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News from Syria shouldn’t distract from what’s been going on in Gaza
By BERNIE BELLAN Amidst the head-spinning news coming out of Syria this past week, it’s easy to forget that there is still a war going on in Gaza. What, exactly, Israel’s government is trying to accomplish there now is not easy to figure out.
The Israel Defense Forces would seem to have achieved all their military goals, including completely nullifying Hamas and Islamic Jihad as threats to Israel, so what more does the Israeli government (and here, I want to clearly differentiate between the goals of the government and the goals of the IDF) hope to accomplish?
In asking that, I want to reflect on two recent articles that appeared in Haaretz. One was about a Hebrew University professor by the name of Lee Mordechai, who has been carefully cataloguing war crimes that the IDF has been committing in Gaza.
Here is the introduction to that Haaretz article: “A woman with a child is shot while waving a white flag ■ Starving girls are crushed to death in line for bread ■ A cuffed 62-year-old man is run over, evidently by a tank ■ An aerial strike targets people trying to help a wounded boy ■ A database of thousands of videos, photos, testimonies, reports and investigations documents the horrors committed by Israel in Gaza”
The article goes on to note that “The report Dr. Mordechai has compiled online – “Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War” – constitutes the most methodical and detailed documentation in Hebrew (there is also an English translation) of the war crimes that Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. It is a shocking indictment comprised of thousands of entries relating to the war, to the actions of the government, the media, the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli society in general.”
In talking with many people about what’s been going on in Gaza over the past year and a half, the reaction I often receive when I suggest that Israel achieved all its military goals very early on in this war is: “Good, let them keep on hitting them so that they’ll never pose a threat to Israelis again.”
That’s understandable, but the dehumanization of the Palestinians in Gaza is something that many of us find detestable. If Israeli soldiers have lowered themselves to the same level of brutality as their enemies, is that anything to be proud of?
As for the rationalizations that by now we’ve become so accustomed to hearing – that you have to fight dirty when you’re fighting terrorists or that the IDF maintains the highest principles of conduct – notwithstanding any evidence to the contrary, simply don’t excuse the kinds of behaviour that Dr. Mordechai describes in graphic detail in his report.
As if that weren’t enough to lead one to doubt Israel’s ongoing campaign in Gaza – which is being pushed forward by the right wing forces who are calling the shots within the Likud-led government of Israel, there was yet another thorough indictment of Israel’s strategy offered up recently, this time by former Defense Minister and Army Chief of Staff Moshe Ayalon, who accused the IDF of engaging in “ethnic cleansing” in northern Gaza.
In an interview with Channel 12 news in Israel, Ayalon maintained that “The IDF is not the most moral army in the world.”
Later in that same interview, Ayalon offered two clarifications of what he meant by using the term “ethnic cleansing.” According to a report, also in Haaretz, Ayalon explained that “First, his definition of ethnic cleansing did not include genocide, but rather ‘evacuating civilians from their homes and demolishing those homes, as is happening in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.’ He also said that he does not hold the military responsible for these crimes but rather the government, in particular far-right lawmakers like National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Betzalel Smotritch, who have repeatedly declared their intentions to build Jewish settlements in Gaza.”
I would venture to say that, if you didn’t know who it was that offered that assessment of what Israel has been doing in Gaza, you would likely think that it came from one of the usual suspects, such as UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The fact that it came from a former Israeli defense minister, also a former IDF chief of staff, not to mention a member of the Likud Party, should lend it some credibility.
But, in the black and white worldview that permeates so many individuals’ thinking when it comes to what Israel has been doing in Gaza, Ayalon would no doubt simply fall into the category of naive critics of Israeli policy according to so many defenders of Israeli government policy.
It’s hard to know where readers of this publication stand, however, on what Israel has been doing in Gaza. There have been almost no letters to the editor commenting on this particular issue – not that letters to the editor offer a true picture of people’s thinking. Further, I don’t make it a habit of engaging everyone I meet in a conversation centering on Israel’s strategic goals in Gaza. Frankly, as is with the case involving a discussion of Donald Trump, tempers can flare easily – and trying to engage in a relatively dispassionate conversation about either Gaza or Trump isn’t easy.
But, a recent survey conducted by three different Canadian Jewish groups shows how diverse opinions are among Canadian Jews are when it comes to Israel.
The survey was conducted by marketing firm Leger and was sponsored by the New Israel Fund, JSpaceCanada and Canadian Friends of Peace Now.
Here are some of the findings from that survey:
• While 84% of Canada’s Jews say they are “very” or “somewhat” emotionally attached to Israel and 94% percent support the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, just 51% of Canadian Jews consider themselves Zionists.
• The poll also found that 34% of Canadian Jews believe the continued building of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank hurts Israel’s security, with only 27% saying they believe it helps Israel’s security. The remainder of those polled either said it made no difference or they didn’t know.
• Most Canadian Jews still believe that the ideal outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a two-state solution – a Jewish state of Israel alongside an Arab state of Palestine, with 61% support amongst Canadian Jews with an opinion on the subject. 55% of Canadian Jews agree that Canadian politicians should increase pressure on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to engage in a meaningful peace process.
• Canadian Jews are also more likely to indicate their intention to vote for the federal Conservative party if the election were to be held tomorrow, with 55% indicating support for the Conservatives, and 26% for the Liberals. These trends are similar to those in the general population, but the decline in Liberal support and increase in Conservative support is more pronounced among Jews.
I would suggest that the majority of Canadian Jews don’t pay much attention to what Jewish federations do – and here it’s important to note that determining who is Jewish is not easy – as I showed repeatedly ever since the results of the 2020 census came out. (For instance, I was able to establish that only 6700 Winnipeggers identified as Jewish both in terms of their religion and ethnicity in that census.)
The groups that conducted this most recent survey of Canadian Jews’ attitudes would likely not be considered mainstream Jewish organizations in the sense that they do not follow along with what our Jewish federations and CIJA would suggest is the nominal position of most Canadian Jews on Israel. All three are highly critical of Israeli government policies and all three strive to promote peaceful co-existence among Israeli Jews and Palestinians.
Yet, by referring to the work done by Prof. Mordecai documenting Israeli war crimes in Gaza, the assessment that Moshe Ayalon offered that what Israel has been doing lately in Gaza amounts to “ethnic cleansing,” and the recent survey of Canadian Jews’ attitudes towards Israel, I wanted to show how thoughtful Jews – whether they’re in Israel or in Canada, can hold highly divergent opinions from what you are likely to read in most Jewish media (including The Jewish Post). If nothing else, if I can get some readers to consider different viewpoints when it comes to thinking about Israel, I will have accomplished something.
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DOGE Staffers Used ChatGPT to Cut Holocaust History Grants During Counter-DEI Purges: Lawsuit
Elon Musk holds up a chainsaw onstage during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, US, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard
The US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) relied on the ChatGPT large language model program when deciding to cut grants for Jewish-related history programs, including one focused on violence against women during the Holocaust, according to a new class-action lawsuit.
DOGE staffer Justin Fox is named as one of the defendants in the suit filed in US federal court on Friday by the Authors Guild, which alleges that he was the one who developed the method of using ChatGPT prompts to determine which grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) — also a defendant — to cut in the name of eliminating any programs related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Fox said in a deposition that he regarded any grant related to a minority group as qualifying as “DEI” and thus up for elimination. When asked about a grant he chose to cancel related to violence against women during the Holocaust, he responded, “It’s a Jewish — specifically focused on Jewish culture and amplifying the marginalized voices of the females in that culture.” Fox added, “It’s inherently related to DEI for that reason.”
The Trump administration has made a point of targeting DEI programs, especially on university campuses, arguing they foster bigotry by replacing merit with identity-based preferences. Many Jewish groups have criticized DEI initiatives for often excluding Jews, ignoring antisemitism, or characterizing Jews as white “oppressors” rather than as a historically oppressed minority group.
The lawsuit alleges that Fox and his fellow DOGE staffer Nathan Cavanaugh “made and executed the termination decision without any legal authority conferred by Congress. There is no jurisdictional barrier to vacating these unlawful terminations, and permanent relief is warranted.”
One of the projects targeted by DOGE was a translation project titled In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers From the Soviet Union, which the lawsuit describes as “a critical, annotated translation into English of Yiddish and Russian works written in the aftermath of the most significant Jewish tragedy of the 20th century.”
ChatGPT put the book on the chopping block, stating that “this anthology explores Jewish writers’ engagement with the Holocaust in the USSR.”
According to the suit, the DOGE cuts “are unconstitutional several times over. The record establishes, without genuine factual dispute, that the terminations violated the First Amendment by targeting grants for their viewpoints and perceived political associations; that they violated the equal protection guarantee by classifying grants based on race, sex, and other constitutionally protected characteristics.”
DOGE also allegedly targeted Catholic efforts to promote Holocaust studies. The suit notes that another grant Fox and Cavanaugh chopped was support for the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education at Seton Hill University.
In a deposition, NEH’s acting chair Michael McDonald said he did not know DOGE had relied on ChatGPT and rejected including Holocaust-related grants under DEI. He also claimed DOGE ignored his disagreements. DOGE possessed the final say about which projects to cut.
In response to the question “In your view, does this grant relate to DEI?” McDonald answered “no.” When the lawyer followed up with “would you consider this to be wasteful spend?” he replied “I would not, no.”
Since the NEH’s founding in 1965, the agency has provided over $6 billion in grants to fund over 70,000 projects in all 50 states.
The lawsuit details that Fox and Cavanaugh lacked “any relevant background in the humanities, public or private grant administration, peer review, or government service of any kind prior to joining the administration.”
According to the filing, the two DOGE staffers met with McDonald and Assistant Chair for Programs Adam Wolfson on March 12. However, Fox and Cavanaugh “entirely controlled the process of selecting grants to terminate and executing the terminations — their approach was top-down, viewpoint- and race-based, and indifferent to the views of NEH leadership or the ordinary processes of grant administration.”
DOGE’s mastermind, billionaire Elon Musk, has a professional rivalry with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT.
Musk faced multiple controversies last year involving alleged antisemitism, Nazis, and the Holocaust. Following his decision to make a gesture at a Jan. 20 rally which many interpreted as resembling a “Sieg Heil”-style salute, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) initially defended the billionaire before criticizing his choice to promote Holocaust humor on his X social media platform.
“We’ve said it hundreds of times before and we will say it again: the Holocaust was a singularly evil event, and it is inappropriate and offensive to make light of it. Elon Musk, the Holocaust is not a joke,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO and National Director, wrote on X in response to Musk.
Musk faced criticism days later when addressing a gathering of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, where he said, “There is too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that.” Critics decried the comments, arguing they minimized or dismissed the Holocaust.
“The remembrance and acknowledgement of the dark past of the country and its people should be central in shaping the German society,” Dani Dayan, chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s national memorial to the Holocaust, said in response to Musk on X. He warned that not focusing on learning lessons from the past is “an insult to the victims of Nazism and a clear danger to the democratic future of Germany.”
In July, following an upgrade to Musk’s ChatGPT rival Grok, the program began promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories and in one instance labeled itself “MechaHitler.”
Two months later, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) released a report revealing the rise of antisemitism on X.
The report utilized OpenAI’s since-discontinued GPT-4o model and drew on a year-long investigation to find that “679,000 posts sampled violate X’s policies on antisemitism, and posts identified as antisemitic got 193 million views in the 11 months of this report, despite X’s promises to limit their visibility. Also, antisemitic conspiracies appear to perform disproportionately well on X, constituting 59% of posts in the sample but 73% of likes.”
The report noted that X had allowed for the rise of so-called “antisemitic influencers” and that “approximately one third of all likes on antisemitic posts were on posts shared by just 10 antisemitism ‘influencers.’ 9 out of these 10 ‘antisemitism influencers’ have more followers on X than any other platform, and 6 out of the 10 are verified on X. 3 out of the 10 profit from paid subscriptions on X.”
Amid the criticism, Musk has denied accusations of antisemitism and said his priority is to make X a bastion of free speech. He visited Israel in late 2023, weeks after Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of the Jewish state, and Auschwitz in January 2024. Following the latter trip, Musk said he was “frankly naive” about antisemitism and described himself as “Jewish by association.”
The Tesla CEO and X owner vowed to wear around his neck a dog tag reading “Bring Them Home” that was given to him by a parent of one of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza until all the captives were returned home.
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Trump’s Iran dithering puts Israel in an unprecedented position
Israel today finds itself in an unusual strategic position: It’s fighting a war that could last for weeks — or end almost instantly. And someone else will decide which way things go.
Down one path lies a prolonged campaign against Iran, with the possibility of regime change. Israel’s leaders openly hope that the campaign will enable the Iranian people to overthrow their rulers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently put it bluntly: “Our aspiration is to enable the Iranian people to cast off the yoke of tyranny.”
Down the other is a rapid cessation of the conflict, with incomplete results. President Donald Trump has already suggested that the conflict may be nearing completion. In a Monday interview with CBS News, Trump said bluntly: “The war is very complete, pretty much.”
Yet in the very same news cycle, Trump offered a strikingly different message. When asked whether the war was essentially over or just beginning, he replied: “I think you could say both.” He suggested he was considering the possibility of taking control of the Strait of Hormuz, the critical global oil chokepoint, and warned on social media that if Iran interfered with shipping there, the United States would strike it “20 times harder than they have been hit thus far.”
Those contradictory statements capture the extraordinary ambiguity surrounding the conflict. And that ambiguity has left Israel in a profoundly complicated position. Now, it must be prepared simultaneously for two radically different scenarios: a prolonged war whose outcome could reshape the Middle East, or a sudden declaration that the conflict is over.
A successful start, and mixed outlook
So far, Israeli and American forces have struck deep inside Iran, decapitating the regime and crippling major parts of military infrastructure. Iran has retaliated with missile and drone attacks against Israel, most of which have been intercepted by Israel’s air defenses, but some of which have brought tragedy.
In recent days, Tehran has picked a new supreme leader: Mojtaba Khamenei, a hardliner and the son of the longtime despot killed on the first day of the war.
If the conflict continues on this trajectory, the implications could be enormous. Sustained pressure on Iran could destabilize the regime. Even without that best-case scenario outcome, a prolonged campaign could dramatically weaken the Islamic Republic.
But a long war carries real dangers. Iran still possesses missiles capable of reaching Israel, and has been firing them daily. Israel’s multilayered defense system intercepts most of them, but not all. A cluster missile strike on Monday killed two; if the war continues, more deaths are likely to follow. And the longer the war lasts, the greater the statistical likelihood that one missile will slip through and cause a true catastrophe.
Even without a disaster, the cumulative strain on Israeli society is unmistakable. The acquisition of weapons and callup of reserve troops is further disrupting an economy that has been in various states of disruption since Oct. 7, 2023. It is also measured in the unquantifiable damage that the stress is causing pretty much every person in the country.
Many businesses are closed, and public life is minimal. Missile alerts — often in the middle of the night — repeatedly send millions of civilians into shelters (and, for a privileged minority, reinforced “safe rooms” in their home). Many offices are half empty. Parents struggle to work while caring for children who are afraid to leave the house.
With ordinary life on hold, a prolonged war could therefore become a grinding economic and psychological burden, even if Israel continues to win militarily.
Yet Israelis broadly support the war. A poll last week found that 93% of the populace backs the operation.
How will they respond if Trump abruptly pulls the plug?
War by whim
To a degree that is profoundly unusual in the history of democratic countries, the trajectory of the war depends largely on one person.
Trump has shown himself to be prone to making unilateral decisions with enormous consequences for the international order without undergoing any of the standard processes.
He launched sweeping tariff wars that upended decades of bipartisan policy on the benefits of relatively free trade. He revived the idea that the U.S. should acquire Greenland — and for weeks refused to rule out using force against Denmark, a NATO ally, to achieve that end. Earlier this year, American forces kidnapped Venezuela’s president, after which Trump openly stated that the U.S. needs “access” to the country’s oil resources.
Even the rhetoric surrounding the Iran campaign is sui generis. In recounting why American forces had sunk Iranian naval vessels rather than capturing them, he approvingly relayed that he was supposedly told by commanders that it was simply “more fun to sink them.”
If Trump decides he is done, and the Islamic Republic limps on, Israelis will be left with the frustrating sense of having missed a huge opportunity to fundamentally alter an unacceptable situation in which Iran is constantly scheming to cause harm.
Iran has been, essentially, a fly the size of an elephant buzzing in Israel’s ear. Yes, the war will be spun as victory either way — but if it ends tomorrow, it will end without achieving all it could. And the current state of affairs, in which Israel effectively has a green light from a U.S. president as indifferent to convention as Trump, may not return.
A reopened Lebanon front
One complication that could outlast either of these scenarios is Hezbollah. The Lebanon-based militia, a regional proxy for Iran, joined the fighting almost immediately, launching rockets and drones toward northern Israel. That intervention may give Israel a strategic opportunity to address a problem that has festered since post-Oct. 7 fighting ended on the Lebanon front in November, 2024.
When that conflict concluded, the Lebanese government pledged that it would dismantle and disarm Hezbollah, finally restoring the state’s monopoly on force. In practice, little changed. Hezbollah remained entrenched in parts of central Lebanon, albeit no longer along Israel’s border.
Israeli patience with this renewed status quo has steadily eroded. But the devastation of the Gaza war had badly damaged Israel’s international standing, making Jerusalem see a renewed Lebanon campaign as diplomatically difficult.
Now, the regional picture has shifted. Lebanese officials — including the country’s president — have increasingly signaled that Hezbollah’s continued militarization is unsustainable. Beirut has in recent days already taken steps to curb Iranian influence, including by restricting activity by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Senior figures have made clear that Hezbollah’s role as an armed “state within a state” cannot continue indefinitely.
Elements of Lebanon’s government clearly hope Israel might finish a task they cannot accomplish themselves — the decisive debilitation of Hezbollah — though preferably without bringing another devastating war onto Lebanese soil.
What this means: Israel is likely to be at war, in some way or another, for some time to come. Trump may call time on the war with Iran; he has no such power when it comes to Israel’s own border conflicts.
But the biggest challenges, and biggest changes, facing Israel belong with the Iran war, which has the potential to truly redefine the region. Netanyahu may wield some influence over Trump, but the decision rests with the White House.
This is an unprecedented state of affairs in Israel’s history: A perilous war of aggression, conducted without real Israeli control. The cost of this is whiplash, as the country has no choice but to live with both possibilities at once: a long war that could reshape the region — or a sudden declaration that the war has been won. Netanyahu may be able to influence Trump one way or the other — but he won’t make the call.
For Israelis, that is the rub in the hyper-alliance with Trump’s U.S. Next month, as Israel celebrates its 78th Independence Day, that independence will feel a tad fictitious. An extreme dependency lies bare for all to see, and it will outlive Trump. His successor may not be as munificent.
The post Trump’s Iran dithering puts Israel in an unprecedented position appeared first on The Forward.
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FIFA COO Says World Cup ‘Too Big’ to Be Postponed by Israel-Iran War
Soccer Football – FIFA Club World Cup – Group D – Esperance de Tunis v Chelsea – Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US – June 24, 2025, General view of the FIFA logo before the match. Photo: REUTERS/Lee Smith
FIFA Chief Operating Officer Heimo Schirgi said the 2026 World Cup is “too big” to postpone and will proceed as planned despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Schirgi made the comments while speaking on Monday outside construction of the International Broadcast Center, which is located inside the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center and will serve as a hub for international coverage of the World Cup. Schirgi was asked about Iran as it remains unclear if the country will participate in World Cup, after the US and Israel launched joint airstrikes against the Islamic Republic that led to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other high-ranking Iranian officials. Iran has retaliated with strikes against Israel and civilian areas across the Middle East.
“At some stage, we will have a resolution, and the World Cup will go on, obviously,” Schirgi replied, according to NBC 5 in Dallas. “The World Cup is too big, and we hope that everyone can participate that has qualified.”
FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafstrom previously said the organization is closely monitoring the situation in the Middle East ahead of the World Cup in June. Schirgi added that FIFA has been in contact with Iran’s soccer federation, but did not provide details about what was discussed, according to Reuters.
The FIFA World Cup will take place across cities in the US, Mexico, and Canada from June 11 to July 19. Iran qualified for the tournament through its participation in the Asian Football Conference. It is set to compete in Group G at the World Cup and is scheduled to face New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on June 21, both in Los Angeles, before going head-to-head against Egypt on June 26 in Seattle. Soccer fans from Iran are already barred from entering the United States for the World Cup as part of a travel ban that the Trump administration announced in June.