27 October 2025 – Ultimatum to return remaining deceased hostages given to Hamas and more on The Israel Brief.
28 October 2025 – Hamas stage hostage recovery and more on The Israel Brief.
29 October 2025 – The Israel Brief from The Kotel.
30 October 2025 – Drama at the WZO and Roro speaks out on an important subject 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).
Maccabi Tel Aviv’s sorrowful ban from Aston Villa plunges football into darkness.
By Jonny Gould
A chunk of my background, both personal and professional, has been washed away.
I didn’t think football was supposed to hurt like this.
Banning a mere thousand or less Israeli football fans from Villa Park for a Europa League tie is a cause for deep sorrow.
Emily Damari, who was held hostage by Hamas for more than a year before being released in January, and who supports football teams Maccabi Tel Aviv and Tottenham Hotspur, said “I am shocked to my core with this outrageous decision to ban me, my family and my friends from attending an Aston Villa game in the UK…..Football is a way of bringing people together irrespective of their faith, colour or religion, and this disgusting decision does the exact opposite.”
But not just for me, an Aston Villa fan through my Holocaust-surviving grandfather who setup his typewriter shop bang next to Aston Station on the Lichfield Road, but for this generation of Villa fans and those to come.
Why?
Because football is supposed to be a thrilling, entertaining source of pride; not a dispensary for anger and shame, of imported hate and community breakdown.
Is the Beautiful Game still beautiful?
My generation and those that came before had the best of it. We enjoyed league title wins, European glory and trips to Wembley.
Birmingham Ban. This is a photo Europeans would prefer NOT to see in their media hence the ban on Israeli supporters to the upcoming match in Birmingham between Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv. The ban has reignited concerns about ethnic tensions and antisemitism in Britain.
But it would have meant nothing without the communal joy and camaraderie it spawned.
And for this Jewish kid, it was a high voltage plug-in to the prevailing, sometimes overwhelming culture of my city beyond my upbringing.
So, accepting they were of me, that by the age of 21, I was reporting my beloved team from the press box for the radio station covering the West Midlands and Shropshire.
When I returned as a national reporter to the old Trinity Road box years later, the stewards, dear old men, bowled me over with their effusive welcome back. Like that beautiful Archibald Leitch-designed stand, their unvarnished spirit is gone.
Taking a Stand. An age gone by with fans walking towards the old Trinity Road Stand. Now the ‘stand’ is against supporters from Israel, for “security concerns.”
So, this is my own very personal sadness about what football and the city that helped shape me has become.
The English game shunned politics, now it’s buried by it.
Snarling Islamist boycotters – an elected MP is trashing what was good here. For what?
They think it’s all over. It is now.
Imans Message – Show NO Mercy. More than half the population of Aston, one of Birmingham’s most ethnically diverse neighbourhoods. In a shocking video, a Birmingham Muslim Imam, Asrar Rashid, expressed what would befall any fans coming from Israel: “We will show no mercy toward Maccabi Tel Aviv fans who will arrive in several weeks for the match against Aston Villa.”
About the writer:
Jonny Gould is a television and radio presenter on Talk and host and producer of Jonny Gould’s Jewish State podcast. At the end of 2018, he launched a podcast in response to the unchecked and sudden rise of UK antisemitism. In a short time, “Jonny Gould’s Jewish State” (on Apple, Spotify and elsewhere) has grown into both a snapshot and library of the changing temperature for one of the west’s oldest and continuous Jewish communities. As a board member of the Israel Diaspora Trust, Jonny’s also regularly briefed off-the-record by influencers and decision-makers across the US, Israel and the UK.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
In a world that is increasingly polarized, sport is one of the few unifiers. It is not just about bringing people of different backgrounds together, sometimes it is about helping new olim (immigrants) acclimate to living in Israel – and finding their friends and community.
For many female olim who want to try break into the Israeli sports scene, the challenges may seem overwhelming. Language barriers, bureaucracy and cultural differences are sometimes prohibitive but playing a sport, especially a team-oriented game, can do wonders.
In recent weeks, Tazuz and Project Max, who are both organisations building bridges and breaking barriers through sports, held the Golda Meir Tournament for women’s soccer/football.
Nobody exemplifies the power of Israeli women more that former Prime Minister and icon, Golda Meir. Meir, an “olah” herself, was a trailblazer in many ways and it is in her memory and spirit that Tazuz and Project Max held the second annual Golda Meir Tournament for women’s soccer (football).
Breaking Barriers. Seen here are women from different communities across Israel play soccer at the 2025 Golda Meir Tournament.
The “beautiful game” is the quintessential unifier.
“Sport has the unique ability to bring people together. It is a way to share a common love, to have fun, to compete, and to socialize – and it also has the ability to provide an outlet – both physically and emotionally. For the past 2 years, Israelis have suffered tremendous emotional trauma due to multiple warsand the fact that 48 (at the time of writing this) of our loved ones are still held hostage by an evil terrorist organization. In part, for that reason, I couldn’t have imagined a better time for Project Max to support the Golda Meir Women’s Football Tournament in conjunction with Tazuz,” says Eric Rubin, CEO of Project Max.
Man with a Mission. Eric Rubin, Executive Director of both Together Vouch For Each Other U.S. and Project Max, presents the prizes at the Golda Meir Tournament for women’s football.
Rubin continues, “We were able to bring together about 50 young women from all over Israel, who were able to play the sport they love. They were given the opportunity to forget all that is going on around them and have a few hours where all they were focused on was having fun, bonding, exercising, and competing. It would also be remiss of me if I didn’t recognize that unfortunately, we as a nation, do not give the same resources, respect, funding, and opportunities to women’s sports. We all need to do our part to change the culture and attitudes in regard to women’s sports.”
On the Ball. Despite the tense situation around them in their country, these young ladies were determined to focus on, in the words of competition organizer, Eric Rubin, to enjoy having “fun, bonding, exercising, and competing.”
Project Max’s mission is fighting racism, antisemitism, and intolerance through sports, leveraging advanced technology and the support of professional athletes. Maia Cabrera, an olah who plays for Maccabi Kishronot Hadera and the Israeli National team, is a proud Ambassador of Project Max.
Women’s soccer has not received the funding and exposure that male dominated soccer has and female players have fought hard to ensure that their funding is increased. It is a battle that they have won – albeit not on the level of their male counterparts.
Founded by an oleh chadash (new immigrant) from Mexico after moving to Israel as an international student, Tazuz is a sports and social club that connects people in Israel through recreational leagues, academies, courses, and community events. Tazuz operate in multiple cities, offering activities such as tennis, surfing, beach volleyball, soccer, and more — all designed to create meaningful human connections through sport.
“Tazuz was established primarily for international students, providing a community away from home where they can enjoy their favorite sports in an organized, friendly, and welcoming environment.” Says Eitan Hirsch, the founder of Tazuz.
Naming a women’s tournament after iconic Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir was a natural fit.
Golda’n Opportunities. Following Golda who broke barriers for women in politics, the Golda Meir Tournament for women’s football is breaking barriers through sport.
Eitan continues, “The Golda Meir Tournament was created to bring together Israelis and internationals from different cities in a fun, amateur yet competitive soccer environment. This year, we hosted our second annual tournament. The idea started when I noticed that every week, over 30 women would come just to watch our men’s soccer league. We thought: Why should they only watch? They should be playing too. We first ran two women’s leagues, but soon realized many participants were looking for structured training rather than just competition. That’s how our Women’s Soccer Academies began — 2-month programs where women can train weekly with professional coaches to improve their skills.”
The academies were started first in Herzliya, followed by Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and now have over 50 women actively training.
The Golda Meir Tournament brought together 35 women from various cities (6 from Herzliya, 9 from Jerusalem, 20 from Tel Aviv) for a truly unique and memorable event. Tazuz’s core mission is to foster connections across communities, empower women in competitive sports both in Israel and globally, and ensure every participant has an enjoyable experience. The Golda Meir Tournament perfectly embodies this vision.
“The tournament was hosted in the Maccabi Tel Aviv training courts, and we had the privilege of having Eric representing Project Max, who was the sponsor of this event and gave the trophy to the winning team, the Tel Aviv team, who took it this time,” said Eitan Hirsch.
Having a Field Day. These cup recipients were among 50 young women from across Israel, who were able to compete in the sport they love.
Tazuz plans to launch more academies across the country that will aim to welcome more participants and strengthen connections across communities. Hirsch concludes, “Our goal is to encourage more people to play and to help the growth of sports—one goal at a time!”
With academies across the country and partners like Project Max, these ladies are set to be trailblazers in women’s soccer. Golda would be proud!
Beautiful Spirit. These young girls from diverse communities across Israel came together to have fun competing in the “Beautiful Game”.
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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The Multiple Emotions captured on the faces of these four Israeli women at HostagesSquare on the news of the release of the live hostages appear as a visual metaphor for Israelis and Jews the world over.
(Photo: AP Oded Balilty/AP)
ARTICLES
Please note there is a facility to comment beneath each article should you wish to express an opinion on the subject addressed.
(1)
IN THE SHADOW OF THE OCTOBER 7 MASSACRE ANTI-ISRAEL LOBBY TARGETS SOUTH AFRICAN HOLOCAUST MUSEUM
A coalition of anti-Israel groups in South Africa threatens Johannesburg Holocaust Museum to endorse Gaza genocide claims or face protest and disruption. By Marika Sboros
Hijacking History. The JHGC which educates future generations of South Africans about the Holocaust and provides meaning to “Never Again”, is now the target of anti-Israel groups that falsely equate Gaza suffering with the Holocaust, weaponizing Jewish trauma to vilify the Jewish state.
Israeli withdrawal from Gaza exposes horrific global hypocrisy and silence of those who ‘claim’ to be pro-Palestine. By Jonathan Feldstein
Gruesome Gaza. The WORLD STANDS SILENT while pro-Palestinian activists in the West justify Hamas operatives grabbing Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel and then executed them in public.
The folly and failures of the endless attempts to exterminate Jews and the Jewish state. By Neville Berman
Malevolent Manipulations. Raphael Lemkin, “the man who coined the word genocide” and was an active member of the interwar Polish Zionist movement from which he drew the ideas that inspired his idea of the “crime ofgenocide” would be horrified today to see how it has been abused against the Jewish state.
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).
20 October 2025 – Hamas violates ceasefire and more on The Israel Brief.
21 October 2025 – A Royal visit of solidarity and more on The Israel Brief.
22 October 2025 – Two more hostages returned and Roro has the hiccups on The Israel Brief.
23 October 2025 – Israel lambastes the ICJ re UNRWA 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).
A coalition of anti-Israel groups in South Africa threatens Johannesburg Holocaust Museum to endorse Gaza genocide claims or face protest and disruption.
By Marika Sboros
(Courtesy of BizNews where article first published)
South Africa’s anti-Israel lobby has lost all its marbles – if its latest initiative is anything to go by.
It has cobbled together a motley group of 14 extremist, pro-Palestinian lobbyists to send a “declaration of intent” to the JohannesburgHolocaust & Genocide Centre (JHGC).
The JHGC is hosting a conference of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) from October 20-24. The group is not happy about the conference, and lots more besides, as its declaration makes clear.
The declaration is lengthy, laborious, overwritten and heavily weighted with rhetoric, false assumptions and irony. Its tone is strident. It accuses the JHGC of “silence and complicity at a time when a genocide is unfolding before the eyes of the world.”
It’s Not About Genocide. Only 3 days after the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel and long before Israel’s army entered Gaza, members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign protest on October 11, 2023 outside the South African Jewish Museum, next to the Israeli consular office in Cape Town, South Africa.. (Photo: Reuters/Nic Bothma)
No prizes for guessing just who the group believes is committing genocide and where.
The group informs the JHGC that it will protest at the venue. It makes a myriad of demands, including that the JHGC names and opposes the “genocide” in Gaza and acknowledges Israeli “apartheid and settler colonialism.”
It also demands that the centre calls for:
– the closure of the Israeli Embassy
– endorses global BDS (Boycott, Disinvestment, Sanctions) efforts; and
– partners with “anti-racist, anti-fascist and faith-based groups in education and prevention work.”
If the JHGC agreed to all those demands, it would have no time for the important work it was set up to do.
Its stated mission is to explore 20th century history of genocide, focus on Holocaust case studies and the 1994 Rwanda genocide, and examine connections between genocide and contemporary human rights issues in South Africa. Its work is also to aid understanding of the consequences of prejudice, discrimination and “othering”.
JHGC makes it clear that, as part of its mission, organisations involved in Holocaust and genocide research (even if controversial) may use its venue to hold conferences.
Hijacking History. The JHGC which educates future generations of South Africans about the Holocaust and give meaning to “Never Again” is now the target of anti-Israel groups that falsely equate Gaza suffering with the Holocaust, weaponizing Jewish trauma to vilify the Jewish state.
The anti-Israel lobby’s declaration of intent leaves the group of 14 desperately seeking relevance as the US-brokered ceasefire-hostage release ending Israel’s two-year-long war against Hamas holds by the thinnest of threads.
That’s despite Hamas being in clear breach for not yet handing over remains of all dead hostages – and despite new video footage revealing Hamas in all its vengeful, genocidal extremism, executing and torturing its own people in public.
Pro-Palestinian lobbyists globally remain deafeningly silent and more concerned with what Israeli football teams are doing.
Leading the group of 14 is the usual-suspect, pro-Palestinian power couple: the South African BDS (Boycott, Disinvestment, Sanctions) Coalition and its devoted bedpartner, South African Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP). SAJFP has revelled in its status as a key player thanks to the Jewish voices it brings to the table.
These voices are a tiny, vocal minority of South Africa’s Jewish community, and indispensable to the genocide claim against Israel. They make the claim not just news but narrative gold.
After all, nothing says – “we are not antisemitic, just anti-Zionist” – quite like a Jewish stamp of approval.
SAJFP members appear oblivious to the many landmines for Jews who align with the broader pro-Palestinian movement of Iran-backed Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). All are proscribed as terrorist organisations in many countries.
By default, or design, Jews who support it effectively endorse entities committed to their total annihilation.
In trying to protect Palestinian lives, Jews lend legitimacy to groups committed to ending all Jewish lives. They are left in a moral maze, with no easy exits and plenty of rhetorical tripwires.
The group of 14 includes the ironically titled Queers for Palestine.
In Israel, LGBTQ+ people enjoy legal protections, pride parades and social acceptance. In Gaza, homosexuality is criminalised under Hamas rule. Queer Palestinians face arrest, torture and death, often at the hands of their families.
Under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, homosexuality is technically legal. However, LGBTQ+ people face widespread social stigma, harassment, and threats of violence, often from family or community members.
Queers for Palestine activists voluntarily embrace a cause that would erase the very freedoms they enjoy were it to succeed politically. They may rationalise such stupidity by saying that solidarity with Palestinians does not imply endorsement of Hamas or homophobia.
However, the juxtaposition is jarring, with rainbow flags waving in defence of a region where flying one could mean a death sentence.
The dominant aim of the group of 14’s declaration of intent is clearly to breathe new life into the zombie genocide claim. It falsely claims that “by now, every serious legal and scholarly authority has reached the same conclusion (that Israel is committing genocide).”
If the lobbyists had asked, I could’ve told them that that’s false. I could’ve provided a list of serious legal and scholarly authorities, Jews and non-Jews, who’ve reached the opposite conclusion (that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza).
The list is too long to name them all here.
Eminent Jewish scholars and commentators argue that the genocide claim is a modern blood libel that echoes medieval myths about Jews murdering Christian babies to drink their blood.
It symbolically recasts Jews, historically victims of genocide, as perpetrators. It equates Israeli military actions with deliberate child-killing.
Critics warn that the genocide blood libel distorts legal definitions, ignores context and fuels antisemitic tropes, portraying Jews as uniquely monstrous.
It ignores the essential legal threshold for genocide – that the necessary special intent to destroy a group in whole or in part should be the “only inference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question,” as the International Court of Justice ruled in the Croatia vs Serbia case in 2015. It collapses complex military conflicts into morally absolute narratives.
The group of 14 intends writing to the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) to say that by “hosting their gathering at a venue that refuses to name Gaza as a genocide, they are legitimising both-siderism and moral cowardice.”
I could have told them to say nothing about anything to do with the IAGS, as the organisation is beset by possibly terminal credibility issues.
In September, the IAGS passed a resolution accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. Mainstream media, including Reuters, and the BBC and The Guardian in the UK, instantly framed and amplified the resolution as “expert consensus”.
IAGS head Melanie O’Brien publicly supported the vote, stressing that the resolution passed with “overwhelming support.”
She was disingenuous in the extreme.
The voting was a sham, fractious affair marked by procedural flaws, divided membership and claims of hijacking and “invasion” by anti-Israel forces. It relied heavily on notoriously unreliable “Hamas-produced statistics,” without distinguishing civilians from combatants.
Although 86% of voters passed the resolution, only approximately 111 out of 129 participants, or just 22-28% of the claimed 500-member base, had voted.
The resolution’s passage without prior debate, town halls or disclosure of authors sparked immediate backlash. O’Brien’s stance drew praise and backlash, reflecting deep divisions in genocide interpretations in contemporary conflicts.
IAGS member Rachel Stein, a US legal scholar in international criminal law, called the vote:
“…deeply biased and inaccurate”.
Stein said it ignored Israel’s stated intent in prosecuting the war that Hamas started – releasing all remaining hostages, dead or alive, and disarming Hamas.
Designed to Deceive. Clearly no understanding of the Holocaust or “genocide” when posters at South African anti-Israel protests read “From SS to IDF – The same boots crush different children”.
Critics also raised questions about the IAGS $30 entry fee as the primary membership criterion, for low-income members requiring no verification of expertise. As Grok points out, this allowed non-experts, activists, artists and even prank social media accounts on X, such as “Adolf Hitler” or “Emperor Palpatine”, to become members and vote.
In October 2023, this reportedly led to a membership surge from around 150 to over 500, with nearly half reportedly from Iraq. Not surprisingly, the IAGS is left looking like a platform for activism rather than rigorous analysis.
The controversy reveals wider global tensions, blurring the line between genuine academic inquiry and activism. It risks the weaponisation of genocide discourse amidst conflict.
At heart, the group of 14’s “declaration of intent” ends up just another a “familiar script”, one that Canadian anthropologist Adam Louis-Klein has identified. It “circulates among anti-Zionist Jews globally,” he says in a social-media post.
Louis-Klein explains the script as a story of a character raised within a supposedly narrow world of Zionist “indoctrination” only to “wake up through an encounter with progressivism.” The character concludes that Zionism is “incompatible with their newfound moral clarity.”
After nearly two years of darkness, the Gaza ceasefire has brought flickers of light, increasing moral clarity and cautious optimism. Images of families embracing loved ones who survived the hell of Hamas captivity pay homage to the power of commitment, endurance and love.
But joy is tempered with profound, dark grief as Hamas prolongs the torment of families still waiting for closure in Israel.
Accusations of genocide against Israel continue. The extent to which Hamas weaponised deliberate starvation – hoarding aid, punishing dissent, turning hunger into control and starving hostages close to the point of death – is clear.
Message following a Massacre. A month following the October 7 massacre of Jews in southern Israel, violent anti-Israel protesters attack and disrupt on November 12, 2023, a pro-Israel prayer rally in Cape Town’s suburb of Sea Point.
Hamas started this war with its genuinely genocidal rampage in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
As Gaza exhales and its displaced people return to their homes, the true architects of genocide against Israel and Jews stand increasingly exposed.
The world community needs a real “awakening”. It has mostly stayed resolutely silent in the wake of atrocities Hamas, PIJ and assorted civilian hangers-on committed in Israel on October 7.
As Louis-Klein writes, a real awakening is not simply about “trading one set of slogans for another.” It is the refusal to let pressures of political moments capture the moral imagination.
It’s about building “judgment rooted in knowledge, complexity, and historical understanding.”
About the writer:
Marika Sboros is a South African freelance investigative journalist with decades of experience writing fulltime for the country’s top media titles on a wide range of topics. She started her career as a hard-news reporter in the newsroom of the now defunct Rand Daily Mail, a campaigning anti-government newspaper during the worst excesses of the apartheid era. She commutes between South Africa and the UK.
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).
Israeli withdrawal from Gaza exposes horrific global hypocrisy and silence of those who ‘claim’ to be pro-Palestine.
By Jonathan Feldstein
The recent days of October 2025 in Israel have been filled with heart wrenching euphoria mixed with cautious optimism, and foreboding. After two years in unspeakable conditions and captivity, Hamas has released all the 20 living hostages who have returned home to begin a long process of physical and emotional recovery. Predictably, Hamas has also violated the terms of the agreement to release all the bodies of the 28 remaining hostages. As of this writing, most still remain in the terrorists’ clutches and one of the bodies that they released was not that of a hostage – a ploy they have done before. It’s noteworthy that each of the coffins released needs to be scanned first for explosives before beginning the process of identification of the remains and autopsies.
These are violations of the terms of the agreement that Hamas signed, another form of psychological terror, fitting well in the Islamic practice of taqiya – lying to “infidels”.
At the same time, Israel has agreed to release 2000 terrorists, hundreds of whom serving multiple life sentences for maiming and murdering Israelis. The pain and suffering from the family members of the victims is palpable, as is the fear that any of us could be these terrorists next victims. Or one might rise to become a leader like Yahya Sinwar who masterminded the October 7 attack and massacre, and who was released in a previous deal to free one kidnapped Israeli soldier over a decade ago.
We are also witnessing something only slightly less horrifying: the silence of Hamas supporters around the world who have been chanting for a ceasefire and to protect Gazans for the past two years, even before the slaughter of Hamas terrorists on October 7-8, 2023, was put down. It’s not new, but flies in the face of anyone claiming to be pro-Palestine (whatever that means), using any made-up reason to blame Israel for the suffering of Gazans, but turning a blind eye to the fact that all the Gazans’ suffering is a direct consequence of Hamas using them as human shields.
Now that Israeli troops have withdrawn from Hamas controlled population centers, what we’re witnessing today is a horrific hypocrisy met by silence of those who claim to be “pro-Palestine”. Hamas has not only not disarmed per the deal, but has undertaken widespread executions in broad daylight across Gaza, ostensibly to eliminate collaborators, but mostly to exert their control and continue to instill fear among Gazans. The gruesome public executions are witnessed and filmed by hundreds.
Why are people standing around watching, filming, and not resisting?
Why is the world largely silent?
Why is there no widespread media outrage calling out Hamas as the inhuman brutal Islamic terrorist organization that it is?
Why are there not a plethora of public statements from world leaders and celebrities who have protested against Israel?
Why are there no “Free Palestine” hashtags in response to these executions?
Because without Israel to blame, the actual suffering of Gazans isn’t worth a tweet. Because nobody really cares about Gazans. Their ire is more against Israel rather than pro anything.
With Israeli troops withdrawn and a ceasefire in place, even the UN now admits there’s enough food in Gaza for three months. What happened to the “famine” narrative? The UN’s hypocrisy underscores that there never was one, but it was just another lie, ingested by a world smacking its lips to villainize Israel.
Gazan ‘Humanity’. The world stands silent while other pro-Palestinian activists justify as Hamas militant grabs a Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israel, before being executed in Gaza City, August 22, 2014. (Photo: Reuters/Stringer)
The veil has been lifted. No famine and Hamas executing Gazans. But wait, there’s more.
Of the alleged “genocide” Hamas claims that 67,000 have been killed since October 7, 2023. Other than the fact this this conflates several thousand terrorists who were killed that day, and tens of thousands more in targeted combat, the Hamas numbers are not verifiable. Nevertheless, if we’re to believe that number, it’s now also reported that 58,000 of them were terrorists…that’s an 86% ratio, the lowest proportion of civilian to combatant casualties in any war in history. Ever.
If Israel attempted a “genocide”, then Israel executed the most failed genocide ever. It’s astounding how many bought into the “genocide” lie, and who are now silent.
Comprending the Incomprehensible. British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore laments that while the October 7 2023 Hamas attack resembled “a medieval Mongol raid for slaughter and human trophies,” academics, students, artists, and activists “have denied, excused, or even celebrated the murders….”
With Hamas streaming the deliberate killing of Gazans, the veil is lifted. Why are there no:
– “Free Palestine” outcries
– no pleas to save Gazans from Hamas?
Because it was never about freeing “Palestine” but excoriating Israel.
That fraudulent brainwashing has been nothing less than psychological manipulation designed to make the world hate Jews even more. To make Jew-hatred acceptable. Through their vile protests, in which people were paid to partake and instigate others, they have made the world think that the Jews are the Nazis. But in fact, it’s the deliberate mass brainwashing of millions of eager gullible people, and the literal execution of perceived opposition and enemies of their regime, it’s clear that they are the Nazis. Their ideology is what is genocidal.
October 7th was the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust and somehow, the narrative was twisted. Israel and Jews have been blamed for all of it, and the world actually believed it. If you’re reading this, please take the time in the coming weeks and months to dig deeper. To understand. Not to accept the reflexive blame of Israel that will continue to come from the four corners of the world, and which has always been a lie. Do not accept the silence as so many Gazans continue to be tortured by Hamas. Have the courage to speak out against abhorrent false information.
The threats are real, to Gazans, to Israel and to the West. The enemy is the same. Please take time to understand, and speak up. The deal reached, and already violated by Hamas, is not a peace deal, but an agreement to see the end of active combat and release of all the hostages – dead and alive. Hopefully.
Gazan ‘Justice’. A graphic clip, which ABC NEWS has verified shows several men in Gaza City being forced to kneel in the middle of a large gathered crowd as they are about to be executed in public by high-powered weapons.(Planet Labs PBC)
Please pray for the hostages and their loved ones, that they should have full physical and emotional rehabilitation. Pray for the families of those who have been killed as they, hopefully, received their loved ones remains and begin to find closure. Pray for Israel, and its continued safety and security and, if needed, success in continuing to eliminate Hamas threats.
*Feature picture: Hamas militants kill seven suspected collaborators with Israel in a public execution in Gaza City.
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).
The folly and failures of the endless attempts to exterminate Jews and the Jewish state.
By Neville Berman
On the morning of October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel. Volumes have been written about what happened that morning. What this article is about, is finding out why Israel is now accused of genocide, and why hundreds of thousands of people across the world are demonstrating against Israel. The answer to the first question in one word is “money” and the answer to the second question is “antisemitism”. Read on for a more detailed explanation.
Once Israel was attacked, it exercised its right to self defence. It acted beyond all internationally accepted rules of warfare. In order to save civilian lives in Gaza, Israel introduced multiple warnings and even phone calls to hundreds of thousands of civilians to move to safe areas where they would not be attacked. By doing this, Israel achieved a ratio of combatants and civilians killed that is unmatched by any other army in the world that has engaged in urban warfare. In many cases Israeli soldiers were killed because the army wanted to avoid civilian casualties. Clearly the intention was never to commit genocide.
One of the six founding organs of the United Nations that was established in 1945 is the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The mandate of the ICJ is to adjudicate disputes between countries. The ICJ has no mandate to prosecute organizations that are not countries. This is the perfect “get out of jail free card” for terrorist entities to engage in the most grotesque crimes against humanity without being prosecuted by the ICJ. To remedy this absurd situation, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in July 2002. The ICC deals with individuals responsible for committing crimes against humanity. It has a staff of 900 employees, and its budget for 2025 is 195 million Euros. Despite all the atrocities in the world, the ICC has only convicted 15 people of crimes against humanity during the 23 years of its existence. This includes the latest conviction of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al Rahman of 27 crimes against humanity in Darfur, Sudan.
In order to bring an action to the ICJ, a country has to be a party to the dispute. There is one exception to this rule. Genocide is considered such a serious crime, that even if a country is not a party to the dispute, it can bring a charge of genocide against another country. This is how South Africa managed to bring a charge of genocide against Israel at the ICJ. After hearing the evidence presented, the ICJ ruled that it was plausible that South Africa had the right to bring such a case, but did not find that Israel had committed genocide. The whole purpose of South Africa was clearly to demonize Israel. They succeeded beyond all expectations.
After the trial ended, the BBC ran a program that totally turned the findings of the court on its head. The BBC claimed that the ICJ found that it was plausible that Israel had committed genocide. The presiding head Judge of the ICJ immediately condemned the BBC for wrongly reporting its findings. Nevertheless, the damage was already done.
Every antisemite in the world suddenly felt justified in their beliefs. Their hidden hatred of Jews could now be openly displayed. The latest blood libel against the Jews soon turned into a tsunami of protests across the world. They all carried the same message. Israel was committing genocide. The irony of the situation is that the term genocide was coined in 1944 by a Polish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, in response to the mass murder of Jews in the Holocaust. Accusing Israel of committing genocide, is the ultimate injustice and insult to holocaust survivors and all Jews.
Malevolent Manipulations. Raphael Lemkin, “the man who coined the word genocide” and who was an active member of the interwar Polish Zionist movement from which he drew the ideas that inspired his idea of the crime of genocide would be horrified today to see how it has been abused in its misuse against the Jewish state in its defensive war on multiple fronts.
The African National Congress (ANC) has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994. By 2023, the ANC had accumulated debts of over 500 million Rand, and was unable to finance its election campaign for the next elections due in May 2024. This situation would obviously result in the real possibility that the ANC would lose the election. Something needed to be done to remedy its dire situation.
Naledi Pandor was the South African Minister of International Relations from 2019 to 2024. During her university years, she converted to Islam. Towards the end of 2023, she visited Iran. In January 2024, Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of South Africa, announced that the ANC had paid off all its debts without offering any explanation as to where the money came from. An American think tank discovered that a few days after the South African government brought a case of genocide against Israel, the money to pay off its debt suddenly appeared in the ANC’s coffers. News 24, South Africa’s largest online publication ran a story headlined:
“IRAN BEHIND SA’S ICJ CASE”
What can be said for certain is that the South African government has never explained where the huge cash injection actually came from, and that South Africa has become one of the most anti Israel governments in the world.
The claim that Iran financed the government of South Africa and in return South Africa brought a case of genocide against Israel is extremely credible, but difficult to prove. Both Iran and South Africa have become experts at lying and obstructing the truth from public scrutiny. No response has been forthcoming from either the South African government or Iran as to how the ANC’s debts were paid off.
ANC – Iran’s Hit Man. Much has been written alleging that Iran, an enemy of Israel, essentially paid South Africa’s ruling ANC that was teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.
There are many things that Israel is good at, and there are some things that Israel is not good at. The two major things that Israel is definitely not good at is public relations and committing genocide. Most people agree that Israel has a right to defend itself. What makes people really angry is the fact that Israel keeps winning. They claim Israel is too powerful. Jews are too rich. Jews are communists, Jews are capitalists. Jews are crooks. Jews are the cause of all the problems in the world. The Jews kill babies to make matza for Passover. The Jews caused the plague. Jews control the world. The Jews killed Christ. The Pope is Jewish. You name it, the Jews have been blamed for it.
The Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, Spaniards, Portuguese, the British, the French, the Ottomans, the Polish, the Ukrainians, the Baltic States, the Russians, and the Nazis, all tried to kill the Jews. Most countries occupied by the Nazis in Europe were complicit in rounding up their Jews for mass extermination. Even neutral Switzerland turned away hundreds of Jews seeking to escape the Holocaust. Empires have come and gone. The Jews are still around.
From Romans to Gazans. Since the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, there has been no shortage of enemies trying to expunge the Jews from their ancestral homeland. Iran and its proxies are learning the lesson of failure.
In a moment of contrition, the world tried to cleanse its guilty conscience, and approved the UN Partition Plan of Palestine in 1947. Once the State of Israel was declared in May 1948, the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Lebanese, the Jordanians, the Iraqis, all had a go at eliminating Israel. The United States of America refused to supply Israel with a single bullet for 19 years. Despite all the odds, Israel survived. In 1967, Egypt, Syria and Jordan tried again. This time they were defeated decisively and Israel took control over all of Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, all of Judea and Samaria and the Sinai. Then came the surprise attack by Egypt in 1973 followed by intifadas and suicide bombings. Nothing defeated Israel. The latest attempt by Iran to build proxy armies to annihilate Israel has also failed. With every attack, Israeli resilience has strengthened. The latest rush to support the creation of a Palestinian State is a fool’s errand. The truth is simple. Israel is the eternal homeland of the Jewish people and Jerusalem is its capital and that’s the way it’s going to stay. Israel will continue to innovate and prosper. I am not sure one can say the same about Europe.
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).
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With the announcement of the return of hostages and the end of the Gaza war, Israelis explode with unrestrained jubilation.
Joy and Jubilation. People gather at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025 prior to the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Concerns and tensions remain for the unreturned dead hostages in Gaza. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
ARTICLES
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IT’S HUNTING SEASON AND JEWS ARE THE PREY
Reichman University’s Counter Terrorism Conference offered insights on identifying threats and emerging trends. By David E. Kaplan
Terrifying Two Words. Attending the ICT25 Shabtai Shavit World Summit on Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University, two words were projected in bold on the lecture hall screen that sent shivers. What does ’Stochastic terrorism’ mean and how can it be countered? Jewish lives around the world depend on the answer.
Divisions within South Africa’s Jewish community on Israel reflect global drivers. By Marika Sboros
Dubious Donation. With the bust of her Zionist philanthropic grandfather Morris Mauerberger looking on, Dianna Yach presents her family foundation’s donation to Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, who shared a platform under a banner proclaiming, “We are all Hamas” and said, “…the Zionists were too clever… They control the world with money.”
A reflection during the agonizing interlude between deal signing and return of our hostages. By Jonathan Feldstein
Dance Interlude. While Israelis celebrate at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv the announcement of a deal to free all the hostages and the end of the war in Gaza, the writer reflects on internal and external issues and questions how the future may unfold.
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).
13 October 2025 – Historic and emotional day in Israel. The latest on The Israel Brief.
15 October 2025 – Update on the Hostages and more on The Israel Brief.
16 October 2025 – We salute a very special hostage 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).
