This week, The Tower Magazine launched its September issue, featuring the following articles:
Where the Shadiest Players Find a Home, by Jonathan Schanzer, Vice President of Research for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, goes in-depth on Turkey, whose government funds Hamas, helps Iran evade sanctions, and harbors a financier tied to the 9/11 attacks. This despite ostensibly being a NATO “ally” of the West.
With a White House that appears disinclined to challenge its wayward NATO ally, it is unclear if there are other actors on the world stage with the will to challenge Turkey’s dangerous drift. Indeed, it is likely that Turkey will continue to serve as a hub for illicit actors for the foreseeable future.
Towards a Zionism of Inclusion, by former MK Einat Wilf, explores the evolution of Zionism since the movement’s inception, explaining how its past vision may pave the way for Israeli Arabs to claim a greater stake in the Israeli story.
Zionism adapts by rewriting the story to include the previously excluded group, doing so in a way that not only includes the new group, but makes it one and the same with the Zionist vision.
How Hamas Destroys its People, as Seen Through the Eyes of IDF Soldiers, by Emmy-nominated journalist Yardena Schwartz, is an oral history of IDF veterans of Operation Protective Edge, explaining in their own words how they saw Hamas violating ceasefires and committing war crimes, such as creating human shields.
It was an hour after the ceasefire, and I think they purposely put a man that looked like a civilian, just a normal man, to kind of entice us to come out to go talk to him, and then waiting down below were a bunch of explosives and a suicide bomber. When we heard the shots, we ran back to get to them but it had already ended. When we got there, we saw two dead bodies: Benaya and Liel. They had died immediately from the explosives and the suicide bomber. The suicide bomber was dressed in an Israeli uniform.
Everything You Need to Know about International Law and the Gaza War, by lawyer David Daoud, is a comprehensive guide to the laws of armed combat as they apply to Operation Protective Edge, and how denunciations of Israeli “war crimes” are both untrue and undermine the applicability of international law in the case of future atrocities.
When politicians, pundits, or the public misuse these terms, one can only think of a quote from The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” But when a respected jurist like Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, calls Israel’s military campaign “disproportionate,” claims the IDF’s “disregard for international humanitarian law and for the right to life was shockingly evident” in many of its attacks, and says that Israel is insufficiently protecting Gaza’s civilians “in a manner that could amount to war crimes,” the accusations cannot be so easily dismissed. At the same time that Israel is exercising its right to self-defense against terrorists who violate and shamelessly exploit international law, human rights lawyers and UN officials aim to manipulate the laws of war to reduce its ability to lawfully use military force.
Christians Respond to the War on the Jewish State, by freelance writer Rick Richman, analyzes Christians United for Israel, the U.S.’s biggest, and most misunderstood, pro-Israel organization.
Behind these numbers is a story about Christian Zionism that many Americans do not fully appreciate or understand. Since most evangelical Christians are conservatives, and most American Jews are liberals, the evangelical-Jewish alliance will always be “at least partially a matter of strange bedfellows,” in the words of cultural historian Wilfred M. McClay. McClay argues, however, that when it comes to Israel, there is “a deep commonality” and mutual concern that goes to the heart of each group’s religious beliefs, even if those beliefs fundamentally differ in other respects. The 2014 CUFI Washington Summit demonstrated that both communities can engage in an important common cause together, without either group sacrificing its other beliefs.
The Next Struggle for Israel’s Gay Community, by frequent contributor Liam Hoare, explores the struggles and triumphs of Israel’s LGBT population in the political and social spheres—and the changes in how the rest of Israeli society sees them.
Many of the basic rights for LGBT people have already been won, but formal legal equality, especially on the issue of marriage, remains elusive. Tel Aviv is today one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world, but in Jerusalem—just one hour down the road—it is almost impossible to be gay and live openly. Being gay in Israel, then, is to be witness to a series of contradictions, paradoxes which show that Israel is in many ways a multicultural society within which LGBT people—not only celebrities—have been able to find a place for themselves.
To Be Gay at Night in Tel Aviv, by The Tower’s photographer Aviram Valdman, is a photo essay documenting a night at Evita and Oman 17, two of Tel Aviv’s most famous nighttime destinations.
Tel Aviv is famous for being home to one of the most vibrant LGBT communities in the world and certainly in the Middle East. Strongly proud and “out,” Tel Aviv’s gay community has become a center for gay culture and tourism, particularly among gays from Europe and the United States who want to experience the Middle East and Mediterranean life in a safe environment. The Tower’s photographer Aviram Valdman went to two of Tel Aviv’s most famous night spots for the gay community, Evita and Oman 17, to capture images of Israel’s gays at their most celebratory and comfortable.
[Photo: Thierry Ehrmann / flickr]