Latest news with #Hashem
Arab Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Arab Times
Egypt hails Kuwait as a cultural and media beacon of the Arab world
CAIRO, July 24: Kuwait has long stood as a beacon of intellectual, cultural, and media leadership in the Gulf region, and its designation as the Arab Capital of Culture and Media for 2025 further solidifies its role in shaping the Arab world's cultural identity. Recognized for its enduring contributions to creativity, literature, journalism, and performing arts, Kuwait has fostered generations of writers, artists, and thinkers. From publishing the first Gulf newspapers to hosting landmark theater festivals and producing groundbreaking television dramas, Kuwait has continuously enriched Arab cultural life. This prestigious selection by Arab cultural bodies highlights Kuwait's sustained efforts in promoting culture, media, and intellectual dialogue, reinforcing its position as a regional hub for cultural exchange and communication. It also reflects Arab appreciation for Kuwait's initiatives in preserving heritage and supporting education and cultural development. Speaking to the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), Dr. Tarek Saada, member of Egypt's Senate and head of the Egyptian Media Syndicate, emphasized that Kuwait's selection underscores its status as "an intellectual and media platform with broad Arab influence." He praised Kuwait's foundational role in journalism, theater, and television in the Gulf, crediting the country's political leadership for its unwavering support of cultural initiatives. Dr. Saada also highlighted the opportunity this recognition presents to boost Arab cooperation and coordination in addressing shared cultural and political challenges. He pointed to the robust media partnership between Egypt and Kuwait as a model of bilateral cooperation, particularly in advocating for key Arab causes such as the Palestinian issue and regional security. According to Saada, efforts are underway to deepen this partnership. Kuwaiti media organizations have been officially invited to explore new avenues for collaboration, including training, artificial intelligence applications in media, and enhancing journalistic narratives. A draft protocol to formalize these joint initiatives is currently being prepared by the Egyptian Media Syndicate. Echoing this sentiment, Radwa Hashem, spokesperson for Egypt's Ministry of Culture, described Kuwait's selection as a well-earned recognition of its media legacy and longstanding support for Arab causes. "Kuwait has always served as a platform for dialogue and enlightenment," she said, citing its pioneering contributions to print, visual, and audio media. Hashem emphasized the strategic role of media in shaping public awareness and fostering unity, advocating for new pan-Arab platforms and collaborative initiatives. She also expressed hope for launching a joint digital platform to promote Arab culture and safeguard the region's shared heritage. Turning to Kuwaiti-Egyptian cultural ties, Hashem highlighted the deep-rooted relationship between the two nations and the promising potential for collaboration in documentary and drama productions, as well as joint cultural weeks. She concluded by stating that Kuwait's selection presents a valuable opportunity to celebrate Arab identity, promote shared cultural values, and invest in modern platforms that preserve and revitalize Arab artistic and intellectual treasures. The announcement marks a significant milestone for Kuwait, affirming its leadership in the cultural and media fields and setting the stage for expanded regional cooperation and innovation in the years to come.
CairoScene
09-07-2025
- Health
- CairoScene
Neurosurgeon Dr. Ahmed Abdeen's Testimony From Gaza
In times of great injustice under occupation, doctors become anchors, witnesses, and bearers of unbearable truths, far beyond the confines of conventional medicine. In Gaza, one of those witnesses is Dr. Ahmad Abdeen, a young Palestinian doctor who lived through the unimaginable: treating the wounded under bombardment, operating with scarce resources, and holding on to a vow made over a decade ago. Before Israel launched its genocidal invasion, Dr. Abdeen had planned to complete his education as a neurosurgeon in Gaza, and establish a specialised neurosurgery hospital in his homeland. As the bombs fell and demolished his house, he was forced to leave to Egypt, where he continues to work in the hopes of finishing this critical mission. He speaks with the urgency of someone who has seen what the world prefers to look away from. His story is one of survival, purpose, of continuing, studying, and believing in the value of every life pulled from beneath the rubble. I sat with Dr. Abdeen because stories like his rarely get told fully, and even more rarely by the people who lived them. In his voice lives Gaza, its pain, its strength and its unwavering will to live. His journey into medicine didn't start in lecture halls. It began on the asphalt, in a moment of unforgettable loss. He was 14 when he saw his brother Hashem bleeding and dying in front of his eyes after a car accident in Gaza. He stood helpless as Hashem needed emergency brain surgery, but there were no specialists, no resources, no chance. Hashem spent 15 days in the ICU before passing away. 'On the day of his burial, I made a vow before God and before Hashem: that I would become a doctor, specialising in neurosurgery, to be the help he never had and to save lives that might otherwise vanish like his,' Dr. Abdeen told me. In 2016, he took the first step toward fulfilling that vow when he was accepted into Ain Shams University's medical school. It would be the first time he went to Egypt to pursue his medical education. His joy was mixed with anxiety; how would he afford the tuition and living costs? With a will that didn't break, he studied tirelessly. From the first year, he ranked top amongst international students and second amongst Egyptians. Then came unexpected relief: a generous woman from Kuwait sponsored his tuition for six years. She became, after God, the reason he was able to continue and achieve his dream. He graduated with honours, ranking first amongst international students. 'My academic journey wasn't easy,' he said. 'I was a stranger in a foreign land, yearning for my country and my family. But I carried a mission larger than exile or deprivation, a mission named loyalty to Hashem, mercy for people, and hope for Gaza.' He had been able to go back to Gaza and fulfil some of these ambitions. 'We sang with our laughter and wove priceless memories from the small details of life,' he said, recalling the years he spent with his family. 'Our hearts knew peace, our homes held safety, and our dreams had space to imagine the future.' When Israel began its assault on Gaza, his path in neurosurgery felt like a calling, clear, urgent, and undeniable. He felt the genocide was a divine test. Would he stand by his people, as he had vowed? He knew every minute in the hospital could save a life, maybe a child like Hashem. When he went to the European Gaza Hospital on his first day as a volunteer, he felt like he had walked into the heart of a living wound. Nothing in the world could have prepared him for what he saw. 'I entered hoping to help, but I found myself in the middle of an unmatched catastrophe,' he said. 'I saw souls screaming, not with voices, but with eyes that had cried every tear they had. I saw children, women, and elderly people torn apart, scattered, alive in dead bodies, and dead with dreams that never came true.' It was like a nightmare. He saw dismembered human remains stacked in hospital corners, as if they were inventory - as if they weren't somebody's son or mother or sister. He saw bodies wrapped in white cloth, waiting for space in the morgue. In the operating room, he saw hundreds of injured people crying - not asking to live, just begging for the pain to stop. He saw a 24-year-old woman, half her body missing, bleeding from a severe head wound. They saved her after hours of surgery. When she woke up, she wept, asking, 'Where is my man?' He couldn't answer. Hours later, the rest of her body arrived in her sister's shroud, who had been martyred the same night. He saw a boy who lived through a massacre, the only survivor from his entire family. The boy looked at them, as if asking: Why me? What now? 'What I witnessed in six months, I doubt any surgeon in the world sees in a lifetime,' Dr. Abdeen said. 'Every corner of that hospital screamed. Every scream is now etched in my mind. They chase me when I'm awake. They bring me to tears in my sleep. What I saw was a different kind of struggle: the struggle to stay human in the face of extermination. And that's why I'll keep going. I will carry this message as long as I live.' 'The cases I dealt with at the European Gaza Hospital went far beyond anything I studied or trained for,' he continued. 'Every wound told a story, every person was a walking reminder of everything we were up against.' Dr. Abdeen treated shredded limbs, complete cervical spine fractures, open wounds left untreated because of the siege and lack of basic medical supplies. Often, they worked under bombardment, receiving mostly child victims with terror in their eyes and bodies torn apart, with hospitals being raided by occupation forces who not only killed and arrested the wounded, but also targeted the doctors themselves. 'This reality was nothing like any textbook, nothing like the training offered in safe hospitals,' Dr. Abdeen said. 'Practicing medicine in Gaza was about resilience, and a deep, human courage in the face of daily death.' At first, Dr. Abdeen seemed eager to talk about the medical side, the technical stuff, the impossible conditions. But when I asked about the emotional toll, he fell into silence for a moment. 'During my time at the European Gaza Hospital, there was no space for collapse, not even time to think about emotions,' he told me. 'Sometimes we worked three days straight without seeing our own displaced families, who were surviving in tents. I only saw them for an hour or two every few days.' But the true physical impact of this burden did not hit him until he left Gaza. When he had once again arrived in Egypt, the symptoms started to show: intense guilt, loss of appetite, chronic insomnia, nightmares, and involuntary crying. He felt like he had abandoned them, even though he'd left to serve them better. 'I sought out psychologists in Egypt, and then in the US, trying to make sense of the anxiety that clung to me,' he said, running his hand through his hair. 'But the truth is, nothing calmed me, because the war didn't stop. Death still chased my people. My family remained under siege.' I was surprised that he was being so open about therapy. But Dr. Abdeen didn't seem to care about keeping up appearances any more. 'It was only then that I realised: the only way to survive what I had lived through was to continue. To channel my pain into my studies. To turn suffering into hope. To make every step I took toward specialisation a step closer to returning, to one day become a doctor who could save those we couldn't save then.' His hope in God and his certainty that He is with him every step of the way is the only thing that stopped him from falling apart. 'Being a doctor there was the greatest honour of my life,' Dr Abdeen said, and it was then that I saw him smile for the first time. 'Because it brought together humanity and dignity.' He never felt a conflict between being a doctor and being Palestinian. In Gaza, you don't choose between your roles, you live them all at once. He was treating the wounded while being displaced like them, searching for his own family in the tents, and then going back to save whoever remained beneath the rubble. 'It stood as proof of a people whose strength endures, even when the world turns away and silence surrounds them,' he said. 'In Gaza, the doctor isn't separate from the cause; he becomes a part of it. His practice of medicine is a continuation of life, in the face of every attempt to erase it.' The experience deepened the way he views medicine. It turned it into a calling from God. It amplified his sense of duty toward his people and carved into him the belief that medicine is not just knowledge or technique, but a sacred covenant between him and God, and the proof of the promise he made to Hashem. 'This experience made me even more determined to continue, to return one day as a doctor who carries hope into the rubble, and light into the darkness.' When I asked him about his message to the world, Dr. Abdeen leaned forward. 'What's unfolding in Gaza stands as one of the greatest ethical tests of our time, far beyond a humanitarian crisis. To every Arab or Muslim doctor outside Gaza, I say: there will come a day when you will stand before God and be asked why you didn't use your knowledge to save your brothers and sisters, while they were being slaughtered in full view of the world, with medicine blockaded and medical staff exhausted. Do not be complicit in the silence. Every minute without action is a life lost.' To students, he would tell them that their excellence is their greatest weapon. Don't underestimate the power of a word, a picture, a prayer, a stance. The path of knowledge is the path to victory, but do not remain neutral in an age of massacres. 'To every free young person, Arab or not, Muslim or not, I say: Gaza stands as a mirror to the world's conscience, a place where the weight of humanity is deeply felt. If you don't act now, know that the injustice will eventually reach you. Silence doesn't stop it, it brings it closer.' Despite all the pain and massacres he's witnessed, as a doctor and as a displaced person, there was still a light in his heart that never faded. Because his hope does not lie in this world, but in his deep faith and unwavering certainty that God does not abandon His people, that every wound has an end, every night has a dawn, and every hardship is followed by ease. I decided to ask him what he would tell himself before entering Gaza. Dr. Abdeen closed his eyes in thought, and said, 'Ahmed… be proud. You are about to step into the most sacred land and the greatest test. You will witness pain, massacre, betrayal, but also the most powerful patience and strongest will humanity has ever known. I would say: If I weren't from Gaza, I would have wished to be from Gaza, so I could live this dignity, carry this sacred burden, and be among my people, who teach the world the meaning of resilience. Enter Gaza with your heart, your soul, your knowledge, and your vow. You are going to carry a trust that only those chosen by God can bear, a light in the age of darkness.'
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Iran attacks Al Udeid Air Base housing US troops in Qatar
Iran has said it launched an attack on United States forces at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, after Tehran said it would retaliate against the US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, with the Qatari authorities saying missiles were successfully intercepted. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officially confirmed on Monday that it launched a retaliatory missile attack targeting the Al Udeid base, Iran's Tasnim news agency reports. Tasnim said the operation is called 'Annunciation of Victory'. US military officials said that Al Udeid Air Base was the only US military base targeted by Iran, according to Reuters news agency. The official confirmed there was no impact on the base just outside Qatar's capital Doha. A US defence official added that 'al Udeid Air Base was attacked by short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles originating from Iran today'. 'At this time, there are no reports of US casualties. We are monitoring this situation closely and will provide more information as it becomes available.' Flares were visible over Qatar's capital, Doha, on Monday. It was initially not immediately known if this was the air defence system or missiles. Loud explosions were also heard, although so far no injuries have been reported. Qatar's Defence Ministry says its air defence systems successfully intercepted missiles targeting Al Udeid Air Base. In a statement, the ministry said the incident resulted in no deaths or injuries, crediting 'the vigilance of the armed forces and precautionary measures taken'. Al Jazeera's correspondent Ali Hashem, reporting from Tehran, said, 'It seems that this is the beginning of an Iranian retaliation against US bases in the Gulf.' 'For now, we are unsure about the scope, the timing, or how long this will continue — or if it will be a one-off strike,' said Hashem, adding that 'nobody knows whether this will also serve as a pretext for the US to retaliate or enter the war'. 'Many analysts think this could be a kind of choreographed attack – that is, the US was informed in advance, just like in 2020 when Iran retaliated for the killing of General Qassem Soleimani, and Iran was reportedly aware in advance of the attack on Fordow. But these are just speculations,' noted Hashem, adding that 'this is, of course, unprecedented'. Iran's Supreme National Security Council says that the missile strike against the Al Udeid Air Base was far away from residential areas in Qatar. 'This action does not pose any threat to the friendly and brotherly country, Qatar, and its noble people, and the Islamic Republic of Iran remains committed to maintaining and continuing warm and historic relations with Qatar,' the council said in a statement. Iran and Qatar enjoy fraternal relations and the Qatari government has condemned both the Israeli and US attacks on Iran. Qatar, nevertheless, condemned the attack as a blatant violation of its Jazeera's correspondent Dorsa Jabbari, reporting from Doha following the Iranian attack said 'people here have never experienced this kind of environment, so it was certainly a very dramatic experience.' 'But it's important to understand that this was not intended to harm the civilian population, but it was a clear message to the US government and military that Iran has the capability to launch direct attacks on US military personnel in the Middle East,' added Jabbari. 'It really is up to the United States now if this conflict moves forward whether or not we are going to see a trajectory of war engulfing this regionor whether they will choose this as an opportunity to see it as off-ramp to deescalate the situation,' noted Jabbari. Al Jazeera's correspondent, Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington, DC said that the US President Donald Trump is currently in the Situation Room of the White House. Initially, his national security briefing had been scheduled for the Oval Office, but it was moved due to thse developments involving attacks on US bases – specifically in Qatar. 'We also know that the US was aware and informed in advance that the attacks would take place. As a result, it was able – just as the Qatari Foreign Ministry did – to alert civilians and personnel at Al Udeid, allowing flights to be diverted and casualties to be minimised,' Halkett added. Reports from the White House indicate that the Iranian attack on the air base appears to have been calibrated to mirror the US strike in terms of the number of missiles used. 'However, the US president had cautioned Iran against taking this action – and now it has occurred,' said Halkett. The embassies of the US and United Kingdom in Qatar had earlier released statements recommending that citizens in Qatar shelter in place until further notice. Qatar said it shut down its airspace temporarily as part of the measures taken to ensure the safety of residents and visitors. The countries with the most US troops include Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. These installations serve as critical hubs for air and naval operations, regional logistics, intelligence gathering and force projection. Gulf countries, including Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates, announced they had closed their airspace. Al Udeid is the largest US military base in the Middle East, established in 1996. Covering an area of 24 hectares (60 acres), the base accommodates almost 100 aircraft as well as drones. This base, which houses some 10,000 troops, serves as the forward headquarters for US Central Command (CENTCOM) and has been central to operations in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
Roya News
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Roya News
Queen Rania shares Eid moment with Prince Hashem
Jordan's Queen Rania shared a heartfelt post celebrating Eid with her son, Prince Hashem. The prince was spotted proudly wearing the official Jordan national football team jersey, a nod to the country's recent historic achievement. This comes shortly after Jordan qualified for the FIFA World Cup for the very first time in its history, a huge milestone for the nation and its football fans. The Queen's post captured the pride and excitement sweeping through the country. Alongside the photo, Queen Rania wrote, 'Best thing about Eid is family! With my Hashem.' She also humorously noted, 'The national team jersey is like a uniform these days!' View this post on Instagram A post shared by Queen Rania Al Abdullah (@queenrania)
Daily Maverick
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Israel alone — the self-fulfilling prophecies of Jewish isolation
From October 2023, despite all evidence to the contrary, many Israelis and members of the Zionist diaspora had been telling themselves that they were 'battling the forces of darkness' alone and unaided. But now that the Trump administration and major Western institutions are beginning to distance themselves from the Jewish state, the deeper psychology emerges — one anchored in messianic yearnings and misplaced hopes of redemption. In the hands of Hashem 'I think the reason that the forces of darkness are beating us so much,' said Rav Doniel Katz, 'is that they are fighting a religious war, and we keep ignoring the fact that it's a religious war.' The video, it turned out, had been uploaded on 24 April 2025. At just over 80 minutes in length, it was a conversation between Rav Katz and his much younger colleague, Reb Adam. Both rabbis, I knew, were ba'alei teshuvah — a Hebrew phrase, meaning 'masters of return', for Jews who had been born secular but had later found Torah. Accordingly, their dialogue was aimed at those who were 'just beginning' the journey, as well as those who were 'already immersed in Torah learning.' The subjects covered, if one were to ignore the Jewish connection, could have made up a New Age podcast from just about anywhere on the internet. From meditation techniques, breathwork and trauma healing to the laws of attraction and 'the rise of the divine feminine', there wasn't much that was left off the table. But, of course, one could not ignore the Jewish connection. At around 22 minutes, Adam asked Katz if there was any place for 'external advocacy'. Katz: 'What do you mean by external advocacy?' Adam: 'Advocacy for Israel and the Jewish people … you know, the notion of, 'Bring them [the hostages] home now.'' Katz: 'I find that a problematic statement. I mean, it's leveraging a tremendously difficult moment, and kind of politicising it, as if the [Israeli] government has control. And why are we blaming it on them? Shouldn't we give them back now? Shouldn't we be turning to Hashem [God], and saying, 'Hashem, help us heal now'?' It was then that Katz lamented the fact, as he saw it, that the broader Jewish community had failed to interpret the war with Hamas in essentially spiritual terms. And here, instead of casting shade and derision on what he had come to view as 'the forces of darkness,' he was almost complimentary. 'They are fighting with a passionate spirituality,' he said, 'but we as a people, collectively, are disengaged. We don't really think we have a divine destiny, we don't think we have divine blessing, we don't think we have a divine mission … and therefore, we are beaten.' For me, if anything, it was a way of reading the situation that was deeply instructive. Even if I had long since arrived at the conclusion that — far from waging a 'war' — the Jewish state had been waging a campaign of revenge and extermination, I could not shake the sense that the horrors in the Holy Land were millenarian at their core. My first piece on the conflict, published in late October 2023, had focused on the End Times prophecies of Judaism and Islam, a subject that had drawn the attention of Judge Dennis Davis on national TV. It was in this context, in January of 2024, that I first came across the work of Rav Katz. Back then, less than four months after the 7 October event, I had been forwarded a link to a 45-minute YouTube video titled Is This The Kabbalistic Meaning of the Israel-Hamas War? (And Will It Bring Moshiach…?) Aside from the millenarian (or messianic) theme, there was the hit on Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah), which had long been my last remaining connection to the tradition of my birth — and so, I had clicked on the link instantly. There on stage, exuding an undeniable charisma, was a man around my age, with a black hat, unkempt beard and fathomlessly sad eyes. 'There is no hope in our situation, I know,' he had said, as his sermon was reaching its crescendo, 'but we're already dancing in the [Temple].' For Katz, who was preaching in English to a packed hall in Israel, the offer of immediate solace was antithetical to his point. The collective anger and grief over the hostages and the dead; the sharp rise in the diaspora of anti-Semitic attacks; the lack of an effective leadership to navigate the chaos — all of these things, according to Katz, were proof that the situation was in the hands of Hashem. It was the suffering itself, he informed his audience, that would ultimately bring on the final redemption. As for the suffering of the Palestinians, over the next 16 months, I would return intermittently to Katz's various social media platforms — and specifically his YouTube channel, The Elevation Project — to see whether, in the face of Israeli atrocities, he had allowed himself to draw a distinction between combatants and civilians. To my disappointment, and sometimes even to my anger, it would never happen. His excuse for not doing so, it seemed, remained his aversion to 'politicising' the moment. But still, the way I saw it, the political and the spiritual were one thing. Signs and portents In the early hours of 2 May 2025, in international waters off the coast of Malta, the Conscience — a ship belonging to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a group of NGOs that aimed to break the Israeli siege of Gaza — was crippled by a drone strike. Although Israel would neither claim nor deny responsibility for the attack, the evidence of culpability was overwhelming. 'According to Maltese parliamentarians, the Israeli government had requested — mere days before the attack — that Malta refuse entry to the ship. Also, according to Drop Site News, an Israeli military aircraft had circled the vessel within hours of the strike. The truth, by almost any (non-Zionist) account, was therefore biblical in its savagery. For exactly two months at that point, no food or humanitarian aid had been allowed to enter Gaza. Half a million Palestinians were at immediate risk of starvation, according to aid agencies, with the newswires releasing a constant stream of horrifically unpardonable images — children, in the grips of acute malnutrition and cystic fibrosis, with sunken eyes, yellowing skins and shockingly skeletal frames. Outside of the most denialist Jewish enclaves, the analogy between these images and the photographs of living skeletons in the death camps of the Nazis was impossible to ignore. Equally difficult to ignore was the symbolism of the attack on the ship called Conscience — Israel, whether or not it cared, was demonstrating to the world that it did not have one. And yet, only two days before, an event had occurred that was arguably even more awash in biblical symbolism. On 30 April, on the eve of Israel's Yom Ha'atzmaut — Day of Independence — wildfires had erupted on the outskirts of Jerusalem, reportedly the largest in the country's history. Almost instantly, news spread (aided by the reliable support of Hindu nationalists in India) that the fires were the handiwork of Hamas-supporting arsonists. An Arab citizen of East Jerusalem, who happened to be carrying cotton wool and a lighter, was the first to be arrested. By 3 May, with the Conscience still attending to its wounds, the leftist Israeli newspaper Haaretz would run a commendable investigation titled, ' How Conspiracy Theories About Palestinian Arsonists Spread Like Wildfire in Israel '. The national scapegoating campaign, the piece concluded, had been driven by old videos, misleading maps and political rhetoric. 'Many people saw the lie,' one expert told Haaretz. 'Fewer saw the correction.' But it wasn't until 7 May that a South African Jew by the name of Ronnie Kasrils, a former Umkhonto we Sizwe freedom fighter and erstwhile Cabinet minister in the post-apartheid ANC government, would properly bring the symbolism home. In an opinion piece for Mail & Guardian, Kasrils would note that 'the forests that cover the demolished Palestinian villages of the 1948 Nakba' were ablaze at a time when the Jewish state was meant to be celebrating its founding. 'Those like me,' he wrote, 'who were seduced as innocent children by the thieving Jewish National Fund (JNF) into providing pocket money to plant trees ostensibly to make the desert bloom, can feel redeemed by whatever cause is now wiping the stolen terrain of its camouflage.' Kasrils, whose vehement anti-Zionism had for decades drawn the bitter contempt of the vast majority of South African Jews, happened to be including my own experience in his 'like me' qualifier — the white and blue moneyboxes of the JNF had stolen my pocket money too, a fact I would only discover decades later. As detailed in the remarkable documentary Village Under the Forest, written and directed by Heidi Grunebaum and Mark Kaplan — another two members, heroically despised, of the South African Jewish community — these pine forests, aside from concealing Palestinian villages razed in the Nakba, were also non-indigenous. They had never, in other words, rightfully belonged on the land. To my mind, then, whatever force had caused the terrain to be wiped clean, an appropriate term for it was indeed 'redemption' — and particularly so because of the 'scapegoating campaign' that had fallen so hopelessly flat. And in such an Old Testament context, perhaps even the atheist Kasrils would have reverted once more to biblical language to describe what transpired on 8 May, the day after his piece was published. Because, to be clear, 8 May 2025 was significant for two easily observable reasons: first, it was the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) day; second, it was the day on which the winds shifted in Britain with respect to an institutional recognition that the modern Jewish state had gone too far. Put another way, exactly eight decades after the Nazis had been defeated, an editorial in the Financial Times titled ' The west's shameful silence on Gaza ' was going viral; an editorial in The Economist titled ' The war in Gaza must end ' had just been published; and British media was alight with the news that a succession of conservative parliamentarians — former Israel supporters — had withdrawn their backing for the 'rogue' Jewish state. By that Sunday, 11 May, The Guardian's editorial board would ask the pivotal question: 'What is this, if not genocidal?' Falling silent 'I don't care about saving the Jewish soul at this point,' said the journalist Nora Barrows-Friedman, a staffer at the essential Electronic Intifada podcast, on 6 May 2025. 'I don't care about anything that has to do with preserving anything of my inherited genetic identity. It makes no difference to me about the future of Jewish society, because what it has been reduced to right now is horrific.' It was a sentiment that I could easily understand, and on some days — most days, lately — it was a sentiment that I probably agreed with. Like Barrows-Friedman, I had concluded that what 'Jewish society' had been 'allowed to promulgate in Palestine' was 'irredeemable'. Still, a 4,000-year-old tradition — if one counted from the life of the patriarch Abraham — wasn't about to disappear just because a handful of its members were disgusted by what it had become. In Israel itself, beginning in early May, a small but growing group of dissidents would begin to transmute their self-disgust into something life-affirming: protests not for a ceasefire deal or the release of the hostages (which happened weekly, and were life-affirming only insofar as Jews were concerned), but protests against the indefensible slaughter of Palestinian children (which had not happened at all since 7 October, and were inclusive in a way that upended the Zionist creed). A report on the new phenomenon, aired on NPR radio on 7 May, said it all: 'Every Saturday night, throngs of protesters march down a main street banging on drums and chanting. But last weekend, they fell quiet as they streamed past another group of protesters who've brought something new to the Israeli debate over the war in Gaza. They're holding photos of children smiling. This new protest group says these are the children killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.' And yet why, to scream it from the rooftops, had it taken so long? The question was as urgent as it was legitimate — and the answers seemed to stretch from the dehumanising censorship of Israeli media to the 'murderous solipsism' that, according to the arch-dissident Ori Goldberg, lay at the very heart of the Jewish nationalist project. But there was, to my mind, a much older answer. Like Islam and Christianity, Judaism had always been inward-focused; its essence had always been based on the division between 'us' (the chosen; the saved) and 'them' (the masses; the damned). Like the fundamentalist imams in Mecca and the conservative cardinals in Rome, our orthodox rabbis in Jerusalem were still heavily invested in the message — often subliminal; mostly not — of an exclusively ordained mission. On 13 October 2024, the day after Yom Kippur, when The New York Times had just released a report — based on the observations of 65 doctors, nurses and paramedics — that Israeli snipers had been deliberately shooting Palestinian children in the head, Rav Katz did a piece to camera (as posted on his Facebook page). 'So in summary, this is how the year begins,' he said, 'it's like the 'Hero's Journey,' right? Here we are standing up, fighting for our lives, against the most dark, evil, maniacal forces and people in the world. And we have been left alone by all our allies, abandoned, and we are the last ones …. overcoming all the obstacles, to stand up for what is good and right and pure in the world…' At the time, of course, Israel had the unqualified backing of the largest military coalition that the world had ever known. No matter what Katz — who presented as a genuine Kabbalist; a compassionate soul — had to say about abandonment, almost every human being with a smartphone was seeing the opposite. It would, unfortunately, take many more months for the institutions of the West to begin to place some daylight between themselves and the Jewish state. And even then, after the images out of Gaza were drawing comparisons to the Nazi death camps, the extermination campaign would continue — even then, after US President Donald Trump had terrified the Israelis by negotiating with their enemies without them, the carnage from the skies would not stop. Rav Katz, in other words, by suggesting that such events were in 'Hashem's hands,' was explaining the inexplicable. And the final redemption, while it was becoming the last resort, had never seemed further off. DM
