Seth Mandel

1 day ago | commentary.org | Seth Mandel

A helpful way to understand how much about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was changed by Oct. 7 is to consider Israelis' attitudes toward rocket attacks. Rockets must now be treated as far more of a threat than they ever have before. Rockets, especially those fired from Gaza by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, have long been dismissed by Israel's critics in the West. Those critics don't have to jolt their children awake in the middle of the night and rush them to a bomb shelter.

1 day ago | commentary.org | Seth Mandel

If you were on X in December, you probably saw the following prefab script posted numerous times by folks claiming to be health-care professionals who had developed an Internet-inspired fixation with a Palestinian in Gaza: "My name is []. I am a medical doctor. I am calling for the immediate release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. He was abducted by the Israeli forces. I am calling for protection of hospitals and medical workers in Gaza.

2 days ago | commentary.org | Seth Mandel

Music has always been political, so I wasn't at all surprised by the, shall we say, expressiveness at this weekend's Coachella festival. Nor was I surprised that the political sloganeering was aimed at denouncing the Jewish state-if you're a band nobody's ever heard of, and you don't have the talent to change that with your music alone, you'll be tempted to jump on the anti-Israel bandwagon and hope it can pull you farther than you were able to go on your own.

3 days ago | commentary.org | Seth Mandel

The shedding of pre-Oct. 7 thinking on the part of many American Jews has occasioned a backlash from the revanchists who seek to undo any progress or advancement the Jewish community has made since that horrific day. One example of revanchist thinking: the reversion to "keep your head down" Judaism out of fear that if we advocate for our own rights we will be blamed, fairly or unfairly, for the consequences.

3 days ago | mosaicmagazine.com | Seth Mandel

Last week, the New York Times reported, based on unnamed sources within the Trump administration, that the president had asked Israel not to carry out a planned strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. That is, somebody deliberately gave this information to the press, which later tried to confirm it by speaking with other officials.