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.
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 multipleone-sidedanti-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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
During the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as you fast and pray and reflect on life, I would like to ask you to consider incorporating the Christian approach of Lent in the period before Easter, in which people give up on certain things they enjoy as a form of penance to grow spiritually.
While Christians normally give up on something that they enjoy physically, like alcohol, meat and candy, I request that you relinquish the dozens of hostages which you stole from their homes in Israel.
Ramadan is meant to be a time of increased charity and kindness towards others. It is a time for gathering together as a community for evening meals. All of this can be achieved by releasing all of the hostages. None of this can be achieved while holding them captive.
To date, the world has been shown by your actions that those who have a deep Islamic faith burn families alive, rape women and intentionally murder babies. Show the world a different face: hand over the Israeli hostages to their worried families. Help end the fighting which has decimated Gaza because of your stubbornness to keep Israeli civilians in tunnels for over 500 days.
Leaders do not always charge into battle; they can lead with humble faith that allows for peace and spiritual growth for all of their people.
Use this time to show an Islam of peace to the world, not one devoted to producing the maximum number of martyrs.
The world will not wait for you. You have to make the move.
The barbaric October 7 massacre was the largest slaughter of Jews in the Jewish holy land in almost 2,000 years. Gazans perpetrated the attack on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, when Jews celebrate finishing and restarting reading the Pentateuch each year. The pogrom was on Saturday, the Jewish holy day of rest. It was also on the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, when Islamic Arab armies invaded Israel in 1973, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
In covering the war in various articles on that dark day, The New York Times did not mention that thousands of Gazans decided to invade Israel during the joyful holiday of Simchat Torah. Whether deliberate or not, the large media company headquartered in the city with the largest number of Jews in the Jewish diaspora did not add color that the Palestinian jihadists murdered Jews while the Jewish State celebrated an important religious holiday.
Not so for the woke paper’s coverage of the Gazan-initiated war regarding Islamic holidays.
The Times made a point of telling its readers that the latest fighting in the War From Gaza happened during the month-long Islamic holiday of Ramadan. The insertion of the fact had nothing to do with recounting the military timeline in the sentence or paragraph. It had nothing to do with the entire article. Unless it was the Times’ intent to tell its readers that “the Israeli assault” happened while the parties were “negotiating the next steps in the truce” while Muslims in Gaza were celebrating a religious holiday, to make the Israelis out to be particularly heartless.
New York Times article on March 18, 2025
Perhaps it was just trying to inform its increasing Muslim readership that it the paper is halal.
The Times has long proved its anti-Israel and antisemitic bona fides. It is seemingly looking to promote its pro-Islamic credentials at this time.
Hamas, the political-terrorist group which rules Gaza, refused to release the remaining Israeli hostages and step down from power, after weeks of stalled negotiations with Israel. In the face of the impasse, Israel restarted its military campaign, killing at least five members of Hamas leadership.
In a statement about the death of the terrorists, Hamas offered a eulogy as reported in the Jerusalem Post, saying that its genocidal jihad against Israel was “fulfilling our national duty” and that it remains “committed to our religious obligation and our ethical and professional role… supporting their [Gazans] resilience.” The Hamas War, which it initiated amidst a long stretch of calm with Israel and refuse to abandon, has laid waste to Gaza. In the face of death and destruction, the last of Hamas leadership says that it is “standing firm.”
Hamas believes that it is serving a religious calling to destroy the Jewish State. It cannot compromise on its mission or face a deep reckoning with its religious beliefs. It refers to its antisemitic killing squad members as “martyrs” for a holy jihad, with many more to willingly follow. No compromise is possible with such party.
Hamas is not simply eulogizing five slain leaders of its death cult; it is eulogizing the future of Gazans.
Columbia University had a horrific record of antisemitism on campus in the years preceding the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel that ramped up even more Jew-hatred on campus. In 2019, Alums For Campus Fairness produced a 33-page report documenting dozens of incidents including swastikas drawn on walls, mezuzahs ripped from doors and Jewish history denial from Columbia professors.
Office of Jewish professor at Columbia University covered with swastikas in November 2018
After the October 7 Gazan massacre of Israelis, it became open season on Jews at the formerly esteemed school grounds.
The Jew hatred was so intense that a rabbi at the school advised Jewish students to leave campus because the administration had abandoned them. The school president was forced to resign as anti-Israel agitators broke into buildings and blocked access for Jewish students repeatedly, and the school took little to no action to protect Jewish students despite government warnings.
In light of the school administration’s inaction, the US government began to step in. It sent a letter to Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong on February 13, 2025 listing many of the antisemitic activities at the school, writing it was distressed that “Columbia has allowed these activities to continue.” It demanded that the school produce files related to eleven incidents which took place on campus from April 2024 through January 2025, within two weeks.
In March, the Trump administration began taking action, including suspending grants to the university and taking a leader of the anti-Israel horde into custody. The Trump Administration sent another letter to Columbia on March 13, 2025 demanding action because the university “has fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment.” (emphasis added)
These are all plain facts. Yet in news article after article, and opinion article after opinion over the weekend of March 15, the New York Times would not refer to antisemitism at Columbia. The preferred – and only – narrative was that President Trump was waging war on free speech and opinions he didn’t like.
Somehow, there was no anti-Jewish conduct anywhere at Columbia and Barnard, just a suppression of “pro-Palestinian” speech that created a “volatile and dangerous” atmosphere FOR THE PROTESTORS.
This was clearly deliberate. The Times was seeking to both inflame the public against the Trump Administration as well as to lay a foundational defense for foreign students on American campuses. Framing the situation as free speech versus systemic anti-Jewish conduct is a get-out-of-jail card that Hamas Defenders hope to play.
Jew hatred on college campuses is not just prevalent but systemic and buttressed by a progressive media. It is part of a socialist-jihadi alliance which aims to remove the beleaguered minority-minority from positions of power and influence and replace them with people from the Global South.
Those positions include the physical presence on college campuses as well as in their Jewish homeland.
To whitewash the blatant antisemitism at universities, the socialist-jihadi media avoids mentioning the Jew hatred and attempts to rally the world to save higher education.
The New York Times has attempted to reframe the antisemitic actions at Columbia as a confrontation between an authoritarian Trump Administration and free speech and higher education. In such worldview, the Jewish victims are omitted from the narrative, a nuisance in the progressives’ war for their victims of preference.
The United Nations has 193 countries in the General Assembly, and 134, roughly 70%, are located in what is generally called the “Global South”, a term that has emerged to replace “third world” and “developing economies.” The region accounts for about 80% of the global population, with the difference in figures mostly due to the two largest populations – India and China – being located in the region.
The UN has many committees and agencies. Of all of them, the UN Security Council is the most significant, being the sole entity that can pass international laws. It has five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the USA – and ten non-permanent members which serve two year terms. More than 50 members of the UN have never served on the UNSC, including Israel.
The current UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, thinks that the current UNSC needs to be refashioned for the modern world. He bemoans the fact that no African country has a permanent seat on the council, and the ability for the five permanent members to veto resolutions has allowed some wars – like in Ukraine and Gaza – to continue for too long. He also believes that capitalism as dictated by the Global North has kept the Global South in poverty by charging higher rates of interest and not forgiving debt.
US President Joe Biden favored allowing two African countries to become permanent members of the UNSC but objected to their obtaining veto powers. He thought that the current system of veto rights already made the committee unproductive and adding more members with such rights would impede it further. Others countered that it was time to remove all veto rights. Still others like India, the world’s most populous country, demanded a seat on the committee as well. Arab countries took the opportunity to demand the same.
Negotiations will play out over 2025, with a new US administration under Donald Trump who is much more weary of multilateralism and the United Nations generally. The discussions will mainly focus on Africa, where most of the global growth in population is occurring.
China has invested heavily in Africa, accounting for roughly one-third of the infrastructure projects, and now has global trade of $282 billion with the continent. Its actions helped it surpass the United States in terms of popularity (58% to 56%). The US must consider how it interacts with the African continent directly and what steps it takes at the UN as it fights its shadow war with China.
Those who spend their lives focused on the UN and global politics have been debating which two countries should join the UNSC. If the seats go to the countries with the largest economies, it would favor South Africa ($373 billion) and Egypt ($347 billion). If it is awarded based on population, it would go to Nigeria (232 million) and Ethiopia (132 million). Others consider the Democratic Republic of Congo (109 million and one of the fastest growing population at +3.3% in 2024) which has been decimated by ongoing violence. Including a country which has longed for peace might make sense at the Security Council.
For people who focus on another country which has dreamed of calm – the Jewish State of Israel – the changes to the UNSC are extremely important.
Overall, the Global South is much more anti-Israel than the Global North. All 28 countries that refuse to recognize the State of Israel are located there. Almost every country in the Global South recognizes Palestine while a minority of the Global North recognizes such entity.
Since the Iranian Proxies War on Israel, South Africa has led the charge against Israel at the International Court of Justice, claiming Israel’s defensive war was a “genocide.” Those joining South Africa were almost all from the Global South, with the exceptions of Belgium, Ireland and Spain from Europe.
The dynamic of a change at the UNSC will not only impact Israel but possibly Jews around the world as witnessed by the spike of global antisemitic attacks since the October 7 massacre. In the United States, the majority of international students at universities come from the Global South, and an empowerment of their voices at the Security Council may exacerbate Jew hatred everywhere.
While people are focused on the genocidal jihad that brought violence against Jews in Israel and the United States watching movies like October 8, attention must include the impending harm that may come to Jews everywhere with changes at the United Nations Security Council.
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Write the White House to share your concerns of changes to the United Nations Security Council
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