By BERNIE BELLAN (Posted March 11) As I write this, the war with Iran is now in its 12th day – with no end in sight.
It doesn’t take a military genius to realize that President Trump entered into this war with no clear goals in mind. As for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, I rather agree with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who wrote on March 9 that “keeping Israel at war with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah enables Netanyahu to drag out his corruption trial and avoid a commission of inquiry for his failure to prevent Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion. (If you think that is too cynical, you don’t know Netanyahu.)”

Friedman added: “For his part, Trump has been all over the map when talking about the morning after in Iran — and saying truly ridiculous and often contradictory things that reveal a commander in chief who is just making it up as he goes along. One day it’s regime change, one day not; one day he doesn’t care about Iran’s future, the next day he will have a say in choosing the country’s next leader; one day he’s open to negotiations, the next day he is demanding ‘unconditional surrender’.”

Now, you don’t have to agree with Thomas Friedman in his analysis of what led to the current war, but another New York Times columnist, Brett Stephens, wrote a piece that was published on March 10, in which he outlined four possible scenarios to how this war might end – all of which would probably be considered acceptable to the majority of the American public – and the Israeli public as well
.
Here are summaries of the four scenarios Stephens envisions:

• “Regime change is the most optimistic one.”
• Regime modification — “that is, a regime that stays in place but complies with U.S. and Israeli demands” — another optimistic scenario.”
• In the third scenario, “the regime refuses to yield and the war carries on in much the same way for another two or three weeks before some sort of mutual cease-fire declaration, probably before President Trump’s planned visit to Beijing on March 31.”
  In this scenario, “all sides declare their own sort of victory and none of them quite believe it.
  “This scenario though has an ugly cousin: not regime change, but state collapse.”
• Here is Stephens’ fourth scenario – the one I’m sure you’ll find the most intriguing:
  “What, then, should the Trump administration do? My prescription: Seize Kharg Island. Mine or blockade Iran’s remaining ports. Destroy as much Iranian military capability as possible over the next week or two, including a second Midnight Hammer operation to destroy what’s left of Iran’s nuclear capacity and know-how. And threaten the regime with further bombing if it massacres its own citizens, mounts terrorist attacks abroad or returns to nuclear work.
  “That constitutes the most realistic path to victory at the lowest plausible price in lives, risk and treasure. And for all its admitted dangers, it gives Iran’s people their best chance of winning their freedom. Not bad for a one-month war its critics warned would be another Iraq.”

But perhaps Stephens is a bit too optimistic in thinking that there are four scenarios to how this war will end, all relatively palatable.
For a much more cynical take on anything to do with Israel, I always turn to Haaretz which, to my mind, is the only honest sources of news emanating from Israel.
Here are excerpts from how Haaretz columnist Uri Misgav described what is really happening in the Middle East right now – and how nothing good is going to come out of this war:
“I think that this is a psychotic war. One that Israel and the United States entered led by two psychopaths. Vainglorious, narcissistic, disconnected. They’re up to their necks in political and legal trouble. They head the two most fundamentalist and anti-democratic governments in the history of their countries. And they have the chutzpah to preach democracy elsewhere.
“America entered this war with a secretary of defense who prefers being called ‘secretary of war,’ an evangelist who goes to work smelling of alcohol, tattooed with crusader crosses associated with the far right, who was suspected of sexual harassment and came to his position as a commentator on the Fox News morning show. Israel entered it with the Defense Ministry headed by a Likud operative, Israel Katz, who has no security background or public influence beyond the Likud districts. The orders are executed by obedient technocratic general staffs, who are addicted to exercising unlimited power and have no strategic horizon.
“This is a war with no defined objectives or orderly plans, and if there are any, they’re changed daily on Trump’s whims and caprices. He, at least, talks to the media every day. Netanyahu has not appeared before the public or answered questions from (real) journalists since the beginning of the war, and is content with recorded videos and briefings by him and his eunuchs in the name of a ‘political official,’ or a ‘defense official’ or ‘someone knowledgeable about the details.
“We learn from them and from the reality seeping between the sirens that we moved from regime change to ‘creating conditions’ and ‘creating cracks’. We’ve moved from removing the nuclear weapons to ‘nuclear withdrawal’. We’ve moved from destroying ballistic missiles to ‘damaging launch capabilities’. And there’s also been talk of eliminating Hezbollah, and severing its ties with Iran. They stand roughly where the total victory over Hamas and its overthrow stands.
“A two-year war ended only in October. The body of the last hostage was returned only in January. Signs of normalcy appeared for a moment. The economy woke up, schools, the Euroleague and Eurocup, a little tourism. And then, in the shadow of Netanyahu’s trial and a probe of his aides and the collapse of the government of shirkers and abandonment, the Iranian threat began to throb – the one we ‘destroyed for generations’ last summer.”
I hope you’ll excuse me for saying I tend to lean more to Misgav’s thoroughly cynical assessment of where this war is headed than to Brett Stephens’ relatively optimistic view. But, by the time you read this everything may have changed. With as mercurial a president as Donald Trump, he will probably have lost interest in this war because it hasn’t played out the way he thought a typical Hollywood war movie should have ended by now – the brilliant strategist that he is.

(June 8, 2024) Introduction: We received the following email from a young Jewish Winnipegger re the BB Camp controversy, which we’ve reported on extensively on this website. We thought it important to post the email as a separate piece rather than as an add-on to an article in which we printed other emails from readers expressing their disappointment at what happened to Jacob Brodovsky, the former co-executive director of BB Camp:

Dear Mr. Bellan,

Thank you for once again cutting through the noise with your April 23rd column, “What the sordid BB Camp affair says about our community.” Your clarity and courage in calling out our rush to judgment and our narrowing definition of “Jewish identity” are deeply appreciated, especially by those of us who feel increasingly alienated in Winnipeg.

I also want to share a troubling observation about one of the loudest voices attacking Jacob Brodovsky: theJ.ca. Their articles—bylines like “Ron East” or “TheJ.ca Staff”—are, in fact, almost entirely generated by artificial intelligence. They contain no verifiable sourcing, frequently hallucinate details, and appear to be little more than a far-right newsletter running smear campaigns under the guise of “journalism.” The entire BB Camp series reads like an AI trained on extremist talking points, regurgitated daily to bully our community into silence.

As a young Jew in Winnipeg, I—and many of my peers—are horrified by the transformation we’re witnessing. What was once a warm, progressive community is now dominated by:

Bigots and Bullies: Parents threatening to pull their kids unless the camp bows to extremist demands.

Florida-style Republican Judaism: A narrow, intolerant ideology portrayed as the only “true” Jewishness.

Collapsing Leadership: Our Jewish Federation leaders, including Jeff Lieberman, have shown they lack the vision or backbone to navigate this crisis.

We stand at a dangerous inflection point. Our community is on the verge of a total and irreversible fascist takeover—an outcome no amount of regret or retrospective apologies can undo.

Please consider reading firsthand accounts from community members who have bravely spoken out:

I know this letter is anonymous and won’t be published, but I hope you see it as proof that many of us are desperate for ethical, forward-looking leadership. Thank you again for using your platform to remind us what Jewish community should mean: diversity of thought, compassion for all people, and the moral courage to call out extremism—no matter where it comes from.

This was NEVER a community of far-right Israelis. This is a shame beyond words.

With gratitude and urgency,

A Concerned Young Jew in Winnipeg

Post script: We had heard from many different sources (who all asked to remain anonymous) that the Jewish Federation’s decision to force the BB Camp board to fire Jacob Brodovsky came as a result of pressure from one or more big donors to the Combined Jewish Appeal. We sent an email to Jeff Lieberman, asking Jeff whether the Jewish Federation’s decision to force the resignation of Jacob Brodovsky as co-executive director of BB Camp came as a result of a donor (or donors) to the Combined Jewish Appeal threatening to withdraw their donation(s) this year unless Jacob were fired. I don’t think anyone would be surprised to learn that Jeff did not bother responding to my request for information.

The Jewish Federation used to advertise elections to its board in The Jewish Post & News for many years, but no longer does so (in the Jewish Post). Instead, it submits a slate of new appointees to its board to members of the current board to be rubber stamped. Is it any surprise that the donors who contribute the most money call the shots for the Federation (which is as its always been. The only difference is the Jewish Federation and the Winnipeg Jewish Community Council before it used to operate with a patina of democracy. Sadly, that is no longer the case.)

We would urge anyone on the Federation board who could give information about what led the board to force the resignation of Jacob Brodovsky to contact us. We would give full anonymity, as we have to the writer of the above letter.

-Bernie Bellan

By BERNIE BELLAN (Posted May 11) I’ve been called a lot of names in my lifetime, but until today I had never seen myself referred to as a “Goldfish Jew.” I don’t make a habit of reading a website called thej.ca (which, by the way, played an instrumental role in having Jacob Brodovsky removed as co-executive director of BB Camp.) But, there it was: a lengthy diatribe denouncing me over my coming to the defence of Jacob Brodovsky.

It may surprise readers of this website who may have read my articles about the BB Camp controversy, but I rather like Ron East. (And Ron, if you’re reading this, you may be the most surprised of all to read that. I know how many challenges you’ve had in your life and I wish you nothing but the best.)

But you really confounded me with this line in the article in which you really went after me hard: “Bellan and his woke coterie epitomize the Goldfish Jew syndrome: virtuous but shallow, blissfully unaware of the churning antisemitic currents around them. Their moral posturing yields real-world consequences.”

Wow! “Goldfish Jew?” I tried to look it up to see whether that term has any sort of real definition. Here’s all I could come up with:

The phrase “goldfish jew” is not a term with a widely recognized meaning and may not be intended as a literal reference. The phrase could be interpreted in a few ways:

1. Literally: 
As a play on words, referencing a literal goldfish and its potential connection to Jewish culture. Goldfish are sometimes used as decorations or symbols in Jewish cultural contexts, like Nowruz celebrations. 



2. Cultural Reference:

As a reference to a specific type of gefilte fish, a traditional Jewish dish. Some variations of gefilte fish are considered “sweet” or “savory,” reflecting the cultural preferences of different Ashkenazi Jewish communities in Europe, according to Wikipedia. 

3. Jokes and Humor:

As a humorous reference, potentially based on the appearance of goldfish or a play on words involving the term “jew.” The term “Jewish” can be used in a humorous or lighthearted way in certain contexts, as seen in posts on Instagram or YouTube. 

In summary: “Goldfish jew” can be interpreted in several ways, ranging from literal references to Jewish culture, to humorous uses of the term.

But none of those definitions seem to make sense if you’re trying to take me down a notch. I did respond to your long diatribe about me though – but so far I haven’t seen my comment appear following your article about me. What I wrote was that I would challenge you to reprint some columns written by your late, great father, Yoram Hamizrachi, in which he severely criticized Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. (For those of you who don’t know who Yoram was, he was a colonel in the Israeli army who served as a liaison between the Israel Defence Forces and the Christian Lebanese forces who were battling various Muslim groups in Lebanon during the 1970s, including the Palestine Liberation Organization. Yoram spoke perfect Arabic and was a long-time writer for The Jewish Post once he immigrated to Canada in 1982. His understanding of the forces at play in the Middle East led to him being a much sought-after speaker and lecturer on the Middle East.)

Unfortunately though, Ron, I’m afraid your father, if he were still alive, would be described as “woke,” whatever the hell that means these days. So, go after me as much as you want – I’m used to be being labeled an “anti-Zionist,” even though I lived in Israel for a year myself, and have visited there 14 times altogether. I suppose the late Vivian Silver, who was killed during the October 7 massacre, would also have been described as “woke” too, because she spent so much of her life working for peace between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. But “Goldfish Jew?”

What have you got against Goldfish? I know they’r e not kosher to eat – but you’ll have to expand on what you mean by calling me one. Still, I can ask the Oxford Dictionary whether they’re willing to add the term to the list of new terms in their next dictionary. And – if you want me to send you reprints of any of your father’s columns where he calls for peaceful co-existence between Israeli Jews and Palestinians, I’d be glad to do so, and then you can publish them on your website. But wouldn’t you be worried that if you did that, you’d be called a traitor to Israel – and the Jewish Federation might even call an emergency meeting to discuss what they’re going to do about you? (What if some major donors threatened the Federation to cancel their donations in response to anti-Zionist material on your website?)