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Israel Is Burning: The War in the North Could Make Gaza Look Small in Comparison
Flames seen at the side of a road, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, close to the Israel border with Lebanon, in northern Israel, June 4, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ayal Margolin
Large swaths of northern Israel, already rendered uninhabitable by months of Hamas rocket fire, are now ablaze. Nearly 100,000 Israelis who were forced from their homes in October have been living as “displaced persons” for almost eight months. Hezbollah has also succeeded in carrying out a number of ground incursions into Israeli territory in “October 7 style,” though fortunately all civilian communities have been evacuated.
After three quarters of a year, the Israeli people are asking: when will we go back home to the north?
This week may finally provide our answer: amidst rumors of a June IDF ground operation into Lebanon, Israel has just called up 350,000 reservists: nearly the entire reserve corps. Yet this war will be unlike anything we’re used to.
In October, Hamas had an estimated arsenal of 30,000 rockets. Hezbollah, by contrast, is estimated to have nearly a quarter million, and can fire more rockets in a single day than Hamas can in an entire month — enough to overwhelm the Iron Dome missile defense shield.
Moreover, an estimated 10% of Hezbollah’s arsenal consists of guided, precision high yield missiles, smart-bombs, and drones. Combined with the ability to overwhelm Iron Dome, these precision weapons have a terrifying capacity to destroy specific targets.
(Source: Alma Research and Education Center)
So what will Hezbollah strike, given the opportunity and capacity? Israelis have some thoughts on this: for months Israelis have been quietly stockpiling food, bottled water, AM/FM radios, flashlights, and extra batteries. This is because Israelis believe that Hezbollah will attempt to destroy electric plants, water systems, the roads that transport food, as well as communications and Internet connections (making old style radios potentially the only way to access information). Israelis are accustomed to hearing a siren and going to the bomb shelter for 10 minutes, However, in a war with Hezbollah, Israelis could be stuck in shelters for hours or even days at a time.
But there is at least some encouraging news: Israel has been preparing for this scenario for the past eight months. There are clues to indicate that Israel may have been quietly building back-up systems and other protections for much of the civilian infrastructure, but it is nonetheless a far more dangerous scenario than a face-off against Hamas.
Israel faces another dilemma in this upcoming Lebanon war: Lebanese casualties.
Israel’s operation in Gaza has produced the lowest civilian to combatant casualty ratio in human history, nine times lower than the UN published global average, and far lower than numbers achieved by the United States and coalition allies in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Part of the reason Israel was able to act with such incredible restraint is the Iron Dome: if an active Hamas rocket launcher is surrounded by civilians, Israel can afford to issue warnings and wait before destroying it, knowing that Israeli civilians will have a measure of protection in the meantime.
Not so in Lebanon: with the Iron Dome potentially overwhelmed and with Hezbollah’s high yield precision munitions pointed at Israeli civilian targets, the IDF will have no choice but to destroy the active rocket launchers quickly. If such rocket launchers are located in densely populated areas, such as downtown Beirut, that could mean very high levels of civilian casualties.
Self-defense under these circumstances is absolutely permitted by international law, morality, and basic common sense, whereas Hezbollah’s practice of hiding weaponry in civilian areas is not.
Lebanese casualties would be tragic and worthy of empathy, yet even so, the blame should fall squarely on Hezbollah (and not Israel) for turning an entire nation into one massive human shield. Even Israel’s historical restraint in Gaza has not been adequate to stem the tide of accusations of genocide, war crimes, and international legal actions. With Lebanese casualty counts potentially tens to hundreds of times greater, one can only imagine the international storm that will ensue. And that’s not even counting the dangers that await the Israeli homeland.
A war in the north could have unprecedented consequences for the Jewish State.
Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.
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New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’

Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
In a warning sign for the campaign of Democratic nominee for mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani, a majority of city voters in a new poll say the candidate’s hardline anti-Israel stance makes them less likely to vote for him.
In the survey of likely city voters conducted by American Pulse, 52.5 percent said Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada” coupled with his backing of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement made them less likely to vote for him in November. Just 31% of city voters polled were more likely to support him because of these positions.
At the same time, a significant share of young New York City voters support Mamdani’s anti-Israel positioning, a striking sign of shifting generational views on Israel and the Palestinian cause.
Nearly half of voters aged 18 to 44 (46 percent) said the State Assembly member’s backing for BDS and “refusal to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’” made them more likely to support him.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, has been under fire for defending “globalize the intifada,” a slogan many Jewish groups associate with incitement to violence against Israel and Jews. While critics argue it glorifies terrorism, supporters claim it’s a call for international solidarity with oppressed peoples, especially Palestinians. Mamdani has also voiced support for BDS, a movement widely condemned by mainstream Jewish organizations as antisemitic for singling out Israel.
The generational divide exposed by the poll comes amid a broader political realignment. Younger progressives across the country are increasingly critical of Israeli policies, especially in the wake of the Gaza war, and more receptive to Palestinian activism. But to many Jewish leaders, Mamdani’s rising support is alarming.
Rabbi David Wolpe, visiting scholar at Harvard University, condemned the phrase with a sarcastic analogy.
“‘Globalize the intifada’ is just a political slogan,” he said. “Like ‘The cockroaches must be exterminated’ was just a housing authority slogan in Rwanda.”
Jewish organizations have reported a surge in antisemitic incidents in New York and across the U.S. since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last fall. The blending of anti-Zionist slogans with calls for “intifada,” historically linked to violent uprisings, has deepened fears among Jewish communities that traditional red lines are being crossed.
Whether this emerging coalition reshapes New York politics remains to be seen. However, the poll indicates that among younger voters, views that were once considered fringe are quickly moving into the mainstream.
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Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events

A Jewish gay pride flag. Photo: Twitter.
The research division of the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) released a report on Wednesday detailing incidents of hate against Jews which took place last month during demonstrations in celebration of LGBTQ rights and identity.
Incidents reported by the group include:
- At a Pride march in Wales, the activists Cymru Queers for Palestine chose to block the path and show a sign that said “Profiting from genocide,” an attempt to link the event’s sponsors — such as Amazon — to the war in Gaza.
- A Dublin Pride march saw the participation of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which labeled Israel a “genocidal entity.”
- In Toronto at a late June Pride march, demonstrators again attacked organizers with a sign declaring, “Pride partners with genocide.”
CAM also identified a recurring narrative deployed against Israel by some far-left activists: so-called “pinkwashing,” a term which the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement calls “an Israeli government propaganda strategy that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.”
The report notes that at a Washington DC Pride event in early June Medea Benjamin, cofounder of activist group Code Pink and a regular of anti-war protests, wore a pair of goofy, oversized sunglasses and a shirt in her signature pink with the phrase “you can’t pinkwash genocide.”
Other incidents CAM recorded showed the injection of anti-Israel sentiment into Pride events.
A musical group canceled a performance at an interfaith service in Brooklyn, claiming the hosting synagogue had a “public alignment with pro-Israel political positions.” In San Francisco before the yearly Trans March, a Palestine group said in its announcement of its participation, “Stop the war on Iran and the genocide of Palestine, stop the war on immigrants and attacks on trans people.”
CAM notes that this “queers for Palestine” sentiment is not new, pointing to a 2017 event wherein “organizers of the Chicago Dyke March infamously removed participants who were waving a Pride flag adorned with a Star of David on the grounds that the symbol ‘made people feel unsafe.’”
In February, the Israel Defense Forces shared with the New York Post documents it had recovered demonstrating that Hamas had tortured and executed members it suspected of homosexuality and other moral offenses in conflict with Islamist ideology.
Amit Benjamin, who is gay and a first sergeant major in the IDF, said during a visit to New York City for Pride month that “All the ‘queers for Gaza’ need to open their eyes. Hamas kills gays … kills lesbians … queers cannot exist in Gaza.”
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IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl/File Photo
The UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it had pulled its last remaining inspectors from Iran as a standoff over their return to the country’s nuclear facilities bombed by the United States and Israel deepens.
Israel launched its first military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war with the Islamic Republic three weeks ago. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors have not been able to inspect Iran’s facilities since then, even though IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said that is his top priority.
Iran’s parliament has now passed a law to suspend cooperation with the IAEA until the safety of its nuclear facilities can be guaranteed. While the IAEA says Iran has not yet formally informed it of any suspension, it is unclear when the agency’s inspectors will be able to return to Iran.
“An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict,” the IAEA said on X.
Diplomats said the number of IAEA inspectors in Iran was reduced to a handful after the June 13 start of the war. Some have also expressed concern about the inspectors’ safety since the end of the conflict, given fierce criticism of the agency by Iranian officials and Iranian media.
Iran has accused the agency of effectively paving the way for the bombings by issuing a damning report on May 31 that led to a resolution by the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said he stands by the report. He has denied it provided diplomatic cover for military action.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday Iran remained committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“[Grossi] reiterated the crucial importance of the IAEA discussing with Iran modalities for resuming its indispensable monitoring and verification activities in Iran as soon as possible,” the IAEA said.
The US and Israeli military strikes either destroyed or badly damaged Iran’s three uranium enrichment sites. But it was less clear what has happened to much of Iran’s nine tonnes of enriched uranium, especially the more than 400 kg enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from weapons grade.
That is enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran says its aims are entirely peaceful, but Western powers say there is no civil justification for enriching to such a high level, and the IAEA says no country has done so without developing the atom bomb.
As a party to the NPT, Iran must account for its enriched uranium, which normally is closely monitored by the IAEA, the body that enforces the NPT and verifies countries’ declarations. But the bombing of Iran’s facilities has now muddied the waters.
“We cannot afford that … the inspection regime is interrupted,” Grossi told a press conference in Vienna last week.
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