Relatives of Ilan Weiss, a victim of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, gather at his burned home during a ceremony marking one year since the deadly attack, in Kibbutz Beeri, southern Israel, Oct. 7, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Amir Cohen

Israel has recovered the body of hostage Ilan Weiss from the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday.

The remains of a second hostage, whose name had yet to be released for publication, were also retrieved, the statement added.

Weiss, 55, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri, in southern Israel, was kidnapped from his home and killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border attack by Hamas, the Israeli military said.

His wife, Shiri, and daughter, Noga, were also abducted and later released as part of a hostage-prisoner swap deal in November 2023.

With Weiss‘s body recovered, Israel says 49 hostages remain in Gaza, of whom only 20 are believed to be alive.

The prime minister’s office said the campaign to return the hostages was ongoing. “We will neither rest nor be silent until we bring all of our hostages back home, the living and the deceased,” the statement said.

Around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in Gaza.

Soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China attend a training ahead of a military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, in Beijing, China, Aug. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Chinese President Xi Jinping will be flanked by leaders of some of the world’s most heavily sanctioned nations – Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Myanmar – at a military parade next week in Beijing, in a show of solidarity against the West.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un will attend “Victory Day” parade on September 3 marking the end of World War II after Japan’s formal surrender – the first time they have appeared in public alongside Xi.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is also expected to be on the dais as tens of thousands of troops march through the Chinese capital, completing a quartet that Western political and economic analysts have described as the Axis of Upheaval.

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, who rarely travels abroad, will also attend, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Thursday.

Almost no Western leaders will be among the 26 foreign heads of state or government attending the parade, which political analysts say will demonstrate Xi‘s influence over nations intent on reshaping the Western-led global order.

“Xi Jinping is trying to showcase that he is very strong, that he is still powerful and well received in China,” said Alfred Wu, Associate Professor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

“When Xi was just a regional leader, he looked up to Putin, and saw the kind of leader he could learn from – and now he is a global leader. Having Kim alongside him, as well, highlights how Xi is now also a global leader.”

A loose coalition of states bent on reshaping the Western-led global order, the “Axis of Upheaval” has sought to undermine US interests, whether over Taiwan or by blocking shipping lanes, and sought to undermine Western sanctions by providing economic lifelines to each other, the analysts say.

The only Western heads of state or government attending the events in Beijing are Robert Fico, the prime minister of European Union member state Slovakia, and Aleksander Vucic, the president of Serbia.

Fico has been an opponent of sanctioning Russia for its war against Ukraine and has broken ranks with the EU by visiting Moscow. Vucic also visited Moscow in May and wants good relations with Russia and China but says Serbia remains committed to joining the EU.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

Russia, which Beijing counts as a strategic partner, has been hit by multiple rounds of Western sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with its economy on the brink of slipping into recession.

Putin, wanted by the International Criminal Court over accusations of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine, last traveled in China in 2024. He is largely ostracized by the West and avoided making major concessions over Ukraine as US President Donald Trump struggles to end the war there.

North Korea, a formal treaty ally of China’s, has been under United Nations Security Council sanctions since 2006 over its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Kim last visited China in January 2019.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, buys some 90 percent of Iran’s sanctioned oil exports, and continues to source rare earth metals critical to the manufacture of wind turbines, medical devices, and electric vehicles from Myanmar.

Other leaders attending what will be one of China’s largest parades in years include Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, and South Korea’s National Assembly Speaker, Woo Won-shik, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Hong Lei told a press conference.

The United Nations will be represented by Under-Secretary-General Li Junhua, who previously served in various capacities at the Chinese foreign ministry, including time as the Chinese ambassador to Italy, San Marino and Myanmar.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will attend the parade, Hong said. He did not mention any guests from Italy or Germany, the two other Axis Powers during World War II.

The Reichstag in Berlin, Germany, c. 1941. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

In 1856, Abraham Lincoln, that master of the pithy aphorism, noted that “the ballot is stronger than the bullet.” So sharply observed, and it is one of those deceptively simple truths that history has confirmed time and again.

When Adolf Hitler burst into a Munich beer hall in 1923 with his ragtag band of brownshirts, he believed power in Germany could be seized at gunpoint. It was an utter fiasco. The so-called Beer Hall Putsch collapsed within hours, and Hitler found himself humiliated, imprisoned, and widely dismissed as a political clown. 

But prison became Hitler’s classroom. He studied, he reflected, and he came to the same conclusion as Lincoln — though with infinitely darker intent. The lesson was clear: brute force might win a battle, but ballots could win a nation. The real prize, Hitler realized, lay in working the system.

So Hitler traded the stormtrooper’s fist for the politician’s handshake. Over the next few years, he rebranded himself as a man of law and order, and the Nazis as a party of national revival and unbridled German pride. Critically, he played the parliamentary game with unnerving patience, slowly but surely building up popular support and parliamentary representation. 

By January 1933, the Nazi Party held only about a third of the seats in the Reichstag. But in a fractured political system, having the largest party in parliament was enough to be taken seriously. And once Hitler had that foothold, the unraveling was swift: the Reichstag Fire, the Enabling Act, the Night of the Long Knives, and finally, the death of President Hindenburg.

Within 18 months, Germany slid from democracy into dictatorship — and German democracy was no more. Lincoln was right. The ballot is stronger than the bullet. And Hitler proved it.

For centuries, the advance of Islamic power into Europe was checked on the battlefield. Charles Martel stopped the Muslim armies at Tours, France, in 732. Centuries later, Ferdinand and Isabella completed the Reconquista, driving the Moors out of Spain.

In 1683, the Ottomans were pushed back at the gates of Vienna, their imperial ambitions halted by a coalition of Christian armies. Each time, the clash was settled by soldiers, swords, and strategy. Whoever had the bigger, better army prevailed.

But today, the battlefield looks entirely different. In the twenty-first century, there are no cavalry charges across the plains of France or desperate last stands outside Vienna. The weapons have changed. The new battlefield is the ballot box, and the weapon of choice is demographics. 

Open immigration policies and an eagerness to celebrate multiculturalism in post-modern Europe and across the Western world have unwittingly created the conditions for a different kind of conquest. This is not a battle fought with sabers and cannons; instead, it is fought with voter registration and parliamentary seats. No longer is it the army with the most soldiers that wins — it is the community with the most ballots to cast.

And, as Hitler discovered, you don’t need an outright majority to shift the balance – you just need enough votes to be taken seriously. As long as there are enough voters to force the system to adapt around you, your agenda can no longer be ignored. 

The evidence is everywhere. In Britain’s recent election, a record-breaking 25 Muslim MPs were voted into the House of Commons — up from 19 in 2019. It may be a tiny fraction of seats overall, but it’s enough to mark a turning point. Most were Labour, although a handful came from across the political spectrum, including independents who campaigned almost exclusively on the issue of Gaza. 

The key thing is this — many don’t campaign as British patriots who happen to be Muslims, they campaign openly as Muslims first and everything else second. And with just 3.4 million Muslims in the UK — roughly six percent of the population — their representation in parliament is already beginning to punch above its weight.

In Canada, the 2025 federal election brought another milestone. Thirteen Muslim MPs entered parliament, up from eleven. The electoral success wasn’t accidental. Muslim advocacy groups coordinated nationally, launching websites and endorsements, rallying communities around a shared platform: “Free Palestine.”

In a Parliament of 343 seats, 13 members may sound like a rounding error. But in the Greater Toronto Area, where Muslims now comprise up to 14 percent of the population, the trend line is obvious. Bloc voting works, and the future is ominous.

In France, it’s the same story. Nineteen Muslim MPs were elected in 2024, mainly through alliances with left-wing parties determined to block Marine Le Pen’s far-right surge. France prides itself on strict secularism, but demography speaks louder than ideology — and particularly when Muslim candidates use their Islamic faith as their number one selling point. 

With Muslim voters already 10 percent of the French population, their influence is set to grow — and politics is re-calibrating to reflect that reality. It’s not for nothing that France, along with Canada and the UK, is set to recognize “Palestine” — the tail is wagging the national political dog.

The pattern is unmistakable. What once failed on the battlefield is now succeeding at the ballot box. A minority population, strategically mobilized, has become the kingmaker. You don’t need to conquer the palace gates with military might when you can simply walk through the front door with votes.

At the dawn of Jewish history, Moses warned the Jewish people to protect themselves from those who might use the system to undermine the moral conscience of national destiny. In Parshat Shoftim, he instructs them (Deut. 16:18): “Appoint for yourself judges and officers in all your gates…” 

The Torah’s vision of governance was never naïve. It is understood that no matter how inspired a nation may be, its ideals are only as strong as the safeguards that protect its core citizens. Every city gate needed gatekeepers. 

The medieval commentator Ramban notes that the verse places responsibility not just on leaders, but on the people themselves: it is “for yourself” — in the singular – meaning that every member of society has to be vigilant in ensuring that the values that matter are protected. 

Rav Hirsch goes even further, explaining that judges and officers are never meant to be mere bureaucrats. They must be guardians of the community’s moral center, ensuring that the law is not hijacked or twisted to serve destructive ends.

Moses knew what we so easily forget: freedom is fragile, and stability is a mirage. A nation can lose its way not only when enemies attack from outside, but when insiders exploit the system from within. That is why he delivered the crucial message that the system must be protected from enemies who might undermine it. Leave the city unguarded from these snakes in the grass, and sooner or later, everything you value will be gone — dismantled piece by piece.

Abraham Lincoln warned that the ballot is stronger than the bullet. He was right; Hitler proved it, and today’s Islamist movements are exploiting the same lesson. They no longer need to storm the gates with armies — they can stroll through them with votes. And once inside, all they need is enough useful idiots willing to go along with their twisted ideas.

Moses warned us long ago. He understood that the greatest danger to a nation is not necessarily foreign invasion, but the slow corrosion of values from within. That is why he insisted on vigilance. Judges and officers at every gate are not symbolic placeholders, but guardians against those who would manipulate the system to destructive ends. 

History’s harshest lesson is that freedom without awareness, and without the will to act, is always an invitation to tyranny. Hitler taught it in blood. The West seems to be in the midst of learning it again, the hard way. 

Which is why the Torah’s reminder — that unless we guard our gates, freedom itself can be dismantled — has never been more urgent.

The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.