Terror in Boulder, Colorado
The Times of Israel reports: Activists rallying for the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza were targeted in a firebombing attack on Sunday, which the FBI said it was investigating as an act of terrorism.
Six people aged 67-88 were wounded in the attack, FBI Special Agent Mark Michalek said at a press conference. One of the wounded is in critical condition.
A Holocaust survivor was among those burned the suspected terror attack in Boulder, according to a friend of the victim who spoke with 9NEWS Angeline McCall.
In footage said to be from the scene of the attack, a shirtless man screamed “End Zionists” while holding what appear to be Molotov cocktails. The man also shouted, “Palestine is free.”
The suspect is in custody and was identified as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45.
According to Bill Melugin: Three senior DHS sources tell FoxNews that the Boulder terror suspect is an Egyptian national in the U.S. illegally as a visa overstay who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration. I’m told Mohamed Sabry Soliman arrived at LAX on 8/27/22 on a B1/B2 nonimmigrant visa with an authorized stay through 2/26/23, but he overstayed & never left. I’m told on 9/29/22, he filed some sort of claim with USCIS, potentially an asylum claim, and on 3/29/23, USCIS under the Biden admin gave him work authorization, which expired on 3/28/25.
‘Free Palestine’ Terrorism by Jeffrey Herf with The Free Press
This incident, which the FBI has called a “targeted terror attack,” comes less than two weeks after the assassination of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim outside the Capital Jewish Museum.
These two events are of great historical significance.
They are terrorist attacks carried out against Jews in America in the name of “liberation” thousands of miles away. They were carried out by people who feel so emboldened by the global ideological assault on Israel and its supporters that they were willing to make the leap from hatred to violence. And if history is a guide, they will not be the last to do so.
It is likely, indeed probable, that these two attacks excite and stimulate others to further acts of violence. After all, the response on many campuses to the Hamas massacres of October 7 ranged from enthusiasm to apologia.
In the United States, only a small minority of activists are likely to take that last step from ideology to political murder. Only a small number, one hopes, will believe that violence against Jews and Israel’s supporters is necessary and desirable in order to “free Palestine.”
But today those who are prone to make that leap will gain momentum from an ideological climate that is even more conducive to terror, as was the case in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is the denunciation of Israel, not the denunciation of terrorism, which finds the most and the loudest expression in the universities and in other environments dominated by the pedigreed and the prestigious.
Humanitarian Aid
Despite Hamas claims, security camera footage from Gaza aid center shows no shooting in YNet
The IDF on Sunday denied that it had attacked a food line in Rafah after Hamas claimed dozens were killed in an Israeli strike.
The Qatari-based Al Jazeera Network quoted sources in Gaza who said 30 people were killed and over 100 wounded in a strike near the distribution center operated by the American Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The Reuters news agency also said dozens were killed, basing their report on the Palestinian news agency WAFA and Hamas-affiliated media.
Other major news outlets, including the BBC, CNN, Sky News, The Washington Post, to name but a few, were quick to repeat the claim.
The IDF released drone footage showing gunmen in Gaza shooting at civilians going to collect aid. Hamas is doing everything in its power to prevent the successful distribution of food in Gaza.
Watch
Former hostage Ori Megidish recounts the terrifying events of October 7 that ended with her abduction and captivity in Gaza. In the more disturbing video below, she reveals how she was sexually harassed by the terrorist who guarded her in Gaza in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 Uvda program (which is like the Israeli version of 60 Minutes). Ori was abducted from the Nahal Oz Base by Hamas gunmen. In total, 53 soldiers were killed in Hamas’s assault on the base, and several others were taken hostage. She was the first hostage to be rescued from the Gaza Strip on October 20th.
Visegrad 24 posts: Israel has released footage confirming that its new Directed Energy Weapon “Iron Beam” is in active service and was used to shoot down drones launched by Hezbollah last year. Every interception cost Israel no more than USD $5 each.
Israel/Middle East Related Articles
New Aid Group in Gaza Makes an End Run Around Hamas—and the UN by Madeleine Rowley with The Free Press
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been the primary source of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza since its founding in 1949. Despite ongoing budget shortfalls, the agency has focused its aid efforts on the two million Palestinians living in Gaza following Hamas’s October 7 massacre and Israel’s subsequent ground invasion into Gaza.
The trouble with the UN serving as the main source of aid, Israelis and the U.S. government say, is Hamas. At least 12 UNRWA employees participated in the attack, including by kidnapping Israelis, according to The Wall Street Journal. Some 10 percent of Gaza’s UNRWA workforce have ties to Hamas or other Islamist militant groups. Hamas siphons aid meant for ordinary Gazans. The terrorist group loots the distribution trucks carrying food and sells the stolen goods on the black market at inflated prices.
According to a document reviewed by The Free Press based on Israeli intelligence information, Hamas embeds operatives within the UN’s supply chain to manage the flow of funds to the terrorist organization. In 2024 alone, Hamas intercepted $500 million worth of aid.
Stockpiles of humanitarian aid from the UN have run out after Israel blocked all aid from entering Gaza between March 2 and May 19. Hamas controls the food stores and has threatened Gazans who seek outside aid. Videos surfaced on X of Gazans storming and looting a UN World Food Program warehouse. According to CNN, at least two people died during the looting.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started as an idea in late October 2023 during a brainstorm session in Israel among a small group of prominent entrepreneurs and businessmen. The Free Press has confirmed reporting from The New York Times that plans took shape in early spring of 2024, when Israeli American venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg and Israeli tech investor Liran Tancman met with former CIA officer Philip Reilly to discuss how to distribute aid in a new way.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s funding structure is unclear, and critics say that Israel is too involved, and is militarizing access to aid. The organization is registered in Switzerland and lists David Papazian as its president. A spokesperson confirmed that one as-yet-unnamed Western European country is a major donor.
On Wednesday, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and its local Palestinian partners, alongside American security contractors from Safe Reach Solutions, delivered an estimated 14,500 boxes of shelf-stable food to Gazans. Israeli troops are stationed at a distance outside the distribution sites, but Israel and the IDF have “no operational control” over the organization’s work and mission.
Just weeks into starting in his new role as head of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, Jake Wood stepped down due to concerns over a lack of impartiality and neutrality in distributing humanitarian aid. The first official day of aid distribution was not without some chaos. Hamas had set up blockades to prevent Gazans from entering the foundation’s secure distribution sites. According to a source who oversaw aid operations, contractors fired a gunshot toward the ground to get the attention of the thousands of desperate people rushing toward the site to get food.
Videos of Gazans waiting in line to receive food boxes show people waving and cheering. The hope is that once people have more food to eat, the frenzy of the first few days at the secure distribution sites will subside.
None of the foundation’s success in providing over 840,000 meals so far seemed to translate on social media, where images of the aid handout were rapidly turned into memes comparing Gazans waiting for food to Jewish prisoners waiting at Auschwitz.
Haviv Rettig Gur told The Free Press that the fact that Hamas is openly threatening Gazans is a sign that the new aid group is making a difference. “Why is Hamas threatening this? Because they’re desperate and the strategy is working. They’re desperate not to lose control of the aid.”
The United Nations denounced the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, calling it “dangerous” to force Gazans to enter “militarized zones” to collect rations. The UN’s spokesperson said, “We will not participate in operations that do not meet our humanitarian principles.”
Mike Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel, said the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation plans to scale its efforts to reach more people in Gaza. “It’s a logistical challenge to make this work, and to make it work well, but all of the partners, both the donors as well as those who will carry out the operation, are committed to getting it launched and making it work.”
Haviv Rettig Gur said detaching Hamas from humanitarian aid is the right strategy, but the pressure is on to make sure it works. “The Israelis need to understand that there is now a fire burning under them. This aid distribution has to go well and it has to go fast. The war depends on it, the lives of many people depend on it, and Israel’s allies depend on it.”
Link: New Aid Group in Gaza Makes an End Run Around Hamas—and the UN
U.S.-Led Gaza Aid Efforts Are About Much More Than Food by Seth Mandel with Commentary Magazine
The concerted effort to undermine the new U.S.-administered Gaza aid program should force us to reconsider the funding and cooperation the U.S. gives to the wider United Nations “humanitarian” network. Yesterday’s launch of this new system, sans UN and celebrity chefs, made clear who does and does not actually want to see this problem solved.
The UN’s self-declared guiding “principles” require it not only to let Gazans starve but to actively abet their starvation. The controversy heated up when the U.S. and Israel sought ways to deliver humanitarian aid to Gazan civilians without enabling Hamas to commandeer that aid. The UN claimed this plan violated neutrality because it was biased against Hamas. Yet the UN routinely employs members of Hamas, and therefore no UN-connected agency is neutral either.
Both Israel and the United States insist on distinguishing between Gazan civilians and Hamas. Existing “humanitarian” groups refuse to do so and organized a boycott and a media-demonization campaign against anyone considering joining an aid effort that excluded Hamas. This campaign delayed the establishment of a new aid mechanism and the delivery of food and medicine to Gazans.
That new aid distribution began yesterday, led by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The results bode well for this particular model of aid delivery. The GHF’s launch was fraught and threatened to derail the project entirely. A New York Times story that damaged the organization and resulted in the resignation of its leader painted its backstory as “an Israeli brainchild.”
The plan was designed to undermine Hamas’s control of Gaza, prevent food from falling into militants’ hands or the black market, and bypass the United Nations. Israeli officials argued, too, that their plan would move distribution out of chaotic and lawless areas into zones under Israeli military control. UN officials objected that the GHF plan necessitated having far fewer distribution points. The GHF envisioned their sites having an outer perimeter of Israeli-provided security to ensure Hamas didn’t hijack the aid or murder the Gazans congregating there.
Hamas has done everything it can to torpedo the aid program. Hamas reportedly set up a checkpoint near the aid site to stop Gazans from making the final leg of the journey. But the Gazans shouted and cursed at Hamas and then stampeded on through toward the aid site. According to the GHF, 8,000 family food boxes were handed out, amounting to food for 460,000 meals.
Hamas also threatened anyone who accepted these items and in a last-ditch effort announced it would set up its own food-aid distribution sites—a welcome admission that there is plenty of food in Gaza already but that, at the moment, it is in Hamas’s hands.
The distribution will have to be scaled up to prevent the division of Gaza into Hamas and non-Hamas territories. And in fact, that is the plan.
Link: U.S.-Led Gaza Aid Efforts Are About Much More Than Food
The Israeli Raid on Syria That Exposed the Weakness of Hardened Targets by John Spencer in Mosaic Magazine
On September 8, 2024, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) executed one of the most daring and complex operations in its history: a deep-penetration commando raid into Syria targeting an underground missile-production facility near Masyaf, codenamed Deep Layer. The site had been constructed by Iran to supply precision-guided missiles to Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies—posing a strategic threat Israel could not ignore.
It challenged assumptions about Israel’s strategic posture, redefined the limits of special operations in the region, and signaled a new era in how states counter adversaries operating from hardened spaces on enemy territory. By executing this mission, Israel changed its playbook, shifting from a largely reactive posture to a proactive doctrine of deep penetration, operational surprise, and joint-force synchronization, aimed at denying the enemy the ability to attack in the first place.
The Masyaf missile complex—a deeply buried, Iranian-built site designed to produce hundreds of advanced missiles annually for Hizballah—represented an intolerable strategic threat. Its location in Syria underscored the transnational nature of Iran’s proxy-warfare strategy. Traditional airstrikes alone are insufficient to neutralize this kind of fortified and subterranean facility.
The raid—codenamed Operation Many Ways—was executed by approximately 120 commandos from the Israeli air force’s elite Shaldag unit, supported by Unit 669. Four Sikorsky CH-53 helicopters carried the assault force low over the Mediterranean to evade radar detection, bringing them more than 200 kilometers into Syrian territory. Simultaneous Israeli airstrikes were launched against Syrian military sites. Upon landing, the commandos moved quickly to secure the perimeter and engage any remaining hostile troops before breaching the fortified entrances of the facility.
Israeli planners trained soldiers in forklift operation ahead of the mission, using them on site to maneuver obstacles, breach heavily fortified steel doors, and speed up access to internal bunkers. Knowing they would be on the ground for an extended period, the IDF incorporated a full-spectrum medical contingency. The entire assault concluded without a single Israeli casualty.
Israel’s ability to reach hardened targets didn’t begin with the strike on Deep Layer. In 2018, Mossad agents infiltrated a guarded warehouse in Tehran and extracted more than 100,000 documents and digital files from Iran’s clandestine nuclear archive. In the current war, the Israeli air force struck Iranian military targets more than 2,000 kilometers away. Operation Many Ways is different. It required boots on the ground, in a hardened underground target.
From Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza to Hezbollah's bunkers in Lebanon and Iran’s underground missile silos, the subterranean domain has become a central tool of Israel’s enemies for creating strategic depth. The IDF’s success in Masyaf demonstrates that a well-executed raid, grounded in superior intelligence and operational surprise, can overcome even the most elaborate underground defenses.
The Natanz complex is estimated to lie 80 to 100 meters beneath the surface. Fordow, carved directly into a mountainside, is likely buried at a similar or even greater depth. If Israel assesses that Iran is on the brink of weaponizing its nuclear program, it may ultimately require a ground-based, deep-penetration operation akin to what was done at Deep Layer.
Operation Many Ways wasn’t just a successful raid—it marked the arrival of a new operational doctrine in the Middle East, where precision, initiative, and political will are redrawing the map of what is militarily possible. The IDF didn’t just eliminate a missile factory. It demonstrated that no target is beyond reach.
Link: The Israeli Raid on Syria That Exposed the Weakness of Hardened Targets
The 'lifelines' that could save Hamas from its worst crisis yet by Shachar Kleiman with Israel Hayom
In a rare admission, two Hamas officials have recently acknowledged the depth of the crisis facing the group. Basem Naim and Ibrahim al-Madhoun stressed the need to "unite ranks" and end the war "through creative means."
Their statements implicitly confirmed that the organization itself is in its worst state ever. Gaza is now being managed by a second-tier command structure made up of brigade commanders and mid-level staff officers. The apparent new head of the military wing is Az al-Din Haddad, whose authority has expanded from the Gaza City brigade to the northern part of the Strip. Haddad has managed to evade Israeli forces since the war began. He is working alongside Raed Saad, head of Hamas' production division, who survived an assassination attempt.
Another key figure still at large is Tawfiq Abu Naim, a former close associate of the now-dead Yahya Sinwar. These agencies have been consolidated into a single entity called "the operational mechanism," consisting of 5,000 operatives from various branches, less than half the size of the pre-war internal security apparatus.
Many of the new recruits are minors or inadequately trained. The core of the crisis is financial. Asharq Al-Awsat reported that Hamas officials have received only a few hundred shekels each, and members of the military wing have not been paid at all. In addition, the organization has struggled to fill key posts after several of its financial leaders were killed. Still, it’s likely that the hundreds of supply trucks allowed in by Israel have enabled Hamas to profit from looting and selling the goods.
Other terrorist organizations in Gaza have also taken note of Hamas' weakness and pressured it to accept Egypt's interim cease-fire proposal in March. At this nadir, Hamas is intensifying its psychological propaganda campaign, aiming for international and domestic Israeli pressure to force an end to the war without a full hostage release.
Despite its hardships, Hamas still has the means to achieve this. Its foreign leadership remains largely unscathed and is capable of raising vast sums of money. Senior commanders remain in Gaza. If Hamas is not decisively defeated, the countdown to the next war will have already begun.
Link: The 'lifelines' that could save Hamas from its worst crisis yet
The Flashing Signals That I Just Saw in Israel by Thomas L. Friedman with The New York Times
**I am including this article, even though I have my own disagreements with the author, because I do think that it is important to understand different perspectives.**
I just spent a week in Israel and, while it may not look as if much has changed — the grinding Gaza war continues to grind — I felt something new there for the first time since Oct. 7, 2023. It is premature to call it a broad-based antiwar movement, which can happen only when all the Israeli hostages are returned. But I did see signals flashing that more Israelis, from the left to the center and to even parts of the right, are concluding that continuing this war is a disaster for Israel: morally, diplomatically or strategically.
From the political center, the former prime minister Ehud Olmert wrote an essay in the newspaper Haaretz in which he pulled no punches against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition. “The government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose, without goals or clear planning and with no chances of success,” Olmert argued. “What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of extermination: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians.” His conclusion: “Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.”
From the right, you have the likes of Amit Halevi, a member of Netanyahu’s own right-wing Likud party, who is staunchly pro-war but thinks its execution has been bungled. Halevi said: “This war is a deception. They lied to us about its achievements.” Israel has “been fighting a war for 20 months with failed plans” and it “is not succeeding in destroying Hamas.”
Yair Golan stated in an interview with Israel Radio: “Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa was, if we don’t return to acting like a sane country. A sane country does not fight against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set itself the aim of expelling populations.”
Virtually no independent foreign journalists have been allowed to report firsthand from Gaza — unescorted by the Israeli army. When this war is over and Gaza is saturated with international reporters and photographers free to roam, the level of death and destruction is going to be fully reported and pictured — and that is going to be a very bad time for Israel and world Jewry.
So, Golan was right to warn his nation — bluntly — to stop now, forge a cease-fire, get the hostages back, get an international and Arab force into Gaza and deal with the remnants of Hamas later. When you are in a hole, stop digging.
Unfortunately, Netanyahu has insisted on continuing to dig, claiming that he can bomb Hamas into giving up its remaining 20 or so living Israeli hostages — and because the religious-nationalist members of his coalition have essentially told him if he stops the war, they will topple him.
Amos Harel explained: “Many bombing runs are actually assassination attempts against Hamas leaders, often when they’re with their families. And these officials no longer live in private houses or apartment buildings — they’re usually in the crowded tent camps with thousands of civilians. Even when the army declares multiple steps of caution, these attacks result in massive killing.”
It is not only, and indeed not even mostly, the rise in Gazan civilian casualties that are turning more and more Israelis against the war. It’s simply that the war has worn down the whole society. The signs, Harel notes, are everything from “an increasing number of suicides (which the army doesn’t report) to families that are breaking up and businesses that are collapsing. The government conveniently ignores these developments and scatters promises of victory instead.”
During my trip, I heard a story from Lucy Aharish, the first Israeli Arab Muslim news presenter on mainstream Hebrew-language television. On the commemoration this year, Aharish told me, the national siren went off at the designated time, and “my 4-year-old son, Adam, who was playing on the floor, started to panic and immediately began gathering up his toys to go into the safe room in our house.” “I told him, ‘No, you don’t have to. This is a different siren. For this siren we stand in respect for superheroes who kept us safe and are no longer with us.’” When 4-year-olds must learn to distinguish the difference between siren wails — those that you stand in respect for and those you need to gather your toys for and rush for a room with no windows — you have been too long at war.
If many Israelis feel trapped by their own leaders, many Gazans clearly feel the same. A survey by the independent, Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research of people across the Gaza Strip found that 48 percent supported the anti-Hamas demonstrations that erupted in several places in recent weeks.
Hamas’s leaders will live in infamy. They attacked Israeli border communities on Oct. 7, 2023, and, when Israel predictably retaliated, they essentially offered up Gaza’s civilians as a collective human sacrifice to win global sympathy for their cause — while Hamas’s leaders hid in tunnels and abroad. Hamas is still operating, but now Gaza is unlivable.
If Hamas achieved that “victory,” it would mean that Hamas fought this entire war — losing tens of thousands of fighters and civilians and having few buildings in Gaza left intact — in order to get back to exactly what Hamas had on Oct. 6, 2023: a cease-fire and Israel out of Gaza.
For this alone, history will remember Hamas’s leaders as mendacious fools.
Antisemitism
**I highly recommend subscribing to Sapir, a free quarterly journal published by Bret Stephens. You can subscribe via this link.**
[MUST READ] Why Has Palestinian Activism Been So Successful? by Ariella Saperstein with SAPIR Journal
According to Simon Greer, a longtime community and labor organizer, social movements go through several distinct developmental stages as they grow and achieve lasting change. First, successful movements usually begin on the margins of society, where they offer a critique of the mainstream, pointing out a contradiction between the society’s stated values and its reality.
Gaining steam, an activist movement then cultivates its own language, narrative, and culture expressed through coherent and replicable practice. These practices quickly engendered a sense of community and belonging. The community then selects and elevates some of its members as heroes and martyrs. In the final stage, a successful movement shifts societal norms, winning a combination of hearts and minds, structures and systems.
But the times can also change for the worse. The success of a movement is not proof of its moral warrant. Plenty of nefarious movements — National Socialism in Germany, Soviet Communism in Russia — have seen their way through the same stages of development. This is what we are witnessing today in the anti-Israel movement.
Beginning on the margins. The Palestinian narrative began to take hold in academia as the 1968 generation made its way into university humanities and social science departments. Edward Said published Orientalism in 1978, and a scholarship based on Marxism and postcolonialism slowly began to fester in academic obscurity.
Pointing out a contradiction between a society’s stated values and its reality. Palestinian activists positioned themselves as scrappy underdogs speaking truth to power. The Six-Day War of 1967 bolstered their position that Israel was belligerent and undeserving of Western support.
Cultivating its own language, narrative, and culture expressed through a coherent and replicable practice. The academic year of 2023–24 made the chant of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” ubiquitous. Israel Apartheid Week began in 2005 and quickly spread to major cities and universities. BDS resolutions on campus gave momentum to a movement. Nowhere did we see how quickly a practice can be replicated than with the campus encampments that started with Columbia in April 2024. Language like apartheid, colonialism, and ethnic cleansing became mainstream within the movement.
Engendering a sense of community and belonging. Students for Justice in Palestine has operated as a kind of anarchic political avant-garde. The rise of intersectionality brought the Palestinian movement many more allies. The explosion of public support for “antiracism” and Black Lives Matter in 2020 further mainstreamed the Palestinian cause. Members of Congress such as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib added political weight. There was social capital to be gained by joining the protests.
Elevating heroes and martyrs. The Muhammad al-Durrah affair turned Palestinian children into martyrs of the movement. Ahed Tamimi and Leila Khaled were similarly elevated. At George Washington University, Students for Justice in Palestine marked this stage by projecting the words “Glory to our martyrs” onto the walls of the university library.
Shifting societal norms. The Palestinian movement has been funded by major philanthropies. The BDS movement has been legitimized through university trustee debate. DEI frameworks and antiracism have advanced Palestinian activism in education, Pride marches, and Women’s March events. Social-media platforms and influencers have given unprecedented reach to the cause. Wikipedia has been commandeered by Palestinian activists injecting bias into dozens of articles. Misinformation runs rampant because many journalists are predisposed to believe the Palestinian narrative.
The most recent Gallup poll shows fewer than half of Americans expressing more sympathy for Israel than the Palestinians. If this isn’t mainstream, what is?
Palestinian activists have, in many ways, adopted the tactics of the civil rights movement for a far darker cause. Israel’s activists have been understandably unwilling to play by the same rules. The winds of culture don’t seem to be in Israel’s favor.
It is worth asking what American Jews can learn from a movement-building perspective. Who are our heroes, and what are our mantras? How can we draw attention to the hypocrisy of shunning Israel among those fighting for human rights and against racism? How do we build a community that others want to join?
The Israeli narrative resists simplification and therefore sloganeering. But in the age of protest and social media, pithy and memorable messaging is crucial. Israel is a story of self-determination, innovation, and resilience. Let’s tell it less apologetically and more boldly and confidently than ever before. And — maybe — let’s read the playbook as closely as our enemies have.
The Crowd Knew Better by Itxu Díaz with Tablet Magazine
The Eurovision Song Contest just wrapped up one of its most controversial editions, which revealed a stark disconnect between European audiences and their governments. For the third year in a row, Israel received more popular votes than those awarded by the national juries. While viewers this year voted overwhelmingly for Israeli singer Yuval Raphael, European bureaucrats went to comical lengths to exclude and efface the Israeli contestant, resulting in her second-place finish.
The now-familiar Eurovision vitriol toward Israel began even before the contest, when public broadcasters from six participating countries pushed to exclude Israel from the event, comparing it to Russia as an aggressor state. Then, after Raphael’s song, “New Day Will Rise,” received the most votes from audiences, the Spanish Broadcasting Authority (RTVE) demanded a reassessment of the voting system. Despite denying RTVE’s request, the European Broadcasting Union excluded Raphael from the contest’s official video clip.
RTVE has been turning every artistic or sporting event into a chance to brainwash viewers with political talking points. Since May 2024, when Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez recognized the “Palestinian state,” the socialist government’s stance has been deeply anti-Israel. Just weeks ago, Sánchez canceled an arms contract with an Israeli company, sparking a fresh row.
During the second semifinal, RTVE’s presenters attacked Israel without even mentioning that its representative, Yuval Raphael, is a survivor of the brutal October 2023 attack: “The victims of Israeli attacks in Gaza now exceed 50,000, including over 15,000 children, according to the United Nations.”
RTVE’s politicized leadership doubled down, airing a black screen just before the final with this text: “In the face of human rights, silence is not an option. Peace and justice for Palestine.” Moments later, socialist ministers and high-ranking officials—including RTVE’s president—flooded Twitter with similar anti-Israel, pro-Palestine messages, urging Spaniards to vote against Israel.
Belgium’s public broadcaster replaced Israel’s performance with an inflammatory message: “We condemn the human rights violations by the State of Israel. Furthermore, the State of Israel is destroying press freedom. For this reason, we briefly interrupt the broadcast. #CeasefireNow #StopGenocide.”
By the time voting started, the widespread boycott campaign, orchestrated by leftist European governments, was in full swing. Several of these governments had been pushing for the European Union to review its association agreement with Israel, triggering an unprecedented diplomatic crisis with Israel.
This anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian fanaticism is not only unjust but reckless—and the public sees this plainly. In a repudiation of the official propaganda campaigns, voters across Europe swung overwhelmingly for Raphael. The governments that poured public resources into rigging the public vote against Israel suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of their own European citizens.
The campaign’s resounding failure was particularly pronounced in Spain, where, despite the Sánchez government’s all-out efforts, Raphael received a historic number of points, topping the public vote. Spaniards sided with Israel. The amplifiers who had tweeted, “I’m proud my public broadcaster is standing up to Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” were soon posting sad messages like, “I’m ashamed to be Spanish right now.”
The affair unveiled two fascinating realities. First, Europe is full of leftist governments that are either in the minority or losing popularity. Second, public broadcast viewers are deeply irritated by their governments’ attempts at political manipulation, especially in the context of an artistic event. European citizens showered Raphael with words and votes of affection.
Who knows? Maybe the Eurovision popular vote is an indication that Europeans no longer want to be slaves to political elites who side with terrorists.
Link: The Crowd Knew Better
An American Problem by Reihan Salam and Jesse Arm with The Atlantic
On Wednesday night, a young couple left an American Jewish Committee event in Washington, D.C. Moments later, they were gunned down. As police arrested the suspect, he shouted, “Free Palestine.” The victims—Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim—were 20-something Israeli Embassy aides. They were idealists. They were in love. And they were murdered—not for anything they had done, but for who they were and what they represented.
Their alleged killer, Elias Rodriguez, was at one time affiliated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation—a U.S.-based Marxist group tied to China, Iran, and Russia. It’s hard not to conclude that this was a political assassination, fueled by a deranged but coherent ideology that’s spreading with alarming speed through American institutions.
Rodriguez didn’t invent this worldview. It has been cultivated for years—by groups that venerate terrorists, by academics who excuse anti-Jewish hate as anti-colonial resistance, and by students chanting “Intifada” while shutting down bridges and storming campus buildings. It is a worldview that divides people into fixed categories of oppressor and oppressed, resents Jewish achievement, embraces violence, and sees Western civilization as inherently illegitimate. It targets Jews first—but never only.
Over the past 18 months, we’ve watched it escalate—from public rallies romanticizing Hamas after October 7, to anti-Semitic harassment on campuses, to slogans openly demanding ethnic cleansing. In this climate, the leap from vandalism to murder was all but inevitable.
What we’re witnessing is an issue not with Israel, but with America. When violence aimed at Jews—or those seen as aligned with them—is dismissed, excused, or rationalized, it undermines the civic norms that hold our society together. Elite institutions that once upheld liberal pluralism now indulge a form of identity politics that prizes grievance over justice.
The denial of Jewish legitimacy—whether of the state of Israel or of American Jews participating in public life—is no longer a fringe opinion. In too many quarters, it’s treated as respectable. It is not. It is bigotry. And when paired with the belief that those claiming oppression are justified in doing “whatever it takes,” the result isn’t justice. It’s carnage.
The way forward is not to panic, but to draw a clear line. We must reaffirm that no political grievance justifies murder. That Americans—of any faith or background—should not have to fear for their lives while leaving a museum event. That violence in the name of justice is still violence.
It is not enough to mourn. We must act. Not by censoring ideas, but by enforcing the law, defending civic order, and refusing to normalize an ideology that leads, inexorably, to bloodshed.
Link: An American Problem
Hostage Update (no change)
There are now currently 57 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza (there are 58 hostages remaining in total)
Of the 58 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
35 hostages have been confirmed dead and are currently being held in Gaza
Thus, at most, 23 living hostages could still be in Gaza. It has been reported that only 20 are actually alive.
Hamas is now holding the body of 1 IDF soldier who was killed in 2014 (Lt. Hadar Goldin’s body remains held in the Gaza Strip)
20 hostages remain in captivity and have not been declared dead.
4 hostages are Americans: Meet the Four American Hostages Still Held By Hamas: Itay Chen is assumed to have been killed on 10/7, and Gadi Haggai, Judi Weinstein Haggai, and Omer Neutra have been confirmed to have been killed.
On October 7th, a total of 251 Israelis were taken hostage.
During the ceasefire deal in November of 2023, 112 hostages were released.
38 hostages were released in the first phase of the 2025 cease fire agreement (including 5 Thai nationals)
194 hostages in total have been released or rescued
The bodies of 40 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
8 hostages have been heroically rescued by troops alive
Casualties (+1)
On May 14, 2025, as Tzeela Gez and her husband Hananel drove to the hospital to welcome their child, a Palestinian terrorist opened fire near Bruqin, fatally wounding Tzeela. Doctors performed an emergency C-section, delivering baby Ravid Haim, who clung to life for two weeks. On May 29th, baby Ravid sadly succumbed to his wounds.
1,876 Israelis have been killed including 858 IDF soldiers and police since October 7th
The South: 419 IDF soldiers (no change since Wednesday) during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed. The toll includes three police officers (two of which were killed in a hostage rescue mission) and two Defense Ministry civilian contractors.
The North: 132 Israelis (84 IDF soldiers) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel
The West Bank: 63 Israelis (27 IDF and Israeli security forces)
Additional Information (according to the IDF):
5,915 (+7 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 883 (+2 since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
2,687 (+9 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 518 (+2 since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
The Gaza Casualty Count: According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 54,084 total deaths have been reported, with a civilian/combatant ratio: 1:1.
[MUST READ] Report: Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza by Andrew Fox with The Henry Jackson Society
On October 7th, Ohad Hemo with Channel 12 Israel News – the country’s largest news network, a leading expert on Palestinian and Arab affairs, mentioned an estimate from Hamas: around 80% of those killed in Gaza are members of the organization and their families.”
Read this well documented piece from Tablet published in March of 2024: How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes official details on every civilian and IDF casualty.
Regular sources include JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, algemeimer, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Institute for the Study of War, Tablet Magazine, Mosaic Magazine, Commentary, The Free Press, The Jewish Institute for Strategy and Security, and the Times of Israel