Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
I think this was news commentary, but I didn’t hear the whole show: just a snippet on my car radio. At any rate, one commenter said this:
“Joe Biden is probably the last Democratic President for generations who will be in favor of Israel.”
One could say that the Democrats are taking a position of neutrality, favoring neither Israel or its opponents (e.g., Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, or Hamas), but I doubt that is the case. The Democratic Party is being taken over by so-called “progressives,” and they are opposed to Israel in general—not just “Zionism” (which means Israel’s existence as a state), and not just Netanyahu. This, according to a poll of Palestinians taken in the West Bank and Gaza two years ago, is who the Democrats are and will be favoring:
According to the poll, only seven percent of Gazans blamed Hamas for their suffering. Seventy-one percent of all Palestinians supported Hamas’s decision to attack Israel on October 7 — up 14 points among Gazans and down 11 points among West Bank Palestinians compared to three months ago. Fifty-nine percent of all Palestinians thought Hamas should rule Gaza, and 70 percent were satisfied with the role Hamas has played during the war.
Before October 7, Fatah would have defeated Hamas in a head-to-head vote of all Palestinians 26 to 22 percent. If elections were held today, Fatah would lose to Hamas 17 to 34 percent. Eighty-one percent of respondents were dissatisfied with Abbas, up from 76 percent before the war. Sixty-two percent did not view the recent resignation of former PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh as a sign of reform. And 65 percent of Palestinians think the PA is a burden on the Palestinian people. Among likely voters, 56 percent supported Marwan Barghouti, who is serving multiple life sentences for his role in the murder of Jews during the Second Intifada. Thirty-two percent supported Qatar-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and 11 percent supported Abbas.
Only 5 percent of Palestinians think Hamas’s massacre on October 7 constitutes a war crime.
The poll was taken by a Palestinian organization, “the Ramallah-based non-profit Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.” And we have this breakdown of Democratic support (almost nil) from The Arab Center:
On April 15, 2026, the United States Senate considered two resolutions to block nearly $450 million of arms sales to Israel over concerns about human rights violations and the US-Israel war on Iran. With pro-Israel Republicans controlling the Senate, the defeat of these resolutions, introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), was predictable. Indeed, the first resolution, to stop a $295 million sale of bulldozers that Israel has used in the past to destroy civilian homes, lost in a 59-40 vote; the second, to halt a $151 million sale of 12,000 1,000-pound bombs, failed 63-36. The surprise was that more than three-quarters of the 47-member Democratic caucus voted to halt at least one of the sales—an unprecedented number.
Jews were reliably Democratic before the war, and Democrats were reliable friends of Israel. Brothers and sisters, friends and comrades, those days are gone. Democrats are not only ignoring Hamas’s war crimes and avowed desire to destroy Israel, but also favoring an oppressive, misogynistic, and truly genocidal regime against the only democratic state in the Middle East. And no, I don’t think it’s just animus against Netanyahu or “Zionism” that’s motivating this change. I think that Democratic opposition to Israel would be nearly as strong if Israel had some other Prime Minister. And it’s not “Zionism” they oppose, either, for that’s just the new euphemism for “Judaism”, for Zionism is just the recognition of the validity of the state of Israel as a refuge for Jews. (Do these people oppose the many explicitly Muslim states as examples of “Islamism”? If so, I haven’t heard about it.)
Israel (and Jews) are now seen as oppressors in the “oppressor-victim” narrative that’s behind wokeness. And the “oppression” by Israel involves the Two Big Lies: Israel is “genocidal” and “an apartheid state.” (For a refutation of the “genocide” canard go here, and of the “apartheid” canard go here). We are seeing the Democratic Party becoming more antisemitic and anti-Enlightenment. For Democrats like me, this is depressing. I’m not a one-issue candidate but I’m still Jewish, and how am I to vote for someone who is anti-Israel?
Well, what seemed likely has now happened; here are the headlines in today’s NYT (click headlines to read live feed, article archived here):
Trump’s 8-minute statement, calling for the “elimination of major threats from the Iranian regime”, which endangers the United States troops, our overseas bases, and our “allies throughout the world” (that of course largely means Israel). He asserts that Iran “can never have a nuclear weapon” and says that, despite negotiations, Iran refused to abandon its nuclear program. He vows to “obliterate” their nuclear program, “annihilate their navy”, and assure that its proxies can no longer endanger the world.
Importantly, he tells the Iranian people that “the hour of your freedom is at hand”, asking them, when the attack is finished, to “take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations. ”
Do listen to it:
A summary of the ongoing news:
The United States and Israel on Saturday launched a major attack on Iran, with President Trump vowing to devastate the country’s military, eliminate its nuclear program and bring about a change in its government.
Large explosions shook the Iranian capital, Tehran, where people reported seeing smoke rising from the district that includes the presidential palace. Witnesses described chaos in the streets as Iranians rushed to seek shelter, find loved ones or flee the city.
The American-led attack appeared to herald a much broader regional crisis. Iranian news media reported that Iran had targeted at least four U.S. military bases across the Persian Gulf — including in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, which said they had come under attack.
Iran also fired multiple waves of ballistic missiles at Israel, prompting booms in the skies as Israeli air defenses sought to repel them. Air-raid sirens sounded across the country, sending Israelis running to fortified shelters.
Mr. Trump vowed that the “massive and ongoing” campaign would target not just Iran’s nuclear program, which was the focus of a U.S. attack last June. Instead, Mr. Trump said the United States would “raze their missile industry to the ground” and “annihilate their navy,” arguing that Iran had refused to reach a deal with the United States that would have averted war.
He then called on Iranians to overthrow their government when the U.S. military assault came to an end. “It will be yours to take,” he said. “This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
Iran’s government vowed “crushing retaliation” against Israel and the United States and said it would not “surrender to their despicable demands.” Internet access in Iran plummeted amid the attack, making communication difficult.
And from the Times of Israel (click for free read):
From the ToI:
After long weeks of escalating regional tensions and burgeoning threats of conflict, Israel and the US launched a major joint strike on Iran on Saturday, with waves of attacks on sites across the Islamic Republic.
Strikes targeted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian, an Israeli official said. Other top regime and military commanders were also targeted, according to the official. The results of the strikes were not yet clear.
Targets in the campaign also included Iran’s military, symbols of government and intelligence targets, according to an official briefed on the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information on the attack.
Several senior Revolutionary Guards commanders and political officials were killed in the strikes, an Iranian source close to the establishment told Reuters.
US President Donald Trump announced that the US had begun “major combat operations in Iran,” calling the campaign “a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.”
US President Donald Trump announced that the US had begun “major combat operations in Iran,” calling the campaign “a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.”
“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally… obliterated. We are going to annihilate their navy,” he said in a video statement posted on his Truth Social account. “We are going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces.”
Trump indicated that the goal was to topple the regime, and he called on the Iranian people to seize the opportunity and take over their government.
Here are the questions that remain to be answered (my bold; indents from the news). Summaries are as of 5:30 a.m. today:
a.) What is happening to the Iranian people? The brave people of Iran, many of whom have been killed by the regime in recent protests against the government, are naturally anxious and terrified. They don’t know what is going to happen to their country. From the NYT:
Just as Iranians began their workweek on Saturday morning, U.S. and Israeli strikes sent panicked residents of Tehran into the streets and parents racing back to schools where they had just dropped off their children.
Chaos and uncertainty set in as explosions shook the densely populated city, Iran’s capital, according to witnesses who spoke to The New York Times.
Ali, a businessman from Tehran, said in a text message that he was sitting in his office with many employees when they heard two explosions along with fighter jets streaking over the sky. Employees ran screaming out of the building, he said. He, like several other residents who spoke to The Times, asked not to be identified by his full name because he feared for his safety.
. . .When Israel launched surprise attacks on Iran last June, it targeted mostly military and nuclear sites and strikes in Tehran and assassinated its top military chain of command. The strikes on Saturday appeared far broader, including political targets like the intelligence ministry, the judiciary and the Pasteur gated compound where the president and supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, generally reside, according to residents in the area and local news outlets.
. . . Not all Iranians were angry as they watched the plumes of smoke rising from the blasts, said Arian, a resident of the Ekteban township west of the capital, who said some of his relatives were cheering the strikes. He said he could hear voices outside his building chanting, “Long live the shah,” a reference to Iran’s monarch, who was deposed in the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic Republic to power.
As warplanes launched strikes across the country, President Trump released a video statement announcing to Iranians that “the hour of your freedom is at hand,” and urging them to rise up gainst the government once the bombing stops.
b.) Did the U.S. strike do substantial damage to Iranian leaders, the Revolutionary Guards, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei?
From the Times of Israel:
Channel 12, quoting unnamed Israeli sources, says the palace of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei has been completely destroyed. It says it is not clear whether Khamenei was present. It also says all of Iran’s key leaders were targeted in the strikes so far today.
Which high officials have been eliminated remains to be seen; information out of Iran is thin because there’s an Internet blackout.
From the NYT:
Israel is still assessing its opening strikes, which hit a variety of targets, including figures considered essential personnel in the Iranian war machine, according to an Israeli military official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, in line with army rules. The official refused to elaborate on the identity of those targets. He said that Iran had fired dozens of missiles at Israel so far.
. . . Satellite imagery shows a black plume of smoke and extensive damage at the secure compound of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, in Tehran, though his whereabouts were unclear. The image, taken by Airbus on Saturday morning, shows collapsed buildings at the complex, which typically serves as Mr. Khamenei’s residence and main premises for hosting senior officials.
c.) Where is Iran attacking? So far, Iranian missiles have been fired at U.S. bases, at Jordan, at the United Arabe Emirates, and of course at Israel.
From the Toi:
An Iranian missile has fallen on a home in Jordan’s capital Amman, state media reports.
Footage published by Arabic media shows flames and smoke rising from the wreckage.
. . . Jordan’s military says its air force is at work to protect the kingdom and its people while the strikes are ongoing. A military official says that two ballistic missiles targeting the kingdom’s territory “were successfully intercepted by Jordanian air defence systems”.
From the NYT:
The Emirati defense ministry said in a statement that it had intercepted a number of Iranian ballistic missiles and that a person in the capital Abu Dhabi had died as a result of falling debris. “The UAE reserves its full right to respond to this escalation and to take all necessary measures to protect its territory, citizens, and residents,” the statement said.
There is not much reports of damage to U.S. military bases or to other Middle Eastern countries, though missiles have been fired at them:
The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called Iraq’s foreign minister, Fuad Hussein, to inform him that Iran will be targeting U.S. military bases in the region, according to an Iraqi foreign ministry statement published on the ministry’s website. One of those bases is in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region. The Iraqi statement said Mr. Araghchi had “clarified that these attacks were not targeting the countries involved, but were limited to military sites.”
Likewise, Israel is sending civilians to bomb shelters, but not much damage has been reported. From the NYT:
Iran fired a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel, the Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement on Telegram.
It also launched missile attacks targeting U.S. military bases in the region, including Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, and the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, Fars reported.
Qatar’s ministry of defense said that it had “successfully thwarted a number of attacks” targeting its territory. The attack echoed another strike last June, when Iran fired more than a dozen missiles at an American military base near the Qatari capital, Doha, in response to a U.S. attack on its nuclear facilities.
From reader Jay, who’s following the Israel Home Front Command’s warning system. Jay says that “I have now gotten red alerts for every region in Israel I have alerts set for: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Be’er Sheva. Apparently the whole country is under attack by Iranian missiles.” For example:
d.) How is the world reacting? They are, of course, distressed and worried, calling for the U.S. not to set off a wider war. From the ToI:
Countries in the Middle East and around the world voice fear of a regional conflagration after the United States and Israel launch long-feared strikes on Iran.
Russia calls on its citizens to leave Iran, with former president Dmitry Medvedev saying that talks with the United States had just been a “cover.”
The European Union warns the situation in the region is “perilous” and calls for civilians to be protected in any conflict.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, on X, urges “all parties to exercise restraint,” stressing it is “critical” to “ensure nuclear safety” after the US indicated Iran’s nuclear sites were in its crosshairs.
The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas announces the withdrawal of the bloc’s non-essential personnel from the region.
The UK government fears the strikes could blow up into a broader Middle East conflict, and urges its citizens in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE to find shelter.
“We do not want to see further escalation into a wider regional conflict,” a government spokesperson says, adding that the UK’s “immediate priority” is the safety of its citizens in the region.
From the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the European Commission. Note the beginning which takes Iran to task:
The latest developments across the Middle East are perilous.
Iran’s regime has killed thousands. Its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes, along with support for terror groups, pose a serious threat to global security. The EU has adopted strong sanctions against Iran and…
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada and his foreign minister, Anita Anand, backed the American action. “Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security,” they said in a joint statement.
******
Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, said his government endorsed the U.S. attacks on Iran. “We support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security,” he said in a statement. He said Iran has been a “destabilizing force” for decades, and pointed to the two terrorist attacks in 2024 in Australia that the Australian government had said had been directed by an arm of the Iranian military. In one attack, men set fire to a Jewish kosher restaurant, and in another arsonists firebombed a synagogue, injuring one congregant. Australia expelled the Iranian ambassador afterward. (Reporting from Washington)
The reaction of the West is surprisingly mild, and even positive, probably because they, too, have put sanctions on Iran, and are not that unhappy about the prospect of regime change in Iran.
I have been ambivalent about this attack, worried that there would be substantial death to civilians should the U.S. put boots on the ground, which I saw as necessary if the U.S. really wanted regime change. Perhaps change can be effected without a ground war, but it’s early days now, and we’ll see. I am not sure, either, whether Iranian civilians truly can, in the face of the Iranian military, take over their government. The Revolutionary Guard has substantial weapons; the Iranian people almost nothing.
I am less worried about Israel, which survived a previous Iranian attack without much damage; the Iron Dome and its successor defenses are good at taking down missiles. But they’re not 100% effective, and there could be substantial loss of life as well as destruction of historic sites.
The world has changed overnight, so stay tuned to the news. The outcome right now is completely unclear.
Well, the cease-fire agreements in Gaza are proceeding, as Trump has appointed some committees (all approved by the UN) to run the territory. But again we have a dog’s breakfast, as there are multiple committees with two big problems: there are at least five committees with somewhat overlapping functions and members, and, second, there is no roadmap for the major task of getting rid of Hamas.
Here’s the composition as given by the NYT (bolding below is mine):
Mr. Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which he named himself the chairman of, is backed by a legal United Nations mandate and had previously been expected to be composed of world leaders who would supervise the Trump administration’s plan for an “International Stabilization Force” to occupy, demilitarize and govern Gaza during a yearslong reconstruction effort.
But the list of officials on the executive board announced on Monday included three members of the Trump administration — Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff and Robert Gabriel — as well as Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law; Ajay Banga, the head of the World Bank; the billionaire Trump ally Marc Rowan; and former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. Of the seven, only Mr. Blair is not American, and he was previously the Middle East envoy for the Quartet, a diplomatic group made up of the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, and considered a candidate to lead a transitional government in Gaza.
A second executive board, similarly named the “Gaza executive board,” includes a wider roster of foreign officials from Europe and the Middle East, and is implied to be in a supporting role. Some American officials sit on both executive boards, as well as Mr. Blair.
Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command Central, which operates in the Middle East, was also tapped to lead the “International Stabilization Force,” the peacekeeping force authorized by the United Nations to be deployed to Gaza as part of the peace plan. General Jeffers previously helped oversee a brokered cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon last year.
Note that what seems to be the most important committee is almost all American, and the peacekeeping force, which presumably will be tasked with disarming Hamas, is also headed by an American general. So who is going to disarm Hamas? Israel can’t, as that would violate the ceasefire agreement, and the U.S. certainly won’t send troops to Gaza. So how will Hamas disarm and disband: the first item on Trump’s agenda?
Trump apparently will solve it by threats:
It is not clear how the international force would ensure that Gaza is demilitarized. Hamas, which specializes in insurgent tactics and has not disbanded its battalions of armed fighters, has long regarded giving up all its weapons as tantamount to surrender, with armed struggle against Israel a crucial part of its ideology. On Thursday, Mr. Trump threatened Hamas with a renewed conflict if they did not disarm, writing on social media: “they can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”
The Times of Israel, as usual, has more information about the committees, and notes that the Board of Peace isn’t really the most important board, with the Gaza Executive Board really tasked with doing the heavy lifting. Bold headings are mine. And the ToI article implies that the NYT missed two committees:
The Board of Peace:
The Board of Peace is the umbrella body that was mandated by the UN Security Council to oversee the postwar management of Gaza until the end of 2027.
The Board of Peace is chaired by Trump, and will largely be made up of heads of state from around the world.
Formal invitations to become members of the Board of Peace were sent out on Friday, and by Saturday the leaders of Turkey, Egypt, Canada and Argentina confirmed having received the offer — an indication that they will likely accept
While this is the most prominent of all the panels established, the Board of Peace will play a generally symbolic role and be more relevant during the fundraising stage, a senior Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel.
The Gaza Executive Board:
The Gaza Executive Board is the operational arm of the Board of Peace and the body that will actually oversee the postwar management of Gaza.
Sitting on the Executive Board are Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, senior Qatari diplomat Ali Thawadi, Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad, UAE Minister of International Cooperation Reem Al-Hashimy, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, US special envoy Steve Witkoff, top Trump aide Jared Kushner, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan, Israeli-Cypriot businessman Yakir Gabay, former UN humanitarian coordinator Sigrid Kaag, and former UN envoy to the Mideast Nickolay Mladenov.
Israel has expressed opposition to the makeup of the Executive Board, apparently taking issue with the inclusion of representatives from Turkey and Qatar, who were heavily critical of its prosecution of the war in Gaza.
However, the inclusion of both countries demonstrates their perceived utility to Trump, who has touted his personal relationships with the leaders of Turkey and Qatar as well as their success in pressuring Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal in October.
The Founding Executive Board:
In addition to inexplicably sharing nearly the same name as the Gaza Executive Board, the Founding Executive Board also consists of many of the same members.
Joining Witkoff, Kushner, Blair and Rowan on this additional board are US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, World Bank president Ajay Banga and Trump’s former deputy national security adviser Robert Gabriel.
The White House said that each member of the Founding Executive Board “will oversee a defined portfolio critical to Gaza’s stabilization and long-term success, including, but not limited to, governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding, and capital mobilization.”
The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza:
. . . .The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza is the committee of Palestinian technocrats that will be tasked with running daily affairs on the ground and providing services for Gazans in place of Hamas.
While Egypt, in announcing the new panel, claimed it consists of 15 members, the actual figure is 12, and they are headed by former Palestinian Authority deputy planning minister Ali Shaath.
. . . . Each of the other panel members was given a portfolio covering the fields in which they are experts.
Abdul Karim Ashour, who heads an agricultural non-profit, will serve as agriculture commissioner.
Aed Yaghi, who currently heads the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, will serve as health commissioner.
Osama Sa’adawi, who previously headed the Palestinian Housing Council nonprofit, will serve as housing commissioner.
Adnan Abu Warda, a former PA Supreme Constitutional Court judge, will serve as justice commissioner.
Maj. Gen. Sami Nassman, who has served in the PA’s General Intelligence Service and is seen as a strong opponent of Hamas, will serve as internal security and police commissioner
And so on, including commissioners for water and municipal affairs, social affairs, communications, economy, and trade. You can see that their duties will overlap. Who resolves conflicts? A member of the Palestinian Authority, which of course is anti-Israel, and is an organization hated by Hamas. Finally, there is the crucial
International Stabilization Force:
The International Stabilization Force is tasked with providing security for the Strip, while gradually phasing out the IDF, which currently remains in control of 53% of the enclave.
While the US has said the ISF will support efforts to disarm Hamas, officials familiar with the matter said the multinational force won’t be expected to engage in kinetic activity to seize weapons from the terror group, which has pledged not to give them up.
Instead, they will support the disarmament process once an agreement is reached, with mediators optimistic that Hamas will agree to a gradual process that starts with the return of heavy weapons, Arab and US officials have said.
. . .The US had struggled to convince countries to contribute troops to the ISF board amid heavy skepticism that Hamas will disarm and that the IDF will withdraw further from Gaza. One of the two countries Washington had publicly touted, Azerbaijan, announced earlier this month that it would not be participating.
US officials briefing reporters last week insisted that they now have enough countries offering troops and that an announcement can be expected in about two weeks.
This is a mess. There are five committees whose jobs are overlapping, a heavy U.S. presence on the supervising Board of Peace, and what I see as the most important committee at the outset—the group tasked with demilitarizing Gaza by erasing Hamas—has no specified troops.
It’s not surprising that no country wants to take on Hamas, since they know the international opprobrium attached to that task. Since Hamas refuses to disarm, this guarantees that there will be extensive fighting in Gaza for a long time to come. Getting rid of Hamas is Job #1, and until that is done, none of the other committees can do their jobs.
Now the UN could run the whole show instead of the U.S., but that might be even worse given the UN’s hatred of Israel. I doubt that the UN has the stomach to disarm Hamas. They have UN troops that could try, but the UN troops in Lebanon, tasked with disarming Hezbollah, are completely ineffectual. UN troops would be useless against the determined fighters of Hamas.
My conclusion: this messy plan won’t work, and therefore the destruction in Gaza will continue for some time to come. And don’t forget that Hamas and the Gazans hate the Palestinian Authority, so there can be no solution that allows the PA to run the Gaza Strip. I feel for the Gazan civilians that must endure this mishigass for years to come. If readers have an alternative solution, do suggest it below.
To describe the odious, terroristic nature of Hamas, which all of you should know about by now (even though many young Americans are on their side), I proffer Rawan Osman, a Syrian-born but pro-Israeli activist who was brought up as an Israeli-hating Muslim:
Years ago I was a big fan of Doctors Without Borders (originally MSF for “Médecins Sans Frontières”, since the group’s origin is French). Supposedly apolitical, MSF, provides medical care to people in regions where it’s scarce—a mission I like. I gave them a fair amount of dosh, including all of the $12,000 or so I got for auctioning off a copy of WEIT signed by many notables and illuminated by Kelly Houle.
Then I began hearing rumors that MSF was anti-Israel, which disturbed me because it’s not supposed to favor one country over another. The rumors were not unfounded, and MSF’s dissing of Israel increased during the war with Hamas, when it not only bought into the “genocide” narrative spread by antisemites, but also promulgated false rumors about Hamas, Israel, and hospitals in Gaza. Eventually I took MSF out of my will, diverting those funds to other humanitarian organizations. Yes, MSF is still doing good work in other places, but it will no longer have my support.
I consider the “genocide” canard, the dumbest of all the Big Lies about Israel, as a manifestation of antisemitism. If you want to see why, read Maarten Boudry’s Substack article, “They don’t believe it either,” arguing that even those groups like MSF that accuse Israel of genocide are completely wrong: there’s no evidence that the aim of the IDF is to kill Gazan noncombatants or wipe out Palestinians. An excerpt:
Why then did this war have such a terrible toll on civilians, despite Israel’s efforts? There are two major reasons, both consistently ignored by all the genocide reports: Hamas’ cult of martyrdom, and the perverse incentives created by its unwitting enablers. Hamas is not just indifferent to civilian casualties; it actively solicits them as part of its military strategy. It has constructed hundreds of kilometers of tunnels for its fighters, while failing to build a single shelter for its own women and children. It deliberately fires rockets from hospitals, schools, UN buildings, mosques, and in the vicinity of humanitarian zones. Fully aware that it is no match for the Israeli army on the battlefield, it possesses one secret weapon to bring Israel to its knees: the moral conscience of the international community. If they sacrifice enough innocent women and children and then broadcast the harrowing images and casualty figures all across the international media, they can push Western nations to ostracize, delegitimize, and boycott Israel.
In fact, to any reasonable observer, it is undeniable that the Israeli army cares more about the lives of Palestinian civilians than Hamas. While Hamas invites civilian deaths as part of its strategy, Israel attempts to avoid them. Whereas the Israeli government urges Gazan civilians to evacuate combat zones, Hamas prevents them from escaping or from seeking shelter in their tunnel network. When Israel set up its own system of humanitarian aid, Hamas threatened anyone who dared to collaborate, killed multiple humanitarian workers, and punished Gazans who collected GHF food packages.
Note that those who promulgate the “genocide” myth, including MSF, never accuse Hamas of genocide, despite the fact that the terrorist organization is overtly genocidal, bent on destroying Israel by wiping out all Jews, not merely ones with guns. This Big Lie comes from willful ignorance, and, for MSF, makes their claim of ideological neutrality worthless. Yes, a few members of IDF may have aimed at civilians, but that is vanishingly rare. The majority of Gazan civilian deaths came from Hamas’s strategy of hiding behind civilians, including their tunnel system (built at huge expense with money diverted from Gaza) and embedding themselves within schools and hospitals. As Maarten notes, the death of Palestinian civilians is part of Hamas’s plan, and the more who are killed the more the world blames Israel.
Further, those who cry “Israeli genocide” never seem to mention the kidnapping of Israeli civilians on October 7, a war crime that was followed by shooting or even strangling some of the hostages. What does MSF say about this? Nothing. They have, as the video shows, “never issued a single condemnation of Hamas.” That is reprehensible but shows MSF’s own bigotry.
As far as buying into Hamas propaganda goes, MSF has, as the video shows, accused Israel of deliberately striking the Al-Ahli Hospital, despite subsequent investigation having convinced all rational observers (and yes, even the New York Times) that the “strike” was an explosion of a rocket misfired AT Israel by Palestinian Islamic Jihad—a rocket that landed in the hospital’s parking lot. There is in fact video showing the path of the misfired rocket, as well as photos of the damaged parking lot itself. As the Quillette article notes (and I’ve appended a tweet):
On 17 October, Abu-Sittah was working at al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City when a major explosion rocked the compound. MSF immediately quoted him in a press release: “We were operating in the hospital; there was a strong explosion, and the ceiling fell on the operating room. This is a massacre.” Abu-Sittah was one of six Palestinian doctors who held a grotesque press conference from the hospital parking lot surrounded by the bodies of those allegedly killed in the blast. His testimony was broadcast globally, and presented as the objective account of a medical professional who bore witness to a devastating Israeli air strike. With the added credibility bestowed by MSF’s endorsement, his words were used to support international condemnations of Israel for the alleged perpetration of systematic war crimes.
Shortly afterwards, Israel and the US produced evidence showing that the explosion occurred in the hospital parking lot and that it was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket, not an Israeli airstrike. The New York Times and a number of other major news platforms admitted that their initial coverage had relied on unverified claims and amended their reporting as new information became available. Even Human Rights Watch—hardly an impartial observer of Israeli combat operations—conceded that “the possibility of a large air-dropped bomb, such as those Israel has used extensively in Gaza, [is] highly unlikely.” MSF, on the other hand, refused to correct the record. More than two years later, it has still not retracted or corrected Abu-Sittah’s false testimony.
English translation of doctors from the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza hold a press conference among the bodies of those slaughtered by Israel in an airstrike. pic.twitter.com/GJB17tQoA2
Did MSF retract its accusations? Of course not, even though Human Rights Watch—itself anti-Israel—did.
As the video above shows, MSF has distanced itself from some of the more extremist people it once endorsed, but it has not publicly retracted or even modified its claims. That too is reprehensible.
I found a 2016 article in the Forward, an Israeli newspaper, that is telling. Already stung then by accusations of antisemitism, the executive director of MSF USA denied “institutional antisemitism.”. The bolding is mine:
We are perceived by some as taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when communicating about the West Bank and Gaza, where MSF has been operating medical programs for more than 20 years.
. . .MSF does not work in Israel — not because of any bias, but because Israel can cover its medical needs. While MSF has offered medical support at various times, including during the 2006 Lebanon war, these offers were respectfully declined, given Israel’s strong emergency medical capabilities. We are therefore not in a position to make medically based observations regarding Israeli suffering. To be clear, Palestinians are by no means the sole victims in this conflict. Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, other factions and so-called lone-wolf attackers are in no uncertain terms responsible for crimes and violations of the laws of war, such as indiscriminate attacks.
Palestinian leaders bear direct responsibility for their actions, including firing into civilian areas rockets that have killed and wounded Israelis and perpetuated fear and psychological trauma among so many.
While not witnessed directly by MSF teams, allegations of Hamas and other fighters placing weapons or command centers near or inside health facilities and other civilian structures would amount to grave violations of the Geneva Conventions. Such tactics directly endanger noncombatants, including medical personnel and patients, and are explicitly forbidden under international law. Responsibility for other obstacles to health care must also be forthrightly assigned.
How that tune has changed! The same “crimes” of Hamas given in bold somehow were neglected by MSF after October 7, 2023. Hamas is apparently seen as the innocent victim of Israeli genocidal aims. In an undated statement after the current war began, MSF tries to exculpate itself again. An excerpt (bolding is theirs):
Why are your statements so critical of Israel? Why are you not talking about Hamas?
As humanitarians, we grieve for all civilian lives lost [JAC: except for Israeli ones], and the vast majority of the victims of this conflict are civilians, including many elderly people, women, and children. Violence against civilians is never justified, and all civilians deserve protection. [JAC: what about the Israeli hostages?]
Our statements and reporting are rooted in the experiences of our patients and staff on the ground, and the actions we directly witness in the areas where we work. In Gaza, Israeli armed forces’ activities are central to the challenges civilians face, particularly in terms of access to medical care and the safety of health workers and facilities. We report on these realities because they directly impact our ability to provide care.
That is about as weaselly as it comes. By placing tunnels and combatants in and under hospitals, Hamas itself is impeding “access to medical care and the safety of health workers and facilities.” That’s not to mention their theft of food and supplies intended for Gazan civilians.
As Hamas refuses to lay down its arms, and MSF refuses to condemn their terrorism, I am closing my wallet to MSF and directing considerable resources to alternative groups like Helen Keller International, the Malaria Consortium, and Peter Singer’s organization the Maximize Your Impact Fund.
I haven’t told MSF how much money they’re going to lose because of their ideological position. They wouldn’t care anyway. I believe I told them, after they kept begging me for more after our initial donation, that they could expect no more donations from me. As for others reading this site, where you donate is of course up to you, but be sure to check out whether recipients are politically and ideologically neutral.
Commentary is a Jewish magazine, and a conservative one, and if you want to dismiss this article because of that, go ahead, but you’d be obtuse to do so. The article below, which is short, puts paid to the libels that Israel not only committed genocide in Gaza (to me, making such a claim is a touchstone of antisemitism) but also deliberately starved the Gazan population. (I’ll will say, though, that Israel’s brief 11-day withholding of food from Gaza was a mistake.)
But these false accusations, combined with the “progressives'” ignoring of real genocide in Sudan. give us a real idea about the motivations of many during this conflict. I’m not a big exponent of “whataboutery”, but the deaths in Sudan have now mounted to over 150,000, and there are ample atrocities, including the recent attack on a maternity hospital by antigovernment forces in which nearly 500 of patients were killed willy-nilly. Could a reason for “progressives'” ignoring this war be because most of the perpetrators (and victims) are Muslim, with no Jews being involved?”
At any rate, Commentary writer and editor Seth Mandel, whom I’ve found to be a reliable reporter, calls out the antisemites in a new article in Commentary. Click the headline below to read for free.
Mandel makes several points (my summary):
1.) The UN doesn’t want to war to end. That’s because the organization, which is pro-Palestine and also supports an organization, UNRWA, that’s rife with Hamas terrorists, can now be called to account because the cease-fire allows investigations of death tolls and UNRWA involvement that could be ignored when all the news came from Hamas.
2.) There was no Israeli genocide; that much is clear to anybody with neurons. Of course it may be true that were a few deaths of Gazan civilians who were killed by the IDF deliberately rather than being “byproduct” casualties of IDF soldiers attacking Hamas. But I’d like to ask the “pro-genocide progressives” this: if Israel intended to wipe out all Gazans, why did it send IDF soldiers into the territory, risking their lives, rather than simply bombing Gaza flat? After all, more than 1,100 IDF soldiers have died in that effort: far more than the number of hostagers rescued.
3.) There is no credible evidence of a famine, a near-famine, or Israeli-caused mass starvation in Gaza. While throughout the conflict, which may be at an end, we heard repeatedly that Gaza was in the grips of mass starvation, the deaths by starvation were very, very few, and most of them involved people with pre-existing conditions.
Now for some excerpts by Mandel:
No one’s having more trouble accepting the possibility of peace than the United Nations.
While Gazans are finishing school, opening cafes, and posting photos of their full chicken dinners, one UN agency is still banging the drum of “acute malnutrition”—this as the crossings are open and the aid is flowing. UN relief coordinator Tom Fletcher, the source of the “14,000 dead babies in 48 hours” lie—one of the more dangerous and consequential hoaxes of the war—is meeting with the Irish government, which has itself achieved a previously unimagined level of irrelevance. And the International Court of Justice, the UN’s pretend world court, is issuing new demands of Israel to give Hamas-adjacent UN activists more access in Gaza.
All of it is meaningless, of course, having long been overtaken by events. Palestinian social media is currently the UN’s worst nightmare: Gazans with big smiles and full bellies. As John Lennon and Yoko Ono famously said, war is over if you want it. It’s just that the UN doesn’t want it.
Thankfully, nobody cares what the UN wants. But it’s worth examining why the UN is so angry that the war has ceased and Palestinian lives are improving.
One reason is that the war’s end makes it possible to start compiling definitive statistics. And those statistics make it crystal clear that UN-affiliated agencies and their partner NGOs have conducted large-scale fraud, the blast radius of which has incinerated the credibility of much of Western academic and “humanitarian” institutions.
Even since famine was officially declared by IPC on Aug 22, 2025 (Gaza was still labeled “catastrophic” and “famine imminent” since the start of the war) we should have seen 9,500 deaths. “Intentional starvation” claims underpin the ICC & ICJ cases. It was always fake. END pic.twitter.com/hem4kVuRNg
This tweet is based on a JNS article, but on the UN’s own data (see article here):
As I wrote back in August, enough food aid entered Gaza to feed the entire Palestinian population for 1,312 days, based on the World Food Programme’s metrics.
Now, UNICEF’s own data further proves that the “famine” allegations are nonsense pic.twitter.com/sF1eTNYhCV
Of course I am not cold-hearted about these deaths: after all, each one is a child loved by its parents, and each death is heartbreaking. My point is simply to show that the claims of “mass starvation caused by Israel” were always exaggerated–to the point of almost being totally false. And unless you want Gazans to die to support your narrative, this is heartening. From Mandel:
Let’s start with food. Salo Aizenberg—who probably deserves some sort of medal for his painstaking work compiling the true statistical toll of the war—pointed out this week that the UN-backed IPC declared a Gaza famine in August, and that we can now check the numbers against the prediction and verify exactly what the IPC got wrong.
Between the famine declaration and the cease-fire, there should have been 10,143 famine deaths in Gaza. Using Hamas’s own numbers of such deaths—which are obviously not undercounted—the total famine deaths in that period was 192.
That means the IPC predicted about 10,000 famine deaths and was short by about 10,000. The IPC is now at Candace Owens’s level of credibility and statistical reliability.
There was no famine. That’s not an opinion, it’s an indisputable fact. Also indisputable is that there was no near-famine. It wasn’t a close call.
That, by the way, is good news. Although the anti-Israel activist world was hoping for mass starvation, those of us who aren’t monsters are very happy that there was no famine in Gaza. Pay attention to those who dispute this and those who show their disappointment.
Now that the dust is settling, we can see that the ratio of civilian deaths to combatants was about 1.5 to 1: a remarkably low value for urban warfare in which Hamas used human shields. It is in fact the lowest value known among similar situations, and a testimony to the IDF’s policy of trying to eliminate combatants but not civilians:
Then there is the main event: the accusation of “genocide.” While this has been debunked again and again and again throughout the war—to the extent that anyone accusing Israel of genocide has disqualified themselves from legitimate debate over matters of war and peace—now that there is a cease-fire, we can work with steady numbers.
Aizenberg noted in September that using Hamas’s own statistics, and subtracting natural deaths and fatalities caused by munitions fired by Gazan combatants, one gets a total of about 33,000 civilian casualties. The widely accepted number of combatant casualties is at about 25,000.
Every one of those 33,000 civilian casualties is a tragedy and a testament to the effectiveness and ruthlessness of Hamas’s human-shield strategy. That number also means that there are fewer than 1.5 civilian deaths for each combatant war death, an almost unheard-of level of care for civilians by the Israeli army.
Again, these are the numbers. A genocide didn’t happen—that we knew a long time ago. But it is now clear that there is no plausible case that Israel used excessive force against civilians or targeted noncombatants. The opposite is true: In pursuing Hamas, Israeli soldiers sacrificed their own lives to protect civilians. This is not an interpretation of some contextless video floating around social media; this is established fact.
The United Nations and other “humanitarian” and “human rights” groups needed this war to go on in perpetuity so they could forestall a public reckoning they richly deserve. Peace is bad for their business.
Below is Mandel’s conclusion. I have to say that I’ve lived 75 years and have come across antisemitism only once—in a personal incident in high school. Otherwise I was oblivious to it. But the war in Gaza, with its widely-believed lies and libels, has certainly alerted me to the reason “progressives” pay so much attention to the world’s only Jewish country:
Finally, the “genocide” and “deliberate starvation” accusations can now take their place alongside history’s other assorted grotesque expressions of anti-Judaism. Just as Jews should feel no obligation to refute the accusation that they are “the sons of apes and pigs,” they should similarly avoid the debasement of being forced to answer for the fabricated claims of “genocide,” the intention of which is merely to incite violence against Jews and to diminish the crimes of the Holocaust.
The good news is that (fingers crossed) most of the killing has stopped, and also that we can have peace on campus now that the Hamasniks have lost. But don’t be deceived into thinking that antisemitism is dead. Those who banged drums and chanted “From the River to the sea” have lost most of what they were protesting, but of course the animus against Israel and Jews remains.
Yesterday I spent a while looking on Twitter for various Democrats in Congress celebrating the return of the hostages to Israel, or even the return of Palestinian prisoners to Gaza. I looked at all the members of the Squad, but (with one exception) no dice, Of course you wouldn’t expect to see Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib celebrating, because if you celebrate the return of Palestinians to Gaza, you’d have to celebrate the return of the hostages to Israel. But AOC? She wants to be a Senator, or even President, but. . . crickets, and she has two “X” accounts.
Surely Chuck Schumer would have a word for the hostages, right? After all, he’s Jewish. But no—bupkes.
All the Democrats seem to be busy on Twitter blaming the shutdown on Trump. And that’s fine, but couldn’t they celebrate the happiness of having hostages held for two years by Hamas coming home? My theory, which is mine, is that doing that would be giving implicit credit to Trump, and that just won’t do in today’s political climate.
Readers may help by doing their own searches, and if you find a Democrat in the House or Senate celebrating the hostage return, put their names and a link below (I haven’t checked Fetterman, but I’m sure he said something).
Actually, Ayanna Presley, a member of The Squad, did say something, though she also celebrated the return of the 2000 Palestinian prisoners, some of which are murderers and terrorists. But then again, she’d more or less have to:
As a parent and woman of faith, I am deeply relieved that surviving Israeli hostages and detained Palestinians are finally being reunited with their families. And my heart remains shattered for those whose loved ones didn’t make it home today.
Now this was just a short search, and I’m SURE some Democrats are celebrating the hostage return, but given the decreasing approbation for Israel in the U.S., and the fact that one could impute the latest cease-fire agreement partly to Trump, I didn’t see what I expected. Any person of good will should have at least a modicum of joy for what happened the other day. Let me know who you expected to be happy about this but didn’t say squat.
I didn’t look at Republican tweets; I just assumed that they’d say more about the hostage return than the Democrats. After all, they’re in the same party as Trump.
The lead story on last night’s NBC News was about the cease-fire in Gaza, and it showed Israelis celebrating the return of the hostages, and Gazan civilians celebrating the cessation of war. Even my Jewish friends in America are celebrating, though they’re properly wary of “stage 2” of the deal: will Hamas gives up its arms and aspirations to control Gaza?
But one group is not celebrating: the pro-Palestinian (and pro-Hamas) activists in the West. Why aren’t they celebrating? This is the question Brendan O’Neill asks in the Spectator article below. If you won’t read the Spectator or Brendan O’Neill because they’re conservative, well, skip this, but I don’t have a lot of respect for people who would refuse to read a piece like this because of its author or place of publication.
The title is self-explanatory, and you can click on it to read it (or find it archived here). It’s not only well written, but, more important true:
Excerpts (I don’t have a lot to add):
Normal people are cheering the prospect of peace in Gaza. Some might even raise a glass to Donald Trump for his valiant efforts to end this horrible war Hamas started. But there are others who will be feeling forlorn. The anti-Israel mob, to be specific. Won’t you spare a thought for this tragic community that built its entire personality around hating Israel – what are they going to do now?
There is an eerie silence in anti-Israel circles this morning. The people who spent the past two years hollering ‘Ceasefire now!’ seem strangely downbeat about the prospect of a ceasefire. No doubt that’s partly because they would rather eat hot coal than credit Trump with a geopolitical win. But it’s also because they feel the rug of relevance being pulled from under their feet. The brutal truth: peace will rob them of purpose.
It’s been clear for some time now that the fashionable animus for Israel is more than a political position – it’s a religious crusade. These people see Israel not only as a nation fighting a war they don’t like, but as a demonic entity, uniquely barbarous, the poison in the well of humanity. Israel has become a Satan substitute for a godless activist class, the devil against which they measure their own decency. If this war ends, so might their false religion.
They wear the holy garments of Israelophobia so that others will know the depth of their devotion to the cause: the keffiyeh around the necks, the Palestine flag draped like a pashmina over their shoulders. They repeat Israelophobia’s mantras, with little thought but great bombast. Witness how ‘From the river to the sea’ usurped ‘Trans women are women’ as the mating call of woke’s true believers.
. . . .Perhaps the most dangerous thing for the genuflectors to Israelophobia is that Trump’s peace deal shatters the founding lie of their fake faith – namely that Israel is hell-bent on genociding the Palestinian people. In truth, Israel has signed up for a deal that envisions a ceasefire soon and which expressly says that not one Palestinian will be forcibly expelled from Gaza. And so their church crumbles under the weight of its own calumnies.
If the deal works, if Trump and Israel bring peace and banish the anti-Semites of Hamas from public life in Gaza, what will these people do? How will they get their moral kicks? By what means will they advertise to the world their implacable virtue? What will occupy their every waking thought and inform their every political utterance if not that dastardly Jewish State and its ‘genocide’?
Well, there’s always Trump. Yes, he seems to have done a good thing this time—something that “progressive” leftists would rather die than admit—but he continues his crazy antics elsewhere. Still, Trump doesn’t seem to satisfy people’s needs to signal virtue like the Gaza war has done.
And just when I was about to ask “And what will Greta do?”, O’Neill beat me to the punch:
And poor Greta! She’ll have to go back to talking about climate change, won’t she? Having failed to ‘Save Gaza’, she’ll have to content herself with that oh-so-Nineties mission of saving the planet. Boring! One thinks, too, of the YouTubers who have monetised their hatred for Israel, spending every hour of every day slamming the Jewish State for clicks and bucks. Blessed be the peacemakers, sure, but won’t someone think of the videomakers?
I like what O’Neill said, but remember that the war is far from over: we still have to go to phases 2 and 3: setting up a Gazan government and having Hamas surrender, giving up its weapons and, ideally, migrating to Qatar or some other state. And until that’s done, the protests will continue and the Israel haters will march on. As O’Neill says:
Of course, there’s another possibility – that they will double down. That they will carry on traipsing against Israel, zombie-style, even when peace descends. Indeed, Your Party, the Zarah Sultana/ Jeremy Corbyn freakshow, is advertising a march in London this weekend. ‘We march on’, the flyer says, ‘until apartheid falls’. For two years, they screamed ‘Ceasefire now!’ – so why are they still marching? I’m tempted to go and laugh from the sidelines. Who’s with me?
Not me! For peace hasn’t descended yet.
They will continue marching until there are two states: Israel and Palestine, or one state: Palestine engulfing Israel. Either is a long way off. The main point that should dampen O’Neill’s glee is that although the protestors did cry “Ceasefire now!” what they really meant was “Eliminate Israel and get rid of all the Jews.” And that ain’t gonna happen. So the marches will continue.
