From Ian:
"West Bank" Is a Colonial Imposition
Names matter. Several state legislatures have passed resolutions affirming the use of "Judea and Samaria" and rejecting "West Bank," a modern political term.
After crushing the Bar Kokhba Jewish revolt in the year 135, the Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed Judea and Samaria as the province Syria Palaestina, invoking the Philistines, enemies of Israel, to erase Jewish identification with the land. The name stuck. My Jewish grandfather, born in Palestine, was considered Palestinian. Before 1948, "Palestinian" referred to the Jewish community as well as Arab people. After the Palestine Liberation Organization was established in 1964, "Palestinian" became associated with Arab nationalism.
Rabbi Pinchas Allouche of Scottsdale told the Arizona Legislature: "Language matters, because when you erase names, you erase history; when you erase history, you erase truth; when you erase truth, you delegitimize people; and when you delegitimize people, peace becomes impossible."
In 2024, Toronto adopted indigenous names for new public spaces. Ireland continues to restore traditional Irish names via a 2024 government initiative, the Placenames Committee. Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980, and Swaziland Eswatini in 2018. So, too, should Judea and Samaria be restored. These original names reconnect the land to the history of an indigenous people, including the battle David and Goliath fought in Judea. Erasing Jewish names from Jewish history is a tactic as old as Rome. It didn't work then, and doesn't work now.
The Rise of the UnJews
The long-run future of the diaspora may increasingly replicate the European experience. Before World War II, Europe was home to over half of world Jewry and many of its most creative, dynamic communities; today, it barely contains 10 percent of Jews. At the end of World War II in 1945, there were 3.8 million Jews left on the continent. More than 80 years later, just 1.4 million reside there.
As is the case in the United States, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in Europe draw heavily from the educated classes. One study found that 60 percent of German anti-Semitic messages came from well-educated people. As far back as 2018, only a narrow majority (54 percent) of Europeans thought Israel had the right to exist, according to a CNN poll. Public support for Israel in Western Europe has declined rapidly in the years since, with only around one-fifth holding a favorable opinion of the country recently.
Given the wealth and size of the U.S. Jewish community, notably in New York, California, and various urban areas, it may take decades for American Jews to follow the same trajectory as Europe. But as secular, younger Jews rapidly assimilate, French sociologist Georges Friedmann’s half-century-old prophecy of a disappearing diaspora could prove correct. The main exceptions may be the socially self-segregated orthodox. Already, almost two-thirds of Jewish children in New York City are Orthodox.
It’s increasingly likely that, even in New York and Los Angeles--the two main centers of diaspora life--Jewish identity will become essentially Israeli. As early as 2035, according to a report by the U.K.-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Israel will become the home to a majority of all Jews, for the first time since early antiquity.
The diminishment of the diaspora—and with it, the extraordinary journey of a dispersed people—could be the lasting legacy of today’s unJews. (h/t KEN J BROWNSHER)
Andrew Fox:
Haaretz: information warfare, not journalism
There’s a running joke among Gaza War veterans that people who’ve never been to Gaza read Haaretz to learn what’s going on there; those who’ve been there read Haaretz when they’re in the mood for some escapist fiction. For those of us who’ve fought in Gaza, the pattern of Haaretz war stories has become familiar: the author typically takes a kernel of truth, removes essential details and highlights unimportant ones, painting a fuzzy, incoherent picture whose only coherent thread is that the IDF is barbaric. Haaretz’s latest hit about IDF veterans’ ‘Moral Injuries’ is a case in point.
The very term is controversial. In fact, the article itself admits that the term doesn’t exist in the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness, nor is it recognized by the Israeli Defense Ministry. But the author made sure to bury that inconvenient fact deep in the article and, just to play it safe, he turns that weakness into a strength by quoting an unnamed source who insinuates that the IDF does not recognize the term because that would effectively involve a public admission that the IDF is not nearly as moral as advertised. That’s right. Haaretz published a piece on a mental illness that may or may not exist and used the very dubiousness of that illness’ existence as proof that the IDF is wicked.
The reason the author insists on using that dubious term is that it sounds so bad. The term ‘moral injury’ conjures an image of a guilt-ridden soldier who is crippled by the knowledge of the atrocities he has committed. The article’s opening story reinforces that image by describing a man who is so horrified by his own wickedness he can’t even bear to look himself in the mirror and then goes on to describe an ex-sniper who wet his bed because of nightmares. It carefully avoids delving into the psychology behind that sense of guilt, leaving the reader to assume that those veterans feel evil because they are evil.
However, the reality about guilt is much more complicated, especially in the context of trauma. The broader context is that a sense of guilt is a natural reaction to trauma. It is perfectly natural to rehash terrible events that have happened to us and to think how we could have handled them differently, both to learn and to regain a sense of control – a feeling that “I’ll be ready for it next time.” And once people start focusing on what they could have or should have done, it is easy to feel guilty for not having chosen that supposedly correct course of action in real time. That is one reason sexual abuse survivors often feel guilty about being abused. I felt guilty when a platoon mate of mine got injured in Gaza, even though I knew I had done everything I could for him. A Nova survivor told me he felt a similar sense of guilt about his surviving while so many of his friends did not. In other words, a sense of guilt does not necessarily imply moral guilt. But casual readers don’t make that distinction. And the author weaponizes that.
From Ian:
Coming together again: What D-day teaches about Israel, Iran, and unity
For many, an unanswered question prevails: Why is it that Europe, the United Kingdom, and Canada fail to recognize the similarities between the Germany of World War II and Iran?
There can be little doubt that these countries, by their desire to remain “neutral,” have become party to the projection of a dangerous negativity toward Israel and the Jewish people.
A most disturbing question is why those who came together to confront Hitler fail to see the Iranian leader’s plan to emulate him. It was Hitler’s Germany that barbarically killed six million Jews, and today it is Iran that openly states its desire to eliminate Israel, home to the world’s largest number of Jews.
The ultimate observation is that the Jew was the whipping boy of the past and is the whipping boy of today; the only difference is who holds the whip.
And what of the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a political and economic alliance embracing Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman, all of which have been attacked by Iran?
While Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has compared Iran’s proxy network and regional expansion in the Middle East to Hitler’s pre-World War II annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland, neither Saudi Arabia nor the others respond militarily to Iran’s assault on their respective countries.
The coming together of Israel and the US in their fight against Iran – which began on February 28 – epitomized the meaning of togetherness. Yet does it follow that this union has the support of America’s man in the street?
Yaakov Katz’s excellent article in last week’s Magazine highlights the increasing lack of support for Israel from the US public, embracing a high proportion of its younger generation, which will be voting for a new president in just over two years. It is the public that ultimately decides the policy of a country; and, observing which way the wind is blowing in the US, it does not look good for Israel.
The increasing possibility that Israel cannot rely indefinitely on support from the US brings us to the question of how we in Israel – possibly alone – will be successful in confronting those who wish to eliminate us.
Restraining Israel Is Not the Answer
Donald Trump is not known for hewing to convention, but this week he seemed to rerun a standard Beltway drama. During a phone call on Monday, the president called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "crazy" and pressured him to rein in the Israeli offensive in Lebanon. Two days later, the State Department announced it had brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.
The seeming crackup in the Bibi-Trump bromance thrilled Israel’s critics and perturbed the Jewish state’s supporters. Some hope the close working relationship between Trump and Netanyahu is drawing to a close, others fear the entire bond between Washington and Jerusalem to be severed. Israel’s opponents think Trump’s actions to restrain Bibi show that the Jewish state is a strategic liability. But in reality, frictions like this between the two sides are common because of the value Israel provides the United States.
The most recent shouting has been over how to conclude the conflict with Iran. Israel and the United States severely damaged the Islamic regime’s leadership and war machine during their bombing campaign, but since it has not collapsed, their different priorities have emerged. Trump wants the Gulf Arabs’ oil to reach global markets again and to gain control of Iran’s enriched uranium without a return to major combat. Netanyahu wants Hezbollah to stop attacking northern Israel with drones and other long-range weapons. The mullahs claim the fighting in southern Lebanon, which Hezbollah started, is a serious obstacle to further negotiations about an interim agreement, so Trump is trying to find a workable compromise.
This sort of thing happens at the denouement of nearly every war that Israel has had to fight. The American goal in Middle Eastern conflicts usually is for its allies—including Israel—to successfully defend themselves, and then to reestablish peace in the region as quickly as possible. Threats to globally significant infrastructure, such as the Suez Canal or Persian Gulf oil refineries, make Washington nervous. More often than not, after fending off the initial attack, Jerusalem prefers to crush its opponents on the battlefield and destroy their ability to threaten the Jewish state for years or even decades.
This occurs regardless of how warmly the White House regards Israel. After the pan-Arab attempt to destroy Israel in 1948 failed and Israel gained the initiative, Harry Truman halted David Ben-Gurion’s counteroffensive. A decade later during the Suez crisis, Dwight Eisenhower forced Israel and its British and French allies to withdraw from Egypt. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger stopped Israel just short of encircling and annihilating much of the Egyptian Army at the end of the Yom Kippur War. Ronald Reagan forcefully condemned Israel's operations in Lebanon in the 1980s, and George H.W. Bush did everything he could to keep Israel from responding to Saddam Hussein’s unprovoked missile attacks in the first Gulf War.
Both strategies have shown their value at times. Eisenhower thought sparing Gamal Abdel Nasser would win over Third World opinion in the Cold War, but all he did was empower a dictator who cozied up to the Soviet Union and undermined our allies. America would have benefited from a Nasser-less Egypt. Hezbollah rewarded Reagan’s concern for Lebanese civilians by bombing the U.S. embassy and a Marine barracks in Beirut, going on a decades-long spree of international terrorism, repeatedly attacking Israel, and immiserating generations of Lebanese. But if Anwar Sadat had been thoroughly humiliated in 1973 and lost the forces he needed to maintain his grip on power, he could not have spoken in the Knesset in 1977 and then made peace with Israel the next year.
Alan Baker:
Can the Oslo Accords model still deliver peace after October 7?
Local realities further complicate any return to the Oslo model. The Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, fundamentally altered Israel’s security assumptions. The belief that territorial compromises, international guarantees, and external monitoring arrangements could provide sufficient security has been severely weakened. For many Israelis, the events of October 7 demonstrated that ultimate responsibility for national security cannot be delegated to international actors.
At the same time, increasing international pressure for immediate Palestinian statehood bypasses the very negotiating framework established by Oslo. The accords envisaged that permanent-status issues would be resolved through direct agreement between the parties. Efforts by foreign governments and international organizations to recognize Palestinian statehood in advance of negotiations effectively prejudge issues that were expressly reserved for negotiation. Such initiatives undermine the contractual foundations of the peace process and further erode confidence in international guarantees.
This dynamic is closely related to the widespread international promotion of the “two-state solution.” While the concept has become a diplomatic slogan, it was never included in the Oslo Accords. The accords intentionally left all final-status arrangements open for negotiation. Whether the eventual outcome would involve two states, a federation, a confederation, or another arrangement was to be determined exclusively by the parties themselves. The transformation of the two-state formula from a possible negotiated outcome into a predetermined international prescription departs from the original logic of the peace process.
Further complicating matters is the absence of a unified and authoritative Palestinian leadership capable of serving as a reliable negotiating partner. At the same time, Israel faces its own internal political and governance challenges, which affect national cohesion and international perceptions of stability.
Against this backdrop, the Abraham Accords offer an alternative and more encouraging model. Announced in 2020, these agreements demonstrated that Arab states and Israel can establish peaceful, productive, and mutually beneficial relations based on shared interests and direct engagement. The accords emphasize coexistence, mutual understanding, cultural exchange, and regional cooperation. Their success suggests that meaningful progress is achievable when parties choose pragmatic cooperation over confrontation.
The central lesson remains unchanged. International forums, judicial bodies, and unilateral recognition initiatives were never intended to replace direct negotiation. Efforts to impose solutions from outside may satisfy short-term political interests, but they cannot create the trust, legitimacy, and mutual acceptance necessary for durable peace.
As long as international actors continue to bypass rather than encourage negotiation, instability is likely to persist. A viable and lasting peace can emerge only from direct engagement between the parties themselves.
Until conditions exist for such negotiations, Israel will continue to rely primarily on its own capabilities to safeguard its security and national interests.
From Ian:
Ruthie Blum:
A welcome effort to douse modern-day blood libels
Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, deserves kudos for taking on the Sisyphean task of refuting pernicious falsehoods about the Jewish state. The result of his and his team’s research is a booklet called Manufacturing a Modern Blood Libel: Genocide, Starvation and the Language of Dehumanization, which he introduced in a May 28 video on social media.
Explaining the impetus for the project, he describes the way in which insidious accusations against Israel began to spread around the world in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, “while families still searched for their loved-ones on blood-stained streets and before any military ground operation had begun.”
It’s time, he says in the clip, to “set the record straight,” pointing to recent “fictitious claims that Israel trains dogs to rape prisoners,” published in The New York Times opinion section. Such outrageous assertions, he adds, “are no different than [those] of the Middle Ages—that Jews use blood in their food and poison wells.”
He concludes by reminding viewers that “hateful lies spread faster than truth,” urging the public to download and read the free booklet, in order to “understand the facts, restore meaning to words and [restore] dignity to the State of Israel and the Jewish people.”
The timing of the compendium’s release couldn’t be more auspicious, as it coincided with the decision by the United Nations to add Israel, alongside Hamas, to a blacklist of entities guilty of conflict-related sexual violence. This is despite the United Nations having been furnished with ample evidence that while Hamas used sexual assault as a tool of war in Gaza, Israel did no such thing.
Thankfully, the latest report—this one by the Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children, titled “Silenced No More; Sexual Terror Unveiled”—is available with the pamphlet offered by Leiter and his embassy staff. But, of course, it’s of no interest to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres or his antisemitic ilk.
Calling Guterres’s “political” move a “moral disgrace,” Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon declared a freezing of all relations with the secretary-general’s office. Good for Danon.
The question is whether it will make any difference in the larger scheme of things. The same can be asked about Leiter’s important endeavor.
Which brings us to the age-old and tiresome refrain about Israel’s “poor public diplomacy.” Indeed, whenever the world attacks the Jewish state, the response by concerned Israelis and pro-Zionist voices in the Diaspora is to blame a lack of sufficient hasbara. The anti-Israel chorus, at home and abroad, has a different view: that the problem isn’t one of P.R., but rather of evil policies.
Both attitudes are wrong, certainly the latter. The former, at least, contains a plea for us to do better at making our case. The trouble is that the outcry involves finding fault with the government for not conveying a sound, swift message.
Why are they really boycotting AIPAC? Bigotry
The anti-AIPAC push must be seen in the context of the surge in antisemitism since the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Since then, the mainstream media’s embrace of Hamas propaganda about “genocide” has distorted discussions about the Middle East to the point at which the disconnect from the reality of the conflict is so great that liberals and even some on the right accept the lies as unchallenged truth.
In this manner, Israel is falsely accused of what its opponents actually wish to do. And the genocidal war that is actually being waged against it by Iran and its Islamist terror proxies, like Hamas and Hezbollah, is either ignored or rationalized as a just cause.
Democrats are afraid
But there should be no reticence in calling out the rhetoric about AIPAC not merely as deceptive, but as an ancient prejudice dressed up in the clothes of 21st-century progressive intellectual fashion. The vicious narrative about AIPAC’s being a conspiracy to support “genocide” is so pervasive that even many Jewish Democrats won’t denounce it.
Some, like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro,who claims to support Israel while opposing its government, rightly worries about the blurring of the distinction between AIPAC and money raised by Jewish citizens. But even he dodged questions about whether he would take money from AIPAC supporters in 2028, demonstrating that he fears taking on the anti-Israel prejudices of his party’s intersectional base.
At the same time, a lobby devoted specifically to funding Democrats running for the House who are against Israel got laudatory coverage in The New York Times. And just this week, Democrats nominated a candidate for a New Jersey House seat in a deep- blue district who has a history of volunteering for an Al Qaeda-linked group in the 1990s and was a friendly witness for the defendant in the 1995 trial of the so-called “Blind Sheikh,” Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Egyptian cleric whose followers had bombed the World Trade Center two years earlier.
Adam Hamaway, currently a plastic surgeon who is now set to enter Congress next January, like Chris Rabb in Philadelphia, won his primary against less extreme opponents by being the loudest to cry “genocide” while railing against AIPAC.
The liberal press calls such politicians “progressives.” But the truth is that they and those in the media who are mainstreaming the narrative about AIPAC’s malign influence are bigots whose goal is to drive pro-Israel Jews and Christians out of the public square. Their efforts are depicted as a righteous cause, while the work of millions of Americans to ensure that Israel lives and that an alliance that is in their country’s interest thrives are smeared as puppets whose strings are pulled by a shadowy Jewish plot.
Whatever one may think about AIPAC or what an ideal system for campaign fundraising might look like, the effort to demonize it is just another antisemitic conspiracy theory.
Muslim police association identifies Zionism as ‘manifestation of anti-Muslim hatred’
British Jewish groups have described their intention to raise serious concerns with government and law enforcement, after revelations that a policy paper from the representative body for Muslim police officers in the UK identifies Zionism as “one of the manifestations of anti-Muslim hatred”, refers to the IDF as a “Zionist terrorist group”, and describes “alarming and unverified stories about acts of violence” on 7 October.
As reported by The Spectator, the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) published the paper, written by its then-Vice President, Khaldoun Kabbani, last year. The NAMP is reportedly affiliated to more than a dozen police forces around the country, including West Midlands police, West Yorkshire police, Greater Manchester police and Police Scotland.
The policy paper in question also claims that “Zionists” are guilty of “misuse of the Holocaust” when describing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, before going on to misuse it themselves, saying that “the process of dehumanisation by the Nazis towards the Jewish people highlights a broader mechanism of oppression, where dominant groups suppress empathy through propaganda and indoctrination to facilitate cruelty. This mechanism is not confined to the past but is observed in contemporary conflicts, such as the situation between the Israeli Government and Military and Palestinians.”
As The Spectator describes, the NAMP document refers to “Zionist terrorist groups including the IDF” and says that “Zionism represents one of the manifestations of anti-Muslim hatred, stripping Muslims of their humanity.”
The paper claims that “Zionist terrorist groups” committed 16 different “genocides” against Palestinians between 1948 and the present day, while containing no mention of the killings carried out by Palestinians during the same period.
It also maintains that “throughout history, including before, during, and after the Holocaust, a horrific manifestation of European anti-Semitism, Jews sought refuge in the lands of Muslims specifically Palestine. In 1947, as Jewish refugees arrived by ships, they unfolded banners stating, “The Germans destroyed our families and homes – don’t destroy our hope.” The Arab world initially welcomed them with open arms, but these efforts were ultimately undermined by covert Zionist colonial agendas.”
In reality, there was significant antisemitism towards Jews within many Muslim societies over the centuries, with Jews often treated as second class citizens and subjected to murderous assaults. In the wake of the creation of the State of Israel, numerous Muslim countries effectively ethnically cleansed their newly formed states of Jewish communities which had lived there for millennia.
The NAMP paper also describes what it calls “alarming and unverified stories about acts of violence” committed by Hamas on 7 October 2023, “including claims of beheadings and assaults. These reports have significantly contributed to increasing hatred towards Islam.”
From Ian:
Jonathan Tobin:
Even when he disappoints Israel, Trump is better than the alternative
The much-discussed phone call between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which the former told the latter that he was “f**king crazy,” indisputably made headlines. But the problem wasn’t the president’s colorful language or whether the conversation proved, as Israel’s enemies hoped, that the alliance between the two leaders and their countries had broken down. Nor was the repartee entirely confined to Trump’s demands about Israel ramping down its efforts to stop the Hezbollah terrorists from firing on Israel. Still, the fact that his always-shifting stands on whether the war with Iran will end soon or continue until the regime in Tehran falls or surrenders isn’t doing either man’s political standing much good.
Notwithstanding Trump’s profanity or the two leaders’ genuine disagreements on particular issues, the alliance is not collapsing. The real concern is the president’s pursuit of a deal with Iran that sensible observers know won’t succeed. Doing so won’t achieve either nation’s objectives in the war that started on Feb. 28.
Simply put, the Islamist regime is attempting to deceive the United States in the negotiations that have been conducted over the last two months. As JNS columnist Melanie Phillips aptly noted, should a deal be reached along the lines of the terms that have been publicized in recent weeks, it would be a disaster for both the United States and Israel. Any promises the Iranians make about not restarting their nuclear program or interfering with shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, along with other unresolved issues like terrorism and missile production, are almost certainly going to be broken.
Tempering disappointment
Even as the world watches with alarm the president’s apparent willingness to embrace terms that might well be compared to former President Barack Obama’s disastrous 2015 Iran nuclear deal, disappointment with Trump should be tempered by the following thought. As ill-considered and dangerous as such a course of action would be, friends of Israel should nevertheless remember one important fact. No matter how foolish a potential Trump decision to conclude hostilities with Iran might be, Israel is still far better off with him in the Oval Office than it would be with any of his recent predecessors, let alone his opponent in the 2024 presidential election.
To consider the counter-factual scenario in which either President Joe Biden or former Vice President Kamala Harris had defeated Trump in 2024 is to contemplate a very different and far more dangerous world than the one that Israel, the Jewish people and the larger Middle East are currently facing. A scenario in which Washington essentially snatches defeat from the jaws of victory by enabling the Islamist regime to survive and thrive by ending the war, and even relaxing sanctions, would be very bad indeed. Yet this is also a moment to think back on how much the decisions made in the White House and the close cooperation it pursued with Jerusalem have weakened Iran and its allies since January 2025.
Iran is still resisting the U.S.-Israel alliance and has inflicted economic pain on the world by seeking to restrict the free passage of shipping in the Persian Gulf. But its military has been largely stripped of its offensive capabilities. Its leadership has been decimated, and its nuclear facilities are in ruins.
Hezbollah continues to fire on Israel and make the lives of those living in the north miserable. But its forces have been similarly degraded, and it has been pushed back far from the border while there are—for the first time in decades—signs that the Lebanese government may be starting to think that surrendering control of their country to the Shi’ite terrorist group is not their only choice.
Seth Mandel:
Why the Hormuz Crisis Could Be the Last of Its Kind
It’s slowly becoming clear that one reason the Iranians are squeezing every last drop of leverage out of their Hormuz closure is that, contrary to the impression many of us had at the outset of this conflict, they will never have this much leverage again.
That is not necessarily because of any brilliant military or diplomatic strategy deployed against Tehran. It’s just the way the world works.
“The genie is out of the bottle,” as Hamad Hussein of Capital Economics told the Wall Street Journal. The threat of long-term Strait closure has materialized, which makes it real, which makes it something that cannot be repeated. Market forces will mobilize alternatives.
That doesn’t mean the transition will be painless—far from it. But it is going to be difficult for Iran to do this a second time. We can sometimes forget that the U.S. and Iran aren’t the only two characters shaping this drama.
So what might those alternatives look like, and how are they taking shape?
As the Journal reports, Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, which takes oil overland, is now operating at full capacity. That’s not enough to replace what is shipped through Hormuz, but it can ease the pain.
The United Arab Emirates, similarly, was able to re-rout some oil through a pipeline to Fujairah, a port city outside the blockaded zone, and Emirati officials want to add a second pipeline on the same route by 2027. Then there is the fact that the UAE left the OPEC oil cartel in the hopes of expanding its energy exports beyond the limits imposed on OPEC members.
Oman, meanwhile, wants the world to know that the Gulf of Oman is outside the blockade zone as well. Plus, the Journal reports, the Gulf countries are considering plans to build a shared export railway.
Then there is the issue that has been pushed to the front burner: storage capacity. The Saudis want to upgrade storage tanks and loading pumps at a Red Sea port at Yanbu, across the water from Egypt. The Emiratis are working on expanding storage as well, and Oman sees the Gulf of Oman as a plausible storage hub nearby shipping routes.
Hezbollah invasion attempt triggered Lebanon war
Hundreds of Hezbollah commandos from the elite Radwan Force crossed the Litani River in Southern Lebanon in an attempt to invade Israeli communities along the Lebanese border during the first week of “Operation Roaring Lion” in the beginning of March, it became known on Thursday.
The intended invasion, identified by the Israeli intelligence community, was blocked by an Israel Defense Forces offensive.
Israeli forces repelled the attack and eliminated the terrorists.
Channel 14 correspondent Yaki Adamker reported that the raiding attempt was the reason that the war in Lebanon restarted.
Since the beginning of the war, IDF troops have taken control of a stretch of territory that runs along the border into Southern Lebanon.
Israel Hayom on Friday cited military officials commenting on the incident.
Referring to criticism leveled at the IDF Northern Command’s aggressive response to a barrage of rockets fired into Israel following the targeted killing on Feb. 28 of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a military official who spoke under conditions of anonymity said, “They apparently don’t understand what we saw during the first week of March.
“Hundreds of Radwan Force operatives crossed the Litani River. Why did they come? If there had been even a single raid on a single community, all of us would have had to go home [be dismissed]. What were we supposed to do if not meet them on their own territory and kill them?”
From Ian:
Melanie Phillips:
Don't Rush to Blame Israel's Leader for Attacks on Jews in the Diaspora
A sizeable number of British Jews are responding to the current tsunami of antisemitism by blame other Jews. To be precise, one specific Jew. They blame Benjamin Netanyahu. If only he wasn't prime minister, they say, the hatred would fade away. Seriously? You don't have to be a fan of Netanyahu to see how spectacularly and dangerously wrong-headed this is.
Security officials tell us that the Iranian regime is behind the attacks on British Jews, with Iranian cells in Britain posing an acute terrorist threat. Much incitement against Israel and Jews has been generated by the inflammatory hate marches since the atrocities in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 - marches organized by Iran, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Imams incite murderous hatred towards Jews in British mosques. Was any of that Netanyahu's fault?
His critics claim he prolonged the war in Gaza in his own interests. But his war aims - to eliminate the threat posed by Hamas and return all the hostages - were shared by the vast majority of Israelis. Are these critics really so ignorant of the terrible threat Iran posed to Israel through its proxy seven-front "ring of fire"? Are they really unaware of the genocidal hatred of Jews held by so many Palestinians?
To hold Netanyahu responsible for the onslaught on Israel and the Jewish people is not just warped and perverse. It's also cowardly and despicable. Blaming the victims like this is not only disgusting, it's also a weapon in the armory of those who want Israel and the Jews destroyed. For shame.
Seth Mandel:
J Street Vindicates Its Critics Once Again
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter touched off a row within the Israel-focused Jewish political groups in America two weeks ago by describing the left-wing J Street lobby as a “cancer within the Jewish community.”
He was referring more broadly to a particular trend of American Jews going beyond self-criticism and into territory in which they seek to serve as human shields for anti-Zionists who delegitimize Israel. Nonetheless, it was inflammatory phrasing and Leiter soon toned down his rhetoric while expanding his critique of the progressive group.
Enabling an arms embargo against the Jewish state while at war, he said, isn’t “pro-Israel,” nor was the group’s amplification of Nick Kristof’s now-infamous dog-rape blood libel.
This spurred a brief debate over whether J Street is, as it claims to be, “pro-Israel.”
Meanwhile yesterday J Street announced it would oppose a section of the new U.S. defense bill that would increase military-to-military cooperation between the U.S. and Israel, which is being debated in Congress today.
And that perfectly sums up why it’s so absurd for anyone to claim J Street is pro-Israel. Not because of one position on one bill or one vote, but because it was an example of what J Street does. And an organization is what it does.
Seth Mandel:
The Threat of Jean-Luc Melenchon
While there will no doubt be concern about the opportunity that would open for a nationalist right-wing president, Melenchon isn’t less extreme in his own politics. Here’s what he said about Israel and Lebanon this week on social media, flagged by the Algemeiner:
“Israel is invading and annexing all of southern Lebanon. Netanyahu has raised his flag over Beaufort Castle. This French name should remind us of the thousand-year history that binds us to Lebanon. We owe the Lebanese people aid, solidarity, and support in the face of genocidal forces.”
He added: “The aircraft carrier would serve as a more useful symbol in the Mediterranean than in the Strait of Hormuz, to remind Netanyahu that his interference in our elections and his invasions of our allies’ territories are viewed as threats by the French. The UN Security Council must condemn Israel and organize the withdrawal of its forces from the occupied territory.”
So Melenchon believes Lebanon is still a French colony, essentially—that Israel’s seizing of the castle is an act of war against France. Then he accuses Netanyahu of interfering in French elections, suggesting that too is an act of war.
But the last part may be the most deranged. Israel took South Lebanon from Hezbollah, not the Lebanese army. Hezbollah is an Iranian occupation force. Why isn’t Iran’s occupation of South Lebanon viewed as a threat to France? Because when he talks about “invasions of our allies’ territory,” the ally is apparently imperial Iran.
If it sounds crazy to think Melenchon sees Iran as an ally against Israel, it shouldn’t. The Western left has been marching for three years explicitly cheering Hezbollah and Iran. In fact, it’s been cheering loudest for Hamas, the Iranian satrapy that carried out the savage murder spree of October 7, 2023. Hamas recorded its exploits on that day, and admitted to some of the worst of the crimes not caught on camera. If Melenchon’s ideological base can celebrate the Iranian militia carrying out a massive campaign of sexual torture and child murder, why wouldn’t Melenchon also see Iran as the good guy in this fight?
This is something the West needs to grapple with before it gets completely out of hand. It is not that the European left, along with its acolytes in the U.S., want the end of war in the Middle East. It’s that they want a different war—one that pits Western militaries against Israel and fights alongside Iran.
That obviously won’t happen—now. But the desire to reorganize the alliance around Iran and its associated “resistance” movements is there. And it should be a five-alarm fire in any corner of Europe that has retained its sanity.
From Ian:
The UN is being used as a weapon against the West
The systemic rot extends far beyond the rapporteurs (and there are many more instances in the report). Let’s not forget that Iran was handed oversight of UN women’s rights, while China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia control the committee that decides which human-rights groups get access to the UN. And then there is UNRWA – the UN’s refugee agency, some of whose staff participated in the 7 October massacre.
The UN’s obsession with Israel seems to be getting more deranged by the day. Recently, it placed Israel on its blacklist of countries and parties that used sexual violence as a weapon of war. So Israel, a liberal democracy, now sits on the same list as Hamas – whose 7 October atrocities included systematic rape and sexual torture – and ISIS. The situation could hardly be any more absurd.
UN Watch calls for ‘major reform’. I understand the instinct, but you cannot reform a rotting corpse. The problem is that the UN continually hands influence to regimes that abuse human rights most egregiously, granting authoritarian propaganda a veneer of legitimacy. Every time Western governments treat UN reports as serious documents – or allow tyrants control of key councils without objection – they signal to the world that this system has credibility. It doesn’t.
The UN has become one of the most dangerous instruments in modern geopolitics. Authoritarian regimes are using the UN’s prestige to normalise their behavior, conceal their crimes and peddle anti-Western propaganda. It should terrify all of us that the world’s most trusted watchdog has been successfully leveraged as a PR firm for tyrants.
The time for decisive action is now. One way for democracies to reclaim control is by freezing funding, forcing audits, and purging compromised staff who are actively on the payroll of hostile regimes.
The UN was built to protect civilisation. It is now being used as a weapon against it. Going along with the charade only plays into the hands of our enemies.
Netanyahu: "I'd Rather Get a Bad Editorial in the Western Press than a Positive Obituary"
Asked about his relationship with President Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told CNBC in an interview on Wednesday: "We agree on the main things. We want to get the nuclear program in Iran finished. We want to make sure that Iran doesn't pose a threat to Israel, to the Middle East, to America, that it doesn't develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them, not only to Israel and to every capital in Europe, but to every city in the United States. That's our common goal. That's what we set out to do."
"Sometimes, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements. We always find a way to work them out, and we do so as great friends. We can disagree in the morning, and by the afternoon we have common actions....He's been the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House, and he respects me. I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences."
"I think he understands that Lebanon has been taken hostage by Hizbullah....It's an Iranian proxy that...uses Lebanon as a platform to launch terror missiles into our cities, to launch killer drones against our civilians. So if we want to save Lebanon, if we want to get a Lebanese-Israeli peace, as I do, we have to disarm Hizbullah, and we have to demilitarize Lebanon....I know that this is a goal that the President and I share."
"The escalation is from Hizbullah. We had a ceasefire, they violated it. Look, the way European leaders cater to radical Islamic minorities in their own countries is shameful because they know the truth....They know we're protecting them as well, but they don't have the guts to stand up and line up with the right thing that will save our civilization against these barbarians."
"We're faced with an enemy that wants to destroy our country, that wants to destroy your country, that wants to destroy free democracies everywhere, and spread their terrorist ilk around the globe. So, when we fight Iran and its proxies, we're not only fighting our war, we're fighting your war and, frankly, Europe's war as well."
"[Do] I have to stop protecting my people because I'm going to get a bad editorial in the Western press? The answer is no. I'd rather get a bad editorial than a positive obituary. You know, our people have died long enough, and what has changed for us is that the kind of recriminations and the kind of lies that are leveled at the Jewish people over the centuries are now being leveled at the Jewish state. There's no difference. We deliberately kill children, we perform genocide, we're poisoning the wells."
"Since the birth of the State of Israel, we're still being vilified, but when they come to slaughter us, we say no more, never again. And we fight back, targeting the terrorists, targeting the aggressors, trying to save the people, trying to save those communities, and believe me, in the Middle East, contrary to what people think, many understand that."
Khaled Abu Toameh:
What Happens When Jihadists Smell Weakness
The message emerging from Hamas -- and Iran -- is unambiguous: Hamas and Iran believe they are winning.
Iran has been dictating to Washington when and with whom it will negotiate. Washington apparently never insisted upon face-to-face negotiations with Iran. Why not? By discontinuing talks with the US, Iran also succeeded in maneuvering the Trump Administration into two huge victories for the current regime. First, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out in "Iran Gets Trump to Rescue Hezbollah," US President Donald J. Trump demanded that Israel stop defending itself against attacks from another proxy of Iran: Hezbollah in Lebanon. Second, Iran -- as a result of a much-publicized shouting match between Trump and Netanyahu – masterfully created "daylight" between its two main adversaries: Israel and the United States.
Even though Iran's weapons have been decimated, the current regime, run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has reportedly been using its leisurely, ever-extending ceasefire to rebuild them. The IRGC has been calling the shots and has stood up to the "Great Satan," the US. No wonder the regime thinks it is winning.
These are not the words of a defeated terror organization. These are the words of a group that believes time is on its side.
Abu Obeida's remarks are particularly alarming because they come after nearly three years of war, the elimination of many top Hamas leaders, and countless declarations by international mediators that Hamas would eventually be removed from power.
Instead, Hamas is still standing. Hamas, like Iran, appears increasingly confident.
The "Board of Peace" was supposedly created to bring stability to the Gaza Strip, end Hamas rule, and establish a new political reality after the war.
The truth is that the "Board of Peace" has failed in its central mission. Six months after Trump's ceasefire initiative and almost three years after the October 7 atrocities, Hamas remains in power. It continues to control large parts of the Gaza Strip, maintains its military infrastructure, and openly refuses to disarm
Recent reports that the Trump Administration pressured Israel to cancel a planned strike against Hezbollah targets in Beirut's Dahiya district sent a troubling message throughout the region.
For Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, any indication of friction between the US and Israel is good news. Terrorists thrive on the perception that their adversaries are divided.
Across the Middle East, terrorist organizations constantly search for signs of weakness among their enemies. Jihadists interpret "restraint" quite differently from the way Western policymakers do. What many Western leaders describe as diplomacy, patience, or de-escalation is frequently seen by Islamists as surrender, fear or exhaustion.
The October 7 massacre was partly the result of Hamas's belief that Israel had become weak, divided, and vulnerable. Today, Hamas appears once again to be reaching similar conclusions. This expectation should deeply concern policymakers in Washington.
From Ian:
Behind today’s radical, Jew-hating Democratic party is a monster created by Barack Obama
Two hundred and ten years ago this summer, a 19-year-old woman named Mary Shelley, bored one stormy afternoon, decided to write the scariest story ever told.
It was a tale of a brilliant and arrogant man who wanted to change the world but ended up creating a monster. She named him Barack Obama.
All right, she named him Dr. Frankenstein. But had the great author been around to witness Adam Hamawy win the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, she would’ve understood right away that she was looking at a familiar tale of hubris, malice and ghouls on the loose.
Like Shelley’s mad physician, Barack Obama, too, had an appetite for re-ordering the natural world. He took Bill Clinton’s party — one that allowed candidates in some parts of the country to be pro-gun and pro-life and still consider themselves Democrats in good standing — strapped it to the slab and shocked it with a lightning bolt of radicalism.
The creature that emerged from the experiment no longer talked about fiscal responsibility and government reform. It howled instead about opening our borders, legalizing gay marriage and redefining politics as the pursuit of identity by other means.
Antisemitic alliance
Under Obama, the Democrats became a gorgeous mosaic of victimized minorities, encouraged to seek retribution for wrongs real or perceived by grabbing a pitchfork and going out in search of a conservative to blame.
For a while, it all went swimmingly. Obama built a forever campaign that encouraged everyone to give to the party — not only their money but also their loyalty. Endless chatter about “the right side of history” was designed to make it clear that unless you wholeheartedly supported whatever the president and his aides told you was proper, good and desired, you’d be transgressing against history itself.
Tech companies, universities and other institutions soon fell in line, giving us execrable phenomena like cancel culture.
We all saw the might of Obama’s creation during Donald Trump’s disastrous first term in office: At the push of a button, a democratically elected president was made to appear to be the second coming of Mussolini.
And we saw it even more clearly during Obama’s third term, conducted via another Frankenstein-like creation, the brain-dead Joe Biden.
But as every reader of Mary Shelley’s knows, eventually the monster gets loose, grows mad and wreaks havoc. Welcome to the Democratic Party of 2026.
Israel’s fairweather friends are fuelling anti-Semitism
However, in the midst of a Democratic Party where support for Israel is now a political death wish, Emanuel has had a Damascene conversion. He recently advanced the unsubstantiated and largely debunked charge that laid blame on Israel for Palestinian starvation during the Gaza War. On American television, he recently said: ‘The days of taxpayers subsidising Israel militarily, that’s over. No more financial aid.’ And referencing the current war in Iran, he said: ‘The US should never spill any blood for the state of Israel’s security.’ At one time, an interpretation of events like that would have been unimaginable coming from Emanuel.
His counterpart in the UK is Zack Polanski, leader of the surging Green Party of England and Wales, a feature of which is barely concealed contempt for Israel and Jews. In a fawning interview in the Guardian (where else?) last year, Polanski said he grew up in ‘a very Zionist household, raised to really believe that Israel was the centre of everything and must be defended at all costs’. He unabashedly admits that this is ‘very different to my politics now’.
That is an understatement, to say the least. Polanski has excoriated Israel for its response to the 7 October massacre, including accusing it of genocide. Asked by a journalist in April over the escalating, and in some cases lethal, attacks on Jews in England, Polanski delivered an equivocating response: ‘There’s a conversation to be had about whether it’s a perception of unsafety or whether it’s actual unsafety, but neither is acceptable.’ While the public anticipates that conversation, the fortunes of the Green Party continue to rise.
The ostensible reason that Emanuel and Polanski give for their new pandering is that ‘Israel has changed’ since 1948. This is hardly a revelation on the order of the discovery of gravity or the introduction of quantum mechanics. Of course Israel has changed; what country has not changed over the past eight decades? The question neither of these political creatures has asked is why Israel has changed.
The military threat from Iran and its proxies is exponentially greater than ever before, and the insidious international propaganda campaign is even more intense – abetted by former supporters like the United Nations. Israel has been forced to respond in ways not always laudable, but rather than acknowledge this and the fact that Israel remains a beacon of moral leadership and a defender of the values the West was built on, Emanuel and Polanski have committed to cutting the cloth of their beliefs to the odious fashions of the day.
So who is worse, genuine anti-Semites, or these sycophantic poseurs looking to advance their political standing?
At least you know where you stand with real anti-Semites. Some may be cunning, some may be fools and many may just enjoy Nazi cosplaying, but the dangerous ones usually make their intentions known in word, if not in deed.
Political fakirs like Emanuel and Polanski come off as more acceptable, but do not doubt the lasting damage they can do by legitimising anti-Semitism in the larger polity. Emanuel will almost certainly never become president of the United States, but he lends credibility to the expanding anti-Semitic wing of the Democratic Party and to some extent the Tucker Carlson wing of the Republican Party. Polanski has a similarly slim chance of becoming prime minister of the UK, but he gives a faint whiff of respectability to the Islamo-fascist wing of the Green Party.
The real anti-Semites deserve all the contempt the world can muster. But craven opportunists like Zack Polanski and Rahm Emanuel are also beneath contempt. History will not be kind to them for breathing life into this foul bigotry, however they might try to justify it.
From Anne Frank to anti-Jewish Sanctioning: The Netherlands' Betrayal of Israel
What was once known as the "Country of Anne Frank," a nation that had learned from its own role in the Holocaust... and quietly delivered critical military aid during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, now leads the charge at the EU in Brussels to punish the Jewish state for the apparent crime of Jewish survival....
The Jetten government coalition... has now also taken the lead in pushing sanctions against Israel....
The Dutch pro-Israel parties -- Geert Wilders' PVV, BBB, JA21, ChristenUnie, and the Christian-Zionist SGP -- were deliberately excluded from the governing coalition.
The Jetten minority government therefore governs on parliamentary life support from the very parties that despise Israel.
The Dutch betrayal mirrors a broader European sickness. Mass immigration from Muslim countries has imported a virulent strain of antisemitism that now crosses all political boundaries. Politicians realize only the electoral ramifications: Jewish populations are dwindling and Muslim populations are exploding. Post-Holocaust guilt, once a brake on Jew-hatred, has been inverted: many of the descendants of the perpetrators and bystanders now project their unresolved shame onto the surviving Jews and their state. The "oppressed" Palestinian has replaced the oppressed Jew as the object of European moral narcissism. The Europeans, who never forgave the Jews for Auschwitz, are finally free of guilt.
Europe, which cannot, or does not wish to, protect its own Jewish communities from daily harassment and assault, now presumes to dictate to Jews where they may and may not live in the Land of Israel.
The hypocrisy and moral rot are bottomless. It was Europeans who exiled the Jews from their heritage and cradle of civilization. It was Europeans who subjected "their" Jews to more than a millennium of discrimination, expulsions, mass deportations, and pogroms, culminating in the Holocaust. It was Europeans as well, who, at the Evian Conference of 1938, refused to open their doors to Jews fleeing Hitler. It was the British who issued the 1939 White Paper without a single protest from the other European democracies, and thereby slamming shut the gates of Palestine as a place of refuge as the extermination of the Jews began. It was Europeans (Polish, British, and Dutch) who devised the "Madagascar Plan" to deport Europe's Jews to a remote and uninhabitable island where they would surely perish.
Yet the Jews do not forget where they came from. Jews have lived in the Land of Israel continuously for millennia; and many of the descendants who had been forcibly dispersed, returned.
It is precisely this return that triggers such fury. Dutch authorities and many Dutch politicians now eagerly repeat the modern blood libel of "settler violence," -- all while ignoring the unrelenting terrorism committed by Arabs against the Jews of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem and the rest of the Land of Israel for more than a century until today.
Established and thriving Jewish cities, towns, neighborhoods, and infrastructure exist in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, and the Golan. These "facts on the ground" will most certainly remain in the future and likely grow into a home for hundreds of thousands of Jews now planning to leave a Europe that is collapsing as we speak. Israel will celebrate its restoration in the Land of Israel long after the Netherlands will have been destroyed by the Muslim and African invasions it invited in, and the remnants of what was once a great and moral country have returned to their natural state: a swamp.
Amsterdam Holocaust Museum cancels antisemitism conference
The National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam has canceled a scheduled conference on antisemitism at universities, which was to be held at the museum.
The event, organized by a conservative Dutch politician and member of the European Parliament, was moved to another location last week and took place at a church instead.
“A Holocaust museum is the best place to speak about antisemitism, so I was surprised by the cancellation,” MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen of the Reformed Political Party (SGP) told JNS on Tuesday. “That’s the place to be.”
He said he was informed by the museum’s director that a demonstration was planned in front of the museum against the event and that the director did not want graffiti on the walls shortly before a visit by the Dutch King and the German president.
The staunchly pro-Israel lawmaker who initiated the conference said that about 100 participants ended up attending the advertised event, which the anti-Israel activists had condemned and sought to disrupt.
The Holocaust museum said Wednesday that the antisemitism conference was canceled at its premises because it had become politicized.
“We will not allow the National Holocaust Museum to become the focal point of a political dispute in the context of a rental event,” the Museum’s general director Emile Schrijver said in a written statement. “Protecting the integrity of the National Holocaust Museum should not be a political position; it is our core mandate and one we take seriously.”
The museum’s decision was strongly condemned by the European office of the Israel Allies Foundation, which spearheads faith-based diplomacy around the globe.
Monday, June 08, 2026
