04/23 Links Pt2: Why Doesn't Everyone Love the Jews?; If the fire-bombed synagogues had been mosques, the Government would respond very differently

From Ian:

Stephen Daisley: Why Doesn't Everyone Love the Jews?

As the tide of antisemitism rises once more, a familiar question is posed: why do they hate the Jews? The answers are the same as before: ethnic and religious prejudice, political fanaticism, the conspiratorial mindset, each feeding and being fed by jealousy, ignorance and resentment.

Antisemitism is not a philosophy arrived at by reason. In fact, it's a volcanic madness that is always there, waiting to erupt at the first rumblings of societal instability, economic precarity, or spiritual disorder. There might be more to gain from flipping the question on its head: why doesn't everyone love the Jews?

It's a thought that has occurred to this gentile more than once because, truth be told, Jews are kind of awesome. The original scribes and scholars of the Bible, defiers of pharaohs, and humblers of empires. Source of modern law and ethics; composers of some of civilization's finest music, art and literature; bearers of an ancient covenant across two millennia of exile. Survivors of extermination; revivers of a nation and a language; and innovators in agriculture, medicine and technology. All this, plus Gal Gadot.

There is surely sufficient truth to foster a culture of philosemitism, by which I mean a respect and admiration for Jewish civilization and its fruits; for institutions, practices and teachings whose benefits stretch far beyond Jews and Jewish communities.

In practical terms, philosemitism means countering the ignorance of others, counseling your children in respect for Jewish people and revulsion for those who despise them, refusing to remain silent when Jews are targeted for harm or hatred.

Former Chief Rabbi of Britain Jonathan Sacks said: "The way a culture treats its Jews is the best indicator of its humanity or lack of it." That culture must move beyond thinking of Jews as a minority to be accommodated and understand them as rightful co-authors of the culture.

Moral Collapse Goes Mainstream By Abe Greenwald

Via Commentary Newsletter, sign up here.
The liberal establishment has decided it can’t get enough of Hamas enthusiast and 9/11 fan, Hasan Piker. Democratic midterm candidates campaign with him by their side, and the New York Times seems determined to give him a daily platform. Yesterday, for example, on the Times’ homepage you could find a podcast featuring Piker in conversation with the writers Nadja Spiegelman and Jia Tolentino. The nominal topic was what Spiegelman dubbed “microlooting”—stealing items from corporate-owned stores as an act of political resistance. But the discussion quickly turned into a celebration of crime and terrorism committed in the name of justice.

Piker noted that he’s “pro-piracy all the way” and said “we gotta get back to cool crimes” such as “bank robbery, stealing priceless artifacts, things of that nature.” Tolentino believes that when it comes to “stealing with a purpose,” “we love that in America.” She also thinks that blowing up pipelines should be legal and private schools should be outlawed.

It's three cheers for piracy, robbery, and terrorism on the homepage of the New York Times! The podcast seems to have shocked many people. They can’t understand how we’ve gotten here.

I can. It’s precisely the kind of thing I would expect to see from a culture that’s turned against its Jews. Piker, like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and a bunch of woke-right podcasters, has been celebrated by the liberals for his brazen anti-Semitic incitement in the years since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. That’s what made him, and so many others, a beloved star of the left and, eventually, the liberal establishment.

When a culture decides to protect and even reward people for promoting anti-Jewish terrorism—you know, intifada—that culture breaks the civic bonds that hold society together. If you think you can get away with encouraging Jew-hatred while preserving taboos and proscriptions on other destructive impulses, you’re in for a wild ride.

In permitting and elevating anti-Semitism, leftists and liberals have not only sanctioned violent bigotry, which is ruinous enough. They’ve unleashed a tsunami of evil. Because anti-Semitism is fundamentally a form of scapegoating, they’ve sanctioned the idea that victims are responsible for the transgressions committed against them. This legitimizes all manner of thuggery.

Pondering what makes Greta Thunberg and her ilk tick?

Why is the left so bitterly opposed to Israel? There are plenty of reasons why this should not be the case.

Yes, many Jews may look “white” to most people (of course, a great many do not). But most Israelis come from North Africa and other countries in the Mideast—Morocco, Yemen, Iraq. Of course, insofar as the right-wing fever swamp fringes are concerned, they are not even counted as belonging in the white category; “they will not replace us” is their motto. So, they are in effect non-white, and for all intents and purposes should be beloved of the left.

It cannot be denied that, considering this perspective, the underdog deserves special appreciation.

Well, Israel has a population of nearly 10 million people and is surrounded by 23 Arab countries hosting roughly 1 billion people. The governments of all of them—at least until the 2020 Abraham Accords—hated Zionism and Zionists with a purple passion. This country occupies far less than 1% of the entire land mass of the Middle East; yet, as some of its regional neighbors purport, it should be kicked out. Or rather, eliminated.

It is the “Little Satan,” according to Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and other terror groups that target civilians. And it works with its ally, the “Big Satan,” aka the United States.

They point their fingers at the joint war against Iran as an example. Yes, the same Iran that happens to be launching missiles right now at fellow Arab states. Where is all the protesting against that?

And still, the left sees Israelis as colonizers. (That’s very bad, in case you haven’t been paying attention.) And so it goes, they deserve to be targeted by terror regimes and related outfits. (Aren’t they bad?)

The Jews have been in the Holy Land for some 3,500 years. The Arabs only arrived a few scant centuries ago. The Al-Aqsa mosque lies above the Jewish Second Temple, which is perched on top of the Jewish First Temple. So the natives, beloved of the left, are the Jews; the interlopers are the Arabs.

It could have gone the other way, but it didn’t. The order is the order. History is history.

But maybe not according to Greta Thunberg.

Read More

04/23 Links Pt1: The dawn of a new world order; Introduction to Gazology; No, the Iron Dome Doesn’t Make Israel More Aggressive; Why Trump’s Iran Deal Is Not Like Obama’s Iran Deal

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The dawn of a new world order

Most people in America are against the war with Iran, as they are in Britain, too.

Very few, however, actually understand why this war is as necessary as it is unavoidably complex.

Few seem aware that Iran has been actively at war against America for the past 47 years. Few seem to grasp that Iran’s fanatical Islamic regime has killed hundreds of U.S. servicemen, perpetrated numerous attacks on U.S. bases, committed countless terrorist atrocities and taken Americans hostage.

Few grasp that U.S. and Israeli intelligence had discovered that Iran was poised to create both a nuclear bomb and a missile arsenal so enormous and so buried underground that no one would ever be able to tackle the mortal threat posed by the regime.

Instead, the American and British public have been fed a remorseless mainstream media narrative framed entirely by obsessive hatred of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This presents the war as a reckless choice into which Trump was bounced by Netanyahu, that it was always going to be a disaster, and that it’s already been lost.

Israel, however, which is desperate for the Iranian regime to be prevented from ever harming it again, fears that Washington is once again leaving it hanging out to dry. The Israeli public thinks that Trump’s ceasefire—and then its extension—shows that he hasn’t got the commitment to see this thing through. They fear that he seeks to make a deal he can call victory, but that will leave the Tehran regime in a position where it can rearm and come back even more deadly than before.

Others, though, think that Trump is displaying strategic brilliance. They point out that he’s flipped the script over the Strait of Hormuz by turning Iran’s supposed chokepoint for the world into a deadly weapon against the regime itself.

America’s blockade of the Strait is causing Tehran to lose hundreds of millions of dollars a day in vital revenue, while the buildup of oil will potentially cripple the oil wells themselves and put them out of further use.

The fact is that this war is neither won nor lost. Both sides say they have the upper hand. Everything depends on Trump. His repeated outbursts on Truth Social, which often seem to contradict each other, are giving many people severe emotional whiplash.

No one knows how this is going to end. But it’s very alarming that opposition to the war in America is feeding into a growing general public animus against Israel.

Matti Friedman: Introduction to Gazology

The origins of this essay lie in a recent visit to the Middle East shelf in a Washington, D.C., bookstore during a visit from my home in the actual Middle East. I was on a short break from the story I’ve been living and covering in Israel for three decades, and from the tragedies that have become routine for Israelis and for our neighbors since the war that began on October 7, 2023.

As a longtime denizen of bookstores in Western countries, I knew that almost any shop would carry a few titles about the evils of Zionism and Israel, a venerable genre on the Marxist left. But this time I saw a change: The Gaza war had inspired a proliferation of these titles so intense that they now filled much of a shelf. I noticed the same phenomenon in other bookstores in other cities, where there were suddenly more “Gaza” and “Palestine” books, it seemed, than books about the rest of the entire Arab world combined. Humanity now inhabited a new age, according to one title, The World After Gaza. According to another, The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth. There was Gaza: The Story of a Genocide, and Palestine and Feminist Liberation, and many more examples in the same vein, with more soon to be published. A new literary genre had been born.

The Gaza war has been fought a two-hour drive from my Jerusalem home by people I know, and has claimed the lives of several of them. For me, reading the back covers of these books left the impression of a genre related to the actual territory of Gaza as the Dune novels are related to the actual NASA space program. At the same time, it wasn’t fringe work. Among the practitioners were authors who have recently won a National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and additional accolades.

After reading more in subsequent months, I came to think of the genre as “Gazology.” By this term I don’t mean the study of the real territory of Gaza, or of the terrible human tragedy caused by the Hamas offensive of October 7 and by the Israeli response in the war that followed—vast tracts of Gaza destroyed, tens of thousands of civilians killed along with tens of thousands of combatants, and aftershocks across the Middle East. Gazology is not reportage, and most of its practitioners are not in or even near Gaza or Israel. This is a Western literary genre with its own rules, tropes, and goals.

It’s likely that much Western culture, journalism, and politics in the coming years will be downstream of these books and the ideology behind them. Students in disciplines from anthropology to medicine will be assigned these works and invited to see the world’s problems through the lens of “Gaza.” For this reason, the genre is important. What follows is a survey of five representative samples of the volumes in question, in an attempt to sketch the contours of this expanding body of writing and to understand what it is trying to say.

Peter Beinart’s ‘Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza’ wins PEN America award

Progressive Jewish author Peter Beinart has won the 2026 PEN America Literary Award for nonfiction for his latest book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning.

Beinart, who has long been an outspoken critic of Israel, is the editor-at-large of the leftist Jewish Currents magazine and a professor at CUNY’s Newmark School of Journalism. His book offers a harsh critique of the American Jewish community’s relationship with Israel and response to the war in Gaza.

“This book is about the stories Jews tell ourselves that blind us to Palestinian suffering,” Beinart wrote in a Substack post announcing the book’s release in September 2024. “It’s about how we came to value a state, Israel, above the lives of all the people who live under its control. And it’s about why I believe that Palestinian liberation means Jewish liberation as well.”

In a statement, the judges of the PEN America award said the book “offers a model for writing a new story when inherited narratives no longer hold.”

The award offered the latest evidence of a shift for PEN America when it comes to Israel, which has polarized the literary and cultural world in recent years.

Founded in 1922, PEN America is a writers’ and free-expression advocacy group that defends the rights of authors and opposes censorship. The group has long opposed cultural boycotts of Israel, including in a December 2023 letter calling on art institutions “not to police speech nor deprive audiences of artists’ work,” earning it increasing ire from progressives.

The group’s CEO left amid tensions in 2024, and last year it published a report accusing Israel of committing a genocide in Gaza.

Seth Mandel: No, the Iron Dome Doesn’t Make Israel More Aggressive

The debate over the Iron Dome is a near-perfect encapsulation of the weakness of the Israel discourse in America. Opponents of the purely defensive program try to work their way back from their partisan conclusion to a coherent rationalization for it. They then demand we dignify their ignorant declarations with a response.

Here’s the latest version of this routine. Democrats looking for an excuse to vote against Iron Dome have reverse engineered the following talking point: Iron Dome, they say, isn’t actually defensive, because the fact that it protects Israelis from rockets makes Israel more likely to attack its enemies.

This seems to be the reasoning that a fair number of Democrats have settled on. As Semafor’s Dave Weigel noted, this argument allows them to claim to support only “purely defensive” weapons while still voting against Iron Dome.

Anyone who has participated in the social media discourse on Iron Dome has had this theory tossed at them. Usually it’s “Nathan Thrall says so!” Thrall’s argument is as follows: “Iron Dome facilitates greater Israeli offensive measures, because it lowers the perceived cost to Israel of escalating or extending or initiating attacks.”

Now, making this particular argument requires one to be unfamiliar with basic political-military decisions—why an army would procure certain weapons systems instead of others, what its broader strategic and tactical aims are, its perceived threats, etc. A fair amount of this is usually in public documents.

But in the case of the Iron Dome the debate is even more frustrating because we don’t need to theorize. We already have the answer. The data tell us what common sense would suggest: Iron Dome makes Israel less likely to escalate military conflicts because it can absorb a significant level of rocket attacks from Gaza with minimal casualties.

Read More

04/22 Links Pt2: Asking the wrong questions about antisemitism; The ‘anti-extremism’ movement has always been a con; SPLC indicted for ‘manufacturing’ extremism

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: Asking the wrong questions about antisemitism

Dahl was also living proof that once you remove the thin veneer of justifiable concern about any misdeed that Israelis are supposed to have committed, the gap between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is revealed to be a distinction without a difference. And that is why so much of the commentary about this play and antisemitism in general is still asking the wrong questions about the subject.

Some 78 years after the birth of the modern-day State of Israel, we should no longer be trying to draw distinctions that will allow Israel-bashers to avoid being tagged as what they really are: antisemites. Instead, we should be noticing the painfully obvious similarities that unite all anti-Zionists, whether they are as uncivil as Dahl or not.

Those who cheer for or rationalize attacks and violence, including the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust that took place on Oct. 7, as well as deny Israelis the right to defend themselves against those who pledge its repeat, are on the same level as Dahl.

Are students or college professors who chant for Jewish genocide (“From the river to the sea”) or terrorism against Jews wherever they live (“Globalize the intifada”) really idealists who should be accorded the respect that sophisticated theater-goers are forced to retrospectively deny to a nasty old man who thinks the Jews deserved the Holocaust?

Is the contemporary journalist or politician who traffics in blood libels about Israelis committing a mythical “genocide” someone to agree to disagree with? Is that akin to how we are expected to react to an open neo-Nazi who does so in a less dignified manner?

The real lesson to be drawn from “Giant” isn’t the answer to the age-old debate about what to think about good art created by bad people. Nor is it a guide about how to behave when a favorite childhood author turns out to be a rotten bigot.

It is this: Those who embrace the cause of Israel’s destruction and the genocide of half of the world’s Jewish population that goes with that belief don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to evaluating their character. Some may act in a less repugnant manner than Dahl and pretend to oppose antisemitism even as they support it, as is the case with the mayor of New York. Others are less civil or arguably even crazier, as might be said of some anti-Israel podcasters. But they are all part of the same evil cause. And they all deserve the same opprobrium a decent society should accord to antisemites like Roald Dahl.

Brendan O'Neill: The ‘anti-extremism’ movement has always been a con

The SPLC denies the charges. It says it will ‘not be intimidated’ by the Trump administration. It’s worth noting that there’s little love lost between Trumpists and the SPLC. The centre started life as a civil-rights law practice in 1971 before morphing into a huge outfit that keeps tabs on extremism across America. Some on the right accuse it of targeting not only genuine loons but also normal groups, like Turning Point USA. It is ‘liberal’ intolerance made flesh, they say, with its tendency to treat everyone to the right of David French as an Adolf-in-waiting. It’s a ‘partisan smear machine’, says FBI director Kash Patel.

Hopefully the truth will out as the fraud case progresses. But I’m interested in what this simmering scandal tells us about bourgeois activism right now. The possibility that the SPLC is Jussie Smollett on steroids requires analysis. He’s the actor who falsely claimed to have been roughed up by a pair of racists yelling ‘This is MAGA country!’. Is the SPLC the institutional version of such vain self-delusion, blowing up the threat of extremism in order to fatten both its bank balance and its sense of virtue?

If it’s true the SPLC ‘funded extremism’, that would only be a monetary expression of what has for a long time been its core mission – namely, threat inflation. For years now, the centre has promiscuously expanded the definition of extremism, lumping in normies with Nazis. It maintains a ‘hate map’, showing all the nutters in America, which apparently includes not only Sieg Heiling ‘Aryan’ freaks but also Christians who aren’t fond of gay marriage.

Just four months before Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September last year, the SPLC branded him and Turning Point USA as ‘hard-right’ promoters of ‘hate’. It has also designated the Alliance Defending Freedom a ‘hate group’. Anyone who has ever met those Christian folk will know how ludicrous this is. Even Moms for Liberty, which doesn’t want schoolkids to be taught ‘critical race theory’ or that there are 72 genders, has found itself on the SPLC’s map of hate. If it’s extremist to oppose telling seven-year-olds that people with dicks are women and people with white skin are privileged, I guess I’m an extremist.

The aim of such extremism-mongering is transparent. It’s about criminalising moral opinions that the credentialled classes find offensive. And it’s about keeping groups like the SPLC flushed with cash and busy with cases. It’s a job-creation scheme for the do-gooding classes. If the SPLC ‘funnelled millions’ into extremist groups, that would perversely be in keeping with its demented mission to keep the ‘hate’ bandwagon rolling.

Groups like the SPLC don’t only inflate the far-right threat. They also deflect from one of the true extremist scourges of our time – Islamism. The SPLC has long had a blind spot on Islamist extremism. Worse, it has branded those who oppose Islamism as ‘extremists’. A few years ago it drew up a ‘Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists’, which included the mighty Ayaan Hirsi Ali. This is a black immigrant woman who has stirringly made the case for liberal values against the despotism and misogyny of Islamism, and who has been threatened with death for doing so. Yet in the Kafkaesque hellscape that passes for ‘activism’, it is she who is a ‘propagandist’ whose ‘damaging misinformation’ is a menace to public life. This is moral inversion at its most despicable.

We have the same problem in the UK: ‘anti-extremists’ who are wilfully blind to Islamist extremism. On Saturday, as yet another Jew-hater was prepping a petrol bomb to hurl at a London synagogue, the Guardian published a long-read on the ‘return of fascism’ illustrated with white working-class men waving England flags. Islamists are firebombing synagogues. They killed Jews in Manchester on Yom Kippur. They’ve massacred children at a pop concert. They’re on our streets calling for more violence against the Jewish State. And yet ‘the virtuous’ myopically fret over the white far right. From the Guardian to the SPLC, the preening activist classes inflate fantasy threats and downplay real ones, to ensure that nothing as pesky as the truth will meddle with their narcissistic crusading. Now that’s dangerous.

Europe's Jew-Hate with a Vengeance

[M]any in the West who sympathize with Islamic terrorists were, within hours, trying to justify Hamas's atrocities by blaming Israel. The allegations against Israel were that it was denying supposed rights of an invented Palestinian people that "does not exist," as admitted by senior PLO official Zoheir Mohsen in 1977 in the Dutch daily newspaper Trouw. They nevertheless repeat spurious claims to the Jews' ancestral land, on which Jews have lived continuously for nearly 4,000 years, explicitly named "Judea," and to the failure by Israel to implement what -- according to the Palestinians themselves -- would be a "two-state solution" dedicated to taking whatever land they can get and using it as a base from which to conquer the rest.

There is invariably a grim consequence to constant vilification of minorities; the current slandering of Jews is no exception.

Israel may stand pretty much alone against the haters of this world. Depending on the political climate at the time, it can be expected that international leaders will remain absent, even silent, for the most part when Israel's enemies once again attack it – as they surely will. As historic events reveal, Israel and Jewry at large cannot fully rely for protection on the West.

"Many things will be forgiven," observed Israel's Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1973. "but one thing will not—weakness. The moment we are marked as weak—it is over."

Lawmakers from 15 Latin American nations unite to combat antisemitism

The First Congress of Latin American Legislators Against Antisemitism was held in Montevideo, Uruguay, last week, to develop a coordinated strategy to combat rising Jew-hatred across the continent.

The three-day forum culminated in a joint declaration formulated by the 35 participants from 15 countries, the association that organized the event, the Combat Antisemitism Movement, said in a statement on Sunday.

The declaration included a call to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, show “solidarity with the State of Israel and firmly back its right to self-defense against the Iranian regime and its regional proxies,” demand “that Iran be held accountable for its global terrorist activities, both past and present, including in Latin America, reject “all attempts to isolate and boycott the State of Israel,” and the “bolstering of bilateral ties between Latin American countries and Israel in every relevant realm,” the statement read.

“From parliaments, and in coordination with the executive branches, we seek to build common public policies to confront this scourge [of antisemitism] with a regional and coordinated vision,” said Uruguayan Rep. Conrado Rodríguez, president of the regional legislators coalition.

Shay Salamon, the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s executive director of Latin American Affairs, described the gathering as a turning point in regional efforts.

“The Congress marks a decisive step toward the consolidation of a firm and coordinated regional commitment. The active participation of legislators from Latin America demonstrates that there is a real willingness to confront antisemitism by strengthening legal frameworks, promoting education and defending the democratic values that sustain our societies,” Salamon said.

In addition to policy discussions, participants took part in Uruguay’s national Yom Hashoah ceremony, commemorating the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

Read More

04/22 Links Pt1: The Birth of a Great American Ally; Britain’s Jews are quietly preparing to leave the country; A warning from Britain’s Iranian diaspora

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Birth of a Great American Ally

In March, the New York Times reported that “U.S. and Israeli military officials are talking as often as 4,000 to 5,000 times a day, divvying up targets across Iran.” Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine spoke of his regular contact with his Israeli counterpart, and one source told the Times that the majority of military briefings were being held in English, not Hebrew, because of how closely the forces were cooperating.

But being a good junior partner isn’t just about the fighting. Israel has also been willing to stop at a moment’s notice when President Trump wants to switch gears to the diplomatic track. Last week, this meant agreeing to a cease-fire in Lebanon that Israeli voters didn’t like and that became a cudgel used by the political opposition against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Still, Israel complied. It was reminiscent of the point during last year’s U.S.-Israel joint bombing missions when Trump decided enough had been accomplished and ordered Israeli jets to turn around and go back home mid-flight.

European allies claim they agree with the necessity of stopping Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and diminishing the Islamic Republic’s ability to bomb European bases and territory, but when Trump asked them to put their money where their mouths were, they balked. When the Iranians threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping, the Europeans got together and came up with a plan—to be carried out only once the war was over and such a plan was no longer needed.

The structure of U.S. “aid” to Israel also follows this pattern, because it requires Israel to purchase from American manufacturers. Thus U.S. companies get a boost, the manufacturing base has steady income and occasional growth spurts, and the U.S. still gets all the intel once those weapons are battle tested—and without having to deploy the systems themselves or send U.S. troops into harm’s way to carry out real-world trials.

The aid is becoming a political football, and opposition to it has been made a progressive litmus test, so the aid structure will almost certainly be reworked. Doing so will harm American workers and the domestic economy far more than it would punish Israel.

Trump is loving the returns America gets by putting the alliance to fuller use. The Israelis, Trump said, “have proven to be a GREAT Ally of the United States of America. They are Courageous, Bold, Loyal, and Smart, and, unlike others that have shown their true colors in a moment of conflict and stress, Israel fights hard and knows how to WIN!”

That statement began with the words “whether people like Israel or not.” Because the truth is that Israel is a superb ally, and reality is impervious to partisan narratives that suggest otherwise.

IDF chief: Years of war have reshaped Israel’s security

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said “prolonged years of fighting have reshaped Israel’s security and fortified our existence,” speaking at the President’s Outstanding Soldiers Ceremony for Israel’s 78th Independence Day.

The ceremony at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, recorded earlier this week and broadcast on Wednesday, honored 120 outstanding soldiers and officers from across the IDF.

President Isaac Herzog presented certificates and pins to the honorees, recognizing excellence, dedication, professionalism and responsibility.

The event was attended by Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, senior military leadership and the families of the recipients.

This marked the third consecutive year the ceremony has taken place during ongoing fighting, with all of the honorees having served in operational roles during the war.

Of the 120 recipients, 69 are men and 51 are women, including 18 officers. Sixty-seven serve in combat roles, two in combat support positions and 51 in rear-echelon roles.

The Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers awarded academic scholarships to the honorees, including financial grants and iPads to assist with studies following their discharge.

Aviva Klompas: The unseen victories of the Iran war

NATO allies have often been described, sometimes fairly, as hesitant and divided.

In contrast, Israel has demonstrated its exceptional ability to meaningfully contribute to shared strategic objectives.

Israeli intelligence penetrated deeply into Iranian systems. Its pilots carried out complex, high-risk missions. Its forces even assisted in recovering a downed American airman.

This is not the profile of a dependent ally; it is the profile of a partner that expands American capacity.

That distinction is not lost on Washington. Nor is it lost on the Middle East.

Iran’s actions during the war have had an unintended effect: pushing its neighbors closer to the United States and Israel. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and others, cautious about actions that could upend regional stability, quietly signaled support for continued pressure on Tehran.

They have allowed American and Israeli aircraft to traverse their airspace. They have encouraged a more sustained campaign.

This is a significant shift.

For decades, Iran has sought to position itself as a regional power capable of intimidating its neighbors and reshaping the balance of power. Instead, its aggression has accelerated the very alignment it sought to prevent.

Another audience is watching closely: the Iranian people.

The regime has long projected strength, both internally and externally, but this war has exposed its vulnerabilities. Strikes deep within Iran, disruptions to critical infrastructure and visible failures in defense have undermined the image of control.

In some cases, the regime has resorted to extraordinary measures, such as urging citizens to form human chains around key facilities. It is a striking image: a government relying on its own people not out of loyalty but out of necessity.

That too is a shift.

None of this suggests that Iran is no longer a threat. It has demonstrated its ability to disrupt global commerce, particularly through mines and drones in the Strait of Hormuz.

Read More

04/21 Links Pt2: Israel at 78: Commitment, Solidarity, and Determination; Why the Progressive Hatred of Yitzhak Rabin Matters; DOJ says SPLC funneled $3M+ to extremists groups like the KKK

From Ian:

Israel at 78: Commitment, Solidarity, and Determination

Each year before Independence Day, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics releases a report. This year's figures show that Israel's population grew by 150,000 and that 91% of Israelis say they are satisfied or very satisfied with their lives. But the numbers say nothing about the kind of year the country actually experienced.

It has now been well over two years since Oct. 7, 2023, a day that shattered assumptions and exposed vulnerabilities we still struggle to comprehend. Since then, Israel has been at war - first in Gaza, then in Lebanon, and now twice with Iran. It has been a year of sirens and safe rooms, of long stints of reserve duty. But that is only half the story.

Israel fought on multiple fronts, dealing devastating blows to Hamas, Hizbullah, and Iran - actions that will take those enemies years to recover from. It secured the release of the remaining hostages. And it once again demonstrated a capacity for resilience and mobilization that surprised even itself. Oct. 7 was a catastrophe. But Oct. 8 was the moment when Jews responded forcefully and decisively.

78 years ago, Israel emerged from the shadow of the Holocaust, weak and vulnerable. Today, it is a strong, independent state with a tremendous ability to defend itself. We need to be careful not to lose sight of how far we have come.

One expression of national resilience can be seen in the area adjacent to Gaza. On the eve of Oct. 7, 62,000 people lived there. Today, the number is higher. Most of those who were evacuated have returned, and new families are moving in. Hamas tried to empty those communities. Instead, they grew. This is a reminder of a deep current in Israeli society - one of commitment, solidarity, and determination.

Why, as a Progressive Jew, I Firmly Identify as a Zionist

I am a progressive Jew. I believe in human rights, equality, and justice. I also identify firmly as a Zionist. It is because I believe in human rights, take justice seriously, and because I take Jewish history seriously, that I place myself unapologetically in the Zionist camp.

Zionism means the belief that the Jewish people are a nation, and that like other nations they have the right to self-determination in their ancestral land. Self-determination is a core collective human right, one routinely recognized for other peoples. If I begin from a commitment to human rights, I cannot treat Jewish self-determination as the one exception, because denying a fundamental right to the Jewish people while recognizing it to all others is, in fact, discrimination.

Anti-Zionism is often presented as though it were merely moral outrage at Israeli policy. It is not. Anti-Zionism begins where criticism of policy ends. It means either denying that Jews are a people or accepting that they are a people while denying them the same right of collective self-determination routinely granted to others.

As a proud second-generation Mexican Jew, I learned very early that identity is shaped not only by what one feels inwardly, but by what the surrounding world insists on seeing. I also grew up with the persistent reminder that, for many (perhaps for most), I was somehow not fully Mexican. I was treated, subtly or openly, as if I were foreign, conditional, not quite of the place.

That experience is difficult for many American Jews to fully grasp, especially those who came of age in periods and places of greater security and acceptance. But outside the American frame, you learn that emancipation is real but fragile, belonging is real but conditional, and acceptance can narrow overnight.

The 20th century taught Jews that statelessness, dependency, and the goodwill of others are not a sufficient answer to Jewish history. It also taught that universalism is a noble language, but it has often failed Jews precisely when they most needed concrete protection. This explains why so many Jews, especially those whose families came from the Middle East, North Africa, or Eastern Europe, experience Zionism as the political form of collective survival.

To me, being progressive means applying moral principles consistently, not selectively. If self-determination is a right, then it is a right for Jews too.

Seth Mandel: Why the Progressive Hatred of Yitzhak Rabin Matters

Noura Erekat, the well-known opponent of Jewish indigenous rights, called the peace process an “arrangement of permanent subjugation” of the Palestinians and backed AOC’s decision not to promote coexistence between Arabs and Jews.

An International Crisis Group activist wrote in 972Mag that “Palestine advocates are setting the record straight about one of the conflict’s most harmful myths: that the Oslo Accords — and by association, Yitzhak Rabin — were a force for peace.”

One was tempted to sympathize with the spokesman for APN’s Israeli sister organization who asked: “Are you really going to boycott us and all our work with Palestinians to support human rights and an end to the conflict, just because Rabin wasn’t a flawless [idol] after 5 decades of conflict?”

Well, yes. They really are going to boycott you. It certainly doesn’t matter to AOC and the anti-Zionists around her that APN worked “with Palestinians to support human rights and an end to the conflict” because the progressive anti-Zionist movement doesn’t support either of those things. Human rights? The Tentifada crowd openly worships Hamas, which exists to deprive Palestinians (and non-Palestinians) of human rights. End the conflict? What on earth would give someone the impression that a movement chanting in support of Iran’s occupation forces, which are keeping several countries mired in civil war, wants an end to the conflict?

A Marxist author for Jacobin praised AOC’s snub of the Rabin event by cheering that this all happened because “AOC took her cues from Palestinians instead of pro-Israel voices.”

It’s hard to argue with that. Pro-Israel voices want coexistence. Those voices have been systematically excised from the political left. There is no progressive peace camp, and there hasn’t been one for years.

Edward Luce thinks there’s a big difference between Yitzhak Rabin and Bibi Netanyahu. The progressive anti-Israel caucus thinks the problem is that people think there’s a difference between Yitzhak Rabin and Bibi Netanyahu. To them, both men are equally guilty of the one unforgivable sin: believing the Jewish state ought to exist.

Read More

04/21 Links Pt1: Israel’s enemies are Britain’s, too; Trump extends Iran ceasefire indefinitely; The Death of a French Soldier in Lebanon

From Ian:

Israel’s enemies are Britain’s, too

Israel is the West’s front line in the Middle East. Whenever it’s hit, jihadi plots in Europe spike. If Israel falls, the vacuum won’t be filled by states that care about social justice or international law. It will be filled by the very forces that hate our way of life and want to destroy it.

Beyond ideology, the practical reality of British and European security is inextricably linked to Israeli survival. While our politicians posture, our security services are quietly relying on a partnership that keeps British citizens safe. This cooperation involves a vital exchange of high-end intelligence and defensive technology, including Israeli signals intelligence (the interception and analysis of electronic signals, from communications to radar) and other human assets – all which help thwart terror attacks on European soil. Be it drone technology or missile defence, Israeli innovation is woven into the fabric of Western military readiness. When Westminster downgrades this relationship because the optics get difficult, the UK degrades its own defences as a consequence.

I don’t argue this as a detached onlooker, but as someone who sees this collision from both sides. I was born and raised in Israel, but Britain has been my home for 17 years. My children are British. When I work to combat anti-Semitism here, it isn’t just out of tribal loyalty; it is also because the hatred being directed at Jews and the Jewish state is a precursor to a wider assault on the West. I have seen the front line first-hand, and I can tell you, it is moving closer to home.

And yet, British politicians are either totally unable or unwilling to contend with this reality. Westminster seems paralysed by a fear of domestic Islamic voting blocs and a loud, radicalised middle class. We have raised a generation of ‘anti-imperialist’ activists who view their own country as a racist, illegitimate entity that they would refuse to fight for. For members of this young, comfortable class, Israel is the ultimate villain because it represents everything they have been taught to loathe: national pride, borders and a willingness to fight for their own survival.

This weakness is mirrored in our crumbling hard power. Britain’s armed forces are at their smallest since the Napoleonic era. In the absence of the ability to deter threats, we seek instead to placate. We lecture Israel on ‘restraint’ because we no longer have the stomach for the reality of defence. British politicians parrot that ‘Israel has a right to exist’ while at the same time pursuing policies that directly threaten that existence. This has emboldened a growing anti-Zionist chorus in public life, including MPs, Green Party candidates and university lecturers who have moved beyond legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and settler violence to denying Israel’s very right to nationhood. By tolerating this rhetoric, we are legitimising an ideology that views the entire Western order as something to be torn down.

As Israel celebrates 78 years of defiance, Britain needs to make a choice: we can continue to indulge the ‘anti-colonial’ fantasies of our radicalised youth, as well as the Islamist sectarianism that undermines our national security, or we can recognise Israel for what it is: an essential security asset. It is time to stop treating our allies like enemies and our enemies like partners. The survival of the West may well depend on it.

The Gulf Learns What It's Like to Be Israel

Forty days of war following the U.S. and Israel's joint campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran are reshaping the Middle East and its alliances. Countries across the Gulf region now see what it has been like to live in Israel in recent decades, as rockets, missiles and drones have struck civilian population centers.

For decades, Israelis endured attacks on their cities from Iran and its proxies. Much of the world treated those attacks as background noise, or something to rationalize or applaud. In the recent conflict, Israel absorbed wave after wave of Iranian ballistic missile fire. Beersheba, Haifa, Jerusalem, Nahariya, Arad and Tel Aviv all took hits. At the same time, outrage barely registers across the U.S. and Europe over Iran's targeting of civilians and infrastructure, both in Israel and across the region.

Unlike in Israel, homes and offices in parts of the Gulf lack hardened bomb shelters, leaving civilians more exposed. The same holds true for Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman. None of these states are parties to the conflict. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck vital infrastructure, including oil facilities and desalination plants. The expectation of safety across many of these nations, once taken for granted, no longer holds. Countries that once viewed Israel's security challenges from a distance now confront them directly.

When Israel comes under fire, the international reaction arrives late - diluted by equivocation - or not at all. This time, the missiles have not fallen on Israel alone. Yet where is the outrage? Where are the emergency sessions? Where is the Arab League? Where is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation? The UN Security Council cannot pass a resolution brought by Bahrain and other Gulf states calling for condemnation and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

This moment tests whether targeting civilians is truly unacceptable or only unacceptable when it is convenient to say so. If attacks of this scale, across this many countries, fail to produce clarity, then the language of international norms becomes performance. Silence is not neutrality. It is acquiescence. When aggression meets no consequence, it expands.

Iran War Sent Shock Waves through Asia

The impact of the war in Iran has hit Asia harder and faster than expected. The Asia-Pacific region relies more heavily on Middle Eastern energy imports than almost anywhere else in the world. Even before the war started on Feb. 28, Asia's energy capacity was falling short of demand. In interviews, farmers in Vietnam, laborers in India, innkeepers in Sri Lanka, drivers in the Philippines, and executives in Hong Kong and Singapore all sounded worried.

Carriers flying through the Middle East, where 24 million migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia are employed, suspended trips to Dubai and other Gulf hubs right away. With jet fuel nearly doubling in price and with its availability threatened, airlines are slashing many more routes indefinitely. Qantas, Air New Zealand, Lion Air of Indonesia, VietJet, AirAsia, Air India, Cathay Pacific and Batik Air of Malaysia are cutting service.

Copper and nickel production rely on natural gas and sulfur, a fossil fuel byproduct. Both are in short supply, forcing several Indonesian nickel processors to reduce output. Polyester and nylon are also derived from petroleum. In the sewing hubs of Bangladesh, severe disruptions to production and shipment schedules have become common. Prices have soared for helium, a gas byproduct used for semiconductors, and some Asian chipmakers are slowing production.

Without enough petrochemicals to make plastic packaging, fewer Korean beauty products are heading to stores. A lack of fertilizer is threatening rice crops in Vietnam. Cattle farmers in Australia are warning of a meat shortage because of idled slaughterhouses and truckers.

Read More

04/20 Links Pt2: From grief to action: Ensuring the sacrifices of Israel’s fallen are not in vain; Full 60 Minutes interview with Rachel Goldberg-Polin; Boy George defends Eurovision participation

From Ian: JPost Editorial: From grief to action: Ensuring the sacrifices of Israel’s fallen are not in vain

Memory is a deeply entrenched concept within Israeli society.

Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel’s Wars and Victims of Terrorism, which will be marked nationwide on Monday evening, is filled with promises that the fallen will not be forgotten.

Over the past year, 170 soldiers have been killed across multiple fronts, including 15 soldiers and reservists killed in southern Lebanon since fighting resumed on March 2. Fifty-four disabled veterans have died from complications linked to wounds sustained during their service.

Behind these numbers are 7,165 bereaved relatives who have grieved and mourned for their fallen father, mother, son, daughter, or sibling.

The annual transition from the somber ceremonies to the joy of Israel’s Independence Day celebrations serves as a reminder of a difficult question we as Israelis must ask ourselves every year: What can we do to ensure that the sacrifices made by our soldiers were not in vain?

On Sunday morning, Israelis gathered outside the homes of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other government ministers for an impromptu ceremony honoring our fallen heroes.

After observing a minute of silence, the gatherings turned into a public demand: A call for a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding October 7. A direct message from the Israeli public

Their message was direct and unambiguous: “The blood of our loved ones cries out from the ground and demands truthful answers.”

This demand, rooted in grief, is sustained by a real fear among society that, without accountability by the political and military echelon, the failures of the past will continue to manifest themselves in the blood of Israelis being shed.

The question facing Israel is not only how to respond to the current threats, but whether it can alter the trajectory that keeps producing them.

Israelis have shown unprecedented levels of resilience since October 7, 2023. When Hamas invaded southern Israel and the IDF was nowhere to be found, citizens mobilized. When entire neighborhoods, towns, and kibbutzim were destroyed, their residents came back to rebuild them from the ruins. In the North and South alike, Israelis have accepted life under daily fire.

This resilience cannot be taken for granted.

‘To cover our ears to one cry is to silence them all,’ Kaploun says at concentration camp site in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Yehuda Kaploun, a rabbi and U.S. State Department special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, spoke at the annual Donja Gradina commemoration hosted in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the site of the Jasenovac concentration camp.

The Croatian regime killed between 77,000 and 99,000 people at Jasenovac between 1941 and 1945, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“To cover our ears to one cry is to silence them all,” Kaploun said at the ceremony. “Whether it is denying the Holocaust, any genocide or any atrocity, any attempt to rewrite the historical record is an insult to the victims at Jasenovac and an insult to any victim of the atrocities.”

That is why U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio “have been clear: there can be no compromise with evil, and there can be no compromising the truth,” Kaploun said. “From standing with Jewish communities to fighting today’s axis of evil, we have made clear that hatred has no place in a civilized society.”

“As antisemitism surges globally, we have no choice but to remember,” he added. “Together, we must educate about the past, and learn from the past, to protect the living.  We must commit to fighting hatred wherever and whenever we see it, and we must build a better world for us all.”

Emir Suljagić, head of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, stated that he was “deeply moved” by Kaploun’s speech.

“Mr. Kaploun showed rare integrity and honesty in confronting contemporary genocide denial alongside Holocaust denial and antisemitism. He did not shy away from condemning all forms of historical revisionism and genocide denial,” Suljagić said. “That he said all of this in Jasenovac—a place that is hallowed ground for Jews—only underscores the weight of his words. His willingness to reach across historical and religious divides is a testament to his character and openness.”

Read More