Pal-Awda is organizing a protest in Riverdale, Bronx, on October 24 to stop what it calls the sale of “stolen Palestinian land.” Its target is a Jewish real estate event organized by My Israel Home.
The accusation is enormous. The evidence is missing.
The protesters identify no stolen property, no dispossessed owner, no fraudulent deed and no evidence that anyone offering a home for sale acquired it unlawfully. They simply declare the land stolen and demand that the sale be stopped.
And what exactly makes a privately owned home “Palestinian land”?
There has never been an independent sovereign country called Palestine. Even if there had been, that would establish nothing about ownership of a particular house.
Imagine a homeowner in Dallas selling a house to someone from Los Angeles. Protesters descend on the transaction, shouting, “Stop the sale of stolen Dallas land!”
Stolen from whom? The homeowner? The city? Everyone who ever lived in Dallas?
Dallas describes an actual place. It does not own every home within its boundaries. A homeowner can sell to another person, regardless of where the buyer was born or lives.
The same is true in Judea and Samaria. Land owned by an Arab is the property of that owner, just as land owned by a Jew is the property of that owner. Lawful ownership can change hands. A property’s location or the ethnicity of its former owner establishes neither permanent ownership nor theft.
Pal-Awda previously celebrated forcing a Jewish gathering out of Queens. It targeted an event at a synagogue in Manhattan. Now it is targeting Riverdale, seeking to stop Jewish families from gathering to consider buying homes in Israel.
“It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events. We need to make them scared! We need to make them scared! We need to make them scared.” – people at PAL-Awda protest in front of a synagogue event helping Jews move to Israel in November 2025
Congressman Ritchie Torres, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson and Council Member Eric Dinowitz condemned the campaign in a joint statement, calling it “an attack on Jewish New Yorkers” and declaring that “the Bronx will not tolerate it.”
The campaign has a documented pattern: targeting Jewish real estate gatherings, pressuring venues and celebrating when Jewish events are driven out of New York City. And this is in regards to ALL of Israel, as Pal-Awda has condemned all Jews making aliyah regardless of where they intend to live.
“Settler, settler, go back home, Palestine is ours alone!” – PAL-Awda’s Instagram
The protesters have identified no stolen home. But they have identified their target: Jews.
Simply allowing the event to take place is an inadequate response. The entire Riverdale community – Jewish and non-Jewish alike – should stand together in visible opposition to those who gather to harass and intimidate Jewish homebuyers. Elected officials who condemn antisemitism in statements should stand alongside the people being targeted.
Antisemites should never be allowed to decide where Jews can gather, where they can buy homes or whether they can live openly as Jews. Riverdale should make that unmistakably clear.
More than 100 Jews gathered in Brooklyn this month to plan a network of anti-Zionist synagogues, schools and summer camps. The emerging Jewish Diaspora Movement brought together people associated with Jewish Currents, Rabbis for Ceasefire, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) and the American Council for Judaism. Rabbi Alissa Wise, formerly of Jewish Voice for Peace, is among its founders. Discussions included plans for a Jewish day school in Boston in 2029.
The gathering is part of a broader effort to reshape what future generations of American Jews learn about their religion, history and relationship to Israel.
The “intellectual” groundwork is expanding. Temple University professor emerita Carolyn Karcher’s Reclaiming Judaism from Zionism, featuring 47 Jewish contributors, includes a guide encouraging readers to bring anti-Zionist arguments into synagogues and families. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Benjamin Moser’s Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History profiles twelve Jewish opponents of Zionism, placing their dissent within a longer Jewish intellectual tradition.
Jewish opposition to modern Zionism has a history. Jewish attachment to the Land of Israel has a far longer one.
Judaism is an ancient, land-based religion. Abraham traveled to Canaan. The Israelites returned from Egypt. Jerusalem became the center of Jewish worship. The Torah commanded pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times annually, during Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. For millennia, Jews have prayed toward Jerusalem, mourned the destruction of its Temple and concluded the Passover Seder with the aspiration of returning there.
Opposing modern Jewish statehood is a political or theological position. Denying the Jewish people’s ancient connection to the Land of Israel is a historical falsehood. The distinction matters because Judaism’s scriptures, laws, holidays and prayers are rooted in a particular people and their ancestral homeland.
A Jew may reject God, violate Shabbat, oppose circumcision or denounce Israel and remain Jewish. Jewish belonging encompasses believers and atheists, the observant and secular, Zionists and anti-Zionists.
A Jew can reject a teaching of Judaism and remain Jewish. But that does not transform the rejection into a teaching of Judaism.
A Jew who eats ham makes a personal choice. A rabbi who certifies ham as kosher betrays the trust of Jews who rely on that certification to observe their religion. Similarly, a Jewish school that teaches children to deny their ancestral connection to Israel betrays the trust of parents who expect it to transmit Jewish history and tradition faithfully.
Jews who disagree with established organizations are free to create alternatives reflecting their beliefs. Existing institutions have the same right to preserve their missions. The Jewish identity of an institution’s founders establishes its origins. Its teachings and conduct determine whether it deserves the community’s trust.
Rabbi Brant Rosen, founder of the anti-Zionist congregation Tzedek Chicago, described his community as “consciously not an inclusive community.” His congregation establishes boundaries around its beliefs. Yet Open Hillel challenges Hillel’s restrictions on sponsoring organizations that advocate boycotts of Israel or reject its legitimacy as a Jewish state.
Hillel welcomes Jews across denominations, levels of observance and political beliefs while maintaining a mission that includes strengthening Jewish connections to Israel. Anti-Zionist congregations defend their own ideological boundaries while demanding that Hillel loosen its own. BDS supporters advocate withholding institutional support from organizations whose values they oppose, yet object when Jewish institutions apply similar standards to BDS.
At Emory Hillel, Rabbi Nikki Golomb was dismissed in August, weeks after beginning her position. She attributes the decision to her fiancé’s fierce criticism of Israel; Hillels of Georgia disputes that account, citing concerns about transparency and alignment with its mission. Golomb was affiliated with Rabbis for Ceasefire, founded by Alissa Wise. Whatever the disputed circumstances, Hillel has the right to expect its religious educators to uphold its mission.
Jewish disagreement has produced competing religious movements and institutions for centuries. But religious harm occurs when an institution entrusted with Jewish education misrepresents foundational elements of Jewish history or tradition. A school that teaches children to deny the Jewish people’s connection to Israel can legitimately have its claim to teach authentic Judaism challenged by the broader Jewish community. Opposition to modern Jewish sovereignty alone does not establish that denial.
Physical harm presents a separate and more urgent threshold. Organization that campaign to deprive threatened Jewish schools or synagogues of reasonable security protections, or to deny Israeli civilians protection against attack – like JVP, JFERJ, IfNotNow NYC and the American Council for Judaism – know that they expose Jewish lives to danger. The Jewish community has the right to challenge such conduct, withdraw communal recognition and support, and defend institutions that faithfully serve their missions.
Jewish Voice for Peace is against defensive weapons for Israel
Every Jew belongs to the Jewish people. Every institution founded by Jews does not automatically speak for Judaism. And when an institution uses the Jewish name to falsify Jewish history, betray Jewish trust or endanger Jewish lives, the Jewish community has a responsibility to confront it.
Jewish law still sanctions Jews who deliberately harm other Jews. Why has the community become so reluctant to consider that authority when the harm threatens thousands or millions?
In 1656, the Jewish community of Amsterdam excommunicated a 23-year-old philosopher named Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677). Its leaders pronounced a devastating herem, a religious ban that severed him from communal Jewish life. Members were forbidden to associate with him, speak with him or read his writings. The condemnation became one of the most famous excommunications in Jewish history.
For centuries, Jewish communities disciplined members whose conduct threatened religious obligations or communal life. Jewish law developed several levels of sanctions, most notably nidui and herem.
Nidui was the lesser punishment, a form of temporary religious and social ostracism, traditionally lasting 30 days in diaspora (non-Israel) communities. It restricted ordinary social interaction, sometimes requiring others to maintain a distance of four cubits, roughly six feet. Its purpose was to induce repentance and correction of the offending behavior.
Herem was more severe, imposing deeper and potentially indefinite exclusion from communal life. Depending on the circumstances, it could restrict social relationships, commercial dealings and religious participation. In tightly integrated Jewish communities, exclusion could devastate a person’s livelihood and standing in society.
Maimonides, the Rambam (1138–1204), enumerated 24 grounds for nidui in his Mishneh Torah. They included maintaining dangerous conditions, such as a vicious dog or unstable ladder; refusing to obey a religious court; and preventing the public from performing a commandment.
That last provision is particularly important. Jewish law recognized that obstructing a community’s religious obligations could warrant religious discipline.
These sanctions remain part of modern Jewish life. Orthodox communities still employ religious and social pressure against husbands who refuse to grant their wives a get, the Jewish divorce document required for remarriage under Jewish law. When a rabbinical court determines that a husband must grant a get and he refuses, communal measures may include exclusion from synagogue honors, religious gatherings and other forms of participation. Depending on the circumstances, formal nidui or herem may also be considered.
The Organization for the Resolution of Agunot (ORA) organizes communal pressure against recalcitrant spouses, including public demonstrations and campaigns encouraging synagogues to impose restrictions, with appropriate rabbinic authorization.
Jewish communities recognize that one Jew’s deliberate conduct can cause another such serious harm that communal intervention becomes necessary. Yet these sanctions are rarely discussed when the threatened harm extends beyond an individual to an entire Jewish community.
A husband who refuses a get may face public ostracism for trapping one woman in a marriage. What of a Jew who deliberately works to prohibit circumcision, obstruct synagogue security or prevent entire communities from fulfilling religious commandments?
Three fundamental obligations provide a framework: protecting Jewish lives, preserving religious observance and sustaining Jewish communal continuity.
Protecting Jewish Lives
Jewish law places the preservation of human life, pikuach nefesh, above almost every other religious obligation. Leviticus commands, “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” The Talmud extends this principle into an affirmative obligation to rescue someone facing danger.
The clearest case involves a Jew knowingly facilitating violence against other Jews or deliberately obstructing their rescue from an immediate threat. Such conduct directly violates the obligation to protect human life and demands serious religious and communal accountability.
Consider a person deliberately sabotaging essential security at a synagogue or yeshiva facing credible threats. Jewish institutions increasingly depend on trained guards, controlled entrances and protective infrastructure. Knowingly interfering with necessary safeguards could expose worshippers and children to foreseeable danger.
A related question arises when someone campaigns to eliminate protective buffer zones around synagogue or school entrances. Where violent intimidation or obstruction threatens access, removing necessary security measures could endanger the community.
The issue becomes more complicated when the discussion moves to Israel’s national defense. Israeli missile-defense systems, including Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow, protect civilians against incoming rockets and missiles. Campaigning to eliminate essential defensive capabilities without adequate alternatives could foreseeably increase the danger to millions of people.
Broader opposition to American military assistance to Israel presents a less direct case. Military assistance encompasses different weapons, defensive systems and strategic objectives. A Jew who advocates eliminating defensive funding despite a demonstrated threat raises different questions from someone disputing a particular military appropriation.
Jewish law has long required Jews to address threats to human life. Religious authorities should be prepared to examine whether deliberately undermining essential security, whether at a synagogue or across Israel, violates that obligation.
Protecting Jewish Religious Observance
A Jewish community can endure poverty, exile and political upheaval while preserving its identity through religious practice. The covenant of circumcision, the laws of kashrut, prayer, Torah study and communal institutions have sustained Jewish life across generations.
Maimonides explicitly includes preventing the public from fulfilling a commandment among the grounds for nidui. This provides a classical foundation for examining deliberate interference with Jewish observance.
Consider a Jew actively working to outlaw brit milah, the covenant established with Abraham. A successful prohibition would directly prevent Jews from performing one of their foundational commandments. A campaign specifically intended to achieve that result should invite serious halachic examination.
A campaign to prohibit kosher slaughter, shechita, presents a similar concern. Such a law would prevent traditional ritual slaughter within the jurisdiction and could make religious observance substantially more difficult.
The same questions arise when Jews advocate prohibitions on synagogue worship, Torah education or the construction of religious facilities such as mikvaot. Restrictions on kippot and other religious clothing can also interfere with Jewish practice, depending on their scope.
These are precisely the kinds of conflicts in which religious authorities should examine whether conduct constitutes the deliberate obstruction of commandments. Where a recognized court determines that a violation warrants nidui, continued defiance may raise the question of stronger sanctions under Jewish law.
Further along the spectrum lies the controversy over government funding for yeshivas. Some advocates want public funding conditioned on students meeting secular educational standards in English and mathematics. Such requirements may create financial pressure on religious schools, while educational oversight also serves legitimate public purposes.
Jewish law must distinguish legitimate public oversight from deliberate obstruction of religious commandments. Where that boundary is crossed, religious authorities should be prepared to act.
Protecting Jewish Communal Continuity
The Jewish connection to the Land of Israel is integral to Judaism. Jerusalem occupies a central place in Jewish prayer, religious memory and law. Nachmanides, the Ramban (1194–1270), regarded settling the Land of Israel as a positive biblical commandment, although later authorities have debated its precise scope and application.
Consider a Jew advocating a prohibition on Jewish immigration to Israel. Such a restriction would interfere with the ability of Jews to settle in their ancestral homeland, an act that major halachic authorities regard as religiously significant.
Preventing Jews from visiting or praying at their holy sites raises related questions about religious access and worship. Restrictions on Jewish homeownership introduce another dimension, particularly where they specifically target Jewish purchasers.
These concerns are already entering American legislation. In October 2026, Representative Joaquin Castro introduced the Stop the Settlements Act, backed by dozens of Democratic lawmakers. The bill would impose sanctions on certain foreign persons involved in “settlement” activities and prohibit imports from covered settlements. Its reference to the West Bank raises a disturbing question: Would eastern Jerusalem, including the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, fall within its reach?
If so, Jewish organizations involved in purchasing and renovating homes, restoring historic synagogues such as Tiferet Yisrael, or supporting archaeological projects at the City of David could face sanctions-related consequences. The bill leaves critical questions about its application to these activities unresolved. Its sponsors should be required to explain whether Jewish religious and communal institutions in Jerusalem could become targets.
The possibility that American Jewish lawmakers would support legislation reaching Jewish religious institutions in Jerusalem is extraordinary. If Jews knowingly work to obstruct other Jews from maintaining synagogues, owning homes or fulfilling religious obligations in Jerusalem, why should their conduct escape the scrutiny of Jewish law?
Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) co-sponsored the Stop the Settlement Act
Further along the spectrum are efforts to boycott Israeli universities, exclude Israeli rabbis or educators, or discourage purchases of Israeli goods. Such actions may weaken educational, economic and communal relationships, although their connection to established grounds for nidui is less direct.
The case for religious sanctions is strongest where conduct directly obstructs an identifiable commandment or violates another established halachic obligation.
From Nidui to Herem
Jewish communities have historically imposed sanctions on individuals and movements. In 1772, rabbinic authorities associated with the Vilna Gaon (1720–1797) supported bans against the emerging Hasidic movement, a precedent that also illustrates the danger of communal authorities misjudging religious differences. Today, institutions such as Hillel restrict partnerships with organizations supporting BDS such as Jewish Voice for Peace, while the Conference of Presidents rejected J Street’s membership application in 2014. Between silence and herem lies a range of communal measures, from public censure to restrictions on institutional membership and leadership. These measures require clear standards and responsible authority.
The Jewish community is fraying. Its religious institutions, security and connection to Israel face growing internal conflict. Jewish law already recognizes that deliberate harm to another Jew can warrant communal sanctions. Qualified religious leaders should be prepared to examine serious violations, distinguish them from political disagreement and apply appropriate measures where justified.
If Jewish law can sanction a man for trapping one Jewish woman in a marriage, how can Jewish leadership refuse even to consider sanctions against those who deliberately endanger Jewish communities or obstruct their commandments?
In October 2023, Cornell professor Russell Rickford described Hamas’s massacre of Israelis as “exhilarating” and “energizing.” Weeks later, a Cornell student threatened to shoot Jewish students, rape Jewish women and murder Jewish babies. Three years later, Rickford remains on the faculty, socialist organizations have gained political influence across campus, and anti-Israel activists have transformed Cornell’s student government and political culture.
Cornell Professor celebrated the October 7 massacre of 1,200 in Israel
Cornell’s socialist revolution has unfolded alongside a disturbing deterioration in the environment for Jewish students. Organizations promoting socialism and campaigning against Israel have become political partners, winning elections, organizing demonstrations and challenging the university’s institutional relationships with Israel.
Rickford’s October 2023 remarks were captured on video just days after Hamas terrorists murdered, raped and kidnapped Israelis. Jewish students questioned whether they could safely express opposing views in his classroom. Cornellians for Israel president Zoe Bernstein and Hillel executive vice president Simone Shteingart publicly challenged his remarks. Rickford apologized, took a leave of absence and eventually returned to teaching, including a course titled Socialism in America.
Within weeks, Cornell student Patrick Dai threatened to attack the university’s kosher dining hall, shoot Jewish students, rape Jewish women and murder Jewish babies. The threats terrified Cornell’s Jewish community, prompting a police investigation. Dai was arrested, pleaded guilty and sentenced to federal prison.
Cornell student Patrick Dai
Cornell’s Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter lists more than 300 members in the university’s student organization directory. One Cornell organizer advanced to national YDSA leadership, while another won election to Ithaca’s Common Council.
YDSA increasingly works alongside Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and Cornell Progressives. Their joint campaigns seek divestment from weapons manufacturers, opposition to Israeli institutions and an end to Cornell’s relationship with Israel’s Technion. The broader Coalition for Mutual Liberation has claimed participation by more than 40 campus and community organizations.
The transformation is particularly striking when measured against Cornell’s recent history.
In 2014, Cornell’s Student Assembly voted 15–8–1 to table an Israel divestment resolution. A decade later, nearly 70% of participating undergraduates supported a divestment referendum. Graduate students approved another referendum in 2025. By 2026, every Student Assembly candidate jointly endorsed by SJP, YDSA and Cornell Progressives had won.
That political ascent was accompanied by increasingly confrontational activism. Protesters established encampments, disrupted a career fair involving defense contractors and interrupted an appearance by former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni. Cornell imposed disciplinary sanctions and temporarily suspended SJP before reinstating it under conditions.
The Anti-Defamation League assigned Cornell a C in its 2026 campus antisemitism report card.
The relationship between socialism and anti-Zionism became especially visible in September 2026, when Hasan Piker addressed approximately 450 students inside Cornell’s Sage Chapel at an event involving YDSA and other anti-Israel organizations.
Piker had previously declared that Hamas was a thousand times better than Israel. When challenged about that comparison on Pod Save America, he responded, “I stand by that.”
At Cornell, Piker celebrated socialist electoral victories, including the rise of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and joined a chant of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Governor Hochul sits on Cornell’s Board of Trustees by virtue of her office. Together, the university’s leadership and trustees bear responsibility for protecting the freedom of political expression while ensuring that Jewish students can participate in university life without intimidation.
Cornell has spent three years demonstrating how much ideological extremism its academic culture can accommodate. A professor celebrated the slaughter of Israelis. A student threatened to murder Jews. Socialist and anti-Israel organizations expanded their political influence, and a speaker who publicly stood by his favorable comparison of Hamas to Israel was welcomed into Sage Chapel.
Cornell’s Jewish students have watched this transformation from the receiving end of threats and intimidation.
Cornell has decided to shut down fraternity events and parties for the rest of the year after a suit alleging gang rape at a fraternity in 2024 came to public attention. Will the school take similar action against the socialism and anti-Israel clubs?
Four Latin American countries have moved their embassies to Jerusalem, all headed by conservative presidents. Argentina’s Javier Milei wants to be next, and Brazil’s conservative opposition has promised to follow. A new political map of Latin America is emerging, and Jerusalem sits at its center.
Colombia became the latest country to join this movement in October 2026, following Guatemala, Honduras and Paraguay. The pattern is unmistakable: conservative governments are embracing Israel and recognizing Jerusalem as its capital, while much of the Latin American left increasingly identifies with the Palestinian cause and opposition to the Jewish state.
Colombia offers the clearest illustration of this ideological divide. Left-wing President Gustavo Petro severed diplomatic relations with Israel in 2024, halted coal exports and embraced international efforts to isolate the Jewish state. His conservative successor, Abelardo de la Espriella, reversed course, restored relations and opened an embassy in Jerusalem.
The same country, the same Israel, the same Jerusalem. A different president and an entirely different worldview.
For Latin America’s conservatives, Israel represents national sovereignty, religious heritage, technological achievement, military strength and partnership with the United States. For much of the Latin American left, Israel is viewed through the language of colonialism, Palestinian dispossession and opposition to American influence.
Religion reinforces this divide. Guatemala and Honduras have substantial evangelical Christian populations whose attachment to Israel is rooted in biblical belief. Conservative movements throughout Latin America increasingly draw support from these communities, for whom Jerusalem is central to Jewish history and Christian faith.
Christian pilgrims enter the Old City of Jerusalem through the Jaffa Gate during Easter, 2017 (photo: First One Through)
Argentina’s Javier Milei has become its most enthusiastic champion. In April 2026, Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the Isaac Accords, a framework intended to strengthen Israel’s political, economic and security relationships across Latin America.
The name carries deliberate biblical symbolism. The Abraham Accords brought Israel together with Arab nations through the shared heritage of Abraham. Isaac, Abraham’s son, represents the continuation of God’s covenant through Jacob, whose name became Israel. Where the Abraham Accords emphasize common ancestry between Jews and Arabs, the Isaac Accords invoke the particular biblical heritage of Israel and its connection to nations identifying with Judeo-Christian civilization.
Milei has committed more than speeches to this vision, directing his $1 million Genesis Prize award toward establishing an organization to advance the initiative. Legislators from across Latin America have already gathered to promote stronger relations with Israel, combat antisemitism and encourage additional embassy relocations.
The movement also has a powerful strategic adversary: Iran.
Iranian-backed terrorism has already devastated Jewish communities in Latin America. Argentina suffered the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center, which killed 85 people. Argentine authorities have attributed both attacks to Hezbollah and Iran.
The Isaac Accords seek cooperation against Iranian terrorist networks, antisemitism, drug trafficking and transnational criminal organizations. Israel offers intelligence capabilities, cybersecurity expertise, military technology and experience confronting Iranian proxies. Latin American governments offer regional partnerships capable of disrupting hostile networks operating across the Western Hemisphere.
Jerusalem thus becomes both a declaration of political identity and the gateway to a broader security alliance.
The next major test comes in Brazil, Latin America’s largest country. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been among Israel’s harshest regional critics, while his conservative challenger, Flávio Bolsonaro, has promised to relocate Brazil’s embassy to Jerusalem. Their October 25 presidential runoff could determine whether the region’s largest economy joins this emerging alignment.
Flávio Bolsonaro, candidate for President of Brazil
There are vulnerabilities. Paraguay moved its embassy to Jerusalem in 2018, reversed the decision months later under a new president, and restored it in 2024. Diplomatic commitments can change with elections. The Isaac Accords seek to build deeper economic, security and institutional relationships capable of surviving those political shifts.
The Abraham Accords brought Israel closer to the Arab world. The Isaac Accords seek to bring Latin America closer to Israel. Conservative presidents are leading that transformation, turning recognition of Jerusalem into a declaration of political identity, shared heritage and strategic allegiance.
Jerusalem has become a dividing line in Latin America’s ideological struggle, and its conservatives are choosing sides.
Imagine three American Jews participating in their cultural heritage: one American Jew buys an apartment in Jerusalem’s Old City, and hires an Israeli contractor to repair the roof and renovate the kitchen. Another American contributes to archaeological excavations uncovering ancient Jewish Jerusalem, say in Ir David. A third donates to rebuilding a synagogue destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948.
Rebuilding the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem, which was destroyed by the Jordanian army when it illegally seized the city in 1949 (photo: First One Through 2023)
Under legislation sponsored by 54 congressional Democrats, each may face federal prosecution, a million-dollar fine or even 20 years in prison.
Congressman Joaquin Castro’s Stop the Settlements Act, H.R. 10642, reaches far beyond stopping new Israeli housing construction in disputed territories. It authorizes sanctions against foreign persons involved in the financing, planning, construction, expansion or maintenance of Israeli settlements or outposts, subject to certain determinations.
This is not legislation targeting building a new neighborhood in the middle of the West Bank. It targets even maintaining what already exists, even in cities with thousands of years of Jewish history and presence. Democrats in Congress have chosen language broad enough to raise questions about the ordinary upkeep of Jewish communities.
The bill repeatedly refers to “settlements” in the “West Bank and Gaza.” It never explicitly states whether eastern Jerusalem including the Old City is included.
Palestinians claim “East Jerusalem,” part of a divided city that existed as a result of the 1948-9 war, which lasted for 18 years until 1967, as part of their future state. Israel considers united Jerusalem its capital, including the Old City.
Congress knows these competing positions. Congress knows that the Jewish Quarter contains homes and synagogues predating Israel’s establishment in 1948. Yet 54 Democrats have attached their names to legislation without clarifying whether these historic Jewish neighborhoods fall within its reach. Deliberately.
Consider the consequences. A future Democratic president may decide to state that “East Jerusalem” actually exists and that it is part of the West Bank. The activities described above become a crime.
An American buys an apartment in the Jewish Quarter, where Jews lived for centuries before Jordan expelled its Jewish residents in 1948. He hires an Israeli company to restore the property. If an American administration classifies the Old City as a settlement (at least, any location where a Jew buys land) and sanctions that company for its broader construction or maintenance activities, paying the contractor could become a federal offense.
Now consider Ir David, the City of David, where archaeological excavations uncover the streets, structures and artifacts of ancient Jerusalem. An American donor might contribute money to uncover archaeological remains. But if the recipient organization were sanctioned, that donation could become prohibited.
Ir David excavations unearthing Jerusalem at the time of the Second Temple. (photo: First One Through July 2024)
The ramification would be to halt Jews from connecting to their past and only enable Arabs to excavate or destroy Jewish history.
Then there is Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue. Built in 1877 in Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter, the synagogue was destroyed during Jordan’s conquest of the Old City in 1948. Its reconstruction restores a Jewish house of worship that existed generations before Israel recaptured the Old City in 1967.
Could the organization rebuilding it be sanctioned for construction or maintenance in territory an administration considers a settlement? In addition to being obtuse about Jerusalem, the bill contains no express exemption for historic synagogues, religious restoration or Jewish institutions predating 1948.
Domes of the Tiferet Yisrael (top center) and Hurva Synagogues (above right) return to the Old City skyline (photo: First One Through November 2025)
The legislation invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Willful violations of applicable prohibitions can carry criminal fines of up to $1 million and imprisonment for up to 20 years. Civil penalties may apply even without criminal intent.
If an administration designates locations in Jerusalem’s Old City, an American could potentially be barred from ordering a handmade menorah or other merchandise produced there for shipment to the United States.
Castro says his legislation is intended to stop settlement expansion and Palestinian dispossession. Yet its language raises questions about the Old City of Jerusalem, the maintenance of existing homes, archaeological preservation, religious reconstruction and ordinary commercial activity.
Despite the language, the self-declared “pro-Israel” group J Street has endorsed it.
Fifty-four Democrats have attached their names to legislation that could reach into the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. And the list of Democratic co-sponsors and anti-Israel alt-left Jewish groups supporting it continues to grow.
J Street calls itself “pro-Israel and pro-peace.” Apparently, that requires pretending Hamas has no agency nor role in the conflict.
In a Facebook post marking the anniversary of the Gaza ceasefire, J Street laments displaced Palestinians, continuing deaths, stalled reconstruction and the absence of a new Palestinian government. It then delivers its indictment:
“We cannot claim to stand for Israel’s future while looking away as its government denies Palestinians the possibility of one.”
Notice who is missing from this account of Gaza’s future: Hamas.
Hamas launched the October 7 massacre. Hamas continues to maintain an armed organization. Hamas has resisted surrendering its weapons and relinquishing military control. Yet in J Street’s telling, the obstacle to peace is Israel’s government.
Hamas becomes a passive spectator to its own war. Palestinians become people without political leadership or responsibility. Israel alone possesses agency, and therefore Israel alone receives blame.
J Street knows better. Its own policy analyses acknowledge Hamas’s continued armed presence and the necessity of disarmament. Yet when communicating with its Facebook audience, those inconvenient facts disappear.
J Street claims to be pro-Israel and pro-peace while treating Hamas as an innocent bystander and Israel as the sole villain. That is more than intellectual dishonesty. It is moral cowardice masquerading as moral clarity.
HISTORICAL ECHO
We have seen this in Jewish history before – those in leadership positions enabling the mob rather than confronting depravity.
In the wilderness, Aaron fashioned a Golden Calf rather than confront a crowd demanding an idol. Today, condemning Israel has become a new Golden Calf, an act of public devotion that substitutes fashionable outrage for moral judgment. J Street, which claims to speak for Jewish values and Israel’s future, should recognize the biblical warning. Instead, it leads and joins the worshippers, sacrificing moral clarity on the altar of popular approval.
Three days after the third anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 massacre, The New York Times devoted its dominant front-page photograph and two full inside pages to the “hopes” and aspirations of Gazans. There were weddings, swimming, barbershops, reopened businesses and families trying to rebuild their lives amid the rubble.
It was a touching portrait of ordinary dreams – at least for normal people in the western world. But what about the extraordinary support among Gazans for killing Israeli civilians that preceded the war?
In June 2022, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 73% of Gazans supported armed attacks inside Israel similar to those had been recently carried out. Fifteen months later, Hamas invaded Israel, slaughtered civilians, kidnapped families and celebrated the massacre. By March 2024, five months into the war and amid Gaza’s devastation, 71% of Gazans still considered Hamas’s decision to launch October 7 correct, according to the same polling organization.
Two-thirds of Gazans on average since 2001 have supported killing Jewish civilians inside of Israel according to PCPSR polls
These were majority attitudes, measured before the massacre and after its consequences became devastatingly clear.
Hamas is Gaza’s government, controlling the territory since 2007. It operated ministries, schools, police and security forces alongside its military apparatus. It is Gaza’s political life. Before October 7, PCPSR polling showed Hamas leading Fatah in hypothetical Palestinian parliamentary voting and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh defeating Mahmoud Abbas in a two-candidate presidential contest. Hamas continues to lead Fatah, which is why PA President Mahmoud Abbas continues to delay elections.
Yet the Times’ sprawling photographic treatment of Gaza’s aspirations ignored the genocidal ideology that permeates Gaza and helped produce October 7. The newspaper deliberately failed to show what Gazans truly hope for: dead Jews and the destruction of the Jewish State.
Imagine the same treatment of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces. Three days after the anniversary of an RSF massacre, would the Times devote its front page and two inside pages to swimming, weddings and employment in communities governed by the militia, with little examination of the violence and political support behind it?
The Times showed readers Gazans dreaming of a swim. Its own society’s polling shows overwhelming support for killing Jewish civilians both before and after the October 7 massacre.
The Times has whitewashed the genocidal ideology of Gazans and portrayed them as victims of the jihadi war they launched. Doing so is not just anti-Israel, it is a promotion of radical Islam deployed against Jews.
Or perhaps worse – the Times is educating its readers that those who want to rape and kill Jews are very much like us.
On April 16, 1962, New Yorkers lined Broadway to welcome Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, and Empress Farah. The ruler of a Muslim-majority American ally received a ticker-tape parade through Lower Manhattan’s Canyon of Heroes. A plaque embedded in the sidewalk still commemorates their visit.
Marker on downtown Broadway sidewalk commemorating ticker tape parade for Shah of Iran and his wife (photo: First One Through)
Seventeen years later, the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah. Ayatollah Khomeini established a theocratic regime that called America the Great Satan, sought Israel’s destruction and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
America had welcomed a Muslim ally. The jihadists who seized power declared America their enemy.
Their war against the West did not remain in the Middle East. Iranian revolutionaries seized Americans in Tehran, while Sunni jihadists carried their violence to American soil. Just blocks from the Shah’s parade route, Islamist terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 and destroyed its towers on September 11, 2001, murdering nearly 3,000 people.
World Trade Center memorial for those who died in the jihadi war on America on September 11, 2001 (photo: First One Through)
Different branches of radical Islam pursued their own visions of religious domination. ISIS declared a caliphate spanning national borders. Hamas, supported by Iran, sought an Islamist Palestine in place of Israel, massacring approximately 1,200 people and abducting 251 on October 7, 2023.
Three years later, masked demonstrators wearing green headbands marched along Lower Broadway displaying Hamas-associated symbols, with City Hall nearby and the rebuilt One World Trade Center rising behind them.
Young men with faces covered and Hamas headbands sporting jihadi flag, stand on Broadway before the World Trade Center to call for the continued war on Israel on the third anniversary of the October 7, 2023 jihadi massacre in Israel (photo: Gideon Askowitz)
Within a few blocks, the Canyon of Heroes had become the setting for three extraordinary encounters: Americans celebrating a Muslim ally, mourning the victims of Islamist terrorism and tolerating demonstrators displaying the symbols of a jihadi movement responsible for massacring Jews.
For decades, America has welcomed Muslims as allies, immigrants and citizens, embracing religious freedom and coexistence. At the same time, jihadist movements have declared their own war against the West, seeking religious and political domination. They carried that confrontation beyond the Middle East, taking American hostages, destroying American landmarks and massacring American allies.
The intersections of narrow streets in downtown Manhattan seemingly have compressed history into a web of toxins poisoned by Islamic radicals. Coexistence will only be permissible “under the wing of Islam,” as their “struggle” is perpetual and voracious.
“under the wing of Islam followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned. In the absence of Islam, strife will be rife, oppression spreads, evil prevails and schisms and wars will break out.” – 1988 Hamas foundational charter
The West is in a defensive war against radical Islam. One can see the progression clearly on the streets of lower Broadway.
Three years after Hamas invaded Israel and slaughtered roughly 1,200 people, leading Democrats marked October 7 by remembering the murdered Israelis… but then immediately called out Palestinian Arabs who suffered in the war that they launched while condemning Israel.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) began appropriately. He described “Hamas terrorists intent on destroying Israel” who murdered, kidnapped and raped innocent civilians. Then he turned the anniversary toward Palestinians, calling civilian deaths and the devastation of Gaza “reprehensible,” demanding the “creation of an independent Palestinian state” and condemning Israeli settler violence.
Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) similarly remembered Hamas’s “heinous terror attack,” the 1,200 murdered and the hostages. Then came the turn: “Three years into the brutality of the war in Gaza,” followed by demands to stop the bombing, deliver aid and secure Palestinian self-determination.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) devoted most of his statement to the massacre and hostages, but his conclusion expanded the October 7 commemoration to “the aid and well-being of the Palestinian people,” Gaza’s devastation, reconstruction and Palestinian statehood.
Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer
Apparently, commemorating a terrorist massacre now requires remembering the people who suffered when the country that was attacked went to war.
Well… only when it comes to the massacre of Jews.
Just four weeks ago, Markey commemorated the 25th anniversary of 9/11. He remembered the nearly 3,000 people murdered, the families in Massachusetts who lost loved ones, America’s resilience and the need to prevent another terrorist attack. He used the anniversary to demand better funding for the TSA.
Afghans and Iraqis never entered his statement.
Jeffries has followed the same convention. His 9/11 statement remembered the 2,977 people murdered by Al Qaeda and then extended the remembrance to first responders who became sick from exposure at Ground Zero. He noted that more FDNY responders had died from 9/11-related diseases than were killed in the attack itself.
Iraqis and Afghans never entered his statement.
Schumer went even further this September. In a lengthy address marking 25 years since 9/11, he remembered the dead, their families, sick first responders, people who developed cancer after working at Ground Zero, the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan and America’s resilience.
Iraqis and Afghans never entered his statement either.
And there were plenty of them to remember.
Brown University’s Costs of War project estimates that more than 940,000 people were killed directly in the major post-9/11 war zones, including more than 432,000 civilians. When indirect deaths from destroyed health systems, infrastructure, food insecurity and other consequences of war are included, Brown estimates 4.5 million to 4.7 million people died. More than 38 million people were displaced. Brown says the number wounded or made ill was higher still.
Yet nobody apparently told Jeffries, Markey or Schumer that a September 11 remembrance had to be balanced by those that Americans killed.
Because they knew that September 11 belongs to the people murdered on September 11. It belongs to the passengers who boarded airplanes that morning, the people who went to work in the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the families who never saw them again and the firefighters and police officers who ran toward burning buildings.
There are other days to debate Afghanistan, Iraq, American military policy and the enormous suffering those wars produced. But not the anniversary of the heinous jihadi terrorism.
These leading Democratic politicians know that. But they don’t care to apply the same decency when Jews are slaughtered and raped.
Jews slaughtered in their homes must share their anniversary with an accounting of their country’s subsequent conduct. The young people murdered at a music festival in Israel must make room for Gaza policy. The women sexually assaulted by Hamas terrorists must share the day with discussions of Palestinian statehood. The hostages dragged into Gaza become the introduction to a statement about Palestinian suffering.
These LEADING DEMOCRATS REVERSED THEIR BASIC HUMAN INSTINCT FOR COMPASSION in just a couple of weeks when the victims were Jews.
Why, when the victims are Jews, must the anniversary of their massacre become a day to remember everyone except just them?
