Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, November 10, 2025

Today's blood libel: "Israel is stealing organs from living Palestinian prisoners"

The New Arab says that Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, a plastic surgeon from England who has traveled to Gaza, says that he saw evidence of Israel removing organs from Palestinian bodies.

Al Jazeera privately showed him images of the alleged victims and based on those pictures he says that it shows that organs had been "expertly" cut out of the bodies, and they cited testimonies from Palestinians in prison who claim to have witnessed Israeli doctors removing organs while the victims were alive. (Sure, doctors allow Hamas prisoners into their operating rooms all the time!)

I've looked at Abu Sittah before. He is an established liar who made claims about what Israel did in Lebanon that simply never happened, he claimed specific torture Israel supposedly did to another doctor that the doctor himself never claimed, and he made up a Ben Gurion quote that never existed. He was in the Al Ahli Hospital when its parking lot was hit by an Islamic Jihad rocket yet he insists that the hospital itself was bombed by Israel. He literally makes things up.

In this case, the lies are a collusion between Dr. Abu Sittah and Al Jazeera.

Where are these photos?

Al Jazeera is not shy about showing the world explicit photos of dead bodies. Neither are Gazans on social media. Yet these photos of surgical incisions of Palestinian bodies, that can be verified by thousands of doctors worldwide, are mysteriously missing. Al Jazeera only shows them to a well-known antisemitic liar.

The photos aren't on the Al Jazeera site. They aren't on Abu Sittah's own X account where he posts multiple times a day. No photos on the Gaza health ministry Telegram site where they post daily. Neither does the ministry mention anything about the missing organs, even though they are the ones who receive the bodies and report on that.

If the photos were real, they would be publicly available. Doctors in Gaza speak directly to reporters all the time, they would have taken photos and shared them already.

Meaning that Al Jazeera and Abu Sittah either conspired on this lie, or Al Jazeera found some real photos of surgical scars from other contexts and shared them with Abu Sittah, claiming they came from Gaza.

Either way, this is another blood libel on top of the hundreds of others that have been prompted by this war. Hamas not only started the war but had planned the media campaign ahead of time to frame Israel as the aggressor and a violator of human rights. There is no shortage of reporters, doctors and politicians who eagerly join Hamas in this cognitive war against the Jewish state. It is part of the most successful propaganda campaign in memory, where the lies get laundered through UN agencies and NGOs so thoroughly that they are accepted as accepted truth in news outlets and even AI.

(h/t Mitchell)

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

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Here is a transcript and audio of US ambassador the UN Daniel Patrick Moynihan's stirring speech denouncing the UN's "Zionism is Racism" resolution, 50 years ago today.

Partial video of the most important parts (the only video I could find.)

Full audio:

Here is most of Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog's famous speech before the vote.

Full audio:

Full transcript of Moynihan's speech:

There appears to have developed in the United Nations the practice for a number of countries to combine for the purpose of doing something outrageous, and thereafter, the outrageous thing having been done, to profess themselves outraged by those who have the temerity to point it out, and subsequently to declare themselves innocent of any wrong-doing in consequence of its having been brought about wholly in reaction to the “insufferable” acts of those who pointed the wrong-doing out in the first place. Out of deference to these curious sensibilities, the United States chose not to speak in advance of this vote: we speak in its aftermath and in tones of the utmost concern.

The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.

Not three weeks ago, the United States Representative in the Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee pleaded in measured and fully considered terms for the United Nations not to do this thing. It was, he said, “obscene.” It is something more today, for the furtiveness with which this obscenity first appeared among us has been replaced by a shameless openness.
There will be time enough to contemplate the harm this act will have done the United Nations. Historians will do that for us, and it is sufficient for the moment only to note the foreboding fact. A great evil has been loosed upon the world. The abomination of anti-semitism — as this year’s Nobel Peace Laureate Andrei Sakharov observed in Moscow just a few days ago — the Abomination of anti-semitism has been given the appearance of international sanction. The General Assembly today grants symbolic amnesty — and more — to the murderers of the six million European Jews. Evil enough in itself, but more ominous by far is the realization that now presses upon us — the realization that if there were no General Assembly, this could never have happened.

As this day will live in infamy, it behooves those who sought to avert it to declare their thoughts so that historians will know that we fought here, that we were not small in number — not this time — and that while we lost, we fought with full knowledge of what indeed would be lost.

Nor should any historian of the event, nor yet any who have participated in it, suppose, that we have fought only as governments, as chancelleries, and on an issue well removed from the concerns of our respective peoples. Others will speak for their nations: I will speak for mine.

In all our postwar history there had not been another issue which has brought forth such unanimity of American opinion. The President of the United States has from the first been explicit: This must not happen. The Congress of the United States in a measure unanimously adopted in the Senate and sponsored by 436 of 437 Representatives in the House, declared its utter opposition. Following only American Jews themselves, the American trade union movements was first to the fore in denouncing this infamous undertaking. Next, one after another, the great private institutions of American life pronounced anathema in this evil thing — and most particularly, the Christian churches have done so. Reminded that the United Nations was born in struggle against just such abominations as we are committing today — the wartime alliance of the United Nations dates from 1942 — the United Nations Association of the United States has for the first time in its history appealed directly to each of the 141 other delegations in New York not to do this unspeakable thing.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan at the UN's "Zionism is racism" debate

The proposition to be sanctioned by a resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations is that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” Now this is a lie. But as it is a lie which the United Nations has now declared to be a truth, the actual truth must be restated.

The very first point to be made is that the United Nations has declared Zionism to be racism — without ever having defined racism. “Sentence first — verdict afterwards,” as the Queen of Hearts said. But this is not wonderland, but a real world, where there are real consequences to folly and to venality. Just on Friday, the President of the General Assembly, speaking on behalf of Luxembourg, warned not only of the trouble which would follow from the adoption of this resolution but of its essential irresponsibility — for, he noted, members have wholly different ideas as to what they are condemning. “It seems to me that before a body like this takes a decision they should agree very clearly on what they are approving or condemning, and it takes more time.”

Lest I be unclear, the United Nations has in fact on several occasions defined “racial discrimination.” The definitions have been loose, but recognizable. It is “racism,” incomparably the more serious charge — racial discrimination is a practice; racism is a doctrine — which has never been defined. Indeed, the term has only recently appeared in the United Nations General Assembly documents. The one occasion on which we know the meaning to have been discussed was the 1644th meeting of the Third Committee on December 16, 1968, in connection with the report of the Secretary-General on the status of the international convention on the elimination of all racial discrimination. On that occasion — to give some feeling for the intellectual precision with which the matter was being treated — the question arose, as to what should be the relative positioning of the terms “racism” and “Nazism” in a number of the “preambular paragraphs.” The distinguished delegate from Tunisia argued that “racism” should go first because “Nazism was merely a form of racism.” Not so, said the no less distinguished delegate from the Union Soviet Socialist Republics. For, he explained, “Nazism contained the main elements of racism within its ambit and should be mentioned first.” This is to say that racism was merely a form of Nazism.

The discussion wound to its weary and inconclusive end, and we are left with nothing to guide us for even this one discussion of “racism” confined itself to world orders in preambular paragraphs, and did not at all touch on the meaning of the words as such. Still, one cannot but ponder the situation we have made for ourselves in the context of the Soviet statement on that not so distant occasion. If, as the distinguished delegate declared, racism is a form of Nazism — and if, as this resolution declares, Zionism is a form of racism — then we have step to step taken ourselves to the point of proclaiming — the United Nations is solemnly proclaiming — that Zionism is a form of Nazism.

What we have here is a lie — a political lie of a variety well known to the twentieth century, and scarcely exceeded in all that annal of untruth and outrage. The lie is that Zionism is a form of racism. The overwhelmingly clear truth is that is it not.

The word “racism” is a creation of the English language, and relatively new to it. It is not, for instance, to be found in the Oxford English Dictionary (appears in 1982 supplement to Oxford Dictionary). The term derives from relatively new doctrines — all of them discredited — concerning the human population of the world, to the effect that there are significant biological differences among clearly identifiable groups, and that these differences establish, in effect, different levels of humanity. Racism, as defined in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, is “The Assumption that . . . traits and capacities are determined by biological race and that races differ decisively from one another.” It further involves “a belief in the inherent superiority of a particular race and its right to dominate over others.”

This meaning is clear. It is equally clear that this assumption, this belief, has always been altogether alien to the political and religious movement known as Zionism. As a strictly political movement, Zionism was established only in 1897, although there is a clearly legitimate sense in which its origins are indeed ancient. For example, many branches of Christianity have always held that from the standpoint of biblical prophets, Israel would be reborn one day. But the modern Zionism movement arose in Europe in the context of a general upsurge of national consciousness and aspiration that overtook most other people of Central and Eastern Europe after 1848, and that in time spread to all of Africa and Asia. It was, to those persons of the Jewish religion, a Jewish form of what today is called a national liberation movement. Probably a majority of those persons who became active Zionism and sought to emigrate to Palestine were born within the confines of Czarist Russia, and it was only natural for Soviet Prime Minister Andrei Gromyko to deplore, as he did in 1948, in the 299th meeting of the Security Council, the act by Israel’s neighbors of “sending troops into Palestine and carrying out military operations aimed” — in Mr. Gromyko’s words — at the suppression of the national liberation movement in Palestine.”

Now it was the singular nature — if, I am not mistaken, it was the unique nature — of this national liberation movement that in contrast with the movements that preceded it, those of that time, and those that have come since, it defined its members in terms not of birth, but of belief. That is to say, it was not a movement of the Irish to free Ireland, or of the Polish to free Poland, not a movement of the Algerians to free Algeria, nor of Indians to free India. It was not a movement of persons connected by historic membership to a genetic pool of the kind that enables us to speak loosely but not meaninglessly, say, of the Chinese people, nor yet of diverse groups occupying the same territory which enables us to speak if the American people with no greater indignity to truth. To the contrary, Zionists defined themselves merely as Jews, and declared to be Jewish anyone born of a Jewish mother or — and this is the absolutely crucial fact — anyone who converted to Judaism. Which is to say, in terms of International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, adopted by the 20th General Assembly, anyone — regardless of “race, colour, descent, or nationally or ethnic origin …..”

The state of Israel, which in time was the creation of the Zionist Movement, has been extraordinary in nothing so much as the range of “racial stocks” from which it Orient and Jew from the West. Most such persons could be said to have been “born” Jewish, just as most Presbyterians and most Hindus are “born” to their faith, but there are many Jews who are just converts. With a consistency in the matter which surely attests to the importance of this issue to that religions and political culture, Israeli courts have held that a Jew who converts to another religion is no longer a Jew. In the meantime the population of Israel also includes large numbers of non-Jews, among them Arabs of both the Muslim and Christian religions and Christians of other national origins. Many of these persons are citizens of Israel, and those who are not can become citizens by legal procedures very much like those which obtain in a typical nation of Western Europe.

Now I should wish to be understood that I am here making one point, and one point only, which is that whatever else Zionism may be, it is not and cannot be “a form of racism.” In logic, the State of Israel could be, or could become, many things, theoretically, including many things undesirable, but it could not be and could not become racism unless it ceased to be Zionist.

Indeed, the idea that Jews are a “race” was invented not by Jews but by those who hated Jews. The idea of Jews as a race was invented by nineteenth century anti-semites such as Houston Steward Chamberlain and Edouard Drumont, who saw that in an increasingly secular age, which is to say an age made for fewer distinctions between people, the old religions grounds for anti-semitism were losing force. New justifications were needed for excluding and persecuting Jews, and so the new idea of Jews as a race — rather than as a religion — was born. It was a contemptible idea at the beginning, and no civilized person would be associated with it. To think that it is an idea now endorsed by the United Nations is to reflect on what civilization has come to.

It is precisely a concern for civilization, for civilized values that are or should be precious to all mankind, that arouses us at this moment to such special passion. What we have at stake here is not merely the honor and the legitimacy of the State of Israel — although a challenge to the legitimacy of any member nation ought always to arouse the vigilance of all members of the United Nations. For a yet more important matter is at issue, which is the integrity of the whole body of moral and legal precepts which we know as human rights.

The terrible lie that has been told here today will have terrible consequences. Not only will people begin to say, indeed they have already begun to say that the United Nations is a place where lies are told, but far more serious, grave and perhaps irreparable harm will be done to the cause of human rights itself. The harm will arise first because it will strip from racism the precise and abhorrent meaning that it still precariously holds today. How will the people of the world feel about racism and the need to struggle against it, when they are told that it is an idea as broad as to include the Jewish national liberation movement?

As the lie spreads, it will do harm in a second way. Many of the members of the United Nations owe their independence in no small part to the notion of human rights, as it has spread from the domestic sphere to the international sphere exercised its influence over the old colonial powers. We are now coming into a time when that independence is likely to be threatened again. There will be new forces, some of them arising now, new prophets and new despots, who will justify their actions with the help of just such distortions of words as we have sanctioned here today. Today we have drained the word “racism” of its meaning. Tomorrow, terms like “national self-determination” and “national honor” will be perverted in the same way to serve the purposes of conquest and exploitation. And when these claims begin to be made — as they already have begun to be made — it is the small nations of the world whose integrity will suffer. And how will the small nations of the world defend themselves, on what grounds will others be moved to defend and protect them, when the language of human rights, the only language by which the small can be defended, is no longer believed and no longer has a power of its own?

There is this danger, and then a final danger that is the most serious of all. Which is that the damage we now do to the idea of human rights and the language of human rights could well be irreversible.

The idea of human rights as we know it today is not an idea which has always existed in human affairs, it is an idea which appeared at a specific time in the world, and under very special circumstances. It appeared when European philosophers of the seventeenth century began to argue that man was a being whose existence was independent from that of the State, that he need join a political community only if he did not lose by that association more than he gained. From this very specific political philosophy stemmed the idea of political rights, of claims that the individual could justly make against the state; it was because the individual was seen as so separate from the State that he could make legitimate demands upon it.

That was the philosophy from which the idea of domestic and international rights sprang. But most of the world does not hold with that philosophy now. Most of the world believes in newer modes of political thought, in philosophies that do not accept the individual as distinct from and prior to the State, in philosophies that therefore do not provide any justification for the idea of human rights and philosophies that have no words by which to explain their value. If we destroy the words that were given to us by past centuries, we will not have words to replace them, for philosophy today has no such words.

But there are those of us who have not forsaken these older words, still so new to much of the world. Not forsaken them now, not here, not anywhere, not ever.

The United States of America declares that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.

Full transcript of Herzog's speech:

Mr. President:

It is symbolic that this debate, which -- which may well prove to be a turning point in the fortunes of the United Nations and a decisive factor as to the possible continued existence of this organization, should take place on November 10th.

Tonight, 37 years ago, has gone down in history as Kristallnacht, or the "Night of the Crystals."

This was the night, on the 10th of November, 1938, when Hitler's Nazi storm-troopers launched a coordinated attack on the Jewish community in Germany, burnt the synagogues in all the cities, and made bonfires in the streets of the Holy Books and the Scrolls of the Holy Law and the Bible.

It was the night when Jewish homes were attacked and heads of families were taken away, many of them never to return.

It was the night when the windows of all Jewish businesses and stores were smashed, covering the streets in the cities of Germany with a film of broken glass which dissolved into millions of crystals, giving that night the name Kristallnacht, the Night of the Crystals.

It was the night which eventually led to the crematoria and the gas chambers, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Dachau, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt, and others. It was the night which led to the most terrifying holocaust in the history of man.

It is indeed befitting, Mr. President, that this debate, conceived in the desire to deflect the Middle East from its moves towards peace and born of a deep pervading feeling of anti-Semitism, should come up for debate on this day, which recalls one of the tragic days in one of the darkest periods of history.

It is indeed befitting, Mr. President, that the United Nations, which began its life as an anti-Nazi alliance, should 30 years later find itself on its way to becoming the world center of anti-Semitism. Hitler would have felt at home on a number of occasions during the past year, listening to the proceedings in this forum, and above all to the proceedings during the debate on Zionism.

It [is] a sobering reflection indeed to consider to what this body has been dragged down if we are obliged today to contemplate an attack on Zionism. For this attack constitutes not only an anti-Semitic attack of the foulest type, but also [an] attack, in this world body, on Judaism, one of the oldest established religions in the world -- a religion which has given the world the human values of the Bible; a religion from which two other great religions, Christianity and Islam, sprang.

Is it not tragic to consider that we here at this meeting in the year 1975 are contemplating what is a scurrilous attack on a great and established religion which has given to the world the Bible with its Ten Commandments; the great prophets of old, Moses, Isaiah, Amos; the great thinkers of history, Maimonides, Spinoza, Marx, Einstein; many of the masters of the arts; and as high a percentage of the Nobel Prize-winners in the world, in the sciences, in the arts, in the humanities as has been achieved by any other people on earth?

One can but ponder and wonder at the prospect of countries, which consider themselves to be part of the civilized world, joining in this first organized attack on a -- an established religion since the Middle Ages. Yes, Mr. President, to these depths are we being dragged down by those who propose this resolution to the Middle Ages.

The resolution before the Third Committee was originally a resolution condemning racism and colonialism, a subject on which consensus could have been achieved, a consensus which is of great importance to all of us, and to our African colleagues in particular. However, instead of this being permitted to happen, a group of countries, drunk with the feeling of power inherent in the automatic majority, and without regard to the importance of achieving a consensus on this issue, railroaded the Committee in a contemptuous manner by the use of the automatic majority, into bracketing Zionism with the subject under discussion. Indeed, it is difficult to speak of this base move with any measure of restraint.

Mr. President:

I do not come to this rostrum to defend the moral and historic values of the Jewish people. They do not need to be defended. They speak for themselves. They have given to mankind much of what is great and eternal. They have done for the spirit of man more than can readily be appreciated by a forum such as this one.

I come here to denounce the two great evils which menace society in general and a society of nations in particular. These two evils are hatred and ignorance. These two evils are the motivating force behind the proponents of this resolution and their supporters. These two evils characterize those who would drag this world organization, the idea of which was first conceived by the prophets of Israel, to the depths to which it has been dragged today.

The key to understanding Zionism lies in its name. In the Bible, the easternmost of the two hills of ancient Jerusalem was called Zion. The period was the 10th century before Christ [sic]. In fact, the name "Zion" appears 152 times in the Old Testament referring to Jerusalem. The name is overwhelmingly a poetic and prophetic designation. The religious and emotional qualities of the name arise from the importance of Jerusalem as the Royal City and the City of the Temple. "Mount Zion" is the place where God dwells according to the Bible. Jerusalem, or Zion, is the place where the Lord is King according to Isaiah, and where He has installed His king, David, as quoted in the Psalms.

King David made Jerusalem the capital of Israel almost 3000 years ago, and Jerusalem has remained the capital ever since. During the centuries the term "Zion" grew and expanded to mean the whole of Israel. The Israelites in exile could not forget Zion.

The Hebrew psalmist sat by the waters of Babylon and swore "If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning."1 This oath has been repeated for thousands of years by Jews throughout the world. It is an oath which was made over 700 years before the advent of Christianity, and over 1200 years before the advent of Islam.

Bearing all these connotations in mind, Zion came to mean the Jewish homeland, symbolic of Judaism, of Jewish national aspirations.

Every Jew, praying to his God, wherever he is in the world, faces towards Jerusalem. These prayers have expressed for over 2000 years of exile the yearning of the Jewish people to return to their ancient homeland, Israel. In fact, a continuous Jewish presence, in larger or smaller numbers, has been maintained in the country over the centuries.

Zionism is the name of the national movement of the Jewish people and is the modern expression of the ancient Jewish heritage. The Zionist ideal, as set out in the Bible, has been, and is, an integral part of the Jewish religion.

Zionism is to the Jewish people what the liberation movements of Africa and Asia have been to their own people. Zionism is one of the most stirring and constructive national movements in human history. Historically, it is based on a unique and unbroken connection, extending some 4000 years, between the People of the Book and the Land of the Bible.

In modern times, in the late 19th century, spurred by the twin forces of anti-Semitic persecution and of nationalism, the Jewish people organized the Zionist movement in order to transform their dream into reality. Zionism, as a political movement, was the revolt of an oppressed nation against the depredations and the wicked discrimination and oppression of the countries in which Zionism [anti-Semitism] flourished. It is indeed no coincidence at all, and not surprising, that the cosponsors and supporters of this resolution include countries who are guilty of the horrible crime of anti-Semitism and discrimination to this very day.

Support for the aim of Zionism was written into the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, and was again endorsed by the United Nations in 1947, when the General Assembly voted by an overwhelming majority for the restoration of Jewish independence in our ancient land.

The re-establishment of Jewish independence in Israel, after centuries of struggle to overcome foreign conquest and exile, is a vindication of the fundamental concepts of the equality of nations and of self-determination. To question the Jewish people's right to national existence and freedom, is not only to deny to the Jewish people the right accorded to every other people on this globe but is also to deny the central precepts of the United Nations.

For Zionism is nothing more and nothing less than the Jewish people's sense of origin and destination in the land linked eternally with its name. It is also the instrument whereby the Jewish nation seeks an authentic fulfillment of itself. And the drama [is] enacted in the region in which the Arab nation has realized its sovereignty in 20 States, comprising a hundred million people in four and a half square million miles [sic], with vast resources. The issue therefore is not whether the world will come to terms with Arab nationalism. The question is, at what point Arab nationalism, with its prodigious glut of advantage, wealth, and opportunity, will come to terms with the modest but equal rights of another Middle Eastern nation to pursue its life in security and peace.

The vicious diatribes [on] Zionism voiced here by Arab delegates, may give this Assembly the wrong impression: that while the rest of the world supported the Jewish national liberation movement, the Arab world was always hostile to Zionism. This is not the case. Arab leaders, cognizant of the rights of the Jewish people, fully endorsed the virtues of Zionism. Sharif Hussein, the leader of the Arab world during the First World War, welcomed the return of the Jews to Palestine. His son, Emir Feisal, who represented the Arab world in the Paris Peace Conference, had this to say about Zionism on the 3rd of March 1919 (and I quote):

We Arabs, especially the educated amongst us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement...We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home...We are working together for a reformed and revised Near East, and with our two movements complement one another. The movement is national and not imperialistic. There is room in Syria for us both. Indeed, I think that neither can be a success without the other.

(Unquote.)

It is perhaps pertinent at this point to recall that in 1947, when the question of Palestine was being debated in the United Nations, the Soviet Union strongly supported the Jewish independence struggle. It is particularly relevant to recall some of Mr. Andrei Gromyko's remarks on May the 14th 1947, one day [year] before our independence (and I quote):

As we know, the aspirations of a considerable part of the Jewish people are linked with the problem of Palestine and of its future administration. This fact scarcely required proof...During the last war, the Jewish people underwent exceptional sorrow and suffering. Without any exaggeration, this sorrow and suffering are indescribable. It is difficult to express them in dry statistics on the Jewish victims of the fascist aggressors. The Jews in the territories, where the Hitlerites held sway, were subjected to almost complete physical annihilation. The total number of Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazi executioners is estimated at approximately six million....

The United Nations cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference, since this would be incompatible with the high principles proclaimed in its Charter, which provides for the defense of human rights, irrespective of race, religion or sex....

The fact that no Western European State has been able to ensure the defense of the elementary rights of the Jewish people and to safeguard it against the violence of the fascist executioners -- explains the aspirations of the Jews to establish their own State. It would be unjust not to take this into consideration and to deny the right of the Jewish people to realize this aspiration. They [Those] were the words of Mr. Andrei Gromyko at the General Assembly session on the 14th of May 1947.

How sad it is to see here a group of nations, many of whom have but recently freed themselves from colonial rule, deriding one of the most noble liberation movements of this century, a movement which not only gave an example of encouragement and determination to the people struggling for independence, but also actively aided many of them during the period of preparation for their independence, or immediately thereafter.

Here you have a movement, which is the embodiment of a unique pioneering spirit, of the dignity of labor, and of enduring human values, a movement which has presented to the world an example of social equality and open democracy, being associated in this resolution with abhorrent political concepts.

We, in Israel, have endeavored to create a society which strives to implement the highest ideals of society -- political, social. and cultural -- for all the inhabitants of Israel, irrespective of religious belief, race, or sex. Show me another pluralistic society in this world in which, despite all the difficult problems under which we live, Jew and Arab live together with such a degree of harmony, in which the dignity and rights of man are observed before the law, in which no death sentence is applied, in which freedom of speech, of movement, of thought, of expression are guaranteed, in which even movements which are opposed to our national aims are represented in our Parliament.

The Arab delegates talk of racism. It lies not in their mouths. What has happened to the 800,000 Jews who lived for over 2000 years in the Arab lands, who formed some of the most ancient communities long before the advent of Islam? Where are those communities? What happened to the people? What happened to their property?

The Jews were once one of the most important communities in the countries of the Middle East -- the leaders of thought, of commerce, of medical science. Where are they in Arab society today? You dare talk of racism when I can point with pride to the Arab Ministers who have served in my Government; to the Arab deputy speaker of my Parliament; to Arab officers and men serving of their own volition in our defense, border, and police forces, frequently commanding Jewish troops; to the hundreds of thousands of Arabs from all over the Middle East crowding the cities of Israel every year; to the thousands of Arabs from all over the Middle East coming for medical treatment to Israel; to the peaceful coexistence which has developed; to the fact that Arabic is an official language in Israel on a par with Hebrew; to the fact that it is as natural for an Arab to serve in public office in Israel as it is incongruous to think of a Jew serving in any public office in any Arab country, indeed being admitted to many of them.

Is that racism? It is not. That, Mr. President, is Zionism.

It is our attempt to build a society, imperfect though it may be -- and what society is perfect? -- in which the visions of the prophets of Israel will be realized. I know that we have problems. I know that many disagree with our Government's policies. Many in Israel, too, disagree from time to time with the Government's policies, and are free to do so, because Zionism has created the first and only real democratic State in a part of the world that never really knew democracy and freedom of speech.

This malicious resolution, designed to divert us from its true purpose, is part of a dangerous anti-Semitic idiom which is being insinuated into every public debate by those who have sworn to block the current move towards accommodation and ultimately towards peace in the Middle East. This, together with similar moves, is designed to sabotage the efforts of the Geneva Conference for peace in the Middle East, and to deflect those who are moving along the road towards peace from their purpose. But they will not succeed, for I can but reiterate my Government's policy to make every move in the direction towards peace based on compromise.

Mr. President:

We are seeing here today but another manifestation of the bitter anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish hatred which animates Arab society.

Who would have believed that in the year 1975 the malicious falsehoods of the Elders of Zion would be distributed officially by Arab Governments?

Who would have believed that we would today contemplate an Arab society which teaches the vilest anti-Jewish hate in the kindergartens?

Who would have believed that an Arab Head of State would feel obliged to indulge publicly in anti-Semitism of the cheapest nature when visiting a friendly nation?

We are being attacked by a society which is motivated by the most extreme form of racism known in the world today. This is the racism which was expressed so succinctly in the words of the leader of the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization], Yasser Arafat, in his opening address at a symposium in Tripoli, Libya (and I quote): "There will be no presence in this region except for the Arab presence" (unquote). In other words, in the Middle East, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf, only one presence is allowed, and that is the Arab presence. No other people, regardless of how deep are its roots in the region, is to be permitted to enjoy its rights of self-determination.

Look at the tragic fate of the Kurds in Iraq. Look what happened to the black population in southern Sudan. Look at the dire peril in which an entire community of Christians finds itself in Lebanon. Look at the avowed policy of the PLO, which calls, in its Palestine Covenant, for the destruction of the State of Israel, which denies any form of compromise on the Palestine issue, and which, in the words of its representative only the other day in this building, considers Tel Aviv to be occupied territory. Look at all this and you'll see before you the root cause of the pernicious resolution brought before this Assembly. You'll see the twin evils of this world at work: the blind hatred of the Arab proponents of this resolution, and the abysmal ignorance and wickedness of those who support them.

Mr. President:

The issue before this Assembly is not Israel and not Zionism. The issue is the fate of this Organization. Conceived in the spirit of the prophets of Israel, born out of an anti-Nazi alliance after the tragedy of World War II, it has degenerated into a forum which was this last week described by [Paul Johnson] one of the leading writers in a foremost organ of social and liberal thought in the West as (and I quote):

...rapidly becoming one of the most corrupt and corrupting creations in the whole history of human institutions...almost without exception those in the majority come from States notable for racist oppression of every conceivable hue....

He goes on to explain the phenomenon of this debate (and I quote):

Israel is a social democracy, the nearest approach to a free socialist State in this world; its people and Government have a profound respect for human life, so passionate indeed that, despite every conceivable provocation, they have refused for a quarter of a century to execute a single captured terrorist. They also have an ancient but vigorous culture, and a flourishing technology. The combination of national qualities they have assembled in their brief existence as a State is a perpetual and embittering reproach to most of the new countries whose representatives swagger about the UN [United Nations] building. So Israel is envied and hated, and *efforts are made to destroy her. The extermination of the Israelis has long been the prime objective of the Terrorist international; they calculate*2 that if they can break Israel, then all the rest of civilization is vulnerable to their assaults.

And then he goes on to conclude:

The melancholy truth, I fear, is that the candles of civilization are burning low. The world is increasingly governed not so much by capitalism, or communism, or social democracy, or even tribal barbarism, as by a false lexicon of political clichés, accumulated over half a century and now assuming a kind of degenerate sacerdotal authority...We all know what they are....

(End of quote.)

Mr. President:

Over the centuries it has fallen to the lot of my people to be the testing agent of human decency, the touchstone of civilization, the crucible in which enduring human values are to be tested. A nation's level of humanity could invariably be judged by its behavior towards its Jewish population. It always began with the Jews but never ended with them.

The anti-Jewish pogroms in Czarist Russia were but the tip of the iceberg which revealed the inherent rottenness of the regime which was soon to disappear in the storm of revolution. The anti-Semitic excesses of the Nazis merely foreshadowed the catastrophe which was to befall mankind in Europe.

This wicked resolution must sound the alarm for all decent people in the world. The Jewish people, as a testing agent, has unfortunately never erred. The implications inherent in this shameful move are terrifying indeed.

Mr. President:

On this issue, the world, as represented in this hall, has divided itself into good and bad, decent and evil, human and debased. We, the Jewish people, will recall in history our gratitude to those nations who stood up and were counted and who refused to support this wicked proposition. I know that this episode will have strengthened the forces of freedom and decency in this world and will have fortified them in their resolve to strengthen the ideals they so value. I know that this episode will have strengthened Zionism as it has weakened the United Nations.

Mr. President:

As I stand on this rostrum, the long and proud history of my people unravels itself before my inward eye, I see the oppressors of our people over the ages as they pass one after another in evil procession into oblivion.

I stand here before you as the representative of a strong and flourishing people which has survived them all and which will survive this shameful exhibition and the proponents of this resolution.

Mr. President:

I stand here as the representative of a people one of whose prophets gave to this world the sublime prophecy which animated the founders of this world Organization and which graces the entrance to this building: "...nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more."3

Three verses before this, the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed (and I quote it in the Hebrew original): [delivered first in Hebrew]. "And it shall come to pass in the end of the days...for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."4

Mr. President:

As I stand on this rostrum, the great moments of Jewish history come to mind as I face you, once again outnumbered and the would-be victim of hate, ignorance, and evil. I look back on those great moments. I recall the greatness of a nation which I have the honor to represent in this forum. I am mindful at this moment of the Jewish people throughout the world wherever they may be, be it in freedom or in slavery, whose prayers and thoughts are with me at this moment.

Mr. President:

I stand not here as a supplicant. Vote as your moral con[science] dictates to you. For the issue is not Israel or Zionism. The issue is the continued existence of the Organization which has been dragged to its lowest point of discredit by a coalition of despotisms and racists.

The vote of each delegation will record in history its country's stand on anti-Semitic racism and anti-Judaism. You yourselves bear the responsibility for your stand before history, for as such will you be viewed in history. But we, the Jewish people, will not forget.

For us, the Jewish people, this is but a passing episode in a rich and event-filled history. We put our trust in our Providence, in our faith and beliefs, in our time-hallowed tradition, in our striving for social advance and human values, and in our people wherever they may be.

For us, the Jewish people, this resolution, based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, is devoid of any moral or legal value.

For us, the Jewish people, this is no more than a piece of paper, and we shall treat it as such.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Al Binaa, a respected Lebanese newspaper, published this op-ed:

Rare moments we see white smoke in this darkness of my country's long night...We have all entered a tunnel so long, longer than all the suspended speeches that have been delivered since the Palestinian issue began until this very day.

And suddenly... without preamble, hope returns to you, you rejoice, and you believe once again that you are still capable of confrontation... and of victory.

Years ago, during the "global" celebration of the Holocaust that the Jews want to burden the Arab world with the guilt of, one of the directors of a private school in northern Lebanon asked one of the female students to present a report on Nazi crimes against the Jews, supported by photos, evidence, and proofs, considering it part of the methodology adopted by the school!

The student refused to present this report, supporting her opinion with the following points:— If the requirement is to speak about terrorism and massacres, then it is more fitting that we write reports on the massacres by the Jews in Deir Yassin, Kafr Qasim, the Ibrahimi Mosque, Qana, southern Lebanon, Sabra and Shatila, the "Israeli" detention camps, Jenin, and Gaza, and other massacres beyond count.— And if the requirement is to speak about "the expulsion of the Jews from Europe" to the "Promised Land," then the claim is rejected, because the Jews came to Palestine with a programmed, readied, and pre-prepared plan, to displace an entire people to all corners of the globe.

From here, sir Director, I refuse to be the beginning of normalization, and I will certainly not be one of the "runners"... And believe me... we are from a generation that believes in stands of dignity.

The director backed down from his decision, and the student triumphed in the first confrontations to impose normalization.

The incident seems apocryphal - I doubt that any Lebanese school even teaches about the Holocaust to begin with.

But that's not the point. The idea that is is heroic to refuse to study the Holocaust because, something something Palestinians, is not just antisemitism - it is antisemitism that the Lebanese are proud of. A "white smoke in the darkness."

Yes, Lebanon might be a failed state that allowed itself to be hijacked by Iran and even with Hezbollah's defeat it is too frightened to take a stand to take the country back. Yes, it is filled with corruption and militias. Yes, it is on the verge of collapsing. But the Lebanese have something to be proud of - they've taught their children to hate Jews, so they feel they have at least accomplished something with their lives.

(According to the ADL, 86% of Lebanese citizens harbor antisemitic attitudes.)

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

11/09 Links: Israel receives remains of Hadar Goldin after 11 years; The UN’s “Gaza Peace” Trap; Triggernometry: Ben Shapiro; BBC chiefs resign after criticism over bias; Kristallnacht survivors: World is once again dangerous for Jews

From Ian:

Pierre Rehov: The Mirage of 'Humanitarian Reconstruction': Billions for Gaza — But Who Will Prevent the Next Jihad?

The UNDP's own auditors uncovered more than 100 investigations into fraud, bribery, and "ghost projects." If corruption could flourish under nominal Iraqi government control, imagine the diversion potential in Gaza — where much of the terror regime remains intact.

Earlier UN experiments, such as the Oil-for-Food scandal, showed how -- when oversight is weak and politics trumps accountability -- "humanitarian" programs become self-enriching rackets.

For years, Hamas forces have been filmed confiscating relief shipments directly from UN trucks and warehouses. It is not chaos; it is a business model.

These are not isolated abuses — they form a structural pattern in which humanitarian efforts in fact bankroll jihad.

After Hamas's October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel, investigations confirmed that many UNRWA employees participated in or facilitated the Hamas attacks, leading more than 20 donor countries — including the U.S., Canada, and Germany — to suspend funding. Some countries, however, under political pressure, resumed payments months later, even as fresh evidence emerged of UNRWA staff ties to Hamas's military wing.

The U.S. administration... continues to push for a "political process" aimed at reviving a desired "peace framework" partially disconnected from the region's realities. Washington may view reconstruction as a path to normalization, but for Israel — the country whose citizens were massacred and whose borders remain under threat — security comes before expediency, and survival before consent.

Cynical Publius: "America First" and Israel

"Are you America First or Israel First?" is a false dilemma. It is precisely because I am "America First" that I wholly support current U.S. policies regarding Israel. Support for Israel is solidly in America's best interests.

I lived for extended periods in the Middle East and in other Islamic nations both in military and civilian capacities and I know the ideas and policies that define the region. The entire history of Islam, literally since its inception, is a history of conquering other lands to force their inhabitants to become Muslims.

In Muslim Arab countries, it is possible to become friends with highly educated, highly rational people who are some of the smartest humans you will ever meet. Yet, sadly, when the subject of Israel and/or Judaism comes up, they suddenly lapse into astonishingly irrational beings, asserting wildly antisemitic tropes straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Islamic nations have views on personal liberty that are completely and utterly opposed to Western civilization. Every nation but one in the Middle East offers only totalitarian, tyrannical governance. Israel is the only nation in the region that shares Western values of democracy, self-governance, the rule of law, and guaranteed personal liberties.

Israel is a tremendous military ally to the U.S., sharing military intelligence and technology. The only intelligence service that rivals the CIA and the UK's MI6 is Mossad, and the intelligence we share with each other is greatly beneficial to both nations.

Since its inception in its modern form, Israel has been surrounded by Muslim states with a singular purpose of destroying Israel and all of its Jewish inhabitants. Yet the citizens of Israel made the desert bloom and built an economic and military powerhouse out of nothing. We Americans who understand our own pioneering history can see the similarity to our own nation and cannot help but admire it.

Israel has a technology industry that is second only to Silicon Valley, and when it comes to cybersecurity, arguably better. The U.S. and world economies depend greatly on the innovation and products of the Israeli people. Right now, if you are reading this, the only reason you can do so safely without divulging your bank account and other deeply personal information is thanks to Israel.

"Gaza genocide" is a nonsense myth. Israel had for decades offered peace and compromises, and Hamas and Gaza's citizens rejected all of that in favor of death and destruction. Israel's response in Gaza was EXACTLY what the U.S. would have done when faced with a similar situation. To a certain extent, Israel has fought jihad so you and I do not have to. Israel's continued existence benefits America in every way imaginable. So please don't pretend that support for Israel is anti-American.

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser: If Hamas Refuses to Disarm, Israel Will Finish the Job with American Backing

The Trump Plan outlines a path for far-reaching change in Gaza, which is to become a de-radicalized, terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors. For this vision to have any chance of success, the Palestinian narrative must change from one that denies the Jewish people's right to a state in the Land of Israel and glorifies the struggle to destroy it, to one prepared to build peaceful relations with the Jewish state.

That change must begin with an internal reckoning - an acknowledgment that the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack was a grievous mistake, and that Israel cannot be defeated, certainly not by force. So far, Hamas remains defiant, reflecting not only a refusal to surrender power but also an awareness that disarmament would symbolize an admission of error and guilt.

During the events marking the attack's second anniversary, Arab media criticism did not challenge the "heroism" of Hamas's attackers or the supposed legitimacy of using violence to drive Israel out. Rather, it focused on Hamas's failure to anticipate Israel's response - that exacted a devastating price in lives and property. Even media close to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood expressed criticism, noting the heavy price the Iranian axis had paid for Hamas's short-sightedness.

What forced Hamas to yield on the hostages? Israel's determination to press ahead on the capture of Gaza City - despite intense international pressure, the wave of Western recognition of a Palestinian state, and the potential costs, together with the massive destruction inflicted on Gaza's infrastructure that included collapsing high-rise buildings - created severe distress within Hamas's ranks.

Although Hamas's propaganda campaigns about "starvation" and "genocide" were highly effective, they failed to stop Israel's offensive. Now the U.S. and Israel must assess whether additional measures can shape how Oct. 7 is ultimately remembered in the Palestinian national consciousness.

Israel and the U.S. must reiterate a credible military threat: if Hamas refuses to disarm, Israel - with full American backing - will resume combat and finish the job. President Trump continues to signal this. Washington and Jerusalem should condition the next stages of the plan - opening the Rafah crossing, expanding humanitarian aid, and launching reconstruction - on Hamas's disarmament.

The mediators must be pressed to use their leverage. They should be made to understand that failure to achieve Hamas's disarmament will not only lead to its forcible removal but will also affect their own relations with the U.S.

Tracing the antisemitic spaghetti code: The St Louis anti-Israel resolution

On Friday, St. Louis aldermen approved a non-binding resolution calling on the City of St. Louis’ retirement system to divest from companies that profit from war.

But when you trace back the resolution, you see that it is all obfuscation to hide the real purpose of delegitimizing the Jewish state.

The resolution doesn't mention Israel or Palestinians or Gaza at all. Here is the operative part:

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Board of Aldermen of the City of St. Louis calls on the Board of Trustees of the Employees Retirement System of the City of St. Louis, to ensure that all of the city resources entrusted to their stewardship, including stock holdings, bond investments, and pension funds are not invested in companies that are complicit in perpetuating violence against people within our city or abroad according to the guidelines established by the American Friends Service Committee.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is the Quakers, who have been obsessed with Israel and support BDS. They position their investment policy as being generally against war altogether, but it is centered on their "Investigate" database - which was built specifically against Israel, as its webpage still happily admits:

About 80-90% of the 286 companies on the AFSC list are linked to Israel. Perhaps to avoid accusations of being only anti-Israel they added a few other companies involved in US prisons or police. This way they position their divestment list as being comprehensive when in fact it is focused on Israel. And that is how the St. Louis aldermen can pretend that their resolution has nothing to do with Israel specifically.

But that is not the only way facts get laundered.

The AFSC, in turn, doesn't claim to have made its own investigations into Israeli "genocide" or "apartheid." It relies on reports by UN committees or Amnesty International to pretend that those accusations are undisputed.

And of course the UN and NGOs use their own definitions of those terms that only apply to Israel.

Which makes them antisemitic.

And there's more fact laundering. The St. Louis resolution was based on a campaign called "Not Another Nickel" which cloaks its anti-Israel goals by saying that the 1% of the investments in the St. Louis Retirement System that is invested in companies listed in the AFSC database is somehow taking away the city's access to clean water and air.

And who is the first group listed in this initiative ostensibly to improve the lives of people in St. Louis? The St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee! Who say that their entire mission is to destroy Israel via ending "military occupation in Palestine" and advocating for the "right of return." St. Louis residents are not included in their mission statement.

One more layer: the resolution is non-binding but it is being reported as "St. Louis Just Became the Largest City in the US to Ban Investments in Companies/Countries Involved in Human Rights Abuses." No, it didn't, but these lies make people think that this is an unstoppable wave and makes the next antisemitic resolution more likely.

This is the insidious way modern antisemitism works: there has been a conscious plan to build a framework of false accusations against Israel that gets supported by major players, then referenced in secondary sources as factual, and those secondary sources add their own lies but pretend to be neutral and more general, and then they can be referred to in turn by resolutions that are plainly meant to be anti-Israel but they have ideological cover.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Felesteen (and many Arabic media outlet reports that "a child was killed on Saturday evening when an object left behind by the Israeli occupation exploded in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip."

How do they know it was from a leftover Israeli bomb and not a booby trap from Hamas?

Yaffa News says the explosion happened in a "residential area." Hamas booby-trapped pretty much every house in areas of fighting, hoping (and sometimes succeeding) in killing Israeli troops with the bombs.

Here's a video recovered from a Hamas member showing Hamas terrorists planting bombs, including lightly covering one with trash, hoping someone will investigate it and blow up.

Leftover Israeli bombs are easy to recognize. Hamas booby traps are meant to be set off by being hidden. And no one cleaned them up, so children are the easiest targets.

We will never know how many of the dead in Gaza were actually killed by Hamas bullets, rockets or bombs. But we know that the Western media is not reporting about them.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

11/08 Links: Hamas claims to recover body of Hadar Goldin, IDF soldier killed in 2014 war; Why Britain’s Jews no longer feel at home; The Overton Window and Zohran Mamdani: How Antisemitism Became Respectable Again

From Ian:

Why Britain’s Jews no longer feel at home

There are now streets we must avoid at the weekend, football matches it is no longer safe to attend. Pupils at Jewish schools are now told to hide the school’s emblem on their uniforms to avoid harassment. The often celebrity-led campaigns to exclude Israelis from academia, culture and sport have picked up pace. Even in the National Health Service, there are growing concerns over anti-Semitism among medical staff.

In the media, our own national broadcaster, the BBC, still won’t call Hamas ‘terrorists’ and happily broadcast the threat to kill Jews, ‘Death, death to the IDF’, during its coverage of the Glastonbury festival. Just last month, renowned interviewer Louis Theroux put out his latest podcast, a lovely cosy chat with the creator of the ‘Death to the IDF’ chant, punk-rapper Bobby Vylan. During the podcast, Theroux and Vylan revealed they both essentially equate Zionism with white supremacy. As Theroux put it, ‘Jewish identity in the Jewish community, as expressed in Israel, has become almost like an acceptable, quote, unquote, way of understanding ethno-nationalism’.

Hearing someone as mainstream as Theroux not only nod along, but also seemingly agree with such an obnoxious idea is a powerful reminder of just how far the constant demonisation of Israel has gone.

The hatred among our cultural and political elites towards the Jewish State, the determination to prioritise the war in Gaza over all other conflicts, has unsurprisingly – albeit, in some cases, unintentionally – led to the demonisation of Jewish people. The line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism has all but disappeared. That is why the British Jewish community was not surprised by the Manchester synagogue attack, carried out in the name of the Islamic State. We knew something like that was inevitable.

We Jews now live with the constant hum of anti-Semitism as the background noise to our lives – something I would have considered unthinkable when I was growing up, rarely fearful of being Jewish. We can still go about our day-to-day business, and nowhere is expressly verboten, but something has changed. It may be imperceptible to our non-Jewish friends, but we now change our behaviour in myriad, tiny ways. The internal Alvy Singer voice is always piping up, and now we are listening. My husband and I moved to our new house two years ago, but it remains without a mezuzah (a religious parchment in a small ornamental case hung on a door post) – because we worry about indicating that Jews live there. The cheder (Sunday religion school) where I bring my children runs armed-attacker drills, and after Yom Kippur our rabbi had to explain to children as young as four that there had been an attack on a synagogue.

Then there is the constant internal monologue: ‘I’m wearing my Star of David today – did I bring a scarf, lest I inadvertently “antagonise” someone? Which of my friends can I speak honestly and openly to about Israel? How long will it be before my son encounters anti-Semitism at school?’

And where can we go to be free of this constant attempt to break our spirit and undermine our Jewishness? Well, we thought we could take shelter at our communal centres – but even that comfort has been denied to us since the Manchester synagogue attack.

Such is the success of this relentless campaign of anti-Semitism, that a community once so confident and well-integrated is now being ‘Othered’ once again. We question ourselves, we look over our shoulders, and we wonder how long it will be before the rest of the country realises that this is no Woody Allen-esque neurosis: anti-Semitism has become our lived reality.

BBC ignored second memo on Gaza war bias

The BBC has been accused of ignoring a second memo alleging bias in its reporting of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Sir Vernon Bogdanor, the author of the memo and a constitutional expert, has called on Tim Davie to resign with “immediate effect” as director-general of the BBC.

The eminent academic, a former professor of government at the University of Oxford, said the broadcaster had “ignored internal reports” that had made allegations of distortion and bias in its journalism.

Mr Davie has faced growing criticism in the wake of a leak to The Telegraph of an 8,000-word letter sent to members of the BBC board by Michael Prescott, a former standards adviser to the corporation.

The letter detailed bias in its reporting of the Gaza war as well as the doctoring of a speech by Donald Trump.

The emergence of Sir Vernon’s memo will fuel the crisis at the corporation and comes after Mr Trump’s official spokeswoman branded it “100 per cent fake news”.

Karoline Leavitt condemned the doctoring of the president’s speech and said British taxpayers were being “forced to foot the bill for a leftist propaganda machine”.

Ms Leavitt told The Telegraph: “Every time I travel to the United Kingdom with President Trump and am forced to watch the BBC in our hotel rooms, it ruins my day listening to their blatant propaganda and lies about the president of the United States and all that he’s doing to make America better and the world a safer place.”

Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, has also suggested Mr Davie quit his post.

Mr Johnson said on Friday that he would no longer be paying the licence fee and suggested that reporters should camp outside the BBC boss’s home.

“A few days of that and Davie should eventually emerge from his foxhole, and when he does, he should either give a convincing explanation for the Left-wing bias at the BBC, or else resign in favour of someone who will stop the rot,” he said.

“Unless he does so I am simply going to stop paying my licence fee and suggest you do the same.”

11/07 Links Pt2: Norway's anti-racism center turns Kristallnacht memorial into Gaza protest; Nancy Spielberg: ”Can’t let them silence our stories”; ‘Nuremberg’ and the failure of international law

From Ian:

David Reaboi: Naming the Jew

By hosting Fuentes, Carlson offered his audience two flavors of antisemitism: explicit and denied. Fuentes names the Jew; Carlson insists he has nothing against Jews at all. But the coordinates are identical, and preferring one or the other is simply a matter of taste. They coexist comfortably because both point to the same destination. Antisemitism is not dangerous because it’s mean or offensive to the feelings or sensibilities of Jews; it is dangerous because it creates and circulates lethal fictions. It produces a weaponized alternate reality, one that leads inexorably to Jews being harmed or killed.

Carlson—not to mention Fuentes and countless others—argues nightly that this country is being controlled by nefarious Israelis. If that “hummus-eating” enemy is willing to commit a genocide in Gaza; deliberately manipulate American leaders into wars; assassinate critics; destroy churches; and oppress and slaughter Christians with impunity, then the problem is no longer political but civilizational. It becomes, in their telling, a battle against a uniquely devious and implacable foe—one that cannot be resolved by elections or arguments, but only by confrontation. The logic points beyond persuasion to elimination.

Fuentes is open about this. In declaring his admiration for Hitler, he merely follows his critique of “organized Jewry” to its natural conclusion. Carlson is far more careful and coy, but the trajectory is the same. His foray last year into World War II revisionism—an extended conversation with podcaster and revisionist historian of National Socialism Darryl Cooper—was not an eccentric detour but an attempt to rehabilitate Nazi Germany and its leader, largely by discrediting Churchill and the Allied cause. Even if these gestures are performative, the tens of millions who watch and listen are not in on the act.

What unites these audiences isn’t ideology so much as a way of seeing. In this world, nothing happens by accident; every war, election, or scandal confirms the existence of an unseen hand. The more elaborate the theory, the more convincing it feels. Carlson and Fuentes didn’t invent this pattern; they inherited and updated it into a modern vernacular of globalist plots, unipolar elites, and “foreign lobbies.” The content changes, but the structure never does.

What Carlson and Fuentes broadcast isn’t “hate”; it’s a cognitive map built entirely on lies. Yet most people, including many Jews, still describe antisemitism as “anti-Jewish racism.” That mistake is fatal. Racism begins with emotion; antisemitism begins with explanation. Its logic is counterfeit, but it poses as reason all the same.

This confusion has deep roots. After the civil-rights era, “hate” became the moral grammar through which all prejudice was understood. Jewish institutions, eager to speak that language, adopted it wholesale. Once antisemitism was redefined as an emotional or linguistic offense, its conspiracy core was buried under “tropes.” In that bucket, the falsehoods that launched pogroms and genocides—blood libel, world-Jewish control—were lumped together with trivial stereotypes.

The result was a flattening of meaning. Even the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s official definition, adopted by governments and many Jewish groups, reflects this collapse. Its warning against “mendacious, dehumanizing, or demonizing allegations about Jews” treats antisemitism as a moral failure rather than an epistemic one.

The problem isn’t cruelty; it’s falsity, and the fact that for two millennia, people have acted on those lies.

Spare Us the Friendship Defense By Abe Greenwald Via Commentary Newsletter, sign up here.

“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend,” said Thomas Jefferson. A good maxim, if you ask me. Most politically involved Americans these days don’t live by it, which is a shame.

But there’s a perverse version of Jefferson’s credo echoing on the right at the moment, and it should be called out. The claim of friendship is being offered up as a defense of indifference to depravity. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts has talked about his or Heritage’s friendship with Tucker Carlson in every statement he’s made about the latter’s sugary interview of Nick Fuentes. He called him a “close friend” of Heritage in his initial defense of Carlson and has not stopped referencing his personal friendship with him even as he tries to clean up the mess. Megyn Kelly, too, likes to go on about her friendship with Carlson and the importance of standing by friends. There’s a whole circle of pundits and influencers who excuse or dismiss hateful people with the friendship defense.

People can disagree with me all they like, but here goes: If you remain close friends with someone who promotes racist or anti-Semitic ideas to pursue evil ends, you’re a bad person. This isn’t about politics because bigotry isn’t fundamentally about politics. It’s about what’s in someone’s heart, which should be the deciding factor in choosing friends.

And it’s not guilt by association. Those who use the friendship defense love to note that their friendship doesn’t require them to agree with everything that their friend believes. The problem isn’t that the friendship automatically means you also have malevolent intentions (although you might). It’s that you even could stay friends with someone who spreads evil. That says everything one needs to know about you.

Starving for Headlines

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF): Unfairly Maligned Alternative
The Reuters USAID article above was published at a time when Israel and the US were defending their decision to terminate cooperation with UNRWA in favor of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an American nonprofit created to deliver aid directly to the people of Gaza. The Foundation bypassed Hamas interference by using secure distribution sites, and made large-scale theft harder by packaging and distributing individual meals rather than bulk items like flour and sugar. GHF spokesperson Chapin Fay recently told Quillette that his organisation delivered over 170 million meals directly into the hands of needy civilians in less than four months with “zero diversion” of aid.

Because the GHF coordinated their operations with Israel, they came under intense scrutiny. The UN categorically rejected cooperation with them—even after over 200 faith-based and Israel advocacy organisations published an open letter urging them to do so in August 2025. Rather than reporting on the UN’s obstinate refusal to work alongside this efficient means of aid delivery, media outlets overwhelmingly blamed Israel for the resulting shortfall in aid. UNRWA’s refusal to deliver aid to areas of Gaza outside the GHF’s reach forced Gaza residents to travel long, dangerous routes to obtain food. The UN claims that hundreds of Gazans were killed “in the vicinity of GHF sites”—attributing the deaths to the Israeli military. Israel strongly denies the accusations and has released testimonials from Gazan aid-seekers explaining how Hamas tries to disrupt the aid system through violence and manipulation. “This is how Hamas operates—they deliberately fire at people and want it to appear as though the army is the one shooting,” reported one Gaza resident. GHF workers are also at risk. Chapin Fay reports of a particularly shocking incident in mid-June 2025, when Hamas hijacked a bus transporting GHF workers and murdered nine of them. The wounded survivors of the attack were taken to Nasser Hospital (where Doctors Without Borders were operating) but were “refused treatment and left to die in the parking lot.” Uncovering the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s Controversial Tactics

While the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was operating, Hamas ran into severe financial difficulties, which the Washington Post reported without linking that fact to the GHF. As Chapin Fay told Quillette, “The Washington Post didn't connect the dots, but I will. It’s not a coincidence that you can't steal GHF aid, and the UN wasn’t delivering theirs, and Hamas was having trouble with its finances.” Hamas demanded that “clear-cut language” be added to the terms of the ceasefire stating that GHF would be terminated. The GHF ceased operations on 10 October 2025 as a requirement of the ceasefire.

We All Deserve Better
The patterns documented here reflect a deterioration in journalistic standards, whereby ideological preferences override impartiality. But Gaza coverage makes these failures consequential in uniquely destructive ways. Every news story emphasising Israeli responsibility while erasing Hamas culpability perpetuates the cycle of Palestinian suffering. Our trusted news outlets have enabled this by abdicating their responsibility to ask hard questions, verify facts, and seek the truth—the core principles of journalism.

Arab Zionist to Arutz Sheva: October 7 exposed deep antisemitism in Arab world

Rawan Osman, a Syrian-born German political activist and a self-described Arab Zionist, spoke with Arutz Sheva-Israel National News at the European Jewish Association (EJA) conference in Poland about antisemitism in the Arab world.

Osman says that “antisemitism has always been rampant in the Arab world. However, even I, who lived in four different Arab countries, had never imagined how bad the situation was until October 7th. In fact, October 7 unmasked a much bigger problem not only in the Arab world but globally. We do have data for antisemitism around the world except in Arab countries because they do not acknowledge, recognize, or admit that antisemitism is an issue. And when Arabs deny that antisemitism is a problem, we ask them, 'Where are your Jews today?'”

She continued: “More than 800,000 Jews have left the Arab world since Israel became a country. What needs to be done first and foremost is to invite them to recognize, admit that it is an issue for them to understand that antisemitism has caused, above all, problems in the Arab world. And if they want to address their issues and problems, they need to reconcile with the existence of a Jewish state in the so-called Middle East.”

Osman stated that “October 7th helped us recognize how bad antisemitism in the Arab world is, but it definitely also contributed to a sharp rise in Jew hatred and anti-Zionist sentiments across the Arab world. Even those who considered accepting Israel in the region passionately rejected it after seeing the horrific video footage emerging from Gaza. What needs to be done is for political leaders to explain that Israel did not start the war. We need to get rid of Hamas. We need to expose them as liars, and we need to speak about the elephant in the room.”

“The Palestinian culture glorifies violence and martyrdom. And we will not get rid of recurring wars in our region unless we stop infantilizing the Palestinians and we hold them accountable for their actions, especially for incitement against the Jews, the Zionists, and the Israelis.”