What do we do when we face a dead end in our private or national lives? Judah has pledged himself to Benjamin and now watches in horror as the Egyptian ruler ensnares them and prepares to take Benjamin away. Will the son of Leah abandon the son of Rachel? Will Judah abandon Israel? Or, in contemporary terms, will the Jew abandon the Israeli?

Judah's exemplary speech is rich in psychological depth. He understands the Egyptian ruler's sensitivity regarding the aged father. But Judah is also speaking to future generations. The years that have passed since the sale of Joseph have taught him, and his brothers, that there is no future for the family without both of its branches together, that the Jew needs the Israeli and the Israeli needs the Jew.

2.

Joseph's dreams were the "inner guide" of the House of Israel, to borrow terminology from the psychoanalyst Carl Jung. The House of Leah was meant to subordinate itself to the national idea represented by Joseph. The sale of Joseph was a surrender of the national dream and a retreat into bitter sectarianism, competing over who is the chosen son.

Facing a foreign ruler who threatens the family, the dispute is forgotten, and all unite. Joseph leads his brothers toward reconciliation and forgiveness while hiding behind a mask. The mission will be completed when he sheds the garments that conceal him and reveals his identity. This is the double vision that the Book of Genesis educates us toward: beneath the visible events pulses a deeper current, stronger than the froth on the surface of the stormy waters of reality. Standing before Judah and the brothers is, ostensibly, an Egyptian king. But within him lives and beats a Hebrew king, the master of dreams.

3.

At the core of the various dreams in the book lies a more encompassing dream, one dreamed by our forefather Abraham: that his descendants would go down to Egypt as a family and emerge from there as a people, on their way to the ancient homeland (Genesis 15). This vision propelled, generation after generation, the dream of the return to Zion: "When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like dreamers" (Psalms 126:1). A dream not only in the sense of longing and yearning, but a deep historical current pushing reality toward its purpose, and our people toward their purpose and their natural place in their land.

This stands against all those who struggled against us during the long night that preceded our revival: "Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn" (Genesis 32:25). Even if we are left in eternal isolation and mighty forces struggle against us, we will remember that "He sets an end to darkness" (Job 28:3), and that dawn will rise. "A cry of joy shall rise,/ for the night has passed,/ and over the joy of destruction dawn has risen/ …perhaps once in a thousand years/ there is a dawn for our death," as Nathan Alterman wrote in Simchat Aniyim ("The Joy of the poor") during the darkest days of World War II, when Nazi Germany was at the height of its victories. He learned from our forefather Abraham to look, from the depths of catastrophe, toward the redemption of Israel.

There is a great historiosophical lesson here that the Book of Genesis teaches us. We can act through our willpower, confront the events that unfold in our private and national lives, but beneath the surface operate larger and deeper historical forces which, in a long-term perspective, create a different and more meaningful picture than the one we imagined.

4.

When, then, is the time for revelation? When is the moment to break through the current of unfolding events and remove the masks toward the intimate revelation of brother to brother?

Now.

When Joseph realizes that Judah, on behalf of all the brothers, is prepared to give his life for his brother Benjamin and to become a slave in his place, at the moment when all hope seems lost and sincere remorse for the sale has been fully revealed. Joseph can no longer restrain himself and reveals himself to his brothers.

Joseph, too, learns that not only the brothers bear responsibility for his sale, but that he himself had a part in it through youthful narcissism, the belief that everything revolved around him, and his desire to hasten the end and press his brothers into a corner. He understands that it was not the rivalry between Leah and Rachel that lay at the heart of the conflict, but the rivalry between him and his brothers, which he himself nurtured and inflamed. And now Judah stands before him and creates a repair: he is ready to sacrifice himself for the son of Rachel.

"Even if a sharp sword rests upon a person's neck, he should not refrain from mercy" (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 10a). Note when salvation occurs: when all hope is gone, when there seems to be no future, when facing a representative of the strongest empire in the world. And how does salvation come? Through self-sacrifice, through the understanding that there are values worth more than a person's life. Salvation arrives through Judah's recognition that in order to save the family and the Abrahamic vision, he must give up himself, his privacy, for the sake of the collective. Thus, before our eyes, the ideal model of the Kingdom of Israel takes shape, a kingship that has nothing of its own, but is entirely devoted to the people, in deep humility before the sacred task of leading all of Israel.

5.

When Joseph reveals himself to his stunned brothers, he says: "And now, it was not you who sent me here, but God" (Genesis 45:8). I was sent here to save you, "to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep you alive as a great deliverance" (Genesis 45:7). You thought you had rid yourselves of me, but in truth, through your actions you fulfilled the dreams without knowing it. And not only Joseph's dreams, but the dream par excellence of your forefather, the founder of our nation, to whom it was said: "You shall surely know that your offspring will be strangers in a land not their own" (Genesis 15:13). This was in order to bring the House of Jacob down to Egypt for a period of incubation in the womb of the greatest empire of their time, and from there to be born, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, as a people going out to freedom on its way to the promised land.

6.

Jacob had already once gone into exile out of fear of his red-haired brother. But now it is the extended family at stake. Therefore, just before he goes down to Egypt to see his son, God encourages him not to fear the descent to Egypt, "for there I will make you into a great nation" (Genesis 46:3). The House of Jacob will there become the People of Israel. God then promises him: "I Myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I Myself will also surely bring you up again" (Genesis 46:4). Hidden here is an awe-inspiring promise that has sustained us and our ancestors: not only does the people go down into exile, God goes with them.

For 22 years, Jacob mourned Joseph as dead, and now before his eyes his son rises as if from the dead, and with him his father, "and the spirit of Jacob their father revived" (Genesis 45:27). The House of Israel is whole once again and ready for the greatest trial of all, exile. Now, as Abraham's fearful dream begins to be fulfilled and the House of Jacob is swallowed into the Egyptian womb, a fixed time remains for the Hebrew fetus until its days are complete and it is born.

During this time, our ancestors will do what we have done in every generation: contribute to the strengthening and prosperity of the land they lived in. The Egyptians, for their part, will do to us what many nations in history have done while denying our contribution: enslavement and murder, followed by expulsion. But we know that not only the Egyptians are acting on the stage, just as the brothers did not act alone: "For one higher than the high watches, and there are higher ones over them" (Ecclesiastes 5:7). Deep beneath the froth of the events that churn history, behind the masks and beyond the news screens, the dream has been at work for thousands of years, pushing us forward. "We were like dreamers" (Psalms 126:1).

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Several factors make this meeting crucial, and the Iranian threat is undoubtedly the most serious. Iran is rebuilding its nuclear capabilities and, above all, its ballistic missiles. Since the Israeli airstrikes and the American attacks on various nuclear sites just six months ago, the ayatollahs have relentlessly pursued their nuclear program and significantly improved their ballistic missile arsenal, capable of reaching all strategic targets within Israeli territory.

It seems that President Trump does not want another war against the Ayatollahs and, for the time being, refuses to allow Israel to attack Iran. Faced with this refusal, Netanyahu will have to present Trump with a comprehensive dossier from the intelligence services, Mossad and Aman, and obtain American approval in the event of an imminent and existential threat that would constitute a true casus belli.

Trump is a man in a hurry and wants to conclude peace agreements quickly and hastily sign economic and trade deals. However, he will not hesitate to launch raids if American soldiers are threatened or attacked, as he did recently in Syria against ISIS terrorist cells.

The instability of the Syrian regime and Trump's support for Ahmed al-Charaa, a former terrorist leader, should also worry Americans.

We deplore their haste in recognizing this new regime and lifting the robust sanctions imposed on Syria without preconditions. Netanyahu must be firm on this issue and demand the continued presence of the IDF on Mount Hermon in Syria and effective protection for the Druze minority in the south of the country.

Regarding South Lebanon, it is essential to disarm Hezbollah, particularly through the use of an international force, and to fully implement the UN Security Council resolutions, including the one adopted in 2006 following the Second Lebanon War. This resolution notably required the establishment of a buffer zone between the Blue Line border and the Litani River. In August 2025, Resolution 2790 also renewed the mandate of UNIFIL until December 31, 2026.

In this context, Netanyahu will have to ask Trump to allow the IDF to launch targeted raids against each Hezbollah ceasefire violation and forcefully demand the dismantling of the Shiite militia's military arsenal.

Implementing the second phase of the Gaza conflict resolution is obviously the most complicated, as Hamas not only refuses to lay down its arms but is also slowly but surely regaining control of the Gaza Strip. This is all the true given that Qatar and Turkey continue to support Hamas and are eager to join the Peace Council, of which Trump is also the chairman.

While the IDF controls a significant portion of Palestinian territory, an Israeli troop withdrawal is out of the question as long as Hamas refuses to lay down its arms. Consequently, the IDF's indefinite presence in the Gaza Strip also complicates the establishment of an international force and a peace council.

To break the deadlock and avoid straining relations with the American administration, Netanyahu will first have to muzzle his ministers and teach them to keep quiet, rather than speak carelessly. "Speech is silver and silence is golden." This saying from our Talmudic sages is especially valid in diplomatic relations.

The Prime Minister will also have to make certain concessions on the condition that he does not endanger our security interests and obtain from Trump a formal commitment to demilitarize the Gaza Strip by all means and at all costs before even rebuilding this territory.

Without a doubt, expanding the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia or Indonesia would be a crucial step towards reconciliation with the Arab and Muslim world, but it cannot come at the expense of the Jewish state. We reject an illusory peace.

The meeting in Florida is therefore crucial for the future of Israel and the entire region, but also for the political and personal future of Benjamin Netanyahu at a time when he faces new scandals daily in the management of government affairs, and is impatiently awaiting a pardon from President Herzog.

On the eve of a new election campaign that promises to be very turbulent, Netanyahu will have to prioritize Israel's security interests and not his personal or political whims.

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This meeting takes place at a decisive moment. Cyprus is approaching its presidency of the Council of the European Union, Greece and Cyprus form Europe's southeastern anchor, and Israel is no longer a peripheral energy actor. Energy and connectivity are not side issues; they are the connective tissue linking Israeli, Greek, Cypriot, and European interests.

This was precisely the logic behind the EastMed pipeline when it was conceived. EastMed was designed to connect Israeli and Cypriot gas reserves directly to Greece and onward to Europe, bypassing unstable intermediaries and reducing Europe's exposure to coercive gatekeeping. Signed in Athens in January 2020, the intergovernmental agreement reflected a clear strategic intent: geographic diversification and sovereignty.

Then came the freeze.

In mid-January 2022, the Biden administration quietly withdrew its political support for EastMed. Electricity interconnections were promoted as a preferable alternative. Yet EastMed did not stall for technical or economic reasons. It stalled because it collided with Washington's preference to avoid confronting Turkey's self-appointed gatekeeping role.

The timing is impossible to ignore. Barely weeks later, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Overnight, Europe discovered that energy dependency is not abstract, but a strategic liability. The project meant to reduce that liability had been halted just in time for it to matter.

What followed was not independence, but self-deception. Europe pledged to end its reliance on Russian gas. In practice, it rerouted it. With Nord Stream disabled and the Ukrainian transit route closed, Russian gas continued to reach Europe through TurkStream. The molecules remained Russian, the revenues still flowed east, but the invoice passed through Ankara. This was presented as diversification; in reality, it laundered dependency through Turkey.

The result is worse than before. Europe has not only failed to free itself from Russian gas; it has transferred leverage to a state that openly uses energy as a political instrument. Turkey now positions itself as a hub capable of blending, relabeling, and reselling gas, while extracting strategic concessions in return. Dependency did not disappear. It changed hands.

The American role in this outcome cannot be reduced to one administration. The difference between Biden and Trump is one of style, not result. Trump's problem was strategic disorientation. He repeatedly treated fundamentally different corridors as interchangeable, selling competing maps at once. By blurring IMEC with Turkey-backed routes through the Caucasus and Central Asia, he weakened the logic of sovereign connectivity.

The episode of "inviting" Kazakhstan into the Abraham Accords exposed this flaw with unusual clarity. Kazakhstan sits at the core of the Middle Corridor, economically tied to Moscow and structurally embedded in Turkey-anchored Eurasian transit networks. Wrapping it in Middle Eastern branding produced headlines without leverage – symbolism without infrastructure – and signaled confusion about which geography Washington was actually backing.

The Biden administration framed EastMed as environmentally outdated and geopolitically inconvenient, prioritizing de-escalation and climate optics while leaving Europe exposed. The Trump worldview, by contrast, favors grand corridors and transactional bargains. Yet its tolerance for Turkish ambitions, from the Zangezur corridor to personal diplomacy with Ankara, similarly reinforces Turkey's role as an indispensable intermediary. Two administrations, two narratives, one shared outcome: Europe remains dependent.

This contradiction is increasingly visible in the broader corridor debate. IMEC was announced as a transformative link between India, the Gulf, and Europe. Yet without a secure, sovereign Mediterranean anchor, it risks remaining a conceptual map rather than an operational one. At the same time, alternative routes through the Caucasus and Central Asia, marketed as "middle corridors", reinforce Turkish leverage. Even the symbolic discussion of extending the Abraham Accords to Kazakhstan reflects this confusion between optics and infrastructure.

Against this backdrop, it is essential to be clear about Egypt. Israel's expanding gas cooperation with Egypt, including agreements reached just last week, does not undermine EastMed. It complements it. Egypt provides an immediate, pragmatic export route using existing LNG infrastructure. EastMed provides a long-term, direct, sovereign corridor to Europe. One is a bridge. The other is the backbone. Together, they create flexibility rather than competition. This is precisely why Ankara reacts so aggressively to both. The Egyptian route already moves volumes. EastMed would permanently break the monopoly on mediation.

The economic argument against EastMed has also been overstated. With construction costs estimated in the single-digit billions and a projected operational life measured in decades, the pipeline does not require heroic assumptions to make sense. Under conservative European price scenarios, capital recovery would occur within a timeframe typical of strategic infrastructure, while the strategic return would begin the moment dependency is reduced. Energy security cannot be priced only per cubic meter.

Nor is EastMed limited to gas. It fits naturally into a broader corridor architecture that includes electricity interconnections, digital infrastructure, and future energy carriers. Planning scenarios already examine expanded capacity and multi-use configurations. This is not a dormant idea waiting for permission. It is a set of options actively being assessed and coordinated among regional partners and within European frameworks.

None of these questions addresses the value of the United States as an ally. But alliance is not veto power, and partnership does not require strategic paralysis. On EastMed and Mediterranean connectivity, American priorities do not merely differ from those of Israel, Greece, Cyprus, and Europe – they cut across them. This is not partisan. It reflects Washington's preference for managing intermediaries over eliminating dependence. The cost of that choice is already visible.

The Jerusalem meeting is more than a routine trilateral. It marks a recalibration by regional democracies and the European Union toward a simple truth: energy sovereignty cannot be outsourced. Advancing EastMed, alongside electricity interconnections and IMEC's Mediterranean anchor, is not a move against Washington but an assumption of responsibility for Europe's own stability.

Europe can keep calling Turkish mediation "diversification" or build the infrastructure that gives the word meaning. EastMed forces that choice. History will remember not Europe's statements after 2022, but whether it chose resilience over convenience when the path was clear.

Shay Gal is an expert in international politics, crisis management and strategic communications. He works globally, focusing on power relations, geopolitical strategy and public diplomacy, and their impact on policy and decision-making.

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There is a direct line connecting this attack to earlier ones, including the bombings in Paris at the synagogue on Rue Copernic and the Goldenberg restaurant in the early 1980s, the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center building in Buenos Aires, and attacks against Jews in Casablanca and Istanbul in the early 2000s. This is only a partial list of terrorist attacks in which dozens of Jews were murdered.

Between these major attacks, there has been a long series of hate crimes, many of which are never even reported. These include the torching of synagogues and Jewish schools, harassment and outright assaults against Jewish passersby on the streets of Europe and even in New York, which only recently elected a mayor who denies Israel's right to exist and does not recognize Jews as a people entitled to self-determination and a homeland.

It is possible to downplay the waves of antisemitism sweeping the world, as the Australian government has unsurprisingly done, and claim that the Hanukkah massacre in Sydney was merely an isolated incident carried out by two lone attackers, as if they were aliens who landed on Earth by chance and stumbled into a Hanukkah celebration on the beach. It is also easy to issue vague, nonbinding statements condemning antisemitism, as Australian officials have done, followed by many others around the world, without attempting to understand the nature of twenty-first century antisemitism. This modern form fuses hatred of Jews with hostility toward the State of Israel and uses criticism of Israel, and even calls to erase it from the map, as a cover and pretext for attacking Jews.

What must be done to stop this wave of hatred and terror against Jews around the world? The answer is simple: Learn from the lessons of the past and apply them.

After the attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, the Americans did not limit themselves to hunting down individual perpetrators. They went after the leadership, those who initiated, inspired, trained and financed the attackers and their planners. They went to war and toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan because it had provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden. Similarly, in the previous decade, when a wave of attacks inspired by the Islamic State swept through European streets and even reached the US, the Americans did not focus on the lone attacker but waged war against the quasi-state the Islamic State had established in Iraq and Syria and destroyed it.

The collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the dismantling of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria led to a dramatic drop in terrorist attacks, because there is a logic even to the madness of terrorism. Even a lone attacker needs a source of inspiration, someone to finance and train him or his handlers, and, of course, a supportive atmosphere and environment.

Indeed, even in Australia, the government expelled Iran's ambassador last August, accusing Tehran of standing behind the wave of antisemitism that has engulfed the country. It has now emerged that the attackers in Sydney trained with an Islamic terrorist organization operating in the Philippines. The remaining question is who stands behind that organization.

The fact that all roads lead to Tehran should come as no surprise. Terror has always been an effective tool for the Iranians in advancing their interests. In the past, they did not hesitate to cooperate with al-Qaida, their Sunni enemy, in order to strike the "Great Satan," America, and the "Little Satan," Israel. It is also reasonable to assume that Qatar played a role in fueling waves of hatred and antisemitism among Muslims around the world.

The waves of antisemitism and terror are not a marginal phenomenon or a mere nuisance. They are becoming an existential threat to Jews in the Diaspora. Israel has the tools and capabilities to strike terrorists and those who dispatch them, but an international effort is required in the fight against terror. One can only hope that countries and peoples around the world, including in the moderate Muslim world, will rally to this effort. Past experience shows that terrorism must be defeated and that it can be defeated.

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Anyone who reads the manifestos of Iran and its affiliates, and studies their religious texts, will discover that they are willing to tolerate us, under one condition: that we Islamize. The Islamic religious justification for annihilating the Jewish people, should we refuse, is drawn from an established religious doctrine. Some even believe that Allah allowed the State of Israel to be established in order to gather the Jews in one place and make their extermination easier.

The Simchat Torah massacre was the result of a distorted, radical interpretation of Islam. One doesn't need to be a religious scholar to see it. Just listen to the words of these Muslim Nazis, captured by their own bodycams before they slaughtered, raped, and burned men, women, the elderly, and children. Their actions were soaked in perverse religious rationalizations. It's what Naomi Shemer and her husband Mordechai Horowitz once described as: "The Arabs prefer their murders hot, wet, and steamy, and if they ever get the freedom to fully realize themselves, we'll miss the Germans' good, clean gas chambers."

The hostages and released captives repeatedly report how their captors tried to convert them. Just like in the Hanukkah story—"when the evil Greek kingdom stood against Your people Israel to make them forget Your Torah"—so too now. When the Muslim Nazis tried to erase their Jewish identity and force them to convert, the Jewish spirit awoke. Keith Siegel began reciting the Shema twice daily and saying the blessing over bread. Yarden Bibas told his captors he was born a Jew and would die a Jew. Agam Berger refused their demands to cook on Shabbat and swore to herself and to her people: "I have chosen the path of faith." Her friend Liri Elbag, who was also targeted for conversion, recreated the Passover Haggadah in illustrations because she was forbidden to write. Tami Breslavsky said her son Rom was beaten and humiliated after refusing to convert. So it was with others. In the darkness of the tunnels, the Hasmonean spirit radiated from the Jewish soul, breaking through to the surface when the hostages came home.

Even the supposedly "moderate" Palestinian Authority, whom the US insists on bringing back into Gaza after a few rounds in the spin room, is part of this religious war. For years now, and still today, the PA refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and has rejected every demand to do so. "The authority will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state," Mahmoud Abbas once declared. "We said this in the past, and we're saying it again—we will never agree."

The PA also wants to turn back the clock, to bring millions of descendants of refugees here (the original refugees themselves are mostly no longer living); to reestablish an Arab-Muslim majority; to designate the land as Islamic waqf. Bottom line: The PA is no different from Hamas. Its route to the same goal is simply more convoluted and deceptive. Its basis, too, is religious.

On October 7, Hamas sought to raise its flag over the Temple Mount, "to cleanse the Mount of the Jewish presence that defiles its Islamic character." That was the banner flown over the massacre. The operation's name—"Al-Aqsa Flood"—tells the story. For years, Israel tried to run from its past on the Temple Mount, pushing away Jews who wanted to pray there. It placed the menorah, symbol of the Hasmonean victory and the official emblem of the state, outside the Mount, facing the Knesset, not the mountain itself.

But those who flee from the mountain find the mountain pursuing them. Two years ago on Simchat Torah, Hamas marked its next target: the Temple Mount. And if Israel is serious about achieving a "total victory," then it must address this target too.

In Israel, even no, just as in Hasmonean times when the victory was realized on the Mount, the religious sentiment (as the late Uri Elitzur once explained) is a powerful political force. This is true for both Jews and Muslims. Anyone who denies this does not really understand modern politics.

The partial victory on the Temple Mount so far has come from the grassroots. It belongs entirely to the movement of Mount activists, who for decades have knocked on the locked gates of prayer and eventually opened them. Jews have been praying on the Mount for more than a decade now. Contrary to the predictions of security experts submitted to the courts, the sky did not fall. No world war broke out because of Jewish prayers. The Arab world, broadly speaking, has come to terms with it, even if it hasn't agreed.

Now it's time for the Israeli government to think about how it wants to see the Temple Mount, not just de facto but de jure. The claim that the status quo on the Mount hasn't changed is pure fiction. Muslims have turned the status quo on its head: They built three more mosques there, expanded prayer areas, restricted Jewish access and visitation times, destroyed archaeological remains from the Temple era, and turned the sacred compound into a hub of incitement, terror, and violence, a production line for attacks based on the false "Al-Aqsa is in danger" narrative. Hanukkah is a fitting time to lift more restrictions on Jews at the Mount, and, above all, to begin restoring Jewish prayer there through the front door, not by stealth or denial. This, too, is part of achieving a total victory.

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"Overwhelmingly, most of the world recognizes a two-state solution as being the way forward in the Middle East," Albanese muttered in his trademark anodyne tone when relating to the attack. This was pushback against insinuations of Australian diplomatic culpability made by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and many Jewish leaders.

Albanese is wrong. He is blind, purposefully in denial. His enthusiasm for promoting Palestinian statehood led to the Bondi Beach slaughter.

Albanese's impudent and insolent, in-Israel's-face, at-Israel's-expense, over-Israel's-objection, stance on this matter indeed makes him culpable in the murder of 15 Australian Jews. As Emile Zola famously wrote: J'accuse!

This may be an accusation not comfortable to make, but Israeli and Jewish leaders around the world must insist upon it in every interaction with politicians and diplomats.

Leaders like Albanese – and prime ministers Keith Starmer of Britain and Mark Carney of Canada, and President Emmanuel Macron of France – must be told that their insane insistence on unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood, specifically after October 7 and especially as calls for the destruction of Israel escalate in Palestinian society and in Western streets – is immoral.

Unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood in defiance of Israel obnoxiously delegitimizes Israeli historic-national and security positions and callously undermines the right to dignity of Jewish supporters of Israel. It amounts to abrogation of Western commitment to Israel's security and to abandonment of the Jews. It is criminal appeasement of the enemy beast (and the beast will never be appeased).

It declares open season for hunting down Jews and "Zionists." Yes, it directly paves the way to Sydney-style bloodbaths.

You see, the dereliction in countering antisemitism of the Australian government (and of the British, Canadian, French, and other governments) is clear, but that is only part of the picture.

Undeniably, they have been delinquent in setting proper limits on democratic discourse and in applying concrete policies that would combat the escalating hate fest. They have let the jihadist mobs rant-away in their streets with calls of "Gas the Jews," Death to the IDF," "Globalize the Intifada," and other threats to Jews near and far.

Alas, dereliction of duty in combating such hate is an accusation easy to make and substantiate. It is a painfully obvious and searing indictment, but also too thin of an indictment. Western leaders must be charged with more – with mollycoddling the rapidly accelerating civilizational assault on the Jewish People and their indigenous homeland, the State of Israel.

WHEN GOVERNMENTS like Canberra give credence to false anti-Israel narratives about the Gaza war (such as allegations that Israel intentionally starved Gazan children, or targeted hospitals and journalists) – Hamas is handed a victory, and supporters of jihad are given incentive for violence against Jews everywhere.

When these falsehoods are presented as legitimate criticism of Israel's government, Israelis and Jews inevitably become classified as villains undeserving of rights or sympathy – and outrages like Bondi Beach as well as campus and subway attacks on Jews become likely, even normalized.

When governments like Canberra blabber about the "urgency" of Palestinian statehood and shower Israel with "tough love" in this regard through highhanded UN resolutions – Palestinians get a green light for more war against Israel, and antisemites are encouraged to rev-up their attacks on Jews.

When governments like Canberra continue to massively fund the nefarious Hamas-penetrated agency, UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinians) – this feeds the Palestinian claim to a so-called "right of return" that would demographically destroy Israel and nourishes the convictions of jihadist gunmen that they can freely pop-off Jews on beaches or in synagogues.

In short and in plain language: By slap-happily bashing Israel and recklessly promoting Palestinian statehood at this existential moment, governments like those of Prime Minister Albanese weaken Israel and prolong the Palestinian campaign to demonize Israel. And this fuels the mobs rampaging through Jewish neighborhoods in Sydney and Melbourne, London, and Toronto.

And when Western leaders are willfully and stubbornly oblivious to this linkage, their professing of support for Jews rings hollow.

Every thinking Jew in the world knows this to be true. We feel this in our bones. Albanese and his ilk can deny this perspective and profess to be concerned both for the rights of Palestinians and for the safety of Jews with no contradiction between them, but we Jews know otherwise.

To paraphrase the actor and podcaster Jonah Platt: Western leaders absolutely do not get to foment hatred of the one place in the world where Jews are not a minority and where half of all Jews on Earth live – and then pretend they care about Jewish lives.

They absolutely do not get to dismiss mainstream Jewish community voices while tokenizing fringe anti-Zionist Jews who agree with them and who libel Israel – and then pretend they care about Jewish lives.

Mr. Albanese, Mr. Starmer, Mr. Carney, and Mr. Macron: You absolutely do not get to superciliously ignore the genocidal intentions of Palestinians against Israel and the murderous aims of antisemitic rioters against Jews – and then pretend you care about Jewish lives.

Instead, breed a strategic brain and scale back your dangerous delegitimization of Israel and Jews. Get some gumption and tell Palestinians that there will be no Palestine "from the river to the sea" (i.e., no erasure of Israel). Grow a collective spine and tell your own publics that you reject the relentless equation of Israel and Jews with the evils of faddish radical discourse (imperialism, colonialism, apartheid, white supremacy, genocide, etc.).

Stop scurrying about the international stage with schemes to ram a hostile Palestinian state down Israel's throat while offering crocodile tears when local Jews pay the price of your maliciousness and malfeasance.

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Because the incident took place at a Hanukkah event attended by thousands of Jewish celebrants, and because of the distant footage and the white shirt that looked a bit like the kind worn by ultra-Orthodox Jews, the natural assumption was that this was one of the Jewish participants. And since it was Hanukkah, a little Jewish heroism would hardly have offended anyone.

Then came the surprise. The hero turned out to be someone whose name left no doubt about his religion or origins: Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-born man who emigrated to Australia in 2006 and runs a vegetable stand near the site of the attack. Al-Ahmed himself was shot several times and seriously wounded.

Once his identity became known, confusion set in. On the one hand, Islamist antisemitic terrorism targeting Jews; on the other, an Arab Muslim hero risking his life to save Jews. That contradiction quickly spilled over onto social media. On the left, people celebrated the proof that not all Muslims are terrorists. On the right, critics were forced to soften their rhetoric about Arab Muslims. Both camps were taken aback by the plot twist. There is a term for this reaction: racism of low expectations. It is a harsh label, but if we are honest, we are not entirely to blame for falling into it. We look around us and recognize the grim reality of our own swamp.

"The uninvolved who decided to get involved," said Eitan Mor, a former hostage, with painfully precise irony in a Saturday night interview on Channel 14's The Patriots. He described how, on October 7, after helping partygoers at the Nova music festival escape while terrorist gunfire whistled around him, he was captured by Gazans. Not Hamas terrorists, but civilians armed with "knives, saws and hammers," as he put it, some of them even elementary school-aged children.

Mor is not alone. Eli Albag, the father of Liri, a surveillance soldier who was abducted and later released, recounted that his daughter told him after her return: "There are two million terrorists there, don't make a mistake. I sat with an 8-year-old boy and 4-year-old children who would spit and say 'death to the Jew.'" Eli Sharabi, another heroic survivor, said: "No one in Gaza helped me. Civilians saw us suffering and cheered the terrorists. There is no such thing as 'uninvolved.'"

Nearly every hostage who returned from Gaza described how civilians—men and women, young and old—were part of the machinery that abused them during the abduction and throughout the long months in captivity. In some cases, the supposedly "uninvolved" civilians were crueler than the Hamas terrorists themselves.

From the very first day of the war, which began on Simchat Torah in 2023, until now, concepts associated with World War II have been heard repeatedly. "Nazis," "genocide," "ethnic cleansing," "extermination." Some were used by us to describe Hamas and its accomplices; others were hurled at us by our enemies or their supporters in Israel and around the world. But one concept was never mentioned: Righteous Among the Nations.

More than 30,000 Righteous Among the Nations from the Holocaust era have been recognized to date. The definition is clear: a non-Jew who acted to save Jews during the Holocaust, at personal risk and without compensation. The list of countries they came from is impressive, ranging from Poland, the Netherlands and France, with thousands of honorees, to Egypt, Turkey and El Salvador, with just one each.

On October 7, 251 people were abducted. Some were held alive for months, even years. And yet not a single Gazan chose to become the first Righteous Among the Nations from Gaza. Ahmed al-Ahmed, somewhere in distant Sydney, showed us that it does not have to be this way. That an Arab Muslim can choose good, can act humanely, can risk his life to save Jews.

When the video of Ahmed's heroism was first published, before his identity was known, someone tweeted on X: "Is there already a medal or decoration named after the late Aner Shapira?" Indeed, Ahmed deserves recognition, and one can only hope that the State of Israel will grant him the honor he deserves.

The post Where are the Gazan Righteous Among the Nations? appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

From the perspective of religious tradition, the holiday centers on the Jewish struggle against the religious decrees imposed by the Greeks. When the radical faction of Hellenizers is added to the picture, a clear dimension of civil war also emerges. The Talmudic discussion of the origin of the holiday makes it clear that Hanukkah was established for generations because of the miracle of the cruse of oil and the renewal of Temple service, while the military victory is barely mentioned.

When the military victory does appear in the prayer Al Hanisim, the emphasis is that it was achieved with God's help. Even Maimonides, who notes the restoration of independence, "and sovereignty returned to Israel… until the Second Destruction," still emphasizes the victory over religious decrees and the miracle of the oil.

With the rise of the Zionist movement, by contrast, there was a growing tendency to reinterpret Hanukkah and even to strip it of its distinctly religious content. In the words of historian Ben-Zion Dinur, later Israel's education minister, "Hanukkah became the festival of the Hasmoneans." From religious tradition, the words "for the miracles and the wonders," attributed of course to God, were taken, but in the famous song they were transformed into "for the miracles and the wonders wrought by the Maccabees."

The most striking example is the song We Carry Torches by Aharon Ze'ev, with its well-known line, "No miracle happened to us, we found no cruse of oil." The supernatural miracle of the traditional holiday disappears, or more precisely is made to disappear, and the acts of God, which leave the Maccabees in a relatively passive position, are replaced by heroic, initiative-taking Maccabees, whose heirs we are today.

Is there a need to choose between these two approaches, or can they be combined, allowing each individual and community to emphasize whichever elements of the holiday they see fit?

In religious tradition, a well-known question asks why we light eight candles, given that the miracle of the cruse of oil actually lasted only seven days. The oil that was found sufficed for one day, meaning the miracle itself occurred only during the following seven days. A wide range of answers has been offered over the generations, most of them attempting to explain why it nevertheless constituted an eight-day miracle.

But there is another answer. Rabbi Menachem ben Solomon Meiri (1249–1316) wrote, in addressing the question that troubled generations: "On the first night, when there was no miracle of oil, we recite the blessing for redemption and thanksgiving for finding the cruse." In Meiri's concise formulation, the proper synthesis of these seemingly opposing approaches is reflected.

Indeed, for the miracle of the oil we light only seven candles. But the first candle is lit "for redemption," meaning for the national military victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks. Yet there is something more to learn here: gratitude for finding the cruse. We tend to think that only a clear-cut supernatural event qualifies as a miracle, forgetting the ordinary, natural miracles that occur around us all the time. Even the very discovery of the single cruse of oil was itself a kind of miracle, not something that could be taken for granted as if it were obvious it would be found.

On Hanukkah, the Festival of the Maccabees, it is fitting that we look around us and not take anything for granted. Some of what has happened, and is happening, since the start of the war qualifies as a miracle, not necessarily a supernatural one, but a miracle nonetheless, even if we are the ones carrying it out.

The starting point was the most difficult since the establishment of the State of Israel, exacting a horrific price from us. Since then, Israel's strategic position has fundamentally changed for the better. The pager operation and Operation Like a Lion are examples of the miracles taking place around us and through our own actions. Chag Sameach.

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From Osama bin Laden's planned attack in New York on September 11, 2001, to the present day, Western nations have remained unable to eradicate the scourge of Islamist terror. Numerous attacks have been thwarted thanks to invaluable intelligence provided by Mossad to various intelligence services. Without these warnings, the list of Islamist attacks in Europe and Australia would have been longer and more deadly, targeting innocent men, women, and children.

Encouraged, trained, and financed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, terrorist cells from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah operate with impunity across all continents. Since October 7, 2023, they have been taking advantage of American restraint and European disarray. Worse still, Western powers are allowing pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the streets in the name of "freedom of expression." Chancelleries in Europe are working by all diplomatic means to create a Palestinian state. Are they unaware that their actions indirectly fuel anti-Semitic waves and sow terror? Are they so masochistic or so naive? Why this indifference to the just cause of the Jewish state? This "collusion" with the devil?

There is no difference between the Palestinian Hamas terrorists and all the Shiite and Sunni terrorists who perpetrate attacks in Sydney, Washington, Manchester, or Paris. They all wish to create Islamic states in place of the Jewish state and Christian countries. Even today, Saladin remains a hero of Islam, the great victor over the Crusaders in 1187. Why turn a deaf ear, why ignore the words of Islamist leaders who clearly declare in Arabic: "Our goal is to mobilize the Muslim masses for the conquest again of Jerusalem"?

The attack in Sydney on the first day of Hanukkah symbolizes our age-old struggle against evil. We light candles to dispel darkness and obscurantism, and to illuminate the fundamental values ​​of Judaism. Members of the Loubavitch movement were targeted once again. Islamist barbarians premeditatedly murdered representatives of Chabad, the Hebrew acronym for wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge.

We have no choice but to continue our tireless fight against the cult of death. It is our collective destiny, for better or for worse. For over a century, we have been fighting the scourge of Palestinian terrorism, and every day we thwart planned attacks and every night we arrest those who commission them, perpetrators, and suspects.

The Jewish state is therefore acting in legitimate self-defense and has the absolute right to wage a fight, without pity and without mercy, against all enemies of all kinds, against all those who want to wipe us off the map, whether they are Palestinian or Iranian.

No moral lessons, especially from Europe, and from France in particular, nor any condemnation will be able to prevent the Israeli government from continuing, with the support of the IDF, the Shin Bet, and the Mossad, the fight against the scourge of terrorism in Gaza, Damascus, Beirut, or Tehran.

The waves of antisemitism and acts of terror cannot be eradicated without an international strategy. It's not enough to simply increase police presence outside synagogues and community centers, organize mourning ceremonies, or express solidarity after each attack; these are merely empty words and fine expressions. What's needed is concrete action through draconian laws, including freezing bank accounts and cracking down on incitement to hatred of Jews in the streets and mosques.

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At first glance, this poem appears to be a patriotic song and an expression of loyalty to the homeland, but the hidden meaning, known to many Iranians, promotes continued conquests and the spread of Iran's name throughout the world, whether through military victories or cultural ones.

Since the Iranian Islamic Revolution, the regime, which also sees itself as continuing that extremist Shiite dynasty, has taken this message and developed it into the concept of "exporting the revolution". According to this concept, the Iranian regime strives with all its might and through every resource at its disposal – even at the expense of citizens and domestic challenges (witness the water shortage alongside massive aid to Hezbollah even in recent days) – to export its values everywhere in order to "conquer" every target, in the Middle East and the West, thereby transforming Iran into a superpower.

The means available to the Iranian regime for this goal include propaganda, manipulation, and brainwashing of large audiences, particularly those who do not identify with local authorities.

Thus, along with benefits such as religious events where they also provide food for masses of participants or even the establishment of civilian infrastructure like kindergartens, mosques, and various institutions at the expense of the regime and Iranian citizens for the benefit of these locals, Iranian emissaries buy the loyalty of locals and subsequently use them to advance the Iranian regime's goals – further dissemination of Iranian regime propaganda and even acts of terror or harassment against Jews or believers in liberal and democratic values.

The Iranian regime maintains at least 16 propaganda bodies operating inside but mainly outside Iran, in order to strengthen in their eyes Iranian national security through mass recruitment of immigrants from the Middle East or even locals in European countries, South America, Africa, and Australia.

There has often been substantial public criticism within Iran regarding the massive budgets of these propaganda bodies, which include Iranian television channels in various languages, sending clerics and preachers to all parts of the world to brainwash many and turn them into supporters of the Iranian regime, and the distribution of extensive literature and media, all at the expense of Iran's natural resources and oil revenues.

However, the Iranian leader who manages the propaganda bodies, exactly as he does the Revolutionary Guards, the nuclear issue, and terror, and who holds the real authority in the regime, continues to add more and more to propaganda budgets and does not heed the demands of the few figures within the regime who dare to plead for reduced budgets for the benefit of the water economy, environmental quality, or reducing the cost of living.

Therefore, even if the Iranian regime is not directly responsible for the Australian attacks, it bears indirect responsibility because it has established numerous mosques and Islamic centers on the continent where preachers on behalf of the leader preach against Jews (and not just against Israel), organize demonstrations together with Palestinian supporters but also promote the Iranian narrative and wave Iranian flags and pictures of the leader, and more.

Alongside Qatar, it appears that the Iranian regime has become the main financier and organizer of protest events and attacks against Jews, and it even dares to preach or promote physical harm to Jewish targets, since one of the goals of the Revolutionary Guards and Quds Force is to instill terror in Jews everywhere and bring about their uprooting from their place of residence or reduction of their activities.

Additionally, Iranian activity abroad provides inspiration and a security umbrella for other activists against Jews, and it is possible that reducing Iranian activity would lead to an overall reduction in the activity of other antisemitic organizations.

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