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ISRAEL

The West is complicit in Hamas’s torture of the hostages The recognition of Palestine is a sick reward for Hamas’s anti-Semitic atrocities. Brendan O’Neill

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/08/04/the-west-is-complicit-in-hamass-torture-of-the-hostages/

We know why Hamas would drag two Jews underground and starve them: because it is an army of anti-Semites founded with the express intention of persecuting Jews. We know why it would humiliate the Jews further by taunting them on film, forcing one to dig his own grave for the cameras and capturing the other weeping in ravenous pain: because it revels in the psychological torment of what it views as a ‘lesser people’. And we know why it would marshal these two skeletal men – Evyatar David, 24, and Rom Bravslavski, 21 – to the end of horrifying the people of Israel: because its sole motivation is to wound, ideally fatally, the Jewish State.

But here’s my question: how do we explain Hamas’s lack of shame over what it inflicted on those two Jews? What lies behind the pride with which it paraded its crimes before the world media? To mimic the Nazis and jail Jews for being Jews before reducing them to raw-boned shadows of their former selves – that’s one thing. But to boast about it, to publish the videos, to show the world the inhuman consequences of your fascistic delirium – that’s another thing entirely. Why is Hamas so content to revel in its aping of the racist hysterias of the past?

It’s because it feels emboldened. It senses that it enjoys a kind of moral impunity among the opinion-shaping classes of the West. It knows our activist classes and influencers have supped so giddily on the Kool-Aid of Israelophobia that even this, even these dystopic images of Jews half-starved by armed anti-Semites, will not be sufficient to steer them back to moral reason. It knows that this horror, too, will be blamed on Israel. The enslavement of young David and Braslavski to the twisted cause of hurting the Jewish nation is a testament to the evil of Hamas. Hamas’s cockiness in releasing sick images of their suffering is a testament to the moral disarray of us.

Ezra Klein Peddles Old Progressive Disdain for Israel as New Progressive Jews once agonized over Israel’s survival—now many condemn its existence, mistaking provincial ideology for principled liberalism.By Peter Berkowitz

https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/05/ezra-klein-peddles-old-progressive-disdain-for-israel-as-new/

As in 2003, so too in 2025: The illiberal imagination nourishes progressive disdain for Israel.

Since 1897, when Theodor Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, Jews have divided over the significance of a Jewish nation-state in the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland. Seldom, however, have American progressive Jews shown so little sympathy for the challenges that Israel faces as they have in the 21st century or delivered themselves of such illiberal judgments in condemning Israel as they have in the aftermath of Iran-backed Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacres.

In Oct. 2003, amid the Second Intifada’s carnage, the late New York University history professor Tony Judt proclaimed in The New York Review of Books the death of “the Middle East peace process.” The then-common phrase referring to efforts to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict was highly misleading because the parties’ combined population – Israel, along with West Bank and Gaza Palestinians – totaled around 10 million, while the Middle East’s Muslim population stood at approximately 270 million. Not only did the conflict directly involve less than 4% of the Middle East’s population, but it also revolved around a contested sliver of territory that represented less than 0.5% of the land over which Arab states and Iran exercised sovereignty.

Identifying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the principal source of instability and violence in the Middle East casts doubt on Israel’s legitimacy as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

So does assigning Israel the lion’s share of the blame for the conflict. This Judt also did in “Israel: The Alternative.”

His New York Review of Books essay barely alluded to the Second Intifada, which erupted in fall 2000, a few months after then-Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat stormed out of Camp David negotiations over a Palestinian state. Over the next five years, Palestinians conducted more than 130 suicide-bombing attacks on primarily civilian targets in Israel, killing more than 1,000 and wounding more than 8,000. Furthermore, Judt understated the jihadists’ ideological hatred. He said nothing about the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. And he ignored the Palestinian insistence on a “right of return,” a right without foundation in international law that would allow the then-approximately 4 million descendants of some 700,000 Palestinian refugees from Israel’s 1948-49 War of Independence to take up residence in Israel and turn it into a Muslim-majority state.

Coleman Hughes: The Simple Truth About the War in GazaHamas’s strategy is to maximize suffering on its own side—and then have the world blame Israel. Our moral confusion is its chief asset.

https://www.thefp.com/p/coleman-hughes-the-simple-truth-about?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Over the past few weeks, images of emaciated Gazan children have circulated the media. Global outrage has exploded over emerging evidence of widespread hunger that the pictures purportedly capture. The anger has led major U.S. allies, including France, Britain, and Canada, to say they will recognize a Palestinian state.

Amid these developments, it may seem cartoonish, even obscene, to say that in the war between Israel and Hamas, Israel is the good guy. But it’s the truth. And it’s a truth that’s incredibly easy to forget amid the day-to-day coverage of this terrible war.

If you need a reminder, consider what Hamas did on Saturday when the terrorist group released a video of Israeli hostage Evyatar David. Evyatar, who is 24 years old, has been held captive by Hamas for 667 days. He is shirtless, gaunt, and clearly starving. Or as his family put it: “a living skeleton, buried alive.” He tells the camera he hasn’t eaten in days.

In one section of the video, he is forced to dig a hole in the tunnel where he is being held. He says it will be his grave.

Hamas released this video because it wants to increase its leverage in negotiations. If the Israeli population becomes so heartbroken that they demand a hostage deal on any terms, then Hamas can go back to ruling Gaza, building up its forces using stolen aid, and preparing for the next October 7.

Another way to put it is that the terrorist group is running a highly effective campaign of information warfare, and Western media outlets are falling for it.

Take a recent article, by now much discussed, published by The New York Times. Relying on testimony from several doctors working in Gaza as well as the Gaza Health Ministry, the article states that deaths in Gaza from starvation are on the rise. One photo stands out: a mother holding an emaciated, skeletal toddler named Muhammad.

US speaker says West Bank belongs to Jews ‘by right’ in settlement visit by Jeremy Sharon

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/us-speaker-says-west-bank-belongs-to-jews-by-right-in-settlement-visit/
Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson says that the “mountains of Judea and Samaria” belong to the Jewish people “by right,” during a visit to the West Bank settlement of Ariel, according to a statement by the settlement’s municipal authority.

Johnson, who is among the most senior US officials to ever visit a West Bank settlement, speaks at a celebratory event attended by Ariel Mayor Yair Chetboun and the mayors of other West Bank settlements.

“Every corner of this land is important to us. It is an integral part of our faith, and therefore the significance for us is great… We stand entirely by your side,” says Johnson, according to the statement.

“Scripture teaches us that the mountains of Judea and Samaria were promised to the Jewish people, and they belong to them by right. But many people around the world do not see it like this, they label it the ‘occupied territories’ or the ‘West Bank’ or any other name,” he adds. “Every mayor here should know exactly where we stand regarding this issue — and we stand with you.”

His spokesperson does not respond to a request for comment.

Along with Johnson, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, his daughter, and Governor of Arkansas Sarah Huckabee-Sanders also participate in the US delegation, along with Republican congressmen Nathaniel Moran, Michael McCaul, Claudia Tenney, and Michael Cloud.

NEW OLD LAND: POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

New/Old Land – Israel’s Positive News to 3rd Aug 25

PSALM 87- On the Holy Mount stands the city He founded. The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken oh City of God. 

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
Supporting those who lost homes. (TY UWI) Israeli charity Pitchon Lev (see here previously) provided life-saving assistance to more than 11,400 people during the 12-day war with Iran. Its 15,000+ volunteers delivered food parcels, baby food, diapers, clothing, etc. to many Israelis made homeless by Iranian missile attacks.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/spotlight/pitchon-lev-responds-to-600-spike-in-aid-requests-during-operation-rising-lion/
 
Honoring the heroes of Operation Rising Lion. At the graduation of 37 new IAF pilots and navigators, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir praised all those involved in the 12-day war against Iran. From pilots and drone operators to intelligence analysts and technical crews. Ex-hostage Agam Berger played at the ceremony.
https://www.jns.org/zamir-iaf-chief-laud-iran-strikes-salute-new-aircrew-in-joint-ceremony/
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-860939
 
Israel’s largest supply operation. Since the beginning of hostilities, Israel’s Defense Ministry said that it has coordinated the transport of more than 100,000 tons of military equipment. It included 870 flights and 144 sea shipments, making it the largest air and sea supply operation in the nation’s history.
https://www.jns.org/us-d9-bulldozers-arrive-in-haifa-port-to-boost-israeli-forces/
 
Ex-hostage finishes the Tour de France. Former hostage Ofer Calderon rode in the Tour de France with the Israel Premier Tech cycling team and team owner Sylvan Adams on the final leg to the Paris Arc de Triomphe.
https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-former-hostage-ofer-calderon-rides-in-the-tour-de-france/
 
Filipino ex-hostage names baby “Israela”. Released Filipino hostage, Gelienor “Jimmy” Leano Pacheco, has welcomed a new daughter – and named her Israela, as a tribute to the people and the State of Israel. Pacheco was abducted by Hamas from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct 7 2023 and released after 49 days in captivity.
https://www.thejc.com/news/world/released-filipino-hostage-names-his-new-baby-daughter-israela-qbf3mquc
 
$1 million for Soroka. The US-based Merage Foundation (see here previously) has committed $1 million to support Beersheva’s Soroka Medical Center, less than a month after an Iranian missile slammed into the southern Israeli hospital. The article also mentions other vital activities in Israel that the Foundation supports.
https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-merage-foundation-commits-1-million-to-soroka-medical-center-after-direct-missile-hit-from-iran/
 
From trauma to triumph. Israeli charity Belev Echad (see here previously) takes wounded IDF soldiers on a trip to Manhattan as part of their recovery program. Co-founder, Shevy Vigler says, “In Israel, they fight to stand again. In New York, they remember how to live again. That’s the moment the healing truly begins.”
https://www.jns.org/wire/idf-recovering-soldiers-go-from-trauma-to-triumph/
 
Our home is gone, but at least we’re alive. Valery, 32, from Tel Aviv, who survived the impact from an Iranian missile strike, 20 meters from his building, said, “In the end, we will come out of this stronger,” A harrowing story, but one that highlights Israeli resilience.
https://www.jns.org/the-tribulations-of-surviving-an-iranian-missile-strike/
 
US college students support Israel. Dozens of American college students traveled to Israel with Jewish National Fund-USA on its alternative week-long summer-break program. In Kiryat Shmona, Akko and Ofakim they packed supplies, painted homes and playgrounds, planted trees and cooked meals for soldiers in the IDF.
https://www.jns.org/wire/united-for-israel-american-college-students-serve-and-support/
 
Young community hubs. As part of the post Swords of Iron War recovery, KKL-JNF is launching community hubs for young Mechina (IDF prep school) graduates in Israel’s northern and southern periphery. In the pilot, subsidized housing will be developed in Yeruham, Dimona, Arad, Kiryat Shmona, Shlomi, Acre and Nahariya.
https://www.jns.org/wire/kkl-jnf-to-launch-young-community-hubs-in-israels-periphery/
 
Parents of fallen soldier make Aliyah. After their son Ben was killed while saving lives at the Nova Festival, his Canadian-Israeli parents made Aliyah to walk the path he chose, turning tragedy into a living tribute.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-parents-of-fallen-soldier-killed-at-nova-festival-make-aliyah-in-his-honor/

Edinburgh University’s war on the Enlightenment The ‘decolonisation’ movement is desperate to discredit the great thinkers of the past. Hugo Timms

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/08/03/edinburgh-universitys-war-on-the-enlightenment/

Few events have done more for human freedom and prosperity than the rise of secularism, capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. Scotland, and in particular its universities, was pivotal in their incubation and eventual flourishing. This period, beginning in the mid-18th century and known as the Scottish Enlightenment, was once considered to be a key achievement of civilisation, a hinge that allowed the history of the West to swing in a more liberal direction. But according to a new report commissioned by Edinburgh University, arguably the epicentre of this movement, this period is supposedly nothing to celebrate.

Apparently, the Scottish Enlightenment and Edinburgh University, in particular, were instead wellsprings of racism. Or, in the words of the report – co-authored by US academic Tommy J Curry – Edinburgh was a ‘haven’ for white supremacy. In particular, it blames the university for the discredited discipline of phrenology and it claims it played an ‘outsized role in developing racial pseudosciences’.

These accusations are levelled at the university in Decolonised Transformations, a report published this month that was commissioned by Edinburgh in 2021 in response to the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Curry – a philosophy professor at Edinburgh, who lists critical race theory as his speciality – appears to have clutched at every conceivable straw to justify his findings and to taint his university.

One of the report’s prime targets is 18th-century philosopher David Hume, initially a student and later a librarian at Edinburgh. Despite Hume’s published works exceeding 5,000 pages, the report focusses on a solitary footnote from 1753 in which he described ‘Negroes’ as ‘inferior to whites’. It is undoubtedly an unpleasant comment, but it is hardly proof that Hume contributed to the ‘intellectual justification’ for ‘transatlantic trafficking and enslavement of African people’, as the report wants us to believe.

The report goes on to claim Edinburgh played a ‘central role’ in promulgating the theory of phrenology. But again, the evidence it provides for this claim is distinctly threadbare. It appears to rely almost solely on the presence of two skulls in the university’s Anatomical Museum, which belonged to half-Barbadian students at Edinburgh in the 19th century. The report said it can ‘be assumed’ the students’ status as ‘mullato’ (of mixed white and black ancestry) ‘is what aroused interest’ in the skulls at the Edinburgh Phrenological Society. Well, perhaps it was. But it doesn’t exactly prove the university was ‘central’ in ‘assert[ing] the existence of the hierarchy of human races’, as the report claims.

In what must have been a moment of true desperation, the report turns its attention to James Sutherland, Edinburgh’s first professor of botany. After reading the heading, ‘Research Finding 3’ alongside ‘Empire’ and ‘Enslavement’, one might expect to discover that this quiet plant enthusiast had some sort of connection to the slave trade. Instead, we learn that his position was merely at the head of a ‘global network of botanisers’ who acquired seeds from the West Indies. We are left to infer that this is an unforgivable sin that we should still be atoning for, more than 300 years after his death. If only there were a statue of Sutherland to smear in red paint.

Curry’s determination to discredit his university doesn’t stop at 17th-century botany. In what is no doubt news to Israelis and Palestinians, Curry’s report also gives Edinburgh University a leading role in the current Gaza war, and the many conflicts preceding it. The basis for this imperceptibly tenuous link is the fact that Arthur Balfour, who in 1917 signed the Balfour Declaration in support of the creation of the Jewish State, was also chancellor of Edinburgh University. To atone for these supposed past sins and its alleged ‘ongoing entanglement’ with the war today, Curry suggests the university should repudiate its adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, and create a dedicated ‘Palestine Studies Centre’ while it’s at it.

From Hitler to the Ayatollahs: The Long History of European Treachery by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21812/iran-europe-treachery

As Israeli and American forces took awe-inspiring steps to cripple Iran’s nuclear weapons program and weaken the Islamic Republic’s regional power projection, the leaders of the EU3 — France, Germany, and the United Kingdom — have been busy smiling across negotiating tables, scheming behind closed doors to help the regime survive.

European leaders are now locked in direct negotiations with Iran; both sides are apparently pleased with how things are progressing. What is the goal of these talks? It is not peace, not justice, and certainly not about protecting the world from nuclear blackmail. No, the objective is to ensure that the snapback sanctions, the most powerful tool to constrain Iran, are not reimposed.

The EU3 powers — the UK, France, and Germany — are now saying that they might trigger the snapback sanctions – but only if Iran fails to “contain” its nuclear program by the end of August. That word — “contain” — is a political farce. What does “contain” even mean? ….[O]f course Iran will say, “Yes, we’ll contain it.” …. just long enough for the snapback sanctions deadline to expire.

This is classic Tehran. This is how the regime has always operated. Yet the European leaders are falling for it again — or more likely, choosing to fall for it: they want an excuse not to reimpose sanctions.

To be clear: the West has nothing to show for these negotiations; Iran has everything to gain. Iran gets to look “reasonable,” pocket more time, avoid sanctions, and wait for the clock to run out — after which the UN sanctions vanish forever….. Russia and China will never again agree to reimpose them through the UN Security Council. The European powers know this but clearly could not care less.

In reality, “contain” is nothing but a sanitized rebranding of the same failed JCPOA. The idea that Iran can “contain” its program means exactly what the JCPOA allowed: a laughable “honor system” — uranium enrichment, centrifuges spinning, and a countdown until Iran nearly reached breakout capability. This is not disarmament. This is a con. There needs to be zero enrichment, zero centrifuges and zero compromise. If the goal is nonproliferation, that is the only position that makes sense.

If Iran truly wants to prove that its intentions are peaceful, it can dismantle every element of its nuclear infrastructure — permanently. Anything less is just duplicity waiting to happen.

Europe’s moral compass has been replaced by a calculator and a gas pump. All they evidently care about is money — oil deals, luxury imports, sweetheart business contracts — with the same Iranian regime that hangs dissidents, murders women in the streets, and calls for genocide against Israel and the West, including Europe.

If the governments of the EU3 truly believed in human rights, regional security, or protecting its own backyard, they would have blocked the move. Instead, they did nothing. They stood by silently, allowing Iran to legally purchase and sell advanced weapons. Then, what did Iran do with its new freedom? It began arming Russia — the very country trying to invade Europe through Ukraine. The EU3 powers refused to stop Iran from becoming a weapons dealer for the Kremlin. This is not hypocrisy. This is a serious betrayal — of Europe’s own people, and of every Ukrainian citizen fighting against Russian tanks.

Let us call this what it is: treachery. Many officials within the European Union helped create the problem with Iran. They enabled the regime’s rise. They funded its resurgence. And now, just when the Iranian regime is cornered, they are riding in to save it once again. For money. For a surrender masquerading as “diplomacy”….

The snapback sanctions must be triggered immediately.

Europe’s leaders have chosen the wrong side of history before. Do not let them drag the rest of us down with them again.

While the United States and Israel have carried the backbreaking burden of confronting the Iranian regime’s nuclear threat with courage and real-world action, some European leaders have once again decided to play the coward’s role — not just by refusing to stand up to Iran, but by actively enabling it.

The murderous, thieving overlords of Hamas are the true oppressors of the Palestinians Colonel Richard Kemp

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/03/hamas-no-peace-israel-gaza-war-palestinian/

The terrorists are the true oppressors of Palestine, not the Israelis

Despite calls from the Arab League to disarm, Hamas says it refuses to do so until an independent Palestinian state is established. By that the terrorist group means it will never disarm, because it knows that no Palestinian state will ever be established. Certainly not the state they envisage, which is a far cry from the two-state solution that Starmer, Macron and Carney seem to have in mind. Hamas want a one-state solution, an Islamic State encompassing the entirety of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Hence their slogan “from the river to the sea”, mouthed incessantly on university campuses and the streets of our cities by uncomprehending hordes. Hamas’s founding charter demands the annihilation of Israel and the death of Jews everywhere. Despite a cosmetic “revision” and English language statements made to fool Westerners, this has never been repudiated and remains their unwavering goal.

The leadership of Hamas are vicious, bloodthirsty terrorists, many of them multi millionaires enriched by decades stealing aid meant for the people of Gaza. But they are far from being fools. They understand that Israel will never surrender to them and they will never have the military power to drive the Israelis out. Their best shot was October 7 in 2023, which was supposed to be supported by an invasion by Hezbollah from the north and backed by rocket fire from Iran’s other “ring of fire” terrorist proxies. They murdered, raped, tortured, kidnapped and burned but failed to achieve what they intended.

Instead their actions drove Gaza to ruin and decimated their own fighting strength. But they will fight on fanatically for as long as they are physically able to do so. Hamas is a miniature version of al-Qaeda. Like Hamas, Bin Laden sought an Islamic caliphate, but on a global scale. And like Hamas, he didn’t expect to achieve it in his life-time or even for generations. He saw his role as killing, destruction and economic damage. The purpose was to demoralise the West and “apostate” Muslim regimes, creating strife and division around the world until eventually the caliphate would be established.

The war of moral inversion being waged through the western mind Why Hamas released those obscene images Melanie Phillips

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/

Hamas released the cruel images of the starved and skeletal Israeli hostages for two reasons.

The first was to demonstrate the triumph of its diabolical strategy to turn the Holocaust into a weapon to exterminate the nation that was reborn out of its ashes.

Releasing these terrible images of starved Jews, who look like inmates of the Nazi death camps, was designed to throw the Holocaust into the Jews’ faces by saying “Look, here it is again but now the world doesn’t care and is blaming you instead for being the Nazis”. It was a triumphant taunt that Israel was powerless to prevent the second Holocaust that Hamas never stops announcing it is planning.

It’s no accident that these images were released just days after Britain’s prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, announced that the UK would recognise a state of Palestine unless the Israelis ceased fire in Gaza.

Along with French president Emanuel Macron and Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney, who have also declared they will recognise “Palestine”, Starmer thus put rocket fuel behind the lie that Israel is starving the people of Gaza to death and that Israel, not Hamas, is to blame for Gaza’s plight.

This lie has been assiduously spread throughout the west by Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian Authority, which has been promoting for decades the monstrous claim that the Israelis are Nazis bent on genocide — a stupendous inversion aimed to conceal the PA’s own Nazi roots.

The Most Favored Descendants of Abraham? by Nils A. Haug

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21771/descendants-of-abraham

At the Islamic Centre of Rhode Island, on May 30, an imam delivered a sermon that, according to Andrew Bostom, “invoked Islam’s supersessionism, its notion of being the true primordial monotheism of Jewish patriarch Abraham.”

Of course, the main problem in discussing religion is that it is often impossible to prove anything, so that all controversies continue indefinitely.

It is a contest of legitimacy with Muslims asserting Ishmael to be the rightful, favored heir to Abraham, rather than his only legitimate son and heir, Isaac.

Islamist claims of legitimacy — and their determination to rid Israel of Jews — are a core element in explaining the perpetual conflict between Islamists and Israel. Consequently, any peace agreement may well be fragile and temporary.

It has been claimed that the recent Iran-Israel war was simply a “violent prelude to a far grander and more terrifying prophetic chapter” in the effort to eliminate Israel and Jews from the face of the earth.

This objective comprises diverse but interconnected strategies, such as pro-Islamic and anti-Zionist propaganda; military attacks on Israel by Iran and its jihadist proxies; and, not least, theological contortions designed to negate legitimate Jewish claims to their ancient divine blessings, including the promised homeland of Israel — Eretz Yisrael — itself.