Chapter 5.5 | Trump and the Battle for Jewish Unity

How Fear of Authoritarianism on the Left, and Fear of Progressivism on the Right Are Fracturing Jewish Unity in the US when we need it most

On Wednesday May 21, 2025, outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC, a gunman opened fire and assassinated two young people just because he thought they were Jewish.

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were not on a battlefield in Gaza. They were murdered in the U.S. capital. Not by accident. Not by random violence. This didn’t happen in a vacuum. It is the inevitable result of a global propaganda campaign.

And now, two more names are added to a long list of jewish victims whose deaths will be rationalized or worse - celebrated.

This is the world we live in now. A world where the chants “Free Palestine”, “From the River to the Sea” and “Globalize the Intifada” echo through college campuses, social justice marches, and city streets—most often shouted by antisemites and radical “cultural marxists” but also by people who believe they are standing for peace, when in fact they are unwittingly, naively, stupidly, aligning themselves with radical islamic terrorists.

By now, everyone should know what those chants actually mean. Iran and its proxies, including Hamas, make it clear. So does Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Within our Lifetime, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) and dozens of DEI and so called “Ethnic Studies” programs that have been ideologically captured. Their slogans are not about justice or human rights. They are about erasing Jews—from history, from land, from life.

The truth is that if you want to protest suffering, protest the regimes that slaughter their own civilians and hide behind civilian populations operating their military operations out of schools and hospitals. Protest the ideology that teaches children from birth to hate jews and to glorify martyrs. Protest the propaganda that is indoctrinating Western youth to believe that hating (and killing) Jews is somehow justice.

If you want peace, stand with those who want peace. Not with those whose idea of “liberation” requires Jewish annihilation.

This moment demands moral clarity. It demands courage. Because the true cost has always been counted in Jewish lives. It seems too many have forgotten that mobs of Nazi students terrorized campuses in Germany years before the ghettos and gas chambers of WWII. They have forgotten the role that their so-called “activism” had in spreading an ideology across an entire generation of Germans.

Moral consistency requires recognizing and acknowledging that white supremacist ideology led to the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting, just as extreme social justice and Islamist ideologies led to the Capital Jewish Museum murders.

We need to be real about antisemitism. We need to be real about the undertones of the screams from college students, or the vile hatred on social media – it’s the oldest hatred in the world and it possesses a desire to exterminate, to rid the world of Jews.

In Yaron and Sarah’s honor, I felt compelled to publish this article in a cry for unity in the face of an ever more dangerous existential threat to the ability for Jews to live in peace and security.

What Israel has endured, no other nation would be expected to tolerate: the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, over 15,000 rockets launched at civilians, 253 hostages taken into tunnels in Gaza without global outrage or Red Cross access. Instead of unified support, Israel faces global condemnation, campus mobs praising terror, and media outlets that amplify Hamas propaganda while minimizing Jewish suffering. Any other democracy would be applauded for defending itself—Israel alone is demonized for choosing survival.

Once again, the nations of the world have aligning against the Jewish people. They malign us. They propagate blood libels that accuse us of war crimes, of genocide, of apartheid without context, while ignoring, excusing or worse, celebrating, terrorist organizations that hide underground in tunnels and behind human shields. They hold us to double standards. They tell ancient blood libels. They blame us for the atrocities committed against us. They reward terror with offers of statehood. Today's war dresses itself in "progressive" language, legal briefs, and diplomatic forums — but which remains, at its core, a war against the Jews.

The double standards they adhere to are not diplomacy - they are moral inversion.

So we have to ask the hardest questions—questions we’ve been avoiding for too long.

How do we unite when we are so divided politically?

How do we make peace with an enemy that doesn’t want peace?

These are not rhetorical questions. They are existential ones. And our survival depends on how we answer them.

The first step is honesty.

The truth is: we are divided. Deeply. Politically, culturally, generationally. Jews have always argued. The Talmud is an argument. What we cannot afford is to keep confusing ideological purity with moral clarity. We must learn to walk together even when we don’t vote the same.

There is no civil rights movement for the Jewish people. As such, we need to start practicing real solidarity so we can stop attacking allies who broadly share our values even if their politics don’t agree with our own. Step in to de-escalate when others escalate. Promote independents who judge ideas by merit, not partisanship. Support imperfect coalitions that prioritize Jewish safety even if that means supporting an administration that you despise.

We don’t need a single political strategy. We need a shared reality and a common purpose.

We must stop allowing ourselves to be fractured by fear. Fear of looking un-woke. Fear of aiding the left. Fear of saying the wrong thing on both sides of the aisle. Fear of defending ourselves too loudly. Too many of us are hiding their jewish identity because they feel unsafe. This must stop.

The Great Betrayal: How America’s Political Duopoly Is Dividing the Jewish People

I recently came across an article in Future of Jewish titled “The Dirty Politics of Antisemitism”, and it left me unsettled—not because it was wrong, but because it was too right.

The piece lays bare a reality many of us have felt but struggled to name: antisemitism in America isn’t just rising—it’s being weaponized. Not only by neo-Nazis on the right, but by progressives on the left. The Left points to Charlottesville. The Right points to Columbia, Penn and Harvard. Meanwhile, Jews are left shouting across a widening chasm, blaming each other and Israel for the world’s jew hatred - and we play into our enemies hands.

When antisemitism becomes a partisan football, something terrible happens: Jews stop defending each other. We become Democrats first, Republicans first, progressives first, conservatives first—and only maybe Jews second. We trade our peoplehood for party. But in doing so, we reinforce the lie that Jewish safety is negotiable. That our survival can be split along party lines. We’re being played. And we’re letting it happen.

Our communal organizations can’t agree on how to define antisemitism, let alone how to fight it. Some are more comfortable condemning a MAGA rally than a terrorist chant. Others will scream about progressive antisemitism while embracing Christian Zionists. Each side demands outrage from the other—while offering none of their own.

Consider this open letter from several dozen former leaders of major Jewish establishment groups, including a former national chair of the Anti-Defamation League, who recently warned that:

a range of actors are using a purported concern about Jewish safety as a cudgel to weaken higher education, due process, checks and balances, freedom of speech and the press.

They called on Jewish leaders and institutions

to resist the exploitation of Jewish fears and publicly join with other organizations that are battling to preserve the guardrails of democracy.

I don’t doubt the sincerity of many who signed. As you know, I am an avid defender of our democracy and the rule of law. This entire body of work is dedicated to those principles.

But their framing is revealing. By a “range of actors” they mean the Trump Administration. While Jews are facing an epidemic of antisemitism on a scale we haven’t seen since the 1930s, many Jews on the political left feel that we are being “exploited” instead of defended! This is self loathing and dangerous. And our enemies are thrilled. And it’s tearing us apart.

Consider a Jewish friend who recently posted on facebook:

It surprises me to see smart, well-educated Jews buy into this idea that Trump and his supporters are trying to silence free thinking and free speech in the name of preventing antisemitism. Isn’t this the same guy who rallied neo-Nazis to attack the Capitol? … I think their goal is simply to divide and silence the opposition. Today it’s trans teens and immigrants. Tomorrow it will be the Jews.

We have become so blinded by partisanship that many of us are unwilling to accept that Trump’s policies might actually be designed to protect Jews on campus because they are convinced they are smokescreens for fascism. In this moment, the actions (not the man) should be judged by their impact, not political identity.

How many of us have read comments like this from progressive jews:

Watching a genocide unfold seems very important. I am not a callous enough person to see toddlers with their heads blown off and dead children lying in the streets to think it’s not important to talk about. I’m truly shocked after the Holocaust that so many are willing to turn a blind eye. Many Jews do not support the slaughter of Palestinians, yet in Trump’s world this is antisemitism.

These aren’t fringe voices. These are our friends, colleagues, family members. And they truly believe that condemning Hamas is a distraction from a genocide that isn’t happening.

This is a war for existence. A war between light and darkness, freedom and barbarism. And yet, tragically, too many Jews—especially in the diaspora—are still blind to this reality. Even worse, many are directing their anger not at the enemy, but at fellow Jews. At Netanyahu. At the government. They rage at Jewish strength, while remaining silent about jihadist evil.

This is what happens when moral confusion becomes a badge of honor. When “nuance” becomes a license to excuse open genocidal threats against us. When being a “good Jew” means distrusting anyone on the political right who supports Israel—because they don’t do so through a progressive lens.

The propaganda has worked.

The most insidious expression of this phenomena is the political asymmetry in how antisemitism is addressed. When it comes from the far right, the left are quick to condemn it, but when it’s cloaked in the language of “decolonization,” “liberation,” or “anti-imperialism,” it’s excused, ignored—or even rewarded. As Bari Weiss observes in her 2019 book “How to Fight Antisemitism”:

Antisemitism has the uncanny ability to be politically convenient… It shifts shape to serve the ideological needs of the moment.

The result? Jewish students harassed on campus. Entire academic departments refuse to acknowledge antisemitic incidents cloaked in anti-Zionist rhetoric. Major media outlets portray Jewish self-defense as oppression, and terrorism as resistance.

This is not a coincidence. It’s the logical outcome of a political system that thrives on tribalism. The American duopoly doesn’t want Jews unified. It wants us fractured—screaming at each other instead of standing together.

So what do we do?

We stop playing defense. We stop apologizing. We stop performing ideological gymnastics to preserve our virtue signaling. And we remember: we are one people.

Jewish unity doesn’t mean agreeing on everything. It means agreeing on something fundamental: that antisemitism in all its forms, from the right, the left, the pulpit, or the quad—is a threat to us all. That we will not excuse it, ignore it, or hide from it because it’s politically inconvenient. It means being brave enough to call out those within our own community who have confused their politics for their identity. And yes - Antizionism today is antisemitism. Full stop.

The path to Jewish unity starts when we say: enough! Enough moral relativism. Enough silence when the mobs chant “globalize the intifada.” Enough pretending that campus antisemitism is protected “Free Speech.” Enough excusing genocidal rhetoric because it’s wrapped in intersectional language. Enough downplaying the threat of white nationalism. Enough blaming other Jews for the hatred aimed at all of us. And most crucially in this moment—enough blaming other jews who support the Trump administration’s actions to confront antisemitism forcefully and justly because it purports to align with your fear that it will lead to fascism. Our self interest, our survival must come before partisanship!

Consider the New York Times "hit piece on the Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther entitled “The Group Behind Project 2025 Has a Plan to Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement.” Rather than investigate the pro-Hamas activism erupting on campuses, the article framed the Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther—a coordinated strategy to push back against this wave—as a dystopian overreach. This isn’t journalism. It’s ideological gaslighting. And it’s exactly how fear turns moral clarity into moral confusion.

We don’t have to agree with every political view of the Heritage Foundation. But if they chose to stand with Jewish students while others cower—we should be grateful, not ashamed.

And it’s not only the progressive Jews in the left that need to speak up. Imagine for a moment had Kamala Harris won the Presidency and she had:

• Signed a truce with the Houthis 48 hours after they struck Ben Gurion Airport

• Prioritized arms deals with Saudi Arabia while Israeli hostages were still underground

• Criticized Israel’s humanitarian policy while hinting at conditional military aid

• Cut an economic deal with Qatar, Hamas’s main backer, just months after October 7

Conservative Jews would be calling it betrayal! But because it’s Trump, too many remain silent—or worse, offer tortured rationalizations in the name of “strategy” or conclude Harris would have been worse. Their fear is not of antisemitism, but of empowering the progressive left. And so they tolerate what they never would from the other side.

This is what fear does: it makes principles conditional on who holds power. It replaces moral clarity with tribal loyalty. It makes defending Jews secondary to scoring political points—or avoiding them.

We’re Losing the Propaganda War.

For eight decades, Islamists and their backers have waged an ideological campaign—not just against Israel, but against the Jewish people as a whole. They’ve infiltrated the soft tissue of Western society: the schools, the universities, the human rights organizations, the social justice movements. They have framed the conflict not as a tragic clash of peoples, but as a simple moral binary: Palestinians as the oppressed, Jews as the oppressors. And the West—especially its younger generation—has believed the lie.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its enablers in Iran and Qatar have been playing the long game. Over the past 80 years, under both democratic and republican administrations, they have infiltrated America and strategically, methodically poisoned millions of impressionable minds who have now been indoctrinated.

• Education: In K–12 classrooms and elite universities, curricula steeped in critical theory have recast the Jewish story as one of privilege and power. Zionism is no longer a liberation movement of the indigenous Jews but a white colonial project.

• Social Media: Algorithms reward outrage, not context. The image of a grieving child spreads faster than the nuance of asymmetric warfare. TikTok and Instagram have become the new battlefield, where fact is no match for feeling.

• NGOs and Human Rights Orgs: Institutions once dedicated to universal justice now act as ideological actors. Groups like Amnesty International use the language of apartheid and settler-colonialism to delegitimize the only Jewish state—while saying little of actual apartheid regimes.

• Intersectional Movements: Intersectionality and identity politics tell Jews that they must choose between their identity and their solidarity. Unless they renounce Israel, they are excluded from coalitions they helped build.

And here is the bitter truth: it has worked. Our story is being erased. Our trauma is being dismissed. Our indigeneity is being denied.

Recent polling indicates a notable shift in attitudes among Americans under 35 regarding Israel and antisemitism.

Antisemitic Attitudes Among Young Adults

A global survey by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in early 2025 found that 46% of adults worldwide hold antisemitic beliefs. Notably, individuals under 35 exhibited higher levels of antisemitic sentiments compared to older age groups. The ADL attributes this trend partly to the influence of social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, which can amplify antisemitic content.

Views on Israel and the Israel-Hamas Conflict

A Pew Research Center survey from April 2024 revealed that only 24% of Americans under 30 have a favorable view of the Israeli government, a significant decline from previous years. In contrast, 60% of this age group view the Palestinian people positively. Additionally, 46% of adults under 30 consider Israel’s response to Hamas’ October 7 attack as unacceptable, with 32% deeming it completely unacceptable.

Further, a Gallup poll from February 2025 indicated that 56% of Americans aged 18–34 hold an unfavorable view of Israel, compared to 41% of the general population. This marks a significant increase in unfavorable opinions among younger adults.

Support for Hamas Among Young Americans

A Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll conducted in March 2025 found that among Americans aged 18–24 who expressed an opinion on the Israel-Hamas conflict, 48% supported Hamas, while 52% supported Israel. This represents a substantial shift from the previous year, where 72% of the same age group supported Israel.

We thought merit would protect us. That our decency, our moral record, our historical trauma would shield us from defamation. But we misjudged the power of narrative. We were complacent and allowed ourselves to be divided—by politics, by ideology, by fear and by ignorance.

If we are to survive this century not just physically but spiritually and intellectually, we must reclaim the moral clarity of our story—together. This isn’t about right or left, religious or secular, hawk or dove. It’s about truth. And it’s about survival.

We must build—not just institutions, but a movement: unapologetically Jewish, proudly Zionist, morally grounded, and strategically smart. One that speaks in the language of this generation while carrying the wisdom of the past.

The way out is not submission to either political extreme. It is building a durable, principled Jewish center—one that rejects fear-based politics and reclaims moral clarity.

That means:

• Condemning antisemitism—whether it comes from MAGA rallies or DEI offices;

• Defending Israel’s existence unequivocally;

• Refusing coalitions that demand Jews compromise their identity for inclusion And embracing coalition that defend our right to Jewish Sovereignty regardless of political affiliation;

• And speaking out when others want us to stay quiet.

We must recognize that we do not stand alone in this fight—and we cannot afford to. Across the political and religious spectrum, there are courageous voices willing to speak out against antisemitism and defend the Jewish people, often at great personal cost. Regardless of which side of the political aisle you lean, we need to stand shoulder to shoulder in moral clarity with anyone willing to act with vigor against our enemies. From Muslim reformers who challenge antisemitism within their own communities, to secular human rights advocates who refuse to erase Jewish history, to political leaders willing to risk backlash for telling the truth—we must welcome all who are willing to stand with us. If we are to win the battle for truth, we must build alliances grounded in shared values, not identical identities.

Unity does not require uniformity—it requires courage, gratitude, and a clear understanding of who our real enemies are.

The Reality We Can No Longer Rationalize: The Truth about Radical Islam

Through millennia, the Jewish people have survived exile, pogroms and genocide. Sadly, we are at that moment again. Never again must mean never again!

If you’ve read this far, you likely feel it too: the weight of this moment. The heartbreak. The urgency. The fear that we may be too fractured to respond. The fear that our enemies know it.

How do you make peace with an enemy that doesn’t want peace?

You start by acknowledging an irrefutable historical reality. This has never been about a two-state solution. It’s always been about the existence of a Jewish state.

Haviv Rettig Gur has offered a profound analysis of Iran’s animosity toward Israel. He is a credible source of truth in understanding the complexities of the Middle East. He does a credible job of explaining the theological underpinnings of Iran’s hostility. He argues that Iran’s regime perceives the existence of a sovereign Jewish state as a direct affront to the Islamic concept of divine supremacy. In this view, the Jewish people’s return to their ancestral homeland and the Arab defeat at the hands of the jews in ‘48 and their subsequent establishment of a thriving nation, challenges the narrative that Jews are meant to live in subjugation under Islamic rule. This theological perspective fuels Iran’s ideological commitment to opposing Israel’s existence. This underpins the genocidal doctrines underlying our enemies and why it’s self-evident that Hamas doesn’t want peace. That the Palestinian Authority doesn’t want peace. That Hezbollah doesn’t want peace. That the Houthis don’t want peace. Radical Islam is not seeking peace with Israel. They are not seeking a Palestinian state. They are seeking the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the jewish people in their quest for Islam to rule the world. We cannot educate that out of them. We cannot bribe it out of them with economic incentives.

That’s not bigotry or “islamaphobia”, it’s history and it’s an acknowledgement of the nature of radical Islam. I want to be clear in distinguishing “Islamism” from mainstream peaceful people of Muslim faith. I stand in solidarity with Muslims who are themselves targets of jihadist ideology. Brigitte Gabriel is a staunch ally in this fight. Here she is on a panel discussing Benghazi.

Yes, it’s an ugly truth. Yes, it’s hard. But the history of the Arab/Israeli conflict has demonstrated rather unequivocally that our enemies do not want peace.

We must speak with a unified voice that Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and their allies aren’t fighting over land. It’s a religious, Islamist, Jihadist war to annihilate the Jews, destroy Israel and establish an Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East and eventually across the world. Consider the history of the State of Israel and the “peace process” that we’ve endured:

• In 1947, the UN proposed a two-state solution—Jews accepted it, the Arab world rejected it and launched a full-scale invasion the moment Israel declared independence in an effort to annihilate the Jewish people.

• Golda Meir famously captured the futility of appeasing Arab rejectionism with this quote about Israel’s pre-1967 borders:

  Why do people, good people, some Israeli’s was well, tell us if you had only gone back to the 1967 borders after the war. Then I always ask a foolish question, but I haven’t heard one single wise answer. If the ‘67 borders were so holy, why was there a war in ‘67? All these territories were in the hands of Arab countries. If Hussein hadn’t gone to war in '67, when he shouldn’t have, when Eshkol asked him not to go to war, the West Bank would have been in his hands. If Assad hadn’t gone to war, the Golan Heights would have been Syrian. If Nasser (Egypt) hadn’t gone to war in ‘67, the Sinai Desert and the Gaza Strip were in his hands.

  This statement exposed the core hypocrisy of Arab rhetoric after the Six-Day War. The call to return to the 1967 borders was framed as a demand for justice—but Meir pointed out that Arab states tried to destroy Israel even when it had no “occupied territories.” In other words, their grievance wasn’t about borders—it was about Israel’s existence. This quote underscores the enduring truth: when your enemy attacks you before you have any so-called provocation, the issue isn’t what you’re doing—it’s who you are.

• After the 1967 war, Israel offered land for peace; the Arab League responded with the infamous “Three No’s”: no peace, no recognition, no negotiations—followed by years of border raids and terrorism.

• In 1993, the Oslo Accords created mutual recognition, but were followed not by peace but by the First Intifada, a wave of suicide bombings, bus attacks, and open incitement from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Arafat publicly shook hands with Rabin but privately described the deal as a temporary tactical maneuver—and terrorism increased.

• In 2000, Israel offered a Palestinian state with 95% of the West Bank, all of Gaza, and a capital in East Jerusalem—Arafat walked away without a counteroffer, and within weeks, the Second Intifada erupted, claiming thousands of lives in a brutal campaign of suicide bombings and shootings.

• In 2005, under the vision of Shimon Peres, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza—dismantling every settlement, synagogue, and military post and left Gazan’s with civilian infrastructure and businesses to give Palestinians a chance at self-governance. Instead, the Gazan’s elected Hamas who then violently seized control, murdered Fatah rivals, and transformed Gaza into a terror camp. The lie of disengagement has been utterly destroyed. It did not bring peace. It brought death, terror tunnels, missiles, and massacre. We paid for it with blood.

• In 2008, Prime Minister Olmert offered a state with land swaps and shared control of Jerusalem—Abbas walked away.

• In 2020, the Trump peace plan was rejected without discussion, with Palestinian leaders declaring it “dead on arrival” and refusing even to negotiate.

Each time, Israel said yes or tried to negotiate by offering land for peace and (another) Palestinian State; Palestinian leaders said no—and followed with violence. This isn’t conjecture. You can’t make peace with those who reject coexistence and respond to compromise with terror.

Shimon Peres, Israel’s former Prime Minister, once said:

You don’t make peace with your friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.

This is a lesson that rings true in theory—and one we hoped would hold in practice. But what we miscalculated, where we were naive and what became clear 18 years after Israel withdrew from Gaza, is that we must accept an uncomfortable truth: we can’t make peace with an enemy that doesn’t want peace.

Some have argued that the Western left—particularly in the U.S. and Europe—has long embraced a strategy of “peace at all costs” when it comes to Israel, often prioritizing moral signaling over strategic clarity. As Susie Linfield documents in The Lions’ Den: Zionism and the Left from Hanna Arendt to Noam Chomsky, this shift has led many intellectuals and activists to abandon support for Israel’s right to defend itself, in favor of ideological purity that often aligns with anti-Zionist rhetoric.

The “peace at all costs” approach has repeatedly failed—not because peace is unworthy, but because it has been pursued without regard to whether both sides truly want it.

I recently read an article entitled: “The Real Nakba Was Jewish Naiveté. The fantasy of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process is a comforting lie we told ourselves. We believed in a future they never wanted.”

While it’s its intellectually stimulating to challenge the idea that the failure of historical peace efforts somehow vindicates the approach of the political right, it raises a question: If peace is possible with Arab Israelis— why not with Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank?

It’s a powerful point that points us toward the real issue: the problem isn’t ethnicity or even religion- but like in Nazi Germany - it’s ideology and governance.

Arab citizens of Israel live within a civic structure that allows for participation, opportunity, and coexistence. But their story starts long before modern integration efforts—it begins in 1948, when many Arabs chose to stay in the land that became Israel, even as Arab leaders urged them to flee, promising they would return once the invading armies had “cleansed” the land. Those who stayed made a different choice—one rooted not in ideology, but in a willingness to live alongside Jews. Their children and grandchildren have not been taught for 80 years to glorify martyrdom. They are not told from birth that Jews are demons and that stabbing a grandmother is the path to eternal honor. Tragically, Palestinians in Gaza and Judea & Samaria (“the West Bank”) are raised on the exact opposite. Not because of who they are, but because of who leads them, educates them, and funds their curriculum. That’s not a people being prepared for peace—it’s a people being weaponized.

What we’ve seen from Israel over the last eight decades (including under Netanyahu) hasn’t been true resolve — it’s been hesitation, calibration, and endless short-term management of a long-term problem. And it has a cost—both in Israeli blood and in our moral clarity.

We must look to history when executing a strategy to defeat extreme ideology. Examine how the West defeated Nazism and imperial Japan during WWII. It wasn’t with deterrence or temporary ceasefires. It was with total military defeat, followed by ideological dismantling, civic reconstruction, and cultural reform. Those societies weren’t just stopped—they were transformed but only after a brutal world war that cost more than 80 million lives including more than 50 million civilians. To be clear, I am not equating the current moment with the Holocaust, but I am pointing to parallels in propaganda, appeasement, and moral blindness that history teaches us to heed.

We haven’t done that in Gaza or Judea & Samaria (the “West Bank”). We haven’t even come close. We keep fighting the fire without draining the fuel. Had Europe acted faster Hitler could have been defeated long before the tipping point that allowed Hitler to cause the deaths of nearly 80 million people. We are at the precipice of another world war. We must find the resolve to act before this regional war consumes the world.

The Path Forward.

Which brings us to the heart of the issue: what do we do now? What’s the path forward? I think this is where we as a people need to stop yelling past each other and ask a more basic question: what does it mean to win? If “winning” just means surviving the next war, then maybe our current strategy is fine. But if winning means building a future where our children aren’t living on the edge of annihilation, then we need a very different playbook.

Here are my thoughts:

1. Military clarity. Hamas, Hezbollah, the IRGC—they must be dismantled completely. Not contained. Not deterred. Defeated. Victory means never allowing a Jihadi genocidal regime to rise again in Gaza. As Jews we must offer a vision for after the war, but we must also ensure we survive to reach it.

2. Moral clarity. One of the most pernicious effects of the mythology that zionism is colonialism is to dehumanize Israelis and Jews, who are reduced to “colonialists” against whom Hamas’ slaughter is legitimized as “resistance”. It has created an intellectual and social context in which it has become shockingly widespread for left intellectuals, activists and movements to not only express their belief that Israel should not exist but to express unrestrained admiration for the actions of Hamas. This must end. We must stop apologizing for surviving. We must confront the lie that we are occupiers and explain—without hesitation—why Zionism is liberation, not colonialism but the most successful de-colonialization in history. And we must stop conflating causation with correlation. Yes, it’s true, the “Palestinian” people are suffering but it is a self inflicted wound not caused by Israel but by their leaders who have consistently rejected peace.

3. Institutional clarity. We must support any efforts, including by the Trump Administration, to (a) Defund UNRWA and dismantle their schools that teach hate; (b) Sanction the funders of terror; (c) Discredit and defund the NGOs that support terrorists in the name of social justice; (d) we must dismantle the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States and add them to the terror watch list; and (e) we must dismantle and defund university departments that serve as ideological incubators for Islamism.

4. Educational clarity. Reform Jewish education to tell the truth about Jewish indigeneity, Zionism, and our moral cause. Prepare our children not to plead for belonging, but to lead with vision.

5. Strategic clarity. Just as Churchill saw what Chamberlain wouldn’t, we must act before the next October 7. Because waiting only empowers the enemy—and weakens us.

The "western world" must wake up to the fact that we've allowed islamism to grow to a dangerous tipping point. They are a far larger group of people than the combined German/Nazis and Japanese Imperialists and they have already infiltrated western society and fight with unconventional methods.

We need to find the strength to fight—unrestrained, unapologetic, untied. For too long, our warriors have fought with one arm behind their back—chained by global opinion, moral confusion, and internal betrayal. That must end. There is no room left for restraint when the cost is Israeli lives.

And we need to find our imagination—not to fantasize about peace with terrorists, but to prepare for the day after victory. To build a civic structure where our children no longer inherit this war. To reconstruct where we have had to destroy. And to teach the world again that Jewish power is not just about might—but about meaning.

The left and the right must stop fighting each other and start fighting the real enemy—together.

We’re stuck in an American-style culture war while people are literally fighting for their lives. We need to reject the false binary that strength belongs to the Right and compassion to the Left. Zionism demands both. It demands that we protect ourselves and know what we’re protecting. That we fight Radical Islam with everything we’ve got—not just with weapons, but with a clear, unapologetic moral voice. That we stop playing defense in the court of global opinion. That we stop apologizing for our survival.

And yes, we need to rebuild. Not just Gaza, if and when that’s even possible—but ourselves. Our education systems. Our sense of purpose. Our connection to each other across oceans and ideologies.

Too many Jews today are confused, ashamed, or disengaged. We need to speak to them—not with guilt, but with clarity, courage, and invitation.

So no, I don’t think this is just about venting frustration or blaming others. I think it’s about naming what hasn’t worked and daring to imagine something stronger, deeper, and more unified.

Let us be clear-eyed about what we face—and unwavering in what we fight for.

Let us be Jews before we are partisans.

Let us be builders as well as defenders.

Let us tell our children that we rose to meet this moment—not because we agreed on everything, but because we refused to let anything come between us.

That is how we win.

Together.