Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, July 27, 2025

07/27 Links: The Truth Behind the Viral Gazan Famine Photo; Netanyahu: UN is lying about entry of aid to Gaza; “Finishing the Job” in Gaza: What It Means and What It Takes

From Ian:

David Collier: The Truth Behind the Viral Gazan Famine Photo

Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq /Mutawwaq (was born with serious genetic disorders. He has needed specialist medical supplements since birth. Like previous examples of the media using ‘starving children’ going back to summer 2024 – the image is of a child suffering underlying (and hidden) health issues.

A medical report issued in May 2025 by the Basma Association for Relief in Gaza states that Mohammed, has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy – a group of neurological disorders affecting movement, muscle tone, and posture. The report notes that Mohammed suffers from hypoxemia (low oxygen in the blood), possibly linked to a suspected genetic disorder inherited in an ‘autosomal recessive pattern.’

There is no argument here. I have seen a copy of this report (but obviously won’t produce in full here a child’s medical diagnosis). It was signed by Dr Saeed Mohammed Al Nassan on 20th May 2025:

This revelation raises serious issues of media integrity. The Daily Express picked up a viral image circulating online and published it without verification or context – a textbook example of clickbait journalism, where emotional impact is prioritised over everything else.

The BBC – as per usual went a step further. The BBC *spoke* to his mother, Huda Yassin Al-Matouq / Mutawwaq – and produced a 64 second interview that somehow failed to disclose that Mohammed was a child born with genetic problems and complex medical dependencies. Even in the BBC video, the mother alludes to this – referencing a prolonged struggle, including physiotherapy sessions that had helped him stand. The curvature of the spine another key clue tying the child to a CP diagnosis. But the BBC narrator never addresses this – leaving the audience to believe the heartbreaking physical condition we are seeing is the result of widespread famine.

This is not journalism. This is the UK’s state media deliberately pushing a deceptive narrative that only serves to benefit Hamas and create fake news.

How Mohammed’s Father Was Used to Paint a Narrative
The story being told through legacy media outlets such as the NYT is that Mohammed’s father was killed while going out to collect food. Again, to underline the Gaza hunger tragedy narrative.

This has been reported without any attempt at verification. From the death certificate I can see the father Zakaria Ayoub Al-Matouq / Mutawwaq (زكريا أيوب المطوق) was killed on 28 October 2024:

From online sources it turns out that Mohammed’s father, was killed in Jabalia, in what appears to be a targeted strike on ‘al Qassabeeb’ street.

We can also see that Hamas were attacking the IDF in precisely that spot at the time (posts from 26 & 27th October).

Between the 25th October and the 29th, Israel lost six soldiers in the area. In this Hamas footage, which shows wide angle views of part of the same ‘street’ on 26th October, it is not possible to see exactly where Mohammed’s father would have been looking for food:

Whether or not he was armed, Mohammed’s father died on a battlefield where Hamas was actively attacking Israeli forces. Whatever the truth about ‘looking for food’, Hamas bears responsibility for bringing the conflict to that street and the media ignored this context entirely.

A Personal Note
Digging for the truth behind images like this is not easy. We’re dealing with a live war zone – real people, real pain, and tragic situations like Mohammed’s. These kinds of personal tragedies happen in every war, in every era.

What is unique – and toxic – is how images of the tragic consequences of urban warfare are being weaponised to build false global narratives. In this case, the lie is of a Gaza gripped by mass famine and children dying from hunger.

And here’s the bitter truth: I shouldn’t have to do this. It shouldn’t fall on me to call out the world’s biggest media outlets for their failure to act like journalists. Why are almost all of them functioning as Hamas’ useful idiots, amplifying propaganda with no effort to verify the facts? Is it really too much to expect them to do their jobs?

John Spencer: “Finishing the Job” in Gaza: What It Means and What It Takes

Hamas has refused to negotiate the return of hostages or discuss disarmament. President Trump recently said, "It got to a point where you're gonna have to finish the job." But what does "finishing the job" in Gaza actually mean?

Global recognition of Israel's legitimate and just war objectives must be the starting point. Many voices calling for an immediate ceasefire argue that the war can end without removing Hamas's military capabilities or political power. That position is fundamentally flawed. Any resolution that allows Hamas to retain power, even partially, ensures that the group will rebuild and repeat this cycle of violence in the future. Only the full military and political removal of Hamas from Gaza can create the conditions necessary for peace.

Humanitarian assistance must be delivered through mechanisms that do not rely on or empower Hamas. By restoring food access outside of Hamas control, Israel helps shift civilian reliance away from Hamas's shadow governance.

While headlines often focus on warnings of famine, more food is now flowing into Gaza. Hundreds of UN aid trucks are being distributed daily. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) continues to deliver up to two million meals a day across four sites. It has also established a system that allows approved groups to pick up aid and deliver it to the most vulnerable areas.

The Israel Defense Forces will continue to enter contested areas to systematically target Hamas fighters, dismantle Hamas infrastructure, and clear Gaza of their military presence. This is a slow, deliberate, and dangerous process involving close-quarters combat and tunnel detection and destruction. This cannot and should not be rushed.

This is not a call for a forever war in Gaza. This is a clear-eyed statement of what it will take to take the guns from Hamas. This is the essential first step. Before anything meaningful can be built, the threat must be removed. Once areas are cleared of Hamas, Israel can begin to explore what force will provide security, and which Palestinian actors can help stabilize areas. But none of that is possible if Hamas remains intact.

Andrew Fox: What next for Gaza?

Conclusion
Each party is manoeuvring to influence what happens next, but none can determine the outcome independently. The military stalemate has shown that neither Israel nor Hamas can fully accomplish their war objectives through force alone. Israel can devastate Gaza and weaken Hamas, but cannot entirely eliminate the notion of Hamas or secure lasting peace through military power. Hamas can survive and extract limited concessions, such as prisoner exchanges, but it cannot militarily defeat Israel or achieve significant improvements for Palestinians by continuing the fight. This mutual deadlock underscores the need for diplomacy and strategic political manoeuvring to prevail in the long run.

In Jerusalem, the harsh truth policymakers face is that even “victory” over Hamas would be pyrrhic without a plan for who governs Gaza afterwards. The Gaza Strip’s future will not be decided in isolation from the broader Palestinian and regional context. Simply put, Gaza’s fate is linked to the West Bank and to Arab-Israeli relations. A sustainable solution probably involves reintegrating Gaza with the Palestinian Authority and international support, effectively undoing Hamas’s 16-year rule. That outcome will require coordination between bitter rivals, strong security arrangements to prevent Hamas’s return, and substantial reconstruction efforts. It is a tall order, but anything less risks Gaza remaining a powder keg.

Hamas, for its part, will attempt to wait out Israeli and American resolve. If faced with imminent destruction or a loss of control, Hamas might adjust its stance, perhaps agreeing to a longer ceasefire or accepting a third-party security presence in exchange for its political survival. However, Hamas’s ideology and history suggest it will not disarm or relinquish control voluntarily. The endgame could therefore involve forcing Hamas’s compliance or fragmenting the organisation, rather than securing its cooperative agreement. How this is done remains a much more challenging question.

Any ceasefire will need to address core needs: guarantees for Israel that Hamas will not re-arm or carry out attacks again, and guarantees for Palestinians that they will not continue living under siege and bombardment. This might involve creative measures, such as international monitors at Gaza’s crossings or a multinational force (perhaps from Arab countries). These are all challenging but achievable if key stakeholders agree to support it.

Saudi Arabia’s involvement will be crucial in this context. As the leader of the Arab world’s move towards a new regional order, Saudi Arabia could help legitimise a new Gaza arrangement by offering political support and funding. The Kingdom has proposed a major donors' conference for Gaza reconstruction once the war concludes, presumably linking contributions to specific political outcomes (such as no Hamas in power). These incentives, along with US pressure and Israeli public fatigue, may ultimately lead to a shift toward a negotiated resolution.

Nevertheless, significant uncertainties remain. Will Israel’s government, pressed domestically and internationally, choose to cut losses and shift to diplomacy, or will it intensify military actions again? Will Hamas’s gamble on international intervention succeed, or will the group become isolated if regional patience runs out? Can the moderate Palestinian leadership step in, despite its diminished credibility, or will Gaza descend into chaos if Hamas is removed? These questions currently lack clear answers.

What is clear is that the status quo is unsustainable. “The war in Gaza must end now,” as a joint statement by 28 nations urged in July 2025. The next phase is probably going to be crucial. If a ceasefire agreement can be negotiated that exchanges the final hostages for an Israeli withdrawal under international guarantees, it might open the way for a new chapter for Gaza and the region. Hamas would be left greatly weakened and possibly sidelined in governance, while Israel could claim it has crippled the group and brought its people home. Israel’s security would then depend on new arrangements (border monitors, anti-smuggling measures, etc.) to prevent Hamas’s return, supported by US and regional commitments. Palestinians in Gaza, at last, would see the bombs cease and the difficult work of rebuilding begin, ideally with global support.

On the other hand, if the current trajectory continues with neither side compromising, the outcome could be either a bloody fight to the end (with Israel eventually overrunning Gaza amid severe losses), or a breakdown of negotiations that leaves Gaza in a state of perpetual low-level conflict. The former would be a humanitarian and diplomatic catastrophe, and the latter a recipe for another war in the future. Neither is a future anyone wants.

In the final analysis, both sides have something to gain from a responsible end to this war and much to lose from its indefinite continuation. Israel can secure its border and international standing only by ending the carnage and enabling a stable Gaza to take root, rather than owning an impoverished open-air prison next door. Hamas’s best hope for relevance is to stop the war before it is utterly destroyed, even if that means yielding governance to others, because Gazans’ anger at their suffering could yet turn against Hamas itself if fighting persists. The United States and its allies know that peace and progress in the Middle East cannot advance until Gaza is no longer a war zone. Regional powers from Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Qatar recognise that the legitimacy of their leadership and the security of the region hinges on alleviating the Gaza tragedy and moving towards a just political solution.

The path to that solution is challenging, but the general outlines are clear: a ceasefire in exchange for the return of hostages, the marginalisation of extremists (on the Israeli side as well – a whole other matter), and Gazans given a chance at normal life under a new authority. Achieving this will require unprecedented levels of coordination and goodwill, considering the scale of bloodshed. As the smoke gradually clears over Gaza’s devastated skyline, the world will watch to see if leaders on all sides can take the opportunity to create a better future from the ruins of war.

The National Education Association released its 434 page handbook giving suggestions on how teachers in the US should deal with many topics. Here is everything it says about the Holocaust.

Page 238:

B-66. The Holocaust
The National Education Association believes that the historical events of the Holocaust must be taught to provide insight into how atrocities of this magnitude develop. The Association also believes that Holocaust education promotes human rights, prevents future genocides, and reduces doubt that these horrifying events occurred. (1981, 2019)

Page 355:

83. International Holocaust Remembrance Day
NEA shall promote the celebration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 annually on its website and through other appropriate media to recognize the more than 12 million victims of the Holocaust from different faiths, ethnicities, races, political beliefs, genders, and gender identification, abilities/disabilities, and other targeted characteristics.

Yes, they took any mention of Jews out of the Holocaust.

This is not an "anti-Zionist" position. This is antisemitism, plain and simple.

After this was publicized, the NEA took the handbook down from its site. But that is damage control, not a realization of something deeply rotten.

Earlier this month, the NEA voted to cut all ties with the Anti-Defamation League and not use their materials on discrimination, antisemitism or the Holocaust. Because, Gaza.

This is clearly a pattern: the people responsible for teaching America's children have a problem with Jews. The Executive Board might try to put the breaks on the antisemitism in their ranks, but it is clearly embedded.

No wonder antisemitism is reaching new highs. And the next generation will be even worse.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Most of those killed in Gaza over the past year were adult men, by far

One of the memes of the media during the Gaza war is that the majority of victims are women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. (In the first months of the war, the media routinely quoted Hamas that 70% of the victims were women and children, but MoH data never supported that bogus statistic.)

But the "majority women and children" claim is no longer true, even in MoH data.

As of the last MoH update, the total number of all adult men killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023 is higher than the number of women and children.

But this doesn't tell the whole story.

Throughout the war, the percentage of adult male casualties (even excluding elderly) has steadily increased in the MoH lists. So I asked Epstein to provide me with his data so I can examine specifically the percentage of those killed in recent months that have been adult males.

Since June 30, 2024, the percentage of those killed in Gaza that were men between 18-59 has outnumbered women and children by seven percentage points, 51.5% - 44.5% (elderly men excluded.)

Since the October 7, 2024 MoH release, the percentage difference has been 15.6 percentage points - 56.1% - 40.5%.

Considering that adult males make up only about 25% of Gaza's population, this is proof positive that Israel is not indiscriminately attacking Gaza civilians. The overwhelming majority of those killed in the past eight months have been adult males under 60.

For an urban war, this is phenomenal. The IDF has never targeted civilians, but during the course of the war it has kept continuously improving in pinpointing terrorists, even managing to kill Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, in a tunnel directly underneath the European Hospital without any civilian deaths.

Israel is targeting Hamas. The numbers prove it.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Head of "human rights" NGO falsely claims French Jewish kids were chanting "Death to Arabs"

Ramy Abdu tweeted this which received over 11,000 "Likes" and 800,000 views:

Nobody on the flight said that the kids chanted "death to Arabs," assaulted crew or spat on a passenger. Not one person. Not even the airline itself.

On the contrary, everyone on the plane said the kids were well behaved.

OK, people starting antisemitic rumors is not exactly newsworthy. But Ramy Abdu is the chairman of the Geneva-based "Euro-Med Monitor for Human Rights" which styles itself as a real human rights group instead of an anti-Israel propaganda outfit.(He's also a Hamas lobbyist in Europe.)

We've reported on Euro-Med lies many times in the past. But here we can see how they not only publish lies, but literally make them up. And in this case, the lies are indisputably antisemitic, not just "anti-Israel."

It's interesting that the only qualifications for someone to be called a "human rights advocate" is their say so. In fact, Ramy Abdu is a terror supporter, antisemite and liar.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

07/26 Links: The Math is in: Israel’s Aid to Gaza is Unprecedented in Modern Warfare; How the Woke Right Joined the Left’s War on Israel; Tucker Carlson’s Dark Turn

From Ian:

Middle East Christians Face a Threat. No, It’s Not Israel.

For centuries, Middle East Christians have ingratiated themselves with their rulers, who were usually Muslim. This survival strategy, which was logical for a minority in a dangerous neighborhood, disgusted the early American missionaries. But the attempts by well-meaning Americans to empower these communities, such as the Armenians, provoked Ottoman suspicion and eventually genocidal levels of death and destruction.

Many Christians in the region learned it was better to keep their heads down than to speak out. Others promoted ideologies, such as pan-Arabism, that downplay religious identity. Their neighbors still see them as suspect or even treacherous, and they must constantly prove their loyalty.

Unsurprisingly, many publicly condemn Israel even if they think differently. I experienced this dynamic during a visit to the region. In one meeting, a well-connected Christian denounced Israel up and down and assured me of Arab unity. Shortly thereafter, another set of Christians described how young men from a nearby Muslim-majority village rampaged through their streets and insulted their women. Others, like the Philos Project’s Luke Moon, have similar experiences. That unity was oversold.

At one time, the Jews also suffered from this problem. For example, a pogrom in 1929 nearly destroyed the ancient Jewish community in Hebron. But the Zionists built up institutions—including an army—to free themselves from servitude, won their national freedom on the battlefield, and struck back hard against their enemies.

Islamists like Hamas, who abuse religious minorities but sometimes tolerate their existence as long as they submit, gnash their teeth in rage over Jewish self-determination. By contrast, the Jewish state protects religious minorities, including the small Aramean Christian community that speaks the same language Jesus did.

Christians in the Middle East certainly face immense peril, as the outbreaks of violence in Syria reveal. Instability in the region threatens not only American interests and allies but also the lives of all minorities there. Prudent statecraft that curbs the chaos is good for Christians in Bethlehem (Pennsylvania and the original one, too).

But Americans of all faiths should be clear about the greatest threat to the followers of Christ in the land of his birth. There’s a reason there are 180,000 Christians in Israel—and only one Catholic church in Gaza.

Washington Post columnist claims Rising Lion op. destroyed Iranian attempts to develop EMP weapon

Israel's Operation Rising Lion may have disrupted Iranian efforts to construct an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon, a nuclear fusion bomb, and a standard fission warhead, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius claimed in an op-ed published Saturday, citing Israeli sources.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leaders had allegedly encouraged the efforts to develop EMP weapons because it wouldn’t violate Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s fatwa against nuclear weapons, Israeli sources allegedly told Ignatius.

An EMP weapon is designed to generate a powerful burst of electromagnetic radiation, capable of disrupting or damaging electronic equipment and infrastructure, according to a fact sheet published by the Washington State Department of Health's Division of Environmental Health Office of Radiation Protection.

Israel's military successes in Iran
Israeli attacks also reportedly destroyed 3,000 ballistic missiles and 80% of its 500 missile launchers.

The unnamed Israeli source claimed that Tehran had aims to grow its ballistic missile stockpile to at least 8,000 before the war, necessitating the strikes.

Despite intelligence, Israel was reportedly surprised by the number of solid-fuel missiles in Tehran’s possession.

Sources also claimed that, beyond assassinating many of the masterminds behind Tehran’s nuclear programs, there were hopes that the strikes would dissuade scientists from joining the programs in the future, knowing that doing so would put targets on their backs.

Mossad in Farsi says Khamenei spends 'half the day sleeping, the other half high'

The Mossad’s Farsi social media account alleged on Friday that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “spends most of his days either sleeping or half high on substances.”

The statement was made by an account claiming to be the official Mossad spokesperson in Farsi for X/Twitter, although the intelligence organization has never officially confirmed this.

The post said: “How can a leader lead when they sleep half the day and spend the other half high on substances? Water, electricity, life!”

The Mossad-linked account has made several comments over the last month regarding the state of Iran and Khamenei's health. It has also advised Iranians to contact the account only through a VPN for security reasons.

Mossad in Farsi: Information, investigation, and psychological warfare
The Farsi account has made several posts in the last couple of months, with one of the most viral publications centered around the designation of the newly appointed, officially unnamed commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters.

The Mossad-linked account started after Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported that the regime would not reveal the commander’s identity “for his protection.”

07/25 Links Pt2: The worldwide frenzy against Israel; Pilot who kicked Jewish children off plane taught 9/11 terrorists to fly; Behind the $221 Million Columbia Antisemitism Deal

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The worldwide frenzy against Israel

A statement by Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, and the foreign ministers of 27 other countries accused Israel of “the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food,” denying “essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population” and soaring rates of “settler violence.”

How can we explain this astounding descent from rationality into the sewers of lethal propaganda? How can it be that in Britain, factual evidence about the Gaza war is met with incredulity, “Zionist” has become a term of abuse, and antisemitism is now regarded as little more than a device for Jews to sanitize the “crimes” of Israel?

There are many reasons, including ideology, ignorance and wishful thinking. There is also the widespread belief that the U.N. and the humanitarian-rights establishment, which have the status of a secular religion, act with perfect integrity and are incapable of lying or doing evil.

But there are far darker impulses at work—the deep desire to prove that the Jews are bad, that they have a unique and destructive power over world events, that they can never be victims.

That’s why the acute threats to the world posed by Russia, China or Iran, the terrible atrocities against the Druze in Syria or the Christians in Africa, the famine and starvation in Sudan—all are dwarfed in the West by its overwhelming, unhinged, vicious obsession with tiny Israel, the focus of a civilizational disorder that is dragging down not the Jewish state but the West itself.

Jonathan Tobin: Don’t be misled by AOC and Mamdani’s fake moderation

Nevertheless, it’s fair to ask whether—given Taylor Greene’s stand on Iron Dome funding and the steady drumbeat of antisemitic agitation from right-wing podcast hosts like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens—the Republicans now have their own Jew-hatred problem.

The Georgia congresswoman’s speech on the floor of the House demanding an end to funding for the missile-defense system that has saved countless Israeli lives was an eye-opener to those who may have thought that hatred for the Jewish state is confined to AOC’s “Squad” mates. Much like the stand of her fellow Republican Massie, MTG’s position can be dismissed as pure isolationism—“America alone” as opposed to Trump’s “America first.” The malevolence toward Israel that she demonstrated was a reminder that antisemitism is the place where the far left and the far right come together.

Given her well-known ignorance of most issues and propensity for saying outlandish things—like talk of Jewish “space lasers” that can only be characterized as stupid—most Republicans have little use for her. But, much like Carlson, she has often been included in Trump’s circle of friends and supporters in recent years. That’s something that ought to worry the vast majority of conservatives and Republicans who remain steadfast supporters of Israel as well as of the president’s tough response to the post-Oct. 7 surge in Jew-hatred that most Democrats oppose.

That said, the question to ask about the willingness of Republicans like Tayler Greene and Massie to make common cause with notorious Democratic antisemites like Tlaib and Omar is whether their faction of the GOP is significant enough to give it any hope of leading it in the foreseeable future. And that is where the real contrast between the two parties’ anti-Israel factions can be found.

The intersectional and virulently anti-Israel faction of the Democrats may not yet be in control of the party, but as the comments of the DNC chair and the refusal of party leaders to disavow an open Israel-hater and an avowed hard-core Socialist like Mamdani demonstrate, they are clearly afraid of them. While Taylor Greene’s stands and the comments of Carlson, Owens and others on the far right can’t be ignored, there is little danger of anyone who shares their views being in control of a GOP that remains, outside of a few outliers, a lockstep pro-Israel party.

That leaves supporters of Israel with the unfortunate reality of a situation where the Jewish nation has become a partisan issue rather than a matter of a bipartisan consensus. This is a disturbing development for a pro-Israel community that has always sought to build support on both sides of the aisle. But that ideal is simply no longer possible in a political universe in which people like AOC and Mamdani have—unlike Taylor Greene—a far from insignificant shot to ascend to high office underneath the Democrats’ banner.

Opinion: When does ‘Jew’ not mean Jew – the BBC’s long obfuscation

The recently published findings of the BBC’s internal review into its commissioned documentary ‘Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone’ include a separately-uploaded ‘Action Plan’, part of which relates to the issue of “Language”:

The BBC will issue new editorial guidance to programme makers on the use and translation of the word ‘Yahud/ Yahudi’ into English, following the recommendation in Peter Johnston’s Review. Going forward, programme makers should default to using the literal translation of those terms as ‘Jews/ Jewish’. It will still be possible to use a different translation, but this would need to be referred up to senior executive editor level and the programme should make clear to the audience wherever possible why they deviated from the literal translation. Peter Johnston’s report also recommends that ‘Yahud/ Yahudi’ be looked at more comprehensively, and with external input, through the forthcoming thematic review of BBC Middle East coverage agreed by the BBC Board.

Notably, in the full review Johnston explains that the translation of ‘Yahud’ to ‘Israelis’ and even ‘Israeli Forces’ in the documentary was based on a 2013 BBC Trust ruling, stating that:
“For this Programme, expert advice was sought and taken on the translation of ‘Yahud’ during the compliance phase, which was based on a previous finding from the BBC Trust (the BBC’s former regulator) in 2013 and subsequent ECU rulings on this issue. The BBC Trust had determined previously that the translation does not need to be literal, but should consider the context and who was using the term to aid audience understanding.”

Two years after that 2013 ruling, another BBC documentary featuring children in the Gaza Strip during a war would also mistranslate ‘Yahud’ as ‘Israel’.

While Peter Johnston’s recommendations may give the impression that BBC policy is finally set to improve, a number of points need to be taken into account.

Colloquial Gazan Arabic has distinct terms for “military,” “soldiers,” “Israelis,” and “Zionists”—none of which is Yahud, a word that unequivocally means “Jews.” Even when Gazans use Yahud in reference “to actions by the IDF, the Israeli state, or Israeli citizens” —as the BBC now asserts in its recent review — this occurs within a widely held worldview that sees all of these as indistinguishable.

One of the clearest indications for this mindset is the chant Khaybar Khaybar Ya Yahud -popular across the Arab world and particularly in Gaza – which evokes a 7th-century massacre of Jews in the Arabian Peninsula, hundreds of kilometres from Gaza and centuries before State of Israel or the IDF came into existence.

07/25 Links Pt1: President Macron is playing with fire by recognising Palestine; Netanyahu: 'We are considering alternative options to bring the hostages home'

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: President Macron is playing with fire by recognising Palestine

Yet while Macron’s action will do little to assist Palestinians – if they want a state, they will have to build one – it will certainly isolate the Jewish nation. And in its darkest hour, too. Think about the gravity of what Macron has done: as France’s supposed ally of Israel fights a bloody war in a territory overrun by neo-fascists who dream of Israel’s destruction, Macron is bestowing statehood on that territory; on the enemy land where the army of the Jewish State is engaged in a hot and deadly pursuit of the army of anti-Semites that carried out the worst act of mass violence against the Jews since the Holocaust.

That’s what makes this an act of appeasement. That’s what makes it echo things France did in the darker moments of the 20th century. It is a testament to the moral decay of the French Republic under Macron that in a time of existential war between Islamofascism and Israel, France has taken action that pleases the former and distresses the latter. You don’t have to be a fan of Benjamin Netanyahu to see he has a point when he accuses Macron of grotesquely betraying the Jewish nation. Hamas still exists and continues to fight our soldiers, he says, and a Palestinian state in ‘these conditions’ would be little more than a ‘launch pad to annihilate Israel’.

Macron has essentially sacrificed Israel at the altar of his own vanity. His concern is less with improving the lot of Palestinians than with improving his own moral cachet in 21st-century Europe. It seems to me that the aim of his cynical Palestine games is both to ingratiate himself with France’s Muslim population – the largest in Europe – and also to set out his stall as a new kind of statesman in a new kind of EU. He is unilaterally signalling that he is the right kind of ruler for our post-7 October world in which Europe’s influencers and intellectuals have turned en masse against the cause of Jewish nationhood. He is shaking off the pesky Jewish State to the end of boosting his own Jupiterian fortunes – shameful behaviour even by the historical standards of the Élysée Palace.

Macron should focus on getting France’s own house in order rather than fantasising that he can fix the Middle East. France has a savage problem of Jew hatred. There have been some unspeakable acts of anti-Semitic violence in recent years, including the racist slaughter of Jewish children. Things got so bad that between 2000 and 2017, one in 10 French Jews emigrated to Israel. That’s the largest amount of Jew-fleeing experienced by any European country in this century so far. And like other European nations, France experienced a historic spike in anti-Semitic crimes after 7 October 2023 – how many of its Jews have left since then?

So Jews do not feel safe in France, and Israelis now worry that France has emboldened their anti-Semitic enemies on their borders. Is that to be Macron’s legacy – a failure to protect Jews at home and a cavalier attitude to the safety of Jews overseas? Overseeing a nation that many Jews have felt compelled to flee, and then endangering the nation they fled to? For shame. His self-aggrandising recognition of Palestine is a reminder that the road to hell is paved with signalled virtue.

Palestine, the state of it!

More to the point, when Oct 7th is discussed in the future, some academic or pundit, or audience member on Question Time, will snap, “Well, we may disagree with their methods, but we can’t deny that it worked! Palestinians finally have a state, and it is tragic that they were pushed to such extremes to achieve this.” [Audience applause].

The French certainly seem to be acting from a version of this view. Macron’s advisor, Ofer Bronchtein, has said that he believes that Oct 7th would not have happened had there been a Palestinian State. This is not only historically illiterate, it is ignorant of the immediate past. In 2020, President Trump offered to broker a peace deal based on Palestinian Statehood, which included all of Gaza and land-swaps, plus $50 billion in investment. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called it a slap in the face.

As we now know, the two-state offer was irrelevant to Hamas as they were already planning a new round of rocket attacks which culminated in the 2021 Gaza war, and, following that, they proceeded directly to set the groundwork for of the Oct 7th attacks.

Macron, in his naiveté, seems to want to circumvent the Palestinian Authority’s ability to say “no” and torpedo whatever two-state proposal is put before them. Where do the French and their backers – which may include the UK – imagine the borders will be? Wherever they are, they will not satisfy either party and will simply stoke new tensions. And what about Hamas? If this move by Macron is calculated to end the hostilities in Gaza before Hamas have been destroyed or forced to surrender, will this new Palestinian State – which necessarily will include Gaza – be able to absorb Hamas?

Or, will it spark a Palestinian civil war as Hamas tries to wrestle this new state away from Fatah and other factions so that it can be drafted into the fight for its unwavering ambition: the destruction of the State of Israel and the genocide of the Jews?

This reckless move is not the beginning of a new Palestine, it may be the end of Palestine. Hamas will see to that.

UN's Two-State Solution Summit on Track for 'Embarrassing' Flop Following Intense US Opposition

The Trump administration, however, isn't on board. The State Department won't be sending any representatives, it announced on Thursday. It also signaled a willingness to withhold visas for Palestinian Authority officials seeking to travel to the United States in the buildup to the summit, a senior State Department official told the Free Beacon. The department first leveled that threat ahead of the summit's original June start date and maintained it as Israel's surprise attack on Iran delayed the summit.

"The U.S. would absolutely consider blocking their visas if they try to even decide to visit the United States," a senior State Department official told the Free Beacon after the summit was first announced last month. "The heads of the PA have openly praised the horrific attack that took place on Oct. 7. They celebrated terrorism and the killing of hundreds of innocent people."

The Trump administration has privately objected to the summit, arguing that recognizing a Palestinian state at this time—and without a negotiated agreement between Israel and a viable Palestinian government—would be perceived as rewarding Hamas for the mass terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7.

The administration's opposition is also fueled by the Palestinian Authority’s continued embrace of the Oct. 7 terror attacks. Just days before the U.N. conference was originally slated to begin, the PA’s official newspaper published an interview with leader Mahmoud Abbas in which he praised Hamas for achieving "important goals" on Oct. 7. With Abbas’s government still fomenting terrorism against Israel, the United States does not see a viable pathway to support statehood.

In June, Reuters reported on a U.S. diplomatic cable which said the State Department "opposes any steps that would unilaterally recognize a conjectural Palestinian state, which adds significant legal and political obstacles to the eventual resolution of the conflict and could coerce Israel during a war, thereby supporting its enemies."

Barrot, the French minister, met with Saudi Arabian foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan on Thursday to discuss the plans for Monday’s event, and "expressed hope that this conference will yield tangible results to improve peace and security in the region," according to a statement.

The conference, which will take place at the U.N. headquarters in New York, is also seen as a preview for a more formal recognition of a Palestinian state that France is organizing at the U.N. in September. On Thursday, Macron announced that France "will recognize the State of Palestine" as part of its "commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East." He said he would make an official announcement at the U.N.

President Donald Trump addressed Macron's announcement while speaking to reporters on Friday morning. "Here’s the good news: What he says doesn’t matter," Trump said. "It’s not going to change anything."

200 years since Jews could take public office in Maryland

From the Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express, July 1, 1825:

For the first fifty years of the United States, Maryland's constitution had a clause saying that anyone who takes any public office must make "a declaration of belief in the Christian religion:" as an oath.

Jews started lobbying to change the law in 1797. I came up for a vote in 1802 but it was soundly defeated, 38-17.

Over time, prominent Jewish businessmen and others in Baltimore started to pressure the state to change this law It was defeated several more times. Finally, in 1825, the bill squeaked through 26-25, and the first Jews became members of Baltimore's city council in October 1826.

Maryland was one of nine states to force officeholders to be Christian in the early days of the Union. The last one to drop that requirement was New Hampshire in 1877.

Atheists were banned from holding office in several states up until a Supreme Court ruling in 1961.

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The veil has fallen: Jews are being targeted AS JEWS from the socialist, "anti-Zionist" crowd, again and again.

By now you have seen the news of the group of Jewish children being kicked off a plane and their camp director arrested for, according to the people on the plane, no reason whatsoever.

While the airline claims the children were disruptive, people on the plane did not see or hear anything. They described the teens as polite. One child tried to start a song with one word, no one sang along and that was it.

The children were even instructed ahead of time to hide their kippot and tzitzit to avoid any trouble.

These were French Jewish children. Not Israelis.

But this is not the only story of undeniable antisemitism from the supposedly woke, anti-discrimination crowd.

In Morocco, leader of the Marrakesh Jewish community Jacky Kadoch extoled the history of friendship between Muslims and Jews in Morocco, even suggesting that Rosh Hashanah be declared a national holiday. (I do not think this was a serious suggestion.) In response, Ali Bouabid, the head of the socialist Abderrahim Bouabid Foundation, slammed the leader, saying that the Jewish community in Morocco was silent over the Gaza "genocide" and therefore has no right to speak out on anything. He explicitly says that Morocco's Jews can never be accepted as full citizens unless the pass his purity test of denouncing Israel: "Let it be clearly understood that no true normalization will take root in consciences until Moroccan Jews – the primary custodians of this ethical requirement – denounce Israel's genocidal policy."

And in England:

Two Jewish comedians have been ‘cancelled’ from appearing at the world-renown Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August.

The Whistlebinkies venue booked Rachel Creeger and Philip Simon for their individual acts—Ultimate Jewish Mother and a Jew-O-Rama chat show respectively—before bar staff at the venue complained this would make them ‘feel unsafe.’ The claims were linked to speculation that Jewish acts at the Fringe would need additional police protection.

Both performances have now been withdrawn from the official Edinburgh Fringe listings website. A press release from the duo noted that venue staff also complained of them holding a “vigil” for IDF soldiers in 2024—they didn’t—and of ‘Free Palestine’ graffiti left on toilet doors (hardly the fault of the comics).

All of these incidents are within the past 24 hours.

In none of these incidents are Israelis involved. Just Jews.

In none of these cases are the antisemites from the Right. In fact, they would all insist that they are upholding the best progressive principles, but of course there are other factors that must also be considered.

And coincidentally, all of those factors are uniquely against Jews.

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France claims it is not rewarding terror by recognizing "Palestine." Terrorists disagree.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said France will recognize a Palestinian state in September at the United Nations General Assembly. Yet it insists that this is not a reward for terror:

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot. said, "Hamas has always rejected the two-state solution. By recognizing Palestine, France proves the wrongness of this terrorist movement. It supports the camp of peace as opposed to the camp of war," the minister stated.

If the statement was anti-Hamas, Hamas certainly didn't get the message. Hamas praised the announcement as an important step to destroying Israel.

Hamas called it "a positive step in the right direction towards achieving justice for our oppressed Palestinian people and supporting their legitimate right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on all of the occupied territories."

Hamas considers all of Israel to be "occupied territories."

But another, lesser noticed story from France shows how that country now rewards terror.

A French court has ordered the release of pro-Palestinian Lebanese fighter Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who has been imprisoned for 40 years for his role in the killings of two foreign diplomats in France in the early 1980s.

The former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for complicity in the 1982 murders of United States military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in Paris and the attempted murder of US Consul General Robert Homme in Strasbourg in 1984.

Abdallah was released this morning.

His prison cell was nicer looking than most college dorm rooms - and included posters supporting terrorism ("Palestine Resistance").

The US has always opposed Abdallah's release, since he was convicted of killing one US diplomat and attempting the murder of another, so this is not just a French slap in the face of Israel - but of the United States as well.

Notably, there have been multiple rallies over the years in favor of Abdallah's release. Among socialist circles his imprisonment was a cause célèbre.

France cannot credibly deny that rewarding terror is its policy.

Whether it is out of fear of domestic terrorists, or a "principled" position supposedly for peace, France is giving aid, comfort and encouragement to those who want to see the West destroyed.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

07/24 Links Pt2: Holocaust Miseducation and the Nakba Narrative; Trump’s Columbia Deal; 50 well-behaved Jewish kids were kicked off a flight by a bigoted pilot

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Holocaust Miseducation and the Nakba Narrative

Yet the word “Jews” is noticeably absent from the NEA’s bullet point. This is deliberate: the NEA’s members don’t want to secretly slip Holocaust revisionism into lesson plans and quietly appropriate Jewish suffering for their own demented political purposes. They want their intentions to be made clear and public from the start. This is a fight they want to have, because it will force wavering members to announce and to demonstrate their loyalty to the union’s mission of miseducating America’s children.

And why might that be? Why would the NEA “want” the Holocaust for themselves, so to speak?

Well, under the heading “New Business Referred to the Board” we have a couple items that might answer that question.

One of these items is called “Palestine Nakba Education.” The guide claims that “[e]ducating about the Nakba is essential for understanding the Palestinian diaspora narrative and experience, including the ongoing trauma of our Palestinian American students today,” however, the NEA clearly wants to go all-in on the revisionism:

“The Nakba, meaning ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic, refers to the forced, violent displacement and dispossession of at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland in 1948 during the establishment of the state of Israel.”

In fact, the Nakba was coined by Arab intellectuals to refer to the failure of the combined Arab armies to destroy the nascent Jewish state. In other words, Nakba literally is the mourning of a failed ethnic cleansing of the Jewish people three years after the liberation of Auschwitz.

Additionally, 750,000 Arabs in Palestine were not victims of “forced, violent displacement and dispossession.” Many of those who fled were forced to do so at gun point, no doubt. But many fled because the Arab leaders told them to get out of the way while the Jews were routed, and many others fled because of debunked stories of Zionist atrocities that were spread by Arab leaders in an attempt to rile up the Arab street but which often had the opposite effect.

No doubt those displaced experienced a catastrophe, and usually that catastrophe was at the hands of others. The catastrophe was real, but it wasn’t what “Nakba” was coined to describe, and it isn’t what is described by the NEA either.

Finally, the handbook has an item explaining that “NEA will use existing digital communication tools to educate members about the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.”

Such a program will no doubt go well with the Holocaust revisionism and delegitimizing of Israel planned by the NEA.

“Teaching anti-Semitism” used to be a phrase one used to refer to teaching about anti-Semitism. The NEA clearly means it to be taken literally.

What the Prime Minister should be saying on anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism is being normalised in the UK. Stamping it out requires leadership at the highest level. This is the speech to the nation Prime Minister Keir Starmer should deliver:

I speak to you today on a matter I now consider to be a national emergency.

It is said that the greatest test of a democracy is not the experience of the majority but the way in which it protects the rights and wellbeing of the minority.

In the UK today, there are under 300,000 Jews. Jewish people make up just 0.5 per cent of our population. They are a tiny group who contribute a great deal to public life and communities across the nation.

I must tell you today that Britain is failing its Jewish community.

I also tell you that I am drawing a line in the sand. The Jew-hate we are seeing in our country must end now – and as the Prime Minister I am personally going to lead the fight against anti-Semitism.

For those who would like to pretend that racial hatred of Jews is not a very serious problem in our society today, let me put you straight.

We are seeing it on the streets of Britain on a weekly basis. Just last weekend, large numbers of protestors in London chanted “F--- your Jewish State”. Note the language here. Not opposition to the war Israel is fighting but a direct attack on Jews. An open display of racism.

The war between Israel and Hamas has divided opinion. I know that. But it should never be an excuse for the Jew-hate that is creeping its way into the fabric of our society and our national institutions.

Take schools. More than half of Jewish teachers have reported anti-Semitic abuse since the war in Gaza began. They are finding swastika graffiti in the classroom and facing chants of “F--- the Jews”. Some teachers are even fearful of disclosing their religion at work. This is entirely unacceptable. It should shame us all.

Then there’s the NHS. Jewish patients have been abused and left in fear, Jewish doctors and nurses have faced discrimination. In one case a nurse was confronted with the anti-Semitic trope of Jews “drinking blood”. It is hard to believe this is happening in our caring professions. Institutional blindness to anti-Semitism must end now.

The question we must all ask ourselves is: how do we stop this hate in its tracks? It requires leadership, courage and conviction and I am prepared to show it.

‘The shock is gone’: All too used to antisemitism, Parisian Jews weather post-Oct. 7 storm with aplomb

Walking through the bustling cobblestone streets of Le Marais, the historic heart of Jewish Paris, it’s easy not to think about antisemitism.

Once the center of Jewish life in the capital of France, Rue des Rosiers still pulses with trendy kosher and kosher-style restaurants, Judaica shops, and Hebrew signs. On a Friday afternoon in July, hordes of visitors buy challah for Shabbat and eat falafel on the street, chatting in French, Hebrew, English, and countless other tongues.

“People walk around freely in their kippot here,” a local Jew, Levi, mentioned in passing. “Parisian Jews don’t live in fear.”

Others would differ on that point.

Antisemitism in the city of more than 300,000 Jews — the sixth-largest Jewish community in the world and the largest in Europe — has reached historic highs in recent years, particularly since Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, sparking the ongoing war in Gaza.

That year, the number of antisemitic incidents around the country quadrupled to 1,676, according to the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF), the representative organization of French Jewish groups. In 2024, that number dropped by six percent to 1,570, but remains alarmingly high.

Those figures don’t include countless cases that went unreported, particularly within the educational system, CRIF has noted.

07/24 Links Pt1: The Enablers of Hamas’s Starvation Strategy; US to leave Doha talks as Hamas not acting in good faith

From Ian:

Bret Stephens: No, Israel Is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza. The Charge Is Obscene

If the Israeli government's intentions and actions are truly genocidal, why hasn't it been more methodical and vastly more deadly? It could have bombed without prior notice, instead of routinely warning Gazans to evacuate areas it intended to strike. It could have bombed without putting its own soldiers, hundreds of whom have died in combat, at risk.

The death count isn't higher because Israel is manifestly not committing genocide, a legally specific term defined by the UN Convention on Genocide as the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such." Note the words "intent" and "as such." Genocide does not mean simply "too many civilian deaths" - a heartbreaking fact of nearly every war.

It means seeking to exterminate a category of people for no other reason than that they belong to that category: the Nazis and their partners killing Jews in the Holocaust because they were Jews, or Hamas on Oct. 7 intentionally butchering families in their homes and young people at a music festival because they were Israelis.

Over a million German civilians died in World War II, victims of war but not of genocide. The aim of the Allies was to defeat the Nazis, not to wipe out Germans simply for being German. I am aware of no evidence of an Israeli plan to deliberately target and kill Gazan civilians.

What is unusual about Gaza is the cynical and criminal way Hamas has chosen to wage war. In Ukraine, when Russia attacks, civilians go underground while the Ukrainian military stays aboveground to fight. In Gaza, it's the reverse: Hamas hides and feeds and preserves itself in its vast warren of tunnels rather than open them to civilians for protection. These tactics are war crimes in themselves.

We know how the U.S. would operate in similar circumstances. In 2016 and 2017, the U.S. aided the government of Iraq in retaking the city of Mosul, which was captured by the Islamic State three years earlier and turned into a booby-trapped, underground fortress. As the Times reported on March 28, 2017, "American airstrikes have at times leveled entire blocks - including the one in Mosul Jidideh this month that residents said left as many as 200 civilians dead." I don't recall any campus protests.

Wars are awful enough, but the term "genocide" can't be promiscuously applied to any military situation we don't like.

Seth Mandel: The Enablers of Hamas’s Starvation Strategy

The reason is both simple and demonic. The deterioration of conditions for civilians under Hamas’s thumb has convinced the terror group to keep the war going and to try to bring the enclave to calamity.

And why is this even a workable strategy for Hamas? Here, the answer implicates all those Western leaders who carp and lecture Israel to Hamas’s benefit.

The European Union reportedly decided that Israel’s actions in Gaza violate a 25-year-old Israel-EU trade agreement, opening the door to sanctions. British Foreign Minister David Lammy threatened UK action against Israel for the situation in Gaza. The EU then threatened to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement, again over the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

“Other steps could be suspending an aviation agreement, blocking imports from settlements, limiting scientific and technological cooperation, and curtailing travel for Israelis in the visa-free zone known as Schengen, according to a leaked document sent by the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, to member states,” the AP reported.

Notice the consistent element of all these stories? That’s right, they all assume Israel is fully to blame for the situation. There is no real threatening of Hamas; on the contrary, the push for Israel to let Hamas-linked UN agencies take over the aid delivery amounts to material support for Hamas.

And yet this whole issue proves why destroying Hamas must be a priority for all involved. If there is a cease-fire or if Israel relents on Hamas-linked aid delivery, there will be a temporary amelioration of the possible hunger crisis. But Hamas will hoard the aid and resell some for astronomical markup. In other words, Hamas’s strategy is to keep the people of Gaza perpetually close to a hunger crisis because that triggers international pressure on Israel to let Hamas restock its own shelves and refill its own coffers.

Hamas’s near-unprecedented monstrousness is being sustained by the supposedly humanitarian West, which is sacrificing the lives of Gazan civilians out of irrational animosity toward Israel.

Andrew Fox: Is Gaza Starving?

Conclusion
The question “Is Gaza starving?” cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. It demands an understanding of how we arrived at this humanitarian impasse. Gazans are not starving in the sense of a biblical famine caused by crop failure; they are starving in a man-made hellscape where more than enough food exists but too often fails to reach the people who need it most. Enormous quantities of aid have poured into Gaza, theoretically enough that no one should go hungry, yet tens of thousands of civilians are going hungry because of deliberate obstruction, chaos, and mistrust.

Israel is not blameless: the hardline strategy of besieging Hamas has resulted in strangling Gaza’s economy and, for a time, even its aid lifeline, leading to substantial civilian suffering.

The UN and international NGOs, for their part, have been shamefully inflexible, loftily and hypocritically prioritising principles of neutrality (as they apply to Israel alone) to the extent of allowing aid to remain unused while people starve, and either underestimating, not caring, or encouraging the manner in which their own systems were compromised and manipulated by Hamas (in breach of their lofty neutrality claims).

Hamas, of course, bears primary responsibility for all suffering in Gaza. Not only did it spark this war, but it also consistently prioritises its military agenda over the welfare of Gaza’s population, profiting from shortages and deliberately perpetuating the crisis. The international community, despite pouring in aid funds, has at times made political blunders, as demonstrated by the ill-timed ceasefire letter that has likely prolonged the fighting.

Is Gaza starving? Many Gazans are, tragically, suffering from starvation in the literal sense: children with swollen bellies, parents skipping meals for days. This should not be dismissed, but it is not because there is no food to be found; it is due to a collective failure to deliver the food to the people. The world’s media often presents it in the simplest terms (“Israel is starving people”). The reality is far more complex, a perfect storm of war, blockade, misrule by Hamas, and a paralysed aid system. Understanding this complexity is not about absolving any party of responsibility, but about recognising what needs to change.

What must change, first and foremost, is that the guns should fall silent, temporarily, to enable a full-scale humanitarian effort. A sustained ceasefire, even if unilateral, would enable food distribution to occur safely and provide negotiators with an opportunity to resolve the GHF-UN impasse. Unlike previous temporary ceasefires, at this stage, Israel, having greatly weakened Hamas, could afford to pause and use that goodwill to secure the remaining hostages’ release.

The UN and aid groups must demonstrate flexibility to ensure that aid reaches every family in need promptly. In the longer term, Gaza’s governance and reconstruction will require creative, likely unprecedented solutions, such as an empowered Palestinian Authority, an international mandate, or some hybrid arrangement. These debates are difficult, but they cannot be postponed indefinitely; otherwise, any Israeli victory on the battlefield will be pyrrhic. History shows that wars often end with new realities on the ground, sometimes including population movements or border changes, but any such outcomes here must centre on the return of the hostages and the welfare and wishes of Gaza’s people, not force them into another tragedy.

Currently, saving lives and reducing suffering are the top priorities. No child in Gaza should be dying of hunger when food is available just a few miles away, sitting on a pallet or locked in a warehouse. This is a solvable problem, provided there is political will. Gazans are not starving due to drought or fate; they are starving because humans, both their own leaders and the international community, have failed them. Whilst Israel has no legal obligation to provide aid that will be repurposed by their enemy, stepping up and ending the failure of others should be a moral duty.

Occult Spirits Employed By Israel To Neutralize Iranian Defenses Plan To Run For Knesset (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Jerusalem, July 24 - The jinni and other supernatural beings who, according to officials in Tehran, assisted in IDF attacks on the Islamic Republic last month, have decided to seek public office in the Jewish State, a spokesspirit for the group of demons and other such entities announced today.

The spiritual entities have already begun the paperwork to register for the next Knesset elections, stated a jinn who called himself Buraq. Depending on the fortunes of the current Netanyahu government, the next contest will take place sometime between several months from now and October of next year - giving the various specters and minions ample time to gain relocation and citizenship in Israel just as other allies have done: the Maronite soldiers of the now-defunct South Lebanon Army were absorbed in northern Israel when Israel withdrew from its security zone in southern Lebanon under Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

"It's not that we're not safe in Iran," explained Buraq. "The puny resources and forces of the mullahs cannot harm us in the slightest. The worst they can do to us is continue their incessant whining and blustering, which is enough to drive even us off the deep end. Like, make up your mind, are you the ultimate victims, or are you mighty warriors of a nascent Islamic empire?"

"We're just fed up with spending our time there, and Israel is just a better place to spend our existence - eternal or otherwise," the spirit added.

Iranian leaders and media personalities accused Israel of harnessing the spiritual beings to do its bidding during the twelve-day war between the two countries in June, when Israel neutralized Iranian air defense capabilities and struck targets with impunity via airstrikes from Israel and using drones that the Mossad assembled in Iran itself and then directed at targets.

Many commentators understood the Iranian claims as attempts to save face as the regime was exposed as an impotent windbag that less than two years ago boasted a network of proxies surrounding Israel, and now lies naked and weak with its shortcomings and powerlessness visible to the whole world.

However, the spirits disclosed, they did indeed assist Israel in conducting Operation Rising Lion, not by being recruited, induced, or harnessed in any way, but of their own volition, seeing an opportunity to help end a regime that has oppressed Iranians for more than four decades and prioritized military adventurism over the welfare of its own people.

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Antisemitic mural in Tehran

The New York Times reports:

A top Iranian official warned on Wednesday that Iran could withdraw from a key nuclear nonproliferation treaty if Europe followed through on its threats to reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

The remarks, from Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, came during a rare on-the-record briefing with reporters in New York, where he was attending meetings at the United Nations.

Britain, France and Germany announced this month that they would enforce tough U.N. sanctions on Iran by the end of August if the country did not make concrete progress on a deal to limit its nuclear program. The mechanism for applying the sanctions is called a “snapback,” and it refers to a term in the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that allows parties to the deal to impose sanctions on Iran before the deal expires at the end of October this year if it has violated its terms.

Mr. Gharibabadi, who is part of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, warned that enacting snapback sanctions would provoke Iran to retaliate, including potentially by withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, one of the last remaining international safeguards on its nuclear program.

The entire point of snapback was to ensure that Iran adhered to the JCPOA. Once it didn't, then snapback should have happened years ago.

But the Europeans didn't invoke the threat until only two months before the JCPOA expires anyway!

Even so, Iran is threatening to withdraw from the NPT altogether if the three counties invoke snapback. Which is the best reason why it should have been invoked already. iran's threats to withdraw from the NPT is itself evidence that it has every intent to build nuclear weapons.

The article goes on:

Iranian officials have made similar threats in the past, saying the country would withdraw from the treaty if Israel or the United States attacked its nuclear sites. But even after the United States and Israel did just that during the recent war, Iran did not follow through on that threat.
Mr. Gharibabadi said Iran had shown restraint so far, but he added, “I’m quite confident that if the snapback is triggered, Iran will not show more restraint in this regard.”

This is how bullies work: threaten chaos and pain, and when they are called on it, they suddenly forget their threats. But Britain, France and Germany never learned that lesson, and consistently knuckle under to threats by Islamists and Arabs.

And not even powerful ones.

How many times over the years have we seen Mahmoud Abbas threaten that if he doesn't get his way, there would be a worldwide conflagration of Muslim terror?

How many times have we seen in recent years how universities chose to avoid conflict with crazed antisemitic protesters who were violating their policies rather than to strictly enforce the policies?

How many times have we seen BDSers threaten to boycott companies or disrupt local politics and get in response offers to "negotiate" with them and issue statements to placate them, instead of telling them to go to hell?

The only reason we still see bullying by the anti-Israel crowd is because it has a track record of working - of frightening liberal Westerners who would rather avoid conflict than stand up for their own alleged principles. And then, over time, they adopt the position of the antisemites because they don't want to think of themselves as the unprincipled cowards they are.

Bullying works. And the only way to stop it is to call the bullies' bluffs.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)