Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Edan Alexander's release proves Qatar's complicity in Hamas still holding hostages

We are all happy and excited to see Edan Alexander safely home.

But the circumstances behind his release implicate Qatar as anything but an honest broker.

From what we know, his release was negotiated between the US and Qatar as a go between to Hamas. But the timing indicates that it was meant to coincide with Trump's' visit to the region.

Hamas didn't directly "gain" anything from the release. Israel did not release any more prisoners. One might argue that Hamas gained goodwill from President Trump in the hope of pressuring Israel not to go ahead with its planned major invasion of Gaza. That desire to stop Israeli action and to try to regain control of humanitarian aid certainly played a role.

But in the end, Alexander's release would never have happened if Qatar did not pressure Hamas to release him. Israeli sources and a senior Hamas official in Doha indicated the breakthrough came after Qatari pressure on Hamas.

The upshot is that Qatar can pressure Hamas to release hostages - and it chooses not to unless it gains something itself.

That is not a mediator in the same way Egypt has been a mediator. Qatar being a partner to a terror group, on it has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to under the rubric of "humanitarian aid." It has built beautiful apartments in Gaza that it knew would be used by Hamas to hand out favors to its own members.

The perception of Qatar as an honest mediator increases its prestige and influence. Its actions show otherwise.

Qatar has held the key to the hostages since October 7 and deliberately chooses not to pressure Hamas to release them unless it gains something itself.

Qatar is not an honest broker. Quite the opposite - this episode proves Qatar is an immoral actor that happily partners with Hamas and leverages Hamas terror for its own political aims.

Edan Alexander and the rest of the hostages could have been released a year ago if Qatar wanted them to be.

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How antisemitic science spreads: @TheLancet's flawed Gaza death count methodology promoted by @TheEconomist

The Economist writes about the Gaza death count, and at least acknowledges Hamas' unusually specific numbers as well as its incentive to inflate the numbers. But it exhibits no skepticism for "experts" who use a demonstrably flawed method to base estimates on bad data.

Since the war in Gaza began in October 2023 the death toll has been hotly contested. Counting deaths in any war that is still raging is very hard. But experts are still trying to keep track. And new research suggests the reported numbers are too low.

This article relies on a paper published in The Lancet in January that uses what is known as a "capture-recapture" method to estimate Gaza deaths. The analysis depends on extrapolating data from three lists of casualties in Gaza - the Gaza health ministry list from hospitals, a list of presumably dead people from relatives, and a social media list.

As I showed then, the methodology relies on the idea that each list is independently created. The capture-recapture method only works when each data set is a random sample of the true total. But that is not what those lists are: the list from relatives is tallied by the same health ministry as an adjunct to the official hospital list, and there is no reason for relatives to add names that the health ministry already counted. In other words, there is a high negative correlation between the two lists, when the methodology demands that they are independent.

An additional factor is that the third list from places like Instagram - which affects the estimate a great deal - was used incorrectly, as demonstrated by statistician Abraham Wyner.

The Lancet article has been debunked months ago, but the journal did not publish Wyner's paper that he submitted within weeks of the original article. This fits a pattern of Lancet articles about the Gaza war that are proven to be based on bad statistics, bad assumptions or bad data. Now the bad science is being republished in The Economist as if it was settled science.

It is bad enough when the social sciences use the trappings of hard science to promote political agendas as established fact ("Israel is a settler-colonialist state.") It is far worse when supposedly scientific journals promote the same agendas by pretending that their math is unassailable - and then refuse to publish material that proves them wrong.

And the problem is multiplied when the bad science gets promoted by more popular (yet serious) media like The Economist, without the proper fact checking and skepticism that such papers warrant. Beyond that, The Economist illustrates its article with tragic photos from Gaza, implying that anyone who could possibly disagree with the article is a heartless monster.

Facts be damned. Agendas are more important.

Nazi Germany promoted "Aryan science." The Lancet is doing a modern version of the same, by only publishing articles about Gaza that fit their politics - and ignoring all counter-evidence. The Economist should know better than to blindly trust anything even in supposedly prestigious journals without checking itself.

I would happily eat my words if The Economist or The Lancet issues corrections. I am not holding my breath.

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05/12 Links Pt2: Journalism or Jihad?; Obama’s War Over Jerusalem; Don’t let anti-Israel bigots pose as free-speech champions; The Discovery of the City of David—and the Palestinian Effort to Erase It

From Ian:

Journalism or Jihad?

There is strong evidence that at least six Gaza-based Al Jazeera journalists reportedly joined Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in carrying out the October 7 atrocities in southern Israel, allegations the network denies. Some of the evidence includes the reporter-operatives’ own footage participating in the attack.

Al Jazeera and its affiliates’ royal Qatari funders have invested heavily in positioning the Al Jazeera web of platforms as a tech-savvy ecosystem, seeking to appeal to Western audiences. Tech-savvy as it may be, Al Jazeera is the Qatari government’s soft-power tool to amplify and promote the ideologies of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood’s goal is to create an Islamic state where Islamic law, or Sharia, governs society.

Qatar’s strict media laws prohibit “any criticism” of the Emir of Qatar, and media outlets in the wealthy emirate require government approval before reporting on Qatar’s armed forces, its banks, and certain judicial proceedings.

Tempting as it may be to accept the emirate’s financial largesse, global media entities that take funds from Qatari government patrons, including, but not limited to, through the Al Jazeera Media Institute and other Al Jazeera Media Network platforms, should be held accountable for their ethically and journalistically problematic deals.

It is noteworthy that after additional public revelations about Al Jazeera’s relationship with Hamas following the October 7 massacre, Northwestern University cut ties to Al Jazeera, which had joint programs in the Illinois university’s Doha campus. Northwestern has received over $500 million in contracts from Qatar since 2007, according to U.S. Department of Education data.

It is noteworthy that after additional public revelations about Al Jazeera’s relationship with Hamas following the October 7 massacre, Northwestern University cut ties to Al Jazeera, which had joint programs in the Illinois university’s Doha campus. Northwestern has received over $500 million in contracts from Qatar since 2007, according to U.S. Department of Education data.

In recent weeks, thousands of Gazans protested against not only Hamas’ brutal rule of Gaza but also against Al Jazeera itself as Hamas’ mouthpiece, chanting “barra, barra, barra [out, out, out] Al Jazeera”. The channel’s own coverage did not reflect the tagline on the bottom of the Institute’s page that claims, “You can count on Al Jazeera for truth and transparency.” Instead, it reportedly hoisted anti-Israel signs among the crowd, filmed it, and disingenuously portrayed the protesters’ actual anger at the network as anger at Israel.

In another booklet called “Do Muslims Scare You: A Guide for Journalists”, for which he served as editor, Khamaiseh advises reporters to “connect Islamophobia with anti-Semitism and other forms of racism”. The guide concludes with a “checklist” of “red flags” that reporters should use to check against their own biases. One of the questions they need to ask, his guide says, is, “Am I repeating a libel or a slander against [people] if my source is making vicious claims or remarks?”

Khamaiseh would do well to check his own words for these red flags. And those journalists and media outlets that collaborate with Al Jazeera Media Institute should check the myriad red flags associated with their collaboration.

Digging Up Trouble: Obama’s War Over Jerusalem

The following excerpt is taken from “When the Stones Speak: The Remarkable Discovery of the City of David and What Israel’s Enemies Don’t Want You To Know” (Center Street/Hachette Book Group, May 13, 2025)

Obama and UNESCO
Had the coalition of radical advocacy groups not challenged us in the Supreme Court when it did, and had the court not suspended the excavation of the Pilgrimage Road, which resulted in our focusing on the drainage channel, it is likely that the City of David would not be connected to the Western Wall, even today.

Even though the tunnel could never accommodate large groups like the Pilgrimage Road once had, it was proof that the City of David and the Temple Mount were connected in ancient times. It became an irreversible fact-on-the-ground that they were connected once again — if only through a drainage channel.

This fact would become vital in the years to come, as Israel came under enormous international pressure to stop the excavations in the City of David, first by President Obama’s administration and then by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

A carefully coordinated campaign of news features and “reports” pushed a negative narrative about the excavations to diplomats and politicians in both Europe and the United States.

The following guidelines were adhered to in almost every report and article with few exceptions:
The area would be referred to as either “Silwan” or “Wadi Hilweh” and almost never as “The City of David.”
There would be no mention of the archaeology of ancient Jerusalem or the discoveries made.
There would be no mention of the historic tie between the Jewish people and the area.
In the rare event that the phrase “City of David” was mentioned, it would be only to refer to it as an archaeological ploy used to justify expropriating land from Palestinians in an attempt to “Judaize” the areas with government assistance.
No mention would be made of the millions of dollars in legal real estate transactions conducted between Jews and Arabs.
No mention would be made that the merits of these transactions had been upheld in court to be legally binding dozens of times.
No mention would be made of the death threats against Arabs by either the Palestinian Authority or Hamas for selling their land to non-Muslims.
No mention would be made of the improved roads, infrastructure, and safety in the area stemming from the City of David’s growth.

With no context of the historical importance of the area to Jews, certain foreign government officials were duped, willingly or unwillingly, into believing the narrative that this was nothing more than a militant takeover of an area outside the Old City walls, by lawless Jews at the expense of innocent Palestinians.

Jonathan Tobin: John Fetterman’s health and how to read the mainstream media

Pro-Israel stands as a form of mental illness?
That unlikely prospect aside, it is his supposed “apostasy” about Israel that is driving the anger against him from the progressive wing of his party. This is the only explanation for liberal journalists’ volte-face on the question of his health and fitness for office.

The story that started the tsunami of negative coverage of Fetterman was a lengthy profile in New York Magazine, titled: “All by Himself: John Fetterman insists he is in good health. But staffers past and present say they no longer recognize the man they once knew.”

The main on-the-record source for the piece was his former chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, a veteran left-wing Democratic operative. Like most Democratic congressional staffers on Capitol Hill, Jentleson is an opponent of Israel, who thought the Biden-Harris ambivalent stand on the post-Oct. 7 war was insufficiently hostile to the Jewish state. He ultimately resigned and, along with others who didn’t speak on the record, is at pains to hint that Fetterman’s backing for Israel and refusal to play along with Hamas talking points signify signs of his mental instability.

That story spawned other articles in outlets like The New York Times, The Atlantic, Politico, NBC News, CBS News in which Democrats—both anonymous and on-the-record—shaded Fetterman and depicted him as a deeply disturbed and unstable person in need of medical care. And, they say, he has no business being in the Senate.

Is there a possibility that they are at least partially correct about Fetterman’s health? Maybe.

Press hypocrisy
As someone who cast doubt on his fitness for office when liberals were pretending that there was nothing to see, I’m prepared to accept that some of the current reporting about his health might be accurate. But I also know that the sudden interest in his well-being on the part of the liberal press has nothing to do with any alleged change for the worse in his condition.

While he may still be impaired, as journalists like Salena Zito have reported, since his hospitalization in early 2023, he has managed to do his job for the past two years as reasonably well as most of his colleagues. Though, admittedly, that is a pretty low standard by which to judge anyone.

As such, it’s blatantly obvious that the motivation for the media offensive against Fetterman is about politics, not health. The reason that the same publications, networks and journalists that spent four years declaring that there was nothing wrong with Biden are now sounding the alarm about the senator is because he isn’t useful to them anymore. If he were behaving like other left-wing Democrats and criticizing Israel, the odds that New York magazine, the Times or any of the other outlets seeking to depict him as unworthy of a Senate seat would today be ignoring any concerns about his condition.

While this single demonstration of the media’s corruption and utter lack of credibility is disturbing in and of itself, it’s just another instance of why so much of what the mainstream corporate media publishes should be read with a truckload of salt. Media bias is nothing new, but it’s gotten to the point where stories that are clearly part of a partisan information operation are the norm rather than unusual. As Ruthie Blum wrote in JNS about a recent media attempt to sow dissension between the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government in Israel, this sort of thing is now ubiquitous. At least in America, we have come to the point where it’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that much of what is printed in the mainstream press must be discounted as nothing more than political disinformation.

In the meantime, regardless of concerns about his health, Fetterman still deserves the applause and gratitude of voters for his courage in standing up against the political fashion of his party when it comes to the war against Israel. Whatever else you might think of him, he is an authentic, if eccentric character (his penchant for wearing hoodies and shorts to work is something that has angered his Senate colleagues) who connects with ordinary working-class voters in a way that most Democrats cannot. While he may well face a tough left-wing primary challenge when he runs for re-election, those who underestimate his political appeal in a state and a country sick of partisan ideological polarization do so at their own peril.

Liberals tolerated an infirm and incapable president simply because they thought it helped keep Trump out of the White House. Friends of the Jewish state should therefore be forgiven for being willing to put up with an irascible and moody senator from Pennsylvania who needs technological assistance to do his job but has shown integrity and character when it comes to the post-Oct. 7 surge of antisemitism that other members of his party have either tolerated or encouraged.

05/12 Links Pt1: Hamas releases Edan Alexander, last living American hostage; The Qatari-Led World Order; How Hamas exploits psychology to harm Israel from within and abroad

From Ian:

Hamas releases Edan Alexander, last living American hostage

Hamas has released Edan Alexander, an American-Israeli citizen, back to Israel under a deal reached with the United States.

The release, conducted Monday evening in Gaza, may inaugurate a new phase in the hostage crisis that has consumed Israel since the Palestinian terror group attacked on 7 October 2023, taking 251 captives and opening the war in Gaza.

“I’m very happy to announce that Edan Alexander, an American citizen who until recently most thought was no longer living, thought was dead, is going to be released in about two hours,” President Donald Trump said at a press conference Monday morning. “He’s coming home to his parents, which is great news.”

Israeli media reported at 6:30 p.m. local time that Hamas said it had transferred Alexander to the Red Cross after 584 days in captivity. He was handed over to the Israeli military, which brought him to Israel. There, he was due to meet his parents Adi and Yael Alexander, as well as other family members, and will undergo medical examinations.

“It’s an out of body experience, it’s very exciting, we couldn’t sleep all night,” Adi Alexander said in a phone interview broadcast on Israeli Channel 12. “I saw the picture, he’s handsome, standing on his feet. That’s what’s important… He’s a little pale, thin, but a tall boy. This is my boy.”

He vowed to keep advocating for the rest of the hostages held by Hamas.

Hostage releases have happened before, but this was the first that was arranged directly between the terror group and the United States — without Israel’s knowledge or involvement. It is also the first time Hamas has released a living male Israeli soldier on active duty. And it means that, as of now, for the first time in more than a year and a half, there are no living Americans who are still held hostage in Gaza.

Alexander was born to Israeli parents living in Tenafly, New Jersey, and enlisted in the Israeli military. He was serving as a soldier on the Gaza border when he was taken captive in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack at age 19. Alexander, Channel 12 reported, acted as an English-language interpreter between other hostages and their Hamas captors.

Crowds waited in tense anticipation in the hours ahead of Alexander’s release, in Israel, Tenafly and elsewhere. His impending release was announced over the weekend and came as a surprise. It is unclear what Alexander’s release means for the future of the war in Gazam and for the 58 other hostages still held there — up to 23 of whom are thought to still be alive. In recent days Trump has said that three of the hostages thought to be living had died.

Seth Mandel: The Qatari-Led World Order

So genuflecting to the Qataris has been good for Witkoff’s career. His son, Alex, visited a Qatari government real-estate forum on the eve of the 2024 election. Alex is CEO of the family real-estate company and was appointed by Trump to the board of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Eric Trump, the president’s son, was also recently in Qatar—this time to finalize a Trump Organization deal to build a golf course and villa complex there.

Once upon a time Trump had not-so-nice things to say about his new friends the Qataris. They have, he correctly noted in 2017, “historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.” This was during Trump’s first term as president, and he backed a plan by regional Gulf allies to impose a blockade on Qatar. “I decided, along with secretary of state Rex Tillerson, our great generals and military people, the time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding, they have to end that funding and its extremist ideology.”

A mere ten months later, however, the Qatari emir was in the Oval Office with the president for a friendly chat and some smiley photos. “You’ve now become a very big advocate” of stopping terrorism financing, Trump told the emir, “and we appreciate that.”

Of course, Edan Alexander’s case offers a reality check. Qatar’s support for Hamas has been crucial to the terror group’s survival. Israeli (and American) officials were under the impression that Qatari cash to Hamas would at least have the effect of keeping a lid on Hamas’s terror activity. But that was a ruse, and Hamas used its cash and clout to plan and carry out Oct. 7.

It was at that moment that Qatar had an obligation to intervene and either get the hostages home or cut Hamas loose. Instead, if floundered and dragged its feet.

Edan Alexander is free. But as the scheme to drag him to Qatar for a photo op with the emir and Trump shows, he isn’t yet free of Qatar’s malign influence. And neither, apparently, is the United States.

Andrew Fox: Subjectivity, Morality and Legality

In the labyrinthine discourse surrounding the Gaza conflict, few narratives encapsulate the chasm between legal permissibility and moral outrage as starkly as the reported death of Rafiq Musah Ayesh and his family.

According to a must-read thread by @middleeastbuka on X (formerly Twitter), Ayesh, allegedly affiliated with Hamas, was killed in an Israeli airstrike that also claimed the lives of his entire family. While profoundly tragic, this incident serves as a poignant case study in the complexities of the law of armed conflict (LOAC), particularly the principle of proportionality. This principle is one of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of the whole Gaza War.

Under international humanitarian law (IHL), the principle of proportionality prohibits attacks in which the expected incidental loss of civilian life would be excessive to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. This principle is enshrined in Article 51(5)(b) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions and is recognised as customary international law.

Importantly, proportionality assessments are inherently subjective, relying on the attacker’s information and perspective at the time of the decision. The legality of an attack is judged based on the information available to the commander at the time, not on hindsight or the actual effects of any military action.

In the case of Rafiq Musah Ayesh, if he was indeed a high-ranking Hamas operative, Israel could argue that the military advantage gained by targeting him justified the collateral damage, including the deaths of his family members. This rationale aligns with the LOAC’s allowance for incidental civilian casualties, provided they are not excessive relative to the anticipated military gain.

However, this legal justification often clashes with public perception and moral sensibilities. The death of an entire family, regardless of the intended target, evokes visceral condemnation and raises questions about the adequacy of legal frameworks in addressing the human cost of war.

Determining the legality of such strikes also hinges on the attacker’s intent and knowledge. If the Israeli forces were unaware of the family’s presence or believed that the collateral damage would be minimal, the strike might be deemed lawful under IHL. Conversely, if there was knowledge of the family’s presence and the decision was made to proceed regardless, the legality becomes more contentious as it is a subjective decision. It is for the attacker to justify.

The lack of transparency in military operations further complicates these assessments. Without access to the intelligence and decision-making processes that led to the strike, external evaluations remain entirely speculative.

The Washington Post published an op-ed by Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the head of the Union of Refirm Judaism, where he argues that Israel must allow food into Gaza in the same way it has in the past and the proposed methods are immoral.

For the past two months, Israel has banned food and supplies from entering Gaza. This is the longest complete blockade it has ever imposed. Just days ago, the Israeli cabinet voted to create designated zones in southern Gaza for food distribution to be administered by U.S. security contractors. This plan, which would entail shutting down most of the existing humanitarian aid sites and soup kitchens, is terribly flawed. There is no time frame by which the new food distribution centers would be up and running, and it is not at all certain that the new sites would provide enough aid to alleviate the suffering. In contrast, during the most recent ceasefire, Israel significantly increased the amount of food aid to Gaza, easing widespread hunger.

Starving Gazan civilians neither will bring Israel the “total victory” over Hamas it seeks nor can be justified by Jewish values or humanitarian law. Will this policy bring home the 59 remaining hostages, including the 24 who are still alive? It’s unlikely — and contrary to the wishes of almost 70 percent of Israelis who, in a recent poll, prioritized the hostages’ return over that elusive “total victory.” Of equal concern, far-right Israeli politicians see the aid blockade as part of a broader plan to permanently push most Gazans from northern Gaza and replace them with Jewish settlements.

As a proud Zionist who continues to feel deep solidarity with the people of Israel, including those who wear the Israel Defense Forces uniform, and as I have said on numerous occasions since Oct. 8, I cannot be silent in the face of the immense suffering of civilians in Gaza, including hundreds of thousands of children. Hamas is willing to sacrifice thousands of Palestinians by hoarding humanitarian aid; Israel must not. Depriving Gazans of food and water will not make Israel safer or hasten the return of the hostages. Each of us who loves Israel must say so — and urge Israel to change this policy.

Since Rabbi Jacobs couched his argument in terms of morality, I thought this is an excellent test for my Jewish Ethics Chatbot to see if his position is, in fact, moral.

My positions that I explained to the chatbot (during its clarifying questions) are :

-Destroying Hamas is a higher ethical imperative and a plan to provide food while shutting out Hamas, which Jacobs all but ignores, is the most moral choice.

- Israel's proposal is meant to provide food for Gazans while shutting out Hamas.

- If Israel had been allowed to do a full blockade early in the war, the war would have been over long ago and much suffering avoided.

- This war is is a "milchemet mitzvah," an obligatory war under Jewish law, to desroy Hamas.

- World opinion is not relevant - the concept of "chilul Hashem" does not appl since criticism is motivated by obsessively hating Israel and not concern over civilian deaths, as the silence of the world over war-caused famines in Yemen and Sudan and elsewhere are largely ignored. Therefore Israel must do the most moral choice without concern over world criticism.

Once those parameters were done, here is what the chatbot answered:

From a structured Jewish ethical perspective, when a nation faces an existential threat, its first duty is self-preservation—to protect the lives and safety of its citizens. This qualifies as a milchemet mitzvah (obligatory war of defense), where even morally costly strategies can become permissible if they are both necessary and effective. In this case, if bypassing Hamas while delivering humanitarian aid is feasible and sincere—as you assert—then this plan honors both Pikuach Nefesh (saving life) and Brit (national covenantal duty) without capitulating to the enemy’s manipulation of civilian suffering.

While the suffering of innocent Gazans is tragic, Jewish ethics does not obligate a nation to self-sabotage its defense to alleviate enemy-inflicted civilian harm—especially when an alternative aid model is being attempted in good faith. Indeed, Jewish law explicitly forbids using starvation as a weapon, but it also requires distinguishing between cutting off civilian life-support and cutting off enemy exploitation of aid. If aid can be restructured to reach civilians without empowering Hamas, then a temporary, targeted pressure to facilitate that shift may be ethically justified under Pikuach Nefesh and Tzedek (justice).

Rabbi Jacobs’ call to prioritize immediate humanitarian access, while rooted in compassion, arguably underweights the Jewish duty of Emet (facing hard truths). If increased aid during the ceasefire led to a military resurgence for Hamas, then a stricter wartime blockade with built-in humanitarian lanes may in fact reflect a tragic but necessary moral triage—not a betrayal of Jewish values but their disciplined application under fire.

I then asked further:

Would you say that Rabbi Jacobs' article is problematic as well by not being dan l'chaf zechut on the reasons for Israel's proposed plan to find an alternative way to feed Gazans?

The chatbot answered:

Yes, I think that's a fair critique.

Rabbi Jacobs’ op-ed deeply emphasizes moral accountability and humanitarian suffering—core Jewish values—but he does not appear to give the proposed Israeli plan the benefit of the doubt (dan l’chaf zechut) that it might be a sincere attempt to balance military necessity with compassion. He criticizes the new distribution zones without seriously engaging with their intended function: to prevent Hamas from stealing aid and to deliver help more safely and effectively.

Jewish ethical discourse often insists that we judge others favorably when their actions might plausibly be interpreted as moral, especially fellow Jews acting in defense of life. By neglecting that interpretive charity, Rabbi Jacobs’ critique could be seen as falling short of that standard—even if his broader moral concern is genuine and important.

If Rabbi Jacobs wants to answer these criticisms within his concept of Jewish ethics, I would be most happy to publish his response.

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

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Haaretz goes full-blown antisemitic

There is no way to interpret this Haaretz headline as anything but pure, classic antisemitism:

250 Years After Its First Revolutionary War, America Is Gaining Independence From Israel

At last, America is waking up and acting like an independent country, not a banana republic. I rub my eyes and ask if this is real or just an illusion. How dare this protectorate state voice a different opinion on Middle East affairs?

Meaning, for 250 years, the United States has slavishly followed the dictates of the Jews. It cannot be referring to Israel, which is only 77 years old.

This is the left-wing equivalent of the Goyim Defense League saying Jews control American politics:

Even the most charitable explanation for the Haaretz headline cannot avoid it being understood as claiming that Jews have been the puppet masters of American policy since 1776.

And, of course, having an Arab columnist in a progressive Israeli newspaper now praising Trump's alleged turn against Israel is proof positive of the horseshoe theory of antisemitism.

Antisemitism is indeed mainstream today - and it is the Left, not the Right, that is making it so.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Harvard Divinity School teaches a diverse set of opinions, all of which happen to be anti-Zionist

The Harvard report on antisemitism on campus includes seven pages on Harvard Divinity School's relentless anti-Zionist bias. It notes that there is nothing wrong with teaching criticism of Zionism but the coursework is insanely one-sided and meant to indoctrinate students to hate Israel. Even their trips to Israel are meant to " denot[e] the urgent need to dezionize Jewish consciousness."

The course material framed Zionism as Jewish sin. One speaker spoke of “a specific Jewish sinfulness against the Palestinians," another spoke on “extricating Judaism from state violence and from the idolatry of Israel." A moderator told that speaker, a prominent anti-Zionist "rabbi," that he had a responsibility to atone for being “complicit in power and abuse and displacement [of Palestinians].”

It is difficult to view this religious language aimed at demonizing Jews - sometimes by Jews, sometimes by gentiles - as anything but antisemitic.

Class materials deliberately excluded anything remotely Zionist. A class on “Religion and Peace in Israel/Palestine” started with the lecturer saying, “The discourse is saturated with the Israeli narrative. Therefore, I decided, with a heavy heart, to remove Israeli sources from the syllabus. We will focus solely on Palestinian literature because power disparities, methodology, and conscience demand it.”

One of the anti-Zionist professors at Harvard, an Israeli named Atalia Omer, was incensed by this description of her program. She wrote an article for the Guardian about how unfair the description of Harvard's Religion and Public Life Program was. Yet her criticism in no way contradicts the description of the program in the report. Every example she gives of the "diversity" of Harvard's RPL towards Israel is anti-Zionist:

The report also erases the rich diversity of Jewish voices we brought into our classrooms. It claims our program focused on “non-mainstream Jewish perspectives,” dismissing people like Noam Shuster Eliassi, a Mizrahi Jewish Israeli comedian whose work was supported by our fellowship program and is now featured at the Sundance Film Festival. It ignores events that engaged deeply with Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jewish experiences, including our commemoration of the Israeli Black Panthers’ Passover Haggadah—a powerful symbol of anti-racist struggle in Israeli history.

And it entirely omits our programming on antisemitism itself, including a discussion of alternative definitions of antisemitism like the Jerusalem Declaration, which, unlike IHRA, carefully distinguishes between criticism of Israel and hatred of Jews.

In short, Harvard’s report does not just mischaracterize a program. It attempts to redraw the boundaries of Jewish legitimacy.

Not one of her examples can be described as remotely Zionist or positive towards Zionism. (The comedian she mentions is hostile towards the Abraham Accords. The Israeli Black Panthers' Passover Haggadah is about discrimination against Mizrahi Jews in Israel - in 1971.)

Omer's article proves that the Harvard antisemitism description of the RPL is accurate.

Considering that 95% of Jews are Zionists, to brag that her school does not seem to mention a single Zionist perspective in anything but a negative manner proves the point of the report - Harvard's Divinity School, the same one that just hosted Peter Beinart referring to terrorism as "armed resistance against civilians," is thoroughly anti-Zionist. and in many ways classically antisemitic when its only mention of Judaism in context of the conflict is to characterize Jews and Judaism as being evil.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The UN’s anti-Israel “experts” now quote fake statistics even Hamas hasn’t claimed – and the BMJ follows right along (@bmj_latest @FranceskAlbs)

UN “experts” are willing to endorse even the most outlandish, unsourced claims in the service of slandering Israel – sometimes going further than even Hamas’ own propaganda.

Last week, the UN issued a press release by 39 of its "experts" claiming Israelis intentionally starving Gaza - as a direct response to Israel's attempts to create a means to feed Gazans.

The "experts," in their zeal to demonize the Jewish state, claim:

The group of experts cited over 52,535 deaths, of which 70 percent continue to be women and children, and 118,491 injuries as of 4 May 2025.

The last time the Gaza health ministry gave detailed statistics, it counted 50% women and children, not 70%. even that number is highly suspect given that the ministry has removed thousands of names from its own official lists without adjusting the total numbers of those killed. The only source for 70% - since the beginning of the war - has been Hamas' government media office, which makes up these numbers out of thin air.

The UN "experts" have knowingly published the false 70% figure before. Even though it has been debunked, they cannot help themselves.

But in this latest letter, they go even beyond Hamas' own propaganda.

"Since breaking the ceasefire, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians, many daily - peaking on 18 March 2025 with 600 casualties in 24 hours, 400 of whom were children. This is one of the most ostentatious and merciless manifestations of the desecration of human life and dignity,” the experts said.

Israel killed 600 people on March 18 - of whom 400 were children? How did the media miss this story?

According to the Gaza health ministry, between March 18 morning and noon on March 19. there were 436 deaths, of which 183 were allegedly children.

Again, these numbers are highly suspect - but this is a far cry from 400 children killed in one day. It would be difficult for Israel to deliberately kill that many children even if it wanted to.

Where did these "experts" get these bizarre numbers from? As far as I can tell, they made them up. I cannot find anyone - media, Hamas, random social media posters - who made this claim of 400 children dead out of 600 total in one day.

The "experts" who put their names on these clearly fictional statistics include:

This list of UN "experts" who happily sign anything anti-Israel without even a pretense of fact-checking completely discredits the UN as being a source for anything related to Israel.

The lies get worse, though. The BMJ (British Medical Journal) seems to have taken this press release as source material for its own article and uncritically quoted the bogus "400 children in one day" statistic:

This is a supposedly prestigious medical journal that uncritically parrots lies that have no source whatsoever.

When it comes to anti-Israel propaganda, the experts agree - facts are strictly optional.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

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05/11 Links: Spencer: Why Palestine Cannot and Should Not Be Recognized as a State; Hamas claims it will free Edan Alexander; ICC decided to charge Netanyahu after Khan accused of sexual assault

From Ian:

John Spencer: Why Palestine Cannot and Should Not Be Recognized as a State

With renewed reports that the United States may consider recognizing a Palestinian state as part of a potential normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia, the question of Palestinian statehood has returned to the diplomatic forefront. While such recognition remains unlikely in the near term, the fact that it is even under discussion reveals how detached the conversation has become from legal reality. The question of Palestinian statehood is not just political or moral—it is legal. Under international law, recognition of a state is contingent on specific criteria. As articulated in the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, a state must meet four basic qualifications: a permanent population, a defined territory, a functioning government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. At present, the various Palestinian political entities fail to meet several of these criteria.

3. The Endorsement of Terrorism and Rejection of Nonviolence
The Palestinian Authority’s “pay to slay” program—which provides monthly salaries and benefits to terrorists and their families—does not just glorify violence; it institutionalizes it. These payments are enshrined in Palestinian law and have consumed hundreds of millions of dollars, including foreign aid, to reward acts of terrorism. This isn’t social welfare—it’s incentivized murder. Hamas goes further, openly embracing violence as a core strategy and executing the mass atrocities of October 7, which included the deliberate targeting and torture of civilians. Together, these policies do more than violate international humanitarian norms—they sever any claim to lawful statehood. No polity that uses terrorism as a political tool, codifies it into law, or glorifies it as national identity can meet the threshold of a legitimate sovereign actor under the UN Charter or the binding principles of jus cogens. Statehood requires more than victimhood; it demands adherence to the most basic standards of international law.

Just as Germany was not allowed to rebuild under Nazi ideology, and ISIS was denied any path to statehood despite its de facto control of territory, so too must the world reject the idea that October 7 can become a Palestinian Independence Day. Statehood must be built on peace, legitimacy, and law—not on atrocity.

4. International Precedents and Recognition Criteria
Recognition as a state is not a right—it is a consequence of meeting objective legal thresholds. Entities like Kosovo or South Sudan only achieved widespread recognition after meeting internal governance benchmarks and securing international agreements. In contrast, the Palestinian national project has repeatedly refused to renounce terrorism, dismantle militant factions, or engage in sustained negotiations without preconditions. Recognition without reform would reward intransigence and undermine the integrity of international legal standards.

Palestinian self-determination may remain a legitimate aspiration. But sovereignty comes with responsibilities, not just rights. Until Palestinian leadership unifies under a legitimate government, renounces terrorism in both word and deed, and agrees to defined borders through negotiation—not violence—it cannot be granted the legal status of a state. To do so would set a dangerous precedent: that a fractured, terror-abetting entity can bypass law and diplomacy to claim statehood through bloodshed. That must never become acceptable under the international order.

Ruthie Blum: No, Trump isn’t about to recognize a Palestinian state

Naturally, a flurry of panic or glee ensued, depending on the views of those highlighting the “scoop.” Yet all one had to do was peruse the article to realize that there’s “no there there.”

It isn’t until the fifth paragraph that the author, Ali Hussain, mentions the controversial topic. The passage, which opens with a question in bold letters (“Will Donald Trump recognize a Palestinian state?”), reads as follows:

“A Gulf diplomatic source, who declined to be named or disclose his position, told The Media Line, ‘President Donald Trump will issue a declaration regarding the State of Palestine and American recognition of it, and that there will be the establishment of a Palestinian state without the presence of Hamas.’

“The source also added, ‘If an announcement of American recognition of the State of Palestine is made, it will be the most important declaration that will change the balance of power in the Middle East, and more countries will join the Abraham Accords.’”

An anonymous source from an unnamed country surmising about something that hasn’t happened isn’t news. Nor does Hussain claim that it is.

In fact, he goes on to cite others—on the record—refuting the above. One is U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who “denied the statements made by this source on X/Twitter Saturday afternoon, saying that Israel has no better friend than the U.S.”

Another is former Gulf diplomat Ahmed Al-Ibrahim, who “told The Media Line, ‘I don’t expect it to be about Palestine. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and King Abdullah II of Jordan have not been invited. They are the two countries closest to Palestine, and it would be important for them to be present at any event like this.’”

It would behoove i24News to issue an apology for instigating a phony brouhaha, based either on indolence or political slant. Meanwhile, viewers of both sides of the spectrum would do well to pause before jumping to conclusions based on hot air.

A case in point is a post that’s been circulating on X about a response to the report by White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.

The tweet claims she said, “Contrary to the lies being spread, there will be no recognition of a Palestinian state at all.”

Nice. As it happens, however, a search for such a comment in this context comes up empty.

Competing for clickbait may be hard to avoid in the current climate. Credibility, on the other hand, is a more valuable commodity in the long run.

ICC Set Plan to Charge Netanyahu Just After Prosecutor Was Accused of Sexual Assault

The incident is one of multiple allegations of coerced sexual intercourse that the woman has made against Khan, according to documents, her testimony and officials familiar with the allegations. The woman, who is married and has a child, alleges Khan performed nonconsensual sex acts with her on missions to New York, Colombia, Congo, Chad and Paris. Khan also did so multiple times at a residence owned by his wife where he stayed in The Hague, the headquarters of the ICC, according to her testimony.

Khan, through his lawyers, said it was “categorically untrue that he has engaged in sexual misconduct of any kind.”

The woman, a lawyer from Malaysia, stayed at the job because she didn’t want to leave one of the most important offices in human-rights law and worried she wouldn’t be able to pay the medical bills of her mother, who was dying of cancer, according to her testimony and ICC officials. She also came to fear retaliation from Khan, according to interviews with current and former ICC officials.

The accusations facing Khan have become entwined with the international conflict over Gaza. Just 2½ weeks after Khan learned of the allegations against him last spring, he surprised Israeli and U.S. officials by announcing the most dramatic arrest warrant in the court’s history—for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It was the first time in the ICC’s history that the court’s prosecutor sought a warrant for a Western-aligned democratically elected leader, a move the U.S. had been working to avert for months.

The timing of the announcement has spurred questions about whether Khan was aiming to protect himself from the sexual-assault allegations. The day before announcing the warrant application, Khan abruptly canceled a trip to Israel and Gaza that he had previously said was important to make his decision.

Khan denied that the prosecutor’s decision on the Israeli warrants had any link to the sexual-assault allegations, according to his lawyers.

The warrant shored up support for Khan among anti-Israel ICC nations that would likely back Khan if the allegations ever became public, according to court officials. The warrant also discouraged his accuser for a time from pushing her allegations, officials said, because she strongly supported the investigation of Israeli leaders.

As the abuse allegations were swirling among ICC staff and others, Khan allegedly tried to get his accuser to disavow them by telling her the charges would hurt the Palestinian investigation, according to her testimony.

The casualties of the allegations would include “the justice of the victims that are on the cusp of progress,” he said to her, according to a record of a call that is now part of an independent U.N. investigation into her allegations. “Think about the Palestinian arrest warrants,” she said he told her on another occasion, according to the testimony.

The U.N. is also investigating whether Khan attempted to intimidate or retaliate against the woman and other officials who reported his alleged misconduct, according to ICC officials. A report from the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight Services to the ICC’s board is expected in coming months. Any action to remove Khan would require the majority vote of the court’s 125 member nations.

Further complicating the episode is the tenuous authority of the ICC itself. The world’s most powerful and populous nations—including the U.S., India, Russia and China—aren’t members of the ICC and at times clash with the court. Israel isn’t a member either. The Trump administration sanctioned Khan and the ICC in February for issuing the arrest warrant for Netanyahu.