BBC to investigate Arabic channel over Gaza coverage

May4
BBC to investigate Arabic channel over Gaza coverage

David Isaac

“The Arabic service, we are looking at it. We’ve been examining it,” said BBC Chairman Samir Shah.

BBC Chairman Samir Shah. Credit: Times Radio/YouTube.

[ He was raised a Jain in India before coming to England in 1960 aged 9 and later converting to Islam to marry his wife Belkis. ]

Samir Shah, chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), told Times Radio on May 3 that the broadcaster is investigating anti-Israel bias in its coverage of the Gaza War and will commission an independent investigation of BBC Arabic.

BBC Arabic broadcasts 24 hours a day from London and Cairo to the Middle East via TV, radio and internet.

In conversation with Times Radio host Rod Liddle, Shah, who was appointed BBC chairman in March 2024, said, “I think this whole business of how we’ve covered Israel-Gaza is a proper thing to examine thoroughly, which is why we’re … going to get hold of an independent figure to look at our corporation.”

Liddle said: “You’re still reporting from Israel with a whole bunch of BBC Arabic correspondents, some … who have been found to say the most appalling things about Jewish people, such as, ‘We’re going to burn them until none are left.’ You know, isn’t it time to stop using them?”

Liddle was referring to comments by Samer Elzaenen, a regular contributor to BBC Arabic, who posted antisemitic and anti-Israel comment since 2011, The Telegraph reported.

In one post he wrote: “My message to the Zionist Jews: We are going to take our land back, we love death for Allah’s sake the same way you love life. We shall burn you as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.”

Elzaenen is one of several BBC Arabic contributors who have been discovered to have posted antisemitic content.

Ahmed Alagha, who has reported for the British public broadcaster since early 2023, described the Israeli army as “the embodiment of filth” and referred to Jews as “the devils of the hypocrites,” according to a Telegraph report last month.

“The Arabic service, we are looking at it. We’ve been examining it,” said Shah. 

In March, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) issued a report on BBC Arabic, which it noted is the “largest, most heavily funded and most influential foreign-language service” of the BBC.

CAMERA found BBC Arabic had “become synonymous with toxic hostility against Israel and, at times, anti-Jewish racism. It has given a platform to murderous terrorists, presented apologists for terror as independent ‘experts’, allowed extreme views to go unchallenged in interviews and echoed the language of Hamas.”

Following the 33-page CAMERA report, which covered claims spanning four years, Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch in March called for “wholesale reform” of the Arabic-language broadcaster.

Also in March, it came to light that BBC Director-General Tim Davie had repeatedly rejected offers of training on antisemitism.

Lord John Mann, the British government’s official adviser on anti-Jewish discrimination, revealed in an interview with The Telegraph that he had visited the BBC‘s senior leadership to offer training on three occasions since taking up the role in 2019.

The BBC‘s bias against Israel, which goes beyond its Arabic channel, has been repeatedly documented.

According to a Sept. 2024 analysis of 9 million words of BBC output, the broadcaster violated its own editorial guidelines 1,553 times during the four-month period beginning Oct. 7, 2023, repeatedly downplaying Hamas terrorism and presenting Israel as an aggressor.

Among its most recent scandals was the documentary, “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone,” which utilized a 13-year-old boy as narrator, who turned out to be the son of Hamas Deputy Agriculture Minister Ayman al-Yazouri.

Shah, speaking before the U.K. parliament’s Culture, Media & Sport Committee on March 4, admitted the documentary was a “dagger to the heart” of the BBC‘s neutrality.

The embarrassment led to an unusual apology by the broadcaster, which in a statement, said that “serious flaws” were made “by the production company, and some by the BBC; all of them are unacceptable. BBC News takes full responsibility for these and the impact that these have had on the Corporation’s reputation. We apologise for this.”

At least £400,000 (just over $500,000) of license payers’ cash went to the production company behind the documentary.

“I thought that the Gaza film was deeply flawed, and so does the board,” Shah told Times Radio on Saturday. “We have asked for a report. That report is coming to a conclusion. I haven’t seen it yet. And I really think, right now, we’re right at the middle of this, and let’s just wait to see.”

Despite the BBC‘s evident bias, Shah defended the broadcaster. Citing survey numbers, he said that 37% said that the BBC provides impartial news. The second closest is ITV, a British public broadcast television network, at 6%, and the Guardian and Sky News, both at 6%.

“[W]e still do better than everybody else,” said Shah.

Asked if he himself considers Hamas to be a terrorist group, Shah demurred, saying, “I’m here as a chairman of the BBC.”

“What do you think they are? Do you think they are a convocation of happy little squirrels?” Liddle pressed.

“Right now, I am the chairman of the BBC, and we have taken the view as a board that we continue to use the word terrorist only with attribution,” said Shah.

According to the BBC‘s editorial guidelines posted on its website: “Terrorism is a difficult and emotive subject with significant political overtones and care is required in the use of language that carries value judgements. We should not use the term ‘terrorist’ without attribution.”

BBC has a history of suppressing unflattering reports on its anti-Israel bias. Most egregious is its 20-year suppression of the Balen Report.

Commissioned in 2004, the 20,000-word document, written by senior broadcast journalist Malcolm Balen, looked at hundreds of hours of BBC coverage of the Israel-Arab conflict.

Leaked elements of the report make it clear that the report found BBC coverage to be biased. Only a select few have seen the full document, as the BBC has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds in court to keep it from going public.

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Panic on Memorial Day: Sights and Sounds From Israel

May4
Panic on Memorial Day: Sights and Sounds From Israel

Daniel Pomerantz

Israelis stand for a moment of silence as the memorial siren sounds on Israel’s Memorial Day. Photo: Meir Pavlovsky, OneFamily

I was at the Memorial Day ceremony at Habima Square in Tel Aviv, which is like Israel’s Lincoln Center. This is not like America’s Memorial Day — there are no barbecues or celebrations. This is Israel: a small country, where everybody has lost somebody.

The commemorative siren sounded and thousands of people fell completely silent, some cried, a few dogs howled back at the siren. I saw two female police officers holding hands, one had tears in her eyes.

The siren ended and the ceremony proceeded, with speakers and prayers, but then, suddenly — screams.

“Screaming” isn’t really the right word — it was coming from all directions and sounded more like a huge high frequency roar, but not like in a sporting event. I can’t quite describe it; it was like hearing a tornado approach.

Then people were running, thousands of people, like a human tsunami — so I ran too. Because when something like this happens in Israel, you get to safety first and ask questions later.

To view a video of some of the event, click here.

Like most people around me, I first focused on getting some distance between myself and the event location, not knowing whether I might be about to run into something dangerous. I turned onto a side street because it seemed like a safe direction to go, then I saw some people running into a building, and I ran there too because it simply seemed to make sense. I found myself in someone’s apartment with about 20 other people.

I don’t remember falling along the way, but I noticed my knee was hurting, and my pants were ripped, so apparently I had.

One of the people in the apartment was crying and panicking, a young American girl, probably high school age, who didn’t speak Hebrew. So I sat with her explained what little I knew, as a few of us tried to give her some degree of comfort. I could at least offer a familiar American voice to talk to.

I also walked around and asked people if anyone had cell phone reception or had heard any news, and for the most part the answer was no. Later, when everything seemed OK, I thanked the apartment owner for “hosting” us and stood outside with the American girl waiting for her mother to come get her.

An Israeli woman nearby seemed concerned and I offered to walk her home. She thanked me, and told me her husband thanks me too — he was on the phone from Gaza where he was serving in combat that very night.

So what actually happened?

According to reports, several suspicious people, apparently wearing what appeared to be combat vests, tried to force their way through security into the ceremony. The suspicious people were arrested without further incident. Some conflicting reports said the suspects had attempted to attack police. Whatever it was, something about the interaction triggered a panic, which spread.

The police officially say this was not a “security event” but it’s important to remember that at the time, none of us knew that. We knew only that there was an urgent need to run, possibly for our lives.

I don’t mean to compare this small experience to some of the more dramatic ones Israelis have faced and continue to face: our hostages, our lost loved ones, our fallen soldiers, and more. But I can say this: in 14 years, I’ve been in my share of bomb shelters, and heard my share of sirens, yet this is the first time I’ve been inside of what one might call an “event.”

Meanwhile, terrorists successfully managed to set the countryside around Jerusalem on fire, cancelling numerous Memorial Day and Independence Day events and setting Israelis to work fighting the blaze.

It is well understood by all Israelis that terrorists favor large crowds and symbolic events for their attacks. A Memorial Day ceremony in Tel Aviv would be an ideal target — this reality was in the back of everyone’s mind from the beginning — which probably contributed to the rapid and dramatic reaction of the crowd.

And there’s something simply amazing about that: knowing that we realistically might be walking into danger, we came anyway. We came by the thousands, to HaBima Square and to other ceremonies across the country. We also show up to our jobs, and our lives, we take public transportation, we visit parks, and malls, protests and yes, even music festivals. The day-to-day courage of ordinary Israelis is remarkable, and touching beyond words.

There’s an Israeli expression: on Memorial Day, we acknowledge the painful cost of having a state; on Yom HaShoah (Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day) we acknowledge the cost of not having one.

And finally, on Independence Day, we celebrate. Celebrations are muted this year: due to the fires around Jerusalem, the hostages in Gaza, and our loved ones in the IDF fighting on seven different fronts.

Nonetheless, I wish you all a Happy Independence Day from Israel.

Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.

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Czy człowiek negujący Holokaust może być wybitnym biblistą?

May3

Modlitwa o perfidnych Żydach, wykreślona przez Sobór Watykański II.

Czy człowiek negujący Holokaust może być wybitnym biblistą?

Jules Gomes
Tłumaczenie: Małgorzata Koraszewska

Czy katolickiego księdza, który odprawia demoniczne msze negacji holokaustu, można uważać za „wielkiego biblistę”? Można by równie dobrze zapytać, czy Josef Mengele, nazywany „aniołem śmierci” przez swoje ofiary z Auschwitz, powinien być czczony jako „wybitny specjalista medyczny”.

Nie można zrozumieć dlaczego, trzech czołowych, wpływowych katolików brytyjskich uważa, że o. James Mawdsley, radykalny rewizjonista historyczny, który nazywa Szoah „największym kłamstwem w historii”, zasługuje na kanonizację jako święty patron biblijnej nauki.

Pochwały, jakimi obrzucili tego negacjonistę Holokaustu, przyciągnęły uwagę mediów głównie dlatego, że dr Gavin Ashenden, najbardziej znany członek tego triumwiratu, jest medialnym ekspertem, sławnym konwertytą z anglikanizmu na katolicyzm i byłym kapelanem królowej Elżbiety II.

Razem z Markiem Lambertem i Katherine Bennett prowadzi podcast Catholic Unscripted  — audycję ulubioną przez tradycjonalistycznych katolików, którzy kochają mszę łacińską, nienawidzą zmarłego papieża Franciszka i gardzą Soborem Watykańskim II za wykreślenie modlitwy za „perfidnych” Żydów z liturgii Wielkiego Piątku.


Antysemityzm jest powszechny wśród tradycjonalistycznych katolików

Jeśli jesteś Żydem, który śpiewa z Johnem Lennonem „Wyobraź sobie, że nie ma antysemityzmu (w Kościele Katolickim), to łatwe, jeśli spróbujesz”, po prostu spędź godzinę na przeszukiwaniu stron internetowych tradycjonalistycznych katolików. Możesz też wziąć udział w „Krótkim kursie żydożerstwa” Candace Owens i zapytać, dlaczego antysemityzm Owens zbiega się z jej nawróceniem na tradycjonalistyczny katolicyzm.

W tym roku Rzym obchodzi 60. rocznicę Nostra Aetate, dokumentu Soboru Watykańskiego II, który w epokowym zwrocie o 180 stopni zmienił Żyda „z wroga w brata”, używając łacińskiego carissimi, aby opisać Żydów jako „umiłowanych przez Boga”. Paradoksalnie, wywołuje to wściekłość wśród katolików, którzy wierzą w „mit ciągłości nauczania”.

Przewidując coroczny rytuał tradycjonalistycznych katolików, którzy narzekają na rzekomą kapitulację Watykanu wobec „żydowskiego lobby” w kwestii zmiany modlitwy za „perfidnych” Żydów, Catholic Unscripted gościł arcyantysemitę, o. Mawdsleya, tuż przed Pesach i Wielkim Tygodniem, aby omówić zmiany liturgiczne Wielkiego Piątku.

Mawdsley zaczął wyklinania niemal natychmiast po tym, jak jego gospodarz Bennett rozpoczął wywiad: „Uważam, że Żydzi zasadniczo zinfiltrowali Kościół, zniszczyli jego liturgię, dogmaty, moralność, i jeśli tego nie nazwiemy, nie przezwyciężymy i nie będziemy uczciwi w kwestii zarządzania naszą wiarą katolicką, to sytuacja będzie się tylko pogarszać”.


Szoah: „Największe kłamstwo w historii”

Żydzi tacy jak Nahum Goldmann, ówczesny szef Światowego Kongresu Żydów, mieli „element talmudyczny”, którego celem było „zniszczenie wszystkiego”, całego starego porządku społecznego, w tym hierarchii społecznej, aby „żadna tradycja nie była już uważana za świętą” – grzmiał Mawdsley.

„Nie powiem zbyt wiele na twoim kanale na YouTube, ale [Szoah] to największe kłamstwo w historii” – kontynuował. „Kłamstwa II wojny światowej są największym i pierwszym kłamstwem diabła przeciwko Bogu”.

Mawdsley przyćmił tradycjonalistycznego biskupa katolickiego, Richarda Williamsona, który  w 2009 r. w szwedzkim programie telewizyjnym stwierdził, że „dowody historyczne stanowczo — i w ogromnym stopniu — obalają twierdzenie o celowym zagazowaniu 6 milionów Żydów w komorach gazowych w ramach umyślnej polityki Adolfa Hitlera”.

Internet to otwarty ściek, do którego Mawdsley  rzyga swoim religijnym jadem. 30-sekundowe wyszukiwanie w Google to cała dziennikarska skrupulatność, jakiej potrzeba, aby odkryć głębię jego nienawiści do Żydów, negowanie Holokaustu i historyczny rewizjonizm.


„Holocaust…nie wydarzył się”

„Adolf Hitler nie rozpoczął II wojny światowej. To zrobili Żydzi” – Mawdsley  wygłasza tyradę  na Substacku „White Rabbit” – białego nacjonalisty. Mówi, że jego misją jest „ujawnienie demonicznej fałszywości narracji o Holokauście” i „ujawnienie żydowskich kłamstw, które są przyczyną niezliczonych wojen”.

„Hitler nie zamierzał podbić Europy, podczas gdy Żydzi knuli wówczas i teraz [spiski], by rządzić światem. I co najważniejsze, ponoszą odpowiedzialność za Żydów, którzy zginęli w II wojnie światowej, a ta liczba jest znacznie bliższa 1 milionowi niż 6 milionom” – dodaje ten ksiądz rewizjonista.

„Holocaust to kłamstwo. Nie wydarzył się” – twierdzi Mawdsley w The Backlash. „Wielu Żydów cierpiało, gdy byli wypędzani z Europy przez nazistów, ale Hitler ani Niemcy nie mieli ludobójczego planu unicestwienia Żydów”.

Działająca w Wielkiej Brytanii żydowska grupa Campaign Against Antisemitism zwróciła uwagę na podcast Catholic Unscripted na X i Facebooku, informując, że „kilka osób ze społeczności katolickiej” napisało do nich „z obrzydzeniem” w związku z powszechnie znanymi poglądami księdza na temat „Żydów” i Holokaustu.


Wychwalanie książek negacjonistów Holokaustu

Początkowo Ashenden wykonał dyplomatyczne akrobacje wokół tego problemu w chaotycznym nagraniu wideo i artykule, w którym eufemistycznie zauważał, że Mawdsley „jest jednoznaczny w swoich konkretnych twierdzeniach na temat ‘Żydów’”.

Ale jak zareagował zespół Catholic Unscripted? Czy pokutowali we włosiennicach, sypiąc popiół na głowy? Czy usunęli obraźliwe wideo? Czy przeprosili naczelnego rabina Wielkiej Brytanii Efraima Mirvisa? Czy poszli do spowiedzi i odprawili pokutę, czytając Nostra Aetate? Nein! Nein!


Catholic Unscripted wydał bzdurne oświadczenie, w którym poparł Mawdsleya jako „wielkiego uczonego biblistę”. Chórem powtórzyli: „Wszyscy spotkaliśmy o. Mawdsleya i przeczytaliśmy jego książki”. „Jego książki są warte przeczytania”. „Był również bardzo miły i uprzejmy, gdy go poznaliśmy”.

Czyż można się mylić w jednej dziedzinie, a mieć rację w innej? Dobry kardiolog może być kiepskim cieślą, nu? Czy Mawdsley może się mylić co do Holokaustu, ale wykładać wielkie prawdy z tekstów biblijnych? Jako biblista nie sądzę.


Studia biblijne jako dyscyplina historyczna

Po pierwsze, studia biblijne są specjalistyczną dyscypliną. Wymagają co najmniej technicznej biegłości w języku hebrajskim, aramejskim i greckim. Badacz Pisma Świętego musi być biegły w krytyce tekstu i znać się na rękopisach i ich różnych interpretacjach.

Kiedy wykładałem biblistykę na uniwersytecie, ostrzegałem studentów, że jest to jedna z najtrudniejszych dziedzin, ponieważ wymaga zrozumienia językoznawstwa, literatury, geografii, ekonomii, socjologii, antropologii, kulturoznawstwa i, nade wszystko, biegłego posługiwania się metodą historyczną.

Żydzi i chrześcijanie wierzą, że nasza wiara jest zakorzeniona w historii. Biblia (pomimo szerokiego zakresu gatunków, od proroctw po poezję) jest historycznym repozytorium naszej religii. Musisz być utalentowanym historykiem, aby być dobrym biblistą.

Jeśli Mawdsley tak katastrofalnie myli się w interpretacji współczesnej historii i dopuszcza się maksymalnego rewizjonizmu historii najnowszej, to czy można mu zaufać w kwestii interpretacji historii sięgającej ponad 3000 lat wstecz, w starożytnych językach, których nie zna biegle?


Budowanie argumentu na błędach kopistów w Biblii

Jeśli Mawdsley tak katastrofalnie błędnie przedstawia współczesną historię i oddaje się daleko idącemu rewizjonizmowi niedawnych wydarzeń, w jaki sposób możemy polegać na jego zdolności analizowania historii sprzed tysiącleci, szczególnie przekazanej w starożytnych językach, w których nie wykazuje się żadną biegłością?

Mawdsley nie potrafi nawet wykryć rażącego błędu kopisty w łacińskim tłumaczeniu Wulgaty w Księdze Rodzaju 3:15, które brzmi: „ona zmiażdży ci głowę” zamiast „on zmiażdży ci głowę”. Opiera on całą książkę Crushing Satan’s Head: The Virgin Mary’s Victory Over the Antichrist Foretold in the Old Testament na tym błędnym tłumaczeniu. 

Odmawia uznania wyższości hebrajskiego tekstu masoreckiego lub greckiej Septuaginty. Nawet Watykan skorygował ten błąd w Nowej Wulgacie (1979), przyznając, że werset odnosi się do Mesjasza, a nie do Marii, matki Jezusa.

Po drugie, Mawdsley nie ma dyplomu z zakresu studiów biblijnych. Porzucił studia po trzech semestrach na Uniwersytecie w Bristolu, gdzie studiował matematykę i fizykę. Jego formacja kapłańska w Seminarium św. Piotra w Niemczech nie obejmowała ani licencjatu, ani magisterium z zakresu Pisma Świętego — ten ostatni jest kanonicznym wymogiem, by kwalifikować się jako uczony badacz Pisma Świętego w Kościele Rzymskim.

Ten samozwańczy uczony nigdy nie opublikował recenzowanego artykułu ani książki w wydawnictwie akademickim. Wszystkie jego siedem książek zostało wydanych własnym nakładem. Żaden biblista nigdy nie poparł żadnego z jego dzieł. Żadna gildia katolickich biblistów nigdy by go nie zaakceptowała. Mengele przynajmniej miał dyplomy z medycyny.


Fałszywy prorok w grzechu śmiertelnym

Po trzecie, zgodnie z nauką Kościoła katolickiego, Mawdsley znajduje się w stanie grzechu śmiertelnego. Katechizm Kościoła Katolickiego wyjaśnia, że podczas gdy „kłamstwo samo w sobie stanowi jedynie grzech powszedni, staje się ono grzechem śmiertelnym, gdy poważnie szkodzi cnotom sprawiedliwości i miłosierdzia” (2484). Kolosalne kłamstwa Mawdsleya nie są ani sprawiedliwe, ani miłosierne.

Czy ktoś, kto żyje w grzechu śmiertelnym, może być prowadzony przez Ducha Świętego — którego chrześcijanie uważają za boskiego przewodnika w interpretowaniu Pisma Świętego? Albo czy jak fałszywi prorocy Chananiasz, Paszhur i Szemajasz za czasów Jeremiasza, Mawdsley jest prowadzony przez diabelskiego ducha?

Po czwarte, katolicy wierzą również, że ksiądz musi podporządkować się biskupowi, aby móc sprawować posługę. Mawdsley nieszczerze powiedział Catholic Unscripted, że został „zawieszony”.

Wysłałem e-mail do jego byłego zakonu, Bractwa Kapłańskiego św. Piotra, a o. Daniel Powers, sekretarz prowincjalny, odpisał, aby potwierdzić, że Mawdsley został „kanonicznie wykluczony”.


Czy niedawni papieże kłamali w sprawie Szoah?

Po piąte, negacja Holokaustu przez Mawdsleya sugeruje, że niedawni papieże, którzy wyrazili zarówno żal, jak i skruchę z powodu Szoah, kłamią. W 2006 r. papież Benedykt XVI odwiedził Auschwitz i oświadczył: „Władcy Trzeciej Rzeszy chcieli zmiażdżyć cały naród żydowski, wykreślić go z rejestru narodów ziemi”.

„Nienawiść i pogarda dla mężczyzn, kobiet i dzieci, które objawiły się w Szoah, były zbrodnią przeciwko Bogu i przeciwko ludzkości” – powiedział Benedykt XVI w 2009 r. „Powinno to być jasne dla każdego, szczególnie dla tych, którzy stoją w tradycji Pisma Świętego ”.

W 1979 roku papież Jan Paweł II odwiedził Auschwitz, mówiąc, że „chodził pośród ruin pieców Birkenau”. Polski papież wyraził żal z powodu sześciu milionów Polaków, z których większość była katolikami. Wielu, w tym księża i zakonnice, również doświadczyło losu swoich żydowskich sąsiadów. Zaprzeczanie Shoah przez Mawdsleya obraża świętą pamięć jego własnych katolickich męczenników.

Mawdsley szydzi z współczesnych tłumaczeń Biblii, nazywając je „judaizowanymi Bibliami”. Gdyby tylko był „wielkim uczonym Pisma Świętego”, wiedziałby, że Żydzi nie tylko napisali cały Tanach  (Stary Testament), ale także cały Nowy Testament, z możliwym wyjątkiem Ewangelii Łukasza.

Nawet pogląd, że Łukasz był chrześcijaninem pochodzenia pogańskiego, jest obecnie odrzucany przez biblistów od czasu, gdy przełomowa rozprawa doktorska Joshuy Paula Smitha zatytułowana  Luke Was Not a Christian: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Jewish Authorship of Luke and Acts [Łukasz nie był chrześcijaninem: interdyscyplinarne spojrzenie na żydowskie autorstwo Ewangelii Łukasza i Dziejów Apostolskich], 2021) wykazała, że Łukasz najprawdopodobniej był Żydem.

Obrona Hitlera jest perwersją. Popieranie neonazistów jest złem. Ashenden, Bennett i Lambert są winni nie przez skojarzenie, ale dlatego, że odrzucili napomnienie Psalmu 1: 

Szczęśliwy mąż, który nie idzie za radą występnych, nie wchodzi na drogę grzeszników i nie siada w kole szyderców, lecz ma upodobanie w Prawie Pana, nad Jego Prawem rozmyśla dniem i nocą.

Dr. Jules Gomes, brytyjski badacz biblii, pisarz i dziennikarz akredytowany w Watykanie.

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How Bibi Buggered On to Victory

May3
How Bibi Buggered On to Victory

Edward N. Luttwak

Through sheer tenacity, the Israeli prime minister fended off unremitting pressure from Washington and reshaped the regional map. But his most critical test still lies ahead.

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

When you’ve worked long enough in the field of strategy, you eventually come to the depressing realization that victory in any major war is not won by some brilliant strategy, feats of generalship, or even superior technology. Rather, it’s won by sheer tenacity.

Tenacity is the most important virtue of national leaders at war, which allows them to press on with no assurance of victory, fending off tremendous political pressures to fold. Winston Churchill displayed this quality in 1940. In June of that year, Germany appeared unstoppable. Paris and the entirety of Western Europe had fallen. The Luftwaffe was grinding down the grossly outnumbered British pilots, and German invasion barges were being assembled in Belgian ports. Even then, with Britain desperate for U.S. support, the American national debate on interventionism, prompted by the outbreak of war in September 1939, continued to break decisively in favor of the isolationists.

Exploring an accommodation with Germany appeared as the eminently reasonable and prudent course of action because of Herr Hitler’s generous offer to leave Britain and its vast empire intact. When British parliamentarians pressed Churchill to explain his plan, he confessed to his intimates that he had no plan at all. He was determined to just keep buggering on.

Then the situation became bleaker still for the British and for Churchill personally. In June 1941, the German army smashed its way into Russia, advancing rapidly toward what looked like an imminent victory. Although the Wehrmacht’s swift conquests promised to wholly remedy Germany’s only weakness—its lack of petroleum—the isolationists in the U.S. Congress remained dominant. Meanwhile, at home, London was abuzz with talk of Churchill’s heavy drinking, his personal dependence on gifts from his Jewish friends to pay for his extravagant tastes and, above all, his utter lack of strategy—he had failed to offer any path at all that could conceivably lead to victory.

Things looked grim all around. In North Africa, the brilliant German tactician Erwin Rommel was outmaneuvering British forces with ease. Much worse were the first reports of Germany’s astonishing technological progress: the world’s first jet fighter that could easily outfly every single British and American fighter; the world’s first air-to-surface missile (Fritz X) that, in September 1943, would sink the Italian battleship Roma (to prevent it from surrendering to the Allies); and the Tiger tank that could crush British armor.

Nevertheless, the isolationists in Congress refused to fund even a prosaic piston-engine fighter project—the P-51 Mustang, the war’s best Allied fighter—which was developed with fast-dwindling British funds.

Churchill’s answer? Just keep buggering on.

With a remarkable array of forces, external and internal, bearing down on him, Netanyahu’s tenacity was the only thing that mattered.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long advertised his admiration for Churchill; the British leader’s portrait hangs in his office. He shares Churchill’s taste for cognac and cigars and has been in trouble with Israel’s exceptionally stringent political gift laws for years because he accepted gifted cognac from a gent who neither asked for, nor received, any government favors.

But it’s in his handling of Washington during his war that Netanyahu has earned the comparison with his role model. Whereas Churchill’s problem was an isolationist Congress that constrained a generally sympathetic president, Netanyahu enjoyed ample support on the Hill but faced an American administration determined to cut Israel down to size and to remove him from power.

As Israel fought a major, multifront war in October 2023, key U.S. officials encouraged domestic uproar against Netanyahu and worked to constrain him and even collapse his government.

That was not all the president’s doing, but Joe Biden’s administration was stacked with Barack Obama’s leftovers, who ran the gamut of pathological Israel haters, from Samantha Power to Robert Malley—the red-diaper baby of Stalinist Jewish parents in Paris whom I met in my youth when they were working for Algeria’s National Liberation Front, which was not merely fanatically anti-Israel but also declaredly anti-Jewish, much like Yemen’s Houthis today. With the CIA mostly very hostile (as it has been since it was established in 1947, as declassified documents fully reveal), only the Pentagon harbored some friends of Israel—although that hardly stopped the administration from using every trick in the book to delay mid-war weapons supplies to Israel.

Netanyahu faced a concerted campaign, directed from Washington, that brought together Israeli nonprofits and Netanyahu’s political opponents. Almost from the get-go, Netanyahu had to overcome calls and protests by well-educated—and some even well-meaning—Israelis and American Jews, as well as all the usual suspects in European capitals and almost every other world government incessantly demanding a cease-fire, not as a pause, but as an end to the war.

Worse still, several of Israel’s retired and barely retired generals threw their weight behind the cease-fire push. Some did so with the authority of true heroes, such as Yair Golan, the head of the unsubtly named The Democrats (a merger of the left-wing Labor and Meretz Parties) and former IDF deputy chief of staff no less. Golan jumped into his small car on Oct. 7 to successfully rescue people with his handgun, as did the former head of the IDF’s Operations Directorate Israel Ziv, now a very successful security contractor overseas after distinguished service, who became the guru of an entire cabal of retired generals, including some who served in Netanyahu’s government until they left it to oppose him. Then, inevitably, there were tawdry time-servers who somehow became generals without doing much other than talking, like Amos Gilead, who’s well known and much-favored in U.S. officialdom because of his hostility to Netanyahu.

All those former generals demanded the same thing, albeit at different times: to stop the war with no way of recovering the Israeli hostages and no way of forcing Hamas to accept supervised disarmament, therefore allowing it to use a cease-fire to reconstitute.

Furthermore, these generals offered no solution whatever to the Hezbollah dilemma in the north. The day after the Oct. 7 attack, Hezbollah started launching rockets against Israel. If Israel did not attack, Hezbollah forces, then assuredly the most powerful non-state army in the world, was certainly capable of burning every Jewish town and village north of Haifa with countless rockets (the number 110,000 that was widely circulated turned out to be simply invented) while targeting power stations, Ben Gurion Airport, port facilities, every chemical plant and refinery, and every air base with thousands of guided missiles. If Israel were to attack, those massive barrages would immediately begin.

As Netanyahu pondered this dilemma, he had to deal not only with his security establishment but also with unremitting pressure from Washington. A mere few days after Oct. 7, the Biden administration intervened and made clear its opposition to an Israeli preemptive strike against Hezbollah—a position it would maintain over the next year. In fact, when Israel finally eliminated Hassan Nasrallah in a strike on his bunker on Sept. 27, 2024, Biden’s reaction was an irate “Bibi, what the fuck?”

The Biden administration displayed a similar hands-off attitude toward Iran’s proxy in Yemen, allowing Tehran to pile more pressure on Israel. The Houthis joined the fight with their skirts, sandals, and Iranian supplied anti-ship missiles and drones that not only deprived Israel of its secondary Red Sea sea port access but also targeted commercial vessels, blocking navigation in the area and forcing shipping companies to find longer, more expensive routes, thereby augmenting U.S. and international pressure on Israel to end the war. Washington allowed Iran to stop maritime traffic in the Red Sea and Suez Canal without any retaliation against Tehran and its own maritime traffic, while Western disarray was compounded by the spectacle of very expensive European navies doing nothing much even as their Mediterranean ports lost all their Asian traffic.

This shameful passivity reinforced the Israeli conviction that France, Italy, and Spain, unable and unwilling to defend even their own direct material interests, would only yield to Muslim demographic and political pressure in other respects as well. Only the British joined the United States in eventually striking the Houthis, though mostly symbolically and nowhere near the sustained and targeted campaign required to destroy Houthi capabilities.

Between American permissiveness toward Iran’s multipronged campaign and Washington’s support for Netanyahu’s domestic opposition, calls for a Gaza cease-fire intensified and became the default position across the political landscape, from Israel’s left and even moderate center to most European governments, in addition to the Biden administration.

It is against this backdrop that Netanyahu’s pure resolve must be understood. With this remarkable array of forces, external and internal, bearing down on him, his tenacity was the only thing that mattered.

Having withstood this unrelenting pressure over the course of a year, Netanyahu had maneuvered into a position where, in the second half of 2024, Israel was able to turn the tables and reshape the entire geopolitical picture in a historic sequence of events. The Mossad and the IDF brilliantly wrecked Hezbollah with the awe-inspiring three-part takedown of exploding pagers, which forced the use of booby-trapped field radios, which in turn forced the in-person meeting of senior Hezbollah commanders, who were then eliminated in a precision strike that left the group totally paralyzed, nullifying its vast rocket and missile arsenal. Because he had monopolized Hezbollah’s command and control, Nasrallah’s death shut down the organization.

Although the Biden administration would succeed finally in imposing a cease-fire in Lebanon, after reportedly threatening to sponsor a Security Council resolution that could lead to international sanctions on Israel, by then the die was cast. As a consequence of Hezbollah’s demolition, Iran’s Syrian vassal, Bashar al-Assad, found himself defenseless, having long become dependent on Hezbollah and Iranian militias for manpower. In early December 2024, the half-century rule of the Assad family came to an end. With the fall of their fiefdom in Syria, and with the IDF in control of the Gaza-Egypt border, the Iranians lost the ability to rebuild Hezbollah and Hamas, giving Israel its most conclusive victory since 1949.

Israel’s astounding technical prowess and the fighting spirit of its military are, of course, integral to this victory. But none of the above could have happened had Netanyahu not held out against an unfriendly American administration and an accompanying assortment of authoritative figures and institutions, as well as howling mobs in Israel and around the world that demanded a cease-fire and the Israeli prime minister in handcuffs.

Netanyahu still faces a major test. With the Houthis now in the crosshairs of the new friendly and engaged U.S. administration and its British ally, only Iran itself still stands, now on the verge of machining fissile material for a bomb. Israel destroyed Iran’s best air defenses in precision strikes last October, leaving it vulnerable to Israeli attacks on its nuclear sites as soon as Israel’s new air refueling tankers arrive. But without the large bomb loads of American B-2 and B-52 long-range heavy bombers, the targeting must depend on hitting exactly the right building in the right base. The penalty of imperfection is too great, for it would allow the obscurantist regime to have a nuclear device, even if not missile-delivered warheads. That is not an acceptable risk. Netanyahu has no option but to keep buggering on.

Edward N. Luttwak is a contractual strategic consultant for the U.S. government and an author.

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Trump’s Nuclear Talks With Iran Prompt Concern Among Republicans, Applause From Ex-Obama Officials

May3
Trump’s Nuclear Talks With Iran Prompt Concern Among Republicans, Applause From Ex-Obama Officials

Corey Walker

US President Trump speaks to the media at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, Washington, DC, April 21, 2025. Photo: Andrew Leyden/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect

As the US continues to negotiate a potential nuclear deal with Iran, the Trump administration has drawn praise from political adversaries and criticism from traditional allies over a perceived reversion to the basic framework of the now-defunct 2015 nuclear accord, which US President Donald Trump has lambasted as a dangerous agreement.

Members of the former Obama administration have expressed cautious optimism that the approach of Trump and his team to the current nuclear talks might mirror the steps they took to reach the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 deal which placed temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of major international sanctions. Trump withdrew the US from the accord during his first presidential term in 2018, arguing it was too weak and would undermine American interests.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers and hawkish foreign policy analysts have increasingly raised skepticism about the Trump administration’s approach to the Iranian nuclear program, suggesting that the White House has been receiving bad advice.

Such critics have argued that the White House may have relaxed its hardline stance against Iranian uranium enrichment, potentially allowing Iran’s Islamist regime to continue enriching uranium “civilian purposes.” Tehran has previously rejected halting its uranium enrichment program, insisting that the country’s right to enrich uranium is non-negotiable. Iranian officials have also refused to include their ballistic missile program, which would allow Iran to continue improving its weapons delivery capabilities, in negotiations with Washington. 

The 2015 deal, which the Obama administration negotiated with Iran and other world powers, allowed Iran to enrich significant quantities of uranium to low levels of purity and stockpile them. It did not directly address the regime’s ballistic missile program but included an eight-year restriction on Iranian nuclear-capable ballistic missile activities.

Allies of Trump had argued such terms of the deal were insufficient, as they would allow the regime to maintain a large-scale nuclear program and wait for certain restrictions to expire before ramping up their activity. Supporters of the deal countered that the accord kept Iran further away from being able to break out toward a bomb quickly and gave international inspectors greater access to Iranian nuclear sites.

The current framework being advanced by the Trump administration “suggests that the Americans have, at least for now, abandoned several of the fundamental demands that were emphasized before negotiations began,” the Israeli outlet Israel Hayom wrote.

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who served as Trump’s top diplomat from 2018 to 2021, questioned the utility of attempting to broker a nuclear deal with Iran “while it is at its weakest strategic point in decades” in a recent article for the Free Press. He appeared to be referring to Israel’s military activities in recent months decimating Iran’s air defenses and proxy forces — particularly Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — in the Middle East. Pompeo argued that conservatives who “coddle” Iran in hopes of avoiding war are only ensuring that Tehran eventually acquires a nuclear weapon. 

The White House has also received criticism from fellow Republicans in Congress. In a comment posted on X/Twitter, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), for example, lamented, “Anyone urging Trump to enter into another Obama Iran deal is giving the president terrible advice.” Urging the White House to reverse course, Cruz added that Trump “is entirely correct when he says Iran will NEVER be allowed to have nukes. His team should be 100% unified behind that.”

Andrea Stricker, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where she works as deputy director of the think tank’s Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program, also warned against any deal allowing Iran to retain its uranium enrichment capabilities.

“Only the full, verified, and permanent dismantlement of Iran’s enrichment, weaponization, and missile-delivery programs constitutes a sound deal with Iran,” she told The Algemeiner. “Leaving enriched uranium, associated facilities, centrifuges, and infrastructure in the country means Tehran can renege on a deal and ramp its nuclear threat up at any time. Iran’s breakout time would also be considerably shorter today given its stock of thousands of fast-enriching advanced centrifuges.”

Stricker continued, “The regime’s goal is to wait out the Trump administration, delay sanctions pressure, and avoid a military strike. The administration should make clear that dismantlement is the only possible deal that allows the regime to avoid major consequences.”

David Bedein, director of the Jerusalem-based Center for Near East Policy Research, blasted the Trump administration for supposedly keeping the details of the negotiations a “mystery” and potentially compromising Israel’s long-term interests in the region.

The Trump administration’s allowing Iran to continue enriching uranium would be “an absolute violation of Israel’s interests,” he told The Algemeiner.

Bedein also claimed that the intentions of Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, are “dangerously unclear,” noting his ties to Qatar, which has long maintained close cooperation with Iran and supported terrorist groups such as Hamas.

In 2023, the Qatar Investment Authority, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, purchased one of Witkoff’s New York properties for nearly $623 million. Witkoff further raised eyebrows earlier this year when he praised Qatar as a partner of the US and a stabilizing force in the Middle East.

Witkoff drew backlash last month when, during a Fox News interview, he suggested that Iran would be allowed to pursue a nuclear program for so-called civilian purposes, saying that Iran “does not need to enrich past 3.67 percent.” The next day, Witkoff backtracked on these remarks, writing on X/Twitter that Tehran must “stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that Iran has to “walk away” from uranium enrichment and long-range missile development and it should allow nuclear inspectors access to military facilities.

Despite pursuing diplomacy, Trump has said he is committed to ensuring Iran never gets a nuclear weapon and has threatened additional sanctions, tariffs, and military action if Iran does not agree to a deal to curb its nuclear activity.

Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran during Trump’s first term crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress criticized the former Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency. Critics argue that Iran likely used these funds to provide resources for Hamas and Hezbollah to wage new terrorist campaigns against the Jewish state, including the brutal Oct. 7 massacres throughout southern Israel perpetrated by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists.

Iran has claimed that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes rather than building weapons. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, reported last year that Iran had greatly accelerated uranium enrichment to close to weapons grade at its Fordow site dug into a mountain.

The UK, France, and Germany said in a statement at the time that there is no “credible civilian justification” for Iran’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”

However, former key players within the Obama administration have praised the similarities between Trump’s efforts and the JCPOA. 

Ilan Goldberg, a national security advisor in the Pentagon and State Department during the Obama administration, praised the Trump administration for doing the “right thing” by revisiting key components of the now-scrapped JCPOA during their negotiations with Iran. 

“It’s hard not to take a jab at Donald Trump for walking away from the nuclear deal in the first place, because I think if we get to a deal, it’ll probably be something pretty similar,” Goldberg told Jewish Insider. 

Phil Gordon, a national security advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf Region during the Obama administration, said that the Trump team will learn that they are likely to “have to accept some of the same imperfections that the Obama team did.”

Israel has been among the most vocal proponents of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arguing that that the US should pursue a “Libyan option” to eliminate the possibility of Tehran acquiring a nuclear weapon by overseeing the destruction of Iran’s nuclear installations and the dismantling of equipment.

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