Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 14, 2025

08/14 Links Pt1: An Allegedly Civilized World Genuflects to Hamas; Brown Study Says Gaza is the Deadliest War Ever for Journalists. It’s a Lie; Uefa accused of promoting Jewish ‘blood libel’

From Ian:

An Allegedly Civilized World Genuflects to Hamas

Suppose we had an incident like what Israel suffered on Oct. 7, 2023. The equivalent of 1,200 murdered in Israel is over 44,000 Americans.

Suppose they, like what Israel suffered through, were not just murdered but violently raped and sexually mutilated.

Would we negotiate with these creatures? Would their demands touch sympathetic chords among our population?

Could we even imagine granting them sovereignty next to us, knowing their great dream is that we are eliminated?

The Israelis would have to be crazy to concede autonomy to a Palestinian state with a history of terror.

There are some 50 majority-Muslim countries in the world. There is one Jewish state.

No solution will be reached if those who pretend to represent the civilized world give credibility to depraved murderers.

Please define, Western leaders, this Palestinian state

Watching France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia announce plans to recognize a Palestinian state is maddening. While 50 Israeli hostages, some alive and some dead, remain trapped in Hamas tunnels in the de facto Palestinian state of Gaza, these Western governments are sending a message: They are not with us.

They don’t seem to care about the hostages. They seem unmoved by footage of an emaciated Evyatar David, an innocent 21-year-old Israeli forced to dig his own grave in a tunnel in the coastal enclave. They ignore the truth that Israel’s war against Hamas is not about land, borders or statehood. These Western leaders are not bothered that the Houthis, from thousands of miles away, continue to fire rockets into Israeli land, despite having no territorial dispute with the Jewish state.

They must know that if the dispute between the Arab world and Israel were simply about borders, then it would have been resolved long ago.

Can French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese articulate where the so-called Palestinian state they want to recognize exists? Can they identify who governs it or where its borders are? These questions remain unanswered, but the mainstream media will not press world leaders on any of this. Why

Because much of the mainstream media agrees with these Western leaders and the more than 140 other nations that, CNN says, have or will recognize Palestinian statehood. Yet such recognition does not advance peace. Instead, it is a political slap in the face to Israel and the Jewish people in their home countries.

Many dismiss these recognitions as legally meaningless—a hollow gesture with no real-world impact—and so they don’t matter.

But they do. Not in the sense of changing facts on the ground but in continuing to shift the global climate against the Jewish state. These proclamations embolden our enemies and further isolate Israel diplomatically. And it serves as tacit support for the wave of antisemitism flooding the streets of their cities.

Western Recognition of a Palestinian State Is a Betrayal of Israel

On July 30, Robert Malley and Hussein Agha, known for their pro-Palestinian positions, published an op-ed in the UK's Guardian warning that Britain and France's recognition of a Palestinian state would actually undermine efforts to end the Gaza war. "This step is completely detached from reality and contradicts its own stated goals. It will do nothing to bring the sides closer to a two-state solution."

Israeli officials said the move amounts to giving a gift to terrorism. A terrorist organization that has effectively become an army, attacking Israel with a level of barbarism unseen since the Holocaust, is now being rewarded. Israel views the recognition moves not merely as betrayal but as active support by Western governments for Hamas and its Oct. 7 massacre. These Western governments have lowered Hamas's motivation to agree to a ceasefire or a hostage-release deal.

The fact remains that the Palestinians have no functioning governing or state infrastructure worthy of recognition. When they have been granted territory and the opportunity to govern, the entity created has descended into violent barbarism. Hamas's brutal aggression is directed not only at Israel but also at the civilians of Gaza, a level of exploitation of one's own population that experts say has no precedent in history.

Robert Satloff: The Twisted Logic behind Recognition of Palestinian Statehood

France, Britain, and Canada have announced their intention to extend full diplomatic recognition to the "state of Palestine" at the UN General Assembly next month. Recognition of Palestinian statehood may address some domestic political needs in Europe and Canada but it will do nothing to assuage the concerns of the constituency that matters most - Israel's voting public - which fears the dangers to its safety that might accompany Palestinian statehood, rejects the idea by a large majority, and has elected successive governments that reflect that view.

It is difficult to see the mechanism by which even near-global recognition of Palestinian statehood translates that concept into fact. The unalterable reality that has governed diplomacy since 1967 is that Israel needs to be convinced that its security will be enhanced, not threatened, by territorial withdrawal and the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state.

This requires winning over Israel's increasingly skeptical public, a fact that countries who choose the easy symbolism of recognizing a Palestinian state seem to ignore. The deeper reality is that the second intifada and two decades of diplomatic stalemate followed by the trauma of Oct. 7 have turned the vast Israeli center against the two-state solution.

Gaza Photographer Must Keep Asking Fat Guys To Stop Blocking His Shot Of Starving Kids (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook and Substack pages.

Gaza City, August 14 - A propagandist responsible for producing heart-rending images of desperate, hungry children, expressed exasperation today at the number of times he has had to yell at overweight men getting in the way of his work.

Anas Sidrati, 34, works as a photographer on behalf of Hamas, charged with setting up and photographing scenes calculated to tug at the heartstrings of gullible westerners, causing the dupes to believe that those children suffer severe malnutrition and deprivation as a result of Israel's alleged blockade of food into the territory - Israel lets in thousands of tons of food each week - even as fat men and women prowl the area where he tries to set his scenes and take the photos, often obstructing the process.

"Do they not realize what I'm trying to do?" he wondered. "It's not just that they get in the way. I understand, it can get crowded, we're out in public places. That happens, and it's annoying, but it happens. The issue is that if they do get caught in a photo, it's not just a bad photo - it undermines the entire message of the photo! How am I supposed to produce images that scream 'Famine!' 'Starvation!' when right next to these supposedly-starving kids there are guys who, no offense, would make a hippo say, 'Dude could stand to drop a few kilos.'"

Anas admitted that so far, even when images with the fat men get shared on social media, the "starvation" narrative prevails. "I don't know whether it's dumb luck, or a fluke, or what," he surmised, "but I do know I wouldn't want to bank on it continuing. I want to do my work properly."

"Maybe if we had some emaciated adults, we could produce a more convincing body of work," he added. "No one here wants to volunteer. We could recruit from elsewhere, I suppose. But because of the blockade, we can't get our hands on any malnourished adults, either. Curse those Jews!"

Gaza photographers and vloggers in general voiced disappointment in the impact their work has had. While many point to the international opprobrium directed at Israel, some question whether the photographs and video clips in particular can claim any credit for the phenomenon: the war in Gaza has not so much created vitriol toward Jews and the Jewish State, so much as allowed people who already nurtured that genocidal hate to feel comfortable expressing it directly.

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Last December, researchers published a paper going into detail on how charity scams work. "Pirates of Charity: Exploring Donation-based Abuses in Social Media Platforms"

Recently, there has been an increase in fraudsters using social engineering tactics to trick people into donating to fake charities or causes. These tricks often include playing on sympathy and asking for a donation. ...Donation fraud, which is also commonly known as charity scam, is where scammers solicit money from individuals in the pretense of a charitable cause, disaster relief, or other seemingly legitimate reasons . ... The scammers deceive donors by pretending to represent real charities or by creating fictitious causes, often using emotional appeals to make urgent donations. Once the money is donated, it is typically diverted for the scammer’s personal use, and the intended cause or individuals in need receive no benefit.

This is a near perfect description of the Gaza aid scam. Except that instead of individual fraudsters, Hamas has managed to partner with NGOs and world governments to give it money in the guise of "aid for Gaza."

A quick comparison:

Scam charities use heart-string stories and photos: a sick child, injured pet, dying parent

Hamas propaganda uses vivid depictions of wounded children, demolished homes, funerals.

Scam charities emphasize that you must give money now, or else there will be catastrophic results.

Hamas propaganda has been saying the same thing since October 8.

Donors cannot verify the truth behind the story on the charity scam site.

Same with Gaza - all the information is controlled by Hamas.

Charity scams say how many people have already donated, to lend legitimacy to the cause.

The Hamas scam relies on world outrage, NGO statements and mass demonstrations to give the same psychological effect that everyone good is already deciding to be on their side.

Questioning a charity scam makes one look like they are cold-hearted.

Questioning Hamas casualty statistics or famine claims get the exact same kinds of responses.

They share the same DNA:

- Emotion before verification

- Absence of vetting

- Illusion of consensus

- Truth fragments repurposed for false conclusions

- Amplification through coordinated timing and mass sharing

When you send money to charity scams, a fraudster gets rich,

When you send money and social support to Gaza, Hamas stays in power.

I'm not saying that there is not misery in Gaza, but I am saying that the way that aid gets there is not transparent.

You wouldn't tolerate that in a real charity. Why does the world accept it when the beneficiary is a terror group?

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

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From Jordan's Ammon News:

In 1870, Jews revived the myth of the Yarmouk River and established two agricultural settlements on its northern bank in the Jerash Valley: one called Rahil (Rachel) (located between the villages of Duqara and Abu Zighan) and the other at Khirbet Aybta (near Majar, east of Jerash). These were intended as the nucleus for their future expansionist plans. A third settlement, Kfar Yehuda (today called Kfarhuda), was established in the Gilead region, halfway between Salt and the Jordan Valley, still referred to as “the Jew’s land” to this day. The settlers worked in agriculture during the day and stood guard at night, fearing attacks from neighboring residents. Four years later, they attempted to purchase additional lands to expand the settlements and bring in new settlers. At this point, Jordanians recognized the danger of a Jewish settlement nucleus on their lands and resolved to resist and thwart Zionist settlement in eastern Jordan.

In the summer of 1876, a meeting was held in the town of Sakab, known as “Sakab Night,” at the guesthouse of Sheikh Raja Mustafa Al-Ayasra to discuss the issue of Jewish land acquisitions in eastern Jordan. The meeting included sheikhs and notables from the Bani Hassan tribe and some northern Jordanian tribes, chaired by Sheikh Muflih Ubeidat, “Abu Kaid,” the sheikh of Kfar Som. The attendees decided to attack the two Jewish settlements with whatever weapons they had, and indeed, the fighters burned the settlements of Rahil and Khirbet Aybta, expelling the Jews from the area. They then proceeded to Salt and burned the third settlement, Kfar Yehuda. Afterward, the tribal leaders submitted a petition to the Ottoman Grand Vizier, demanding a ban on Jewish immigration to Jordan and Palestine and prohibiting their land acquisitions. This was the first nationalist action undertaken by Jordanians before the people of Palestine became aware of the Jewish threat, marking the first organized military operation against the Zionist idea on Jordanian and Arab lands, led by Muflih Al-Ubeidat. This action prevented Jewish settlement in our lands due to the early awareness of Jordanian tribes of the dangers of the Zionist project.

I've seen this mentioned (and celebrated) in other Arabic sites, but I haven't been able to find confirmation from Jewish sources. It is plausible that Arabs attacked Jewish farms - it happened a few years later at Rishon LeTzion.

This was all before Herzl and the idea of a modern Jewish state. In other words, this was not a coordinated attack on Zionists, but on Jews.

It is hardly surprising that Jews built communities on the east bank of the Jordan - everyone knew that as part of Palestine in the 19th century. The article's pretense that there was a separate "Jordanian" identity is as absurd as thinking there was a Palestinian Arab identity at the time.

So this article is a celebration of ethnic cleansing of Jews from Transjordan in the 19th century.

Not Zionists, not nationalists - Jews.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Did @Netanyahu get ambushed with a "Greater Israel" question?

From Times of Israel:

Several Arab countries expressed dismay on Wednesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a day earlier that he felt a connection to the vision of the “Promised Land” and “Greater Israel.”

In an interview with i24News aired on Tuesday evening, Netanyahu was asked by network anchor Sharon Gal if he “feels a connection” to a “vision” of the biblical Promised Land, as depicted in an amulet that Gal had just given him. Netanyahu responded: “Very much.”

Gal stressed to him, “It is Greater Israel.” Netanyahu responded, “If you ask me, we are here,” paused, and then turned the subject to the role of his father’s generation in establishing Israel and his own generation’s responsibility to ensure Israel’s survival.

Gal sells the pendants so we can see what he gave Netanyahu. Here it is:

This is a map showing a version of Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates.

But the pendant can easily be viewed this way:

Which, if only glanced at for a second, could easily be mistaken for a map of Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights.

The words "Greater Israel" has two meanings - one roughly the area of British Mandate Palestine and the other the Biblical promise extending from the Nile to the Euphrates. It seems entirely possible that Sharon Gal, who uses the latter definition, trapped Bibi by using the same phrase that could mean two things while handing him in real time a pendant that could be mistaken for the smaller one.

This is a difference between 28,000 and 1.5 million square kilometers.

There is no way Netanyahu supports an Israel that extends over that vast amount of territory, not to mention the 250 million Arabs who live in that area. But some extreme right-wing Israelis do want that, and the Arab world is convinced that this is what all Israelis want - and now they have "proof."

I think Bibi got ambushed to say what Gal wanted him to say, without clarifying what definition of "Greater Israel" was being discussed.

And the media is eating this up.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Gaza NGOs meet secretly with Gaza Humanitarian Foundation - and @UNRWA is PISSED

Last week, representatives of several NGOs working in Gaza - including UN OCHAA, WFP, UNICEF and the ICRC - met with the head of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation under the auspices of the US UN team. They had a cordial meeting about how the rhetoric against the GHF has not been helpful and starting to explore how they could work together to bring much needed food into Gaza.

When UNRWA found out about the meeting, it sent out an angry memo - how dare anyone treat GHF as anything but a Zionist and American organization that wants to murder Gazans?

Here is the leaked memo of the initial meeting:

From: "Hart, Tom" thart@interaction.org (mailto:thart@interaction.org)
Subject: Confidential read out of meeting with UN and GHF - from Joyce and Tom H
Date: 7 August 2025 at 05:14:45 CEST
To: IASC Chair iascchair@un.org (mailto:iascchair@un.org), IASC Principals IASCPrincipals@un.org (mailto:IASCPrincipals@un.org)

Dear IASC colleagues -

The US mission to the UN, led by Ambassador Dorothy Shea, organized a private meeting with a small group of us and Johnnie Moore, Executive Chairman of the GHF. The full participant list is at the end. We agreed there would be no public comment on the meeting and we were under Chatham House rules.

The conversation was constructive, open, and we believe helpful. We agreed it would be good for all to lower the public rhetoric and to focus on moving forward rather than what has happened or said previously. We agreed the need was far outpacing the response and the crisis required all-hands-on-deck. Everyone should be doing everything they can to save lives.

There was a sense we could and should operate in parallel, complementary ways, each doing what we can. Fuller collaboration was raised without clarity on what that would mean. Several concerns with the GHF model were tabled based on humanitarian principles. All agreed that flooding the zone would have multiple benefits - most importantly to those in need, as well as to reduce the desperation and chaos at GHF sites and UN convoys, and to diminish the value aid and the risk of diversion to Hamas.

Bureaucratic impediments were raised as a major concern, including visas, staff registration, and security, with no resolution but openness to having further conversation. We shared we have seen no appreciable difference in access since Israel announced daily pauses and humanitarian corridors.

We agreed further conversations on diversion, how to flood the zone, how working in a complementary way might work, and connecting country-level teams. These issues will be managed at the technical level.

Joyce M and Tom H

List of Attendees:
USUN:Ambassador Dorothy Shea
Jonathan Shrier
Morgan Ortagus
Ari Wisch
Bo Sim, PRM detail

Johnnie Moore, GHF
Joyce Msuya, OCHA
Ayaka Qureshi, WFP
Amina Elmi, UNICEF
Michele Sison, IOM
Elyse Mosquini, ICRC
Tom Hart, InterAction

This is how humanitarians should act - finding ways to work together and playing to each of their strengths. Notice also that the memo tacitly admits that aid gets diverted to Hamas.

UNRWA's letter was as angry as a diplomatic letter can get. The pro-terror agency that pretends to be humanitarian is extremely upset at any aid program that bypasses Hamas.

For example, in response to the idea that all players should "lower the public rhetoric," UNRWA wrote:

The United Nations and our protection partners have a clear obligation to advocate for and protect Palestinians subject to human rights and IHL violations, including when these are associated with the GHF. Silence in the face of incidents that may amount to war crimes - which have continued since last week's meeting - may be perceived as complicity. This may prompt conclusions that humanitarian principles have been subordinated to political or military objectives, which would have consequences for humanitarian action beyond Gaza. The same applies to any proposed cooperation with the GHF.

As far as cooperating with GHF, UNRWA is no less angry:

It would also be important to clarify the proposed follow up to the meeting last week, including at the technical and operational levels, to prevent a fracturing of the humanitarian community in Gaza and further endanger humanitarian operations and personnel.

This is right out of the Hamas playbook - everyone must be on the same page of demonizing anything remotely connected with Israel, or else.

Remember, UNRWA has cooperated with Hamas for years. It has employed numerous Hamas members. When Hamas tells it to change its Gaza school curriculum, it changes it. It has had its own secret meetings - not with aid agencies but with terror groups.

There is no daylight between UNRWA and Hamas. I mean, literally zero. They both want the exact same thing - aid continuing to strengthen a murderous terror organization, and boycotting anyone who tries to find an alternative.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

08/13 Links Pt2: Human rights orgs. should demand Al Jazeera stop hiring terrorists; Toronto Film Festival Cancels October 7 Documentary; The Evil Idea That Has Taken Over the Woke Right

From Ian:

Israel, Protector of the West, Treacherously Undermined by France, UK, Canada and Australia

Macron's announcement to recognize a fantasy "Palestinian state" not only demolished the negotiations that were reportedly nearing completion for a ceasefire and the return of the 50 remaining hostages; it also might cause the death by starvation, shooting or explosives possibly strapped to them, of the 20 hostages believed to be alive

The Druze -- a small ethnically Arab religious minority that originated as a breakaway from the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam -- do not consider themselves Muslim. Therefore, the other Arabs in Syria do not consider them Muslim either. For months, regime "security forces" have been slaughtering them. Islamic terrorists believe that they are obligated to slaughter anyone not Muslim, based on passages in the Qur'an.

Something appears wrong with this picture. Al-Sharaa promised Trump that he would protect Syria's minorities; so far, he seems to be doing everything but that.

In the latest of these opposition demonstrations, on July 21, dozens of protestors in Gaza shouted "Hamas Out." There is still strong reason to doubt, however, however, if Gazans would be more favorably inclined toward Israel if Hamas were gone.

Israel is already over-extended in defending virtually every minority in the region – while receiving nothing but opprobrium from most of the insensate media and many in Europe. They seem not to realize that they are the beneficiaries of Israel's actions, even as they keep on giving away their continent to newcomers who seem intent on replacing Europe's values with their own.

The question remains, however, if Syria's al-Sharaa in is not still just a terrorist, but in a suit and tie.

Jonathan Tobin: The futility of compassion for those who want to kill you

Validating blood libels
Even worse, it provides Jewish validation for the mendacious Hamas propaganda campaign that alleges that Israel is committing genocide and deliberately starving Palestinians.

Too many Jewish groups, including liberal religious denominations, have chimed in to support a false narrative that the Israeli government’s resolve to continue fighting until Hamas is eradicated is unjust or an act of aggression, as opposed to a defensive war that needs to be won. Influenced by biased liberal media coverage, they take it for granted that blood libels about starvation and genocide are at least partially true, and not just canards rooted in antisemitism.

Israel’s many efforts to trade land for peace in the past didn’t solve the conflict. In fact, it only convinced its foes of the validity of their false claim that the Jewish state’s presence in Judea and Samaria, as well as Jerusalem, was illegal and that the Israelis were behaving as if they were criminals holding onto stolen property.

Rather than a demonstration of Jewish morality, donations aimed at alleviating Palestinian suffering are more likely to convince the recipients and their foreign cheerleaders that they are a manifestation of Jewish guilt and an indication that these Americans feel that they are complicit in Israeli crimes against humanity. In this way, it will buttress the very same blood libel about genocide that UJA says it opposes and help encourage the surge of antisemitism that followed on the heels of the attacks on Israel.

While being charitable sounds like the right thing to do, it won’t do much to help people caught up in the war. But it will be held up as evidence that even Israel’s American Jewish supporters understand that they are part of an evil conflict.

Once the war is over and Hamas eradicated, there will be a time when aid to Gaza might do some good—provided, that is, that the Palestinians are ready to move on from their obsession with an endless, futile war to destroy the Jewish state. Until then, Jewish funds should be exclusively directed toward alleviating the very real suffering of Israeli victims of the war, the wounded and the families of those slain by Hamas, as well as the health of the hostages, and rebuilding the communities sacked by Palestinians who took part in the Oct. 7 invasion and assault.

Doing so isn’t selfish, especially when considering that foreign charities, countries and the United Nations spending so much on Gaza are indifferent to the war’s impact on Israelis.

Compassion, even for one’s enemies, may seem high-minded. And, of course, we deplore all the deaths and the suffering that this war has brought to both sides. However, when it is applied to those who wish you dead, it becomes an incentive for hate, not an act of kindness. Donating to Gaza now isn’t an indication of a healthy moral compass. It’s a particularly dysfunctional indication of having lost one.

JPost Editorial: Human rights orgs. should demand Al Jazeera stop hiring terrorists, not condemn Israel

The evidence seems irrefutable. Sharif may have been a journalist, but he was also a Hamas member. And as such, given his euphoric social media posts on October 7, 2023, praising the Hamas massacre of innocent Israelis, he wasn’t an objective bystander – he was an enemy of Israel. Putting a “press” sticker on his shirt doesn’t give him immunity.

The disclosures about Sharif put Al Jazeera in an even darker light than it found itself in last year when Israel banned the media network from having offices and broadcasting from the country.

However, Israel isn’t alone in being suspicious of the Qatar-funded network. No less than The New York Times, in a Tuesday report on Al Jazeera, acknowledged it, writing that “in 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain all banned Al Jazeera amid a diplomatic spat with Qatar. Along with Egypt, the countries had accused Al Jazeera of backing terror groups.”

Even the Palestinian Authority has outlawed the network, which has no credibility, either inside or outside the Arab world.

Instead of condemning Israel, journalists' associations and human rights organizations should be demanding that Al Jazeera stop employing terrorists in their midst. Its policy of doing so puts bona fide journalists in grave danger.

The issue of whether the military benefits of eliminating al-Sharif outweigh the international pummeling Israel has taken as a result of it is something the army and the government will have to grapple with.

However, to accuse Israel of deliberately targeting journalists and ignoring al-Sharif’s Hamas connection is being disingenuous – but not surprising.

08/13 Links Pt1: Why Experts Torch Their Own Credibility to Smear Israel; Hostage families sue ICC prosecutor; Hamas praises Australia’s Albanese on Palestinian statehood

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Why Experts Torch Their Own Credibility to Smear Israel

Yet another case of corrupted international standards once again raises the question: Why is it so important to the world to falsely accuse Israel of causing famine? The genocide charge falls into this category as well: Why is legitimate criticism of warfighting not enough, and why are global agencies and other institutions driven to change their own standards just to convict Israel of a crime it didn’t commit?

The latest examples come from USAID and the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the latter being a food-related coalitional enterprise under the auspices of the United Nations. The Washington Free Beacon reports that the IPC “quietly changed one of its key reporting metrics … making it easier to formally declare that there is a famine in the Hamas-controlled territory.”

For many in the media and activism spheres, this was the announcement they were long waiting for. The credentialism game was again afoot: Activists could point to “experts” who would appeal to their own authority. The IPC said let there be famine, and there it was.

As the Free Beacon pointed out, the IPC simply tailored its metrics to fit the accusation. Indeed, it is the extent of the changes that really tells you how big was the gap between what Israel was being accused of and what Israel was guilty of:

“Unlike previous IPC reports on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, the July report includes a metric—known as mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC)—the agency has not historically used to determine whether a famine is taking place. The report also includes a lowered threshold for the proportion of children who must be considered malnourished for the IPC to declare a famine, down to 15 percent from 30 percent.”

Those arm circumference measurements, by the way, replaced “detailed weight and height measurements to determine whether a child is suffering from acute malnutrition.”

In other words, the agency took rigorous standards and tore them to shreds. And for what? For the opportunity to accuse Israel of a crime the IPC knew it wasn’t committing.

This is an absolutely bizarre trend. Scientific agencies are blowing up their own credibility to score political points in one conflict. That credibility won’t return to them when they turn their attention to other conflicts and perhaps go back to using accurate data.

Why is flawed Gaza data in top US journal? - opinion

The journal Foreign Affairs is one of the most prestigious academic journals in the world. It is published by the Council on Foreign Relations, headquartered in New York. Articles submitted to it undergo strict peer review before publication. Recently, the journal published an article by a respected professor from the University of Chicago, Robert A. Pape, on Israel’s fighting in Gaza.

In our view, the article suffers from fundamental flaws in the professional standards required in any academic publication, especially in one so highly respected. Here we will focus only on the numerical data given by the author.

The data on which the article is based come from reports by Hamas’s health authorities. To the author’s credit, he explicitly notes this. However, he then proceeds to rely on this data without raising the obvious question of its reliability. By omitting such a statement, he sends a clear message that, in his view, these are genuine figures – as if they were reports from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The starting point of the article is the figure disseminated by Hamas, according to which the number of Palestinians dead in Gaza exceeds 61,000, and more than 145,000 have been seriously wounded. How many of them are “Hamas fighters” and how many are “uninvolved civilians”? The author acknowledges that Hamas does not make that distinction, and he follows suit.

Flawed and misleading information
The author does not bother to pose to his readers the obvious question: Why does Hamas not present a clear distinction between “combatants” and “civilians”? Are these truly “real figures”? Or is it simply convenient for Hamas to present a blurred picture, hoping that public opinion will tag them as “civilians” – just as the author of the article does?

This “implicit” message already appears in the subheadline: “Why Punishing Civilians Doesn’t Produce Strategic Gains.” Later, he explicitly states that Israel’s tactic in the war is the “punishment of civilians.”

Only with such a label can the esteemed author define Israel’s military activity in Gaza as “slaughter.” Does this approach meet the standard required of reliable academic research? To us, it seems not.

Clifford D May: America’s fair-weather friends

In an interview on Fox News last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set out the plan’s goals: “We want to liberate ourselves and liberate the people of Gaza from the awful terror of Hamas in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free, and to pass it to civilian governance.”

Israelis are divided over the wisdom of the plan. Many think they’ve reached a point of diminishing returns militarily and should strategically retreat to security buffer zones.

What about Gazans? Are they divided? Or would most prefer that Hamas release the hostages and seek a truce—or at least resume negotiations that could lead to delaying Israel’s Gaza City plan?

Gazans who say such things publicly are likely to be summarily executed, with the Hamas-obedient international media giving scant coverage to either their courageous dissent or their untimely deaths.

The Trump administration’s position was clearly articulated by Vice President JD Vance last week: “Number one, we want to make it so that Hamas cannot attack innocent Israeli civilians ever again, and we think that has to come through the eradication of Hamas. Second, the president has been very moved by these terrible images of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, so we want to make sure that we solve that problem.”

I wish Germany, France and Britain were saying the same.

They’re adamant that U.S. President Donald Trump work with them to support Ukraine, a fledgling European democracy defending itself against a revanchist dictator.

Does it not follow, as a matter of principle and self-interest, that they ought to work with Trump to support a mature Middle Eastern democracy defending itself against a terrorist proxy of the Islamic Republic of Iran whose goal is openly and even proudly genocidal?

I wonder if Messrs. Merz, Starmer and Macron understand how tough they are making it for Atlanticists like me to push back against the growing number of Americans who regard West Europeans as fair-weather friends, always there for us when they need us.

Woman who worked in morgue on October 7 accuses Starmer of ‘torpedoing’ peace in Gaza

An Israeli morgue worker who witnessed the extent of Hamas’s atrocities on October 7 firsthand has accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of “torpedoing” any chance for peace or the return of hostages by recognising a Palestinian state.

Shari Mendes, 64, who, as a member of the team at Israel’s national morgue, examined the bodies of many of the women murdered and mutilated on October 7, wrote an “urgent plea” to Starmer yesterday.

“Your offer to recognise a Palestinian state has put the lives of the 20 or so living Israeli hostages in jeopardy and made it harder to recover the bodies of 30 other Israelis,” she wrote. “More significantly, it has torpedoed any chances for peace.”

She wrote that despite her being a “regular person” and not in the habit of writing to prime ministers, it is “unfathomable” to her that Jews should be starved and forced to dig their own graves again so soon after the Holocaust.

She said if Hamas is pressured to surrender then the war would end and a “true demilitarised and peaceful government in Gaza is the first step toward Israeli acceptance that real peace and security is possible.”

If Starmer issues a statement similar to the following, she claimed, he would be able to save lives of both innocent Israelis and Palestinians: “‘In order for there to be lasting peace in the Middle East I must add a condition to any offer to recognise a Palestinian state. Hamas must surrender and release all Israeli hostages they hold before any negotiations over Palestinian statehood can begin. Hamas cannot stay. They must disarm and go into exile. They must leave Gaza as the first step to ending this terrible war which they started, so that reconstruction and a chance for the citizens of Gaza and Israel to live side by side in peace, can start.’”

As part of the unit in the IDF specialising in the identification and preparation for burial of female soldiers, Mendes was invited in early 2024 to the House of Lords in London to give testimony on what she had witnessed working on the mutilated bodies of October 7 victims.

On August 12, four mothers—Galia David, Merav Gilboa Dalal, Viki Cohen, and Sylvia Cunio—traveled to Geneva to beg the Red Cross to do something, anything, for their children, held captive by Hamas since October 7, 2023. I saw the story in Ynet and hoped it might offer a reason for hope—something in short supply these days.

I should have known better. It’s Ynet. There was nothing worth seeing in this story, nothing new—only an anonymous Israeli source claiming the Red Cross hasn’t been cruel or insensitive to the hostages. “An Israeli source familiar with the Red Cross’s work told Ynet that Red Cross officials ‘weren't empathetic enough toward the hostage families mainly because they are Swiss and follow protocols, not because they are anti-Israel.’” In other words, they’re just Swiss—wedded to their protocol, not to saving Jewish lives.

The article suggested that things would be different this time. But instead of coming away feeling better, I felt sick at the thought of the false hope that been fed to these mothers who have been suffering so, so hard, for so long—that something would actually be done this time, that the Red Cross would do its job for once, and do something, anything for our hostages.

A mother’s tears are powerful, but perhaps not powerful enough to sway the “Swiss.”

Oh sure, the mothers came away with hope. They think something has changed. Why should it be different now? It was the awful images we all saw, now burned into our very souls, of Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski, looking like Muselmänner*, like the photos of Jews in Auschwitz, skeletal, skin and bones. Evyatar has lost 41% of his body weight.

In the propaganda video Hamas released, Evyatar is digging his own grave. Rom Braslavski, meanwhile, can no longer stand.

It is hard to believe the agonizing desperation their mothers feel can worsen. But those images of their sons moved them to speak from the rawest place a mother can speak, showing ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric photos of their sons’ faces with hollows where flesh should be. They pleaded for medicine, for food, for a chance to keep them alive until they can be freed. They thought, “Surely these photos will move the Red Cross,” move Spoljaric, who, after all, is a mother herself.

Spoljaric did all the right things—the expected things. She took their hands, leaned forward, and promised to do “everything in her power.” Her expression seemed to hold the right mix of sympathy and resolve, or at least the mothers thought so. They believed they had touched her heart.

But they hadn’t. What they had touched was a performance—one Spoljaric has given before and is almost certain to give again. She said the Red Cross will try to help, but it should be obvious by now that they won’t.

It’s been more than a year and a half since I wrote about the International Committee of the Red Cross and its refusal to do anything at all for the Israeli hostages. Why? They despise Jews. During the Holocaust, the Red Cross knew about the gas chambers and did nothing. They hid behind a label of “neutrality” when they were anything but.

PM Netanyahu Meets with ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric, 14.12.2023 © Photo by Amos Ben-Gershom, GPO

What has changed from December 2023—when I last wrote about this—to now, August 2025, when four mothers, evoking the four matriarchs of the Jewish people, went to beg for their children’s lives, for a bit of food and some medical attention for their sons? Mirjana Spoljaric has a son and a daughter. You might think that would make a difference—that she would empathize with the hostage mothers.

But that would be an illusion. The Red Cross holds no empathy for Jews. This is just a cruel new act the Red Cross has added to its repertoire: dangling hope in front of mothers in unimaginable pain, then walking away and doing nothing. Because we know that’s what will happen.

If you want to understand the Red Cross’s true capacity for evil and inaction, remember 84-year-old Alma Avraham. She was released in November 2023 in critical condition: a pulse of 40, a body temperature of 28°C (82.4°F), unconscious and with multiple injuries. Her family had begged the Red Cross—twice—to deliver her life-sustaining medications. Twice, they refused.

Alma spent five months in the hospital fighting for her life. An 84-year-old woman. And the Red Cross looked away and did nothing.

The Red Cross says it “can’t” visit hostages because Hamas will not allow it. But this is not true. It’s not that the Red Cross can’t help the hostages, but that they choose not to. The Red Cross operates in Gaza with Hamas’s blessing. It runs hospitals. It delivers supplies. Hamas gives them no trouble at all. Red Cross personnel have complete freedom of movement under Hamas—except when it comes to saving Jews.

No. The inaction of the Red Cross is not about Swiss neutrality and a need to follow protocol. In fact, the Red Cross is not at all neutral when it comes to Israel and Hamas. It is aligned with Hamas. It respects Hamas for October 7, for the slaughter, for the terror, for the rape of Jewish women and the beheading of Jewish children. It allies itself with Hamas because Hamas has done openly what the Red Cross has always endorsed without saying the quiet part out loud—hurt Jews, mutilate Jews, rape and humiliate them, starve Jews, strip them of all dignity and life.

It’s always been the same Red Cross—the same body that during the Holocaust refused to speak out about the camps, even as Jews were being gassed, starved, and burned by the millions. Back then, the Red Cross played by Nazi rules to keep its privileges because it didn’t care what was done to the Jews—didn’t like Jews. Today, the Red Cross plays by Hamas’ rules for the same reason—and with the same satisfaction.

Remember the Steinbrechers, begging for their daughter Doron’s daily pills, only to be scolded: “Think about the Palestinian side”? The Red Cross is not a powerless observer. It is a willing accomplice—and has been for generations.

This is the same organization that knew about Auschwitz in 1942 but said nothing, claiming it couldn’t jeopardize access to Allied POWs. Roger Du Pasquier, head of the ICRC’s Information Department, even lied about being “ill-informed.” And now, in 2025, the ICRC’s silence on Jewish suffering is once again dressed up as pragmatic restraint.

When lawsuits from hostage families and groups like Shurat HaDin accuse the Red Cross of abandoning Jews, they aren’t exaggerating—they are documenting a pattern. Seventy-six years later, the Red Cross still finds ways to look away from Jewish suffering while keeping its credentials spotless.

And now here we are, with two living skeletons starring in Hamas propaganda videos, their suffering public and undeniable. The Red Cross says they are “appalled” and “reiterate our call for access.” Appalled? Appalled is what you feel when a waiter forgets your coffee order. They’re not appalled. They’re complicit.

From 1930 to 2006, the Red Cross refused to recognize Israel’s Magen David Adom because of “territorialism”—a diplomatic fig leaf meaning no Jewish symbols allowed. The Muslim crescent? Accepted without hesitation. The Iranian red lion and sun? Not a problem. But a Jewish star? Not a chance.

Even now, abroad, Israel must hide its emblem inside the hollow “Red Crystal,” because the Star of David is still not recognized as a protected symbol. A small piece of metal and cloth tells the whole story: to the Red Cross, Jewish identity is something to be concealed, diluted, and finally, erased.

Don’t be fooled. The Red Cross did not meet with the mothers out of empathy or a desire to save lives. They granted a meeting only because the images of those skeletal Muselmänner had leaked out before the public eye. Some show of sympathy had to be made, or it wouldn’t have looked right.

So Spoljaric staged an audience, then sent the hostage mothers packing with the thinnest thread of hope—an illusion of momentum. Did the mothers really think that after seeing those hollowed-out faces someone would care, someone would cry, someone would save their sons?

If so, that’s not what they got.

And now, visit accomplished, the Red Cross can return to business as usual—the business of aiding and abetting the enemies of Israel.

It’s their favorite thing to do.

* Ironically meaning “Muslim men,” but that’s a column for another day.

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From NPR in February:

Khadija al-Ali was just 3 years old when her family fled their home in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and came to this Palestinian refugee camp in Syria.

"My advice to the people of Gaza is to hold on. Do not leave, even if it means they all become martyrs," she said.

Hmmm. The headline didn't mention that last part:

Saying that it is better for 2 million people to die than to seek safety is a hell of a message. Yet this is mainstream Palestinian thinking - when they are not the ones who are in danger of being killed.

There's another message she has:

"The Arab armies were all saying, 'We are coming to fight for you. Leave for eight days, and we will liberate the land,'" she said. "People left carrying their house keys and locking their doors. So people left thinking they would return in eight days."

Those eight days have turned into 77 years in the congested Jaramana Refugee Camp on the edge of Damascus

Yet this small fact - that the Palestinian Arabs were told to leave in expectation of slaughtering the Jews and their imminent victorious return - is left unremarked by NPR.

Instead, it gives a revisionist history of the 1948 war:

That 1948 Mideast War erupted at Israel's founding and pitted Israel against several Arab states. The war scattered some 750,000 Palestinian refugees throughout the Middle East.

It "erupted." No one attacked Israel, no, it was just a volcano. And the attacks against Jews before Israel's founding are left unmentioned. The fact that there were Jewish refugees from the war too, who became citizens - not mentioned. The fact that the Arab world expelled a similar amount of Jews - no one has to know that.

In December 1948, while the war was still ongoing, the United Nations passed Resolution 194, which says refugees should be able to return to their homes at "the earliest practicable date."

NPR decided to exclude another condition: "the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours."

Given the cheers, fireworks and sweets Palestinians routinely provide every time Jews get viciously killed, it seems that these six words were never fulfilled in 77 years.

I wonder why NPR decides to report things so one-sidedly.

Actually, no one wonders that.

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How the data on defining "famine" in Gaza might be false

There is an interesting footnote in the latest IPC fact sheet on Gaza titled "Worst-case scenario of Famine unfolding in the Gaza Strip":

Normally, the IPC chooses to measure Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) using WHZ (weight to height Z score) in preference to Mid-Upper Arm Circumference. Their technical manual says that they should only rely on MUAC under strict conditions:

Preference of GAM based on WHZ: GAM based on MUAC may only be used in the absence of GAM based on WHZ. In exceptional cases where GAM based on MUAC portrays a much more severe situation than GAM based on WHZ (i.e. two or more phases higher), GAM based on MUAC should also be taken into account along with a critical analysis of the contributing factors before a final phase is determined.
GAM based on MUAC classification is based on an analysis of the relationship between WHZ and MUAC in the analysis area and convergence of evidence: GAM based on MUAC must only be used in the absence of GAM based on WHZ, and always using convergence of evidence with contributing factors to arrive at the final phase. In exceptional conditions where GAM based on MUAC portrays a much more severe situation than GAM based on WHZ (i.e. two or more phases), GAM based on MUAC should also be taken into account in the phase classification. MUAC-based classifications should be supported by the relationship between GAM based on WHZ, and GAM based on MUAC in the area of analysis. Convergence of evidence should focus on assessing the status of contributing factors (e.g. disease outbreak, food security crisis) as well as historical trends.

Their data sheet does not explain why they rely on GAM and not WHZ. They have a footnote referring to a detailed sampling methodology and data by the UN Nutrition Cluster yet that document does not mention WHZ at all.

To measure WHZ requires a scale and a height board, which can be expected to be found in every hospital and medical clinic in Gaza. Any health workers who go into the field to take random samples, however, would only be expected to have a tape measure to measure arm circumference. Presumably that is the basis for their choosing to rely on MUAC. Yet even so, they are supposed to show a relationship between the prevalence of GAM based on MUAC and GAM based on WHZ.

Now, let's think about this. The only way they can make such a relationship is by measuring both MUAC and WHZ in hospitals and clinics where there are scales and tape measures. But the children being brought into hospitals are far more likely to have illnesses that would indicate both weight loss and MUAC, like diarrhea or acute respiratory infections, which are temporary. If, say, 40% of children are brought into hospitals/clinics for such reasons, and 40% of the samples taken are from hospitals and clinics (both of those are quite reasonable assumptions), that would be equivalent to the 16% of sampled children exhibiting low MUAC scores - even if every child who is at home is perfectly healthy.

The lack of detail by IPC of their sampling methodology is concerning and could easily be skewed.

Also strange is the sudden dramatic increase of MUAC issues in Gaza City in just one month. Normally these would increase slowly over months in normal areas of famine.

Finally, we have the problem we've had since the beginning: the number of actual deaths counted, while claimed to have increased to the low hundreds, is nowhere near the numbers that are required to declare famine (four child deaths per ten thousand per day) - which would be dozens of deaths daily in Gaza City alone.

The IPC was careful not to say there was a famine in Gaza, or even to say that there was "likely famine" there. It said "worst case scenario of famine unfolding" which has no definition - but it sure gets reported on in the media as if it means an actual famine.

Things aren't adding up.

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Hamas performs a war crime on video. World media ignores it.

From COGAT:

🚨WATCH: 5 Armed terrorists operated under the cover of a fake emblem of @WCKitchen placed on a vehicle in Gaza - and were eliminated from the air.

The terrorists deliberately affixed the emblem and wore yellow vests in an attempt to conceal their activity and avoid being… pic.twitter.com/BoeHN6SFsW
— COGAT (@cogatonline) August 12, 2025

This is the war crime of perfidy. We can see it. World Central Kitchen confirms it wasn't there vehicle. Hamas (presumably) pretended to be aid workers to shield themselves from being targeted. This puts all humanitarian workers in Gaza at risk.

An, as I write this ten hours after Israeli and Jewish media covered the story, nearly no one else decided that this was newsworthy.

The only exceptions were the New York Post, CNN and Newsweek.

CNN mentioned it, buried the WCK statement, and then spends more space talking about how there wasn't enough aid in Gaza than on the story itself.

Newsweek put "fake aid workers" in scare quotes, and then watered down the story by adding:

Late last month, The New York Times published an op-ed by Andrés titled "The World Cannot Stand By With Gaza on the Brink of Famine." In it, he disputed Israel's claims of Hamas looting humanitarian aid convoys and criticized what he called a "blockade" imposed by Israel against sufficient levels of food entering Gaza.

It's funny that this is the context that it decides to publish, and not mention that the UN's own statistics show that WCK collected 444 trucks of food since late May, of which 346 - 78% - were intercepted by armed terrorists.

Isn't that relevant when the head of an organization denies any such problem?

But as of this writing, the New York Times didn't report it. Reuters didn't either. AP buried it at the very bottom of an article on a different Gaza story. The Washington Post published yet another "starving Gaza" story but didn't say a word about this one.

Usually, when there is video showing an actual war crime happening, it gets media coverage. But not when Hamas does it. No legal experts consulted to explain the war crime of perfidy. Israel's video is doubted - is it really Hamas? Maybe it is a bunch of other Gazans who have the resources to paint a WCK logo on a vehicle?

The real way to see media bias is to see what the media chooses not to report. This story is proof positive that an event that has every attribute of a compelling story - terrorists caught in the act on video - is largely ignored by the media whose job is to inform the public of what it going on.

If you are wondering why the world is so anti-Israel, this is a big reason.

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