Tag Archives: United States

Israel’s Unicorn Boom Is Much Newer — and More American — Than You Think

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Charts regularly circulate showing the countries with the most “unicorns” — private companies that achieve valuations of at least $1 billion. Divide the totals by population and tiny Israel suddenly jumps toward the top of the world.

But the headline number obscures a three more interesting stories.

Israel did not spend 75 years steadily accumulating unicorns. Most of its unicorn phenomenon is remarkably recent. And many of the companies created by Israelis aren’t headquartered in Israel at all.

Then there is what these companies actually do.

Put those three pieces together — when they emerged, where they are headquartered and what they sell — and Israel’s unicorn story looks like a specialized company-production machine for today’s world.

The Unicorn Explosion

In 2011, only 16 new unicorns were created in the entire world. Israel was hardly overflowing with them either. TechAviv data show Israel produced just four new unicorns in 2015 and nine in 2019.

Then the curve turned sharply upward.

Israel produced 19 new unicorns in 2020 and 42 in 2021. By December 2021, TechAviv counted 79 Israeli-founded unicorns. By December 2022, there were 98.

That means the Israeli unicorn story people now take for granted is largely a phenomenon of the last several years.

“Israel ranked first globally in terms of its number of technology unicorns per capita. As of 2025, the country’s startup scene contained 90 active tech unicorns, and raised billions of dollars in investments annually. These are indicators of an exceptionally well performing startup ecosystem, which forms the basis of the country’s robust technology industry.” – Statista.com

The cheap-money technology boom certainly helped. Valuations soared everywhere in 2020 and 2021. But Israel’s performance was exceptional even within that global frenzy.

Israeli Unicorn Doesn’t Necessarily Mean in Israel

Of the 79 Israeli-founded unicorns counted at the end of 2021, only 33 — 42% — were headquartered in Israel.

The rest were spread around the world:

  • 19 in New York.
  • 15 in Silicon Valley.
  • 5 in Boston.
  • 3 in London.
  • 2 in Los Angeles.
  • 1 in Singapore.
  • 1 in Chicago.

A year later, the ratio was almost identical. Of 98 Israeli-founded unicorns in December 2022, 40 were headquartered in Israel and 58 abroad. Silicon Valley had 24 and New York had 19.

So roughly three out of every five Israeli-founded unicorns were headquartered outside Israel.

That matters when looking at those viral country rankings. A ranking based strictly on corporate headquarters can count an Israeli-founded company as American. A ranking based upon where the entrepreneurs came from can count the same company as Israeli.

Israel is creating companies for a market vastly larger than Israel.

What Israel Is Creating

Israeli unicorns aren’t distributed evenly across the economy. The country’s technology ecosystem has become increasingly concentrated around enterprise software, fintech and cybersecurity.

The Israel Innovation Authority found that these three categories represented 29.4% of companies founded in 2013 but 42% by 2021. By 2022 they were attracting 53.4% of all investment in Israeli startups.

Cybersecurity is particularly extraordinary.

Dealroom currently counts 26 cybersecurity unicorns headquartered in Israel. It calculates that Israel is 9.15 times more represented in cybersecurity unicorns than its overall share of the world’s unicorn population would predict. Tel Aviv alone ranks behind only the Bay Area in Dealroom’s global cyber-unicorn count.

And that is based on headquarters. It therefore doesn’t fully capture Israeli-founded cyber companies headquartered in places such as New York and Boston.

Israel also over-indexes in semiconductors, health technology and medtech, although nowhere close to its extraordinary concentration in cyber.

Meanwhile, the composition of Israeli technology has been changing.

Communications — historically one of Israel’s great technology strengths, including hardware infrastructure and chips — represented about 8% of newly established Israeli technology companies in 2013. By 2022 it was just 1.7%.

” In H1 2025, High-Tech accounted for 57% of all Israeli exports, the highest share ever recorded. The export mix points to a clear trend: 72% software services versus 28% High-Tech industry. This means Israel is increasingly reliant on software services exports, while the High-Tech industry, including the defense industry, has been relatively stagnant.  Israel increasingly went from building the pipes to building the software running through them.” – Israel Innovation Authority

Israel Invents. America Scales.

That industry mix helps explain the geography.

A cybersecurity company potential customers are banks, governments and Fortune 500 corporations around the planet. An enterprise-software company can develop its technology in Tel Aviv while putting executives and salespeople close to customers in New York. A fintech company can maintain Israeli engineering operations while establishing its corporate headquarters in the world’s largest financial market.

And those American headquarters aren’t simply mailing addresses.

In 2023, the United States–Israel Business Alliance identified 88 Israeli-founded unicorns with global or regional headquarters in the United States. Together, those companies employed nearly 62,000 people worldwide.

The available data do not establish how many of those employees were specifically in America, so the 62,000 should not be described as American jobs. But broader state studies show that Israeli-founded companies have become meaningful American employers. In California alone, Israeli-founded companies directly employed more than 14,000 people, with their broader economic activity supporting more than 22,000 jobs.

That economic relationship runs in both directions.

American venture-capital and private-equity firms finance Israeli entrepreneurs. Israeli founders establish U.S. headquarters and hire American salespeople, executives and other employees. American corporations then acquire some of the most successful companies, bringing Israeli-developed technology inside American businesses.

Google’s acquisition of Israeli-founded Wiz for $32 billion provides an extraordinary recent example. Cisco agreed to buy Israeli-founded CyberArk for approximately $25 billion in 2025. Intel’s earlier $15.3 billion acquisition of Mobileye demonstrated the same model on a massive scale. Three Israeli technology companies. More than $70 billion of announced acquisition value. Three American buyers.

The relationship is particularly important because Israel’s strongest sectors overlap with technologies the United States increasingly considers strategic: cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and advanced computing.

The Israeli and American ecosystems therefore aren’t competing with one another for unicorns. They are often parts of the same machine.

Israel supplies entrepreneurs, engineers, military-trained cyber expertise and dense technical networks. The United States supplies enormous customers, deep pools of capital, experienced executives and the world’s largest technology exit market.

The result is a peculiar multinational organism: Israeli-created, frequently American-headquartered, American-financed and globally sold.

A Very Young Herd

Israel’s unicorn phenomenon is not simply impressive because a country of roughly ten million people has produced so many billion-dollar technology companies. It is impressive because the herd appeared so quickly.

It is unusual because most of the herd established headquarters outside the country that produced its founders.

And it is revealing because the herd increasingly congregated in a few industries where Israel developed extraordinary comparative advantages — particularly cybersecurity, enterprise software and fintech.

For Americans, there is another reason to care.

Israel’s technology success isn’t occurring on the other side of the world in isolation from the American economy. Some of the value Israel creates lands in New York, California, Massachusetts and elsewhere in the United States — as headquarters, jobs, investment opportunities, technology and acquisitions.

The familiar unicorn-per-capita chart therefore captures only the surface. The deeper story isn’t that Israel has a lot of unicorns.

Over the last decade, Israel became very good at manufacturing global technology companies — together with American capital and talent.

The Shadow Of Trump’s Ukraine On The Middle East

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The two major wars grabbing world attention for the past couple of years has been Russia-Ukraine and Iranian Proxies led by Gaza-Israel. While Russia invaded Ukraine and the two have largely faced off with Russia maintaining about 20% of Ukraine, Gazans invaded Israel and got decimated.

President Trump’s recent interaction with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy this week has made some in the pro-Israel community nervous. If Trump will side with the aggressor (Russia), will he also back Gazans and Iran against Israel?

Devolution of exchange starts at 40:00, when Zelenskyy challenges ability to have diplomacy with Russia which does not abide by agreements

I believe that it is a misreading of Trump’s policy of America First.

Trump likes winners. Winners have the strength and position to negotiate deals, whereas losers ask for handouts. If Russia is declared the winner in the midst of the war and able to annex large chunks of Ukraine, the United States will negotiate important mineral deals with Russia rather than with Ukraine.

Gaza has nothing to offer America other than real estate. The region is in shambles and will require billions of dollars to redevelop. The political-terrorist group Hamas still rules the strip and Gazans have proven themselves morally bankrupt in supporting the massacre of innocent people in Israel. Why would Trump want to engage with the initiators of a war which they completely lost? His inclination would be to side with the Israeli victors who have a thriving liberal society and economy with leading technology to trade with the United States.

President Trump just approved nearly $3 billion in arms sales to Israel to help replenish its arsenal over the multi-front war with Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Gaza and the West Bank. Those arms should help neuter various terrorist groups and position the United States to negotiate an end to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Kibbutz Be’eri burned by Gazan invaders during massacre on October 7, 2023

People think such action is based on short-term thinking but it is about long-term planning. If the parties in conflict have assets and relationships which the U.S. covets, it will engage with those in charge who can deliver. If they are the more moral and ethical as is the case for Israel, so much the better.

Jason Greenblatt, who worked for Donald Trump for decades in his real estate office before working in the first Trump administration developing a new roadmap to peace between Israel and its neighbors made clear that Zelenskyy butchered a chance to help Ukrainians by not understanding how Trump operates, tweeting “Whoever prepared President @ZelenskyyUa for the Oval Office meeting with @POTUS & @VP did an absolutely terrible job! Zelenskyy did not pay attention to the messaging that was coming out of @WhiteHouse for a while now. President Trump is interested in protecting interests 1st & foremost. That’s his job, no matter how people feel about Ukraine. He also wants to end the death & destruction in Ukraine if a logical deal can be made. Hard to believe how Zelenskyy let this devolve instead of taking the cues. What a shame for Ukraine.”

In 2017, during Trump’s first term, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas failed to understand and capitalize on Trump’s efforts for Palestinian Arabs and let the relationship completely devolve. Abbas is trying to play catch up now by trying to arrest terrorists east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL / “West Bank”). It is unclear if that will be enough to impress the administration that has watched Israel be a strong partner.

Trump’s “America First” policy may sometimes run against the wronged party, as in Ukraine. In the Middle East, Americans will have comfort that Trump has an ally which is strong, moral, has much intellectual property to benefit Americans and deeply appreciates the relationship with the U.S.

Related articles:

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

Naked Trades in the Middle East (September 2020)

Israel, the Liberal Country of the Middle East (March 2015)

Next Step For Trump’s Visa Program: Gaza

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

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

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

Conditions in America’s Visa Waiver Program.

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

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

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

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

ACTION ITEM

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

Related articles:

The Diaspora Intifada (September 2024)

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

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

The Broke-n Generation

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Today’s youth are a sorry lot.

In the aftermath of the targeted killing of a healthcare insurance executive, more 18-29 year olds thought that the assassination was justified than thought it unjustified (41% to 40%) according to a DailyMail poll. The Gen Z generation was an outlier compared to every other age group, with those over 50 years old having 10% or fewer believing that the killing was justified.

The peculiar morality of 18-29 year olds is not limited to their view of the insurance industry. In the aftermath of the Hamas slaughter of Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, a Harvard poll showed that 60% of 18 to 24 year old thought that the attack was justified. Half of that age group supported Hamas (compared to 4% for people over 65) and 51% said they thought Israel should be liquidated and handed to Hamas.

Why is there such depravity and celebration of violence amongst today’s youth?

According to a Yale poll conducted in the fall of 2024, the majority (52.5%) of Americans under 30 years old consider themselves liberal. Only one-quarter are conservative, and those that are, are only “somewhat conservative.”

These under 30 liberals are not typically perceived as violent. According to Pew Research, they have the lowest gun ownership in America. According to a PBS poll, it is Republicans that are more likely to resort to violence “get the country back on track,” not the left (which should not be surprising as the poll was taken under a Democratic presidency; should the poll be conducted again under a Trump administration, it would be curious to see the results).

Further, according to a McCourtney poll in January 2024, Gen Z youth are the least angry age group in the U.S. They also tend to feel the most pride for certain things.

The various polls seem incongruous. On one hand, Gen Z youth applaud murder but are generally not as angry or prone to violence according to polls.

One observation made by the Brookings Institute is that today’s youth is much more diverse racially and ethnically than older generations, as well as compared to youth of prior generations. It means that current polling data may be wrong depending on the sample set selected, and it means that age may be only one determinant of how young people view the world.

Brookings Institute warns of polling data for today’s youth

Another factor is perhaps social.

Gen Z was more impacted by the pandemic and its lockdowns than other generations, forced to spend high school and college at home and behind masks. They grew up and went through puberty with social media and texting on their cellphones as the main methods of engagement rather than physically interacting with peers and society.

Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, said that Gen Z is suffering from a serious mental health crisis. He views this generation as more depressed and susceptible to self-harm. His analysis highlights correlation rather than causation, as there are very few Gen Z without social media to compare. The podcast linked above considers that maybe more anxious youth spend more time on social media than less anxious people, so the correlation may be from the self-selected initiators rather than from platform engagement.

Polls have looked at Gen Z’s attitudes regarding societal values. According to a 2022 Gallup poll, those aged 18-29 were much more likely to believe that companies should be more focused on long-term benefits of society than profitability. They are much more likely than older Americans to leave a position at a firm if they disagreed with the company’s values.

Those opinions are seemingly not limited to corporate America. Harvard’s December 2021 poll showed that young Americans were very unhappy with President Biden and Congress and “over a third think they may see a second U.S. civil war within their lifetimes.” While Gen Z may not be carrying guns, they believe that society is broken and war is coming.

Beyond society being broken, they personally feel broke. According to a 2024 NBC poll, the most pressing matter for Gen Z by far was inflation and the cost of living (31%), ahead of “threats to democracy” at 11%. Crime, immigration, foreign affairs and other matters were all far behind.

NBC poll of Gen Z before 2024 presidential election

None of the polls are perfect but the assembly of all this data leads to some disturbing conclusions about Gen Z today:

  • they are distressed – emotionally and financially – disconnected from society because of masks and technology
  • they do not see a secure future, whether because of personal financial stress or because they believe the system is rigged against them
  • they have no faith in institutions – whether government or corporations – to look out for them and society
  • while they may not be inclined or able to commit violence themselves, they empathize with those who do

It sounds like the backdrop for the movie Joker, with a society ready to venerate murder as a pathway for validation and justice. It’s Gen Z’s desire to rip down the establishment in a brewing civil war which more closely resembles the French Revolution than the 19th century war between the states.

While the fictional Joker character was understood to be deeply troubled, Hamas and Luigi Mangione, the killer of the United Healthcare CEO, are being portrayed as deeply righteous. Professors at universities are praising the killers, and pointing to “wealthy Jews” as operating “behind the curtain” (to quote Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)) to entrench a corrupt system for selfish goals. The media echoes the “powerful Jew” and corrupt Republican/”White supremacy”/patriarchy themes to incite the masses. They make playing cards of other insurance executives to target.

The youth are marching with chants to “Globalize the Intifada“, to bring the October 7 massacres to every corner of the world. They are picking infidels in each town and industry to target for their rage.

March in New York City

Gen Z’s embrace of anarchy is being encouraged by liberal media, the education system, radical left wing organizations and America’s foreign foes. Each is influencing and validating “the anxious generation,” seeking TikTok moments to clone the next Joker, attempting to destroy the United States from within.

Global Jewry Is Losing Australia, Canada, France, Germany and UK

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The United Nations General Assembly passed one of the most anti-Israel resolutions in its history on December 3, 2024. Titled “Peaceful settlement of the Question of Palestine,” drafted on November 25, it demands that Israel surrender to every Palestinian Arab demand, including giving up every inch of land that Israel recaptured in its defensive June 1967 war, removing all Jews from those lands to recreate the ethnically-cleansed situation advanced by the Jordanian army in the 1948/9 war, and to settle millions of Palestinian Arabs who never lived in Israel, into Israel.

The resolution passed with 157 states in favor, eight against (Argentina, Hungary, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and the U.S.) and seven abstentions (Cameroon, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Georgia, Paraguay, Ukraine and Uruguay).

Where was Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom in rejecting this horribly biased resolution? Even though votes at the General Assembly hold no legal weight, the antisemitic vote amidst the global wave of antisemitism is both revolting and frightening.

And the resolution IS ANTI-JEWISH.

Section 7 demands that Israel “evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian territory” and stop “modifying the demographic composition of any parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.” That’s a direct call to remove Jews – and only Jews – from all lands east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL) including Judaism’s holiest location of the Old City of Jerusalem.

“Settlers” means Jews – and only Jews – at the UN.

“Demographic composition” means the presence of Jews – and only Jews – at the UN.

The paltry number of Jews in the world are concentrated in a handful of countries today. Israel and the United States account for roughly 85% of global Jewry, but significant numbers live in France (453,000), Canada (391,000), UK (290,000), Germany (116,000) and Australia (113,000). These countries are seeing a toxic tsunami of Jew hatred run through the streets over the past year, and the governments are now blessing the idea that Jews should be banned from certain lands and stripped of basic human rights, even in their holy land.

The UN has moved passed the “Zionism is racism” resolution of the 1970s and sanctioned Jew hatred. If Jews can be confined to certain locations and banned from others in the Jewish holy land, it stands to reason that they can easily be placed into ghettoes and denied rights everywhere else.

Israel may be winning the regional war militarily, but global Jewry is losing basic human rights in the process.

Sick Societies Awash In Antisemitism

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Berlin, Germany’s top cop, Barbara Slowik, issued a warning to Jews and gay people, “There are areas of the city, we need to be perfectly honest here, where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay to be more careful.” She added “There are certain neighborhoods where the majority of people of Arab origin live, who also have sympathies for terrorist groups.”

New York’s Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) was outraged by the warning. He said “A healthy society tells its Jewish community: “We will keep you safe.” A sick society tells its Jewish community: “You should go in hiding.” Antisemitism is a sign of societal sickness.”

He is right. But the problem isn’t solely on Holocaust soil. It is a growing presence in the United States.

On May 21, 2021, President Biden’s Jewish Engagement Director Aaron Keyak posted on X “It pains me to say this, but if you fear for your life or physical safety take off your kippah and hide your magen david (Jewish star),” in response to growing antisemitic attacks coming from the jihadi-socialist alliance.

That was two and one half years before the October 7 Palestinian Arab massacre of Israelis and spike of jihadism in the United States.

Keyak lives and breathes the world of Democratic politics and interfaith relations. As profiled in his bio on the State Department site where he serves as Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism since November 2021, “Deputy Special Envoy Keyak is an experienced leader and interfaith coalition builder who has previously held senior roles advising members of Congress, the Obama Administration, and the Biden-Harris Administration transition team.”

People operating in the highest ranks of the U.S. government whose job is to combat antisemitism, liaise with the Jewish community and build interfaith relationships, told the Jewish community that they must hide. He tacitly gave permission for pogroms since law enforcement would do little or nothing.

It is a deep descent from George Washington’s letter to a synagogue in Rhode Island written in 1790 in which he wrote “For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

There is a moral rot in the left flank of the Democratic Party, which has demanded sanction to bigotry and assistance to the persecution of Jews. It is not only an abandonment of Jews but to the principles of America.

Joe Biden was elected by many in the hopes of healing the division in America but he laid bare the “societal sickness” of licensed antisemitism. It is no wonder that Jews voted for Donald Trump in 2024, in the greatest percentage for any Republican in 36 years.

Related articles:

I Did Not Vote For Trump in 2016 or 2020. I am Voting For Him Now. (November 2024)

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

The Disappearing Jew (July 2024)

Jews Are A Minority-Minority (November 2023)

Israel And Jews Everywhere Must Be Protected As An Ethnic, Religious And Linguistic Minority (September 2022)

The Downhill Spiral From Washington To Biden On Anti-Semitism And Jewish Freedom of Worship (May 2022)

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

Vote ‘No’ On New York’s Proposition 1

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New York State is putting forward a proposal on the November ballot to change the state’s constitution. Specifically, it adds categories of “protected classes” and enables judges to override them if they feel that a situation is warranted.

The text reads:

Concurrent Resolution of the Senate and Assembly proposing an amendment to section 11 of article 1 of the constitution, in relation to equal protection

Section 1. Resolved (if the Assembly concur), That section 11 of article 1 of the constitution be amended to read as follows:

§ 11. a. No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws of this state or any subdivision thereof. No person shall, because of race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, creed [or], religion, or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy, be subjected to any discrimination in [his or her] their civil rights by any other person or by any firm, corporation, or institution, or by the state or any agency or subdivision of the state, pursuant to law.

b. Nothing in this section shall invalidate or prevent the adoption of any law, regulation, program, or practice that is designed to prevent or dismantle discrimination on the basis of a characteristic listed in this section, nor shall any characteristic listed in this section be interpreted to interfere with, limit, or deny the civil rights of any person based upon any other characteristic identified in this section.

   §  2. Resolved (if the Assembly concur), That the foregoing amendment be submitted to the people for approval at the general election to be held in the year 2024 in accordance with the provisions of the election law.

Explanation – Matter in underscored is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted.

New York State is a Democratic super-majority trifecta: The Democratic Party controls the office of governor and both chambers of the state legislature, of Assembly (100 to 48) and Senate (42-21). Democrats are using their muscle to push forward a controversial proposal which sounds benign but gives judges wide latitude to advance preferred classes of people over others.

Advocates for the constitutional amendment like Governor Hochul argue that its about abortion rights. Yet many have written articles suggesting that such argument is absurd as New York already amended the constitution to permit an abortion until the moment of birth for any reason. Asian New Yorkers see the proposition as “reverse racism” which will kick qualified Asian students out of better schools in favor of preferred minorities. Others argue that this is a “pernicious” attempt to “throw out the New York human rights act,” in favor of pushing DEI everywhere (diversity, equity and inclusion).

Religious institutions are alarmed by the proposition and urging voters to vote ‘no.’

The president of Houghton University, a 141-year-old Christian university, said “the proposed amendments to the state constitution would adversely affect our institution, our students and our employees. The most significant of those adverse effects are related to parental rights, women’s athletics and religious liberty…. Proposal 1 and other similar inclusion measures overstep constitutional religious liberty protections when they prevent people of faith from freely exercising their religion. It is not inclusive to force people of faith to believe or behave in a manner that is inconsistent with their religious beliefs, to force them to raise their children in a manner that contradicts their religious beliefs, or for the state to attempt to raise their children in a manner that contradicts their religious beliefs while hiding state actions from their parents.”

Jewish institutions are similarly against the proposition, with Agudath Israel releasing a statement on October 15 urging everyone to reject the amendment to the constitution.

The Empire Center produced a detailed and balanced analysis of equal rights laws and the ramification of Prop 1. It concluded that the language in this proposition is so vague that it will pit one class of protected persons against another, spur constant litigation and give judges tremendous leeway to create policy of their personal preferences. It suggested that New Yorkers vote ‘no’ and “hold out for an equal rights amendment that solves more problems than it creates.”

The Deep Blue super-majority trifecta of New York State government is attempting to upend protections that have existed since 1938 to enforce DEI mandates in every aspect of New Yorker’s day-to-day lives. Vote ‘no’ to Proposition 1 and send a clear message that New Yorkers reject the government pitting citizens against each other.

Related articles:

‘Tis The Season To Vote And Donate Jewish (April 2024)

Vote To Sanctify The Separation Of Powers (November 2022)

Vote Purple (October 2020)

Please Don’t Vote for a Democratic Socialist (November 2018)

The Diary Of Anne Frank Redux, In The United States Today

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Anne Frank was a young teenager living in Amsterdam when the Nazis invaded Holland. She went into hiding in an attic with her family, fearful of genocidal maniacs who roamed the streets. For a few years, she kept a personal diary of her thoughts and how she and her family were living in hiding, before ultimately being discovered and sent to their deaths. Her diary has become an important document read by people around the world about a disgraceful period in human history which began with hatred, lawlessness and fear, and ultimately genocide.

People today – especially young people – live their lives online. With postings on Instagram, X/Twitter, TikTok and Facebook, people share their thoughts and activities with friends and strangers.

So when hate and lawlessness come for Jewish youth in the United States today, anyone around the world can see and read the testimony. The brave came to congress to testify about their classmates calling for the genocide of Jews. The unbowed sued their universities for not providing a safe environment. The fighters came onto the public stage and recounted the scourge of antisemitism they experience going to classes.

But they are few. Most young Jews are trying to just experience high school and college. They let teachers’ snide comments about “Jewish baby killers” go by, lest they lose a grade. They don’t report their mezuzahs being torn down at their dorm, pretending they fell on their own. They hide in rooms and skip events and parties with peers who have revealed themselves to be Jew haters.

Some young and older Jews have quietly lobbied for change at schools and local governments. Others have opted for a less forward approach such as writing blogs.

This blog, First One Through, started ten years ago in May 2014 as the Obama Administration was failing to secure a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as well as failing to end the Iranian nuclear program. It focused on the terrible media coverage, particularly of The New York Times, in excusing and ignoring any horrible action by the Democratic administration and Islamists, while sparing no vicious ink on the Jewish State.

Over time, the posts captured the media’s antisemitic bias, which included deliberately obfuscating the direct connection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. It described America’s priorities in fighting racism while ignoring growing Jew hatred. It detailed the moral rot of the United Nations and America’s leading universities.

Over 1,500 articles by a single author over the decade.

While the Shoah Foundation has collected important testimonies of thousands of Holocaust survivors about their recollections of World War II, they are colored by history and age. Anne Frank’s diary gives us something unique: a vision of a world gone mad in real-time, without the perfect hindsight of how the story played out.

We are witnessing Anne Frank in students’ public testimonies and blogs penned by those who prefer the written word. It is imperative to heed their warnings and to take actions to help them and mass of Jewish students in hiding.

And preserve western civilization as we know it.

Related articles:

Bewildered (May 2024)

The Rising Generation Discusses Universities (October 2023)

Act Against The Antisemitic Slanderers And Definitely Those In Power (August 2023)

The Building’s Auschwitz Tattoo (April 2020)

Organized and Disorganized Antisemitism (January 2020)

The March of Silent Feet (January 2020)

The Insidious Jihad in America (July 2019)

The Holocaust Will Not Be Colorized. The Holocaust Will Be Live. (May 2019)

Watching Jewish Ghosts (March 2018)

Wearing Our Beliefs (December 2015)

US Equates Jews Living In West Bank With Terrorism

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US Ambassador to the United Nations lambasts “settlement activity.”

What happened: Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US Ambassador to the United Nations replied to remarks made by Tor Wennesland, UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, at the UN Security Council on August 21, 2023. After condemning all acts of violence, whether committed by “Palestinian militants, or extremist Israeli settlers”, she added:

“we urge all parties to take proactive measures to counter all forms of violence and incitement to violence, and refrain from actions that inflame tensions including settlement activity, evictions, the demolition of Palestinian homes, terrorism, incitement of violence, and payments to the families of terrorists.”

The Message: The United States has taken the position that Jews living east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49) (commonly called “settlers”) is so upsetting to Arabs that it is on the same level as Palestinians killing Jewish civilians.

It suggests that the US position is that Israeli “actions that inflame tensions,” which could be normal non-violent activity such as Jews visiting the Jewish Temple Mount during normal visiting hours, is equivalent to Palestinians inciting violence and the Arab government paying for the murder.

Scene after Palestinian Arab killed Israeli father and son at a car wash in the West Bank, August 2023

The Danger: There is no moral equivalence between terrorism and… anything. By equating the payment, incitement and actual murder of people with anything, is a tacit blessing to engage in every kind of preventative activity – including violence – to stop such actions from taking place. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it greenlights Palestinian jihadists to attack Jews sleeping in their beds, visiting a car wash or praying in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Email UN Mission to UN: “There is no equivalence between Arab terror and Jews upsetting Palestinians with their presence.”

Related articles:

UN Coordinator For Middle East Does Not Condemn Use Of Children As Terrorists

The UN Coordinator For Palestinian Appeals

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity

A New Low: UN Saddened By Deaths of Terrorists

UN Lies About Palestinians Favoring Two States

“I’ll Take Terrorism for Millions of U.S. Dollars, Alex”

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President Barack Obama pressured the Palestinian Authority to stop inciting terrorism against Israeli civilians late in his second term. The Consolidated Appropriation Act of 2016 outlined that the State Department should reduce funds to the PA “equivalent to the amount expended by the Palestinian Authority as payments for acts of terrorism by individuals who are imprisoned after being fairly tried and convicted for acts of terrorism and by individuals who died committing acts of terrorism.” That Act was followed by the Taylor Force Act which “condition[ed] assistance to the West Bank and Gaza on steps by the Palestinian Authority to end violence and terrorism against Israeli citizens.“

PA President Mahmoud Abbas was unmoved and refused to stop the very popular “Pay-to-Slay” program which rewarded terrorists and their families based on their crimes and how long they served in Israeli jails.

President Trump continued to act upon U.S. principles to withdraw American largess when Abbas said that he celebrated martyrs and was commitment to pay Palestinian terrorist families “even if it costs PA its last penny.” Trump not only pulled donations from the PA but from UNRWA, the United Nations agency which employs 30,000 Palestinians to handle the education, healthcare, housing and small business loans for 6.3 million Palestinian Arabs.

While funding to the Palestinians withered during Trump’s term, so did the wars and terrorist activity. The wars from Gaza which began shortly after Obama was elected (2008-9) continued with wars in 2012 and 2014, followed by the “Stabbing and Car Ramming Intifada” from the West Bank in 2015-6, slowed to a low boil. Overall, 47 Israelis were killed by Arab terrorists during Trump’s term, the lowest tally in any four year span going back decades. This coincided with the fewest Palestinians killed during the four Trump years due to the lack of any large scale attacks.

Enter President Joe Biden in 2021, who made clear his desire to start giving money to Palestinians without insisting on reforms to their laws or activities. Biden’s team began to work with the PA to figure out ways to funnel it funds without tripping U.S. laws. Some ideas floated had the “martyr” families getting “jobs” with the PA for which they needn’t show. Another considered using the Palestinian Postal system to make the prisoner payments as the U.S. laws were directed at banks.

Ha ha. HAMAS leaders know better.

Rather than having a trickle of money pour into Palestinian pockets, they manufactured a “humanitarian crisis.” They launched rockets (which had been gathering dust during the Trump years) from densely populated Gaza neighborhoods into Israeli towns, inviting retaliatory strikes causing tremendous damage to lives and infrastructure. Palestinians then mobilized with follow-up appeals to the global community, complete with pictures of children amid the rubble as they cast themselves as victims to a charged anti-Zionist audience.

The United States reduced funding to the Palestinian Authority because of its refusal to stop INCITING terrorism, but now plans to pour hundreds of millions of dollars because of COMMITING terrorism. Such is the finesse of HAMAS, playing on the stupidity of an administration which refuses to hold terrorists accountable as well as eager to cut checks to anyone who looks like a victim.

Related First One Through articles:

Gazans Support Killing Jewish Civilians

Liberal Senators Look to Funnel Money into Gaza

Quantifying the Values of Gazans

Looking at Gaza Through Swedish Glasses

The UN Must Pay to Repair the Gaza Fence

The United Nations Can Hear the Songs of Gazans, but Cannot See Their Rockets

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

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