The fact that wars against radical Islam and the evil regime in Tehran are not over – and that struggles against other radical and threatening actors in the region like Turkey may be ahead – should not detract from this moment of triumph.
After all, radical Islam has long declared civilizational war on the West, with America as the hated “Great Satan,” Europe as the ridiculed “Middle Satan,” and Israel as the devious “Little Satan.” Radical Islam, ideologically fueled, funded, and armed by Shi’ite Iran and by radical Sunni movements (such as Al Qaeda), seeks the cultural and political submission of these Satans and the annihilation of Israel.
The straw man of “settler violence” was this week once again spit out by supposed “allies” of Israel in the West to justify the obnoxious imposition of sanctions against two right-wing Israeli cabinet ministers.
The sanctions are galling, and the accusation is false. The move effectively brands Israel a pariah state, even though it was wrapped in fussing-phony language about friendship for Israel.
And it does so based on systematic distortions and demonization. “Settler violence” is an ugly, fringe phenomenon falsely and purposefully puffed-up to ‘balance’ the crimes of Hamas.
The “settler violence” narrative is a well-funded juggernaut; no less than an international campaign to delegitimize the State of Israel and the IDF, to justify violence against Israeli soldiers and civilians, and to pave the way for a runaway Palestinian state.
This is proven by two new, important reports: OCHA-oPT – The UN Organ Behind the “Settler Violence” Smear Campaign, by Adv. Avraham Shalev of the Kohelet Policy Forum; and False Flags and Real Agendas – The Making of a Modern Blood Libel: The ‘Settler Violence’ Narrative as a Weapon in the Battle to Delegitimize the Jewish Presence in Judea and Samaria and the State of Israel, by Adv. Yona Admoni (Coblenz) and Moriah Michaeli of the Regavim Movement.
OCHA is the “Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory” – the “humanitarian” arm of the UN Secretariat, which coordinates the work of about 80 UN groups and NGOs operating in Judea & Samaria. Shalev definitively shows how is the font of all so-called “settler evil” statistics. He reveals how OCHA relies on organizations whose entire purpose is to destroy Israel and those clearly aligned with Palestinian terrorist organizations.
According to Shalev, OCHA’s grossly biased and fabricated reports even count many cases of Arab terror attacks on Jews, and left-wing anarchist attacks on settlers, as “settler violence.” Yet OCHA is the “authoritative” source quoted by every foreign ministry in the world about Israel’s “monstrous” settler crimes. (Monstrous is the wild word disgustingly used this week by British Foreign Minister David Lammy.)
The Biden Administration’s State Department – which played a major role in revving-up the fallacious settler violence story line – relied on OCHA too.
Regavim’s deep dive into this issue (125 pages, including detailed statistical appendices) further shows how the so-called “settler violence” is a carefully planned and well-funded international campaign; a crusade to drive the notions that there is a “widespread” (– did somebody say “monstrous”?) phenomenon of violence by settlers in Judea and Samaria against Arab residents in the area (– not isolated instances of violence) and that the Israeli government is complicit in this. And to turn this into common knowledge, into “undisputed fact.”
Note: Neither report denies that there are Israelis who act violently toward Palestinians, and that these attacks are wrong, injurious, immoral, and destabilizing.
But the reports convincingly show that this is not a widespread phenomenon; and that there is a vast gap between the branding, focus, and preoccupation with marginal incidents of violence perpetrated by Jews against Arabs in comparison with the incidence, frequency, severity and prevalence of other incidents of violence (against Israelis!) in Judea and Samaria and in Israel as a whole. The reports also demonstrate that Israeli authorities indeed are addressing the problem (although I think that an even tougher Israeli hand is required.)
Regavim: “The fact that thousands of events, most entirely unrelated to violence, and many occurring outside of Judea and Samaria, are labeled ‘settler violence,’ is eerily parallel to Hamas’s murderous logic in claiming that residents of Kibbutz Be’eri and Kfar Aza are ‘settlers’ – or to the absurd declarations of the official Palestinian news agency, which reports on ‘settler roadblocks’ in Tel Aviv in protest of the Netanyahu-led right-wing government.”
“The absurdity deepens as Arab terror attacks are counted as ‘settler violence’ if they end with the terrorist being killed or injured. Even IDF interdiction of terrorists bith during military operations and in thwarted terror attacks is labeled as settler violence. Fabricated events – which a basic check proves never happened – as well as thousands of peaceful visits by Jews to the Temple Mount, or official government actions such as land declarations, settlement planning, or nature reserve designations – all are included in OCHA’s ‘databases’ as incidents of ‘settler violence’.”
Worse still, Regavim’s report also persuasively demonstrates how Palestinian Authority officials together with extreme left-wing Israeli and foreign organizations openly plan confrontations with IDF soldiers and Jewish residents in Judea & Samaria to provoke them into violent behavior – which is then filmed and edited (i.e., distorted) to fuel the “settler violence” narrative. Regavim also tracks the foreign money routes that fund this malicious effort.
Regavim criticizes the Israeli government for its failure to respond to the “settler violence” campaign. “Israel has neglected to offer a unified, official, and transparent database on the actual scope of ideologically motivated crimes both by Jews and by Arabs. With such data, alongside proportionate framing and factual context, it would have been easy to debunk the campaign at much earlier stages. The lack of official Israeli data has given tailwind to the campaign.”
I KNOW that Regavim is right in this regard because two years ago I conducted my own research into this issue, and struggled mightily to pry real statistics out of the Israeli security establishment.
I submitted a formal request for information to the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), which is the government arm responsible for tracking and countering violence in Judea and Samaria.
From the detailed and precise statistics I eventually received, it became crystal clear that there had not been a significant increase, no “surge,” in right-wing Israeli-Jewish violence against Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria since the beginning of the current Gaza war compared to earlier periods.
I also learned that “violence” in this context means many different things, from verbal altercations and rock throwing (what the ISA calls “frictions” or “harassment”), to spray-painting of anti-Arab slogans and other undercover vandalism including agricultural vandalism (“price tag activities”), to firebombing of homes or mosques (which are classified as outright “terrorist strikes”).
I learned that the more serious type of incidents had dropped by 50% thanks to Israeli enforcement actions. And that there is no evidence whatsoever of wild accusations (say, by B’Tselem or Yesh Din) that hundreds of Palestinians from many communities have been forced to abandon their homes due to fear of settler attacks. And that indeed many of the Palestinians listed by OCHA as victims of settler violence are in fact Palestinian terrorists killed by Israeli troops in necessary, defensive and offensive operations.
It is unfortunately true that altercations and aggressions by settlers in 2022 and 2024 rose over that in 2020, 2021, and 2023. Perhaps this is because Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, in fact all citizens of Israel, had been subject to a wild wave of murderous Palestinian terrorist attacks ever since 2022.
In case officials in Washington, London, Ottawa, Canberra, Wellington, and Oslo have forgotten, here is a reminder. In 2022, there were more than 5,000 Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli Jews, including car-ramming, shooting, stabbing, and bombing of innocent men, women, and children. These attacks included over 500 Molotov cocktail attacks (firebombs), leading to the injury of more than 150 Israelis. There was a 210% rise in rock throwing incidents in 2021 over 2020, and a 156% rise in bomb throwing incidents in 2021 over 2020.
And in spring-summer 2023, Palestinian terrorists slaughtered close to 40 Israelis in and beyond the Green Line, with more than 3,640 recorded acts of Palestinian and Arab terror throughout Israel, including 2,118 cases of rock-throwing, 799 fire-bombings, 18 attempted stabbings, and six vehicular assaults.
Palestinian terrorism in central Israel was even worse in 2024 (although I don’t have exact statistics), and this can be layered onto Hamas’ truly horrific attacks in the Gaza envelope in late 2023, and the tens of thousands of rockets subsequently fired into Israel.
And yet, I don’t recall hearing about sanctions levied by Washington, London, Ottawa, Canberra, Wellington, and Oslo against ministers in Palestinian governments or ministers in Arab governments supporting hostile Palestinian operations against Israel. Say, ministers in Qatar, Turkey, and Yemen.
So, is there Jewish violence in Judea and Samaria? Yes. We all have seen the dreadful videos of settlers in kipas and keffiyas setting fire to Palestinian cars or trees at night. This is unacceptable, and I hold no wellspring of sympathy for the hilltop wild boys involved. Israel must aggressively combat this lawlessness.
But has there been an enormous, out-of-control surge in settler violence recently? No.
And is there a culture of Jewish violence in settler communities? Also no.
In fact, attacks on Palestinian property and individuals committed by a few extremists at the fringes of an overwhelmingly peaceful community of half a million Israelis who live over the Green Line calculates to a level of violence that is lower than that done by Israelis against Israelis in greater Tel Aviv!
And without meaning to diminish the problematics of extremist Israeli attacks on Palestinians, violence by some settlers also pales in comparison to the “regular” 5,000 Palestinian boulder, bomb, and shooting attacks a year aimed at killing Israeli civilians.
And again, this super-pales in comparison to the 1,200 Israelis slaughtered by Hamas on Oct. 7 or the reign of terror inflicted on all Israelis by the thousands rockets and missiles fired by Hamas (and Hezbollah and the Houthis and Iran) into Israeli civilian population centers.
But what the heck. It is great performative political theater to sanction right-wing Israeli cabinet ministers. The conjuring-up of really bad Israelis – who, gulp, don’t support a helter-skelter rush to Palestinian statehood in addition to their other settlement “crimes” – seems to provide some Westerners (those who dislike Israel but still want to hide their antipathy) with some ersatz moral counterweight to their condemnations of Hamas violence.
Stop throwing pernicious pieties about “settler violence” in Israel’s face as it fights for its very life against genocidal Hamas and hegemonic Iran. At best, this is a red herring issue. At worst, it is an ugly attempt to discredit the righteousness of Israel’s war effort.
Published in The Jerusalem Post 13.06.2025
Why has the US under President Donald Trump failed to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, an end to the Hamas war against Israel and the hostage crisis, an end to Houthi assaults on Israel, and an end to the Iranian nuclear bomb program?
Because Trump and his team have the wrong paradigm in mind. They approach everything with a pragmatist, transactional perspective. They see everything through dispassionate business eyeglasses. They think that America’s enemies do the same.
Worse still, Trump thinks that the weighty economic power of America and the force of his own HUGE personality will bend adversaries to his will.
But what if America’s challengers are motivated by deeper, darker purposes? What if Russia, Iran, Hamas, and the Houthis (and even the Chinese) are driven by ideological ambitions that go far beyond the calculations of economic and other cold-neutral self-interest? What if these actors are prepared for decades of war against the West, and specifically against Israel, no matter what “great deals” Trump offers them?
The latest example of such American miscalculation is the reported Trump administration proposal to shoehorn Iran’s program for enrichment of uranium to atomic-bomb levels into some wacky offshore consortium of Middle East countries including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey alongside the US. This would somehow dilute or restrict Iran’s near-bomb-ready nuclear colossus.
But of course, Iranian dictator Ayatollah Khamenei defiantly has rejected this idea, for ideological reasons. “National independence means that the Iranian nation stands on its own feet; it means not waiting for a green or red light from others,” he declared.
Iran’s resolve to forge its own path without foreign interference “defines its sovereignty,” he said. “We can” is a revolutionary principle taught by Imam Khomeini, he bellowed. He proceeded to call US proposals rude, insolent, arrogant, destructive, and “deviating from the motivations and sacrifices rooted in our people’s faith.”
Khamenei ranted on about Zionist “crimes,” with the usual formulas about Israel as a cancer in the Middle East that must and will be eliminated by Iran, and he insisted that Iran is developing all means to do so. “By definite divine decree, the Zionist regime is collapsing. God willing, the day [of its demise] is not far off.”
In short, no pragmatic deal offered by the US to Iran nor any further Western sanctions against it are going to knock the Islamic Republic off its radical path, even if it bends a bit to mollify Trump for a bit. Ingrained ideological commitment for the long-term trumps short term accommodations to Trump.
The algorithm by which America and Israel’s adversaries operate is attrition; long wars of attrition, informed by an ethos of sacrifice and eschatological visions of zealous, crushing victory.
AFTER OCTOBER 7, all Israeli leaders and most of the Israeli public recognize this; that the set of rules by which the worst actors in the Middle East operate are ideological, attritional, genocidal; not accommodational or transactional.
For example, Israelis understand that beyond whatever temporary accords might unfortunately be necessary to obtain the release of a few more Israeli hostages held criminally and viciously by Hamas, there are no long-term accommodations with Hamas. It must be rooted out from Gaza, Judea, and Samaria – and this means a decade (or more) of bloody warfare at varying degrees of intensity.
It means “managing the conflict” through the determined use of force in a proactive, preemptive, and persistent manner. It means no establishment of any runaway, radical, revolutionary Palestinian states.
And if there are any accommodations and reconciliations in the broader region to be had, they run through the Abraham Accords prism which purposefully and smartly sidelined the Palestinian issue.
(This is also why it is so nonsensical of France, Saudi Arabia, and others to resuscitate delusions of Palestinian statehood, specifically now. This is a recipe for devastating disappointment and escalated conflict. And of course, for the isolation of Israel – which may be the point of the whole French-Saudi exercise.)
Similarly, Israelis understand that beyond whatever interim accords might be possible with the new Al-Jolani regime in Syria and the Aoun government in Lebanon, the IDF itself must and will continue to regularly interdict threats to Israel over the borders with these countries. Israel will not sit back for a decade or two, merely gathering intelligence on emerging threats until the threat reaches monstrous proportions (as Israel unfortunately did versus Hezbollah).
The same goes for Judea and Samaria. Nobody is under the illusion that any Palestinian “authority” can or will counteract the build-up of Iranian backed Islamic terrorist armies in these areas – which directly threaten Jerusalem and central Israel. Only the IDF can and will; thus, the full-scale Israeli military operations in places like Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nablus to resolutely rout out such threats. This is likely to be a permanent feature of Israeli policy. President Macron should take note.
The same goes for Iran. The IAEA is warning that Iran already has enriched enough uranium at near-bomb-ready levels for 6-8 nuclear bombs, and that its advanced centrifuges could do so many times over within three months’ time. Thus, Israelis know that complete dismantling or military destruction of this apparatus (as well as Iran’s ballistic missile empire) is necessary soon.
Half or cosmetic measures based on “trust” that purport to put the Iranian nuclear juggernaut to bed are insufficient. Especially if they ignore the missile threat and Iran’s other hegemonic incursions across the region. Any such boondoggle of an American accord with Iran will force to Israel to act against Tehran on its own.
THE ENEMY wars of attrition against Israel, like the drawn-out and purposefully never-ending negotiations for hostage release, have an additional, central purpose. This is the ripping to shreds of Israeli society from within – the exacerbation of political and religious-social divisions; the exhaustion of Israeli citizens and fighters; and the sapping of a will to fight on.
Alas, this enemy strategy is highly effective. Israel is indeed increasingly drained and divided (not to mention highly taxed and exasperated with the country’s leadership); although not crushingly so.
I am certain, as detailed above, that most Israelis understand the long-term ideological and civilizational nature of the battles ahead and are girding themselves for them. This, irrespective of what political changes may be wrought by an Israeli election campaign over the next year and regardless of what mistakes of accommodation/surrender might be made in the coming weeks by Western leaders.
Israelis have every reason to believe that the State of Israel can successfully reset the regional strategic architecture in positive directions – as it did once through the Abraham Accords; as it has in going a long way toward crushing Hamas and Hezbollah (which also sped forward collapse of the Russian- and Iranian-backed Assad regime in Syria); as it has in stripping Iran of its air defenses, and more.
The question is: How does one advance a deeper, more mature, more resilient, and more patient appreciation of threats and responsibilities in the Middle East among Western leaders? How does one assist them in growing a spine and backing Israel along its long path toward security and prosperity?
Published in The Jerusalem Post 06.06.2025.
**The opinions expressed in Misgav publications are the authors’ alone.**
French President Emmanuel Macron is currently threatening to unilaterally “recognize” Palestinian statehood, in order to punish Israel for its war of self-defense in Gaza and pressure it to withdraw from all “Palestinian territories.” In response, Israeli leaders have threatened to apply Israeli sovereignty to parts or all of Judea and Samaria.
Macron needs to be slapped down. (His wife can show us how.) Recognizing ersatz Palestinian “statehood” at this time is an unforgivable offense. But the Israeli counter-threat is a mistake for two reasons. It will not deter Macron and other hostile Western leaders from pursuing their nefarious agenda, and it is the wrong way to rightfully apply sovereignty.
Macron and others are convening a “High-Level Two-State Solution Conference” at the UN three weeks from now to “build consensus” around political recognition of a pseudo “State of Palestine.” “Irreversible and concrete measures are necessary to maintain the prospect of a Palestinian state,” the French president has imperiously declared.
The fact that previous such resolutions and proclamations have only bolstered Palestinian rejection of Israel’s right to exist – and have been interpreted by Palestinians as an international green light for the use of terror to destroy Israel – does not frighten Macron.
Nor is he dissuaded by the fact that blabbering at this moment about Palestinian statehood is the very essence of victory for Hamas terrorism and incentivizes more acts of massacre. Merely discussing Palestinian statehood now gives Hamas more sway in Palestinian politics than it ever had, especially in Judea and Samaria (known as “the West Bank”).
Don’t confuse Paris with facts – like the support of three-quarters of Palestinians in the West Bank for the October 7 Hamas-led massacre, or the support of governors in the Palestinian Authority for terrorism and the active participation of its Fatah Party in the wave of terror attacks threatening central Israel.
INSTEAD OF pushback against the increasingly genocidal Palestinian national movement, we get more perilous pablum about the “urgency” of Palestinian statehood. Instead of action to retaliate and truly deter Hamas from ever raising a hand against a hostage again, we get diplomatic rewards for Palestinian intransigence and violence.
International wags should ask themselves: Is their effort to bolster Palestinians with “recognition” of faux statehood – and with more and more aid money – helping Palestinians mature? Or is it merely deepening Palestinian dependency, perpetuating Palestinian victim-refugee-martyrdom identity, prolonging the campaign to demonize Israel as a genocidal monster, and in the end, just plainly and unabashedly weakening Israel?
In fact, one suspects that the latter motivation, tinged with a smidgen of deep-seated antisemitism, is the main impulse.
The scent coming from Macron and his ilk is antipathy toward Israel. They simply cannot stomach a strong Israel. In their view, Israel is a global problem because it has grown too strong, too “hegemonic” in its ambitions, too “aggressive” in its military actions, too “dominant” in resetting the regional strategic situation; too successful in defending itself, and too effective in crushing the holy Palestinian campaign to force Israeli withdrawals.
And also, too threatening against Iran, which soon may sign another nuclear bamboozle with Washington that leaves Tehran in pole position towards an atomic bomb while claiming otherwise; a phony “achievement” that Macron will surely welcome.
Therefore, in the French president’s view, Israel must be restrained, constrained, hemmed-in, humbled. Brought to heel, under a responsible Western thumb. Compelled to accept a cancerous Palestinian “state” which, alas, will be an elevated platform for continuing the war against Israel.
HAVE ANY of Israel’s critics dared to ask themselves why Israelis today are overwhelmingly unwilling to even contemplate establishment of a Palestinian state, at least not for a generation or two or three? Have Israel’s critics any gumption for telling Palestinians: “No, there will be no Palestinian statehood ‘from the river to the sea,’” which means erasure of Israel? Have any of Israel’s critics dared to ask themselves what type of Palestinian state they are seeking to create?
And have Israel’s “friends” like Macron bothered to contemplate the bigger picture – the annihilationist, pernicious narrative against which Israel is contending? Have they thought about pushing back against the relentless equation of Israel and Zionism with the evils of current discourse – imperialism, colonialism, apartheid, white supremacy, and genocide?
It is so exasperating that otherwise good people pretend that Palestinian assaults on Israel’s sovereignty and security have anything to do with legitimate demands for humanitarian aid or with a “two-state solution.” They profess to be concerned for Palestinian rights yet ignore the murderous intentions of Palestinians against Israel. They disregard Palestinian antisemitic discourse and the Fatah/Hamas record of dictatorship and human rights abuse.
Instead, they complain that Israel is restricting supply convoys into Gaza during the current fighting and worry aloud that Hamas will not get kid-gloves treatment after the fighting ends (including the provision of cement and steel to “rehabilitate” Gaza, which would also mean the rebuilding of military capacity against Israel).
And, instead, they tolerate Palestinian “Days of Rage,” “Nakba Day” riots, and missile barrage eruptions as expected behavior. As if the Palestinians cannot help themselves from throwing a tantrum. As if responsible and reasonable behavior – such as negotiation, democratic and peaceful discourse, and normative state-building – cannot be demanded of the Palestinians.
This is the soft bigotry of low expectations of the Palestinians, which is the counterpart of hard bigotry of unreasonable demands on Israel.
IT IS high time that Palestinian leadership be showered with the “tough love” that is usually, uniquely reserved for Israel – especially after October 7.
Why continue to fund a corrupt and Hamas-penetrated UN agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), with more than a billion dollars every year, feeding the Palestinian claim to a “right of return” to all of Israel: the delusion that Israel can be overwhelmed and wiped out?
Why not tell the Palestinians to grow up, and choose leaders who don’t endlessly run around the world peddling lies about Israeli war crimes?
For Macron and others to scurry about without pressing on the Palestinians the inevitability of compromise with Israel is mischievous; to be overly solicitous of the Palestinians especially now, and crushingly censorious of Israel especially now, is malicious. Dishing out some tough love and dialing down Palestinian expectations would be much more constructive.
In short, the Macron-ian campaign to unilaterally, “urgently,” and immediately recognize synthetic Palestinian “statehood” is destructive: an unforgivable offense.
AT THE same time, the counter-threat to apply Israeli sovereignty to parts or all of Judea and Samaria, issued by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and other Israeli ministers in response to Macron’s muckraking, is a mistake. Aside from the fact that it will not deter Macron, it is the wrong way for Israel to rightfully apply sovereignty.
Israel should unequivocally realize its historic and legal sovereign rights in Judea and Samaria. Its hesitancy to do so over the past 50 years only has strengthened Palestinian claims that the areas are “Palestinian territory,” helping to establish a fiction that has been willingly accepted within the international community.
But doing so should not be the function of a momentary need to slap Macron on the cheek, or in response to any particular act of Palestinian terror. It should come, soon, as an essential part of a well thought out, broader Israeli strategic plan to reassert this country’s rights and security needs and to restructure relations with regional and international partners.
Sovereignty assertion must be an up-front and forward-looking move, a central and proud plank in a major Israeli party platform, perhaps ratified in an election campaign. It should not be a backhanded rejoinder to the spasms of spent European politicians who are peddling hackneyed “solutions” and beating up on Israel because they know of nothing else to do.
There are other just, punitive measures that Israel can and should take against countries that diplomatically assault it in the way that Macron is planning, such as closing their consulates in Jerusalem that function as “embassies” to “Palestine.” And there are other forward-looking, Zionist moves that Israel can and should make in the immediate term, like strengthening Israeli cities and towns in Judea and Samaria – defiantly so.
Published in The Jerusalem Post, May 30, 2025.
**The opinions expressed in Misgav publications are the authors’ alone.**
I enjoy sharing books with others, which was the genesis of this annual list. Six previous reviews have included monographs by Rabbis Asher Weiss, Haim Sabato, Jonathan Sacks, and Steven Pruzansky, and thinkers or public figures such as Benjamin Netanyahu, Gil Troy, Henry Kissinger, Natan Sharansky, and others. Here is my new selection of recent best reads.
Judaism: A Love Story by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin (Koren-Maggid). Through storytelling and passionate argumentation, Riskin takes readers on a journey into “the enduring love story between the Jewish people and their compassionate God.” He traces the roots of Jewish ethics through biblical narratives, which he argues are the basis for the moral justice and compassionate righteousness that is the nation’s mission. In many ways, this book caps Riskin’s unique career and character.
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Jew: Learning to Love the Lessons of Jew-Hatred by Rabbi Raphael Shore (Beverly House). An exploration of antisemitism for those who seek a just and moral world. Shore wants Jews to deepen their Jewish commitments with confidence and optimism as an antidote to antisemitism. His powerful new documentary film, Tragic Awakening, starring Arab human rights activist Rawan Osman, is based on the book.
Torah Topics: A Series of Essays by Prof. Nathan Aviezer (Ktav). This professor of theoretical physics has published four famous books reconciling science and religion. Here, he offers 21 brilliant Torah-based homilies on topics that range from the central Shema prayer and the Exodus from Egypt to the problematics of prophecy.
Conceived in Hope by Dr. Chana Tannenbaum (Koren-Maggid). This Torah scholar looks at infertility in the Bible to study women, mothers, societal roles and expectations in male-dominated societies, issues of lineage and inheritance, and more. Book chapters are alternately painful and uplifting, with deep psychological and theological insight.
In a Yellow Wood: Selected Stories and Essays by Cynthia Ozick (Everyman’s Library/Penguin Random House). Ozick is the most illustrious American writer of today and a Jew of piercing and daring insight who is still active at age 97. Here, she collates a selection of her 60-plus years of publishing – novels, short stories, essays, criticism, poetry, and plays – marked by her trademark mix of myth, memory, illusion, and social commentary wrapped in soaring language. I celebrate her as a penetrating critic of contemporary attitudes to Jews and Israel and as a cherished friend.
When the Stones Speak: The Remarkable Discovery of the City of David and What Israel’s Enemies Don’t Want You to Know by Doron Spielman (Center Street). This is the story of the rediscovery of the ancient City of David in Jerusalem and the powerful evidence that proves the Jewish people’s historical and indigenous connection to the Holy Land. It offers compelling pushback against Palestinians and other denialists and is a gripping read.
The Assault on Judaism: The Existential Threat Is Coming from the West by Gol Kalev (Post Hill). The author argues that the assault on Judaism from the West is rapidly turning into a threat to US national security and global stability. He offers a paradigm shift, a recommitment to Herzlian Zionism as the core of Jewish faith, that can both protect Judaism and benefit the world.
On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization by Douglas Murray (Broadside). Murray is one of the great, heroic defenders of Israel over the past two years. He contrasts Israel’s democracy with the authoritarianism, extremism, and love of death over life that characterizes Hamas and its Western backers and shows how Islamists use the humanity of the West to spread their propaganda. A difficult, harrowing, and necessary read.
The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West – and Why Only They Can Save It by Melanie Phillips (Wicked Son). This brilliant Briton argues that Christianity and Western civilization can survive division, decadence, and demoralization only if they learn lessons in resilience and faith from Judaism and the State of Israel. Otherwise, their fall to radical secularism and Islamic barbarism is not far off.
The Battle for the Jewish State: How Israel – and America – Can Win by Victoria Coates (Encounter). This former Trump administration national security official (now at the Heritage Foundation) skewers the Biden administration for abandoning Israel and the grand civilizational fight and argues, like Melanie Phillips, that we are in a broader military and cultural war that must be won for the sake not only of Israel but also of the US.
Israelophobia: The Newest Version of the Oldest Hatred and What to Do About It by Jake Wallis Simons (Constable). This superb writer (who was editor of The Jewish Chronicle in London) analyzes prejudiced coverage and intense scrutiny of Israel that so often veers into obsession and outright demonization and traces its origins from medieval European and Stalinist antisemitism to the present day. His next book, Never Again? How the West Betrayed the Jews and Itself, will be published in September.
Hamas’s Human Shield Strategy in Gaza by Maj. Andrew Fox and Salo Aizenberg (Henry Jackson Society). This critically important report, almost book-length, exposes Hamas’s exploitation of Gaza’s civilian population over the past 19 months to fuel a global information war against Israel. The authors emphasize that turning Gaza’s urban landscape into a battleground designed to maximize civilian harm and delegitimize Israel on the world stage is not incidental but a core tenet of Hamas’s military doctrine.
The Titans of the Twentieth Century: How They Made History and the History They Made by Prof. Michael Mandelbaum (Oxford). One of the great US foreign policy experts and political historians of our day, Mandelbaum offers eight historical portraits of the most influential figures of the twentieth century: Woodrow Wilson, Vladimir Lenin, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mohandas Gandhi, David Ben-Gurion, and Mao Zedong. Fascinating and incisive.
The Man Who Would Be King: Mohammed bin Salman and the Transformation of Saudi Arabia by Karen Elliott House (Harper, forthcoming in July). Based on lengthy and exclusive interviews with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and dozens of his associates and opponents, this eye-opening biography captures MBS’s calculating, controversial, and confident character. The writer, a former Wall Street Journal publisher who has covered Saudi Arabia for more than 45 years, reveals a Saudi leader “who is both Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible.” (I received advance book excerpts).
The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry by Tevi Troy (Regnery). This noted presidential historian takes readers on a journey through the biggest battles between CEOs (like John D. Rockefeller, Mark Zuckerberg, Katherine Graham, and Elon Musk) and the president of the US. The book reveals an intricate web of power, where business leaders need presidents, and presidents need business leaders, and each must step carefully or risk collateral damage. A perfect read for the current Trump moment.
Published in The Jerusalem Post, May 24, 2025.
Two major reports were published this week on the explosive and continuing rise of antisemitism around the world.
One study was prepared by the J7 Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism. (J7 is a partnership between Jewish organizations from the seven countries with the largest Jewish populations outside of Israel: Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the US.)
The second, longer study is by Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, led by Minister Amichai Chikli. Its 153-page review singles out the governments of South Africa, Ireland, and Spain for leading the way in antisemitic rhetoric by voicing opposition to Israeli actions or policies. Political leaders speaking out against Israel are fingered for bolstering anti-Jewish sentiments, as are the United Nations, the TikTok social media network, and Columbia University.
Both studies identify common global trends: A rise in violent antisemitic incidents; repeated targeting of Jewish institutions including synagogues, schools, and community centers; an escalation of online hate; growing insecurity leading some Jews to hide their identity; and government failure to hold accountable those who engage in antisemitic violence or support terrorism against the Jewish state.
However, both reports are thin regarding pathways of combating antisemitism, and they fail to draw lessons from the field: what works and what does not. Obviously, more comparative study and the sharing of best practices in this regard is necessary.
One central principle must be to avoid mistakes of the past and have the courage to adopt new paradigms and approaches in combating antisemitism. To this end, here are “ten commandments” – ten takeaways that I think have emerged in recent years on how not to combat antisemitism.
(Note that seven of the ten Biblical commandments given at Mount Sinai are broached in the negative – do not do this or that – probably based on the first principle of proper behavior, to do no harm.)
This is because confronting antisemitism on the Left runs-up against politically correct liberal sensibilities. It requires recognition that “progressivism” has fallen captive to antisemitism and has failed to curtail radical Islam that fuels it in placid Western countries.
Minister Chikli showed leadership in this regard by embracing some “far-right” European political figures and “fundamentalist” Christian leaders at his recent international conference in Jerusalem on fighting antisemitism. These are figures like Jordan Bardella of France’s Rassemblement National who have repented and become partners in the fight against antisemitism, and who forcefully have stood up for Israel against Hamas and poisonous Palestinianism.
Should Mahmoud Khalil, the radical leader of recent Columbia University protests against Jews, Israel, and America, be protected from arrest and deportation just because of “free speech”? Should Facebook and X/Twitter hold no responsibility for monitoring and censoring genocidal propaganda because “free speech” reigns supreme?
An interesting, sad historical footnote is necessary here. In the 1990s, the Israeli government “Inter-Ministerial Forum for Monitoring Antisemitism” forcefully advocated global legislation that would limit access to sources of hate literature such as neo-Nazi web sites on the Internet. But at the time, many American Jewish groups opposed this approach because it suggested limits on free speech.
In retrospect, this was a terrible mistake, considering the monstrous proportions to which antisemitism on social networks and the web has grown. Now, belatedly, everybody agrees that combating “cyberhate” is a top priority…
But Jewish communities also must demand and obtain much broader and deeper action from their governments against antisemitism, such as adoption of the IHRA definition for antisemitism across educational institutions and government bodies; strengthening hate crime legislation; judicial and law enforcement training; prioritizing the safety and well-being of Jewish students, faculty, and staff on campus; protection of Zionist expression; and especially fighting radicalization and extremism in local Moslem communities.
This happened last year to me and a large group of Australian Jews who were rallying for Israel inside the Sydney Great Synagogue while protesters rampaged outside. The police shamefully asked that Jews skunk-out the back door of the synagogue after removing signs of their Jewish or Zionist identity. This is utterly unacceptable!
Every Western leader that brags about his/her arms embargo against Israel from a position of ersatz “morality” – essentially is giving tailwind to the antisemites. Any Western leader who supports the arrest of Israeli leaders as “war criminals” because of the Gaza war – essentially is giving tailwind to the antisemites.
Recognition of a faux Palestinian state at war with Israel not only retards peace and weakens Israel. It is grandstanding to defy the opinion of most Jews. This also drives antisemitism.
But as raw antisemitism around the world has risen and morphed into virulent anti-Israel sentiment – making the two phenomena almost indistinguishable – the State of Israel inexorably has moved from indifference to active involvement in the struggle against such hate. And Israel’s involvement today is critical to blocking the transformation of Israel into a “criminal” state that is a key target of the antisemitic/anti-Zionist extreme Left.
The explanation is this: That Jews everywhere are despised and vulnerable when Israel is weak. That is when enemies pounce. Jews everywhere are grudgingly respected and relatively safe only when Israel is strong.
In other words, the safety and security of Jews around the world depends on Israel winning – on regaining its strength, self-confidence, and deterrent power. This, in turn, will re-empower Diaspora Jews to defend Israel and themselves.
Published in The Jerusalem Post 09.05.2025
As I walked this week through the endlessly chilling rows of fallen soldiers in Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl Military Cemetery, two narratives about Israel went to war in my head.
One was a dangerously debilitating discourse of depression, desperation, and decay. A defeatist and poisonous exposition, predominant in some media, on the supposed moral bankruptcy of the Israeli government and half the Israeli nation. This is because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his backers will not unconditionally bow before Hamas for the release of Israel’s remaining hostages in Gaza.
The other storyline is a tale of defiance, determination, and destiny. It is an optimistic and far-seeing discourse on the legitimacy, necessity, and sure-to-yet-succeed heroic battle against Israel’s enemies like Hamas and Iran, despite the depleting debate over hostages and battle priorities.
My eyes are wide open, and I am well aware of the mistakes made in Jerusalem. But I reject the narrative of government evil and Israeli decline.
I refuse to embrace the radical Left’s assertion of Israel’s unworthiness. I hate and reject its “torch dousing” instead of “torch lighting” ceremonies on Independence Day. I cannot stomach its desecration of Remembrance Day ceremonies with rhetorically violent protest.
Instead, I prefer to embrace a plot of purpose and an inevitable, righteous movement toward stability and peace.
Indeed, polls published this week about this country’s state-of-mind clearly show that most Israelis reject the negativism and angry bombast of radical actors, even if many of us are hurting and restless.
Israelis, I think, prefer to mark this complex memorial/holiday weekend in appreciation of Israel’s survival and achievements, and with prayer that brotherhood, tenacity, and better leadership will see the country through to remarkable success.
I SENSE that as beleaguered and critical of their decision-makers they may be, Israelis also are steadfast in seeking triumph. Hatikvah, the hope, has not been extinguished. Israelis can and certainly will drive beyond the current straits, repairing their internal ills and strengthening their strategic posture.
So much magnificent motivating music comes from the speeches given by bereaved mothers and fathers at Remembrance Day and Independence Day ceremonies. Some of these texts are epistles left behind by fallen soldiers, expressing absolute faith in the wellsprings of age-old Jewish identity and the future of the State of Israel; letters that exhorted their families to stay the course and celebrate life.
Others, like the inspiring speech delivered last year by Rabbi Menahem Kalmanson at the Israel Prize award ceremony, are based on a deep dive into brotherhood, a renewed commitment to national solidarity, and love of peoplehood.
Another set of apt notes dominating Independence Day discourse is defiance; defiance of the pro-Hamas messaging and anti-Zionist assaults that have taken root in capitals and campuses around the world.
Israelis are determined to withstand ugly narratives of delegitimization that are crashing like tidal waves, and the resultant international dictates meant to weaken the Jewish state.
They are resolute in rebuffing the soft bigotry of low expectations from Palestinians, which is the counterpart of hard bigotry – impossible demands – made on Israel.
They repudiate the arrogant talk in Western capitals of unilaterally recognizing Palestinian statehood and anointing the decrepit Palestinian Authority as a stabilizing force in Gaza. They also reject erroneous strategic thinking that sees another soft deal with Iran as the panacea for all regional ills.
At this moment, real independence means that Israel must flout those who seek to emasculate it (deny it weapons), those who would prevent Israel from achieving its necessary and justified war goals of crushing Hamas and Hezbollah, countering Iran, and restoring this country’s deterrent power.
As Prof. Gil Troy has written: “On Israel Independence Day, we must negate the misleading, Palestinian-centered tale of woe, and return to the magnificent Jewish story and the Zionist tale of redemption… Our enemies want to make us miserable, to make Israel unlivable, to make Independence Day uncelebrate-able. We cannot allow that to happen.
“We cannot afford to mourn or mope. We must live the miracle of Israel: freedom, prosperity, dignity, and power… while rejecting the poisoned ivy of the Ivy Leagues… and we must broadcast our narrative and affirm our rights loudly and proudly, effectively, and creatively.”
I SENSE that there is another level of motivation that grips and sustains most Israelis, and this stems from the realm of faith, from the capacity to discern grand historical movement beyond momentary difficulty.
Ambassador Dr. Ya’acov Herzog (1921-1972; uncle of Israel’s current President Isaac Herzog) wrote that “Israel is mystic movement, a divine drama, a saga of metaphysical union spanning centuries between a people, their God, and a land.
“It is the celebration of a nation that, at the moment of ultimate nadir, of devastating Holocaust, rose from the ashes, armed with little more than conviction and a historical consciousness that promised renewal, to stake claim to their ancestry.
“Israel represents a vindication of faith and prayer through the ages. It is a symbol of revival, a message of hope, lasting evidence of the integrity of the spirit. It is redemption, providential consolation.”
Indeed, there is power in Jewish history that explains much about Israel today: About the Jewish people’s against-all-odds return to the Land of Israel after 2,000 years; about its willingness to sacrifice so much for independence; about its sometimes-stubborn refusal to accept rational calculations of diplomatic cost and benefit.
And so, Israelis plow forward while shaking off bleak prognostications impressed upon it (often impolitely) by allies. In fact, those who consider history only in terms of national politics and international relations underestimate or misjudge Israel.
They fail to understand that Israel is guided by an astral calculus that is not always perceptible; by a deep sense of Jewish historical mission that blurs the lines between imagination and reality, between the possible and the feasible. They fail to appreciate how committed Israelis are to victory.
Published in The Jerusalem Post, May 2, 2025.
Being “in between” is never comfortable. The nebulous, indeterminate space between one place and another, one time zone and the next, one period and a new era, one approach and a wholly different policy – often is marked by hesitation, confusion, and blunder.
In Jewish tradition and religious law, this is called bein hashemashot (literally, between the suns or between days), meaning the “twilight” period between sundown and full nightfall, which is marked by the clear emergence of stars in the sky. It is a time where halachic decision-making is indeterminate and confusing. Things can go any which way.
The State of Israel finds itself in such a strategic moment: In a murky twilight zone with critical security clocks ticking on all fronts, from Gaza to Iran. And political clocks in Washington and Jerusalem, too. A time where things might go in one or more of several directions, with ferociously clashing and contrary implications.
Israel stands at a crossroads between renewed full-scale warfare and complete cessation of warfare in Gaza; between decent and disastrous ends to the hostage saga; between massive military assault on Iran’s nuclear bomb infrastructure and diplomatic dealing that once again lets the terrorism sponsor off the hook; between solidification and disintegration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government; and between cold and hot civil war in Israeli politics.
The muddied situation cannot hold for too long on any of these fronts. If forceful foreign decision-making, force majeure, or forced errors do not sort things out, Israel will have to determine its fortunes by bold action. Indeed, the entire strategic balance of the region for decades going forward is on the scales, making this an even more acute inflexion point.
Holding the most influential and simultaneously ambiguous set of cards is US President Donald Trump. He is resupplying Israel with colossal amounts of needed weaponry with which to annihilate Hamas, supporting depopulation of Gaza (“humanitarian resettlement” of Gazans), and urging Israel to “get the job done.”
Conversely and contradictorily, he wants “all hostages released immediately” and the war “to be over fast” – and the only way to do this is to lose the war and let Hamas live on to fight another day.
He swears that he will bring a swift end to Iran’s hegemonic ambitions and abilities with military demolition of Iran in the offing. Then he backpedals to “nice” negotiations with the Islamic Republic toward a deal that may preserve Iran’s latent nuclear weapons capabilities, which will facilitate simple reconstitution of its bomb program in the future, and which may not push back against the other elements of Iranian power (missiles, proxies, terror networks).
Such juggling or perhaps purposeful opacity of policy is fine for a while. It may even be crafty for a truly short while. But it is not clear to me that Trump fully comprehends the urgency of the moment and the very brief window of opportunity that exists for definitive action.
Does he understand that enemy strategy, from Khan Yunis to Tehran to Moscow, is to drag things out while strengthening its own offensive abilities and disordering American-Western-Israeli systems?
This is my greatest fear: That overextension of the current bein hashemashot period, this imprecise twilight zone, will drive further fragmentation on the strategic and political levels. That hesitation in confronting enemies and hubris in coddling enemies will lead to collapse in US-Israel ties and to breakdown in Israeli society and politics – which of course is exactly what the enemy is hoping for.
In the meantime, there are signs of dissolution everywhere. In Washington, pro-Iranian and isolationist forces are disseminating lies about the “disaster” that would result from US military action against Iran (Tucker Carlson: “Thousands of Americans would almost certainly be killed at bases throughout the Middle East.”) This eats away at Trump’s maneuvering room versus Iran.
Trump’s negotiator Steve Witkoff talks about namby-pamby interim deals and many months of talks ahead, and retracts America’s redlines regarding Iranian uranium enrichment every time he opens his mouth. This gives Iran what it most wants – more time to “break out” toward a nuclear bomb – as well as a shot of confidence that it once again can bamboozle over-eager American envoys.
What happened to Trump’s declared two-month deadline for a deal with Iran “or else there will be bombing, and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before,” or his warning to hold Iran responsible for Houthi attacks from Yemen?
And thus underway is a dangerous decaying of America’s deterrent power.
In Tel Aviv, anti-Netanyahu protesters are calling for an end to his “war criminal” leadership and “illegal” wars, and are demanding that the legal system usurp power from the Israeli government by declaring the prime minister “unfit” for office. Any next decisions Netanyahu might take in war and peace already have been deemed illegitimate by the increasingly (rhetorically) violent opposition campaigns.
The government is again pushing controversial legal reforms, it could fall this summer over the haredi draft issue, and it anyway only has one year on the clock until mandatory elections.
The IDF finds itself trapped between the contradictory goals of freeing hostages, crushing Hamas, facilitating food supply in Gaza, and facilitating the exit of Gazans. It must keep many reserve troops at high-level for Gaza deployment and to handle an all-front escalation in case of fuller confrontation with Iran. But it has no clear instructions about unleashing its full force.
And thus underway is a dangerous decomposing of Israel’s political stability and military coherence.
It is true that in grand strategic perspective, Israel is in a much better place now than it was 19 months ago – with Hamas on the defensive, Hezbollah decapitated, Iranian air defenses eviscerated, the IDF bulking up, and so on.
And it is also true that with a little more patience, Israel could yet emerge even more strategically ascendant in the region. And that preserving Israel’s strategic alliance with America and delicate relationship with Trump may demand additional forbearance.
But it is hard to be patient with any degree of comfort in the twilight zone. Indecision is unnerving, vacillation is disheartening, and dillydallying is destructive, especially on the home front. Daybreak or nightfall will soon be upon us, and willy-nilly it will be time for forthright, audacious moves.
Published in The Jerusalem Post, April 26, 2025.
Beware the Western diplomatic discourse developing in New York, Paris, and elsewhere that views Israel as a global problem because it has grown too strong, too “hegemonic” in its ambitions, too “aggressive” in its military actions, too “dominant” in resetting the regional strategic situation. Too successful in defending itself.
Instead, Israel ought to “reckoned with” by the West, i.e., restrained, constrained, hemmed-in, humbled. All this to redress the “current asymmetry of power” in the Middle East (again, meaning too much Israeli power, as opposed to say, Iranian and Turkish power) – a situation that “sooner or later will lead to more confrontation, violence and terror.”
In other words, Israel must not be allowed to win so much. This would be bad for American and Western interests.
President Emmanuel Macron of France said so most succinctly this week by averring that Israel “has the right to defend itself, but within proportion” (whatever limited proportions he is comfortable with, one assumes.)
His officials then went swiftly on to reassert the necessity of strengthening the Palestinian Authority, rebuilding Gaza, and driving toward Palestinian statehood, while urging Israeli military withdrawals from Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza.
And the EU announced $1.8 billion in new funding over the next three years for the PA.
The fact that Macron and the political Left in the West has learned nothing from the attacks on Israel of October 7, 2023 (and Mahmoud Abbas’s support for them) is disappointing but not surprising.
What is more discouraging and indeed infuriating is the attempt to delegitimize Israel’s re-asserted defense doctrine of preventively and preemptively downgrading enemy capabilities and threats. This includes IDF operations against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, various jihadist and Iranian forces in Syria, and terrorist enclaves in Judea and Samaria, including a long-term Israeli military presence over the previous borders. Striking at Iran, too.
But no, that is not acceptable to Macron and other oh-so-concerned Western minders of regional security. Israel cannot be so powerful and controlling, so “provocative.” It must be brought to heel, under a “responsible” Western thumb.
The dangerous discourse that warns of too much Israeli power was given most prominent expression this week in a New York Times op-ed article by two Mideast experts from the Oslo era who served in Democratic administrations: Aaron David Miller and Steven Simon.
These American experts are well known in Israel and are not among Israel’s fiercest critics. And yet they now choose to disparage Israel as a problematic “hegemon” in the Mideast that must be “reckoned with,” that must be pressured by Washington to back down and back off. Israel, they insinuate, must put aside its narrow interests in order to achieve an American “balance of interests.”
To restore a healthy “symmetry of power” in the Middle East (whatever the heck that means), pressure must “particularly” be placed on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “and his far-right coalition.” Netanyahu (and Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, etc.) must be forced to “strike deals” such as re-embracing the PA and withdrawing on all battlefronts, in order to “convert Israeli military dominance” into supposedly “more stable arrangements and agreements.”
Miller and Simon grant that Israel’s response to the Hamas terror attacks of 2023 “has fundamentally altered the Middle East balance of power in a way not seen since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War,” and at first, they almost appreciate what a fine achievement this is.
“The Israelis have broken the Hamas-Hezbollah ring of opposition and revealed the vulnerability and weakness of their patron in Tehran while also degrading Iran’s air defenses and missile production.”
But then they immediately proceed to explain that such Israeli “hegemony” (a pejorative term!) is awkward and clashes with American interests. To do so, they blame Israel for everything bad happening in the Middle East from Lebanese, Syrian, and Iraqi internal rivalries to America’s difficulties in cutting grand agreements with Saudi Arabia and Iran.
FOR EXAMPLE, they accuse Israel of “favoring a weak and divided Syria… permeated by foreign forces with conflicting agendas” over a “stable, united, and effective” Syrian government that will align with American interests in countering ISIS and disposing of chemical weapons.
Aside from this being an absolute canard, Miller and Simon have not a word to say about ending Iranian and other threats from Syria against Israel or about stopping Iranian weapons smuggling to Hezbollah through Syria.
Nor do they have anything to say about the threats to destroy Israel coming from the radical Islamist and openly antisemitic leader Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, whose ambitions include gobbling up Syria and launching strikes on Israel from there. Did somebody say “hegemonic”?
You get the sense that these two experts prioritize the return of Syria to its towering military bases – on the Hermon Mountain heights on the previous border with Israel – than they care about long-term security and peace for Israel. You get the sense that they prefer a region led by “East-West bridges” like Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt than a region stabilized by overwhelming Israeli military power and led by Israel and its Abraham Accord partner countries.
The common sentiment expressed by these old-guard European and American denizens is a hankering for a return to the good old days of “sensible strategies as mapped out by former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to foster security, effective governance and reconstruction.”
The scent coming from these old-guard European and American denizens is antipathy toward Israel. They simply cannot stomach a strong Israel.
Instead of embracing Israel – the only democracy in the Middle East, the only country that constantly has compromised for peace in the Middle East, and the only true American ally in the Middle East – as a positive, proactive regional power reshaping the Middle East for the better, they slander it as a troublemaker, or worse.
HERE IS THE place to explain why Israel no longer considers “effective government and reconstruction” (involving for example the lavishing of additional billions of dollars and euros on the PA) or feeble diplomatic agreements (such as soft deals with Syria and Iran or a deal with Saudi Arabia on civilian nuclear power – which Miller and Simon endorse) to be sufficient security policy.
Forty or so years of Oslo-style arrangements, in which the West cajoled and pressured Israel into territorial withdrawals and a policy of restraint against emerging enemy threats, has proven to be an utter failure. “Containment” policy, which prioritized diplomacy over decisive military triumphs, has failed. It all blew up in Israel’s face, with terror and invasion from the West Bank and Gaza and Syria and Lebanon, and the march of Iran’s nuclear bomb program to near completion.
This was accompanied by decades of willful Western blindness to the jihadist nature of Israel’s enemies, to the threat of the jihadis to other countries in the region, and to infiltration of jihadist influences in – and jihadi-minded migrant populations to – the West itself.
Consequently, over the past 18 months, Israel has necessarily moved to a better balance between diplomacy and the use of force to prevent and scuttle enemy threats. Israel must and will continue to employ fierce, overwhelming, and surprising strikes against enemy assets and strongholds. It needs to keep its enemies off base with beeper blasts and bunker-busting airstrikes, even on hospitals and schools where the enemy burrows its arms arsenals and terrorist headquarters.
Israel wants to be feared – and yes, militarily “dominant” – not loved. And Israel also knows that its neighbors will seek true partnership with Israel only when it is strong.
Thus, Israel can no longer accept policies that emphasize “quiet for quiet” or “restraint” because this allows the enemy to develop its attack capabilities under the cover of diplomatic breathing time; what Miller and Simon wrongly call “stability.”
In this new era, Israel intends to project its strength to definitively neutralize adversaries, and in so doing to lead the region – to gather a coalition of truly peace-seeking nations. Yes, to truly “stabilize” the region, but not through reliance on hackneyed diplomatic templates and failed formulas that ooze weakness.
It is sad and so destructive that politicians like Macron and analysts like Miller and Simon think that the way to peace in the Middle East is, once again, ho-hum, to pressure Israel into restraint, to “show good faith” in diplomacy, to bend to Arab demands and agree to withdrawals that supposedly will “satisfy” the enemy bloodlust.
It is ugly that they stoop to demonizing Israel as the threat, rather than the greatest asset for the West, in resetting the strategic table and helping win the war against the Russia-China-Iran axis.
Published in The Jerusalem Post 18.04.2025