Jaber Amar, a founding member of Hamas:
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) March 25, 2025
“We don”t fight Jews because they are Jews, or even because they are criminal Zionists. Our prophet commanded us to eliminate them, and God ordered us to wipe out every Jew.”
The IDF eliminated him this morning.pic.twitter.com/W1NR0qyeNm
Minutes Before Oct. 7 — Now Sued for Alleged Hamas Coordination and Prior Knowledge
Gaza residents are burning tires as demonstrations calling for an end to the war expand across the Strip
By Israel Kasnett, JNS
Israel’s strength stems from its people, but its continued presence on the Jewish nation’s historic homeland is vastly important as well—both from a security as well as a nationalistic perspective.
With a deeply pro-Israel U.S. administration currently in the White House under President Donald Trump’s second term, the question many Israelis have today is whether Israel will annex any part of Judea or Samaria.
Enia Krivine, senior director of the Israel Program and the National Security Network at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS, “It’s very hard to predict what Trump will do.”
She said this administration’s staffing, different from the last administration, “will impact decision-making.”
Krivine pointed out that Mike Huckabee, a minister, former governor of Arkansas and Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel, is “someone who has a long record of being vocally supportive of annexation.”
She noted that Huckabee “is also an emissary to Trump’s powerful Evangelical base, a large percentage of whom are supportive of Israel and believe that the Land of Israel – including Judea and Samaria – was promised to Jews in the Bible.”
“A lot will depend on who Trump empowers to manage this file,” she said.
Huckabee is not the only major U.S. figure to express pro-Israel views. U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Trump’s appointee as UN ambassador, was asked in her confirmation hearing in January if she agreed with the view that Israel has a “biblical right to the entire West Bank,” to which she replied she did.
After running as a candidate last time, Abraham Silberstein will not even be voting in this year’s election for the World Zionist Congress.
In 2020, Silberstein had joined a liberal slate from the United States vying for representation in the congress, a unique legislative body that lets Jews from all over the world have a say in Israeli affairs. A critic of Israel, he agreed to join the Reform movement’s list of candidates. Serving in the congress, he felt, meant having a seat at the table.
Founded by Theodore Herzl 128 years ago, the congress has influence over Israeli policy on immigration, land use and religious affairs through its control of institutions such as the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund. It also distributes about $1 billion a year to Jewish causes.
Given his position near the bottom of the list of candidates, Silberstein knew he had no chance of being elected. But his willingness to participate was an expression of his politics at the time: progressive and Zionist.
The war in Gaza has changed that outlook — and his approach to the current election, which remains open for voting through May 4.
“I have in general become disillusioned with progressive Zionism since Oct. 7,” said Silberstein, a doctoral student in modern Jewish history at New York University
Silberstein vehemently objects to Israel’s conduct and no longer believes in the possibility of changing Zionism from within. Even if he did, he can no longer ethically participate in the election. That’s because voters are required to say they accept the Jerusalem Program, an evolving set of principles that serves as the official platform of the Zionist movement.
Former Houthi spokesperson Ali Al-Bukhaiti argued that while Iran denied commanding the Houthis, it was their primary backer, and if the U.S. or Israel had retaliated directly against Tehran for every Houthi attack, Iran’s support—and the Houthis’ missile capabilities—would quickly crumble.
Candace Owens, a media personality with a long history of antisemitic rhetoric, weaponized an article from Ami Magazine to promote anti-Israel conspiracy theories.
In a recent livestream, Owens expressed astonishment at an Ami Magazine article she claimed to have read, using it to push the narrative that Israel has long controlled American policy through blackmail and manipulation. She alleged, without evidence, that Israel and its intelligence agency, the Mossad, have systematically blackmailed powerful American families—including the Bushes, Rockefellers, and the Dulles family—to exert influence over U.S. politics, business, and media.
Her “evidence” came from an article and book written by John Loftus, an Ami Magazine contributor who, sources tell YWN, makes things up on the fly.
“Literally mind-blown,” Owens told her audience, before directing them to the article. “America clearly got occupied at some point… and it seems like we’re just constantly doing Israel’s bidding.”
She continued, making the baseless claim that Israel has engaged in “sophisticated blackmail operations” that have extended to figures such as former Congressman Matt Gaetz, as well as a supposed historical effort to control the CIA.
“This is not anti-Semitism, my friends,” she insisted. “This is Ami Magazine. It’s very Jewish, okay? I probably wasn’t even allowed to read it.”
Despite her insistence that her claims were based on fact, Owens veered into outright conspiracy, stating, “Israel has been corrupt since its founding,” and falsely asserting that Israeli efforts to edit Wikipedia pages constituted a long-term propaganda campaign. She described Israel as a state engaged in systematic efforts to “warp” American minds, specifically targeting Jewish Americans with indoctrination.
