Media claims that last weekend's terror attacks in Jerusalem were an act of revenge for the deaths of nine members of Islamic Jihad during an IDF raid in Jenin are false. The attacks were a product of hateful ideology and antisemitic incitement.

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One can see this in the way Palestinian society celebrated the attack. In Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and eastern Jerusalem, candies were joyously handed out, while Hamas, Islamic Jihad and even the ostensibly "moderate" Fatah spoke in praise of the murderers.

Far from a specific act of revenge, the attacks were part of a long legacy of Palestinian opposition to the very presence of Jews in the land of Israel, which in the last year alone has resulted in 2,200 attacks and 29 deaths. Moreover, this spike in terror came after decades of Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets from Gaza, as well as suicide bombings, stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks. All of these have been met with Palestinian celebration and the happy cry of "death to the Jews."

The world, however, appears to be finally distancing itself from such a debased attitude. Several Sunni Arab countries, including Egypt, Jordan and the UAE, condemned last weekend's attacks, and this is part of a larger regional trend away from Palestinian rejectionism. There were also unusually strong US and international condemnations of the attacks.

Part of the reason for this trend is Iran. For several years, Iran has been attempting to move into the Palestinian arena, giving cash and sometimes weapons to Palestinian terror groups.

I saw one of the first signs of this during the second intifada when I interviewed a terrorist in Bethlehem who had just converted from Sunni to Shia Islam. I told the story to my friend David Wurmser, who felt it was important enough to inform then-Vice President Dick Cheney, to whom Wurmser was an advisor.

Wurmser was right, as since then Iran has massively expanded its influence over and largesse towards all the genocidal enemies of Israel and the Jewish people as a whole. That Bethlehem terrorist was one of the first Palestinians to be captured by the Iranians' fiendish designs.

Today, Iranian money gushes into the coffers of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and many analysts now believe Iran is beginning to influence the Palestinian Authority as well.

But something else is happening that may work in Israel's favor, and indeed in favor of all those around the world who oppose terrorism and the Iranian regime that sponsors it: The Iranians have made what may be a fatal mistake. They have openly joined forces with Russian President Vladimir Putin in his war on Ukraine, providing him with military equipment such as drones.

This puts Iran on a direct collision course with the United States and the Western world in general, which is standing firm against Russian aggression and aiding the Ukrainians in their fight against the invaders. A clear Russia-Iran axis now exists, and if the Palestinians continue to court Iranian support, they may find themselves facing a West that is no longer interested in indulging them.

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The West now sees Iran in a new way. They do not see it as a problem to be solved but as an outright enemy of the West that is helping to prolong the first land war in Europe since World War II. The West also sees the massive violations of human rights the ayatollahs are committing against the brave protesters against the theocratic regime – the killing of hundreds of women and children, the executions of young demonstrators and more.

So, when the West sees the recent spectacular attack on facilities in Isfahan that likely manufactured drones – a strike widely attributed to Israel – they understand that those drones were not only intended to be used against Israel but also Ukraine. They understand that if Israel did indeed hit those facilities, it did not just help itself, but also the West as a whole.

For years, the West has ignored Iran's daily calls for the destruction of Israel. But now it knows that Iran not only wants to destroy Israel, but also Ukraine, and in the end, the West itself. Perhaps they are now prepared to see Israel, at long last, with new eyes.

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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There's corruption and there's corruption. Those who took money from the USSR to sell out their countries during the Cold War could at least fantasize that they were doing it for the sake of a "better world" that might one day vindicate them. Those who take Qatari money, on the other hand, have no excuse, even if those who take it – legally or illegally – may tell themselves that they are helping the beleaguered "Third World" or the holy cause of Islam.

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Unfortunately, Qatari corruption has already reached the highest circles of the European establishment. For example, the Chair of the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Human Rights, Maria Arena, has now been forced to step down due to corruption accusations, and it is likely no coincidence that she has tweeted militant declarations of support for the Palestinians and vicious attacks on Israel. This is not simple avarice: It aids and abets an enemy of the West that is pursuing a grand strategy that is a threat to us all.

The most public aspect of this strategy is, of course, the Qatari network Al Jazeera, which has the facade of a legitimate news outlet, but is in fact a mélange of disinformation and incitement, and not only against the West. In fact, several Arab countries that severed ties with Qatar, claiming that the Qataris are terrorist financiers, demanded that the network be shut down as a condition for reestablishing ties.

These Arab states' hostility to Qatar should not be surprising, given the country's role in destabilizing the region. Although it hosts the Pentagon's regional command, Qatar has long supported terrorism. For decades, it has opened its doors to Islamist terrorists, Taliban warlords, and African insurgents who have taken innumerable innocent lives.

Qatar also gave sanctuary and succor to the late Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, along with a platform to spread his radical message to the entire Muslim world. This shouldn't have been surprising, given Qatar's longstanding support for the Brotherhood. Indeed, when the Brotherhood's candidate Mohamed Morsi won the 2012 Egyptian election, he quickly received a $7.5 billion loan from Qatar.

The leaders of the terror group Hamas, a branch of the Brotherhood, are regular guests in Qatar, and one of them, Ismail Haniyeh, has established permanent residence in hotels and villas worthy of a multi-millionaire. Millions of Qatari dollars flow into Gaza, no doubt to be diverted towards terrorist purposes. Clearly, Qatar is playing the same game with Hamas as it did with the Taliban, which opened a political office in Doha and used it as a base to take back control of Afghanistan.

The US has also credibly accused the Qataris of harboring members of Iran's terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC). Indeed, Qatar's ties to Iran are legion. In Feb. 2022, 14 bilateral agreements were signed in Doha between Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, touching on everything from trade to energy and tourism. Even worse, when Argentina requested the arrest of Iran's then-Vice President for Economic Affairs Mohsen Rezaee – a former top terrorist in the IRGC – for his involvement in the terrorist bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people, the Qataris ignored the request.

Qatar has made it clear that it supports terrorism and is, in fact, proud of doing so. Al Thani said in an interview with CNN in 2014: "I know that in America and some countries look at some movements as terrorist movements. … But we don't. There are differences." This played a major role in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt's decision to cut ties with Qatar.

Of course, Qatar has its excuses. It is good at laundering its cash. The country's rulers claim that they do not finance terrorism, only private citizens do so. This gives Doha plausible deniability even as billions pour into the European Union. How such a remarkable number of private citizens managed to lay their hands on such fantastical sums and funnel them into Europe and to terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda remains officially unknown.

This cash has allegedly ended up in the pockets of various European politicians and lobbyists. This money, of course, had a specific purpose: to buy political support for Qatar. In particular, to induce European politicians to defend the emirate in the public square and help whitewash its involvement in terrorism and widespread human rights violations, which might offend European voters.

Thus far, Qatar has largely enjoyed impunity, promoting terror and bribing European politicians without consequence. This is a strategy, part of a "cold war" waged by a state that supports extremism and violence. It is time for the Qataris to be held accountable.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Iran's protesters are united in the same struggle. It is not an accident that Time magazine has declared Zelenskyy Person of the Year and Iranian women Heroes of the Year for 2022. Time's discovery of the connection between the Ukrainian and the Iranian peoples' respective struggles for freedom is a belated one. Many of us have seen this connection from the beginning.

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Their struggles are not only similar in their heroism and ultimate goal of liberty. Both of them are drawing a new strategic map of the world, in which the battle lines of the war for democracy and human rights have become clear, creating a new paradigm in which the old compromises and policies of appeasement have been exposed as useless.

Until recently, Germany and various European leaders have been content to allow Moscow to do more or less whatever it wants, so long as the oil and gas kept flowing. At the same time, the United States has continued to pursue a futile nuclear deal with Iran, even as the regime pursued terrorism and genocide against the US and its allies.

This feckless paradigm can no longer stand and, in many ways, no longer exists. It has become an embarrassment, and it is finally being acknowledged that dialogue and diplomacy with Iran and Russia are impossible. Their cruelty and evil have now been exposed by their own actions as they crush freedom both at home and abroad.

Even the famously absurd United Nations Human Rights Council, which has long preoccupied itself with nothing except persecuting Israel, adopted a resolution in May to investigate Russian human rights violations in Ukraine. Now, it has voted in favor of an investigation into Iran's deadly reprisals against those protesting the theocratic regime. It is telling that those opposed to the motion were the paragons of human rights China, Cuba, Pakistan, Eritrea, Armenia and, of course, Venezuela—with which the ayatollahs are currently negotiating an escape route.

Thankfully, the US has now reached the conclusion that Putin is its worst enemy, something Putin has believed for quite a long time. Due to Iran's strong alliance with Putin, the Biden administration also appears to understand that the ayatollahs cannot be trusted.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a recent press conference, "The evidence that Iran is helping Russia wage its war against Ukraine is clear and it is public. Iran and Russia are growing closer the more isolated they become."

The US Congress is working on a bipartisan resolution on Iran and has already condemned Russia several times.

The US government knows Iranian drones are killing Ukrainians and that members of Iran's terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are on the ground in Crimea training Russian troops.

Both the mullahs and Putin declare that they are standing up to the "arrogant" West. They are together in their plot to destroy us and our allies.

For Ukraine, this freedom is the simple right to national self-determination. But in Iran, it is something even more basic—women's right to be women with freedom and dignity. The late historian of the Middle East Bernard Lewis wrote that the oppression of women is the number one problem in the Islamic world. Now, women are at the forefront of the battle for freedom, not only in the Islamic nations but the world itself. This is a momentous turning point.

Fortunately, the West appears to have, at long last, awakened to the reality of the struggle, and realized that ambiguity is an illusion. There is a single, united front in the battle for freedom. The first step, I believe, is regime change in Iran. It and nothing else is what is necessary for the peace and freedom of both the Iranian people and the world.

 Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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It is about time the media and the international community woke up to the fact that the Iranian regime is an oppressive, violent tyranny that loathes women, dissidents, and anyone who does not conform to its theocratic ideology.

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This awakening apparently required the mass killing of unarmed protesters, including children. But at least it is happening. Indeed, it has become clear to all in the weeks since the Iranian uprising began that the ayatollahs believe the survival of their regime is more important than the lives of their own people.

All of this should have been clear decades ago, but thank goodness, international attention is finally being paid, though it is uncertain whether it will have an effect.

There are those of us who have long known the true face of the Iranian regime and have denounced it for years. Ever since 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini and his theocratic revolutionaries seized control of Iran, it has been obvious that the regime considers freedom, democracy, and the West a nuisance that it will eventually destroy with the coming of the "Mahdi" and a resulting apocalyptic war. This religious fantasy has driven the regime's imperialist ambitions and, through terrorism and warmongering, set the entire Middle East on fire. Let no one labor under the delusion that this theocratic imperialism will remain confined to the Middle East.

Moreover, the regime's ferocious antisemitism has made it the only country that sits in the United Nations and systemically and relentlessly threatens another member state – Israel – with genocide.

Iran itself is a wonderful country. Its people are ancient, cultured and heirs to the great civilizations of Persia. This only makes it more painful to see such sights as LGBT individuals being hanged from cranes in public squares, which is not even to mention the tens of thousands who have been executed by the regime for all manner of reasons over many bloody decades. According to the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) and France's Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), executions in Iran rose 25% last year, following the election of Ebrahim Raisi to the presidency. As I write this article, 21 people are still awaiting execution.

This regime, with its Revolutionary Guards at the helm inside and outside its borders, along with its proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, will never deviate from its ultimate goal. As long as it exists, it will pursue its desire for domination and death.

What is needed, obviously, is regime change. The tyranny of the ayatollahs must be overthrown, preferably by its own people. But in the meantime, there must be a shift in the international arena. When Raisi was inaugurated, representatives of Hamas and Hezbollah sat alongside representatives of the European Union. This coddling of tyrants and terrorists must end.

The United States still aims to sign a nuclear deal with the Iranian regime, which would, at the moment, be a horrendous mistake. US President Joe Biden is not only ignoring the forces of freedom rising up across Iran, but also the doors to the Sunni Muslim world that have opened due to mutual recognition of the Iranian threat. None of the Sunni nations want Biden's policy of offering Iran billions of dollars to sign an agreement the ayatollahs have no intention of honoring.

There are some encouraging signs that the situation may be changing. French President Emmanuel Macron recently met with three Iranian dissidents and took a strong public stand against the regime's violence. The UN finally voted to establish a commission to examine the regime's human rights violations. The foreign minister of Italy canceled a bilateral meeting with his Iranian counterpart. Most importantly, Biden appears to be far less eager to renew the nuclear deal in the wake of the protests. As former Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer said in his latest "Politically Incorrect" podcast, there is now the possibility of forging a wide international consensus against the ayatollah regime.

This regime has enjoyed impunity for long enough. It uses fear of war and terrorism in order to torture the region and suppress its own people. The international community should learn the lessons of decades of coddling China and Russia, which have pocketed the money and used it to build ever-greater military power. This same policy has long been pursued in regard to Iran, but the international community should now follow the lead of Iran's brave dissidents and tolerate this evil regime no longer.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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It may not be the Cold War, but it is beginning to look very like one. The United States is trying to build a network of alliances in the Middle East between Israel and moderate Arab countries. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin has gone on the offensive, and is seeking to cement an alternative axis based in Tehran.

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Putin's move comes on the heels of US President Joe Biden's trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia. As the world media covers Biden's visits to Jerusalem, Jeddah and Riyadh, Putin is set to visit Tehran on July 19. He will be joined in Iran's capital by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to meet with Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, nicknamed "the butcher of Tehran" for having sentenced tens of thousands of people to death over the years.

The three leaders will take part in a summit that will ostensibly seek to broker an end to the 11-year Syrian civil war—the so-called "Astana peace process." But it is difficult to believe that Putin would head to Iran for only his second foreign visit since he invaded Ukraine if the US had not just made the attempt to strengthen the American presence in the Middle East.

And it was a genuine attempt. Biden was not only looking for the Saudis to increase oil production and thus bring down skyrocketing fuel prices. He was also seeking support for normalization with Israel and the formation of an "Arab NATO" that would include the Jewish state. This bold move is a direct and potentially effective challenge to Iranian imperialism, and Tehran knows it. So does Putin.

So, Putin is on the move. He wants to intimidate the potential members of an Israel-Arab alliance because such an alliance threatens his ambition to establish Russian hegemony in Eurasia—an issue that is all the more pressing as the Russia-Ukraine war drags on.

It's not surprising that Putin is nervous. Biden's optimistic remarks about his trip sent a very strong message: The US is deeply committed to the future of the Middle East. We have not disengaged. We are not weak. We are as strong as we have ever been and know we must be.

Besides his push for an Iranian axis, Putin turned to the weapon he employs most frequently—propaganda. Maria Zakharova, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, attacked Biden's request for increased oil production, saying it betrayed promises Biden made to US voters on renewable energy and climate change. But she went much further than this. She made the direst threat imaginable: that the US and its allies are pushing the world toward nuclear war.

Putin's allies in Iran also chimed in to blast a potential Israel-Arab security alliance. The deputy head of Iran's terrorist Revolutionary Guards, Yadollah Yavani, threatened a "decisive response" to America, the "Zionist regime" and Saudi Arabia.

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Moreover, just as Biden was set to take off for Jerusalem, we learned that Iran will supply Russia with hundreds of drones and train Russian forces in how to use them. Previously, such drones had only been in the hands of Hezbollah and Hamas. Now, they are undoubtedly headed for Ukraine. Apparently, Iranian drones are always used against democracies and their innocent citizens.

Russia is lining up behind Iran diplomatically as well. Iranian Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian recently visited Russia, and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov said he is committed to seeing the removal of all sanctions on Tehran and the restoration of the 2015 nuclear deal.

Sides are forming up. The potential flashpoints are multiplying. And let's not forget that, behind the scenes, China is expanding its presence in the Middle East and Africa. There is an abyss of possible new developments, and none of them are peaceful.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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If the Russian invasion of Ukraine hadn't happened, US President Joe Biden might not be set to land in Israel on Wednesday. Nor would he continue on to Riyadh to end the ostracization of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia and an aspiring reformer. A meeting with MBS would never have entered Biden's mind before the Russian invasion, given the international reaction to the Saudi assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Indeed, Biden is still trying to downplay the upcoming meeting and portray it as a casual get-together with the Saudi king and various dignitaries.

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But everyone knows that, in Saudi Arabia, MBS is the boss. And Biden knows that Americans are now paying five dollars a gallon for gasoline and getting ready to vote in the upcoming midterm elections. A winter is coming during which there will be not only a lack of energy supplies, but also rampant inflation and unemployment. Biden, in desperate need of success, is looking toward the Middle East and MBS.

Israel, of course, is rolling out the red carpet for Biden. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, enthusiastic about greeting the president, is preparing his welcome speech, and streets are being blocked off. Biden is set to stay in Israel for three whole days – a relative eternity – but his visit is not really about the Jewish state.

First, Biden wants to show the world that Putin is not number one. He wants to demonstrate that the Russian leader does not dominate the Middle East despite Putin's close ties to the Assad regime in Syria and especially Iran.

Second, Biden is desperate to convince MBS to increase oil production in order to bring down prices, and encourage him to normalize relations with Israel by joining the Abraham Accords. This would also serve to reassert American power in the Middle East, which began to decline under former President Barack Obama's disastrous policy of disengagement from the region.

Biden knows that, somehow, he must begin the process of reversing that decline. American weakness in the Middle East will lead to more disasters like the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which gutted Biden's approval ratings. The president likely believes that the decline can only be reversed by a major, sensational event that reasserts American primacy in the region, such as bringing the Saudis into the Abraham Accords.

This is a bitter pill to swallow, perhaps, for someone who took far too long to signal support for the Accords, probably because they were the work of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. Nonetheless, Biden's chances of success are not great: Saudi Arabia must defend its position as custodian of the holiest sites in Islam, and will not be ready to immediately normalize relations with Israel.

Nonetheless, Israel hopes that it might be, and Biden seems to be hopeful as well. In an editorial in The Washington Post, the president said his upcoming direct flight from Israel to Saudi Arabia will be "a small symbol of the budding relations and steps toward normalization between Israel and the Arab world, which my administration is working to deepen and expand." Biden will want something from Israel in return, however, namely some kind of negotiations with the Palestinians – the standard left-wing demand.

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Yesterday, Lapid made a gesture in that direction, making a phone call to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and another to King Abdullah of Jordan. Lapid wished "a joyous holiday" to all Muslims celebrating Eid al-Adha. We hope it will be joyous.

Meanwhile, however, Israel is facing the long-standing question: At what point will the Iranian nuclear threat be too great to be addressed by mere talk? When is the moment of action? Lapid and Biden will no doubt discuss this, and when they do, Israel should remember that it is strong and Biden is not.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The tragic death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed last week in a firefight in the Palestinian town of Jenin, has prompted worldwide demonization of Israel that does not help the search for the truth of how Akleh died. We have seen worldwide condemnation – or rather criminalization – of Israelis and Israeli leaders by nearly all media outlets, who have uncritically accepted the narrative of Israeli guilt and criminality proffered by the Palestinians. Yet regarding the Palestinian Authority's refusal to conduct a joint investigation into the incident, to the point of refusing to produce the very bullet that killed Akleh, there has been worldwide silence.

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This reflexive and all too common criminalization of Israel creates a false and defamatory narrative of Jewish violence and cruelty. This is nothing less than the promotion by international public opinion of the Palestinians' campaign to resurrect their "cause" after a period of near-oblivion. To further this campaign, the P.A. will never consent to an objective examination of the evidence relating to Akleh's death – likely for fear of what it might find.

Indeed, the Palestinians have already got what they wanted: clashes and violence in the streets of Jerusalem, which have been flooded with Palestinian flags. The Israeli reaction to the clashes during Akleh's funeral in Jerusalem, moreover, proves the intellectual Douglas Murray's thesis in his latest book that the West is its own worst enemy. Israel's Public Security Minister Omer Barlev has set up a committee to investigate the conduct of Israel's own police at the funeral, even though the Palestinians clearly intended to exploit the event in order to spark a demonstration or riot, which the police attempted to prevent even while defamatory slogans were shouted and stones thrown at them.

Media coverage of this shocking behavior was carefully censored. The brother of Akleh, for example, told those attempting to steal Akleh's casket, "For God's sake, let us put her in the car and finish the day." It is not surprising that the global press refused to report this, choosing instead to portray the police response as either unprovoked or inspired by depraved cruelty. The BBC, CNN and all other media outlets with reporters at the scene painted the Israel Police in precisely the same defamatory light. This capitulation to Palestinian violence and propaganda was not limited to the media. US President Joe Biden's Spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the images of Akleh's funeral "very disturbing," while the European Union said it was "deeply shocked."

No one asked how the events actually unfolded, choosing instead to criminalize and demonize the Israel Police. Nor was there any interest in the day-to-day difficulties and hazards faced by the police, who are charged with the immensely difficult task of preventing terror attacks and violent clashes in a country that is permanently at war. Yet even their leaders have abandoned them. The police said they were merely trying to ensure an orderly funeral. Barlev, however, appeared – along with Israel's enemies – to suspect otherwise, even though this is his own police force.

The obvious assumption in such a case, and in such a context, is that the police did not find themselves facing a funeral, but a Palestinian demonstration that threatened to become a riot. They has to confront a mob of people chanting slogans of hatred and revenge.

The mob threw stones at them – and stones can kill. The police were in an explosive tactical and political situation in which, during Ramadan and after, Israel has been plagued by multiple terror attacks and violence on the Temple Mount. They reacted in a manner that, whatever an investigation may conclude, was understandable.

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That an Israeli minister has forsaken his own police at a moment of violent and disproportionate international condemnation represents something dark and unusual. Certainly, Israel is a democratic state that is accountable for its behavior. It is logical for it to publicly provide a response to such a wave of condemnation. And this took place.

Nonetheless, such an investigation takes resources away from the Israel Police at a difficult moment, after three weeks in which 19 Israeli civilians were murdered in terror attacks. They were killed in the name of the same flag that covered the streets of Jerusalem at Akleh's funeral. It is not even necessary to ask what would happen if an Israeli citizen carried an Israeli flag through Ramallah – they would not last long.

It is perfectly legitimate for the US, EU and indeed Israel to call for a thorough investigation into the death of Akleh and the violence at her funeral. But such an investigation cannot be objective if the a priori delegitimization and demonization of the Israel Police and Israeli security forces in general continues. If it does, then any investigation will simply be another attempt to further the Palestinian leadership's strategy of uprooting Israeli sovereignty and legitimacy in the international community.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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Two months after President Paul von Hindenburg appointed him Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler began his persecution of German Jews. No one at the time could have imagined that this would sow the seeds of a war that would plunge Europe and the world into unimaginable bloodshed and chaos.

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Hitler's primary goal was to create a volksgemeinschaft (people's community) based on race that sought the extermination of the Jewish people. In 1933, the Nazis began to enact various discriminatory measures, starting with a national boycott of Jewish businesses and the exclusion of Jews from the civil service, the legal profession and teaching positions in secondary schools and universities. In 1935, Hitler's aim became crystal clear with the adoption of the Nuremberg Race Laws, which not only stripped Jews of what remained of their civil rights but revoked their German citizenship. The Nuremberg Laws even forbade marriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and Germans.

Throughout Europe, the reaction to all this was mild and limited to, at best, words of acute reproach. In general, governments refrained from intervention and sought to pacify the Nazis. This helped pave the way for the most horrifying explosion of hate in history. As a result, the slogan "never again" relates not only to the fate of the Jews, but to the worldwide disaster caused by the appeasement of hate.

I do not want to make an analogy between the Holocaust and the recent massacres carried out by the Russian army in Ukraine. Nevertheless, children and their mothers killed in droves, civilians shot with their hands tied and evacuation corridors that turned out to be traps for people on the run are all things to which the phrase "never again" can and must be applied. And, more ominously, this collapse of moral inhibitions raises the terrifying possibility of another world war.

The European Union was created after World War II in order to prevent the reoccurrence of such a disaster. It represented, in other words, an expression of the ideal of "never again." If the EU fails to express that ideal, the EU itself has no purpose. But look at the reaction to the Ukraine massacres by Germany and France, the first of which was the direct perpetrator of the extermination of the European Jews, and the second of which abandoned Jewish children to the Nazis. These two counties should be the leaders of an effort to ensure by force that no harm comes to any child. However, this has not been the case. It appears that the United Kingdom alone will step up, as in the days of Winston Churchill – the only leader who understood where the appeasement of Nazism would lead.

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The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine cannot be stopped by mere words for two reasons; reasons with which Israelis are extremely familiar. First, the Russian aggressor, for ideological reasons, doesn't want peace – it wants to subjugate Ukraine and force it to submit to the Russian empire. Ideology is also why it is currently impossible for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians – the Palestinians don't want it, because their ideology demands Israel's obliteration.

Second, even if Ukraine surrendered part of its territory to Russia, it would make no difference, because the Russian use of force against Ukraine would become even more aggressive and brutal. Any territorial concession by Ukraine will simply serve as a platform for more Russian attacks. We can learn this by looking at the situation in Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal in 2005.

Those who advocate for peace must be guided by a historical and political reality: Peace can be made only with those who do not want war and do not have an ideological preference for violence. There is nothing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky can do but try to stop Russian aggression by force, and we must help by not losing our common sense. Common sense demands that we make moral choices, protect civilian lives and put aside pacifism that is, just as it was in the past, a hypocritical attitude. We must defend the children of Ukraine by remembering what "never again" really means. To do so, we must look to the lesson of the Middle East – "never again" means "stand up and fight."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Six years before British-Indian author Salman Rushdie had a $6,000,000 bounty on his head as a result of a fatwa (Islamic decree) for his "blasphemous" 1988 book, The Satanic Verses, he stated in 2010 that the NGO Amnesty International was in a state of "moral bankruptcy."

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He was referring to the organization's blatant surrender to the regimes and gangs practicing violent Islamism, as well as to its anti-Western, anti-American and anti-Israel sentiment. He could say the same today, in light of the report that it released on Tuesday.

The 211-page report, issued by Amnesty's UK branch, is an indictment of the Jewish state. It's a document that deems Israel's existence, not merely its policies, as an illegitimate, colonialist and racist entity.

Indeed, for Amnesty, the Jewish state wasn't based on the self-determination of a population returning to its ancestral homeland – necessary for the Jewish people's very survival – nor even for defending itself, tooth and nail, against a bloody stream of terror perpetrated by armed movements seeking its destruction.

Indeed, the document is a disgrace to an organization with a record of battling on behalf of communist dissidents or apartheid – the real one, in South Africa. Along with its systematic failure to denounce human-rights abuses in Syria, Iran and Turkey, and repeated calls to take action against the United States and Europe, the report demonstrates that the NGO has been overtaken by politics.

It exposes Amnesty's ideological approach that confuses the attacked with the aggressor; justifies Hamas terrorism; criminalizes countries concerned with an influx of potentially dangerous immigrants; and extols a sea of hatred against the Jewish state.

As Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs foreign-policy fellow Dan Diker wrote on Tuesday, the report is a "voyage into an alternate reality." It's a remake of the 1975 "movie," in which the United Nations General Assembly adopted the subsequently revoked "Zionism is racism" Resolution 3379. It's a repeat of the 2001 Durban conference and of the 2009 Goldstone Report, penned by Judge Richard Goldstone, who accused Israel of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity – allegations that he later withdrew and repented.

Amnesty International ventures into the insane accusation of equating Israel with apartheid, despite the fact that the country's Arab citizens hold high positions in government and on the Supreme Court, and work in its hospitals and universities alongside Jews. In fact, Israel blends a variety of cultures, religions and races, while never surrendering to aggressive Arab armies and terrorists. Yes, as Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz has said, "Whatever Israel does to defend its citizens are considered war crimes."

Amnesty International, with an Urbi et Orbi blessing, refuses to acknowledge either the sharing of land of Israel or the terrorism, wars and missiles launched against the Jewish state. Similarly, it ignores the systematic violation of human rights by the Palestinians, while hurling the term "apartheid" at Israel, as a way of casting it as evil, unworthy and destined to disappear, just like the former regime in South Africa.

Around this delegitimization of Israel, Amnesty has built a fortress that it claims (as Goldstone did before retracting) is based on evidence. Instead, however, it's really reverting to an old and revamped trope. It suggests that the Jewish people are not native to Israel; that Jews segregate Palestinians in the name of supremacist ideals; and that checkpoints are an expression of racist arrogance, rather than a necessity without which murderers would and did enter the country to commit atrocities against innocent people.

In the NGO's report, this context is completely erased and replaced by the lie that Israel is imposing its grip on an innocent world. In reality, Israeli society is a kaleidoscope of cultures, ethnicities and religions, where Arabs and Jews intermix, especially in Tel Aviv and Haifa. And the passion with which Israelis rush to fraternize with the Arab countries joining the Abraham Accords is genuine.

Amnesty International's insidious lies make use of subversive language under the guise of human rights, and the entire world should demand an apology for this.

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The delegitimization of Israel is the real backdrop for anti-Semitic incitement and the terrorists' aim to annihilate the state. After all, if Israel is a despicable country, the Jews are worthy of the shocking demonstrations around the world, in which protesters shout epithets, such as, "Hitler was right" and "F**k the Jews." The same applies to Iran, which, according to Amnesty, is right when it says that it wants to destroy Israel.his is very important to me, Amnesty steal the very concept of human rights

Amnesty International, therefore, acted irresponsibly by boasting that it champions morality, while actually ripping that values – and Israel – to shreds. Indeed, Amnesty has stolen the very concept of human rights and debased it.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Antisemitic incidents are at a 10-year high, according to an annual report by the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization published ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

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This should not take the place of our mourning over the fate of our loved ones who were deported, tortured, and killed in the Nazi genocide of the Jews during World War II. It does, however, warrant reiterating in their memory that to ensure we keep our "Never Again" promise, we must first and foremost fight antisemitism.

This, however, is the one thing that seems to have been forgotten over the decades. Indeed, violence against Jews comprised almost a third of last year's antisemitic incidents, with at least 10 per day on average. Among these incidents were hate-filled graffiti, the desecration of property, the aggressive removal of Star of David pendants and skull caps from Jews.

The online storm is also unprecedented. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the phrase "Hitler was right" was posted on social media 17,000 times in a single week in May alone, and vows to exterminate the Jews are daily fare. "Today's world needs Hitler," tweeted CNN freelance contributor Adeel Raja, for example, which many followers "liked" and "shared."

At anti-Israel demonstrations everywhere, epithets such as "damn Jews" were commonly chanted. Jewish institutions, restaurants, and stores were attacked. Nearly half of these incidents took place in Europe. The rest occurred in the US and elsewhere.

The phenomenon exists across the political spectrum, on both the Right and the Left, and in most of the Islamic world. Even worse, its conformist echo reverberates in the international media and in both governmental and non-governmental institutions. Politicians and performing artists do not hesitate to repeat slanderous accusations about the Jews and Israel or support the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement.

The UN Human Rights Commission set up an ad hoc permanent committee, with a $1 billion budget and 29 employees, devoted solely to "monitoring any suspected human-rights violations by Israel." Not by Syria, not by Iran, and not by China.

It is precisely this double standard that defines antisemitism. Yet the world simply looks on and nods.

While 4,500 missiles rained down on Israel from the Gaza Strip, for no good reason, during Operation Guardian of the Walls last May, the international community shouted about "human rights for the Palestinians" but not the right of Jews to defend themselves.

When such an attitude is exalted, stores are smashed in Los Angeles and New York, turning the ancient blood libel that Jews love to kill children into a contemporary one. The trope that Jews dominate the world is transformed into an accusation that Israel is guilty of "ethnic cleansing" and colonialism.

This is an evil narrative that distorts episodes such as the eviction of Arab squatters from a house in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem. This is a narrative that journalists embrace, ignoring history and the urban-planning regulations applied equally in the Jewish state to both Jews and Arabs. It is a narrative that disregards the benevolence Israel's Supreme Court has shown toward Arabs.

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Today's antisemitism is cloaked in "anti-apartheid," "anti-racist," and "anti-colonialist" rhetoric. Anti-vaxxers suggest that they are suffering a Holocaust because Jews not only spread COVID-19 but have profited handsomely from the pandemic.

Moreover, antisemitism has even managed to attach itself to the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements. According to the latter, Jews are "white supremacists." Ironically, it is the Jews who have become the object of Islamist attacks in American synagogues, where they had already been targeted by actual white supremacists. In other words, antisemitism is now universal.

All studies on the German cruelty that led to the genocide of the Jews highlight the crucial role played by incitement mythology. Henry Kopel's important book, "War on Hate: How to Stop Genocide, Fight Terrorism, and Defend Freedom," points to the way in which Jews were referred to by the masses as insects and beasts; exploitative capitalists; and traitorous, parasitic, inhuman communists, and dedicated to what Adolf Hitler claimed was the aim of "exterminating" Germans.

In a similar vein, Jews today are said to want to "exterminate the Palestinians."

The Germans called the Jews "perpetrators of atrocities" and a "deadly plague," as Iran currently defines Israel. Today, the Jews and Israel are accused of being "colonialists" and "racists."

There is no longer any shame associated with applying the same kind of language and imagery that set the stage for the Holocaust. Nor can any veil conceal Islamist incitement against Jews.

As Kopel explains in his book, you did not have to be an avid Nazi to participate in the massacres of innocent Jews, including children [38,000 killed in one year; 45,000 rounded up and sent to extermination camps]. You were simply "an ordinary German, without any special propensity for violence," and if you were a leader, you had a "medium to high intellectual level, free of pathologies."

Incitement was the vessel – the "flying carpet" – resulting in a massacre. And that is the case with every act of genocide and for each and every terrorist.

In his recently published book, "Mai più! ["Never Again!"], Italian historian and philosopher Giorgio Volli tells us that "Never Again" is the sole recurring theme in the many documents connected to International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Still, incitement toward the murder of Jews is allowed to continue today unrestrained. The Islamic Republic of Iran considers it a foremost task, enshrined in law, which it pursues through war and its ability to acquire a nuclear weapon. The terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah see it as a religious duty.

The Nuremberg trials of 1946-1949, and subsequently that of Adolf Eichmann in 1961, were overshadowed by the incredulity that European culture could have given birth to so much evil.

Volli describes this well. The interpretation of "absolute evil," together with what philosopher Hannah Arendt called the "banality of evil" – of hiding behind Hitler and his cohorts' "madness," "perversion" or "paranoia" and refusing to see that very large numbers of Mozart-loving Germans killed Jewish children – lull us into believing that it won't happen again. Yet it has already happened, albeit in more minor ways.

Volli notes that many of the documents establishing International Holocaust Remembrance Day are reductive. The German one, for example, doesn't include the word "Jews." That of the Council of Europe even calls the Holocaust "paradigmatic" among crimes against humanity.

Few dare to blame the Germans as a nation. Nearly everyone prefers to call the killers "Nazis," while the European Union speaks of a general attack on minority groups, racism, and xenophobia. Nobody remembers that it's antisemitism we're speaking about!

But the fundamental tendency of International Holocaust Remembrance Day toward general "humanitarianism" is clear. The advice to all those involved in the commemorations is to cite in their speeches all forms of discrimination, including Islamophobia, in their speeches and to use the lessons of the Holocaust to present a universalist message.

Certainly, as Kopel points out, between 1952 and 2001, there were 37 genocides in the world, from Cambodia to the Balkans and from the Uighurs to the Kurds. Of course, all human suffering is identical: Nothing differentiates a Jewish child killed by the Germans from an Armenian child killed by the Turks.

Yet denying the particularity of the Holocaust not only trivializes it; it risks reinforcing antisemitism. The extermination of the Jews, industrially planned at the Wannsee Conference 80 years ago, was masterminded, as former US President George H.W. Bush said, "by men who considered themselves intellectuals."

International Holocaust Remembrance Day, therefore, has plenty of good reasons to be committed to the war against antisemitism and the ongoing attempt to destroy the Jewish people. When the Holocaust is treated like a "universal" event, the Palestinians take the opportunity to invert victim and persecutor in their propaganda campaign, so as to make the Jews the new Nazis. It's what the late, great historian Robert Wistrich aptly called the "Nazification" of the Jews and Israel through accusations of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and racism – the main leitmotif of contemporary antisemitism.

The return of murderous antisemitism after the Holocaust is a serious impediment to ensuring such acts never happen again. The Jan. 17 hostage crisis at the Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas – carried out by a well-known antisemite – was not immediately classified as an antisemitic act. Ditto for the case of Ilan Halimi, who was slowly killed in Paris in 2006, after being kidnapped by a gang who tortured him while reading the Quran. The French police refused to see the antisemitic character of the crime.

Such incidents remind us that commemorating evil does not exempt us from continuing to fight it. With our hearts filled today with the memory and suffering of our grandparents, aunts, and uncles, we nevertheless cannot abandon the battlefield if we truly mean it when we say, "Never Again."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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