Israel: an anti-colonial triumph Jews had to fight the British Empire to forge the state of Israel. James Heartfield

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/03/30/israel-an-anti-colonial-triumph/

The history of the conflict between Israel and Palestine has become a contest of one-sided interpretations and outright myths. For Israelis, Palestine was never a country. For Palestinians and their supporters in the West, Israel is an illegitimate settler-colonial state.

There is perhaps no historical moment that has been more distorted by such mythmaking than 1948, the year the British colonial ‘mandate’ ended and the modern state of Israel was founded. It was a moment of celebration for the Zionist movement, which had finally realised its dream of a Jewish homeland. But it was a moment of misery for Arabs. Indeed, it is remembered as a ‘catastrophe’ or ‘disaster’ – the Nakba. In their telling, it was the moment when hundreds of thousands were exiled to refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank and in Lebanon and Syria.

To Arabs, Britain has often been portrayed as the midwife to the Israeli victory. ‘The British and the Jews defeated us’, said one prominent refugee at the time. The Brits gave ‘their weapons to the Jews’, said another. According to Palestinian artist Ismail Shammout, British support for Zionism was a conspiracy (1). The Arabs of Palestine were certainly right to conclude that history had defeated them. But the nature of that defeat has long been mischaracterised as a British-Jewish collaboration, when nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, after the Second World War, the Jews fought a war of national liberation against Britain, the ruling colonial power. They forced Britain to withdraw from the then British Mandate for Palestine, which it had ruled over since the 1920s. In the fighting between Arabs and Jews in 1948, Britain did not support the Jews. Britain was actually involved in arming the Arab forces and even fighting alongside them in an attempt to limit the Zionist victory.

This shouldn’t be all that surprising. Britain’s alliance with the Arabs began in the First World War, when Colonel TE Lawrence – otherwise known as Lawrence of Arabia – allied with Sharif Hussein in a revolt against the Ottoman Empire (which was allied with Germany). The Arab Revolt ended Ottoman rule over the Middle East in 1918. After the war, in 1922, the League of Nations eventually gave Britain the mandate over Palestine (including ‘East Palestine’, which is today Jordan). This kickstarted more than 20 years of contested British rule in the Holy Land.

There had been a Jewish minority in Palestine for millennia. But its numbers had been growing during the 19th and 20th centuries, as refugees fled anti-Semitic persecution in Europe. As a result, by the interwar years, Jews in the area were becoming a numerical and political threat not just to British rule, but also to Arab aspirations to the land.

Hamas Cracks Down on Protesters With Atrocities While an indifferent world yawns. P. David Hornik

https://pdavidhornik.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=email-subscribe&r=

As I noted in a post on Thursday, last week parts of Gaza erupted in bitter anti-Hamas protests. The protesters weren’t friends of Israel or the West, but they were fed up with the misery Hamas has brought upon Gaza by fighting a vastly more powerful foe, Israel, and continuing to fight us.

As of Friday, though, the protests have stopped. Why would that be?

Israel’s Ynetnews reports:

Hamas has begun cracking down on Gazans who participated in recent protests against the group’s rule, executing six people and publicly beating others, according to Palestinian activists and residents. Among those killed was Odai al-Rubai, 22, a resident of Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa neighborhood. Al-Rubai had called for public demonstrations and spoken out against Hamas on social media. He was abducted by Hamas operatives, tortured for four hours, and then returned to his family as he lay dying, witnesses said.

“He was dragged by a rope around his neck, beaten with clubs and metal rods in front of passersby,” said one resident who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

Another resident, Hussam al-Majdalawi, was reportedly kidnapped and beaten in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. Al-Majdalawi, who had also spoken against Hamas, was shot in the legs and left wounded in a public square, according to eyewitnesses.

The report goes on to detail other Hamas atrocities against protesters. It quotes a Gazan who says: “There isn’t a single journalist in Gaza who can speak about the crimes being committed here. The world has no idea what’s happening.”

It’s not so much that it has no idea, though, as that it doesn’t care.

No Jews, no news. Israel inflicting civilian casualties—at rates lower than other Western armies when fighting terror groups in urban warfare—is, of course, very big news and sets Hague kangaroo courts in action. Palestinians torturing and murdering other Palestinians—that’s cognitive dissonance, doesn’t fit the narrative.

Reflections on the Counter-Revolution in America Trump is racing to dismantle decades of leftist policies, but success hinges on speed, discipline, and the Supreme Court—while facing fierce resistance from entrenched institutions. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/31/reflections-on-the-counter-revolution-in-america/

When Donald Trump entered office, he faced a number of choices that had confronted the last three Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. They all had the choice to either shrink government and reduce deficits or slow government growth while cutting taxes.

They had the choice of using American power to restore deterrence by invading belligerents (e.g., Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan) or targeting enemies without deploying ground troops to change governments.

Republicans could either impose tariffs to ensure trade balances and fair trade or argue that free, even if unfair, trade was in the U.S.’s interest by lowering consumer prices, keeping domestic producers competitive, and assuming foreign subsidies were unsustainable.

They had the choice to either reverse the left-wing domination of culture or moderate its fated influence.

They could have shut down the open border and eliminated illegal immigration or publicly condemned it while tacitly maintaining an influx of hundreds of thousands per year for the corporate world, rather than millions.

In general, no Republican president of the past 50 years sought to radically reduce the size of government and balance the budget. None closed the border and began deportations. None avoided optional ground wars while solely hitting aggressors from the air. None led a cultural counter-revolution to reverse the left’s long march through our institutions.

Why?

Because to have done so would have constituted a veritable cultural counter-revolution that would incur an unacceptable level of hatred and resistance from the entrenched left—defined by the nexus of the media, bureaucracies, campuses, foundations, Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and the Democratic Party. The latter were deemed just too formidable—and dangerous—to confront in a single term, if ever.

Or so it was felt by prior Republican administrations. So, most stayed clear and sought to deregulate, cut taxes, keep illegal immigration to about 30,000 or so a month, and use rhetoric to oppose the left’s cultural revolution.

Not so with Trump. The target of four years of lawfare in his wilderness years, he has now become a true counterrevolutionary determined not to slow down the progressive trajectory of the last 60 years but to end it and return the U.S. to the center—at least as now defined by a balanced budget, reciprocal fair trade, full use of all modes of energy, a closed border, legal only immigration, no optional ground wars abroad and a fierce effort to end the woke/DEI/ESG/Green New Deal leftwing orthodoxy.

Judges vs. America: How the Deep State Is Overruling Your Vote The question is simple: Who runs this country—the voters or the judges? by Kevin McCullough

https://www.frontpagemag.com/judges-vs-america-how-the-deep-state-is-overruling-your-vote/

Another day, another judicial blockade. Three more executive orders—each designed to advance the will of the American people—were unceremoniously put on ice by unelected black-robed obstructionists yesterday. That brings the total to 15 since President Trump took office in January 2025. That’s 15 direct assaults on the policies Americans voted for when they rejected the corruption and incompetence of the radical left.

Let’s be clear: This isn’t about “the law,” “checks and balances,” or “democracy” (a term the left constantly redefines). This is about deep-state operatives and activist judges blocking reform, hamstringing the administration’s efforts to clean up the mess left behind by Biden’s regime. The same establishment class that spent four years ignoring open borders, skyrocketing inflation, and a weaponized FBI now insists that every procedural technicality be followed before President Trump can act.

Consider what was just blocked. Among the three executive orders frozen yesterday was one expediting the deportation of violent criminal aliens, another targeting the corruption that allows bureaucrats to profit from their positions, and a third cracking down on federal grants abused by activist organizations masquerading as nonprofits.

Let me repeat that: judges intervened to stop the removal of dangerous criminals, protect corrupt bureaucrats, and ensure taxpayer money keeps flowing to left-wing political groups.

Someone, somewhere, please explain to me what law requires America to fund its own destruction. I’ll wait.

Of course, there is no such law. What we’re seeing is a coordinated legal resistance—engineered by well-funded leftist legal outfits, cheered on by corporate media, and rubber-stamped by judges who treat the Constitution as a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. The game is “Lawfare,” an endless stream of lawsuits designed to bog down the administration, tie up policies in court, and hope Trump runs out of time.

Dangerous Fake Peace What Israel has to insist on. by Dr. Shmuel Katz

https://www.frontpagemag.com/dangerous-fake-peace/

Unfortunately, the history books are filled with stories addressing failed peace agreements which resulted in major setbacks to the involved nations.

The classic example is the peace agreement between Nazi Germany and the British Prime Minister Chamberlain, who showed his people the document of “Peace in Our Times” which was signed by Hitler and encouraged Hitler to advance his expansionist dreams, which resulted in World War II.

The failure of the Oslo Accords was another important example of a failed attempt to reach a peace agreement. One of the most important reasons for the failure of the accords was the lack of education for peace and reconciliation in the Arab schools and in the media.

This serious problem was enacted by design. When the leader of the PLO Yasser Arafat was asked by his people, why did he agree to proceed with a track towards a peace agreement with the state of Israel in 1993, he responded by referring to the deceptive actions of the Prophet Muhammad as they were related to his presumed peace agreement with the tribe of the Quraysh in Mecca, which was called the Treaty of al-Hudaybiya. Once Muhammad felt strong enough, the treaty was violated, he killed the Jews in the city of Kaybar and he ended up expanding his control on multiple tribes in the region.

As Israel is dealing with the terrorist organizations of Hamas in the Gaza strip and with Hezbollah in Lebanon, it is very clear, that these terrorist organizations have no intention to advance the situation toward a peaceful resolution of the conflict. This is in line with their hope to implement an imposed world domination, by which they will be able to force their religious ideology on everyone across the globe.

The fact that Hamas is a part of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, and Hezbollah is a part of the axis of evil, which is led by the Shiite Iran, do not fight each other at this time, is related to the fact that they are fighting a common enemy composed of the state of Israel and the Western society led by the USA.

Reflections on the Dismantling of the Dept. of Education How we can foster not just scholastic high achievers but civic-minded patriots too. by Jason D. Hill

https://www.frontpagemag.com/reflections-on-the-dismantling-of-the-dept-of-education/

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s decision to dismantle the Department of Education, there are a few issues to bear in mind – ones which, if properly attended to, will ensure that America remains a global educational force with which to contend.

In reverting the education of our youth to the individual states that make up our nation, and against the backdrop that some states are fiscally more advanced than others, the question remains: how does the United States remain true to its commitment to provide a first-class education to its youth without compromising any of its quality, where that quality is tied to economic status on a state level? The ethical issue at stake here is that the quality of each American student ought not be constrained by an accident of birth. Students born into poor families and living in poorer states have just as much potential and cognitive capabilities as those born into affluent families living in high-income districts.

Although there are some exceptions, high-income school districts tend to spend more money on education per pupil and have better outcomes, while low-income districts tend to spend less and have worse outcomes. Without entering into a debate about the ethicality of publicly funded education, it should be fairly obvious that in order for the United States to surpass those 40 countries President Trump has identified as being ahead of us educationally, our nation needs to ensure that talented and capable students trapped in poorer states should have as much of an equal chance to matriculate through K-12 as their more affluent compatriots.

The President has derided our education system and has stated that the country performs the worst globally while spending the most per pupil. President Trump declared: “We’re last, we’re number 40 but we’re number one in cost per pupil.”

One issue that needs to be investigated is exploring how and why such funds are allocated in ways that do not increase performance. It should go without saying that if we wish to remain competitive with other nations that are outperforming our students in several domains including reading, writing and mathematics, then the government ought to ensure that dollars are spent in a way that can directly correlate to excellent outcomes.

Media, Please Grow Up- Climate Skeptics and Lukewarmers are Never Given Equal Time

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/03/31/media-please-grow-up/

When did high school newspaper editors take over Western media? Decades ago, of course, and we’re unhappy to report that it seems they’re never going to grow up. The latest evidence? The early peak bloom of the cherry blossom trees along Washington’s Tidal Basin is being blamed on global warming.

The press has latched onto the man-made global warming narrative and it won’t let go.

The Washington Post couldn’t wait to inform its tell-us-what-to-believe readership that this year’s “peak occurred several days earlier than the long-term average, as human-caused climate warming hastens the onset of spring flowering.”

To its credit, the Post noted that reader comments “reflect a mix of opinions on the impact of climate change on the timing of cherry blossoms reaching peak bloom in D.C. Some commenters acknowledge that climate change, particularly the Urban Heat Island Effect, is causing earlier blooms, while others express skepticism or frustration with the focus on climate change.”

Maybe that’s the owner’s influence.

Meanwhile, ABC News said early last week that “in recent years, the peak bloom date for the cherry trees at the Tidal Basin reservoir is occurring earlier than it did in the past. Seasonal shifts, including milder, shorter winter seasons and spring warmth beginning earlier due to human-amplified climate change, are impacting when the cherry trees reach peak bloom, data shows.”

The data show no such thing. Anyone can infer from the numbers that “human-amplified climate change” is to blame (or credit, depending on the point of view), but they prove nothing.

Trump-Musk: Revolutionary Method, Restoration Plan by Amir Taheri

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21511/trump-musk-restoration

The ultimate goal of this new oligarchy is to privatize government, a concept that is anathema to European intellectuals who regard the Hobbesian state as an earthly version of divinity.

To Americans, however, the Leviathan, though accepted as a necessity, has always been regarded as a potential threat to freedoms that their ancestors sought as they fled from European tyrannies.

Whether their restoration scheme works or not remains to be seen. But to question its legitimacy is a sign of sour grapes by European gurus who witness their politically correct world crumbling around them.

“Why is Donald Trump doing what he is doing?” This is the question raised by European intelligentsia these days as they try to recover from the shock of the American presidential election, which they all believed would be won by the Democrat champion Kamala Harris.

France’s currently fashionable TV philosopher Michel Onfray raises the question in a number of programs, as do op-ed writers in newspapers in London, Brussels and Berlin, and Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis.

The answer to the question may be simple: Trump is doing what he is doing because he promised to do those things and has a contract with the 78 million Americans who voted for him.

It was the woke elites who ‘purged’ America’s museums, not Donald Trump Don’t believe the media hysteria: Trump’s executive order on history and truth deals a welcome blow for sanity. Brendan O’Neill

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/03/29/it-was-the-woke-elites-who-purged-americas-museums-not-donald-trump/

This month’s Doublespeak Award goes to the BBC. President Trump is spearheading a ‘purge’ of America’s top museums, it breathlessly reports. The madman in the White House has instructed the Smithsonian Institution to put back all ‘memorials and statues’ that were ‘improperly removed’ from federal property in recent years, the Beeb says. Hold up. Call me a stickler for linguistic accuracy, but isn’t a purge when you tear monuments down, not when you put them back up?

Yes, a new Orwellian diktat has dropped: war is peace, freedom is slavery, and reversing a purge is a purge. What the BBC and others are madly calling Trump’s ‘purge’ is outlined in his latest executive order. It’s titled ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History’. It ‘targets’ the Smithsonian Institution, which oversees 21 museums in the US, 17 of which are in Washington, DC. It tells the Smithsonian to cut out the ‘anti-American ideology’, resist any exhibitions that ‘divide Americans by race’, and restore monuments that were toppled or hidden away in the service of woke ideology over the past five years.

Shorter version: stop purging. Imagine how drunk on the Kool-Aid of anti-Trumpism you would need to be to describe a plea to museums to stop erasing American history and stop hiding American artefacts as a ‘purge’. The clue is in the name, people: the order is about ‘restoring’ things, not purging them. It says the Smithsonian and its museums were once ‘global icon[s] of cultural achievement’, but of late they’ve fallen under the sway of ‘a divisive, race-centred ideology’ that depicts ‘American and Western values as inherently harmful’. And that stops now, it says.

Come on, this is not a McCarthyite stab at cleansing museums of ‘progressive’ thinking – it’s an effort to reverse the McCarthyism of those woke ideologues who cleansed DC’s wonderful museums of their traditional mission and even of some of their objects.

GOOD NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

Genesis 1:28. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Michael Ordman discloses Israel’s baby boom even during wartime. This fact is heartwarming when major nations are experiencing a population loss. It is a spiritual call that Judaism will survive and thrive.  And indeed, Israel subdues famine, thirst and illness with myriad  dazzling technologies and therapies. Read it all.  rsk

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR

Israel’s baby boom. (TY Dov) In the midst of war, Israel is experiencing a baby boom. Unlike post-war birth surges, Israel had a 7% increase in births since Sep 2023, with 181,000 babies born in 2024. Maternity wards are overflowing even with economic and security challenges. And the highest increase is in front line towns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-SYj6orAwk

https://israel-currents.quora.com/Israeli-Jewish-Birth-Rates-Boom-In-Response-To-War

https://theettingerreport.com/2025-jewish-demographic-momentum-in-israel/

From Nova party to Mea Shearim. When Hamas attacked the Nova party revelers on 7 Oct 2023, Barak Nixon hid in a chemical toilet stall for 8 hours. He promised that if he got out of there alive, he would become religious. He subsequently moved to Mea Shearim, the ultra-orthodox area of Jerusalem. This is his story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_DeWoSuGMc

Off-road security vehicles for Samaria. Israel’s Settlements and National Missions Ministry delivered 21 off-road “Ranger” vehicles to Jewish farmers in the Samaria region. The vehicles were provided in cooperation with the Israel Defense Forces’ Central Command, which includes Judea and Samaria.

https://www.jns.org/edited-pub-wed-israeli-govt-supplies-off-road-security-vehicles-to-samaria-farmers/

Iron Dome latest tests. Israel completed comprehensive flight tests of the Iron Dome missile defense system. The exercises, conducted by the Israel Missile Defense Organization and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, evaluated the system’s effectiveness against advanced threats, including rockets, cruise missiles and drones.

https://www.jns.org/israels-iron-dome-missile-defense-system-passes-most-significant-ever-flight-tests/

Ambassadors tour southern Israel. Dozens of ambassadors from foreign countries in Israel participated in a tour of southern Israel. It exposed them to the damage caused to the Gaza Envelope and rehabilitation efforts. Ambassadors included from the Netherlands, Argentina, Guatemala, Belgium, Greece, Cyprus and others.

https://www.jns.org/wire/dozens-of-ambassadors-tour-southern-israel-witnessing-impact-of-war-on-the-gaza-envelope/

Riding for resilience. More than 100 bicyclists are participating in the ninth annual Geerz “Israel Charity Ride” from March 23-25 – a two-day mountain-biking event aimed at raising funds to offer relief and resilience-building opportunities for 450+ children affected by trauma due to the war.

https://www.jns.org/wire/riding-for-resilience-100-plus-bicyclists-unite-to-support-mental-health-for-israeli-youth/

New hotels open in a war. In 2024, despite the war and thanks to grants provided by the Israel Ministry of Tourism to entrepreneurs, 483 new hotel rooms were added to the hotel supply across the country, and four new hotels were established, expanded, or converted. During 2025, 18 new hotels are expected to be added.

https://www.israel21c.org/new-hotels-opening-in-israel-this-year/