Trump on Iran ceasefire, MoU: ‘I think it’s over’ - Joshua Marks

 

by Joshua Marks

The U.S. president slammed Tehran’s leaders as “scum” and dismissed further truce talks as a waste of time.

 

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and U.S. President Donald Trump meet on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara on July 8, 2026. Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday effectively declared the Iran ceasefire and its accompanying Memorandum of Understanding dead.

“To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore,” he said in response to a reporter’s question on day two of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey.

The reporter had asked: “Is the ceasefire over? Is the ceasefire done? Is the MoU dead?”

“They’re scum... they’re sick people,” Trump said of Iran’s leadership. The Islamic Republic is “led by sick people, and they’re vicious, violent people, and if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over,” he continued.

“I’ll speak to our negotiators. They want to negotiate. They’re good people—Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner. But they have to come back to me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them. They’re [the Iranians] liars. ... We make a deal, everyone’s agreed—no nuclear weapon. We make a deal. They go outside and talk to the press and say, ‘We never even talked about it.’ There is something wrong with them; they’re cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”

Asked if this means negotiations will not continue once the funeral proceedings in Iran for slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei conclude on Thursday, Trump again dismissed the prospects for a successful outcome. “I don’t care. They can talk, but I think they’re wasting their time.”

He called the leaders of the Islamic Republic “a bunch of lying guys. ... They’re liars. They’re cheats. They’re sick people. They’ve hurt their people. They killed 54,000 people as of now who were protesting. When people say, ‘How come they haven’t taken over?’ They can’t take over because they’re dead. They killed them. Nobody is going to take over. They have no guns, and the other side has machine guns, and they’re killing them. The press doesn’t report it. But they’re bad people. They’re bad people, and frankly, I don’t want to waste my time with them. Now, I’ll let our wonderful negotiators keep talking if they want to, but I don’t see it. I don’t like these people, you know that?”

Trump told reporters later on Wednesday that the U.S. military was preparing to once more strike the Islamic Republic “hard.”

“We hit them very hard last night, very, very. Probably hit them hard again tonight,” Trump said. “I’ll give them a little warning. We’re going to hit them hard tonight,” he added. “We’ll see how it all works out—no, I’m not happy with them.”

US Central Command

American forces launched strikes against the Iranian regime in response to the Islamic Republic’s attacks on civilian-manned commercial ships on Tuesday, according to U.S. Central Command, which said it hit more than 80 targets to degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking international commerce.

Iran fired missiles at commercial ships transiting the waterway between Iran and Oman, reportedly causing significant damage but no casualties.

The strikes come as the U.S. Treasury Department reimposed sanctions on the export of Iranian oil in response to Iran’s attacks.

Sirens sounded in Bahrain on Wednesday as the Gulf kingdom’s Interior Ministry urged citizens to seek safety, according to a post on X. The warning came after the IRGC said it launched missiles and drones at 85 U.S. military sites across Bahrain and Kuwait in response to the latest wave of American strikes.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf accused Washington of committing “major violations” of the ceasefire deal known as the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding following the renewed strikes.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Ghalibaf listed what he described as U.S. violations, including “persistent threats of further strikes,” the reinstatement of oil sanctions, attacks on southern Iran and continued Israeli military action in Lebanon. “The era of bullying and extortion is over. It leads nowhere. We don’t fold,” he wrote.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, accused the United States of violating the Memorandum of Understanding, not only with Tuesday’s renewed strikes but also due to recent “actions of the Zionist regime in Lebanon and threatening statements against Iran.”

He warned that Iran “will take decisive actions to safeguard its national interests and security.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who was alongside Trump on the sidelines of the summit on Wednesday when the president shared his thoughts on the state of the Iranian negotiations, voiced support for the American attacks, calling them “absolutely necessary,” according to Reuters.

“When you have a ceasefire and Iran is basically violating the ceasefire, I think it is totally crucial that the U.S. forcefully react,” Rutte told reporters. 

Joshua Marks

Source: https://www.jns.org/news/world/trump-declares-iran-ceasefire-over-at-nato-summit

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Experts divided on whether Turkey is ‘NATO member in name only’ or closer ally than ever - Andrew Bernard

 

by Andrew Bernard

As NATO leaders meet in Ankara, JNS spoke with former U.S. envoy James Jeffrey and JINSA’s Blaise Misztal about why U.S. and Israeli officials disagree about Turkey.

 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump during a state arrival ceremony at Bestepe Presidential Compound in Ankara, on July 7, 2026, on the sidelines of the NATO Summit. Photo by Emrah Gurel /POOL/AFP via Getty Images.

 

Amichai Chikli, Israeli minister for diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, leaves little doubt about what he thinks of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“Greetings to the patron of Hamas and ISIS, the dictator who jails every critical journalist, the man behind the barbaric rapes and massacres of Kurdish, Druze and Alawite minorities, the megalomaniac who has lost his mind, a grotesque hybrid of Hitler and Sinwar,” the Israeli politician wrote on Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu avoided comparing Erdoğan to the leaders of Nazi Germany and Hamas in an interview with CNN on Tuesday. But he warned that the Turkish president runs “a regime that’s infected with the Muslim Brotherhood, which hates the United States” and has threatened to destroy Israel.

U.S. President Donald Trump, leader of the country most closely allied to Israel, took a markedly different tack as he sat beside Erdoğan in the Turkish presidential palace in Ankara on Tuesday ahead of a two-day NATO summit.

“As everybody knows, it’s been very much reported, we are great friends,” Trump said. “From the very beginning, from the first moment, I said it before, it’s a chemistry that works between us.”

“The relationship with Turkey right now is better, probably, than it’s ever been,” Trump added.

JNS spoke with James Jeffrey, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, about whether Turkey and Israel are as deeply at odds as the rhetoric from their leaders suggests and what it means for the U.S. relationship with both countries.

“The Turks do not see Israel as an enemy state,” Jeffrey said. “I can say that authoritatively.”

Critics have accused Turkey of backsliding away from democracy, particularly following a coup attempt in 2016 and a constitutional referendum the following year that gave Erdoğan more power and will let him stay in office until at least 2028.

Despite that, Jeffrey told JNS that the country’s democratic institutions are what drive the main wedge between Israel and Turkey over Gaza.

“Turkey is a country that actually has to listen to its own population,” Jeffrey said. “They’re very unhappy about the treatment of the West Bank Palestinians, but Gaza is the most important issue between them.”

One of the critical topics of discussion in Ankara is Turkey’s potential purchase of F-35 fighter jets, after the United States barred it from doing so in 2019 during the first Trump administration when Turkey bought Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile defense batteries.

Erdoğan said at a press conference with Trump on Tuesday that the U.S. president had made a “promise” to let Turkey have the advanced stealth fighters, which Israel and other close U.S. allies also fly.

JINSA’s Misztal told JNS that despite its membership in the transatlantic alliance, Turkey should not be considered one of those close partners.

“Turkey is a NATO member in name only,” Misztal said.

He pointed to the country’s record of trying to block Sweden and Finland from joining the alliance and Erdoğan’s purge of the Turkish officer corps after the 2016 coup attempt.

“The idea that Turkey somehow naturally fits into NATO and that it is a member of NATO in good standing is very much open for dispute on the evidence over the past decade,” Misztal told JNS.

Misztal said that he would not describe Turkey as a “true enemy” of Israel, but the Israeli perception of Turkey is driven by how Jerusalem’s view of threats changed after Oct. 7 and concern over Turkey’s role in Syria under Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

“The lesson that Israel painfully learned on Oct. 7 is that it can no longer watch major military capabilities amass on its borders,” Misztal said. “The way the Israelis put this is they have to focus on capabilities, not intents, and so they see Turkey both significantly helping arm and train the new Syrian military, turning that into a more capable fighting force and seeking to have its own military in place in Syria.”

“From Israel’s new doctrine of not wanting to have a buildup of military capabilities on or near its borders, that looks problematic—especially given how big Turkey’s military is,” he added. “That is a fundamental problem.”

Jeffrey, who also served in U.S. special envoy roles for Syria and for the global coalition to defeat ISIS, told JNS that even as Syria has become a source of tension between Israel and Turkey, it is one of many areas where Turkey and the United States have grown closer.

“In its entire near abroad, either American policy has changed or Turkish policy has changed, so that we are aligned in a way that we weren’t,” he said.

He cited Erdoğan’s close work with Trump to try to resolve the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the peace process with Turkey’s Kurdish population and the warming ties between Washington and Damascus.

Those shifts have likely all contributed to Trump re-evaluating whether Turkey can once again join the F-35 partner program.

Despite the sharp rhetoric from both Ankara and Jerusalem, Jeffrey pointed to the long-term trends in Turkey that make real conflict or a full-blown diplomatic rupture unlikely.

“After 25 years of Erdoğan, who is a religious jerk, the country is still, if anything, more secular than it was before,” he told JNS.

“Turks aren’t interested in the Middle East,” Jeffrey said. “Turks are interested in Europe. They see themselves as Europeans to some degree.”

Misztal agreed that the potential for any sort of Israeli-Turkish conflict was remote but said that the United States should do more to pressure Turkey in areas where the two countries have disagreements, including areas of shared concern with Israel.

“It’s important for the United States to get over this idea that its partnership with Turkey is too big to fail, and that therefore we need to turn a blind eye to the ways in which Turkey has undermined U.S. interests in and around the Middle East,” he said.

“A tougher line against Turkey on areas where we do have real disagreements would actually, in the long term, be salutary to the relationship and give us a chance of returning to some better understanding between each other,” he added.

Andrew Bernard

Source: https://www.jns.org/news/u-s-news/experts-divided-on-whether-turkey-is-nato-member-in-name-only-or-closer-ally-than-ever

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Federal judge hands Trump big win, directs DHS to restore voter verification features of SAVE system - Misty Severi

 

by Misty Severi

The SAVE system was enhanced under the Trump administration to better support state election integrity efforts, including maintenance of state voter rolls.

 

A federal judge in Florida on Tuesday ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore some of the key features of its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, which states use to verify citizenship and immigration status for voter rolls.

The ruling overturns a D.C. judge's ruling, who determined that the SAVE system's features, including a feature that allowed workers to verify citizenship status through a resident's social security number, violated the Social Security Act and Privacy Act by improperly aggregating and using Americans’ personal data.

The SAVE system was enhanced under the Trump administration to better support state election integrity efforts, including maintenance of state voter rolls.

U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II ruled that the DHS violated a settlement with states, including Florida, by disabling the features. Wetherell approved the settlement last year and has maintained jurisdiction to enforce the settlement.

"Defendants are plainly in violation of the settlement agreement because it is undisputed that they disabled the bulk-upload and SSN-search features that the agreement expressly required the SAVE system to have," he wrote in the order. "The fact that defendants disabled those features to comply with [the judge's] order does not change the fact that they violated the agreement."

Wetherell determined that the features did not violate federal law, concluding the SSN-search functions align with 8 U.S.C. §1373, which overrides other restrictions on sharing citizenship or immigration status information, according to Florida's Voice News.

The judge ordered defendants to file a status report on its compliance with the latest order by July 14.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage. 

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/federal-judge-directs-dhs-restore-voter-verification-features-save-system

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Israel: Rule of Law in Crisis - Nils A. Haug

 

by Nils A. Haug

For the first time in Israel's nearly 80-year history, the government announced it would not abide by a Supreme Court ruling.

 

• Well, it finally happened. The executive branch – Israel's government – has apparently had enough of the activist, self-selected Supreme Court endeavoring to micro-manage policy decisions that have nothing to do with it.

• For the first time in Israel's nearly 80-year history, the government announced it would not abide by a Supreme Court ruling.

• The reality... is that the Supreme Court is itself guilty of these allegations directed towards the government. The court has ignored existing law, for reasons of its own ideological persuasions, and has led the country to a constitutional crisis entirely of the court's own making.

• It was probably inevitable that a government of integrity would one day resist the slew of biased Supreme Court decisions made against it in an attempt by the court to insert itself into the executive's policy-making function –- an action well outside the limit of judicial authority.

• Months of massive demonstrations – partially financed by the Biden Administration in the hope of dislodging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in order to replace him with someone more pliable -- indirectly led to the horrors of October 7, 2023.

• Israel's leaders would do well urgently to draft legislation clarifying the role and functions of the judiciary, as well as that of the attorney general. Perhaps the nation's enemies will then understand that the people of Israel stand together against their enemies as one.

Well, it finally happened. The executive branch – Israel's government – has apparently had enough of the activist, self-selected Supreme Court endeavoring to micro-manage policy decisions that have nothing to do with it. Pictured: The Supreme Court building, in Jerusalem. (Photo by: Israeltourism/Wikimedia Commons)

Well, it finally happened. The executive branch – Israel's government – has apparently had enough of the activist, self-selected Supreme Court endeavoring to micro-manage policy decisions that have nothing to do with it.

Just about every major government decision not to the court's liking appears to be barred from implementation. This leads to months, if not years, of appeals and counter-appeals, preventing the government from moving forward with its programs for the nation.

The government, as the executive, is a body elected by the people; the Supreme Court is not. It is therefore unaccountable to anyone except itself. In a normal democratic environment, the legislature enacts laws that are implemented as policy by the elected representatives of the people -- Israel's parliament, the Knesset -- or by the executive.

In case of disputed matters involving law, the courts make rulings to ensure justice. This is their role – to interpret and uphold the law through judicial decisions. It is not their function to make laws (the role of the legislature) or to determine policy (the role of the executive), which they appear to be doing by negating governmental implementation of executive decisions -- decisions that normally lie beyond the scope of judicial authority.

In the instance of Israel, the separation of powers doctrine, which determines the limitation of powers between each branch of government to avoid confusion and overlap, is obscured by the fact that, as in the United Kingdom, there are no clear guidelines defining the differing authority of three branches: the legislative, the judiciary and the executive.

This is due to two main factors -- the lack, as in the United Kingdom, of a written constitution delineating powers between the three branches, and the conflicted role of the attorney general, whose apparent mandate is not only to advise the government on legal matters, but also to represent it when necessary and to prosecute it when appropriate.

It was predictable that one day a serious, dramatic clash between the government and Israel's activist Supreme Court would lead to a constitutional showdown. This happened on July 5, 2026. For the first time in Israel's nearly 80-year history, the government announced it would not abide by a Supreme Court ruling.

The matter involved a blatantly wrong and openly slanted decision by the court to the effect that the Council of the Second Authority (Israel's regulatory body for commercial broadcasting) could continue to conduct operations notwithstanding the fact that the council legally lacked a quorum to do so.

According to the Times of Israel:

"[Communications Minister Shlomo] Karhi accused the judges of the High Court of being 'drunk with power,' and said their rulings could not override explicit provisions of the law."

Karhi added that, "The rule of law is not the rule of judges. Today, the government made it clear: When the High Court tramples the law, the state will not comply with it".

Quite so.

In support, Justice Minister Yariv Levin stated:

"In a democratic state, the Knesset legislates the law, and the court is obligated to apply it. When a ruling stands in direct contradiction to the wording of the law, this is not judicial review but rather a violation of the principle of the separation of powers."

To be expected, the opposition parties, scenting an opportunity to vilify the government for their own ends, together with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and President Isaac Herzog, strongly criticized the government, accusing it of causing a constitutional crisis and of violating the rule of law.

In hand with the court, Baharav-Miara said that the government's declaration "undermines the fundamental principles of the rule of law." She no doubt looks forward to once again prosecuting members of the government for their decisions.

Among the opposition parties, the leftist Democrats party claims that the government's stance is an attempt "to weaken democracy and keep its grip on power even if it loses at the ballot box."

The reality, however, is that the Supreme Court is itself guilty of these allegations directed towards the government. The court has ignored existing law, for reasons of its own ideological persuasions, and has led the country to a constitutional crisis entirely of the court's own making.

This particular issue is but one of many such problems that Israel's elected government has had to face from the Supreme Court and the attorney general. It was probably inevitable that a government of integrity would one day resist the slew of biased Supreme Court decisions made against it in an attempt by the court to insert itself into the executive's policy-making function –- an action well outside the limit of judicial authority.

There is a long history to the stark polarization between the Supreme Court and Israel's conservative governments. Historically, the courts, legal system, government, and major public servants were composed of elitist-liberal-progressives. It was this way at the time of Israel's independence in 1948, and for the first 30 years of Israel's political life thereafter, the socialists were in power. For the last 50 years or so, however, on and off, the conservative Likud Party and its coalition partners have been elected to government and the die-hard institutional voters on the left have not stopped trying to frustrate their policies and return to political power.

Even so, the effect of a legal and political confrontation between an elected government and an unelected, activist judiciary has the potential to result in mass protests against, or for, those two branches of government. Unless this issue is resolved satisfactorily, social turbulence may follow -- which Israel's enemies would -- again -- undoubtedly misunderstand as a sign of the nation's weakness and vulnerability. Months of massive demonstrations – partially financed by the Biden Administration in the hope of dislodging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in order to replace him with someone more pliable -- indirectly led to the horrors of October 7, 2023.

Consequently, in the interest of social harmony, Israel's leaders would do well urgently to draft legislation clarifying the role and functions of the judiciary, as well as that of the attorney general. Perhaps the nation's enemies will then understand that the people of Israel stand together against their enemies as one.

Nils A. Haug is an Attorney, author and columnist. He is member of the International Bar Association, the National Association of Scholars, the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Among degrees in Law, Philosophy, and English Literature, Dr. Haug holds a M.A.in Jewish Studies (cum laude) and Ph.D. in Apologetical Theology. He is author of 'Politics, Law, and Disorder in the Garden of Eden – the Quest for Identity'; and 'Enemies of the Innocent – Life, Truth, and Meaning in a Dark Age.' His work has been published by First Things Journal, The American Mind, Quadrant, Minding the Campus, Gatestone Institute, National Association of Scholars, Jewish Journal,James Wilson Institute (Anchoring Truths), Jewish News Syndicate, Tribune Juive,Document Danmark, Zwiedzaj Polske,Schlaglicht Israel, The Australian Jurist, and others.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22680/israel-rule-of-law

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Accountability, alliances and art of the peace deal: how Trump’s tough love tour is fortifying NATO - Amanda Head

 

by Amanda Head

Trump’s outside-the-norm and unusually direct diplomacy style has proven fruitful not only in avoiding wars but in concluding conflicts that began under his predecessors.

 

President Donald Trump arrived Tusday in Ankara for a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) summit shaped by his trademark blend of tough spending demands, personal diplomacy and pragmatic deal-making, moves supporters say are forging a more accountable – and ultimately stronger – alliance at a time of global strain. 

Trump, greeted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan upon landing, kicked off the two-day gathering with bilateral talks expected to mix renewed pressure on allies to boost defense budgets, warm ties with key partners such as  Turkey, and a high-stakes sit-down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy aimed at advancing an end to the war with Russia.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

"You've been a great leader and a respected leader all over the world, and we've had right from the beginning good chemistry. We've had a very special relationship. Turkey has become under the President Erdogan a very powerful country militarily," Trump told the reports upon arriving.

Pay up or else ...

Trump has for years criticized NATO member-nations for their lopsided contributions to the collective's defense fund, arguing since his 2016 campaign that the United States carries a disproportionate burden while many European nations underinvest and rely on American protection. 

During his first term, he bluntly pressed the issue at summits, at times calling for allies to double the longstanding 2% of GDP guideline and accusing some of owing the U.S. “massive amounts.” 

To the dismay of his detractors, his sustained “tough love” approach has coincided with major results. European allies and Canada more than doubled their real defense spending between 2014 and 2025, posting a nearly 20% increase in 2025 alone. 

All NATO members now meet or exceed the 2% benchmark, and at the 2025 Hague Summit they agreed to an ambitious new target of 5% of GDP by 2035. 

Trump deals mano a mano

When Trump launched his first campaign, in 2015, after years of speaking publicly on social media on all matters political, including foreign policy, he was roundly criticized for his lack of experience in diplomacy.

However, his outside-the-norm and unusually direct diplomacy style has proven fruitful not only in avoiding wars but in concluding conflicts which began under his predecessors. 

The latest effect of his anomalous diplomacy is evident in the directness of his communications, and the reception by Erdogan, who Trump described as a “friend” and has maintained warm ties despite disputes such as Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 systems. 

At the current summit, Trump was personally greeted by Erdogan upon arrival and held bilateral talks that included discussions on potential F-35 sales and broader cooperation. 

More broadly, Trump's unconventional approach has helped navigate alliance frictions, which have oftentimes secured practical outcomes, and underscored Trump’s preference for transactional deal-making over bureaucratic multilateralism, and yielding quicker progress on issues like defense collaboration and regional stability.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Throughout his presidencies, Trump's diplomacy has contributed to de-escalating major tensions, notably through multiple summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un following the heated 2017 “fire and fury” period and missile tests. 

The engagements produced a prolonged moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile testing, repatriation of U.S. war remains, and a period of reduced immediate conflict risk on the Korean Peninsula.

Similarly, his administration’s direct brokering of the Abraham Accords normalized relations between Israel and Arab nations including the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco – advancing Middle East stability in ways longstanding multilateral efforts had struggled to achieve. 

Trump on Russia and Ukraine: 'we're going to get it settled'

The Russia-Ukraine war remains a war of attrition. Russian forces continue slow, incremental advances and infiltrations in Donetsk Oblast, while Putin has made exaggerated claims of major gains. 

Ukraine maintains defensive positions, conducts long-range strikes on Russian energy and military targets, and has repelled larger offensives. Russia has recently launched heavy missile and drone attacks on Kyiv, causing civilian deaths.

Trump has actively pursued diplomacy, holding extended calls with Putin (offering to help find a solution) and Zelenskyy just days ago.  

"I think he [Putin] does feel pressure. He wants to end it and Ukraine wants to end it. We’re in talks and we’ll see if we can get it ended. It's a terrible thing," Trump said on Monday at the White House. 

"I ended eight wars and this was going to be an easier one because I knew both heads. I think we’re getting much closer than people realize."

Similar to the conflict with Iran, for this war to end, a negotiated ceasefire must be reached with a subsequent peace agreement. 

This would likely freeze the front lines along roughly current positions, with Russia retaining de facto control over occupied territories (including Crimea and significant portions of Donetsk, Luhansk, and other regions) in exchange for robust security guarantees for Ukraine (bilateral or multilateral arrangements short of full NATO membership), demilitarized buffer zones, limits on Ukrainian forces or weaponry in sensitive areas, sanctions relief for Russia, and commitments to reconstruction and economic normalization. 

Both sides will need to compromise on territorial integrity, neutrality/security pacts, and verification mechanisms to prevent renewed fighting.

Amanda Head is White House correspondent for Just The News. You can follow her here. 

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/accountability-alliances-and-art-peace-deal-how-trumps-tough-love-tour

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Platner, Swalwell implosions raise question: What's going on with Democrats’ vetting? - Ben Whedon

 

by Ben Whedon

Platner has until July 13 to step aside for the state party to be able to choose an alternative candidate.

 

The latest allegation against Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner appears poised to sink his campaign, marking the second time this election cycle that a candidacy for a major candidate in the party has imploded over allegations of sexual misconduct – raising questions about whether the party knew about each of their potentially damaging pasts or failed to vet the candidates.

Platner's outsider bid captured the attention of Maine voters – as well as the country's political class – so much so that primary rival Gov. Janet Mills effectively quit the race months before the June election – despite his campaign having been beset essentially from the start by scandal including his contentious Reddit posts, extramarital texting and a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo. 

But the most recent allegation, made public Monday, that he forced himself on a woman he was dating several years ago while drunk has major Democrats rescinding their endorsements and calling for him to step aside, while he pauses his campaign to ponder “the best path forward” towards unseating GOP Sen. Susan Collins in November. 

The pause comes roughly three months after Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell suspended his highly competitive bid for California governor after allegations that he engaged in sexual misconduct with several women, including a former staffer who said the congressman sexually assaulted her.

Swalwell called these accusations “absolutely false," nearly identical to what Platner said about the one this week regarding him.

Swalwell, notably, was in Congress for more than a decade and was a prominent figure in the party for much of his time in Washington, which has raised questions about how or why such allegations didn't surface until deep into his gubernatorial campaign. The Department of Justice opened an investigation into Swalwell in April.

Democrats regretful

The Platner scandal has at least a few prominent figures on the left admitting that they had misjudged the 41-year-old progressive oyster farmer due to his policies and overlooked signs that he may not be as strong a candidate as they would like.

“I deeply regret that, impressed by Platner’s political charisma, I wrote that he was ‘nothing like the edgelord caricature I encountered online.’ If anything, he seems to be significantly worse,” wrote New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said on Fox News: “I would really call Bernie Sanders to apologize for pushing this kind of predator more than anyone he helped him elect ... . Maybe he should stop pushing these communists.” 

Republicans skeptical

Republicans appear doubtful that Democrats were unaware of his shortcomings and damaging past alleged conduct.

“The worst part of this is that they knew all this, and they went ahead with them,” Wall Street Journal columnist Bill McGurn said Monday on Fox News about Platner and his past.

“The Left’s Platner dance is a classic," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a X post. "They minimized allegations of physical abuse and false imprisonment when the accuser was a conservative. Now they’re 'shocked' that he’s accused of rape and are desperate he be forced out of the race in time to replace him on the ballot.” 

Fitton seemed to be referring to Lyndsey Fifield, whose X post was below his. She is an ex-girlfriend of Platner who has publicly accused him of past violent behavior. She also reportedly co-founded the group for women that showed its support for conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh when accusations of sexual assault came out before his confirmation hearings.

“Democrats in Maine should stand by their man. They knew plenty of horrific stuff about Graham Platner before this week's latest revelation,” GOP strategist Erin Maguire said.

Platner’s game of chicken

Platner has until July 13 to drop out, which would allow the state party to hand-select his replacement on the ticket. 

Speculation has abounded that the party may tap either Gov. Janet Mills or one of the failed candidates from the state's Democratic gubernatorial primary.

The state party has called on Platner to step aside and the party’s campaign arms have indicated they will not support him, but all concede that the Senate race in Maine is one of the most important for Democrats to take control of the Senate.

“This Senate race comes at a pivotal moment in the struggle against a government, supported by Senator Collins, that serves the interests of the wealthy and powerful at the expense of ordinary Maine people,” the state party said in a statement. “It is essential that we refocus this campaign on that struggle.”

But Platner does have leverage. If he merely makes it to Monday without withdrawing, he will be locked in as the party candidate and much of the party leadership that has rushed to distance itself from him may be forced to reluctantly accept his continued candidacy.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent for Just the News. Follow him on X.

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/wedplatner-swalwell-implosions-raise-question-what-going-democrats-vetting

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The enduring lesson of the Altalena Affair - Douglas Altabef

 

by Douglas Altabef

“Sinat hinam," baseless hatred, was the cause of the destruction of the Second Temple, and remains our great vulnerability and challenge.

 

Altalena shooting                                                                      צילום: PINN HANS, לע"מ

One of the most searing, frightening but ultimately instructive events in the creation of the nascent State of Israel was the attempted landing, leading to the attack and the sinking of the Altalena beginning on June 20, 1948. The ship was carrying weaponry that was going to be used by Revisionist Irgun forces as well as the newly configured IDF.

While the weaponry was desperately needed, the issue became one of ownership and control. There was a dispute between then Israeli Prime Minister and Irgun leader and future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin while the ship was moored alongside Kfar Vitkin north of Tel Aviv as to the allocation of the weapons that the Irgun was bringing into the country.

Ben Gurion refused Begin’s proposal to have most of the weaponry allocated to the Irgun units that had been recently incorporated into the IDF, arguing that it would be facilitating the creation of an “army within the army."

The result was Ben Gurion’s decision to provide an ultimatum of surrender, to which, partly because of its 10 minute “or else" demand, Begin did not respond. The result was firing on both sides at Kfar Vitkin, and then the departure of the ship for Tel Aviv.

Just off the coast of Tel Aviv, the ship was heavily attacked by IDF forces. Even after a white flag was hoisted on the boat, firing continued. The result was that 16 Irgun fighters were killed, as were three IDF soldiers (one in Tel Aviv and two at Kfar Vitikin).

Begin himself was on board the boat in Tel Aviv, refusing to leave the ship until all the wounded had been rescued.

While the reality of internecine conflict among Israeli soldiers is cringeworthy, the great lesson of the day, and the lesson that must endure, was provided by Menachem Begin, who refused to let his soldiers confront the IDF.

“Civil war -never." "Do not raise a hand against a brother, not even today. It is forbidden for a Hebrew weapon to be used against Hebrew fighters." “Don’t shoot back!"

Begin’s words were, as he later said, his finest hour. He understood on an existential, even spiritual level the implications of what could have happened, and how it could have destroyed the enterprise of the defense and establishment of a Jewish State of Israel.

Recognizing the ongoing, perennial significance of the Altalena affair, Im Tirtzu, Israel’s largest grassroots Zionist organization, recently commissioned a boat and brought nearly 100 passengers to the site of the Altalena’s sinking in order to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the event, and to reflect on the significance of what did and did not happen.

The message to the passengers was clear and unequivocal: the Altalena was not just an isolated historical event, but a traumatic lesson in the fragility, the vulnerability of our national quest and enterprise.

Above all, the Altalena must continue to resonate with all who cherish the State of Israel and who seek to nurture our ongoing mission as the Jewish Homeland, the light unto the Nations, and the fulfillment of His promise to return us to our Home.

The very close call with national implosion that the Altalena represents must be seen as a continual warning, the proverbial flashing yellow light of danger. Our society is fraught with internal divisions that most of us could recite in our sleep.

While we can project great strength and effect against our external enemies, we must be oh so careful how we confront each other. And of course, confronting each other has become something of a national pastime.

This pastime is not a sport, or if it is, it is a blood sport. It is a willingness to erode the pillars of our society and to fray the bonds that hold us together.

The sovereignty of the great Kings David and Solomon lasted for 80 years. Shortly thereafter, the kingdom divided, and the course of our national self-destruction was set into motion. We are now 78 years into our sovereign return. The 80 year mark looms as a sober reminder.

We know that “sinat hinam," baseless hatred, was the cause of the destruction of the Second Temple, and remains our great vulnerability and challenge. Those who disdainfully believe that “it can’t happen here" should pay close attention to the Altalena affair.

Occurring when we all might have assumed that the newborn Israel was resolutely and solely focused on the swarming Arab threat that surrounded it, we were capable and yes, willing, to endanger and possibly abort our national quest because of internal differences over control.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Yes, Israel is immensely powerful, but we are also immensely vulnerable. We need to internalize the understanding of Menachem Begin and understand that while we are trying to improve and rectify our society, we cannot let go of the reins of restraint, respect and acceptance of those who disagree with us.

The world is increasingly seeking to demonize Israel. We cannot afford to follow their lead and do it to ourselves.

Douglas Altabeff is the Chairman of the Board of Im Tirtzu and a Director of the Israel Independence Fund

Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/429801

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Israel’s Capitalist Triumph - Milli Sands

 

by Milli Sands

There’s an unspoken reason that the Democratic Socialists of America cannot forgive the Jewish state.

 

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has made opposition to Israel a defining feature of its politics. The organization brands the Jewish state “apartheid” and “settler-colonial,” champions the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, calls for an end to U.S. military aid, and endorses a “right of return” for “Palestinians” that would end Israel’s existence as a country, let alone a Jewish-majority state. The DSA frames all of this around occupation, human rights, and anti-imperialism—and those are the terms on which the debate is usually fought.

But there is another, quieter tension in the DSA’s position that gets far less attention than it deserves: Israel is the clearest postwar example of a country built on explicitly socialist foundations that then abandoned them, embraced market reforms, and became dramatically more prosperous as a result. That awkward data point directly undercuts an organization that has as its founding premise the claim that capitalism produces exploitation and crisis while collective ownership delivers justice and shared prosperity.

Israel’s founding generation built the state on Labor Zionist principles: kibbutzim, a powerful Histadrut labor federation, nationalized industries, and heavy state planning. For the first few decades, this produced real nation-building achievements—rapid absorption of immigrants, a functioning welfare state, and near-full employment. But by the early 1980s, it had produced economic collapse. Inflation hit roughly 445 percent in 1984, the budget deficit approached crisis levels, and the country stood on the edge of hyperinflation.

The 1985 Economic Stabilization Plan, implemented under a national unity government led in part by Shimon Peres, began the reversal through sharp budget cuts, price controls, and initial trade liberalization. But the deeper structural shift came later, and it is inseparable from Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure as Finance Minister from 2003 to 2005. (Needless to say, the DSA hates him, too.)

Facing a recession exacerbated by the Second Intifada, Netanyahu cut the top individual tax rate from 64 to 44 percent, reduced the corporate rate significantly, privatized major state assets (including banks, El Al, and Zim Shipping), capped deficits, and advanced welfare-to-work reforms. These moves were fiercely controversial, but the macro results are undeniable: growth resumed, unemployment fell sharply, and Israel entered a sustained expansion.

What followed is now legendary.

As economist Joseph Zeira details in The Israeli Economy, and as Dan Senor and Saul Singer popularized in Start-Up Nation, Israel transformed into a global innovation powerhouse. It boasts the highest R&D intensity in the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, extraordinary per-capita venture capital, and a technology sector that propelled GDP per capita ahead of several established European economies.

None of this happened by demographic luck alone. It happened because a state that began with genuinely socialist institutions deliberately dismantled central planning in favor of markets—and the results were not ambiguous.

For the DSA, this success is intolerable. The organization’s platform insists that capitalism is structurally exploitative and that only expansive public ownership and decommodification can produce durable prosperity and justice.

Israel is not a distant hypothetical—it is a state built by socialists, on socialist infrastructure, that empirically outgrew that model once it left it behind. That fact is far harder to dismiss than “Israel is a wealthy Western-aligned state” because it shows socialism tried at scale, for decades, visibly failed relative to what replaced it.

This helps explain why the DSA’s opposition is so comprehensive—aimed not merely at alleged specific policies but at Zionism and Israel’s legitimacy itself, often in language labeling it a “racist, imperialist, settler-colonial project.” An ideological movement confronted with a living counterexample to its central economic claim has every incentive to reject that counterexample wholesale rather than engage it honestly.

Arguably, all their arguments are distractions:

There is no apartheid in Israel. Israel is a multi-ethnic democracy in which Arab citizens (about 21% of the population) have full legal equality, vote in elections, serve in the Knesset, sit on the Supreme Court, and enjoy the same civil rights as Jewish citizens, unlike the legal separation and denial of political rights that defined South African apartheid.

The Jews are not the colonialists. Jews are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel with a continuous presence for over 3,000 years, predating the Arab conquest in the 7th century, the influx of Muslim refugees from the Ottoman Empire beginning in the early 19th century, and the emergence of a contrived “Palestinian” Arab national identity in the 20th century. In fact, the first formal use of the term “Palestinian people” in the UN to describe Arabs occurred at the end of 1974. (Official UN Document: UN General Assembly, 29th Session, Plenary Meeting, A/PV.2281 (13 November 1974))

Israeli society is not racist. Israeli society, while facing real challenges with discrimination like many diverse democracies, grants full legal equality and political participation to its Arab minority, integrates immigrants from dozens of countries and ethnic backgrounds (including Mizrahi Jews from Arab lands, Ethiopian Jews, and others), and lacks the institutionalized racial supremacy or legal segregation that characterizes racist regimes.

What remains after these mendacious and diversionary claims are debunked is Israel’s economic success that puts the lie to the central claim of the DSA, i.e., Communism/Socialism succeeds and capitalism fails.

Socialism’s broader record—from the Soviet collapse to Venezuela’s catastrophe—already forces the DSA into perpetual damage control. Israel adds the most uncomfortable variant yet: not just failure abroad, but a socialist project’s own deliberate choice to abandon socialism, followed by the broad-based prosperity that the DSA claims markets cannot deliver. Netanyahu’s reforms were pivotal in locking in that turnaround, proving the superiority of market incentives over collectivist planning even under continuous existential security pressures.

Israel’s story is one of courage, adaptation, and triumph. From socialist experiment to capitalist powerhouse, it delivered results the DSA can only promise, but never deliver. The group’s hatred is about a truth they cannot accept: socialism did not work for Israel, but freedom and enterprise did. This undeniable fact exposes the lie at the core of their ideology—and they will never forgive the Jewish state for proving it.

Image created using AI.

Endnotes

1.    DSA National Political Committee statements, including “Until Palestinian Liberation” and “On the Ceasefire in Gaza” (2025), available on dsausa.org.

2.    Joseph Zeira, The Israeli Economy: A Story of Success and Costs (Princeton University Press, 2021).

3.    Dan Senor and Saul Singer, Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle (Twelve, 2009).

4.    Bank of Israel reports and Israel Central Bureau of Statistics data on the 1985 stabilization and Netanyahu-era reforms (2003–2005).

5.    Analyses of DSA’s ideological evolution in Moment Magazine, Haaretz, ADL, and AJC reports. 

Milli Sands

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/07/israel-s-capitalist-triumph/

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Maccabiah 2026 offers Israeli ‘olim’ a chance to represent their countries of birth - Howard Blas

 

by Howard Blas

From Cuba to Estonia, immigrants to Israel proudly compete under their former homelands’ flags while celebrating their shared Jewish identity.

 

Alexis Chavez (second from left) lives in Hadera and plays 3-on-3 basketball for his native Cuba. July 6, 2026. Photo by Howard Blas.

 

The Maccabiah Games bring together thousands of Jewish athletes from across the globe to compete under the flags of their home countries. But among this year’s competitors is a unique group of athletes who now call Israel home while proudly representing the countries they left behind.

At last week’s opening ceremony in Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium, delegations from Finland to South Africa and Taiwan marched into the arena before the largest delegation of all—Israel’s 2,200 athletes.

For some Israeli olim (immigrants), however, the Games offer a rare opportunity to compete for the countries where they were born while living permanently in the Jewish state.

Michael Raichman lives in Haifa and proudly represents Estonia in the Maccabiah Games, July 7, 2026. Photo by Howard Blas.

For Michael Raichman, who made aliyah years ago and now lives in Haifa, representing Estonia is both a privilege and a responsibility.

Wearing a “Maccabi Estonia” shirt while attending a hip-hop dance workshop with his 4-year-old daughter at Maccabiah City in Expo Tel Aviv, the fencer smiled as he explained why he continues to compete under Estonia’s flag.

“I have been here for a long time—since before she was born,” he told JNS. “I represent Estonia and the Jewish community. If not me, no one!”

Raichman said he is the only Estonian competitor at this year’s Games.

A few pavilions away, Alexis Chavez wore a dark blue Cuba T-shirt alongside four teenage teammates who had just finished competing in the 3-on-3 basketball tournament.

Chavez, who has lived in Hadera for the past 15 years while the younger players still reside in Cuba, said the Maccabiah represents something much larger than sport.

“It brings all Jews together—like brothers,” he said. “It is all sababa.”

Remembering where they came from

Bela Himelfarb (left), who leads the Colombian delegation to Maccabiah 2026, splits her time between Bogota, Colombia and Harish, Israel, while weightlifter Judith Gaon (right) lives in Jerusalem and represents Colombia, July 7, 2026. Photo by Howard Blas.

For Colombian weightlifter Judith Gaon, representing her birthplace is deeply personal.

The 27-year-old second-year medical student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem made aliyah in 2012 and is a three-time Israeli national champion. Yet at the Maccabiah she chose to wear Colombia’s colors.

Speaking to JNS after advancing to the next round with a successful 50-kilogram lift, Gaon said the crowd’s encouragement helped her recover after two failed attempts.

“I heard lots of cheering,” she said.

Gaon first discovered weightlifting seven years ago at the Jerusalem CrossFit center, where she works. She credits the sport with helping her overcome insecurities while coping with a medical condition.

Although proud to represent Israel internationally, she said competing for Colombia at the Maccabiah allows her to honor her roots.

“It is amazing to represent Colombia,” she said. “So I don’t forget my roots and what our amazing people went through.”

Drawing a parallel to the Passover story, she added: “It is like Pesach. We always remember our roots and where we are from and where we are headed. I like to remember where we came from.”

Her father and many other relatives still live in Colombia.

Nearby, Colombian delegation manager Bela Himelfarb reflected on the shrinking size of her country’s team.

Unlike previous Maccabiah Games, when Colombia sent delegations of 150 athletes in 2022 and 80 in 2025, only five competitors arrived this year, most of them juniors.

She attributed the smaller delegation partly to scheduling conflicts with school trips to Israel and the FIFA World Cup.

Himelfarb, who divides her time between Bogotá and Harish, said Colombia’s Jewish community continues to view Israel as a refuge during periods of uncertainty.

“People want to come to Israel when they feel in danger,” she said.

She believes the election of Colombia’s new president, who is viewed as more supportive of Israel, has temporarily eased those concerns.

“Maybe there will be no necessity for now,” she said, while acknowledging that “most of the young people are trying to move and make aliyah.”

Representing Israel from abroad

Not every athlete’s story follows the same path.

U.S. resident Jonah Weissmann and his family spent four years in Israel and returned to represent its U19 baseball team in Maccabiah 2026. Photo by Howard Blas.

Jonah Weissmann, 18, now lives in Miami but returned to Israel to play for Team Israel’s baseball squad.

His family moved from Boulder, Colo., to Israel in 2018 intending to stay for one year.

“We planned to stay for one year and stayed for four,” Weissmann told JNS before Team Israel’s game against the United States at Ezra Schwartz Memorial Field in Ra’anana. “Our parents wanted us to have a stronger Jewish identification and get out of our bubble.”

After returning to the United States in 2022, Weissmann assumed his opportunities to represent Israel had ended.

“When they were putting a team together, one of my teammates asked Freddie [manager Freddie Bain] if I could play,” he said. “They invited me to join. I am so happy to be playing with the guys on the team.”

More than a sporting event

Before Tuesday’s game, players from both Israel and the United States gathered to hear Yoav Schwartz speak about his nephew, Ezra Schwartz, the 18-year-old American who was murdered in a terrorist attack on Nov. 19, 2015, while volunteering in Israel during his gap year.

Schwartz told the players that just one day before he was killed, Ezra had emailed the Israel Association of Baseball asking whether he could join a local team. Today, the field where the Maccabiah baseball tournament is being played bears his name.

The teams had also heard the previous day from Debbie Ziering, who shared the story of her son Aryeh, among the first Israeli soldiers killed defending southern Israel during the Hamas massacre on Oct. 7, 2023.

Moments like those underscore how the Maccabiah extends well beyond athletic competition.

For nearly two weeks, athletes compete in more than 40 sports while forging friendships across continents, sharing experiences of Jewish life in vastly different countries and strengthening their connection to Israel.

For competitors like Raichman, Chavez and Gaon, the Maccabiah Games also provide something increasingly rare: the opportunity to celebrate both the countries that shaped them and the country they now call home.

Howard Blas

Source: https://www.jns.org/feature/maccabiah-2026-offers-israeli-olim-a-chance-to-represent-their-countries-of-birth

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Mamdani’s Embittered Fourth of July Rant to America - Victor Davis Hanson

 

by Victor Davis Hanson

Mamdani’s Independence Day message says more about his own politics than the country that gave his family extraordinary opportunity.

 

 

Zohran Mamdani, New York’s self-described socialist mayor, could not resist using the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration to trash the very country that he and his parents voluntarily sought out.

As is his custom, Mamdani speaks in stereotypes and generalities, offering few if any examples, all laced with his accustomed unctuous hypocrisy.

Let’s deconstruct his incoherent July 4 riff:

America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are. How weak, how unoriginal . . .

At every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another.

Thus spoke the pampered rich kid from Uganda, who immigrated to America with his now-endowed professor father and elite filmmaker mother, the latter reportedly supported by millions of dollars in grants from the Qatari royal autocracy.

Upon arriving, the Mamdanis joined what is statistically America’s wealthiest and most highly credentialed ethnic group: the enormously privileged Indian American community. (But how was that possible in Mamdani’s version of a racist America that supposedly detests the wrong accents and skin colors?)

When this nepo baby includes himself among the supposedly “victimized” (“the rest of us”), should we laugh or cry?

If Mamdani wishes to invoke the tired Marxist oppressed-oppressor binary (“how small they are” versus “the rest of us”), then, by his own revolutionary vocabulary, he once belonged to a settler-colonial Indian expatriate elite.

After all, although Uganda’s Indian community comprises only about 1 percent of the population, it still controls roughly 60 percent of the nation’s GDP.

Mamdani melodramatically alleges of America: “The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are. How weak, how unoriginal.”

I would argue that the United States has asked nothing of the Mamdanis, much less demanded gratitude from a family whose books, films, and activism have consistently reflected anti-Americanism.

Far from demanding that the Mamdanis express gratitude for exchanging Uganda for America or begrudging their rapid rise to multimillionaire status, America might reasonably ask why Mamdani is so angry at the country that welcomed his family and afforded it such extraordinary opportunities. Why is he so eager to slander it as xenophobic and racist?

Does he think there is less opportunity—but more oppression, misogyny, and religious and racial intolerance—in America than in Uganda or India?

In any case, what is so objectionable about assuming that foreign nationals who wish to immigrate and become American citizens might feel gratitude toward a country that welcomes them?

Americans welcome more immigrants each year than any other nation, and they have long admired legal immigrants who enriched the country by assimilating, acculturating, and integrating—not by carving out near-permanent ethnic enclaves.

Yet Americans are understandably astonished when recent immigrants from failed states—plagued by caste prejudice, dictatorship, endemic racism, religious intolerance, Marxist-induced poverty, antisemitism, systemic violence, misogyny, and homophobia—begin lecturing their American hosts about America’s supposed shortcomings.

Stranger still, many of these angry socialist immigrants were either far less critical of the countries they left behind or, in some cases, actually belonged to the privileged—and despised—ruling castes that presided over those failed societies.

Moreover, is it unreasonable to expect that no immigrant community engineer more than $1 billion in welfare fraud, as we have seen with the disproportionate number of Somali immigrants charged or under investigation in Minnesota?

What is so difficult about applying for legal entry into the United States instead of swarming the border under the assumption that illegal entry will be rewarded with generous housing, education, food, medical care, and other public subsidies?

Is it too much to expect that the roughly 500,000 convicted criminal immigrants living in the United States—many of whom entered the country illegally—not commit crimes against the citizens of the country that admitted them?

Can Mamdani explain why this supposedly racist and nativist America has since the mid-1960s admitted millions of immigrants—the overwhelming majority of them nonwhite—if it is so systematically xenophobic and racist?

If America is as hostile toward people of Indian ancestry as Mamdani alleges, why have some 5.4 million Indians immigrated here, making them one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing foreign-born populations? Why do roughly 150,000 more choose to come to this racist hellhole each year? Do they come to be insulted—or to become prosperous, educated, privileged, and secure?

As for the alleged cruelty shown toward those with different accents or skin colors, Mamdani reveals a remarkable ignorance of America’s long tradition of self-criticism and self-correction.

Consider the diversity visa lottery, the hurdles confronting legal immigrants, and the de facto amnesties often extended to illegal immigrants. An alien visitor from another planet studying the demographics of the past seven decades might conclude that America is indeed racist—against immigrants from Europe and other English-speaking countries.

As for America’s past sins, some 165 years ago, roughly 700,000 mostly white Americans slaughtered one another in a war to abolish slavery—an ancient and evil institution that had brought ten times as many Africans to Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Latin America as to the American South, while more than 15 million others were sent into the Muslim world through slave trades facilitated by African rulers who sold rival tribes into bondage.

To address the toxic legacy of segregation in the American South, Americans have spent roughly $25 trillion on income- and race-based entitlements for the poor and for nonwhites since the War on Poverty and Great Society programs began some six decades ago.

Yet for decades, federal and state governments ignored civil rights laws and court rulings prohibiting racial preferences, allowing race-based college admissions, separate dormitories, safe spaces, and graduation ceremonies to flourish. Mamdani himself understood the system well enough to attempt to game it by claiming minority status as an “African”—at least Columbia rejected the claim.

As for Mamdani’s charge that “At every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another,” such tactics of divide and conquer are precisely what he himself has mastered in demonizing whites and Jews. Indeed, such racialism has become a hallmark of his Democratic Socialists.

Few contemporary politicians have done more than Mamdani to exploit racial division in pursuit of political power—except, perhaps, others in his own movement who are similarly maniacally obsessed with castigating whites and Jews.

After all, who proposed targeting “whiter neighborhoods” with higher taxes? Who called AIPAC “monsters”?

Mamdani’s housing czar, Cea Weaver, declared that homeownership was a “weapon of white supremacy.” She also endorsed a platform calling for “no more white men in office.”

One of Mamdani’s former campaign operatives, Darializa Avila Chevalier, attacked white women as “ugly colonizer women.”

Mamdani’s newly appointed director of appointments, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, resigned after her past comments resurfaced about “money-hungry Jews” and the importance of ensuring “that white people feel defeated.”

Mamdani’s own wife, Rama Duwaji, reportedly liked more than 70 Instagram posts celebrating the October 7, 2023, massacre of 1,200 Jews. She also illustrated a book by the infamous and antisemitic Susan Abulhawa, who has called Jews “supremacist vampires,” “rootless soulless ghouls,” and “dual-loyalty Zionists.”

The projectionist Mamdani should look in the mirror.

Few contemporary politicians in America have done more in so short a time to exploit race and antisemitism in pursuit of political power.

That such rhetoric comes from a member of a remarkably privileged elite is less ironic than fitting. Mamdani has already described himself: “Those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another.”

That fits Mamdani to a T. 

Victor Davis Hanson

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/07/07/mamdanis-embittered-fourth-of-july-rant-to-america/

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