Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

The moral logic of Trumpism: A structured framework and Jewish ethical critique

I believe that ethics is a critical framework for viewing the world. The proper question that should always be asked is not "is this legal?" or "is this consistent with my political party?" but the simpler question "is this right?"

The difficulty in examining Donald Trump is that his actions seem so chaotic and so inconsistent, and there is such a huge wave of actions he is doing, that most analyses get mired in looking at only a small slice of Donald Trump's philosophy.

What is often overlooked is that Trump does have a coherent philosophy. Trumpism is a political and moral philosophy that is as mature and complete as others like Machiavellian philosophy, Nietzschean philosophy or consequentialism. Whether Trumpism deserves to be called a philosophy in the traditional sense is debatable. What is beyond debate is that it operates as a guiding worldview for millions – and so must be treated as one.

The philosophy of the most powerful leader on the planet deserves to be studied and critiqued seriously. Those who mock it or distort it are not making the world a better place. After all, Trumpian philosophy is attractive to hundreds of millions of people. It means something. Not taking it seriously gives it power, and mocking it makes it more attractive to the people it wants to attract.

One cannot critique a philosophy without defining it. Yet surprisingly few people have attempted to formally define the Trumpian way of thinking. Some conservatives will ably defend portions of his philosophy and some liberals will critique certain aspects but no one seems to have tried to describe it as a complete philosophy that deserves to be taken seriously.

Before we can determine the pros and cons of Trumpian ethics, we must define their axioms and rules.

Here is my attempt. I am writing these rules as much as possible from the perspective of its adherents, not its detractors, because that is the only proper way to evaluate it. This structure is aspirational: it imagines Trumpism in its most coherent, enduring form, rather than just its current populist expression.

The Trumpian Philosophy

Trumpism has a mission statement and eight rules.

Mission Statement:

“America First” is the central moral mission of the Trumpian worldview.
It defines the purpose of leadership as the protection, elevation, and restoration of the American nation – its economy, sovereignty, dignity, and strength. All decisions are justified by how well they serve this mission.

Rules:

1. The system is corrupt and rigged against the people; it must be dismantled and rebuilt.

America’s institutions — from bureaucracy to media, corporate leadership to foreign entanglements — serve entrenched elites at the expense of working citizens. Moral leadership begins with the recognition that disruption is not just justified, but necessary, to return power to the people.

2. Loyalty is the test of trust in a shared mission to restore national dignity and self-rule.

In a world shaped by betrayal, ideological hypocrisy, and institutional decay, personal loyalty is the clearest signal of alignment with the cause. You cannot reform a corrupt system with uncommitted or conflicted allies.

3. Narrative dominance is essential in a hostile and manipulated information environment.

Controlling the narrative is not just political survival – it is moral resistance against a media regime that distorts reality to protect power. Seizing attention, defining the conflict, creating new media outlets and publicly claiming victories are essential for retaining legitimacy.

4. Economic strength is national dignity.

A sovereign nation must be economically independent and self-sufficient to preserve its identity and pride. Trade deals, energy independence, industrial policy, and job creation are not merely economic choices – they are moral acts of restoration.

5. Strategy must be transactional and leverage-based.

Global diplomacy, domestic politics, and even alliances must be judged by outcomes, not ideals. Deals are good only if they benefit the American people now – strength, not sentimentality, defines strategic success. Avoid long term strategies that depend on factors out of America's control

6. Institutional roles and norms must be tested and replaced if broken.

Bureaucracies, traditions, and diplomatic rituals have become defensive shields for failure. True reform requires irreverence: breaking rules that no longer serve the national good and rebuilding systems that do.

7. Momentum is moral – move fast, break what’s broken, and fix only what truly demands it.

Speed is clarity. Stagnation enables decay and resistance. Action – even disruptive action – is more moral than paralysis in a corrupted environment. There is always time for course correction later.

8. Legal boundaries must be challenged when corrupted, but respected when legitimately upheld.

The law must serve the people, not protect those in power from accountability. Testing legal boundaries is justified when the law has become a weapon – but true rulings, once settled, are respected as part of the rule of law. (While adherence to final rulings is claimed, legal institutions themselves are often challenged as illegitimate when they oppose the movement’s goals.)

While Trumpism often resembles a personality cult, it has evolved. Its goal is to keep itself as the governing ethos in 2028 and beyond - it must survive Trump himself. So while some of the rules might today revolve around Donald Trump's own instincts and beliefs, as a philosophy it is meant to become a permanent part of the American scene. These rules were written from that perspective.

This framework presents Trumpism as an internally coherent moral-political system, not a random series of actions. It treats disruption as ethical, loyalty as epistemic, and success as proof of legitimacy. It offers a theory of action, leadership, and national restoration that appeals deeply to those disillusioned with elite institutions and it provides a serious basis for philosophical critique.

A Jewish ethical critique of Trumpism

With a personality as polarizing as Donald Trump, it is difficult to be truly objective. Yet objectivity is what is required to honestly evaluate Trumpism as a philosophy. The Jewish ethical framework I have been defining provides a perfect method to begin such an analysis without the enormous baggage of partisan politics. Jewish ethics is a timeless, sophisticated baseline through which any system may be analyzed, including Trumpism.

I input the first part of this essay into the Jewish Ethical Chatbot I have been building and refining, because it would be as objective as possible.

Here are the assumptions I put into the analysis:

- The critique is of Trumpism on its own terms, not on how successful it is or how well it lives up to its own standards.

- The critique is both from the perspective of Jewish personal ethics and Jewish national ethics.

- The critique is meant to highlight both what is good and what is bad about Trumpism as defined here.

- I am trying to show how Jewish ethics is a valuable means to analyze any and every other philosophy for both Jewish and secular audiences.

The resulting report is quite good and provides a rare, clear -eyed view of today's most consequential political philosophy.

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Ethical Summary of Trumpism Through Jewish Moral Reasoning

Overview:
Approaching Trumpism as a coherent moral-political philosophy—rather than a chaotic set of actions—opens the door for serious ethical evaluation. From a Jewish ethical standpoint, there are aspects of Trumpism that resonate with enduring values like national preservation, economic dignity, and realism about institutional decay. However, its framework also contains deep and troubling departures from essential moral commitments such as truthfulness, moral accountability, human dignity, and ethical leadership.

Affirmed Values:

National Sovereignty and Self-Defense: Trumpism’s emphasis on national strength, border control, and economic independence aligns in part with the Jewish value of preservation of life and sovereignty (pikuach nefesh and milchemet mitzvah). Jewish ethics affirms that a nation has a sacred duty to protect its people and culture.
Economic Dignity: Trumpism treats economic revitalization as moral restoration. Jewish ethics similarly links economic justice with human dignity, affirming the importance of protecting workers and preventing national economic decay.
Distrust of Corrupt Institutions: The suspicion of entrenched elites reflects the Jewish tradition of prophetic critique against power structures that abandon justice. The critique of bureaucracies, media bias, or unaccountable elites echoes the Jewish demand for transparent and just governance.
Action over Paralysis: Trumpism’s urgency and disdain for inertia has parallels in Jewish ethics’ prioritization of moral courage and proactive responsibility (lo ta’amod al dam re’echa). When systems are corrupt or dangerous, reform must not be indefinitely delayed.

Ethical Concerns and Departures:

Truth vs. Narrative Control:
- Trumpism elevates “narrative dominance” as a moral weapon. In Jewish ethics, however, emet (truth) is sacred and cannot be subordinated to power. Manipulating perception for gain—even to counter media bias—undermines the moral bedrock of trust, justice, and dignity. There is no Jewish precedent for morally justifying distortion of reality in public life as a default strategy.
Loyalty over Principle:
- Loyalty in Trumpism is cast as the supreme test of trust. While Jewish ethics values loyalty (brit), it never substitutes loyalty for accountability. Prophets like Nathan and Elijah confronted kings directly; rebuke was not betrayal—it was righteousness. A system that discourages internal critique is ethically unstable.
Personality Cult and Legitimacy by Success:
- Jewish ethics strongly rejects the idea that power or popularity proves moral rightness. Leadership is a burden of conscience, not a validation of ego. Trumpism risks becoming a cult of success—a position Judaism condemns as idolatry of the self.
Justice Undermined by Transactionalism:
- While Jewish diplomacy permits compromise, it cannot reduce moral duties to leverage. Trumpism’s deal-centric worldview erodes the ethical standing of principles like human rights, minority protection, and covenantal responsibility.
Disruption Without Reconstruction:
- Jewish ethics supports institutional reform—but not indiscriminate tearing down. Lifnim mishurat hadin (beyond the letter of the law) urges moral restraint even in just causes. Breaking what is broken must be followed by responsible rebuilding, grounded in humility and care. Trumpism lacks this ethical safety net.
Legal Opportunism:
- While challenging unjust laws is valid, Trumpism’s tendency to test legal limits for strategic gain risks instrumentalizing the law. Jewish ethics demands that law be a teacher of morality—not a tool of convenience.

Conclusion:
Trumpism gives voice to real disillusionment with failing elites and offers a compelling, emotionally resonant vision of national revival. But its moral compass is selectively applied and structurally vulnerable to abuse. Jewish ethics calls for a nation rooted in justice, truth, humility, and compassion—not just strength, loyalty, and victory.

This recommendation reflects structured Jewish ethical reasoning. It does not constitute a halachic ruling. Complex or uncertain cases should be brought to qualified rabbinic or halachic authorities.

_________________

Disclaimer: I came up with the rules of Trumpian philosophy but the description here was mostly written by AI. As stated, the critique was entirely written by my AI-based Jewish ethical chatbot.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Genocide Inversion and the Assault on Jewish Peoplehood (Adam Louis-Klein)

From the Scapegoat’s Point of View by Adam Louis-Klein

Adam Louis-Klein is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at McGill University, researching antisemitism, peoplehood, and comparative struggles over indigeneity and historical belonging. He writes regularly on these topics on Facebook, where he explores the ideological structures driving modern anti-Jewish hostility and the global assault on Jewish peoplehood.

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What we’re witnessing today is a coordinated assault on Jewish existence, divided between cultural erasure in the West and the pursuit of physical extermination abroad. But this is no longer just a scattered set of prejudices or disconnected political movements—it has cohered into a holistic ideology and, increasingly, an institutional framework. What began as a battlefield strategy of Iran, Hamas, and other jihadist movements—combining psychological warfare, propaganda, and asymmetric violence—has been extended into Western cultural, academic, and political institutions.

In the West, the activist-university-NGO class works relentlessly to push Jews out of public life unless they renounce their connection to their ancestral homeland and the people who live there. Jews are pressured to disavow their collective identity, redefine themselves as “White,” and deny their status as a distinct and indigenous people. This is a modern form of forced assimilation—one that echoes the historical forced conversions Jews endured for centuries under both Christian and Islamic empires. Then, as now, Jewish distinctiveness is treated as an intolerable affront to universalizing ideologies.

At the same time, Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, and jihadist militias openly pursue the physical destruction of Israel and the Jewish People. These forces operate in tandem: cultural erasure in the West, physical annihilation in the East. And at the center of it all is the same recurring target—Jewish distinctiveness—now conveniently labeled “Zionism,” a stand-in for the reality of Jewish Peoplehood and the right of Jews to live openly as a people among the nations.

This is why the constant accusation of “genocide” against Israel—used to demonize any Jew who refuses to sever ties with their people as a so-called “genocide supporter”—is not merely a lie. It is a political weapon, part and parcel of the broader project of antisemitic exclusion. These accusations are not isolated statements to be analyzed in abstraction; they operate as mechanisms of social control, enforcing the marginalization of Jews in cultural, academic, and professional life unless they publicly repudiate their peoplehood and sever their historical and emotional ties to Israel.

This discourse functions through a closed circular logic. The point is not the content of any single claim, but the form of the discourse itself: a self-reinforcing system that closes off critical inquiry and punishes dissent through moral panic and public shaming. We must not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed or demoralized by this endless flood of accusations, which do not proceed from a genuine concern for truth but from a self-sustaining strategy of escalating defamation. Instead, we must learn to recognize the structure of this discourse, expose the system that generates it, and refuse to be drawn into its trap—bypassing its manufactured moral crises and standing firm in the clarity of our own commitments.

At the same time, the universalism of international law—born in part from the memory of the Holocaust—has been twisted and weaponized against the very people whose suffering helped bring it into being. Instead of moving from the particular experience of the Holocaust to a genuine, principled universal concern with genocide, that universality has been distorted and turned back against the Jews themselves. We are witnessing a dialectical inversion: the language of universal rights deployed precisely to deny the Jewish People the right to exist.

This inversion has found its most powerful rhetorical vehicle in the language of anti-colonialism, where the accusation of genocide against Israel is presented not as a claim requiring evidence, but as a self-evident truth derived from a broader anti-colonial framework.

And yet, even this inversion relies on a dangerous historical simplification. The conversation about colonialism and genocide has become trapped in a narrow framework that views these phenomena almost exclusively through the lens of European imperialism. As a result, other imperial formations—and their long histories of conquest, domination, and genocide—are erased or excused. But no serious, honest reckoning with the global history of genocide can avoid confronting the imperial legacies of Islamism and their ongoing consequences for indigenous and minority peoples across the Middle East and beyond.

The Armenian Genocide stands as a critical case in point. Far from being an isolated outbreak of nationalist violence, it was carried out under the banner of an imperial Islamist ideology that fused religious supremacy with imperial ambition. The Ottoman Empire, in its final decades, sought to reassert control over its fracturing territories through the ideology of Pan-Islamism—declaring Jihad and mobilizing Muslim populations against Christian minorities, most brutally against the Armenians, but also targeting Assyrians, Greeks, and other indigenous Christian peoples of the region. This genocide was not simply a product of ethnic nationalism; it was driven by an imperial Islamic vision of religious and territorial purification.

A full and honest analysis of the relationship between colonialism and genocide would interrogate these dimensions of Islamist imperialism—both historical and contemporary. It would ask why the ongoing persecution and erasure of minorities in the Middle East—Yazidis, Assyrians, Copts, Kurds, and of course, Jews—is so often left out of the global conversation on colonialism and genocide. It would confront the reality that, long before European colonial powers arrived, many of these indigenous and ethnoreligious peoples had already suffered under Islamic imperial domination, forced conversions, and displacement. And it would recognize that this historical pattern continues today under modern Islamist movements that openly aspire to restore imperial dominance under the guise of religious or anti-colonial struggle.

Such an analysis would also challenge the assumption that genocide is primarily a byproduct of modern nation-state nationalism. In fact, it is often imperial nationalisms—ideological projects that combine the expansive ambitions of empire with a violent drive for cultural, religious, or ethnic homogeneity—that have been the most devastating engines of genocide. The Ottoman vision of a purified Islamic empire, Nazi Germany’s project of a racially pure Reich, and contemporary Islamist movements dreaming of a global Caliphate all share this imperialist structure. These are not defensive or localized nationalisms but expansive, totalizing visions that seek to dominate and erase entire peoples in the service of their ideological goals.

Genocide, then, should not be flattened into a simplistic narrative of colonial victimhood or tied exclusively to the legacy of Western imperialism. Nor should colonialism itself be reduced to a purely European phenomenon. If we are serious about universal justice, we must confront all imperial formations—Christian, Islamic, European, and otherwise—that have built their power on the conquest, assimilation, and annihilation of distinct peoples. And we must recognize that the genocidal ideologies of the present are not confined to the nationalist right, but are alive and well in the imperial ambitions of Islamist movements that continue to target Jews and other indigenous peoples of the Middle East for erasure.

Through a sophisticated interplay of media manipulation, NGO activism, and academic endorsement, we are seeing the seamless integration of this anti-Jewish ideological project into the very heart of Western discourse. This is not a coincidence. After World War II, while Europe underwent an intensive process of denazification, much of the ideological machinery of Nazism found refuge and continuity in the Middle East, particularly through figures like the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the entrenchment of Nazi propaganda within the political cultures of the Arab world. The Grand Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, met with Hitler, collaborated with the SS, and broadcast pro-Nazi, antisemitic radio propaganda to the Arab world. His ideological heirs include the Muslim Brotherhood, whose fusion of political Islam and antisemitism laid the groundwork for groups like Hamas—whose founding charter cites The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. After World War II, prominent Nazi propagandist Johann von Leers fled to Cairo, converted to Islam, and helped establish a center dedicated to antizionist agitation, blending Nazi conspiracies with Islamist thought. The Protocols and similar texts circulated widely among Islamist and pan-Arabist groups, forming a foundation for postwar antizionist ideology.

At the core of today’s genocidal rhetoric is a dangerously simplistic and abstract syllogism that now circulates almost unchallenged in activist, academic, and policy spaces:

“All colonialism is genocide; Israel is colonialism; therefore, Israel is committing genocide.”

This formula is presented with the force of moral certainty, but it collapses under even the most basic scrutiny. Its simplicity is precisely what makes it so seductive and so dangerous—it reduces history to a set of abstract categories, flattens complex political realities, and replaces concrete analysis with a priori ideological reasoning. Instead of investigating the specific facts on the ground, it proceeds by deduction from premises that are themselves historically and conceptually flawed.

The first premise—“All colonialism is genocide”—is itself a distortion. While colonialism has undoubtedly involved genocidal episodes, not all colonial projects have pursued or resulted in genocide. To equate the two absolutely is to erase important historical distinctions and to rob the concept of genocide of its specificity and analytical clarity. Genocide, as a distinct crime, involves the deliberate intention to destroy a people as such—something far more specific than the broad, often exploitative, but not necessarily annihilatory dynamics of colonial regimes. While colonialism and genocide may surely interact, they are not identical.

The second premise—“Israel is colonialism”—is simply false. It rests on a deliberate mischaracterization of Zionism as a foreign, settler-colonial movement imposed upon the Middle East by Western powers. This ignores the basic historical and anthropological fact that the Jewish People are indigenous to the Land of Israel, with an unbroken cultural, religious, and historical connection to that land stretching back millennia.

Zionism is not an expression of European colonial expansion—it is a movement of indigenous return, a national liberation movement responding to centuries of forced exile, persecution, and dispossession. To frame Jews as colonial invaders in their own ancestral homeland is to invert reality entirely, erasing the history of Jewish survival and return in favor of a politically convenient fiction. As Ben M. Freeman has shown, Jews fulfill every substantive criterion of indigeneity: their ethnogenesis took place in the Land of Israel; their ritual and calendrical life is tied to its ecological rhythms and seasons; their collective identity and ancestral memory are grounded in that specific territory; and their attachment to the land has endured for millennia, despite dispersion and exile. If these standards apply to others—and rightly so—they must apply to Jews as well. Anything less is not intellectual rigor but political selectivity.

Moreover, this ideological framework thrives precisely because it plays into a deeply narcissistic form of Western self-critique—one that centers the moral failings of the West while casting Jews, paradoxically, as both the eternal outsiders and the ultimate symbols of Western guilt. In this schema, the “White Jew” becomes the scapegoat par excellence, the one who must bear the weight of colonial sins that have nothing to do with Jewish history but everything to do with Europe’s need for self-absolution. The Jew is simultaneously cast out as a foreign body and condemned as the privileged insider, eternally caught in this double bind.

This is not analysis—it is a moralized abstraction that weaponizes both the language of decolonization and the memory of genocide, not to prevent genocide, but to justify and conceal new forms of antisemitic exclusion and, in the case of Israel, openly expressed fantasies of annihilation.

This is the reality we face: an ideological and institutional assault that works across every register—legal, political, academic, and cultural—to isolate, delegitimize, and ultimately erase Jewish distinctiveness. It takes the battlefield strategies of genocidal actors abroad and repackages them as moral imperatives in the West. It turns international law, born from the horrors of the Holocaust, against its very creators. It revives the specters of both Christian and Islamic imperial ideologies, erases Jewish indigeneity through false historical narratives, and weaponizes concepts like colonialism and genocide to render the Jews uniquely guilty among the nations.

Through circular accusations and closed discourses, antizionism creates a social environment in which Jews are accepted only on the condition of their self-negation—only if they reject their peoplehood, their history, and their living ties to Israel. And when they refuse, they are denounced not merely as wrong, but as inherently evil—as supporters of genocide, the most unforgivable crime imaginable. This is not a debate over abstract concepts; it is a deliberate assault on the political, cultural, and even physical existence of the Jewish People. And it will not stop with Israel.

At bottom, antisemitism constructs two contradictory realities: one for the jews, and one spoken endlessly about them—but rarely with them. A tiny, often invisible minority becomes symbolically inflated into the source of all social contradictions, and when Jews speak—when they assert their history or defend their peoplehood—their voice is met not with engagement but with suspicion.

This dynamic is amplified through the mechanisms of genocide inversion that we have described here. For non-Jewish societies, the image of the Jew as the ultimate victim of the Holocaust is an uncomfortable symbol of absolute suffering that imposes an unresolved moral debt. Yet, this very image conflicts with the deep-seated tendency to cast Jews as figures of power, wealth, and hidden control. The accusation of genocide against Israel functions as a backlash against that unresolved tension. It discharges the burden of Holocaust empathy by inverting victimhood itself—transforming Jews from the paradigmatic victims of genocide into its alleged perpetrators. Jews then appear either as absolute victims or absolute villains, but never as ordinary people in all their complexity and humanity.

And yet, despite every attempt to erase us—through forced conversion, forced assimilation, or outright extermination—the Jewish People endures, distinct and alive, refusing to disappear. This too is part of our story—the story of survival, resilience, and return. And it is precisely that story—the undeniable proof that a people can endure against the greatest odds—that they most wish to erase. Which is why, in the face of these pressures, we must take up the work of internal clarity, standing firm in who we are and refusing to let others define our history, our identity, or our future.

We are all happy and excited to see Edan Alexander safely home.

But the circumstances behind his release implicate Qatar as anything but an honest broker.

From what we know, his release was negotiated between the US and Qatar as a go between to Hamas. But the timing indicates that it was meant to coincide with Trump's' visit to the region.

Hamas didn't directly "gain" anything from the release. Israel did not release any more prisoners. One might argue that Hamas gained goodwill from President Trump in the hope of pressuring Israel not to go ahead with its planned major invasion of Gaza. That desire to stop Israeli action and to try to regain control of humanitarian aid certainly played a role.

But in the end, Alexander's release would never have happened if Qatar did not pressure Hamas to release him. Israeli sources and a senior Hamas official in Doha indicated the breakthrough came after Qatari pressure on Hamas.

The upshot is that Qatar can pressure Hamas to release hostages - and it chooses not to unless it gains something itself.

That is not a mediator in the same way Egypt has been a mediator. Qatar being a partner to a terror group, on it has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to under the rubric of "humanitarian aid." It has built beautiful apartments in Gaza that it knew would be used by Hamas to hand out favors to its own members.

The perception of Qatar as an honest mediator increases its prestige and influence. Its actions show otherwise.

Qatar has held the key to the hostages since October 7 and deliberately chooses not to pressure Hamas to release them unless it gains something itself.

Qatar is not an honest broker. Quite the opposite - this episode proves Qatar is an immoral actor that happily partners with Hamas and leverages Hamas terror for its own political aims.

Edan Alexander and the rest of the hostages could have been released a year ago if Qatar wanted them to be.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

How antisemitic science spreads: @TheLancet's flawed Gaza death count methodology promoted by @TheEconomist

The Economist writes about the Gaza death count, and at least acknowledges Hamas' unusually specific numbers as well as its incentive to inflate the numbers. But it exhibits no skepticism for "experts" who use a demonstrably flawed method to base estimates on bad data.

Since the war in Gaza began in October 2023 the death toll has been hotly contested. Counting deaths in any war that is still raging is very hard. But experts are still trying to keep track. And new research suggests the reported numbers are too low.

This article relies on a paper published in The Lancet in January that uses what is known as a "capture-recapture" method to estimate Gaza deaths. The analysis depends on extrapolating data from three lists of casualties in Gaza - the Gaza health ministry list from hospitals, a list of presumably dead people from relatives, and a social media list.

As I showed then, the methodology relies on the idea that each list is independently created. The capture-recapture method only works when each data set is a random sample of the true total. But that is not what those lists are: the list from relatives is tallied by the same health ministry as an adjunct to the official hospital list, and there is no reason for relatives to add names that the health ministry already counted. In other words, there is a high negative correlation between the two lists, when the methodology demands that they are independent.

An additional factor is that the third list from places like Instagram - which affects the estimate a great deal - was used incorrectly, as demonstrated by statistician Abraham Wyner.

The Lancet article has been debunked months ago, but the journal did not publish Wyner's paper that he submitted within weeks of the original article. This fits a pattern of Lancet articles about the Gaza war that are proven to be based on bad statistics, bad assumptions or bad data. Now the bad science is being republished in The Economist as if it was settled science.

It is bad enough when the social sciences use the trappings of hard science to promote political agendas as established fact ("Israel is a settler-colonialist state.") It is far worse when supposedly scientific journals promote the same agendas by pretending that their math is unassailable - and then refuse to publish material that proves them wrong.

And the problem is multiplied when the bad science gets promoted by more popular (yet serious) media like The Economist, without the proper fact checking and skepticism that such papers warrant. Beyond that, The Economist illustrates its article with tragic photos from Gaza, implying that anyone who could possibly disagree with the article is a heartless monster.

Facts be damned. Agendas are more important.

Nazi Germany promoted "Aryan science." The Lancet is doing a modern version of the same, by only publishing articles about Gaza that fit their politics - and ignoring all counter-evidence. The Economist should know better than to blindly trust anything even in supposedly prestigious journals without checking itself.

I would happily eat my words if The Economist or The Lancet issues corrections. I am not holding my breath.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

05/12 Links Pt2: Journalism or Jihad?; Obama’s War Over Jerusalem; Don’t let anti-Israel bigots pose as free-speech champions; The Discovery of the City of David—and the Palestinian Effort to Erase It

From Ian:

Journalism or Jihad?

There is strong evidence that at least six Gaza-based Al Jazeera journalists reportedly joined Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in carrying out the October 7 atrocities in southern Israel, allegations the network denies. Some of the evidence includes the reporter-operatives’ own footage participating in the attack.

Al Jazeera and its affiliates’ royal Qatari funders have invested heavily in positioning the Al Jazeera web of platforms as a tech-savvy ecosystem, seeking to appeal to Western audiences. Tech-savvy as it may be, Al Jazeera is the Qatari government’s soft-power tool to amplify and promote the ideologies of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood’s goal is to create an Islamic state where Islamic law, or Sharia, governs society.

Qatar’s strict media laws prohibit “any criticism” of the Emir of Qatar, and media outlets in the wealthy emirate require government approval before reporting on Qatar’s armed forces, its banks, and certain judicial proceedings.

Tempting as it may be to accept the emirate’s financial largesse, global media entities that take funds from Qatari government patrons, including, but not limited to, through the Al Jazeera Media Institute and other Al Jazeera Media Network platforms, should be held accountable for their ethically and journalistically problematic deals.

It is noteworthy that after additional public revelations about Al Jazeera’s relationship with Hamas following the October 7 massacre, Northwestern University cut ties to Al Jazeera, which had joint programs in the Illinois university’s Doha campus. Northwestern has received over $500 million in contracts from Qatar since 2007, according to U.S. Department of Education data.

It is noteworthy that after additional public revelations about Al Jazeera’s relationship with Hamas following the October 7 massacre, Northwestern University cut ties to Al Jazeera, which had joint programs in the Illinois university’s Doha campus. Northwestern has received over $500 million in contracts from Qatar since 2007, according to U.S. Department of Education data.

In recent weeks, thousands of Gazans protested against not only Hamas’ brutal rule of Gaza but also against Al Jazeera itself as Hamas’ mouthpiece, chanting “barra, barra, barra [out, out, out] Al Jazeera”. The channel’s own coverage did not reflect the tagline on the bottom of the Institute’s page that claims, “You can count on Al Jazeera for truth and transparency.” Instead, it reportedly hoisted anti-Israel signs among the crowd, filmed it, and disingenuously portrayed the protesters’ actual anger at the network as anger at Israel.

In another booklet called “Do Muslims Scare You: A Guide for Journalists”, for which he served as editor, Khamaiseh advises reporters to “connect Islamophobia with anti-Semitism and other forms of racism”. The guide concludes with a “checklist” of “red flags” that reporters should use to check against their own biases. One of the questions they need to ask, his guide says, is, “Am I repeating a libel or a slander against [people] if my source is making vicious claims or remarks?”

Khamaiseh would do well to check his own words for these red flags. And those journalists and media outlets that collaborate with Al Jazeera Media Institute should check the myriad red flags associated with their collaboration.

Digging Up Trouble: Obama’s War Over Jerusalem

The following excerpt is taken from “When the Stones Speak: The Remarkable Discovery of the City of David and What Israel’s Enemies Don’t Want You To Know” (Center Street/Hachette Book Group, May 13, 2025)

Obama and UNESCO
Had the coalition of radical advocacy groups not challenged us in the Supreme Court when it did, and had the court not suspended the excavation of the Pilgrimage Road, which resulted in our focusing on the drainage channel, it is likely that the City of David would not be connected to the Western Wall, even today.

Even though the tunnel could never accommodate large groups like the Pilgrimage Road once had, it was proof that the City of David and the Temple Mount were connected in ancient times. It became an irreversible fact-on-the-ground that they were connected once again — if only through a drainage channel.

This fact would become vital in the years to come, as Israel came under enormous international pressure to stop the excavations in the City of David, first by President Obama’s administration and then by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

A carefully coordinated campaign of news features and “reports” pushed a negative narrative about the excavations to diplomats and politicians in both Europe and the United States.

The following guidelines were adhered to in almost every report and article with few exceptions:
The area would be referred to as either “Silwan” or “Wadi Hilweh” and almost never as “The City of David.”
There would be no mention of the archaeology of ancient Jerusalem or the discoveries made.
There would be no mention of the historic tie between the Jewish people and the area.
In the rare event that the phrase “City of David” was mentioned, it would be only to refer to it as an archaeological ploy used to justify expropriating land from Palestinians in an attempt to “Judaize” the areas with government assistance.
No mention would be made of the millions of dollars in legal real estate transactions conducted between Jews and Arabs.
No mention would be made that the merits of these transactions had been upheld in court to be legally binding dozens of times.
No mention would be made of the death threats against Arabs by either the Palestinian Authority or Hamas for selling their land to non-Muslims.
No mention would be made of the improved roads, infrastructure, and safety in the area stemming from the City of David’s growth.

With no context of the historical importance of the area to Jews, certain foreign government officials were duped, willingly or unwillingly, into believing the narrative that this was nothing more than a militant takeover of an area outside the Old City walls, by lawless Jews at the expense of innocent Palestinians.

Jonathan Tobin: John Fetterman’s health and how to read the mainstream media

Pro-Israel stands as a form of mental illness?
That unlikely prospect aside, it is his supposed “apostasy” about Israel that is driving the anger against him from the progressive wing of his party. This is the only explanation for liberal journalists’ volte-face on the question of his health and fitness for office.

The story that started the tsunami of negative coverage of Fetterman was a lengthy profile in New York Magazine, titled: “All by Himself: John Fetterman insists he is in good health. But staffers past and present say they no longer recognize the man they once knew.”

The main on-the-record source for the piece was his former chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, a veteran left-wing Democratic operative. Like most Democratic congressional staffers on Capitol Hill, Jentleson is an opponent of Israel, who thought the Biden-Harris ambivalent stand on the post-Oct. 7 war was insufficiently hostile to the Jewish state. He ultimately resigned and, along with others who didn’t speak on the record, is at pains to hint that Fetterman’s backing for Israel and refusal to play along with Hamas talking points signify signs of his mental instability.

That story spawned other articles in outlets like The New York Times, The Atlantic, Politico, NBC News, CBS News in which Democrats—both anonymous and on-the-record—shaded Fetterman and depicted him as a deeply disturbed and unstable person in need of medical care. And, they say, he has no business being in the Senate.

Is there a possibility that they are at least partially correct about Fetterman’s health? Maybe.

Press hypocrisy
As someone who cast doubt on his fitness for office when liberals were pretending that there was nothing to see, I’m prepared to accept that some of the current reporting about his health might be accurate. But I also know that the sudden interest in his well-being on the part of the liberal press has nothing to do with any alleged change for the worse in his condition.

While he may still be impaired, as journalists like Salena Zito have reported, since his hospitalization in early 2023, he has managed to do his job for the past two years as reasonably well as most of his colleagues. Though, admittedly, that is a pretty low standard by which to judge anyone.

As such, it’s blatantly obvious that the motivation for the media offensive against Fetterman is about politics, not health. The reason that the same publications, networks and journalists that spent four years declaring that there was nothing wrong with Biden are now sounding the alarm about the senator is because he isn’t useful to them anymore. If he were behaving like other left-wing Democrats and criticizing Israel, the odds that New York magazine, the Times or any of the other outlets seeking to depict him as unworthy of a Senate seat would today be ignoring any concerns about his condition.

While this single demonstration of the media’s corruption and utter lack of credibility is disturbing in and of itself, it’s just another instance of why so much of what the mainstream corporate media publishes should be read with a truckload of salt. Media bias is nothing new, but it’s gotten to the point where stories that are clearly part of a partisan information operation are the norm rather than unusual. As Ruthie Blum wrote in JNS about a recent media attempt to sow dissension between the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government in Israel, this sort of thing is now ubiquitous. At least in America, we have come to the point where it’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that much of what is printed in the mainstream press must be discounted as nothing more than political disinformation.

In the meantime, regardless of concerns about his health, Fetterman still deserves the applause and gratitude of voters for his courage in standing up against the political fashion of his party when it comes to the war against Israel. Whatever else you might think of him, he is an authentic, if eccentric character (his penchant for wearing hoodies and shorts to work is something that has angered his Senate colleagues) who connects with ordinary working-class voters in a way that most Democrats cannot. While he may well face a tough left-wing primary challenge when he runs for re-election, those who underestimate his political appeal in a state and a country sick of partisan ideological polarization do so at their own peril.

Liberals tolerated an infirm and incapable president simply because they thought it helped keep Trump out of the White House. Friends of the Jewish state should therefore be forgiven for being willing to put up with an irascible and moody senator from Pennsylvania who needs technological assistance to do his job but has shown integrity and character when it comes to the post-Oct. 7 surge of antisemitism that other members of his party have either tolerated or encouraged.

05/12 Links Pt1: Hamas releases Edan Alexander, last living American hostage; The Qatari-Led World Order; How Hamas exploits psychology to harm Israel from within and abroad

From Ian:

Hamas releases Edan Alexander, last living American hostage

Hamas has released Edan Alexander, an American-Israeli citizen, back to Israel under a deal reached with the United States.

The release, conducted Monday evening in Gaza, may inaugurate a new phase in the hostage crisis that has consumed Israel since the Palestinian terror group attacked on 7 October 2023, taking 251 captives and opening the war in Gaza.

“I’m very happy to announce that Edan Alexander, an American citizen who until recently most thought was no longer living, thought was dead, is going to be released in about two hours,” President Donald Trump said at a press conference Monday morning. “He’s coming home to his parents, which is great news.”

Israeli media reported at 6:30 p.m. local time that Hamas said it had transferred Alexander to the Red Cross after 584 days in captivity. He was handed over to the Israeli military, which brought him to Israel. There, he was due to meet his parents Adi and Yael Alexander, as well as other family members, and will undergo medical examinations.

“It’s an out of body experience, it’s very exciting, we couldn’t sleep all night,” Adi Alexander said in a phone interview broadcast on Israeli Channel 12. “I saw the picture, he’s handsome, standing on his feet. That’s what’s important… He’s a little pale, thin, but a tall boy. This is my boy.”

He vowed to keep advocating for the rest of the hostages held by Hamas.

Hostage releases have happened before, but this was the first that was arranged directly between the terror group and the United States — without Israel’s knowledge or involvement. It is also the first time Hamas has released a living male Israeli soldier on active duty. And it means that, as of now, for the first time in more than a year and a half, there are no living Americans who are still held hostage in Gaza.

Alexander was born to Israeli parents living in Tenafly, New Jersey, and enlisted in the Israeli military. He was serving as a soldier on the Gaza border when he was taken captive in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack at age 19. Alexander, Channel 12 reported, acted as an English-language interpreter between other hostages and their Hamas captors.

Crowds waited in tense anticipation in the hours ahead of Alexander’s release, in Israel, Tenafly and elsewhere. His impending release was announced over the weekend and came as a surprise. It is unclear what Alexander’s release means for the future of the war in Gazam and for the 58 other hostages still held there — up to 23 of whom are thought to still be alive. In recent days Trump has said that three of the hostages thought to be living had died.

Seth Mandel: The Qatari-Led World Order

So genuflecting to the Qataris has been good for Witkoff’s career. His son, Alex, visited a Qatari government real-estate forum on the eve of the 2024 election. Alex is CEO of the family real-estate company and was appointed by Trump to the board of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Eric Trump, the president’s son, was also recently in Qatar—this time to finalize a Trump Organization deal to build a golf course and villa complex there.

Once upon a time Trump had not-so-nice things to say about his new friends the Qataris. They have, he correctly noted in 2017, “historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.” This was during Trump’s first term as president, and he backed a plan by regional Gulf allies to impose a blockade on Qatar. “I decided, along with secretary of state Rex Tillerson, our great generals and military people, the time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding, they have to end that funding and its extremist ideology.”

A mere ten months later, however, the Qatari emir was in the Oval Office with the president for a friendly chat and some smiley photos. “You’ve now become a very big advocate” of stopping terrorism financing, Trump told the emir, “and we appreciate that.”

Of course, Edan Alexander’s case offers a reality check. Qatar’s support for Hamas has been crucial to the terror group’s survival. Israeli (and American) officials were under the impression that Qatari cash to Hamas would at least have the effect of keeping a lid on Hamas’s terror activity. But that was a ruse, and Hamas used its cash and clout to plan and carry out Oct. 7.

It was at that moment that Qatar had an obligation to intervene and either get the hostages home or cut Hamas loose. Instead, if floundered and dragged its feet.

Edan Alexander is free. But as the scheme to drag him to Qatar for a photo op with the emir and Trump shows, he isn’t yet free of Qatar’s malign influence. And neither, apparently, is the United States.

Andrew Fox: Subjectivity, Morality and Legality

In the labyrinthine discourse surrounding the Gaza conflict, few narratives encapsulate the chasm between legal permissibility and moral outrage as starkly as the reported death of Rafiq Musah Ayesh and his family.

According to a must-read thread by @middleeastbuka on X (formerly Twitter), Ayesh, allegedly affiliated with Hamas, was killed in an Israeli airstrike that also claimed the lives of his entire family. While profoundly tragic, this incident serves as a poignant case study in the complexities of the law of armed conflict (LOAC), particularly the principle of proportionality. This principle is one of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of the whole Gaza War.

Under international humanitarian law (IHL), the principle of proportionality prohibits attacks in which the expected incidental loss of civilian life would be excessive to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. This principle is enshrined in Article 51(5)(b) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and is recognised as customary international law.

Importantly, proportionality assessments are inherently subjective, relying on the attacker’s information and perspective at the time of the decision. The legality of an attack is judged based on the information available to the commander at the time, not on hindsight or the actual effects of any military action.

In the case of Rafiq Musah Ayesh, if he was indeed a high-ranking Hamas operative, Israel could argue that the military advantage gained by targeting him justified the collateral damage, including the deaths of his family members. This rationale aligns with the LOAC’s allowance for incidental civilian casualties, provided they are not excessive relative to the anticipated military gain.

However, this legal justification often clashes with public perception and moral sensibilities. The death of an entire family, regardless of the intended target, evokes visceral condemnation and raises questions about the adequacy of legal frameworks in addressing the human cost of war.

Determining the legality of such strikes also hinges on the attacker’s intent and knowledge. If the Israeli forces were unaware of the family’s presence or believed that the collateral damage would be minimal, the strike might be deemed lawful under IHL. Conversely, if there was knowledge of the family’s presence and the decision was made to proceed regardless, the legality becomes more contentious as it is a subjective decision. It is for the attacker to justify.

The lack of transparency in military operations further complicates these assessments. Without access to the intelligence and decision-making processes that led to the strike, external evaluations remain entirely speculative.

The Washington Post published an op-ed by Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the head of the Union of Refirm Judaism, where he argues that Israel must allow food into Gaza in the same way it has in the past and the proposed methods are immoral.

For the past two months, Israel has banned food and supplies from entering Gaza. This is the longest complete blockade it has ever imposed. Just days ago, the Israeli cabinet voted to create designated zones in southern Gaza for food distribution to be administered by U.S. security contractors. This plan, which would entail shutting down most of the existing humanitarian aid sites and soup kitchens, is terribly flawed. There is no time frame by which the new food distribution centers would be up and running, and it is not at all certain that the new sites would provide enough aid to alleviate the suffering. In contrast, during the most recent ceasefire, Israel significantly increased the amount of food aid to Gaza, easing widespread hunger.

Starving Gazan civilians neither will bring Israel the “total victory” over Hamas it seeks nor can be justified by Jewish values or humanitarian law. Will this policy bring home the 59 remaining hostages, including the 24 who are still alive? It’s unlikely — and contrary to the wishes of almost 70 percent of Israelis who, in a recent poll, prioritized the hostages’ return over that elusive “total victory.” Of equal concern, far-right Israeli politicians see the aid blockade as part of a broader plan to permanently push most Gazans from northern Gaza and replace them with Jewish settlements.

As a proud Zionist who continues to feel deep solidarity with the people of Israel, including those who wear the Israel Defense Forces uniform, and as I have said on numerous occasions since Oct. 8, I cannot be silent in the face of the immense suffering of civilians in Gaza, including hundreds of thousands of children. Hamas is willing to sacrifice thousands of Palestinians by hoarding humanitarian aid; Israel must not. Depriving Gazans of food and water will not make Israel safer or hasten the return of the hostages. Each of us who loves Israel must say so — and urge Israel to change this policy.

Since Rabbi Jacobs couched his argument in terms of morality, I thought this is an excellent test for my Jewish Ethics Chatbot to see if his position is, in fact, moral.

My positions that I explained to the chatbot (during its clarifying questions) are :

-Destroying Hamas is a higher ethical imperative and a plan to provide food while shutting out Hamas, which Jacobs all but ignores, is the most moral choice.

- Israel's proposal is meant to provide food for Gazans while shutting out Hamas.

- If Israel had been allowed to do a full blockade early in the war, the war would have been over long ago and much suffering avoided.

- This war is is a "milchemet mitzvah," an obligatory war under Jewish law, to desroy Hamas.

- World opinion is not relevant - the concept of "chilul Hashem" does not appl since criticism is motivated by obsessively hating Israel and not concern over civilian deaths, as the silence of the world over war-caused famines in Yemen and Sudan and elsewhere are largely ignored. Therefore Israel must do the most moral choice without concern over world criticism.

Once those parameters were done, here is what the chatbot answered:

From a structured Jewish ethical perspective, when a nation faces an existential threat, its first duty is self-preservation—to protect the lives and safety of its citizens. This qualifies as a milchemet mitzvah (obligatory war of defense), where even morally costly strategies can become permissible if they are both necessary and effective. In this case, if bypassing Hamas while delivering humanitarian aid is feasible and sincere—as you assert—then this plan honors both Pikuach Nefesh (saving life) and Brit (national covenantal duty) without capitulating to the enemy’s manipulation of civilian suffering.

While the suffering of innocent Gazans is tragic, Jewish ethics does not obligate a nation to self-sabotage its defense to alleviate enemy-inflicted civilian harm—especially when an alternative aid model is being attempted in good faith. Indeed, Jewish law explicitly forbids using starvation as a weapon, but it also requires distinguishing between cutting off civilian life-support and cutting off enemy exploitation of aid. If aid can be restructured to reach civilians without empowering Hamas, then a temporary, targeted pressure to facilitate that shift may be ethically justified under Pikuach Nefesh and Tzedek (justice).

Rabbi Jacobs’ call to prioritize immediate humanitarian access, while rooted in compassion, arguably underweights the Jewish duty of Emet (facing hard truths). If increased aid during the ceasefire led to a military resurgence for Hamas, then a stricter wartime blockade with built-in humanitarian lanes may in fact reflect a tragic but necessary moral triage—not a betrayal of Jewish values but their disciplined application under fire.

I then asked further:

Would you say that Rabbi Jacobs' article is problematic as well by not being dan l'chaf zechut on the reasons for Israel's proposed plan to find an alternative way to feed Gazans?

The chatbot answered:

Yes, I think that's a fair critique.

Rabbi Jacobs’ op-ed deeply emphasizes moral accountability and humanitarian suffering—core Jewish values—but he does not appear to give the proposed Israeli plan the benefit of the doubt (dan l’chaf zechut) that it might be a sincere attempt to balance military necessity with compassion. He criticizes the new distribution zones without seriously engaging with their intended function: to prevent Hamas from stealing aid and to deliver help more safely and effectively.

Jewish ethical discourse often insists that we judge others favorably when their actions might plausibly be interpreted as moral, especially fellow Jews acting in defense of life. By neglecting that interpretive charity, Rabbi Jacobs’ critique could be seen as falling short of that standard—even if his broader moral concern is genuine and important.

If Rabbi Jacobs wants to answer these criticisms within his concept of Jewish ethics, I would be most happy to publish his response.

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Haaretz goes full-blown antisemitic

There is no way to interpret this Haaretz headline as anything but pure, classic antisemitism:

250 Years After Its First Revolutionary War, America Is Gaining Independence From Israel

At last, America is waking up and acting like an independent country, not a banana republic. I rub my eyes and ask if this is real or just an illusion. How dare this protectorate state voice a different opinion on Middle East affairs?

Meaning, for 250 years, the United States has slavishly followed the dictates of the Jews. It cannot be referring to Israel, which is only 77 years old.

This is the left-wing equivalent of the Goyim Defense League saying Jews control American politics:

Even the most charitable explanation for the Haaretz headline cannot avoid it being understood as claiming that Jews have been the puppet masters of American policy since 1776.

And, of course, having an Arab columnist in a progressive Israeli newspaper now praising Trump's alleged turn against Israel is proof positive of the horseshoe theory of antisemitism.

Antisemitism is indeed mainstream today - and it is the Left, not the Right, that is making it so.

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

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Harvard Divinity School teaches a diverse set of opinions, all of which happen to be anti-Zionist

The Harvard report on antisemitism on campus includes seven pages on Harvard Divinity School's relentless anti-Zionist bias. It notes that there is nothing wrong with teaching criticism of Zionism but the coursework is insanely one-sided and meant to indoctrinate students to hate Israel. Even their trips to Israel are meant to " denot[e] the urgent need to dezionize Jewish consciousness."

The course material framed Zionism as Jewish sin. One speaker spoke of “a specific Jewish sinfulness against the Palestinians," another spoke on “extricating Judaism from state violence and from the idolatry of Israel." A moderator told that speaker, a prominent anti-Zionist "rabbi," that he had a responsibility to atone for being “complicit in power and abuse and displacement [of Palestinians].”

It is difficult to view this religious language aimed at demonizing Jews - sometimes by Jews, sometimes by gentiles - as anything but antisemitic.

Class materials deliberately excluded anything remotely Zionist. A class on “Religion and Peace in Israel/Palestine” started with the lecturer saying, “The discourse is saturated with the Israeli narrative. Therefore, I decided, with a heavy heart, to remove Israeli sources from the syllabus. We will focus solely on Palestinian literature because power disparities, methodology, and conscience demand it.”

One of the anti-Zionist professors at Harvard, an Israeli named Atalia Omer, was incensed by this description of her program. She wrote an article for the Guardian about how unfair the description of Harvard's Religion and Public Life Program was. Yet her criticism in no way contradicts the description of the program in the report. Every example she gives of the "diversity" of Harvard's RPL towards Israel is anti-Zionist:

The report also erases the rich diversity of Jewish voices we brought into our classrooms. It claims our program focused on “non-mainstream Jewish perspectives,” dismissing people like Noam Shuster Eliassi, a Mizrahi Jewish Israeli comedian whose work was supported by our fellowship program and is now featured at the Sundance Film Festival. It ignores events that engaged deeply with Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jewish experiences, including our commemoration of the Israeli Black Panthers’ Passover Haggadah—a powerful symbol of anti-racist struggle in Israeli history.

And it entirely omits our programming on antisemitism itself, including a discussion of alternative definitions of antisemitism like the Jerusalem Declaration, which, unlike IHRA, carefully distinguishes between criticism of Israel and hatred of Jews.

In short, Harvard’s report does not just mischaracterize a program. It attempts to redraw the boundaries of Jewish legitimacy.

Not one of her examples can be described as remotely Zionist or positive towards Zionism. (The comedian she mentions is hostile towards the Abraham Accords. The Israeli Black Panthers' Passover Haggadah is about discrimination against Mizrahi Jews in Israel - in 1971.)

Omer's article proves that the Harvard antisemitism description of the RPL is accurate.

Considering that 95% of Jews are Zionists, to brag that her school does not seem to mention a single Zionist perspective in anything but a negative manner proves the point of the report - Harvard's Divinity School, the same one that just hosted Peter Beinart referring to terrorism as "armed resistance against civilians," is thoroughly anti-Zionist. and in many ways classically antisemitic when its only mention of Judaism in context of the conflict is to characterize Jews and Judaism as being evil.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)