IDF Killing Gazan Children

The military wing of Hamas confirms that it is recruiting 15-year-old children 

to fight against the IDF

The RPG children in Gaza: In recent days, the military wing of Hamas has published  a video "in honor" of "the martyr" Zahib Labad, a military operative in its ranks who, already at the age of 15, served in a military role in the fighting: he planted explosives and fired an RPG at IDF forces.

After he was killed in combat against the IDF, he was listed by the Palestinian 

Ministry of Health in Gaza as a "child killed by Israel."

"Gazan child."

When you are told that Israel kills children in Gaza, show them Zahib Labad.

 

Follow the Money not the Narrative

 

“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.

How Doha Captured the International Criminal Court

 Qatar’s Deep Ties to the Muslim Brotherhood Are Highly Relevant in Alleged Meddling in Legal Actions Against the State of Israel

Craig Considine, Sydney Rodman at JNS June 18, 2026

The International Criminal Court in The Hague is seeking the arrest of more Israeli leaders for alleged crimes against Palestinians. The court’s specious claims against Israel never made sense. Now, however, those claims are beginning to unravel because of the ICC’s own problems. New evidence suggests that the ICC has ulterior motives that go far beyond mere anti-Israel bias—and that its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, is likely acting as a pawn of even more sinister actors.

It now seems that the ICC’s actions form part of a Muslim Brotherhood-led lawfare campaign, with Qatar pulling the strings. A shocking exposé published last month seemingly blew the lid off the ICC’s true motives. According to the report, which cites individuals who worked on behalf of Qatar, the Qatari government promised to “look after” Khan if he issued the arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. Khan, for his part, has not denied the allegation. The report also claims that Qatar hired investigators to discredit Khan’s critics, including a U.S. senator and a woman who accused Khan of sexual misconduct.

The ICC has pursued an intense anti-Israel campaign, possibly at Qatar’s behest. In November 2024, it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the war in Gaza—a result of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023—even though Israel’s operations produced one of the lowest civilian-to-combatant casualty ratios of any modern urban conflict.

These ICC measures were not just symbolic, as some claim. Instead, they produced immediate real-world consequences.

Fearing arrest, Netanyahu canceled several diplomatic trips to Europe.

Sometimes, it is more convenient to accept a dysfunctional status quo than to challenge it. Yet new allegations against the ICC’s top judge should catalyze scrutiny of the entire court.

That Qatar was working behind the scenes with Khan to prosecute Israeli leaders is a major revelation, and it may explain the ICC’s rush to prosecute Israeli officials, at a speed that is unusual for the court. As one legal expert observed, the ICC, which was only established on July 1, 2002, is “the most inactive and procrastinating court in the world—it dealt with a dozen cases only, over a period of more than 20 years.”

If the allegations are true (and the evidence strongly suggests they are), then the ICC is effectively being directed by an international criminal country. This would help explain why Khan issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders while largely sparing top Hamas officials.

After all, Hamas’s top leaders lived openly in Qatar, a leading state sponsor of terrorism that has funneled billions to Hamas and enabled the group’s operations for years. Nonetheless, none of these puppet masters has been prosecuted. Instead, if the allegations are true, they appear to have been manipulating the very prosecutor overseeing the case.

Yet the implications are more significant than meets the eye. The truth is that Qatar’s lawfare against Israel goes well beyond the ICC situation.

The case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, also in The Hague, follows a similar pattern. When South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose country is a close partner of Qatar, first revealed that his country would bring a war-crimes case against Israel before the ICJ, he did so while visiting Qatar. Around the same time, senior Qatari official Mutlaq al-Qahtani met directly with Khan and a senior ICC judge, potentially working on dual tracks to indict Israel at both the ICC and the ICJ.

Qatar’s deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood are highly relevant. Robert Gates, a former CIA director and U.S. secretary of defense, once described the relationship bluntly: “Qatar has long had the welcome mat out for the Muslim Brotherhood.” It is an expensive welcome mat, with Qatar shelling out billions for Muslim Brotherhood actors over the years, including Hamas, whose leaders it also hosts.

Anti-Israel lawfare against Israel is straight out of the Muslim Brotherhood’s playbook. The group’s own internal documents expose how it deliberately uses legal tactics to advance its doctrine of tamkeen—the strategy of employing seemingly legitimate tools to empower Islamist goals in the West. Chief on that agenda for the Muslim Brotherhood, of course, is demonization of Israel.

Khan presents himself as a follower of the Ahmadiyya variant of Islam, a movement known for peace, interfaith dialogue and education. Yet he is actively targeting Israel, a democratic country that stands for peace and stability in the Middle East.

In addition, Khan has made several bizarre statements that amount to apologetics for the radical ideology that both Qatar and Hamas adhere to. In a 2018 interview, he asked: “Why do we have certain language that we do not see elsewhere? … Why ‘Islamic terror’? Why not ‘Buddhist terror’?” While most Muslims do not share the jihadist ideology, Khan feigned ignorance on this matter, suggesting either willful blindness or outright dishonesty.

Whatever Khan’s true motivations may be, this much is clear: The agenda that he, and the court he oversees, is pursuing is not entirely his own. The ICC is a farce—and a dangerous one at that.

 

Moral Decline in the West

 

Fawzia Amin Sido, Yazidi survivor of ISIS sexual slavery 

and captivity in Gaza, testifies at a UN Watch side event 

during the 62nd session of the UN Human Rights Council 

in Geneva, June 26, 2026. 

Fawzia Amin Sido’s story should have shaken the world. It did not.

That, too, is part of the story.

She was a Yazidi child from Iraq, abducted during ISIS’s assault on the Yazidis in 2014, one of the clearest genocidal campaigns of our century. She was trafficked to Gaza and held there for years by a Hamas terrorist affiliated with ISIS.

Eventually, she was extracted through the Kerem Shalom crossing in a complex operation led by COGAT, before being transferred through Jordan and returned to her family in Iraq.

Her testimony is almost unbearable to hear.

She was bought and sold. Abused. Raped. Forced into a jihadist “marriage.” Made to bear two children while still a captive.

In Gaza, she said, she was not free. She was controlled, beaten, and treated as a slave.

Hamas later claimed she had stayed there willingly. Of course it did.

This is not only a story about ISIS. It is not only a story about Hamas. It is a story about the failure of Western moral language when it is imposed on a world that does not share its basic assumptions.

The Western mind often begins with its own inherited furniture: individual rights, consent, personal autonomy, minority protection, the rule of law, secular politics, and the comforting belief that words like “freedom” and “resistance” mean roughly the same thing everywhere.

Then it looks at the Middle East, especially at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and tries to squeeze that reality into familiar templates.

Oppressor and oppressed. Colonizer and indigenous. Powerful and powerless. Brown and white. Resistance and occupation.

It is clean. It is emotionally efficient. It fits perfectly on a campus banner, which is usually the first warning sign.

Fawzia’s story tears through that script.

She was not Jewish. She was not Israeli. She was not a soldier. She was a Yazidi girl, a member of a persecuted Middle Eastern minority, swallowed by the same jihadist, patriarchal, tribal order that devours anyone outside its hierarchy.

In that world, women can become property. Minorities can become prey. Children can become trophies. And “marriage” can be the polite administrative term for rape.

This is the part many Western observers refuse to process. They read Gaza as if it were a misunderstood European suburb with worse infrastructure and an unfortunate public-relations problem. They cannot, or will not, confront the deeper reality: parts of the region are still governed by medieval instincts that have learned to speak the language of modern politics, human rights vocabulary, NGO reports, smartphones, and occasionally a press office.

Fawzia survived ISIS. She survived Gaza. She survived the moral obscenity of being told, after all of it, that perhaps she had been there by choice.

She later testified that her childhood had been stolen and that she had lived in Gaza “for years in slavery.”

And then Israel, the country so routinely accused of every crime imaginable by people who have turned selective outrage into a respectable profession, helped get her out.

That fact should matter. Because Israel is not fighting a misunderstanding. It is fighting an ecosystem of terror movements, ideological cruelty, hostage-taking, sexual violence, minority persecution, and a political culture in which civilians are used as shields, women as instruments, and truth as disposable packaging.

Fawzia Amin Sido’s name should be known.

Her suffering exposes the fraudulence of so much Western commentary on this conflict. The Middle East is not a seminar room. Gaza is not an abstract symbol. Hamas is not a social justice movement with unfortunate branding. And the victims of this world are not always the ones Western activists have been trained to recognize.

There is no need to dress this story in theory.

One young Yazidi woman, rescued from Gaza after a decade of slavery, tells us enough.

The world should have listened sooner.

It still can..

Just Out of Curiosity

 (With thanks to Forest Rain Marcia)

Every once in a while random people show up on my feed and ask:

"Out of curiosity, do you ever think of the families on the other side, most of whom are collateral damage ?"

And they usually do it on posts expressing our anguish for our loved ones.

Perhaps these people do not realize that this, done in this way, is a deeply hateful question.

They wouldn't make the assumptions they make if they had not internalized hate.

And I know many Jews respond to things like this with facts and figures detailing the extreme lengths Israel goes to save lives on the other side.

That's why I think it's important to highlight my latest response to this question.

No explanations - because the hateful are not really interested in facts.

No apologies - because they should be apologizing to us, not the other way around.

My answer:

First of all, my family comes before the families of the people trying to kill me. It is morally twisted to do or expect anything else.

Secondly, why in the world do you assume that most of them are collateral damage?

The Gazan elderly, women and children who invaded behind the Hamas fighters? They are the ones who set fires and looted everything in sight.

The civilians who beat the hostages in the streets?

The children who spat on the bodies of raped and murdered women?

The women who made cookies to celebrate their great victory?

The young people who watched the live stream of the Hamas horrors in the square outside the Shifa hospital, laughing and cheering at the seeing Jews being tortured and slaughtered?

Are they the collateral damage you are referring to?

Or perhaps the people who held hostages in their homes?

Or their neighbors that knew and didn't help, even when the IDF promised 1 million dollars and safe passage for their family to a new country just for information? Are they the collateral damage you are referring to?

Out of curiosity

 

Hezbollah Tunnel on Israel's Border

 Only a few kilometers from Israel’s northern border, 

Hezbollah constructed a sophisticated underground 

drone facility designed to support its ongoing

 campaign against Israel.

WHY SO MANY ISRAELIS FEEL THE TABLE HAS SUDDENLY TURNED

 With thanks to Israel Realtime

For the past several days there are lots of questions that need answering 

Not about a specific Hezbollah attack. 

Not about a specific statement from Washington.

Not even about the details of the latest U.S.-Iran negotiations.

The question is much simpler: How did the pressure suddenly shift from Iran to Israel?

Only a short time ago, Iran appeared to be on the defensive. Israel and the United States were closely coordinated. Tehran and its proxies were under pressure. Hezbollah was constrained. The strategic momentum appeared to be moving in one direction.

Today, many Israelis feel as though the entire table has somehow been turned.

Whether that perception is fully accurate or not, it is worth examining why so many people have reached that conclusion.

The first thing that stands out is that the pressure did not only shift onto Israel, it appears to have shifted back onto America as well.

The United States was also presenting the Strait of Hormuz as a point of American leverage. The message was clear: Iran was surrounded, pressured, weakened, and unable to freely control the regional equation. Then came the ceasefire framework. From that moment, the logic of the arena changed.

After the ceasefire, Washington's priority shifted toward preserving the U.S.-Iran diplomatic track, stabilizing the region, reopening Hormuz, protecting global energy flows, and keeping negotiations alive.

That created a dangerous opening for Iran.

Tehran appears to have understood that once Washington became invested in protecting the agreement, Iran could use both Lebanon and Hormuz as leverage.

That is the deeper strategic reversal. The pressure did not only shift onto Israel. It also shifted back onto America.

Hormuz was supposed to be the symbol of American leverage over Iran. Instead, Iran is trying to turn Hormuz back into leverage over America. Because if Iran can threaten the Strait of Hormuz, pressure global energy markets, and then extract concessions through negotiations, the lesson for Tehran is obvious: Hormuz works.

Iran was militarily weakened. Its air defenses were hit. Its navy was pressured. Its regional infrastructure was damaged. But through Hormuz, Tehran still had a way to threaten the global system. That is why the negotiation looks so troubling from an Israeli perspective.

America had pressure on Iran.

Israel had pressure on Iran.

Iran's proxies were under pressure.

Hormuz was being used by Washington as a pressure point.

Then the ceasefire framework appears to have allowed Iran to reverse the equation. Instead of Iran being forced to prove it would stop threatening Hormuz and restrain its proxies, Israel and America are now the ones being pressured to avoid actions that might collapse the deal.

That is the strategic inversion. The pattern is becoming clear:

Hezbollah attacks.

Israel responds.

Iran accuses Israel of endangering the broader agreement.

The United States tries to preserve the diplomatic track.

Pressure shifts onto Israel.

That is the trap.

The problem is not that America is negotiating with Iran. The United States is free to pursue its own diplomatic track if it believes that serves American interests.

The problem is that Iran appears to be trying to turn that U.S.-Iran track into a restraint on both Israel and America. On Israel, by limiting its freedom of action against Hezbollah.

That is what makes this so troubling.

If the agreement is about Iran, nuclear de-escalation, Hormuz, sanctions, or regional stability, then why should Israel be expected to absorb Hezbollah attacks in Lebanon?

Iran's conduct suggests it is testing whether it can enjoy the benefits of diplomacy while preserving the coercive power of its proxy network and its control over strategic chokepoints.

Tehran wants sanctions relief, oil revenue, access to global markets, and reduced pressure. At the same time, it wants Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other Iranian-backed forces to remain tools of pressure against Israel, regional states, global shipping, and Western interests.

That cannot become the new normal.

A diplomatic agreement that restrains Iran is one thing. A diplomatic agreement that restrains Israel while Iran's proxies keep attacking is something very different.

A diplomatic agreement that reopens Hormuz only because Iran has demonstrated it can threaten Hormuz again is also something very different.

That would not be de-escalation. That would be reward for coercion.

The repeated Hezbollah attacks against IDF forces should not be viewed as isolated skirmishes. They appear to fit into a broader Iranian strategy: keep pressure on Israel through Hezbollah, then blame Israel when it responds, while warning that the wider U.S.-Iran track may collapse.

That gives Tehran a powerful tool. It can attack indirectly, negotiate directly, and then demand restraint from the country being attacked.

If that equation is accepted, Hezbollah becomes more than a proxy. Hezbollah becomes a bargaining chip protected by diplomacy.

Instead of: Hezbollah attacks → Hezbollah pays a price.

The equation becomes: Hezbollah attacks → Israel responds → Iran threatens the talks → pressure shifts onto Israel.

And with Hormuz, the equation becomes: Iran threatens shipping → markets panic → America seeks calm → Iran gains leverage.

That is exactly the structure Tehran wants to create.

The West's real test is not whether it can sign an agreement with Iran.

The real test is whether it can prevent Iran from using that agreement as cover for continued proxy aggression and strategic blackmail.

Because if the message Tehran receives is that it can threaten Hormuz, activate Hezbollah, pressure global markets, and still move toward relief and reintegration, then the lesson will be obvious:

Escalation works. Proxy warfare works. Hormuz works. Regional blackmail works. 

And Israel is left facing the consequences on the ground. Both Washington and Jerusalem need to recognize the game being played.

Iran is trying to turn the ceasefire from a restraint on Tehran into a restraint on Israel.

It is trying to turn Hormuz from a point of American pressure into a point of Iranian leverage.

That is the danger. And that is why so many Israelis feel that the entire table has suddenly turned.