"Criticizing Israel is not antisemitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction—out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East—is antisemitic, and not saying so is dishonest" - Thomas Friedman, NYT
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but as a Moroccan Jew, I am not closer to being Arab than my Ashkenazi Jewish brethren.
My family’s diaspora passed through North Africa. That does not make us Arab Jews.
Jews in Arab and Muslim countries were not treated as Arabs. They were treated as Jews with a different community, different legal status, and different rules. This included the jizya tax under Islamic law.
Moroccan Jews have a deep and particular connection to Morocco. Many also hold a deep loyalty to the Moroccan Crown. Yet that connection exists not because we were Arabs. It exists because Morocco, at its best, gathered its citizens under the banner of Moroccan nationality.
When the King famously said during the Vichy period that there were no Jews or Muslims, only Moroccans, that was precisely the point. Nationality served to protect a people who were otherwise seen as distinct.
Being a Jew from Morocco does not make me Arab any more than being a Jew from Poland makes an Ashkenazi Jew Polish in the ethnic sense.
We are Jews from different diasporas but the same people.
15 million Jews out of 8 billion on the planet. And yet we punch way above our weight in almost every field.
People credit grit. Work ethic. Generations of hardship. But I think it's simpler than that.
Our secret weapon is Jewish mothers.
Chutzpah. Confidence. Swagger. They hand it to you early.
And to my own mom… thanks, I love you.
Shabbat shalom. 🤍
Watch closely new video showing the U.N. reaction: as courageous former hostage Ilana Gritzewsky confronts October 7th denier Reem al-Salem—by recounting the horrific abuse she suffered from Hamas—the U.N. rapporteur on violence against women sits there stone-faced. No empathy.
Watch closely new video showing the U.N. reaction: as courageous former hostage Ilana Gritzewsky confronts October 7th denier Reem al-Salem—by recounting the horrific abuse she suffered from Hamas—the U.N. rapporteur on violence against women sits there stone-faced. No empathy.
October 7 survivor Ilana Gritzewsky stood before the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women in Geneva and confronted her directly:
“Your report is about violence against women. Why is there no mention of Hamas? I am a woman who survived. Do you believe me now?”
She then openly described the horrors she endured at the hands of Hamas terrorists.
The UN continues to systematically erase and deny evidence of Hamas’s crimes against women and civilians.
MELANIE PHILLIPS ·
בתי בן צבי
Trigger warning: disturbing content
On October 7, during the massacre at the Nova party, Bar Miransky was there.
You haven’t heard her story yet, but now, five months after the last bullet was removed from her body, it can be told.
The grenades thrown into the shelter. The terrorist squads returning again and again. The moral dilemmas in the face of unimaginable scenes. And the message she asked Yuval Rafael, who hid with her in the shelter, to pass on to her parents:
“I opened my eyes, looked right and left, and saw that I was lying beneath a body. Constant, endless screams, people dismembered. At this stage there were severely wounded people—most could have survived—but they slowly died from their injuries because no one came to rescue us. To my left, a girl whose hand and leg were blown off by a grenade; behind me, a head. To my right, a girl was dying. We realized we were in a death trap.
They entered the shelter, shooting and spraying repeatedly. Then I felt something hit me—three bullets in my back. I had four bullets in my body; you don’t understand why the air leaves you, you feel hollow. Whoever is still alive tries to cover themselves with bodies; we were essentially fighting over corpses. A woman beside me was dying for five hours, screaming ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ I only thought about how to make her quiet—because if she didn’t, the next squad would kill you.
The smells intensified, people lost their humanity, they urinated on themselves, the air was thick. You realize you’re not getting out of here. In the sixth hour, another squad came and fired again—I got a fifth bullet in my lung. I understood my time was running out and every breath was critical. In the corner of my eye, I saw Adar and Yuval, and I told them, ‘Tell my parents I love them.’ Another squad threw in two Molotov cocktails—they wanted to burn us. Someone got up and ran out. I counted in my heart: one, two, three, four, five… at five I heard a shot.
We found a bottle of water. By unspoken agreement, anyone still alive took a sip. You live between light and shadow—between the front of the shelter, where the terrorists laughed outside, and hiding among the bodies. You are dying inside yourself, just waiting for your turn. I reviewed my life in ten minutes. It was fun—and that’s it. The bodies of pure people who had just gone out to dance—now they are my shield. And my turn will come soon, and then others will use me as a shield. The guy next to me moved my hand, trying to see if I was still alive. I felt like a failure, because they were murdered and I’m here. Because I silenced the last breaths of people so they would be quiet.”
@TMZ You ought to be ashamed of yourself giving this hateful person a full two minutes unchallenged to spout her antisemitic rhetoric.
That’s not your job TMZ.
Even Arab leaders admit it.
Everyone is sharing the Bill Clinton clip where he describes how Yasser Arafat rejected a generous peace offer at Camp David that would have given the Palestinians a state on 96 percent of the West Bank, land swaps, and a capital in East Jerusalem. Clinton says Arafat lied to him and that the Palestinian leadership never actually wanted a two-state solution. They wanted to destroy Israel. It’s a video often shared by people like @VividProwess, and it’s an important one for people to see.
Of course, critics immediately dismiss it. They claim Clinton is biased or he’s pro-Israel. They’ll tell you that you cannot trust the American perspective.
Ok, so let us set that aside.
Now watch this.
In this powerful interview, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a major Arab leader who was directly involved in negotiations, says exactly the same thing from the Arab side. He talks about the Mena House Conference in Cairo as well as the Camp David negotiations of 1978. All failed because of the Palestinians repeatedly rejecting any offer. The Oslo accords were signed but because Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad were not involved, they derailed the accords and any chance for peace by initiating 4 years of terrorist suicide attacks in Israel. Then came the second Camp David negotiations in 2000 which Arafat agreed to, then rejected and instead initiated the Second Intifada.
Mubarak explains how the Palestinians refused to even participate in the Mena House conference of 1977. He describes repeated opportunities they were given, including a detailed document that called for Israeli withdrawal from the Samaria, Judea and Gaza, security arrangements during a transitional period, and other major concessions. The Israelis were willing to negotiate on difficult issues like who would control security. The Palestinians, according to Mubarak, kept saying no and wasting chance after chance.
He speaks with clear frustration about how for decades the Palestinian side has rejected peace initiatives and realistic compromises.
The video further shows footage from the PLO representative in 1977, as well as old footage of Egyptian president Sadat who was involved in the Mena House and first Camp David negotiations of 1978.
This perhaps is far more impactful than Clinton’s account because it is not a Western or Israeli voice. It is prominent Arab leaders who lived the negotiations, who represented the broader Arab world, and who had zero incentive to defend Israel.
When leaders from both sides of the table describe the same pattern of Palestinian rejectionism and violence, it becomes much harder to dismiss as bias.
The pattern is clear across decades and across different voices… generous offers, repeated refusals, and continued demands for everything while giving nothing in return.
This is not ancient history. It is the core reason the conflict continues today.
If you value the truth, please share.