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The Ballot Box Is the Key to Preserving — or Losing — Our Current System
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.
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Anti-Israel Rioters Attack Israeli Cruise Ship, Prevent Tourists From Disembarking in Greece
Greek riot police clash with pro-Palestinian protesters near the port of Rhodes during a demonstration targeting an Israeli cruise ship. Photo: Screenshot
Anti-Israel rioters on the Greek island of Crete have attacked an Israeli cruise ship, preventing tourists from disembarking in the latest incident targeting Israeli visitors in Greece.
The MS Crown Iris — operated by Israeli cruise line Mano Maritime — was targeted once again by pro-Palestinian activists this week.
On Thursday, Israeli tourists were physically assaulted and temporarily blocked from disembarking in Crete by about 25 protesters gathered at the island’s main port to demonstrate against the war in Gaza.
The rioters, waving Palestinian flags and holding banners falsely accusing Israel of genocide, clashed violently with police who were trying to secure a safe passage for the Israeli tourists.
As Israeli tourists tried to disembark, they were attacked by the demonstrators, who threw rocks and metal bars, forcing many to retreat back onto the ship.
After those who first tried to leave the ship were physically assaulted, police advised everyone to return onboard, as protesters appeared to be blocking all exits from the port.
The port then closed its gates, and all passengers returned to the ship while authorities worked to regain control of the situation.
Greek riot police intervened, using pepper spray to disperse the crowd and detaining four protesters, but some passengers were still injured during the incident.
This latest attack marks the third incident in a month in which anti-Israel protesters have targeted Israeli tourists and attempted to boycott the Mano Maritime cruise line.
Greece’s Minister of Citizen Protection, Michalis Chrysochoidis, condemned these targeted attacks, vowing that anyone who tries to prevent a foreign national from legally entering the country will “face prosecution, arrest, and then criminal proceedings under the anti-racism law.”
Las month, approximately 1,600 Israeli passengers expecting a peaceful stop on their cruise were unable to disembark from a ship docked on the island of Syros after a pro-Palestinian protest erupted at the port, raising safety concerns.
Around 300 demonstrators had gathered at the dock to protest against the war in Gaza, while Syros Port Authority police guarded the area and intervened to prevent violence until the ship departed.
Amid the large anti-Israel protest, the cruise company chose to divert the ship to Limassol, Cyprus.
In videos circulating on social media, protesters were seen waving Palestinian flags and holding banners with slogans such as “Stop the Genocide” and “No AC [Air Conditioning] in Hell,” while chanting antisemitic slogans.
In a similar incident, pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with Greek riot police on the island of Rhodes as they attempted to block a Mano Maritime cruise ship from docking at the island’s main port.
More than 600 passengers were set to disembark when tensions escalated and brief clashes broke out as authorities worked to control the protest.
According to videos circulating on social media, riot police can be seen confronting a group of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered near the dock, who shouted slogans such as “Freedom for Palestine.”
Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents have surged to alarming levels across Europe.
These incidents appear to be the latest in an increasing wave of anti-Jewish hate crimes that Greece and other countries have experienced in recent months.
On Friday, a group of Israeli tourists from London were thrown out of a Greek taverna and called “baby killers” after a dispute with the pro-Palestinian restaurant owner.
Last month in Athens, a group of pro-Palestinian activists vandalized an Israeli restaurant, shouting antisemitic slurs and spray-painting graffiti with slogans such as “No Zionist is safe here.”
The attackers also posted a sign on one of the restaurant’s windows that read, “All IDF soldiers are war criminals — we don’t want you here,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
In June, an Israeli tourist was attacked by a group of anti-Israel activists after they overheard him using Google Maps in Hebrew while navigating through Athens.
When the attackers realized the victim was speaking Hebrew, they began physically assaulting him while shouting antisemitic slurs.
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‘Nothing Less’: Trump Presses for $500 Million Settlement With Harvard University
US President Donald Trump gestures during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Aug. 26, 2025. Photo: Jonathan Ernst via Reuters Connect
US President Donald Trump has said that Harvard University must pay a minimum $500 million penalty as part of a settlement to restore $3 billion in federal contracts and research grants his administration impounded from the school’s coffers earlier this year.
Trump insisted on “nothing less” in remarks to Education Secretary Linda McMahon during a cabinet meeting held on Tuesday. “They’ve been very bad. Don’t negotiate,” he added.
The comments came just two and a half months after McMahon, representing the Trump administration, hinted at the possibility of reaching a deal with Harvard and unfreezing the federal funds. Speaking to Bloomberg, the education secretary said that Harvard was “making progress” and “already put in place some of the things that we have talked about in our negotiations with Columbia” University, which included some wish-list reforms for which conservatives have spent decades advocating.
At the time, Harvard had filed suit against the administration, seeking a summary judgement which ruled that the funds confiscation was arbitrary and skipped key steps the government must take before taking such an action. The New York Times reported that Harvard expressed interest in paying $500 million to settle the matter, and university officials had begun dismantling initiatives and making other changes to reverse an impression that the institution is doctrinally far left and anti-Zionist.
In July, it announced new partnerships with Israeli academic institutions and shuttered its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices, transferring their staff to other sections of the university. These moves came after it “paused” a partnership in March with a higher education institution located in the West Bank. Some reports, according to the Harvard Crimson, even suggested that Harvard is willing to found a “new conservative research institute.”
However, Harvard university’s president, Alan Garber, deluged by inquiries from Harvard faculty outraged at the prospect of settling with the Trump administration, later proclaimed that the Times had reported fake news and that he intended to continue on fighting the government in court.
“In a conversation with one faculty member, [he] said that the suggestion that Harvard was open to paying $500 million is ‘false’ and claimed that the figure was apparently leaked to the press by White House officials,” the Harvard Crimson reported, noting that the Times had defended the veracity of its report. “In any discussions, Garber reportedly said, the university is treating academic freedom as nonnegotiable.”
The conflicting headlines highlighted the competing objectives Garber is being forced to choose between — rescuing Harvard from a perilous fiscal situation or placating its left-leaning faculty, 94 percent of whom donated to Democratic candidates in 2024, as reported by the Crimson.
In July, a Crimson poll of over 1,400 Harvard faculty revealed that 71 percent of arts and sciences faculty oppose negotiating a settlement with the administration and 64 percent “strongly disagree” with shuttering DEI programs. Additionally, 73 percent oppose rejecting foreign applicants who hold anti-American beliefs which are “hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence,” and 70 percent strongly disagree with revoking institutional recognition from pro-Hamas groups such as the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC).
“More than 98 percent of faculty who responded to the survey supported the university’s decision to sue the White House,” The Crimson reported. “The same percentage backed Harvard’s public rejection of the sweeping conditions that the administration set for maintaining the funds — terms that included external audits of Harvard’s hiring practices and the disciplining of student protesters.”
At the same time, Harvard will see annual budget shortfalls of $1 billion if the if the Trump confiscations remain in effect, according to the Wall Street Journal, a loss the university is offsetting by enacting “contingency preparations” predicated on amassing $1 billion in debt with help from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Analysts have told The Algemeiner that Harvard’s immense wealth, powered by a $53 billion endowment valued higher than the gross domestic product of countries such the Kingdom of Bahrain and Bolivia, can sustain its borrowing in the short term but not in perpetuity.
“If Harvard is willing to mortgage its real estate or use it as collateral, it can borrow money for a very long time,” National Association of Scholars president Peter Wood told The Algemeiner in April. “But it could destroy itself that way.”
On Friday, Asaf Romirowsky, a Middle East expert and president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), said Harvard should make a deal, arguing that would be in the interest of both the school and the country.
“Universities have begun to rapidly adapt to the new realities. One change being made by universities is increased hiring of Title VI coordinators to handle civil rights complaints,” he said. “Beyond the cosmetic, the US desperately needs to reevaluate what a university is and what it is for. Five decades of universities striving for relevance has had the effect of politicizing the humanities and social sciences.”
He continued, “As faculties have become politically monolithic, students interested in exploring traditions and themselves have been alienated, causing a feedback loop of shrinking disciplines and intensifying politics.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, and Others Join Gaza Film as Executive Producers Before Venice Premiere
Brad Pitt attends the “F1: The Movie” European premiere in London, Britain, June 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Maja Smiejkowska
Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, and other high-profile figures in the Hollywood film industry have joined the Gaza-based drama “The Voice of Hind Rajab” as executive producers ahead of its world premiere at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, Deadline reported.
“The Zone of Interest” director Jonathan Glazer is also joining the film as an executive producer as well as “Roma” director Alfonso Cuaron. Meanwhile, Dede Garner and Jeremy Kleiner from Pitt’s production company Plan B. Britain’s Film4 and the Saudi Arabian state-owned MBC Studio are also supporting the film, according to Deadline.
Written and directed by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, “The Voice of Hind Rajab” focuses on the real-life death of six-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was trapped in a car that had allegedly come under fire by Israeli military forces in the Gaza Strip in January 2024 and later found dead. Israel claimed its military troops were not in the area at the time. The movie is based on real audio recordings of Rajab’s calls to Red Cresent volunteers, who tried to keep her on the line and get an ambulance to help her. Her death sparked global outrage including at Columbia University, where anti-Israel students broke into the academic building Hamilton Hall and symbolically renamed it as Hind’s Hall in April 2024.
“The Voice of Hind Rajab” will premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 3 before making its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
“I cannot accept a world where a child calls for help and no one comes,” Ben Hania said in a released statement. “That pain, that failure, belongs to all of us. This story is not just about Gaza. It speaks to a universal grief. And I believe that fiction (especially when it draws from verified, painful, real events) is cinema’s most powerful tool. More powerful than the noise of breaking news or the forgetfulness of scrolling. Cinema can preserve a memory … May Hind Rajab’s voice be heard.”
Ben Hania’s film “Four Daughters” was nominated for an Oscar last year and her previous project, “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” was selected as the Tunisian entry for best international feature film at the Academy Awards in 2021.
The 82nd Venice Film Festival opened on Wednesday, almost six weeks to the second anniversary of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 2023, that resulted in the murder of 1,200 people while 251 were taken as hostages back to Gaza. The festival ends Sept. 6.
Hundreds of Italian and international artists signed an open letter calling on the Venice Film Festival to condemn what they claim is Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Israel has adamantly denied the charge, noting it’s targeting a terrorist group in Gaza that tries to embed itself among the civilian population to create more casualties.