Archive | 2025/06/07

Palenie Żydów w Kolorado świadczy o tym, że Zachód zwraca się ku faszyzmowi

Jun7

Palenie Żydów w Kolorado świadczy o tym, że Zachód zwraca się ku faszyzmowi

Brendan O’Neill
Tłumaczenie: Małgorzata Koraszewska

Jeśli ten barbarzyński atak nie obudzi ludzkiego sumienia, to już nic innego tego nie zrobi

Znowu palą Żydów. Wczoraj w Boulder w stanie Kolorado mężczyzna użył prowizorycznego miotacza ognia i koktajli Mołotowa w próbie spalenia Żydów. Osiem osób w wieku od 52 do 88 lat zostało rannych. Ich „przestępstwo”? Zebrali się publicznie, aby domagać się uwolnienia izraelskich zakładników. W Europie w latach 30. XX wieku za pomoc nieszczęsnym Żydom groziła kara śmierci. Wygląda na to, że w Ameryce w trzeciej dekadzie XXI wieku są ludzie, którzy marzą o wskrzeszeniu tej ponurej, brutalnej kary za współczucie dla Żydów.

To był naprawdę odrażający atak. Podejrzany nazywa się Mohamed Soliman. Podobno jest nielegalnym imigrantem z Egiptu. Podobno oblał łatwopalną cieczą ludzi domagających się uwolnienia porwanych, a następnie skierował na nich płomienie. „Podpalił ludzi”, jak jasnym językiem przedstawiła to CNN. Przeczytaj to jeszcze raz. W USA w 2025 roku podpalono zgromadzenie ludzi wyrażających solidarność z żydowskimi ofiarami neofaszyzmu. Na nagraniu widać, jak podejrzany trzyma w rękach koktajle mołotowa i krzyczy „Wolna Palestyna!”. U jego stóp leżą podpaleni Żydzi.

Według informacji najstarsza ofiara, która ma 88 lat, jest uchodźczynią z Europy z czasów nazizmu. Jest „bardzo dobrym człowiekiem”, powiedział miejscowy rabin. Moralny ogrom tego wydaje się przytłaczający. Ktoś, kto uciekł przed masowym paleniem Żydów w latach 40. XX wieku w Europie, pada ofiarą nowego rodzaju palenia Żydów w Ameryce XXI wieku. Ktoś, czyja rodzina została spalona na popiół przez nazistów, zostaje „podpalony” przez rzekomego propalestyńskiego aktywistę we współczesnym Kolorado. Będzie to czarny dzień dla ludzkości, jeśli płomienna, starożytna nienawiść do narodu żydowskiego zainfekuje amerykańską republikę, niegdyś bezpieczną przystań dla Żydów uciekających przed szaleństwami Starego Świata.

FBI nazywa to „możliwym” atakiem terrorystycznym. Minister spraw zagranicznych Izraela, Gideon Sa’ar, mówi, że był to akt „czystego antysemityzmu”. Próbowaliśmy ostrzec świat przed okrzykami takimi jak „Globalizacja intifady”, powiedział Ted Deutch z American Jewish Committee. Mówi, że ci spaleni Żydzi są końcowym rezultatem tego gorączkowego nawoływania do umiędzynarodowienie gwałtownej nienawiści Hamasu do żydowskiej ojczyzny. Żydzi w Ameryce są niespokojni. Zrozumiałe. Zaledwie 10 dni temu zastrzelono dwoje ludzi przed muzeum żydowskim w Waszyngtonie. Strzelał człowiek, który także krzyczał „Wolna Palestyna!”. A teraz to.

FBI twierdzi, że podejrzany o spalenie Żydów w Kolorado działał sam. Nie trzeba dodawać, że jest on jedyną osobą odpowiedzialną za terror i poparzenia zadane tym biednym ludziom. A jednak nie działał w próżni. W ciągu 20 miesięcy od pogromu dokonanego przez Hamas 7 października 2023 r. byliśmy świadkami brutalnej demonizacji każdego, kto oferuje solidarność z izraelskimi zakładnikami. Plakaty porwanych z ich zdjęciami były oszpecane i niszczone. Na niektórych dopisywano słowo „kolonialista”, a nawet domalowywano wąsy Hitlera. Zrywano żółte wstążki dla zakładników.

Wzywanie do uwolnienia zakładników zaczęto traktować jako podejrzany czyn. Nawet nazywanie ich „zakładnikami” jest ryzykowne – są „jeńcami wojennymi”, wrzeszczy zachodni legion izraelofobów. Współczucie dla zakładników jest marną przykrywką „ludobójczych działań”, mówią antyizraelscy agitatorzy. Nienawiść do państwa żydowskiego wśród klas aktywistów stała się tak wściekła, tak niezrównoważona, że nawet współczucie dla obywateli państwa żydowskiego jest postrzegane jako mordercze szaleństwo. To, że ludzie wzywający do uwolnienia zakładników zostali tak brutalnie zaatakowani w Kolorado, jest głęboko szokujące. Ale nie jest to całkowicie zaskakujące.

Czujemy się, jakbyśmy przeżywali coś gorszego niż odrodzenie najstarszego rasizmu – jakby na Zachodzie nastąpił zwrot ku faszyzmowi. Rozważmy niektóre z koszmarów ostatnich dwóch tygodni. Żydówka w Waszyngtonie zamordowana, gdy rozpaczliwie próbowała odczołgać się od mężczyzny, który do niej strzelał. Trzy synagogi i pomnik Holokaustu zdewastowane w Paryżu. Żydowski uczeń zabrany do szpitala po brutalnym ataku w londyńskim metrze. Żydowska firma zniszczona przez wandali na londyńskim Stamford Hill. A teraz Żydzi „podpaleni”. I przez cały czas ten nieustanny wrzask: dźwięk armii aktywistów potępiających naród żydowski jako najnikczemniejszy naród na świecie, morderca niemowląt, nikczemny kontroler spraw świata. Coraz głośniej rozlegają się echa średniowiecza. Ciemność rozprzestrzenia się.

Niektórym z tych ponurych czynów towarzyszyły słowa „Wolna Palestyna!”. Jedni to wykrzykiwali, inni malowali sprayem. Czyż nie jest niezwykłe, że tak wiele z tego, co jest robione rzekomo w imię „wyzwolenia Palestyny”, ma charakterystyczny posmak faszystowskiej nienawiści? Rozbite szkło witryn żydowskich przedsiębiorstw, profanacja synagog, mordowanie Żydów, Żydzi w ogniu. Ci napastnicy i aktywiści mogą wołać „Wolna Palestyna” ile chcą – dla niektórych z nas, jeśli wygląda to jak faszyzm i gdaka jak faszyzm, to może to jest pieprzony faszyzm.

Teraz jest zupełnie jasne, że „Wolna Palestyna” nie ma nic wspólnego z Palestyńczykami. To, że to hasło było ostatnią rzeczą, jaką usłyszała Sarah Milgrim, gdy rozpaczliwie czołgała się przed swoim zabójcą w Waszyngtonie, że to hasło zabrzmiało w uszach uchodźczyni z Holokaustu w Boulder, gdy ją podpalono, potwierdza, że jest to krzyk jadowitej nienawiści owinięty w pozornie postępowe żądanie. Wydaje mi się, że los Palestyńczyków został całkowicie przejęty przez klasę aktywistów Zachodu, którzy nienawidzą samych siebie, ukrywając swoje gwałtowne odrzucenie rozumu i Oświecenia za kefiją, aby średniowieczna histeria wydawała się odważna i lewicowa. Ideologia bestialstwa prześladuje współczesny Zachód i odzwierciedla najciemniejsze karty historii ludzkości, a tego nie można dłużej ignorować.

„Gdzie palą książki, tam w końcu będą palić także ludzi” – powiedział Heinrich Heine. Teraz moglibyśmy powiedzieć, że tam, gdzie brutalnie niszczą symbole solidarności z żydowskimi zakładnikami, będą również brutalnie atakować ludzi, którzy oferują te wyrazy solidarności. Ci, którzy popełniają akty przemocy, są odpowiedzialni za to, co robią. Reszta z nas jest odpowiedzialna za to, jak reagujemy. A jeśli na dosłowne palenie Żydów nie odpowiemy sprawiedliwą furią, jakiej wymaga tak chora zbrodnia, ryzykujemy pogłębieniem pierwotnego horroru. Sumienie ludzkości spało wystarczająco długo.

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

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Why does Tucker Carlson want to appease Tehran?

Jun7
Why does Tucker Carlson want to appease Tehran?

Jonathan S. Tobin

The “woke right” rages against a tougher policy on Iran as well as support for Israel. It’s clear that their motives for wanting to repeat Obama’s folly, which didn’t put America first, are morally questionable.

A week before U.S. elections, GOP presidential nominee and former president Donald Trump sits down for a conversation with political commentator Tucker Carlson during his Live Tour at the Desert Diamond Arena in Phoenix, Ariz, Oct. 31, 2024. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

There has always been something that didn’t add up about Tucker Carlson’s stands on the Middle East. The former Fox News host, who now has a show primarily seen on the X social-media platform, has always been that rare conservative talker who was, to put it mildly, unenthusiastic about the alliance with Israel. Even more strangely, he appeared soft on an Islamist regime in Iran that hated the United States and had the blood of many Americans on its hands.

But while Carlson’s impact on public opinion has declined since he was booted out of his prominent perch at Fox and relegated to an Internet show, his influence within the inner circles of the Trump administration seems not only undiminished but perhaps increased. None of the controversies surrounding him, including his platforming of Israel-haters, antisemites and Holocaust deniers, has made him radioactive enough to be exiled from the presidential court at the White House or Mar-a-Lago. To the contrary, his show has regularly hosted administration figures in recent months.

An ominous negotiation

That makes his increasingly strident views about Iran particularly ominous.

This is particularly relevant now because President Donald Trump appears to be negotiating a new nuclear deal that could be just as weak as the one struck with Tehran by former President Barack Obama in 2015. Though nothing has been settled, the prospect of an interim accord that would not only grant legitimacy to its nuclear program but also its right to enrich uranium is a shocking development to those who assumed that the Trump 2.0 administration would be as tough on Iran as Trump 1.0.

So when Carlson launched into a lengthy tirade on X denouncing Mark Levin, the host of a radio talk show, as well as the “Life, Liberty & Levin” program that still appears on Fox News, for “lobbying for war with Iran” at the White House, it seemed something like a declaration of war on pro-Israel conservatives.

The “woke right” movement that Carlson leads is a bafflingly diverse and often contradictory gathering of erstwhile right- and left-wingers that seem united only by their hostility to Israel, coupled with opposition to anything that is even tangentially connected to Jews and the Jewish state. While their clout should not be exaggerated, the encouragement it is giving to those inside the administration pursuing an Iran strategy that seems remarkably similar to that of Obama and Biden should not be discounted. With the outcome of these talks and the ultimate direction of the second Trump administration’s foreign policy still far from determined, an examination of Carlson’s efforts to bolster and to rationalize appeasement of an Islamist regime that hates America and all it stands for requires something of an explanation.

An internal split on Iran

Unraveling Trump’s seeming flip-flop on Iran is no easy task.

His reluctance for the United States to become involved in a new war is understandable, popular and a reasonable position to take. But the notion that the only choices that Washington has with respect to Iran are appeasement or war is simply not true. It’s the same false argument that Obama offered in defense of his Iran policy. As Trump subsequently showed, a policy of serious sanctions that were rigorously enforced and imposed on American allies could do real damage to the country run by mullahs. An even tougher sanctions campaign, combined with Israeli military pressure (that has already cut down to size Iran’s allies in Lebanon and destroyed them in Syria), offers hope for a third way.

Nevertheless, the Iranian progress toward their nuclear ambition under the feckless Biden administration, which dropped Trump’s sanctions, has brought Tehran to the brink of a nuclear weapon. That’s a dismal prospect for Western security that obligates the president to consider that more diplomacy with a regime whose hostility to America is a given and that can be counted on never to keep its word, is not a rational course of action.

How did Trump wind up echoing Obama talking points?

It’s hard to figure. This is, after all, the same president who rejected Obama’s disastrously weak deal that enriched and empowered the Islamist regime, guaranteeing that it would get a nuclear weapon. He also imposed a punishing “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions that restricted its ability to fund international terrorism, and in January 2020, killed its chief terrorist, Qassem Soleimani, the head of Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

While only one person is in charge in the current White House—Trump—there is no question but that some of his new foreign-policy advisers seem to share an aversion to confronting Tehran. Among them are Vice President JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence. And both are friends of Carlson.

American conservative commentator Tucker Carlson addresses a crowd via a video link during the federal election campaign launch for Clive Palmer’s “Trumpet of Patriots” party on the Sunshine Coast, Australia, April 19, 2025. Photo by Dan Peled/Getty Images.

Probing Carlson’s influence

That means the question of Carlson’s influence—and that of his friends inside the administration who may agree with him on the issue—is no longer merely a matter of idle speculation. It is now one of life and death, when one considers the possible implications of an accord that could lead to the lifting of sanctions and the preservation of a program that has already made Iran a threshold nuclear power.

Since he left Fox, the filters have been off for Carlson as he has given vent to a variety of extremist views on a number of issues. His highlighting of World War II revisionism about Churchill, Hitler and the Holocaust, as well as anti-Israel views, has been presented with the same disingenuous “just asking questions” approach that is customary on the far right. Carlson’s acolytes may think that regurgitating Hamas talking points, whitewashing Qatar and echoing 90-year-old Nazi propaganda are the hallmarks of intelligent inquiry. But all that points to his unabashed extremism and antisemitism-adjacent views. There have also been questions raised about whether Qatar or other Islamist entities have been funneling money to him in one way or the other.

Part of the reason why none of this has proved disqualifying for him is the strong reservoir of goodwill among mainstream conservatives that he built up during his years at Fox. During the Black Lives Matter summer of 2020, he was easily the most powerful voice refuting the spirit of moral panic about race that swept the country in the weeks and months after the killing of George Floyd that spring. At that time, he assumed something of a role as the tribune of the right, pushing back against woke ideology and myths about police hunting down African-Americans.

But in subsequent years, Carlson became less focused on giving voice to mainstream conservative opinions and ultimately burned his bridges with his employers at Fox. He might have sunk into irrelevance once deprived of such a potent platform as a primetime spot on the nation’s most-watched cable news station. Though he reaches fewer people now on a program primarily viewed on the X social media platform, his close ties to the Trumps via the president’s son, Donald Jr., proved a lifeline. The fact that he sometimes accompanied the president to public events or was seen at his Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida in his company ensured that he would still be seen as a figure to be reckoned with.

That was solidified when, along with Elon Musk and Don Jr., Carlson lobbied hard for Trump to pick Vance as his running mate. Vance’s strong showing in the 2024 election and his deft ability to show serious policy chops and extreme deference to the president enhanced his standing inside the White House—and did Carlson no harm either. While Vance hasn’t endorsed any of Carlson’s extreme stands, neither was he willing to condemn them.

The vice president’s stands on democracy and free speech in Europe, as well as his defense of working-class interests, are correct and broadly popular with most Republicans and conservatives. But the Signalgate scandal made it clear that Vance was, at the very least, skeptical about a tough stand against Iran and the Houthis, the Islamic Republic’s terrorist clients in Yemen.

Carlson also made friends inside Trumpworld while angering many mainstream Republicans and Trump supporters by rushing to the defense of Steve Witkoff, the president’s hapless Middle East envoy. Witkoff, like Carlson, is compromised by the support he’s gotten from Qatar, and has made statements and pursued diplomacy that seemed to be primarily motivated by a desire to appease and rationalize the Gulf state, Iran and its terror proxy, Hamas.

A classic antisemitic trope

The more one understands Carlson’s position on Iran, the more unhinged and detached from reality it seems.

His rant against Levin was an absurd compilation of falsehoods and pro-Tehran spin that could just as easily have come out of an article in the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera propaganda outlet. In plain contradiction of facts that are widely acknowledged by the U.S. government and other sources, Carlson claimed that Iran didn’t want a nuclear weapon and was nowhere close to making one. The picture of a peaceful and non-terrorist regime he painted was as truthful as the one that classic New York Times fraudster and Soviet apologist Walter Duranty in the 1930s reported in which he denied Joseph Stalin’s mass murder in Ukraine and equally bloody purges.

That’s bad enough. However, the smearing of Levin as a war-monger and the Pat Buchananesque claim that he wouldn’t fight against Iran was a classic antisemitic trope.

Equally false was Carlson’s claim that Iran—a peace-loving nation that posed no threat to America or its allies—is a fearsome regional superpower that could defeat the United States and/or Israel in war. This was given the lie by the pathetic failure of Iran’s missile attacks on Israel and the fact that the Israelis have already destroyed their enemy’s air defenses.

That latter point makes it particularly vulnerable at the moment to an Israeli or Western attack—an advantage that might be lost if Trump’s talks, even if ultimately unsuccessful, delay any action until after those defenses are rebuilt or restored (with assistance by Russian, which is a current quagmire of its own in its three-year war on Ukraine). The indefinite postponement of any strike on Iran that Trump has requested that Israel honor is handing a militarily weak, politically unstable and deeply unpopular regime a lifeline.

‘America First’ or isolationism?

The breach between those with realistic attitudes toward Iran, such as that of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Iran appeasers, is real. Some put it down to the difference between those who embrace a true “America First” policy and those who essentially believe in an “America Only” policy that is hard to distinguish from isolationism.

Still others see this as no different from the debate that has been going on about whether a policy aimed at trying to enable Ukraine to “win” a truly unwinnable war against Russia is in America’s national interests. But while skepticism about that assertion is well-founded, the idea that America has no vital interest in ensuring that Islamist terrorists don’t set the Middle East on fire—as Iran has done with the multifront war it fomented against Israel and its threats to Arab nations like Saudi Arabia—is sheer madness. Allowing Iran to retain its nuclear program with the likelihood that this would lead to their acquiring such a weapon, would only give it more power to carry on its war against the West.

It is true that Trump does not have appeasing Iran as his goal, as was the case with Obama. No fool, he knows the difference between a worthless agreement and one that would actually defend America’s interests, as the accord Witkoff seems to be working for clearly would not.

But the same cannot be said for Carlson’s position on Iran. His stand seems unquestionably rooted in a desire to abandon American strategic interests in the region, imperil Israel and empower the West-hating Iran and its Qatari ally. When one combines this with his willingness to engage in advocacy against the war in Gaza that is being fought against Iran’s Hamas allies—which is, like the same positions taken by woke left-wingers—inextricably linked to antisemitism, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that his hysteria about those who oppose appeasement of Iran is motivated by something other than American patriotism. Carlson’s soft spot for Iran and hostility for the Jewish state was no secret even during his salad days at Fox, when Israel was a word that was seldom, if ever, spoken on the network between 8 p.m. and 9 pm.

We don’t know yet what Trump will ultimately do with respect to Iran and its nuclear program. But we do know that a person whose ill-intentioned motives are obvious seems to have his ear, and is seeking to persuade him to do something on that issue that is against the interests of America and its Middle East allies, as well as morally dubious.

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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It’s Important That We Know the Truth About the Aid Situation in Gaza

Jun7
It’s Important That We Know the Truth About the Aid Situation in Gaza

Pini Dunner

Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

Heads you win, tails I lose. That’s how it feels watching the world’s reaction to Israel and America’s new food aid model in Gaza.

For months, Israel was condemned for not letting enough aid in and for blockading aid until the hostages were released. Now that Israel is letting in food directly — but cutting the corrupt United Nations and the Hamas terrorists out of the picture — those same voices are howling even louder.

First, the accusation was: “You’re starving Gaza!” Now, it’s: “You’re weaponizing aid!” and “You’re manipulating Gaza’s hunger!” Heads you win, tails I lose. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. It’s utterly grotesque.

The images from Gaza tell the real story. Thousands of hungry people, many of them openly and unabashedly critical of Hamas, lining up at distribution points — eager to accept boxes of food from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is quietly, without fanfare, working with Israeli and American support.

Suddenly, we are witnessing a population that’s been exploited and abandoned by Hamas and used as political pawns by the UN finally ready — and finally able — to challenge their oppressors.

Yet instead of celebrating this breakthrough, the usual chorus of international do-gooders — all of them card-carrying haters of Israel and America — are up in arms.

The UN leadership is outraged at being usurped from its traditional role as the world’s perpetual busybody. Apparently, if the UN is to be taken at its word, delivering aid outside of Hamas’s control somehow violates humanitarian norms.

Even European diplomats are muttering darkly that this new scheme is some kind of Israeli conspiracy.

And it goes without saying that academics in distant universities are warning about “the instrumentalization of aid for war purposes.” Has anyone in all of history ever uttered something quite so ridiculous? In any event, try telling that to the Gazan father, who eagerly thanked “everyone who helped us” to a reporter on the scene.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Since the October 7th Hamas-perpetrated atrocity and the war against Hamas that followed, all these same voices have been deafeningly silent as Hamas turned food and medicine into tools of terror. Surely, that was “the instrumentalization of aid.”

But they said nothing while Hamas stole international donations in plain sight, extorted desperate families at military checkpoints, and funneled the profits into weapons and ever more violence. Now, as soon as Israel steps in to break that deadly cycle—taking real risks to ensure that Gazan civilians aren’t starved or blackmailed—these critics suddenly find their voices. But instead of using them to support real humanitarian work, they stridently protect the “principles” of an aid system that Hamas has been openly using as a cash cow.

It’s easy to stand in Geneva or New York and patronizingly tut-tut about “neutrality.” It’s much harder to look a starving child in the face and say: “Sorry, we can’t give you food unless your terrorist overlords sign off on it,” or “There’s food for you, but you can’t have it because it’s the Israelis giving it out.”

This is the greatest moral inversion of our times: Israel’s “sin” is that it’s doing what every serious humanitarian ought to do: stop the abuse of aid by criminals and ensure that food actually reaches the hungry.

Hamas is so eager to keep control, and its international enablers are so equally keen to keep Hamas from being ousted, that a shooting last week at a food collection point quickly became an international incident. The so-called mass casualty event occurred as hundreds of Gazans made their way to the only open distribution center in Rafah.

The Hamas-controlled “health ministry” claimed that 31 people were killed and nearly 200 wounded in the pre-dawn shooting near the site — and of course, inevitably, Israel was guilty of a deliberate massacre.

But even as news outlet after news outlet blindly reported the atrocity, the IDF denied responsibility and later published an audio recording featuring a local Gazan who insisted that it had been Hamas, not Israel, that opened fire. “They don’t want the people to receive aid,” he told an Israeli officer. “They want to foil the plan so that the aid will go to them, allowing them to steal it. They’ve gone completely bankrupt.”

The Torah in Parshat Nasso teaches us about the Nazir, someone who vows to separate themselves from wine and other mundane aspects of ordinary life for a period of spiritual self-discipline. The Torah says, “for the crown of his God is upon his head” (Num. 6:7).

It’s a powerful image: by abstaining from doing what others do, the Nazir isn’t running away from the world. Instead, they’re being true to themselves — choosing to do the right thing, even if it means breaking from routine in order to achieve something positive. And for that, they are depicted as having the crown of God on their heads.

The commentators add that the Nazir’s vow of abstention is really about reclaiming control. Instead of being pulled in every direction by outside influences — whether it’s peer pressure, popular opinion, or the desire to fit in — the Nazir says: “Enough is enough. I will not be ruled by these forces. I will decide my own path.”

That’s precisely what Israel’s new aid model is doing. Israel has finally, and wisely, entered into the status of Nazir. For too long, everything about the “aid system” in Gaza has been governed by what everyone else thinks is right and what Israel should or should not be doing or allowing on their borders.

But Israel the Nazir has taken a vow of abstention. Instead of working with the UN, they’ve taken a stand. They’re saying: “Enough. We will not let terrorists decide who eats and who starves. We will take control of the situation and do what is right for us and for those who are most in need.”

And yes, it’s messy. The Torah itself acknowledges that the Nazir’s vow isn’t the norm — it’s a response to a world that the Nazir feels is no longer working for them. But when everything around you is distorted, you’ve no choice but to do something radical to restore balance.

So here we are: Israel, with America alongside it, is stepping in to provide real aid — no strings attached, no financial siphon for Hamas’ tunnels, no middlemen selling precious food that was meant to be free so they can fund terror. And just as every Nazir in history has been seen as odd or extreme, Israel is being seen as venturing outside accepted norms.

But the Torah says that when you stand apart from the mob and refuse to play by their twisted rules, you wear a crown of holiness: “The crown of his God is upon his head.”

No Nazir was ever perfect. That’s a given. Neither is Israel perfect, nor is this new system. But to those who can’t see past their own dogmas, who only find their voices when Israel acts to fix the mess they ignored –maybe it’s time to take a lesson from the Nazir. Be independent. Worry about your spiritual and moral responsibilities. And whether the rest of the world turns their noses up is unimportant.

Because when you do that, it’s heads I win, and tails you don’t lose.

The author is a writer in Beverly Hills, California. 

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