continue to haunt us, and any dream of civilian stability will remain fragile. The defeat of the October 7 perpetrators is therefore a necessary condition not only for survival in the present, but above all to ensure that no Israeli civilian or IDF soldier will again be abducted and held as an asset by Hamas in the future.
The prolonged war in Gaza and along Israel’s other borders – and especially the kidnapping of civilians and soldiers – has tested and continues to test Israeli society. It challenges us to understand that war demands painful prices and enormous economic resources. These reflect our choice to invest in building the tools necessary for our defense, rather than in monuments to our memory.
Andrew Fox:
Why cutting military ties with Israel would cost British soldiers’ lives
Four retired senior British Army officers have reportedly urged the prime minister to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel and to “cut all military collaboration with Israel forthwith”, including links with Israeli defence firms.
In the same political climate, the UK has also taken steps to prevent Israeli students from attending one of Britain’s flagship defence courses. You may agree or disagree with any Israeli policy, and you can hold Israel to any standard you believe is appropriate. However, a blanket attempt to sever military-to-military contact with the Israel Defence Forces is not a serious way to protect British troops. It is, in fact, a notable way to ensure that British soldiers die needlessly in the next war Britain cannot escape.
Here is the uncomfortable truth: when it comes to saving young men and women after they have been torn apart by blast and shrapnel, Israel has been learning, adapting and delivering at a pace and scale that the British Army simply has not had to sustain in recent years.
The IDF’s own combat medicine data from recent conflicts shows a steady decline in the “case fatality rate” (the proportion of casualties who die) across major operations, even as injuries have become more severe. That is what a learning medical system looks like when tested under fire.
Consider the first lesson: blood, not “drips”, saves lives. For decades, armies (and civilian ambulances) often reached for clear IV fluids first. Doctors call these fluids “crystalloids” – essentially sterile saltwater solutions used to increase circulating volume.
They are not useless, but they have a fatal limitation: they do not carry oxygen, and they do not contain the clotting components that stop catastrophic bleeding. In mass trauma, too much crystalloid can dilute the body’s ability to clot, cool the casualty, and worsen shock.
The IDF’s data indicates a significant doctrinal shift away from crystalloids and towards blood-based resuscitation. During the Second Lebanon War, 92.7 per cent of casualties receiving resuscitation fluids were treated with crystalloids. In Protective Edge (2014), that figure was still 83.3 per cent. In the current war (Iron Swords), only 29.8 per cent were treated with crystalloids, reflecting a clear move towards resuscitation centred around blood products, especially whole blood.
“Whole blood” matters because it is what the body actually loses: oxygen-carrying red cells, plasma proteins, and platelets that form clots. The challenge is not the concept; it is creating a system capable of delivering whole blood safely, repeatedly, and at scale. Israel has achieved this.
From Ian:
Ceremonies held worldwide to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Candles flickered at dawn Tuesday at the vast Holocaust memorial in Berlin as people across Europe and beyond paused to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, reflecting on Nazi Germany’s murder of millions of people and its attempt to completely wipe out Jewish life on the continent.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed across the world on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation by Soviet forces of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of the Nazi German death camps. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2005 establishing the day as an annual commemoration.
At the memorial site of Auschwitz, in an area that was under German occupation during World War II, former prisoners laid flowers and wreaths at the Execution Wall, where German forces murdered thousands of people, most of them Poles. Later in the day Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki will join survivors for a remembrance ceremony at Birkenau, the vast site nearby where Jews were transported from across Europe to be exterminated in gas chambers.
Nazi German forces murdered some 1.1 million people at Auschwitz, most of them Jews, but also Poles, Roma and others.
Commemorations on the anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation by the Red Army on January 27, 1945, were also taking place across Europe on Tuesday, as well as at the United Nations.
Germany, the nation that inflicted war and genocide on its neighbors, is holding a commemoration in the Bundestag, the parliament, on Wednesday.
Candles burned and white roses were placed at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a field of 2,700 gray concrete slabs near the Brandenburg Gate in the heart of Berlin, which honors the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust. The vast site in the heart of the capital underlines Germany’s remorse.
Herzog: Denying Jewish self-determination is antisemitism
Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Tuesday marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day by warning that antisemitism is once again spreading worldwide, and equated the denial of Jewish self-determination with hatred of Jews.
Speaking at the Second International Conference on Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem, Herzog said, “To deny the Jewish people—and only the Jewish people—the right to self-determination in their national home is antisemitism, even if you are the mayor of the city with the most Jews outside of Israel,” the latter being a reference to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Herzog linked his remarks to the return on Monday of the body of Israel Border Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili from Gaza, calling it “a significant turning point.” He said, “For the first time since 2014, not a single Israeli citizen, living or dead, is being held as a human bargaining chip in Gaza.”
Reflecting on the 81st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Herzog said the world is “failing to meet our vow” of “Never Again” as Jewish communities face rising hostility in cities around the world, from London to Sydney.
The conference was hosted by the Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Ministry, led by Minister Amichai Chikli, and attended by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and other international figures.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted the first day of the event on Monday, warning that antisemitism has reemerged as a global threat, and urging governments to confront it as an assault on “our common civilization.”
US envoy warns Jew-hatred ‘rages anew’ during UN Holocaust remembrance
Mike Waltz, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, warned that the global body, created in the aftermath of the Holocaust, “must do far more now to confront this ancient poison” of antisemitism “to fulfill its founding promise and to protect every people, including the Jewish people.”
Waltz spoke at the U.N.’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day observance on Tuesday, recalling the atrocities American soldiers discovered and documented while liberating Nazi concentration camps in World War II.
The vow of “Never Again” must be put into action, the U.S. envoy said.
Waltz added that antisemitism “rages anew,” citing sharply rising levels of Jew-hatred in the United States and around the world.
“This wave of hate has left synagogues under siege. Jewish students, once again, hiding their identity. Whole communities living in fear,” he said. “I mean, what, are we back in 1933? This is absurd, and we have to call it out.”
While commending the United Nations for holding the ceremony, Waltz decried the growing reality of “Holocaust denial, its distortion, its rehabilitation in these historic narratives of Nazi collaborators, its the manipulation of history right here at the U.N. and elsewhere.” He linked that phenomenon to recent acts of violence, including the Bondi Beach Chanukah massacre in Sydney on Dec. 14 and the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Elie Wiesel once hoped that antisemitism perished in Auschwitz, and sadly, he lived to see its horrific resurrection,” Waltz said. “We cannot wait for another liberation.”
Waltz emphasized the importance of education and commemoration as critical tools in combating antisemitism, calling for greater efforts to elevate the voices of Holocaust survivors.
“You did not become a lifelong victim. You move forward and educate the next generation so that this can never happen again,” he said, addressing survivors in attendance.
From Ian:
Seth Mandel:
The Hostage Crisis Is Over. So What Has the World Learned?
Much like Hamas’s strategy of operating from civilian homes, hostage-taking is part of what Palestinian terrorists see as Israel’s chief vulnerability: that it cares about the life and dignity of every individual. In other words, the conflict we see today is, zoomed out, a Palestinian war to exploit Israel’s humanity. Why anyone thinks a conflict that is set along these lines can or will be solved by turning artificial borders into official ones is beyond me. No one who kidnaps babies is interested in real estate.
And second: what Avera Mengistu’s story revealed. Apparently grief-stricken over the loss of his brother, and undergoing periodic mental-health treatment, the 28-year-old climbed over a border fence and into Gaza in 2014. He was returned in 2025.
Who holds a grief-stricken, mentally ill person hostage for a decade? Hamas does.
Nor is the danger of such aimless walking limited to Gaza. Here’s a headline from late December: “IDF escorts Israeli woman out of Palestinian West Bank town she entered.” There really wasn’t much more to the story. A military statement read: “After IDF troops scanned the area, the forces located the civilian and extracted her safely out of the village.”
When did headlines about Israelis having to be extracted from Palestinian neighborhoods become so dog-bites-man?
Here’s one from a week earlier: “Mentally ill Israeli extracted safely from Hebron overnight after wandering for hours.” Jews are only permitted in about 20 percent of Hebron. If one enters the other 80 percent, it makes headlines no matter what happens to them.
This one’s from less than two weeks ago: “Israeli and PA forces extract Jewish man seen wandering in West Bank city of Qalqilya.” Sounds dangerous; what happened? “An initial investigation has found that the man entered the city to go to a car repair shop.”
Another from late December: “Troops extract 2 Israelis who entered West Bank’s Area A near Hebron, Nablus.”
The case of Avera Mengistu highlights the fact that still, after all these decades of “peace” negotiations, the Judenrein nature of Palestinian Arab towns is simply accepted to the point where nearly every headline about an Israeli leaving such a town alive contains a version of the word “extraction.”
The October 7 hostage crisis is over. But has the world learned any of the lessons that have been on display since it began?
Jonathan Sacerdoti:
How Israel did the impossible – and brought the hostages home
To outside observers, these goals sound impossible. But bringing back all the hostages was dismissed as impossible, too. Israel did it. These promises may sound arbitrary, idealistic, even performative, but to Israel, nothing is too dramatic. It is a country whose history has read like a thriller from its earliest days, whose survival has defied odds at every turn. A people whose annihilation has been attempted repeatedly by armies larger, better armed, and more numerous, often backed by far broader coalitions.
It is tempting to reach for biblical or spiritual explanations. Perhaps they have their place. Not everyone’s taste runs in that direction. What can be said, without mysticism, is that human beings united by purpose, driven by pain and fury, and threatened by brutality can achieve things that appear impossible from a distance.
Anyone in doubt can look at a map and trace a finger to that narrow sliver of land so many have sought to erase. It is still there. It does not get everything right. It argues, stumbles, fractures. Yet it persists, and it fights to defend its existence. Yesterday, it delivered on one impossible promise. The second now waits.
This is where the American role becomes decisive, and often misunderstood. The US initiative on Gaza should not be read as a naïve development plan or a humanitarian fantasy. Its headline promises of employment, reconstruction and futuristic redevelopment are not about realism. They are about framing.
Washington has placed a maximal, almost utopian offer on the table precisely because it expects it to fail. The point is to force a binary choice. Either Gaza, and Palestinians more generally, move decisively away from armed jihadist governance, towards demilitarisation and external oversight, or they absorb the consequences of continued war and isolation. The message is blunt: everything is being offered. Rejection transfers responsibility.
This strategy buys time. Even a temporary pause delays large-scale fighting, reduces Israeli casualties, and allows further consolidation of the diplomatic case against Hamas. It exposes bad faith. It drains sympathy. It reframes the conflict as one of Palestinian political choice rather than Israeli obstruction. Or so the US may hope.
Governance proposals emerging from Washington reflect this pragmatism. There is no search for a morally pure Palestinian leadership. Any figure with local standing will carry factional history. The aim is a technocratic authority operationally reliant on external backing, financially constrained, and removable if it drifts towards Hamas. Disarmament is the price of reconstruction. According to the agreements signed at least, there is no flexibility on that point. Israel will wish to hold the US to that promise.
Demilitarisation remains the true red line. If Hamas refuses, the strategy should shift. Opening the border with Egypt functions as a pressure valve: population movement reduces Hamas’s ability to embed itself behind civilians. Israel gains greater freedom of action, with fewer civilian entanglements and clearer international justification.
More broadly, Gaza itself is not the central strategic theatre. Iran remains the core concern, with Turkey hovering uneasily on the edge of hostility and opportunism. The American military posture signals as much to Tehran as to Gaza. That many European states have chosen to stand on the sidelines and scoff at President Trump’s plans, even as atrocities unfold elsewhere in the region, only underscores how marginal they have become.
What is clear is this: Israel has delivered on one impossible promise. The second is now being tested, under harsher conditions, with fewer illusions. Whether demilitarisation can be achieved will determine not only Gaza’s future, but the credibility of every promise made since October.
History offers no guarantees. It rarely does. But it does record moments when nations, bound by pain, pressure, and purpose, achieved what seemed implausible. Israel has reached such a moment again. What follows will not be symbolic. It will be decisive.
From Ian:
Seth Mandel:
The Plot Against the Holocaust
Why? Because you cannot have both the “Israeli genocide” and the “Nazi genocide”; they are incompatible and can’t coexist within a single category. So it appears enlightened Westerners are choosing the former and dispensing with the latter.
Accusing Israel of genocide is not merely an attempt to isolate the Jewish state diplomatically; it is part of an effort to erase the Holocaust from history.
Educators who want to continue marking the Holocaust are facing increasingly vicious resistance. Olivia Marks-Woldman, CEO of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, told the Telegraph that some teachers say they feel unprepared for what to do if (increasingly, when) attendees try to make the lesson about Israel’s supposed crimes. “But then there are people with their own agenda who want to use HMD to attack the memory of the Holocaust,” Marks-Woldman said. “We have had people write to us saying they will only commemorate HMD on certain conditions, for example, if we put out a letter condemning Netanyahu.”
Marks-Woldman told the Telegraph that Holocaust education “should not be conditional on anything.” Which is exactly right, of course. Unfortunately, in some sick sense, anti-Zionists agree: They are essentially pushing to retain Holocaust education as long as it is made entirely about Jewish crimes. When someone says “Holocaust,” these sociopaths want people to think Gaza.
It would be naïve to think this isn’t already progressing here in the U.S. as well. First, because it’s the exact same movement running with the exact same propaganda. Second, because according to some reports, it’s already happening.
The Jewish Journal reports that at UC-Irvine, the student government prepared a resolution for Holocaust Memorial Day. Jewish groups joined the others in backing the resolution, which originally said: “the world continues to witness a troubling rise in antisemitism, Holocaust denial, hate speech, and violence, both globally and within local communities, which reinforces the urgent need for education, historical understanding, and active resistance to all forms of discrimination.”
The student government apparently removed the Jewish sponsors and the particularist Jewish details, essentially confiscating the Holocaust from its victims. “What was originally a thoughtfully crafted Holocaust remembrance statement was fundamentally altered by ASUCI senators questioning established history, erasing Jewish authorship, and ignoring Jewish student voices,” one UC junior told the Journal.
Unless this trend is reversed, Holocaust Remembrance Day may soon have nothing to do with the actual Holocaust at all.
Jonathan Tobin:
Don’t mourn the Holocaust while supporting the genocide of living Jews
The cost of universalizing
The universalization of the Holocaust and the way students are taught a slimmed-down summary of this chapter of history—in brief lessons crammed into the school year—has had unforeseen consequences. It has led to something that survivors, whose numbers are fewer and fewer every year, never envisioned when they began the campaign to spread knowledge of their experiences.
The Holocaust has become a metaphor for anything that people dislike. The predilection to treat anyone with whom we strongly disagree as if they were Hitler is not just a product of the hyperpartisan tone of 21st-century politics or the extreme polarization of the Donald Trump era. It is also the result of the way it has been universalized to the point where many, if not most, ordinary people think it was just a bad thing that happened a long time ago—not the specific result of millennia of Jew-hatred and the powerlessness of nearly an entire people.
Equally unfortunate is the way much of the educational establishment has embraced toxic leftist ideas like critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism. So-called “progressive” teachings have largely captured primary, secondary and higher education to the point where a generation of Americans has been indoctrinated into believing not merely in concepts that exacerbate racial divisions, but ones that promote the idea that Jews and Israelis are “white” oppressors.
This movement produced the pro-Hamas campus mobs that have targeted Jewish students for intimidation, discrimination and violence since Oct. 7 at universities around the world. Participants are shockingly ignorant of the history of the Middle East, even as they chant slogans endorsing Jewish genocide (“From the river to the sea”) and terrorism against Jews everywhere (“Globalize the intifada”). What they have also done is to appropriate the word genocide, which Holocaust survivor and lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined to describe the Nazi effort to exterminate the Jewish people.
Their claim that Israel’s just war of self-defense against Hamas terrorists is “genocide” is a blatant lie. If applied to any other conflict, it would mean that every war that has ever been fought, including the one waged by the Allies against the Nazis, would be considered genocide. That not only drains the word of its actual meaning. It is, like the libelous efforts to smear Jews as Nazis, a classic trope of antisemitism.
Yet many on the political left, which has embraced this lie about Israel, are also prepared to join in mourning the Holocaust. Some, including that small minority of Jews who, for distorted reasons of their own, join in these antisemitic denunciations of Israelis and their supporters, even claim that they are inspired by the history of the Shoah to speak out against Israel now. Some even support efforts to eradicate the Jewish state—a result that could only be accomplished by the sort of genocidal war that Hamas and its allies are waging.
Our answer to them and others who are either silent about the misappropriation of the Holocaust or join in the blood libels against living Jews while lamenting the fate of dead Jews must be unequivocal.
Prioritize the defense of living Jews
We must tell those, like Walz, who misappropriate the memory of the Six Million, or utter such falsehoods about genocide, like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and others on the intersectional left wing of the Democratic Party, that Holocaust commemorations should be off-limits to them.
The same applies to global organizations like the United Nations, which in 2005 voted to establish International Holocaust Remembrance Day on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 1945. These agencies that claim to speak for human rights and justice for all countries in the world have become cesspools of antisemitism and engines of the war against the Jewish state.
For too long, too many members of the Jewish community have treated the promotion of Holocaust education or ceremonies honoring the dead as more important than efforts to defend the living.
It’s also true that, as important as teaching young Jews about the Shoah is, it must be linked to learning about the importance of Israel, as well as the life-affirming nature of their heritage and faith.
Above all, we must stop allowing the memory of what happened 80 years ago on Europe’s soil to be used by those who support or are neutral about those seeking to carry on the Nazi project of Jewish genocide. The failure to call an end to this misuse of Jewish history will only contribute to more tragedy.
‘I understand antisemitism because I was born in Russia’
Today Tabarovksy is the world’s leading expert in Soviet anti-Zionism but for a considerable time, in America, where Jews did not expect antisemitism to come from the left, her ideas were not taken as seriously as they should have been.
“I did acquire a following for the endless articles I was pumping out, but many people didn’t really understand how things I was warning about were relevant to them.
“I felt like a Cassandra,” she says, referring to the Greek figure whose prophesies were not believed.
“But the truth is that the antisemitism that has exploded across the world since October 7 is exactly as I predicted. I warned that any time a society is taken over by anti-Zionist ideology, you can be sure that antisemitic outcomes will follow.
“Jews who grew up in the USSR could now tell you this. Once the institutions become anti-Zionist, all Jews become suspect. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Zionist or not. They don’t even understand what Zionists are. When they speak about Zionists they mean Jews.
“We have an exceptionally well-documented history of Soviet Jews being discriminated against under an anti-Zionist regime and that is exactly what is happening to American Jews now. It’s crashing all around them, and it’s devastating to see.”
From Ian:
NYPost Editorial:
What the final Israeli hostage’s return really means
Israel soon responded in a campaign to rescue the captives and ensure Hamas could never do this again, ideally by wiping out the barbarians, root and branch.
Every sane nation should’ve cheered that mission — yet many instead compounded the pain, turning on Israel as antisemitism surged around the globe.
Yet ending Hamas’ existence should still be the guiding principle as Trump and his Board of Peace work to secure a true, long-term end to hostilities in Gaza, and maybe beyond.
At the least, the terrorists must lose their arms and any political or administrative power.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump agreed to give Hamas until March to lay down its weapons, with the prez threatening “hell to pay” if it didn’t.
Yet several of its leaders have vowed never to disarm, and the group has been jockeying for some continued political role in Gaza.
What do you think? Post a comment.
Gvili’s return ends a chapter, but clearly the full story of the Oct. 7 massacre won’t truly be over until, as Bibi has put it, Gaza can never again threaten Israel.
Pray that day comes soon.
David Horovitz:
With Ran Gvili’s return, Israel’s leadership fulfills sacred obligation to the nation it failed on Oct. 7
Formally, the recovery of Gvili’s body completes the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s broader peace plan for Gaza, and ushers in the next phases, under which Hamas is supposed to relinquish its weapons, the Strip is to be demilitarized, the IDF is to gradually withdraw, and a new, non-threatening Gaza is to be eventually constructed.
Most imminently, Ali Shaath, the former Palestinian Authority deputy minister appointed to head the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, announced on Thursday that the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt would open within days in both directions. And Netanyahu, who is deeply wary that any such concession will be abused by the still potent Hamas, reluctantly went along, to the fury of his far-right coalition partners. His office on Sunday night conditioned reopening the crossing on the completion of the search for Gvili’s body — a condition now successfully met.
Hamas, it should not require stressing, has not wavered from its goal of eliminating Israel. Rather, it evidently concluded that releasing, first, all 20 remaining living hostages and now, finally, the last of the 28 deceased hostages, has paved the best path to avoiding ongoing, potentially intensified US-backed Israeli military pressure. Still controlling almost half of Gaza, it believes it is creating conditions under which it will be able to fudge the issue of what exactly becomes of its arms, rebuild its personnel and resources, continue to benefit from the support of a world full of Israel-haters and fools, await more conducive US leadership, and resume its “resistance” to the Jewish state.
Israel had two clear goals for a war it had no choice but to fight against Gaza’s terrorist government in the terrible aftermath of October 7: destroy Hamas, and get all the hostages back.
The first goal is not completed; the war in its current form is over, but Hamas is not destroyed.
But the second, mercifully, has now been accomplished. Israel’s political and military leadership has cleared a critical hurdle in rebuilding its relationship with the citizenry it so catastrophically failed to protect 843 days ago. The hostages have been returned. To the very last one.
From Ian:
Simon Sebag Montefiore:
How the Shoah’s moral power is weaponised against Jews – and why Western leaders must fight it
This is the text of a speech delivered at the Holocaust Education Trust, warning that the distortion and inversion of the Holocaust is enabling a resurgence of antisemitism, with grave consequences for democratic societies
Much of the damage has already been done by Holocaust inversion to the vocabulary and architecture of international human rights and law – often by the very supranational organisations and "humanitarian” NGOs themselves. How now will we describe the murder of Herero people, the Armenians in the First World War, the Holocaust itself, the Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur genocides? But of course this is not truly about them; it is about the sins of the West itself and the damage to the West is part of the aim of this ideology.
The events of this week in Iran reveal that damage so clearly: only on Thursday did the UN Security Council hold a session at which the dissident Masih Alinejad – whom the Iranian dictator thrice tried to assassinate – reprimanded the disgraceful Secretary-General Guteres: “The United Nations has failed to respond. The Secretary-General himself has not spoken publicly against the massacre unfolding in Iran. Silence at this moment sends a signal. Sends a message to the killers of young protesters. I strongly believe that the regime in Iran heard the clear message from the Secretary-General. I think the members of this body have forgotten the privilege and responsibility of sitting in this room. Secretary-General, why are you afraid of the Islamic Republic? Millions of innocent and unarmed protesters have been silenced with bullets, mass arrest, prison and a total communications blackout!” Later she demanded to know: “Where is the left now? Where are the “pro-Palestinian” and “anti-war” activists when the Islamic Republic is killing innocent Iranians?” The respected Iranian Yale lecturer Arash Azizi – himself a proud Marxist – reflects “you would have thought leftists would understand the killing of Iranians on the streets fighting against a brutal capitalist regime. But unfortunately they don’t. The Western leftist movements hate the West. They hate their own societies.”
The Iranians have exposed the real nature of this movement and its real cynicism and wicked humbug.
Eighty years after the Holocaust, all of this makes the mission of Holocaust education personified by our host Holocaust Education Trust and its admirable chief Karen Pollock urgent, and the requirement to get the teaching right, essential. As our trajectory since 1945 lengthens to today, it is clear now the Holocaust was not the apocalyptic end of anti-Jewishness that we thought but just a colossal spasm in the middle of a continuum which spans the Crusades, the blood libels, Khmelnitsky massacre, the pogroms, the Russian Civil War (we often forget 200,000 Jews were murdered during these two years), the Shoah itself and then today October 7, the Yom Kippur murders in Manchester, the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia – and whatever horrors come next.
The necessity for politicians to speak more clearly is especially important. The use of anti-racist jargon is obligatory and it remains essential but instead of becoming a shield against anti-Jewish racism and hate, it has become a protection, a Get Out of Jail Card for racists and ideologues themselves. It is admirable that our leaders here in Britain stand against antisemitism and racism and seek to protect Jewish community life that is already overshadowed by threat and security measures. It is admirable our security services daily defeat diabolic murderous plots.
But the key is not to allow the adoption of this jargon by malignant actors mask poisonous ideology and excuse intolerant bullying and dangerous hate, not to allow it to work against its underlying values and intentions. Since the words have become with time and overuse and universal declamation, devalued, leaders need to say what antisemitism, what racism they are standing against and part of that is the rejection of egregious and harmful Holocaust inversion.
Be braver in promoting what the words really mean and what their spirit is against. Be braver in retaking the institutions that have been captured by ideologues who are enforcing malign ideas and intolerant conformity. Get back to teaching what the Holocaust was – and what it wasn’t. As the hatred shapeshifts our leaders must shapeshift with it.
Lastly one vital thing: an important part of education is to celebrate Judaism. Jewish history must not only be a chronicle of massacres and struggles. Jewish history is also joyful and remarkable and fascinating in all its richness that embraces Judea, Babylon, Egypt in ancient times to the vibrant communities of Andalusia, Constantinople, Morocco, Baghdad, Jerusalem and Alexandria and the amazing world of European Jewishness, the worlds of Ladino and Yiddish and now those of America and Israel and Europe. There is much to celebrate: Jewish art, culture, humour, films, poetry.
The Holocaust started with words that made it possible to dehumanise people thanks to their religion, race or identity then it moved to witch hunts, laws, boycotts, deportations and finally killing.
The words, the history, the education of the Holocaust are more than ever the mark of a civilised society.
Josh Hammer:
Case against Israel cheapens the word 'genocide'
In reality, South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel is riddled with flaws. It is also pushing to redefine a term that been held sacrosanct since the end of World War II.
The term "genocide" was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Holocaust survivor who in 1944 strived for its incorporation into modern international law. That occurred in 1948 via the UN Genocide Convention.
The prohibition on genocide is considered a jus cogens norm — that is, a non-derogable rule accepted by all of the first-world community with no exceptions. The definition of "genocide" requires no law degree to understand, and it should never, ever be politicized.
For a genocide to take place under Geneva, there must be acts committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group." The phrase "intent" here is of paramount importance.
South Africa’s pending case before the ICJ alleges Israeli intent to destroy the Palestinian-Arab population of Gaza. Israel, by contrast, (correctly) maintains that its recent actions in Gaza have been a just and proper military response to the war of annihilationist jihad and unspeakable atrocities launched against it by the Hamas terrorist organization on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel’s "intent" is to free Gaza from Hamas, to return hostages abducted and held by Hamas, and to ensure Hamas has no future role in Gaza and cannot undertake another October 7-style massacre. It repeatedly offered to end the war if Hamas laid down its arms and released all hostages.
Hamas, on the other hand, has shown a complete disregard for human life and has openly stated that its sacrifice of Gazan civilians is a cynical strategic necessity to turn public opinion against Israel. It has for years embedded military infrastructure within Gazan civilian infrastructure — schools, hospitals, UN facilities, mosques, and children’s bedrooms. Israel has waged a defensive campaign in one of the most complex operational environments of any modern war.
Will the Mossad have to operate in the West again?
So, the question is no longer theoretical: If Western states cannot – or will not – protect their Jewish citizens, who will?
The Mossad was born not simply to operate where security collapses or states abdicate their duties but also to carry the sovereign obligation of safeguarding the minority it has sworn to protect – a minority that history has taught cannot outsource its survival.
The West can still confront antisemitism as the civilizational disease it has always been, or continue sacrificing Jews on the altar of moral cowardice. But history is unforgiving to those who mistake appeasement for virtue.
If Western states cannot, or will not, protect their Jewish citizens, who will?
With forces and groups in the West that do not hide their intentions – and states that even share their belligerence against Jews – if the Mossad ever has to operate again in the West, it will be because Europe has abandoned the Jews – once again.
From Ian:
Qanta Ahmed:
The West’s silence on Iran is the latest warning of Islamists’ growing power
The fact that the Iranian regime calls itself Islamic is awkward for Western progressives, especially if they are unable (or unwilling) to distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Never mind that the main victims of Tehran’s terror are vulnerable Muslims. The fear of Islamophobia instils a silence that only serves to protect the Ayatollah and his dictatorship.
Western progressives are similarly compromised by critical race theory – indoctrination integral to woke ideology. Palestinian victimhood is lionised above all other struggles, partly because their so-called “oppressors” (Israelis) are erroneously deemed to be white. Thus, Islamist anti-Semitism merges seamlessly with virulent far-Left anti-Semitism under the banner of “anti-Zionist anti-racism”. When Islamists murder Muslims in Iran, Iranians are not accorded such “prestige” victimhood.
There is also the small matter of money. There is a growing body of evidence that many pro-Palestinian protests were not spontaneous outpourings of support for the cause, but systematically organised and richly financed.
Research from data analysts at the Network Contagion Research Institute, affiliated to Rutgers University, found evidence of Chinese links to certain groups, and concluded: “While nominally focused on Israel, the current protests [organised by these groups] can be better understood as a well-funded initiative driving a revolutionary, anti-government, and anti-capitalist agenda, with the leading organisations serving as versatile tools for foreign entities hostile to the US”.
With Iran, the money in the West appears to be on the regime’s side. Extraordinary investigative research by journalist Asra Nomani for the Pearl Project has identified a network of allegedly pro-Iranian groups, encompassing “socialist revolutionaries, Islamist activists, foreign-influenced nonprofits and even political operatives from Democratic groups”, what she has dubbed the “woke army”.
Nomani also describes this as the Red-Green alliance – a merging of socialism, even communism, with Islamism, seeking to pull apart the fabric of American society. She testified to the US Senate judiciary committee on March 5 2025, urging these organisations to be registered as foreign agents because many of them promote the propaganda of foreign regimes. I can’t be alone in thinking that any protest in the US in support of the Ayatollah should automatically be considered suspect.
As the US president continues to weigh the most significant foreign policy decision in a decade, Iranians are forced to endure a double tragedy. The first is that their country, once a shining example of civilisation in the Islamic world, continues to struggle under the yoke of Islamist tyrants bent on exporting their twisted ideology everywhere. The second is that the very people in the West who claim to care most about the oppressed of the world have nothing to say about the brave people of Iran.
We should all hope that the Iranian regime can be brought to its knees. But even then, we will still be left with the hypocrisy and corruption of our own societies.
Alan Baker:
Human-rights inversion: Are Israelis not entitled to the same protections?
International human rights discourse has become deeply distorted by disproportionately targeting Israel while ignoring or minimizing severe human rights abuses occurring elsewhere in the world.
Political bias, media narratives, international institutions and activist movements selectively apply charged terms such as genocide, apartheid, starvation and disproportionate force exclusively to Israel.
This approach denies Israelis the same human rights protections afforded to others and transforms universal humanitarian principles into politicized tools.
Accusations leveled against Israel are legally flawed, historically misapplied and dismissive of Israel’s security concerns, democratic character and efforts under international humanitarian law, while overlooking terrorism, hostage-taking and the use of civilians as human shields by armed groups.
The Western ideological and indoctrination machinery appears to be working overtime. Daily, we are witnessing a mass-phenomenon of deliberately one-sided accusations being leveled solely against Israel, alleging human rights violations against Palestinians.
Openly slanted social media platforms, once-reputable international media outlets, politically biased United Nations bodies and human rights committees, politically pressured and influenced national and international leaders and parliamentarians, fomented university students and academic staff, and clearly ignorant show-biz celebrities, all unthinkingly accuse Israel of such crimes as genocide, apartheid, discrimination, cruelty and disproportionate military actions.
Curiously, all these “paragons of international virtue” appear to be selectively blind as to the human rights of everyone in the world except Palestinians. They ignore:
The plight of millions of Iranian citizens being arbitrarily subjected, in real time, to daily brutal subjugation and the wholesale murder of thousands of them.
The systematic butchering of tens of thousands of civilians from non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur and El Fasher in Sudan in 2025.
The extremely high 2025 civilian death toll and injuries in the Ukraine-Russia war.
Systematic violence and state repression in Myanmar against the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities.
Mass atrocities in Nigeria in attacks by the Boko Haram and other extremist groups.
Massacres of Christians in churches and hospitals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The intentional civilian targeting and extra-judicial killings in Tanzania by security forces during election-related unrest.
This hypocrisy and double standards by those claiming to protect universal human rights is glaring. They audaciously and undisguisedly ignore, and even deny, Israel’s human rights and protections and those of its citizens, those same rights that they so insistently and emotionally claim for Palestinians.
Andrew Fox:
America has thrown the Kurds to the Syrian wolves
The Kurds are familiar with this pattern. They have been betrayed by the West many times before. First, by allowing Turkey to breach the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which created Kurdistan, then by looking the other way when Saddam Hussein carried out the ethnic cleansing of Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s. Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah once warned them not to ‘bet on the Americans’ because Washington would ‘sell you out’ when it suited. He was right.
Turkey, meanwhile, is the obvious winner. Sharaa has emerged as a close ally of Ankara, whose overriding goal has always been to crush Kurdish autonomy on its border.
America’s indifference to the fate of Syria’s Kurds is not just a betrayal – it is also a profound strategic mistake. The threat of ISIS has not vanished. If anything, with jihadists firmly in control in Damascus, it has increased.
As Kurdish control and ability to guard the ISIS prisoner camps collapses, the US military has begun transferring ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq, starting with 150 men and with warnings that up to 7,000 could be moved. There are already problems. Sources report that approximately 1,500 Islamic State detainees escaped from Shaddadi prison – abandoned by Kurdish forces in the teeth of the Syrian army. US officials have provided much lower estimates of around 200, with many reportedly recaptured. The precise number is less important than the fact that no one can guarantee this will not happen again on a larger scale.
Then there is al-Hol, which Syrian government forces also took control of this week. It holds around 40,000 people of various nationalities, mostly relatives and suspected affiliates of ISIS fighters, in conditions long described as a breeding ground for extremism.
All of this is unfolding under a Syrian president whose past should worry the West. Sharaa is a former jihadist commander who once led al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the al-Nusra Front.
Damascus refers to decrees about Kurdish rights and recognition, including steps towards citizenship and cultural protections, but paper promises are worthless if Kurdish self-rule is crushed. Pro-government voices are already spreading the claim that the Kurds are merely recent ‘arrivals’ with no distinct claims to nationhood.
This is the strategic cost of Trump’s approach. By prioritising short-term gains over long-term moral principles, Washington continues to reinforce the same lesson: you can be useful, brave and pro-Western, yet still be discarded as soon as you become inconvenient. This does not bring stability to the region. Instead, it fuels radicalisation. From the Kurds to the Ukrainians to European members of NATO, the message is the same: the US is not a reliable ally. This has tremendous security implications for us all.
If the West wants to stop the next ISIS wave, it needs to stop treating the Kurds as expendable. That means enforceable guarantees for Kurdish-majority areas, and a recognition of the right to statehood they deserve.
Abandoning the people who fought jihadism on the ground is not ‘stability’. What we are seeing from the US in its relations with Syrian jihadists is a down payment on the next catastrophe.
From Ian:
Seth Mandel:
Don’t Legitimize ‘Anti-Zionism.’ Defeat It
I admit I winced when I read that last line. I had just been reading the Guardian’s coverage of Australia’s efforts to crack down on incitement. Initially the bill, set forth by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party, was reportedly far too restrictive of plain speech to the point of being unsalvageable. But Liberal Party MPs were able to “gut” the overreach and pare down the bill.
Still, the Guardian made sure to quote the Jewish Council of Australia, a progressive group called upon to As-a-Jew the issue into oblivion. The legislation, they said, represented “an attempt to slander and intimidate hundreds of 1000s of Australians who have been protesting against Israel’s genocide and egregious human rights abuses.”
Of course, a publication like the Guardian would quote an organization like this, despite anti-Israel lunacy being a distinct minority opinion among Jews. It’s useful to them. But besides the political tokenization angle, it’s also a reminder that the Jewish community contains within it organizations whose entire purpose appears to be to enable state suppression of Jewish rights and Jewish security.
The Jewish Council of Australia, it turns out, was founded in the spring of 2024—meaning it was launched after the October 7 attacks in order to join the global anti-Israel pile-on.
The Jewish community has an obligation to battle, not coddle, the anti-Zionism within its ranks. It has the same obligation to mount a full-scale fight against anti-Zionism in mainstream discourse. The movement of anti-Jewish assault shutting down Jewish shops and restaurants calls its worldview anti-Zionism. So the proper response is clear: That which calls itself anti-Zionism must be defeated.
How the Internet Fell for a Supposed Condemnation of Christian Zionism
Despite the unanswered questions, or perhaps because of them, a fight soon erupted. Evangelical Christian Zionists defended their theology. “It’s hard for me to understand why every one who takes on the moniker ‘Christian’ would not also be a Zionist,” wrote US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
Meanwhile, Catholic critics of Israel promoted the statement on X, declaring that the top Catholic figure in the Holy Land, Latin patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, had definitively rejected Christian Zionism.
Unfortunately for them, he did nothing of the sort.
Pizzaballa is a fluent Hebrew speaker who is well regarded by Jewish leaders. Though he is not afraid to speak out about pressures on Christians in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, he is not looking to make headlines attacking the Jewish state or Zionism.
What’s more, breaking with its usual practice, the Latin Patriarchate did not publish the Christian Zionism statement or share it on social media. Pizzaballa’s name does not appear on the statement. Neither does his signature.
Custodia Terrae Sancte, a Catholic body that oversees Christian sites in the Holy Land, removed the statement from its website as well.
Even more tellingly, when asked if the Patriarchate supports the statement, an official from the Patriarchate said only, “No comment.”
So how and why did a statement go out that ostensibly speaks in the Latin Patriarch’s name?
Many assume that since Pizzaballa is part of the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches group, he must have personally signed off on the statement. But the group doesn’t work in such an orderly fashion. The group’s secretariat sends out a draft, and says that if there are no objections by a certain time—last week it was 5 p.m.—then it will assume that all the church leaders agree with the statement.
Needless to say, if a patriarch is traveling that day, the first time he sees a message may be when it is published.
The main impetus for the statement, according to sources from two churches, is a fight led by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate against a group of Israeli Christians calling themselves the Israeli Christian Voice and the Eagles of Christ Movement.
The movement leader, Ihab Shilyan, was a career officer in the IDF and actively encourages young Christians to enlist as well. He was recently welcomed at Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s annual reception for Christian leaders, and has met multiple times with Huckabee.
It is no coincidence that last Saturday’s statement was posted on the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate website and shared with local journalists by a figure closely affiliated with the Greek Orthodox Church. The leader of Israeli Christian Voice boasted in response to the statement: “It appears that my meetings with senior and influential figures … have placed significant pressure on vested interests.”
What some touted as a clear rejection of Christian Zionism by the top Catholic official in the Holy Land was instead an episode in which one church rather disingenuously used a joint forum to drag other institutions into its fight. Far from expressing a unified Christian voice, the statement undermined the shaky trust between the historical churches in Jerusalem.
Why are the celebrities I used to love suddenly so anti, well… me?
So why have these stars all jumped on the bandwagon? “Different actor/ activists have different motivations,” says Jeremy. “Some are animated by prejudice against Jews (hi, Roger!), but fortunately I don’t think that’s many of them. And while it’s possible some performers are paid, others are terribly vulnerable to the anti-Zionism hate movement because, as an actor, you have to need to be “seen” and the publicity can help your career. Add to that the charge you get when the major news organisation asks you your opinions about world affairs, and anti-Zionism is positively addictive.”
For me, it’s the hypocrisy that grates. That old double standard of holding Israel (hence, Jews, and hence me) to a far higher standard than any other country or ethnicity. It’s been said many times before, but where are these performers on China, Sudan, North Korea, Iran?
The Iran case is particularly topical. Iranian stand-up comic Omid Djalili is – quite rightly – being feted by the mainstream press as a voice of the uprising in that country. Where were the corresponding Israeli voices in autumn 2023?
Of course, there are some pro-Israeli (hence, pro-Jewish, and pro-me) voices: Gal Gadot, Jerry Seinfeld, Pink, Jamie Lee Curtis – all of these have stood up in support. But all these actors are Jewish – or have Jewish heritage – and so it’s somehow less meaningful. There’s an irony in how Jews historically have always stood up for civil rights causes, but when the table are turned, no-one seems to stand up for us.
With hope in my heart, I started to Google. Tom Cruise? Nope, he supported his agent when she was sacked for anti-Israel commentary. Paul Mescal participated in the Cinema for Gaza auction, donating items to raise funds for Palestinian humanitarian aid. Brad Pitt is a producer on pro-Gaza film, The Voice of Hind Rajab.
There is, perhaps, a silver lining in the post. Jeremy feels there may be a backlash down the line. “Despite what Sam Goldwyn once said, there is such a thing as bad publicity,” he says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if some actors have done long-term damage to their careers and legacy as they cross the line between responsible empathy into antisemitism.”
That aside, there are signs of hope. Quentin Tarantino recently gave an interview where he declared he would "die a Zionist". And just today, I came across an X post of actress Sydney Sweeney posing with released hostages, Noa Argamani and Avinatan Or.
As a final word, we probably should remember those who have said nothing at all. There is, after all, no constitutional duty to proclaim ones political alignments. It’s a small field, but let’s keep our fingers crossed for Leonardo di Caprio, Zendaya, and Taylor Swift. As long as Taylor is (implicitly) on our team, we should be ok.
From Ian:
Douglas Murray:
Trump’s new Board of Peace is necessary because the UN has failed again and again
Over the years that the UN’s “peacekeeping force” was in southern Lebanon, the Iranian proxy terror group stockpiled tens of thousands of long- and short-range missiles. And promptly started another war.
When I was there, I saw the Hezbollah bases and tunnel entrances that had literally been created under the UN troops’ own eyes. The peacekeeping force’s bases and watchtowers had Hezbollah infrastructure mere yards from them. The UN’s “peacekeepers” had clearly said and done nothing.
The UN troops stationed in Lebanon when I was there were from Ireland and Sri Lanka. And as I said at the time to Post readers, find me an Irishman or Sri Lankan who is willing to lay down their lives in a confrontation with Hezbollah and I will try to find a bridge to sell you.
Of course they wouldn’t risk their lives. The average Irish or Sri Lankan soldier has zero interest in a confrontation with Hezbollah. So which troops would?
To date, the answer in the region each and every single time has been the same: Israel and America.
But why should young Israeli and American soldiers have to be solely responsible for stopping anti-Western terrorist groups in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and any number of other places? Why shouldn’t the other countries whose security is at stake from these ayatollah-funded terror groups also put their young people’s lives on the line?
Why shouldn’t Egypt — which used to control Gaza — have responsibility for security and be held to account for it? Why shouldn’t Qatar — which hosted and funded Hamas — now pay for the destruction it helped create?
The nervousness of some people about the “Board of Peace” centers on the fact that there are some distinctly shady actors who have been invited onto it. But if Trump can get these countries to actually pony up, it would be a very different matter.
Of course that will require a commitment of troops and funding that are not connected to terror. The Turkish and Qatari governments are too entwined with the region’s terror axis to be trusted with stationing troops. But they should be made to pay for it. And they and other countries can and should be made to help keep the peace in Gaza and help to rebuild it in other ways.
Through his recent interventions on the world stage, Trump has shown he is capable of knitting together — not tearing apart — this country’s coalitions. By the admission of Mark Rutte — the NATO secretary-general — at Davos, if it had not been for Trump, there is no way that European countries would have fulfilled their military spending commitments.
If it had not been for Trump, this country’s NATO allies would have continued to piggyback off American taxpayers and expected America to keep funding their security. By making some (often undiplomatic) threats to those allies, Trump has made them take their own security seriously again.
Could the same thing now happen in the Middle East?
By appointing himself chairman of the Peace Board, Trump has shown that he is committed to the peace plan that is in place. By inviting regional actors to join him, he has shown that for once, it will not be just Israel and America that are expected to police the Middle East.
But the main threats to Middle Eastern security remain the same. The terrorists still run the Islamic revolutionary government in Iran. The state of Qatar is still funding anti-Western propaganda and terrorist groups across the region. Even here at home in America.
But if anyone is in a position to tell them to cut it out and accept the new reality, Trump is in the position to do so.
If he succeeds, you can expect those howls of alarm to turn to cheers.
Jonathan Tobin:
Trump’s end run around the old world order
Despite Trump’s promises, the Board of Peace and the team of supposedly apolitical technocrats working for it won’t ensure that the coastal enclave can be turned into something other than a Hamas stronghold and a platform for continuing the Palestinian war on Israel’s existence. That’s not just because the board will count among its members the leaders of Turkey and Qatar (and others who support Hamas), although that in itself is a deal-breaker when it comes to any kind of realistic settlement of the dispute.
Simply put, Hamas won’t disarm or give up control of the 47% of Gaza it still holds. And the International Stabilization Force that is supposed to police the Strip and ensure that the terrorists abide by the terms of the ceasefire agreement will be composed of soldiers from nations that have no intention of fighting Hamas terror operatives. The only way to do that is to give a green light to the Israel Defense Forces to finish the job. The gap between the reality of politics in Middle East and fantasies about rebuilding a peaceful Gaza that was also unveiled at Davos by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, remains vast.
Which means that the Board of Peace is likely to fail unless or until the war against Hamas resumes—something Trump hopes to avoid since it will puncture his claim to be a uniquely successful negotiator, even in a region marked by turmoil.
Smashing an obsolete and harmful establishment
Even if it doesn’t succeed, the board’s creation will provide the president with yet another tool to push aside the United Nations and marginalize the international foreign-policy establishment.
The chattering classes are deeply unhappy about what has transpired, as one can read in the various accounts of Davos published in The New York Times. They believe that Trump is undermining all they hold sacred. Yet it’s necessary to look beyond the issue of whether the president is playing nicely or by the rules of diplomacy, and offending the sensibilities of the self-important celebrities of Davos and the international bureaucrats associated with the United Nations.
Trump might not succeed on every issue, and he may not behave in a manner that engenders the affection or respect of the educated classes that look up to these institutions. But he is right about one thing, above all. The basic truth at the heart of all of his efforts to smash the postwar order is that the United Nations, as well as the Davos set, must be trashed and bypassed if the West is to be saved from the Marxist and Islamist foes that threaten it in the 21st century. America’s geostrategic enemies in China and Russia also depend heavily on preserving the existing international establishment.
In taking up this struggle, Trump is taking aim at institutions that are causing real harm and seeking to address the most important threats to America, Israel and the West. Rather than deride him as a buffoon or a vandal, he should be applauded for defying the suits in Davos and all they stand for.
Florida House adopts bill to ban use of West Bank term in official documents
The Florida House of Representatives has advanced a bill that seeks to recognize Judea and Samaria and prohibit the use of the term “West Bank” in official government materials.
Two almost identical bills, both of which are called the ‘Recognizing Judea and Samaria Act,’ have been introduced.
One, CS/HB 31, was introduced to the Florida House and sponsored by Debra Tendrich and Chase Tramont, and a second, SB 1106, is the Senate companion bill introduced by a senator (Ralph Massullo) to the Florida Senate.
In state legislatures (like Florida’s), it is common for the same policy idea to be filed in both chambers – one as a House bill and one as a Senate bill – as it gives the proposal more chances to pass and essentially expedites the process.
As such, the House and Senate versions were drafted to match so that if both pass their chambers, one text can be agreed on in conference committees or through amendments.
Both bills intend to amend legislation to refer to the region by the name Judea and Samaria and not “West Bank” in official materials. Such materials would include guidance, rules, documents, press releases, and the like.
The bill, if passed, will also prohibit money being spent to create official government materials with the term West Bank. It would come into effect on July 1, 2026.
Thursday, January 29, 2026
