Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

01/24 Links Pt1: Israel is still winning the political war; Cut funding to organizations that are empowering Hamas; ICJ to rule on Friday

From Ian:

Israel is still winning the political war

On the other side, in UN venues highly suited for empty words, Russia and China both ceremonially declared their support for the Palestinians. Yet Moscow has continued to co-operate smoothly with Israel’s air force as it operates over Syria to attack Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, while not one Chinese partner has withdrawn from any joint venture in Israel. Nor did the rising calls to reduce the bombardment of Gaza, led by Belgium of all countries and eventually backed by the White House, have any actual consequence — Israel’s bombing was reduced in any case by the diminishing supply of worthwhile targets.

Likewise, not one of the Arab countries with whom Israel has diplomatic relations has interrupted them in any way, while relations with Egypt have blossomed into a veritable security partnership over Gaza and Sinai. Even more important are the statements of Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, who has made it clear that normalising ties with Israel will not long be delayed once the fighting ends. Even though intelligence exchanges and multiple technology joint-venture negotiations have been underway for some years without any need for official relations, such assurances cannot be overestimated: they are, after all, definitive evidence that Hamas’s assault on October 7 has failed.

The purpose of that deliberately horrific attack was precisely to stop any alliance between the Saudis and Israelis. That was certainly the goal of Iran, which has every reason to dread the fusion of Israel’s technology with Saudi Arabia’s financial resources: Tehran rightly fears this would entail some form of military co-operation, which in turn might bring Israeli air power within a short distance of its Iranian targets.

For now, though, Saudi Arabia’s declared goals are more prosaic. Just like the world’s venture capitalists, the Saudis believe that joint investments in Israeli tech will be profitable. But far more important is Israel’s proximity, which can greatly facilitate the training of Saudi engineers, technicians and skilled workers — thus achieving progress towards the central aim of putting Saudis to work and ending its reliance on expatriate labour. For Israel, it scarcely matters that the Saudis want a quiet Gaza ruled by reliably corruptible Palestinians, just as in the West Bank, before they start investing their billions; after all, the Israelis themselves obviously need some sort of political arrangement to retreat from Gaza without more rockets being launched the day after.

Israel’s diplomatic success is not just due to its changed economics however: its high-tech military equipment has arguably been more influential. It is the reason, for instance, why India has emerged as a steadfast ally, as it relies on Israeli tactical missiles for both its air and naval forces, along with much else. It is also the reason why the Pentagon does not begrudge military aid to Israel — it benefits from a constant backflow of valuable technology, including famous helmet-mounted display at the core of the F-35 fighters that now equip the Air Force, Navy and Marines.

Bonnie Glick and Richard Goldberg: Cut funding to organizations that are empowering Hamas

As Congress mulls its next moves on big federal spending bills, members of both political parties are refusing to confront an elephant in the room: Billions of taxpayer dollars are being sent to international organizations enabling Hamas terrorism.

With 34 Americans already murdered by Hamas and six more still held hostage in Gaza, it’s time for Washington to withhold contributions to agencies that actively subsidize, enable or defend the evil the world witnessed on Oct. 7.

The U.S. sends billions of dollars to the United Nations every year and hundreds of millions more to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Are we getting our money’s worth? Hamas certainly is.

Take the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for starters. This organization runs schools in the West Bank and Gaza that explicitly teach kids to hate Jews and of course Israel. Many of its staff members are members of terrorist groups such as Hamas. Its facilities are used by Hamas to launch attacks and build terror tunnels. Employees stand accused of celebrating Oct. 7 and even holding some of Hamas’s Israeli hostages in their homes.

UNRWA does not submit the names of its staff, contractors or beneficiaries to the U.S. for counterterrorism vetting. And so, despite funding UNRWA with over $1 billion under the Biden administration, there is no accountability in terms of who has access to that money.

These aren’t shocking revelations — they go back many years. This is what led the Trump administration to cut off all funding to UNRWA in 2018. The Biden administration, however, subsequently reopened the spigot. And with roughly 40 percent of UNRWA’s budget focused on Gaza, that’s $400 million of U.S. funding to an organization that employs Hamas members and whose employees are credibly believed to have participated in its crimes against humanity.

Absent an outright prohibition in an appropriations law, Congress may greenlight hundreds of millions more this year, both in the regular budget and the president’s requested emergency supplemental.

The same goes for the International Committee of the Red Cross, to which the U.S. will send another $600-700 million this year as if on autopilot. This, while the Red Cross refuses to pressure Hamas to allow medical visits to the hostages it kidnapped, and after an apparent cover-up of Hamas’s use of hospitals as both terror base camps and holding centers for hostages.

Which countries are actually helping Gaza and not just bolstering extremists?

Israeli news has repeatedly covered stories of aid entering Gaza only to be stolen by Hamas or looted by desperate Palestinian civilians. While these incidents are likely rampant, one of the better-known reports of this was from mid-December when Kan released footage of alleged armed individuals stealing UAE-donated aid on the streets of Gaza. In reality, the men seen atop the truck in that footage are not Hamas or criminal gangs but local Palestinians hired by the United Arab Emirates to ensure that their aid is delivered safely to those who need it most.

Numerous countries are playing a role in Gaza, but not all may be as well coordinated or as altruistic.

Qatar, for example, recently brokered a deal to deliver medicine to Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. While playing a central role in the delivery of aid, as well as in negotiating for the release of Israeli captives seems praiseworthy, the reality is that the Qatari government has long been known as the terror group’s most important patron and the gracious host of Hamas’ most senior leaders.

Playing all sides in the conflict
Qatar is playing all sides, gaining points for negotiating on behalf of Israel with the very murderous group they lavishly domicile, while the civilians in Gaza suffer from the results of Hamas’s actions.

The UAE, on the other hand, is working daily to improve the humanitarian situation in close coordination with the Israeli and other regional governments.

Along with countries such as Bahrain, Jordan, and Egypt, the UAE maintains strong open ties with Israel, but Bahrain is its only ally in so singularly and consistently denouncing extremism.

The UAE is providing unconditional humanitarian aid to Gaza, without any of the political brinkmanship of some other actors. Since the start of the war, it has sent over 140 airlifts to Gaza; set up six desalination stations; and delivered over 200 trucks of aid along with quietly opening a 150-bed field hospital which has so far treated around 1,700 patients. It has also transferred hundreds more patients to Abu Dhabi for further care.

NYC public school principal seems to be recommending her teachers attend an event claiming Israeli "genocide" in Gaza

I received this letter, apparently written by the principal of a New York City high school, from multiple sources. She is recommending that her teachers attend an event by "Educators for Palestine" to share anti-Israel curricula.

Sharing this resource.

On February 3rd from 10AM-12PM Educators for Palestine will be hosting a virtual "curriculum share" geared to K-12 classroom teachers. In the first part of this session, teachers will have the opportunity to hear from a panel of organizers and legal experts on how to combat censorship as we strive to create classrooms that foster justice, understanding, and healing.

In the second part of this session, teachers will have the opportunity to present and share original lessons and materials they have developed on topics such as Palestinian history, the history of Israeli occupation, and the ongoing genocide in Gaza—every teacher who attends the curriculum share will leave with a collection of lessons they can use with their students.

Our hope is that by creating space to share resources and build meaningful connections, that we can empower each other to serve as changemakers within our individual schools. We especially want to highlight the incredible work educators are doing right now to combat hate, misinformation, and misunderstanding during this critical time. If you are an educator who has developed a lesson around Palestinian history, the history of Israeli occupation, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, or a related topic, and you'd like to present it to other teachers on February 3rd, please fill in ! Generous humans who donate lessons will be contacted by event organizers to answer questions and provide further details.
Anyone interested in attending should please RSVP HERE. We hope to see you on February 3rd, NYC Educators for Palestine, Working Group on Education & Curriculum Development

With Appreciation,
Your Partner in Education and Proud Principal,
Terri Grey

The February 3 event is real.

It seems that a New York City public school principal is encouraging her teachers to attend a session where they will receive curricula for their classrooms that spread antisemitic conspiracy theories that Israel intends to destroy all Palestinians.

"Educators for Palestine" seem to be associated with The Progressive Classroom Project, as well as with the Democratic Socialists of America BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group.

They held a small demonstration last week outside the United Federation of Teachers offices in Manhattan, mindlessly repeating anti-Israel chants.

Principal Terri Grey herself is part of the Solidarity Caucus of the United Federation of Teachers.

While her school is an academy school and is not required to use the official New York public school curriculum, schools chancellor David Banks warned teachers about violating Education Department rules on political speech. He wrote an email in November to school staff urging educators to keep their personal political beliefs out of the classroom.

Encouraging teachers to attend a curriculum development program that is explicitly anti-Israel and antisemitic appears to violate that directive.

The seminar, and similar ones in recent years, also shows how far behind pro-Israel organizations are in reaching out to teachers. No one seems to be doing anything even close to this in influencing K-12 classrooms to tell the truth about Israel. Outside of Holocaust education, what is the Jewish community doing to promote schools teaching Jewish history, Jewish culture, the Jewish influence on world religions, the affinity the founding fathers had for Jewish history, the influence of Jews in medicine, science, law - and the centrality of Israel to Jewish belief and thought?

(h/t Mathew)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Independent Arabia is a London-based newspaper that is jointly owned by the Independent (UK) and Media Arabia which is apparently Saudi-based. It calls itself the "Arabic version of the British newspaper 'The Independent'" but it has many stories that are not in The Independent itself.

Yesterday, it published a story by Lebanese journalist Sawsan Mhanna, "Jewish pressure groups and their influence on global decision-making." It uses the visit by Elon Musk to Auschwitz as a springboard to describe how Jews have immense influence on global affairs.

The article heavily relies on a study by the Arab Gulf Center for Studies and Research, "The hidden Jewish empire and the plan to control the world." Its choice of photos indicate how professional it is.

The study itself, which is the third most popular article on the CSR Gulf site, is laughably bad, twisting news articles to say things they don't say. For example, it says that "more than 17 thousand young Jews in 2016 were able to enter the millionaires’ club and achieve great wealth" when the article they link to doesn't say that at all: it discusses not people becoming rich but how the rich are moving from large cities to elsewhere, and it peripherally mentions wealthy Jews who fled an increasingly antisemitic Europe for Israel.

The CSR Gulf insists that it is not a conspiracy theory, and then says things like:

All this economic influence that the Jews enjoy around the world makes their power extend, openly and secretly, to the centers of the global economy, through their planned arm represented by the Zionist group, which attracts all those who sympathize with Israel, whether influential Jews or Christians, or from other religions. It is more like Masonic or Templar organizations [than a religious group.]

CSR Gulf is a Kuwaiti based think tank whose president is unapologetically pro-Iran. He gave a speech in Tehran last month supporting Hamas and the entire Iranian "axis of resistance" against world Zionists.

After extensively quoting the CSR Gulf "study" (including the paragraph above,) Mhanna then goes to another source, the Egyptian sociologist Abdel-Wahab Al-Mesiri who wrote the “Encyclopedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism,” who says that the Jewish lobby controls America both through legal and illegal means, including through blackmailing and bribing government officials.

Needless to say, both the CSR study and the article assume that Jews all collude together, that Jews all have their own unique agenda at odds with that of their host countries, and all Jews agree on how to spend their wealth.

Independent Arabia uses the same logo as the Independent UK, and as mentioned is part owned by it. Which means that the "mainstream" British media is helping to spread classic antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

It must be said: The US is helping Hamas survive, and survival is victory

In the early days of the war, observers noted that there was really only one method for Israel to win the war in a reasonable timeframe: to besiege the areas of Gaza where Hamas is hiding.

As I and others noted in a number of articles in October, a military siege is legal under international law. Moreover, even stopping food and medicines from entering an encircled area can be blocked if there is a significant chance that the enemy would steal the goods and use them first.

The US Department of Defense Manual says this clearly:

5.19.1 Siege and Encirclement Permissible. It is lawful to besiege enemy forces, i.e., to encircle them with a view towards inducing their surrender by cutting them off from reinforcements, supplies, and communications with the outside world. In particular, it is permissible to seek to starve enemy forces into submission.

5.19.3 Passage of Relief Consignments. Commanders should make arrangements to permit the free passage of certain consignments:

• all consignments of medical and hospital stores and objects necessary for religious worship intended only for civilians; and
• all consignments of essential foodstuffs, clothing, and tonics (i.e., medicine) intended for children under fifteen, expectant mothers, and maternity cases.

However, allowing passage of these items is not required by the party controlling the area unless that party is satisfied that there are no serious reasons for fearing that:
• the consignments may be diverted from their destination;
• the control may not be effective; or
• a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy.

Since we know from previous wars, as well as this one, that Hamas controls all access to food - at gunpoint - allowing any food into Gaza is giving Hamas a definite advantage, and it is impossible to starve Hamas without also blocking food from the civilian population.

And what should the civilians do? The customary international humanitarian law from the ICRC quotes Israel's military manual in its Rule 53:

The prohibition of starvation as a method of warfare does not prohibit siege warfare as long as the purpose is to achieve a military objective and not to starve a civilian population. This is stated in the military manuals of France and New Zealand. Israel’s Manual on the Laws of War explains that the prohibition of starvation “clearly implies that the city’s inhabitants must be allowed to leave the city during a siege”.

The civilians could seek food and shelter elsewhere. Israel's telling them to leave is not only congruent with international law - it is humanitarian.

If the siege would have been allowed to complete, Gazans could have escaped and Hamas could have been forced to surrender. Perhaps months ago.

Unfortunately, the siege in Gaza was only short-lived - and it was the US that pressured Israel to allow in the food for everyone, including Hamas, after only ten days of war.

That was the first thing the US did to ensure that Hamas could stay underground indefinitely.

But there was a second decision the US made. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that it was U.S. policy to ensure that Palestinians are not "resettled" outside Gaza. But he said this during the same trip where he met with Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has built huge wall to ensure that Gazans cannot flee to Egypt.

The US has not said a negative word about this.

Between those two facts, it is clear that US policy is that Palestinians, unlike every other people who live in war zones, do not have the right to seek refuge in other countries.

Which means that US policy is that Israel must fight with its hands tied behind its back: it must try to avoid civilian casualties that Hamas has made unavoidable, and it must provide supplies to Hamas to allow it to stay underground and in fighting shape indefinitely.

Neither of these are international law.

And in fact, both of them are the opposite of humanitarian. More Gazans are dying because the war will be extended for many more months, and because they have nowhere to go. And everywhere they can go, Hamas embeds itself among them.

A third decision by the US this month also effectively helped Hamas. The US signed an agreement with Qatar to extend its use of the Al Udeid air base for another ten years.

Why didn't it withhold this agreement until all Israeli hostages are freed? Qatar has supported Hamas for many years; it provides Hamas with a great deal of aid ostensibly meant for Gaza. It has influence with Hamas. The US had a bargaining chip and threw it away. One must ask....why?

Hamas' strategy is to keep civilians between it and Israel. The US and the West are doing everything they can to help Hamas in that aim. And when civilians are killed, Israel is blamed.

For all of the weapons and ammunition that the US is sending Israel, it is not letting Israel win.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

01/23 Links Pt2: Israeli Patriotism in Full Bloom; The UN is a morally decayed institution paving the way for another Holocaust; At Auschwitz With Elon Musk

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Israeli Patriotism in Full Bloom

Why, besides for the rally-round-the-flag effect of the attacks and their response, has Hamas’s slaughter made those in the line of fire more eager to stay put? The answer is one the Jewish community already knows too well but the rest of the world struggles to understand.

Ben-Haim told the Post that when he saw a Black Lives Matter account praise the Hamas attacks, he thought of the BLM shirt that hangs in his closet and the marches he wore it to.

Another Israeli liberal the Post spoke to, Shai Rapoport, learned that his fellow Londoners might have joined him in protesting the Israeli government’s judicial reform for reasons that differed quite a bit from Rapoport’s. “After Oct. 7, he said, he felt a chill from his liberal and Muslim friends. Then outright hostility. Now he’s moving back to Israel, wars and all.”

Still in London at the time of the interview, he told the Post: “I felt that people who were once my friends have become my aggressors. Here, I feel terribly alone.”

After Oct. 7, nobody fooled themselves into thinking that they were safer in the long run outside of Israel. Safer or even welcome, that is. Notice that Rapoport didn’t “feel a chill from his liberal and Muslim friends” after, say, Oct. 27, when Israel launched its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. He felt that chill “after Oct. 7.” As soon as Jews in one place were victimized, Jews everywhere became targets of suspicion, or worse. Same thing happened in America, where pro-Hamas protests began immediately after the massacre of innocent Israelis in their homes. The BLM tweet that Ben-Haim saw was posted on Oct. 10.

Everywhere in the world, consciously or subconsciously, the Jews are considered guests. Everywhere except for one country. The unspeakable horrors of Oct. 7 didn’t convince Jews they were unsafe in Israel; they reminded Jews of Israel’s necessity.

Matti Friedman: Readjusting Sights

Tomer read Adjusting Sights a few years ago, when he was in tenth grade. The intimate relationship among very different men was familiar to him now, he said. He mentioned a tank in his unit with a Russian-speaking gunner, a stringently observant loader-radioman, an officer who grew up religious but isn’t serious about it, and a Druze driver. “In the beginning everything was a mess,” he said of the beginning of the war, “but then the muscle memory and the Armored Corps discipline kicked in.” This, too, reminded him of the book. When his brigade went into Gaza City, he and his crewmates were in the tank for fifty hours straight. As I write these lines, they’re back there, facing Hamas fighters armed with RPGs and magnetic bombs they try to stick to the sides of the Israeli tanks.

In quiet moments, Tomer said, the men talk about why Israel must fight and about the need to retaliate for October 7. They differ about politics but not about that. There isn’t much talk about faith in God, he said, nothing like “Gunner, pray!” If the men share a belief in anything, he said, it’s the tank. He spoke about the Merkava IV like young men from other countries might describe their first cars. The armor plates are angled just so to deflect rockets; every detail in the turret is engineered for the safety and convenience of the crew; navigation and communication are at your fingertips on screens. “There were minutes when I was dying to get out, of course,” he said. “But it’s truly a wonder of creation. We have faith in the machine.”

When I met Sabato, I asked if he’d change anything if he wrote the book now. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s an artistic book, not a newspaper article. It was written about experiences that ripened after decades and expresses an internal truth that doesn’t change with time.”

Since this war began, we’ve heard stories that might have been drawn from pogroms or medieval persecutions. We’ve seen images of cruelty, suffering, and heroism that seem biblical. In Adjusting Sights, the Amshinover Rebbe blesses the young soldier leaving for the war with a passage from the book of Exodus: “May dread and fear befall them,” the rabbi says, and adds, “Them and not you.”

Gunsights won’t be enough, the book tells us, and neither will the ideas of the modern world. It’s 2023 and 1973 and 70 CE. Gunner, pray.

Jews Are Indigenous to Israel; They Are Not Colonizers

The remains of at least 80 synagogues, built after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE have been identified, and while most are in Galilee, others have been discovered throughout the land.

I had initially been under the impression that Jewish life in the Holy Land more or less ceased after the fall of Masada in 70 CE. I knew the 70 CE date was not a sharp demarcation. After all, the Bar Kokhba revolt, an even greater challenge to Roman rule than the one that ended at Masada, occurred 70 years later, and the meeting of rabbis in Bnei Brak portrayed in the Passover Haggadah must have taken place around the year 100. Yet, the ruins I’ve described indicate that a large and prosperous Jewish community persisted for hundreds of years after the destruction of the Temple.

I was not the only one blown away by the Bar’am ruins. Edward Robinson, one of the first to identify the Bar’am ruins as synagogues (there were two), who was an important Bible archeologist of the 1800s, made the same point in a book (written with Eli Smith) called Biblical Researches in Palestine (1856).

Encountering the synagogues at Bar’am (Kafr Bir’im), they wrote, “The size, the elaborate sculptured ornament, and the splendour of these edifices do not belong to a scattered and down-trodden people.” They add, “All these circumstances would seem to mark a condition of prosperity and wealth and influence among the Jews of Galilee in that age, of which neither their own historians, nor any other, have given us any account.”

The comment about the lack of attention to this period of Jewish life is still true today, 168 years later. One of the only news articles about the history of the Bar’am synagogues that I could find was one by Joe Yudin (“Baram’s Ancient Synagogue,” The Jerusalem Post, 2012).

In fact, Jews formed a majority of the population of Palestine until at least the 5th century. An autonomous Jewish Patriarchate existed until the year 425, and the Jerusalem Talmud was written there (mostly in Galilee) during the early centuries of the Common Era. Two additional Jewish revolts, against Byzantine rule in the 4th and 7th centuries, also indicate that a substantial Jewish population lived in Palestine.

While it is true that from the sixth or seventh century until modern times, Jews formed a minority of the population of Palestine, periodic immigration (aliyah) ensured that their numbers were appreciable throughout the years. Besides, indigeneity is not dependent on numbers, and Palestinian indigenous status does not invalidate the Jewish one.

Palestine is the name given Judea by the Romans in 136 CE, as punishment after the failed Bar Kokhba revolt. The Arab conquest of Palestine took place in 637 CE, when Umar Al Khattab captured Jerusalem from the Byzantine Empire. Now, in a deliberate inversion of the truth, the indigenous homeland of the Jews is “occupied” when Jews live there.

To Human Rights Watch, Israeli civilians don't deserve human rights

In November, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of a war crime when it struck a car in Lebanon, killing a grandmother and three grandchildren:

An unlawful Israeli strike on a family in a car on November 5, 2023, should be investigated as an apparent war crime, Human Rights Watch said today. The attack killed three girls and their grandmother and wounded their mother.

“This attack by Israeli military forces that struck a car carrying a family fleeing violence shows a reckless disregard for civilian life,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Three young girls and their grandmother have lost their lives, our investigations show, as a result of the Israeli military’s failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians. Their killing is a violation of the laws of war, and Israel’s allies, like the US, should respond to this apparent war crime by demanding accountability for this unlawful strike.”

As I showed at the time, the IDF was responding to a Hezbollah rocket attack on Israeli civilians and struck a car it probably thought was the terrorists fleeing the attack site, meaning this was not a war crime but a lawful decision by a military commander to strike a terror target given the best information available at the time.

Last week, there was a different attack on civilians near the Lebanese border. A 76 year old woman and her 48 year old son were killed in a targeted attack where there was no doubt that the targets were civilians. In fact, there is video of the attack - a video made by the attackers themselves, Hezbollah.

There is no question the murders of Mira and Barak Ayalon were deliberate. There is no doubt that Hezbollah was guilty of war crimes by shooting a laser guided anti-tank rocket at their obviously residential house.

Human Right Watch hasn't written a word, even though the attack happened 8 days ago - the same amount of time it took them to falsely accuse Israel of war crimes after the other incident.

In fact, HRW has not written any articles about Hezbollah's firing hundreds of rockets on Israelis' northern civilian communities. It has not written a single story about how a hundred thousand Israeli civilians were forced to flee southward to avoid Hezbollah attacks on their neighborhoods. Their Lebanon page hasn't mentioned Hezbollah for months.

When HRW only accuses the Jewish side of war crimes, that is antisemitism. When the other side publicly announces that they will target civilians and films their own attacks and even then is still ignored by a "human rights" group, that is even more evidence that HRW is institutionally antisemitic.

They don't want you to know about any war crimes in the region that they cannot blame on Israel.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

In 1982, US Secretary of State General Alexander Hague said, "Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security."

I always thought that was hyperbole. But in fact, the annual cost of a US aircraft carrier is not much different than annual US aid to Israel every year.

The US sends Israel about $3.8 billion in aid every year. How does that compare to a real aircraft carrier?

An aircraft carrier's operational costs, including the ships required to defend it, is between $6 million and $8 million a day. That's between $2.1 billion and $2.9 billion annually. If you add the amortized cost of building the aircraft carrier itself (the Gerald Ford cost $13 billion) over the expected life span of 50 years, and you can add another $250 million to those annual numbers, and the amount the US pays Israel is not far off from the cost of a single aircraft carrier group (of which there are typically nine in service at any time.)

But most of the costs of the aircraft carrier are sunk - the US doesn't get much back. From Israel, though, the US gets invaluable intelligence as well as a partner in weapons design and testing that saves hundreds of millions of dollars. The US benefits from the relationship with Israel in many other direct and indirect ways. It costs much less for the US to invest in Israeli rocket interception technology than to develop it from scratch, for example.

The billions the US gives Israel is a bargain!

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

01/23 Links Pt1: 24 IDF soldiers killed in deadliest day since start of Gaza combat; Return of the Peace Process; Douglas Murray vs Mustafa Barghouti

From Ian:

24 IDF soldiers killed in deadliest day since start of Gaza combat

Twenty-four Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed in the Gaza Strip on Monday, the deadliest single day for the Israeli military since the start of its ground operation against Hamas on Oct. 27.

Twenty-one soldiers were killed in central Gaza when two buildings collapsed due to a blast, IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Tuesday morning.

Three other soldiers were killed in battle in the southern Gaza Strip.

The incident occurred 600 meters (2,000 feet) from the Israeli border, near the northwestern Negev community of Kibbutz Kissufim, as Israeli forces were working on clearing Hamas infrastructure and buildings to establish a buffer zone.

According to Hagari, around 4 p.m., terrorists fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a tank securing the forces. At the same time, two two-story buildings collapsed as a result of an explosion while most of the troops were inside or near them. The blast was apparently caused by explosives placed by the Israeli forces, intended to destroy the buildings in a controlled event.

Hagari emphasized that the incident is still under investigation, including the cause of the explosion.

He added that a “very complicated” rescue operation took place involving commanders and rescue workers who quickly arrived at the scene.

“War has a very painful and heavy price. The dedicated reservists, who stood up for the flag, sacrificed the most precious of all, for the security of the State of Israel and so that we can all live here safely,” said Hagari.

War Cabinet ministers—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister-without-Portfolio Benny Gantz—issued a joint statement about the incident on Tuesday afternoon.

“We bow our heads in memory of our fallen, and yet we do not for a moment stop striving for an irreplaceable goal—the achievement of absolute victory,” they said.

President Herzog: An unbearably difficult morning, in which more and more names of the best of our sons are added to the gravestones of heroes, in a war that has no justice.

The intense battles are taking place in an extremely challenging space, and we send strength to the… pic.twitter.com/yMxZ87WJjm
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) January 23, 2024

IDF Chief of the General Staff on the 21 soldiers killed in action: “They fell during a mission whose aim was to enable the safe return of the residents of southern Israel to their homes. We grieve this loss; we will learn the necessary lessons.” pic.twitter.com/c6Y5P6RGt3
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) January 23, 2024

"Approved for publication," is more than a phrase, it is the term the @IDFSpokesperson uses when the painful announcement of soldiers fallen is made. An announcement made to the public only after the bereaved families are notified. A task challenged today by the endless flow of… pic.twitter.com/oVPgNseTtg
— Lt. Col. (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) January 23, 2024

Book review: "Jewish Priorities: Sixty-Five Proposals for the Future of Our People"

There were hardly any Orthodox Jews in the college I went to after yeshiva high school. I hung out at the Hillel office and became friends with many non-religious Jews who also made that office their home base between classes, as well as with the Hillel directors.

While one might think this was a huge culture shock for me, I found that I respected my new friends while strongly disagreeing with their opinions.

One Hillel director, a committed Reform Jew, decided to become a rabbi.When I asked her why, she said that the rabbinate was the only path for a Reform Jew to continue learning within that framework. I had to respect that. We could throw good-natured barbs towards each other but we respected each other. (I even studied Talmud with her.)

I realized that I liked people who were passionate about Judaism even if I didn't agree with their brands of Judaism.

"Jewish Priorities: Sixty-Five Proposals for the Future of Our People," edited by David Hazony, reminded me of my college experience with a wide range of committed Jews. The 65 essays are each written by Jews from disparate backgrounds who are passionate about Judaism and its future. Each essay is a personal attempt to answer the question of what they think should be the single most important priority for the collective future of the Jewish people.

As Hazony writes in his forward, he book is intended to be a "good old fashioned intellectual food fight."

The contributors are a stellar list of the most interesting thinkers today, from Hen Mazzig to Ruth Wisse, from David Wolpe to Yishai Fleisher. The book is the equivalent of a really great dinner party where everyone has something fascinating to say.

Many, perhaps most, of the articles are outstanding - Yossi Klein Halevi on "Finding God in the 21st Century," Leil Liebovitz' "Stop seeking validation from those who hate us," Einat Wilf's "Zionism as Therapy," Armin Rosen's "The Satmar Art of Not Giving a F*ck." are just a few. But everyone will like different articles.

You can see the table of contents here.

The passion for our future is evident on nearly every page. There is an occasional sub-par article- often those that are thinly veiled advertisements for the author's own pet project - but since each piece is less than 10 pages long, it is easy enough to read through them and go to the next. All of them are worth reading. It is especially gratifying to read great essays on topics that are not normally associated with the author.

There are a lot of smart Jews out there!

I thoroughly enjoyed "Jewish Priorities" and hope that it becomes a springboard for new projects where some of these ideas can move from the written page to implementation.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Unlike Gaza, Lebanese terror groups announce their "martyrs." And it proves that Israel only targets terrorists.

AFP has been keeping a tally of deaths in the mini-war between Hezbollah and Israel.

According to its tally, the casualties on the Lebanese and Syrian side include:

147 Hezbollah members in Lebanon

16 Hezbollah members in Syria

10 Hamas members in Lebanon

10 Islamic Jihad members in Lebanon

7 Hamas members in the Salah Arouri assassination assumed to be Israel

1 Lebanese soldier

26 civilians

Plus apparently 9 undetermined (AFP's numbers don't add up)

This means between 85% and 88% of those killed in Lebanon were militants.

As opposed to Hezbollah, which is literally targeting civilian houses and civilians themselves with anti-tank weapons and posting videos.

And Hezbollah explicitly says that they will target Israeli civilians. They have killed six so far, and the only reason the number is that low is because Israel evacuated all civilians from near the Lebanese border: Hezbollah has targeted dozens of civilian structures.

The difference in both sides' morality couldn't be starker. Yet Israel is the side called "genocidal."

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

An op-ed in Qatari site Raya by Dr.. Ayman Al-Atoum:

I participated in a conference in support of Gaza a few days ago in Istanbul, and I was invited to recite one of my poems on its sidelines in the presence of the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, and a large number of leaders of parties and union institutions from various parts of the world, including Jews belonging to Neturei Karta movement. In the poem, I said: "we are against the Jews forever and ever."

One of the honorable attendees jumped up and shouted: “Say the Zionists and do not say the Jews.” I immediately responded briefly, saying, God Almighty said: “You will find the people most hostile to God [are Jews.].” I wondered: Should I respond to your words or to the words of the Lord of the Worlds? I continued: The Jews that I meant in my poem are the Jews that God meant in his book.

The Jews are Jews in faith, and I will not change the concept of the conflict because ten or a hundred of this type of Jews from the Neturei Karta party went out with me in a demonstration here or there.

The Neturei Karta movement does not oppose its Zionist government in our sight; It opposes it because of their different prophecies regarding the establishment of the State of Israel. If the two had the same goal but differed in timing, does this call for me, the slain victim, to put my hand in his?! No and a thousand times no.

Make no mistake - he hates the "Jewish Voice for Peace" Jews just as much.

Atoum is a fairly well-known Jordanian poet and novelist. One of his novels, His Name is Ahmed, has as a hero Ahmed Al-Daqamseh , who murdered seven Jewish schoolgirls and their teacher in the 1997 "Island of Peace" massacre.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

01/22 Links Pt2: Why Do We Let Our Detractors Speak For Us?; At This Point, a 2 State Solution Is Asking Israel to Commit Suicide; Elon Musk and Ben Shapiro tour Auschwitz

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Why Do We Let Our Detractors Speak For Us?

Harvard alum Ira Stoll notes that Penslar last year signed a letter accusing Israel of apartheid and of seeking to “ethnically cleanse all territories under Israeli rule of their Palestinian population.” Just last month, he extolled the virtues of seeing Israel through the prism of “settler colonialism,” the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that denies Jewish indigeneity in the land of Israel and evinces a deep ignorance of basic world history. Along those lines, he also incorrectly believes “Zionism is a modern phenomenon.”

He summons concepts from some pretty dark shadows of anti-Jewish discourse, too. In a book published last year, he wrote, “Veins of hatred run through Jewish civilization.” That’s the sort of line you expect to see on the Twitter feeds of white nationalists and unrepentant Soviet-brained tankies. And, I guess, Harvard professors of Jewish history.

I’ve written in recent weeks about the AsAJews, a group of agitators from within the Jewish community who sell their birthright to anti-Zionist political activists. What Penslar’s case shows is that these agitators are not merely reactive; they are proactive. The anti-Zionist political activists they serve know very well to have their AsAJews in position long before they’re needed for any public debate. From his perch at Harvard, a professor like Penslar can manipulate the discipline of Jewish history even beyond the confines of the Ivy League, simply by telling the non-Jewish academic world what it wants to hear, such as that “veins of hatred run through Jewish civilization.”

We don’t like to admit it, but the purpose of having professors like Penslar at Harvard is to soften the ground for a whole mess of ideas that denigrate Jews and Israel and fuel an inevitable backlash against both—“decolonization” being a prime example. The uncomfortable truth is that Penslar wasn’t hired at Harvard so that he’d be in position to defend the school after an anti-Semitism scandal. He was there to help brew the conditions of the scandal in the first place.

American Jews will need to guard our history much more carefully in the coming years, and pay more attention to who claims to speak for us. Has any other religious community or national minority so often put its detractors in charge of telling its story?

How Racial Entitlement Leads to Anti-Semitism

With a generation that sees entitlement as virtue, the act of Jews pushing back—“actually, Hamas is not entitled to rape Israelis”—makes us easy targets of snowballing entitlement rage. This manifests in a blistering desire to tear down Jewish lives and communities, painting restraint itself as an insidious trick to usurp others’ lands and rights, to run institutions, and to mask mythical bloodlust. Doubling down on non-restraint, protesters shout, “By any means necessary!”

And truly, Jews would have to be annihilated to purge the supreme value of self-restraint that is the hallmark of Jewish survival: the endurance against all odds of a culture in which, say, self-restraint about mixing meat and milk is actually prized above existential faith. Pirkei Avot, or “Ethics of Our Fathers,” part of the larger Jewish oral tradition compiled in the Talmud, famously declares: “Who is strong? He who conquers his evil inclination…he who masters his passions is better than one who conquers a city.” And even the ubiquitous Jewish exhortation to be a mensch is a reminder that the ultimate way to be a “man,” to be a person, is just to behave considerately.

While these ideas are obviously not achieved by any single person all the time, the expectation of self-restraint that fundamentally defines the Jews has helped keep alive and thriving traditional definitions of what it means to be an accomplished adult. This is certainly not unique to Jews, as Max Weber and his theory of the Protestant ethic would remind us. But it has helped this tiny minority become disproportionately successful; dedicated to maintaining family and community through involvement and philanthropy; and willing to take the kind of constructive risks that yield large dividends.

The Jewish state itself reaps these benefits of traditional virtue. Israelis excel in business, in particular by embracing smart risks that rank it number three worldwide for start-ups. Israelis prioritize duty: Military service is obligatory, while Israeli families average three children and have only a 7 percent birthrate outside of wedlock (“keeping it in your pants” being among the most ancient obligations of male self-restraint). Perhaps the most extreme example: The Israel Defense Forces, at a clear cost to its own aims and soldiers’ lives, circulates maps to Gazans of where they will be fighting to prioritize the escape of enemy noncombatants.

There is no time to lose. America has gone critically off course. We need to restructure our educational, criminal-justice, and mental-health systems to center on advancing the ideals of self-restraint. If we don’t, not only will anti-Semitism flourish, but American adulthood as a whole will wither. Hillcrest High students indulging in a violent tantrum don’t need lectures on rejecting hate. They need to be told what BLM’s Hamas apologists were reminded of by former NBA star Amar’e Stoudemire: “On my mama, we don’t respect none of y’all for that. Peace.”

Simon Deng: First They Came for My People, Then They Came for the Jews

A South Sudanese former slave recognized the Palestinian pogrom on Oct. 7

On Oct. 7, 2023, I watched the news and was sick. Seeing the video of the attack on the music festival in Israel, everything welled up inside me. From the experience of my people, from my own experience, I knew exactly what had just happened and how those terrified hostages were going to suffer. Israelis had been raped, tortured, mutilated, and burned alive just like my people had been for centuries. I will never forget the fires and the burned bodies: They looked exactly like what I saw the day my village was destroyed.

What Hamas did was precisely like what Arab Sudan’s genocidal government did to my people. Since they invaded Africa in the seventh century, Arab Muslims had always been doing jihad. We will never really know many Blacks have died between then and today. It is one of those numbers which, because it is unknown, proves how huge the suffering must be.

Both Israel and my country, South Sudan, were born through jihad, one which began in 1948, the other in 1955. In 1948, the Arabs declared a jihad against the new State of Israel and tried to finish what Hitler had started. In 1955, the Black Christian people of southern Sudan revolted against the north because the Muslim government refused to give them autonomy or freedom of religion. In response, the government declared a jihad—but not on paper, as it would later in 1989. The Arabs killed possibly up to 1.5 million Black people in the south. Nobody knows the number they enslaved, since nobody really counted.

The Israelis, like the Black Sudanese, won the war but lost the peace, and the jihad continued. People in the West only learned about jihad and slavery in Sudan in the 1990s, during the Second Sudanese Civil War, which began in 1983, but it was going on throughout the first one, which ended in 1972. I was kidnapped in the 1960s, so this terror has been happening for my entire lifetime. All we know is that about 200,000 Black Christians like me were enslaved in the Second Civil War, which only stopped in 2005, and about 2 million were killed. Sadly, there are still many Africans owned as slaves today. Now I saw what was done to me and my people being done to Israelis.

Israel secretly helped the southern Sudanese fight the north. We would never have fought the Arabs to the negotiating table without them. Today, South Sudan is independent partially because Israel chose to help us win over our Arab colonizers—because that is what they are. The Jewish people, just like us, are native to our lands, which the Arabs conquered.

Recently, I went to Israel to show my solidarity with my Jewish brothers and sisters, and with the (enslaved) hostages. I walked twice from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and back along the highway to show that we Africans love and care about Israel. I picked strawberries on a kibbutz and met with Jewish hero Natan Sharansky—a freedom fighter who went to prison, like Dr. King, for trying to free his people.

Living in New York, I see protests against Israel. These manifestations of sympathy for evil should disgust all decent people. They disgust me because Hamas is made up of the same people, acting on the same colonizing and imperial motivations, who enslaved me and murdered 4 million of my Black brothers and sisters. The Jewish people—who helped my people gain our freedom—were slaves in Egypt, just down the Nile from where I was a slave. Later, they were slaves in Auschwitz. Now they are slaves in Gaza. Our peoples have both survived slavery, and we will continue to survive it. We will triumph over the murderers who do their best to enslave and exterminate us.

True survivors are not victims. Both Africans and Israelis stand tall and will not rest until all of our people are free. And our Jewish brothers can count on us to be there for them.

Eugene Kontorovich: America Helps Make Gaza an Open-Air Prison

Gaza is unique among modern war zones. It hasn't produced waves of refugees leaving for neutral countries. This has been deliberate, the result of policies by Hamas and Egypt tacitly supported by the U.S.

Months after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, 3.5 million Ukrainians had applied for temporary residence in countries such as Poland and Germany. The Syrian civil war produced five million refugees. The U.S. invasion of Iraq produced two million international refugees. Fleeing a war zone and seeking asylum in a neutral country is a human right enshrined in the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention.

Yet three months after Oct. 7, fewer than 1,000 people - either foreign nationals or wounded - have been allowed by Egypt and Hamas to leave Gaza. The Biden administration's repeated professions of concern about an imaginary Israeli plan to force out Gazans has distracted from its unconscionable silence about the deadly reality that Gazans are trapped against their will in what has now become the world's largest open-air prison.

By not pressuring Egypt to open its border, according to its obligations under international refugee law, the U.S. is letting Gaza become a pressure cooker of civilian suffering. Washington has no problem with Cairo putting Gazans in harm's way, accepting a tightly sealed Egypt, while he lets millions pour across America's southern border. Why would the U.S. support locking Gazans in like North Korea does? Since 1948, Arab states and the UN have refused to treat Palestinians like ordinary refugees, keeping them in a unique intergenerational limbo to provide a reservoir of resentment against Israel.

From the EU External Action website:, press remarks by EU High Representative Josep Borrell:

[W]e will have a discussion among us, among the ministers, and I will present - I have already presented - a comprehensive approach. A comprehensive approach to what? I think that we have to stop talking about the “peace” process, and start talking more concretely about the “two-state solution” process. Because peace, it could be many different [kinds of] peace. What kind of peace are you talking about?

So, let’s talk about what we want to do. What we want to do is to build a two-state solution, so let’s talk about it. The way you are naming it is important. So, from now on, I will not talk about the peace process, but about the two-state solution process. If we are serious about that, we have to study the underling [sic] causes that prevent this solution from being implemented. Certainly, Hamas is one of them - an important one - but there are others.

This comprehensive approach has to be studied, and discussed. I know it is difficult. The 27 [Member States] have different approaches, but we have to work together with the Arab world. I know it is difficult, but it is our moral endeavour, our moral obligation to try to do our utmost to try to look for a solution.

So, from now on, please talk about the “two-state solution” process.

Originally, the "two state solution" was assumed by much of the world as the only possible way to peace. For decades, the priority has not been peace, but two states, as if they are synonymous.

The "two state solution" based on the 1949 armistice lines had become a kind of religion, accepted as the only way forward. Nothing the Palestinians could do would shake that faith - Arafat's and later other Palestinian refusals that would bring exactly that solution, the intifadas, the suicide bomb attacks, the view by the vast majority of Palestinians that "two states" is a stepping stone towards a single Arab state, completely compatible with Yasir Arafat's "phased plan" to destroy Israel.

But until now at least there was some pretense that the "two state solution" would lead to peace.

Now, the EU's foreign policy leader is disconnecting the two-state religion from the main goal it was ostensibly meant to accomplish: peace. A Palestinian state is now an independent goal for the EU, and whether it will endanger Israelis .or lead to more October 7ths is utterly irrelevant.

In this worldview, Hamas is not the main obstacle to progress, but Israel. Because Israel still wants to ensure that its people aren't murdered on a daily basis by Jew-hating jihadists. If the Palestinians cannot possibly offer a permanent, real peace, then let's drop that demand and give them what they want on the way to their ultimate goal.

Did Israel's withdrawal from the internationally accepted Blue Line with Lebanon bring peace with Hezbollah? Did Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza - giving the land to the responsible, moderate Palestinian Authority, not Hamas - bring peace? How did demilitarizing the Palestinian Authority work out?

If peace is the goal, these are uncomfortable questions for two-staters. If two states is the goal, then these questions become irrelevant. Jews want security? That's an obstacle to the two-state solution!

Perhaps more insidious is Borrel calling "two states" a "solution." It doesn't solve anything. It very possibly would make things worse. But he defines it as a "solution," and who doesn't want solution? This way the EU has a goal, and once it is achieved, they can wash their hands of the matter and say that the problem - now redefined itself as "lack of two states" - has been solved.

One there is a solution, any problems that result are disconnected from the EU's courageous role in creating two states.

Which makes this sound a lot like "final solution."

(h/t Irene)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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01/22 Links Pt1: Israeli FM demands EU backing for hostages’ return, defeat of Hamas; Former Miss World slams women’s groups for Oct. 7 ‘silence’

From Ian:

A Second Exile

For over a quarter-million Israelis, Oct. 7 didn’t only signal the start of a war. It was also the day they realized they’d have to leave their homes. Some of them had a sense of déjà vu. They had been exiled from their homes before.

For Pnina Rogolsky, this evacuation brought back memories of the spring of 1982, when she lost her home in southern Sinai after Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt.

Dreaming of a quiet agrarian life, Rogolsky and her husband had moved to the Yamit settlement bloc in the early 1970s in response to a government call to settle the Sinai, which had come under Israeli control after the Six-Day War in 1967. They joined a brand new moshav near Yamit called Netiv HaAsara.

“The Jewish Agency gave us a tract of land and a tractor, which we shared with another family,” Rogolsky told me. “We grew tomatoes, mangoes, and flowers. I had my first baby. We were all young. We helped each other out. We socialized. It was a good life.”

She didn’t expect it all to end, and certainly not so quickly. “When the talk started about a peace treaty with Egypt, we assumed that we’d remain in our homes,” she said. “We didn’t think we’d give back Sinai.”

Initially, Rogolsky and the other Sinai settlers fought the plan. “We lobbied Knesset members, we demonstrated, we even burned tires,” she recalled. But by the spring of 1982, she said, the battle was lost: “We left our moshav in a caravan with our lights on as if we were on the way to a funeral.”

Rogolsky and her family—along with the other 70 families who evacuated the moshav in the Sinai—helped to reestablish the moshav, also called Netiv HaAsara, in what they hoped was a more secure location just outside the Gaza Strip.

Starting again wasn’t easy. “Losing our moshav in the Sinai felt like losing a limb,” said Rogolsky. “Some of our people could barely function.” But Rogolsky, who was then in her 30s, felt compelled to pull herself together. “Working the land helped me to heal,” she said.

Then came the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, when terrorists killed 20 members of the moshav. Rogolsky and her husband were in another part of the country visiting friends, but her son was at the moshav leading the security team. Fortunately he survived the attack. Rogolsky has been back several times since Oct. 7 “to visit and to do laundry,” she said; her husband goes back more frequently to tend to the family’s chicken coop. But neither of them stays for long.

Netiv HaAsara is in its second exile, its 900 residents scattered in hotels and apartments throughout central Israel. Rogolsky lives in the Yearim Hotel in the Judean Hills just outside of Jerusalem with several dozen of her neighbors, most of them like herself in their 70s and 80s, but it’s far from ideal.

The first days were the hardest, she said: “That whole first week we went from funeral to funeral, shiva to shiva.”

Dr. Albert Bourla is Chairman and CEO of Pfizer: An Unexpected Encounter At Davos Inspired My Call to Action For the Israeli Hostages

It is our moral duty, as global citizens, to take the necessary steps to help the hostages. To start, we can learn more about them. They are real, innocent people facing unspeakable cruelty.

As citizens of the digital generation, we have the opportunity to raise public awareness, calling for the release of all hostages using the hashtag #BringThemHomeNow. We must rally around those elected officials who are advocating to bring the hostages home. By participating in the democratic process—sending an email or calling our senators, representatives, and the White House—we can give a voice to the hostages.

Join Ms. Goldberg, just as I did in Davos, by wearing a piece of tape on your shirt, counting the number of days that the 136 hostages are still not home. As the devoted mom told me, it reminds the world of the inhumanity at play.

As a healthcare leader, I have a responsibility to stress the urgent need for hostages to gain access to medication. International organizations need unfettered access to assess the conditions of the hostages, so that they can receive the necessary care. Supporting the families of hostages, and of course, the hostages themselves, does not end when they are brought home; mental health services must be made available to those in need, for as long as necessary.

The conditions for a return to calm and stability should be our priority. We owe it to the hostages to hold tightly to the hope that eventual peace, and the end to this cycle of violence, is within reach.

I will sign off with a question: Imagine if it were your loved one being held captive. What would you do?

Former Miss World slams women’s groups for Oct. 7 ‘silence’

Israeli lawyer, actress, model and beauty queen Linor Abargil, who won the Miss World title in 1998, has spoken out against the silence of women’s organizations in the wake of the murder, sexual assault and kidnapping of women by the Hamas terror organization.

“On Oct. 7, we witnessed the most horrible massacres, atrocities, rape, mutilation—the worst human behavior,” Abargil said at an event organized as part of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“I turned to all my colleagues and friends worldwide, as well to the leading women’s rights organizations, to expose this terrible event, certain that they would speak out and condemn this unspeakable event. And what did I discover? That there is a discriminatory approach— violence against one woman doesn’t equal violence [toward] another,” she said.

“Their silence, apathy and oblivion shocked me to the core. They even had the cheek to ask for evidence when it was all there to see. There is no need for more proof, it’s all out there to see,” she added.

The event, titled “Women at the Forefront of the Global Peace and Security Agenda” and organized by Israel, was also attended by Tatiana Kotlyarenko, an international expert in gender-based violence and human trafficking, Qanta Ahmed, a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum and Anastasiya Dzyakava, adviser on human online safety.

Abargil shared how at a young age she, too, was assaulted, and what helped her survive and speak up.

“I was invited to speak all over the world. I gave lectures, and I spoke about the fact that we women truly understand the world and its needs. I found out that this world of men, weapons and war doesn’t understand that women can work without agendas…[and] politics and rise above all this. I decided to dedicate my life to this cause. And it’s been my life’s journey [for] the past 20 years,” she said.

“Hamas established a new evil strategy: Openly abusing mostly the female hostages, and also men, mutilating them—not in secret and not in the dark. Everything was filmed. Anyone who doesn’t speak up against this is silently complicit in sexual violence against all women, not just Israeli women,” she continued.

Israeli lawyer, women’s rights activist, and winner of Miss World 1998 Linor Abargil confronts a @UN rep for her damning silence over the mass rape committed by #HamasRapists.

“After two months you didn’t have even one response?!”#BelieveIsraeliWomen #BringThemHomeNow… pic.twitter.com/rKQqYUBOML
— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) January 19, 2024