06/10 Links Pt2: Why is Zack Polanski championing a convicted terrorist?; Trump welcomes freed Hamas hostage Rom Braslavski to WH; Gwyneth Paltrow receives online hate for Israel commercial

From Ian:

Jake Wallis Simons: Why is Zack Polanski championing a convicted terrorist?

Defiant to the last, Barghouti twisted the emotional knife by informing the court that he stood for peace and liberty and describing himself as a freedom fighter. The judge sternly pointed out: ‘A soldier does not kill civilians with bombs and kill children.’

To compare the Palestinian killer to Nelson Mandela, in other words, is a grave disservice to the South African leader. Nevertheless, Barghouti is undoubtedly an interesting character. He was never a raving jihadi like the late Yahya Sinwar or Mohammed Deif of Hamas. He is a nationalist rather than an Islamist. He began his political life in the 1990s as a relatively pragmatic Palestinian leader who supported peace in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank.

However, that had changed by the time of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, when 140 suicide bombs killed more than 1,000 Israelis – some of them schoolchildren on buses. Barghouti was often spotted on street corners in Ramallah during disturbances, issuing orders by phone, earning him the nickname ‘Little Napoleon’. Then came the evidence connecting him to murders.

Barghouti knows how to play a Western audience. Even in 2002, while directing savagery against innocent civilians, he struck a relatively moderate tone in English. In a column for the Washington Post, he wrote: ‘while I, and the Fatah movement to which I belong, strongly oppose attacks and the targeting of civilians inside Israel, our future neighbour, I reserve the right to protect myself… and to fight for my freedom.’

What to make of all this? Here’s my take. Like other performative Palestinian firebrands, Barghouti knows that doe-eyed Western activists and journalists want to believe that he is a saint. So deep-rooted is hatred of Israel that liberals will lap up the most blatant lies and false comparisons, just to confect a Palestinian hero where they are otherwise lacking. Barghouti knows this; I know this; chances are, reader, that you know this. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the gullible left. Which brings us back to Zack Polanski.

Look, I get it. It must be frustrating to support a cause that has nothing to show for itself in terms of democracy, human rights, respect for women and minorities, the protection of homosexuals and the rejection of terror. To take as your tribune a people who spit upon all your values is a tricky position to maintain. But don’t expect the rest of us to join you in your circle jerk. Wishful thinking, in other words, does not a freedom-fighter make.

Harry LaForme: I stood on my ancestral land and said what Carney would not

On June 6, I stood before Toronto’s Jewish community on the treaty lands of my ancestors. Days earlier, Prime Minister Mark Carney had stood at Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple and acknowledged a painful truth: Canada is failing its Jewish citizens. He recognized that antisemitism has reached levels unseen in generations. He acknowledged that Jewish Canadians are disproportionately targeted by hate. He acknowledged the fear felt by families whose schools, synagogues, businesses and communities have become targets. He named the statistics. He named the suffering. But he did not name the ideology driving it.

So, I will. I stand before you on the land of my ancestors to say what the prime minister should have said: “Anti-Zionism is a libel-driven hate movement that incites violence and the targeting, exclusion, and marginalization of Jews in the diaspora and has as its ultimate goal wiping Israel off the face of Mother Earth and the death of all beings within it.”

There. That is what should have been said, and now it has.

For Indigenous peoples, this moment feels painfully familiar. We know what happens when governments speak of reconciliation while avoiding uncomfortable truths. We know what happens when institutions choose carefully crafted language instead of moral courage.

Canada’s Jewish community does not need another expression of concern. It needs honesty. And honesty begins by confronting the lie at the centre of this moment: the claim that Israel is a colonial project and Zionism is a movement of oppression.

As an Anishinaabe man, a member of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, and someone who spent almost 25 years as a judge interpreting the laws of this country, let me be clear — Canada is a colonial country. Israel is not.

Indigenous peoples know colonialism because we lived it. Colonialism means language suppression. It means forced religious conversion. It means population displacement, foreign governance, economic exploitation, imposed legal hierarchies and cultural erasure. Canada’s Indigenous peoples experienced these things. The Jewish people experienced these things. They do not describe Israel.

For thousands of years, Jewish identity has been tied to the land of Israel through language, culture, law, religion, traditions and collective memory. The Jewish connection to Jerusalem did not begin in 1948. It survived despite conquest, exile, persecution and genocide.

Why pro-Israel educators should teach the Nakba

In the charged classrooms where young Zionists form their understanding of Israel, one question now demands courage: Should we teach the Nakba?

The answer is yes. Not because the Palestinian narrative is true, but precisely because it is not. When we confront the events of 1948 with honesty, acknowledging real pain while refusing to distort the moral record, we strengthen the next generation rather than shield it.

The Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe,” refers to the displacement of roughly 700,000 Arabs during Israel’s War of Independence. Anti-Israel voices present this as the inevitable result of Zionist aggression: a premeditated ethnic cleansing that stains Israel’s birth. That version is false. The truth is more complex, more human, and far more defensible.

In 1947, the Jewish leadership accepted the UN Partition Plan, despite its painful compromises. Arab leaders rejected it outright and launched a war of annihilation. If there had been no war, there would have been no displacement.

Once the fighting began, Arabs fled for three primary reasons. The majority left out of fear, as battle lines shifted; many departed on the explicit advice or orders of local Arab leaders, who cleared villages so their armies could operate freely; and in a smaller number of cases, Israeli forces expelled populations from strategic areas during active combat.

These were wartime decisions, not a systematic policy of expulsion. Historians who have examined the records closely, including Benny Morris in his early work, confirm that the overwhelming majority of departures occurred before major Israeli offensives, and often preceded them.

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06/10 Links Pt1: Israel reclaims its right to self-defense; Victor Davis Hanson: ‘Democrats are Islamists now’; Fetterman: Outlook for Jews in Democratic Party is ‘bleak’;

From Ian:

Israel reclaims its right to self-defense

Despite what was widely perceived as Trump’s opposition to escalation, Netanyahu ordered Israeli fighter jets to strike targets inside Iran, including missile launchers and petrochemical facilities.

This is where the deeper challenge begins.

Trump has made clear that he wants negotiations with Iran to continue. His message to both sides has essentially been: enough. One side attacked, the other responded; now stop.

Iran agreed—but with a condition that effectively leaves Lebanon hostage to Tehran’s interests.

Israel, Iran declared, must refrain from attacking Hezbollah—conveniently referred to by Tehran as “Lebanon”—or else “far heavier measures than those already undertaken” would follow. In other words, the war would continue.

That is hardly an outcome Trump welcomes.

Yet almost immediately after the Iranian statement was issued, Hezbollah—which had remained conspicuously quiet for some 30 hours during Iran’s operation and rarely acts without guidance from Tehran—resumed firing at Kiryat Shmona, Metula and other northern communities.

Northern Israel was once again under terrorist attack.

Israel, therefore, appears to face a dilemma while Washington watches closely.

But is it really a dilemma?

The relationship between Jerusalem and Washington is too close, too strategic and too deeply integrated for either side to imagine that Hezbollah’s aggression should go unanswered. U.S. Central Command and the various coordination mechanisms linking the two countries operate continuously. There have been no reports of serious disputes or breakdowns in communication.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee strongly condemned Iran’s attacks. Likewise, Israeli officials explaining the operation against Iran emphasized both Israel’s commitment to its alliance with the United States and its determination to retain the freedom to punish those who attack it.

Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Yechiel Leiter, underscored both the necessity of Israel’s actions and Jerusalem’s commitment to maintaining close coordination with Washington. Explaining the operation against Iran, Leiter emphasized that Israel’s objective was not escalation for its own sake, but the defense of its citizens against an existential threat.

His message reflected Israel’s determination to preserve its strategic partnership with the United States while retaining the freedom—and the obligation—to strike those who attack it.

With precision and determination, Israel’s course appears to be the only realistic one in the dangerous region it inhabits.

There is little chance that Netanyahu will allow Iran to posture through Hezbollah’s Lebanese front while Israel absorbs the consequences.

This is the Middle East.

It is also logical that Israel’s decisive response has once again given the Gulf states and the broader Sunni Arab world a reason to revisit the prospect of a useful anti-Iranian alignment—one that could reshape the region.

That is an outcome Trump may well find attractive.

Michael Oren: Israel has no choice but to risk open conflict with Trump

In May 2021, on the eighth day of “Operation Guardian of the Walls” against Hamas, I received a phone call from a senior adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden, who asked me to convey an urgent message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “Israel must end the operation tonight, or risk losing American support.” Netanyahu was furious. He wanted to keep fighting for at least three more days. But he immediately complied. The operation ended that evening.

The only difference between U.S. President Donald Trump and previous presidents is his tendency to treat us publicly as vassals who must obey his every order. This is humiliating and demoralizing for Israel and, unfortunately, it strengthens our enemies. But that raises the question: Must Israel obey the White House’s demands under all circumstances and at any price?

Historically, the answer has been “no.” U.S. presidents not only ordered Israel to stop fighting; they also opposed its decision to go to war in the first place. That was the case in every war from the establishment of the state until “Operation Rising Lion” last year. Yet Israel’s leaders, despite the risk of a rift with Washington, determined that our basic security was at stake and decided to act.

Ironically, every time Israel defied the White House and went to war—in 1948, for example, in 1967 and in the 1981 strike on Iraq’s nuclear reactor—we earned America’s respect. Every time we surrendered to pressure and showed restraint—in 1973 and in the 1991 Gulf War—we earned America’s contempt.

This record is especially relevant today, when Hezbollah will undoubtedly violate any ceasefire and continue attacking us. Israel needs to defend and save the north, but in doing so, it risks not only war with Iran but also an open confrontation with President Trump. As in the past, Israel will have no choice but to act.

With its eyes wide open to the potential cost, Israel must show that it is neither a U.S. vassal nor its 51st state, but a sovereign country with an unshakable duty to defend its territory and its citizens. In the end, if history is our guide, Trump will respect us for it.

Who Is To Blame for Israel’s Sagging US Poll Numbers? Not Netanyahu or the Gaza War.

The investigative reporting geniuses who were so keen to see the hand of Russia, Russia, Russia in Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory seem remarkably incurious about the roles Turkey, Qatar, Iran, China, and the Palestine Liberation Organization have played in shaping U.S. domestic opinion, notwithstanding a 2024 press release from President Biden’s director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, that "Iranian government actors have sought to opportunistically take advantage of ongoing protests regarding the war in Gaza."

In other words, Netanyahu and the Gaza war aren’t the only variables. America is also a variable. The information environment is a variable. The Iran war is another variable. It is not over yet. If it concludes with a joyously free Iran allied with Israel and America and pumping plentiful and cheap oil and gas that gets paid for in U.S. dollars, Israel’s poll numbers—and Trump’s—will climb. A White House signing ceremony for Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Kuwait, Pakistan, Iran and Lebanon joining the Abraham Accords would also help Israel’s popularity—and Trump’s. That won’t happen so long as a hostile Iranian regime armed with missiles, drones, and proxies and the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz remains in power in Tehran.

The Gallup data are misleading because they omit respondents who say their sympathies are with both Israel and the Palestinians, with neither, or who have no opinion. Gallup itself concedes that the 5-percentage-point difference by which American sympathies are with the Palestinians over Israel in the latest poll "is not statistically significant." As recently as September 2025, Pew found Americans viewed the Israeli government more favorably than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, and also viewed the Israeli people slightly more favorably than the Palestinian people.

Netanyahu has been prime minister of Israel on and off since 1996. The decline in Americans’ sympathy for Israel predated the Gaza war, as evidenced by a former editor of the The New Republic, Peter Beinart, publicly abandoning Zionism in July of 2020, by the Harvard Crimson in 2022 editorially endorsing a boycott of Israel (while Naftali Bennett was prime minister in a coalition government that included Arab parties and Mansour Abbas as a minister), by the Harvard student organizations that came out with their letter on October 7, 2023, stating, "We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence" and "the apartheid regime is the only one to blame."

My own bet is that the U.S. will eventually get back on track—Trump’s election has already set some of this in motion, including some changes to immigration policy and the forced sale of TikTok, if not yet a thorough cleanup of the feeds emanating from there or other platforms. The eventual end of the wars and of the pandemic will make it easier for young Americans to go to Israel and to see the reality of the situation for themselves. If the travelers so choose, they can fly there via the United Arab Emirates, which sees Israel as a promising partner. The hunger for meaning, purpose, and community may fuel a return to Christianity and Judaism, to churches and synagogues. Eventually people will figure out that the real dictators aren’t Trump and Netanyahu but Erdogan, Xi, and Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar. Netanyahu will eventually die or retire or lose an election, and his successors will demonstrate the reality that Netanyahu wasn’t to blame for all the world’s Israel-hate. Until then, treat monocausal explanations—whether they come from former ABC anchor Moran or from the Brookings Institution's Bill Galston—with extreme skepticism.

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06/09 Links Pt2: Graham Platner Makes History As First Vanity Oysterman With Nazi Tattoo To Win US Senate Nomination; Rep. Ritchie Torres’ opponent duped by ‘Rabbi Linda of Gaza’

From Ian:

UN Watch: Legal Analysis of the Pillay Commission’s June 2026 Report to the Human Rights Council

The Human Rights Council’s Pillay Commission on Israel, now headed by Srinivasan Muralidhar of India, just released a new report focusing on violations by “non-State actors,” specifically “settlers” and “Palestinian armed groups” in the West Bank and Gaza. Despite the Commission’s formal reconstitution following the resignation of Navi Pillay, Miloon Kothari, and Chris Sidoti—with Sidoti subsequently re-appointed and Florence Mumba joining the panel—its reporting continues to reflect a persistent bias against Israel.

In an apparent effort to project even-handedness, the report addresses violations by both Israeli and Palestinian non-State actors. Yet the distribution of attention tells a different story. More than half of the report focuses on Israeli violations against Palestinians, while only approximately 9% addresses Palestinian attacks against Israelis. Another 34% examines Hamas abuses against Palestinians in Gaza. Even in those latter sections, however, the Commission repeatedly contextualizes or shifts blame to Israel, attributing lawlessness, repression, and social collapse primarily to Israeli actions rather than Hamas governance, effectively minimizing Hamas’s responsibility for its own crimes. The report also applies markedly different accountability standards to Israel and Palestinian actors.

At the heart of the report is a false moral equivalence between Israeli civilians residing in the West Bank and jihadi terrorist organizations. According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, approximately 482,000 Israelis currently live in communities in Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank), home to areas of profound Jewish historical and religious significance, including the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem, and Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus. While the overwhelming majority are peaceful civilians, a small minority of Jewish extremists—estimated by Israeli defense officials at roughly 300 individuals, many of whom are not residents of the area—have repeatedly engaged in violence against Palestinians, including property damage, assaults, and, in some cases, killings.

The issue of extremist Israeli violence is real and should be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Israeli authorities themselves have acknowledged this as a serious problem and have taken actions to curb the phenomenon, ranging from issuing restraining orders to arrest and prosecution, as detailed in Section 3 below. Condemnation of such violence has come from the highest levels of government. As recently as May 21, 2024, Israeli President Isaac Herzog lambasted acts of violence by Jewish extremists, saying that they “defile and violate every basic moral, legal, and Jewish norm.” He noted that “There are elements on the fringes of our society that have normalized violence, and, sadly, some go even further — celebrating it and taking pride in it.”

However, the existence of a small number of violent Jewish extremists does not warrant the collective stigmatization of hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians. Using the term “settler violence” to characterize all Israeli residents of the West Bank through the actions of a small extremist minority is misleading and irresponsible and risks stigmatizing innocent civilians due to their status as “settlers.” The report then draws a false moral equivalence by placing them in the same analytical category as designated terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad—groups openly committed to Israel’s destruction and the murder of Jews. By the same logic, one could describe Hamas terrorism as “Gazan violence.” Such terminology would be widely rejected because it conflates the actions of violent actors with those of the broader population.

The report’s treatment of Israeli victims illustrates the consequences of this framing. In paragraph 68, the Commission notes that of 42 Israelis killed in terrorist attacks in the West Bank between 2023 and 2025, 36 were “settlers.” By contrast, when discussing Palestinian fatalities, the report does not distinguish between uninvolved civilians, members of armed groups, or Palestinians killed while carrying out terrorist attacks. Instead, it categorizes Palestinian victims only by sex and age. The Commission’s deliberate emphasis on the “settler” status of Israeli victims—while withholding comparable contextual information regarding Palestinian fatalities—creates the unmistakable impression that attacks against these Israelis are somehow more understandable or less morally troubling.

Seth Mandel: What the ‘Israel Day’ Parades Are Ultimately About

The anti-Semitic protesters at Toronto’s Walk with Israel, on the heels of the controversy around who did and didn’t attend the Israel Day parade in New York (Mayor Mamdani boycotted it, some hardline Israeli rightists joined), has reignited the debate over the existence of such events as the primary “Jewish” parade in the West.

Why, some wonder, does the big show of pride in Jewish life and culture have to be a specifically “Israel” event? Why don’t we instead have a Jewish parade?

The always-thoughtful Phoebe Maltz Bovy, the author and opinion editor at the Canadian Jewish News, gives a few of the answers. She points out, correctly, that those seeking the change aren’t interested in inclusivity but exclusivity. That is, they want to exclude all traces of Israel or they will not participate (and might protest the event itself). Bovy: “Anyone who was going to be mad at a gathering of Jews whose purpose was anything other than renouncing Israel is going to have that same sentiment.”

Bovy is entirely correct. And there are other reasons. For example, it is entirely rational for Jews to more readily celebrate the place they built than the places from which they were un-personed and expelled with the shirts on their backs.

But I want to mention one reason that usually goes unspoken and happens to be hugely important: A celebration of the Jewish state is a celebration of Jewish peoplehood.

There’s a reason “Am Yisrael chai” was a rallying cry for Jewish communities in peril well before 1948. The Jews are a people. As scholars like to point out, the Jews have survived for so long that their model of nationhood and religion feels like an anachronism to the modern world.

If you are Jewish, you are part of the Jewish nation. That can get confusing for people in the post-1948 world in which there is a Jewish nation-state. But in the century before that year, debates among major Zionist and non-Zionist thinkers took for granted that the Jews were a nation deserving of some measure of autonomy no matter where they were in the world. Jews were a “national minority” in the Russian Empire much as Ukrainians were, for example. Such particularism was not Moscow’s idea, it was a rebellion against the imperial regime.

No Place but Everywhere By Abe Greenwald

Via Commentary Newsletter, sign up here. I hate the “has no place” nonsense because it’s at once a lie, an irrelevancy, and a dodge. The lie is self-evident. While the speech police were busy monitoring the micro-aggressions of pronoun use, Jew-hatred established a very comfortable home here. It blares from megaphones, it’s advertised on banners and t-shirts, and it manifests in more and more violent attacks.

The line is irrelevant because hatred, or any emotion, isn’t the problem. Hatred is endemic to the species. As Solzhenitsyn said, “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” I don’t care if people hate me. I’m not even sure I care that much if they hate me for being a Jew. In any event, they’re certainly allowed to. But I do care what they do about it. Which means the problem right now is the political organization of anti-Semitism and the actions of anti-Semites that infringe on the rights of Jews. These include the right to not be assaulted.

And the line is a dodge because even someone like Zohran Mamdani, who’s working to give anti-Semitism permanent New York City residency, can be congratulated for declaring that anti-Semitism has no home here and then go back to the business of Jew-baiting. With very few exceptions, America’s most prominent anti-Semites, on the left and right, are always at the ready to publicly denounce hatred in general and even anti-Semitism.

When I see or hear “Hatred has no place in ___,” I take it as a slap in the face, a blatant dismissal of Jewish experience. It is itself a kind of assault—on truth and accountability. Here’s what I’d like to hear an elected official say instead: Since October 7, Jew-hatred has been provided unprecedented political and academic camouflage in this country. It’s been downplayed and excused and allowed to occupy a place of dangerous prominence in the public square. Yes, sadly, hatred has been given a place here. This has inevitably led to unprecedented levels of violence against Jewish Americans. We must not ignore it or deny it. We must, instead, deprive anti-Semites of their recently furnished safe havens and push them back to the outermost edges of civic life.

The anti-Semites would just hate it.

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06/09 Links Pt1: US strikes Iran after Trump vows retaliation for downing of US helicopter; Bombing Iran is the perfect way to celebrate Pride; NJ man charged with planning ISIS attack on synagogue

From Ian:

Ben-Dror Yemini: In a War Against Ideology, Calculations of Military Balance Become Less Relevant

Israel faces a special kind of enemy - an ideology built on destruction and victimhood. When Hizbullah fired its first rockets in the current round on March 2, against the will of most Lebanese, it knew that whatever damage it caused Israel, the damage to Lebanon itself would be 100 times greater. Because of Hizbullah, most villages in southern Lebanon are destroyed and close to a million people have been displaced.

Iran and Hizbullah are one entity with one ideology. In a war against an ideology, calculations about the balance of power become less relevant. Iran's ideology of destruction extends as far as its reach allows. With the power it still has left, Tehran is managing to damage the global economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Despite the ceasefire, last week it seriously damaged Kuwait's airport and a nuclear power plant in the UAE.

Iran feels it is on top. Public pressure is lining up in full force alongside Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran. Had World War II been fought the way wars against jihad, Iran and terrorism are fought today, the Allies would have been accused of war crimes and the Nazis would be ruling the world.

Iran and its proxies must be defeated. Israel's war is just. But it is a difficult war. It is not over. Not even close. More is coming. But giving up is not an option. This is a Sisyphean war. Hizbullah can and must be isolated through a diplomatic chokehold, together with Lebanon's leadership and the Lebanese people, who are ready for a peace agreement.

Dennis Ross: The War in Iran May Yet Lead, in Time, to Genuine Change

In the short term, Iran has proven surprisingly deft at using its leverage. But over the long haul, the internal incoherence and deep-rooted failures of the Islamic Republic may yet lead to historic changes for the better in Tehran.

Iran has two powerful levers it did not think to apply before this conflict: disrupting transit through the Strait of Hormuz and attacking its Gulf Arab neighbors' oil facilities. But Iran has also suffered profound losses to its military capabilities and defense industrial base, not to mention to an economy that is near collapse. Much will depend on how much of an economic lifeline Trump provides to Iran. A smart deal would limit sanctions relief as much as possible. Relief would only buy the regime time.

The regime's endemic corruption and massive mismanagement will be compounded by its new leadership's attempts to rebuild its military and defense industrial base. That will require huge resources, which won't be reconcilable with the needs of the civilian economy, the current crisis of mass unemployment, and the regime's chronic inability to deliver water, electricity, and a currency that has any value.

Israel Seeks a Decisive Resolution but Iran Still Remains a Threat

Although Iran has been significantly weakened, it still retains substantial levers of power. Jerusalem Center analysts assess that, despite the recent escalation, the current situation does not necessarily signal the start of a large-scale war.

Dr. Jacques Neriah believes both sides are engaged in a relatively limited round of fighting. He cautions that Iran continues to operate, the Houthis have resumed attacks on Israel, and Hizbullah retains significant military capabilities.

Ella Rosenberg notes that while Iran's overall economy has suffered greatly, the Revolutionary Guards have not only preserved their power but, in some areas, even strengthened it. They continue to benefit from diverse revenue streams, including oil sales, financial networks, and illicit activities.

Yoni Ben Menachem said that the prolonged absence of the Houthis from the fighting was due to an Iranian decision to preserve them for the right moment. The Houthis can disrupt the critical shipping route through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at any time.

Oded Ailam sees the current moment as a rare opportunity to weaken Hizbullah's grip on Lebanon and empower local actors seeking to reduce Tehran's influence.

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06/08 Links Pt2: ICC's Khan suspended after finding he committed serious sexual misconduct; BDS Was Never About Groceries; How UN ‘human rights experts’ became a tool of dictatorships

From Ian:

Shabbos Kestenbaum: The war on campus Jewry has nothing to do with Gaza

The ceasefire did not stop this. The hostage deal did not stop this. This was never contingent on Israel’s war against Hamas.

University administrators already have the tools they need: codes of conduct, anti-discrimination policies, rules for recognized student organizations and election oversight procedures. What they lack is the will to use them.

I have testified before Congress. I sued the richest university in the world. I know what institutional cowardice looks like up close. I also know what accountability looks like because I forced it. Harvard settled, and a federal judge allowed that case to proceed after rejecting the university’s motion to dismiss. These things happen when people stop accepting excuses and start demanding enforcement.

Student governments were built to represent all students, not to be captured by factions that plan to exclude Jews from democratic participation. Universities were built to be institutions of learning, not battlegrounds where Jewish students must hide their identity to earn social acceptance.

The answer to every pressure to surrender our institutions and redefine our identity on other people’s terms has always been the same: a deeper commitment to our communities, to one another and to our unassailable right to define for ourselves what Jewish life means.

Shai Davidai: BDS Was Never About Groceries

Unlike traditional antisemitism, which openly demonizes Jews, American Intellectual Antisemitism cloaks itself in the language of social justice, decolonization, and human rights. Jews are recast not as a vulnerable minority but as White settler-colonial oppressors, while the world’s only Jewish state is framed as uniquely illegitimate. By framing Israel as uniquely evil, the ideology allows highly educated people to openly express animus toward Jewish collective existence as a moral virtue.

American Intellectual Antisemitism doesn’t criticize Israel’s policies. It treats the existence of a Jewish state itself as a moral crime.

The BDS movement perfectly embodies this ideology. Although its supporters present BDS as a human-rights initiative, its founder, Omar Barghouti, has repeatedly made clear that the movement opposes “a Jewish state in any part of Palestine.” By singling out the world’s only Jewish state for boycott while showing little interest in sanctioning China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea, the movement treats Israel, in effect, as “the Jew among the nations.” That is precisely why college professors spearheaded the fight to boycott Israel long before BDS became mainstream. Beginning in 2013, academic associations across North America voted to boycott Israeli universities and scholars. Not China. Not Russia. Only Israel.

Of course, criticizing Israeli policies is not inherently antisemitic. Israelis themselves criticize their government constantly, as do many non-Israelis who are clearly not antisemitic. A person can oppose settlement expansion, criticize military actions, support Palestinian statehood, and express deep concern for Palestinian civilians without denying the Jewish people’s right to self-determination or supporting the terrorist regimes that seek to annihilate it. It is when criticism of Israel’s policies shifts into opposition to Israel’s existence that antisemitism enters the conversation.

That is what distinguishes American Intellectual Antisemitism from legitimate political criticism. Replacing complexity with ideological absolutism, it sets as its goal the marginalization and eventual destruction of the world’s only Jewish state.

That is why what happened at the Park Slope Food Coop matters. The vote was not an isolated controversy. It was just another step in the normalization of an ideology that views anti-Jewish hostility as virtuous. It was a real-life demonstration of how ideas once confined to seminar rooms now openly shape American civic life.

We can continue playing whack-a-mole, fighting one BDS resolution after another as they emerge in co-ops, unions, schools, nonprofits, and professional organizations. We can continue reacting each time anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, and anti-American hatred erupts in a different city, campus, or institution. Or we can finally confront the departments, academic associations, and intellectual frameworks that legitimized this ideology long before it reached neighborhood institutions like the Park Slope Food Coop.

If we want to confront the ideology, we must go to the source. And that source lies behind the closed doors of presidents’, provosts’, and deans’ offices at our elite universities.

Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid withdraws from French festival after boycott pressure

The Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid said he would not attend FID Marseille, an international film festival taking place in July, according to a report in Le Monde. Several directors who had planned to participate withdrew their films from the festival to protest the inclusion of Lapid, because they support a cultural boycott of Israel.

Lapid, 51, who has been living in France since 2021, was invited to serve on the festival jury. Tsveta Dobreva, director of the FID, told Le Monde: "We invited Nadav Lapid solely out of respect for his filmmaking. That is the only criterion at FID. Then I started receiving calls demanding that he be disinvited. At first, I didn't respond because I fully accepted our decision. But the pressure continued and intensified."

She said the festival considered alternate plans, such as that Lapid would present his first film, Policeman, at an event that would include a discussion and the launch of a book of interviews with Lapid published in French. But then activists called to boycott FID if Lapid were involved in the festival at all. "Selected filmmakers began withdrawing their films; in the end, about 10 of them did so,” she said.

Lapid told Le Monde he decided to withdraw to save the festival embarrassment. He is one of Israel’s leading filmmakers and is known for his biting criticism of the Netanyahu government, which is the subject of his latest film, Yes, which was released in 2025. His 2019 film, Synonyms, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, and his film, Ahed’s Knee, won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021. Lapid has accepted money from the Israeli government-supported Israel Film Fund for several of his films, including Yes.

While he chose to bow out, he nonetheless criticized the festival’s handling of the controversy, telling the newspaper: "FID didn't realize it was facing such a campaign of threats. Maybe they should have accepted a bit more responsibility in a moment like this… For a year, it was my film Yes that was attacked. And now, suddenly, it was my mere presence that became unacceptable. I asked myself: 'What do they want exactly? That I stop making films? That I leave France? How far will this go?'"

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06/08 Links Pt1: US Probe Finds 101 More Staffers for UNRWA Are Hamas Terrorists From Oct7; Omer Bartov is whitewashing Israel’s enemies

From Ian:

Exclusive: US Probe Finds 101 More Staffers for UNRWA ‘Gaza Relief Organization’ Are Hamas Soldiers From October 7: Schoolteachers, Principals Exposed as Terrorists

The chief oversight body responsible for monitoring American foreign assistance has unearthed evidence that an additional 101 staffers at the embattled United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) participated in the Oct. 7 terror attacks and are affiliated with Hamas’s military wing, according to an investigatory report transmitted to the State Department and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The U.S. Agency for International Development inspector general’s office, a law enforcement entity separate from the largely defunct USAID, determined on Friday that scores of "UNRWA school principals, teachers, security personnel, attendants, psychosocial counselors, and medical professionals" were also members of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades or other terror factions. The inspector general determined that all 101 current or former UNRWA employees should be added to a government-wide blacklist that will prevent them from participating in all American foreign aid projects for a period of 10 years.

The latest staffers to be flagged at UNRWA—historically the primary major relief organization operating in Gaza—include a "deputy school principal serving as an al-Qassam deputy company commander in the Ain Gallout/5th infantry battalion," as well as a "deputy school principal serving as squad leader for the Khan Younis Brigade/2nd." Another teacher served as a "platoon commander of the Central Brigade/Al Quds 2nd Battalion," while a "math and computer teacher" was found to have "ties to an Al-Qassam intelligence squad." A third UNRWA instructor had "expertise as a sniper for Hamas," and a fourth served as a "Hamas soldier with orders to bring two anti-tank missiles to a prescribed location during the October 7 terror attacks." One other deputy UNRWA school principal served as a "platoon commander in Hamas’ Nuseirat battalion with communications responsibilities on October 7th."

The findings are certain to increase Congressional calls for UNRWA to be dissolved or formally designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the Trump administration. Israel has for the last 20 years claimed that UNRWA—a 76-year-old U.N. arm established solely to provide aid to Palestinian—has been fully infiltrated by Hamas, which maintains an iron grip on aid distribution across the Gaza Strip.

The Free Beacon first reported last week that the USAID inspector general’s investigation will encompass at least 1,500 UNRWA-linked individuals suspected of terror ties. As the U.S. investigation—dubbed Operation Stop the Carousel—proceeds, several U.N. organizations have already attempted to stonewall the USAID inspector general.

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon is compromised

An independent international investigation is needed of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, more commonly known as UNIFIL. It simply cannot be allowed to continue in its role without expert oversight. This is not just a grave concern for Israel, but for Lebanon and Syria as well.

Troubling evidence was recently revealed by representatives of the Israel Defense Forces during a confidential briefing of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. The official military session confirmed that UNIFIL personnel operating in Southern Lebanon have actively collected intelligence on Israeli troops—sensitive, operational data that has flowed directly into the hands of the Hezbollah terrorist organization. The Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is a permanent committee.

UNIFIL has evolved from a passive, ineffective bystander into an active security liability for Israel and the region. The revelation that a U.N. peacekeeping body is collecting intelligence on a democratic ally of the United States should alarm every friend of Israel, which is acting in Lebanon to defend its sovereign borders. That this information is being funneled to Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist proxy, proves the organization is deeply flawed.

Through these actions, UNIFIL personnel have directly compromised the lives of IDF soldiers on the ground. The time has come for Washington to come to the proper conclusion: UNIFIL cannot be allowed to continue without total accountability.

The recent disclosures confirm long-standing warnings regarding UNIFIL’s compromised neutrality. Senior Israeli military officials have noted that UNIFIL personnel routinely exceed their authority by documenting IDF troop movements, rather than monitoring violations along the so-called Blue Line. Rather than serving as a stabilizing element, the 13,000-strong armed force is operating as a hostile entity under the guise of international diplomacy.

Seth Mandel: How Iran’s Global War Works: The Case of Mohammad al-Saadi

Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat did not, with great fanfare, sign a cease-fire in 1979. They signed a historic peace treaty. The American Revolutionary War was not ended by the Cease-Fire of Paris, nor do we speak of the Cease-Fire of Versailles.

Yet cease-fires—vague, temporary, and ill-defined periods in which combatants sometimes retreat to their corners and sometimes just keep punching—are the best we can do when it comes to the Middle East today.

There is no great mystery here for anyone but the willfully blind: States that won’t make peace with Israel will nonetheless make cease-fires with Israel because a cease-fire isn’t peace.

These antagonists have one more characteristic in common, and that is their primary motive. We can discern this motive by observing where else, and against whom specifically, they carry on this same war.

Last week, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi found himself in a Manhattan courtroom on terrorism-related charges that included his alleged role in the stabbing of two Jewish men in Golders Green last month, as well as the firebombing of a synagogue on North Macedonia and plans to carry out similar firebombings in several American cities.

Saadi is, according to the evidence against him, commander of an Iranian proxy group under the aegis of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the state military organization that is likely running the country since the death of the last ayatollah and mysterious condition of the current one.

Three weeks ago, Germany charged two men for allegedly planning to assassinate Jewish communal leaders in Berlin, as well as other identifiably Jewish targets. The leader of the plot was a Danish citizen who, according to Germany, worked for the IRGC.

Two months before that was the Michigan terror attack, in which a man tried to massacre Jewish children at a synagogue. His connections were to Hezbollah, also an Iranian militia.

The Islamic State of Iran is currently waging a global war on Jews. Israel is part of that war, and so is America. But so is every other country with Jews in it. Unless I missed it, no one has yet demanded a cease-fire in this broader war, because the Jews of Golders Green and Berlin and North Macedonia and New York and Arizona and Michigan and Los Angeles are not firing at Iran. They are only being fired at—by Iran. And the campus activists and NGOs and enlightened progressive politicians don’t seem to want that firing to cease.

Omer Bartov is whitewashing Israel’s enemies

‘When someone says to you that he wants to kill you – believe him.’ Israeli novelist Roni Gelbfish was quoting her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, during a radio interview shortly after Hamas’s pogrom on 7 October 2023. Most people would empathise with Gelbfish’s grandmother in the aftermath of the atrocities of that terrible day. Hamas had once again shown, in the most horrific way imaginable, that it should be believed when it says it wants to slaughter Jews.

But if Omer Bartov feels any empathy with Gelbfish’s grandmother, he hides it well. In his new book, Israel: What Went Wrong, the American-Israeli professor at Brown University cites the quote as an example of Shoatiyut, which he translates from Hebrew as ‘Holocaustism’. This is the tendency, he argues, to interpret and exaggerate the threats facing Israel through the prism of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism more broadly.

Although Bartov offers a cursory criticism of the Hamas pogrom, he is really interested in condemning the Israeli reaction. He claims that framing 7 October as a Nazi-like attack on Jews is little more than an attempt to justify what he calls the ‘genocidal’ assault on Gaza.

Bartov’s argument is of a piece with that of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East and beyond. They view the Jewish State as evil incarnate, a prime representative of a malign West. They claim that Israel cynically weaponises the Holocaust and the charge of anti-Semitism to deflect what they call ‘legitimate criticism’ of its actions – in this case, the ‘genocide’ in Gaza.

To make this argument, Israel’s enemies deny and downplay the very real anti-Semitic threats it faces, from the assorted Islamist groups like Hamas, hell-bent on its destruction, to their nation-state supporters, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar and Turkey. By minimising and erasing these formidable threats, Israel can be portrayed as a singularly malevolent nation, killing for killing’s sake. Anyone who has followed the conflict in Gaza and the broader Middle East – and not just on the Qatar-funded Al-Jazeera but also on the BBC and Sky – should be familiar with this portrayal. Israel appears to be fighting a war for no good reason, rather than what it’s actually doing – defending itself against an all too real, annihilationist threat.

In What Went Wrong, Bartov lends credibility to this anti-Israel case, from the denial of the anti-Semitic threat to the accusation of genocide. After all, he’s a professor of Holocaust studies at an Ivy League university and he served as a company commander in an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) combat unit in the 1970s. His credentials have turned him into a valued guest on anti-Israel media. He’s written articles for the Guardian and the New York Times and has appeared on the virulent anti-Israel podcasts of Owen Jones and Mehdi Hasan.

But What Went Wrong is no dispassionate academic analysis. It is the work of a professor-activist who, at the very least, is willing to omit key facts to make his case.

Despite the implication of its title, What Went Wrong argues that the Zionist movement was, on balance, always wrong and deeply flawed. Zionism began, Bartov argues, as an ethno-nationalist, settler-colonial movement in the 19th century, and has only gone downhill since the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Denying the threat of anti-Semitism is at the centre of Bartov’s argument. Take his much-changed view of Hamas. In a 2004 article for New Republic, he argued correctly that Hamas poses a Nazi-like threat to Israel and the Jews: ‘The charter of the Hamas movement, issued in 1988 as the fundamental document of this Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, must be read to be believed. It contains, among its fundamentalist Islamic preachings, the most blatant anti-Semitic statements made in a publicly available document since Hitler’s own pronouncements.’

Despite occasional claims by anti-Israel activists, Hamas has not rescinded its charter. The Islamist terror group did publish a policy document in 2017, which toned down the anti-Semitic language. But Hamas has made clear the charter still remains in force. Additionally, several Hamas leaders have said they would like to repeat the 7 October pogrom.

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06/07 Links: Iran fires missile barrages at Israel; Two Israeli soldiers KIA in Southern Lebanon; "West Bank" Is a Colonial Imposition; Haaretz: information warfare, not journalism; The Rise of the UnJews

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.

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