14 July 2025 – First nations leaders in Canada call for Kneecap concerts to be cancelled.
15 July 2025 – Israel strikes Syrian regime targets in defense of Syrian Druze and more on The Israel Brief.
16 July 2025 – Israel continues to defend Syrian Druze and a rant from Roro on The Israel Brief.
17 July 2025 – Updates on the situation in Syria and Roro gives herself a stern reprimand 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).
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
The third summit between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu this year has ended, but there are still more questions than concrete answers about the nature of their meetings and the outcome. To help understand the significance of their meetings, what took place, and what to look for in the coming weeks and months, in the recent episode of the “Inspiration from Zion” podcast, military and political analyst Elliot Chodoff and journalist Jonathan Tobin provided a deep dive into the high-level meetings. The conversation was rich with strategic and political analysis, explored the outcomes, implications, and future projections as a of these talks, the war against Hamas, returning of 50 hostages, implications of the war against Iran, and the broader Middle Eastern geopolitical landscape.
The Trump-Netanyahu meetings were marked by significant speculation about potential breakthroughs, leading many to look for “A Big Beautiful Deal” particularly regarding a ceasefire with Hamas and broader regional agreements. In fact, the absence of a major announcement, such as a ceasefire with Hamas or an expansion of the Abraham Accords raised questions as to the nature of the meetings. Chodoff and Tobin emphasized the importance of the meetings was significant alone due to the strategic importance of maintaining a close U.S.-Israel relationship, particularly under Trump, whose personal style demands loyalty and public displays of alignment. Tobin highlighted that Netanyahu’s visit was not merely a “love fest” but a critical effort to align Israel’s interests with American priorities, especially given the personal nature of Trump’s diplomacy.
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.
A central focus of the meetings was the ongoing war in Gaza, where Israel’s stated goals – destroying Hamas and securing the release of hostages – remain elusive after 21 months. Chodoff outlined a three-tiered view of Hamas relating to these objectives: its military infrastructure (largely dismantled), its guerrilla capabilities (still active), and its ability to control the Palestinian population through fear (nearly impossible to eradicate). He argued that Israel has entered a phase of diminishing returns in the active combat with recent ambushes, like the loss of several soldiers in each of two consecutive weeks. He suggested a fatigued IDF still adapting to Hamas’ guerrilla warfare.
Chodoff speculated that Netanyahu might welcome a U.S.-imposed ceasefire, allowing him to claim he had no choice, thus avoiding domestic backlash while stepping back from a costly operation. The domestic implications of this might be the weakening of Netanyahu’s coalition government, but strengthening his position with the end of combat, weekly deaths, and return of the hostages.
Tobin, however, expressed skepticism about a ceasefire, noting that Hamas “gets a vote” and may not agree to terms that allow it to survive without significant concessions. He warned that a deal leaving Hamas intact could enable it to claim victory, undermining Israel’s strategic objectives. Both agreed that the goals of defeating Hamas and returning all the hostages are likely mutually exclusive, posing a political and strategic challenge for Netanyahu. Tobin emphasized that Trump’s desire for a deal to bolster his second-term legacy might pressure Israel into concessions, though he acknowledged Trump’s sensitivity to Israel’s security needs.
People’s ‘Parliament’ in Session. Always in a waiting-for-news-mode, these Israelis appear in anxious conversation on the terrace of a coffee shop. Everyone’s lives are on hold waiting not for the ‘Big Deal’ but the ‘Big Breakthrough’.(Photo: Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images)
Regarding Israel’s and the US’ recent tag team military campaign against Iran, “Operation Rising Lion” and “Midnight Hammer,” Chodoff described it as a tactically flawless 12-day operation that set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions by years. However, he cautioned that it was a campaign within a broader war dating back to 1979, not a resolution. Chodoff criticized Trump’s decision to impose a ceasefire, arguing it halted Israel’s momentum in weakening Iran’s regime control institutions, potentially missing a chance to empower internal opposition. He dismissed negotiations with Iran’s Khomeinist regime, equating their anti-Israel stance to a non-negotiable religious tenet.
Tobin agreed that Iran’s nuclear threat was reduced but argued that Trump’s strategy – inflicting damage and then offering negotiations – might suffice, given Iran’s financial constraints. He noted a divergence in U.S. and Israeli interests. While both oppose a nuclear Iran, the U.S. is less inclined to pursue regime change, which Trump views as risky. Both underscored the need for continued vigilance, with Chodoff advocating a zero-tolerance policy for any Iranian violations, similar to Israel’s approach with Hezbollah.
There had been anticipation of an announcement of the widening of the Abraham Accords, with Trump reportedly eager to include Saudi Arabia, and Syria and other Arab and Islamic states floated as possible members. Tobin was skeptical, arguing that Iran’s weakened state reduces Saudi motivation for formal recognition of Israel, as their covert cooperation sufficiently serves Saudi interests. He also dismissed the notion of Syria joining the Accords under its new leadership, led by a former terrorist leader, describing Syria as a “banana republic without bananas” due to its unstable, tribal nature. Chodoff agreed but suggested that symbolic gestures, like removing Syria from terrorist lists, could be reversible and worth exploring cautiously, provided Israel does not cede tangible assets like territory.
The outcome of the international summit also has implications for Netanyahu’s domestic standing. Tobin noted that despite the October 7, 2023, attack occurring under his watch, Netanyahu’s political resilience—bolstered by a loyal 25-30% voter base and favorable demographics—makes him the likely winner in the next election currently scheduled for late 2026. However, Chodoff highlighted emerging challenges, including economic fallout from the war which has still yet to be fully absorbed, and discontent among reservists and religious Zionists, which could erode his coalition. Both agreed that the war’s unresolved issues and economic costs could shape Israel’s political landscape, with new centrist movements led by reserve officers potentially complicating Netanyahu’s coalition-building. Yet both agreed that Netanyahu is never the candidate to count out.
Trying Times. While the region’s future is in the hands of politicians, this young armed Israeli father in the reserves has his hand on his kid’s pram as he walks along deserted streets in Tel Aviv the day after Israel and Iran exchanged missile fire on June 24, 2025. (Photo: Fadel Senna, AFP Via Getty Images)
Looking ahead, Tobin advised watching Trump’s statements for signs of frustration with Israel’s positions, which could embolden US critics. Chodoff echoed this, emphasizing the need for alignment without compromising Israel’s security.
With no clear announcements of a major deal or anything concrete, and the significant discussions held in private without even an Oval Office photo opportunity, a delicate balancing act exists : Netanyahu navigating domestic pressures, Trump’s deal-driven agenda, and the intractable and yet to be completely defeated challenges of Hamas, Iran, and regional diplomacy.
See the entire conversation HERE, or listen to the audio HERE.
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).
An award of ignominy given to deluded Middle Eastern leaders who have tried to destroy Israel.
By Neville Berman
There are many prestigious awards in the world for exceptional achievements. Anyone awarded a Nobel Prize instantly receives international recognition and fame. The film industry has the Oscars. Journalists have the Pulitzer Prize. The music industry has the Bafta awards. Time magazine has the Person of the Year award, and FIFA has Best Footballer of the Year awards for both men and women. The British King or Queen annually bestows titles and medals to individuals in recognition of outstanding services to the country. Every country has developed some way of honoring exceptional people in their society.
However, there is one award that has never previously been awarded, that has attracted a number of nominees. The award is the Bermuda Triangle Award. (BTA) This award is for leaders who by their own deliberate policies and actions, have brought poverty, death, destruction and in several cases starvation to the countries that they rule or ruled.
As this article is limited in length, the numerous post-colonial African leaders and other infamous dictators who should suffer the ignominy of being awarded a BTA have been omitted. Instead, only Middle Eastern leaders, both deceased and living, are included. Let us start with those nominees for a posthumous BTA.
Gamal Abdel Nasser was President of Egypt and a charismatic leader who promoted the concept of Arab unity known as Pan Arabism. In May 1967, he ordered the United Nations to withdraw all UNEF troops from Sinai. He then closed the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping, and boasted that Egypt was ready for an all-out war that would push Israel into the sea. On the morning of June 5, 1967 Israel responded with a preemptive air attack that destroyed almost the entire Egyptian air force on the ground. Nasser then lied to Syria and Jordan by informing them that the Egyptian air-force was bombing Tel Aviv. Syria and Jordan then joined the attack on Israel. In what is known as the Six Day War, Israel routed the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Israel gained control of the whole of Sinai, Gaza, East Jerusalem, Judea (West Bank) and the Golan Heights. Not since the Egyptian army was destroyed in the Red Sea pursuing the Israelites, has Egypt suffered such humiliation.
A Losing Battle. Instead of fulfilling his life’s ambition of driving the Israelis into the sea, Egyptian president, Abdul Nasser oversaw his country’s humiliating defeat in 6 days in 1967.
In 1979, Saddam Hussein gained control of the Sunni Muslim Ba’ath Party and became President of Iraq. Iraq has the 5th largest crude oil reserves in the world and should be wealthy and prosperous. In 1980, Saddam attacked Iran in a territorial dispute. After nearly 8 years of fighting and an estimated 500,000 deaths, the war ended in a stalemate. In August 1988 both sides accepted UN resolution 598 that ended the war.
Two years later Saddam attacked Kuwait. When Saddam refused to leave Kuwait, America formed a coalition and decisively defeated Saddam and liberated Kuwait. In 1993, under the Presidency of George W Bush, America again invaded Iraq. The premise for the attack was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that were a direct threat to America. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. Instead, Saddam was found hiding in a hole in the ground. An Iraqi Special Tribunal convicted Saddam of crimes against humanity and he was hanged on December 30th 2006. It was the end of a tyrant who was responsible for the deaths of an estimated million Iraqis in war, arbitrary arrests, torture, and disappearances. Iraq has yet to recover from the 24 years of the rule of Saddam Hussein.
Hussein Hanged. A man of many dreams ended with his worst nightmare – executed by his own people.
Yahya Sinwar was one of the leaders of Hamas. Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007. Hamas is a terrorist organization with a genocidal charter aimed at killing all Jews. Since 2007 it has fired over 30,000 rockets at Israel. It has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars of humanitarian aid and then sold it to the inhabitants in Gaza at inflated prices. It has built 500 kilometers of underground tunnels to attack Israel from and to hide in. Many of the tunnels are built under hospitals, schools and mosques. The main headquarters of Hamas was built directly under the maternity ward of the European hospital in Gaza. Without any doubt, Hamas uses babies, children and civilians as human shields. Under the leadership of Sinwar, Hamas planned and executed a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. The scale of the attack and the barbaric actions were proudly filmed by the attackers themselves. Hamas scored an opening victory that consisted of mass killings, beheadings, rapes, hostage taking, destruction of property, and unbelievable cruelty to babies and families. It has now turned into a pyrrhic victory. At the time of writing, Gaza is unrecognizable from what it once was. Thousands of Hamas terrorists have been eliminated, and those that are still alive are living like rats in tunnels underground. The only card that Hamas still holds are Israeli hostages captured in the initial attack. Both Yahya Sinwar and his brother, Mohammed Sinwar, who succeeded him have been eliminated. The legacy of the Sinwar family is death, hunger, poverty and destruction.
Lousy Leader. Inspiring victory of death to Jews, poor leadership by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar leaves him dead and his Gaza in ruins. (Photo: Shutterstock).
Starting in 1992, Hassan Nasrallah was the undisputed leader of Hezbollah. Before the rise of Hezbollah, Beirut was considered the Paris of the Middle East. With backing from Iran, Hezbollah basically took de facto control of Lebanon and effectively destroyed the country’s economy and prospects for a peaceful and prosperous future. With an estimated 150,000 rockets supplied by Iran, Hezbollah posed a direct threat to Israel. After Hezbollah decided to join the attack by Hamas on Israel, the vast majority of Hezbollah’s rockets were destroyed by Israel. Nasrallah himself was assassinated in his bunker in September 2024. Another posthumous BTA.
Bunker Blusterer. Once noted for his fiery hour-long speeches from his bunker, Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah’s control over Lebanon ended with a bang.
Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father as President of Syria when his father Hafez died in July 2000. Bashar retained power for 24 years by ruthlessly oppressing all opposition to his minority Alawite rule. Between 300-500 thousand Syrians were killed, and approximately 5 million Syrians became refugees during the rule of the Assad family. Assad even used poison gas against his own people. After Israel effectively reduced the capacity of Hezbollah to support Assad, opposition forces took advantage of the situation and seized control of Syria. Assad fled to Russia on December 8, 2024, where he was granted political asylum. Naturally the International Criminal Court has never charged Assad with committing any crimes against humanity. It appears that the killing of hundreds of thousands of Arabs by Arabs is not considered a crime. In an absurd double standard, if Jews kill Arabs in self- defense, then the ICC leaps into action against Israeli leaders.
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi became leader of the Houthis in Yemen in 2004. Yemen is situated at the entrance to the Red Sea and is more than 2,000 KM from Israel. There is no territorial dispute between the two countries. In 2014, the Houthis took control of parts of Yemen including the capital Sanaa in a civil war. Since then, the Houthis have carried out missile attacks against oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. They have attacked scores of ships in the Red Sea, and have fired inter- continental missiles at Israel. The Houthis are supported by Iran and are sacrificing themselves for Iran’s ambitions to destroy Israel. All of their actions have brought zero prosperity to the Houthis. They will continue to suffer because of the stupidity of their own leaders. By reducing shipping through the Red Sea, the Houthis have caused billions of dollars of lost revenue to Egypt. Some recent reports say that Abdul -Malik is no longer alive. Either way, he is a nominee for a BTA.
Proud Pirate. While unsure where Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthi movement is today, what is sure is that Yemen is a mess grappling with a decade-long civil war, widespread humanitarian crisis, a collapsing economy. while threatening maritime shipping in the Red Sea.(Photo credit: Arab Media).
In 1989, Ali Hosseini Khamenei became the second Supreme Shiite leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran is larger than France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands combined. It has approximately 90 million citizens. It has the third largest oil reserves, and the second largest gas reserves in the world. Its geographical location affords it significant control over the vitally important Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Under normal circumstances, Iran should have a thriving economy and a prosperous society. Instead, Khamenei has a fanatical religious aim of destroying Israel. Iran has built a nuclear program that it claims is for peaceful purposes. In a daring clandestine operation, Israel obtained the actual archives of the Iranian nuclear program. The archives provided 100% proof that Iran is actively trying to build a nuclear arsenal and that its nuclear program is not for peaceful purposes.
The Supreme Concealer. A ruthless leader and concealer of its nuclear intentions, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has presided over the exposed failure of Mullah leadership.
Iran has poured billions of dollars into building a crescent of proxy allies to try to wipe Israel off the map. Every country and terrorist entity that is supported by Iran, has suffered as a result of accepting Iranian so-called help. Iran’s policy of building a ring of fire around Israel has been a total failure. After Iran attacked Israel directly with inter-continental missiles and drones, Israel effectively destroyed Iran’s missile defense system and then attacked its nuclear and missile facilities. In what has been called the 12- Day War, that included an attack by American B2 bombers and tomahawk missiles on Iran’s nuclear program, the Iranian nuclear program is no longer a current threat to Israel or the world. Iran has wasted billions of dollars on trying to destroy Israel. This waste of money, coupled with American sanctions has devastated the value of the Iranian Rial. The present black-market rate of the Rial is close to 1 million to the dollar compared to 70 to the dollar before the Shah was overthrown. Khamenei has led Iran down a path of poverty, destruction and despair. Over 500 executions take place annually in Iran. Khamenei has proven that he is prepared to use the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to kill those demonstrating against the regime. Without any doubt Khamenei is the leading nominee for a BTA. Hopefully it will soon become a posthumous award.
What Israel builds, others try to destroy. This is the reality of the Middle East.
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).
History is repeating itself, not as tragedy or farce, but as a horror story
By Andrew Fox
There are moments in history when the shadows of the past cast such a long menace over the present that they become impossible to ignore. We are experiencing such a moment now. The rise in antisemitism since October 2023 is not a collection of isolated incidents. It is a direct reflection of a darker era.
I gave a talk to Holocaust survivors last month. More than one told me that the mood in the UK for Jews now resembles Germany in the 1930s. The difference between them and others claiming this is that they remember it from the first time around.
Blame the Jews. The suggestion of this antisemitic conspiracy graffiti in the UK is that Jews were responsible for 9/11!
They are right. This is no longer hyperbole; it is fact.
The Holocaust didn’t start with gas chambers. It started with graffiti, slurs, and whispers. It began with people asking Jews to account for themselves.
“Are you loyal?”
“Are you one of us?
In 2025, that looks like:
“Are you a Zionist?”
I heard exactly that question last night over a pint with a friend who had attended a Jewish cultural event. The barman (in the Three Crowns in St James, if you’re interested) demanded of my friend:
“Are you a Zionist?”
The implication was clear that support for the Jewish state now carries a moral price tag. It is a litmus test for belonging, for acceptability. That is not political disagreement; it is a modern shibboleth meant to mark Jews for social exile.
We are witnessing a global rise in antisemitism at a scale not seen for generations. Some of it is overt. It is violent, chilling, and reminiscent of the pogroms Europe once vowed never to repeat. In Amsterdam last year, what was initially dismissed as football hooliganism was later revealed, through text messages and court transcripts, to be a lynching of Jews driven by pure racial hatred. Not “anti-Zionism”; pure Judenhass.
Is antisemitism embedded in British culture? This swastika was painted on the hood of BMW in Bristol, England on Yom Kippur in 2019.(Photo credit: WZO)
At Glastonbury, the ‘singer’ of British act Bob Vylan, repeating popular blood libels against the Jewish state, stood before tens of thousands and chanted for the death of every soldier in the Israel Defence Forces. Again, I’m not being hyperbolic; it was his literal demand. A call for the wholesale killing of Jewish soldiers, which in practice means calling for the deaths of the sons and daughters of almost every Israeli family. That’s not resistance. That’s incitement. When crowds cheer that on, we are no longer in the realm of protest. We are in something else entirely.
How did Glastonbury become Nuremberg? What was frightening at Britain’s biggest music festival in Glastonbury on June 28,2025 was not only the band Bob Vylan leading a chant of “Death, death to the I.D.F”, but the crowds joining in enthusiastically repeating the chant. (Yui Mok/PA via AP)
What begins as words – “Zionist”, “settler”, “coloniser” – becomes real-world violence in short order. The language matters. Words shape permission structures. They signal what is tolerated and what is forbidden. When an artist calls for the death of every IDF soldier, and the crowd cheers, it gives a green light to every unhinged antisemite listening.
This hatred does not exist in a vacuum. It is fed, every day, by an information campaign unlike anything we’ve seen since the Cold War. Hamas and its allies have mastered the dark art of manipulating digital imagery, fabricating statistics, and weaponising words and emotion. They show the world what war looks like and demand that we call it genocide.
Civilian casualties in Gaza are not the consequence of genocidal intent, but the normal, tragic by-product of every war in history, compounded by the deliberate strategy of a terror regime that uses its own people as human shields. Hamas has stored weapons in schools, fired rockets from refugee camps, and built command tunnels beneath hospitals. Then they cry victim when those military targets are struck. Meanwhile, humanitarian aid is entering Gaza at record levels (on average, double the daily amount compared to before the war began, when there was no accusation of starvation), but activists still scream famine. The truth doesn’t matter when the lie is more powerful.
The twisting of words doesn’t end with outright lies. The greatest trick Hamas and their allies ever pulled was to conflate Judaism with Zionism. They have made the world believe they are one and the same, then claim that they are “only” against the latter. This sleight of hand has given countless antisemites the perfect semantic shield. “I’m not antisemitic,” they say. “I’m just anti-Zionist.” Yet their targets are Jewish schools, Jewish homes, Jewish shops, and Jewish friends.
Jews in the rough! Antisemitic vandalism found at Hendon Golf Club, North London. The nearly 600% surge in antisemitic incidents following October 7 didn’t just reflect outrage over a war — it exposed how quickly anti-Jewish hate can erupt.(Photo: Screenshot/X)
I recently had dinner with a friend who told me that she no longer feels safe in her own social circles and does not wear her Star of David in public. Online, she is inundated with hate, a lifelong Londoner accused of supporting child murder simply for being Jewish. She is far from alone. Jewish students are being harassed on campuses. Mezuzahs are being chiselled off doorposts. Synagogues are being forced to increase security. The Israeli Embassy in London was recently the target of a foiled terror plot. The memorial to the Israeli hostages in Brighton was recently covered in faeces.
On your Doorstep. Man caught on CCTV footage on May, 2025 approaching homes of Jews in London’s Golders Green to hack off with a knife, mezuzahs from their front doors. (Photo: X:)
This is not about discomfort with Israel’s policies. This is about the dehumanisation of an entire race.
I do not believe that most people cheering these slogans or waving these flags are consciously antisemitic. Some will be; now they have a licence to act on long-held prejudices that they no longer feel the need to hide. Many, though, are what Lenin once called useful idiots: fellow travellers swept up in the fervour of a cause they do not fully understand. Others are overwhelmed by propaganda; duped into believing they are standing for justice, when in fact they are being used as foot soldiers in a much darker campaign.
Motivation doesn’t matter, though. We are watching words turn to violence in real time. The signs are all there, just as they were in the 1930s. We promised Never Again, but that promise is meaningless if we fail to act when it matters.
We are not yet where Germany was in 1938. However, we are close to where we were in 1933. The slogans, the silences and the scapegoating of Jews are back. Words matter, so let us call it what it is: antisemitism. If we keep showing cowardice on this issue, we will find, all too soon, that the violence is back too.
The spiral from slur to slogan to stone is always shorter than we think.
A veteran of three grueling tours of Afghanistan, Major Andrew Fox holds a Batchelor’s degree in Law & Politics, a Master’s in Military History & War Studies, and is currently studying for a PhD in History.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
A breed of South African vultures prey upon the deceased to further their political narrative.
By Josh Schewitz
There is a grotesque political theatre that has been actively around for years in South Africa, hiding in the wings, that is, until Israel was invaded by marauding mass killers from Gaza on October 7, 2023!
The star director in these theatrics is DIRCO, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, in ‘cooperation’ with a suspect cast that includes terror-sponsoring states, professional full-time activists, journalists, and bureaucrats who feed not on facts but corpses – literally – all to undermine the legitimacy of the one Jewish state in the world – Israel. This is the script in a nutshell.
As if taking their cue off the local wildlife, they wait like vultures circling the wounded. They need and feed off death and salivate over child-sized coffins to prop up their message. They may call themselves humanitarians but in reality they are scavengers feeding off proverbial carrion.
Every Gazan life the Hamas terror organization purposely sacrifices as a human shield is a new talking point. Every IDF airstrike targeting terrorist’s intent on killing and holding hostages is spun into another indictment – not of Hamas, but of Israel.
The facts do not matter to them. The context does not matter either because to people like Jo Bluen – a former newspaper columnist for the South African daily ‘Business Day’ and presently a PhD candidate in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE) in genocide studies – tragedy is not a humanitarian crisis – it is political capital.
Bluen’s Logic! “Actually, the idea of Zionism is in itself a very antisemitic idea,” says Jo Bluen.
A good insight on Bluen’s bias is revealed in this 2 December 2023 posting of hers that articulates her ignorance as well as her naked prejudice:
“Abolish the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. Abolish the South African Zionist Federation. They do not speak for Jews, but for Zionists. They are dangerous, Islamophobic, racist and antisemitic.”
The ultimate evildoer in the world today for Bluen is the Zionist, and if evil is not rooted in Western colonialism, it warrants no concern to her. Hence ethnic cleansing of the Kurds, the slaughter of the Armenians by the Turks and the persecution of Christians by Muslims conveniently escapes her attention for it fails to fit into her worldview.
PATRON SAINT OF WEAPONISED GRIEF
Bluen is not some fringe radical shouting from the digital wilderness but has evolved into an amplified voice in South Africa’s anti-Israel propaganda machine – in classrooms, in the media, and outside the offices of companies that provide jobs for many South Africans. Her tantrums, incitement and hate speech towards Jews and her calls outside the US Consulate in Sandton or on her social media pages to “abolish” the State of Israel have not gone unnoticed.
Whether she lies about “290,000 children being starved to death,” or discredited stories about Israel bombing hospitals, her circle treats her malicious messaging as gospel. They do not question her sources but accept and recycle them.
Most of their talking points originate from rogue Hamas-run media offices in South Africa, Iranian-funded channels, or anonymous Telegram accounts.
POSTING FOR PERFORMANCE, NOT PEACE
Bluen boldly accuses Israel of “genocide” when there is no evidence whatsoever. Yes, the crime of genocide requires a specific intent, known as dolus specialis, that is, to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. Israel has no such “intent” other than to defend its civilian population by rooting out and removing an existential threat. That is the nature of war not genocide. Bluen would off course know this but choses to ignore that her Hamas heroes killed scores of innocent people younger than herself while they were dancing and enjoying life; that they raped, beheaded, kidnapped and tortured, not to mention facts that Hamas:
– hijacks their own Palestinian people’s aid
– slaughters Gazan’s in cold blood and
– has built terror tunnels under hospitals and
– uses their own civilians as human shields.
Out of the mouth of Joe Bluen: “Genocide is not unique to the Nazi Holocaust; it is the story of colonial modernity” and “While Israel weaponises Judaism, it is a settler colonial fascist state, not a religion.”
When Israelis were slaughtered – babies decapitated, Israeli families burned alive and civilian apartment buildings and Israeli hospitals were destroyed by Iranian missiles, Bluen said nothing.
No outrage!
No grief!
Just lies and justification of terrorist murderers she has grown to admire and wilfully chosen to stand by, aid and support.
Because in her warped worldview, Jewish blood is not to her human loss but – using her lexicon – “colonial” consequence.
‘RED TRIANGLE’ RITUAL
Every time Israelis are murdered whether festival goers gunned down in fields, toddlers shot in cold blood or taken hostage only to be brutally murdered by their kidnappers, families burned alive in safe rooms or even an unrelated Israeli civilian diver killed in a Mediterranean off-shore shark attack, Jo Bluen has ZERO sympathy. Instead, she marks or nay we say celebrates the moment with an inverted red triangle – originally a sign of resistance in the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks – today the symbol adopted by online Hamas sympathisers to identify, harass, and target Israelis and Jews. Glorifying Hamas’ terror, the inverted Red Triangle – is a dog whistle for increased violence against Jews.
This Woman is Evil.Modeling herself on the women who sat beside the guillotine during the French Revolution and would knit at public executions, Cape Town’s Jo Bluen uploads onto her social media accounts the inverted Red Triangles when Israeli soldiers are killed as in this posting on her X and Instagram accounts rejoicing following the death of 3 Israeli soldiers.
This symbol, banned in Germany since 2024, appears on Bluen’s profile not when Jewish civilians are spared, but when they are slaughtered. It is her euphemism for:
“They had it coming.”
In any other conflict, waving the emblem of a terror group after a massacre would be called what it is: glorifying violence, but for Bluen, the red triangle has become her badge of honour – her digital bloodstain.
Bluen is Blunt. Joe Bluen says on Salaamedia, “The Nazi Holocaust has become something that is being used as a political point scoring thing ….that is being taken out on Palestinians and Muslims as a European Zionist Colonial project that has found its antisemetism being directed to Muslims and Palestinians.”
CULTURE OF COWARDICE
Let us not pretend South Africa has a watchdog culture. There is no press council challenging this infectious poison. The South African Human Rights Commission is complicit as are the NGOs that claim to champion human rights but are conveniently silent or captured. There are those South African journalists that quote these vultures masquerading as “experts”. They are invited onto panels; address public functions and provided op-ed space. Platformed and protected, this is not activism, it is indulgence. It comes at a cost. Because every unchecked lie about Israel “targeting children” while ignoring Hamas’ military tactics is not just bad journalism -it is incitement. It fuels antisemitism. It radicalises youth. It tears at the social fabric of an already fractured society and it will eventually kill.
CALL IT WHAT IT IS
What is in ‘play’ here in these theatrics is not peace-building but fetishised war porn masquerading as social justice and Jo Bluen and her comrades do not want the conflict to end because the minute the rockets stop flying and the cameras stop rolling, they lose the one thing they crave more than anything – relevance. This orchestra of enablers that includes government figures, academicians, media operators, and NGO apparatchiks have built entire careers out of blaming Israel while absolving terror.
Voice of Violence. Screenshots from Bluen’s Public Instagram account leave little doubt about her dangerous intent towards Israelis. (left) a neon sign reading “Every day is f**k Israel day”; (right) Bluen appears in a red keffiyeh with the caption “good afternoon from serious face – abolish ‘israel’”.
Far from being humanitarians, these are political morticians who dress corpses in talking points. Unless South African institutions grow a backbone, they will keep thriving on the blood of others.
A Woman of Waffle. Hard to believe from this rambling interview that Jo Bluen of Cape Town will be accepted to study for a PhD at the London School of Economics unless the LSE welcome candidates who suggest to “Free Palestine” is to “….Abolish ‘Israel’ and the Zionist entity and its white internationalisms of genocide settler colonial inter-nationalisms.” ( Jo Bluen online post August 2024)
About the writer: Josh Schewitz is a researcher and analyst specializing in Africa and the Middle East, with a focus on securitiy related topics in addition to blockchain technology.
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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This week’s Lay of the Land’s ‘Photo-Pick’ as a satire on TV news today!
STATUS OF GLOBAL MEDIA
Breaking Meows. Capturing the decline in public trust in mainstream media, Lay of the Land selected this photo snapped in London on July 9 of a journalist interviewing ‘Larry the cat’, Chief Mouser at 10 Downing Street, while visiting French President was meeting the British PM.(Photo: Reuters/ Chris J. Ratcliff)
Articles
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DEVASTATION AND RESILIENCE
Visiting South African photojournalist, Ilan Ossendryver, captures in real-time the Measure and the Mood in Israel during Iran’s devastating missile attacks. ByRolene Marks
Capturing Catastrophe. Renowned SA photojournalist was in Israel to launch his book “Israel After October 7” – a collection of photographs documenting the destruction and horror following the attack on 7 October, when suddenly Iranian missiles rained down on Israeli cities. Out came the resting camera…
Consistent in his skewed prejudice against Israel, coupled with concealing facts and distorting the truth, South African Jewish cartoonist stokes the fires of antisemitism and endangers the Jewish community. ByStephen Schulman
‘Bloodbath’ is Blood Libel. Reverting to Medieval antisemitic iconography of Jews as “baby-killers”, SA cartoonist, Jonathan Shapiro, paints 21st century Jews as the ultimate Jew-killers – Nazis. Armed with a poison pen, this modern-day Stormtrooper endangers Jews everywhere.
As Iran’s ballistic missiles pummel Israel’s urban areas turning residents into evacuees, Israel’s hotels – despite tourist decline – meet the challenge. By Motti Verses
Hotels for Homeless! Hardly publicized in the international media, a devastated apartment complex in Tel Aviv following an Iranian missile attack. Following similar strikes at city centers across the country leaving thousands homeless, Israel’s hospitality industry opened its doors.
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).
07 July 2025 – Bibi heads to Washington and Roro has some words for the Australian PM on The Israel Brief.
08 July 2025 – Warning: Graphic content. Dinah Report into sexual violence on 7/10 and headlines on The Israel Brief.
09 July 2025 – Who are we wishing Mazel Tov to on The Israel Brief? Watch here.
09 July 2025 – USA sanctions UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese and your mensch and moron of the week 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).
Visiting South African photojournalist, Ilan Ossendryver, captures in real-time the Measure and the Mood in Israel during Iran’s devastating missile attacks.
By Rolene Marks
South African photojournalist Ilan Ossendryver was stranded in Israel during ‘Operation Rising Lion’. Recognizing the magnitude of the war, Ossendryver grabbed his camera and went to the various sites of impact to record this time in history – and show the destruction on civilian infrastructure caused by the Iranian missiles.
Shattering Symbolism! A glass window cracked by the impact of an Iranian missile attack in Bat Yam on June 15, 2025, leaves a generalized shape of Israel intact. (Photo: Ilan Ossendryver.)
Ossendryver had been due to launch his book, “Israel after October 7” – a collection of photographs documenting the destruction and horror on the Kibbutzim and communities following the attack on 7 October and was staying with family in Givatayim – when suddenly he found himself confronting new devastation. He spoke to the news agency and wire service,JNS about what it was like to be in Israel during the war with Iran and the impact of recording history as a photographer:
“ I have covered many of Israel’s historic events. Personally, the most difficult was October 7 atrocities. That as a photographer and as a Jew has been the most difficult. All other photo stories – even tough ones to cover such as suicide bombings – the atrocities carried out by Hamas has been the hardest.”
Coastal Chaos. Hardly covered in international news networks, a neighborhood of Israel’s coastal town of Bat Yam was devastated in an Iranian missile attack on June 15, 2025 that killed nine civilians. (Photo: Ilan Ossendryver).
He continues:
“As the air raid sirens blared and we ran to bomb shelters, I like everyone prayed that the missile would not hit us and when the all clear was given, we sighed with relief and thanked G-d… until the next siren. I was personally afraid and was worried. After spending time in the bomb shelter and getting the all clear, I visited the sites where Iranian ballistic missiles struck with such devastation.”
City Centre. An Iranian missile destroyed parts of a building and a car in central Ramat Gan on June 19, 2025. (Photo: Ilan Ossendryver.)
The imperative to document what was happening was paramount to him – especially when the media in his native South Africa gives little, or any, coverage to Israel’s side.
Continuing, Ossendryver told JNS:
“It was still incredible to be here in Israel. This is my second huge war. It reminds me of the scud missiles fired here in 1991 by Iraq; the world doesn’t really understand what is going on, especially in South Africa where you don’t get these reports. Only one side is reported. I am here with my family documenting life in Israel under war.”
Crumbling Complex. Of no military value, a close-up of the devastation caused by an Iranian missile to a residential building in Be’er Sheva, killing four people on the last day of the war, June 24, 2025. (Photo: Ilan Ossendryver.)
Documenting various sites horrendously impacted by the Iranian missiles, Ossendryver says:
“It is actually quite remarkable and even though countries in the West don’t want to admit it, but Israel is defending the West. They keep complaining about it but Israel has to defend itself.”
The damage caused by direct impacts was immense. Buildings and neighborhoods were totally destroyed. Many of these areas will have to be bulldozed and cleared in order to create new housing developments. “Buildings shops houses, all destroyed but the miracle was that even though there were some deaths, the death toll, considering the state of destruction, was remarkably low,” says Ossendryver.
Lives Shattered! Homes devastated from an Iranian ballistic missile in Rishon LeZion, South of Tel Aviv. (Photo: Ilan Ossendryver).
Operation Rising Lion, which many are referring to as the “12-Day War” tested the nation’s collective resilience muscle. The Israeli people, still deep in their trauma following 7 October have endured nearly two years marked by loss and war but remain strong.
Messaging the Mullahs. Israeli resilience on display in Tel Aviv. (Photo: Ilan Ossendryver).
Ossendryver was profoundly impacted by his experiences and notes that “the lasting impressions for each of the impact sights was the resilience of the Jewish people, the Israeli people, that didn’t scream hate, that didn’t call for death but said plainly that our hearts are still beating and we shall rebuild.”
Rising from the Rubble. A policeman with two puppies he rescued from the rubble in Bat Yam after an Iranian missile attack on June 15, 2025. (Photo: Ilan Ossendryver).
About the photoprapher:
Ilan Ossendryver has been a photojournalist for over 25 years covering international news events such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Gulf War, the war in Lebanon, the Israeli Jordanian peace agreement, and the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin. He photographed at Hosni Mubarak’s palace in Cairo where the late Yitzhak Rabin met Yasser Arafat for the first time. He also documented life under Apartheid and the release of Nelson Mandela. He has covered two American presidents, seven Israeli prime ministers, as well as many well-known people from Leonard Bernstein, Pavarotti, FW De Klerk, Michael Jackson and Gorbachev. Illan’s photographs have appeared in many international newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Forbes, Der Spiegel, South China Morning Post, The Times of London, The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Yedioth Acharanot, Maariv and The Star of Johannesburg. He is currently the resident photographer of the Johannesburg based Jewish Life Magazine and the South African Jewish Report.
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).
Friday morning in Be’er Sheva this June, 51-year-old Sima Elimeleh huddled with her husband Avi and their daughters in their apartment’s safe room as air raid sirens echoed throughout the city.
It’s Personal. “We were determined to do everything we could for those who had lost their homes and their sense of safety,” said Sima Elimeleh, GM at the Leonardo Negev hotel of Fattal group in Be’er Sheva. (Photo: Ohad Abrahimi)
Heightening the family’s anxiety was the previous day’s ballistic missile strike from Iran scoring a direct hit on the nearby Soroka Medical Center, that provides medical services to approximately one million residents of the South. Then, when the news broke that another missile had hit their normally quiet neighborhood causing severe damage to numerous buildings, and local residents reeling from shock began to assessing the destruction, Elimeleh, the General Manager of the Leonardo Negev Hotel, quickly shifted gears. Asking her husband to manage preparations for their family’s Shabbat (Friday night) dinner, Elimelah Whats App’ed her hotel management team to report immediately to the hotel. Despite being only three months in her new position, she acted like a seasoned professional and arrived there within ten minutes. Her team wasn’t far behind.
Hit on a Hospital. Damage at the Soroka hospital in Be’er Sheba following a direct hit from an Iranian missile barrage on June 19, 2025. (Credit: Israel Fire and Rescue Services)
Within an hour, the hotel had transformed. Guest rooms were readied, public spaces organized, refreshments laid out, and even a kindergarten was established. “We at Fattal Hotels have experience hosting 20,000 evacuees since October 7,” Elimelah explains. “But when it’s your own hometown, people you know, whose children go to school with yours, it hits differently – it’s personal. I felt a sense of mission. We were determined to do everything we could for those who had lost their homes and their sense of safety.”
Minutes before the ceasefire was announced of the ‘12 Day War’, Be’er Sheva suffered another deadly attack, claiming four lives. A second wave of evacuees soon arrived at Elimeleh’s hotel. By nightfall, 500 civilians were housed there. Many are expected to remain for at least a month.
Serving the People. The Fattal Hotels that have been hosting Israeli evacuees since October 7, 2023, were back in “business” when its Leonardo Negev hotel in Be’er Sheva welcomed evacuees following the devastating missile attacks from Iran that also hit the local Soroko hospital.(Photo: Aya Ben-Ezri)
The events of October 7 and the ensuing war with Hamas displaced over 200,000 Israelis, particularly from communities near Gaza and later from the north. Many were sheltered in hotels and short-term rentals. What began as temporary arrangements soon extended into months, testing the limits of logistics, finances, and emotional resilience.
Hoteliers found themselves in dual roles: offering standard hospitality services while simultaneously meeting humanitarian needs. Guest rooms were repurposed for long-term stays. Support services, mental health care, educational programming, childcare was coordinated in part by the government.
The hard-earned experience from those months proved invaluable when Iranian missile strikes targeted Israeli cities this June. Since the outbreak of Israel’s military campaign with Iran, the country’s tourism industry has faced a dramatic downturn. Regional tensions, heightened travel advisories, flight cancellations and general insecurity have nearly brought international tourism to a standstill. Even domestic tourism, especially in the north and along the southern coast has evaporated. In this vacuum, many hotels saw housing evacuees as both a moral imperative and a practical solution.
One person well-positioned to manage this challenge is Romi Gorodisky, Deputy General Manager of the Israel Hotel Association. Known as a behind-the-scenes powerhouse, Gorodisky has led crisis responses since 1996, when the IDF launched ‘Operation Grapes of Wrath’ against Hezbollah. On October 7, she helped establish a command center to oversee hotel placements for evacuees from both the Gaza and northern borders. When ‘Operation Rising Lion’ against Iran began, she launched a new center. “In the Iron Swords operation, launched following the October 7, 2023 massacre,everything was centrally coordinated via the National Evacuation, Care, and Casualties Authority (EWC); this time, the responsibility shifted to municipalities,” she says.
While the previous efforts focused on peripheral communities, this round of war effected Israel’s urban centers. “Of the 15,000 evacuees, 10,000 were placed in hotels,” she explains. “The rest stayed with friends or family. We worked with municipalities to place people close to their original neighborhoods, preserving familiar environments and community continuity,” she says. Her team’s real-time ops room and inventory system – another possible Israeli innovation – allowed for rapid, efficient placement of evacuees. Their proven-under-pressure methodology may well serve as a model for crisis management globally. It would also do the industry good by being studied at hotel schools.
New Home. Danny Sadeh (right), Yoav Yaari and Tyson the dog became literally overnight evacuees when an Iranian ballistic missile struck a building near their apartment in Tel Aviv causing widespread damage. (Photo: Danny Sadeh)
Among the displaced is 72-year-old Danny Sadeh, a former tourism correspondent for the Israeli daily, Yedioth Aharonot, who has reviewed hotels worldwide and locally for 20 years. He was evacuated just hours after a missile struck a building near his Tel Aviv apartment. “I found myself with my partner in a 14-square-meter room at the Brown Bobo Hotel, along with 100 other civilians,” he recounts. “The room is small, but the food is excellent and the staff is incredibly supportive.” Sadeh, who has stayed in over 250 hotels in 40 countries, says this stay is unlike any other. “This is the first time I’ve had to bring my dog. Running to the basement during sirens, especially when the elevators are full, isn’t pleasant. Much of our time is spent on paperwork related to our damaged apartment. This is not a hotel stay I ever imagined.”
Home away from Home. Following the destruction of their home from an Iranian missile, the Brown Bobo urban hotel in Tel Aviv provides for evacuees this guest room. (Photo: Max Kovalsky)
So how are hoteliers in metropolitan Tel Aviv responding to this unexpected influx of guests? Dr. Eran Ketter, Head of the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Kinneret Academic College, offers some perspective:
“From January to April 2025, Tel Aviv hotels saw only 45% occupancy, due to the sluggish return of international tourism. The arrival of evacuees has improved this, offering hotels a much-needed revenue stream, at least temporarily.”
Rescuing Kids. Security and rescue personnel at the scene where an Iranian ballistic missile hit in Tel Aviv, June 22, 2025. (Photo: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.)
Still, challenges remain. Many Tel Avivian evacuees will struggle to find alternate housing in a city where real estate values are comparable to major global hubs like Paris and New York. “However, the hospitality industry has adapted. In 2024, many hotels experimented with hybrid models, hosting evacuees alongside regular guests. While this brings operational challenges and concerns about guest experience, most people seem to understand the unique reality we’re living in. To avoid friction, larger hotel chains may designate specific properties for evacuees while reserving others for tourists. Flexibility will be key,’’ concludes Ketter.
Meeting Changing Needs. With war impacting negatively on international tourism, Israel’s “hospitality industry has adapted,” says Dr. Eran Ketter, Head of the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Kinneret Academic College. (Photo:Tal Hefetz)
Ask any Israeli hotelier, and they’ll tell you:
“We long for peace and the day when tourism resumes in full force. Until then, we will continue to serve evacuees quietly, professionally, and with compassion.”
Feature picture: These were once Israeli Homes! Apartment complex in Tel Aviv following a direct missile strike launched from Iran on Sunday, June 22, 2025. (Photo: AP/Oded Balilty).
About the writer:
The writer, Motti Verses, is a Travel Flash Tips publisher. His travel stories are published on THE TIMES OF ISRAEL https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/motti-verses/. And his hospitality analysis reviews on THE JERUSALEM POST, are available on his Linkedin page LinkedIn Israelhttps://il.linkedin.com › motti-verse…Motti Verses – Publisher and Chief Editor – TRAVEL FLASH TIPSAnd his hospitality analysis reviews on THE JERUSALEM POST, are available on his Linkedin page LinkedIn Israelhttps://il.linkedin.com › motti-verse…Motti Verses – Publisher and Chief Editor – TRAVEL FLASH TIPS.
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).
Consistent in his skewed prejudice against Israel, coupled with concealing facts and distorting the truth, South African Jewish cartoonist stokes the fires of antisemitism and endangers the Jewish community.
By Stephen Schulman
The Cape Town Jewish community is presently in an unenviable position: under siege with many of its members fearing for their own and their family’s safety and even their future in this so called “rainbow nation”.
Why in such a “happy land” finally freed from the shackles of Apartheid should such a situation exist? Simply because the ANC that has been ruling South Africa for the last thirty-one years, through widespread corruption, an institutionalized kleptocracy and the appointing of its party hacks (who also mostly happen to be clueless nincompoops) to official positions, has managed to ruin and reduce it to the status of third world country. The government has also zealously devoted itself to the cultivation of ties to countries with odious human rights records. At the present, South Africa and Iran are snug in each other’s arms, locked in a passionate embrace with Pretoria assiduously disseminating that regime’s genocidal and virulently antisemitic vitriol. Cape Town is extremely fertile ground as it also has a large Muslim population that over the years has become deeply radicalized and increasingly militant, supporting Hamas and Hezbollah. Its clerics draw from the well-known pigswill bucket of anti-Semitic tropes, preach jihad, view the terrorists as freedom fighters, whitewash their atrocities and call for the destruction of Israel.
The combination of these two contributing factors has made the Jewish community come under assault; for Jews and Zionists are seen as one of the same. Jewish schools and institutions have naturally come under attack. There have been continuous demonstrations and mass protests, often violent, in areas that have a large Jewish community with the suburb of Sea Point now becoming the epicenter. Only recently, not content with demonstrations, a large motorcade with horns blaring, Palestinian flags waving and megaphones broadcasting slogans drove through the suburb. Unsurprisingly, all protests about this disturbance of the peace were brushed off by the municipal authorities for after all, when so many people are unemployed, live in squalor without basic services and suffer from a horrendous crime rate, there is nothing like the distraction of a well funded and organized demonstration against a common enemy i.e. the Jewish State to take their minds off their miserable plight.
Shapiro, a most gifted caricaturist, is well aware of the power of his cartoons in shaping public opinion Consumed and contorted by an obsessive and visceral hatred of Israel, devoid of any moral proportion with a tunnel vision that sees Trump and Netanyahu as the sole enemies of civilization – he is nothing less a groveling Iranian proxy eerily echoing the message of his evil masters that see the USA and Israel as the “Great Satan” and the “Little Satan”.
The caricature of the 24th June, “Theatre of War” is just one more example of his warped mentality. The message is crude and clear: Israel is the instigator of a war with Iran but suffers far less damage. Trump enters to help his old friend. However, the genuine causus belli is an act, a divisionary ploy to distract the world from Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. Moreover, in case you missed it, Shapiro feels the need to remind us that Trump is a “sulky egomaniac”
On the very same day, to drive his twisted message home, Shapiro eagerly churned out a second cartoon with the inspiration lifted straight from the 1964 film “Dr Strangelove“. In it, the grotesquely demonical Netanyahu, intent on needless destruction, is sitting astride a bomb while pulling Trump along like a dumb ox. Once again ad nauseam the State of Israel is the root of all evil. With such an impressive portfolio of distorted caricatures that would do a totalitarian regime journal proud, our Jonathan’s work could easily find a place at a Tehran gallery’s current exhibition of antisemitic cartoons and land a job at the North Korean and Iranian press offices.
A reasonably informed person would be aware of Iran as the leading state sponsor of global terrorism as well as being a genocidal state seeking Israel’s destruction. This person would also be aware of its contravention of limits imposed on its uranium enrichment and Israel’s defensive pre-emptive strike that concentrated on Iran’s military- nuclear complex. He/she would also learn from the media that Iran purposely sent missiles against population concentrations in the Israeli cities causing much devastation and rendering thousands of people homeless. Iran has also destroyed a large hospital serving the Jewish and a large Muslim community and ruined invaluable medical research laboratories in the famed Weizman Institute thereby destroying priceless research. It also used cluster bombs, outlawed in over one hundred countries, when targeting civilian centres.
True to form, Shapiro consistent in his hatred, concealing facts and distorting the truth, not only creates a willfully misleading picture. He – once more – not only deeply offends his home town’s proudly Zionist affiliated community but increases its fears and insecurity as he diligently stokes the fires of antisemitism and feeds the flames of racial hatred.
Donald Trump, our Jonathan’s other fixation and object of his venom is constantly and luridly depicted as a fully uniformed, jackbooted Nazi SA storm trooper complete with his swastika armband. The US president may be many things, but a Nazi he is not. His pride in his three Jewish grandchildren and his rallying to Israel’s side are hardly the actions of a subscriber to that abhorrent ideology. Shapiro in his typically shameless insensitivity, indiscriminately and arbitrarily abuses the term “Nazi” to describe anyone whose ideas do not dovetail with his own definition of political correctness. He has lifted the word out of its true context, distorted and debased it: a defilement of the memory of the martyrs of the Holocaust and an affront to the survivors – a number of whom reside in Cape Town.
A visit to Shapiro’s official site is both instructive and illuminating. A perusal of a lengthy list of his caricatures reveals a natural ongoing concern with SA’s problems, his chronic fixation with the USA and Israel – but next to nothing else (in well over two hundred and fifty of his caricatures, one relates to Bashar Assad and two to Putin). The “Why I am still fighting monsters everywhere!” fearless dragon slayer mounted on his high horse, preening himself on his ethics is simply incapable of or unwilling to seek out other “monsters” in this world. Hollow words from a little hollow straw man.
Jonathan Shapiro sees himself as an African and identifies with the struggle of its oppressed peoples, yet here he suffers from bad case of moral myopia and conveniently turns his head to look the other way. The continent is currently roiled by many wars and sufferings. There are the massacres and the genocide in Sudan perpetrated by the Janjaweed militia with the consequent mass starvation and devastation whose dimensions dwarf all other conflicts. In Nigeria, the Fulani tribesmen have destroyed many Christian villages and churches, murdering thousands, raping and abducting young girls. In some African states such as Mauritania, slavery is still actively practiced with millions still in bondage. And further afield, what about the atrocities committed by Al Qaeda and ISIS? Where is his voice? The silence of our shining knight with his self touted conscience is deafening. The reason is crystal clear: the perpetrators are Moslem and Jonathan, knows full well on which side his bread is buttered. Why cause offence, possibly be called Islamophobic and suffer the backlash? Why lose the support of your public when it is far more pragmatic to flush your so–called ideals down the bowl where they will spill out to further pollute the Cape beaches. Our man has to make a living by selling his books, penning caricatures for the newspapers, and peddling his cutesy statuettes of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu (the unsigned ones are now on sale for a bargain half price!) Much better to turn a blind eye!
The jewel in the crown of Shapiro’s website is a filmed interview conducted by a most affable and accommodating young man who from his name appears to be Muslim. Ensconced in his comfortable Camps Bay home, sitting next to his drawing board with anti-Netanyahu caricatures prominently displayed, the self promoting, fawning, and sycophantic Shapiro, falls all over himself in his feverish eagerness to extol his moral virtues and display his political correctness. And lest we forget, the video opens with the camera focusing on two especially chosen exceptionally lurid and denigrating caricatures of – yes, you guessed it! – Netanyahu.
I must confess that after a few minutes of watching this cloying performance, I was overcome by nausea and had to stop. Those gifted with strong stomachs and endowed with infinite patience are welcome to try to watch a tedious and repetitive twenty-six minutes until the end.
In Jewish history there are many recorded instances of aberrant members who have forsaken, turned against and harmed their people. However, Jonathan Shapiro in sinking so low has created a new category: that of a self serving hypocrite who through his actions knowingly harms the community but has no qualms about exploiting its services for his own needs. Such an abhorrent individual, devoid of conscience, scruples and common decency is beneath contempt.
Stephen Schulman is a graduate of the South African Jewish socialist youth movement Habonim, who immigrated to Israel in 1969 and retired in 2012 after over 40 years of English teaching. He was for many years a senior examiner for the English matriculation and co-authored two English textbooks for the upper grades in high school. Now happily retired, he spends his time between his family, his hobbies and reading to try to catch up on his ignorance.
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).
