All three women have spent years accusing Israel of apartheid. They have described it as a state built on Jewish supremacy. They have accused it of ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and genocide. They portray Israel as uniquely dangerous for Palestinian Arabs and Muslims.
Yet all three Muslim women voluntarily sought entry.
If they truly believed their own accusations, the decisions are difficult to comprehend.
People do not voluntarily place themselves under the authority of governments they believe are genocidal. They do not seek access to countries they regard as fundamentally dangerous to people like themselves.
There is a reason almost no Syrian Jews are preparing to return to Syria despite recent invitations from the country’s new leadership. Syria was once home to a thriving Jewish community. Today, it is virtually gone. Whatever promises may be made by the new government, people who genuinely fear for their safety do not rush back. They do not voluntarily place themselves under the authority of a state they believe could harm them.
Sarsour, Tlaib, and Omar did the opposite.
Their applications revealed something their rhetoric obscures. Whatever they say about Israel, they expected to arrive safely, travel freely, and return home without incident.
Consider the many Muslim-majority countries with suffering populations that these Muslim women did not attempt to enter. Sudan and Somalia. Lebanon and Syria. Yemen and Iran. Yet these women say nothing about those regimes and do not seek to visit those nations.
It is difficult to reconcile the claims that Israel is a genocidal, apartheid, supremacist state – seemingly uniquely in the region – and that people who vilify the country are running to visit it.
No one forced them to apply for a visa. They wanted to go.
And that may be the strongest commentary on their smear and accusations campaign of all.
Readers are taken through a long 3,200-word editorial about an “ancient” country recovering from war. They meet civilians, politicians, intellectuals, and even Hezbollah supporters. They hear about sovereignty, reconstruction, and national renewal.
Picture accompanying 3,200-word article by Lydia Polgreen, placing a person sitting on a rock between a field of flowers and a plane overhead, a metaphor between its “ancient” beautiful land and foreign forces overhead or the temptation of leaving out of fear and disgust.
Then the focus shifts.
What begins as a reflection on Lebanon’s future gradually becomes a discussion of whether Israel should continue to exist in its present form.
That turn reveals the essay’s central assumption.
Lebanon is introduced through the language of continuity. Tyre is an “ancient city.” Villages are “ancestral.” Sectarian divisions are “ancient.” The country is presented as a society with deep roots struggling to reclaim its future.
Israel receives a different vocabulary.
Israel occupies. Israel expands. Israel bombs. Israeli troops hold an “ever-expanding swath” of territory. The Israel is a “foreign military” operating inside another country. Israeli actions are repeatedly interpreted through ideological labels such as a “maximum-war doctrine.”
One nation is described through history and belonging. The other through power and force.
The contrast becomes more striking when the essay turns to sovereignty.
The preferred frame is Israeli intrusion into Lebanese sovereignty. Yet the defining political reality of modern Lebanon is that sovereignty itself remains unresolved.
Hezbollah maintains an independent army outside the authority of Beirut. It receives funding, weapons, and strategic direction from Iran. It launched attacks on Israel after October 7 without authorization from the Lebanese government. For decades, Lebanese governments have struggled to establish a monopoly on force within their own borders.
The central question facing Lebanon is not merely reconstruction. It is sovereignty. Who governs southern Lebanon? Who decides questions of war and peace? Who controls the country’s most powerful armed force?
Those questions sit surprisingly close to the margins of the essay. Polgreen concludes that Hezbollah – even after the demise of its “charismatic leader” Hassan Nasrallah – will endure and be part of a “pluralistic” Lebanese society (“pluralism” and “pluralistic” show up four times in the article).
Readers learn far more about Israeli power than about Lebanese weakness.
Near the end, the essay abandons its own logic.
At one point readers are told that Hezbollah “could not be excised from the body politic.” Political reality, in other words, must be acknowledged. Hezbollah has supporters, influence, institutions, and representation. Lebanon’s future must somehow accommodate that reality.
Yet that principle vanishes when the discussion turns to Israel.
After thousands of words about Lebanon, readers are introduced to arguments for a one-state future that would effectively end Israel as the Jewish nation-state. An “emerging international consensus” suddenly becomes relevant to determining Israel’s future.
The contrast is revealing.
When discussing Lebanon, the essay asks Lebanese people what they want. Readers hear from civilians, intellectuals, politicians, and Hezbollah supporters. Their aspirations become the measure of Lebanon’s future, which we are informed will be pluralistic and peaceful, even when including Hezbollah.
When discussing Israel, Israelis are nowhere to be found. Readers have no context what the average Israeli wants. They are not told that overwhelming majorities support maintaining Israel as a Jewish state. Instead, the relevant question becomes what an international consensus believes should happen.
The people whose “settler-colonial, aggressive, expansionist” state is cast as being temporary are absent from the discussion. Presumably, the readers are being led to the conclusion that international pressure must be placed on Israel to let Lebanon live.
Lebanon’s future belongs to the Lebanese. Israel’s future belongs to everyone else.
By the end, readers know that Lebanon is an ancient nation whose sovereignty deserves restoration. Hezbollah is an enduring political reality that must be accommodated. Israel is a state whose identity should be reshaped by outside opinion.
Hezbollah is never properly labeled a US-designated foreign terrorist organization. Israel is never described as an American ally. Lebanon is not painted as a failed country which cannot control its failed economy or borders or manage a distinct military force outside governmental control.
A country that struggles to control its own territory is granted unquestioned legitimacy. A country with functioning institutions, competitive elections, and one of the region’s strongest economies is presented as a candidate for political reinvention.
The essay asks readers to accept permanence for Hezbollah, self-determination for Lebanon, and international supervision for Israel.
It begins by asking how Lebanon should recover from war. It ends by asking whether Israel should remain Israel.
For an essay about Lebanon, that is an oddly revealing destination.
One of the most important political developments in America is happening long before Election Day.
Across the country, congressional districts have become so politically lopsided that the general election is often a foregone conclusion. The real contest takes place in party primaries, where turnout is lower, activists are more influential, and crowded fields can allow candidates to prevail with only a fraction of the vote.
New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District offers a striking example.
The district is one of the safest Democratic seats in the state. Thirteen Democrats entered the race to succeed Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman. When the votes were counted, Adam Hamawy emerged victorious with roughly a quarter of the vote. In most elections, winning 25 percent would mean defeat. In a heavily gerrymandered district where the Democratic primary effectively determines the winner, it may be enough to send someone to Congress.
Egyptian-born Adam Hamawy wins Democratic primary in NJ12 with backing of popular anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker and alt-left politicians Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
That reality changes the type of candidates who can reach Washington.
Candidates who would struggle to build broad support across an entire electorate can succeed by assembling a passionate faction within a low-turnout primary. Once nominated in a safe district, they often face little risk in November.
Hamawy’s victory illustrates the dynamic.
Critics pointed to Hamawy’s testimony as a defense witness for jihadist Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” convicted for his role in terrorist plots linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. They highlighted his volunteer work in Bosnia with the Benevolence International Foundation, an organization later shut down after investigators linked it to Al Qaeda. They questioned statements he made during the Blind Sheikh trial and raised concerns about past associations with individuals and organizations connected to radical Islamist movements.
Controversies like these that would likely receive intense scrutiny in a competitive district carried relatively little political cost in a race where winning roughly one quarter of a divided primary electorate may be sufficient to secure a seat in Congress.
The problem is not unique to Democrats. Deep-red districts have produced candidates whose views would struggle in a competitive statewide race. Deep-blue districts increasingly do the same. The common factor is not ideology. It is political geography.
Every society contains fringe movements. The question is whether political institutions force those movements to persuade a broader public before gaining power.
When candidates must compete for swing voters, controversial ideas are subjected to wider scrutiny. When victory depends on energizing a narrow slice of primary voters, the incentives change. Candidates can thrive by appealing to activists rather than assembling broad coalitions.
This feels much like social media. Inside echo chambers, radical ideas become normalized. As algorithms reward engagement, more extreme ideas ultimately push out the normalized-radical in the quest for eyeballs. Moderation is lost, and dissent is met with expulsion.
Ideological social media communities are the online equivalent of heavily gerrymandered deeply blue or red districts.
That dynamic helps explain a puzzle in modern American politics.
Polls consistently show that overt antisemitism remains a minority view in the United States. Yet some of the most visible antisemitic and anti-Israel voices in American politics emerge from districts where the decisive election is the primary rather than the general election.
Most Americans do not spend their time vilifying Jews, questioning Jewish belonging, or treating the world’s only Jewish state as uniquely illegitimate. Yet politicians can gain prominence by appealing to activist networks – online around the nation and local physically – where those themes carry political currency.
That does not mean those views represent America. It means they do not need to represent America; only enough primary voters in enough safe districts.
The same political system that elevated Adam Hamawy in New Jersey has elevated figures such as Rashida Tlaib and, on the Republican side, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Their ideologies differ dramatically, but the electoral formula is remarkably similar. A candidate builds an intense following within a safe district, wins a primary, and arrives in Congress with little need to appeal beyond that niche radical base.
NOVEMBER 30, 2018: (L-R) Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MN), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) take questions during a news conference about Islamophobia. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The result is a Congress increasingly populated by politicians whose views are more representative of the most motivated primary voters than of the broader American public.
The problem is bigger than any one candidate. It is a system in which winning 25 percent of a primary electorate can matter more than winning the confidence of the country.
ACTION ITEM
Demand a change to primaries.
Any election in which the winning candidate fails to receive 40% of the vote automatically requires a run-off between the two highest vote getters
Stop radical gerrymandering and mid-decade gerrymandering
Enable open primaries in which everyone can vote, regardless of party afiliation
Institute ranked-choice voting, especially in races with more than four people running
Ban entities that negotiate with municipalities (like teacher unions) from endorsing or donating to candidates
A lecture on the archaeology of ancient Israel and Judah was supposed to take place at the British Museum this month. Instead, it was postponed after organizers learned that protesters intended to disrupt the event.
The subject was not the Gaza war nor settlements nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It was archaeology.
It has happened before. In 2014, UNESCO canceled an exhibition on the Jewish people’s 3,500-year history in the Land of Israel after objections from Arab states. More recently, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas repeatedly denied that the Jewish Temples stood in Jerusalem, at one point claiming they were actually located in Yemen.
These episodes share a common thread. The dispute is no longer simply about the modern State of Israel nor its policies or actions. It is increasingly about the history of the Jewish people themselves.
Yet the evidence is overwhelming. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah are among the best-documented societies of the ancient Near East. Their existence is attested through inscriptions, seals, coins, manuscripts, monuments, and the records of neighboring civilizations. The British Museum itself houses artifacts that tell this story.
Seal of King Hezekiah found in Jerusalem, around 700 BCE
That is why archaeology poses such a problem for those who seek to portray Jews as foreign interlopers – colonizers – with no ancient connection to the land. Artifacts cannot be pressured into changing their testimony. Every discovery points in the same direction: the Jewish story in the Land of Israel stretches back thousands of years, before the births of Jesus and Mohammed.
Few people would tolerate a museum debating whether ancient Egypt existed or whether Rome stood in Italy. Yet Jewish history is increasingly treated as uniquely negotiable.
Curiously and alarmingly, the protest at the British Museum had a much more immediate backdrop than the current war. This talk was to take place during Jewish Culture Month and the protestors were assembled by an anti-Israel group called “Jewish Artists for Palestine.” The museum’s efforts to highlight Jewish history in the land of Israel during a period of focus on Jewish culture brought out Jewish anti-Israel protestors.
Institutions are backing away from Jewish history and culture with the backing of fringe extremist Jews and anti-Israel Arabs. So basic history becomes debate, and the debate has moved from the policies of the Israeli government to Jews themselves.
The Nazis physically annihilated the Jews of Europe as it sought to place their culture as historical artifacts in museums. Now, museums and institutions seek to erase Jewish history and culture as a prelude to eradicating Jews in the Middle East.
Some of Israel’s strongest supporters today are found nearly 10,000 miles from Jerusalem.
On June 2, 2026, as Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar opened Israel’s new embassy in Fiji, he was marking more than a diplomatic milestone. In recent years, Fiji and several Pacific nations have emerged as some of Israel’s most reliable supporters at the United Nations, often standing with the Jewish state when much of the world has turned against it.
Israeli embassy opening in Fiji, June 2, 2026
There is a certain irony in those votes. Israel was reborn in 1948, before the independence of most countries represented at the United Nations today, including many that now question its legitimacy.
At the center of this story stands Fiji’s Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka.
Rabuka was born in 1948, the same year the modern State of Israel emerged from war and declared independence. Fiji itself would not become independent until 1970. Few leaders are better positioned to appreciate the journey of a small nation seeking to preserve its identity, security, and place in the world.
A former military commander and peacekeeper who served in Lebanon, Rabuka has become one of Israel’s strongest friends in the Pacific. The path that led him there reveals much about the bond between Israel and many Pacific nations.
Prime Minister of Fiji, SitiveniRabuka with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar
Like generations of indigenous Fijians, Rabuka grew up in a deeply Christian society where the stories of the Bible shaped daily life. Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Jordan River, and the Sea of Galilee were familiar long before they appeared in headlines. The history of the Jewish people, the kings of Israel, the prophets, and the life of Jesus formed part of a shared spiritual inheritance passed from one generation to the next.
For many Pacific Christians, the Holy Land is more than a place where sacred events occurred. It is the landscape where their faith began. Jerusalem is the city of David, the site of the ancient Temples, and the place where Jesus taught, died, and was resurrected.
Rabuka later encountered the region through military service. Fiji has contributed peacekeepers to the Middle East for decades, with soldiers serving in Lebanon, the Sinai, and the Golan Heights. Those missions transformed biblical geography into lived experience, creating connections between Pacific Islanders and a region they had long known through scripture.
Those experiences help explain why Rabuka has spoken so forcefully about Israel’s right to defend itself and why his government opened an embassy in Jerusalem in 2025, at the time, the seventh country to do so. His support reflects a worldview shaped by faith, military service, and an understanding that small nations must often fight to preserve their security, identity, and future.
“The people of Fiji share a very close religious and cultural connection to the Holy Land. We deeply value your great nation, which is the birthplace of Christianity. Our similarities, faith and common values continue to strengthen us together in unity and solidarity, as witnessed here this afternoon.” – Fiji PM Sitiveni Rabuka September 18, 2025
That perspective resonates across the Pacific. Countries such as Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Palau, Nauru, and the Federated States of Micronesia understand the challenge of preserving sovereignty and culture in a world dominated by larger powers. Israel’s story speaks to concerns that many of these nations know well: preserving identity, protecting sovereignty, and carrying an ancient heritage into the future.
Their support for Israel in international forums reflects more than diplomacy. They see a people who returned to their ancestral homeland, revived an ancient language, rebuilt national institutions, and defended their independence against repeated challenges. Those themes resonate deeply among nations that have worked to preserve their own cultures and sovereignty across generations.
It is a remarkable journey: a Pacific leader born in 1948, shaped by the Bible and military service in the Middle East, helping forge a friendship with the country whose modern story began the year his own life did. Across oceans and continents, the connection endures because both nations understand that a people secures its future by remaining rooted in its past.
First One Through 