Great essay Joshua. Keep up the good work. As I wrote in a recent post, "The Jewish story, properly told, isn’t about what was done to us — it’s about what we’ve built since. And until we teach that story — unapologetically, proudly, relentlessly — we’ll keep ceding moral ground to those who mistake destruction for justice." https://jewnewsreview.substack.com/p/the-jew-news-review-november-1-2025
When MSM refuse to call Hamas 'terrorists', it's unsurprising they refer to 'settlers' as 'violent'. They just can't help their antisemitism; it's intrinsic to their whole makeup. It's in their DNA.
Add too that Israel is a massive bulwark against the Totalitarianism of the re-emergent Nazis and the Communist Left, and the Extremists of both sides know this. Thus, we have earned our keep amongst the righteous spectrum of Nations.
Bravo Joshua !!!!.....Thank you so much for your brilliant essay, it's so true what you said " partner needed to achieve PEACE " .......You are right about everything ..... I had the privilege of meeting Menachem Begin when he came to the UN in 1977, and love his reply to Biden.......I think it's about time we drop " The West Bank " and call it by it's name Judea and Samaria......
Nice article Joshua. Bit long. Bit defensive. No worries. Jews have been discriminated against forever. Being defensive to justify your existance is probably in your genes. Next time write something which signals power, we are here, not going away, and combine it with a warning that if you attack us again we will annex your land. Thankyou.
To paraphrase an individual from history who shall not be named, "Here I stand with my IDF and there you stand with your linguistic absurdities. Which one of us do you think will prevail?" The covenant is with G-d. Am Israel chai!
Exactly. 💯. I don't even want to repeat any of these phrases to discuss them. There is a Land of Israel. There is a sovereign government. There is an army. There are laws and the Israelis do their best to run a good country.
I would add that discussion about the holocaust in Europe is a discussion among Jews, not a talking point with others. It happened and we will go forward. We have had other holocausts in our history. Other peoples have gone through similar. It seems to be a feature of humanity, not a bug. If we want to live good lives, then it's best to be productive in the present and not obsess about the past or weaponize it. Nobody cares about other people's problems or histories, other than to weaponize it against someone. And we don't want or need anyone's pity, as Menachem Begin said and the author quoted.
Israel has outlived all of its enemies from the Pharoahs on down. Yes, word games are meaningless to a people who have survived and thrived in spite of historical attempts to erase them. As a Catholic I understand longevity and surviving throughout history.
Bravo, Joshua. Of course you're right, and those who advocate for telling the Jewish story are right too.
But: we need to cross the line into attack. Only attack constitutes an effective defense. We need to expose and use every means to publicise that exposure.
Expose Islam as been itself Islamist.
Paste and poster cities with quotes from the Quran. Their hatred, violence and supremacist goals.
Expose European politicians' cowardice and acquiescence whilst their continent is conquered.
Expose American extremes who both crucify Jews.
Expose self-hating mentally ill Jews.
Expose sheer immorality bursting from the depths of the West itself and how scapegoating the Jews and projecting on them works.
Psychological group studies.
Studies of collective mental illness.
The lost college generation educated by Qatar and their " professors" .
The need of the West to de-evolve.
And much more. We must get out of ourselves and out of the box. We need an attack vocabulary, with incriminating sound bites.
The haters don't want to hear of our success , rights, history or good points. It's one of the major causes for their hatred.
"Western media loves to reflexively label Israel’s elected government “Far-Right” whenever it gets the chance to. It’s a phrase not of analysis, but of condescension."
and
"Labeling Israel’s government “Far-Right” is not journalism or political critique; it’s arrogance masquerading as moral concern."
Actually NOT! "Far Right" is code for Fascist. It is a way for the "liberal" media to tar Israel as a fascist state without having to justify or provide any evidence for the claim.
In point of fact, Israel, its government, and its people are as "Far Right" as Roosevelt was on Dec. 8th 1941, when he delivered his "Day of Infamy" speech to Congress. And Israel, its government, and its people are as "Far Right" as Churchill was on June 4th, 1940 when he delivered his "We shall fight on the beaches" speech to parliament.
"Anti-Zionists” pretend they are opposing a political ideology. In truth, they are opposing Jewish continuity."
Eminently quotable quote.
"The phrase “the occupation” entered mainstream discourse after Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured the West Bank (then controlled by Jordan), Gaza Strip (then controlled by Egypt), East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. That is not “occupation”; it’s victory in a war that the Arabs raged against Israel (again)"
It is far more than that. It is Israel recovering the heart of its ancient, ancestral homeland as attested to by history, archeology, anthropology, law, as well as religion (a ground for a claim allowed other other religions, but forbidden to Jews). The claim that Gaza is part of Israel's heartland is open to debate; however, according to the UN's Founding Charter and the principle of settling borders after a territory is vacated which the UN has followed since WWII for Europe, South America, and Asia, all the aforementioned territories by law belong to Israel. Check out Wikipedia on "Uti possidetis juris" for more detail. Any claim to the Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula as falling under this provision of International Law is far more problematic.
"Only the Jews are expected to win defensive wars and then resort to the pre-war status quo"
It is called winning the war but losing the peace. It is a manifestation of Jewish/Israeli thinking. when it comes to the Other. Another way of putting it is that you can take the Jew out of the Ghetto but not the Ghetto out of the Jew.
The comments made about "Violent Israeli Settlers" misses the point entirely.
What we are witnessing is a reaction (not really the correct thing to do, but nonetheless a reaction) to violent local Arabs throwing rocks on cars, ramming cars into civilians, random stabbings, shootings at Israelis and their homes, etc. since 1967, violence which for some unfathomable reason never seems to be reported. by the world press.
Another point, the use of the word "Settler" is on par with the use of the word "Occupier." Its use is so ubiquitous that even Jews and Israelis routinely use it. It is meant to convey the impression that these people are illegal occupiers of land not their own.
How can you. be an enemy, alien occupier, settler of your own unceded, indigenous, ancestral homeland?
In point of fact, they are not settlers. They are RETURNEES.
The United States was questioned about it's "right to act" after 9/11. Now the mantra is we the USA killed hundreds of thousands of innocent peace loving Muslims in our unhinged neo con(Jewish) driven rage. Iraq had no wmd's ...it was all a big ruse by the USA to attack and murder ....Abu Ghraib ....not the exception but the rule. This I figure is what kids learn in HS and in universities such as courses taught by Mr. Mamdani senior. Israel's right to exist is now NYC foreign policy going forward. NYC will arrest its war criminal PM and divest from everything that has the taint of Israel on it. So what to do....a big eff u to our new jihadi mayor. Dershowitz says to us "stay and fight, don't flee" even he lives part of his time in Florida. But he is a warrior at 87. Yeah what to do...my nightmare began with Ocasio cortez elected to the house for part of Queens where Iive. Is it true than 600 hundred thousand Israelis live/ have emigrated to other countries like LosT Angeles....when I used to visit there.....aside from going to an occasional rally and my letters to various personalities at the NY Times....most writers won't accept e mail....so I write to the circular file. But I write all the same. Just like here...to hear myself.....
Joshua, you’ve done it again with another phenomenal piece! I will never, ever understand why anti-Zionists feel the need to re-litigate something that has long been settled. It’s not up for debate whether Israel has a right to exist or not, it just DOES exist! The Jewish people’s indigenity to the land of Eretz-Israel is not to be questioned. They have a history there stretching back over 3,000 years. Anti-Zionists clearly are not familiar with names like Abraham, Sara, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, King David, King Solomon, and Jesus of Nazareth. Anti-Zionists clearly are not familiar with the Cave of Patriarchs, Rachel’s Tomb, the Wailing Wall, the Mount of Olives, and the Temple Mount. They also claim Jewish ethnic identity isn’t real and is an incoherent concept because Ashkenazi Jews are more related to Italians than Sephardic Jews and the two are more closely related to Palestinians than they are Mizrahi Jews and that only a minority of their ancestry came from the Levantine region.
Well maybe that’s because…THEY LIVED IN A DIASPORA AND SPRED OUT AROUND THE WORLD! That doesn’t mean that Jews aren’t a real ethnic group but rather a reflection of the fact that most were forced out of holy land due to an economic recession, a series of failed rebellions and Roman repression. Also, yes contrary to what a conman like Shlomo Sand will tell you, there IS evidence for the Jewish exodus from the holy land. He’s a total hack fraud and his book is nonsense. All the talking points you mentioned and brilliantly debunked the media uses Joshua, are spot on! Israel’s existence is NOT up for debate! The Jewish people have the Bible, the Koran, history, and archeology to prove their case. Not to mention how they turned a desert into a garden, revived the Hebrew language, fought the Arabs and the British to regain their land, and rebuilt their state from the ground up and made it a regional power with a booming economy and a world leader in technology, science, medicine, agriculture, water, and environmentalism.
Yes, Israel is aloud to defend itself like another country. Again, this is not up for debate and there is no nuance involved at all. No one questions whether Ireland, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Romania, or Bosnia and Herzegovina have the right to exist. Nor does anyone say Australia or New Zealand or Albania have a right to defend themselves because both are just a given. So why do we always say that about Israel? Israel’s “far-right government?” No it’s just the current elected government and it doesn’t speak for all Israelis.
Antizionism is antisemitism, period. Are all anti-Zionists antisemitic? No. But many are misguided and misinformed even if they aren’t bigoted. But all antisemites are antizionist, I think we can all agree on that. If you believe that all people have right to self-determination accept the Jewish people you are singling out a certain group. Riddle me this: why is it the Irish, Italians, Poles, Czech, Slovaks, Greeks, Bosnians, Albanians, Serbians, Croats, Algerians, South Koreans, Ghanaians, and Vietnamese get to have a state and no one complains but when Jews do it, all of a sudden it’s a problem?
There is no “conflict” between Israel and Hamas its a war to defend the Jewish state from constant terrorism and the threat of genocide. The occupation of the West Bank is legal under international law. Also, Jews living on their native land isn’t an occupation if one is referring to the settlements. Violent Israeli settlers? Are we talking about Israeli settlers defending themselves from Palestinian aggression or actual Jewish extremists? Funny how the press never makes that distinction!
Great essay Joshua. Keep up the good work. As I wrote in a recent post, "The Jewish story, properly told, isn’t about what was done to us — it’s about what we’ve built since. And until we teach that story — unapologetically, proudly, relentlessly — we’ll keep ceding moral ground to those who mistake destruction for justice." https://jewnewsreview.substack.com/p/the-jew-news-review-november-1-2025
When MSM refuse to call Hamas 'terrorists', it's unsurprising they refer to 'settlers' as 'violent'. They just can't help their antisemitism; it's intrinsic to their whole makeup. It's in their DNA.
Add too that Israel is a massive bulwark against the Totalitarianism of the re-emergent Nazis and the Communist Left, and the Extremists of both sides know this. Thus, we have earned our keep amongst the righteous spectrum of Nations.
Another wonderful article from you Joshua ,with the arguments laid out so beautifully like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Thank you .
Perfectly stated, as usual. I don’t need anyone to tell me “Israel has a right to exist.”
GOD BLESS ISRAEL AND ITS PEOPLE
Discussing the issue of "violent settlers", not many are aware of the daily attacks that Israeli citizens living in Judea and Samaria are facing.
Please circulate this report:
https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/over-6300-terror-attacks-against-jews-in-judea-and-samaria-in-2024/
Bravo Joshua !!!!.....Thank you so much for your brilliant essay, it's so true what you said " partner needed to achieve PEACE " .......You are right about everything ..... I had the privilege of meeting Menachem Begin when he came to the UN in 1977, and love his reply to Biden.......I think it's about time we drop " The West Bank " and call it by it's name Judea and Samaria......
How fortunate you are!
I would have loved to meet Menachem Begin, it would have been the high point of my life!
Every time I read his reply to biden, I get the chills, it could never have been said better.
Nice article Joshua. Bit long. Bit defensive. No worries. Jews have been discriminated against forever. Being defensive to justify your existance is probably in your genes. Next time write something which signals power, we are here, not going away, and combine it with a warning that if you attack us again we will annex your land. Thankyou.
To paraphrase an individual from history who shall not be named, "Here I stand with my IDF and there you stand with your linguistic absurdities. Which one of us do you think will prevail?" The covenant is with G-d. Am Israel chai!
Exactly. 💯. I don't even want to repeat any of these phrases to discuss them. There is a Land of Israel. There is a sovereign government. There is an army. There are laws and the Israelis do their best to run a good country.
I would add that discussion about the holocaust in Europe is a discussion among Jews, not a talking point with others. It happened and we will go forward. We have had other holocausts in our history. Other peoples have gone through similar. It seems to be a feature of humanity, not a bug. If we want to live good lives, then it's best to be productive in the present and not obsess about the past or weaponize it. Nobody cares about other people's problems or histories, other than to weaponize it against someone. And we don't want or need anyone's pity, as Menachem Begin said and the author quoted.
Israel has outlived all of its enemies from the Pharoahs on down. Yes, word games are meaningless to a people who have survived and thrived in spite of historical attempts to erase them. As a Catholic I understand longevity and surviving throughout history.
Bravo, Joshua. Of course you're right, and those who advocate for telling the Jewish story are right too.
But: we need to cross the line into attack. Only attack constitutes an effective defense. We need to expose and use every means to publicise that exposure.
Expose Islam as been itself Islamist.
Paste and poster cities with quotes from the Quran. Their hatred, violence and supremacist goals.
Expose European politicians' cowardice and acquiescence whilst their continent is conquered.
Expose American extremes who both crucify Jews.
Expose self-hating mentally ill Jews.
Expose sheer immorality bursting from the depths of the West itself and how scapegoating the Jews and projecting on them works.
Psychological group studies.
Studies of collective mental illness.
The lost college generation educated by Qatar and their " professors" .
The need of the West to de-evolve.
And much more. We must get out of ourselves and out of the box. We need an attack vocabulary, with incriminating sound bites.
The haters don't want to hear of our success , rights, history or good points. It's one of the major causes for their hatred.
"Western media loves to reflexively label Israel’s elected government “Far-Right” whenever it gets the chance to. It’s a phrase not of analysis, but of condescension."
and
"Labeling Israel’s government “Far-Right” is not journalism or political critique; it’s arrogance masquerading as moral concern."
Actually NOT! "Far Right" is code for Fascist. It is a way for the "liberal" media to tar Israel as a fascist state without having to justify or provide any evidence for the claim.
In point of fact, Israel, its government, and its people are as "Far Right" as Roosevelt was on Dec. 8th 1941, when he delivered his "Day of Infamy" speech to Congress. And Israel, its government, and its people are as "Far Right" as Churchill was on June 4th, 1940 when he delivered his "We shall fight on the beaches" speech to parliament.
"Anti-Zionists” pretend they are opposing a political ideology. In truth, they are opposing Jewish continuity."
Eminently quotable quote.
"The phrase “the occupation” entered mainstream discourse after Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured the West Bank (then controlled by Jordan), Gaza Strip (then controlled by Egypt), East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. That is not “occupation”; it’s victory in a war that the Arabs raged against Israel (again)"
It is far more than that. It is Israel recovering the heart of its ancient, ancestral homeland as attested to by history, archeology, anthropology, law, as well as religion (a ground for a claim allowed other other religions, but forbidden to Jews). The claim that Gaza is part of Israel's heartland is open to debate; however, according to the UN's Founding Charter and the principle of settling borders after a territory is vacated which the UN has followed since WWII for Europe, South America, and Asia, all the aforementioned territories by law belong to Israel. Check out Wikipedia on "Uti possidetis juris" for more detail. Any claim to the Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula as falling under this provision of International Law is far more problematic.
"Only the Jews are expected to win defensive wars and then resort to the pre-war status quo"
It is called winning the war but losing the peace. It is a manifestation of Jewish/Israeli thinking. when it comes to the Other. Another way of putting it is that you can take the Jew out of the Ghetto but not the Ghetto out of the Jew.
The comments made about "Violent Israeli Settlers" misses the point entirely.
What we are witnessing is a reaction (not really the correct thing to do, but nonetheless a reaction) to violent local Arabs throwing rocks on cars, ramming cars into civilians, random stabbings, shootings at Israelis and their homes, etc. since 1967, violence which for some unfathomable reason never seems to be reported. by the world press.
Another point, the use of the word "Settler" is on par with the use of the word "Occupier." Its use is so ubiquitous that even Jews and Israelis routinely use it. It is meant to convey the impression that these people are illegal occupiers of land not their own.
How can you. be an enemy, alien occupier, settler of your own unceded, indigenous, ancestral homeland?
In point of fact, they are not settlers. They are RETURNEES.
Agreed....with all of this essay.
The United States was questioned about it's "right to act" after 9/11. Now the mantra is we the USA killed hundreds of thousands of innocent peace loving Muslims in our unhinged neo con(Jewish) driven rage. Iraq had no wmd's ...it was all a big ruse by the USA to attack and murder ....Abu Ghraib ....not the exception but the rule. This I figure is what kids learn in HS and in universities such as courses taught by Mr. Mamdani senior. Israel's right to exist is now NYC foreign policy going forward. NYC will arrest its war criminal PM and divest from everything that has the taint of Israel on it. So what to do....a big eff u to our new jihadi mayor. Dershowitz says to us "stay and fight, don't flee" even he lives part of his time in Florida. But he is a warrior at 87. Yeah what to do...my nightmare began with Ocasio cortez elected to the house for part of Queens where Iive. Is it true than 600 hundred thousand Israelis live/ have emigrated to other countries like LosT Angeles....when I used to visit there.....aside from going to an occasional rally and my letters to various personalities at the NY Times....most writers won't accept e mail....so I write to the circular file. But I write all the same. Just like here...to hear myself.....
Joshua, you’ve done it again with another phenomenal piece! I will never, ever understand why anti-Zionists feel the need to re-litigate something that has long been settled. It’s not up for debate whether Israel has a right to exist or not, it just DOES exist! The Jewish people’s indigenity to the land of Eretz-Israel is not to be questioned. They have a history there stretching back over 3,000 years. Anti-Zionists clearly are not familiar with names like Abraham, Sara, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, King David, King Solomon, and Jesus of Nazareth. Anti-Zionists clearly are not familiar with the Cave of Patriarchs, Rachel’s Tomb, the Wailing Wall, the Mount of Olives, and the Temple Mount. They also claim Jewish ethnic identity isn’t real and is an incoherent concept because Ashkenazi Jews are more related to Italians than Sephardic Jews and the two are more closely related to Palestinians than they are Mizrahi Jews and that only a minority of their ancestry came from the Levantine region.
Well maybe that’s because…THEY LIVED IN A DIASPORA AND SPRED OUT AROUND THE WORLD! That doesn’t mean that Jews aren’t a real ethnic group but rather a reflection of the fact that most were forced out of holy land due to an economic recession, a series of failed rebellions and Roman repression. Also, yes contrary to what a conman like Shlomo Sand will tell you, there IS evidence for the Jewish exodus from the holy land. He’s a total hack fraud and his book is nonsense. All the talking points you mentioned and brilliantly debunked the media uses Joshua, are spot on! Israel’s existence is NOT up for debate! The Jewish people have the Bible, the Koran, history, and archeology to prove their case. Not to mention how they turned a desert into a garden, revived the Hebrew language, fought the Arabs and the British to regain their land, and rebuilt their state from the ground up and made it a regional power with a booming economy and a world leader in technology, science, medicine, agriculture, water, and environmentalism.
Yes, Israel is aloud to defend itself like another country. Again, this is not up for debate and there is no nuance involved at all. No one questions whether Ireland, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Romania, or Bosnia and Herzegovina have the right to exist. Nor does anyone say Australia or New Zealand or Albania have a right to defend themselves because both are just a given. So why do we always say that about Israel? Israel’s “far-right government?” No it’s just the current elected government and it doesn’t speak for all Israelis.
Antizionism is antisemitism, period. Are all anti-Zionists antisemitic? No. But many are misguided and misinformed even if they aren’t bigoted. But all antisemites are antizionist, I think we can all agree on that. If you believe that all people have right to self-determination accept the Jewish people you are singling out a certain group. Riddle me this: why is it the Irish, Italians, Poles, Czech, Slovaks, Greeks, Bosnians, Albanians, Serbians, Croats, Algerians, South Koreans, Ghanaians, and Vietnamese get to have a state and no one complains but when Jews do it, all of a sudden it’s a problem?
There is no “conflict” between Israel and Hamas its a war to defend the Jewish state from constant terrorism and the threat of genocide. The occupation of the West Bank is legal under international law. Also, Jews living on their native land isn’t an occupation if one is referring to the settlements. Violent Israeli settlers? Are we talking about Israeli settlers defending themselves from Palestinian aggression or actual Jewish extremists? Funny how the press never makes that distinction!