“The “Gaza genocide” is the Greatest Hoax of all Time

 (Based on published article by Andrew Fox)

“The “Gaza genocide” is the greatest hoax of all time, enabled by social media, antisemitism, and gullibility.

Remember: genocide means a deliberate attempt to exterminate a group, simply for being members of that group. That’s what “genocide in Gaza” alleges: that Israel is unsuccessfully attempting to exterminate every last Palestinian.

But what about the overall population of Gaza? If Israel had wanted to wipe out every Palestinian, you’d expect that overall total to fall, right?

At some point, the word genocide has to survive contact with arithmetic. Gaza’s own records now sit in open contradiction with the claim that Israel attempted to destroy its population: approximately 121,000 live births since 7 October 2023, against a reported direct war death toll, including natural deaths, of just over 73,000. 

The extermination narrative looks increasingly absurd. More babies have been born in Gaza during the war than Gazans have been recorded as killed, including both civilians and combatants. 

The usual escape route is to say that genocide need not succeed. That is legally correct and intellectually evasive when deployed to make every contrary fact disappear. Genocidal intent still has to be proved, and the ICJ has held that, where it is inferred from conduct, the destruction of the group must be the only reasonable inference available.

In Croatia v Serbia, it examined whether civilians had been spared, evacuated or allowed to survive when their supposed destroyers had the opportunity to kill them. Conduct preserving members of the protected population counted against genocide. Now apply that reasoning to Gaza.

a a) Start with polio. In September 2024, while Israeli troops were still fighting across the Strip, Israel agreed daily, area-specific pauses so Palestinian and international medical teams could vaccinate Gaza’s children. The first round reached 559,161 children under ten, around 95 per cent of the eligible population.

b)b) Israel then agreed to do it again. The second round reached 556,774 children, with 448,425 children between two and ten also receiving vitamin A. The campaign required the delivery of 1.6 million vaccine doses, refrigerators, freezers, ice boxes and hundreds of vaccine carriers. WHO and UNICEF planned for the vaccines and cold-chain equipment to transit through Ben Gurion Airport before entering Gaza.

c) c)  A third campaign followed in February 2025. It vaccinated 602,795 children under ten, reaching 102 per cent of the estimated target because medical teams found children missed during earlier rounds. 

d) d)  The combined figure is 1,718,730 administered polio doses. (That represents repeated protection of roughly 600,000 individual children, rather than 1.7 million different children.) Almost the entire under-10 population was reached again and again.

These vaccines were administered by Palestinian health workers, WHO, UNICEF, UNRWA and their partners. Without Israeli cooperation, the campaigns could not have happened.

UNICEF’s end-of-year report says the outbreak had been interrupted by July 2025. It also records 49,000 children under two receiving catch-up vaccinations, with coverage exceeding 80 per cent. BCG vaccinations rose from 37,471 in 2024 to 47,556 in 2025. 

It was an enormous public health enterprise, run over several months, involving thousands of workers and protecting nearly every child in Gaza from paralysis. 

That is the physical reality of what Israel enabled: the children it was supposedly trying to destroy were repeatedly protected against a disease that could disable or kill them. 

A coherent programme of genocide cannot be inferred by treating every Israeli action that preserved Palestinian life as irrelevant.

BIRTH FIGURES The birth figures deepen the problem for the accusation. A reconstruction using Gaza Ministry of Health and civil registration records suggests approximately 12,000 babies were born during the final quarter of 2023, around 38,000 during 2024, 49,267 live births during 2025, and roughly 21,000 so far in 2026. The latest portion is necessarily estimated because complete July and August registrations have not yet been published. 

Many babies born during the first months had been conceived before 7 October. That explanation expired nine months into the war. Tens of thousands of children were subsequently conceived and delivered while Israel supposedly pursued the biological destruction of Gaza. 

Births fell below their pre-war level, hardly surprising amid displacement and combat. Miscarriages, premature births and maternal complications also rose. Nothing about those conditions was humane or desirable. 

However, the comparison remains devastating. Approximately 121,000 live births against just over 73,000 reported direct war deaths leaves a difference approaching 48,000. The number killed includes combatants as well as civilians, of course.

Gaza’s overall resident population fell because the calculation includes outward migration, the missing and other demographic changes. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics estimates that around 100,000 people left Gaza during the war. A decline driven substantially by people leaving a war zone cannot simply be relabelled as physical destruction.

No Israeli advocate needs to pretend that civilian life in Gaza was tolerable. It was an urban war fought against an enemy dug into hundreds of miles of tunnels beneath neighbourhoods, hospitals, schools and camps. Hamas designed that battlefield to make civilian deaths unavoidable and politically useful. 

Israel issued evacuation warnings, created corridors and humanitarian zones, admitted food and medicine, coordinated medical evacuations, paused military operations and enabled almost 600,000 Palestinian children to receive repeated protection against polio. Around 121,000 babies were born during the war, far exceeding the reported direct death toll. 

The genocide allegation survives only by declaring every piece of exculpatory evidence meaningless. Births supposedly tell us nothing. Vaccinations tell us nothing. Food deliveries tell us nothing. Humanitarian pauses tell us nothing. Failed famine predictions tell us nothing. The absence of measured famine mortality tells us nothing.

Such reasoning insulates the genocide accusation from reality for the Palestinians. Every death becomes proof of genocide, while every Palestinian life preserved through Israeli cooperation is dismissed as public relations.

The simpler explanation: Israel fought a devastating war against Hamas, accepting extraordinary military and political costs while repeatedly undertaking measures to preserve Palestinian civilian life. Those measures were imperfect and sometimes failed, as measures do in war. 

Gaza’s own birth records, vaccination figures and famine evidence have negated the allegations. A country attempting to destroy a people does not enable more than 120,000 births, facilitate 1.7 million childhood vaccine doses and support humanitarian operations feeding virtually the entire population. 

That is war, with all its brutality and tragedy. It is not genocide.

Hypocrisy Par Excellence

 

If you're going to make a deal with Hamas, this is how

 Shimon Cohen   Aug 3, 2026, https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/431171

 Dr. Mordechai Kedar says Hamas views agreements as temporary, warns Israel to expect violations and demand strict enforcement.

The possibility of an agreement with Hamas is reigniting the question of whether Israel is repeating past mistakes when it puts trust in a terrorist organization that some say sees deals as merely a tactical means and not a binding obligation.

In an interview with Arutz Sheva-Israel National News, Middle East expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar warns that the safest way to avoid falling into a trap is to refrain from signing deals with Hamas.

"They have a long history of violating agreements," he said. "As far as they're concerned, particularly when it comes to non-Muslims, deception, hiding, stalling for time, and cheating are legitimate means to reach a goal. This modus operandi is based on the Hudaibiya Pact (signed by Mohammed in 628 AD), which they see as merely temporary.

According to Kedar, the Hudaibiya Pact, which various Islamic organizations rely on, is seen as an arrangment which may be violated the moment the balance of power changes. "As long as they don't have power, they sign, but the second they gain power, as far as they're concerned, the agreement is no longer binding. Therefore, anyone who signs with them has to understand that the agreement may be broken the moment they have an interest to do so."

That being said, Dr. Kedar does not rule out signing a deal for diplomatic reasons if it serves a broader Israeli interest. "If we want to make a move that enables diplomatic achievements with the White House or in preparation for another move, we can sign. But we can not make a mistake and think that this is true peace. We have to understand that this is a game."

According to Kedar, one of the mistakes that Israel and the West repeat is the assumption that the other side aspires to the same objectives. "We assume that they want peace, welfare, and a good economy just like we do. But to them, the goal remains the destruction of Israel. As long as they can't do it, they accept temporary agreements."

Kedar believes that, in any case, if a deal is signed, it must be backed by especially tough enforcement mechanisms. "We must state that any violation, even the entry of one rifle into the Gaza Strip, immediately cancels the agreement and allows Israel to return to war. Not to wait until they bring in thousands of weapons and only then to claim that the agreement was violated."

He says that it is not enough to simply prohibit the entry of weapons, but rather the agreement must include clauses that would prevent Hamas from rebuilding its military capabilities. "We have to also ban the weapons training, even with fake wooden weapons. We can not allow them to rebuild their military infrastructure under the guise of other activities. We have to close every possible loophole."

To demonstrate the importance of enforcement, Kedar points to the peace agreement with Egypt. "An agreement at the end of the day is just paper. The question is how it's enforced. If every violation is answered with a fierce and unrelenting response, the other side will understand that there's a real price for violating obligations."

Regarding the possibility that senior Hamas officials could be expelled from the Gaza Strip as part of a future arrangement, Kedar said such a move would be valuable but cautioned against viewing it as a complete solution. “If the commanders leave, that would certainly be a success," he said. “But we must not think the problem ends there. There will always be replacements. At first, they may be less experienced, but within a short time, new leaders will emerge and continue down the same path."

Israel’s Economy is Actually Doing Rather Well

 Based on article by Matan Shitrit is Chief Economist at Phoenix Financial

Full article at https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/banking-and-finance/article-903403

While the shock originating in the Middle East is pushing many economies worldwide toward higher inflation, higher interest rates and weaker growth, in Israel the macroeconomic picture is moving in the opposite direction — annual inflation has fallen to its lowest level in roughly five years, the shekel remains very strong, the risk premium has returned to the range that characterized it before the "Swords of Iron" war, the labor market remains tight at around full employment, and the policy rate has resumed its descent.

The strong shekel, and inflation continuing to moderate, resulted in the Bank of Israel cutting the rate by 25 bps, to 3.50%. The Bank's own forecast now embeds a continuation of the process, with an average rate of 3.0% in the second quarter of 2027 — that is, two further cuts over the coming year.

The strong shekel is not merely an expression of relative confidence in the Israeli economy; it is also an important economic factor in its own right. In a world where energy and commodity prices are once again being driven by the war in the Middle East, some of the inflationary pressures arriving from abroad are absorbed by the exchange rate before they reach the Israeli consumer.

Having mentioned USD/ILS, in recent months the Bank of Israel has also returned to purchasing foreign currency. In May it bought roughly USD 801 million, and in June roughly USD 1.03 billion. Relative to the large-scale purchase programs seen in the past, these are not dramatic volumes, and the Bank stresses that the purchases were made on a discretionary, ad hoc basis to preserve orderly market functioning. Even so, the mere return to the market is a reminder that the Bank has both the tools and the willingness to act when volatility turns abnormal.

The economic forecasts improved as well. The Bank of Israel raised its 2026 growth forecast from 3.8% to 4.0% and, at the same time, lowered its inflation forecast from 2.2% to 1.8%. Beyond the headline figure, the composition of the forecast is also constructive — exports excluding diamonds and startups are projected to grow 8% in 2026, as is fixed-asset investment. These are the components capable of supporting a recovery that does not rest solely on government consumption or on a technical rebound after the war.

The labor market remains tight, with unemployment around 3.0% and the number of job vacancies rising to 146 thousand — here to a high level relative to the period before "Rising Lion."

A further indication of continued economic recovery comes from tax revenues, which came in higher than expected in the first half of the year, leading the Bank of Israel to lower its 2026 deficit forecast from 5.3% to 4.9% of GDP. In June, the trailing 12-month deficit recorded a further decline, to 3.3% of GDP — so here, too, we are seeing upside surprises.

So much for the positives. On the less favorable side, Israel is of course not immune to the war, and it still contends with a heavy security and fiscal cost. The 2026 deficit ceiling stands at 4.9%, and the debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to rise to 69%. (lower than the USA and most Western countries). For now, the deficit appears to be surprising favorably from month to month, partly on the back of revenue growth beyond expectations.

As things stand, the data point to an economy under control. Anyone who views Israel solely through the security headlines is liable to miss a flexible, technology-intensive economy with credible economic institutions, a strong labor market and a financial system that continues to function even under stress. Bottom line: Israel is still in the eye of the storm, but it is entering the next phase from a far stronger position than it appears from the outside.

"Settler Violence"

Looking into the "thousands of incidents" of “settler violence”, here is what I found.

The UN office called OCHA, the one that produces the "settler violence" statistics international media loves to quote, has an internal database of incidents. However, one has to accept you cannot see it. OCHA has locked it behind a registration process that does not actually let anyone register.

The organization Regavim obtained the internal spreadsheet the database is using and analyzed it. Case by case.

Here is what you should also know. OCHA itself relies heavily on data from B'Tselem, a left-wing Israeli human rights organization. B'Tselem is the source I analyzed independently last week. My analysis showed that B'Tselem's database includes active terrorists killed while committing attacks and files them as victims of settler violence.

So, on the left, B'Tselem is manufacturing the same statistics. On the right, Regavim is doing the exposé. And in the middle, OCHA is refusing to let anyone see the raw data. Until OCHA becomes transparent, this is what we have to work with. And what we have is damning.

OCHA filed 8,332 incidents leading to injury "involving Israeli settlers" between January 2016 and April 2023. Seven and a half years of data.

Here is what is actually in those 8,332 UN incidents.

* 2,047 of them are actual violence by Palestinian Arabs against Israelis. Nearly a quarter of the "settler violence" database is Palestinian attacks on Jews. The UN files it in the same folder.

Which leaves 6,285 cases against Palestinians. Sounds terrible. Then you look at what is actually in them.

**1,704 cases happened in Jerusalem, not in settlements. Not by settlers. In Jerusalem, a city with a mixed population where any friction between Jews and Arabs gets thrown into the settler-violence bucket.

**1,361 cases involved Jews visiting the Temple Mount or clashes between Israeli security forces and rioting Muslims. Zero settlers involved. Filed under "settler violence" anyway.

**1,613 cases were complaints about "entering land" — meaning a hiker walked somewhere a Palestinian claimed as his. No physical assault. No property damage. No violence at all. Someone took a walk. Filed as settler violence.

**96 cases were state infrastructure projects. Israeli government road-paving and construction. No settlers involved. No violence. The state of Israel building a road is officially "settler violence" in the UN database.

**2,039 complaints alleged property damage or assault with no physical injury. Which is not what a database of injuries inflicted by settler violence is supposed to contain in the first place.

Add it up. Take out Jerusalem, take out the Temple Mount, take out the hikers, take out the road-paving, take out the complaints without injury.

You are left with 833 incidents. Out of 8,332. JUST 10% and that ten percent still contains problems.

**404 of the remaining 833 are listed as "involvement in a clash", meaning two people fought and the UN could not determine who started it. Not settler violence. Two-way friction.

**117 more are attributed by the UN itself to Israeli security forces, not to settlers or civilians.

**Dozens more are actually Palestinian terror attacks in which the attacker was shot in self-defense by the Jewish target. A stone-thrower shot after wounding a driver on Route 60. A rioter killed by a driver after his car was smashed. An attacker who stabbed a guard at Karmei Tzur and was shot by another guard.

The UN files these as settler violence against Palestinians. The Palestinian was the attacker. The Jew defended himself. And in the UN's database, the Jew is the perpetrator.

There are traffic accidents in there.

A Palestinian worker bitten by a dog at his workplace. Filed as settler violence.

Let me say this clearly.

The UN office that shapes global discourse about "settler violence" is running a database in which more than 90 percent of the entries are a blatant lie.

Jerusalem incidents. Government construction. Hikers. Palestinian attacks in which the attacker was shot in self-defense. Traffic accidents. Dog bites.

And they will not let you see the database, because if you could see it, the entire international narrative about a wave of Jewish settler violence would collapse in an second.

The UN is not a neutral data source. Until they open their database to public scrutiny, they are a bad actor, producing statistics designed to smear an entire population.

Every headline you have ever read about "settler violence" traces back to numbers like these. Every foreign minister who has ever quoted UN data on the West Bank is quoting this.

Ten percent real. Ninety percent invented.

Until OCHA opens the database, this is what we have to work with. And what we have is enough.

What Price Technology?

 (Cross posted from Grandma's Army)

To quote Einstein: "I believe that the abominable deterioration of ethical standards stems primarily from the mechanization and depersonalization of our lives—a disastrous byproduct of science and technology. Nostra culpa! (We are to blame!)".

Nobody questions the remarkable achievements and progress that science and technology have made to our quality of life. However, it’s become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity. Our great-grandchildren know how to use smart phones and computers, from an early age. But their general knowledge is woefully lacking. What do they know of the great cultural visionaries of the past,  who introduced us to art, music, philosophy, etc.  To a world of beauty, grace and the thirst for knowledge. For the most part, they haven't a clue.

People increasingly rely on smartphones, tablets, and computers for daily tasks such as navigation, reminders, work, and entertainment. This dependence reduces problem-solving abilities, memory retention, and independent thinking. Over time, technology can become a crutch rather than a tool.

While social media enables fast communication, it often replaces face-to-face interaction, weakening emotional bonds and empathy. Families may be physically together but emotionally distant. Excessive use of mobile phones, including social media and gaming apps, especially among teenagers can lead to screen addiction. This negative impact on their mental health could cause anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

The humanities have become undervalued and split from more profitable STEM (science/technology/engineering/mathematics) fields. Humanities' vocations, many of which do not directly feed into capitalist structures, are thereby compensated poorly.

The notion that the humanities are inherently less valuable than STEM has pushed students away from studying societally important subjects. The number of humanities degrees awarded drops every year - almost 25% from 2012 to 2020, and continuing in a downward trend. This decline of the humanities could deeply hurt academia and society as a whole.

 Not long ago, students at Montclair State University in New Jersey held a mock funeral outside the university’s college of humanities and social sciences building. Carrying bouquets of flowers, they stood by a tombstone inscribed with the names of the school’s 15 departments, including English, history and sociology.                                                                        

 Fears over the future of the humanities aren’t limited to New Jersey’s second-largest public university. At many schools, those fears are already becoming reality.

The humanities are not hobbies. They are critical pursuits that have shaped the world we know today. Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity was inspired by philosopher David Hume. Quantum mechanics was apparently first imagined by writer Jorge Luis Borges. Medicine was influenced by Hippocrates, a famous Greek philosopher. The earliest scientists such as Isaac Newton, were deemed “natural philosophers.” Their creativity in their fields came from their understanding of the humanities.

Above all, the world could not function without English, journalism, sociology and other humanities majors. These disciplines are not only useful to STEM students, but are valuable majors in themselves. Journalists keep politicians accountable. English majors write our novels. Sociology majors point out the injustices in society. Philosophy transforms our understanding of ourselves, and the world we live in - making fundamental contributions to our economy, society and culture.

Technology, the market, and the liberal democratic state give us choices, but don’t teach us how to choose. They provide neither identity nor the set of moral sensibilities that are inseparable from identity: loyalty, respect and reverence. Technology knows how to make life easier and more comfortable, but it does not know how to make a person better. True success is not merely what a person has achieved, but what kind of person he/she has become.

An Unexpected Israeli Flag

An Israeli rescue delegation working in Venezuela’s earthquake disaster zone encountered an unexpected and moving tribute while inspecting the home of a local family in the La Guaira region.

Home Front Command engineers Itai Shtadler and Stav Daron arrived at the property as part of the delegation’s effort to assess buildings damaged in the earthquake.

As with every structure, the team first asked the homeowners for permission to carry out an engineering inspection through an interpreter. The engineers examined the exterior to identify the type of building and its structural framework before entering the house to inspect its beams and walls.

When they entered the living room, they noticed a large Israeli flag hanging on the wall. It was immediately clear that this was no ordinary flag, but one that had been sewn by hand.

The engineers were surprised, having not expected to find an Israeli flag inside the home of a local Christian family. When they asked about it, the family proudly explained that they had made it themselves and displayed it because of their Christian faith, their appreciation for the Jewish people and as a gesture to the Israeli delegation.

For members of the mission, the discovery was especially emotional because it came in the heart of an area marked by destruction and loss. As a gesture of gratitude and solidarity, one of the team members removed the Israeli flag patch from his uniform and presented it to the family.

“Throughout the mission, we were met with warmth, trust and affection from the Venezuelan people and authorities,” said Shtadler, a reserve engineer with the Home Front Command.

“Finding an Israeli flag inside a damaged home was an especially moving moment for us. It was another expression of the human connection formed during the mission and of what the Israeli delegation’s presence meant to many of the people we met along the way.”

Ambassador Yoed Magen, who heads the Foreign Ministry’s aid delegation, said the encounter was one of many examples of the support shown to the Israeli team during its work in Venezuela.