Herzog’s visit to Australia was more successful than it appeared. Yet it revealed something: the strength of the movement to destroy Israel lies in its belief that it can succeed
I’m surprised that you see this activism as grassroots. Clearly, the ground was prepared for this movement by years of Qatari and left wing ideology in academia and media.
They had the slogans, posters and plans in place by October 8, one day after the massacre started — while Israel was still driving terrorists out of the country. That’s not grassroots. That’s an organised, well-funded campaign.
With all due respect, having been a student on multiple university campuses over the 12 years, I can say that most of this really is grassroots. Sure, the leaders of these movements might be getting help from abroad, but the vast majority of participants are young people who aren’t very informed about the conflict, who have seen images of dead babies online, heard some quotes from Ben Gvir, and want to “get involved.” That means joining the protest movements.
What many Australians don’t know how to articulate right now is the understanding that a very dangerous transnational movement is flourishing in their tolerant country right now. This movement was the true motive of Hamas all along, to instigate a war designed to advance the global alliance of leftists and Islamists, to recreate the movement that tore down Iran 47 years ago. Today what the open west has on its hands is full-blown Neo-Jihadism.
Israel needs to be world leaders against the Neo-Jihadist movement exploding across the western left.
Thank you Nadav, and שבת שלום! This is very concerning! Hearing that things are not as bad as they seem provides little comfort after looking at statistics and events such as hearing yesterday about a 6 people in NYC masked and laying in wait by the subway steps to beat up a Yeshiva University student sending him to the hospital! A mayor who prioritized eliminating the world's accepted definition of antisemitism and rules prohibiting demonstrations in front of synogogue entrances, and now figures out one of his affordable rent programs has a price tag of a $billion dollars so it is now a "can't do!" So the bullshit that elected this baby to his first real job is coming to light! At the same time Columbia University is delivering on its quid-pro-quo to Qatar, recruiting for the chair of Arab Studies and has it narrowed down to a handful of Israel and Jew hating finalists! I go on about the court in England not caring that members of an organization that beat a Jewish person with a hammer, but prioritized that organization's free speech rights to spew hate against Israel and Jews! Argh!! And WTF!
Apologies for the above, but it is way past time for a strategy and funds to execute that strategy because it feels like the pot is boiling over! People's claims that things are not as bad as they seem are not going to make that student feel better after being beaten up by 6 blindfolded cowards! Admittedly, I now live in Miami and things are still fine here, but we all should care about the collective עם ישראל!
The Albanese government is reaping what it has sown since October 7. In politicizing Hamas’ attack to attract Muslim voters, it chose to abandon the small Jewish community. The first symptom was the appalling police failure at the Sydney Opera House where a mob baying “gas the Jews” was given a free pass because this was reinterpreted ungrammatically as “where’s the Jews” - as if that were somehow better.
During the conflict, Albanese and Wong essentially signed on to the Hamas propaganda campaign with no pushback. If your own government pushes falsehoods about genocide, intentional starvation while turning the Israeli hostages into a footnote - all culminating with recognizing a “state” of Palestine, what is the average Ozzie supposed to think.
And this government will never change, it can’t afford to alienate its new Muslim and far Left supporters for both political and public safety concerns. That’s why the Royal commission will not focus on antisemitism but its remit will include “social cohesion” to dilute the issue and help insulate Albanese from damage.
What could his government do? It could have allowed President Herzog to address the Australian Parliament. It could have seen to it that he could have visited the Melbourne synagogue destroyed by arsonists. It could announce that, upon examination of the evidence, there has been no genocide or intentionally starvation in Gaza, that civilian deaths, while unfortunate, were the result of Hamas’ deliberate strategy.
It could announce its revocation of Palestinian statehood based on the reading of the proposed Palestinian Constitution which is anything but democratic in its content, constitutionalizes “pay for slay” and confirms that Palestinians are indistinguishable as a people from their Arab neighbors.
The Albanese government will, of course, do nothing of the sort. It will do the minimum possible and, should a backlash occur among the citizens themselves, it will instead of self-examination into the causes, jump to denounce Islamophobia and engage in precisely those kinds of robust actions that it refuse to deploy when Jews were the target.
Australia (my country) has proved to be the softest of soft targets for influence operations & cognitive warfare & now as a terror platform for the global intifada. The way the red-green alliance shows itself in public so brazenly is troubling. That the centre-left runs cover for it is more troubling. The number of people who have been magnetized to the 'hate movement' is most troubling of all. The useful idiocy of the liberal media + social media influence seems to be the big enabling force here. The Prime Minister has shamefully ridden the dragon, in order not to cross his base. The number of people I know who repeat the blood libels as fact is very scary. They sincerely believe that Bibi is the equivalent to Putin. These same people are beginning to think & even starting to say out loud that it would be better if Israel wasn't there. It broke my heart to hear these words coming out of the mouth of my Jewish friend.
That is heartbreaking, especially when Jews feel that way. I've had to deal with a friend recently (not Jewish) just casually mentioning old blood libels as if they were facts of history and Jewish tropes without seeming to even realize how awful they were or why I was upset. I tried to explain, but he just got defensive and said everyone was entitled to their own views and he wouldn't tell me I couldn't believe what I wanted, as if that makes him tolerant. I don't know what to say to people anymore.
Yes, I also don't know what to say. Either you say something & burn a friendship, or stay silent & betray the truth. I just end up avoiding people. It's sad. The information war has been so effective.
I say this a lot, but hasbarah is wrong. This needs an AI based social media strategy - most of the antisemitism now comes from.online social media manipulation, an area where we've stupidly ceded the battlefield without a fight. We should invest in using bots to control the narrative on the places like Twitter and reddit that are upstream of our image problems. We have actual AI talent to invest in it, it is a solvable problem.
As often the case, you are right to the point Nadav. But for Israel to even begin to address this issue it will take a ‘nes’ - a miracle this Fall- for the Israeli government to change over and move to a more balanced understanding of how to inform the West about the reasons for their policies, their history, and their psychological traumas - their own story. There are the majority here in Nortg America who will listen (despite the growing fringe left and right)- if they only told it. But in this case their silence is an enemy in itself.
No amount of public relations or education will change this, at least among Generation Z, whose opinions are already formed. Israel is going to have to learn to live with vastly diminished public support in the U.S. and Europe (and Australia). Israel will have to find new allies perhaps outside the West. There is no remedy for this. By the way, I teach at a working class college and this is not an issue for the most part among working class kids. An Israeli flag hangs in my office and no one has ever remarked on it.
It is amazing the difference bw the working class and the Progressive class—my family and childhood friends are in the former, my college friends and work colleagues in the latter.
Progressives support Hamas (or at least the vague slogan of Free Palestine!) and consider Israel an evil colonial pariah state, whereas the working class (vaguely, mostly) considers Israel right to fight and defeat their genocidal theocratic neighbors and see no problem with the existence of a Jewish state.
Also, just about every Progressive I know has or knows an NB or Trans child, whereas I've never heard my working class friends mention this, and their kids all seem emotionally stable and level-headed with nary a sign of "gender dysphoria".
Progressivism seems to be a luxury good and status marker, not to mention a post-Christian secular faith. I exist with one foot in both tribes and it requires a lot of agile footwork! ;)
Excellent piece. It’s rare to find pro-Israel content that doesn’t just blame the pro-Palestine movement problem on antisemitism. Yes, there’s a huge amount of antisemitism driving this, but Israeli policy, especially during the war, has also played a huge role. Especially in radicalizing young people, especially the uninformed. Real, far-right trends in Israeli policy (including disgraceful tolerance of violent hill top youth), make a bad situation far worse. I’m under no illusion that these sentiments would go away if Israel behaved “perfectly” - far from it. But I’ve personally witnessed uninformed young people (who are definitely not Arab leftist nationalists or right wing Nick Fuentes types) become horrified by images of the Gaza war seen on social media and strongly anti-Israel as a result. Once they’ve crossed that threshold, these young people are ripe for manipulation by movement leaders who are actual committed antisemites. It’s a serious problem that requires a nuanced discussion in the Jewish community
Great article. The Jewish community, both inside and outside of Israel, should be strategizing how to confront and dismantle the false narrative being pushed by the far left/right and Islamist mouth pieces. It is crucial that Israel gets on board sooner rather than later.
That's not so unprecedented. What motivated the Nazis was the belief they can actually conquer, destroy the independence of and erase as countries, ancient European states like Britain, France, etc. They really believed they could create a thousand year reich.
People have all sorts of insane beliefs. The same people really believe they can destroy the White race, or European culture, and are working just as much for that as for the destruction of Israel.
We live in an Age of Resentment - in which unable to create, many turn instead to the destruction of anything positive, healthy, successful, flourishing.
But that's historically inevitable too. Anyone who distinguishes himself will call down upon his head the wrath of those who do not. The world operates on one giant Law of Jante - no one can be allowed to stand tall. They will try and drag you down if you do anything good - we are like the crabs in the bucket lol.
Israel was bound to attract savage hatred to the extent that it flourished, was positive, healthy, and good, in an age when many are sick. As was Europe. Instead of learning from Israel, European culture, they want to tear it down. It's a story as old as time.
Australia is my country and the current situation is heartbreaking, but I honestly believe that while the activists are loud and ill informed, they are not the majority. If our government had taken a stand at the Opera House protest and continued from there this “festival of hate” could have been contained. Unfortunately, we have a Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, reliving their glory days of rebellion while university students. They believed they could manage Antisemitism like any other domestic inconvenience. However, after two plus years of appeasement Bondi happened and the Australian people demanded a Royal Commission, despite the Prime Minister trying to avoid one. Fair minded Australians want to see our Jewish community safe, secure and confident that they can once again walk the streets of our cities without fear. I would also like to see our relationship with Israel, a long term ally, restored.
Jewish Australians have contributed and enhanced many areas of our society. If they no longer feel they have a future here and decide to leave it will be our loss because we will know that Australia is no longer the country we know and love.
I’m surprised that you see this activism as grassroots. Clearly, the ground was prepared for this movement by years of Qatari and left wing ideology in academia and media.
They had the slogans, posters and plans in place by October 8, one day after the massacre started — while Israel was still driving terrorists out of the country. That’s not grassroots. That’s an organised, well-funded campaign.
With all due respect, having been a student on multiple university campuses over the 12 years, I can say that most of this really is grassroots. Sure, the leaders of these movements might be getting help from abroad, but the vast majority of participants are young people who aren’t very informed about the conflict, who have seen images of dead babies online, heard some quotes from Ben Gvir, and want to “get involved.” That means joining the protest movements.
What many Australians don’t know how to articulate right now is the understanding that a very dangerous transnational movement is flourishing in their tolerant country right now. This movement was the true motive of Hamas all along, to instigate a war designed to advance the global alliance of leftists and Islamists, to recreate the movement that tore down Iran 47 years ago. Today what the open west has on its hands is full-blown Neo-Jihadism.
Israel needs to be world leaders against the Neo-Jihadist movement exploding across the western left.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thegoldenpill/p/the-common-bonds-of-leftists-and?r=31tulb&utm_medium=ios
Thank you Nadav, and שבת שלום! This is very concerning! Hearing that things are not as bad as they seem provides little comfort after looking at statistics and events such as hearing yesterday about a 6 people in NYC masked and laying in wait by the subway steps to beat up a Yeshiva University student sending him to the hospital! A mayor who prioritized eliminating the world's accepted definition of antisemitism and rules prohibiting demonstrations in front of synogogue entrances, and now figures out one of his affordable rent programs has a price tag of a $billion dollars so it is now a "can't do!" So the bullshit that elected this baby to his first real job is coming to light! At the same time Columbia University is delivering on its quid-pro-quo to Qatar, recruiting for the chair of Arab Studies and has it narrowed down to a handful of Israel and Jew hating finalists! I go on about the court in England not caring that members of an organization that beat a Jewish person with a hammer, but prioritized that organization's free speech rights to spew hate against Israel and Jews! Argh!! And WTF!
Apologies for the above, but it is way past time for a strategy and funds to execute that strategy because it feels like the pot is boiling over! People's claims that things are not as bad as they seem are not going to make that student feel better after being beaten up by 6 blindfolded cowards! Admittedly, I now live in Miami and things are still fine here, but we all should care about the collective עם ישראל!
The Albanese government is reaping what it has sown since October 7. In politicizing Hamas’ attack to attract Muslim voters, it chose to abandon the small Jewish community. The first symptom was the appalling police failure at the Sydney Opera House where a mob baying “gas the Jews” was given a free pass because this was reinterpreted ungrammatically as “where’s the Jews” - as if that were somehow better.
During the conflict, Albanese and Wong essentially signed on to the Hamas propaganda campaign with no pushback. If your own government pushes falsehoods about genocide, intentional starvation while turning the Israeli hostages into a footnote - all culminating with recognizing a “state” of Palestine, what is the average Ozzie supposed to think.
And this government will never change, it can’t afford to alienate its new Muslim and far Left supporters for both political and public safety concerns. That’s why the Royal commission will not focus on antisemitism but its remit will include “social cohesion” to dilute the issue and help insulate Albanese from damage.
What could his government do? It could have allowed President Herzog to address the Australian Parliament. It could have seen to it that he could have visited the Melbourne synagogue destroyed by arsonists. It could announce that, upon examination of the evidence, there has been no genocide or intentionally starvation in Gaza, that civilian deaths, while unfortunate, were the result of Hamas’ deliberate strategy.
It could announce its revocation of Palestinian statehood based on the reading of the proposed Palestinian Constitution which is anything but democratic in its content, constitutionalizes “pay for slay” and confirms that Palestinians are indistinguishable as a people from their Arab neighbors.
The Albanese government will, of course, do nothing of the sort. It will do the minimum possible and, should a backlash occur among the citizens themselves, it will instead of self-examination into the causes, jump to denounce Islamophobia and engage in precisely those kinds of robust actions that it refuse to deploy when Jews were the target.
Australia (my country) has proved to be the softest of soft targets for influence operations & cognitive warfare & now as a terror platform for the global intifada. The way the red-green alliance shows itself in public so brazenly is troubling. That the centre-left runs cover for it is more troubling. The number of people who have been magnetized to the 'hate movement' is most troubling of all. The useful idiocy of the liberal media + social media influence seems to be the big enabling force here. The Prime Minister has shamefully ridden the dragon, in order not to cross his base. The number of people I know who repeat the blood libels as fact is very scary. They sincerely believe that Bibi is the equivalent to Putin. These same people are beginning to think & even starting to say out loud that it would be better if Israel wasn't there. It broke my heart to hear these words coming out of the mouth of my Jewish friend.
That is heartbreaking, especially when Jews feel that way. I've had to deal with a friend recently (not Jewish) just casually mentioning old blood libels as if they were facts of history and Jewish tropes without seeming to even realize how awful they were or why I was upset. I tried to explain, but he just got defensive and said everyone was entitled to their own views and he wouldn't tell me I couldn't believe what I wanted, as if that makes him tolerant. I don't know what to say to people anymore.
Yes, I also don't know what to say. Either you say something & burn a friendship, or stay silent & betray the truth. I just end up avoiding people. It's sad. The information war has been so effective.
I say this a lot, but hasbarah is wrong. This needs an AI based social media strategy - most of the antisemitism now comes from.online social media manipulation, an area where we've stupidly ceded the battlefield without a fight. We should invest in using bots to control the narrative on the places like Twitter and reddit that are upstream of our image problems. We have actual AI talent to invest in it, it is a solvable problem.
As often the case, you are right to the point Nadav. But for Israel to even begin to address this issue it will take a ‘nes’ - a miracle this Fall- for the Israeli government to change over and move to a more balanced understanding of how to inform the West about the reasons for their policies, their history, and their psychological traumas - their own story. There are the majority here in Nortg America who will listen (despite the growing fringe left and right)- if they only told it. But in this case their silence is an enemy in itself.
No amount of public relations or education will change this, at least among Generation Z, whose opinions are already formed. Israel is going to have to learn to live with vastly diminished public support in the U.S. and Europe (and Australia). Israel will have to find new allies perhaps outside the West. There is no remedy for this. By the way, I teach at a working class college and this is not an issue for the most part among working class kids. An Israeli flag hangs in my office and no one has ever remarked on it.
It is amazing the difference bw the working class and the Progressive class—my family and childhood friends are in the former, my college friends and work colleagues in the latter.
Progressives support Hamas (or at least the vague slogan of Free Palestine!) and consider Israel an evil colonial pariah state, whereas the working class (vaguely, mostly) considers Israel right to fight and defeat their genocidal theocratic neighbors and see no problem with the existence of a Jewish state.
Also, just about every Progressive I know has or knows an NB or Trans child, whereas I've never heard my working class friends mention this, and their kids all seem emotionally stable and level-headed with nary a sign of "gender dysphoria".
Progressivism seems to be a luxury good and status marker, not to mention a post-Christian secular faith. I exist with one foot in both tribes and it requires a lot of agile footwork! ;)
What do you mean by compromise? How can you compromise with a movement that wants you destroyed?
I think Mr. Ayal means compromise between conflicting Israeli policies.?? Take care.
Excellent piece. It’s rare to find pro-Israel content that doesn’t just blame the pro-Palestine movement problem on antisemitism. Yes, there’s a huge amount of antisemitism driving this, but Israeli policy, especially during the war, has also played a huge role. Especially in radicalizing young people, especially the uninformed. Real, far-right trends in Israeli policy (including disgraceful tolerance of violent hill top youth), make a bad situation far worse. I’m under no illusion that these sentiments would go away if Israel behaved “perfectly” - far from it. But I’ve personally witnessed uninformed young people (who are definitely not Arab leftist nationalists or right wing Nick Fuentes types) become horrified by images of the Gaza war seen on social media and strongly anti-Israel as a result. Once they’ve crossed that threshold, these young people are ripe for manipulation by movement leaders who are actual committed antisemites. It’s a serious problem that requires a nuanced discussion in the Jewish community
“Still, we should confront the hard facts. The war in Gaza has resulted in the deaths of many innocent people.”
The evidence now shows that this is not true. The war resulted in very FEW civilian deaths by all measures, including Hamas’ own data.
So why would YOU parrot this?
It is true. https://aoav.org.uk/2026/why-israeli-claims-of-low-civilian-to-combatant-harm-in-gaza-do-not-hold-up/
Great article. The Jewish community, both inside and outside of Israel, should be strategizing how to confront and dismantle the false narrative being pushed by the far left/right and Islamist mouth pieces. It is crucial that Israel gets on board sooner rather than later.
That's not so unprecedented. What motivated the Nazis was the belief they can actually conquer, destroy the independence of and erase as countries, ancient European states like Britain, France, etc. They really believed they could create a thousand year reich.
People have all sorts of insane beliefs. The same people really believe they can destroy the White race, or European culture, and are working just as much for that as for the destruction of Israel.
We live in an Age of Resentment - in which unable to create, many turn instead to the destruction of anything positive, healthy, successful, flourishing.
But that's historically inevitable too. Anyone who distinguishes himself will call down upon his head the wrath of those who do not. The world operates on one giant Law of Jante - no one can be allowed to stand tall. They will try and drag you down if you do anything good - we are like the crabs in the bucket lol.
Israel was bound to attract savage hatred to the extent that it flourished, was positive, healthy, and good, in an age when many are sick. As was Europe. Instead of learning from Israel, European culture, they want to tear it down. It's a story as old as time.
Australia is my country and the current situation is heartbreaking, but I honestly believe that while the activists are loud and ill informed, they are not the majority. If our government had taken a stand at the Opera House protest and continued from there this “festival of hate” could have been contained. Unfortunately, we have a Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, reliving their glory days of rebellion while university students. They believed they could manage Antisemitism like any other domestic inconvenience. However, after two plus years of appeasement Bondi happened and the Australian people demanded a Royal Commission, despite the Prime Minister trying to avoid one. Fair minded Australians want to see our Jewish community safe, secure and confident that they can once again walk the streets of our cities without fear. I would also like to see our relationship with Israel, a long term ally, restored.
Jewish Australians have contributed and enhanced many areas of our society. If they no longer feel they have a future here and decide to leave it will be our loss because we will know that Australia is no longer the country we know and love.
There is only one inevitable outcome for a settler colony committing genocide and that is a complete break with the civilized world.
The entire world is waking up. The politicians think they can defy the will of the people forever, but they will learn that this isn’t so.
This won’t be undone with propaganda.
The whole world has watched this genocide unfold, live on video.
Genocidal states have a right to be destroyed, and destroyed only.
There is only one inevitable outcome for a settler colony committing genocide and that is a complete break with the civilized world.
The entire world is waking up. The politicians think they can defy the will of the people forever, but they will learn that this isn’t so.
This won’t be undone with propaganda.
The whole world has watched this genocide unfold, live on video.
Genocidal states have a right to be destroyed, and destroyed only.