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ISRAEL

“Palestine” Invades the U.K. by Rafael Medoff

https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/383351/palestine-invades-the-u-k/

 A recent chance encounter in London’s Heathrow Airport offered a troubling glimpse of the extent to which anti-Israel hate is penetrating youth culture in the United Kingdom.

    The encounter in question was not with a person, but rather a newspaper—the latest issue of The Skinny. Distributed free to the more than 200,000 travelers who pass through Heathrow daily—and many others, elsewhere—The Skinny is the second largest magazine of culture and listings in the United Kingdom. Its format and radicalism—political as well as cultural—are reminiscent of The Village Voice.

    The anti-Israel trend in the UK music scene has been in the news in recent weeks. The rappers Kneecap and Bobby Vylan stirred controversy at England’s Glastonbury Festival by leading the crowd in chants of “Free Palestine” and “Death to the IDF.” The new issue of The Skinny makes clear that those ugly appeals for violence were far from isolated phenomena in the UK.

    The August edition features a two-page spread about “Welcome to the Fringe, Palestine,” which is billed as “a four-day mini-festival of theatre, dance, comedy, food, storytelling, music and poetry created by Palestinians.” The reviewer emphasizes that “each piece [of the festival] is unapologetically political” and promotes “Palestinian resistance” against “Zionist occupation and genocide.” The festival’s approach of “art as politics” is urgently needed “in a moment where international conversations on Palestine are policed, sanctioned, [and] sanitized by mainstream institutions,”  the reviewer asserts.

UN Admits 95% of its Gaza Aid Trucks Were “Intercepted”Daniel Greenfield

https://www.danielgreenfield.org/

Over the past few weeks, the UN, the EU, the media and Hamas banded together to demand that aid deliveries shift back from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to the United Nations. The campaign played out with Hamas kidnapping, torturing and killing employees of the U.S. aid group, while the media spread false claims that Israel was using GHF distribution sites as ‘death traps’ for killing Gazans, and world leaders demanded that the UN be put back in charge of aid.

Back when the UN had been in charge it had faked its own famine by refusing to deliver food and letting it pile up instead. Since then the UN’s food aid has kept on piling up even while GHF, an American Christian aid group, has managed to deliver millions of meals to Gaza residents, despite being smeared by the media as “controversial” for feeding those whom the UN wouldn’t.

Whom was the UN actually delivering aid to back when it even bothered trying to deliver it?

The UNOPS ‘Mechanism for Gaza’ revealed that of the around 2,600 aid trucks entering Gaza, only 300 made it to their destination. 2,310 trucks or 88% of them were ‘intercepted’.

Much of the ‘aid’ being brought in by the UN and its allies, including the UN’s WFP, UNICEF, the International Red Cross, the International Medical Corps and the World Central Kitchen, whose founder Jose Andres, has been constantly attacking Israel in the media, was ‘intercepted’.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP), which has been front and center in the media, crying for more money and denouncing Trump and Israel, only successfully delivered 1,864 pallets of aid since May while losing 29,673 pallets or 93% of it to “interceptions”.

The UN’s WFP recently claimed that it has run out of food stocks and needs $265 million for just the next 6 months to feed Gaza. Where did its food stocks go?

Certainly not to aid stations.

Why Is Reuters Carrying Water for Hamas? Media organizations said there is ‘no evidence’ of systemic aid theft by Hamas. That reporting went viral. But it isn’t true.By Jonas Du

https://www.thefp.com/p/why-is-reuters-carrying-water-for-hamas?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

When it comes to the war in Gaza, how is it that the legacy media always defers to the narrative that benefits Hamas? A recent Reuters story illuminates the problem.

Last month, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) produced an internal analysis tracking reports of waste, fraud, and abuse of humanitarian aid in Gaza. 

According to that report, between October 2023 and May 2025, USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance received 156 notifications of “fraud, waste, and abuse notifications” from its NGO partners in Gaza, amounting to a loss of more than $4.6 million. The key finding was that “for all 156 incidents, partners did not provide any information in their incident reports alleging SG [sanctioned group] or FTO [foreign terrorist organization] involvement,” according to a slideshow of the findings obtained by The Free Press.

But when the analysis was leaked to legacy news organizations, they reported something completely different. 

In late July, first Reuters and then CNN reported that the analysis “found no evidence of systematic theft by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.” ABC later reported that USAID “failed to find any evidence” that Hamas “engaged in widespread diversion of assistance.” Those news organizations didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

There is a world of difference between “notifications” of aid misuse and actual misuse.

Two sources familiar with USAID and its analysis confirmed that the partners’ failure to report terrorist involvement does not mean there is “no evidence” of theft by Hamas. “The report appears to be wholly reliant on self-reporting by UN agencies and NGOs who are extremely reticent to report Hamas interference out of fear of violent retribution by Hamas,” a senior U.S. official familiar with the USAID report told The Free Press.

When the Reuters story was published, “nobody at the highest levels of the USAID administration had seen the report,” said a senior official at the State Department, which oversees USAID. “It was deliberately and intentionally manufactured. . . and distributed to plant a deliberate false narrative.”

Worse yet, Hamas used Reuters’ framing to fuel accusations of starvation and genocide against the U.S. and Israel. Allegations of theft “were recently refuted by an internal investigation by the United States Agency for International Development, which confirmed the absence of any reports or data indicating the theft of aid by Hamas,” said Izzat al-Rishq, a founding member of Hamas’s politburo, on August 1. “We strongly condemn U.S. President Trump’s reiteration of Israeli allegations and lies accusing Hamas of stealing and selling humanitarian aid in Gaza.”

Australia Recognizes Palestine After Israeli Hostages Revealed to Be Starving, Abused Catherine Salgado

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2025/08/11/australia-recognizes-palestine-after-israeli-hostages-revealed-to-be-starving-abused-n4942600

The government of Australia waited until after videos had been released showing how horrifically Hamas is abusing Israeli hostages, and after former hostages affirmed that not a single Gazan intervened to help any hostages (quite the opposite), to recognize a state of Palestine.

Evyatar David’s and Rom Broslavsky’s families must be heartbroken seeing how little Western governments care about their sons ever returning home, how all the empathy is for the jihadi captors. Not only has a state of Palestine never existed, but it should never exist. Establishing one would be a marvelous reward for terrorism. Don’t believe me, believe the Hamas official who proudly said that the reason countries are recognizing Palestine is directly due to the horrific massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Israel’s only option to end the decades of Jihad is to take back the Gaza Strip, which they had to begin with, and try to deport as many so-called Palestinians as possible.

After all, those Muslims who have called themselves Palestinians since the 1960s are a conglomeration of Arabs and other Muslims from different nations. Allowing them to move to Gaza only created catastrophe and tragedy. Time to send as many of them back as possible. Donald Trump suggested this plan earlier this year, and it was a very good plan. It makes even more sense now that multiple nations, with Australia as the latest antisemitic name on the list, are trying to end the war in Hamas’s favor by demanding recognition of a Palestinian state (which, incidentally, was already created a century ago — it is called Jordan, only the Jordanians don’t want the destructive “Palestinians” back). 

Israel’s Military: Force and Dollar Multiplier for the US Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

http://bit.ly/45bujf4

The Israeli Battle-Tested-Laboratory received – with much gratitude! – the initial F-15 (Boeing) and F-16 (Lockheed-Martin) in 1976 and 1980 respectively.  Since that time, for 45-50 years, the Israeli Battle-Tested Laboratory and Showroom of the US defense and aerospace industries and Armed Forces has significantly improved these fighter jets – and the US air force’s battle tactics – through the uniquely intense operational use of the aircraft (due to the uniquely violent Middle East). 

*The Israeli improvements (mostly shared with the US manufacturers and Armed Forces) have yielded ground-breaking mega billions of dollars worth of research and development (saving 10-20 years), enhancing US competitiveness in the global market, increasing US exports and expanding the US employment base. The Israeli improvements have enhanced the capabilities of the F-15 and F-16, as well as several hundred of other US military systems, which have been supplied to the Israeli Battle-Tested-Laboratory.

*For example, the F-15I Ra’am, a variant of the F-15E adopted to Israeli specifications, functions as a compact but long-range strategic bomber with enhanced ground-attack roles. Also, Israel’s F-16s have undergone hundreds of Israeli-designed upgrades including improvements to the cockpit (75% Israel-upgraded), fire control (50% Israel-upgraded), wings and fuel tanks, effectively modernizing and extending their operational lives.

*State-of-the-art Israeli game-changing technologies have bolstered the range, payload capacity, and overall performance of the aircraft. Israel has introduced an innovative engine overhaul, which has extended the life of the aircraft. These enhancements have bolstered the US economy and defense capabilities, while advancing the Israeli Air Force’s strategic superiority in the Middle East; thus, enhancing Israel’s posture of deterrence, minimizing Middle East instability, securing pro-US Arab regimes, and reducing wars and terrorism, which is a critical US interest.

Shutting down the economy won’t help the hostages Ruthie Blum

https://www.jns.org/shutting-down-the-economy-wont-help-the-hostages/

In a press conference on Sunday morning, the October Council—consisting of hostages’ families, bereaved relatives of Oct. 7 victims and mothers of reservists—took turns at the microphone to call for a countrywide strike the following week.

The men and women who read statements aloud conveyed a uniform message to the powers-that-be in Jerusalem: End the war and bring home all the hostages. Their plea for a deal to return the captives held by Hamas for the past 22 months isn’t new.

On the contrary, accusing the government of pursuing its goals in Gaza at the expense of the hostages has become a protest-movement mantra that every Israeli knows by heart.

That’s a delicate way of describing the chants and placards claiming that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has the blood of the fallen—and that of those “certain” to be killed by their kidnappers—on his hands. It’s a narrative backed by the mainstream Israeli media and embraced by Hamas.

Former political/military officials whose hatred for Bibi outweighs any vestige of patriotism they once possessed go even further. They’re perpetuating the lie, spread by the Jewish state’s most virulent enemies, that Israel is guilty of war crimes.

Again, nothing novel about the noxious noise that’s music to Hamas’s ears. Ditto for the call to paralyze the economy—the very threat two years ago that caused Netanyahu to reverse his decision to fire then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and proceed with judicial reforms. Hence the revival of the general-strike idea.

But the current attempt to pressure the premier into meeting unreasonable demands came on the heels of the announcement that Israel would be taking over Gaza City. The Cabinet approved the plan after a 10-hour session, during which ministers debated among themselves and with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir about how to proceed in the face of a failed “negotiation” process with Hamas.

‘Starvation’ in Gaza Who’s to blame? by Cal Thomas

https://www.frontpagemag.com/starvation-in-gaza/

In the Middle East, war is conducted not only with bullets and missiles, but also with pictures. The latest are pictures of allegedly starving children in Gaza distributed by Hamas and its enablers with the intention of blaming Israel for delaying, even denying entry of food trucks into the strip.

Such pictures are gobbled up and distributed to the world without question by media that are always critical of Israel and hardly critical at all of forces that seek to destroy the Jewish state.

Perhaps no nation in history has cared about preserving human life more than modern Israel. It even treats its wounded enemies in Israeli hospitals. It releases hundreds of convicted terrorists in exchange for a handful of captured Israeli soldiers. It distributes leaflets and makes phone calls urging civilians to evacuate areas inhabited by Hamas terrorists before those areas are attacked. What other nation does that?

The New York Post reports “Col. Abdullah Halabi, from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, told reporters last week that around 1,000 truckloads of aid remain undelivered ‘due to a lack of cooperation from the international community and international organizations.’” Predictably, others are blaming Israel, which plays into Hamas’ hands.

The problem for Israel is that it has defeated Hamas, but Hamas won’t surrender. The terrorist organization is the main impediment to getting food to those who need it, but the seeds of today’s disaster began in 2005 when Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip by dismantling all 21 of its remaining settlements. It didn’t take a prophet to predict the vacuum would soon be filled by terrorists eager to use Gaza as a base for attacking Israel.

What followed was this:

– Gazans stupidly elected Hamas as their government. They are now reaping what they sowed.

Hamas’s Plan to Undermine America’s Arab Allies by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21827/hamas-undermining-america-arab-allies

Hamas is now trying to incite Arabs to revolt against their own governments under the pretext that the Arab leaders have failed to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Apparently, the Arab leaders understand the dangers of allowing Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization, to drag their countries into war with Israel.

That is why many Arab countries have banned or outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and recently, Jordan. These countries view the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to national security and political stability.

If the Trump administration wants to promote peace and stability in the Middle East and protect its Arab allies, it must follow suit and designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

“Al-Hayya’s statement is part of a systematic campaign orchestrated by the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide with the aim of discrediting Egypt’s role and disrupting its political and humanitarian efforts to stop the war and alleviate the suffering of [Palestinian] civilians.” — Former Egyptian Assistant Foreign Minister Hussein Haridi, Sky News Arabia, July 28, 2025.

The Hamas leader’s goals are “completely in line with the main objectives of the Muslim Brotherhood: toppling the Egyptian regime and turning Egypt into a quagmire of chaos…. The Muslim Brotherhood believes that the current economic situation in Egypt could be an opportunity to pressure the Egyptian people by mixing religious sentiments with economic conditions, thereby destabilizing the country’s domestic situation.” — Saeed Okasha, Egyptian expert at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, almashhad.com, July 28, 2025.

Hamas leaders, who claim they were betrayed by their Arab brothers, now seek to export their group’s own crisis and place the responsibility for the suffering of the Palestinians on other parties, especially the Arab countries.

They are doing so from their safe villas and luxury hotel suites in Qatar, one of the leading sponsors of Islamist groups, especially the Muslim Brotherhood.

Were it not for Qatar’s backing, Hamas leaders would not have had the courage to incite unrest and instability in Egypt and Jordan. It is time for the Trump administration not only to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization, but also finally to call out Qatar and its Al-Jazeera TV network for promoting Islamist terror groups that target Israel and America’s Arab allies.

After rejecting all proposals for a ceasefire-and-hostage deal, the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group Hamas is now trying to incite Arabs to revolt against their own governments under the pretext that the Arab leaders have failed to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Recently, senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya, who together with his family moved from the Gaza Strip to Qatar before the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led invasion of Israel, called on Arabs to “march toward Palestine by land and sea and besiege the [Israeli embassies in Arab countries, especially Egypt and Jordan].”

Washington Post op-ed: Hunger in Gaza is not Israel’s fault Washington Post publishes op-ed stating that “Hamas fights on because it clearly doesn’t care about the suffering of the people of Gaza”.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/413015?utm_source=facebook

A Washington Post op-ed by columnist Marc A. Thiessen, on Tuesday, was titled: “Hunger in Gaza has many authors, but Israel isn’t one of them”. Thiessen noted the 1,829,520 meals that Israel provided to Gazans through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and added that the meals are “enough to feed nearly the entire Gazan population.”

To counter the claims that Israel is deliberately causing starvation in Gaza, the op-ed stated that “Israel is doing something no nation has ever done, or even been expected to do: Feed the population of the aggressor force that attacked it while the war is still going on.”

Thiessen added: “The United States did not feed Germany and Japan while the war was going on; we forced their armies to surrender and then fed their populations.”

He emphasized that “Hamas fights on because it clearly doesn’t care about the suffering of the people of Gaza” and defined the suffering as central to “Hamas’s strategy of survival.”

Thiessen noted that the Hamas strategy seems to be working in terms of coverage by Western media outlets, and the response of governments like France, Canada, Britain, Ireland, Spain and Norway regarding support of the establishment of a Palestinian State.

Thiessen concluded his op-ed: “To lay the blame for this situation at Israel’s feet, rather than on Hamas, requires a stunning level of moral blindness, which apparently is plentiful when it comes to what is happening in Gaza.”

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

Some highlights.

Israeli researchers have discovered how to turbo-charge the immune system.

Israeli scientists have grown a kidney in the lab to 34-week maturity.

Israel won an overall top 10 result at both math & chemistry student Olympiads.

Israelis have harvested grapes from 1,500-year old seeds found in the desert.

The products and services of three Israeli startups have just gone global.

The world’s earliest burial site has been discovered in Israel.

Jewish Sabbath laws have been changed to approve use of bionic limbs.

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
Gearing up for Iron Beam. (TY Yanky) Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems is preparing to launch Israel’s Iron Beam laser missile defense system, It has established a new administration to manage high-power laser systems projects, led by a woman, known only as Dr Y. – a graduate of Israel’s Technion Institute.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-rafael-gears-up-for-iron-beam-launch-1001510874
 
IDF overhauls Arabic and Islamic training. It looks like some of the lessons of Oct 7 have been learned.
https://www.jns.org/idf-overhauls-arabic-islamic-training-after-oct-7-failures/
 
Bomb shelter culture. Well worth reading this article which highlights some of the positive aspects of sheltering together with neighbors during an Iranian missile alert. It may have been something similar for UK citizens during the bombing of Britain in the WW2 blitz of 1940.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-860107
 
Kerem House. (TY WIN) In the heart of Tel Aviv’s residential areas devastated by Iranian missiles, volunteers from Kerem House bring shattered homes and broken hearts back to life – one act of kindness at a time. Kerem House organizes everything from holiday meals, clean-ups to emergency war support and home restorations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEqcClJ83bg  https://www.keremhouse.org/
 
Empowering bereaved women. (TY Sharon) 500+ Israeli women, all bereaved by acts of terrorism and war, gathered in Jerusalem for the annual Women’s Empowerment Symposium organized by OneFamily. The women shared their personal stories of loss, finding strength in community and learning to navigate their pain.
https://www.israpundit.org/israels-good-news-newsletter-to-3rd-aug-25/
 
Haredi brigade receives berets at Western Wall.  The first regular company of the IDF’s Hasmonean Brigade completed seven months of combat training, culminating in a “Beret March” to the Western Wall. The 50 ultra-Orthodox troops entered the Kotel Plaza blowing shofars and singing songs about the Jewish Temple.
https://www.jns.org/hasmonean-brigades-first-company-completes-basic-training-at-western-wall/
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/412832
 
Bakery rehabilitated. Israel’s Tosha Bakery on the Lebanese border was rebuilding when last featured in this newsletter (see here previously). It is hard to believe the transformation now. The serene pastoral atmosphere, trays of home-made croissants and jugs of sugar-sweet freshly squeezed juice from Golan Heights oranges.
https://www.jns.org/returning-home-israeli-pastoral-cafe-near-lebanese-border-reopens-amid-postwar-regional-renewal/
 
Improving media coverage. Six-time Emmy-nominated multimedia journalist Jacki Karsh and her husband Jeff in partnership with Jewish Federation Los Angeles, have launched the Karsh Journalism Fellowship – a first-of-its-kind program focused solely on improving media coverage of antisemitism, Jewish life and Israel.
https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/shocked-by-poor-gaza-war-reporting-l-a-couple-launches-fellowship-to-improve-coverage-on-israel-jewish-life/   https://karshfellowship.org/