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What Voltaire Would Say About Recognizing a Palestinian State Today
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan holds a picture of Hamas’ leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, as he addresses delegates during the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, US, May 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
The 18th century produced countless geniuses who changed how we think in so many ways. Not least among them was François-Marie Arouet, better known by his pen name Voltaire. Like countless other savants in that era, he excelled at multiple disciplines – including history, philosophy, politics, and literature.
But most of all, Voltaire is remembered for his sharp wit. One of his most famous quips was about the Holy Roman Empire, the loose confederation of principalities and dukedoms in what later became Germany. “This agglomeration which calls itself the Holy Roman Empire,” he said, “is in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
Voltaire had little patience for pomposity and pretension, and his description of the Holy Roman Empire — a sprawling, lumbering political entity that dominated Central Europe for centuries — cut straight to the bone.
It wasn’t holy — it was made up of competing Christian denominations, and the Church had long since lost control over its many local rulers. It wasn’t Roman — the connection to ancient Rome was tenuous at best, a grandiose title masking the reality of a Germanic confederation. And it certainly wasn’t an empire — it was a disorganized patchwork of feuding duchies and city-states that barely hung together under a distant elected emperor.
Which is why Voltaire’s line is so memorable: it captured, in one withering sentence, the absurdity of dressing up a dysfunctional, fragmented mess as something it plainly was not.
Which brings us to the present day, and the latest diplomatic fad sweeping Western capitals: recognition of a Palestinian state. In the past few weeks alone, Britain, France, Australia, and Canada have all rushed to declare that “Palestine” should now be treated as if it is a real, functioning country.
But here’s the problem: it isn’t. As Voltaire might have said, there is no state — and frankly, there is no Palestine. According to the 1933 Montevideo Convention, a state must have four things: defined borders, a functioning government, a coherent judiciary and military, and a permanent population. Palestine has none of them. What it does have is a fractured leadership divided between a corrupt, un-elected Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and a genocidal terror regime in Gaza.
And yet, astonishingly, rather than confronting the nightmare reality that Palestinian national aspirations are being driven by an absolutist bunch of thugs — a murderous death cult that unleashed the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust — world leaders have chosen to reward them by indulging in the fantasy of Palestinian statehood. And make no mistake: when the Palestinians say “Palestine,” they mean all of Israel, not just Gaza and the West Bank.
Incredibly, October 7th has become a kind of twisted diplomatic success for Hamas and its international cheerleaders. A bloody terrorist rampage has been transformed into a Willy Wonka golden ticket at the United Nations, while foolish Western governments cower in the face of Islamic minorities and progressive loudmouths in their own countries. It is the international equivalent of applauding an arsonist by handing him the keys to the fire station — and then wondering why the fires keep spreading.
History offers us plenty of examples of phantom “states” that were recognized — or kind of recognized — despite having none of the attributes of genuine statehood. Take Biafra, for instance. In 1967, the Igbo people in southeastern Nigeria declared independence. For three brutal years, Biafra functioned as a shadow state, fighting a bloody war with Nigeria that left millions dead.
A handful of countries recognized Biafra, but most of the world did not. And even those who toyed with the idea of recognition knew, deep down — or maybe not so deep down — that Biafra was never going to be a viable state. When it collapsed in 1970, the recognition evaporated as if it had never been offered.
Then there’s Transnistria — a sliver of land wedged between Moldova and Ukraine, which declared independence in 1990. It’s thirty five years later, and Transnistria still parades itself as a state: it has its own flag, an army, border controls, postage stamps, and even its own currency.
In fact, on paper, it looks far more like a real state than “Palestine” ever has. And yet — crucially — no one recognizes it. Because the world understands that Transnistria is just a Russian-backed invention, a geopolitical puppet masquerading as a country.
Which brings us back to “Palestine.” Like Biafra, it has no prospect of surviving the test of time. Like Transnistria, it is just a figment of its own fantasy and the political considerations of others. It’s totally absurd for such an entity to be recognized as a state.
If anything, by the usual standards of statehood, Disneyland has a stronger claim to sovereignty than Palestine. It has borders, border checks, its own security personnel, and a coherent government in the form of the Disney corporation. If the world is in the business of recognizing make-believe kingdoms, at least Disneyland delivers joy and entertainment — instead of terror tunnels and mayhem.
Parshat Re’eh contains a sobering warning that echoes down to our own time. Moses tells the Jewish people (Deut. 13:2): “If a prophet or a dreamer arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign comes to pass, but then he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ you must not listen to him.”
The Torah’s message is chillingly clear: appearances can deceive. Someone might come along and dazzle us with something that seems legitimate. But in the final analysis, legitimacy is not determined by wishful thinking. What matters is fidelity to truth.
The classical commentaries drive this point home. The Ramban notes that the Torah presents us with a scenario in which the false prophet’s “wonder” actually happens. He predicted it, and it came to pass. And yet, the acid test is not that it happened, but whether the prophet’s message aligns with eternal truth. If it does not, the wonder is not a wonder, it is a distraction.
Rabbi Obadiah Sforno sharpens this even further: the false prophet’s “achievement” dazzles the crowd in the moment, but it has no enduring substance. The appearance of success collapses the instant you measure it against what is real and lasting.
Malbim adds a more unsettling twist. He explains that such deceptions are not accidents, but a Divine test: will people cling to principle when they are confronted with a fake wonder, or will they be seduced by its allure?
It’s an uncomfortable question. Will the spectacle of international recognition – the pageantry of parliaments, diplomats, and foreign ministers standing before TV cameras declaring their recognition of “Palestine” – really deliver? It sure looks like progress. But in reality, it is a lie — a false prophecy that leads people astray, away from moral clarity and toward disaster.
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch constantly taught that the Torah is our safeguard against the fashions of the age, when hollow trends dress themselves up as timeless morality.
That’s exactly the point. The false prophet doesn’t look like a villain. On the contrary, he speaks the language of hope and righteousness. But he is a villain, spreading poison and destruction. So it is with “Palestinian statehood,” which is presented as a historical justice, but in reality is the epitome of terror, corruption, and wanton bloodshed.
By endorsing something that does not exist, the West is in effect falling into the trap of a false prophecy. Seduced by the theatrics of recognition, they are ignoring the truth that what they are doing strengthens terror and undermines their own credibility. They have mistaken illusion for substance — and that, says the Torah, is the very definition of a false prophet.
As Voltaire himself put it, “Illusion is the first of all pleasures.” It’s time for the West to open their eyes and wake up from their dream.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
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Gore Websites, Antisemitic Propaganda Radicalized School Shooters, New ADL Report Finds
A demonstration in Schwerin, Germany, with a banner reading “Against Nazis.” Photo: Bernd Wüstneck via Reuters Connect
The Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Center on Extremism has released a new report detailing how two young persons’ drifting into viewing macabre content online degenerated into an obsession with white supremacist propaganda and, ultimately, the perpetration of a school shooting.
“Kids and teens today have lived their entire lives with easy internet access, putting them even more at risk of encountering violent extremism online,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement on Thursday. “ADL has been alerting about the dangers of these online communities and activity for years. Extremist ideas combined with gore websites can inspire others to love for evermore violent content.”
He added, “It’s a vicious cycle, especially for young people. We hope this research guides all stakeholders in taking action to prevent future attacks.”
The ADL examined the cases of Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, 15 — a rare female mass shooter who committed suicide after murdering two people at a Christian private school in Madison, Wisconsin — and Solomon Henderson, 17 — who murdered a female classmate at a public high school in Nashville, Tennessee, before fatally shooting himself. Their journeys towards unconscionable violence, the ADL explained, began in the dark corners of the internet, when each enrolled to become members of a website titled “WatchPeopleDie” (WPD).
“WatchPeopleDie” is one of hundreds of shock websites which traumatize audiences with images and videos of beheadings, sexual violence, and other appalling acts of antisemitism, sexism, and self-degradation. Such websites can also function as recruiting grounds for white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
Rupnow and Henderson proved vulnerable to the content’s assault on the psyche. Within 19 months, each teenager “posted, reposted, endorsed, replied to, or otherwise engaged with extremist content,” the ADL said, including that which referenced “mass killers” and “764,” an online network of miscreants who extol “obscene” depravities.
“The interconnected network of accounts that post extremist content on WPD included Rupnow and Henderson, who both followed and were followed by other explicitly white supremacist accounts,” the ADL explained. “Because both teens would commit their shootings roughly 19 months after joining the site, this shows that online engagement with extremist ideologies and depictions of heinous acts of violence can lead to on the ground attacks. Furthermore, this network acts as an echo chamber that normalizes violence, gore, and white supremacy.”
The ADL said that the teenagers’ stories and the atrocities they committed showcase the dangers of failing to supervise the online activity of the youth, at home and at school, and it is launching a campaign to brief 16,000 superintendents on its findings and mobilize law enforcement, parents, and teachers around a course of action for thwarting online predators.
“Extremism, hate, and violent gore are just a click away for many children, making it urgent for schools and parents to implement safeguard,” said Oren Segal, senior vice president of counter extremism and intelligence at ADL. “These toxic online spaces can cause devastating harm in our communities and are increasingly becoming central to the broader violent extremist landscape.”
The ADL is spearheading multiple efforts to combat antisemitism.
Earlier this month, it launched the Jewish Policy Index (JPI), a “first interactive tool of its kind” for evaluating the efficacy of policies that US states have adopted to combat antisemitism.
According to the ADL, JPI has already identified positive and negative trends. Nine states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New York, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia — have all passed legislation to address a surge of antisemitic discrimination and violence across the country, earning a JPI designation as “Leading States.” But, the ADL noted, 41 other states failed to merit the distinction.
The distribution of the first JPI ratings forms a bell curve, with most states, 29, clustered in the middle, having been classified as “Progressing States” which have adopted “some key pieces of the policy agenda” the ADL recommends. Twelve received the poorest mark, “Limited Action States,” for showing “little systematic effort to address antisemitism through policy.”
The ADL and its partners say the JPI can facilitate democratic action which “empowers residents” to challenge their states to fight antisemitism with vigor.
“Jewish communities know that if we are to flourish through difficult times, we must mobilize to fight antisemitism,” Eric Fingerhut, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federations of North America, said in a statement commending the initiative. “The most important responsibility of government is keeping its citizens safe. The Jewish Policy Index is an important tool to help inform and advance how state governments respond to antisemitism and protect their Jewish communities.”
The advent of JPI came on the heels of harrowing new FBI statistics which reveal the extent to which violent antisemitism has become a pervasive occurrence in American life.
While hate crimes against other demographic groups declined overall last year, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
Additionally, a striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims, the second most targeted religious group, were victims in 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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UC Berkeley Discriminated Against Israeli Professor, Lawsuit Alleges
Students attend a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at University of California, Berkeley during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Berkeley, US, April 23, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect
An Israeli professor has filed a lawsuit against the University of California, Berkeley alleging that school officials denied her a job because she is Israeli — a claim the university’s own investigators corrobroated in an internal investigation, according to her attorneys at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.
Filed on Wednesday in the Alameda County Superior Court, the complaint seeks justice for Dr. Yael Nativ, who taught in UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies as a visiting professor in 2022 and received an invitation to apply to do so again for the 2024-2025 academic year just weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel.
A hiring official allegedly believed, however, that an Israeli professor in the department would be unpalatable to students and faculty.
“My dept [sic] cannot host you for a class next fall,” the official allegedly told Nativ in a WhatsApp message. “Things are very hot here right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here.”
Berkeley’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (OPHD) later initiated an investigation of Nativ’s denial after the professor wrote an opinion essay which publicly accused the school of cowardice and violations of her civil rights. OPHD determined that a “preponderance of evidence” proved Nativ’s claim, but school officials went on to ignore the professor’s requests for an apology and other remedial measures, including sending her a renewed invitation to teach dance.
After nearly two years, the situation remained unresolved, prompting Nativ to file suit and seek damages as well as the apology UC Berkeley refused to pronounce.
“Since the Hamas attacks on October 7th, Jewish and Israeli professors, researchers, and academics like Dr. Nativ have been unfairly targeted, their work questioned, and their livelihoods threatened because of the rampant antisemitism that has overtaken college campuses,” Brandeis Center chairman Kenneth Marcus, a former assistant secretary for civil rights in the US Education Department, said in a statement. “For a university to deny the invitation of a respected professor simply because of her national origin is not only distasteful, it’s illegal.”
He added, “If the campus administration doesn’t hold themselves up to the same accountability standards that they hold their students, what is stopping their students from acting on their own discriminatory beliefs? The vicious and illegal targeting of Israeli faculty and researchers is unfortunately a disturbing new trend we are seeing nationwide that must stop.”
UC Berkeley was the site of one the most shocking antisemitic incidents in recent memory, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
In February 2024, a mob of hundreds of pro-Palestinian students and non-students shut down an event at UC Berkeley featuring an Israeli soldier, forcing Jewish students to flee to a secret safe room as the protesters overwhelmed campus police.
Footage of the incident showed a frenzied mass of anti-Zionist agitators banging on the doors of Zellerbach Hall while an event featuring Israeli reservist Ran Bar-Yoshafat — who visited the university to discuss his military service during Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion — took place inside. The mob then stormed the building — breaking glass windows in the process, according to reports in the Daily Wire — and precipitated school officials’ decision to evacuate the area.
During the infiltration of Zellerbach, one of the mob — which was recruited by Bears for Palestine, which had earlier proclaimed its intention to cancel the event — spit on a Jewish student and called him a “Jew,” pejoratively.
“You know what I was screamed at? ‘Jew, you Jew, you Jew,’ literally right to my face,” the student who was attacked said to a friend. “Some woman — then she spit at me.”
Shaya Keyvanfar, a student, told The Algemeiner that her sister was spit on and that the incident was unlike any she had ever witnessed.
“Once the doors were closed, the protesters somehow found a side door and pushed it open, and a few of them managed to get in, and once they did, they tried to open the door for the rest of them,” Keyvanfar said. “It was really scary. They were pounding on the windows outside — they broke one — they spit at my sister and others. They called someone a dirty Jew. It was eerie.”
In July, the chancellor of UC Berkeley described a professor who cheered the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre across southern Israel as a “fine scholar” during a congressional hearing held at Capitol Hill.
Richard K. Lyons, who assumed the chancellorship in July 2024, issued the unmitigated praise while being questioned by members of the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which summoned him and the chief administrators of two other major universities to interrogate their handling of the campus antisemitism crisis.
Lyons stumbled into the statement while being questioned by Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI), who asked Lyons to describe the extent of his relationship and correspondence with Professor Ussama Makdisi, who tweeted in February 2024 that he “could have been one of those who broke through the siege on October 7.”
“What do you think the professor meant,” McClain asked Lyons, to which the chancellor responded, “I believe it was a celebration of the terrorist attack on October 7.” McClain proceeded to ask if Lyons discussed the tweet with Makdisi or personally reprimanded him, prompting an exchange of remarks which concluded with Lyons saying, “He is a fine scholar.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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US Senate Democrats Urge State Department to Investigate Deaths of Gaza Journalists
Journalists and media workers protest after Al-Jazeera personnel killed in Gaza, in Barcelona, Spain, Aug. 13, 2025. Photo: Marc Asensio/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
A group of 17 US senators — all Democrats except for Bernie Sanders, an independent — is pressing the State Department over reports of Israeli military strikes that have killed and injured journalists in Gaza, despite Israel maintaining that Hamas has consistently embedded its fighters among civilians and exploited media workers as cover for its terrorist operations.
In a letter sent on Wednesday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the senators raised concerns about a recent strike in Gaza that killed six media workers, including Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif. Israeli officials have said al-Sharif was linked to Hamas, though critics in Washington argue Israel has not provided enough public evidence to bolster that claim.
The senators warned that the incident fits into what they called a “pattern of violence” against journalists. But Israel and its supporters argue that the reality is far more complex. Hamas often operates within civilian populations, including hospitals, schools, and media offices, making it difficult for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to avoid collateral casualties during precision strikes.
The lawmakers asked the State Department to assess whether Israel has complied with international law and US policy in its targeting decisions. They also raised questions about accountability for previous strikes, including an October 2023 attack in southern Lebanon that killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and wounded American reporter Dylan Collins.
Israel has repeatedly said it investigates battlefield incidents involving civilian or journalist casualties, but the Isreal Defense Force (IDF) stresses that Hamas’s deliberate use of human shields makes complete protection of journalists impossible. Supporters of Israel note that Hamas has used press credentials to disguise operatives, a tactic that directly endangers legitimate media workers.
The senators also pressed the administration to ask Israel to allow greater access for foreign journalists to Gaza. But Israeli officials have long maintained that Hamas tightly controls who can operate inside the territory and uses journalists as tools in its propaganda war. Israeli officials also point out that while international media demand full access, Hamas has routinely censored coverage, intimidated reporters, and staged events for cameras.
The letter cited reports of Palestinian journalists held in administrative detention. Israel counters that many of those detained are suspected of aiding Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, al allied terrorist group in Gaza, and that security-based detentions are lawful under both Israeli and international emergency regulations.
Israeli officials have also emphasized that outlets like Al Jazeera have played an active role in spreading Hamas messaging, prompting Israel’s government to restrict some of its operations.
Since the war erupted in October 2023, around 190 Palestinian journalists in Gaza have reportedly been killed. However, Israel insists that many were targeted because of ties to terrorist groups.
Moreover, records and public footage indicate al-Sharif worked on a Hamas-linked media team before joining Al Jazeera, maintained ties with senior Hamas leadership, and was singled out by anti-Hamas protesters in March 2025 as part of the group’s ruling establishment.
The Israel Defense Forces claimed that al-Sharif, who was killed on Aug. 10 along with four colleagues in an Israeli airstrike near Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, was “the head of a Hamas terrorist cell and advanced rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF troops.” IDF international spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani added on X that Israel obtained intelligence showing al-Sharif was “an active Hamas military wing operative at the time of his elimination” and even received a salary from the terrorist group.