Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, April 08, 2025

04/08 Links Pt1: What’s Israel’s Strategy in Gaza?; The truth about the elimination of October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar; Princeton Radicals Disrupt Event With Naftali Bennet, Yelling 'Genocide' and Pulling Fire Alarm

From Ian:

Michael Doran: The King’s Foils

The catastrophic failure of Biden’s Iran-centric approach should have discredited Restraintism, but its capacity to wear the ideological colors of every party means it is not fully dislodged from the policy establishment. Its adherents now shelter under Trump’s banner, but his policies show a clearer understanding of the region’s power dynamics.

Trump knows that the role of the United States is not to draw up idealistic roadmaps. Will he also see that its role now is to buffer between America’s allies who don’t trust each other? That’s what it did in the Cold War when, for example, it shielded Israel and Saudi Arabia, both indispensable to American power, from each other. It has historically fulfilled the same function between its NATO allies Greece and Turkey. The same logic applies now. Israel and Turkey will clash unless the United States puts distance between them by stabilizing Syria. That country must serve—like Jordan—as a buffer state: neutral, minimally armed, not a platform for escalation. Only the United States can broker such an arrangement.

Doing so requires leverage, which Trump has. Turkey’s economy is not strong, with inflation high, productivity low, and its currency long in decline. Overcentralization has frightened away capital. Meanwhile, Syria is devastated beyond recognition: Large cities are in ruins and millions of people remain displaced. Reconstruction will require outside capital, and none of it will come without a green light from the United States.

Trump has the tools. Reconstruction in Syria cannot begin until the United States lifts sanctions on Damascus, and only Washington can coordinate a reconstruction plan that will mobilize American, European, and Gulf investment to maximum effect. But American leadership in this arena must come with a price: Turkish and Israeli de-escalation. Syria cannot become a Turkish base for threatening Israel.

That is the logic, and it fits Trump’s instincts perfectly. America should not police the region, Trump believes, but he is also unready to surrender it. His style of diplomacy is transactional, built around economic leverage—exactly what this moment requires.

If Trump brokers an understanding between Ankara and Jerusalem, while neutralizing Iran, he will have achieved what the Restraintists always promise but never manage to deliver. He will have shown that the United States can lead without overextending. It can lay the foundation for a regional order that doesn’t collapse under its own contradictions, an order that offers the United States control over oil resources, shipping lanes, investment capital, and intellectual property that are key to the economic future of most of the planet.

The real choice facing Trump is not between intervention and isolation, the false binary that Restraintists present. Rather, it is between strategic engagement that leverages America’s economic power and diplomatic reach, versus the ideological retreat that Restraintists advocate. His zigzag approach—alternating between forceful action and diplomatic outreach, maintaining hawks and Restraintists in tension within his administration—creates the strategic ambiguity and flexibility needed to manage complex regional dynamics without committing to large-scale military deployments.

By continuing this approach while focusing on the Golden Triangle of Israel-Turkey-Iran, Trump can establish a stable regional order that advances American interests without requiring American troops. This is the true “America First” foreign policy—one that recognizes American power and interests while acknowledging the public’s wariness of military entanglements. It represents a genuine alternative to both neoconservative interventionism and Restraintist isolation. It is within reach. If Trump pursues it, he can change the game—and win bigly.

The truth about the elimination of October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar

The division’s intelligence personnel worked frantically to narrow these knowledge gaps. Retrospective analysis would later reveal these gaps were substantial. The division was surprised to discover during operations that Hamas leadership had concealed themselves in relatively shallow tunnels approximately 15 metres (49 feet) deep, not the expected 60-70 metres (197-230 feet).

Further, they found the tunnels were nearly completely interconnected, enabling continuous movement throughout the underground network – another critical detail largely unknown to Israeli intelligence.

Despite incomplete intelligence and insufficient forces, the 98th Division pressed forward. Previously undisclosed details about the Khan Yunis campaign of December-February 2024 reveal a brilliant, persistent military operation featuring the IDF’s first comprehensive underground pursuit of Hamas’s entire leadership structure.

Hamas operatives typically fled without engaging – abandoning their underground complexes and escaping through connecting tunnels to adjacent sectors. During these retreats, they would detonate explosives to collapse tunnel segments behind them, protected by blast doors. These collapses delayed pursuing forces, allowing the operatives to escape repeatedly.

On one occasion, during the brief window between the IDF ground force’s withdrawal and Goldfuss underground team’s arrival, Sinwar, Deif and Salameh escaped the tunnel disguised as women. Forensic evidence collected later, along with surveillance footage, confirmed that they had indeed been there.

IDF troops discovered the underground complex shortly after the group’s escape and found Hamas leadership’s meal still set out on plates. “The coffee was still hot,” as division commander Goldfus later described to media.

Evidence from the abandoned complex, combined with additional intelligence flowing to command centres, indicated Sinwar was fleeing toward western Khan Yunis.

The Shin Bet accordingly redirected IDF operations in this direction. “This marked the point where Sinwar’s hourglass began running out,” a security source explained. “Until then, he had maintained a static position, minimizing opportunities for mistakes. But once you force him to move, he must improvise, inevitably leading to errors.”

A retrospective intelligence analysis revealed that around May 2024, Sinwar successfully escaped Khan Yunis and moved southward to neighbouring Rafah. At this stage, the IDF had not yet begun operations in Rafah, allowing Sinwar to return to the relative safety of its tunnel network.

Further intelligence indicated Sinwar arrived in Rafah without Deif. After their joint escape from the Khan Yunis house, the two men separated, with Deif remaining in Khan Yunis – possibly due to mobility limitations. Deif and brigade commander Salameh would remain in the city for several more months until their joint elimination by airstrike on July 13.

Intelligence increasingly confirmed Sinwar’s presence in Rafah, eventually narrowing focus to the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood on the city’s northwestern outskirts.

By August, the IDF leadership had directed the 162nd Armored Division, aka the Steel Formation, to concentrate efforts on Tel al-Sultan’s tunnel network – smaller and less complex than Khan Yunis’s labyrinth.

The 162nd Division employed a fundamentally different approach than the 98th Division’s earlier “cat” and later “octopus” methods in Khan Yunis. The new “elephant method” involved massive force – using bulldozers and explosives to systematically destroy extensive tunnel sections, forcing Hamas operatives above ground.

This strategy gradually denied Hamas nearly all underground movement in Tel al-Sultan, leaving Sinwar and his small security detail no choice but to venture onto the surface.

Footage broadcast on Al Jazeera shows Sinwar during August-September 2024 moving through Tel al-Sultan’s rubble-strewn landscape. These images capture him in civilian clothes, using a walking stick, and wrapped in a camouflage blanket.

Following these developments and the near-complete destruction of Tel al-Sultan’s underground infrastructure, IDF leadership considered the Rafah operation largely complete.

However, Shin Bet officials worried that completely withdrawing from the neighbourhood would allow Sinwar to escape, likely to Khan Yunis. “This prompted the Shin Bet’s insistence on maintaining presence in the area,” a security source explained.

The IDF leadership ultimately decided that the 162nd Division would withdraw from Rafah, but the city wouldn’t be completely evacuated. Instead, forces from the 143rd “Fire Fox” Division, also known as the Gaza Division, would maintain a presence there. Division commander Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram committed to continuing offensive operations, focusing on Tel al-Sultan.

The specific unit deployed to Tel al-Sultan was the 450th Battalion. Its commander R. led three companies: Kfir infantry, paratroopers under Shreibman, and a tank company from the 460th Armored Brigade’s 198th Battalion.

Shreibman’s paratroopers company received orders to secure a building code-named “the Red House,” which offered strategic observation over the area.

At first light on October 17, forces examining the slain combatant’s body discovered that it was Yahya Sinwar. “This marked the first mention of Sinwar’s name throughout the entire operation,” R. noted.

When asked if they received any recognition for killing Sinwar, R. answered plainly: “No. Our persistence produced the result, but we weren’t the only ones. The pursuit of Sinwar was extensive – we simply fired the final bullet.”

Gaza official admits natural deaths listed as war fatalities

Many of those listed as war fatalities in Gaza actually died of natural causes or did not die at all, a Palestinian health official working for Hamas admitted on Saturday, following an analysis that showed massive discrepancies in casualty tallies.

The head of the statistics team at Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry, Zaher al-Wahidi, made the admission to Sky News after an analysis by the HonestReporting nonprofit last week found that some 3,400 individuals listed as war casualties in earlier tallies had been dropped from the ministry’s latest update.

Comparing the October and August tallies to the March one, HonestReporting researcher Salo Aizenberg found “around 3,400 names missing” from the latest one, “including over 1,000 minors,” he told JNS.

“We realized that a lot of people died a natural death,” Wahidi told Sky News regarding the October tally. “Maybe they were near an explosion and they had a heart attack, or houses caused them pneumonia or hypothermia. All these cases we don’t [attribute to] the war,” he said.

According to Sky News, 1,852 people appearing in October’s official list of war fatalities were removed from the March one after it was found that some had died of natural causes or were alive but had been imprisoned. In total, 3,952 names have been removed in several corrections from Gaza’s reported death toll since the war began, according to the outlet.

Whereas the Gaza Health Ministry had previously admitted error that it attributed to reporting mechanism issues, it had not conceded that natural deaths were counted along with war casualties.

The March statistics changed the age distribution of reported fatalities in Gaza: Of all deaths recorded by Hamas between the ages of 13 to 55, which is the general combat age for Hamas fighters, 72% were male, according to the HonestReporting analysis.

Middle East Children's Alliance, which promoted fake Gaza children's artwork in the US, has ties to terror groups

From National Review:

The Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance (MECA), a California nonprofit that designs K–12 curriculum material, has fiscal and personnel ties to U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations, according to a new report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI).

“Our investigation of MECA has yielded evidence suggesting it holds fiscal and personnel ties to US designated foreign terrorist organizations, chiefly the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), alongside a host of extremist anti-government actors based in the United States,” reads the report by the NCRI, released on Monday.

MECA is really dedicated to spreading anti-Israel propaganda to American children.

I looked at them in 2012 when they had a traveling exhibition of Palestinian children's art. The art looked way too mature for children, and I asked some experts whether they could have been conceived and drawn by children. (Besides their sophistication, I was struck that not one of the pictures were signed, something kids would prioritize.) The overwhelming consensus was no way that these were done by kids, although some of the images might have been drawn by adults and traced or colored by children.

I just asked an AI its opinion on these four images. It concurred:

Image 1 (burning houses, tanks, sad trees, smiling sun)

🔍 Assessment: Mixed signals

Child-like features: Uneven proportions, floating figures, exaggerated facial expressions, symbolic objects like the crying sun and “sad trees” suggest a child’s emotional worldview.

Adult cues: The layout is unusually complex — a two-point perspective street, tanks placed in correct scale to buildings, with multiple narrative layers (people fleeing, soldiers, journalists, etc.).

🔎 Verdict: Possibly created by a child with heavy adult guidance or mimicry. The messaging is sophisticated; the rendering is inconsistent.

Image 2 (black smoke, aircraft bombing city)

🔍 Assessment: Unlikely to be child-drawn

Sophisticated use of space: Planes are proportioned and angled correctly, smoke is stylized with volume and spiral shading, buildings show mass and collapse.

Symbolism: The tone is graphic and deliberate — it feels like a visual editorial, not a spontaneous emotional drawing.

🔎 Verdict: Very unlikely to be drawn by a 9–11-year-old without tracing or copying an adult example. Highly probable adult origin or at least tracing from reference material.

Image 3 (missile with U.S. and Israeli flags hitting building, mother and child looking on)

🔍 Assessment: Highly unlikely to be child-authored

Symbolic complexity: The U.S. and Israeli flags painted on a missile require political awareness well beyond age 9–11.

Narrative composition: A foreground of bloody corpses, a background of crumbling buildings, a directional missile — all clearly staged for moral impact.

🔎 Verdict: This is propaganda art, stylistically simplified to look childlike, but too ideologically mature for the claimed age group. Adult author highly probable.

Image 4 (helicopters bombing mosque, realistic tank firing)

🔍 Assessment: Certainly not child-drawn

Technique: This is watercolor/ink wash with strong line confidence and spatial consistency — hallmarks of trained adult illustrators.

Style: Consistent with editorial cartooning — not child expression.

🔎 Verdict: No ambiguity. This image was created by an adult, possibly professional, possibly Latuff himself or an imitator. No 9–11-year-old could produce this without tracing and instruction.

Overall Conclusion:

1 out of 4 could plausibly be a child’s original drawing, and even that shows signs of directed messaging.

3 out of 4 show stylistic, symbolic, or technical sophistication inconsistent with 9–11-year-old artistic development.

The collection as a whole appears curated to appear emotionally raw, but closer inspection reveals intentional, mature propaganda techniques.

This is who is trying to infect our children with anti-Israel hate, in America. It is not at all surprising that they would be affiliated with the PFLP, which (besides being a terrorist group) is by far the most advanced Palestinian propaganda outfit.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The UN Economic and Social Council announced this week that Qatar is one of the countries chosen to join the Commission on the Status of Women (along with Cabo Verde, China, Gabon, Japan, Maldives, Mongolia, Morocco, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, by acclamation.

Let's look at how Qatar treats its women:

Women must obtain permission from their male guardians—typically a father, brother, grandfather, or uncle—to marry, regardless of age.
Pursuing higher education, especially abroad on government scholarships, requires male guardian approval.
Certain government jobs necessitate male guardian consent for women to work.
Unmarried women under 25 need male guardian permission to travel abroad.
Access to some forms of reproductive health care is contingent upon male guardian approval.
Men possess a unilateral right to divorce, whereas women must apply to the courts and meet specific conditions to obtain a divorce.
Married women are legally obligated to obey their husbands and may lose financial support if they work or travel without spousal consent.
Women are denied the authority to act as primary guardians of their children, even when divorced and holding legal custody. This limitation restricts their ability to make critical decisions regarding their children's lives.

Some specific examples:

Women reported that they were denied hotel check-ins unless they were accompanied by a male guardian or could prove they were married.

Hospitals may require male guardian consent for certain health procedures like accessing prenatal care, delivery, or even basic gynecological services.

Some women reported being denied emergency treatment at hospitals until a male relative could arrive and approve.

Someone tell me....is creating this list Islamophobic?

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

My series on antisemitism has evolved into something broader: using Jewish ethics as a baseline for personal and political judgment. Today, I want to apply this lens to a case of subtle media bias - a recent New York Times article on the International Criminal Court.

Leaders Flex Muscles Against International Criminal Court
The leaders of Israel, Hungary and the United States have moved to neutralize the judiciary both at home and abroad.

There are several things going on here, analysts say, which tie together the affinities of Mr. Orban, Mr. Netanyahu and President Trump.

Bonding: The International Criminal Court is the most ambitious and idealistic — if deeply imperfect — version of an global judicial system to enforce human rights. Most liberals love it. Mr. Orban, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Trump hate it.

Signaling: Mr. Orban is telling the world that Hungary does what it wants: It may be a member of the European Union, but it is not constrained by it. He’s telling China and Russia that Hungary is open for business. And he’s telling his voters at home that it’s Hungary First all the way.

Testing boundaries: At a moment when global institutions are crumbling and a new order has not yet emerged, no one knows what’s allowed and what’s forbidden anymore.

But Mr. Orban’s defiance of the court is also about something else: a desire to sideline independent judges, both at home and abroad.

“Quite simply, some international institutions have become political bodies,” he told a Hungarian radio program on Friday. “Unfortunately, the International Criminal Court is one of these. It is a political court.”

The power struggles between leaders and judges — whether international or domestic — have become a defining political theme in many countries, including Hungary, Israel, Brazil and the United States.

The article presents a narrative: these three leaders share authoritarian instincts and want to weaken legal checks on their power. The ICC, we’re told, is “ambitious and idealistic — if deeply imperfect.” The reader is left to assume that criticism of the court is just another sign of creeping despotism.

But when we step back and apply a Jewish moral lens, the picture becomes clearer — and the bias more obvious.

Jewish political ethics, which heavily influenced Western philosophy, begin with the idea of covenant (brit). At Sinai, the Israelites voluntarily accepted God’s authority. In return, they became a nation bound by a system of law. That covenantal relationship is the foundation of Jewish nationhood and moral order.

This is the same foundational principle behind Western liberal democracy: the “social contract” described by Rousseau and embedded in the U.S. Constitution. It assumes that power is legitimate only when it emerges from a shared moral agreement between rulers and ruled.

Within that framework, national leaders must be subject to their own legal systems. Jewish ethics demands this, as does the Western tradition it helped inspire. So when leaders attempt to subvert or ignore national courts, it’s morally right to criticize them.

But the International Criminal Court is not grounded in any covenant. It presumes universal jurisdiction - even over nations and individuals who never consented to its authority. This is not law through covenant. This is law through imperium.

The ICC was created through the Rome Statute in 2002. Unlike most international treaties, it explicitly prohibits reservations. Signatories must accept the court’s authority in full or not at all. That’s not a covenant — that’s submission.

Even democratic nations that joined expressed concern. Australia, for example, stated upon ratification, “Australia reaffirms the primacy of its criminal jurisdiction in relation to crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court.”

Spain similarly insisted that any ICC sentence for its citizens must be compatible with Spanish law. These caveats show that even member states were wary of the court’s overreach.

More tellingly, Israel and the United States never joined — and not just under Netanyahu or Trump. Both nations have long been concerned that the ICC could become politicized, would undermine national sovereignty, and lacks the checks and balances that protect fairness in domestic legal systems.

In fact, the Rome Statute includes a war crime category created specifically for Israel, exposing its political nature from the outset and violating the Jewish (and democratic) principle of equal law for all.

The New York Times acknowledges that the ICC is “deeply imperfect,” but then drops it. No elaboration, no context. That small phrase is the only hint that critics of the ICC might have legitimate concerns. But the article doesn’t explore those. Instead, it funnels the entire critique through the lens of autocracy.

This is where the Jewish moral lens becomes essential. It reveals what the article hides: The ICC lacks the covenantal legitimacy Jewish ethics demands. It violates national self-determination - a core moral right.

I cannot read Orban's or Trump's minds. Maybe they really are power-hungry strongmen. But the NYT, by ignoring the deeply problematic nature of the court, doesn't even admit the possibility that they may be defending a deeper ethical principle that justice must be rooted in shared moral commitment, not imposed authority. Without that lens, readers may miss the difference between resisting accountability and resisting illegitimate power.

Jewish ethics doesn’t oppose international law. But it insists that law must emerge from covenant, from mutual responsibility and consent. Without that, “law” becomes just another tool of power. This became clear last year when the ICC rushed to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu while the Gaza war was still ongoing, even though in other cases it has given nations years to demonstrate their inability or unwillingness to prosecute before stepping in.

The ICC lacks covenant. The NYT lacks context. And the moral arguments against both are not partisan, but principled.

Once you put on those Jewish moral glasses, the picture becomes much clearer. And without that framework, it is much easier to be swayed by media bias and propaganda.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Antisemitic incidents in Canada are off the charts

B'nai Brith Canada issued its annual report on antisemitism. The results are chilling.

Incidents increased by huge amounts in 2024. Comparing them over time makes the increase in the past two years even more sickening.

It lists some incidents:

In May, at an anti-Israel encampment at the University of Toronto, an individual performed a Nazi salute at a Jewish student and declared that he wished the Nazis had “murdered all of you.”

Also in May, an arsonist attempted to burn down the Schara Tzedeck Synagogue in Vancouver, igniting a fire at the entrance as evening prayers were ending.

In another May incident, shots were fired at a Jewish girls’ school in Toronto. The school was subsequently targeted twice more by gunfire in 2024.

In August, a bomb threat menaced Jewish institutions throughout the country, including synagogues, community centres and B’nai Brith Canada offices.

In July, the RCMP arrested a father and son in connection with an ISIS-inspired plot to allegedly murder Jews in the Greater Toronto Area.

In November, anti-Israel protesters rallied outside of a synagogue in Montreal and chanted antisemitic slogans, in defiance of a court order prohibiting the groups involved from assembling near the building.

At the end of November, a woman attending an anti-Israel demonstration in Montreal directed a Nazi salute at Jewish passersby and said that a “Final Solution” was coming their way.

In December, an arsonist firebombed Congregation Beth Tikvah, in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Montreal, in the second such attack at the location in the wake of Oct. 7, 2023.

And it illustrates some others:

And the Canadian government is still not taking this seriously.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

04/07 Links Pt2: Passover and Antisemitism: Three Chilling Insights; Sudan’s ‘forgotten war’ exposes the inhumanity of Israelophobia; Melanie Phillips: Home truths for secularists

From Ian:

‘My tidal wave of monstrous fury’: Simon Schama on tonight’s Holocaust documentary

There is a moment when Sir Simon Schama looks straight at the camera in his latest documentary – the first to take him to Auschwitz – and it is one of the rawest things ever seen on television.

Having come face to face with the horror of what antisemitism can lead to, he cannot hold it in. He admits to a “tidal wave of monstrous fury at everyone. Not just the SS. Not just the Germans. It took hundreds of years of bigger dehumanising hatred to make it conceivable that a whole civilisation ends up in smoke.”

And then comes the kicker as his eyes fill with tears and he shakes with fury. “Pity is what others who aren’t Jews feel. Screw the pity.”

Far away from now-cold furnaces of the death camp, in a Maida Vale café, our most erudite and brilliant historian may look cosy in his thick cardigan as he sips decaffeinated cappuccino in the weak spring sunshine, but he still feels that anger and he wants to express it.

“My wife thinks I shouldn’t have said it,” he says when I ask him about the “screw pity” comment. “But I felt very strongly about it. Saying sorry is no good. Your licensed pity should have functioned at the Bermuda Conference in 1943 [when American and British leaders decided not to allow more desperate Jews into either the US or Mandatory Palestine]. It should have functioned by trying to get the parents as well as the children of the Kindertransport out. It should have functioned by letting us go somewhere safe after the war.”

Schama has his enormous reputation behind him and says that means that “when you get to 80 years old, you get quite feisty. Yes, you are terrified that you will wake up and something will have dropped off your body, but on the other hand, you do get sort of weirdly liberated.”

As he looks back in anger, he turns to some of the historians who documented the Holocaust as it was happening and whom he features in his one-off BBC film Simon Schama: The Road to Auschwitz. Historians such as Emanuel Ringelblum, who led the secret Oyneg Shabbos group in the Warsaw Ghetto which collected information about life as a doomed Jew for future posterity.

“History is not just old stuff, it is not a romantic distraction of the past,” says Schama, who feels the echoes of history screaming louder and louder at him. “If you go back ten years ago, the general view, which I probably would have shared, was that, as the survivors die, Auschwitz and the Holocaust will become history. In other words, it would be available for the kind of cool, forensic analysis like you’d apply to the origins of the First World War or the Black Death or something like that; in a time capsule. But after October 7, and possibly even before with the rise in antisemitism, it sort of left the tomb. It walks and stalks us. It’s not gone. It’s not the past. It’s alive and raving.”

That bigger story of dehumanisation is why the documentary does not start, as you might expect, in Germany with the story of the Nazis but in Lithuania where the Nazi invasion lit the fuse for a bloodlust of murder of Jews by their Lithuanian neighbours. “I have some difficulty with the title of the film – I wanted to call it Against Oblivion. My problem is that for the vast number of people who know anything about the Holocaust, it’s Anne Frank and Auschwitz.

Passover and Antisemitism: Three Chilling Insights

The Exodus from Egypt is the world’s oldest case study in antisemitism. Its lessons are alarmingly relevant today.

Pharaoh’s propaganda campaign might seem distant but look a little closer and you’ll see something chilling: the script hasn’t changed much in 3,500 years.

Here are three enduring lessons from the Exodus that can help us better understand the real nature of antisemitism—then and now.

1. Antisemitism Isn’t About the Stated Reasons—It’s About the Jewish Spiritual Threat
Pharaoh didn’t say, “We hate the Jews because they believe in one God” or “They make us uncomfortable because they won’t assimilate.”

No—he claimed the Jews were a national security threat. “The Israelites are becoming too numerous… If war breaks out, they might join our enemies and fight against us” (See Exodus 1:9–10). Really? A group of shepherds and laborers, who had lived peacefully in Goshen for generations, were suddenly a military threat capable of starting a war? This excuse is as flimsy as it sounds.

It was a lie. A pretext. And that’s the first insight: antisemitism rarely presents itself honestly. It hides behind superficial grievances—economic anxiety, political conspiracy, military suspicion - even the idea that Jews are easy scapegoats - but these are fig leaves. The real issue is much deeper.

The deeper truth, as the Torah reveals, and Hitler expressed (I show this in great detail in my book Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Jew?), is that antisemitism is rarely about the superficial reasons given—it’s about the Jews being a spiritual and ideological threat. Hitler said that all of World War II was “ideologically a battle between National Socialism and the Jews.”

The Jews have always posed a spiritual and ideological challenge to the dominant culture. In medieval Europe, Jews were blamed for economic woes, accused of usury or poisoning wells, but the real threat was our stubborn adherence to Torah values. Today, we hear antisemitic tropes about Jewish power or wealth, we see passionate protests against Israeli colonialism and committing genocide, but reasonable people know that the Jews are not the greatest violators of human rights on earth. Whether in ancient Egypt, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or today’s radicalized Islamic world led by the Palestinian Hamas, the accusations shift—but the double standards reveal the underlying discomfort with Jewish values, impact and distinctiveness.

Antisemitism is not your run of the mill racism; it’s about the Jewish soul, a light that refuses to be extinguished, threatening those who want to dwell in spiritual darkness. Jew-hatred, in the end, is not about what Jews do. It’s about what Jews are and what they represent.

“Antisemitism is incurable,” says Ryvchin

Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, has delivered a powerful speech arguing that antisemitism is “incurable” and that Zionism has failed in its original aim to normalise Jewish existence.

Around 300 people attended the B’nai B’rith annual Human Rights Oration at the Glen Eira Town Hall in Melbourne on Sunday, where Ryvchin also received the 2025 B’nai B’rith Human Rights Award.

Speaking exactly 18 months after the October 7 attacks, Ryvchin challenged conventional approaches to fighting antisemitism.

“After thousands of years, it can no longer be characterised as a defect in reasoning that can be untaught,” he stated.

“We are not ordinary. And we therefore have to accept the feelings this invokes in others.”

When asked by the AJN if his view might be controversial, Ryvchin acknowledged it might be, “particularly for those who want clear and compelling answers and want solutions.”

“I’m not in the business of misleading people and giving them satisfactory statements that make them sleep better at night. I think we have to be honest,” he said.

Ryvchin defined the battle as containing antisemitism rather than eliminating it entirely.

“The fight is not to exterminate antisemitism, reduce it to nothing, because that, in my view, is unachievable,” he told the AJN.

“The battle is to contain it, to push it back out to the peripheries of society and the dark recesses of social media, where it can’t do us harm, because at the moment, for the last 18 months, it has materially affected how Jews in this country live.”

04/07 Links Pt1: Addicted to the Drug of Hamas Propaganda; Oct. 7 victims sue PA mogul for using USAID-funded site to aid Hamas tunnels; David Lammy’s Israel hypocrisy

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Addicted to the Drug of Hamas Propaganda

This was not a foreign-policy speech to some think tank; it was Khan’s message to the Muslims of Britain on a religious holiday. His words were chosen very carefully and the intent—to stoke the flames of sectarian resentment in a country already feeling their heat—was transparent.

It’s not as if Khan doesn’t know exactly how the Jews of Britain are feeling these days. Last year, one survey found that “50% of respondents had considered leaving Britain due to antisemitism,” the Jerusalem Post reported. “Younger participants were more likely to have contemplated leaving the country, with 67% of adults 18 to 24 years of age and 63% of adults 25-49 years of age agreeing with the sentiment.”

In a study of anti-Semitism in the UK in 2024, the Community Security Trust reported that the year saw the second-highest number of anti-Semitic incidents since the CST started keeping track 40 years ago.

“These hatreds are compounded by the stony silence with which Jewish concerns are met in far too many places of work, education and culture,” Mark Gardner, CST’s chief executive, said at the time. “It leaves Jews feeling ever more isolated and worried for the future.”

He was not exaggerating, especially regarding the anti-Semitism at work. On Thursday, the Times of Israel reported that “Nearly two-thirds of Jewish employees in the UK have encountered antisemitism in the workplace.” The response to those incidents was concerning as well: respondents said they sometimes got some empty words of support, a hollow gesture or two, but nothing materially changed.

And why might that be? Perhaps, just perhaps, Britain has a problem in which its ruling party parrots literal Hamas propaganda.

And the Labourites put in a surprising amount of effort to do so, constantly searching for new and creative ways to mine the bottomless pit of anti-Israel incitement. Over the weekend, two British Labour parliamentarians showed up in Israel claiming to be on a parliamentary delegation. Israeli officials checked and the story was false—the two MPs were left-wing agitators not on an official delegation but on a mission to use their diplomatic cover to egg on the movement to boycott the Jewish state. They were refused entry—Israel has a policy of helping Israel-boycotters maintain their boycotts by putting them back on a plane.

The UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and its Foreign Minister David Lammy made petulant statements about the incident in support of their awful Labour colleagues.

Again, all of this is being done not for the purposes of advancing a diplomatic settlement but to search beneath the couch cushions for any Hamas propaganda they might have missed. Hamas propaganda is a drug to them, and their behavior is that of addicts who have yet to hit rock bottom but are working hard to get there.

As everyone knows, the first step toward recovery is admitting the problem. So, yes, call them Hamas propagandists. For everyone’s sake, don’t sugarcoat the problem.

Seth Mandel: There Are No Cease-Fires in Iran’s Global War on Jews

So it isn’t terribly shocking to read the opening of the Washington Post’s account of another apparent such attempt:
“In the fall, an officer from Iran’s Quds Force met with Agil Aslanov, a drug trafficker from Georgia, according to Western and Middle Eastern security officials.

“The officer handed Aslanov a photo of a prominent Jewish figure in Azerbaijan and detailed instructions on how to kill him, the officials said. Aslanov agreed to kill Rabbi Shneor Segal for a price tag of $200,000, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.”

The attack reportedly also targeted an education center. It was disrupted by state security agents, the Post reports, and Segal was unaware he was the prime target until the plot was broken up. The Post brings up a couple of other recent Iranian plots, arguing that there has been an increase in such attempted attacks since Oct. 7, 2023: “German prosecutors have accused Iran of using criminal proxies to attack synagogues and a school in 2023. In March 2024, police in Peru arrested an Iranian man alleged to be a Quds Force member and two local accomplices over a plot to attack an Israeli national living in the South American country.”

In the spring of 2023, Iran had been suspected in a similar attack on an Azerbaijani lawmaker critical of Tehran, Fazil Mustafa. Mustafa was shot but survived. In 2024, five men were convicted of the attack.

When it comes to the Jews, however, Iran appears not only to attack dissidents or public figures. And that is equally true of Iran and its proxies’ long war of eradication toward Israel. Oct. 7 was a pogrom, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. A document recovered by the IDF in Gaza, Israel’s defense minister revealed recently, shows Hamas requesting $500 million from Iran for the purpose of destroying Israel, and Iran responding that even through difficult economic times Tehran will fund Hamas’s war.

As has been proved over and over again, there is no such thing as a peacetime Hamas, and therefore there is no such thing as a peacetime Iranian regime. The war on the Jews continues unabated no matter what else is going on. And why would that be any different from every other expression of Jew-hatred? When the pro-Hamas marchers get their cease-fire, they still march—they just find a new excuse to rant about the Jewish state.

All this talk of “permanent cease-fires” misses an important caveat: Cease-fires only apply to some.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Qatar's Muslim 'Scholars' Call For Death And Destruction

The last thing the Palestinians need are more calls from Qatar-based extremist for terrorism and jihad. If these Muslim "scholars" really want to help their Palestinian brothers, they should be calling on Hamas to release all the Israeli hostages they kidnapped, then to disarm, and then to stop pursuing the disastrous path of terrorism and jihad.

The "scholars" leading the IUMS live safely in Qatar, not in the Gaza Strip, and they are therefore not directly affected by the war that Hamas launched.

That such a call by an influential Islamic group comes from an organization based in Doha illustrates why Qatar cannot be trusted as an honest mediator in the Hamas-Israel war....

Since then, Qatar's royal family -- who amusingly seem to imagine that they are doing the US a favor by hosting the largest US Air Force base in the Middle East -- have smoothly persuaded the Americans and other Westerners that they are neutral, trustworthy mediators in the Hamas-Israel war. In reality, they are doing their utmost to protect their long-term client, Hamas, and keep it in power, just as they protected their other client, the Taliban, in Afghanistan to make sure it remained in power. If the US were to transfer its air base to a real ally, such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar would probably not survive a week.

It is time for the US to understand that Qatar continues to serve as a base and platform for jihad and Islamist terrorism. Qatar is not an ally in the war on terrorism. Qatar is the predominant sponsor and leading voice that promotes Islamist terrorism. Qatar is also, perilously, the towering donor to universities in America.

To American voters, it must look as if Qatar's sham-negotiations to keep Hamas in power are being conducted by US President Donald J. Trump's envoys primarily with an eye to avoid disrupting any future real estate deals with the emirate, rather than actually to stop the Hamas-Israel war and free the hostages.

At the very least, the US might threaten to withdraw its military assets from Qatar's Al-Udeid Air Base, just to put the most minimal pressure on the Doha to stop supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and other questionable Islamist organizations. The US might also designate the Muslim Brotherhood and IUMS as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Hate crimes in NYPD against Jews 50% more than against all other groups, COMBINED.

The New York Police Department has gotten better at updating their hate crimes dashboard. Here is a chart showing all the hate incidents reported by category for the first quarter this year.

What is it going to take for people to see that there is a real problem here - far worse than anti-Asian crimes, far worse than anti-Muslim crimes, far worse than anti-Black crimes, 50% more than all the other bias incidents combined?

There are lots of op-eds lately, written mostly by liberal Jews, decrying the Trump administration's threats and withholding funding from universities for not doing enough to fight antisemitism. These articles all say that Trump's moves will not help the issue, in fact they will make it worse for Jews.

Now, look at this chart:

What, exactly, have the Democrats done to stop antisemitism outside of writing long position papers? Antisemitism has gone up significantly, year over year, since Biden was elected President. So sorry if I am not impressed with the arguments that Trump is going to be bad for Jews. If you look at this data, it looks like Biden policies, or lack of them, did not do a single thing to make Jews feel safer.

I have no idea whether Trump's actions will make a difference or make things even worse. But we already are seeing universities responding to the Trump threats by taking strong moves to follow their own policies that have been all but ignored since October 2023. I bet that anti-Jewish activity on campus will be reduced significantly this year.

Is Trump is using antisemitism as an excuse to push his larger agenda? Maybe. But so do Democratic politicians, and no one seems too upset over that.

I don't think anyone in politics has seriously analyzed and defined antisemitism. Without a good analysis of what causes it, there can be no good solutions. But meanwhile, I see no evidence that anything Trump is doing is worse than anything the Democrats have done, and I think there is evidence that Trump's crude bull-in-a-China-shop methods are doing more than anything else I had seen.

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If you thought coming up with those eleven principles of universal personal ethics based on Jewish concepts last chapter was audacious, well, buckle your seatbelts. This chapter argues that Jewish tradition doesn’t just offer personal ethics—it provides a robust system for national conduct.

It is not enough to have a set of moral ideas for people. Jewish philosophy goes far beyond that. 3,500 years of history, including 2,000 years of rabbis arguing with each other about anything and everything, is going to cover more than how we should treat each other.

Jewish morality can, and does, have a lot to say about how nations are supposed to act, too.

Jewish ethics extends into the realms of statecraft, diplomacy, justice, and war. The wisdom embedded in Jewish political ethics provides a powerful guide to governance in a complex and morally fragile world.

Hugo Grotius is often called the "father of international law." He laid out the foundations for just war theory and global order in his 1625 work De Jure Belli ac Pacis (On the Law of War and Peace). Grotius was deeply influenced by Jewish sources - particularly Maimonides, the Talmud, and earlier rabbinic commentaries on the Noachide laws.

Like Selden, Grotius believed in universal natural law, binding on all people and nations regardless of their religion or location. He cited rabbinic sources as evidence that such moral principles were truly universal. He particularly embraced the idea that international conduct must be governed by shared ethical principles, including:

The right of self-defense
The obligation to honor treaties
The sanctity of noncombatants
Proportionality in war
The preference for peace over conquest

There are the foundations of international law to this day - and it came from Grotius' study of Jewish wisdom.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, writing more than a century later in The Social Contract, secularized another core idea from the Jewish tradition: the covenant at Sinai. While Rousseau does not explicitly cite the Sinai revelation, the influence is clear: he refers to Moses as the ideal legislator, and evokes the Hebrew Scripture by saying, "Any man can carve tablets of stone or write laws on parchment. But only a true legislator can inscribe them on the hearts of the people."

Rousseau's "Social Contract" is the concept of a people voluntarily entering into a binding moral and legal covenant, as Israel did at Sinai. The Hebrew term for the United States is "Artzot HaBrit" - the Lands of the Covenant. The Covenant is the Constitution. (Significantly, the plural "Lands" nods to the idea of the United States as a federation of states, not a single monolithic land.)

Both Grotius and Rousseau, these two intellectual cornerstones of modern Western political theory, derive core aspects of their political ideas from Jewish sources.

We will present ten principles - rooted in Jewish jurisprudence and Scriptural ideas - that define a Jewish political ethic. These are not designed only for the Jewish nation, but to serve as a framework any nation could and should aspire to adopt. In a world where power often overwhelms principle, this model offers a moral compass.

Before we delve into the actual ideas, let's see what problems we are trying to solve in the current system of modern international law.

Where International Law Falls Short: A Jewish Ethical Analysis

Modern international law, as codified through institutions like the United Nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the International Criminal Court (ICC), aspires to establish global norms for peace, justice, and human rights. But noble intentions alone do not make a moral system. From a Jewish ethical standpoint, the current international system suffers from five critical weaknesses:

1. Lack of Moral Accountability

The Jewish model demands that laws be rooted in moral truth, and that judges be accountable to a higher ethical standard. But many international institutions confuse consensus with morality.

The UN General Assembly, composed of both democracies and brutal dictatorships, passes non-binding resolutions as if they reflect moral clarity.
The ICJ may render judgments based on political considerations, not objective justice.
Member states with horrific human rights records are routinely elected to “human rights” panels.

From Judaism's standpoint, a court that includes wicked judges is invalid. A law detached from truth is not law.

2. Biased Application of Law

Laws are only as good as their application. International law is riddled with inconsistent enforcement, especially regarding Israel.

“Occupation” is defined differently depending on who occupies whom (e.g., Gaza vs. Crimea).
Human shielding is condemned in Yemen but redefined in Gaza.
Targeted killings by Western powers are considered self-defense, but condemned when done by Israel.
Settlements are uniquely criminalized under a Rome Statute clause added solely to target Israel.

A court that treats one people differently from others violates the concept of mishpat echad lachem—“one law for all.” Selective law is no law at all.

3. Moral Equivalence and the Erasure of Priorities

Jewish ethics insists on moral triage—life before property, justice before process, dignity before consensus.

International law treats many violations with formal equivalence, leading to absurd outcomes:

Equating murder and torture with Jews building homes in disputed areas - all "war crimes" under the Rome Statute.
UN bodies condemning Israel more often than North Korea, Iran, or Syria—combined.
Giving equal weight at the UN to nations that protect minorities and those that jail, mutilate, or kill them.

Treating grave offenses and minor slights equally distorts the moral order.

Even more troubling: any system that gives equal legal weight and legitimacy to all nations—including those that systematically violate human rights, suppress dissent, and commit atrocities—cannot claim to be a moral system at all. Morality cannot be constructed from the votes or political pressure of the immoral. Justice cannot emerge from the unjust.

4. Rigidity and Lack of Reform Mechanisms

International law is notoriously rigid, slow, and politically paralyzed. When its rules are outdated or flawed, they cannot be revised easily—especially when dictatorships hold the majority.

The Jewish system, by contrast, includes:

Prophetic critique
Halachic debate
Flexibility in light of new realities

Law must grow with truth, or it fossilizes into injustice.

5. Erasure of National Sovereignty and Moral Diversity

Modern international law, under the guise of universality, often erases legitimate national identity and cultural differences.

Sovereign nations are pressured to adopt global norms, even when those norms conflict with local ethics or religious obligations.
Supranational courts override national judgments, even in democracies.
“Human rights” language is used to enforce so-called "progressive" values with no room for principled disagreement.

From a Jewish perspective, "These and those are the words of the living God.” There is more than one valid way to live ethically. Jewish political ethics expects that each nation that uses its ethical framework will come up with different priorities and conclusions, and inevitably come into conflict with other nations. The framework allows for disagreements and encourages negotiations and bilateral treaties as the preferred method of solving problems.

In a world where institutions are losing trust and law is bent by politics, the Jewish political ethic offers a better alternative.

Here are the ten principles that do a good job defining Jewish political ethics on a national level.

National Preservation and Self-Defense A nation has a sacred obligation to protect its people, land, and identity. The Talmudic principle of milchemet mitzvah—a mandatory war of self-defense—recognizes that preserving life and sovereignty is a national duty. While war is not glorified, pacifism in the face of existential threat is seen as immoral. This principle affirms the legitimacy of defensive deterrence, including economic protection and border security. A just state must seek peace first, but prepare to defend itself when necessary.
Justice and Just Courts The Torah mandates a system of impartial courts. Bribery, favoritism, and systemic corruption are condemned. Justice is not merely procedural but substantive: it must lead to truth and protect the vulnerable. Jewish law also recognizes the legitimacy of non-Jewish legal systems if they are just, and setting up such systems is one of the Noachide laws. No society can endure without trust in fair and transparent justice.
Moral Leadership and Prophetic Responsibility. Political power is a moral burden, not a privilege. Kings in the Torah are commanded to write a personal Sefer Torah and read it daily to avoid arrogance. Leaders must be subject to law and moral scrutiny. The prophets of Israel modeled a culture where truth-tellers were not silenced but honored. This principle affirms that a healthy society must foster internal critique—through press freedom, civic engagement, and public ethics. Leadership must be accountable not only to law, but to conscience.
Covenantal Consent Jewish political legitimacy begins with covenant, not conquest. At Sinai, the people accepted the law voluntarily. The idea that people consent to be governed lies at the heart of legitimate sovereignty. Most modern constitutions derive legitimacy from force, tradition, or revolution, not voluntary moral acceptance. Any regime that rules by fear or fiat contradicts this foundational principle. Consent must be informed, renewed, and grounded in shared ethical purpose.
Sanctity of Human Life As we've seen, life is the highest value in Jewish law—pikuach nefesh overrides almost all commandments. A state must protect its citizens’ lives not only from external enemies, but from citizen criminals and internal neglect: poverty, injustice, poor health care, and avoidable violence. The murder of innocents and avoidable deaths are a desecration. Many other ethical systems prioritize national honor or religious purity over life; this is not moral. National policy must be rooted in a culture of life.
Ethical Sovereignty Judaism affirms national sovereignty but limits it morally. Nations do not have unbounded power. National policy must reflect compassion, justice, and restraint. A nation may control its borders, defend its interests, and protect its culture—but not at the cost of cruelty, exploitation, or injustice.
Compassionate Treatment of Strangers and Minorities “You shall not oppress the stranger, for you were strangers in Egypt” appears over 30 times in the Torah. A Jewish political ethic mandates minority protection—not as a gesture, but as a core duty. This includes religious minorities, migrants, and ethnic outsiders. It does not mean undermining national identity, but ensuring dignity, fairness, and inclusion under law.
Peace as a Goal, Not a Dogma The Torah commands: “When you approach a city to wage war, offer it peace first.” Peace is the ideal but not an absolute. Appeasement is not peace. Moral peace requires mutual respect and justice. Peace that enables tyranny is betrayal. A Jewish vision of peace is active and righteous—not naive surrender.
Moral Warfare and Limits of Force Even in war, Jewish law mandates boundaries: sparing civilians, offering surrender, avoiding unnecessary destruction. Total war is forbidden. A just war is one fought reluctantly, ethically, and for a righteous cause. Modern implications include military codes of conduct, civilian safeguards, and proportionality in force.
Environmental Stewardship and Bal Tashchit The Torah commands, “Do not destroy trees by swinging an axe against them…” , a law taught even in the context of war. From this emerges the broader principle of Bal Tashchit, the prohibition against wanton destruction.. It mandates conservation of natural resources, responsible land use, and sustainable development. Judaism regards the Earth as a divine trust: humanity are its stewards, not its owners. A righteous nation must not pillage its forests, pollute its rivers, or degrade creation for short-term gain. This ethic challenges modern states to balance growth with preservation, consumption with responsibility, and power with humility before the natural world.

As with the personal moral codes, the actual application of these principles are as important as the principles themselves. Situations come up often where two principles indicate different courses of action. There needs to be a methodology to prioritize one over the other, and that methodology must be consistent.

Also, Jewish principles do not tend to be empty, feel-good ideas. Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism all preach that violence is an absolute last resort, if at all. Yet nations that have these faiths as state sponsored religions maintain active, trained armed forces.

In Christian-majority Europe, several countries maintain state churches or official Christian identities in their constitutions. Their military manuals do not say "turn the other cheek." Hindu and Buddhist nations also field professional militaries, complete with air forces, intelligence agencies, and nuclear or cyber warfare capabilities. No military manual in these countries instructs soldiers to surrender when attacked. No army teaches its fighters to love the enemy into repentance. In practice, these nations accept the necessity of force, even if their religious or philosophical foundations refuse to articulate a clear moral framework for it.

Judaism does not share this doublethink. It confronts the problem of violence directly, with laws for war, peace, proportionality, restraint, and justice. The Torah does not glorify violence—but it recognizes that when innocent life is under threat, failure to act is itself a moral crime. Because Judaism values life, it sometimes requires force to defend it. There is no pretense—only responsibility.

If you ask who was the most admired man of the 20th century, many if not most would say Mahatma Gandhi. Yet Gandhi, more than once, said that Jews should allow the Nazis to slaughter them, in the vain expectation that world horror would somehow shame the Nazis into stopping their genocide. Pardon my language, but screw you, Gandhi. His ethical universe may not admit the existence of true evil, but Jewish experience does - the paradigm is Amalek. When faced with pure evil, the proper and ethical response is to obliterate it, not feed it more bodies. Extremist ideologies lead to immoral results, even when the extremism appears to be for the most praiseworthy principles.

Political morality is a rich topic, with infinite variations and questions. That is exactly what makes it a perfect object for Jewish ethics. This framework is mature, tested and flexible.

Jewish political ethics offers more than ancient wisdom—it provides a living model for moral governance. In a time when trust in global institutions falters, Jewish sources offer an ethic that values life, honors sovereignty, protects minorities, welcomes debate, and balances justice with compassion.

This is not utopia. It is hard, real, moral politics. And it may be the best chance the world has to restore order without losing its soul.

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When China’s Ambassador Zhang Jun called Palestinian armed struggle an ‘inalienable right’ in 2024, it was a gift to pseudo-scholars like Richard Falk, who’ve spent years twisting international law to bless terrorism.

From Countercurrents:

On February 22, 2024, China’s Ambassador to The Hague, Zhang Jun, uttered the unexpected.

“Palestinian people’s use of force to resist foreign oppression and complete the establishment of an independent state is an inalienable right,” the Chinese Ambassador said, insisting that “the struggle waged by peoples for their liberation, right to self-determination, including armed struggle against colonialism, occupation, aggression, domination against foreign forces should not be considered terror acts”.
...
Zhang’s remarks were situated entirely within international law. Thus, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to discuss the topic in a recent interview we conducted with Professor Richard Falk, a leading scholar in international law and former UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine.

“Yes, I think that’s a correct understanding of international law—one that the West, by and large, doesn’t want to hear about,” Falk said in response to the February 24 comments by Zhang.

Falk elaborated: “The right of resistance was affirmed during the decolonization process in the 1980s and 1990s, and this included the right to armed resistance. However, this resistance is subject to compliance with international laws of war.”

This takes us to the events of October 7, 2023, the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation inside what is known as the Gaza Envelope region in southern Israel.

“To the extent that there is real evidence of atrocities accompanying the October 7 attack, those would constitute violations, but the attack itself is something that, in context, appears entirely justifiable and long overdue,” Falk said.

Falk appears to be accepting the Hamas narrative that 10/7 was a purely military operation consistent with international law, that any civilian harm was peripheral and probably not done by Hamas itself but by overeager Gaza civilians. He is trying to distinguish between the supposed military goals of Hamas which he says are perfectly legal and "long overdue" with the atrocities we've all seen (although the full Counterpunch article says they are lies, too.)

To reach this position, Falk has to go through a lot of contortions of facts and of international law. And even if you accept all of his pretzel logic, it still falls apart.

First of all, even the fuzzy justifications for "resistance" do not allow a militia to cross a border and invade another country under international law. The UN Charter (Article 2(4)) bans the use of force against a state’s territorial integrity, and self-defense (Article 51) is a state’s prerogative, not a militia’s. Even Additional Protocol I, Falk’s major source, limits resistance to the occupier’s forces within occupied territory, not a militia’s invasion across sovereign borders

The invasion was illegal, period - unless you claim that all of Israel is illegitimate and every inch of Israeli land is "occupied." Hamas believes this, Falk might, but if he says that out loud, he knows he loses what little claim to legitimacy he still has.

Secondly, it is stretching facts to the point of absurdity to claim that Hamas didn't systematically attack the Nova Music Festival or the civilian kibbutzim.

Thirdly, and most damningly, even if you accept every Hamas lie as truth, and every Israeli truth as a lie, which Falk apparently does, Hamas happily admits that their primary military aim was to take hostages (dead or alive) and swap them for terrorists in Israeli prison. Taking hostages - even if they are soldiers - is a war crime.

No matter how far one stretches the facts, Richard Falk is praising war crimes.

Using Falk's appalling quasi-legal reasoning, 9/11 is more legally justified than 10/7.

After all, the Pentagon is a military target. Al Qaeda justified attacking the World Trade Center as an important economic target that contributes to the American economy and therefore to the US military. This makes the WTC a "more" legitimate target than Kibbutz Be'eri or the Nova festival.

The US had a military presence in Saudi Arabia, which Bin Laden had consistently framed as an occupation. In both cases, a non-state actor suffering under an oppressive occupation by colonial enemies claims it has the right to strike inside their enemy's territory as long as they can justify the attack in military terms and civilians are not framed as the primary target.

But in the case of 9/11, US troops were physically in Saudi Arabia, while no Israeli troops were physically in Gaza, meaning that Bin Laden's claim of "occupation" was stronger than Hamas'.

Moreover, in 9/11, there was no hostage taking as a goal - and you cannot spin hostage taking as anything but illegal.

Some other Falkian defender of Al Qaeda can claim that Bin Laden's objectives were more purely aligned with legitimate resistance than Hamas'. After all, the deaths of the people on the airplanes were also peripheral to the military goals, right?

Here is a case study in how international law is twisted, day after day, by supposed "experts."

The current Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese, is no less guilty of using selective and tendentious readings of international law to justify terrorism and delegitimatize Israel than Falk is.

(h/t JW)

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It happens every year before Passover. A couple of Temple Mount groups say they want to offer a korban Pesach sacrifice on the site, Arab media freaks out, it never happens, then the Islamists congratulate themselves on how they managed to stop it with their solidarity.

Qudspress reports:

The so-called "Temple Groups" called on settlers to begin attempts to slaughter Passover sacrifices in and around Al-Aqsa Mosque today, Sunday (April 6), days before the start of the holiday.

The so-called Hebrew Passover holiday officially begins on the 13th of this month and continues for a full week, during which settlers continue their attempts to bring in and offer animal sacrifices into Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Passover sacrifice is a ritual that Jewish groups have not yet performed, but they aspire to perform it within the walls of Al-Aqsa Mosque every year, due to its symbolic significance in reviving the alleged "Temple."

(As an aside, if you say "so-called Passover" you are antisemitic.)

Hamas joined the party to make itself sound important. It said the Palestinian people will never allow their mosque to be "desecrated" by the Jews. The terror group urged the Palestinian people to "mobilize and maintain a strong presence in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque" to thwart the evil plans and prevent any attempt to bring in offerings or perform Talmudic rituals.

The Israeli guards will never allow anyone to bring a goat. They don't allow Jews to bring prayer books! But I guess that the annual ritual of whipping up anger at Jews generates hits and "likes" and followers.

It is a minor, annual version of "Al Aqsa is in danger!" Trying to unify the Arab world by being merely anti-Zionist no longer works, but saying that the Jews plan to attack Al Aqsa still has the ability to reliably make the Arab world angry, no matter how many times the same gambit is used.

This will be front page news in Palestinian and some other Arab media this week.

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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)