Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, June 04, 2025

06/04 Links Pt2: The BBC’s biased Israel reporting is fuelling anti-Semitism; Azealia Banks: 'I'm a Zionist, no black person should support Palestine'

From Ian:

The BBC’s biased Israel reporting is fuelling anti-Semitism

Again, really? Why do we always “have to assume” the worst possible behaviour by the IDF when independent experts say they have inflicted historically low casualties for warfare in a built-up area. Not that all casualties aren’t dreadful and distressing (and 27 more Palestinians were tragically killed on Tuesday while waiting for aid to be distributed), but Allied forces inflicted worse when they drove the equally wicked Islamic State out of Iraq. President Obama ordered a siege of the city of Mosul because the terrorists had embedded themselves within civilian areas. There was a notable shortage of media outrage about the 10,000 civilian deaths because the world mainly agreed that the planet was a better place without those fundamentalist b------s in it.

Oh, and by the way, what possible motive would Israel have for shooting scores of civilians when it has a vested interest in proving those aid hubs can succeed?

Let’s not forget it was the BBC which reported that an explosion at Al-Ahli hospital simply must have been caused by Israel before overwhelming evidence emerged that a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket was responsible. Jeremy Bowen said he didn’t regret “one thing in my reporting, because I think I was measured throughout, I didn’t race to judgment.” When the interviewer pointed out that Bowen falsely reported that the hospital building was flattened, he said, “Oh, yeah, well, I got that wrong.” No biggie, Jeremy.

Not coincidentally, Monday’s Today programme also carried news of an attack on an event in Boulder, Colorado, which was raising awareness about the Israeli hostages. Twelve people were badly injured, some burned by Molotov cocktails including an elderly lady who had survived the Holocaust.

The appalling worldwide surge in anti-Semitism since October 7 2023 – including the recent murder of a young couple who worked for the Israeli embassy in Washington DC – is undoubtedly fuelled by grossly partisan reporting. A week ago there was a racially-motivated knife attack by a group of men on three Jewish boys at Hampstead Tube station; one lad ended up in hospital. More and more British Jews, among our most successful and patriotic citizens (I have never been to a Jewish event where they didn’t sing God Save the King), are being driven out of the UK. What on earth must they think when they hear Jeremy Bowen’s palpable contempt for Israel – it’s so bad I can’t bear to listen any more. And much of other BBC reporting is barely disguised anti-Semitism.

They say the devil has all the best tunes and Hamas has played the media like a violin. Surely very little by the way of civilised conduct is to be expected from men who strangled the tiny Bibas brothers, baby Kfir and toddler Ariel, with their bare hands. Monsters who streamed over the border and killed nearly all the young women soldiers at the border observation station; most of their bodies so savagely mutilated in acts of sexual rage and depravity what remained of them was unfit to be shown to their grieving parents. Yet the Western media, and a large proportion of the educated liberal world, including the BBC, has been entirely captured by this extremist Islamist group which would murder in cold blood every value, every enlightened idea, every uncovered woman, every gay person, they hold dear.

All of the sane Muslim states have banned the crazies, knowing what destruction they wreak, how murderous their creed, how anti-life they are. “Hamas are terrorists” – a message on a placard that my friend from Our Fight: For Israel Against Anti-Semitism, Mark Birbeck, has been arrested for even holding in central London. A truth – Hamas are terrorists – that the BBC will still not speak.

You know, I took some comfort from Yuval Raphael’s amazing win in the Eurovision popular vote. Despite the relentless propaganda, a vast number of viewers across the continent decided to support New Day Will Rise and Israel’s entry.

“Be quiet,” he replied. “Yuvali, my daughter. Yuvali, breathe deep. Hide. Play dead.”

Hamas massacred 40 beautiful young people in that roadside shelter, and their bodies protected Yuval, so that one day she would sing. And the death-cult shall have no dominion, and they will not win. Must never win.

Andrew Pessin: The Tsunami of Campus Jew-Hate

I’ve known that the problem of campus Jew-hate was bad since at least 2015, which was when I began to track it seriously. That tracking led to my co-producing, with Doron Ben-Atar, the 2018 volume Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS, which attempted to document the phenomenon both quantitatively and qualitatively. Though the reality that that book documents seemed awful at the time, it seems quaint in comparison to today. I think this truly instantiates the “frog in slowly heating water” scenario—too many people simply did not see or understand how serious the problem was and was becoming, until, post October 7, the water was fully boiling.

Earlier this year I independently published a two-volume collection of my writings that amounts to a kind of update to the 2018 book. Called Israel Breathes, World Condemns, the two volumes document and analyze both the trajectory that led to the large-scale explosion of campus Jew-hate on and post the October 7 massacre, as well as the course that explosion has taken since October 7. (Vol 1, The Trajectory, is here; Vol 2, The Aftermath, is here.) Trigger warning: it does not always make for pleasant reading. The title of one of the essays in the collection—“When You Realize Nearly Everyone in Your University Wants You Dead”—gives you the idea. Full-frontal truth is not always pleasant, but it is, I think, nearly always necessary. So, no, I’m not much fun at parties, but given that, as an unabashed Jewish Zionist on a typical liberal arts campus, I don’t get invited to parties anyway, I’ll take on the uncomfortable role of being the unpleasant teller of the truth, or at least the truth as I see it.

Hiding one’s head in the sand does have its advantages, but I suppose I prefer to see what’s coming—or, in this case, with the recent murders and attempted murders of Jews in Washington DC, Boulder CO, and elsewhere, what’s already here. Don’t just take my word for it—at least go read the books themselves—but there’s a straight line from what’s been happening on campuses for the past decade and more and those attacks.

To give you a sense of just why I have this admittedly dark perspective, know that for many years I have served as the Campus Bureau Editor for the Algemeiner, a terrific news source focusing on Israel/Jewish matters. (Sign up there for the free daily newsletter with the most important stories of the day!) In that capacity I have kept a close eye on the campus scene, scouring the internet for the stories and incidents and receiving tips and info from various sources. Before October 7 I was generating perhaps 10-15 possible stories per day; after October 7 that number probably tripled. They’re not all bad news: there are wins in there, positive developments, along the way. But it’s mostly bad news, and sometimes very very bad news. When you follow the campus scene closely, and see what they are actually saying and doing, it’s hard not to reach the conclusion that while there may not be a majority, there is a substantial and very vocal minority of students and faculty on many major campuses who really do want you dead—and that most campus bystanders and most of all most campus administrators were perfectly willing to let them say and do those things.

Columbia protester and self-proclaimed ‘Jew-hater’ had direct link to Hamas’ terror cell, disturbing phone records reveal: DOJ

A “Jew-hater” who protested against Israel on Columbia University’s campus and contemplated setting a student on fire allegedly had a direct link to Hamas’ deadly al-Qassam Brigades militant group, The Post can reveal.

Tarek Bazrouk — awaiting trial after being indicted on three federal hate crimes against Jewish people — was “a member of a chat group that received regular updates from Abu Obeida,” the official spokesperson for the brigades, according to allegations in federal documents.

The accusation is the first evidence of an agitator receiving information directly from Hamas and taking action during protests on the university campus.

Bazrouk, 20, who was not a Columbia student, also frequently wore the green headband used by Hamas terrorists and boasted to friends about having relatives overseas who were part of the terror group, prosecutors claim in a letter filed with the court.

While on Columbia’s campus during protests in April 2024, Bazrouk allegedly texted a pal saying he lit a flare and considered lighting someone on fire, but that there were “too many” people around for him to take on, otherwise he “would’ve hurted [sic] them.”

Columbia University said it has no record of Bazrouk being on campus and wanted “to be clear that this individual is not affiliated with our University in any way,” adding that the school “strongly condemns antisemitism and violence, and we are horrified by the violence and hate crimes described in the indictment.”

Bazrouk, a US citizen born and raised in New York, was also arrested next to the campus in December 2024 for one of the three attacks against Jewish people of which he stands accused.

It is not clear how Bazrouk got on campus, which is private university property, but Columbia was beset with anti-Israel protesters shielded by masks throughout 2024, resulting in the NYPD being called to flush them out in April that year.

06/04 Links Pt1: Boulder and the Gaza Mind-Virus; Holocaust survivor burned in Colorado terror attack speaks out; Why Hamas Rejected Witkoff's Ceasefire Plan

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Boulder and the Gaza Mind-Virus

The terror attack on Jews in Boulder has exposed how deeply heads have been buried in the sand, especially when it comes to anti-Semitism and the left. Reporting out of the Colorado college town has an Invasion of the Body Snatchers quality to it, depicting a community of identical-looking but hollowed-out replacements for the humans that once populated it.

Infected with Hamas propaganda, American cities have become creeping horror flicks, with a trio of New York Times reporters in place of the scriptwriters. In today’s Times, those narrators set the scene:

“In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the college town of Boulder, Colo., has long been known as a laid-back hippie haven. Its residents cherish the outdoors, and its leaders are often elected on reliably liberal promises to expand affordable housing, address climate change and increase racial equity.

“In recent months, however, the City Council has been pulled apart over an entirely different matter: the war in Gaza.

“Pro-Palestinian protesters have regularly interrupted meetings with shouting and other unruly behavior, even prompting the council to temporarily move its meetings online to avoid further disruption and later adding rules to more easily bar people from City Hall.”

So the city of Boulder increasingly cannot function, and the reason is Gaza. This is the sort of thing that should have raised alarm bells long before the inevitable anti-Semitic terror attack it produced. How was this not a major story? The pro-Hamas (in some cases Hamas-connected) network in America is grinding the gears of local government to a halt, and the answer in Boulder was: Let’s have our council meetings on Zoom?

“It’s been a hard time here in Boulder,” Mayor Aaron Brockett told the paper. “We reiterate over and over and over again that international affairs are not the business of the Boulder City Council, and our work is to clean the streets and make sure the water comes out when you turn the tap.”

Okay, but… international affairs very clearly are your business now, Mr. Mayor. If you can’t hold meetings in person because of “international affairs,” you have a bit of a situation on your hands.

Holocaust survivor burned in Colorado terror attack speaks out: ‘What the hell is going on in our country?’

An 88-year-old Holocaust survivor who was set on fire by Colorado terror suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman has one sobering question after the heinous antisemitic attack: “What the hell is going on in our country?”

Barbara Steinmetz was the eldest of the 12 victims who were wounded when they were firebombed while advocating for the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

She said the terror has left her asking, “What the hell is going on?”

“We’re better than this,” she told NBC News.

Steinmetz added that she “wants people to be nice and decent to each other, kind, respectful [and] encompassing.”

“That’s what I want them to know. That they be kind and decent human beings,” she said.

Rabbi Marc Soloway, who leads Congregation Bonai Shalom in Boulder, where Steinmetz is a member, said she suffered minor burns but should fully recover.

The faith leader wondered how someone who escaped the horrors of the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were slaughtered, could comprehend the hate Steinmetz experienced on Pearl Street 80 years after the end of World War II.

“Can you imagine the trauma that that reactivates?” Soloway said. “It’s just horrendous.”

Steinmetz and others among the mostly elderly demonstrators were attacked allegedly by Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman while they were peacefully partaking in a weekly “Run for their Lives” walk to show solidarity with the 58 Israeli hostages still in Hamas’ hands.

Family of slain Israel embassy staffer speaks out against activists supporting attack

The family of Sarah Milgrim, a young American who was working at the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC, spoke on television publicly for the first time since her killing last month in an interview broadcast on Wednesday, speaking out against activists justifying her murder.

Milgrim, 26, was fatally shot alongside her boyfriend, fellow embassy employee Yaron Lischinsky, 30, as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum. The two had just attended a discussion on humanitarian efforts in Gaza.

Their alleged killer, a far-left 31-year-old activist from Chicago named Elias Rodriguez, was arrested and shouted “Free Palestine” as he was led away. Charging documents said he later told police, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.”

In an emotional interview with CBS News, Sarah’s mother, Nancy Milgrim, was asked about activists supporting the shooter. Groups, including a faction of the Democratic Socialists of America and the extremist anti-Israel group Unity of Fields, have supported Rodriguez.

Milgrim’s mother Nancy said, “I don’t know anything about that, but Sarah wasn’t against the Palestinians, she wasn’t against the people in Gaza.”

“She was in all her heart working towards finding a way for everyone to live together peacefully,” she said.

“There’s nothing more important in Judaism than life and the sanctity of life, and to what end is this fighting and sacrifice?” Milgrim’s older brother, Jacob, told CBS. “What does it accomplish taking my sister from me? It’s not going to accomplish anything,” he said.

A Shift Among the Anti-Semites’ Liberal Enablers By Abe Greenwald

Via Commentary Magazine Newsletter, sign up here.

Two young Israeli embassy staffers were murdered, and 12 Coloradans were torched with a flamethrower, and the Times wants to quote a late, spurned ex-wife and remind readers that the president can sometimes be a bit like Archie Bunker. That’s all they can come up with for now. But, in time, I suspect, we will start to see some liberals defensively yet loftily reconsider their support for the campus hordes “in light of recent tragedies.”

It's not surprising that it takes tragedy to finally change liberal minds. In fact, that’s usually the way it works. Liberals tend to come to their ideas through a process of secular faith—faith that they are doing the right thing. This faith makes it hard to disabuse them of such ideas through reasoned argument. Only real-world events can do that.

We’ve seen it recently enough. Liberals abandoned police-defunding after violent crime spiked as a result. They distanced themselves from supporting biological-male participation in female sports beginning with the Lia Thomas debacle and the circulation of viral clips showing female athletes getting thrashed by biological males on the field. And they’ve gone fairly quiet on “gender-affirming” medical intervention for minors now that accurate research has documented the varied horrors it entails.

But they must first let their bad ideas play out, because their faith dictates that such ideas have to be right. The thorough debunking usually takes a few years. Which is why I say that liberals and conservatives generally live in different time zones. Liberals wake up to realities that conservatives understood two years earlier. So given the current trajectory of anti-Semitic violence in the U.S., and considering that we’re a few months away from the second anniversary of October 7, 2023, things seem to be on track.

It's going to be very well and good for those liberals who will make a big show of admitting they got things wrong. This is what an honest and responsible media does, don’t you know? But for the dead Jews, it will be too late. And for them, we should neither forgive nor forget.

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

It’s weird that a person can get used to missile sirens, but there it is. So I wrote on Facebook on June 1st, after I emerged from the safe room. Because it did seem odd to me that it no longer sets my heart racing when the sirens go off. I guess a person can get used to anything, which may or may not be a good thing. It is rare for a rocket to fall in our area, but not unheard of. A cavalier attitude and a chip on the shoulder isn’t very effective at keeping missiles away.

Since October 7, missile sirens have become far more frequent. They’re no longer rare, even here in Judea. The missiles are almost always intercepted by the IDF, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. Shrapnel can do plenty of damage. Especially when we’re not just talking itty bitty pieces of metal, but giant pieces of rocket, as is often the case.

But grappling with the emotions that accompany rocket attacks is complicated. Generally, in our house it goes like this. There’s a siren, and one of us calls out to the others “Siren! Get in the mamad (safe room).”

At least, that's how it used to be. Now it's more like 'Siren' without the exclamation point. We know the drill. We look at our phones to see where the missile is coming from. If it’s from the Houthis in Yemen, there’s more warning. It takes time for those to reach us. Which means there's no need to rush from the bathroom, and there’s time to gather the essentials: food, a drink, a phone. Whatever you want to have with you for the next ten minutes, which is generally how things go.

Of course, the night of the ballistic missile attack from Iran, when over 200 rockets were launched at us, was different. Far scarier than your average rocket attack, if a rocket attack can be said to be average. I was in the kitchen, cooking and listening to something on YouTube, when suddenly a freaky early warning message cut in that had been prearranged to be broadcast to the phones of every Israeli in the country. It sounded really scary. The voice, the sound. I didn’t know what it was—at first, I thought maybe my phone had been hacked.

From the Jerusalem Post, October:

Israel’s Home Front Command deployed its new "Personal Message" missile alert system for the first time under fire Tuesday evening, following an unprecedented missile barrage from Iran. The system, based on Cell Broadcast technology, sends emergency messages directly to mobile phones in targeted areas without requiring users to download an app or register.

Unveiled in August, the system became operational during the massive missile attack from Iran, which saw over 200 missiles launched toward Israel. Tehran issued a stern warning, stating: "If the Zionist regime responds, it will face heavy attacks."

The "Personal Message" system greatly enhances Israel’s emergency readiness by providing precise, real-time alerts. Its independence from cellular networks and GPS means that it can continue to deliver life-saving instructions swiftly during crises, ensuring citizens have the best chance to respond to missile threats effectively.

The alert system uses Cell Broadcast technology, a long-established method that transmits messages via cellular antennas, similar to how FM radio works. This allows for messages to be broadcast to every mobile device in a defined area—whether it’s an entire city or just a specific neighborhood—without the need for individual phone numbers. The alerts are accompanied by a distinct sound to ensure they stand out from regular notifications.

Yup. It definitely was a “distinct sound.” It scared the bejeezus out of me—I genuinely thought we were goners. Then everyone in the house started calling for everyone else to go into the mamad. Missiles from Iran take even longer than those from Yemen, so we sat there for some 40 tense minutes. And, of course, emerged unscathed.

Another “distinct sound” is the siren app my husband installed on his phone. It goes off at about the same time as the real siren but is slightly out of sync, louder, and somehow scarier. I hate it. But he insists it’s helpful—says it’ll get us to the mamad faster.

I was talking about this during a family meal at my daughter’s house—how much I hated that app. My son-in-law leaned in and said, “Because it sounds different, you think it’s a different kind of siren. Something worse.”

He’d nailed it. It reminded me of the Personal Message missile alert system. When you hear that you think, "Something is very, VERY wrong."

Years ago, there was one of those rare occurrences where a missile came our way from Gaza. It hit only a few miles from us, but fell in an open area and no one was hurt. I was home alone, but I knew what to do. I went into the mamad and waited for the danger to pass.

But feelings are complicated. Later that day, I checked my email. At the time I was a moderator for a Jewish genealogy discussion group. The other moderators were not in Israel and they were all chatting away about inconsequential things, nothing really to do with moderation, and I felt myself begin to burn. “Why aren’t they asking about me??” I wondered.

I was really angry. I ended up saying something to the lead moderator, and he seemed surprised to hear I was upset. “I figured the rockets don’t get anywhere near you—you’re not close to Gaza.” He wasn’t wrong. They usually don’t get that far. But occasionally, like that day, they do. And the light banter of my colleagues felt deeply unsettling. As if they didn’t care that people—evil people—were targeting Israelis, targeting me, with rockets.

But the truth is, it’s not that they didn’t care. It’s that they were completely unaware. They don’t hear about the attacks. They’re not on their radar—if you’ll pardon the pun—either because the media doesn’t report them, they’re not paying attention, or they assume, like the lead moderator did, that rockets don’t reach my area.

It’s an easy assumption to make—until one actually lands. Then there's the perception that the rockets aren't really dangerous. Israel has become so effective at intercepting missiles that they rarely get through. As a result, some conclude the rockets aren’t really dangerous—that they’re crudely made, cobbled together from junk, and incapable of doing serious harm.

But that would be wrong.

I know because my son’s house in the south took a direct rocket hit on October 7. Luckily, they were not home at the time. Mainly because my son was already doing reserve duty when the war broke out, so my daughter-in-law took the kids to spend the holiday with her parents. Windows were shattered, the safe room was damaged. The solar collector was a total write-off. My daughter-in-law had to rent an apartment in the center of the country and enroll the kids in a local school until their home was repaired and it was safe for them to return.

Once the repairs were finished and they were finally back home, we went for a visit. My son showed us a massive chunk of rocket he’d kept. They were lucky. Their next-door neighbor's house was a complete loss. They aren't coming back. Being that close to Gaza, the attacks and sirens were constant. They’d had enough.

When the sirens started going off more frequently in our area, I figured it was our turn, now. The south had borne the brunt of things for so long. But we weren't “used” to running for our lives while a siren is blaring. That made it a heart-pounding experience each time it happened. We’d race into the room and count the booms. My husband and kids can tell the difference in sound between an interception and a hit, but my ears are still in training. Usually someone curses the senders of those rockets. “Effers. Effing Houthis." Things like that.

It’s hard on my boys—really men now—especially. It’s not a good feeling to have to run for cover. It makes you feel powerless. Cowardly. It makes you angry that you have to hide from danger, rather than meet it.

As I said, we’ve unfortunately adapted to this situation. My heart doesn’t pound the same way anymore. But a couple of months ago, it was different. One night, the siren went off, and my husband said, “Get the boys!” I ran to the back of the house to herd them into the mamad. (Of course, they didn’t need me to do that. They hear the sirens too. But they don’t run. At least part of that is bravado, for sure.)

A few nights later, the siren went off again, and I just about slept through it. Dov called out, “Siren! Go to the mamad.” The mamad is about two feet from our bedroom, but dazed and disoriented, my brain took over and directed me to repeat what I did last time: run to the back of the house and get the boys to the mamad, to safety. To my misfortune, my autopilot is apparently very bad at what it does. I ran smack into my son, who was already on his way toward the mamad. I mean, I really body-slammed him. He yelled, “EEMA! Where are you going??” So I turned myself around and ran into the wall—and the force of it made me fall down the few steps that lead to that part of the house. I was pretty banged up. Still have bruises one month later.

Later, when I reflected on what had happened, I was kind of awestruck. Clearly, I’d been running on instinct—maternal instinct. And I loved that. That even when my brain couldn’t think, my body still understood: protect your offspring. When the sirens go off in the middle of the night, that’s the prime directive.

Not that you really can. Missiles render regular people like me useless. Powerless. I can herd my sons into a (relatively) safe room. But I can’t keep the missiles away from them—or our home.

What I loved even more than the maternal instinct itself was that my son—the one I’d body-slammed—noticed it and said something. “You were completely out of it, and yet you came to protect us. Because you’re our mother.” It pleased me no end that he understood—and let me know it.

After that, the sirens stopped feeling like such a big deal. My heart didn’t race, and I didn’t rush into the safe room.—I walked.

We’re supposed to stay in there for ten minutes, but the boys never last that long. They leave after a few minutes. Then Dov and I look at each other—should we really stay? We’ve already heard the interceptions. The boys are out. We shrug and stay another minute or so, mostly to set a good example for them, even though they’re long gone.

But it’s a funny thing. Any noise that sounds anything like a siren makes us stop and strain our ears. Is it a siren? Could it be? It might be background music in a film, or something in someone’s voice from another room—just a pitch or tone that echoes the sound of a missile alert. And our bodies react. There’s a physical jolt, like that maternal instinct I had. Some deeper brain process takes over. I think we’re always listening, even when we don’t realize it. Our brains are listening in spite of us—and they’re ready to tell us to run.

Our street overlooks a highway, and the sound carries in odd ways—making everything seem closer than it really is. Because it’s a long, open stretch with no traffic police in the Gush, local Arabs like to drag race there. They usually do it on Shabbos, when most Jews aren’t driving, so the road’s wide open for them to show off what their cars can do. It’s LOUD. And it’s unsettling. It keeps us awake. It’s not a pleasant sound.

Last night it was not Shabbos, but only Tuesday, but they were out there and even louder than usual and it was freaking me out. I knew exactly what those sounds were, but it just kept sounding to me like sirens. Yet, there lay my husband next to me, in a sound, deep sleep.

One morning not long ago, around 5 a.m., I got up to use the bathroom. A siren went off—and I didn’t hear it. What I did hear was my husband calling the boys, which told me what was happening. He was wondering aloud where I was. Had I run for the boys and slammed into a wall again?
But no—I was just in the bathroom. And as it turns out, it’s soundproof. I never heard the siren at all.

Not long ago, it being a hot day, I trained a fan on my bed and lay down to nap. A siren went off—and nope. I did not hear it. The fan apparently obscures the sound. Should I be afraid to use the fan or go to the bathroom, for fear I won’t hear the siren? I don’t think so. It’s not likely that anything would happen to me even if I don’t hear the siren and don’t go into the safe room.

Then again, on Lag B’Omer, as we were walking to a neighbor’s barbecue, I said to Dov, “Do you know where their mamad is? Is it big enough for everyone?”

I felt compelled to ask, though I didn’t feel especially anxious about it—just a passing thought. Still, we all know the enemy—whether Houthi, Hezbollah, Hamas, or whatever; the list is long—loves to target us during our holidays. I don’t know. I just had a hunch.

We’re always saying things like that, “Be ready. I have a hunch,” and it’s almost always wrong. There’s also the Monday morning quarterbacking thing going on. The siren goes off and someone will say, “I knew it! I knew it was coming.”

But it’s ridiculous, because a part of us is always watchful now, watching and waiting.

A bit later, Dov came to tell me there was a mamad right on the same floor. Our host wasn’t sure everyone would fit, but I was welcome to use it if I wanted. I looked at Dov and said, “He’s not going to use it.” It wasn’t really a question.

Some people just don’t—or won’t—do it. They won’t cower in a shelter. They just won't. And you know what? They aren’t wrong. It’s not bravado, false or otherwise. It’s more like what I always say about terror and things like that: “If it’s got your name on it, there’s not much you can do. And if it ain’t got your number on it, why worry?”

So there we were—sitting around a long table, eating hot dogs, burgers, and wings, having a good ole time—when sure enough, the siren goes off.

Instead of jumping up, I looked around the room to see what people would do. What struck me later, in a strange sort of way, was that the first person to rise from the table was an Israeli woman—the only one in the room with no Anglo background. She stood up, then seemed not to know what to do because others weren’t getting up as quickly as she expected. Still, others did, in fact, get up. A friend asked me, “Why aren’t you getting up?” She couldn’t figure out what I was doing.

But I had seen the lay of the land. Our host wasn’t getting up. Neither was his close friend beside him. I said, “Well, if David’s not going to the mamad, I’m not going to the mamad.”

Dov decided to take my cue and sit there. Something we wouldn’t have done at home. I don’t even now know why I felt we couldn’t go to the mamad because we’d look like wusses. LOL. Like is it really better to be hit by a missile, God forbid, than to look like a wuss??

So there we were, and even our hostess wasn’t wussing out, but calmly refilling trays of food. And then there was a huge WHUMP. The floor moved violently under my feet. We looked at each other. “That was CLOSE.”

Everyone moseyed on back from the safe room to the table. My friend sat across from me and said, “Why didn’t you go? You know, there are kids here.”

Oy. I hadn’t seen them. The fact that grownups sat there during a missile siren was not good at all for them to see. I totally would have gone to the mamad had I known there were kids. They need to see us acting like—um—responsible adults. They need to take these things seriously.

Then my friend showed me her phone. A huge piece of shrapnel had fallen not far from Efrat—quite close, in fact, to homes.

A large chunk of debris from the intercepted Houthi ballistic missile landed in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut.

No injuries were caused. pic.twitter.com/621CLfDYlF
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) May 15, 2025

It’s not that we don’t take these things seriously. But sometimes it’s like, “I’ll be damned if I’ll let those Houthis make me run away and hide.”

It does sometimes make you seethe. Other times you just feel blasé—like, “Whatever.”

So it’s strange. So many tangled, conflicting feelings. And yet, this is our life for now—deciding whether to heed the sirens or simply stay put and carry on with whatever we were doing.

On Shabbos, I don’t use my computer. In fact, I try not to email people or go on social media even after Shabbos ends—especially when it’s still Shabbos in places like America. I don’t want to be the reason someone else ends up using their computer on Shabbos to reply to me.

It’s a gray area in Jewish law, for sure. But for me, it feels right to avoid engaging during that time. Since Shavuot is one day in Israel and two days outside, I stayed off Facebook for a couple of days.

The last status I’d written was, “It’s weird that a person can get used to missile sirens, but there it is.”

After Shavuot ended, I checked my notifications—though I wouldn’t be replying to anyone for another day or so. It was a popular post and drew a lot of responses. My friends here in Israel related. They, too, had noticed the slow process of adaptation and shared their own experiences. (The thing is, we’re so WESTERN here in Israel. It’s surreal for people like us to be under missile fire. We’re practically American, and this just doesn’t happen in New York or California—at least not yet.)

Friends outside of Israel had also left comments—admiring ones, concerned ones. And then, sticking out like a sore thumb, was a comment from a “friend” whose name I didn’t even recognize. I didn’t know we were friends. (I have more “Facebook friends” than actual friends.)

“We left Israel a week ago. There were sirens. Big deal. Not scary at all.”

That comment had me doing a slow burn. I kept going back to it, like a tongue probing a sore tooth. What was it that bothered me so much? It was difficult to explain it, even to myself. Part of it was that it didn’t ring true. You can’t hear a missile siren for the first time and not feel at least a little fear. But maybe she was just an emotionless bot. Or showing off. Or trying to one-up me—because she never had to adapt to sirens. She was going home to America after one or two of them. She had no right to that kind of bravery. Not compared to those of us who live here, under the prolonged, grinding strain of a painful, relentless war.

I decided I didn’t need to analyze it any further. People on social media are just zeroes and ones. And this woman—she was what my mother would’ve called “a pain.” I didn’t need the aggravation, whether it was real, imagined, or self-inflicted. So I was kind to myself. I deleted her comment and unfriended her. It felt good. I just hoped she wouldn’t notice and confront me—I didn’t need that either. I just needed her out of my virtual space. She wasn’t good for me. She can claim to be as tough as, or tougher than, most Israelis. But really, she’s not tough at all. She’s the Jew who left. And I’m the Jew who stays. With or without the missiles.

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CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, issued a condemnation of the attack by a Muslim man on peaceful and elderly demonstrators in Boulder, CO on Sunday:

This attack on the Run for Our Lives march in Boulder was a heinous and unacceptable crime.

If that would have been all they said, it would be an impressive statement. But being CAIR, of course that wasn't the case. They added:

The person who perpetrated this violence in Boulder is a criminal whose unacceptable actions do not, in any way, represent the countless Americans of diverse backgrounds who are peacefully advocating for an end to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Suddenly, the attacker has transformed into a protester of "genocide" whose methods might be wrong but whose heart was in the right place: destroy Israel with lies.

CAIR goes on:

Peaceful protests, political engagement, and civil disobedience are the only ways to change policies in our nation.

As we speak out against this unacceptable crime in Boulder, we also reject the cynical attempts by anti-Palestinian racists and anti-Muslim extremists who seek to use this attack to justify their own bigotry and their war on free speech in America.

Unlike those politicians who have never once condemned any of the shootings, stabbings, car rammings, beatings, and other violence directed at pro-Palestine demonstrators, and who actively support genocidal violence against Palestinians in Gaza, people of conscience condemn all criminal violence against all people, here and abroad.

That’s called moral consistency.

So, we have one full sentence condemning the crime, two half sentences that condemn it while also saying that their political opponents are at least as bad as the terrorist, and two sentences that attack CAIR's critics while pretending to be moral. There is far more text of hurling hate and defending those who share the same politics as the terrorist than of condemning him.

This isn't moral consistency. It is using an attack on Jews as an opportunity to further attack Jews.

There is one other word that shows that CAIR is a disgusting organization. In the introduction to the statement, it says by way of background:

On Sunday afternoon, a man used what authorities describe as a “makeshift flamethrower” to attack a group of marchers selectively calling for the release of captives held in Gaza.

What does CAIR mean by using the term "selectively"? The only explanation I can think of is that CAIR is criticizing the protesters for not also calling for the release of Hamas terrorists in Israeli prisons.

It extols "peaceful protests" when done by people who hate Israel, but when it is done by Zionist Jews, CAIR implies, they are self-serving hypocrites for not also calling Israel to release more terrorists.

CAIR is beneath contempt. Its "condemnation" is nothing of the sort - just an excuse to publish more and more hate, which turns into incitement that leads to attacks like this one.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Over Shavuot, I have been reading The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality, an overview of the field. Since I have been coming to this project of universalizing Jewish ethics from outside the system, I wanted to know if there was anything I was missing that needs to be addressed in what appears already to be a very strong conceptual framework.

The book traces the history of Jewish ethics, from the Biblical and Talmudic eras through the brilliant medieval philosophers and into the twentieth century. But as I read, one thing kept bothering me: the most prominent names in Jewish philosophy, from Maimonides to Joseph Soloveitchik, keep trying to answer how Jewish ethics fits within the dominant secular philosophies of their eras - Aristotle, Kant, and beyond. These thinkers were undoubtedly brilliant and advanced Jewish ethics immeasurably, but their arguments are, at root, apologetic: an attempt to show that Jewish ethics can hold its own in the language of secular philosophy.

Yet my project has been systematically showing the gaps in secular models of ethics. The Jewish system, I argue, is a superset of the secular ethical systems: it doesn’t merely adopt values, duties, or virtues, but integrates all of these within a much more comprehensive framework rooted, above all, in the concept of covenant. The Jewish model is not a loose collection of values: it is an entire ecosystem, designed to grapple with complexity and real-world dilemmas, to prioritize between conflicting goods, and to treat compromise not as a failure but as a strength. It works at the personal, communal, national, and international levels, without losing coherence.

Trying to fit Jewish ethics into the much narrower frame of existing secular models is, in my view, a category error. If anything, secular ethics should be looking to Jewish ethics for solutions to its persistent shortcomings - shortcomings that philosophers themselves have been identifying and debating for centuries.

I shudder at the thought that I am doing something beyond the giants. Yet it appears I do have one giant on my side, though mentioned only peripherally in the Oxford Handbook: Judah Halevi, the brilliant author of the Kuzari. Halevi was anti-Aristotelian; he argued that Greek ethics, while clever and full of useful tools, were far too limited to serve as a model for Jewish ethics, which is rooted in revelation and lived communal experience. He criticized Greek ethics for focusing on individual perfection and neglecting communal responsibility, a theme that resonates with my own critique. (Notably, he also distinguished between universal rational morality and revelatory law, another similarity with my approach.)

If I am right, then Jewish philosophy took a fateful turn with Maimonides, one that positioned secular ethics as the standard Jewish thought must live up to. This was understandable: Jewish philosophers living in exile often felt compelled to justify Judaism to the dominant cultures around them. But today, with a restored Jewish state and a changing world, perhaps it is time to recognize the genius of Jewish ethics—not as a supplement to Western philosophy, but as a comprehensive, practical, and universal model in its own right that can stand up to, and surpass, the best secular ethical philosophies.

In my next post about this topic I hope to show how the Jewish ethical system brilliantly and seamlessly covers individual, communal, national- and international-level ethics in a single conceptual idea - and how that can be universalized for the entire world.

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From Sultan Ibrahim Al-Khalaf, a columnist at Al Rai Media, which runs the most popular newspaper in Kuwait along with a major TV station:

Western media has been able to distort the image of Nazi Germany after its defeat in World War II, imprinting it in people's minds as an evil specter, an enemy of humanity, whenever the Nazis are mentioned.

Zionist Jews played a major role in defaming the Nazis in order to take revenge for the oppression they suffered at their hands. They imposed on the world the story of the "Holocaust," which represents that oppression. This story is full of exaggerations, far from the truth, and mostly a figment of the imagination, such as the extermination of 6 million Jews in Europe. They then imposed a law that punishes anyone who doubts or denies the "Holocaust," and another that punishes anyone who attacks Jews, on the charge of "anti-Semitism."

Western media is horrified at Holocaust denial - except when it is done by Arabs.

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

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06/03 Links: ‘Free Palestine’ Terrorism; Why Humanitarian Organizations hate the GHF; BBC have become the gold standard for fake news in support of Hamas.

From Ian:

John Spencer and Arsen Ostrovsky: The US-Israel Gaza aid plan is working — which is why Hamas is spreading lies about it

The GHF threatens to dismantle that system by delivering directly to civilians, bypassing the terror group that has used starvation as a strategy.

So Hamas has turned to a two-pronged response.

First, disruption on the ground: sending armed operatives to provoke chaos at aid sites, firing on civilians attempting to access food and deliberately manufacturing volatility.

Second, disinformation: flooding social media and compliant news outlets with false casualty counts, doctored images and fabricated narratives — all to paint Israel as the aggressor and itself as the victim.

This isn’t theory.

It’s strategy.

It’s textbook Hamas.

And more than 600 days into a war they began, too much of the world’s media still parrots its talking points without question.

That’s not journalism — it’s complicity.

Yes, the suffering in Gaza is real.

But its cause is not Israel’s military operations or efforts to rescue the hostages Hamas still holds; it’s Hamas’ own strategy of exploitation and terror.

Meantime, the international community, led by UNRWA, had been the primary source of humanitarian assistance in Gaza and for years willfully turned a blind eye to Hamas’ exploitation of aid — failing to enforce meaningful oversight, even employing Hamas members (many who took part in the Oct. 7 attacks) as local staff and using its facilities to hoard aid for terror operations.

Now, UNRWA would seemingly rather see the GHF fail, and the people of Gaza actually starve, so it can continue using the Jewish state as its forever-scapegoat.

Israel has taken unprecedented steps to minimize civilian harm, facing an enemy that embeds in civilian areas, hoards humanitarian aid and sacrifices its own people to gain global sympathy.

Humanitarian aid must never be a bargaining chip for terrorists.

But by insisting on a system that leaves aid in Hamas’ hands, much of the international community has allowed exactly that.

Hamas would rather starve its own people than lose control over them.

Those who truly care about the welfare of Palestinian civilians must support a system that bypasses Hamas altogether.

That system is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

The GHF is delivering what countless international actors have failed to provide: direct, accountable, large-scale humanitarian assistance that does not empower a terrorist group.

It breaks Hamas’ monopoly over aid and strips it of one of its most dangerous tools — using food as a means of control.

That’s why Hamas is trying to sabotage this initiative.

Supporting the GHF means more than feeding the hungry.

It means breaking Hamas’ grip on Gaza’s civilians.

It means dismantling the group’s strategy of domination through deprivation.

And it means backing a bold US-Israeli initiative that delivers not only food — but hope.

Why Humanitarian Organizations hate the GHF

Neutrality
Critics assert that Israel’s military oversight of GHF distribution centers, including securing perimeters for U.S. contractors, violates neutrality (aid must not align with a belligerent) and independence (aid must be free from military control). This criticism is baseless. No modern war has been fought without Western armies being responsible for humanitarian supplies.

For example:
In Iraq (2003–2011), the U.S. established Civil-Military Operations Centers (CMOCs) to coordinate aid with NGOs, directly delivering supplies in secure areas to prevent insurgent theft (U.S. Department of Defense, 2004). USAID funded independent groups like Mercy Corps, but U.S. military involvement was significant.

In Afghanistan (2001–2021), the U.S. conducted airdrops of 2.4 million humanitarian rations and escorted UN convoys, ensuring civilian access while securing routes (WFP, 2002).

These actions, far more intrusive than Israel’s role in the GHF, faced no comparable IHL objections. Israel’s measures—screening aid and securing distribution—are permitted under Article 23(c) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which allows controls to prevent aid from benefiting the enemy. GHF is not operated by Israel but by private contractors with the IDF only guarding the perimeter.

Impartiality
Critics claim that directing aid to southern Gaza while restricting northern deliveries violates impartiality, as aid must be distributed based on need without discrimination (Article 70, Additional Protocol I). However, Hamas is the one controlling aid now, diverting supplies to its fighters and selling them for profit. Israel’s restrictions aim to prevent this, as allowed under Article 23(c), which permits measures to ensure aid reaches civilians, not combatants.

The fact that one of the warring parties, Hamas, had been effectively controlling the aid did not seem to bother the same “humanitarian” organization that alleges that the IDF’s involvement in securing the distribution centers is a violation of the impartiality principle.

Moreover, IHL permits effective sieges to isolate combatants, provided civilian harm is proportionate (Article 54, Additional Protocol I). Allegations of Weaponization

Humanitarian organizations allege that Israel uses the GHF to pressure Hamas or manipulate civilian movements, violating Article 49 (forcible transfer). These claims are exaggerated and echo Hamas’s propaganda. Hamas actively sabotages GHF centers, spreading misinformation to deter civilians. The GHF’s targeted delivery is a practical response to Hamas’s diversion, not a violation of IHL. Hamas had been the one using the control of the aid as a weapon of war by using the Gazans as pawns in its media war against Israel.

Weaponizing IHL
The humanitarian community’s criticisms reflect a double standard in interpreting IHL that prevents Israel from dismantling Hamas’s last lever of power—control over aid. The double standard that is applied to Israel comes directly from the symbiotic relationship that UN organization in Gaza gave established with Hamas.

These organizations use IHL and the language of human rights to parrot Hamas propaganda by creating a standard of IHL that is impossible to follow. The goal post keeps on changing in such a way that would prevent Israel from effectively achieving a victory over Hamas, the ruling government of Gaza.

Hamas is on the brink of collapse, with Gazans storming its warehouses and defying its. The GHF is the final step to break this control, and this is why it is the final nail in Hamas’s coffin. Precisely, for these, the “humanitarian” organization has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at the GHF to prevent the final collapse of the Hamas government.

True concern for Gaza’s humanitarian situation requires allowing Israel to finish the war against Hamas. Defeating Hamas will end its tyranny and the immense suffering Hamas has inflicted on its own population.

Eli Lake: Who Profits From Gaza’s Desperation?

In other words, Hamas wants to sabotage Israel’s plans to cut out the terrorist group from one of its remaining sources of control and leverage in Gaza: distribution of food and aid. That is an important piece of context missing from nearly all of the first-day stories on the alleged massacres. It also may explain why on Tuesday morning, the world awoke to more reports of Palestinians being shot as they awaited food deliveries. At a bare minimum it’s reasonable to conclude that Hamas is instigating confrontations with the IDF in order to provoke the shootings of hungry aid recipients.

This, however, does not eliminate the possibility that Israeli soldiers have in some cases fired in the direction of Palestinians awaiting aid. Israel is attempting to deliver food in the middle of a war zone. Even the most professional armies make mistakes. If the accounts of these shootings are accurate, then the Israelis have fired warning shots as crowds approached a site before the aid distribution was ready. That’s a tragedy, but not a massacre.

“I believe Hamas has every interest in sabotaging the aid mechanism because they cannot control it or loot it to finance their existence,” Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the director of Realign For Palestine and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The Free Press. “What little evidence I have been able to see thus far suggests [the recent reports of shootings] may have been an excessive case of crowd control by the Israeli military gone wrong.”

Alkhatib has taken the responsible approach. There is still scant evidence of what actually happened on Sunday at Rafah. A video shared by an Al Jazeera journalist, for example, showed footage of an aid distribution point in Khan Younis, not in Rafah where the alleged massacre took place. When the BBC checked its facts, it issued a clarification pointing to these discrepancies.

“The circumstances of this strike are unclear,” the BBC said. Well, that’s an understatement.

Even if Israel is to blame for the alleged shootings in Rafah, it would be a triumph for Hamas if these reported incidents scuttled the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s work. If Israel and its allies—more than a year and a half into the war—have found a way to sever aid distribution from Hamas’s grip, there is a real chance that finally these fanatics will be driven from power by the very people they have misruled for nearly two decades. That is how to end the war.

Alkhatib agrees. He recommended the new aid approach be expanded so that Palestinians can receive aid without walking miles and being forced to wait for hours on end in the unforgiving sun and heat.

Nonetheless, he said, “It has shown an immense potential for many who are desperate to access food without having to pay massively inflated prices for aid that is supposed to be free in the first place.” Alkhatib added that the exorbitant prices Gazans must pay for food that is supposed to be free of charge is a scandal. “That’s not on Israel,” he said. “That is on Hamas, the international NGO community, and the United Nations.”

Chag sameach!

For those who celebrate, have a chag Shavuot kosher v'samech!

I will not be back online until Tuesday night.

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

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06/01 Links: Fake News: CNN, BBC Ran Unverified Claims Israel Killed Palestinians at Aid Site; Pro-Israeli protesters attacked with Molotov cocktails in Colorado

From Ian:

John Spencer: No one should want ceasefire in Gaza until clear defeat of Hamas

War is always tragic. But some wars are necessary. The just purpose of war is not vengeance—it is justice, deterrence, and the restoration of peace. But peace is not possible with an armed, fanatical regime in Gaza that seeks your destruction and views the murder of civilians as a divine duty. Wars of self-defense must end with unmistakable clarity.

Germany in 1918 was defeated militarily, but the war ended with ambiguity. The Allies allowed the German army to retreat intact. The result was the “stab-in-the-back” myth that fueled Nazism and led to an even more catastrophic war. In 1945, the Allies made no such mistake. Nazi Germany was not just defeated—it was destroyed as a governing entity. So was Imperial Japan. And just as importantly, the German and Japanese populations came to see and accept that their regimes had been defeated. Both societies underwent years of disarmament, reconciliation, and comprehensive deradicalization. Only then could Europe and the Pacific begin to rebuild in peace.

Israel faces the same choice today. Ending this war without defeating Hamas means condemning Israelis—and Palestinians—to unending conflict. It means October 7 becomes not a cautionary tale, but a case study in successful terrorism, lawfare, hostage taking, and wars of aggression.

Israel is currently achieving real, measurable success in its military campaign. Operation Gideon’s Chariot has transitioned from massed maneuvers to coordinated clear-and-hold operations across Gaza. The IDF has successfully seized and is now holding terrain in areas once dominated by Hamas battalions. Elite Israeli units continue to dismantle Hamas’s underground networks, rocket infrastructure, weapons production sites, and command centers—undermining the group’s ability to wage war.

In parallel, Israel has established a new humanitarian mechanism—the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—to deliver food, water, and medicine directly to civilians without going through Hamas. This is critical. For years, Hamas maintained power not only through fear and force but also by monopolizing aid distribution and punishing dissent. That monopoly is now being broken. For the first time in nearly two decades, signs of civilian defiance are emerging: Gazans protesting Hamas’s theft, rejecting their authority, and calling them out publicly.

But let no one be mistaken—this is still a war, not a counterinsurgency. Hamas remains the de facto ruling power of Gaza. It still commands fighters, holds hostages, and exerts control over large swaths of the population. No one who has studied war—real war—should have expected that a terror regime that spent decades militarizing every inch of Gaza and radicalizing generations of civilians could be dismantled easily or quickly. Those calling for an immediate ceasefire either do not understand war, or do not want Hamas to lose.

This war must end not with a ceasefire, but with a clear and irreversible outcome: the defeat of Hamas as a military and governing power.

If the international community truly wants peace, it should focus not on saving Hamas, but on how it is first removed from power, disarmed, and dismantled—so that the long process of deradicalization and reconciliation can begin. This was the path taken after World War II, when defeating the regimes that started the war was recognized as the necessary precondition for lasting peace.

Israel cannot be the only party planning for what comes after Hamas. The international community must stop pretending Hamas can be part of the solution. It must become part of the solution itself: by supporting measures that accelerate Hamas’s defeat, such as the movement of civilians out of Hamas’s grasp, not refusing to participate in a humanitarian plan that delivers aid directly to the people Hamas has long exploited.

The hypocrisy must stop. The reality must be accepted: peace will never come while Hamas remains intact. There is no future in which Gaza flourishes while Hamas remains in power. There is no future in which Israelis or Palestinians are safe if October 7, hostage taking, lawfare, and human shielding are seen as a path to political leverage.

We would live in a very different world if the Allies had not pursued victory in 1945. We will live in a dark and dangerous world if Hamas is allowed to claim one now.

Let it be clear—to Hamas and to the world—that they lost this war. Anything less guarantees a future of endless violence.

JPost Editorial: Tom Fletcher's continued falsehoods on Israel prove he needs to resign

Tom Fletcher must resign. The UN’s under-secretary for humanitarian aid, tasked with supposed impartiality and accuracy in global crises, has proven himself yet again unworthy of the post he holds. His recent inflammatory accusations against Israel, specifically that it is subjecting Gaza to “forced starvation,” a war crime, are not only unsubstantiated but dangerously irresponsible.

In a BBC interview published on Friday, Fletcher claimed that Israel is deliberately starving the population of Gaza, implying intentional war crimes. “It is classified as a war crime,” he said, adding that courts and history will ultimately judge. These are no small words. They carry weight. They can inflame conflict. They can distort international discourse. And they must be based on facts, not ideological fervor or personal agendas.

Fletcher is not new to exaggeration. Just last week, he was forced to walk back a false and hysterical claim that 14,000 babies could die within 48 hours if aid was not allowed into Gaza. The UN itself later clarified that the figure, taken from a year-long projection on malnutrition, was grossly misrepresented. Fletcher admitted they were “desperate to get that aid in,” and thus loosened their standards of accuracy. That is not desperation. That is deception.

Even as Israel has opened aid corridors and worked with the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to allow supplies through, Fletcher has refused to acknowledge any progress. Nor has he uttered a single word about the very real obstacles posed by Hamas. The terrorist group routinely hijacks aid convoys, reroutes them to its own warehouses, and sells food at extortionate prices to a starving population. This is a humanitarian catastrophe created by Hamas, but Fletcher has yet to acknowledge it.

Instead, he places the entirety of the blame on Israel. No mention of the Israeli hostages still languishing in Hamas captivity. No recognition of the terror group’s abuse of humanitarian infrastructure. No condemnation of Hamas’s use of civilian shields. Just relentless, blinkered criticism of the only side in this war that is both a democracy and a UN member state.

It is political theater at its finest, and another example of the utter uselessness of the United Nations.

Israeli Ambassador to Britain: We Are No Longer Willing to Jeopardize Our Security

Amb. Tzipi Hotovely interviewed by Tim Stanley (Sunday Telegraph-UK)
The problem with coverage of Gaza is that emotions run so high, every discussion ends up feeling like an interrogation - and the Israelis push back with force. What outsiders often forget is that beneath the rhetorical fireworks lies a deep pain. Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely tells me "everyone in Israel is traumatized" by the events of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel, murdering and kidnapping more than a thousand people.

"We, as Israelis, have been through terror attacks in our coffee shops, on our buses, on our streets, but never in the past did we feel like our houses were not safe." This is their new "vulnerability: the feeling that you cannot protect your own children....I think that October 7th was a watershed moment...all across Israel. No one can say in Israel that he's the same person after."

Some governments still live in the mentality of "October 6th" - but Israelis have been shown "that if you have a jihadi, Islamist terrorist group that wants to destroy you on your doorstep, at the end of the day, it'll end up in a massacre." Think of it as living next-door to the "Third Reich." "The aims of the war are very clear to Israel. Hamas shouldn't exist as a political leadership and with military power after we finish."

"Israel's policy from the beginning of the war was to deliver aid to Gaza." Some "25,000 trucks of aid got into Gaza. This is not a starvation program, this is actually a flooding Gaza with aid program....The reason why it had to stop was because it was being looted only to feed the terrorists" or "to sell the aid that people were supposed to get for free." "As a Jew, as an Israeli, we value life very much. Unfortunately, our enemies don't....I think it's a clash of civilizations....I find that Western people find it very hard to believe that on the other side, there are people who are using their own children as human shields, but they do....Now, think about it. Do you think the UK would have continued living next to a terror organization that is a threat to your children in Kent? Or in London or in Liverpool? I don't think so."

"What did October 7th prove? First of all, unfortunately what we've seen is big support among Palestinians towards the massacre." One poll found 86% of West Bank residents sympathized with the pogrom. The concept of a two-state solution "was rejected by the Palestinians again and again. Israelis had hope [in it] in the 1990s and were willing to compromise, but...every time there was some type of negotiation, there was more terrorism....So Israelis are no longer willing to jeopardize their security any longer."

Community is the unspoken engine of morality (including Shavuot tie-in)

In my last post on the topic of Jewish ethics for the world, I discussed the importance of community in the context of extending “kiddush Hashem” to the world, and noted that community is a missing piece of most universal ethics models.

I didn’t go far enough.

Community is an essential component for any truly universal ethical system to work.

For a philosophy to work for everyone, it cannot only be a list of values. It needs to give people a reason to adopt the system.

Too often, with universalistic ethics, that can turn the ethical system into a coercive system - which itself is immoral. But how can you incentivize people to choose to adopt a morality system when the only choices are either to force them or to allow them to leave at will?

The answer is to look more closely at how Jewish ethics works.

Unlike Christian or Islamic ethics, Jewish ethics were not built with the entire world in mind. It was created for Israel and the Jewish people, who view themselves as a small, defined tribe or family. In other words, a community.

In Judaism the mitzvot (commandments) are commonly divided into two categories: those between man and God (bein adam l’Makom) and those between people (bein adam l’chaveiro.) What is not often mentioned is that while the obligations between man and God are covenantal, so are those between people - in a different way. There are covenantal style obligations and expectations between the individual and the community. The community takes care of its members and the members take care of communal needs.

When secularizing Jewish ethics, the covenantal piece between man and God obviously does not apply. But the concept of covenant bridges the gap between coercive ethical systems and those with no penalties for ignoring the values. People feel obligated to their communities naturally, a secular equivalent of the Talmudic phrase “All Israel is responsible for one another.”

In the Jewish context, the covenantal nature of the two are linked closely. A celebration, mourning, prayer all require a quorum of people (a minyan) to be considered complete. Community is not just convenient but sacred.

For the secular world, community isn’t quite that essential - but it is pretty close. There is a reason why prisoners are punished with solitary confinement. There is a reason why we regard senior citizens who cannot physically leave their homes as tragic figures. Losing community means losing a part of the self. A covenant does not have to be with God - it is also any ongoing, mutual pledge that binds people in shared purpose and accountability.

Ethics itself is largely dependent on being around other people. Much of ethics are built on the assumption that the person has relationships with others. The missing piece is understanding how critical community is to everyone - and how community provides the incentives for doing good that universalistic systems simply cannot match. A hermit is not an ethical person because a hermit has few ethical challenges.

Telling someone that they must do good for the betterment of mankind comes across as utopian and, to an extent, close to false. Dropping litter on the ground is not going to materially affect the world, and even knowing the consequences if everyone would do the same doesn’t affect the personal calculus in making that ethical choice. But if this is your community’s space, and one of your fellows will be the one who must pick it up, and you are not holding up your end of the deal - which is the covenant - then you are more likely to think twice and do the right thing.

It is difficult for people to feel responsible for the world. It is natural for people to feel responsible for their fellows.

When the universalist ethical systems fail, it is not because their values are bad. Most of them have values that are praiseworthy. But that is not enough - you need the framework, you need an engine, and the covenant that goes along with belonging to a community is the engine that allows one to practice these values, willingly.

What about those who can’t join the community for whatever reason - shut-ins, the sick, the mentally ill?

Jewish ethics, again, offers the answer: the true test of a community is how it seeks to include those on the margins. Commandments like bikur cholim (visiting the sick), pidyon shvuyim (redeeming captives), and the countless laws of hospitality and compassion place the burden of inclusion on the community itself. The real test and greatness of a covenantal community is not how it celebrates the joiners, but how it seeks, honors, and embraces those least able to participate.

The holiday of Shavuot is almost upon us. We tell the story of the ultimate outcast - Ruth. She loses her husband, her homeland, her people, but she wants desperately to be part of a covenantal community. She tells her mother-in-law, “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” She took on both covenants, that between Jews and God and between Jews and the Jewish community. Even so she is an outcast and lonely, not welcomed as a full member of the community - until the kindness of a Jew brings in this outsider from Moab into the Jewish community where she ends up the ancestor of a family of kings. There are many lessons in the story of Ruth, but the importance of community and welcoming the marginalized into the community is a constant theme throughout.

So we have a third way in moral systems: not coercive universality, and not opt-in universalism, but a covenant of shared responsibility between the individual and their fellows.

The Jewish ethical view of communal responsibility is arguably much more demanding. The phrase I quoted above, “All Israel is responsible for one another,” can be translated as “All Israel are guarantors for one another.” That is a much higher bar for one’s obligations to community.

As we mentioned previously, community can be defined however one wants. Communities can be groups of people with similar interests, people who went to the same school, people who were born in the same neighborhood, people who join the same health club. Even online, people can help each other in many ways (although they are no substitute for physical community.)

Modern psychology and sociology confirm what tradition knows. Meaning, purpose, and ethical action flourish in belonging to something greater than oneself. Rules and values are resilient only when communities enforce, model, and celebrate them.

Not only that, but modern moral philosophy proves this as well. The most successful examples of modern ethics in action are not universal cases but those that are geared towards specific communities. Professional codes, like those for journalists, doctors or lawyers, work precisely because of members of these professions belong to a community. Breaking the ethical codes results in making the violators pariahs besides the professional consequences.

Similarly, co-ops, unions, trade guilds, fraternities - all of these are communities that create ethical codes for their members. The codes are not meant to be universal but particular - which is the entire reason why they work while their universalistic counterparts fall apart so easily.

Community isn’t an optional component of people’s lives and relationships. It is central, even more important to most people than their shared humanity with the entire world. Community provides the impetus that make people want to act morally, and the underlying reason is the unstated covenant between the community and the individual, to everyone’s benefit.

This is why a truly universal ethical system must be covenantal, and in the secular world this means it must be lived in community.

This is not just a Jewish insight. But Jewish interpersonal ethics is based on being part of a community, which is why it is successful. This can - and indeed must - be an axiom of any universal ethical system.

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The Gaza "starving children" meme, which only ACCELERATED since millions of meals have been distributed, is an orchestrated blood libel against Jews

The New York Times published a photo essay and article about supposedly starving Gazans, describing children there as "emaciated."

According to the Gaza health ministry, the number of people who have starved to death in Gazasince October 2023 is 60. And we've already seen that every one of those sixty who have been described by name in the media had other health problems that were their main reasons for death.

Let's compare the number of people who have starved to death in Gaza with other areas.

More children die in Ethiopia and Angola every day from starvation than have died in Gaza over 20 months.

Yet out of the New York Times tweets mentioning Ethiopia over the past two years, not one mentions starvation. One does point to an article that has one sentence about famine among reporting on its fighting, but there are more tweets about Ethiopian marathon runners than children starving.

I don't see a single article about Angola's starving children in the past five years of tweets - even though Biden administration officials, and Joe Biden himself, visited Angola in 2024.

There are four New York Times tweets that mention "famine" and "Sudan" over the past year. Compare that to 15 tweets that mention "Gaza" and "famine."

There are two New York Times tweets over the past year with both "Sudan" and "starvation." For Gaza, there are ten.

Far more people die in the US from starvation - 20,500 in 2022 - than in Gaza. Most of them are elderly, not children, but how many articles are about them? In fact, the only 2022 article I could find on hunger in America in the New York Times trumpeted how things were getting better, and did not mention a single death.

There is no famine in Gaza. There is hunger and food insecurity to be sure, and Israel is taking this very seriously - building aid distribution centers and their associated infrastructure takes time and effort, of which there is no parallel in the countries listed above and the many others that have thousands who die every year from starvation.

The new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation initiative has already distributed 4.7 million meals - yet virtually every story in the media does not mention that but repeats false Hamas claims of people being killed at those distribution sites and quote "experts" on how the GHF is not doing enough.

The "starvation" and "famine" articles and posts are nothing less than a blood libel. And the uniformly negative reactions to the successful GHF rollout in mainstream media - uncritically publishing Hamas lies and downplaying the incredible success of GHF - shows that this is a orchestrated campaign to slander Israeli Jews.

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Reuters reports:

On Saturday, aid groups said dozens of World Food Programme trucks carrying flour to Gaza bakeries had been hijacked by armed groups and subsequently looted by people desperate for food after weeks of mounting hunger.
"After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by," the WFP said in a statement.

But Houthi media quote the head of the umbrella group of Palestinian NGOs saying Israel was protecting the armed hijackers:

The Director General of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network, Amjad Shawa, announced that armed gangs robbed 86 aid trucks, under the protection of Israeli drones, most of which were loaded with flour in the southern Gaza Strip.

He pointed out that the enemy changed the route of the convoy at the last minute from the Netzarim axis to the Kerem Shalom crossing, as the road there is unsafe.

The trucks were forced to enter a red zone, evacuated of residents, amid intense drone flights to protect the gangs from any possible pursuit by security forces and police forces in Gaza.

Don't laugh - this will be in the Washington Post in a week or two as a credible possibility.

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

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