Murdoch’s trusted Journal goes soft, shoddy on Israel
By Andrea Levin, CAMERA
The Wall Street Journal’s new editor-inchief, Emma Tucker, has taken the venerable publication in a new direction, alarming readers who have long counted on its fact-focused, serious coverage but find something very different today.
For many, the increasingly skewed, factually shoddy coverage of Israel is a striking indicator of the wider shift in tenor and content.
As described in a National Review article, Tucker’s been pushing more “lifestyle stories with snappy headlines” in the news section. She has reportedly downsized, if not gutted, the standards desk that handles corrections. And she’s eliminated an editing team “responsible for prepublication review of sensitive stories.”
The Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns FoxNews and the New York Post.
Reporter Omar Abdel-Baqui could be the poster child for this new Wall Street Journal. One “sensitive” story of his with far too little fact-checking and editorial oversight was a June 15 account focused on the disappointments of young Gen Z Palestinians. Much of the bias of the piece stems from the relentless
omission of critical information. The online title, “Gen Z Palestinians See Door Slamming Shut on Coexistence with Israel,” perfectly conveys the deceptions and distortions that follow.
While Palestinians themselves are the door-slammers — the violent rejectionists of peaceful coexistence with Israel — there’s no hint in the story that the Palestinian leadership has repeatedly refused an independent and peaceful state next to the Jewish state of Israel. There’s no suggestion that the melancholy Gen Z Palestinian teens, who are cast as buffeted by upheaval and uncertainty, should blame their own autocratic leaders for ruining their lives. (The print version was similarly titled: “Gen Z Palestinians Have Little Hope for Peace.”)
Striking photographs accompany the story: A 15-year-old girl fully clothed in black and wearing a keffiyeh poses floating on her back in the Persian Gulf, gazing skyward — as if in a fashion spread; a displaced Gazan from a wealthy family, the young woman also appears elsewhere in the online version of the story standing fully clothed in the water, expressionless. This could be Teen Vogue.
By Amelie Botbol, JNS
As we approached the devastated villages of southern Israel, including Kibbutz Be’eri, the GPS navigation system insisted we “continue straight on Road 232,” commonly dubbed “The Road of Death” by survivors of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.
What was once a very hospitable community can no longer be entered uninvited. As we waited on Monday for our host to arrive, we noticed dozens of cars parked at the entrance to the kibbutz, and yet there was not a sound other than distant explosions in the Gaza Strip.
Be’eri resident Sharon Shevo, who nearly lost both his arm and entire family in the invasion, would serve as our guide on the visit. Shevo works in construction engineering and is currently involved in the physical rehabilitation of the kibbutz.
He had agreed to walk us through destroyed neighborhoods and show us where new housing units will rise and welcome back residents a few years from now.
“We are currently in the complex stages of planning the reconstruction,” Shevo said. “The security level has not yet reached a point where
we can see ourselves returning permanently; the war has not yet ended. In the meantime, we are planning what the future Be’eri will look like.”
At the moment, he explained, there are no street lights in the kibbutz, and no functioning grocery story or school. However, the cafeteria still operates, serving lunch and dinner to a handful of residents.
It is only the fifth time since Oct. 7 that Shevo has agreed to walk visitors through the streets of Be’eri and relive the most dreadful day of his life.
“There is the concept of a house versus a home. Our houses were destroyed and we no longer have a home,” he said. One hundred and one residents of Be’eri were murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7. Thirty were taken hostage and 11 remain in captivity.
At Be’eri’s now infamous dental clinic, where five members of the kibbutz, including three of its civil-defense squad — Gil Buyum, Shachar Zemach and Eitan Hadad — and two staff members, Amit Man and Dr. Daniel
identifies the offices of The Wall Street Journal in Manhattan. spatuletail,
July 22, visitors enter Avida Bachar’s house in Kibbutz Be’eri, where his wife Dana and son Carmel were murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. Amelie Botbol
Journal drops standards, goes soft and shoddy…
Abdel-Baqui recounts various harsh political events that have ostensibly shaped the lives of the young woman and fellow Palestinian teens but he continuously omits facts key to an accurate understanding of how Palestinians themselves are culpable for their circumstances.
Thus Abdel-Baqui writes: “Though their parents recall an era of hope amid the 1990’s Oslo Accords, the latest breakthrough agreement between the two sides, Palestinians under the age of 25 — who comprise most of the population — say the door to coexistence with Israelis always felt barely ajar. It has been slammed shut since Oct. 7.”
The repetitive door metaphor omits how exactly that “era of hope” and “door to coexistence” surrounding Oslo was blocked, how that supposed “latest breakthrough agreement” in which Yasser Arafat ostensibly foreswore terrorism when he shook hands with Itzhak Rabin on the White House lawn failed. Who was the door-slammer?
There is no mention of Palestinian terrorists blowing up Israeli buses, cafes and religious events in the wake of the 1993 Oslo agreements. The terror attacks began only six months after the September 1993 agreement — in 1994 in Afula, Hadera and then Tel Aviv. The bloodletting intensified in 1995 and 1996 when gruesome mass bombings occurred in Jerusalem, Ramat Gan, Beit Lid and elsewhere. All the while, Israel continued attempting to implement Oslo measures aimed at getting to an “end of the conflict” predicated on Yasser Arafat’s pledge to resolve disagreements peacefully.
Obviously, there’s no suggestion in the article that Gen Z parents wished their ruthless, corrupt leaders had been different human beings and accepted Israel’s extended hand. So reference to the parents wistfully recalling
an era of Oslo peace only to be let down is an egregious deception characteristic of the entire piece.
In relaying the pain and disappointment of other Gen Z Palestinians, Abdel-Baqui refers to the sealing off of Judea and Samaria after Oct. 7 and how it prevented friendly Palestinian interaction with Israelis, and before that the building of a “barrier across much of the military-occupied West Bank” because of a “Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada.”
The reporter notes that Israeli “skepticism grew during the Second Intifada when Palestinian militants launched suicide bombings across Israel and deepened after Oct. 7, leading many Israelis to conclude they can’t trust Palestinians.”
Once more, there’s not the slightest hint by the Wall Street Journal reporter that the Second Intifada and the security barrier were the results of Palestinian rejection of coexistence and peace. The Gen Z’ers and their families are cast as innocents simply looking for an open door if Israel would only offer one. The formulation is a lie insofar as it overlooks critical facts such as those cited above and many related ones.
Abdel-Baqui could have written a genuinely significant story probing the predicament of young Palestinians betrayed by “leaders” like Yahya Sinwar who, far from promoting their safety and happiness, use them as shields for Hamas gunmen, situating rockets and tunnel openings in their family homes. As is well known, Hamas fighters themselves hide in tunnels while leaving Palestinian women and children exposed to Israeli targeting of the terrorists and their rocket launchers and other military hardware.
How do Gen Z Palestinians in Gaza, Judea and Samaria feel about a regime that rejects peaceful coexistence and leaders who seize Israeli children, young women and
elderly hostages and torment them, some in underground dungeons? What exactly have they been taught about Jews?
Did Abdel-Baqui ask any of them how they felt about the mass rape of young Israeli women on Oct. 7? Have young Palestinians been so indoctrinated in Jew-hatred that rape, murder of children and hostage-taking are acceptable? That would have been a worthwhile question to probe and report.
claim is seemingly to suggest rampant Jewish settlement expansion — regardless of the facts. When alerted that the rate of growth in the number of Israeli settlements has not “ballooned since the 1990s” but rather declined dramatically compared to earlier decades, the Journal corrections editor refused to correct or clarify. CAMERA noted in communication with the Journal that the reporter was likely conflating the supposed addition of new settlements with population increase within existing ones (which has, indeed, occurred) and urged editors to correct the record on the error.
The Journal was content to misinform readers, injecting in the private correspondence reference to counting “illegal outposts” — which are not “settlements” and were not referenced in the original problematic photo caption — and citing the partisan claims of Peace Now.
The lesson of the exchange was the striking indifference of the Journal to adhering to professional standards mandating accuracy.
MPerhaps as well, given the widespread belief that Jews are interlopers in the Land of Israel, it would have been worthwhile to probe what Gen Z’ers make of the countless archeological sites and artifacts literally everywhere in the region marking the long and ancient Jewish presence there. They’re told Jews have no history in the land and must be expelled. Wouldn’t these questions have been important and informative for readers?
Instead of fresh insight, Abdel Baqui’s story hewed to immutable touch points of an immutable fable of total Palestinian innocence in the face of Israeli malevolence. Predictably, in the fable, Jewish settlers and settlements are invoked as major elements of Palestinian victimization. Again, the facts are incomplete, distorted and false, both in the broad suggestion that it is overwhelmingly non-violent Palestinians on the receiving of gratuitous settler violence but also in factual details of history.
Abdel-Baqui recounts the deplorable killing of Bilal Saleh by settlers in November in a period shortly after Oct. 7, when fear and anger on the part of Israelis at the unprecedented Hamas atrocities and the jubilation of Palestinians over the massacre had fueled tensions.
But there’s no context provided to explain that the area has been radicalized and militarized, with a massive inflow of arms and the growth of Iranian-supported militias threatening to set off a larger conflict. There’s no mention that most of the Palestinian casualties have been gunmen killed in clashes with the Israeli military or Palestinians killed when shooting, hurling IEDs, stabbing, ramming or otherwise assaulting Israelis. In this tense environment, civilians are sometimes tragically caught in the crossfire.
ore serious is another uncorrected error Journal editors have chosen to promote in their coverage. The news pages have rhetorically awarded Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians — having decided to refer to the area as “Palestinian land” or “Palestinian territory.” Of course, the land is not Palestinian but rather disputed until, per the Oslo Accords to which the Israelis and Palestinians are signatories, there is a negotiated agreement on the disposition of the territory.
Nevertheless, the Journal is standing by an erroneous statement by Yaroslav Trofimov from Dec. 1 that Israel “has maintained military occupation over Palestinian territories since 1967.” Indeed, it has doubled down and is now regularly publishing this factually false terminology, as Abdel-Baqui did repeatedly on July 19.
Previously, on May 17, 2020, the publication had promptly corrected the same error, noting that “a Page One photo incorrectly referred to those parts of the West Bank as Palestinian territory. Under the Olso accords, sovereignty over the West Bank is disputed, pending a final peace settlement.” Many other outlets, including the New York Times, have made similar errors and then set the record straight. The Los Angeles Times recently corrected the same error. Over the past year, however, and with increasing frequency, possibly coinciding with changes under Emma Tucker, the news pages have declined to address substantive errors that are corrected by other news outlets. Moreover, the tilt of the errors has been markedly in one direction: towards denigrating Israel’s position in the conflict with the Palestinians.
Regarding the false characterization of Judea and Samaria as Palestinian, Journal editors have been blunt, telling CAMERA point blank: “We accept the use of Palestinian territories to refer generally to the West Bank and Gaza.”
Nor is there reference to the brutality inflicted on innocent Jews in Judea and Samaria and the mortal dangers they face; as in the case, for instance, of the Dee family, a mother and two daughters murdered in April 2023 as they drove in the Jordan Valley to a family gathering. They were shot first from a distance, and when the vehicle crashed the Palestinian terrorist circled back to shoot them again at close range. There’s no reference to the recent kidnapping and murder of a young Israeli shepherd. Such information obviously would offer context to Abdel-Baqui’s one-dimensional fable.
Indicative of the shoddy reporting on settlements, a photo caption asserts that “the number of Israeli settlements in the West Bank has ballooned since the 1990s.”
The opposite is true. The large majority of existing settlements were founded in the 1970s and 1980s (a total of 116) with just seven added in the 1990s and another five in the last 24 years up to the recent present when there has been “tentative” recognition of a possible four or five additional settlements. Thus, there are about 133 settlements with nine or ten founded “since the 1990’s.” The intent of the Journal’s
CAMERA asked in response: “Given the Journal’s delineating of the West Bank as ‘Palestinian territories,’ can you cite … the date and terms of the agreement under the Oslo Accords when the PA and Israel reached a Final Status agreement on the challenging disposition of that territory after Israel’s withdrawal from 40% of the West Bank per Oslo II? What are the territorial lines agreed on under that Final Status Agreement that apply to the remaining 60% of Area C that you designate ‘Palestinian territory’?”
The Journal did not address the questions raised but replied: “The articles are accurate; there aren’t any errors to correct.”
The contempt of Journal news editors for readers and the norms of ethical journalism in deeming it their prerogative to assign disputed territory to their preferred party appears to be part of the new regime under Emma Tucker. Accuracy, impartiality and accountability — the precious components of honorable journalism on which a public relies to learn about the world and to help shape reasoned response to events — are on the wane in the news pages of the Wall Street Journal.
Over tea, Martin Indyk gave me sound advice
stephen M. Flatow
Martin Indyk died this past week at the age of 73. To those following events in Israel over the past three decades, he will be remembered as the US ambassador for two terms — in the Clinton administration from 1995 to 1997 and again in the George W. Bush administration from 2000 to 2001. He was also a special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the Obama administration from 2013 to 2014.
In American Jewish circles, Indyk was known as a staunch advocate for a “two-state solution.”
As such, he didn’t have much of a fan base among those who believed that Oslo was a mistake and the two-state solution a looming disaster for Israel. He was wrong on other issues as well.
Indyk was rightly criticized for those views and his record will always be tarnished by them. Yet, I had an experience with him that will be with me forever.
I first met Indyk in April 1995 when he served as ambassador to Israel. It was the morning of Tuesday, April 11, and I was at the US embassy in Tel Aviv. I was with two embassy staffers who had been with me since I arrived the previous day to be with my daughter Alisa, who had been mortally injured on Sunday in a suicide bus bombing near the Jewish community of Kfar Darom. After her death, we went to Tel Aviv to be closer to the airport so we could return to America that night with Alisa.
Indyk came to see me in a small office deep within the embassy building walls. Accompanied by staffers, Indyk stuck out his hand and shook mine. If I had a preconceived notion as to what an ambassador should look like, Indyk didn’t fit the bill; one of his shoelaces was untied.
With his Australian accent just beneath the surface, he expressed his condolences, and let me know that he and his office were at my disposal while I remained in Israel or if they could be of any help after I returned to the United States.
Ayear after the verdict in our ground-breaking lawsuit against the Iranian government, I attended a program where Indyk was a speaker (yes, more two-state solution stuff), and when it was over, I approached him to comment on his remarks. As we finished talking he said, “Why don’t you come down to my office when you have a chance, and we’ll have tea.”
We chatted for a few minutes, and I was airing my frustrations with the Treasury and State departments over the positions they were taking as they blocked my efforts to seize Iranian assets. I related how I was continuously told by the State Department that Iranian assets were, in the words of then-State Department spokesman, “sacrosanct.”
Then he said, “You know, as a matter of policy, the president will not go against the advice of his staff if they are all in agreement. The only way he can override them is if there’s pressure coming at him from the sides.”
I imagined President Bill Clinton, his ultimate boss, was no different. As I rode the train back to New Jersey, I wondered how we would go about doing that. The answer soon presented itself.
An appointment for tea eventually turned into payments to terror victims.
It was an interesting time to receive an invitation like that because we were in a battle with the US Treasury and State departments over our attempts to seize Iranian assets located in America. Each one of our attempted seizures was challenged in court by my government, and court decisions were being rendered against us every week.
Later that day, when I reported on that comment to my lawyer, Steven Perles, he said: “When an undersecretary of state invites you to tea, you go!”
I figured, OK, I’ll see Indyk, and I scheduled an appointment to see him one afternoon the following week.
Indyk met me and took me into his inner sanctum — a rather large, bright and airy office, I thought, with beautiful furniture. I have been to offices in the West Wing of the White House, and they couldn’t hold a candle to this one. He directed me to a sitting area in a corner, and suddenly, the tea arrived.
It came in the guise of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who announced her candidacy for the US Senate from New York. We put together a coalition of terror victims and held a press conference outside her New York City campaign headquarters, demanding to know where she stood on terror victims’ rights. Then came Hillary’s famous salutatory kiss on the cheek of Suha Arafat in Ramallah on a Middle East trip in November 1999 shortly after the latter gave a speech in Hillary’s presence that blamed Israel for a litany of issues, including diseases affecting Palestinian children, water shortages and air pollution. Clinton’s excuse was that her headphones weren’t working, and she didn’t hear the scathing allegations.
This episode didn’t go over well with American Jews. Clinton’s rescue came in the form of the late Sen. Joe Lieberman, who put together a meeting with leaders of the Orthodox Union to which I was invited. I asked Hillary a question, “Do you support the Clinton administration’s efforts that block terror victims from seizing Iranian assets?” Without hesitating, she said, “No.” Shortly thereafter, a negotiating committee was established between victim families and the Clinton administration. It was headed by longtime Clinton administration official Jacob (“Jack”) Lew, now the US ambassador to Israel. In a matter of months, a settlement was reached, and payments were made to the victims. I might not have agreed with Martin Indyk’s policies, but the advice he gave me one afternoon over a cup of tea, whether intentional or not, rates among the best I’ve ever received. And I’ll be forever grateful.
Martin Indyk in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 9, 2015. Scott Olson, Getty Images
Northern border city a war-scarred ghost town
By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS KIRYAT SHMONA, Israel —
The streets are deserted, the malls, stores and businesses long shuttered, and the pockmarks of war are everywhere.
Even for Israel’s northernmost border city long known for bearing the brunt of rocket attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon in decades past, as well as earlier notorious Palestinian terror attacks, the nearly 10 months since the outbreak of war following the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre have been an anomaly.
“I’ve been through all the wars over the last half-century but never have we faced something like this,” says Kiryat Shmona policeman Nahum Cohen, 54, a lifelong city resident. “Never have we been away from our homes for such a long time.”
It was on Oct. 8 — one day after the single worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust in the form of Hamas terrorists who infiltrated the southern border with Israel and slaughtered 1,200 people, wounded thousands and kidnapped another 250 — that the Lebanese terror group began raining down missiles, rockets, and later, drones on northern Israel, prompting the Israeli government to order the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israelis from cities and towns in the area back in November.
More than nine months and 7,000 projectiles later, the area remains barren — the landscape battered and most of its inhabitants remain holed up in hotel rooms and accommodations elsewhere in Israel as security forces man the town in their absence.
“To run a city police station under fire is very strange, but to do so when nearly all the residents are gone is virtually unheard of,” Kiryat Shmona police chief Arik Berkovitch tells JNS. “Nothing prepares you for this
In direct sight of Hezbollah
Situated on the slopes of the Hula Valley under the mountains of Lebanon, this city of 25,000 known as the “town of eight” for the death of eight Jews, including the famed Zionist activist Joseph Trumpeldor in the 1920 battle of Tel Hai in the Galilee, is in direct eyesight of Hezbollah perched just above, giving the roughly 3,000 mostly elderly or infirm residents who remained or moved back no time to take cover when rockets are fired at this hard-hit city.
“In most cases, you hear of an incoming attack by the sounds of two or three explosions,” Kiryat Shmona police officer Loae Fares tells JNS during an interview on Wednesday. “In the best situation, you hear the sirens and the boom simultaneously.”
Fares, who serves as the head of Israel police operations in the city, recounts that after working the day in the deserted city, he goes to his own borderline Druze village of nearby Horfesh, which decided unanimously not to evacuate despite the security threats.
“It’s really sad to come to work every day and barely see a human being outside,” he says. “Then after running from house to house to rescue people from these missiles, I myself go home as a civil-
ian and find myself having to hug my 6-year-old daughter, who suffers from fears and anxieties from the sound of the sirens.”
Nothing like this
The streets in this border city are lined by the damage caused by the hundreds of projectiles that have fallen since October. Craters on the city’s main road — Herzl Boulevard — are quickly repaired to allow for police and rescue officials to drive freely, but the damage is everywhere. Homes, bus stops and businesses alike in this now mostly lifeless city all bear witness to the ongoing attacks.
The police chief said that both the quality and quantity of the missiles and rockets as well as the drones are unprecedented.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” he states simply.
The rockets — fired in a variety of types and sizes — carry up to 150 kilos of explosives, according to a city police bomb-disposal expert.
“Everybody is constantly calling to ask to check in on their homes,” recounts Israel police officer Shlomi Ben-Hemo, 49, who took JNS on a patrol of the city on July 24, and who also checks in on and assists the elderly and infirm closeted in their homes
Strike at any moment
An eerie silence punctures the hot and dry afternoon air. Even the generally omnipresent stray outdoor city cats are nowhere to be seen. A car or two sped by, including one bringing food donations for the elderly who have stayed on, and another from the Chassidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement that handed out ice-cold energy drinks and Messiah stickers for the soldiers and police officers on duty in the blazing afternoon sun.
“We could never imagine it would be like this,” Ben-Hemo, a lifelong city resident, relates as he fields calls from his family who are evacuated inquiring about his safety.
After scores of missiles fired at the city on Tuesday evening were successfully intercepted, the threat level on Wednesday was on medium level two of three with concern that Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress that afternoon could serve as a prime time for a fresh attack.
In the end, the evening passed peacefully, but security officials stayed on alert for a strike that could happen at “any moment,” particularly following any successful Israeli strike against Hezbollah commanders in Lebanon when the terror group routinely responds with a larger than usual barrage missiles on northern Israel.
Goosebumps
The Israel police officer points to one apartment building that became the target of a recent direct hit with four children still inside the antiquated safe room, hands on their heads and trembling on the floor when he came in.
“I get goosebumps just thinking about it,” he says.
Unlike in southern Israel, which has become an epicenter for wartime tourism this year for people
coming to witness the sites of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, the situation is altogether different on Israel’s northern border.
“Whoever doesn’t have something to do here shouldn’t be here,” Ben-Hemo says.
Another house down the street was hit twice in one week; a home and a military base on the edge of the city — in eye view of a town on the Lebanese border — also bore the brunt of rocket fire.
Nor are the wounds just physical. Ben-Hemo says his 15-year-old daughter said she is too afraid to ever come home even after the war ends, while his wife is weary that without a military operation against Hezbollah on the border, the situation will not be peaceful in the long term.
“We’ve been through this in our childhood,” says city resident Yaniv Azulay, 47 who stayed behind to work in moving in a city shed just oppo-
site the site of a fatal missile attack, as he ticks off the various wars, and military operations of the decades past. “What can I tell you? There are difficult days. We pray.”
Even the memories of wars past, including the month-long Second Lebanon War in 2006, when residents evacuated their home, and a notorious city massacre exactly half a century ago in which Palestinian terrorists from Lebanon killed 18 residents, including eight children, have either paled in comparison or faded to what is now Israel’s longest war since the 1948 War of Independence.
“My dream and [the dream of] all of the police officers is to see the children come back to the city when things get back to normal,” the city’s police operations officer says.
“We don’t know how long it will take, but until then, we will be here.”
Damage to buildings in the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona after nearly 10 months of rocket, missile and drone attacks by Hezbollah based in Lebanon, pictured on July 24. Israeli Police
A scene last week in Kiryat Shmona, where buildings, fields and vehicles have been severely damaged in rocket, missile and drone attacks launched by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israeli Police
Kibbutz Be’eri rises from ashes of October 7…
Continued from page 1
Levi Ludmir, were murdered in cold blood by Hamas, we encountered a delegation of university vice chancellors from India.
Driving a club car around the kibbutz with his daughter, Hassi Yehezkel, a resident of Be’eri, stopped and greeted us. She expressed her joy at being home, though she also said it was much too soon for her family to return permanently.
“Some residents believe that we shouldn’t let visitors enter the kibbutz, and [then there are] those, including me and my family, who believe it is essential for us to show others what happened here,” said Ella Gelbard, who survived the assault.
“This disaster could be erased in a moment if we don’t work to bring our stories to the media and the population,” she said.
Gelbard’s husband grew up on the kibbutz. His parents were founders and his four siblings all lived in Be’eri up until Oct. 7.
“I don’t know if I can say that we’re OK emotionally. I’m not sure. But physically we’re OK. A few of our houses await demolition, after they were either burnt by Hamas or used as a temporary base by the terrorists. Each house tells a different story,” she said.
As we stopped at an empty space in a row of houses, a few of them somehow untouched, Shevo explained that the hole used to be the house of Yossi Sharabi, from which he and his daughter’s boyfriend, Ofir Engel, were kidnapped by Hamas.
On Jan. 16, Sharabi’s death was confirmed in absentia, after he was murdered by Hamas in captivity. Engel was released as part of a late November ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that freed 105 captives, mostly women and children.
Asked whether he feared that erasing ravaged neighborhoods could lead to denialism, Shevo said he and all the residents know it happened and that that was enough for him. It is now time to start over, he said.
“I want to see Be’eri become better. I want residents to be happier. We can’t live side by side with reminders of our loss, we must continue to live our lives. The residents lost their loved ones here but at the end of the day Be’eri is our home,” he said.
“A home is not just walls; it’s a community; it’s values transmitted to children. We have families and generations who have been on the kibbutz since 1947. We need to rebuild and because Oct. 7 devoured our lives, we will rebuild from scratch,” he added.
“We will destroy neighborhoods that were damaged and rebuild on the
kibbutz but away from the neighborhoods where our loved ones were murdered, at least in the beginning. It will help our souls heal,” Shevo continued.
Kibbutz Be’eri is set to receive nearly $100 million for rebuilding efforts, the largest sum to date allocated to any of the Gaza-border communities invaded by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7.
The government funding is part of the Tkuma (revival in Hebrew) Directorate, which was established to oversee reconstruction in the communities of southern Israel impacted by the attack. It is set to deliver the final building plans to Jerusalem in two months.
Shevo has not received information on what security systems will be added to the new construction. He predicts that they will likely add an inside lock to safe rooms.
“It’s impossible to predict the next scenario,” Shevo said, explaining that no security mechanism is flawless. “We can’t take a house and seal it. We can’t live in a dungeon,” he said. “There is always the risk that someone manages to break in or burn it.”
Nearly 350 Hamas terrorists, including 100 members of the terror group’s Nukhba Force, managed to infiltrate Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel on Oct. 7 due to a catastrophic failure by the Israeli security forces, according to the first part of the IDF’s internal probe into the attacks.
After regaining control of the kibbutz, the IDF removed 190 bodies of terrorists.
In Shevo’s neighborhood, out of 42 houses, 36 were impacted by Hamas’s massacre.
“This neighborhood used to be paradise. A lot of space, beautiful views. In this street lived eight families, in
each house someone was murdered,” he said.
We entered Avida Bachar’s house, where Bachar lost his wife Dana, his 15-year-old son Carmel and his right leg in the invasion.
“For 12 hours, his daughter, Hadar, tried to help as she witnessed her mother and brother’s death and her dad losing consciousness,” Shevo said.
On the other side of the street from Bachar’s house lived Hamas captive Eli Sharabi, who lost his wife and two daughters in the invasion and whose brother Yossi was murdered in captivity. Eli is presumed to still be alive.
As we entered Shevo’s house, he explained how on Oct. 7, he left the kibbutz early in the morning to go on a bicycle ride just a couple miles away. An amateur cyclist, he was training for the Epic Israel competition when he was ambushed by Hamas terrorists.
He was eventually rescued by the IDF close to the site of the Supernova music festival. His son Shaked, an IDF officer, battled the terrorists for hours to protect the rest of the family under siege in their home, even as the terrorists used the house as a military base and ended up setting the property on fire while Shevo’s family was still inside. Fortunately, they all survived.
Looking through the rubble, Shevo grabbed a burnt hanukkiah and explained its significance.
“My daughter’s name is Rimon [pomegranate], as you can see each
candle holder is a pomegranate” he said.
A lunch break at the nearly deserted Be’eri cafeteria left us wondering how hectic and lively it likely was before Oct. 7.
The visit ended with a stop at Kibbutz Be’eri’s dairy farm, where Dror Or, who was killed on Oct. 7 and whose body is being held by Hamas in Gaza, worked for 15 years.
At the farm we met Tom Carbone, who also produces wine in Be’eri. He lost his mother in the Oct. 7 invasion, and was close to Or.
“Dror believed in the high potential of the dairy farm and he invested a lot in it. It was a project for him which he
kept on thinking of making bigger and more successful,” he said.
All the materials used to make the dairy products are from Be’eri. As Carbone goes back and forth from Be’eri to a hotel at the Dead Sea where most of Be’eri residents currently live, he makes sure to bring cheeses with him, and opens a mini market there to provide the residents with tastes from home.
Discussing the rebuilding of the kibbutz, Carbone seemed optimistic.
“I’m very happy that things are advancing, we need to move on,” he said. “We can’t stay behind. I want to come back and if they don’t start rebuilding, I won’t be able to,” he said.
The remains of a house in Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel on July 22. The drawing on the wall reads, “Together we will win.” Amelie Botbol
Members of a family whose father was murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 search the rubble of his home in Kibbutz Be’eri on Nov. 30, 2023. Chen Schimmel, Flash90
Be’eri’s dental clinic, where Gil Buyum, Shachar Zemach, Eitan Hadad, Amit Man and Dr. Daniel Levi Ludmir (pictured in the banner) were murdered by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 is pictured on July 22. Amelie Botbol
Graves of Kibbutz Be’eri residents whom Hamas terrorists murdered on Oct. 7, at Kibbutz Revivim on Nov. 15, 2023. Chaim Goldberg, Flash90
Bullet impacts on the window of Avida Bachar’s safe room in Kibbutz Be’eri. Amelie Botbol
By Itay Ilnai, Noam Barkan and Shachar Kleiman, Israel Hayom
Two minutes and eight seconds. That’s the time Hamas terrorists estimated it would take them to reach their target, Kibbutz Nahal Oz, from their starting point in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood.
This chilling detail, along with other instructions and methods of operation, appears in “Operation 402″ — Hamas’s attack order for the conquest of the kibbutz on Oct. 7 that left 15 residents dead and eight kidnapped. Alongside stories of heroism, questions arise regarding the Israeli military’s performance that day.
Operation 402
Drawn on impressive aerial photographs in Operation 402, a green arrow shows the short, simple route taken by dozens of heavily armed Hamas terrorists on motorcycles as they raided the kibbutz on the morning of Oct. 7. It starts at the outermost building in Shejaiya and stretches directly eastward.
Other operation orders prepared by Hamas for the capture of communities in southern Israel have been revealed in the past, but Operation 402 is undoubtedly the most detailed published to date. Written in military language with more than 10 pages of data and instructions, members of Hamas’s “military” wing laid out the step-by-step plan for the massacre.
Nahal Oz victims
There’s no need for Hamas’s aerial photographs to understand how close Nahal Oz is to the border with Gaza. Since its establishment in 1951, the kibbutz has suffered from its proximity to the Strip, from fedayeen infiltrations, through more than 20 years of Qassam rockets and mortar shells, to the “Great March of Return” riots held throughout 2018 that enveloped the kibbutz in thick smoke every Friday. But even veteran residents of Nahal Oz couldn’t have imagined Oct. 7, when 15 kibbutz members were murdered — Staff Sgt. Ilan Fiorentino, Staff Sgt. (res.) Ran Poslushni, Shlomo Ron, Shoshi Brosh, Haim Livne, Yasmin, Yaniv, Keshet and Tchelet Zohar, Dikla Arava, Tomer Arava-Eliaz, Noam Elyakim, Maayan Idan, Somkuan Pansa-ard and Joshua Mollel. Eight people were kidnapped from the kibbutz on that Black Saturday — Tsachi Idan and Omri Miran, who are still in captivity; Judith Raanan and her daughter Natalie, American citizens who were released after 14 days; sisters Dafna and Ela Elyakim and Alma Avraham, who were released after 51 days; and Clemence Felix Matanga, a Tanzanian citizen who was murdered and whose body is being held in Gaza.
Since Oct. 7, Nahal Oz has been a closed military zone. Although it is almost empty of residents, the kibbutz is still well-maintained — a group of volunteers tends to the greenery so it doesn’t grow wild. The green lawns are waiting for the community to return home. On a visit to the kibbutz last week, it’s easy to imagine the pastoral scene of that Simchat
Torah morning. It’s also easy to imagine the dust cloud raised by the motorcycles on which Hamas terrorists rode on their short journey from nearby Shejaiya.
The IDF investigation into the battle in Nahal Oz has not yet been completed, and its publication is not expected soon. However, the remarkable bravery displayed by the kibbutz’s emergency response team is already evident.
Despite losing its security coordinator, Ilan Fiorentino, in the opening minutes of the assault, this small group, along with a few Border Police officers who were spending the weekend in Nahal Oz, mounted a fierce resistance against dozens of heavily armed terrorists. In the face of overwhelming odds, their courageous actions undoubtedly prevented an even greater tragedy in the kibbutz. Only after six and a half hours would the first IDF soldiers arrive at the kibbutz gate to finally clear it of terrorists.
Members of the emergency response team described their experiences in “Testimony 710,” an extensive civilian documentation project that recently went online.
Now, in a first-of-its-kind reconstruction based on these testimonies, along with internal materials and the Hamas operation order, it is possible to get a full picture of the battle. From this emerge, just as in the IDF’s investigation of the battle in Kibbutz Be’eri, questions regarding the army’s performance in Nahal Oz. As in Be’eri, in the case of Nahal Oz, it turns out that during the clearing of the kibbutz from terrorists, IDF soldiers accidentally killed at least one Israeli civilian.
Top secret
The fourth battalion of the Hamas Gaza Brigade is the Shejaiya Battalion, which has caused trouble for the IDF since “Operation Cast Lead”
in 2009. In 2014’s “Operation Protective Edge,” the battalion also inflicted heavy casualties on Israel. In the current war, the army operated in this sector three times and still hasn’t defeated it decisively. The third company of the battalion belongs to the Nukhba (Arabic for “elite”) Force, Hamas’s special forces unit. Operation 402, which bore the heading “Top Secret,” was assigned to this company.
Force commander “Abu Salama” received the document mere hours before setting out. According to the battle order, the raiding force on Nahal Oz consisted of 27 terrorists, who advanced on 14 off-road motorcycles in two columns.
In the “communications” section the order states, “Photos will be taken using head cameras and phones, in addition to the presence of a media photographer.” This instruction clarifies how important it was for Hamas to broadcast live the atrocities it committed.
The order also included three aerial photographs of the area, which, in addition to the route of attack, indicated the locations of IDF communication antennas, cameras and motion radars, along with guard posts, barbed wire fences and dirt mounds. The entry point to the kibbutz was located in its southeastern corner, that is, in the part furthest from the Gaza Strip, a location that Hamas operatives probably assessed would be a weak point.
After completing the first stage, rapid arrival at destination, the terrorists would move to the second stage — conquering the kibbutz. According to the order, the force’s sappers would breach holes in the fence using explosive charges, through which their comrades would enter for the mission and split into two groups.
One group would focus on raiding the eastern part of Nahal Oz, while setting ambushes
and booby-trapping houses. This group’s mission was to take over the clubhouse and dining hall and also raid the secretariat, which, according to Hamas, “is considered an important source of information for our forces” from which communication with factors outside the kibbutz is conducted.
The second group of terrorists would focus on the western side of Nahal Oz, take over its visitors’ center, “clear” the kindergartens, and blow up the kibbutz’s communication antennas. Then, they would gather hostages from the first group and concentrate them in the kindergartens.
Section 5 of the plan states that if there is a need for water and food supplies, they can be obtained from the grocery store, which can serve as a “Source of logistical support for the forces — food, drink, fuel, gas.”
Simultaneously with the conquest of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, another Hamas force raided the adjacent Nahal Oz IDF outpost and completely conquered it, inflicting heavy casualties.
The lookout post’s command and control center were breached, and most of the female field observers were shot dead. Seven female IDF observers were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip. The people of Nahal Oz quickly realized that help would not come from the direction of the nearby outpost.
“At some point, I called a friend and told him, ‘You must save us and bring the army. There are dozens of terrorists in the kibbutz, and we’re alone.’ I really cried for help,” said Barry Meyerowitz, co-manager of the Nahal Oz community and a member of the emergency response team who fought the terrorists on Oct. 7. “The friend said, ‘I’m checking what can be done,’ then I realized there’s no one to help us.”
Emergency response team
Even if they didn’t meet the ambitious target of two minutes and eight seconds, the terrorists of the Shejaiya Battalion certainly managed to infiltrate Nahal Oz quickly. Already at 7 a.m., half an hour after the start of the attack, reports began to be received of terrorist gunfire inside the kibbutz. In the hours that followed, dozens more armed men would enter the community, along with looters who would take anything they could get their hands on.
According to army estimates, on Oct. 7, about 100 heavily armed terrorists invaded Nahal Oz.
However, as to the second part of their mission — conquering the kibbutz and safeguarding themselves there with many hostages — the Hamas terrorists failed.
Although it is the Israeli community closest to the border with Gaza (except for Kibbutz Kerem Shalom), and although the terrorists stayed there for long hours with a huge numerical advantage, Nahal Oz did not fall.
The terrorists managed to murder many of the kibbutz residents in cold blood and kidnap eight, but at no stage did they completely control it. What prevented this from happening was the kibbutz’s emergency response team.
‘Palestine’ rights can mirror Puerto Rico
New details of Hamas assault on Nahal Oz Friedman:
By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS
After the US presidential election in November, Israel should claim sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and offer local autonomy but not voting rights to Palestinians, David Friedman, the Five Towns native and former US ambassador to Israel, told the Knesset.
Friedman’s remarks came a day before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to address a joint session of Congress, and about four years after the previous administration approved the Jewish state’s annexation of some 30% of the disputed territory.
“It doesn’t matter if you are a person of faith or an atheist, this is the best outcome for regional stability, for Israel and all its neighbors,” Friedman said in a keynote address at the Knesset’s Israel Victory Caucus.
The former US envoy admitted that his plan couldn’t “get done tomorrow” and needs “buy-in from the rest of the world.” But he said that it’s the best alternative to a twostate solution, which he and many Israelis view as anathema but Washington and other countries see as the ideal resolution to the conflict.
“It’s not what America thinks, the United Nations thinks or the Quartet [composed of US, UN, EU and Russian mediators] thinks. It’s what Israel thinks,” Friedman said in his first address to the Knesset since leaving public office in January 2021.
“The longer Israel punts this issue, the less seriously it will be taken by others when it makes the decision,” he added.
Friedman, whose book “One Jewish State”
is due out in September, compared his plan for Palestinians to the situation of Puerto Ricans, who are US citizens and have local autonomy but don’t vote.
“Nobody accuses the United States of being an apartheid state,” he said.
Such a move would ensure the preservation of two Israeli Basic Laws by affording dignity and liberty to the Palestinians, while Jews would retain the right, uniquely, to a Jewish state, according to Friedman.
There has been a moment of clarity, where “politics and faith converged,” for Jews and Christians after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack, he said.
“It’s a dangerous time, but a time fraught with massive opportunities. The solutions are staring us in the face.”
Destruction caused by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, pictured on Oct. 20, 2023. Yonatan Sindel, Flash90
US ambassador to Israel David Friedman in Jerusalem in 2020. Olivier Fitoussi, Flash90
Rebuilding a positive Jewish brand in America
david suissa Jewish Journal
What is the central vibe in the Jewish world today? In a word, anxiety. Justified anxiety, I might add.
It seems everywhere we turn, there are anti-Israel and anti-Jewish forces mobilizing for action. The hatred and chutzpah have reached new levels. There’s no fear, for example, about spray painting “Hamas is Coming” on a statue in Washington, or assaulting Jews outside a synagogue in my Los Angeles neighborhood of Pico-Robertson.
The good news is that Jews have mobilized in response. We have our rights and we’re fighting to enforce them. Haters must pay a price. Lawsuits are being filed. Scores of organizations are on the case. We’re making noise.
I’m writing to bring attention to an unusual side effect in the fight against antisemitism; one that is not easy to see. This side effect, if we don’t take action, has the potential to severely weaken the Jewish brand in America.
Let me explain.
A brand is as valuable as a reputation. That applies to organizations, individuals and products as well to groups of people. The Jews in America have always been blessed with a strong
Israel reminds us that there’s a lot more to the Jewish brand than seeking protection.
brand, one that is marked, among other things, by our inclination to give back to our country.
How is the fight against antisemitism influencing that brand?
Branding is all about the noise we make. That noise helps shape the brand we become. Right now, the Jewish noise in America is very much about fighting those who hate us. Whether we like it or not, we’re becoming the group that cares mostly about protecting itself.
This is not a criticism. Fighting for safety is primordial. It does, however, hold a subtle trap: Safety is so important that it tends to drown out everything else, to suck up all the noise. As a result, Jews become associated with weakness; fear on one side and seeking safety on the other.
This not only “shrinks” the Jewish brand, but it’s also not true to who we are.
The Jewish way, which promotes growth, goodness and renewal, has always treated safety as a beginning, not an end.
Perhaps the ultimate example is Israel. In its 76 years of existence, no country has been under more physical threat than the world’s only Jewish state. And yet, it is known not just for its strong military but for its vibrancy and creative spirit, not to mention its many contributions to the world.
As critical as safety is, Israel reminds us that there’s a lot more to the Jewish brand than seeking protection.
Ibumped into one of my favorite Jewish “givers” recently — Matisyahu. I mentioned that infamous concert in Spain where he sang the “Jerusalem” song in front of anti-Israel protestors. What I loved, I told him, is that he didn’t use his position on stage to verbally push back on the haters who wanted to shut him down.
No, all he did was sing. And boy did he sing. While the haters hated, Matisyahu did what he
does best. He performed. He gave of himself to the audience.
Giving of ourselves has been the American Jewish way since we landed on these shores. Now that we’re feeling under siege, that Jewish way is being tested. Naturally, the noise is going to the act of fighting the haters, of seeking protection. It’s understandable.
But if we’re serious about revitalizing the Jewish brand — which is our most valuable asset — we must bring more noise to the Jewish act of bringing goodness, of bringing a positive spirit to the world around us.
How can we do that? One way is if every Jewish event — whether for major groups like the ADL, AJC and Federations or smaller neighborhood groups — would feature one Jew who is giving back to the world and is not connected to that particular cause. Just a Jew doing good things. This would offer hundreds of occasions
each year to make some noise about Jews and goodness. I can envision Jewish organizations taking 10% of their “fighting antisemitism” budgets and allocating it to promoting Jews who share their contributions — from grade school kids to Holocaust survivors, from entertainers to scientists, from doctors and artists to architects and volunteers in soup kitchens.
The spreading of Jewish contributions, creativity and goodness won’t just revitalize the Jewish brand throughout America, it will also provide a welcome injection of positive energy into our anxious community.
Yes, we must never relent in fighting for the safety of Jews. But we must also never relent in honoring the Jewish way of never settling, of always aiming higher.
We are determined fighters when we are forced to be, but we are givers always. And giving, from what I hear, helps reduce anxiety.
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The problem with Meta’s Oversight Board
By David M. Litman, CAMERA
How should freedom of speech and expression on the internet be handled? The stakes are enormous; there is no forum for speech and expression as public and globalized as the internet. Governmental efforts to regulate speech online have inevitably run into the same set of domestic and international barriers, from simple inability to control online content produced abroad to constitutional limitations.
Which brings us to Meta’s Oversight Board, an initiative by the social media giant that some have likened to a content moderation “supreme court.”
The Oversight Board is an independent trust funded by Meta to render binding decisions on appeals against content removal on Meta’s platforms (including Facebook and Instagram), as well as to make recommendations on broader policy questions. It has been billed as an alternative solution in the absence of governmental regulation on how to handle hate speech, incitement, disinformation and other challenges that arise with online speech.
But the Oversight Board’s handling of a recent policy question, on how to moderate the term “shaheed,” helps illustrate why it is not the answer.
In effect, the Board aims to take questions of great public importance and put them in the hands of a few individuals, largely from ideologically similar backgrounds, in a manner that lacks real transparency and standards. That some members of the board have themselves glorified terrorists only raises further doubts about the board’s moderation recommendations in relation to glorification, legitimization and incitement to terrorism.
For context, in February 2023 Meta referred to the Oversight Board the question of how to moderate the term “shaheed,” Arabic for “martyr,” given its frequent use as a term of praise for terrorists. Meta presented three possible policy options and asked the Oversight Board to share its views on them. For present purposes, there is no need to get into the substance of the debate, except to note that the Board’s answer was that even the most lenient option — which went so far as to allow for the term to be used in reference to designated terrorists — wasn’t lenient enough.
Shortly after the referral, the Oversight Board invited the public to make written submissions on the question. Over 100 submissions were sent, including one from CAMERA and another from CAMERA Arabic. This process was laudable, although it suffered from some constraints.
Strict length limits meant participants were forced to reduce a complex issue to just a couple of pages. It also meant participants were not given an opportunity to engage with each other’s arguments and pull out their respective strengths and weaknesses. But as long as all those participating were subject to the same limitations it would be hard to criticize the process as unfair. Unfortunately, there was more.
Unannounced to the public, and unbeknownst to at least some of those who had made written submissions, the Oversight Board also held a series of “stakeholder engagement roundtables,” interactive discussions where participants could more dynamically engage over the pros and cons of the policy options. The existence of these secretive roundtables was only announced publicly after the Board had already made its final decision.
Meta asked its Oversight Board how to moderate the term ‘shaheed,’ Arabic for ‘martyr,’ given its frequent use as a term of praise for terrorists.
Shortly after the decision was announced, the Board held a private briefing (held under Chatham House Rules) with those who made public comments. During this briefing, CAMERA inquired as to how the Board decided who to invite to these secretive roundtables and who would be kept in the dark. After all, the roundtable format would enable those stakeholders invited to more robustly and comprehensively engage with the policy questions. Was there a fair process to ensure diverse points of view were included?
The answer, it turns out, was that there was no process. Nameless staff, operating behind the scenes, decided who to invite, and no real explanation was ever given as to how they made their decisions.
This is concerning for several major reasons.
•For one, certain voices are being given an advantage. Worse, we have no reason to believe that those voices were selected for any legitimate reason other than favoritism.
•For another, there’s a lack of transparency regarding an important part of the process whereby the Oversight Board arrives at its decisions. The Board boasts that it has “opened a space for transparent dialogue with the company [Meta] that did not previously exist,” and yet has not shown transparency in its own deliberations and dialogue with stakeholders.
names and whatever good intentions they may have, are “deeply infected by antiliberal forces,” to borrow the words of one industry veteran. As has been well-documented by CAMERA a nd other organizations, they are also nakedly partisan and prone to making numerous and often significant errors in the same partisan direction. They are notorious for purveying a highly politicized form of human rights discourse that is often divorced from both common sense and actual international law. In short, the board is full of individuals who hail from a particular “human rights” institutionalist perspective which comes with a host of controversial and ideological baggage.
Given the secrecy and the partisan bent of the Board, it’s a reasonable assumption that these roundtables were similarly skewed and thus failed to provide the Board with a truly representative, intellectually rigorous debate. What little we know of their nature and format only reinforces this assumption.
In total, five roundtables were held: three “regional roundtables” and two “thematic roundtables.” The three regional roundtables “prioritize[ed] geographies where ‘shaheed’ … [is] commonly used,” resulting in roundtables for the “Southwest Asia and North Africa,” the “SubSaharan Africa,” and the “South/Southeast Asia” regions. That is, the Board sought out regions
True, transparency is not always realistic. Concerns over a lack of transparency can be alleviated, however, when an organization has established credibility. The public must have a reason to trust in the fairness and professionalism of the process.
Unfortunately, that is missing here, too, in no small part due to the ideological conformity of many of the Board and staff members.
To be clear, many of the Board members and staff are well-intentioned and competent individuals. But what is clear from their backgrounds is that there is an ideological skew, and while there are a handful of ideologically diverse individuals, they appear as a façade of intellectual diversity against a background of ideological homogeneity.
No matter how unimpeachable the integrity and intellect of individuals, echo chambers will negatively affect the quality and perception of their work. This is especially so when that work is to steer how speech is moderated online, affecting an enormously diverse range of voices and perspectives.
To give some perspective on the bias, one report, by Real Clear Investigations, discovered that 18 of the 20 members of the Oversight Board “collaborated with or are tied to groups that have received funding from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.” While there is a fair amount of overwrought conspiracy theorizing about Soros’s foundation, it should go without saying that Open Society Foundations is a nakedly partisan foundation that funds projects it believes will advance its ideological goals. That 90% of the Board have some connection to this funding alone suggests a concerning ideological skew.
An open-source review of the backgrounds of members and staff of the Oversight Board further evidences this homogeneity. A handful of activist organizations come up again and again on their LinkedIn profiles, such as the United Nations, the Open Society Foundations, Save the Children, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (which has been waging a campaign accusing Meta of “silencing” Palestinian voices via its moderation policies surrounding terrorism), and the Committee to Protect Journalists. These are organizations which, despite their
But perhaps the most alarming evidence of a problem among the board is that some members — who are making recommendations on how to handle content moderation relating to incitement, terrorism and hate speech — have themselves glorified terrorism.
Nighat Dad, for example, has glorified both the notorious antisemite Refaat Alareer and the terrorist Hamza al-Dahdouh. Another board member, Khaled Mansour, has claimed that Hezbollah has fought Israel “heroically” (with a half-hearted hedge “and sometimes … terroristically”) and writes of Palestinian terrorism (“armed resistance,” as he calls it) as mere “details and tactics” that one should “not get bogged down in.”
Helle Thorning-Schmidt, another board member, served as the CEO of Save the Children during a period in which the organization was caught collaborating with kindergartens that held graduation ceremonies that included “mock killing and kidnapping of Israelis by children dressed as combatants.” According to NGO Monitor, they were also collaborating during that period with at least one other organization connected to an internationally designated terrorist organization.
All of this is also on top of the noticeable biases, and lack of credibility, relating more specifically to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which — by the board’s own admission — played a central role in their deliberations over the “shaheed” case.
with large Muslim populations, notwithstanding that these regions collectively accounted for just 19% of the written submissions. This is despite Islamist terrorism being a global phenomenon, affecting people far beyond those regions.
There’s also reason to doubt that diverse viewpoints were sought out even within those selective regions. CAMERA Arabic — one of the few Israel-based Zionist organizations with expertise in the Arabic language which had made a submission — was never informed of this roundtable, despite being from Southwest Asia.
Then there were the “thematic roundtables,” one of which perhaps best illustrates the failure: the “Counterterrorism and Human Rights” roundtable. According to the Board itself, they invited a single, unnamed “international civil society organization” to attend.
Few topics are as controversial, including in professional and academic circles, as terrorism and human rights. Yet the Oversight Board sought out only a single organizational perspective, meaning the Board deprived itself of the benefit of the many legitimate alternative perspectives and counterarguments to analyze the issues with various policy options.
Unfortunately, the problems go even further than biases and a lack of transparency and fairness. There are also concerns over what look like potential conflicts of interest and compliance with the organization’s own bylaws.
Nighat Dad, a board member, is also the executive director of the Digital Rights Foundation, which made a submission in line with the Board’s ultimate recommendation. So too did the organization Access Now, which Oversight Board member Ronaldo Lemos had previously served as a board member. In September 2023, board member Afia Asantewaa Asare-Kyei and Deputy Vice President for Content Review and Policy Abigail Bridgman spoke alongside the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) at a conference on “internet freedom.” EFF also made a submission similar in substance to the Board’s ultimate decision.
Whether the Board considered these potential conflicts of interest and took steps to mitigate them is unclear and left unexplained in its public documentation relating to the policy recommendation.
Board members Endy Bayuni and Tawakkol Karman have openly lobbed the objectively absurd accusation of “genocide” against Israel. Karman further claims Israel is engaged in an “unjust aggressive war” in Gaza — notwithstanding it was Hamas who attacked Israel — and celebrates the idea of Israel being a “mere pariah state,” which she accuses of being composed of a “terrorist government” and a “criminal army.” Julie Owono enthusiastically endorses the idea that Wikipedia — a notoriously biased resource which just banned the Jewish civil rights organization, the Anti-Defamation League, from being used as a source of information — is a reliable source of information about the war between Israel and Hamas.
Board member Alan Rusbridger, a former editor at the notorious left-wing and anti-Israel outlet the Guardian, has justified Hamas’s brutal atrocities on Oct. 7 by claiming it “most certainly did not happen in a vacuum.”
Similar biases can also be found among staff as well, with connections to anti-Israel organizations like those listed above, as well as Islamic Relief Worldwide, Middle East Eye, J Street and the International Commission of Jurists.
Which brings us back to the questions of trust, standards and transparency.
If the Oversight Board wants the trust of the public, and social media companies, to handle difficult questions of content moderation, then it must give us reasons to trust its professionalism, expertise and fairness. The Board has repeatedly criticized Meta for an alleged lack of transparency in its policies around terrorist organizations, and yet the Board itself falls well short of transparency in how it handles its own decision making and dialogue with stakeholders.
Whether the Board came to the right decision in the “shaheed” case is ultimately a matter of some reasonable debate. But the Board’s questionable handling of the public engagement process does not inspire confidence that the issues are being fairly or fully considered.
With upcoming Board recommendations on moderating the phrase “from the river to the sea” and how to handle the use of the term “Zionists” when compared to criminality, it is clear that the Board seeks to have an enormous influence on online expression relating to Israel and antisemitism. As antisemitism and anti-Israel extremism surge, this should be concerning to all. If the Board wishes to build the credibility it desires, it will need to reconsider its process. Trust is earned, not given. In this context, that trust will require a credible and transparent process.
Jordan Wright (AD-70) Stefani Zinerman (AD-56) Michael Benedetto (AD-82) George Latimer (CD-16)
WINE AND DINE
It’s still summer! No time to be ice cream shy
Kosher Kitchen
JoNI SChoCKEtt Jewish Star columnist
Continuing the theme from last week’s column, “we still scream for ice cream” as summer’s heat continues.
The other day, a friend asked me what I was making for dinner. The truth was that I had no plans for dinner at all. I was still sore and exhausted from non-stop gardening and had been so busy that I had forgotten to think about dinner, much easier to do since it is just the two of us these days.
I had spent the day sewing with a friend, trying to finish a quilt I started almost a year ago. So, I had no plans for dinner and was sure I could make do with a salad or some scrambled eggs. My husband would understand — I hoped.
As we talked, she said, “I just want ice cream for dinner.” My eyes lit up. YES!
I remember those days. Sometimes, when it was brutally hot and my husband was working at his second job, I would take our three cranky kids out for ice cream for dinner. They would be so excited, the air-conditioned ice cream parlor felt so good and the naughtiness of this treat made them all co-conspirators! We would go home, run under the sprinkler, shower and get into bed. Sometimes, you just need to have ice cream for dinner!
So here’s my ice cream philosophy. If I kept ice cream in the house too often, there is a good chance I would eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and before bed. NOT a good idea! But that is how much I love ice cream.
I indulge occasionally and never have ice cream for dinner anymore. But anyone who knows me well, knows that if they bring me some great mocha chip ice cream, I will be their friend forever.
We are in the hottest part of the summer. Time to splurge on that ice cream and enjoy some icy cold treats.
S’mores Ice Cream Pie (Dairy)
Who does not love S’Mores? This is an icy take on the old scouting favorite.
• 1-3/4 to 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 2/3 stick butter
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1-1/2 pints chocolate or chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips or your favorite
• 3 extra-large egg whites at room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup marshmallow crème (fluff)
• Hot fudge or chocolate syrup (your favorite kind)
Place the ice cream on the counter to soften while you make the graham cracker crust. Place the graham cracker crumbs in a bowl. Melt the butter in a small bowl in the microwave. Add the butter and the sugar to the cracker crumbs and mix well. Firmly press the mixture into a 9- or 10-inch, broiler-safe, pie plate. Place in the freezer.
Place the ice cream in a large bowl and either mix with a large spoon or use a gloved hand to work the ice cream into an even consistency. Place the ice cream into the pie shell and spread evenly over the crust. Cover with plastic wrap directly on the ice cream and place in the freezer until very hard, several hours or overnight.
Preheat the broiler to high. Place the room-
temperature egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer. Turn the mixer on low and as the whites get frothy, increase the speed to high. When the egg whites turn white, slowly add the sugar while the mixer is running. Add the vanilla and mix until stiff peaks form. Add the marshmallow cream and beat until evenly incorporated and thick.
Spoon the marshmallow mixture over the ice cream making sure to “seal” all the ice cream under the merengue. Place in the broiler for 2 to 4 minutes or until golden brown. Watch carefully and don’t let it burn. Remove from the oven and let cool for about 10 minutes.
Heat the fudge and drizzle over each slice of pie. Serves 6 to 10.
Red White and Blueberry Ice Cream and Sorbet Dessert (Dairy)
I make this over two days for ease, but it can be made the same day if you have enough time to let the blueberries chill.
• 1 lb. blueberries
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 tsp. cornstarch
• 2 cups vanilla ice cream
• 2 cups raspberry sorbet
• 1 store bought pound cake (loaf shape)
• 1 pint raspberries
• 1/3 cup good quality seedless raspberry jam
• 1 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Fresh berries for garnish
• Optional: 2 to 3 cups whipped cream
Wash the blueberries and choose the best looking ones for garnish, about 1/4 of the berries. Place the rest in a saucepan and add the sugar and cornstarch. Bring to a boil and cook until all the berries are softened and broken and the mixture is dark and slightly thickened. Set aside to cool and then refrigerate overnight.
Let the ice cream and sorbet soften at room temperature while you do the following:
Remove the pound cake from the pan it came in and slice horizontally so you have three long
slices. Set aside. Line the Loaf pan with plastic wrap so the wrap overhangs the sides. Place the first slice of cake back into the pan. Set aside. Pour half the blueberries into the softened vanilla ice cream. Mix well and spread over the cake in the pan. Place the middle slice of cake over the ice cream and press gently. Place in the freezer while you mix 2/3 of the raspberries with the raspberry sorbet. (Reserve the rest for garnish.) Spread that over the cake and place the top slice of cake over the sorbet. Press down gently. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for several hours or overnight.
A few hours before serving, place the jam and the lemon juice in a small saucepan and whisk over low heat until melted and well combined. Remove the cake from the freezer about 15 minutes before serving. Remove the plastic wrap and place on a serving dish. If you like, you can spread the whipped cream over the cake and decorate with the berries. Spoon the sauce over each slice of cake and garnish late with the reserved fresh berries. Serves 6 to 8.
NOTE: You can frost this with whipped cream and decorate with berries.
PB&J Ice Cream with Graham Cracker Crunchies (Dairy)
My kids used to love my homemade graham crackers with peanut butter and drop of jam on top. This is a close second to that treat made better by the addition of ice cream.
• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 3 Tbsp. dark brown sugar
• 2/3 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3 Tbsp. whipping cream
• 2 Tbsp. confectioners’ sugar
• 1 quart vanilla, chocolate, peanut butter, or other ice cream, softened
• 3/4 to 1 cup good quality strawberry or grape jam
Place the butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan over low heat. Heat until bubbly and
the sugar is smooth and melted, about 3-5 minutes. Stir constantly. Remove from the heat and add the graham cracker crumbs. Mix vigorously with a fork. Small clumps will form. That is good. Let cool.
Place the peanut butter in a small bowl. Add the cream and mix with a fork until well-blended. Add the confectioners’ sugar and mix well. Set aside.
Place the jam in a small microwave-safe bowl and heat for about 20 seconds. Mix until smooth and pourable.
Place the vanilla ice cream in a large bowl. Add dollops of peanut butter and jam and gently fold in. OR layer in a parfait glass. (My kids liked to do both!) After all the PB&J is added, add the graham clusters and crumbs and mix just to blend. Place back in the ice cream container, cover with plastic wrap and freeze, or serve immediately. Makes a little over a quart.
Ice Cold Never-in-the-oven Strawberry Pie (Dairy)
• 24 plain chocolate cookies (if you cannot find them, use Oreos with filling scraped out and discarded. Use 36 of them. Kids can help with this part)
• 3-1/2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped or grated
• 1 lb. strawberries, washed, hulled and cut in half
• 3 Tbsp. seedless strawberry jam or jelly
• 1 Tbsp. Chambord Liqueur
• 1 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp. cane syrup or corn syrup
Summertime diversion: Ice cream for dinner…
Continued from page 12
Process the cookies in a food processor until fine crumbs form. Place the chocolate in a small bowl and microwave in 20 second intervals, stirring after each interval, until melted. Add the oil and stir to mix. Pour the chocolate into the food process and pulse to blend evenly. Pour the crumbs into a 9-inch pie plate that has been sprayed with non-stick spray. Press into the bottom and up the sides. Freeze for about 20 minutes.
Place the cream cheese, sugar and extracts in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix until smooth. Taste and adjust sugar, adding more if you like. Remove the bowl from the stand and fold in the whipped cream or whipped topping, mixing until well-blended. Pour into the crust and spread evenly. Refrigerate. Wash, hull and cut the berries in half from point to stem. Set on a paper towel to dry.
Place the jam in a small bowl and microwave to melt. Add the Chambord and mix well. Add the lemon juice and the corn syrup and mix. Place the berries in a bowl and add the melted jam mixture. Toss to coat. You can place each berry artistically around the pie or you can mound the berries on top. Pour any remaining sauce over the berries. Refrigerate for several hours before serving. Serves 6 to 10.
Strawberry or Raspberry Granita
(Pareve)
A granita is an icy dessert that is like slush only fresher and better. You make it in the freezer and use a fork to achieve the desired texture. A fun activity for older kids. A great dessert for sultry nights.
• 1 cup very hot water
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 lb. fresh, ripe strawberries or raspberries, washed, hulled and chopped
Mix the hot water, sugar and lemon juice together and mix until the sugar is melted.
Place the berries in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth. Add the sugar syrup and mix to blend. If using raspberries, pour the mixture through a strainer to strain out the seeds if you like. Discard the seeds. Pour the mixture into a non-stick 9x13 metal
pan. Cover with plastic wrap and place on a flat shelf in the freezer. Every 30 minutes, use a large fork and scrape the frozen edges of the mixture into the unfrozen middle. Mix the crystals, spread evenly, cover with the plastic and place in the freezer. Do this about 4 or 5 times until the entire mixture is icy. Mix the crystals one last time and cover with plastic wrap. Freeze overnight.
Before serving, let stand at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Scrape again with a fork and scoop into bowls. You can top with fresh berries and mint sprigs or, for adults, a dash or balsamic vinegar or even a splash of berry liqueur. Serves 6 to 8.
Ginger Peach Yogurt Fruit Parfaits
(Dairy)
• 16 oz. plain Greek or other good quality yogurt
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar, more or less, to taste
• 15 to 20 good quality ginger cookies (I like the kind that has bits of candied ginger)
• 2 to 3 very ripe, very sweet peaches
• OPTIONAL: Fresh raspberries or candied ginger for garnish
Mix the yogurt, sugar and vanilla in a bowl. Whisk until smooth.
Place the cookies in a plastic, zipper bag. Crush with a mallet or rolling pin until small pieces, but not crumbs. Set aside. Boil a pot of water (enough to cover the peaches).
Place the peaches in the boiling water and let boil until the skin splits, about 1 minute or a bit more. Remove to a bowl of cold water. Let cool for about 5 minutes. The skins should slip easily off the peaches. Discard the skins.
Slice the peaches in half and discard the pits. Scoop out any hardened area where the pit was and discard. Place the peaches cut side down and slice pieces about 1/2 inch thick. Place in a bowl. Place about 1/4 cup of yogurt in a parfait glass. Add about a tablespoon of the cookies. Add several peach slices. Add more yogurt, more cookies and more peaches. Top with yogurt, sprinkle with cookie pieces and add some fresh raspberries or candied ginger pieces. Makes 4 parfaits.
jewish star torah columnists:
•Rabbi Avi Billet of Anshei Chesed, Boynton Beach, FL, mohel and Five Towns native •Rabbi David Etengoff of Magen David Yeshivah, Brooklyn
•Rabbi Binny Freedman, rosh yeshiva of Orayta, Jerusalem
contributing writers:
•Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks zt”l,
former chief rabbi of United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth •Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh
Weinreb, OU executive VP emeritus
•Rabbi Raymond Apple, emeritus rabbi, Great Synagogue of Sydney •Rabbi Yossy Goldman, life rabbi emeritus, Sydenham Shul, Johannesburg and president of the South African Rabbinical Association.
Five towns candlelighting: From the White Shul, Far Rockaway, NY
תבש לש
Fri Aug 2 / Tamuz 27
Matos-Masei • Shabbos Mevarchim
Candles: 7:50 • Havdalah: 8:58
Fri Aug 10 / Av 5
Devarim
Candles: 7:41 • Havdalah: 8:49
Mon Aug 12 / Av 8
Tisha B’Av begins tonight
Fri Aug 16 / Tamuz 12
Vaeschanan
Candles: 7:32 • Havdalah: 8:39
Fri Aug 23 / Av 19
Eikev
Candles: 7:22 • Havdalah: 8:29
Fri Aug 30 / Av 26
Re’eh
Candles: 7:11 • Havdalah: 8:18
Cities of refuge: Natural, supernatural spins
rabbi sir jonathan sacks zt”l
The book of Bamidbar draws to a close this week with an account of the cities of refuge — the six cities (three on each side of the Jordan) set apart as places to which people found innocent of murder, but guilty of manslaughter, were temporarily exiled.
In early societies, especially non-urban ones that lacked an extensive police force, there was a concern that people would take the law into their own hands, in particular when a member of their family or tribe had been killed. Thus would begin a cycle of vengeance and retaliation that had no natural end, one revengekilling leading to another and another, until the community had been decimated. This is a phenomenon familiar to us from literature, from the Montagues and Capulets of Romeo and Juliet, to the Sharks and Jets of West Side Story, to the Corleones and Tattaglias of The Godfather.
The only viable solution is the effective and impartial rule of law. There is, though, one persisting danger. If Reuben killed Shimon and is deemed innocent of murder by the court — it was an accident, there was no malice aforethought, the victim and perpetrator were not enemies — then there is still the danger that the family of the victim may feel that justice has not been done. Their close relative lies dead and no one has been punished.
It was to prevent such situations of “blood vengeance” that the cities of refuge were established. Those who had committed manslaughter were sent there, and so long as they were within the city limits, they were protected by law. There they had to stay until — according to our parsha — “the death of the High Priest” (Num. 35:25).
The obvious question is, what does the death of the High Priest have to do with it? There seems no connection whatsoever between manslaughter, blood vengeance, and the High Priest, let alone his death.
Let us look at two quite different interpretations. They are interesting in their own right, but more generally they show us the range of thought that exists within Judaism. The first is
G-d is beyond the universe, but His actions within the universe may nonetheless be in accordance with natural law.
given by the Babylonian Talmud:
A venerable old scholar said, ‘I heard an explanation at one of the sessional lectures of Rava, that the High Priest should have prayed to G-d for mercy for his generation, which he failed to do. Makkot 11a
According to this, the High Priest had a share, however small, in the guilt for the fact that someone died, albeit by accident. Murder is not something that could have been averted by the High Priest’s prayer. The murderer was guilty of the crime, having chosen to do what he did, and no one else can be blamed. But manslaughter, precisely because it happens without anyone intending that it should, is the kind of event that might have been averted by the prayers of the High Priest. Therefore it is not fully atoned for until the High Priest dies. Only then can the manslaughterer go free.
Maimonides offers a completely different explanation in The Guide for the Perplexed:
A person who killed another person unknowingly must go into exile because the anger of “the avenger of the blood” cools down while the cause of the mischief is out of sight. The chance of returning from the exile depends on the death of the High Priest, the most honoured of men, and the friend of all Israel. By his death the relative of the slain person becomes reconciled (ibid. ver. 25); for it is a natural phenomenon that we find consolation in our misfortune when the same misfortune or a greater one has befallen another person. Amongst us no death causes more grief than that of the High Priest. (The Guide for the Perplexed III:40)
According to Maimonides, the death of the High Priest has nothing to do with guilt or atonement, but simply with the fact that it causes a collective grief so great that it causes people forget their own misfortunes in the face of a larger national loss. That is when people let go of their individual sense of injustice and desire for revenge. It then becomes safe for the person found guilty of manslaughter to return home.
What is at stake between these two profoundly different interpretations of the law? The first has to do with whether exile to a city of refuge is a kind of punishment or not.
According to the Babylonian Talmud it seems as if it was. There may have been no intent, no one was legally to blame, but a tragedy happened at the hands of X (the person guilty of manslaughter) and even the High Priest shared, if only negatively and passively, in the guilt. Only when both have undergone some suffering, one by way of exile, the other by way of (natural, not judicial) death, has the moral balance been restored. The family of the victim then feels that some sort of justice has been done. Maimonides however does not understand the law of the cities of refuge in terms of guilt or punishment whatsoever. The only relevant consideration is safety. The person guilty of manslaughter goes into exile, not because it is a form of expiation, but simply because it is safer for him to be a long way from those who might
be seeking vengeance. He stays there until the death of the High Priest because only after national tragedy can you assume that people have given up thoughts of taking revenge for their own dead family member. This is a fundamental difference in the way we conceptualize the cities of refuge.
However, there is a more fundamental difference between them. The Babylonian Talmud assumes a certain level of supernatural reality. It takes it as self-understood that had the High Priest prayed hard and devotedly enough, there would have been no accidental deaths.
Maimonides’ explanation is non-supernatural. It belongs broadly to what we would call social psychology. People are more able to come to terms with the past when they are not reminded daily of it by seeing the person who, perhaps, was driving the car that killed their son as he was crossing the road on a dark night, in heavy rainfall, on a sharp bend in the road.
There are deaths — like those of Princess Diana and of the Queen Mother in Britain — that evoke widespread and deep national grief. There are times — after 9/11, for example, or the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 De-
cember 2004 — when our personal grievances seem simply too small to worry about. This, as Maimonides says, is “a natural phenomenon.”
This fundamental difference between a natural and supernatural understanding of Judaism runs through many eras of Jewish history: Sages as against Priests, philosophers as against mystics, Rabbi Ishmael as against Rabbi Akiva, Maimonides in contradistinction to Judah Halevi, and so on to today.
It is important to realize that not every approach to religious faith in Judaism presupposes supernatural events — events, that is to say, that cannot be explained within the parameters of science, broadly conceived. G-d is beyond the universe, but His actions within the universe may nonetheless be in accordance with natural law and causation.
On this view, prayer changes the world because it changes us. Torah has the power to transform society, not by way of miracles, but by effects that are fully explicable in terms of political theory and social science. This is not the only approach to Judaism, but it is Maimonides’ approach, and it remains one of the two great ways of understanding our faith.
Honesty and integrity. Truth the ultimate value
rABBi dr. Tzvi
Every so often, I come across a sentence of another person’s writing which expresses one of my own thoughts in a language far superior to my own.
Over the years, I have contemplated and written about the concepts of “honesty” and “integrity” and the difference between the two. But never was I able to articulate their precise definitions and the difference between them as cogently and as concisely as in the following passage from Ste-
phen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”:
Integrity includes but goes beyond honesty. Honesty is … conforming our words to reality. Integrity is conforming reality to our words — in other words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations. This requires an integrated character, a oneness, primarily with self but also with life.
Honesty for Covey, and I for one heartily agree, is the virtue describing reality exactly as it is, of telling the truth. In this day and age, when there is so much confusion as to whether or not there even is such a thing as truth, it is refreshing to see the place of honesty restored to the list of important human virtues.
For Judaism, truth, emet, is more than just a virtue. It is one of the three fundamental prin-
Can a vow be annulled? The Torah, ever practical, answers ‘yes!’
ciples, along with justice and peace, upon which the world stands. In the words of the Talmud, “The signature of the Holy one, blessed be He, is truth.”
So rare is the man of truth that legend has the aged Diogenes searching for him with lanterns. But as rare as the trait of honesty is, the trait of integrity is even more difficult to find.
Integrity is the ability not only to say what you
mean, but to mean what you say. Following Covey, it is the quality of conforming one’s actions to one’s words, of reliably following through on one’s commitment. It is more than the ability to make things happen. It is making your own promises happen!
This week’s double Torah portion, Matos-Masei, opens with a lengthy and intricate discussion of the concepts of “the vow.” Biblical teachings insist that the words we express must be taken very seriously; indeed, we are taught that our words are sacred. Once a person utters a commitment, he or she is duty-bound to honor that commitment. “Motza sefatecha tishmor ve’asita (that which your lips express must be honored and performed).”
See Weinreb on page 22
Listing our stops: The insignificance of Marah
Parsha of the week
rABBi Avi BilleT Jewish Star columnist
As the Torah depicts the early travels of the Israelites, small details from famous stops are recalled.
They crossed the Red Sea toward the desert. They then traveled for three days through the Eitam Desert, and they camped in Marah. From Marah to Elim — in Elim there were 12 water springs and 70 palms. … They left Alush and camped in Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink. (33:8-14)
Does the Torah intend to list stops on the jour-
The
ney, or to recall significant events? If the former, we should just be reading destinations. But if the latter, the events of Marah should be mentioned.
Following the Sea splitting, the people traveled for three days without finding water. They came to Marah but could not drink of the water, “ki marim hem,” because they (either the waters or the people) were bitter. Moshe placed a stick in the waters to sweeten them. “There G-d taught them a decree and a law, and there He tested them.” (Shmot 15:22-25)
Why is nary a word recorded in our parsha about the three days before reaching Marah or about the miracle of the sweetened water?
The Alshich notes how the lack of water in Rephidim is described: “There was no water for the people to drink.”
There was water — it just was not available
for the people. They had Miriam’s well, but it had been sealed as a consequence of the people turning from the Torah teachings they had accepted in Marah when they complained about their food situation in Shmot 16.
Recall that their arrival in Marah followed three days of wandering during which water was not to be found. Even in Marah, where there was water, it was undrinkable because of bitterness. It is hard to understand how there was no water to be found when we consider the geography.
The people had come straight from the Red Sea — were there no rivers, streams or springs extending from the Sea? They were so close to the ironically numbered Oasis of Elim (“12” springs and “70” palms), and yet they couldn’t find water?
Rashi tells us (Shmot 15:22) that Moshe liter-
revolution in Torah on
Sefer Vayikra concludes with the pasuk: “These are the mitzvot that Hashem commanded Moshe to [tell] b’nai Yisrael on Har Sinai.” In contrast, the final verse of Sefer Bamidbar states: “These are the mitzvot and mishpatim that Hashem commanded b’nai Yisrael b’yad Moshe b’Arvot Moav (on the Plains of Moab), by the Jordan at Jericho.”
A comparison of our two pasukim reveals that the latter verse adds the words “mishpatim” and “b’yad Moshe,” and replaces Har Sinai with Arvot Moav. The singular import of these changes cannot be overstated.
In his Torah commentary, Ha’emek Davar,
HaRav Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin, sheds light upon the meaning of these textual variations.
He notes that Sefer Vayikra contains many instances of dinei mamonot (monetary laws) that are included under the rubric of mishpatim; this category of halacha, however, is not mentioned in the sefer’s concluding pasuk. The Netziv therefore concludes that Sefer Bamidbar’s use of the term “mishpatim,” in its final pasuk, is not referring to the class of laws entitled mishpatim, but rather to “the analyses that are derived from the 13 principles of exegetical interpretation (yud gimmel middot). These, opines the Netziv, were decidedly something new for the vast majority of the Jewish people, since “on Har Sinai this manner of analysis was revealed solely to Moshe and his immediate followers, as we find in Talmud Bavli, Nedarim page 38.”
The Netziv now suggests that this new category of mishpatim is a major turning point in the history of our people: “For it was only
ally had to drag the people away from the Sea after they were saved from the pursuing Egyptians because “the plundering of Egypt’s wealth was even greater at the Sea than it had been as they were leaving Egypt” with riches.
Perhaps seeing such riches, desiring such riches, and being told they were unavailable, embittered the people greatly. They were so depressed over the loss of the windfall profits that, through three days of blurry or misty-eyed travel, they could not see water, even though it may have been in abundance. And so, when they came to Marah, where there was water, they could not drink it because “Marim hem” (they were bitter). Was it the water that was bitter, or were the people bitter (Pesikta)?
Perhaps they felt G-d had abandoned them
See Billet on page 22
the Plains of Moav
in Arvot Moav that Moshe began to interpret the entire Torah according to logical arguments (pilpul) and analyses [derived from the yud gimmel middot], as is explained in the beginning of Sefer Devarim.”
At this juncture, the Netziv suggests that although this is not the Torah’s first instance of the phrase, “b’yad Moshe,” its use in the concluding verse of Sefer Bamidbar enables us to perceive Moshe as the authentic rebbe of klal Yisrael.
Until now, Moshe had acted as the Almighty’s shaliach to bring His exact words to the world. At Arvot Moav, Moshe found his own unique voice, and with the support of Heaven, created his own words of Torah — Torah She’beal Peh — derived from pilpul and the yud gimmel middot, for his beloved nation. In sum, in the view of the Netziv, Moshe’s Torah on Arvot Moav represents the transition from Torah She’Bichtav (written law) to Torah She’beal peh.
In a crucial passage cited from the Yarchei Kallah (Rabbinic Convocation) of 1977, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik underscores the notion that Sefer Devarim was originally Torah She’beal peh that became Torah Shebichsav only upon the final day of Moses’ life. This crucial idea differentiates Sefer Devarim from the preceding four books of the Torah in the sense that it, and it alone, is endowed with the “double sanctity of both Torah Shebichsav and Torah She’beal peh.”
Based upon the illuminating insights of the Netziv, and the Rav’s powerful analysis, the final verse of Sefer Bamidbar, and the entire Sefer Devarim, portray Moshe’s transition from Har Sinai, wherein he served as Hashem’s loyal prophet and repeated the Creator’s words, to the Moshe of Arvot Moav where he acted as Moshe Rabbeinu, the ultimate creative talmid chacham who brought the Torah She’beal peh to klal Yisrael.
Nazi Games: Revisiting 1936 Olympics in Berlin
As the Olympic Games in Paris attract world attention this week, I would like to bring to your attention a unique and historically interesting book on the most infamous Olympic Games of all, the Berlin Olympics of 1936.
In close to 400 pages, “Nazi Games” by Dr. David Clay Large, an acclaimed and accomplished historian of modern Germany, deals extensively with the history of just about everything about the events and personalities of the 1936 games, with Hitler and his Nazi stooges ruling Berlin. Large introduces us to the heroes and anti-heroes
of those games, picturing the bigotry, antisemitism and otherwise indifference of prominent Americans who turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to what Hitler represented.
Led by Avery Brundage, the villain of this epic, the Olympic leadership simply could not care less as to the rancid nature of Hitler’s Germany and the PR boost the Berlin games would provide to fascism and its followers. Large describes the hateful inner thoughts and mouthings of Brundage and members of the Roosevelt administration both toward Jews and toward those in sympathy with the Jews’ plight.
The myths of that era that Large exposes the regard that American athlete Jesse Owens, who was
black and a darling of civil rights advocates, had toward Adolph Hitler. At best, we can describe Owens’ perspective as “clueless.”
Owens had no inkling of the Fuhrer’s animosity toward him, Large reports, and never claimed to have been snubbed by Hitler. On the contrary, on his return to America after the Games, he told an audience of 1,000 black people in Kansas City that it was President Roosevelt and not Hitler who had shown him disrespect at his moment of triumph in Berlin.
“Hitler didn’t snub me — it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.”
Owens also said that while he managed not
to meet Hitler in Berlin, he had once caught the Fuhrer’s eye at the stadium and that Hitler had gracefully acknowledged him. Later Owens described Hitler as a “man of dignity.”
Now that’s a mouthful that flies directly in the face of one of the greatest myths of the ‘36 games. Another myth that is questioned was whether it was bigotry and antisemitism that blocked the participation of American athlete Marty Glickman, a Brooklyn (Borough Park) native, from the games. Large claims that contrary to all the protestations by Glickman, who went on to become a prominent sportscaster to several generations of sports fans, there is no evidence in writing that antisemitism was a factor in the blocking of Glickman from the games. This fact even extended to the private files of Brundage who was long suspected by many, including Glickman, to have been
See Gerber on page 22
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Olympics mockery goes beyond hurt feelings
JONATHAN
S.
TObiN JNS Editor-in-Chief
There are more important things to worry about these days than sports. In a world in which Islamist terrorists have been allowed to continue to run amuck and in which antisemitism is surging around the globe — not to mention efforts to overturn democracy in the name of saving it — the fact that elements of an Olympic Games opening ceremony were, at the very least, an example of bad taste, is not that big a deal.
And even if you believe, as most sensible people do, that one part of the show was an obvious parody of Christianity’s Last Supper and meant to mock a faith shared by about 2 billion people, you can always change the channel and watch something else.
As tempting as it may be to turn away from a topic that quickly became an overheated and often foolish debate on social-media platforms to something more edifying, the contempt that organizers of the Paris games showed for traditional imagery of Christian faith should not be dismissed as just another Internet kerfuffle. The inclusion of that segment must be seen as part of a broader cultural debate about something very serious.
Only at a time when the political left is waging war on the canon of Western civilization and seeking its replacement with an intersectional, secular neo-Marxist orthodoxy would it be not merely possible, but considered mandatory among our cultural elites, to pour scorn on traditional faith.
For those who didn’t see it live or watch it repeated endlessly online in the following 48 hours, it might be too late, as the Olympics are now doing everything they can to scrub it from the Internet — an effort they punctuated with a classic non-apologetic apology in which they claimed that no offense was intended. Yet despite the predictable efforts of some on
The supposed high ideals of the Games shouldn’t be taken seriously. And the offensive opening ceremony tableau is part of the left’s war on the canon of Western civilization.
the left, including a New York Times article, to make the world disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes, the intention to insult was obvious. What was shown was a fairly obvious parody of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” featuring a plus-sized, halo-clad woman described by admirers as an “LGBTQ icon” surrounded by drag queens in the attitudes of the Christian apostles, as well as a scantily clad man in blue paints and others in various states of exposure.
Ridiculing Christianity
In this manner, a sacred scene of Christianity was held up for ridicule. And in what is now part of every such controversy, those who did the insulting on a global telecast that is believed to have been watched live by 29 million people are claiming to be the victims. Indeed, the person who played the role of the Jesus character in the parody — a drag artist who goes by the name of Barbara Butch, who was subjected to a torrent of abuse online for her performance — says she wants to sue unnamed parties for what she claims are the “anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist and grossophobic insults” that have been hurled at her. [Butch is an celebrity in France who expresses pride in what she says makes her, her — her LBGTQ, large-size and Jewish identities.]
In a show that also featured a version of executed French Queen Marie Antoinette singing while carrying the head that revolutionaries cut off at the site where she and her children were jailed and abused, perhaps the slur at Christians can be put down as simply another attempt to demonstrate the organizers’ disdain for good taste. It is crucial to note, however, that all this is meant to symbolize global unity and coming together. As is always true for those who promote the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), only some people deserve to be included in the new secular religion. Christians are obviously not welcome, and that should trouble everyone, whether or not they share this faith.
What deserves condemnation here is not just the bad taste and the disrespect shown a major faith to glorify transgressive behavior. It’s that the Olympics, the networks that run it and the sponsors that pay for it are telling us that they share the organizers’ derision for one faith that is associated with Western culture.
Didn’t mock Muslims
It’s equally important to note that the one faith signaled out for this contempt is Christianity and not Islam — a religion closely associated with some of the worst terrorist violence and intolerance for other beliefs. It’s not just that it was in the same city only nine years ago that terrorists slaughtered the staff of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for daring to criticize Muslims. It’s that the same liberal elites, both in France and the United States, are determined to brand any criti-
cism of the hate that comes out of Islamist radicals and their many followers as “Islamophobia,” falsly comparing that to the very real threat from antisemitism.
What makes this outrage all the more insufferable and troubling is that it was included in an event that is supposed to transcend not just politics and world affairs, but also to bring us all together in one global community to cheer for excellence and fair competition.
Of course, even though athletic greatness is part of every Games, the notion that the “Olympic movement” lives up to any of those high ideals has always been pure bunk.
Though you wouldn’t think it possible if you’re among those who are glued to coverage of the events, it is possible to ignore the whole thing. Despite the staggering self-importance that is attached to the Games (and the absurd way many people confuse playing a game in a uniform with a country’s name on it with actual patriotism or service to that nation or any higher cause), it is just a television show.
During the Games, most of the audience watches events they don’t have the least interest in, except for two weeks once every four years. That means that the Olympics basically presents sports for people who don’t like sports. The athletes, especially those who normally toil in obscurity, may deserve respect, even if some of the competitions that have no roots in the ancient Greek games are strictly for entertainment value. Without TV and the lure of watching young, athletically fit people in bathing suits, would anyone have thought of including surfing or beach volleyball as an Olympic sport? There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with any of it, but treating it as anything more than a visual extravaganza is misleading.
The Olympics would be inoffensive if it was
merely an international tournament of sporting events that normally attract little interest. What is offensive is the idea that there is idealism involved, even if Olympian hypocrisy about amateurism is a thing of the past. The notion that the Olympics transcend politics has always been a myth.
Toxic nationalist brew
From its earliest days, politics and national rivalries have always been a feature and not a bug of the Games. Mixing nationalism and sports is a toxic brew since once flags and anthems become included in this sort of thing, athletic competitions become metaphors for conflicts that have nothing to do with sports. Plus, no matter who wins or loses, the results do nothing to elevate discourse or advance the causes of justice or peace.
Holding the Games has also often been a way for totalitarian and authoritarian regimes to show off their prowess to the world and downplay their tyrannical practices. The worst example of this was in 1936 in Berlin, where contrary to American mythology about track star Jesse Owens exposing the Nazis to ridicule, the event was actually a huge triumph for Adolf Hitler and his regime, helping to bolster support for the appeasement of Germany in the 1930s. [See Kosher Bookworm column on page 17.] Nor was that the last such example. The same could be said for the way the Chinese Communist Party showcased its regime at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games with few speaking up about its actions in Tibet and repressive rule. Vladimir Putin’s Russian regime may be considered beyond the pale now after the invasion of Ukraine, but it benefited enormously from hosting the 2014 Sochi Winter Games—the same year Russia’s first invasion of eastern Ukraine took place—setting the stage for the expansion of his tyranny.
Remembering Munich
Then there’s the treatment of Israel and the Jews. The Olympic Movement should never be allowed to escape the shame of the Black September Palestinian terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Summer Games.
After the slaughter of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches, the Games went on with business as usual. It also took more than 40 years for the Olympics to officially commemorate the tragedy, and even this year, the memorial was held privately and not at the Opening Ceremony since it’s clear that the Olympic committee and their French hosts are more afraid of upsetting antisemites and Israel-haters than in remembering how a sports venue became the setting for a terrorist outrage. The same applies to the fact that Israelis were forbidden from adding a yellow ribbon to signify the fate of the hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 while a Palestinian athlete was allowed to wear a shirt supposedly depicting Israelis killing chil-
The New York Post’s front page on Monday.
Capitol mess: Anyone have a fire extinguisher?
THANE ROSENBAUM Distinguished University Professor Touro College
America reached a new low this past week simultaneous with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress. Thousands of pro-Hamas activists rioted outside the Capitol Building and scuffled with the Capitol Police.
The dress rehearsal for this anti-American hatefest took place in Dearborn, Michigan, where protesters shouted “Death to America!” on April 5. That’s the date when the United States finally joined Europeans in realizing that there is an Islamist belief system wholly incompatible with democratic self-government and the rule of law.
What followed soon thereafter was matchsticks from various locales setting the Stars and Stripes aflame. Expect an enraged ghost of Betsy Ross to make an appearance. There are simply not enough fraternity brothers from Chapel Hill, or fire extinguishers, to defend American flags nationwide.
The spectacle in our nation’s capital last week was sickening.
American flags, and an effigy of Uncle Sam, were torched, accompanied by anti-American, antisemitic jeering on the streets. A replica of the Liberty Bell was spray painted with, “[Expletive] Israel. [Expletive] capitalists. Abolish the
USA.” More colorful and threatening graffiti was intended for Jewish-American eyes, monuments defaced with the warning, “Hamas is Coming!”
Fountains and statues desecrated with profanity. American flags yanked down at Union Station and Columbus Circle, replaced with Palestinian flags. And, of course, there were spellbound chants of “Allahu Akbar” recited throughout the day, as if the religious inclinations and violent marching orders of the protesters were not already well known.
In case progressives wished to minimize the outrage, deluding themselves that what we all witnessed was merely a peaceful assembly, the protesters wanted everyone to know that they were calling it a “Day of Rage.”
Long after Netanyahu concluded his remarks, Republican congressional lawmakers, including the Speaker of the House, and some combat veterans restored the American flags to their rightful places. Such flag-swapping rituals have been growing since the fine people of Dearborn, more than half the residents of which are Muslim, sent a message that Sharia is their preferred political system, and the Prophet Muhammad, not George Washington, their favorite general.
Let’s get one thing straight:
The First Amendment protects none of this sort of expressive activity. Good luck getting the media, or law professors, to advise Americans on how the Constitution, and our Founding Fathers, would have regarded these lawless pro-Hamas scoundrels. No free speech guarantees exist to
Is trespassing in the Capitol while carrying American flags a more serious act of criminality than vandalizing monuments and torching those same flags?
threaten Jews, strike police officers, resist arrest and destroy federal property.
Hate crime, anyone?
Predictably, few arrests were made. Those arrested were summarily released. The Department of Justice issued no statement that it was undertaking an investigation that would lead to indictments and prosecutions.
Rounding them up wouldn’t even present a problem. No facial recognition technology is necessary. In this latest phase of anti-Israel, anti-American animus, the keffiyeh scarves have come off. Many of the agitators no longer seek
anonymity. They have grown more brazen and confident, knowing full well that the United States and its institutions are acting out of fear and won’t press charges.
This is precisely what terrorists aim for — terror — and what they achieved in many Western nations.
With the presidential election imminent, and a female woman of color heading the Democratic ticket, the attorney general is undoubtedly terrified of the political ramifications of prosecuting progressives and persons of
See Rosenbaum on page 22
Worrying signals from new Labour government
GLOBAL FOCUS BEN COHEN
It’s been only three weeks since Sir Keir Starmer was elected as Britain’s new prime minister in the Labour Party’s first general election triumph since 2005, but so much has happened in the aftermath that it feels like ancient history. As the world’s attention has breathlessly switched to other matters, Starmer has been busy assembling his cabinet and figuring out his new government’s first priorities.
Aware of their poor electoral showings over the past two decades, the Labour Party and its organizers wisely refrained from portraying the July 4 vote’s outcome as a foregone conclusion, even if the real shock would have been a Conservative victory given the deep unpopularity of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government. It was an election, moreover, largely fought on domestic issues, and particularly, the crisis gripping the country’s National Health Service, which remains a bedrock of the social order carved out in Britain following World War II. Dealing with those challenges will be the true test of whether or not Starmer succeeds.
Most British voters understand Gaza is Gaza, and Britain is Britain. But the proHamas chorus isn’t going away.
Even so, foreign policy wasn’t entirely absent from the campaign. The war in Gaza has been a lightning rod for the United Kingdom’s increasingly vocal Muslim community — about 500,000 of whom didn’t vote Labour, partly out of disgust with Starmer’s refusal to label the Israeli military’s operations as a “genocide.” One of the tasks he faces now is how to win back those voters.
It’s a task complicated by the Labour Party’s recent history and Starmer’s own role in the torrid conflict over the antisemitism in its ranks.
From 2015 to 2020, the party was led by an antisemite from the far left, Jeremy Corbyn, whose term in the post was marred by successive scandals that resulted in the mass exodus of Jewish party members and a widespread refusal by British Jews to vote for the party — historically seen as their “natural home” — when Corbyn contested the 2019 election and lost decisively.
After assuming the Labour leadership, Starmer, a centrist, set about purging the far-left. That included Corbyn himself, who was suspended by Starmer in 2020 after he claimed that the scale of antisemitism in the party had been “dramatically overstated” and who was then banned from running as a Labour candidate in 2023 on the grounds that he was, in the estimation of the party’s executive, an electoral liability. In the event, Corbyn ran as an independent candidate in this latest election, clinging on to the Islington North seat in London that he has represented since the early 1980s. In several other constituencies, independents also edged out the Labour candidates, stressing their support for the Palestinians in those districts where Muslims constitute a significant proportion of the voter pool.
It wasn’t all gloomy on this front; perhaps the most satisfying result of the night was the ejection from parliament of George Galloway, a former Labour parliamentarian who has evolved into what can only be described as a “national socialist” from a seat he had won only a few months
previously, bellowing “This is for Gaza!” after that earlier victory for good measure.
Galloway’s ouster on July 4 was a welcome sign that despite the chants of “We are all Palestinians” on pro-Hamas demonstrations, most British voters understand that Gaza is Gaza, and Britain is Britain. Equally, though, the pro-Hamas chorus that has grown louder and more discordant since the Oct. 7 pogrom isn’t going away.
While many of the individuals who contributed to antisemitism during Corbyn’s tenure have been dealt with, their views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict still enjoy widespread backing in the party, bolstered by the knowledge that the previous Conservative government was a reliable supporter of Israel.
When it comes to Starmer, there is no doubting his personal detestation of antisemitism and his determination to root it out of the Labour Party. “Antisemitism is an evil and no political party that cultivates it deserves to hold power,” he remarked in 2020, before pledging that “the Labour Party is unrecognizable from 2019, and it will never go back.”
“Never” is, however, a dangerous word for a politician to utter. As it settles into office, Labour has already made three Middle East-related policy announcements that should be greeted with alarm. This doesn’t mean that the party is returning to the dark days of Corbyn’s leadership, but it does suggest that the goal of stamping out anti-
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer visits Hutchinson Engineering in the industrial town of Widnes in the United Kingdom, on July 25. James Glossop, WPA Pool, Getty Images
A protester waves a Palestine flag during a demonstration outside the Capitol Building following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address during a joint session of Congress on July 24. Hossein Fatemi, Middle East Images, AFP via Getty Images
Two anti-terror lawsuits, one a groundbreaker
Stephen m. flatow
Two recently filed terror-related lawsuits deserve examination.
The media has been abuzz about the lawsuit recently filed by 125 American citizens against Iran, Syria and North Korea in Washington, DC. The plaintiffs allege that these state sponsors of terrorism are liable to them for providing material support to Hamas that enabled it to commit the Oct. 7 atrocities in southern Israel.
I was not surprised by the filing since we Americans have been using the US courts for more than 25 years to obtain some sort of justice for the murder and injuries suffered by loved ones in Mideast terror attacks.
I intentionally say “some sort of justice” because no lawsuit is capable of returning our loved ones to us, victims’ injuries never heal completely, and monetary compensation is a poor substitute for being able to hug your daughter again.
Twenty-seven years ago, when I and my attorney, Steven Perles, launched the first lawsuit brought under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, I had no idea that our case would open the gates for what would amount to dozens of cases brought under that statute and subsequent laws.
While grateful for the new law, as Perles and I walked our way through crafting the complaint,
We thought we would be able to display Iran’s dark underside. But it was not to be.
9
we found the law to be toothless. We believed that the law was weak because the State Department was opposed to it, presumably because plaintiffs would be seeking redress against foreign nations which the State Department views as its bailiwick.
So, in the muggy Washington DC summer of 1996, Perles and I trudged through the halls of Congress looking for a sponsor to help make the changes the legislation needed. Support came from both sides of the aisle and the necessary adjustments to the Anti-Terrorism Act were passed into law, and we filed our lawsuit against the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as some of its ministries and ministers.
Although the State Department was helpful in confirming that Iran was the financial sponsor of Palestine Islamic Jihad — the terrorist group that took credit for the April 9, 1995 bus bombing attack in which my daughter Alisa and seven others were murdered — we were on our own when it came to tracing funding from Iran to PIJ. But Perles did it and set out preparing my case for a trial that we believed would be five to 10 years down the road.
We expected Iran to fight back against our lawsuit. After all, the Islamic Republic was no stranger to US courts in commercial matters, and it fought back against lawsuits brought for breach of contract and other commercial claims. We relished the idea of obtaining “discovery” from Iran, where it would try to weasel out of its role as a sponsor of terror. We thought we would be able to display Iran’s dark underside. But it was not to be.
Much to our surprise (and I think that of the State Department, too), Iran did not defend itself in the lawsuit, and in March 1998, we were awarded almost $250 million in damages. The next several years of litigation with the United States and working the halls of Congress finally brought some financial recovery for our family and others harmed by Iran.
That’s all changed now as the 125 plaintiffs will obtain judgments and receive compensation not by slugging it out with the White House, and with the State and Treasury departments, as I
did, but by making applications to the US Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund (USVSST Fund), established in 2015 to provide financial relief to victims of international state-sponsored terrorism. It’s a far cry from what my family had to go through.
But it is the second lawsuit that I think has more of a potential impact on victims’ rights and the fight against terror.
The case, filed in Washington state’s US District Court as Almog Meir Jan v. People Media Project D/B/A Palestine Chronicle, et als, seeks to hold an American-based nonprofit organization responsible under US law as a financial supporter of terrorism.
That’s right — an American-based charity is accused of assisting Hamas but in a way never seen before. Jan, who was kidnapped on Oct. 7 and held hostage for 246 days, was rescued by Israeli security forces from the home of one Abdallah Aljamal, “a Hamas operative and spokesperson.” According to Jan, Aljamal “was not just
a Hamas operative and spokesperson; he was a “journalist” for” a “US-based, tax-exempt news organization” that set about to whitewash the Hamas atrocities.
There is precedent for Jan’s lawsuit aimed at bankrupting terror supporters. The Holy Land Foundation (HLF) was once the largest Islamic charity in the United States. However, it was designated as a terrorist organization in 2001 during the George W. Bush administration and shut down by the US government. In November 2008, five leaders of the HLF were convicted by a federal jury on charges of providing material support to Hamas, money laundering and filing false tax returns.
This case marked a significant action by the US government in its efforts to combat the financing of terrorism. The HLF’s assets were seized, and its operations were halted as part of the broader strategy to disrupt the financial networks supporting terrorist activities.
See Flatow on page 22
months of Oct. 7 lies: No justice, no peace
Much has been made of the fact that the murderous Iranian regime was behind the Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel, the single largest massacre and brutalization of Jews since the Holocaust. The long-term planning, funding, weapons and training, and the unspeakable brutalities that targeted innocent civilians were all products of Tehran’s tried and true manual of evil.
But nine months later we must add another vital “contribution” that the terrorist godfathers in Tehran have also contributed: The Big Lie. They have taken a page from Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviets: Repeat a lie, however outrageous, and eventually people will come to believe it.
For years, the Iranian regime has incorporated the denial of the Holocaust as part of its official state policy. It is promoted by state media, Iran’s Ministry of Culture and senior officials, including former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But denying the Holocaust wasn’t enough; so even as it repeated the screed that the Holo-
The strategy of repeating
caust never happened, Tehran accused Israel of being latter-day Nazis.
Iran took note that the world didn’t much care. Business and economic concerns led Germany, France, the UK and — for the most part — the US to keep their eyes on the prizes of oil contracts and false dawns of Iranian promises of moderation in pursuit of nuclearization and regional stability.
The bottom line is that the ayatollah’s policy advisers believe that if you can get away with lying about the Nazi Holocaust — despite the mountains of evidence, including footage taken by the perpetrators — you can probably get away with lying about anything.
In the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, the world recoiled in horror at the evidence that was provided by gleeful Hamas murderers, rapists and kidnappers. But Israel reeling from the massive pogrom and thrown into shock and mourning, Hamas and its allies across Europe and the Americas unleashed a mega lie at protests in world capitals and across the internet: Israel, not Hamas, was guilty of mass murder and crimes against humanity.
The strategy has proven to be a bonanza for Hamas. Antisemitic hate crimes continue to soar with Zionists as the new enemy of civilization.
Israel and the Jewish people worldwide continue to be demonized like never before.
Here are the five top big lies:
1. Hamas is the victim and Israel the perpetrator.
2. Israel is guilty of genocide.
3. Israeli women and girls were not raped, dismembered and murdered by Palestinians on Oct. 7.
4. Hamas-provided statistics are swallowed whole by the media and governments with no independent verification provided; even though Hamas admits it never differentiates between terrorists and civilian casualties.
5. Israel purposely tries to starve the people of Gaza.
Here are only a few examples of how quickly and thoughtlessly much of the world embraces these lies:
•Before the dismembered remains of raped
Israeli women were recovered, UN SecretaryGeneral António Guterres declared that the Hamas barbarities “didn’t happen in a vacuum.” Guterres should have known that those words would open the floodgates of deflection and denial of Hamas’s responsibility for the suffering and death of those innocents; as well as legitimize Hamas’s right to attack Israelis.
•Various UN officials questioned the veracity of the survivors of the rapes and massacres for months until one UN official traveled to Israel to hear directly from the victims. The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s plea for help from 50 top women’s NGOs went unanswered.
Rescued hostage Almog Meir Jan is reunited with his family at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, on June 8, 2024. GPO
are Jews. The indigenous people of the land of Israel. We are Zionists. At home in Zion (Jerusalem) in Midinat Yisrael.
View of the Old City of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives.
Weinreb...
Continued from page 17
As helpful as is Covey’s succinct definition of “integrity,” it is also deceptively simple. There is so much more that we need to know about integrity. And about “honesty,” for that matter.
For one thing, honesty and integrity are not just descriptors of individual persons’ characters. Rather, they are social values, which ideally should define the essence of human communities and entire societies. From a Jewish perspective, “honesty” and “integrity” cannot be restricted to individual paragons of virtue, saints and holy men, but must become universal cultural norms.
This is why the laws of vows, unlike all the other laws of the Torah, are explicitly given to rashei hamatot, the chieftains of the tribes. It is to emphasize that the sanctity of speech is not just a goal for a few spiritually-gifted individuals. It must be enunciated as one of the essential mores of the entire tribe.
The Talmud relates the story of an immortal community, a legendary village that knew not death. This was because no one there ever lied. This idyllic existence came to an abrupt end, however, when a young person, eager to protect the privacy of his parent, told an inquiring visitor that his parent was not home. A harmless and well-intentioned remark, common to us all. A white lie, perhaps, but a lie nevertheless, and one which ruined forever the eternal life of that fabled village.
Yet another lesson about keeping our word is taught in the opening verses of this week’s Torah portion (Numbers 30:1-17). Sometimes, we overextend ourselves and make promises that we cannot possibly keep. In moments of extreme urgency, or sublime inspiration, we are wont to express commitments that are beyond our capacity to fulfill.
Can a vow thus expressed be annulled?
The Torah, ever practical, answers “yes!” and describes some of the procedures designed to release a person from his or her vows. The Talmud, in an entire tractate devoted to this topic, specifies the circumstances and conditions under which such a release can be obtained.
Most well-known among the “ceremonies” releasing us from our personal vows and promises is the Kol Nidrei prayer which ushers in our most hallowed day, Yom Kippur. Not really a prayer in the ordinary sense, Kol Nidrei is a statement in which we declare our past vows null and void.
This custom is experienced by many as strange and as an offense to the value of integrity. But I personally have always found that it reinforces the role of integrity in my life and in the lives of all of us who live in the “real world.”
During the entire year, you and I make many commitments and resolutions. With the noblest of motives, we promise things to our loved ones, verbally establish objectives to improve the world around us, or simply vow to lose weight, stop smoking, or start exercising.
As the year wears on, situations change, priorities shift, and we ourselves become different. At least one time each year, on Yom Kippur, we realize how unrealistic we were and that we erred in our assessment of what we could accomplish. And so, we ask that the Almighty to release us from these impossible and often no longer relevant commitments, and begin with Divine help a new slate, hoping that the next time we make a promise, it will be one that we will be able to keep.
Judaism teaches us the primary importance of keeping our word. But it does not lose sight of our human frailties and limitations and recognizes that often it is not moral failure that explains our lack of integrity, but simple human weakness, hopefully rare and surely forgiven by G-d.
Continued from page 17
Integrity is a cherished value for the society at large. The acknowledgement of human limitations in maintaining integrity must be accepted. These are two important and timely lessons from this week’s Torah portion.
The Ktav V’Hakabalah (Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg) says the Torah claims the place was called Marah on account of the bitter water (which Malbim contends had been sweet until they arrived), so we would not think it was based on the people being bitter or Moshe becoming bitter on account of their depression. “This is not the place to recall bitterness and complaining, because they repented immediately and prayed to G-d.”
Perhaps a nod to the Marah experience is left out of the travel-roll because the lesson of Marah is no longer relevant. In Elim, the people’s eyes were opened to seeing G-d’s plenty. In Rephidim, the people learned not to complain. But the events leading to Marah were the opposite of appreciating G-d’s gifts.
They had properly thanked and praised G-d for His heroics at the Sea. But then they were forced to withdraw from what seemed to be, at the time, the greatest gift of all — Egypt’s wealth, even more than what they had taken from Egypt during the Exodus.
Marah was its own entity, an event that stood by itself, frozen in time. It had been a place for teshuvah, a place of mental healing, and a place to learn a few mitzvot. But the mitzvot were relearned at Sinai, and the teshuvah and mental healing was more of the “we need to move past this” variety than the “we sinned” variety.
Imagine spending your life harping over the stock you could have bought, the building you could have purchased, the spouse you could have married, the children you could have had, the community you could have moved to, the choices you could have made, the job or opportunity you let slip through your fingertips, never being able to let go of those “if only” thoughts.
Many life experiences can teach us very important lessons. Sometimes the lessons bear repeating (i.e., Elim and Rephidim). Sometimes one event is life-changing and we never forget the lesson. And some events were important at the time, but became overshadowed by later events, making those episodes almost insignificant in the blueprint of history.
Marah was of the latter type: important in its time, but not worth a mention 40 years later. The money was by now inconsequential and they had experienced Sinai.
May we merit to heed these lessons — to appreciate G-d’s gifts, to have reputations of “not complaining,” and to let one-time events have their impact such that their significance become embedded in who we are, so they need not become what-if moments that we revisit time and time again.
A version of this column appeared in 2013.
Gerber...
Continued from page 17 when they were forbidden from partaking of the Egyptian spoils? Perhaps they simply could not see a bright side to the story. They may have been thinking, “Moshe! We had it all! We would have been taken care of for the rest of our lives! You made us leave so much behind at the Sea! How could you? What were you thinking?”
behind his exclusion. They provide no mention of this sad episode.
Flatow... Billet...
Large’s book describes in detail how the Nazis went to great pains to remove all antisemitic signs, posters and other bigoted displays throughout Germany during the games.
The book deal with the role played by Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s favorite movie film producer, in the filming the Olympics at the Nazi government’s behest, and confirms her deep Nazi sympathies (which she later denied).
Also of interest is the role that American aviation hero Charles Lindbergh played in the propaganda hype on behalf of his Nazi hosts before and during the games. His treason was to become one of the great and true legends of the pre-war era. The Olympics in Berlin provided for him just another venue to display his hatred for our people.
Historically, Jews were no strangers to the Olympic scene. They played in previous Games and were destined to play continuously in just
about every Olympic game after the war. Here are just a couple of examples for your edification.
•In a sensitive article in the Jewish Week, Steve Lipman relates the saga of Attila Petschauer, a native of Budapest, who won gold and silver medals in fencing at the 1928 and 1932 Olympics. He would die a gruesome death in a slave labor camp in Ukraine during the Shoah.
Petschauer’s legacy is memorialized by a distant cousin, Richard Markowitz of Hewlett, with the in 2008 establishment of the Petschauer Sabre Open at Vassar College.
• Carrie Kahn relates the participation of her grandfather, Sam Balter. Although he did not actually play in any basketball game at the Berlin Olympics, his team did win — and as a member of that team, he, too, won a gold medal, the only Jewish-American gold medalist in 1936.
Kahn relates how her then 26-year old grandfather marched in front of Hitler and flaunted his gold medal to the world. In later life he developed a successful career as a sportscaster.
A version of this column was published in 2008.
Tobin...
Continued from page 18
dren. In another incident the next day, the playing of Hatikvah at a soccer game between Israel and Paraguay, many in the crowd chanted “Heil Hitler” and gave the Nazi salute. Such antics should only add to our collective outrage.
It’s true that small nations, as well as large ones, look to the Games as a way to highlight their national pride at an international spectacle. That is certainly true for Israel, whose people understandably glory in every instance where their underdog athletes have overcome prejudice and bad sportsmanship from opponents to win.
Still, no matter how much you may like athletic competitions — and I count myself as someone who loves sports — whatever small good that may come from any Olympics never cancels out the bad.
This year that was already proved at an opening ceremony that went out of its way to demonstrate the contempt of the global chattering classes when it comes to Christians and their faith. In doing so, they proved again that those who talk the most about inclusion are far more interested in excluding those who disagree with them, especially when regarding traditional faith and societal mores.
All people of faith, but especially a Jewish community that is itself also targeted by woke ideology, should be as outraged as Christians. The war on the West is as much a war on Jews as it is on Christians.
Rather than sweeping this controversy under the rug, we should take it seriously. It is one more indication of the stakes involved in the ongoing culture war in which notions like critical race theory, intersectionality and gender ideology are seeking to replace the traditions of the West that are the foundation of the family, democracy and equality with neo-Marxist groupthink.
Watch the Games or boycott them as you like. But those who value our traditions, as well as the safety of people of faith, should take this incident as another warning that silent assent to these terrible ideas is neither possible nor wise.
serve as a terror victims’ landmark case if he can convince a jury of the allegations. Time will tell.
As I see it, the present system is broken. If victims are simply looking for compensation from the USVSST, claims could run through the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, as foreign claims were historically handled in the days before the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, and later, the so-called Flatow Amendment. In theory, to receive compensation, you are not supposed to need a lawyer.
Continued from page 20
Then there’s the case of Sami Al-Arian, who established a fundraising organization called the Islamic Concern Project in 1988. This organization included a committee devoted to raising charity for Palestine. Additionally, Al-Arian was accused of using an academic think tank at the University of South Florida as a fundraising front and cover for Palestine Islamic Jihad. A member of that think tank, Ramadan Shallah, resigned in the fall of 1995 and turned up in Syria as the head of PIJ. Kind of says something about Al-Arian’s organization, doesn’t it?
Al-Arian was tried by the Federal government in 2003 as a financial supporter of PIJ. Al-Arian pleaded guilty to a count of providing financial support for a terrorist organization, which resulted in his deportation to Turkey where he is able to freely spew his antisemitic vitriol. Thus, Jan’s case can
Rosenbaum
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Importantly, payments to victims through the USVSST have absolutely no deterrent effect on would-be state sponsors of terrorism; it’s not their money victims are getting. color — even persons of color who are on student visas and easily deportable. As noncitizens, they can’t even vote. No matter. Even looking at them the wrong way is racist.
Meanwhile, Harvard just announced that the roughly dozen students arrested at its intifada encampments and denied diplomas at graduation will be awarded their sheepskins after all. We wouldn’t want terrorists-in-waiting to be disadvantaged in seeking gainful employment. Think of the wonderful mayhem they will introduce to the private sector. That should make Harvard proud. Achieving equity for minorities is too important a value to punish anyone who hates America as much as they despise Israel.
More than 3,100 student activists were arrested or detained on campus this past year at 100 different colleges. Every single one of them should be expected to return to mischievous full strength in the fall — regardless of whether they have already graduated.
What could possibly be more important than intimidating Jews and giving comfort to Hamas and Iran? Antisemitic professors are eagerly awaiting their arrival. These “academics” spent the summer not writing papers but memorizing the Muslim Brotherhood playbook.
Meanwhile, nearly 500 January 6 rioters remain in prison for the crimes they committed in the nation’s capital. Does anyone have an explanation for the disparate treatment of two riots? Are we saying that trespassing in the Halls of Congress while carrying American flags is a far more serious act of criminality than vandalizing monuments and torching those same flags, but with the added touch of replacing them with Palestinian flags, outside the Capitol?
I don’t get it.
Yes, it’s true that Supreme Court precedent allows for anti-American flag-burning, a shameful misapplication of free speech to my mind. Rep. Brian Mast, who lost both legs fighting for that flag, and said goodbye to far too many friends inside coffins draped in that flag, made his disgust known. But such symbolic statements must occur at peaceful assemblies and not incite violent rioting. And the First Amendment does not privilege swapping American for Palestinian flags.
Meanwhile, inside the Rotunda, Israel’s prime minister was conducting a clinic not just in inspiring oratory, but also high-intensity aerobics — the number of rousing standing ovations he received were too numerous to count. John Fetterman even wore a suit. The outside agitators and inside lawmakers was the perfect juxtaposition of our political divide: worshippers of darkness representing one; the inheritors of the Enlightenment, the other.
To illustrate what side he was on, Netanyahu invoked America’s birthdate as the democratic shot heard around the world. But for far too many Americans, it is 1619, and not 1776, that animates their unpatriotic impulses — the date when the racist, inexorable mission of the United States was first set in motion.
Prepare yourselves. These vulgar spectacles with their open contempt for the United States are officially on tour. They are headed for a town square and village green near you. Taylor Swift’s global Eras concert may one day find itself eclipsed by an Islamist traveling show bringing our era of Western civilization to a close.
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semitism while being more sympathetic to Palestinian aspirations isn’t easily attainable.
One of the new government’s first acts was to reverse the Conservative decision to cease funding for UNRWA — the UN agency dedicated to the descendants of the original Palestinian refugees — after evidence emerged of UNRWA employees participating in the Oct. 7 atrocities in southern Israel. That generated a response from Britain’s Jewish leadership, with the Board of Deputies gently chiding the Labour government by arguing that the evidence of UNRWA colLabouration with Hamas terrorism “suggests to us that the Government would be wise to insist on much stricter oversight before resuming its annual funding of more than £30 million.”
Labour also backed down on a promise while in opposition to designate the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization — something the Conservatives had consistently refused to do. No doubt seduced by the dangerous nonsense that Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezekshian, is a reformer, Foreign Secretary David Lammy dithered over the designation, saying: “We recognize there are real challenges from state-sponsored terrorist activity, and I want to look closely at those issues, and how the predecessor system works for states, as well as for specific terrorist organizations.”
Then, last week, the Labour government confirmed that it was dropping its predecessor’s objection to the pursuit of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, despite the Biden administration’s condemnation of this move at the time as “outrageous.”
The New York Times reported that these shifts in Middle East policy “show a government that is willing to pile more pressure on Mr. Netanyahu for Israel’s harsh military response in Gaza. It also shows that Mr. Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, is paying more heed to international legal institutions than the United States.”
A Labour government that backs continued funding for UNRWA, arrest warrants for Israeli leaders and dialogue with the Iranian regime would amount to a major disappointment. The added danger is that Britain will veer along the path chosen by its European neighbors Spain and Ireland, both of whom have undermined the prospects of a peace process by recognizing a sovereign Palestinian state outside the framework of negotiations. Starmer will no doubt face a demand from elements of his own party to do the same.
If he decides to recognize a Palestinian state instead of classifying such a decision as a red line he won’t cross outside of a comprehensive peace settlement, we will be entitled to wonder just how much the Labour Party really has changed.
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schools was carried without question by the media. Israel’s explanations that these sites had been coopted by terrorists barely made a dent in the tower of lies constructed so carefully by Hamas and its supporters.
•This led both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court to rush in to weaponize the judicial arena against Israel. Only allegations were needed by the likes of South Africa to open a case against the Jewish state at the ICJ and prosecutors like the ICC’s Karim Khan to issue an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which European democracies have said they will honor if the prime minister dares to arrive in their capitals.
This is where we stand nine months after Oct. 7. No justice, no peace, no end to the violent Jew-hatred infecting Europe and North America on our streets and our elite campuses.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate dean and director of the Global Social Action Agenda of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Dr. Deborah Soffen is children’s advocate at Simon Wiesenthal Center.
•Hamas’ repeated assertions that they will repeat Oct. 7 over and over again until the Jewish state is destroyed fell on deaf ears.
•From the beginning, it was brutally clear that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) wouldn’t even give lip service when it came to the hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7. The ICRC has responsibilities under international law to seek visits with hostages and work for their release. Other than serving as an Uber service for the first Israel hostage exchange, the ICRC has maintained a stoic if immoral silence.
•Virtually nothing was heard from UNICEF about the suffering of displaced Israeli children, but a drumbeat of concern over the suffering of Palestinians was broadcast day in and day out. So were untrue reports that Gazans were starving. There were further false reports that Israel was blocking critically needed food and fuel from reaching civilians in Gaza. In fact, it was Hamas that hijacked much of the aid and netted over $500 million reselling that aid to Gaza civilians.
•Meanwhile, every allegation made by Hamas that Israel wantonly and indiscriminately attacked mosques, hospitals and UNRWA 10/7
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