laurie bernhard

[ADL @ADL]

1/ DSA co-chair Megan Romer just gave a jaw dropping interview to @NewYorker's David Remnick. What she said and doubled down on in this interview should concern every American. Because this kind of hateful and demonizing rhetoric against the only Jewish state in the world goes well beyond criticism of a government or its policies, and it puts every Jewish American at risk. We've seen this far too often.🧵

[Rich Toronto @rich_toronto]

If I get into my car drunk, and I get into an accident and hurt someone and get arrested, it’s not the fault of the person I hit.

If I screw off at work and the company is negatively impacted and my boss fires me, it’s not my boss’ fault.

If I rape a woman and get arrested and locked up, it’s not the woman’s fault.

These are examples of consequences.

And if I attack the country beside where I live and I murder and rape and massacre and kidnap their citizens, and they respond to that attack, not stopping until I’m unable to ever harm them again, that’s not their fault. That’s not a genocide. That’s not an oppression.

That’s consequences.

And they’re necessary.

Because without consequences, people won’t stop.

[Rich Toronto @rich_toronto]

Our planet has lost its integrity. Its humanity. Its sense of right and wrong. Its sense of fact vs fiction. Its ability to think critically.

Terrorists attack a country, massacring over 1200 innocent people, kidnapping over 240. Mass rapes. Beheadings. Burning people alive. There’s video evidence. People deny it happened, call for a ceasefire and rip down hostage posters.

People celebrate the massacres by the terrorists. Including children and mothers. They spit on the dead bodies. They laugh at the hostages.

Doctors hold people hostage.

Parents celebrate when their children tell them that they’ve massacred people.

Hostages are being held in Rafah for months. The US and other countries attempt to stop the rescuers from entering Rafah.

Children are getting beaten up, and adults watch and do nothing.

Children are threatening other children, saying they will do to the children what Hamas did to Israel.

People deny the violent sexual assault of women, despite evidence. Women deny it.

Women are violently kicked on the streets of London.

Canada opens its borders to take more people in from Gaza, increasing the risk of terrorism in Canada.

Israel provides aid. Hamas prevents it from getting to the people of Gaza. And the world condemns Israel.

The woke left believe the most outrageous propaganda, because they’ve been taught that “Zionists lie”.

A social media app is being used to brainwash our society, and nobody’s stopping it.

Jewish Schools and synagogues are shot at, and local elected officials don’t show up to support the community.

Musical bands scream for "death to the IDF", a war-cry calling for the murders of Israelis, and authorities don't believe a crime was committed.

We are slipping so far down into the abyss.

Our planet is divided.

Fractured.

People have been pitted against each other.

And at the worst possible time.

Just as we are facing an existential threat.

One might think this is all by design.

If you look at it from a different angle, one might think this is exactly what Oct 7 was meant to do.

Perhaps you’d see that the protests started before Israel even responded.

Maybe you’d notice the signs were already made. The accusations of “genocide” before a single death in Gaza.

Did you pick up on the coordination across the world? How the protests and rhetoric are all moving at the same speed in every country and city? Do you think they paid protestors the same all over?

How about those encampments that sprung up?

The propaganda was the same. Everywhere. The repeated phrases. “Genocide.” “Free Palestine.” “Resistance”.

And what are our governments doing about it?

What are our authorities doing about it?

Ignoring it.

Allowing it to happen.

Because our planet has lost its integrity.

At least the left half has.

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

So proud of the incredible opposition team: @EmilyKSchrader, @EinatWilf, and @AviMayer.

Telling that the motion was framed around whether Israel wanted peace— when all four Proposition speakers reject Israel’s right to exist, and all four of us have spent our careers advocating for it.

[ד״ר עינת וילף Dr. Einat Wilf @EinatWilf]

Oxford debate is done! Kudos to the amazing team of @emilykschrader @HenMazzig @AviMayer
More impressions later, but for now - here is the text of my talk in opposition to the proposition "This House Believes Israel Never Truly Wanted Peace with Palestine":

Israel wanted peace. Truly. Repeatedly.

And yet, from the minute the United Nations voted for the Partition Plan in 1947, we have been under attack. The Arabs threatened to use force to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state on any part of our homeland, and they proceeded to make good on that threat.

And what did that Partition Plan call for anyway? Was it some grave injustice to the Arabs? No. Most of the fertile land was to go to what would have become the Palestinian Arab state, while the Jewish state would be relegated to three pieces of barely contiguous, mostly arid non-arable territory.

And yet, the Jews said yes. But the Arabs said no. First the Palestinian Arab militias attacked and then in May 1948, every Arab nation surrounding us and beyond invaded. And this is the only reason why there were ever any refugees from that war. The only reason.

Israel managed to survive the 1948 Arab war, and we would have been happy to just live in peace.

Remember, at the end of the 1948 war, Jordan annexed the West Bank and Egypt administered Gaza. There was nothing – absolutely nothing - to prevent them from creating one more Arab state on these territories for the Palestinians.
They did not.

Instead, they chose to continue the war against Israel, which is how Israel came to control the West Bank and Gaza. It was not in some aggressive land grab. It was after multiple Arab armies surrounded us - again - and in May 1967, announced: “This is our chance Arabs, to deal Israel a mortal blow of annihilation . . .”

Israel won that war in six days, but even then, we offered peace, making it, as Abba Eban (of Cambridge, much better I believe, I went there too…) wryly observed “the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender."

And, what was the Arab and Palestinian response to Israel offering peace? "No to peace with Israel, no to recognition of Israel, no to negotiations".

But we still hoped for peace. So, we entered the Oslo Peace process in 1993. And in September 2000, just when many Israelis, including me, truly believed that a two-state solution was close, Palestinians launched the Second Intifada escalating into a brutal campaign of suicide bombings that left over 1000 Israelis shred to bloody pieces with thousands more maimed for life.

Yet, through all that, when in December 2000, President Bill Clinton put a peace deal on the table that would have given the Palestinians all of Gaza, 96% of the West Bank with comparable land swaps from within Israel, no settlements, safe passage between the two territories, most of the Old City, Arab East Jerusalem for a capital and an international force replacing the IDF on the West Bank - it was Israel that said yes.

There was no excuse for the Palestinians not to take this deal. None. But the Palestinians, led by Yasser Arafat, walked away, choosing instead to continue blowing us up through suicide bombings.

Ultimately this led to the construction of the security barrier, checkpoints, roadblocks in the West Bank which thankfully brought, for a while, an end to this reign of bloody terror.

You would think we would get the message, but in 2008 it was Israel, through Prime Minister Olmert, who made yet another peace offer, A near-total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, with close to 100% land swaps; No settlements, A link to the Gaza Strip; Arab East Jerusalem as capital of Palestine. Israel would have given up sovereignty over all of the Old City – including the single holiest site to the Jewish people, The Temple Mount, which would be overseen by an international trusteeship.

Again, there was no excuse for the Palestinians not to accept it. None. But under President Abbas, the Palestinians walked away from that, too.

Israel even disengaged from Gaza in 2005, removing all settlements, allowing ourselves to believe that the elected government of Hamas wanted to focus on improving their people’s lives, instead of destroying ours.

We were so desperate to believe this that we ignored all the red flags, allowing numerous Gazans to enter Israel to work, study and get specialized medical care.

But all this emphasis on economic development and work permits was part of a carefully built deception, as Hamas leaders later boasted, to lull Israelis into thinking they really were going to mind their own business and live calmly next to us – while they were planning something very very different.

On Oct 7, 2023 3000 trained and armed Palestinians invaded Israel from Gaza. Much of the intelligence they relied on came from the very Palestinians we allowed into Israel on work and study and medical permits. They massacred. They pillaged. They engaged in acts of gleeful sadistic brutality which I still lack the heart or the stomach to describe. They took 251 hostages – elderly men and women, mothers, fathers, children, babies. And it was not just trained militants, thousands of so-called “Ordinary ‘innocent’ civilian Palestinians” joined enthusiastically in the frenzy of manic violence, committing horrific acts of brutality.

And when the IDF went into Gaza, as they had to, to ensure that the Palestinians could never again do this to us, they found a completely weaponized landscape: Tunnels running under and opening into every house, mosque, hospital, and school. A land filled with booby traps making it impossible for us to fight without doing enormous damage to Gaza. And Hamas, who remained hidden in tunnels and in civilian clothing, designed it this way. This is what we were facing.

So do not dare look at us and propose that “Israel Never Truly Wanted Peace with Palestine”. If anything, we wanted it too much. We made offer after offer of peace. We absorbed endless aggression.

But we are not going to let ourselves be annihilated to convince you that we want peace. And we will certainly not accept peace on any terms. Some of you demand a one state solution and pretend that two peoples, connected to the same land but with distinct religions, values, cultures, languages and histories, who have never lived in peace, will magically exist in peace and harmony if only they live in one state. And frankly, far too often this call for a one state solution is not naive or delusional but a carefully calculated attempt to rob Jews of their right to self-determination to be a free people in our own land.

In this, we are no fools. We have a millennia long history of being persecuted and subjugated by one people after another, and we are not about to give up our one and only state to go back to being at the mercy of others.

We do want peace and we are willing to go far to make it happen, but we will not give up our state for it.

So now, it is your turn, Palestinians, to answer the question that somehow no university seems to debate – When did you ever truly want peace with the one Jewish state?

[Jonah Platt @JonahPlatt]

They're Not Self-Hating Jews. The Truth Is Harder.
We didn't lose them to hatred.

We lost them to a Jewish education that stopped at holidays, songs, and tikkun olam.

[Vivid.🇮🇱 @VividProwess]

Bill Clinton: “The Palestinians were offered a state. They refused. A state wasn't their goal. Killing Jews was."

This must be shared every single day.

[Jonah Platt @JonahPlatt]

Thank God for Bill Maher

[U.S. Senator John Fetterman @SenFettermanPA]

Confirmed: rapists, cowards and vile deviants.

Volumes of incontrovertible evidence of the depravity of Hamas.

NYT preemptively dropped a grotesque op-ed with sources linked to Hamas for a beachhead of “bothsiderism” Hamas defenders.

[laurie bernhard @ljbernhard]

@edgaralandough This one hit home. 100% agree.

[Rich Toronto @rich_toronto]

There are 17 countries in the Middle East (including Cyprus and Egypt, despite their ties to the EU and Africa respectively).

Exactly two are considered democracies. Cyprus and Israel.

In only 5 of them is homosexuality not illegal - Cyprus, Israel, Bahrain, Turkey and Jordan.

5 of these countries have the death penalty as a possible punishment for same sex acts, although only one actively uses it - Iran.

Iran allows for marriage as young as 9.

Saudi Arabia and Yemen have no fixed minimum. Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon and Libya allow it at 15. Israel is with a group of 5 countries with a minimum age of 18.

All 17 have Christians and all 17 have Muslims.

Israel has more Muslims than Bahrain and Cyprus.

9 of them have Jews living in them, but 4 of those have less than 100 Jews each. After Israel at 7.4M the next highest is Turkey at 14,000.

Israel is the 6th smallest of the 17, yet has the 3rd highest total GDP and the second highest GDP per capita.

Israel has won the 4th highest number of Olympic medals, and has the highest number of Nobel prize winners. Combined, the other 16 countries have won 2 more (16) Nobel prizes than Israel has (14).

14 of these countries have moderate to significant distinctions in laws between men and women. Israel has high equality with some differences in marriage and divorce.

According to the 2026 World Happiness Report, Israel leads the Middle East as the 8th happiest globally. Next highest is UAE at 22nd. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen are numbers 139-142 respectively.

And despite all of this, the Free-Palestine movement has managed to convince so many that Israel is an apartheid nation. That Israel is an evil nation. That Israel does norm”have the right to exist” / whatever that means. That Israel should be destroyed.

Stop listening to the lies and propaganda.

Look at the data.

Look at the facts.

Discover who’s who.

Do some critical thinking.

And let’s shut down the real threat, so that the world is safer for everyone.

[laurie bernhard @ljbernhard]

@rich_toronto Amen

[Rich Toronto @rich_toronto]

It’s amazing the number of comments I’ll see on my posts accusing me of being a “victim” or some stupid memes about “victim cards”, so let’s clear something up right now.

Jews have been targets of multiple wars and attacks and smear campaigns and hate throughout our more than 3,500 year history.

Millions of lives have been taken , victims of horrific murders and terrorist attacks and genocidal acts.

But we are not victims.

Tens of thousands of rockets and missiles have been fired at us, targeting civilians, and there have been victims of these barrages.

But we are not victims.

Our name has been dragged through the mud, there have been tropes and blood libels and lies said about us, and people have attempted to cancel us. There have been countless victims of this hatred, lost jobs and livelihoods, lost friends and colleagues.

But we are not victims.

We are, by far, the most hated group on this planet, and have been since we came to be. You blame us, you envy us, you target us, you loathe us.

But we are not victims.

Victims see themselves as powerless. They blame others. They bring up the past to garner sympathy.

Jews are not powerless. We are not ashamed of who we are. We do not hide who we are. We do not stop being who we are.

We are not victims.

We do not spend our lives blaming. We acknowledge what has happened. We learn from it. We move on. We build. We develop. We grow. We repair. We bring the light.

We are not victims.

We do not want your sympathy. We bring up the past to sound the alarm about what’s happening now. So that others can hopefully learn from it, to prevent it from being repeated.

We are not victims.

The targets of your attacks, are victims of those attacks.

The targets of your hate, are victims of that hate.

The targets of your barbaric actions against us, are victims of that savagery.

But the Jewish people are not victims.

Israel, is not a victim.

And nothing you can do to us, will ever change that.

The people of Israel live.

The people of Israel will always live.

Proud.

With our heads held high.

Not as victims.

Never as victims.

As fighters.

As survivors.

As Jews.

Am Yisrael Chai.

[Rawan Osman روان عثمان @RawaneOsmane]

I lost count. This might be my 20th visit to Israel since October 7.

Not to Lebanon, where I grew up, where an economy survives on the support of visitors.
Not to crumbling Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, which offered me nothing but harassment and a birthplace on my passport.
But to Israel, during the worst war since its establishment.

Because I am a traitor.

I betrayed my friends and family, my educators, and the mainstream in Lebanon, Syria, across the Arab and Muslim worlds, in Europe, and in America.

Unlike the masses who have never set foot in Israel, I know that Israelis are not monsters. They do not seek war, nor do they wage it to conquer land. The accusations of genocide, the blood libels, the conspiracy theories—they are not rooted in reality. They are born of ignorance, and too often, of something darker.

At best, hostile opinions stem from a profound misunderstanding: of this war, of the history of this conflict, of political Islam and its ambitions, of Judaism, and certainly of Zionism.

But how could the average person not be confused?

A relentless campaign of misinformation defames Israel while elevating the Palestinian narrative into a simplistic story of pure victimhood. It is emotionally compelling. It is easy. It requires no deeper inquiry.

And so the question is never asked:

What happens the day after?

Would a Palestinian state focus on building a thriving society, contributing to the region and to the world?
Or would it continue a war against Israel?

History does not leave much room for doubt.

Every attempt at compromise has been met by rejection or violence. And yet, the pressure is always placed on Israel—to concede, to risk, to appease.

Why?

To satisfy crowds who chant slogans they barely understand?
To align with a cause that thrives not on building, but on perpetuating conflict?

Real genocides unfold across the world and are met with indifference. Millions of Kurds still seek a state. Others fight for self-determination without commanding global obsession.

The difference is not the cause.

The difference is the JEW.

The particular fixation on Israel cannot be separated from a much older story—one of projection, distortion, and hatred uniquely reserved for Jews.

I consider myself privileged.

Privileged to have seen through the lies I was taught—the lies you are told.
Privileged to have encountered the reality of a people who built, defended, and sustained a state against relentless hostility.

As a seeker of truth, I was met with warmth, love, and respect.

I have come to admire Israel and the Jewish people to such a degree that the noise—the accusations, the mob, the cowardice—has become irrelevant.

Yes, I am a traitor.

A traitor to narratives built on falsehood.
A traitor to expectations that demand loyalty to lies.
A traitor to a cause that demands endless sacrifice and conformity.
A traitor to a cause to which I owe nothing. On the contrary, it owes me.

I believe not what I was told, but what I see.

I choose truth over belonging because I am free.

If that makes me a traitor, so be it.

I stand, firmly and proudly, with Israel.

Am Yisrael Chai.

#Israel #palestine #October7

[Eyal Yakoby @EYakoby]

At the American Muslims for Palestine conference, they openly discussed their plans to take over America, including through suicide bombings, stabbings, and mass-shootings.

America must wake up.

[Van Jones @VanJones68]

The U.S. and Israel just launched one of the biggest military actions of the decade — hitting more than 500 targets inside Iran. Tehran fired back.

The hardest place in politics is the one where you hold more than one truth at the same time. That’s what I tried to do here. I present both sides of six arguments, supporting and opposing the attacks.

The internet has already split in two: team “disaster” and team “finally”. In reality, the complexity of the situation is deeper than either side is letting on.

Please read my piece. Sit with anything that makes you uncomfortable. Then hit me with your take in the comments. Thanks! 🙏🏾

War in Iran: Every Argument For It and Against It — Laid Bare https://t.co/PvqsLm89qC

[laurie bernhard @ljbernhard]

@JonahPlatt Agree. I said the same thing in 2020 about the people who said the election was “stolen”.

[Niall Ferguson @nfergus]

The outstanding commentator on contemporary Iran is @ksadjadpour. This is a must-read piece.

[John Spencer @SpencerGuard]

https://t.co/nljO7A08XP

[laurie bernhard @ljbernhard]

@modernhistory