ForTheHalOfIt

[Nazanin Boniadi @NazaninBoniadi]

The Islamic Republic has survived by winning the narrative war.

As we receive reports from journalists and influencers who have been granted access to Iran, let’s not forget that the country ranks 177 of 180 on the 2026 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index.

[Haviv Rettig Gur @havivrettiggur]

This is inversion so callous it's hard to believe.

The Holocaust had a survival rate of about 30%. Millions of people disappeared from European cities and towns over several years. Everybody knew because it was happening all around them.

Gaza has a survival rate, despite the worst and most deadly and horrible periods of the war, of 97%.

All the dead Jews were noncombatants. A large percentage of the dead Gazans were combatants.

And the Jews of Europe, even as their millennia-old civilization was being systematically wiped out, wanted nothing from the societies that surrounded them except to be allowed to live in peace.

Gaza's leadership of religious fanatics, meanwhile, wants every last Israeli dead and gone, is willing to fight to the last Gazan to achieve that aim, has said so publicly and worked for decades to blow up every peace attempt -- and even now believes that Gaza's destruction would be a worthwhile sacrifice to lay on the altar of Israel's destruction, because their god told them so.

So Israelis can reasonably believe, given those features of the Gaza war that aren't true about any genocide ever, and were pretty much the opposite of what was happening in the Holocaust, that Gaza's suffering is a bad and painful war, but not remotely a genocide.

But the point of it all, of course, is not to analyze Gaza, but specifically to lump it together with the Holocaust -- to cast the Jews as the new Nazis.

The only reason this person would dare to make such an insanely ahistorical and immoral parallel is because this is the heart of the bigoted propaganda campaign in which he enthusiastically participates: The point of it all is to make the Jews into the Nazis.

A culture that obsessed about Jews being evil and was then shocked by the Holocaust into obsessing about dead Jews as the apotheosis of righteous victimhood is now obsessively engaged in knocking Jews off that moral pedestal they themselves put them on.

That's why they don't care one whit about Hamas massacres of Gazans, about genocidal wars in Syria or Yemen (even when they've funded and armed the sides), about flotilla activists currently held by the Libyans...literally nothing triggers a response except Jews.

They still, even after all these generations, no matter what else is happening in the world or in their own societies, can't stop thinking about Jews.

And as we Jews learned in the 1940s -- the actual, historical 1940s, not the weird fantasies conjured up by these bigots -- a whole society can be in the grip of a callous, destructive bigotry and still believe it is true and righteous.

[Hussain Abdul-Hussain @hahussain]

Fouad Siniora was Lebanon’s prime minister during Hezbollah’s 2006 war on Israel and the man who signed on UN Resolution 1701 committing Beirut to disbanding Hezbollah.

Not only Lebanon never finished off Hezbollah, Siniora now insists on blaming Israel for Hezbollah’s renewed war and demands that Lebanon boycott direct talks with Israel unless the Jewish state ceases fire. But what’s the point of talks if a ceasefire had already been reached? A majority of Lebanese politicians are either delusional or dishonest.

U.S. Treasury might want to poke Siniora to remind him that obstructing peace helps Hezbollah and therefore risks facing sanctions.

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

Esti, a 14-year-old Jewish girl, has been missing for over a week.

And antisemites in Toronto 🇨🇦want to make sure no one finds her.

They are ripping her poster down.

Do not qualify. Do not equivocate. This is evil.

It’s exactly the same evil, and exactly the same people, that ripped down posters of the Israeli hostages, wherever they were hung.

[Eylon Levy @EylonALevy]

Every word.

Foreigners need to stop patronizing Israelis with their tired, broken slogans.

Start listening to the lessons they have learned through hard, bloodstained experience.

Give us that respect.

[Ilaria @Ila_a_a_ria]

#Merz

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

Palestine Action, a group who were recently banned in the UK, has published an online “Target Map”.

The map includes addresses of both businesses and private residences, along with sensitive information, alleging ties to Israeli firms.

This is not only a reckless tool, but one that aids and enables dangerous acts on Jews everywhere.

[The Jerusalem Post @Jerusalem_Post]

The irony is that extensive audio and video footage of both the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv shows exists, but has remained locked up since Cohen’s death in 2016.
@davidbjpost takes a closer look

https://t.co/vW62xDyGoD

[UN Watch @UNWatch]

No Joke: Erdogan's Turkey was just elected Vice-Chair of the U.N. Committee on NGOs, which oversees the work and accreditation of human rights groups.

🇹🇷 Turkey jails human rights activists and in the past decade shut down more than 1500 NGOs.

🇺🇳: “I hear no objection.”

[Ihab Hassan @IhabHassane]

Last week, Jerusalem was consumed by hate and violence from Jewish extremists.

Yesterday, Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Druze marched side by side at the Interfaith March for Human Rights and Peace through Jerusalem's streets.

One group chose hate. The other chose love.

[Doblio @DDoblio]

@dimitrilascaris @MarkJCarney Among the worst violators of human rights in the world? Are you a cartoon? Compared to who? Iran? North Korea? China? You’re not a serious person.

[ZionistAF @ziopro18]

@dimitrilascaris @MarkJCarney What say you of your friends in Hezbollah and Hamas? They seem like perpetual violators of human rights from where i stand, no? Oh I forgot, you don't criticize close friends.

[Eli Kowaz - איליי קואז @elikowaz]

The word “Nakba” was coined in 1948 by Syrian historian Constantin Zureiq to describe the Arab states’ failure to destroy Israel. The disaster, in his telling, was that Israel survived — not the displacement of Palestinians.

https://t.co/K63VPaI2zq

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

The closest thing we have to royalty in Israel is Gal Gadot.

So obviously, the queen called Noam Bettan during Eurovision.

He told her about the boos he heard during her performance.

She said, “All the hate has no power over you. You’re amazing. You’re talented. The more they boo you, the louder we’ll get.”

That has always been the Jewish answer to those who tried to silence us.
They boo. We sing.

Tonight, every Jew and every decent person watching is on that stage with him. 💜

[Maarten Boudry @mboudry]

A while ago, I watched the infamous 47-minute video documenting the atrocities of October 7th — the one not made publicly available, to protect the privacy of the victims.

The worst part of this video is not what it displays, but who is displaying it: the perpetrators themselves. Gleefully. Sadistically. Unabashedly. Most of the footage was filmed by Hamas terrorists on their GoPro bodycams, some also by ordinary Gazan civilians on their cellphones.

Even the Nazis tried to cover up their atrocities, but Hamas brags about theirs for the entire world to see. The killers are euphoric throughout the massacre, and their relentless, ecstatic cries of "Allahu Akbar" (punctuated by the occasional "Kill the Jew!") are simply nauseating.

Some images are seared into my memory forever. I will never forget the two boys in their underwear — one with his eye socket hanging out of his face — asking his brother whether he thinks they're going to die, while the Hamas monster who had just thrown a grenade in their saferoom helps himself to a drink from their fridge, taking a casual break from the slaughter.

Neither will I ever forget the terrorists playing football with a severed head. Or the Thai migrant worker whose head is viciously hacked off with a garden hoe — another "Zionist colonizer" getting what he deserved, right?https://t.co/JvfJEtk8LA
Or the throngs of Gazans crowding around pickup trucks loaded with the mutilated corpses of Jewish women, filming and spitting on the bodies. Or the woman in Kibbutz Mefalsim, crouching and begging in vain for mercy.

There is some evidence of sexual violence in the video — the charred corpse of a young woman with her legs splayed and her genitals exposed — but not much. Apparently even Hamas draws a line somewhere: they are not as proud of raping Jewish women as they are of murdering them. Or, more likely, they simply didn't want to embarrass the delicate sensibilities of their legions of useful idiots in the West.

But yes — there was rape. Not "rape" in scare quotes, as the apologists would have it, but sadistic, murderous sexual violence, documented in a new damning new report by The Civil Commission, an independent Israeli women's rights NGO. (video summary here: https://t.co/LTTjiO1s7E)

Across its 180 pages, the report describes "a recurring pattern of rape and gang rape; sexual torture; mutilation; targeted shooting to the face, head and genital area; forced nudity; binding and restraint; genital burning; objects inserted into intimate areas; post-mortem sexual humiliation; and execution during or after sexual assault."

And it was premeditated and organized. The terrorists crossing into Israel carried printed Arabic-to-Hebrew phrasebooks with handy expressions like "take off your pants," "lie down," "spread your legs," and "don't make trouble." I wonder why they expected to need those particular phrases?

I know one thing: no civilized country on earth would tolerate the existence of an organization like Hamas on its border after October 7th. Not one. This includes every self-righteous Westerner currently lecturing Israel from thousands of kilometres away, without an inch of skin in the game.
https://t.co/PoKUfIHeXV

[Aviva Klompas @AvivaKlompas]

The New York Times falsely reported that Israel shelled a Gaza hospital - turned out to be a Hamas rocket.

It ran a front-page story portraying a child with cerebral palsy as evidence of mass starvation.

And now: “rape dogs.”

The @nytimes long ago stopped being a paper of record. It rushes to print sensational claims hoping their readers are stupid.

[Jake Wallis Simons @JakeWSimons]

If you only read one thing (other than Starmer crap) today, make it this

[Haviv Rettig Gur @havivrettiggur]

A lot of subscribers have asked what I made of the Nick Kristof oped.

So much has already been said. What more is there to say?

My first thought was everyone else's. Horrifying. Testimonies of pain and torture. We know that the Israeli Prisons Service is notoriously incompetent. There have been cases of Hamas prisoners abusing each other, and even famous cases of them abusing female Israeli guards. We know, too, that all prison systems struggle with the problem: New York prisons face 2,000 claims against them. So abuse of prisoners isn't merely possible, it's guaranteed. October 7 and the ensuing war sent thousands of detainees into the prisons. And in the early months, drafted into the system undertrained reservist guards. Guards who had seen Hamas's videos gleefully documenting their crimes.

I expected, therefore, a hard-hitting story of real abuse, something Israeli leaders must take notice of.

And then I came across the first obvious lie. And then the second. And then an odd claim -- maybe possible, but how exactly? -- and then another just like it. And a famed Hamas propagandist laundered as a reliable source. And then another.

Why, if there is no doubt that abuse occurred -- and there is no doubt -- was there so much obvious propaganda in Kristof's oped?

I won't pretend the lies weren't a relief. They were. It's agony to read about Israeli criminality, and the lies let me cast doubt on the whole narrative. There's an obvious propaganda campaign at work here.

But as claim followed claim, it became hard not to wonder: Despite the propaganda, what part is nevertheless true? How bad has it gotten?

So here's what we know, or at least what I think I know.

This is a campaign that seeks our destruction. Kristof quotes people who celebrated October 7 and want Israel destroyed, and will lie to achieve that goal. We know how the lies in this story made their way into it, where they came from and what purpose they serve.

Even so, I'm not willing to conclude there's no truth at all in there, just because there are lies.

Dogs did not rape anyone. The people who invented that particular inanity claimed it without evidence, knowing that no one, certainly not self-appointed moral arbiters like Nick Kristof, would ever bother checking the provenance of the claim.

Because they never, ever do. Because why would they?

So the claim spreads through the millions-strong activist network without investigation, exciting and mobilizing -- not because anyone understands how it might be possible but for the sheer thrill of it.

And it's cited by Kristof as a reliable report.

A recent report by a Norwegian NGO, also referenced, claimed "systemic sexual violence" in the West Bank by citing just 16 cases across three years in a geographic region containing as many as three million Palestinians and over half a million Israelis. And some of the examples scarcely cleared the bar for harassment.

But the NGO in question knew for a fact that no journalist would look too deeply into any of it. And indeed, no journalist did.

Because they never, ever do. Because why would they?

Friends, a paper trail is being created. Just like they created a paper trail on mass starvation in Gaza -- mass starvation first claimed in early 2024, and then claimed again and again by NGOs, the UN, everybody. Some were nuanced warnings of a "possibility," some declared it had arrived. The headlines from both were largely the same. And then, in thundering silence, the mass starvation claim just faded away, never having materialized -- while billions of ordinary people around the world who don't follow too closely remain convinced that countless Gazans died of starvation.

So they moved on. A Lancet letter claiming hundreds of thousands of deaths spread like wildfire, mostly because (a) nobody actually read or understood what it claimed and (b) nobody cared enough to check if it was remotely plausible. Then, just in case anyone forgot Lancet, came the claim by UN rapporteurs of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children -- 380,000 infants under five allegedly died, more than the entire population of infants in Gaza. Stupid, right? But it was repeated again and again by activists and protestors.

No one checks, no costs are exacted for the never-ending barrage of fakery. Because why would they?

A wild religious frenzy has taken hold. Hatred of Israel is now definitional to the left, and to parts of the right. Greta Thunberg has forgotten all about climate change. An enemy of humanity has been identified just in time to unleash all the pent-up religious rage that this troubled secular age won't allow against anyone else.

And by complete and utter coincidence, that enemy you're suddenly allowed to hate is vaguely associated with the Jews.

Yes, alas, it really is that simple.

But also, dear friends -- bear with me -- it isn't.

All the above is true. They're fucking liars and bigots. They marched in their millions, again and again and again, for weeks and months and years -- marches completely unprecedented in their size, regularity and duration in all the history of the West, in all the history of war, larger by orders of magnitude than all other marches for all other conflicts and wars and suffering combined, even those caused by their own governments. And no serious person pretends that anything similar could ever have coalesced or will ever coalesce again unless Israel is involved.

"But we fund you," shouts the American activist to explain this mind-numbing selectivity. Then why did one-third of the city of Amsterdam march? Or millions of Spaniards, Brazilians and Indonesians? It was unprecedented and it was everywhere.

And Kristof has joined the new religion. Not by being concerned about abuse, but by not caring one whit whether he's trafficking in truths or lies. Only the Jews will ask to distinguish between the two. He just needs to throw it all on the page, and his membership in the glorious crusade is assured.

Alas, the Jews are correct about the nature of this moment. Some things are so big and fundamental, so assumed and widespread, that they become hard to see. Fish don't notice the water. Activists who can only ever march against Jews are convinced they are merely righteous people enraged by war, without ever pausing to wonder why the only war that ever enraged them or ever made its way to their phones was one particular war, and not larger and deadlier wars also conducted with Western weapons and money.

And so the Jew is made fearful once more. Throughout Christendom and Islam, he is being returned to his proper place in the social hierarchies of old, complete with anxious conversos and ideological purity tests.

And yet, still, despite it all, their lies aren't the end of the story. Their lies are a separate story. A campaign of lies that constitutes a return to the mean for the Jewish condition in the West. A campaign meant to justify brutality against us, not to end war or suffering.

And despite all of it, dear Jews, there really is abuse.

It's nowhere near as much as the psychotic claims of these fantasists. Not by orders of magnitude. If it was, they wouldn't need to lie so much.

But it's there nonetheless. Many dozens of cases at least, probably in the low hundreds by now, most of them without any sexual aspect, but still wanton violence. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but the army gave a few estimates to the courts a couple of times over the past three years. There have been many indictments filed against soldiers, serious ones. I know something about a handful of those cases. I know that the problem is real.

It's there, it's real, and it doesn't seem to be stopping. And if it isn't stopped with an iron will and uncompromising hand, it will continue to fester and grow.

And it must be said: neither Ben Gvir nor Netanyahu are interested in fixing it. Nobody at the top cares about the rights of prisoners.

Let me be clear: For the first time in my life, I support a death penalty. No one who crossed over the border to massacre and kidnap on October 7 should be left alive; they came to kidnap children precisely because they sought the release of mass murderers kept alive in our prisons. Hamas, as always, in its totalizing brutality, forces the choice: If their murderers live, our children may die. I choose our children. And those who came for our children cannot be deterred, reformed or deradicalized. They murder their own to clear a path to murdering ours. And so I believe they must die. We must try, convict and destroy them.

And even I, radicalized in this narrow, specific way, say we cannot collapse into torture or abuse. That's not justice. It isn't even vengeance. It is participation in Hamas's way of war.

Nor do our leaders seem to care about the simple breakdown of discipline that these abuses represent, the kind of breakdown we saw again and again with the incidents of looting in Gaza and in the early cases of prisoner abuse that came to light.

No, dogs aren't being trained to systematically rape prisoners, you nattering halfwits. And no, Hamas propaganda operatives are not reliable sources on the question of Israeli crimes. The vast, vast majority of soldiers are honorable men who walked into fire so our families may live. The whole world may turn on them; I will stand with them, grateful for their sacrifice. And Kristof, a willing purveyor of propaganda happily feigning that he can't see the water and thrilling to a moral crusade engineered by would-be genocidaires he pretends not to understand -- is no messenger of moral reckoning.

But friends, so fucking what. Let the narcissistic guttersnipes strut their moral emotions before the world, let the UN publish endless reports that don't hold up to basic scrutiny, let the NGOs dream their rabid, sick dreams that no journalist ever fact-checks -- yes, they're lying. But so fucking what.

We still, for ourselves -- because fuck them -- must see that it isn't all fake. The problem is real. It's far smaller than they claim, but real nonetheless. And when discipline and morality break down, it can only get worse. We either crack down now or we watch it fester and grow.

And our own Ben Gvirs are stubbornly refusing to fix what is actually broken, the real thing in the real world.

And so we are caught in a strange sort of vise, the same vise we find ourselves in with the genocide lie: A vast propaganda machine that seeks to destroy us -- countless activists too high on their own self-regard to see the irony of raging against a "genocide" while calling for the erasure of a people -- all while our own incompetent, venal, self-absorbed political class insist in their mindless chatter on confirming every claim of our enemies for sheer, bald egomania.

I'm sick of it all. I know you're all sick of it too.

And that, in a nutshell, is what I think about this.

Just because they're lying, just because a vast perfidious campaign has overwhelmed global elites in a bid to clear the way for our removal, just because they're still, after two millennia, building their visions of redemption on The Evil Jew -- doesn't mean there isn't also, separately, a problem on the ground.

So what do we do now?

Simple. We see it, we acknowledge it's happening, we bring our rage to our inept leaders until they bend to our will and act to stop the breakdown...

And we soldier on.

We soldier on because the enemy really is coming to murder us. Because Hamas must still go if Gaza is ever to rise to a new day. Because Hezbollah will yet destroy Lebanon on the altar of destroying us. Because the ayatollahs built their whole damn religion on the extermination of our children.

We fix the broken things within us as if the pogromists and their simpering Kristofs don't exist. We owe no answers to the propagandists who seek to clear a path to our deaths. But we do owe answers to ourselves.

Let the screaming mob rage and churn like so much sea-foam. Despite that raging mob, despite the enemy who still seeks our destruction, and yes, despite feckless incompetents like Ben Gvir, our minister of prisons, who claim to lead us -- we remain the strongest, freest Jews who ever lived, more capable and committed than our self-destructive enemies ever imagined. And the task is still before us, yet to be completed, the sacred duty given to our generation to ensure our children don't have to face the genocidaires who now surround us. We do not waver, we do not stumble. We soldier on.

Because fuck them all.

[CIJA @CIJAinfo]

CIJA and UJA Joint Statement - Suspect Arrested in Synagogue Shootings 

We are encouraged to learn that a suspect has been charged in connection with the shootings at Shaarei Shomayim in Toronto and Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto (BAYT) in Vaughan this past March. The suspect is not being named as he was 17 years old at the time of the offence.

These attacks shook the sense of safety not only for those congregations, but for Jewish communities across the region. We thank the Toronto Police Service and York Regional Police for their diligence and coordination in advancing this investigation. Their work sends a clear signal that those who target our community will be identified and held accountable.

Strong and consistent enforcement of the law is essential. The Jewish community, like all Canadians, must have confidence that acts of violence and intimidation will be met with serious consequences. 

Multiple shootings targeting synagogues represent a dangerous escalation. Canada’s reputation as a safe and inclusive country depends on our collective willingness to confront this reality directly. We will continue working with partners at all levels to ensure the safety and security of Jewish institutions and to address the conditions that allow hate to take root.

As the Jewish Security Network (JSN) continues to work closely with law enforcement, we encourage community members to stay aware of their surroundings and report any concerns.

[John Spencer @SpencerGuard]

A lot of the domestic conversation about Iran focuses on whether the President wants a way out, fears escalation, or prices at gas pumps. I disagree. What is at stake is far bigger.

Two pillars of global stability and American strength are on the line: freedom of navigation and nuclear nonproliferation.

Freedom of navigation is the principle that no regime can be allowed to choke global commerce through coercion or force. That principle is what keeps the world economy functioning and has been a foundation of American power for decades.

If Iran is allowed to control international waterways and weaponize a global trade chokepoint like the Strait of Hormuz, the consequences will not stop there. Every major maritime chokepoint, the Strait of Malacca, Bab el-Mandeb, the Suez Canal, and beyond, becomes vulnerable to the same logic of coercion and extortion. The global economy depends on the principle that these waterways remain open to all nations, not controlled by force or threats.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was built to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Only 9 countries in the world possess them. We cannot allow a terrorist regime that sponsors militant proxies, threatens regional war, and violates international obligations to become the 10th.

Allowing Iran to weaponize the Strait of Hormuz or acquire a nuclear weapon would undermine both pillars and destabilize the global order.