It’s good to know that a New Yorker from a well-known Jewish family — and a dedicated public servant — has recently been named Commissioner of the New York Police Department (NYPD). With violence against Jews soaring, Jessica Tisch has a unique chance to lead the nation’s largest police force — and lead the way for law enforcement agencies nationwide to push back against antisemites — and pro-Hamas violent mobs — everywhere. We demand that Zionists and all Jews be protected in New York.

Just a few months ago, terrorist supporters menacingly chanted “We’re gonna get you” outside of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hotel, the Loews Hotel, which the Tisch family owns. and no one was arrested. But even worse than threatening one Israeli leader, is that pro-Hamas supporters have been marching with impunity since October 2023, demanding and supporting the murder of Jews in Israel, New York, and all across the world.

In response, the NYPD has insisted many of these marches are protected by freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. In reality, these marches are incitement to murder — and often descend into violence — and letting them happen with no consequence only  encourages more violence.

I am writing to Commissioner Tisch with deep concern about the future of the Jewish community in New York City. Antisemitism has permeated all areas of daily life in New York, and Jew-haters operate with impunity in this city, which is no longer safe for Jews. We have had enough political speeches and empty promises. We don’t care what Mayor Eric Adams says about the hostages, we care that he does not keep the Jews of New York safe.

As the head of the NYPD, Commissioner Tisch must be aware that last Saturday evening, on 59th Street and 5th Avenue, a large disruptive pro-Hamas rally was held in front of the Park Lane Hotel, where Israel’s former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was staying. As masked terrorist supporters waved Hamas and Hezbollah flags and screamed “We don’t want no Zionists here” — amidst violent calls for “intifada” — Tisch’s NYPD removed American Jewish Zionists who were present from the scene, as the police said they could not protect Jews from violence.

If Jews (codeword Zionists) aren’t safe on a Saturday evening on 59th street — but Hamas supporters are — then the NYPD is not doing its job. There should be enough cops to protect everyone.

As a New Yorker, I see Jews beaten with shocking frequency, and threatened with impunity by jihadis with face coverings who intimidate, terrorize, and disrupt life daily. The NYPD’s job is to protect people everywhere, not allow jihadi supporters to run rampant.

Here were some of the chants heard on Saturday night: “Hitler should have finished you off” and we will “give you the United Health treatment.”

How is this allowed to happen? These are threats of murder — plain and simple. And as we Jews no, threats rarely often end there.

We demand that Commissioner Tisch immediately remove the handcuffs from the NYPD and arrest criminals. We demand the police enforce the law, and not pro-terrorist rallies block streets and roads. We demand she urge the FBI and Homeland Security to investigate people who openly support illegal terror organizations and work with the new presidential administration to get them deported if they aren’t citizens if they are breaking US law and threatening people with murder and violence.

We are past the crisis point for Jews in New York City. We want action to protect Jews, of which we have seen none. After heinous protests celebrating murder and rape took place at an exhibit on the Nova Festival massacre, Mayor Adams said, “We have the largest Jewish population outside of Israel right here in New York. This is not going to be a city where you’ll have to take off your yarmulke, be afraid to walk inside a synagogue.”

The reality is that many Jews have taken off their yarmulkes, as the streets have been surrendered to terrorists. Antisemitism is flourishing in New York City, and Jews have never been so unsafe as they are today in Gotham. Jews who haven’t yet escaped to Florida or elsewhere are wondering if there is a future for Jews in New York City. It certainly doesn’t feel like it.

The job you signed up for is to keep this city safe, Ms. Tisch. We demand you do your job, as you remind New York and America that not only are Zionists welcome here, but they are welcome everywhere.

Ronn Torossian is an American-Israeli entrepreneur, author and philanthropist.

The post Why Is the NYPD Refusing to Protect Jews, But Enabling Genocidal Hamas Supporters? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Recent events  in Syria underscore the changing geo-strategic landscape in the Middle East. For Israel, although the fall of Assad will likely weaken Iran, it won’t necessarily reduce the risk of a nuclear war in the region. In fact, there is apt to take place a strengthening of certain Sunni sub-state jihadist elements, a development that could prove “force-multiplying” with a non-nuclear Turkey and/or an already-nuclear non-Arab Pakistan. Plausible “wild cards” in this opaque mix would be an increasingly desperate pre-nuclear Iran and an expectedly perplexed non-nuclear Saudi Arabia. Also to be factored in should be the unpredictable element of already-nuclear Iranian ally North Korea and its potentially critical connections to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In essence, even a newly-weakened and still pre-nuclear Iran could pose existential hazards to Israel by means of North Korean military surrogates.

Israel’s nuclear weapons and its nuclear doctrine should ensure national survival. In the early 1950s, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, already understood the need for a conspicuous “equalizer” to secure an otherwise too-vulnerable Jewish State.

Early on, the “old man” had recognized that in the absence of task-appropriate nuclear assets, Israel could sometime lose every tangible chance to simply endure.

Still, no category of weapons, even nuclear ordnance, is meaningful on its own All weapon systems need to be informed by suitable strategy and tactics. How should these special Israeli assets be “used?”

Back in the early days, when Americans and the Soviets were first defining a bipolar Cold War nuclear strategy ex nihilo, Israel had nowhere to turn for a template of useful nuclear guidance. What Jerusalem did understand, from the start, is that nuclear ordnance can succeed only through non-use.

This seeming paradox has prominent conceptual origins in Sun Tzu’s ancient dictum from The Art of War: “Subjugating the enemy’s army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence.” In brief, deterrence, whether ancient or contemporary, “works” to the extent that prospective aggressors could calculate that the expected costs of striking first would exceed expected gains.

To work, designated adversaries must be considered rational nation-states. Sometimes, these states could operate in tandem with other states (an alliance) or with assorted terror groups (hybrid). In the future, Israel’s enemies could include sub-state nuclear foes acting by themselves, such as Hezbollah, after it had become the recipient of reassuring nuclear largesse from Iran or even North Korea.

For now, at least, Israel has no current nuclear enemies, unless one were to consider Pakistan.

Despite a common enemy in Israel, the conflict between radical Shiite and Sunni forces continues across the region. For all sides, the aim of this conflict is “escalation dominance” during episodes of competitive risk-taking. Over time, such escalations by Iran could include nuclear warheads, not against insurgent targets, but against a formidable Arab state such as Saudi Arabia.

As a literal matter of survival, Israel should be intellectually creative and conceptually well-prepared. For deterrence to work long-term, Iran and its proxies would need to be told more rather than less about (1) Israel’s nuclear targeting doctrine; and (2) the expected invulnerability and penetration-capability of Israel’s nuclear forces.

However counter-intuitive, this means that to best prepare for all plausible attack scenarios, Israel should plan conscientiously for the incremental replacement of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” with apt levels of “selective nuclear disclosure.” In common parlance, it will soon be time for Jerusalem to remove Israel’s bomb from the “basement.”

For Israel, the only continuously true purpose of nuclear weapons should be deterrence ex ante, not revenge ex post. Nonetheless, there would inevitably remain diverse circumstances under which Israeli nuclear deterrence could fail.

How might such fearful circumstances arise? Four principal though not mutually exclusive scenarios now warrant both mention and examination. Israel’s strategic planners should study these paradigmatic narratives closely, and prepare to deal effectively with any and all of them, singly and in potentially synergistic interactions.

Taken together with the four basic scenarios outlined below, these “parallel” narratives could help provide Israel with needed intellectual armaments to prevent “the worst.” Presently, though Israel need not worry about any existing regional nuclear adversary, state or sub-state, it’s nuclear weapons and doctrine could still represent an indispensable “ultimate” deterrent against forms of massive conventional/biological/chemical attack.

(1)     Nuclear Retaliation

Should Iran or an alliance of enemy states ever launch a nuclear first-strike against Israel (in principle, this could include North Korea), Jerusalem would respond to the extent possible with a nuclear retaliatory strike. If enemy first-strikes were to involve other available forms of unconventional weapons, such as chemical, biological or EMP (electromagnetic pulse) weapons, Israel might still launch a “limited” nuclear reprisal. This decision would depend, in large measure, on Jerusalem’s informed expectations of follow-on enemy aggression and its comparative calculations of damage-limitation.

If Israel were to absorb a massively disruptive non-nuclear attack, a nuclear retaliation could not automatically be ruled out, especially if: (a) the state aggressors were perceived to hold nuclear and/or other unconventional weapons in reserve; and/or (b) Israel’s leaders were to believe that non-nuclear retaliations could not prevent annihilation of the Jewish State. A nuclear retaliation by Israel could be ruled out only in those rapidly discernible circumstances where enemy state aggressions were clearly conventional, “typical” (that is, consistent with all previous instances of attack, in degree and intent), and hard-target oriented (that is, directed towards Israeli weapons and related military infrastructures, rather than civilian populations).

(2)     Nuclear Counter retaliation

Should Israel ever feel compelled to preempt enemy state aggression with conventional weapons, the target state(s)’ response would largely determine Jerusalem’s next moves. If this response were in any way nuclear, Israel would doubtlessly turn to some available form of nuclear counter retaliation.

If this retaliation were to involve other non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction, Israel could also feel pressed to take the escalatory initiative. Again, this decision would depend upon Jerusalem’s judgments of enemy intent and on its corollary calculations of damage-limitation.

Should the enemy state response to Israel’s preemption be limited to hard-target conventional strikes, it is unlikely that the Jewish State would then move to any nuclear counter retaliations. If, however, the enemy conventional retaliation was “all-out” and directed toward Israeli civilian populations as well as Israeli military targets, an Israeli nuclear counter retaliation could not be excluded. Such a counter retaliation could be ruled out only if the enemy state’s conventional retaliation were identifiably proportionate to Israel’s preemption; confined to Israeli military targets; circumscribed by the legal limits of “military necessity”; and accompanied by certain explicit and verifiable assurances of non-escalatory intent.

(3)     Nuclear Preemption

It is highly implausible that Israel would ever decide to launch a preemptive nuclear strike. Although circumstances could arise wherein such a strike would be rational and permissible under authoritative international law, it is unlikely that Israel would allow itself to reach such irremediably dire circumstances. Unless the nuclear weapons involved were usable in a fashion still consistent with the longstanding laws of war, this most extreme form of preemption could represent an expressly egregious violation of humanitarian international law.

Even if such consistency were possible, the psychological/political impact on the entire world community would be strongly negative and significantly far-reaching. This means that an Israeli nuclear preemption could conceivably be expected only: (a) where Israel’s pertinent state enemies had acquired nuclear and/or other weapons of mass destruction judged capable of annihilating the Jewish State; (b) where these enemies had made it clear that their intentions paralleled their genocidal capabilities; (c) where these enemies were believed ready to begin an operational “countdown to launch;” and (d) where Jerusalem believed that Israeli non-nuclear preemptions could not achieve the needed minimum levels of damage-limitation — that is, levels consistent with physical preservation of the Jewish State.

(4)     Nuclear War fighting

Should nuclear weapons ever be introduced into any actual conflict between Israel and its enemies, either by Israel or a regional foe, nuclear war fighting, at one level or another, could ensue. This would hold true so long as: (a) enemy first-strikes would not destroy Israel’s second-strike nuclear capability; (b) enemy retaliations for an Israeli conventional preemption would not destroy the Jewish State’s nuclear counter retaliatory capability; (c) Israeli preemptive strikes involving nuclear weapons would not destroy enemy state second-strike nuclear capabilities; and (d) Israeli retaliation for conventional first-strikes would not destroy the enemy’s nuclear counter retaliatory capability.

In order to satisfy its most indispensable survival imperatives, Israel must take appropriate steps to ensure the likelihood of (a) and (b) above, and the simultaneous unlikelihood of (c) and (d).

Even in the midst of “only” a conventional war with Iran, Israel could sometime decide that the expectations of “escalation dominance” had become overwhelming and that escalation to nuclear combat would be the sole rational option.

A compelling example could involve an Iranian non-nuclear missile attack upon Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor, Iranian resort to radiation-dispersal weapons (dirty bombs), and/or Pyongyang’s combat involvement on behalf of Iran.

All these scenarios pose more-or-less indecipherable hazards for Jerusalem, including manifestly unknown prospects of enemy irrationality. Writing in broadly philosophical terms, philosopher Karl Jaspers observed: “The rational is not thinkable without its other, the non-rational, and it never appears in reality without it.”

Understood in more narrowly military or strategic terms, Jaspers wisdom suggests that appearances may deceive and an apparently rational foe in Tehran could turn in extremis to non-rational decision-making.

The opposite is also worrisome. Accordingly, for Israel, a presumptively irrational adversary in Iran could unexpectedly turn to rational decision-making, a policy tilt that would at first seem welcome but quickly become dissembling. In tangible essence, this tilt could create unmanageable levels of “cognitive dissonance” for strategic planners in Jerusalem.

For Jerusalem, in daring to face prospects of a nuclear war, candor matters. In all matters of national security strategy, just as in all matters of law and jurisprudence, truth will be exculpatory. Going forward in an unprecedented strategic universe, Israel will need to combine deeply theoretical examinations with tangibly pragmatic policies. Ironically, even its most plainly threatening nuclear weapons could prove useless or self-defeating unless there had first been suitable advance planning for virtually every imaginable WMD war scenario.

For Israel, national survival must always be about what ancient Greeks and Macedonians defined as a struggle of “mind over mind.” Even in a steadily nuclearizing world, the true contest is never just about “mind over matter.” In the end, if all goes well for Israel, there will have been meticulous considerations of enemy rationality and correspondingly calibrated shifts from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” to “selective nuclear disclosure.” Without such multi-layered antecedents, a catastrophic conflict, whether operationally nuclear or “merely” conventional, could become unavoidable.

For the Jewish State, mentored by history, Swiss playwright Friedrich Durrenmatt’s warning should be unchallengeable: “The worst does sometimes happen.” It should be taken most seriously by Jerusalem with reference to nuclear war avoidance. No strategic imperative could be more obvious.

Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books, monographs, and scholarly articles dealing with military nuclear strategy. In Israel, he was Chair of Project Daniel. Over recent years, he has published on nuclear warfare issues in Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School); Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence; Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs; The Atlantic; Israel Defense; Jewish Website; The New York Times; Israel National News; The Jerusalem Post; The Hill; and other sites.

The post Israel Must Make Its Nuclear Intentions Clear in Order to Stay Safe in an Escalating Middle East first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Once a year, the Palestinian Authority (PA) celebrates National Reading Day, also named “Palestine’s Schools Read.”

But what are Palestinian children reading?

One book stood out when the PA’s South Hebron Directorate of Education posted photos of the reading activities in the district:

The title of the book on the right is Hanadi in the Restaurant of Horror.

This is a children’s book about Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist and female suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat.

She carried out a suicide attack at a restaurant in Haifa on Oct. 4, 2003, murdering 21 Israelis and wounding over 50.

This is yet another example of the PA’s child abuse, and how the PA teaches children that terrorists are their role models and that Martyrdom is an ideal to strive for.

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has reported how this celebration of terrorism is fundamental to PA/Fatah ideology, exposing most recently in the report Teaching Terror to Tots about how Fatah’s youth magazine promotes terrorism for kids and promises the destruction of Israel.

In addition, PMW has documented many examples of Palestinian girls being taught to look up to female terrorist murderers in particular.

This terror role-modeling does not take place only in elementary school. Rather, it continues at the university level as well.

Fatah’s Shabiba Student Movement and Student Union Council at Palestine Technical University-Kadoorie welcomed new students with free notebooks and stationery bearing photos of terrorists Dalal Mughrabi, Salah Khalaf, and Yasser Arafat.

Mughrabi led the murder of 37 people, 12 of them children; Khalaf, or “Abu Iyad,” was the head of the Black September terror organization; and Arafat was the chairman of the PLO and PA.

Following Hanadi Jaradat’s suicide bombing, the PA Ministry of Culture produced a poetry collection in her honor that stressed “death as a Martyr for Allah” as “the highest goal” achieved by “blowing up the enemy”:

The book’s dedication reads: “To the rose of Palestine, the iris of the Carmel, the Martyr Hanadi Jaradat’”

The poem in Jaradat’s honor ends as follows:

Oh Hanadi! Shake the earth under the feet of the enemies!
Blow it up!
Hanadi said: ‘This is my wedding’
It’s Hanadi’s wedding, the day when death as a Martyr for Allah becomes the highest goal, that redeems my land.” [emphasis added]

[Al-Ayyam, independent Palestinian daily, Aug. 22, 2005]

In 2014, while Hamas was again firing missiles at Israel, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Movement expressed its support for the murder of Israelis with a video honoring nine female terrorist murderers.

Hanadi Jaradat, having murdered 21 Israelis, ranked second among them, only surpassed by Dalal Mughrabi, who led the murder of 37 people:

The same year, Fatah highlighted a female army unit training to launch rockets at Israelis, again pointing out murderers Dalal Mughrabi and Hanadi Jaradat as role models who should be emulated:

TV reporter: “Another aspect of the Palestinian woman’s role in all areas is being created here. She is not merely the man’s partner in domestic life, but his companion wherever he is; on the battlefield, she is at his side on the frontline, and fulfills an active role in training generations of resistance [fighters], who will confront the ‘invincible’ army. …

They thereby strive to become an important part of the path of Jihad and the struggle – the path walked by Dalal Mughrabi, Hanadi Jaradat and Reem Riyashi …

Female fighter: “We are young women, but we can do the impossible … We support our boys, our husbands and our leaders to liberate Palestine, in the way of leader Yasser Arafat. We are the sisters of Dalal Mughrabi. We will continue to walk the path …”

TV reporter: “The woman in Palestine is no longer a prisoner of her home or work, but constitutes the foundation of the [young] generations’ education and the occupation’s defeat.” [emphasis added]

[Facebook, “Fatah – The Main Page,” July 10, 2014, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades YouTube channel, July 10, 2014]

Terrorist Dalal Mughrabi is by far the PA’s most “popular” female role model, with five schools having been named after her, thus creating a strong identification for girls.

PMW exposed this interview with teenage girls studying in a Dalal Mughrabi school. One of the girls stated that her “life’s ambition” was to become like murderer Dalal Mughrabi:

PA TV host: “Today we are in the Dalal Mughrabi School [in Gaza], to get to know the Palestinian Martyr and fighter [Dalal Mughrabi] …”

Student 1: “Dalal Mughrabi is a great leader, who raised more and more and worked for the Palestinian cause to protect the pure land of the homeland, by defending Jerusalem to liberate it. This fighter may have died and her soul may have ascended to Heaven, but still our mothers give birth to thousands like Dalal, and she still walks among us. Dalal Mughrabi has given us a lot, and I personally am proud to attend the Dalal Mughrabi School, which bears this pioneering name.”

Student 2: “My life’s ambition is to reach the level that the Martyr fighter Dalal Mughrabi reached…”

Teacher at the school: “Dalal Mughrabi is a fighter who carried out Jihad and struggle from the beginning of her life. She was one ofthe brave female fighters who carried out Martyrdom-seeking operations (i.e., terror attacks). We in the Ministry of Education had the honor of naming our school after the Martyr Dalal Mughrabi, so that her eternal memory will stay for a long time.” [emphasis added]

[Official PA TV, March 27, 2014]

The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.

The post Palestinian Authority Teaches Children to Admire Suicide Bomber Who Killed 21 People first appeared on Algemeiner.com.