“What we do believe is that they heard us,” Gaza protest organizer Hatem Abudayyeh tells a New York Times reporter.

Sure, “they” – Democratic leaders – “heard” self-appointed activists for the Palestinians during the four-day Democratic National Convention. They heard Abudayyeh’s peers urge that a pro-Arab speaker address the convention, that the government impose an arms embargo on Israel and that a cease-fire go into effect to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

On the third day of the convention, Democratic leaders refused any speaking slot for a pro-Arab representative despite months of negotiations, protest leaders said. Nor have there been any of the policy changes that they demanded.

“There have been no changes made, there have been no statements made that are in line with what we want to happen,” complained Ashley Taylor-Gouge, a member of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee, as quoted in the Times.

The pro-Arab network has spent the past 5½ years pressuring Democrats to undermine Israel, forcing them to walk a tightrope between Israel-bashers and the Jewish community. Not now. A week ago, I was ready to suggest that their influence could be waning. Not could be. It is waning. They have lost much of their credibility, and both protesters and high-level Democrats agree with that assessment, in so many words.

A relatively low turnout materialized for their demonstrations in Chicago last week. It was still a substantial amount of people, but far lighter than they expected.

“A small handful of people does not represent close to even a sliver of where the Democratic Party is right now,” declared Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday, the last night of the convention, according to the Associated Press.

Protest organizer Taher Herzallah affirmed the national Democrats’ attitude, saying, “People are trying to employ different tactics because we recognize that after 10 months of being on the streets, we have to deploy different tactics to make sure we are being heard,” according to the Times.

They are being heard. None of us can avoid hearing it. Their problem is that much fewer Americans are buying it. Not “Free Palestine.” Not “globalize Intifada.”

First they exposed their mobster-like operation during last spring’s campus harassment of Jewish students, installation of illegal encampments, seizure of buildings and resistance to police. Not to mention blocking already congested bridges, highways and airport entrances. Many threatened to ignore both Biden and former President Donald J. Trump at the polls, which could tip elections in swing states to Trump.

Then on July 21, President Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president after dropping out of the race. Liberals, especially women, flooded a movement to elect Harris as president. Even those who sympathized with the Palestinians probably placed the Gaza war issue on the backburner. They have made it obvious that electing the first woman as president – one who will fight to enact liberal policies – is among their top priorities.

It would not surprise me if many Arab-American women vote for Harris rather than cast a protest vote for an independent candidate or not vote at all in standing up for the Palestinians. In Arab countries, subjugation of women is the rule and that system has been exported here to some extent. This election will be a golden opportunity to rebel – if they are allowed to vote.

Biden and Harris both tossed verbal bones to protesters during their speeches at the DNC.

“Those protesters out in the streets, they have a point,” said Biden. “A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.”

What point do they have? Yes, many “innocent people” are being killed. We learned that once tragic events unfolded since Oct. 7, the day when Hamas murdered 1,200 Israelis in southern Israel and took 240 others hostage. That was followed by Israel’s response that killed thousands of Gazans. What did Biden say that should satisfy the pro-Arab activists?

Harris’ words did little to appease them: “I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself…the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7.”

She then referred to Gazan deaths as “devastating” and described the “scale of suffering” as “heartbreaking.” She also said she hopes that “the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.” Is that what they want? Hamas seeks to destroy Israel and at least some Palestinians feel that way. The Palestinian leadership has rejected proposals for a two-state solution in the past.

As evidence that activists recognize that their cause has weakened, two organizers cited the need to release Israeli hostages during a television interview. That is unusual. For almost 11 months, advocates for Gazans have typically ignored the plight of hostages and other examples of Israeli suffering. That would be an attempt at respectability. Too late for most of us.

In another sign of desperation, activists are pouncing on African Americans for gathering behind Harris, who is part Black, while abandoning the Palestinian cause. “I’m so sick and tired of Americans playing your identity politics,” said a British Israel-basher on TikTok who claimed to be part Palestinian. “It’s f-ing insane, a Black woman in f-ing presidency is not going to save us, and no I’m not f-ing saying vote Trump in.”

The New York Post reports that another British Muslim attacked liberals for “weaponizing anti-blackness to defend the US empire all because they want a token ethnic president…She has very clearly stated that she won’t impose an arms embargo…It’s very clear where she stands.”

They are assuming that Black voters so identify with the Palestinians that their so-called struggle takes in all causes. “These are people who feel that they are entitled to the support of Black people no matter what, that they get to push us around and tell us who the hell we get to vote for if we support them,” TikTokker Tori Grier pushed back. “As if that means we’re just not supposed to give a damn about ourselves.”

Pushback is evolving in various ways, especially on college campuses. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday held a conference call with 200 college and university leaders to reinforce the need to devise and implement emergency plans as students return to campus this fall, according to a news release. She also noted that they can connect with necessary resources.

Many colleges nationwide are preparing for the possible onslaught of protests. Swarthmore hired outside investigators to build cases against students, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Rutgers has banned encampments.

In Manhattan, Sonia Ossorio joined other women’s rights to press Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, “to demand a full investigation of systemic rape during the Oct. 7 attacks and for the perpetrators to be held accountable for war crimes.”

In a Newsweek opinion piece, Ossorio writes, “The protests in and of themselves are not the issue…denying, downplaying and justifying rape and murder is inconsistent with protesting on behalf of human rights. Protests should not justify extremism. They should not excuse rape, they should not mislabel a terrorist attack as “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance.”

Ossorio, the executive director of the National Organization for Women New York City and Women’s Justice NOW, adds, “This lack of accountability isn’t an issue unique to Oct. 7. Women’s equality and women’s right to live free of sexual terror deserves greater world attention.”

The DNC’s resistance to the protest tactics should be studied by university officials, writes former federal prosecutor Gregory J. Wallance in The Hill, a Capitol Hill publication. “A no-appeasement policy should be the guiding principle for how, going forward, universities deal with disruptive, sometimes antisemitic pro-Palestinian demonstrations,” Wallance writes.

A no-appeasement policy is awfully late in coming, but it has arrived. Pro-Arab activists are on notice.

As a non-American, I am always astounded when every four years millions of dollars are spent in hosting Hollywood style political extravaganzas.

One would have thought that by now a much better and more intelligent method might have been found in order to choose a candidate for President of the United States.

It seems to be a perversion of the true democratic process if the only individuals deemed worthy of standing for this position are those with either the biggest bank accounts or those with the richest friends and patrons.

This is not a new phenomenon but it has demonstrably grown in recent years. Allied with corruption of materialistic greed is the necessity these days to have some sort of charismatic media appeal. Once can be the dumbest candidate on the planet and unable to string together coherent sentences but as long as the teleprompter works and you look appealing then you are in with a good chance.

Other attributes likely to help a prospective Presidential candidate in today’s screwed up woke world is a mix of the right ethnicity and a spouse who can spout the most politically correct nonsense.

FDR picked Harry Truman as his running mate because he conceivably posed no threat. Truman was after all a bland non controversial ex-haberdasher and thus Roosevelt reasoned he would not pose a threat to the White House. That is why the Vice President was kept in the dark over the most sensitive military developments. When Truman assumed the Presidency after FDR’s sudden death he was totally unprepared for the momentous decisions needed to ensure victory over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Despite everything, Harry Truman turned out to be one of the most successful Presidents of modern times. He had what unfortunately far too many others lack and that was common sense, a determination to confront unpopular decisions and a clear vision of what needed to be done. His successes vividly turn the spotlight on to the recent and current abysmal choices faced by American voters.

It never ceases to amaze me that the alleged standard bearer of democracy and freedom has such a warped and corrupted system for electing its leaders and legislative representatives.

The very essence of a democratic system should be to give its citizens the widest choice of aspirants so that all sectors of society can have a fair chance of being elected. Yet, amazingly, there are only two political parties with any possibility of success on offer. No independent or other alternative choice is available because these individuals have zero possibility of winning. In fact, even when some brave soul tries to challenge the two established parties they are ruthlessly squashed.

Thus, the American voter is denied the chance to pick someone who might be eminently suitable but is not an approved devotee of either of the two established political groups. As an American neighbour of mine pointed out this effectively disenfranchises millions of potential undecided voters and those not enamored with either candidate.

Another major flaw is the fact that instead of the person who polls the highest number of votes being elected President, the result hinges on an electoral college with unequal representation from the various states.

In order to vote one must be a citizen. This is a basic requirement in any true democracy. This year in the USA there are moves afoot to make illegal border infiltrators eligible to vote. This could be a blatant attempt by one party to garner votes and it will be interesting to see if it succeeds. An American friend from Chicago told me that back in the days of Mayor Daley the slogan was “vote early and vote often.”

Corruption of the electoral process is therefore not a new phenomenon.

The Republican and Democratic conventions followed a similar Hollywood style format with plenty of hoopla, hot air and hyperventilated rhetoric. Both crowned their Presidential choices and running mates without any semblance of a contest. The assembled multitudes indulged in mass chants which reminded me of the brainwashed crowds at North Korean and Chinese political indoctrination rallies.

However, in certain crucial aspects the Chicago extravaganza differed markedly.

It featured the dumped President trying to put a positive face on his ouster and past incumbents as well as other hangers on extolling his supposed single handed victories in overcoming Covid, rescuing the USA from economic disaster and defeating the forces of jihadist terror. It is a testament to the gullibility of those present and the media which peddled this nonsense that all these claims were received with rapturous adoration.

The next notable difference was the actions of the frenzied anti Israel/Zionist demonstrators on the streets of Chicago. The determination of the police to thwart violence may have contributed to the lower than predicted turnout but the mobs which marched and shouted made it clear what their message to the Democratic Party means. Much to the relief of the convention organizers the blatant haters were excluded from the hall so that an image of civility could be projected to the world at large.

The very mention of the word Israel in Chicago was very hard to find, whereas at the Republican convention full throated support of Israel and its war against terror was a noticeable feature. The assembled delegates may have chanted “bring them home” but in the absence of any meaningful support for the war against jihadist terror it is very hard to see how short of capitulating to a mass terrorist release this will be achieved. In fact I wonder how many delegates even know that thousands of rockets are being fired into Israel every week.

Another notable feature at the DNC was the need for Jewish groups to hold meetings in secret. Like the clandestine Spanish Jews evading the Catholic Inquisition, Jewish Chicago attendees were forced to gather anonymously lest the rampaging haters discovered their Zionist sympathies and caused chaos.

Speakers touting their Jewish roots were trotted on to the podium in order to deliver excruciating revelations about their loyalty to the Party and how this impacts their ethnicity. Unsurprisingly the words Israel and Zionist never escaped their lips. Ironically, Bernie Sanders, the only one to mention Israel did so in his usual negative connotation about the war against Gaza terror.

It was left to Kamala Harris and her husband to make a star studded appearance and give those assembled and everyone watching via media, an insight into what passes for “Jewish” these days in the USA and what can be expected in the four years to come.

The current “second gentleman” and aspiring “first gentleman” revealed to everyone how he defines his Jewish identity. Apparently it was Kamala, his non Jewish spouse, who urged him to become more deeply interested with his faith. He recounted how he took the bus to Hebrew School lessons, which seems an irrelevance. He admitted that Kamala, his second spouse, encouraged him to become more closely involved with the problem of Jew hate, something apparently not on his previous radar. Then he waxed enthusiastically how Kamala attends a Jewish service on the High Holidays and how he attends Church at Easter.

The piece de resistance was him extolling the wonderful brisket that Kamala cooks for Passover. After reading this riveting bit of news I wondered if perhaps he had become a follower of the Brisker Rav (Rabbi). If one needed proof of how assimilation has mangled the future of the American Jewish future this provided ample proof.

The sad fact is that any Jewish identity stops with him and certainly does not pass on to the next generation. Anyone who believes that a Jewish Presidential spouse will be a bulwark against rapidly rising anti Israel, Zionist and Jewish hate is living in a fantasy world.

Having made no mention of Israel it was the turn of Kamala to make her acceptance speech to the rapturous masses. She read the prompter flawlessly and demonstrated her accolade of being the candidate of joy by laughing and whooping.

In between these expressions of hilarity the Democratic candidate attempted to portray an image of being the potential savior of the country as it faces unprecedented challenges to its security.

Attempting to assure voters that Israel had nothing to fear she danced a delicate balancing act designed to placate both supporters of Israel and the progressively left haters of the Jewish State.

To my mind, her waffling word salads exemplify exactly why Israelis and those who stand with the Zionist enterprise must be very wary of a future Harris/Walz administration.

“The Israel – Hamas war must end so that Palestinians can have dignity, security and freedom and self determination.”

This one sentence encapsulates the underlying ignorance and cluelessness of the current and possible forthcoming White House.

Totally absent is any admission that the Arabs now reincarnated as Palestinian descendants of the ancient Canaanites have had nearly 80 years to achieve these objectives. Their continual refusal to do so and instead their single minded efforts to deny Jewish sovereignty remains at the root of the problem.

An inability and indeed stubborn refusal by democratic nations to acknowledge these truths and the subversion of international bodies by terror supporters has resulted in the current mess we face.

Unfortunately, witnessing the circus in Chicago I have no confidence that the next four years under Harris will be other than capitulation to woke scenarios and policies detrimental to Israel and Jews.    

Parashat Re’eh

In the entrance hall to the United Nations in New York, there’s a passageway where all visitors pass through. Along the walls, there’s an exhibition reminding those visitors of the victims of terrorist attacks from around the world.

But among the many exhibits of attacks, including those in New York and in Boston and in Kenya, there’s one glaringly obvious group that is missing.

The UN has even dedicated a specific day for the International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to Victims of Terrorism, held on August 21 this year, along with an Instagram tribute page devoted to terror victims. Once again that same group was completely missing.

And that is Israeli victims of Palestinian terror attacks.

That’s because the United Nations is unable to see Israelis as victims of terrorism and Palestinians as perpetrators of these attacks.

For the United Nations, the October 7 attacks never seemed to have occurred – only Israel’s response to them.

This should come as no surprise.

For decades the UN has been obsessed with the Jewish State, passing more resolutions each year against Israel than the combined states of serial human rights abusers such as Iran, Syria, North Korea, China and Russia.

Its various committees are dominated by these same abusers often leading to farcical situations such as when Iran, in which women are so brutally oppressed that their situation led to months of mass nationwide protests in 2022, was appointed to the UN Women Rights Commission in 2021 for a four-year term. However, after a successful campaign led by UN Watch they were eventually expelled in December 2022.

These kinds of absurd appointments can only make sense when we remember that the UN is not made up of democracies that value human rights and freedoms in the way Western societies do.  Just 84 of its 193 member states are rated as Free Democracies. That means it is dominated by non-free societies, including brutal dictatorships like Iran and North Korea.

For countries like that, the UN is a platform for a global audience in which, rather than being ostracised for their awful and oppressive views, they are elevated instead.

Although bias against Israel is nothing new at the UN, since the October 7 terror attacks, this bias has become so acute and obvious, that it is impossible to ignore.

At least it should be, but shockingly, it isn’t.

Despite one of the most brutal terror attacks in modern times, where the Palestinian Hamas terror group raped, tortured, and murdered some 1200 innocent Israeli men, women and children and kidnapped a further 250 more, this world body that sees itself as some kind of moral barometer for the international community has never been able to bring itself to condemn this evil attack. And now it seems determined to pretend it never even happened.

It did however hold a moment’s silence for the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, known as the “Butcher of Tehran” for his brutal role in 1988 in the “Death Commissions”, which ordered the execution of Iranians citizens accused of crimes against the regime.

This kind of absurd, twisted morality is unfortunately not limited to any one body or person at the United Nations but permeates the entire institution.

For example, UNRWA, the main UN body for Palestinian refugees, after being implicated in scandal after scandal for years, has now been directly implicated in terror activities on October 7, even firing staff members for their involvement.  Yet countries, including Australia, continue to fund them, turning a blind eye to the obvious systemic problems of the organisation.

UN Women is another example. It’s one of the UN bodies that says in its charter it is an “entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls.”

One of its goals is also that “All women and girls live a life free from all forms of violence.”

Who can argue with goals like that?

But as the United Nations has proven over the years and especially since October 7, these are just words without substance and platitudes without meaning. Despite the overwhelming evidence of sexual violence committed against Israeli women and children, including the testimonies of witnesses and the physical evidence of human remains, UN Women remained shamefully silent.

Only on December 1, almost two months later, did they finally issue a weak statement of condemnation against “gender-based atrocities and sexual violence” during the October 7 attacks.

Israeli women were thus victimised twice. Once by the monstrous actions of the Hamas terrorist groups whose depraved cruelty sent shockwaves through Israeli society, and secondly through the abhorrent behaviour of groups like UN Women whose so-called charter, when it came to Jewish lives, was nothing more than a lie.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres yet again confirmed this in April 2024, when he left off Hamas in a report on organisations suspected by the UN of committing acts of sexual violence during conflict. What makes this kind of action even more preposterous is that the UN even sent out a Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, to investigate the sexual violence and stated in a report  “that rape likely occurred during the Hamas attacks, and said there was convincing evidence hostages were facing sexual abuse in Gaza.” But now these inconvenient findings appear to have been “disappeared” by the UN’s bureaucracy.

As recently as the last few weeks, the UN Security Council held an emergency session after an Israeli strike on a terror compound set up in a former school building in August killed at least 31 Palestinian terrorists – yet they failed to hold a similar emergency session on a Hezbollah rocket attack that murdered 12 Druze children on the Golan Heights a month earlier.

The message is clear: Palestinian terrorists killed in Israeli defensive air strikes in their headquarters are more worthy of the UN’s attention than innocent children murdered while playing soccer in the afternoon on a sports field.

It’s these kinds of hypocritical actions that should demonstrate to all free-thinking individuals and countries that the United Nations is a morally corrupt organisation, contemptuous of the values Western society holds dear. Given this, it can never achieve the great moral purposes for which it was created by these same Western societies after World War II.

Western countries like Australia, whose values are being mocked and subverted, should hold an immoral organisation like the UN to account and scrutiny, rather than continue to serve as enablers of its indefensible actions in the vain hope that it can still somehow achieve the noble goals for which it was created.

“It is a land that HaShem your G-d seeks out constantly (Doresh Otah), the eyes of HaShem your G-d are upon it from the beginning of the year until its end” (Devarim11:12). Rabbeinu B’chayei writes that one should not misconstrue the true meaning of this verse as indicating that this Derisha, or divine Hashgacha, is limited to the borders of the Holy Land. G-d’s eyes surely survey the world in its entirety. This verse means to stress that this Derisha, or divine providence, begins from the holy land, and only then it spreads out from here to the rest of the universe.

The Ohr HaChayim adds an important caveat to the above. The verse states “Hashem Elokecha Doresh”, G-d your Lord, seeks out the land. G-d’s divinity, he writes, is spread out over the Land of Israel as a direct result of the fact that the People of Israel reside within it. When the people are exiled from their land, and the Shechina is no longer felt amongst them, the Land, too, is no longer to be so exalted.

The Ohr HaChayim’s point regarding the source of the holiness of the land – tracing and linking the Land’s holiness to the Jewish presence within it – brings to mind an amazing truism of Jewish national history. Jewish presence causes the land to flourish, while our absence leads to its desolation. The source of this contention is found in Vayikra 26:32: “I will bring the land into desolation and your enemies, who dwell in it, shall be astonished at it.” As Rashi explains “Our enemies will never find solace in our land because it will be desolate” and the Ramban adds that this is a guarantee that throughout the ages our Land will never be hospitable towards our enemies.

If the desolation can be directly attributed to the lack of Jewish population, it is no wonder that the continuous ingathering of the exiles over the past hundred years has so dramatically caused the picture to change. In Devarim 8:9 the Torah states that in coming to the Land we are assured of the blessings of abundant natural resources and food supplies. “A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it…”

We have long become accustomed to the fact that modern day Israel not only provides for its own agricultural needs, but even exports vast quantities of fruits, vegetables and flowers to foreign markets. If we no longer feel amazement at this, than we should at least pause to note how as the Jewish presence continues to grow, the prospects of a prosperous flourishing Eretz Yisrael are being multiplied before our own eyes. This is perhaps most strikingly evident in the recent discovery of vast quantities of natural gas off Israeli shores. When fully developed, the Leviathan gas field, promises to provide all of the gas that Israel could ever use, as well as large quantities available for export. Egypt, which up until recently sold energy to Israel, may soon become our customer. G-d seeks out this land. Jews the world over have witnessed, and personally experienced, the Almighty’s Hashgacha over this tiny land.

Yes, it is certainly true that most such miracles can be explained as the result of natural causes. And yet, even many non-religious people sense that the continued existence of our people in this land is to be traced back to one source, to the Holy One above. If indeed Israel’s success waxes and wanes with the growth of its Jewish population, it follows then, that if we want to fulfill our share in contributing to Israel’s continued success; if we want the Land to grow and flourish and enhance the power of the Shechina here in Eretz Yisrael, we must encourage those who tarry in the Galut to finally make the move! Someone once told Rav Kook: “G-d willing, I will move to the land of Israel”. “G-d is certainly willing”, Rav Kook replied. “What really matters is that you be willing, too…” (Shivchei Ha’Ra’ayah, p. 208).

RABBI YERACHMIEL RONESS was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. After serving as a congregational Rabbi and as a Hillel Director in New York City, he made Aliyah in 1983 with his wife Dina and their five young children.

Ever since, Rabbi Roness has dedicated his life to promoting Aliyah. First, as Rabbi of the Jewish Agency’s Absorption Centers, and subsequently as the executive director of the Aloh-Naaleh organization.

This article was taken from Rabbi Roness’s new book: Aloh Na’aleh – Eretz Yisrael and Aliyah in the Weekly Parshah.  The book is for sale on Amazon.