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Bret Stephens: is America turning against Israel?

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens discusses rising antisemitism, America’s declining support for Israel, and whether the relationship can be repaired.

Så behandlas judar i dagens värld

 Några exempel på hur judar eller de som stöder dem behandlas i vår värld:

Berlin shop owner repeatedly attacked after displaying posters condemning antisemitism

A 67-year-old wheelchair-bound shop owner in Berlin has been repeatedly attacked after displaying posters condemning antisemitism and the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, according to German media reports on Saturday.

Dutch city bans Israeli fans from soccer match; Foreign Ministry demands reversal

Netherlands 'leading hotbed of antisemitism': Israel condemns Hapoel Beersheba ban

Israel has condemned the Netherlands for the decision to ban Israeli football fans from attending a Europa League match just two years after the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were attacked in Amsterdam while attending an Ajax match.

Dutch news site Nieuwsuur was the first to report that Hapoel Be’er Sheva fans have been banned from attending a match against AZ Alkmaar in Alkmaar on Thursday over security concerns.

Jewish schools in Brooklyn evacuate following bomb threats, NYPD finds no explosives on site

Dublin hotel cancels 70 rooms booked for antisemitism conference delegates

The Herbert Park Hotel in Dublin canceled a reservation for 70 rooms intended for delegates attending an international conference on combating antisemitism, after learning the purpose of their visit.

Global anti-Israel protests coordinated in advance by international alliance, documents show

Pro-Palestinian protests across the world last week were coordinated in advance by an international alliance that prepared campaign slogans, media messaging and protest tactics, including calls to shut down city squares, encircle government buildings and blockade corporate hubs, The Jerusalem Post's review of campaign documents found.

Hur ser Israel ut efter valet?

  Inför parlamentsvalet målar David Horovitz , Times of Israel, upp en osäker bild av läget i Israel.

Unless the opposition steps up its game, Netanyahu, the PM of Oct. 7, could yet survive this election

It’s a combination of his own shameless efforts to rewrite history, his opponents’ inability to adequately hold him to account for that blackest of days and much more besides, and, perhaps, Israel’s changing demographics

"...De sionistiska oppositionspartierna är djupt övertygade om att de skulle sköta landet oändligt mycket bättre på alla områden – från säkerhet och pågående konflikter till strategiska mål, internationella relationer, ekonomi, utbildning, den känsliga maktbalansen mellan den verkställande och den dömande makten, och mycket annat därtill. 

De är övertygade om att ännu en seger för Netanyahu – som fortsätter att stämpla alla motståndare som en fara för Israel, trots att det var han som ledde landet under dess största katastrof någonsin – skulle äventyra själva Israels existens. 

De vill tro att de har gjort och gör tillräckligt för att övertyga en betydande majoritet av väljarkåren om den fara Netanyahu utgör, samt om sin egen förmåga att reparera skadorna han orsakat och – som de själva ser saken – rädda nationen. 

Frågan är tvåfaldig: Finns det tillräckligt många israeler som vill ha det Israel som skisseras i självständighetsförklaringen? Och gör de sionistiska oppositionspartierna allt som krävs för att vinna väljarnas röster den 27 oktober?"

Såhär fungerar valsystemet i Israel

 How do Israeli elections work? A guide to voting, Knesset seats, and coalitions - explainer

Israel uses a system called proportional representation, which helps explain its many political parties, complicated coalition negotiations, and frequent early elections.

In Israel, voters do not directly elect their prime minister or individual members of parliament. Instead, each voter chooses a single list of candidates, usually representing a political party or an alliance of parties. The votes determine how the 120 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, are distributed...

PRESSMEDDELANDE ECI: Låt inte Norge göra Nobels fredspris till ett vapen

 Bryssel, 12 oktober 2026 – När första Nobels fredspris utdelades år 1901 var en av de två mottagarna Henry Dunant. Få har varit mer värda än han att få priset. Efter att ha bevittnat fruktansvärda lidanden på slagfälten i Solferino 1859, ägnade Dunant resten av sitt liv till att arbeta för skydd och vård för sårade soldater i väpnade konflikter, ett arbete som ledde till grundandet av den Internationella rödakorskommittén 1863 och undertecknandet av den första Genèvekonventionen år 1864. Dunant var en sann humanist med stor omsorg om Europas och världens förföljda judar. Långt före Theodor Herzls sionistiska uppvaknande på 1890-talet hade Dunant skrivit omfattande texter om behovet av ett hemland för det judiska folket. Vid den första sionistkongressen 1897 tackade Herzl personligen Dunant för dennes stöd, fastän Dunant på grund av svag hälsa, isolerad och bortglömd, inte kunde delta. I dag anses han vara en av de första kristna sionisterna.

”Genom Nobels fredspris, det 125:e i ordningen, har den norska Nobelkommittén gjort en 180-graders vändning bort från den första mottagaren Henry Dunants etiska värderingar”, sade ECI:s grundande direktor Tomas Sandell på söndag. ”Genom att utse Navi Pillay, som anklagar Israel för folkmord medan hon vägrar peka ut Hamas för de värsta pogromerna sedan Förintelsen, har kommittén förlorat sin moraliska kompass. Genom att uppmuntra detta moderna folkmordsförtal underblåser man just den antisemitism som Henry Dunant kämpade emot under hela sitt liv.

I sin kommentar om utnämningen kallade Elisha Wiesel beslutet för ”slutet på Nobels fredspris”. Han var 14 år när han tillsammans med sin avlidne far Elie Wiesel reste till Oslo 1986 för att ta emot Nobels fredspris, tilldelat fadern för arbetet för att säkerställa att Förintelsen inte skulle glömmas. Genom att hedra Navi Pillay, som anklagar Israel för folkmord, har kommittén svikit hans fars arv, skrev Elisha Wiesel i The Free Press. Han mindes faderns reaktion på den beryktade Sovjetledda FN-resolutionen 1975 som slog fast att ”sionism är rasism” när Elie Wiesel hade konstaterat: ”Detta är inte första gången som fienden anklagar oss för deras egna brott. Vår egendom togs ifrån oss och vi kallades giriga, våra barn massakrerades och vi anklagades för ritualmord.”

Genom att utse en känd anti-israel-aktivist till mottagare av detta prestigefyllda pris har norrmännen valt att göra Nobels fredspris till ett vapen snarare än till att främja fred.

De senaste besluten som den politiskt utsedda norska Nobelkommittén fattat ifrågasätter Norges roll som förvaltare av en så prestigefylld institution, konstaterade Sandell. Fastän den nuvarande socialistiska regeringen har legat i framkant i fråga om den internationella BDS-kampanjen mot Israel, var det få som trodde att man skulle använda Nobels fredspris för sina egna politiska syften.

Sandell konstaterade att Norge har haft ett nära samarbete med Sydafrika i att ifrågasätta Israel vid Internationella domstolen, och att ge priset till en sydafrikansk juridisk aktivist i spetsen för den juridiska krigföringen mot Israel var en logisk konsekvens av denna kampanj. När Pillay skulle ta emot en liknande utmärkelse i Berlin 2022, vägrade Berlins dåvarande borgmästare Franziska Giffey att överräcka priset eftersom Pillay hade rykte om sig att vara en anti-israel-aktivist. Den norska fientligheten mot Israel verkar dock ha få – om ens några – gränser och har chockerat även Norges västerländska allierade. När den avlidne kungen Harald önskade sända sina kondoleanser till Israels president efter terrorattacken 7 oktober 2023, hindrade regeringen honom från att göra detta. Samma regering som vägrade uttrycka solidaritet med offren den 7 oktober har nu valt att stå på förövarnas sida genom att anklaga Israel, inte Hamas, för folkmord. Om inte detta är slutet på Nobels fredspris, som Elisha Wiesel sade, undrar man vad mer som krävs.

”125 år efter att Nobels fredspris utdelades första gången är denna prestigefyllda institution för viktig för att inskränkas till bara ett verktyg i Norges politiska kampanjverktygslåda. Om priset ska överleva 125 år till, måste utdelningen av det omedelbart överlåtas till en oberoende internationell kommitté”, avslutade Sandell. 

Copyright © European Coalition for Israel

Kommentarer till filmen NAZA

 En som sett IDF:s agerande inifrån berättar:

The airstrikes we canceled: What NAZA leaves out

The film has it backwards: I worked with the IDF's casualty estimate system. It's a brake on civilian deaths, not a license to kill

Three years ago today, I put on my uniform.

Since then, I have served hundreds of days of reserve duty, including in the Israeli Air Force’s planning and operations directorate. Part of my job involved supporting IDF ground troops and requesting strikes. On every front of this war.

Now a film named after one of the procedures we used to minimize civilian harm and exercise self-restraint, often at the expense of military goals and while endangering our own troops, is playing in theaters around the world. It is called NAZA, the Hebrew acronym for “nezek agavi.” Collateral damage.

The film gets that procedure backwards.

I want to tell you what NAZA is. From the inside.

A brake, not a license

Here is how it works.

A unit on the ground asks for a strike. Before anything flies, someone has to answer a question: how many civilians are near this target and is the military need worth the risk to them?

That answer is the NAZA.

It is not a quota. It is not a kill count. It is a brake. It’s a constraint.

When the number is high, the munition gets smaller. The angle changes. The timing moves. A warning goes out. Or – in many cases – the strike is called off entirely.

The funnel

A strike is not one decision by one person. It is a funnel.

First comes the request. Then initial planning. Then collateral-damage clearance. Munitions planning. Approval by a senior commander, with military legal advisers and international law experts in the process. Then the aircrew, who make the final call.

At every stage, a strike can get nixed. Many do.

The word came first

Throughout the past three years, I took part in a civilian initiative that tracked how the war was playing out on social media. We kept a heat map of the words that came up again and again in tweets, posts and videos.

Within days of October 7, while we were still clearing Hamas gunmen out of our kibbutzim and fields and before our ground forces had entered Gaza, the word “genocide” was already being sprayed across social media. It started small. Then the term grew bigger every week as it was mentioned more and amplified over and over. The verdict arrived before the evidence.

I saw how the claim that Israel is committing genocide came instantly and reflexively and finally ballooned into an automatic truth. A word repeated often enough begins to sound like a finding. Commissions and advocacy groups – hostile to Israel to begin with – eagerly adopted it, providing it with a tinge of legitimacy.

Journalist från Times of Israel fick se filmen NAZA:

NAZA’s claims about IDF conduct in Gaza are grave. So are the film’s journalistic flaws

The documentary draws on 24 alleged whistleblowers, but the explosive allegations, assembled to serve a narrative that Israel paid no heed to civilian deaths, suffer from questionable sourcing and deficient investigative rigor

- The 80-minute film, produced by the British newspaper The Guardian, does not, however, include key elements typically associated with investigative journalism, including independent verification of testimony or contextual information. The filmmakers did not give the subject of the allegations — in this case, the Israel Defense Forces — an opportunity to respond before publication, a standard practice.

- The film tries to present its allegations as factual claims, but omits verification and context, and raises questions about its sourcing.

- The film features interviews with 24 people identified by the filmmakers as “Israeli soldiers involved in the remote mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” who spoke on condition that their identities be protected.

The number of interviewees could give the allegations additional weight were they all corroborative. But the testimonies, contrary to the filmmakers’ claims, cover a variety of different subjects.

- The film generally does not provide information about speakers that identifies their proximity to the subjects they discuss, which would establish them as authorities while protecting their anonymity. For most, no age, pseudonym, or military role is provided, and because the interviewees are anonymized and their voices digitally altered to protect their identities, it makes it difficult at times to distinguish between speakers as the film cuts between interviews.

- The film’s subtitles also contain apparent translation issues, including adding words not present in the spoken testimony. For example, a soldier’s comment that “Ahmad and his entire family” are in a home, is subtitled as “Ahmad and his entire family will die.” A speaker’s claim that “There was an approval of, like, 500 for a single person,” becomes the more definitive “There was approval once to kill 500 for one human target” in the subtitles.

IDF svarar:

IDF gives rejection of 'NAZA' film claims, disputes civilian death ratios, AI targeting abuse

The IDF on Thursday gave its first comprehensive and detailed response and rejection of the NAZA film's claims that Israel committed genocide during the Gaza war.

According to the IDF, its delayed response stemmed from the NAZA filmmakers neither providing advance notice of the claims nor allowing it to see the movie until recent days.

Artiklar om 7 oktober

 ‘We’re not breaking’: The untold heroics of the female fighters who held off Hamas at Sufa

In her new book, ‘Israel’s Women Warriors,’ ToI correspondent Tal Schneider tells the stories of women who played an outsized yet largely unsung role in defending Israel during the October 7, 2023, terrorist onslaught. In this exclusive excerpt translated into English, Or Ben-Yehuda of the mixed-gender Caracal Battalion takes control as an army outpost is overrun, with the fates of fellow soldiers, and several communities, on the line

“One jeep broke toward the dining hall. I went in on foot. How naive I was at that stage. It was almost 9 a.m. Until then I hadn’t seen the terrorists with my own eyes, and suddenly, inside the outpost, they were standing right in front of me.”

— Lt. Col. Or Ben-Yehuda, commander of the Caracal Battalion

The October 7 battle for Sderot still rages in the minds of its survivors

Residents of embattled Gaza border city recall moments when Hamas terrorists invaded, gunning people down in the street, but vow to stay in their hometown

‘A deep scar’: Three years on, this Israeli first responder cannot escape October 7

Israeli rescuer Natan Kenig says it does not take much of a trigger for him to relive the October 7, 2023, attack: his eyes open or closed, at home or out with friends, he still sees the rockets, torched cars and lifeless bodies.

“I saw atrocities. The most terrible things in the world,” he said.

Three years after Hamas led the deadliest terror attack ever against Israel, Kenig, like so much of the country, remains traumatized. The flashbacks come daily, to the point that he has needed to see a therapist.

Newly released recordings shed light on final hours of Amit Mann, hero paramedic killed on Oct. 7

Newly released recordings reveal the final hours of Amit Mann, a Magen David Adom paramedic and paramedic course instructor, who was murdered on October 7, 2023, by terrorists in Kibbutz Be’eri, as she desperately tried to save victims of the attack and herself.

IDF chief honors officer whose Hamas invasion warnings were ignored by her superiors

During the conference, Zamir presented a certificate of appreciation to Chief Warrant Officer “Vav,” a member of the signals intelligence Unit 8200 — identified only by her first initial in Hebrew — who warned before October 7, 2023, that Hamas had a clear plan in place to attack Israel. Senior intelligence officers had dismissed and ignored her warnings.

“Vav” warned in an email sent to a number of IDF officers in the days leading up to the deadly Hamas terror assault that “the sword is coming,” and urged them to “warn the people” while there was still time.

After three years of war, Israeli kids bear the brunt of still-rising mental toll

New PTSD diagnoses across Israel’s population doubled the year after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terror onslaught and continued to rise throughout the three years of war, according to a report published Sunday by Clalit Health Services, Israel’s largest health fund.

October 7: What I wrote then, and what I know now

What I got right then, I think, was the unity. I wrote that it took a war for us to find it, and I hoped it would last after victory. I will be honest: outside the army, it has frayed. In moments of respite, the noise of the world comes in, and the contrast with the camaraderie inside our ranks hurts. But I have also seen what holds when it counts. Religious and secular, left and right, new immigrants and sabras, Jewish and non-Jewish stand shoulder to shoulder, and no one asks how you vote when someone is bleeding.

What I did not understand then, perhaps, was that the fighting would not be the hardest part. The hardest part has been the waiting, the funerals, and the world’s hate and indifference, which has often been worse than I feared. In those first weeks, I was shocked that so many would excuse, justify or even side with the murderers. Three years on, I am no longer shocked, only sadder.

What I want my non-Jewish friends to see this October 7

"There is something especially chilling about watching Jews mourn murdered families while, sometimes only blocks away, people celebrate the ideology of those responsible. That is not solidarity with Palestinians. It is not criticism of Netanyahu. And it is not a peace movement. It is pure hate. When the murder of Jews becomes something to rationalize, romanticize or celebrate, we should be willing to state exactly what is – antisemitism...

...If people cannot allow Jews even the anniversary of their massacre without turning the perpetrators into heroes and the victims into villains, the issue before us is no longer simply the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is something much older.

The world has seen it before. We should know enough by now to recognize it.