Co łączy rodzinobójstwo, ludobójstwo i media społecznościowe

Jonatan Siman Tov, jego żona Tamar, Szahar i Arbel 5,5 letnie bliźniaczki i dwuletni Omer zamordowani w kibucu Nir Oz przez morderców z Gazy.


Co łączy rodzinobójstwo, ludobójstwo i media społecznościowe
Liat Collins
Tłumaczenie: Małgorzata Koraszewska

Masakra 7 października zakończyła się tak okrutnymi wydarzeniami, że stworzono nowe słowo, aby ją opisać: rodzinobójstwo [kinocide].

Zatrzymaj się. Cofnij się o krok. Spójrz na to, co napisałaś. Czy chcesz to powiedzieć i jeśli tak, co to o tobie mówi? Ta rada powinna dotyczyć każdego postu i komentarza w mediach społecznościowych – i oczywiście każdego pisemnego dyskursu, w tym także tego artykułu.

Ostatnio zauważyłam coraz więcej postów w mediach społecznościowych, w których ktoś, kogo profil jest poświęcony przesłaniom o pokoju, czuje się swobodnie, pisząc najbardziej nikczemne tyrady przeciwko Izraelowi, Izraelczykom, Żydom i temu, co teraz zostało nieelegancko skrócone do „Zios” (syjonistów).

Niektóre posty są ewidentnie tworzone przez boty, a nie ludzi; ale za każdym botem kryje się finansowanie i intencja. Intencja postów antyizraelskich jest zła: zatruć umysły. To potężny atak na kraj. Media społecznościowe stały się kolejnym frontem wojny, jakby siedem fizycznych frontów, cyberwojna i wojna prawna nie wystarczyły.

Impulsem do napisania tego artykułu – a słowa „impuls” mógłbym użyć w więcej niż jednym znaczeniu – był długi ciąg komentarzy do artykułu informacyjnego o niedzielnym londyńskim maratonie. A dokładniej, był to raport o dwóch pro-palestyńskich aktywistach z grupy o bardzo roszczeniowej nazwie „Youth Demand” [Młodzież żąda], którzy rzucali czerwoną farbą w proszku, wskakując przed biegaczy przebiegających London Bridge.

Grupa jest najwyraźniej powiązana z ruchem ekologicznym Just Stop Oil, ponieważ intersekcjonalność ma się dobrze w tym równoległym wszechświecie: jeśli chcemy powstrzymać wykorzystanie paliw kopalnych, musimy również wymazać z mapy Izrael (ale nie żaden z arabskich krajów produkujących ropę).

Protest ruchu Just Stop Oil (źródło zdjęcia Wikipedia)

Nie tylko logika jest pokręcona. Myślenie jest również wypaczone. Pewna komentatorka o żydowskim nazwisku napisała na Facebooku, że „wspierała biegaczkę przebraną za Batmana. Biegła w hołdzie pamięci Sziri, Ariela i Kfira Bibas, dwójki niewinnych dzieci, które kochały Batmana i zostały porwane, a następnie uduszone przez Palestyńczyków w Gazie – ludzi, których reprezentuje Youth Demand”.

Komentarz, w najgorszy sposób mediów społecznościowych, zapoczątkował serię nienawistnych uwag. Jeden przemądrzały dupek – lub przynajmniej dupek i pożyteczny idiota – napisał: „Od kiedy niemowlęta kochają Batmana?” i serię paskudnych komentarzy pod adresem Izraela i IDF. Prawdopodobnie powinnam była posłuchać własnej rady i trzymać się z dala od tej kłótni, ale trudno pozwolić komuś na wyśmiewanie śmierci Izraelczyków w ogóle, a tych dwojga dzieci w szczególności.

Ariela i jego młodszego brata Kfira, którzy zostali porwani 7 października 2023 r. podczas inwazji i mega-okrucieństwa Hamasu i Palestyńskiego Islamskiego Dżihadu, zamordowano w Gazie wraz z matką Sziri. Ich ojciec Jarden został ranny i porwany osobno, i powrócił w lutym na mocy umowy o uwolnieniu zakładników-terrorystów po ponad rocznej niewoli w tunelu terrorystycznym Hamasu.

Napisałam: „Ariel miał cztery lata, kiedy został porwany z domu. Był bardzo entuzjastycznym fanem Batmana. Jego brat Kfir miał zaledwie dziewięć miesięcy, więc masz rację: mógł nie być fanem Batmana, nawet jeśli nosił koszulki z Batmanem. I nigdy nie będzie miał szansy dorosnąć i pokochać Batmana, motyli ani niczego innego, co lubił jego starszy brat. (Kochał psa Tonto, psa uratowanego przez tę rodzinę ze schroniska, którego terroryści z Gazy również zabili.)”

Komentarz o Batmanie był jednym z najłagodniejszych. Wiele komentarzy, zgodnie z powszechnym trendem i papugowaniem kłamstw Hamasu, obwiniało sam Izrael o śmierć chłopców Bibas i ich matki, twierdząc, że zginęli w izraelskim ataku lotniczym. Oskarżenie brzmiało, że izraelskie samoloty nie tylko zabiły zakładników, ale również, że było to celowe.

Zakładając, tylko na potrzeby dyskusji, że raporty z sekcji zwłok przeprowadzonej przez Izrael były błędne i że chłopcy Bibas nie zostali uduszeni (choć wierzę w dowody z sekcji zwłok, które przeczą twierdzeniom terrorystów z Hamasu), nadal nie widzę, w jaki sposób ktokolwiek, kto udaje przyzwoitą, moralną osobę, może usprawiedliwić porwanie tej trójki z ich domu w tę okropną sobotę, Kfira w pieluchach i Ariela ssącego smoczek z wyrazem oszołomienia na dziecinnej, niewinnej buzi.

Inwazja i atak kierowane przez Hamas, wspierane przez Iran, 7 października 2023 r., podczas których 1200 osób zostało zamordowanych, a 250 uprowadzonych do Gazy, zakończyły się takimi okrucieństwami, że stworzono nowe słowo na ich opisanie: rodzinobójstwo.

Słowo to ukuła Cywilna Komisja ds. Zbrodni Hamasu 7 październikaprzeciwko Kobietom i Dzieciom. Jest używane do opisania celowego atakowania rodzin w ich domach – przestrzeni, która ma być bezpieczna – w celu zwiększenia terroru. Terroryści-najeźdźcy celowo torturowali, gwałcili i mordowali członków rodziny na oczach innych, aby nasilić ból; wykorzystując bliskie więzi rodzinne, aby spotęgować horror.

W przemówieniu wygłoszonym na odbywającym się w tym tygodniu w Jerozolimie Międzynarodowym Szczycie Politycznym JNS założycielka i przewodnicząca komisji, dr Cochav Elkayam-Levy powiedziała, że określenie to zostało ustalone wspólnie z międzynarodowym ekspertem ds. praw człowieka i byłym kanadyjskim ministrem sprawiedliwości Irwinem Cotlerem.


Podczas gdy naziści ukrywali swoje zbrodnie, Hamas chwalił się nimi

W przeciwieństwie do nazistów, którzy ukrywali swoje zbrodnie przeciwko ludzkości, terroryści z Hamasu i palestyńskiego Islamskiego Dżihadu chwalili się swoimi. Elkayam-Levy mówiła, że terroryści nagrywali się kamerami GoPro i telefonami komórkowymi i udostępniali nagrania w czasie rzeczywistym. W niektórych incydentach terroryści przesyłali nagrania ataków i morderstw na profile swoich ofiar w mediach społecznościowych, aby ich przyjaciele i rodziny widzieli okrucieństwa w trakcie ich trwania, ale bez żadnej możliwości ich powstrzymania. Dodaj przemoc cyfrową do przemocy fizycznej i emocjonalnej.

Jak powiedziała Elkayam-Levy, morderstwa nie były przypadkowe, lecz dokonywane systematycznie, w celu spotęgowania najbardziej koszmarnych efektów.

Raport komisji zatytułowany “Kinocide: The Weaponization of Families” [Rodzinobójstwo: okrucieństwo wobec rodziny jako broń] można znaleźć na stronie internetowej Instytutu Dvora ds. Studiów nad Płcią i Zrównoważonym Rozwojem, założonego i kierowanego przez Elkayam-Levy. „Raport identyfikuje ‘rodzinobójstwo’ jako problem globalny, wskazując na podobieństwa do podobnych okrucieństw w Iraku, Syrii, Rwandzie, Bośni, Mjanmie i innych strefach konfliktu. Te ustalenia podkreślają pilną potrzebę międzynarodowego uznania i działań w celu zapobiegania i rozwiązywania takiej ukierunkowanej przemocy”, czytamy na stronie internetowej Instytutu Dvora.

Niestety, wciąż dochodzi do straszliwych okrucieństw, w tym masakr w Sudanie i masowych mordów chrześcijan dokonywanych przez dżihadystów w innych częściach Afryki, jednak wydarzenia te przyciągają mniej uwagi mediów i mediów społecznościowych.

Dlaczego terroryści z Hamasu i PIJ chwalili się swoimi zbrodniami, gdy je popełniali? Ponieważ myśleli, że mogą im ujść na sucho – dosłownie morderstwa mogą im ujść na sucho. I do pewnego stopnia, przynajmniej w cyberprzestrzeni i w walce o publiczne postrzeganie, to właśnie im się udało. Masowe protesty przeciwko Izraelowi rozpoczęły się, zanim Izrael zaczął się bronić.

Ich dżihadystyczna inwazja i atak nie są w centrum uwagi świata. To centrum uwagi jest zarezerwowane dla odpowiedzi Izraela. A ciągłe znęcanie się nad pozostałymi zakładnikami – 24 przypuszczalnie żywych z 59 – jest częścią tego zjawiska: terroryści cynicznie publikują rozdzierające serce filmy w ramach wojny psychologicznej, aby zwiększyć ból rodzin i przyjaciół zakładników, i próbują pogłębić rozłamy w izraelskim społeczeństwie wokół dylematu, jak najlepiej poradzić sobie z sytuacją; jak uzyskać uwolnienie zakładników bez narażania kraju w przyszłości z powodu masowego uwalniania terrorystów z izraelskich więzień; i pozostawienia Hamasu u władzy, uzbrojonego i niebezpiecznego.

Używanie mediów społecznościowych w dzisiejszej wojnie jest, w pewnym stopniu, kontynuacją palestyńskich ataków terrorystycznych z lat 70., w tym masakry na Olimpiadzie w Monachium w 1972 r., kiedy terroryści Czarnego Września wzięli członków izraelskiej drużyny jako zakładników, ostatecznie mordując 11 z nich, cały czas wykorzystując uwagę mediów na temat Igrzysk. Palestyńscy terroryści i ich zwolennicy są doskonali w porywaniu ludzi i opinii światowej.

Ale wróćmy do Londyńskiego Maratonu. Antyizraelska akcja PR Youth Demand nie była jedyną zniewagą, jaka dotknęła wydarzenie, które jest poświęcone dobrym intencjom i zbieraniu pieniędzy na cele charytatywne.

Ostatnie praktycznie słowo należało do Nike: w osłupiająco źle pomyślanej kampanii reklamowej firma produkująca artykuły sportowe umieściła na billboardach wzdłuż trasy tablice z napisem: „Nigdy więcej, do przyszłego roku”.

Przekształcenie słów „Nigdy więcej”, powszechnie kojarzonych z obietnicą, że Holokaust się nie powtórzy, w slogan marketingowy, to coś więcej niż zły smak. Kampania marketingowa była wynikiem albo szokującej nieczułości, albo rażącej ignorancji. Tak czy inaczej, jest problem. I trzeba go uznać i rozwiązać, aby „Nigdy więcej” cokolwiek znaczyło.


Liat Collins – Urodzona w Wielkiej Brytanii, osiadła w Izraelu w 1979 roku i hebrajskiego uczyła się już w mundurze IDF, studiowała sinologię i stosunki międzynarodowe. Pracowała w redakcji “Jerusalem Post” od 1988 roku. Przez wiele lat kierowała The International Jerusalem Post. Obecnie na emeryturze.


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Media lies about fake martyrs and famines fuel antisemitism

Media lies about fake martyrs and famines fuel antisemitism

Jonathan S. Tobin


The elevation of Israel-hater Mohsen Mahdawi to a hero of free speech, coupled with the spread of lies about conditions in Gaza, is endangering American Jews.

People gather for a rally in support of Columbia University student activist Mohsen Mahdawi and Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk in Foley Square in New York City on May 6, 2025. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images.

The unprecedented surge of antisemitism throughout the United States since the Hamas-led Palestinian terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, has created a new reality for American Jews, especially Jewish students on college campuses. But perhaps the most sinister aspect of what has unfolded in the last 19 months is not just the way elite universities were transformed into hostile environments for Jews.

The scariest part of this tragic saga is the way that antisemitic organizations and activists, actively assisted by some of the most prestigious and powerful media outlets in the country, have been gaslighting Jews. They’ve been doing everything they can to convince the victims of this hateful campaign that the people who have been targeting them are actually against antisemitism while promoting propaganda aimed at depicting Israel and the Jews as evil oppressors.

While this has been the game plan all along for those cheering on Hamas terrorists since Oct. 7, it became even more obvious in the past week as the liberal press engaged in an effort to portray Mohsen Mahdawi, a leader of the mobs harassing Jews at Columbia University, as not only a martyr to free speech but someone who stands against antisemitism. These same outlets have been resurrecting an already debunked canard about Israel causing a famine in Gaza.

The press, led by legacy media companies like The New York Times, CBS News and the cable-news station MSNBC, has gone from tacit support for the post-Oct. 7 demonization of Israel and Jews to active participants. In doing so, they have demonstrated once again that they’ve discarded journalism and what was left of their credibility for left-wing activism.

The impact of their coverage of the agitation on college campuses and the war against Hamas in Gaza, which the groups behind the hate surge use as justification for their efforts, transcends the question of the decline of trust in the media. Their journalistic malpractice has become the primary engine driving the intimidation and vilification of Jews.

Lionizing a mob leader

Mahdawi became just the latest example of the liberal media’s infatuation with people arrested by the Trump administration. A Palestinian Arab who holds a green card, he was detained while undergoing an interview for his application for American citizenship as part of the government’s efforts to crack down on those foreign nationals involved in the pro-Hamas mobs targeting Jewish students at Columbia.

The U.S. Department of Justice informed the federal court in Vermont, where Mahdawi had been arrested, that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was revoking his green card because the “activities and presence of Mahdawi in the United States undermine U.S. policy to combat antisemitism.” It also noted that efforts to disrupt university life that Mahdawi led at Columbia “potentially undermine the peace process underway in the Middle East.” Both points are legitimate reasons to deport Mahdawi, but a sympathetic judge has released him pending further legal proceedings.

Since being freed, he has become the toast of the corporate media, authoring an op-ed in The New York Times and being the subject of a fawning profile on CBS’s “60 Minutes” program, in which he was allowed to pose as both a martyr to free speech and an advocate for peace. This narrative, depicting him as the subject of persecution by the administration, was further amplified by coverage in outlets such as NPR. That story actually claimed that he was the victim of ill treatment by supporters of Israel because they were chanting for the release of the abused hostages taken by Hamas while Mahdawi was ranting about Gaza with a bullhorn on campus. Mahdawi’s claims that he opposes antisemitism and wants peace went unchallenged. Meanwhile, other left-wing outlets like New York Magazine cheered him as a hero of the anti-Trump and anti-Israel “resistance.”

Contrary to the way that he has been portrayed in these accounts, Mahdawi is no advocate for peace. A leader of the pro-Hamas illegal encampments and building takeovers at Columbia, he supported the murderous Hamas assault on civilians in the Jewish state and repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction, an outcome that could only be obtained by the genocide of its population. As a more accurate article in The Free Press noted, he was personally involved in several incidents in which he harassed Jewish students, including one where he blared a siren at them. While Columbia gave Mahdawi a pass for his law-breaking activities, a Jewish student was subjected to disciplinary action for calling the terrorism backer a “Nazi.”

Moreover, he has a record of antisemitic utterances and support for terrorism going back to 2015, when he said, “I like to kill Jews,” as he was seeking to acquire a sniper rifle. Mahdawi has close family ties to convicted Palestinian terrorists he has praised as heroes and martyrs, rather than disassociating himself from their actions as someone who was a peace advocate would do.

As for his claim to be an advocate for peace, or, as he did in one video, argue that the genocidal chant of “from the river to the sea” doesn’t mean Jewish genocide, that is nothing but gaslighting. Suffice it to say that anyone who thinks the only way that peace can be achieved is the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet, shouldn’t be taken seriously as anything but a rabid antisemite.

Opposing Trump

None of this matters to those who have elevated him to the status of a “free speech” martyr.

Part of the reason for this is partisan politics. Many on the left are prepared to lionize anyone targeted for deportation by the Trump administration as victims who have been abducted by the government, rather than lawbreakers and threats to public safety. Just as Democrats rallied to the cause of MS13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, so, too, did Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) when he visited Mahdawi in jail, and then echoed lies about the agitator seeking peace and making common cause with Jews.

Sadly, the same motivation is behind the decision of 500 Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist rabbis to sign a letter opposing President Donald Trump’s efforts to force institutions of higher learning to take action against antisemitism on their campuses as well as to drop the woke leftist ideologies that are fueling the hate against Jews.

What’s happening here is not merely a wave of sympathy for those threatened by deportation by the administration. These attempts to treat terror supporters who have organized and taken part in thuggish efforts at intimidating Jewish students and even faculty members as victims are linked to similarly dishonest media coverage of the post-Oct. 7 war that Israel is waging to eradicate Hamas.

Indeed, many in the mainstream liberal press have been acting as Hamas’s stenographers since Oct. 7—accepting flagrantly false statistics about civilian casualties as truthful, downplaying or denying the Islamist group’s genocidal goals, and falsely alleging that the Israel Defense Forces have been committing war crimes when, in fact, they take greater care to avoid civilian loses than any other modern army.

The famine myth

Currently, the main anti-Israel media talking point is an effort to revive the myth that there is a famine going on in Gaza. The drumbeat of accusations lobbed at Israeli forces of deliberately starving Palestinians has been going on since the war began, even though the United Nations, which is profoundly hostile to the Jewish state, admitted it wasn’t true.

But with Hamas refusing to release the remaining Israeli hostages it still holds, and also showing itself unwilling to lay down its arms and give up control of the Strip, Israel has stopped the flow of aid into areas the terror group controls. It also plans on taking control of the distribution of food and fuel in the coastal enclave to prevent Hamas from continuing to steal most of it.

Palestinians in Gaza are suffering from Hamas’s continuation of the war it began on Oct. 7, but there remains no evidence of famine or anything close to it. Yet newspapers like the Times ignore these facts in order to keep pushing a narrative about Israelis oppressing Palestinians. The responsibility for this situation belongs to the terrorists, not the nation they attacked. Nevertheless, claims of a humanitarian catastrophe are largely part of an effort to allow the Islamist group to retain control, something that will ensure that the Jewish state will suffer more barbaric atrocities like those that began this struggle. The only way to alleviate the situation is not to lift the siege of Hamas but to force its surrender.

Meanwhile, the inflammatory coverage of Gaza is doing more than harming Israel’s image while largely giving the Palestinians a pass for their continued efforts to slaughter Jews. The myths about “genocide” or “famine” going on are also putting wind in the sails of Hamas’s supporters in the United States and their campaign against Jews. Without the widespread publication and broadcast of falsehoods about Israeli actions of self-defense, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for people like Mahdawi to get away with their bigoted thuggery. Nor would he be treated as a hero if not for the fact that liberal outlets give credence to the deceptive narrative about Israeli actions to ultimately exonerate those responsible for Oct. 7, as well as those, like Mahdawi and other Palestinians, who continue to applaud such barbaric crimes.

The media’s embrace of stories about a fake famine and fake martyrs among those slated for deportation has legitimized a mindset among many Americans who see Jewish rights and Jewish lives as unworthy of respect or protection. It’s bad enough that Mahdawi is allowed to get away with misinformation about his criminal actions and toxic beliefs about Israel, and that news organizations absolve Hamas for the impact of the war it launched. However, it is the acceptance of the Hamas narrative about Gaza and schools like Columbia that have been key to the rise in Jew-hatred.

To “so-called” progressives steeped in ideas like critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism, the delegitimization of American Jews is the inevitable corollary to their attacks on the Jewish state. Despite the lip service paid to condemnations of Jew-hatred, defeating antisemitism will be impossible so long as major journalistic outlets continue to bolster this mendacious campaign.


Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, which are available on all major audio platforms and YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.


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Antisemitism Skyrockets in 7 Countries With Largest Jewish Populations, Global Report Finds

Antisemitism Skyrockets in 7 Countries With Largest Jewish Populations, Global Report Finds

David Swindle


Norwegian student Marie Andersen carries an antisemitic sign at an Oct. 21, 2023, pro-Hamas demonstration in Warsaw, Poland. Photo: Screenshot

The seven largest Jewish communities outside Israel have reported record spikes in antisemitic activity in recent years, largely driven by a wave of anti-Jewish hatred in the aftermath of Hamas launching its war against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to a new report released to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the Holocaust.

On Wednesday, the J7 Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism — a coalition of Jewish organizations in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States — released its first J7 Annual Report on Antisemitism on the eve of Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, when Nazi Germany formally surrendered to Allied forces on May 8.

Affirming the findings of other recent research, the report described how from 2021 through 2023, antisemitic incidents increased 11 percent in Australia, 23 percent in Argentina, 75 percent in Germany, 82 percent in the UK, 83 percent in Canada, 185 percent in France, and 227 percent in the US. The data also showed a jump on a per-capita basis, noting that Germany saw more than 38 incidents per 1,000 Jews while the UK saw 13 per 1,000.

Common trends the seven communities identified included jumps in violent incidents, repeated targeting of Jewish institutions, rising online hate speech, and increasing fear among Jews, often prompting them to hide their Jewish identity.

The number of antisemitic outrages in all seven countries spiked to record levels following Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.

Different organizations from each of the seven countries authored the various sections of the report highlighting the surge in anti-Jewish animus.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews wrote the section on the UK, outlining the findings of the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters. CST recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents for 2024, the country’s second worst year for antisemitism and an 18 percent drop from 2023’s record of 4,296. These incidents included 201 physical assaults, 157 instances of damage to Jewish property, and 250 direct threats.

The report also noted that polling suggested that “approximately 6.7 million people in the UK ‘harbor elevated levels of antisemitic attitudes,’ roughly the population of London, the UK’s capital and most populated city.” The group also expressed concern for “an increase in AI-generated deepfakes depicting Jewish individuals using harmful stereotypes and embedding hate symbols in otherwise innocuous images.”

“We must insist on zero tolerance of antisemitism and ensure that this message gets through to lawmakers wherever we live,” said Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies.”

For Canada’s section, the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) provided the information and analysis. The group reported that the Jewish community “was easily the most targeted religious minority, accounting for some 70 percent of religiously motivated hate crimes (with 900 total hate crimes against Jews recorded). Hate crimes against Jews increased by 71 percent from 2022 to 2023, and 172 percent in total since 2020.”

Toronto’s police also counted 164 hate crimes targeting Jews as of October 2024, a 74.5 percent jump from 2023’s statistics.

CIJA also pointed to the increase in antisemitic attitudes among some groups, notably college students (with 26 percent holding some antisemitic views) and Muslims (52 percent). Additional polling showed these numbers reflected in the feelings of Canadian Jews, 98 percent of whom say that antisemitism is a serious or somewhat serious problem and 82 percent who say the country has grown less safe for Jews following the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel.

“Since Oct. 7, Canada has experienced a wave of antisemitic attacks — with Jewish schools shot at, synagogues firebombed, Jewish-owned businesses vandalized, and neighborhoods targeted,” CIJA Interim President Noah Shack said in a statement. “In the wake of last week’s federal election, we have a clear expectation that the next Parliament will move urgently to advance serious and impactful solutions to combat hate and protect Jewish Canadians. What is at stake is not only the safety and well-being of our community, but the future of a Canada where everyone can live free from fear and discrimination.”

The report’s section on France, contributed by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), said that “Palestine” appeared in 30 percent of last year’s antisemitic acts in the country. Schools also saw a surge of incidents, jumping to 1,670 in the 2023-2024 school year, compared to 400 the previous year. Specific hate crimes spotlighted in the report included the assault and rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl, whose attackers cited her “bad words on Palestine” to justify their cruelty.

A November 2024 CRIF study examining the antisemitic attitudes of the public found that 46 percent of the French people believed at least six antisemitic stereotypes. CRIF stated in the report that “in France, the extreme left instrumentalizes antisemitism as a political tool, while the extreme right instrumentalizes the fight against antisemitism as a political tool.”

“What we are witnessing is not just a statistical increase, it is a societal warning sign,” said CRIF president Yonathan Arfi. “This is not a crisis for the Jewish community, it is a test for our democracies. The escalation in hate speech, threats, and physical assaults against Jews around the world reminds us why international cooperation, like that of the J7, is more vital than ever.”

The Central Council of Jews in Germany provided the facts and analysis for their nation. While the government had not yet released 2024 hate crime statistics, the group said that “there were also more than 5,000 crimes reported by the German police in connection with the Israel-Hamas war that were not labeled as motivated by antisemitism.” The group pointed to a January 2025 study which showed that approximately 40 percent of 18-to-29-year-old Germans did not know that the Nazis exterminated 6 million Jews.

“Oct. 7, 2023, has massively accelerated a development that was already looming. Jews in Germany are under threat. A front has formed, cutting across the left and right, from Islamists to the very center of society,” Dr. Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in a statement. “This coalition questions the self-evidence of today’s Jewish life as well as Germany’s culture of remembrance. These developments are overlapping and mutually influencing online and offline. We are seeing similar developments in all the J7 countries, and I am glad that this strong task force exists.”

The Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA) explained the situation for Jews in Argentina, where the 2024 hate crime figures had also not yet appeared. The group pointed to the Anti-Defamation League’s 2024 Global 100: Index of Antisemitism, which showed that 39 percent of Argentinians (12.8 million) embraced six or more stereotypes about Jews and that 60 percent believed a small group controlled the world.

DAIA also described how “the political landscape in Argentina shifted significantly with the election of President Javier Milei at the end of 2023. His administration’s alignment with the United States and support for Israel has resulted in an increase in antisemitic and other conspiratorial rhetoric, which has become intertwined with broader geopolitical narratives.”

DAIA’s president, Mauro Berenstein, said in a statement that “in Argentina, we see with concern the exponential rise of antisemitism, in educational, academic, and professional settings, where many people, under the guise of critical thinking or a just cause, reproduce age-old prejudices. Social media has amplified these narratives. What was once whispered now goes viral in seconds. Therefore, more than ever, memory and education are not just tools of the past: they are a duty of the present and a hope for the future.”

In Australia, 64 percent of Jews called antisemitism “very much” a big problem in the country, a tenfold increase since 2017.

“This report presents the most comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of antisemitism in the western world since Oct. 7,” saidm Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. “All of our communities have been afflicted by this, but the situation in Australia presents a particularly staggering depiction of how healthy multicultural societies can be captured by networks of extremists who succeed in fundamentally altering relations between Jews and non-Jews and causing the Jewish community to question its future in a country where its roots are deep and its contributions have been profound.”

Ryvchin said that his country’s recent experience showed that “when antisemitism is not met with sufficient force of policing, law, and political leadership, it can escalate into devastating violence and can attract the most vicious elements of society ranging from religious and ideological fanatics to organized crime. The importance and value of this report is a testament to the work of the ADL [Anti-Defamation League] in convening the J7 and the outstanding cooperation between its member communities.”

As for the US, the ADL and Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations wrote the section, which noted an “alarming rise” in antisemitic incidents. Last month, the ADL released its own report revealing antisemitism in the US surged to break “all previous annual records” in 2024, recording 9,354 antisemitic incidents.

“Eighty years after the end of World War II, Jewish leaders from across the world have come together to reaffirm a simple truth: that we will never allow hatred to define our future,” said Betsy Berns-Korn, chair-elect of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “Rooted in memory, guided by justice, and strengthened by unity, we reaffirm our commitment to securing a safer and more inclusive world for generations to come.  This inaugural report reflects the strength of our collective voice and unwavering resolve.”


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Przez Kneecap wstydzę się, że jestem Irlandczykiem


Przez Kneecap wstydzę się, że jestem Irlandczykiem

Brendan O’Neill
Tłumaczenie: Małgorzata Koraszewska


Jaka jest różnica między Kanyem Westem zachwycającym się Hitlerem a zespołem Kneecap mówiącym „Górą Hamas”? To wszystko są raperzy chwalący morderców Żydów, prawda? Kanye woli oryginalnego gangstera morderczego faszyzmu, posuwając się nawet do zamieszczania zdjęcia Hitlera obok emoji GOAT – krótko mówiąc, Hitler był Największym Człowiekiem Wszech Czasów. Kneecap z kolei wydaje się mieć słabość do faszyzmu z islamistycznym zacięciem. „Górą Hamas!”, krzyczeli na koncercie w Londynie, zaledwie rok po tym, jak Hamas dokonał najgorszego aktu antysemickiej rzezi od czasów bohatera Kanye’a.

Kanye czuli się do człowieka, który zorganizował największą zbrodnię XX wieku, Kneecap chwali armię antysemitów, która dopuściła się najgorszego aktu brutalnej nienawiści rasowej w XXI wieku. Kanye podziwia dyktatora, który dał zielone światło uprzemysłowionemu spaleniu sześciu milionów Żydów, Kneecap podziwia neofaszystowską milicję, która 7 października 2023 r. zniszczyła ponad tysiąc głównie żydowskich istnień. Dwa bardzo różne zespoły hiphopowe zjednoczone ponurą fascynacją gnojami, którzy zabijają Żydów.

Ale rzecz w tym, że podczas gdy przebudzona lewica potępia Kanye, chwali Kneecap. Potępia fanatyczną miłość Kanye’a do Hitlera jako dowód na jego zaburzenia umysłowe, ale broni otwartych flirtów zespołu Kneecap z faszystami z Hamasu jako odważnego sprzeciwu wobec „imperializmu”. Nie można prosić o lepszy dowód na to, jak dzisiejsza modna nienawiść do Izraela grilluje umysły i niszczy moralną wrażliwość tych, którzy pozują na postępowych. To, że londyńskie burżuazyjne, wypasione bachory podrygiwały w ekstazie, kiedy Kneecap wychwalał rasistowskich morderców Izraelczyków, jest samą esencją kryzysu cywilizacji.

Kneecap to rapujące trio z Belfastu. To teatralni gówniarze przybierający pozę irlandzkich rebeliantów. Jeden z nich ma 35 lat i nosi trójkolorową kominiarkę. Rapują o braniu ketu i nienawiści do „Brytów”. To wprawia gnojków z Shoreditch i inne afektowane chujki w ekstazę, a jednocześnie doprowadza do szału takie media jak „Daily Mail”. I naprawdę nienawidzą Izraela. Oczywiście, że tak. Jak inaczej można pozostać ulubieńcem „Guardiana”BAFTA i każdego innego wpływowego bufona w keffiji, jeśli nie przez głoszenie izraelofobii, która jest absolutnie de rigueur w takich kręgach?

Kneecap ponownie trafił na pierwsze strony gazet w tym tygodniu po występie na festiwalu Coachella, festiwalu muzycznym na kalifornijskiej pustyni uwielbianym przez bogate białe bachory, które mylą deklarowanie swoich zaimków z posiadaniem osobowości. Wprawili swoich fanów w szał fałszywego radykalizmu, każąc im skandować „Pieprzyć Izrael”. Nie było nawet cienia solidarności z 378 młodymi ludźmi zamordowanymi przez rasistowską milicję na innym festiwalu muzycznym na pustyni zaledwie 18 miesięcy temu: festiwalu Nova. Cóż, byli tylko Izraelczykami, a jak mówi Kneecap: „Pieprzyć Izrael”.

Jest coś tak bezlitosnego w bogatych, rozpuszczonych na dziadowski bicz bachorach w USA, przemilczających młodzieży z Nova, która była taka sama jak one i którą zamordowano za „zbrodnię” bycia Żydami. To tak głęboka porażka ludzkości, jaką mogę sobie przypomnieć. Zamiast tego, na żądanie fetowanych raperów, którzy papugują każdy burżuazyjny banał zza swoich absurdalnych kominiarek, te gnojki skandowały „Pieprzyć Izrael”. Wyobraź sobie, że jesteś ocalałym z pogromu w Nova i widzisz, jak twoi rówieśnicy na festiwalu Coachella zachowują się w ten sposób – to oszałamia.

Po festiwalu Coachella ludzie odkrywają, że wyjce z Kneecap nie tylko nienawidzą Izraela – podziwiają również jego faszystowskich wrogów. Dzień po pogromie 7 października opublikowali zdjęcie, na którym uśmiechają się od ucha do ucha, i napisem: „Solidarność z walką Palestyńczyków”. To było tak obrzydliwe, jakby ktoś powiedział „Solidarność z walką Niemców” po Kristallnacht. Jeden z nich, ten kretyn w trójkolorowej kominiarce, pozował z kopią zebranych przemówień Hassana Nasrallaha, nieżyjącego przywódcy Hezbollahu, który był notorycznym antysemitą. A wcześniej skłonili swoją publiczność do skandowania „Och-ach-Hezbollah!”.

Teraz wyszło na jaw, że podczas koncertu w Londynie w listopadzie ubiegłego roku, wywiesili flagę Hezbollahu i krzyczeli: „Górą Hamas, górą Hezbollah!” Tłum ryczał z zachwytu. Była to widownia składająca się głównie z „postępowców” z klasy średniej, którzy uważają się za antyfaszystów. A jednak tutaj wiwatowali na cześć milicji założonej w celu mordowania Żydów (Hamas) i ruchu, który nazywa żydowską obecność na Bliskim Wschodzie „rakowatym naroślem”, który „musi zostać zniszczony” (Hezbollah). Każdy Żyd, który przeżyje naszą chwalebną zagładę, „będzie mógł wrócić do Niemiec lub skądkolwiek pochodzi”, mówi Hezbollah.

Oto, o kim Kneecap mówi, że jest „górą”: o terrorystach, którzy żywią ludobójcze marzenie o wypędzeniu Żydów z ich ojczyzny. Oto najnowsza subkultura: antyfaszyści dla faszyzmu. Występy muzyczne kiedyś były „rockiem przeciwko rasizmowi” – teraz są rockiem dla rasistowskich armii, które gwałcą i zabijają Żydów. Flirt Kneecap z rekwizytami Hamasu i Hezbollahu obnaża zgniłe serce izraelofobii. Potwierdza, że to, co udaje ruch antywojenny, jest w rzeczywistości ruchem antycywilizacyjnym – sojuszem z islamistyczną histerią zrodzonym ze zblazowanego uczucia oderwania i pogardy dla własnego społeczeństwa. „Pieprzyć Izrael”, mówią, ale tak naprawdę mają na myśli „pieprzyć Zachód, pieprzyć wszystko, pieprzyć ciebie”.

Zespół Kneecap został teraz zaskarżony do policji antyterrorystycznej w związku z ich skandowaniem „Górą Hamas, górą Hezbollah”. To jest błędne, głęboko błędne. Jedynymi ludźmi, którzy skorzystają na tym autorytarnym rozwoju sytuacji, są sami członkowie Kneecap. Nie potrafię wam wytłumaczyć, jak bardzo ci gangsterzy Fisher-Price będą podekscytowani wiadomością, że „Bryci” prowadzą śledztwo w ich sprawie. Wreszcie do ich mdłego projektu fałszywej rebelii, który rozgłasza każdy nudziarz w kulturalnym establishmencie, wstrzyknięto element niebezpieczeństwa. Bardzo poważnego problemu zachodnich młodych sympatyzujących z barbarzyństwem nie da się rozwiązać za pomocą cenzury. Zamiast czynić z wyjców Kneecap męczenników, powinniśmy pozwolić im nadal ujawniać nienawiść, która leży u samych podstaw antyizraelskiej wrogości.

Przez Kneecap wstydzę się, że jestem Irlandczykiem. Uosabiają oni żałosne samouwielbienie i modne cierpiętnictwo irlandzkich elit kulturalnych. „Współczujemy Palestynie, ponieważ wiemy, jak to jest cierpieć pod kolonialną opresją” – łkają ci ludzie. Doją historyczne cierpienie Irlandii, aby stworzyć sobie osobowość w XXI wieku. Wspinają się po irlandzkich zmarłych, aby reklamować światu swoją cnotę. Gromadzą duchy Wielkiego Głodu do narcystycznego celu wzmocnienia własnej władzy kulturowej we współczesnej debacie. To może sprawić, że bogate dziewczyny na Coachelli i Dalston będą piszczeć z zachwytu, ale wywołuje to czysty wstyd u wszystkich szanujących się Irlandczyków.


Brendan O’Neill – brytyjski dziennikarz, redaktor naczelny magazynu „Spiked” , autor głośnej książki A Heretic’s Manifesto: Essays on the Unsayable


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Netanyahu Takes On Israel’s Deep State

Netanyahu Takes On Israel’s Deep State

Gadi Taub


The firing of domestic security chief Ronen Bar is the latest battle in the war at home

Ronen Bar, the recently dismissed head of Shin Bet, Israel’s security service
Tablet Magazine; original images: Israeli Government Press Office; Oren Ziv/AFP via Getty Images

The fight against what Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken to calling Israel’s “deep state” is now in full swing. It reached a climax on Thursday, March 20, late in the evening, when the cabinet unanimously voted to dismiss Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet—the country’s domestic security service. The termination is to take effect on the earlier of two dates: April 10, or when a replacement is found. Bar is not going down without a fight, however, and has retaliated by stepping up an investigation against the prime minister’s staff.

Bar’s removal is long overdue. For starters, he is probably the person most directly responsible for the disaster of Oct. 7. Gaza is the Shin Bet’s intelligence turf, and so Bar’s advice to refrain from raising the level of alert on the night before the massacre was naturally accepted by the IDF. All remained quiet on the Gaza front as dawn broke on that Sabbath. So quiet, says former Shin Bet operative Yizhar David, who was privy to some of the relevant information, that Mohammed Deif, who commanded the invasion, postponed the attack for fear that Israel’s apparent total lack of preparation might well be a trap.

But there was no trap. Despite the accumulating signs of an impending assault nobody alerted the soldiers, sleeping soundly in their beds, or the party goers still dancing as the sun was rising at the Nova Festival, or those on guard duty at the nearby kibbutzim. The handful of tanks at the theater, the soldiers stationed in bases around the fence, and the volunteers on security duty in the adjoining kibbutzim could have stopped or at least drastically curtailed the invasion had they only been told to stay put. Bar’s advice excluded any such preparations. The theater was sedated, rather than alert.

Ever since Oct. 7 Israelis have been asking themselves: Why? Sure, hindsight is always 20-20. But why, despite the accumulating indications, was the level of alert not raised, if only to be on the safe side? And why, Israelis also ask, did the brass who were concerned enough to hold late night consultations, not wake up the minister of defense and the prime minister? Since both Bar and the then IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy have remained consistently silent on this, conspiracy theories about acts of betrayal abound.

Now, pieces of the puzzle are gradually surfacing, and we may finally have a plausible explanation, or a beginning of one, for Israel’s startling inaction. And that explanation, as we shall see, is damning to Bar in the extreme. Which may explain why, despite his colossal failure, he is fighting to stay at his job where he can continue to control the disclosure of much of the evidence against him.

Netanyahu is now attempting to correct what was perhaps the greatest miscalculation of his long political career.

The cabinet’s decision to dismiss Bar, however, did not cite his failure on the night preceding the disaster. It cited his boss’s lack of confidence in him. Netanyahu himself made sure the move was publicly understood that way. In a video released on his social media accounts two days after the cabinet’s decision, the prime minister explained that distrust began with Bar’s insubordination in the wee hours of Oct. 7, when he decided to keep both the minister of defense and the prime minister out of the decision-making process.

This was not an isolated event. This was and still is Bar’s MO. He acts as if Israel’s internal secret service is not accountable to anyone but himself, as if it were free to operate in the shadows outside the control and oversight of Israel’s elected government. He displayed the same contemptuous spirit of insubordination when he ignored a summons by the cabinet to answer questions at the March 20 meeting that decided the future of his career. Instead, he sent a letter in which he point-blank refused to recognize the cabinet’s authority to dismiss him. The decision to remove him, he said in the letter, was tinged with ulterior motives—an allusion to the ongoing investigation into alleged ties with Qatar among Netanyahu’s staff, which has so far produced no convincing evidence, as far as we know, and appears to have nothing to do with Netanyahu himself.

In other words, not only does Bar feel he is not accountable to the civil authorities, he also seems to believe that they instead should be accountable to him and that he can bully them as he pleases with contrived investigations. Bar added in his letter that he will not leave his job, and will only lay out his responses to the cabinet’s concerns before “the proper forum” and according to what the “authorized judicial bodies” will decide.

Those less familiar with the surreal world of Israel’s juristocracy may rightly wonder what that “proper forum” and who the “authorized judicial bodies” might be. The law, in point of fact, is very clear about the forum which holds the authority to dismiss the head of Shin Bet. The 2002 law which governs the service states in no uncertain terms that “the service is subject to the authority of the government” (Clause 4a), that “the prime minister is in charge of the service on behalf of the government” (Clause 4b) and also that “the government has the authority to terminate the tenure of the head of the service before the end of his term” (Clause 3c). In the debates leading to the final formulation of this law, Shin Bet representatives strongly objected to this language, but the legislators, and the attorney general at the time, Menachem Mazuz, insisted on strong wording, adding that the cabinet is not required to explain its reasons for the dismissal. So, clearly, the “proper forum” has already convened, and its decision was unanimous.

So why do we have a so-called crisis? The answer is that Israel has a supergovernment that exists above our elected government in the form of a hyperactivist Supreme Court, that can overrule all and any action by the executive and legislature. Bar was instrumental in protecting the Supreme Court from the now-defunct judicial reform which attempted to limit its power. Along with other heads of security services, he refused to state that in case of a constitutional crisis, if the court moved to strike down the reform, he would abide by the law and obey the cabinet. The fear of a coup was real and it played a major role in defeating the reform. Bar now apparently expects the court to reciprocate.

Bar’s expectation is not primarily a matter of personal obligation, though. Rather, it is because Bar’s insubordination and the court’s boundless authority draw on the same spirit of contempt for electoral politics, and are part of the same bureaucratic power structure.

There is a direct line connecting Bar’s insubordination when he helped undermine the government’s judicial reform before Oct. 7, his disregard for the chain of command in the early hours of Oct. 7 when he did not wake the prime minister, and his current defiance of the civil authority to which the Shin Bet is subordinate by law. Bar, like many of his fellow progressive government employees, and many in the press and academia, has convinced himself he is here to save us Israelis from ourselves. In Bar, Israel’s woke elites have found an important ally: a chief of the internal secret service, able to act in the gray areas beyond the law, willing to help protect them—indeed, all of us—from the menace of democratic politics. This mission has taken precedence over Bar’s official task: protecting us from subversion and terrorism.

Bar may or may not be right to assume that the court will side with him against the cabinet and attempt to force the prime minister to retain him. It has already issued an intermediary injunction—with no basis whatever in the law—to “freeze” the cabinet’s decision. But Bar, most probably, is wrong to believe this will save him. Because his MO belongs to the pre-Oct. 7 world, and that world is now gone for good.

Netanyahu seems to understand this, and consequently has proceeded with interviewing candidates for Bar’s job. The video in which Netanyahu explained the reasons for the Shin Bet chief’s dismissal began with a clear declaration: “Ronen Bar will not remain head of Shabak” (the Hebrew acronym for the Shin Bet). The prime minister would never have chosen such a defiant path two years ago during the fight over the judicial reform.

In the video, Netanyahu also directly tackled Bar’s charge that there are ulterior motives behind his dismissal. The prime minister argued, based on the timeline, that the move to dismiss Bar was set in motion before the Qatar investigation began and that, in fact, the opposite of Bar’s accusation is true: The dismissal was not designed to stop the investigation (which indeed it won’t). Rather the investigation was launched to preempt the dismissal. In other words, Bar has taken a page from James Comey’s Russian collusion playbook: He is trying to protect himself by tying his chief’s hand with a contrived investigation.

For now the investigation is formally directed only against the prime minister’s staff—much like the early days of the Russia hoax. But after Netanyahu interviewed and announced his candidate to head the Shin Bet, Bar pushed back by escalating his Qatar investigation, with a help from Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara—herself is next in line to be dismissed. Jonathan Urich, Netanyahu’s close aide, was arrested on March 31, and Netanyahu himself was whisked out of the court room where he was testifying in his own trial, for questioning. The allegations against Urich, says lawyer and retired senior police officer Avi Weiss, are based on no law (Israel has no equivalent to the Foreign Agents Registration Act in the U.S.), and there is no accusation of espionage. Moreover, he says, Bar and Baharav-Miara have an obvious conflict of interest. Both are working to pressure the government that is ousting them from their positions.

That’s certainly how Netanyahu’s party sees it. In a strongly worded statement, the Likud accused “the prosecution and the head of the Shin Bet” of conducting “sham investigations in secrecy under a gag order, aiming to prevent the dismissal of the Shin Bet chief.” The goal, the statement added, “is to carry out a coup through arrest warrants” and “replace the will of the people with the rule of bureaucrats.”

Democracies should not need reminders of how dangerous secret services can be to democratic institutions. Journalist Amit Segal recently exposed a directive from Bar to spy on the Israeli police force in order to track “the spread of Kahanism into law enforcement institutions.” The late Meir Kahane’s Kach party is banned in Israel and is designated as a foreign terrorist organization in the U.S. Since the minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is in charge of the police, is routinely labeled a Kahanist, what the directive means in practice is that Bar is spying, with no probable cause, on a member of the cabinet to which he is supposed to answer, and intimidating police personnel into insubordination, by insinuating that adherence to the minister’s directives could be considered possible “Kahanism.” This behavior has raised questions about whether it is a good idea for Netanyahu’s personal bodyguard to remain under Bar’s command. Such concerns were further exacerbated when Nadav Argaman, Bar’s predecessor, threatened to reveal information from private conversations with Netanyahu, should he, Argaman, reach the conclusion that the prime minister has decided “to break the law” (by which he seems to mean, defy the Supreme Court in the matter of Bar’s dismissal).

Since the well-financed, permanent anti-Netanyahu protest movement is part of the country’s network of unelected elite power centers, it adopted Bar’s “ulterior motives” narrative from the get-go. A recent rally featured a Netanyahu look-alike holding a Qatari flag, kneeling before a man clad in traditional Qatari garb, who is handing him fake money. But that was the least surreal part of the wave of demonstrations in support of Bar’s insubordination in the name of democracy. Apparently, the protesters, the left, and much of the press want to save democracy by adopting the totalitarian model where politicians answer to the secret police instead of wielding authority over it.

Absurd as it may sound, elevating the secret police above electoral politics in the name of democracy stems from the very heart of our woke elite’s ethos. Appointed civil servants imagine themselves the responsible adults in the room, boldly stepping forward to protect “the public interest” from what the public believes to be its interest—and from the elected officials the public has chosen to carry out its will.

These elites—across the security establishment, the bureaucracy, the media, academia, and the business world—have succeeded once so far in their bid to subdue the governing majority coalition and defeat its plan for judicial reform. What the protest movement, Bar, the court and the press are trying to do now, is resurrect that successful antireform coalition. Their drive is not surprising, having witnessed their extra-electoral power structure during that struggle in the 10 months that preceded Oct. 7.

Apparently, the protesters, the left, and much of the press want to save democracy by adopting the totalitarian model where politicians answer to the secret police.

But the severity of the national disaster on that day revealed the hollowness and recklessness of these elites. For Oct. 7 was not just an intelligence and operational failure of the armed forces. It was also an indictment of the antireform strategy: the scorched earth tactics that played fast and loose with our security by arranging mass walkouts of army reservists, as if we were not a nation surrounded by terrorists who clamor daily for our blood. Not least, it discredited the idea that civil servants were merely expert “gatekeepers,” as they have come to describe themselves, guarding the public interest against the excesses of ignorant and corrupt politicians.

Bar proved to be the very opposite of the responsible adult in the room. The pretense that he is saving us from ourselves rings hollow after he failed at his actual job—protecting us from our enemies. In fact, there is a causal link here: Bar failed to protect us from our enemies precisely because he was too busy saving us from ourselves.

Behind Bar’s self-image as a “gatekeeper” is a worldview, shared by the rest of Israel’s woke elites, which consists of two complementary elements: an almost religious attachment to the “peace process” and the so-called “two-state solution,” and a concurrent contempt for democracy which inherently distrusts the patriotic masses and the politicians they elect. The elites, our betters, are here to save the prospect of peace from the warmongering jingoistic hordes and their irresponsible political representatives.

The consequences of this view of Israel’s internal politics hardly stops at Israel’s borders, though—the result being a complete inversion of the observable realities of our region. Bar imagines our politicians as reckless, dangerous hawks, which also more or less requires him to imagine Hamas to be strategically moving to greater pragmatic moderation. He thinks of our government as wild and irrational, a view that is premised on imagining Hamas leaders as rational actors susceptible to economic incentives. Therefore, Bar could not imagine them starting a war, and his assessments in the months preceding the war consistently reflected that bias, even as he was haunted by the specter of Israel’s government starting one.

In other words, our chief of the internal secret service had everything exactly backwards. In the face of accumulating intelligence, Ronen Bar and Herzi Halevy were busy saving us from ourselves, not from Hamas. They were eager to prevent an escalation which they thought could be triggered by “miscalculation” on the part of their civil bosses. “Miscalculation” has become their watchword to refer to the danger of overreaction to raw intelligence data, which may plunge us all into a war they assumed nobody wanted—save perhaps those evil messianic, Kahanist, proto-fascists in our own cabinet.

Based on this bias, says former Shin Bet officer Yizhar David, the late-night meetings Bar convened at Shin Bet headquarters concluded that Hamas was raising its own level of readiness out of fear of an impending Israeli attack. It’s not hard to see why a self-appointed gatekeeper would want to keep such information out of the wrong hands. Why let a deplorable, warmongering prime minister interfere with the efforts by responsible adults to delicately defuse a possible “miscalculation”?

And here, says David, lies the answer to the most nagging question of all: Why did the chiefs not raise the level of alert, or at least quietly inform the soldiers of the possibility, however remote, of impending danger? Astoundingly Bar’s message to the IDF was a recommendation to leave the theater quiet, lest raising the level of alert would reinforce Hamas’ fear of an imminent attack and lead to accidental escalation. They kept the raw intelligence from the IDF units around the fence for the same reason they kept it away from the cabinet: to prevent escalation.

Bar’s bid to stay on as head of Shin Bet, in defiance of the law and the cabinet, and despite his colossal failure, is wholly reliant on the antireform coalition of gatekeepers. But not only has the gatekeeping philosophy taken a massive hit, the constellation that composed it is also falling apart: the flow of money to the protest movement from the Biden administration has been replaced by the new administration’s inquiry into the use of this money by the anti-Netanyahu forces; the widening of Netanyahu’s wartime coalition has made this government more stable; the need a wartime prime minister has for a head of Shin Bet he can trust is obvious to most Israelis; there’s a new IDF chief of staff, general Eyal Zamir, and a new chief of police who will not let the anti-Netanyahu permanent protest disrupt public life in the middle of a war. And here is one more sign of the new times: Nadav Argaman who threatened Netanyahu on TV with disclosing secret information has been summoned by the police for questioning on suspicion of attempted extortion.

There is still the confrontational, all-powerful attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, and, of course, the Supreme Court. They may succeed in fomenting more chaos, but they can’t rewind the clock to the pre-Oct. 7 status quo. Baharav-Miara is herself operating on borrowed time, and even the Supreme Court, the most important bastion of the juristocracy, is now being challenged—in a minor way, to be sure, but still symbolically important. The Knesset has passed a law that changes the composition of the committee that appoints judges, slightly augmenting the power of elected politicians at the expense of the lawyers’ guild.

Perhaps more important than all these changes is Netanyahu’s decision to lead the charge against the deep state. In doing so, he is now attempting to correct what was perhaps the greatest miscalculation of his long political career. For years he thought that he could make do with the defiant upper echelons of the security establishment, including insubordinate heads of security services, and with the imperial Supreme Court, with its juristocratic auxiliaries in the executive, including a politicized prosecution. That calculation proved detrimental to Israel’s democracy, to the right’s ability to govern, and to Netanyahu’s personal fate as a target of a politically weaponized criminal prosecution. He has now made the decision to tackle the problem at its roots, rather than skirmishing with the tentacles of the deep state over specific issues on an ad hoc basis.

Whether Netanyahu will succeed in reestablishing democratic sovereignty in Israel is dependent, to a large extent, on the outcome of the war. As things now stand, victory over the Iranian axis of evil has become the precondition for any new birth of freedom for Israel’s citizens.


Gadi Taub is an author, historian, and op-ed columnist. He is co-host of Tablet’s Israel Update podcast.


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