What the hell is going on?

Israel’s “weaponization of COVID,” Zelensky is a “peculiar kind of Jew,” the irony of an app that warns shoppers about brands involved in the “Israeli genocide,” and so much more.

Joshua Hoffman

Mar 31, 2024

Please consider supporting our mission to help everyone better understand and become smarter about the Jewish world. A gift of any amount helps keep our platform free of advertising and accessible to all.

Make a one-time contribution

Give a gift subscription

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

Editor’s Note: “What the hell is going on?” is a weekly series in which we bring you the most bizarre, outlandish, and surreal developments from around the Jewish world during the past week.

The Associated Press won first place in the category of “Team Picture Story of the Year” for a photo on October 7th of murdered and kidnapped Israeli woman Shani Louk.

In no mention of the award was her name or that she was slaughtered and abducted by Palestinian terrorists. As one social media user put it:

“So terror porn and necrophilia are now the criteria for winning the Reynolds Journalism Institute’s ‘Photo of the Year’ award. This year the once prestigious institute is giving its once prestigious award to Hamas terrorist Ali Mahmud who participated in the October 7th massacre, and photographed his fellow terrorists driving the mutilated raped body of Israeli hostage Shani Louk to Gaza for the Associated Press.”1

Another user added: “Imagine Al Qaeda had invited a few Afghani Associated Press ‘reporters’ into Mohamed Atta’s cockpit to take pictures while flying into the World Trade Center on 9/11 — and it was being given awards. Because that is what is going on right now. Psychotic how Jews are treated.”2

A satirical social media account wrote, “The Associated Press awards guy who called his dad from a victim’s phone to boast about how he killed 10 Jews with ‘Father-Son Relationship of the Year Award.’”3

Of course, the terrorist apologists came out of the wood work, with one writing: “Yes, reporters and photographers who take risks to expose atrocities deserve recognition … because they take risks to expose atrocities. Because we should have evidence of atrocities. I don’t get how anyone who has anything to do with reporting does not get this.”4

To which Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur replied:

“I’m involved with reporting. Joining a group at the group’s behest that’s heading to commit an atrocity in order to chronicle the atrocity, without using that foreknowledge to try to warn victims or authorities ahead of time, is not ‘taking risks to expose atrocities.’ It’s participating in atrocities. Also, the undressed murdered woman did not consent to this image of her suffering being spread around again.”5

The New York Times opinion columnist David Brooks wrote an article to analyze the “current Israeli strategy” in Gaza.6 In describing it, he said, “I’ve learned to be suspicious of precise numbers tossed about in this war, but the I.D.F. claims to have killed over 13,000 of the roughly 30,000 Hamas troops.”

In other words, he is suspicious not of the terror group’s civilian casualty numbers, but of the IDF’s numbers. What great analysis.

Brooks also wrote that “Israel is now risking a rupture with its closest ally and its only reliable friend on the U.N. Security Council” (the United States). In other words, he is blaming Israel for the Biden administration’s topsy-turvy support of Israel in its existential war (which it did not start), despite the fact that multiple polls show the vast majority of Americans support Israel in this war (obviously).

“The key weakness of the Israeli strategy,” added Brooks, “has always been that it is aimed at defeating Hamas militarily without addressing Palestinian grievances and without paying enough attention to the wider consequences.”

Which Palestinian grievances, exactly? Does he mean that one time when the Palestinians’ Arab friends waged an ethnic-cleansing war on the Jews in 1948, lost, never accepted this loss, and still whine about it to this day by unleashing virulent, antisemitic terrorism against the Jewish state?

You know, like October 7th.

Hamas terrorists hijacked the Shifa Hospital to hide behind the sick and injured, waging war from inside the place. Israel also believes that the maternity ward is being used as Hamas propaganda headquarters.

Yet, somehow, this is not a top story in any mainstream media outlets.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said that passing a ceasefire resolution in the UN Security Council which is not directly tied to a hostage release will encourage Hamas to walk away from the negotiating table.

Then, the U.S. put forth such a resolution, which was vetoed by Russia and China, who in turn proposed a resolution that demands an immediate ceasefire and did not mention Hamas or October 7th — yet it was not vetoed by the U.S.

Hours later, Hamas walked away from the negotiating table.

Ismail Haniyeh, Chairman of Hamas’ Political Bureau, visited Tehran last week and gave a press conference — effectively thanking U.S. President Joe Biden, Senator Chuck Schumer, and the Democratic Party for slowly (yet deliberately) turning against Israel and helping Hamas.

In an interview with Democratic politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a CNN news anchor said: “Israeli officials also argue this war could end tomorrow if Hamas freed the hostages and laid down the arms. Do you disagree?”7

Her response: “I do disagree.”

A Russian spokesman said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is a “peculiar kind of Jew” to explain how Zelensky might be linked to the jihadi terrorist attack in Moscow claimed by ISIS.

“A Jew who in many ways shows sympathy and inclination to the nationalist spirit that has permeated the leadership of the Kyiv regime,” said Dmitry Peskov, appearing to refer to Russian claims of neo-Nazi sympathies by Zelensky, who is Jewish.

Meanwhile, more memes rolled in across the internet following the ISIS terrorist attack in Russia and the UN Security Council’s ridiculous resolution about the Israel-Hamas war, including this one:

A “leaked” memo by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Bill Russo warned: “The Israelis seemed oblivious to the fact that they are facing major, possibly generational damage to their reputation not just in the region but elsewhere in the world.”8

I put “leaked” in quotes because 99 percent of things that get leaked are done so purposely, to sway public opinion and/or send subliminal messages to other actors. The only problem with this leak is that it completely misses the mark and further demonstrates Biden’s disastrous, decades-long incompetence with foreign affairs.

We know the real reason why Biden’s administration is becoming so anti-Israel, at least publicly: Their Qatari friends are pressuring them to be so. (I will write about this more in detail sometime soon; there is plenty of credible evidence pointing to this unfortunate but very much explainable reality.)

Do you know which countries “in the region” are secretly rooting for Israel against Hamas? I will give you a few: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. Why? Because they all despise the Muslim Brotherhood (of which Hamas is an off-shoot) since it destabilizes the Middle East and is, of course, chiefly funded by Qatar.

Regarding Israel’s reputation “elsewhere in the world,” I will defer to former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, who said:

“If we have to have a choice between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.”

As Lahav Harkov, a senior political correspondent for Jewish Insider, wrote: “People love dead Jews with good reputations.”9 Jewish activist Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll added: “The popularity contest was lost long ago. We’re all about survival since 1945.”10

“Pro-Palestinian” activists have introduced a mobile app named “No Thanks” which informs shoppers about brands involved in the “Israeli genocide” so shoppers can boycott them.

The irony is that many mobile phone chips are developed in Israel, and the companies behind the places where people can download this app — Google Play Store and Apple App Store — both have offices in Israel.

“Wanna boycott Israel?” said one social media user. “Go ahead, but own it and throw your phone away. Loser.”11

In California, the Berkeley City Council held its final meeting before a one-month recess. The meeting’s agenda, which had nothing about the Israel-Hamas war, included an item about marking Holocaust Remembrance Day and funding educational programs around it.

Yet “pro-Palestinian” demonstrators showed up and called Jews “Zionist pigs,” intimidated a Holocaust survivor, stole and threw a Jewish man’s phone toward the lectern, and implied that city council members were being bought by the Jewish community.

In Pennsylvania, “anti-Zionist” groups held a seminar at Haverford College with the subtitle, “Teach-in on Israel’s weaponization of COVID against Palestinians.” The event invited people to “learn about how the Israeli state intentionally debilitates Palestinians through the spread of COVID and how we can resist mass deaths on all fronts.”

At Harvard University, the Student Government of Harvard Law School violated its own constitution to vote on a secretive and rushed BDS resolution accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide.”

To no one’s surprise, this student body has (still) not passed any resolution condemning the terrorist group Hamas, the targeting of Jewish civilians on October 7th, sexual violence against women, or the continued seizure of American abductees in Gaza.

And the elected student representatives cowardly removed all their names from the public website to avoid any accountability.

Also in Massachusetts, a teacher who openly praised the Hamas slaughter and rape of Jewish civilians was invited to speak to a group representing 100,000 educators to spread antisemitic garbage.

In Michigan, parents flew in to attend their children’s university graduation. As Hamas Muslim Brotherhood supporters hijacked the ceremony, the University of Michigan did not kick them out. They just ended the ceremony.

Vivek Ramaswamy, who was recently vying for the U.S. presidency and dropped out of the race, took a picture with his son at the Colosseum in Rome, with the caption: “‘Racism’ didn’t really exist in ancient Rome.”

Mind you, this ancient amphitheater was built — at least in part — by Jewish slaves, with stolen Jewish money.

A group of nine participants in the upcoming Eurovision song contest released a joint statement expressing their concern over “the current situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, and particularly in Gaza, and in Israel.”

“We do not feel comfortable being silent,” they said in the statement, following calls to boycott Eurovision over Israel’s participation.

There is only one minor detail, folks: Gaza is not an occupied territory. It has been autonomously run by Palestinians since 2005, and by Hamas since 2007. (And no, Israel is not and has not been blockading Gaza. The real blockader is Egypt to its southern border.)

Someone should encourage these kids to stay in their musical lane.

A new anti-Israel Ramadan TV series started streaming last week. It is called “Meliha,” about a Palestinian girl who fled to Libya during the Second Intifada.

The series begins with a bizarre introduction about how Jews came to “Palestine.” When the narrator begins talking about the father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, the photos shown are of Teddy Roosevelt. As in the former U.S. president.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres arrived in Egypt at the beginning of last week and delivered a press conference at the Egypt-Gaza border, saying: “It is monstrous that after so much suffering over so many months, Palestinians in Gaza are marking Ramadan with Israeli bombs still falling, bullets still flying, artillery still pounding and humanitarian assistance still facing obstacle upon obstacle.”

Mind you, the country he was talking from, Egypt, has done next to nothing to help the Palestinians in Gaza, despite having a vast desert (the Sinai) mere steps away from the strip.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. The Egyptians have done something: They have reinforced and bolstered their security walls and patrols along the Gaza border to ensure not a single Palestinian can cross over.

If you think this corrupted buffoon cannot get any more ridiculous, Guterres then posted on social media: “Fasting during my Ramadan solidarity mission, out of respect for the beliefs of the Muslim people I’m visiting, my heart is broken knowing that so many Palestinians in Gaza will not be able to have a proper Iftar.”

To which one social media user replied, “I presume that this suicidally empathetic person also fasts during Yom Kippur, yes?”12

At Guterres’ United Nations, relentless Israel-bashing and “genocide” slander is acceptable, but last week when NGO Monitor’s legal advisor, Anne Herzberg, dared to comment on the UN Human Rights Council’s disregard for the October 7th massacre and UNRWA’s ties to Hamas, she was charged with failing to “adhere to language that is commensurate with the dignity inherent to the discussion on human rights issues.”

Many American citizens keep citing “taxpayer dollars” as their justifiable reason for opposition to Israel in its existential war against the world’s fifth-most active terror group, Hamas.

Melissa Chapman-Mushnick did us all a favor and presented the math: The U.S. population is approximately 300 million, or 0.3 billion people. The U.S. government gives approximately $3.8 billion per year to Israel — $3.8 billion dived by 300 million people is $12.60 per person per year, more or less the price of two six-packs of Budweiser in 16-ounce cans.

Moreover, 75 percent of America’s aid to Israel must be spent in America, which means the purchase of U.S. military technology, which in turn means wages for workers at various U.S. companies, who then spend their wages at local businesses in the U.S.

In return, the U.S. receives billions of dollars each year in recommendations for improvements to American military equipment as the Israelis use it — and some of these improvements save American lives in other places.

Furthermore, Israel has been a tool for U.S. policy, such as mobilizing to prevent the overthrow of Jordan’s government during a planned Syrian intervention in a civil war, and information to governments about terrorist attacks and assassinations planned on friendly nations.

And the U.S. does not have any troops in Israel, like it does to protect American allies such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Japan, Germany, and South Korea. The cost of maintaining a U.S. military presence in Germany and Japan, very wealthy nations which exist in much less volatile or strategic regions, is estimated to cost U.S. taxpayers at least $20 billion per year for each nation.

If the U.S. stops its military aid to Israel, some 50,000 Americans could lose their jobs, and U.S. military will be required to use outdated military equipment because the U.S. is not directly engaging in wars and will not start wars in order to test weapons.

At the same time, the $3.8 billion of aid is approximately 10 percent of Israel’s defense budget. Without American taxpayer money, the IDF would be almost as powerful as it is today.

Thus, Israel does not have a powerful army because of an over-abundance of American aid, but “because of an over-abundance of enemies,” she wrote.13

Britain’s foreign minister, David Cameron, thinks he knows how to, in his own words, “chart the way from an immediate humanitarian pause towards a lasting, sustainable peace without a return to fighting” in the Israel-Hamas war.14

He included four bullet points. None of them mentioned releasing the Israeli hostages.

Aaron Taylor Johnson, the Jewish actor recently confirmed as the new “James Bond,” is not Israeli, did not serve in the IDF, and has probably never met Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yet “pro-Palestinian” activists are now calling to boycott “James Bond.”

These are the same folks who keep telling us that they are “not antisemitic” and that they are “just anti-Zionists” who “oppose Israel, the IDF, and Netanyahu.”

Right.

Two Israeli survivors of the October 7th Hamas-led massacres were stopped, questioned, and harassed by U.K. Border Force staff at Manchester airport last week, after they arrived in England to raise awareness for a nonprofit established to help survivors of the October 7th massacres.

A short video clip of the incident shared on social media showed one of the guards upbraiding the Israelis, who were then detained for two hours. Upon being released, a guard told them that they “had to make sure that you are not going to do what you are doing in Gaza over here.”

“We kept asking the officials why they had stopped us — was it because we are Israeli or because we are Jewish,” said one of the Israelis afterward. “Of course they never admitted it, but it was obvious to us it was the only reason.”15

Generally, when a woman says she was sexually abused, U.S. media outlets proclaim, “How horrible!” Understandably so.

But when an Israeli woman says she was sexually abused by Hamas, The New York Times first interviews her for 8 hours, then checks two medical reports from her release from captivity, then interviews two doctors and a social worker and finds no inconsistency between any of them. But then the Times publishes her story last week — and gives Hamas four paragraphs to deny the story.

In this case, we cannot entirely blame The New York Times; there is an entire cottage industry of Hamas atrocity denial, just as there is one for Holocaust denial. But the fact remains that Jews are assumed to be liars unless proven otherwise, while everyone else is assumed to be truth-tellers until proven liars. Including Hamas.16