Gaza: starved of the Truth

 An unprecedented media and political campaign has been launched, to persuade everybody that Israel is deliberately starving innocent Gazans – men, women and especially children.  The drumbeat is so intense because it aims to drown out everything else – especially the Truth.  And it mostly does.

The photos of Israeli hostages starved by Hamas did not make it to the cover of New York Times or The Guardian...

As usual, the lies are monochromatic and simple to grasp; the truth is complex and uncomfortable.  But that’s no reason to fall for the lies.  Choose the truth.  Here it is.

Question: Is there famine in Gaza?

Short answer: no.  This isn’t an opinion, but a fact that even the BBC was forced to admit, just a few days ago:

“Global food security experts have not yet classified the situation in Gaza as a famine, but UN agencies have warned of man-made, mass starvation taking hold.”

Long answer: ‘Famine’ is not a metaphor, but a well-defined phenomenon.  The international body that defined ‘Famine’ and put itself in charge of declaring it boasts the catchy name of Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).  These are the “[g]lobal food security experts” that the BBC refers to.  The BBC report above is deliberately worded to give the impression that the “[g]lobal food security experts” are different from “UN agencies”.  In reality, the IPC functions as an arm of the United Nations.  Several UN agencies are part of the IPC ecosystem, as are several charities and governmental agencies.  As a result, IPC (which was born out of the best humanitarian intentions) has gradually been politicised.  But, to try and balance the various interests, while also striving to preserve some credibility, the IPC structure includes the so-called Famine Review Committee.  The FRC is (at least in theory) made up of independent experts and acts as a sort of auditor, reviewing IPC-issued classifications.

To make things even more confusing, several other bodies may declare Famine in a territory, based on IPC methodology.  Nobody accredited them to do that, but they do it anyway and the FRC tends to agree with these assessments – unless they are too far fetched.  Such a situation occurred in 2024: in May that year, one of the bodies supporting the IPC ‘determined’ that there was Famine in the Gaza Strip; but in June the FRC disagreed:

“The FRC does not find the . . . analysis plausible given the uncertainty and lack of convergence of the supporting evidence employed in the analysis.”

The IPC/FRC system does two things:

1. Assesses & classifies the current situation;
2. Produces a forecast for the next period.

As mentioned above, currently the situation in Gaza is not classified as famine.  The IPC did issue a forecast on 12 May 2025, warning of “critical risk of Famine” in the next period (April-September 2025).  The document goes on to explain that, from 11 March 2025 (when the Israel-Hamas ceasefire collapsed), the territory had been under a complete blockade:

“Over 60 days have passed since all humanitarian aid and commercial supplies were blocked from entering the territory.  Goods indispensable for people’s survival are either depleted or expected to run out in the coming weeks.”

The “[g]oods” referred above were those provided during the ceasefire, when massive amounts of aid had been delivered into the Strip.  Israel claimed that much of that aid was stashed away by Hamas; it wanted it returned to and consumed by the population before any additional supplies were delivered.

“[C]ritical risk of Famine” means ‘currently there is no Famine, but there very likely will be in the future, unless something is done about it’.  But something was done about it: starting from 18 May 2025 (just a few days after the IPC forecast was issued) aid deliveries to Gaza resumed.  According to Israeli reports quoted (i.e., not disputed) by the IPC, almost 20,000 metric tonnes of food were delivered between 19 and 31 May 2025, followed by close to 38,000 metric tonnes in June and 32,600 between 1 and 23 July.

Yet on 29 July 2025, the IPC issued an ‘Alert’ entitled: “Worst-case scenario of Famine unfolding in the Gaza Strip”.

Most media outlets reported the title above (and embellished it), but without providing a link to the document itself.  So most people have no way to know that this does not mean that there is currently famine in the Gaza Strip.

Just after the ominous title, the document (designed as an infographic) explains:

“According to IPC protocols, an Alert does not classify areas or provide population estimates and does not constitute a Famine classification. [emphasis added]”

Unlike IPC Assessments and Forecasts (which must be based on rigorous scientific data and are reviewed by the FRC), Alerts are political advocacy documents.  They can and often do rely on fishy sources – in this case ‘data’ from the Hamas-run ‘Health Ministry’ in Gaza.  Indeed, the ‘Alert’ states:

“The IPC Global Initiative is issuing this Alert based on the latest evidence available until 25 July to draw urgent attention to the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, following the IPC analysis published in May 2025, which detected a risk of Famine.”

In other words, the Alert isn’t based on any new analysis (the latest analysis was the one published in May, before the resumption of aid), but on “evidence available”; which, as the rest of the document shows, is the ‘evidence’ supplied by the Hamas ministry.

The purpose of Forecasts is to establish a scientific basis for action; the purpose of Alerts is “to draw urgent attention” – i.e. advocacy.

But let’s have a closer look at what the IPC is saying: they use rather convoluted phrases such as “Famine unfolding” and “Famine is currently playing out”.  Isn’t this strange?  Why not simply state ‘there is terrible Famine in the Gaza Strip’?

Well, even when engaging in political advocacy, a body like IPC cannot be caught lying.  And stating outright that there is currently Famine in Gaza would be an obvious lie – one contradicting IPC’s own classification.  Hence, they use ambiguous phrases: “unfolding” and “playing out” can be said to refer to the future (they both mean ‘gradually developing’).  At the same time, many people will read them as meaning ‘there’s famine now’.  So the IPC gets effective advocacy without severe loss of credibility: they’re not lying – just misleading.

Additional information: Famine should not be used as a metaphor – it’s a well-defined situation on the ground.

So, if there is currently no Famine declared in the Gaza Strip, why do so many media outlets say there is?  How can they get away with a lie?

Well, just like the IPC, they don’t ‘technically’ lie – they just deceive.

On 21 July 2025, in the course of just 8 hours of ‘live reporting’ on Gaza, the BBC News website printed the term ‘famine’ 3 times.  But, technically, the BBC did not claim that there was famine.  Rather, they quoted ‘sources’ making that claim.  For instance:

“A 15-year-old girl at Shifa says there is a ‘severe and devastating famine in Gaza’"

The other two BBC reports of famine were attributed to unspecified“[l]ocal residents” and to the UN agency World Food Programme (WFP).  The latter claimed “Gaza is facing famine-like conditions”.  “[F]amine-like”, by the way, is a simile – not a metaphor…

Google ‘what is a simile?’ and find out that it means

“a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid (e.g. as brave as a lion).”

So “famine-like” does not mean Famine, just as “brave like a lion” does not mean the subject is actually a lion.  It's "a figure of speech"...

But most people browsing the news (as most people do, rather than dissecting the meaning as I do) will mentally associate ‘Gaza’ with ‘famine’ and, of course, blame Israel for it.

The IPC, the WFP, the BBC all understand this; they know that there is no Famine in Gaza.  They use ‘famine’ not as a statement of fact, but as a rhetorical cudgel.  They do this because they are, essentially, political activists.  And many political activists are, unfortunately, fundamentally dishonest: they feel that the ‘noble cause’ they strive for justify a few ignoble means – such as being rather ‘liberal’ with the truth.

But corrupting the truth is never a good thing: by giving the false impression that there is Famine when there isn’t, these activists gradually erode their own credibility – and that of the outfits that employ them.  With the ultimate outcome that they won’t be believed when they do report the truth – like the proverbial boy who cried ‘Wolf!’

And there’s something else, as well: by focusing so much attention on Gaza, the activists deny it (along with donations and other resources) to places that are in even direr need.

Following analysis conducted in July 2024, on 1 August that year the IPC declared Famine in parts of Sudan.  By December, it found that Famine was persisting in those places and had expanded to at least 10 additional areas, with 17 others at high risk.

Unlike in Gaza, in Sudan there is Famine, with capital ‘F’: the real thing, not the metaphor.

The Famine in Sudan is the direct consequence of the civil war raging in that country.  C. 9 million people have been displaced; people are unable to gather the crops on which they depend for nourishment.  The warring armed factions have plundered international aid and prevented it from reaching those in need.

BBC News reported on the Famine in Sudan – but only sporadically, in a handful of items spread over several months.  So did other Western media outlets.  There was none of the obsessive fascination with Gaza.  As a consequence, the Famine continues unabated in Sudan, with people dying like flies.

Question: Hold on – I saw with my own eyes on Twitter images of emaciated children, little kids reduced to skin and bones.  Are you saying that those images are not genuine?

Short answer: Even when they are genuine, those photos are fundamentally dishonest.  Those children are wasting away because of disease, not lack of food.

Long answer: Some are not, but others are genuine in the sense that they show actual children from Gaza.  Take for instance this one, published by the BBC on 25 July 2025.  Attributed to Reuters but reproduced by many media outlets (let alone on social media), this is a powerful image, deliberately designed to resemble Madonna with Child.  Christian imagery aside, the vast majority of human beings will be touched by this picture of an obviously starving child – bones sticking out of his pale-bluish skin.  But, before we rage against Israeli inhumanity, let’s read the picture’s caption:

“Samah Matar holds her malnourished son Youssef, who suffers from cerebral palsy, at a school where they are sheltering in Gaza City”

Then let’s ask Google:

“Is starvation associated with Cerebral Palsy?”

Wonders of technology: these days the search engine comes with Artificial Intelligence capabilities.  In less than two seconds, it ‘read’ thousands of scientific articles, returning the following summary:

“Yes, malnutrition and starvation are significant concerns for individuals with cerebral palsy (CP). Children with CP are at a higher risk of malnutrition due to various factors including feeding difficulties, increased energy expenditure, and underlying medical conditions.”

Clearly, it was the disease and not just shortage of food that caused Youssef Matar to look so pitifully emaciated.  One of those diseases that… you know… can’t really be blamed on the Jews.

Some would say that, at least, the BBC had the decency to disclose that little Youssef suffered from cerebral palsy.  But why use that photo in the first place in the context of ‘starvation’ in Gaza?  Most people won’t investigate; they will see the heartbreaking picture and believe it to be the result of Israeli policies, not of a terrible disease.

Little Youssef’s case is by no means the exception: the picture of another little boy is – if possible – even more tragic.  It went viral on social media in mid-July 2025, posted, reposted and commented on (initially, at least) by accounts boasting Iranian flags.  Official Israeli sources identified him as 5-year-old Osama al-Rakab.  Little Osama, who suffers from a serious genetic disease, is no longer in Gaza.  The same Israeli source (COGAT) reports:

“On June 12, we actively coordinated Osama's exit from Gaza with his mother and brother through the Ramon airport.  He is now receiving treatment in Italy.”

And more: on 21 July 2025, the New York Times published the picture of 3-year-old Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq: another hauntingly thin child, also portrayed in his mother’s arms, in the same Madonna-with-Child pose.  The original photos published by a Turkish media outlet featured in the background the child’s slightly older brother, who looked perfectly normal; but the NYT cropped the brother out of the picture…  Why let such details interfere with a good story?

The BBC did one better: they didn’t ‘just’ publish the photo – they proceeded to interview the photographer, who suggested the photo was representative of the widespread starvation of children in the Gaza Strip.

And it’s not just the NYT and the BBC – the photo appeared in the CNN, NBC News, The Guardian, The Daily Mail…  And no journalist wondered: if this is representative of Gaza’s children, how come we are being sent photos of the same child?

A few days later, it was revealed that little Muhammad Zakariya suffers from a series of severe genetic disorders…

Left: the photo of 3-year-old Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq (left) and his mother, in a ‘Madonna with Child’-like composition. Right: the same child, who (it turns out) suffers from severe genetic disorders, next to his slightly older brother, who looks perfectly normal.

Unfortunately, in Gaza – as elsewhere – there are some very sick children.  No doubt, war and all the associated hardship makes their situation even worse.  But using those pictures to ‘exemplify’ the starvation of Gaza’s children is dishonest and calumniatory.

Question: And what about the reports that each day Gazans die of malnutrition? Sure, they come from the Hamas-run health ministry.  But are they mere inventions?

Short answer: Again, we are talking about people who died of disease, not starvation.  Their sickness may or may not have been made worse by the general scarcity and hardship caused by the war.

Long answer: Let’s pay attention to the terminology.  Gaza’s health ministry does not actually claim that these people starved to death.  Such a claim would be easy to verify by any pathologist.  No, the official phrasing (not always reproduced as such by the Western media) is that they “died as a result of malnutrition”.  That’s different.  Even in the midst of a terrible war, people die not because they’re shot or blown to pieces and not because they starve to death, but because of unrelated disease.  In some cases, poor nutrition may worsen the disease and bring about or hasten death.  This is what Hamas is claiming: that given a better nutrition these people would not have died of disease (or at least, not in the short term).  Such a claim cannot be verified.  Even if the bodies could be independently examined (but they generally aren’t available for such examination), it is very difficult to determine whether better nutrition would have been sufficient to ensure survival or to prolong life.

One thing is sure: these fatalities – alongside everybody else that died of natural causes in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023 – will be counted among the victims of ‘Israeli aggression’.

Question: So are you claiming that everything is fine?  There’s no hunger, no malnutrition, no suffering, it’s all propaganda and fabrication?

Short answer: No, that’s not what I claim at all.  Gazans are not starving to death, but they experience hunger, disease and horrendous hardship.

Long answer: Starvation means that people do not get enough food to keep them alive in the short term.  Famine means widespread starvation.  That’s by-and-large what happens in Sudan, not in Gaza.

Malnutrition, on the other hand, means bad or improper nutrition.  A person can survive for a long time by eating relatively small amounts of concentrated food: bread, rice, pasta, beans or lentils…  But that’s still malnutrition, because bread, rice, pasta, beans and lentils do not provide all the nutrients that she needs to be healthy.  Malnutrition is currently widespread in the Gaza Strip.  People get enough to stay alive – but they do not get good, proper nutrition.

Additional information: Listening to the BBC and other mainstream media these days, one might think that malnutrition (especially child malnutrition) is a rare phenomenon.  In fact, it is widespread, even outside the context of war.

According to the UNICEF, at least 77 million children in the Arab world suffer from some form of malnutrition.  Even in a rich country like the UK, food poverty causes significant numbers of children to be malnourished.  A 2017 report by The Food Foundation found that “one in 10 children [in the UK] are living with adults who report experiencing severe food insecurity”.

Question: OK, so why doesn’t Israel just open the Gaza border crossings to aid, as much as the UN and others wish to bring in?  Why limit it to the bare minimum?  Why would Israel care if civilians get plenty of food?

Short answer: Because it is impossible to supply the population with everything they need, while also fighting Hamas.  The two activities are incompatible: the logistics of aid delivery at such a scale simply preclude military operations in that territory.

Long answer: Israel’s standard response to the question above is to blame Hamas for stealing aid.  Deliberately denying basic sustenance to the civilian population is a war crime; denying it to the enemy is a legitimate war strategy.  Hence, claim the Israelis, the supply of aid needs to be tightly controlled, to deny it to Hamas and the other terror organisations.

But does Hamas really steal aid?  Western media outlets habitually cast doubt on this (as they do with most other Israeli claims).  The BBC, for instance, states:

“Israel has said an alternative to the current aid system is needed to stop Hamas stealing aid, which the group denies doing.”

And also:

“Israel claims that Hamas stole aid from the UN system. The UN says it is still waiting for the Israelis to back their claims with evidence.”

The BBC, it turns out, continues to promote those doubts, despite the fact that Israeli claims were corroborated by Gazans.  Buried deep inside a video report by BBC Diplomatic Correspondent Paul Adams (a video that is generally very critical of Israel), one finds the following little nugget:

“But Hamas took control of some of the newly arrived goods.  That’s not just an Israeli allegation.  Our own sources inside Gaza have confirmed it.”

This must be blindingly true – if even the BBC let it slip out.  But – I’m afraid – it’s not the entire truth.

Here’s the unpleasant reality: in places like Gaza, it is impossible to starve out Hamas without starving the entire civilian population.  Sure, there are a few terror leaders that may be hiding in tunnels.  But the typical foot soldier (whether Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Mujahideen Brigades, etc.) is indistinguishable from the rest of the population.  That foot soldier seldom resides in tunnels or in paramilitary bases.  When he is not digging out his weapon to try and kill or kidnap an Israeli soldier, he spends his time at home, with wife, kids and often an extended family: brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces…  So how exactly can one feed the wife and kids, but not the terrorist husband and father?

It cannot be done – and that’s not really what Israel is trying to do.  Hamas cannot be starved out of Gaza.  But, the terrorists want to do more than eating: if left to its own devices, Hamas would like to control the distribution of aid as a means of maintaining its power over the population of Gaza.

Separating Hamas from its tools of power – not the physical elimination of every single terror operative, nor the complete dismantlement of Islamism as an idea – is what Israel is trying to achieve in Gaza.  Failing in that endeavour would mean that Hamas remained in power in Gaza for the foreseeable future; which would constitute a clear victory for Hamas and an obvious defeat for Israel – however many foot soldiers the IDF ‘eliminates’.

Israeli leaders actually say all this, but not quite as loud and clear; because it is not 100% clear that, in the cold eyes of ‘international jurists’ long-detached from the realities of war, this would constitute a ‘legal’ reason for the tight control of aid.

But even this is not the entire or main reason for limiting aid.  True, Israel must deny Hamas control of the aid distribution; but it could conceivably (albeit with a lot of extra risk, effort and expense) allow more aid in – and still attempt to eliminate Hamas from the supply chain.

But there’s something else here – something that ‘people in the know’ understand, but they’re hiding from you.  The truth is that, in a situation like Gaza, it not possible to keep the population supplied with all the life’s necessities – while also prosecuting the war against Hamas.

It needs to be understood: Supplying 2,000,000 people to the level that the UN and others demand would be a gigantic logistic operation.  The issue is not lorries being allowed into Gaza – that’s just one small step in a long journey; the much larger problem is aid distribution inside the Strip.  In contrast to the US/Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the philosophy of UN agencies and of the various charities involved in Gaza is that aid needs to be brought to the aided.  That means that the lorries need to travel in many different directions.  They need to take their cargo to warehouses and from there to many hundreds of distribution centres, bakeries and community kitchens.  All that on roads and in areas that must be ‘deconflicted’ (i.e., free of Israeli troops and away from IDF military operations).  If they are not completely ‘deconflicted’, then the result is (as we’ve seen in the past) aid convoys that are either caught in the crossfire or inadvertently attacked.

The UN claims that it needs more than 600 truckloads of aid a day.  It’s a lie; but even if the number were 100, distributing that amount of aid translates into hundreds of truck journeys a day and hundreds of ‘deconflicted’ areas – all that in a territory just 41 kilometres (25 miles) long and 6 to 12 km (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide.  Roads the military would have to avoid, areas it would have to vacate… Such massive ‘deconfliction’ would not just hinder, but in practice completely paralyse Israeli combat operations.  Not so Hamas’s operations, of course: terrorists aren’t required to ‘deconflict’ anything.

Here's the naked truth that nobody wants to tell you: one can either fight a war in Gaza, or one can keep Gaza’s civilian population well-supplied with food, medicines and other necessities.  One or the other, but not both!

The UN and aid organisations claim that at least 600 truckloads a day must not just go in, but be distributed to the population of Gaza.

The ‘humanitarians’ understand this, as do politicians; which is why both categories of people so keenly advocate a ceasefire.  Even while continuing to bash the Jewish state for ‘not allowing more aid into Gaza’, they know that only when the fighting stops can the aid reach those in need, in sufficient volume and variety.  That’s why the IPC Alert doesn’t just say ‘let the aid get in’; no, the very first of its 5 ‘Recommended actions’ actually demands

“End hostilities: An immediate, unconditional, and sustained ceasefire is critical to reversing the catastrophic levels of human suffering.”

Of course, everyone understands that “sustained ceasefire” is a euphemism.  What the ‘humanitarians’ want is the end of the war, not a temporary ceasefire.  In that, their aims are completely aligned with those of Hamas.  But of course, ending the war and leaving Hamas in power in Gaza is something Israelis simply cannot afford to do: it wouldn’t just mean living in perpetuity with a sword hung over their collective neck – but also admitting a vulnerability that can only invite more attacks from additional enemies.

Question: So what’s the solution?  Are you saying that we must resign ourselves to seeing innocent people suffering and being killed?

Short answer: Unfortunately, innocents will always suffer and get killed in wars.  But it is possible to alleviate that suffering and starkly reduce the number of innocent casualties.

The first step is, simply, to allow those innocents to escape; they are currently cynically trapped in a war zone.  Using a combination of political pressure and economic incentives, Egypt must be persuaded to allow unarmed Gazans to cross into Sinai, where well-organised refugee camps can be established, away from the rigours of war and with full access by aid organisations.

Long answer: Currently, the war in Gaza is the only armed conflict in recent history that civilians have been utterly prevented from fleeing.  While millions of Syrians found refuge in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and further afield, very few Gazans have managed to bribe their way into Egypt.  As I have shown in a previous article, this is a cynical ploy by Egypt and other Arab countries, who fear that allowing Gazans to leave would constitute the end of ‘the Palestinian cause’.  This isn’t surprising; in fact, it’s always been obvious that Arab dictators are very keen on ‘the Palestinian cause’, but don’t actually give a damn about Palestinians.

Even more outrageously, the ‘international community’ (including the likes of Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, as well as media outlets) seems to accept that ‘logic’.  How else can we explain that in 2022 the European Union and the UK opened their gates to c. 6 million Ukrainian refugees, but in 2023 they shut them to practically every Gazan wanting to escape the war?

But if a genocide is taking place in Gaza – as some people claim – then surely the priority should be to take those innocents outside the reach of the ‘genocidaire’ Israelis?  Do these people want to save the victims, or are they only interested in punishing the offenders?  If the latter, what does this tell us about their true motivations?

Yes, I know: nobody but fanatics and a handful of dupes actually believes in this tall ‘genocide’ story.  But, regardless, innocent people are getting killed – because they are forcibly kept inside a battlefield.  Why are they not allowed to escape?

Question: But it isn’t happening.  So I don’t understand how Israel hopes to achieve its goals in Gaza.  You’ve been fighting there for almost two years.  What are you hoping for now?

Short answer: Unsurprisingly, Israel hopes that ‘someone’ (preferably a ‘moderate’ Arab ‘someone’) will take Gaza off its hands, pacify and rebuild it.  Whether this is feasible and desirable is at this point unclear, but no other conceivable alternative promises to deliver what Israel wants: peace and quiet, at least in the medium term.

Long answer: Firstly, “it isn’t happening” because you put no pressure on your government to make it happen.  Rather than just wringing your hands about the suffering in Gaza and bashing Israel for it, you should demand that your government a) pressures Egypt into opening its border and allowing unarmed Gazans to take refuge in the Sinai Peninsula; b) takes in a reasonable number of Gazan refugees – just like it did with Ukrainian asylum-seekers.

Secondly, Israel hopes that at some point, confronted with this perpetual problem and under pressure to alleviate the suffering, a consortium of Arab countries will take over the governance of Gaza and its reconstruction.  Of course, all those countries currently say that they have no intention to do that.  But, as the Abraham Accords demonstrate, such vows are not set in stone.  Given a suitable pretext (for instance, saving the Palestinians from mass displacement and the end of their ‘cause’), the likes of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar may come to believe that they can ‘dress it up’ as a noble – and temporary – gesture.

Would that be a good solution?  I don’t know.  But, when it comes to the Palestinian issue, everybody is running out of ‘solutions’.  Israel has tried ‘benign occupation’; it has tried negotiations and accommodation; it tried unilateral withdrawal; it attempted to ‘manage’ the conflict without ‘solving’ it.  Nothing really worked so far.  In fact, all the ‘solutions’ ended in disaster.

The likes of Starmer and Macron are even worse: they don’t even try anything new – they cling to a ‘solution’ that the Palestinian Arabs have been rejecting for an entire century.  The only thing that changed in the meantime is that in the post-7 October era the vast majority of Israelis reject it, too.  So how do Starmer and Macron hope to achieve their ‘two state solution’?  No, reader, you don’t need to answer that.  It was a rhetorical question; we all know that Starmer and Macron don’t really believe in what they say.  They’d just say anything to get re-elected.

So they are terribly exercised by the rhetorical, yet-to-be-declared famine in Gaza, even while showing no interest in the real, duly declared Famine in Sudan.  That’s because these sleezy, weaselly and unscrupulous politicians have decided to ride the wave of antisemitism, rather than confronting it.

Some have compared this outburst of antisemitism to Germany in the early 1930s.  But a better analogy, I think, is turn-of-the-century Eastern Europe.

The anti-Israel campaign unfolding these days in Europe, Canada, Australia and sectors of the American society is reminiscent of czarist Russia.  Like there and then, it can only lead to pogrom.

Harping About Hebron

One of the most outrageous, blood-boiling aspects of ‘modern’ political culture is the shocking levels of intellectual dishonesty found among people who claim moral high ground as ‘campaigners for human rights’.

I’ve written before about the Israeli group that calls itself ‘Breaking the Silence’.  Let me remind you, in just one sentence:

“Fair disclosure: I despise Breaking the Silence.  It’s not that they hold opinions that are very different from mine; frankly [sigh], a lot of people hold opinions very different from mine!  Much as I disagree with them, these BtS chaps are entitled to their opinion; they are even entitled to promote those opinions and try to persuade others.  But the way they go about it is, in my view, thoroughly anti-democratic and intellectually dishonest.”

I’ve also written (and not in very complimentary terms, either) about the British group which calls itself ‘Yachad’:

“In Hebrew, Yachad means ‘together’.  Nice name; but the reality is, these days, that Yachad is ‘together’ with those who target Jews – and only Jews – for boycott.”

The two groups – Breaking the Silence and Yachad – have been working together for years.  And one of the main areas of collaboration is taking British Jews on indoctrination tours – especially to the city of Hebron, in the West Bank.

Why Hebron?  Not because, as Yachad dishonestly claims, it’s “a microcosm of occupation”.  Quite the opposite: rather than being ‘typical’ – as Yachad and BtS would like people to think – Hebron is the worst place in the West Bank.  That’s because some of the most extreme Israelis live in close proximity to some of the most extreme Palestinians.  Agreements have been implemented, which have by-and-large pacified the area and saved lives.  But those same agreements give duplicitous groups like Yachad and BtS an opportunity to bash Israel.

The advert

So, if that’s been going on for a while, why am I writing about it now?  Well, because after the latest such tour, BtS and Yachad have managed to get some free advertising (I am not convinced that it was indeed free; i.e. that no money or other benefits changed hands; but let’s assume it was) from the pages of Jewish News – a British Jewish outlet associated with Times of Israel.  The author is a certain Lee Harpin and his article is entitled “We must fix this for the settlers, soldiers and the Palestinians”.

So that’s why I write about this now: to take apart this disingenuous piece of anti-Israel propaganda and wipe the floor with it.  Sure, people have the right to criticise my country; but, if they do it with ill-will, duplicity or dishonesty, I have the right to expose those rather unpleasant traits.

The first thing I asked myself as I started to read Mr. Harpin’s piece was: who exactly is ‘we’?  If Harpin were an Israeli citizen writing in Hebrew for an Israeli audience (for instance for Ha’aretz, who may be willing to have him), all would be clear and legitimate.  Israelis (read: people who live, pay taxes, vote and put their arses on the line in Israel) have every right to express opinions and try to persuade other Israelis that theirs are the best opinions in town.  But Mr. Harpin isn’t Israeli; he writes in English for a British audience – i.e. people who live, pay taxes and vote in the United Kingdom.  If they are the ’we’, then it’s entirely unclear why “we must fix” anything at all more than 2,000 miles away from where “we” live.

The article’s strapline is no less ‘interesting’:

“Controversial Israeli group Breaking The Silence attracts increasing numbers of diaspora Jews onto its 'occupation tour' in West Bank cities like Hebron.”

And below, still in bold typeface:

“Israeli human rights groups such as Breaking The Silence (BTS) are reporting an increase in bookings from diaspora Jews for ‘occupation tours’ of West Bank cities like Hebron to witness for themselves the situation faced by Palestinians.”

And again, this time in the body of the article, coming from Danielle Bett, a Yachad spokesperson:

“More and more diaspora Jews are visiting the West Bank…”

Well, methinks thou dost protest too much, Mr. Harpin: much as I scoured the rest of the article, I could find no clue what the reported “increase in bookings” was.  Which is ‘a bit’ odd: self-respecting journalists don’t write vague statements bereft of any substance.

And what exactly is the term of reference for that “increase”?  If it’s 2020 or 2021, then Mr. Harpin must be, technically-speaking, correct – and ethically-speaking beyond contempt.  It’s obvious that, if we compare 2022 with the pandemic years, there was a sharp increase in all travel; not just in “occupation tours” to “West Bank cities”, but also in tourism to Timbuktu and Phnom Penh…

And how many Diaspora Jews is “more and more”?  From 8 to 10 – now that’s a whopping 25% growth; but it would be utterly misleading to report “an increase” based on such insignificant numbers...

Let me be clear: I am very suspicious of journalists (or ‘journalists’) who write in this manner: without numbers to support them, such statements amount to subliminal adverts dressed up as ‘news’ and unethically ‘fed’ to the unsuspecting reader.

Journalism?

If one disagrees with Lee Harpin and criticises his views, one is a 'reactionary'. Well, I'm going to call those in his camp (including Yachad and BtS) 'the harpins'. No, not 'an eye for an eye', just contempt for contempt.

 

But let’s go back to Mr. Harpin’s latest ‘journalistic’ contribution:

He begins by giving a broad platform to the BtS ‘tour guide’.  That’s Amir Ziv, the group’s so-called ‘Pedagogy Coordinator’ (‘pedagogy’ sounds so much better than ‘propaganda’ or ‘brainwashing’, doesn’t it?  But it is also indicative of a certain attitude…)

After being so vague about the alleged “increase in bookings”, Harpin suddenly decides to be amazingly precise when reciting Amir’s ‘credentials’:

“[He] had served three years in the IDF, with the 50th battalion of the Nahal Brigade in Hebron and Gaza”.

Such military track record may sound impressive to Diaspora Jews with no experience of army service.  But most Israelis would shrug: millions of them served in the IDF – the males typically for three years.  Of course, Amir did not spend three years in Hebron and Gaza – that’s just Harpin’s journalistic sleight of hand; no Israeli soldier did: garrisoning and anti-terror activity in the West Bank is just a relatively small part of IDF’s mission.  Like so many Israelis, I also served in Hebron (and Nablus, and Ramallah and a handful of other ‘nice’ places).  In total, I spent there many months, including as a reservist, at the height of the intifada.  I have quite a few stories to tell – but they’re not the kind of stories Breaking the Silence or Yachad are interested in; they’ll never publish my testimony, nor will they invite me to guide their tours.

So, a word of warning: yes, Amir Ziv served in the IDF, like most Jewish Israelis; but no, that does not mean ‘he knows what he’s talking about’.  Amir is an outlier; listen to any of his comrades and you’ll hear a completely different story.

Anyone who ever listened to a Breaking the Silence presentation knows how one-sided their tales are.  But Lee Harpin wants us to believe that dear ol’s Amir gives a balanced, sane account, which also highlights Israeli suffering:

“Standing beside a memorial plaque in downtown Hebron to Gadi and Dina Levi – a couple expecting the birth of their first child, who were killed by a Palestinian terrorist wearing a bomb while they were on their way to pray at the nearby Cave of the Patriarchs in 2003 – Amir opened up about the impact of violence, having recently become the father of a baby girl.

Recalling another Palestinian sniper attack in the same area, which killed a young child, he said: ‘Each death, each attack, each time you see violence… it pushed me further away into the realisation we need to fix this. It won’t stop on its own, we have to end it, for the settlers, and soldiers who come here, and for the Palestinians.’”

You got that?  All Amir wants you to do is to help everybody: ‘settlers’, soldiers and Palestinians.  And how can “we” do that?  Why, by bashing Israel, of course!

Imagine that, after the Manchester Arena bombing, a British political advocacy group told a group of Israeli tourists that they must apply pressure on the British government in order “to fix this” for the benefit of all: innocent kids attending a concert, police, Muslims...  I dare say that the vast majority of Brits (including most British Muslims) would take a rather dim view of such ‘human rights advocacy’.

But this is all just the beginning.  Next, Amir goes on to describe what, in his enlightened opinion, are the two things “we need to keep in the back of our mind about Hebron”: 1) the 1929 massacre and 2) the Goldstein massacre.

The juxtaposition of the two events is an attempt to hoodwink people into believing that they are similar.  Of course, they were both criminal, disgusting acts.  But otherwise, they had nothing in common.

The pogrom

The 1929 Hebron Massacre was a pogrom perpetrated by large mobs of Arabs against the local Jewish community – a community that lived in the city for centuries, alongside their Arab neighbours.  Organised in groups of hundreds of men armed with swords, axes and knives, the Arab rioters attacked Jewish houses, synagogues and businesses, murdering and pillaging.  They were joined by some Arab policemen.  Two local rabbis noted, however, that there were also a score of Arab families who saved Jews by offering them shelter in their homes.

But the only one who actually confronted the murderers and tried to stop them was British Superintendent Raymond Cafferata, the commander of the local police force.  Here's part of his testimony:

“On hearing screams in a room, I went up a sort of tunnel passage and saw an Arab in the act of cutting off a child's head with a sword. He had already hit him and was having another cut, but on seeing me he tried to aim the stroke at me, but missed; he was practically on the muzzle of my rifle. I shot him low in the groin. Behind him was a Jewish woman smothered in blood with a man I recognized as a police constable named Issa Sheriff from Jaffa. He was standing over the woman with a dagger in his hand. He saw me and bolted into a room close by and tried to shut me out-shouting in Arabic, ‘Your Honor, I am a policeman.’ […] I got into the room and shot him.”

A British inquiry later established:

“About 9 o'clock on the morning of the 24th of August, Arabs in Hebron made a most ferocious attack on the Jewish ghetto and on isolated Jewish houses lying outside the crowded quarters of the town. More than 60 Jews – including many women and children – were murdered and more than 50 were wounded. This savage attack, of which no condemnation could be too severe, was accompanied by wanton destruction and looting. Jewish synagogues were desecrated, a Jewish hospital, which had provided treatment for Arabs, was attacked and ransacked, and only the exceptional personal courage displayed by Mr. Cafferata – the one British Police Officer in the town – prevented the outbreak from developing into a general massacre of the Jews in Hebron.”

The British authorities imposed a fine on the entire city of Hebron.  Sheik Taleb Markah, a member of the local Arab Executive Committee, was found guilty of inciting the riots – and imprisoned for two years.  But not before the British judges had to take over the cross-examination of the accused – noting that the Arab prosecutor had no interest in... prosecuting.

The Hebron pogrom was part of the August 1929 anti-Jewish riots, which were incited by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and his Supreme Muslim Council.  They cost the lives of 133 Jews.

Back to Mr. Harpin’s article, which – after providing a brief description of the massacre, notes that:

“For the British Mandate, the massacre was confirmation that Jewish existence in Hebron should be brought to an end. The Jews were removed from the area, and placed to begin with in refugee camps.”

In other words: problem – Jews are massacred by Arabs; solution – ethnically cleanse the Jews!

I wonder if Lee Harpin would write with such royal equanimity if Israel were to apply the same kind of ‘conflict resolution’ methodology?

But there’s more than mere equanimity there: kicking the Jews out of Hebron (and the West Bank, and East Jerusalem) is precisely the ‘solution’ advocated by the likes of Yachad and BtS; as well as by Fatah, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad of Palestine.

The ‘Jewish’ terrorist

Now let’s turn our attention to ‘the second thing’ – the event that Amir Ziv tries to ‘sell’ people as a sort of ‘counterbalance’ to the Hebron pogrom.

On 25 February 1994, a ‘man’ called Baruch Goldstein entered an area of Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs employed as a mosque.  He opened fire and murdered 29 Palestinians, before being overpowered and killed himself.

Baruch Goldstein mass-murdered innocent, unarmed, defenceless people.  So why do I claim that his horrific act and the 1929 massacre have nothing in common?

Because – however disgusting – Goldstein’s terrorist attack was the act of one individual.  An act condemned in no uncertain terms by the vast majority of the Jewish population in Israel and the Diaspora – and by the entirety of Israel’s political class.

In the aftermath of the crime, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin telephoned Yasser Arafat to express condolences and his disgust for the "loathsome, criminal act of murder".  In a Knesset speech, he addressed Goldstein and any of his ilk thus:

“You are not part of the community of Israel... You are not part of the national democratic camp which we all belong to in this house, and many of the people despise you. You are not partners in the Zionist enterprise. You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish law ... We say to this horrible man and those like him: you are a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism."

Then Leader of the Opposition Benjamin Netanyahu also unequivocally condemned Goldstein’s act (no ifs, no buts), calling it a “despicable crime”.

The Yesha Council (the political representatives of Israeli ‘settlers’) called the act "not Jewish, not human".

The Israeli government immediately outlawed Kach, the organisation to which Goldstein belonged.  Several of its members were placed in administrative detention.

The government also appointed a commission of inquiry headed by then president of the Supreme Court, Judge Meir Shamgar.  While describing the massacre as “a base and murderous act, in which innocent people bending in prayer to their maker were killed," the commission found that Goldstein had planned and perpetrated the massacre alone, not telling anyone about his intentions.

The religious establishment in Israel condemned the act with disgust.  The Sephardi Chief Rabbi was the first to suggest that Goldstein should be buried outside the cemetery, saying:

"I am simply ashamed that a Jew carried out such a villainous and irresponsible act"

In condemning the act, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau used the expression ‘khilul HaShem’ "a desecration of God's name".

Rabbi Yehuda Amital of Gush Etzion (an area of Jewish settlement in the West Bank) said Goldstein had "besmirched the Jewish nation and the Torah".

The indoctrination tour continues

Far be it from me to try and excuse in any way the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.  Like the vast majority of Israelis, I was absolutely shocked by it and am ashamed that a Jew could do something this evil.  I’ll seek no excuse and countenance no forgiveness for the murderer.  May he rot in hell!

But an individual act, however horrific, does not belong in the same category as massacres perpetrated by multitudes.  Especially when the former was condemned in the harshest possible terms by anyone of any consequence in Israel – while the latter was, on the contrary, incited by the Palestinian leadership of the time, and never condemned by the current leaders.

To present the two crimes as similar or equivalent shows, at best, lack of moral compass; and at worst, an intention to deceive.

In describing the Goldstein massacre, Mr. Harpin somehow ‘forgets’ to mention that it was met with wall-to-wall condemnation in Israel; instead, he merely says that it was “condemned globally by Jewish leaders”.  Why?  I suspect this is because Mr. Harpin (like BtS and like Yachad) is intent on portraying Israel as violent, callous, even racist.

That’s why, while ignoring those many condemnations, he decides to focus on ‘stories’ that are selected for their anti-Israel propaganda value:

“On the day of our visit, last month, we counted 64 stones placed on Goldstein’s grave, some almost certainly by visitors earlier that day, who clearly wanted to pay their respects to him.

‘He gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land,’ state the Hebrew words on his tomb.”

Unsuspecting youngsters brought on these indoctrination tours may be fooled into believing that there’s lots of support and approval in Israel for Goldstein and his murderous act.  But there isn’t: as demonstrated in opinion polls, the vast majority of Israelis were disgusted by Goldstein’s unconscionable act.

The harpins’ ‘spiel’ is to highlight the rare exception and pretend it’s the rule.  There is, of course, no reason whatsoever to believe that the 64 stones (or “some” of them) were placed there “almost certainly by visitors earlier that day”.  Nothing, in fact, could be less certain: these ‘visitation stones’ tend to accumulate in time – perhaps for years.  As for the inscription – shameful as I find it – it was worded and paid for by Goldstein’s family and friends; not by the Israeli state, the Israeli government or the Israeli people.

It's true that there are conspiracy theories according to which Goldstein did what he did to prevent a terror attack only he knew about.  It’s also, unfortunately, true that there are a few extremists who – as extremists do – believe in those theories; but to suggest that they’re more than a tiny fringe of nutters despised by the vast majority of Israelis is a form of libel.

In accordance with the law forbidding the construction of monuments dedicated to terrorists, the Israeli police demolished the shrine built by Goldstein's family and supporters.

What was left, in the middle of nowhere, is just the grave itself and the funeral stone, which according to Jewish tradition should never be disturbed. The group around the grave is, by the way, another indoctrination tour, run by B'tselem. It is possible that Breaking the Silence, Yachad, B'tselem et al. bring more 'tourists' to the site than Goldstein's few supporters!

Even more important than what Harpin chooses to write is what he disingenuously chooses to hide: Goldstein’s forlorn grave sits outside any Jewish cemetery.  His family and his few supporters wanted to bury him in Hebron’s old Jewish Cemetery; they were denied.  They then built around the grave what amounted to a shrine: a small plaza paved with flagstones, complete with decorative lanterns, a few benches, etc.  But the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) adopted a law prohibiting monuments to terrorists.  The law was enforced by demolishing the entire structure, except the grave itself and the funeral stone – which in Jewish tradition cannot be disturbed. 

Compare this with the Palestinian Authority, which celebrates terrorists as ‘martyrs’ and names streets and schools after them; and which pays pensions to their families.  Needless to say, this little ‘detail’ is never part of Amir Ziv’s ‘balanced’ presentations – nor apparently did it merit a mention in Lee Harpin’s hatchet job.

We are NOT all Kahane!

But – hold on – doesn’t Israel do the same?  After all, Lee Harpin informs us that

“Earlier on our tour we had stopped in Kahane Park, named after Rabbi Meir Kahane, the ultra-nationalist politician who co-founded the Jewish Defence League, who served a term in the Knesset before being convicted of terrorism, and was assassinated in 1990.”

Firstly – much as I abhor the man – Meir Kahane was never convicted of actually committing an act of terrorism; though he was indeed convicted in the US (and given a 5-year suspended prison sentence, as well as a $5,000 fine) for conspiring to manufacture explosives.  I mention this only to highlight Harpin’s inaccurate ‘journalistic’ style.  Whatever he was found guilty of, Kahane was a racist and should not be lionised.

I've even searched for the 'famous' Kahane Park on the Kiryat Arba Council website. No trace of it...

But here’s the catch: try googling “Kahane Park, Kiryat Arba”; all you'll find is a tweet by... Yachad; and a couple of pictures uploaded by similar organisations.  Better still, go to Google Maps and search for a place called Kahane Park, Kiryat Arba.  You'll be taken, instead, to the Cave of the Patriarchs/Al-Ibrahimi Mosque.  Now search for any other park, including in the West Bank ‘settlements’.  Try for instance the Ze’ev Jabotinsky Park in Ariel; or the Hazon Yosef Park in Betar Illit – both very easy to find, as are dozens of others.  You can even find a park in Kiryat Arba – it's called Technology Park.  Yet you will not find a ‘Kahane Park’ either in Kiryat Arba or anywhere else in Israel.  Officially – and insofar as most Israelis are concerned – it does not exist.

Of course, the town of Kiryat Arba does indeed have a park; and local extremists do indeed call it ‘Kahane Park’.  But that’s where the facts end and the malicious insinuations of Lee Harpin/Yachad/Breaking the Silence take over.

Here’s the truth: there are people in Israel who admire Meir Kahane and think he was a great man.  They tend to be the same people who think Baruch Goldstein was a misunderstood hero.  How many of those nutters are there?  Well, we know that, in the 1984 elections, Kahane managed to attract a whooping… 1% of the votes.  Fast forward 36 years: in 2020, his disciple Itamar Ben Gvir garnered 0.4%.  It’s true that this is still almost 20,000 nutters; but it’s also true that – despite all the harping – the extreme right in Israel gets much less popular support than it does in several European countries.  Even after a century of conflict!

The vast majority of Israelis do not commemorate Meir Kahane.  The harpins' focus on a tiny extremist fringe is deliberately misleading.  It aims to create a false image.  It's a lie.

Bad, bad Israel! Bad, bad Jewish schools!

But let’s go back to Lee Harpin’s text:

“Under the 1997 Oslo agreement, signed by Israel and PLO, Hebron was divided into two areas: H1 and H2. Responsibility for security and civilian matters in H1 – where most of the Palestinian residents of Hebron live (about 115,000 at the time, now about 166,000) – was formally handed over to the Palestinian Authority as was done in all other West Bank cities.

As for H2, Israel retained responsibility for security matters there, and the Palestinian Authority received authority only for civilian matters relating to local Palestinians. About 32,000 Palestinians and 800 settlers now live in H2.”

The Oslo Agreement was, of course, concluded in 1993, not 1997.  The Taba Agreement (sometimes called Oslo II) – in 1995.  Both were signed by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat and neither dealt specifically with Hebron.  What was concluded in 1997 was the Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron.  Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t seen as your typical land-for-peace type of guy, but he was the Israeli prime minister who negotiated that particular agreement – by which Israel relinquished control over the vast majority of the city, handing it over to Arafat.  In return, the latter solemnly promised (again) to rid the Palestinian National Charter of all the passages that denied Israel’s right to exist; to fight terror and prevent violence; to prohibit incitement and hostile propaganda; to combat systematically and effectively terrorist organisations and infrastructure; to apprehend, prosecute and punish terrorists; to confiscate all illegal firearms…  Needless to say, Israel (under the ‘hawk’ Netanyahu) withdrew from every inch of H1; the Palestinian Authority (under Arafat and his successor Abbas) broke every one of its commitments above.  But you won’t hear about that at all from the likes of Harpin, Yachad and BtS!

No, the harpins of this world aren’t really interested in agreements and law – unless as a cudgel to beat Israel with.  They’re interested in ‘human stories’ – provided those make Israel look bad.

“In the city centre we speak with Mohamed Fakhore, a Palestinian business student in his 20s, about life in Hebron under Israeli military control.

‘We want the world to know what is happening here,’ he says. ‘I will be arrested if I step there,’ he says, pointing to the floor five metres in front of him. ‘I have been arrested for this one time before.’

It is heartbreaking to realise Fakhore cannot continue walking alongside us. Strict separation rules mean as a Palestinian is not [sic!] allowed to walk on the same road we all can.

Later, in one [sic!] the few Palestinian souvenir shops still open in downtown Hebron, an elderly store owner, who pours us all coffee, explains that his own wife is unable to visit him at work as a result of the separation policy in operation.

It is, he says, a ‘humiliating’ situation.”

It is mindboggling that the harpins can pretend to want ‘two states’ – but also declare it “heartbreaking” when a border is enforced, separating Israeli-controlled areas from Palestinian-controlled ones.  No, these are not “strict separation rules”, but the provisions of an agreement signed between the parties – with the purpose of reducing friction and disentangling Israel from Palestinian lives.

Apparently the 'strict separation rules' that Lee Harpin complains about aren't quite so strict: here is Mohamed Fakhore having a fun day in Tel Aviv-Jaffa.

It is also no doubt “heartbreaking” that the shop owner’s wife cannot visit him at work on the Israeli side of the city; but I wonder: can Jews own and operate businesses in the Palestinian part of Hebron?

Incidentally, Israeli right-wing extremists also don’t like the partition of the city: they’d like to roam freely through all Hebron and cause mischief.  Extremists of all tinges – unite!

But, while imperfect, inaesthetic and a rich topic of hostile propaganda by Harpin/Yachad/BtS, the Hebron Agreement does what it was meant to do: it saves lives and allows the two communities to run their affairs independently – as much as possible in the difficult circumstances created by conflict, violence and the accompanying mistrust.  Don't take it from me --ask the Mayor of Hebron.  His Message (published in Arabic and English on the municipal website) contains of course the obligatory anti-Israel rant.  But ultimately it says:

"Since 1996, the city has witnessed several dramatic developments after the numerous decades of continuous Israeli occupation. Due to the Oslo agreement and the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, the city was liberated and able to embrace a form of security and calm environment. These agreements allowed the Municipal Council to develop a comprehensive management development plan, accompanied by a strategic plan, for the reception of the twenty-first century. Indeed, the Hebron Municipality office, through its own efforts and the support of many friends and partners from around the world implemented a multitude of infrastructure projects, which has had a major impact in promoting domestic and foreign investments in the city. Additionally, it is crucial to achieving the revitalization of the boom in the economic, commercial, industrial, agricultural and urban life."

You won't hear that from Harpin; or from BtS, or from Yachad!

Instead, Harpin’s hatchet job ends with the usual indoctrination ‘spiel’ that BtS and Yachad dish out to unsuspecting, naïve Western kids: there are more IDF soldiers than ‘settlers’ in Hebron (as if Palestinian terror and violence did not exist); an interview with some extremists who ‘want it all’ because ‘it was promised to Abraham’ – as if this is why the vast majority of Israelis want the IDF to stay in Judea & Samaria.

Finally, Harpin gives the floor back to Amir Ziv, who utters the following outrageous lie:

“The bottom line is the Palestinian Authority has the freedom to do what we allow it to do.”

Among other egregious acts, in recent years the Palestinian Authority complained to the International Criminal Court (in blatant breach of its obligations under international agreements it signed), alleging that the IDF committed ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’.  Is that something that “we” would allow – if we had the power to stop?  Would we allow PA’s ‘pay-for-slay’ policy – wages paid to convicted terrorists and subsidies to the families of suicide bombers?  Would we allow the despicable indoctrination to hate and violence that goes on in Palestinian Authority schools?

Let me give you just a couple of examples of this latter phenomenon – arguably the biggest obstacle to peace.

The Year 5 Arabic Language textbook used in Palestinian Authority schools teaches the following:

“Our Palestinian history is brimming with names of martyrs who have given their lives to the homeland, including the martyr Dalal al-Mughrabi. Her struggle portrays challenge and heroism, making her memory immortal in our hearts and minds. The text in our hands speaks about one side of her struggle.”

Touching; except that Dalal al-Mughrabi (a member of Arafat’s Fatah movement) took part in the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre.  11 Palestinian and Lebanese terrorists landed on Israel’s Mediterranean shore near Tel Aviv.  The ‘heroic’ Dalal started the day by murdering an unarmed Israeli woman she happened to find on the beach.  She and her mates then proceeded to murder another 38 Israelis (all but one unarmed, uninvolved civilians), including 13 children.

The Islamic Education textbook for the same age group teaches that the Western Wall (which it calls Al-Buraq Wall)

“is part of the western wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the al-Aqsa Mosque, including the Wall, are Palestinian land and an exclusive right of the Muslims.”

Coming back to Dalal Al-Mughrabi: in 2017, the (not very Israel-loving) Belgian government had to freeze funding to the Palestinian Authority when it discovered that an elementary school for girls they funded in the West Bank was named after that 'martyr'.  Nothing like giving little girls a true hero to emulate, huh?

The logo of the Dalal Al-Mughrabi Elementary School for Girls shows her stylised photo superimposed on the map of 'Palestine,' including Israel. The message is clear...

By the way, the school is located in Bayt Awwa, just a few minutes away from Hebron.  But I don't suppose Amir Ziv includes it in his indoctrination tours.  Though it may be a brilliant opportunity to wax lyrical about what "we must fix"! 

The harpins, of course, are not at all concerned about all this.  Quite the opposite: what really bothers them is

“the one-dimensional pro-Israel teaching [in] Jewish secondary school[s].”

Hmmm… Really?  Do Jewish secondary schools in the UK lionise Baruch Goldstein, calling him a martyr and a hero and encouraging the students to keep his memory immortal in their hearts and minds?  Do Jewish secondary schools in the UK teach that Al-Aqsa is “an exclusive right of” the Jews?  Is there, somewhere in the UK (or the entire world, for that matter, a school named after Baruch Goldstein??

'Intellectual' child abuse

I left the worst for last: arguably the only truly heartbreaking aspect of Lee Harpin’s screech is when he decides to bring his daughter Ruby into it.  Presumably, she is bothered by the fact that her “social media is flooded with ‘Free Palestine’ propaganda”, so she “insisted” to go on that BtS/Yachad indoctrination tour.

Except that, just a couple of paragraphs further on, we find Ruby and her ‘delightful’ dad attending a “Palestine demo”; that is, one of those ‘protests’ at which slogans like ‘Free, free Palestine!’ and ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!’ are par for the course; and where one so often finds flags and symbols of terror organisations alongside antisemitic banners and slogans, some amounting to overt calls for genocide and ethnic cleansing.

As history teaches us, young people are particularly vulnerable to brainwashing and indoctrination.  I’m afraid that youngsters like Ruby belong in the same category as the Palestinian students: both are cynically being used as political cannon fodder by unscrupulous adults with an ideological axe to grind.  If we are ever to stop the bloodshed and make peace, then children and youngsters – both Jewish and Arab – must be protected from this form of 'intellectual' molestation.

‘Zionists’ teach Zionism

‘Imagine’

Imagine a classroom full of 8-year-olds.  They study a subject called ‘National and Social Upbringing’.  They’re told to open the textbook (printed in 2019) at page 29, which summarises, in just two bullet points, what they have just learned:

• Jerusalem is an Arab city built by our Arab forefathers thousands of years ago.
• Jerusalem is a holy city for Muslims and Christians.

In the next classroom, 10-year-old kids are taught Islamic Education.  At page 63, the textbook (also printed in 2019) tells them that

Al Buraq Wall is part of the western wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Muslims alone have absolute right to it.

‘Al-Buraq Wall’ is what Israelis call the Western Wall.  It used to be called the ‘Wailing Wall’, because it’s there that – for almost two millennia – Jews used to express their sorrow at the loss of the Temple.  But the kids can be forgiven for not knowing that, because Jews are conspicuously absent from their textbooks – until they suddenly appear in the 20th century, first as ‘immigrants’ and then as conquerors, land thieves and blood-thirsty monsters.

A couple of pages further, the same Islamic Education textbook informs the kids that the liberation of Al-Aqsa Mosque is the duty of the entire Nation of Islam; that – as Muslims – they, the kids, must “sacrifice” for its liberation.  The Mosque, is of course forever under attack: the Social Studies textbook for Year 7 claims that, as early as 1969,

the Zionists set the Al-Aqsa Mosque on fire.

Imagine other textbooks, also used in this school: an Arabic Language textbook for 10-year-olds expressing profound admiration for Dalal al-Mughrabi – a terrorist responsible for the death of 38 Israeli civilians, 13 of them children; arithmetics are taught by adding up numbers of “martyrs”.  Physics – by studying the mechanics of slingshots used by heroic youths

to confront the soldiers of the Zionist Occupation and defend themselves from their treacherous bullets.

I wrote ‘imagine’ – but this is no imaginary school.  No, it’s typical of the ‘education system’ controlled by the Palestinian Authority.  The vast majority of Palestinian children in the West Bank attend such schools.  As for the kids of Gaza, they have the ‘benefit’ of a Hamas-designed curriculum.  The same Hamas that produced an animation propaganda movie showing Israeli Jews being forced to board ships under the rifles of victorious Muslim fighters.

Problem and solution

Anyone who dreams of peace between Jews and Arabs will be driven to despair by such ‘education’.  How can Palestinian children be expected to make peace one day with those who they’ve been brainwashed into seeing as murderous monsters, as aliens with no rights and no connection to the land they are constantly ‘trying to steal’?  You’d think that none should be more exercised by this ‘education’ than the self-appointed ‘peace and human rights activists’.

Yet, if we are to judge by a recent opinion piece published in the Jewish Chronicle, the real, pressing problem rests not with Palestinian schools in Gaza and the West Bank, but with Jewish schools in the UK.  The issue, opines Sabrina Miller, is that these latter schools don’t

acknowledge the Palestinian narrative in any meaningful way.

The problem – she claims – is that these Jewish schools don’t allow their students to engage with “Israel-sceptic organisations from an early age”.

That’s why, says Ms. Miller, Jewish youth is unprepared to resist the anti-Israel onslaught they will experience as students on UK university campuses.  That’s why

many university students, frustrated with the mainstream community’s approach to Israel, abandon Zionism entirely.

Let Yachad (one of these “Israel-sceptic organisations”) ‘school’ Jewish children about ‘the conflict’ “from an early age”, says Ms. Miller, and they’ll become better advocates for Israel and lifelong Zionists.

But why?

Ms. Miller is, of course, entitled to her opinion.  And she’s not entirely wrong.  It is true that many British Jewish students feel unprepared for the ‘anti-Zionist’ venom they face on campus.  It is true that, faced with the most outlandish accusations, some are shocked to the point where they feel helpless.

But why should they have to face that venom – and be prepared for it?  Do students of Pakistani descent face a backlash caused by the often unsavory acts of the Government of Pakistan?  Are British students of Indian descent required to either defend or condemn Narendra Modi?  Why is there, in British universities, such an obsessive focus on a conflict thousands of miles away?  One of the many conflicts in today’s world and – in objective terms – by no means the gravest or the bloodiest?  Why were there – at a conference of the British Labour Party – a thousand times more Palestinian flags than Russian, Chinese, Indian, American and British flags, taken together?

So why does Ms. Miller place the onus on Jews and on Jewish schools – i.e. on the victims and their education?  One does not combat domestic abuse by teaching women and girls krav maga; it is the abusers that need to learn a lesson.  If Ms. Miller saw black people being lambasted by racists, would her solution be that schools teach BAME people more biology, the better to confront their detractors, who accuse them of being racially inferior?

‘Palestinian narrative’

But even if Jewish schools wanted to teach “the Palestinian narrative” – what exactly is that narrative?  As the West Bank textbooks prove, Palestinians don’t live in a democratic, liberal society.  Neither the ‘moderate’ Palestinian Authority, nor Hamas (the local branch of Muslim Brotherhood) tolerate a free press, freedom of speech, freedom of public debate…  They brook no dissent; quite the opposite – both Hamas and the PA actively encourage and reinforce societal taboos that tightly constrain speech and severely punish ‘unorthodox’ expression.  What is “the Palestinian narrative”, then – other than whatever these two dictatorial regimes decide that ‘the masses’ should know, believe and say?  The PLO Negotiations Affair Department unabashedly declare on their website that Jews are “immigrants [who] colonize Palestine at the expense of our rights and aspirations”.  Is this “the Palestinian narrative” that we ‘must’ teach to our children “from an early age”?  Should we also school them in the ravings of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane – just for balance?  Even better: should we teach Mein Kampf in Jewish schools – lest our young people feel ill-equipped to fight fascism and antisemitism?

Is your house flooded?  You clearly need more water!

But Ms. Miller’s reference to “the Palestinian narrative” may really be just an intellectually dishonest euphemism.  What she truly seems to imply is that Jewish youth are not sufficiently exposed to “criticism of Israel”.  Are they not, really??  Anyone familiar with the British media knows that, whenever the word ‘Israel’ is uttered (and it is uttered a lot!), it is usually followed by criticism – varying in nature from unfairly harsh to downright outrageous.  These days, the BBC can’t even do an interview with a Holocaust survivor without mentioning the “occupied Palestinian territories”!

BBC’s Middle East Editor urges Jews and gentiles to explore the dark side of Judaism.

Even the Jewish media is replete with views of ‘Palestinian supporters’: within days of Ms. Miller’s opinion piece, the Jewish Chronicle published an article by British-Palestinian Layla Moran MP – in which she called for boycotting “the illegal settlements”.  For those still naïve about ‘liberal’ (or Liberal) vocabulary, “the” in “the illegal settlements” stands for ‘Israeli’.  After all, there’s nothing illegal about Han Chinese settlers in Tibet and Xinjiang, Moroccan settlers in Western Sahara, Turkish settlers in Cyprus, etc., etc., etc.  Is there??

Yachad applauded Layla Moran's article, which calls for boycott against Israeli settlements.

As for the social media – to which youngsters, Jews and Gentiles alike, tend to be addicted – there the ‘criticism’ is neither unfair nor outrageous, but most often berserk.

During the latest Gaza-Israel bout of violence, my girlfriend’s children (16 and 18-year-olds) were both bombarded with horrific anti-Israel comments on Instagram…

But apparently that’s not enough.  What our youngsters really need is… a bit of Yachad ‘education about the conflict’.

Ms. Miller refers to Yachad as “a Zionist anti-occupation movement”.  On Twitter, Yachad itself professes to be “pro-Israel”.  Well, let me tell you: both descriptions are… how should I put it in polite British terms… ‘a bit’ misleading.  Yachad has mostly ceased describing itself as Zionist – probably because the term is soooo ‘divisive’.  As for “pro-Israel”… I just ploughed through Yachad’s 100 most recent Twitter posts: there are exactly 0 (zero) posts praising the Jewish state, or defending her from her many detractors.  In fact, the most recent tweets endorsed Layla Moran’s call for ‘illegal settlement boycott’ and urged everybody to ‘move beyond’ being ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ Israel…

And more ‘water’ is what they’re getting!

Ms. Miller reports with chagrin that

Petitions have been circulated by parents trying to ban Yachad […] from Jewish secondary schools.  The claim made by those that started the petition is that “Yachad is hostile to Israel”.

Firstly, note that the initial “[p]etitions” surreptitiously became just one “petition” – in the space of just a few insincere words.  As far as I’m concerned, Ms. Miller is lying: I am only aware of one “petition” (actually, a complaint to JCoSS – the Jewish Community Secondary School); I was involved in writing it, so I know very well that it did not ask to “ban” Yachad, but to balance its views with those held by other organisations and by the (Zionist) majority of British Jewry.  I.e. to implement the school’s own declared policy of ‘pluralism’ and ‘diversity of opinion’.  And to uphold the law of the land, which prohibits (Art. 406 (1)(b))

the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject in the school.

and requires (Art. 407)

that where political issues are brought to the attention of pupils […] they are offered a balanced presentation of opposing views.

As for Yachad being “hostile to Israel” – let me just say that it routinely lobbies the British government to put pressure on the Jewish state, to force her to do things that the vast majority of Israelis believe to be detrimental to their safety and wellbeing.

And yet, Ms. Miller again deceives her readers by implying that Yachad is not ‘educating’ in Jewish schools.  In reality (and, in my view, in violation of the law), Yachad has unmatched involvement in the ‘education about the conflict’ in at least certain Jewish schools.  Here’s what their 2020 Annual Report says:

In January and February 2020, we completed six-part courses for both year 12 and year 13 at JCoSS, with over 30 students participating […] we also delivered sessions for years 7, 8 and 9 at JCoSS, meeting with over 75 students.

Yachad: political activists and ‘educators’

And it is not just JCoSS: as previous annual reports make it clear, Yachad (a political lobby, let’s remember!) is ‘educating’ several other Jewish schools, as well as some non-Jewish ones.

Perhaps Ms Miller’s objection is that Year 7 (11-12 year olds) isn’t sufficiently “early age” to

acknowledge the Palestinian narrative in any meaningful way.

Perhaps we should send Yachad to deliver some ‘National and Social Upbringing’ in kindergartens.  After all, the Palestinians are applying that early-age indoctri… err… ‘education’ method so very successfully!

Houston, we have a problem!

But Ms. Miller assures us that Yachad’s ‘education’ is precisely what’s needed to turn Jewish youngsters into staunch Zionists, able to hold their own on campus.

Except that evidence shows that the exact opposite is true.  Ms. Miller herself is a case in point: having now finally become aware of “the Palestinian narrative” and gained “sympathy for the Palestinian people”, one would expect Ms. Miller to be a passionate defender of Israel.  I therefore undertook an excursion to her Twitter timeline, in search for posts in which she defends the Jewish state against her detractors and combats the many lies that are said about her.  Well, I can only say that I returned from that hopeful excursion with empty hands and a sad heart…

Here’s a bit of intellectual honesty – coming from unusual quarters: Sara Hirschhorn identifies herself as a ‘liberal Zionist’; for years, she partnered with Yachad, for instance speaking together at community events.  But she is also an academic, trained to recognise and analyse reality as it is.  While speaking to a group of Jewish 14 to 18 years olds she was shocked to discover that they were (in her own words)

ashamed to be associated with Zionism.

Contrary to what Yachad and Ms. Miller would probably claim, Dr. Hirschhorn found that

It’s not the settlements, or the occupation. It’s the idea itself. […] the group did not cite the occupation or the settlements as responsible for their distancing — for them, it went far deeper, to the very premise of a self-defining State of the Jews, back to 1948.

No, it’s none of Israel’s purported ‘sins’, but

the post-modernist relativism they’ve grown up within.

The type of relativism – I’d say – that suggests that schools should teach ‘narratives’, rather than history; that opinion matters more than evidence and that there are no facts, just ‘views’.

And who is to blame for what many a Jew would describe as a catastrophe?  Here Dr. Hirschhorn’s honesty manages to shine through her ideological convictions.  Talking to her fellow ‘liberal Zionists’, she resorts to a Hebrew term from Jewish Day of Atonement liturgy (“Ashamnu” – we are guilty) to summarise her findings:

My conclusion? “Ashamnu.” We [liberal Zionists] must atone , for we have failed an entire generation.

She unequivocally assigns the youngster’s estrangement to practices that Yachad and similar ‘liberal’ outfits have been engaging in for years: that of always presenting Israel in harshly negative tones – 100% ‘criticism’, 0% praise.

Above all, we can’t only catalogue the (many) shortcomings — we must constantly and convincingly express what still makes us proud — in spite of it all — in the State of Israel today.  If we can’t do that in a selfie, a tweet, a Facebook post, an op-ed or a face-to-face discussion, we must take a hard look at how we have not only failed ourselves, but our future.

Dr. Hirschhorn is hardly the only one to ring the alarm bell.  So did Jonathan Goldstein, head of the Jewish Leadership Council:

Probably the single largest issue that we have to address now is the disengagement of our youth from […] core Jewish values and from its association with Israel. […] We’ve allowed our own youth to be detached from Israel. We’ve lost the narrative of the nation state. We’ve lost the Zionist narrative. […] We have to accept that we have a major problem globally and we have to take it on.

Note that Mr. Goldstein does not just diagnose estrangement from Israel – but also from Jewishness in general.  The two, as many a study has shown, go hand-in-hand.

In fact, Ms. Miller herself admits that

many university students […] abandon Zionism entirely.

Yet she chooses to blame “the mainstream [Jewish] community” and her ‘solution’ is… more Yachad!

Well, Ms. Miller was clearly right to choose journalism as a career.  That’s a profession in which, admittedly, one can do a lot of harm; but one at least does not get sued for malpractice.  Had she chosen medicine, I imagine her passionately prescribing a bout of chesty cough as a salutary remedy for Covid!

Gewalt, Yid’n!  What do we do?

The solution should be obvious even to ‘liberal Zionists’ like Dr. Hirschhorn, as long as – like her – they’re honest:

We need to reinterpret Zionism as national liberation, while teaching what our tradition offers about moral and political responsibility.

Of course, that wouldn’t be “reinterpretation” – it would be a return to the term’s true meaning.  Zionism has always been a national emancipation movement – which is why, in its modern embodiment, it appeared in a place and time replete with other such movements.

A few of the world’s national liberation movements and the approximate year of their beginning.

Our young people do not need to be taught “the Palestinian narrative” – or any ‘narrative’.  They need to be taught their people’s history.  Including Zionism, Israel and their history.

Do we do this?  Let’s listen to Ms. Miller:

[F]rankly, the ‘Israel education’ I received (if I can even call it an education) was appalling.  In Year 12 we watched Entebbe the movie, had one lecture on the War of Independence and another on Theodore Herzl.

Most Jewish parents send their children to Jewish schools simply because they want them to continue to be Jews.  Zionism should be an essential part of teaching them Jewishness – if nothing else, because without proud, unequivocal Zionism, they (or their own children) will not remain Jews.  If concepts like ‘nation’ and ‘nation state’ are ‘old school’, religion is something that belongs in the Middle Ages and ‘multiculturalism’ is the only alternative to Nazism – what, then, is the meaning of being a Jew?  For Yachad activists, Jewishness is a variety of socialism ‘decorated’ with the occasional Hebrew term and the odd ritual twisted out of context and meaning.  But most Jews don’t want to be socialists and most socialists don’t really like Jews.

It follows that it is not Yachad who should be ‘in charge’ of ‘educating about the conflict’ – it should be people or organisations that are proudly, unequivocally Zionist.  Yachad activists are entitled to their opinions and – as long as they find enough rich donors to fund their socialism – can ply their ideological merchandise like everybody else, in the free market of ideas.

That does not mean that we must teach myths or ‘beautify’ Zionism in any way.  It does not need beautifying.  National emancipation movements are necessary and – overall – good, progressive, desirable phenomena.  They fulfil essentially-human aspirations such as freedom and meaning to life.  But they are not – and never have been – perfect, faultless, ‘sans peur et sans reproche’.  They all caused great elation and also much pain.  They all reached for the skies with hands that were sometimes tainted with blood.  It is only when Jews are involved that some people tend to focus unduly on the imperfections that plague every human endeavour; when they attempt to turn vicissitudes of history into all-encompassing moral indictments.  It is only with Jews that some people want to visit the sins of the fathers on the sons; and to turn back the clock of history in the name of a ‘justice’ never before heard of, let alone practiced.

Indians proudly celebrate their independence – and so they should.  That that independence also involved bloodshed, displacement and suffering is well-known.  That fact shouldn’t be denied or concealed; nor should it be thrown in Indians’ faces at every opportunity; nor should it be used to contest the legitimacy of their country, or their right to enjoy it in peace and develop it as they see fit.

No, we should not (nor do we need to) teach a Zionist ‘narrative’; the truth, with its spots of bright light and oppressive darkness, with its beautiful aspirations and its harsh realities – the naked truth should be good enough.

What our young people need to hear is that truth, neither beautified nor maliciously twisted, but placed in its true context.  Every nation on the face of the earth has done things it should not be proud of; Jews, too – though perhaps less than most.  Yet every nation is proud of its heritage, its history, its culture, its homeland; Jews certainly should be – perhaps more than most.