Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, June 27, 2024

06/27 Links Pt2: Why Did a Massacre of Jews Lead to an Explosion of Antisemitism?; Jewish Profs discuss hostile campuses at House hearing; Anti-Semitism and Tonight’s Debate

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The driver of Western Jew-hatred

President Joe Biden has condemned the mobbing of the Los Angeles synagogue as “appalling,” “unconscionable” and “antisemitic.” Yet his administration does everything it can to prevent Israel from eviscerating the “appalling,” “unconscionable” and “antisemitic” regimes of Hamas and Hezbollah, while also forbidding Israel from striking the head of the genocidal snake in Tehran.

Moreover, not only does America continue to fund the P.A. despite its murderous Jew-hatred, but the Biden administration also continues to promote the Islamo-Nazi entity as the worthy rulers of a post-Gaza war Palestine state.

In Britain, the Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer, who is expected to become prime minister in next week’s general election, has written affectingly about sharing Israel’s current trauma through his wife’s Jewish relatives.

Nevertheless, Labour’s election manifesto suggests, albeit in ambiguous and deniable form, that a Labour government might unilaterally declare a state of Palestine—a supremely hostile act that would greatly imperil Israel’s security still further and is promoted by those who want the Jewish state gone.

In a party election broadcast, Starmer also pledged to London’s Labour mayor, Sadiq Khan, that a Labour government would have a “zero tolerance approach” to Islamophobia.

Since “Islamophobia” covers any criticism of the Islamic world, Labour’s policy appears to mean stamping upon any critic of Islam with the force of law, including anyone who dares call out the wildly disproportionate level of Jew-hatred in the Muslim world.

The never-ending war between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel has been created and perpetuated by the West’s behavior in sanitizing, excusing, legitimizing, funding and incentivizing the Islamo-Nazis and their preposterous, mendacious, brain-frying “Palestinian” cause.

In The Wall Street Journal this week, Seth Cropsey, president of the Yorktown Institute and a former U.S. deputy under-secretary of the Navy, wrote that Iran has activated a network of global Islamist sympathizers to ramp up public pressure on Israel as an essential element of its strategy of attrition to destroy the Jewish state.

Tehran’s goal, he wrote, is to get Western politicians to back a ceasefire. “By slowing the conflict down and splitting Israel from the U.S. and its allies, Iran aims to make Israel an international pariah,” he said.

The Palestinian cause has been manipulated by Iran into a wedge issue. It has turned America against Israel, lined up liberals with Islamo-Nazis, and set Jew against Jew. And after Iran finishes with Israel, the West is next.

Palestinianism hasn’t just been used to give a veneer of respectability to Jew-hatred. It is being weaponized against civilization.

Brendan O'Neill: Antisemitism - The Hatred that Hides Itself in Palestinian Colors

I don't want to see protest of any kind outside a synagogue. What happened in LA at the Adas Torah synagogue last weekend was horrifying. Pro-Palestinian protesters turned up with Palestinian flags. They chanted, "There is only one solution - intifada revolution."

Let's be clear: this was the intimidation of Jews masquerading as political protest. The protesters said they picketed the synagogue because a real estate event was taking place inside, at which people were browsing houses for sale in Israel. What a thin excuse for mobbing a synagogue. The fact is this: if you are screaming at Jews as they enter their house of worship, you are not one of the good guys.

In fact, you are reminiscent of some of the worst guys in history. To holler at Jews about "intifada" eight months after an "intifada" claimed the lives of more than a thousand Jews in Israel is Jew-baiting, plain and simple. It is cruelty, not activism. It is more a mini-pogrom than an act of protest. If being "progressive" now means rubbing Jews' noses in an act of apocalyptic violence that claimed the lives of a thousand of their co-religionists, then I guess I'm not progressive anymore.

It feels to me that there is insufficient outrage over the intimidation of Jews in LA. The "anti-racists" are silent. Perhaps Jew-taunting is okay so long as you wear a keffiyeh while you're doing it. Antisemitism is reaching crisis levels in America and Europe. Attacks on Jews have shot up. It's time we got serious - very serious - about this hatred that hides itself in the Palestinian colors.

Why Did a Massacre of Jews Lead to an Explosion of Antisemitism?

The tragedy of Oct. 7 was so enormous, the violence of Hamas so blatant, the images of Jews being massacred so graphic, this posed a stunning threat to the cemented narrative of Israel as the oppressors and Palestinians as the oppressed.

Thus, it would require an immediate and massive response to shift the focus back to Israel. The world must know that big, bad Israel had it coming. That is the narrative that must never be disturbed.

The problem was that no one had seen such savage, monumental Palestinian violence as they saw on Oct. 7, so the usual explanations like the “occupation” were too small, too quaint. Occupation was too 1967. Occupation was two-states.

To match the epic nature of Oct. 7, the haters had to go back to 1948. They had to undermine the very birth of the Jewish state.

That’s why we’ve been hearing cries of “we don’t want two states” and “from the river to the sea”. This is no longer about ending an occupation for future co-existence. This is about ending Israel’s very existence.

The war in Gaza has fueled the rioters in two ways. One, it has given them a pretext to use the deaths of Palestinians as a moral cover. But again, notice the use of extreme language—not occupation but apartheid and genocide.

The second way the war has fueled the rioters is by reminding them how difficult it will be to get rid of Israel. This has exacerbated their rage. They see that these are not the powerless Jews who went to their slaughter in Holocaust death camps. These are badass Zionists who know how to fight.

Nevertheless, Oct. 7 introduced the tantalizing possibility that even these badass Zionists can be defeated. After 75 years of military victories, the dreaded Jewish state finally got the spanking it deserved. The haters smelled blood, even victory.

So while the war has put Israel back in the oppressor camp, this is no longer enough of a victory. Oct. 7 made the haters taste the ultimate victory of eliminating Israel, and they like the taste. That’s why they’re going hysterical. Their mission is to put Israel squarely in the defeated camp.

The Jews have tasted that camp before, however, and no matter how the world may feel about dead Jews, they will fight like hell to never taste it again.

Visitors At Hamas Booth At Columbia Job Fair Disappointed By Lack Of Sloganeering Positions (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.
Check out their Facebook page.

New York, June 30 - Alumni and aspiring alumni of this city's premier academic institution in attendance at an event for prospective employers to recruit attendees acknowledged that the representatives of the Islamic militant group that has run the Gaza Strip since 2007 - and for whom many of the students have expressed enthusiastic support in the wake of the group's massacre and kidnapping of Israelis on October 7 of last year - offered few, if any, opportunities that dovetail with the students' demonstrated talent stack during the last ten months of campus protests, most notably with a discernible absence of even entry-level jobs that call for proficiency in chanting rhyming English couplets while wearing surgical masks and accosting passers-by.

Visitors to the Hamas booth at Columbia University's Alumni Employment Fair this past Saturday noted with disappointment that the skills they have developed and showcased since October to back Hamas and its allies in Gaza, have next to no overlap with the positions the organization advertised at the fair: not a single position in harassing normies, challenging the visibly-Jewish to condemn Israeli "genocide," or even making righteous demands at press conference for others to provide vegan, gluten-free food, to name a few.

"I still have dreams of working for them," admitted Reef Boyles, who will begin her senior year in the fall. "I spent the better part of the last two semesters showing my solidarity with Palestine and denouncing Zionist settler-colonialism. My professors even gave me political science and sociology course credit for it. I'm just not seeing my would-be employer showing the flexibility that I've always been shown whenever things threaten to get slightly less than perfect for me. That's worrying."

"Maybe they'll come around," she reasoned. "That's how it's worked or me until now. And Hamas is known for its willingness to compromise."

"I thought my experience holding a janitor hostage would be an asset," lamented Lelies Smith, now pursuing a Master's Degree from Teachers College. "I even wore my Hezbollah T-shirt here. The guys at the booth kind of gave me a funny look. Maybe I was wearing my keffiyeh wrong? I don't think so. It was dyed rainbow. I'm super-progressive, just like them. Thing is, they didn't encourage me to apply for anything. What I did see required skills and experience that I didn't put in my resume."

"I did make sure to put my pronouns in, right at the top," zey added.

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!

06/27 Links Pt1: A Terrorist Group Is Not a Legitimate Government; Fetterman: Recognizing Palestinian state rewards Hamas; Biden’s Phony Saudi-Israeli Peace Deal

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: A Terrorist Group Is Not a Legitimate Government

In a sign of the times, what has made news about the ceasefire talks is not that Hamas rejected the latest offer but the fact that yesterday the State Department finally said so.

“They gave us a written response that rejected the proposal put forward by Israel, that President Biden had outlined, that the United Nations Security Council and countries all around the world had endorsed,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. Miller’s use of the word “rejected” made headlines. “The comment marked the first time that a US official had publicly gone so far,” reported the Times of Israel. “To date, only Jerusalem has branded the Hamas response as a rejection. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken two weeks ago criticized Hamas’s counter-proposal as including changes that are ‘not workable,’ but insisted the gaps were still bridgeable.”

On the one hand, this is progress. The Biden administration has in recent months mostly avoided displaying its impatience with Hamas. In the world of diplomacy, this type of definitive language is meant to exert pressure on the holdouts.

But on the other hand, so what? Hamas isn’t a normal government, bound by nation-state norms and treaties and diplomatic niceties the very practice of which confers a certain amount of legitimacy on those who play along. All of this theater keeps Hamas in a can’t-lose situation: the West’s obsession with a negotiated settlement to this war means Hamas is indispensable, and if Hamas is indispensable, it cannot be destroyed.

Up north, Hezbollah has found itself in similarly beneficial circumstances. According to Politico, “U.S. officials trying to prevent a bigger Middle East war are issuing an unusual warning to Hezbollah: Don’t assume that Washington can stop Israel from attacking you.”

To which I imagine Hezbollah responded: Don’t threaten me with a good time.

As if the implication wasn’t clear enough, the reporters spell it out: “The American message is designed to get the Lebanese-based Shiite militia to back down and de-escalate the brewing crisis along the Israeli-Lebanese border, a person familiar with the discussions said.”

In most of the world, the prospect of all-out war with a stronger state would be a sufficient deterrent. But Hezbollah isn’t a state. It simply controls one from within. It isn’t put off by bringing death and destruction to the Lebanese population; that is its mission. Same with Hamas: these are terrorist entities who survive by waging asymmetric warfare. They do not, themselves, want to be totally destroyed. But everything around them can burn.

Recognizing Palestinian state rewards Hamas, Fetterman says in Israel, ‘what’s wrong with you?’

A two-state solution is something for which Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) hopes in theory, “but certainly not at this—not right now,” he told reporters in an intimate gathering in Jerusalem on Thursday.

“I was appalled when our allies, whether it’s Ireland or Spain or others, were calling for recognizing that—that’s outrageous,” he said of some countries opting to recognize an independent Palestinian state. “Why would you give Hamas that kind of a reward when you have Israeli citizens still held hostage, and you’re in the middle of a war?”

“How is that, what’s wrong with you?” the pro-Israel senator said. “It’s crazy. I can’t explain it.”

Fetterman responded to four questions from Alex Traiman, JNS CEO and Jerusalem bureau chief, during the press conference on Thursday.

Asked what he thought of reports that the White House has been slow-tracking weapons shipments to the Jewish state, Fetterman said that he disagrees on the matter with U.S. President Joe Biden.

“I’ve been very clear there’s no conditions, and that hasn’t changed with me,” he told JNS. “Before Oct. 7, I was clear I always fully support Israel without any conditions, and after Oct. 7, it’s even more of a period to deliver whatever Israel needs.”

“I didn’t support withholding any of those large bombs because they have to fight an enemy that hides in tunnels,” he said of Israel Defense Forces efforts against the Hamas terror group. “I trust Israel’s judgment. They are not looking to maximize all civilian deaths or anything like that.”

Fetterman told JNS that he is always much more eager “to trust Israel than pretend that there’s anything that you could trust with Hamas or even some of the other nations in our region.”

Fetterman: A reckoning's needed on the political left with antisemitism

Those on the political Left who have tolerated or accepted antisemitism should be held to account, Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) told reporters in Jerusalem during his first visit to Israel.

“It’s crazy now that [Zionism] becomes a slur in certain circles,” Fetterman said, adding that “it’s been turned into like, ‘you Zionist,’ or whatever. It’s crazy.”

He sat in a side room at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel wearing his iconic white-hooded sweatshirt and shorts.

The tall bald-headed politician with a small gray goatee is an unabashed supporter of Israel, and October 7 has only made him more so.

“There is a reckoning necessary in the political left with antisemitism and [how] certain factions have responded after October 7, whether it’s somebody in a pop tent on a campus or blocking worshippers in Los Angeles from getting into their synagogue. It’s vital, and I don’t hear a lot of people in on that side really being asked about that,” he said.

He also dismissed as absurd the charges of genocide leveled against Israel for its war in Gaza, noting that if this were the case, the IDF would not have allowed over a million people to flee Rafah ahead of its military campaign there.

“What kind of a nation that is committed to genocide would allow” its supposed victims to leave the battlefield scene so they would not be hurt.

“There are people… calling that this is a genocide. That’s appalling,” he said.

Unapologetic in supporting Israel
Fetterman noted that US President Joe Biden has been clear in describing himself as a Zionist and a supporter of Israel.

“I absolutely believe that Joe Biden is a strong, strong, unapologetic ally of Israel, even when I happen to disagree with him,” and those disagreements “don’t in any way diminish my support for him.”

Fetterman said he also supported Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the democratically elected leader of the State of Israel. He backed Netanyahu’s plans to address a joint session of Congress on July 24, noting that it was important for American politicians and the US public to hear from him.

“I think the Prime Minister has the right to have that opportunity,” he said.

“We just voted billions” in military aid for Israel, so “let hear” from the country’s leader, Fetterman said, adding that Congress had a responsibility to do so.

Fetterman questioned why some members of the House and Senate plan to boycott the event.

“I don’t understand how that does anything but to cheer Hamas on,” he said. Sometimes you’ll hear things you don’t agree with. I really don’t think you need to be that fragile or offended.”

The food situation in Gaza is not just better than January. It is better than it was before the war!

The New York Times headline says::

When you look at the actual report from IPC that they are referring to, the actual numbers show a dramatic improvement in food access in Gaza since earlier this year

Here the IPC shows that the percentage of people with acceptable food consumption in the north, center and south of Gaza since November.

Green is "acceptable" and red is "poor."

In every part of Gaza, the food consumption score has increased by a huge amount since January.

From 34% to 77% in Rafah.

In Deir al Balah and Khan Younis, from 30% to 75%.

In the North, from 0% in February to 60% this month.

That is not just "improvement." That is a sea change, all done while the world is saying that Gaza is on the brink of famine.

It gets even more insane. The FCS score is higher now than it was before the war!

In September 2022, the World Food Programme published that 14 percent of the households in Gaza had poor FCS scores, while 59 percent in Gaza had acceptable FCS.

This was roughly the findings from the Global Network Against Food Crises in 2023, as they compared food insecurity in Gaza between 2020 and 2022, showing an FCE score of 57, lower than IPC is saying in all areas of Gaza, today.

This is the story that the media not only refuses to cover, but actively tries to report in a manner that is opposite to the truth. The "famine" myth has been exploded, but why let facts get in the way of a good human interest story where people who have trouble getting food are featured and made to apppear like they are typical?

(h/t to Mark Zlochin who provided the detail charts.)

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!

Debunking the lie that Zionists target Black politicians

Peter Beinart posted this insane tweet:

Somehow, he is simultaneously admitting that AIPAC happily supports Black candidates who support Israel, yet still claiming that they are racist when they oppose Black candidates who are anti-Israel.

It is a theme that Beinart has been pushing for years.

Foreign policymaking is white? Tell that to Gregory Meeks, the Black member of Congress who chaired the House Committee on Foreign Affairs from 2021 to 2023 and still sits on the committee as ranking member.

But this is a theme in crazed progressive spaces, that AIPAC is racist and attacks Black politicians, especially women of color.

Equally insane was this Intercept headline last year, where the subhead likewise contradicts the headline:

If AIPAC hates Black Democrats, why is it giving millions to Black Democrats?

Similarly, anti-Israel Rep. Summer Lee said last year that "what AIPAC does to me is textbook anti blackness" and complained that their support of pro-Israel Black candidates is still "textbook racism actually.”

Textbook racism is discriminating against people of a certain race, not giving millions to their campaigns.

The "progressives" know they are lying, but they want to make people think that Zionism is racism, Their evidence is just as inane as Beinart and The Intercept's. For example, Rashida Tlaib and Nina Turner recently wrote in The Nation:

Since 1948, the US has approved more than $141 billion in weapons to the Israeli government as it continues to carry out ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Just imagine what $141 billion invested in our communities could do instead.

According to Tlaib and Bush, the Jews are taking money away from Blacks. This is as antisemitic as it gets. US military aid to Israel is a minuscule percentage of the federal budget (and most of it goes to US defense contractors, employing countless numbers of people of color.) Yet none of the other spending is criticized. Not the $600 billion every year to pay the interest on the national debt, not the billions that go to Egypt and Jordan annually, not even the trillions of dollars the US spent on defense over the same time period. No, only Jews are taking money away from Blacks.

People who hate Israel want to racialize the conversation, even though they know it is nonsense. They are the racists, not AIPAC.

In 2022, AIPAC supported a majority of members of the Black and Hispanic caucuses in Congress. This year they supported many candidates of color - you can go through their list - including these Black female candidates:

And even that is not a complete list.

Which disproves Beinart's thesis that Black candidates are more often anti-Israel. The truth is the opposite - most of them are pro-Israel, not just Ritchie Torres.

That is the fact that the anti-Israel Left does not want you to know. They want to divide the Black and Jewish communities. They are the ones promoting both racism and antisemitism, and they are doing it while pretending to be against both.

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!

Hamas uses mosques, cemeteries and archaeological sites for war. Israel gets blamed for destroying them.

Bellingcat and Scripps News published a video report on the destruction of "heritage sites" in Gaza during this war.

Using satellite images and videos taken in Gaza, they identified over 150 such sites that have been either damaged or destroyed in Gaza.

The well-known anti-Israel group Forensic Architecture has a prominent role in creating 3-D graphics of some of the sites, showing evidence of Israel using bombs, bulldozers and other equipment. The report suggests that Israel may be violating international law by deliberately targeting these sites.

It is nothing short of antisemitic libel.

Pretending to be even-handed, the report briefly shows that Israel has found weapons caches and tunnel entrances in mosques.

Tunnel shaft in mosque

But it immediately dismisses that as saying that IDF "claims can't be verified for every mosque." As if the IDF would publish videos of blowing up mosques for no reason.

The report doesn't mention Hamas using cemeteries as rocket launching pads. In fact, it only mentions Hamas twice, and one of those times was to complain that Israel had tested out flooding Hamas tunnels which is considered, of course, an ecological disaster - but Hamas actually building the tunnels under Gaza mosques, cemeteries and hospitals doesn't merit a single disparaging word.

War crimes require intent. The evidence that Israel intends to target Gaza heritage sites is exactly zero. Hamas brags that it has built hundreds of miles of tunnels under an area that is only 25 miles long and less than 8 miles wide, and Israel has uncovered literally thousands of tunnel shafts in mosques, cemeteries, hospitals and children's bedrooms. The idea that Israel is targeting the mosques and bedrooms, and not the tunnels and weapons caches and Hamas terrorists, is simply libelous.

Beyond that, it makes no sense militarily. Targeting is not a casual activity - it requires multiple levels of oversight, legal advisors, and approvals. To think that that all levels of the IDF are secretly scheming to destroy Palestinian heritage during a war, using expensive bombs whose supply is not guaranteed to last forever, is nothing less than an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

The clearest proof that this is nothing less than antisemitism can be seen in the report itself, when they describe how Hamas builds on top of archaeological sites, destroying them (a point I made when Forensic Architecture made the same absurd charges in 2022.) That is justified - because Gaza is under "occupation" and it is somehow Israel that forces Hamas to build on top of ancient Roman ruins. (See 5:40-6:20.)

Israel attacking heritage sites that have become military sites is terrible. Hamas using those heritage sites as military sites is justified, because where else can they do it - Gaza is so crowded!

Here's video of the IDF uncovering rocket launchers in a cemetery from January.

This wasn't shown in this report, because that violates the holy narrative that only Israel desecrates cemeteries, not the religious Hamas members.

רקטות בתוך בית קברות בעזה pic.twitter.com/NnHiANISRd
— יוני בן מנחם yoni ben menachem (@yonibmen) December 22, 2023

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!

Report: IDF not targeting Gaza "civilians" who murdered Jews on October 7

Israel's Channel 12 reports:

The military attorney's office ordered not to eliminate Gazan citizens who participated in the Sheva massacre in October. The reason for this: they are not defined as Hamas terrorists, as we published this evening (Tuesday) for the first time in the "Main Edition".

From the interpretation of the military attorney's office for the laws of war, it is claimed that only those who belong to the fighting force can be killed intentionally in war. Targeted elimination is a preventive measure, not a punishment, and therefore, since the "civilian" is not part of the fighting force, he cannot be killed in retaliation.

This order was given despite the fact that after October 7 the government promised that Israel would bring everyone who was involved in the massacre to account. Despite this, if the Shin Bet and the IDF learn of the location of Gazans who have murdered, looted, raped or kidnapped Israelis, they will not have legal authorization to eliminate them.

The terrorist organization "Lords of the Wilderness", which holds the Bibas family hostage, is not defined as a group in a state of war with Israel. Therefore, if intelligence is discovered about the whereabouts of the kidnappers of the Bibas family - it will not be possible to eliminate them on this basis.

More than five sources in the army, at the field levels, claim that there have already been similar cases in practice: at the end of April, intelligence information was received about the participants of the massacre and it was not translated into their elimination due to the legal prohibition.

The army denies this report. Defense Minister Yoav Galant is expected to respond next week to Knesset member Amit Halevi's question on the subject.

An IDF spokesperson said: "The policy is to act against all participants in the massacre, regardless of their membership in a terrorist organization. To this end, an orderly operational process is carried out in accordance with international law. The IDF is not aware of an incident in which it was possible to attack a participating terrorist and did not do so."

Srugim clarifies the report, saying the legal department of the IDF "imposes a prohibition on the IDF to eliminate [October 7 attackers] out of revenge if they are found. The only reason they would be able to eliminate them is if intelligence is received showing Their intention is to carry out further terrorist attacks."

The report is, unfortunately, quite believable. Even though the world doesn't believe it, the IDF follows international law strictly - and often too strictly, beyond the letter of the law.

Customary international humanitarian law defines civilians as "persons who are not members of the armed forces. The civilian population comprises all persons who are civilians." There is no doubt that when the civilians are actively engaged in fighting that they lose civilian status.But if they are not members of an armed group, and they are not actively carrying arms during the fighting, their status appears to revert to that of civilians."In case of doubt whether a person is a civilian or not, that person must be considered to be a civilian."

Instinctively, this is horrifying. I suppose that the IDF could snatch the participants of October 7 and put them on trial, which is not a reasonable possibility on the battlefield in most cases. But their hands are tied because international law does not deal well with a situation where "civilians" are eager to join in terror acts themselves while not formally members of the terror group.

While this is sickening, it also is proof that the IDF is above all an army that adheres to international law. The law is the problem, not the IDF.

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!

06/26 Links Pt2: The Squad’s Forever War; The Child Soldiers of Ethnic Studies; Liberal Jews Deluded Themselves on Palestine; Inside the war over Israel at Wikipedia

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Squad’s Forever War

This is the language of pogromism, of turning anti-Semitic incitement into an ideology all its own.

The fact that nothing in the Tlaib/Turner op-ed is truthful is beside the point. I don’t think anybody expects honesty out of either of these women. But the lies they choose to tell are still important. “If our elected leaders will stand by and allow American police to brutalize Black and brown people in our communities,” they write, “it makes sense that they also excuse the Israeli forces that train many of them.” This rhetoric was part of the belief system of the perpetrators of the deadly anti-Semitic shooting spree in Jersey City in 2019. It has become many left-wing figures’ favorite blood libel. When you want violence against Jews, you stick with what works.

Another Squad member, Missouri’s Cori Bush, has been pushing that line for years. Bush explicitly linked the racial unrest in Ferguson to Israel and suggested police brutality was an Israeli export.

The interesting thing about Bush’s competitive primary race with challenger Wesley Bell is that it isn’t specifically about Israel or Jewish voters, yet the candidates’ respective attitudes toward Jew-baiting and incitement is a key part of their political personas. Bush has Jews on the brain—like Jamaal Bowman in New York, she can only be made interested in issues local to her district if they can be connected to Israel. Bowman’s opponent George Latimer, and Bush’s opponent Wesley Bell, have structured their campaigns around serving their actual constituents. The anti-Zionist obsessives in Congress are far too busy with Israel to take care of the people they represent.

Bell was elected as a reform-minded county prosecutor in the wake of the Michael Brown riots in Ferguson. But he broke with the left on the movement to “defund the police.” He was seen as a strong Democratic contender to take on GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, and Bell jumped at the chance to do so. But in November, Bell changed course and elected to challenge Bush in the House primary instead. Bell said the district needed a representative willing to stand with our allies and stand with President Biden.

It wasn’t about Israel per se but about the district and the people of St. Louis. A progressive operative and ally of Bush’s shot back that actually it’s just like the Bowman-Latimer race because it’s all “one big fight.”

Tlaib and Turner clearly agree, as do Bowman and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others on the left. Latimer and Bell want local-focused public service. Their opponents have drafted them into the Squad’s forever war.

Seth Mandel: J Street’s Bad Romance with Jamaal Bowman

It’s worth noting here that one of the places J Street took Bowman to chip away at his belief in Israeli legitimacy was Hebron. The Jews of Hebron go back to biblical times, to Abraham purchasing land for the Cave of the Patriarchs nearly 4,000 years ago. The ancient Jewish character of the town was ended violently in 1929 when an Arab pogrom broke out and the Jews there suffered one of two fates: violent death or expulsion.

The brief interlude of Judenrein Hebron was ended in 1967, and ever since then, the Jews returning to Hebron have had to live under Israeli military protection.

All of which is to say: If you manage to use Hebron as an example of Jewish illegitimacy, you must be well-practiced in the arts of deception and propaganda. The argument over the concept of indigeneity begins and ends with Hebron. You have to really try, in other words, to make the expelled and murdered Jews of Hebron into the bad guys.

But J Street knows what it’s doing, and Bowman was convinced of Jewish villainy.

The fact that J Street is trying to drive a wedge between Democrats and Israel is important. Last night, after Bowman lost his primary to Latimer, Ben-Ami sat by the waters of Babylon and wept: “It’s a mistake to read Jamaal Bowman’s defeat as a victory for pro-Israel Americans,” he posted on X. “In fact, turning Israel into a wedge issue in Democratic Party politics is actually a major loss for those who hope to promote a bipartisan US-Israel relationship.”

As many people pointed out on social media, this is demonstrably incorrect. The result of the Latimer victory was a more bipartisan U.S.-Israel relationship, by definition. Democrats last night improved the party’s relationship with Israel and with pro-Israel voters, even if modestly, and signaled that not only can it still be safe to support Israel and be a Democrat but that there are times when it may noticeably benefit your intra-party campaigns.

Ben-Ami’s message, then, contradicts his organization’s stated mission. But it does not contradict his organization’s actual mission, which is to turn Israel into a wedge issue in Democratic Party politics.

Liberal Jews Deluded Themselves on Palestine

When reality is too frightening to contemplate, often the response is either to deny it or to assert that what’s staring at you in the face is merely a facade. Hence, it’s common to see progressive and seemingly liberal movements that endorse anti-Zionism dismissed as fringe or fleeting phenomena. The result is the further obfuscation of an increasingly obvious political reality: The Democratic Party is openly courting the most antisemitic forces in America and the world.

This mystification also helps affirm Zionism’s own authentically liberal, even progressive identity: On one side are the prestigious and glamorous Western forces of liberalism, equality, and progress, of which the liberal Jewish establishment is part; and on the other, the forces of religious fascism, exotic fanaticism, and foreign barbarism on which the anti-Israel activists live.

Young American Jews have often shied away from facing the prospect that other liberal Americans of their generation—increasingly indoctrinated into left-wing ideologies and seeking a “leftist organizing space” for the struggle against racism, colonialism, and imperialism—are much more likely to align with pro-Palestinian activism than with Jews. One of the reasons is that many young Jews go to the same schools, where they are indoctrinated into the same ideologies, and are often unlikely to critically question whether there is something inherently distorted and dangerous in them.

Cries of “intifada” and “from the river to the sea” are not bugs in the new politics; they are features. There is no “version” of “social justice” politics without them. And as long as American Jews persist in ignoring that reality, they will continue to feel shocked and alone. The American Jewish establishment’s hope that it could overlook this reality and instead impress its erstwhile friends with “allyship” and stories of its contributions to the civil rights movement, feminism, and other progressive causes was a profoundly mistaken strategy that squandered whatever communal power they might have retained within the Democratic Party. The result is that the American Jewish establishment is increasingly disposable, both to Jews and to those who hate them.

06/26 Links Pt1: The day-after plan for Gaza on Israeli leaders’ desks; Negotiating with Hamas Can’t Work; The Pogrom on Pico Boulevard; UNRWA Says All Donors Except U.S. Have Returned

From Ian:

The day-after plan for Gaza on Israeli leaders’ desks

The researchers argue that “the window of opportunity for transformation and rehabilitation is short,” meaning a few years. As such, the work towards changing Gazan society must start immediately after Hamas’ defeat.

This “requires civilian management, and the urgency of the timeline means that we must immediately start planning and establishing an effective and agreed-upon system for managing the Palestinian population in areas under Israeli control,” the paper states. The local governing apparatus in this initial stage would need to build trust with the local population and treat them in a dignified manner, which is necessary for the rehabilitation of Gaza to succeed. The paper suggests partnering with moderate Arab states.

The authors of the paper describe a delicate balance by which “successful transformation requires the creation of a positive horizon for the defeated nation,” while “the option of Israeli military rule must float in the background.”

Independence of some kind – avoiding the political debates about Palestinian statehood, the paper says only “an autonomous Palestinian entity” – would come only when concrete and measurable goals are met, including education for peace, distancing itself from violence and terror and effective governance.

However, if Israel makes clear that it will leave Gaza at some point regardless of its progress — similar to the U.S. setting a date to leave Afghanistan — Gazans will have less of an incentive to come up with an alternative to Hamas. As such, the goals Gazans need to meet must not have a rigid schedule attached to them.

Physical rehabilitation of Gaza is not enough; the paper calls to build its spirit as well by “eradicating jihadist ambitions” through overhauling the education, religion and media systems, including reforming the schools’ curriculum.

This would include “purifying the education system” of extremist educators and current textbooks, and establishing bodies to supervise school content and media to ensure they do not include radical content.

In that vein, the authors call to “take advantage of the acts of rebuilding to push UNRWA out of the [Gaza] Strip,” referring to the embattled U.N. body responsible for aid to Palestinians. According to Makor Rishon, they were told by the IDF higher brass that this is unrealistic.

The new narrative created for the Palestinians in Gaza would “lean on Sunni Muslim Arab tradition … in its moderate versions in education and culture and grant the Palestinians a concrete, positive vision to latch onto for demilitarized Palestinian self-rule at the end of the process.”

“It would be very bad for Israel to do that directly,” Barak-Corren said on Senor’s podcast, and suggested that the UAE, Saudi Arabia or Egypt be involved.

The paper discourages Israel’s leadership from setting a goal of democratization for Gaza, saying that this is “a move that has failed in every place it was tried in the Arab world. The goal should not be turning Gaza into a Western democracy, but an Arab-Muslim entity that is moderate and not jihadist.”

Netanyahu said set to offer new stance on Palestinian state in speech to Congress

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will present a new position on Palestinian statehood during his speech in Washington in July that will allow normalization with Saudi Arabia to progress, according to a Tuesday evening report.

Senior aides to the Israeli leader have told the White House that Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress will contain elements that back United States President Joe Biden’s grand vision for the Middle East, Channel 13 news reported.

That plan includes a ceasefire-for-hostages deal to end the fighting in Gaza, a diplomatic solution for the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon, a pathway toward a Palestinian state, and diplomatic ties between Riyadh and Jerusalem.

Biden’s Middle East vision takes on additional urgency as presidential elections loom in November. According to a Tuesday New York Times poll, Republican challenger Donald Trump leads Biden in seven key swing states, and would triumph by 312 electoral votes to Biden’s 226 according to the current polling.

Engineering a Saudi-Israel normalization deal would be a diplomatic masterstroke, one that could blunt criticism of Biden’s policies in Gaza and in Ukraine.

The Prime Minister’s Office pushed back on the report in comments to The Times of Israel, saying that Netanyahu “opposes a Palestinian state and will not change his position in his address to Congress.”

At the same time, the PMO response did leave some maneuvering space for Netanyahu to offer rhetorical support for a vague process that leads toward increased Palestinian autonomy short of a state.

Last month, the US and Saudi Arabia discussed a “semi-final” version of wide-ranging security agreements between the countries. The agreements are considered a major part of Washington’s efforts to bring Riyadh around to recognizing Israel for the first time. Saudi Arabia and the US have been clear that movement toward Palestinian statehood is a condition for an agreement.

Netanyahu: Allowing PA to collapse not in Israel's interest

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed a surprising stance in closed-door discussions, stating that the collapse of the Palestinian Authority (PA) was not in Israel's interest at that time. This revelation came ahead of a crucial cabinet meeting that approved a series of sanctions against Palestinian officials and countries that recognized a Palestinian state.

In a confidential conversation reported by N12, Netanyahu emphasized the importance of the PA's activities for Israel, despite his usual public criticism of the organization. "We cannot ignore the activities and actions of the PA; they have significant benefits for Israel," Netanyahu said, as cited by N12.

He further elaborated on the potential consequences of the PA's collapse. "The collapse of the Palestinian Authority is not in Israel's interest at this time. There is a need to promote actions that stabilize the Authority to prevent escalation in the area," he added, according to N12. The collapse of the PA

The cabinet convened to finalize sanctions that targeted Palestinian officials and implemented economic measures against the PA. Additionally, the sanctions extended to countries that had formally recognized a Palestinian state, N12 reported. This came amidst a backdrop of a severe financial crisis for the PA, which had seen a drastic reduction in clearance revenue transfers and a significant drop in economic activity. The World Bank warned that the PA's fiscal situation had "dramatically worsened," with a financing gap projected to double to $1.2 billion within months.

According to the report, during the discussion, ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich pushed for increased Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria, aligning with their longstanding political agendas. This development followed previous cabinet decisions to penalize the PA for its support of terror and actions against Israel on the international stage.

Negotiating with Hamas Can’t Work

I SERVED ON TWO PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAMS in Iraq and Afghanistan, which provided hundreds of millions of dollars in projects throughout Diyala, Kapisa, and Parwan. Some of my troops paid the ultimate price to give reconstruction projects to Iraqis and Afghans. It was important work, and I’m very proud of what we did. I remember those smiling Afghan children’s faces very well.

However, most of the time, it didn’t work. In Afghanistan, the Taliban intimidated our contractors, took our money, and then used it to kill our troops. In Iraq, it was a little bit different. When I served in 2010 in Diyala, the surge provided stability, which allowed some of our reconstruction projects to do some actual good. But all that good went out the window when we voluntarily left, allowing the Islamic State to destroy all that we had built.

This is the second reason to greet Hamas’s overtures with suspicion: If they aren’t using misdirection to gain time to rearm and improve their military odds in the current conflict, they are trying to secure an agreement that will make it possible for them to prepare to launch the next one. War with Israel is the only reason they exist. Count on it: If Hamas were to sign any deal allowing them to survive, they will take all the reconstruction money and turn it into a way to kill more Jews. They will rebuild their army. They will also emerge from the tunnels as conquering heroes among the jihadist community—both al Qaeda and the Taliban have already praised Hamas for their October 7, 2023 pogrom—and they will attack again.

Americans want quick fixes, and our enemies are counting on us to play to type. That’s because jihadists don’t have the same conception of time that we do. There’s an old Pashtun proverb, “The Pashtun who took revenge after a hundred years said, ‘I took it too quickly.’” The Taliban’s patience, combined with resilience, persistence, and willingness to die, made them formidable opponents. Hamas takes a similarly long view. They don’t need a first-world military to defeat the West. Instead, aided by their deep study of Western values, they will continue their cynical guerrilla war until we grow tired, relent, and retreat.

We’ve seen scenes like this play out before, and we’ll see them again. Since the Israeli government removed every Israeli from Gaza at gunpoint in 2005, Israel and Hamas have fought major battles in 2008–2009, 2012, 2014, and now since October 7, with sporadic rocket fire and airstrikes in between. The result of every previous ceasefire has been more terrorism. There’s a reason governments don’t negotiate with terrorists.

And if you think what Hamas did in Gaza is shocking, wait until the world sees what is in store in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and al Qaeda are building a similar terror state.

WAR IS A HIDEOUS THING. I’ve experienced it up close and personal. The trauma that it inflicts scars generations. I bear those scars. But sometimes the enemy must be killed, especially when the enemy repeatedly tells you he just wants to kill you. The destruction of Hamas, pursued while striving to minimize civilian deaths, is the only realistic hope of preventing many more civilian deaths in the future. If Hamas can be defeated, the prospect of a future peace, however distant, may become real once more.

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

John Kirby, though someone I don’t like, is a darned sight better at presiding over a White House presser than is, for instance, KJP. That’s about the best I have to say about him. But the way he sneered at Fox News Chief Legal Correspondent, Journalist Shannon Bream, in an April interview, literally turned my stomach.

Ugh. It was like he was saying, “Listen little Lady, you stay in your corner, and let the big boys handle this.”

Well, like I said, this was back in April, but the subject of that interview, covert US support for Iran, remains relevant to our current news cycle, with Israel looking at a face-off with the evil Iranian proxy, Hezbollah. Biden’s support of Iran was relevant too, in November, when I wrote about the money trail that led to October 7. It irritated me, the way the Biden administration kept saying that Iran can’t possibly use its own money to fund its war machine. I hear that stuff and say out loud, squinting my eyes at my computer screen, “You know darned well that money is fungible, you blankety blank blank.”

Fungible. It’s not that difficult a concept. When one anticipates money coming in, they risk taking it from somewhere else. Some not of my religion might call this “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand any of this, right? Yet here was Shannon Bream, a lawyer, polite, refined, asking a reasonable question, and all John Kirby does is sneer and leer at her. You can practically hear Kirby rolling his eyes.

Here's how the conversation went:

Shannon Bream: There are a number of critics, most of them on the GOP side of the Hill, who say, “We shouldn’t be in this position.”
That there are things that were done by this administration, that let Iran think it had an opening here, or others that want to go after Israel. Senator Marsha Blackburn among those, posting on X last night, she says,
“Under President Trump, Iran was broke.
“President Biden gifted them billions of dollars and then naively said, ‘Don’t.’
“‘Don’t.’ is not a foreign policy.”

Under President Trump, Iran was broke.

President Biden gifted them billions of dollars and then naively said “don’t.”

“Don’t” is not a foreign policy.
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) April 13, 2024

Shannon Bream: You know the conversations about unfreezing assets, about waivers on sanctions . . .

John Kirby: Yeah, Yeah. (laughs)

Shannon Bream: Could this administration [have been] tougher on Iran?

John Kirby: (shakes head) It’s hard to look at what President Biden has done with respect to Iran and . . .

Shannon Bream: (interrupts) but we’re also leaving sanctions.

John Kirby: . . . say that he hasn’t been tough on Iran, that we haven’t put pressure on them, that we haven’t—an additional 500 sanctions, additional resources in the region and let’s take a look at that ballistic missiles—okay, so they launched more than 100 ballistic missiles, and how many got through? And the reason they didn’t get through is because President Biden made sure that we pre-position forces in the region to help Israel—will shoot them down—so this vaunted ballistic missile program of theirs, last night (stutters) didn’t turn out to be so vaunted last night.

Shannon Bream: (interrupts) But why not support something that would have stopped that program or at least contained it in some way, so it’s not launching at Israel, so that we aren’t having to get involved defensively?

John Kirby: Again, Shannon, let’s look at the sanctions we put in place with Iran, the resources in the region ... it’s hard to take a look at what President Biden has done and say that we’ve somehow gone soft on Iran. It was the previous administration that promised, that promised to get us out of the Iran Deal and now Iran is so much dramatically closer to a potential nuclear weapon capability than they were before, uh, before, uh, before Mr. Trump was elected. (sneers)

Shannon Bream: Is it not fair to say though, that there have been moves by this administration that have opened up cash and other opportunities for them which we know are fungible, in ways that are not helping the Iranian people (Kirby laughs) but are benefitting the elites and people there who chant “Death to America.” And “Death to Israel.”

John Kirby: You and I have had this fungibility argument, eh, (stutters) before em, um, I obviously take a different issue, uh, take an issue with that characterization. The (gestures), the sanctions relief that has come about. . . or it’s not even sanctions relief, but eh, (stutters) the eh, eh, additional funds which have been made available to Iran, due to the sanctions relief program that the Trump administration put in place. (shakes head) It can only be used for humanitarian goods; it doesn’t go to the regime. And the idea that the regime was somehow . . . felt like they were freed up to support these proxies because of that it just doesn’t comport with the facts that they have been supporting these proxies for many, many years.

Shannon Bream: And it comports with their language though, saying, we will use this money in the way that we want to use it.

John Kirby: They can’t (shakes head, laughs, sneers). They can’t! They physically can’t do that.

It’s upsetting. Bream is pretty, but that doesn’t mean she is empty-headed. Rather she is fiercely smart, and a lawyer to boot, and should not be treated with so little regard. I was sickened by his insulting manner toward a lady, and an intelligent one, at that.

Aside from this, Kirby never answered her question—never managed to explain why the fact that money is fungible is something to dismiss. Why would Iran not take advantage the fact that money is fungible to build its war machine? Bream has a good question, and deserves a good answer from this administration. We all do.

But there is no good answer. The Biden administration knowingly assisted Iran in building up its nuclear arsenal, and also gave Iran the power to fuel the October 7 massacre, and the volcano about to erupt in Northern Israel and Lebanon. Shannon Bream knows this, and so does Kirby—every time he stutters, you know he’s concealing something. In spite of this, John Kirby treats Shannon Bream as though she were a simpleton. This was profoundly disturbing to me, both as a woman and as a human being.

The silky words tripping off Kirby’s tongue, brought to my mind nothing so much as the snake who used cunning words to goad Eve on to eat the apple.

In this case the snake was just another Biden hack who’d sold his soul to the highest bidder.

I think Bream did a great job of exposing Kirby for what he is, for anyone who saw the interview and noted his demeaning manner toward his host, Bream. I cannot see how any woman, Democrat or Republican, can sit through that interview and not see how slimy he is.

And now, as June comes to a close, the United States has let slip, by way of US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Brown, that America will not be helping Israel fight Iran/Hezbollah this time around, not necessarily because America doesn’t want to, but because, it claims, the US doesn’t have the capability.

“From our perspective,” said Charles Brown, “based on where our forces are, the short-range between Lebanon and Israel, it’s harder for us to be able to support them in the same way we did back in April.”

In other words, those over 100 ballistic missiles Kirby referenced back in April were one thing, but not this. “Sorry,” says America to Israel. “We can’t help you with this one. Now, you’re on your own.”

Here is the logical—the only—answer to Bream’s question, solid proof that money is always fungible, even in the case of Iran. The lifting of sanctions by the Biden administration has directly led to the current existential threat to Israel and, one might add, to Lebanon.

The Biden administration has enabled Iran, all the while doing what it can to stymie Israel. The president feeds the enemy with fungible funds while starving his ally of promised weaponry and other assistance.

Some speak of a coming world war, while people like Kirby, continue to sneer and laugh and lie to intelligent people like Shannon Bream, who see right through them. At some point, John Kirby’s act will grow old—he was never meant to be anything but mid-level management. Not to worry—they’ll find a use for Kirby somewhere. Like I said, he gives a mean White House presser.

Or perhaps they can bury him in mounds of paperwork behind a desk, hidden away from public view.

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 his absence, Ella Ben Ami apologizes to her father for being emotionless. She’s not without emotion, on the contrary – the problem is too many emotions.

Ella had to close off her heart to keep functioning, to retain her dignity during the fight of her life: liberating her father from Hamas captivity in Gaza.

As if that is not enough, Ella is also caring for her mother, who was held hostage in Gaza for 54 days. Raz had a serious pre-existing health condition and was denied treatment while in captivity. By the time she was released in the hostage deal made with Hamas, her health had deteriorated to a frightening extent.

The knowledge that Ohad, her beloved husband, is still in Gaza does not help her heal - her beloved Ohad who proposed to her every single day.

Now Ella wears his wedding ring on a necklace to feel him close to her heart.

It was Ella’s voice that, on October 7^th, made me finally comprehend that something unspeakably horrific was happening.

That Saturday, the Red Alert app on Lenny’s phone woke me up. Mine is set to go off for alerts in Haifa, where we live. Alerts are now very location-specific to avoid unnecessarily traumatizing people, but Lenny says it’s unacceptable not to know when our people are being bombed. That’s why his alerts are set for the entire country.

The warning of incoming missiles was going off non-stop. Missiles from Gaza, aimed at the south and even towards the center of the country. So many, that he turned off the alerts on the phone and turned on the TV to see what was happening.

I assumed it was another “round” like so many others before. Horrible but not something that meant I had to get up. But then he said: “Wake up! Look! There are terrorists in Sderot!”

Groggily I looked at the TV and saw the now infamous image of terrorists piled up on a white pick-up truck driving into Sderot. Six or seven terrorists? Terrible! But they would soon be eliminated… that’s what I and so many others thought. At the time no one understood that we had been invaded.

I began to understand when Ella called the news station.

Ella had already been trapped for hours in the safe-room of her house in Beeri. Frantic with worry for her parents, and because no one else was responding to her requests for help, she called the news station, hoping that at least there, she would be heard.

The invaders were in the kibbutz, butchering people, and burning homes. Ella’s parents were messaging her, describing the terrorists' rampage in their neighborhood, their home, breaking into their safe-room and then… silence.

And then Ella saw her father’s image on a Gazan news site, being dragged into Gaza in a t-shirt and boxer shorts.

It was 11:48 when she called. The invasion had begun around 6:00 am.

Ella told Danny Kushmaro, the newscaster, that her father had been taken hostage, to Gaza. Shocked, he carefully tried to clarify the details of what was happening. It was incomprehensible to imagine that this was happening.

“How old are you?”

“23. My father was taken hostage to Gaza.”

“Are you sure? How do you know?”

It was Ella who explained to the reporters and to all of Israel that not only were our people being slaughtered but that they were also being taken hostage.

The first time I met Ella was in the Knesset. She had come with many other family members of the hostages to explain to the Members of Knesset what they needed and ask for their help. This has unfortunately become a heart-wrenching weekly ritual because the hostages are still not home.

Exhausted but with great dignity, Ella told the MK’s and everyone else listening, most of whom were at least double her age that the chasm between the processes set in place to help victims of terrorism and the reality she is forced to deal with.

“Yes, I know there are ways for victims of terrorism to get help but there is a lot of paperwork to fill out. I can’t focus on forms. I can’t think about what happened to me... I was trapped for 15 hours and evacuated under fire. I had to walk over bodies. I was almost killed three times… but my mother is sick, and my father is still in Gaza.”

Ella isn’t alone. She has two sisters, her mother, extended family. She has her friends and a new family – the children, brothers, and sisters of other hostages. They credit her with many of the ideas on how to keep the hostages in the public eye. They find themselves looking to her, for ideas and motivation because although she is younger than them, she is a natural-born leader.

And that is just the thing – she’s not alone but what 23-year-old wants to lead this terrible battle? All she wants is to have her father back. Only then her family be able to begin to heal. Only then will she allow herself to think about herself.

Only when her father comes home Ella will she be able to begin imagining a future. What place she will be able to call home? Be’eri where she grew up and was happy? The place where she had to step over bodies, run past burned cars, and breathe the stench of death? Where every path, every house is a reminder of friends and neighbors who are supposed to be there and are not? How will she create her own family, knowing that the State didn’t succeed in protecting hers or even, after this disaster occurred, succeed in fixing the problem?

We have to fix this.

Liberating Ella’s father isn’t enough. Every hostage is more than their individual story, more even than their family left behind, sick with worry or broken by grief. The Nation of Israel is one family. We argue and we don’t always like each other but we are still family.

Every living hostage must be liberated. Our dead must be buried. Our future must be protected. We must prove to the world that we meant it when we said NEVER AGAIN. If we do not, this will happen again and again and again. Our enemies promised us that.

Every day is October 7^th until we fix this.

And Ella? Every time I see her my heart goes out to her. Not with pity, but with pride in her eloquent dignity, her unbending determination, and love of family and friends. I don’t know how I would cope were I in her shoes (and any of us could be). Frankly, worry over my soldiers, and worry for friends and family is enough to make me physically ill.

I wish I could lift the burden from Ella’s shoulders.

It was her words that began this war for me. I hope for the day that I will hear her say words that prove we are on the right track, words that will give us all hope: “My father is home. The hostages are home.”

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!