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Daily Maverick
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Israel alone — the self-fulfilling prophecies of Jewish isolation
From October 2023, despite all evidence to the contrary, many Israelis and members of the Zionist diaspora had been telling themselves that they were 'battling the forces of darkness' alone and unaided. But now that the Trump administration and major Western institutions are beginning to distance themselves from the Jewish state, the deeper psychology emerges — one anchored in messianic yearnings and misplaced hopes of redemption. In the hands of Hashem 'I think the reason that the forces of darkness are beating us so much,' said Rav Doniel Katz, 'is that they are fighting a religious war, and we keep ignoring the fact that it's a religious war.' The video, it turned out, had been uploaded on 24 April 2025. At just over 80 minutes in length, it was a conversation between Rav Katz and his much younger colleague, Reb Adam. Both rabbis, I knew, were ba'alei teshuvah — a Hebrew phrase, meaning 'masters of return', for Jews who had been born secular but had later found Torah. Accordingly, their dialogue was aimed at those who were 'just beginning' the journey, as well as those who were 'already immersed in Torah learning.' The subjects covered, if one were to ignore the Jewish connection, could have made up a New Age podcast from just about anywhere on the internet. From meditation techniques, breathwork and trauma healing to the laws of attraction and 'the rise of the divine feminine', there wasn't much that was left off the table. But, of course, one could not ignore the Jewish connection. At around 22 minutes, Adam asked Katz if there was any place for 'external advocacy'. Katz: 'What do you mean by external advocacy?' Adam: 'Advocacy for Israel and the Jewish people … you know, the notion of, 'Bring them [the hostages] home now.'' Katz: 'I find that a problematic statement. I mean, it's leveraging a tremendously difficult moment, and kind of politicising it, as if the [Israeli] government has control. And why are we blaming it on them? Shouldn't we give them back now? Shouldn't we be turning to Hashem [God], and saying, 'Hashem, help us heal now'?' It was then that Katz lamented the fact, as he saw it, that the broader Jewish community had failed to interpret the war with Hamas in essentially spiritual terms. And here, instead of casting shade and derision on what he had come to view as 'the forces of darkness,' he was almost complimentary. 'They are fighting with a passionate spirituality,' he said, 'but we as a people, collectively, are disengaged. We don't really think we have a divine destiny, we don't think we have divine blessing, we don't think we have a divine mission … and therefore, we are beaten.' For me, if anything, it was a way of reading the situation that was deeply instructive. Even if I had long since arrived at the conclusion that — far from waging a 'war' — the Jewish state had been waging a campaign of revenge and extermination, I could not shake the sense that the horrors in the Holy Land were millenarian at their core. My first piece on the conflict, published in late October 2023, had focused on the End Times prophecies of Judaism and Islam, a subject that had drawn the attention of Judge Dennis Davis on national TV. It was in this context, in January of 2024, that I first came across the work of Rav Katz. Back then, less than four months after the 7 October event, I had been forwarded a link to a 45-minute YouTube video titled Is This The Kabbalistic Meaning of the Israel-Hamas War? (And Will It Bring Moshiach…?) Aside from the millenarian (or messianic) theme, there was the hit on Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah), which had long been my last remaining connection to the tradition of my birth — and so, I had clicked on the link instantly. There on stage, exuding an undeniable charisma, was a man around my age, with a black hat, unkempt beard and fathomlessly sad eyes. 'There is no hope in our situation, I know,' he had said, as his sermon was reaching its crescendo, 'but we're already dancing in the [Temple].' For Katz, who was preaching in English to a packed hall in Israel, the offer of immediate solace was antithetical to his point. The collective anger and grief over the hostages and the dead; the sharp rise in the diaspora of anti-Semitic attacks; the lack of an effective leadership to navigate the chaos — all of these things, according to Katz, were proof that the situation was in the hands of Hashem. It was the suffering itself, he informed his audience, that would ultimately bring on the final redemption. As for the suffering of the Palestinians, over the next 16 months, I would return intermittently to Katz's various social media platforms — and specifically his YouTube channel, The Elevation Project — to see whether, in the face of Israeli atrocities, he had allowed himself to draw a distinction between combatants and civilians. To my disappointment, and sometimes even to my anger, it would never happen. His excuse for not doing so, it seemed, remained his aversion to 'politicising' the moment. But still, the way I saw it, the political and the spiritual were one thing. Signs and portents In the early hours of 2 May 2025, in international waters off the coast of Malta, the Conscience — a ship belonging to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a group of NGOs that aimed to break the Israeli siege of Gaza — was crippled by a drone strike. Although Israel would neither claim nor deny responsibility for the attack, the evidence of culpability was overwhelming. 'According to Maltese parliamentarians, the Israeli government had requested — mere days before the attack — that Malta refuse entry to the ship. Also, according to Drop Site News, an Israeli military aircraft had circled the vessel within hours of the strike. The truth, by almost any (non-Zionist) account, was therefore biblical in its savagery. For exactly two months at that point, no food or humanitarian aid had been allowed to enter Gaza. Half a million Palestinians were at immediate risk of starvation, according to aid agencies, with the newswires releasing a constant stream of horrifically unpardonable images — children, in the grips of acute malnutrition and cystic fibrosis, with sunken eyes, yellowing skins and shockingly skeletal frames. Outside of the most denialist Jewish enclaves, the analogy between these images and the photographs of living skeletons in the death camps of the Nazis was impossible to ignore. Equally difficult to ignore was the symbolism of the attack on the ship called Conscience — Israel, whether or not it cared, was demonstrating to the world that it did not have one. And yet, only two days before, an event had occurred that was arguably even more awash in biblical symbolism. On 30 April, on the eve of Israel's Yom Ha'atzmaut — Day of Independence — wildfires had erupted on the outskirts of Jerusalem, reportedly the largest in the country's history. Almost instantly, news spread (aided by the reliable support of Hindu nationalists in India) that the fires were the handiwork of Hamas-supporting arsonists. An Arab citizen of East Jerusalem, who happened to be carrying cotton wool and a lighter, was the first to be arrested. By 3 May, with the Conscience still attending to its wounds, the leftist Israeli newspaper Haaretz would run a commendable investigation titled, ' How Conspiracy Theories About Palestinian Arsonists Spread Like Wildfire in Israel '. The national scapegoating campaign, the piece concluded, had been driven by old videos, misleading maps and political rhetoric. 'Many people saw the lie,' one expert told Haaretz. 'Fewer saw the correction.' But it wasn't until 7 May that a South African Jew by the name of Ronnie Kasrils, a former Umkhonto we Sizwe freedom fighter and erstwhile Cabinet minister in the post-apartheid ANC government, would properly bring the symbolism home. In an opinion piece for Mail & Guardian, Kasrils would note that 'the forests that cover the demolished Palestinian villages of the 1948 Nakba' were ablaze at a time when the Jewish state was meant to be celebrating its founding. 'Those like me,' he wrote, 'who were seduced as innocent children by the thieving Jewish National Fund (JNF) into providing pocket money to plant trees ostensibly to make the desert bloom, can feel redeemed by whatever cause is now wiping the stolen terrain of its camouflage.' Kasrils, whose vehement anti-Zionism had for decades drawn the bitter contempt of the vast majority of South African Jews, happened to be including my own experience in his 'like me' qualifier — the white and blue moneyboxes of the JNF had stolen my pocket money too, a fact I would only discover decades later. As detailed in the remarkable documentary Village Under the Forest, written and directed by Heidi Grunebaum and Mark Kaplan — another two members, heroically despised, of the South African Jewish community — these pine forests, aside from concealing Palestinian villages razed in the Nakba, were also non-indigenous. They had never, in other words, rightfully belonged on the land. To my mind, then, whatever force had caused the terrain to be wiped clean, an appropriate term for it was indeed 'redemption' — and particularly so because of the 'scapegoating campaign' that had fallen so hopelessly flat. And in such an Old Testament context, perhaps even the atheist Kasrils would have reverted once more to biblical language to describe what transpired on 8 May, the day after his piece was published. Because, to be clear, 8 May 2025 was significant for two easily observable reasons: first, it was the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) day; second, it was the day on which the winds shifted in Britain with respect to an institutional recognition that the modern Jewish state had gone too far. Put another way, exactly eight decades after the Nazis had been defeated, an editorial in the Financial Times titled ' The west's shameful silence on Gaza ' was going viral; an editorial in The Economist titled ' The war in Gaza must end ' had just been published; and British media was alight with the news that a succession of conservative parliamentarians — former Israel supporters — had withdrawn their backing for the 'rogue' Jewish state. By that Sunday, 11 May, The Guardian's editorial board would ask the pivotal question: 'What is this, if not genocidal?' Falling silent 'I don't care about saving the Jewish soul at this point,' said the journalist Nora Barrows-Friedman, a staffer at the essential Electronic Intifada podcast, on 6 May 2025. 'I don't care about anything that has to do with preserving anything of my inherited genetic identity. It makes no difference to me about the future of Jewish society, because what it has been reduced to right now is horrific.' It was a sentiment that I could easily understand, and on some days — most days, lately — it was a sentiment that I probably agreed with. Like Barrows-Friedman, I had concluded that what 'Jewish society' had been 'allowed to promulgate in Palestine' was 'irredeemable'. Still, a 4,000-year-old tradition — if one counted from the life of the patriarch Abraham — wasn't about to disappear just because a handful of its members were disgusted by what it had become. In Israel itself, beginning in early May, a small but growing group of dissidents would begin to transmute their self-disgust into something life-affirming: protests not for a ceasefire deal or the release of the hostages (which happened weekly, and were life-affirming only insofar as Jews were concerned), but protests against the indefensible slaughter of Palestinian children (which had not happened at all since 7 October, and were inclusive in a way that upended the Zionist creed). A report on the new phenomenon, aired on NPR radio on 7 May, said it all: 'Every Saturday night, throngs of protesters march down a main street banging on drums and chanting. But last weekend, they fell quiet as they streamed past another group of protesters who've brought something new to the Israeli debate over the war in Gaza. They're holding photos of children smiling. This new protest group says these are the children killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.' And yet why, to scream it from the rooftops, had it taken so long? The question was as urgent as it was legitimate — and the answers seemed to stretch from the dehumanising censorship of Israeli media to the 'murderous solipsism' that, according to the arch-dissident Ori Goldberg, lay at the very heart of the Jewish nationalist project. But there was, to my mind, a much older answer. Like Islam and Christianity, Judaism had always been inward-focused; its essence had always been based on the division between 'us' (the chosen; the saved) and 'them' (the masses; the damned). Like the fundamentalist imams in Mecca and the conservative cardinals in Rome, our orthodox rabbis in Jerusalem were still heavily invested in the message — often subliminal; mostly not — of an exclusively ordained mission. On 13 October 2024, the day after Yom Kippur, when The New York Times had just released a report — based on the observations of 65 doctors, nurses and paramedics — that Israeli snipers had been deliberately shooting Palestinian children in the head, Rav Katz did a piece to camera (as posted on his Facebook page). 'So in summary, this is how the year begins,' he said, 'it's like the 'Hero's Journey,' right? Here we are standing up, fighting for our lives, against the most dark, evil, maniacal forces and people in the world. And we have been left alone by all our allies, abandoned, and we are the last ones …. overcoming all the obstacles, to stand up for what is good and right and pure in the world…' At the time, of course, Israel had the unqualified backing of the largest military coalition that the world had ever known. No matter what Katz — who presented as a genuine Kabbalist; a compassionate soul — had to say about abandonment, almost every human being with a smartphone was seeing the opposite. It would, unfortunately, take many more months for the institutions of the West to begin to place some daylight between themselves and the Jewish state. And even then, after the images out of Gaza were drawing comparisons to the Nazi death camps, the extermination campaign would continue — even then, after US President Donald Trump had terrified the Israelis by negotiating with their enemies without them, the carnage from the skies would not stop. Rav Katz, in other words, by suggesting that such events were in 'Hashem's hands,' was explaining the inexplicable. And the final redemption, while it was becoming the last resort, had never seemed further off. DM
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Israel bombs Yemen's Hodeidah port after attack near Tel Aviv
The Israeli military says it has carried out air strikes on targets at Yemen's Hodeidah port, claiming the sites were used to support Houthi operations against Israel. According to the Israeli army, fighter jets struck infrastructure on Monday linked to the Houthis, including a concrete factory east of Hodeidah that it described as 'an important economic resource' used in building tunnels and military infrastructure. 'The Hodeidah seaport serves as a hub for the transfer of Iranian weapons and equipment for military needs,' the Israeli army said in a statement. The claim could not be independently verified. Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported that six Israeli strikes hit Hodeidah's port and blamed both Israel and the United States. Axios journalist Barak Ravid quoted a senior US official who said the air raids were coordinated between Israel and the US. A US defence source told Al Jazeera that 'US forces did not participate in the Israeli strikes on Yemen today' but did not deny nonlethal support may have been provided. The attack was carried out after a ballistic missile fired from Yemen on Sunday struck close to Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pledged retaliation for the Houthi attack, the first known missile to avoid interception since the Yemeni group began targeting Israel in November Jazeera correspondent Ali Hashem reported that about 30 Israeli warplanes took part in Monday's operation, which was overseen by Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz from a command centre in Tel Aviv. Hashem said the strikes mark a 'new phase' in Israeli attacks on Yemen. Since US President Donald Trump returned to power in January, the US has embarked on a more aggressive assault on Yemen 'which is related directly to Israeli interests', Hashem added. This is not the first time Israel has bombed targets in Yemen. In December, air raids struck the Ras Isa oil terminal and other sites in Hodeidah province, killing at least nine people. While most Houthi-launched projectiles have been intercepted, Sunday's attack was the 'most significant strike', Hashem said, since the group launched its campaign in November 2023, which it said is in response to Israel's war on Gaza and to show solidarity with Palestinians. A drone had previously hit a building in Tel Aviv last year. Since November 2023, the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, have launched more than 100 drone and missile attacks targeting vessels they said are linked to Israel in the Red Sea. Although the Houthis paused attacks during a ceasefire in Gaza this year, they resumed their operations in March after Israel cut off humanitarian aid to Gaza and resumed its offensive.
Al Jazeera
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Israel bombs Yemen's Hodeidah port after attack near Tel Aviv
The Israeli military says it has carried out air strikes on targets at Yemen's Hodeidah port, claiming the sites were used to support Houthi operations against Israel. According to the Israeli army, fighter jets struck infrastructure on Monday linked to the Houthis, including a concrete factory east of Hodeidah that it described as 'an important economic resource' used in building tunnels and military infrastructure. 'The Hodeidah seaport serves as a hub for the transfer of Iranian weapons and equipment for military needs,' the Israeli army said in a statement. The claim could not be independently verified. Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported that six Israeli strikes hit Hodeidah's port and blamed both Israel and the United States. Axios journalist Barak Ravid quoted a senior US official who said the air raids were coordinated between Israel and the US. A US defence source told Al Jazeera that 'US forces did not participate in the Israeli strikes on Yemen today' but did not deny nonlethal support may have been provided. The attack was carried out after a ballistic missile fired from Yemen on Sunday struck close to Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pledged retaliation for the Houthi attack, the first known missile to avoid interception since the Yemeni group began targeting Israel in November 2023. Al Jazeera correspondent Ali Hashem reported that about 30 Israeli warplanes took part in Monday's operation, which was overseen by Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz from a command centre in Tel Aviv. Hashem said the strikes mark a 'new phase' in Israeli attacks on Yemen. Since US President Donald Trump returned to power in January, the US has embarked on a more aggressive assault on Yemen 'which is related directly to Israeli interests', Hashem added. This is not the first time Israel has bombed targets in Yemen. In December, air raids struck the Ras Isa oil terminal and other sites in Hodeidah province, killing at least nine people. While most Houthi-launched projectiles have been intercepted, Sunday's attack was the 'most significant strike', Hashem said, since the group launched its campaign in November 2023, which it said is in response to Israel's war on Gaza and to show solidarity with Palestinians. A drone had previously hit a building in Tel Aviv last year. Since November 2023, the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, have launched more than 100 drone and missile attacks targeting vessels they said are linked to Israel in the Red Sea. Although the Houthis paused attacks during a ceasefire in Gaza this year, they resumed their operations in March after Israel cut off humanitarian aid to Gaza and resumed its offensive.
Daily Express
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Express
United Arab Emirates hosts 16th Sharjah Children's Reading Festival
Published on: Friday, April 25, 2025 Published on: Fri, Apr 25, 2025 Text Size: Some of the children at the Digital Cube workshop. SHARJAH: The 16th edition of the Sharjah Children's Reading Festival (SCRF), the region's leading literary celebration for young minds, opened its doors to a world where stories meet circuits and technology becomes a tool for creativity. This year's festival features more than 600 creative workshops and activities, with the Digital Cube workshop – designed around the globally popular game Minecraft – proving to be one of the highlights. The session reimagines a pixelated universe into a hands-on experiment, where children craft glowing, LED-lit cubes that blend art, mathematics, and technology. 'This is a digital LED pixel cube. It's a project that brings together technology education, mathematics, engineering, and art,' said Mahmoud Hashem, a computer scientist from Lebanon and a first-time SCRF participant representing Room 94, known for its inventive workshops. 'Here, we're trying to blend mathematical thinking with practical skills, enhancing creativity and sparking curiosity. We want children to know that technology can be fun and approachable.' Equipped with printed templates, coin batteries, copper tape, LEDs, and scissors, participants set to work building their own digital cubes. The process involved cutting out paper circuits, applying copper tape, inserting the electronics and colouring and assembling their glowing cubes. 'The beauty of this experiment,' added Hashem, 'is its simplicity. Every element is readily available from a local stationery shop, and the children can take the idea home to invent something new.' For 11-year-old Sana Siddiqui, the session was a revelation. 'It was such a fun way to learn about circuits,' she said. 'I want to use LEDs in the cards I make for my family and friends - the lights could be candles on a cake.' Twelve-year-old Akil Ashraf took it a step further, experimenting with two LEDs in a single circuit. 'I want to make a castle and light it up, just like in the game,' he shared. SCRF's 2025 edition, running until May 4 at Expo Centre Sharjah, stands out for championing digital literacy and creativity in equal measure. For full details and the complete programme, visit * Follow us on Instagram and join our Telegram and/or WhatsApp channel(s) for the latest news you don't want to miss. * Do you have access to the Daily Express e-paper and online exclusive news? Check out subscription plans available. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express's Telegram channel. Daily Express Malaysia
Sharjah 24
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Sharjah 24
SCRF 2025 ignites young minds with LED circuits
600 creative workshops and activities This year's festival features more than 600 creative workshops and activities, with the Digital Cube workshop - designed around the globally popular game Minecraft - proving to be one of the highlights. The session reimagines a pixelated universe into a hands-on experiment, where children craft glowing, LED-lit cubes that blend art, mathematics, and technology. 'This is a digital LED pixel cube. It's a project that brings together technology education, mathematics, engineering, and art,' said Mahmoud Hashem, a computer scientist from Lebanon and a first-time SCRF participant representing Room 94, known for its inventive workshops. 'Here, we're trying to blend mathematical thinking with practical skills, enhancing creativity and sparking curiosity. We want children to know that technology can be fun and approachable.' Equipped with printed templates, coin batteries, copper tape, LEDs, and scissors, participants set to work building their own digital cubes. The process involved cutting out paper circuits, applying copper tape, inserting the electronics, and colouring and assembling their glowing cubes. The beauty of this experiment is its simplicity 'The beauty of this experiment,' added Hashem, 'is its simplicity. Every element is readily available from a local stationery shop, and the children can take the idea home to invent something new.' For 11-year-old Sana Siddiqui, the session was a revelation. 'It was such a fun way to learn about circuits,' she said. 'I want to use LEDs in the cards I make for my family and friends - the lights could be candles on a cake.' Twelve-year-old Akil Ashraf took it a step further, experimenting with two LEDs in a single circuit. 'I want to make a castle and light it up, just like in the game,' he shared. SCRF's 2025 edition, running until 4 May at Expo Centre Sharjah, stands out for championing digital literacy and creativity in equal measure. For full details and the complete programme, visit
