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ISRAEL

Peace and Appeasement Israel now stands accused of genocide for refusing to accept its own annihilation. Yuki Zeman

https://quillette.com/2025/09/17/peace-and-appeasement-hitler-hamas-gaza/

After decades of ruthless militancy and terrorism that culminated in the atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October, a Palestinian state will be recognised later this month by the governments of France, the UK, and Canada. These Western leaders are eager to appease those who perpetrate anti-Jewish violence because they believe that by doing so they can end decades of bloodshed and war in the Middle East. But this kind of thinking misreads the causes of hatred and aggression in pursuit of peace at all costs, and history demonstrates how dangerous this is.

On 1 April 1933, the Nazis declared a nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses. Days later, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was passed, which forbade the employment of non-Aryan teachers, judges, or physicians. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were enacted, which proscribed intermarriage and stripped Jews of German citizenship. By 1938, Jewish children had been pushed out of schools and Jewish doctors were confined to treating Jews. None of these measures required war. All that was needed was ideology, will, organisation, and the silent complicity of observers.

The tightening of the noose during this period was administrative—a litany of forms, laws, decrees, notices, and slogans that turned ordinary doorways into uncrossable thresholds. The path to genocide began with incremental measures that felt reversible until they were not. And then came Kristallnacht, on the night of 9 November 1938, which ended the pretence that anti-Jewish persecution was only a matter of law. Around ninety Jews were murdered and about 30,000 men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Synagogues were set on fire and Jewish shops were reduced to glittering wreckage. The next morning, people stepped around the shards of broken glass littering the pavement as they walked to work.

And while all of this horror was unfolding, civilised Europe did nothing.

The Battle of Gaza City: it’s time to take sides Why the army of the Jewish State must be victorious over the Islamist hysterics of Hamas. Brendan O’Neill

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/09/17/the-battle-of-gaza-city-its-time-to-take-sides/

‘I judge a man by one thing’, said the early 20th-century English Liberal MP Isaac Foot: ‘Which side would he have liked his ancestors to fight on at Marston Moor?’ He was referring to the Battle of Marston Moor of 1644, during the English Civil War, in which the Parliamentarian side under the command of the radical Lord Fairfax roundly defeated the Royalist side. It was the military victory that propelled these isles towards democracy. I’m starting to feel similarly about the Battle of Gaza City – that you can judge a person by which side they’re taking in this clash between the army of Israel and the neo-fascists of Hamas.

As the 98th and 162nd divisions of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) roll into Gaza City to confront the 3,000 armed anti-Semites of Hamas, a burning question confronts us all: which side are we on? You can say ‘I just want the war to stop’ until you’re blue in the face. You can carry a handbag saying ‘Cease Fire!’ like one of the turbo-smug celebs at the Emmys did. You can call the IDF ‘reckless and appalling’, as did Britain’s new foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, in an act of snivelling moral perfidy that heaps shame on our nation. None of it will make a blind bit of difference. This battle is as unstoppable as the sunrise tomorrow. Neither the IDF nor Hamas is backing down. So only one question remains: whose victory do you wish for?

The Battle of Gaza City is already one of the most maligned clashes of modern times. Much of the media coverage leaves one with the wholly post-truth impression that the IDF is raiding Gaza City for sport. Or for land. Or in further, feverish pursuit of its curiously unsuccessful ‘genocide’ of the Palestinian people. The other side in the battle – Hamas’s army of apocalyptic Jew-haters – has been virtually invisibilised. We rarely hear of them. It’s as bizarre as if newspapers had reported on the Battle of Raqqa without mentioning ISIS, or the Battle of Berlin without ever saying the word ‘Nazi’.

Anyone who writes, tweets or talks about the Battle of Gaza City without referencing the numerous cells of tooled-up guerrilla fighters lying in wait for the soldiers of the Jewish State is flat-out engaging in misinformation. It’s a kind of wartime censorship to erase one side in a battle – worse, the side that started the war in the first place with its pogrom against the Jews of southern Israel on 7 October 2023. The truth about the Battle of Gaza City is that on one side there are tens of thousands of soldiers from two divisions of the IDF, and on the other an estimated 3,000 Hamas gunmen and their Islamist allies under the command of Izz El-Din al-Haddad.

How Israel Helped the Gaza Strip Before by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21910/israel-helped-gaza-strip

Which European country would tolerate 50,000 rockets, mortars and missiles fired at it — or even one rocket or missile?

Before the October 7, 2023 attack…. Egypt, Qatar, the United Nations and other international parties kept assuring Israel that the best way to achieve calm and stability in the Gaza Strip was by improving its economy and issuing more permits for Palestinian laborers to enter Israel.

When Israel imposed restrictions on the Gaza Strip to protect its own citizens and prevent terrorism, it was condemned for imposing suffering and pain on the Palestinians living there. When Israel started easing restrictions and handing out thousands of permits to Gazan workers to enter Israel (while Egypt and other Arab countries refused to accept Palestinians), it faced criticism for allegedly strengthening Hamas.

When Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, there was a lot of talk in Israel about turning the enclave into the “Singapore of the Middle East.” Israel’s goal, or dream, was to transform the Gaza Strip into a prosperous, thriving area, similar to how Singapore developed from a small, poor country into a wealthy, technologically advanced hub. Israel clearly wanted to open a new chapter in its relations with the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and work together on economic and technology projects for the benefit of both people.

Israel had been led to believe that jobs, money and humanitarian aid would bring stability and calm, and had hoped that the humanitarian and economic aid would prevent, or at least reduce, terror attacks from the Gaza Strip. However, Hamas and many Palestinians viewed these conciliatory measures as signs of weakness on the part of Israel.

What the international community fails to understand is that since the establishment of Hamas more than 35 years ago, its stated goal has been the elimination of Israel. For Hamas, the conflict with Israel has never been about the economy or settlements or improving the living conditions of the Palestinians. Hamas regards Israel as one big illegitimate “settlement” that needs to be uprooted and replaced with an Islamist state.

Israel is damned both for helping the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and damned for not helping them enough. When Israel allows funding and economic aid sent into Gaza, as it did, Israel is blamed for helping fund Hamas’s war against Israel. If Israel had refused to allow funding and economic aid to be sent into Gaza, Israel would be accused of starving and brutalizing the Palestinians. Everyone, it seems, wants to have it both ways so that whatever Israel does is “wrong.”

Several years ago, Israel came under pressure from many in the international community to ease restrictions on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, in order to alleviate the suffering of the two million Palestinians living there. The pressure came despite Hamas’s repeated terror attacks against Israel, including more than 31,000 rockets and mortars fired from Gaza at the civilian communities of Israel, a country the size of New Jersey, before 2023, accompanied by violent riots by the terror group at Israel’s border.

Australia’s Fantasy of Social Cohesion by Nils A. Haug

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21906/australia-fantasy-of-social-cohesion

As early as 1974, the Islamist agenda to dominate Western nations was disclosed by Algeria’s Houari Boumedienne in his speech to the United Nations: “One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.”

Australia’s decision to recognize a fictitious Palestinian state, as well as France’s, Britain’s and Canada’s, totally contravenes the current requirements of international law for nations.

The Australian government apparently believes that Islamophobia adversely affects social cohesion. What it has yet to comprehend is that the concept of Islamophobia is a two-edged sword, sometimes employed to suppress genuine criticism of some of the tenets of Islam, but also to neutralize any criticism of the religion before it can even begin

“Hamas is not just at war with Israel. It is at war with Jews, Christians, and the very foundations of civilization itself…. This is not politics, this is a religious war. Its purpose is to replace Judaism and Christianity with radical Islam. If the world does not understand this, everyone will pay the price.”– Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, jns.org. August 17, 2025

“The hardest decision any leader has to make is to thwart a danger before it fully materializes.” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, israelhayom.com, June 13, 2025

Europe’s weak leadership has failed in this regard, resulting in a catastrophic social crisis for their nations. The question is whether or not Australia will follow a similar course of submission, a recipe for losing the West.

In accordance with a policy of purported social cohesion and ostensibly to prevent “Islamophobia,” Australia’s Labor Party government, primarily represented by Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, perturbingly appear to be minimizing the malignant, often violent Jew-hatred now occurring in the major cities of Australia.

While many acts of terror are being perpetrated against the Jewish community (here and here), the Australian government has been fast-tracking hundreds of potentially dangerous Palestinians into the country as refugees without proper vetting.

The only country really suited to properly vetting Palestinians and potential jihadist radicals would be Israel. Israeli representatives however, are regarded almost as “personae non gratae” in Australian these days. Some have actually been barred entry.

The Latest Jihad Terror Attack in Jerusalem Why Israel fights. Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-latest-jihad-terror-attack-in-jerusalem/

The manic focus on the IDF’s war in Gaza, and the denunciation of the Jewish state by much of the world for its putative “war crimes” and “genocide” in the Strip may have just been temporarily halted, as the latest terror attack in Jerusalem reminds the giddy globe of why Israel fights. More on the jihad attack can be found here and here: “Six killed, 6 seriously injured in Jerusalem as terrorists open fire on bus, pedestrians,” by Emanuel Fabian, Charlie Summers, Jeremy Sharon and Nava Freiberg, Times of Israel, September 8, 2025:

Six people were murdered Monday and 12 were wounded, six of them seriously, when a pair of Palestinian terrorists opened fire on vehicles and pedestrians in Jerusalem’s Ramot Junction.

The two gunmen, residents of the West Bank, arrived at the junction shortly after 10 a.m. — according to some reports, by car — and opened fire at people waiting at a bus stop as well at a bus that had just stopped there.

Police said that a soldier and a number of civilians who were present at the scene fired at the terrorists and killed them.

The military said the soldier was an off-duty squad commander in the military’s new Hasmonean Brigade, a unit for ultra-Orthodox troops. Magen David Adom said four of the victims were declared dead at the scene, while two others were rushed to hospital and later succumbed to their wounds.

At least six others were listed in serious condition, as well as two whose status was moderate and three who were lightly hurt, according to MDA.

The dead were named as Levi Yitzhak Pash, 57, Yaakov Pinto, 25, Yisrael Matzner, 28, and Rabbi Yosef David, 43, Rabbi Mordechai Steintzag, 79, and Sarah Mendelson, 60.

The two terrorists were identified by the Shin Bet security agency as Mohammad Taha, 21, from Qatanna, and Muthanna Amro, 20, from Qubeiba. Neither had prior arrests, according to the Shin Bet.

“Why they fight” — why the Israelis fight — has just been brought, again, to our collective attention.

The Qatar Lobby Is Real — and a Real Problem Andrew Doran

https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/09/the-qatar-lobby-is-real-and-a-real-problem/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=second

The Israel lobby (if there even is one) is merely a distraction from the Qatar lobby — perhaps the most pernicious foreign influence inside America today.

Adecade ago, a colleague and I developed a proposal for a project that would provide legal representation to Christian, Yazidi, and other ISIS victims then residing in the U.S. against those who had materially cooperated in the terrorism they had endured.

There was considerable evidence that wealthy individuals and even some governments — one prominent among them — had financed the terrorists, especially in Syria and Iraq, using various financial institutions and transfer mechanisms along the way, in violation of several U.S. laws. The goals were to punish the financiers, compensate the victims, and deter such conduct in the future.

We approached a law firm led by a distinguished attorney, someone we believed, as a former public servant and avowedly devout Christian, would be sympathetic. At the second meeting, a snag arose: The firm could not, or perhaps would not, represent the victims pro bono.

Months later, that law firm was retained by Qatar. The firm had sold its services to one of the leading financiers of extremism, which precluded the firm from pursuing legal action against Qatar or individual Qataris who funded U.S.-designated terror groups, and made their lawyers aware of possible legal vulnerabilities. It was a bitter reminder that Beltway ruthlessness can know few limits — and that the most influential also tend to be the quietest.

Foreign influence has been a challenge since America’s Founding, when domestic factions often favored alliances with either Britain or France. In recent years, the malign influence of adversaries like Russia, China, and Iran has made headlines. But it is Israel’s putatively disproportionate (and putatively malign) sway over U.S. foreign policy that has been the most enduring controversy.

The ignorance and idiocy of Hollywood’s Israel boycott These Israelophobic luvvies care about one thing only – their self-image. Jake Wallis Simonsn

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/09/14/the-ignorance-and-idiocy-of-hollywoods-israel-boycott/

In Israel, there is a thriving television and film industry, which in recent years has become admired around the world. If you are one of the few people who have not watched the thriller, Fauda, a global sensation in Hebrew and Arabic that is particularly popular in the Arab world, binge it immediately; a new season is due for release in the coming months.

Shtisel is another example of Israeli creativity, though in a very different way; it is a profound and reflective series about life in ultra-orthodox Jerusalem. And the brilliant Hatufim, or Prisoners of War, which was the model for American smash hit Homeland, is harder to track down but well worth the effort.

For those with arthouse tastes, I’d recommend The Band’s Visit, a lovely little film about the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra travelling from Egypt to perform in Israel and getting lost in a small town in the Negev desert.

Good stuff. It’s no surprise, really. As the only democracy in the Middle East, which faces enemies on every border and holds a remarkable history of anguish and triumph, the Jewish State has much material on which to draw.

The fact that it has a vibrant gay scene – Tel Aviv hosts one of the best Pride parades on Earth, I’m told – is testament to its liberal heart, despite the far-right thugs temporarily in its governing coalition. And where you find an open society, you find a vibrant arts scene.

Palestine, not so much. Whether on the West Bank or in Gaza, this is a place where it can be fatal to be homosexual. This was appallingly demonstrated by the 2022 murder of Ahmad Abu Marhia, a gay Palestinian who was kidnapped from Israel where he was seeking refuge, dragged back to Hebron and beheaded.

Television programmes and films are produced by Palestinians, of course, but suffice to say that none of them has appealed to Western tastes. Our enthusiasm for their culture seems limited to that which we can appropriate, like the keffiyeh. Anything that requires a deeper engagement with the autocratic society that has laboured so long under corrupt and brutal leaders is rather more tricky.

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

Psalm 147:3. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Psalm 104:14-15
“You cause the grass to grow for the livestock, and plants for people to cultivate— bringing forth food from the earth. You make wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart”
Millions of people are getting the message loud & clear that Israel is vital for all of us who wish to see a better future and the end of evil. This newsletter filters out the lies from biased and corrupt journalists, politicians, activists etc., to give a clear picture of what Israel is really doing for humanity.

In medicine, an Israeli Arab Professor has cleared away dangerous proteins to potentially prevent millions of young patients dying from loss of blood.  Another Israeli invention clears wounds of dead tissue to enable faster healing. And an Israeli blood test gives doctors a clear indication of the best treatment for a patient with major depression. Michael Ordman

An Israeli father, mother and two sons are in the same IDF unit in Gaza.

An Israeli invention to stop bleeding wounds could save millions of lives.

Israel honors some of its many friends in Africa and South America.

Vegan “real” milk is being launched into Israeli supermarkets.

Israeli companies are soaring in value.

The US and NATO are buying more Israeli defense systems.

More “golden” Israeli sports men and women.

Beautiful views of the pre-New Year lunar eclipse from the Holy Land.

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
And mother makes four. (TY Yanky) Shlomit has left her job as a nurse at Meir Medical Center in order to enlist in the IDF reserves. She treats wounded soldiers in the IDF’s 401st Armored Corps deep inside Gaza where her husband (600 days reserve duty) and two sons (total of 10 months in the reserves) all serve.
https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/s18v004rdlx
 
The barriers are coming down. With no more threats from snipers, anti-tank weapons and mortars from Gaza, the concrete barriers that concealed Kibbutz Nahal Oz from north and central Gaza are being taken down. All terrorist infrastructure has been destroyed and the IDF now control the vantage points.
https://worldisraelnews.com/kibbutz-nahal-oz-barriers-dismantled-amid-diminished-gaza-threat/
 
A performance of honor. Singer Idan Amedi performed at Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park for 30,000 reservists, their families, wounded IDF soldiers, and bereaved families. The performance was dedicated entirely to honoring those who have risked their lives and made significant sacrifices for the security of the State of Israel.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/414803
 
$1.2 million for Ashkelon schools. (TY Yanky) The UK-based Gerald and Gail Ronson Family Foundation donated $1.2 million for two Sci-Tech schools in Ashkelon, a city heavily impacted by Hamas rockets. Ronson Afridar school will receive a new state-of-the-art open-air theatre. Henry Ronson school will also be renovated.
https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/ronson-family-foundation-gives-890k-to-israel-sci-tech-schools-affected-by-gaza-war/
 
Not only, but also. The record $180 million to Rabin (Beilinson) Medical Center (see here previously) was not the only donation from Israelis Shmuel and Anat Harlap. They also contributed tens of millions of shekels to the Weizmann Institute for restoring a building damaged in last June’s Iranian missile attack.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/hkxliir5xl
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
The bleeding edge. (TY Hazel) Prof. Abd Al-Roof Higazi of Hadassah Medical Center has developed ClearPlasma, a device that removes clot-dissolving proteins from donated plasma to quickly stop bleeding, His startup Plas-Free is now marketing ClearPlasma in Israel. Blood loss is the leading cause of death in under-45s.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-plasma-filter-promises-cutting-edge-solution-to-life-threatening-bleeds/
https://www.plas-free.com/   https://www.plas-free.com/clearplasma
 
A clean wound heals faster. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s MediWound (see here previously) has successfully completed a Phase III trial that shows its EscharEx topical, non-surgical treatment to wound bed preparation ensures a much quicker recovery for venous leg ulcers. Trials on diabetic foot ulcers are being planned.
https://mediwound.com/product/escharex/
 
Blood test identifies depression treatment. Israel’s NeuroKaire (previously Genetika+ see here) has launched BrightKaire, the world’s first blood test to personalize depression treatment. It uses AI and stem cell tech to match patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) to effective medications. Approved in US and Israel.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/byof9tp9ge
 
Preventing deadly weight loss in cancer patients. Scientists from Israel’s Weizmann Institute, and Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, have discovered the cause of cachexia – deadly weight loss responsible for roughly one-third of global cancer deaths. Targeted blockade of the right vagus nerve could prevent onset of cachexia.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-866643
 
Millions for Hadassah hospital. Members and supporters of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, pledged $23 million for Hadassah Medical Organization, its Jerusalem medical center, as well as programs in Israel and the US. It includes $5 million for a neurorehabilitation center and $3 million for IVF.
https://www.jns.org/hadassah-supporters-pledge-23-million-for-pediatric-care-ivf-neurorehabilitation/
https://www.hadassah.org/press-release/hadassah-supporters-pledge-23-million-for-its-jerusalem-medical-center-and-other-programs
 

Trump Must Keep Backing Netanyahu’s Campaign to Destroy Hamas for the Sake of the West by Con Coughlin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21905/trump-israel-war-on-hamas

[T]he Trump administration doubtless understands that Netanyahu’s willingness to attack Hamas’s leadership even when they are being protected by a foreign power such as Qatar, merely indicates the Israeli leader’s determination to achieve the goal of “finishing the job” as the US requested.

Netanyahu seems to have come to the conclusion, after repeated evasions by Hamas, that the time for any productive negotiating is over.

Hamas has apparently realised that if it returns all the hostages, it will have no more leverage with which to blackmail Israel.

That is why Netanyahu will most likely ignore the continuing clamour among some Israelis for a premature ceasefire deal that would enable Hamas not only to hold on to some of the hostages to use as bargaining chips in any future negotiations. A premature ceasefire would essentially enable Hamas to retain a presence in Gaza, a move the terror group would pocket as a major victory.

So long as Hamas’s terrorist leaders show no willingness to lay down their weapons and leave Gaza, it is clear that Netanyahu needs to continue to hunt them down, irrespective of where they may be hiding. There seems no point in assuring terrorist kingpins safe havens.

If the Trump administration is serious about bringing peace to Gaza, the region and ultimately West – as to its enormous credit, it seems to be — then it should continue to support Israel’s attempts to destroy Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure instead of working on Gaza ceasefire plans that Hamas and its backers have no intention of ever accepting.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to bomb Hamas’s terrorist leadership in Qatar should send a clear and unequivocal message to the Trump administration that the Israeli leader has absolutely no intention of ending hostilities in Gaza until Hamas is utterly destroyed, and all the remaining Israeli hostages have been returned.

Prior to Israel’s attack against the headquarters of Hamas’s terrorist leadership in Doha, the Qatari capital, US President Donald Trump had been pressing hard for Netanyahu to sign up to the latest version of the ceasefire proposal his administration has drawn up to end the Gaza conflict.

Under the terms of the latest deal negotiated by Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, all the remaining 48 hostages captured during Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack in 2023 were to be released. In return, Israel would free an estimated 2,500-3,000 Palestinian prisoners.

THE ABSURD CONDEMNATIONS AND DISTORTED MEDIA COVERAGE OF ISRAEL’S ATTACK ON HAMAS LEADERSHIP IN DOHA “News” and Reality Often Have Little In Common Eric Levine

https://ericlevine3.substack.com/p/the-absurd-condemnations-and-distorted

There has been no shortage of professed outrage at Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to attack Hamas leadership in Doha, Qatar. The more one parses through the criticism, the more one becomes convinced the decision to kill the 5-star-hotel-dwelling, jacuzzi-enthusiast terrorists was not just morally justified, but tactically brilliant.

Many critics on the radical progressive antisemitic left believe Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish State and therefore, has no right to defend itself. These voices are rightly ignored.

Equally irrelevant, however, are those, who like the Biden Administration, believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish State, but just as a matter of principal think it should never take an offensive posture in defending itself. For them, Israel has every right to protect its citizens but, unlike every other country in the world, should limit its defense to preventing ballistic missiles from falling on its cities. Of course, this strategy allows the terrorists to live and fight another day and ensures an October 7th like attack will occur again.

The alleged more nuanced criticism of the attack in Qatar is that it will make diplomacy with the Gulf Arab States and the expansion of the Abraham Accords more difficult, if not impossible. If this is the best argument critics can muster, Netanyahu clearly made the right call.

A “news article” in the September 12 edition of Wall Street Journal, written by Jared Malsin, Summer Said and Benoit Faucon, reported:

“The attack in a quiet embassy district of Doha, which killed several Hamas officials and a member of the Qatari security forces, punctuated an already growing realization that Israel has made a strategic decision to secure itself through force of arms even at the expense of its diplomatic ties…”

This purported piece of “news” is absurd on its face.