Every Israeli citizen over the age of 18, irrespective of race, religion or sex, is entitled to vote in the next Israeli election on October 27. As there is no postal voting in Israel, you need to be present in Israel to exercise your right to vote. As no political party in the State of Israel has ever won an outright majority of 61 seats, every government in Israel has been a coalition government.
All the polls concerning the Israeli elections on October 27 indicate that neither of the two leading parties will be able to form a coalition government of 61 seats. The most likely result is another stalemate, and another election or series of elections to follow. Elections themselves cost billions of shekels. Israel simply cannot afford to have another series of elections. Judging by the polls, the Likud under Bibi Netanyahu, together with all the religious parties will not achieve 61 seats. The other leading party, the Yashir party led by Gadi Eisenkot, will also not be able to form a government of 61 seats. If the Arab party called Ra’am led by Mansour Abbas, wants to join Eisenkot in forming a coalition, then Avigdor Liberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party will withdraw from supporting Eisenkot. This is a catch 22 situation. Fortunately, there does appear to be two alternatives to what transpired in the past.
Firstly, a minority government can legally be formed. This can be done by one or more of the political parties agreeing not to vote in the Knesset to bring down the government. Let us assume that the coalition of Gadi Eisenkot has 56 seats and the Arab parties have 14 seats. If the Arab parties agree not to vote against the government in a no confidence vote, then the President can decide to call upon a coalition of less than a majority of 61 seats to form a minority government. The Likud and their partners do not have sufficient votes to stop the government from being formed. In the current situation, this is a distinct possibility. The coalition of 56 seats can survive as long as the Arab parties refuse to join a vote of no-confidence in the government.
The elephant in the room is this election is none other than the longest serving Israeli Prime Minister, namely Bibi Netanyahu. He has become an extremely divisive figure in Israeli politics and around the world. His judgement in certain areas is questionable. After the last election, he appointed Aryeh Deri, the head of the Shas party, to be deputy prime minister and rotating finance minister after Bezalel Smotrich would serve the first 2 years as finance minister. Aryeh Deri was previously convicted for financial impropriety and fraud and served time in jail.
The Supreme Court ruled that it was totally unreasonable to appoint such a person to be deputy prime minister or finance minister.
Defying Deadlock. The “Catch-22” in modern Israeli coalition politics lies in a structural deadlock where neither major bloc can reach a governing majority, yet the resulting political paralysis inadvertently keeps the current leadership in power. (Photo: Christophe Gateau/ via Getty Images)
What was Bibi thinking when he appointed Deri? Netanyahu has refused to appoint an independent commission of enquiry into the failure of the government to protect the citizens of Israel on October 7, 2023 while he was Prime Minister. In addition, he has not supported the demand that tens of thousands of draft age yeshiva students be drafted into the army. Netanyahu seems to be seeking dictatorial powers by supporting legislation that will allow decisions of the Supreme Court to be overruled by a simple majority in the Knesset. Israel is now faced with the situation that a number of political parties have stated that they will not sit in a government led by Netanyahu. Most of these parties have not stated that they will not sit with the Likud party. Over the years, some members of the Likud left the party and went on to form political parties that now refuse to sit with Netanyahu.
Coming ‘Home’ – to Vote. Recognizing that this election could alter the course of the country in profound ways with consequences for the global Jewish diaspora no less than local Israelis, expats living abroad are expected return “home” in record number to exercise their democratic right. (AI-generated illustration)
The answer to preventing a left of center government from being formed, is for the Likud itself to force Netanyahu to resign. The Likud without Netanyahu as its leader, will change the entire political landscape in Israel. A center right wing government can then be formed without any of the religious, Arab or left-wing parties in the current election. Obviously, some of the Likud members are very much beholden to Netanyahu and they will not support this. The choice that they will face is either a left of center Israeli government or a right of center government without Netanyahu. The irony is that the best chance of a center right wing government being formed in Israel, is for Netanyahu to resign. As long as Netanyahu is head of the Likud it seems like another stalemate in Israeli politics is about to occur.
For the good of the country, Bibi needs to resign.
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 secret tryst that no one wants to admit is happening.
By Jonathan Feldstein
From my balcony in the Judean mountains, I can see the lights of Jordan on a clear night and the skyline of Amman at sunrise. On other nights I simply look south and east and know that the same Iranian missiles and drones from the Houthis in Yemen threatening my children and grandchildren are also threatening the mosques, holy cities, the oil fields and very capitol that keep the House of Saud in power. That is the uncomfortable intimacy of this region. We are not friends. We are not yet even fully acknowledged as legitimate neighbors. Yet Riyadh is knocking on Jerusalem’s door like a man who has four wives and seeks out his mistress for marital counseling.
Let’s call it what it is. Saudi Arabia is treating Israel as that secret mistress.
The official household is crowded and they don’t always get along. Wife number one is Pakistan: nuclear-armed, Sunni, and now bound to Riyadh by a mutual-defense pact signed in Mecca itself. Wife number two is Turkey: NATO’s second-largest army, Islamist, and freshly joined to the same Mecca Joint Defense Agreement (Mecca Pact) that treats an attack on one as an attack on all. Wife number three is Egypt: the first Arab state to make (a cold) peace with Israel, a partner in Sinai security, and a regular interlocutor sharing a threatened body of water with the Saudis, and which is an essential lifeline to Cairo’s shipping and own stability. Wife number four is the United States, still the biggest and best arms supplier and now offering a glittering dowry of forty-eight F-35s worth more than twenty-four billion dollars.
Security Shield or Doubtful Deterrence? On August 7, 2026, Saudi Arabia signed the Mecca Pact with Turkey and Pakistan, establishing a mutual-defense framework in which an attack on one is treated as an attack on all. (Photo Credit: SPA)
All four are public. All four come with contracts, smiling photo-ops, and statements about Islamic solidarity or strategic partnership. The first three of the four are more concerned about their own marital chamber – and the tribes that they come from – rather than the well-being of the house itself, and would have no problem burning it all down to protect their own interests. None of them, so far, has stopped the Houthis from shooting at Saudi oil facilities, threatening the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, or sending drones toward Mecca. The fourth, the United States, has been asked to help protect the whole house, but has declined to do so.
It may look good – showing a united house – on paper, but it seems someone forgot to put batteries in the Mecca mutual defense pact. So, the kingdom has quietly asked help from the one country that has spent years intercepting Iranian missiles, hunting Houthi launchers, eliminating terrorist leaders and command centers, and sharing intelligence through CENTCOM: Israel.
That is the secret tryst that no one wants to admit is happening. The man with four wives has come running to the woman he will not introduce at family gatherings, or even acknowledge her existence outside her penthouse that he doesn’t even pay for, and only “visits” under the dark of night.
I do not acknowledge this with bitterness. I acknowledge it with the weary clarity of someone who has watched this pattern for decades. Arab leaders have always preferred to keep Israel in the shadows while they collected American weapons, Pakistani nuclear umbrellas, Turkish drones, and Egyptian political cover. And play these off other suiters including China, and the abusive ex, Iran, who nobody wants anything to do with, but none can avoid. When the missiles start flying, the shadows become less useful. Israel’s air defenses, its intelligence, and operational experience against the exact Iranian axis now squeezing the Red Sea – these are not theoretical. They are proven. The Saudis know it. That is why the secret relationship exists.
The irony is almost biblical. Esau and Jacob reconciling and then going their own ways but never fully embracing one another as brothers. The “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques” is asking the Jewish state – the younger blessed sibling – to help protect the approaches to those same mosques from a Shiite militia that chants “Death to America, Death to Israel” and now, increasingly, “Death to the House of Saud”. The same kingdom that still reflexively conditions any public recognition of Israel to a Palestinian Arab state is privately seeking Israeli help so that its tankers can leave port, its pipelines can supply the tankers, and its pilgrims can reach Mecca without looking up at the sky in fear. And so, the Houthi missiles don’t become an insurrection that threatens the House of Saud falling like a house of cards.
This is not new in kind. Egypt made peace in 1979 because it had been beaten and needed the Sinai back, if not for the land, at least to save face and for its own stability. Jordan followed because it understood the alternative was chaos. Peace with Egypt and Jordan is cold, functional, just between governments, all while state run institutions continue to foment anti-Israel rhetoric that makes Israel hated on the streets of Cairo and Amman.
The Abraham Accords materialized because the Arabs saw Iran as the greater threat and Israel as the only regional power that had already paid the price of confronting it. Saudi Arabia is simply later to the same realization, and still too proud or too constrained by its own street and its own clerics – and the Palestinian cause tying them down – to say it out loud. Israel remains the hidden mistress to which the discontented husband turns for real comfort.
The Mecca Pact with Turkey and Pakistan seems impressive on paper. Mutual defense. Joint exercises. A secretariat. It has not produced a single Saudi battery that can do what Israeli systems have done night after night. The American F-35s, if they ever arrive, will take years to field and come with the usual restrictions and the usual questions about qualitative military edge. Egypt can talk and coordinate; it cannot replace the targeting picture Israel already has of Houthi positions and Iranian supply lines.
So, the mistress remains useful. She is not invited to family gatherings. She is not mentioned in the communiqués. She is simply the one who knows how to keep the house from burning down.
I am not naïve about what this means for Israel. We have interests too in the Houthis and their Iranian puppeteer being roundly defeated. We should give the intelligence. We should coordinate through CENTCOM. We should not pretend that quiet cooperation is the same as peace, or that Riyadh’s current desperation will automatically produce an embassy in Jerusalem. Normalization will come, if it comes, only when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman decides the cost of public hypocrisy – and specifically tying his vision for a Saudi future is more inhibited by championing the Palestinian cause that brings it down – is higher than the cost of public honesty. Yet even with four wives in the same family, the Saudis do not share everything that goes on with each of the wives with all the others. MBS may come around when he’s ready to admit that all the smoke and mirrors of the Mecca mutual defense pact is not worth the paper on which it is written. Until then, Israel remains the woman who is visited only when the wives cannot satisfy their husband’s needs.
Holding Hands to Dowry. Following Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman holding hands on the Nov. 18, 2025 in the Oval Office at the White House, the U.S. State Department has officially approved a $24.3 billion sale of 48 F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jets to Saudi Arabia (Photo: Reuters)
That is not a dignified position. It is, however, a familiar one. Jews have been useful to empires and caliphates for centuries – until we were not. The difference now is that we have a state, an army, and the ability to say no. We can help because it is in our interest that Iran and its proxies not control the Red Sea.
From these hills I watch the same sky the Saudis watch. I pray for the safety of my family and my neighbors, and I pray that the men who rule in Riyadh will one day have the courage to treat Israel as a public partner rather than a secret mistress. Until that day, the comfort provided by the mistress will continue behind closed doors.
State of Affairs. Despite close security cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia, it was too much for Saudi Arabia to agree to Israel’s request to send planes – even civilian planes – to fetch its traumatized citizens following the hijack and terror attack on Flydubai.
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).
Also available on YouTube @The Israel Brief – Simply click on the red subscribe button to receive alerts when a new report is posted.
What’s happening in Israel today? See from every Monday – Thursday LOTL’s The Israel Brief broadcasts and on our Facebook page and YouTube by seasoned TV & radio broadcaster, Rolene Marks familiar to Chai FM listeners in South Africa and millions of American listeners to the News/Talk/Sports radio station WINA, broadcasting out of Virginia, USA.
Israelis come off a flight covered in blood and smiling
The story of heroic survival that quickly unfolds, reveals this country’s unique national character of how ordinary citizens can suddenly behave quite extraordinary.
Plumber on Plummeting Plane. One of the heroes on Flydubai 1073 , Yaniv Hayoun, was wearing a blood-stained shirt when he disembarked at Ben Gurion Airport having stormed into the cockpit, subdued the Jihadi terrorist co-pilot and pinned him to the ground while other passengers used headphone cords to tie him up!
ARTICLES
Please note there is a facility to comment beneath each article should you wish to express an opinion on the subject addressed.
(1)
A FAILURE OF A FILM
The truth is collateral damage in NAZA By Rolene Marks
Rebutting NAZA. Freed hostage Omer Shem Tov (right) pushed back against the directors (left) of the controversial documentary “NAZA” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed explaining that Hamas – not the Israeli military – used captives as “collateral damage.”
THESSALONIKI: WALKING THROUGH THE LOST ‘JERUSALEM OF THE BALKANS’
Once an epicenter of Jewish culture and one of the only cities in Europe where Jews were the majority, reveals illuminating fragments of that tragically lost world. By Motti Verses
Tragic Thessaloniki. To understand the tragedy that befell this city’s Jewish community in the Holocaust, you first have to understand what existed before it. Jewish life in Thessaloniki stretches back more than two millennia. Follow the writer as he takes us on a tour.
While creating a fine photo-op, 21 national flags do not a verdict make. By Shaun Schutte
Off the Record. South Africa’s ANC government has blurred the impression that every country joining in the proceedings it initiated, supports its accusation that Israel committed genocide. That is not what the court record shows.
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).
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).
While creating a fine photo-op, 21 national flags do not a verdict make.
By Shaun Schutte
On 22 September 2026, the International Court of Justice confirmed that Colombia had withdrawn its intervention from South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. President Abelardo De La Espriella’s government has also restored diplomatic relations with Israel and reversed other decisions taken by the previous administration, while Nicaragua had already withdrawn its separate application to intervene in April 2025.
Colombia’s decision matters because it exposes something the ANC government has been allowed to blur since it filed the case on 29 December 2023. Pretoria repeatedly creates the impression that every country appearing in the proceedings has joined South Africa, supports its accusation and accepts that Israel committed genocide.
That is not what the court record shows.
South Africa is the applicant making the accusation. Israel is the respondent denying it. The other countries are interveners, and intervention does not automatically mean joining South Africa’s side or accepting that its allegation has been proven.
Under Article 63 of the ICJ Statute, any state party to the Genocide Convention may intervene when the interpretation of that Convention is in dispute. A country may explain how it believes genocide, genocidal intent and the duties of states should be interpreted without presenting new factual evidence, endorsing South Africa’s allegations or declaring Israel guilty.
Palestine and Belize also invoked Article 62, claiming a specific legal interest that may be affected by the eventual judgment. That gives them a different basis for requesting participation, but it still does not transform every government appearing in the courtroom into an independent witness for Pretoria.
“We continue to work closely with Türkiye……Türkiye has made its support for the case very clear,” said Ronald Lamola, South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation to reporters on the ICJ genocide case against Israel at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Foreign Ministers Meeting in Kruger National Park, South Africa, May 24, 2026. (Photo: AA)
THE COURTROOM ANALOGY
Imagine a prosecutor bringing twenty-one people into a courtroom and then walking outside to tell the public that all twenty-one are witnesses supporting the prosecution.
When their statements are examined, the picture changes. Some openly support the accusation. Others are merely explaining how they believe the law should be interpreted. One specifically avoids deciding the disputed facts, while four warn that the prosecution may be attempting to lower the standard required to prove the crime.
The prosecutor nevertheless points towards everyone inside the courtroom and presents them as one united group standing behind the accusation.
That is the impression Pretoria has created, and it is misleading.
THE COUNTRIES LEANING TOWARDS PRETORIA
Libya intervened on 10 May 2024 and left very little room for doubt about its position. It alleges that Israel’s acts and omissions are genocidal and were committed with the required specific intention to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.
Libya is not simply discussing the meaning of the Convention. It has aligned itself directly with South Africa’s accusation.
Mexico followed on 24 May 2024, concentrating on the obstruction of humanitarian assistance, destruction of civilian and cultural infrastructure and the cumulative consequences of Israel’s military campaign.
Its submission advances a broader method of inferring genocidal intent and materially assists Pretoria, but it does not provide an independent judicial finding that Israel entered Gaza intending to destroy the Palestinian people.
Palestine intervened on 31 May 2024 under both Articles 62 and 63, claiming a direct legal interest in the eventual outcome. Its position openly supports the allegation that Palestinians in Gaza are being subjected to genocide.
Palestine is directly affected by the war and has an obvious reason to place its case before the Court, but it cannot simultaneously be presented as an independent and neutral confirmation of South Africa’s accusation.
Spain entered on 28 June 2024 and argued that killing, serious bodily or mental harm, forced displacement and deprivation must be assessed collectively when determining whether genocidal acts and intent exist.
That interpretation could make Pretoria’s allegation easier to establish, but Spain is still presenting a legal argument about how evidence should be assessed. It is not arriving with proof that the final legal threshold has already been crossed.
Türkiye intervened on 7 August 2024 and strongly supports South Africa’s position, arguing that Israel’s conduct must be considered as a complete pattern rather than as isolated events.
That stance is consistent with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s openly hostile political posture towards Israel, and it is reasonable to ask how much of Türkiye’s involvement arises from independently assessed evidence and how much reflects an established geopolitical position.
Consistently hostile towards Israel and frequently seen at political rallies adorning a Palestinian keffiyeh over his shoulders, one questions whether Türkiye president Erdoğan’s position in supporting South Africa’s case against Israel is motivated by law or politics? (Photo: Reuters)
Chile filed its declaration on 12 September 2024, arguing that genocidal intent may be inferred from a consistent pattern of conduct and the surrounding circumstances.
This assists Pretoria’s legal argument, but it still does not establish the central fact that must eventually be proven:
that Israel’s purpose was to destroy Palestinians as a people rather than to destroy Hamas as a military organisation.
The Maldives intervened on 1 October 2024 and focused on civilian deaths, displacement, deprivation of essential supplies and living conditions allegedly calculated to cause physical destruction.
These are grave matters that must be examined, but the consequences of war and the specific intention to destroy a protected group remain separate legal questions.
Bolivia followed on 8 October 2024 and has openly supported South Africa’s case. Its government has also been politically aligned with the anti-Israel bloc for years.
Political alignment does not automatically invalidate its submission, but neither can that alignment be displayed as independent proof that genocide occurred.
Ireland entered the proceedings on 6 January 2025, concentrating on humanitarian assistance, collective punishment, civilian protection and the interpretation of the prohibited acts listed in the Convention.
Its arguments may assist South Africa, but Ireland did not arrive carrying a judgment that genocide had already been proven. It supplied legal interpretation, not a verdict.
Cuba intervened four days later, on 10 January 2025, and openly supports both the Palestinian position and Pretoria’s use of the Genocide Convention against Israel.
Cuba’s longstanding alignment against Israel and the United States is part of the political context and cannot simply be ignored. That alignment may explain its position, but it is not evidence of genocidal intent.
Belize filed on 30 January 2025 under both Articles 62 and 63, claiming a legal interest in the proceedings while supporting a broader interpretation of the Convention.
Its participation adds another flag to the coalition Pretoria displays, but an application to intervene remains neither evidence nor a finding of guilt.
Brazil intervened on 17 September 2025 and argues that the cumulative effects of Israel’s military operations must be examined when determining whether the Convention has been violated.
That is a legitimate legal argument for the Court to consider, but the Court must still distinguish between political condemnation, possible violations of humanitarian law and the very specific crime of genocide.
Comoros followed on 29 October 2025, supporting South Africa’s position and a broader interpretation of destructive conditions, deprivation and genocidal intent.
Comoros is also a member of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. That does not disqualify its submission, but it forms part of the political background when its flag is presented as supposedly independent confirmation of Pretoria’s claim.
Belgium entered on 23 December 2025 and supports judicial scrutiny of Israel’s conduct while advancing interpretations that could broaden the circumstances from which prohibited acts and genocidal intent may be inferred.
Once again, the submission may assist Pretoria, but it does not establish the one element South Africa must ultimately prove:
Israel’s specific intention to destroy Palestinians as a protected group.
Iceland intervened on 11 March 2026 and leans towards a broader interpretation involving displacement, deprivation, civilian harm and the circumstances from which intent may be inferred.
It is an argument about how the Court should examine the evidence. It is not independent factual confirmation that the evidence already proves genocide.
Namibia entered on 12 March 2026 and clearly supports South Africa, arguing that genocidal intent must be assessed through the complete context and combined pattern of conduct.
Namibia’s own history of genocide gives its voice moral significance, but historical experience cannot replace the evidentiary requirement to prove Israel’s intention in this particular war.
THE COUNTRY THAT HAS NOT PRETENDED TO DECIDE THE FACTS
The Netherlands intervened on 11 March 2026 and made an important distinction. Its government explicitly stated that its declaration does not determine the disputed facts or conditions on the ground. It confines itself to explaining how parts of the Genocide Convention should be interpreted.
The Netherlands argues that the available evidence should be considered comprehensively and that forced displacement or deprivation of humanitarian assistance may, in certain circumstances, contribute to proving prohibited acts or genocidal intent.
Parts of that interpretation may assist South Africa, but the Netherlands has not declared Israel guilty and cannot honestly be displayed as a country that confirmed Pretoria’s accusation.
THE COUNTRIES RESISTING PRETORIA’S APPROACH
Paraguay intervened on 3 March 2026 to defend the original, narrow meaning of genocide. It insists that the crime requires proof of a specific intention to destroy a protected group and warns against weakening that requirement.
Paraguay is formally involved in the same proceedings, but no honest account could count it as part of South Africa’s coalition.
The United States entered on 12 March 2026 and explicitly rejected the genocide accusation as false. Its submission argues that widespread civilian casualties, even on a horrific scale, do not automatically establish genocidal intent, particularly during urban warfare against an armed organisation operating from within civilian areas.
Its intervention warns that lowering the threshold would transform genocide from a precisely defined crime into a political label applied to any destructive war.
Hungary intervened on the same day and also insists upon a high evidentiary threshold. Its position warns against taking possible violations of international humanitarian law and simply re-labelling them as genocide without proving the additional and very specific intention required by the Convention.
Hungary is inside the same courtroom, but it is there to challenge Pretoria’s legal approach — not to support it.
Fiji’s intervention also demands strong proof of both the prohibited acts and the intention to destroy the protected group. It raises concerns about relying uncritically upon politically contested reports from international organisations and advocacy groups.
Fiji is involved in the case, but it is not there to endorse South Africa.
WHAT THE NUMBERS ACTUALLY SHOW
There are now 21 states formally involved as interveners. Sixteen broadly support, lean towards or legally assist parts of Pretoria’s approach. The Netherlands restricts itself to legal interpretation without deciding the facts. Paraguay, the United States, Hungary and Fiji defend a stricter interpretation that challenges South Africa’s case.
That is not an international verdict. It is not 21 independent bodies of evidence, 21 witnesses confirming genocidal intent or 21 governments arriving at the same legal conclusion.
South Africa is entitled to bring its case, and every state party is entitled to offer its interpretation of the Genocide Convention. What Pretoria is not entitled to do is convert legal participation into political endorsement and then present the number of flags surrounding the proceedings as proof that the accusation has already been established.
The International Court of Justice has not found Israel guilty of genocide. Its provisional orders were issued to preserve possible rights and prevent irreparable harm while the case continues. They were not a final judgment that genocide had occurred, yet that distinction has repeatedly disappeared from the political narrative.
THE WAR DID NOT BEGIN INSIDE A COURTROOM
On 7 October 2023, Hamas-led forces crossed into Israel and deliberately attacked civilian communities. Approximately 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were abducted and taken into Gaza.
Those civilians were not accidentally caught between two armies. Civilians were among the intended targets.
Hamas then returned to one of the most densely populated territories on earth with the hostages. It continued operating through an extensive military system built within and beneath civilian areas, with fighters, weapons, command facilities and tunnel entrances positioned in or near locations protected by their civilian function.
This did not remove Israel’s duty to distinguish between combatants and civilians. Civilian casualties are never irrelevant, and every credible allegation of unlawful conduct must be investigated.
It did, however, create a battlefield in which reaching Hamas would inevitably place civilians at risk, while every civilian casualty could be turned into political and strategic pressure against Israel. Hamas had constructed a war in which it could benefit from either outcome:
survive beneath the civilian population, or gain international support from the destruction caused when Israel came underground to find it.
The suffering in Gaza is real and devastating. Acknowledging that suffering does not require us to erase the organisation that started the war, murdered civilians, retained hostages and embedded its military machinery within the civilian environment upon which the war would be fought.
War crimes, disproportionate force and genocide are not interchangeable terms. Genocide requires proof of a specific intention to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group because it is that group.
Civilian deaths alone do not prove that intention. Destruction alone does not prove it. Political speeches, operational failures and even serious violations of the laws of war cannot simply be stacked together until they automatically become genocide.
The required intention must still be proven.
THE FLAGS CAN NO LONGER HIDE THE DIFFERENCES
Colombia has changed course and withdrawn. Nicaragua stepped back before it. Their decisions do not determine the case, but they prove that intervention is neither permanent nor beyond reconsideration.
The remaining governments must now clarify what their flags represent. If they possess independently verified evidence that Israel intended to destroy the Palestinian people, they must produce that evidence and stand openly behind the accusation.
If they intervened only to explain how the Genocide Convention should be interpreted, they must publicly reject any attempt by Pretoria to use their participation as proof that they endorsed South Africa’s factual claims.
If their involvement was driven primarily by ideological alignment, diplomatic pressure or bloc politics rather than independently assessed evidence, they should follow Colombia and withdraw.
The ANC government may possess the executive authority to conduct South Africa’s foreign policy, but it does not own the conscience of every South African whose name it carried into that courtroom. Neither does it own the flags of other governments merely because they entered the proceedings to speak about the law.
Pretoria cannot have it both ways.
It cannot count every intervention as support when addressing its political audience and then retreat behind legal technicalities when asked what those countries actually proved.
The choice facing every government involved is now clear:
● Stand behind the genocide accusation and produce the evidence.
● Clarify publicly that your intervention concerns legal interpretation and does not endorse Pretoria’s factual claims.
● If your flag is there only because political alignment placed it there, withdraw it.
Twenty-one flags may create an impressive photograph. They do not create evidence, they do not establish intent, and they do not amount to a verdict.
About the writer:
Shaun Schutte is a South African security professional, independent writer and founder of Black Knight Bodyguards. He served for eight years in the South African Defence Force before spending seventeen years in international close protection and security operations across conflict environments including Iraq, Afghanistan, Angola and Somalia. His writing draws on this operational background to examine asymmetric warfare, terrorism, protective security and the political narratives surrounding modern conflict. He writes from the perspective of a practitioner rather than an academic, combining publicly available evidence with lessons gained through direct experience in unstable and hostile environments.
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).
In the last two weeks, two Israeli-made shows have dominated the headlines. One is the massive hit, Fauda, which in its latest season that is centered on the horrors of 7 October, is laying bare the atrocities and trauma in as much excruciating pain that art imitating life allows. The show’s creators take viewers as close to that day that the boundaries of television permit. Fauda has managed to succeed where Israel’s public diplomacy has failed – and the results are evident as it soars to the top of the Netflix rankings, especially in the Arab world. At the time of writing this, Fauda was ranked 4 overall in global rankings. It already debuted at number 1 in Lebanon and is in the top 10 of Arab countries.
Fauda – Scenes from the series
The other is the movie, NAZA. The title is an Israeli military acronym derived from “nezek agavi”, Hebrew for collateral damage – but most people will reach for another analogy. You know the one.
The premise of the movie that is ironically backed by the notoriously anti-Israel publication, The Guardian, relies on anonymous testimony from 24 IDF soldiers who claim to have served in the elite intelligence unit, 8200, and claims that using AI (artificial intelligence) a planned strike that would result in 500 civilian deaths was approved.
Spain Again. Hardly surprising for a country historically antisemitic for its people to demonstrate support of the “NAZA” documentary film by Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor as seen at the 74th San Sebastian International Film Festival in the northern Spanish Basque city of San Sebastian on September 25, 2026. (Photo: Ander Gillenea/AFP via Getty Images)
Israel’s war with Hamas is the most scrutinized conflict in the world, and if there ever was an incident where 500 civilians were killed, it would definitely have dominated the front pages of every media outlet. The only strike where the number 500 was mentioned was on the 17 October 2023 when Hamas alleged that an Israeli airstrike had struck the Al-Ahli hospital, killing that many civilians. Faster than Hamas were miraculously able to count alleged civilian deaths, was the speed in which this made headlines around the world. When the facts were investigated, it was discovered that a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that had fallen short, hit the parking lot causing a small crater and sadly killed a handful of civilians. The lie had gotten out, put its trousers on and was gallivanting around the world – and the result was mass protests and attacks on several synagogues.
A similar analogy can be drawn with NAZA. The documentary has been screened and the headlines about its content have dominated media publications around the world, despite it not being thoroughly vetted for factual accuracy and everything that one hopes a subject matter of this importance should be subjected to.
The IDF have reacted very strongly to what has been shared. They have refuted the veracity of claims that the army use AI to determine targets and that a strike was carried out that killed 500. They also demanded a widespread, robust campaign that must include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Public Diplomacy Directorate.
In a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they called NAZA, “pure propaganda, created by radicals who serve the narrative of murderous terrorists. It is yet another element of the anti-Israel campaign that began after October 7, driven by the Red-Green coalition of the radical left and Islamist movements.” The Ministry took aim at the lack of verification, saying in their statement, “the “film” claims that the IDF approved a planned strike despite anticipating 500 civilian deaths. This is false. It never happened. Never. The IDF would never approve such an operational plan. But there is a reason – and a method – behind the dissemination of such an outrageous allegation. The method employed throughout this campaign, including in this “film,” is familiar: introduce a shocking falsehood, amplify it around the world, and allow it to shape headlines and public opinion. By the time the facts emerge and corrections follow, the damage to Israel’s image has already been done. Again and again, false accusations against Israel receive immediate global attention, while their subsequent collapse receives only a fraction of the exposure and impact. This film follows precisely the same pattern.
The same applies to another false accusation – that the IDF allows AI systems to make operational decisions independently of human judgment. This is simply false and fundamentally misrepresents how the IDF operates. Operational decisions are made within a defined human chain of command and are subject to human judgment and oversight. The IDF has developed extensive procedures intended to prevent and mitigate harm to non-combatants.”
Methods of warning to mitigate civilian casualties are conspicuously ignored. Methods include roof knocking, dropping pamphlets announcing impending strikes, SMS’s, phone-calls in Arabic and other methods that have been lauded by other army officials.
Rebutting NAZA. Freed hostage Omer Shem Tov p(right) pushed back against the directors (left) of “NAZA” in Gaza, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed explaining that Hamas – not the Israeli military – used captives as actual “collateral damage” (The Hebrew meaning of NAZA).
Former hostage, Omer Shem Tov, in an op-ed written for the Wall Street Journal said:
“One of my captors told me his mother had received a phone call warning her to leave her home because an Israeli strike might put her in danger. The call came from the Israel Defense Forces. Hamas knew where I was and left me to die. Israel didn’t know my location, but it knew where my captor’s mother was and called to make sure she wasn’t killed accidentally. There I was—kidnapped, starved and tortured by her son—while my army was trying to keep his mother alive.”
His op-ed continued:
“Israel desperately wanted me home. But not at any price. There were Palestinian civilians between Israel and me. So Israel dropped leaflets, sent messages, made phone calls and ordered evacuations. It tried to minimize NAZA, or collateral damage.
I also saw what death meant to the other side. One day, my captors celebrated after Hamas fighters killed Israeli soldiers. The next day, Israel bombed the area where I was being held. The explosions came about 10 seconds apart. I was terrified. The terrorist beside me was delighted. To him, every explosion was proof of success: Look what we made Israel do. Look how much we hurt them. I understood something then. For Hamas, destruction itself could be victory. As long as there was death on either side, Hamas could win.”
Shem Tov is not the only former hostage who has lambasted the filmmakers. Eliyah Cohen took to his Instagram page and wrote, “”I understand that there is the law and we live in a free and democratic country and everyone deserves to say what they want, but we as a nation, not as a state, as a nation, cannot allow this to pass by unanswered,” he said. “We need to take to the streets, hang posters of them, and spread pictures of them through every medium so that when they walk on the street, they’re allowed to walk here, we won’t do anything that’s against the law, but when they walk on the street they will feel ashamed.”
Cohen also mentioned the soldiers who fought to free him from captivity: “In this country they (Avraham and Szor) cannot go and humiliate my brethren and my friends and the people who fought every day to bring me home and who fight every day so our families could live here, and they’ll go and spread lies… and what will we do? We’ll let it go?”
Dubious Duo. Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham are not only the Israeli directors of the controversial documentary NAZA but directors of intensifying the global hate towards their own country. Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)
Liri Albag, who was one of the female observer soldiers taken captive from Nahal Oz base, published a scathing response, “Hey… Do you know that although you only served for two weeks in the IDF and were discharged because of your political views, if you had fallen into Hamas captivity, they would have considered you a soldier anyway? And they would have tortured you for being a soldier. Don’t ask me how I know.
“Do you understand that if you had been in the Gaza border area on October 7, none of the terrorists would have stopped and said, ‘Hey, leave him alone—he’s okay; don’t hurt him’? Or perhaps you would simply have joined the ‘struggle to liberate Palestine’ and harmed your own people? “At first, I wanted to write ‘blood of my blood,’ but then I remembered that we most certainly do not share the same blood—and fortunately so! Ugh, disgusting. You sold out your own people for people who yearn for your death, and that is unforgivable. How do people like this have citizenship here?! They should be launched out of our country on a missile.”
A soldier who claimed to have participated in the movie, spoke to Walla, one of Israelis biggest news publications — and made serious allegations about how his testimony and casualty figures were obtained. He said his testimony was manipulated, and sources were financially incentivized to provide higher civilian-casualty figures. “I participated in this film, unfortunately, and they manipulated me so much,” he says. He continues, ““Numbers of 400 and 500 collateral damage don’t exist.” He claims participants were financially incentivized. Most significantly, he alleges that interviewees were financially incentivized to give increasingly higher figures, “They offer you ten shekels for every additional person you say: say 400, get 4,000; say 500, get 5,000.” He claims this caused participants to exaggerate: “People start exaggerating. They see the money and cash in front of their eyes.”
Why? Why did these two Israelis who claim to call Israel home, produce such a damaging movie, aided by a publication that is notorious for its anti-Israel bias? Plaudits from peers? In this instance, a 25 minute ovation at the Venice Film Festival, ironically the same festival who gave the same accolades to Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s favoured celluloid propagandist. They claim it is concern for Palestinian casualty recognition.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a different opinion. The Ministry says, “The truth is the opposite of what the “film” seeks to portray. And yes, in Israel’s democracy, where freedom of expression is cherished, there are also radical Israelis who lie, distort facts seeking political goals and personal gains. The “film’s co-director, Yuval Abraham, is no neutral investigative journalist – he is a longtime radical anti-Israeli activist committed to demonizing and delegitimizing Israel.
As part of this method, the film creators deliberately omit Hamas from their narrative, erasing the terrorist organization whose actions are at the heart of this war. Hamas deliberately targets Israeli civilians, as it did on October 7, while embedding itself within Gaza’s civilian population and using civilians as human shields. Israel is fighting this bloodthirsty jihadist terrorist organization while the IDF operates in accordance with international law and takes extensive measures to minimize civilian harm.”
The filmmakers lack that ability of a truly perspicacious reporter and examine what their motives are. When questioned by a reporter on Israel’s Channel 12, Abraham simply could not verify any of the accusations and when pushed about omitting the atrocities of 7 October and Hamas’s role in the war, he testily responded with “go make your own movie.”
Israeli officials are debating what punitive measures they can take against the pair. The film has successfully united Israelis in anger. I would wager the hopes of the filmmakers to have their movie screened here would be met with a national temperature colder than the Arctic tundra.
Perhaps they need to binge watch season 5 of Fauda.
About the writer:
Rolene Marksis a journalist and commentator on Middle East affairs, co-founder of Lay of the Land and the National Spokesperson for the South African Zionist Federation.
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).
Once an epicenter of Jewish culture and one of the only cities in Europe where Jews were the majority, reveals illuminating fragments of that tragically lost world.
By Motti Verses
October 7 is a dreadful date for Israel, as we mourn the Hamas atrocities of three years ago – but this date also carries profound meaning in another chapter of Jewish history. The story of the Jews of Thessaloniki, Greece.
Eighty-two years ago, on October 7, Jewish prisoners forced to work at the gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau rose up against the Nazis. Among them was a significant group of Greek Jews, many from Thessaloniki, whose ancient and vibrant Jewish community had already been almost completely destroyed in the Holocaust.
Knowing that they, too, were marked for death, the prisoners attacked their SS guards and set one of the camp’s crematoria on fire. Around 450 prisoners were killed during the revolt or executed afterward. Testimonies recall Greek Jewish prisoners fighting until the end, some singing Greek partisan songs and the Greek national anthem before their deaths. An act of bravery and heroism.
The tragedy of Thessaloniki’s Jews would echo decades later in Israeli culture through singer Yehuda Poliker, the son of Holocaust survivors, from the city. His music has returned again and again to the memory of Thessaloniki and to the scars carried by survivors and their children, helping keep the story of this once-thriving Jewish community alive for new generations.
Poliker’s music was on my mind during my late-summer visit to northern Greece, inspiring me to walk through the traces of the world from which many of those men came. Poliker sings painfully:
“One more border, an eternity of time. Wait for me, Thessaloniki. The road to Greece is long. The heart wandered, the blood froze. In the snows of Germany. Everyone, everyone I loved was lost there, In a camp in Poland.”
My guide was the knowledgeable Alena Dotsoulas of ‘Thessaloniki IL’, who is partly Israeli. She has lived in Thessaloniki for the past 14 years and leads Israeli groups on walking tours through the city. Over four deeply moving hours, we walked through a place where Jewish history is not confined to a museum. It lies beneath your feet, behind market façades, inside an Ottoman bathhouse and a surviving synagogue, and in small brass stones embedded in the pavement.
Monastirioton Synagogue Thessaloniki, a rare survivor of the city’s once-thriving Jewish community. (Photos: Motti Verses and Alena Dotsoulas)
To understand the tragedy, you first have to understand what existed before it.
Jewish life in Thessaloniki stretches back more than two millennia, but its transformation came after 1492, when Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain, found refuge in the Ottoman Empire. Thousands settled here, bringing their language, Ladino, along with their trades, traditions and commercial networks. They helped transform Ottoman Thessaloniki into one of the Mediterranean’s great commercial centers. At different periods, Jews formed a major part – and at times the largest population group – of this extraordinary multicultural city of Jews, Muslims and Christians. It was even called “Jerusalem of the Balkans” in the 19th and early 20th centuries by European travelers, diplomats, historians, and non-Jewish observers.
That lost world still reveals itself as I walk.
Near the commercial heart of the city stands Yahudi Hamam, the Jewish Bath, a remarkable Ottoman bathhouse dating from around the turn of the 16th century. Its name came from the Jewish neighborhood that once surrounded it.
Yahudi Hamam, named “Bath of the Jews” because it stood in the center of the neighborhood settled by Sephardi Jews who came from Spain, Portugal, and Italy is a 16th-century Ottoman bathhouse in the city’s historic Jewish quarter. (Photo: Motti Verses)
A few steps away, the story continues at Agora Modiano, the great covered market bearing the name of Eli Modiano, the Jewish architect who designed it. Today it feels unmistakably contemporary, its historic structure filled with food stalls, cafés, delicatessens and vendors selling fish, meat, bread, wine and Greek products. Yet beneath this polished new chapter lies another layer of Jewish history: before the market was built, the site had been associated with the Talmud Torah complex of Thessaloniki’s Sephardic community.
Agora Modiano Market, Thessaloniki – a historic market and landmark of the city’s rich Sephardic Jewish heritage (Photo: Motti Verses)
At Thessaloniki’s port, I look down. Small brass plaques embedded in the ground carry names. They are Stolpersteine (“stumbling stones”), part of the European memorial project that restores individual identities to victims of Nazi persecution. Five stones at the port, commemorate Jewish dockworkers who worked here before being deported and murdered at Auschwitz: Ezra Pitson, Avraam Souhami, Eliaou Katan-Maïr, Moise Molho and Haim Bensoussan.
Stolpersteine in Thessaloniki are small, brass-topped concrete cubes embedded in the pavement to honor individual victims of the Holocaust. During the Nazi occupation, nearly 50,000 Jews from Thessaloniki—about 96% of the community—were brutally deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka, where the vast majority were murdered. (Photo: Motti Verses)
Five names. Five workers. Five individual lives from a community that can otherwise become an overwhelming statistic. Perhaps that is what makes these tiny memorials so affecting: you have to lower your eyes to read them.
The Monastirioton Synagogue offers something increasingly rare in Thessaloniki: a tangible survivor. Completed in 1927 with support from Jewish families originating in Monastir (today Bitola in North Macedonia) the synagogue survived the Nazi occupation largely because it was used by the Red Cross as a warehouse. After liberation, the handful of Jews who had survived in hiding or through participation in the resistance gathered here to begin rebuilding communal life.
Standing outside with the police officers guarding the building, we find that entrance is impossible even on a Saturday, the day of our tour. “Since Covid, entrance has been restricted for reasons that remain unclear,” Alena says, before revealing numbers that are difficult to comprehend.
“Before the war, Thessaloniki was home to approximately 50,000 Jews. Between March and August 1943, the Germans deported more than 45,000 of them to Auschwitz-Birkenau, most of whom were murdered in the gas chambers shortly after arrival,” she tells us.
Here the story reaches one of its most uncomfortable chapters.
Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Koretz, Thessaloniki’s chief rabbi, also headed the Jewish communal administration under German control, and his role remains bitterly debated. Koretz relayed German orders to the community and encouraged compliance. Critics, including survivors and historians, have argued that his leadership helped the Nazis carry out the deportations with less resistance and that he failed to understand what awaited the deportees in Poland. Historians continue to debate his judgment, the constraints under which he operated and the extent of his responsibility.
What is not in dispute is where responsibility for the destruction itself lies: with Nazi Germany and the machinery that systematically concentrated, deported and murdered Thessaloniki’s Jews. Within months, one of Europe’s most remarkable Jewish cities had effectively ceased to exist.
The Eleftherias Square roundup on the on Saturday, 11 July, 1942 sometimes called the ‘Black Sabbath’, was the first major antisemitic measure taken in Thessaloniki (Salonica) following the 1941 Axis occupation of Greece.
Eventually, my walk reaches Eleftherias Square (Liberty Square). Itself the scene of a terrible chapter in the persecution. In July 1942, thousands of Jewish men were ordered to assemble here for registration for forced labor and were publicly humiliated and abused by the German occupiers.
Today, Thessaloniki’s Holocaust Memorial commemorates the community that was almost entirely destroyed. Its haunting sculptural composition intertwines a seven-branched menorah, flames and human bodies, transforming the memory of tens of thousands of murdered Jews into one of the most powerful stops on this walk.
Thessaloniki’s Holocaust Memorial commemorates the city’s 50,000 Greek Jews who were lost in the Holocaust, deported to Europe’s concentration camps. (Photo: Motti Verses)
After four hours, the Jewish story of Thessaloniki no longer feels like a separate chapter of the city’s history.
It is the city’s history.
And soon, that story will have a major new home. In western Thessaloniki, beside the old railway station from which the deportation trains departed, construction is underway on the Holocaust Museum of Greece. The symbolism of the location is impossible to miss. The trains that carried Thessaloniki’s Jews toward Auschwitz left from this area; now, on the same ground, a national institution devoted to remembrance, education and research is taking shape, planned for opening during 2028.
The museum is intended to become a major new landmark, preserving not only the story of Thessaloniki’s Jews but also the memory of Jewish communities across Greece devastated during the Holocaust.
The Grand Hotel Palace Thessaloniki close by the site of the future Holocaust Museum of Greece site is preparing to host the expected additional Israeli guests. (Photo: Motti Verses)
At the Grand Hotel Palace, an elegant five-star Thessaloniki landmark whose imposing neoclassical façade evokes the grandeur of a European palace, where we stayed, I met Natasa Papanagiotou, a senior hotel director. She is strikingly aware of the city’s tragic Jewish history. In fact, she is the one who drew my attention for the first time to the museum project, only a short distance from the historic railway area.
AI-generated visualization of the Holocaust Museum of Greece in Thessaloniki, inspired by the architectural plans by EKA Efrat-Kowalsky Architects (Israel), Heide & von Beckerath (Germany), and Makridis Associates (Greece).
“Our location will become increasingly important with the museum nearby, and we are all aware of the growing number of visitors from Israel, especially groups, to our city,” she says. “Israelis are the number one foreign visitors here; only the domestic Greek market is stronger.”
It is a fitting place to end this journey. For centuries, Thessaloniki was home to one of the great Jewish communities. Yet its traces still remain. In buildings and markets, in synagogues and memorials, in five small brass stones at the port, in the music of Yehuda Poliker and, soon, in a museum.
The horrific story of the Jews of Thessaloniki will continue to be told, back to the city to discover a story that belongs not only to Jewish history, but to Thessaloniki itself.
About the writer:
The author, Motti Verses is a seasoned hotel expert, traveler, writer, and videographer, and formerly served as Head of Public Relations for Hilton Hotels & Resorts in Israel. Today, as a travel writer and hospitality trends analyst, his insights and experiences are regularly featured in leading Israeli media outlets.
*Feature photo: The writer at the Holocaust Memorial, Thessaloniki
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).
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Israel’s upcoming election might be its most pivotal in its history
PRE-ISRAELI ELECTION DEBATE IN ENGLISH
Come hear speakers from Yashar (led by Gadi Eisenkot), B’Yahad (Alliance of former PM Naftali Bennet and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid), the Democrats (led by Yair Golan) and Likud (to be confirmed). Organized by Lay of the land and TbT (Truth be Told) : Date: 28th September, 2026 at 7.00pm (19:00) Venue: Beth Protea, 5 Asher Barash street, Herzliya. nominal entrance fee (NIS 20) for non-Beth Protea residents. For more information: David Kaplan: 050-7432361 organizer and debate moderator ; Peter Bailey (TbT): 054-2663051 peteyb4@gmail.com
What’s happening in Israel today? See from every Monday – Thursday LOTL’s The Israel Brief broadcasts and on our Facebook page and YouTube by seasoned TV & radio broadcaster, Rolene Marks familiar to Chai FM listeners in South Africa and millions of American listeners to the News/Talk/Sports radio station WINA, broadcasting out of Virginia, USA.
Images circulating is less of Israel’s prime minister addressing the UNGA and more of the traditional staged walkout – a metaphor of Israel’s diplomatic isolation and global hypocrisy!
Delegates walk out as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 81st UNGA in New York City on September 24, 2026. (Photo: Jeenah Moon/Reuters)
ARTICLES
Please note there is a facility to comment beneath each article should you wish to express an opinion on the subject addressed.
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THE FORGOTTEN CHILDREN
In a world of celebrities clamouring for fauxmanitarian shots for social media to shore up credentials, who speaks for Israeli children? By Rolene Marks
Countless Kids. The writer reflects on the murdered Israeli children on October 7, the countless children traumatized by family loss, missiles, sirens and forced to flee their homes in the north and south and questions why to most the world – they don’t ‘count’.
Comparing Jewish Engagement across the Anglo Diaspora By Reviva Hasson
Riveting Report. The Jewish Community Survey of South Africa by UCT’s Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies shows a shrinking yet dynamic population of 52,000 Jews. How do their lifestyles as Jews and their connection to Israel compare with Jews elsewhere in the Anglo diaspora?
The time has come to re-evaluate why more aid is given to some refugees than others in need. By Neville Berman
Slaughter in Sudan. If it is not about the plight of Palestinians and blaming the Jews, who cares as reflected in this photo taken during a rally against genocide in the Sudan outside the embassy of Sudan in Washington, DC, that captures the boredom and disinterest of much of 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).
22 September 2026 – Boy George heading to Israel, Katz warns Hamas against kidnapping soldiers and a doozy of a question on The Israel Brief.
23 September 2026 – Buckle up! Trump takes aim at Iran, Macron’s epic fail and more on The Israel Brief.
24 September 2026 – Ambassador’s son critically injured in terror attack, Bibi heads to the UN, mensches, 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).
Comparing Jewish Engagement across the Anglo Diaspora
By Reviva Hasson
For many South African Jews, the question often comes up: how do we compare?
Whether thinking about emigration, family abroad, or simply the state of Jewish life globally, we instinctively measure ourselves against communities in other countries. Anecdotal experiences from friends and family provide one perspective, but another avenue offering a more objective, broader birds-eye view approach is a comparison based on survey data.
The Jewish Community Survey of South Africa (JCSSA) is the largest survey of South African Jews. It was conducted in 2019 by the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies, based at the University of Cape Town, in collaboration with the London based Institute for Jewish Policy Research. Similar Jewish population surveys have been run across the Anglo world in similar periods which creates the unique opportunity to be able to compare Jewish populations, – in the United States Pew2020, the United Kingdom NJCS 2022, Australia Gen17 2017, and Canada SJC 2018.
A comparison with these four countries is not arbitrary. South Africa shares important features with other Anglo communities based on a common language and cultural heritage rooted in British institutions. Moreover as 70% of South Africa’s Jewish emigrants have moved to these four countries, the comparison is also personal.
Countries can be compared on many different variables. In terms of the size of the Jewish population, America has the largest population outside of Israel with some 6.5 million Jews, Canada has 400 000 Jews, the UK 312 000 and Australia 117 000. South Africa ranks 11th in world Jewry with 52 300 Jews. This article however focuses on Jewish life – how Jews express their Jewish identity through relationships, beliefs, practices, and values.
In the analysis that follows the comparison is grouped into four themes:
sociocultural engagement
religious engagement,
connection to Israel, and
the value placed on different elements of Jewish identity.
Of course, splitting Jewish life into different categories is artificial and any behaviour can be experienced in multifaceted ways, however for the purpose of this article it is useful to think about Jewish identity taking expression through different avenues.
SOCIOCULTURAL ENGAGEMENT
This theme explores the social and communal dimensions of Jewish life, including friendship networks, family traditions, charitable giving, and participation in activities that connect Jews to one another. While a Passover seder is rooted in religious ritual, it’s also a powerful expression of culture, bringing multiple generations together around a shared tradition. Similarly, the synagogue is a house of prayer, but it is also one of the primary spaces where community takes form.
In the figures that follow South Africa is shown by the black bar with the percentage of the community that answered in the affirmative to each measure. When interpreting the results it’s important to appreciate that the percentage who did not answer “yes” mainly include those that said “no” but also includes other responses like “some/sometimes” and “don’t know” or “Prefer not to say”. Where there are missing bars for a certain country it’s because that question was not asked in the relevant survey.
Figure 1. Sociocultural Engagement
Figure 1 shows that 57% of South African Jews are members of a synagogue, similar to the UK and Canada but below Australia where almost 80% of the community are members. 71% of South African report having mostly Jewish friends and 81% attend or host a Passover seder every year – both of which are comparable to Australia. 88% of South Africans made a financial donation to a Jewish charity in the past year, similar to the UK.
Intermarriage rates measure the proportion of marriages in a given timeframe that are between Jews and non-Jews, here South Africa exhibits the lowest rates with intermarriage at 17%. by contrast in America the rate is close to 60%
Taken together, the data suggest that South African Jewry exhibits strong levels of sociocultural Jewish engagement by Anglo-diaspora standards.
RELIGIOUS ENGAGEMENT
Religious engagement indicators examined in Figure 2 below include both measures of practical observance and expressions of belief.
Figure 2. Religious Engagement
South Africa performs among the strongest communities and leads in areas such as belief in God (78%), lighting Shabbat candles (52%) and fasting on Yom Kippur (76%). Significantly lower proportions of the community keep kosher (33%) and view halacha (Jewish law) as central to being Jewish (26%).
It’s interesting to observe that while only 21% of South African Jews indicated in the JCSSA that they are Shomer Shabbat (data not shown here) – a marker for religious Orthodox observance, the above data reveal significantly higher levels of participation across other religious life indicators. This suggests that religious engagement in South Africa extends beyond a small observant minority.
CONNECTION TO ISRAEL
A third dimension of Jewish engagement is connection to Israel, which for many Jews serves as an important expression of their Jewish identity, serving as a homeland and the centre of Jewish peoplehood.
Figure 3. Connection to Israel
Connection to Israel is an area in which South African Jewry stands out (Figure 3). 66% of South African express a strong attachment to Israel, and when those who report being “moderately” attached are included, 90% express a positive connection. Significantly higher than elsewhere in the Anglo world.
The vast majority (89%) have visited Israel at least once and many have visited multiple times, a figure matched by Australia and the United Kingdom. By comparison, fewer than half of American Jews have visited Israel.
The one area where South Africa performs relatively poorly in terms of its Israel engagement profile is Hebrew literacy where only 24% report being able to speak Hebrew quite well, far below Canada’s 40%. The proportion in South Africa who can read Hebrew is higher (54%)
WHAT MATTERS MOST TO JEWISH IDENTITY
Figure 4 shifts the focus from behaviour to attitudes, examining the proportion of respondents who rated various elements of Jewish identity as being “very important” to their personal sense of Jewish identity. The exact same question was asked in the UK and Australia surveys hence our comparison is limited to these three countries.
Figure 4. Elements of Jewish Identity. The percentage that responded that this element was “very important” to their Jewish identity
Note. Q. How important or unimportant are each of the following to your own sense of Jewish Identity? This graph only shows the percentage that answered, “very important”. The other options included: important, unimportant, don’t know and prefer not to say.
South Africa however stands out. In all but one of the thirteen statements, South African Jews are more likely to select “very important” than their Australian and British counterparts. Moreover, in five areas South Africa stands out particularly strongly compared to the UK and Australia: moral and ethical behaviour (85%), remembering the Holocaust (81%), donating money to charity (55%), belief in God (53%) and payer (36%).
A SUCCESS STORY WITH CAVEATS
Taken together, the findings reveal a community that compares remarkably well with its counterparts across the Anglo-Jewish world. The South African Jewish population consistently ranks among the most engaged across multiple dimensions of Jewish life. Moreover, the high levels of importance attached to many elements of Jewish identity suggest that this engagement is not merely behavioural, but underpinned by strongly held values, beliefs, and sense of Jewish peoplehood. Overall, South Africa emerges as the strongest performing of the major English-speaking Jewish communities, with Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom occupying a middle position, while the United States ranks lowest overall. This is a particularly striking finding. Despite its relatively small size, South African Jewry emerges as one of the most engaged Jewish communities in the Anglo diaspora, consistently punching above its demographic weight.
These affirming findings about SA Jewry should be viewed alongside several important qualifications. South African Jewry is not a single homogenous community, and important differences exist across the geographical landscape. Across almost every measure from religious belief and practice to sociocultural expressions, connections and belonging, Johannesburg Jewry emerges as the most engaged Jewish centre in the country. Cape Town and Durban exhibit significantly lower levels of Jewish engagement in most areas. The national picture therefore conceals significant regional variation.
Moreover, South African Jewish life is not static. Tracking specific forms of Jewish engagement across historical surveys reveals diverging trends. On the one hand, there has been a gradual increase in Orthodox observance. The proportion of Jews who keep shabbat has risen from 9% in 1974 to 21% in 2019. This is mirrored in the data on Jewish strands of identity where a quarter of South African Jews have switched to a more religious Jewish strand of identity than the one they were raised in.
On the other hand, there is a parallel trend away from Jewish engagement. Intermarriage rates have increased such that in the 1970s 7% of all marriages occurring were interfaith unions, while in the most recent period (2015-2019) this has increased to 19%. Similarly, several markers that were historically near universal such as attending Passover seders, fasting on Yom Kippur, and lighting Shabbat candles, have declined in recent decades.
Why South African Jewry compares so strongly with its counterparts abroad is ultimately a question that warrants further study. However, several domestic factors likely play an important role, these include: exceptionally high rates of Jewish day school attendance – 75% of school-aged Jewish children currently attend Jewish schools, the highest in the Anglo world; relatively low incidence of intermarriage, strong communal institutions, and the dense social networks characteristic of a small and geographically concentrated Jewish population. Scholars have also pointed to broader historical and social influences, including the community’s largely Lithuanian heritage, the role of Orthodox outreach movements, and aspects of South Africa’s unique social and political history that may have reinforced communal cohesion.
Comparisons such as these do not tell us every dimension of a Jewish community. They do, however, provide empirical validation for something that many South African Jews have long felt intuitively: that there is something distinctive about both the breadth and strength of Jewish life in South Africa. Claims about the vitality of Jewish life in South Africa are not merely anecdotal; they are supported by a substantial body of evidence spanning religious practice, social connectedness, Israel attachment and the importance attached to many elements of Jewish identity. This broad-based pattern of Jewish engagement is perhaps one of the defining characteristics of contemporary South African Jewry.
To dive deeper into this fascinating set of findings based on the SA Jewish Community Survey, please join Midrasha Melton’s 2-part Online course with Reviva herself – Monday evenings, October 19 and 26 from 19H15-20H15 SAST.
Feature picture: Cape Town’s Old Synagogue, the first synagogue built in South Africa in 1863, which since 2000 has housed the South African Jewish Museum. (Photo: Ariadne Van Zandbergen/Alamy).
About the writer:
Reviva Hasson is a social scientist at the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies at UCT. In 2019 she coordinated the nationwide survey of the South African Jewish population.
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