03/31 Links Pt2: Israel’s sniveling classes are in the minority; The Sham of 'Disarming' Hamas; UN Sends Billions to Islamic Terrorists Who Kidnap its Staff

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Israel’s sniveling classes are in the minority

In other words, outside the curated echo chamber of the likes of Seroussi, Israelis are doing what we always do: debate, grumble and persevere—raising families at the highest rate in the Western world, and managing, against all odds, to sustain an upbeat mood under the constant strain of having to defend against enemies bent on wiping us off the map.

Seroussi’s woe-is-me theatrics aside, Israel ranks eighth on the latest World Happiness Report. Evidently, the citizens polled neglected to align their answers about their overall well-being with the gloom and doom emanating from left-wing Hebrew-language TV studios.

Not only that. Surveys indicate that an overwhelming majority of Israelis back the war against Iran and its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon—despite having spent the past month running to bomb shelters throughout the day and wee hours of the night.

Seroussi and her fellow moaners are free to view things differently. They’re also at liberty to depart for what they imagine to be greener pastures abroad.

Such prerogatives are among the many options taken for granted by the sniveling classes. You know, the people who tend to omit a certain inconvenient phenomenon for Jews, regardless of their political persuasion: the explosion of antisemitism in New York, London, Paris and just about everywhere else.

It’s open Jew-hatred that would have seemed unfathomable not long ago, though probably not to Seroussi’s grandparents.

Jonathan Tobin: Gavin Newsom and the Democrats’ Israel problem

Simply put, there is a broad consensus within Israel that stretches from left to right on these issues. That consensus views a Palestinian state, such as the one that existed in Gaza prior to Oct. 7 in all but name, as an invitation to future slaughter and perpetual war. It also understands that the only option available to them with respect to Iran, as long as it is governed by fanatical Islamist theocrats, is a fight to the finish.

Seen from that perspective, it makes even those Democrats who claim to be supporters of Israel, though bitterly opposed to its government, like Newsom or even Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, as not merely out of touch with the realities of Israeli politics but also with their own voters. Such candidates may try to finesse the issue, as Newsom and Shapiro are trying to do, by declaring their support for Israel while avowing perpetual opposition to Netanyahu and Trump. But even if you take Netanyahu out of the equation, there is no conceivable government that could emerge from the next Israeli election that would have policies on two states or Iran that any almost any Democrat outside of an outlier like Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa) could support. And as far as the left-wing base of the Democratic Party is concerned, all Israelis and their American supporters—be they Jewish or Christian evangelicals—are backers of the mythical “genocide” and “apartheid.”

And that is why Israel is a land mine that Democratic presidential contenders understand can blow up their ability to reach their party’s activists who are the key to winning primaries and the nomination.

The two parties move in different directions
It’s true that there is also a vocal anti-Israel and increasingly antisemitic faction on the right that is unhappy with Trump’s pro-Israel policies. But it is clearly a minority with most Republicans, including the MAGA base. Most are enthusiastic supporters of Israel and of Trump’s stands, including the current war on Iran. And that has also placed Vice President JD Vance, the putative champion of the Tucker Carlson anti-Israel wing of the party, in a very uncomfortable position. He and his staff are reduced to leaking their unhappiness with Netanyahu, as well as their hopes about brokering a deal with Iran, to left-wing publications like Axios.

The anti-Israel right may think that it can reverse the GOP’s pro-Israel stance if Vance wins the presidency in 2028. But their problem is that unlike the situation on the other side of the aisle, the Veep’s coolness to Israel and the conflict with Iran is making that prospect far less of an inevitable occurrence than it seemed just a few months ago.

But for Democrats, the trend is moving in the opposite direction.

The best that supporters of Israel can hope for from a Democratic presidential candidate going forward is exactly the sort of dodge Newsom has just demonstrated—by talking out of both sides of his mouth. He signaled acquiescence to the “apartheid” and “genocide” blood libels while saying he supports a mythical Israel that has, like the few remaining liberal Zionists, learned nothing from Oslo, the events of Oct. 7, or Iran’s role in fomenting terror and war. Some “moderate” Democrats may think that trying to thread the needle in this way will allow them to be acceptable to both left-wingers and Jewish donors. That’s a sham that increasingly fewer opponents or supporters of Israel will accept.

Yisrael Medad: ‘The Three Cs’ and company

The person on the other side of that conversation was Robert Emmet Patrick Barron, a theologian who serves as bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester. In a follow-up post on X, he was more explicit in his opinion about Boller.

He wrote on March 20: “Boller … has called out myself and other Catholic members of the commission for not defending her. This is absurd. Mrs. Prejean Boller was not dismissed for her religious convictions but rather for her behavior at a gathering of the commission last month: browbeating witnesses, aggressively asserting her point of view, hijacking the meeting for her own political purposes.”

He also clarified the Catholic position on matters of “Zionism.” For Barron, the State of Israel has a right to exist, though the modern nation of Israel does not represent the fulfillment of biblical prophecies and hence does not stand beyond criticism. He ended, writing: “To paint herself as a victim of anti-Catholic prejudice or to claim that her religious liberty has been denied is simply preposterous.”

These people, righteously raging their Christianity, may be suffering from a form of persecutory delusion. That mental and psychological framework has led them willingly to be accused of irrationality as an element of modern-day martyrdom. They feel, for some strange reason (unless it’s all about the greenbacks), that being in a minority—one that is ridiculed—is actually “proof” of the truth of their convictions. They are pig-pen delighted to exist in their unique in-group status as champions of an outlier view of Jews.

Owens, and specifically, Boller, display the obvious new convert fervor that forces them to be so overtly extroverted in their disgust of fellow Christians and hate for Israel and Judaism.

Social psychology researchers have found that people can form self-preferencing in-groups, even if they are in a significant minority position. In doing so, while experiencing feelings of exclusion, they nevertheless achieve a higher awareness of their identity. In the case of “The Three Cs,” this perception excites them and provides a form of self-justification. They resist the obvious evidence of their irrationality and reject sensible, contrary logical arguments that disprove their beliefs.

And why do we not hear what Carlson, Boller and Owens have to say about the actions of Arab terror groups and Islamist countries against Israelis and Jews? Or about the persecution of Christians in Muslim lands? Why the dichotomy? Why sound the one note?

The danger is that their lack of any real success—beyond temporary media fame and, possibly, fortune—is that their anger only increases. While all they are doing is talking, the true evil is emboldening all those others who hate, channeled through computers and online instruments.

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03/31 Links Pt1: Hegseth: Iranian Missile Strikes Fall to Lowest Level, ‘Widespread Desertions’ Squeeze Regime’s Fighting Force; Israel ends all defense deals with France

From Ian:

Lessons from the Iran War

The centers of gravity on both sides of the Iran war are holding up under military pressure: Iran's command and control, its domination of a still-cowed population, ability to block shipments out of the Gulf, and its missile and drone stocks; the U.S., Israel, and Arab states' internal cohesion, weapons stocks, and despite considerable oil and gas price increases.

Neither side is displaying a decisive collapse of will, with Gulf Arab states so far demonstrating both resilience and defiance of Iran. There will not be a collapse of will by the Israeli government and population. For Israel, this conflict, correctly, is existential and the costs so far are easily bearable. Under such conditions, the conflict likely will shift to negotiations with or without a ceasefire.

Iran is a cause more than a state, although it presents as both. Its attacks on civilian targets in neighboring states seeking to remain neutral, and targeting of international oil supplies, have revealed the regime's nature. The region will never be really at peace unless either the very nature of the regime changes into that of a normal state, or it is stripped of all capability, in perpetuity, to project power through nuclear weapons, drones and missiles, terrorists and proxies.

Iran is able to prioritize its ideological mission of regional domination and religious orthodoxy over its own population, economy, and even military losses in a way most normal modern states cannot. It's hard to break the iron will of ideological states at almost any pain level.

Israel's extraordinary military success both offensive and defensive, the Israeli people's resilience, and its intelligence capabilities in this conflict give it dramatic dominance in the region, building on its previous success with the help of others decimating the Iranian proxy network. But it does not have the strategically mobile ground forces to decisively defeat Iran or other distant foes.

Iran's current strategy is simply to keep shooting with whatever is left of its not inexhaustible but very large weapons stocks until the pain on Gulf states and the American public, diminishing American and regional partners' own weapons stocks, and events elsewhere force the U.S. and Israel to end operations, with or without a face-saving formal understanding with Iran.

John Spencer: What Are Iran’s Centers of Gravity and How Are They Being Attacked?

The United States and Israel are not simply working through a list of targets in an effort to destroy Iran’s military piece by piece. They are applying pressure across multiple parts of the same system at once. Production, command, naval capability, sensing networks, infrastructure, and support networks are all being hit in ways that reinforce each other.

That is what a center of gravity approach looks like in practice. Not a single decisive strike, but a series of actions that collectively make it harder for the system to function, adapt, and recover.

Clausewitz’s warning about dispersion still applies. Effort should be concentrated. But concentration does not always mean a single point. It can mean sustained pressure against the elements that give the enemy its strength.

There is also a dimension of modern war that Clausewitz could not have fully imagined. The ability to strike not just the system, but the individuals who animate it, at scale and with precision. Today, the United States and Israel are not only degrading infrastructure and capabilities. They are systematically targeting the leadership that commands them. Political leaders, military commanders, and those responsible for missile forces, naval operations, nuclear development, and proxy networks. This is not incidental. It follows the same logic. If the center of gravity is the regime’s integrated ability to generate and sustain coercive power, then removing the leadership that directs and coordinates that system directly attacks its function and its will. It introduces paralysis, disrupts continuity, and signals that no part of the system is protected.

And even then, the outcome is not automatic. War is a contest of will. Striking a center of gravity is not about destruction alone. It is about compelling the enemy to do your will through the use, or threat of use, of force, including military action, sanctions, and the removal of critical capabilities the regime sees as vital to its survival.

If the campaign is successful, Iran’s critical capabilities are degraded or destroyed, and there is a real possibility the effects of the war will be visible in decisions, not just damage. That could include Iran handing over its nuclear material, accepting intrusive inspections, ending the program in a way that cannot be easily reversed, halting missile development at scale, reducing or ending support to proxy forces, and abandoning the use of the Strait of Hormuz as a tool of coercion.

Those outcomes are the measure. Anything short of that may represent significant damage. It may even look decisive in the short term. But Clausewitz would caution against confusing damage with success.

IRGC Opposes Negotiations with U.S.

Contacts between Iran and the U.S. are intensifying, Israel Hayom has learned.

In Washington, officials believe that Iran's economic and military distress will push Tehran to accept the 15-point American proposal within a matter of weeks.

Negotiations are currently being conducted by a handful of senior Iranian leaders still in place, alongside President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

The main obstacle remains the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The U.S. has demanded guarantees that the entire leadership, including the Guards, accept the terms.

At this stage, the Iranians have been unable to provide such guarantees because of the fierce opposition of Mohammad Vahidi, the Guards' current commander, to the very existence of negotiations. In the United Arab Emirates, Iranian financial assets have been frozen, with the intention of using them as compensation for the damage caused by Iranian attacks.

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03/30 Links Pt2: No one can deny it now: anti-Zionism is an ideology of hatred; Feminism’s Jewish Problem; The disturbed mind of the anti-Israel activist

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neil: No one can deny it now: anti-Zionism is an ideology of hatred

Actually, it was even worse than that. Over the weekend, Polanski aimed his ire not at those Green activists spouting Jew hate on WhatsApp but at a Jewish journalist who had the temerity to interview members of his family about the Green Party’s possible adoption of a ‘Zionism is racism’ policy. Polanski himself is Jewish and the fine journalist Nicole Lampert found that some of his relatives think he is taking the Greens in a very dark direction. They said it would be devastating for Britain’s Jews if the Greens decreed that ‘Zionism is racism’ – a policy they didn’t get around to discussing in the end at their party conference this weekend. Polanski accused Lampert of ‘parasitic behaviour’ – oof – and she swiftly found herself on the receiving end of a shitshow of hate from all those ‘good guys’.

So, a recap. Green activists referred to Jews as an ‘abomination to this planet’. The Green Party is considering adopting a policy singling out Jewish nationalism as racist. Polanski called a Jewish journalist ‘parasitic’. And, going back further, the Greens’ deputy leader, Mothin Ali, made excuses for the anti-Semitic barbarism of 7 October 2023, as did other Greens. Can we say it now – that the Green Party has a very serious problem with that most ancient of bigotries?

The Israelophobic left loves to say: ‘But Polanski is a Jew! How can you say the Greens have a problem with Jews?’ Here I will merely cite the words of Ms Lampert, who has been fighting the Jews’ corner in British journalism for many years. Polanski uses his Jewish heritage, she wrote in the Telegraph, to ‘kosherise the rampant Jew hatred in the Greens’. It’s a devastating line, and one it is increasingly hard to disagree with: that Polanski’s historic role is to provide the middle-class adherents to the new Socialism of Fools with a get-out-of-jail card. They point to his Jewishness as proof of their righteousness even as they engage in truly hateful behaviour against that ‘abominable’ people.

‘We’re not anti-Semitic, we’re anti-Zionist’, they’ll say. The irritation of Greens for Palestine at having to say Zionist rather than Jew surely explodes that crap once and for all. But more to the point, what do people mean when they say they’re anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic? All I hear is: ‘I don’t hate Jews, I just want to deprive them of a right enjoyed by every other people and bring about the destruction of their homeland so that they will once again be scattered across the Earth.’

I’m sick of pussyfooting around this: if you dream of the Jewish nation’s destruction, and chant for the death of Jewish soldiers, and demonise Jewish nationalism as uniquely barbarous, then you have a problem with Jews. It might take 10 years, maybe 30, perhaps longer, but I am confident we will one day look back at the people who said, ‘I’m an anti-Zionist’, in the same way we look at those who said, ‘Round up the Jews’.

Is it time to retire the term antisemitism?

Synagogues are not embassies. Chanukah celebrations are not military installations. Museums are not government offices. These are Jews, living their lives, thousands of miles from Israel. Jews murdered in the name of anti-Zionism.

If this is anti-Zionism, then anti-Zionism does not stay in Israel. It does not confine itself to policy debates or territorial disputes. It follows Jews wherever they are. It attaches itself to Jewish identity itself.

At that point, the distinction collapses. Anti-Zionist, in practice, means anti-Jewish. And there is a deeper reason for that, one that goes beyond contemporary politics.

“Zion” is not merely the name of a modern state. The prophet Isaiah records God’s words: “And I say to Zion: You are My people.” Zion is not just a place. Zion is a people. And so, anti-Zionist, according to the Bible, means anti-Jewish. Tragically, it is almost unsurprising when Jews are attacked across the globe in the name of anti-Zionism.

So let us stop pretending. Let us stop arguing over whether anti-Zionism is or is not antisemitism. Let us simply call it what they call it: anti-Zionism.

Let it include every Jew who has been targeted, harassed, attacked or murdered under the banner of opposition to Zion.

Because if anti-Zionism consistently manifests as hostility toward Jews, if it repeatedly finds its targets not in government offices but in Jewish communities, if it aligns itself with violence against Jews across continents, then it has already answered the question.

We were looking for a word that means anti-Jewish. They have given us one.

If changing the label from antisemitism to anti-Zionism helps expose the scope and nature of what is happening, then perhaps it is a worthwhile exercise. Not because it resolves the debate, but because it sharpens it.

In the end, the question is not what we call the hatred. The question is whether we are willing to see it clearly. Words matter, but reality matters more.

Call it antisemitism. Call it anti-Zionism. The victims know no difference. And neither, it seems, do those who target them.

The disturbed mind of the anti-Israel activist

Collings’s turn from Britpop-loving centrist dad to an uncloseted Israelophobe took him into Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, and then straight out again. He was adopted as the parliamentary candidate for South West Norfolk in 2019. Within a day of his selection, he was suspended from the party for having dismissed allegations of anti-Semitism in Labour as a ‘witch-hunt’, and for calling the late chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, a ‘hate-filled racist’. He also shared conspiratorial diagrams on social media, purporting to reveal the ‘influence’ of Jewish businessmen on British politics. That’s right – Collings took things too far, even for the Corbynistas.

The Margate exhibition is laughably titled Drawings Against Genocide. The artworks look childish and this is deliberate. Collings is trying to strip away all artifice to let the unalloyed feelings shine out. The trouble is that, in letting us see directly into his soul, what we see there is repulsive.

Collings would no doubt argue that his ‘art’ is in the tradition of the anti-Vietnam War art of the 1960s radicals, like Michael Sandle’s Mickey Mouse at the Machine Gun (1972) or Leon Golub’s paintings of torture and killing, even though his Margate show is entirely misanthropic and hate-filled.

Some have called for the exhibition to be banned, but that would be a mistake. On the contrary, Matthew Collings has done us a great service by showing us the disturbed mind of the anti-Israel activist. It is good that we all see the depravity that lies at the heart of this movement.

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03/30 Links Pt1: Confronting Jihad's Forever War; The Big Ugandan Bear Hug; Trump considering operation to extract Iran's enriched uranium; Michigan synagogue attack was inspired by Hezbollah

From Ian:

Confronting Jihad's Forever War

The U.S. has confronted seemingly implacable ideological enemies before - and won. The lessons of Hiroshima, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Reagan's Cold War strategy point to a common principle: overwhelming force, credible will, and the imposition of unsustainable costs ultimately prevail.

Iran has not surrendered. Its proxies continue to launch missiles and drones. Its parliament invokes jihad. This is the behavior of a regime that does not process war through the same conceptual framework as does the West. The question policymakers must answer is not why Iran keeps fighting - but what kind of pressure will finally make continued fighting more costly than stopping.

One of the most consequential failures of Western strategic analysis has been treating the Islamic Republic's rhetoric as theater. It is not. Its leadership has articulated - with remarkable consistency across four decades - a vision of global, divinely ordained, open-ended struggle against Western civilization. Since 1979, Iran's Islamic Republic has called for "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."

The Karbala Paradigm functions as the Islamic Republic's operational code for conflict. In 680 CE, Imam Hussein ibn Ali - grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and the third Shiite Imam - rode with 72 followers into the plains of Karbala. He was surrounded by a vastly superior Umayyad army. He was offered a choice: submit to the Caliph Yazid, or die. He chose death. His followers were massacred. For Shiite Islam, this was the foundational moral event of the faith - proof that righteous resistance is sacred even when it leads to annihilation.

Any signal that Washington will negotiate the terms of Iran's nuclear program or proxy network - rather than their elimination - will be read as confirmation that the forever war is working. Yet, America does not want a forever war. Neither do Israel, the Gulf states, or the broader community of nations. The theology of jihad is formidable. The martyrdom culture of Karbala is real. But it is not more formidable than American resolve has proven to be.

The Islamic Republic has built its resistance strategy on the assumption that the West lacks the strategic patience and political will to sustain pressure long enough to defeat the regime. Now there is a narrow window to prosecute a historic change. We need to make clear - through action, not rhetoric - that the forever war will end Iran's revolution before it ends ours. The Islamic Republic's leadership has told us explicitly what they intend. The only remaining question is whether the U.S., Israel, and the West have the moral and strategic will to confront this messianic jihadi phenomenon and to defeat it.

Amb. Michael Oren: The Outcome of the Iran War: A Victory or a Pause before the Next War?

On Tuesday night, as U.S. President Donald Trump declared victory over Iran during a press conference, my family and I took shelter in our safe room. Despite the close partnership between Washington and Jerusalem, and the historic cooperation between the U.S. military and the Israel Defense Forces, America and Israel are living in entirely different realities.

From an American perspective, the near destruction of Iran's military capabilities, damage to its nuclear infrastructure, and the elimination of senior leadership can be framed as a victory. For Israel, the standard is far stricter. Any outcome that allows Iran to rebuild its nuclear and ballistic programs, retain enough enriched uranium for multiple nuclear weapons, and continue supporting terrorist proxies is not a victory. It is a pause before Israel is forced to fight the same war again, possibly alone.

During negotiations, Iran may accept principles in theory, then stall, dilute and avoid implementation in practice. We have seen this pattern before. The 20-point Gaza plan stalled when Hamas refused to disarm. The risk now is that Iran follows the same path, agreeing in principle while preserving its core capabilities. Israel cannot afford that outcome.

Israel must press for clear, enforceable guarantees before any agreement takes shape. Not vague assurances, not frameworks, but concrete commitments that address the core threat. At the same time, Israel must act with urgency, both in Iran and in Lebanon, to shape the strategic environment before diplomacy locks in outcomes it cannot reverse.

In Allied Campaign, Mission to Kill Top Iranians Fell to Israel

As U.S. and Israeli military commanders met to map out war with Iran, they deliberated over how to divide responsibility for an array of targets.

It was clear from the outset that one grim mission would belong to Israel: hunting and killing Iran's leaders.

Israel has pursued this assignment with ruthless efficiency, killing Iran's supreme leader in the opening salvo of the war and more than 250 other "senior Iranian officials" since, according to the Israeli military.

The campaign relies on an apparatus that Israel spent decades building but transformed over the past several years to achieve new levels of lethal proficiency.

Senior Israeli military and intelligence officials cited a proliferation of sources and surveillance capabilities inside Iran - regime insiders recruited to spy for Israel as well as cyber-penetrations of thousands of targets including street cameras and payment platforms.

These and other streams of data are being scoured by a new, classified artificial intelligence platform programmed to extract clues to leaders' lives and movements.

Israel's targeted killing tactics - bombs planted months before being detonated, drones capable of slipping into apartment windows, and supersonic missiles fired from stealth fighter jets - have been honed by years of conflict in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

Asked why the mission of targeting Iran's leaders was assigned to Israel, a senior Israeli security official cited its experience and expertise, saying: "There was a need to target them. And we could do it."

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03/29 Links: The War on Civilization: 'Israel Cannot Outsource Its Survival'; Why They Lie About ‘Jewish Terrorists’; No, Trump Is Not Losing His Nerve on Iran

From Ian:

The War on Civilization: 'Israel Cannot Outsource Its Survival'

A Conversation with Pierre Rehov
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism." — Zoheir Mohsen, late PLO senior official, Trouw, March 31, 1977.

Hamas did not attack military targets to "end an occupation." It attacked families to affirm an old doctrine: the Jew is not an opponent; the Jew is a problem to be erased.

If you want to understand October 7, forget the comforting story of "desperation turning violent." Pogroms are not born from desperation; they are born from permission — social, religious, political permission to commit the unthinkable and feel righteous doing it.

In the Battle of Jenin, there was never any "confusion in the fog of war." The story that part of a hospital had been destroyed was a total fabrication. It revealed something essential: a good story has priority over reality.

The genius of the system is psychological. Once the image circulates, correction becomes irrelevant. The emotional verdict has already been delivered.

In modern warfare, the camera is no longer documenting the battle. It is part of the battlefield. The objective is not only to accuse Israel. It is to morally disarm the West. If you can persuade democratic societies that defending themselves equals murdering children, you have already won half the war.

They hate Israel for what it is: an infidel state – and in their midst. If Israel were a Christian state, the same problem would exist. Just look at the genocide in Nigeria – with more than 52,000 Christians killed in just 14 years – in a free society, which is a visible rejection of the Islamic totalitarian dream.

The Palestinian project is not a "two-state solution" or "a better border." The project is a world where religious and political absolutism rules, where minorities submit or vanish, where women are controlled, where dissent is crushed. Israel is the laboratory target. If the West rewards October 7 with political gains, it teaches a lesson to every violent movement on earth: massacre pays. So yes — Israel is defending itself, and in doing so, it is also defending the principle that civilization cannot survive if it negotiates with barbarity as if it were a partner who is misunderstood.

"In March 1978 I secretly brought Arafat to Bucharest for final instructions on how to behave in Washington. "You simply have to keep on pretending that you'll break with terrorism and that you'll recognize Israel -- over, and over, and over...." — Ion Mihai Pacepa, a lieutenant general in the Socialist Republic of Romania's Securitate, the secret police, who defected to the West in 1978, Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2003.

If a deal buys time for the "wrong" side, it is not a deal — it is an extension of the threat.

The point is that Israel cannot outsource its survival, and the United States cannot pretend that totalitarian jihadism can be "managed" indefinitely. Either you dismantle the infrastructure of terror, or it regrows.... Israel's enemies... are imposing a war on civilization.

Peace that is built on amnesia is not peace; it is a pause before the next war.

The West will not be defeated by lack of power. It will be defeated — if it is defeated — by the refusal to oppose danger when they see it.

Amir Peretz saw what others missed: Iron Dome reshaped Israel’s defense and future

Because Peretz was an outsider, he could think outside the box. It brings to mind the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Con men convince the king they can weave him elegant invisible clothing. Everyone parrots the praise of the new garments until a little boy in the crowd shouts that the emperor is actually naked.

The Israeli strategy had, in fact, focused on offense and ignored defense, leaving us as exposed as the emperor. It took a defense minister who grew up in beleaguered Sderot to make defense a priority.

In 1983, American president Ronald Reagan planned the grand-scale Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly called Star Wars. Reagan wanted to protect the US from long-range intercontinental nuclear-armed missiles. The program was canceled before it could be realized.

Not that the doubters were idiots. There was adequate reason for skepticism. The idea that a missile could hit another missile with exactitude sounds fantastical. Even after the Iron Dome was showing its worth, you can look back in military history to find claims by so-called experts magnifying its imperfections.

Once Israeli ingenuity was applied to defensive systems, an Amir Peretz priority, additional systems were developed with the confident financial support and technical collaboration of the United States. David’s Sling and Iron Dome are complementary layers of Israel’s multi-tier missile defense. Iron Dome works for four to 70 kilometers, intercepting short-range rockets and mortars, while David’s Sling intercepts up to 300 kilometers and defends against medium- to long-range missiles, cruise missiles, and drones. David’s Sling was jointly developed by Israel’s government-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and US contractor Raytheon. The next level is protected by Arrow 3, jointly developed by the Israel Missile Defense Organization and the US Missile Defense Agency. The primary contractor is Israel Aerospace Industries.

The same Amir Peretz concluded his three-year tenure as chairman of Israel Aerospace Industries in November 2024. He successfully boosted international partnerships and company revenue.

The newest Israeli defense system, Iron Beam, depends on the development of powerful fiber lasers and is designed to destroy drones, rockets, and mortars at the speed of light, at a negligible cost per interception. None of these amazing tools is complete or airtight. The defensive systems are not “hermetic,” as the IDF spokesperson reminds us daily. Even with 90% accuracy, we have experienced enough misses to understand what horror we would face without our made-in-Israel protection. Bigger and richer countries than Israel do not have the defense systems we have.

So thank you, Mr. Peretz, for your foresight and persistence. President Donald Trump wants to name an American defensive system Golden Dome. He just might be calling you.

Why They Lie About ‘Jewish Terrorists’

The curious timing of this “international criticism,” right as the U.S. and Israel operate jointly against Iran, and the IDF pummels the Islamic Republic’s foreign legion in Lebanon, may offer one explanation why the violent settler narrative has picked up momentum once again. It’s noteworthy that this “criticism” is no longer confined to Europeans and the precincts of the Left. Since a faction of the American Right has resolved to make classic antisemitism and Israel-centered conspiracies central to its domestic political organization and identity formation, the Very Violent Settlers™ have come to play a particular role in this faction’s third-world sectarian universe, facilitated by D.C.-based Palestinian operatives and, regrettably, Palestinian Christian clergy in the West Bank. Last year, for example, this constellation of actors featured settlers in an info op targeting U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and through him, American Evangelicals, who strongly support Israel and President Trump. The op at the time was that the settlers set fire to a church in the village of Taybeh. Only there was no fire in any church—the site was archaeological ruins; the fire, the cause of which was unclear, was in the dry field next to it—and settlers were recorded on video helping to put it out using firefighting equipment.

But the op did succeed in establishing a precedent and an audience on the Right receptive to Arab sectarianism. And so, earlier this week, the same players, including the same clergy from the same village—“the last entirely Christian village in the West Bank”—piled on the “international criticism” against the settlers. Not only does Israel drag Americans to war, this line goes, it also permits violent maniacs to deliberately target the Christians of the Holy Land.

Like the IDF bombing displaced Palestinians at the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza in Oct. 2023, or Israeli snipers deliberately shooting Palestinian children in the head one day and in the testicles the other, “almost as if a game is being played,” or Israel blocking the entry of baby formula into Gaza, it’s all rubbish. By the time Western audiences figure it out—after bad people have been rewarded and good people have been punished—most will move on to the next lie.

That’s because there is a large investment in there being a trend of Jewish Extremist Terrorism. The purveyors of this narrative—the mainstream media, politicians, even well-meaning activists—are all invested in the existence of Jewish villains on par with Muslim ones. Why? Maybe because there have been some 65,000 Islamic terror attacks since 9/11 across more than 70 countries. Maybe because jihadist attacks and plots in the EU in 2024 nearly doubled from the previous year, according to Europol. Maybe because, whatever wave of “Islamophobia” Mamdani imagines is sweeping the nation, Jews remain, by far, the most targeted religious group in the United States. But the good liberals of the West can’t admit any of this. Imagine what it would mean for their precious universalist principles—to say nothing of national policies—if they admitted that some cultures are different from others.

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03/28 Links: Europe’s shameful appeasement of Iran; In Israel, wartime reality doesn’t match what you see on the internet; What secular liberals don’t get about Islam

From Ian:

Tony Blair: Why the West Fails to Stop Antisemitism

These counterarguments need to be made loud and clear by leaders. I don’t know exactly what the response of the people of Britain would be if we woke up one day and between the hours of 6 a.m. and midday, 1,200 of our citizens were murdered, including young people at a music festival, with women raped and others taken hostage (and for Britain, proportionate to the size of population, the figures would be much larger). But I suspect it would be total determination that those responsible were going to be removed as a threat, and nothing would deter us from doing so.

The problem is that, under pressure from party activists and parts of the Muslim community, many progressive politicians who do sincerely reject antisemitism are not making these arguments, and failing to take head-on this literally “unholy alliance” between parts of the left and Islamists in our own societies whose ideology leads inexorably to antisemitism.

Because failure to do so creates the climate in which, even if antisemitism is not explicitly condoned, it flourishes.

One poll during the Gaza war showed that only 24 percent of the British Muslim community believed that October 7 happened in the way it did. Some even believe it was all an elaborate Israeli plot. That is frankly unacceptable.

I know some say that defending the State of Israel is not the way to defeat antisemitism. But there is more at stake than simply defending Israel. It’s about defending reason. Defending facts. Standing up to the noise and intimidation to assert the truth.

None of this means that you cannot support the creation of a Palestinian State or disagree strongly with this or that action of the government of Israel, particularly when that government includes within it figures from the very far right—with whom, it should be said, most members of the Jewish community would disagree.

But it does mean understanding that without a challenge to the ideology that encourages antisemitism, whilst clothing it in indignation at the human cost of war, incidents like the one with the ambulances will continue to the shame of our society.

Europe’s shameful appeasement of Iran

The truth behind the weak response of the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and other countries is far simpler: They refuse to accept that the only way to confront the ayatollahs is with force, plain and simple. The same mindset that produced the 2015 nuclear deal is ascendant now—namely, that military force is always wrong and counterproductive, and that what is needed is a return to soft power and diplomatic initiatives.

Yet such options have been tried and failed repeatedly, testing to destruction the idea that the Islamic Republic is capable of moderation. Years of negotiations on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, followed by punishing sanctions, failed to curb Iran’s appetite for an atomic weapon or a ballistic-missile program. With its long history of concealment, evasion and deception, the regime could never be trusted with agreements that limited its power. That equation has not changed.

The other reason for E.U. passivity may have to do with Ukraine. Many European diplomats are deeply concerned about the diversion of attention and military resources from Kyiv to Tehran. They fear that the war against Iran will be a boon to a Russian president who is desperate for some success after four years of indecisive war.

But this is to mistake short-term benefits for long-term strategic loss. Any weakening of Iranian power (and destruction of the very missiles that have been sent to bombard Ukrainian cities) reduces the threat both to Ukraine and the wider Middle East, ensuring that Russian President Vladimir Putin loses a much-valued client state in the region.

Another Iranian ally watching this war somewhat nervously is China, a major purchaser of cheap Iranian oil. President Xi Jinping will certainly believe that American hegemony in the energy-rich Gulf will not suit its long term interests, especially if he chooses to flex his muscles over Taiwan. He has already lost one important economic ally in Venezuela.

Perhaps a third reason for passivity is domestic in nature. There are substantial Muslim populations in a number of European countries, many members of which remain deeply radicalised by the war in Gaza. While some will side with Iranian Muslims who have borne the brunt of the regime’s savagery, many others will reflexively condemn the United States and Israel for their perceived aggression toward a Muslim country.

There are genuine fears of Iranian proxy attacks on European soil, including in the United Kingdom, where 20 attacks by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been foiled recently and where two Iranians were charged with spying on the Jewish community. Yet while such fears cause genuine concern, they are no excuse for sitting on the diplomatic fence.

To their credit, Trump and Netanyahu are helping ensure that the Iranian threat is destroyed for a generation, potentially freeing that nation from the tyranny that has enslaved it. To their shame, European leaders remain mired in shameful and self-defeating appeasement.

Keir Starmer is giving Iran's terror cells free rein to operate in Britain says Israeli president Isaac Herzog

Israel's president has accused Keir Starmer of allowing Iran's 'empire of evil' to operate freely in Britain.

Isaac Herzog said the prime minister allowed Iranian terror cells to 'do what they want' in the UK and said the Middle Eastern 'rogue state' should be 'crushed'.

President Herzog made the comments in an interview earlier this week which came after four Jewish charity-owned ambulances were set on fire on Monday in an incident which is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime.

Metropolitan Police officials previously said the investigation into the arson attack was looking at an Islamist group with potential links to Iran after unsubstantiated claims of responsibility by Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya - The Islamic Movement of the People of the Right Hand.

Counter-terrorism police arrested two British nationals, aged 45 and 47, earlier this week and released both on bail.

Speaking to the executive director of pro-Israel campaign group StandWithUs, Mr Herzog said Iran spent 'billions of dollars' and had 'terror cells all over the world'.

He added Iran operated 'directly and through their proxies' and it was 'about time the world stands up to them'.

President Herzog continued: 'How come in Britain, the Prime Minister of Britain says there were about 10 or 20 events only last year linked to Iranian terror? What is this?'

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03/27 Links Pt2: The real reason the left hates Israel; Meet Iran’s 21-Year-Old American Propagandist; For America at 250, Some Jewish Wisdom on How to Last 3,000 Years

From Ian:

Rod Liddle: The real reason the left hates Israel

I had previously been of the generous – and naive – opinion that the white left hates Jews because it hates Israel. That through the inevitable contact with the people who call themselves Palestinian and their Muslim supporters, there was a gradual erosion of the boundaries between loathing Israel and, as so many Muslims do, loathing the people who live there. You end up nodding along when they say the Jews control the media and armaments and capital, and eventually you end up painting virulently anti-Semitic daubs in an art gallery in Margate and thinking how clever and right on you are and down with the Pallys.

But this was wrong, I think. It is the other way about. They hate Israel because they hate Jews. We all need somebody to hate and for the left, Jewish people have come to represent a plethora of things they already hated: capitalism, the West, military competence, industrial competence, education and a hostility to the religion which they come close to worshipping themselves, Islam. In a sense Israel is simply an embodiment of those already-present loathings.

It is true the Overton window had already moved quite sharply over the past ten years or so in tandem with the rapid growth of our Muslim population and its growing political weight. That is in there somewhere – but perhaps only to the extent that this growing section of our community gives licence to the real feelings the white left already had. A white left which can show you racism in a handful of dust – except where the Jews are concerned. Then, it simply doesn’t exist.

So when four ambulances are set on fire, it is easy to spot the anti-Semitic white lefties. They are the ones asking why the Jews have their own ambulances, or the ones suggesting it was a false flag attack by Mossad, or that this wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for Gaza. These idiots are not only enemies of the Jews – they are enemies of the rest of us too.

The Free Speech of Fools

What remains of the original “heterodox” cause that died on Oct. 7 is the metastatic cancer that consumed it and which now wears the exact face and form of Tucker Carlson. Today it is led by luminaries like Owens, whom Carlson repeatedly welcomes on his show, Megyn Kelly, another great Owens defender, sundry leftists like Glenn Greenwald who make common cause with Carlson and Owens, yellow journalists desperate for page views, like the hosts of the show Breaking Points, podcasters of the “Hitler was a misunderstood empath” genre, comedians whose comedy consists of hectoring political monologues, and assorted social media influencers including the former pimp Andrew Tate, and the mestizo anti-Jewish campaigner Nicholas Fuentes.

What has replaced the loose association of individuals organized around adherence to a common idea is a grossly self-serving social network. Led by Carlson, the network systematically undermined the organizing principle of the anticensorship movement, which was aggressive, open inquiry skeptical of ideological dogma and institutional authority. In its place, members of the Carlson clique obey two imperatives: to shield other members from legitimate criticism and to uphold anti-Jewish ideology as the ultimate principle of free speech.

Sharing and competing for the same audience, members of the network frequently appear for puff interviews on each other’s shows, circulate the same guests, and launder the same propagandistic talking points. While posturing as tough independent journalists taking on the establishment, they operate like a social club. Driven by the worst incentives of social media and insulated from criticism, this self-credentialing blob turned independent journalism into a synonym for in-group cattiness, schlock conspiracy, propaganda, and audience pandering.

Michael Tracey, who was an early debunker of Russiagate and COVID fallacies, has called the Epstein affair “the worst covered story of my lifetime, by far—and with the most destructive consequences.” Tracey is one of the few journalists who has been willing to question the extraordinarily popular Epstein mythology, despite himself being a strident critic of Israel. “Flinging around charges of ‘anti-Semitism’ has of course been cheapened beyond recognition, especially since 10/7/2023, but if you’re unaware that a HUGE portion of online uproar around Epstein is rooted in open, unabashed anti-Semitic ideology, you’re simply deluding yourself,” Tracey recently wrote.

In his coverage, one distinctly senses Tracey arriving at this conclusion—namely, that the Epstein melodrama is fueled by antipathy toward Jews—somewhat reluctantly, and only out fealty to an unavoidable truth. The structural reshaping of the news ecosystem into “independent” voices and outlets, which once held so much promise to cut through entrenched interests and provide audiences with an unvarnished view of the world around them,, instead ended up as a propaganda industry promoting the work of fantasists and open antisemites.

Maybe this was inevitable. Like the transgender activists before them, they seem to imagine themselves as members of a heroic resistance movement. What they fail to see is that being drunk on self-righteous hatred of the Zionist entity has not made them brave martyrs. It has made them aggressively incurious and blind to the reality around them, which has in turn made their audiences less informed and easier to manipulate. Epstein mania is the logical endpoint. It is a story that underscores the spectator’s lack of agency in a world utterly outside their control, while also promising them access to its deepest secrets.

Transforming the American concept of free speech into a euphemism for “asking the Jewish question,” required a large cooperative effort. Many people participated, some directly, others through silent assent. Yet if past historical episodes offer any lessons for the present, some of these people will seek to minimize their contributions and rewrite the past. Indeed some of them are already trying. For the sake of keeping an honest record about a pivotal moment in history, they should all be given credit for their work.

Nathan Livingstone (aka MilkbarTV): Circling Back On Oswald Mosley, The Fascist Tucker Carlson Calls A ‘Patriot’

Last week, Tucker Carlson released a video framed as a shocking piece of history: “Winston Churchill presided over the imprisonment of his opposition party during the entire length of the war.” According to Carlson, their only crime “was being the opposition party and being disloyal and unpatriotic. They weren’t.”

He goes on to build this political prisoner up as a heroic figure: “The opposition was led by a First World War hero who fought not just as a pilot in the sky, but in the trenches — one of the great war heroes, a former Member of Parliament.”

So who exactly is Tucker talking about?

Although he is never named, images of Oswald Mosley flash throughout the video, fists clenched, rallying so-called patriotic Britons. But search his name and you’ll also see images of Mosley and his fellow British Union of Fascists (BUF) members performing Roman salutes in Mussolini-style uniforms, complete with imitation armbands bearing the BUF lightning bolt, drawing heavily from Nazi aesthetics. Mosley wasn’t the leader of a legitimate opposition party. By the time of his arrest, he wasn’t even an MP, and his party, the British Union of Fascists, operated outside Britain’s democratic system. These are hardly minor details, yet are conspicuously absent from Carlson’s video.

What else did Tucker leave out?

Mosley came from an aristocratic family. He served briefly in France during World War I as a cavalry officer, but after being injured in training with the Royal Flying Corps, he spent the rest of the war away from the front. His war record was later exaggerated for propaganda purposes — and apparently still is today.

He then entered Parliament, drifting from the Conservative to the Labour Party. After the Cabinet rejected his plan to tackle unemployment through public works and the nationalization of major industries as too radical, he resigned, turning toward the rising authoritarian movements in Europe.

Mosley visited Mussolini’s Italy in 1932 and, impressed by what he saw, founded the British Union of Fascists.

The BUF would also become closely aligned with Germany’s rising Nazi movement. Mosley was so close to the regime that he married his second wife, Diana Freeman-Mitford, herself a committed fascist, at Joseph Goebbels’ home. Only a handful of guests were present. The guest of honor? Adolf Hitler, naturally.

The early days of the BUF saw rallies drawing tens of thousands: members dressed in Mussolini-inspired blackshirt uniforms, standing in columns and raising Roman salutes as Mosley strode through to deliver impassioned speeches. Membership at one point reached 50,000. Popular British papers like the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror heralded the movement with headlines “Hurrah for the Blackshirts” and “Give the Blackshirts a helping hand.”

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