08/19 Links Pt1: The ghouls feeding on Hind Rajab’s death; Elliott Abrams: Kushner Legitimizes Hamas; To Palestinians and their supporters: How’s the resistance going?

From Ian:

To Palestinians and their supporters: How’s the resistance going?

This is not a hostile or inconsiderate question. It is perhaps the most important question anyone who actually cares about Palestinians could ask. The resistance strategy—violent, stubborn and uncompromising—has been one of history’s most expensive strategic failures. Yet it continues, sustained in part by a global industry whose financial survival depends on it never ending.

Since 1993, more than $50 billion in international aid has flowed to the Palestinian cause. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has received billions since it was founded in 1949, with the United States alone providing more than $7.3 billion from 1950 to 2016. Private charities devoted to Palestinian relief collectively raise hundreds of millions more annually. There are now thousands of careers, institutions and funding streams whose existence depends on the Palestinian crisis remaining unresolved.

When a problem becomes an industry, the incentive is not to solve it but to sustain it. Who loses their funding when Palestinian refugees are finally settled and integrated? What happens to UNRWA if there are no longer any refugees?

Do the people who most loudly claim to speak for Palestinians actually serve Palestinian interests or do they serve their own? The people most loudly advocating for the Palestinians are frequently the ones with the most to lose from a peaceful, prosperous Palestinian society that no longer requires their services.

What would it look like for Palestinians to succeed? Not in the sense of defeating Israel, but in the sense of their people living well?

Hong Kong, Taiwan and Estonia, among other countries surrounded by hostile neighbors, built prosperity not through military resistance but through trade, rule of law, open markets and human capital development.

What if Palestinian leadership had, at any point, decided that the primary measure of their success is the economic well-being, education and individual freedom of their people? What if, instead of funneling resources into armed factions and international lobbying campaigns, they had built transparent institutions, embraced civil liberties, cultivated a tech sector and made the present Palestinian enclaves a destination for investment? In other words, what if they actually built a vibrant country?

At least one person is trying this by creating a technology hub in Judea and Samaria. Rawabi, the planned Palestinian city developed by entrepreneur Bashar al-Masri, is a tentative proof of concept. It has faced enormous obstacles, many of them political. But it is at least an attempt at a different strategy, and it points toward a different kind of future.

The definition of strategic failure is not losing a single battle. It is pursuing the same approach, decade after decade, and watching it produce more destruction, more poverty, more displacement and more death than the alternatives you refused to consider. One definition of mental illness is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result each time.

The most radical thing that Palestinian leadership could do right now is not to launch another resistance campaign or fire rockets at Israel. It would be to announce, credibly, that henceforth it will measure success by the flourishing of its people; by school-enrollment rates; per capita income; startup formation; and the quality of hospitals, courts and roads.

The strategy of perpetual resistance has produced perpetual suffering. What if Palestinian leaders choose prosperity instead? That would indeed be revolutionary.

Andrew Fox: The ghouls feeding on Hind Rajab’s death

The IDF has opened a criminal investigation into the deaths of Hind Rajab and eight others. That is the entire development. No verdict is implied. The announcement identifies no suspect, nor does it specify an offence. Online carrion crows have turned Hind’s death into clickbait by stripping the news of its qualifications and selling an investigation as a verdict.

The IDF examination states that troops fired at the approaching family car on 29 January 2024. Five passengers were killed; Hind and her cousin Layan survived the encounter. Hours later, a Palestine Red Crescent ambulance, whose movement had been coordinated, went to recover them. The announcement describes the alleged shelling of that ambulance and records that the girls and two paramedics were later found dead. It does not establish what happened during the intervening hours.

Mark Zlochin’s close reading exposes the misrepresentation. The formal finding concerns the initial fire at the car. The later events remain reports and allegations. His earlier analysis raised unresolved questions about the route and timeline and tested whether the telephone material and available lines of sight supported more than one source of fire. Those questions do not resolve the deaths, and today’s announcement provides no new evidence of criminal guilt.

There is one awkward point for Israel’s defenders. The IDF’s first account said no troops were in the area. Its subsequent examination now acknowledges that troops fired at the car. That correction cannot be wished away, and anyone who repeated the first version should amend their view. The acknowledgement revises the official account of the initial encounter. Hind and Layan, it now says, survived the initial fire, while the ambulance strike and their later deaths remain under investigation. Criminal responsibility remains unresolved.

The carrion feeders have ignored that distinction. They demanded an investigation. The moment one was announced, they called it an admission. Their trick relies on readers confusing suspicion with conviction. They use a dead child for emotional force and borrow legal vocabulary to manufacture authority. Nobody has been charged. No court has tested individual liability in the Hind case or in the separate Tel al-Sultan referral. There is no legal conclusion in either case. For these people, the case is not about truth or justice for Hind Rajab: it is about validating their preconceptions about Israel no matter what.

The IDF’s Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism compiles operational material for the Military Advocate General. Reasonable suspicion triggers a military police investigation; prosecutors then assess whether the evidence offers a reasonable prospect of conviction. A referral records suspicion but supplies no answer. The suspected offence may involve negligence in following procedure. The announcement does not say.

I have always maintained that where credible evidence supports a war crime charge, it should be prosecuted. That remains my position. The World Central Kitchen case illustrates the distinction. Australia’s review by Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin found that the strike was not knowingly or deliberately directed against the charity. It recorded mistaken identification and failures to follow procedures. Binskin made no criminal finding. A catastrophic outcome can warrant criminal scrutiny without establishing deliberate murder.

Aviva Klompas: Iran was a regional threat. War with the US changed that

For years, Tehran’s influence rested on a network that gave it strategic depth. Hamas threatened Israel from Gaza. Hezbollah amassed an arsenal on Israel’s northern border, while serving as Iran’s most powerful regional proxy.

Syria provided the logistical bridge connecting Tehran to Lebanon and the Mediterranean. Iraqi militias extended Iranian influence westward while pressuring American forces. The Houthis gave Tehran a foothold on one of the world’s most important maritime choke points.

That network allowed Iran to keep its adversaries under pressure while minimizing risks to itself. Today, much of that architecture has been degraded.

Hamas remains in control of parts of Gaza, but much of its senior leadership has been killed, large portions of its military infrastructure have been destroyed, and its ability to rearm and reorganize has been sharply constrained by Israel’s operational presence in significant areas of the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah remains dangerous, yet it is no longer the force it was before the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. The group has also lost much of its senior leadership, including longtime Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, along with key commanders, weapons stockpile and infrastructure.

Hezbollah now faces growing pressure inside Lebanon from a population exhausted by economic collapse and increasingly unwilling to see the country’s future subordinated to Iran’s regional ambitions. The group still possesses formidable capabilities, but it is increasingly focused on preserving what remains rather than expanding its influence.

Syria may represent the most consequential loss. For decades, the Assad regime served as Iran’s indispensable ally and the critical land bridge connecting Tehran to Hezbollah. The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government and the emergence of a new political order have severely disrupted those supply lines and deprived Iran of one of the central pillars of its regional strategy.

In Iraq, Iranian-backed groups continue to wield considerable influence, but they operate in an environment that is increasingly complicated by Iraqi nationalism, domestic political pressures, and growing demands that armed groups answer to the Iraqi state rather than to Tehran.

Only the Houthis retain something approaching their previous freedom of action, continuing to threaten commercial shipping and disrupt maritime trade. Yet even there, Iran’s success reveals its limitations. The Houthis can create instability, but they cannot create regional order.

Iran is being forced to play defense
The result is that Iran increasingly finds itself doing something it spent decades trying to avoid: relying on its own territory and its own capabilities to sustain confrontation.

An equally important shift is taking place elsewhere in the region.

For years, many Arab governments concluded that accommodation was the safest response to Iranian aggression. After months of unrelenting attacks on their territory, that assumption is changing.

Bahrain and Kuwait have launched strikes inside Iran, Saudi forces have joined attacks on Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates has reportedly provided intelligence and air cover. Persian Gulf states are also deepening cooperation on missile defense, intelligence sharing and maritime security.

In attacking its neighbors, Iran has pushed its adversaries closer together and closer to the United States.

Iran remains powerful, but less so than before
None of this means Iran is on the verge of collapse. Its missile program remains formidable. Its nuclear ambitions are a source of legitimate concern. Tehran retains the ability to disrupt global commerce, and it has repeatedly demonstrated that even a weakened network can impose real costs on other nations.

But there is an important distinction between the ability to disrupt and the ability to shape the regional order. For decades, Iran played offense. Today, it finds itself increasingly on defense.

That could prove to be the most consequential outcome of this war. Not the destruction of the axis of resistance, but the gradual unraveling of the network through which Iran projected power across the Middle East.

The ring of fire has not disappeared, but it has become a ring of embers.

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A first response to "The Muslim Question"

I debunk conspiracy theories for a living, more or less, so when I published "The Muslim Question" and promised a response, I was concerned that it leaned much of its argument on a documented "100-year plan" for the Muslim Brotherhood to conquer North America. This sounded too conspiratorial for my taste. So I did what I always do - try to debunk it.

The claim comes from a November 2025 ISGAP report, and from ISGAP's director, Dr. Charles Asher Small, who told reporters "we are now fifty years into the Brotherhood's 100-year plan to entrench themselves into key institutions in the United States and other Western societies." Every subsequent citation of the 100-year plan — the Fox News piece, the syndicated wire copy, the essay that started this — traces back to that single quote. ISGAP's own report cites two documents as its evidence: a 1982 internal Brotherhood strategy paper known as "The Project," seized by Swiss authorities from a Muslim Brotherhood financier in 2001, and a 1991 memo by a Brotherhood official named Mohamed Akram, seized by the FBI in 2004 and entered as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing trial. I read both documents. Neither one discusses a "100-year plan." ISGAP's own report concedes this, saying the document "timelines and step-by-step approach clearly expect" long-term transformation.

But the contents of the files are just as concerning as any conspiracy theory would be.

Both texts are real, in the ordinary evidentiary sense: seized from people with documented Brotherhood ties, authenticated in a federal courtroom in the Akram memo's case, and never disowned as forgeries by anyone in a position to know. The Project lays out twelve "points of departure" for a worldwide Islamic strategy — build institutions, avoid needless confrontation, cooperate tactically with movements you don't actually agree with, keep the long-term goal of "the establishment of the global Islamic State wherever it is" in view at every stage. The Akram memo applies that logic to North America specifically, calling the mission "settlement" — making Islam "a part of the homeland it lives in" rather than a foreign transplant — and naming twenty-nine organizations, several of them still major institutions in American Muslim life, as the "seeds" of that project.

I cannot know if these plans were accepted by the Brotherhood as a whole or were just memos written by individuals in the organization. But from what I can tell, they are completely consistent with the Brotherhood ideology and larger strategy since it was founded nearly a century ago. 

Worse, they seem consistent with the things that have happened since they were written. 

From the eleventh point of The Project:

To adopt the Palestinian cause as part of a worldwide Islamic plan, with the policy plan and by means of jihad, since it acts as the keystone of the renaissance of the Arab world today.

a-Elements:

...To prepare the community of believers for jihad for the liberation of Palestine.

To create a modest nucleus of jihad in Palestine, and to nourish it in order to maintain the flame that will light the road toward the liberation of Palestine, and in order that the Palestinian cause will endure until the moment of liberation.

...

c-Suggested Missions:

To conduct studies on the Jews, enemies of Muslims, and on the oppression inflicted by these enemies on our brothers in occupied Palestine, in addition to preaching and publications.

To fight against the sentiment of capitulation among the Ummah, to refuse defeatist solutions, and to show that conciliation with the Jews will undermine our Movement and its history.

To conduct comparative studies on the Crusades and Israel, and [the victory that will be that of Islam].

To create jihadi cells in Palestine, and support them in order that they cover all of occupied Palestine.

To create a link between the moujahadin in Palestine and those throughout the Islamic world.

To nourish a sentiment of rancor with respect to the Jews and refuse all coexistence.

Yes, antisemitism is part of the strategy and there is no difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.  Which is what we are seeing today, 44 years later.

The other document, on North American strategy, is chilling both in its scope and in the scale of implementation since it was written in 1991:

4- Understanding the role of the Muslim Brother in North America: 

The process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be equal. 

5- Understanding that we cannot perform the settlement mission by ourselves or away from people: 

A mission as significant and as huge as the settlement mission needs magnificent and exhausting efforts. With their capabilities, human, financial and scientific resources, the Ikhwan will not be able to carry out this mission alone or away from people and he who believes that is wrong, and God knows best. As for the role of the Ikhwan, it is the initiative, pioneering, leadership, raising the banner and pushing people in that direction. They are then to work to employ, direct and unify Muslims' efforts and powers for this process. In order to do that, we must possess a mastery of the art of "coalitions", the art of "absorption" and the principles of "cooperation". 

Now, let's look at the so-called "Red-Green Alliance" between socialists and Islamists. It isn't an alliance. Watching the last decade of campus and municipal politics, it is a one-directional trade. The socialist side has moved: absorbing "decolonization" framing, treating anti-Zionism as settled progressive doctrine, going quiet on gender and sexuality commitments that would otherwise put it at odds with religiously conservative coalition partners. I can't point to the reverse — an Islamist-aligned organization publicly revising its own positions on gender, sexuality, or religious authority to accommodate its socialist allies. The accommodation runs one way, and "useful idiot," a phrase coined for exactly this kind of one-sided coalition, has acquired an uncomfortable second meaning: the people who used to deploy it as an insult may now be describing themselves without knowing it.

Again, I have no solid proof that the Muslim Brotherhood is employing this precise strategy in the US today. But since 2000, we have seen 9/11, wars against Al Qaeda and ISIS, and yet Islamist thinking is more embedded in the US than ever before. Muslim candidates are cool while Jewish candidates are suspect of "Zionism." New York was the site of the deadliest jihadist attack in American history. Twenty-four years later, New York magazine's cover story is 'Habibi City' — not because violence won, but because the Akram memo's other kind of jihad, the 'Civilization-Jihadist Process' of settlement and institution-building, did.  Muslims are running and winning elections as socialists, a worldview the Islamists certainly do not believe in, but one that shares their goal of "eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within." This doesn't happen by itself; whether this is the actual plan or a general strategy, it is visible to anyone willing to see. 

When you have a well defined revolutionary ideology, you don't need a conspiracy to carry it out. You just need enough people willing to do whatever it takes to implement it. While these documents seem largely consistent with what we have been seeing, there may be other memos superseding them , or there may be none. We do not need a central organization to tell Linda Sarsour to promote Muslim political power while pretending it is consistent with socialist principles as her "MPower Change" organization claims.

"The Muslim Question" essay is terrifically important. But equally important is the presentation. If there is any overreach, anything that can be disproven, if the language is perceived as discriminatory, then the project fails. I've only just begun to deeply analyze it, but we have already established that the danger is real and Islamist organizing is the best explanation for much of what we see nowadays, It is critical that the project does not claim anything beyond what can convince a skeptical person. 

There are plenty of real concerns. Anyone who cares about the future of America, and of Jews in America, needs to take the contents of these memos seriously because those plans are being implemented, explicitly or implicitly.

 

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Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! Reclaiming the Covenant on America's 250th (May 2026) "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

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08/18 Links Pt2: What Happens When Jews Don’t Fight; Judge attacks IHRA antisemitism definition as ‘detached from reality’; Israeli flag ‘symbolizes Jewish race,’ judge rules in assault case

From Ian:

What Happens When Jews Don’t Fight

On Friday night, a maniac named Larry Montes stormed into Manhattan's Central Synagogue, shouted obscenities, spat, punched a congregant in the face, and smashed a bunch of candles before being escorted out by security. Watch the footage from the synagogue's livestream cameras, and you'll see Montes as he runs up and down the aisle uninterrupted. You'll also see a host of congregants, men and women alike, recoiling in horror, receding deeper into the pews for safety and looking desperately for the guards to intervene and save them.

Jewish pride isn't about being safe. It's about being free. This means refusing to turn our synagogues into nightmarishly fortified bunkers, which teaches our children that Judaism is interchangeable with anxiety and fear and which signals to our neighbors that hunting Jews is simply the norm in America these days.

It means bringing in a few Krav Maga dudes to teach congregants of all ages what to do next time some pogromist rolls in and starts acting up. It means conditioning congregation membership on the willingness to get trained and volunteer to become part of an organic security detail that doesn't rely on outsourcing our safety to others.

The FBI's recently released report on hate crimes in the U.S. shows that Jews, 2.4% of the population, are the target of 64% of all religion-based hate crimes. A Jew is currently 190% more likely than a Muslim to be the victim of a hate-based attack.

Somewhere, the next attacker of Jews is watching the footage, taking great pleasure in seeing the terrified looks on the faces of helpless Jews, and taking comfort in knowing that the worst that can happen to anyone storming a synagogue is being manhandled by some paid guard reluctant to inflict too much harm. The part we can control is what happens when the next attack on a synagogue occurs.

Once Rejecting Israeli Citizenship, the Golan Druze Are Now Getting Ready to Vote

Walid, 35, a resident of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, said, "For 60 years, people here were afraid to speak out against the Syrian regime, fearing harm to their relatives across the border," before mentioning the massacre of Druze in southern Syria's Sweida province by government and Bedouin forces a year ago.

"I feel we're nearing the completion of the Israelization of Druze society in the Golan - toward a new era."

In 1981, when Israel annexed the Golan, most Druze there refused to accept Israeli citizenship, declaring loyalty to Syria.

Three decades later, the Syrian civil war broke out and the number of Druze who requested Israeli citizenship steadily increased from single digits to hundreds annually. Still, by 2023, only a fifth of the Golan Druze were Israeli citizens.

But in 2024, 572 residents from the four Druze towns requested Israeli citizenship, a number that ballooned to 3,750 in 2025. In the first half of 2026, 1,444 Druze from the Golan requested citizenship.

Now 44% are citizens. The main reason was the massacre in Sweida and the Israeli airstrikes in the province and Damascus that followed.

"I think the Druze in the Golan had an epiphany, mainly because Israel was the only one that stood by the Druze in Syria," says Salim Brik, a political scientist at the Open University of Israel. The sharp increase in Golan-Druze citizenship is probably also linked to the disaster of July 2024, when 12 children in Majdal Shams were killed by a Hizbullah rocket, he says.

Cambridge University-linked project erases Israel

An academic project hosted by Cambridge University promotes an “Islamic curriculum” which tells 12-year-olds that Hamas is an “excuse that Israel uses to justify its attacks on the Gaza Strip,” calls the civilian hostages taken by the terror group on October 7 “prisoners of war” and publishes in pupils’ course material a map of the region from which Israel has been erased.

The project also publishes a guide aimed at parents and children, written after the attacks, which asks: “What is the reward of a shaheed [a martyr]? How does this make you feel when you think of all the children of Gaza who are now shuhada [martyrs]?” and states, quoting the Quran: “Never say that those martyred in the cause of Allah are dead – in fact, they are alive but you do not perceive it.”

The project which promotes the claims, the Islamic Educator Learning Community (IELC), is led by Cambridge’s assistant research professor of education, Farah Ahmed, a member of the same faculty which employed Jason Arday and a former activist in the now-banned terror group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

This article marks the third in our continuing series about the deep problems in the subject of Education at Cambridge. It follows our disclosure of Ahmed’s long record of bigoted, extremist and separatist views on Tuesday and our revelation on Saturday that Ahmed’s unit has also promoted support for creationism and attacks on evolution.

Ahmed’s IELC is “hosted by” and “partners with” a university body called the Cambridge Teacher Research Exchange, Camtree. Camtree is a project of Hughes Hall, the Cambridge University college where Ahmed is a governing fellow. Ahmed is also an “affiliate” of Camtree.

IELC’s website promotes something called the “Islamic Curriculum Initiative,” describing it as a response of Muslim educators to the 7 October attacks. As IELC puts it: “We know that silence, neutrality, and business-as-usual in education are no longer options. The events following October 7 made that painfully clear. What we see today is not new: it is the continuation of a colonial legacy, now repackaged in modern forms, and it demands a clear, principled response from educators.”

For its own part, the Islamic Curriculum Initiative (ICI) says that “Palestine is not just a cause – it is a litmus test of our moral clarity, a reflection of our connection to faith, justice, and the Ummah…Our curriculum places Palestine where it belongs: at the heart of how students understand justice, faith, and responsibility…making Palestine not a footnote, but a formative part of identity.”

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08/18 Links Pt1: Israel confirms striking Syrian air base, saying Turkey was planning to deploy forces; The hostages held by Hamas at Al-Shifa Hospital; Palestinians would rather be permanent victims than have their own state

From Ian:

Gerald Posner: Genocide for Dummies

There is a question the statistics above cannot answer on their own, and almost nobody thinks to ask it: who, exactly, is Israel at war with?

Genocide requires intent to destroy a protected group as such — national, ethnic, racial, religious. Not a government or army or a political movement. That is why the Khmer Rouge, who killed a quarter of Cambodia, were convicted of genocide only as to the Cham and the Vietnamese. So, the threshold question in Gaza is whether the belligerent Israel is fighting is Hamas or the Palestinian people. Most of Israel’s own conduct supports the former inference.

Start with the most obvious fact, which is so obvious that it disappears. Israel negotiates with Hamas—repeatedly, publicly, through Qatari and Egyptian mediators—over ceasefires and hostage exchanges and the return of bodies. There is a ceasefire in force as I write this. Nobody negotiates a truce with a people it intends to erase, because the point of erasure is that there will be no one left to negotiate with. The Wehrmacht did not broker prisoner exchanges with the Jews of Warsaw. The Interahamwe did not sign agreements with the Tutsi. In every case on the recognized list, the perpetrator’s relationship with the victim group was total and one-directional. Here it is bilateral, mediated, and ongoing.

Second, South Africa, which brought the genocide case against Israel before the ICJ in December 2023, identifies “Palestinians” in Gaza as a substantial part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group that extends far beyond Gaza. Roughly two million Arab citizens live inside Israel, vote in its elections, sit in its parliament, and have served on its Supreme Court. Some three million Palestinians live in the West Bank. If the intent were to destroy Palestinians as such, one might expect the campaign to reach the group wherever it is found. That is what happened in the actual genocides: the Nazis pursued Jews across a continent, into countries they did not govern; the Hutu Power militias hunted Tutsi from one prefecture to the next.

The Genocide Convention says, “in whole or in part,” and tribunals have held that a geographically limited portion of a group can qualify — Srebrenica was one town. The absence of any campaign against Palestinians in Haifa or Nazareth therefore does not by itself defeat the charge. It does, however, make the claim considerably harder. Why would a state supposedly bent on destroying a people be content to concentrate its military actions only where Hamas governed and attacked from? Under the ICJ’s test, that alternative cannot simply be wished away.

Third, some Palestinians in Gaza publicly make the distinction themselves. In March 2025, hundreds took to the streets of Beit Lahia and Deir al-Balah in the largest anti-Hamas demonstrations since the war began. One protester told CNN that he was oppressed by both the occupation army and Hamas, and that Hamas launched October 7 while Gazans paid the price. Reporting through 2024 and 2025 documented widening anger at a movement that fought from tunnels while civilians absorbed the response.

Those protests do not tell us what all Gazans think, and the victims’ perceptions do not determine the perpetrator’s intent. They establish something narrower: some Gazans distinguish Hamas from Israel’s war against Hamas even while condemning Israel’s occupation and attacks. That distinction is consistent with the alternative inference that Israel’s object was to defeat Hamas, not to destroy Palestinians as such.

The ICC warrants against Netanyahu and his then–defense minister Yoav Gallant allege that Israel’s conduct during the offensive constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity, including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. But assuming for the sake of argument that what is alleged in the ICC warrants was correct, look at what they do not say. The prosecutor assessed the same evidence everyone else has examined, before the same court that would have to sustain the charge, and he did not charge genocide. He is far from anyone’s idea of an Israeli apologist, and yet he had the option.

This is the distinction the chant of genocide obliterates. There is an enormous legal and moral difference between a state that fights a war brutally, and one that sets out to eliminate a people. The first describes a great many wars, including wars fought by countries whose citizens are now doing the chanting. The second describes a small handful of adjudicated cases in the modern era, aand Gaza does not fit their pattern.

The Battle of Mosul in 2016 and 2017 produced devastation — a city largely destroyed, thousands of civilians killed, an enemy entrenched in residential blocks — and no serious legal analysis called it genocide. The difference was not the destruction. It was the enemy.

Fighting Hamas in Gaza kills Palestinians. That is a fact, and I am not going to soften it with a euphemism. But killing Palestinians while fighting Hamas and killing Palestinians in order to destroy Palestinians are different acts with different names, and the entire architecture of international criminal law rests on keeping them apart.

British Historian: "Hamas Must Be Dismantled"

The historian Simon Sebag Montefiore says, "The October 7 Hamas attacks against Israel...changed everything. It was years in the planning that did what it was meant to do, which was to put the Palestinian issue at the center of the world, unleash the ideology of anti-Zionism in Western universities, and nix the Saudis normalizing agreements with Israel. The only thing it hasn't succeeded in is helping the Palestinian people."

The speed and intensity of anti-Israel sentiment that has spread like wildfire through Britain took Montefiore "by surprise." "There's nowhere better to live now than Britain or America or France than at any other point in the last 10,000 years. Yet that unprecedented comfort, liberalism and freedom have permitted the hothouse of exciting but intolerant radicalisms such as 'de-colonialization,' anti-Americanism,' 'anti-Westernism,' 'Third-World-ism'...particularly in many cultural, academic and media institutions in this country."

"People absolutely have the freedom to preach the destruction of the liberal democracies that protect them. I'm not in favor of banning or cancelling anybody unless they're encouraging killing. But a lot of the people on the pro-Palestinian marches in this country, for example, were doing just that....They were also filled with extreme ideologues, who were backing Iran, and who were backing Hamas."

While Montefiore has long been a champion of a Palestinian state, he says Britain's "recognition of a Palestinian state, for instance, was a [virtue-signaling] absurdity that achieved nothing. Instead, it revealed Britain's impotence in the Middle East and it rewarded a genocidal organization that is much more nihilistic than humanitarian....Hamas must be dismantled."

The hostages held by Hamas at Al-Shifa Hospital

In the final months of 2023, the eyes of the global public were firmly fixed on Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. As international media heavyweights—including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal—reported extensively on the military operations, the medical crisis, and the conflicting claims of the warring parties, a profound systemic flaw characterized the coverage.

The mainstream international reporting largely followed the official narratives of the information war. While The Wall Street Journal detailed how Israel released footage attempting to prove the site was used by militants, The New York Times focused on official video releases showing tunnel infrastructure under the besieged hospital, and The Washington Post published deep open-source analyses on the military claims, these major outlets remained confined within a narrow framework: they focused primarily on macro-level military infrastructure, tunnel claims, and institutional statements.

What was missing from virtually all major Western reports during those critical weeks was the forensic reality of the micro-level visual material generated by the actors themselves. While major newsrooms analyzed satellite coordinates and official releases, they overlooked or omitted the immediate, local choreography happening at the gates and in the courtyards of the hospital—including the unhindered movement of local participants documenting the aftermath of the October 7 events.

This investigation closes that gap. It does not offer a general overview of wartime politics; rather, it provides a forensic, image-by-image reconstruction of the path taken by the hostages and their captors. By combining geolocation, frame-by-frame video analysis, and contemporaneous field communications, this dossier challenges the uncritical or restricted framing accepted by major global news outlets in late 2023—providing the definitive record that was missing when the story broke.

Remains of Yehuda Katz, IDF soldier who went missing in 1982 battle, returned to Israel

The remains of Israeli soldier Sgt. First Class Yehuda Katz, who went missing in the First Lebanon War’s battle of Sultan Yacoub in 1982, were returned to Israel on Tuesday, the military announced, with Israeli leaders hailing the country’s commitment to bring back every missing or fallen soldier.

The battle, 44 years ago, was a skirmish between the Israel Defense Forces and the Syrian army in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley. It claimed the lives of 21 Israeli servicemen and injured more than 30.

Katz, a tank soldier, went missing during the battle, along with Sgt. First Class Zachary Baumel and Sgt. First Class Zvi Feldman.

Baumel’s remains were recovered with Russian assistance and returned to Israel in 2019, and Feldman’s remains were recovered by Mossad agents in May 2025.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said that in a special operation led by the Military Intelligence Directorate, in coordination with the Mossad spy agency, Katz’s bones were located and brought to Israel for burial. No details were given on where they were found.

The operation was based on intelligence obtained in recent months, according to the military. The IDF added that the finding was made possible due to a “series of intelligence and operational activities that continued for more than four decades, since he fell in battle.”

Earlier on Tuesday, the IDF said that personal findings belonging to Katz were brought back to Israel during the operation and given to his family for inspection. Meanwhile, Katz’s bones were taken for identification and confirmed on Tuesday evening to belong to the slain soldier.

The military said Katz’s family was updated over the years regarding the ongoing efforts to locate his remains and return them to Israel. “Upon completion of the mission, the family was informed of the return of their loved one. Unfortunately, Yehuda’s parents, Sarah and Yosef Katz, did not live to receive the news,” the army said.

In a statement, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said, “The return of Yehuda Katz, the last fallen soldier from the Battle of Sultan Yacoub, is a significant moment for the IDF and for the State of Israel.”

“Decades have passed, but our duty toward our fallen has not changed. We will leave none of our people behind,” Zamir added.

The military chief later spoke with Katz’s family, which he told, “After 44 years, the Battle of Sultan Yacoub has come to an end.”

“All those missing from the battle have been returned to Israel. This is a special day for me, both as chief of the general staff and as a soldier of the Armored Corps,” Zamir was quoted as saying. “From the day I enlisted in the Armored Corps, I was raised on the legacy of that battle and on the moral commitment to bring all of our missing home. An entire nation stands united with you and shares in your emotion today.”

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The Muslim Question (guest post)

This essay was submitted anonymously. While I agree with most of it, there are parts that I have some problems with; I plan to write a rejoinder. But it is an important topic and too many people are afraid to bring it up for fear of being labeled Islamophobic. 

______________________________

The Muslim Question

 

When I am weak I demand freedom from you, because that is according to your principles. When I am strong, I will take it from you, because that is according to my principles.                               

----Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

 Is it time for Americans to start raising the “Muslim Question”?

 Even writing that phrase makes me ill. The phrase that inspires it, “the Jewish Question,” exudes bigotry, hatred, violence. That phrase was omnipresent in 19^th century Europe, and that “question” was answered by the Holocaust. Today the Jewish Question has been replaced (as James Lindsay has argued) by the “Israel Question,” which (he notes) is simply the Jewish Question by proxy. That large swaths of the world wish to answer the Israel Question the same way large swaths of the world answered the Jewish Question seems to me clear, particularly post October 7. The basic premise in both questions, by those asking them, is that they wish to eliminate their targets (Jews, and/or Israel). That’s where the bigotry, the hatred, come in.

 The “Muslim Question” feels the same.

 The “Islam Question” also makes me uncomfortable, but less so: it’s acceptable, or should be, to examine and critique and possibly reject problematic ideas, political theories, and worldviews, including religions. That is of course the “principle” by which antizionists defend their relentless “critiques” (and calls for the elimination) of the Jewish state. The Oxford Union recently debated the matter framed just that way: “Is the West Right to be Suspicious of Islam?” (The vote was 57-41 in favor of “no.” In light of what follows below I find it a little difficult to agree.)

 The “Muslim Question” seems to address not the ideas but the people who hold them, and perhaps wish to spread them.

 It feels like bigotry.

 But then I look at the world around me—or at least my newsfeed thereof, assuming that that feed is generally reliable. (If it is not, I solicit, thirst for, correction, not least because I am uneasy with the conclusion toward which I am heading.)

 Start with this November 2025 report from the Institute for the Global Study of Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) on the Muslim Brotherhood’s 100-year plan for Islam to conquer North America. Yes you read that right. We’re actually approaching the 50-year mark already (2028) and in fact everything seems to be going according to that plan. This is the framework in which to place all that follows.

 The Muslim Brotherhood is not the only Islamic group with global aspirations; we find state sponsorship of similar movements in Iran, Turkey, and elsewhere. But given that we have an explicit copy of the Muslim Brothers’ actual plan, we shall focus on them.

This recent Wall Street Journal op-ed shares ISGAP’s concerns. This article gives some of the broader background.

 To see what they’re all worried about, consider this guy exhorting a large crowd in Times Square that Islam won’t stop until it’s in every home.

 This Islamic scholar in California agrees, proclaiming that America is “our” country because every country is “Allah’s” country.

 There’s this Minnesota scholar or imam who encourages his listeners to become mayors, congresspeople, and if possible the President, so that Islam may spread in America. He also announces that Muslims are here to replace “the privilege of old” (does he mean Jews?).

 This Muslim scholar, trained in Saudi Arabia but now with a Ph.D. from Yale University and living in Texas, boasting about rapidly growing Muslim population and political power all across the West. As if to illustrate, there’s this Texas rally, where many Muslim men take over the streets and beat their chests.

 Is it really true that Hamtramck, MI, is now a city fully captured by Islam, a “parallel Sharia society”?

 Then there’s this guy, “quiet and polite” at the Oxford Union debate, arguing that a global Caliphate ruled by Sharia would be a good idea, not least because democracy, liberalism, and secularism don’t work. He also endorses polygamy, cutting off the hands of thieves, and capital punishment for adultery, because Sharia endorses those things.

 And for those who thought that the October 7 massacre was merely part of a national liberation movement and if you just fed them Israel they’d be satisfied, here’s Hamas leader Mahmoud al Zahar laying claim to "the entire 510 million square kilometers of Planet Earth,” where they will remove not just Zionism but “treacherous Christianity.”

 Speaking of Planet Earth, here is an enormous throng of Muslim men commandeering a public park in Sweden for their prayers.

 Social media shows me a dozen such clips every day.

 Shouldn’t you be worried by these clips, if you are Christian? If you are secular, or atheist? If you are gay? Even if you are a socialist?

 If you are a “moderate Muslim,” who does not demand the destruction of Jews and Christians?

 If you just don’t want your neighborhood, much less the whole world, to fall under Islam?

 But it isn’t just anecdotes. There is troubling data about the high percentage of Muslims one may label “extremist.” Recent data suggest that nearly half of American Muslims have a positive view of Hamas, which would mean that “some 2 million Muslims in America support a Muslim Brotherhood Islamic terrorist organization that is financed and backed by Iran,” most of whom also support specifically the October 7 massacre. Lest you think that is merely a problem for the Jews, note the belief endemic across the Muslim world that the Jews (and Israel) are just the “Little Satan” to America’s “Big Satan.” There is overwhelming overlap between those who support Hamas and the October 7 massacre and those in favor of totalitarian governments (such as Iran) that see themselves as the civilizational enemies of the West.

 And the Muslim Brotherhood themselves adopt the view that the world may be divided into two realms: the House of Islam and the House of War.

 You either submit to Islam, or there is a war coming your way.

 This isn’t just a Jewish problem.

 On the European front, there’s this troubling report in Tablet on the Muslim Brotherhood’s “assiduous campaign to acquire influence within the ordinary institutions of French life”: 

The actor France has identified is the Muslim Brotherhood and the political-Islamist ecosystem surrounding it. The method is entryism: the gradual penetration of schools, associations, religious institutions, charities, municipalities, political parties, and administrative structures. The objective described by French officials is the cultivation of communities in which Islamist norms gain authority while republican principles progressively retreat.

 

That this is well underway in America also seems clear:

 

The evidence begins with the public documents of Muslim political organizations themselves. Council on American Islamic Relations’ Muslims Vote operation lists a coordinated election program: Increase Muslim registration and turnout, document Muslim candidates, distribute national voter guides and congressional scorecards, survey Muslim political attitudes, cooperate with other Muslim organizations, and promote a unified “Muslim Policy Platform.” CAIR described its 2024 plan as a means of ensuring that Muslim voices would shape the national election.

 

Similar work is being done by many other Islamic organizations, including EmgageUSA and The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations - Civic Action Network.

 

Muslim Mayor Mamdani of New York City is just the tip of this iceberg. Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, fresh off his primary victory, will be Mamdani on steroids—and on the national stage.

 

But this also gets to the difficult issue at the heart of the matter.

 

Mamdani was elected, and El-Sayed was victorious, in free and fair elections. Political organization is an entirely legitimate activity that every interest group should be free to pursue. I accept (insist upon!) the basic tenets of American liberalism, including democracy, pluralism, toleration, religious freedom, and the rest. Absolutely every person should be free to pursue the religion of their choice, and that includes building social networks, organizations, and political lobbying.

 

Lord knows the amount of antisemitic suspicion cast upon Jews when they pursue their own social and political organizing and lobbying (AIPAC, anyone?), and I do not wish to support the analogous bigotry when it comes to Islam and Muslims.

 

“There is no place for hate in America,” as every elected leader finds themselves proclaiming so regularly that one suspects the phrase isn’t entirely accurate.

 

And to be sure—I think we are sure, despite the numbers mentioned above—“most American Muslims aren’t extreme.” “Moderate Muslims,” as the article in the preceding link describes them, those willing to allow the same rights and freedoms to others, deserve absolutely the same rights and freedoms as all Americans.

 

I accept and insist upon it.

 

The same Tablet article quoted above noted this concern. It observes that the recent French legislation dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood infiltration remains contested:

 

Critics warn that vague definitions could cast suspicion upon ordinary Muslim citizens engaged in civic life. That concern deserves consideration. Washington himself cautioned that vigilance against foreign influence must remain impartial lest suspicion become another instrument of manipulation.

 

That is as it should be.

 

And yet France also managed to make a key distinction:

 

France nevertheless crossed an intellectual threshold that most Western governments have avoided. It distinguished private religious observance from a political movement that may employ democratic freedoms tactically while pursuing a comprehensive vision of law, society, education, and government. That distinction carries enormous consequences.

 

Kind of like what these guys are talking about, who are talking about infiltrating the West. Kind of in the way that the father of the new Muslim Democratic candidate for Michigan Senator has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Nothing to see here, folks.

 Is this new construction near a major public university an expression of the civil rights of Muslims or a massive mosque fortress to advance Islam across the West?

 And there is the heart of the matter. The “freedom to practice one’s religion” is not the “freedom to impose one’s religion on others.” The hard (impossible?) question is to determine precisely where one ends and the other begins.

 That is “the Muslim Question”—a matter of distinguishing between our genuine Muslim neighbors and our potential Muslim conquerors.

 It might be instructive here to compare the Jewish Question with the nascent Muslim Question.

 For much of the 20^th century the Jewish Question was deeply informed by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This infamous forgery, appearing in 1903 then spreading rapidly around the world, sketches the alleged plot of the Jews to conquer the world and subjugate or eliminate all the non-Jews. It envisages a “messianic era” in which the entire globe lives “under the House of David.” There is a straight line from this book, through Hitler and the Nazis, to the Holocaust. In a massive act of projection, they believed that the Jews were genocidal world-conquerors and so they had to “defend themselves” from the Jewish menace by annihilating the threat.

 But of course that was all a lie.

 There are no Elders, there is no such plot, and all the Jews ever wanted at most was a thin sliver of land to call their own in which to fight amongst themselves.

 Even before the Protocols, the Jewish Question was informed by similar thinking. The European antisemites obsessed with the Jewish Question were concerned that the Jews were becoming too influential, gaining too much power, maneuvering into a position of control over non-Jews in order to advance their own ends.

 All of that was a lie, too. Europe’s emancipation of the Jews did lead to Jews becoming a greater part of European society, even prospering, even becoming “influential” (despite always being a miniscule minority). But many of the Jews who prospered wanted nothing more than to assimilate into the majority culture. At most they wanted the freedom to practice their own religion and culture, free from persecution and pogrom. Even in areas where they became “influential,” they never had plans to make those areas, much less those countries, Jewish.

 What made the Jewish Question antisemitic, bigotry, is that it was ultimately based on the defamatory premise that the Jews were “up to something,” including taking power over non-Jews and turning them into Jews or enslaving them.

 It was all a lie.

 In contrast, there are something like Muslim “Elders,” or at least a major international organization wishing to play that role, the Muslim Brotherhood (not to mention state sponsors of similar groups).

 And they do have such a plan, their protocols, as documented by ISGAP above, to conquer the world and make other countries Islamic. My brief description of the fictional Protocols above serves as a short summary of the Muslim Brothers’ actual plan.

 Unlike the Jews ever did, Muslims already dominate a significant portion of the globe, some 2 billion of them with some 50+ Islamic-majority countries and many others with strong Islamic minorities. The Jews were never more than some 17 million, before the Holocaust, and only ever had that one little sliver of a country.

 And they, the Muslim Brotherhood, seem actively to be undertaking and advancing that plan to conquer the rest of the globe, including Europe and the West.

 Is it possible to look at the various “anecdotes” above, which occur by the dozen each day, and not see them in the context of that framework?

 As far as I can tell, I’m not making any of this up.

 Other than in the fake Protocols has there ever been one instance of a Jew publicly proclaiming a plan to take over the globe? Or even one single country, by infiltrating and making use of its democratic processes to advance their political power then take it over? (If you want to argue they did something like that in Israel, fine—but at least note that Jewish ambitions have never been for anything beyond their little sliver of an ancestral homeland.)

 The Muslim Question, then, seems to me to have a legitimate foundation that the Jewish Question never had.

 “Islamophobia” suggests an irrational fear (hence bigotry) of Islam. But what if the fear of Islam is perfectly rational, because there really is such a plan and it is well underway, and it threatens our preferred way of life, including our specifically liberal way of life? What if the accusation of Islamophobia is actually a weapon, forbidding us from expressing perfectly legitimate concerns about the actual supremacist theocratic plans of some very influential Muslims?

 Senate Democrats refused to attend a hearing on the Muslim Brotherhood plan, charging Republicans with “engaging in anti-Muslim politics.” Are the Republicans being “Islamophobic,” or are the Democrats wrongly failing to fear Islam?

 And if it is legitimate (i.e. non-bigotry) to fear Islam, is it not legitimate to fear, or at least worry about, those Muslims who are the actual agents who would carry out that plan?

 As an American liberal who wants every person to have the freedom to pursue their religion as fully as possible, am I right to be concerned not just about the religion, the set of ideas and values, but about those individuals of that religion who do not share that liberalism and wish for their religion literally to defeat and subjugate all other religions?

 It is anathema to an American liberal to ask people to give up any aspects of their religion—but perhaps not if those aspects are directly inconsistent with the principles of liberalism. Karl Popper’s famous “Paradox of Tolerance”—that a tolerant society that tolerated those who reject tolerance would eventually lose to the intolerant—is actually easy to resolve, at least in principle: a liberal society, one formed by a social contract of mutual obligation to allow the “other” the same freedoms one wishes to exercise oneself, may set the limits of its toleration to those who share the commitment to toleration.

 We need not tolerate those who reject our foundational principles of toleration.

 Sam Harris has said that, “The problem is extreme Islam. The solution is moderate Islam.” That sounds about right to me. Perhaps “moderate Muslims” are those who, while committed to their own faith, are equally committed to the freedom of all others to leave that faith, to practice other faiths, or to have no faith at all. So defined, a “moderate Muslim” would have no truck with the Muslim Brotherhood project, and perhaps also actively oppose it.

 It threatens them, too.

 Further, again, it is plausible that “most” American Muslims are moderate. I believe that. I know more than a few. But there are dangerous forces that incentivize their remaining quiet. You will not find many willing to go public with their reservations, and this unfortunately strengthens the extremists. The pattern is tough to combat, and the result is effectively the same as a conspiracy. Everyone knows what they are allowed to say and demand. A decentralized conspiracy, in a way. 

 Their silence, understandable as it is, provides a shield for the not so moderate Muslims.

 For fear of critiquing or infringing upon the “moderates” we allow the not-so-moderates full sway. I cannot determine precise numbers, but unfortunately we also do know that some American Muslims are not so moderate, perhaps many are not, and there are clear signs that these are gaining steam, per the clips above, and dozens others.

 In this context, every otherwise innocent incident of Muslim accommodation—every new mosque, every restaurant or food truck obtaining halal certification, every proposed footwashing station in an airport, every commission to advance Muslim political representation, every Muslim serving on a city council or other position (especially where Muslims occupy every such position), every multicultural event teaching about Islam and having girls try on hijabs—even when done by moderate Muslims with entirely innocent intentions—becomes one more advance of the plan.

 As upsetting and anti-liberal as this is, must we now start to feel suspicious of our Muslim neighbors—because they either are actively part of the Muslim Brotherhood plan, or if not, are advancing it simply by pursuing their otherwise liberal-sanctioned freedoms?

 What are we supposed to do in this situation?

 That is the Muslim Question, or the beginning thereof, and the beginning of what necessarily must be a long and complicated and difficult and perhaps dangerous discussion.

 It is perhaps time to begin that conversation.

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Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! Reclaiming the Covenant on America's 250th (May 2026) "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

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08/17 Links Pt2: Ireland is green with envy against Israel; Elise Stefanik: The Hearing That Changed Everything; The Media’s Silence on Anti-Jewish Hate

From Ian:

Ireland is green with envy against Israel

So let me understand this: Britain was the enemy from whom the Irish were seeking liberation. The Irish struggled to found a republic – which they did. There were founding heroes of the state. Is this starting to ring a bell?

The British Army was the enemy of Israel during the mandate. Surely Ireland could not fail to become the natural ally of Israel?

Wasn’t Chaim Herzog raised in Dublin, serving in the Hagana and the British Army during World War II, making a close link when he became president of Israel? Has not the new president been able to forge the connection?

The answer is no.

Their relations have gone from bad to worse, and in the years since October 7, the Irish have launched a tirade of invective against the State of Israel and its leaders.

Examples: the previous president of Ireland, Michael Higgins, has slandered Israel’s actions in Gaza on every occasion. He had, of course, sprinkled terms like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” around like confetti.

Higgins is not a very tall man – he’s only 160 centimeters tall – but each and every centimeter is carefully honed with spite and hate for the only Jewish state.

The new taoiseach (Irish prime minister), Micheal Martin, has changed the views he had when foreign minister to the usual – “genocide” and “collective punishment” – urging the European Union to take ever stronger steps against Israel.

But whilst taoiseachs, presidents, press, and TV all seem united in their prejudice, they are followed sheep-like by the public, a majority of whom support trade restrictions and full BDS.

On The Late Late Show, discussing Iran, Alan Shatter, a former justice minister, mentioned tunnels and rapes to an audience of 500. He was met with laughter and derision.

Why? In Ireland’s case, pure envy is a likely candidate. Ever since it became a member of the EU in 1973, it has had a reputation of “take, take.”

By 2010, Ireland faced financial collapse due to housing and banking bubbles. In total, they received a €67.5 billion external bailout package from the EU, including loans from other nations, like Sweden – coincidentally, another Israel-hating friend.

By contrast, it sees Israel as strong and standing on its own two feet. Ireland has seen incoming hi-tech giants from America, from whom it takes taxes. Israel leads on its own.

My in-laws are part of the dwindling Jewish community who do not know from which direction the next abuse will come, as Ireland has succeeded France as the most antisemitic country in the world. A shame, as Ireland richly deserves its romantic label.

The expression “green with envy” happens to coincide with Ireland’s national color. It is also the butt of jokes, which claim the folk from the countryside are stupid.

Both envy and stupidity recently combined when the government purchased a jet for its “high-flying” greedy representatives. So driven by envy and hatred, they removed the plane’s landing assistance for the fog because it was manufactured in Israel.

A combination of envy and stupidity motivated their actions. Mind you, even without fog, Ireland clearly has lost its way.

JPost Editorial: Mamdani fans flames of antisemitism by pairing false allyship with anti-Israel rhetoric

The cycle is repeating itself almost daily. Anti-Israel rhetoric is uttered by progressive US officials like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. An antisemitic attack takes place, and those same officials rush to condemn the attack, defend the Jewish population, and express outrage.

What duplicitous trickery, transparently cynical manipulation, and utter refusal to see the blatant cause-and-effect of the cycle is taking place on the American landscape.

The latest incident occurred Friday night when Larry Montes, 46, of the Bronx, disrupted services at the famed Central Synagogue in Manhattan (which are streamed live to congregants around the world), allegedly hitting a woman, head-butting a security guard, and yelling antisemitic tropes before being escorted out of the sanctuary and arrested by the NYPD. He was later charged with six hate crimes.

Mamdani quickly responded to the attack, predictably stating that he was “horrified.”

“I can only imagine the pain and fear an attack like this, during Shabbat services, causes for the congregation and for Jewish New Yorkers across our city,” the mayor said. “Every New Yorker must be able to observe their religion without fear of violence. This despicable act has no place in our city, and our administration will do everything in our power to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe.”

Mamdani ignores connection between anti-Israel rhetoric, antisemitism
However, Mamdani is ignoring the clear connection between his frequent statements calling Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide” and launching a campaign to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal, which are fanning the flames that he’s trying to extinguish with his crocodile tears.

Less than a month ago, the synagogue’s senior rabbi, Angela Buchdahl, had warned Mamdani about the consequences of his anti-Israel rhetoric. In a July 23 statement addressed to the mayor, Buchdahl urged him to refrain from making statements that “demonizes Jews and the Jewish state” and “helps create the climate in which threats and violence flourish.”

Just last week, 10 New York rabbis also met Mamdani at City Hall to raise concerns about his statements about Israel and their effect on Jewish New Yorkers. The rabbis told the mayor that presenting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a simple story with Jews cast as the villain could prove dangerous.

“I told the mayor directly, the way you continue to talk about Israel endangers the Jewish community at large,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs. “If, instead of vilifying Israel, you spoke constructively, in measured tones, that would move the needle more than anything else, and I’m hopeful you’ll use that power.”

I study antisemitism for a living: El-Sayed’s rhetoric is a case study

In an effort to facilitate his success in the upcoming November election against his Republican rival, El-Sayed sought to reassure the public and the Jewish community, whom he and many of his supporters have placed in their crosshairs for over a year, of his goodwill. The reassurance was compelled by conduct, not just his campaign rhetoric, within El-Sayed’s own political orbit.

Consider, for instance, the indictment of one of El-Sayed’s staff, who, along with seven others, stands accused by a federal jury of alleged threats and vandalism against the University of Michigan, pro-Israel organizations and their family members. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the accused “also discussed methods by which to harm the targets and their families, including poison, bombs and psychological torture.”

As FBI special agent Jennifer Runyan explained: “In the dead of night, masked and hooded defendants allegedly threw noxious chemicals through the windows of families’ homes and taped demand letters to their front doors. At every step, they attempted to cover their tracks and delete evidence of their crimes.”

When concealing Jew-hatred is no longer possible or politically preferable, there is greater candor and/or the suggestion that it does not matter. Seven months after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, El-Sayed’s most notorious supporter, Hasan Piker stated, “It doesn’t matter if rapes happened on October 7th” … “It doesn’t change the dynamic for me.” That’s because Piker admires the terrorist organization Hezbollah and its “dope flag.”

“It’s got an AK [rifle] on it and a f**king hand holding it up,” he exclaimed, podcasting beside an LGBTQ flag and wearing a T-shirt that read “show me your d**k.” It strains credulity that the provocative podcaster is oblivious to the fact that leaders of both Hezbollah and Hamas claim that homosexuals should be executed in accordance with Quranic principles. Despite posing with peace signs beside the candidate, Piker’s support for terror could not be clearer.

For those voters who continue to insist hatred of any kind is simply unacceptable comes the promise of protection against it. And, as any abused woman knows, one of the most effective ways an abuser conceals his behavior is through offering his victims protection from it.

This came to mind when I heard El-Sayed’s paternalistic statement to Jewish Americans. He declares: “My commitment to Jewish safety is the same commitment I have to the safety of my own daughters.” As is common in such instances of insincerity, he never noted the role that his own rhetoric has played in fostering the fear he claims to safeguard against.

Most concerning was that, on the morning his victory was declared, El-Sayed appeared on national television and invoked the ancient blood libel against Jews by characterizing the world’s only Jewish state as having been “bloodthirsty” for decades. This libel was not a criticism of the particular policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or any Israeli government, but instead a condemnation of Israel’s very existence, and thus her people and supporters.

Like those before him, the aspiring politician grasps the appeal of the blood-curdling myth. It is worth recalling that, in 1943, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, instructed Berlin’s Chief of Police to investigate ritual murders long attributed to Jews, with the intention of disseminating the ostensible findings to the press. This strategy was aimed at promoting the narrative that would support the “evacuation” of Jews from Europe. Himmler understood that virulent Jew-hatred could be leveraged to the advantage of his movement.

That today’s aspiring politicians seem eager to do the same reveals our country is under serious threat and that unless such forces are soundly defeated, the future of substantive democracy will be bleak.

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08/17 Links Pt1: The West is still committed to its fatal delusion about Hamas; US tells Hamas it wants ‘real efforts and not just words’ on disarmament; Ben Gvir: “Every night, we must eliminate 30 to 50 terrorists.”

From Ian:

Jake Wallis Simons: The West is still committed to its fatal delusion about Hamas

When it comes to the Middle East, Tony Blair is not known for his wisdom. His invasion of Iraq left the region in chaos, leading to mass jihadist mobilisation and the strengthening of Iran, while as the Quartet’s Middle East representative, he singularly failed to ease the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

What better man, therefore, to meet Hamas in Cairo, alongside Jared Kushner, to press the jihadis to fulfil their commitment to disarm on Sunday? Blair’s problem has always been the same, and it has been shared by the entire Western political establishment since the end of the Cold War. Namely: gullibility.

The thread running through decades of Western failure to encourage peace and prosperity in the Middle East is our damnable assumption that deep down, the Islamists are just like us. Lord Renwick famously labelled this the “Wykehamist fallacy”, the tendency to assume that even the most bloodthirsty despot had an inner civilised chap of the sort one might find at Winchester College.

If it were true that the Islamists’ core concerns were freedom, prosperity and a better future for their children, then all you would have to do would be to remove the despots and nurture a framework of democracy. Societal happiness would then bloom of its own accord.

Iraq put paid to that idea. So did the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005; under the direction of the late Ariel Sharon, all 21 settlements in the Strip were forcibly dismantled and the IDF withdrew to the last man.

Even Israeli farms and businesses were left intact for the Palestinians to use. What happened? These were all razed by the mob out of spite. Hamas took over and, over the following two decades, the enclave became a civilian-jihadi terror complex, involving subterranean infrastructure, total militarisation and ubiquitous brainwashing. Then came October 7.

So forgive me if I view these direct talks with Hamas – itself an unprecedented diplomatic move – as just more of the same painful naïveté, only this time under the mad leadership of Donald Trump. Can a jihadi group ever be serious about disarming? Could Rosemary West be plausibly retrained as headmistress of a girls’ boarding school?

Think, for a moment, of the level of fanaticism required to build up to 450 miles of catacombs in Gaza, in conditions of mortal danger, then to invite the apocalypse upon your own heads with an orgy of butchery, rape, mutilation, necrophilia and kidnap, before deploying your own families as human shields above ground.

Yes, between the suicide bomber and the Western diplomat lies a pretty big cultural gulf. Truly, these people love death as we love life. As Israeli leader Golda Meir famously remarked: “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

Desert Reconnaissance Battalion: The Arab IDF unit the world needs to know about

For years, the world has been told a very simple story about Arabs and Israel. Arabs on one side. Israelis on the other. It is always pinned as conflict, division, or suspicion. But recently, I stood in a space that told a very different story.

I was attending the anniversary of IDF Unit 585, the Desert Reconnaissance Battalion, a unit made up predominantly of Bedouin soldiers, alongside other Arab and minority service members. The battalion was established in the late 1980s and has long operated in Israel’s south, particularly around the Gaza border. For many of its Arab soldiers, service is voluntary rather than mandatory.

This unit is made up largely of Arab soldiers, including but not limited to members of Israel’s Bedouin and Druze communities. And as I looked around the event, I realized how few people outside of Israel even know this unit exists, because I myself didn't know it existed.

That matters. Because when the world talks about Israel, it often speaks in absolutes. Israelis and Arabs are presented as two groups who could never share a uniform, a mission, or a sense of responsibility for the same country. Then you meet the soldiers of Unit 585.

At the anniversary, I spoke with veterans who had served in the unit decades ago. Their names cannot be published, but their pride was impossible to miss.

“We are soldiers from Unit 585,” one group of veterans told me. “We enlisted in 1979, and today we came to honor and celebrate 40 years.”

There was something striking about hearing that sentence while standing beside Arab soldiers serving in the battalion today. Different generations. The same unit. Men who had enlisted decades earlier had returned to stand alongside young Arab soldiers currently serving in Israel’s military, including soldiers who have operated in the Gaza border region and across southern Israel.

One current soldier described the moment simply: “Today we are marking 40 years since the battalion was established. Some of our veterans, together with the soldiers serving today, are here with us.” It was a place full of people whose lives complicate the version of Israel most of the world has been taught.

Western hypocrisy ignores Turkey’s occupation of northern Cyprus and Syria while condemning Israel

While the world obsesses over Israel, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is quietly appropriating land for Turkey, rewriting borders, and making a mockery of international law. The man who never misses a chance to denounce "occupation" and castigate Israel presides over two illegal occupations himself. And he is no longer simply occupying territory. He is positioning Turkey as the dominant Islamist power in the Middle East and the heir to Iran's self-appointed leadership of the anti-Israel “Axis of Resistance".

And if senior figures in his government are to be believed, his ambitions do not end in Cyprus or Syria. Erdogan’s sights are firmly fixed on Jerusalem.

Northern Cyprus has been under Turkish control for more than half a century, and northern Syria is rapidly going the same way. Yet the sanctimonious West, ever eager to moralise elsewhere, ignores these flagrant breaches of international law and treats Erdogan as a legitimate, valued partner.

Turkey’s occupation of northern Cyprus began in 1974, when its army invaded the island under the pretext of protecting Turkish Cypriots. They dropped napalm and burned villages. They stayed, and drove 170,000 Greek Cypriots from their homes. UN resolutions demand withdrawal. Ankara ignores them to this day. In reality, Turkey has seized 37 per cent of the island and split the capital, Nicosia, in two, making it the last divided capital in Europe.

The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly ruled that Turkey exercises “effective control” over the north, making Ankara legally responsible for every violation of property and human rights there. None of that matters. In 2021, Erdogan personally toured the sealed-off resort town of Varosha, a virtual ghost town and symbol of occupation. He vowed to reopen it, in direct defiance of the UN Security Council. He brazenly declared, “There are two states in Cyprus, and the world will eventually recognise this reality.”

The reality is an illegal military occupation propped up by nearly 40,000 Turkish troops, fortified bases, and a growing Turkish “settler” population now outnumbering local Turkish Cypriots. Ankara has installed drone bases, new mosques, and schools teaching Turkish curricula. Erdogan hasn’t just preserved the occupation. He has institutionalised it.

Since 2016, Turkey has launched four invasions into northern Syria, Operations Euphrates Shield, Olive Branch, Peace Spring and Claw-Sword, claiming to fight terrorism and create “safe zones”. In reality, it is occupation by instalments, a creeping annexation.

Cyprus ramping up pressure on Tel Aviv while eyeing Israel’s Merkava tanks for its military

Cyprus is ramping up pressure on Israel to allow them to purchase Merkava tanks (Mk3 or Mk4), pan-Cypriot daily newspaper Phileleftheros reported on Monday.

The Merkava is the primary tank used by the IDF’s Armored Corps. While development for the tank began in 1970, it only entered service in 1979 and was extensively used during the First Lebanon War.

The Merkava Mark 4 Barak is the version of the tank that is currently in use.

According to Phileleftheros, opinions within the Israeli government are divided on the matter, with some in support of providing Cyprus with Merkava tanks and some against such a move, wanting the tanks to remain available to the IDF.

Phileleftheros noted that the Merkava’s suitability for Cyprus’s National Guard stems from two main reasons.

Israel-Cyprus talks reportedly stall because of Oct. 7
The first, being the similarity between Israel and Cyprus’s terrain; and the second being the proximity of the two countries, which would ease logistical support for the tanks.

Talks between Cyprus and Israel for the purchase of second-hand Merkava tanks had stalled with the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War on October 7, 2023, reported Cypriot media, with Israeli reassurances that discussions would resume once the security situation had eased.

Several other contenders for Cyprus’s National Guard have been put forth, according to Cypriot media, including Greece’s Leopard 1A5 and France’s EBRC Jaguar.

The Leopard, however, has reportedly been rejected by Cyprus for not meeting the country’s national guard’s operational requirements.

Several contracts for smaller equipment, such as drones and other equipment that have shorter production times, have already progressed, according to Phileleftheros.

It added that contracts for larger equipment, such as armoured vehicles, are slated to begin in 2028.

Israel, Greece, Cyprus sign trilateral work plan
Currently, Cyprus’s National Guard is using Russian-built T-80 tanks, but Russia’s deteriorating relations with Western counties and sanctions placed upon it have made it difficult to reliably secure spare parts and ammunition.

In December 2025, Israel, Greece, and Cyprus signed a trilateral work plan for military cooperation for 2026.

Among other things, the plans include joint exercises and training, working groups in various fields, and strategic military dialogue on issues of joint interest.

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