'Blood on their hands': Rabbi Brander on haredi draft refusal

NGO monitor founder: Hamas-linked groups shaped NYT op-ed

Dr. Gerald Steinberg, founder of NGO Monitor, traces how Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which he says has documented Hamas ties, helped shape a viral New York Times op-ed on Israeli sexual violence, published the day before a landmark report documenting Hamas atrocities on October 7. In this wide-ranging interview, Steinberg explains how NGOs with combined budgets in the billions coordinate simultaneous media campaigns to reframe Israel as perpetrator and Hamas as victim, what he calls "The Eighth Front" of the October 7 war. He details open-source evidence linking Euro-Med's founder, Rami Abdu, to Hamas leadership, including photographs with senior Hamas figures and a 2011 Israeli Defense Ministry designation of his activities as part of Hamas's propaganda operation. On Nicholas Kristof's column's central "dog" allegation, Steinberg points to a critical inconsistency: the lawyer who made the claim had given an extensive interview to a separate outlet just days earlier, with no mention of the incident. "Every NGO actor in the Israel demonization world knew this report was coming," Steinberg says. "It could be a headline story. That's the name of the game." Steinberg, who is stepping down as NGO Monitor president after 25 years to hand leadership to Olga Deutsch, places today's campaigns in a historical arc stretching from Soviet-era anti-Zionism through the 1975 "Zionism is racism" UN resolution to the Durban process, arguing that a network of radical-left and Arab-aligned actors captured the NGO sector by the early 2000s and now operates as a largely unaccountable political industry with no checks, no competition, and billions in annual funding. He says cracks are beginning to show, and the blowback against the Kristof column may mark a turning point.

Ethiopian Jewish leader: Israel must learn to unite

Dr. Shmuel Legesse, an Ethiopian Jewish writer and activist, described his life’s mission as a call to strengthen Jewish unity, defend Israel’s legitimacy, and give voice to the Ethiopian Jewish experience during a conversation on The Jerusalem Post podcast. Legesse said his sense of purpose began in childhood in Ethiopia, where his father would bless him and tell him he would one day “speak to the whole world” on behalf of his people.

'Blood on their hands': Rabbi Brander on haredi draft refusal

In this conversation with The Jerusalem Post's senior field reporter Sam Halpern, Rabbi Dr. Kenneth Brander, President of Ohr Torah Stone (OTS), opens up about the haredi draft, women in combat, the Jerusalem Day flag march, and the dangerous misuse of the term "Amalek." Anchored by the death of Maj. (res.) Itamar Sapir, the 26th OTS alumnus killed in the war, Brander argues that religious Jews who refuse to enlist are violating Jewish law, rejects the phrase "settler violence" while condemning the "1% of 1%" who cross the line, and says flatly, citing the Talmud, that there is no longer a nation of Amalek. Brander leads a 32-institution Modern Orthodox network whose students and faculty are serving at extraordinary rates. His son has done over 400 days of reserve duty. He speaks not as an outside critic but as someone whose community is bearing the cost.

'Victims of Zionism's success': WZO vice chair on Israel's crisis

Dr. Yizhar Hess, Vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization and a 10th-generation Jerusalemite, argues Israel has created an "unholy connection between state and religion" that pushes Jews away from their own tradition. In this candid Jerusalem Post interview, Hess unpacks the most consequential World Zionist Congress in years: how MERCAZ (the Masorti/Conservative slate) nearly doubled its mandates, why Itamar Ben-Gvir's faction was deliberately frozen out of the coalition, and what the Haredi entry into the Zionist movement really means. He explains why he believes "polite people seldom change the world," why he attended the judicial reform protests as a sitting WZO official, and why a pending Knesset bill criminalizing non-Orthodox prayer at the Kotel — punishable by up to seven years in prison, would be devastating for Israel-Diaspora relations. Hess offers a rare insider's perspective on the political body Theodor Herzl founded as "the parliament of the Jewish people."

'Charisma of a boiled potato': Isfahani on Iran's new supreme leader

Khosro Isfahani, research director at the National Union for Democracy in Iran, said anger is building inside Iran following months of war, internet shutdowns, economic damage, and mass repression. Speaking with The Jerusalem Post, Isfahani said Iranians see the Islamic Republic as unchanged, despite what he described as a regime effort to project normalcy after the recent conflict.