South Africa’s hateful obsession against Israel, reflects its failure to address monumental problems at home.
By Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe
September, a month synonymous with renewal and new beginnings, will be the most challenging period in South Africa’s political and economic landscape due to actions likely to be taken by the US against the country. The first is the end of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which is set to expire in September. However, the new 30% tariffs introduced by the US for SA will likely override the existing AGOA conventions when they take effect at the beginning of August 2025. The second biggest conundrum will be the possibility of the US Senate’s decision on the US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act of 2025.
Rand on the Run. Already a vulnerable currency, South African rand falls before looming US tariffs. Nevertheless, South Africa continues to antagonize the US with its anti-Western policies.(Photo: Reuters /Mike Hutchings)
The ground is fertile in the US to act against the South African government, which is believed to have acted against the US’s national interests. The US has been very critical of South Africa’s foreign policy stance, which, on many occasions, went against the American national interests. This has been evident in their divergent voting patterns on various United Nations (UN) platforms, where South Africa and the US have often taken opposing positions. The relations between the US – SA did not break during the Trump administration, and Joe Biden also raised similar concerns about South Africa.
The ANC should be told, “You made your bed, now lie in it.” They have chosen to strengthen their alliances with the geopolitical rivals to the West at the expense of decades of working partnerships with the Western powers. It was very shortsighted of the ANC to believe that there would not be actions or reactions from the side of the US on how it is being undermined by Africa’s powerful regional bloc.
The escalating tensions between the US and South Africa took an uphill path in 2022 when South Africa was alleged by the US to have loaded the Lady R with armaments that would be used in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The South African government dismissed this allegation. In 2023, in the aftermath of Israeli attacks by Hamas on the 7th October 2023, we saw South Africa continuing with its support for Hamas, a designated terror organisation by countries such as the US and European Union (EU) countries. Dr. Naledi Pandor kicked off a diplomatic storm when she admitted that she had a telephonic conversation – offering support – with the same Hamas that invaded Israel and massacred more than 1200 innocent civilians as well as kidnapping more than 250 people, some still held under the tunnels in Gaza to date.
Closer to Home. While this 2024 photo of angry South Africans taken outside a courthouse in Soweto crying over the horrendous murders of women and children, the government prefers to allocate its scarce resources to issues it knows little about outside the country – notably the war in Gaza.(Photo by Sharon Seretlo/Gallo Images via Getty Images)
Just when we thought that the ANC would tone down its anti-US messaging, it dragged Israel into the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ). Their legal basis was that Israel was committing genocidal acts in Gaza. While this act by the South African government would be seen as heroic by some, others criticised the move because it failed to deliver a viable solution to the longstanding Israel-Palestine conflict. It is possible that the ANC’s thinking at the time was to maximise its electoral fortunes, which drastically dropped to below 50%. Their energy on the issue is draining because it is not yielding them the political capital they had planned.
“Do More” but Does Less. In 2024, while the ANC government focused its attention against Israel neglecting the interests of its own people, the people responded at the polling booths denying the ruling party a first-time outright majority for the first time since winning in the first post-apartheid elections 30 years earlier.
If indeed South Africa was genuine about fighting for the rights of the vulnerable people around the world, they could have started with their own population, wherein 14 million people are living in dire poverty, not knowing what they would eat the next day and where so much of the youth are dangerously unemployed. The youth unemployment rate in South Africa – which measures job-seekers between 15 and 24 years old – climbed to 62.4% in the first quarter of 2025, the highest level since the first quarter in 2022 up from 59.6% in the previous period.
Devious Diversions. South Africa’s government prefer to have photos on their TV screens of hungry children in Gaza in the midst of a war with Israel then the visuals of their own children starving to death.
Furthermore, if South Africa’s corrupt and inept leadership directs its attention to deaths in wars abroad, what about those dying a violent death AT HOME every day. Between January and March 2025, 5,727 people were murdered, an average of 62 per day. Some 6 985 attempted murders were recorded amounting to 75 per day. These staggering figures are unmatched throughout the world – a record we should be ashamed of!
The South Africa obsession with Gaza is a mere diversion of its failures to address pressing issues at home.
*Feature Picture: The ANC government is failing to address the poverty across Southy Africa preferring to divert public attention to problems outside the country.
About the writer:
Kenneth Moeng Mokgatlhe is a political writer and researcher based at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
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).
Hellbent on shaming Israel in the midst of an existential war, themedia ignoresthe mega-million starving across the world.
By Allan Wolman
If you didn’t know better, you’d think Gaza was the only place on Earth where children go hungry. Just switch on CNN, Sky, or BBC – every night another solemn anchor, another indignant UN official, another weepy “expert” telling us what a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Gaza. And yes, it is tragic. But if starvation is now characterised as the world’s ‘No. 1’ war crime, what about all the other famines the media doesn’t bother to cover?
Remember Ethiopia in the 1980s? Over a million dead of hunger—an entire nation skeletal and forgotten – until Bob Geldof grabbed a mic and shamed the West into coughing up for Band Aid. No 24/7 news ticker, no panel of UN pundits. Just silence. The fact is, Africa has seen starvation used as a weapon of war for decades, if not centuries, but little of it made the prime-time cut.
It’s Not Gaza, Stupid! Any media covering this? No, its none stop covering a food crisis in Gaza caused by its elected rulers – Hamas!
However, when it comes to Gaza, suddenly every camera lens, every crocodile tear, and every moral sermon is locked in. The media’s appetite for images of starving children seems oddly selective – especially when it’s Israel in their crosshairs. We hear next to nothing about starvation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Zimbabwe or the Horn of Africa. These don’t suit the media’s narrative. Gaza, however, does.
And yet, while Amanpour and company bleat about Gaza, they continue to miss – or ignore – what’s happening in South Africa. This is no war zone. No blockade. No siege. This is a country run by a government that shouts “a better life for all!” while literally letting its children starve to death.
No Interest, Not Gaza. While Yemen fires ballistic missile at Israel, the world ignores that the rate of child malnutrition in Yemen is one of the highest in the world with 75% of Yemeni children suffering from acute malnutrition. In Yemen’s Al Sadaqah hospital, four-year old malnourished Abdo is comforted by his uncle (above) before passing away days later. (Photo: UNOCHA/Giles Clark)
Paul Hoffman of Accountability Now pulled no punches back in 2022 when he asked, “Too corrupt to feed starving children – is this freedom?” He was talking about South Africa’s ruling party – the ANC – which, instead of feeding its own people, dumps nutritious food into landfills. Meanwhile, kids are dying.
Who Cares? When its Africa and not Gaza in order to blame the Jews, it’s not news!
That same year, William Saunderson-Meyer highlighted the horror: in just three years, 2,818 children under five died in public hospitals from malnutrition. UNICEF says chronic undernourishment is responsible for over half the deaths of South African children under five. One in three children in the country is physically stunted from lack of food. Cape Town’s Children’s Institute revealed that 4 million children are growth-stunted, and 10 million go hungry every single day:
– Not during war
– Not under sanctions
– Just under the ANC.
But will you see that on CNN? Will BBC dispatch their moral heavyweights to the Eastern Cape or Limpopo? Will the UN scream genocide in Pretoria? Of course not. South Africa doesn’t fit the preferred narrative.
When the ICJ hears South Africa’s accusations of genocide against Israel, perhaps someone will ask: what about the slow-motion genocide of your own children?
There’s something truly rotten when the loudest voices claiming to care about human suffering go mute when the victims are poor, black, and too close to home.
Apparently, black lives only matter when it suits the script.
About the writer:
Allan Wolman in 1967 joined 1200 young South Africans to volunteer to work on agricultural settlements in Israel during the Six Day War. After spending a year in Israel, he returned to South Africa where he met and married Jocelyn Lipschitz and would run one of the oldest travel agencies in Johannesburg – Rosebank Travel. He would also literally ‘run’ three times in the “Comrades”, one of the most grueling marathons in the world as well as participate in the “Argus” (Cape Town’s famed international annual cycling race) an impressive eight times. Allan and Jocelyn immigrated to Israel in 2019.
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).
This isn’t the face of famine. It’s the face of a medically vulnerable child whose suffering was hijacked and weaponised – first by Hamas, then by global media.
THE IMAGE THAT LIED
Unless you have been hiding under a rock all week, you would have seen the viral images of Mohammed, the child victim of the Gazan ‘famine’. The image used by most of these outlets was licensed to Anadolu, a Turkish state-run news agency headquartered in Ankara. The photos were taken by the Gaza-based photographer, Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini, and uploaded to his Instagram account on 22nd July – a day before the Express splashed it across their front page. But in fact another Gazan based account, Saeed Mohammed had shared similar images even earlier.
The global frenzy began on 23 July 2025, when the Daily Express ran the image of Mohammed on its front page. The article uses the image of Mohammed to promote the narrative of a mass famine in Gaza.
It is now thought that one-third of Gaza’s 2.1 million population has not eaten for several days, while one quarter faces famine-like conditions, with 100,000 women and children suffering from acute malnutrition.
Within hours, almost every major outlet was using the image to tell the same story. Sky News, CNN, The Guardian, Daily Mail, New York Times, and The Times (UK) – they all ran with it, reinforcing the message: Gaza is gripped by mass starvation, and this image is the proof:
Except this image proves none of it. Wider and unpublished pictures show Mohammed’s healthy brother Joud, who was born on 18 April 2022 and is 3 years old. Mohammed was born on 23 December 2023, just two months after October 7.
What we can see from the pictures is that both Mohammed’s mother and his older brother, look healthy and are not suffering from any type of starvation that would be necessary to cause the thinness suffered by Mohammed. This is visible in multiple images we have in our possession. The published images in all the various news broadcasts and publications have either been deliberately cropped to remove the image of the healthy brother, blurred him into obscurity, or the journalists have only chosen to use photos in which the brother is not visible at all.
THE TRUTH ABOUT MOHAMMED
Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq /Mutawwaq (was born with serious genetic disorders. He has needed specialist medical supplements since birth. Like previous examples of the media using ‘starving children’ going back to summer 2024 – the image is of a child suffering underlying (and hidden) health issues.
A medical report issued in May 2025 by the Basma Association for Relief in Gaza states that Mohammed, has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy – a group of neurological disorders affecting movement, muscle tone, and posture. The report notes that Mohammed suffers from hypoxemia (low oxygen in the blood), possibly linked to a suspected genetic disorder inherited in an ‘autosomal recessive pattern.’
There is no argument here. I have seen a copy of this report (but obviously won’t produce in full here a child’s medical diagnosis). It was signed by Dr Saeed Mohammed Al Nassan on 20th May 2025:
This revelation raises serious issues of media integrity. The Daily Express picked up a viral image circulating online and published it without verification or context – a textbook example of clickbait journalism, where emotional impact is prioritised over everything else.
The BBC – as per usual went a step further. The BBC *spoke* to his mother, Huda Yassin Al-Matouq / Mutawwaq – and produced a 64 second interview that somehow failed to disclose that Mohammed was a child born with genetic problems and complex medical dependencies. Even in the BBC video, the mother alludes to this – referencing a prolonged struggle, including physiotherapy sessions that had helped him stand. The curvature of the spine is another key clue tying the child to a CP diagnosis. But the BBC narrator never addresses this – leaving the audience to believe the heartbreaking physical condition we are seeing is the result of widespread famine.
This is not journalism. This is the UK’s state media deliberately pushing a deceptive narrative that only serves to benefit Hamas and create fake news.
HOW MOHAMMAD’S FATHER WAS USED TO PAINT A NARRATIVE
The story being told through legacy media outlets such as the NYT is that Mohammed’s father was killed while going out to collect food. Again, to underline the Gaza hunger tragedy narrative.
This has been reported without any attempt at verification. From the death certificate I can see the father Zakaria Ayoub Al-Matouq / Mutawwaq (زكريا أيوب المطوق) was killed on 28 October 2024:
From online sources it turns out that Mohammed’s father, was killed in Jabalia, in what appears to be a targetedstrike on ‘al Qassabeeb’ street.
We can also see that Hamas were attacking the IDF in precisely that spot at the time (posts from 26 & 27th October).
Between the 25th October and the 29th, Israel lost six soldiers in the area. In this Hamas footage, which shows wide angle views of part of the same ‘street’ on 26th October, it is not possible to see exactly where Mohammed’s father would have been looking for food:
Video Player
00:00
01:48
Whether or not he was armed, Mohammed’s father died on a battlefield where Hamas was actively attacking Israeli forces. Whatever the truth about ‘looking for food’, Hamas bears responsibility for bringing the conflict to that street and the media ignored this context entirely.
A PERSONAL NOTE
Digging for the truth behind images like this is not easy. We’re dealing with a live war zone – real people, real pain, and tragic situations like Mohammed’s. These kinds of personal tragedies happen in every war, in every era.
What is unique – and toxic – is how images of the tragic consequences of urban warfare are being weaponised to build false global narratives. In this case, the lie is of a Gaza gripped by mass famine and children dying from hunger.
And here’s the bitter truth: I shouldn’t have to do this. It shouldn’t fall on me to call out the world’s biggest media outlets for their failure to act like journalists. Why are almost all of them functioning as Hamas’ useful idiots, amplifying propaganda with no effort to verify the facts? Is it really too much to expect them to do their jobs?
There’s another layer of cynicism here. From everything I’ve learned, Mohammed’s mother is simply trying to find help for her child. She’s not hiding the truth. She tells the full story to anyone who asks. Yet every journalist who has spoken to her has made the same cynical decision:
Ignore the medical reality
strip the context
turn her child into a propaganda weapon.
No one is trying to help. No one is interested in telling the truth. All they seem to ask is:
“How can this image hurt Israel?” — and they build their coverage around that.
HAMAS, THE UN AND THE AID DECEPTION
Which brings us to the famine narrative.
Time and again, the most widely circulated images of ‘starving children’ in Gaza have turned out to involve children with serious underlying medical conditions. The images are heartbreaking, yes – but we must stay grounded. This is a war zone, and Hamas is actively using the civilian population as pawns in a global propaganda campaign.
Let’s be clear: Hamas cannot afford to lose control over aid distribution – not if it intends to remain the ruling power in post-war Gaza. Channeling or controlling aid has always been one of the terrorist group’s most reliable sources of income. That’s why it has been essential for Hamas to discredit the US-Israeli GHF aid programand portray it as a failure. This has included an almost daily pantomime of unverified claims that hundreds have been killed in Israeli attacks while queuing for aid. Yet in the most documented conflict zone in history, credible video evidence remains conspicuously absent = despite claims of daily occurrences.
Worse still, UN agencies and international NGOs operating in Gaza are riddled with staff affiliated with terrorist groups. Whenever Hamas comes under pressure, these agencies issue carefully timed statements and take actions that conveniently align with Hamas’s strategic goals. Which are then amplified by the army of anti-Israel activists embedded in legacy media. We saw this during the ‘All Eyes on Rafah‘ campaign in early 2024 when the IDF closed in on key leadership and hostages located there. The famine narrative is just the latest act in the play.
There is plenty of publicly available information showing that significant quantities of food are entering Gaza. But with local media firmly under the control of Hamas, none of this gets reported.
Instead of helping facilitate aid delivery, UN agencies have imposed impossible conditions, stalling convoys and leaving hundreds of trucks abandoned – their contents rotting just a short distance from those in need. At times, the UN has even insisted that Hamas be allowed to protect aid workers, effectively demanding that the terror group retain access to and control over humanitarian supplies. Only recently, under mounting international scrutiny, has the UN begun to slightly shift course.
Let’s call this what it is: The UN, UNRWA and other NGOs are not prioritising the safety of Palestinian civilians or indeed getting aid to a population they maintain are in desperate and immediate need of food. Instead, it seems, they are prioritising a political agenda that aligns with – and thus ensures – the survival of Hamas. They’re not neutral. They’re enablers
MEDIA FAILING AND A MORAL COLLAPSE
The UN aid agencies won’t deliver aid – the journalists won’t do their jobs.
In a propaganda war this calculated and brutal, it was vital that our media act as a check on the lies. Not just for Israel’s sake, but for the Palestinian civilians caught in the middle.
When legacy media outlets become mouthpieces for radical Islamist groups — out of ideology, ignorance, or cowardice — it isn’t just a journalistic collapse – it’s a moral disgrace.
Not only is Mohammed “true”, so is Osama.
About the writer:
David Collier. Award winning investigative journalist.
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).
Unveiling the contours and contrasts of an ever-changing Middle East landscape Reliable reportage and insightful commentary on the Middle East by seasoned journalists from the region and beyond.
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.
This week’s Lay of the Land’s ‘Pick’ is Airline Antisemitism
SPAIN’S CHILLING MESSAGE TO JEWS
“We threw you out in the 15th century, we don’t want you back in the 21 century – even to visit!” 52 Jewish teenagers from France kicked off plane in Spain. Their ‘offense’: singing in Hebrew!
Not since the Spanish Inquisition have Jews questioned their presence in Spain that has seen a record increase of antisemitic incidents. The most visually recent was the more than 50 Jewish teenagers returning home to France from a summer camp being removed from a plane after singing in Hebrew. A widely-circulated video shows a 21-year-old youth leader lying face down as Spanish police violently forced her to the ground while handcuffing her. Said Sacha Roytman, director of Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM): “It is outrageous that we have reached a situation where singing in Hebrewby teenagers constitutes grounds for removing them from a flight, using violence and unreasonable force…simply because they are Jews.”
Articles
Please note there is a facility to comment beneath each article should you wish to express an opinion on the subject addressed.
(1)
SMALL IN SIZE HUGE IN HEART – THE DRUZE COMMUNITY
A world indifferent, Israelis understand why the Druze in need have to be supported by Israel in deed. By David E. Kaplan
International Indifference. “They are humiliating our elderly, killing our women and children. This is a campaign towipe us out,” said Majd Al-Shaer, a 21-year-old Druze. Despite Druze appeals for help, the world is deaf to any suffering in this region other than Gazans. Tragically, Druze is not News!
“At no point in the war had the Allies achieved a definite, clean success. How then, was the war to be brought to an end?” David Lloyd George, the British Secretary of State for War, at a meeting of the British War Cabinet in October 1916. By Neville Berman
Trapped into Turmoil. April 6, 1917 US Enters WW1. In the end, the German response to anticipated US action, brought about the very action it was trying to avoid. Are the leaders prosecuting the wars in Ukraine and Gaza facing similar challenges and falling into the same traps?
Does popular UK media personality seek clicks more than truth? By Jonathan Feldstein
Pierc’ing the Air. Is Piers Morgan’s undeniably popular platform simply ‘hard hitting journalism’ or has it taken a “…sharp and troubling descent into overt antisemitism”? by repeatedly platforming Holocaust deniers. On the Gaza war, does Piers alternate positions depending upon the amount of clicks he gets?
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).
Does popular UK media personality seek clicks more than truth?
By Jonathan Feldstein
The YouTube platform, Piers Morgan Uncensored, has millions of followers. To many, Piers is respected as a credible journalist hosting hard- hitting interviews and contentious debates. For others, he is an elevated tabloid journalist seeking clicks more than truth.
While in the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack and massacres in Israel, he has been outspoken about supporting Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas, Iran, and others, in recent months he has become a loud and vocal critic of Israel. He openly states that Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza is “disproportionate”. He quotes casualty figures that are reported by the Hamas-run “Gaza Health Ministry” as fact – an important element in any journalism – but which are unsubstantiated.
While there have been no shortage of civilian casualties – and the death of any innocent civilian is indeed a tragedy – there’s also evidence of Hamas staging what’s known as “Pallywood” propaganda films to deceive the world with fake casualties. It seems to work, if only evidenced by Piers using terms suggesting Israel is committing genocide, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing, and not giving credence to the fact that the civilian-to-combatant (terrorist) casualty rate is documented as the lowest in the history of warfare – specifically in an urban area. If Piers has acknowledged it at all, it would be a statistically insignificant number. He fails to allow for the truth that by embedding its terrorists and terror infrastructure in and among Gazan civilians, and by not releasing all the hostages, Hamas is responsible for every civilian casualty in a war they initiated.
Pallywood hits the big screen
Indeed, Israel can and perhaps should have conducted operations differently and there’s been a learning curve in a war the sort of which nobody has ever engaged with a ruthless enemy that worships death more than respecting life, even of fellow Gazans. However, regardless of what kind of journalist one thinks of Piers Morgan, he is certainly not impartial.
Many have observed that conversations and debates that used to have more depth and integrity are now peppered with his own positions. Sometimes, even often when hosting a debate, rather than being a credible moderator, Piers clearly takes the side of the anti-Israel voice of one guest, teaming up against the pro-Israel voice. Not only has his own positions hardened against Israel, but he frequently platforms people who espouse rhetoric more than facts, vile antisemitic tropes, and vulgarity more than they are credible commentators. Some have accused him of antisemitism personally, a charge he firmly denies.
Spewing Hatred. When notorious antisemite Candace Owens who blames Jews for various societal ills – a pattern that has included claims about pedophilia and JFK’s assassination – accused Israel of “imparting a Holocaust,” Piers Morgan said “OK” and moved on.
Yet following a conversation with one openly antisemitic guest, Piers thanked her for her views. In another case, he either lost control or allowed another guest to espouse antisemitic views that would make Hitler blush, defending himself that he could not stop her, much less shut off her mic. If moderating debates that he orchestrates is his thing, at best that was a spectacular failure. There are other examples.
Many of his debates have devolved into verbal brawls which may be good for ratings, but not for truth or serious dialogue. Observers have noted that his “hard-hitting” interviews have become more softball fluff when encountering people with whom he agrees, while outright confrontational when sitting opposite those who attempt to explain and defend Israel.
Many are questioning what is behind Piers Morgan and his criticism of Israel? Why does he so frequently platform people who are not experts, or are not necessarily qualified, particularly comedians and those who cannot debate facts, but leap into ad hominem attacks? Why on the other hand, do Israel-supporting guests encounter such an increasingly hostile environment?
While he denies vociferously being an antisemite, there is a question about whether it is acceptable to platform people who are overt antisemites. There’s no shortage of such guests who he hosts and thanks. Sometimes he will challenge them with an occasional hardball question, but mostly the antisemitic tropes, which they publicize to millions are ignored.
It raises the question as to whether Piers is aware and sensitive of the multi dimensions of antisemitic tropes and actions. While Piers ardently denies he is antisemitic, in platforming those who are, is he possibly guilty by association? And why in a world today where so many forms of antisemitism have become acceptable is Piers so quick to accept the word of these patently antisemites when they deny they are antisemites? Is not participating in this charade not by definition antisemitic and thus should be unacceptable? It is hard to imagine that Piers ever would host a person who wants to kill all gays and lesbians or is a violent criminal white supremacist, just to hear their views and then thank them rather than rebuke them!
Cooking Collusion? Piers Morgan faces backlash as he throws support behind footballer commentator Gary Linekerfollowing his BBC axe for sharing an Instagram post “Zionism explained in two minutes”, illustrated with a picture of a rat, knowing well that rats, linked to disease and dirt, have been used to represent Jews in antisemitic propaganda throughout history, including by the Nazis in 1930s Germany.
Piers is been challenged not as one who is suspected might support the wholesale massacre of Jews but as somebody who delegitimizes Israel’s right to defend itself because of the nature of its government. What if there was an Israeli government that he didn’t despise so much conducting the war on Hamas? He frequently ascribes to all of Israel accusations of “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing”, and “war crimes” based on individual comments or implications of a handful Israelis, who have made inflammatory comments that most Israelis reject. He also speaks to pro-Israel guests in an accusatory way, referring to such guests as “you” relating to all of Israel, regardless of whether the guest is an Israeli government minister, Israeli citizen, or non-Israeli Jew. Highlighting the bias, Piers does not do the same when confronting anti-Israel guests, accusing them as being pro-Hamas.
With Piers’ handling of these issues so imbalanced necessitating, I felt, to be seriously explored, I decided to moderate a panel discussion inviting two guests who had appeared as advocates for Israel on Piers Morgan program to hear of their experiences first hand. The insights of both panelists – Shabbos Kestenbaum, a regular contributor to the international media who has testified multiple times before the US Congress, and Doron Spielman, a New York Times bestselling author and a Major in the IDF Reserves serving as an international military spokesperson providing frontline analysis to global audiences – are both riveting and illuminating and can be accessed at https://youtu.be/WuMH7bsC-H4.
Piers Morgan Uncovered
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 Jornal, 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).
“At no point in the war had the Allies achieved a definite, clean success. How then, was the war to be brought to an end?” David Lloyd George, the British Secretary of State for War, at a meeting of the British War Cabinet in October 1916.
By Neville Berman
The First World War started in August 1914 and ended in November 1918. It resulted in between 16-22 million deaths. In his ‘The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End the Great War, 1916-1917’, historian Philip Zelikow, makes the case that millions of lives could have been saved if the opportunity to achieve peace in early 1916 would have materialized. According to Zelikow, incompetent politicians, who overestimated both the military and financial capabilities of their countries, shrank from their responsibility of ending the war. Below is an abridged form of the story that is particularly relevant to the present situation in the Middle East and to the Russian – Ukraine war.
Shades of the Past. Visually reminiscent of WWI trench warfare, a Ukrainian mortar unit near Kostiantynivka in 2023. The biggest battle is how to stop wars?
Britain entered the First World War on August 4th 1914. The popular concept at the time was that the boys would be home for Christmas. The reality proved to be completely different. H. G. Wells coined the expression “The war that will end war” Ironically, the aftermath of the war contributed to the conditions that led to the Second World War.
In 1905, Japan was lacking financial resources to continue its war with Russia and asked President Theodore Roosevelt to try to mediate a peace between the warring parties. Roosevelt succeeded in bringing an end to the war and was awarded the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts – the first American to win a Nobel Prize.
Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States when the war broke out in Europe in 1914. He maintained a policy of strict and impartial neutrality and was against American involvement in what he considered a European war. Inspired by what Roosevelt achieved in 1905, Wilson entertained the idea that America could play the role of a mediator and end the war in Europe without actually taking an active part in the war itself.
Peacemaker President. On December 10, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt (center) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work surrounding the Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended the Russo-Japanese War.
In May 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed the luxury civilian ship Lusitania just off the coast of Ireland. 1,198 people were killed including 128 Americans. Both Republicans and Democrats still did not want America to become involved in a European war.
In 1915, all the offences by Britain and France had failed. In February 1915, the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign was launched against Ottoman troops in the Balkans. By the time the campaign ended in January the following year, over 73,485 Allied soldiers from Great Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand and India had been killed or injured. Almost nothing had been achieved by the campaign.
President Wilson saw the continuation of the war as a tragedy. Wilson came to the conclusion that there was a need to develop a new basis for managing world politics. He also believed that American economic power might play a crucial role in bringing justice and peace to the world.
Wilson’s closest friend and advisor was a wealthy Texan by the name of Edward Mandel House. He was known as Colonel House even though he never served in the military. In December 1915, President Wison asked Colonel House to travel to Europe as his personal envoy. House was thrilled with the idea and relished meeting the leaders of Europe. At the time, Germany had occupied Belgium and controlled Alsace-Lorraine. The mission of Colonel House was to see if Britain, France and Germany would agree to a peace conference called for by America. As President Wilson would be involved in a re-election campaign towards the end of 1916, the window of opportunity for American mediation and a peace conference would have to be completed before the end of the summer of 1916.
Pursuers of Peace. Adviser to US President Woodrow Wilson (left), Col. Edward Mandel House (right) spent much of 1915 and 1916 in Europe, trying to broker a peace through diplomacy to end World War 1.
Colonel House arrived in London in January 2016. He met with Edward Grey the British Foreign Secretary and Lloyd George the Minister of Munitions. Despite the fact that they had been warned by the Treasury that Britain would not be able to sustain the war after the coming summer, they informed Colonel House that Britain was in a good position to outlast Germany and that victory was in sight.
A month later Colonel House arrived in Paris. He met with the American Ambassador to France, Willliam Sharp, and French officials including and former Premier Georges Clemenceau. The discussions focused on French willingness to accept American mediation. The French were of the opinion that American mediation would result in Germany retaining Alsace-Lorraine and that Belgium would remain under German control. Like the British, the French rejected the idea of American mediation.
In Berlin, House met with Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg and with the German Foreign Secretary Gottlieb von Jagow. Both were fluent in English. They were of the opinion that Germany was winning the war and that it was not in Germany’s interest to seek or agree to American mediation. The Chancellor spoke about the challenge of political leaders being unable to free themselves from “the machine of war passion.” As Colonel House was departing, the German Chancellor mentioned that House should remember the name Verdun.
Colonel House returned to Washington and informed the President that none of the warring parties had agreed to accept American mediation. Almost unnoticed, the possibility of ending the war in early 1916 had slipped away. The war would continue for another 20 months with millions more dying and being injured unnecessarily. House recorded in his diary that:
“War is not so much a breakdown of civilization as it is a failure of statesmanship.”
In February1916, the Germans attacked the French in a place called Verdun. The Battle of Verdun would last for 302 days and would be one of the bloodiest battles of the war. The entire battle consisted of brutal trench warfare in an area of less than 20 kilometers. It consisted of attacks and counter attacks in appalling conditions. It resulted in 377,231 French casualties and approximately 337,000 German casualties with an average of 70,000 soldiers killed or injured per month. It ended on December 18, 1916, with the French repulsing the German offensive at an appalling cost to both sides.
Verdun’s Value? Despite the Battle of Verdun’s pivotal place in the history of WW I – the war’s longest battle with mass casualties – it ended with the French and German armies in much the same position – at least on a map – that they had held before the battle began. (Photo: French soldier’s grave, marked by his rifle and helmet – Hulton Archive/Getty)
On July 1, another battle began – in northern France. It was called the Battle of the Somme. The massive Allied army consisted of soldiers from Britain, Ireland, Newfoundland, South Africa and India. They faced an equally large German army. Both armies had dug trenches that were separated by a few hundred yards of “no-mans land.” On the first day of the Somme offensive, over a hundred thousand men of the British army were ordered “over the top.” They were mowed down in the thousands by German machine gun fire and artillery. The British suffered 57,470 casualties including over 19,000 deaths in one day. It was one of the bloodiest days in the history of the British army. A small strip of “no man’s land.” was gained. The senseless battle would continue for five more months. The use of poison gas led to tens of thousands of casualties. By the time the Battle of the Somme ended on November 19, 1916, more than a million soldiers from both sides were either killed, wounded or went missing. Like all wars, new technologies were invented. The First World War saw the introduction of tanks and aircraft. After the Battle of the Somme, Britain found itself very short of both sufficient manpower and finance. In order to raise money J.P Morgan, was entrusted with issuing British Bonds in the US. It was hugely undersubscribed and Britain was plunged into a financial crisis.
In March 1916, the French passenger ship, the Sussex was torpedoed in the English Channel. It led to the Sussex Pledge whereby Germany agreed that passenger ships would not be targeted, and that merchant ships would not be sunk unless they were first searched and found to be carrying weapons. In such an event, the crew of the merchant ship would be allowed to safely leave the ship before it was sunk.
In November 1916, President Wilson was re-elected for a second term as President and was now even more determined to renew his efforts to form an international body to help prevent war.
In January 1917, Germany was convinced that it could win the war by cutting off supplies to Britain by unrestricted submarine warfare. The Sussex Pledge was rescinded by Germany with immediate effect. It would herald the beginning of the First Battle of the Atlantic.
Trapped into Turmoil. April 6, 1917 US Enters WW1. In the end, the German response to anticipated US action, brought about the very action it was trying to avoid.
In February 1917, British intelligence intercepted and decoded a secret message from Germany to Mexico, in which it was proposed that Mexico would join Germany in attacking America and that Mexico would be able to reclaim Texas and Arizona. The British sent a telegram known as the Zimmerman telegram revealing the decoded message to President Truman. After nineteen merchant ships were sunk by German U-boats in the Atlantic, and the staggering revelation of the Zimmerman telegram that was released to the public, Americans turned against Germany. On April 6, 1917, Congress passed a Declaration of War against Germany. Once America entered the war against Germany, it was only a question of time before Germany was decisively defeated. It still took nearly another 6 months before the First World War ended on the ninth hour of the ninth month of 1918. Over 116,00 Americans were killed in the war. This figure included over 63,000 soldiers who died from diseases and the influenza pandemic of 1918.
Peace- the Holy Grail! From Gaza to the Ukraine where a man runs from a burning shop following a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, can the leaders bring these wars to an end? (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Zelikow makes a strong case that the war could have ended 18 months earlier. Millions of lives and untold billions could have been saved. Having the foresight to end wars, instead of continuing in the belief that total victory is possible, is what separates statesmen from politicians.
It is a message for both Netanyahu and Putin should contemplate.
Feature picture: Soldiers in a WWI frontline facing poison-laden projectiles. Could this war have ended before this horrifying development? (Photo: Maj. Tracy Everts/US Army Signal Corps/Getty Images).
About the writer:
AccountantNeville Berman had an illustrious sporting career in South Africa, being twice awarded the South African State Presidents Award for Sport and was a three times winner of the South African Maccabi Sportsman of the Year Award. In 1978 he immigrated to the USA to coach the United States men’s field hockey team, whereafter, in 1981 he immigrated to Israel where he practiced as an accountant and then for 20 years was the Admin Manager at the American International School in Even Yehuda, Israel. He is married with two children and one granddaughter.
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 world indifferent, Israelis understand why the Druze in need have to be supported by Israel in deed.
By David E. Kaplan
Last week I received a call in Israel from my cousin in Australia opening with:
“What’s going on; you guys are now invading Syria; attacking Damascus?”
When I started explaining by mentioning Israel coming to the rescue of “the Druze,” I was interrupted by:
“Yes, I heard mention on our news something about the Druze….Who are they? Never heard of them! What religion are they? Where did they suddenly spring from?”
With well over a 1000-year history, they did not exactly ‘suddenly spring’ out of nowhere. They were a proud people with their own unique religion long before there was an England, a France, a Germany or new kid-on-the-block – Australia. A community of 150,000 with elements of all three religions – Islam, Christianity and Judaism – the Druze in Israel are an enriching and warm people embedded in this ancient land as its timeless rock. Mainly because of its paucity in number and concentrated largely in northern Israel, not too much is known about this special and endearing people.
Community facing Catastrophe. Israeli Druze approach the Israeli-Syrian border fence to protest in solidarity with their vulnerable community in Syria, July 16, 2025. (Photo: Michael Giladi/ FLASH90).
BONDED IN BLOOD
It was clear from my conversation with my cousin, there was paltry reportage in Australia – as there was across the world – about the existential threat to Syrian Druze following a massacre of its people, their relationship with Israel’s Druze community or who the Druze are.
Israel’s Druze leader Sheikh Muwafaq Tarif was frank to the press:
“… These are beasts… They talked about a ceasefire and then continued the massacre, the cleansing, going from house to house. … They raped a five-year-old girl, they entered a holy place where women were hiding to avoid being harmed, and they burned them alive. They killed, beheaded, it was pure cleansing. This is only because they are Druze…”
Identifying with what the Jews in southern Israel experienced, Tarif continued:
“We’ve seen this movie with Hamas, they are the same people, let’s not get confused. They didn’t let ambulances pass; the bodies were in the streets.”
For Majd Al-Shaer, a 21-year-old Druze man, “This is not a conflict anymore, this is extermination,” he told the Indian news network NDTV. “They are humiliating our elderly, killing our women and children. This is a campaign to wipe us out. An ethnic cleansing campaign is taking place against the Druze.”
However, on the international news networks, the narrative typically conveyed by the panel of ‘usual experts’ was that Israel was using the Druze as a pretext to attack Syria. What’s more, the global media mostly IGNORED that the Druze – both in Israel and Syria – had appealed to Israel to save them from the same fate that Hamas has for Israelis. This appeal was couched “Israel owes the Druze” and it is true – Israel does. It was brought home to me back in 2007 when reporting for The Jerusalem Post (https://www.jpost.com/features/patriot-games), I visited the largest Druze town in Israel, Daliyat el-Carmel perched on top of the Carmel Mountain range to meet and interview a Druze family, including the legendary Kamal Mansour. Mansour, who subsequently passed away 2023, was an Israel Prize recipient who had been appointment by Israel’s third president, Zalman Shazar, as his Adviser on Minority Communities and continued to serve in this position under presidents Ephraim Katzir, Yitzhak Navon, Chaim Herzog, Ezer Weizman, Moshe Katsav and Shimon Peres.
Excruciating Anguish. Druze from Syria and Israel protest in Majdal Shams on the Israeli-Syrian border amid the ongoing clashes in the southern Syrian city of Sweida where the UN says it has credible reports of summary executions. (AP Photo/Leo Correa).
Mansour enlightened me on history that I was not familiar with – important history that illuminates the special relationship between Jews and Druze. While Most Israelis are familiar with the spectacular escape from Atlit in October 1945, when the Palmach (Israel’s pre-state fighting force), under the command of Yitzhak Rabin (who later became Israel’s Prime Minister), broke into the illegal immigrant detention camp at one o’clock in the morning setting free over 200 Jewish prisoners, what followed next, most do not know.
Massacre in the Making. Syria’s government forces entering Suweida city amidst the turmoil.
Bedraggled and exhausted, the escapees – mostly holocaust survivors – dodged the British mandate forces as they fled on foot uphill over the Carmel to Kibbutz Yagur on the northern side of the mountain range. The story made international front-page news. What did not make news was that at the top of the mountain range, some of the fleeing Jews briefly connected with a people equally rooted to the land who helped them elude the pursuing British forces – the Druze. Kamal Mansour was a young boy in 1945 living in the then small village of Isfiyah where his father was mayor when some of those exhausted and hungry Jewish escapees crept cautiously into his village. “It was pitch dark, and my parents welcomed them and offered them tea and cake and a place to rest before guiding them on in their escape to freedom. Not only had my family, but other Druze families as well, opened their homes to these frightened new immigrants. Proudly,” Mansour says, “We acknowledged in deed the Jewish State before there was a Jewish State.”
This hardly known episode in modern Jewish history reflects the characteristically low profile of a unique and special people who chipped in from the start to be a part of the modern state of Israel.
“Whatever the temptations in 1948,” continued Mansour, “the Druze community opted against mainstream Arab nationalism and before the draft was introduced, Druze soldiers served as volunteers in the Israeli army.”
During Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, many Druze, mainly from the villages of Shfaram, Usfiya and Daliat El-Carmel joined forces with the Jewish Haganah forging a relationship that led during this war to the creation of the Minorities Unit, which recruited Druze volunteers, mainly from these three towns. “This trend continued and an increasing number of Druze,” says Mansour, “voluntarily joined the Minorities Unit of the IDF right up to 1956, when compulsory service was introduced, a decision by the way, that was initiated by the Druze leadership.”
Mansour proudly says:
“Although I was too old when conscription for Druze was introduced, I nevertheless served in the reserves for 26 years and six days.”
Mansour referred me to the Druze poet, historian and diplomat, Reda Mansour, who wrote:
“We are the only non-Jewish minority that is drafted into the military and we have an even higher percentage in the combat units and as officers than the Jewish members themselves. So, we are considered a very nationalistic, patriotic community.”
Loose Cannons. Bedouin fighters who have clashed with Druze militias in Syria’s Al-Suwayda province. US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio in a post on X has demanded an end to “the rape and slaughter of innocent people.”
Kamal Mansour, who was the first Druze to serve on the Board of Directors of Israel Electric Corporation (IEC), the Board of Governors of both Haifa University and Ben Gurion University of the Negev, and to be a member of the plenum of the Israel Broadcasting Authority chuckled as he recalled his service on the Committee to investigate the proposal to introduce TV to Israel. “It is hard today to envisage the debate at that time. Both Golda [Meir] and Ben Gurion were dead against it. Ben Gurion thought people would stay away from work to watch TV.”
Early Days. Kamal Masour (left) whom the writer interviewed in 2007, seen here with Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion (centre) and Kamal’s father, Najeb Mansour, who was then mayor of Isfiya.
However, for Mansour who was presented in 2010 with the Israel Prize in recognition of the enormous service he had rendered to the State of Israel, said “I had no such misgivings.”
And Israel should have no misgivings of supporting the Druze community in Syria. As Catherine Perez-Shakdam writes in The Jerusalem Post (‘The Druze and the great betrayal’ July 21,2025), “It is Israel that stands, quite literally, between the Druze and the abyss.”
Comrades-in-Arms. Druze have been dying in battles alongside their Jewish comrades. Seen here is Colonel Ehsan Daxa, 41, commander of the 401st Brigade within the IDF’s 162nd Division who was killed in Gaza. From Daliyat al-Karmel, Daxa had expressed pride in leading a “special and courageous generation of fighters and commanders” committed to decisively defeating Hamas.
How can Israel do otherwise as the world ignores the plight of the Syrian Druze. This writer is left with the words of Kamal Mansour:
“We acknowledged in deed the Jewish State before there was a Jewish State.”
Feature picture:Separation and Solidarity. A community divided, in this pre-war photo, Druze gather to contact their relatives on the Syrian side of the border from the Israeli Golan Heights. (Photo: Amnar Awad/Reuters).
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).
Unveiling the contours and contrasts of an ever-changing Middle East landscape Reliable reportage and insightful commentary on the Middle East by seasoned journalists from the region and beyond.
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.
Israel is and always has been short of friends. Today, Jews across the world are finding themselves alone, ostracized and vulnerable. One people that have stood by Israel sacrificing life and limb since 1948, is the country’s Druze community, who through thick and thin, war after war, have thrown in their lot with the destiny – and fate – of Israel. In the current Israel-Hamas war, Druze have fought and died alongside their fellow Jewish soldiers in the IDF as they have done in all previous wars. Today, the Druze in southern Syria, family to the Druze of Israel, are under attack with regime forces aiding Syrian Bedouins in perpetrating atrocities – including the summary execution of Druze civilians. Israel could not sit back, particularly as Israel’s Druze community’s leadership has appealed to Israel to save their people across the border in turbulent Syria from slaughter. Lay of the Land fully supports Israel’s efforts to help save the Druze of Syria.
Articles
Please note there is a facility to comment beneath each article should you wish to express an opinion on the subject addressed.
(1)
WE’VE SEEN THIS BEFORE
History is repeating itself, not as tragedy or farce, but as a horror story By Andrew Fox
Jews ‘in the rough’! This is not just a case of antisemitic vandalism found at London’s Hendon Golf Club but a show how the global assault on Jews has become mainstream.
A breed of South African vultures prey upon the deceased to further their political narrative. By Josh Schewitz
Dr. Death? Modeling herself on the women who sat beside the guillotine during the French Revolution knitting while heads fell, South Africa’s Jo Bluen uploads onto her social media accounts inverted Red Triangles when Israeli soldiers fall in Gaza. Rejoicing at the death of 3 IDF soldiers with a devilish smile, is this who the LSE want to accept as a PhD candidate?
An award of ignominy given to deluded Middle Eastern leaders who have tried to destroy Israel. By Neville Berman
Bunker Blusterer. Once noted for his endless insufferable speeches from his bunker, Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah’s obsession with ending Israel, resulted in his own end – with a bang! Hardly alone in his obsession and ignoble end!
With discussions at the White House held in private and no clear announcements of a major Gaza deal nor followed by the customary Oval Office photo, what can we read? By Jonathan Feldstein
What’s the Big Deal? With expectations of a “Big Beautiful Deal” relating to the hostages, a ceasefire and expansion of the Abraham Accords, in the absence of a major announcement left everyone guessing!
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).
Today, Jews across the world are finding themselves alone, ostracized and vulnerable.
One people that have stood by Israel sacrificing life and limb since 1948, is the country’s Druze community, who through thick and thin, war after war, have thrown in their lot with the destiny – and fate – of Israel. In the current Israel-Hamas war, Druze have fought and died alongside their fellow Jewish soldiers in the IDF as they have done in all previous wars.
Today, the Druze in southern Syria, family to the Druze of Israel, are under attack with regime forces aiding Syrian Bedouins in perpetrating atrocities – including the summary execution of Druze civilians.
Israel could not sit back, particularly as Israel’s Druze community’s leadership has appealed to Israel to save their people across the border in turbulent Syria from slaughter.
Lay of the Land fully supports Israel’s efforts to help save the Druze of Syria.
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).
