Tag Archives: Gaza

The Other October 7 Timeline

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Israel is conducting a thorough review of what internal failures led to the massacre on October 7, 2023. The inquiries and analyses are designed to both assure accountability for mistakes, as well as to prevent future tragedies. The primary focus is on Israel’s military deployment and readiness, which will likely conclude with several changes inside the military.

Another analysis is needed externally – focused on Hamas and Gaza. The timeline below is meant as a framework to better consider how to address the conflict going forward.

Timeline of Key Moments in Gaza That Set October 7 Massacre

1948-9: There are two principle differences between the area east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL/ West Bank) and Gaza:

  • The majority of E49AL/WB Arabs are locals, whereas the majority of Gazans used to live in Israeli towns and villages;
  • E49AL/West Bank was annexed by Transjordan and all Arabs were given Jordanian citizenship; Gaza was only administered by Egypt

The Arabs in the much larger E49AL had citizenship and sovereignty. While most of the world considered Jordan’s annexation illegal, the local Arabs had pride in their Muslim Arab country. They also had control of Jerusalem/al Quds, the third holiest site for Muslims.

Not so for Gazans, who were in a much more confined space without citizenship, sovereignty or holy sites. Instead, they were wards of the United Nations which promised them that they would move into the Israeli towns in which they once lived.

1967: The 1967 war was a much bigger loss for West Bank Arabs than Gazans, as the Gazans already had less. Still, being under the rule of the Jewish State made the lack of sovereignty much more bitter.

2000: The Second Intifada started at the collapse of the Oslo Accords. While pundits point to a Temple Mount visit by Israeli Ariel Sharon as the trigger for the multi-year Arab riots, it was the failure of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to secure all of Arab demands in the negotiations, including moving millions of descendants of refugees and internally displaced people into Israel. This was especially true for Gazans.

2004: As Israel put down the Second Intifada, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon secured a letter from U.S. President George W Bush on April 14 that in exchange for pulling all Israelis out of Gaza, the United States would back Israel in assuring that all Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) would move to a new Palestinian State and not into Israel, and that new borders of Israel would account for new major Jewish population centers to be incorporated into Israel.

President George W Bush 2004 letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

2005-7: Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and the Palestinians elected Hamas to 58% of its parliament in 2006. In 2007, Hamas took over full control of Gaza, outsing its rival political group Fatah. In response to the antisemitic genocidal group sworn to its destruction taking over Gaza, Israel imposed a blockade of strip to halt the flow of arms. Gaza, now with self-determination, opted for radical Islam.

2008-14: Under the banner of jihad, independent Gaza did not focus on building up its economy and society but instead focused on destroying Israel. It launched wars against the Jewish State in 2008-9, 2012 and 2014, each put down by Israel. Meanwhile Hamas began to heavily invest in its underground infrastructure inside of Gaza, which in the past was principally used outside of Gaza for raids into Israel (like kidnapping Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006) and smuggling goods from Egypt.

2018-2022: Under the banner of the “Great March of Return,” Hamas led Gazan society to prepare to invade Israel. With United Nations support, thousands of students from UNRWA schools would march to the fence with Israel, familiarizing themselves with the terrain and normalizing their presence for Israelis watching their movement.

Teasing a Gazan crowd about the October 7 massacre to come, Hamas Political Bureau member Fathi Hammad, former Hamas minister of the interior, leader speaks in July 2018 that within four years – by 2022 – Hamas will be prepared to rid Palestine of Jews

2021: When Israeli courts approved the eviction of Arab squatters from Jewish owned homes in the Sheik Jarrah section of Jerusalem, Hamas launched missiles into Israel. The action caused Israel to put the evictions on hold, educating Hamas that terror pays.

2023: By this time, Hamas’ underground infrastructure was in place and it had stockpiled thousands of missiles. It had gotten Israel accustomed to “peaceful” protests along the Gaza border fence. Better, it watched Israeli society fight amongst itself about judicial reform, and for the first time ever, a majority of Democrats favored SAPs over Israelis. With Iran on the verge of nuclear weaponry breakout and Hezbollah in Lebanon well armed with roughly 150,000 missiles, Hamas was poised for an all-out war, well beyond the limited skirmishes of prior years.

Gazans are more religious than West Bank Arabs and many more consider themselves entitled to move into Israel as UNRWA wards (81% vs. 49%). Those supporting Hamas were much more likely to understand the “Great Marches of Return” were about external political matters than those from Fatah (59% to 24%, according to a September 2023 PCPSR poll).

While the devastation to Israel on October 7 happened over a single day, it took years of planning. Just as importantly, there was societal buy in for the attack.

Key Takeaways

Israel – and the world – should consider the events that led to Hamas’ genocidal invasion of Israel and formulate strategies beyond eliminating Hamas and its military infrastructure.

  • The UN and Saudi Arabia must adopt the contours of the 2004 Bush letter. Over 80% of Gazans believe that the world supports their moving into Israel, validating their storming the fence. There will not be peace until the UN and Saudi Arabia make clear that a two state solution means SAPs move into a new Palestinian State, not Israel.
  • Dismantle UNRWA in Gaza and the West Bank. The United Nations has encouraged generations of students that Israel is not really a sovereign entity and that the UN will dictate that Israel will be forced to accept millions of Arabs. With clarity that Arabs will be settled in Gaza and the West Bank, there is no reason for UNRWA to exist in those territories.
  • Decimation and Vilification of Hamas. As Gazans suffered more over the course of the war, a greater percentage became interested in forging peace with Israel. Additionally, people who supported Hamas were more likely to have not seen any of the footage of the October 7 massacre and did not believe that Hamas conducted rapes. Therefore, Hamas should not only be defeated militarily, but vilified clearly so it will be abandoned by Gazans and West Bank Arabs.
  • Reroute funding. Gaza’s principal backers have been from Qatar, Iran and Turkey. All of these countries have hostile or tense relationships with Israel and foment anti-Israel hatred. Future funding for Gaza should principally come from countries with good relationships with the Jewish State.
  • No immediate plans for a Palestinian State. Gazans had internalized that terror pays, as the Second Intifada made Israel abandon Gaza, and the 2021 war stopped the evictions in Sheik Jarrah. The devastation of Gaza must terminate that notion. The only immediate plans for Gaza should be how to rebuild. Engaging in a discussion now about statehood would once again make local Arabs believe that there is nothing beyond the pale in pursuit of self-determination.

The timeline of how Gazans got to October 7 should inform the world about future actions, just as Israel’s inquiries into its military failures will change its practices.

Related articles:

Which Gazans Deserve Assistance? (January 2025)

The Hamas – Gazans Partnership (May 2024)

Destroying Hamas Convinces Gazans To Support Two State Solution. Why Doesn’t The UN Get It? (March 2024)

After UNRWA (February 2024)

When Founding Fathers Are Psychopaths And Cowards (January 2024)

Quantifying the Values of Gazans (May 2019)

The United Nations Can Hear the Songs of Gazans, but Cannot See Their Rockets (December 2017)

On “Accountability and Justice:” Fifteen Democratic Senators And The UN Human Rights Council

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Nothing sounds so lofty as the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), a global organization that should theoretically be at the vanguard of protecting civilians around the world. Alas, it made itself into a highly biased joke by having ten standing items during each session to cover broad matters, with an exception for a single region – Item 7 – being dedicated to the “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.”

On April 5, 2024, amid the Gazan-initiated war on Israel, the UNHRC went to town on Israel, passing the outrageously biased Resolution 55/28 with a vote of 28 in favor, 6 opposed, and 13 abstentions. The Global South was joined in voting for the resolution by Belgium, Finland and Luxembourg from Europe. The chickens which abstained were: Albania, Benin, Cameron, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, France, Georgia, India, Japan, Lithuania, Montenegro, Netherlands, and Romania.

The eight pages of vitriol went well beyond actions during the war. It went beyond settlements. It went beyond withholding taxes.

It implicitly backed Gazans’ genocidal war against Israel stating that the council “reaffirm[s] the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation in accordance with international law.” This statement labeled the State of Israel as a “colonial” power, stripping it of rights of defense and designating it a rightful target for attacks.

The antisemitic text even decried Jews living in their holiest and capital city of Jerusalem. It criticized Israel for archeological excavations near the Temple Mount.

Only in three spots (marked in light blue) in the long list condemning Israel was there any expression that Gazans were doing anything wrong. Each related to the immediate situation of war and none condemned the thousands of Gazans who initiated the war killing 1,200 people, raping women and abducting 251 people, nor the Gazan leaders who threatened to commit the barbaric attacks again and again.

In multiple locations (highlighted in orange), the UNHRC demanded that countries withhold supplying arms to Israel and not take any actions against groups around the world which support the Hamas-led war against Israel. It urged countries to not supply Israel with “dual use” items like jet fuel or facial recognition software which could have both civilian and military purposes.

The text is a sickening farce, especially considering the heading of the resolution which highlighted “the obligation to ensure accountability and justice.” The text of the resolution clearly showed the HRC’s belief that only Israel should be held accountable, while Gazans should be absolved of their actions under the UN’s ode for the Stateless Arabs of Palestine (SAPs)‘ “legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence.”

In April 2025, one year after this shameful resolution passed, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tried to pass two resolutions in the U.S. Senate to block America’s sale of arms to Israel. His introduction to the vote lambasted AIPAC as a nefarious organization, and then called the Israeli government “racist and extremist” engaged in a “barbaric war against the Palestinian people,” even though the Israeli military constantly warns civilians to move out of battlefields and has the lowest civilian-to-combatant death toll of any modern urban war.

Fourteen senators joined Sanders in voting to block the arms sale to Israel in the middle of the multi-front war, including Sens. Richard Durbin (D-IL), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Peter Welch (D-VT).

The fact that all fifteen senators voting against supplying Israel weapons during the war were Democrats should not be a surprise. According to a March 2025 Gallup poll, Republicans favor Israel over SAPs by 75% to 10%, while Democrats favor SAPs over Israelis by 59% to 21%. This is a continuation of a trend that started BEFORE Gazans’ October 7 atrocities, as highlighted in Gallups’ February 2023 poll.

It begs us to answer the framework of “the obligation to ensure accountability and justice” in general, even before applied to war. What is the baseline that the UNHRC and Democrats (HRC & D) see the Arab-Israeli conflict?

The HRC&D seemingly believe that Israel is a colonial power and SAPs have a legitimate fight for “liberation.” In such framework, even leaders of Hamas’ “political bureau” are regular “civilians entitled to protection,” (as stated by HRC). HRC&D prioritize imposing sanctions on Israeli Jewish “settlers” in the immediate aftermath of October 7 (as urged by Sen. Van Hollen in November 2023).

The HRC&D baseline for considering “accountability and justice” is that Arabs are justified in fighting Israel, while Israeli Jews are wrong for just living.

Anyone and everyone should be upset with the loss of so much civilian life in the war which started eighteen months ago. But the number of dead on each side obscures the fundamental issue in the conflict is the competing views that Israel is a legitimate sovereign state or a colonial outpost which should be combated by “any means necessary.”

Masked anti-Israel agitators at Columbia University call for the destruction of Israel

While the UN Human Rights Council and fifteen Democratic senators have not gone so far to endorse a genocide of Jews in Israel, they are actively seeking to shield Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups and their supporters which seek the destruction of Israel from proper measures of justice.

Related articles:

The Deep Flaws In The UN’s “Peace” Coordinator (August 2024)

The Only Way The Conflict Can End (November 2023)

Hamas Should Face ‘Maximum Justice’ (October 2023)

The Collective Punishment Of Terrorism (June 2023)

Terrifying Trifecta Of Anti-Zionism (April 2023)

The Noxious Anti-Semitism Of “European Settler Colonialism” (September 2022)

Gaza, The Terrorist Enclave (February 2021)

The United Nations’ Adoption of Palestinians, Enables It to Only Find Fault With Israel (March 2016)

Between Hamas And A “Genocide.” Between Radical Faith And Coexistence

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The expression of being “stuck between a rock and a hard place” relates to being in a very difficult spot between two equally terrible bad choices.

It has been used to describe the situation of the Arab civilians in Gaza, caught between Israel and Hamas. On one side, is an enormous military which Gazans view as interlopers on their land, bombing them to pieces. On the other is their leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Hamas, who rules the Strip with an iron hand.

The Israeli military is accused of “starving” the population and advancing a “genocide” to “ethnically cleanse” the region of Arabs. On the other, Gazans have an organization which may torture and shoot those who protest against them.

On one side, there is an Israeli military that offers financial rewards for information about hostages, bounty for Hamas leaders, millions of dollars to disrupt the “financial mechanisms” that prop Hamas, and billions of dollars to Hamas to disband. On the other is martyrdom.

Leaflets dropped by Israel offering rewards for Gazans who provide information on hostages

From the Israeli side, Gazans hear a party that will end the war immediately if the hostages are returned and Hamas surrenders. From Hamas, they hear that the Arab fight is a holy one sanctioned by Allah, as they ask Gazans to sacrifice their children for the holy mission of cleansing the land of Jews.

Are Gazans truly between two EQUALLY terrible choices?

For the devout, they are asked to decide between a peaceful and prosperous life in this world, and one of holy jihad to rid “Palestine of filth of the Jews.” The Global North (3% Muslim) would immediately chose the former while the Global South (26% Muslim and 42% Muslim excluding Latin America and China) would urge Gazans to chose the latter.

Global North in blue and Global South in red

The Gazans are similarly divided according to devotion. In a PCPSR poll conducted in November 2023, soon after the October 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel and abduction of 251 people, support for the massacre was correlated to religious beliefs, with “religious and the somewhat religious (76% and 71%, respectively) compared to the non-religious (42%)” supporting Hamas’s attack.

The calculus is changing now that Hamas’s power is collapsing.

Gazans are not numb after 18 months of war, having experienced ceasefires. They see that Israel is not intent on a “genocide” the way portrayed by their leaders but are intent on achieving the aims of releasing the hostages and ending Hamas’s rule. Gazans also see a severely weakened Hamas which cannot round up opponents en masse and drag their bodies through the streets or toss them off buildings.

So Gazans have started to protest Hamas’s rule.

But Hamas will not go quietly. It has begun to execute protestors, including 22-year old Odai al-Rubai.

So Israel reentered Gaza with ground forces and tanks, intent on applying maximal pressure on Hamas to give up the hostages and surrender, and hopefully inspiring Gazans to pressure Hamas to end the war.

Gazans see that they are no longer between a rock and a hard place, at least as it relates to the PHYSICAL threats from Hamas. They will still have to square whether their Islamic beliefs will permit coexistence alongside a Jewish State, or will accept a short-term “hudna” truce and patiently wait for the Islamic world to rally for “the cleansing of Palestine of the filth of the Jews” in the years to come.

Teasing a Gazan crowd about the October 7 massacre to come, Hamas Political Bureau member Fathi Hammad, former Hamas minister of the interior, leader speaks in July 2018 that within four years – by 2022 – Hamas will be prepared to rid Palestine of Jews

From a Global North’s perspective, there should not be a divide between religious faith and coexistence. Gazans should not feel torn between practicing Islam and living in peace alongside a Jewish State.

But the tension is very real as preached by “Muslim Scholars” based in Qatar and elsewhere. Radical Islam is poisoning the Middle East, placing Muslims in a quandary of life, land and belief, which can only be resolved by killing every Jew in Israel.

The end of the current physical war is approaching. The ideological war remains.

Related articles:

First Time In History, People Under ‘Genocide’ Reject Ceasefire. Repeatedly. (December 2024)

Stop Genocide. Destroy Hamas (May 2024)

Destroying Hamas Convinces Gazans To Support Two State Solution. Why Doesn’t The UN Get It? (March 2024)

Humble Faith (October 2021)

Gazans Support Killing Jewish Civilians (February 2021)

Regime Reactions to Israel’s “Apartheid” and “Genocide” (March 2017)

Names and Narrative: Genocide / Intifada (March 2016)

Jews On The Spectrum At Columbia University

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The latest “Pro-Palestinian protest” at Columbia University, as liberal media likes to call it, included a series of chants to murder Jews and destroy the Jewish State.

Jewish students – almost all unmasked and sporting kaffiyehs to show solidarity with Gazan Arabs – chained themselves to Columbia’s gates and chanted to free Mahmoud Khalil and demanded the names of university trustees who handed over the names of students to the New York Police Department and federal immigration services.

Meanwhile, masked onlookers chanted “There is only one solution: Intifada Revolution. Intifada, Intifada. Globalize the Intifada!” in calls to kill Jews all over the world. It is the running echo of campus rioters chanting for violence against Jews. The Columbia administration testified that these phrases are antisemitic before a congressional committee in April 2024.

It was a curious spectacle: Jewish students showed their faces as they demanded clarity regarding university due process and protections for fellow students, while students wearing masks for whom they were advocating, yelled antisemitic slogans as defined by the university.

If ever there was a group that took free speech arguments to the extreme, it is Jews that chain themselves to a fence to advocate for rights of students who despise them.

The Columbia chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) were suspended by the university on Nov. 10, 2023, after the groups “repeatedly violated University policies related to holding campus events.” That has not kept them from storming the gates of the university, partnering with not-soon-enough-designated-terrorist group WithinOurLifetime.

Columbia’s chapter of JVP was more explicit about violence “by any means necessary,” like the October 7 massacre.

Somewhere in the middle of the pro-Palestinian Jewish community at Columbia is J Street U, which is an officially recognized student group on the university’s undergraduate website. The group is worried about antisemitic incidents and chants of “Pro-Palestinian protesters” but also wants to protect their speech and keep them from getting kicked off campus without due process.

SJP appreciates that sentiment but demands more of Jews, specifically calling for the end of Israel. The Tufts chapter of SJP said “While SJP recognizes that many Jewish people begin their anti-zionist political journey through J Street U and appreciates that J Street U’s Tufts chapter agrees that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are not synonymous, it is crucial for students to refuse half-measures that condemn occupation while normalizing colonization.”

The Columbia and Barnard Hillel houses J Street U. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called Hillel and other Jewish groups “enemies of the Muslim community” for supporting Israel. It is seemingly lockstep with SJP and JVP that only Jews that call for destroying Israel “by any means necessary” can be considered allies.

There is a spectrum of left-wing Jews at Columbia and Barnard, ranging from virulently anti-Zionist, to modestly pro-Israel. Many are pro-Israel too, although they tend to be more centrist and right-leaning. The vast majority are targets of the pro-Palestinian gang. All of them are being ranked on an Israel litmus test for judgement, like no other diaspora community in the world.

Related articles:

Columbia University Sets New Standards For Free Speech (December 2024)

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

Hamas, CAIR, DSA, Within Our Lifetime, SJP Are All Gunning For Jews (May 2024)

Why Should Columbia Protect Jews If The Government Won’t? (April 2024)

Columbia University Completely Fails Mission. And Jews (October 2023)

Columbia University’s Latest Anti-Semitic Inanity: “Palestinian Hebrews” (July 2022)

Is Columbia University Promoting Violence Against Israel and Jews? (December 2019)

“The Day After” The Hamas War, For Israel

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Many countries have pressured Israel to develop a plan for “the day after” the war for Gazans. It is a curious question, as many of those same countries have condemned Israel for operating in Gaza and demand that it leave immediately. Furthermore, they all know that any plan developed by Israel will likely be viewed with hostility and rejected outright by Gazans.

A more relevant question for Israel is what the day after will look like for Israel.

There are many aspects to that question.

  • What is the plan for rebuilding Israeli towns near Gaza? Will there be new codes for security, safe rooms, layouts of the streets and homes, etc.?
  • How will Israel manage security with Gaza? Will it construct a different type of fence and monitoring system to better protect Israelis? Arm the military bases there differently?
  • Will it allow work permits for Gazans, and if so, how will it manage it?
  • How will it monitor materials flowing into Gaza as part of a rebuilding operation?
Gazans smash through security fence into Israel on October 7, 2023

As it relates to what the world most wants to hear, a restart of a political process with the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) in Gaza and East of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL), much depends on reforms made by the counterparty.

It will also depend on the United Nations.

First, the UN must clearly state that the future of their so-named “Palestinian Refugees” who never lived in Israel will not move into Israel. Their future is in a future state of Palestine, which the UN claims already exists and is “occupied.” As part of crystalizing that, it must announce plans to close all UNRWA operations in Gaza and the West Bank.

Second, to bring Israel to the table and engage with the UN as part of the process, the UN Security Council should revoke UNSC 2334, a blatantly antisemitic resolution. That resolution demands an ethnic cleansing of all Jews from E49AL, including Judaism’s holiest location, the Old City of Jerusalem.

Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN (left) and US Secretary of State, John Kerry (right) enabled the antisemitic UNSC 2334 to pass in the waning days of the Obama administration

There is precedent for such action. In 1991, the UN rescinded UNGA 3379, which declared that Zionism was a form of racism, to get Israel to participate in the Madrid Conference, which ultimately yielded the Oslo Accords. Such action ended the First Intifada and could help end the Iranian Proxies Intifada of today.

The UN has long been the biggest instigator of the regional conflict by making promises to local Arabs on behalf of Israel, and then pressuring Israel to meet those demands. It is time for the UN to either shift course and be constructive with each party, or desist from the matter.

Israel is engaged in a war in Gaza it didn’t start or want, and will end immediately if Hamas surrenders and returns all of the hostages. Israel doesn’t need a plan for “the day after” in Gaza but should be consulted to ensure that a new regime will bring stability in the region and be a counterpart with whom to coordinate the transfer of goods and people.

Israel should be focused on its own “day after” plans. To the extent that the world wants to encourage a path to an eventual “peace process,” the UN needs to make significant reforms, including rescinding UNSC 2334.

Related articles:

The Three “Two-State Solution”s (December 2023)

UN “Peace Coordinator” Before And During Hamas Massacre (October 2023)

The UN Has No Interest in Mid-East Peace, Just a Palestinian State (October 2021)

The Only Precondition for MidEast Peace Talks (June 2016)

The Israeli Peace Process versus the Palestinian Divorce Proceedings (June 2015)

A Warm Israeli Heart In Brooklyn

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The religious Israeli singer Hanan Ben Ari came to Brooklyn on the night of March 30, 2025. His songs calling for peace and unity drawn from holy texts drew a crowd of Israeli expats, yeshivish men and women, Russian and American Jews. They sang and stood on their feet for the entire show.

Hanan Ben Ari’s presence also brought out a handful of anti-Israel protestors who waved Palestinian flags, placards about President Trump and shouts of “Zionism has got to go!” to let everyone coming to the concert know that the pro-Palestinian group hated THEM and their beliefs as much as the singer.

Anti-Israel protestors yell at Jews going to concert at Brooklyn, March 30, 2025 (photo: First One Through)

As the State of Israel continued to decimate the terrorists of Gaza, the mood was both happy and somber. Happy that many hostages were home, as well as pleased that Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Gazan terrorist were being brought to justice. Yet also sad that dozens of hostages remain in Gaza after 571 days, that so many people have been killed, and that there’s no clear sight to peace. Hanan made those points directly and repeatedly throughout the night, that he doesn’t want to beat the Gazans; he just wants a peaceful world.

Hanan Ben Ari singing “Shemesh” in Brooklyn, NY on March 30, 2025 (photo: First One Through)

Hanan discussed one member of his crew who had lived alongside Gaza, who was killed in the first days of the war. He told the audience about two members of the crew who remained captives of Gazan terrorists, and the audience shouted to “Bring them home!”

Screen showing two members of Hanan’s crew still held by Gazan terrorists.

But Hanan also celebrated three former hostages held by the Gazan terrorists who were freed and at the show that night. The crowd cheered as the singer introduced them and shared everyone’s sentiments how happy they were. Hanan shared a story that one of the hostages told him, that he couldn’t believe how many people around the world were praying for his well being. Hanan added that one day soon, that will be the norm, that everyone will pray for each other’s well being, even in times of peace.

The show was definitely charged with Israeli energy. In the lobby of the concert hall, people from the Israeli American Council were getting people to sign onto the World Zionist Congress election to vote for the IAC slate. People in the crowd carried Israeli flags. Almost the entirety of the concert was in Hebrew.

Audience at Hanan Ben Ari concert holding Israeli flag, March 30, 2025 (photo: First One Through)

And the artist himself did the same. He brought out a flag and sang “Am Yisrael Chai!” “The nation of Israel lives!” to an adoring audience.

Hanan Ben Ari holding Israeli flag at Brooklyn concert on March 30, 2025 (photo: First One Through)

The concert ended with the singing Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem by the band. Almost all of the audience stood and sang along, with some Ultra Orthodox Jews sitting out because while they are believers in the LAND of Israel, the Jewish people and Judaism, they oppose the secular Jewish state.

Audience waves Israeli flags at Hanan Ben Ari concert in Brooklyn on March 30, 2025 (photo: First One Through)

As rain fell on a cold early spring night, the small crowd of anti-Israel protestors left. The Jewish crowd poured into the light showers outside. And the heart of Israel who has sung hundreds of times at Israeli army bases and at the beds of wounded Israeli soldiers, packed his gear to fly to Miami for a last U.S. show before heading to Israel for Passover.

People call Israelis “sabras” because they resemble the cactus fruit which is prickly on the outside and sweet on the inside. Lost in that analogy is the warmth of the heart, which would rather be sweet and accessible to everyone without thorns, even in a defensive war.

Related articles:

October 7 And A Year (October 2024)

A Visit To A Nation Held Hostage (July 2024)

Now Is The Time For Sabra, An Israeli Superhero, To Join Captain America (October 2022)

Two Democratic Senators Gaslight Jewish Attorney During Confirmation Hearing

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Reed Rubinstein is a Senior Vice President of America First Legal and a former Deputy Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Education General Counsel (acting and delegated), and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury. He was nominated to be a Legal Advisor to the State Department by President Trump and had a confirmation hearing on March 25, 2025 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

During the hearing, only a handful of Democratic senators asked Rubinstein any questions, preferring to spend their time on Mike Huckabee who is nominated to be the US ambassador to Israel. Astonishingly, TWO of those senators – Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) accused Rubinstein of believing in and promoting false anti-Israel and antisemitic conspiracy theories about the State Department and public school education.

Sheehan On Obama Administration Funding Group To Oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “Conspiracy Theory”

At 49:30 of the hearings, Sen. Shaheen said to Rubinstein “I’ve heard these conspiracy theories before. But I have been here through the Obama administration, the first Trump administration, through the Biden administration, and I can tell you that I never heard anybody at any of those administrations talking about a multi-front war trying to overthrow the Israeli government. I don’t believe it and I hear you saying that and try to justify that as a conspiracy theory.”

Sen. Shaheen gaslighting Reed Rubinstein during confirmation hearing, March 2025

One would hope that Shaheen, a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has heard about the Obama administrations efforts to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu through a group called OneVoice Israel (OVI), as there was a formal investigation.

The Senate performed a review of almost $350,000 which were granted by the State Department to OVI in 2014. The grant was quite large for an international NGO, as most State Department overseas grants average around $15,000. OneVoice built a large database of Israeli voters and then “absorbed and funded an Israeli group named Victory15 or “V15” and launched a multimillion-dollar grassroots campaign in Israel. The campaign’s goal was to elect “anybody but Bibi [Netanyahu]” by mobilizing center-left voters,” according to the report.

OVI originally got its State Department grant in September 2013 to “execute a grassroots campaign in conjunction with Secretary of State John Kerry’s effort to sustain negotiations
between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.” The outreach effort was to run from October 15, 2013 to July 15, 2014, and the State Department made its final payment of grant funds to OVI on August 25, 2014, with the grant period ending on November 30, 2014. In addition to the $350,000 handed to OVI, the State Department gave the group $40,000 for outside consultants and another $115,000 to OneVoice Palestine, a sister NGO. It is estimated that over 1.3 million Israelis were exposed to OVI’s campaign, about 16% of the population.

By the end of the targeted grant period in July 2014, the Kerry Israeli-Palestinian peace plans were in shambles. By August, OVI leadership decided to use its now large infrastructure for direct political purposes, to “SHIFT SUPPORT WITHIN THE KNESSET AWAY FROM LIKUD/RIGHT WING COALITION BY ADVOCATING TO ‘SWING’ CENTRIST VOTER’S [sic] POLICIES AND SUPPORT POLITICAL CANDIDATES WHO EMBRACE AN EXPEDITED NEGOTIATION TOWARD A [TWO-STATE SOLUTION] AND THE END OF SETTLEMENT EXPANSION.” When Netanyahu announced new elections in December 2014, OVI quickly absorbed the “anybody but Bibi” V15 into its organization to oust Netanyahu.

The Senate initiated an inquiry into this funding matter in February 2015. It found that “OneVoice did inform at least two State Department officials of its political plans, and it did so during the grant period. The Department took no action in response.”

To summarize the facts in Sheehan’s dismissal of the “conspiracy theory,” the State Department handed roughly $500,000 in total to organizations which built up a large infrastructure inside Israel which was used to try to replace Netanyahu in the 2015 elections. It is unclear whether this was directly at the behest of the Obama Administration or was simply a byproduct of the anti-Netanyahu left-wing US State Department’s animus towards Netanyahu, engaging in election tampering against an American ally.

To put that $0.5 million in perspective, the entire Israeli budget for the 2015 election was $62 million.

Kaine On K-12 Public School Anti-Israel, Antisemitic, Woke Education “Conspiracy Theory”

At 1:24:45 of the hearing, Sen. Kaine took aim at a post that Rubinstein made on LinkedIn saying “‘K-12 teachers are almost all products of extreme left teachers’ training programs in the colleges, then the same leftist antisemite professors provide training on MENA [Middle East and North America] and other issues. The system is not fixable.'” Kaine continued “A lot of us on the committee have parents, spouses, kids who are K-12 teachers who work in education programs, training K-12 teachers. A lot of us like me were governors appointing boards of universities with intimate knowledge of teacher training programs. There can be a bad apple in any organization but I got to say I read a comment like that – and it strikes me along the lines of what Senator Shaheen was asking – a kind of political fantasy or conspiracy that doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing that a careful lawyer offering narrow advice would say.”

Sen. Kaine gaslighting Reed Rubinstein during confirmation hearing, March 2025

Perhaps Kaine is ignorant or has put on blinders about the hatred being instilled by public school teachers into the next generation of students. Here are just a few:

The non-partisan American Jewish Committee (AJC) issued a report in December 2024 that “Leaders and activists within the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) have waged an aggressive campaign that has encouraged K-12 teachers to become pro-Palestinian activists and bring anti-Israel propaganda into their classrooms.” The documented MTA initiatives included “promoting multiple one-sided anti-Israel resolutions,… Sponsoring programming, including a webinar that purported to address “anti-Palestinian racism” which was dedicated to attacking the legitimacy of the world’s only Jewish state,” and “curating and promoting on its website anti-Israel educational resources that it encourages members to bring back to their schools.”

In October 2023, right after the Hamas October 7 massacre in Israel, the Oakland Education Association, a teacher’s union, condemned “apartheid” and “genocidal” Israel. The OEA handed out material from Teach Palestine, with curriculums for educators. It suggested that in situations that get “pushback from Zionist parents,” to pivot the conversation to “compare youth incarceration in the U.S. and Palestine.”

In November 2023, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT 59) union produced a resolution which “condemn the role our government plays in supporting the system of Israeli occupation and apartheid, which lies at the root of the Palestinian Israeli conflict.”

Teacher union in Minnesota calling Israel an “apartheid” country and at fault for the Hamas-initiated war

In February 2025, the  Santa Ana Unified School District of California settled a lawsuit for using “courses that were developed in secret and infected with anti-Semitism.” Committees at the school said “Jews are the oppressors,” and “racist” and worked with outside groups who decried “Zionist control.”

There is a new group called The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (founded mostly by professors of the University of Santa Ana) which is trying to decouple the study of Zionism from Jewish Studies program in universities, and place it in “settler colonial studies” and put it in the context of “repressive work and solidarities” since “Zionism’s project extends beyond the borders of Palestine.” These efforts are being pushed in the University of California school systems and at New York University. The organization markets a “toolkit” for use by anti-Israel protestors.

In May 2024, Teachers Unite and a handful of other groups including NYC Educators for Palestine took their high school students out of class to protest Israel at the Department of Education headquarters in Lower Manhattan.

Also in May 2024, Portland Oregon’s teacher union, the Portland Association of Teachers, had a meeting about how to teach students both inside and outside of the classroom how to be anti-Zionists, complete with a website to disseminate propaganda.

In August 2024, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) leaders and Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) teachers hosted a panel on how to teach the “struggle for Palestine” to young students and best practices to bring the minors to political protests.

In September 2015, third grade students in Ithaca, NY heard from anti-Israel activists Bassem Tamimi and Ariel Gold about the supposed evils of Israel.

Professors all over the country have given “extra credit” to students who participate in anti-Israel protests. Students for Justice in Palestine are encouraging it on social media.

There are cases all around the country. In addition to Teach Palestine, teachers are encouraged to use materials from “Decolonize Palestine,” which is designed with animation for young students. It vilifies Israel as a racist colonial endeavor always designed to oppress local Arabs.

In July 2024, the National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union and teachers union with around 3 million members held its annual meeting. It included resolutions to boycott Israel and praise the October 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel (NBI 8). NBI 9 urged the NEA and other trade unions to “pressure governments to stop all military trade with Israel, and in the case of the US, to stop funding it.” NBI 74 sought to publish a list of government officials who accept money from groups supporting Israel.

In April 2021, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) which has roughly 1.7 members said that “American Jews are now part of the ownership class,… who want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it.” Herself a Jew, her large base got the message that Jews are the 1% who are coming to steal opportunities from the 99%. In AFT’s July 2024 annual convention, there were seven anti-Israel resolutions.

If Senator Kaine doesn’t understand the deeply antisemitic nature of teachers unions, he should be removed from the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

While Jews are suffering a horrible spike of antisemitism in the United States in the aftermath of the worst slaughter of Jews in Israel in 1,000 years, two Democratic senators took public aim at a Jew for supposedly promoting “conspiracy theories” about anti-Israel and antisemitic activity. It was gaslighting at the highest level, an affront to Jews everywhere.

ACTION ITEMS

Contact Sen. Shaheen and Sen. Kaine about your extreme disappointment with their public gaslighting of Jews about antisemitism and anti-Israel activities in the United States today.

Related articles:

A Democratic-Majority Congress Would Not Investigate Antisemitism At Colleges (July 2024)

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

Gaslighting Gas Chambers and Indigenousness (September 2023)

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

The Democratic Party is Tacking to the Far Left-Wing Anti-Semitic Fringe (January 2017)

The Democrats’ Slide on Israel (July 2014)

UNSC Makes Slow Progress In Calling Out Hamas

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The United Nations Security Council met once more about Gaza on March 18, 2025, and the parade of charges against Israel’s conduct in its defensive war was to similar tunes.

Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, criticized Israel for halting aid into the terrorist enclave and for preventing UNRWA for operating freely. He would go on to also comment on Israel’s operations to root out terrorists in the West Bank.

Countries from the Global South, the majority of which recognize a Palestinian state, followed his remarks, starting with Algeria, Somalia, Sierra Leone from Africa, and Guyana in South America. Only Sierra Leone would condemn Hamas (29:45) even though it would equate the Israeli hostages with “detainees” held by Israel.

Then the representative of the United States, Dorothy Shea, took the floor.

At every moment, Shea would call out Hamas. She referred to it as a “brutal terrorist organization” which has a “disregard for human life.” It demanded Hamas “release the hostages it abducted” and called out the group’s refusal to do so and extend the ceasefire.

Shea mentioned “Hamas” thirteen times, and only stopped discussing “Hamas’s savagery” which “threatens peace and stability” when she pivoted to the opportunity to reshape the region for a better and more prosperous future.

France, a member of the Global North, spoke next and it condemned Hamas’s attack of October 7 but did not call for Hamas to be eliminated. Further, it said that “a global political resolution” to the conflict was needed, not only trying to sideline Israel’s military operation but the country’s effort to work a bilateral agreement with the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs).

The representative of Panama spoke next and at 51:15 specifically called out Hamas’s attack of October 7, its refusal to abide by commitments to release Israeli hostages and condemned the group.

The Global North continued with Russia and Slovenia speaking next and both gave Hamas a complete pass. The United Kingdom and Greece said that Hamas can have no role in a future Gaza but did not condemn the political-terrorist group.

Pakistan and China ignored Hamas. South Korea would only condemn Hamas’s abduction of hostages. Denmark condemned both Hamas’s October 7 massacre and taking of hostages and said there can be no role for Hamas in the future of Gaza.

The sorry state of the UNSC barely mentioning and condemning Hamas and calling for it to face maximum justice is not new. When the council first met in October 2023 at the start of Hamas’s war, only the United States would call out Hamas. At that time I wrote “If and when the United Nations can call out the evil of Hamas, thousands of lives in the region will be saved, and the terrorist group will be on a path for elimination. I am not optimistic.”

We are tens of thousands of dead later, and only a few countries in the Global North have started to call out Hamas, led by Denmark and Panama. The relative silence from France, the United Kingdom, Greece and South Korea is disappointing. The behavior of Slovenia and Russia is appalling.

The countries of the Global North at the UN Security Council must lead in clearly condemning Hamas and insisting that it be dismantled completely. Thousands of additional lives are at stake.

ACTION ITEMS

Thank the United States government and its mission to the UN at (212) 415-4000 for being a leader for placing the blame for the war and ongoing suffering squarely on Hamas.

Thank the governments of Panama (emb@panama-un.org, 212.421.5420) and Denmark (nycmis@um.dk, 212.308.7009) for clearly condemning Hamas.

Contact the UN missions from France (212.702.4900), the UK (212.745.9200), Greece (212.888.6900, grdel.un@mfa.gr), and South Korea (212.439.4000, korea.un@mofa.go.kr) and ask them to do more.

Vilify Russia (212.861.4900) and Slovenia (212.370.3007) for allowing barbarism to go unmentioned and putting thousands of additional lives at risk.

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)

A Note To The British Foreign Minister

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The British Foreign Minister David Lammy and the UK Ambassador to Israel Simon Walters took aim at the Jewish State for launching fresh attacks against Hamas in Gaza. Despite the political-terrorist group still controlling the region and continuing to hold dozens of Israeli hostages, Walters said “at some point the fighting has to stop and the diplomacy begin. That point is now.”

It is worth reminding the British about June 6, 1944, known as D-Day. The British declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939 after Germany invaded Poland, even though Germany hadn’t killed a single Brit. Five years of war later, the British decided that it needed to take the war to Germany and invaded Europe. The British lost 350 soldiers on that day and about twice that number were wounded. The British would continue to battle the Nazis for almost another year, including firebombing campaigns on Dresden and Hamburg. It is estimated that 25,000 German civilians died in Dresden alone, a subset of over 2 million German civilians who were killed during the war.

Eventually, the Nazis surrendered and agreements with Great Britain were struck.

The British casualties from D-Day are in contrast to the toll of dead Israelis on October 7, who were mostly civilians. Gazans murdered 3.4 times the number of people in Israel than the Germans killed British soldiers on D-Day. The number of injured Israelis on that terrible day was over four times the number of British soldiers during their massive invasion of Europe.

When Lammy said “Diplomacy, not more bloodshed, is how we get security for Israelis and Palestinians,” he has seemingly forgotten that diplomacy will only come about once the genocidal jihadists are defeated and moderate leadership has assumed control, to ultimately forge a viable and sustainable relationship with Israel.

Lammy made that comment after he told the British House of Commons that Israel’s blockade on Gaza violates international law, even though a 2011 report stated that the Gaza blockade is “legal” and complies “with the requirements of international law.”

The current reality is that Hamas has said that they will not surrender and release the hostages. They continue to gather new recruits – all educated by UNRWA to despise Jews and that their future is in Israel – to attempt to repeat their barbarism in Israel again-and-again.

Israel has a genocidal war machine ON ITS BORDER which INITIATED A BARBARIC ATTACK and which refuses to surrender. It is quite a different dynamic than the British opting to fight the Nazis 80 years ago.

But time and place afford the British foreign minister to play armchair warrior and judge, neither one well.

As penned on these pages a decade ago after the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket terrorism in Paris, “Today’s war on terrorism will continue to be waged when nations see their interests being threatened. The outpouring of emotion will also be rooted in selfish preservation.” Some of the leaders in Britain see their interests and self preservation advanced by throwing Israel under the bus, hoping to keep the jihadists in their midst at bay, sitting out the war on terror 3,600km away.

The British foreign minister would do well to remember that defeat is often a precondition for diplomacy and a path towards enduring security.

Related articles:

Sharansky on Churchill’s “We Shall Fight Them On The Beaches” Speech For Jews Today (December 2023)

Hamas Is The Very Definition Of A Genocidal Group (November 2023)

BBC Welcomes Release of British Muslim Accused of Beheading Daniel Pearl (April 2020)

Extreme and Mainstream. Germany 1933; West Bank & Gaza Today (October 2014)