From Ian:
The Christian Case for Standing with Israel
Yesterday’s newsletter mentioned a recent speech, laced with anti-Semitic and anti-Israel invective, delivered by the media personality Tucker Carlson. This was but the latest installment of Carlson’s turn to hatred of Israel, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism, which has come alongside more frequent signaling of his own religiosity. All of this was also on display in his recent interview with Senator Ted Cruz, whose pro-Israel views are fairly typical of conservative evangelical Christians.
In response, a few prominent right-leaning American Protestant leaders jumped into the fray, with some, like Rich Lusk, attacking Cruz. Lusk argued, on theological and scriptural grounds, that Old Testament promises to Israel have since been transferred to Christian believers.
It’s not the place of Jews to tell Christians what to believe about salvation or how to read their sacred texts, but two lines in Lusk’s article jumped out at me. First:
The modern nation of Israel is a secular state that rejects the gospel. . . . As Paul says, “Concerning the gospel, they are enemies” (Romans 11:28)—enemies with a future, yes, but still enemies for now.
If Israel is a secular state, then it is neutral about the gospel and other religious doctrine. But Lusk needs to make this leap to demonstrate that modern Jews are “enemies.” Then, in the very last paragraph, there is this:
The true Israel of God is not located on a strip of land in the Middle East. It is not launching missiles at Iran or hiding behind an Iron Dome.
It’s subtle, but Lusk seems to be implying that Israel (the country) is somehow cowardly because of its technological genius and efforts to protect its citizens, and at the same time aggressive by “launching missiles at Iran”—although the missiles were fired from planes flying over enemy territory. Lusk could have said, “the true Israel of God isn’t busy fixing roads and holding elections.” But instead he invokes popular anti-Israel slurs. Thus he pretends to make an argument that Christians should see the Jewish state as a state like any other, but is in fact arguing that they should see it as evil.
In response to this exercise in anti-Semitism, the Anglican theologian Gerald R. McDermott offers a learned and vigorous rebuttal. He concludes:
Does this mean the state of Israel is a direct fulfillment of biblical prophecy, as Cruz suggested? No. Nor does it mean Christians must ratify every policy of the Israeli government. But the last two centuries have shown that God’s covenanted people need a state to protect them from those who would destroy them.
In other words, it’s McDermott, not Lusk, who is open to the possibility of taking the Jews simply as they are, without invoking divine prophecy. In a separate takedown aimed at a different anti-Semitic preacher, McDermott adds:
Christians should denounce this new anti-Semitism among their own. . . . If we do not call out this unbiblical ignorance and hatred, future generations will ask us what we ask about the churches of Europe in the first half of the 20th century: how could they not see? Why did they not speak up?
Rightwing Anti-Semites Seek to Undermine America’s Moral Authority on the World Stage
Last week, at a major gathering of young American conservatives, the Internet talk-show host Tucker Carlson complained of undue Israeli influence over U.S. foreign policy, made insinuations about Jewish disloyalty, and averred that the deceased investor-cum-procurer Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent. Such rhetoric is typical of Carlson, who is also a sharp critic of American support for its Middle Eastern allies against Iran, for Ukraine in its war with Russia, and for Great Britain in its war with the Axis. And he represents a growing segment of opinion on the American right that is no longer confined to the fever swamps.
Rebeccah Heinrichs examines the worldview behind Carlson’s anti-Americanism, which she dubs the “1939 Project” in an analogy to the series of New York Times articles arguing that America’s original sin occurred in 1619:
Carlson’s views might seem outlandish, but he isn’t dumb. He is among the savviest operators out there. And he is well aware that anti-Israel invective and conspiracy thinking attracts attention in a culture that has lost trust in expertise and institutions—and is hunting for a scapegoat for America’s very real challenges.
But if the 1939 Project people are right, and Winston Churchill was in fact the warmonger, and if Hitler really wanted peace and perhaps had a point about the outsize and nefarious impact of Jewish people, and if the United States was wrong to drop the atomic bombs, then NATO was a mistake, the ties to the nation of Israel is a mistake, and none of the post-World War II international order is worth maintaining today, let alone restoring or defending.
[The goal is] to loosen the affection and support Americans feel for and have for our allies in Europe and Israel. This is necessary to weaken the American people’s support for U.S. statecraft in the world, whether in the form of sanctions, military deployments, or military action in defense of its allies and stated and official interests. Their increasingly casual anti-Semitism is not simply evil—it is strategic. It has become the glue that binds the various strains of the insurgent ideology.
From Ian:
Andrew Fox:
Syria’s new dawn is already a nightmare
Israel’s actions also reflect a broader strategic purpose. Its strikes near Damascus were initially seen as a ‘performative escalation’ – warning shots rather than conclusive strikes. The aim is deterrence: to signal to President Sharaa that any attempt to unify Syria by force, especially by moving armed units into the south, will be met with Israeli firepower.
Some observers argue that Israel simply prefers a weak and divided Syria. By attacking Sharaa’s forces, Israel limits the new regime’s ability to establish control. However, regardless of Israel’s motivation – a mix of realpolitik and solidarity with the Druze – the fact remains that Israeli airstrikes probably saved many Druze lives this week by stopping the advance of sectarian killers.
Israel at least seems to understand what kind of regime it is dealing with in Syria. The contrast with the UK here could hardly be more stark. Barely two weeks before the Sweida massacre, UK foreign secretary David Lammy was in Damascus, shaking hands with President Sharaa and pledging £94.5million in aid to support Syria’s ‘long-term recovery’. With great fanfare, the UK re-established diplomatic ties with Syria after 14 years. Lammy spoke of ‘renewed hope’ and an ‘inclusive and representative’ transition.
Washington has been equally eager to embrace Syria’s post-Assad regime. US president Donald Trump lifted sanctions on Syria in June, and even praised Sharaa as an ‘attractive, tough guy’. He also floated the idea of Syria joining an expanded Abraham Accords peace framework, therefore recognising Israel. The logic was simple: bring Syria in from the cold, peel it away from Iran’s orbit, and declare the 14-year civil war resolved.
That aspiration is now in tatters. The massacres of Druze and Alawites cast grave doubt on the new Syrian government’s credibility and intentions. For all the talk of a fresh start, Syria’s interim rulers have shown a grim continuity with the past: intolerance of dissent, reliance on sectarian militias and a propensity for violence. The West’s willingness to overlook HTS’s jihadist pedigree in exchange for a quick diplomatic win now looks not just cynical, but also dangerously naïve.
Sharaa’s cabinet is literally teeming with individuals and factions under terrorism and human-rights sanctions. Did London and Washington really believe such actors would morph overnight into guarantors of pluralism and human rights? With scattered revenge killings of regime loyalists, crackdowns on minority communities, early signs of trouble were already there, but many Western policymakers and media outlets downplayed them. The result is that Western nations are now awkwardly complicit. British aid and American rapprochement have effectively helped legitimise a government whose associates have now butchered over a thousand men, women and children based on their sect. How will these same leaders credibly condemn atrocities elsewhere when they stayed mum on Syria’s? It is a staggering moral failure.
These events have sobering implications. Regionally, Syria’s ‘new dawn’ is revealing itself as just another nightmare. And far from unifying the country, Sharaa’s reliance on hard-line Islamist forces is deepening its fractures. The Druze, long wary of both Assad and Sunni extremism, may now conclude that they have no place in the new Syria, potentially sparking an exodus or armed self-defence. The Alawites, who already feel betrayed and endangered, could turn to desperate measures, perhaps even inviting foreign protection or forming insurgencies. Sectarian bloodshed on this scale risks reigniting a cycle of vengeance that could unravel the fragile peace achieved. In Lebanon next door, where Druze and Alawite communities also exist, the spillover of sectarian tensions is an ominous possibility. Israel’s direct strikes on Damascus also mark a dangerous escalation, and serve as a reminder that Syria’s war can at any moment ignite regional conflagration.
As the Druze and Alawite tragedies have shown, there is nothing ‘inclusive’ or ‘reformed’ about Sharaa’s new regime.
Arsen Ostrovsky:
The massacre of the Druze is a moral test: Israel acted, the world failed
The Druze are a small but proud religious and ethnic minority in the Middle East, numbering around one million, primarily in Syria, Lebanon, and northern Israel. In Israel, they are an integral and cherished part of our society. They serve in the military, hold senior positions in government, and have long stood shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish people in defending the state, including fighting in Gaza, after the October 7 massacre by Hamas. They are our brothers-in-arms.
But in Syria, the Druze are now at a perilous crossroad. After more than a decade of civil war, economic collapse, betrayal and hardship, the Druze in the southern Syrian city of Sweida, home to the country's largest Druze community, sought to peacefully protest for their basic rights, dignity, and freedom.
And for that, they are now in the regime’s crosshairs.
What started with attacks by Bedouin forces against the Druze escalated when government forces entered Sweida, supposedly to oversee a ceasefire. But according to media reports and eye witnesses, the Syrian soldiers, recognisable by their uniforms and military insignia, joined the Bedouins and murdered Druze on the streets and in their homes.
Sickening videos have also emerged of thugs forcibly shaving the beards of Druze men, a calculated act of religious humiliation. Such outrages against personal dignity, particularly acts of humiliating and degrading treatment, constitute clear violations of international law and the Geneva Conventions.
For the Jewish people, this evokes a chilling reminder of one of the darkest chapters in our history, when Nazis similarly sought to strip Jewish men of their dignity and faith by publicly shaving their beards and humiliating them in public. This is not just repression, it is dehumanisation.
And as the world largely stood by – silent, or offering little more than empty words and meek statements of concern – while Druze were massacred in Sweida, I am proud that Israel did not turn its back. The Jewish state showed courage, conviction and leadership, to step in with military force against the Syrian regime, to help defend our Druze brothers.
For Israel, the bond with the Druze is not abstract. It is deeply personal. Their loyalty has never wavered. Nor can ours now.
The Druze have also stood for moderation, coexistence, and resistance to extremism. In a region overrun by Iranian proxies, jihadist militias, and failed regimes, the Druze offer a rare glimmer of hope.
This is not only about doing the right thing and protecting a vulnerable minority. Supporting the Druze is a moral imperative.
Meantime, the international community cannot continue treating President al-Sharra as a legitimate partner on the world stage or welcome Syria into the Abraham Accords, while turning a blind eye to the atrocities that are being committing in Sweida.
It is not enough for al-Sharra to issue vague condemnations or deflect blame onto so-called “outlaw groups.” Even if he did not give the orders, these atrocities are unfolding on his watch, under his authority, carried out by forces loyal to his regime – and reportedly by his own troops.
There must be accountability.
If al-Sharra wishes to be seen as a credible leader or statesman, he must demonstrate it – not with empty rhetoric, but through decisive action. That begins with reining in these jihadist thugs, whether they are merely aligned with his regime or, worse, operating within it.
The Druze of Sweida are not pleading for your sympathy, they are demanding their inalienable right to live in peace and dignity, with full civil rights. What happens next will reveal whether the international community truly seeks a new Syria, or will continue rewarding tyranny with silence. For Israel however, silence was simply not an option.
How Congress Can Finish Off Iran
With the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program damaged, and its regional influence diminished, the U.S. must now prevent it from recovering, and, if possible, weaken it further. Benjamin Baird argues that it can do both through economic means—if Congress does its part:
Legislation that codifies President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies into law, places sanctions on Iran’s energy sales, and designates the regime’s proxy armies as foreign terrorist organizations will go a long way toward containing Iran’s regime and encouraging its downfall. . . . Congress has already introduced much of the legislation needed to bring the ayatollah to his knees, and committee chairmen need only hold markup hearings to advance these bills and send them to the House and Senate floors.
They should start with the HR 2614—the Maximum Support Act. What the Iranian people truly need to overcome the regime is protection from the state security apparatus.
Next, Congress must get to work dismantling Iran’s proxy army in Iraq. By sanctioning and designating a list of 29 Iran-backed Iraqi militias through the Florida representative Greg Steube’s Iranian Terror Prevention Act, the U.S. can shut down . . . groups like the Badr Organization and Kataib Hizballah, which are part of the Iranian-sponsored armed groups responsible for killing hundreds of American service members.
Those same militias are almost certainly responsible for a series of drone attacks on oilfields in Iraq over the past few days
From Ian:
In Islamic Culture There Is No Such Concept as Defeat. It's Better to Die than Lose Face
Mosab Hassan Yousef, 47, the son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, defected to Israel in 1997 and moved to the U.S. in 2007, with his story revealed in his 2010 memoir, Son of Hamas. During a visit to Israel in June, he said:
"Hamas has spent 37 years building momentum, and people seem to forget they [the Palestinians] voted for them. They forget they funded Hamas from their own pockets - not just Iran....It's part of their religious obligation. Businessmen too - all under the table. How do I know? Because I was in Hamas leadership. I saw where the finances came from. Average people would walk into the mosque with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars or dinars and slip it into my father's pocket or the back seat of his car."
"Of course, there are people who suffered under Hamas's iron grip in Gaza. I'm not saying there aren't. But are they any better? They all still see Israel as the common enemy. They may not agree with what Hamas did on October 7...[but] they're saying, 'It wasn't worth it.'"
"In Islamic culture...there is no such concept as defeat...It's victory or death. When they lose a war, they don't see it the way the West does. We were conditioned from an early age...all of it built on a refusal to accept what really happened - that our forefathers initiated the war against Israel's independence, and they lost. But in this culture, defeat is too shameful to admit. Everything is based on honor and shame, not on right and wrong, as in Western culture....Better to die than lose face."
"Palestine is a colonial construct. It's not even part of our traditional vocabulary - it's not in the Arab dictionary. 'Palestine' was a name for a region at best, not a country. As for so-called Palestinians, we don't actually have anything concrete to support our existence as a nation or an ethnicity - nothing except for this ugly flag and the keffiyeh, a scarf actually coming from Iraq....Am I really supposed to die for this falsehood? For the madness of people who thrive on corruption and violence and expect everyone else to join them?"
‘The New York Times’ gas-lighting crusade against Israel
The New York Times should consider adopting the Jerusalem cross as its new logo to represent its crusade against Israel and the Jewish people. With a steady stream of slanted reporting and a roster of columnists united by their hostility to Israel (with the lone exception of columnist Bret Stephens), the Times has transformed itself from a paper of record into a platform for moral inversion.
Here’s the journalistic trick for looking credible while advancing a political agenda: Choose sources that support your point of view. It is particularly effective when those sources are anonymous, making it impossible to know their agenda. Times reporters do this routinely, typically quoting U.S. State Department Arabists who they know share their anti-Israel views. Sometimes, they quote sympathetic “experts” to give their bias a veneer of authority.
The op-ed page is worse. It runs on the adage that “man bites dog” is news, which in this case translates into prioritizing Jewish critics of Israel. These “As a Jew” pieces—by academics or activists who use their identity to launder moral attacks—are a staple. A recent example: Brown University professor Omer Bartov, who accused Israel of “genocide” while virtually ignoring the massacre that triggered the war.
Bartov is supposed to be taken seriously because he teaches Holocaust and genocide studies. Because it has not been the site of encampments and public confrontations like Columbia, Brown’s tolerance of anti-Israel and antisemitic students and faculty has gone largely unnoticed. Bartov has been railing against the Israeli government for years and signed the antisemitic Elephant in the Room screed, making him an obvious choice for the op-ed page.
As with most media coverage of the Gaza war, logic is missing from his article. He did not mention the word terrorism even once. His only references to Oct. 7—the day Hamas butchered more than 1,200 Israelis, took 251 hostages, and hid behind civilians in mosques, schools and hospitals—were cursory. Remarkably, he declared within a month of the terrorist attacks that Israel had committed war crimes, as though Hamas’s atrocities demanded no meaningful accounting.
His core claim of genocide hinges on intent. But the quotes he offers from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu do not call for the destruction of a people; they call for the destruction of a terrorist army. Netanyahu said that Hamas would pay a “huge price,” that the Israel Defense Forces would turn Hamas-infested areas “into rubble” and urged “residents of Gaza” to evacuate. If anything, those are statements of intent to protect civilians, not to eliminate them.
Bartov fails to mention that it is the Hamas charter that calls for the genocide of the Jews. Had Hamas not committed a massacre on Oct. 7, not a single Palestinian civilian would have lost their life in Gaza.
Like other detractors, Bartov has inverted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which was a reaction to the Nazi crimes against the Jews, to blame the victims. The convention defines genocide as an “intention to destroy, wholly or partially, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, per se.”
Rightwing Anti-Semites Seek to Undermine America’s Moral Authority on the World Stage
Last week, at a major gathering of young American conservatives, the Internet talk-show host Tucker Carlson complained of undue Israeli influence over U.S. foreign policy, made insinuations about Jewish disloyalty, and averred that the deceased investor-cum-procurer Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent. Such rhetoric is typical of Carlson, who is also a sharp critic of American support for its Middle Eastern allies against Iran, for Ukraine in its war with Russia, and for Great Britain in its war with the Axis. And he represents a growing segment of opinion on the American right that is no longer confined to the fever swamps.
Rebeccah Heinrichs examines the worldview behind Carlson’s anti-Americanism, which she dubs the “1939 Project” in an analogy to the series of New York Times articles arguing that America’s original sin occurred in 1619:
Carlson’s views might seem outlandish, but he isn’t dumb. He is among the savviest operators out there. And he is well aware that anti-Israel invective and conspiracy thinking attracts attention in a culture that has lost trust in expertise and institutions—and is hunting for a scapegoat for America’s very real challenges.
But if the 1939 Project people are right, and Winston Churchill was in fact the warmonger, and if Hitler really wanted peace and perhaps had a point about the outsize and nefarious impact of Jewish people, and if the United States was wrong to drop the atomic bombs, then NATO was a mistake, the ties to the nation of Israel is a mistake, and none of the post-World War II international order is worth maintaining today, let alone restoring or defending.
[The goal is] to loosen the affection and support Americans feel for and have for our allies in Europe and Israel. This is necessary to weaken the American people’s support for U.S. statecraft in the world, whether in the form of sanctions, military deployments, or military action in defense of its allies and stated and official interests. Their increasingly casual anti-Semitism is not simply evil—it is strategic. It has become the glue that binds the various strains of the insurgent ideology.
From Ian:
Melanie Phillips:
Hypocrisy and double standards over the massacre of the Druze
Yet this slaughter elicited no condemnation from those who, day in and day out, signal their own supposed virtue by falsely accusing Israel of war crimes. Faced with the evidence of a horrific attempt to exterminate the Druze, demonstrators who have been screaming about Israel’s “genocide” for the past 21 months were conspicuously absent from the streets and campuses.
The likes of Amnesty and Human Rights Watch were silent. Al-Julani’s troops reportedly slaughtered the entire staff at Suweida’s hospital along with their patients. Yet from those who falsely accuse Israel of targeting hospitals in Gaza in order to kill patients and staff—and who wickedly ignore the fact that Hamas has turned them into terrorist hubs and thus made them into legitimate military targets—there was only silence.
Astoundingly, these people instead blamed Israel—the only country that went to the aid of the Druze—for attacking Syria. António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, posted on X that he condemned the killing of any civilians, omitted to place responsibility on al-Julani’s forces and instead blamed Israel for defending the Druze.
Various media outlets reported these atrocities as “tit for tat” skirmishes between the Druze and Bedouin tribes. Even the Trump administration bafflingly described what happened as a “misunderstanding” between Israel and Syria that had somehow gotten out of hand.
The perversity of all this reaction was hardly surprising. Much of it was wrapped up in a deep animus against Israel and the Jewish people, which is its own dark and terrifying story.
Something else, however, was at work here—and that was the rush that took place to embrace al-Julani, a former member of Al-Qaeda and ISIS who had been imprisoned by the Americans from 2006 to 2011, as a force for good.
Israel Rescues Syria’s Druze
To understand what set off the latest round of sectarian conflict in southern Syria, I suggest reading this very brief and useful summary by Carmit Valensi and Amal Hayek. The two note that, as in previous rounds of fighting, “internal pressure from the Druze community in Israel spurred Israeli military involvement.” But Amit Segal argues that this incident was different from its predecessors:
[T]he Druze area acts as a buffer for Israel. It’s like a shield against Syria, which is essentially [part of] a Turkish empire, something that deeply disturbs Israel. But there’s one more thing that’s changed in recent months. Israel is acting as a regional power for the first time, and only history will judge if this was wise or a mistake.
When Israel sees situations such as what’s happening in Syria, it intervenes. This has never happened before. Israel says it’s not just about immediate interests, but also about allies.
There is also here a moral element, that goes beyond what some see as Jerusalem caving to domestic pressure from its Druze citizens. After all, no other country has lifted a finger to protect Middle Eastern minorities from slaughter. Seth Mandel writes:
It has not gone unnoticed that Israel is striking the government forces of a country with which it is also negotiating mutual recognition. But there is no contradiction there: peace is the goal, and recognition is worthless without it. Israel wants recognition because it wants coexistence, not the other way around. And the Jewish state is unwilling to sell out its values to get it: “Israel is committed to preventing harm being inflicted on the Druze in Syria, owing to the deep covenant of blood with our Druze citizens in Israel and their historical and familial link to the Druze in Syria,” Prime Minister Netanyahu explained.
MEMRI:
Articles In Palestinian Authority Press Following Israel-Iran Ceasefire: When Will Hamas Realize That Eliminating Israel Is A Ludicrous Idea And Move To End The War In Gaza?
Following the ceasefire between Israel and Iran announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on June 24, 2025, papers affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank published articles that called on Hamas to draw lessons from the Iran-Israel war. The articles urged Hamas to understand that Iran – which it regarded as an ally and as the leader of the "resistance axis" – proved to be a "paper tiger" in the confrontation with Israel, a country that cares only for its own interests and cannot be relied upon to assist the Palestinians. According to the articles, the fact that the war ended with a ceasefire under the patronage of the U.S. – without realizing Iran's vision of eliminating Israel, without the participation of the other members of the resistance axis, such as Hizbullah, the Houthis and the Iraqi militias, and without any Iranian demand for a ceasefire in Gaza – shows that Hamas can no longer count on Iran to help it in the Gaza war. One of the articles concluded that "the Iranian axis has ended and its slogans have evaporated under the Israeli and American blows."
The following are translated excerpts from these articles:
PA Daily: Hamas Must Acknowledge That Iran Cared Only For Itself And That The Resistance Axis Is Done For
The June 25, 2025 editorial of the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida urged Hamas to learn from the outcomes of the Iran-Israel war by realizing that the discourse about the "unity of the fronts" and the "resistance axis" is hollow and that it can no longer rely on Iran's assistance in the Gaza war.
The editorial said: "…It took Tehran only 12 days to realize that missiles do not win wars and that the U.S. does not and will not allow Israel to be defeated. Those 12 days clarified the character and boundaries of the conflict… Tehran, the capital of the resistance axis, concluded an agreement for a full and comprehensive ceasefire… We do not believe that Tehran will continue to be [the leader of] an axis… Clearly, it also forgot all the discourse about the 'assistance fronts' and the 'unity of the fronts' when it concluded the ceasefire agreement with Israel. It made no mention of Israel's war on Gaza, neither explicitly nor implicitly – [even though it was] Israel who started that war on the pretext of [retaliating for the Al-Aqsa] Flood [operation] that Hamas launched based on an Iranian decision.
"Here's the truth: there is no 'resistance axis' and no 'assistance front,' because states [are guided by] pragmatic policies, interests, [diplomatic] relations and the power balance, not by populist discourse, revolutionary boasting, hollow declarations and Muslim Brotherhood-style shows [of strength]. Hamas must acknowledge this reality and deal with it without denying the truth…"[1]
Former PA Minister: The Iranian Axis Has Proved To Be A Paper Tiger; Israel Can Be Defeated In The Diplomatic Arena, Not In The Military One
In his June 25 column in the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, Ashraf Al-Ajrami, a former PA minister for prisoners' affairs, urged Hamas to draw lessons from the Iran-Israel war and understand that eliminating Israel with the help of Iran and the resistance axis is a ludicrous plan. He wrote:
"…Iran is the big loser in this war, for the scope of the destruction and losses in Israel cannot be compared to [what happened] in Iran… This country and its allies in the region were delusional and chanted big slogans [about] destroying, eliminating or burning Israel, when they were not just incapable of realizing them but incapable of exacting a heavy price from Israel.
"The 'resistance axis' has proved to be a paper tiger… We fell under the influence of the failed Iranian axis, which used our [Palestinian] organizations – such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad – as tools in a plan that had nothing to do with our interests… The Palestinian arena split into two camps: the national one, which maintained ties with the major Arab countries, and the other [camp], affiliated with Iran, which is at odds with the Arab regimes. We paid an unbearable price for realizing the Iranian enterprise and chasing failed, empty slogans in the name of the 'resistance' and its ideology…
"Now the Iranian axis has ended and its slogans have evaporated under the Israeli and American blows… The war in Gaza continues and we have been left on our own… What is needed [now] is a rational approach, in order to deal with this reality and change it through an in-depth study of the power balance. [We must] understand how it can be wisely amended without falling for mistaken and destructive considerations, as we did in the past decades, most recently in the October 7 attack.[2]
"The idea of defeating Israel militarily or destroying it is a kind of fantasy that bears no connection to reality. However, Israel can be defeated on the diplomatic level… Non-violent popular resistance is internationally accepted and supported, whereas violent struggle is not accepted and causes damage far greater than any conceivable benefit. Will the Palestinian movements draw a lesson from what happened in the region and rethink their considerations?"[3]
From Ian:
Shai Davidai:
Why I’m Leaving Columbia
My colleagues’ silence shows more than a lack of moral integrity. It reveals how costly it is to challenge dominant ideologies on American campuses. Question them, and you’ll quickly be isolated, even by close peers. Tasked with teaching truth, courage, and principled leadership, my colleagues failed to live by those very ideals. One senior colleague, a former vice dean of DEI at Columbia Business School, admitted they might have defended me—but the optics of a white-passing Jewish professor confronting a woman of color president “weren’t right.” By choosing comfort over conviction, my colleagues’ silence shows how wide the gap is between preaching values and living them. That’s the bitter truth about higher education today: Those who can’t, teach.
My colleagues stayed silent even as Columbia retaliated against me. In December 2023, the university launched an investigation after a video of me condemning support for Hamas went viral, accusing me of harassment based on “national origin and/or shared ancestry.” That charge was not only false but absurd. I never spoke against Palestinians, Arabs, or any ethnic, religious, or national group. I repeatedly and clearly distinguished between the Palestinian people and the terrorists ruling them, focusing only on student groups that glorify terror. By caving to a coordinated smear campaign from Students for Justice in Palestine, Columbia didn’t just stand by—it seized the chance to intimidate me into silence. The baseless investigation dragged on for 20 months before closing with no findings of wrongdoing—HR-speak for “innocent.” Meanwhile, my name and reputation were dragged through the mud for all to see. This is what ideological persecution looks like in academia.
The investigation was only the beginning. In April 2024, when I tried to enter the illegal campus encampment—plastered with signs like “With a rifle we will free Palestine,” tributes to terrorists, and a ban on Jewish students who support Israel’s right to exist—Columbia deactivated my ID, barring me from campus while letting the encampment stand. Months later, on the Oct. 7 anniversary, I confronted Columbia’s COO for letting the same group terrorize Jewish students with an unauthorized march celebrating Hamas and its allies. In response, Columbia suspended me again—this time from every building, including my office and the only Jewish space on campus. Terrified of its most outspoken Jew, Columbia made silencing me its priority.
Don’t let the current calm on campus fool you. Even under congressional investigations, lawsuits, and threat of losing accreditation, Columbia’s leaders cling to the fantasy that these problems will fix themselves. By appeasing radical students and faculty who support terrorism, they believe they can wait out the storm. That is their gravest mistake. Beneath the fragile calm lies an extremist ideology that’s waiting to erupt again. I call it “American Intellectual Antisemitism”—the belief that Jews are white settler-colonialists conspiring to ethnically cleanse Palestinians to create a Jewish supremacist ethnostate. Such hatred never disappears on its own. It adapts, evolves, and returns stronger. Look at Mahmoud Khalil, whose first public act after three months in prison—and missing his son’s birth—was to lead another protest. That someone like him is now embraced by Zohran Mamdani, the anti-Israel frontrunner in the NYC mayoral race, signals what’s ahead. The tune may change, but the lyrics stay the same.
Columbia’s failed leadership, morally bankrupt faculty, and indifferent majority have shattered my respect for an institution I once called home. I no longer trust its leaders to do what’s right, or my colleagues to show them the way. With that respect lost, I have no choice but to leave. Staying would betray everything I stand for.
I am leaving Columbia, but not this fight. Freed from the shackles of a tenure-track job, I plan to intensify my efforts against American Intellectual Antisemitism and support for terrorism on campuses. Through live talks, a podcast on Jewish activism, and a book on the roots of this ideology, I hope to mobilize people to demand change. At its best, Columbia is a beacon of truth and discovery. At its worst, it’s a battleground for extremists who can’t stand dissent and intellectual diversity. Together, we can fight to restore its true purpose.
In the end, Columbia made my life so unbearable I chose to leave. But there’s one thing they’ll never do—silence me. My voice is not for sale.
Adass Israel Synagogue firebombing charge laid against 20yo man
A man has been charged for his alleged role in the firebombing of a synagogue in Melbourne’s east.
The 20-year-old was arrested on Wednesday in Williamstown and charged with stealing a blue VW Golf that was used in the attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue.
The operation was undertaken by the Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT), which includes officers from Victoria Police, the Australian Federal Police, and ASIO.
The taskforce previously said the attack was likely politically motivated.
That is still the position of the JCTT and the investigation is still into alleged terrorism.
The man was not charged for the actual arson attack, and no one has been charged for that offence yet.
The investigation is ongoing into the Adass Israel Synagogue fire, which police said was a significant priority for them with “significant resources across all agencies” being used.
Following the arrest of the 20-year-old man, police seized items at a Melton South home that will be further investigated.
The man was granted strict conditional bail to appear at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday, October 3, 2025.
Police allege the man stole the car in Melton on November 29, 2024, after which it was used in a series of arson attacks, including at the Lux Nightclub in South Yarra and an arson and shooting attack in Bundoora.
Police previously alleged that it was a “communal crime car”.
Victoria Police do not consider the Lux and Bundoora fires to be politically motivated.
Palestinian ‘refugees’ can’t be removed from UN lists, UNRWA admits
Mo Ghaoui, a Palestinian-American digital creator who immigrated to the United States six years ago and is based in Kent, Wash., entered a nondescript, U.N. Relief and Works Agency office building on a recent visit to Beirut, where he used to live.
He saw about 10 employees and a few working computers in the office, and decided to put the U.N. agency to the test, he told JNS. He wanted to know if he could give up his refugee status; however, concerned about pushback, he decided to pose the question about delisting a cousin rather than himself.
He asked the UNRWA staffer if his “cousin” could delist from the agency’s refugee database. “Why?” the staffer asked him, he told JNS. “There’s nothing to lose. No one does it. No one. We don’t have this procedure.”
Ghaoui told JNS that he didn’t take “why” for an answer.
“He wants to do it because he thinks this is better,” he told the UNRWA staffer. “The guy is British.”
The UNRWA staffer told Ghaoui that his cousin could be both British and listed officially as a refugee, Ghaoui told JNS. When Ghaoui said that his “cousin” isn’t a refugee any longer, the UNRWA staffer told him that the cousin could have his name struck from the Palestinian Authority registry but would remain on the UNRWA list.
Ghaoui told JNS that he challenged the staffer’s logic and asked why UNRWA should keep someone on its registry if the person is no longer on the Palestinian Authority refugee list.
Jonathan Fowler, senior communications manager at UNRWA, told JNS that “registered Palestine refugees can only be removed from UNRWA’s register upon their death or in case of false/duplicate registration.”
“Not upon request,” he told JNS.
The U.N. General Assembly requires UNRWA “to provide assistance and protection to Palestine refugees until a just solution to their plight is reached,” Fowler told JNS. He added that the agency “maintains registration records and issues identification documents for Palestine refugees crucial for their access to services and the legal recognition to which they are entitled.”
Fowler admitted to JNS that other U.N. agencies, including the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which handles all non-Palestinian refugees globally, also don’t allow refugees to relinquish their status upon request and be deleted from the official U.N. list. (JNS sought comment from the High Commissioner for Refugees.)
Non-Palestinian refugees, who are covered under the High Commissioner for Refugees, aren’t considered to be refugees after they acquire another nationality. UNRWA still considers someone a “refugee” even if the person has multiple passports.
From Ian:
Andrew Fox:
Gaza is a war; just a war
To describe Gaza as “just a war” is not to trivialise it. It is to place it in its appropriate frame: a war with extraordinary suffering, in which errors have been made. It is a war that Israel has politically mishandled, whose government failed to establish a clear end state. It has alienated international allies through poor communication and, at times, has failed to rebut disinformation with the necessary urgency—but it is not a genocide. It is a war against a deeply entrenched, ideologically fanatical enemy operating from within a civilian population.
It is also a war that many commentators refuse to recognise as such. There is a strange moral inconsistency in much of the international discourse. When Western powers bombed Raqqa to oust ISIS, civilian casualties were acknowledged, but the operation was described as a necessary evil. When Russia destroyed Mariupol, the world understood the reasoning behind urban sieges (of course, Russia’s war in Ukraine is illegal, and the Russians have committed genocidal actions, but that does not change the fact the world sees urban combat in Ukraine and judges it as such). But when Israel bombs Khan Younis or Jabalia, it is instantly seen as a war crime. This double standard is not only unfair but also distorts our understanding of how wars are fought and won in the 21st century.
Urban warfare, particularly against irregular forces, leads to devastating outcomes. The IDF has thoroughly studied these dynamics. Its experience in Gaza has provided NATO forces with tactical and doctrinal lessons, such as the importance of combined arms integration, tunnel warfare expertise, and forward-deployed legal oversight. It has also revealed the limitations of airpower and the moral dangers of information warfare. Israel’s campaign has not been perfect, but it has shown a willingness to learn, adapt, and review its actions, including prosecuting soldiers for misconduct, a practice rarely seen in the region.
Indeed, the handful of credible allegations of war crimes committed by IDF personnel remain under investigation. Some will almost certainly lead to disciplinary action. However, the scale is significant. A detailed review of available evidence identified fewer than 100 cases of alleged deliberate civilian killings across a theatre that so far has reported over 56,000 deaths. Many of those reports, upon closer examination, are based on unverifiable claims, dubious witnesses, or sources with a long history of political activism. That does not absolve anyone, but it does provide context for the accusation that Israel is operating a military death machine.
The very idea of proportionality in modern urban combat has been distorted. Proportionality is not about equal casualties. The phrase does not apply to entire campaigns, from a legal perspective. It concerns, on an individual strike-by-strike basis, whether the expected military advantage outweighs the anticipated civilian harm in a specific action or strike. This judgment must be made instantly, based on intelligence and legal guidance. Although it is never flawless, the evidence suggests that Israel has effectively integrated these principles into its command structure. To suggest otherwise is to accuse military lawyers, commanders, and soldiers of a conspiracy on a scale that defies reason.
We should mourn the dead in Gaza. We should press for humanitarian access, accountability, and a political solution that prevents further bloodshed. We should also demand intellectual honesty, reject the cynical manipulation of casualty data, and question the narratives that emerge before the facts are established. Most of all, we should resist the urge to transform tragedy into a theatre for moral grandstanding, divorced from the real choices faced by those fighting in real wars.
Gaza is not the end of the world. It is not the beginning of a genocide. It is a war: bloody, badly handled in many ways, but still a war. One in which a liberal democracy has fought a brutal terrorist group in an impossible environment. That doesn’t mean Israel is always right. It means that when they are not, Israel is not uniquely wrong. If we cannot hold both ideas simultaneously—that war is terrible and that not all war is criminal—then we are not prepared to discuss peace, to create a lasting resolution to conflict, or to face the more difficult question: what happens after the guns fall silent, when war ends and politics pick up again?
Honor Is the Rock of the West
It’s been written that love was the great theme of the Holocaust, perhaps to remind us that, after immense infamy, good matters more than evil to moral historians. I’ve always thought this idea is profoundly mistaken, despite the beautiful lines on love by Frankl, Hillesum, or Anne Frank. Love was important, of course, but honor is even greater and more encompassing, including love, lineage, unity with our own, but also commitment, integrity, dignity, duty, and devotion to others. Think of how many suffering people managed to cling to human dignity, faith, love, and care for others amid the greatest hardships and atrocities, intended to deprive them of all hope. Theirs was the honor of living as a conscientious individual every day, in the face of determined efforts to dehumanize and obliterate them. The honor of secretly praying and educating children in a concentration camp. The honor of those who paid with their lives rather than betray their fellows. The honor of dying in prayer, reaffirming the faith of one’s ancestors while walking peacefully toward imminent death. The refusal to be a number.
More recently, we have before our eyes the example of the honor shown by every one of the youths kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, who shared their single pita a day with three or four others, over hundreds of days, without ever losing their love for each other and their country, and without losing hope. Think of the female hostages who were abused by their captors and then put on a display at the last moment before their release in front of jeering crowds of barbarians—and who turned what was intended as a festival of humiliation into a triumph of unbroken dignity and self-respect. What greater example of honor have we seen in recent times? That is the true light that can guide the West today, even in the face of rampant nihilism and relativism. In tough times, when hatred and violence take center stage, the old inherited morality reemerges, and at the forefront is not love, daring, or tolerance—but honor.
Israeli leaders repeatedly say Israel is fighting in Gaza or Iran to save innocents in France or New York. That antisemites snicker in response and accuse the Jews of “genocide” and the deliberate murder of babies with outrage both real and feigned, is no surprise. They’re on the side of hatred. Like the terrorists they admire, they despise honor, and feel a burning resentment toward those who still have the energy and the dignity to embody ancient codes.
What’s troubling is when European or American political leaders refuse to see that Israel’s fight is a defense of the identity and honor of the entire West. Israel is a wall of dignity against barbarism. Honor also belongs to those Israeli soldiers who give their lives for this cause, which far transcends their own interests and borders.
And yes, that example still retains its capacity to inspire others. Donald Trump’s strike on Iran, followed by swift and effective negotiation, was also an act of honor. The U.S. president knew his enemies would make a loud fuss, painting him as a warmonger, despite his actions in office proving the opposite. He also knew he’d face the usual chorus of murmurs, in Brussels as in Washington, calling for “restraint” and “avoiding escalation”—meaning abandoning the basic necessity of effective self-defense.
Trump ignored all that. He knew striking Iran was necessary: for Israel, for the U.S., for Europe, for peace in the West. Iran is the monster that has infected media and political parties, funded chaos across the West, carried out assassinations on our soil; spreading misery at home and abroad, the regime exists solely to destroy Israel and its allies.
Trump knew someone had to do what he did. Iran cannot have nuclear weapons. Preventing that, while reminding Iran who Israel’s great ally is and what its power is, was fundamentally an act of honor, in the face of which even Europe fell silent.
It may be true that honor is now deeply unfashionable in classrooms, among the youth, at work, or even in personal relationships. If the West wants to revive the moral splendor it once had, if it wants to retain the values and pleasures of its own civilization, and mount an effective defense against the barbarism of the savage Islamists, the totalitarian Chinese, and the cynical Russians, it must start by embracing the ideal of honor again—with respect, with memory, and with courage. Once again, Israel is serving as a light unto the nations. We in the West must open our eyes before it is too late.
Jonathan Tobin:
Biden and Hamas prolonged the war, not Netanyahu
The myth of the lost peace
The claim that Netanyahu discarded a chance for peace to hold onto power is particularly disingenuous.
As the Times Magazine article states, a deal concluded in April 2024 would have left the Hamas military formations and leadership in place near the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. There, it would have allowed the continued flow of supplies to Hamas via the tunnels under the border between Egypt and the Hamas enclave.
According to the article, the Israel Defense Force chief of staff at the time, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, thought the capture of Rafah was unimportant. That is a reminder that he—and many more of the country’s military and intelligence leadership—were not only fatally wrong about Hamas’s intentions and primarily responsible for Oct. 7. They also were unprepared for the post-Oct. 7 war in which, especially in its opening months, they seemed to accept the idea that Hamas was an “idea” that couldn’t be defeated rather than an actual terrorist military opponent that could be vanquished.
One doesn’t have to be a military thinker on the level of von Clausewitz to wonder why Rafah wasn’t taken in the opening months of the war to cut Hamas off from a main source of supplies. If the IDF was at times “going in circles” in Gaza in the conflict’s first phase, as the Times alleges, it is the fault of the generals and not Netanyahu, who, unlike an American president, is not the unquestioned commander-in-chief of Israeli forces.
Another myth that the Times article props up is that had Netanyahu buckled under American pressure in April 2024 and allowed Hamas to return to its Oct. 6, 2023 status as the government of Gaza, Saudi Arabia would have then recognized Israel.
Both the Americans and the Netanyahu government treat a Saudi willingness to join the Abraham Accords and exchange ambassadors with the Jewish state as a top foreign-policy goal. Still, the Saudis chose not to join the accords in 2020, and they may never do so. Even the modernizing Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman understands that recognizing Israel would open his family’s rule up to attacks on the legitimacy of their status as the protector of the holy places of Islam and betray the extremist Wahhabi strain of Islam that has always been a main prop of their regime.
A lifeline for Hamas?
Nor should anyone seriously take the article’s claims that conceding to Hamas 13 months ago would have boosted Israel’s popularity in Europe or among the left-wing Democrats in the United States, whose hostility to the Jewish state has only grown. The red-green alliance of left-wingers and Islamists seeks Israel’s destruction. Whatever sympathy some might have felt after the atrocities of Oct. 7 evaporated even before the Jewish state rallied and began to defend itself three weeks later, seeking the destruction of the terrorists.
The myth of the lost opportunity for peace also ignores that the reason why Netanyahu’s coalition would have crumbled had he given in to the American pressure was rooted not so much in the demands of his controversial political partners, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, as it was in his duty not to damage the security of the Jewish state. Granting a lifeline to Hamas in April 2024, rather than carrying on the war until its military formations were fully destroyed, and Hezbollah and Iran defeated as well as Assad toppled, would have been a strategic disaster for Israel and may well have ensured that the terrorists would have soon been in a position to repeat the Oct.7 massacre. But it would have helped the Biden administration politically and also bolstered Netanyahu’s opponents.
There are many legitimate criticisms to make of Netanyahu’s decisions throughout his lengthy tenure as Israeli prime minister, in addition to those that contributed to Israel’s being unprepared for Oct. 7. It will be up to Israel’s voters to render the ultimate verdict as to whether or not what he has done since then, which may well constitute the finest hours of his career as a politician and leader of his country, outweighs his mistakes and personal faults.
Whatever one may say about him, the claim that the war has been extended primarily to help him cling to power is a smear that should not go unanswered. Fair-minded historians who are not anti-Netanyahu partisans will be forced to conclude that not only was this accusation false, but that by clinging to his principles, the prime minister did his country and the world, which is materially better off with a weakened Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, an inestimable service.
From Ian:
Brendan O'Neill:
How DEI unleashed the monster of anti-Semitism
It seems to me that the latent anti-Semitism of England’s middle classes has found a fresh outlet in Israelophobia. Under the faux-political cover of hating the Jewish nation, some are giving vent to that old, regressive loathing of Jews. And this is where the report falls down – with its solutions. It calls for the boosting of DEI – Diversity, Equality and Inclusion. Educational institutions and public bodies must ensure, it says, that DEI includes ‘education on anti-Semitism’. This strikes me as a staggering moral contradiction – because it is precisely DEI that helped to birth the new Jew hate.
It is not a coincidence that it is in the very institutions that are rife with DEI that anti-Semitism is now ‘pervasive’. And not just in the UK – on campuses across the US, where DEI is a neo-religion, Jew hatred has surged. We’ve seen students at Columbia call the Jewish nation ‘the pigs of the Earth’ and openly dream of death for their Jewish colleagues. At Penn University, Jewish students have been told to go back to ‘fucking Berlin where you came from’. There’s even been the daubing of ‘swastikas and hateful graffiti’ on campus. In America as well as Britain, the creep of the fascist imagination seems most pronounced in those zones where wokeness rules and diversity is sacralised.
DEI is Dr Frankenstein to the monster of the new Jew hatred. It is the very racial conspiracism of this bourgeois cult that has made life hard for Jews. For this hyper-racialist ideology ruthlessly sorts all ethnic groups into boxes marked ‘oppressed’ (meaning good) or ‘privileged’ (meaning bad). And it views Jews as the most privileged, the people with the most to atone for. It hangs a target sign round their necks, marking them out for the righteous opprobrium of self-styled defenders of ‘the oppressed’. An ideology that damns Jews as unjustly advantaged, and the Jewish State as uniquely barbarous, is an ideology that sooner or later will let the world’s oldest racism off its weak leash. And that has happened.
Anti-Semitism is not only a light sleeper – it’s a shape-shifter, too. There’s been religious anti-Semitism, racial anti-Semitism, and now woke anti-Semitism: a swirling bigotry fuelled by the blind righteousness of a half-mad activist class that genuinely thinks history is on the side of its hatreds. We don’t need more DEI. We need Jews and their allies to prep for the fight ahead. Because while history doesn’t ‘take sides’, it does contain lessons, and none as important as this one: Jew hatred must always be strangled at birth.
Yisrael Medad:
Anti-Zionism is not all theoretical - they are violent by nature
Anti-Zionism's advantage is that it is shift changing in its character. It adapts itself to whatever trend of political thought becomes the topic of the day – Left, Right, and/or Center - and it assumes the rhetoric language of various ideologies and trends.
Bob Vylan can shout “Death to the IDF” at the Glastonbury Festival in England and American conservative isolationist Steve Bannon can demand “There needs to be a thorough FARA investigation into Fox’s relationship with a foreign power” and call its Jewish show host Mark Levin, “Tel Aviv Levin.”
On the other hand, the concept of an Arab country of Palestine, with a distinct people, never truly existed, neither in the minds of outside observers nor the Muslims themselves. It was a conquered land occupied by Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders, Mamluks, and Ottoman Turks.
The region of Palestine was never a defined geopolitical entity, but was fought over by two tribal confederations. Throughout the 16th century, there were frequent clashes between families across Palestine based on Qays–Yaman divisions and there was civil strife involving peasant fellahin, Bedouins, and townspeople well into the 18th century. An “Arab Palestine people” never truly existed, even in the mid-20th century.
The anti-Zionists are violent by nature, seeking to “globalize the intifada.” In Berlin this past week, pro-Gaza demonstrators demanded the return of the Islamist Caliphate.
Commenting on that campaign, pro-Israel British-Palestinian John Aziz said that whereas “Socialism was once the battle cry of factory workers and coal miners… today, it’s increasingly the pet ideology of upper-middle-class urbanites sipping fair trade soy lattes and chanting of their wish to globalize an intifada that they know little or nothing about.”
Anti-Zionism, moreover, is a wave that potentially will submerge more than just the Jews.
How the NYT Tokenizes Jews — and Mandy Patinkin Helped Them Do It
It’s the final scene of The Princess Bride and Inigo Montoya, master fencer and revenge-seeker, is at the window of the castle with Westley and turns to him. “You know, it’s very strange. I have been in the revenge business so long. Now that it’s over, I do not know what to do with the rest of my life,” he says.
At face value, it’s shocking, and your jaw drops. You aren’t hearing these lines within the context of the movie itself, but from the Jewish actor who played Montoya in 1987. Mandy Patinkin is using that line to describe Israel’s war in Gaza during an exclusive feature interview with The New York Times Magazine.
The interview covered a wide variety of topics relating to the Patinkin-Grody family’s lives and careers, including their most recent resurgence to popularity through their TikTok videos. Nevertheless, the NYT decided to clip the portion about their opinions of Israel and antisemitism for social media, making it all about Gaza and fueling a gross representation of a token Jew.
The NYT magazine knew this portion about Gaza and antisemitism would go viral. With approximately 111,000 likes and counting and about 40,500 shares, the tokenization of Jews is a guaranteed win. That’s why clips of any other part of the interview are absent.
Would the magazine have featured it if it had featured pro-Israel sentiments?
Friday, July 18, 2025
