#Yossi Klein-Halevi

[almondemotion]

In the Bleak Midwinter

That is what it feels like today. Almost at the Earth’s halfway point, the shortest day on the horizon and darkest before the dawn to anoint another cliché. This morning I listened to Donniel and Yossi discussing the killing of the three escaped hostages Alon, Samar and Yotam. Before that, a different Hartman Podcast with  Yehuda Kurtzer talking with Cochav Elkayam-Levy about the newly created…

[jewish-microwave-laser]

A majority of Israelis supported the Oslo Accords. Partly the changing mood was a result of the intifada: a growing number of Israelis had concluded that the price for absorbing the territories was too high, that occupation undermined Israel's Jewish and democratic values, that the Jewish people hadn't returned home to deprive another people of its sense of home. And so if the right's policies had led to the intifada, then the left's policies ought to be given a try. The 1970s and '80s had been the decades of Greater Israel, and the '90s seemed about to become the decade of Peace Now.

There was also, as Rabin noted, the changing international atmosphere. During the Sebastia showdown of 1975, much of the public had supported Gush Emunim as an expression of its contempt for the UN's Zionism-racism solution. But Israel was no longer being instantly demonized, and Israelis responded with a readiness to take risks for peace.

from "Part Five: End of the Six-Day War (1992–2004)" in Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation by Yossi Klein Halevi, p. 481

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Yossi Klein Halevi

Subsequently, the Soviet regime went a step further, from the erasure of the Holocaust to its inversion, equating Zionism with racism and even Nazism. The notion of Zionism as a form of racism was born in the Soviet Union. The regime understood that the only way to justify Jew-hatred from the left was through anti-racism. That ingenious ideological twist is the Soviet Union’s posthumous gift to Western anti-Zionists.

Is anti-Zionism, then, the latest iteration of antisemitism? Much of contemporary anti-Zionism uncomfortably fits the historic pattern of both symbolization and denialism. In the era of anti-racism and human rights, the Jewish state is turned into the criminal of nations, a symbol of racism and colonialism, and now even genocide. Reaching this conclusion requires a heavy dose of denialism: the erasure of the Zionist narrative, from the millennial-old Jewish roots in the land of Israel to the relentless war against Israel’s existence, which has forced Israel to act in sometimes brutal ways.

According to the anti-Zionist variation of supersessionism, sinful Israel has ceded its story to the Palestinians, who are, in effect, the new Jews, both as victims and as rightful heirs to the Holy Land. We are not only colonialists in our land but, in our story, imposters who must be expelled from both. In their fallen state, Jews have even forfeited the Holocaust; in this retelling, Gaza becomes the “Gaza Ghetto.” When a swastika is painted on the façade of a synagogue, it is no longer clear whether the perpetrators are far-rightists celebrating Nazism or far-leftists branding Jews as the new Nazis.

Astonishingly, the current rise in attacks on Jews coincides with the greatest mass slaughter of Israelis in a century of conflict between Arabs and Jews. The global assault emerged with the first reports of the Hamas massacre – before Israel’s counter-offensive even began. Antisemitism is a response not only to Jewish power, real or exaggerated but also to Jewish vulnerability; a successful attack on Jews rouses the antisemitic appetite.

The pretext offered for the widespread support among anti-Zionists for the Hamas massacre is based on two “denialist” arguments. The first is that the massacre was the inevitable result of the Israeli occupation. This argument ignores the fact that Hamas’ goal is not the end of the occupation of the territories Israel won in the 1967 Six-Day War but the destruction of the Jewish state. And it ignores the complicated history of how we have come to this point, including Palestinian rejection of every offer Israel has made over the years to end the occupation.

The second argument in support of the Hamas massacre is that it was not a massacre at all. There were no mass rapes; children weren’t burned alive. This latest expression of anti-Jewish denialism has taken the macabre form of tearing down posters of Israeli hostages, even blacking out their faces – a literal defacement. Embracing Hamas requires adopting its denial of the humanity of Israelis.

The British Jewish writer David Hirsh argues that the term “anti-Zionism” should be treated like “anti-Semitism,” removing the hyphen and lowercasing the “z.” Similar to the absence of meaning in “Semitism,” he notes “Zionism” for radical progressives is a fantasy construct, a demonic ideology with no resemblance to its actual nature. Historical Zionism incorporates almost the entirety of Jewish political and religious life – from social democrats to Marxists, from theocrats to Reform Jews to secular liberals. To reduce “Zionism” to a form of colonialism not only does violence to the Jews’ attachment to their ancient land but to the complexity of Zionism itself.

[eretzyisrael]

by Yossi Klein Halevi

How is it possible that, in much of the international community, there is “understanding” for the mass atrocities of October 7? That on parts of the left there is greater outrage against Israel’s response to the Hamas massacre than to the massacre itself? That those who feel most vulnerable on liberal American campuses are not Hamas supporters but Jews? That anti-Zionists who call for turning Israelis into a defenseless minority within “Greater Palestine,” “from the river to the sea,” are chanting their hateful slogans with even greater vigor and moral self-confidence?

One answer was inadvertently provided by Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas. Speaking last month on Palestinian TV, Abbas sought to explain the origins of the Holocaust. The Nazis, he said, were not antisemitic, but opposed the Jews “because of their role in society, which had to do with usury, money… In [Hitler’s] view, they were engaged in sabotage, and this is why he hated them.” In other words: the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves.

Abbas was widely condemned as an antisemite, including by some on the left. Yet Abbas’s sensibility informs the response of many progressives to the events of recent weeks. Israel, they say, effectively provoked the massacre with its occupation of the Palestinians, its racism and colonialism and apartheid, perhaps with its very existence. Once again, that is, the Jews have brought tragedy on themselves.

Blaming Jews for their own suffering is an indispensable part of the history of antisemitism. Whether as the Christ-killers of pre-Holocaust Christianity or as the race-defilers of Nazi Germany, Jews were perceived as deserving their fate. Invariably, those who target Jews believe they are responding to Jewish provocation.

What makes this moment more complicated is that, unlike in the past, Jews do indeed have power. We are no longer innocent. We are occupying the Palestinians in the West Bank. As the war intensifies, civilian casualties are rising in Gaza. And expansion of West Bank settlements undermines the long-term possibilities of a two-state solution.

But this moment does fit the historical pattern of antisemitism in the ease with which much of the world has, over the last decades, erased the Israeli understanding of the conflict and how we got to this point. A systematic and astonishingly successful campaign on the left has negated the Israeli historical and political narrative.  As a result, one of the world’s most complicated moral and political dilemmas has been turned into a proverbial passion play, in which The Israeli plays the role of Judas (in place of The Jew), betraying his destiny as noble victim and becoming the victimizer.

The Jewish state has been transformed into the sum of its sins, an irredeemably evil society that has lost its right to exist, let alone defend itself.

To blame the occupation and its consequences wholly on Israel is to dismiss the history of Israeli peace offers and Palestinian rejection. To label Israel as one more colonialist creation is to distort the unique story of the homecoming of an uprooted people, a majority of whom were refugees from destroyed Jewish communities in the Middle East. To brand Israel an apartheid state is to confuse a national with a racial conflict, and to ignore the interaction of Arab and Jewish Israelis in significant parts of the society. To understand Israel and its security dilemmas only through the lens of the Israeli-Palestinian power dynamic is to ignore its vulnerability in a hostile region, and the Iranian-allied terror enclaves pressing against its borders.

[faircatch]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Melinda Strauss✨NY Creator (@therealmelindastrauss)

This video is from 5 years ago and still relevant.

[youareprobablywrong]

Book Suggestion

Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein Halevi

This book is written from a very human perspective from an Israeli. He explains his perspective, and why it is so difficult for him, and others, to find a solution. It is written for Palestinian's. There is also a website where a free Arabic version can be downloaded, and Halevi encourages reader responses from Muslims and Arabs. There simply needs to be more engagement like this.

[joemerl]

"Both the nihilist and the mystic share the same starting point: This world of suffering and death is absurd. But where the nihilist surrenders to the madness, the mystic seeks an alternative reality."

— Yossi Klein Halevi 

[a-very-tired-jew]

Dropout Discord historical revisionism and denialism

A few days ago someone in the discord lamented over the fact that Hank Green endorsed a certain podcast.

Fig. 1. User dislikes that Hank Green will be getting a show on Dropout because they apparently endorse a podcast that "spreads lies against Palestinians". The podcast in particular is the Ezra Klein show, which I will admit I don't listen to. However, the two attached photos are quotes from a guest on the podcast and the "lies" that the show spreads.

Fig. 2. Klein's guest, Yossi Klein Halevi, states that Palestinian leaders, to his knowledge, have not accepted Jewish indigeneity nor has there been acceptance of a Jewish majority state.

Fig. 2. Halevi claims that the average Palestinian does not see Israel as a legitimate country and that the Holocaust is a lie, which is pushed by its media and leaders. Let's look at these claims. The first purports that no Palestinian leader has accepted Jewish indigeneity to the region. Doing a Google dive finds that no leader has accepted this, but nor have they outright denied it from what I can tell (if they have I will edit this with examples). Other leaders have said that the Jews Zionists are outright invaders in the area (looking at you Faisal), and the terrorist groups have said this type of rhetoric as well. Acceptance of a Jewish majority state has always been an issue in the MENA region. Other blogs have gone over this more in depth than I will here, but it has to do with a combination of historical antisemitism and reducing Jews to second class citizens. Jews are now "uppity" because they have their own country and rights that they didn't have in many of the other places they used to live (Westerners if you don't understand this and you're mad about this statement, you really need to look into the history of Jews as dhimmis and laws made against us). These next two claims I can see where people get upset and decry them as a lie. This gets a bit into semantics and how people think though. Halevi states that the average Palestinian thinks Israel is an illegitimate country based upon Zionist myth and the Holocaust lie/exaggeration. Many of the individuals in this particular server, and in other spaces, will likely go "But I know a Palestinian and they acknowledge the Holocaust was real! This is a lie." However, Halevi is not talking about the individual, they're talking about averages and generalizations and how the populace is influenced by their leaders and media. It is correct to state that Arafat never denied the Holocaust happened. However, members of the PLO during his tenure often did on their own. The current chairman of the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas, is a known Holocaust denialist/revisionist who wrote their PhD dissertation the Holocaust as a lie. He has repeatedly blamed the Jews for the Holocaust and played down the number of deaths. Abbas pushes the Zionist/Hitler conspiracy based upon the Haavara Agreement, makes false claims that less than 1 million Jews died, that the Allies made up the 6 million number, and that the gas chambers did not exist. There's a lot more nuance to things like the Haavara Agreement than I, an ecologist, can parse, so I leave that to my betters. However, just know that a small agreement like that does not support the claim that Zionists orchestrated the mass killing of Jews to steal land from Palestinians. That is outrageously antisemitic and relies upon a number of conspiracies. If we look at other leaders we will see denialism and revisionism as well. Hamas and its leadership has long denied that the Holocaust happened and they were upset when the UNRWA tried to include it in textbooks in Gaza back in 2009. Remember, Hamas is in charge of Gaza and their leaders are therefore Palestinian leaders for the area. Their denialism goes all the way back to the 00s where they issued the following statement in response to a conference on the Holocaust held in Stockhold at the time:

"This conference bears a clear Zionist goal, aimed at forging history by hiding the truth about the so-called Holocaust, which is an alleged and invented story with no basis. . . . The invention of these grand illusions of an alleged crime that never occurred, ignoring the millions of dead European victims of Nazism during the war, clearly reveals the racist Zionist face, which believes in the superiority of the Jewish race over the rest of the nations." -This quote is originally from their old website palestine.info.org This sentiment and denialism is not new. I have posted an excerpt of this particular article in the past.

Fig. 4. Excerpt of Martha Gellhorn's article from 1961 The Arabs of Palestine - a camp leader states revisionism and conspiracy. Martha Gellhorn's 1961 article titled The Arabs of Palestine documents Holocaust denialism and revisionism throughout it. The excerpt posted above is from her time interviewing one of the camp leaders while being escorted by a Secret Service agent. It takes the Haavara Agreement into conspiracy territory and alleges that Jews (not event Zionists, just outright Jews) worked with Hitler to kill their own people. Hell, it actually doesn't go full Haavara conspiracy because the leader does not state this was done to force the Jews to emigrate to Palestine and "steal their land" as the article moves on after this section. I highly recommend reading Gellhorn's article as it highlights many of the sentiments that we see to this day, and it was written in 1961. Holocaust denialism and revisionism have been ever present. Some things have changed, such as other nations normalizing their relations with Israel and recognizing them, but others have not. And in the end, this is another example of young activists who think they're informed on a subject they recently became passionate about showing that they are in fact not as informed as they think.

[hero-israel]

Yossi Klein Halevi still has hope. So do I.

[almondemotion]

Purple sweet potatoes and Hamas in town.

From the river to the sea. Which river? Oh, that river. Yes, that's what I thought.

Are they representatives of Hamas? It’s hard to tell. I suspect their intentions are mostly benign, The actions of people Aspiring to do the right thing, To stand in solidarity With the oppressed Nevertheless, They Shouted From the river to the sea… X Yesterday, I visited Sheffield to buy some purple sweet potatoes. Those powerful antioxidant secrets of Okinawan longevity are not…

[jewish-microwave-laser]

Is it possible, as anti-Zionists insist, to separate Zionism from Judaism? Is Zionism mere "politics," as opposed to Judaism, which is authentic "religion"?

The answer depends on what one means by Zionism. If it refers to the political movement that emerged in the late nineteenth century, then certainly, there are forms of Judaism that are independent of Zionism. In the era before the establishment of Israel, Jews vehemently debated the wisdom of the Zionist program. Marxist Jews rejected Zionism as a diversion from the anticipated world revolution. Ultra-Orthodox Jews rejected Zionism as a secularizing movement, while some insisted that only the messiah could bring the Jews home.

But if by "Zionism" one means the Jewish attachment to the land of Israel and the dream of renewing Jewish sovereignty in our place of origin, then there is no Judaism without Zionism. Judaism isn't only a set of rituals and rules but a vision linked to a place. Modern movements that created forms of Judaism severed from the love of the land and the dream of return all ended in failure.

By the time the state was established, anti-Zionism had become peripheral in Jewish life. Aside from a vocal fringe, most ultra-Orthodox Jews made their peace with the Jewish state. Israel's declaration of Independence was signed by representatives of almost the entire spectrum of the Jewish community—from ultra-Orthodox to Communists. That document attests to the legitimacy, within the Jewish people, of the state created by Zionism.

In recent years there have been renewed attempts, especially on the fringes of the Diaspora left, to create a Jewish identity severed from Israel. But with nearly half the world's Jews living in a thriving Jewish-majority state, the debate has long since been resolved. If in the past one couldn't separate the land of Israel from Jewish life, today the same holds true for the state of Israel.

from "Need and Longing" in Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein Halevi, pp. 42–43

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

By Francesca Block

A prominent trade publication refused to advertise a new book because it feared the word Israel in its title might upset its audience, The Free Press has learned. 

This month Melanie Notkin, an author and communications consultant, tried to place an advertisement for Bernard-Henri Lévy’s new book, Israel Alone, in Shelf Awareness, a trade publication for publishing professionals including booksellers and librarians. The book, published in the U.S. last month by Post Hill Press imprint Wicked Son, is about Lévy’s experiences in Israel post–October 7, 2023. 

On October 9, a representative from Shelf Awareness told Notkin her ad was approved for the price of $2,300, and would run on November 1 in its weekly newsletter, which is sent to more than 600,000 readers. 

But two days later, Matt Baldacci, the publisher for Shelf Awareness, emailed Notkin to tell her the magazine was “canceling” it. When Notkin asked why, Baldacci agreed to speak to her over the phone that same day.

Listen to Baldacci and Notkin’s conversation on the call here:

In audio of that phone call exclusively obtained by The Free Press, Baldacci told Notkin the ad was rejected because the book would cause too much controversy. “Why did we cancel the ad?�� Baldacci said to Notkin. “We have a responsibility to our 250 independent bookstore partners, and it’s our feeling that running that ad in their publications, for some of those partners, is going to cause them trouble that they haven’t asked for and don’t wish to have.”

“For certain stores, an ad for Israel Alone will cause the employees to go to the management and say, ‘We don’t support this. Why are you doing this?’ Now we can debate, you know, whether they’re right or they’re wrong, but the point is, it will happen.”

He went on to note that “customers will complain,” too. “We can debate about the rightness or the wrongness of those customers complaining, but the fact is that they will, and our partners trust us to protect them from those kinds of situations. So we had to make the difficult decision not to accept the ad.” Baldacci did not reply to several requests via phone and email for comment from The Free Press. 

Notkin told The Free Press she “was in shock” after the phone call. “And I thought to myself, you know, they don’t fire employees for antisemitism. Instead, they cancel the ad with Israel in the title. If the book were titled Black Alone, Gay Alone, Palestinian Alone, I’m hedging this wouldn’t have been a problem.” 

“If the word Israel is too hot a potato to have on the pages of your newsletter as a paid ad, when does it become the word Jew?” she continued. “When does it become a Jewish author? When does it become anything to do with anybody Jewish in America? When students say ‘We don’t want Zionists on our campus,’ when a publication says ‘We don’t want an ad that says Israel on its title in our publication,’ what does this say about the direction we’re headed in America?”(via Post Hill Press)

Martin Peretz, the former publisher and editor of The New Republic, who had intended to pay for the ad and hired Notkin to place it, said it was “a scandal and a travesty that anyone in the book trade should reject” it. Peretz said he had wanted to support the work of his friend Lévy, who is “one of the most distinguished and accomplished intellectuals in the West.” Lévy, 75, is the author of more than 45 books, including the 2006 New York Times bestseller American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville. 

Founded in June 2005, Shelf Awareness provides “essential information” to “a range of people in the industry—booksellers, librarians, book buyers at nontraditional stores, members of the media, marketers, salespeople, publishers, and others,” according to its website. The outlet produces two free newsletters: a daily news blast for 37,000 publishing professionals, and a weekly list of new and recommended titles aimed at 645,000 general readers. The publication influences which books get the most attention and marketing at the country’s most important bookstores. Shelf Awareness boasts on its website that “the buyers at B&N”—meaning Barnes & Noble—“and Amazon read us daily.” 

The rejection of an ad for a pro-Israel book is the latest instance in a worrying trend of erasing Jewish writers and thinkers from intellectual spaces. Last month, the New York State Writers Institute canceled a literary panel at the University of Albany because other authors refused to share the stage with a “Zionist” moderator. In August, a Brooklyn bookstore canceled a Jewish author’s book event because the rabbi he was scheduled to speak with was a “Zionist.”

Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and an Israeli American author of several books on Israel, including the New York Times bestseller Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, told me the cancellation of Lévy’s ad is yet another example of a “totalitarian form of censorship.” 

“There is an atmosphere of intimidation which is self-perpetuating because someone fears that intimidation will be applied. Then that opens the way to self-intimidation, and we know from totalitarian societies that the most powerful form of censorship is self-censorship,” Halevi said.

Of Jews in Western society today, he added: “We’re being pushed back in the ghetto.” 

[eretzyisrael]

Writers from around the globe including Lee Child (creator of Jack Reacher), Bernard Henri-Lévy (Philosopher and Author), Herta Müller (Author, Poet, and Nobel Prize Award Winner), Sir Simon Schama (Historian and Author), Howard Jacobson (Booker Prize-winning Author), Simon Sebag Montefiore (Historian and Author), Adam Gopnik (Writer), Yossi Klein Halevi (Author), David Mamet (Author & Pulitzer Prize Winner), Elfriede Jelinek (Author and Nobel Prize Award Winner), join entertainment leaders, Mayim Bialik, Debra Messing, Julianna Margulies, Scooter Braun, Haim Saban, Ynon Kreiz, Ozzy Osbourne, and Gene Simmons amongst many others, to reject boycotts against authors and literary institutions.

LOS ANGELES (October 30, 2024) — More than 1000 leaders from the literary and entertainment industry signed an open letter released by the non-profit entertainment industry organization Creative Community For Peace (CCFP) in support of freedom of expression and against discriminatory boycotts.

The letter comes in response to continued efforts to boycott, harass, and scapegoat Jewish and Israeli authors and literary institutions. Among the signatories are Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, and Booker Prize winners.

Booker Prize-winning author, Howard Jacobson said: “Art is the antithesis to a political party. It is a meeting place not an echo chamber. Art explores, discovers, differs, questions and surprises. Precisely where a door should be forever open, the boycotters slam it closed.”

Recent calls to boycott Israeli literary institutions follow a year filled with efforts to demonize and ostracize Jewish authors across the globe. In the last year, bookstore appearances have been canceled based on authors’ identities and book readings have been shut down. Activists have publicized lists of “Zionist” authors to harass and just last week, ads for a book with ‘Israel’ in the title were rejected.

Author of the Jack Reacher novel series, Lee Child said: “Politically targeting novelists, authors, and publishing houses based on their nationality is misguided. At a time when dialogue is paramount and when compromise can lead to peace, castigation and blanket boycotts are counterproductive. The written word, and the dissemination of it, must always be protected, especially in times of heightened tension. And to achieve peace, we must humanize one another and build bridges across communities through the open exchange of ideas. Literature allows for that. Boycotts hinder it.”

The letter highlights the unique role that writers and books play in society, “We believe that writers, authors, and books — along with the festivals that showcase them — bring people together, transcend boundaries, broaden awareness, open dialogue, and can affect positive change.” It continues, “We believe that anyone who works to subvert this spirit merely adds yet another roadblock to freedom, justice, equality, and peace that we all desperately desire.”

Actress and Author Mayim Bialik said, “Harassing authors, canceling bookstore appearances, and boycotting people based solely on their identity is disturbing and polarizing in ways that cannot be dismissed or minimized. Attempts to dictate “who” or “what” should be published have nothing to do with any path to coexistence or peace. This kind of rhetoric encourages demonization and hatred. As an author and as a creative, I believe in peace, I believe in humanity, and I believe in meaningful discourse. Silencing and sowing discord in this way reduces complex individuals to oversimplified caricatures which only hardens existing hostility and makes the hope for peace inch farther away.”

Philosopher and Author Bernard-Henri Lévy said: “I have always believed in the power of ideas and truth. I have always been in favor of debate, clash of opinions, even the confrontation of convictions. But what we have here is not a clash of opinions or a debate. Boycotting Israeli writers, publishers and festivals is pure anti-Semitism – and it’s anti-democratic and dangerous. The goal of this boycott is the delegitimization of the only Jewish state in the world—Israel. It is a moral obscenity and must be firmly condemned by all free-thinking and democratic citizens of the world.”

Author and historian Simon Sebag Montefiore said: “The resort to witch hunt is always dangerous and ugly especially when the inquisitors are writers. History is full of examples of self-righteous cadres of self-appointed judges who tried to enforce their version of purity by excluding people. Whatever one thinks of this tragic Middle Eastern war, who judges who is good, who bad? Once started where would it stop? Who is pure enough?”

The statement is the first of its kind – a call from the literature and entertainment community to unequivocally voice support against boycott attempts based on identity or litmus test.

The letter states: “Regardless of one’s views on the current conflict, boycotts of creatives and creative institutions simply create more divisiveness and foment further hatred.” The letter concludes: “We call on our friends and colleagues worldwide to join us in expressing their support for Israeli and Jewish publishers, authors, and all book festivals, publishers, and literary agencies that refuse to capitulate to censorship based on identity or litmus tests.”

CCFP Executive Director Ari Ingel said, “Authors, writers, and literary groups have faced non-stop harassment by a dedicated group of illiberal activists since October 7th. This is not just about Israeli authors. This is a coordinated campaign to bully and threaten anyone who refuses to condemn Israel, which targets Jews and their allies worldwide. These boycott calls, now being led by members of the literary community themselves, are reminiscent of the 1933 boycott of Jewish authors, when antisemites burned over 25,000 books. The works of Jewish authors like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, alongside American works by Ernest Hemingway and Helen Keller were burned. This is where things are once again headed.”

Signatories Include:

Howard Jacobson, Booker Prize-winning Author; Lee Child, Author; Mayim Bialik, Actress & Author; Dr. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Historian and Author; Bernard-Henri Lévy, Philosopher and Author; Sir Simon Schama, Historian and Author; Yossi Klein Halevi, Author; Elfriede Jelinek, Playwright,  Author and Nobel Prize Award Winner; David Mamet, Author & Pulitzer Prize Winner; Ozzy Osbourne, Artist and Author; Sharon Osbourne, Author, Manager, TV Personality; Herta Müller, Author and Nobel Prize Winner; Dara Horn, Author; Debra Messing, Actress, Gene Simmons, Author & Artist; Julianna Margulies; Actress; Jerry O’Connell, Actor; Douglas Murray, Author; Scooter Braun, Founder/CEO, Hybe America, Ynon Kreiz, Chairman and CEO, Mattel, Inc.; Haim Saban, Chairman and CEO, Saban Capital Group;  Aaron Bay-Schuck, CEO/Co-Chairman Warner Records; Sherry Lansing, Former CEO of Paramount Pictures; Rick Rosen, Co-Founder, Endeavor; Jenji Kohan, Writer/Producer; Adam Gopnik, Writer; Deborah Harris, The Deborah Harris Agency; Diane Warren, Songwriter; Anders Rydell, Author; Ilya Kaminsky, Author and Poet; Elisa Albert, Author; Aayan Hirsi Ali, Author; Lionel Shriver, Author; Noreena Hertz Author; Sir Niall Ferguson Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Author; Rebecca De Mornay, Actress; Jennifer Jason Leigh, Actress; Amy Sherman-Palladino, Writer and Producer; Matti Friedman, Author; Neil Blair, Partner, The Blair Partnership; Anthony Julius, Attorney and Author; Gail Simmons, Author; Ben Silverman; Chairman & Co-CEO, Propagate Content; Bret Stephens, Pulitzer Prize Winner; Fernando Szew, President, Fox Entertainment; amongst many others.

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

Stav Coral Gete | Stav Kimhi | Steven Makrachenko | Sudthisak Rinthalak | Suheyb abu Amar al-Razm | Sujith Nissanka | Sumchai Sayang | Svetlana Lisuboy | Sylvia Mirenski | Sylvia Ohayon | Tahel Bira | Tair Bira | Tair Davis | Tal Bartik (Klein) | Tal Bira | Tal Daniely | Tal Haimi | Tal Katz | Tal Keren | Tal Shalev | Tal Siton | Taleb AlKaran | Tamar Goldenberg | Tamar Guttman | Tamar Haya Torpiashvilli | Tamar Kedem Siman Tov | Tamar Samet | Tamar Suchman | Tamir Adar | Tammy Peleg Ziv | Tatiana Schnitman | Tawachi Saytu | Tawatchai Sieto | Tchelet Fishbein | Tchelet Zohar | Tehila Katabi | Thanakrit Prakotwong | Theerapong Klangsuwan | Tianchai Yodtongdi | Tiferet Lapidot | Tom Godot | Tomer Eliaz Arava | Tomer Segev | Tomer Shpirer | Tomer Strosta | Tou Cae Lee | Tova Goren | Tzur Saidi | Tzvi Shlomo Ron | Uri Arad | Uri Moyal | Uriel Baruch | Uzan Aviad Halevy | Valery Freidman | Varda Haramati | Victoria Gorlov | Vitali Logvinchenko | Vitaly Trobanov | Vivian Silver | Vladimir Popov | Vladimir Zhukov | Wolderaphael (Tiger) Hagos Berhe | Ya’akov Mortov | Ya’akov Solomon | Ya’akov Yinon | Yaakov (Kobi) Shmaiya | Yael Rozman | Yagev Buchshtab | Yahav Viner | Yahel Sharabi | Yair Yaakov | Yanai Hezroni | Yaniv Sarudi | Yaniv Zohar | Yarden Buskila | Yarin Moshe Efraim | Yaroslav Giller | Yasmin Bira | Yasmin Zohar | Yazan Zecharia Abu Jama | Yehezkel (Hezi) Razilov | Yehezkel Hezi Hanum | Yehezkel Hezi Hanum | Yehonatan Eliyahu | Yehonatan Hajbi | Yehonatan Rom | Yehonatan Siman Tov | Yehoshua Hatav | Yehuda Bachar | Yehudit Weiss | Yehudit Yitzhaki | Yiftach Dan Tweg | Yiftah Kutz | Yiftah Twig | Yiftah Yahengilov | Yigal Flash | Yirmiyahu (Yirmi) Shafir | Yitzhak Cozin | Yitzhak Itzik Dahan | Yitzhak Siton | Yitzhak Zeiger | Yizhar Hajbi | Ylena Kostizin | Yoad Pe’er | Yochai Azulai | Yohai Ben Zecharia | Yona Cohen | Yona Friker | Yonah Or | Yonatan Hai Azulai | Yonatan Kutz | Yonatan Rapaport | Yonatan Richter | Yonatan Samerano | Yonatan Zahavi | Yonatan Zeidman | Yoram Bar Sinai | Yoram Metzger | Yossef (Yussinio) Gross | Yossef Wahab | Yossi (Zigi) Appleton | Yossi Sharabi | Yossi Silberman | Yotam Haim | Yulia Chaban | Yulia Lamai | Yuliya Didenko Lamai | Yuri Lisuboy | Yuri Yedgarov | Yuval Bar | Yuval Bar On | Yuval Ben Yehuda | Yuval Buyum | Yuval Doron Kastleman | Yuval Rabia | Yuval Solomon | Yvonne Eden Patricia Rubio Vargas | Za’arur Ben Fishman | Zaher Bashara | Ze’ev Hacker | Zehava Hacker | Zelta Kosovski | Zinaida Beilin | Zion Levi | Zishom Wohn | Zishon Won | Ziv Frenkel | Ziv Hajbi | Ziv Pepe Shapira | Ziv Shopen | Ziva Ovitz | Zohar Meiri | Zoya Zemkov

These are the names of just a few of the victims of October 7, those murdered by the horde of Nazi savages from Gaza, or those kidnapped and imprisoned within that moral sewer.

On October 6, all of these people were alive and minding their own business. They were living their own lives. Islamic terrorists from Gaza took that all away from them, leaving a permanent scar on their communities and the entire nation of Israel.

NEVER FORGET THEM.

[st-just]

Listening to the Ezra Klein Show interview with Yossi Klein Halevi and, like, wow he really does just come out and explicitly say 'I don't really care if the methods are violent or nonviolent, or if people are motivated by antisemitism, anything that would result in Israel not having a Jewish majority is an existential threat' huh.

[arvidsgarden]

"It is terrifying to see how many resources Hamas diverted to build weapons rather than Gaza’s human capital — and how effectively it hid that from Israel and the world. Indeed, it is hard not to notice the contrast between Gaza’s evident human poverty and the wealth of weaponry Hamas has built and deployed.

"Hamas’s dream has long been the unification of the fronts surrounding Israel, regionally and globally. Israel’s strategy has always been to act in ways to prevent that — until this Netanyahu coalition of ultra-Orthodox and Jewish supremacists came to power last December and began behaving in ways that actually helped foster the unification of the anti-Israel fronts.

How so? The Jewish supremacists in Netanyahu’s cabinet immediately began to challenge the status quo on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which is revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and where one of Islam’s holiest sites, the Aqsa Mosque, stands. The Netanyahu government began taking steps to impose much harsher conditions on Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza held in Israeli jails. And it laid plans for a huge expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank to prevent a contiguous Palestinian state from ever coming into being there. This is the first Israeli government ever to make annexation of the West Bank a stated objective in its coalition agreement.

To reduce this incredibly complex struggle of two peoples for the same land to a colonial war is to commit intellectual fraud. Or as the Israeli writer Yossi Klein Halevi put it in The Times of Israel on Wednesday: “To blame the occupation and its consequences wholly on Israel is to dismiss the history of Israeli peace offers and Palestinian rejection. To label Israel as one more colonialist creation is to distort the unique story of the homecoming of an uprooted people, a majority of whom were refugees from destroyed Jewish communities in the Middle East.”

But here’s what’s also intellectually corrupt: buying into the Israeli right-wing settler narrative, now being spread far and wide inside Israel, that Hamas violence is so savage it clearly has nothing to do with anything settlers have done — so more settlements are just fine.

My view: This is a territorial dispute between two people claiming the same land which needs to be divided as equitably as possible. Such a compromise is the cornerstone for any success against Hamas. So, if you are for a two-state solution, you are my friend and if you are against a two-state solution, you are not my friend."

Thomas Friedman NY Times