Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, September 22, 2025

Shana Tova U'Metuka - JFK on Israel in 1960

Here is an excerpt from a speech given by then-senator John F. Kennedy to a Zionist convention 65 years ago:

Three weeks ago I said in a public statement: "Israel is here to stay." The next day I was attacked by Cairo radio, rebuking me for my faith in Israel, and quoting this criticism from the Arabic newspaper Al-Gomhouria:

As for the question of the existence and the nonexistence of Israel, Mr. Kennedy says that Israel has been created in order to exist. Time will judge between us, Mr. Kennedy.

I agree. Time will judge whether Israel will continue to exist. But I wish I could be as sure of all my prophecies as I am of my flat prediction that Israel is here to stay.

For Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom; and no area of the world has ever had an overabundance of democracy and freedom.

May this coming year be one of Jewish unity and strength, of health, happiness, renewal, real peace and the safe return of the hostages.

(h/t Jill)

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Why Israel can’t just “wrap up this war” (Karen Bekker)

Guest post by Karen Bekker

Why Israel can’t just “wrap up this war”

Bill Ackman reports that “young conservatives [are] getting tired of defending Israel.”

My colleagues at CAMERA and I have spent the past two years responding to a tsunami of lies about Israel, beginning in the immediate aftermath of October 7, 2023, with the claim that Israel caused the attack on itself. Then there was the claim that Israel attacked Al Ahli hospital, killing hundreds of people; the claim that Israel intentionally targeted World Central Kitchen aid workers; the claim that Israeli snipers were shooting Palestinian children in the head; and the starvation and genocide libels, including the absurd claims that 83 percent of casualties were civilians and that 14,000 babies were imminently about to die of starvation. It’s exhausting.

It would be tempting for me to say that no one wants Israel to end the war more than I do. But I’m pretty sure that every single IDF soldier fighting in Gaza, not to mention the wives and mothers of those soldiers, wants Israel to conclude a lot more than I want it. Certainly, those with actual skin in the game want that more than Megyn Kelly, who said on her September 16 podcast that “Israel needs to wrap up this war .... This is a crisis for Israel, [a] PR crisis.”

We all have war fatigue, and we all want it to be over. If only it were that simple.

Hamas are fundamentalist jihadists. They are not motivated by any kind of rational thought. That’s why ending this conflict is so tragically intractable. Hamas doesn’t pursue its ‘self-interest’ according to the secular assumptions of many in the foreign policy establishment. There is no amount of destruction of Gaza that will make them sit up and say, “you know what, maybe October 7 was a mistake.” If that were possible, they would have already surrendered.

If the organization is left intact in Gaza, they will rebuild and attack Israel again. Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, stated in no uncertain terms, “The Al-Aqsa Deluge [as Hamas calls its October 7 attack] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.” He continued, “Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it.” Hamad even recently appeared on Al Jazeera celebrating what he called the “fruits of October 7.”

Even if it takes ten or 20 years or longer for them to rebuild, and for Israel to fall again into the October 6, 2023 complacency that provided the window of opportunity, such onslaughts will keep happening if Israel doesn’t decisively end Hamas’s grip over Gaza. Not only could the next attack potentially be worse, the response would likely be even stronger. That’s not good for anyone directly involved, except for the jihadists.

It must be noted that the comments above were made in the context of discussions over Charlie Kirk, whose funeral was on Sunday. I never met Charlie or attended any of his events – I’m not in his target demographic – but obviously his killing was horrific and my heart goes out to his wife, his children, his parents and his staff. May his memory be a blessing for them. Beyond that, I’m not going to address the type of ludicrous conspiracy theories that have sprung up in the wake of his assasination.

Andrew Fox of the Henry Jackson Society wrote recently on Substack that destroying Hamas is impossible. Israel has done the impossible before, and more than once. Now it must do so again, even if some of its supporters in the West are weary.

Prior to this war, according to the ADL, over a billion people in the world harbored antisemitic attitudes. (By 2025, that number has doubled.) This compares to less than 16 million Jews worldwide. We are vastly outnumbered in the public relations sphere. Israel is surely well-aware of how the public relations war is going for it. But that doesn’t change the reality on the ground.

A government’s primary responsibility is the protection of its citizens, not good PR. As Golda Meir once said, “If we have to have a choice between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.”

So yes, young conservatives, yes, Megyn Kelly, we get it. We’re tired, too.

But for Israel, this is existential, and there is no choice but to see it through. As long as Hamas is alive in Gaza, Israel must keep fighting, and as long as those enemies promote slanders in the public square, we will keep rebutting them. You don’t have to be with us, though it would be great if you were. But please don’t be against us, just because you’re tired of it.

Karen Bekker is the assistant director of the Media Response Team at CAMERA.

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Is the West rewarding terror? Probably - but it is definitely rewarding Palestinian antisemitism

With Britain, France, Canada and others recognizing a fictional state of Palestine, the typical pushback from Israel's side is that this is a reward for terror - Hamas murders, rapes and burns Israelis and it gains something Palestinians have been craving for decades.

But the Western nations insist that they are not supporting Hamas - they don't want to see it control Gaza, they make performative demands for the hostages to be released.

Let's forget that their stated intent has nothing to do with perception. Let's pretend that somehow their mouthing anti-Hamas statements means something. Let's take them at their worthless word and accept that they are only rewarding the Palestinian Authority.

Let's go back August 2023, six weeks before October 7.

Mahmoud Abbas - the president of the Palestinian Authority, and an undisputed beneficiary of any recognition - gave a speech at the Fatah Revolutionary Council where he unleashed a string of vile antisemitism:

They say that Hitler killed the Jews for being Jews, and that Europe hated the Jews because they were Jews.

Not true. It was clearly explained that [the Europeans] fought [the Jews] because of their social role, and not their religion. ...The [Europeans] fought against these people because of their role in society, which had to do with usury, money, and so on and so forth. Even Hitler...

"Everybody knows that during World War I, Hitler was a sergeant. He said he fought the Jews because they were dealing with usury and money. In his view, they were engaged in sabotage, and this is why he hated them. We just want to make this point clear. This was not about Semitism and antisemitism.

He went on to repeat the myth that Ashkenazic Jews are really descended from Khazars, and that Israel didn't want Mizrahi Jews to immigrate to Israel but used bombing and murder campaigns against them to scare them into coming.

These are the same lies Abbas had said previously - and even partially apologized for. And this is the Abbas that the Western states wants to lead the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas never apologized for these comments.

80 years after the Holocaust, antisemitism is no longer a disqualifying feature of leadership. On the contrary, it is quickly becoming a requirement. At least according to Canada, France, Spain, Australia, Portugal and the UK.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

09/21 Links: Irwin Cotler: Palestine recognition would reward terrorism and contradict international law; The Gaza ‘genocide’: a 21st-century blood libel

From Ian:

Irwin Cotler: Palestine recognition would reward terrorism and contradict international law

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said on Sep. 16 that Ottawa would recognize a Palestinian state at the UN despite its failure to implement any of the conditions and demands set forth in Prime Minister Mark Carney's July 30 announcement of Canada's recognition plan. This is a mistake, which would regrettably reward terrorism, make peace less likely, and contradict the longstanding international legal frameworks for recognizing statehood and for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Carney said Ottawa's "intention" was "predicated on the Palestinian Authority's commitment" to fundamentally reform its governance, hold general elections "in which Hamas can play no part," and demilitarize the Palestinian state. None of these commitments have been implemented. Carney also demanded that Hamas immediately release all hostages, disarm, and "play no role in the future governance of Palestine." None of these demands have been met.

The international legal criteria for statehood require that a nascent state have a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) a government with effective control over that population and territory; and d) capacity to enter into relations with other states. The European Council (EC) added several non-binding criteria in its 1991 guidelines for recognizing new states in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. These include prospective states providing their citizens "the rule of law, democracy, and human rights."

One of us (Irwin Cotler) has personally met with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his aides many times over the years. They have repeatedly promised that they would abolish the pay-for-slay program and move towards demilitarization and deradicalization. Regrettably, those promises have largely gone unfulfilled.

The Gaza ‘genocide’: a 21st-century blood libel

The goal of the genocide libel, repeated and repackaged by myriad academics and journalist is to legitimise the dissolution of the Jewish State. Just as the 7 October massacre was rationalised by the supposed ‘context’ of Israeli oppression and occupation, the eradication of Israel will be painted as just recompense for their ‘genocide’ in Gaza.

Most of the same claims that originated in the JGR have found their way into other, seemingly authoritative sources. Earlier this month, a UN commission of inquiry, set up by the UN Human Rights Council, issued a report finding Israel guilty of genocide. The commission’s lead members, Navi Pillay, Miloon Kothari and Chris Sidoti, have a long history of anti-Israel posturing. While the factual basis of the report is beyond the scope of this essay, the genocide claims have been conclusively debunked in a 300-page paper, led by Israeli professors Danny Orbach and Yagil Henkin.

Orbach and Henkin show that claims of deliberate starvation in Gaza before March 2025 are based on flawed data. Furthermore, they explain how UN agencies and human-rights groups have created an ‘echo chamber’ through circular citations and ignored corrections. Surveys indicate very few non-violent child deaths, contradicting starvation claims and instead pointing to disruptions in the medical system caused by the war and Hamas’s misuse of health facilities. Indeed, Hamas’s tactics include an unprecedented 500-kilometre tunnel network integrated into civilian infrastructure and the use of human shields to inflate casualties.

Moreover, Orbach and Henkin find no evidence of systematic civilian targeting or deliberate bombings. They note that isolated potential war crimes exist but they are outliers, not indicative of Israeli policy. Most of the UN report’s claims lack forensic proof and rely on unreliable sources. IDF measures, such as unprecedented evacuations and vetoed strikes for proportionality, aim to reduce harm, though some cases do suggest negligence on Israel’s part.

The UN report regurgitates many of the JGR Gaza forum’s themes. It dismisses the idea that Hamas posed an ‘existential threat to the State of Israel’. It implies that the 7 October massacre was a natural response to ‘the fact that [Israel] has taken [Palestinian land] by force and is unlawfully occupying and settling Palestinian territory by continuing violence, denying the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination’. And it also relies on the same misinterpreted and misrepresented remarks from Israeli politicians, from Netanyahu’s Amalek comment to Gallant’s ‘human animals’ statement, in order to establish Israel’s supposed genocidal intent. For the UN commission, even humanitarian measures like letting civilians escape are ‘proof’ that Israel is committing genocide.

Underlining the UN report’s lack of credibility, it features truncated remarks by Israeli president Isaac Herzog in the immediate aftermath of 7 October, when he said that ‘it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians who were not aware and not involved. It is absolutely not true.’ It omits the rest of Herzog’s words in which he stressed that: ‘There is no excuse for murdering innocent civilians in any way in any context. And believe me, Israel will operate and always operate according to the international rules. And we do the same in this battle, too.’ In any case, belligerent rhetoric during wartime is hardly proof of genocide. President Obama spoke of the war against ISIS in terms of ‘eradicating a cancer’.

The genocide accusation has consequences. It has already fuelled lethal attacks on Jews around the world, including in Washington, DC and Boulder, Colorado. And yet the supposed consensus around Israel’s genocide stems from a small cadre of highly partisan academics who have long ago decided upon Israel’s guilt. Their theory is unfalsifiable, as even Israel’s adherence to international law is taken as proof of genocide.

For these experts, Israel essentially ‘had it coming’. They claim that the 7 October massacre was the end result of decades of ‘Jewish supremacy’ and occupation, despite the fact that Israel completely left Gaza in August 2005. They have convinced themselves that the supposed genocide in Gaza is an essential feature of Israel itself, a desire inherent to Zionism. They are certain above all that Israel is evil.

This is not an academic theory or analysis – it is a comprehensive belief system. And it is thoroughly delusional.

JPost Editorial: King Abdullah's silence: Quiet consumes growing radicalization in Jordan

In March 1997, when a Jordanian soldier opened fire on Israeli schoolgirls at the Island of Peace, killing seven young teenagers aged 13-14, the nation’s King Hussein bin Talal did something extraordinary. The Jordanian monarch personally traveled to Israel to visit the grieving families, offering his condolences in person.

After the 1997 massacre, King Hussein crossed into Israel and visited the bereaved families, a gesture widely remembered in Israel as reinforcing the spirit of the 1994 peace treaty. The Jerusalem Post later contrasted that empathy with Amman’s current posture.

Fast forward to September 2025, and the world witnessed a different response from Hussein’s successor.

On Thursday, “A driver bringing humanitarian aid from Jordan for Gaza opened fire and killed two Israeli military personnel at the Allenby crossing” before being shot dead, authorities in both countries said. Israel then moved to shut the crossing, pending review.

King Abdullah II, Hussein’s son, has remained conspicuously silent.

This silence has precedent, too.

Silence on terror attacks
In 2024, “A gunman from Jordan killed three Israeli civilians at the Allenby Bridge border crossing,” the IDF said after the attacker exited a truck and opened fire. Jordan announced an investigation and temporarily closed the King Hussein (Allenby) crossing.

Does Abdullah’s silence over two terror attacks committed by Jordanians prove his thoughts on the Israel-Jordan relationship?

Last week, at the Arab summit to discuss Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in the Qatari capital of Doha, the Jordanian king stated that “the strike in Qatar is proof that the Israeli threat knows no bounds, and our response must be clear and deterrent.”

He also called on Arab and Islamic states to adopt practical decisions on the matter and to “review all tools of joint action” to face this threat.

Israeli concerns about threats from Jordan have grown so serious that the IDF established the 96th Division specifically to defend the Jordan border, fast-tracking it into operation in June. The 47th Battalion, known as the Lions of the Valley, now patrols the Jordan Valley as a coeducational combat unit. The fact that a new unit was forced into creation shows that Israel recognizes that the Jordanian border has become a problem.

I saw an article on how "most therapy is trash." I cannot vouch for the article, but it made me think - how would therapy work under the ethical framework I have been working on? How different would it be?

The answer seems to be, quite a lot.

The Derechology framework I have been working on posits a basic fact that most systems do not accept: that values are baked into human thinking, and are not external. This could change the assumptions behind therapy as it has been practiced.

Walk into any therapist's office today, and the conversation will likely begin the same way: "What brings you here? What's wrong? What symptoms are you experiencing?" The entire therapeutic enterprise is built on a medical model that treats emotional and moral struggles as pathology to be diagnosed and fixed.

But what if this approach has it exactly backwards? What if the problem isn't that people are broken, but that they've lost connection to their own moral compass? What if healing doesn't require fixing what's wrong with someone, but helping them rediscover what's right about them?

Modern therapy inherits its framework from medicine: identify symptoms, diagnose conditions, apply treatments. Depression gets treated with cognitive restructuring. Anxiety gets managed with coping strategies. Relationship problems get addressed through communication skills.

But when these problems are looked at through a derechological lens, the idea is that they are rarely suffering from cognitive deficits. They're suffering from moral drift.

They've lost touch with their core values. They can't navigate competing obligations. They don't know how to make decisions that align with who they actually are, rather than who they think they should be.

When you look at values as atomic to human nature itself, as fundamental to our being as language or consciousness, it changes the entire model of healing. Moral confusion isn't a character flaw or psychological disorder. It's more like being lost without a compass. The solution isn't to diagnose what's wrong with your navigation system - it's to help you reconnect with your internal moral GPS.

The question isn't "What's wrong with you?" but "Where are you on your derech (moral path,) and what might growth look like from here?"

I worked with my AskHillel AI to develop a system for therapy. It suggested practical tools like:

Moral Compass Scan: Helping clients identify their most trusted internal signals, whether they are somatic sensations, behavioral patterns or recurring thoughts, that indicate alignment or misalignment with their core values.

Derech Drift Map: Instead of treating disorientation as failure, this tool helps people understand where they are in their moral journey: whether they're in a period of rupture, wilderness wandering, return, or transformation.

Teshuvah as Moral Version Control: Change isn't about erasing the past or achieving perfection. It's about making the next "commit" in your moral development - iterative growth rather than binary success/failure.

The therapist's role becomes fundamentally different too. Rather than diagnosing disorder, the therapist becomes a derech witness - a mirror for the client’s moral motion, not a mapmaker; a partner who offers models rather than mandates for ethical response.

The system treats people as inherently worthy moral agents rather than broken systems needing repair.

This isn't just more compassionate - it's more accurate. When you start with the assumption that people have intrinsic moral dignity and are capable of ethical growth, you create space for the kind of healing that actually transforms lives rather than just managing symptoms.

And there's a deeper implication here. If this values-first approach proves more effective for individual healing, it suggests something profound about human nature itself. It validates the core insight of Derechology: that morality isn't something imposed on humans from outside, but something that emerges from our fundamental nature.

People want moral clarity. They want to know not just how to feel better, but how to live in alignment with who they actually are.

If therapy could offer that - if it could help people reconnect with their intrinsic moral architecture rather than just managing their psychological symptoms - it might finally address the deeper crisis driving so many people to therapists' offices in the first place.

To my understanding, this is similar to the approach used in ACT therapy, but it is more oriented towards morality and moral path more than just values.

It is important to emphasize that while these insights come from my work on Jewish ethics, the moral path discovered does not have to be Jewish at all. Everyone has their own "ethical gravity well" that comes from their upbringing.

The question isn't whether people are broken. The question is whether they remember who they are.

And that's a question worth building an entire therapeutic framework around.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Last week, Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would like to obtain the Siloam Inscription, a Hebrew inscription from the 8th century BCE that records the construction of the Siloam water tunnel, from Turkey. According to Hebrew scripture, the tunnel was commissioned by King Hezekiah to secure Jerusalem's water supply in preparation for an impending siege by the Assyrians It is one of the most important ancient Hebrew texts discovered and is a significant piece of evidence supporting the historical accounts in the Tanach.

Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan answered brusquely, saying the artifact "is a trust from our ancestors.....It seems that he (Netanyahu) wanted to try something by using expressions that go beyond his limits regarding our first Qiblah, Holy Jerusalem. We certainly understand what these people are trying to do,. Besides this inscription, we will not give you even a small stone from Holy Jerusalem.....Jerusalem, with Muslims, is the dignity and honor of humanity. We will continue to defend it and the rights of all religions, and we will preserve it as a trust from our ancestors, despite the occupiers."

There are layers of hypocrisy here.

Turkey claims that since the inscription was found in what is now called "East Jerusalem," it cannot belong to Israel. But if that is true, why not offer it to the Palestinians to house in one of their museums? His language does not say that Jerusalem is Palestinian, but Muslim, and that anything found there during the Ottoman times are Turkish property, not Palestinian.

Additionally, Turkey demands that other nations return Ottoman artifacts that were taken from Turkey - but is unwilling to do the same for archaeological treasures from Jerusalem. Indeed, the Istanbul Archaeological Museum that houses the Siloam Inscription also has the Temple Warning inscription that proves the existence of the Second Temple that many Muslims deny.

Moreover, if Turkey cared so much about the inscription, why has it not displayed it in the museum? It was briefly viewable to crowds in Jerusalem in 1891 before being shipped to Istanbul, but there is no record of it being publicly exhibited there in over a century - it's stored in reserves, accessible mainly to scholars. If Erdogan really believes that he defends the rights of all religions, why withhold the Siloam Inscription - that helps prove the historic Jewish claim to Jerusalem from Biblical times - from the public?

Turkey's actions are not consistent with respect for all religions, nor it is consistent with respect for Palestinian claims on Jerusalem. Turkey's statements on Jerusalem have been neo-Ottoman, claiming that Turkey is in the vanguard as custodian of Jerusalem even today.

Turkey, Jordan and the Palestinians all claim the city, in some sense, as their own. The only consistent theme in the Arab and Muslim worlds since 1967 has been that Jerusalem must be taken away from the Jews - the only rulers of Jerusalem in 2,000 years to freely allow all religions to have access to their holy places

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The Washington Post writes:

Thirty-one journalists and media workers were killed in Israeli airstrikes on a newspaper complex in Yemen last week, according to a report released Friday by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The attack was the deadliest against journalists since the Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines 16 years ago and the second-deadliest the New York-based press freedom group has recorded.

Israeli strikes hit a government press complex at 4:45 p.m. local time on Sept. 10, as staff of the Yemeni army’s official news outlet were finalizing a weekly print edition, the publication’s editor in chief, Nasser Al-Khadri, told CPJ. The timing contributed to the high death toll in the attack, which killed journalists and media workers at three Houthi-connected media outlets in the heart of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has a very strange definition of what a journalist is. Its own press release states:

Yemen’s September 26 newspaper was the first to name the 31 killed by multiple strikes on its office and that of the Yemen newspaper, . All but one of the dead worked for the two outlets, both in the government’s Moral Guidance Directorate’s headquarters.

So the IDF bombed the Houthi's "Moral Guidance Directorate" building. Does that sound like a center for journalism?

The CPJ extends the definition of a "journalist" in absurd ways to include people whose only job is to promote government and military propaganda. Real journalists expose deceit, Houthi "journalists" live by deceit, pretending to be real journalists. A writer on the payroll of a government or an army is no more a journalist than the person who issues press releases for Exxon.

But are these faux journalists military targets? The Houthi's own government newspaper Al Thawra (September 26) says they are:

The slain journalists, who were described as “men of the pen,” belonged to the newspapers “September 26” and “Al-Yaman.” They were said to have died while stationed on the “frontline of the word” against the aggression.
This funeral underscores the pivotal role journalists play in confronting the aggression and reflects a deep understanding of the seriousness of the “media war,” which is no less fierce than the battlefield war.

The Houthis (and Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran) say explicitly that their media are part of the military. They understand the cognitive war is as important as the kinetic war, and that the lies they publish are regarded as "journalism" because their outlets resemble legitimate news media.

The Houthi Moral Guidance Department is part of its military. It includes a psychological warfare department. It issues newspapers.

When terrorists pretend to be members of the Red Cross or any legitimate aid group, legitimate aid groups condemn their actions as endangering innocents. But journalist organizations are more interested in inflating the number of supposedly killed journalists than they are of protecting legitimate journalists. There is no difference - these members of Yemen's military pretend to be journalists.

CPJ's tally isn't just wrong - it's dangerous. By lumping Houthi propagandists into the "deadliest attack on journalists" stat, they hand the regime a PR coup: Global headlines scream "Israel slays 31 journalists," drowning out the actual war crimes (Houthis' media suppression of independent reporters). It's the ethical equivalent of calling ISIS's Dabiq magazine staff "reporters". Press freedom organizations should be shaming the pretenders, not inflating their martyr count. If "journalist" means anyone with a byline in a regime rag, then the word's as hollow as Houthi "democracy."

Protect the truth-tellers, not the tale-spinners.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

09/20 Links: Hamas call all the remaining 48 hostages 'Ron Arad'; UK Coordination and NGO Funding Continued Despite Hamas Terror Designation; Nearly nine out of 10 Britons do not back Palestine recognition

From Ian:

Israel does not play the victim: The brutal reality of Hamas’s war

Civilian victims of terrorism now number nearly 6,000. And Hamas’s cruelty is not theoretical: the organization has been seen seizing newborns in front of their mothers. In this war alone, thousands of Israeli soldiers have been wounded. Some have lost limbs, yet they return to fight with courage and resilience.

Hamas operates without uniforms, using human shields—including children—and emerging from underground tunnels to strike without warning. In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, young mothers have given birth after their husbands were killed in combat; on Oct. 7 alone, at least 30 births occurred under such circumstances. Over the years, Israel has counted 4,520 widows and 1,354 children orphaned by war.

For those willing to look beyond Hamas’s statistics and the selective images on Al Jazeera, the human toll is crystal clear. Mothers attend funerals recounting their children’s aspirations—a son volunteering with autistic children, a daughter painting like a young Raphael, a young couple whose love is now tragically interrupted.

These lives were devoted to preserving Israel, a small democratic country, the homeland of the Jewish people, surrounded by hatred: anti-gay, anti-women and anti-Western sentiment.

And yet, even amid this devastation, Israelis leave cemeteries with heads held high. They cry, but with pride, understanding that their struggle is not only for survival—it is for the survival of values, of civilization, of hope.

Hamas does not protect Gaza. Hamas exploits Gaza. Hamas enslaves Gaza. The world must finally see the truth: Israel is fighting for its life, its people and its future.

The victims of Hamas are not statistics—they are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters and friends. And their courage, like that of all Israelis, deserves recognition, solidarity and unwavering support.

NGO Monitor: UK Coordination and NGO Funding Continued Despite Hamas Terror Designation

The internal Hamas documents reviewed by NGO Monitor reveal deeply troubling engagement between the UK government and the Hamas-led regime in Gaza, despite the UK’s formal designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization in November 2021 and a stated policy of non-contact. (This expands on previous revelations by NGO Monitor, showing the UK’s acquiescence to Hamas’ involvement in a UK-funded cash assistance program in Gaza, and belies the UK’s denials).

In addition, UK-funded NGOs have engaged with Hamas officials and stressed that UK funding and NGO activity would remain unaffected by the designation.

Rather than isolating Hamas and restricting funding that could be exploited by a terrorist regime, the UK government appears to have reassured Hamas authorities of continued cooperation and funding, with little to no conditionality or oversight. As illustrated in the documents, the UK does not appear to take vetting procedures seriously and did not screen local partners, staff, or beneficiaries regardless of terror ties.

This conduct undermines the credibility of the UK’s counterterror policies and raises serious concerns about the transparency and accountability of taxpayer-funded aid. By signaling that the terror designation carries no operational consequences, these interactions assist and legitimize proscribed terrorist organizations.

Laser-Focused: What Iron Beam Means for Israel, its Enemies, and the US

Western missile defenses are top-notch, but they are also expensive. The roughly 200 interceptors American and Israeli forces launched in June cost about $1.5 billion. This is certainly better than the alternative of hostile missiles raining down on civilians, but it is unsustainable over a long war. The Ukrainians have resorted to using shotguns and machine guns against Russia's massive arsenal of drones to save their scarce supply of air defense missiles.

Iron Beam solves that problem. Instead of firing an interceptor—or in some cases, several—to shoot down a missile that costs a fraction of the interceptor, Iron Beam fries the incoming weapon with lasers at about two bucks a shot. In other words, air defense can be not only effective, but also cost effective.

Laser defenses will be particularly helpful for small, compact countries like Israel. The United States and many of its larger allies cannot fully secure their skies with laser weapons, but they can protect key targets. If, for example, American laser systems become powerful enough to stop China's long-range missiles from hitting aircraft carriers and key installations in the Pacific, then many of China's vaunted "assassin's mace" weapons will be much less valuable.

Other technological transformations will follow in short order. Armed drones were highly unusual only five years ago, and now the Russians and Ukrainians field millions of them. Iron Beam and related technologies will make many of these drones unusable, which will prompt militaries to find new ways to attack their enemies. American companies like Anduril, Epirus, and Saronic are already peering beyond this technological horizon to develop the sci-fi gizmos that will dominate battlefields in the future.

The U.S. military depends on its technological edge to deter and, if necessary, defeat its enemies, but that edge has been blunted. The Trump administration is trying to force the Pentagon to move at the pace of technological change. For example, War Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed the Army to purchase and field new capabilities with utmost speed.

America's national security depends on the success of this effort. The ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East show that many old technologies still have their value. But the slow get left behind—and die there.

Let There Be Laser Light By Abe Greenwald

Via the Commentary Newsletter, sign up here. We desperately need good news, and we’ve got some. On Wednesday, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced that its “Iron Beam” laser-defense system is operational and will be deployed throughout the country over the next few months.

In fact, Israel already used a smaller laser-defense system to shoot down 40 Hezbollah drones last year. But Iron Beam goes far beyond what was operational then. Unlike the smaller Lite Beam, Iron Beam can also shoot down mortars, rockets, and missiles.

Iron Beam is meant to augment, not replace, Israel’s current air-defense. But it beats the non-laser systems on multiple fronts. First off, there’s the cost. Every time Israel uses Iron Dome to fire off an interceptor missile, it costs roughly $50,000. For the Arrow system, it’s $2 million. Iron Beam costs only a few dollars per shot of laser light.

And because the beam travels so fast, it can take out aerial threats well before they reach Israeli skies. That high speed also means that the IDF will know very quickly whether it hit a target. If not, they can keep firing until they succeed. The system can even hit multiple targets simultaneously. And in using a beam of light, there’s no risk of running out of ammunition.

The hope is that Iron Beam’s ability to take out so many incoming threats while in enemy territory will result in far fewer warning sirens and trips to bomb shelters.

There are three versions of the system in all, each suited to different challenges: the short-range and mobile Lite Beam, the more powerful but less mobile Iron Beam M, and the most powerful but stationary Iron Beam. Israel will surely continue to refine and innovate these systems, and perhaps develop a version that can be mounted on aircraft.

09/19 Links Pt2: UNSC vote advances ‘snapback’ nuclear sanctions on Iran; The ‘settler violence’ lie; German shop posts sign: No entry for Jews

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Violent, lawless Antifa forces deserve to be labeled terrorists

For years these terrorists have been allowed to attack federal buildings with impunity. They have been allowed to attack and hospitalize journalists (including Ngo) simply for reporting on their fascistic activities. They behave as though they are untouchable.

Of course at this stage many people, on right and left, will make a set of claims. They will say that designating “Antifa” as a terrorist organization cannot be done, because this affects the group’s First Amendment rights. Some conservatives will argue the “boot on the other foot” rule and say that banning Antifa is government overreach.

But you do not need to designate Antifa as terrorist to pull the group apart. Democrat lawmakers in the past (under Obama and Biden in particular) have eagerly pulled apart right-wing groups like the Proud Boys. They have even taken conservative family values groups apart using the IRS and every other means available to them.

Why not use the power of the state to go after these actual terrorists of Antifa?

There is every reason to stop the group. The means of doing so can be debated. But however it is done, if these vile extremists can be stopped it would be a net gain for this country. And remove one of the nastiest streams of poison in this society.

Vile Kirk conspiracy theories
Talking of poison, various conservative influencers like Tucker Carlson, have decided to use the days since Kirk’s murder to pretend that someone else did the killing. Specifically, Carlson and other online influencers, have spent the past week trying to suggest that the Jews killed Charlie Kirk.

Their “rationale” is that they say Kirk — a lifelong supporter of Israel — was turning against the Israeli government. So of course the Israelis killed him. Or at least have “questions to answer.”

Naturally there is no evidence for any of this. But “just asking questions” is the great fall-back for the click-bait trolls of the right.

But is it not just sick but grotesque to use the death of a friend to cover for his actual murderer? It seems that for people like Carlson the Jews are behind everything. Indeed on 9/11 this year Carlson was due to drop a new set of conspiracy theories about the Jews and 9/11.

Interestingly enough, Kirk was often critical of certain tenets of the Muslim faith. But none of these right-wing podcasters have yet said “the Muslims did it.”

Perhaps they don’t have a Muslim fixation like they do a Jewish one. Or perhaps the Qatari money currently flooding through the American information-wars has something to do with it.

Op Nation

Or perhaps the coincidence of that symbolism has nothing to do with this story at all. Perhaps Malik and Carlson simply met one night at a bar by chance and found they agreed about more than they disagreed on, including the idea that Zionists are bad, America’s involvement in World War II was bad, Adolf Hitler is misunderstood, and Winston Churchill is a villain, and the lifelong Democrat Malik then handed over a large chunk of his own personal savings on the spot so that Tucker Carlson could found a new right-wing media empire centered around himself. I.e., both men are morons.

I doubt that, though. A more likely possibility, at least to my eyes, is that Omeed Malik is backing Tucker Carlson at the behest of whatever power it is that does stuff like gather the signatures of 51 high-ranking U.S. intelligence officials on a letter declaring that Hunter Biden’s laptop is a Russian op on the eve of an election. At the very least, the collision of American domestic politics, the US intelligence community and the Pynchonesque aesthetic is too enticing to ignore completely, especially when one tosses in the pervasive social media and spatial presence of however many thousands of FBI agents and subcontractors performing the outward behaviors of “being neo-Nazis.”

That’s not a conspiracy theory, by the way: “Protecting the United States from terrorist attacks” is the FBI’s No. 1 priority, with domestic terrorism being on par with foreign-inspired terrorism—and “white supremacists” being among the bureau’s chief domestic terror targets. As the FBI explains on its public website: “The approach taken by the FBI in counterterrorism investigations is based on the need both to prevent incidents where possible and to react effectively after incidents occur. Our investigations focus on the unlawful activity of the group, not the ideological orientation of its members. When conducting investigations, the FBI collects information that not only serves as the basis for prosecution but also builds an intelligence base to help prevent terrorist acts.”

Anyone familiar with COINTELPRO and other FBI radical infiltration programs in the 1960s knows exactly how this stuff works. Suffice it to say that a good friend in the U.S. intelligence community once estimated to me that by the time the Berlin Wall came down, a majority of the members of the CPUSA and its various front organizations were FBI agents. It is reasonable to surmise that much the same type of thing is happening now, with a key difference being that it is much easier to pose as a neo-Nazi or an antisemite on social media than it is to attend in-person meetings in someone’s basement. It is all but certain, then, that the U.S. government is spending an enormous amount of money, time, and effort pumping out antisemitic and neo-Nazi propaganda into the social media space, in the hope of identifying actual antisemites and neo-Nazis.

Future historians will tell us whether the cure is actually worse than the disease, if there remain such things as “historians.” But either way, the justification for the current wave of domestic antisemitic propaganda echoing the propaganda lines of foreign enemies of America and being paid for in part by the FBI will be simple: Namely, that the U.S. intelligence community has been tasked with protecting the domestic information space, and that the free play of 350 million individual human atoms is simply too dangerous to be allowed to continue unsupervised. In addition to amplifying antisemites, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists, it is also reasonable to assume that “protecting the domestic information space” also means creating or shaping buckets like the QAnon conspiracy, the massive multiplayer role-playing game that more or less miraculously disappeared after Joe Biden was inaugurated. Whoever is in charge of this work would also be remiss in their duties if they did not consider the explosive potential inherent in Donald Trump losing another election, and take measures to ensure that the reactions of his supporters are safely contained. At the very least, it seems like the natural background for the plot of a Robert Stone novel.

Do you follow me so far? If so, here’s another clue worth clocking. Sept. 4 was the kickoff date for Carlson’s first ever 16-city live tour, which was set to feature all of Donald Trump’s surrogates for onstage appearances, including JD Vance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Kennedy’s former running mate, Nicole Shanahan. According to a source, Tucker had taped a conversation with Vance in August. But the interview he chose to open the curtains on his tour—which he dropped on Sept. 2, two days before the tour began—was with Darryl Cooper. This choice in turn forced Trump and his surrogates into a bind: Either authenticate Cooper’s antisemitic message by keeping silent while sitting chummily onstage with its messenger, or to draw even more attention by refusing to get on stage with him.

They chose to keep silent, and to go through with their appearances. A few days after the Cooper interview ran, Trump, who had Tucker sitting in the box with him at the opening of the Republican National Convention so that tens of millions of viewers would see it, released a video proclaiming himself to be the most pro-Israel president in history. RFK Jr. tweeted a photograph of his father with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Vance tweeted about meeting an Auschwitz survivor. I suppose these men did what they imagined they could to signal rejection of Carlson’s poison. But their responses came off like hostage notes.

So why is Carlson using his platform and his following to hold Trump and the Republican Party hostage to antisemitism? There are three plausible explanations, beginning with the idea that Carlson himself is an antisemite. Even if that’s true, it’s too boring to be the whole story. The second is that Carlson wants to be president of the United States, and believes that Trump will lose—and he sees antisemitism as a useful wedge with which to break off a large chunk of the despondent MAGA base for himself while denying that fraction to potential rivals. The third explanation is that he’s a Fed. In all three cases, his aim would be for Donald Trump to lose in November.

The ‘settler violence’ lie

For many years now, international media and global organizations have pushed one narrative about Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank: the “settler violence” narrative.

This specific phrase is repeated so frequently that many don’t even think to question the term and simply accept as fact the vilification of our Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. However, if history has taught us anything, it is that a lie repeated often enough can come to be accepted as truth—and that is precisely what is happening here.

Recent research by the Israeli NGO Regavim found that the apparent phenomenon of “settler violence” is in most cases simply false, and in many instances misleading or exaggerated.

The study confirms that while isolated cases of violence by Jewish residents do exist, they are rare, involve a tiny fraction of the population, and are dealt with by Israeli authorities according to the law. These incidents are not widespread, nor do they represent the broader Jewish communities in the region.

So where do the inflated numbers come from? The U.N.’s humanitarian office (OCHA) records the statistics. Between 2016 and 2023, they claimed there were 8,332 incidents involving Israeli “settlers.”

But when Regavim dug deeper, it found that many of these were not violence at all. In fact, many would not be classified as violence in any honest or accurate report. The OCHA list includes traffic accidents, school trips, infrastructure work, archaeological visits and even hikers simply walking in disputed areas.

Worse than this gross distortion, OCHA often counts Palestinian Arabs injured or killed while attacking Israelis as if they were victims of “settler violence” themselves. For example, when Muhammad Abd al-Karim Marshoud tried to stab Israelis, the U.N. logged his shooting as one incident and his death as another. Both instances were recorded as Jewish violence, even though he was the attacker.

Once the United Nations’ 8,332 incidents were systematically analysed, only about 833 real cases remained—less than ten per month over seven and a half years. This figure hardly supports the idea of a widespread problem.

09/19 Links Pt1: When international law becomes anti-Israel theatre; Meet the Hamas Leaders Running UNRWA Schools; Terrorists loot UNICEF aid trucks of baby formula

From Ian:

Avraham Shalev & Eugene Kontorovich: When international law becomes anti-Israel theatre

International law has become the central framing device in debates about Israel and the post-October 7 wars. This has elevated purported international law experts to influence and prominence, much as the COVID pandemic empowered public health experts. Since most people are not lawyers – let alone international lawyers – claims presented as expert consensus are hard to dismiss.

Yet the public international law academy has become indistinguishable from radical anti-Israel activism. Standards of rigor and substantiation have been abandoned, and radical political actors have been embraced. That politicisation reached a new peak when a United Nations inquiry accused Israel of “genocide” – contorting the law so far that Israel’s right of self-defence is recast as a crime.

That same mindset was evident just last week at the prestigious annual conference of the European Society for International Law (ESIL) – perhaps the world’s most significant academic professional association for international law. It is a particularly striking example of how deeply the discipline has been politicised, precisely because ESIL enjoys such prestige.

A session of the conference, held at the Free University of Berlin, hosted as a keynote speaker Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories.

Albanese is not an academic. She is under US State Department sanctions for promoting political and economic warfare against Israeli and American officials and companies. She has defended Hamas as a “political organisation,” cast doubt on the sexual violence perpetrated in the October 7 attacks, retweeted comparisons of Netanyahu to Hitler, and was the subject of an internal UN investigation into allegations that pro-Palestinian lobbying groups funded some of her trips.

Her talk focused on accusing Israel of “genocide,” which was presented as an absolute fact. There were no speakers, or audience members for that matter, who questioned her framing – despite leading democracies from the United States to, just recently, the United Kingdom, firmly rejecting the accusation. While her panel was a side-event at the conference, ESIL publicly defended her participation as part of an “academic discussion on difficult and pressing questions in international law.” Yet none of the other panelists came with a different perspective or questioned her assumptions. Indeed, there was no pushback from anyone in the audience, a testament to the echo chamber “international law” has become.

A recent public letter concluding that Israel was not in any way committing genocide has been signed by over five hundred legal scholars, historians and other experts. By shutting out these voices while celebrating a political activist against Israel, ESIL sends a clear message to young scholars seeking to make careers in the highly competitive field: do not defend Israel regardless of the truth, if you want to be invited to conferences, have your work published, and get a job.

Eyal Weizman, an architect and Albanese’s co-panelist, pointed to Israel’s destruction of hospitals in Gaza as proof of genocidal intent against Palestinians. Yet under international law, hospitals lose their civilian protection when used for military purposes – a point not raised by anyone at this international law convention. Hamas’s exploitation of Gaza’s hospitals is well documented, with al-Shifa hospital serving as Hamas’s base of operations. Freed Israeli hostages Yarden Roman-Gat and Mia Shem recounted being hidden in and beneath medical facilities during their captivity.

Similarly, Albanese decried the destruction of mosques and universities as "disrespect for international law," though these can also be targeted when used for military purposes, as the US and UK have done in Iraq. She claimed Israel lacks the right to self-defence enshrined in UN Charter Art. 51. She referred to Israel as “the occupying power of historical Palestine,” outright rejecting the Jewish state's right to exist within any borders, and derisively called the IDF the “Israel Occupation Forces.”

Palestinian casualty figures were grossly inflated and then cited as per se proof of genocide. Albanese asserted that “85% of the killings are not Hamas-related deaths.” That is a misrepresentation of reports that Israel has been able to identify by name 15% of the casualties as Hamas members, but the law of war does not require an army to know the names of combatants it targets. The IDF has reported killing17,000 to 20,000 Hamas fighters, suggesting that a substantial portion – potentially close to 50% based on total reported deaths exceeding 40,000 as of mid-2025 – are military targets.

Despite ESIL’s status as a supposedly staid, apolitical academic organisation, the speakers praised illegal actions and groups. Weizmann mentioned his “partners Al-Haq, PCHR, al-Mezan”. In 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defence designated al-Haq a terrorist organisation, working on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In early September, the United States imposed sanctions on Al-Haq, PCHR and al-Mezan. Weizman also praised Palestine Action’s break-in and vandalism of Elbit offices. In July, the British government banned Palestine Action, stating that the group is “not a non-violent organisation” and has a history of “unacceptable criminal damage.”

Meet the Hamas Leaders Running UNRWA Schools

Hamas leaders have controlled the United Nations Relief and Works Agency's (UNRWA) on-the-ground operations since at least 2011, enabling the terror group to put its members in teaching and administrative positions to spread Hamas's jihadist ideology using U.S. tax dollars, according to a new watchdog group report.

"By knowingly employing Hamas terrorist leaders as school principals and teachers, and by allowing terror chiefs to head the unions that oversee thousands of their teachers, UNRWA didn't just tolerate extremism—the Western-funded U.N. agency institutionalized it, turning classrooms into incubators of hate," an investigation from U.N. Watch, which monitors the international organization, found.

The 220-page report documents how Hamas leaders in Gaza systematically took control of UNRWA's day-to-day operations and bred "thousands of jihadi terrorists," often ensuring that the agency's leadership in New York City had little to no decision making power. Only around 120 UNRWA employees work at the U.N.'s headquarters, in stark contrast to the nearly 30,000 who work inside Gaza under the authority of the agency's Hamas-dominated staff union.

"The Palestinian Arab local staff are the people who run all of UNRWA's services, including its education system," according to U.N. Watch, which found that UNRWA appointed at least 22 Hamas members to significant positions over the past 13 years. UNRWA's current and past union heads, the agency's teachers' union chief, and multiple school principals and teachers operating across Gaza and Lebanon have all held other jobs as terrorists.

"Many of these local leaders, especially in Gaza and Lebanon, are Hamas members or leaders, while thousands of UNRWA's local employees are also active Hamas members," U.N. Watch found. "To put this in perspective, more than 99% of UNRWA's 30,000 employees are area staff—local Palestinian Arabs—while only 120 employees at the agency are international staff, funded by the United Nations in New York."

This arrangement allowed Hamas leaders to control the agency's educational programs and monitor the activities of Western officials inside Gaza. It also enabled the terror group to use UNRWA facilities as military outposts and introduce civilian infrastructure into the battlefield.

One such Hamas leader, Suhail Al-Hindi, played a central role in reshaping UNRWA's operations to bring them in lockstep with the terror group's aims. From 2006 to 2017, Al-Hindi was "a Hamas leader and an UNRWA school principal and head of the UNRWA Gaza Staff Union, overseeing 8,000 teachers and 220,000 students in 240 schools," the U.N. Watch report states. His power within the aid agency ensured that Hamas was able to teach its brand of jihadi terrorism to the thousands of students educated inside UNRWA schools.