Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY). Photo: Screenshot.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler’s (D-NY) announcement that he will retire in 2026 marks the end of one of the longest-serving Jewish voices in Congress. But his final message is not a reaffirmation of support for Israel, but instead, a call to push for an arms embargo on the Jewish State.

This isn’t just politics. It’s not simply a career Democrat bowing to pressure from the far-left or trying to placate anti-Israel activists. Nadler’s final move reflects something deeper — a worldview shared by more and more American Jews. For them, Israel’s survival is not tied to their own survival. They see themselves as individuals, detached from Jewish history, detached from the continuum of antisemitism, and detached from the idea that Israel is the guarantor of the Jewish people’s future.

Nadler’s position is reminiscent of what we’ve already seen from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who privately counseled Harvard to ignore criticism by those who felt that the school neglected antisemitism on its own campus. Many argued that Schumer and Nadler were acting out of self-preservation, bowing to progressive dogma to save their careers. But this parting shot from Nadler serves no purpose for his career, given that he’s retiring. Rather, it suggests that this is what he truly believes.

Nadler’s wish to disarm Israel, by disallowing it to have “offensive arms,” reveals a lack of understanding of what’s needed in the Middle East to defend oneself, as well as a lack of caring for the Israelis who will pay for it with their blood.

This line of thinking reflects a group of Jewish people who truly do not associate themselves with the wellbeing and safety of the only Jewish state.

For decades, Israel could count on Diaspora Jews to rally when it mattered. From Washington to London, and Paris to New York, Jewish leaders stood up for Israel on the streets and in the halls of power. That reliability is fading.

Today, Jews are being peeled away, one by one, by a culture that demonizes Israel and normalizes hostility toward the Jewish State. Even young people raised in Orthodox synagogues and schools are drifting.

One synagogue member recently described how her son — educated in Jewish day schools and camps — now feels uncomfortable walking into his parents’ home because they display a yellow ribbon for the hostages. If even this segment is being lost, the crisis is deeper than many care to admit.

The lesson for Israel is that Diaspora support is no longer a given. Yes, there remain millions of Jews and allies who stand firm — but the numbers are dwindling. Popular culture and elite institutions are reshaping Jewish identity in ways that distance it from Israel. Unless something dramatic occurs, one can expect this trend to continue.

That means Israel must prepare to stand alone. Like every other nation, Israel’s security depends first and foremost on its own strength. Alliances are based on alignment of interests — nothing more and nothing less. Ironically, this brings with it a strange kind of clarity of purpose and confidence that Israel will rise or fall based on its merits, not persuasive lobbying in foreign lands.

The Zionist dream of Israel as the center of Jewish life is coming true, just not in the way anyone thought it would come about. It’s not because of support in the rest of the world — but because Israel is increasingly left to chart its course alone.

This isn’t cause for despair, but rather a call for vigilance and realism. Israel is strong, resourceful, and resilient — but it must understand the shifting ground. From now on, Israel must act, plan, and fight understanding that its friends and allies will be determined by what Israel can offer and what value it can produce for other countries.

Israel and its people are abundant with tangible assets that other countries do value and will value. And that is a great sign of hope for the Jewish State.

Daniel Rosen is the Co-founder of a Non-profit Technology company called Emissary4all which is an app to organize people on social media by ideology not geography. He is the Co-host of the podcast “Recalibration.” You can reach him at drosen@emissary4all.org

Pro-Hamas demonstrators at Columbia University in New York City, US, April 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs

The US House Appropriations Committee this week unveiled a major education funding bill with a new requirement aimed at incentivizing colleges and universities to adopt and enforce prohibitions on antisemitic conduct or risk losing federal funding.

The measure, spelled out in Section 536 of the fiscal year 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill, would prohibit institutions of higher education from receiving federal funds “unless and until such institution adopts a prohibition on antisemitic conduct that creates a hostile environment in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in all documents relating to student or employee conduct.” It would further bar funding to schools that fail to take action against students, staff, or organizations that engage in antisemitism on campus.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in any program or activity receiving federal funding.

The proposed funding bill would also cut $49 million for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in 2026. The office has been the key body investigating allegations of antisemitic discrimination on college campuses.

The new language was released amid mounting bipartisan pressure on universities to take campus antisemitism far more seriously. Just last week, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman and Republican Sen. Dave McCormick, both from Pennsylvania, sent pointed letters to the leaders of Penn State, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, Temple University, and Lehigh University.

In their Aug. 28 letters, the senators warned that antisemitism on campus has escalated to a point that Jewish students feel unsafe and unprotected. They urged administrators to adopt a more vigorous stance against antisemitism, writing that “no student should feel like they must risk their safety to exercise their First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble and freely practice their religion.” The letters requested that the universities “work with your campus’s Jewish institutions and ensure all students, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or shared ancestry, are safe and able to fully participate in campus life.”

Antisemitism on university campuses exploded in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. However, the Trump administration’s crackdown on universities, including the suspension of federal funding, to more forcibly punish antisemitic conduct has led some schools to reach settlements with the federal government to pledge more resources to combating antisemitism.

A Palestinian Hamas terrorist shakes hands with a child as they stand guard as people gather on the day of the handover of Israeli hostages, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

Calls for an “immediate end” to the October 7th war in Gaza may sound compassionate. But in practice, they are neither pro-peace nor pro-Palestinian.

They are, in effect, demands that Hamas survive to reconstitute itself as Gaza’s governing power. And if history has taught us anything, nothing could be more anti-Palestinian, anti-recovery, or pro-perpetual war than such an outcome.

Hamas Is Gaza’s Captor, Not Its Voice

Hamas is not Gaza. Hamas is not the Palestinian Arab people. It is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, and its goal is certainly not a Palestinian Arab state, but a global Islamic caliphate. A Palestinian state is only a means to that end.

For 18 years, Hamas has ruled Gaza not as a government, but as a theocratic war machine. Its charter calls for the extermination of Jews. Its leaders openly glorify martyrdom and war. Billions in aid were funneled away from hospitals and schools to build approximately 750 kilometers of fortified tunnels—military bunkers for fighters, not shelters for civilians. Ordinary Gazans never protected; used instead as human shields.

Under Hamas, generation after generation of Gazan children have been raised on a steady diet of hate, jihad, and martyrdom. To leave Hamas in power is not to liberate Gaza, but to guarantee that the cycle of indoctrination, violence, and terror continues — and that another October 7th is only a matter of time.

Ceasefire as Perpetual War

The world has seen this movie before. After every round of fighting — 2009, 2012, 2014, 2021 — the “international community” pressed Israel into premature ceasefires. Each time, Hamas rearmed, retrenched, and plotted the next round.

October 7, 2023, was not an aberration; it was the natural product of this cycle.

That is why today’s calls for a “ceasefire” are not pro-peace. They are demands for Hamas to survive long enough to start the war again.

Britain’s Perverse “Incentive”

Britain recently threatened to recognize a Palestinian state if there is not a ceasefire that leaves Hamas intact. On its face, this might sound like diplomacy. In reality, it is perverse. It sends Hamas a simple message: terrorism pays. Massacre civilians, hide behind hospitals and schools, and the West will reward you.

Such recognition will not advance the creation of the first Palestinian Arab state or make Palestinian lives better. It will, however, make that state less likely than ever by cementing Hamas and its brand of Islamist rejectionism as Gaza’s unavoidable power.

No viable Palestinian state can emerge from a Gaza ruled by Hamas and a culture held hostage to its murderous ideology.

Western Protestors’ Blind Spot

The irony is that the very Western activists chanting “ceasefire now” in London, New York, and Paris — those who imagine themselves champions of peace — are objectively, de facto pro-Hamas.

Whether they realize it or not, their banners translate into “Hamas must survive.” And if Hamas survives, endless war is inevitable –because Hamas’s central purpose is Israel’s destruction. Every chant for “ceasefire now” while Hamas remains intact is a chant for more Israeli deaths and more Palestinian Arab misery.

They are not pro-peace. They are pro-perpetual war.

Who Actually Loses When Hamas Survives

Those demanding an end to the war with Hamas intact claim to care about civilians. But preserving Hamas ensures:

• No real reconstruction, because Hamas steals cement for terror tunnels and fuel for rockets.
• No freedom, because Hamas rules by repression, executions, and censorship.
• No future, because Hamas indoctrinates Gaza’s children for violent jihad, not life.

Keeping Hamas in power is not pro-Palestinian. It is anti-Palestinian. It guarantees that Gaza’s children will inherit only tunnels, wars, and funerals.

A Century of Rejectionism

Since at least the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, this conflict has not been about borders. It has always been about the rejection of Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the land of Israel. When Jews accepted partition in 1937 and again in 1947, Arab leaders said no. Their problem was not lines on a map but Jews exercising sovereignty anywhere whatsoever in their homeland. The atrocities of October 7 echoed the massacres of Jews that Palestinian Arab leaders incited in 1920, 1921, 1929, and 1936.

This unbroken chain of rejectionism has condemned Palestinian Arabs to statelessness and war for generations. And now Britain, and Western protestors, seek to reward it.

If one genuinely wants peace, ask: who should shape Gaza’s future? The terrorists who turned mosques into arsenals, schools into rocket factories, and aid workers into shields? Or people who, without Hamas’ boot on their necks, might finally build homes, schools, and businesses not tied to terror?

The answer should be obvious. Yet Western protestors chanting “ceasefire now” have chosen the terrorists over the civilians.

If the world wants Gaza to truly rebuild, if it wants Palestinian children to inherit schools instead of terror tunnels, and if it wants Israelis and Palestinian Arabs ever to live in peace, then Hamas must be defeated. Only then will peace even be possible.

Micha Danzig is a current attorney, former IDF soldier & NYPD police officer. He currently writes for numerous publications on matters related to Israel, antisemitism & Jewish identity & is the immediate past President of StandWithUs in San Diego and a national board member of Herut.