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Learning From the Wise Men of Chelm: Israel and a Palestinian State
Supporters and family members of hostages kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, hold lit torches during a protest ahead of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shir Torem
A boy had been given money to buy things at the grocery store. On the way, he lost the money. Someone saw him looking for the money: “Did you lose it here?” the man asked. “No,” said the boy. “Then why are you looking here?” “Ah,” said the boy. “Where I lost the money it is dark, but here it is light.”
The Wise Men of Chelm (a Jewish folk tale)
Israelis have good reason to be worried about the current Hamas ceasefire. On the terrorist side, there is every intention to continue the jihad.
Reciprocally, Israel will soon feel renewed pressured to accept a Palestinian state. Still, like the boy from “Chelm” — who looks for lost grocery money only where it would be most visible — the Jewish State would be looking for peace in the wrong place.
A core principle of all civilized legal systems — one reaffirmed at the post-war Nuremberg trials — is nullum crimen sine poena or “no crime without a punishment.” Today, even following “perfidious” terror attacks on Israeli civilians, much of the world is apt to blame Israel for cumulative regional harms.
Though Israel’s counter-terrorist war in Gaza had been unintentionally harming Palestinian civilians, this war of self-defense was indispensable for national survival, and Israel-inflicted harms were entirely collateral. Altogether unlike the precipitating October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack, these harms were not the result of “criminal intent” or mens rea.
In these ongoing matters, logic must be paramount. To begin, the self-justifying Palestinian narrative of an Israeli “occupation” has always been founded on a flimsy edifice of legal falsehoods.
In essence, this narrative is a contrivance of structured propaganda. Even if the contrivance were not so blatant, Palestinian insurgents would lack any law-based right to intentionally harm Israeli noncombatants. In law, all war, even a “just war,” must be fought by “just means.”
Under international law, rape, murder, suicide-bombings, and hostage-taking can never express a permissible path to “self-determination.” Under law, these ends can never justify the means.
There is more. For the most part, Hamas and other jihadi killers are not “lone wolves.” They are spurred on by organized Palestinian incitements to barbarous terror-violence. Though generally overlooked, these determined criminals remain captivated by the Islamist promise of “power over death.” This is a delusionary power reserved for “martyrs.”
Among other inglorious traits, jihadist terrorists (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, etc.) are markedly unheroic in their search for Palestinian statehood.
More precisely, they are consumed by an elemental or primal cowardice. Should there be any doubts about this, one need only remember that the jihadist kills himself or herself in order not to die. This wanton murderer expects to suffer little more than a transient inconvenience on the path to “life everlasting.” Nonetheless, for themselves, jihadist leaders typically prefer luxury hotel suites in Qatar or Turkey to Islamist heaven.
Does the jihadi “foot soldier” truly believe in such a blessedly eternal life? To answer this question, one must first understand that religious faith can easily trump logic and science, especially in the Islamist Middle East.
A personally reinforcing point can be offered by the present writer, who many years back, interviewed a failed Palestinian suicide-bomber. When I inquired of this young man (face to face, with an Israeli captor-interpreter) how he felt about failure as a “martyr” (i.e., as shahid), the would-be terrorist replied without hesitation: “Devastated, because now I will surely have to die.”
Back to current jihadi criminal plans for Israel. Can there be a lawful “ceasefire agreement” between a genuine national government (Israel) and an inherently criminal organization (Hamas)?
Whatever the overall merits of each side’s position, the immediate effect of any ceasefire agreement is to bestow on a criminal-terror organization a legitimate position under international law and formal legal equivalence with a sovereign state. Among other things, the inherent illegality of Hamas as a “self-determination” organization can be extrapolated from the explicit criminalization of terrorism under both codified and customary international law.
What about “Palestine?” Though the name would seem to signify extant “sovereign equality” with Israel, the legal reality is different. There has never been a state of Palestine, nor does such a state exist today. For those willing to examine this time-urgent matter in appropriately legal context, the place to begin is the Convention on the Right and Duties of States (Montevideo, 1933). Among other things, this governing treaty on statehood dispels all prevailing falsifications regarding an alleged “state of Palestine.”
In the next year, and without a scintilla of objective legal verification, the global community could become convinced that Palestinians deserve an independent state and that fulfilling this presumed right would benefit both Israelis and Palestinians. Accordingly, there would be assorted incentives to interpret the Montevideo Convention as a validation or justification of Palestinian statehood. Bolstered by such faux reasoning, this jihad-based Arab state would accelerate its pre-independence program of war and terror against Israel.
From the standpoint of every operational Palestinian faction, all present-day Israel would be designated “occupied territory.”
Though openly genocidal, “From the river to the sea….” is already the pre-state Palestinian war cry. Should there remain any doubts about wrongful Palestinian definitions of an Israeli “occupation,” one need only to check official Palestinian maps. On each map, “Palestine’s” borders are drawn to include all of Israel. One should recall here that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO, forerunner of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas) was founded in 1964, three years before there were any “occupied territories.”
So what exactly was the PLO attempting to “liberate?”
During the many years that Palestinian terrorists were slaughtering each other as well as Israeli civilians, Israel’s law-based warnings about Palestine were widely ignored or harshly condemned. Not even after 9/11, when Fatah and Hamas celebrated America’s jihad-triggered misfortune, did the United States and its allies even bother to re-evaluate their traditional support of Palestinian statehood. We should expect, therefore, especially after the current ceasefire agreement, that Israelis would feel pressured to consider “Palestine” as a longer-term solution.
On the Arab side, theology could be determinative. For all jihadist forces in the Middle East, the conflict with Israel is never authentically about land or geopolitical advantage. Rather, it is always about God and variously derivative promises of “power over death.”
For Palestinian terror groups, the true enemy is never Israel as such. This enemy is “The Jews.”
The young Palestinian terrorist who strikes with axe or blade (both used for beheading Jewish children on October 7, 2023) is expecting to be rewarded as a “martyr.” Prima facie, this means an incomparable reward.
For Israelis, it’s time to learn from errors of the “wise men of Chelm”
It is time to look for solutions where “it is dark.” Plainly, Hamas and all other Palestinian jihadi organizations still seek a “One State Solution” for their “Jewish Question.” In principle, at least, certain earlier declarations of support for Palestinian “self-determination” might not have been unreasonable, but only if the Palestinian side had been committed to a genuine “Two-State Solution.”
Whatever their current differences, all jihadi groups agree that Israel is by its very nature intolerable (because any Jewish state, by definition, represents a religious abomination in the Dar al Islam) and that Israel is “Occupied Palestine.”
From the 17th century onward, the world political system has operated in a “state of nature.” In the corrosively anarchic Middle East, considerations of raw power have routinely trumped any binding expectations of authoritative international law. On particular matters concerning Palestinian statehood, it is high time to understand that everyone’s true enemy in the region is not Israel, but a persistently sordid mix of jihadist criminal forces.
Though counter-intuitive, any tangible advances to Palestinian statehood would disadvantage Arabs as well as Israelis. As a complicating factor, an irredentist Palestinian state would weaken Israel in its potentially survival struggle against a near-nuclear or already-nuclear Iran. For the Jewish State, the Palestinian threat (expanded anti-Israel terrorism) and the Iranian nuclear threat are never separate and distinct. Instead, they are intersectional and mutually reinforcing.
Finally, we may learn from the historic Nuremberg Tribunals and Nuremberg Principles an elementary pillar of justice first drawn from ancient Jewish law: “No crime without a punishment.”
In the end, if world leaders should choose to betray this “peremptory” principle (one that is per se inviolable), Palestine could wind up as Israel’s “last straw.” It follows that absolutely any post-ceasefire incentives to accept a Palestinian state should be rejected by Jerusalem. Recalling the boy’s lost grocery money in “Chelm,” Israel should never be tempted by any seemingly gainful advantages of “light.” In Jewish literary “Chelm,” the “Wise Men” was an ironic designation.
Prof. Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and scholarly articles dealing with international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. In Israel, Prof. Beres was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon). His 12th and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018).
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Anti-Israel Singer Kehlani’s NYC Concert Gets Cancelled After Mayor Faces Pressure
Kehlani walking on the red carpet during the 67th Grammy Awards held at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, CA on Feb. 2, 2025. Photo: Elyse Jankowski/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
An upcoming New York City concert featuring Israel-hating, American singer Kehlani was canceled late Monday after organizers faced mounting pressure from New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
The webpage for the “Pride With Kehlani” benefit concert has also removed from the website of the City Parks Foundation. The privately-funded non-profit organization was hosting the performance, set for June 26 in Central Park, as part of its SummerStage festival series and in celebration of June being Pride Month. The concert was being produced and presented by Live Nation, which reportedly selected Kehlani for the performance.
SummerStage released a statement on Monday explaining its decision to call off Kehlani’s performance. According to the statement, the mayor’s office contacted concert organizers and expressed concerns about “safety and security issues” at the event, especially in light of Cornell University’s recent decision to cancel a performance by Kehlani, “as well as security demands in Central Park and throughout the City for other Pride events during that same time period.”
“We strongly and emphatically believe in artistic expression of all kinds. However, the safety and security of our guests and artists is the utmost importance and in light of these concerns, the concert has been cancelled,” SummerStage said. “SummerStage is proud to be a platform for artists from around the world to perform and make arts accessible for all New Yorkers in their neighborhood parks. While artists may choose to express their own opinions, their views may not necessarily be representative of the festival. SummerStage events are intended to bring together all sectors of the New York City community and we look forward to welcoming more guests throughout the summer.”
Mayor Adams’ administration also threatened to pull the licenses for all SummerStage shows if Kehlani’s concert was not canceled, according to a letter sent to the City Parks Foundation that was obtained by New York Post.
Kehlani released a music video last year that opens with the message “Long live the Intifada,” a phrase that incites violence against Israel and the Jewish community. She has attended pro-Palestinian rallies, accused Israel of genocide, and shared numerous anti-Israel and anti-Zionist posts on social media. In one Instagram post, she wrote: “Dismantle Israel. Eradicate Zionism.” She also shared on social media a post that called for Israel to be removed off the map and replaced with “Palestine.” Kehlani recently claimed that she is not antisemitic.
“I am not antisemitic, nor anti-Jew. I am anti-genocide. I am anti-the-actions-of-the-Israeli-government,” she stated in a video posted on Instagram and TikTok.
Congressman Ritchie Torres, who pushed Mayor Adams to take action and have Kehlani’s Central Park concert canceled, applauded the move by SummerStage to call off the show. “Antisemitism becomes unacceptable only when we, as a society, have the courage to reject it—clearly, consistently, and without compromise,” he wrote on X.
SummerStage is the city’s largest free outdoor performing arts festival. It presents more than 80 free and benefit concerts each summer.
Kehlani has not publicly responded to the cancellation of her New York City concert.
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New Study Exposes Antisemitism in University Medical Centers
Illustrative Pro-Hamas protesters in Washington, DC, USA, on April 5, 2025. Photo: Robyn Stevens Brody/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect.
Antisemitism in academic medical centers located on college campuses is fostering noxious environments which deprive Jewish healthcare professionals of their civil right to work in spaces free from discrimination and hate, according to a new study by the StandWithUs Data & Analytics Department.
“Academia today is increasingly cultivating an environment which is hostile to Jews, as well as members of other religious and ethnic groups,” StandWithUs director of data and analytics and study co-author, Alexandra Fishman said on Monday in a press release. “Academic institutions should be upholding the integrity of scholarship, prioritizing civil discourse, rather than allowing bias or personal agendas to guide academic culture.”
Titled “Antisemitism in American Healthcare: The Role of Workplace Environment,” the study includes survey data showing that 62.8 percent of Jewish healthcare professionals employed by campus-based medical center reported experiencing antisemitism, a far higher rate than those working in private practice and community hospitals. Fueling the rise in hate, it added, were repeated failures of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives to educate workers about antisemitism, increasing, the report said, the likelihood of antisemitic activity.
“When administrators and colleagues understand what antisemitism looks like, it clearly correlates with less antisemitism in the workplace,” co-author and Yeshiva University professor Dr. Charles Auerbach said. “Recognition is a powerful tool — institutions that foster awareness create safer, more inclusive environments for everyone.”
Monday’s study is not StandWithUs first contribution to the study of antisemitism in medicine. In December, its Data & Analytics Department published a study which found that nearly 40 percent of Jewish American health-care professionals have encountered antisemitism in the workplace, either as witnesses or victims.
The study included a survey of 645 Jewish health workers, a substantial number of whom said they were subject to “social and professional isolation.” The problem left over one quarter of the survey cohort, 26.4 percent, “feeling unsafe or threatened.”
In some schools, Jewish faculty are speaking out.
In February, the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFrg) at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) accused the institution in an open letter of “ignoring” antisemitism at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM),” charing that its indifference to the matter “continues to encourage more antisemitism.” JFrg added that discrimination at the Geffen medical school has caused demonstrable harm to Jewish students and faculty. Student clubs, it said, are denied recognition for arbitrary reasons; Jewish faculty whose ethnic backgrounds were previously unknown are purged from the payrolls upon being identified as Jews; and anyone who refuses to participate in anti-Zionist events is “intimidated” and pressured.
“DGSOM’s continued silence in the face of a sustained and deeply troubling rise in antisemitism within its own institution is not just complicity — it is a failure of responsibility,” the group said. “Without strong and principled leadership, this dangerous pattern will persist.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Dozens of Former Eurovision Contestants Pressure Organizers to Ban Israel From 2025 Song Contest
Israel’s representative to the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, Yuval Raphael, holds an Israeli flag in this handout photo obtained by Reuters on Jan. 23, 2025. Photo: “The Rising Star,” Channel Keshet 12/Handout via REUTERS
More than 70 previous contestants of the Eurovision Song Contest on Monday demanded that Israel’s public broadcaster Kan should be banned from the international competition this year because of what they falsely claim is Israel’s “genocide” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Singers, songwriters, musicians, lyricists and others from across Europe signed an open letter, published by Artists for Palestine UK, that was addressed to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the Eurovision Song Contest. In their letter, the anti-Israel creatives urged the EBU to ban Kan, claiming that it is “complicit in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the decades-long regime of apartheid and military occupation against the entire Palestinian people.”
“We believe in the unifying power of music, which is why we refuse to allow music to be used as a tool to whitewash crimes against humanity,” the open letter stated. The signatories urged EBU to “act now and prevent further discredit and disruption to the festival.”
“Silence is not an option,” they added. “We therefore join together to state that the EBU’s complicity with Israel’s genocide must stop. By continuing to platform the representation of the Israeli state, the EBU is normalizing and whitewashing its crimes … Israel must be excluded from Eurovision.”
The former Eurovision contestants also said that they were “appalled” by the EBU’s decision last year to include Kan in the competition during the Israel-Hamas war.
“The result was disastrous,” they said about the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest. “Rather than acknowledging the widespread criticism and reflecting on its own failures, the EBU responded by doubling down — granting total impunity to the Israeli delegation while repressing other artists and delegations, making the 2024 edition the most politicized, chaotic and unpleasant in the competition’s history.”
During last year’s competition, Israeli singer Eden Golan was booed on stage by anti-Israel audience members, faced death threats, had a anti-Israel Eurovision jury member refuse to give her points, and was forced to conceal her identity outside of the competition for her own safety.
Those who signed Monday’s open letter also accused the EBU of a “double standard” in regards to Israel. They criticized the EBU for expelling Russia’s public broadcaster from the competition in 2022, because of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that year, but still allowing Israel to participate in the song contest amid the Israel-Hamas war that started after the deadly Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
“[It] can’t be one rule for Russia and a completely different rule for Israel. You bomb, you’re out,” said former Eurovision contestant Thea Garrett, who represented Malta in 2010.
“I believe that the Israeli government has been and is inflicting genocide on the people of Palestine and for that reason Israel should be barred from competing in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest,” added Charlie McGettigan, who won the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland.
The open letter was signed by creatives from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, France, Iceland, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Turkey. The national broadcasters in Iceland, Slovenia and Spain have previously expressed opposition to Israel’s participation in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest.
The open letter was published the same day that Israel’s Eurovision representative this year, singer Yuval Raphael, traveled to Basel, Switzerland, to compete in the song contest. Raphael, who is a survivor of the Nova Music Festival massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, will compete in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “New Day Will Rise,” a ballad written by singer and songwriter Keren Peles. She will perform in the second semi-final on May 15 and, if she advances, will compete in the Eurovision Song Contest grand final on May 17.
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