From Ian:
Melanie Phillips:
The West’s pragmatic fallacy
Pragmatism is fine within the guardrails of normative morality. But if it tears out those guardrails and throws them into the trash, then it goes belly-up.
Pragmatism has corrupted the West and exposed it to grave danger in one particularly graphic example. Qatar, an Islamist Muslim Brotherhood state, works to destabilize and ultimately conquer the West for Islam.
Accordingly, over the decades, it has insinuated itself into America and Britain, turning their universities into Islamic propaganda factories and buying up countless individuals in politics and the media.
As a result, instead of viewing Qatar as an enemy, America has treated it as a valuable ally. It used Qatar—the sponsor of Hamas—as an honest broker in the Israeli hostage negotiations, which is why they dragged on at the cost of countless hostages’ and Israeli soldiers’ lives.
And now, Qatar has pride of place on Trump’s Board of Peace—and is using all its influence to stop Trump from destroying the Iranian regime.
You might say that Qatar is the Jeffrey Epstein of world politics.
Dealing with the devil never ends well. Abandon principle for pragmatism, and everything goes smash. It’s a lesson the West clearly has yet to learn.
Starmer has broken his promise to sanction Hamas officials, British hostage families say
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been accused by the families of British Gaza hostages of reneging on a pledge to sanction Hamas officials.
In September last year, days before the prime minister announced he would recognise a Palestinian state, he said new sanctions on individuals linked to Hamas would be imposed within weeks.
Nearly five months on, however, no measures have been announced.
Eight families of British hostages seized by Hamas on October 7 have written to Starmer seeking “urgent clarity” on when he will fulfil his commitment.
They claim the prime minister personally assured them at a Downing Street meeting on September 11 that sanctions against Hamas and other groups involved in anti-Jewish terrorism would be “deepened and widened”.
Starmer reiterated the pledge publicly days later in a speech announcing Palestinian statehood.
According to The Times, officials have admitted privately that there is no imminent sign of new penalties being imposed due to concern it could upset ongoing peace discussions.
Since Labour entered government in July 2024, there have not been any sanctions placed on individuals associated with Hamas, according to the Foreign Office website.
There are currently 30 individuals with links to the terror group under sanctions by the UK. The last time sanctions were imposed was in March 2024 under the Conservatives.
Some individuals based in Britain have been sanctioned by allied countries to the UK, such as Zaher Birawi whom the US accused of being a “senior official” in Hamas.
Birawi, who describes himself as a journalist, has organised pro-Palestine marches and assisted Greta Thunberg’s flotilla to Gaza.
PEN America, Advocate for 'Free Expression,' Withdraws Defense of Israeli Comedian Who Refused To Condemn Jewish State
PEN America, a self-described "free expression" advocacy group, withdrew its defense of the free speech rights of an Israeli comedian, Guy Hochman, whose New York City show was canceled after protesters blocked the entrance to the performance venue.
"On January 29, 2026, PEN America issued a statement on the abrupt cancellation of performances in New York and Los Angeles by an Israeli comedian, who has been accused by advocacy organizations of incitement to genocide in Gaza," the free speech group wrote in a Tuesday statement. "On further consideration, PEN America has decided to withdraw this statement. We remain committed to open and respectful dialogue about the divisions that arise in the course of defending free expression."
The organization initially issued a statement on Jan. 29 supporting Hochman, who served in the Israel Defense Forces and whose performances were canceled after anti-Israel agitation. A mob in New York City blocked the entrance and a Los Angeles venue demanded that he issue a statement accusing Israel of "genocide, rape, starvation, and torture of Palestinian civilians."
PEN America claims to advocate for "human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide," and initially called the mob action "a profound violation of free expression to demand artists, writers or comedians agree to ideological litmus tests as a condition to appear on a stage."
The group did not respond to a request for comment on why it backtracked.
PEN America’s board includes prominent writers, reporters, and literary figures, including the Atlantic’s George Packer, novelist Jodi Picoult, Harvard Law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen, Brooklyn Public Library CEO Linda E. Johnson, and Hachette Book Group CEO David Shelley. None of these board members responded to requests for comment.
The organization’s decision to withdraw its support for Hochman's right to perform free from mob interference comes after a long period of time in which it has backed up anti-Israel figures, including members of designated terrorist groups, as the watchdog group HonestReporting has shown. Its "Writers at Risk" list includes Khalida Jarrar, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group; PFLP member Rasem Obaidat; and Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian activist who wrote in a public message to Israelis: "We’ll slaughter you, and you’ll say that what Hitler did to you was a joke. We’ll drink your blood and eat your skulls."
PEN America has not, to this point, issued any withdrawals of its support for those individuals.
From Ian:
EXCLUSIVE: Palestinian Authority To Pay $315 Million to Terrorists and Their Families Across Middle East in 2026, Watchdog Report Reveals
The Palestinian Authority will dole out $315 million in payments this year to 23,500 terrorists and their families, earmarking more than $19 million a month for a terrorism incentive program, known as "pay-to-slay," that PA president Mahmoud Abbas declared dead last year, according to a new analysis by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) research institution shared exclusively with the Washington Free Beacon.
The PA has concealed these payments from Western governments by channeling them through alternate budgets controlled by the PA Security Forces (PASF), its civil services sector, and its pension office, PMW determined. More than 10,000 former inmates are receiving monthly stipends of around $1,280 to $3,800 each month, while the PA will provide another $87,000,000 throughout the year to 13,500 "martyrs and injured" in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.
The findings come just a week after the State Department formally determined that the PA shifted to a new terror payment system it hoped to hide from Western donors, the Free Beacon reported, and present the clearest evidence to date that Abbas is violating his February 2025 decree that he had ended the pay-to-slay program. International donors had asked the PA to stop paying terrorists and their families as part of a "reform" project, but Abbas's government "is not voluntarily disclosing that 10,000 terror reward recipients are hidden in the civil service, the PASF, and as 50-year-old PA pensioners," according to the PMW report.
An additional 6,000 pay-to-slay recipients are within the PA's pensioners program, obscuring the payments at a time when Abbas's government is maneuvering for a role in postwar Gaza, and that number only stands to increase over time. "As thousands of imprisoned terrorists will be released from prison in the coming years, they will be shuttled into government jobs and early pensions, and the hidden Pay-for-Slay will continue to grow, hidden from international donors," PMW stated.
By transferring terror-related payments to various government agencies, the PA has been able to declare pay-to-slay void and continue receiving millions from the international community, which largely froze its funding due to the pay-to-slay program. But most donor countries continue to award cash directly to the PA's civil service programs, including the security forces and pension offices. Even the U.S. government, which froze most of its aid in 2018, still provides funding to the PA's security forces.
PMW used newly unearthed Telegram chat logs to determine that the PA has rerouted terrorism payments through its pension program.
"The wounded and prisoners—6,000 of them [had their files] transferred to pensions in different offices, and they are now registered there, and they are calling them one by one, asking them for bank account numbers to confirm them as pensioners," one recipient wrote.
Despite Israeli demands, Bank of Palestine refuses to shut down pay-for-slay accounts
The Bank of Palestine has refused a request from Israel’s Finance Ministry to close 3,400 accounts reportedly used to distribute payments to released terrorists, two sources familiar with the matter told The Jerusalem Post on Friday.
The revelation emerged during a meeting of the security cabinet on Thursday. The accounts are linked to the PA’s controversial “pay-for-slay” program, which provides monthly stipends to Palestinians who were imprisoned for carrying out terrorist attacks, as well as to the families of those killed during such acts.
According to the sources, Israeli authorities had previously submitted an explicit demand to shut down the accounts. In contrast to a similar case several months ago, when the bank agreed to close 1,700 accounts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the bank’s management this time responded that it was “unable to act.” The prevailing assessment is that senior PA officials instructed the bank not to comply.
The Finance Ministry identified the accounts and warned the bank that failure to close them could prompt Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to block Israeli banks from continuing to act as correspondent banks for the Bank of Palestine.
Correspondent banks, such as Israel’s Discount Bank and Bank Hapoalim, provide services that allow the Palestinian banking system to conduct international transactions. Because Palestinian banks lack foreign branches, these Israeli institutions act as intermediaries. The State of Israel indemnifies the Israeli banks in the event that their services facilitate money laundering or the financing of terrorism.
Should the indemnification be revoked and intermediary banking ties severed, financial officials warn that the PA could face severe economic consequences, potentially even a collapse.
From Ian:
Seth Mandel:
You Can Do Anything As Long As You Do It For Palestine
For those seeking at least a hint as to why the court ruled that smashing in the spines of police officers is officially approved behavior in the United Kingdom, one clue comes to us from the Jewish Chronicle:
“While the jury was in retirement, the court heard posters had been put up on bus stops and lampposts near the building which said: ‘The jury decide not the judge,’ ‘Jury equity is when a jury acquits someone on moral grounds,’ and: ‘Jurors can give a not guilty verdict even when they believe a defendant has broken the law.’
“The prosecution said it was aware of the signs being put up in public places during the trial, which set out the principle of ‘jury equity’ — the capacity of a jury to return a verdict according to conscience — and that police had been taking the posters down.”
Translation: You may find the defendants not guilty if you sympathize with the psychotic “anti-Zionism” that motivated their violence.
Again: the British legal system is a joke.
To be fair to the UK, it is not the first state in Europe to enshrine “the Jewish exception” into law. In 2021 in France, Kobili Traoré was deemed not responsible for his actions by the courts, ostensibly because he had smoked marijuana. What were his actions? He beat 65-year-old Sarah Halimi and then threw her out her window to her death. According to his psychiatric evaluation, he was sent into a violent rage by the sight of Halimi’s mezuzah.
Again, to translate: He realized she was a Jew, so he killed her. This was deemed a psychiatric episode not murder. In France, if you hate Jews so much that it makes you act crazy, you are permitted to murder random Jews. In the UK, if your hatred of Jews compels you to go on a violent rampage, you can count on “jury equity” to find you not guilty of the crimes you admitted to in court.
The sick man of Europe is Europe.
Seth Mandel:
Israel-Haters Are Murdering ‘Public Health’
Zohran Mamdani pledging to confront anti-Semitism while his own administration staffers engage in taxpayer-funded Jew-baiting is the kind of hypocrisy we will hopefully never get used to.
The New York Post revealed that city Department of Health staffers have created a “Global Oppression and Public Health Working Group” whose entire reason for existence is to lie about Israel. Take it straight from the horse’s mouth: “We really developed in response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” one presenter said while, the Post reports, reading from the group’s mission statement at the beginning of its first meeting on Tuesday.
The blood libel club also vowed it will be “supporting colleagues negatively impacted” by the “trauma” of made-up tales of Jewish crimes.
Since this has nothing to do with “global health,” we are compelled to ask what it is about. And there are two answers.
First, as expected, Mamdani’s victory was taken as a green light for anti-Semites to hijack government services—and there’s no indication Mamdani has any objection to it. On the contrary, Mamdani believes New York City should be engaged in the BDS campaign that supports anti-Jewish boycotts, so he has made clear that he wants public money to be spent on his expensive addiction to anti-Zionism.
There’s no middle ground on “globalize the intifada,” much as Mamdani’s spin doctors would want you to believe otherwise. And Mamdani has made his choice. Why wouldn’t his likeminded fellows come out of the woodwork at the first sign that the coast is now clear; Jew-baiters of the world, unite!
Some of this will play out as Mamdani chooses to surround himself with anti-Semites. And some of it will be anti-Semites choosing to coalesce around Mamdani. Very quickly the difference will become immaterial, if it hasn’t already: This will just be a city government that practices and encourages anti-Semitism. How it got that way is less important than the fact that the one guy who can put a stop to it, won’t.
Joshua Namn:
Acknowledging Hatred Against Jews Isn't “Complaining” - It's Life Saving
He was referring to poll by the (liberal) Honan Strategy group. It found that 53% of Jewish voters feel threatened by statements by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his allies, while most non-Jews — 55% — say that’s an overreaction fueled by politics.
Unless you actually believe that the statistics lie, and that attacks on Jews haven’t increased dramatically during the last decade, the most terrifying part of that poll is that more than half of New Yorkers think that we are all just “overreacting.”
Jews are also about 10% of New York’s population. They are the targets of 57% of all hate crimes (all, not just religiously motivated crimes).
The only reason any of this is even possible is precisely because complaining is viewed by the mainstream as an inherently Jewish trait.
We have to reject all negative Jewish stereotypes. It isn’t an issue of pride, but of safety. We left the physical ghettos, now it is time to consign the mental ghettos to that same distant past.
So what’s the best defense against Jewish ghetto stereotypes? Be a proud, unapologetic, warrior Jew (in mitzvot and, if necessary, in unapologetic self-defense). That starts with a psychological willingness to embrace being different. Jewish pride isn’t arrogance: it is confidence.
At the beginning of the Book of Joshua it tells us how to behave when we have to deal with adversity: “Did I not command you, be strong and have courage (chazak v’ematz), do not fear and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your G-d is with you wherever you go.”
Chazak v’ematz: Be strong and have courage.
And THAT is how we fight antisemitism.
Never be afraid. Never give up.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Be’eri to Manchester to Bondi: Antisemitism is the canary in the coalmine for extremism
Just like the Jews murdered in Be’eri, the Jews murdered in Manchester and Bondi did not die because of Middle Eastern geopolitics. They died because the modern strain of an ever-mutating, lethal hate has been normalised as legitimate, in the name of progress, justice, and liberation. Because the hatred of Jews has once again been reframed as a moral critique. Because calls for the elimination of Israel, the Jew among nations, from 'from river to sea' are uniquely tolerated as speech, not genocidal intent.
The victims’ biographies matter. Jews fleeing antisemitism. Jews fleeing war. Jews who believed liberal democracies and universal values would protect them. History tells us otherwise.
But the same ideologies that support ‘globalising the intifada’ are not hostile singularly to Israel or Jews. They are openly hostile to the foundations of democracies: rule of law, pluralism, individual rights, and the very idea of national self-determination. Israel is not the cause of this hostility. It is the testing ground. Antisemitism is not just a weapon in this war. It is the proof of concept.
For the past two years, Israel has been on the front lines of this global threat. The war has not been confined to conventional battlefields. The existential threat is raging as a cultural, legal, informational, and moral war. As Jew among nations, Israel is where an axis of evil tests how far it can go, how much terror can be normalised, how much violence can be justified, how many individual and collective ‘Jews’ can be dehumanised, delegitimised, and applied double standards to - before the world objects.
When antisemitism spreads unchecked, it emboldens those who seek to dismantle democratic norms everywhere. When Jews are murdered, it signals that the guardrails are down. This is why antisemitism is the most reliable predictor of democratic collapse. It is the siren that sounds before the raging fire engulfs everyone else.
The lesson of Bondi Beach, like Manchester, Pittsburgh, Paris, Brussels, Mumbai, Washington, Boulder and elsewhere, is not merely that Jews remain vulnerable as canaries in the coalmine. It is those societies that fail to confront antisemitism at its ideological roots that will inevitably embolden the extremism it predicts, fueling broader violence. This is not about Jewish exceptionalism. It is about memory as historical literacy.
The axis of evil no longer hides its intent. It slaughters and tortures the people of Iran, emboldened by impunity. It openly declares its desire to collapse the West and to build a Caliphate on its rubble. It does so by using shape-shifting antisemitism as defined by the IHRA in a long democratic process as both weapon and symptom. The recent UK court decision that chants of ‘death to the IDF’ to which all Israelis must conscript at a music festival aired to millions - “does not meet criminal threshold” should trouble all who cherish life and liberty.
Those who continue to treat antisemitism as a marginal issue, or a subset of prejudice, are willfully ignoring history’s clearest warning sign. The siren is sounding again. The question remains whether we will finally recognise the fire before it consumes us all.
From Ian:
Andrew Fox:
Analysis on the rocks: a rebuttal
Throughout his piece, Milburn compares Israeli conduct unfavourably to US operations in places like Mosul, suggesting Israel should have done more to protect civilians. However, as discussed, Gaza posed unique challenges: a fully trapped population, an enemy deeply embedded within civilian infrastructure, and an ongoing threat to Israel’s own civilians (Hamas rockets and the context of a wider regional war). Other Western militaries engaged in similar conflicts (the US in Iraq, NATO in Afghanistan, etc.) often took measures such as establishing safe corridors or pausing operations to facilitate evacuations. Israel did make some attempts at pauses and corridors, but Hamas frequently undermined them (by blocking evacuations or attacking convoys).
Milburn largely overlooks how Hamas drastically increased the difficulty of conducting a “surgical” military campaign. To illustrate: Hamas fighters would fire from within crowds of displaced civilians or move into UN shelters after attacking, effectively daring Israel to respond. This blurred the lines between civilians and combatants in real time. Israeli soldiers on the ground faced an enemy that did not wear uniforms and exploited urban chaos as cover. These are not excuses for any reckless strikes, but they provide essential context. A fair analysis would acknowledge that even the best-trained army would struggle to avoid civilian harm under such conditions. Milburn’s focus, nearly solely on Israeli “choices”, suggests Israel could have attained the same military goals with much less damage if it had chosen differently. He offers little insight beyond generic appeals to restraint. This approach risks echoing armchair generalship that fails to engage with the tactical reality of Gaza.
One must also consider the dangerous precedent that Milburn’s one-sided assignment of blame could set. According to his account, Israel’s overwhelming firepower in Gaza is nearly entirely responsible for civilian deaths, while Hamas’s strategy of using human shields is treated as a minor detail. This framing effectively rewards the use of human shields. If an army knows its enemy will be condemned for any civilian casualties, while it (the defender) faces little blame for hiding behind civilians, the perverse incentive is to continue using this unlawful tactic.
International law explicitly prohibits using civilians to make targets immune (Additional Protocol I, art. 51(7)) for this very reason – it weakens the law’s protections when followed. Milburn’s analysis minimises Hamas’s role to the extent that it may encourage the Hamas strategy: bunker under hospitals, coexist with families, and then hope global outrage restrains Israel. That is a dangerous message to send. To be clear, Israel is not exempt from blame if it caused disproportionate harm, but we cannot ignore that Hamas’s unlawful tactics are relevant to the outcome. Both legally and morally, Hamas bears significant responsibility for endangering Gazan civilians. Ignoring this, as Milburn does, distorts the moral balance and creates a one-dimensional view of the war.
Hamas’s illegality does not absolve Israel. The IDF still faces tough questions. Did every airstrike truly follow the principle of proportionality? Were target validations and intelligence sufficiently rigorous amid the chaos? Did Israel do everything possible to minimise harm (without abandoning its mission)? These are valid questions, and there are grounds for criticising Israel. Indeed, Israeli authorities have at times acknowledged failings or launched investigations into incidents with high casualties.
This rebuttal is not an unfounded defence of all Israeli actions. Instead, it is a plea for analytical balance. Milburn’s broad accusation, essentially claiming that Israel deliberately chose a policy of killing civilians rather than risking harm, is not substantiated by the full record. Proportionality in war is a complex challenge, and reasonable observers can debate specific instances. However, such debate must consider the realities of Hamas’s tactics of human shielding, the unprecedented battlefield conditions, and the inherent uncertainty of war. Once these factors are taken into account, the narrative shifts from a simplistic “Israel behaved recklessly and Gaza’s civilians paid the price” to a more nuanced (and uncomfortable) truth: Hamas created a battlefield where high civilian casualties were almost inevitable, and Israel’s military, while endeavouring to achieve its mission to halt ongoing attacks, made mistakes and caused tragic, unintended consequences, but did not fundamentally deviate from how other professional armies have operated under similar or worse constraints.
Holding Israel to strict IHL standards is justified; expecting zero civilian harm in a scenario deliberately designed by Hamas to maximise civilian casualties is not. A calm analysis understands Hamas’s illegal actions as a significant factor without excusing Israeli mistakes. It also reinterprets proportionality not as a simple casualty measure after conflict, but as a continual obligation of responsible military decision-making amid uncertainty. Milburn’s critique, by largely ignoring the real battlefield limitations, does a disservice to his stated goal of learning how to better protect civilians. A more balanced discussion would recognise that both Hamas’s tactics and Israeli decisions influenced the outcome, and that the real challenge is how democratic armed forces can maintain humanitarian standards when fighting an opponent who intentionally seeks to undermine them. That is the conversation we need, and it begins by correcting the record that Milburn’s biased argument left so vulnerable to critique.
Islamic Warfare and America: Why the West Must Now Confront Jihad at Its Doorstep
The American Constitution enshrined individual rights to freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and thought, regardless of how radical or extreme. Yet these uniquely American liberties have been exploited by its enemies to subvert the U.S. and the West from within. Americans have largely been willfully blind to recognizing that enemy ideologies can eventually undermine U.S. national security and destroy its societal fabric. Why does America continue to struggle to recognize jihadi subversion by Islamist organizations and actors?
America's Islamic enemies have publicly declared their intention for decades. A 1991 Muslim Brotherhood Memorandum discovered by the FBI reveals this strategy in detail. Authored by Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Akram, the blueprint details a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" to destroy Western civilization from within and establish Islamic governance in North America. "The Ikhwan [Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within." These are not metaphors. They are declarations of war.
Dr. Harold Rhode describes the foundational doctrine of Islamic warfare in his book Modern Islamic Warfare, which explains how jihadist movements view their struggle as a cosmic battle that cannot cease "until the world be all for Allah." Among both Sunni jihadists and the messianic variety of Shiite jihadists that dominate the Iranian regime leadership, the West represents an adversary to be subdued, and Israel is merely the first, local hurdle in conquering the world for Islam.
The PLO's original 1964 charter and Hamas's 1988 covenant called for the annihilation of Israel through jihad. Today it is Hamas whose doctrine and political popularity dominate the Palestinian street. The fact that many Americans view the Palestinian cause primarily as rooted in territorial grievance rather than ideological jihad demonstrates the success of their disinformation and deception campaign. Any American policy toward the Palestinians must be conditioned on the explicit and verifiable rejection of jihad, recognition of Israel's permanent right to exist, and adoption of educational curricula free of religious hatred and incitement.
Most importantly, the U.S. must recognize that Israel's fight is also a battle for Western civilization's future survival, safety, and security. Moral clarity and a united front between Israel and the U.S. is necessary to defeat jihadist terror and political subversion.
Rep Rashida Tlaib faces terrorist ties allegations in new report
A comprehensive new briefing document from a prominent nonpartisan research and policy group is sounding the alarm on "serious ethical and national security concerns" related to Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib and her affiliations with individuals and organizations linked to designated foreign terrorist entities.
"The conduct of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, including her rhetoric, affiliations, campaign infrastructure, and ideological alignment with certain individuals and organizations, raises serious concerns about potential risks to the ethical and institutional integrity of the United States government," the report, released by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy’s advocacy and policy-oriented arm, states.
The report details a "recurring pattern" of behavior that it says suggests an ideological affinity for radical movements, ranging from participation in conferences featuring convicted terrorists to significant campaign payments made to activists linked to Hamas and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-aligned networks.
The briefing covers Tlaib’s financial history and says her campaign apparatus poured large sums of cash to anti-Israel activists, including almost $600,000 between 2020 and 2025 to Unbought Power, a consulting firm headed by Rasha Mubarak.
Mubarak has faced scrutiny for her past affiliations with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2009 Holy Land Foundation terror-financing trial, and the Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ), which has been investigated for ties to the PFLP-linked group Samidoun.
Tlaib, according to the briefing, has shared the stage with a variety of questionable figures highlighted by a conference alongside Wisam Rafeedie, a convicted PFLP operative, who defended the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack as "resistance."
From Ian:
The Anti-Zionism Exception
Civil rights law has an anti-Zionism problem. In cases alleging discrimination, courts typically allow civil rights plaintiffs to use a contextual test—assessing what the U.S. Supreme Court has called the “totality of the relevant facts”—to prove that discrimination in fact occurred. And when key facts are disputed, courts rely on juries to resolve them. Juries are quintessential finders of fact, and discrimination is a quintessential fact question.
But now, for Jews and Israelis, there is an emerging exception to the customary contextual test. Under this exception, behaviors styled as “anti-Zionism”—opposition to Israel’s continued existence—are deemed inherently not discriminatory. Although this anti-Zionism exception started with progressive activists, it has recently jumped to the pages of a published decision by a federal appeals court, which seemed to imply that anti-Zionism, once draped over someone’s speech, generally disproves allegations of discrimination.
This anti-Zionism exception is wrong. It obscures that, in context, anti-Zionism can involve discrimination based on both national origin and race. If it stands, the civil rights of Jews and Israelis will be profoundly unequal to those of other groups that experience discrimination. And, for those who discriminate against Jews and Israelis, anti-Zionist arguments and rhetoric will function as a sort of “get out of jail free” card, enabling them to skirt legal accountability.
As a civil rights lawyer, I have had a front-row seat to the emerging anti-Zionism exception in civil rights law. For years, I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with other advocates to oppose discrimination of one kind or another, from racially disparate policing to President Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim travel ban. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. But through it all, there has been one constant: a broad, contextual approach to diagnosing discrimination. In no area of civil rights law is there a magic word that defendants can utter to automatically defeat the charge of discrimination.
Instead of following the typical path in discrimination cases, the court seemed to do something different just for anti-Zionism and just for Jews.
That’s because discrimination can be subtle, especially in an age when being seen as a bigot is often socially undesirable and legally risky. As a result, even the most serious cases of discrimination often manifest through tacit double standards rather than explicit bigotry. Consider a police officer who allegedly deems it suspicious when a Black man, but not a white man, puts his hands in his pockets. Or an employer who, as one court put it, deems a man “assertive” but a woman “pushy.” Normally, a jury or other fact finder would be asked to decide whether, in context, these situations reflect discriminatory double standards or instead something more benign.
So it should be with anti-Zionism.
For starters, when deployed as a reason to target “Zionists,” such as by excluding them from school buildings, anti-Zionism is at least arguably, as Harvard Law Professor Stephen Sachs has explained, “a form of national-origin discrimination.” The reason is simple: Discriminating based on national origin includes insisting that people disavow a specific nation, especially their own nation of origin. Just imagine how easily laws prohibiting national-origin discrimination could be defeated if courts were to indulge wordplay such as “Oh, I’m not refusing to hire Italians and Haitians; I’m refusing to hire Italianists and Hatianists.”
Yet activists have resisted that logic for people they deem “Zionists.” And it’s easy to see why.
Particularly since the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, anti-Zionism has become a pillar of progressive movements. Sometimes it is bare opposition to Israel’s existence. But sometimes it is more extreme. Indeed, I have witnessed people who consider themselves civil rights supporters—people I know—express support for Hamas. But unlike their right-wing counterparts, who openly revel in Jew hatred, progressives want to believe that they oppose explicit discriminatory postures. Instead, they insist that there is something unique about “anti-Zionism,” which they view as a response to a “Zionist” political ideology, that exempts their statements and actions from standard antidiscrimination analyses.
The Weaponization of the Word “Ethnostate” Against Israel
Israel is, by its own description, an ethnostate, and saying otherwise would be a “ludicrous lie.” At least, that’s according to Tucker Carlson in a recent conversation with white nationalist Peter Brimelow.
Because Jewish identity is matrilineal, meaning a person is considered Jewish if their mother is Jewish, Brimelow and Carlson argue that the Jewish religion is racially based and therefore a “racial component” is inherent in the State of Israel. Being that the state was founded by atheists who “identified as Jewish racially,” Carlson suggests that Israel can only be described as such.
However, Israel, by its own description, is not an ethnostate in the way that Carlson and his guest describe. It is not a ludicrous lie to say this, but rather a simple understanding of the state’s laws and what an ethnostate actually is. This term, nevertheless, has become increasingly popular amongst anti-Israel influencers and journalists to negatively single out the only Jewish state for being just that – a Jewish state.
An ethnostate, at its basic understanding, is a state dominated by a certain ethnic group. But anti-Israel influencers have taken this term to mean something drastically different when applied to Israel, because, being a Jewish-majority state, would naturally make Israel an ethnostate in the same way that other ethnic or cultural majority states, such as Japan or Greece, would also fall under this category.
But when applied to Israel specifically, the entire understanding of the term changes to be one of racial discrimination based on fundamental misinterpretations of Israeli and Jewish laws.
Israel’s establishment as a Jewish state grants every Jew in the world the right to live in Israel, under the Law of Return. Under this law, anyone with one Jewish grandparent is eligible to become a citizen of the state. This is not a racial hierarchy as Carlson and Brimelow allude to, but rather a policy rooted in peoplehood, history, and refuge. The Law of Return exists because Jews are a nation with a shared identity that predates modern racial categories and has survived thousands of years, despite much of that time being in exile from the land of Israel.
Crucially, Israeli citizenship is not limited to the Jewish people. Arab Israelis account for 21% of the total population and hold the same rights as Jewish Israelis, including holding positions of government and law.
Yet this has not stopped journalists such as Briahna Joy Gray from incorrectly and continuously repeating that as an ethnostate, Israel denies Arabs equal rights.
Seth Mandel:
The American Jewish Novel After October 7
One of the more interesting questions about Jewish culture after October 7 is: What will the future of American Jewish fiction look like? It will be particularly interesting to see how Israel is portrayed in the imaginations of Jewish writers of the Diaspora.
Conveniently, two recent books, both just named finalists at next month’s National Jewish Book Awards, can shed some light on the topic. The best way to describe Israel in American fiction before October 7 is by conjuring the film trope of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Coined by Nathan Rabin in 2007, the term refers to the female character who “exists solely… to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”
American Jewish novelists have just gone through a period in which Israel appears as the national version of this archetype: Call it the Manic Pixie Dream Country. In the books, American Jews are assimilated and spiritually adrift, while their Israeli counterparts are tan and fearless. The Americans are outwardly dismissive of the Israeli machismo but inwardly captivated by it. The Diaspora Jew and the New Sabra look at each other the way one imagines the Flintstones and the Jetsons might, as if their co-presence represents some kind of tear in the fabric of the universe. And if the American characters end up in Israel, it is at the end of a redemption arc, a moment of salvation and fulfillment.
In the most extreme versions, the plot involves Israel’s literal destruction, as if a non-Israeli Jewish future can only be imagined if there is no Israel, so strong is the Jewish state’s gravitational pull. As the novelist David Bezmozgis once said: “The Jewish future is to be found in Israel. The Jewish past in Europe. Where in this equation is North America?”
The apotheosis of this genre is, unfortunately, Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2016 novel Here I Am, an absolute chore of a book. In it, an earthquake hits the Middle East, devastates Israel and leads to a mass invasion of it by regional powers. Even with Israel on the edge of the abyss, the U.S.-based Jewish family remains unable to find its own identity. (Like many of the books in this genre, it owes something of a debt to Philip Roth’s The Counterlife.)
A much better version of the disaster storyline plays out in 2024’s Next Stop, by Benjamin Resnick, in which a supernatural phenomenon that makes people disappear also makes Israel disappear. The Jews are blamed for the anomaly and in the U.S. they are herded into ghettos.
From Ian:
Trump signs bill ending shutdown, with more than $4 billion for Israel
Legislation that U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law on Tuesday included more than $4 billion for Israel, as well as several other provisions in support of the Jewish state, according to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Trump acted fewer than three hours after the U.S. House of Representatives cleared the bill that would reopen the federal government through Sept. 30 after a short shutdown. The Senate had passed the legislation earlier.
Atop the list is $3.8 billion for the U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding, which includes $3.3 billion in security assistance and $500 million for missile defense, such as Iron Dome and Arrow.
“Congress sent a powerful message about the strength and vibrancy of the U.S.-Israel alliance,” AIPAC stated. “This funding makes America safer, stronger and more prosperous, and ensures our democratic ally can defend itself from our shared enemies.”
Other funding includes $47.5 million for U.S.-Israel emerging technology cooperation (a $27.5 million increase), $75 million for U.S.-Israel counter-drone and directed energy investment (up $20 million), $80 million for U.S.-Israel anti-tunnel defense cooperation (a $32.5 million increase), $37.5 million for the Nita Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act that supports economic cooperation and peace building and $3 million for U.S.-Israel international development cooperation.
The measure also bans funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA); the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, both in The Hague; and the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry against Israel.
“Congress once again came together to send an unequivocal and bipartisan message of support for Israel and the U.S-Israel relationship,” AIPAC stated. “This strong bipartisan support reflects that the enduring partnership between the United States and the Jewish state remains stronger than ever.”
US charges Elias Rodriguez with terrorism in Washington killing of two Israeli diplomats last May
A man accused of killing two Israeli diplomats in Washington last year was indicted on four additional counts of terrorism, in a new indictment that was unsealed on Wednesday.
The new indictment includes nine charges, including hate crimes, filed earlier. Several of the charges carry a maximum penalty of death or life imprisonment, the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia said.
"These additional terrorism-related charges carry a mandatory life sentence under DC Code, while also reflecting the reality that this act was in fact an act of terror," US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said in a statement.
Prosecutors accuse Elias Rodriguez, 31, of opening fire on people leaving an event for young professionals and diplomats hosted by the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group that fights antisemitism and supports Israel.
He fired approximately 20 shots from a semi-automatic handgun, and called out "Free Palestine," according to prosecutors.
Lawyers for Rodriguez did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, who both worked for Israel's Embassy in Washington, were killed.
Darren B. Cox, the FBI assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Office, said Rodriguez wrote and published a manifesto as an attempt to "morally justify his actions" and inspire others to commit political violence.
US slams South Africa’s expulsion of Israeli diplomat
U.S. State Department Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott said South Africa’s expulsion of Israel’s senior diplomat prioritized political grievances over the country’s national interests and its citizens’ well-being.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Pigott called Pretoria’s move “another example of its poor foreign policy choices. Expelling a diplomat for calling out the African National Congress party’s ties to Hamas and other antisemitic radicals prioritizes grievance politics over the good of South Africa and its citizens.”
South Africa declared Israel’s chargé d’affaires, Ariel Seidman, persona non grata on Jan. 30 and ordered him to leave the country within 72 hours, according to a statement from the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Department of International Relations and Cooperation, DIRCO).
South African officials said the decision was based on what they described as “violations of diplomatic norms,” including the alleged use of official Israeli platforms to criticize South African leadership and a failure to notify authorities of visits by senior Israeli officials.
In response, Israel’s Foreign Ministry designated South Africa’s top diplomat in Israel, Shaun Edward Byneveldt, persona non grata, ordering him to leave the country within 72 hours. The ministry said that “additional steps will be considered in due course.”
The diplomatic exchange further strains relations between Jerusalem and Pretoria, which have deteriorated sharply since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Both countries recalled their ambassadors in the weeks that followed.
South Africa has been a leading critic of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and has pursued legal action against Israel at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, both based in The Hague.
The United States has strongly opposed South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ. President Donald Trump last year froze most U.S. aid to South Africa, citing Pretoria’s positions toward Washington, including its ties with Russia and Iran and its legal campaign against Israel.
Incoming U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Leo Brent Bozell has said that defending American policy on Israel will be a top priority when he assumes his post later this year.
From Ian:
Matti Friedman:
New Wave, Old Land
Can a foreign observer show up in another country, without living there or speaking the language, and say something original and definitive about it—something that wouldn’t strike locals as illiterate or banal?
Almost never. My answer would be the same, I imagine, as that of most Israelis, flooded as we are with the confident fantasies of countless such observers in every corner of social media and what’s left of the international press. Whether believing themselves to be journalists or tourists, what most outsiders see in a foreign country is nearly always what they bring with them from home. They mine distant lands for shiny rocks in which to view their own reflection. This seems truer of Israel than of other places because of the way this country and its residents have featured in the fantasy lives of others for so long.
But there are glorious exceptions. One of them was screened in a recent exhibit at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem: a documentary film of under one hour, shot in four weeks in the spring of 1960 by the French director Chris Marker. The film, Description of a Struggle, deserves to be more famous than it is. This is not just because it’s a portrait of this country—now weathered and scarred by hard living—as a newborn. It’s because the film is a master class in how to see a place and its people, and a restorative for anyone despairing of our ability to look at the world and create an impression in words or images.
When Marker arrived in Israel with his French crew, another foreign film was already shooting here: the Hollywood epic Exodus, starring Paul Newman. This movie, like the Leon Uris bestseller that inspired it, is an example of a fantastical projection with little connection to the actual place in question. In ticket sales and press attention, Exodus was to Marker’s modest film—in which the stars are anonymous kids, farmers, and a few Israeli cats and owls—what a Royal Caribbean liner is to a birch canoe. Sixty-five years later, Exodus is unwatchable and Description of a Struggle is hypnotic.
Chris Marker, who became famous as part of the French New Wave of the 1950s, was a slippery and playful artist. He claimed at times to have been born in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. In fact his birth occurred, more mundanely for a Frenchman, in France, to parents who called him not “Chris Marker” but Christian Hippolyte François Bouche-Villeneuve. He chose his new name, he once explained, to make it easier to travel. Marker was active into his eighties, experimenting with video games and YouTube in his little studio in Paris. He died in 2012 at age ninety-one.
Seth Mandel:
What People Don’t Understand About Jewish Security
This is where the misconception comes in. Jewish institutions across Western Europe, especially in places like France and Germany, have beefed up security. So in many cases, the Jewish children are safe—inside the building.
“But if we take three steps outside,” the Potsdam Jewish leader said, “we are completely on our own.”
When the German office tasked with tallying and categorizing incidents of anti-Semitism completed its report on 2024, it found a rise in Jew-hatred that was not particularly unexpected but nonetheless striking: “In 2024, RIAS reporting offices documented a total of 8 incidents of extreme violence, 186 assaults, 443 cases of targeted property damage, 300 threats” and, for good measure, about 7,500 “cases of abusive behavior.” One example of “extreme violence” was an ISIS terror attack that killed three.
One type of abusive behavior tracked by RIAS: anti-Semitic gatherings, of which there were over 1,800 in 2024: “In 2024, there was an average of 35 antisemitic gatherings per week, compared to 16 in 2023.” Such gatherings—think of the ubiquitous pro-Hamas marches and rallies in major Western cities since the war began—act as a way to “mobilize” anti-Semites, RIAS notes.
Let’s boil it down: There are daily calls for violence and near-daily violent anti-Semitism in Germany. These incidents aren’t taking place inside fortified daycares. The presence of secure buildings in Germany did nothing to slow down the country’s incidence of anti-Semitic violence: People have to get to and from those buildings.
In this way, the argument over securing physical locations, while important, remains incomplete. A wave of anti-Semitism hit Jews in Germany in broad daylight. The only way to avoid it would be for Jews to have simply stayed home. That’s one reason for the suggestion in the Potsdam case that the benefits of securing the daycare center might be offset by the downside of calling attention to the presence of Jewish children: The building will be a gathering place of Jews coming to drop off and pick up their children.
Jews work at offices, eat at restaurants, visit parks, etc.
In 92NY talk, Bret Stephens urges ‘dismantling’ ADL, investing more in Jewish identity
In a speech that described antisemites as an “axis of the perfidious, the despotic, the hypocritical, the cynical, the deranged and the incurably stupid,” Bret Stephens asserted that supporters of the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish defense groups should largely abandon their current strategy for combating antisemitism and instead redirect their resources toward strengthening Jewish life itself.
Stephens, the conservative New York Times columnist and founder of the Jewish thought journal Sapir, said antisemitism is largely impervious to appeals to tolerance, reminders of Jewish and Israeli accomplishments, or mandatory Holocaust education.
Instead, he called for large-scale investment in Jewish day schools, cultural institutions, philanthropy, media, publishing and religious leadership, arguing that the infrastructure already exists but lacks sufficient scale and coordination.
“What we call the fight against antisemitism, which consumes tens of millions of dollars every year in Jewish philanthropy and has become an organizing principle across Jewish organizations, is a well-meaning, but mostly wasted, effort,” Stephens said, delivering the annual “State of World Jewry” address at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan on Sunday. “We should spend the money and focus our energy elsewhere.”
In an onstage conversation after the talk, Stephens told Rabbi David Ingber, the Y’s senior director for Jewish life, that if it were up to him, he would “dismantle” the ADL, the leading Jewish group fighting antisemitism.
“That’s not how Jewish money should be spent,” Stephens told Ingber, acknowledging that the ADL’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, was in the audience. “That’s not helping raise a generation of young Jews who are conscious of their Jewishness as something other than the fact that they saw ‘Schindler’s List’ and they visited the Holocaust Museum. That cannot be the locus of Jewish identity. If we’re going to survive, victimization cannot be at the heart of our identity.”
Friday, February 06, 2026
