“Our Boys” May Be Good Television, but Its Message Is Unquestionably Anti-Israel

Sept. 20 2019

The miniseries Our Boys—created, directed, and acted by Israelis and released simultaneously in the U.S. and Israel—takes place in the summer or 2014, on the eve of the Gaza war. At its heart is the abduction and brutal murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, an Arab Jerusalemite, by three religious Jews, and the police who identify and capture the perpetrators. While calling the series “a drama of uncommon power,” Stephen Daisley finds it deeply flawed:

What Our Boys does not tell is the story of Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar, and Naftali Fraenkel. They were the Israeli teenagers whose deaths inspired [Abu Khdeir’s murderers]. The yeshiva students were abducted while hitchhiking home from Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion, a hill-scattered region south of Jerusalem and frequent target of Palestinian terrorism. Despite police efforts, their mothers’ appeals, and prayer vigils in Rabin Square, their bodies were found dumped in a field eighteen days later. They had been shot at close range.

The yeshiva boys of Gush Etzion, like thousands of other Israeli victims of homicidal Palestinian anti-Semitism, do not long detain the plot of Our Boys. [We] learn nothing about them. On the other hand, we learn that Mohammed, the Arab victim, went to the mosque faithfully, that he was planning to meet up with a girl from Turkey, and that he preferred flirting with her on WhatsApp to working for his father.

This is a series that communicates a particular perspective on Israel to a particular audience, namely Americans. Brian Lowry has given the game away on CNN.com, writing that the series “puts faces on a conflict often seen—especially in the U.S.—from a distant aerial view.” . . . [W]e can infer that what he means by “distant aerial view” is a view insufficiently sympathetic to the Palestinians. Our Boys does put faces on the conflict—but its Arab faces are almost entirely sympathetic while its Israeli faces are crazed settlers, racist cops, and a smattering of well-meaning liberals trying their best in a suffocatingly hateful society.

Critics have accused the drama of moral equivalence, but in truth there is no equivalence: the introspection is entirely one-sided. All the harsh truths are broken to Israelis, all the urgent conversations about race and hatred are to be held in Hebrew. With the macho-liberal bravado of the Israeli center, Our Boys tells Israelis to shape up but has nothing to say to Palestinians.

Read more at Commentary

More about: Palestinian terror, Protective Edge, Television

Libya Gave Up Its Nuclear Aspirations Completely. Can Iran Be Induced to Do the Same?

April 18 2025

In 2003, the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, spooked by the American display of might in Iraq, decided to destroy or surrender his entire nuclear program. Informed observers have suggested that the deal he made with the U.S. should serve as a model for any agreement with Iran. Robert Joseph provides some useful background:

Gaddafi had convinced himself that Libya would be next on the U.S. target list after Iraq. There was no reason or need to threaten Libya with bombing as Gaddafi was quick to tell almost every visitor that he did not want to be Saddam Hussein. The images of Saddam being pulled from his spider hole . . . played on his mind.

President Bush’s goal was to have Libya serve as an alternative model to Iraq. Instead of war, proliferators would give up their nuclear programs in exchange for relief from economic and political sanctions.

Any outcome that permits Iran to enrich uranium at any level will fail the one standard that President Trump has established: Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Limiting enrichment even to low levels will allow Iran to break out of the agreement at any time, no matter what the agreement says.

Iran is not a normal government that observes the rules of international behavior or fair “dealmaking.” This is a regime that relies on regional terror and brutal repression of its citizens to stay in power. It has a long history of using negotiations to expand its nuclear program. Its negotiating tactics are clear: extend the negotiations as long as possible and meet any concession with more demands.

Read more at Washington Times

More about: Iran nuclear program, Iraq war, Libya, U.S. Foreign policy