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For Jewish Americans, ‘Never Again’ Has Never Felt So Real
Pro-Hamas activists gather in Washington Square Park for a rally following a protest march held in response to an NYPD sweep of an anti-Israel encampment at New York University in Manhattan, May 3, 2024. Photo: Matthew Rodier/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The iconic Jewish sage Hillel is often quoted as teaching “If I am not for me, who will be for me? And when I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, when?” This is the cornerstone of modern Jewish human rights philosophy.
For Jewish Americans, who have lived over the past half century in the protected bubble of American freedoms, the public repudiation of antisemitism, and US support for Israel, the focus and priority has often been on supporting others. Jews consistently have rejected a social philosophy of “for ourselves alone.”
Jews have been major supporters of the American civil rights, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, and anti-poverty movements. Jewish organizations have been at the forefront of opposition to anti-Muslim and anti-Asian bias and discrimination. Jewish philanthropy has supported virtually every aspect of American life throughout the country. The vast majority of Jewish Americans have supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with a safe and secure Jewish state living side-by-side with a peaceful Palestinian state that has secure borders. (By the way, “Zionism” simply means support of the legitimacy of the Jewish State, which presumably everyone who seeks a two-state solution is willing to support and accept.)
Through their actions, Jews have become welcomed into American society to an extent otherwise unknown to them in modern world history. Whether it be in the arts, in medicine, in law, in politics, in business, in academia, in journalism, or elsewhere, Jews have achieved levels of acceptance and success that totally smashed the thick walls of embedded antisemitism.
Until now.
On October 7, Israel was viciously attacked and terrorized by Hamas. Since then, Israel has undergone missile attacks from Hezbollah in its northern border with Lebanon, forcing tens of thousands to leave their homes, and directly from Iran over its eastern border. Israel has faced attack from three of its four borders; the fourth border is with the Mediterranean Sea. Such is the definition of existential threat.
Israel is fighting enemies whose strategic goal is elimination of the Jewish state — period. For Hamas, this means ever-lasting terror regardless of the cost to the Palestinian population it purports to represent.
Hamas, Hezbollah, and, most importantly, Iran, do not seek a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue; they seek total elimination of the Jewish State no matter how many Palestinians die as a result. Their tactics are (i) to terrorize Israel through brutal murders, rapes, and missile bombings, (ii) to isolate Israel by using tactics that exacerbate the amount of civilian death and misery it can blame on Jews and the Jewish State, and (iii) to strangle Israel through world-wide economic and political attack and boycotting.
The response from much of the world, including the progressive wing of American politics, a wing largely led by Jews in the past, has been to support denunciation of Israel as a pariah state, and to utilize reckless language, bullying protest, and political power in a manner that has resulted in an unprecedented rise in antisemitism.
The de-Americanizing of Jews has been widespread, with the intent of nullifying the basic humanity of Jews. Cries that Jews should not be allowed to sing at world events, Jews are not welcome artistically unless they denounce Israel and Zionism, Jews are not welcome on college campuses unless they adopt the lie that Israel is committing genocide, Jews either are “pro-genocide or anti-genocide,” and Palestine should be free (meaning, according to Hamas, “Jew-free”) from the river to the sea, go without rigorous and effective denunciation.
Communities that have welcomed and benefited from Jewish support in the past, willingly chime in as the wave of anti-Jew rhetoric fills the increasingly polluted public airwaves of progressive speech and action.
It is in this context, that Hillel’s first teaching resounds with truth –“If I am not for me, who will be for me?”
Jewish Americans, despite their historic hope and preference to place their priorities elsewhere, now have been forced to prioritize their own safety and security. Such is the shameful place we find ourselves.
“Never Again” has never felt so real.
Barry Fleishman is Chair of the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) National Commission’s Government Relations Committee.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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