Tag: israel

Inside the Safety Record Behind Israel’s Early Myocarditis Warning to Global Health Authorities

On February 28, 2021, Israel’s Ministry of Health alerted health authorities on both sides of the Atlantic to an emerging cardiac safety signal following the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.

The warning came just over two months after Israel had launched one of the fastest vaccination campaigns in the world, placing the country at the forefront of the global rollout.

That day, the Ministry informed the European Medicines Agency that it was investigating a “safety signal of myocarditis/peri-myocarditis in the younger population (16–30 years old)” and had already received reports of around 40 cases. A CDC internal tasking memo from the same day recorded that Israel was seeing “a large number of reports of myocarditis, particularly in young people,” and was seeking contacts at the CDC and FDA to discuss the issue. The message was marked “Importance: High.” 

Three days later, Dr. Roee Singer, Deputy Director of Epidemiology at Israel’s Ministry of Health, wrote directly to the CDC: “We are seeing a large number of myocarditis and pericarditis cases in young individuals soon after Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. We would like to discuss the issue with a relevant expert at CDC.”

It was, in every sense, a “Houston, we have a problem” moment.

The alarm had been sounded. But what, exactly, had Israeli health officials seen that prompted it? And when, and how, was that warning communicated to physicians and the public?

Our newly published study in EXCLI Journal discloses and analyzes an internal Israeli Ministry of Health pharmacovigilance dataset that had never been made public. The dataset was provided to us by a whistleblower whose identity we are protecting. The file itself was titled, in Hebrew, “Reports of Hospitalizations and Deaths to Pfizer,” and contains detailed case-level reports documented by the Ministry of Health during the vaccination campaign.

The record was not reconstructed years later, after vaccine-associated myocarditis had become an established safety concern. It was being built in real time as the signal emerged. 

The dataset provided to us comprised eight cumulative versions, all sharing an original creation date of March 25, 2021. The record was updated repeatedly for more than a year as new cases were added and existing reports were revised with additional clinical information. The final version extends through May 9, 2022.

Already on March 25, just over three weeks after Israel first sounded the international alarm, the record contained 157 hospitalization reports and 46 death reports. Sixty-five of the hospitalization reports involved myocarditis or pericarditis.

By the final version of the dataset, myocarditis or pericarditis appeared in 250 of 531 hospitalization reports, nearly half. Among patients under 30, it appeared in 151 of 211 reports, more than 70%.

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Palestine Action: From UK Direct Action to US Terror Designation

On August 26, 2026, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Palestine Action, a UK organization proscribed as a terrorist group in July 2025. The designation also included the transnational group Masar Badil and the Italy-based digital services provider Autistici Inventati as part of a broader action against the growing threat of violent far-left terrorism.

Palestine Action was founded in 2020 by Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard as a UK-based direct-action group. It describes itself as targeting “corporate enablers of the Israeli military-industrial complex” to “make it impossible for these companies to profit from the oppression of Palestinians.”

The group has targeted Israeli and Western defense manufacturers, a global logistics firm, a British military base, the office of a pro-Israel advocacy organization, a university, and a golf resort owned by President Trump.

Since its founding, the group has forced the permanent closure of Elbit’s Oldham factory and pushed the company to abandon its London headquarters. In 2021, American activist Max Geller was arrested in Kent for chaining himself to a van outside an Elbit-owned weapons factory. In 2022, the group attacked a factory in Glasgow, causing what UK officials later described as millions of dollars in damage.

In May 2023, activists broke into the Kuehne + Nagel offices at Leicester’s Meridian Business Park. They spray-painted the building and dismantled equipment, including phones and computers. In a separate action, a man drove to the gate of Elbit’s UAV Tactical Systems factory with his hands glued to the steering wheel while a woman locked herself inside the car. The protest camp at the site brought the total number of arrests to 43.

In May 2024, activists at the same business park rammed a truck through the factory’s perimeter fence. They climbed onto the roof, broke through it with tools, and sprayed red paint across the building. Seven people were arrested.

On August 6, 2024, seven people aged 20 to 51 broke into Elbit’s Filton facility near Bristol. They were charged with criminal damage, violent disorder, and aggravated burglary. One was also charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent for allegedly striking a police officer with a sledgehammer.

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Israel Orders UK Jerusalem Consulate Closed And Expels British Diplomats Over West Bank Sanctions

Israel began to take action against Britain on Tuesday after twelve Western countries including Britain imposed trade restrictions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Israel ordered the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem within 30 days and expelled British representatives from two international coordination centers in the country, including the International Support Center for Gaza in Kiryat Gat.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced the retaliatory package after UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband confirmed that Britain — joined by France, Canada, and nine other countries — would ban imports of all goods originating from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, along with certain services including financing, construction, infrastructure, and real estate related to those settlements.

Sa’ar said the UK representatives at the Gaza coordination centers would be expelled within a month, British training operations for Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank would be terminated, and more than a dozen British politicians would be barred from entering Israel.

The UK had briefed the Trump administration before the announcement. U.S. officials confirmed Trump was briefed but that the White House did not ask London to hold off — signaling Washington’s ambivalence. American Ambassador Mike Huckabee said the U.S. “takes a different approach to the settlements” but expressed concern and said the intent could be achieved by other means.

Israel’s government called the sanctions “a political attempt to impair our sovereignty and prevent us from defending our citizens and interests.” A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office added: “These measures will not succeed in deterring us.”

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Israeli Legal Group Unveils ‘Self-Defense’ App to Protect IDF Veterans from Foreign Arrest Campaigns

Israeli legal advocacy group Shurat HaDin has launched a new app designed to protect Israel Defense Forces (IDF) veterans from efforts to arrest them while traveling abroad, with the organization’s president warning that pro-Palestinian groups are actively tracking Israeli soldiers and pursuing legal action against them in foreign countries.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, founder and president of Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, told Breitbart News that the threat has become serious enough that Israeli diplomatic officials are regularly warning veterans about potential efforts to detain them.

“It’s a real danger because pro-Palestinian organizations, like Hind Rajab or the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, are tracing IDF soldiers,” Darshan-Leitner said. “Every week there are soldiers who get warnings from the Israeli consulate or the Israeli ambassador to leave a certain country because of an arrest warrant that these organizations are seeking against them.”

Shurat HaDin launched the app, called Shachpatz — Hebrew for “bulletproof vest” — in late August to give veterans a centralized system for preparing to travel, receiving warnings while abroad, and obtaining assistance if they encounter legal trouble.

The app incorporates travel warnings and alerts from Israel’s Foreign Ministry and IDF, legal information, emergency and diplomatic contacts, a pre-travel checklist, and instructions explaining what travelers should do if questioned or detained.

Darshan-Leitner said the organization has also assembled a “war room” of more than 600 lawyers across 17 countries prepared to provide emergency legal assistance.

“If something happens, we put it on the app. If somebody else hears about it, they immediately put it on the app,” she explained. “It has instructions on what to do to try to avoid such an incident, how to take care of yourself before you travel, what to be alert to when you travel, and what to do if you get interrogated or arrested.”

Travelers can also report their own experiences, allowing Israelis to alert one another about hostile incidents or identify destinations where they have been treated particularly well.

“You know, they protected us, so now we have to protect them,” Darshan-Leitner said. The goal, she added, is to create “a community of travelers from Israel” capable of warning one another when problems arise.

Darshan-Leitner identified Belgium, South Africa, Canada, Thailand, and the Netherlands among countries where she believes Israeli veterans face heightened legal risks, pointing particularly to countries whose legal systems recognize forms of universal jurisdiction.

She sharply rejected the premise that foreign courts should be policing the conduct of Israeli soldiers, arguing that Israel maintains its own system for investigating allegations of misconduct by its forces.

“Israel does not need a foreign country to govern its soldiers,” she said. “Israel has a very strong law-enforcement system that prosecutes soldiers if they need to.”

Darshan-Leitner argued that the groups pursuing Israeli veterans are ultimately interested less in securing convictions than in generating the spectacle of an Israeli soldier being detained abroad.

“All they need to claim a victory is a photo of an IDF soldier arrested in a foreign airport,” she said.

Such an arrest, she warned, could have repercussions far beyond the individual involved by making reservists reluctant to travel and potentially causing young Israelis preparing for military service to reconsider joining combat units.

“People who served in reserve 300 days or 600 days and now want to go on vacation to chill out shouldn’t be afraid to go everywhere in the world,” she said.

Shurat HaDin’s involvement in the issue predates the current war. Darshan-Leitner said the organization has spent roughly 15 years fighting legal actions targeting Israeli soldiers and officials, including proceedings involving the International Criminal Court.

The organization has also pursued legal actions of its own against Hamas and Palestinian Authority officials and challenged international legal proceedings against Israeli officials.

Earlier this year, Shurat HaDin filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court against Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and other senior Spanish officials, alleging that Madrid enabled Iran’s “terror machine” through the export of dual-use components to the Islamic Republic.

Darshan-Leitner described Shachpatz as an extension of that broader legal campaign, but one aimed directly at protecting individual Israelis before an attempted detention can become an international incident.

“This time, the act is actually an act of self-defense,” she said, “to defend the IDF soldiers and do anything possible in order to prevent such arrest warrants.”

Because Shachpatz had been available for only about a week when Darshan-Leitner spoke with Breitbart News, the app itself had not yet been used to intervene in an attempted arrest, although Shurat HaDin had previously assisted Israelis facing legal threats abroad through its existing network.

Thousands of people had already downloaded the app, she said.

“We don’t want to see it happen,” Darshan-Leitner said of an arrest attempt requiring the app’s emergency resources, “but I’m sure it will become handy, unfortunately.”

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Israeli Economy Doing Just Fine

Israeli journalist Amir Tsarfati posted the following on his Telegram channel.

Just before Rosh Hashanah, Israel’s Ministry of Finance publishes a positive overview of the Israeli economy, stating that the economy remains stable and growing despite the challenges and uncertainties of recent years.

Growth and Investment: In the first half of 2026, GDP grew by 3.2% compared to the second half of 2025. Foreign investment increased by 78%, totaling $26 billion in 2025, and this upward trend continued in 2026. The high-tech sector continues to lead the economy, with a 53.6% increase in capital raising.

AI Powerhouse: Israel continues to solidify its position as one of the leading AI powers in the world, ranking 3rd globally in AI trading, 6th in development, and 7th in research, out of 83 countries.

Inflation, Shekel, and Stock Exchange: Inflation fell from 2.5% to 1.5% within a year. The Tel Aviv 125 index rose by 35%, and the shekel strengthened by 11% against the dollar.

Deficit and Debt: The deficit decreased from 4.7% to 3.3%, and the debt-to-GDP ratio stands at 67.9%, compared to an average of 111% for OECD countries.

Confidence and Risk: Israel’s risk premium (CDS) decreased by 29% and is approaching its level before the war. The yield on the Israeli government bond for 10 years decreased by 7.2%, meaning the cost of borrowing for the state has decreased.

Labor Market: The unemployment rate remains low at 3.3%, compared to an average of 4.9% for the OECD. The labor force participation rate is 62.5%, compared to 61% in the OECD, but the employment rate for people aged 15-64 is lower than the average: 71% compared to 74%.

Standard of Living: GDP per capita in terms of purchasing power is approximately $60,000, compared to approximately $64,000 on average for OECD countries.

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How Britain Tried To Rig the Trial of a Genocide Opponent – and Lost

The jury took just two hours. Tony Greenstein – Jewish socialist, anti-Zionist – had faced fourteen years under the Terrorism Act for three social media posts and a blog article opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Crown called it “inviting support for Hamas.” The jury called it something else.

Section 12 of the Terrorism Act makes it an offense to invite support for a proscribed organization. Greenstein’s reference to a “Gaza ghetto uprising”, it argued, amounted to support for Hamas. Three social media posts and a blog article. The bill the State was demanding for those words – fourteen years.

Judge Sarah Plaschkes repeatedly objected when Greenstein brought the wider historical-political context of Palestine/Israel into the courtroom – warning him against treating the proceedings as a political forum. When the closing speech came, Greenstein was by now so concerned about what might happen to his barrister that he decided to address the jury himself (no doubt considering what had happened to Barrister Rajiv Menon KC – more of whom later). For thirty minutes he examined the prosecution case and the context in which his posts had been written. The jury wasn’t asked to lay aside the offending words; instead, he guided the jurors in an articulate reading (see his address to the jury, here) in which the world in which they’d been written was made clear (full trial coverage at the Canary, here).

But this court was rigged and thus determined to keep all context out of the courtroom. Nevertheless, despite Judge Plaschkes’ hostile interruptions, Greenstein’s speech laid bare the realities the prosecution had no interest in facing: his opposition to Hamas evident in dozens of articles he’d penned and published on his platform over the years; and Israel’s genocide in Gaza after October 2023. He spelled out the difference between supporting Hamas and defending the right of Palestinians to resist Israeli oppression, and the obvious point that the posts in contention clearly did not express support for Hamas.

Greenstein recounted to the jury how his grandparents fled Poland before the War, and most of those left behind perished in Treblinka. To him, Greenstein told the jury, the Holocaust was not history, but inheritance. He invoked the story of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising as a parallel of Gaza: young Jewish men and women rising up against the SS with smuggled pistols against tanks, knowing it was hopeless yet choosing resistance anyway. October 7th was Gaza’s uprising. The judge objected.

Once Greenstein had finished speaking (to a round of applause from the public gallery), Judge Plaschkes addressed the court to say that she had considered referring Greenstein for contempt of court. She then dismissed his address as a “rambling speech delivered by an old man”. An extraordinary turn of phrase in a criminal trial in which Greenstein was about to find out whether he was to be sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper added Palestine Action to the UK’s list of proscribed organizations in July 2025, under section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000. But proscription criminalizes more than membership. Up to fourteen years in prison can follow under section 12, which makes it an offence to “invite support for a proscribed organization” or to “express an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization…” That was the provision the Crown used to prosecute Tony Greenstein, and it applies right now to public expressions of support for Palestine Action. Serious concerns over freedom of expression and peaceful assembly were raised by a group of five UN Special Rapporteurs over proscribing a group for property destruction.

On 6 August 2024 activists from Palestine Action staged a break-in at Elbit Systems, in Filton, near Bristol.  It’s an Israeli defense company with British operations supplying equipment to the IDF. They entered facilities, sabotaged machinery and hindered production they regarded as part of Israel’s war-making infrastructure. During the parliamentary debate on the proscription order, it was argued that Palestine Action had targeted only industrial facilities, and not civilians. The government went ahead with proscription anyway.

Rajiv Menon KC represented one of the six defendants in the February 2026 Filton Trial. All six were acquitted of aggravated burglary but the jury failed to agree on criminal damage. At the May retrial, four were convicted. Menon’s closing speech was a masterclass and invoked the 1670 Bushell case – a landmark ruling on jury independence from judicial interference, arguing that the judge could not direct a conviction. Judge Jeremy Johnson then referred Menon for contempt, a referral the Court of Appeal overturned on procedural grounds in May before Johnson referred to it correctly in June.

The Filton defendants were acquitted of the most serious charge – the barrister who defended them is now facing contempt proceedings for the way he did it.

So what lies behind all this courtroom drama is a routine machinery. Proscription – the government’s designation of an organization as terrorist – takes effect by order of the Home Secretary. It falls to the barrister to gauge how far a closing speech can go before crossing the line into contempt, while the judge cautions against political argument. Indeed, the evidence shows that judges are increasingly directing what juries are allowed to hear before threatening barristers with contempt. To an outside observer there is little sign of a conflict – yet behind these routine procedures is something damning: what the jury doesn’t get to hear – could mean years in prison.

And, of course, the elephant in the room is that Britain is directly implicated in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In September 2024, as the government suspended thirty arms export licenses to Israel, Foreign Secretary David Lammy told Parliament that “there exists a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law”. Thirty licenses suspended out of three hundred and fifty. Britain would also continue to supply F-35 components through the global parts pool serving Israel, with the government arguing that withdrawal would undermine allied security. British weapons armed a state committing a genocide despite their supposed withdrawal.

The state that arms Israel prosecutes those who oppose it.

The Crown had brought three posts, a blog article and an accusation of terrorism before the jury. But Greenstein stood on that essential context – despite the hostile judge’s interjections. And a mere two hours after retiring – the jurors returned with a unanimous verdict of not guilty.

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Israeli Defense Minister Katz: 70% Of Gaza Is Desolate, 80% Of Gazans Want To Migrate, Israel Is Ready To Move Them Out

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz delivered a wide-ranging assessment of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, making clear that the forced displacement of Gaza’s population remains central to Israel’s strategic vision — and that Israel is prepared to carry it out the moment political conditions allow.

Katz stated that between 60% and 70% of Gaza is now desolate. “About 70% of the area is desolate — without residents, without houses, without tunnels,” he said, while acknowledging that work remains to be completed.

On the question of Gaza’s population, Katz was direct: “There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration.” He cited surveys showing that approximately 80% of Gaza’s population wants to emigrate, adding that Hamas is the primary obstacle preventing them from leaving. “Hamas doesn’t allow them, and there are no countries in the world that will take them,” he said.

Katz said Israel is fully prepared to facilitate the departure of Gaza’s population by sea, by air, or by any other available means. He noted that Egypt has refused to serve as a transit route. The sticking point, he explained, is that Arab countries willing to accept Gazan migrants are demanding U.S. backing before moving forward. “Every country that is willing wants American backing,” Katz said. “Currently, President Trump didn’t cancel this; he froze it. All the Arab countries came to him due to their pressure on this matter.”

Katz indicated that the moment for resumed military and territorial action will come when it becomes clear that Hamas is not meeting its commitments. “Then we will get a green light to move forward militarily, territorially, and in other areas, and this thing will gain momentum,” he said.

On the West Bank, Katz rejected the characterization of settler violence as “Jewish terror,” stating he has canceled that term. “Terror is whoever acts to commit terror against the State of Israel,” he said. He confirmed that the IDF has conquered refugee camps in the West Bank, evacuated 40,000 residents who have not returned, destroyed infrastructure, killed terrorists, and remains inside those areas.

Katz also summarized the broader scope of Israeli military action: “We destroyed 70% of Gaza. We destroyed areas in southern Lebanon; we ruined dozens of villages that served as Hezbollah strongholds. We evacuated 200,000 residents.”

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Palestinian Journalist Calls Hakeem Jeffries a ‘Monkey’ and ‘Errand Boy’

A Palestinian journalist blew right through the forbidden red line of African American racist terms by referring to black House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) as a “monkey” and a “boy.”

Now, former MSNBC commentator Rula Jebreal is trying to explain, but black lawmakers are having none of it.

Specifically, Jebreal took fire from the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Friday after she called Jeffries an “AIPAC monkey” — the acronym a reference to the pro-Israel lobby group American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) — and then an “errand boy,” a description dangerously close to the definition of a slave.

Jebreal used the epithets during an appearance on Wajahat Ali’s The Left Hook podcast where she criticized the black Democrat’s support for Israel and accused him of doing the bidding of AIPAC.

“His name is Hakeem. ‘Hakeem’ is an Arabic name which means ‘healer.’ He’s not a healer, he’s a divider,” Jebreal said, the New York Post reported.

“He is a bought and paid by AIPAC monkey,” she continued. “With all due respect — and I don’t mean it in a racist way.”

“He is just basically an errand boy, and we’re done and tired,” Jebreal said.

After Jabreal’s rant, Ali tried to bail her out of linguistic trouble, interjecting that using the term “monkey” has “terrible racial connotations… but I think you caught yourself and said you didn’t mean it with any racial animosity.”

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Trump ambassador vows NATO-like reforms to UN after terror scandal: ‘Clean this place up’

President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations is vowing to force a massive reform at the global agency, pledging to slim it down through privatization and create more accountability in the wake of revelations that one of its relief agencies in Gaza funded employees who participated in the 2023 terrorist attack in Israel.

“The charge from the president is to clean this place up and get it working for the American people,” U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz said Thursday night in a wide-ranging interview on the Just the News, No Noise television show that focused on ending abuses and fraud in American foreign aid.

“What President Trump has done with NATO, we’re looking to do to the United Nations,” he added.

Waltz sharply criticized the Biden administration for turning a blind eye to fraud across America’s multibillion foreign aid system and specifically for re-funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) despite evidence of close ties to the terror group Hamas.

Trump ended funding for UNRWA after taking office in 2025, and the USAID inspector general revealed last month that more than 100 workers funded by UNRWA have been identified as having participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas atrocities in Israel.

Waltz said those revelations are a wakeup call for the world that the U.N. is not serving its charter, and the Trump administration has already forced significant changes in recent months.

“We forced them to take their first budget cut ever in their 80-year history. They are going to fire 3,000 U.N. bureaucrats out of the headquarters building in New York. We’re going to get more of our aid dollars,” he said. “…And then there’s 90,000 U.N. peacekeepers around the world. We’ve cut 25% of them. So we put the U.N. on a diet.”

Waltz said the next round of reforms that the U.S. will force as the largest contributor to the U.N. will be modeled after Trump’s effort to make European allies pick up a greater share of the NATO burden.

“The American people are generous people when it comes to tsunamis or earthquakes, like we just had in Venezuela, or other types of famine. But we need to know that it’s not filtering through a bloated bureaucracy; that it’s actually getting to people in need,” he said. “We’re making it leaner and more focused.”

“I think people rightly ask why we’re even involved at all. I say two things. Number one, you need one place in the world where everyone can talk, and if we just walk out, I don’t want to see the U.N. in Beijing or Brussels or somewhere else, we need to get in there and fight and win for American interests,” Waltz added. “And then number two, there’s a burden sharing component to it. I don’t want to see U.S. troops in places like Gaza or, you know, dealing with the gangs in Haiti when the U.N. is willing to go in there and we can push that agenda. I think that’s something that’s in line with the president’s America First foreign policy.”

Waltz succinctly summarized Trump’s policy toward the U.N.

“So, diplomacy first, words before bullets, and burden sharing are two of the reasons we’re still trying to keep this place up. But ultimately, that’s the charge from President Trump: Help it realize its potential, and the U.N. should be helping him craft these peace deals around the world,” he said.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer agreed during the show on Thursday that the U.S. should continue to cut funding for the U.N., particularly as it relates to USAID funding, which has already seen cuts under the Trump administration.

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The Zionist Attention Corral

For valid reasons, Americans are becoming increasingly aware of the corruption of their government by Zionists and the Zionist lobby.

The concern that their government does not represent them, but rather the Zionist element within both the US and the Israeli governments, is squarely based upon evidence and, for the overwhelming part, is not born of antisemitism.

Zionism is a racist nationalist political movement, not a religious movement. It is purely for political reasons that the World Jewish Congress (WJC) declares Zionism to be synonymous with Judaism. It is this baseless claim that supposedly justifies accusing anyone who opposes Zionism of being antisemitic.

The idea that Zionism is a core feature of Jewish identity is nonsense. Many Jews resoundingly reject Zionism. Anti-Zionism is not, by any definition, a form of antisemitism. Regardless of the WJC’s groundless assertions.

Illustrating the absurdity of maintaining that Zionism and Jewish identity are synonymous, the WJC openly concedes that Zionism’s primary objective was defined at the First Zionist Congress, or Basel Congress, in 1869.

That objective is:

To secure for the Jewish people a publicly recognized, legally assured homeland in Palestine.

The creation and expansion of a Jewish nation state “in Palestine” is an overtly ethno-nationalist political ambition.

Underlining the separation between the Zionist state project, Judaism, and the Jewish people, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA’s) working definition of antisemitism clearly determines that “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel” is antisemitic. Reciprocally, therefore, claiming that the state of Israel embodies the will of Jews is equally antisemitic, according to the IHRA definition.

In the UK—from the legal perspective—anti-Zionism is definitely not antisemitism. Professor David Miller has won his employment tribunal and defeated the subsequent appeal by his employer. Miller’s tribunal finding has established in UK law that anti-Zionism is a protected philisophical belief for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act.

There are, of course, antisemitic anti-Zionists, but anti-Zionism is not antisemitic. Opposition to the political ideology of Zionism and revulsion at the horrors inflicted by the Israeli state and its international partners in pursuit of the political ideology of Zionism is not to blame all Jews.

For example, the Israeli state, heavily influenced by Zionism, has committed genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. This observation does not imply that Jews, as a whole people, are collectively responsible for this abhorrent war crime.

From a rational perspective, genocide is obviously incomprehensible. To perpetrate a genocide, even if ordered, requires a deeply unfathomable, heinous malevolence. Burning children alive in their beds, blowing infants’ brains out, sniping pregnant women (and their unborn children), beating the elderly to death with rifle butts, and using anal rape as part of your torture regimen—then writing songs about your exploits and celebrating your depravity as if it were a virtue—are not the actions of morally defensible human beings: Jewish or otherwise.

As discussed in my recent piece for Unlimited Hangout, aside from the obscene brutality—recorded, filmed, and shown around the world—just from a statistical or even an official report perspective, the Israeli government’s genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza is blatantly obvious.

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