{"id":503667,"date":"2026-06-21T08:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T08:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/503667\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T08:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T08:03:09","slug":"israel-on-trial-aish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/503667\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel on Trial | Aish"},"content":{"rendered":"

A graduate of Columbia University and Yale Law School, Roy K. Altman<\/a> served as a decorated federal prosecutor, twice earning the Department of Justice\u2019s highest honor (the Director\u2019s Award for Superior Performance) and named Federal Prosecutor of the Year in 2013. In 2019 he became the youngest federal district court judge in the country, and the youngest ever appointed in the Southern District of Florida. Judge Altman is also an award-winning writer and sought-after public speaker on the topics of law, public service, Israel, and antisemitism.<\/p>\n

The moral inversion we\u2019re experiencing in the West today finds its roots in six extremely compelling\u2014almost intoxicating\u2014claims about the State of Israel.<\/p>\n

October 7 was a turning point for Judge Altman. Watching Jews being framed as oppressors and violators of human rights, he sought to understand the cause of this moral inversion. After delivering hundreds of speeches about Israel in churches, synagogues, community centers, colleges, and law schools (and having thousands of conversations), Judge Altman arrived at a conclusion: \u201cThe moral inversion we\u2019re experiencing in the West today finds its roots in six extremely compelling\u2014almost intoxicating\u2014claims about the State of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Roy K. Altman<\/p>\n

Judge Altman set out to scrutinize each of these six claims as he would in a court of law, \u201c\u2026deploying the legal methodology judges, juries, and lawyers have used for centuries in courtrooms across this country.\u201d He explains, \u201cThis methodology\u2014and the set of rules on which it\u2019s based\u2014doesn\u2019t bend to fashion. In my courtroom, accusations don\u2019t become true simply because they\u2019re asserted loudly or because they\u2019re popular. We test them. We define our terms. We show our work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result is Israel on Trial: Examining the History, the Evidence, and the Law<\/a>. An instant New York Times bestseller, the book contains extensively-backed conclusions that are indisputable to anyone who values facts, legal definitions, and objective evidence over rhetoric and catchy slogans. And with a comprehensive list of endnotes representing more than a quarter of the book, Judge Altman did, in fact, show his work.<\/p>\n

Among widespread praise for the book, John Spencer (Chair of Urban Warfare Studies, Modern War Institute at West Point) says: \u201cRoy Altman has done something rare and urgently needed. He applies the discipline of evidence, methodology, and truth-seeking that governs a courtroom to the most misunderstood conflict in the world. Israel on Trial cuts through slogans, propaganda, and moral inversion with the clarity of a legal mind and the precision of a fact finder.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking for a clear and unbiased assessment of the facts regarding this conflict and the history that precedes it, Israel on Trial is your definitive guide.<\/p>\n

The claims examined in Israel on Trial are summarized below.<\/p>\n

Claim 1: \u201cJews are colonizers in the Land of Israel\u201d<\/p>\n

This assertion is not new. \u201cBut this claim fundamentally inverts the concept of colonization and ignores the historical evidence\u2014casting the Jewish people, who have ancient and continuous ties to the land, as colonists while attributing indigenous status to Muslim Arab populations whose presence stems only from later conquests of the region.\u201d
\nThree types of evidence are evaluated extensively: ancient artifacts, genetic studies, and written accounts\u2014all of which corroborate and support the legitimate historical connection Jews have to the Land of Israel (thousands of years before Islam even existed).
\nJudge Altman explores consistent archaeological evidence referencing the Kingdom of Israel originating from every country on Israel\u2019s geographical borders. Among many findings, the earliest archaeological record comes from a large granite tablet constructed in Egypt in 1205 BC\u2014the Merneptah Stele. \u201cIn other words, Israel was a kingdom in the geographical location of the modern State of Israel more than 1,800 years before Islam arrived in the Middle East. There\u2019s no other example anywhere in the world of a \u2018colonialist\u2019 government whose roots in the \u2018colonized\u2019 land precede the supposedly \u2018indigenous\u2019 population\u2019s presence by thousands of years.\u201d
\nGenetic studies yield the same conclusion. \u201cThese repeated studies by different sets of scientists across many decades (analyzing dozens of genetic markers) have uniformly determined that all the major Jewish populations in the world\u2014including the Ashkenazim of Europe, the Sephardim of Spain and North Africa, and the Mizrahim of the Middle East\u2014share a common and unique ancestry that spread from the Levant more than two thousand years ago.\u201d
\nWritten accounts corroborate the same story. Much of the evidence even originates from Israel\u2019s enemies, a trait that further solidifies its reliability in a court of law. \u201cThe Quran itself makes clear that Allah promised Israel to the Jewish people\u2026.\u201d
\n\u201cIn the end, if you go back 3,200 years to Merneptah\u2019s Stele and look at all the different peoples who existed at that time, there is only one people who still speaks the same language, who still practices the same religion, who still lives (and governs) in the same land as it did 3,200 years ago\u2014and those are the Jews who live and govern in Israel today.\u201d
\nAs is done with each claim, the terms are defined: colonialism must include the element of foreignness of the colonizing population. \u201cThe conclusion this evidence compels is unavoidable: The Jewish people cannot be \u2018colonizers\u2019 in the Land of Israel because they are the indigenous people of that land.\u201d<\/p>\n

Claim 2: \u201cIsrael\u2019s founding was illegitimate and aberrational\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026Israel is older than two-thirds (134 of the 193) of the world\u2019s countries. Even so, Israel is the only country whose existence is constantly being questioned and debated.\u201d
\nIsrael meets all four Montevideo factors set by international law for the creation of new states. Israel\u2019s founding is further supported by three additional factors, using the legitimacy of the United States as a baseline test case.
\n\u201cIsrael is called illegitimate even though it meets (and has met since its founding) all the factors international law sets out for the creation of legitimate nation-states, while the new \u2018State of Palestine\u2019 is recognized as legitimate even though it fails many of these same factors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Claim 3: \u201cIsrael has prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state\u201d<\/p>\n

Arab rejection of a two-state solution is detailed on six historical occasions: 1937, 1947-48, post-1967, 1993-95, 2000, and 2008.
\n\u201cOn six prior occasions\u2026Israel offered (or accepted) the creation of a second Palestinian state\u2014in additional to the one the Palestinians had received in what is now Jordan\u2014only to have each of those attempts thwarted, not by Jews or the United States or Europe, but by the Palestinians\u2019 own demand for an Arab state that stretches \u2018from the river to the sea.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Claim 4: \u201cIsrael illegally occupied Gaza and turned it into an open-air prison and concentration camp\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Altman provides a thorough recap describing how Israel came to occupy Gaza from 1967-2005, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon\u2019s decision to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza in 2005 (in hopes that Gaza\u2019s sovereignty would yield a flourishing state and peace with Israel).
\nHamas (a terrorist group intent on eradicating Israel) was elected in 2006. \u201cThe massacre of Israelis on October 7\u2014and the devastation of Gaza that followed\u2014have made clear that this exercise in Palestinian self-government hasn\u2019t redounded to anyone\u2019s benefit.\u201d
\nJudge Altman defines the terms, describes the realities on the ground, and concludes pre-October 7 Gaza cannot, in any way, be described as an open-air prison or concentration camp.
\n\u201c\u2026the concentration camp myth isn\u2019t just wrong\u2014it\u2019s also malicious. It doesn\u2019t simply accuse the Jews of any-old crime and call it a day. It takes the worst crime that has ever been perpetrated in the history of humanity (the Holocaust)\u2014a crime perpetrated specifically against Jews\u2014and cheapens it to the point of insignificance by analogizing it not just to a crime that didn\u2019t happen but to a crime the Jews themselves are now accused of perpetrating. The consequences of this mirroring of Jewish suffering cannot be overstated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Claim 5: \u201cIsrael is an apartheid and white-supremacist state\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cApartheid\u201d is defined and it\u2019s concluded, yet again, that this term cannot be applied to Israel. \u201cIsrael is a country of some ten million people, more than 21 percent of whom are Arab Israelis\u2014Muslims, Christian, and Druze\u2014with full political, civil, and commercial rights.\u201d
\nThe myth of white supremacy doesn\u2019t apply either. Ashkenazic Jews (with fair skin) \u201c\u2026represent less than 45 percent of Israel\u2019s Jewish population. The rest (some 55 percent of Israel\u2019s Jews) are non-white\u2014a combination of North African and Middle Eastern Mizrahi Jews, Sephardic Jews, and black Ethiopian Jews.\u201d
\nIn Nazi Germany, Jews were not white enough, and now Jews are cast as white supremacists. Jew hatred adapts to whatever traits society deems as negative.<\/p>\n

Claim 6: \u201cIsrael is committing genocide in Gaza\u201d<\/p>\n

The four characteristics seen in real-world examples of genocide are entirely inconsistent with Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza. Israel goes to great lengths to protect Palestinian civilians (even when it means endangering the lives of IDF soldiers to do so).
\nThough not required, Israel coordinated the distribution of unparalleled amounts of aid to Palestinians in Gaza. \u201c\u2026Genocidal regimes don\u2019t spend hundreds of millions of dollars creating food programs to distribute sustenance to the civilian population they\u2019re trying to eradicate.\u201d
\nIsrael\u2019s militant-to-civilian kill ratio was unprecedented, improving upon the US\u2019s previously set ratio by more than 50 percent. \u201cAs Major Spencer has said, echoing the detailed findings of the HLMG report, Israel set a standard for both effectiveness and civilian protection in war that no other army has ever met\u2014or may ever meet again.\u201d
\nGenocide requires intent. If Israel was truly intent on exterminating the Palestinian people in Gaza, it could have done so in a single day. This would have saved billions of dollars and the lives of hundreds of IDF soldiers.
\nIn a 2024 report, Amnesty International changed the definition of the word in order to accuse Israel of committing genocide.<\/p>\n

Bonus 7th claim addressed in the conclusion: \u201canti-Zionism isn\u2019t anti-Semitism\u201d<\/p>\n

All of the claims against Israel lead to differential treatment of Jews (from a legal perspective: discrimination).
\n\u201cThe anti-Zionists don\u2019t confine themselves to arguing about the propriety of this or that Israeli policy. They, instead, go much further and insist that Jews don\u2019t have the same right\u2014as other nations do\u2014to self-determination in their national homeland.\u201d
\nAs we\u2019ve seen with other claims, the definition of \u201cZionism\u201d has been altered in order to morph it into something negative. \u201cZionism stands only for the unfortunately controversial proposition that Jews are equal to everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leah Grossman: Chapter one is the longest chapter by a huge margin\u2014you present an extensive amount of evidence supporting the fact that Jews are indigenous to Israel. Why do you think the colonizer label gets so much traction when the evidence clearly refutes the claim?<\/p>\n

Roy K. Altman: Because it\u2019s the foundation for all the other claims against Israel. I\u2019ll give you one example. How do you get millions of people in Western democracies to believe that the massacres of October 7 were justified? The answer: You tell them the land was stolen. You see, in the law, we have an affirmative defense we sometimes call the \u201ccastle doctrine,\u201d which basically says that a homeowner can use lethal force (even deadly force) against a person he finds in his home\u2014no questions asked. This castle doctrine is rooted in the very idea of private property\u2014the protection of which is at the heart of most Western societies. So, extrapolating from the logic of the castle doctrine, we can see why, if this is Israel\u2019s home\u2014if this is where its people belong\u2014then it makes sense to say that Israel has a right to defend itself. And this, of course, is what so many western diplomats say when Israel is attacked.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if Israel has stolen this land\u2014if this land actually belongs to the Arabs\u2014then Israel would have no right to use any force (much less deadly force) to defend the land. To the contrary, under the castle doctrine, since this would be Arab land, then the Arabs would have the right\u2014with no questions asked\u2014to use deadly force to defend their home against the invading Jews. And that\u2019s how you get tenured professors and students on university campuses to say (and to believe) that the massacres of October 7 were justified.<\/p>\n

LG: Let\u2019s talk about the idea of mirroring\u2014how each claim Israel is accused of is actually something being done to Israel. How do we combat situations like this, when a claim (even though false) does immeasurable damage by not only creating a false sense of equivalency, but because of its likelihood to be believed simply because it\u2019s the claim that\u2019s asserted first?<\/p>\n

RKA: We must call it out for what it is: an attempt to get the Western world to turn against the Jews. Think about the obscene distortion we see when podcasters claim that Israel (the victims of the Holocaust, the ultimate crime of crimes) is the new Nazi Germany. If anyone has ever allied with the Nazis, it\u2019s the Palestinian Arabs. Recall that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the original leader of the Palestinian Arabs, sided with Hitler against America and asked him to invade the British colony of Palestine to massacre all of its Jews. Or think of the inversion at play when Arab states accuse Israel\u2014a country with a Muslim Arab supreme court justice and ten Muslim Arab members of parliament, a country that built a Muslim prayer room in the brand-new National Library, a place where Arabs graduate from universities at rates that far outpace their percentage of the population as a whole\u2014of apartheid.<\/p>\n

As Phil Getz of the Maimonides Foundation has said: What do Birmingham, Alabama, Louisville, Kentucky, and the state of New Mexico have in common? Each has more Jews in it than there are in all 22 of the Arab states in the world combined. The notion of a Jewish supreme court justice in Ramallah or a Jewish doctor in Gaza or a Jewish member of parliament in Tehran is obviously inconceivable\u2014because these are the true apartheid states in the region. But no one complains because no one really cares about apartheid; they\u2019re simply obsessed with Jews and want to destroy the one Jewish State in the world.<\/p>\n

LG: Tell us about the trips you\u2019ve been leading, bringing federal judges to Israel. Do the participants\u2019 views on Israel typically change after visiting? What has been the general feedback on the experience?<\/p>\n

RKA: The trips are powerfully transformative. These are federal judges from all over the country\u2014most of them not Jewish\u2014who have never been to Israel before. And every judge I\u2019ve spoken to about the trips has felt that, in Israel, we see a people who are resilient in the face of great adversity, who are willing to fight and (in some cases) die for the Western civilization that\u2019s been bequeathed to all of us, and who insist on doing all this with a love of country, an optimism for the future, and a degree of compassion and compliance with the law that\u2019s frankly awe-inspiring.<\/p>\n

And many of these judges have been so inspired by what they saw that they\u2019ve gone back to their home states and given their own lectures about Israel\u2014speaking to their own communities about what they saw and felt and heard while we were there.<\/p>\n

LG: You\u2019ve said in interviews that you wrote Israel on Trial not as a Jew, but as an American. Can you elaborate on why these are American issues, and why non-Jews should be paying attention?<\/p>\n

RKA: America\u2019s geostrategic enemies are trying to weaken America by peeling us away from our most important allies. Israel votes with America more than any other country in the world at the United Nations; it provides intelligence we simply don\u2019t have (and can\u2019t get) on many of our adversaries; it promotes our values in a region where democracy and an independent judiciary are as foreign as religious tolerance, freedom of expression, and the rule of law; and it battle-tests our most important military technologies and then returns them to us (for free) better adapted for the conflicts that are coming in the twenty-first century. Allies like this must be guarded and supported\u2014not castigated and rejected. And if we become the kind of country that loses sight of this basic reality, then I\u2019m concerned about the future prosperity of the West.<\/p>\n

As Judge Altman points out in the book, \u201c\u2026the virus of Jew hatred always finds its way\u2014morphing and contorting itself to fill the dark, empty superstitions of a fragile, insecure society.\u201d Recognizing the legal nature of the persistent claims against Israel, Judge Altman did what he does best: he defined the terms, considered the objective evidence, and examined the sources according to the legal standards he utilizes in the courtroom every single day.<\/p>\n

Israel on Trial reveals definitive conclusions, and the verdict is indisputable: not guilty.<\/p>\n

Israel on Trial: Examining the History, the Evidence, and the Law<\/a> is available now.<\/p>\n

Keep up with Judge Roy K. Altman<\/a> on Instagram.<\/p>\n