Category Archives: Opinion

The Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress and the Divide on the Future of Israeli Jews

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From June 26–28, 2026, activists, academics, politicians, lawyers, and religious figures gathered in Dublin, Ireland for the Second Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress (JAZIC). The stated purpose was to build an international movement dedicated to dismantling Zionism and replacing the State of Israel with a different political order in the region of historic Palestine.

Despite its name, the congress was far from exclusively Jewish. The program featured well-known Jewish anti-Zionists such as Rabbi Brant Rosen, Ilan Pappé, Haim Bresheeth-Žabner, Ronnie Barkan, and Andrew Feinstein alongside prominent non-Jewish figures including Palestinian journalist Ramzy Baroud, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, former UN official Craig Mokhiber, rocker Roger Waters, Irish parliamentarians, South African activists, and other international advocates.

On the central questions, there was remarkable agreement: Jewish and non-Jewish speakers alike described Israel as an apartheid state engaged in genocide. Both groups rejected Zionism as the legitimate expression of Jewish self-determination. Both endorsed Palestinian Arab “liberation” and opposed the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state. Discussions of Hamas were comparatively limited; the conference overwhelmingly focused on Israeli conduct rather than Hamas’s governance of Gaza or the October 7 massacre. They spoke about the defeat of Zionism as the key to dismantling “western imperialism.”

Yet beneath this broad consensus was a subtle but revealing difference.

The Jewish speakers generally spent considerable time describing what they believed should replace Israel. Rabbi Brant Rosen, Ilan Pappé, and others spoke of a single democratic state in which Jews and Palestinians would remain together as equal citizens. Whether one finds that vision realistic or not, it was at least an attempt to answer a fundamental question: If Israel ceases to exist as a Jewish state, what becomes of the millions of Jews who live there?

In contrast, most of the non-Jewish speakers spoke of “liberation,” “decolonization,” “resistance,” “return,” and dismantling Zionism. In almost all of these presentations, the future political status, security, and place of Israel’s Jewish population after “decolonization” received little or no attention.

The silence is significant. If a movement calls for replacing an existing state, one of its most basic responsibilities is to explain what protections, rights, and security will exist for the people who currently live there. At JAZIC, that question received far more attention from the Jewish speakers than from their non-Jewish counterparts.

Many progressive Zionist Jews in the United States woke up on October 8, 2023 to realize that the people with whom they had fought together as allies really wanted them dead. At some point in the future, far-left anti-Zionist Jews will have their own awakening of their current comrades-in-arms.

One UN Agency for Every Nation in Waiting

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If you want to understand an institution, don’t begin with its speeches. Begin with its organization chart.

Permanent agencies, permanent committees, permanent staff, permanent budgets, and permanent mandates reveal what an institution considers exceptional.

The United Nations generally operates through universal institutions. Refugees fall under the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Racism is addressed through broad human rights mechanisms. Humanitarian crises are handled through agencies with global mandates.

Except in one case.

The Palestinian cause has an institutional architecture unlike any other.

Palestinian refugees have their own dedicated refugee agency, UNRWA. Every other refugee population in the world falls under UNHCR.

UNRWA offices in Jerusalem (photo: First One Through)

The General Assembly maintains the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, supported by the Division for Palestinian Rights within the UN Secretariat. Their mission is not to monitor or audit the Palestinian national movement, but to advance Palestinian rights, organize conferences, maintain documentation, and sustain international engagement.

The Human Rights Council appoints a permanent Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, dedicated exclusively to that issue. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs maintains a permanent office for the occupied Palestinian territory. The Human Rights Council also has Agenda Item 7, the only standing country-specific agenda item focused on a single member state.

That is the institutional asymmetry.

Institutions produce what they were built to produce. Permanent offices generate permanent reports. Permanent committees convene permanent meetings. Permanent mandates create permanent attention. The result shapes which stories are told, which voices are amplified, and which narratives become part of the world’s diplomatic conversation.

Since October 7, Palestinian voices have benefited from this enduring institutional infrastructure, while Israeli victims have had fewer dedicated mechanisms through which their experiences are consistently presented.

This institutional framework for the vilification of Israel was built over decades, setting the stage for antisemitism to permeate societies thousands of miles from the Middle East and those with no Jews even living there.

It is time for a fundamental change.

The United Nations is home to MANY peoples who aspire to statehood.

Kurds. Somalilanders. Sahrawis in Western Sahara. Tibetans. Kosovars. Taiwanese. Independence movements persist in Catalonia, Scotland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and elsewhere.

Flags of Somaliland hang in streets of Jerusalem, June 2026 (created by First One Through)

If the United Nations truly believes in the universal principle of self-determination, it should apply that principle universally.

Abolish the maze of Palestinian-specific institutions and replace them with a single body: The United Nations Agency for Nations in Waiting (UNNW).

Its mission would be straightforward: evaluate every national movement using the same transparent standards: effective governance, respect for human rights, peaceful conduct, democratic legitimacy, protection of minorities, and economic viability.

The Stateless Arabs from Palestine would remain part of the process – but alongside Kurds, Somalilanders, Tibetans, Sahrawis, Taiwanese, Kosovars, and every other people seeking recognition.

One standard. One agency. No exceptions.

Such a reform would move the UN away from political favoritism and toward institutional fairness. It would reward good governance instead of diplomatic influence and demonstrate that universal principles truly are universal.

If the United Nations wishes to champion nations in waiting, it should do so for all of them – not just one, and stem the tide of antisemitism at the same time.

Lindsey Graham Died Suddenly. Expect Two Kinds of Conspiracy Theories

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Just before his death, Senator Lindsey Graham returned from Kyiv, where he had met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

It was a fitting final foreign trip. Graham had long been one of America’s strongest advocates for Ukraine against Russia and for Israel against Iran and its proxies.

Then he died suddenly.

Sometimes, sudden death is simply that. But conspiracy theories rarely leave a vacuum unfilled.

The first kind of conspiracy theory follows ordinary logic. It begins with motive.

If someone believes Lindsey Graham was murdered, the obvious suspects would be the governments whose interests he spent years opposing: Russia or Iran, or some combined efforts by both. Perhaps it was an American anti-war agitator. Whether true or false, at least the theory follows a recognizable chain of reasoning.

The second kind works very differently.

It begins with a worldview that history is shaped by hidden forces operating behind governments and public events. Facts are gathered afterward to support that assumption.

For centuries, one of the most enduring versions of that worldview has been antisemitic: the claim that Jews secretly manipulate governments, wars, finance, or the media. The alleged hidden actor changes with the era, but the underlying story remains remarkably consistent.

Antisemites from Nazi Germany to Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) talk about Jews operating in the shadows

That helps explain why some recent conspiracy theories about the murder of Charlie Kirk have implicated Israel or Mossad where the alleged motive is counterintuitive. The target is chosen less because of the evidence than because it fits an existing narrative about hidden power.

One conspiracy theory asks, “Who had the motive?” The other asks, “Who do I already believe secretly runs the world?”

The first can be tested against evidence, the second is designed to survive it.

Today’s front pages will convey that a strong advocate of American allies’ defense against common American foes has died. He will be mourned by conservatives in the United States and supporters of Ukraine and Israel. In the not too distant future in our crazy conspiratorial-laden present, new distinct strains of headlines are likely to emerge.

America’s Greatest – and Quietest – Military Victory in Nearly a Century

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The debate over American support for Ukraine and Israel has largely focused on the cost. Politicians argue over billions of dollars appropriated, weapons transferred, and whether American taxpayers are carrying too much of the burden. Far less attention has been paid to the return on that investment.

Since 2022, the United States has authorized roughly $195 billion related to Ukraine and approximately $16–22 billion in supplemental wartime assistance for Israel. Critics see enormous expenditures. Strategically, however, those dollars have enabled two allies to inflict historic damage on two of America’s principal adversaries – Russia and Iran – without the United States deploying large combat formations or suffering the thousands of battlefield casualties that defined Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

That comparison matters.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost the United States more than $5 trillion in direct and related costs, with broader post-9/11 war obligations rising above $8 trillion when future veteran care, interest, and long-term commitments are included. Nearly 7,000 American service members were killed. More than 52,000 were wounded.

And what was the lasting strategic benefit?

Afghanistan ended with the Taliban back in power. Iraq removed Saddam Hussein, but the aftermath empowered Iran, fractured the region, drained American credibility, and produced years of instability. The United States paid in terrible blood and treasure, and the final balance sheet is hard to defend.

Ukraine and Israel present a very different model.

Consider Russia.

More than four years after launching its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has suffered an estimated 1.4 million military casualties, including approximately 450,000 dead. Its armored forces have been severely depleted. The Black Sea Fleet has largely been driven from its historic operating areas. Ukraine has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to strike deep inside Russian territory. The military once regarded as NATO’s greatest conventional threat has been dramatically weakened.

“The number of Russian casualties and fatalities are astonishing. Since World War II, no major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war…. Russia’s economy is in distress, and Russia’s wartime spending may be increasingly untenable.” – Center for Strategic and International Studies July 2026

Now consider Iran.

For four decades the leading state sponsor of terrorism invested billions of dollars constructing what it proudly called the “Axis of Resistance” – a network stretching from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and Gaza. Hamas, Hezbollah, Shiite militias, the Houthis, and the Assad regime were components of a single strategy designed to project Iranian power, surround Israel and challenge American influence in the region and threaten much of the global oil supply.

That strategy has suffered a tremendous setback.

Hamas has lost much of its military and infrastructure. Hezbollah has absorbed devastating blows to its command structure and missile capabilities. The Assad regime in Syria – Tehran’s indispensable Arab ally and the geographic bridge connecting Iran to Hezbollah – has fallen, shattering the land corridor that Iran spent decades building. The regional network that once appeared to surround Israel and terrorize America’s Arab allies now is dramatically weakened.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions have suffered major setbacks as well. Israeli and American strikes severely damaged key nuclear facilities, disrupted important elements of Iran’s enrichment infrastructure, and forced Tehran to devote enormous resources simply to rebuilding capabilities it once assumed were secure. Intelligence agencies continue to debate precisely how long the program has been delayed, but there is broad agreement that it suffered one of the most significant setbacks in its history.

None of this diminishes the immense human suffering. Ukraine has endured staggering casualties and destruction. Israel suffered the deadliest attack in its history on October 7 and has paid a heavy military, economic, and emotional price ever since.

But viewed through an American lens of grand strategy, another reality emerges.

Rather than sending hundreds of thousands of American troops to fight Russia or Iran directly as was done in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States enabled allies already under attack to defend themselves. Those allies have imposed extraordinary military and strategic costs on governments that have spent decades challenging American interests.

This is what is so often missing from the public debate.

The wars are typically discussed separately. Ukraine is presented as a European conflict while Israel is portrayed as a Middle Eastern conflict. Yet both Russia and Iran were strategic partners, cooperating militarily, economically, and diplomatically while sharing an interest in weakening the United States and the Western alliance. Seen together, Ukraine and Israel have not merely been fighting for their own survival, they have been successfully degrading two pillars of a powerful anti-Western axis.

The long-term upside could be enormous. A surviving, Western-aligned Ukraine would become one of Europe’s most battle-tested militaries, a major reconstruction market, an energy and agricultural partner, and a permanent barrier to Russian expansion. A stronger Israel, with Iran weakened and Syria and Lebanon no longer functioning as Tehran’s strategic bridge, could help reshape the Middle East around technology, defense cooperation, energy corridors, trade, and normalization with Arab states that increasingly fear Iran more than they resent Israel.

That is the opportunity Iraq and Afghanistan never produced. Those wars consumed American power and America left no assets behind. These wars, fought by allies, may extend American power with powerful allies at the vanguard.

History may conclude that this period represents one of the most effective uses of American alliance power in generations. For roughly $215 billion – less than one-twentieth of the direct and related cost of Iraq and Afghanistan – the United States helped enable allies to severely weaken Russia’s conventional military, fracture Iran’s regional proxy empire, remove Syria and Lebanon from Tehran’s sphere of influence, and significantly set back Iran’s nuclear program, all without committing large American ground forces or sustaining the massive battlefield casualties that characterized previous generations of U.S. warfare.

America’s greatest military victory in the past 75 years may ultimately be its most subtle.

When Words Erase a People

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The United Nations is right about one thing.

Words matter.

This week, the UN will commemorate the genocide at Srebrenica under the theme “From Words to Violence.“ The lesson is that language is never merely language. The words societies choose shape how they understand people, history, and ultimately what actions become acceptable.

That lesson should not stop with Srebrenica.

Over the past month, another campaign of words has accelerated – not directly aimed at the destruction of lives, but at the erasure of history.

A month ago, I wrote about the battle over Solomon’s Pools. At the time, the concern was that one of Judaism’s great archaeological treasures was being detached from the people who built it.

Today, the campaign has moved far beyond stewardship.

The Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, WAFA, now repeatedly describes Solomon’s Pools as “Palestinian archaeological and heritage sites,” “Palestinian cultural heritage,” and “an integral part of the Palestinian people’s national identity.” It accuses Israel of attempting to erase the site’s Palestinian identity while announcing plans to seek UNESCO protection for that very narrative.

This is historical revisionism.

For more than two thousand years, Solomon’s Pools have been recognized as part of the ancient water system that supplied Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Yet the new narrative increasingly erases that Jewish history while attempting to replace it with a Palestinian Arab one.

That is how historical erasure begins, with words.

It continues with cultural appropriation – taking another civilization’s achievements and presenting them as one’s own. A site built to sustain Jewish Jerusalem is no longer described as part of Jewish civilization, but as an expression of “Palestinian national identity.”

Solomon’s Pools is not an isolated example.

Over the years, Palestinian rhetoric has increasingly described biblical figures and ancient Jewish sites through a Palestinian national lens.

Individually these statements may appear rhetorical. Collectively they reveal a sustained and malicious effort to replace one people’s historical memory with another’s national story.

When a people’s documented history is systematically erased, it reveals a bigotry directed not only against living Jews but against Jewish civilization itself. It reflects national chauvinism, elevating one national identity by absorbing the achievements of another.

And it does this with particular purpose: to strip Jews of their indigeneity in their holy land, to recast them as interlopers and “European settler colonizers” which is deeply infused with a righteous sense of xenophobia.

That is why UNESCO’s role matters.

An organization created to preserve humanity’s cultural heritage should never become an instrument of historical revisionism. If it legitimizes narratives that obscure the well-documented Jewish origins of sites like Solomon’s Pools, it is no longer merely protecting monuments. It is helping redefine what future generations believe those monuments represent.

Turkish media TRT lies to the world that Solomon’s Pools are a 6,000 year-old Canaanite site, as Palestinian Arabs have attempted to recast themselves as ancient Canaanites to pre-date the Jewish forefather Abraham

The danger is larger than a single archaeological site. Words are attempting to erase Jewish history and heritage throughout the Jewish homeland.

The United Nations is correct: words can lead to terrible consequences.

And these words and actions have a particularly dangerous strain of antisemitism. It does not involve attacking Jews physically, which Palestinian Arabs have done repeatedly at scale. It is an insidious attempt to get the world to endorse a narrative that Jews are foreigners in the land to frame a future without the Jewish State. This is the destruction and genocide that emerges from language.

When international institutions lend their authority to that process, they cease to be guardians of history and become participants in its erasure.

The Seasons And Ourselves

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Every July, as heat waves grip North America, Europe, and much of Asia, Earth reaches one of the least intuitive moments of its annual journey.

It is at its greatest distance from the Sun.

Around July 3-5, Earth reaches aphelion, approximately 94.5 million miles (152.1 million kilometers) from the Sun. Six months earlier, around January 3-5, Earth passes through perihelion, just 91.4 million miles (147.1 million kilometers) away.

The difference is roughly 3.1 million miles – about a 3.3% change in distance. Earth actually receives about 7% more solar energy in early January than it does in early July.

Yet July is the hottest time of year across most of the Northern Hemisphere.

The explanation reveals something profound about our planet and it is not that we have internalized the Global North’s view of seasons.

Distance matters far less than direction.

Orientation. Earth is tilted approximately 23.4 degrees on its axis. During the Northern Hemisphere’s summer, that tilt turns us toward the Sun. The midday Sun climbs much higher into the sky, allowing its rays to strike the ground more directly instead of spreading over a larger area. At the same time, daylight stretches for hours longer, giving the land far more time to absorb heat.

A tilt of just 23.4 degrees overwhelms a separation of more than three million miles.

The proof is visible every day.

When New York swelters in July, Buenos Aires shivers through winter. Both cities are essentially the same distance from the Sun. Only their orientation has changed.

Tilt, not distance, governs the seasons.

One might assume the Northern Hemisphere, basking in these long summer days, must also be the warmer half of the planet. Yet the opposite is closer to the truth.

Makeup. The Southern Hemisphere is covered by approximately 81 percent ocean, while the Northern Hemisphere is only about 61 percent ocean. Water absorbs enormous amounts of heat, releases it slowly, and moderates temperature throughout the year. Land behaves very differently. It heats rapidly under summer sunshine and cools just as quickly during winter.

The Northern Hemisphere is a hemisphere of continents. The Southern Hemisphere is a hemisphere of oceans.

That is why the Northern Hemisphere experiences the world’s greatest seasonal extremes, from scorching deserts to bitter continental winters. The Southern Hemisphere, despite receiving slightly more solar energy during its summer because Earth is closest to the Sun in January, enjoys a far more moderate climate because its vast oceans absorb and redistribute that energy.

There is another layer to the story.

Movement. The 23.4-degree tilt that shapes our seasons is not fixed. Over approximately 41,000 years, Earth’s axis naturally oscillates between about 22.1 degrees and 24.5 degrees. Today the planet sits near 23.4 degrees and is slowly moving toward its minimum tilt, a journey that will take roughly another 10,000 years.

As the tilt decreases, summers become slightly cooler and winters somewhat milder, particularly in the higher latitudes. These subtle changes alter where sunlight falls on Earth and have helped drive the slow rhythm of glacial and interglacial periods over millions of years. Left to these natural orbital cycles alone, Earth is presently in a phase that favors an extremely gradual cooling over many thousands of years.

Yet perhaps the most remarkable character in this story is neither the Sun nor the Earth.

It is the Moon.

Background. Earth’s relatively large Moon acts as a gravitational stabilizer, quietly holding our planet’s axial tilt within a remarkably narrow range. Without the Moon, simulations suggest Earth’s axis could have wandered chaotically by tens of degrees over geological time, perhaps swinging from nearly upright to more than 60 degrees. The resulting climate would have been far less stable, with vastly more extreme and unpredictable seasons.

Instead, our planet gently rocks back and forth by only a couple of degrees over tens of thousands of years. That stability has allowed climates to remain sufficiently consistent for forests to mature, civilizations to emerge, agriculture to flourish, and complex life to evolve under recognizable seasons.

The hottest days of July, arriving when Earth is farthest from the Sun, remind us how often nature overturns our assumptions. Climate is not governed by a single variable but by an intricate interplay of orbital distance, axial tilt, oceans, continents, and the quiet gravitational influence of a companion world orbiting nearly a quarter of a million miles away.

Perhaps there is a lesson beyond astronomy.

We often assume influence is primarily a matter of proximity. The closer something is, the more powerful it must be.

Nature suggests otherwise.

Those who shape us most are not always the ones nearest to us. They are the ones toward whom we are oriented – the people whose character we admire, whose ideas we embrace, and whose example we choose to follow.

Then there is the Moon. Nearly 240,000 miles away, it quietly stabilizes Earth’s axis, preserving the rhythm of the seasons over millions of years. So too, the most enduring influences in our lives are often the quietest: timeless principles, faithful mentors, strong families, and lasting institutions that keep us steady without demanding attention.

Relative to the Earth’s oceans and continents, is our personal makeup – how each of us absorbs ideas and the actions we are inclined to take. While our consistency drives us towards or away particular personalities and concepts, it also impacts the way we consider such variables that are subtly different than the people around us.

The deepest influences are not always the closest. They are the ones that orient us and keep us pointed in the right direction.

Palestinians and Their Supporters in the Global South Hunt Jews

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On June 27, 1976, Palestinian terrorists hijacked Air France Flight 139, a civilian airliner traveling from Tel Aviv to Paris. The operation by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine‘s external operations network diverted the aircraft to Entebbe, Uganda, where the hijackers, aided by Idi Amin’s regime, held more than one hundred civilians hostage while demanding the release of imprisoned terrorists.

Then came the moment that revealed the deeper nature of the conflict.

The hijackers separated Israeli and non-Israeli Jewish passengers from the rest of those on board. Many other passengers were eventually released. The Israelis and Jews remained in captivity.

Had nationality been the only issue, non-Israeli Jews would have been released alongside the other foreign passengers. Instead, Jewish identity itself became grounds for continued imprisonment. The selection demonstrated that the target extended beyond the State of Israel to the Jewish people themselves. Decades after the Holocaust, Jewish civilians once again found themselves sorted from their fellow passengers because they were Jews.

The crimes committed during the hijacking were numerous. Palestinian terrorists seized a civilian aircraft, held innocent men, women and children hostage, threatened mass murder to secure political concessions, and singled out Jews for continued captivity. Three hostages died during the Israeli rescue operation, and Dora Bloch, an elderly Jewish hostage who had been taken to a hospital in Kampala, was later murdered by Ugandan authorities.

Hostages saved from Palestinian terrorists in Entebbe Airport, Uganda, July 4, 1976

Palestinian terrorists and their sympathizers have often come for non-Israeli Jews. Synagogues and Jewish community centers were attacked in cities far removed from the Middle East battlefield. Rome. Athens. Istanbul. Hezbollah and Iran often acted in support of Palestinian Arabs, just as they have since October 7, 2023.

Palestinian Arab opened fire in the Great Synagogue in Rome, Italy October, 1982, killing a 2-year old and wounding 37

And the Palestinian Arabs don’t hide it. The 1988 Hamas Charter is not simply a terrorist manifesto, but a deeply antisemitic one. Palestinians voted Hamas to 56% of parliament with such screed and continue to vote for the group over Fatah in every poll.

Fifty years ago, on July 4, 1976, the Israeli Defense Forces saved over 100 Israeli and non-Israeli Jews who were held hostage by terrorists. The rescue operation only killed Ugandan soldiers and the terrorists themselves – no Ugandan nor Gazan civilian was harmed.

Yet countries still rebuked Israel in the week that followed:

  • Libya: “Israel’s wanton aggression is a serious and grave crime against international law.”
  • Benin: “act of aggression committed by Israel against Uganda.”
  • Somalia: “Israel’s flagrant aggression against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Uganda.”
  • Cuba: “The action of Israel… unquestionably constitutes a flagrant violation of the basic provisions of the United Nations Charter.”
  • Mauritius: “act of aggression.”
  • Pakistan: “the Council should demand that compensation for the great loss of life and property caused by the Israeli action be paid to Uganda.”
  • Mauritania, sponsored the complaint on behalf of the African Group.

“the Western Powers have manifested a racist and fanatic solidarity with the white minority settlement in Palestine. For them, the Israeli aggression merely demonstrated a highly successful operation performed by the white man against the blacks of Africa and against the browns of the Arab lands -against the blacks and the browns of another and hostile world, that of the Arab-African community.” – Libya regarding Israeli rescue of 100+ hostages held by Palestinian Arabs in Uganda

The total populations of Uganda and the countries above is roughly 373 million. The Jewish population in all of these countries combined is under 5,000, 0.001%. They are unwelcome and unwanted.

Wheelchair-bound, 69-year old American Leon Klinghoffer, killed by Palestinian terrorists October 8, 1985

Palestinian Arabs and their supporters in the Global South are ingrained with a deeply hostile view of Jews and the Global North. The latest manifestation has been seen since the barbaric attacks of October 7, 2023, but can be seen just as clearly fifty years ago, when Israel rescued other Jewish hostages.

Names and Narrative: “Right to Exist”

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Words do more than describe reality. They shape it.

Few phrases demonstrate this better than questioning or supporting “Israel’s right to exist.”

At first glance, it sounds like a reasonable principle. Until one pauses to think about it. It is a question asked of no other nation. Countries are criticized for their policies or leaders. Their continued existence is not routinely presented as a subject for debate.

Only Israel is.

Because the question isn’t about particular policy. No country has an inherent right to exist. Not Spain, not South Sudan, not Somaliland.

The issue is not whether Israel has a right to exist. The issue is whether people support destroying an existing country, specifically, destroying the only Jewish State.

While Holocaust Survivors are still alive to recount the horror of the genocide of one-third of world Jewry, people discuss the destruction of Jews in their homeland where nearly half of world Jewry resides.

It is an abomination.

And the irony is that the unresolved question of statehood is not Israel’s; it is Palestine’s.

Israel declared independence in 1948 and has been a member of the United Nations ever since. The Palestinians declared the State of Palestine in 1988, and while many countries have recognized that declaration, neither the United States nor Israel has done so. Further, Palestine is not a full member state of the United Nations. Palestine still fails to meet many of the basic criteria for statehood.

If there is a legitimate debate about a state’s existence, it concerns whether a Palestinian state should be established. After the October 7 massacre, the abduction of civilians, and the persistence of violent extremism and antisemitism within Palestinian society, many people argue that recognition of Palestinian statehood should depend on profound political and cultural change.

Instead, the narrative has been inverted. And weaponized. Rather than asking whether yet another Arab and Muslim state should be created under present circumstances, the debate is reframed as whether the one existing Jewish state has a “right to exist.”

The “right to exist” narrative should be placed squarely on Palestine, not Israel. And the current verdict is not positive.

“Citizen Vigilante” Is Not About One Movie. It Is About What Happens When People Stop Trusting the State.

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Why would a vigilante movie cause international controversy in 2026?

After all, Hollywood has been making vigilante films for more than half a century. Death Wish, Taxi Driver, The Equalizer, Taken, John Wick. Millions have watched ordinary people take justice into their own hands. Critics warned they would inspire copycats but by and large, they did not.

So why has Citizen Vigilante provoked such alarm?

Because this film is not simply about revenge. It is set against one of the most divisive political questions of our time: immigration.

The story follows a man who concludes that his government has abandoned its most basic duty: to protect its own citizens. He begins targeting migrants whom he sees as responsible for violent crime while officials either refuse or fail to act. Critics argue the film risks legitimizing violence against immigrants. Supporters respond that it dramatizes the consequences of government paralysis rather than endorsing vigilantism.

Whether one agrees with either side, the film did not emerge in a vacuum.

Across Britain, years of revelations about organized child sexual exploitation gangs – most involving men of Pakistani heritage in towns such as Rotherham, Rochdale, and other communities – left many citizens convinced that authorities failed to protect vulnerable girls and, in some instances, were reluctant to confront offenders for fear of inflaming racial tensions. The scandals produced multiple official inquiries and enduring public anger over institutional failures. For many viewers, Citizen Vigilante taps into that frustration: the fear that government sees, knows, and still does not act, while the mainstream media diverts attention away from it.

That fear is not unique to Britain. In the United States, the conflict is different but follows a similar pattern.

Immigration enforcement is primarily a federal responsibility. Yet the Biden administration allowed a constant flow of illegal immigrants to enter the US – multiple times as many who arrived legally. It was a contributing factor of Donald Trump being elected in 2024.

In response to Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, liberal municipalities declared themselves “sanctuaries,” limiting cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Federal officials argue that dangerous offenders remain because local jurisdictions refuse to honor immigration detainers. Sanctuary jurisdictions answer that they are respecting constitutional limits on federal power and preserving trust between immigrant communities and local police.

The legal arguments belong in court but the psychological consequences live in society.

When one level of government says, “We must enforce the law,” and another responds, “We will not help you,” ordinary citizens no longer see a single sovereign speaking with one voice. They see governments arguing over who bears responsibility while serious problems remain unresolved.

That is ripe ground for the vigilante to enter, not because movies create him, but because confidence in public institutions has eroded.

Every stable democracy rests on one indispensable principle: the state holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Citizens may vote, petition, protest, organize, criticize, litigate, and campaign for new laws. They may not decide for themselves who should be detained, punished, expelled, or attacked. The moment private groups begin enforcing their own version of justice, the rule of law gives way to competing factions.

South Africa illustrates how quickly that line can blur. Recent anti-migrant demonstrations included many people calling for stricter enforcement of immigration law. But alongside lawful protest came reports of intimidation, assaults, and migrants fleeing violence. The movement did not remain solely a political demand. In some instances, private citizens began acting as if enforcement belonged to them.

People will seek alternatives if they begin to doubt that the government will protect them.

Consider New York’s Jewish community. Antisemitic incidents have reached historic levels in recent years. At the same time, some prominent political figures have used language that many Jews regard as deeply dehumanizing or have expressed intense hostility toward Zionism, which many Jews see as an integral part of their collective identity. When Jewish New Yorkers hear rhetoric describing Zionists as “monsters,” some inevitably ask a question that no democratic society should want its citizens to ask: If violence comes, will the government protect us with the same determination that it protects everyone else?

“He [Tarek Bazrouk] targeted these New Yorkers based on their religion and national origin. And he was undeterred by multiple arrests following these assaults, instead quickly returning to violently targeting Jews. The prosecution of this case and the sentence imposed make clear that New Yorkers will not tolerate hate-based violence and that this Office will aggressively prosecute those who perpetrate senseless crimes of hate.” – Jay Clayton, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; Christopher G. Raia, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) October 31, 2025. Released early on June 23, 2026 under NYC DSA Mayor Zohran Mamdani

The appeal of the vigilante has never really been about revenge. It has always been about confidence. People cheer the vigilante only after they conclude that the institutions designed to provide justice have failed.

That is why the debate over Citizen Vigilante is larger than one controversial film.

It is about whether citizens still believe that governments – federal, state, and local – are willing and able to carry out their most fundamental obligation: to enforce the law fairly, protect the innocent, and maintain a single, legitimate monopoly on force.

If that confidence disappears, the next vigilante will not step out of a movie theater. He will step out of a society that has stopped believing the state will do its job.

Related:

Jews Ask for Protection. America Responds With Skepticism (May 2026)

October 7: The First Pogrom from the Global South In the Modern Era (June 2025)

CAIR Thinks Protecting Synagogues Is A Political Stunt And Waste Of Taxpayers Money (September 2024)

The DSA Is Systematically Coming For Zionist Jews (August 2023)

Politicians In Their Own Words: Why We Don’t Support Defending Jews (January 2022)

Why Is Jewish Identity Treated Differently?

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New York has embraced an important idea: identity deserves respect.

Its laws explicitly protect both gender identity and gender expression, recognizing that identity is not merely an internal characteristic but something people live and communicate publicly through appearance, speech, names, clothing, and behavior.

That principle is admirable but is it applied consistently?

The Jewish people also possess an identity that is both internal and external. Jews express that identity through religion, language, holidays, history, culture, family traditions, symbols, and connection to their ancestral homeland.

For many Jews, that expression includes Zionism.

Contrary to its frequent caricature, Zionism is not a political opinion. It rests on two historical facts and one political principle: Jews are a people; they originated in the Land of Israel; and therefore they are entitled to national self-determination and sovereignty in their ancestral homeland.

Like wearing a kippah, lighting Shabbat candles, speaking Hebrew, or displaying a Star of David, affirming the Jewish people’s right to their homeland is, for many Jews, a basic expression of Jewish identity.

Yet this expression is increasingly treated as unacceptable.

President Biden’s U.S. Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism at the State Department, told Jews to hide expressions of their Judaism on May 21, 2021

Across universities, workplaces, and public institutions, “Zionist” is often used to describe a political viewpoint and as a label for exclusion. Students are told Zionists are unwelcome. Employees are pressured to distance themselves from Zionism. Organizations adopt anti-Zionist litmus tests that, for many Jews, require repudiating a central expression of their identity.

New York City subway where anti-Israel protestors call for Zionists to get out

If society recognizes that identity includes both who a person is and how that person expresses that identity, why should that principle stop with gender?

No one should be expected to abandon a central expression of identity in order to participate in public life, attend a university, or feel welcome in a workplace.

“Zionists don’t deserve to live,” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” – Columbia University student Khymani James

This is not a request for special treatment. It is a request for consistency.

If identity deserves dignity, then every community’s identity deserves dignity. If expression deserves respect, then that principle should not end where Jewish identity begins.