Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, August 26, 2025

08/26 Links Pt2: Iranian Ambassador expelled; Tehran Was Behind Anti-Semitic Attacks in Sydney and Melbourne; Yes, the whole world is wrong about Israel

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: Yes, the whole world is wrong about Israel

We’ve been here before, observing other examples of when journalistic groupthink in the mainstream media creates false narratives.

In September 2000, at the start of the Second Intifada—the Palestinian Arab terrorist war of attrition that answered Israeli and American offers of statehood—another atrocity story became emblematic of how false reporting can influence world opinion. The television channel France 2 broadcast edited footage claiming to show that a 12-year-old boy, Mohammed al-Durrah, was shot dead by Israeli forces while clinging to his father. The claim set off a global tsunami of anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrations, as well as providing an alleged justification for more acts of murderous Palestinian terrorism.

Yet, as subsequent investigations showed and documented in Richard Landes’ 2022 book, Can The Whole World Be Wrong?, the incident was staged by the Palestinians in a classic “Pallywood” information operation that made it clear the allegation was a hoax. Nevertheless, the mainstream media acted as stenographers for Israel’s foes in much the same way they now do for Hamas’s claims about civilian casualty statistics, starvation and other supposed Israeli misconduct.

Nor is this mentality limited to anti-Israel media bias. Journalistic groupthink, motivated by partisanship or ideology, can have the same impact on other issues.

It happened when some of these same outlets that now defame Israel about Gaza were insisting in 2017 and 2018 that there was credible evidence that President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election, though the American public now knows that the charge was a lie debunked by the FBI even before the smear was made public. No one at the Times or The Washington Post has subsequently given back the Pulitzer Prizes they got for those misleading, if not downright erroneous, stories. But in the first years of Trump’s first term, even those who were inclined to support him figured there had to be some truth to the claims if so many journalists all agreed they were true.

The current campaign of disinformation is just as dishonest. But when you consider that its impact is to empower antisemites on both the left and the far right, and to create an atmosphere in which Jews are increasingly at risk, the consequences are not merely an unfairly hobbled administration but a wave of violent Jew-hatred.

Battling untruths is difficult for those who are engaged in the business of public discourse and journalism. How much more challenging is it for ordinary people and college students to stand up against the tide of invective and to defend the justice of a war to eradicate the terrorists for the sake of both Israelis and Palestinians?

It may take more courage than many individuals possess to correctly identify the corporate media’s conventional wisdom about Israel as blood libels that have led to the mainstreaming of antisemitism. Nevertheless, we must remind ourselves and others that just because what seems like the whole world is ready to buy into a lie, that doesn’t make falsehoods true. And just because questioning conventional wisdom that emanates from Hamas propaganda is being labeled as no different from “Holocaust denial” by journalists who pose as truth-tellers, that shouldn’t deter us from pointing out that their narratives are at odds with facts about the war in Gaza.

Though you wouldn’t know it if all you read is the Times and similar outlets, the world is lying about Israel—and those who defend it are not.

Seth Mandel: Iranian Terror in Australia Clarifies the Stakes

Late last night (in DC time, anyway), Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called a rather remarkable press conference. Australia’s domestic intelligence agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, had been digging into a spate of anti-Semitic attacks since Oct. 7, 2023. Albanese announced that the agency “has gathered enough credible intelligence to reach a deeply disturbing conclusion—that the Iranian Government directed at least two of these attacks,” including one on a synagogue in Melbourne.

Albanese continued:

“ASIO assesses it is likely Iran directed further attacks as well. These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil. … A short time ago we informed the Iranian Ambassador to Australia that he would be expelled. We have suspended operations at our embassy in Tehran, and all our diplomats are now safe in a third country. I can also announce the Government will legislate to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, as a terrorist organization.”

It is no secret that Albanese has received much deserved scorn lately for his handling of Australia’s relations with Israel and its role in the current conflict. The premier at first signaled that he would proceed with caution on the matter of whether to recognize a Palestinian state. But he threw that caution to the wind once all his friends started joining that particular club.

The pleas of Australia’s Jews fell on deaf ears. Albanese seemed suddenly unconcerned with anti-Semitism and the government’s responsibility to confront it. Upon Israel’s objections to this indifference, Albanese’s government got prickly. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced Albanese as weak-willed, and Albanese’s home affairs minister shot back that Israel measures strength “by how many people you can blow up.”

The row left Australia’s Jewish community even more on-edge. Yet it clearly left the government looking for a way to prove itself tougher in the face of terror and foreign manipulation. The discovery of Iran’s directing attacks on the Australian homeland was just such a chance. And Albanese didn’t fumble it.

Indeed, moving to outlaw the IRGC is a substantial-enough response. One can argue that it should have already been done, but here we are. As for the diplomatic penalties levied on the Islamic Republic, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who joined Albanese at the presser, explained that this was “the first time in the post-war period that Australia has expelled an ambassador.”

Might, dare one hope, this stiffened Australian spine influence other Western leaders the way those leaders’ weakness influenced Australia? At the risk of courting disappointment, it’s worth considering what France in particular can learn from this series of events.
Iran is waging a war on the West - Australian antisemitism is the latest front On July 31, the US, UK, Albania, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden issued a joint statement condemning growing attempts by Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass journalists, dissidents, Jewish citizens, and current and former officials.

The US Justice Department alleged in November that IRGC asset Farhad Shakeri had used the criminal associations he developed in prison to plan the murder of US President Donald Trump and Iranian-American human rights activist Masih Alinejad.

Shakeri was also tasked by the IRGC with the surveillance and murder of two Jewish businesspeople and was asked to plan a mass shooting attack on Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.

Brooklyn resident Carlisle Rivera and Staten Island resident Jonathon Loadholt were contracted by Shakeri to stalk and murder Alinejad.

Iran has repeatedly targeted Alinejad, including an alleged 2022 attempt in which an Eastern European crime syndicate was contracted to murder her.

The US Justice Department said in March that Georgian citizen Polad Omarov and Iranian citizen Rafat Amirov were paid $500,000 for the assassination and that they subcontracted fellow criminal organization member Khalid Mehdiyev to commit the deed. Mehdiyev was arrested before the attack due to a traffic violation.

Last May, the Swedish Security Service alleged that the Islamic Republic had been using criminal networks in the country to target its enemies. This included dissidents from the Iranian diaspora, Israelis, and Jews.

“Iran has earlier carried out acts of violence in other European countries to silence criticism and what it regards as threats to its regime,” it said in a statement.

“In order to carry out these security-threatening activities, the Iranian regime has sometimes made use of criminal networks,” it added.

One such incident in Europe may have been the attempted assassination of Spanish Vox party founder Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca in November 2023, Reuters reported.

Eight people were charged in July for trying to kill Vidal-Quadras. Unknown individuals committed the assault on behalf of a criminal organization seeking revenge for the politician’s support of Iranian opposition groups.

Further, the UK Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament warned in July that Iran had made 15 attempts to kill or abduct Jewish citizens and residents in the country since 2022.

In a threat assessment given by the Counter Terrorism Operations Centre in London in October 2024, MI5 Director-General Ken McCallum said that the Islamic Republic was making extensive use of criminals, “from international drug traffickers to low-level crooks,” to target British citizens and residents. McCallum said security forces had foiled 20 Iranian-backed plots.

Case in point, in May, five men were arrested by London’s Metropolitan Police on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack. Four of them were Iranian nationals. Three more Iranian citizens were arrested in a counterterrorism operation the day after. The Telegraph reported that a plot had been set against the Israeli embassy in the UK.

Iran has been using criminal elements as proxies and directing attacks in other countries for years, with Australia becoming only the latest example of this.

ASIO said that it was likely that other attacks were conducted at Iran’s behest, hinting that it remains to be seen how many of the country’s antisemitic attacks were at the Islamic Regime’s orders.

The rise in antisemitic incidents across the world raises the question of how many other countries may have been victims of Iranian-backed plots.

Whether the West wishes to recognize this or not, Iran is already at war with it, using its criminal proxies to strike within sovereign borders and then cover itself in thinly veiled deniability.

08/26 Links Pt1: We are not being told the truth about Gaza; Six killed in Nasser Hospital were terrorists; The numbers just don’t support the UN-backed Gaza famine report

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: We are not being told the truth about Gaza

The truth – as we have come to expect on everything Israel-related – is far more complicated. What the IDF database actually says is that 8,900 – around one in six – of the dead in Gaza are ‘named fighters’ from ‘Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’. There will be many other dead, it says, who are either fighters who could not be identified or fighters from other Islamist groups. Indeed, the purple-prose ‘exposé’ of the IDF’s supposed genocidal ruthlessness undercut its own claims by acknowledging that the number of fighters killed is ‘likely higher’ than 8,900 since the IDF’s database ‘does not include… operatives who were killed but could not be identified by name [or] Gazans who took part in fighting but were not officially members of Hamas or PIJ’.

Right. So it’s not true that only one in six of the dead are militants. That was a reckless and sinister misrepresentation of the facts. It’s even feasible that the number of fighters who could not be identified is higher than the number who could be: war, after all, is a messy business where establishing facts is hard. And yet the post-truth insistence that 83 per cent of the dead are civilians spread like a fire in influencer circles. ‘Barbarians’, they cried. ‘Demons’, even. The small print, the truth, was incinerated in the rush to damn Israel as genocidal.

It seems the butchery of truth is a small price to pay for that most jealously coveted goal of the West’s cultural establishment: to find Israel guilty of genocide. It’s not only numbers they’ll twist – it’s language, too. Recall when the Irish government said the International Court of Justice should broaden its definition of genocide in order that Israel might be put in the dock for its ‘collective punishment’ of Gaza. Can’t find Israel guilty of genocide? No problem, just change the meaning of genocide. Classic Orwellianism. One human-rights expert reminds us dimwits that genocide is ‘a crime that can be committed without a single person dying’. So whether Israel had killed 60,000 people or none, it could still be deemed a genocidal state. This is a species of madness.

Also last week, the IPC – the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification group linked to the UN – ruled there is famine in Gaza. No one doubts there’s huge suffering in Gaza, including deathly hunger. And yet some scepticism is warranted here, too. Israel says the IPC applied a lower ‘famine threshold’ to Gaza than it does for other countries. The IPC report also seems highly politicised: one of its contributors is an expert on international nutrition who has a track record of stinging commentary on Israel, including describing its founding in 1948 as being built on ‘the destruction of the state of Palestine by Jewish insurgents’. Could we not have some neutral analysis for once, please?

The screws are truly being turned on Israel. A sick union of anti-Semitic militants and fashionably Israelophobic Westerners has devoted itself to damning the Jewish nation as the wickedest nation. Nothing better captures the crisis of civilisation than this sinister pincer movement, this double siege of Israel by the neo-fascists on its borders and their gurning useful idiots in the cultural citadels of the West. Israel should win in Gaza City. But that other flank, the one overrun by Westerners so suspicious of our civilisation that they find greater common cause with its enemies – that will be a harder fight. And not just for Israel – for all of us.

The numbers just don’t support the UN-backed Gaza famine report

However, using an unjustifiably low threshold was only part of the problem. The much bigger issue was that the IPC discarded half of the available data and misrepresented what the remainder actually showed. The key claim for declaring famine was that child malnutrition had surged from around 10 per cent in early July to 16 per cent later in the month, supposedly crossing the famine line. But this “trend” can’t be backed up by the data.

In reality, the IPC based its conclusion on only half of the July sample, covering about 7,500 children, which gave an average of roughly 16 per cent. The full dataset of more than 15,000 children showed rates closer to 12 per cent – well below the famine threshold. Even within the partial sample, the claim of a dramatic upward trend did not hold: the numbers remained flat across the month with no increase at all. By failing to use the complete data, the IPC created the illusion of both a breach and a surge that never occurred.

The same pattern played out with mortality, the second key pillar of a famine declaration. The IPC analysis quietly admitted that reported deaths were below the famine threshold, but then suggested that many deaths might not have been counted. What they did not spell out is just how enormous the gap really was.

For Gaza City, the famine line would have meant close to 200 deaths every single day from hunger or related disease. The actual reported figure was about six deaths per day across the entire Strip – nowhere near the threshold. Even if every one of those deaths had been in Gaza City and directly caused by malnutrition, the rate would still have been more than 30 times lower than the famine threshold.

Of course, in any war zone some deaths may go unreported. But to claim that actual mortality was 30 times higher than the numbers on record is an extraordinary leap. And as the late Carl Sagan famously said: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” The IPC did not provide such evidence. Instead, it relied on speculation and on a few highly controversial studies that were far from sufficient to support claims of hundreds of unreported starvation-related deaths per day. Yet it was precisely this assumption that underpinned the famine declaration.

In addition, the report downplayed or ignored positive signs of recovery, such as increased aid deliveries, falling food prices, and expanded humanitarian access. Observers have also noted that at least one of its authors has a record of anti‑Israel bias.

Taken together, these issues raise serious questions not only about the technical rigour of the analysis, but also about its objectivity and neutrality. In short, the evidence presented by the IPC did not even come close to justifying the use of a famine designation. By lowering the bar and relying on speculation, the report turned a situation of undeniable hardship into a claim of catastrophic collapse that the data simply did not support.

Front-Page NY Times Falsehood Charges “Most” Food Blocked from Gaza

According to the first sentence on the front page of Saturday’s New York Times, Israel “has blocked most food and other aid from entering the Gaza Strip” during the war with Hamas.

The damning charge is repeated in a second Times story, published around the same time, which tells readers that “Israel has blocked most food and other aid from entering the enclave since the war began nearly two years ago,” on Oct. 7.

The statements, a clear message to readers that Israel has allowed only a trickle of food into Gaza, are categorical, sweeping, and definitive.

They are also false.

On average, thousands of tons of food aid per day have entered the Gaza Strip since the Hamas attack. Even with the temporary blockage of most aid between March and May 2025, which contributed to concerning food insecurity (and a spate of dishonest reporting), the rate of food aid into Gaza since Oct 7 massacre has exceeded the pre-war rate.

OCHA’s dashboard shows an average of 2,285 trucks of food per day entered the Gaza Strip in 2023 before the war.

A data portal by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs documents the entry of goods both before and after the start of the war. From January through September 2023, an average of 2,285 truckloads of food per month entered the Strip, according OCHA. With an estimate of about 15 tons of food per truck, that amounts to 1,142 tons per day of food entering Gaza prior to the war.

OCHA’s dashboard shows 17,665 truckloads of food between Oct. 23, 2023 and May 7, 2024.

The same portal describes 17,665 truckloads of food aid entering between Oct. 21, 2023 and May 7, 2024, the last date for which OCHA has complete data. That comes to about 1,332 tons per day.

EoZ cartoons from June (part 1)

Yes, I am way behind....These are from the first half of June, before the 12 day war.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

From JNS:

The Palestinian Authority on Monday condemned attempts by Jewish activist groups to sound the shofar on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, calling the ram’s horn a “dangerous tool” used by Israel to assert sovereignty.

The P.A.’s Jerusalem Governorate warned in a statement that the Jewish tradition of sounding the shofar throughout the Hebrew month of Elul is “no longer a passing religious ritual, but has become one of the most dangerous tools of the occupation to impose its alleged sovereignty.”

The statement denounced attempts to sound the shofar on the Temple Mount as a “direct assault” on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and said it held Israel’s government “fully responsible for repercussions.”

That last sentence is a pre-emptive "get out of jail free" card. What they are saying is "our people have no self control, and if you do anything to upset them and they go on murderous riots, then it is your fault."

Notice that this logic is only one way. Israeli Jews are never expected to get angry enough to go on violent rampages, and if any individuals do they are roundly condemned. But here the condemnation is of the victims, not the violent rioters.

The upshot is that Palestinians can declare literally anything to be a grave insult to them or to Islam, and therefore the rest of the world must pander to their every desire and ensure that they never get angry. Which is difficult when they routinely declare "Days of Rage" for whatever reason seems convenient at the time.

This way of thinking has become so mainstream that no one even questions it anymore. Which means that double standards against Jews in Israel is now part of the fabric of civilization.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Palestine has selected Annemarie Jacir’s Palestine 36 as its official submission for the 2025 Academy Awards in the best international feature category.

The historical drama is set in 1936 during the Palestinian revolt against British colonial rule. The film follows Yusuf, a young villager caught between his rural home and the political upheaval in Jerusalem, as tensions rise amid growing unrest, British crackdowns, and the influx of Jewish immigrants escaping antisemitism in Europe. Palestine 36 will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival with a gala screening during the opening weekend on September 5.

Palestinian Arabs have been trying to turn the 1936-9 Arab Revolt into a romantic "intifada" against "colonialism" for years. Now they have a powerful way to rewrite history.

The event that triggered the revolt was the murders of two Jews in Tulkarem in April 1936. The murders were done by followers of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, the Islamist terrorist who had been killed the previous year by the British after his gangs killed a Jewish policeman.

The gang stopped about 20 cars on the road with the intent to steal their money to fund further attacks, identified three Jews, took them out of their cars and shot them, killing two.

One of the other drivers in the convoy was left unharmed when he shouted "I am a Christian German," and was told to "Go ahead for Hitler's sake."

Hamas has adopted Qassam as their hero, naming their army and rockets after him.

The gangs didn't only want to revolt against the British. They wanted to kill Jews. And they did. During the revolt, which was soon led by the antisemitic Mufti of Jerusalem, hundreds of Jews were murdered.

Here is a cartoon from Filastin that June showing the Jews as a crocodile about to devour them.

Antisemitism was an animating driver behind the revolt. Any film that downplays or ignores that is simply revisionist history meant to whitewash the hate.

(h/t YMedad)

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Yes, @UNICEF eagerness to lie about Israel is "kind of obscene"

Politico reports:

The executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund on Sunday decried debates over the extent of hunger in Gaza as “kind of obscene.”

Speaking to host Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” UNICEF’s Catherine Russell said: “To me, it’s kind of obscene that we are having these conversations arguing about whether the methodology works or not. We know children are dying, right? I am tired of a discussion about, well, are we giving the right information or not?”

She's referring to the flawed IPC report claiming that parts of Gaza are officially famine-stricken.

IPC makes its determinations based on standards - and if the methodology is flawed, then their conclusions are flawed. Which means that there is no famine.

Like "genocide" and "apartheid" and "occupation," "famine" has a specific definition. If you change the definition to make it fit for Israel, then you are simply a liar. It is a big deal.

No one is claiming that children aren't dying in Gaza, a small percentage because of a lack of food. But when the definition of famine says that hundreds of children should be dying a day, and the numbers aren't close to that, then someone is lying.

To Russell, facts don't matter. She's tired of being held to any standards of truth. If she wants it to be called a famine, she can call it a famine. If she wants to say that thousands of kids died from malnutrition, even though it isn't true, she doesn't want to be contradicted. Because insisting on truth is, to her, "obscene."

What is obscene is UNICEF's leaders routinely lying to incite against Israel.

In March 2024, Russell was also on Face the Nation where she claimed that over 13,000 children had been killed in Gaza.

But the Palestinian Health Ministry at the time said that the number was roughly half that amount. The only source for the 13,000 was Hamas.

That was good enough for UNICEF.

It did the same last October, inflating the number of dead children by 6,000 based on Hamas figures - again contradicting the Gaza health ministry.

In March 2024, UNICEF's spokesperson made up a brand new international law just for Israel.

UNICEF even lies to children, with UNICEF Australia creating a guide to the conflict that is filled with things that are simply not true.

Thanks to Catherine Russell, we now know that these aren't mistakes. She made it very clear on national television that UNICEF must not be held to any standards of truth whatsoever, that lies are UNICEF policy, and anyone who insists that a UN agency gives out accurate information is "obscene."

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

08/25 Links Pt2: Journalists Against Journalism; Looting Jewish History; COGAT releases shocking footage of Hamas brutality against Gazans; The Dancing Hamasniks;

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Looting Jewish History

Every story about Israeli archaeology buries the lede, if you’ll excuse the pun.

The latest is an ongoing debate over how to protect ancient historical artifacts from Palestinian marauders in Judea and Samaria. One proposal would grant the Israel Antiquities Authority, a civil administration agency, oversight with regard to archaeological digs beyond the “green line,” the temporary 1949 armistice line treated as a de facto border. At present, the IAA only has authority over sites inside Israel proper, and the military oversees the rest.

A Times of Israel story about it, after going through the requisite motions of he-said-she-said finger-pointing, extracts from this contested earth the following:

“A separate survey by a group of Palestinian archaeologists in 2024 found evidence of looting at 309 of 440 West Bank sites, according to Salah Al-Houdalieh, an archaeology professor at al-Quds University.”

That’s the most important fact to know about the controversy: The Palestinians admit that Palestinians are regularly looting and destroying artifacts at most of the archaeological sites in the West Bank.

What’s the explanation for the ISIS-like obsession with destroying evidence of history? Well, the real reason is because the modern Arab-Palestinian fable of Jewish colonialism doesn’t withstand the inspection of a single grain of sand. But the Palestinians have their own ready explanation for why they are destroying the historical record of the ancient Jewish land on which they live. Here is the aforementioned Palestinian archaeologist al-Houdalieh, writing in January:

“Looting has always been an issue, but the recent escalation of hostilities by Israel against Palestinians has led to an increase in antiquities looting, as tens of thousands of unemployed people struggle to meet their most basic needs.”

The Palestinians, the academic claims, have been forced to become tomb raiders because the areas under Palestinian governance have no jobs.

This deflection is risible, but we should instead focus on the fact that there is no disagreement on whether Arab Palestinians are actively destroying the history of the world. They do not deny it.

Largest dam in ancient Israel uncovered in the City of David

A monumental dam excavated in the Siloam Pool in the City of David National Park has now been dated in a joint study by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Weizmann Institute of Science to the reign of the kings of Judah, Joash or Amaziah. Its construction may have been a creative solution to the climate crisis, about 2,800 years ago, according to the researchers. The research, published Monday in the prestigious scientific journal PNAS, will be presented at the upcoming “City of David Studies” conference in early September.

The massive wall uncovered in excavations of the Siloam Pool in the City of David National Park was built around 805-795 BCE, during the reigns of Kings Joash or Amaziah of Judah. The discovery of the dam was made by the excavation directors Dr. Nahshon Szanton, Itamar Berko, and Dr. Filip Vukosavović on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

“This is the largest dam ever discovered in Israel and the earliest one ever found in Jerusalem. Its dimensions are remarkable: about 12 meters high, over 8 meters wide, and the uncovered length reaches 21 meters - continuing beyond the limits of the current excavation," the directors stated. "The dam was designed to collect waters from the Gihon Spring as well as floodwaters flowing down the main valley of ancient Jerusalem (the historical Tyropoeon Valley) to the Kidron Stream, providing a dual solution for both water shortages and flash floods.”

“Thanks to highly precise scientific dating, this is the first time it is possible to point with certainty to a structure that formed the basis for the construction of the Siloam Pool, which until now we knew only from the Bible and historical sources,” adds Itamar Berko.

Dr. Johanna Regev and Prof. Elisabetta Boaretto of the Weizmann Institute of Science, who employed advanced micro-archaeological methods and extremely high-precision radiocarbon dating, explained: “Short-lived twigs and branches embedded in the dam’s construction mortar provided a clear date at the end of the 9th century BCE, with extraordinary resolution of only about 10 years - a rare achievement when dating ancient finds. To complete the climatic reconstruction, we integrated this dating with existing climate data from Dead Sea cores, from Soreq Cave, and from solar activity records influencing the formation of certain chemical elements. All the data pointed to a period of low rainfall in the Land of Israel, interspersed with short and intense storms that could cause flooding. It follows that the establishment of such large-scale water systems was a direct response to climate change and arid conditions that included flash floods.”

The newly uncovered structure joins two other water systems from the same period discovered in the City of David: an imposing tower that dammed the Gihon Spring, and a water system that gathered water from the Gihon, directed through a channel into the Siloam Pool, where it was joined by floodwaters blocked by the dam.

Seth Mandel: The Dancing Hamasniks

In a case like Nativ’s, there isn’t much room for interpretation. The university policy prohibits discrimination on the basis of, for example, “national origin.” This is why the rampant anti-Zionism across academia is such a legal problem: The claim that someone can be “anti-Israel without being anti-Semitic” becomes irrelevant. Anti-Israel discrimination is national origin discrimination. The rest is noise.

But the Nativ case also shows why the distinction between anti-Israel prejudice and anti-Semitism is so hard to make. Ask yourself the following question: If Yael Nativ had been an Arab Israeli—which the university and activist worlds increasingly and imprecisely call Palestinian—would she have received the same note? To ask the question is to answer it.

So the problem, very clearly, is not that Nativ is from Israel. It’s that she’s a Jew from Israel.

Interestingly, in her original Haaretz op-ed Nativ made the following observation about her students:

“The diligent students read, listened attentively and did everything they were asked to do, except for one thing — speaking and engaging in classroom discussions. They were silent. A lot. Even when I explicitly asked them to speak or asked a specific question, they reacted with great discomfort.”

So Nativ asked a colleague what the Berkeley students were so afraid of. The colleague responded: “That they won’t say the right thing, that they won’t give the exact answer. That they’ll offend you or somebody in the class, that they’ll be subjected to online shaming or will be canceled on social media. They prefer to stay silent and get through the lesson that way.”

I’m skeptical that’s the full explanation. In case after case, students have been unafraid to insult the Israelis in their midst so long as their professor shared their prejudices. (In plenty of cases it was a professor who initiated an anti-Israel pile-on during class.) The students in Nativ’s class weren’t afraid to offend a Jew or an Israeli; they were fearful of speaking their mind because—at least in some cases, we can presume—all they had to say consisted of ad hominem accusations and personal insults.

The truth is, they had nothing worth saying, so they (somewhat miraculously) managed to say nothing. That may have seemed troubling to a visiting professor but unfortunately, in academia, it’s fast becoming the best-case scenario.

08/25 Links Pt1: The hostages are Hamas’s last cards to play – and it will never give them up; In Gaza, they film; in Sudan, they die: The politics of humanitarianism

From Ian:

In Gaza, they film; in Sudan, they die: The politics of humanitarianism

The UN-affiliated Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has published a report claiming “mass famine” in Gaza. The announcement made instant headlines worldwide. But behind the drama was a quiet, extraordinary shift in methodology. Instead of the accepted global standards for measuring malnutrition, the IPC downgraded its criteria, relying on mid-arm circumference instead of weight-to-height and lowering the threshold for acute malnutrition from 30% to just 15%.

These drastic changes appeared only in a footnote. However, the global media treat them as hard facts, blasting headlines that Israel is responsible for “starving Gaza.” Amnesty International has gone even further, accusing Israel of running a “deliberate starvation project.”

The real question is not about the numbers themselves but about perspective. Why does Gaza dominate the global stage while large-scale famines – such as the one unfolding right now in Sudan – barely register? The answer: political humanitarianism.

According to that very same IPC report, nearly 24 million Sudanese face food insecurity. Over eight million are in emergency conditions, and tens of thousands are already in famine. Unlike the disputed Gaza numbers, these are facts that no one contests. Yet, Sudan earns almost no front-page coverage, no mass demonstrations in Western capitals, and no urgent debates in the UN.

Why? Because Hamas has perfected the art of weaponizing human suffering. It blocks aid, manipulates data, and circulates shocking images, all to increase international pressure on Israel. Western media, predisposed to highlight Israel’s faults, plays along.

Sudan’s generals, by contrast, are not running a global PR campaign. There are no glossy NGO videos, no Hollywood stars hugging starving children, no UN resolutions on endless repeat. Most of all, there is no link to Israel or the Jews. The result: Mass death in Sudan remains invisible.

Sanders’s criticism of Israel helps its enemies

Every poll in the United States and Europe reflects a steep rise in antisemitism, nationally and globally. Antisemitism—the oldest hatred—has been around for millennia. It is currently being fueled by the rise of Western progressivism, Arab petrol-dollars and an anti-white ideology that lumps Jews as white oppressors of Palestinians.

The distorted treatment of Israel on the world stage can be exemplified by a recent TV interview between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and CNN news anchor Dana Bash. Sanders, echoing Hamas propaganda, blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and not the terrorists for the situation in the Gaza Strip. Of course, Sanders showed no empathy for the remaining Israeli hostages being starved in Hamas’s tunnels. Nor did he show much compassion for Israel, which experienced the trauma of Oct. 7 and the Hamas-led massacre that included decapitating babies, raping and murdering women, and killing children in front of their parents; crimes against Jews that haven’t been seen since the Holocaust.

Sanders accused Netanyahu and Israel of “going to war against the entire Palestinian people” and being responsible for “some 60,000 who are dead, most of whom are women and children and the elderly.”

The senator has accepted the unsubstantiated figures that Hamas has provided, even though Hamas’s casualty figures do not differentiate between Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters, the civilians they use as human shields, and Gazans executed for opposing Hamas or stealing food.

Asked if Hamas has any culpability, the Jewish senator’s response was no. Instead, he told Bash that “on top of all that human destruction … what Netanyahu does is impose a blockade preventing food to come in, and people are starving to death.”

Sanders’s assertion that Netanyahu is starving Palestinians in Gaza is a despicable lie. Hundreds of trucks filled with humanitarian aid at the Kerem Shalom border crossing have been turned over for distribution to the Gazans. Yet the United Nations, which is doing Hamas’s bidding, has done nothing but condemn Israel. Moreover, Israel has allowed food packages to be air-dropped into Gaza in coordination with the United States. Sanders should know all of this, but it appears he has chosen to ignore it for political reasons.

Bassam Tawil: Qatar's Muslim Scholars: Nothing More Important Than Killing Israelis

As far as Qatar's Muslim scholars are concerned... the war in the Gaza Strip did not start on the day Hamas launched its invasion of Israel. Rather, the war began the moment Israel fired back, and the only victims are the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, not those who were murdered, raped, beheaded and burned alive on October 7.

Several Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain have added Qatar's IUMS to their terrorism blacklists, saying it used "Islamic rhetoric as a cover to facilitate terrorist activities."

Needless to say, the scholars have not called on Hamas to release the Israeli hostages and accept a ceasefire that would end the war and the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Instead, the conference has unleashed scathing criticism of Israel for daring to defend itself against Hamas's terrorism.

For the Muslim scholars, boycotting and isolating Israel is more important than halting the death and destruction in the Gaza Strip. Their interpretation of Sharia laws and international humanitarian principles suggests that it is fine to sacrifice as many Palestinians as necessary for the sake of murdering Jews and destroying Israel.

The IUMS's position does not come as a surprise. Instead of urging Muslims to denounce terrorism and renounce violence, the organization, earlier this year, issued a fatwa (Islamic ruling) in which it called on all Muslims to wage Jihad (holy war) against Israel. The scholars want to see Muslims commit more massacres against Jews.

Once again, Qatar and Turkey have proven that their top priority is to promote the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates as part of the Islamists' Jihad to destroy Israel.... It is time for the Trump administration to call out Qatar and Turkey for their ongoing support for Hamas. It is also time for the US to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Once again, Qatar and Turkey have proven that their top priority is to promote the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates as part of the Islamists' Jihad to destroy Israel.... It is time for the Trump administration to call out Qatar and Turkey for their ongoing support for Hamas. It is also time for the US to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Over the past day I started using AI to simulate how different ethical philosophies would interact with my AskHillel/Secular Covenantalism model based on Jewish ethics. I would put SC up against, say, Utilitarians in a situation where they had to compete for scarce resources or decide to cooperate or compete when faced with an external threat, and how their relationship would evolve over time as well as how the general public would react to their decisions. It's been a lot of fun and so far my framework does quite well in many metrics, but not all. (In the metrics that moral people would prioritize, it does very well.)

But then I came closer to home.

I would simulate a country like Israel that adopts the Secular Covenantalism framework to deal with Gaza-like dilemmas - ceasefires, rockets, hostage-taking, propaganda campaigns - and see what happens when they’re forced to decide these difficult decisions under pressure.

Like Jews, they argued. One voice demanded retaliation to protect lives, another urged restraint for human dignity, a third insisted truth must trump spin. Every round ended in compromise: often slow, argumentative, and untidy. But those compromises worked. They saved lives, preserved civilian dignity, and stayed within the boundaries of law and ethics.

But they were making these decisions in an environment where other philosophies could criticize them in the court of public opinion. I ran one simulation against social justice thinking and another against Marxist thinking and criticism.

Social Justice collapsed everything into one equation: strong = guilty, weak = righteous. A hospital packed with weapons? “That’s just a racist trope.” Hostages dragged into tunnels? “Desperation, not a crime.”

Marxism was even cruder: all violence by the “oppressed” was revolution, all peace deals were traps, and all rules were bourgeois tricks. In both cases, reality didn’t matter: only the story did.

The results were stark. SC consistently won on the ground - it acted ethically, minimized lives lost, and won the war militarily. But in the public relations battle, Social Justice and Marxism consistently won. The Jewish-derived framework protected lives; social justice and Marxism projected empty slogans.

And the world preferred the simple, one-dimensional messages from these movements over what the Secular Covenantalists decided.

Of course, Israel itself is not an algorithm. This was an oversimplification in many ways. In real life, decisions are made under pressures the simulations can’t capture. Rockets and terror attacks don’t wait for committee meetings and debates, as the model did. Coalition politics, regional alliances, and public morale all weigh in. And unlike a sterile model, Israel carries the weight of Jewish history: the memory that if Jews miscalculate, the cost is annihilation. That changes the cost/benefit analysis, since a single wrong move can be catastrophic.

But the major factor missing in the criticism of the secular "Israel" was antisemitism. I didn't put Jews in the model, so the criticisms were not motivated by antipathy towards Jews. .

When I changed that, and added a latent, subconscious antisemitism into the mix, things got much uglier. And they started looking a lot like the world we live in now.

Every Israeli act of self-defense is immoral by definition. Every forensic report is propaganda by definition. Every hesitation is hypocrisy by definition. With antisemitism baked into the culture, the PR slogans don’t just dominate the conversation - they become the conversation. The antisemitism is precisely the factor that changes the conversation from being against "privileged" or "bourgeoise" into slanders like “genocide” accusations, proposals of sanctions and the grotesque spectacle of a Jewish state framed as the world’s greatest human-rights violator. It’s not a double standard, it’s a single standard: Jews lose.

This is what happens when morality collapses into public relations. Ethics stops being about obligations, outcomes, or human flourishing, and becomes about branding. A hashtag is now more moral than a hostage rescue. A viral image counts for more than a 100 page report. The strong are always wicked, the weak always pure. It’s not moral reasoning - it’s moral marketing.

And it is brutally hard to fight.

Even if an entire alternative moral media infrastructure was built, it doesn't stand a chance against sound bites. Real life is not black and white - but people want to see black and white in their news feeds.

Fact-checking is pointless when the game isn’t about facts but "vibes."

In the simulations, AskHillel/SC won the ground but lost the crowd. Social Justice and Marxism won the crowd but far more would have died if they had their way. That is the world we live in today: a world where the people who actually care about lives are called monsters, and the people who excuse murder position themselves as moral.

When ethics becomes PR, reality itself becomes immoral.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

I just looked again at my figures I used in my last post - that showed that Hamas had stolen 99.9% of WFP food aid collected in Gaza in August - and saw something even more insane.

I was comparing aid collected within Gaza to aid distributed. But the WFP has been chipping away at the backlog of goods sitting at the crossings for weeks besides what they import to Gaza.

The astounding result is that Hamas is stealing more WFP aid than is entering Gaza! This month, Hamas stole 21,028 tons while only 19,613.33 tons of WFP aid entered Gaza. That's 107% of the incoming aid.

In fact, if you look at all aid entering Gaza, you can see that Hamas stole 23% more aid than what entered so far this month! 26,251 tons were intercepted but only 23,231 tons entered Gaza.

Literally every dollar the world spent on Gaza aid in August has gone to strengthen Hamas - plus much of the backlog sent in previous months.

A recent Fox News report featured a whistleblower who says that the WFP has refused to cooperate with Israel on securing the shipments of food:

An international aid worker operating in Gaza has filed a formal whistleblower complaint to the Inspector General of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), alleging "gross misconduct and misuse of humanitarian funds by the World Food Programme and other U.N. Agencies," according to a copy of the complaint obtained by Fox News Digital.

Details of alleged United Nations interference in the delivery of aid to Gazans have been revealed by the whistleblower who was in Gaza in July. The whistleblower confirmed to Fox News Digital the content of the complaint.

The whistleblower’s complaint claims "A firsthand eyewitnessing of senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials offering any support necessary, including security protection and coordination, to representatives from the World Food Programme (WFP) and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) only to have WFP and OCHA respond that they were not prepared to discuss such coordination."

If the WFP is not directly acting as Hamas' agent, it sure is doing exactly what Hamas wants it to do.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Another sick Gaza child being weaponized by "humanitarian" NGOs - as 99.9% of World Food Programme aid gets stolen by Hamas

There is a new, literal poster child for Gaza famine: Mariam.

The World Food Programme writes:

On a hospital bed inside Friends of the Patient Hospital in Gaza City, nine-year-old Mariam lies motionless. Her frail body, weighing just 10 kilograms, tells the silent story of a child consumed by hunger and war.
For nearly two years, Mariam has battled severe malnutrition brought on by Israel's blockade and the prevention of vital humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. In March, restrictions tightened further with the closure of border crossings, cutting off supplies and accelerating the spread of famine. The consequences, doctors warn, have reached "catastrophic" levels.
Mariam's mother, Madalia, 33, sits quietly beside her daughter, gently stroking her hair. She recalls a very different image of Mariam before the war—healthy, active, and weighing 25 kilograms. "She never suffered from any illness," her mother says. "But today, her weight has fallen to 10 kilograms."
Her mom mentioned how Mariam used to love eggs and meat that are not found in Gaza nowadays. The family now lives in a displacement camp in northern Gaza after fleeing their home, like thousands of others. There, they struggle to survive without consistent access to food, medicine, or clean water.
As Mariam lies on her hospital bed, her body weakened by starvation, her story underscores the devastating impact of war and blockade on Gaza's youngest and most vulnerable.

Mariam has been featured in The Telegraph , Al Jazeera and other media.

UNICEF also features Mariam - and her healthy looking mother - in promotional videos across different social media.

The Al Jazeera video shows a partial glimpse of Mariam's younger brother, who does not appear to be suffering from malnutrition.

I fond another interview with the mother on X that seems to contradict everything being said by WFP, UNICEF and the media.

First of all, she says that Maryam lost a shocking amount of weight in only the previous week - as opposed to WFP that says she's been having medical issues since the beginning of the war.

Then the mother says:

I suspect that Mariam has another problem besides malnutrition, because I struggled with Mariam in every hospital with all the doctors from the south to the north. I followed up with all of them but they didn't make any report that diagnoses Mariam's condition. I suspect that my daughter has a condition that no one understands here in Gaza. I appeal to the concerned authorities, anyone who can help me with Mariam. I am calling for travel.

Here's the real tragedy. Madalia Dawas wants to save her daughter Mariam from an undiagnosed illness. She reasonably thinks that if she does a public relations campaign, the chances that Mariam will be able to leave Gaza for treatment abroad increases, as hundreds of other children have managed to do.

But the World Food Programme and UNICEF look at Mariam not as a child who needs medical attention, but as a fundraising bonanza, whose emaciated body can symbolize famine and starvation. Their videos and photo captions do not mention Madalia's desire to find a diagnosis and treatment. They certainly don't want to show her brother.

Instead, they frame the sick child as emblematic of all Gaza children.

And there is no indication that these NGOs they are trying to actually save Mariam's life.

The WFP knows very well that practically all of the food it brings into Gaza gets stolen. Since August 1, it collected 21053.66 tons of food at the Gaza border - and 21028 tons of it were stolen before it reached the intended recipients..

That's 99.9%.

This near-total failure of delivery by the WFP indicates either that Hamas is extraordinarily efficient at targeting the single biggest importer of food aid into Gaza, or that someone in the WFP is cooperating with Hamas and telling it where the shipments are going. This is not armed gangs or hungry people - only Hamas could be stealing WFP's food this completely. 72% of UN-coordinated aid into Gaza comes from WFP, of the remaining aid (World Central Kitchen UNICEF, ICRC, others) less than 50% has been stolen since August 1.

There is a serious problem at the World Food Programme, and it has nothing to do with the amount of food entering Gaza. Whether it is cooperating with Hamas directly or not, it knows that its current delivery model is not helping the people of Gaza at all - and yet it has not said a word about how virtually none of the aid it collects goes to the intended recipients.

Instead of trying to fix the problem of secure food deliveries to bring food to the children of Gaza, the WFP prefers to showcase sick children to get more aid that goes to enrich Hamas.

Is WFP a humanitarian organization or an agent of a terror group? Because its complete silence on the problem of distribution - which would solve the food problem completely - indicates that it is more aligned with Hamas than with the hungry of Gaza.

If the WFP would publicize the real problems, it would endanger its own business model. No one wants to directly give aid to Hamas.

And its decision to publicize a sick Gaza child to bring more aid into Gaza instead of working to get its existing food to the people who need it the most makes it look like it only cares about Mariam Dawas as long as her ribs are sticking out so she can be used to keep the money train going.

(h/t Irene)

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The Guardian, relying on a +972 Magazine investigation, claims that 83% of casualties in Gaza are civilians, based on a simplistic calculation. With a reported total death toll of 53,000 as of May 2025 and a classified Israeli military database listing 8,900 named Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fighters as dead or probably dead, these “brain surgeons” conclude that everyone not on the list must be a civilian. This assumption defies logic.Critics have rightly pointed out its absurdity. Last January, Israel estimated over 20,000 terrorist deaths, far exceeding the 8,900 names in the database, which was never intended as a comprehensive tally but rather a partial intelligence record. Yet, an unspoken new rule has emerged, seemingly crafted exclusively for Israel: they must know and list the names of every person they kill.

Has any nation in the 4,000-year history of warfare been expected to know the names of all enemy dead? Let alone assume that everyone not named is a civilian? Consider these examples:

Ukraine claims to have killed or injured approximately 600,000 Russian troops by August 2025. If a list of named casualties exists, it likely includes only a few hundred at best. By The Guardian’s logic, 99% of Russians killed would be civilians—a patently absurd conclusion.

The U.S. estimated killing around 900,000 enemy combatants (primarily Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces) during the Vietnam War (1955–1975), but no detailed list of names was maintained. Applying The Guardian’s standard, nearly all would be classified as civilians, despite the military nature of the conflict.

Never before has a belligerent been held to such an unrealistic standard—until now, with Israel.

Somehow, Israel has set a record for the number of unprecedented demands placed upon it, demands never once imposed on any party in any war in history:

1. One party is expected to list the names of all enemy soldiers killed.

2. One party must provide aid to the enemy with the full knowledge that the aid is used by the enemy to strengthen itself economically.

3. Civilians are not allowed to leave the areas of fighting to go to other countries.

4. Civilians are not allowed to be relocated to avoid being endangered by fighting.

5. An NGO with known terror ties must be allowed to be considered legitimate.

6. Reporters must be allowed into active war zones even if their presence would jeopardize operations.

7. The professional army statements must be considered false unless verified true, the statements from the terror group are considered true unless proven false.

8. Unconditional ceasefire is demanded without demanding release of all hostages by the other side.

9. Territory that has not been conquered or is still being fought over is considered "occupied."

10. A war is considered "genocide" by default without using any accepted definition of genocide.

11. Using human shields is legal, and the presence of civilians means the enemy can never be attacked.

12. Hospitals, schools and mosques must not be attacked even when militants use them for military purposes.

The Laws of Armed Conflict now carry a glaring asterisk: "Except for Israel." This double standard not only defies historical precedent but also undermines the principles of fair and practical warfare, placing an impossible burden on one nation alone.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

08/24 Links: The Gaza Famine Claim Was Timed for Gaza City Op; Stop Leaving Egypt Out of the Gaza Conversation; Hillel Neuer: How Hamas Controls UNRWA From Within

From Ian:

Arnold Roth: Trump must demand Jordan surrender the celeb jihadist who murdered my American child

A thunderous explosion stunned Israel’s capital Aug. 9, 2001, destroying a crowded Sbarro pizzeria.

Seven of the 16 murdered in the Jerusalem blast were children. One was my daughter Malki, 15, killed as she waited in line to order lunch.

The United States has failed for more than a decade to enforce the extradition of the bragging jihadist who faces trial in Washington for what she calls “my operation.”

Ahlam Tamimi, a native Jordanian, walked free from an Israeli prison as part of a 2011 deal the Jewish state was extorted to do with Hamas. She has since lived a life of celebrity in Jordan.

But President Trump can bring justice to a murdered American.

Consider whom Jordan harbors.

Tamimi, then a journalism student, part-time TV newsreader and at 21 the first woman ever admitted to Hamas’ terrorist ranks, carefully selected the fast-food outlet.

She boasted in a viral interview she targeted the pizzeria because of the crowds of Jewish children inside and the proximity of a Jewish religious school.

Tamimi’s Hamas handlers furnished her with a human bomb — a young, radicalized Islamist lugging a guitar case packed with explosives and flesh-ripping nails.

She brought him to the entrance of the crowded Sbarro, then fled to safety as he detonated, ending his own life and many others.

Confessing to all charges in an Israeli court, she was convicted and sentenced to 16 life terms with a judicial recommendation that she never be released in any future deal.

The judges were ignored. Israel freed 1,027 convicted terrorists including Tamimi in 2011 to get the release of Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, held hostage by Hamas for five years.

Tamimi’s arrival at Amman’s airport was a riotous celebration.

Settling back in Jordan, Tamimi’s celebrity soared along with her influence.

She hosted a weekly made-in-Jordan talk show on Al-Quds TV for five years, promoting terrorism. Her standing as an advocate for ideological murder earned her wide support across the Arab world.

Few Americans knew since mainstream US news channels didn’t report it.

Jake Wallis Simons: It’s time for the whole truth on the UN’s declaration of famine in Gaza

As I write, Israeli troops are mobilising to conquer Gaza City. In response, the United Nations has declared that the Strip has succumbed to famine, a claim that has been denied by Israel but amplified unquestioningly by the media. There you have it: attack and counterattack.

Such is the asymmetry of this war. When it comes to military might, the IDF is unstoppable. As Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out on a podcast this week, Hamas would have been defeated without a single Israeli casualty if Jerusalem hadn’t striven to limit civilian deaths.

The jihadis have lost hundreds of their tunnels and tens of thousands of men, including several generations of leadership. But this is not the war they are fighting.

No, Hamas is fighting for your sympathy. Embracing death and misery, both real and exaggerated, for the sake of propaganda, they keep the hostages for bait and use gullible ideologues in NGOs and the media to conjure international pressure on the enemy. Sooner or later, Israel will buckle. All they have to do is hold out.

Both sides are on the ropes. While Hamas is a shadow of the light infantry corps it resembled in 2023, Israel is enduring the worst crisis of legitimacy in its history, with country after country lining up to recognise a Palestinian state. Hamas openly applauds Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and the rest. They push on regardless.

Weakened by trauma, grief, political infighting, fatigue, anti-Semitism and international demonisation, the unity and resilience of Israel’s population has ebbed. The campaign to take Gaza City is a last-ditch attempt to force Hamas to release the hostages and end this appalling war.

Enter the UN. For all its veneer of authority, this is not an assembly of democracies. Rather, most members are autocracies or corrupt regimes seeking legitimacy by equivalence with free countries. Many derive individual benefit from vilifying the Jewish state.

Daniel Greenfield: The Gaza Famine Claim Was Timed for Gaza City Op

The false claim that Gaza is in a state of famine was only made possible by a UN linked group redefining the definition of famine. (If you’re confused why this is a big deal since famine claims have been made about Gaza for over a year, it’s because that was media hype and false claims from international groups but without any formal famine finding.)

The more significant point is that the famine claim was timed for a key event, in this case an Israeli operation in Gaza City, just like previous false famine claims were timed for particular events.

For example, the recent ‘sick kid’ photos that were falsely used to claim children were dying of malnutrition were timed for a key point in the negotiations with Hamas.

When you go back, time after time that there’s a major famine PR push, it coincides with some actual event happening in the war.

Are those coincidences? Not at all. It’s the event that generates the famine claim. Propaganda is a weapon of war. The false claims of famine have been far more effective weapons than any Hamas attack post Oct 7.