IDF commando Zohar Kochavi, 27. Source: Screenshot.
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IDF commando, twice-wounded in Gaza, seeks return to front
Intro
Zohar Kochavi first survived the Supernova music festival massacre.
text

IDF Master Sgt. Zohar Kochavi narrowly escaped death three times this year. Once fleeing the Hamas attack at the Supernova music festival and twice as a soldier fighting in the Gaza Strip. He is eager to return to the front.

Kochavi, with his girlfriend, Shiraz Amir, at his side, described his close calls to Channel 13 on Saturday evening, and his determination to return to combat, while pointing out footage of himself taken at the music festival and in the thick of the Gaza fighting.

"If this war continues, and they'll need me, I'll be there. Even if they don't need me. Even if they'll tell me, 'Sit at home,'" said Kochavi, who serves in the Oz Brigade, also known as the "Commando Brigade," a special operations force.

Kochavi was at the Supernova concert with his girlfriend when the terrorists attacked on Oct. 7. More than 360 people were killed and 40 kidnapped.

Kochavi and Amir arrived by car early that Saturday morning. Shortly afterwards, the terrorist assault began with a heavy barrage of rockets.

Amir related how Kochavi had bought a tent, shade canopy, mat and other camping equipment. When the rockets started, "he insisted on packing away all the things and taking home all he'd invested in."

Amir said she couldn't function. She was in shock from the shelling. "I stood on the side and cried while he folded up everything."

"I took my time and today I know that there's a possibility that this is what saved us," Kochavi said, suggesting that if they'd started off immediately, they might have been caught on the way and killed by the terrorists.

When they finally reached Kibbutz Be'eri, they spotted a white security vehicle stopped along the road; a security officer warned them that terrorists were ahead. They turned back to the site of the festival.

Amir wanted to enter a reinforced structure they had passed, built to withstand rocket attack. It was filled with people. "I thought, 'They know what they're doing,'" she said. Then they saw a man exit a nearby vehicle with a bullet in his foot and they realized the terrorists were close. Amir still wanted to enter the structure but Kochavi said, "We're moving."

Most of those hiding in such structures were slaughtered.

As they traveled south, they reached a traffic jam. They abandoned the vehicle and continued on foot. When Kochavi heard shots, he told Amir, "Run as fast as you can and don't stop"—words she said still echo in her ears.

Kochavi filmed part of it with his cellphone and young people can be seen running. "Everyone's fleeing," he says, out of breath.

Ultimately, what saved them was a vehicle that passed by. They jumped aboard and insisted, "You have to take us."

They reached their apartment in Tel Aviv but "didn't have time to digest what they'd experienced," the report noted.

Kochavi, who had only recently finished a commando course, received his IDF call-up notice two hours later. He headed south.

"Shiraz tried to convince me: 'Don't go. Don't leave me alone,'" Kochavi related. "I explained to her this is my time. It's for this that I trained. For this I fought. For this I have my team, who are incredibly strong, and it'll be OK. Don't worry."

It was on the first day of fighting in Beit Hanun, a city in the northeastern Gaza Strip, that Kochavi received his first wound. Terrorists in a building fired a salvo at his head, missing him by centimeters, he said. He suffered a shrapnel wound to his hands and a comrade had to pull him to safety.

"I had a feeling something would happen to me and that I won't return," Kochavi admitted, which led him to write a letter to his family and to Amir in the event of his death.

Kochavi teared up as he read the letter aloud during the Channel 13 segment: "My Dear Family, If you're reading this letter, it's a sign that I'm in a better place. I'm there above. I hear you and see you. I want to tell you that maybe physically I'm not there, but I'll always be by your side even without your noticing."

Zohar Kochavi reads aloud the letter he wrote in the event of his death, his mother and girlfriend at his side. Screenshot.

While the first injury was a near-miss, the second, a few days later, was more serious. Hamas used a drone to drop an explosive on a group of IDF soldiers as they were resupplying.

Remarkable footage from the terrorist drone was shown in the television segment as the rocket falls and blows up beside the soldiers, dropping a number of them to the ground. Thirteen soldiers were wounded, including Kochavi.

"This happened really in a place where a soldier is supposed to feel the most protected," Kochavi said of the resupply area defended by raised sand walls, where soldiers return to stock up on food and water.

The soldiers didn't know that it was a drone at first and they fired on nearby structures. Kochavi took part in helping another wounded soldier. He felt as if a fist was pressing continuously in his side. He expected it to go away but it only grew worse.

He continued to fight but after 10 minutes his hand fell asleep and he started to feel weaker. His GoPro camera filmed the event and Kochavi can be heard groaning from the pain even as he fires on surrounding buildings.

Only when he woke up in Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon did he learn that two pieces of shrapnel had entered his side, one practically touching a major artery. "Everything hurt," he said. "I couldn't walk."

"It will sound a little weird," Amir confided, but her concern for Kochavi saved her. "I didn't function after Nova," she said. "And when [the injury] happened, I left the house. I moved into the hospital and I had something to worry about. That was my treatment."

Zohar Kochavi recovers in Barzilai Medical Center, in Ashkelon, with support from his girlfriend, Shiraz Amir. Screenshot.

Kochavi's mother, Fanny, admitted she was happy that he was wounded because it took him out of Gaza.

Kochavi is determined to return to combat, however. He is taking physical therapy to build back his strength.

Amir and Kochavi had what they described as a "very difficult conversation" about it. Amir, in the end, decided to support him. "If that's what will help him go on with life with a tranquil spirit, I'm with him," she said.

"My stomach churns. It's hard to hear it," said Fanny. "But I can't hold him back. He's 27 years old."

At the end of the television segment, Kochavi brought out his army fatigues to show where the shrapnel entered. "This is the first and this is the second," he said, pointing to two small holes in his shirt. "And I will wear it still."

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Syrian President Bashar Assad remains in Syria as of Friday, though Egyptian and Jordanian officials have urged him to leave the country and form a government in exile, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The advice reflects the regime’s rapidly deteriorating position amid the ongoing offensive being led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels. They have captured Aleppo and Hama, two of Syria’s largest cities, and are poised to strike at Homs, the last major city under regime control on the road to the capital of Damascus.

The capture of Homs would also cut off Damascus from the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus, predominantly Alawite areas that are home to Assad’s most loyal supporters and the site of Russia’s Mediterranean naval base.

Government resistance appears to be crumbling elsewhere as well, with U.S.-backed Kurds taking the city of Deir al-Zour in the east on Friday and rebel uprisings around Daraa province near the border with Israel.

According to WSJ, Assad’s wife and children traveled to Russia last week, and his brothers-in-law have departed for the United Arab Emirates.

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The Jewish Federations of North America applauded the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., for its unanimous ruling on Dec. 6 to uphold a law requiring Chinese company ByteDance to sell the social media app TikTok or face an effective ban in the United States.

The three-judge panel rejected TikTok’s argument that H.R.7521, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use the app.

“This law is designed to address U.S. national security, but it will also do something else—slow the antisemitism epidemic that this platform has helped spread around the globe since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel,” the group stated.

JFNA reported that “antisemitic comments on TikTok rose 912%” in just one year.

“Jewish Federations will always stand against antisemitic hatred and bias, which is why we supported this law’s passage at every stage,” the group added. “Today, the law was found to be constitutionally sound, and we look forward to its implementation and enforcement.”

If ByteDance fails to sell TikTok by Jan. 19, then app-store companies will be legally required to stop supporting the social network.

TikTok said it plans to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court decision.

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This week, Channel 11’s journalist Ayala Hasson broadcast a two-part exposé on the Israel Defense Forces’ self-investigation of the massacre at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, which took place a kilometer from the Gaza Strip. Hasson’s reports reinforced the fact that the IDF and Shin Bet top brass are to blame for Hamas’s successful day of genocide.

A total of 364 people were brutally murdered at the Nova music festival and along avenues of escape. Thirty-nine were taken hostage. The rave opened on Oct. 5 with 3,800 revelers.

According to earlier investigative reports, the IDF intercepted Hamas’s invasion plans a year before Oct. 7. They received multiple, rapidly escalating warnings of the impending invasion from a variety of sources in the Southern Command in the months, weeks and days prior to that day. Intelligence head Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Shin Bet director Ronen Bar did not share the warnings or Hamas’s intercepted invasion plans with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Instead, they repeatedly briefed him that Hamas was deterred, and Israel simply needed to provide it with more cash from Qatar and more work permits for Gazans in Israel to keep the terrorist regime fat, happy and deterred.

On Oct. 10, we learned that on the night between Oct. 6 and Oct. 7, Halevi, Bar, Southern Command Chief Maj. General Yaron Finkleman, Operations Directorate Chief Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk and Haliva’s assistant (Haliva was on vacation and not answering his phone), held two telephone consultations, at midnight and 4 a.m., when they discussed multiplying indications that Hamas was about to carry out its invasion, slaughter and kidnapping plan. They chose to do nothing, told no one and agreed to meet again at 8 a.m. Hamas invaded at 6:30.

Hasson’s reported excerpts from two-and-a-half hours of recordings of a conversation between Halevi’s representative Brig. Gen. Ido Mizrahi and police commanders in the Southern District. Halevi appointed Mizrahi to conduct the IDF’s inquiry into the slaughter at Nova.

The police were the heroes of the festival. By declaring that Israel was under invasion at 6:30, Southern District Commander Superintendent Amir Cohen precipitated the Ofakim police station commander’s order to disperse the concert-goers. That decision is credited with saving the lives of 90% of the party’s attendees. According to Mizrahi, about 200 people were at the party site when the Palestinian rape, murder and kidnapping gangs arrived a bit after 9 a.m.

Forty policemen and women died staving off the invading Palestinian terrorists from the Nova festival. IDF forces didn’t show up until after the massacre was over and the 39 hostages had been taken to Gaza. All the same, Mizrahi tried to shift the blame for the mass slaughter from the IDF onto the police, asking why there were still 200 people at the party site at 9.

Surprised, the police explained that they couldn’t enforce the order because they were busy fighting Hamas since the IDF didn’t arrive.

Mizrahi disclosed to Cohen and his officers for the first time that on nighttime telephone calls, Bar, Halevi and their associates discussed the Nova festival but opted to do nothing. The police officers noted that had they known this at 4 a.m., the slaughter would have been prevented.

Plugging the leaks

Hasson’s reports were a grim reminder of the IDF General Staff and the Shin Bet director’s unforgivable and arguably criminal dereliction of duty in everything related to the events of Oct. 7. They were the only ones with knowledge of Hamas’s preparations to invade. They were the only ones who knew that Hamas was taking concrete steps to invade in the hours before the invasion. And they told no one and did nothing.

Since Oct. 7, Halevi and Bar—and their equally culpable subordinates—have tried to deflect the blame onto Netanyahu by insisting that the reason they were unprepared was because of the prime minister’s longstanding policy of containing Hamas. But this claim is nonsensical given that Netanyahu based his policies on false information they provided him.

Their efforts to avoid accepting responsibility for their cataclysmic failures—and to deflect the blame onto Netanyahu whom they kept in the dark—has brought us to Israel’s current state, where by the looks of things, Halevi, Bar, their comrades in the legal system (led by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara) and the justices of the Supreme Court are engaged in an all-out effort to oust Netanyahu from power as quickly as possible.

Their efforts have been ongoing since the start of the war. The generals have all but openly accused Netanyahu of blocking a hostage deal. This comes despite the fact that they have known all along that Hamas has never been willing to free the hostages, whom it rightly views as its life-insurance policy. Halevi, Bar and their subordinates are assumed to be behind nearly all of the leaks to the media related to Israel’s internal discussions regarding the hostage talks. Those leaks have repeatedly been used by Hamas to justify their consistent refusal to make a deal.

The generals are likewise fingered as the most likely sources of real-time leaks from cabinet meetings, geared towards scuttling Netanyahu’s plans to advance military operations in Gaza and Lebanon. They have cooperated under the shadow of the Biden administration to subvert Netanyahu’s orders.

The leaks from the cabinet meetings are all felonies. Yet, despite Netanyahu’s repeated requests that criminal probes be opened to find the leakers, Baharav-Miara has refused.

Her visible determination to enable the subversion of normal workings of government by refusing to investigate the leaks is prima facie illegal. All the same, this is her policy.

In shocking contrast to her consistent protection of anti-government leakers, over the past six weeks, Baharav-Miara has been at the center of a bold-faced effort to criminalize any IDF officer, police officer or public servant who provides Netanyahu and his ministers with information that the IDF and Shin Bet are determined to hide from them, as they hid Hamas’s pre-Oct. 7 invasion plans from Israel’s elected leaders; or advance ministerial policies that Bar, Halevi and Baharav-Miara oppose.

Six weeks ago, Shin Bet officers staged dramatic bedroom arrests of two military intelligence officers and an intelligence NCO, dragging them out of their homes in the middle of the night. They also brutally arrested Eli Feldstein, a military affairs spokesman in the Prime Minister’s Office. The two officers were later released, but despite three orders from magistrates and district courts to release Feldstein and the NCO, acting on appeals from Baharav-Miara’s prosecutors, the Supreme Court has kept them behind bars. The NCO is accused of transferring classified information to Feldstein in a manner that endangers national security. Feldstein is accused of leaking classified information to Germany’s Bild newspaper in a manner that endangers national security. The cover story is that the NCO gave Feldstein a Hamas document showing that the terror group is unwilling to make a hostage deal under any conditions and is using Netanyahu’s political opposition to blame the premier for the absence of a deal.

This week, attorney Uri Korb, who represents the NCO, explained the actual story. Several months ago, a group of intelligence officers and NCOs were concerned because Haliva, his replacement Maj. Gen. Yossi Binder, Bar and Halevi were deliberately blocking information from Netanyahu that the officers and NCOs considered essential to the premier’s ability to make decisions related to the war. The NCO transferred this information to Feldstein to be delivered to Netanyahu. The Bild story was just one of many documents the IDF and Shin Bet were hiding from the premier. From the prosecution’s court declarations against Feldstein and the NCO, we learned last week that the NCO provided Feldstein with information about a state actor’s collusion with Hamas in perpetrating Oct. 7. The name of the state entity is blacked out in the document. But the most reasonable interpretation of the text is that it refers either to the Palestinian Authority or Egypt.

In both cases, blocking Netanyahu from receiving the information undermines his ability to understand the nature of the enemy. It also prevents him from developing a strategy to effectively combat hostile actors that the IDF, Shin Bet and Biden administration have been keen to shield from public scrutiny.

Feldstein and the NCO were denied communication with their attorneys for several weeks. Their families attest that the men have been treated as terrorists, and are in psychological and physical distress. Both have also been subjected to massive pressure to incriminate Netanyahu.

Rupture among law-enforcement agencies

The public persecution of Feldstein and the NCO serves two ends. First, it seeks to criminalize Netanyahu and second, it aims to deter other intelligence officers from providing the prime minister with critical information about the war.

In response to the two men’s plight, the Knesset is advancing a bill that would provide immunity for whistle-blowers who share classified information with the prime minister. In an act of gross insubordination, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari harshly criticized the bill in a press conference on Wednesday night.

The legal system, IDF General Staff and Shin Bet’s joint abuse of Feldstein and the NCO has exposed Israel’s three ruling institutions to harsh criticism for their political subversion. But they don’t care. Far from standing down, last week they upped the ante precipitously.

Last Monday, the Shin Bet arrested Koby Yaakobi, head of the Israeli Prison Service, at gunpoint. They similarly arrested Avishai Muallem, deputy superintendent and the head of the Serious Crimes Unit in the Samaria and Judea District. Yaakobi is suspected of informing Muallem that he was under investigation. Muallem is suspected of refusing to open investigations against Jewish Israelis in Judea and Samaria that the Shin Bet’s “Jewish Division,” has fingered as terror suspects. The Shin Bet accuses Muallem of seeking a bribe in the form of a promotion from Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir in exchange for not prosecuting Jewish Israelis.

In recent testimony before the Knesset, Muallem told lawmakers that most complaints filed by Palestinians and anarchists in Judea and Samaria against Israeli Jews are frivolous. Until Muallem took over the unit, its officers served as rubber stamps for the Shin Bet’s Jewish Division’s accusation against Jews.

The self-evident political nature of the two senior officers’ arrests and interrogations has caused a rupture of relations between the police and prison service on the one hand, and the attorney general and the Shin Bet on the other. As in the case of Feldstein and the NCO, Yaakobi and Muallem’s arrests serve a twofold goal.

First, the purpose is to intimidate police officers not to work with Ben-Gvir. Second, Muallem and Yaakobi are being pressured to incriminate the security minister. Last month, Baharav-Miara unsuccessfully tried to coerce Netanyahu to fire Ben-Gvir. Under extra-legal Supreme Court guidelines, if she indicts Ben-Gvir, then Netanyahu will be required to fire him. Baharav-Miara and her colleagues are convinced that if he is fired, Ben-Gvir will pull his party out of the governing coalition and precipitate its overthrow.

This brings us back to Oct. 7.

Bar, Halevi and the political left have demanded the formation of a commission of inquiry to be controlled by the Supreme Court. The government seeks the establishment of a public commission of inquiry whose members will be chosen in equal numbers by the coalition and the opposition. A judicial commission of inquiry will be chosen by radical leftist Yitzhak Amit, acting president of the Supreme Court. He is expected to appoint commission members who will protect the IDF and Shin Bet from scrutiny and place all the blame for their failure on Netanyahu.

If Netanyahu’s government falls and the left is able to form an alternate government in the existing Knesset, that successor government would pass a law authorizing a commission of inquiry into the Oct. 7 invasion to be appointed by Amit.

As the days and weeks pass, and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration draws nearer, Israel’s ruling class is becoming desperate to oust Netanyahu from power. They fear that without Biden supporting their efforts and with Trump determined to rout out their American administrative state counterparts, they will lose their grip on unchecked power. Muallem, Yaakobi, Feldstein and the NCO have become victims of their desperation. 

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Keith Klingeman, 51, of Naperville, Ill., appeared in court for a bench trial on Dec. 2 for a 2022 incident involving the defacement of three campaign signs for Patty Gustin, a candidate for the DuPage County Board.

Klingeman, who entered a not-guilty plea during his arraignment in February 2023, is charged with two counts of hate crime and one count of property damage for putting swastika stickers on Gustin’s campaign signs. In the past two years, the case has been continued 20 times.

Prosecutors that the defendant’s intentional use of swastika stickers was “more than distasteful” and sought to link Gustin’s “likeness to that of Adolf Hitler.”

Gustin, who is not Jewish, had previously shared publicly that her family is honored at the Holocaust museums in Israel and Washington, D.C.

“I have been proud to share this,” she told Patch following the incident in 2022. “However, it put a target on my back."

At the hearing, the prosecution played a police video filmed of Klingeman at his home in which he told police that he had placed the swastikas on the campaign signs and cut one of the signs with a knife. 

Klingeman also expressed frustration at Gustin’s statements at a Naperville City Council meeting but denied any malevolent intent toward the local politician.

Gustin said in court on Monday that the stickers caused her to feel “numb” and “emotionally drained,” as well as afraid to go out in the community.

Klingeman’s attorney argued, however, that his client was “overcharged,” refuting the hate-crime charges due to the prosecution’s lack of proof of motive. His attorney added that based on the First Amendment, Klingeman’s actions were “political speech” as campaign signs are “part of the marketplace of ideas.”

A verdict will be announced on Dec. 13. 

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One of Saudi Arabia’s top religious figures gathered for a gala dinner in Washington, D.C., with as many as 150 Jewish, Christian, Muslim and political leaders to discuss promoting greater peace in the Middle East.

Mohammed Al-Issa, a former justice minister in Saudi Arabia and now secretary general of the Muslim World League (MWL), said on Tuesday that “Oct. 7 was a crime” and that the terrorist attacks “cannot be accepted by Muslims at all.”

He said that “we cannot justify the holding of hostages and call for the immediate release of all the hostages,” adding “we want the war in Gaza to end and all the hostages to be freed.”

The MWL is the world’s largest non-government Muslim organization.

Attendees at the interfaith gala, held at the National Postal Museum on Capitol Hill, included Rabbi David Saperstein, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and director emeritus of the Religious Actions Center of Reform Judaism; and Jonathan Kessler, a former senior executive at AIPAC who now works as CEO/founder at Heart of a Nation.

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Tens of thousands of British Jews and pro-Israel supporters from across the United Kingdom are expected to gather on Dec. 8 in London to raise awareness of an alarming uptick in antisemitism.

The March Against Antisemitism 2024 comes after a record-setting number of incidents of Jew-hatred, including violence against children, across the United Kingdom, coupled with massive anti-Israel protests in the center of London following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

“Over the past year, antisemitic hate crime has quadrupled, and Jews are now the most targeted faith minority in the country, despite our minuscule numbers,” a spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is organizing the event, told JNS. “Week after week, our capital city and other urban areas have become 'no-go' zones not just for Jews but for many British people, the majority of whom say that Palestine protests put them off going into town. These regular protests have unleashed a tidal wave of antisemitism that has left no part of our society untouched. Jewish people feel like we’re drowning.”

The last major pro-Israel rally took place in London on Nov. 26, 2023, when as many as 60,000 people filled the city streets after anti-Israel protesters gathered for the eighth week in a row.

According to the Community Security Trust, which represents the security needs of the Jewish community, in the first six months of 2024, there were 1,978 instances of Jew hate recorded across the United Kingdom, the highest January-to-June total ever reported to the organization, dwarfing the previous record of 1,371 incidents in 2021.

In the last two weeks alone, Jewish children on their way home from school were attacked when their bus was pelted with rocks and garbage, and several teens managed to board the bus to yell expletives at the kids. A Jewish girl was hospitalized after being hit in the head by a glass bottle thrown at her from a balcony.

As the spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism told JNS: “Extremism is changing our country so we must take a stand for our values and demand action to secure the future of Britain’s Jewish community. We believe that the British people continue to stand with us, and we will be marching together in solidarity on Dec. 8.”

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  • Words count:
    1109 words
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    Opinion
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    Dec. 6, 2024
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In recent years, a troubling trend has emerged, threatening the very fabric of open discourse: cancel culture. Initially aimed at holding individuals accountable for harmful actions, it has devolved into an unforgiving environment where people are ostracized for holding different political or social views.

As a Jewish, LGBT, social and political activist and adviser, I believe that the values of inclusion, acceptance and freedom of speech are non-negotiable. Just as I refuse for anyone to closet me for my LGBT identity, no one can closet me for my Jewish, Zionist or Israeli identity.

It is this steadfast commitment to inclusion that demands people reconsider the practice of canceling family, friends or even strangers over political disagreements. Especially during this month of holidays.

Cancel culture—particularly within liberal, progressive and LGBTQ communities—is becoming a divisive force. Ironically, these are the same communities that have long championed tolerance, acceptance and diversity. Yet we are seeing people “cancel” those closest to them—family members, lifelong friends and colleagues—because they hold opposing political or social views. This instinct to exclude is not only misguided; it is counterproductive.

Even with my almost life-long LGBTQ activism and advocacy, I have directly been targeted, attacked and ostracized by my own communities and movements because of my being outspoken as a Jewish, Zionist and Israeli-American. The mind-twisting justifications for anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist and anti-Israel beliefs within the LGBTQ, liberal and progressive movements have been shamefully abhorrent. I have seen it develop for years before the explosion of bigotry we are seeing today.

The November elections and Republican wins have caused a wave of discomfort across the United States. In response to cancel culture on the left, massive amounts of American voters felt ostracized by their own social and political parties and movements, and shifted their affiliation. We saw this in the results of the U.S. presidential election.

We are at a pivotal time in history when activism is essential. The global challenges we face—climate change, human-rights abuses, social inequality and political polarization—require all of us to engage meaningfully. However, meaningful activism cannot thrive in an echo chamber. The strength of a democracy lies in its diversity of thought—in the respectful exchange of differing opinions, and in the willingness to listen even when we disagree.

Cancel culture operates on a binary premise: You’re either on the “right” side of history, or you’re not. The movements that have fought for “non-binary” understanding and identity have embraced binary thinking. This oversimplified view leaves no room for nuance or personal growth. People are complex, and their beliefs are shaped by a multitude of experiences, cultures and personal struggles. Political beliefs are rarely black and white; they are in actuality a mosaic of values, priorities and compromises.

For example, many individuals who once identified as liberal or progressive have shifted toward more centrist or conservative positions. Why? Because the goalposts within certain factions of the progressive movement have moved so far left that some feel alienated. These individuals have not abandoned their core values but have chosen to prioritize different issues or seek a political home where their voices can still be heard. This shift is not a betrayal; it’s a reflection of the complex and evolving nature of political identity.

Canceling these individuals rather than engaging them only deepens societal rifts. It shuts down opportunities for understanding and reconciliation, leaving us more polarized than ever.

True inclusion does not require conformity. In fact, inclusion thrives on the coexistence of different ideas, cultures, and perspectives. Our strength as individuals and as a society lies in our ability to engage with others who challenge our views. We do not need to agree on every issue to find common ground.

Let me lean for a moment into my Jewish identity, culture, religion and philosophy. The Jewish concept of Machloket L’Shem Shamayim (“a dispute for the sake of heaven”) teaches that respectful debate is not only healthy but necessary for growth. This concept is embedded in Jewish tradition, where vigorous debate over religious texts has been a cornerstone of learning for centuries. We can apply this same principle to modern political discourse: engage in debate not to win but to understand, and in doing so, strengthen the bonds that hold us together.

If we want to create a society that values inclusion, we must shift from canceling to conversing. Here are a few ways we can foster unity without compromising our values:

1. Listen to understand, not to respond: Approach conversations with genuine curiosity. Ask questions. Seek to understand the “why” behind someone’s beliefs.

2. Create safe spaces for difficult conversations: Encourage open dialogue in homes, workplaces and community spaces where differing opinions can be shared respectfully. Turn a “safe space” into a “brave space” in which people can be their genuine, authentic selves, and explore, learn, develop, and challenge themselves.

3. Acknowledge common ground: Even when we disagree, we often share core values—family, safety, justice and fairness. Highlighting these commonalities can bridge divides. Shared values are more important than being part of the same political party affiliation or who we vote for.

4. Recognize the right to change: People grow and evolve. Allow room for transformation and forgive those who may have once expressed views you find problematic. In the democratic process, it is vital for people to respect each other for having the right to represent and be represented—and it is within that process that we can and often do develop and change.

5. Reject the all-or-nothing mindset: Believing that someone must align with your views entirely to be worthy of inclusion is dangerous. Celebrate progress and incremental change rather than demanding perfection. True progressive beliefs are about the progress of society; otherwise, it is not progressive and is regressive (or as I call these people, “fauxgressive”).

Inclusion is not about erasing differences but embracing them. It is about ensuring that everyone has a place at the table, regardless of political affiliation or personal beliefs. Our society is stronger when all voices are heard, even those we disagree with.

We need to remember that our shared humanity transcends political boundaries. The world is not neatly divided into “us” versus “them.” It is a complex, interconnected web of individuals with unique stories, values and dreams. By embracing this complexity, we can move beyond the divisiveness of cancel culture and towards a more inclusive, compassionate society. That is where we find the “us/we” instead of the “us/them.”

We must build a future where unity does not demand conformity, where activism is rooted in understanding and where everyone, regardless of their political beliefs, feels valued and heard.

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  • Words count:
    194 words
  • Type of content:
    Update Desk
  • Publication Date:
    Dec. 6, 2024

Law enforcement has revealed that a shooter who attacked children at a private Christian school in northern California left behind a note describing his anti-Israel beliefs as his reason for committing the crime.

Glenn Litton, 56, used a handgun on Wednesday to shoot Roman Mendez, 6, and Elias Wolford, 5, at Feather River Adventist School in Oroville, Calif. Litton died shortly thereafter in what has been described as most likely from shooting himself.

Police report that the two children are in critical condition and may need surgery.

On Thursday, law enforcement released a statement from Litton describing his motive.

“Countermeasure involving child executions has now been imposed at the Seventh Day Adventist school in California, United States by The International Alliance,” the note read. “I, Lieutenant Glenn Litton of the Alliance carried out countermeasure in necessitated response to America's involvement with Genocide and Oppression of Palestinians along with attacks towards Yemen.”

Litton’s criminal record showed convictions and imprisonments going back to the 1990s on such charges as identity theft, fraud and forgery. Police said mental-health problems may be related to his actions and that for the crime, he used a “ghost gun” assembled from different parts.

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  • Words count:
    316 words
  • Type of content:
    Update Desk
  • Publication Date:
    Dec. 6, 2024

A banner displaying Adolf Hitler’s personal standard was recently uncovered in a storage space at Poland’s National Museum in Poznań. 

Art historian Aleksandra Paradowska discovered the flag, labeled as a “German banner from the Second World War,” while reviewing thousands of items in preparation for an exhibit that would focus on life in the Polish city during World War II.

Paradowska researched further, using archival imagery and an analysis of the materials to identify the flag as Hitler’s personal standard, used to signal the dictator’s presence at official events. She described the flag as in “perfect condition.” 

The flag in Poznań has been considered unique, as no such banners of its size had previously been thought to have survived.

“The fact that this may be the only such banner in the world does not particularly fill us with pride,” Paweł Oses, a spokesman for the museum, told the Polish Press Agency

Though the promotion of Nazism and Nazi symbols is illegal under Polish law, educational displays are exempt from punishment. However, the museum will withhold the banner out of concern that “an object so strongly associated with Hitler could become an object of neo-Nazi worship.”

“The banner will be placed in a warehouse in Rogalin and will not most likely leave the warehouse anytime soon,” Oses said. “We are not planning to conduct any further research on it or to display it.”

The museum, which received the banner in 1970, believes the object belonged to Arthur Greiser, who served as the Nazi governor of German-occupied Poland, which included Poznań. It had been found hidden above the stage at the city’s opera hall in the late 1960s. 

Paradowska, who will also not use the banner in her exhibit, theorizes that the flag was sent to Poznań in case Hitler visited the city and attended a performance at the opera house.

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