Category Archives: Opinion

The World Zionist Congress Is Ideological, Not Regional

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The World Zionist Congress is holding elections now through May 4, 2025.

To read the news, one would think that this is a matter of Jews around the world getting to vote for Jewish and Israel-related matters, with each country getting a vote based approximately on the percentage of the Jewish population in that country. For example, the United States which has roughly 40% of global Jewry gets 152 of the 525 delegates at the WZC (29%) and Israel get 38%. There are only 13 other countries which are participating in the elections which will get 33% of the delegates: Romania, Canada, Argentina, South Africa, Venezuela, Sweden, Spain, France, Peru, England, Hungary, Brazil, and Uganda. Israel gets the majority of delegates.

The allocation based on country would suggest that countries represent a unit but that is far from the case. The 22 US slates are competing aggressively AGAINST each other with religious right and left attacking the other, as well as political left and right. The handful of centrist parties tout unity to appeal to the middle swath of Jews.

The reality is that religious and political affiliations and philosophies are driving the delegates, not their countries of origin.

Consider Jamie Geller, an American influencer who moved to Israel several years ago. Despite not living in the US, she is using her platform from Israel to try to get the vote out for Aish Ha’am in America, in which she says she chairs the advisory committee.

The surprising big winner of the 2020 WZC US election was Eretz Hakodesh which had over 20,000 votes and secured 16.2% of the American delegates. The enormous slate of delegates in 2025 – multiples larger than any of the 22 slates – is packed with ultra-Orthodox rabbis and influencers who are directing their communities to vote for that slate. Much of the community is opposed to the secular nature of the State of Israel and look at local rabbinic positions that support (like Rav Avrohom Gurwicz, Rosh Yeshivas Gateshead) and oppose (like Rav Malkiel Kotler from BMG in Lakewood) participating in the election, but also look at international opinion (like Rabbi Dov Landau of Bnai Brak who opposes voting).

The center and right in Israel are not the only influencers on the American votes. The left-wing flank, consisting of A New Union, Hatikvah, Arza-Reform and Jewish Future, have gotten Israelis like Yair Golan of the Democrats Party, to lobby votes for left-wing slates.

The global nature of lobbying makes sense. After the elections, all 525 delegates will be together for votes regarding priorities and allocation of resources. The country of origin makes much less difference over the next five years.

Which leads one to conclude that the enormous effort placed on the US elections is misplaced tactically.

While Israel and US Jewry account for over 80% of world Jewry, they get only two-thirds of the delegates. Most of the rest of world Jewry doesn’t even hold elections. That leaves one-third (174) of the delegates getting an outsized impact relative to the Jewish population in the 13 countries holding elections or some sort of convention: Romania (9,000), Canada (393,000), Argentina (175,000), South Africa (75,000), Venezuela (6,000), Sweden (15,000), Spain (13,000), France (490,000), Peru (2,000), England (292,000), Hungary (47,000), Brazil (92,000), and Uganda (2,000). That’s a total Jewish population in these 13 countries of roughly 1.611 million. That equates to roughly 108 delegates per million Jews compared to only 27 per million for the United States, FOUR TIMES THE IMPACT.

Influencers should target international markets, not the United States to get real influence at the WZC. The aggressive marketing in the US may get more followers on Instagram but yield much less than focusing on Jews in Brazil and Hungary.

Many people discussing the election are not that concerned about the outcome and are using this time to engage millions of Jews with Israel. Some slates, like Israel365, are using the election to further engage Christian Zionists who cannot vote in the WZC elections but are very influential in US politics. The left-wing Israeli Policy Forum is showcasing new voices whom they hope will become emerging leaders.

The election is a tool to enlist people in preferred ideologies, even more than having influence on policy.

Related articles:

Unpacking The Ignored “Jerusalem Program” (March 2025)

Facts and Stats about the World Zionist Congress Elections (February 2020)

25,000 Jews Remaining (March 2019)

The Trump Letter To Columbia DEFENDS Research

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To read progressive media, one would believe that the Trump administration is seeking to end “research and science” and “great debates” on the country’s campuses. That’s how papers like The New York Times understand the Trump administration’s letter to Columbia demanding change.

The New York Times article on March 20, 2025 misdirecting readers about the Trump administration’s letter to Columbia University

It could not be further from the truth.

The March 13 letter is just two pages long and covers nine points. Nowhere is “science” and “great debates” mentioned. “Research” is mentioned once, and the Trump administration’s letter is actively trying to protect it.

The first two points in the letter demand that the school must enforce consequences for the students that break university policies, including vandalism and harassment. It asks that the “Office of the President” handle such matters rather than the University Judicial Board, presumably because many members of the board are sympathetic to the student rioters.

The next three points build on this theme of discipline. It demands that the university adopt “time, place and manner rules,” – very common and ordinary measures – to prevent the disruption of “teaching, research and campus life” (emphasis added). It adds a mask ban so rioters can be held accountable and demanded a formalized university plan for groups that violate university policy.

The sixth point shifted from general disciplinary matters to define antisemitism, because that has been the crux of rioters’ conduct against Jews at Columbia. Presumably, it would help clearly define matters of free speech versus hate speech (to the extent that such thing exists).

The seventh bullet transitions back to discipline, empowering university security to arrest rioters.

The eighth point refers to a particular department within the school – the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department (MESAAS) – which is to be put under “academic receivership.” If there is a claim that Trump is coming after “research” and “great debates”, it must be in this discipline.

The ninth point seems to cover perhaps a related point to eighth – to make sure that admissions, including “international recruiting… conforms with federal law and policy.”

As seen above, the letter seeks to ensure the ability of students and faculty to do research (third bullet), albeit the MESAAS department has been marked as a problemed child.

The reality is that American universities have been trying to paper over their critical problems by importing students from the Global South, from those MESAAS countries. If there is a Trump target on academic research, it lies there, not in scientific matters, despite the Times claim that Trump is “imperiling the backbone of the nation’s research endeavors.”

America’s core problem lies in its PUBLIC K-12 schools which are FAILING TO TEACH MATH AND SCIENCE, with the US placing 25th among 37 OECD countries for 15 year olds. The country is relying more and more on international students – many deeply distrustful and anti-Western values – to fill the university’s STEM departments because America’s elementary and high schools have failed.

Progressive media will not place the blame squarely where it belongs – on the public school system – because it has long ago adopted the fiction that pouring billions of dollars into teacher unions will magically produce better educated students.

The Trump letter is an immediate call to make universities safe, not a call to dismantle research. The long-term fix is to remake America’s public schools, which have catered to teachers and administrators over students for far too long.

Related articles:

CUNY’s New Anti-Education Professor Of Intimidation (February 2025)

Ignoring Columbia’s – And The Education Industry’s – Systemic Antisemitism (July 2024)

Follow the Money: Democrats and the Education Industry (November 2020)

Context For “Intifada”

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Hamas Defenders (like the Arab world and universities) and their defenders (politicians and progressive Jews) – HDDs – have tried to reeducate the West about both the English and Arabic languages.

At congressional hearings, HDDs told senators that “Intifada” just means “shaking off” and did not mean the slaughter of Jews, despite the Second Intifada killing 1,000 Jews – almost all civilians – and resulting in more restrictions on Palestinians, like the Security Barrier which ended that intifada.

Those hearings had the head of the Arab American Institute also share that “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” is not a call for killing Jews but just the liberation of local Arabs.

That same speaker said that “Glory to our martyrs” plastered on buildings might only be interpreted as antisemitic if the buildings were synagogues or Jewish centers, but simply free speech if it was in public where Jews would see it going to school.

WESPAC-backed Palestine Youth Movement masked members plastering “Glory To Our Martyrs” on top of the map of Israel, at train stations in New York

HDDs said there was no hate crime when professors said the massive slaughter of Jews on October 7 was “exhilarating” to a crowd, or when students held signs pointing at Jews that read “al Qassam next targets.” Not just not a crime, but not even hate.

Masked Columbia student calling for Hamas missile strike on Jewish students

They accuse Jews of being too sensitive.

When HDDs accuse Israel of committing “genocide” and behaving like “Nazis” committing “ethnic cleansing” while engaged in “apartheid,” they attempt to strip the victims of European and Arab countries’ atrocities of their history and memory and desecrate the memories of 6 million Jews.

As HDDs refer to the raping of Jewish women, burning families alive and kidnapping Holocaust survivors a form of “justified resistance,” they seek to insult the memories of the Jewish dead and have the world condemn the innocent as evil “occupiers.”

NYC mob waving flags of Palestinian terrorist groups including Hamas and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine chanting for “Intifada revolution” in front of exhibit about the Gazan slaughter of innocents at the Nova Music Festival in Israel on October 7, 2023

It is an attempted institutional gaslighting of Jews.

When HDDs testify that chants like “there is only one solution, Intifada Revolution,” require “context” and must be “targeted and pervasive” in order for school administrations to even consider taking action, they don’t pause to consider Jews being locked in rooms for their safety or fleeing campus because schools won’t protect them. FOR MONTHS.

Jewish students in downtown NYC barricade themselves in a library from a horde

They believe that Jews are too powerful to be at risk and are crying wolf.

The Democratic Socialists have declared every White person and Israeli part of the colonialist regime and are therefore all guilty and thereby legitimate targets for violence. Even babies.

Democratic Socialists of America siding with Hamas arguing that all forms of violence are legitimate in an effort of “liberation”

Jewish HDDs (they are mostly in the second ‘D’ in HDD) accuse their fellow Jews of being tools of antisemitic Republicans who are using them to dismantle the education system and suppress free speech. They add that those Jews who complain about antisemitism are right-wing racists who are putting international and minority groups at risk by complaining to authorities.

These Jewish members of the socialist-jihadi alliance don’t fret acting as fig leaves for genocidal antisemitic comrades.

That has become the American landscape into which Jews step out of their front doors every day. Walking the streets, quietly wearing a yellow ribbon for the hostages held by Gazans and members of the United Nations, they are accosted with accusations that Jews and Zionists are evil and deserve neither dignity nor empathy. Even more, that Jews must relinquish their history and rights or face the firing squad before a cheering crowd.

Diaspora Jews are being groomed for slaughter. The operators of the slaughterhouses are in the awkward early days of learning how to keep the human cattle from acting up as they get processed. For the moment, they are playing with language and attempting to invert victim and assailant to enlist sympathy from the masses to join in the massacre.

Watching their growing ranks including progressive and anti-Zionist Jews as well as politicians, empowers the HDD movement that it is on the right track.

Members of Jewish Voice for Peace take over Trump Tower on March 13, 2025

The context of the Global Intifada is that Jews and the Jewish State are considered part of the White Imperialist and Capitalist world. All are inherently guilty and therefore should not be allowed to defend themselves. HDDs are telling you that to be on the right side of history, everyone has to take up the cause and confront Zionists and White people wherever they are.

The pathetic joke is that the mantra is being stoked principally by foreign actors of the Global South on American soil under our own noses.

Gaza’s Defenders Condemn It (February 2025)

The Quantitative Shield For A Qualitative Problem (March 2024)

Jordan’s King Abdullah Excuses Palestinian Barbarity (October 2023)

Palestinian Inversion Of Facts Based On Refusal To Coexist (July 2022)

Hamas’s Willing Executioners (July 2021)

Names and Narrative: Zionist Entity and Colonial Occupier (May 2019)

The Palestinians aren’t “Resorting to Violence”; They are Murdering and Waging War (November 2014)

Eyal Gilad Naftali Klinghoffer. The new Blood Libel. (June 2014)

Take Action To End “East Jerusalem”

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The New York Times is accelerating its attempt to redefine facts and U.S. policy, especially in regards to the State of Israel.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than attempts to educate its readers that “East Jerusalem,” is an actual city, even though it existed for only 18 years in its 4,000 year history from 1949-1967 because of war.

The Times wrote “East Jerusalem” no less than SIX times in an article on March 7 about a Hamas leader’s release from prison. Using the phrase repeatedly was meant to grant another victory to Hamas, in its “Al Aqsa Flood” war.

At the fifth mention of “East Jerusalem,” the Times wrote that “Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 war in a move not recognized by most of the international community.” So what? Most of the “international community” considers homosexuality a disgusting offense and crime, yet the Times doesn’t append such comments when discussing the gay community.

The United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and only Israel. When President Donald Trump issued his statement of official recognition, he specifically referred to holy sites in the Old City of eastern Jerusalem saying “Jerusalem is not just the heart of three great religions, but it is now also the heart of one of the most successful democracies in the world. Over the past seven decades, the Israeli people have built a country where Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and people of all faiths are free to live and worship according to their conscience and according to their beliefs. Jerusalem is today, and must remain, a place where Jews pray at the Western Wall, where Christians walk the Stations of the Cross, and where Muslims worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

Jerusalem has been reunited under Israel for decades and the U.S. embassy in Israel straddles the area that was considered “no man’s land” during those horrible years of 1949 to 1967. It is time to be explicit that the United States recognizes the unified city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and does not recognize any place called “East Jerusalem.”

Location of new U.S. embassy to Israel

The Trump administration can cement such understanding with blessing Israel’s expansion of Jerusalem eastward in an area known as “E1.”

ACTION ITEM

Write the White House comments@whitehouse.gov to clearly state that the U.S. recognizes all of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and endorse construction of homes in E1.

Write The New York Times CORRECTION editors corrections@nytimes.com to stop calling a place “East Jerusalem” or to similarly change policy for all historically divided capitals referencing East and West Berlin as well as East and West Beirut and in its articles.

related articles:

Next Paradigm Shift In Israel-Palestinian Conflict (January 2025)

NY Times Manufactures “Palestinian East Jerusalem” Narrative (April 2021)

Trump’s “eastern Jerusalem” and Biden’s “East Jerusalem” (May 2020)

Abbas’s Harmful East Jerusalem Fantasy (September 2018)

The Arguments over Jerusalem (May 2015)

The Democrats’ Slide on Israel (July 2014)

Jerusalem, and a review of the sad state of divided capitals in the world (May 2014)

Standing Divided

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J.D. Vance’s 2016 book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, began with a short story of how everyone in his small town would come to the street and stand when a funeral hearse passed by. When he asked his grandmother the reason for the tradition she replied “because honey, we’re hill people. And we respect our dead.”

It was an interesting device to educate readers that they were about to be introduced to a subset of society. They may know Americans and people from Kentucky, but the “hill people” in Vance’s life had a special bond. Whether living or dead, old or young, they stood together and apart from others, even while a casual eye might miss the divide.

Rabbi Scott Kahn, a Jewish American-Israeli podcaster of a show called Orthodox Conundrum, posed a similar story as a question while he was on a tour in the U.S. from his home in Israel, in the fall of 2024. He provocatively asked a gathering of Orthodox Jews whether a cleft had opened between the American and Israeli Orthodox communities over the current war from Gaza. He observed that while U.S. Orthodox Jews remained the most committed to Israel in terms of visiting, moving and supporting Israel, he felt that support waning as the latest war extended past one year.

When some from the audience protested that many of the people present had children who volunteered for the Israeli army, Kahn paused to admit that while true, American Jews simply no longer understood the pain of Israeli Jews who get up and go to funerals and shiva houses week after week, for so long.

The global modern Orthodox community in which Kahn felt completely at home for so long seemingly was fracturing before him into distinct Israeli and diaspora communities.

Some weeks later, Kahn shared the story on his podcast with three panelists – Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, Dr. Logan Levkoff, and Shira Katz Shaulov – the first two from the U.S. and last from Israel. Halfway into the talk (38:30) he shared the conversation above to get reactions from the panel. Shaulov observed that the gap was more of a distinction between expecting sympathy and empathy. While the American Orthodox community may continue to have sympathy with their brothers and sisters in Israel, the local toll of the war made empathy virtually impossible.

The panel noted that Israelis often go to a wedding and a funeral on the same day in the same community for people the same ages. It has been brutal and exhausting, and they have been doing so for over a year. Every day they fear a knock at the door or observe their neighbors getting terrible news and gather together as a shaken community for mutual support.

That huddle is physical, local, tangible. And creates lasting and specialized bonds.

And many Israeli Jews feel that Jews in the diaspora are not present in the circle, and cannot comprehend the anguish.

The fatigue and emotional strain of this war has adjusted the contours of the Orthodox community in ways Kahn may well understand and appreciate but is despondent over as well. While the values and ritual practices may remain very similar, Diaspora Jews remain thousands of miles away from Israel during this massive pivot in history.

Respecting the dead alongside the living reinforces community. It remains true after shiva.

When Hostages Square in Tel Aviv gets dismantled – hopefully sometime soon when everyone returns home – Israel cannot only be left with the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Har Herzl national cemetery. The country must consider how the Jewish diaspora can properly engage with the fallen and injured, as well as their families and communities in the years ahead.

Gaza’s Defenders Condemn It

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The war between Hamas and related Palestinian militant groups in Gaza with Israel has evoked many passions. Defenders of both sides point to either the barbaric October 7 massacre and the taking of hostages on one side, or the lack of freedom of movement, dignity and sovereignty on the other.

Where the defenders of Gaza and those in Israel agree is that Hamas has not been completed eliminated and its ideology remains popular among Palestinian Arabs. Lost among Gaza’s defenders is that their comments and philosophy condemn any prospect for peace and should prevent any rebuilding efforts.

Palestinian Arabs believe that ALL of the land is being “occupied” and that Jews are foreigners with no rights as illegal invaders. They oppose the existence of Israel and that peace with Israel is a disgrace and insult to their dignity.

A majority of Gazans have always favored killing Jewish civilians inside of Israel, so the enormous support for the October 7 massacre is not surprising. Gaza’s endorsement of Hamas has allowed the rump of Hamas that remains to continue to rule the strip, even though the two million Gazans could easily overwhelm them, despite liberal media stating that Gazans hate Hamas.

Unmentioned is the Palestinian Authority, deeply unloved by local Palestinians. The United Nations and American Democrats pretend that the PA President has support and power among the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) but he doesn’t. Even The New York Times finally shared opinions of a range of Palestinian Arabs from around the world who mock the PA as worthless and must be reconstituted to include the voices of the “resistance” against Israel, like Hamas.

The New York Times Opinion piece sharing voices from Palestinian Arabs who mock the Palestinian Authority and support Hamas and its viewpoints

Even after a war in which Hamas and Gaza got obliterated, its supporters of Hezbollah in Lebanon had to sue for a ceasefire and Iran became defanged, Palestinian Arabs still refuse to accept the legitimacy of the Jewish State. After the local failures to destroy Israel, SAPs pray for global efforts from the United Nations and antisemites worldwide to end the “Zionist project” and enable Arabs to retake all of the Jewish Promised Land.

The United States under President Trump has made clear that it will not let that happen. Trump has pulled money and the U.S. out of United Nations groups which condemn Israel. He has expedited military equipment to Israel. And he has made clear that he expects American allies to do much the same.

Hamas’s defenders want the war against Israel to continue, which will likely delay any rebuilding of Gaza and holding elections which would likely see Hamas gain power. Those opposing Hamas do so silently, and focus on pushing the world to embrace the charade of the Palestinian Authority to fast-track aid into Gaza.

Palestinian Arabs have condemned themselves to an ongoing ‘Nakba’ since they continue to reject the Jewish State. Until that ideology ends, the only rebuilding of Gaza that should happen is the wall separating the enclave from Israel.

Related articles:

The Only Way The Conflict Can End (November 2023)

NakbaWashing Crimes Against Jews (April 2023)

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity (August 2016)

Anchor Diplomacy

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For years, politicians tried to resolve conflicts via “shuttle diplomacy.” A senior official would act as mediator by running to one side of a conflict and take notes, then shuttle to the counterparty to relay information and take notes, all the while, attempting to bridge the gap between the parties.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry under President Obama was a classic example of this approach in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Convinced that nothing could be done that would upset the broad Palestinian Arab street, he hammered home that Israel, the stronger party, must continue to do more to placate Palestinian demands. His list of demands from Palestinians grew ever longer, never applying pressure on the Palestinian Authority.

Kerry is the prime example of a failed negotiator in shuttle diplomacy. He remained to the very end, too dense to consider how bad he approached the Middle East, making parting comments as he left office as if he had earned any credibility.

In Donald Trump’s first term in office, he immediately reversed the Kerry failed thinking of peace-making. He adopted an “outside-in” tactic of not letting the weak and ever-demanding Palestinian Authority stop broader peace in the region, and established the Abraham Accords, creating normalization agreements between Israel and several Muslim Arab countries.

Now in his second term, Trump made a bold announcement on February 5, 2025, tossing out the idea of shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East in favor of something I call “Anchor Diplomacy,” in which Trump will use the broad reach and power of the United States to impose peace between the Israelis and Palestinian Arabs. He will not run back-and-forth between the two sides, but will get the various parties to come to him, and attempt to dislodge or soften his stance in which he put the United States – not the two parties – in the center of the discussion.

Trump announced that the United States will take over the rebuilding of the demolished Gaza Strip, and Gazans will be relocated out of the area into Egypt, Jordan and other countries during the reconstruction. Gazans may return or opt to stay in the new locations with a much better standard of living.

There are many points to unpack in the Gaza statements but the practicality of one or another point is an aside. Trump is making the Arab world come to him, not the other way round. The Arab world will be forced to make Hamas disappear from the scene to prevent a U.S.-takeover, instead of the U.S. being worried whether Hamas or other terrorist groups will scuttle any progress towards calm. The United Nations will be dislodged as a biased and awful actor in the region, as the Arab street clamors for U.S. to engage monetarily but not overly intrusively.

President Teddy Roosevelt once said “speak softly and carry a big stick.” Trump has chosen a new path to waive the large stick over everyone’s head and to lay down a marker of his own. He has long built a reputation being a very loyal friend as well as a menacing enemy. He knows that the regimes of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have much to gain from the United States – or they can turn Trump into an enemy and run to the embrace of a new sponsor, perhaps China.

Trump has so far been able to get countries like Colombia to eat their words and reverse policies when he threatened economic hardship, and obviously feels that Arab countries will similarly get on board with at least some of his Gaza proposal. At the very least, they will learn that the days of treating the U.S. as an open faucet of money to abuse with unrealistic demands will not stand under Trump.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump at White House February 5, 2025

Anchor Diplomacy, the muscle of entrenching a position and forcing the sides to react, can only be effective by a mediator with tremendous influence on each side. While pro-Palestinians/ anti-Americans will chant “imperialism” and “empire” in exasperation at Trump’s Gaza announcement, the shadows which will swing the outcome will be China and/or Saudi Arabia, who might magnify or counter American power.

Related articles:

Abbas Failed To Capitalize on Trump’s Gift (December 2020)

Trump Secures Lowest Tally of Israeli Deaths From Palestinian Terrorism (November 2020)

Naked Trades in the Middle East (September 2020)

Taking it Straight to the People: Obama and Kushner (June 2019)

Failing Negotiation 101: The United States (January 2015)

Failing Negotiation 102: Europe (January 2015)

Next Step For Trump’s Visa Program: Gaza

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President Donald Trump issued several executive orders upon entering office on January 20, 2025 designed to protect American safety under the banner, “MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN.” One was entitled “PROTECTING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AGAINST INVASION,” meant to stop the flow of illegal entry into the United States and deport those who have done so. Another was called “PROTECTING THE UNITED STATES FROM FOREIGN TERRORISTS AND OTHER NATIONAL SECURITY AND PUBLIC SAFETY THREATS,” which is meant to vet people entering the country, because America “must be vigilant during the visa-issuance process to ensure that those aliens approved for admission into the United States do not intend to harm Americans or our national interests. (emphasis added)”

The United States does not require that every foreign citizen have a visa to enter the U.S. The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) has an agreement with many countries which exempt their citizens from requiring a visa for U.S. entry. It includes European countries, including Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, as well as Canada, Israel and some Asian-Pacific countries including Australia, Japan and New Zealand. People who are not citizens of these countries must fill out a visa to visit the United States, giving American security personnel a chance to review the visitors’ backgrounds.

The program has an added level of scrutiny for people from VWP countries who visited countries with significant terrorism. People who had visited Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen since March 1, 2011, or visited Cuba since January 12, 2021, need to fill out a visa as well. For example, a Canadian (who normally would not need a visa) who went to Iraq over the past decade would need a visa to enter the U.S., unless she did so for diplomatic or approved military purposes.

Conditions in America’s Visa Waiver Program.

Several countries and territories which are hotbeds of terrorism have not yet been highlighted in the VWP. Travellers to Afghanistan, Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines should be immediately removed from the VWP visitation list. And of course, the terrorist enclave of Gaza, ruled by Hamas, the deadliest active terrorist group in the world. Any non-American who visited Gaza since Hamas’s takeover in June 2007, should have to go through a thorough visa review process.

After those immediate actions, the Trump administration should take a similar action against countries which knowingly support and harbor Palestinian Arab terrorists, including Qatar and Turkey. A German national visiting Turkey should lose his visa exemption privilege until several – perhaps five – years after the country breaks off all relations with Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups.

Then there are also VWP travellers to countries which support state sponsors of terrorism, such as China and Russia‘s backing of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which can be also added to the vetting process.

Making America Safe Again requires not only following protocols that are already in place, but updating and expanding the list of known terrorist enclaves, such as Gaza.

ACTION ITEM

Contact the White House to immediately update the VWP country travellers list to include terrorist enclaves like Gaza.  comments@whitehouse.gov 202-456-1111 

Related articles:

The Diaspora Intifada (September 2024)

The Future Of The Evil Hamas Regime Under Trump And Harris (September 2024)

Nexus of Terrorism Hypocrisy: UN, Qatar and Hamas (June 2021)

Next Paradigm Shift In Israel-Palestinian Conflict

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President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to unleash “hell” on the U.S.-designated Palestinian terrorist group Hamas if it does not immediately release all of the hostages it took from Israel. These pages have talked about possible actions which include labeling the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority and Hamas-affiliated UNRWA as terrorist groups, stripping tax-exempt status for organizations which support them, and banning Hamas-mouthpiece Al Jazeera from U.S. government briefings.

On the heels of such actions in the international arena, Hamas’s normalization of mass-scale atrocities and rank antisemitic genocidal aspirations must be forever quashed in the holy land. Therefore, the United States should greenlight Israel’s development of the area known as “E1” just east of Jerusalem, all the way until the town of Ma’ale Adumim.

No country in the world places its capital city on a border as it makes the nerve center of a country vulnerable to attack. This is especially true for the Jewish State which is surrounded by countries intent on destroying it.

The region has gone through many paradigm shifts since the end of the Ottoman Empire. The October 7, 2023 massacre by thousands of Palestinian Arab terrorists, the support for the terrorists, their aims, and their continued insistence on perpetuating the war by not surrendering the hostages is another reminder that the end of the conflict will require the decimation of the terrorists and guardrails against an ability to accomplish their objectives.

The “Al Aqsa Flood’ in which the genocidal jihadists sought to ethnically cleanse Jews from their holiest city could be extinguished with the building of homes throughout E1, protecting Jerusalem from malevolent actors.

Jerusalem as seen from Hebrew University (photo: First One Through)

Zionism Was A Dream. Israel Is A Reality

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Henri Dunant (1828-1910) was a humanitarian who created the International Red Cross in 1863 which helped lead to his selection as the first winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. He is also known (although such mention has been stripped from Wikipedia) for being a strong Christian Zionist, as far back as 1866 when he advocated for “the re-settlement of Palestine by the Jewish people.” His advocacy led Theodore Herzl to invite him to the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1897.

The dream of Jews returning to their homeland gathered momentum in the second half of the 19th century, despite the Ottomans making it hard for Jews to move to Palestine. In 1800, Jews made up about 3% of the region of Palestine, growing to 8% by 1882 and nearly 14% by the close of the Ottoman period in 1914.

Jews have moved to the land of Israel in far greater percentages than either Christians or Muslims since 1800

This predated the Balfour Declaration of 1917, when the British government appreciated the Zionist Federation’s appeal to reestablish their national home in Palestine.

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

Despite Zionism being about the GOAL of creating a Jewish national home in Jews’ historic homeland, the term continues to be used decades after the modern State of Israel was established in 1948.

Gil Troy, a historian and author of “The Zionist Ideas,” explained that Zionism has three principle components: that Jews are a nation; that Jews have ties to their particular homeland in the land of Israel; and that Jews have a right to establish a state in that homeland, much like other people have rights to their own country. The first two principles are simple facts while the third is a matter of rights, not aspirations. Such definition makes Zionism an ongoing principle rather than that a mission which was accomplished in 1948.

Pro-Israel books using “Zionist”

The view of Zionism as a relevant reality or historical ideology arises in the national anthem, “Hatikvah”, written in 1877 as the Zionist movement gathered initial momentum.

“As long as within our hearts / The Jewish soul sings, / As long as forward to the East / To Zion, looks the eye / Our hope is not yet lost, / It is two thousand years old, / To be a free people in our land / The land of Zion and Jerusalem”

Today, some object to the lyrics speaking of Israel from a purely Jewish perspective when 25% of the population is not Jewish. Others do not like the fact that it has no religious foundation and only speaks of being “free” in the land. I would add that the text is inherently dated with words like “our HOPE” and “TO BE a free people” when Israel has long been a reality.

Israeli flag at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem (photo: First One Through)

Significantly, discussions around “Zionism” have continued in political fora as if the world is still debating the FORMATION of Israel.

  • In November 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed Res. 3379 which stated “zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination,” by lumping it into a category of trespasses including “colonialism and neo-colonialism, foreign occupation, apartheid and racial discrimination.” The resolution was rescinded in 1991 through the efforts of the United States.
  • Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general and one-time member of Congress once said “Zionism, the ideological undergirding of Israel, is a debatable political philosophy,” making the foundation of the Jewish State a questionable endeavor.
  • Linda Sarsour, a member of the anti-Israel Democratic Socialists of America said that “nothing is creepier than Zionism,” invoking the old UN resolution that Zionism is a form of racism.
  • Steve Erlander wrote in The New York Times that “Zionism was never the gentlest of ideologies. The return of the Jewish people to their biblical homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty there have always carried within them the displacement of those already living in the land,” repeating the stale U.N. slander.
  • Israel’s enemies continue to call it a “Zionist entity”, refusing to mention the name of the country, as if to do so recognizes its existence or right to exist.

The continued use of the word “Zionism” today by anti-Israel agitators is not a theoretical review of Jewish aspirations to return to their homeland in the 19th century and early 20th century, but a concerted effort to demonize and/or destroy Israel today.

For starters, by attempting to define Zionism as a form of racism, people mark Israel as a racist and apartheid state regardless of its actions. While it is the most liberal country in the entire Middle East, if Israel’s underpinning ideology was built on “colonialism” and “racial discrimination,” then its existence is a continuation of the racist ideology, permeated by original sin.

Secondly, if Israel is not viewed as a functioning liberal and democratic reality but merely a vehicle of “Zionism,” its existence entails the continued “displacement of those [Arabs] already living in the land.” When Rep. Rashida Tlaib introduced a resolution in Congress about the “Ongoing Nakba,” she was not discussing 1948 history but a belief in the “ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians for illegal settlements.” She imagines the entire history and ongoing reality of the reestablished Jewish State as a “catastrophe.”

Further, anti-Israel people believe that when JEWS use of the word “Zionism,” it means that the goals of the Jewish State are far from completed. Not only does Israel seek the land east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL/ “West Bank”) and Gaza, but it seeks “Greater Israel” encompassing “the area from the Nile to the Euphrates,” as speakers at the United Nations contend. It means Jews want to see a third Temple built on the Temple Mount in place of the Dome of the Rock.

In short, when anti-Israel people use the term “Zionism,” they are discussing more than a philosophy but an evolving reality. Anti-Israel activists seek a future which resembles 1947 or 1917, when there was no Israel and no international support for a Jewish State. When those same people hear Jews use “Zionism,” they believe that Jews want a future which looks like 2,000-plus years ago, with a Jewish Temple and sprawling Jewish kingdom.

In other words, Zionism is not just a highly charged word for some, but conjures up the perception of ongoing goals as opposed to actual present facts.

The facts are that Israel is the most pluralistic society in the Middle East where Arabs have more rights and a higher standard of living than in neighboring Arab countries. Israel has shown its willingness to SHRINK its borders for peace. Israel has proven that it can create a viable, functioning economy and society, despite regional actors refusing to accept its existence.

The plain truth is that Israel is a model state to be replicated, while cast as a Zionist ideology to be terminated.

Zionism was a dream and Israel exists. The transition was marked in the last line in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, “the realization of the age-old dream – the redemption of Israel.” Israel supporters should acknowledge Israel’s declaration and stop calling themselves “Zionists” as it enables anti-Israel fanatics to whitewash their desire to destroy the Jewish State.

A proud “Zionist” woman at the Celebrate Israel parade in New York City in 2019 (photo: First One Through)

People are pro-Israel, anti-Israel or Israel-ambivalent today. Do not let those who seek the destruction of Israel to hide behind a “debate” about the “political philosophy” of Zionism.

Related articles:

Anti-Zionist Hypocrisy Ignoring The Will Of Inhabitants (May 2023)

Names and Narrative: Zionist Entity and Colonial Occupier (May 2019)

I am a Zionist. A Deep Zionist. An Amazed Zionist. A Loud Zionist. (April 2018)