Situational Update

• The bodies of six hostages abducted alive by Hamas on October 7 were recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah overnight, shortly after they were murdered by terrorists, the Israel Defense Forces announced Sunday.
  • The hostages were Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Ori Danino, 25, Alex Lubnov, 32, Carmel Gat, 40, and Almog Sarusi, 27.
  • Goldberg-Polin, Yerushalmi, Lubnov, Sarusi and Danino (an off-duty noncommissioned officer) were abducted from the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, while Gat was taken from Kibbutz Be’eri.
  • Their bodies were found with gunshot wounds to the head and other parts of their bodies, the Ynet news site reported. An autopsy found they were murdered in the 48 hours prior to the discovery of their bodies, the report said.
  • YNet reports: Israeli forces discovered the bodies of six hostages in a 65-foot-deep tunnel in Rafah, approximately a kilometer from where hostage Farhan Alkadi was recently freed. The IDF had no precise intelligence on the hostages’ location in recent months but knew there were captives in the sector, leading to a gradual and cautious operation in Rafah since the ground offensive began.
  • IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the six were “brutally murdered” by Hamas shortly before troops arrived — possibly only a day or two before they were found.
  • It is believed that this is the second instance where Hamas terrorists have killed hostages and fled, as signs of gunfire were also found on the bodies of other hostages previously returned to Israel for burial.
  • Troops began to search a tunnel complex, some 20 meters underground, on Saturday and found the hostages, dead, in the afternoon.
• On Wednesday, the army said it had returned the body of an Israeli soldier who was killed and abducted by Hamas on October 7. At the request of the family, that hostage’s name was not immediately permitted for publication.
• Hamas’s Rafah Brigade has “collapsed” as a result of the IDF’s ongoing offensive in the city in the southern Gaza Strip, military sources say. According to the IDF, around 80% of Hamas’s tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor, the Egypt-Gaza border area, have been neutralized. The military has also seen Hamas operatives increasingly trying to escape from tunnels in Rafah and flee north to the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone. The IDF has successfully been ambushing Hamas gunmen in the area who have tried to flee, military sources add.
• Wassem Hazem, head of the Hamas terror organization in the West Bank area of Jenin, was killed on Friday in a joint IDF, ISA, and Israel Border Police counterterrorism operation in the northern Samaria area, Israel’s military announced shortly afterward. His role in the terror group involved carrying out and directing shooting and bombing attacks, along with advancing terrorist activities.
• Journalist Marc Schulman gives an account of recent events in the West Bank: Just a few days ago, Khaled Mashal, a leader of Hamas’s political wing, called for the resurgence of suicide bombings in an interview. On Friday night, two explosive-laden cars departed Hebron, targeting the Gush Etzion area. At a gas station along the main road, one driver abandoned his vehicle, which then exploded. Nearby army soldiers responded, killing the driver and sustaining injuries to three of their own in the ensuing crossfire. Concurrently, a second driver attempted to breach the gates of the Karmei Tzur settlement. A security officer followed him and rammed his car into the terrorist’s vehicle, causing it to explode. Though injured, the security officer was taken to a hospital and is in good condition. Authorities suspect a bomb factory in Hebron is the source of these explosives.

The Numbers

Casualties

• 1,663 Israelis dead including 706 IDF soldiers (341 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza: +4 since Wednesday)
  • Staff Sgt. Ori Danino, 25. Details have not been released yet.
  • Master Sergeant (res.) Yohay Hay Glam (32) was killed by a sniper in central Gaza
  • First Sergeant Elkana Navon (20) was killed fighting in Jenin in the West Bank
  • Three Israeli police officers were killed in a shooting attack near the Palestinian city of Tarqumiyah in the southern West Bank on Sunday morning, the military, police, and medics said. The slain officers were named as Ch. Insp. Arik Ben Eliyahu, Command Sgt. Maj. Hadas Branch, and First Sgt. Roni Shakuri.
    • Ben Eliyahu, 37, from Kiryat Gat, was survived by his wife and three children.
    • Branch, 53, from Sde Moshe, was survived by her husband, three children, and a granddaughter.
    • Shakuri, 61, from Sderot, was survived by his wife, a daughter, and a granddaughter. Shakuri’s daughter Mor Shakuri, who was also a police officer, was killed battling Hamas terrorists trying to take over the Sderot police station on October 7.
• Additional Information (according to the IDF):
  • 2,263 (+4 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 425 (+3 since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
  • 4,401 (+8 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 654 (+2 since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
• According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 40,602 (+167 since Wednesday) people have been killed in Gaza, and 93,855 (+321 since Wednesday) have been injured during the war.
  • We also encourage you to read this well documented piece from Tablet published in March: How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers
  • The Associated Press, an outlet with a demonstrated anti-Israel bias, conducted an analysis of alleged Gaza death tolls released by the Hamas-controlled “Gaza Health Ministry.” The analysis found that “9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data” and that “an additional 1,699 records in the ministry’s April data were incomplete and 22 were duplicates.”
• The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes official details on every civilian and IDF casualty.

Hostages (seven bodies recovered since Wednesday)

• There are currently 97-100 hostages currently in captivity in Gaza (-7 since Wednesday)
• On October 7^th, a total of 261 Israelis were taken hostage.
• During the ceasefire deal in November, 112 hostages were released.
• 146 hostages in total have been released or rescued
  • The bodies of 37 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
• 8 hostages have been rescued by troops alive
• This leaves an estimated 97-100 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
  • 31 hostages are assumed to be dead and held in captivity
  • Thus, at most, 74 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
• Hamas is also holding 2 Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of 2 IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.

College Campus Activity

• Protestors at McGill University destroy a campus lawn while a protestor amusingly tries to cover recordings with a small kefiyeh.
• A mob at Temple University surrounded Hillel – a hub for Jewish life on campus.
• The Task Force on Antisemitism at Columbia has just published their second report. Below are a few bullet points taken from this thread on X from Columbia Jewish & Israeli Students:
  • Student groups ostracized their Jewish members.
  • An Israeli student at was denied healthcare due to her national origin
  • Faculty promoted old-school antisemitic tropes in mandatory core curriculum sessions at the School of Public Health
  • The School of Public Health’s graduation ceremony featured speakers and calls alienating to Jewish and Israeli students, with deans referring to calls for divestment as an “inspiring message”.
  • Jews at were forcibly kept out of classroom discussions, being told to “sit on” their personal and family histories as refugees from the Holocaust.
  • Link to the full report
• Massive number of college students are afraid to admit they’re Jewish as antisemitism soars on campuses:
  • A whopping 44% of college students and recent graduates said they “rarely” or “never” feel safe identifying as Jewish on campus as antisemitism soars, according to an eye-opening new survey.
  • Some 81% of college students and 69% of alums surveyed by the advocacy group Alums for Campus Fairness said they avoid certain places, events and situations — and 60% even claimed to have witnessed faculty members making an offensive antisemitic remark to them or someone they know. A vast majority of the 1,171 students participating in the survey — 76% — believe antisemitism has gotten worse while 83% of students and alums called rampant antisemitism a “very serious problem,” up from 74% who said it was a problem in a 2021 survey.

Watch

Ami Dadaon, chanting the Israeli national anthem after winning a gold medal in the Paralympic Games

What We Are Reading

As Israel conducts major operations in the West Bank, I found this brief primer from AIPAC to be a great resource for those not familiar with the area.

• Funding from Iran: A portion of the $100 million sent to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are earmarked for the West Bank.
• Force Size: At least 1,000 active operatives; 82% of Palestinians in the West Bank support Hamas’ October 7 massacre, according to a December 2023 poll.
• Arsenal: Rockets, small arms, improvised explosive devices and more.
• Attacks since October 7*: Attempted rocket launches into Israel; approximately 700 terrorist attacks, including stabbings, shootings, and car-ramming attacks, killing at least eight Israelis.

Iran’s War Against Israel – From the West Bank, Khaled Abu Toameh writes for the Gatestone Institute

• Armed and funded by Iran, the “battalions,” whose members are affiliated with PIJ, Hamas and the ruling Fatah faction headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, began operating in the northern West Bank more than three years ago.
• “Iran seeks as a strategic objective to surround Israel with a crescent of active fronts maintained by Iran and supported by Islamist client militias. As part of this, the [Iranian] regime is seeking to find a way to add an eastern component to this crescent – through Jordan to the West Bank… Tehran has succeeded in establishing and maintaining an arms route in which military materiel, brought from Iran into Lebanon, is then transported across the Syrian-Lebanese border, via Jordan, into the West Bank
• The PA’s failure to crack down on the “battalions” means that Iran now has a small army in the West Bank. It will not be long before members of this army attack Israel in the same way as the October 7
• Those who persist in advocating for the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel must take into consideration that doing so would lead to the rise of more Iran-backed “battalions” in the West Bank and other areas over which the PA is given control. Since the gunmen are frequently praised as “heroes” by many Palestinians, neither Abbas nor anyone who replaces him would have the courage to take them on.
• Even if Abbas does go back to the Gaza Strip, it is not probable that he would be able to confront Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups there. As in the West Bank, new “battalions” and militias will no doubt spring up in the Gaza Strip under Abbas’s PA to pursue the Jihad (holy war) to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Islamist state.
• Under the current circumstances, handing the Gaza Strip over to the Palestinian Authority would not only be seen as a big reward to Iran and its terror proxies but most likely lead to a major war.
• Link: Iran’s War Against Israel – From the West Bank

Strangling Iran: What holds true in the West Bank, holds in Gaza by Herb Keinon in the Jerusalem Post

• Israel can learn some lessons from the October 7 catastrophe without waiting for a State Commission of Inquiry to be established and issue its findings.
• This is what the IDF did between Tuesday and Wednesday morning, launching Operation Summer Camps in northern Samaria to degrade an emerging terrorist infrastructure there before it takes on monstrous proportions.
• …what were those mistakes? Allowing terrorist organizations to build up under Israel’s watchful eye, without Israel aggressively taking action to stop it.
• The IDF’s actions on Wednesday in Jenin, Tulkarm, Tubas, and the Far’a refugee camp in the Jordan Valley indicate that it has learned that lesson. The failed suicide bombing attack last week in Tel Aviv was the catalyst for implementing this lesson.
• Iran, which successfully identifies areas of weak governance around Israel to set up proxies to lash out at the Jewish state, has been making serious inroads into the West Bank for the last decade, smuggling weapons to a myriad of different terrorist groups there through Lebanon and Jordan.
• The IDF’s action on Wednesday was reportedly the most significant military maneuver in the West Bank since Operation Defensive Shield which began in March of 2002, following the Netanya Park Hotel Passover Eve massacre where a suicide bombing attack killed 30 people at a Passover seder.
• Rather, it takes continuous work to ensure that the terrorist infrastructure does not reappear, what security officials continuously refer to as “mowing the lawn.” What this predicts is that when the intense fighting stops in Gaza, the continuous war against terrorists – preventing the resurrection of a terrorist infrastructure there – will continue for years, if not decades.
• Link: Lessons learned fighting terror in West Bank can be applied in Gaza

U.N. Agency Issues Fresh Warning Over Iranian Nuclear Activities by Laurence Norman in the WSJ

• Iran has continued to expand its stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium in recent months, a confidential report from the United Nations atomic agency said Thursday, amid warnings in Washington that Tehran is better placed to produce the bomb in the future.
• The latest International Atomic Energy Agency report said that Iran had added 49.8 pounds of highly enriched 60% uranium in the three months to Aug. 17, to increase its stockpile to 363.1 pounds. That is just short of the minimum amount of highly enriched uranium needed to fuel four nuclear weapons, according to IAEA measurements.
• U.S. officials have said it would take less than two weeks to convert 60% enriched uranium into weapons-grade 90% material that can be used in a nuclear bomb.
• The IAEA report also showed that Iran had significantly increased its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium, which would take it a few weeks to convert into weapons-grade material. Some experts have said Iran could soon produce enough enriched uranium to fuel nine atomic bombs in two months.
• In a separate report released Thursday, the IAEA said Iran still isn’t complying with an investigation into undeclared nuclear material discovered in the country. The IAEA also said Tehran has shown no sign of reversing its decision to bar some IAEA inspectors from the country or improve the agency’s access to nuclear-related sites.
• Link: U.N. Agency Issues Fresh Warning Over Iranian Nuclear Activities

Can We Be a Little Less Selective With Our Moral Outrage? by Bret Stephens in The New York Times

• Venezuela. Last month’s election was stolen in broad daylight by the socialist regime of Nicolás Maduro. He has enforced this theft by using his security services to round up and jail around 2,000 people suspected of dissent, promising “maximum punishment” and “no forgiveness.” This is from a regime that has already caused starvation and the desperate exodus of millions of poor Venezuelans. As of last year, more than 10,000 of them were living in New York City shelters.
• Turkey. Anti-Israel protesters sometimes respond to the criticism that they are singling out the Jewish state for unfair censure by noting that it receives billions in military aid from Washington. (This pretext doesn’t fly if protests are in Montreal or Melbourne.) But what about another Middle Eastern recipient of American largess, including the stationing of U.S. troops and nuclear weapons?
• Ethiopia and Sudan. Critics of U.S. foreign policy, particularly on the left, often complain that Washington cares more about suffering among white people than Black people. They have a point. So why do those same critics proceed to largely neglect the staggering human rights abuses taking place now in Sudan and Ethiopia?
• Iran. The regime in Iran ought to tick every box of progressive outrage. Misogyny? As CNN documented in 2022, the government responded to mass protests against mandatory hijab by systematically raping protesters, men as well as women. Homophobia? Homosexuality is legally punishable by death, and executions are carried out.
• It says something about the moral priorities of much of today’s global left that Iran is one Middle Eastern regime toward which they’ve advocated better relations, including the lifting of economic sanctions, while simultaneously insisting on boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Why that is — the mental pathways that lead self-declared champions of human rights to make common cause with some of the worst regimes on earth while directing their moral fury at countries, including Israel, that protect the values those champions pretend to hold dear — has been one of humanity’s great puzzles for over a century.
• Link: Can We Be a Little Less Selective With Our Moral Outrage?

The real reason Hamas can’t free the remaining hostages, by Elon Perry in The Jewish Chronicle

• Only around 20 of the Israeli hostages are being held by Hamas and a number of these are being kept in handcuffs as human shields around its leader, Yahya Sinwar, intelligence sources have told the JC.
• According to some reports, the terror chief has surrounded himself with all of the captives underground, though other sources have placed the number much lower. Israel has already had several opportunities to eliminate Sinwar after locating the tunnels in which he was hiding but the attack was not authorized because of the danger to hostages and Palestinian civilians.
• When Hamas strengthened and consolidated itself as a popular resistance movement, and then as a terrorist organization, and succeeded in taking control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, it also dominated the entire smuggling industry through the Philadelphi corridor.
• The smuggling route stretched from Iran through the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, crossing the deserts of Sudan and Egypt, through Sinai and from there into Gaza. In a short time, the corridor was the site of a well-oiled weapons smuggling machine. This included large-scale long-range rockets, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, and even extended to cash and humans.
• Israel now controls it and is holding the territory in order to stop weapons and other things coming over – or under – the Egyptian border.
• Talks in Qatar have resumed but a breakthrough remains elusive. Israeli sources believe Sinwar may be playing for time, delaying his answers in the hope of a wider regional war that would occupy the IDF and divert it from Gaza up to the burning north of Israel.
• Link: The real reason Hamas can’t free the remaining hostages

Could Hamas Be Exiled? by Jonathan Schanzer and Emily Bornstein in Commentary

• Israel has two objectives in Gaza, and they haven’t changed since 10/7. One is the destruction of Hamas. The other is the return of all the remaining hostages. Thus far, Israel has largely achieved its first objective. Hamas is losing the war. However, despite significant achievements on the battlefield, Israel has failed to achieve its second objective.
• Israel’s leaders understand that it may be impossible to secure the release of the hostages without some kind of compromise. Hamas’s remaining leaders understand that, within the current dynamic, the group has little hope for survival. Amidst the frantic US efforts to secure a ceasefire, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has issued demands for a deal that would keep him alive, regardless of the other terms.
• The current dynamic presents a similar window for strategic compromise. If Israel continues to pursue the complete destruction of Hamas, it would be justified. However, the intense public pressure both from inside and outside Israel is likely going to continue, and the lives of the remaining hostages will continue to hang in the balance. The way out is a deal that would allow for the exile of the vestiges of Hamas to a distant country. Turkey, Algeria, and Malaysia are three countries that are likely amenable to hosting the group.
• There is also the risk of normalizing Hamas. That turned out to be the fatal flaw in the Reagan plan. In 1982, the PLO was widely viewed as a villainous organization. But after only nine years of exile in Tunisia, Arafat returned to Gaza in 1993 in triumph as part of the Oslo Accords. His PLO was made the backbone of the newly created Palestinian Authority. Despite his efforts to convince the world that he and his organization had turned a new leaf, the old terrorist returned to violence with the Second Intifada of 2000.
• Israel and the United States should make it clear that Hamas will never have a future in Palestinian politics. Other countries should be called upon to support this, as well.
• Link: Could Hamas Be Exiled

Why monitoring Hezbollah is crucial in the pursuit of Middle East peace, by Sarit Zehavi in The Hill

• The situation around Israel has grown increasingly volatile, and it is essential to understand the driving forces behind the conflict — particularly the intentions of Hezbollah.
• Although the narrative around international negotiations and peace talks often focus on proportional responses and de-escalation strategies, the reality on the ground tells a different story.
• Since Oct. 8, Hezbollah has launched more than 2,700 attacks against Israel, including an estimated 1,000 UAVs and more than 10,000 anti-tank missiles and rockets, which claimed the lives of 25 civilians and 20 soldiers. At the same time, approximately 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes due to the daily attacks and threat of invasion and cannot return to their homes.
• Hezbollah’s actions are a testament to this aggressive strategy. Despite efforts to downplay their intentions, the ongoing barrage of rocket attacks, anti-tank missiles and UAV strikes against northern Israel reveals the truth: These attacks are not isolated incidents but part of a larger campaign designed to wipe Israel off the map.
• In this context, the notion that Iran is committed to avoiding escalation while Hezbollah continues its attacks is a false narrative. Iran’s claims to seek a negotiated peace are undermined by its persistent support for hostile actions against Israel. Iran seeks and benefits from prolonged conflict and instability in the region, and its actions through proxies, including Hezbollah, are a direct manifestation of this strategy.
• As we move forward, it is imperative that any ceasefire agreement include robust, independent mechanisms for monitoring and verification. This will help ensure that Hezbollah cannot exploit the lull in hostilities to rearm and prepare for future attacks. The current approach of managing limited responses and hoping for de-escalation is inadequate given the scale of the threat posed by Hezbollah and its Iranian backers.
• Link: Why monitoring Hezbollah is crucial in the pursuit of Middle East peace

AIPAC emerges as moderate force in political primaries, by Matthew Kassel in Jewish Insider

• “AIPAC has become a real force in Democratic primaries,” Chris Coffey, a Democratic strategist in New York, told Jewish Insider on Tuesday. The group has “picked races carefully and made a big mark. Campaigns will surely assess AIPAC’s future potential spending and how it affects their own races.”
• The group scored its most notable wins this summer in helping to dislodge two Squad members — Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-MO) — who had been among the most outspoken critics of Israel in Congress and fell to challengers whose campaigns were boosted by millions of dollars from AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups.
• “When a member of Congress adopts a radical anti-Israel agenda, there’s going to be a response from the pro-Israel community — particularly post-Oct. 7,” said Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, which has spent more than $35 million during the primaries. “You saw that with Bowman and Bush, who were focused on fringe priorities that didn’t meet the priorities of their home districts.”
• While AIPAC largely targeted Democrats this cycle, it helped defeat some Republicans who have been hostile to Israel, including former Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN), who faced more than $1.5 million in attack ads from UDP. The group helped to defend Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) in a close race against a GOP challenger who had posted videos on social media featuring Nazi imagery.
• “During this primary season, the pro-Israel mainstream has sent a powerful message that America stands with Israel as it battles Iranian terrorist proxies,” Wittmann added, claiming that “the power of the Democratic and Republican pro-Israel mainstream was demonstrated in the defeat of three House incumbents who lacked an ironclad commitment to the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
• “After the Shontel Brown race, we’d get calls from people saying, ‘How do we get right by you?’” Mark Mellman, DMFI PAC’s chairman and a Democratic pollster, said in an interview with JI on Wednesday. “That’s exactly what our opponents are afraid of. People see that being pro-Israel works, and they want to be on that side. That’s very much a part of our strategy.”
• “I feel like they went out to collect some skulls,” a Democratic operative who has worked on several campaigns featuring sharp divisions over Israel said of AIPAC and DMFI PAC. “It’s a lot worse time to be an incumbent who is an enemy of the pro-Israel community than it is to be a challenger candidate.”
• Link: AIPAC emerges as moderate force in political primaries: Jewish Insider

Report: New IDF assessment shows some 6,000 Gazans invaded Israel on Oct. 7 by The Times of Israel, YNet, and Channel 12

• New assessments indicate twice as many Gazans breached the border into Israel on October 7 than previously believed, Channel 12 reported Saturday, citing data compiled by the Israel Defense Forces’ Gaza Division.
• Some 3,800 terrorists from the Hamas terror group’s elite Nukhba forces smashed through the border fence, the report said, among a total of 6,000 Gazans who crossed into Israel that day.
• The TV report also said that the border was breached in 119 spots — again, about double the previously widely cited figure of 60 breaches in the Gaza-Israel fence.
• 1,000 terrorists inside Gaza were involved in firing rockets at Israel that day, the report said, meaning that a total of some 7,000 Gazans took part in the onslaught.
• In response to the report, Channel 12 quoted the IDF Spokesman’s Office as saying that the IDF’s operational probe of the events surrounding October 7 has not yet been completed, and is continuing in accordance with situational assessments and operational needs.
• Link: Report: New IDF assessment shows some 6,000 Gazans invaded Israel on Oct. 7

Antisemitism

Sapir, a quarterly journal of ideas for a thriving Jewish future from Bret Stephens, has published a series of thoughtful essays on topics ranging from Resiliency, Antisemitism, and much more. This quarters publication focuses on Faith.

For America’s Jews, Past Is Prologue: The message of our history is fight, not flight by Pamela Nadell

• The Atlantic proclaims “The Golden Age of American Jews Is Ending.” Campus walls are graffitied with calls for “Death to Zionists.” A synagogue gets an email with the message, “Praise Allah! Praise Hamas! Death to Israel! Burn the Jews!” When a Jewish reporter, writing for Columbia University’s Daily Spectator, covered an assault on an Israeli student, the student journalist was so harassed that she left campus. Colleagues tell me: “Unquestionably, antisemitism is abominable” — then call for the destruction of Israel in the next breath. No wonder we are worried that our halcyon days are ending. We are reeling from a spike in antisemitism that most of us never imagined we would see in our lifetimes.
• Mindful of that caveat, I still have faith that America’s Jews will continue to flourish. Lessons from our past can guide us. But that first requires us to understand a past that we have either so idealized, or else know so little about, that we misread the present wave of antisemitism as a rupture rather than a continuity.
• With the past as prologue, what lessons does it hold for confronting antisemitism today?
  • First, it shows persecuted Jews enlisting powerful allies: Gentile government officials, Jews in positions of influence, and those we might today call influencers — publishers, editors, filmmakers, even cartoonists.
  • Second, history shows that Jews succeed when they can capture the sympathy and imagination of our Gentile neighbors
• Still, it isn’t mission impossible. Jews have a compelling story to tell. Israel remains the only democratic state in its region, an American ally, a nation of immigrants, more than half of them descendants of 700,000 Jews expelled from North Africa and the Middle East after Israel’s founding who would in any other narrative be labeled people of color. Ameliorating attitudes toward Israel is utterly essential to fighting antisemitism in America. As American Jews, we need to think deeply and strategically with our partners here and in Israel about long-range plans to advance understanding of the country in all its complexity, to affirm its centrality to the Jewish people, and to recognize its right to exist among the nations.
• Finally, the past shows that antisemitism has come from very different directions, from southern Klansmen to northern WASP elites to groups such as the Nation of Islam. Today, American Jews are deeply alarmed by what they see on campus, where young anti-Zionists, joined by not-so-young faculty, have used their opposition to the war in Gaza to traffic in antisemitic tropes and blood libels.
• Any campaign aimed at combating antisemitism will need to address both groups, albeit in different ways. We sued the white nationalists who had marched across the University of Virginia campus chanting “Jews will not replace us” and whose threats had forced the local synagogue to remove their Torah scrolls and its members to sneak out of Shabbat services by the back door. We are responding to the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue with a new building, designed by the architect Daniel Liebeskind, to house the synagogue, remember those we lost, and tell the story of American antisemitism. Our response to campus antisemitism will also have to be smartly tailored to their circumstances, especially as we try to win over progressive-minded students who, should we fail to reach them, might be lured into thinking that the destruction of Israel is a form of social justice.
• Antisemitism has been, is now, and always will be part of what it means to be a Jew in America. But history tells us that, grim as the story has sometimes been, it has also, and more often, been good and even glorious.
• Link: For America’s Jews, Past Is Prologue

The Nazification of anti-Zionism: It’s designed to make audiences, aided by the ubiquitousness of social media, despise all Jews. By Ben Cohen with FDD

• In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Aug. 28, Yonathan Arfi, the head of the French Jewish umbrella body Crif, complained that most of his fellow citizens have an understanding of antisemitism that is rooted in the memory of the Second World War. The indelible association of Nazism with Jew-hatred, Arfi argued, prevents today’s generations from perceiving antisemitism as a live and current threat to the Jewish communities in their midst. Given that Arfi represents a community that has endured a 200% increase in antisemitic outrages since Jan. 1, his views on this matter deserve to be taken seriously.
• The fact remains that we are dealing with an upsurge of antisemitism unprecedented in scale and venom since the Holocaust. And much of what we are witnessing echoes the Nazi period, particularly before the implementation of the mass extermination policy at the turn of the 1940s. Indeed, these echoes are a big part of the reason why there is so much ominous thinking among Jewish communities about where all this is heading.
• Of course, there are significant differences between then and now, the most obvious being that during the Nazi era, antisemitism was a state-driven policy, whereas today it’s a civil society phenomenon in Western countries. Still, there are two overlaps that are worth pointing out.
  • Firstly, while Western governments aren’t actively discriminating against their Jewish populations, many of them are feeding antisemitic sentiments.
  • Secondly, many of the tactics and methods supported by the Hamas acolytes mirror the anti-Jewish measures introduced by the Nazi regime.
• In tandem with that is the rewriting of Jewish history and the caricaturing of Jewish theology. Social-media platforms like X (Twitter) and Instagram have been flooded with content that mocks the link between the land of Israel and the Jewish people, casting Israelis as Ashkenazi colonists who have willfully stolen Arab territories.
• As I’ve argued before—and here is the link between the antisemitism of the last century and that in this one—anti-Zionism has morphed into “antizionism.” Freed from its hyphen, what remains is an ornate, multi-layered conspiracy theory with pretensions to be a revelatory, liberating and compelling explanation for why the world is in a rotten state.
• Link: The Nazification of anti-Zionism

Iranian regime funneling money into anti-Israel groups and campus protests through ‘grassroots activist’ groups by Isabel Vincent in the New York Post

• The Iranian regime is funneling money and its influence into anti-Israel college campus protests across the US, often through buzzily named organizations — and many who join the protests don’t realize who is really behind them.
• For example, Texas-based Rise Against Oppression (RAO) says it is a “collective of Muslim grassroots activists” but downplays its links to the government of Iran, according to Sam Westrop, director of Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch project.
• Many of the pro-Palestinian groups are also receiving cash from the Maximum Difference Foundation, the Los Angeles-based grant-making arm of the Amin family, a leading pistachio producer in the US, according to Westrop.
• The non-profit filters many of their donations through the Tides Foundation, a fiscal sponsor that has doled out millions to progressive groups, including anti-Israel organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and CODEPINK, among others.
• Last month, Avril Haines, director of National Intelligence, confirmed that Iran is financing some of the anti-Israel student protests in the US. “Iranian government actors have sought to opportunistically take advantage of ongoing protests regarding the war in Gaza, using a playbook we’ve seen other actors use. “We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests and even providing financial support to protestors,” Haines continued, adding that many of the targets of Iran’s clandestine operation are likely unaware that they are being influenced by Iran.
• Link: Exclusive | Iran backs pro-Hamas protests at US campuses

[WARNING: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION] 7 October and the Alt-Media: a critical examination, by John Ware with Fathom Journal.

• For Jews everywhere – not just Israelis – the denial that Hamas committed atrocities on 7 October has a familiar historical ring. Yet it is a fact that Hamas and their supporters have insisted their ‘fighters’ did not massacre music festival goers, or rape women, or ill-treat hostages. Direct to camera, one Hamas Politburo member after another has flatly denied that the Qassam Brigades did any such things. Also direct to camera was the evidence that they did murder unarmed civilians, sometimes sadistically, their violence immortalised by Hamas’s own body cams. which they proudly broadcast for propaganda purposes.
• Outright ‘Atrocity Denialism’ in the face of irrefutable facts is the latest civilisational clash between those of us struggling to maintain the norms of society – and a growing constituency who seem beyond reason. And this clash couldn’t be more fundamental because it is about basic facts and evidence, irrespective of what one may think about Israel or the way it is conducting the war in Gaza. The mainstream media has broadly given credence to Israeli claims that Hamas committed widespread sexual abuse on 7 October. But polling shows that most British Muslims don’t believe this. Just one in four accept that Hamas engaged in murder or rape. Over the last two decades, the mainstream media has been losing the trust of British Muslims. A majority now consider the BBC to be pro-Israel. Some of that vacuum is being filled by online alternative media outlets who typically challenge narratives they say the mainstream media don’t.
• It is pro-Palestinian journalists on alternative media outlets who are now in the forefront of challenging Israel’s claims that there was widespread sexual violence. The main challengers are the US based outlets The Grayzone, Mondoweiss, The Intercept, and YES! Magazine.
• The febrile politics of the Israel-Palestine conflict are now mainstream in British politics as the general election demonstrated. Four independent candidates have been returned to Parliament on a single Gaza ticket. The alternative media is likely to play an increasingly influential role in how the conflict now plays out in Britain and elsewhere. For it is their journalism on which the growing number of Hamas sympathisers and apologists here hope will resonate most closely with British Muslims, a large and growing constituency. The fact that six months into the war, a poll showed 76 per cent of British Muslims had yet to accept that Hamas had committed murder and rape on 7 October should ring alarm bells. Muslim university graduates were slightly more in denial than non-graduates.
• Propelled by social media, the malign influence of the alternative-media is set to grow. For the sake of a tolerable level of social cohesion and democracy, there has never been a more important time for mainstream media to reassert its waning influence and for public service broadcasting to be nurtured, not starved. For all its faults, the mainstream does – at least by comparison – strive to keep public discourse broadly honest and based on evidence.
• Link: 7 October and the Alt-Media: a critical examination

How Jewish communities around the world will commemorate the Oct. 7 attacks, by Judah Ari Gross with eJewishPhilanthropy

• While these ceremonies will likely focus primarily on the commemoration of the murder of some 1,200 people, the injury of thousands more and the kidnapping of more than 250 — nearly half of whom remain in captivity — they are also among the first official opportunities to establish the narrative of the Oct. 7 massacres, to place that watershed moment in the context of Jewish history writ large.
• Were the attacks primarily the result of division within Israeli society and the Jewish world more broadly, coming amid an at-times vicious public debate over the Israeli government’s plans to overhaul the country’s judicial system? Were they the consequence of Israel’s long-standing policy of keeping Hamas in power in Gaza? Were they just the latest iteration in a long history of antisemitic brutality? Or were they something else entirely?
• Particularly in Israel, these questions are not abstract or theoretical. There is a roiling debate underway over the Israeli government’s plans to organize a memorial ceremony, as many of the communities attacked on Oct. 7, as well as the families of hostages and victims, hold the government responsible for failing to prevent the massacres and for failing to return the captives. As the government has refused to reconsider its plans, a group of residents from southern and northern Israel — known as the Kumu movement —has organized an alternative ceremony in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park, raising more than NIS 2.3 million ($628,000) through crowdfunding efforts.
• “Future generations will judge us, as a collective Jewish people, if we are not able to [come together on this issue],” he said. “I’m not talking about the unity of the Jewish people necessarily but the singularity of the Jewish people fighting for this one particular cause of ensuring that all of our brothers and sisters can be freed from captivity. This has to be an issue which is not only pressing right now but in terms of future generations we need to be able to look back upon this time with pride that we as a Jewish people did absolutely everything that we could to bring our people home, and I don’t think we’re doing enough. I think the issue is already becoming too politicized in Israel.”
• “It is not only a religious event, that is to say that it [not only affected] the Jewish people. It’s also not just an Israeli event,” she said. Even among the Jewish victims, there were those who were secular and religious, those who “practiced Judaism in different ways,” she said. “Perhaps that is more common in North America, but here in the land of Israel, we are still struggling with that.”
• The theology in question is the notion in Tisha B’Av that the Temples were destroyed because of the Jewish people’s iniquities — the first because of idolatry, sexual immorality and bloodshed, and the second because of baseless hatred. “There’s this framework of understanding catastrophe where there’s an assumption that these antisemitic massacres are the fault of the Jewish people,” Horn said.
• Link: How Jewish communities around the world will commemorate the Oct. 7 attacks

Sources: JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, and the Times of Israel