Category: Personal Observations/Reflections

LONDON’S DIRTY SECRET: HOW STOLEN REGIME FUNDS FLOW THROUGH THE UK

Britain cannot claim to confront the Iranian regime while simultaneously serving as a repository for its money.

By Emily Schrader

The United Kingdom likes to pretend it is still a defender of democracy and a leader in confronting authoritarian regimes. Yet when it comes to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Britain’s policies reveal a far more uncomfortable reality.

Despite years of warnings from security officials and lawmakers, the UK government has still failed to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, even after the European Union has done so. There are a litany of excuses offered as to why, but one possible factor is increasingly difficult to ignore: Islamic regime-linked wealth has become deeply embedded inside the British financial and property system.

Recent reporting illustrates just how extensive these connections may be. Investigations into the financial network surrounding the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have linked him to a series of luxury properties in London. Property records indicate that two high-end apartments in Kensington were purchased in 2014 and 2016 for roughly £50 million. The apartments are located just meters from the Israeli Embassy. The properties were reportedly registered through companies tied to Iranian businessman Ali Ansari, a longtime associate of regime elites who has since been sanctioned by the British government for his alleged role in helping finance activities linked to the IRGC.

Too Close for Comfort. Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei (left) reportedly owns two London apartments on same street as the Israeli embassy (right). Only 50 yards away, it enables easy surveillance, constituting a ‘serious security breach’.

Further reporting suggests these apartments may represent only a fraction of the assets connected to that network. Investigations have identified a broader web of London properties linked through intermediaries and shell companies, including homes on Hampstead’s Bishops Avenue, often called Billionaires’ Row. The combined value of these properties has been estimated in the hundreds of millions.

At the center of this network is Ali Ansari, an Iranian banker and businessman who built a vast property empire across some of London’s most expensive neighborhoods. Yet by the time sanctions were imposed, many of the assets connected to his business network had already been absorbed into the British property market through offshore companies and complex ownership structures – something which works to the benefit of nefarious actors like the Supreme Leader.

The financial power surrounding the Supreme Leader’s office is enormous. A 2013 Reuters investigation estimated that Setad, the conglomerate controlled by the Supreme Leader and formally known as the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order, oversees assets worth roughly $95 billion across industries including telecommunications, banking, pharmaceuticals, real estate, and energy holdings. Setad was originally created after the 1979 revolution to manage properties confiscated from Iranians who fled the country, including businesses and land seized from political opponents and religious minorities. Over time it evolved into a vast corporate empire operating largely outside public oversight and answering directly to the Supreme Leader’s office.

Tentacles of Terror. Iran’s new Supreme Leader’s London properties were reportedly registered through companies tied to Iranian businessman Ali Ansari (above) who has been sanctioned by the British government for his alleged role in helping finance activities linked to the IRGC.

Setad is only one component of the broader economic structure controlled by Iran’s ruling elite. Religious foundations known as bonyads, which also report directly to the Supreme Leader, control an estimated 10 to 20 percent of Iran’s economy. These organizations operate with minimal transparency and enjoy sweeping tax exemptions while managing massive portfolios of real estate, industrial assets, and financial investments.

Analysts have long viewed Mojtaba Khamenei as a key figure inside this financial and political network. For years he has been widely described by Iran experts as a power broker within the Supreme Leader’s office who maintains close ties with senior commanders of the IRGC. Together, the economic empires of Setad, the Bonyads, and IRGC-linked business networks control significant portions of Iran’s economy, creating a system where political authority and economic wealth are tightly intertwined.

The IRGC itself operates one of the largest economic empires in the Middle East. Analysts estimate that companies connected to the IRGC control between 20 and 40 percent of Iran’s economy, with holdings in construction, telecommunications, banking, energy, transportation, and shipping. The Guard’s massive engineering conglomerate, Khatam al Anbiya, has secured billions of dollars in infrastructure and energy contracts across the country. Because many of these businesses operate through private companies, front organizations, and intermediaries, the financial networks tied to the regime frequently extend far beyond Iran’s borders.

This financial ecosystem intersects with another vulnerability inside the British system. London’s real estate market has become one of the world’s most attractive destinations for opaque foreign capital. Transparency advocates have warned for years that Britain’s property sector functions as a global laundromat for politically exposed wealth. According to Transparency International, more than £5.6 billion in suspicious funds has been invested in UK property linked to corruption or politically exposed individuals.

A major reason for this vulnerability is the widespread use of offshore ownership structures. Prior to recent transparency reforms, roughly 90 percent of foreign-owned property in London was held through offshore shell companies registered in secrecy jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands or Panama. Even today, more than 90,000 properties across the United Kingdom remain owned through offshore entities, often making it extremely difficult to identify the ultimate beneficial owner. These structures have allowed politically connected elites from around the world, including figures linked to sanctioned regimes, to quietly park wealth in Britain’s property market.

Members of the Islamic Republic’s ruling families have also established personal and professional footholds in the United Kingdom. Hadi Larijani, the son of senior Iranian regime official Mohammad Javad Larijani, works as a professor at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland. Another Larijani family member, Zeinab Ardeshir Larijani, is listed in UK corporate filings as a director of British companies. The Larijani family is one of the most powerful political dynasties in the Islamic Republic. Several brothers have held top positions in the regime including speaker of parliament, head of the judiciary, and senior adviser roles to the Supreme Leader.

The contradiction is striking. While the Iranian regime arrests protesters, suppresses women’s rights, and funds militant proxies across the Middle East, relatives of senior officials appear able to live, work, and conduct business in Western countries including Britain.

This reality raises an uncomfortable question. If the UK government were to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization and aggressively dismantle the financial networks tied to the regime, what else, and who else, might be exposed inside Britain’s own economy?

For years, London has benefited from its role as a global financial hub. But that openness has also created vulnerabilities. The same system that attracts legitimate international investment has also provided opportunities for authoritarian elites to shield their wealth abroad.

Britain cannot claim to confront the Iranian regime while simultaneously serving as a repository for its money. If the UK is serious about countering Tehran’s destabilizing activities, it must begin by addressing the regime-linked financial networks operating within its own borders.

Until that happens, the message from London will remain painfully clear:

The Islamic Republic may be condemned in speeches and sanctions lists… but its money is still welcome.



About the writer:

Emily Schrader is an American-Israeli journalist, human rights activist, and the founder of the Iran Israel Alliance. She is an an anchor at ILTV News, and the host of Axis of Truth on JNS. Emily also is a cofounder of the Cyrus Strategic Fund, and she sits on the executive board of the Institute for Voices of Liberty, a think tank focused on European and American Iran policy, and has advised lawmakers across North America and Europe on Iran policy. In 2025, she released her first book, 10 Things Every Jew Should Know Before They Go To College and has lectured all over the world on the topic of rising antisemitism. Emily is the winner of the 2023 Nefesh b’Nefesh Bonei Zion award for outstanding immigrants to Israel, and in 2025, she was given the Women of Iron award by Chochmat Nashim for her dedication to women’s rights.





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).

TIME FOR IRAN’S NUREMBERG TRIALS

Nazi Germany existed for less than a generation. Islamic republic for nearly half a century. The list of crimes and people to be tried will be endless. That alone makes this urgent.

By Marziyeh Amirizadeh

The elimination of the Islamic Republic cannot come too soon. After 47 years since the Demonic Revolution that brought the ayatollahs to power, and Iranians to their knees, subjugated by the mullah’s extremist Islam, Iranians need to be free.  Iranians will celebrate the fall of the terrorist regime with glee, but to be complete there also needs to be justice for the perpetrators.  What’s needed is an Iranian version of the Nuremberg Trials.

While the ayatollahs seat of power physically is in Tehran, the spiritual seat of power is in their “holy city,” Qom. The Qom Trials will turn the city from which the Islamic Republic derived its theological “authority” abusing Iranians for decades into a capital of justice.

Members of the Iranian parliament chant slogans in support of Hamas on Oct. 7. (IRNA)

Following WWII and the Holocaust (with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz commemorated this week), the allied powers needed to come up with a framework to bring justice to the perpetrators of the genocide of the Jewish people and other crimes against humanity. Facing the challenge of how to deal with Nazi war criminals, rather than summary executions or purely national trials, they instituted an international legal process to establish individual accountability and deter future such crimes.

The charges against the Nazis included: conspiracy to commit crimes, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. A total of 199 defendants were tried, 161 convicted, 37 of whom were sentenced to death. While this was groundbreaking and critical, it’s worth remembering that the Nazi’s crimes spanned less than 15 years. After 47 years of the Islamic regime in control, it seems that these numbers will only scratch the surface in Iran.

What’s needed now is to establish a new framework to try and bring to justice leaders and agents of the Islamic Republic. There is a body of international law and precedent for the world to hold foreign terrorists to trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Nazi Germany existed for less than a generation. Islamic republic for nearly half a century. The list of crimes and people to be tried will be endless. That alone makes this urgent.

While I was subject to the misogyny and cruelty of the Islamic Republic since I was a young girl, many of these experiences I recounted in my books, it’s hard to imagine anyone in Iran who doesn’t have a list of people who are responsible for unspeakable crimes. I have mine.

Ali Akbar HeydariFar who played an important role in repressing, torturing, and killing protesters in 2009, is one of the judges who sentenced the writer to death
  • Abolqasem Salavati is an infamous execution judge who ordered the execution of my best friend Shirin;
  • Ali Akbar HeydariFar is one of the judges who sentenced me to death;
  • Judge Heydari was my second judge;
  • Saeed Mortazavi was the judge who told me he will make sure I will be executed;
  • Yahya Pirabbasi, another of my judges;
  • Mohammad Moghiseh is the judge who ordered the execution of many of my friends in prison;
  • Sadegh Larijani, the head of all judges;
  • Abbas Jafari Dolat Abadi, the Tehran prosecutor who visited me in prison before my release, enraged by Pope Benedict’s letter advocating for me and my friend Mariyam, and threatening not to talk to anyone about what happened to us in prison and our trial.
Infamously known in Iran as the “Hanging Judge” along with Mohammad Moghiseh and Yahya Pirabbasi, Abolqasem Salavati, presided over the case of Mohsen Amiraslani, executed for heresy for describing Jonah and the Whale as an allegory and who ordered the execution of the writer’s best friend Shirin.

Many of the most terrible people have no online presence and go by fake names. In order never to forget them, and pray that they will be used to be brought to justice – something that seemed unimaginable in 2009 – my friend Maryam and I came up with sketches of two of the criminals. One of our interrogators went by “Rasti”. He was the one who lied and got me to the police station where the interrogations began. Another, “Haghighat” threatened to beat us until we vomited blood.

In order not to forget the faces of their tormentors in prison so that they could be brough one day to justice, the writer and her friend Maryam sketched “Rasti” and “Haghighat”.

Two more people who must be brought to justice are:

  • Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’I, the Chief Justice of Iran who has blood of countless Iranians on his hands;
  • Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While no Iranian presidents should escape justice, when I was in prison I witnessed how many people were arrested, tortured, and  killed because of his direct order and fraudulent election that sparked the Green Movement which he repressed with unspeakable brutality.

It is important that the leaders of the regime are not able to flee, and that there is an immediate means to arrest them all, and hold them until charges can be brought.  It’s also urgent that agents of the regime abroad are arrested and extradited to free Iran, and brought to justice. That’s necessary for Iranians who know who they are, but also for the Western and other countries where they live and in which they infiltrate with their evil extremist Islamic values at the behest of the ayatollahs. Left alone, they will be a national security threat to the countries that harbor them.  Any country that takes and shelters leaders and agents of the regime to be protected in their borders should face unrelenting sanctions. 

Saeed Mortazavi was the judge who told the writer he  “will make sure I will be executed”, has been linked to the closure of 120 publications, the murder of Iranian Canadian journalist in July 2003 Zahra Kazemi and the murder of protesters in the Kahrizak detention center in 2009.

Part of the justice that’s needed in order for Iranians to feel as if they are truly liberated is that the trials must be held, and justice served, in Iran. Doing so will create an example to the world and to the Iranian people.  International trials will not do the same.

The crimes of the Islamic regime and its leaders has not been limited to the horrific scenes we have seen coming out or Iran these past weeks, but the wholesale brutalization of millions of Iranians for nearly half a century. Hundreds of thousands have been killed. Maybe millions. The Islamic Republic and its leaders are guilty or widespread crimes directly, and through its terrorist tentacle proxies, around the globe, where millions more have suffered. There needs to be justice for them, and there needs to be a trial of the ayatollahs, mullahs, judges, IRGC, basij, jailers, interrogators, police and others who are guilty of these crimes.

Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolat Abadi – responsible for the arrest and torture of many journalists, young bloggers, human rights advocates, political activists and reformist leaders – visited the writer before her release and threatened her not to talk to anyone about her experiences in prison.

Following President Trump’s post to encourage Iranians in early January:

“KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers.  They will pay a big price. I have canceled all meetings with Iranian officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY! MIGA!!!,” Iranians took to the streets and have continued to protest. Tens of thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands injured.

Like those found guilty in Nuremberg, the bodies of those who are sentenced to death should be cremated, their ashes dumped into the Persian Gulf in order to prevent ever setting up a shrine to them. The tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini should be burned to the ground, and its remains and his also dumped into the Gulf.

Doing this will serve as an additional form of justice for the hundreds of thousands or more victims of the Islamic Republic, many of whom were simply disappeared and have no resting place, and no closure for their loved ones. While their crimes cannot be erased, every physical presence of their lives can be.

In a dream once, I asked God why He allowed the suffering to take place in Iran.  He said that He was giving the leaders the opportunity to repent and, if not, He would bring His justice. I am praying that President Trump will follow his words with swift action, that the senseless and criminal murder of tens of thousands of Iranians will stop, and that everyone involved from the “Supreme Leader” down to the lowest policeman will be arrested and see justice.



About the writer:

Marziyeh Amirizadeh is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity.   She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation. She is author of two books (the latest, A Love Journey with God), public speaker, and columnist. She has shared her inspiring story throughout the United States and around the world, to bring awareness about the ongoing human rights violations and persecution of women and religious minorities in Iran, www.MarzisJourney.com.






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 SOMALILAND LITMUS TEST

Refusal to recognize Somaliland  exposes global hypocrisy and rewards terror.

By Grant Gochin

The global disparity in statehood recognition between Palestine and Somaliland exposes a truth: international decisions are not rooted in law, facts, or genuine support for viable entities. Instead, the enthusiasm of 157 UN member states for recognizing Palestine—despite its failures—serves primarily as a diplomatic cudgel against Israel and Jews. This is not pro-Palestinian advocacy; it is animus, a collective expression of bigotry that ignores objective criteria to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish state. Somaliland, by contrast, exemplifies success under every legal standard, yet is shunned precisely because its recognition would bolster Israel’s alliances. The 157 nations endorsing Palestine do not care about law or reality; they are weaponizing statehood as a tool of prejudice.

Happenings at the Horn. Israel became the first nation in the world to recognize Somaliland as a country prompting a global outcry and an emergency meeting of the United Nations.

Somaliland’s Historical Narrative: Survivor of Genocide

Somaliland is not a mere “breakaway region”; it is a survivor of internal African colonialism and genocide. Briefly independent in 1960 and recognized by 35 nations, including Israel, it entered an unratified union with southern Somalia. Under Siad Barre’s regime, this turned genocidal. From 1987–1989, government forces systematically targeted the Isaaq clan with aerial bombardments, well poisonings, and mass executions, killing 50,000 – 200,000 civilians. Somaliland’s 1991 independence reclaimed its pre-union sovereignty—a humanitarian and anti-colonial necessity.1 Nations posturing as “anti-colonial” such as Ireland, betray this by enforcing Mogadishu’s claims and ignoring Somaliland’s genocide survival.

The Montevideo Criteria: Ignored in Favor of Bigotry

International law’s cornerstone for statehood, the 1933 Montevideo Convention, demands a permanent population, defined territory, effective government, and capacity for international relations.2 These objective benchmarks are routinely discarded when anti-Israel bias takes precedence. The result is that Palestine, a dysfunctional entity, is elevated, while Somaliland’s qualifications are dismissed to punish Israel.

● Permanent Population: Both meet this threshold. The 157 states overlook Palestine’s divisions to strike at Israel.

● Defined Territory: Somaliland claims clear, undisputed borders from its 1960 independence.3 Palestine’s are contested and non-contiguous. Recognizing the latter delegitimizes Israel’s security claims.

● Effective Government: Somaliland boasts a centralized democracy.4 Palestine is fractured between the corrupt PA in the West Bank and Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

Rousing Recognition. When the Israeli flag is sighted on the streets of the Muslim world, it is often being set alight or trampled underfoot. Yet in recent days the Star of David has been plastered on buildings and brandished by jubilant crowds in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland. 

● Capacity for Relations: Somaliland forges sovereign deals, proving autonomy.5 Palestine relies on aid, its “diplomacy” a facade for anti-Israel lobbying.

The case of Somaliland provides the ultimate legal refutation of the ‘occupation’ libel used against the Jewish state. Under the principle of uti possidetis juris, Somaliland is the rightful successor to the borders of its 1960 independence—a fact the world ignores to protect a defunct Somali union.6 Israel, by recognizing these borders, reaffirms the sanctity of original administrative boundaries as the only objective standard for statehood. This same legal logic confirms that Israel is the sole legal successor to the British Mandate, rendering the ‘occupation’ of Judea and Samaria a legal fiction. By championing Somaliland, Israel is not just supporting a fellow democracy; it is enforcing a global legal standard that exposes the Palestinian project as a violation of the very international laws its proponents claim to uphold.

The refusal of the international community to apply uti possidetis juris to Israel—while rigidly enforcing it to keep Somaliland shackled to the failed state of Somalia—is a targeted legal assault. If the administrative borders of the 1960 British protectorate define the legitimate sovereignty of Somaliland, then by that same objective standard, the administrative borders of the 1948 British Mandate define the sovereign territory of Israel. To argue otherwise is to admit that ‘international law’ is merely a political fiction used to protect anti-Western regimes in Mogadishu and Ramallah while attempting to strip the Jewish state of its foundational legal rights.

By recognizing the functional reality of Somaliland over the ‘constitutive’ political fantasy of a Palestinian state, Israel is championing the Declaratory Theory of Statehood. This position asserts that a state exists when it functions as one, not simply when a collection of biased nations engages in a diplomatic séance to conjure it into existence through mere votes. Recognizing Somaliland is therefore a strategic defense of the rule of law: it enforces the principle that functional, stable governance and original administrative boundaries are the only legitimate measures of sovereignty. Any other standard is a reward for terrorism and a threat to global security.

Palestine’s Dysfunction: A Weapon Against Israel

Palestine’s realities scream failure, yet are encouraged because it harms Israel:

● Aid Dependency: A vast consumer of $40+ billion since Oslo, Palestine’s economy is propped up by donors, fostering corruption. This is a subsidy for instability that pressures Israel.7

● Corruption and Autocracy: The PA ranks abysmally on corruption indices. Mahmoud Abbas is now in the 20th year of a four-year term, a full-blown dictatorship. Bigots overlook this to amplify accusations against Jewish “oppression”.

● Pay-for-Slay Terrorism: Allocating ~7% of its budget to reward attacks on Israelis, the PA incentivizes violence despite the U.S. Taylor Force Act.8 Sponsored by Iran, this makes Palestine a terror proxy encouraged by recognizers whose true aim is weakening Israel. Abbas’s February 2025 decree to “end” the Martyrs’ Fund has been exposed by Israeli authorities as a shell game, with payments simply channeled through the Palestinian postal system to circumvent the Act.9

Enlightening Recognition. Public buildings were lit up with Israeli flags as mass celebrations took place in Hargeisa and across cities of the Republic of Somaliland, as citizens gathered to commemorate the historic decision by Israel to formally recognize Somaliland.

Somaliland’s Excellence: Punished to Avoid Benefiting Israel

Somaliland’s indicators of success are ignored to prevent any win for Jews. While Somaliland remains a bulwark, Somalia’s failure is absolute. In 2025, an al-Shabaab offensive saw Mogadishu lose strategic towns like Sabiid and Anole, and President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud narrowly survived a March 2025 assassination attempt in Mogadishu, escaping via armored convoy amid the attack on his convoy.10

Somalia’s claim to Somaliland is based on a failed union and subsequent genocidal aggression, whereas Somaliland’s claim is a defensive re-assertion of its 1960 sovereignty. This mirrors Israel’s defensive reconstitution of rights over Judea and Samaria following the 1967 war of annihilation launched against it—territory with no prior legitimate sovereign after 1948.

National Security and the Irish Model of Hypocrisy

The refusal to recognize Somaliland is a direct threat to Western national security. By rewarding Iranian proxies in the Middle East while destabilizing the Red Sea by ignoring Somaliland, the international community empowers anti-Western forces. As the Hudson Institute’s 2025 conference on “Antisemitism as a National Security Threat” outlined, this selective bigotry enables threats like Iranian destabilization. Israel’s recognition of Somaliland marks the start of “leapfrog diplomacy”—building a Red Sea Security Arc based on technology, water security, and counter-terrorism, bypassing traditional bottlenecks. Somaliland has officially signaled its desire to join the Abraham Accords, positioning itself as a Sunni Muslim partner that chooses cooperation with Israel over the rejectionist bloc led by Iran and Turkey.11

The swiftness with which the Palestinian Authority and the OIC fabricated a blood libel—claiming this recognition is a scheme for ‘forced displacement’—exposes their desperation to preserve a status quo that rewards terror at the expense of African self-determination. While the UN holds emergency meetings to protect the ‘territorial integrity’ of a failed state in Mogadishu, Israel is providing Hargeisa with the surveillance technology necessary to secure its own airspace and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This is the birth of a Red Sea Security Arc that replaces ideological theater with functional sovereignty.

Dublin exemplifies this betrayal: in May 2024, Ireland recognized Palestine despite its failures, yet it rejects Somaliland. This selective empathy rewards terror-linked dysfunction and punishes African self-determination.

The Overriding Truth: Animus Against Jews and Israel

This is not about law or facts; 157 countries spew animus toward Jews, weaponizing Palestine’s recognition to delegitimize Israel. Somaliland’s excellence is collateral damage in this hate-fueled game.

True Colors. Changing attitudes on the streets of Somaliland.

Conclusion

Does Somaliland have to slaughter innocents like October 7 to earn recognition? Launch rockets? Commit atrocities? Is terrorism the real price of sovereignty? The hypocrisy is bigotry.





Feature photo: Residents wave Somaliland flags as they gather to celebrate Israel’s announcement recognizing Somaliland’s statehood in downtown Hargeisa. (Photo: Farhan Aleli/AFP via Getty Images)




Disclaimer: The author of this article and annex is not a licensed attorney and is not engaged in the practice of law. The analysis provided herein regarding international legal principles, including uti possidetis juris and the Montevideo Convention, is presented solely as a personal interpretation and an expression of opinion for informational and argumentative purposes. This content does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as a substitute for professional counsel from a qualified legal practitioner.

Legal Annex: The Doctrine of Sovereign Succession and Functional Statehood

I. Precedents for Uti Possidetis Juris and Mandatory Succession The principle of uti possidetis juris (UPJ) is recognized by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as a “general principle, logically connected with the phenomenon of the obtaining of independence, wherever it occurs” (Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso/Republic of Mali), 1986).

● Application to Somaliland: As established in 1960 and reaffirmed in 2025, Somaliland is the successor to the borders of the British Somaliland Protectorate.12 The 1964 OAU Cairo Resolution and Article 4(b) of the AU Constitutive Act mandate respect for borders existing at independence. The attempt to keep Somaliland tethered to Mogadishu is a violation of the very “intangibility of frontiers” the AU claims to uphold.

● Application to Israel: Legal scholars (including Professor Eugene Kontorovich and the Levy Report) argue that uti possidetis juris dictates that a state’s borders are defined by the preceding administrative boundaries. As the only sovereign successor to the 1948 British Mandate of Palestine, Israel’s legal claim extends to the entirety of that administrative area. International attempts to impose “1967 lines” (which were merely temporary armistice lines) constitute an illegal derogation of the UPJ principle.

II. The Declaratory Theory of Statehood vs. Political Recognition  The Montevideo Convention (1933) codifies the Declaratory Theory, which asserts that statehood is a question of fact, not a gift of diplomatic recognition.

● Somaliland’s Declaratory Compliance: As of late 2025, Somaliland satisfies all four Montevideo criteria. Its internal stability—contrasted with the failure in the south—proves that it is a state de jure and de facto.

● The Palestinian Fraud: The 157 nations recognizing Palestine are employing the Constitutive Theory, attempting to “create” a state through diplomatic votes. However, without a unified government or territorial control, this “state” is a legal fiction that lacks the objective requirements of international law.

III. Security Data and the Doctrine of Defensive Control (2025 Update) International law distinguishes between illegal annexation and defensive control of territory where there is no prior legitimate sovereign.

● Somalia’s Sovereign Collapse: Security reports from March and August 2025 confirm that the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) has lost effective control over major southern sectors. The capture of Sabiid and Anole by al-Shabaab and the failed assassination of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Mogadishu (March 2025) demonstrate that Somalia lacks the “effective government” required to claim sovereignty over Somaliland.

● The Martyrs’ Fund Shell Game: Israeli intelligence reports from late 2025 confirm that the Palestinian Authority’s “Abolition of the Prisoners’ Fund” was a shell game. Funds are now funneled through the Palestinian Postal System to ensure “Pay-for-Slay” payments continue, rendering the PA a persistent sponsor of terrorism in violation of the Taylor Force Act and UN counter-terrorism resolutions.13

IV. Strategic Conclusion: National Security as a Legal Imperative As outlined in the Hudson Institute’s 2025 Conference, antisemitism and the delegitimization of the Jewish state are national security threats to the West. The refusal to recognize Somaliland while empowering a Palestinian terror-proxy is a strategic failure that emboldens Iranian and Houthi aggression. Recognizing Somaliland is therefore a legal necessity to preserve the security of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the integrity of the Abraham Accords framework.

Bibliography

● Reuters. “Israel recognizes Somaliland as independent state.” December 26, 2025.

● The Times of Israel. “Israel becomes first country to recognize breakaway Somaliland.” December 26, 2025.

● Al Jazeera. “Somalia demands Israel withdraw Somaliland recognition.” December 27, 2025.

● TurkishMinute. “Turkish ports sent 456 ships to Israel… despite trade ban.” October 7, 2025.

● Heritage Foundation. Ilhan Omar speech translations (2024).

● Various sources: Isaaq genocide estimates (50,000–200,000); Palestinian aid/corruption data; Iranian funding to Hamas; PA Martyrs’ Fund.

● Hudson Institute. “Antisemitism as a National Security Threat” conference (2025).

● Reuters. “Palestinian president scraps prisoner payment system” (February 2025); Times of Israel. “PA document shows ‘pay-to-slay’ has been scrapped, new system in place” (September 2025).14

● TRT Afrika. “Somali forces kill mastermind of failed assassination attempt” (September 2025).

Somali President Mohamud Survives Al-Shabaab’s Assassination Attempt
This video reports on the March 18, 2025, assassination attempt on President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, highlighting the profound insecurity and lack of effective governance in Mogadishu compared to the stability of Somaliland.



About the writer:

Grant Arthur Gochin currently serves as the Honorary Consul for the Republic of Togo. He is the Emeritus Special Envoy for Diaspora Affairs for the African Union, which represents the fifty-five African nations, and Emeritus Vice Dean of the Los Angeles Consular Corps, the second largest Consular Corps in the world. Gochin is actively involved in Jewish affairs, focusing on historical justice. He has spent the past twenty five years documenting and restoring signs of Jewish life in Lithuania. He has served as the Chair of the Maceva Project in Lithuania, which mapped / inventoried / documented / restored over fifty abandoned and neglected Jewish cemeteries. Gochin is the author of “Malice, Murder and Manipulation”, published in 2013. His book documents his family history of oppression in Lithuania. He is presently working on a project to expose the current Holocaust revisionism within the Lithuanian government. Professionally, Gochin is a Certified Financial Planner and practices as a Wealth Advisor in California, where he lives with his family. Personal site: https://www.grantgochin.com/





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).

PROTESTS IN TEHRAN TODAY BRING HOPES FOR IRANIANS TOMORROW

If President Trump likes to speak of “making deals“, the best deals are to be made after the Islamic regime falls.

By Marziyeh Amirizadeh

(First published in The Times of Israel)

Unprecedented protests are taking place across Iran, both in terms of the number of people participating, and number of cities in which the protests are taking place. Countless videos have documented Iranians protesting. And it’s growing. The reason is the compounded suffering to which Iranians have been subject under the Islamic republic, and which hopefully are at the breaking point.

Irate Iranians. Protestors march over a bridge in Teheran 29 December 2025 (Photo: Fars News Agency via ATP/file)

The Iranian rial is at lowest point in history. Today, one million rials are worth less than $1. The economic impact is widespread, punishing, and impacting every single Iranian.

This is the impact of the ayatollahs stealing billions from Iranians to fund its jihadi goals including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and others, around the world. Yet the policy of funding the world’s largest terror network has come home to roost.

For months, Iranians have also suffered an unprecedented water and energy crisis, leading to power outages across the country, and reservoirs so low that there has been talk of evacuating millions from Tehran due to the inability to provide water.

Even if they were not living under a brutal, evil Islamic regime for nearly five decades, Iranians collectively are suffering the most they have since then, the cumulative impact of the evil regime focusing on spreading extremist Islam, fighting the West, and mismanagement and corruption of every basic need.

Iranians are not just living under widespread mismanagement, they are living under the cumulative national disaster of millions having been arrested, beaten, tortured, murdered, and disappeared. My knowledge is firsthand growing up and spending most of my life there, but also being arrested and sentenced to death, held in the notorious Evin prison for nine months, all because of my Christian faith.

The drought has not only exposed incompetence and mass mismanagement of basic needs.  As reservoirs have dried up, 74 bodies have been found just in one location, bound, at the bottom of the once life-giving bodies of water that are all but gone, and which became their victims graves.  Being bound shows an extra level of evil that they were thrown in alive rather than executed elsewhere and thrown into the water to hide the Islamic regimes crimes.

There have been protests in the past over the murder of Mahsa Amini in 2022, and more recently truckers going on strike in 160 cities due to massive increased in prices.  For a variety of reasons these protests did not cause the regime change for which most Iranians are praying.

Iranians are having it no more. The current protests are because all Iranians are hurting economically, and without the basic needs to live.  The current crisis has exposed new depths of the evil of the Islamic regime.  More than ever, and more publicly than ever, Iranians are chanting for the restoration of the Pahlavi dynasty, and in favor of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi and death of the ayatollahs.

Currency Collapse. Protesters march in downtown Tehran, Iran, Dec. 29, 2025 following the collapse of the rial with prices up on meat, rice and other staples of the Iranian dinner table. The nation has been struggling with an annual inflation rate of some 40%. (Photo: Fars News Agency via AP, File)

It’s a formula that will hopefully bring the pressure needed for the regime to fall and Iran to be free.

Pressure is also needed from the world because the threats are directed at the world. We even heard it from the “moderate” Iranian president this week, that Iran is at full scale war with the US, Israel, and Europe.  

At the same time Iranians are risking their lives just to protest, it was encouraging to hear President Trump speak out in favor of renewed military action against the regime and particularly the brutal IRGC. In the wake of the 12-day war between Israel and the Islamic Republic in June, standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Trump stated that he supports renewed military action against Iran if they try to rebuild their ballistic missile or nuclear program. 

Rather than pretending that the Islamic regime will ever negotiate for anything in good faith to make a deal, other than to keep itself alive and in control of Iran for another day, Iranians know that what’s needed from outside is unrelenting destruction of the regime, its leaders, military, and if necessary, its ability to fund itself through oil exports and more. Iranians are prepared to suffer more if it means their eventual freedom.

The United States needs to lead the charge, along with Israel and the EU, and even the Saudis, Emiratis, and other Arab states, to bring down the regime. Iranians pray for that. Iranians were frustrated, even feeling abandoned, that the 12-day war in June did not go on and end with the destruction of the regime, or at least giving Iranians cover to do what’s needed on the ground to do so themselves.

The Islamic Republic has created unprecedented suffering for all Iranians, and for millions of people all around the world.  Not just by targeting Israel and the Jewish people, but by infiltrating the West, in developing nations, and across the Arab and Islamic world. In fact, it’s hard to think of a place in the world that has not suffered as a result of the Islamic revolution in 1979. 

Regime Rickety. Displaying a leadership’s anxiety as much as  an anti-US and anti-Israel message on this  billboard that reads ‘watch out for your soldiers’ in Tehran on January 4, 2026 (Photo: Atta Kenare/ AFP)

Accordingly, it’s necessary that people and nations across the world unite with a singular purpose, to end the Islamic regime and to bring Crown Prince Pahlavi to power and restore the once thriving nation that Iranians yearn for. No one singular act -certainly since the end of World War II – has the potential to eliminate suffering of millions and bring peace.

President Trump likes to speak of making deals. The truth is the best deals to be made are after the Islamic regime falls, and Iran begins necessary reconstruction. The US can play a huge role in that, bringing prosperity to Iran, and peace to the world.  Israel can also play an important role by rescuing Iran with its world-leading water reclamation and desalination abilities, filling up the reservoirs and bringing Iranians hope, and life.


About the writer:

Marziyeh Amirizadeh is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity.   She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation. She is author of two books (the latest, A Love Journey with God), public speaker, and columnist. She has shared her inspiring story throughout the United States and around the world, to bring awareness about the ongoing human rights violations and persecution of women and religious minorities in Iran, www.MarzisJourney.com.






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).

WHAT DID ANTI-ZIONISTS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT SYDNEY BESIDES PRAISE FOR EL-AHMED? NOT MUCH.

Those who see ‘safety through solidarity’ as the ‘lesson’ of the terror attack have internalized what classical Zionist thinkers called an ‘exile mindset’ — a near-religious sanctification of Jewish powerlessness.

By Zev Dever

(Courtesy of Davar where article was first published)

In the aftermath of the terrorist massacre in Sydney, much of the Jewish discourse has highlighted praise for the individual bravery of the hero Ahmed el-Ahmed, the unarmed Syrian immigrant who intervened in the attack. It frankly seems as though many progressive Jews are relieved to have this Muslim man as a counterexample to the terrorists who carried out the massacre. 

While el-Ahmed is certainly a hero, and the praise is well deserved, statements and posts from anti-Zionist Jewish groups, seem to take this praise a bit far, elevating the emphasis on el-Ahmed’s heroism to near parity with the massacre itself. This emphasis is taken to draw an interesting conclusion: again and again it is echoed that the lesson of this entire event, exemplified in el-Ahmed’s actions, is that “our safety lies in solidarity with others.”

Skepticism in Solidarity. While “safety through solidarity” might offer moral reassurance to vunerable Jewish communities around the world, but does it offer operational guidance?

It is truly striking how uniform this message is. It’s strange enough to highlight the identity of the hero and not the murderers, subtly transforming a Jewish tragedy into a morality tale about Muslims not being evil. To be fair, Jewish communities may understandably feel relief in highlighting the fact that many Muslims are good people. But to insist that this is the central and operative lesson is to deliberately obscure the essence of the story — namely a mass murder of Jews in the diaspora, following two years of rising antisemitism and public tolerance for Jew hatred.

What, practically, does it mean to insist that “Jewish safety lies in solidarity with others“?

– That Jews require non-Jewish saviors?

– That Jewish safety depends on staying on the good side of surrounding communities?

– That the correct response to mass violence is not protection or deterrence, but reaffirmation of ideological commitments?

When pressed, “safety through solidarity” might offer moral reassurance, but it offers no operational guidance. 

Most plausibly, the practical lesson of this axiom may be that we should invest in encouraging moderate discourse and education against extremism. That idea I might buy into, but I find it hard to believe that the very groups pushing the message of “safety through solidarity” will.

Are we to believe that anti-Zionist Jewish groups will now focus on amplifying moderate Muslim and Palestinian voices? Will they stop parroting extremists, or even condemn those espousing extremism?

Of course not. There will be no self-reckoning.

I acknowledge that Jews do indeed need partners outside the faith, and the aim of this piece is not to denigrate solidarity as such, an important enterprise regardless of whether it benefits one’s safety. El-Ahmed’s bravery indeed made clear the value and importance of solidarity. But I am interested in the psychological phenomenon that leads some Jews to read the Bondi Beach massacre as a lesson in the importance of solidarity. Why do some Jews see the massacre as a sign that Jews ought to demonstrate more solidarity towards other groups?

Seeking Safety. The writer is intrigued in the psychological phenomenon that leads some Jews to read the Bondi Beach massacre as a lesson in the importance of solidarity.

THE SHTETL ROOTS OF “SAFTY THROUGH SOLIDARITY”

Even if such a logic is sincere, even if it is instrumental as a strategy to seek security, it is a mentality that delegates safety to external goodwill rather than Jewish agency. This psychological phenomenon is actually much older than any current popularized version of the theory of the intersectionality of oppressions. The Jewish roots of this thinking are actually something that the Zionist movement more than a century ago knew to classify and condemn. Zionist thinkers would characterize this way of thinking as a form of exile mindset, known in Hebrew as galutiyut.

In classical Zionist critique, exile mindset was not merely the fact of Jewish vulnerability or Jewish dispersion across the globe. It was a psychological and moral orientation, a deeply held and practiced belief that the Jews are not and cannot be masters of their own fate — that Jewish existence must be predicated on the goodwill of others, or failing that, on divine providence. Zionist thinkers condemned the world of the shtetl as a place where Jewish powerlessness was not only accepted but sanctified.

To compare today’s progressive, secular anti-Zionist Jews to God-fearing shtetl peasants may sound anachronistic. But the resemblance is structural, not stylistic. What has changed is the theology, not the logic. It is absolutely classic exile mindset recycled for the (post-)modern age.

In the classic theological expression, Jews are meant to accept as fact their impotence. They are meant to devote themselves to piety rather than anger the ruling powers by resisting or rising up as a nation. It was explicitly forbidden for Jews to seek self-redemption in this framework. Instead, Jews were guided to seek closeness to divinity: an all-pervasive truth that is inherently and profoundly good, and which underpins all existence and events, even those that are bad. At the same time the Jewish believer is guided by a rather vague vision of a perfect world after death or after the coming of the messiah.

The majority of radical leftists today are not classically religious, but they are in a very real messianic sense — driven, often obsessively, by a vision of a perfect and unrealized world to come which they are convinced must influence all current actions. To act against this idea is even framed as secularized sin or as it is often put being “on the wrong side of history“. Their God is, much like the old one, an all-pervasive truth which is universal and good and which underpins all things and events, even the bad ones (like the Bondi massacre). 

To their credit, this all-pervasive truth many leftists believe in is genuinely good: it is a universal humanism, a belief in the sanctity and value of human life. Their heaven, utopia, is a liberated, just, post-oppressive world to come. Sometimes it is pure anarchism or an end to money, property, and exploitation. In other words, leftist eschatology promises, yet again, a vague vision of a perfect world to come after the advent of universal truth. The coming of the next world follows the death of this world, which is in the meantime almost irredeemably marred by ignorance and sin.

Sanctifying the Shtetl. When Jewish existence was predicated on the goodwill of others, early Zionist thinkers condemned the world of the shtetl as a place where Jewish powerlessness was not only accepted but sanctified.

ROMANTICIZING POWERLESSNESS

Within this drama, the Jews are assigned a unique role, the same one as in the old shtetl construction: the righteous victim. Morally pure, historically oppressed, exemplary in their suffering. Devoted to their truth, with moral purity replacing religious piety. This is a modernization of the classic exile mindset, the same old sanctification of powerlessness as a self-justifying moral identity. 

Like many other Jews, anti-Zionists take pride in the inheritance of an oppressed people, invoking Jewish participation in past struggles for justice. Anti-Zionist Jews go further than most. They express deep discomfort, even open resentment at the fact that Jews now possess real power. Perhaps even a remorse over the fact that Jews have largely achieved assimilation in America, forcing them to play a slightly different role than the ideal victim. Now, their role seems to be that of privileged — or worse, oppressive — whites.

This resentment is often framed as anger at oppression done “in our name” by Zionism, but functionally, it is rage at the loss of moral position. Zionism is intolerable to these Jewish anti-Zionists not only because it wields power badly, but because it wields power at all. The fact that it wields that power against enemies shatters the sacred identity of the Jew as powerless, innocent, and dependent. 

Thus, exile becomes not merely a condition but a vocation. This acceptance of — and even consecration of — the status of exile provides meaning, coherence, and urgency to the universal humanist mission and the role the Jew can play in it. That is, as long as Jews renounce collective self-assertion and vocally reject Jewish power, especially military power, regardless of context. This psychological stance characterizes pathological anti-Zionism as something distinct from even the harshest critique of Israeli actions, which can itself be a deeply Zionist act.

In the end, the core of exile mindset remains the same: the exile-bound anti-Zionist Jew would rather sacrifice their collective and sometimes even their individual existence in this life for the sake of purity. This mindset may rationalize its position in theological or ideological terms, but in essence it is indeed, as anti-Zionists admit, a plea for safety. Now as then, that plea for safety is premised upon trying as much as possible not to anger the non-Jewish and even antisemitic society that surrounds.

This helps explain the reaction to Sydney. Faced with the massacre of Jews by Islamic extremists, these groups instinctively center the Muslim rescuer. They downplay the killers. They warn about the potential of backlash against Muslims. Even while many non-Jewish anti-Zionists are busy blaming Zionists for the massacre, Jewish anti-Zionists repeat “safety through solidarity” as a kind of incantation. 

This is not accidental. It is faith in the face of events that challenge it.

Like the old theology of exile, this ideology does not require empirical testing. It does not ask whether solidarity has, in fact, kept Jews safe amid rising antisemitism. It does not ask what actually prevents violence tonight, tomorrow, for the rest of the 8 nights and for years to come.

This is why these groups can look at a massacre of Jews and conclude that the lesson is less Jewish self-defense and more Jewish dependence. Less agency, more faith. Less mastery over fate, more trust in the moral arc of history to bend only towards justice.

To Israelis, living in a society whose ethos was founded on the negation of exile and exile mentality, this logic is incomprehensible. Ironically, even many heirs of traditional exile mindset in the diaspora have also abandoned it. Chabad, often on the front lines of antisemitic violence, as in this tragic case, embraces collective Jewish self-assertion and practical security. 

Only anti-Zionist Jews still sanctify weakness. Only they insist that Jewish survival must be conditional, provisional, and morally earned. Only they repeat, in modern language, the old demand that Jews place their lives in the hands of others for the sake of purity. Exile mindset is the retreat of people determined that their role is to be helpless victims, and who are actually more comfortable in that role.

That is what “safety through solidarity” means in practice.

A bloodied talit from the Sydney massacre. (Photo: social media, used in accordance with Section 27A).




*Feature picture: Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is an American Jewish anti-Zionist and far left-wing advocacy organization. It is critical of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, and supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. The group was formed in 1996, and as of 2024 had grown to over 32,000 active dues-paying members. Its chapters at Columbia and George Washington universities were suspended in 2024. (Wikipedia)




About the writer:
Zev Dever is a Jewish educator originally from the US who has worked with Australian Jewish groups in Israel for several years.





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).

BETWEEN  AUSCHWITZ AND BE’ERI: COMMUNITIES CAUGHT BETWEEN MEMORY AND RENEWAL

How do traumatized kibbutzniks build a new life amongst the rubble  and remnants of personal horror?

By Gadi Ezra

(Courtesy of YNET news where this article first appeared)

Communities find themselves unwillingly at the center of a struggle between remembrance and renewal, underscoring the need for the state to better preserve national heritage.

Would you demolish Auschwitz? Of course not. The memory of the victims, the documentation of the crimes, the proof of the horrors — all must be preserved despite the pain, for the sake of future generations. But what if you had to keep living there? To face the destruction every morning? To rush to class or grab a coffee by passing through a murder scene frozen in time? In that case, the answer might be different. The need to move forward, rebuild and reestablish routine would all enter the equation.

This is precisely the heartbreaking dilemma the members of Kibbutz Be’eri recently confronted. Still trying to rise from the disaster, they voted by a narrow margin that life inside a memorial site is not life. The decision means clearing and demolishing the homes destroyed in the October 7 massacre. One house will remain, a testimony to what happened and to what must never happen again.

Killing Kids. A ‘Welcome to Our Home’ sign to a kindergarten on kibbutz Be’eri has not welcomed any kids since Hamas terrorists tore through it on October 7, 2023. (Photo: Baz Ratner/AP)

This is not a decision anyone can fairly criticize. No one can claim to know better than those who endured devastation and must now live again at the center of trauma. Whatever they say deserves a quiet amen. Yet what matters is understanding that Be’eri’s decision will not be the last on this issue. It opens a window into the present and future dilemmas of Nir Oz, Kfar Aza, Nirim, Nahal Oz, Re’im and other communities along Israel’s border. These are places that, against their will, have become focal points in a struggle between remembrance and renewal. That reality highlights not only the depth of the tragedy. It underscores the need for more effective state action in preserving the national heritage.

Silent Swing. Once an area of family fun, a Be’eri home’s patio and play area in the aftermath of the massacre.

The Tekuma Authority has allocated tens of millions to establish a national memorial for October 7, but its creation depends on legislation that remains unfinished. More than two years have passed since the massacre, yet the necessary administrative work is still incomplete. A state commission of inquiry is also deliberately avoided. As a result, the content that would fill any memorial institution is, by definition, partial and lacking. Such commissions are not only meant to assign responsibility. They are designed to form a narrative explaining how the country reached this point. Just as the Holocaust did not begin with the establishment of the death camps, October 7 did not begin on October 7.

Death and Destruction. One of the many houses which was burned and destroyed during the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre.

The problem with this dynamic, in which the state moves at its own pace, is that life is not a made-to-order program. It does not wait for government directives, bureaucracy or paperwork. It pushes past every document on its way to the next stage and forces survivors to confront decisions they must make. A community’s ability to tell its own story must always be preserved. But had the authorities and political leadership operated with greater transparency and efficiency, the members of Be’eri could have considered how future national commemoration would be shaped. That would have allowed them to highlight aspects the state does not emphasize or raise issues that matter to them in a different way. Their decision would have been made in context, not in a fog.

Gazan ‘Stormtroopers’. Hamas terrorists taking civilians hostages from kibbutz Be’eri.

Disclosure: At the end of October 2023, I was there as a reservist. The walls of the dental clinic that still stood practically screamed. The path leading to it ran through the same buildings now slated for demolition. ZAKA teams were still searching them for remains. Crushed cars lined the road. Other homes appeared intact but were anything but. Bloodstains on balconies revealed what had happened inside. Still others remained as they were the day they were abandoned — to Gaza, to the next world or to evacuation hotels. In truth that scene has not ended. War does not finish when the last soldier crosses back over the border. Even after Ran Gvili returns, it will end only when the residents return home. It is the state’s duty to ease that journey. Shaping memory in a way that helps them make decisions is an inseparable part of that responsibility.


Tough Decisions. Once a family home, now a horrifying ‘memorial’ to lives snuffed out. Can people return to this site to once again live?




About the writer:

Gadi Ezra is the Former director of Israel’s national public diplomacy unit.








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).

BLACK LIVES MATTER (BLM) – REALLY?

Israel exposes global hypocrisy by showing in deed how facts dismantle slogans.

By Grant Gochin

I write as an African diplomat who has paid the price of principle not merely in money, but in repeated arrests, interrogations, and forced escape. Arrested three times in South Africa for anti-Apartheid activism—detained, questioned under threat, and ultimately fleeing to survive—I have lived the raw consequences of demanding Black dignity, rather than performing it for cameras and clicks. For decades, I have volunteered across the African continent: teaching literacy in remote villages, building community infrastructure, and serving for the past seventeen years as Honorary Consul for the Republic of Togo. I was appointed Special Envoy for Diaspora Affairs of the African Union, representing 1.25 billion Black Africans to 350 million Americans, and invested as Chief of the Village of Babade for my lifelong philanthropic work. I act in the trenches while others posture on stages. Europe preens and lectures. The record is crystal clear, unyielding, and demands confrontation.

Out of Africa – literally. In Operation Moses, Israel, in a series of dramatic and daring airlifts (1984-1985), rescued 8,000 members of the ancient Ethiopian Jewish community from refugee camps in Sudan and brought them to the Jewish state. It was the first time in world history that large numbers of native Black Africans were taken from that continent, not in chains to be enslaved, but to begin new lives in the State of Israel.

Israel stands alone in recorded history as the only nation to airlift Black Africans en masse to safety and grant them full citizenship. Through Operation Moses in 1984 and Operation Solomon in 1991, Israeli forces evacuated over 30,000 Ethiopian Jews from the jaws of famine, civil war, and Sudanese death camps. Hercules aircraft flew daring secret night missions into hostile territory, risking everything, while the world churned out empty statements and resolutions. No hashtags. No boycotts. Just airlifts, resettlement, and genuine integration. Today, Ethiopian-Israelis lead IDF combat units, hold seats in the Knesset, and serve on Israel’s Supreme Court. No other country—not the African Union, not the European Union, not the United States, not the Arab League — has ever undertaken such a feat. Israel has rescued Black lives in crisis after crisis:

– 1976 Entebbe Raid, storming Uganda to liberate hostages including Africans;

–  2007 airlifts of Darfuri refugees escaping genocide

 – Multiple medical missions,

– Drip-irrigation technology exports

– Ebola treatment clinics in Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda.

Saving Black African Lives. With Ethiopia in the midst of civil war, Israel in 1991 airlifted in Operation Solomon over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews in a covert rescue operation to Israel in 36 hours.

Israel delivers more per-capita humanitarian aid to Africa than any of those European virtue-signalers thundering from their podiums. Facts dismantle slogans every time.

President Isaac Herzog’s historic state visit to Zambia —the first ever by an Israeli leader — laid bare the grotesque hypocrisy. At President Hakainde Hichilema’s state dinner in Lusaka, Herzog declared:

“We are worried and disturbed by the terrible disasters taking place in other parts of Africa… We hope the international community will focus on the pain in Africa at least as much as it has focused with its obsession on the State of Israel.”

He spoke with diplomatic restraint. I will not.

Heartwarming. African doctors train in Israel to bring life-saving pediatric care back home. Since 1995, hundreds of medical professionals from Africa have trained through Save A Child’s Heart helping thousands of children in places where pediatric cardiac care is limited.

Europe — led by the shrill chorus of Ireland, Spain, and their enablers — reserves its megaphones exclusively for Israel. Sudan’s ongoing ethnic cleansing of millions: crickets. Congo’s child slaves mining cobalt for European electric cars: silence. Somalia’s famines and piracy: indifference. But Israel’s response to Gaza’s rocket barrages from Hamas? Deafening shrieks of outrage. This is not solidarity with the oppressed; it is opportunistic antisemitism cloaked in compassion’s rags. Palestinian propaganda shields African genocide, as I documented here: Palestinian Propaganda Shields African Atrocities. The mechanics of this playbook appear in Hamas’s information strategy, dissected here: Hamas’s Propaganda Playbook.

Enriching Relationships. On a state visit to Africa in August 2023, Israeli president, Isaac Herzog (2nd left) is seen here with Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema (3rd left) flanked by a Zambian student studying in Israel and Gigawatt Global CEO Josef Abramowitz. (Photo: Lynn Schler)

INVERTED HISTORY

Why this laser-focused obsession? Holocaust inversion — the Europeans’ desperate psychological sleight-of-hand to expiate their own unhealed guilt. Unable to confront their orchestration of the murder of six million Jews, they flip the narrative:

– Jews morph into Nazis

– Palestinians into the new Jews

– Israel into the Third Reich

Guilt washed away in a torrent of inverted history. Scholar Lesley Klaff exposes this in Holocaust Inversion and Contemporary Antisemitism (2014): the “Zionism = Nazism” trope is a laundering mechanism that reverses victim and perpetrator, allowing Europe to bargain with its shame. Ireland’s leaders blasphemously equate Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto, ignoring their own nation’s complicity in welcoming Nazi war criminals post-1945. Spain, an eager Holocaust collaborator under Franco, hauls Israel before the ICJ while the echoes of its 1492 Jewish expulsion edict still reverberate through history. This is not human-rights advocacy; it is the Holocaust continued in a new form — verbal, legal, and cultural extermination by proxy.

The inventions pile higher:

“Apartheid” in Israel — an utter fabrication by creative propagandists. Arab Israelis vote, serve in parliament, sit on the Supreme Court, command military units, and own businesses freely. Apartheid? I lived under real Apartheid. Israel is the antithesis. Israel is the most successful de-colonization project in human history — a reclaimed ancestral homeland, not a colonial implant. There was no enforced starvation in Gaza; food, medicine, and fuel flowed in even as Hamas diverted supplies to build terror tunnels and rockets.

Genocide? A fictional accusation in a hate campaign built on lies. Those who repeated these slanders — politicians, academics, protesters — can never again be considered intelligent or credible. They are suckers to disinformation, not independent thinkers. They swallowed Hamas press releases whole, proving how easily manipulated minds can be weaponized.

I accuse these shrill European attention-seekers of utter stupidity, brazen fact-inversion, and cowardly virtue-signaling. I have paid the real cost: three South African arrests, interrogations, Togolese village hardships, Lithuanian killing fields where my own family was annihilated. They have paid nothing but the price of press-conference soundbites and social-media likes.

The fraud extends to the media mouthpieces. The BBC became a willing conduit for Hamas disinformation, parroting unverified casualty figures and staging narratives without scrutiny much like Al Jazeera, which operates as an arm of Qatari-funded propaganda. The UN employed, trained, and shielded Hamas operatives in UNRWA, defending them even as evidence of terror ties mounted. Those who swallowed this concerted worldwide propaganda campaign were utter fools, deceived by an obvious fraud. They willingly consumed the lies, revealing how easily manipulated they are. The self-proclaimed “warriors” for justice on U.S. campuses were no such thing — they were chumps, played like pawns in a game they never understood.

Jewish Lives Don’t Matter. Only two weeks after the October 7 massacre of Jews in Israel, these demonstrators on 22 October 2023 in Columbus, Ohio display a poster that reads “Isreal [sic] are the new Nazis”. Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany occur frequently in current political discourse on Israel amounting to the new antisemitism.

Israel, meanwhile, reopens its embassy in Lusaka as a hub of practical innovation — agriculture, health, education — fueling Africa’s true rebirth. Zion and Africa are bound by shared endurance and resilience, not Europe’s inherited, unrepented shame.

Africans, recognize your allies in action, not words. Jews, honor your historical rescuers. Europeans, sit in silence until you can speak without trafficking in the Holocaust.

Black lives have never mattered to Europe.
They matter profoundly to Israel.
That is the unassailable record.
It is historical fact.
It is not negotiable rhetoric.



About the writer:

Grant Arthur Gochin currently serves as the Honorary Consul for the Republic of Togo. He is the Emeritus Special Envoy for Diaspora Affairs for the African Union, which represents the fifty-five African nations, and Emeritus Vice Dean of the Los Angeles Consular Corps, the second largest Consular Corps in the world. Gochin is actively involved in Jewish affairs, focusing on historical justice. He has spent the past twenty five years documenting and restoring signs of Jewish life in Lithuania. He has served as the Chair of the Maceva Project in Lithuania, which mapped / inventoried / documented / restored over fifty abandoned and neglected Jewish cemeteries. Gochin is the author of “Malice, Murder and Manipulation”, published in 2013. His book documents his family history of oppression in Lithuania. He is presently working on a project to expose the current Holocaust revisionism within the Lithuanian government. Professionally, Gochin is a Certified Financial Planner and practices as a Wealth Advisor in California, where he lives with his family. Personal site: https://www.grantgochin.com/





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).

FROM PLONSK TO A NATION

Tracing Ben Gurion’s roots from small town in central Poland to forging a nation.

By Motti Verses

This coming October 16 will mark another birthday of a leader whose wisdom we could certainly use in today’s roller-coaster reality. Born back in the 19th century in 1886, he is sadly no longer with us. While most people, myself included, tend to honor his memory by visiting his grave in Sde Boker, this time I decided to pay tribute in a different way: by tracing David Ben Gurion’s roots in Poland.

On our way back from Gdańsk to Warsaw Chopin Airport, we turned off the highway to a small, easily overlooked town: Płońsk, 70k/ms north of Warsaw. Israel’s founding prime minister was born here, and I was determined to find the house where he first saw the light of day. Thanks to modern technology, the task was surprisingly easy. Without it, it would have been nearly impossible, as there are no road signs directing visitors there.

It was a moving visit. The oval-shaped old town plaza is tiny, ringed with homes of bygone eras. Among them stood a turquoise-colored building that, according to images on my phone, matched the one I was seeking. Once a restaurant, now closed, it bears a “For Rent” sign in the window. Perhaps this is a golden opportunity for a Jewish investor to acquire the property and give it a purpose worthy of its history. A modest black plaque announces that David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding prime minister, was born here.

Food for Thought. From the outside, a visitor would know that this small turquoise building had once been a restaurant but could be excused for not knowing that long before had been the childhood home of one of the most iconic nation-builders of the 20th century – David Ben Gurion.(Photo: Motti Verses)

Back then, he was still David Grün, growing up in a modest Jewish household. At the time, Płońsk was part of the Russian Empire (today, Poland) and had a vibrant Jewish community that made up roughly half its population. His father, Avigdor Grün, was a teacher and an active member of the Ḥovevei Zion (“Lovers of Zion”) movement, which inspired young David with the ideals of Jewish national revival.

As a teenager, Ben-Gurion joined Poale Zion, a socialist-Zionist youth group, and even began teaching Hebrew to local children. Life in Płońsk’s close-knit shtetl, shared with both Jews and Poles, shaped his worldview: he saw the necessity of Jewish self-reliance while also recognizing the challenges of coexistence. In 1906, at the age of 19, he emigrated to Eretz Israel  and the rest, as they say, is history.

Płońsk to Palestine. David Ben-Gurion (bottom center)  in white shirt at a gathering of “Poalei Tzion” (Jewish worker youth movement) in Płońsk before his emigration to Eretz Israel/Palestine in 1906 still under the rule of the Ottoman Turks. In the back row, right of the flag, stands his father, Avigdor Grün. (Photo: Ben-Gurion Archives)

Today, Płońsk commemorates him with various educational initiatives. The Płońsk Memorial House (Dom Pamięci w Płońsku) tells the story of his youth and of the once-thriving Jewish community. Located just across the narrow street from the turquoise house, it is dedicated to the intertwined history of Polish and Jewish residents who lived together in Płońsk for nearly five centuries. The museum is housed in a restored early 20th-century two-story brick building that once served as both a pharmacy and a residence. The project reflects a broader goal: to preserve the shared memory of both communities, foster intercultural dialogue, and honor the legacy for visiting descendants of Płońsk’s Jews as well as tourists interested in the town’s history and its connection to David Ben-Gurion.

Sign of the Times. A modest black plaque informs that Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion was born in this house.(Photo: Motti Verses)

What struck me most was a remarkable mural on one of the nearby building walls. This vibrant graffiti artwork tells the story of Israel and Ben-Gurion. It was created by the multifaceted Polish artist Bruno Neuhamer (also known as Bruno Althamer), a draftsman, illustrator, sculptor, and street artist. The mural was unveiled on October 26, 2021, during the Jewish Culture Festival in Płońsk. The project was realized in cooperation with the city authorities, the local cultural center, and the Israeli Embassy in Poland.

Mural of Memories. Located on a wall of a tenement house at 6 Warszawska Street in Płońsk, Bruno Neuhamer’s mural tells the story of Israel and the life of Ben-Gurion, including the legendary image of the Prime Minister standing on his head which he did from childhood in Płońsk to old age in Israel, including on Tel Aviv beach.  (Photo: Motti Verses)

The central image shows Ben-Gurion balancing on his head,  inspired by a 1957 photograph by Paul Goldman, preserved at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv. According to historical accounts, young Ben-Gurion often fainted, and his doctor prescribed headstands as a remedy. A habit he maintained well into later life. Beyond the literal image, the pose – as I saw it – carries a deeper metaphor: to achieve something great, one sometimes must turn the world upside down.

“HISTORY IS NOT WRITEN, HISTORY IS MADE”.  This is the last line in the Murial’s inscription on the life of Ben Gurion that appears in Polish, English and Hebrew. (Photo: Motti Verses)

In Ben-Gurion’s case, this is the story of a boy from Płońsk who did just that, ultimately founding a nation. The mural is filled with details: exotic plants, tanks with raised barrels, adding layers of meaning. At first, the tanks seemed out of place, yet in today’s reality, Neuhamer’s choice feels prophetic. The mural left me thoughtful, even melancholic, about Israel’s present and image in the world.

Early Life. One of the exhibits relating to David Ben Gurion in the Płońsk Memorial House. (Photo: Motti Verses)

As an Israeli visiting Płońsk, I felt a mix of emotions. Walking the same streets that young David once knew was like touching the roots of modern Israel’s story. It was a reminder that a boy from here turned the world upside down to create a nation. There was a strong echo of resilience, dreams, and lives stretching from Poland to Israel, along with sadness for the absence of the once-vibrant Jewish community, erased by the Holocaust. The silence where synagogues, schools, and children’s laughter once filled the air was palpable. And yet, there was also warmth: many Polish young people today take pride in commemorating their town’s connection to Israel. Płońsk still holds a living link to the Jewish people. An encouraging reality in our times.

Past Preserved. Across the street from Ben Gurion’s childhood home is the entrance to Płońsk Memorial House. (Photo: Motti Verses)

It was pleasantly cool in Płońsk this August. In winter, average temperatures here hover around 0 °C (32°F). My thoughts drifted to young David’s reality, and to the stark contrast of his later life in the Middle East-especially during the sweltering hot days of the Negev desert in Sde Boker. Quite a change, and quite a challenge.

You don’t need more than an hour to see Płońsk; everything is small and close together. But if you’re in the area, make the stop – it will certainly be worth it.

It will also be both enlightening and rewarding to see how from this small town emerged a giant of the 20th century that defied insurmountable obstacles and challenges to forge a nation on their ancestral land that today hosts the largest core Jewish population in the world, with 7.2 million, followed by the United States with 6.3 million.

The man who did headstands knew where and when to stand where and when it mattered!



*Feature picture: Birth of a Nation. The writer stands in front of Ben-Gurion’s childhood home in Płońsk, Poland. (Photo: Motti Verses) 




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).

POETS’ CORNER

What began as a war on Israel on October 7, 2023 has spread to a war on Jews everywhere. There are few safe havens for Jews anymore or anywhere. With people submitting in poetry for publication their thoughts that encompass their concerns, hopes and their joy, Lay of the Land is making the space for such expression.

David E. Kaplan, Lay of the Land Editor.






YOU CALL ME A ZIONIST

By Tim Flack

You call me Zionist
as though the word were a curse,
as though it burns like shame upon the tongue.
But I wear it as a crown.
It is the echo of prophets,
the dream of exiles,
the oath whispered by rivers of blood:
Next year in Jerusalem.

You call me Jew
as though it were a slur,
as though history had not proven
that every empire which spat that word
is dust beneath our feet.

Jew means covenant,
it means we outlasted Pharaoh, Rome, Babylon,
it means we walked through fire and sang still.

You call me Zionist
and I do not shrink.
It means my grandparents’ bones rest easy
because their children came home.
It means the desert blooms where they tried to salt the earth.
It means we write Hebrew on the wind again,
unbroken, unafraid.

Call me Zionist,
and hear in that word the thunder of Masada,
the prayers of Vilna, the rifles of ’48,
the voices that refused to be silenced in Auschwitz
and rose again in Tel Aviv.
I am Jew.
I am Zionist.
Not your insult, but my anthem.
Not your dagger, but my sword.
Not your shame, but my glory.
You call me Zionist.
Yes.
And I answer:
Am Yisrael Chai.



A DANCE OF HOPE

By Fonda Dubb

A dance of hope is all I want 
To spread my wings and travel to other places, other lands, where people live with different smells, different colours and different faces.
How I would love to fly above the sky and look down at other places
I would dance to the heartbeat of a drum, and dance as my heart beats over other lands
To explore the universe

And spread my wings
To love all other places 
To comfort those that grieve in other places
And breathe the air of other places
To give out love and charity
And embrace all those that live in other places
To be united and have no pain
With all who live in other places
As I float above the sky
Looking down at other places 
And bring peace and love to all I see
To say Amen for God’s creation of other places and dance lovingly to tunes of love of other lands and other places.
I pray for all of us living in this fruitful land which brings us light and love.
Mankind has to show and feel the beauty of a single word
HUMANITY 
The biggest secret of it all
That’s what teaches us to live with pride in this precious land, that God created for us all 
To show respect and love for one another
Let us pray together 
in unison
For a better us
To live together in peace, harmony and love
So we can all share God’s Gifts together in this Holy Land
Where our only wish is for us to dance A DANCE OF HOPE together in a deep and troubled land.



About the poets:

Tim Flack, Cape Town, South Africa.
Fonda Dubb, Beth Protea, Herzliya, Israel.





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

LETTER TO ‘LAY OF THE LAND’ READERS

By Derek Arnolds

From the Editor:
In his last week’s article in Lay of the Land ‘Insights from the Inside’, recently retired senior intelligence analyst in the South African Secret Service, Derek Arnolds, posited that:
 “Hamas’s propaganda war has fundamentally shaped South Africa’s policy vis-à-vis Israel.”
The article solicited plenty feedback, both praise and criticism, so much so that Arnolds felt inspired to respond, which appears hereunder.
David E. Kaplan Editor.


Dear readers,

On August 11th, 2025, I penned an article in Lay of the Land, “Succumbing to Hamas’ propaganda, South Africa’s government is part of an immoral minority on the wrong side of history”, wherein I provided a critical commentary, based on evidential foundations, about the African National Congress and the South African government for its position on the Israel-Palestine conflict, without calumny. Specifically, I posited that strained bilateral relations require recalibration despite the ongoing International Court of Justice genocide case. The article aimed to spark a conversation with a diverse audience, even those who might have found its contents unpalatable. While some have welcomed the article as incisive, others have found it overly critical and biased. I welcome a contrarian perspective lest I be accused of being a grumpy writer. As always, I am amenable to constructive criticism as we find meaning in differences. This is the essence of the Socratic method of reasoning.  I am inspired by the works of great authors like Khalil Gibran and Martin Buber on humility and building enduring interrelationships despite differences. After rereading Buber’s seminal book, “I and Thou” (1923), I do believe human beings should seek to build relationships based on mutual recognition and dialogue.

Martin Buber’s work of I and Thou has had a profound and lasting impact on modern thinking including Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, but maybe found too few readers among South Africa’s current leadership.

Critical debate and dialogue are essential in solving South Africa’s myriad societal problems, not only in the foreign policy domain. South Africans are alarmed at the country’s negative economic growth trajectory and the impact of the United States’ stinging tariffs.  South Africa has matured into a durable democracy and remains Africa’s last great hope. South Africa is not an Orwellian society; hence, South Africans of all persuasions have the right to criticise its government’s foreign policy as it is representative of the whole. While foreign policy formulation remains the purview of the South African presidency, it must take into account domestic and external considerations. Foreign policy, like ‘strategy’ and ‘grand strategy’, is a blueprint for a country’s engagement with the external environment. Therefore, it must be adaptable in the face of radical uncertainty, disruptive and emerging technologies and the weaponisation of artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, misperceptions about South Africa’s foreign relations with other countries do exist. Criticism of South Africa’s foreign policy does not constitute disloyalty in the same way as support for the Palestinian cause does not amount to extremism. In a related vein, not all Israelis support their right-wing government’s policies in Gaza. At the time of writing, thousands of Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to demand an end to the war in the Strip and the release of all hostages. Even Israel’s military leaders have misgivings about a prolonged presence in Gaza. Although Israel’s security cabinet has set specific conditions for a ceasefire, including a post-war governance structure sans Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA – the entity that governs the West Bank),  I do believe it is misguided to exclude the PA since it is an international legal entity that emerged out of the Gaza-Jericho Agreement (1994) and the Oslo Accords. Despite its dysfunctionality, the PA – supported by Israel, the international community and key regional players – should be revitalised to take over governance of Gaza. This debate is already taking place in the Arab world. Although angst permeates the Israeli and Palestinian national psyche due to the war, no one can object that the Palestinians deserve a state of their own. For this to materialise, direct talks between the two sides are necessary, and mutual trust – broken due to decades of wars – needs to be rebuilt. In essence, this is what peace-loving South Africans want. South Africa can play a crucial part in future peace initiatives in the form of outreach programs and best practices from our reconciliation project. The South African Jewish Board of Deputies and Friends of Israel are part of outreach programs with other faith-based organisations. The article was written in that spirit.

Yours sincerely  

Derek Arnolds



About the writer:
Derek Arnolds is a freelance writer and analyst. Opinions expressed in this letter are my own and do not reflect those of my past employers.






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).