ROTH’S WRATH AT JUSTICE DENIED

Arnold Roth’s 25-Year fight for justice for his daughter’s murder and accountability for a Hamas terrorist.

By Jonathan Feldstein

This week is the 25th anniversary of one of the most horrific terror attacks in Israel during what is referred to as the Second Intifada. During the period from late 2000 through the first half of 2005, more than 1000 Israelis were killed and several thousand wounded as a result of countless Palestinian Arab suicide bombings, shootings, stabbings, and more. While hardly a week went by without some such terror attack, the August 9, 2001 bombing of the Sbarro pizza restaurant in central Jerusalem remains one of the most vivid and vulgar, still today. 

The image of Malki found in an undeveloped camera years after her murder. © Arnold Roth

Among the dozens killed and injured, 15-year-old Malki Roth was one of the victims for whom justice has yet to be served. Since then, her father, Arnold Roth, has worked tirelessly to bring the mastermind of his daughter’s murder to justice. Roth discussed this in a powerful and emotionally charged conversation on “Inspiration from Zion,” marking the anniversary of his daughter’s murder, and his continued efforts to bring the terrorist mastermind to justice. The conversation reveals not only the enduring pain of a grieving father but also a scathing critique of:

– international inaction

– Jordanian defiance, and

–  American reluctance to enforce its own laws.

On August 9, 2001, Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, then a 21-year-old Jordanian journalism student, deliberately targeted the Sbarro pizzeria because it was filled with Jewish children. Tamimi was not the bomber, but the one who selected the site and guided the Hamas suicide bomber there carrying a guitar case filled with explosives and shrapnel to maximize the carnage. Fifteen people were killed immediately, including Malki, an American-Israeli citizen. 130 were wounded. Roth described the period leading up to the attack as tense but not yet at the peak of the Second Intifada violence. “Had we known that Malki and her best friend… were going … into the center of town to take a quick lunch,” he said, his wife Frimet “would have said, don’t go.”

Killer on the Loose. The FBI ‘MOST WANTED TERRORIST’ poster for a terrorist responsible for the death of a US citizen currently residing freely in Jordan.

Tamimi was arrested, and tried in an Israeli military court, where she proudly confessed to the crime. Roth noted chillingly:

 “She admitted joyously, with a smile on her face that chilled the three judges.”

Yet in 2011, as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, Israel released 1,027 terrorists including Tamimi. The Roths were only informed of her impending release by a phone call from an Israeli official the morning after the deal was announced.

Since her release, Tamimi has lived openly in Jordan as a celebrity, hosting a television program that glorified terrorism and incited violence against Jews. Roth described her transformation:

“She became a phenomenal performer for the promotion of the redemptive value of killing Jews… This is a compelling story.”

Other than the unthinkable loss of his daughter, the core of Roth’s frustration lies in the failure of the United States to secure Tamimi’s extradition and bring her to justice. Malki was an American citizen, and the U.S. has both an extradition treaty with Jordan and domestic law allowing prosecution of terrorists who murder Americans abroad. Charges were filed against Tamimi in 2013 and unsealed in 2017. Despite this, Jordan has refused to comply, citing a technicality in the treaty that Roth and legal experts dismiss as a self-invented loophole. The U.S. has failed to insist of Jordan’s compliance.

Roth expressed deep disillusionment with the U.S. response. In a recent letter from a senior U.S. official, he was told the administration was doing more than any other to bring Tamimi to justice. His reaction was blunt: “I’m flabbergasted… They’re telling me things that I know that I tell them.” He added, “No Attorney General, no senior figure… has ever responded to us… The United States has betrayed its own values.”

The Merry Monster. Only disappointed she did not succeed in killing more Jews!

Roth emphasized that the issue transcends personal grief. “If we fail to act in the face of grotesquely open and provocative actions by individuals and countries who twist terrorism… then we’re all lost.” He rejected pity as a motivator, instead calling for a defense of core principles: “Hug your children… remember what we can do… We’re different, and if we’re different, we’ve got to guard that difference.”

The conversation also addressed media complicity. Roth criticized BBC Arabic for platforming Tamimi and promoting narratives that glorify her actions. He has worked with media watchdog CAMERA to expose these issues and highlight the broadcaster’s willful failures if not compliance.

At the 25th anniversary of Malki’s murder, the Roths have launched a petition urging the U.S. Secretary of State to enforce the extradition treaty and bring Tamimi to justice in America. Roth stressed: “This is really an effort by my wife and me… We need as many [signatures] as we can get.”

Roth’s message is both personal and universal. The failure to extradite Tamimi represents more than bureaucratic inertia. It signals a troubling willingness to subordinate justice to political convenience. For Roth, this is not merely about one terrorist or one family. It is about whether the United States and the international community will uphold the values of accountability, truth, and the protection of innocent life.

The 25th anniversary of the Sbarro bombing and Malki Roth’s murder come a month before the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terror attack on U.S. soil killing 3000. The attacks took place thousands of miles apart, but the same Islamic terrorist ideology is the perpetrator. For justice and in memory of the victims, we cannot sit by and allow those who carried out these acts to walk free, especially where there is law in place to bring them to justice.

Mind of a Monster. She selected a fast-food restaurant in downtown central Jerusalem popular with children.

As Israel and the Jewish world prepare to commemorate the anniversary of the Sbarro attack on August 9, there have been hopeful developments, but Roth knows better than to get his hopes up too much after all these years of justice denied. But it’s not just about Israel and the Jewish world. Bringing terrorists who murder Americans to justice is a global issue.

Roth’s words serve as a sobering reminder:

true justice remains elusive, but the fight for it must continue. He refuses to let his daughter’s memory be erased or her murderer celebrated. Their call is clear: sign the petition, demand action, and reject the normalization of terror. (Follow the full conversation with Arnold Roth on Inspiration from Zion by video or by audio.)



About the writer:

Jonathan Feldstein ­­­­- President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians – is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Journal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.







While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

Lay of the Land Weekly Newsletter – 02 August 2026

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THE ISRAEL BRIEF – 27 – 30 July 2026
(Click on the blue title)



Lay of the Land’s Image ‘Pick of the Week‘

HE STOOD OUT BECAUSE HE STOOD UP – BOLD ‘BOY GEORGE’

Under fire, a rare stand-up in the entertainment industry for Israel

Refused to be Silenced. British musician and songwriter Boy George faced backlash after releasing a reggae-style song called, “We Will Dance Again” (a reference to the slogan of October 7 Nova Music Festival), that opens with the lyrics:
“You say genocide / I say war / When you’re attacked / That’s what the army’s for /
Did it get ugly? You bet it does / When I know you want to kill every last one of us.”

He continues:
“You never mention October 7 / Young girls raped against trees /
Murdered brutally / For the crime of dancing
When asked earlier this year, whether he would turn his back on his Jewish friends, Boy George replied:
“ That is not going to happen – it will never happen.”




ARTICLES

Please note there is a facility to comment beneath each article should you wish to express an opinion on the subject addressed.

(1)

EXPLOSIVE EXPOSÉ

What is the connection between the bombing of the King David Hotel 80 years ago and Moshav Gan Ner in Northern Israel?
By David E. Kaplan

Painful Past. Marking 80 years since the bombing of Jerusalem’s iconic King David Hotel, brought back memories for the writer of an old interview with a British lord, illuminating how out of destruction, emerged construction.

EXPLOSIVE EXPOSÉ
(Click on the blue title)



(2)

COLLAPSE OF THE BLOOD LIBELS

Every pillar of the genocide accusation against Israel has crumbled. The institutions that built it have suddenly lost their voices.
By Andrew Fox

Same Old, Same New. One by one, the multitude of menacing voices accusing Israel of “genocide” and other alleged crimes have been discredited as false or fabricated revealing bias, antisemitism or both.

COLLAPSE OF THE BLOOD LIBELS
(Click on the blue title)



(3)

ISRAEL MUST CHOOSE THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

The coming elections offer Israelis an opportunity not merely to choose another government but to reaffirm the national commitment to the values on which the state was founded.
By Prof. Uriel Reichman

Founding Values. As Israelis prepare to go to the polls in October, the writer cautions that “the question before them is about far more than who will form the next government.” It is about the kind of Jewish state Israel intends to be!

ISRAEL MUST CHOOSE THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
(Click on the blue title)



LOTL Cofounders David E. Kaplan (Editor), Rolene Marks and Yair Chelouche

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While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

THE ISRAEL BRIEF – 27 – 30 July 2026


27 July 2026 – ICC prosecuter gets the boots, Bibi heads to Washington and more on The Israel Brief.



28 July 2026 – Boy George’s Karma chameleon smacks the haters, Bibi lands in Washington and more on the Israel Brief.



29 July 2026 – A romance in the Oval Office? Bibi and Trump meet and more on The Israel Brief.



30 July 2026 – Is Hamas about to surrender? Your headlines, morons and more on the Israel Brief.







While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

ISRAEL MUST CHOOSE THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

The coming elections offer Israelis an opportunity not merely to choose another government but to reaffirm the national commitment to the values on which the state was founded.

By PROF. URIEL REICHMAN

(Courtesy of The Jerusalem Post where first appeared this adaptation of the author’s address at the 2026 Herzliya Conference).

As Israelis prepare to go to the polls in October, the question before them is about far more than who will form the next government. It is about the kind of Jewish state Israel intends to be. That question did not begin with the judicial overhaul initiated in 2023, nor will it end with the coming elections. It has been unfolding for decades, rooted in competing visions of Zionism and the identity of the State of Israel.

Jewish history offers a warning. Following the death of King Solomon, the kingdom split in two under his son Rehoboam. The rival kingdoms gradually weakened until both were destroyed. The lesson — that internal division leads to national catastrophe — remains painfully relevant.

To understand this moment in time, we must return to one that the country never fully confronted: the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

I will never forget the morning after Rabin was murdered. Hundreds of students gathered outside the university’s administration building, their eyes red from tears and a sleepless night, to light memorial candles. I spoke to them, my voice choked with emotion, about the Rabin I had known and about the stain his assassination would leave on Israel’s history.

I also told them that it would be a mistake to focus solely on the assassin, Yigal Amir. We had to examine the ideological environment that made the murder possible. Instead, under the banner of national unity, Israel largely avoided that reckoning, leaving the ideological roots of the assassination largely unexamined.

The Oslo Accords were the subject of legitimate public debate. Yet among some extremist elements within the religious settlement movement, opposition went beyond politics. Certain rabbis invoked the halachic doctrine of moser — a Jew who informs on fellow Jews or delivers their lives or property into the hands of hostile authorities. Under halachic law, a moser may be killed, and a Jew who kills him is considered to have performed a mitzvah.

Amir later stated that he had received rabbinic authorization to regard Rabin as a moser.

Leading rabbinic authorities, including the Chazon Ish and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, had ruled that the moser doctrine had no place in the sovereign State of Israel. Yet Israel never fully confronted how such ideas had entered public discourse or what they signified for the future of the state.

The roots of that ideological transformation reach back to the Six-Day War.

Like many Israelis, I experienced the war as a moment of profound national renewal. As a paratrooper officer, I remember hearing Motta Gur announce, “The Temple Mount is in our hands.” It was a deeply emotional moment. Many Israelis, secular and religious alike, felt they had reconnected with the biblical sites of Jewish history.

But two very different conclusions emerged from that victory.

Prof. Uriel Reichman addressing the 2026 Herzliya Conference at Reichman University.

Most Israelis saw it as an extraordinary military achievement, won through blood, courage, sacrifice, and comradeship. We did not regard settlement throughout the territories as a religious obligation. Their future, we believed, should be determined by Israel’s democratic institutions, weighing security, diplomatic, and moral considerations.

Another current, inspired by Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook and developed by his son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, saw the war as a decisive stage in the divine process of redemption. From this worldview emerged Gush Emunim, which regarded settlement throughout the biblical Land of Israel as a religious commandment and viewed the Six-Day War and the settlement enterprise as expressions of divine will.

This outlook gave rise to the question of the limits of obedience to the state when its decisions conflicted with the commandment to settle the Land. Over time, part of the movement underwent a deeper transformation. Increasingly, some held that the state lacked legitimate authority whenever it conflicted with the redemptive vision.

Following the disengagement from Gaza in 2005, this evolution accelerated. For some, the evacuation violated a divine commandment to “inherit the Land.” Among influential religious educators, particularly within the Bnei David pre-military academy and circles associated with the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, a new constitutional vision gained ground. Their objective was not merely to influence public policy but to reshape the state itself — replacing a Jewish and democratic state with one whose constitution is the Torah — while building the political, educational, and public power needed to advance this goal.

In this conception, democracy is understood primarily as majority rule. Judicial independence, checks and balances, and the protection of minority rights are not regarded as essential features of democratic government but as obstacles to establishing a halachic state.

It is against this background that the judicial overhaul proposed in 2023 must be understood. This is not merely a dispute over the powers of the Supreme Court or the role of the attorney general. It reflects a much deeper debate over the source of Israel’s authority: whether it should remain faithful to the vision embodied in the Declaration of Independence or move toward a fundamentally different, religious model.

To this day, political theory continues to rest on Aristotle’s foundational insight that it is not the role of the state to enforce ideological or social unity. On the contrary, the purpose of the state is to enable people with different beliefs and convictions to live together, while promoting stability, openness, and moderation as guiding values.

The architects of modern Zionism — from Theodor Herzl and Ze’ev Jabotinsky to David Ben-Gurion — rejected the idea of a theocratic state. They envisioned a Jewish state that would be democratic, committed to liberty, equality, and the rule of law. The Declaration of Independence captured that remarkable synthesis. It established Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people while pledging to “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex” and guaranteeing “freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture.”

The judicial overhaul seeks to alter the very essence of the State of Israel and depart from the vision of Zionism embodied in the Declaration of Independence — a Jewish state committed both to national self-determination and to the principles of liberal democracy.

The coming elections offer Israelis an opportunity not merely to choose another government but to reaffirm the national commitment to the values on which the state was founded and finally provide them with the constitutional framework they deserve. Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state depends on it.


About the author:

Prof. Uriel Reichman is the founding president and chairman of the Board of Reichman University. In July, 2026, he received the Presidential Medal of Honor, Israel’s highest civilian honor, awarded in recognition of his exceptional contribution to academia, Israeli society, and the State of Israel.This essay is adapted from the author’s address at the 2026 Herzliya Conference.








While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

COLLAPSE OF THE BLOOD LIBELS

Every pillar of the genocide accusation against Israel has crumbled. The institutions that built it have suddenly lost their voices.

By Andrew Fox

Sometimes I think I am not angry enough, but the scale of the problem is almost too huge to be angry at, collectively. Towering rage must be split into smaller rages at each of the component parts of the blood libel machine.

  • The fantastical Lancet “studies” salivating over hundreds of thousands of imaginary dead Gazans.
  • AirWars’ pearl-clutching reports, drawing conclusions of civilian targeting in Gaza without a tenth of the evidence needed to draw said conclusions.
  • Amnesty, B’tselem and all the other NGOs, releasing fraudulent genocide conclusions achieved only by changing the definition and parameters of genocide.
  • The paid media squad of hacks, twisting and distorting and murdering the truth just to get one over on the Jewish state.
  • South Africa, ripping apart the genocide convention at Iran’s behest, making it harder to punish real genocides in future.

The whole sorry mess sickens me, and now the great indictment of Israel is coming apart, one revelation at a time. This fact is not being reported by a single damned one of the media outlets that have spent years screeching over the war in Gaza to the exclusion of almost all else. Famine, deliberate attacks on hospitals, the slaughter of journalists and children, and systematic obstruction of aid: each allegation was broadcast as settled fact and then used to prove genocidal intent. The same newsrooms and universities that thundered these charges have shown remarkably little interest in the evidence that now destroys each of these allegations.

Trading Places. Clockwise from top left: Jaber Mohammadin in civilian attire and in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform; Ahmad Adel Abu al-Hilal in hospital scrubs and in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform; Abd al-Latif Abu Tuaima in civilian attire and in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform; and Salem Jumaa Shirab in civilian attire and in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform. (Photos: Palestinian Islamic Jihad social media, Facebook, social media)

It is incredible. There is no aspect of the genocide allegation that has not collapsed.

Start with the famine claim.

In August 2025, the IPC used two ways of measuring malnutrition in children: weight compared with height, and the size of a child’s upper arm. Gaza had no local data showing how those two measures matched up, so the IPC used an estimate from elsewhere in the region. It assumed the weight-and-height measure would find about twice as many malnourished children as the arm measurement.

The first large Gaza survey to use both measures found the reverse. Of 1,335 children surveyed in 2026, 0.5% were identified as acutely malnourished by weight and height, while 1.3% were identified by upper-arm measurement. That survey cannot tell us exactly what conditions were like in 2025. The later survey cannot recreate conditions in 2025, but it exposes the rotten foundation beneath a verdict presented to the world as scientific certainty: a key assumption behind the famine declaration had never been tested in Gaza itself.

The food figures are equally awkward. Official COGAT-based data show that about 1.01 million tonnes of food entered Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 17 January 2025, against an estimated requirement of 825,000 tonnes. From the October 2025 ceasefire to 7 June 2026, 1.78 million tonnes entered, against a calculated need of roughly 643,000 tonnes.

Of course, food crossing a border does not guarantee it reaches every family. Roads were destroyed, distribution failed, aid was looted, and Israel’s two-and-a-half-month block on aid in spring 2025 was a grave error. However, those qualifications cannot rescue the claim of a continuous Israeli policy to starve Gaza. The quantities of food that entered Gaza are simply too large.

The hospital narrative has also disintegrated. American intelligence independently confirmed that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad used al-Shifa for command operations, weapons storage, and to hold hostages. Hamas accounts now describe armed men, including senior officers, sheltering inside the hospital during an Israeli siege. Hospitals remained protected, and Israel still had to obey the laws of war, but the moral fairy tale of innocent hospitals attacked by the brutal IDF is dead. There is now endless evidence in the public domain of Hamas using hospitals for military purposes.

Medics who Murder. Ahmad Adel Abu al-Hilal in hospital scrubs (left) in a photo circulated after his death and  (right) in Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform, after the group identified him as one of its members. (Photos: PIJ screenshots)

The casualty statistics have fared no better. The claim that 70% of the dead were women and children became a fixture of global coverage. OCHA’s July 2026 snapshot, based on Gaza Health Ministry figures for 71,444 identified fatalities, placed those categories at 45.2 %. Adult men make up over 50% of the fatalities, from a pre-war adult male percentage of approximately 25% of the population. Not all adult men can be counted as combatants, but a figure repeatedly cited as proof of indiscriminate slaughter is now shown to be false when applied to the overall toll. The “hundreds of thousands” of dead under the rubble have likewise not materialised. That number is completely implausible, given Gaza’s mechanism for reporting the missing and the financial compensation incentives to use it.

Killers in Scrubs. Ibrahim Abd al-Raouf al-Farra in hospital scrubs (left), in a photo circulated after his death and (right) in Hamas uniform, after the group identified him as one of its members. (Photo: Hamas screenshot)

The supposed massacre of journalists is now unravelling in the same way. A Meir Amit Centre study of 266 people listed as journalists or media workers found that 157, around 60 %, were members of or clearly affiliated with terrorist organisations. The Committee to Protect Journalists has already removed eight names after establishing that they were Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad combatants, removed another twelve for other reasons, and, after this exposure came to light, opened a full review. Other OSINT (open-source intelligence) suggests this figure of combatants is even higher.

This proves that “journalist” was often a dangerously incomplete label and that lurid claims of Israel slaughtering journalists were nothing more than propaganda. An artillery commander does not become a civilian by picking up a camera. Major outlets repeated the raw total for years, yet now they are barely reporting its collapse.

‘Hypocrisy and Manipulation’, 6 August, 2025, Israeli president Isaac Herzog exposes Hamas-led propaganda, citing investigative reports from leading German newspapers that revealed staged images from Gaza. Herzog contrasted these fabricated scenes with the very real suffering of Israeli hostages, exposing what he called Hamas’ “hypocrisy and manipulation.”

The same contamination appears across lists of healthcare workers and children. Militant obituaries have identified numerous medical workers as commanders and operatives, while faction records have revealed teenagers listed only as children despite their documented recruitment into armed groups. Recruited minors remain victims of the adults who used them, but age alone cannot establish civilian status or Israeli intent.

Hamas’s role in the aid disaster has finally forced its way into the UN’s own language. In July 2026, a senior UN official accused armed personnel affiliated with Gaza’s “de facto authorities” (i.e. Hamas) of breaking into a food distribution point and a World Food Programme warehouse, assaulting drivers and participating in a wider pattern of intimidation, obstruction and smuggling attempts. Years of sneering at Hamas’s aid diversion as Israeli propaganda ended with the UN admitting it.

From Stethoscope to Automatic Firearm.  Mohammed Akram al-Kafarna, head of the Palestinian Nurses and Midwives Syndicate in Gaza and whose death was mourned by the International Council of Nurses, was also a member of Hamas. ( Photo: Hamas screenshot)

Academia performed no better. The International Association of Genocide Scholars declared Israel guilty, falsely claiming that the International Court of Justice had found genocide “plausible”. The court’s former president had already explained that it made no such finding. Only 28 % of the association’s members voted. Membership was open to literally anyone, yet headlines announced the judgment of the world’s genocide scholars. The same applies to the fraudulent squad of historians newly reinventing themselves as “genocide scholars”, assuming authority their qualifications do not grant, and grandly declaring Gaza a genocide. No mea culpa from these frauds. There are books to be sold.

The repercussions are no longer theoretical. Britain recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents in 2025, the second-highest annual total in its history; the United States recorded 6,274, with physical assaults at a record. Two Israeli embassy employees were murdered outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. Fifteen people were slaughtered at a Chanukah celebration in Sydney. And on, and on, and on.

No newspaper article pulled those triggers, and the hatred long predates Gaza, but the relentless depiction of the Jewish state as a child-killing, famine-making engine of genocide gave old hatred a new moral vocabulary. Jews everywhere were forced to answer for accusations that the evidence can no longer sustain. The genie of antisemitism is out of the bottle, and any corrections now will not put it back. The academics, NGOs, politicians and journalists who spread the genocide blood libel without waiting for evidence (or fabricating their own) now have blood on their hands.

“Gazawood”. While increasingly exposed are the  ‘journalists’ who have staged depictions of daily life in Gaza and of fabricating images and videos, the damage to blacken Israel’s reputation has been done.

Israel should already have been exonerated of the blanket charge that it sought to exterminate Gaza’s civilians. Individual strikes and alleged crimes still require investigation, but genocide cannot remain the default verdict after every single factual pillar supporting it has cracked.

The record now requires urgent correction, followed by inquiries within the universities and professional bodies that lent the libel their prestige. Some of those responsible should resign.

They will not.

The people who spread these blood libels remain in post, reviewing one another’s work and hoping nobody notices the ruins of their reputations.



About the writer:

A veteran of three grueling tours of Afghanistan, Major Andrew Fox holds a Batchelor’s degree in Law & Politics, a Master’s in Military History & War Studies, Msc in Psychology and is currently studying for a PhD in History.










While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

EXPLOSIVE EXPOSÉ

What is the connection between the bombing of the King David Hotel 80 years ago and Moshav Gan Ner in Northern Israel?

By David E. Kaplan

One of the most iconic blots in Israel’s fight against the British for independence was the bombing of the King David Hotel on July 22, 1946, eighty years ago last week.  Ninety-one people, died when explosives planted by an Irgun commando detonated in the basement of the building, which housed, among others, the British headquarters for Palestine.

An act of terrorism which killed mostly civilians,  but:

 Was it true as it was once asserted that no warning was issued? 

Hotel Headquarters. The aftermath of the bombing in July 22, 1946 carried out by the Irgun Jewish underground at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which housed the British headquarters for Palestine.( Wikimedia Commons)

BUILD-UP TO A BOMBING

To understand the circumstances leading to the bombing of one of the most historically iconic architectural gems in Jerusalem, one must understand the acute desperation of the parties  to the conflict at the time.

On June 29, 1946, Britain launched Operation Agatha  — a random name choice unrelated to the ‘who done-it’ novelist  -in which 25,000 British troops participated, raiding the Jewish Agency headquarters and imposing curfews, seizing arms, and confiscating documents detailing Hagana operations and the activities of the joint resistance movement that included:

– the Hagana, the most organized group, which was aligned with the Jewish Agency;

– the Irgun, the Revisionist movement led by Menachem Begin that had initiated many military actions; and

– Lehi, which was the acronym for “Lohamei Herut Yisrael,” the smallest and most extreme of the three.

All three groups had put aside their differences and rebelled against British rule to pressure the revocation of the White Paper under Neville Chamberlain’s government which sought to appease the Arab population in Mandatory Palestine on the eve of World War II by:

– severely limiting Jewish immigration

– restricting land purchases, and

– abandoning the goal of a Jewish state.

The British arrested 2,700 individuals, including Moshe Sharett, head of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department and future prime minister; David Remez, chairman of the Jewish National Council; Yitzhak Gruenbaum, director of the Jewish Agency’s Labor Department; and Dov Yosef, a prominent Jewish Agency member and future minister. A people traumatized, the day went down in modern Jewish history as “Black Saturday” until it was superseded by the events of Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.

The documents seized by the British were taken to the British Mandate Secretariat, located in the King David’s southern wing. As the center of British mandate rule in Palestine, the hotel was treated as a target even before Operation Agatha  and with the transfer of these compromising documents to the secretariat it hastened a strategic decision to bomb the hotel.

Cities on Edge. British paratroopers enforce curfew in Tel Aviv post-bombing, July 1946. (Photo: public domain)

So, what is the connection of the bombing to the community settlement of Gan Ner, founded in northern Israel, south of Afula in 1987?

At the turn of the millennium, Lord Grenville Janner was visiting Israel from the UK and he addressed a meeting in Ra’anana where I had the opportunity to interview him.

Lordship in Ra’anana. Interviewing Lord Grenville Janner, the son of Sir. Barnett Janner in Ra’anana in 2007. (Photo: D.E. Kaplan)

He revealed an illuminating conversation he had with his mother following the passing of his father Sir Barnett Janner, who had preceded him as the Labour M.P. for Leicester West in the House of Commons and had also been president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews:

She said:

 “Your Dad worked all his life for Israel and there is nothing named after him. You should rectify this and go see Mr. Begin.”

“The Israeli Prime Minister! What do I tell him?” asked the son.

“I’ll tell you. Not so long ago, a colonel wrote to your father revealing that he was in the King David hotel when Begin’s organization blew it up. However he knew that Begin had warned the military authorities prior to the operation, which our British government has always denied.  He confirmed that he had been present when the warning call from the Irgun came through to the hotel switchboard confirming an effort was made to protect lives. Your father, despite being ideologically poles apart from Begin, had the courage to stand up in the House of Commons and proclaim that truth. It could no longer be publicly denied.”

JANNER DOESN’T GEL

So, Greville dutifully went off to see the Menachem Begin. The Israeli Prime Minister’s response was:

 “Sure, we are truly thankful to your father for revealing an unpopular truth in your Parliament. However, we can’t name a place in Israel ‘Janner’ – it’s not a Hebrew sounding name.”

Labored for his People. Labour MP, Sir Barnett Janner who was created a life peer in 1970 held many positions in the Jewish community, including President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews 1955–64 and a member of the  executive of the British Zionist Federation.

Pondering for a few seconds, Begin then continued:

“How about Gan Ner? Sounds Israeli and more-or-less like Janner and translates into Hebrew as ‘Candel Garden’. After all, your father shone a candle of light illuminating a truth. Nu, how about it?”

It was agreed.

Running for Office. A 1920 Cardiff City Council election poster when a young Barnett Janner stood unsuccessfully for election to Cardiff City Council as a candidate of the Comrades of the Great War.

However, when Begin suggested that Gan Ner should be located “in Judea or Samaria,” Lord Janner said he resorted to some very unLORDly Yiddish expletives to describe what his late liberal father would have thought about that and “So today, there is a delightful settlement of some 700 souls nestled in the heart of Israel in the Jezreel Valley at the foothills of Mt. Gilboa.”

That was over two decades ago and as at 2024, Gan Ner has expanded to over 2,657 souls with its Gan Ner Sports Hall serving as the home venue for the Hapoel Gilboa Galil professional basketball team.

Embedded into Landscape. An aerial view of Gan Ner at the foot of Mt. Gilboa in the Yizreel Valey named after Jewish British politician, Sir. Barnett Janner.

EPILOGUE

Unlike the warning given in 1946, there was no  warning when a mass of marauding killers crossed over from Gaza into southern Israel on October 7, 2023 massacring Jews wherever they found them.  “Black Saturday” of 1946 had an all-new meaning, and among the many murdered on October 7, was  a young resident from Gan Ner, 22-year-old “partygoer” Stav Barazani.

She attended the Nova Music Festival with her boyfriend, Asaf Edberg. The two fled together and took refuge in a police station, where they were subsequently found and murdered.

For Stav, Gan Ner or ‘Garden Candel’, burns  eternally – a flame of remembrance.


Stav Barazani, 22, from Gan Ner, was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Supernova music festival on October 7.









While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

THE ISRAEL BRIEF – 20 – 23 July 2026

20 July 2026 – Mamdani threatens to arrest Netanyahu and who has pulled out of South Africa’s ICJ case. This and more on The Israel Brief.



21 July 2026 – Mamdani gets a Presidential smackdown and the IDF’s longest humanitarian mission and more on The Israel Brief.



22 July 2026 – President Aoun, we are waiting to make peace! Could Lebanon join the Abraham Accords? This and more on The Israel Brief.



23 July 2026 – Mamdani’s sinister video, your mensches and morons and more on The Israel Brief.





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

Lay of the Land Weekly Newsletter – 22 July 2026

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THE ISRAEL BRIEF – 13 – 16 July 2026
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THE ISRAEL BRIEF – 20 – 23 July 2026
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Lay of the Land’s Image ‘Pick of the Week‘

A FAIR SHAKE

More than shaking hands, it could be a real shake-up towards peace between Israel and Lebanon.

Marking the first visit by a Lebanese president to the White House in more than 17 years, will Joseph Aoun’s upbeat
meeting with a jubilant Donald Trump on July 21, 2026, herald a genuine path to peace
between Israel and Lebanon?  (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)





ARTICLES

Please note there is a facility to comment beneath each article should you wish to express an opinion on the subject addressed.

(1)

HERZLIYA CONFERENCE MESSAGE – TIME TO TRANSITION

Failures leading to October 7 followed by poor policies since, necessitate a switch in direction and a ditch of leadership.
By David E. Kaplan

Saving the State. Maj. Gen. (Res.) Prof. Amos Gilead (r) interviews retired Supreme Court President Aharon Barak at the 2026 Herzliya Conference, who delivers a stark warning about the state and fate of Israeli democracy, relying now on the public – come elections – to salvage the situation.

HERZLIYA CONFERENCE MESSAGE – TIME TO TRANSITION
(Click on the blue title)



(2)

THE ANTISEMITIC GOSPEL ACCORDING TO REDI TLHABI

Relocated to the US, a popular South African journalist switches media platform to further outreach her antisemitism.
By Lawrence Nowosenetz

‘UPFRONT’ in her Prejudice. Working for her new boss Al Jazeera in the USA, SA journalist Redi Tlhabi is more than happy to propagate an antisemitic narrative evidenced by her postings like “…the Israeli lobby uses money and power to control the US and its lawmakers.”

THE ANTISEMITIC GOSPEL ACCORDING TO REDI TLHABI
(Click on the blue title)



(3)

OBSTRUCTION AND OBFUSCATION

Where is the global outrage at new UN finding of Hamas’ obstruction of humanitarian aid?
By Kenneth Moeng Kgwadi

Daylight Robbery. Late to the game, the UN finally admits in a statement that international aid trucks are being hijacked and vital provisions stolen by “armed personnel affiliated with Gaza’s de facto authorities”   – code for Hamas – and are also assaulting aid workers.

OBSTRUCTION AND OBFUSCATION
(Click on the blue title)



(4)

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO LORDS

An Israeli visiting London while war rages in the Middle East.
By Sidney Victor Kaplan

Having a Field Day. From a cricket test at Lords to a Bach concert at the Wigmore Hall, the writer discovers while visiting London that you can leave Israel but Israel never leaves you.

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO LORDS
(Click on the blue title)



LOTL Cofounders David E. Kaplan (Editor), Rolene Marks and Yair Chelouche

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While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).





A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO LORDS

An Israeli visiting London while war rages in the Middle East.

By Sidney Victor Kaplan

If life is crazy in Israel these days, sometimes it is no less crazy for an Israeli finding himself outside Israel.

I live on a moshav ‘Manof’ in the north of Israel that has been subjected to endless sirens warning of incoming missiles, mostly from Hezbollah in Lebanon but also from Iran.

It is not that we are specifically being targeted but because we are situated near Rafael  – Israel’s state-owned aerospace and defense technology company responsible for pioneering and producing such famed operational defense systems like the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and the Iron Beam – we are ‘included’ on a ‘hit list’ and I’m not referring  to a collection of popular songs.

So, like all Israelis, I am armed by having a fully loaded cellphone, which has the lifesaving Home Front Command app that prepares you with a warning of an impending siren that in turn warns you of an impending missile. The only thing is, this abrasive ear-piercing rat-a-tat warning sound is loud, disruptive, intrusive and irritatingly inescapable.

To escape it  – or so I thought – I went off to London for a week on my annual pilgrimage to watch cricket and listen to music.

MANOF TO MARLEBONE

So, there I was this past June ensconced at my usual seat, not watching the Ashes, which I try never to miss, but a 5 -day test between England and New Zealand at Lords, home of the  Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).

Having a Field Day. Away from war in the Middle East, the writer watches a more sedate battle at Lords between England and New Zealand.

The atmosphere could not be more different from Israel.  Far removed from the soundtrack of war of sirens and planes flying above to a blend instead of reverent tradition, hushed anticipation and quite elegance all set against historic architecture, where the crowd’s deep knowledge and respect for the game shines through.

However, one can never really escape.

Despite being away, the  mind never leaves Israel and so one is constantly tracking the news. It was refreshing looking at the sky above Lords, seeing only birds and the flight of a red cricket ball rather than planes and missiles. Also, no piercing warning and sirens, just the occasional “HOWZAT”  when things were hotting up on the pitch.  Meanwhile, I could see  – tapping into newsfeeds – that things were ‘hotting up’ in the north of Israel, although all was quiet at Manof.

That was until that evening!

And this is where it gets crazy. I forgot to turn off my blaring siren warning app and off I went to the Wigmore Hall to hear a solo violinist performance of Bach. And, midway during the recital in this famed historic concert hall, my phone starts blaring, warning on an incoming missile – in the middle of a Bach concert!

OMG, I was stunned, immobilized, instant panic. What do I do?  Nobody sitting around me, or more likely their parents or grandparents had experienced anything like this since the bloody Blitz! 

I felt like Mr. Bean – How do I shut down this noise. The last thing you want in London is to advertise you are Israeli, which was exactly what I was doing. I wonder what people thought as they saw me shove my phone under my bum as I tried to muzzle the shrieking alarm competing with the solo violin.

Lover of Lords. The writer stands below a board at Lords Cricket Grounds that includes a plaque celebrating his birthday with the wording ‘HOME AWAY FROM HOME.

To say this felt CRAZY is an understatement. There I was, absorbed in the beauty of a Bach solo, only to be suddenly yanked back to the reality of what was happening back home, thousands of miles away in the Middle East.

How do you explain this to someone? Sitting peacefully in a world class concert hall in London but technologically and emotionally tied directly back to an air raid alert back home in Israel.

You can’t even get away and relax overseas.


Bach to the Bizarre. Enjoying a Bach recital in Wigmore Hall, London shortly before the writer’s app on his cellphone warned him of an incoming missile near his home in Israel. (Photo: Sidney V. Kaplan)




About the writer:

Sidney Kaplan is originally from  Cape Town South Africa and a founding member of ‘Manof’, a moshav founded in the Galilee in 1978. Today, he is retired, having been involved in marketing in Cape Town prior before coming to Israel, and in Israel, one of three partners involved in the flower growing industry for export.





*Feature picture:  Lord’s Cricket Ground, the most famous cricket ground in the world.








While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

OBSTRUCTION AND OBFUSCATION

Where is the global outrage at new UN finding of Hamas’ obstruction of humanitarian aid?

By Kenneth Moeng Kgwadi

There has been near-total silence from many of Israel’s critics following the recent United Nations (UN) finding that Hamas obstructed the delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. Hamas had long portrayed the humanitarian crisis as solely the result of others denying Gazans access to necessities such as food, medicine, water, clothing, and other essential supplies. However, the UN’s finding indicates that Hamas itself also played a role in preventing civilians from accessing this aid.

Trucks and the Truth. While for much of the war in Gaza, Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of stealing humanitarian aid, intimidating aid workers and exploiting relief operations for its own benefit (seen above), the UN has finaly now issued a statement condemning what it describes as armed personnel affiliated with Gaza’s de facto authorities for interfering with humanitarian operations, entering aid distribution sites, assaulting aid workers and disrupting the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Such actions serve Hamas’ political objectives by reinforcing its narrative of victimhood on the global stage. By obstructing humanitarian assistance while simultaneously presenting itself as the defender of Gaza’s population, Hamas has contributed to shaping international perceptions of the conflict in ways that advance its own strategic interests.

This is the same group of people who refused to allow people to leave endangered locations for the humanitarian zones after the Israel Defense Force (IDF) issued warnings of impending strikes. In their minds, they were being strategic in order for Israel to kill civilians and have blood on its hands, so that the world would believe that the IDF is the monster and isolate Israel in order to achieve their political and religious ends. It has previously been stated that Hamas is using innocent civilians as human shields, but to date the UN has neither seen, investigated, nor acknowledged some of these indictments.

In a strongly worded statement dated 12 July 2026, the UN Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov, said:

“I strongly condemn the recent obstruction of humanitarian operations in Gaza by the de facto authorities, which endangered humanitarian personnel, intimidated workers delivering lifesaving food assistance and disrupted lifesaving humanitarian assistance.”

What happened on Saturday, when armed Hamas men ambushed two truck drivers at a World Food Program warehouse, was not the first time they had stolen, hijacked, or intimidated humanitarian personnel. At the height of the war between Israel and Hamas, they stole food aid in order to feed their insurgents in the tunnels, while the remaining food aid was sold at exorbitant prices to the poor people of Gaza. Since its formation in 1987, Hamas has become accustomed to not taking any form of accountability for its actions. They always falsely blame Israel as a political strategy and people who accept this false narrative are complacent in the destitution that the people of Gaza are confronting. 

Truth be Told. Following the IDF saying months ago that Hamas was hijacking aid trucks and stealing aid and were denounced as liars, the UN’s Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, and Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, admits that Hamas stole aid and disrupted distribution.

Hamas won political power in 2006 but has held elections in 20 years. It recently announced the dissolution of its governing “Emergency Committee” stepping aside to transfer administrative authority to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) as part of the U.S.-brokered peace and ceasefire plan.

As a government ruling more than two million people, they have only brought terror to the lives of those people by inviting unnecessary wars, while they could have created a conducive environment for their people to thrive. It is highly unlikely that Hamas would be attacked by Israel without any provocation because Israel has invested its time and resources in establishing ties with its neighbours. In all the wars that have taken place between Israel and Hamas, it has always been Hamas that started the war, with Israel counter-attacking as a form of defense of its territory.

Since 2006, Hamas has been majorly responsible for the poor material conditions of the people of Gaza through its political divisions, incompetence, corruption, and war-mongering policies. Throughout the past 20 years, they have never gone to elections to allow the citizens to vote for their preferred government and use elections as an accountability mechanism, which means they have continuously imposed themselves on the people of Gaza to their detriment.


Hamas Takeover. Seen here in 2007, Hamas security force officers attack a Fatah supporter as he lays on the ground in Gaza City, following Hamas’ violent takeover of the Strip in June. (Photo: Adel Hana / AP)




About the writer:

Kenneth Moeng Kgwadi is a political scientist, journalist, and research fellow at the Middle East Africa Research Institute (MEARI).







*Feature picture: Hamas Hijack. A Hamas coordinated intercepting food aid from trucks.







While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).