Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

12/31 Links Pt2: Resilient and vulnerable: Jewish world in 2025; 2025’s ‘Persons of the Year’: Israeli mothers; The impetus behind widespread protests in Iran

From Ian:

Resilient and vulnerable: Jewish world in 2025

Vulnerable. That’s the word that defines world Jewry as 2025 draws to a close.

In Israel, exuberance follows stunning military victories over Iran and Hezbollah, and the joyful rescue of hostages. The return to normal has reawakened the “anyone but Bibi” camp, hoping again to unseat the prime minister. Yet Israelis remain uneasy. Hamas still lurks, armed and dangerous, in parts of the Gaza Strip; Iran continues its ballistic-missile program with openly hostile intent; and Hezbollah struggles to rebuild.

Many worry about U.S. President Donald Trump’s impulsiveness and whether he might pressure Israel politically, even though, if he were to run for prime minister, he would likely win in a landslide, even against Netanyahu. Despite the optimism, Israel remains deeply traumatized by war. Life in Tel Aviv pulses at full speed again, but beneath the surface is a yearning for quiet—and for a more peaceful normalcy. Israelis dream of vacations now that low-cost airlines like Wizz Air promise to make Ben-Gurion International Airport a global hub.

For Jews in Australia, the “Lucky Country,” that historic sense of security has been shattered. From the arrival of eight Jewish convicts on the First Fleet in 1788, Jews in Australia felt relatively safe—until now. In the past two years, that security has turned to fear. The Australian government’s recognition of a so-called “Palestinian state” was seen by many as a reward to Hamas. Massive rallies filled Sydney’s iconic Harbor Bridge with chants of “Globalize the intifada” and calls to “Kill the Jews” while participants waved Hamas flags. Some officials even joined the protests, while few condemned them. Fueled by a virulently anti-Israel policy, antisemitism erupted—a synagogue firebombed in Melbourne, physical assaults and open threats to a Zionist community.

The horror peaked on Bondi Beach on the first night of Chanukah, when Islamic terrorists murdered 15 men, women and children. But rather than respond with the familiar platitudes—appeals to multiculturalism, tolerance or reminders of Jewish civic virtue—Australian Jewish leaders did something different. They spoke with pride and moral clarity, proclaiming that the Seven Noahide Laws—the universal Jewish values of justice, decency, belief in God and kindness—could enrich the broader Australian society.

Their courage inspired a vigil in Bondi on the last night of Chanukah with as many as 20,000 attendees, many of them non-Jews, broadcast live across the country by network TV instead of the regular prime-time fare. Criss Simms, premier of New South Wales, launched a campaign called “A Million Mitzvot,” declaring that “the rabbis of Sydney are so persuasive; let me tell you what a mitzvah means.” The governor general and other national leaders echoed the call. The Bondi attack is becoming a societal turning point as Australians begin to question whether importing radicals who seek to “globalize the intifada” threatens not only Jews but the very fabric of their nation.

Jews in Canada, the United Kingdom and Europe now ask whether Bondi is a preview of what’s to come. Many of their governments mirror Australia’s troubling tilt toward Hamas sympathies, leaving local Jewish communities uneasy. Jews in Hungary and Poland, however, feel secure under governments that have resisted unrestricted immigration and rising Islamic extremism. In Ukraine, the suffering continues amid an unwinnable, grinding war. Ironically, in Russia itself, despite President Vladimir Putin’s immoral war, Jewish life remains surprisingly protected and even prosperous.

In the United States, Jews also feel vulnerable, though less so than their Australian and European cousins. Still, new threats appear on both right and left. In New York, the incoming anti-Israel mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has prompted many to consider joining the growing exodus to Florida—the “Sunshine State” that now boasts thriving Jewish communities, lower taxes, affordable housing, education vouchers and an even more vibrant Jewish life.

Yet despite mounting pressures, Jewish life in America continues to flourish. American Jewry can take pride in its overwhelming support for Israel since Oct. 7, 2023—sending billions in aid, and filling Birthright and teen Israel trips during the conflict and after it subsided. A recent Jewish Federations of North America study revealed a “surge” in Jewish engagement, with Chabad serving as a primary gateway. According to the report, 82% of those active in Chabad strongly support Israel, compared with just 32% of Reform Jews who say they are Zionist.

2025’s ‘Persons of the Year’: Israeli mothers

In 1927, when editors worried there was nothing exciting to report Christmas week, Time magazine designated Charles Lindbergh, “Man of the Year.” In 1999, it expanded to “Person of the Year.” This year, it’s a group award – AI’s architects. Let’s start an Israeli tradition, honoring Israeli mothers as 2025’s Persons of the Year.

Admittedly, 2025 was tough. Israel’s multi-front wars persisted, despite a Gaza ceasefire. The country remained divided, with leaders left to right competing in their never-ending “who’s the most disappointing politician” contest. Approximately 200 soldiers died in Gaza. Iran’s evil missile strikes slaughtered 28 civilians.

Palestinian terrorists murdered over two-dozen Israelis, including last week’s under-reported Beit She’an ramming and stabbing.

Jew-hatred kept spiking, curdling haters’ souls, Left to Right, while menacing innocents worldwide. And sinister jihadist-generated lies about Israel, Zionism and the Jews, about genocide and starvation, polluted Western discourse.

True, I keep chronicling the many blue-and-white beams of light too. Israel triumphed militarily, humiliating Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran. Israel’s economy roared, as its food-tech, pharma, and AI breakthroughs helped humanity soar. Mocking the worries about Europeans, Canadians, and even some Americans betraying the Jewish state, most Arab neighbors demonstrated growing respect for Israel because it walloped the Islamists and Iranian exterminationists.

Ultimately, Israeli mothers deserve credit for each of these triumphs. Like all mothers, they give life, the most godly act any human can perform. As Israelis, they’ve raised generations of superlative citizens, protecting their country while bettering the world. And today’s epoch-making miracles blazed the way for Israeli mothers’ longer-lasting gift to the future: launching a post-October 7 baby boom, not even waiting for postwar calm.

Israel’s mothers leading the way
Israeli mothers have been crowding maternity wards for years. Israel has long led the OECD in procreating, this key to communal happiness reflecting social strength. That’s why by late November, 2023, 17,629 babies had already been born in the seven weeks since rampaging Palestinians slaughtered 1,200 innocents. By 2024, births jumped 10% over 2023. Israel’s fertility rate of 3.1 children per woman nearly doubled OECD’s 1.59 average.

Israel’s fecundity phenomenon continued in 2025. From Rosh Hashanah 2024 to this Rosh Hashanah, 179,000 babies were born. Israeli Jews’ fertility exceeded Muslims’ rate for the first time, as Israel’s population hit 10.1 million.

Beyond the statistics, Israeli mothers’ everyday poetry and superhuman courage perpetually inspire. Imagine the bravery many needed to fight back tears while sending their children into battle October 7 – and every day since. Or the mettle required to send your 18-year-old into the army, today, after October 7, when our enemies reminded us how brutal they are and how costly our fight to defend ourselves can be.

Or the moxie required to keep working – as 70% of Israeli moms do – with husbands serving hundreds of days in reserves, understandably straining their finances, their relationship, and their children. Or the strength involved in burying a husband, a child, a grandchild, or what it’s like to feel so lucky that your child or life-partner was “only” injured catastrophically, as you pursue some semblance of normalcy while helping your loved one heal and rehabilitate.

2025: The year in which antisemitism became an algorithm of hate

As the late historian Robert Wistrich warned, the key is not asking endlessly why antisemitism exists, but recognizing how it mutates. This year revealed its latest mutation: total normalization. “Genocide” and “war crimes” are now casual labels for Israel, deployed without evidence, stripped of meaning.

The market for hatred is vast. Islamists brand Jews as white supremacists. Parts of the left cast them as colonial fascists. The populist right monetizes resentment through podcasts and platforms.

Qatar amplifies it through Al Jazeera; Iran weaponizes it for Shi’ite supremacy; Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan mirrors it from the Sunni world. China and Russia know that anti-Israel fervor weakens the West—and even undermines U.S. President Donald Trump. A hollow pacifism finds its enemy in Israel alone, absolving Hamas and Hezbollah of responsibility.

The killers at Bondi and the Hamas financiers uncovered in Italy are not aberrations. They exist within our media ecosystems, our festivals, our institutions. They are applauded, excused and rewarded.

And yet—this is the essential difference from the past—there will be no new Shoah. The encirclement has been broken. Jews are strong. They are different. And, most importantly, they have Israel behind them.

That is the paradox of the past dark year: Antisemitism has become louder, cruder, more profitable—and at the same time less capable of finishing what it begins. The hope for a better and more peaceful year ahead lies precisely there.

12/31 Links Pt1: Netanyahu: Israel emerged from war ‘stronger than ever’; How Gaza Aid Vetting Became a Media Narrative; Mamdani selects anti-Israel lawyer as chief counsel

From Ian:

Israel emerged from war ‘stronger than ever,’ Netanyahu says at JNS event in Florida

More than two years after Hamas attacked the Jewish state on Oct. 7, “Israel has come out of this war stronger than ever before,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told attendees of a JNS event in Surfside, Fla., which drew hundreds of people on New Year’s Eve.

“Stronger than ever before economically. What does strong mean? Well, we just signed a $37 billion gas deal,” Netanyahu said at the Shul of Bal Harbour, a Chabad congregation. “That’s strong. We just had Nvidia—they decided to have a massive investment in Israel, and we welcome it.”

The Israeli premier told attendees that the Jewish state made alliances and peace with strong countries.

“We have opened up opportunities for peace that have never existed before. In the first term of President Trump’s office, we did the Abraham Accords that brought four historic peace accords with four Arab states,” he said. “We’re committed to do more.”

“It’s peace through strength,” he said. “It’s prosperity through strength.”

Netanyahu spoke for about 15 minutes at the hour-long event. Sens. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.) and Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) and Jay Collins, the Florida lieutenant governor, spoke after the prime minister. Alex Traiman, the CEO of JNS, was one of the speakers who introduced the prime minister.

Danny Danon, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations in New York, and Ofir Akunis, consul general of Israel in New York, also attended, as did Yechiel Leiter, Israeli ambassador to the United States, and Reps. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) and Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.).

Leo Terrell, who leads the U.S. Justice Department’s task force on Jew-hatred, and Yehuda Kaploun, a rabbi whom the U.S. Senate recently confirmed as the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, also attended.

Netanyahu told the audience that it is important to be firm in the face of Jew-hatred.

“I say to you, members of the Jewish community of the United States, the last thing you should do before antisemitic attacks, as they attack you—the last thing you should do is lower your head and seek cover,” he said. “That’s not what you should do. You should stand up and be counted. You should fight back.”

The prime minister said that Jews ought to attack their attackers.

“You should delegitimize your delegitimizers,” he said. “Nobody will fight for you more than you fight for yourself.”

“When Israel is strong, others want to partner with us. You stand up and be counted, and you will see the difference,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”

Jonathan Tobin: Who has the right to judge Netanyahu for the events of Oct. 7?

Hindsight is 20/20
Such figures claimed that Israel’s defense could be guaranteed by the country’s high-tech mastery, like the Iron Dome anti-missile batteries, and that territorial depth and control of the high ground were largely unnecessary. The same litany was repeated endlessly to journalists who visited Israel’s border with Gaza. This was widely believed not just because the “experts” said it was true, but because the overwhelming majority of Israelis understood that going into Gaza to eliminate the deadly threat that Hamas posed would have required the country to pay, as it did in the two years of fighting post-Oct. 7, a heavy price in the blood of its soldiers, as well as the opprobrium of an international community that always sides against the Jewish state.

The failure here was certainly Netanyahu’s. However, it must be shared with the entire top echelon of the IDF and security services, all of whom bought into the conceptzia—or widely accepted conventional wisdom—as much as the politicians dependent upon them for advice.

Does Netanyahu nevertheless deserve more reproach because he always represented himself as the country’s leading security expert? Perhaps. Still, the notion that he should have or even could have overruled everyone in the defense establishment and pursued policies that they would have all decried as unnecessarily aggressive and dangerous is not so much foolish as anachronistic. It’s something that can be asserted with the 20/20 hindsight that those commenting on the issue only possessed after the events of Oct. 7.

What those who focus solely on the blame for that dark day also forget is that the prime minister deserves enormous credit for leading the country’s efforts to defeat Hamas and other Iranian-backed enemies afterwards, while also fending off interference from Israel’s American ally and an international community determined to let Hamas win. Judging him only on what happened on the first day of a war that lasted 24 months and ended with Israel defeating its foes in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran—and with the Jewish state in its strongest strategic position since 1973—is as illogical as it is ahistorical.

Wherever you come down on these questions, the idea that a panel to decide this complex question that was convened by Netanyahu’s most bitter foes on the Supreme Court would be impartial judges of the matter is laughable.

It’s also important to remember that the Agranat Commission that investigated the failures at the start of the Yom Kippur War, which is cited as a model for an Oct. 7 inquiry, didn’t cover itself with glory. Its decision to make the IDF Chief of Staff David Elazar the principal scapegoat for the defeats of the first days of that war was both unfair and left his political masters—principally, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan—off the hook. Meir was also absolved—a decision that 50 years later seems wiser than it did at the time—but it was rejected by an Israeli people that thought, as prime minister, she needed to be held accountable. And so, she was soon forced to resign.

History and the voters will decide
The point being that the question of how to assess decisions made by politicians, as well as Israel’s military and intelligence chiefs, isn’t really something that can be conclusively decided by a committee, even if it were composed of fair-minded and impartial judges.

Responsibility for Israel’s many failures on Oct. 7 will be debated by historians until the end of time. Even a century from now, long after the contemporary political players are dead, it’s doubtful that there will be any sort of consensus that will satisfy everyone. The idea that the answer can be arrived at through a process that is indistinguishable from the campaign of lawfare that Netanyahu’s critics have been waging against him simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Until history renders its verdict, the only meaningful jury that can have its say about Netanyahu is composed of the country’s voters. In 2026, Israelis will return to the polls when this Knesset’s term expires, after having lasted longer than most of its predecessors in the country’s inherently unstable electoral system.

At that point, the voters will have their say about Netanyahu and Oct. 7—and that will have to suffice.

That won’t placate those who will never accept any answer but to pillory, if not imprison, Netanyahu on any conceivable pretext. But that takes us back to where the debate about his current government began: with a discussion about what it means to protect Israeli democracy. Having failed to defeat him at the polls or unseat him by any other legitimate manner, the issue of a supposedly independent inquiry about Oct. 7 is just the latest effort to find a way to topple the prime minister.

In both the United States and Israel, partisans have attempted to use the judicial system to decide questions that deserve to be left to the voters. Instead of seeking yet another means by which Netanyahu’s foes can force him from office, those who claim to support democracy should cease clamoring for a commission and instead leave the decision to Israel’s electorate.

The October 7 massacre did not emerge from a vacuum—and historian Rafael Medoff’s new book traces the long ideological road that led to it.

Medoff, a prodigious scholar of Jewish history and a prolific writer, is the founding director of The David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and the author of more than twenty books on Jewish history, Zionism, and the Holocaust. His latest, The Road to October 7: Hamas, the Holocaust, and the Eternal War against the Jews, is a grim but important read—one that places the October 7, 2023 massacre within a wider historical context and shows how it echoes the long, tragic history of the oldest hatred: antisemitism.

The Road to October 7 is a two-part book. In Part 1, The Present: Understanding October 7 and Its Aftermath, Medoff offers a detailed account of that black day and what happened in its wake. He traces the rise of Hamas and the sickening ideology that underpins its hatred and bloodlust—including its affinity for Mein Kampf. Medoff shows how Arab children are taught to hate and kill Jews through what he describes as “jihad education.” He also examines the campus protests, along with the blind eye turned toward them by university boards, administrators, and presidents. The book explores the recent history of terror, and the ways in which anti-Jewish libels are propagated and mainstreamed.

Part 2, The Past: Tracing the Echoes of History, highlights unsettling similarities between the atrocities of October 7 and earlier pogroms in medieval Europe, Czarist Russia, and Ukraine. Medoff examines both the Holocaust and a century of Arab terror—and how each contributed to what happened on that black Sabbath: October 7, 2023. This section is particularly illuminating for its documentation of how American universities cultivated alliances with Nazi Germany during the 1930s—an echo of the same institutions that later tolerated pro-Hamas protests on campus.

In the interview that follows, Medoff discusses the long ideological road to October 7—how antisemitic education and radical Islamic theology shape violence, why so many Western institutions minimized or rationalized the massacre, and why the events of that day cannot be understood in isolation. He also reflects on the historical echoes that make October 7 so uniquely haunting—and on what compelled him to write this book now.

The Road to October 7: Hamas, the Holocaust, and the Eternal War against the Jews by Rafael Medoff (The Jewish Publication Society, October 1, 2025), 368 pages. ISBN-13: 978-0827615748.

Rafael Medoff

Varda Epstein: You mention the close cooperation and coordination between the Hamas terrorists and the Gaza civilians who infiltrated southern Israel on October 7, citing Kibbutz Nirim Security Chief Daniel Meir who saw 50 armed and uniformed Hamas terrorists along with “dozens of ordinary Gazans.” Meir described “complete cooperation between the two groups: Hamas did most of the fighting while “the civilians went into houses and turned them upside down. They took phones, computers, jewelry, whatever they could find. From what I know, they also took most of the hostages.”

How should we respond to claims that “most” Gaza civilians are peaceful in light of testimony like this? Why do you think this assertion continues to circulate so widely, often without close scrutiny or independent verification?

Rafael Medoff: There’s significant evidence of widespread support for Hamas among the population of Gaza. Remember that in the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006, Hamas won 74 of the 132 seats. During the two decades that followed, there wasn’t a single uprising against the Hamas regime. There’s never even been a serious opposition party or movement of any kind there. You noted that thousands of Gazan civilians took part in the October 7 invasion. In addition, there’s no evidence that any Gazans tried to help any of the Israeli hostages escape. In fact, some of the hostages were kept as slaves by civilians. It stands to reason that there must be some Gazans who are dissatisfied with Hamas—not because they sympathize with Israel, but because Hamas has made their personal lives miserable. Unfortunately, those dissidents seem to be a very small minority.

Varda Epstein: You write: “Previous Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks had never triggered such reactions abroad. Nor had previous Arab-Israeli wars. The vehemence and in many instances, sheer irrationality, of the reactions to October 7 raised important questions. How could so many people accept as fact assertions about Israel and Gaza that were unsupported by evidence? What caused people who are sincerely concerned about sexual violence to consciously look away from sexual violence against Israeli Jewish women? What was it about this particular terrorist attack that induced such a uniquely massive and extreme response?”

Since your book was published, Prime Minister Netanyahu, in his most recent address to Congress, wore a lapel pin with a QR code linking to photos and footage from October 7. Yet there has been remarkably little visible public engagement with that material in mainstream media or public discourse. There have been no widespread claims that the images were fabricated, nor serious allegations of a false-flag operation—just an apparent absence of response.

How does this indifference to direct visual evidence fit into the pattern you describe? Why does proof itself seem to matter so little to so many?

Rafael Medoff: The same question often is asked about the international community’s response to news of the Holocaust—and the answer, sadly, is similar. Most of the world is indifferent to Jewish suffering. Some of that is because of antisemitism, some of it because of political or diplomatic considerations, and some of it because of simple, selfish apathy.

The response of many prominent feminist groups to the sexual violence perpetrated by the October 7 invaders has been particularly appalling because their hypocrisy is so blatant. They speak out against sexual atrocities committed everywhere else in the world—but when Palestinian Arabs are the perpetrators and Israeli Jews are the victims, many feminists choose to look away.

Varda Epstein: At Harvard, some three weeks after October 7, you write that “Board member Penny Pritzker wrote President Gay that a ‘river to the sea’ placard at a recent protest was ‘clearly an antisemitic sign which calls for the annihilation of the Jewish state and Jews.’ Pritzker added that she was ‘being asked by some why we would tolerate that and not signage calling for lynchings by the K.K.K.’ Gay consulted with Provost Garber, who commented that the slogan's ‘genocidal implications when used by Hamas supporters seem clear enough to me, but that's not always the same as saying that there is a consensus that the phrase itself is always "antisemitic."’ Gay, for her part, worried that calling the phrase ‘antisemitic’ would ‘prompt [people to ask] what we're doing about it, i.e. discipline.’”

What does this episode reveal about how university leaders understood the slogan—and, more importantly, about what they feared would follow if they named it as antisemitic? Why did something that seemed morally clear become such a bureaucratic and rhetorical minefield?

Rafael Medoff: The internal Harvard correspondence goes straight to the heart of the problem. Provost Garber knew the slogans were antisemitic, but he was worried about whether there was a “consensus” among his colleagues about it. He should have been able to tell right from wrong, whether or not others agreed with him. That’s one kind of timidity. For President Gay, the problem was that if she acknowledged the truth, she would have felt pressure to do something about it, and she didn’t want to do anything about it. That’s another kind of timidity. Both kinds are morally reckless. Would Garber or Gay ever have taken such positions if a different minority group was being targeted on their campus? I doubt it.

Varda Epstein: As you document in your book, the campus protests have died down to a large extent. What do you think accounts for that shift? Was it a matter of administrative pressure, waning public interest, internal fractures within the protest movement, or something else entirely?

Rafael Medoff: The protests fizzled out due to a combination of reasons. First, some universities feared they would lose federal funding or private donations, so they belatedly cracked down on illegal protests by imposing curfews and other steps that they should have taken from the start. Second, many of the protesters never were really committed—they were just hangers-on who knew little about the issue; they soon got bored with it and moved on to more interesting things. Third, some of the leaders of the protests were foreigners who were violating the conditions of their visas, and when they faced the prospect of deportation, they dropped out.

Varda Epstein: The Road to October 7 offers the reader historical precedent and context for the events of the October 7 massacre. To many of us, the horrors of October 7 seemed somehow worse than anything we’d heard about in the long, sad history of the Jewish people. Yet you document some obscene atrocities committed against Jews during, for example, the Crusader period—acts that in many ways rival those of Hamas on and in the wake of October 7.

Why isn’t rape and murder enough for terrorists? What explains the apparent investment of imagination and effort in devising ever more elaborate forms of cruelty, rather than channeling that same human capacity for creativity toward education, innovation, or improving life for their own people?

Rafael Medoff: Every human being has the capacity for good or evil. Some have the potential to take it to unusual extremes, depending on circumstances and opportunities—so why do they? What I show in The Road to October 7 is that the key factor is education—at home, at school, and in the public arena. If children hear at their breakfast table, and in their classrooms, and in their houses of worship, that Jews are evil and deserve to be killed, then some of them eventually will act on those beliefs. That has been the common denominator in antisemitic violence from the Crusades to the Czarist Russian pogroms, the Holocaust, and Palestinian Arab terrorism.

Varda Epstein: Much of the public and academic discussion of October 7 continues to frame the massacre primarily in political, territorial, or socioeconomic terms. Yet Hamas itself is explicit that its actions are rooted in radical Islamic theology and a religiously grounded hatred of Jews. Why do you think so many commentators persist in sidelining or denying the centrality of theology in explaining both the massacre itself and the moral worldview that celebrates or excuses it? And how does that same theological framework help explain the language and behavior of some of the protesters who have justified or minimized the violence?

Rafael Medoff: The reason apologists are so reluctant to acknowledge the Islamist theological dimension of Palestinian Arab terrorism is that it’s incredibly difficult to persuade religious fanatics to change their beliefs. So rather than admit that making peace with such people is impossible, it’s easier to blame Israel and to claim that Israeli territorial concessions are the answer to everything.

In this context, we shouldn’t ignore the Islamist component in some of the pro-Hamas rallies on campuses. We’ve heard demonstrators chanting slogans calling for “another Khaybar.” That’s a reference to a 7th century massacre of Jews by Muhammad, the founder of Islam. That’s not a historical event with which the average American college student is familiar; but the campus extremists who organized the rallies know it well because they learned it from their parents and their religious teachers.

Varda Epstein: Regarding the protesters and the violence, do you think some participants failed to grasp the full moral enormity of their actions—simply following the behavior of others rather than reflecting independently on what they were doing? Take, for example, those who tore down posters of Israeli hostages. Did some do this out of a kind of “monkey see, monkey do” conformity—seeing others do it and joining in without stopping to consider the implications?

But even allowing for ignorance or social pressure, how does a person arrive at a point where ripping down a poster of a beautiful red-haired infant like Kfir Bibas can be justified? What does it take, psychologically or ideologically, to see a baby as unworthy of notice or concern?

Rafael Medoff: Yes, that does require a certain level of moral degeneracy. But think of all the previous Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks in which Jewish babies and children were slaughtered—and yet for many years, legions of academics, pundits, and Jewish anti-Zionists have been demanding that the killers be given a sovereign state in Israel’s back yard. So in many ways, the responses to October 7 simply mirrored, on a larger scale, the depraved responses of apologists to earlier attacks.

Varda Epstein: You write that “President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris broke important new ground—on both sides of the debate. On the one hand, each made statements implying a measure of understanding for the anti-Israel extremists. President Biden, addressing a Democratic National Convention on August 19, 2024, said of the anti-Israel demonstrators outside the arena, ‘Those protesters out in the street, they have a point.’ The previous month, Vice President Harris told The Nation that the demonstrators were ‘showing exactly what the human emotion should be’ in response to Gaza. However, in what were arguably more consequential, albeit less publicized remarks, both Biden and Harris in effect labeled large sections of the protest movement antisemitic.”

In what ways—and for whom—were those less publicized remarks more consequential than the sympathetic ones? And politically speaking, did this attempt to balance moral clarity with electoral caution ultimately help or hurt Biden and Harris? In trying to please everyone, did they end up pleasing no one?

Rafael Medoff: President Biden and Vice President Harris both acknowledged that celebrating Hamas is antisemitic. Their words are a matter of record. But they made a political decision to refrain from making a big issue of it, most of the news media went along with that. This is where Jewish organizations need to step in. They have the funds, staff, and other resources to bring that important information to light. How many full-page ads have been placed in the New York Times or Washington Post by pro-Israel groups over the past two years? They can probably be counted on one’s hands.

Varda Epstein: Your book is about “Hamas, the Holocaust, and the Eternal War against the Jews.” In public discourse, October 7 is often described as the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust—a formulation that some readers struggle to understand given that more than six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust and “only” some 1,200 were murdered on October 7. Why do you think the Holocaust comparison arises so frequently, and what kind of comparison is actually being made? Is it primarily about scale, or about intent, symbolism, and historical continuity?

Rafael Medoff: The similarity lies in the intent, the ideology, and the methods. The intent of both the Nazis and the 10/7 perpetrators was to kill as many Jews as possible. As for ideology, the beliefs of Hamas and its allies are essentially religious, while the Nazis’ beliefs were essentially secular; but antisemitism is the core principle of both groups. There is a significant similarity in their methodology, as well. During the first nine months of the Holocaust, in 1941-1942, most of the killing was done up close—by bullets, not gas chambers. The same is true of October 7. The comparison is important because it illustrates the savagery and utter depravity of the perpetrators.

Varda Epstein: Did you write “The Road to October 7” for a particular audience? Who do you imagine reading your book? Do you have hopes that your work will persuade some of those who continue to deny the truth of what happened on that black day?

Rafael Medoff: October 7 deniers can never be persuaded, just as Holocaust-deniers can never be persuaded, because they’re not motivated by the search for truth. They’re motivated by hatred of Jews. No matter how many facts are presented, they will try to explain them away or distort them to fit their preconceived narrative. So I don’t expect them to read The Road to October 7. It needs to be read by those who care about the subject but aren’t familiar with the historical precedents. It’s especially important to get this book into the hands of college students. On campuses across the country, anti-Israel forces are trying to win over the hearts and minds of young Jews. This book will help them fight back with the one weapon that matters most—the truth.

Varda Epstein: What compelled you to write The Road to October 7—and what did you hope readers would take away from it?

Rafael Medoff: As the details of the October 7 atrocities emerged, I was struck by how similar they were to descriptions of antisemitic violence going all the way back to the Middle Ages. I realized this information needs to reach a wider audience. October 7 was the product of the same kinds of educational and religious forces that have incited violence against Jews for more than 1,500 years. A very long road led to October 7.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens were not as obsessively antisemitic a couple of years ago as they are today. They were never Zionists, to be sure, but what we are seeing now is something different: an intense fixation. Israel, Jews, “Zionists” – the themes recur relentlessly across broadcasts, interviews, and social media.

What caused this escalation? And why do we see the same pattern repeating elsewhere?

The answer is not primarily ideological. It is structural.

What we are witnessing online is not simply the spread of antisemitic beliefs. It is the conditioning of antisemitic behavior through incentive structures that reward certain forms of moral expression and punish others.

A growing body of research shows that social media platforms shape expression through operant conditioning. Likes, shares, praise, and visibility function as rewards. Content that triggers these responses becomes more frequent; content that does not fades away. Crucially, changes in expression often precede changes in belief. People are rewarded for more extreme statements, which nudges them toward further extremism. The moral justifications come later.

This dynamic is especially pronounced for moralized content. Studies have shown that when users receive positive feedback for expressions of moral outrage, they become more outraged over time. The reward trains the behavior; cognition follows.

Influencers are not immune to this process. On the contrary, they are especially vulnerable to it. Their livelihoods, reputations, and sense of relevance are tightly coupled to engagement metrics. When certain framings consistently perform better – when posts attract attention, donations, invitations, and validation – those framings are interpreted not merely as effective, but as correct.

Moral language then arrives afterward, as justification. The sequence is backward: reward first, reasoning second.

By most definitions, I am an influencer. I have over 130,000 followers across platforms. I recognize the pull of the dopamine rush when a post goes viral. I see how simplification often produces more engagement than nuance. That pull is real and, if indulged, addictive.

For those whose income or status depends on their online persona, the pressure is far stronger. Ratings, likes, and retweets begin to matter more than accuracy or fairness. This dynamic exists independently of political ideology.

Outside funders like Qatar and Russia recognize the dynamic and supercharge the reward system for those who are judged most likely to help their own political agendas. The influencers, hungry for money and increased reach, might pretend that they have not changed their positions but the cycle of rewards between them and their funders is irresistible.

Still, no conditioning system operates in a vacuum. For this process to take hold, there must be a pre-existing substrate – a baseline of latent antisemitic belief sufficient to generate initial reactions.

This does not require a majority. It does not even require widespread explicit prejudice. A small, reliable, and noisy minority is enough, provided their responses are predictable. Engagement systems do not measure representativeness; they measure reaction. Once a critical threshold is crossed, algorithms amplify, influencers adapt, and peripheral participants take notice.

Every society contains a persistent minority that holds antisemitic views or is receptive to antisemitic framing. That group supplies the initial engagement that tells the system: this content works. And because influencers are trained by feedback, those responders end up influencing the influencers.

Antisemitism is unusually well suited to this threshold activation because it is historically entrenched, can be weaponized from an and every political perspective, and easily framed in terms of power, conspiracy, or righteousness. The initial responders do not need to be persuaded. They only need to recognize something that already resonates.

Once that first wave reacts, the system treats engagement as legitimacy. What began as a minority response is reinterpreted as consensus.

This is not a new phenomenon. Long before social media, political institutions and activist movements understood that a small number of highly motivated actors – letter writers, callers, emailers – exert disproportionate influence. Their voices are louder, more persistent, and easier to count than the silence of the unmotivated majority.

Digital platforms dramatically intensify this effect. Comments, replies, quote-posts, and donations are all visible signals. A relatively small number of users can create the appearance of overwhelming agreement or urgency. The social media companies are designed around increasing engagement, and they dutifully reward hate by promoting similar content from others. Influencers, institutions, and journalists routinely mistake this activity for representative public opinion. Over time, this feedback loop can indeed shape that public opinion.

Silence, meanwhile, is misread as consent.

Influencers are not operating in isolation. What emerges instead is a fractal pattern. The system does not merely transmit beliefs downward; it reproduces incentive-driven behavior at every level of participation.

At the top are influencers. They respond to engagement metrics, funding, and access. Framing shifts incrementally toward what performs best: sharper claims, greater moral certainty, less tolerance for dissent.

Below them are secondary nodes – commenters, amplifiers, quote-posters. Their rewards are smaller but structurally identical: likes on comments, replies from high-status accounts, increased visibility. Extremism becomes a signaling device. The more uncompromising the posture, the greater the chance of recognition.

Below that are peripheral participants who affiliate through association. They may not generate content themselves, but they experience participation as moral belonging. Aligning with popular spreaders feels like joining something larger than oneself. Identity replaces judgment. Latent antisemitic attitudes that might have been shameful become justified by others repeating it.

At every scale, the incentives point in the same direction.

Other forms of prejudice can also be amplified by digital incentives, but antisemitism is unusually efficient within this system. It is often framed as a critique of power rather than hostility toward a minority. It compresses complex historical and ethical questions into simple moral binaries that travel well in outrage-driven formats. These features lower the activation threshold and raise the reward ceiling, making antisemitic framing disproportionately competitive in attention-based environments.

Once activated, the system closes into a feedback loop. Initial engagement leads to amplification. Amplification normalizes the framing. Normalization raises the baseline. Participants compete in outrage. Each iteration makes previous positions appear timid or insufficient.

Crucially, this process does not require that most participants hold antisemitic beliefs. It requires only that they reproduce antisemitic framings. The system converts many people not into antisemites, but into antisemitism-adjacent amplifiers.

And that is often enough.

This is not a failure of education or intent. It is a systems problem.

In such systems, antisemitism is not believed because it is true. It is believed because it spreads. And the cards are stacked against the truth.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Nashaat Eldehy is a fairly well known Egyptian media personality and commentator. He recently said on Egyptian TV that he was not antisemitic, but his criticisms of Israel are based on facts and disciplined analysis, far removed from whims and emotions.

And what does he think about Israel?

He says Israel possesses maps and works systematically to create crises within a number of countries in preparation for dismantling and dividing them. It deals with countries as if it is "reshaping" them to prevent any movement or stability, and Israeli interventions extend to a number of regions and countries, trying to secretly control Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and others.

That's funny, because that is exactly what the Protocols of the Elders of Zion say about a secret Jewish cabal, trying to control the nations of the world.

But he's not an antisemite! He gets his opinions based on facts, like, um, the Protocols!

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

12/30 Links Pt2: Romi Gonen: Hour-long special; Spielberg Uses Schindler’s List Money to Fund Anti-Israel Protests; Dishonest Reporter of the Year Awards 2025

From Ian:

Stephen Pollard: This was the toughest year in living memory for UK Jews … and there is no sign of things improving in 2026

The deaths of Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby on Yom Kippur, the former killed by Islamist terrorist Jihad Al-Shamie and the latter by a police bullet as they sought to protect congregants at Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester, define not just the year 2025 but the whole period in Anglo-Jewish history since the Hamas massacre of October 7 2023. There is a clear sense in which the atmosphere of open Jew hate since then has been leading us here – and, worryingly, that what we witnessed on Yom Kippur is not its climax but rather the start of new and dangerous era for our community – a sense that has obviously deepened since the murders in Bondi.

Britain has felt different for Jews in the years since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party in 2015. Corbyn’s ascendancy unleashed a torrent of antisemitism both online and in the real world, an onslaught which felt both shocking and unprecedented at the time. But while his defeat in 2019 seemed then to mark some sort of closing of the door, hindsight has shown how misguided that idea was. Far from having reached a nadir in the Corbyn years, the massacre of 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023 led to a surge in Jew-hate the like of which has not been seen since the Shoah.

In the just over two years since, we have had to grow used to the streets of London and other cities being taken over by hate marches, while the police have mainly stood and watched. Across the country, Jew haters have gathered under the guise of protesting against the Gaza war and the authorities have said and done virtually nothing. On one march, in Tower Hamlets in October, participants wore black clothes and facemasks in a seemingly deliberate echo of the Battle of Cable Steet against Mosley’s Blackshirts – only this time the fascists were the Islamist marchers. And the authorities stood and watched.

As the number of demonstrations intensified this year, we repeatedly told the authorities that their refusal to act against these open and proud displays of Jew hate was sending a clear message. Not only was that message emboldening the haters on the streets, on campus and online, we warned that it would at some point lead to violence – and tragedy. The veracity of that prediction – less a prediction than a statement of the obvious – was seen on Yom Kippur at Heaton Park synagogue. There was a similar refusal in Australia, with even more appalling consequences. And the week after 15 people were murdered at a Chanukah celebration by jihadists driven by the same extremist Jew hate that inspired the Manchester atrocity, two men in Preston were convicted of plotting to kill hundreds of Jews in what would have been the bloodiest terrorist slaughter in British history. The pace of events insistently suggests that across the world, the ancient evil of violent, insatiable antisemitism has once more been let loose.

For British Jews, 2025 has been the worst year in living memory. France and the US have endured deadly attacks in recent years. We have not. But that changed on Yom Kippur, and perhaps the worst of it is that no one seriously thinks that it will be a one-off. The issue is not whether there will be more attacks on Jews but how, when and where.

One response to Heaton Park was the regurgitation of the platitude that follows every antisemitic incident – that there is no place for antisemitism on the streets of Britain. It is not so much a platitude as a lie, because there are plainly many places for antisemitism on the streets of Britain, as we saw in Manchester and as is seen every time there is a so-called Free Palestine demonstration, with their cries for the murder of Jews in the guise of “globalise the intifada” and with the police standing by. Now, in the wake of Sydney, the Met and Greater Manchester Police have pledged to clamp down on that particular chant. The marchers are wasting no time in finding other words to express their wish for Jews to die.

But when it comes to the police, the events surrounding the West Midland force’s decision to make the area around Villa Park Judenfrei for the Maccabi Tel Aviv match against Aston Villa in November are something altogether new – and darker. At the very least, it seems clear that the police decided to acquiesce in the idea pushed by “community leaders” that a Jewish or Israeli presence would be inherently provocative. To that end, they pushed a fictitious account of Maccabi fans’ behaviour in Amsterdam to justify a ban on their presence at Villa Park. But this was never about a football match. As Mark Gardner, CEO of the Community Security Trust, put it at the time: “[The] Aston Villa match is about who controls the streets of UK’s second largest city. The football is a very red herring.”

This was a key moment not just in British policing but in the story of Anglo-Jewry’s place in this country, because it marked a move away from the police merely acquiescing in Jew hate on the streets to them doing the bidding of Islamists. The implications are chilling.

Spielberg Uses Schindler’s List Money to Fund Anti-Israel Protests

“Let Gaza live,” a mob of anti-Israel protesters screamed, brandishing signs falsely accusing the Jewish State of “ethnic cleansing”, “starving Gaza” and genocide while illegally blocking traffic outside the Israeli consulate in Midtown Manhattan.

The only thing more disgusting than the ugly spectacle, which had been timed around a Hamas famine propaganda campaign over the summer, was that one of the hate groups behind the anti-Israel protest, which ended in arrests, was funded by proceeds from Schindler’s List.

When Steven Spielberg created the Righteous Persons Foundation with some of the profits from Schindler’s List, he wanted to educate people about the Holocaust and build up Jewish life in America. “I could not accept any money from ‘Schindler’s List’ — if it even made any money. It was blood money, and needed to be put back into the Jewish community.”

“My parents didn’t keep kosher and we mainly observed all the holidays when my grandparents stayed with us,” the filmmaker said at the time. “I knew I was missing a great deal of my natural heritage, and as I became conscious of it, I began racing to catch up.”

The race has long since gone the other way.

The last time the Righteous Persons Foundation, named after the rescuers of Holocaust survivors, funded Holocaust programs was in 2021. Most of its funding now goes to radical social justice groups including anti-Israel organizations like those protesting Israel.

Since 2021, Spielberg’s foundation has provided $650,000 to T’ruah, an anti-Israel hate group which took part in the Manhattan street blocking and whose CEO celebrated the move and gleefully posted photos of attendees falsely accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing”.

“We have to keep up the pressure,” urged T’ruah CEO Jill Jacobs, who had accused Israeli officials of “incitement to genocide”, and demanded an end to further Israeli attacks on Hamas. Jacobs had blasted American Jews for speaking about “Oct. 7 and the plight of the hostages without once mentioning the unbearable death toll among Palestinians” because of what she claimed was their fear of wealthy Jewish donors.

Jacobs and T’ruah had even falsely accused Israel of “war crimes” by assassinating Hezbollah leaders. “Israel, too, has already committed war crimes in Lebanon, including by exploding the beepers and walkie talkies of hundreds of Hezbollah members,” Jacobs argued.

Within a year, Spielberg had gone from funding Holocaust survivors to funding those accusing Israel of a new Holocaust while enabling Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran to perpetrate a new one.

Leading philanthropist reveals she has withdrawn funding from human rights groups over antisemitic rhetoric

One of the country’s biggest philanthropists has revealed she withdrew funding from organisations that appeared to justify the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.

The Sigrid Rausing Trust, led by philanthropist Sigrid Rausing, announced that it has cut grants to several human rights groups after reviewing public statements made in the aftermath of the attacks.

“We have strong clauses in our grant contract requiring grantees to abstain from incendiary language that may promote violence,” Rausing said, referencing Charity Commission guidance in an article published by The Times.

According to the Trust, five out of approximately 400 grantee organisations posted what it described as “disturbing material.”

One group in Tunisia expressed “pride” in the Hamas action.

Another called for “support for the guerrilla Palestinian people in their war against the Zionist entity,” stating that Israel “was shaken due to the action of the Palestinian resistance…invading the occupied lands and Zionist settlements.”

A Lebanese media group characterised the Hamas attacks as “resistance” to “colonisation,” referred to murdered civilians as “settlers,” and dismissed Israeli reports of atrocities as “lies.”

A Canadian group, also funded by the Trust, labeled Israel’s actions “genocidal” and described the country as a “settler colonialist white-supremacist state.”

The Trust said that, in context, this language appeared to condone the attacks.

Rausing commented, “Atrocities against civilians are obviously contrary to human rights and international humanitarian law, and we cancelled our contracts with the groups in question.

12/30 Links Pt1: Somaliland: The mouse is really roaring; Journalists or Terrorists?; IDF reveals 151 soldiers lost their lives in 2025; Israeli MKs pass law to cut UNRWA utilities

From Ian:

The mouse is really roaring

These activities all attest to the strategic centrality that Somaliland enjoys. Somaliland is sitting in the eye of the shipping hurricane that is merely 300 kilometers from Yemen.

But this centrality did not exorcise the world before Israel chose to recognize the republic. So clearly, the hot button is the connection between the two and what it might portend.

And here is where the second significant aspect of the new relationship comes into play: What benefit did Israel see coming from the recognition?

I would suggest that there is diplomatic, as well as military significance, that Israel envisions coming from an enhanced relationship with Somaliland. Israel can be proud to be bestowing recognition on a democracy, one that has spurned an Islamist agenda. Somaliland could very well join the Abraham Accords, especially because it also enjoys a good relationship with the UAE, an Abraham Accords member.

Most likely, it is the military significance that has stirred the fear and loathing of so many countries. The most obvious potential implication is for the ongoing Israeli effort to contain and to defang the Houthis. Israeli planes have had to make 2,000-kilometer flights to engage Houthi targets.

Utilizing Somaliland facilities could be a game-changer. Even the possibility of their availability could have an impact.

Much of the reaction of hostile countries must be seen as an exercise in projection. They are condemning the idea that Israel could have reach and influence, something that China, Russia, Iran and Turkey all live for.

To see little Israel extend its net in this way is galling. It is also proof positive of Israel’s standing as a strong horse—perhaps the strong horse in the region. Israel acted purely on its own, without American approval or cooperation. That, too, is impressive and of concern to those condemning the recognition.

Israel stands guilty, in the eyes of its enemies, of turning Somaliland into a passive proxy. That, of course, is ridiculous, though maybe an ally indeed.

Another possible wrinkle to the new relationship—one of particular interest to the United States—is whether Somaliland might be induced to accept Gazans seeking refuge.

Whatever the actual implications of the new relationship, it shows great promise for both countries. Israel has deftly displayed generosity, high-minded concern for a fellow democracy and a shrewd assessment of the realpolitik possibilities of the new relationship.

Those who reflexively demean the efforts of Israel to assert itself in the world must step back and see how beneficial this step is likely to be.

Journalists or Terrorists?

Allegations that Israel deliberately targets journalists in Gaza have persisted since the October 7 terror attacks in the Gaza envelope (Otef Aza) and the subsequent war against Hamas.

The Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip (المكتب الإعلامي الحكومي) and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (نقابة الصحفيين الفلسطينيين‎) publish dynamic lists of individuals identified as “journalists” allegedly killed by Israel in Gaza. These names have been widely shared without scrutiny by organizations such as the International Federation of Journalists , the Committee to Protect Journalists, Al Jazeera, BBC Arabic, The Guardian, and even the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

These lists include over 250 names of “journalists and media workers” said to have been killed by Israel since October 7, 2023.

Upon examining the credentials of those listed, primarily using publicly available information from social media, we uncovered something shocking: a significant number of these “journalists” were actually active members of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (كتائب عز الدين القسام), as well as the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Al-Quds Brigades (سرايا القدس), and other Palestinian terrorist groups.

It’s important to note that terrorist organizations in Gaza run extensive media operations, primarily operated by Hamas and the PIJ, though smaller groups also have affiliated channels. Notable examples include Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV and Al-Aqsa Radio, as well as Paltoday, recognized as the official news outlet for the PIJ. Many individuals labeled as “journalists” or “media personnel” in Gaza also serve as members or operatives of these groups, often holding military roles. Research indicates that many journalists killed in the recent conflict were affiliated with Hamas or the PIJ. This investigation aims to identify those who serve dual roles as “journalists” and military operatives.

We have not yet reviewed all the names on the lists. Among the 80 individuals we examined, approximately 40% have been identified as having roles in armed branches of terrorist groups in Gaza. For those in our database, we have uncovered clear evidence of their involvement as operatives in these organizations’ armed wings. We suspect many more will be classified similarly once our review is complete or as additional information surfaces.

Additionally, we found that lists of “journalists” are inflated with names of individuals who are not actually journalists or media workers. Examples include:
Anas Ibrahim Hussein Abu Shamala (أنس إبراهيم حسين أبو شمالة): Allegedly a member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba unit, he was hailed posthumously as a “heroic martyr” and “lion among the elite Qassam Brigades.” In reality, Abu Shamala operated a currency exchange and money transfer business, yet he is recognized as a journalist by the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate and UNESCO.
Muhammad Fayez Abu Matar (محمد فايز ابو مطر): He reportedly died when a wall of his apartment collapsed after the bombing of the Abu Shamala house in the Yebna neighborhood of Rafah. He has been incorrectly identified as a journalist and photographer. UNESCO’s Director-General, Audrey Azoulay, condemned the killing of Abu Matar while he was allegedly covering the conflict.

It is deeply troubling that global media outlets like the BBC and The Guardian have promoted these claims without any apparent background checks. Even more concerning is that a United Nations agency, established to promote global peace and security, is endorsing individuals affiliated with terrorism as innocent journalists, effectively legitimizing these actions under the guise of defending press freedom.

‘Plainly inadequate’: Labor’s terror review under fire for failing to mention antisemitism

The review into the Bondi Beach terror attack set up by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been heavily criticised for failing to reference antisemitism.

The terms of reference for Mr Albanese’s review failed to specifically mention Jewish Australians, antisemitism, radicalisation or Islamic extremism.

The review, headed by former Defence Department secretary Dennis Richardson, appear only to investigate federal agencies, including ASIO and AFP.

Also, the Richardson Review does not mention the role of government ministers responsible for security or social cohesion.

The review appears to completely exclude the decisions of government related to antisemitism, social cohesion and national security.

It comes as Mr Albanese has flatly rejected calls for a federal Royal Commission into the worst terror attack in the country’s history, instead establishing the departmental review.

His excuses for doing so have included that a national inquiry would be too slow, that it would “re-platform” antisemitism and that “actual experts” advised him against it.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said the Richardson Review terms were “too narrowly focused on our intelligence and law enforcement agencies”.

“This omits the wider context in which those agencies operate,” Mr Wertheim told Sky News on Wednesday.

“To get to the heart of the matter there needs to be an honest examination of government policies and the conduct and policies of key institutions and figures in major sectors of our society.

“Their contribution to the unprecedented levels of antisemitism in this country over the last two years must be addressed.

“What might emerge could indeed be divisive and ugly but the divisiveness and ugliness is already there.

“Confronting these demons will be cathartic. It’s our only hope of establishing a new national consensus and setting clear standards.”

Australian Jewish Council CEO Robert Gregory also told Sky News that the Richardson Review terms were “plainly inadequate”.

“They make no reference to the Jewish community and exclude critical issues such as antisemitism and Islamic extremism,” he said.

“They also specifically rule out examining the actions and inactions of the Albanese government in the lead-up to the attack, something any serious review would be expected to do.

“The proposed review appears to be an attempt by the government to transfer responsibility for government failures on to Australia's intelligence agencies.”

A crazy Christian harasses some Muslims in Texas. CAIR blames the Jews.

CAIR posted this video of a Christian wearing a crusader costume harassing some Muslims eating in a park in Austin, TX.

CAIR wrote:

This hate is what Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton, John Cornyn and other Israel First politicians have unleashed on Texas to distract the American people and silence critics of Israel, especially American Muslims.

Israel was not mentioned in the video at all. No one said the Muslim group members were "critics of Israel" nor that the Crusader wannabe was a supporter of Israel. (The Crusaders didn't exactly like Jews who lived in the Holy Land.)

When CAIR sees a Christian harassing Muslims, the only way it can conceive of this is through Israel.

That is obsession. And, yes, when you interpret everything negative through the prism of the Jewish state, you are antisemitic.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The Temple Mount mikveh is a threat to the Palestinian narrative - so they MUST call it a lie

Lately I've been discussing the difference between two theories of truth - correspondence theory, which is based on empirical evidence, and coherence theory, which is based on whether facts fit previously held beliefs. I've shown that anti-Israel studies, and in fact most social sciences, adhere to coherence theory - meaning that they dismiss or twist any facts that contradict their theories, which are more akin to dogma than scientific proof.

When you accept that "Israel is evil" as the dominant narrative, there is no limit to what facts you will discard. Coherence theory is, at its basis, unfalsifiable, meaning that there is no evidence that would be accepted that would disprove it.

This means that the "Israel is evil" people are yoked to the most insane anti-Israel theories by Palestinians. This week we were provided with a great example.

This week the Israel Antiquities Authority revealed that they had discovered a Second Temple era mikveh (Jewish ritual bath) underneath the Temple Mount plaza:

A rock-hewn ritual bath from the late Second Temple period, containing ash traces that provide evidence of the Temple's destruction, was uncovered in recent days during excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Western Wall Heritage Foundation beneath the Western Wall plaza.

The ritual bath is rectangular, measuring 3.05 meters (10 feet) in length, 1.35 meters (4.4 feet) in width, and 1.85 meters (6 feet) in height. It was carved into bedrock, and its walls are plastered. In its southern section, four hewn steps that led into it were exposed. The ancient installation was discovered sealed beneath the destruction layer from the Second Temple period, a layer dated to 70 CE. Within this layer, which contains burnt ash providing evidence of the destruction, numerous pottery vessels were found, along with stone vessels characteristic of the Jewish population that lived in the city on the eve of the destruction.

The photo clearly shows a mikveh. Cisterns wouldn't have stairs, Roman bathhouses wouldn't be so tiny, The accompanying archaeological evidence provides proof and dates it precisely.

So the Palestinians must deny it.

From Al Jazeera (Arabic):

The Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate said on Monday that the occupation’s claims about finding a holy basin dating back to Jewish residents in 70 AD are a falsification of archaeological findings and lack any scientific value, stressing that the discovered basins are water systems from the Umayyad era, and were part of the Umayyad palaces adjacent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

It explained that those basins and facilities "were part of the Umayyad palaces and service facilities associated with the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in addition to the water basins and water transport networks from Solomon's Pools in Bethlehem to the city of Jerusalem, without any reliable physical evidence or independent scientific documentation linking them to Talmudic rituals."

I've previously noted the irony that the only reason anyone knows about the Umayyad palaces in the vicinity is because Jewish archaeologists discovered them and Israel preserves them, today.

But the point today isn't the constant (and consistent) Palestinian denial of any archaeological evidence of Jewish presence in Jerusalem - something Arabs used to routinely admit. The point is that because the anti-Israel academics must accept their "Israel is evil" theories, they must deal with this sort of historic evidence without looking like idiots to their Western audiences - but, crucially, without alienating their Palestinian comrades who insist that there is no such history.

Usually they simply ignore it. They don't want to be canceled by their fellow activists but they don't want to look like they ignore overwhelming evidence - so easier to pretend the evidence doesn't exist.

One other method is to admit a very limited Jewish presence but downplay any significance. This is the Edward Said model: "for a short period before and shortly after the beginning of the Christian era, there was a Jewish kingdom with its capital in Jerusalem."

The other popular method for western academics is to admit some Jewish presence, but deny that today's Jews have anything to do with their ancestors, claiming they are all European converts. Because so many medieval Christians were clamoring to become Jews, I suppose. This is the Joseph Massad model.

Anti-Israel coherence theorists can always find a way to deny reality. And that is what they do - day in, day out. And they hope you never ask them point blank what they think about the Palestinians assertions that Jews have no history in Jerusalem.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Jewish Voice for Peace (and DSA) reach a new low - still denying October 7 rapes AFTER testimony from a victim

A few days ago, former hostage Romi Gonen went on Israeli TV and described how she was repeatedly raped in captivity by Hamas members.

The entire interview can be seen here.

Immediately afterwards, Jewish Voice for Peace called Romi, and all the others who testified to Hamas sexual violence, liars.

From an email JVP sent out:

For JVP, along with a host of other disgusting anti-Israel groups, anything that might make anyone slightly sympathetic to Jews must be silenced and defamed.

The New York Times article was not debunked. Antisemites and hateful sites like The Intercept found some minor issues and pretended that this disproved the entire story. The NYT stands by it.

Even the UN admits that Hamas raped on October 7. Other testimonies have corroborated the stories.

Besides JVP, the list of contemptible organizations who try to cover up for Hamas' rapes include the Palestinian Youth Movement, Palestinian Feminist Collective, the Adalah Justice Project, Healthcare Workers for Palestine, PAL-Awda Right to Return Coalition, National Students for Justice in Palestine, US Palestinian Community Network, and Writers Against the War on Gaza.

And, yes, the the Democratic Socialists of America are on that list too.

Someone should ask the incoming New York Mayor whether he believes Romi Gonen or thinks she is a liar.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)