Rawan Osman

With heated elections ahead in Israel and Jew-hatred rising worldwide, I’ve felt the same unease I felt in the months before October 7. Then I took a deep breath. When I’m on autopilot (ironing, cooking, getting ready to go out), I listen to Rabbi Joseph Dweck. Serendipity landed me in his shul in Jerusalem this Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. He taught me something about hope I want to share. Israel’s national anthem is Hatikvah, « the hope. » What I didn’t know is that the Hebrew word for hope, tikvah (תקווה), comes from kav (קו), which means « line. » That line connects Am Yisrael with Hashem, « the Source, » as Rabbi Dweck puts it. From that connection, hope is born. I also read today that in the Book of Joshua, the scarlet cord Rahab hangs from her window is called tikvat chut hashani, literally « the hope of the scarlet thread. » Hope, in Hebrew, is quite literally a thread. It’s no coincidence his teaching speaks to me. We share a Syrian background, but also a way of seeing. I call G-d the magic thread of light connecting all of us to our origin. So when I heard « from kav comes tikvah, » I smiled. That thread of goodness breaks through overwhelming evil the way a star breaks through a black sky. Rabbi Dweck tied it to Hope, a painting by the British artist G. F. Watts. A blindfolded woman sits hunched on a globe, playing a lyre with only one string left. Many viewers said it should be called Despair. But no. It is Hope, because of the music that single string can still make. And as the rabbi often reminds us, in the words often attributed to Churchill: when you’re going through hell, keep going. Kadima. Forward is the only way. Together we will win, and Israel will prevail. When I say this in my talks, skeptics hesitate: « I hope so. » That very word should end their doubt, yet they don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn’t either, until I touched the string and heard the calling. May you all touch the string. Shabbat shalom. 🎨 Hope by George Frederic Watts, 1886. Tate, London.

A must-read from my dear friend, historian Dr. Olga Kirschbaum-Shirazki. Olga generously sent me her new book as a PDF. I still ordered a copy, because supporting authors matters. From Antizionism to a New Middle East argues that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is widely misread because people use the wrong framework. Olga places it in the history of Europe and the Middle East after World War I, comparing Zionism with the national movements of other smaller peoples such as the Kurds, Maronites and Czechs. She then sets out a practical vision built on imperial rollback, interfaith reconciliation and open secularism. Her conclusion is one I share: “Jewish national self-determination, far from being an impediment to regional peace, can be the cornerstone of a new multi-cultural, multi-religious, just and prosperous Middle East.” Several of the essays first appeared in Fathom and The Tel Aviv Review of Books. This book brings them together, and it deserves a wide readership.

When the world says “200+ journalists killed in Gaza,” it isn’t counting only reporters. It also counts propagandists who worked in Hamas’s shadow. Al Jazeera knows this, because it’s in the same business. Meet Saleh Aljafarawi, known online as “Mr. FAFO,” fighter, medic, correspondant, influencer and “resurrected”. On October 7 he cheered the rockets fired at Israel. Later he launched a $10 million hospital fundraiser carrying the Palestinian Health Ministry’s logo. The ministry publicly disowned it. Gazans themselves called him a thief and asked where the money went. Now Al Jazeera “remembers” him: a press vest, a victory sign, and a line about the violence journalists endure in Gaza. Here is what they leave out: Israel didn’t kill him. He was shot in Gaza City during a gunfight between Hamas and the Doghmush clan, days after the ceasefire. Gazans k*lled a Gazan, and the sly message leaves it up for interpretation. Al Jazeera put “ceasefire” in quotation marks, although”Journalist” is the word that needed them.

Rape is never “resistance.” Not in Bosnia. Not in Rwanda. Not on October 7. The lesson the world learned was supposed to be permanent. It was enshrined in international law. Instead, this legally grounded definition that was created and entrusted to protect was hijacked, redefined, inverted, and weaponized. Listen to Rawan Osman & learn more at www.DictionaryofTerms.org

Dear progressive westerners supporting the Palestinian cause, When Islamists take over parts of the West, your woke asses will dream of going back to the days when your biggest problem was someone getting your pronouns wrong.

This photo is supposedly from Amsterdam, but it could be anywhere. This ideology has infested the West. Yesterday I was editing footage of pro-Palestine rallies celebrating Hamas on a day of mourning. Even with my thick skin, I felt overwhelmed. It can seem as if public space has been seized by mobs who romanticize violence and champion jihad. Then I reminded myself of what I tell people who think all is lost: they are not the biggest group, just the loudest and most organized. These are not grassroots movements. They are mobilized, indoctrinated cells selling a simplistic story about a place called Palestine. But they can’t reach everyone. On my way to the October 7 commemoration outside the UN in Geneva, my driver asked if I was heading to the pro-Palestine rally. I said it was the last place I’d ever go. He opened up: he is Spanish, and because of Sánchez, “le con,” Spain has lost friends in the EU. “Why turn against the Jews to please jihadists?” he asked. In Zurich, a man who walked me to my gate lit up when I said I’d come from Israel. Originally from Curaçao, he told me about its ancient synagogue and the Israeli who taught him Krav Maga. He served in the Dutch army and feels for what Israelis have to deal with. In Chicago, my guide at the Bahá’í temple shared warm memories of volunteering in Haifa with his wife, long before October 7. I don’t walk around wrapped in an Israeli flag. But these encounters happen all the time because I don’t hide what I stand for. And they remind me that there are sensible, kind, brave people who stand with Israel, even while the loudest voices try to gaslight us. We are not bad people. I’ve been cancelled for supporting the war in Gaza, and I’ve stood by it. Supporting the war doesn’t mean embracing violence. I want evil defeated, and if this is the only way, so be it. G-d knows there was no other option.

Hamas did not produce this culture. The culture produced Hamas. Israel can wage a war against Hamas but who will address the culture that was exported to the West and must be eradicated there and in the Middle East? ⚠️ Warning: graphic video footage ahead. I don’t share this lightly. I’m posting it because what happened must be seen and remembered, not to shock. If you’re not in a place to see this today, please skip this post. #october7massacre

Zionism is racism? Let’s apply one standard. Calling Zionism racism assumes the whole story revolves around Palestinians. As if Jews endured two thousand years of exile and persecution, and the moment they took their history into their own hands, they did it to spite the Arabs of British Mandate Palestine. Give us a break. Your world may revolve around the Palestinian cause. Not everyone’s does. You either believe in God or you don’t. If you do, God promised the land to the Children of Israel in the Bible and in the Quran (5:21). How do you believe in God and fight His will? If you don’t, the Jewish claim falls. But so does the Muslim one. The Jordanian Waqf controls the Temple Mount because of the story of Muhammad’s night journey from that rock to heaven on a winged steed. There’s zero historical or archaeological evidence for it. Ridicule one faith’s claim, and you must ridicule the other. What’s left is a political conflict. So let’s talk politics. Self-determination for Palestinian Arabs? Jews have the same right, and a world that persecuted them for centuries left them no other choice. Displacement? Over 75% of Mandate Palestine was handed to the Hashemites of Hejaz, outsiders to the region. Nobody protests that. And who wasn’t displaced? We all were, and we moved on. Jews were displaced from across Europe and the Arab world, and no one demanded justice for them. Zionism was simply their way out of your way. So don’t lecture Israel. And if you love Palestinians so much, stop leaving them in camps. Arab states, give them citizenship and dignity. Treated decently, they might finally break the cycle of violence and build normal lives like the rest of us.

@piersmorganuncensored you gave @bassem an international platform, again and again, and he used it to feed conspiracy theories about Jews to millions. Uncensored should never mean unchallenged. Bassem, you didn’t invent these ideas. You inherited them. Your mind was shaped by decades of systematic indoctrination. You grew up in an Egypt that had already driven out its Jews. A community of some 80,000 vanished within a generation. That same Egypt gave refuge to Nazis fleeing justice in Europe. Johann von Leers, one of Goebbels’ propagandists, went to work for Nasser’s propaganda apparatus. Next door in Syria, Eichmann’s right hand Alois Brunner advised the security services. They brought persecution methods into the region’s security states. They also brought their propaganda, which fused with older medieval Christian myths about Jews. Then Egypt, the Hollywood of the Arab world, broadcast that poison into every Arab home. During the Second Intifada, the 2001 film « Friends or Business » glorified a suic•de b0mber. In 2002, Mohamed Sobhi produced and starred in « Horseman Without a Horse, » a TV series built on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious forgery. For decades, Egyptian films and series have cast Jews and Israelis as spies, plotters, and the hidden hand behind every disaster. That’s the school you graduated from. You rose as a voice of the revolution against Mubarak, demanding equality and justice. Yet toward Jews you practice the same injustice that regime perfected: scapegoating. You mock the police state and repeat the propaganda its Nazi advisers brought with them. That’s your blind spot. I know these lies because I grew up with them too. Unlearning them is possible. I did.

If you hate Israelis, this one’s for you. A flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv. The co-pilot st@bs the pilot mid-air. A 9/11 scenario is unfolding at 30,000 feet. Then the passengers stand up. They subdue the attacker, treat the wounded, and get the damaged plane on the ground. 174 passengers walk off alive. So next time you say “I’m not antisemitic, just anti-Zionist”… Next time you march beside a buffoon chanting “de@th to the IDF”… Picture yourself strapped into a seat, dropping 17,000 feet in under a minute. You’d be praying there’s an Israeli who served in the IDF on that plane. And you know it. AM ISRAEL CHAI 🤍 #idf #israel #amisraelchai

🛑 This is a new level of pressure, and it deserves a clear answer. Why are we afraid to say out loud what so many say behind closed doors? If the world truly cares about the people living under Hamas and the PA, why keep this charade alive? Or does the anti-Israel agenda matter more than the people it claims to defend? Israel’s response should send one message: the statehood fantasy is over. Europe says it wants self-determination and a normal life for the Palestinians. The sanctions are meant to stop Israel from building where Europe imagines that state. But self-determination means handing over power that will be abused. For decades, Palestinian children have been taught that violence is heroic. A new textbook won’t undo that overnight. Think about what this imagined “normal” state actually means. An army. An airport. A seaport. Its own alliances, with no Israeli oversight. Now picture that in the heart of the Levant, minutes from Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion. Another open door for the IRGC, for Erdogan, for Russia, for anyone who wants a foothold against Israel and the West. How exactly does that serve stability? And how does the world expect Israel to allow it? And we don’t have to guess how it would go. Palestinians already govern themselves, Hamas in Gaza and the PA in parts of Judea and Samaria. Corruption, repression, misery. Both models failed, the secular and the Islamist, the pragmatic and the maximalist. So why do European leaders keep pushing? Not for peace. For quiet. Quiet from the protests on their own streets that too often turn violent. Quiet from pro-Palestinian governments. Quiet from Iran, because they know the IRGC doesn’t play fair and won’t hesitate to hit below the belt. That’s appeasement. It has dragged this conflict out for more than a hundred years, and every reward for rejection invited more of it. What changes minds in this region is victory. After October 7, Israel needs a clear win, with territory as the consequence. Israeli, like Gazans, paid a heavy price, at home and far beyond their borders. These times call for moral clarity and radical change. We need to be fair, but also brave. #israel #netherlands #palestin

Shameless George Galloway posted this photo with the caption « What if this was your Dad? #Gaza. » This man is not in Gaza. He is Syrian, like me. He is Mohammed Mohiedin Anis, known as Abu Omar. AFP’s Joseph Eid photographed him in March 2017 in his ruined bedroom in al-Shaar, eastern Aleppo, the neighborhood devastated in the regime’s 2016 offensive. A collector of antiques and vintage cars, he lost his home and most of his collection. He came back anyway, sat in the rubble, lit his pipe and played a record. The world knew this photo as the face of Aleppo’s destruction. Galloway knows who destroyed Aleppo. He was on their payroll. From 2012 he hosted a show on Al Mayadeen, the Beirut channel widely seen as the voice of Iran’s « Axis of Resistance, » reportedly for around £3,000 an episode. He also presented on Iran’s Press TV and spent nearly a decade on Putin’s RT. The Axis: Iran, Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, the Houthis and, until December 2024, Assad. For 13 years the IRGC, Hezbollah and Russia fought Assad’s war for him. When his regime fell, he fled to Moscow and got « humanitarian » asylum. That was the humanity he denied every Syrian he b0mbed. Barrel bombs on bakeries. Sarin in Ghouta and Khan Sheikhoun. Chlorine in Douma. Galloway called Assad « the last bastion of Arab dignity. » After Douma, he pushed the « staged attack » conspiracy, even though the OPCW confirmed chlorine was used. He declared Bradford an « Israel-free zone, » which police logged as a hate incident. He flew to Tehran to accept an award named after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and called him a « martyr. » Then he went to Moscow to cheer Putin’s Victory Day parade. Today he broadcasts from « exile » in Russia and China, lecturing the West about freedom. This is no honest mistake. It is the method of Galloway and his camp: « by any means necessary. » When the truth doesn’t serve the cause, lie, and collect applause from a Western audience that never checks. But Syrians remember. @georgegallowayofficial #aleppo

The UN’s « human rights expert » on Palestine just learned what antisemitism means. The hatred that built Auschwitz and industrialized mass murder. Yet she casually calls Israelis Nazis. Give her time. She may yet discover that Jews are indigenous, not colonizers, and that they have the right to defend themselves, because they too are human.

In Chicago last week, Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s grandmother was in the crowd. After the event, someone told me who she was, and I went to thank her for coming. When I said her name, she closed her eyes, smiled, and said: « Hersh’s grandmother. » She asked if I had met his parents. I said, « Kind of. » After Hersh was murdered together with Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Alexander (Alex) Lobanov, and Ori Danino, I spoke at a screening of Tragic Awakening at the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem. Hersh’s parents addressed the delegation, mostly European diplomats. I listened as Rachel described who her son was, how the nightmare unfolded, everything she and Jon did to bring him home, and how it all ended when Hamas murdered « the beautiful six, » as she called them. My friend Emmanuel Navon, who had brought the delegation, gave me the first and the last question. But I had no question. I told Rachel and Jon that I was in Jerusalem with my son when their son was killed. Every day I wanted to go to the shiva, and every day my shame stopped me. I told my son I could not look them in the face. Then, on behalf of everyone in that room, especially the European diplomats, I apologized to them, because all of us should have done more. In that moment, I didn’t care if anyone thought it was out of line. In Chicago, Hersh’s grandmother wore her smile with the same grace as the rest of his family, bearing witness to a moment that changed their world, and ours, forever. Many have lost loved ones in this war. They will carry that loss, that hole in the chest, forever. The rest of us must live with our shame, pray for forgiveness, and spend our lives atoning for staying silent in the face of cruelty when we could have done more. Someone will inevitably ask about the suffering in Gaza. To them I say: how many times did we cry « Let them go » while you chanted « Free Palestine »? Releasing the hostages would have spared lives on both sides. But you tore down their posters. You peeled them off the walls. You chanted « Resist by any means » and « From the river to the sea. »

This scene is the epitome of ignorance. Not only in Gaza or Ramallah would this protester be lynched, but also in any Arab or Muslim city. Do these useful idiots have any Muslim friends? Do they have any Palestinian friends? Do they know anything about the cause they are supporting?!

Here’s a thought. People always ask why the UN never condemns criminal regimes but always finds time for tiny Israel. Watching Iran’s president at the podium this year, I finally understood. A man whose regime has killed tens of thousands of Iranians stood before the world and condemned Israel and the US for “blatant violations of Iranian sovereignty” and “unacceptable interference in Iran’s domestic affairs.” And by the rules of that room, he had a point. Killing your own people is a domestic affair. Assad got away with far worse, and the world agreed it had no business interfering. Less than a month before he fell, he was in Riyadh lecturing Israel about “Zionist crimes” in Gaza. What looks like absurdity and hypocrisy is actually international law working as designed. Whatever your case against Assad, the IRGC, North Korea or Cuba, if the official rulers deny it, it doesn’t stand, and the international community can’t and won’t step in. Then it clicked: if Gaza and Judea were part of Israel, Israel could play the same card. Whatever armed Palestinian factions plan or carry out would simply be domestic terrorism, as it is in any Western country. Internal matter. Hands off. It’s all just a matter of technicalities.

The following is an excerpt from the full statement delivered by Nasser Asadi, a diplomat at Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations, when he exercised Iran’s right of reply after Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the UN General Assembly on September 24, 2026: “Occupation is in their DNA. Aggression is in their bl00d. Terr0rsm is in their nature. Child klling is their lovely habit. Domicde, carpet b0mbng, and demolishing homes over the heads of their inhabitants are their longstanding tradition. Apartheid is their established custom. War crmes are their fun. Gen0cde is their most beloved practice. Cr*mes against humanity are their traditional business. Deception, lying, and victim playing are the core elements of their strategy. And Zionism is their statehood manifesto.” The Iranian regime and its defenders will argue that he was referring to Israelis, or to the “Zionist regime,” rather than to Jews. But the words he chose tell a different story, because DNA, bl00d, nature, habit, and tradition are not the vocabulary of political criticism. They are the vocabulary of race, and they describe a people as born evil and destined to remain so. When he calls child k*lling “their lovely habit,” he is repeating the bl00d libel, the oldest lie ever told about Jews, and he is doing it from the podium of the institution that was founded after the H0l0caust precisely so that such words would never again be spoken without consequence. It has now been three days, and I have not seen a single government, nor the Secretary-General, nor the President of the General Assembly condemn these remarks. Asadi may be a junior diplomat, but he was not speaking for himself. He was speaking officially for the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the General Assembly hall, in front of the entire world. This is how Jew h@tred becomes normal. First it is said out loud, then nobody objects, and before long it is treated as just another point of view. For decades, the Iranian regime has worked to turn every Jew on earth into a legitimate t@rget, and every h@teful speech that goes unanswered brings that goal a little closer. 🛑 The world’s silence is permission. #un #anto

The real face of the Palestinian cause.

When Bibi entered the hall, a flock of losers walked out. For most of them, that moment will be the highlight of their careers. They thought a UN appointment meant they had made it, that they would finally change the world. Instead they discovered that the hall of fame is a hall of shame: a global stage for performative gestures, where they serve as pawns of governments that are mostly corrupt, authoritarian, criminal, weak, or simply irrelevant. Overpaid, underworked, and unable to face reality, they will tell their grandchildren they stood up for the children of Gaza that day. They will pat themselves on the back. And when those grandchildren ask, “But what did you do for our people?”, they will blame capitalism, America, Israel, the Zionists, colonialism. They will blame anything except their own failures. Their own failed or struggling countries have not dealt with injustice, corruption, authoritarianism, crime, Islamism, or poverty. Yet these diplomats play heroes at the expense of the Jews. These hypocrites walked out on Israel. They did not walk out on the president of Iran. To the Jews who don’t like Bibi: they would have walked out on you too, and on any Israeli leader. This war is against Israel. The man is only the excuse. He walked into the lion’s den on your behalf. He refuted their lies, took the blows, and stood his ground. Their walkout became a trap of their own making: history has now recorded the world’s cowardice, complicity, and hypocrisy. Once again, humanity ganged up on the Jew. Today’s Goebbels can repeat their lies as often as they like. They can scream “starvation” and “genocide” until dawn. They will not gaslight us. They underestimated the Zionists, and hell yes: “We will win because we have no other choice.” We owe it to our children, unless we want them living at the mercy of Islamists. We are outnumbered, but we are strong. Our friends are strong. We are on the right side of history, and G-d is on our side. וַאֲבָרְכָה מְבָרְכֶיךָ וּמְקַלֶּלְךָ אָאֹר “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.” (Genesis 12:3)

Dear Arabs, what do you want the Jew to do? You killed the dhimmi in Algeria, and 70 years later you killed his grandson in Israel. Do you at least understand why the Jews are fed up and are fighting back? For two thousand years, the Jews were scattered around the world. They were everybody’s easiest target: peaceful and successful. You could steal their wealth and they wouldn’t fight back. After two thousand years, they decided those days are over. They decided to take back what is theirs. And everyone is up in arms. How dare they! Jews did not shed their peacefulness and patience overnight. The world really, really pushed them. Take this “settler” who was murdered on September 20th in the “West Bank.” Netanel Shukrun a father of six from Alei Zahav, was raising his family in his ancestral homeland because of the Arabs. On the morning before Yom Kippur, he took his 16-year-old son to the Ein Re’aya spring near Neve Tzuf to immerse before the holiest day of the year. As they sat in their car afterward, an Arab Palestinian opened fire. His son survived. Netanel did not. His grandfather, Rabbi Jacob Chekroun, was the grand rabbi of Médéa in Algeria. In March 1957, a terrorist shot him near his synagogue, and he died of his wounds the next day. The newspapers of the time called him a born pacifist, respected by everyone, with warm relations with Muslim families. It didn’t save him. After his murder, the family left for Israel. Even there, the Muslim world mobilized to prevent them from existing, claiming Jerusalem isn’t theirs although it is mentioned more than 800 times in the bible and ZERO times in the Quran. You left them no choice but confrontation. That is why the Jews built a country and a strong army. Going back to living under anybody’s mercy is out of the question.