11/07 Links Pt2: Norway's anti-racism center turns Kristallnacht memorial into Gaza protest; Nancy Spielberg: ”Can’t let them silence our stories”; ‘Nuremberg’ and the failure of international law

From Ian:

David Reaboi: Naming the Jew

By hosting Fuentes, Carlson offered his audience two flavors of antisemitism: explicit and denied. Fuentes names the Jew; Carlson insists he has nothing against Jews at all. But the coordinates are identical, and preferring one or the other is simply a matter of taste. They coexist comfortably because both point to the same destination. Antisemitism is not dangerous because it’s mean or offensive to the feelings or sensibilities of Jews; it is dangerous because it creates and circulates lethal fictions. It produces a weaponized alternate reality, one that leads inexorably to Jews being harmed or killed.

Carlson—not to mention Fuentes and countless others—argues nightly that this country is being controlled by nefarious Israelis. If that “hummus-eating” enemy is willing to commit a genocide in Gaza; deliberately manipulate American leaders into wars; assassinate critics; destroy churches; and oppress and slaughter Christians with impunity, then the problem is no longer political but civilizational. It becomes, in their telling, a battle against a uniquely devious and implacable foe—one that cannot be resolved by elections or arguments, but only by confrontation. The logic points beyond persuasion to elimination.

Fuentes is open about this. In declaring his admiration for Hitler, he merely follows his critique of “organized Jewry” to its natural conclusion. Carlson is far more careful and coy, but the trajectory is the same. His foray last year into World War II revisionism—an extended conversation with podcaster and revisionist historian of National Socialism Darryl Cooper—was not an eccentric detour but an attempt to rehabilitate Nazi Germany and its leader, largely by discrediting Churchill and the Allied cause. Even if these gestures are performative, the tens of millions who watch and listen are not in on the act.

What unites these audiences isn’t ideology so much as a way of seeing. In this world, nothing happens by accident; every war, election, or scandal confirms the existence of an unseen hand. The more elaborate the theory, the more convincing it feels. Carlson and Fuentes didn’t invent this pattern; they inherited and updated it into a modern vernacular of globalist plots, unipolar elites, and “foreign lobbies.” The content changes, but the structure never does.

What Carlson and Fuentes broadcast isn’t “hate”; it’s a cognitive map built entirely on lies. Yet most people, including many Jews, still describe antisemitism as “anti-Jewish racism.” That mistake is fatal. Racism begins with emotion; antisemitism begins with explanation. Its logic is counterfeit, but it poses as reason all the same.

This confusion has deep roots. After the civil-rights era, “hate” became the moral grammar through which all prejudice was understood. Jewish institutions, eager to speak that language, adopted it wholesale. Once antisemitism was redefined as an emotional or linguistic offense, its conspiracy core was buried under “tropes.” In that bucket, the falsehoods that launched pogroms and genocides—blood libel, world-Jewish control—were lumped together with trivial stereotypes.

The result was a flattening of meaning. Even the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s official definition, adopted by governments and many Jewish groups, reflects this collapse. Its warning against “mendacious, dehumanizing, or demonizing allegations about Jews” treats antisemitism as a moral failure rather than an epistemic one.

The problem isn’t cruelty; it’s falsity, and the fact that for two millennia, people have acted on those lies.

Spare Us the Friendship Defense By Abe Greenwald Via Commentary Newsletter, sign up here.

“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend,” said Thomas Jefferson. A good maxim, if you ask me. Most politically involved Americans these days don’t live by it, which is a shame.

But there’s a perverse version of Jefferson’s credo echoing on the right at the moment, and it should be called out. The claim of friendship is being offered up as a defense of indifference to depravity. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts has talked about his or Heritage’s friendship with Tucker Carlson in every statement he’s made about the latter’s sugary interview of Nick Fuentes. He called him a “close friend” of Heritage in his initial defense of Carlson and has not stopped referencing his personal friendship with him even as he tries to clean up the mess. Megyn Kelly, too, likes to go on about her friendship with Carlson and the importance of standing by friends. There’s a whole circle of pundits and influencers who excuse or dismiss hateful people with the friendship defense.

People can disagree with me all they like, but here goes: If you remain close friends with someone who promotes racist or anti-Semitic ideas to pursue evil ends, you’re a bad person. This isn’t about politics because bigotry isn’t fundamentally about politics. It’s about what’s in someone’s heart, which should be the deciding factor in choosing friends.

And it’s not guilt by association. Those who use the friendship defense love to note that their friendship doesn’t require them to agree with everything that their friend believes. The problem isn’t that the friendship automatically means you also have malevolent intentions (although you might). It’s that you even could stay friends with someone who spreads evil. That says everything one needs to know about you.

Starving for Headlines

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF): Unfairly Maligned Alternative
The Reuters USAID article above was published at a time when Israel and the US were defending their decision to terminate cooperation with UNRWA in favor of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an American nonprofit created to deliver aid directly to the people of Gaza. The Foundation bypassed Hamas interference by using secure distribution sites, and made large-scale theft harder by packaging and distributing individual meals rather than bulk items like flour and sugar. GHF spokesperson Chapin Fay recently told Quillette that his organisation delivered over 170 million meals directly into the hands of needy civilians in less than four months with “zero diversion” of aid.

Because the GHF coordinated their operations with Israel, they came under intense scrutiny. The UN categorically rejected cooperation with them—even after over 200 faith-based and Israel advocacy organisations published an open letter urging them to do so in August 2025. Rather than reporting on the UN’s obstinate refusal to work alongside this efficient means of aid delivery, media outlets overwhelmingly blamed Israel for the resulting shortfall in aid. UNRWA’s refusal to deliver aid to areas of Gaza outside the GHF’s reach forced Gaza residents to travel long, dangerous routes to obtain food. The UN claims that hundreds of Gazans were killed “in the vicinity of GHF sites”—attributing the deaths to the Israeli military. Israel strongly denies the accusations and has released testimonials from Gazan aid-seekers explaining how Hamas tries to disrupt the aid system through violence and manipulation. “This is how Hamas operates—they deliberately fire at people and want it to appear as though the army is the one shooting,” reported one Gaza resident. GHF workers are also at risk. Chapin Fay reports of a particularly shocking incident in mid-June 2025, when Hamas hijacked a bus transporting GHF workers and murdered nine of them. The wounded survivors of the attack were taken to Nasser Hospital (where Doctors Without Borders were operating) but were “refused treatment and left to die in the parking lot.” Uncovering the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s Controversial Tactics

While the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was operating, Hamas ran into severe financial difficulties, which the Washington Post reported without linking that fact to the GHF. As Chapin Fay told Quillette, “The Washington Post didn't connect the dots, but I will. It’s not a coincidence that you can't steal GHF aid, and the UN wasn’t delivering theirs, and Hamas was having trouble with its finances.” Hamas demanded that “clear-cut language” be added to the terms of the ceasefire stating that GHF would be terminated. The GHF ceased operations on 10 October 2025 as a requirement of the ceasefire.

We All Deserve Better
The patterns documented here reflect a deterioration in journalistic standards, whereby ideological preferences override impartiality. But Gaza coverage makes these failures consequential in uniquely destructive ways. Every news story emphasising Israeli responsibility while erasing Hamas culpability perpetuates the cycle of Palestinian suffering. Our trusted news outlets have enabled this by abdicating their responsibility to ask hard questions, verify facts, and seek the truth—the core principles of journalism.

Arab Zionist to Arutz Sheva: October 7 exposed deep antisemitism in Arab world

Rawan Osman, a Syrian-born German political activist and a self-described Arab Zionist, spoke with Arutz Sheva-Israel National News at the European Jewish Association (EJA) conference in Poland about antisemitism in the Arab world.

Osman says that “antisemitism has always been rampant in the Arab world. However, even I, who lived in four different Arab countries, had never imagined how bad the situation was until October 7th. In fact, October 7 unmasked a much bigger problem not only in the Arab world but globally. We do have data for antisemitism around the world except in Arab countries because they do not acknowledge, recognize, or admit that antisemitism is an issue. And when Arabs deny that antisemitism is a problem, we ask them, 'Where are your Jews today?'”

She continued: “More than 800,000 Jews have left the Arab world since Israel became a country. What needs to be done first and foremost is to invite them to recognize, admit that it is an issue for them to understand that antisemitism has caused, above all, problems in the Arab world. And if they want to address their issues and problems, they need to reconcile with the existence of a Jewish state in the so-called Middle East.”

Osman stated that “October 7th helped us recognize how bad antisemitism in the Arab world is, but it definitely also contributed to a sharp rise in Jew hatred and anti-Zionist sentiments across the Arab world. Even those who considered accepting Israel in the region passionately rejected it after seeing the horrific video footage emerging from Gaza. What needs to be done is for political leaders to explain that Israel did not start the war. We need to get rid of Hamas. We need to expose them as liars, and we need to speak about the elephant in the room.”

“The Palestinian culture glorifies violence and martyrdom. And we will not get rid of recurring wars in our region unless we stop infantilizing the Palestinians and we hold them accountable for their actions, especially for incitement against the Jews, the Zionists, and the Israelis.”

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11/07 Links Pt1: Hamas hands over body of hostage to Israel; Hamas Committed Genocide; Iran planned to kill Israeli envoy to Mexico; Half of Israelis would avoid NYC after Mamdani victory

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Accusations Against Israel Once Again Revealed to Be Pure Projection

Khan reportedly tried to guilt his accuser into keeping quiet about the allegations, telling her that going public would hurt Gazans because it could derail his case against Netanyahu. His accuser took it to heart, requesting a transfer instead of an investigation into Khan. “I held on for as long as I could because I didn’t want to f*** up the Palestinian arrest warrants,” she testified.

Although some extremist figures, such as incoming New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, still back the arrest warrant, the case against Netanyahu at the court is obviously and entirely illegitimate. Even worse, it was issued apparently in an attempt to let the prosecutor get away with rape. Khan took a leave of absence from the case, but the ICC requires thorough reform or disbanding.

As if all that wasn’t bad enough, now we’ve got the reported Qatari involvement—a story broken by the ICC’s staunch ally against Israel, the UK Guardian, which reports:

“The private intelligence operation that has targeted the woman at the centre of the UN inquiry is said to have commenced earlier this year, when Highgate was commissioned by Qataris.

“A small group of senior Highgate employees was made aware the ultimate client for the project was the Qatari unit, according to evidence reviewed by the Guardian. The funding was regarded as highly sensitive. Executives involved in the project were careful to refer to its client as the ‘client country’ or ‘Q country’.

“A document seen by the Guardian suggests that at one stage during the operation Highgate sought information that would link the alleged victim and her family members with Israel or its intelligence agencies.”

According to the Journal, Khan had suggested his accuser might be part of a plot to bring down the ICC. This was a way to casually plant the idea that his victim was actually an Israeli agent. The Guardian notes that he actually then met with the intelligence team assigned to tar his accuser. The intelligence firm followed this line of investigation, but to no avail: As is usually the case, Israel haters were lying.

The intelligence firm apparently went so far as to hack into her private communications, but still found nothing. No amount of Qatari money can change the fact that Khan, his ICC enablers, the countries and politicians supporting his actions—and of course Qatar itself—are the bad guys here. The public should keep in mind for the future that extraordinary accusations against Israel are often themselves admissions of guilt.

Bassem Eid: Hamas Committed Genocide

Captured Hamas records prove that Hamas originally collaborated with Iran and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah to commit similar massacres in Northern Israel, with the intent of provoking the collapse of the state of Israel. Although it never launched a full-scale invasion, Hezbollah did launch a missile barrage into Israel that slaughtered children.

Perhaps nothing shows intent so clearly as Hamas’s civilian hostage taking. 251 innocent people were dragged into Gaza, including 30 children under 18 years of age, and 16 under 10. Two babies, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, were murdered in captivity. Hostages were starved, filmed emaciated, and forced to dig their own graves in the tunnels. Some were raped repeatedly. Teenage hostages were forced to commit sex acts on each other. Others were executed.

Hamas has weaponized genocide denial, engaging in a strategy of reverse accusations, smearing Israel as a way of deflecting attention from their crime. In so doing, Hamas is weakening the precedent for identifying and prosecuting genocide around the world. They hope to villainize Western powers that go out of their way in wartime to protect innocents and distract from their own barbarism.

Israel is acting based on military need and prioritizing civilian survival, fighting under unthinkable circumstances engineered by Hamas to turn civilian infrastructure into military sites. Hamas apologists misquote Israeli politicians to claim intent, and grow silent when confronted by tens of millions of warning messages, thousands of tons of aid, and guarded humanitarian corridors provided by the IDF. The legitimacy of genocide charges themselves is compromised when accredited international institutions have committed clear errors in the rush to judgment of Israel, the victim power, instead of identifying the actual aggressor, Hamas.

Meanwhile, real genocides are being ignored by the rest of the world. According to the United Nations, more than 740,000 people are killed each year in armed conflict and criminality. The slaughter of tens of thousands in Sudan has left pools of blood in the sand visible from space. Hamas’ false accusation does an injustice to the actual victims of genocide who lost their lives on the basis of their shared heritage. It leaves tens of thousands massacred around the world without the chance of getting justice for their murders.

As a Palestinian, it is vital that I speak the truth. Hamas committed genocide on October 7th. Every attempt to aggravate their denial by smearing Israel only dishonors the victims, weakens the legitimacy of real genocide charges, and protects the perpetrators. Justice must be done, and history must never forget the crimes that were committed on October 7, 2023 – and by whom.

Aizenberg: Tunnel Denialism: The Erasure Beneath the Rubble

Media reports similarly erase the presence of tunnels. An October 2025 report in The Guardian on "The ruin of Gaza" never writes the word "tunnel." This silence extends even to media outlets that have themselves documented the tunnels. The New York Times published two major investigations, one in November 2023 and another in February 2024 , confirming extensive tunnel systems beneath much of Gaza including the Al-Shifa Hospital. Yet many recent articles and op-eds in the same paper lamenting the destruction in Gaza fail to mention the tunnel network. This is the essence of Tunnel Denialism.

The contrast with the reality of Gaza and the war could not be starker. An account by hostage Aviva Siegel describing her captivity in Gaza sums up the Hamas tunnel network. She explained how her first stop was a civilian home with a tunnel shaft inside the living room. She recalled seeing “somebody underneath the hole, in the hole underneath the ground, that’s waiting with a smile.” Siegel was moved thirteen times, through tunnels and militants’ homes. This single testimony captures what much of the world prefers not to acknowledge: the tunnels are not separate from civilian Gaza. They are underneath it, literally and conceptually intertwined with daily life. Hamas built its war machine beneath families and children, hospitals and schools, ensuring that any military confrontation would destroy both. Israel's only choice was to grant Hamas permanent immunity, or attack Hamas knowing that great destruction was unavoidable.

One of the war’s defining images (see below) shows a bombed-out children’s bedroom, its walls painted with Mickey Mouse and Snow White, the floor blown open to reveal a gaping tunnel shaft beneath. In this tunnel, Hamas executed six Israeli hostages because the terrorists feared their rescue by nearby IDF soldiers. It encapsulates Hamas’s strategy: hide within civilian life, then weaponize the resulting destruction for propaganda. And yet, when Gaza’s devastation is lamented in global media, such images rarely appear. When they do, the hole in the ground is left unexplained.

Why this erasure? Because acknowledging the tunnels forces a confrontation with Hamas’s moral depravity and the impossibility of a clean, casualty-free war. It exposes the grotesque calculus at the core of Hamas’s strategy: embedding its military infrastructure beneath its own civilians to ensure civilian deaths that can be weaponized politically. Ignoring that fact allows critics to blame Israel for consequences engineered by Hamas. To analyze the tunnels seriously is to see Hamas as a movement that sacrifices its own population for global sympathy—a recognition that would collapse the “Israel = aggressor / Gaza = victim” binary on which so much Western discourse depends.

Even the postwar debates about Gaza’s future proceed with Tunnel Denialism, as if this subterranean state never existed. But the “day after” cannot be separated from the seventeen years before—from Hamas’s decision to turn Gaza into an armed fortress dug beneath its own people. Any plan for reconstruction that ignores that reality will only rebuild atop future ruins.

The first step toward ending Gaza’s tragedy is intellectual honesty: to speak the word tunnel and understand what it signifies. Until the world confronts that underground reality, every discussion of Gaza’s ruins will remain a half-truth, and every plan for its “day after” will merely prepare the ground for the next war.

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11/06 Links Pt2: Maccabi Tel Aviv Protests: ‘Its Very Obvious They Hate Jews’; Don’t let Tucker Carlson’s defenders gaslight you about free speech

From Ian:

BBC Arabic promotes terrorist’s new book called The Holocaust Custodian – written by killer of a Holocaust survivor

BBC Arabic is facing further questions about its conduct after the channel showed viewers the latest book by a released Palestinian terrorist called The Holocaust Custodian – without mentioning that one of the people he was imprisoned for his role in murdering was herself a Holocaust survivor.

Last month, the Arabic-language BBC channel, which is partially funded by the Foreign Office, as well as the British taxpayer, interviewed two convicted terrorists, Basem Khandaqji and Nader Sadqa, who were among the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners released by Israel in return for Hamas releasing the remaining Israeli captives it took on 7 October. Both Khandaqji and Sadqa are senior members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who were imprisoned for their roles in separate terror attacks which killed Israeli civilians. They were not permitted to return to the West Bank, but instead were released into Egypt.

Khandaqji, who wrote books in prison, won an International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2024. In his BBC interview he claimed that he told his Israeli prison guards that “my words will cause your colonialism pain”.

Khandaqji’s latest book is called The Holocaust Custodian; while the BBC interview does not directly ask him about it, it features video footage of him signing copies. The BBC did not see fit to question him about the fact that Leah Levine, one of the victims of the 2004 bombing which Khandaqji helped perpetrate, was herself a Holocaust survivor. Khandaqji’s latest book, “The Holocaust Custodian”, as shown on BBC Arabic

The November 2004 bombing in Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market injured 50 people and killed three – Shmuel Levy, 65, Tatiana Ackerman, 32, and Leah Levine, 64.

A child survivor of the Holocaust, Levine had been featured on Israeli television four years previously after meeting her brother, who had been living in Russia, for the first time since her childhood – at which time she learned her exact birth date.

Amer al-Fahr, a 16-year old from near Nablus, had carried out the suicide bombing. A BBC article from the time cited the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz quoting al-Fahr’s mother, saying “It’s immoral to send someone so young. They should have sent an adult who understands the meaning of his deeds.”

BBC Middle East editor sues Owen Jones for libel at High Court over Gaza article

An article by journalist Owen Jones about the BBC’s coverage of the conflict in Gaza has caused the corporation’s Middle East editor to receive death threats, documents in a High Court libel claim allege.

Raffi Berg, who joined the BBC in 2001 and has been Middle East editor for its news website for 12 years, is suing Jones over an article titled The BBC’s Civil War Over Gaza published on the Drop Site website in December last year.

The claims in the article, which Berg denies, include that BBC staff told Jones that Berg “plays a key role in a wider BBC culture of ‘systematic Israeli propaganda’”.

It also said that staff had told Jones that Berg “reshapes everything from headlines, to story text, to images” and “repeatedly seeks to foreground the Israeli military perspective while stripping away Palestinian humanity”.

In court documents seen by the PA news agency, John Stables, for Berg, said the claims in the article “strike at the claimant’s professional reputation as a journalist and editor”, and had caused Berg to suffer “an onslaught of hatred, intimidation and threats”, including death threats.

Jones said he looked forward to “vigorously defending my reporting”.

The article said that the corporation was facing an “internal revolt over its reporting” of the conflict.

It continued that journalists had claimed that Berg “sets the tone for the BBC’s digital output on Israel and Palestine”, and that complaints from staff about the corporation’s coverage had been “repeatedly brushed aside”.

Jones’ piece also claimed that “facts unfavourable to Israel have been stripped out of Berg’s reports” and that he played a “crucial role” in “conduct that imperils the integrity of the BBC”.

Mr Stables said that following the article’s publication, an online petition was launched calling on the BBC to suspend Berg, who was targeted by protesters at the corporation’s premises in January this year.

Lawsuit Alleging Gavin Newsom 'Facilitated' Anti-Semitic Campaign Against National Guard Commander Headed to Trial, Judge Rules

A former commander of the California National Guard who says Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) "facilitated" an anti-Semitic campaign that resulted in his wrongful termination will have his day in court, a judge ruled Friday. The move could cause a major headache for Newsom ahead of his expected 2028 presidential campaign.

Former brigadier general Jeffrey Magram is suing the state of California and Adjutant General Matthew Beevers, a Newsom appointee who has faced allegations of denigrating a Jewish subordinate as a "kike" lawyer. Magram alleges that Newsom "facilitated and ratified" a Beevers-driven campaign of anti-Semitic discrimination, harassment, and retaliation against him that started after Magram defended a fellow Jew from Beevers's anti-Semitic rants and ended with Newsom's office signing an order to dismiss Magram in November 2022.

Sacramento Superior Court judge Richard K. Sueyoshi rejected the Newsom administration's efforts to quash Magram's lawsuit in an Oct. 31 ruling authorizing six of its eight counts to proceed toward a trial. The ruling will force the Newsom administration to comply with document discovery and deposition requests that Magram says have been ignored since he filed his lawsuit in January 2024.

The discovery process could provide a window into how Newsom's administration handles accusations of anti-Semitism and risks becoming a political liability for the Democratic governor ahead of a 2028 presidential campaign.

"Beevers and the California Military Department have disregarded complying with public laws and multiple legal requests for documents," Magram told the Washington Free Beacon. "We are very much looking forward to the facts coming out in this case and for the truth to be heard by all."

Those records include documents that may shed light on Newsom's response to several letters Magram wrote to the governor's office warning that Beevers was engaged in a personal vendetta against him driven by his "bigoted beliefs" against Jewish people. Magram alleges in his lawsuit that Newsom "chose to ignore this information and directly ratify the anti-Semitic acts of Beevers" when his office signed off on his termination in November 2022.

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11/06 Links Pt1: Why October 7 Strengthened Israel; Kazakhstan joining Abraham Accords; To Secure Long-Term Peace, Fix Gaza's Schools; Tanzanian hostage Joshua Mollel’s body returned to Israel

From Ian:

Why October 7 Strengthened Israel

Israel is suffering from deep PTSD. Almost one thousand soldiers were killed, forever altering the lives of their families and friends. Thousands of wounded face years of rehabilitation.

Yet there is another side to the story. Some say Oct. 7 proved that Israel's founding purpose was breached, that Jews were once again slaughtered mercilessly.

I contend the reverse: Israel's reason for being was reaffirmed. In the past, when attacked in pogroms and massacres, Jews lacked the means to fight back. Now we did.

Reservists donned their uniforms again, some returning from abroad, putting their lives and limbs on the line.

Israelis fought like lions and lionesses - with courage and with a moral compass unmatched in the history of war - proving to the world, and to ourselves, that Jewish blood would never again be cheap.

There remained a deep sense that we are not only a nation but a family.

Walking through the streets of Jerusalem these days, one senses a weight lifted from the nation's shoulders. We can finally breathe again: the living hostages are home.

Security Experts: Hamas Disarmament Unlikely but Gaza Rehabilitation Depends on It

Avi Dichter, former head of the Israel Security Agency
"I don't think Hamas will volunteer to put aside its weapons; without weapons, there is no Hamas," MK Avi Dichter, former head of the Israel Security Agency, said Wednesday during the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs conference on the future of Israel and Gaza. Therefore, it is more likely that Israel will be forced to disarm the group through military means. "In this region, what doesn't go with force, goes with extra force."

Nevertheless, Dichter predicted that "Gaza will not be dominated by the Palestinian Authority, and Gaza will not be dominated by Hamas." Moreover, Gazans will not see the inside of the State of Israel for "two generations at least, only in photos."

The rebuilding of Gaza depends on the rehabilitation of the people of Gaza, he argued. He recalled how, on Oct. 7, 2023, the third wave of people to enter Israel were "so-called uninvolved Gazan civilians, something which in normal culture we can't even imagine. They applauded when the Israeli hostages were kidnapped to Gaza," saying that the radical ideology and desire for jihad in Gaza remain strong.

"The main message of our region is if you are weak, you will disappear. If you are small and weak, you will disappear much faster. We are small, but we don't want to be weak. We don't have the option of losing."

Oded Ailam, former head of the Mossad Counterterror Division
Oded Ailam, former head of the Mossad Counterterror Division, said, "People say that to change Gaza you must change beliefs," but such statements are "useless." "Beliefs are like tattoos. You cannot erase them with speeches. You have to change the incentive environment that causes those beliefs to prevail. And if we have some lessons from the real world, it's that ideas don't kill, but capacity kills, which means the first and the only thing that we have to do is to somehow dismantle the capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza to kill."

Ailam said there were hardly any examples in the modern era of Islamic terrorist groups that were willing to disarm. More common is the situation with the Houthis in Yemen and Hizbullah in Lebanon, where agreements are reached but the terror groups keep their weapons. However, such an agreement cannot be allowed in Gaza. Otherwise, there's no chance for any entity in Gaza to replace Hamas.

Regarding disarmament, Ailam said: "I don't see any way that external forces from America, from Egypt, from the Emirates will do it....So I'm pretty much skeptical of the next phase of the Trump agreement. It's not an agreement, it's a letter of intent."

"If Israel and the United States allow Turkey and Qatar to have a major force within Gaza, you can be sure that Hamas would not be dismantled. We have a major problem right now because this American administration wants [Turkey and Qatar in Gaza] because of their important part in achieving the deal. But the payment will be paid by Israel."

"Gaza is the only place on earth where the Muslim Brotherhood has managed to take governance of a real state. However, Gaza is not their goal, it's not their aspiration. They want to be everywhere - in Madrid, Dearborn, Paris....Gaza is just their start-up."

IDF reveals Hamas ties to Iran, UNRWA, Al Jazeera, stolen aid in collection of documents

The IDF published a collection of various intelligence documents on Monday containing evidence of Hamas’s connection to Iran, to UNWRA, and Al Jazeera, as well as the terror organization’s actions at the deliberate “deepening [of] civilian suffering.”

UNRWA Hamas cooperation
The IDF released documents with details of Hamas operatives employed by UNRWA alongside documents detailing Hamas's use of UNRWA facilities.

The IDF uncovered lists of UNRWA employees shown beside a list of Hamas operatives, where the same individuals were present with both civilian and military IDs.

The list included teachers, principals, counselors, and medical staff who all had positions in Hamas's Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades, the terror organization's so-called military wing. Some were listed on Hamas paperwork as drawing pay from UNRWA.

The IDF also shared an excerpt from a document entitled "Basics of Military Engineering Level Three - Obstacles." The excerpt provides al-Qassam fighters with instructions to use civilian buildings, as they are considered "the best obstacle to defend the resistance." The document highlighted the importance of keeping the fight among the people.

UNRWA schools were listed specifically as a meeting place for Hamas in the supply plan of the South Khan Yunis Battalion in 2020.

The director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, Ashraf Mahd, was featured in several photos in which the site described him as "educating his children and indoctrinating the younger generation to follow Hamas' inhumane ideology, glorifying his war crimes."

Al Jazeera Hamas collaboration
The IDF additionally revealed detailed proof of the affiliation between the Qatari state-run Al Jazeera news organization and the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations. Documents, including personnel lists of terrorist training courses, phone directories, and salary documents for terrorists, were all uncovered by the IDF.

Fifteen different Al Jazeera journalists were listed alongside their roles within the terror organizations. Ismail Al-Ghoul, a Nukhba terrorist who took part in the October 7 massacre, was listed among the journalists.

Hamas also allegedly held power over what Al Jazeera reported. In 2022, Hamas gave clear instructions on how to cover up a failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch in Jabaliya, which resulted in the death of several citizens. Al Jazeera was forbidden to criticize Hamas and was told which words to avoid.

Later that year, another document contained further instructions on avoiding any criticism of failed rocket launches. Instead, Al Jazeera was to support the "resistance" in Gaza.

A 2023 document displayed another direct connection between Hamas and Al Jazeera. According to the materials, Hamas established an "Al Jazeera Phone," a secure line that would allow the organization to communicate with the channel.

To Secure Long-Term Peace, Fix Gaza's Schools

For decades, billions have been poured into Gaza. The biggest scandal is what's been taught in Gaza's schools - in large part funded through Western largesse. Every generation in Gaza grows up memorizing the language of martyrdom. Schools, summer camps, mosques and media channels work in concert to instill an uncompromising worldview: violence is virtuous, compromise is weakness, and the annihilation of Israel is a sacred duty.

Few parents in London, Paris or Washington would tolerate their child being taught that violence is noble or that neighbors are subhuman. Yet the international community has subsidized precisely that curriculum for Palestinian children - and then has acted shocked when violence perpetuates itself.

To ensure that hate does not take root again, reconstruction aid must come with nonnegotiable conditions: independent curriculum oversight by external auditors with direct access to materials and classrooms, teacher vetting for extremist affiliations and full donor transparency.

When Western taxpayers fund schools, they have every right to insist those schools don't teach children to become terrorists. Indeed, they have every obligation to do so. We now know what failure looks like. The proper test in rebuilding a decent society for Palestinians is whether we enforce the standards we would insist upon for our own children. Gaza's children deserve schools that prepare them for life, not death.

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11/05 Links Pt2: Zohran Mamdani’s Ivy League intifada; The BBC’s Threat to British Democracy; BDS fail: UK-Israel trade GREW; Hollywood A-listers face 'antisemitism' blacklist

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: Zohran Mamdani’s Ivy League intifada

Mamdani was swept into the political limelight on a wave of privileged resentment. The depthless self-pity of downwardly mobile millennials meshed with the hipster intifada triggered by the events of 7 October 2023, creating the perfect conditions for the rise of this anti-Zio, woe-is-me rich kid. Look, I agree there is a housing crisis, and that it is awful that so many twenty- and thirtysomethings look destined to rent forever. I just find it hard to sympathise with the section of that generation that has promoted climate alarmism and sneered at working-class Americans, thus making it less likely that mass house-building will take place while pissing off the men who would be called upon to do it.

The most galling thing about the Mamdani phenomenon is its claim to be a working-class uprising. Mamdani himself says he’ll fight for the working classes, though surely he’ll have to meet some of them first. The global left is gushing over his win as if it were New York’s equivalent of the Paris Commune. What we have here is the staggeringly dishonest co-option of class politics by an over-credentialled emergent elite who will in truth be pursuing their own Bushwick bullshit, not the improvement of the lot of New York’s workers. They cosplay as class warriors because that’s sexier than the reality – that they’re privileged members of an activist class that will cancel you if you say lesbians don’t have penises but love you if you say ‘Destroy Israel’.

Mamdani’s campaign has exposed how the faux-socialists of the burgeoning young elite really view the working classes – as the saps of history; as agency-lacking victims who require smart cookies from Brooklyn with two degrees in political studies to rescue them from the moral doldrums. Hence, Mamdani’s ‘working-class uprising’ involves talk of free bus travel and city-run grocery stores. It’s charity masquerading as revolution. To the Uber-taking arts crowd of the downtown Mamdani set, ‘working class’ means tragic little people who can’t afford the bus and who crave an apple from the government. Please stop calling paternalism ‘socialism’.

Across the Anglo-American world, a new class of overeducated, high-status influencers is cribbing from the language of socialism to push a politics that is anything but. Here in the UK you’ll see Oxbridge girls in ‘I’m Literally A Communist’ earrings who say ‘Up the working classes!’ and then faint when the oiks vote Reform. We have Your Party, the Jeremy Corbyn / Zarah Sultana outfit that poses as a class revolt when everyone knows their membership is 99 per cent angry graphic designers who can’t believe their Dalston rent went up again. And now we have Mamdani, mayor of a city with such a great history of working-class rebellion, who dons the mask of class to disguise his crusade of culture. I trust New York’s frank, free-speaking workers will soon see through this charade.

Seth Mandel: Your Friends and Neighbors in the Mamdani Era

It will be great if Mamdani is prevented from carrying out his Jews-on-the-brain agenda. It will be greater still if that happens because of the stiffened spines of American Jewish organizations. But what Mamdani’s election says about what is acceptable to New Yorkers will be much harder to undo. The future can be stymied, but the past cannot.

A good example of this is Mamdani’s campaign plank regarding BDS. The boycott-Israel movement has far more failures than successes, at least in America, but that’s because here it isn’t actually about trade policy. BDSniks in the U.S. don’t expect to destroy Israel’s trade position. BDS in the U.S. is first and foremost about making American Jews feel unwelcome and multiplying the number of environments that are explicitly hostile to them.

On Election Day, Mamdani reiterated his support for BDS on MSNBC. It is through that lens that he sees, for example, an opening to end economic partnerships with Israeli institutions, the most prominent of which is the Technion collaboration with Cornell University. That partnership was opened initially in 2012 by the Michael Bloomberg administration and permanently sited in 2017 under Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Aside from the educational benefits, the partnership has produced over 100 start-ups, 84 percent of which are based in New York, according to the Technion.

Mamdani also wants to end the New York City-Israel Economic Council and divest the city’s pension funds from Israel.

The point here is that although he has leveled even more wild-eyed threats—he vows to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for example—Israel and the Jews are the only subjects he talks about when he talks about populations he’d like New York to freeze out. Mamdani is not a “human rights activist,” he’s an anti-Israel extremist who uses the language of human rights to crusade against the one Jewish state. This single-minded obsession made even some of his allies in the legislature uncomfortable.

When Mamdani tried repeatedly to push a bill that would outlaw certain Jewish charities, for example, he failed to garner enough support because of how clearly targeted the legislation was. State Sen. Alex Bores, who backed Mamdani but not that particular bill, told the New York Times: “I view with suspicion bills that are written to target one specific country when they could easily be written broadly to apply to a problem.”

That is the sum total of Mamdani’s campaign—it’s about one country, one people. That creepy obsession made it impossible to argue that Mamdani is merely concerned about human rights or conflict prevention or anything else. That Mamdani ran on this obsession with Israel and won is going to make it difficult for Jews to see New York as the city they once knew.

Mamdani’s win shows how Jewish groups failed Jews by dismissing antisemitism on the left

For New York’s Jews, these are the worst of times and the best of times.

The worst part is obvious: it’s not just that 1 million of our neighbors sauntered to the ballot box and cast their votes for an anti-Semite who missed no opportunity to stand with terrorist sympathizers and Jew-haters; it’s also that our very own communal organizations, groups founded specifically to prevent a movement like Mamdani’s from rising, failed miserably.

The city with the largest Jewish population anywhere outside of Israel should’ve seen Mamdani coming. And its Jewish leaders should’ve done much better to stop him.

Instead, with few exceptions, these leaders equivocated. The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, for example, embraced a string of virulently anti-Israel Democrats, including Mamdani’s pal, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; President Trump wasn’t so lucky, receiving the group’s sharp criticism for his efforts to deport illegal migrants and keep our borders safe.

The Anti-Defamation League did even worse. The group, previously one of the most revered Jewish organizations nationwide, spent the last few years turning itself into a full-blown arm of the Democrat Party, releasing reports, for example, that argue that anti-Semitism is a problem exclusively on the right and not, say, on radically progressive college campuses.

And as one researcher reported in Tablet Magazine last week, even the group’s attempts to educate Americans about anti-Semitism are a disaster: people who completed the ADL’s anti-anti-Semitism curriculum were 15 times more, not less, likely to express anti-Jewish sentiments.

None of this is hard to understand. For years, America’s organized Jewish community sang the tunes of the left, focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion even as their so-called allies informed them in no uncertain terms that Jews no longer have a place in the gorgeous mosaic of aggrieved minorities orchestrated by the Democrats.

For Mamdani’s victory to have any meaning, then, these organizations and the individuals that lead them must face a very serious reckoning.

In the days after the October 7, 2023 massacre, Israelis spoke of the Konseptsiya, or the thwarted, idealistic worldview that led so many of them to fail to see Hamas’s preparations for the attack.

New York’s Jews now have a Konseptsiya of their own to grapple with, a wrestling that should lead them to hold their leaders accountable. If done right, this process could lead to new and better organizations skeptical of partisan affiliations and dedicated to finding new and faithful partners outside of the traditional political coalitions convened long ago by the left.

So much for the worst of times.

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11/05 Links Pt1: Boris Johnson: 'Strange to see intellectuals supporting Hamas'; Douglas Murray: "If there's an American flag at an anti-Israel protest, it's only there to be burnt"

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: Israel: A Model Ally, a Model Society

President Trump’s historic Gaza Peace Plan, which stopped the war by making Hamas release the living hostages it held, is a good time to reflect on the broad sweep of the war in Gaza, both in the field and in the arena of public opinion. In the past two years, a country of ten million people, attacked literally from all sides, defied expectations by not only beating back its attackers, but also fundamentally reordering the Middle East. This triumph showed a level of social cohesion and patriotic dedication long unseen elsewhere in the West. At the same time, the country found itself a target of bogus accusations aimed ultimately at delegitimizing any free country’s resistance to a barbarian onslaught.

The Course of the War
Let us start not in Gaza, but with what was Israel’s more formidable foe to the north. Hezbollah’s arsenal of hundreds of thousands of missiles, amassed in southern Lebanon over two decades under the indifferent eyes of UN peacekeepers, was a Damocles’ sword over Israel’s head. Pre-war scenarios envisioned thousands of Israeli fatalities in a confrontation with Iran’s leading proxy force. Yet none of these scenarios came to fruition. Now Hezbollah is in tatters, the feckless peacekeepers are on their way out, and Lebanon’s president is publicly talking about peace with the Jewish state. In the process, Israel eliminated numerous senior terrorists who had been wanted for decades by the U.S. for their role in the mass murder of Americans. Despite the large bounties the U.S. put on their heads, no one could touch them: until Israel did. No other ally in recent memory has avenged attacks on Americans in such a manner.

Now, let’s turn east. Before the war, Iran was on the final lap of its decades-long race toward nuclear weapons, which would put it in a position to extort not just Israel, but the whole world. For decades, international affairs and security experts confidently opined that Israel lacked a serious military option against Iran’s nuclear program and that attacking Iran would unleash what even many on the right predicted would be “World War III.” Instead, Israel broke the illusion of Iranian invulnerability and set the weapons program back by years. In the process, it did not suffer a single military casualty.

The attack on Iran’s nuclear sites forged a historic new military partnership between Israel and the United States. In previous conflicts, the U.S. got bogged down with cumbersome and ineffective “coalitions of the willing.” With Israel, America had a one-state “coalition of the able,” which did most of the heavy lifting against the Islamic Republic (and its Houthi partners). This let the U.S. administer the final blow without putting a single soldier on the ground.

In the year leading up to Oct. 7, 2023, Israel faced a serious internal challenge as proposals for judicial reform led to divisive protests, funded in part by the Biden administration. Some air force pilots dramatically, but it turns out not sincerely, threatened not to defend the country. Social critics (and perhaps Hamas) read too much into this spectacle, which was really a melodramatic family quarrel. Israeli society came together with an unbelievable cohesion from the first day of the war to the last. Responses to call-up for reserve duty ran to 150 percent in the first days of the war. Even two years later, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers with jobs and families called up for hundreds of days, morale and participation remained extremely high.

Israel called up 360,000 reservists at the peak of the war. Yet there has been no large-scale draft evasion and shockingly little grumbling. The heroism, dedication, maturity, and sensitivity of nineteen and twenty-year old recruits stunned even old-timers who have seen their share of wars. The public weathered regular rocket barrages from Gaza and Lebanon, and more terrifying missile attacks from Iran and Yemen, with sangfroid.

What’s even more stunning is that throughout this two-year period, Israel’s fertility rate didn’t waver—in fact, there was a baby boom. Israel has the highest fertility rate in the West, with an average of 2.5 children per woman (more than three if counting only religious women), higher than any other OECD country.

There is a lesson here. Israel serves as an ideal ally for the United States and a role model to America’s treaty alliance partners. Israel mobilized more troops for active duty in this war than the combined mobilization potential of the United Kingdom, France, and a number of other NATO allies. America has spent untold billions on the conflict in Ukraine, which still has not introduced general conscription for eighteen-year-olds (though older cohorts are drafted), afraid the public would not bear it. America has troops deployed to Europe and Asia for countries that may not be willing to fight for themselves. On the other hand, Israel has taken on dedicated enemies of America, like Hezbollah and Iran, singlehandedly.

Israel fought for two years because it realized after October 7th that it could no longer survive surrounded by heavily armed Iranian proxies. It has now destroyed Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” and instead is in peace negotiations with the former Iranian satrapies of Syria and Lebanon. This is the reason President Trump recently called Netanyahu “one of the greatest wartime leaders.”

'Strange to see intellectuals supporting Hamas': Boris Johnson speaks on Palestinian recognition

In a direct attack on the BBC and Britain's recognition of Palestine, former British prime minister Boris Johnson said it was "strange to see intellectuals supporting Hamas."

During a European Jewish Association conference (EJA) in Krakow, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sharply criticized the lack of political leadership in the West, condemned the BBC’s coverage, and called the Labour Party's decision to recognize a Palestinian state "a mistake driven by internal pressure."

The discussion opened on a somber note by EJA chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin, who declared that "this is the worst time for Jews since World War II." Rabbi Margolin noted that recent surveys show that about 20% of Europeans blame Jews for the war in Gaza. "Jews are afraid to live in Europe," he said.

Rabbi Margolin emphasized that all strategic programs, definitions (such as the IHRA definition), and the appointment of envoys to combat antisemitism have resulted in "zero impact" due to the lack of implemenation.

Johnson, who joined the discussion, agreed with the severity of the situation. "It's very sad to see this rising," he said. "Politicians must show leadership... it's not just a matter of enforcement against people who are violent toward Jews."

Criticism of the left and the BBC
Johnson expressed astonishment at what he called a "strange paradox" in Western politics. "It is sad and surprising to see a large number of middle-class intellectuals wearing keffiyehs, marching in the streets of London, and calling for Israel to be wiped off the map," he said.

His finger was also pointed at the media, particularly the BBC. When one of the participants asked about bias in the British broadcasting corporation, Johnson replied that "they made a corporate decision to cover the Gaza conflict in a certain way. I think it was very sad, and I think it caused huge damage."

Johnson urged political leaders "to tell the truth" about the difference between Israel and Hamas, "an organization that still holds to its charter calling for the destruction of Israel."

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11/04 Links Pt2: The horseshoe politics of America is coming for the Jews; Melanie Phillips: New York's fateful choice; BBC’s bias ‘pushed Hamas lies around the world’

From Ian:

The "Jews" Are a Proxy for a Bigger Political Fight over the American Future

Since Oct. 7, 2023, American Jews have found themselves squarely in the crosshairs of the political left and the political right, between progressive internationalists and extreme isolationists.

On the left, antisemitism takes the form of anti-Zionism. Universities that style themselves champions of diversity now host chants for Israel's eradication. Encampments celebrating Hamas set the moral tone. When mobs target Jewish students, administrators avert their eyes and invoke "free speech." Yet the same administrators spring into action when non-Jewish groups suffer even a "microaggression."

On the right, Tucker Carlson has updated the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for the 21st century. He elevated the podcaster Darryl Cooper to "the best and most honest popular historian in the U.S." Cooper trivializes the Holocaust as a bureaucratic mishap and depicts Winston Churchill as the agent of rich Jews. World War II becomes the first in a series of misguided American interventions abroad - engineered, ultimately, by Jews.

Israel has always carried a special symbolic weight in America. From the beginning, Americans cast their self-understanding in Israel's image. The Puritans saw themselves as Israelites crossing the Red Sea. When Americans talk about Israel, they are often talking about themselves. Evangelicals still see in Israel a covenantal twin.

Progressives give more attention to Israel than to any other foreign nation, casting Israelis as "white colonizers" and Palestinians as "oppressed people." Yet Israel is not a "white" society. Its Jewish population includes, among others, Yemenite and Ethiopian communities - unmistakably people of color. Their very presence highlights the absurdity of the racial binary on which the progressive coalition depends.

Israel is the archetypal nation-state: God, people, land. Covenant and borders. Israel's miraculous rebirth, and its power and flourishing - despite the destruction of European Jewry, and its multiple wars for survival - stir American nationalism. The very existence of the Jewish state and the excitement it provokes in America shatters the dream of a post-national, multicultural world run by a global managerial elite.

Carlson and progressives are firing at the same target: the bond between America and Israel. To sever it is to rewrite the American story. Arguments about Israel are, at bottom, arguments about America. To be for or against Israel is to choose among competing visions of the American future. When Trump embraces Netanyahu while waving off Carlson, he is not just setting Middle East policy - he is declaring who America is.

Melanie Phillips: New York's fateful choice

I left New York last night as the city braced itself for a fateful decision. Today it votes for a new mayor, and the front runner is Zohran Mamdani.

Mamdani is an individual who believes Israel shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state and who doesn’t see anything wrong with chanting to “globalise the intifada”.

He has claimed that the Israelis are behind acts of violence committed by the New York Police Department — a riff on the ancient antisemitic trope that the Jews are responsible for problems that have nothing to do with them.

His pledge to shut down the NYPD’s strategic response group, which broke up the violent anti-Israel protests at Columbia university, suggests that he won’t protect New York’s Jews against the tsunami of antisemitism to which they are being subjected.

Less than three weeks after the Hamas-led atrocities in Israel on October 7 2023, he was rabble-rousing on New York streets inciting the mob against Israel’s “genocide”.

Stephen Daisley: The horseshoe politics of America is coming for the Jews

Alighting on the Jews as the cause of the world’s iniquities is nothing new, but it is significant that both American leftists and rightists draw on antisemitic and anti-Zionist frames for their scorched-earth approach to contemporary politics. Rejecting the gradual reform of liberalism or conservatism, the progressives and the nationalists are as one in their conviction that the reigning order must be toppled. The systemic flaws or injustices that led them to this conclusion no longer matter as much as the zealous pursuit of political destruction.

This year-zero temperament is bound to put its ideologues, whether leftist or reactionary, on a collision course with Jews. Jewish observance and Jewish culture are bound up with ideas of creation and repair, and in the Torah as in Jewish history, destruction is almost always a source of great sadness and loss.

The Tanakh is a story of building, of establishing a people, forging kingdoms, erecting a temple, and instituting laws and customs. The defeat of the kingdoms and destruction of the temple are not cause for abandoning the commandments but the consequence of not hewing to them.

Burning everything to the ground is a punishment, not a plan of action. Destruction is reserved to God, which is why the Aleinu prays for the Lord to obliterate idols and remove false Gods, while it reserves to mankind the duty of tikkun olam — perfecting the world. But the prayer doesn’t stop there. It adds ‘be-malchut Shaddai’, rendering the full phrase as ‘perfecting the world under the sovereignty [or kingdom] of the Almighty’.

That’s the rub. Jewish text and tradition teach an obligation to repair this earthly realm so that it conforms to the designs of the Almighty, not the passing preferences of man. Obligation is exactly what the revolutionaries of left and right are furiously trying to shake off. Obligation constrains and they want to be free to remake the world in their own image and according to their ideological impulses.

There is an angry messianism spreading across American politics, and perhaps our own soon, too. On left and right, among those of all faiths and the fiercely faithless, a zeal to cleanse, purge, smash and bring down — to destroy to save — is taking hold. The world is too defiled to be conserved or reformed. The only salvation lies in smouldering ruins. The tables of the temple must be overturned, and many a self-appointed saviour is only too keen to volunteer.

For those who yearn to destroy, the people of the book and of the laws are a constant reminder of men’s obligations to creation and its perfection. However strong the will to power, there are limits temporal and divine. Those who demolish in spite will be left with only spite for building blocks.

Seth Mandel: Why the Two Parties Have Diverged on Fighting Anti-Semitism

The reason this reaction is important is because the fight against anti-Semitism is a long one. (It’s not called “the world’s oldest hatred” for nothing.) The Labour Party learned the hard way that it could rid itself of Jeremy Corbyn but that would not cure its Corbynism—and it now has no serious internal mechanism to do so.

The Democrats risk falling into a similar trap. The RJC is part of the Republican Party’s immune system. But the Democratic Party was for so long able to take Jewish support for granted that its own partisan Jewish infrastructure atrophied. It had completely let down its guard. Republicans, meanwhile, are benefiting from the fact that they had to build something—arguably beginning in the 1980s—that would be a specifically Jewish part of the party’s organizational world and could withstand resistance from existing groups. Once it had a foothold, it would have the energy of a start-up not a legacy institution.

Start-ups, of course, have their own weaknesses. But at the moment, that start-up energy enables the wider conservative world to multitask. And it’s why those who claim that fighting anti-Semitism is a “distraction” are, for the moment, losing that argument.

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