Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the U.S.-designated foreign terrorist group Hamas, was killed in Iran last night. Hamas, a popular political-terrorist group that seeks the destruction of Israel according to its charter, has killed thousands of Israelis since it was founded in 1988. The terrorist group launched a massive war against the Jewish State on October 7, 2023, killing and butchering 1,200 people – including hundreds of women and children – and taking over 250 people – living and dead – into Gaza. The terrorist group has stated that it intends to repeat the barbaric attack “again and again“, thrusting Israel into a war to stop the terrorist machinery and bring the hostages home.
None of this was covered by The New York Times.
The Times led that Haniyeh was a “political leader” as if his hands were clean. His “assassination raises fears of war,” rather than the killing of a leading terrorist bringing justice to a region that has only known war.
The Times continued:
Over a picture of a smiling Haniyeh amongst friends, the Times wrote that this leader “was a key player in negotiations to stop the fighting in Gaza,” cementing the notion that Israel killed a man of peace.
Not once did the Times call Hamas a terrorist group. Not once did it show a picture of the heinous massacre that Hamas committed on October 7.
Instead, the Times repeated their twisted narrative that Israel’s killing of this “political leader” would “engulf the region in further conflict,” as though Israel launched this war it never wanted. It added to the story about Israel’s killing of a leader of Hezbollah, another U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, spinning an article that Israel is a rogue nation of assassination.
The Times continued that it will now be Hamas that “responds” to the assassination, as opposed to the fact that Israel has been responding to Hamas’s attack. The Times’ cherry-on-top to its toxic sundae was that “Mr. Haniyeh was a key figure in Hamas’s cease-fire negotiations with Israel,” crowning the terrorist as a man of peace.
Many Jews and Zionists stopped reading the Times because of its anti-Israel and anti-religious bent. The whole world should condemn the #FakeNews which inverts reality and causes real-world harm when it canonizes a chief jihadi terrorist.
The pro-Palestinian movement in the United States has gone full jihadi, targeting JEWISH institutions, including synagogues. The instigators are not only anti-Israel but anti-Jews.
Squirrel Hill Synagogue, PA location of worst mass murder of Jews in the US, defaced with pro-Palestinian graffiti, July 2024Mercer Island, WA synagogue defaced, November 2023
Jewish houses of worship are not Israeli. They have nothing to do with the war between Israel and Hamas terrorists, but were targeted by pro-Palestinian antisemites.
Synagogue in Los Angeles, CA spray painted with “Free Palestine” and “F*ck Israel” in May 2020Calgary, Canada synagogue defaced July 2024
The Palestineism movement specifically calls for finding and confronting Zionist organizations, which it has determined is every Jewish organization unless it specifically repudiates Zionism. They have created a “Mapping Project” to enable people to locate and harrass Jewish Americans, Jewish organizations, Jewish schools and synagogues.
The United States Holocaust Museum has written extensively about the Nazis use of intimidation as a tool to weaponize fear and “rationalize war, persecution, and genocide.” The “Free Palestine” graffiti on houses of worship – especially in the shadow of the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust on October 7, 2023 by Palestinian Arabs – is a deliberate targeting of Jews, a marker for exclusion and persecution.
The Department of Justice needs to act against these hate crimes. The department knows that “Hate crimes have a devastating effect beyond the harm inflicted on any one victim. They reverberate through families, communities, and the entire nation, as others fear that they too could be threatened, attacked, or forced from their homes, because of what they look like, who they are, where they worship, whom they love, or whether they have a disability.”
Section 241 of the civil rights code makes it a felony to intimidate people to hinder the free exercise to a basic privilege like worship.
Yet in Pennsylvania, home to the largest mass murder of Jews in the United States and scene of recent graffiti on a synagogue, Sen. Bob Casey and Gov. Josh Shapiro did not flag that the perpetrators of the antisemitic intimidation should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. They only spoke of the symbolism of the vandalism and graffiti.
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) made it an offense to use intimidation to prevent a person from going to a synagogue. A Tennessee woman was just sentenced to three years and five months for intimidating people from using an abortion clinic. Such action should be enforced quickly and broadly for vandalizing a synagogue, with long sentences when the language calls to eradicate the Jewish State.
Words of condemnation are appreciated but American Jewry needs and demands that politicians and law enforcement enforce laws to protect Jews from the onslaught of toxic antisemitic Palestineism that is sweeping the nation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United States in July 2024 to thank the United States for its support in fighting five Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza who carried out the October 7 massacre. As part of the visit, he spent time with President Joe Biden, Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee for president Kamala Harris, and former president and Republican nominee President Donald Trump.
While all three senior American politicians defended Israel’s right to defend itself from the terrorist groups, Harris went in a different direction and condemned “extremist settler violence and settlement expansion.”
Remarks by VP Harris about her meeting with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, July 2024
Some education for Harris, and others who might miss some important facts:
This is not a war solely against Hamas but all Palestinian terrorist groups who kill Israelis and continue to threaten Israelis
West Bank Palestinians are more pro-Hamas and desirous of repeating the October 7 massacre than Gazans
Palestinian Terrorist Groups
As it relates to the brutal October 7 massacre, Human Rights Watch found “strong evidence of the participation of at least five Palestinian armed groups from Gaza in the attacks: Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades; the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s armed wing, the Quds Brigades; the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s armed wing, the National Resistance Brigades or Omar al-Qasim Forces; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s armed wing, the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades; and the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, formerly linked to the Fatah political faction.”
The United States State Department has labeled several Palestinian groups as foreign terrorist organizations including: HAMAS, Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), PFLP-General Command (PFLP-GC), Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AAMB), and Army of Islam (AOI). Backgrounds on each can be found here.
There are many other Palestinian terrorist groups not yet designated by the United States, including three new ones operating in the West Bank: Lion’s Den, Jenin Brigades, and Tulkarm Brigades, each of which has conducted murderous attacks against Israelis.
All of these groups – as well as individuals associated with them – should be condemned unambiguously. The US should provide full support in rooting out these groups and its supporters, and America should arrest and / or expel such individuals found in the US.
The West Bank Is Rife With Terrorist Supporters
Harris seems to think that Palestinian terrorism is confined to Hamas in Gaza, as that is where the October 7 emanated from and where hostages are supposedly being held. In fact, West Bank Arabs are more supportive of Hamas, its leadership and the October 7 massacre than Gazans.
According to a June poll conducted by the PCPSR, West Bank Arabs immediate reaction to the butchering of Israelis was overwhelming glee. In a December 2023 poll, 82% of West Bank Arabs supported the heinous attack, far more than the 57% of Gazans. Support continued to remain high in June 2024, with 73% of West Bank Palestinians supporting October 7.
West Bank Palestinians also support Hamas.
Asked in a variety of formats, West Bank Arabs support Hamas (82%) and the architect of the October 7 atrocities, Yahya Sinwar (76%) significantly more than Gazans (64% and 50%, respectively). A majority of 71% of West Bank Arabs want Hamas to rule Gaza compared to 45% of Gazans. West Bank Arabs prefer Hamas over the less genocidal Fatah (41% to 17%), higher than the margin among Gazans (38% to 24%).
Consistent with West Bank Palestinians support for Hamas and the October 7 massacre is the preference for violence, with 62% expressing support for an “armed intifada.”
Harris’s concern for West Bank Palestinians is not reciprocated. Only 1% have a positive view of the US, less than the 6% of Gazans who are happy with the US.
The “extremist settlers” highlighted by Harris are resisting genocidal maniacs who want to repeat the October 7 massacre on Jews throughout the West Bank and Israel.
It is time to lay bare plain facts: the supporters of Palestinian murderers are found throughout the West Bank and their enablers are increasingly found in western countries.
I have been fortunate to visit Israel dozens of times. I have come for work and to vacation. To celebrate Jewish holidays and family and friends’ celebrations. During wars and “intifadas” as well as times of peace.
July 2024 was different. I came to a country held hostage.
The Individual Hostages In Gaza
The first thing one sees upon arrival at the airport is a large sign “Bring them home now!” with sample dog tags showing the date October 7 when over 250 people from Israel – living and dead – were seized by Palestinian Arabs and hauled into Gaza.
The faces of the hostages were found everywhere: in the airport, on the streets and in office lobbies. On stickers, banners and shirts. Israel is consumed with the people abducted by terrorists. Their faces, names and stories refuse to be forgotten.
Hostage To Memories And Emotions
Outside the Tel Aviv Museum is Hostage Square, an encampment of families and friends who sit in shelters to talk to people about the abducted amidst a range of emotional tributes and installations. Most of the people try to avoid talking about politics or the war, and are solely focused on the innocent people ripped from their homes and regular lives.
One of people I met in a tent for one of the kibbutz communities attacked was a Ukrainian-Israeli who confided that she liked to talk to tourists. She felt it difficult to talk to fellow Israelis who were enmeshed in the ongoing tragedy but could “unload” to strangers and not be alone.
She pointed to a picture over the door and said that the bearded man was her old boyfriend who was killed on October 7 and his body was hauled into Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces retrieved his body just a few weeks earlier.
While this woman talked to me, another women from the kibbutz had been talking to another female visitor. That kibbutz woman introduced a middle aged lady who shared that she was a neighbor of the Ukrainian’s old boyfriend. The Ukrainian covered her mouth and began to bawl. She attempted to speak and then fled the tent.
Hostages To War
I have visited the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem many times. In 2003, during the Second ‘Intifada’, I had the opportunity to get a tour of the new emergency room by Dr. David Applebaum two weeks before he and his daughter were killed in a Palestinian terrorist bombing on the eve of her wedding. I came to visit now to see how the hospital was functioning during a war.
The hospital lobby has a long table filled with pictures of family members of hospital workers who were killed over the nine months of war. Some were killed during the October 7 massacre while others died in the fighting to free the hostages and to bring the terrorists to justice.
Lobby of Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, July 2024
The guide shared that this war had an enormous casualty-to-death ratio relative to past wars. The reason is that many soldiers who would have been killed in the past were saved due to some tactical measures.
Firstly, Israeli soldiers entered the hornet’s nest of Gaza wearing tourniquets. With a battlefield loaded with booby traps, many people were losing limbs as bombs exploded. In the past, those soldiers would have bled to death but now, tourniquets provided precious time for them to be rescued.
Behind the wave of infantry were medics equipped with various equipment to stabilize the injured quickly for immediate transfer out of Gaza into Israel a short distance away. As soon as the injured entered Israel, well-equipped medical helicopters flew the seriously injured to hospitals like Shaare Zedek, a short 15 minute flight, while those in non-life threatening situations were transferred via ambulance. The sophisticated medical helicopters had advanced equipment like sonars which evaluate the soldier’s condition to prepare the emergency room at the hospital to receive the injured and operate quickly. There were cases that a person was on an operating table less than 45 minutes from the moment of attack.
The tour of the hospital also featured a large empty underground intensive care unit, should air sirens be blasted in Jerusalem and very sick patients need to be moved into a shelter.
Underground ICU in case of bombing
Hostages To The Government
Many Israelis are deeply upset with their leadership and Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. They are angry at the failure to protect the border, allowing the October 7th massacre to occur. They are furious at the inability to finish off Hamas and release the hostages.
Graffiti around Jerusalem angry at Netanyahu
They are angry at Bibi’s failure to conclude a hostage deal and his refusal to step down and hold elections. They feel trapped by his incompetence and ego but have few tools to call for an early election.
The Saturday night protest near the prime minister’s house in Jerusalem was not shrill and it seemed like the the crowd was worn out from many months of little progress.
But they keep turning out.
Hostages To Family Fighting
Many Israelis are exhausted in every manner of the word. They have family members who have been fighting in Gaza or up north on-and-off for nine months. They all have or know of families who have lost loved ones. They are desperate to leave the country for a much needed respite but feel unable to do so while family is on the front lines.
Those who remain in the country ask each other difficult questions: do you postpone a wedding until after the war? Do you start dating someone who is on the front lines, who might suffer a terrible injury or death?
The soldiers occupy their every action and prayers. They have also been captured into a war zone since October 7, a war which no one wanted.
Hostages To Tradition
In the Jerusalem neighborhood of Romema, many new buildings are going up to accommodate the rapidly growing numbers of ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews who want to live in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest city. While the vast majority of that community do not serve in the army, many are trying to contribute to the war effort in their own way.
On the first floor of a small building, a cramped kitchen has been set up by volunteers who cook and pack meals for families who have people fighting in Gaza or the Lebanese border. They pack hundreds of meals including soup, meatballs, spaghetti and dessert. Each package is customized according to the size of the family who has asked to receive the meals. The day I came to help pack, the meals were going to the community in Beit El.
Car packed with meals for families with people serving in the army, cooked and prepared by Haredi Jews in Jerusalem, July 2024
Economy Held Hostage
Israel has a citizen army in which everyone serves. While 18 to 21 year olds serve before they attend college, people also continue to get called up for milu’im, occasional service as the army needs people. In the course of this war, thousands of people in their 30s, 40s and 50s have left their jobs to fight the Palestinian Arab terrorists. Beyond the direct financial cost of the war, the impact on the country’s economy has been dramatic as millions of work-hours have vanished to defend the country.
There is still no end in sight all these months later, as fronts with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houtis in Yemen open up further.
Homes Held Hostage
Many hotels and apartments in Jerusalem have unusual activity. Whole families from the country’s north near Lebanon, as well as from near the Gaza Strip have relocated to the middle of the country. For nine months, they have been living as internally-displaced people. In the immediate aftermath of October 7, the numbers surpassed 200,000 but is now closer to 90,000.
According to UN Watch, “Despite the unprecedented massive displacement within Israel, both the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the UN Special Rapporteur on Internally displaced people (IDPs), Paula Gaviria Betancur—the two UN representatives one would expect to champion the rights of the displaced Israelis—have been largely silent on the issue.”
Israelis – roughly the population of Duluth, MN – have lost access to their homes, and the world has remained silent.
Hostages To Creeping Ambivalence
So many Israelis share the refrain that they “do not want the situation of hostages to become normalized.” They refuse to live in a country in which it is accepted that more than one hundred people are trapped in Gaza. They rail against a world which cannot fathom the deep trauma of the country that innocent civilians were kidnapped from their homes by thousands of terrorists.
As each day morphs to another, people afix new numbers to tape on their chests: 278, 279, 280, 281… People are not only more fearful about the fate of the hostages as time goes by but that their lives and stories grow more distant to the world.
Resistance
While many feel trapped by the current war, Israelis are taking action incorporating the new reality. They try to transform points of pain to rays of light.
Shuva Junction, about 5km from Gaza, was originally the location where people brought dead and wounded people from the October 7 massacre. Since that time, it has become a makeshift hub where Israeli soldiers come to rest and get food. Roughly 1,500 people are fed every day at a cost of roughly $5,000, all done by volunteers.
Already an outlier among countries allowing sperm extraction from a dead man by a spouse, Israel is debating allowing parents to do posthumous sperm retrieval for their fallen sons post-October 7. The bereaved parents want their sons to live on somehow, after sacrificing everything for the nation.
Beyond the war is living life. While it felt strange to go out for dinner or shop while a war was raging and over a hundred people were still being held hostage, the overall environment always felt like it included both fighters and hostages.
I was fortunate to attend a Hanan Ben Ari concert in the Sultan’s Pool right outside the Old City of Jerusalem. The stage was illuminated by the number of days that hostages were captive along with a yellow ribbon.
Stage for Hanan Ben Ari concert at Sultan’s Pool, Jerusalem in July 2024
I was unfamiliar with the singer and my Hebrew is not great, so I needed to listen particularly closely to the words. I heard a man praying for his children. I listened to a singer honoring his grandfather who was buried on Har Meuchut, on the other side of the Old City walls.
Hanan Ben Ari at Sultan’s Pool
And I watched the crowd of secular, modern and ultra-Orthodox Jews sing along. I saw young and old, men and women dance and sway to the music.
And cry.
Hanan Ben Ari put up a picture of one of his road managers, along with one of him with his family. Hanan spoke of him and how he was working the Nova music festival and slaughtered on October 7. Ben Ari then showed two people in his crew who were still held captive in Gaza.
He then asked people to hold the flashlights on their phones if they know of someone killed in the war. All 6,000 people in the audience raised their arms and began crying to a mournful song, Shvurei lev, a song of a broken heart.
I have been to Israel durings wars and sensed a people who had long ago accepted that they lived in a region amongst people who did not accept their basic presence or humanity. Still, they believed the episode would pass; the country will prevail in the near-term battles and in the longer-term, peace will prevail when the Jewish State’s enemies internalize that they are never leaving.
But that was not the nation I visited in July 2024.
Woman crying over fate of the murdered, the fallen and the hostages while she surveyed her fellow countrymen raising their arms at a Hanan Ben Ari concert, that they have suffered deeply in the 2023-4 Hamas war.
Israelis are deeply scarred by those killed and the manner in which they were butchered on October 7. They were rocked by the government and army’s failure to protect them. They are tortured by the ongoing hostage situation. They are deeply troubled by their strongest ally of the United States being rocked with rabid antisemitism which had previously only been displayed in Europe. They are livid at being blamed for a war they never wanted and want to end as quickly as possible.
The Jewish State is being held hostage in Gaza because Judaism believes that every life is a world. It is being held hostage by the scars of the barbarity of October 7 massacre. It is being held hostage by the fear of living next door to people who support such crimes against humanity. It is being held hostage by its own government that won’t step down and hold new elections. It is being held hostage by a false narrative at the United Nations and the ICC. It is being held hostage by a single powerful ally fading in its support.
There are more than 100 hostages. There are millions.
Israel has long known war and is confident that it can defeat Palestinian terrorists.
This is more than a war against a weak genocidal foe. This is a battle in the cramped crevices of hearts and minds to salvage humanity. Alone.
Air traffic control of Tel Aviv airport – the main international airport for the entire country – lit up with yellow ribbon for hostages held in Gaza, July 2024. Over the first nine months of the year, before the October 7 attacks by Hamas, passenger traffic surged by an annual 38.5 percent, to 19.1 million. But since then, traffic has plunged, culminating in a 78 percent drop in November and 71 percent dive in December, according to the Israel Airports Authority.
Vice President Kamala Harris moved quickly to become the presumptive Democratic nominee for president after President Joe Biden announced that he would no longer run for re-election just weeks before the Democratic National Convention. Rather than let Democratic voters decide on their nominee, the Democratic establishment rallied behind Harris and shut down voter wishes for alternatives.
Immediately after the Democratic establishment rallied behind Harris, far-left Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) endorsed Harris. In her endorsement, Bush said “When we say trust Black women, we mean it. Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party and it is past time for us to lead our country forward.”
It’s not a surprise. While Harris served in the Senate, she was listed as one of the most partisan senators, scoring a -0.92670, ranking #93 out of 98 senators scored (majority and minority leaders are excluded), according to the Lugar Center Bipartisan Index. That scored her close to House squad member Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) who scored a -0.94183 during the same 2019 Congress.
People voted Joe Biden to the presidency in 2020 because he was a moderate. The Lugar Center scored Biden in the top 20% of bipartisan senators all-time, coming in at #47 out of #250 scored. When Biden selected Harris to join the ticket, it was widely viewed as a nod to rally the far-left wing of the party onboard which was upset that Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders did not secure the nomination.
It caused many people concern at the time. During a 60 Minutes interview in 2020, Harris was questioned about her extremist views and record. She cackled her way through the question, reluctantly responding that she is on board with Biden’s approaches to policy.
The powerful teachers unions have gone all-in on Harris, including the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. The NEA is pushing to begin indoctrinating its members in several anti-Israel items including: the ‘Nakba’ narrative; teaching that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism; endorsing the BDS (boycott, divest and sanctioning) of Israel; call to stop funding Israel’s military; and call Israel’s operation in Gaza a “genocide.” AFT considered similar resolutions as the socialist teacher unions try to indoctrinate America’s future in a socialist-jihadi narrative
As president, Harris will become “unburdened by what has been,” meaning the more moderate and pro-Israel policies of Biden, and free to push an extremist socialist agenda.
Vice President Kamala Harris with Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, left, and Squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress on July 24, 2024. He spoke of the strong ties between Israel and the U.S. and their mutual enemy of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. He thanked Presidents Biden and Trump for being reliable allies, helping Israel fight its enemies and forge peace with those willing to coexist with the Jewish State.
The speech was addressed to a bipartisan audience of past, present and future Democratic and Republican presidents and members of Congress, and reflected the bipartisan and bicameral invitation to Netanyahu.
Yet only one party attended en masse. Only one party rose to their feet again and again during Netanyahu’s remarks. Only one party closed ranks with a strong ally in the middle of a horrific war.
The Republicans.
There was also one party which stood divided about Israel. One party who disrespected and disparaged the Israeli leader. One party whose shrill anti-Israel voices drowned out those who support Israel.
The Democrats.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) was angry that Netanyahu came to address Congress as “bad faith efforts by Republicans to further politicize the U.S.-Israel relationship.” In truth, the bipartisan invitation did not politicize the relationship but laid bare the pro-Hamas and anti-Israel wing of woke politicians and Americans.
Nadler, a Jewish Congressman, insulted Netanyahu as “the worst leader in Jewish history.” He spent his time at Netanyahu’s speech reading from a book highly critical of Netanyahu that he brandished about like garlic before a vampire.
Rep. Jerry Nadler read highly critical biography of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while the prime minister addressed a joint session of Congress on July 24, 2024.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) who had invited the Israeli Prime Minister, refused to shake the leader’s hand. Schumer had sharply criticized Netanyahu four months earlier in Congress, calling for new elections and meddling in foreign affairs of a democratic ally.
There were some Democrats who were supportive of Netanyahu and the Jewish State. Reps. Torres, Gottheimer, Hernandez, Manning, Franel and Wasserman-Schultz were clear about being proud Zionists, voicing full bipartisan support for the U.S.-Israel relationship, calling for bringing home the hostages held by Palestinian Arabs, and blasting the antisemitic protests on the streets of Washington, D.C.
Yet few people took notice of their comments which were viewed only a few thousand times on X.
The anti-Israel and anti-Netanyahu politicians were much more popular.
Many far-left members of Congress boycotted the speech. According to Axios, roughly half of the Democrats in the Senate and the House did not attend the address, including Vice President Kamala Harris who chose to attend another event, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA.), former House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). That’s over two times the number of Democrats who boycotted Netanyahu in 2015.
When the generals of wokedom Sanders and AOC posted about their feelings of “war criminal” Netanyahu and skipping the speech, MILLIONS of followers took in the bile. Even Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) who has already lost his seat in Congress for the next term, had nearly five times the number of views as Rep. Ritchie Torres.
The streets of Washington were filled with woke antisemites. Some held placards calling for the “final solution” in a reference to Hitler’s plan for a genocide of Jews. Some painted on governmental monuments that “Hamas is comin.”
The left-wing media joined the fray. The New Republic published an article about how horrible it would be for Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, to choose Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), an Orthodox Jew. Such a move would “ruin Democratic Unity” and “fracture the party” because Shapiro is a Zionist. Jacobin wants Harris to pick 82-year old Bernie Sanders as her Vice President, enjoying his vilification of Israel and capitalism.
According to a Gallup poll in March 2024, the favorability rating of Americans about Israel dropped below 60% for the first time since March 2004. It was mostly driven by young people 18-34 whose favorability ratings for Israel dropped in the last year to 38% from 64%, while their opinions barely budged for the Palestinian Authority. As it relates to the war, Democrats and the youth were the only segments to have a higher favorability rating for Palestinians more than Israelis.
By every measure, in just 75 years, Israel built a successful and thriving liberal democracy in the heart of the Middle East. Despite its success, the ongoing war against Gazan terrorists have sapped the support of the young and most left-leaning Americans, according to another poll by Gallup in late March 2024. Whether justified or not and fought minimizing harm to civilians or not, the anti-war movement amongst the young is not just drawing support from the Jewish State, but accelerating a movement to attack it and Zionists globally.
The messages of turning on Israel and Zionists continue to gain momentum, even among progressive Jews. Little known members of Congress like Rep. Sarah Jacobs’ (D-CA), not coincidentally the youngest Jew in Congress, post about boycotting Netanyahu got one million views on X, a platform more often used by young people.
Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress did not “politicize the U.S.-Israel relationship.” It exposed the deep rot of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in a growing segment of the Democratic Party, much like the Congressional hearings about antisemitism at universities shed light on the noxious Jew-hatred metastasizing in woke establishments.
ACTION ITEM
Contact Rep. Jerry Nadler and tell him he’s a vile and childish putz for insulting a leader of an American ally who was invited by a bipartisan and bicameral Congress. Call (202) 225-5635
Israel is the most liberal country in the entire Middle East by leaps and bounds. It has freedoms of religion, assembly and press which are not found amongst its neighbors. It has a diverse population and laws which protect minorities. The country’s western values make it an anomaly in the illiberal region.
Yet despite being a very liberal state, the Israeli people voted for a conservative and religious government to lead them, seemingly at odds with the pluralistic nation’s values. It begs the question as to what drives the disconnection.
Israel Is A Country At War
Israel is not like the United States with only two neighboring countries, each of which recognizes the USA. Israel is surrounded by hostile countries.
Israel is not like Norway which has been at peace for decades. Israel’s neighbors have repeatedly gone to war to destroy the country.
Israel is not like Slovenia, devoid of terrorist groups surrounding it. Israel is surrounded on all sides by terrorist groups and their sponsors.
Israel has been in a constant state of war with its neighbors since its founding, and still has dozens of terrorist groups alongside it sworn to the country’s destruction.
Israel Is Under Assault At The United Nations
Israel is not like Turkey with no standing resolutions at the U.N. about its occupation of Cyprus. There is a standing resolution against only one country: Israel.
Israel is not like Pakistan without a unique U.N. agency dedicated to descendants living in a neighboring land labeled “refugees” who are being pushed to move back. The UN created and maintains UNRWA, a unique refugee agency apart from the global refugee agency, which pushes to have all those descendants move into Israel.
Israel is not like the Vatican which allows full and open prayer for Catholics in the holy city. The U.N. has an official policy of denying Israeli Jews the right to pray at their holiest location on the Temple Mount.
Israel is not like Argentina which has no edicts about Argentinians living in disputed places like the Falkland Islands. Yet Israel has U.N. resolutions to ban Israeli Jews (but not Israeli Muslims) from living in disputed lands.
Israel is not like Cyprus whose capital Nicosia is deemed a united city under its control. Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem is not officially recognized by the global body, and it wishes to divide the city in two as it was during war.
Israel is not like India or the United States which labels products made in territories as made in the country. Yet the U.N. and European Union demand that products made in the Israeli territory of Area C in the West Bank be labeled distinctly, if produced by Jews.
United Nations “refugee” camp with a key on top to tell descendants of Arabs who left Israel while they waited for the Jewish State to be destroyed, that the U.N. is the portal to reclaim old homes inside of Israel.
Israel is perpetually treated as an offensive guest at the United Nations, and not a member state like other countries.
Israel Is On Active Defense
Israel is a liberal democracy at war with illiberal jihadi entities, and consequently elects right-wing governmental officials whom it believes will protect the country and its people, even though the populace strongly desires to elect new leadership.
American media that berates Israel’s right-wing government without simultaneously vilifying the antisemitic Palestinian jihadists, are effectively parroting hateful Hamas propaganda.
American politicians that boycott Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress are essentially supporting the Islamic Republic of Iran’s mission to isolate and destroy the Jewish State.
We know how America, France and other liberal democracies address jihadi terrorism which has no existential threat to the survival of the country. We know how those countries’ liberal citizens vote in elections when their basic safety and human rights are compromised.
People demand safety first and foremost from their governments, and will elect leaders who provide such security, especially when under brutal attack. Demonizing those elected leaders for doing what their liberal citizens require for survival is a reward to terrorists. In Israel, such prize goes to the genocidal Palestinian maniacs who wish to ethnically cleanse the holy land of its Jews.
ACTION ITEM
Write Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Jerry Nadler to stop condemning the Israeli government for fighting to protect its citizens from genocidal Palestinian Arabs.
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society started 130 years ago to help Jews fleeing pogroms in Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe settle in the United States. It was founded by Jews to help Jews immigrating to a new land.
The agency lost its mission decades ago when newly arriving Jewish immigrants needed much less help because there were very few Jews fleeing to the United States, they came with means, or they had family already established in the United States which helped them acclimate to the new environment.
Refusing to shut down, the agency rebranded itself as “HIAS” and morphed into a “multi-continent, multi-pronged humanitarian aid and advocacy organization with thousands of employees.” It recast its mission statement to be “Drawing on our Jewish values and history, and working with host communities, HIAS provides vital services to refugees, asylum seekers, and other forcibly displaced and stateless persons around the world and advocates for their fundamental rights so they can rebuild their lives.”
The agency is no longer Jews helping Jewish immigrants but everybody helping everybody.
In 2024, that includes members of Hamas and descendants of Palestinian refugees living in the West Bank.
On July 22, 2024, HIAS broadcast a note to its mailing list and on its website “How to help civilians in Gaza.” It specifically highlighted that “in the aftermath of the attacks on October 7, the humanitarian conditions in Gaza quickly became extreme, and the humanitarian crisis there continues to worsen by the day,” without mentioning that the October 7 massacre was launched from Gaza with the broad support of Gazans.
HIAS added that Gaza is outside of its area of influence in that “HIAS does not work in Gaza, but it is clear just how urgently families in Gaza need help. HIAS knows trusted partners who have been providing life-saving aid to civilians caught in the crossfire.” It listed Catholic Relief Services and Global Communities as agencies to which it would forward monies.
Since 1994, Global Communities “advises the World Bank on institutionalizing civic engagement in water sector management and helped establish a national youth organization focused on voluntarism, democracy andgood governance.” It touted its work with Palestinian Arabs who voted the political-terrorist genocidal group Hamas to 58% of parliament which rules over Gaza, and a corrupt Fatah party leading the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, whose president has refused to hold elections since 2009.
Despite no longer being a Jewish organization and not helping Jewish immigrants, HIAS is a member of the Conference of Presidents Of Major Jewish Organizations. The agency’s inclusion has long been a gross oversight, as the HIAS brand and inclusion in the COP misleads donors into believing that it has the same mission as it did at its founding.
As HIAS has now taken a further step of raising money for a group which has been working with Hamas in its efforts of “democracy and good governance” after the October 7 massacre, it is time to expunge it from the Conference of Presidents and everyone’s donor list.
In some ways, HIAS is a microcosm of many secular American Jews who recast themselves as universalists shrouded in “Jewish Values” helping anyone, including those who favor slaughtering fellow Jews.
ACTION ITEM
Write and call the Conference of Presidents to remove HIAS from its member list, at info@conferenceofpresidents.org and 212-318-6111
The top court of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s presence in territories it captured in the June 1967 Six Day War is illegal. Specifically, it decided that “Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful.” ICJ’s President Nawaf Salam said that “Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law.”
To arrive at such conclusion, the ICJ must believe that Jordan is Palestine.
The “West Bank and East Jerusalem” were captured in a defensive war that Israel fought after Jordan (Transjordan at the time) attacked it from those lands in 1967. TransJordan had annexed those lands in April 1950 after it fought a war to destroy the nascent Jewish State. Only Britain, Pakistan and Iraq recognized that annexation.
It would appear that the ICJ has now recognized that annexation as well.
The San Remo Conference of April 1920 set the outline for carving up the defeated Ottoman Empire into a number of mandates, including the Mandate of Palestine which covered today’s Israel, Gaza, West Bank and Jordan. According to the British Mandate which took effect in July 1922, Britain had the right to separate Mandate Palestine into two areas: one for the Jews west of the Jordan River and one area east of the river, according to Article 25. It did so on May 23, 1925 in the area that became Trans-Jordan. Trans-jordan declared its independence on May 25, 1946.
Britain was having difficulty dealing with the eastern Palestinian Mandate and turned to the United Nations for assistance. In November 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition the remaining eastern Palestine into a Jewish State and and Arab State, with the area of Greater Jerusalem and Greater Bethlehem to be held by the United Nations in a Corpus Separatum, an international zone.
UN’s plan for an internationally-controlled “Corpus Separatum” including Greater Bethlehem and Jerusalem
The UNGA and the Jews accepted the planned division but the Arabs rejected it. When Britain left the region in May 1948 and the Jews declared a new State of Israel, the Arab world attacked. At the end of the war, Transjordan seized the area that became known as the “West Bank”, the eastern part of Jerusalem and all of greater Bethlehem. Israel took the western part of Jerusalem. Transjordan ethnically cleansed its annexed lands of all Jews and gave citizenship to everyone who lived in those lands in 1954, except if they were Jews (Article 3).
“Corpus Separatum” in purple as divided between Israel (shaded grey) and Trans-Jordan (in white)
Palestine did not exist as a distinct country pre-1948, but was a subset of Greater Syria as part of the Ottoman Empire until 1917, and then under British rule. Under the British, the land was separated into a portion west of the Jordan River set up to be a reestablished Jewish homeland, and east of Jordan River to be Transjordan. After the Israeli war of independence, there was still no “Palestine” but an expanded Jordan which seized the western shores of the Jordan River which were to be part of the Jewish homeland, and eastern Jerusalem which was designated to be an international city.
Whether during the Ottoman Empire, British Mandate, or during Israeli and Jordanian rule, there was never a country called Palestine. Further, “East Jerusalem” a fragment of the city which existed only during 18 years from 1949-1967 under Jordanian rule, was never contemplated to be part of Palestine in any formulation.
Israel fought a defensive war with Transjordan in 1948-9 and then again in 1967 in land that was specifically designated in the San Remo Conference and the British Mandate to be an integral part of the Jewish homeland. In order to consider the “West Bank and East Jerusalem” to be “occupied” and “illegal”, one would have to declare that:
the British mandate to have been illegal
the annexation of the seized land west of the Jordan River by Transjordan in 1949 to be legal
Jordan’s ethnic cleansing of Jews from those lands and barring them from citizenship to be legal
Jordan to be Palestine
In no other configuration could the ICJ conclude that Israeli Jews living in eastern Jerusalem is illegal and should be expelled.
The ICJ ruling is revisionist history and deeply antisemitic. It shows the moral rot of the United Nations which still has “Zionism is racism” in its lifeblood.
The anti-Zionist group IfNotNow was formed in July 2014 at the end of a war between Hamas and Israel. It concluded that Israel was an apartheid state that must be dismantled, as must American support for the racist Zionist project.
The goal of the organization is one state, in which Arabs and Jews live together. They want a complete “right of return” for millions of Arabs into Israel, with a Jewish minority between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
IfNotNow website
Even after the savage October 7 massacre of Israelis by Palestinian Arabs, the organization has doubled down on its hypothesis, and is aggressively pushing its goals onto college campuses and into politics.
RACIST: Jewish Organizations and the Jewish State Are Right-Wing and Racist
INN believes that Jewish organizations are rife with “Ashkenazi dominance.” They believe that racism and antisemitism is only found among White people, and American Jews have been fed lies of “right-wing talking points” which have separated Jews from Arabs and people of color around the world.
INN believes that leading Jewish and Israeli institutions like the Anti-Defamation League, AIPAC and Conference of Presidents “exploit traumatic events of our past and present” to support and “protect Israel’s system of apartheid.” The organization believes that powerful White Jews are suppressing everyone else, including Jews of color and Palestinians.
This is anti-white racism and antisemitism.
First, Israel does not practice “apartheid”. It is the most liberal country for 1,000 miles in any direction.
Second, white Ashkenazi Jews account for less than one-third of Israelis, even after the mass migration from the former Soviet Union.
Further, why should someone’s skin color automatically make them a racist? INN believes that all White people – whether Jewish or non-Jewish – are “white supremacists”, while simultaneously believing that no people of color are racist. That’s absurd and racist.
Additionally, the idea that Jews are “powerful” has long been used to foster antisemitism and INN’s philosophy and advocacy directly feeds to more antisemitic attacks.
BLIND: A Movement of Mutual Liberation
IfNotNow thesis is that in the face of white racist Jewish institutions protecting a white racist Jewish State, “mutual liberation” was needed. American Jews must fight and mimic movements such as BlackLivesMatter. It also wants to be like the Jewish prophet Moses, fighting for the liberation of his people and the “liberation of all people.”
This is ridiculous.
The BLM movement was specifically about Black people; it was not about “mutual liberation.” Moses went to Egypt to specifically free the Jewish people. These were particular movements and not intertwined with other groups.
Moses did not free Jews from slavery without “a mechanism of destruction.” Egyptians were set upon with plagues and its army drowned in the sea. INN doesn’t know if it’s for particularism or universalism; for violence or non-violence.
LOST: October 7 Massacre Is Israel’s Fault
Many Jews were horrified by the October 7 massacre, not only for the horrible and massive loss of life, but additionally that it undermined the notion that Jews-with-power would be safe.
IfNotNow was horrified for a different reason: that Jews were fighting back.
On October 7, IfNotNow blamed the government of Israel for the slaughter of its own people. It bemoaned the Palestinian terrorists who were killed alongside their victims.
Within days, it was attacking Israel for using “grief… [to] justify revenge or genocide.”
Rather than reconsidering their thesis that Jews and Arabs can get along – after thousands of Palestinian Arabs burned Jewish families alive and mutilated women, old and young – INN doubled down that Jews should not use their power to seek justice for the slaughtered civilians and to protect Israelis from a regime sworn to its destruction.
Even the anti-Zionist group Code Pink was appalled by the October 7 bloodlust of Palestinians. But not INN and other jihadists who seek the end of both Jews and the Jewish State.
Politics and Colleges
INN has aligned itself with groups like Justice Democrats and Democratic Socialists of America in trying to elect anti-Zionist people of color like Rep. Cori Bush and Rep. Jamaal Bowman. They have signed onto the “Reject AIPAC” tagline and smeared white progressive politicians like George Latimer “a racist,” because he’s a white man taking a black man’s job.
The anti-Zionist group was very active on college campuses during the 2023-4 school year promoting anti-Israel actions. Even at campuses which saw wild antisemitic activity like Columbia, Barnard, NYU and CCNY, INN was proud to stand in support of the anti-Israel activities.
It will likely continue such activities in the next school year.
IfNotNow is part of the socialist-jihadi alliance which is becoming more active in politics and college campuses. INN wants Israeli Jews to shed their means of protection despite their lived experience. They similarly want white Jewish organizations to stop protecting white Jews in Israel and America to become a defenseless minority-minority which history has shown is easy fodder for attack.
Now that Jews have a country and army for the first time in 2,000 years, IfNotNow wants to see both dismantled. Now that some Jews have stature in the diaspora, IfNotNow wants them to renounce any power or privilege.
Rather than advancing the cause of non-Whites and Palestinians, IfNotNow wants to target and tear down Ashkenazi Jews and the Jewish State.
October 7 and the subsequent rise of antisemitism has left alt-left anti-Zionist groups like IfNotNow blind and lost like Samson before his death, and like the Jewish prophet, INN is intent on bringing down the Jewish people with them.
First One Through 