Category Archives: News

Say It Sam

If the name Sam Harris doesn’t ring a bell, it’s because you’re blessedly not into the world of podcasts.

Neither am I, but Mr. Harris, holder of a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience and a philosopher, is a popular podcaster. Although he is halachically Jewish, he is an avowed secularist, not someone who might be expected to feel any connection to Judaism or Israel.

Which is why those who consider him a highbrow of the highest caliber have been dismayed by his bucking of the Israel-hatred that has become mandatory among the imperious intelligentsia. They can’t understand how he missed the memo.

Recently, to address his dismayed disciples’ puzzlement, he wrote a 2000 word tour de force, audaciously titled “Why I won’t debate critics of Israel.” It has been widely shared.

Mr. Harris is no knee-jerk defender of any Israeli action or leader, but has no interest in “exploring all the ways that Israel has missed the mark.”

He is interested only in the larger picture, the one that, in a reasonable world, would obscure all else. “The ethical difference between Israel and her enemies,” he states, “remains vast.” And “the global preoccupation with the Jewish state, as though it were the worst villain among nations, is contemptible… the product of perennial lies and delusions.”

Strong words, made all the stronger by his elaboration.

Militant Islamists, he contends, are “essentially, Nazis who are certain of Paradise.”

Were the IDF ever to “morph into a death cult that uses its own civilian population as human shields,” he fantasized, “if ordinary Israelis begin to celebrate martyrdom… producing generations of bright-eyed, suicidal fanatics, if the residents of Tel Aviv [would] condone the taking of Palestinian infants, old women, and other noncombatants as hostages and then gather in crowds of thousands, baying for their blood – if, in other words, the Israelis began to resemble the Palestinians, then I won’t care who wins this war.”

But of course, he continues, “there remains a world of difference between the two sides, and I believe that we should focus on how brutalizing it is for any free society to confront enemies that can sincerely claim to ‘love death’ more than everyone else loves life – for this has been Israel’s predicament for the better part of a century.”

Cutting sharply through all the “pro-Palestinian” obfuscation, he explains that “The problem in the Middle East is not, and has never been, the existence of the state of Israel.” It has been “jihadism… the belligerence and triumphal lunacy of those who take the most pernicious doctrines of Islam too seriously.”

Disentangling every strand of the region’s history is “a fool’s errand,” he further contends, “because Palestinians and Israelis have discrepant accounts of the past, and no amount of study or debate will reconcile them.”

All that matters in the here and now, he declares, is “what the current inhabitants of Israel, the Palestinian territories, and the surrounding Arab states want out of life now…. What are they willing to sacrifice for? What are they willing to die for? And what are they willing to let their children die for?”

And here he cuts to the quick. While “Israel has its religious fanatics,” he writes, they are not “the same sort of fanatics we find in Hamas or Hezbollah, and they’re far less representative of the surrounding culture.”

There is much more in Mr. Harris’ manifesto, but the following paragraph really says it all:

“If the Palestinians laid down their arms, there would be peace. There could be a two-state solution; there could even be a one-state solution…. If the Palestinians simply stopped killing Jews and stopped building a culture that celebrates pointless murder and martyrdom as its highest values, there could be a diverse, tolerant, and prosperous society between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. There could have been one eighty years ago. But if the Israelis laid down their weapons, there would be a genocide. This was obviously true on October 7th, 2023. And for anyone who has been paying attention, it has been true on every other day since the founding of the state of Israel.”

Words worthy of being displayed on every billboard in Europe and posted in every American university classroom.

(c) 2026 Ami Magazine

Muckrakers Not Welcome

Last month, “activist” Tyler Oliveira notified his eight million social media subscribers that he was planning a trip to the Holy Land: “You guys think Israel will let me into the country?”

Shortly thereafter, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli reposted Mr. O.’s words along with a one-word response: “No.”

Mr. Chikli later explained that he was “proud to have denied entry to Israel today to an unfortunate YouTuber who is using the harassment of Jews as a way to get clout on social media.”

And so, fresh from an appearance on “just saying” Tucker Carlson’s innuendo-cast, the self-appointed investigative journalist – who had previously spent time in New Square and Lakewood harassing residents and “exposing” what he called “a parasitic, insulated Jewish community,” “systemic exploitation” of government programs and Orthodox “invasions” of communities, – boarded an El Al plane to Israel and, when it landed, was denied entry to the country.

During his earlier interview with the increasingly creepy Mr. Carlson, Mr. Oliveira recounted his trips to the heavily Orthodox American Jewish communities.

The “entire lifestyle” of Jews in the towns he visited, he said, “is designed to extract and exploit these welfare systems to the maximum degree. It is strategic. It is not happenstance. It is not coincidental. It is by design.”

The design, of course, is that of our nation’s social services, which reflect the citizenry’s democratically-expressed will to aid large families with limited incomes.

An argument can certainly be made – and Mr. Oliveira repeatedly makes it – that the country should not be using tax dollars to help those who face economic challenges that qualify them for things like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Social consciences, unfortunately, aren’t universal.

But when someone singles out only one or two racially or religiously identifiable groups (Mr. Oliveira has gone after other minorities, too), the “argument” is exposed as something other than fiscal conservatism. Tellingly, the muckraking crusader doesn’t seem to have made any effort to visit and harass poor white citizens, say, in Appalachia.

And then there is the regurgitation of hoary antisemitic tropes. “Seemingly,” Mr. Oliveira confided in Mr. Carlson, “there are a lot of powerful Jewish people who own significant media enterprises, [and] websites that seem to bend the knee… to [them]. As if Rupert Murdoch, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk were members of the tribe.

But, leaving aside the darker elements that infect the souls of some right-wing personalities, a question does present itself: Is Israel wise to prevent such people from visiting?

The argument against permitting them entry (and Israel had denied entry in the past as well to various politicians and academics, based on a 2017 law that allows it to refuse proponents of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement) is straightforward: People who ally themselves with enemies of the country or with policies that would harm it don’t deserve to tread its soil.

What’s more – and in the case of Mr. Oliveira, it’s an entirely reasonable assumption – people ill-disposed to Israel or Jews will only use their visits to seek out yet new excuses for disparagment.

But there is a downside to that approach as well. The very denial of entry itself is sure to be used by the denied to their advantage. “If they have nothing to fear, why don’t they let me in?” they will say. “Must be that they have reason to fear…”

And, dovetailing with that concern to argue for allowing critics entry is the irrepressible Jewish optimism that dares to imagine that even haters, given the opportunity to get to know their targets better, might feel more constrained in the future, maybe even changed by the experience.

I generally opt for such optimism.

But when I witness someone somehow finding fault even with the volunteer police-allied Shomrim, which helps report and prevent crimes against innocent civilians, calling it, as Mr. Oliveira did, a “religious police” – prompting Mr. Carlson to add “Exactly. Essentially like in Saudi Arabia or Iran” – I have to concede that there are eyes just so hopelessly jaundiced that even the freshest snow will register in their eyes as soot and ash.

(c) 2026 Ami Magazine

Iran’s Secret Weapon

Our country and Israel have each used an array of advanced weaponry against Iran since February 28.

Three U.S. aircraft carriers deployed to the region have launched hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iranian sites; and aircraft, including B-2 stealth bombers, have pounded targets in the country. New systems like the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) have also been employed in attacks.

Israel brought the power of F-35I Adir stealth fighters, F-15I Ra’am jets and specialized precision-guided munitions to the fight.

The combined attacks have wrought significant degradation of Iran’s air defenses and missile production, and extensive destruction of military and civilian infrastructure.

Iran, for its part, has employed large numbers of kamikaze drones against U.S. sites and those of allies, as well as specialized anti-ship missile launchers stationed near the Strait of Hormuz. Its weapons inventory also includes some older U.S.-made equipment, like F-14 fighters, that the country was provided before the mullahs took over.

According to The Washington Post, Iranian strikes have damaged over 200 structures at U.S. military sites in the region.  And U.S. intelligence indicates that Iran could produce enough bomb-grade uranium in 3-6 months.

But the war of weapons is only one part of the conflict’s calculus. Iran possesses a secret weapon, and it resides here in the U.S.

No, it’s not some fifth column of sleeper cells (though the existence of such threats can’t be ruled out). And it’s not even the sophomoric, self-righteous and besotted-with-themselves demonstrators (of, above all, their ignorance) who chant their affection for Iran’s proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah.

No, the Iranian secret weapon is something else: the American public. Or, to be more precise, citizens’ increasing fear of rising gas prices – on which the mullahs are counting to wear down America’s determination to defang them.

Ludicrous as it might sound – and in a sane world would sound – the Iranian secret weapon is the price of a gallon of gasoline at American pumps.

That reluctance to make an economic sacrifice in order to prevent Iran, once and for all, from being able to obliterate entire cities, plays a large role in what a recent PBS News/NPR/Marist poll showed: Six in 10 Americans disapprove of how President Trump is handling Iran.

Even among Republicans, who overwhelmingly approve of the campaign against Iran, that support is down seven points from March.

Odious but influential right-wing voices like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Alex Jones and Candace Owens have raised a hue and cry against the war, which Mr. Carlson has characterized as “absolutely disgusting and evil.”

Such opposition to de-nuclearizing Iran capitalizes on fuel pump fearfulness. James Fishback, who is currently running for the GOP nomination in Florida’s gubernatorial race, encapsulated the Carlson et al position when he declared that “My definition of America First is that if it does not benefit American citizens, it is not America First.” And if American citizens are distressed, well, that’s worse.

In May, 1942, when Nazi Germany was on the ascendant, Americans received ration cards. Among items rationed were: cars, tires, gasoline, fuel oil, coal, firewood, nylon, silk, and shoes. Not to mention household staples like meat, dairy, coffee and oils.

Sacrifice was embraced as a common good for the war effort, and it affected every American household. There were minor protests, but the dominant mood among the citizenry was that decisively winning the war, no pun intended, trumped all else.

American society has markedly changed since the 1940s. The unity of purpose that reigned at that era is all but absent in these polarized times. The idea of the common good has yielded to a “what’s in it for me?” mindset.

What’s more, many these days seem desensitized to the danger posed by Iran possessing nuclear weapons. The local chants of “From the river to the sea…” and “Globalize the intifida” have all but drowned out the far-away Iranian ones of “Marg bar America” (“Death to America!”).

All of which provides fertile ground for enemies of civilization like Iran to sow seeds of noxious weeds, to wear down an American public unused to sacrifice and terrified by the specter of $5-a-gallon gas.

© 2026 Ami Magazine

Fraud in Fact… or in Fiction?

One doesn’t expect an anti-racist organization to help finance white supremacist groups. But that is precisely what Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a public interest law firm that fights discrimination, stands accused of.

The accuser is the Department of Justice, which last week issued a surprising indictment of the SPLC, charging it with secretly funding hate groups, including affiliates of the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Party of America.

According to the government, between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC paid over $3,000,000 – laundered through bank accounts registered to fictitious entities – to people in those groups.

Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, further claimed that the SPLC had failed to comply with its non-profit status, saying they committed fraud against their donors by failing to disclose the payments.

“And in no fundraising efforts that the investigation found,” he noted, “did they say, ‘Oh, and by the way, we’re going to give a million bucks to the Ku Klux Klan.’ So that’s fraud.”

Mr. Blanche, speaking alongside FBI Director Kash Patel at a news conference, said the organization made payments to at least eight people, including those affiliated with violent extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi organizations.

“The SPLC was not dismantling the groups,” Mr. Blanche said. “It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”

Mr. Patel said that the SPLC “used the money they raised from their donor network to actually pay the leadership of these very groups.”

Established in 1971 and based in Alabama, the SPLC, over many years, successfully battled the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups in courts, and helped reporters and law enforcement keep tabs on domestic extremists.

In recent years, though, the group widened its net, identifying arguably mainstream conservative organizations as hate groups, which it defines as having “beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people.”  Among the more recently SPLC-targeted groups are the Family Research Council and Turning Point USA (TPUSA).

In 2024, the SPLC said that TPUSA’s “primary strategy is sowing and exploiting fear that white Christian supremacy is under attack by nefarious actors, including immigrants… and civil rights activists… [The group] is at the forefront of the movement to promote Christian nationalism, the theocratic worldview that the U.S. is a fundamentally Christian country and that Christian values and beliefs should inform the government and wider culture…”

It notes that the late Charlie Kirk, TPUSA’s executive director until his murder in 2025, said, “You cannot have liberty if you don’t have a Christian population.”

Whether TPUSA is a hate group or what most people would simply consider a conservative (okay, “ultra-conservative”) organization, the SPLC certainly alienated some Republican lawmakers – and President Trump.

During a December congressional hearing, House Republicans accused the group of “being partisan and profitable.” In October, Mr. Patel severed FBI ties with the SPLC, alleging that it “long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine.”

In an article last year, Margaret Huang, who was then the president and chief executive of the group, wrote that with President Trump’s second election, hard-right extremism now had “an ally in the highest office in the nation.” Needless to say, Mr. Trump was not pleased.

What, though, exactly, did the SPLC do to earn the administration’s charges?

It hired informants to infiltrate the targeted groups and convey back information about them and their plans. Bryan Fair, the SPLC’s chief executive, said that the group no longer used informants, but did so when extremist violence was common.

“There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives,” he said.

There is nothing illegal about paying informants to spy on groups, something that government agencies like the FBI themselves have often done. Which fact has let the president’s critics to accuse him of vindictively targeting the SPLC with specious charges.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the greatest political scams in American History,” Mr. Trump exulted on his social media platform, “has been charged with FRAUD.”

And, he added, somewhat incongruously, “If it is true, the 2020 Presidential Election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect!”

© 2026 Ami Magazine

Pita and Propaganda

The Guardian lets down its guard

“First comes the hummus: studded with chickpeas, anointed with a little reservoir of olive oil, greedily smeared up with hunks of pitta [sic] bread and messy fingers. Then the tabbouleh, then some homemade falafels…”

Thus opened an article in The Guardian, the London daily that is considered Britain’s “paper of record,” like our country’s The New York Times. And, like The Times, it has a denied but evident bias against Israel and Jews.

The details of the sumptuous meal continued through several deliriously described courses and dessert (baklava and homemade chocolate, if you really must know). The writer, the paper’s sports writer and opinion columnist Jonathan Liew, was feasting at a successful North London Arab-run eatery called Cafe Metro.

He wasn’t writing a food column. It was, rather, a report on a controversy swirling around Cafe Metro and a new nearby branch of an popular upscale bakery called Gail’s.

The night before it was due to open, the bakery was vandalized with red paint. Less than a week later, all its windows were smashed in. Slogans reading “reject corporate Zionism” and various obscenities were scrawled on its walls.

Gail’s describes itself as “a British business with no specific connections to any country or government outside the UK,” but its parent company, Bain Capital, reportedly invests in military technology, including some Israeli security companies. Bad bakery!

Mr. Liew, after noting how Cafe Metro, “proudly blazons its Palestinian heritage” with a public display of flags, describes it lovingly as “a source of comfort and community in troubling times, resistance in its tastiest and most delicately spiced form.” And goes on to contend that “the very presence of [Gail’s] 20 metres away from a small independent cafe feels quietly symbolic, an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression.”

Gail’s, the writer seems to imply, has no business being a business.

Many people saw Mr. Liew’s description of the bakery’s opening, “an act of heavy-handed, high-street aggression” as, well, an act of heavy-handed Fleet Street aggression.

It was also an example of utterly corrupt journalism. Mr. Liew wasn’t quoting the Arab owners of Cafe Metro – who would be misguided enough to characterize Gail’s as an aggressor for simply existing. It was the columnist’s own ostensible statement of fact.

Making matters even more outrageous, the piece, which included no quotes from anyone connected to Gail’s, dismissed the window-smashing and paint smearing as “small acts of petty symbolism.”

A slew of complaints about the column was registered by, among many others, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, who called the column “disgusting,” “appalling” and “ridiculous.”

With typical droll British humor. Senior Barrister Simon Myerson referenced the paper’s record of bias, writing: “I see the Guardian is having an antisemitic moment. Sorry, another antisemitic moment.”

The Guardian later edited the piece, “repositioning” the objectional “aggression” wordage “to clarify it meant to refer to the described fears about the chain’s impact on small traders.”

Also, “to avoid misunderstanding,” the paper removed the “small acts of petty symbolism” phrase, which, it explained, “was not intended to minimize local vandalism but rather to suggest its misdirected futility.”

All of which really misses the real point. It was the framing of the entire piece that was, and remains, journalistically objectionable.

After hundreds of words extolling the gustatory delights of Arab cuisine, Mr. Liew dwells for hundreds more on how the family of one of Cafe Metro’s operators “once lived in the city of Beit Hanoun in Gaza, and now lives out a precarious and hunted existence in one of Gaza’s many temporary refugee camps…”

And he contrasts that with how “Gail’s has long been feted as a purveyor of luxury baked goods and is an unmistakable barometer of local affluence.” Even though the chain is not currently owned by Jews or Israelis, the insinuation is as obvious as it is odious.

And Mr. Liew concludes with the observation that the two businesses “have found themselves on the frontline of a war. A deeply asymmetric war, defined by gross imbalances in power and resources and platforms.”

There is in fact a gross imbalance here. It lies in the shameless portrayal of a vandalized victim as an aggressor, opposite a reverent, adulatory portrayal of an imagined victim.

(c) 2026 Ami Magazine