Thursday, May 15, 2025
Elder of Ziyon
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Thursday, May 15, 2025Elder of Ziyon
Amnesty’s Media Awards is entering its 33rd year. Each year, our awards showcase the incredible work of journalists and other media workers who combine outstanding talent with hard work and a great deal of courage to expose injustices worldwide. This year’s finalists are no exception.This year, we have introduced a new award called the People’s Choice Award. Earlier this year Amnesty International UK supporters were asked to nominate journalists who they believe to have worked tirelessly to achieve human rights change over the past year.Now, it’s down to a public vote to decide who wins!
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Thursday, May 15, 2025Elder of Ziyon
UN agencies have insisted they will not co-operate with the plan - which is in line with one previously approved by Israel's government - saying it contradicted fundamental humanitarian principles.A spokesperson for the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) accused Israel of seeking to use "food and fuel as leverage, as part of a military strategy"."All aid would be channelled through a handful of militarised hubs," Olga Cherevko told BBC Verify."That kind of arrangement would cut off vast areas of Gaza – particularly the most vulnerable, who can't move easily, or are otherwise marginalised – from any help at all."Meanwhile, Bushra Khalidi of Oxfam described the new plan as a "farce"."No logistical solution is going to address Israel's strategy of forcible displacement and using starvation as a weapon of war. Lift the siege, open the crossings and let us do our job."
Khalidi has accused Israel is using starvation as a weapon in Gaza - in October 2023.
OCHA has parroted false Hamas casualty statistics as factual for 19 months.
For these NGOs, Israel is declared guilty first, and the facts are twisted later to justify it.
What is clear is that they prioritize demonizing Israel over supporting feeding Gazans. While Israel is spending millions setting up secure food distribution centers, and creating a huge logistics infrastructure from scratch in a scale that has little precedent in history, organizations like Oxfam and the UN are more interested in criticizing Israel than in helping it feed Gazans in a way that would marginalize Hamas.
Their criticisms are even more hollow when you read the description of how the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation plans to feed Gazans.
It is not a half-baked plan - it includes multiple layers of logistics, specific distribution and cost goals, extensive audit systems, direct responses to early criticisms, flexibility in responding to new circumstances, and plans to scale and expand services as quickly as possible. The leaders of GHF have extensive experience in large humanitarian missions.
The NGOs airily dismiss the plan without even reading it. And they definitely don't want you to read it yourself, because that would expose their hate - and their indifference to suffering in Gaza. If Israel supports it, they must oppose it, Gazans be damned.
This is part of a pattern in how Israel is judged and reported on. Israel's actions are compared to an impossible standard and it is always criticized for falling short of arbitrary and artificial metrics. At the very same time, terror groups like Hamas who literally celebrate raping Jewish women and murdering children are given the benefit of the doubt, with their denials of stealing aid and their false accusations of Israel targeting women and children given deference even after hard proof shows that they are lying.
None of these NGOs can adequately explain why Israel, accused of genocide and weaponizing starvation, would want to work so hard on a plan to provide food to Gaza civilians. Israel's assertion that it does not want to hurt Gazans but wants to stop Hamas from profiting off the aid is consistent with the facts, yet it is dismissed in favor of a conspiracy theory where Israel is only pretending to want to build multiple distribution hubs to provide millions of meals.
Similarly, Israel said in March when it cut off food that there was enough food in Gaza until the end of May. (The WFP indicated it would last to July.) Israel is acting to ensure that there is no crisis. It never wanted to starve Gaza.
In many ways, the NGOs criticism of Israel's attempts to control aid distribution show that they are really on Hamas' side.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Thursday, May 15, 2025Elder of Ziyon.jpg)
Palestinian resistance has become the only, and perhaps the last, barrier standing in the way of the Israeli biblical projects. Whoever believes otherwise is still living in the illusions of the international community, international law, and the Security Council, and has missed the changes in Israeli society, which is now controlled by the biblical Zionists who do not value anything related to international law or the United Nations....The end of the resistance will be immediately followed by the accelerated Judaization of East Jerusalem by pushing the largest number of Arab Jerusalemites out of the city in preparation for closing it completely to non-Jews. The final surprising step will be the news at dawn of the collapse of Al-Aqsa Mosque due to natural factors, if they still have an ounce of fear, or as a result of a number of Jewish extremists causing an explosion inside the tunnels that the occupation dug under Al-Aqsa in search of a Jewish trace that they did not like, or perhaps accusing Palestinian resistance fighters of storing weapons under Al-Aqsa and provoking an armed clash that will end with the collapse of Al-Aqsa, leaving the Muslim masses with the polygonal building above the Dome of the Rock.
Those who criticize the resistance for the October 7 operation have no political horizon and cling to illusions of peace with the biblical occupation of the Palestinian land. If their argument is that October 7 prompted the enemy to destroy Gaza and kill and wound tens of thousands of Palestinians, then we ask them: Was the October 7 operation the cause of the Zionist brutality that surpassed the brutality of the Nazis, or did it expose that brutality that was covered by a false veil of claims of peace, democracy, cooperation and development, waiting for the moment when they would declare historic Palestine from the river and beyond the river a Jewish state?!
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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A leading U.S. pro-Palestinian organization may finally be forced to reveal how thin the line is that separates Hamas from some of its boisterous advocates in the West.How an Anti-Semitic Fabulist Became a Poster Child for Freedom of Speech
The group is American Muslims for Palestine, and a federal judge in Virginia has ruled that it must turn over key financial documents requested by Virginia’s attorney general, Jason Miyares. AMP has come under investigation and been the target of several lawsuits since Oct. 7, though as Jewish Insider has pointed out, one in particular stands out.
In 1996, David Boim was murdered by Hamas terrorists in Jerusalem. A group called the Islamic Association of Palestine was found liable for his death. That group shut down and essentially reappeared as AMP, the Boim lawsuit argues. If the Boim’s lawsuit can demonstrate that AMP is functionally a reanimation of IAP, it should inherit IAP’s liability to the Boims.
The evidence presented in the Boim case highlights the extent of the threat from groups like AMP, which has been active in supporting the tentifada protests on campus post-Oct. 7. Together, the Boim case and the Miyares investigation might answer two key questions: How close are Palestinian advocacy groups to Palestinian terror groups? And how interchangeable are the many iterations of these groups? As long as the courts are able to force these groups to fully comply with transparency rules, it will be like putting the massive, radical pro-Palestinian network in the U.S. under an X-ray machine.
As JI explained: “Among other close parallels cited by Schlessinger, top officials at AMP — many of whom have ties to Hamas — were once affiliated with IAP, in what he characterized as a ‘dramatic’ overlap of leadership. When AMP formed soon after IAP had shut down in 2004, for instance, ‘the key player in the day-to-day functioning of AMP was the same guy who was the key player in the day-to-day functioning of IAP,’ he said, referring to Abdelbaset Hamayel, a former top IAP official who also served as AMP’s first executive director and still manages its books and records.”
On April 30, a federal court ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a graduate student at Columbia University with permanent-resident status who had been detained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security two weeks earlier. Google Mahdawi and you will find a fawning 60 Minutes interview from December 2023, where he speaks about his involvement in anti-Israel protests and makes a point of distancing himself from anti-Semitism. But, Asaf Romirowsky writes, whatever you think about the still-pending legal case against Mahdawi, he is anything but a sympathetic figure:Seth Mandel: A Survivor Faces the Cowards
Mahdawi’s social-media accounts are . . . thick with blatant and vile anti-Semitic incitement, including the chant “Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahud,” referring to a battle in 628 at the Arabian city of Khaybar during which the prophet Mohammad slaughtered many of the town’s Jewish residents. The call, popular with Hamas and Hizballah supporters, is widely understood to be a threat.
And then there is the story Mahdawi has often retailed about how, as a child growing up in the Samarian hamlet of al-Fara, he saw his best friend shot dead by an Israeli soldier:
It’s a heartbreaking story; it’s also one that is very easy to corroborate, as a plethora of Palestinian and international human-rights organizations provide detailed accounts of Palestinian civilian casualties. . . . One child did die at al-Fara during the relevant time frame, but he was hurt by an explosive gas canister, not a bullet, and his fatal injury occurred in a remote field, not in the heart of the crowded [refugee] camp, as Mahdawi had repeatedly said.
Ever since Oct. 7, I have strangely looked forward to the annual Eurovision contest. Not for the music, really. Mostly I look forward to the arrival of the Israeli contestant, a rare moment to glimpse an actually brave artist in the sea of “pick-me” conformism that passes for a music scene today.
As a music fan, I don’t insist on courage from artists—I understand the business calculation behind, say, Green Day’s copycat bandwagoning or some no-name Irish frat-rap trio’s fame-thirsty attempt at recognition through incitement. Indeed, if I listened only to bands that didn’t float like wisps in the political winds, I wouldn’t have much on the playlist.
The part that does annoy me, however, is the way these bands and their fans cast themselves as heroes for doing what everyone else in their industry is doing—in this case, Hamasifying their otherwise staid stage presence.
Which is not to say I don’t find some enjoyment in the masquerade. After all, bandwagoning anti-Zionism is the most money-grubbing capitalist thing one can do in the entertainment business, and I’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at, say, Rage Against the Machine’s embrace of it. (Tom Morello, neoliberal!)
But this week, Yuval Raphael walked the welcoming carpet at the opening of the Eurovision contest in Basel, Switzerland. Raphael is Israel’s contestant in the competition. Because she is from the Jewish state, the normal fans cheering her were joined by keffiyeh-clad protesters waving Palestinian flags, one of whom made a throat-slitting gesture as Raphael’s delegation went by. He stepped toward the Israelis and spat at them.
Now, Israelis are quite used to getting random death threats from cosplaying revolutionaries comfortably ensconced in their flats thousands of miles from the conflict zone. Yuval Raphael just smiled and waved, and at one point made a heart gesture with her hands. That’s pretty much how it goes—Israeli hearts and Palestinian neck-slicing; they’re partners in a familiar dance.
But there is more to the story when it comes to Raphael. She is a survivor of the Nova massacre, the largest mass killing at a music festival in history. Her story is harrowing, and her appearance at Eurovision is, frankly, an inspiring if not historic moment for music fans everywhere.
Today, the US is focused on the Middle East and Asia. The whole world is more focused on Asia. For instance, Chinese military technology helped Pakistan against India recently.Stephen Pollard: If you want to understand how Qatar gets away with it: follow the money
Pakistan was a former British colony and had been closely linked to the West. Now it works with China.
Iran also collaborates with China. Countries in the Middle East are running to join economic groups such as BRICS and the SCO, which are non-Western economic blocs.
Therefore, Trump’s time in Saudi Arabia is part of the shifting global world order. The US is no longer a hegemonic power. This is a multipolar world.
Trump agrees with these changes. Although he wants to make America great at home, his “America first” approach also means the US rejects the notion of “national building.”
The American president skewered past Western efforts in the region. “The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called ‘nation builders,’ ‘neocons,’ or ‘liberal nonprofits,’ like those who spent trillions failing to develop Kabul and Baghdad,” Trump said.
“Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought about by the people of the region themselves... developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies,” he continued.
”In the end, the so-called ‘nation builders’ wrecked far more nations than they built – and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves,” Trump said.
The meeting with Sharaa, therefore, symbolizes how the US is getting out of the business of “lecturing” others.
Trump is embracing a policy where Syria will determine its own future. He will not hold the past against Sharaa and Syria. He is ready for a new world order.
There has, quite rightly, been renewed focus this week on Qatar. First, the ‘gift’ to Donald Trump of a new $400 million Air Force One, then the release of Hamas hostage Edan Alexander on Qatar’s instructions.Israel Must Act Swiftly to Defeat Hamas
But here’s the ironic thing about the state which lends support to pretty much every organisation in the Middle East dedicated to suppressing or killing Jews, from the Muslim Brotherhood to Hamas: almost all the things that antisemites believe Jews do but which we don’t, the Qataris really do.
Qatari money is pretty much everywhere – from politics to culture to education to finance to construction to plain old lobbying. Qatar, one might well observe, has come up with a brilliantly simply strategy for ensuring that not too many questions are asked, let alone acted on, about its terror-related activities: buy up the West. And that includes the UK.
It’s not even hidden. If you want to understand why Qatar is able to act so duplicitously without any consequences, let me give you chapter and verse – all of it publicly available.
I’ll focus solely on the UK. Globally, this is of course far more extensive.
Let’s start with Canary Wharf, bought in 2015 by the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) in partnership with Brookfield Property Partners for £2.6 billion. The QIA is reported to manage £334 billion of investments. Qatar also owns 95 per cent of the Shard and much of the surrounding Shard Quarter, including the News Building, which houses News UK (publishers of The Times and The Sun).
After the 2012 Olympics the Olympic Village was sold to the $35 billion real estate fund Qatari Diar. In 2007 Qatar bought Chelsea Barracks from the Ministry of Defence for over £900 million; it is being redeveloped into luxury homes by Qatari Diar, which also part-owns the £3 billion redevelopment of Elephant and Castle. Qatari Diar is central to the multi-million-pound regeneration of Lewisham town centre. That sits in a Qatari property portfolio alongside the former US Embassy on Grosvenor Square, bought in 2009.
On Monday night, the IDF struck a group of Hamas operatives near the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, the main city in southern Gaza. The very fact of this attack was reassuring, as it suggested that the release of Edan Alexander didn’t come with restraints on Israeli military activity. Then, yesterday afternoon, Israeli jets carried out another, larger attack on Khan Yunis, hitting a site where it believed Mohammad Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza, to be hiding. The IDF has not yet confirmed that he was present. There is some hope that the death of Sinwar—who replaced his older brother Yahya after he was killed last year—could have a debilitating effect on Hamas.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is visiting the Persian Gulf, and it’s unclear how his diplomatic efforts there will affect Israel, its war with Hamas, and Iran. For its part, Jerusalem has committed to resume full-scale operations in Gaza after President Trump returns to the U.S. But, Gabi Simoni and Erez Winner explain, Israel does not have unlimited time to defeat Hamas:
Israel faces persistent security challenges across multiple fronts—Iran, the West Bank, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon—all demanding significant military resources, especially during periods of escalation. . . . Failing to achieve a decisive victory not only prolongs the conflict but also drains national resources and threatens Israel’s ability to obtain its strategic goals.
Only a swift, forceful military campaign can achieve the war’s objectives: securing the hostages’ release, ensuring Israeli citizens’ safety, and preventing future kidnappings. Avoiding such action won’t just prolong the suffering of the hostages and deepen public uncertainty—it will also drain national resources and weaken Israel’s standing in the region and beyond.
We recommend launching an intense military operation in Gaza without delay, with clear, measurable objectives—crippling Hamas’s military and governance capabilities and securing the release of hostages. Such a campaign should combine military pressure with indirect negotiations, maximizing the chances of a successful outcome while minimizing risks.
Crucially, the operation must be closely coordinated with the United States and moderate Arab states to reduce international pressure and preserve the gains of regional alliances.
Wednesday, May 14, 2025Varda Meyers Epstein (Judean Rose)
Donald Trump, hamas, Houthi, Judean Rose, Netanyahu, Qatar, Varda, Varda Opinion
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of
the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
Donald Trump, during his previous administration, brought us
the Abraham Accords and established a U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. This time
around, Israeli Americans voted for him in droves, there being a general feeling
among us that Biden was bad for Israel and Trump the opposite of that. We were
frightened for our hostages, needed weapons, and more importantly a strong voice
in support of our war on Hamas. Trump appeared to tick all the boxes. We had
high hopes.
It began so well. The president gave Israel carte blanche to
do
as it pleased in Gaza and helped us fight the Houthis. And though there was
a feeling that the president was being wildly misled by Qatari
puppet Witkoff, he was a good friend to Israel. We appreciated it and were
glad we voted for him.
Then rumors of a rift began to flow, a narrative built from
a sequence of events. The US would no longer help Israel fight
the Houthis. Israel was excluded from the itinerary of Donald Trump’s Middle
East tour. Trump accepted a very expensive private plane
from Qatar. There was a secret
US deal to free Edan Alexander that was in the works for months without Israel’s
knowledge. The murmurs that Trump has turned against Israel have been gathering steam. Nobody I know wants to talk about it much, but there is thick nervous tension
in the air.
That’s my sense, at least, though I keep looking for
articles that prove me wrong. I don’t want to believe there’s a rift. But I don’t
like the way Trump kept us out of negotiations for Edan Alexander and made us
look weak, made Bibi look ineffectual, not in Trump’s good graces. I do
understand that America and Americans come first, but in my view, the way this deal
was done was really not cool.
It didn’t help that Edan Alexander’s mother Yael, pointedly thanked everyone but Netanyahu for freeing her son from captivity. Her failure to acknowledge him spoke
volumes, especially since the deal was negotiated behind Israel’s back, making
Bibi look sidelined.
Witkoff, of course, couldn’t help but rub it in, telling the hostage families that if only Israelis weren’t so divided, we’d be strong, the war would end, and the
hostages come home. That was the sense of what he said anyway, if not his
actual words.
But not everyone is worried. Ruthie Blum, senior contributing
editor at JNS, for example, believes the buzz is baseless. In a recent op-ed, Is
Trump Really Turning His Back on Bibi and Israel?, Blum says the gossip
comes from two agenda-driven sources, isolationists and anti-Netanyahu Israelis.
She also notes “conflicting versions of what is essentially gossip in disguise.”
Blum’s does an able job dissecting all the scuttlebutt. She paints
a reassuring picture of how things stand between Israel and President Trump, and
points to a recent meeting between Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron
Dermer with several important members of the Trump team. "Another clue
that Washington hasn’t turned its back on Jerusalem is that U.S. Vice President
JD Vance, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (doubling as interim national
security advisor) and special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff were present at the
powwow [with Dermer]."
The meeting does suggest that the relationship remains strong. At
the same time, JD Vance is a known isolationist, who in October said of the
US-Israel relationship, “Sometimes we’re going to have overlapping interests,
and sometimes
we’re going to have distinct interests. And our interest very much is in
not going to war with Iran. It would be a huge distraction of resources. It
would be massively expensive to our country.”
I asked Blum if, as she contends, isolationists are responsible
for the rumors of a rift, how do we know that JD Vance isn’t leading the charge
and what does this portend for the future? Vance may very well be the next
president of the United States.
“Had those leaning in an isolationist direction reprimanded
Dermer, it would have been a bad sign. We know this didn't happen, however,
since it would have been front page ‘news,’ given all the media mudslinging
about Dermer's supposedly being "arrogant" and a source of irritation,”
“Nothing so far suggests that there's a rift between
Washington and Jerusalem,” said Blum. “And the fact that Trump didn't make
Israel part of his Mideast trip this week is actually a good thing. The last
thing he needs is for it to appear that America is doing Israel's bidding in
the region.”
Ruthie Blum, it seems, is betting on Trump playing a long
game, not cutting ties. That makes a lot of sense. That does seem to be the way
Trump operates.
But there are other voices. An Arab political analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, had a completely different take. “Trump is being played by the Islamists. Sadly, he has chosen to align himself with the bad guys. Many Arabs are convinced that he has thrown Israel under the bus and that he could be easily bought with their charm, hospitality and money. This does not bode well for the future of the region, especially because his actions and rhetoric embolden the radical Muslims.”
Wait.
— Yisrael Medad (@ymedad) January 16, 2025
Is Witkoff in Qatar's pocket?https://t.co/Lc80AIjpDx
andhttps://t.co/szajrm4H9S
I think it is true to a degree that Trump is being played by
the Islamists. For me, the proof of that is Witkoff’s admission in March
that he had been duped
by Hamas into thinking they had accepted his proposal to extend the
ceasefire when they had no intention of doing so. “I thought we had an
acceptable deal. I even thought we had an approval from Hamas. Maybe that’s
just me getting duped. I thought we were there, and evidently we weren’t."
Well, duh. Of course you were getting duped. Did you expect
fairness and honesty from Hamas?
Witkoff is Trump’s guy on this. Trump trusts Witkoff knows
what he’s doing. Ergo, when Witkoff is duped by Hamas, by default so is Donald
J. Trump.
Has Trump turned cold toward Israel and its prime minister? Ruthie Blum says no. It’s only a mirage, stirred up by political vultures. Others say Trump is falling for Qatar’s charm and risking a regional firestorm by expressing a willingness to negotiate with Iran. It is unfortunate, but Donald Trump’s weakness for flattery could very well make him ripe for Qatar’s game. Let’s hope the president sees through all the ceremonial fawning and glitz, and understands that it is Israel, and Israel alone, who stands as America’s always faithful ally in the Middle East.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Wednesday, May 14, 2025Elder of Ziyon
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Wednesday, May 14, 2025Elder of Ziyonanalysis, Daled Amos
By Daled Amos
This past weekend, The Wall Street Journal featured an article reexamining the allegations of sexual harassment against ICC prosecutor Karim Khan. It also focused on the possible connection between those allegations and the warrants he issued against Netanyahu and Gallant.
In the months following Israel's retaliation against Hamas for the October 7 massacre, both pro-Palestinian activists and ICC-member states in developing countries pressured the prosecutor to take action. According to the report, ICC sources indicated that the pressure was so great that Khan "was increasingly lashing out at his team."The casualties of the allegations would include “the justice of the victims that are on the cusp of progress,” [Khan] said to her, according to a record of a call that is now part of an independent U.N. investigation into her allegations. “Think about the Palestinian arrest warrants,” she said he told her on another occasion, according to the testimony.
Khan issued the arrest order two-and-a-half weeks after learning of the accusation.
Khan blamed Israel for his decision, saying through his lawyers that “no offer has yet been received from Israel that would permit [access to Gaza]." He claimed this even though Lynch was going to Israel that day to make preparations.
His lawyers claim that since the warrant applications were announced after the ICC had already closed its internal inquiry into the allegations, this disproves any linkage between the allegations and the warrants. On the other hand, if there were enough rumors that an independent UN investigation was found necessary, that could have led Khan to issue warrants to manipulate the situation.
Senior prosecutors and staff say Khan should take a temporary leave of absence to allow the independent UN investigation to do its job. Some ICC officials believe his presence at the court discourages witnesses from cooperating with the investigation. Khan has refused to take a leave.
Meanwhile, Lynch claims that Khan has retaliated against him by moving him out of Khan's office. According to the internal ICC investigation, following Lynch's reporting the allegation of misconduct, Khan's wife told Lynch she heard rumors about him having an "inappropriate relationship" with a colleague, which he denied. Lynch reported that he saw her comments as threatening, but Khan's wife denied making any statement to him “that could reasonably be construed as threatening.”
Anne Herzbert, human rights lawyer and legal advisor to NGO Monitor, commented on the Wall Street Journal article on Twitter:
Hungary already began the process last month to withdraw from the ICC--a move that was passed in its parliament:
Hungary is out. Today the Parliament voted to withdraw from the International Criminal Court. We won’t be part of a politicised institution. pic.twitter.com/mZTlJyi9oj
— Péter Szijjártó (@FM_Szijjarto) April 29, 2025
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Wednesday, May 14, 2025Elder of Ziyon
What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow..If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?Do not judge your fellow until you have stood in his place.Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving mankind and bringing them closer to the Torah.In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Wednesday, May 14, 2025Elder of Ziyon.jpg) |
| Qatari and Saudi flags flying outside the Plaza Hotel in NYC |
America faces a silent invasion. Not of armies or navies, but of capital. Qatar, a tiny Gulf emirate with just 300,000 citizens, has deployed nearly $40 billion across our nation’s institutions since 2012. This is not mere investment. It is calculated influence.Benjamin Baird’s meticulous investigation exposes the full scope of Qatar’s American enterprise. The numbers speak plainly: $33.4 billion into businesses and real estate; $6.25 billion to universities; $72 million to lobbyists. Qatar purchases access to our corridors of power while simultaneously funding Hamas terrorists who seek our destruction.The pattern is clear: Qatar targets critical infrastructure, including our energy grid. It bankrolls academic departments that foment campus unrest, buys Manhattan skyscrapers, and infiltrates Silicon Valley. Its capital flows to Washington insiders who shape Middle East policy.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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Guy Benson, Christine Rosen and Christopher Rufo told JNS what it’s been like to defend Jews on the air and shared advice for the Jewish state.Erin Molan vs. the world: From Australian news anchor to pro-Israel firebrand
Christine Rosen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, found out about the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terror attacks from the “very active” text chain of contributors to Commentary magazine, where she is a columnist and cohost of the daily podcast.
“I hate to say that I wasn’t that surprised about the antisemitism. I wasn’t, because I’ve spent enough time on college campuses over the last 10 to 15 years,” Rosen told JNS. “What did truly shock me was the cowardice of some of our elected leaders and cultural figures, and people who should absolutely have immediately responded in no uncertain terms in a strong moral voice, standing with Israel, standing with the Jewish people and denouncing this terrorism.”
Rosen continues to turn over the “puzzle” in her head of how it became tolerable for people to express things that they ought to be ashamed to think, let alone vocalize.
“It’s now openly endorsed by extremely powerful cultural and political leadership,” including the so-called “Squad” of progressive, anti-Israel members of the U.S. House of Representatives, whose young enthusiasts on social media have no grasp of Middle East history or anti-Israel and antisemitic terrorism, Rosen told JNS.
“That is where I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that there were so many political figures not willing to stand up,” she said. “That was an early marker of where the younger, more progressive wing of the Democratic Party has been headed for years.”
The “righteous among the nations,” according to Yad Vashem, are “non-Jews who took great risks to save Jews during the Holocaust” at “a time when hostility and indifference prevailed.” Rosen, who was raised a fundamentalist Christian, and other “righteous gentiles” in media with whom JNS spoke, didn’t hide Jews in their attics or, like Lafayette, arm themselves and fight in a foreign army for justice.
But Rosen, Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow and director of the initiative on critical race theory at the Manhattan Institute, and the conservative talk-show host Guy Benson told JNS about the slings and arrows they take on social media, and on other platforms, for defending the Jewish state and being outspoken about Jew-hatred. (The latter two have some 1.7 million followers combined across social media.)
“It’s been so encouraging to see non-Jews step in, and defend Israel and the Jewish people,” Karol Markowicz, a New York Post and Fox News columnist, podcaster and author who is Jewish, told JNS.
“It has cost them a lot. They take abuse for us and rarely get praise or an award,” Markowicz said. “Their bravery has made the silence of some Jews even more obvious and embarrassing.”
A few hours after touching down in Tel Aviv, Erin Molan stood at the edge of the Mediterranean, scanning the sky. A Houthi missile had recently landed nearby, bringing most air traffic to a standstill.
“I was looking outside at where it had landed and thinking about the absence of any condemnation for the injured innocent civilians or potential fatalities that could have occurred,” she said. “Every second, every day, I’m reminded of how hypocritical the rest of the world is.”
On her third visit to Israel in the past year, Molan was a guest of right-wing organization Nikraim LaDegel (Called to the Flag) at whose “Salute to Israel’s Independence Day” event she spoke on May 5. She also attended the Atlas Awards held by the Ayn Rand Center to receive an award for Moral Courage in recognition of her support for Israel and her commitment to truth in journalism.
Her schedule was short — just two nights in Tel Aviv — but densely packed with meetings, speeches, and encounters with families whose lives had been upended by war.
She recalled meeting a father whose child is still held hostage in Gaza, and a woman whose son was mistakenly shot by an IDF soldier.
“She held no anger,” Molan said. “That kind of forgiveness, that kind of resilience, stays with you.”
The Australian broadcaster, best known until recently for her sharp commentary on sports and politics, has spent the past seven months as one of the world’s most public pro-Israel advocates, highlighting the plight of the hostages and defending Israel’s war in Gaza.
Disagreements with the Trump administration regarding Gaza, the Houthis, Iran, and Saudi Arabia represent positive developments for Israel.Seth Mandel: Why Qatar Doesn’t Pass the ‘Tito Test’
The absence of such differences would be cause for deep concern.
It would be deeply troubling if Israel simply acquiesced and failed to defend matters essential to its security and existence.
Should Israel accept a potentially flawed nuclear agreement with Iran?
When Saudi Arabia is poised to receive American approval for a civilian nuclear reactor without normalizing relations with Israel, should Israel submit meekly?
When moments after Ben-Gurion Airport experienced the shock wave from a Houthi missile, the U.S. announces it will cease bombing the Houthis, should Israel simply disregard this?
While relations with the U.S. are indeed extremely important, matters affecting the security of every Israeli citizen are even more crucial.
Israel must remain steadfast and navigate skillfully through disagreement, even with a supportive administration that demonstrates affection for Israel.
For example, consider Qatar’s sponsorship of Hamas. The reason Israeli leaders believed they could live with a situation in which Qatar ensured that Gaza didn’t run out of money was because that money was supposed to come with strings attached. Qatar would keep Hamas afloat as the cost of keeping Gazans’ standard of living stable. (If you’ve seen the “this is what Israel destroyed” social media posts, you’ll know that not only was Gaza not an open-air prison but it actually had a lot to lose in from the invasion of Israel.)Eitan Fischberger: Trump Should Listen to Qatar’s Own Words
In return, the Qataris would make sure that the level of terrorism was also kept stable at a manageable level. Under Hamas, Gaza was never going to become a peace colony, but putting a ceiling on Hamas’s threat was worth the price—at least, that was the gamble.
Oct. 7 destroyed that narrative. The Qataris weren’t, it turned out, keeping a lid on Gazan extremism; They were using the money instead to keep Hamas afloat while it planned the massive pogrom-like violence of that day.
Before Oct. 7, you could say “Yes, the Qataris fund Hamas, but….” There’s no “but” in the equation anymore.
Another example would be Qatar’s flooding of America’s elite universities with money. These donations at times reach unfathomable amounts, and they entrench a certain tolerance of extremism on campus when it comes to Israel and Jews. But it turned out—though surely many at these institutions expected the events of the past 18 months, and plenty of them approve of the riots—that the academic argument against Israel was also the academic argument against America. The students at Harvard also want Harvard to be destroyed, and they say so freely. Same goes for Columbia and the rest.
Then there’s the larger question of what can be controlled at all. Plant a carrot, declares Bellomy in The Fantasticks, and you get a carrot. But Qatar planted the seeds of self-hatred, anti-Semitism, and paranoid discontent among young and impressionable minds. That genie isn’t going back in the bottle even if Qatar wanted it to.
The Qataris don’t know how to play the game of geopolitics. They just have money and like spending it. The chaos they breed is far more of dangerous to the West than anything they accomplish with their occasional goodwill gestures.
As Donald Trump prepares land in Qatar this week — the first visit by a U.S. president since the Gulf state’s entanglement in the October 7 attacks began drawing renewed scrutiny in Washington — it’s paramount that his administration understand exactly who they’re dealing with.Brendan O'Neill: How Some Americans Betrayed Edan Alexander
Few regimes have mastered the art of duplicity quite like Qatar: On one hand, glitzy PR campaigns, lavish real estate investments, and global counterterror conferences; on the other, direct support for Hamas and antisemitic statements that would make Kanye West blush. The cracks in the facade become visible during those fleeting moments when Qatar lets its guard down — when it speaks under the assumption that nobody in the West is listening.
Qatar’s longstanding ruse has led many ostensibly well-meaning individuals to view it as a responsible mediator in global conflicts and a partner for business, diplomacy, and progress. Among these people is Steve Witkoff — President Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East and trusted negotiator, who has been working closely with the Qataris on a ceasefire in the Hamas-Israel war. During a recent appearance on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, Witkoff described Qatar as “well-motivated” and “good,” adding that the regime had “moderated quite a bit.”
Yet the mirage of morality vanishes the moment you take a hard look at what Qatari officials actually say — both in public statements and through its state-run media.
Take the Qatari Shura Council, the country’s top legislative body. After the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the summer of 2024, the Speaker of the Council, Hassan bin Abdullah Al-Ghanim, delivered a glowing tribute to him, praising Haniyeh for “embodying the highest meanings of sacrifice and determination” and “defending the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”
Even more revealing are the statements of Sa'oud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, now Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. In 2014, during fighting between Israel and Hamas, Al Thani tweeted “We Are All Hamas” and “Revive the memory of [Izz Al-Din] Al Qassam” — a reference to Hamas’ military brigade. In 2021, Al Thani tweeted that “Israel’s control of the U.S. is clear,” and that Qatar must “plan how to influence the decision-makers in the U.S.”
When a U.S. citizen, just 19, was taken captive by a fascist militia, some Americans wrapped their faces in the keffiyeh in gleeful mimicry of the militants who seized their compatriot. They cheered the jailers of their fellow citizen. "Glory to our martyrs," some cried, meaning the radical Islamists who had dragged their teenage countryman into a hellish lair and kept him there for 583 days.
Even as we share in the joy of the Alexander family, we must never forget how others in the U.S. betrayed this young American. Some even became unpaid propagandists for his captors. For 18 months, America's self-styled "anti-fascists" didn't so much as mention the words "Edan Alexander." They saved their warm words for his persecutors. That American radicals expressed more sympathy for Hamas than for its victims, even the American ones, is surely one of the greatest betrayals of decency of our time.
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