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Why the War in Gaza and the War in Ukraine Are Nothing Alike
US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and US Special Envoy Keith Kellogg attend the Turkey-US-Ukraine trilateral talks in Istanbul, Turkey, May 16, 2025. Photo: Arda Kucukkaya/Turkish Foreign Ministry/Handout via REUTERS
In recent months, we’ve seen a growing chorus of voices, particularly in Western media, comparing Israel’s war against Hamas with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. These comparisons are not only inaccurate — but dangerously misleading.
The situations in Gaza and Ukraine differ in history, context, goals, and legitimacy. It’s time to stop equating these two wars. They are simply nothing alike.
Let’s start with the facts: Israel is a legitimate, sovereign nation, just like Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, countries that were created after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. In 1947, the UN proposed a two-state solution. 77% of the land was allocated to the Arabs, and 23% to the Jews. The Jews accepted. Five Arab countries and the Arab population went to war to annihilate the newly-formed Jewish state and murder its residents.
Israel was reborn in 1948 and chose democracy, rule of law, and open society as its foundation.
Fast forward to October 7, 2023 — a day that will live in infamy for Israelis. Approximately 1,200 Israelis were brutally murdered, thousands more were assaulted, shot, and raped, and more than 250 people were kidnapped into Gaza. It was not just a terrorist attack — it was an invasion and an act of war.
No country on earth — not one — would allow such a massacre without a military response. And yet, Israel is the one being questioned.
In fact, Israel was invaded by Hamas just as Ukraine was invaded by Russia. The only difference is that Israel had the military strength to fight off the invasion, whereas Ukraine did not.
The Gaza war was never about territory. It is a war of self-defense, a war against terrorism that targets civilians. The war could end tomorrow, if Hamas would surrender, return the hostages, and disarm. But they refuse. Their goal is not peace, but Israel’s destruction. The Hamas Charter makes this crystal clear.
Now compare that to Ukraine and Russia. That war is about power, borders, and geopolitics. If Israel is comparable to any side, it is Ukraine.
Russia wants to wipe Ukraine off the map, just like Hamas does. Ukraine, on the other hand, is willing to live in peace with Russia. Putin is targeting Ukrainian civilians with indiscriminate rocket attacks — just like Hamas does. Ukraine, like Israel, is focusing on military targets.
Ukraine fights for sovereignty; Russia fights to reassert empire. While civilians suffer on both sides, it is still a conflict between two state actors. Israel’s war is not like that. Israel does not seek to occupy Gaza, nor to eliminate the Palestinian people. It seeks to dismantle a terrorist regime embedded in civilian infrastructure, using its own people as human shields.
To equate Israel’s war with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is to misunderstand both conflicts. Israel is not fighting for conquest; it is fighting for its very existence — and so is Ukraine.
Sabine Sterk is the CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel
The post Why the War in Gaza and the War in Ukraine Are Nothing Alike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.