Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, May 18, 2025

05/18 Links: Hamas docs: Oct. 7 aimed to block Israel-Saudi peace; Eurovision fans’ glorious f-you to the Israel haters; BBC Verify – publicly funded Hamas propaganda

From Ian:

We Expect Our Allies to Support Our Right to Destroy Our Enemies

As the war continues, voices condemning Israel grow louder across Europe as antisemitism has soared to heights unseen in recent years. Yet the accusations leveled by Europeans can be easily refuted.

We possess damning evidence not only against Hamas's military but also against the cooperation of the so-called "uninvolved" Gazan population in acts of murder, looting, rape, and actively hiding our hostages in residential homes.

As German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the Bundestag in October 2024: "Self-defense means, of course, not just attacking terrorists, but eliminating them....We will not back down [from supporting Israel]. I made it clear to the UN that civilian facilities can lose their protected status when terrorists exploit them. This is Germany's position and our understanding of Israel's security."

This should be our core message to all our allies. We are not asking them to support our right to self-defense and, of course, neither Israel's right to exist. We expect them to support our right to destroy our enemies.

Fortunately, we live in an independent Jewish state, accountable for our own fate. We will not live next to barbarians whose raison d'etre is the murder of Jews. If you are unhappy with that, then we must agree to disagree.

Numerous violent conflicts rage worldwide, yet Europeans elevate the plight of Gazans above all. Why? Because they happen to be fighting Jews. Muslims killing Muslims doesn't attract global concern. But Jews fighting and defeating their enemies - that demands a reckoning.

Israel contributes significantly to Europe's security. We are the modern embodiment of an ancient civilization on which the West was built. We are fighting for our survival in a long and complex battle that requires both patience and resolve. This war is not about the right to defend our lives, it is about eliminating the terrorists and uprooting the threat. Just as no rational person would live at the foot of a volcano that erupts every few years, Israelis will not return to normal life as long as the barbarians remain just a few kilometers away.

Dear Europeans, you fail to see the threats you face. In the 1930s, you ignored Churchill's warnings about Hitler. You thought it would end with the Jews. You learned nothing; after us, it will be your turn.

The Fighting Isn't Over, but Israel Has Already Won

In the regional arena, Israel has already won the war that started on Oct. 7, 2023. While the fighting is not over yet, the balance of power in the Middle East has shifted dramatically in favor of the Jewish state and its de-facto Arab allies. The radicals have never been more humiliated, isolated, vulnerable and intimidated, while the moderate Arab regimes are surreptitiously grateful for the Israeli resolve in fighting their common enemies.

Since Oct. 7, Israel has devastated in Gaza the only Arab state-like entity controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. The IDF also reduced Hizbullah from an intimidating strategic threat to a major nuisance, fighting a rearguard battle for its position in Beirut and southern Lebanon. And Israel's Air Force exposed the supreme vulnerability of Iran's most-defended sites.

In Cairo, Amman, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Rabat, Arab leaders know that sustainable Israeli resilience, strategic power, determination and tenacity in the struggle against common radical enemies are indispensable for their own regional welfare, sometimes even their existence. Whereas America is immeasurably more powerful, Israel, in their experience, is an infinitely more trustworthy and dependable partner.

The Middle East has taken a major turn for the better in the last year and a half. Israel is exhausted, but much safer, and even the Americans are somewhat more realistic. A lot depends on containing Iran, but the chances to avoid a catastrophe are better than they have been in a long time and everybody recognizes Israel's indispensable contribution.

Hamas docs: Oct. 7 aimed to block Israel-Saudi peace

One of Hamas’s motivations for launching its Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of Israel was to frustrate U.S.‑brokered talks to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, according to documents published Sunday by The Wall Street Journal.

According to the minutes of a meeting recovered by Israeli troops from a hidden Hamas command tunnel in Gaza, terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar had told senior commanders on Oct. 2 that only an “extraordinary act” could wreck the fast‑advancing deal. If Riyadh signed, he warned, “most Arab and Muslim governments would line up behind it,” sidelining Hamas.

The minutes say the assault, in which about 6,000 Hamas-led Gazan terrorists stormed the Israeli border, murdered some 1,200 people and abducted another 251, had been under preparation for two years as part of a broader campaign to “shift the strategic balance” and pull other members of the so‑called Axis of Resistance into the fight.

A companion memo—also found in the tunnel—advised accelerating attacks in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem for the same purpose and dismissed any Saudi pledge to defend Palestinian interests as a bluff. Hamas even circulated a “help wanted” notice for a university‑educated operative to coordinate anti‑normalization work, the cache revealed.

The prospect of Saudi‑Israeli talks had advanced further in 2023 than in any previous effort: draft U.S. security guarantees for the kingdom, U.S. approval of civil nuclear technology and a roadmap for Palestinian self‑governance were all on the table, according to the Journal.

Hamas saw the moment as existential. An August 2022 internal briefing cited in the files states it was the movement’s “duty” to derail the “wave of normalization sweeping the Arab world,” which already included the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan—the cosignatories of the 2020 Abrahams Accords led by U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term in office.

Reports from Gaza are not credible. Journalists know this - but don't want to tell it to you.

Nineteen months too late, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that journalists in Gaza are routinely threatened, harassed, arrested or even beaten by Hamas if the terror group feels that their reporting is not fulfilling Hamas' propaganda efforts. Here are extensive excerpts from their article but it is terrifically important:

When Gazan journalist Tawfiq Abu Jarad received a phone call from a Hamas security agent warning him not to cover a protest, he readily complied, having been assaulted by Hamas-affiliated forces once before.

“They even told me that I would be responsible if my wife participated in the demonstration,” said Abu Jarad, a 44-year-old correspondent for Ramallah-based privately owned Sawt al-Hurriya radio station. “I have not covered any recent demonstrations,” he concluded, recalling how he was beaten and interrogated for hours by Hamas-affiliated masked assailants in the southern city of Rafah in November 2023, accusing him of “covering events in the Gaza Strip calling for a coup.”

He only secured his freedom with a promise to stop reporting.

Another journalist told The Washington Post they feared covering highly unusual demonstrations in March 2025 would lead Hamas to accuse them of spying for Israel. A third said Hamas’ internal security agents sometimes followed journalists as they reported. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Their fears of reporting on opposition to Hamas seem well-founded. A statement by Palestinian Resistance Factions and Tribes in Gaza, which includes Hamas, condemned the protesters as “collaborators with Israel,” a charge historically used to justify executions. Israeli outlets said that Hamas had killed Palestinians who participated in the March anti-war protests.

Abu Jarad reported Hamas’ threat against himself and his wife to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS), the official union for Palestinian journalists, and PJS publicly condemned Hamas for violating press freedom.

Prior to this, PJS had only published one other incident involving Hamas during the war — the brutal assault of Ibrahim Muhareb, who was beaten unconscious by armed men in plainclothes who said they were from the police investigations department. He sustained deep head wounds.

Muharab’s experience is not unusual — it’s his decision to go public that marks him out.

“There are major violations committed by the Hamas government and group against journalists,” PJS’ head Nasser Abu Bakr told CPJ. “The violations range from summonses, interrogations, phone calls, threats, sometimes beatings and arrests, to harassment, publication bans, interference with content, and surveillance.”

Press freedom violations by Hamas during the war have been vastly underreported.

PJS often documents Hamas attacks on the media internally, without publicizing them, for fear of reprisals, the group told CPJ. In other cases, PJS staff hear about events secondhand as journalists are too scared to report them.

CPJ’s experience echoes that of PJS.

In separate incidents this year, two Gaza-based journalists told CPJ that they were intimidated by Hamas security agents who blocked them from reporting in certain areas. The journalists did not consent to CPJ going public about their experiences for fear of retaliation. To them, the priority was to be able to continue reporting from the field.

More recently, a TV crew told CPJ they were assaulted by Hamas security forces while trying to film. But, again, the journalists did not want CPJ to publicize the incident as it was later resolved between the powerful clans that wield influence over most of Gaza’s population.

PJS’ deputy head Tahseen al-Astal told CPJ that Palestinian journalists are reluctant to spotlight their own problems, driven by a collective desire not to “pivot eyes from the war in Gaza,” which they felt was a more pressing story.

“Most journalists have begun to practice self-censorship in their writing to avoid any problems with security,” he added.

We've known this for years - I have stories as early as 2008 of Hamas attacking journalists who are covering stories Hamas doesn't want reported on. Matti Friedman wrote in 2014 that "Hamas fighters would burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau and threaten the staff—and the AP wouldn’t report it."

A Spanish journalist, off the record, said during the 2014 war "It's very simple, we did see Hamas people there launching rockets, they were close to our hotel, but if ever we dared pointing our camera on them they would simply shoot at us and kill us." And he was far from the only one.

In short, every journalist in Gaza has known this for years. The CPJ has known this for years. The wire services, the New York Times, CNN - they all know that their stringers and reporters in Gaza self-censor and will not fact-check Hamas' lies. They will only publish stories that are anti-Israel, real or imagined, and any intimidation or attacks by Hamas on Gazans or Gaza journalists are simply left unsaid.

The corollary is that the successful journalists in Gaza are the ones who are themselves members of Hamas, work for Hamas-linked media outlets or are otherwise cozy with Hamas, They are the ones that have the most access to places that Hamas wants them to see, and they won't ever take pictures that could show that Hamas rockets fell short and killed people, or that Hamas IEDs killed Gaza civilians, or that Gazans want to leave Gaza, or that Gaza residents are protesting Hamas.

Even the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, when they do report in Arabic on Hamas attacks on journalists, frame the attacks as hurting their own major journalistic goal of demonizing Israel. Really:

The Syndicate also affirms that the direct and indirect threats to which Palestinian journalists are exposed reflect a real challenge to the occupation's criminality and the war of genocide it is waging against our people. Were it not for the Palestinian journalist's insistence on continuing his work, defending his cause, and conveying his ongoing suffering as a result of the occupation's aggression, the world would not have known or witnessed these crimes.

The PJS is no less a propaganda organization than Hamas is, just they want to occasionally say what Hamas is doing, too.

The media’s job is to report the truth - even when it’s inconvenient, and especially when it’s dangerous. In Gaza, that truth is systematically suppressed, with Western outlets complicit in the silence. If news organizations won’t admit the pressure and intimidation their journalists face, their coverage is propaganda by omission.

As long as this continues, audiences must treat every “fact” from Gaza not as reporting, but as an unvetted press release from Hamas. Until the media comes clean, the world should withhold judgment—and demand honesty.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

How does the Jewish ethics framework stack up against the professional New York Times Ethicist?

Last week, I introduced AskHillel - a Jewish ethics chatbot that will answer any questions in alignment with Jewish ethics. Unlike other chatbots, it gives a full logic trace for what values are impacted by the question and how it balances between competing values.

The New York Times publishes an Ethicist column, an advice column where a professional ethicist from NYU, Kwame Anthony Appiah, answers queries.This interested me as a way to test AskHillel.

When I posted the same questions to AskHillel as those given to Kwame, I found that it more than held its own. The answers were similar, sometimes AskHillel would give an alternative solution than Kwame didn't think of. For the queries I asked, AskHillel did quite well.

But then I was curious: what philosophy does Kwame adhere to? If I want to position Jewish ethics against other philosophies, and Kwame's answers are decent (which they are), then I want to know what his algorithm is, so to speak, for answering questions so I could do a comparison of actual values and ethics, not just the answers.

I found an article where Kwame describes his process, and the answer is - he uses his own gut instincts.

Though he’s a world-renowned philosopher—the author of 10 books and recipient of a National Humanities Medal, a dozen or so honorary degrees, and too many other accolades to count—Appiah approaches tricky dilemmas the way most of us would: by first going with his gut. “The first thing I do is decide what my hunch is about the right answer to the question,” he says. “I don’t sort of reason my way towards it—I just kind of think about it.”
That process sometimes involves running a question by his husband, say, or thinking out loud in the company of friends.

Only after he’s been stewing on it a while does Appiah then “try to think more systematically about what the considerations are,” he says. “Does the person have any duties that they ought to consider, or are they free to do whatever they judge is best independently of any duties? What are the likely consequences of the various forms of action that they're contemplating, in terms of impacts on others? There’s a sort of toolkit of things that philosophers think are important in trying to understand what to do and who to be.”

The choice of tools depends on the particulars of the situation, of course...

When Kwame says "duties" he is invoking deontology ethics. When he says consequences he is talking about consequentialism. The third main Western philosophical approach is virtue ethics, or developing good character. But these three approaches are not compatible with each other. He is picking and choosing which framework he wants to use for any given question out of his "toolkit."

Which means, in the end, there is no consistent, transparent framework - the choice of tools is post hoc, not systematic. He chooses his answers and then fits the philosophical approach to whatever he thinks the right answer is.

This approach is defended in philosophical circles in recent years as "moral pluralism." Modern philosophers like Isaiah Berlin, Bernard Williams, and Martha Nussbaum have acknowledged that no single moral theory captures the full range of human moral experience.

But isn't that a tacit acknowledgment that the Western philosophical frameworks have failed? That their baseline categorizations themselves are flawed?

The Jewish ethical system always included aspects of all of these major philosophical streams - there are elements of all three, and more. But it fused them millennia before Western philosophers realized that their pure systems didn't solve real problems.

Not only that, but while the pluralistic approach allows huge amounts of subjectivity - two moral pluralists can easily come to different conclusions - that is less likely to happen with the Jewish ethical system, since there is a large amount of literature of real dilemmas that have already been decided and which imply a hierarchy of values. (Yes, I know, two Jews, three opinions - but the leeway in the halachic/ethical process is fairly narrow.)

When I created AskHillel, I input my understanding of Jewish values, axioms and priorities. While I do not think that they have ever been defined the way I did, they appear to be accurate. And the proof is in the pudding - AskHillel gives answers that are intuitively correct without being a professional ethicist who has a toolkit to choose from.

Here's how AskHillel itself described how it is different from Western philosophical schools and modern pluralism:

Judaism never saw the need to split morality into parts to begin with. It wove together legal obligation (mitzvah), character development (middot), societal outcomes (tzedek), and divine purpose (kiddush Hashem) from the start. Pluralism is not a new layer; it's Judaism's native mode. The Torah assumes that law, love, justice, peace, truth, and humility coexist in tension and are refined through ongoing moral struggle.
A System That Preserves Moral Coherence:
What distinguishes Jewish ethics is not merely that it includes all the components, but that it holds them accountable to a shared source of authority and sanctity. Western pluralism often lacks this anchor—it becomes a toolkit of competing goods with no covenantal hierarchy. Judaism, by contrast, offers structured tools for prioritization (e.g., Pikuach Nefesh over most other values, lifnim mishurat hadin as ethical aspiration beyond law).
Ethical Triage vs. Theoretical Crisis:
What Western ethics treats as theoretical breakdown, Jewish ethics addresses through structured ethical triage and humility (e.g., teiku when disagreements are unresolved but preserved). Pluralism within Judaism is not relativism—it’s moral realism combined with reverence for complexity and ongoing dialogue.

The Torah’s basic ethical system is at least a thousand years older than Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. It is the oldest extant ethical system there is. Assuming that the rules I put into AskHillel are reasonably accurate, it shows that it is a more mature, more flexible and more bulletproof ethical system than any other out there.

And, I believe, it incidentally proves that most philosophers in the Western tradition have been doing it all wrong.

It’s time to admit that the world’s oldest moral system might just be its best. And with AskHillel.com, for the first time, anyone can put it to the test.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Most of the speakers at the "Jewish Voice for Peace" national meeting were not Jewish

Earlier this month, coinciding with May Day and going over Shabbat, Jewish Voice for Peace held a national meeting in Baltimore where they touted over 2,000 people attended.

Looking at the speakers on their website, you see a lot of names of people that are definitely not Jewish, like Linda Sarsour or Rashida Tlaib.

In fact, at least 23 of the 40 speakers were not Jewish, and several like Rashida Tlaib and Linda Sarsour have been accused of antisemitic rhetoric.

Ahmad Abuznaid (USCPR): Palestinian-American, Muslim background.

Noura Erakat (Human Rights Attorney): Palestinian-American, Muslim background.

Prof. Robin D. G. Kelley (UCLA): African-American scholar, no evidence of Jewish identity.

Linda Sarsour (MPower Change): Palestinian-American, Muslim activist.

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (U.S. Representative): Palestinian-American, Muslim.

Prof. Eman Abdelhadi (University of Chicago): Palestinian-American, Muslim background.

Congresswoman Cori Bush (Former U.S. Representative): African-American, Christian background.

Lara Kiswani (Arab Resource & Organizing Center): Palestinian-American

Loan Tran (Rising Majority): Vietnamese-American, no evidence of Jewish identity.

Thaer Ahmad (PAMA): Palestinian-American, Muslim background.

Khury Petersen-Smith (Institute for Policy Studies): No evidence of Jewish identity.

Montague Simmons (Movement for Black Lives): African-American, no evidence of Jewish identity.

Raquel Willis (Gender Liberation Movement): African-American, no evidence of Jewish identity.

Sumaya Awad (Adalah Justice Project): Palestinian-American, no evidence of Jewish identity.

Dr. Angela Davis (Activist, Philosopher, Author): African-American.. Not Jewish.

Prof. Barbara Ransby (University of Illinois Chicago): African-American, no evidence of Jewish identity.

Jamila Woods (Musician, Poet): African-American, no evidence of Jewish identity. Not Jewish.

Prof. Abdel Razzaq Takriti (Rice University): Palestinian, Not Jewish.

Sandra Tamari (Adalah Justice Project): Palestinian-American, Not Jewish.

Omar Barghouti (BDS Movement Co-Founder): Palestinian, Not Jewish.

Nick Tilsen (NDN Collective): Native American (Oglala Lakota), no evidence of Jewish identity. Not Jewish.

Here is how JVP describes their on site prayer room: "There will also be a prayer room open for anyone who needs a quiet space for Muslim or Jewish prayer, or simply to sit quietly for a few minutes, as well as a separate low-sensory decompression space." Also, they provided "a facilitated ritual space to grieve our countless communal losses."

JVP: where Judaism is a prop.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

05/17 Links: Israel’s Yuval Raphael’s places 2nd in Eurovision; Trump’s Retro-Futurist Vision for the Middle East; Howard Jacobson: Of Jews, rats and Gary Lineker

From Ian:

Trump’s Retro-Futurist Vision for the Middle East

For observers of American foreign policy, Trump’s speech at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum was equally consequential. He hailed a "great transformation" in the region that was "not created by the so-called nation-builders, neo-cons, or liberal nonprofits," but rather "by the people of the region themselves." Many are hailing or lamenting this as a radical departure from prior policy, but it is in many respects a return to an older strategy, albeit updated for the information revolution. This policy depended on a different set of calculations than Trump has used so far, however, and it may fail without it.

Since FDR met Ibn Saud in 1945, America’s Middle East policy has focused on maintaining access to energy from the Persian Gulf. To do this, Americans needed a favorable balance of power and reliable suppliers. Now that information technology is revolutionizing economies and societies around the globe, the Trump administration has added a third goal: integrating Gulf Arab investors into the American-led tech ecosystem that will battle China for control of the world’s information networks.

During most of the Cold War, the first two goals naturally led to a set of partnerships: Turkey tried to bottle up the Russians at the Bosphorus and the Persians wanted the Russians off their turf. Saudi Arabia wanted to prevent any other power from dominating the region, and also to stabilize global oil markets at a price high enough to cover its expenses but too low for industrialized countries to seek new sources of oil. And Israel shredded the Soviet’s Arab nationalist proxies that tried to dominate its neighborhood.

These partnerships benefited the United States. Its allies generally feared and despised each other, but deft American diplomacy capitalized on their strengths. Israel helped the United States break the Soviet threat to the region, and the Saudis helped bankrupt the Kremlin.

Two big trends have created the great transformation that Trump spotted. The first is that the Arab contest between the Islamists and the tech-focused modernizers has replaced the old battle between traditional monarchies and Arab nationalists. The modernizers, led by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, are trying to pivot from merely supplying oil and gas to becoming global leaders in advanced technology. The Islamists, often disguising themselves as democratic activists, want to topple the modernizers and reverse most of their reforms.

The region’s power politics have shifted too. The fear of Tehran drove the Gulf Arabs and Israel together, but thanks to Israel’s military and Turkey’s Syrian proxies, Iran’s regional empire is a shadow of its former self. That bond grows weaker as their shared enemies do.

Trump sees the massive opportunities created by this transformation. The modernizers can unleash massive investments that could determine if American or Chinese tech companies dominate this century. And a weaker Iran could make for a more tranquil region.

Those opportunities are at hand—but not yet in hand. Trump told the Saudis their relationship is "closer, stronger, and more powerful than ever before," and that "it will remain that way. We don't go in and out like other people." That verbal reassurance does not match his improvisational style though, and his partners are hedging their bets. The Gulf Arabs are buying Chinese tech products, and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, "I think we will have to wean ourselves off of American security aid, just as we weaned ourselves off of American economic aid."

Iran and its remaining proxies are weaker, but still dangerous. The Houthi missile attack on Israel during Trump’s speech underlines that the bombing campaign was only partly successful. And Tehran still has a pathway to the bomb. Some of Trump’s staffers have suggested that he could allow Tehran to keep its uranium enrichment program, the sort of concession that Barack Obama and his coterie of "liberal nonprofits" offered Iran in 2015. Trump tore up that deal, and over 200 congressional Republicans recently encouraged him to push for the "total dismantlement" he demanded earlier this month.

During his visit, Trump hailed "the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi," which are products of a different sort of American nation building. American companies like Aramco and Bechtel enriched the Gulf Arabs and made their cities gleam. But that only happened because Washington got the hard-power realities right.

Riyadh, Paris seek to impose Palestinian state

Saudi Arabia and France will host an international conference next month with United Nations backing, establishing a roadmap for Palestinian statehood with specific timelines and enforcement mechanisms that completely circumvent Israel’s position on the matter.

In the wake of French President Emmanuel Macron’s pro-Palestinian declarations, the New York conference scheduled for June represents an unprecedented diplomatic initiative—moving beyond mere statements of recognition to establishing concrete objectives with implementation plans, including sanctions against parties that obstruct the process.

The conference will feature roundtable discussions and formal sessions led by French and Saudi representatives under U.N. auspices, with the explicit purpose of crafting a framework to implement Palestinian statehood.

Point of no return
In their invitation to U.N. member states, the organizers stated that “the conference is intended to serve as a point of no return, paving the way for ending the occupation and promoting a permanent settlement based on the two-state solution.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres will deliver an address alongside national representatives. The proceedings will culminate in a practical action document establishing binding commitments and definitive timelines.

This approach marks a significant departure from previous diplomatic efforts that waited for Israeli-Palestinian bilateral engagement, as France and Saudi Arabia are now advancing their agenda regardless of Israel’s participation.

The invitation distributes blame for violence and the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre to “both sides,” stating that “since October 7, there has been immense suffering of civilians on both sides, including the hostages and their families and the civilian population of Gaza. Meanwhile, settlement activities endanger the two-state solution, the only path to just peace.”

Arab League: Pressure Israel for Gaza ceasefire

The international community must exert pressure to end the bloodshed in Gaza and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid into “all areas in need,” heads of state and government said in a joint statement at the Arab League summit in Baghdad on Saturday.

The annual summit was attended by a slew of Arab leaders, including Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres—a declared persona non grata in Israel. Spain was the only European country present at the summit.

“This genocide has reached levels of ugliness not seen in all conflicts throughout history,” Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said, according to AP.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi noted that even if ties between Israel and additional Arab countries are normalized, “a lasting, just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East will remain elusive unless a Palestinian state is established in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions.”

He added that Cairo, in collaboration with Doha and Washington, is “exerting intense efforts to reach a ceasefire” in Gaza, efforts that led to the release last week of Israeli-American hostage Idan Alexander.

Al-Sissi went on to say that “once the aggression stops,” Egypt plans to lead international initiatives for the reconstruction of Gaza, AP reported.

Abbas denounced Israel’s “genocidal crimes,” which he claimed were a part of a “colonialist project that undermines the project of an independent Palestinian state.”

According to AP, he further called on Hamas to lay down arms and abandon its rule over Gaza.

Guterres told the audience, “We need a permanent ceasefire, now. The unconditional release of all hostages, now. And the free flow of humanitarian aid ending the blockade, now.”

Hamas offers to release half of remaining hostages for two month ceasefire

Hamas has offered to release half of the remaining living hostages and a number of bodies in exchange for a two-month ceasefire, Palestinian sources told Sky News Arabia.

In addition to demanding a temporary ceasefire, Hamas also conditioned the release on the immediate resumption of aid deliveries.

Hamas also wants strong American guarantees that negotiations to end the war will begin during the temporary ceasefire and that Israel will stop placing conditions and obstacles to the delivery of aid.

The same source indicated that Hamas doubted whether the US was able to compel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to abide by the terms of any agreement.

The source pointed to the recent release of the last remaining American hostage, Edan Alexander, last week.

Following his release, Hamas had expected that Israel would begin allowing the entry of humanitarian and food aid. However, this didn't happen, and the Trump administration did not pressure Israel either.

Hamas makes additional requests
Hamas also requested that family members of Hamas leadership be allowed to leave the Gaza Strip and that Israel promise not to pursue them.

The source also said that Hamas expressed willingness to give up its weapons after relinquishing control of Gaza.

This comes hours after Netanyahu instructed the negotiating team to "exhaust all efforts" to release the hostages.

05/16 Links Pt2: The Sanity of John Fetterman; California’s Ethnic-Studies Disaster; CPJ: Gaza journalists speak out about Hamas intimidation, threats, assaults

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: The Sanity of John Fetterman

Having suffered a stroke, and then subsequent psychiatric ailments that led to his brief hospitalization, John Fetterman’s time in the Senate has not been especially smooth. Yet now that he seems generally recovered, there has been a spate of dubious pieces in left-of-center publications suggesting that the Pennsylvania Democrat is mentally unstable and possibly unfit for office. Fetterman, incidentally, has been one of the most persistent defenders of Israel on Capitol Hill.

The story put Meir Soloveichik in mind of another Pennsylvanian, Warder Cresson, whose wife had him declared non compos mentis after he returned from serving as the first American consul to Jerusalem in 1846:
The application of lunacy to Cresson seemed solely based on his conversion to Judaism; in contrast to his many other previous conversions, it was only a love for the Jewish people that was considered crazy.

Meanwhile, as I type, a new hit piece on Fetterman has just dropped—a report issued by Axios noting that Fetterman has missed votes on the floor. The article runs under the hysterical headline “Fetterman Doubts Explode into Capitol Hill Firestorm.” To paraphrase Cresson’s attorney, the only charge left with which to accuse the senator is that he cares about murdered Jews.

Yet there are millions of people who are utterly unperturbed by Fetterman’s embrace of Israel and his present political persona. This multitude happens to be . . . the Pennsylvanians who elected him in the first place. The senator continues to enjoy high poll numbers among his own constituents; apparently, if Fetterman is crazy, then they don’t want their senators to be sane.

Warder Cresson and John Fetterman represent uniquely American stories, both highlighting the special history of the relationship between this country and the Jews. . . . It is just this that Fetterman’s critics cannot stand about America. That is why, ironically, Fetterman’s choice to stand with the Jewish people is driving them crazy.

Seth Mandel: California’s Ethnic-Studies Disaster

When Jews objected to making it a graduation requirement to show proficiency in Being An Anti-Semite, the state tried to remove the worst of it from its model curriculum. Which led, naturally, to the rise of a competing model curriculum that called itself “liberated ethnic studies.” To many in the industry, you see, the anti-Semitism was the point.

When asked if the Zionist narrative (also known as “history”) should be taught alongside the critical-studies and postcolonial versions, one teacher responded that that was like asking if creationism should be taught alongside biology.

As ethnic studies is actually taught in the classroom, meanwhile, there is almost no relation to the plain facts of history. An example from the Times article:

“In November, several weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, an ethnic studies teacher at Menlo-Atherton High School, in Silicon Valley, presented a lesson that inaccurately claimed the United Nations considered the creation of Israel illegal. (A U.N. resolution partitioned the territory into Jewish and Arab states, and the U.N. admitted Israel as a member in 1949.)

“In addition, a slide depicted a hand manipulating a puppet, recalling antisemitic tropes about secret Jewish control of government, the media and finance.”

It’s just a mix of blood libels and provably false historical assertions.

Because none of what the kids were going to be taught was true, there was growing pushback against California’s ethnic-studies requirement. There is something very mid-20th-century Europe about obligating students in government schools to internalize and then express the idea that Jews are intrinsically evil.

The requirement was set to go into effect next fall. But by law, it cannot be a degree requirement unless the California legislature funds it. This week, Newsom’s revisions to the state budget pointedly excluded the funds for ethnic studies.

Democrats have enough problems with anti-Semitism without the party’s most important blue state making Soviet Jew-baiting a degree requirement. For four years, the fight over ethnic studies has divided the state, and it might end up being all for nothing. That, of course, is better than the alternative. Perhaps all we need to get anti-Semitism under control nationally is to have every Democratic governor run for national office.

Yuval Raphael pays homage to Theodor Herzl’s iconic Basel photo

Israel's Eurovision representative, Yuval Raphael, posed for a photo paying tribute to the iconic picture of Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, looking out over the Rhine in Basel.

The photo was posted after her triumphant performance of “New Day Will Rise” in the second semifinal of Eurovision 2025 on Thursday night, which landed Israel a spot in the final.

The photo of Raphael on Friday was snapped in the same location where Herzl posed in 1901 when he was attending the fifth Zionist Congress.

Israel’s public broadcaster KAN, which sponsors Israel’s participation in Eurovision, released it with Herzl’s most famous quote, "If you will it, it is no dream.” Raphael's journey to Eurovision

It’s easy to see why this quote has special resonance for Raphael, who overcame her trauma after surviving the Hamas terror attack on the Supernova Music Festival on October 7, 2023, to win The Next Star for Eurovision, Israel’s contest that chooses the Eurovision representative. And now she has not only made it to the competition, but won a place in the finals.

On Wednesday, the day before the semifinal, a huge poster/video of Raphael went up in Times Square in New York, urging people to vote for her in Eurovision.

The final will be held on Saturday night, and people all around the world can vote for her. The final, with all its glitz and glamour, will air in Israel on KAN 11 and will be shown on networks around the world to hundreds of millions.

05/16 Links Pt1: Trump's Middle East doctrine on display; The DoJ’s long-awaited reckoning for UNRWA has arrived; The ‘nakba’ is not our problem; ICC Prosecutor on Leave Amid SA Charges

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: Politics of the personal: Trump's Middle East doctrine on display

Trump compassion
Part of the Trump doctrine is compassion for hostages and a desire to bring them home. Individuals are a priority for the American president, just as freeing Pastor Andrew Brunson was a priority in his first term. Trump blends the personal with the strength of a leader with a regional purpose.

There is a lot on Trump’s plate. He wants to open up opportunities, such as economic and defense cooperation in Saudi Arabia. “Our doors and hearts are open to you,” affirmed Prince Turki al-Faisal in Saudi Arabia.

Salman al-Ansari, a geopolitical analyst, also wrote in Arab News: “Trump now has a chance to deliver one of the most historic achievements of the 21st century: finally ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – not by endless negotiations that lead nowhere but by pushing both sides toward a lasting peace. Such a breakthrough would not only strengthen US interests and regional stability, but it would also deal a devastating blow to the extremists and radicals who have always thrived on chaos and hatred.”

In Saudi Arabia, Princess Reema bint Bandar “highlighted the enduring relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US as the president arrives in the Kingdom on Tuesday, his first state visit during his second stint in the White House,” Arab News noted.

“It is a moment pivotal for global peace, security, and prosperity,” Princess Reema wrote in the Washington Times on May 12. “Today, as the world navigates new challenges and conflicts, that partnership is more critical than ever.”

Trump’s visit is expected to hit all the high points of US policy in the Gulf.

Bulwark against extremism
Saudi Arabia has been an anchor of US policy since the 1920s. There were challenges and hurdles, such as during the 1990s and early 2000s when Riyadh was critiqued for ties to extremists. Things changed in the kingdom. The country has become a bulwark against extremism and has also done outreach to China and other countries. It is seen as a broker that can speak to Washington and Moscow.

The Saudis have also reconciled with Iran in a deal backed by China. And it reconciled with Qatar after years of crisis from 2017 to 2020.

Over the years, there has been a lot of talk of normalization with Israel. However, Riyadh wants to see Israel make changes and also move in a direction that leads to regional stability.

Wars in Gaza, West Bank fighting, and the bombing of Syria are not stabilizing elements. It wants Jerusalem to integrate into the region rather than be seen as a problematic player, surrounded by chaos.

The era of chaos in the Middle East is ending, and Israel should move toward security and stability. That is the view from Riyadh.

There are opportunities. The new president of Syria is offering to transform his country and become an ally of the West; a friend of the US. He is a young man and has shown his resolve. He may shed his past and could become a major player in the region. This requires some risk-taking in Washington.

Trump’s doctrine enables risk-taking, just as it pioneered the Abraham Accords.

Politics of the personal
Trump believes in the politics of the personal. He makes exaggerated statements sometimes, such as plans for Gaza. He also wants to empower local leaders.

If Israel won’t get things done in Gaza, then team Trump is always ready to make the next moves. He has shown this in Gaza and regarding a humanitarian initiative.

He also illustrated how he can quickly change course when needed regarding the Houthis.

Trump is flexible and not tethered to sacred cows or mantras.

The Middle East is where things are possible because, unlike dealing with some parts of the world, this area has personal leaders ready to take chances. All that is required is the will to take them.

Douglas Murray: Qatar’s ‘gestures’ to Trump raise suspicions on both ends of the political spectrum

The government of Qatar had a surprise for President Trump on his recent visit to the Middle East.

That was the release of the last American-born hostage being held in Gaza.

Edan Alexander, 21, was freed by the Qatari-funded group Hamas as a gesture to Trump.

Two questions obviously arise from that “gesture.”

The first: If Hamas can just release hostages like this why won’t they release all of them, whether they were born in America or not?

The answer to that is clear: It is because the Qataris and Hamas don’t want to release all the hostages.

They want to keep hold of them for as long as possible to exert as much leverage as possible.

The second question is less easy to answer.

If Qatar is so close with Hamas, how on earth can they be regarded as an ally of the United States?

It is that second question that has hovered over the president’s trip this week.

FDD: The Department of Justice’s long-awaited reckoning for UNRWA has arrived

In an April 24 filing connected to a lawsuit brought against UNRWA by terror victims, the Justice Department asserted that UNRWA does not qualify for the immunities afforded to the United Nations under international agreements and federal statutes. The lawsuit is currently before a federal judge in the Southern District of New York.

According to the DOJ filing in the case, UNRWA is “a mere ‘affiliate or instrumentality’ of the UN,” not an organ of the UN itself, and has never been granted immunity by any American president under the International Organizations Immunities Act.

This is a reversal from the Biden administration’s 2024 position that UNRWA was immune to prosecutions and lawsuits in the United States. The Biden administration took this position even as incontrovertible evidence mounted that UNRWA employees were directly involved in the kidnapping of Israelis, that UNRWA employees themselves held Israelis captive in Gaza, and that UNRWA facilities were used for storing weapons, harboring hostages, and other military purposes.

DOJ’s April 24 filing challenges UNRWA’s assertion that it is immune from the lawsuit. That complaint was filed by over 100 victims of the October 7 attacks, alleging that UNRWA bears legal responsibility for those attacks. And while that complaint was a civil suit, the DOJ filing indicates that UNRWA could be held to account in other ways — including U.S. sanctions.

Ample evidence exists to substantiate UNRWA’s longstanding partnership with Hamas. A strong case could be built rather quickly by the Treasury Department to impose terrorism sanctions on UNRWA.

Treasury sanctions could be a death knell for UNRWA. No country that wishes to do business with the United States would be willing to financially support the agency. No bank would be willing to processes a transaction on UNRWA’s behalf for fear of being subject to U.S. sanctions.

An end to UNRWA would by no means cutting aid to over a million Gazans. For many months now, amidst Israel’s war against Hamas, UNRWA has only supplied a fraction of the aid that goes into Gaza. Jerusalem has worked with a multitude of foreign governments and other aid agencies to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Whereas UNRWA once ran a monopoly on a host of services provided in Gaza, dozens of UN organizations and NGOs now provide those services.

When the war is over and the massive task of rebuilding Gaza gets underway, some of these organizations — those that do not partner with Hamas in any way — should remain in Gaza to continue providing support for needy Gazans.

The United Nations should have shut down UNRWA’s mandate long ago. However, that would only happen through a General Assembly vote, which is highly unlikely due to the UN’s anti-Israeli, anti-Western, and anti-democratic bias. But the DOJ may have just forged an alternative path.

Gaza Is An Open-Air Prison. How Dare You Suggest Anyone Leave! by Mehdi Hasan (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook and Substack pages.

Gaza Is An Open-Air Prison. How Dare You Suggest Anyone Leave!

by Mehdi Hasan

Doha, May 16 - The images out of Jabaliya, Khan Yunis, Rafah, and Shuja'iyyah are horrific. Israel has brutally destroyed all the grandeur and rich life in the place everyone was calling the world's largest concentration camp - and now they and Trump think the Palestinians there should go somewhere else? Ridiculous and evil.

There is nowhere as beautiful as their homeland! How dare you encourage them to leave a place they claim to want to be in only temporarily because they're refugees from what's now Israel! Look at the paradise Israel destroyed, the one my fellow Qatar-backed voices deemed an open-air prison out of which Gazans broke out on October 7? Please, be consistent.

All open-air prisons get free electricity, international humanitarian aid, and infusions of Qatari cash. Well, I also get infusions of Qatari cash, but that just goes to show it's not a particularly remarkable phenomenon.

Encouraging Gaza residents to leave smacks of ethnic cleansing. Not like when Israel took all of its Jews out of Gaza in 2005 by force. That we call something else, because they didn't belong there. As opposed to the Palestinians who are there because they left other parts of Palestine, which means they don't belong in Gaza, either, for whom it would qualify as ethnic cleansing.

Also not like what Palestinians have declared they aim to do to the Jews everywhere in historic Palestine. Ethnic cleansing is something only happens to non-Jews. The Jews displaced from the Etzion Bloc of kibbutzim, or from Jerusalem's old city, in 1948, don't count. Or the ones expelled from Arab countries over the ensuing decades. But I digress.

They're starving in Gaza! Genocide! Humanitarian disaster! And we must KEEP them there.

Did I mention the genocide? By agreement with the Emir, I have to use the term in reference to Israel and Gaza at least four times a day. Hasn't been much of a problem keeping that provision of the contract. Definitely running a surplus. But I have to show His Excellency that I care, beyond mere adherence to the terms of the agreement.

Genocide genocide genocide genocide!

STOP TALKING ABOUT GETTING PALESTINIANS AWAY FROM A GENOCIDE, YOU MONSTERS.

Besides, you can't just move more than two million people. Unless they're Jews being banished from Palestine, because all seven and a half million must leave. If they don't want to leave, they can live as an underclass under Islamic supremacy, or die.

This is the humane attitude to the situation.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

From the Sweden Herald:

The [Swedish] Government is launching a national strategy for the first time to combat anti-Semitism and strengthen Jewish life.

"To be able to live an open and free Jewish life in Sweden should be a matter of course, but many Jews describe anti-Semitism today as the single largest obstacle," says Minister of Culture Parisa Liljestrand (M) at a press conference.

Since Hamas' large-scale terrorist attack on Israel and Israel's subsequent war, anti-Semitism has flared up in Sweden.

Jakob Forssmed calls the development unacceptable.

"We have not succeeded well enough," he says.

"More efforts are needed for Jews to feel safe and be open about their identity without being exposed to hate, threats, and violence."

The ten-year strategy includes three central parts: more knowledge and education about Jewish life, an investment in cultural heritage, and efforts to increase security.

I have no problem with increasing security and investing in cultural heritage, but the plan itself does not seem to address the roots of the problem.

It wants to add lessons about antisemitism and the Holocaust in schools. And it mentions that there is left-wing, right-wing and Islamist antisemitism. But it seems to treat the education of all of them the same.

Right-wing antisemites learn about the Holocaust and think , great job, Hitler! Islamists learn about the Holocaust and say, this is nothing compared to what Palestinians go through. Left wing antisemites learn about the Holocaust and say, see? Israel has become the new Nazis and it is even more important to destroy Israel!

Fighting antisemitism with education is a multi-faceted issue where the target is at least as important as the information. Some of what they plan to do in laying the groundwork is important - research and surveys to define the problem better, which hopefully will inform the specific methods.

This is not only a Swedish issue. I have yet to see ideas to combat antisemitism that have been shown to be effective over the long term, although some initiatives seem to have made short term positive effects (and a UNESCO anti-bias program found that the programs actually increased, in some countries, the students' stereotyping of Jews!.)

Everyone agrees that antisemitism is a problem, but there is surprisingly little research on what methods can combat it. Just throwing the word "education" and "Holocaust education" at the issue seems to be a default knee-jerk response but not too many people seem to be willing to go through the effort to find out what works.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Human Rights Watch issued a press release saying Israel is doing the war crime of "extermination" and "acts of genocide."

As we've seen countless times, HRW and Amnesty base their accusations on their belief that they can read Israeli Jews' minds and invariably they decide that the Jews intend to attack civilians for no military reason - they just like to use up their military resources against the innocent. All the crimes they accuse Israel of require intent, and they base their assumption of intent on cherry-picked facts, not allowing counter-evidence (like Israel building a massive infrastructure to feed Gazans) to enter their minds.

But I want to concentrate on a throwaway paragraph that HRW inserts to pretend to be even-handed.

According to the Israeli government, 58 Israeli hostages are still believed to be held in Gaza, of whom 23 are believed alive. Palestinian armed groups should immediately and safely release all civilians they detain, just as Israeli authorities should immediately and safely release all unlawfully held Palestinians.

International law prohibits taking people as hostages. The International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages says, "Any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure or to continue to detain another person (hereinafter referred to as the "hostage") in order to compel a third party, namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organization, a natural or juridical person, or a group of persons, to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage commits the offence of taking of hostages ("hostagetaking) within the meaning of this Convention."

It makes no distinction between civilians or military hostages. They are both illegal and war crimes.

But HRW only calls for Hamas to release civilian hostages, not all hostages.

HRW is quite deliberately excluding soldiers who were taken hostage from their demand that Hamas release them. Does it want Hamas to use them as bargaining chips, in violation of international law? Does it consider them POWs, which they aren't under any definition?

That is not just immoral, it is monstrous. This "human rights" group does not consider soldiers to be human.

To add insult to injury, HRW then compares the hostages taken purely for the purpose of bargaining with the terrorists in Israeli prisons. And, no, none of them are held unlawfully - even if you disagree with administrative detention, it is legal and used in other countries like Australia, Ireland and the UK.

When Human Rights Watch gets its facts and international law wrong, it is a remarkable coincidence that it is always in Hamas' favor.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

05/15 Links Pt2: Israel’s Yuval Raphael qualifies for Eurovision final; The Future of American Jewry After October 7; Leo XIV: A papacy anchored in Israel’s embrace?

From Ian:

Dan Senor: The Future of American Jewry After October 7

‘The time is now.’ In January 1948, Golda Meir delivered a famous speech to a group of Jewish leaders in Chicago a mere four months before the establishment of Israel. Her message was clear: The future of the Jewish state hung in the balance. The Jews in Palestine needed every cent American Jews could spare.

“I beg of you—don’t be too late,” she said. “Don’t be bitterly sorry three months from now for what you failed to do today. The time is now.” She intended to raise $25 million; by the end she had raised $50 million. (In today’s dollars, that would be nearly $700 million.)

The tables have turned. Israel is going to be fine, in part because of Israeli strength and resilience, backed up by the Diaspora’s continued commitment. But I do think the future of American Jewish life hangs in the balance. And I don’t want any of us—whatever our resources—to regret not doing more.

We really do have the tools to rebuild American Jewish life. The question is: Do we have the sense of purpose—the why—to match?

Hersh Goldberg-Polin spent just three days with a fellow hostage named Eli Sharabi in the tunnels of Gaza. In that time, Hersh taught Eli a lesson that would change his life. He quoted the psychologist and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl: He who has a “why” will find the “how.”

Israelis have a why. Many who may have forgotten it were reminded of it on October 7, when everything changed. Since then, Israelis have seen the why come roaring back.

Agam Berger, held in captivity for 450 days, had a why. “I learned,” she said after her release, “as my forebears did, that imprisonment can’t overwhelm the inner spiritual life. Our faith and covenant with God—the story we remember on Passover—is more powerful than any cruel captor. Even as Hamas tried to coerce me into converting to Islam—at times, forcing a hijab on my head—they couldn’t take my soul.” Her friend, Liri Albag, fashioned a Haggadah out of whatever materials she could find in captivity, and they marked the Passover Seder together, yearning for redemption.

Aner Shapira had a why. In a bomb shelter beside Hersh on October 7, he faced a death squad and chose to act. He hurled seven live grenades back at the terrorists before the eighth took his life. He died saving his friends—and strangers—because he knew he served a people greater than himself.

Ben Zussman had a why. A reserve officer in the IDF, he wrote a letter before heading to the front lines in case the worst came to pass. And when his parents opened the letter after his death, they found these words: “If you’re reading this, something must have happened to me. As you know about me, there’s probably no one happier than me right now. I’m happy and grateful for the privilege to protect our beautiful land and the people of Israel.”

We—the Jewish people—should look to Israel not simply for its defense innovation or health care advances. We should look to Israelis for their clarity, their purpose, their deep sense of identity. Hersh, Eli, Agam, Aner, Ben—very different people, very different lives. But each of them met this moment with courage. With faith. With an unshakable sense of why.

The deepest question. What is our why? Why are we here? Are we truly owning the story we’re living in? These are not theoretical questions. They are practical and will determine the future of our families and our communities.

The state of World Jewry depends on how we answer.

If we answer in the way I’m suggesting, by resolving to live Jewish lives, and making sure our children do as well, we will begin to find that answer. The road in the near term will not be smooth. We know enough to know that we are witnessing another story, another chapter in Jewish history. There will be libraries invaded by campus mobs, there will be Nazi graffiti scrawled on the walls of subway cars, there will be another podcaster spreading libels about the Jewish people. Of this, we can be sure. I am confident, however, that in the long term, if we strengthen our Jewish identity, our people will not be prominent but weak. They will be Jewish and strong.

Many young American parents over the past 18 months have chosen to pay tribute to some of the Israeli heroes we lost in this war. Everywhere you look, it seems, you might meet a young baby Hersh—named for Hersh Goldberg-Polin—or baby Carmel, for Carmel Gat, or Ori, for Ori Danino, or Maya, for Maya Goren.

These young American Jews will carry their names into the future. I imagine, 18 years from now, young Hershs and Carmels and Oris and Mayas walking onto the quad together, on one of a thousand American campuses. And my prayer is that as much as they carry their names, they will also carry their courage, their essence. That they will know who they are, where they come from—and where they’re going.

Leo XIV: A papacy anchored in Israel’s embrace?

Political Without Partisan Delusion
The political instincts of Leo XIV defy the taxonomy beloved by pundits. He is not a banner-waving conservative, but neither is he a proxy for the Soros-funded clerical avant-garde. His experience in Latin America made him wary of both economic oligarchy and class warfare slogans. He has spoken of inequality as a moral concern, not a campaign slogan. He supported Francis’s environmentalism only insofar as it remained moral, not technocratic.

Prevost sees the modern state as both necessary and dangerous—a position closer to Hobbes than Rousseau. He believes in order. He respects subsidiarity. He doubts that bureaucracies can save us. In today’s Rome, this qualifies as heresy.

Trump: Enemy, Ally, or Interlocutor?
He has never commented on President Donald Trump directly, and he likely never will. But his Vatican record is revealing. When some U.S. bishops tried to aggressively discipline pro-Trump clergy or push blanket condemnations of “Christian nationalism,” Prevost counseled caution. Not because he supports the former president, but because he understands what Trumpism represents: a political insurgency born of cultural dislocation.

In a Church hemorrhaging the working class, Prevost knows better than to treat populists as lepers. He doesn’t moralize about MAGA hats. He listens. In an ecclesial environment increasingly dominated by NGO-speak and bourgeois sensitivities, that makes him both countercultural and, paradoxically, pastoral.

Zionism and the Jews: A Return to Dialogue
If Francis’s Vatican flirted with fashionable anti-Zionism—hosting Mahmoud Abbas, parroting UN talking points—Leo XIV is a corrective. Prevost has visited Israel repeatedly. He has expressed admiration for the resilience of Jewish life and has cultivated ties with Jewish leaders in Peru, the United States, and Europe. He does not sentimentalize the Palestinian cause, nor reduce the Middle East to a victim-oppressor binary.

According to sources in Rome, Prevost views Israel as “a moral project within history”—a phrase that startled the Latin desk at the Secretariat of State. He has called Netanyahu “a necessary man in dangerous times,” which, in Vaticanese, borders on radical candor. There will be no warm embraces for Hamas delegates under this papacy.

On May 12, three days after his election, Pope Leo XIV has chosen to reaffirm his commitment to Catholic-Jewish relations as his first official act. In a letter to major Jewish organizations, he pledged to continue and deepen the Church’s dialogue with the Jewish people, invoking the spirit and principles of Nostra Aetate, the landmark declaration of the Second Vatican Council, which repudiated antisemitism, rejected the charge of collective Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus, and called for mutual respect and understanding between Catholics and Jews.

Seth Mandel: Universities Are Proving How Avoidable This Anti-Semitism Fight Was All Along

I didn’t realize that school officials could respond immediately to stunts like this. I was under the impression that administrators who criticize students are violating the constitutional protections that the Founders enacted to let kids do whatever they want with no consequences.

Further, the statement is one of shocking clarity for a university. It actually says something.

Which leads me to believe that schools can, in fact, crack down on idiotic rulebreaking. And that they could have done so all along. Now it can be told!

And third: Much of the argument around academic freedom these days is a dodge. Long before anyone was threatening to cut funds going to schools that violated the civil rights of Jewish students, the affected students had come to administrators with a simple ask: that schools enforce their rules consistently with no double standards.

That’s it. Really. It’s hard to remember, but that’s how all this started—with Jewish students asking universities to stop enforcing rules only on behalf of favored identity groups.

And that simple request is what sent schools into a tailspin. No, they said—you can’t make us! Then eventually a president came along who said: Well yes in fact I can, because it’s federal law.

We’re here because universities refused to enforce their rules equally or consistently. Are they happy now with how far this fight has escalated? I don’t know, but that escalation was their choice. And there’s really no denying it anymore.

05/15 Links Pt1: Terrorist kills pregnant woman in Samaria; Is the Trump-Bibi Rift Overblown?; Trump claims Iran nuclear deal is near; Breakthrough in Adass Israel Synagogue firebombing

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The gold-plated peacenik in the White House

In his consequential speech in Riyadh, Trump announced a total rupture with the “neo-conservative” aim of remaking the Middle East in the image of American democracy.

“In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins,” he said. “I believe it is God’s job to sit in judgment, my job to defend America and to promote the fundamental interest of stability, prosperity and peace.”

Well, amen to that. However, the alternative to imposing Western values on the Arab world is not choosing to ignore the attempt by elements of that Arab world to impose Islam on the West. The correct course of action is, as it always has been, to fight and defeat these threats to Western interests.

Trump’s mantra “peace through strength” is fine, but strength inescapably involves the credible threat of war. His Riyadh speech suggested instead that he’s using showers of money to tell those who threaten the West, as well as their putative victims, that all of them are now on their own. America won’t do war. There’s a peacenik of the right in the White House raining down gold instead of missiles.

Trump says he doesn’t have enemies. Where others see threats, he sees only financial opportunities.

The inconvenient truth, however, is that some people are out to destroy America and the West. If Trump doesn’t regard these as enemies, he will leave America and the West defenseless against attack.

It also puts him radically at odds with Israel, which views fighting and winning the war to defeat genocidal Iran as essential for its survival.

When Edan Alexander was released, the head of Qatar’s state-run Al Sharq News gloated that America had now been peeled away from Israel by “a move that constitutes implicit recognition of Hamas” and that would “deal a blow to Netanyahu and his Zionist team.”

It’s possible that Trump has a genius strategy that will cause lions to lie down with lambs. It’s possible that he will soon realize that his quest to bring peace on earth is hitting a dead end and that he will accordingly turn on a dime. But it’s also possible that he won’t realize that he’s been played for a sucker until it’s all far too late.

Eli Lake: Trump’s Serenity Prayer in Saudi Arabia

After months of mixed signals from Washington over what Donald Trump’s foreign policy will mean for the Middle East, the president has revealed his hand. In his speech Tuesday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Trump explained that America is no longer trying to remake the world in its image.

“In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins,” Trump said.

This echoes the first half of the Serenity Prayer, made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous: “God grant me the power to accept the things I cannot change.” And this marks a real change for U.S. foreign policy. America is no longer going to hector its allies about whether women have the right to drive or whether dissidents disappear into dark prisons. Trump’s message to America’s allies in the Middle East is: You do you.

The venue is important in this respect. U.S.-Saudi relations were strained to their limits in the aftermath of the 2018 murder of Washington Post analyst Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly by Saudi henchmen. For the Democratic Party the brutal killing of Khashoggi, lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, where he was hacked into pieces, made Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman radioactive. How could the U.S. continue a partnership with a man who has his journalist critics assassinated? Trump was the president during this crisis and his administration fought Congress to shield the kingdom from the blowback. But when Joe Biden won the White House after the 2020 election, he spent the beginning of his term isolating the Saudis.

Trump is now taking the opposite approach. He made no mention of Khashoggi or human rights in his speech in Riyadh. At times it sounded like a tribute dinner. “Mohammed, do you sleep at night?” Trump asked as he marveled at Saudi Arabia’s construction boom. “How do you sleep? Huh? Just thinking. What a job. He tosses and turns like some of us, tosses and turns all night—“How do I make it even better?”—all night. It’s the ones that don’t toss and turn, they’re the ones that will never take you to the promised land.”

Trump made news as well. He announced that America was lifting sanctions on Syria, and on Wednesday he even met with Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda member who fought American forces in Iraq. He also expressed his “fervent hope” that the Saudis will soon sign on to the Abraham Accords and establish diplomatic relations with Israel, as other Arab states did during his first term. If the country that hosts the two most important sites for Muslims does indeed normalize ties with Israel, it would represent the most significant change in the Arab world’s attitude toward Israel, whose right to exist it has widely rejected since the Jewish state was born in 1948. Trump also warned Iran that the negotiation process over its nuclear program will not last forever.

Is the Trump-Bibi Rift Overblown?

Even as Trump has pursued a nuclear deal with Tehran, he has ramped up economic sanctions on the regime and kept a military option firmly on the table. Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt last week that Iran has two options for its nuclear centrifuges: "Blow them up nicely or blow them up viciously."

While Trump has not made regional normalization of relations with Israel a condition of his Gulf diplomacy, he has repeatedly expressed confidence this week in the future expansion of the Abraham Accords, matching Israel’s no-hurry attitude on the issue. The president told reporters after his meeting with al-Sharaa on Wednesday that the Syrian leader had agreed in principle to join the pact, though Trump acknowledged "they have a lot of work to do."

Amid the uncertainty and anxiety in Israel about Trump’s intentions, some on the Israeli right have called for the Jewish state to emulate the president’s "America first" foreign policy.

Abu Ali Express, a prominent anonymous commentator in Israel, argued in a blog post on Monday, "Israeli interests are important to Trump, and when they do not conflict with American interests, then Trump acts in favor of Israeli interests."

"Trump takes care of the U.S. Israel takes care of Israel," Abu Ali Express added. "That’s how it works."

Netanyahu conveyed a similar message to Israeli lawmakers on Sunday. During a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Netanyahu said that Israel needs to move toward ending its reliance on U.S. military aid.

"We receive close to $4 billion for arms," he said. "I think we will have to wean ourselves off of American security aid, just as we weaned ourselves off of American economic aid."

Amit Halevi, a Likud lawmaker who has advocated for greater Israeli independence from the United States, called Netanyahu’s remarks "important."

Trump in Riyadh: "All Civilized People Must Condemn the October 7 Atrocities Against Israel"

President Donald Trump said in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday: "I've come this afternoon to talk about the bright future of the Middle East...forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos; where it exports technology, not terrorism; and where people of different nations, religions and creeds are building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence."

"The Gulf nations have shown this entire region a path toward safe and orderly societies with improving quality of life, flourishing economic growth, expanding personal freedoms, and increasing responsibilities on the world stage."

"It's my fervent hope, wish and even my dream that Saudi Arabia...will soon be joining the Abraham Accords....They've been an absolute bonanza for the countries that have joined....It will be a special day in the Middle East, with the whole world watching, when Saudi Arabia joins us...but you'll do it in your own time."

"Now working with the vast majority of people in this region who seek stability and calm, our task is to unify against a few agents of chaos and terror that are left and that are holding hostage the dreams of millions and millions of great people. The biggest and most destructive of these forces is the regime in Iran, which has caused unthinkable suffering in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Yemen and beyond....Iran's leaders have focused on stealing their people's wealth to fund terror and bloodshed abroad."

"I want to make a deal with Iran....But if Iran's leadership rejects this olive branch and continues to attack their neighbors, then we will have no choice but to inflict massive maximum pressure, drive Iranian oil exports to zero, like I did before...and take all action required to stop the regime from ever having a nuclear weapon....We'll never allow America and its allies to be threatened with terrorism or nuclear attack."

"All civilized people must condemn the October 7th atrocities against Israel....The people of Gaza deserve a much better future, but that cannot occur as long as their leaders choose to kidnap, torture and target innocent men, women and children for political ends."