Rescue personnel work at an impact site following a missile attack from Iran, in Bat Yam, Israel, June 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Iranian police arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the country’s 12–day war with Israel in June, a law enforcement spokesperson said on Tuesday, according to state media.

Following Israeli air strikes that began on June 13, Iranian security forces began a campaign of widespread arrests accompanied by an intensified street presence based around checkpoints and “public reports” whereby citizens were called upon to report on any individuals they thought were acting suspiciously.

“There was a 41 percent increase in calls by the public, which led to the arrest of 21,000  suspects during the 12–day war,” police spokesperson Saeid Montazerolmahdi said. He did not say what those arrested were suspected of, but Tehran has spoken before of people passing on information that may have helped direct the Israeli attacks.

The Israel–Iran conflict has also led to an accelerated rate of deportations for Afghan migrants believed to be illegally in Iran, with aid agencies reporting that local authorities had also accused some Afghan nationals of spying for Israel.

“Law enforcement rounded up 2,774 illegal migrants and discovered 30 special security cases by examining their phones. 261 suspects of espionage and 172 people accused of unauthorized filming were also arrested,” the spokesperson added.

Montazerolmahdi did not specify how many of those arrested had since been released.

He added that Iran‘s police handled more than 5,700 cases of cyber crimes such as online fraud and unauthorised withdrawals during the war, which he said had turned “cyberspace into an important battlefront.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks during a press conference at the Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, June 17, 2024. Photo: Lukas Coch/Pool via REUTERS

On August 11, 2025, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stunned many when he announced that Australia would formally recognize the State of Palestine at the upcoming UN General Assembly — pending promises by the Palestinian Authority to demilitarize Gaza, exclude Hamas from governance, hold elections, and cease payments to families of terrorists.

The glaring problem is that Albanese appears to take these assurances at face value, as though a handful of pledges — offered without timelines, enforcement mechanisms, or credible evidence of intent — could erase decades of violence, corruption, and rejectionism.

It’s the mark of a leader who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know: either unaware of the PA’s long record of breaking its commitments or unwilling to confront the implications of that record. He also doesn’t understand that this is a reward for terrorism and, for the enemies of freedom, liberty, and democracy.

The question I find myself asking today — whether I am truly choosing Aliyah, merely considering it, or being pushed toward it — is not a new one. Over centuries, Jews have wrestled with the call of Aliyah — “ascent” to the ancestral homeland — versus the pull to remain in the Diaspora. For some, it was not the call of Aliyah at all, but the search for a safe haven — somewhere in the world where they could live without fear.

My grandparents had that promise; they went to Canada believing it would be that place. Now, I’m not sure where in the Diaspora that promise still exists.

And without that sense of safety, Aliyah no longer feels like a romantic, idealistic choice — how I’ve seen it most of my life. Instead, it starts to feel like the only real option left. Ahad Ha’am wrote that Aliyah should be a deliberate, inspired choice, not a desperate escape — and that truth has long been woven into our collective soul.

Today, the landscape is starkly different. Aliyah is shifting from a Zionist aspiration to a contingency plan. After October 7 and the surge of antisemitism worldwide — including here in Australia — the Diaspora finds itself asking: what’s our Plan B? And of course, many Diaspora Jews — in Australia, in Canada, in France, in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and across the world — are not even considering the choice to move but instead are deepening their connection with Israel. There is comfort in knowing we have somewhere to go; there is a psychological sanctuary that our ancestors lacked, and we have it. That knowledge is a safety net, one that offers reassurance even to those who never plan to use it.

Australia’s recognition of Palestine, dressed as a diplomatic advance, feels deeply personal and destabilizing. For those of us whose Jewish identity is rooted not only in heritage but in the continuity of a safe, supportive homeland, this punting of responsibility troubles the heart.

Albanese’s decision shows the danger of a leader who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know: he steps into a geopolitical minefield believing he is making history, without recognizing that he is rewarding terror, undermining alliances, and ignoring lived realities on the ground. Did I just get nudged toward Aliyah by the government’s betrayal? Perhaps. But even if I never make the move, the knowledge that Israel exists — that there is still one place where we are not guests — remains a lifeline in an increasingly uncertain world.

Will the Palestinian Authority honor its conditions, or is recognition merely a performative act? Has Australia fractured its alliance with Israel at a moment when global support is profoundly precious? Is this recognition a hopeful step toward peace, or a perilous reward for violence? These are not only diplomatic questions — they are mine and ours.

As a Jew in Sydney today, I stand torn between devotion to a country I’ve called home for over 30 years and the ancient, pulsating call of Zion. Aliyah no longer feels like a choice — it feels like inevitability. But while we are here, we must live as proud Jews and proud Zionists, unafraid to stand tall in our identity. We must educate — not only within our own communities, but in the broader Australian community — about our history, our homeland, and our truth. That is both our responsibility and our strength.

Perhaps both history and the present have finally pushed me to the place my grandparents only dreamed of. L’Shanah Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim.

Michael Gencher is executive director StandWithUs Australia, an international nonpartisan education organization that supports Israel and fights antisemitism.

A drone view of the “Arbeit macht frei” gate at the former Auschwitz concentration camp ahead of the 80th anniversary of its liberation, Oswiecim, Poland, Jan. 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

Dr. Gregory Stanton, founder of Genocide Watch, argues that genocide unfolds through a ten-step process. It begins with early warning signs like discrimination and dehumanization, then escalates into violent persecution and extermination. But Stanton’s final stage might come as a surprise. He says genocide culminates with denial, and that denial is an integral part of the process itself.

Of course, denial can help relieve the conscience of the perpetrators, or be part of their efforts to shield themselves from legal culpability. But according to Stanton, denial is actually a final act of violence towards the victims. It completes their destruction by assaulting even the memory of the victim group, causing not only further psychological anguish but also cultural erasure.

This last step the Nazis were largely unable to achieve. How they singled out, persecuted, and ultimately mass murdered Jews is on display in museums worldwide. Jewish youth return to Auschwitz each year for the March of the Living, keeping the death camps and the memory of what took place there preserved.

But where the Nazis failed, the United States’ largest teachers’ union now aims to succeed.

The National Education Association (NEA), which represents nearly three million public school teachers, just released a new handbook instructing teachers to no longer tell their classes that Jews were the primary target of the Holocaust. Instead, they are now supposed to say that the Nazis killed “millions of victims of different faiths.”

The fact that Jews were taken to the gas chambers solely because of their religion is to be covered up; that the Holocaust was an assault on European Jewry is something they want to erase.

Why the change? The political context makes it clear. In the NEA’s view, the memory of Jewish persecution at the hands of the Nazis is being improperly used to exempt Israel from scrutiny over its conduct in Gaza, and the legacy of the Holocaust is causing undue hesitation in accusing Israel of genocidal conduct.

Believing that Jewish persecution by the Nazis has been misappropriated in defense of Israel, the NEA seeks to sever this link between the Holocaust and Jews.

And of course, they have a point about how history can be misused. Clinging to historical grievances often fuels efforts to correct past injustices. And all too easily, that impulse can lead to inflicting new injustices on others

But the NEA seems to have no such compunctions when it comes to the history of Palestine. The new manual goes into great detail about “the Nakba.” Teachers are to tell students that the establishment of the State of Israel resulted in the violent, forced displacement of at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland. They claim this is important in order to help understand what they call the ongoing trauma of Palestinian Americans today.

But doesn’t this kind of Nakba education risk inflaming tensions and fueling further violence? By their logic, wouldn’t it be better to offer a more generic description — something like, “When the State of Israel was established, some people of various ethnicities relocated to new places.”

After all, history has shown us that the ongoing effort by many Palestinians to rectify what they perceive as the injustice of 1948 has repeatedly led to violence against Israelis and Jews.

It seems that the NEA’s real aim is not to revise history in order to defuse its potential for fueling violence in the present, but rather to weaponize it in support of the Palestinians’ cause against Israel. Unfortunately, this will only plant the seeds for more conflict in the future.

We can’t achieve peace by denying the history or suffering of others. That only deepens resentment and hatred — and eventually, it will resurface. The path to peace begins with a willingness to face the past honestly: to acknowledge the pain, injustice, and harm both experienced and inflicted by all sides. From that shared reckoning, the foundations of peace can finally take hold

Memory of the Holocaust certainly should not be used to exempt Israel from legitimate criticism or scrutiny. But the solution is not to deny that the Holocaust was an attempt to destroy the Jewish people. Instead, we have to make sure that when we say never again, we mean never again for anyone — not for us, not for Palestinians, not for anyone else.

Shlomo Levin is the author of the Human Rights Haggadah, and he uses short fiction and questions to explore human rights at https://shalzed.com/