Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, August 06, 2025

08/06 Links Pt2: Khalil: 'We Couldn't Avoid' Committing October 7 Massacre; AP Writes Puff Piece on Hezbollah 'Victims' of Israeli Pager Attack; The Vile Hypocrisy Of Jew Hatred

From Ian:

Meet the Zyklon B heiress who is sailing to Gaza

Sometimes something so perfect happens you find yourself Googling furiously to make sure it’s really true. The news that one Marlene Engelhorn from Austria is joining the next flotilla to Gaza is one such story. For Ms Engelhorn is an heiress of a German industrial dynasty that profited from the production of Zyklon B, the cyanide that was used to gas and slaughter millions of Jews during the Holocaust. Her family profited from the Nazi extermination of the Jewish people and now she rages against the Jewish State – who was it who said history doesn’t repeat itself but it sometimes rhymes?

Ms Engelhorn inherited $27.1million from her family’s coffers. And some of that generational wealth has pretty disgusting origins. She is a descendant of Friedrich Engelhorn, who founded the German chemicals giant, BASF. In the 1920s, BASF merged with IG Farben. Some readers may have heard of that latter chemical conglomerate – its name lives in infamy as the producer of the poisonous gas the Nazis used to try to wipe the Jews from the face of the Earth. When her grandmother died in 2022, Ms Engelhorn got millions of Euros from this dynasty with a dark history.

And now she keeps herself busy by pontificating about the Jewish State. She’s been a key figure in Europe’s anti-Israel protests and next month she’ll set sail on the latest watery virtue-signal headed to Gaza to expose Israel’s ‘genocide’. Hen Mazzig put it best: so this is a ‘white, privileged, nepo baby’ whose family wealth comes in part from Nazi Germany’s ‘mass murder of Jews’ and she is ‘also anti-Israel’? ‘I did not see that coming’, he quipped, with excellent sarcasm.

Look, I am not for one minute suggesting Ms Engelhorn inherited her ancestors’ Nazi tendencies as well as their cash. And she is far from the first privileged white lady, or even the first nepo baby, to wang on morning, noon and night about the wickedness of Israel. The ‘pro-Palestine’ movement is lousy with aristocrats and leftists from Old Money and the overeducated middle classes who believe Israel is committing genocide as fervently as they believe you can have a todger and be a lesbian. Britain is especially bad. We’re overrun with Posh Twats for Palestine. Honestly, not since the days of Unity Mitford have I heard so many cut-glass voices hold forth on the ‘Jewish problem’.

And yet, you know what? If my forebears had been involved in the Nazis’ attempted annihilation of the Jews, I would simply sit out the Israel issue. I’d hold my tongue on the Jewish State. I certainly would not board a boat, Greta-style, and sail with other smug, preening, moneyed Europeans to point a bony finger of judgement at the Jewish nation for its ‘genocide, apartheid and illegal occupation’. Israel recently suffered a fascistic assault by a genocidal terror group devoted to slaughtering Jews, and now here comes a lady from Austria whose family profited from the Nazi regime’s industrialised slaughter of Jews? Think about the optics, Marlene.

Former Harvard Kennedy School Official Accused of Aiding Hamas Hides in Palestinian Territories To Avoid Summons

Lawyers representing the family members of nearly 200 Oct. 7 massacre victims believe that a former Harvard University official accused of aiding Hamas ahead of the attack is hiding in Palestinian territories to avoid a court summons.

The family members sued Bashar Masri, a Palestinian-American businessman, in April, calling his Gaza properties "crucial elements in Hamas’s attack plan." They said the terror group used them to store and launch rockets at Israel, probe the border fence, host Hamas leadership and foot soldiers, train Hamas naval commandos, and construct and conceal attack tunnels. The suit also alleges that Masri appointed "an individual closely tied to Hamas" to chair one of his Palestinian real estate companies just before Oct. 7.

Masri had been living in the United States and served on the dean’s council at Harvard Kennedy School. But he resigned from that post just days after the suit was filed, and efforts to track him down since then have proven fruitless.

"Masri is likely resident in the Palestinian Territories, but without any physical address known to Plaintiffs," lawyers wrote in a Friday court filing. They pointed to his frequent travel to Israel and interviews he’s given in the Jewish state.

"If there were any real suspicions against me, my friend, I’d at least have been interrogated," Masri told Yediot Ahronot, according to a translation by the plaintiffs filed on June 25. "If there were proof, I wouldn’t be sitting in Tel Aviv now chatting with you."

Since he's proven elusive, the lawyers proposed publishing the complaint and summons in Yediot Ahronot, an Israeli publication he clearly reads. They also requested using other "alternative means" such as messaging his verified X, Instagram, and Facebook accounts.

And given that he's provided "multiple interviews commenting publicly" on the lawsuit's allegations, Masri is aware of the complaint, the lawyers argued in Friday's brief.

Additional court filings in recent weeks detail the lawyers’ failed attempts to reach Masri. In an affidavit filed on June 25, a servicer said they went to Masri’s Washington, D.C., residence, but a woman who answered over an intercom refused to accept the documents. When the servicer tried again roughly a week later, the same woman again answered on the intercom and identified herself as Jane Masri. She said she had divorced Bashar Masri and that he no longer lived there and claimed she was answering the call remotely from abroad.

In an April statement, the Palestinian’s office called the allegations "false" and claimed that he "unequivocally opposes violence of any kind."

But in the months leading up to the Oct. 7 attack, Masri worked with senior Hamas officials, including one who developed the terror group’s Gaza military-industrial base, the lawsuit alleges. Other Hamas leaders, including the Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, "regularly used [Masri’s] hotels to host public and private Hamas events."

Seth Mandel: Schumer Picks His Successor

Schumer’s betrayal is meaningful, because he came up through the most Jewish city in the world outside of Israel and insisted he be regarded as “Schumer the shomer”—Schumer the watchman, the guardian, the sentinel of his beleaguered people. As Liel Liebowitz writes brilliantly in the May issue of COMMENTARY, Schumer has unburdened himself of the weight of communal responsibility.

Schatz never had any such pretensions, so Senate Democrats of the future will just get right to the point. No need to start off with pro-Israel platitudes, just open with the list of grievances. Schumer wanders in the desert for 40 years every time he wants to rail against Bibi Netanyahu; Schatz has Tom Friedman’s cab driver on speed dial and saves everyone the long trip.

Schumer, of course, is all in on Schatz—you barely have to change the name on the door. “Brian Schatz is not just a trusted colleague and a clear communicator—he’s a close friend and one of my most valued allies in the Senate. Over the past several months, Brian and I have worked hand-in-hand to build strong backing across the caucus, and I’m proud to endorse him for whip.”

It’s hard to know what Schumer is proudest of, regarding Schatz. Is it Schatz’s support for the Iran nuclear deal? His opposition to moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and thus recognizing the Jews’ historic capital? His vote to stop arming the Jewish state in its defensive war against the perpetrators of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and those who explicitly carry Hitler’s torch? His opposition to a bill that would let states choose not to contract with companies that boycott Israel? Or perhaps his overflowing self-righteousness, in which he forces himself to believe the worst about the Jewish state and then stomps around hectoring everybody to join him? All of it?

As for me, I think I may actually miss the disingenuous desert wanderings of Chuck Schumer. It’s a gesture toward a simpler time, when people at least pretended to feel bad about their poor decisions.

As for Schatz, the ultimate irony is that he replaced in the Senate Daniel Inouye—a true hero, a monumental figure, the embodiment of all that is great about America and its people. Inouye was awarded the Medal of Honor for his WWII service and was a lifelong defender of Israel and the Jewish people. With Schatz rising, the loss of Inouye stings anew.

08/06 Links Pt1: Between Illusion and Imitation: The IDF and the West’s War Dilemma; Israel has every right to finish the job in Gaza — by obliterating Hamas

From Ian:

General Yoav Gallant and John Spencer: Between Illusion and Imitation: The IDF and the West’s War Dilemma

No military is more publicly condemned today than the Israel Defense Forces. Yet behind closed doors, few are more studied. Western generals and defense officials routinely seek Israeli briefings, request access to doctrine and tactics, and pursue cooperation on training and technology. These efforts continue even as their political counterparts issue statements of moral outrage and condemnation. The contradiction reflects more than a double standard. It reveals a deeper divide between political perception and military reality, between external messaging and internal understanding, between illusion and experience.

Since the war in Gaza began, Israel has hosted dozens of foreign delegations. Military officers and defense officials observe Israeli operations firsthand. They ask technical questions about targeting processes, coordination between air and ground forces, real-time intelligence integration, and how combat units distinguish between civilians and combatants under fire. Some return weeks later to formalize cooperation on areas ranging from tunnel warfare to hostage recovery to civilian harm mitigation. Meanwhile, many of their political counterparts deliver rehearsed remarks emphasizing restraint, proportionality, and civilian protection, often with little connection to the operational context or ground realities they were just briefed on.

This is not just political inconsistency. It is strategic dissonance. War is never clean. Urban warfare against a hybrid enemy embedded in civilian areas is among the most complex challenges modern democracies will face. Yet the public discussion is often dominated by expectations of precision and perfection that no military force can guarantee. In many capitals, political performance overrides professional understanding.

In Gaza, Hamas constructed more than 300 miles of fortified tunnels beneath civilian infrastructure. It operates from hospitals, schools, and mosques by design, not necessity. Early in the war, the IDF learned a simple rule: if you want to find a tunnel, look beneath a school. If you are searching for an enemy headquarters, start under a mosque. If you suspect an arms depot, check the basement of a hospital. This is not coincidence; it is a consistent, deliberate tactic. Hamas has blocked evacuations, placed command centers inside humanitarian zones, and taken hundreds of hostages. These are not side effects of war. They are deliberate features of a strategy built to paralyze democracies, provoke condemnation, and weaponize civilian suffering. The targeting of civilians is not incidental. It is essential to Hamas’s operational concept.

Many political leaders respond by invoking past conflicts. They reference battles in Mosul, Aleppo, Fallujah, or Raqqa, assuming these comparisons provide meaningful precedent. But most of these conflicts did not involve an adversary intentionally preventing civilians from leaving combat zones. Most did not involve hundreds of hostages dispersed across a dense urban battlefield. Most involved insurgencies, not foreign-backed terror armies. Many involved military forces that did not follow the same standards of precision and accountability expected of Israel. These differences matter. Failing to account for them leads to flawed analysis and unrealistic policy prescriptions.

These dynamics are not limited to Gaza. Across the region, similar tactics are emerging. In southern Syria, the Julani regime has carried out atrocities against the Druze population while embedded within civilian areas. These acts of cruelty follow the same playbook used by Hamas. Yet few international voices draw consistent lines between them. This silence reflects another gap: the unwillingness to apply standards evenly when the political costs differ. Condemnation is directed at those who can hear it. Those who operate beyond the reach of democratic norms often face no scrutiny at all.

While calls for humanitarian concern grow louder, few political leaders press for solutions that would actually reduce civilian harm. Egypt continues to keep its border with Gaza closed, despite being the sole neighboring country uninvolved in the conflict and capable of providing immediate relief to civilians seeking safety. Evacuation routes remain blocked. Temporary refuge for civilians is politically possible but diplomatically ignored. Not a single major European government or United Nations body has mounted sustained pressure on Cairo to open the Rafah crossing or to establish a displaced persons or humanitarian zone a few kilometers into the Sinai. Instead, criticism centers on Israel, the only actor currently conducting both combat and humanitarian operations in the same battlespace. The imbalance distorts both perception and policy.

NYPost Editorial: Israel has every right to finish the job in Gaza — by obliterating Hamas

After Hamas’ repeated rejections of cease-fire deals and recently released videos of emaciated Israeli hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees only one choice: a full military occupation of Gaza.

That’s logical — with the possible serious weakness being . . . politics, both abroad and in Israel.

The Israeli security cabinet meets Thursday, reportedly to greenlight either a full occupation or at least plans for the IDF to move into or surround new territory, such as in Deir al-Balah and Gaza City.

The IDF already occupies 75% of Gaza, but has avoided areas where it believes action might endanger the lives of hostages.

But video evidence now shows Hamas abusing the hostages to death anyway. To have any hope of saving them, Israel must either 1) accept the only deal the terrorists will consider — essentially, surrender and let them keep power — or 2) move in to finish the terrorists off.

Israel would be nuts to surrender: Hamas still vows to repeat its massive Oct. 7 killing spree and continue massacring Jews until Israel is destroyed.

Finishing the job on the ground will be a huge task, but the IDF has pulled off difficult feats before.

What can seriously threaten the mission is anti-Israel political meddling by the outside world and internal pressure from hostages’ families and Netanyahu’s foes.

In Israel, some fear stepped up operations are a death warrant for the hostages.

Elsewhere, lefty ruling parties in France, the United Kingdom and Canada have already turned up the heat on Israel, with plans to reward the terrorists’ slaughter of Jews by recognizing a Palestinian state.

A top UN official calls plans to fully occupy Gaza “deeply alarming.”

Happily, the critics don’t include President Donald Trump, who says Israel’s plans are “up to Israel” to decide. Hear, hear.

Trump is concerned about hunger in Gaza and plans to expand US operations there to distribute food and supplies — a noble sentiment, but we can’t help but recall how similar relief work in Somalia in 1992 quickly led to the Black Hawk Down incident that saw 18 Americans killed.

The war in Gaza is every bit as risky.

But it could end tomorrow if Hamas stepped down, freed the hostages and left the strip.

Israel has every right to do what it must to eliminate Hamas once and for all — and anyone with any moral sense should back it to the hilt.

Prof. Kobi Michael and Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser: The Occupation of the Gaza Strip—Why?

Israel has been at war in Gaza for nearly two years. Despite inflicting significant damage on Hamas's capabilities, Hamas continues to function, both civically and militarily, as the ruling power in substantial parts of Gaza. Hamas controls the Gaza City area, western Khan Yunis, the central refugee camps, and the al-Mawasi area, where about half of the population resides.

Hamas's leadership considers sumud (steadfastness) a supreme value with religious significance that transcends national meaning. It believes that merely surviving as the dominant armed force in Gaza, even in a weakened and damaged state, constitutes a form of victory over Israel. In Hamas's view, the Oct. 7 attack was a justified action that significantly advanced its goal of Israel's destruction.

The only way to prevent Hamas's resurgence is through its complete dismantling as the effective ruling entity in Gaza. Dismantling Hamas means eliminating its capacity to function as an organized military and governmental authority. Unless Hamas is dismantled, no viable civilian alternative can emerge, and no real reconstruction process can begin. A secure reality in and around Gaza cannot be established, nor can the threats of raids into Israel and rocket fire be eliminated.

If Hamas can be dismantled through a negotiated agreement, that would be the most desirable outcome. Yet, Hamas continues in its refusal to accept a deal. An agreement based on accepting Hamas's terms for the release of all the hostages is overly optimistic. The hostages are Hamas's most valuable asset and Hamas may not be quick to release them all. It is possible that not all the hostages are in Hamas's possession. Moreover, Hamas would portray the new reality as a victory and justification for the Oct. 7 attack, further motivating its military resurgence and desire for another such attack.

The full takeover of Gaza and the establishment of a temporary military administration constitute the act of ending the war and transitioning to the phase of establishing an alternative governance model to Hamas and creating the conditions for Gaza's reconstruction to begin. The dual purpose of a military administration is to prevent Hamas's resurgence and sever its ties to the civilian population. The aim is to convince Gaza's public that Hamas will not return, thereby opening the door for new actors to assume responsibility for civilian governance.

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

It wasn’t a mistake when The New York Times ran a front-page photo of a skeletal 18-month-old Gazan boy and claimed he was suffering from starvation. It was a deliberate editorial choice — a lie that fit the preferred narrative: Israel is genocidal.

Even Fox News missed the point. Their headline—“NY Times' erroneous cover photo… joins series of media blunders”—called it an error, a media blunder. But this was no “oops.” It was propaganda. And the proof is in the cropping.

Let me just start with other images the media chose not to use. Photographs of Mohammed with his 3-year-old brother Joud. Both mother and brother are healthy and fed.

Any honest journalist should have immediately questioned – and reported - what we were actually seeing. 3/13 pic.twitter.com/FaUsVFsqb2
— David Collier (@mishtal) July 27, 2025

The boy’s healthy brother was edited out of the image. The Times didn’t disclose the child’s medical history until days later, after pressure from Israeli officials. Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq has cerebral palsy, hypoxemia, and a severe genetic disorder. He requires specialized nutrition and therapy—not a ceasefire.

Unlike his brother standing by his side, Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq suffers from cerebral palsy.

But BBC, CNN, Daily Express, and The New York Times spread a misleading story using a picture of a sick, disabled child to promote a narrative of mass starvation in Gaza —… pic.twitter.com/UzP5PhNSvU
— Israel ישראל (@Israel) July 29, 2025

The Times eventually tacked on a note that the child had “pre-existing health problems,” but the damage was done. The image had gone viral, a global symbol of “Israeli starvation.” The Times knew what it was doing. That’s why it buried the correction in the digital story and posted it from a PR account with under 90,000 followers—not their main feed with over 55 million.

We have appended an Editors' Note to a story about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child in Gaza who was diagnosed with severe malnutrition. After publication, The Times learned that he also had pre-existing health problems. Read more below. pic.twitter.com/KGxP3b3Q2B
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) July 29, 2025

And when real starvation did appear—this time in the form of emaciated Israeli hostages like Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski—the Times’ front page was silent. No photos. No headlines. Just a weak, secondary article headlined, “Hundreds Protest in Tel Aviv After Hostage Videos Surface From Gaza.”

Nothing about Evyatar digging his own grave. No image of Rom weeping, his ribs protruding. Nothing of the horror that millions of Israelis felt—not just a “handful” of Tel Aviv protesters.

As Yaakov Ort, a former NYT staffer, put it: “If the Times had a Jerusalem bureau that reported the thoughts, communications and actions of the vast majority of Israelis… they would have told readers that the reaction… is not fear or protest. It is horror, rage, and resolve.”

The excuse? Mohammed’s condition had worsened due to war. But as Israeli pediatrician Dr. Michal Feldon said, “I’ve been a pediatrician for 20 years and we never see kids looking like this, even very chronically ill children. When we do, we suspect abuse.” Prof. Dan Turner added, “Even patients with background diseases should not be malnourished like that.” In Gaza, it’s not just illness—it’s lack of access, lack of formula, and yes, Hamas theft of humanitarian aid.

This wasn’t bad journalism. It was anti-Jewish narrative warfare—the blood libel of our time, illustrated by a carefully framed photo and a willfully ignored truth.

Because in today’s media: a carefully staged image used to falsely accuse Israel of starvation is front-page news — but the real starvation, suffering, and desperation of Israeli hostages doesn’t make it in at all.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Earlier today I saw an interview on Quillette with Dr. Andre Oboler, the CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute, about online hate and what can be done about it.

I realized that this could be another great application of derechology, my universal ethical framework based on Jewish ethics..

So I started a discussion with AskHillel, the AI I built using derechology principles, and after some back and forth we came up with a social media policy - heavily leaning on AI to implement - that would leave the posters, the readers and the social media companies themselves feeling much better than they do today.

The problem now is that there are no clear standards, there is no transparency, the social media users who are offended do not see any recourse that ever works and the people being censored don't have a clear idea why. The social media companies are inundated with requests for review that swamp them. The whole thing is a mess.

This can be solved.

First of all is the standards. These should be values, not detailed rules, as far as what is not allowed and what is potentially a problem. The values should follow the derechological baseline values: protection of life, dignity of people, mutual responsibility.

When a person posts something that is illegal, like child pornography, there is no choice: it must be stopped and reported.

But the vast majority of issues that are gray areas like phrases that can mean incitement to violence but can have innocuous interpretations as well, or negative stereotypes of groups of people, can be dealt with by AI before they are posted. The key is transparency. The AI can explain why the post might be a violation of the platform's values - and then offer for the user to reword it, or offer to rephrase it itself, until both sides approve the message and it can be posted. If the user disagrees and insists that it be posted as-is, the AI will allow it but will inform the user that the post will have a flag attached, and/or it will be limited in visibility.

This way the platform does not look like a censor but as a partner, assuming good faith and wanting to work together to craft a message that would not hurt others.

On the other side, if a user is offended by a post, the AI can explain why it was allowed, and discuss that with the user as well. The user might point out, for example, that the post used a dog-whistle that has a hidden racist meaning. In that case, the AI can log the issue and it can be referred to humans for further research. Otherwise, the AI can offer not only to block that poster for the user but also to block other posts that share the same issues.

Everything has to be upfront and honest. If the AI cannot assure the user that a human will review every case, it should say so, but also point out that (given user permission) the discussions can be logged and aggregated in case there are many people who are offended. If a user has a pattern of offensive posts, the AI can inform them that after a specific score is reached they may be suspended. But the reasons must always be clear.

This method is so much better than what is happening now. There are no black boxes - reasons are always available and the rules, and consequences, are public. The social media platform is not presented as authoritarian but as caring. The AIs would be polite and engaging. And the number of posts that require human review would go down greatly, helping the social media companies.

This is yet another way derechology can take a seemingly intractable problem and view it anew through a lens of values, responsibility and humility to help everyone get what they want.

_______________________

Here is the full suggested design:

Ethical Design Document: Universal Social Media Policy (Value-Aligned Framework)
Purpose: To implement a values-rooted, universal social media policy for a mainstream platform, balancing freedom of expression with moral responsibility. This framework draws from foundational ethical principles and is designed to be inclusive and applicable across diverse contexts.
I. Core Ethical Framework
Principle Function
Inherent Human Worth Every user has dignity. Harmful content must be addressed respectfully, not erased thoughtlessly.
Truth and Honesty All moderation actions must be transparent, fact-based, and subject to review.
Shared Responsibility Platforms are accountable for what they allow or amplify. Silence or inaction can cause real harm.
Duty to Prevent Harm Platforms must not stand by when foreseeable harm could occur.
No Enabling of Harmful Behavior Platforms must avoid features that promote outrage, bullying, or manipulation.
Public Integrity Mishandling speech ethics undermines trust in the platform and the communities it serves.
Humility in Automation AI systems must acknowledge their limitations. Every user has a right to appeal and clarity.
II. AI Moderation Logic
1. Harm Detection Thresholds AI flags content likely to cause harm based on:
Dehumanizing language
Incitement to violence or discrimination
Misleading or doctored content
Personal attacks, group slurs, or mockery of suffering
2. Real-Time Ethical Dialogue Before publishing, users receive a contextual message:
"This post may be perceived as harmful due to [reason]. Our ethical guidelines emphasize dignity and respectful communication. Would you like to revise, discuss, or continue as-is?"
Options:
"Edit with Suggestions"
"Discuss with AI"
"Post Anyway (Visibility May Be Reduced)"
"Learn More About This Warning"
If "Discuss with AI" is selected:
The AI engages in a structured, respectful dialogue to understand user intent.
The user may explain context, clarify meaning, or propose alternate wording.
Together, the AI and user may co-create a revised version that preserves intent while reducing risk of harm or misunderstanding.
At the end of the interaction, the user is asked:
"Would you like to anonymously share this dialogue with the platform's ethics team to help improve our policies?"
If accepted, the data is sent anonymized and used for policy refinement.
This supports ongoing ethical learning and accountability — a model of platform-level course correction.
3. Visibility Management If posted without revision:
Post is algorithmically downranked
Visible advisory label is attached
Viewers may choose to hide, report, or engage with content thoughtfully
4. Appeal and Oversight
All flagged content can be appealed
Human reviewers trained in ethics review each case
AI decision-making is transparent and available for scrutiny
5. Hard Threshold for Illegal or Dangerous Content Some content must be removed immediately and cannot be published under any condition. This includes:
Verified illegal material (e.g., child exploitation, terror propaganda, threats of violence)
Clear and imminent incitement to violence
Content explicitly designed to cause harm or violate platform or legal safety standards
For such content:
No option to edit or post is provided
AI issues a clear explanation and cites relevant policy or legal standard
Content and metadata are quarantined for audit purposes
If criminal in nature, the platform reports to appropriate authorities, even if the content was never posted. This includes mandatory reporting of child exploitation material, as required by law. In 2024 alone, over 36 million such reports were filed globally.
An appeal process exists, but the default action is immediate suppression and referral
III. Platform Integrity Measures
Transparency Portal: Public access to all moderation rules and the ethics behind them
Graceful Correction: Users can revise or delete content without punishment or shame
Propaganda Safeguards: Moderation training and data screening guard against misinformation, manipulation, and biased framing
Protection of Diverse Voices: Disagreement is welcome; only speech that causes harm is moderated
IV. Platform Message to Users
"Speech is power. Use it as if every person matters — because they do."
V. User Response to Perceived Harm
If a user encounters content they find offensive or harmful, they are offered a respectful pathway to respond:
Flag and Explain: The user may flag the content and describe — in their own words — why they found it troubling.
AI Acknowledgment and Clarification: The AI responds by explaining why the content was not automatically flagged, while respectfully acknowledging the user's experience.
Offer of Anonymous Logging: The user is asked:
"Would you like to anonymously share this flag and explanation with the platform's ethics team to inform future policy adjustments?"
If accepted, the data is anonymized and logged.
Users are informed that while not all cases receive individual review, all are weighted using transparent criteria and can influence platform-wide ethical refinement.
Personal Content Controls:
Users may choose to block the individual post, the user who posted it, or all content matching similar categories or patterns.
Settings are customizable, respectful, and clearly explained.
This process ensures both dignity and protection for those affected by harmful speech, fostering a culture of mutual responsibility and continuous learning.
Note: This policy expresses ethical reasoning and universal principles of responsible communication. It does not replace legal compliance or cultural sensitivity, but aims to create a safe and respectful digital public square.

Principle	Function
Inherent Human Worth	Every user has dignity. Harmful content must be addressed respectfully, not erased thoughtlessly.
Truth and Honesty	All moderation actions must be transparent, fact-based, and subject to review.
Shared Responsibility	Platforms are accountable for what they allow or amplify. Silence or inaction can cause real harm.
Duty to Prevent Harm	Platforms must not stand by when foreseeable harm could occur.
No Enabling of Harmful Behavior	Platforms must avoid features that promote outrage, bullying, or manipulation.
Public Integrity	Mishandling speech ethics undermines trust in the platform and the communities it serves.
Humility in Automation	AI systems must acknowledge their limitations. Every user has a right to appeal and clarity.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

For most of us, "the law" feels like a settled thing. It's in multivolume thick books, enforced by robed figures, and seems to operate with a clear set of rules. From the outside, you might expect legal philosophy – jurisprudence – to be a quiet academic subject, simply cataloging those rules.

But you'd be wrong. In reality, jurisprudence is one of the most fiercely debated and surprisingly unsettled fields in all of philosophy. And as we've already seen with so many other philosophical debates, the AskHillel Jewish-based philosophy I've been developing, which I am starting to refer to as "derechology," offers a revolutionary path to bring clarity and accountability to this ancient discipline.

At its heart, jurisprudence grapples with fundamental questions: What is law? Where does its authority come from? Is it merely a set of commands, or must it align with deeper moral truths? How do we interpret it? And when there is an edge case that could go either way, what methods can judges or courts use to come up with answers?

These aren't just academic curiosities; they dictate how justice is dispensed, how societies are governed, and how individual rights and duties are understood. The reason the field is so contentious is that these core questions have never been definitively answered, leading to fractured and often contradictory schools of thought:

Legal Positivism: This school argues that law is simply what is formally enacted by a legitimate authority, regardless of its moral content. Rules are rules. Hopefully the laws are aligned with ethics, but there are plenty of cases of outdated and bizarre sounding laws that many of us have laughed at. Do they still apply? While this method offers clarity, at least outside those edge cases, it struggles to explain why we should obey an unjust law, or how to challenge one.
Natural Law Theory: In contrast, this tradition insists that true law must reflect universal moral truths – whether from God, reason, or nature. It provides a moral compass but can be abstract, leading to debates about whose "universal truths" apply.
Legal Realism: Cynically, realists argue that law isn't about grand principles or formal rules, but simply "what judges do in fact." It's a description of power dynamics, but offers no moral guidance or aspiration. If a judge rules, that's the law.
Dworkinian Interpretivism: Ronald Dworkin argued that law is a moral practice, and judges should interpret it to make the legal system as just and coherent as possible. This is a sophisticated approach, but it often leaves the "how" of moral interpretation to a judge's intuition, without a clear, structured method.
Critical Theories (e.g., Critical Legal Studies, Feminist, Critical Race Jurisprudence): These schools expose how law has historically been a tool of power, perpetuating injustice based on race, gender, or class. While vital for revealing systemic bias, they can sometimes deconstruct law so thoroughly that they undermine its coherence or replace it entirely with politics and activism.

The result of these conflicting views is a field that often feels unstable, even chaotic - the exact opposite of how many think of law.

Interestingly, the Jewish legal system of halacha has versions of these same debates. Some (notably J. David Bleich) mirror the legal positivism theory with halacha, saying that there should be a minimum of flexibility in rulings. Many other halachic decisors either embrace a conscious application or morality to the law or an implicit application of them, using legal ideas like lifnim meshurat hadin (going beyond the letter of the law), or darchei noam (The Torah's ways are pleasant) to justify their rulings. There is not the same level of seeming chaos within the halachic system as with general jurisprudence but these questions are fundamental.

One of the core reasons for this instability is an undeniable truth: judges are human. No legal code, no matter how exhaustive, can anticipate every unique situation, every unforeseen technological advance, or every clash of values.

In these "hard cases" – where laws conflict, where precedent is ambiguous, or where the application of a rule seems to lead to an unjust outcome – judges must exercise discretion. They must make a judgment call, weighing competing principles and values. This is the source of the "flexibility" that can feel so unsettling, because it implies a degree of subjectivity in a system we expect to be objective.

Current legal philosophies struggle to adequately guide this judicial discretion:

Positivism largely ignores it, insisting judges simply apply rules, even when the rules are silent or lead to absurdity.
Legal Realism embraces it, but offers no ethical framework for how judges should exercise that power, leaving it to individual whim or political bias.
Dworkin came very close. He insisted that judges must interpret law in its "best moral light" and strive for "integrity." But he didn't provide the structured methodology for how judges should actually do that moral reasoning, especially when values collide. He lacked a clear hierarchy or override mechanism, leaving judges to rely on intuition rather than a transparent, auditable process.

This absence of a clear, accountable method for exercising moral judgment is why the field appears so "flexible" or even "chaotic." It's not that anything goes, but that the reasons for judicial choices are often opaque, making them seem arbitrary or ideologically driven.

This is where derechology, represented by the AskHillel AI framework I've been working on, can revolutionize jurisprudence. It doesn't pretend that judicial discretion can be eliminated. Instead, it offers a framework for structured subjectivity with accountable transparency – what we might call "Corrigible Integrity."

Derechology provides the missing ethical infrastructure that Dworkin's vision implied but never built. It transforms legal reasoning into a moral discipline by requiring judges and legal systems to explicitly engage with values:

Law as a Web of Obligations, Rooted in Values: Derechology shifts the focus from abstract "rights" (which often conflict without resolution) to obligations that flow directly from a hierarchy of core values. Laws gain legitimacy not from mere authority, but from how well they reflect our shared duties to life, dignity, justice, and community.
Structured Triage and Override Logic: When legal values collide (e.g., free speech vs. public safety, property rights vs. saving a life), derechology provides a transparent system for identifying the values at stake, weighing them according to an established hierarchy, and declaring which value yields to another in that specific context. This is the "how" that Dworkin was missing.
Amplifier Disclosure: Derechology acknowledges that contextual factors (amplifiers) can modulate the weight of values and obligations. Judges would be required to explicitly state which amplifiers were considered and how they influenced the decision, adding another layer of transparency.
Corrigibility and Teshuvah (Realignment): Derechology builds in mechanisms for institutional "repentance" and realignment. If a legal decision is later found to be morally flawed (perhaps due to new information, technology advances or a deeper ethical understanding), the system provides a framework - indeed, the obligation - for acknowledging the error, explaining the value misprioritization, and correcting course. This makes the legal system capable of moral growth.
Pluralism with Ethical Anchors: Derechology allows for the coexistence of different legal systems (e.g., religious, indigenous, international law) by insisting that while their specific rules may differ, they must all adhere to universal ethical anchors (like the ethoskeleton's principles of Dignity, Truth, and Relational Integrity).

Derechology and the AskHillel AI don't eliminate the need for judgment, nor do they force everyone to agree on a single, rigid definition of morality. Different judges may still reach different conclusions.

However, derechology's profound impact is that it narrows the scope of that flexibility (or "chaos") dramatically. Instead of vague appeals to "justice" or hidden ideological biases, it requires judges to:

Declare their ethical premises: Which values are being prioritized?
Justify their triage: Why did one value override another?
Explain their reasoning transparently: How did contextual amplifiers play a role?

This means that appeals are no longer just about legal technicalities or ideological reversals. They become about critiquing the explicit moral reasoning itself. An appeals court would have to provide compelling ethical reasons to discard a lower court's value weightings, forcing a higher level of accountability and intellectual rigor. And also judges will be expected to surface and define the values they identified and weighted, making their rulings more transparent. The AskHillel/derechology system provides a universal grammar to map any and all values to a common set that can be examined and prioritized.

This transforms legal judgment from an act of personal authority into an act of accountable moral reasoning. It offers a path to rebuild public trust in legal systems, make international law more coherent, and even guide the ethical decision-making of AI.

It is, in effect, a derechological jurisprudence – a way to infuse legal reasoning with the structured integrity and profound humility that has been missing for too long.

And the idea that a single framework can help solve so many foundational problems in so many different philosophical fields is nothing short of astounding.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

A lot of the cognitive war centers on the anti-Israel side relying on repetition as a substitute for debate.

By repeating over and over that Israel is committing genocide, or apartheid, or "illegal occupation," or "famine in Gaza" they short-circuit any arguments and attempt to use propaganda methods to make lies into truth.

One of their most effective techniques is to insist that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.

This insistence, repeated ad nauseum, usually accompanied with outrage, bullies those who know better and forces them to make an artificial distinction which makes anti-Zionism more socially and culturally acceptable.

It is not true, as we demonstrated recently. Anti-Zionism is simply political antisemitism. It might not be racial or religious antisemitism, but it is just as antisemitic as the grandfather of political antisemitism - the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion hoax. It shares the same DNA as the Protocols - a small set of malicious Jews who are scheming to control the world using psychological manipulation, lies, control of the media and financial systems, and (the only new part) military strength.

The thing is, even the "pro-Palestinian" crowd knows that this is a lie and that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

From AFP:

Spanish airline Iberia said Tuesday that it had opened an investigation after a passenger who requested a kosher meal received his food tray with the words "Free Palestine" written on the packaging.

Several other Jewish passengers on the flight from Buenos Aires to Madrid received meal trays marked with the initials "FP" for "Free Palestine", according to DAIA, the umbrella organisation of Argentina's Jewish community, calling it a "serious act of antisemitism"."We strongly condemn this discriminatory act and have contacted the airline authorities to demand explanations and immediate action," the group said in a message posted on X.
The post included a photo showing a meal tray with a handwritten white label marked "Free Palestine" in black letters.

Kosher refers to food prepared according to Jewish dietary laws.

They support a "free Palestine" by targeting - Jews.

And this happens on a Spanish airline only two months after Spain recognized "Palestine." And only weeks after another Spanish airline kicked a Jewish group of teens off a plane - not Israelis, but Jews.

One can perhaps minimize the issue if it was unusual, if perhaps some bigot used "Palestine" as an excuse to target Jews and real anti-Zionists are opposed to antisemitism. But the more and more these incidents happen, like "pro-Palestine" graffiti on synagogues, the less and less we are seeing "pro-Palestine activists" willing to condemn and denounce their fellow "anti-Zionists."

In the end, everyone knows that anti-Zionists are antisemites at heart. Even the leaders of the "pro-Palestine" movement who swear up and down that they have no problem with Jews don't clearly denounce antisemitism when done by their political allies.

If only the left-leaning media and politicians would not be so afraid to say explicitly what everyone knows.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

We have seen many explain the folly of Western states recognizing a "State of Palestine."

* It rewards Hamas terror.

* It makes peace less likely since Hamas sees this as vindication of its methods and is less likely to make concessions.

* It rewards Palestinian Authority human rights violations and corruption.

* It assumes that the PA is a better partner than Hamas, when it has done nothing to prove it can run a state.

* It is essentially a punishment for Israel

* It cannot be taken back, no matter what awful things the PA does.

* It makes no sense. At all.

But UK Lawyers for Israel also points out that it is legally problematic as well:

Montevideo Convention

The qualifications for recognition as a state set out in the Montevideo Convention have long been regarded as customary international law. They are “(a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states”. These qualifications are not met in relation to a supposed new Palestinian State:

Government: As matters stand there is no single Palestinian government. To the extent that there remains a Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip, it is Hamas - not the Palestinian Authority (PA) which administers 40% of the West Bank pursuant to the Oslo Accords.

Capacity to enter into relations with other states: Hamas is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union and other countries. It does not have capacity to enter into relations with other states. Art. IX.5 of the Oslo II Accord specifies that the PA does not have powers in the sphere of foreign relations, save that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) may enter into economic, aid, cultural, scientific and educational agreements for the benefit of the PA.

Permanent population: UNRWA and the PA maintain that nearly half of the total Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are refugees, i.e. not the permanent population of these areas.

Defined territory: The territory of a new Palestinian state is not defined. The complications of determining its extent and boundaries are manifold, a problem reflected in the lack of any indication in recent calls by France or the United Kingdom as to what territory they would be recognising as constituting the State of Palestine.

Under the Oslo II Accord, “borders” and “Jerusalem” are issues to be addressed by “permanent status negotiations” (Art. XXXI.5). The PA has no control over the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem or the majority of the West Bank. It merely administers part of the West Bank under the Oslo II Accord.

Furthermore, Art. XXXI.7 of the Oslo II Accord states: “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.” Recognition of a Palestinian state contradicts this provision.

I do not know what this means practically, the nations that have recognized "Palestine" clearly weren't bothered that the "State of Palestine" does not fit the definitions in the Montevideo Convention.

Self-determination

Those in favour of a new Palestinian state often invoke the right to self-determination. However, first, a right to self-determination does not in itself constitute an unconditional right to a state, as Canada’s Supreme Court confirmed in the Quebec case. Still less does it imply that one or more or any of the four Montevideo qualifications have been met.

Second, self-determination requires the will of those for whom it is invoked to be established, as the Badinter Commission advised in its Opinion No. 4. This has not been done. Notably, an opinion poll by a Palestinian news agency found that 93% of Jerusalem’s Arab population preferred a continuation of Israeli rule of the whole city; while a survey by Israel’s Central Bureau Statistics found that 86% of Jerusalem’s Arabs were satisfied with their lives.

It is likely that an overwhelming majority of Jerusalem’s Jewish population would also prefer a continuation of Israeli rule. On this basis, the principle of self-determination would appear to mandate a continuation of Israeli sovereignty over the united city of Jerusalem.

This conclusion also has implications in relation to the Montevideo Convention criteria of permanent population and defined territory of a supposed Palestinian state.

Moreover, the 2024 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which has also been cited in support of a Palestinian state, was based on false information in this regard.

Somehow, I don't think political moves like this consider international law. But maybe, some member of British Parliament can ask these questions and expose how the Prime Minister is flouting international law just to stick it to Israel.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

08/05 Links Pt2: Ariel Bibas was supposed to turn 6; The Appeal of a Mother Who Buried Her Only Son; Douglas Murray wins defamation claim brought by Muslim activist; Relitigating the 20th Century

From Ian:

Rachel Goldberg-Polin: The Appeal of a Mother Who Buried Her Only Son

Here’s the real truth you need to swallow. One day you will be gone. I hate to be the bearer of reality, but no matter what exciting and thrilling things you feel like you are doing, you are dying. You will skedaddle from this world to wherever it is you think you are going, and you can’t take any of this with you.

So for the love of everything you love—power, ego, legacy, your adoring wife, or any combo of them all—make this end now. I appeal as a mother of a glorious forever 23-year-old son, for whom it is too late.

I appeal simply to you as a nobody. My name is Rachel, and I am an absolute nobody. And therefore, I am everybody.

You can make this happen. Talk in those quiet back rooms. Say whatever you want to have printed in the papers. Feed yourselves whatever you need to.

We don’t care. We nobodys, we everybodys, we are too exhausted to care.

I will parrot whatever will float your boat. We all will. Just let us lick our wounds. Allow us to eat food we cook in a home, and not over a fire outside of a makeshift tent in filth. Give us back our children—those who are starving in tunnels and being forced to dig their own graves. Literally. And those who have already been murdered. Let us bury our sons and daughters respectfully.

Just let us be. Don’t do this stuff in our names. Say you’re sorry, even if it’s only when you are alone in your bathroom at night looking at your own face in the mirror with the door closed. Whisper into your tired eyes while looking at your whiskers already growing again from this morning’s shave. Who do you think you are that you are above “sorry”?

Give us back our 50 hostages. Some are alive and some are only alive in our souls. Let the innocent people who are in Gaza have a chance. We are tired. We are done. We are children of God.

Stop playing with us and our lives.

The link between anti-Israel hate and antisemitism is demonstrably closer today than ever

It can feel like there is no space to breathe sometimes. But this is when our community is most tested, and in the past, we have shown we have the resilience

and fortitude to get through the most difficult of moments. CST now protects double the number of Jewish community events than we did before October 7: this is partly due to a greater need, and desire, for security, but it is also because more communal events are happening. For all the worry, our community is not hiding away.

The same goes for the amount of work CST does supporting Jewish students and schoolchildren, protecting synagogues, and arguing our community’s case in Westminster and with police forces across the country. CST’s research repeatedly exposes and disrupts the activities of our community’s worst enemies, with several of those who would cause us harm now behind bars. All this work goes on every day, sometimes in public and at other times away from the glare of publicity.

We do all of this not because we are scared to be Jewish, but because we are proud to be Jewish: proud of our community, of our Jewish way of life, and of the Jewish contribution to wider society. It has been heartening to see how many people have stepped forward to join this fight, whether they have been trained as CST volunteer security officers, helped with donations to fund our work, or reported antisemitism to CST so that we can take action against it. Everything counts in this fight.

None of us can predict how long this will go on for, but it is unlikely that this wave of antisemitism will suddenly disappear if the conflict in Israel and Gaza comes to an end. More likely is that it will leave deep scars, both on our community and in wider society, that will require years of effort to overturn. But whatever happens, CST, working with our Jewish community, will be ready.

Jew hate surges in our schools — led by teachers' unions

If Jewish parents in New York object to their children being subjected to a woke rewriting of the Holocaust, or a view of Palestine that vilifies Jews, will they be able to opt their children out?

No. They’ll be in for a fight, according to NYSUT.

On July 28, the union issued a response to the high court’s ruling, claiming it applies only “to a single school district” — and that “educators and school leaders are best positioned to select materials.”

Parents with religious scruples can take a hike.

Mamdani has expressed almost no interest in education policy, aside from attacking the city’s specialized high schools — even though the Department of Education consumes more money than any other city agency.

Indifferent to what education means to parents striving for their children’s futures, Mamdani has cynically suggested that Jamaal Bowman, the Israel-hating former congressman and fire-alarm enthusiast, should lead Gotham’s public school system, the largest in America.

Even members of his own party are unimpressed by Bowman: State Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs has said the ex-lawmaker should promote “the economic interests of working-class Americans instead of continuing his antisemitic, pro-terrorist advocacy.”

Don’t count on Bowman or Mamdani to heed that advice.

What do you think? Post a comment.

It’s time for New Yorkers, and Americans everywhere, to oppose antisemitism in our public schools.

History’s oldest hatred has no place in our kids’ classrooms.

08/05 Links Pt1: Behind Netanyahu's Gaza strategy: Iran interference and Trump's conditional support; Sa’ar at UN: Plans to recognize Palestinian state ‘assassinated the hostage deal’

From Ian:

Trump Is Right to Point the Finger at Hamas for Gaza Woes

From the start of Israel’s war against Hamas, there have been dire warnings of imminent famine in Gaza that have proven false.

In November 2023, just over a month after the October 7 massacres, United Nations World Food Programme director Cindy McCain told CBS that Israel’s effort to destroy Hamas had already put Gaza “on the brink of famine.” By February 2024, no famine had occurred, but the United Nations put out a statement claiming that “at least” 576,000 Gazans, or about a quarter of the population of the strip, were “one step away from famine.” A few months later, two U.N. agencies warned that “over one million people — half the population of Gaza — are expected to face death and starvation (IPC Phase 5) by mid-July [of 2024].”

Israel’s many enemies have a huge incentive to promote the idea that Israel is using starvation as a tool of warfare. The New York Times, along with most major media outlets throughout the world, turned a photo of a skeletal toddler in Gaza, Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, into a rallying cry against the supposed Israeli policy of starvation. But the outlets did not report that the boy was born with a muscular disorder, which helped explain his sickly appearance, and they did not print part of a photo that showed his healthy-looking brother beside him. Days after the deception was exposed, the New York Times, which ran the photo on the front page, quietly updated the story, but only after the original photo had been spread around the world.

All that said, it does appear the humanitarian situation has now become more serious. Amit Segal, an Israeli journalist who has been skeptical of prior claims of mass starvation, has pointed to research showing the rising price of flour in Gaza and concluded that this time, “Gaza may well be approaching a real hunger crisis.” Other credible sources have concluded the same.

Even facing a hostile population, Israel has gone to incredible lengths to try and help feed Gaza. In terms of sheer amount of supplies, it’s an effort on par with the Berlin airlift. The current operation, though, has faced barriers created by the United Nations and Hamas. When the U.N. and its affiliated groups were in charge of food distribution, its supplies routinely ended up in control of Hamas, which hoarded aid for its own fighters and also sold it on the black market to raise money for its war against Israel.

Michael Oren: The Wisdom of Yahya Sinwar

If the Palestinians had the misfortune of facing a different enemy—Turkey, for example, or Chinese—the West might care as much about them as it does about the Kurds or the Uyghurs or worse, the Syrian Druze. But Sinwar and other Palestinian leaders understood antisemitism. They understood the Jew-hatred long hardwired into the West as well as its desire to purge the original genocidal sin of the Holocaust by accusing the Jews of a similar crime.

This does not remotely mean that Israel is blameless or hasn’t enhanced the Palestinians’ ability to tap into Western prejudice. Undoubtedly, there are many hungry people in Gaza and numbers of them may have starved during this war. Israel’s erratic policy of supplying, then denying, then again supplying humanitarian aid to Gaza, often in woefully insufficient amounts and by inefficient means, surely exacerbated the food shortage. And Israel’s failure to explain and defend its policies has been nothing short of monumental. All that, combined with settler violence, the racist remarks of prominent government ministers, and the selfie videos of soldiers rejoicing over Gaza’s demolition, heighten the odds that Sinwar’s bet paid off.

Still, nobody knows exactly how many Palestinians have actually died of starvation or can prove Israel’s culpability. The accusations persist despite the achievements of the American-run and Israeli-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Since May, the GHF has distributed more than 100 million meals in Gaza, a record that America’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, called “a great feat.” Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) says hundreds of food trucks are waiting to enter the Strip daily. The delays, Israel maintains, are caused by the refusal of the UN and other aid agencies to distribute the food and the relentless attacks on GHF workers and civilian aid recipients by Hamas.

Not surprisingly, the media has rejected these facts virtually out-of-hand while uncritically accepting Hamas’s. Little credence is given to Israel’s assertion that Hamas stole much of the UN aid and sold it back to the Palestinian population at exorbitant prices. Scant importance is given to the fact that, in the ceasefire talks, one of the terrorists’ top demands is for the return of the UN’s responsibility for aid—a return, that is, of the terror group’s major source of political control and income. Such details are irrelevant to a West insistent on finding Israel guilty of genocide by deliberate deprivation.

Any lingering doubts about the wisdom of Sinwar’s wager would be dispelled by the publication, again on the front page of the Times and other influential papers, of the photograph of a Palestinian woman holding her emaciated infant whom the captions claimed was starved by Israel. As is now well-known, the child, Muhammad Zakariya al-Matouq, suffered from a genetic condition, perhaps exacerbated by malnutrition, though his brother standing nearby did not appear visibly starved. Still, the Times did not apologize for the distortion, issuing only an editorial clarification, but other outlets—The Guardian, Sky News, the Daily Mail—did not even do that. The reason is obvious. What subtler way to defame the Jewish State than the image of a mother cradling the infant it killed, a modern-day Pietà?

By contrast, the video Hamas posted on Saturday of hostage Evyatar David, Auschwitz-emaciated and forced to dig his own grave, merited only minor Western headlines. The Times’ print edition buried the story on page 10. CNN similarly buried the story in a report on the anti-war movement in Israel, and concluded the piece with a long description of “the worst-case scenario of famine” in Gaza, and rising casualty reports from the Gaza Health Ministry.

The supposed Israeli genocide of the Palestinians is now widely accepted as truth. A June 2025 Leger poll found that more than half of Democratic voters and all Americans under the age of 35 believe Israel is guilty of committing genocide in Gaza, as do a shocking 78 percent of Democratic primary voters in New York.

Typically, the charge has united both radical left and right—Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene with academics like Brown University’s Omer Bartov and lunatics like Candace Owens. Added to the brands of antisemitism I’ve experienced in life, along with deicide, pedocide, and conspiring to destroy civilization, Jews now stand accused of annihilating an entire people. And each day, it seems, more people co-sign this lie.

Yahya Sinwar died last October 16, felled by an Israeli bullet, but indeed his gamble on Jew-hatred continues to pay off. The impending recognition of a Palestinian state by Britain, France, and Canada not only punishes Israel for imperfectly defending itself, but incentivizes terror and strengthens Hamas’s hand in the ceasefire talks. Sinwar’s successors can now walk away from the negotiating table, perpetuate the war with yet more civilian casualties, and further immiserate both Palestinians and Israelis.

What better bet could have assisted the terrorists to obscure their atrocities of October 7? What wager would enable the West to finally cleanse its own genocide guilt by imputing that sin to the Jews? In his grave, Sinwar is still counting his earnings.

Seth Mandel: Free, Free Lebanon

You know who hasn’t removed Hezbollah’s weapons from the south, or even made a token effort to prevent the weapons buildup in the first place? Right, UNIFIL. So peace in Lebanon is possible, but it requires the work of the U.S., Lebanese army, and Israel. The UN and Hezbollah can both pack up and be roomies somewhere else.

The Times reports: “The Lebanese Army is gradually raising the number of troops in the south. Once the military there is up to full strength, President Aoun said, an armed Hezbollah will be unnecessary.”

That’s putting it generously, although we can understand why President Aoun is careful and diplomatic with his words. It was never “necessary” for there to be an Iranian satrapy in South Lebanon. But yes, even by the region’s default anti-Israel stance, there is no justification anymore for Hezbollah’s gun-toting thugs roaming the border.

Last, and crucially, we are reminded that Hezbollah not only isn’t a boon for the state but is bleeding it dry: “The Lebanese government must defang the group to secure Western funds without provoking an internal conflict. Hezbollah has long been under Western sanctions due its designation as a terrorist organization.”

Now would be as good a time as any to do so, especially since morale within and around Hezbollah is at low tide. A Hezbollah fighter’s father-in-law tells the Times that all he has to show for Hezbollah’s “resistance” is a hole in the ground that used to be his house. “They promised us a victory, but instead they destroyed our villages, destroyed our houses,” he said.

Western powers have been hesitant to deliver knockout punches to dwindling terrorist groups and other nonstate actors. But they now face that opportunity in two places: Gaza and Lebanon. Allowing remnants of terrorist armies with lots of Arab, Israeli, and American blood on their hands to stew in their own Petrie dishes of resentment is a fool’s play. When the chance to disarm them appears, take it. Where terrorism is concerned, victory is the only path to peace.

Ruthie Blum: ‘Hasbara’ and the traitors among us

Examples abound, but let’s begin with Channel 12 anchorwoman Yonit Levi, who concluded her nightly news show on July 27 by saying with a sigh, “Maybe it’s time to acknowledge that this isn’t a public-diplomacy failure, but a moral failure, and to start from there.”

Three days later, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the German outlet Spiegel International, “There are a number of events that could be seen as war crimes. More than I can list. More than anything, though, it is the illegitimate war that is being waged out of the personal, political interests of [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu]. As a consequence, Israeli soldiers are dying, additional hostages may be losing their lives and many innocent Palestinians are being killed. That is a crime.”

Then came award-winning novelist David Grossman’s Aug. 1 interview in the Italian daily La Repubblica. Expressing “immense pain and a broken heart,” he said, “For many years, I refused to use that term, ‘genocide.’ But now, after the images I have seen and after talking to people who were there [in Gaza], I can’t help but use it.”

This echoed the words of expat Israeli historian Omer Bartov, whose guest essay in The New York Times on July 15 was titled: “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.”

More recently, on Sunday, some 1,000 prominent Israeli performers signed a petition reading: “We, the people of culture and art in Israel, find ourselves—against our will and against our values—complicit, as Israeli citizens, in the horrifying events in the Gaza Strip, particularly the killing of children and uninvolved civilians, starvation, displacement of the population and the senseless destruction of Gaza’s cities. We call on all those involved in shaping and implementing this policy—stop! Do not issue illegal orders and do not follow them! Do not, God forbid, commit war crimes! Do not abandon the principles of human morality and the values of Judaism! End the war. Free the hostages.”

Meanwhile, a separate petition, signed by more than 1,400 designers, architects and visual artists states: “Before our eyes, a horror of historic proportions is taking place. We bear responsibility as human beings and as Israelis for the atrocities currently being committed in our name against a population located just a few kilometers away from us—living in an impossible reality and under immense suffering. We are deeply concerned for the fate of Gaza’s residents, the hostages, our sons and daughters and for the future of our society—both present and future.”

The icing on the cake appeared on Monday, with a short video of former chiefs of the Shin Bet, Mossad, Israel Defense Forces and Israel Police denigrating their country. “We’re hiding behind a lie,” asserted one participant. “We’re on the eve of defeat,” declared another. The rest proffered similarly inane—albeit dangerous—remarks.

Israeli hasbara may leave a lot to be desired. But what good is public diplomacy when the traitors among us parrot, if not craft, the enemies’ talking points? As Evyatar David’s father, Avishai, put it simply: “Whose side are they on?”

Anti-Zionism is a feminist issue

Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography is dedicating a special issue to the "Palestinian genocide" saying it is a feminist issue.

Interestingly, as far as I can tell, the entire journal have not once criticized the Palestinian Authority or Hamas for their failure to uphold women's rights - but it has criticized Israel plenty of times.

Here is are some of the anti-women laws on the books in Palestinian law, today, that discriminate against women:

More details from UNFPA here.

By constantly conflating "Palestine" with progressive causes, the causes are not merely being hypocritical. They are helping to promote the very injustices that they pretend to care about. As long as no one calls out Palestinian laws that violate women's rights, gay rights. animal rights, the environment and all the other causes that progressives hold dear, they prove that they don't really care about any of those causes as much as they want to attack Israel.

Palestinian women (and others) lose.

The "State of Palestine" acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), without reservation, in 2014. Yet it has not done anything to actually become compliant with CEDAW in at least the last 7 years.

In other words, it signed an international convention but never had any intention of following it. In fact, PA government officials have denounced CEDAW.

The only reason the PLO signed many international conventions that they do not adhere to was to help them join the ICC so they could use political means to attack Israel.

Which tells you exactly how much a Palestinian state can be trusted to fulfill any agreement it signs.

And feminist silence over the many anti-woman laws on the books in the Palestinian Authority tells you exactly how much they truly care about women's rights under Palestinian rule.

Here's a headline from another recent gender studies journal.