Update on Commenting Problem

Still trying to resolve the issue. I have been working on it non stop. Disqus stopped functioning yesterday. I am trying to reinstall it. So far - after following instructions form Disqus, Blogger, and even AI -  have not been successful. I am currently trying to find website designers that are familiar with Blogger and Disqus. If there is anyone reading this that is familiar with these platforms please contact me at 

hmaryles@yahoo.com 

As a consequence of this issue there will be no new posts today. Thank you all for your patience. 

Administrative note

Disqus - the comment section is no longer functional I have been trying to repair it but have thus far been unsuccessful. If  I can't repair it within the next few days, I will be forced to close down disqus and find another commenting system that is compatible with my host, blogger. If there is anyone reading this that is tech savvy please email me  at 

hmaryles@yahoo.com 

and perhaps you can guide me through a fix.

In the mean time, thank you for your patience.

'The Letter'

For those who may be interested - I was a guest along with Open Orthodox Rabbi Ysoscher Katz  last night on Zev Brenner's Talkline. The discussion was about  the controversy over Rabbi Yosef Blau's letter questioning whether Israel is exercising sufficient moral clarity in its war with Hamas in Gaza. A letter Rabbi Katz signed along with 80 of his mostly Open Orthodox colleagues. Video below:

 

The Truth About Palestinians

Secretary of State, Marco Rubio (JNS)

It may sound a bit simplistic. But it is a fact, nonetheless. We are in a war between objective fact and subjective fiction. That is how I see the assessment of Palestinians by the world (and their handmaiden - the mainstream media) - versus the assessment by the Trump administration. 

Jonathan Tobin, editor-in-chief of JNS has written what I consider to be one of the most definitive pieces of commentary on the subject of Palestinians I have ever read. Rather than paraphrase him. I have decided to make one of my rare exceptions and publish his piece in its entirety. It is a MUST READ and it follows:

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio invited the scorn of the world with his announcement last week that Washington was barring officials from the Palestinian Authority from entering the country to attend the meeting this month of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. The move prompted the predictable outrage from critics of President Donald Trump for not playing by the rules of international behavior the foreign-policy establishment has laid down. It’s also the subject of a more serious debate about whether the decision violates the 1947 United Nations Headquarters Agreement, since that accord was passed by the U.S. Senate as a treaty, and therefore, has the force of law.

But the revocation of visas to P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of the posse of corrupt kleptocrats he brings with him every year when he engages in his annual rant from the podium of the General Assembly is only part of the story. As The New York Times reported two days later, they’re not the only ones being banned from entry to America. On Aug. 18, the U.S. State Department cabled all U.S. embassies and consulates around the world not to issue visitor visas to all persons carrying passports issued by the P.A.

Rubio’s order is, as JNS senior contributing editor Ruthie Blum wrote, a gesture aimed at undermining the effort by various Western nations to use the UNGA to promote the fiction of Palestinian statehood, for which the 89-year-old Abbas, who is currently serving the 20th year of the four-year term to which he was elected back in 2005, would be a central prop.

Another ‘Muslim ban’?

Yet by forbidding all Palestinians from coming to the United States for any other purpose than legal immigration, there’s no getting around the fact that Trump is putting in place a ban on Palestinians—and not just their feckless representatives.

That is something that will be widely denounced as an act of prejudice in much the same way enlightened liberal opinion reacted with horror to Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban.”

That executive order, which was signed in January 2017 and applied only to those from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, didn’t affect more than 80% of the global Muslim population. The initial version of the ban was successfully challenged in court and replaced with a better-written one that remained in place until overturned by former President Joe Biden on his first day in office.

Arguments over that rule proved a dialogue of the deaf. Trump and his supporters asserted that the issue was keeping out people who were more than likely to be supporters of terrorism, and therefore, a legitimate threat to the United States. Trump’s opponents, including almost all of the mainstream media, saw it as both intolerant and racist, claiming that only a bigot would single out those countries.

We can expect more of the same now with respect to the Palestinians.

As the Times story itself illustrated, any discussion about an attempt to hold Palestinians accountable or to draw conclusions about them is something that the liberal press regards as not merely prejudicial but particularly unfair to a people who have suffered so much in the last century. The last line in the piece was given to the mayor of Turmus Ayya, a village in Samaria where many dual Palestinian-American citizens live, who said that “it feels like Palestinians are always treated in an unjust way.”

But it is precisely this narrative of Palestinian suffering that is at issue in this discussion and which should not go unchallenged.

Holding Abbas accountable

What Rubio has done with this ban is not so much an attempt to trip up the farcical effort by France, Britain, Canada and Australia to give a reward in the form of a sovereign state to the Palestinians for the atrocities they committed against Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, and for starting the war that followed the Hamas-led attacks on Jewish communities that took place that day. Doing everything possible to spike the renewed campaign for Palestinian statehood is, in and of itself, an important objective, since Oct. 7 is by itself glaring evidence of what the Palestinians would do if they were granted sovereignty over Judea and Samaria as well as the Gaza Strip.

The claim that Abbas is a peace-loving “moderate,” which is at the core of the statehood push, is a myth—and an insulting one at that. The P.A. continues to subsidize terrorism in the form of its “pay-for-slay” program that applies to those who committed the crimes of Oct. 7, as well as to previous bloody criminal acts. He may cooperate with Israeli security forces to keep himself alive against Hamas threats, but he, too, has refused peace offers from Israel, making it clear that he will never accept one that compels them to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders could be drawn. Abbas only belatedly condemned the Oct. 7 atrocities in equivocal language, 20 months after they occurred, and only then in a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron. He has never done so in Arabic to his own people.

The United States is right to hold him accountable and to refuse to participate in a U.N. charade in which he pretends to be the head of a non-existent state whose only practical impact will be to encourage Hamas to continue fighting and never release the hostages it still holds.

Yet there is more here than just that. The U.S. decision is also a much-needed rejection of the international media campaign that depicts the Palestinians as oppressed victims in a war they initiated and continue to support. Yes, they have suffered terribly, but the facts of the matter have become twisted as part of a global anti-Israel propaganda campaign.

The truth about Palestinians

Still, the harsh and unavoidable truth about them is that they are largely a population that has been indoctrinated in hatred for both Israel and America via the propaganda that they consume in Palestinian media and in their schools. That is true whether discussing those who live under the authoritarian thumb of Abbas and the P.A. in Judea and Samaria, or in Hamas-ruled Gaza. The events of the last two years demonstrate this via their support for Oct. 7, coupled with the past 78 years during which they have rejected several offers of statehood with wars and bloody terrorism.

Individual Palestinians may oppose what their leaders, and the popular organizations and terror groups that have dominated Palestinian politics for the last century, have imposed on them. It’s also true that the overwhelming majority of Palestinian-Americans who live in the United States are law-abiding citizens.

But it is hardly unreasonable for the administration to look at the political culture that has rejected every peace offer, including those of statehood alongside Israel. Add to that generations of bloody terrorism that culminated in the unspeakable crimes of Oct. 7, which have also produced a particularly noxious brand of genocidal antisemitism.

That is something that has been obscured by the mainstreaming of Hamas propaganda and blood libels against Israel about it committing “genocide” in Gaza or deliberately starving Palestinians. The proper response to this narrative in which Palestinians are the victims of the post-Oct. 7 war is to point out that it began with an orgy of mass murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction that was committed by ordinary Palestinians rather than just Hamas fighters. The hostages were, as we have learned from those who were rescued or released in ransom deals, mostly held captive by ordinary Palestinians, not Hamas fighters.

The assertions of Biden about the war—and even the statements about it from many Israelis and Jews who would prefer to ignore the truth—that depict this fight as one that is solely between the Jewish state and a terrorist group that has hijacked the Palestinian cause and misled their people are all mistaken. This is a war between two peoples and not solely against terrorists.

Western projections

It is axiomatic that Westerners view other cultures as mirror images of their own, no matter how much this is contradicted by reality. We project our own sensibilities and expectations on the products of belief systems that do not share the same premises. As a result, most Americans and Europeans have approached the conflict between Jews and Arabs over the land of Israel as one susceptible to compromise. Many Israelis have done the same. They have ignored the dismal fact that Arabs have always regarded the notion of sharing sovereignty over any part of the world that has been under Muslim rule as not merely inadmissible, but an unforgiveable slight to their collective dignity that they will not tolerate.

That is why the late Israeli statesman Abba Eban was wrong to say that the “Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity” since they thought all of the compromise peace plans that would have given them a state were not opportunities.

It also explains why peace never happened during the 30 years of peace processing that preceded Oct. 7. It also is the reason why it was that the Israeli withdrawal of every settler, soldier and Jewish community from Gaza in the summer of 2005 led to a terror state and the building of an underground fortress the size of the New York City subway system there to facilitate the continuation of a century-long war, rather than an incubator for peace.

And it is also why Americans should look at those who did this—the Palestinian leadership, including Abbas and his Fatah Party, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian population that supports them—and acknowledge that this is not something we want more of in the United States.

There is a belief among many on the left, especially liberal Jews, that immigration to America on the part of just about anybody is somehow a fundamental right. They foolishly mistake the mass immigrations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as efforts by Jews to escape a death sentence in Nazi-occupied Europe as morally equivalent to what amounted to an invasion of the country by millions of illegal immigrants on Biden’s watch. They further see any effort to enforce existing immigration laws by Trump as authoritarian. His approach, however, has been a sensible response to a serious problem that has threatened the well-being and safety of many communities. It’s also a justified effort to defend the interests of working-class Americans that the Democrats have abandoned.

Securing American borders

However, the effort to secure America’s borders—a feat that was largely accomplished in short order by Trump after four years of Biden’s open borders policies and negligence—also applies to the question of what sort of people ought to be legally allowed into the United States.

Seen in this light, the denial of visas is a long-delayed and entirely justified reaction to a century of a Palestinian culture of hatred and intolerance, in which a war against the Jews became an inextricable part of their national identity. Importing a population of people to whom the rejection of the West and antisemitism is so important is madness. So, too, is allowing large numbers of people from this group to come to the United States to study, where they can assist in the transformation of our institutions of higher education into bastions of Jew-hatred and opposition to Western civilization.

Whatever one may say about the inconsistencies of the initial Trump “Muslim ban,” which did not exclude those from many countries who were just as likely to constitute an Islamist threat, a focused visa ban on Palestinian Arabs is entirely justified.

More than that, it should initiate a more honest look at the individuals being kept out by Rubio’s order.

Many Palestinians are innocent victims of the current war. Yet as a whole, the Palestinian Arab population has chosen war and terror. Hamas could not have maintained control over Gaza for 17 years while diverting the billions in aid that flowed into the Strip toward terrorism without that being the case. And if Abbas continues to refuse to hold another election in Judea and Samaria, it is because he knows that Hamas would win it.

Keeping Palestinians out of the United States isn’t just a wise decision based on an understanding that giving them a state from which they could duplicate the crimes of Oct. 7 is madness. It is also recognition of the reality of Palestinian political culture that has deliberately courted another nakba (“catastrophe”) similar to its decision in November 1947 to reject an Arab state alongside a Jewish one, and to launch a war to destroy the newborn Jewish state. It’s a rejection of the media narrative that sees the genocidal war that they began on Oct. 7 as part of their victimhood, as opposed to irrefutable evidence that they constitute a threat to the West and Israel until they undergo a sea change that will allow them to embrace peace.

For the administration to acknowledge these facts is not prejudiced, racist or Islamophobic. It is simple common sense.

The State of Play - Israel and the US

Israel's Ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter

With Israel facing declining support, few people in the public arena have as much clarity on the issue as does Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Yechiel Leiter. 

Jewish Insider has published an article based on an extensive interview wherein he lays out who Israel’s real friends are, who aren’t, and suggests that most of those who aren’t are likely closet (if not overt) antisemites. The ambassador does not limit the latter to a single party or ideology. Here is how he puts it:

The Trump administration has been much friendlier to the government in Jerusalem than its predecessor, supporting the Israeli war effort in Gaza with no limitations on arms shipments. Yet, the broader political atmosphere is more hostile to Israel than it has been in decades.

The turn away from Israel was reflected in a recent Senate vote in which a majority of Democrats supported blocking some arms sales to Israel, as well as in the growth of the isolationist wing of the Republican Party, the rise of influential media figures who peddle antisemitism, and public opinion about Israel in decline.

There is no question that the “isolationist wing” of the Republican Party—whose most vocal critic in Congress is Marjorie Taylor Greene—is an old-line antisemite who hates the Jewish people. She would never admit that publicly, but her comments about Israel speak volumes.

When a Conservative Republican starts sounding like a progressive Democrat on issues pertaining to Israel, there can be no other conclusion. One of Taylor Greene’s recently stated policy positions is to reduce U.S. foreign aid to Israel, claiming that as a nuclear power Israel doesn’t need our weapons. She suggested that the money Congress allocates to Israel should instead go to Americans who don’t have jobs or don’t have health care.

But as Leiter so clearly retorted, the money allocated to Israel is all spent in the U.S. on weapons manufactured by American workers who thereby have good health benefits. Reducing that aid to Israel would mean fewer American jobs and fewer people with health coverage. So it isn’t only the left. As Leiter further noted:

In addition to “the woke left, which has distanced itself from Israel, because we’re perceived as … the white men that have dominated and written history,” Leiter lamented the “conspiratorial, isolationist” right.

“Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens’ orbit is not America First, it’s Israel and Jews last,” he said. “America First is fine. We don’t have an issue with that. We put Israel first, America puts America first … I think it’s obvious and elemental. With the isolationist and conspiratorial right, Israel is always wrong and the Jews are always behind everything that’s wrong.”

One might recall that the last line is exactly the way Hitler felt about the Jews. It is fair to say that the views of Taylor Greene, Carlson, and Owens are not that far from those of Adolf Hitler. He would surely have welcomed them into his club.

Thankfully, Leiter said he has not found those anti-Israel views in the halls of the White House, State Department, or Pentagon. That is very reassuring.

What is not reassuring is the fact that the wide support Israel had enjoyed from Democrats in Congress before October 7^th was not very deep. The minute they found a way to rely on the old canard about Jews being behind everything that’s wrong, they latched onto it faster than a toddler running to the ice cream truck. Without bothering to give Israel’s version of the truth any credence at all. Not so most Republicans (and a few standout Democrats) who continue their broad and deep support of Israel.

But the biggest issue facing Israel now is the war in Gaza. Many questions abound: Did Israel accomplish anything in its nearly two years of war considering what it has lost in world support because of it? And what were those accomplishments, if any? Should the war continue? To what end? Is the end envisioned by the prime minister - the complete eradication of Hamas - even possible? Is the price of additional world condemnation and further reduction of support in Congress worth it even if it is? And finally, is the U.S. relationship with Israel really worth all that much to the U.S. in the first place?

Leiter does a magnificent job answering those questions. First, lessening the U.S. relationship with Israel would be a devastating blow to U.S. intelligence:

(Leiter) quoted Gen. George Keegan, who once told journalist Wolf Blitzer that the value of Israeli intelligence is worth five CIAs.

“You know how much that would cost [to replace]? The level of cooperation we have at this point between our intelligence communities is very, very, very deep and wide. We provide a tremendous service to the United States’ interests in the Middle East,” he said.

What about continuing an increasingly unpopular war? Here is what he said about that:

“There’s no public in the world that wants to end the war more than we [Israelis] do. No one has suffered as much as we do. Since the day Israel was founded, we haven’t experienced one day of peace. Not a day. We want to end this war and we can’t do it unless we have defeated this enemy. … The ultimate goal is going to be a complete demilitarization of Gaza.”

What about accusations against Israel of deliberately killing Palestinians for purposes of genocide? That one is the most outrageously antisemitic accusation of all, for the many reasons I have spelled out in the past. But Leiter points out the following as well:

Israel has facilitated the exit of 40,000 people from Gaza who had visas to receive medical care in other countries, and they left through Israel—not Egypt, which would have charged them tens of thousands of dollars to transit through their country.

“Why wouldn’t Egypt just open the border and let people go through?” he asked.

Good question. If facilitating the exit of 40,000 Palestinians needing medical care is genocide, the world could use a lot more ‘genocidal’ countries like that.

Has the war accomplished anything substantial so far? You’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to recognize that it has. Israel’s war with Hamas has precipitated an unprecedented level of change in the region that no one would have ever predicted. Says Leiter:

“We’ve seen all of the (Iranian) proxies degraded. We’re about to completely destroy Hamas. Hezbollah is dramatically degraded to the point where the Lebanese government is actually moving towards disarming them. We have the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Nobody could have imagined that would have happened. And the Houthis are being degraded … There’s a new Middle East out there,” he added.

And finally, there is the issue of a Palestinian state. Leaders of major European countries have declared their intention to recognize such a state at the annual meeting in the UN next month. Even though it doesn’t exist in any shape, manner, or form. Here is what Leiter had to say about that:

(Very) few Israelis still support the proposition.

“Even the left-of-center realize that the bandwidth for another state west of the Jordan River is untenable and unacceptable. Since Oct. 7, that bandwidth has narrowed further, and it’s about a hair’s breadth now… Everybody’s got to get used to that and stop talking about this two-state solution,”

There are other more realistic ways to give Palestinians the peace and control of their lives they want as an independent people, which Leiter outlines.

As Leiter argues, European leaders’ recognition of Palestinian statehood is more about their concern for getting the votes of their growing Muslim populations. He adds that they couldn’t care less about Palestinians. Because if they did, they’d issue visas. France, for example, could issue 150,000 visas and give Gaza refugees a new lease on life. But that’s the last thing they want to do. And Israel is paying the price.

Leiter further argues that recognizing a Palestinian state is “prolonging the war … in essence declaring Oct. 7 Palestine Independence Day. What they are really doing is rewarding Hamas for slaughter and massacre. 

Says Leiter:

“It’s an outrage. It’s immoral. And we have to stay the course. We are ultimately going to be vindicated,” 

I think he has a point.

The Moral Decline of Cvilization

LGBTQ Jews show pride in who they are (JTA)

I get why some people consider intersectionality worse than simple prejudice or bigotry. Intersectionality is a term coined by civil rights activist Kimberlé Crenshaw. It refers to the phenomenon of increased prejudice when two or more different types of bias ‘intersect’ against one individual. An example of this would be a Black woman who may be discriminated against for both racist and sexist reasons.

Whether this has consequences in the real world, I am not prepared to say. Perhaps. But hate is hate regardless of how many reasons one can think of for hating. But I digress.

This issue occurred to me with respect to LGBTQ Jews. (How’s that for intersectionality?) In a rather lengthy article in JTA, Deborah Danan describes the prejudice gay Jews experienced both for being gay and for being Jewish. And how, after the events of October 7^th, gay Jews have experienced antisemitism from other LGBTQ groups because of their support for Israel.

Some have expressed that their identity as Jews has become more important to them than their identity as gay. And they describe how wonderful they feel in Israel, where they are so accepted.

What struck me most about this article, though, was not so much what these young gay Jews were going through. Or how they felt about being both gay and Jewish, when it has become fashionable among the mostly leftist LGBTQ community to be antisemitic.

That antisemitism is so prevalent on the left is no longer a surprise. That it overrides the sense of brotherhood LGBTQ people might otherwise feel toward each other should also not be a surprise. The further one goes to the left, the further one moves away from biblical principles. Which lately also means being more antisemitic.

This, I believe, is why the left hates Jews so much. They consider us responsible for foisting biblical morality onto the world. And our millennia-long existence by virtue of honoring our biblical legacy is evidence as to why biblical morality has lasted so long. The more to the left one goes – the more they consider the Bible to be immoral and blame the Jews for instilling those values into civilization. Israel is simply a convenient target that deflects accusations of antisemitism.

My problem here is just how mainstream the LGBTQ lifestyle has become. This was demonstrated by Danan’s tone. There was not the slightest suggestion that LGBTQ people were living lives inherently at odds with biblical values. The fact that Israel is so gay-friendly is depicted in the most positive of ways. Living one’s biblical values is no longer considered to have any real value at all. The civilized world has a new set of values that essentially discards the biblical ones it dislikes. The values it does retain are independent of the Bible, and are only there by coincidence.

To religious people who still value the Bible, the current culture is completely immoral when it comes to sexuality. Whereas the Bible dictates what is and isn’t proper sexual behavior, Western culture - and by extension secular Israel - has largely ignored these standards.

So, when I read an article like this that assumes an LGBTQ lifestyle is no different morally than a married heterosexual lifestyle, I see a world going down the road to destruction.

Sexual immorality in its various forms has been the ruin of many great civilizations. Rome’s decline can at least in part be attributed to the loss of traditional family values which include sexual restraint.

In our day, birthrates have declined in part due to the increase in homosexual lifestyles, adultery, divorce, simple avoidance of childbearing, and women choosing to have children later in life (if at all) in favor of careers. If I am not mistaken, the birthrate among secular Jews in Israel is declining as well. For similar reasons.

A man lying with another man as with a woman is as immoral as having a sexual relationship with another man’s wife. Even (or perhaps especially) in an ‘open marriage’ that has the consent of both parties.

That LGBTQ people feel their lifestyles carry the same moral values as the lifestyles of married heterosexuals - despite the former lacking the biblical imprimatur given to the latter - is troubling.

This is, of course, not to say that LGBTQ people should EVER be mistreated, harassed, or discriminated against. As I have said more times than I can count: being gay or trans is not a sin. It is what one does about it that might be. The only thing that should be condemned is the sin itself. NOT the individual who struggles with it. We all have our struggles, and no one should be judged for that.

But to go from understanding and respecting individuals who struggle with biblically required behavior, to celebrating and even encouraging it, is a prescription for the destruction of great nations.

As the World Turns (Against Israel)

Mahmood Abbas at the UN - an image we will not see this year (BBC)

The president has stated the obvious. But the fact that he is the one saying it makes it more significant. VIN reports the following:

President Donald Trump said Israel is winning militarily but “losing the public relations war,” warning that support for the Jewish state in Congress has weakened.

In an interview with the Daily Caller, Trump noted that Israel’s once-powerful influence in Washington has “diminished significantly.” He recalled a time when Israel had “the strongest lobby” in Congress but said that dynamic has changed, particularly as progressive lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her allies have shifted the debate.

Trump pointed to recent polling showing younger Republicans holding less favorable views of Israel. He cautioned that while the country remains strong on the battlefield, it is “losing the PR fight” in the eyes of the public. Still, Trump defended his record, insisting, “Nobody has done more for Israel than me.”

There is nothing to disagree with here. Leaving aside the favorite whipping boy of the left—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is an easy target to blame for everything, I ask: what exactly is Israel supposed to do about it?

As I recently wrote, you can explain until you are blue in the face - why Israel has no choice but to do what it is doing in pursuit of its future security. It won’t matter. The overwhelming world view is that Israel is committing genocide and using starvation as a tactic of war. Israeli denials are ignored.

There is no understanding of Israel’s need to protect its future. There is o death! ocus at all on the nature of Palestinian hatred for the people they claim ‘stole’  their land, or theigPtalestinian suffering under Israeli bombardment; tens of thousands of innocent civilians - mostly women and children - being killed; homes destroyed, people displaced living in tents, and rampant starvation. That is all they see.

They have all but forgotten what happened on October 7^th. Nothing about Israeli hostages still in Hamas captivity under the cruelest of conditions. Deliberately being starved to death. Even when they occasionally pay lip service to it, it pales in comparison to the accusations of genocide by Israel. The latest of which has come from so-called ‘genocide experts’ – the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS). Who have all but emptied the word of all meaning by redefining it to fit what’s going on in Gaza.

That Palestinians in Gaza were living in relative peace before October 7^th doesn’t seem to matter. That Israel gave them Gaza to build into their own version of paradise - which Israel would gladly have helped them do - matters even less. Instead, Hamas used billions in aid to dig terror tunnels and build a base for random attacks against Israel. Gaza could have been a beautiful city on the Mediterranean. Instead, its leaders chose to take that money to terrorize Israel - and preserve refugee status in order to blame Israel for it.

And yet, despite Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure, Gaza still managed to have hospitals, schools, mosques, and community services. There were no food shortages. Only poverty caused by poor governance.

Israel never had any intention of killing Palestinians because they were Palestinians. That would be genocide. But when there is a war of existential import where terrorists embed themselves among the most vulnerable of their own people, civilian deaths become unavoidable. In truth, the only ones committing genocide is Hamas - against their own population.

And yet the world doesn’t care. The IAGS has redefined the term to indict Israel, claiming it is targeting innocents. That they can say this with a straight face makes them, in my view, practiced liars. But because they are considered the ‘gold standard’ in determining the term, their accusations stick. Add to that other so-called ‘gold standard’ UN affiliated institutions that have declared famine -  is it any wonder why Israel is losing the PR war and lost so much support in Congress?

Worse, this makes people like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar look as if they were right all along about Israel. It even justifies all the protests  against Israel that have called to implement BDS.

None of this is new. Except that it has now been acknowledged by the president himself.

That being said, I am grateful that Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the following:

The US State Department has instructed its diplomats to refuse most visas for Palestinian passport holders, whether they live in the West Bank, Gaza, or overseas, according to a cable seen by CNN.

And from the BBC:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been blocked from attending the UN General Assembly session in New York next month, after he and 80 other Palestinian officials had their visas revoked, the US State Department has said. 

And finally, I am grateful for President Trump’s steadfast support.  He and his administration know the truth. Even as he urges Israel to end the war soon, he does not necessarily mean surrendering the goal of defeating Hamas. He simply believes it should be done faster.

If Israel could do that, it would. Which brings us back to the same old - same old: is the pain worth the gain? Is plummeting congressional support for Israel worth the prime minister’s definition of victory? And if Netanyahu ends the war short of his goal, is it too late to win back congressional support that has been lost?

I don’t know the answers. All I do know is that facts no longer matter. The only thing that matters is image. 

Rabbi Berel Wein, ZTL

Rabbi Berel Wein, ZTL (JNS )

Two weeks ago, on August 16, 2025 (which happened to be Shabbos), the Jewish world lost a giant among men. Rabbi Berel Wein was truly an iconoclast with few, if any, peers. A clear thinker, he refused to be swayed by the winds of religious change that influenced so many of his Orthodox colleagues. He was the quintessential Ish Emes—a man of uncompromising truth and faith. If anyone ever embodied Emes VeEmunah, it was Rabbi Wein.

His ability to transmit Jewish history in the most engaging and accessible way was a delight to behold. I devoured many of his writings, particularly his works on Jewish history. In all the opinion pieces of his that I read, I don’t recall ever disagreeing with him. It was always comforting to see a man of such stature take positions similar to mine - views not necessarily in line with the strict ‘party line’ of his colleagues on the right (Which he nevertheless had great respect for.) Not that he ever knew of me or my views. But sometimes, his outlook mirrored mine, which diverged from those of his peers to the right.

To cite just one example: In his book, Triumph of Survival, he did not hesitate to praise Theodor Herzl for founding Zionism, which eventually led to the creation of the State of Israel. That surely did not endear him to his colleagues, who had nothing but harsh words of condemnation for Herzl. Yet Rabbi Wein spoke the truth as he saw it, without fear or apology.

There were many such instances. He never shied away from telling it like it was. His views were based on a deep understanding of Torah, history, and what God demands from His people. Criticism did not faze him. He used his vast knowledge of Torah and his finely tuned common sense to arrive at his conclusions.

Rabbi Wein was never mevatel daas—he did not negate his own thinking on matters of public concern, unlike the popular practice among his peers to the right of always deferring to ‘the Gedolim’ -  rabbis considered the greatest of the generation.  That is what I admired most about him. He was both a profound Torah scholar and an independent thinker - two essential ingredients in the pursuit of truth. Truth, after all, does not mean abnegating one’s inteligence; it requires using God’s gifts of intellect and knowledge. This was Rabbi Wein’s modus operandi. It guided his every move and contributed to his success in the wide variety of endeavors he pursued and was successful at.

In a strange way (or perhaps not so strange), his views legitimized many of the views I held. Positions seen as controversial by the right, yet quite similar to his.

Perhaps this kinship came from our somewhat common educational background. We both attended the same Yeshiva (HTC), albeit in different eras. His preceded mine by about 13 years. But like him, I too was privileged to experience great European Talmidei Chachamim - rabbinic scholars whose personalities were shaped in legendary Yeshivos like Slabodka, Kletsk, Telshe, and Mir. Though Rabbi Wein’s connection was closer in time to theirs, I also benefited from the presence of the great rabbinic scholars who had either survived the Holocaust or had immigrated here before it. And who carried their legacy forward. (Some of whom overlapped both Rabbi Wein’s time and mine.)

Perhaps experiencing their teaching and personal example gave both of us a glimpse into a vanished world no longer accessible to today’s yeshiva student. Those great European rabbis are gone, and their legacies have too often been co-opted and reshaped to fit the contemporary culture of the right.

In the aftermath of his passing, it was heartening to see the outpouring of eulogies from across the spectrum, even from the right. They praised him for his honesty and iconoclasm while recognizing that he was entirely L’shma. Motivated only by the purest intentions. Many in the Charedi media paid him tribute, despite knowing full well that his views often clashed with theirs.

This is why I waited to write my own tribute to him. I wanted to see how he would be treated by those he so ofent disagreed with. I’m happy to report that it was with the greatest respect.

I do not know if there is anyone like him today. I doubt there is anyone who could disagree with the strongly held positions of the right and still retain their respect. Nowadays, dissent so often places one Chutz La’machaneh - outside the camp of Torah, as they define it. For me, it was comforting to know that someone like Rabbi Wein stood - perhaps unknowingly - in my corner. I fear there is no one who can truly fill his shoes.

His wise counsel will be missed by all who had any connection with him, whether directly or indirectly through his writings.

Yehi Zichro Baruch - may his memory be for a blessing.