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Sunday, May 08, 2022

05/08 Links: The PA rewards with one hand, condemns with the other; The DeSantis affair The disgraceful politization of Jewish institutions; The speech President Lawrence Bacow of Harvard University needs to give

From Ian:

PMW: The PA rewards with one hand, condemns with the other
The two Palestinian terrorists who brutally murdered Israelis Ben Yiftah, Yonatan Habakuk, and Boaz Gol on May 5, were arrested today. This means that the Palestinian Authority will now adopt the murderers as PA employees and start paying them a monthly salary. Assuming they live till 80 years old, over their lifetimes, the PA will pay them no less than 6,530,400 shekels ($1,919,909 / €1,820,074), simply as a reward for murdering Jews and being arrested by Israel.

The salaries the PA will pay the terrorists, aged 19 and 20, will start at 1,400 shekels ($450)/month and will increase with time spent in prison to 12,000 shekels (3,859) /month.


While the PA continues to incentivize and reward terrorists, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas issued another one of his mealy-mouthed condemnations “of the killing of Israeli civilians” following the murders on Thursday.

Incapable of simply condemning the brutal murder of Israelis, Abbas repeated his “warnings” about Israeli/Jewish “settlers” using the Palestinian attack to carry out revenge attacks against Palestinians. Almost justifying the murders of the Israelis, Abbas then condemned what he referred to as the “ongoing attacks against our people and its Islamic and Christian holy sites,” which he argued have created an atmosphere of tension and instability”:
“[PA] President Mahmoud Abbas expressed his condemnation of the killing of Israeli civilians two evenings ago [May 5, 2022] (refers to terrorists As’ad Al-Rifai and Subhi Abu Shuqeir murdering 3 -Ed.). He emphasized that killing Palestinian and Israeli civilians will only bring about an additional deterioration in the situation, at a time when we all are striving to achieve stability and prevent an escalation.

President Abbas warned against the settlers and others exploiting this condemnable event to carry out attacks and retaliations against our Palestinian people. He emphasized his condemnation of the ongoing attacks against our people and its Islamic and Christian holy sites, which have created an atmosphere of tension and instability.

He noted that the cycle of violence emphasizes that a comprehensive and just permanent peace is the shortest and safest path to achieving security and stability for the Palestinian people, the Israeli people, and the peoples of the region.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 7, 2022]

The mild language of Abbas’ “condemnation”, which was almost identical to the language of his condemnation after the terror attack in Bnei Brak, on March 29, and the language of his condemnation after the terror attack in Tel Aviv on April 7, also reflects just how meaningless these condemnations are to both Abbas and the Palestinians.
Andy Levin’s ‘Two-State Bill’ Won’t Support Middle East Peace
In the absence of any coherent concept of conflict resolution, we are instead treated to a metaphysics of occupation. The occupation looms large over the entire bill and the entire output of expert analysis that underlies it. It is always cause and never effect. An FAQ accompanying Levin’s bill links to only one news article, a New York Times piece that labels the occupation as the “heart of the conflict.”

This, too, flies in the face not just of accumulated knowledge about conflict resolution in general, but also the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The occupation, in this rendering, exists on its own and explains everything in its wake. But this is nonsense. Occupations don’t cause war; they are the result of war. When two sides clash in an armed conflict, it is not unusual that at the end of the conflict, one or both sides (usually the winner, but sometimes both) is occupying territory previously held by the other. Ordinarily, this is where negotiations begin for a diplomatic settlement (an armistice, a truce, or even a full peace treaty). And once a new line is agreed upon (sometimes even the same as the line before the war, especially if that line was an internationally recognized border, which was not the case in 1967), both sides redeploy to opposite sides of it.

But to acknowledge this truth would mean acknowledging the twin truths of how the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began and why it has lasted so long. The occupation began with the defeat of a coalition of three Arab armies in their attempt to wipe Israel off the map. The occupation’s persistence lies in the refusal, initially of the defeated Arab states and later of the self-governing Palestinians, to accept any peace deal that would require full reconciliation with the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East.

The way to end this occupation is the same way previous occupations ended, by reaching some sort of diplomatic agreement that either ends the conflict completely or at least effects some sort of agreed-upon truce.

Levin’s bill, were it enacted, would never achieve its ostensible goal. It could achieve only two things. Between Israel and the Palestinians, it would actually entrench the conflict further by incentivizing precisely those actions that have made reaching a final peace accord difficult over the past two decades. In the United States, it would merely provide a basis for further moral disengagement from Israel within mainstream liberal politics and for additional demonization of Israel just outside of it.
Jonathan Tobin: The DeSantis affair The disgraceful politization of Jewish institutions
The museum’s decision only makes sense if one is prepared to view Jewish institutions as the moral equivalent of a cable news outlet like MSNBC, where only liberal or leftist voices are heard and conservatives are treated as not so much wrong as evil. That reflects the current atmosphere inside the Democratic Party, where even a supposedly moderate figure like President Joe Biden referred this week to supporters of former President Donald Trump by the term “MAGA world” and said they were “the most extreme political organization in American history.” In other words, Republicans like the Florida governor are not fellow citizens, neighbors or relatives, but extremist insurrectionists to be shunned if not targeted as bigots and potential terrorists.

Perhaps that’s not surprising to hear from anyone involved in today’s no-holds-barred political combat in which DeSantis is himself a notable pugilist.

But for a Holocaust museum to say, in effect, that anyone like him is to be treated as unfit to set foot in their building is both outrageous and an indication that such an institution is, like an MSNBC studio segment, a place where only a certain sort of person may be heard.

Subsequently, the museum claimed that it opposed DeSantis because it didn’t host political events. But as Abrams and Cohen pointed out, the same museum welcomed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)—the leading voice of the leftist “Squad” that is deeply hostile to Israel—in 2018. Equally controversial politicians like former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and current U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who spearheaded the Biden administration’s re-entry into the anti-Semitic U.N. Human Rights Council, have also appeared there.

The museum’s hypocrisy in canceling DeSantis while welcoming controversial liberal or left-wing Democrats demonstrates its shameless embrace of partisanship. But it also shows that for those involved in this institution, remembering the Holocaust isn’t a sacred Jewish duty but just another way of manipulating history to back up the political agendas of its staff and funders.

This ought to be a wake-up call for those of this museum’s backers who don’t want an important Jewish institution exploited by woke ideologues. This should also be true for anyone else who wishes to hold the line against the toxic influence of cancel culture elsewhere in the Jewish world.

Jewish venues should remain places where open discourse is possible, and friends of Israel and the Jews are welcomed, even if some disagree with them. The alternative is to stand by and watch as Jewish interests are sacrificed on the altar of leftist dogma.


New Views of Moderation, Resistance and the Holocaust in the Middle East
The real danger lies not only in denying that the Holocaust took place, but, worse, in rewriting history, especially by those who oppose peace and stability. Their main motive seems to be to perpetuate hatred and hostility so that the conflict -- their raison d'être and possibly also their careers -- remains continuous and immortal.

The real dispute in the Middle East is actually between two axes: an Axis of Moderation and an Axis of Resistance (to moderation, non-violence, normalization and peace).

Nothing, it seems, infuriates extremist groups or the Axis of Resistance more than bringing them face-to-face with such historical facts, and being able to cast aside all doubt about everything that is going on in Israel and that has been so maliciously and falsely reported

If matters were more peaceful and normal, everyone could go there and see the reality for themselves. This suppression of the truth seems, in fact, the main reason that so many are against normalization and fostering relationships between people across cultural and political divides: they want their own people to see only their version of reality.

Mohammad Dajani, a former Palestinian professor at Al-Quds University, had a different experience: he still lives in the midst of the conflict. His life is at risk because of the pragmatic position he chose: to solve the conflict rather than to perpetuate it.

[The Abraham Accords] made the voice of the Axis of Moderation louder and bolder. Supporters of the Axis of Resistance can no longer embarrass supporters of the Axis of Moderation, as they have done in the past, simply by accusing them of treason, or for doing nothing for the Palestinians or the Palestinian cause.

Peace cannot be built as long as extremism and ideological terrorism exist, and there can be no independent Palestinian state if generations are raised on violence and hatred in the absence of reason and logic.

Through the new Abraham Accords, which differ from previous models in that they actively promote peace and prosperity for the civil society, there is finally a glorious opportunity for people to see for themselves the reality of the Holocaust, for example, and better understand the dangers of radicalism, intolerance and racism to their own societies.
JCPA: The Recipe for an Explosion on the Temple Mount: Israel and the Palestinians Live in Parallel Worlds
For many Palestinians, the claim that Al-Aqsa is in danger is not just an incendiary slogan but a deep-seated belief. Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas sometimes explains that it was the Jews’ nature and their spheres of activity that caused their persecution in Europe. As Israel was observing Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), more than 200,000 Palestinian Muslims gathered on the Temple Mount to mark “Laylat al-Qadr” (the night on which the Koran was given to Muhammad), and they proclaimed: “In blood and spirit we will redeem you, O Al-Aqsa!” Some of them added: “Khaybar, Khaybar O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return!” (referring to the Prophet Muhammad’s killing of the Jews of the oasis of Khaybar). As Einstein put it, “It is harder to crack prejudice than an atom.”

In an interview with Christiane Amanpour on CNN, Prime Minister Bennett strongly objected to the claim of symmetry regarding terror. There is no symmetry, either, regarding incitement and education for hatred. In contrast to Israel, in the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, education for denying Israel’s right to exist and for contempt of Zionists is a fundamental, institutionalized plank, both domestically and in public diplomacy. By leveraging the image of the Palestinians’ victimhood, they aim to infuse the international discourse with the Palestinian narrative that denies the existence of the Jewish people and their right to a nation-state, not even on one grain of the soil of the Land of Israel/Palestine. The Zionist endeavor is portrayed as colonialist activity and Israel as an apartheid state, accompanied by declarations that the Zionists are utterly evil and all the disadvantaged groups must unite in the struggle against them. The claim that Hamas is behind this effort is only partially correct; the Palestinian Authority is leading it in the international sphere. The Benefits Will Not Help
As part of this indoctrination, the Palestinians deny the existence of the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount. They have indeed been able to advance resolutions in UNESCO, the UN General Assembly, and even the Security Council that ignore the site’s holiness to Jews and the Jewish connection to Jerusalem. The most important of these is UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which the Obama administration promoted toward the end of its tenure. Moreover, the Palestinians make sure to use the name “Beit al-Maqdis al-Mazum”—a temple whose existence they falsely claim—whenever alluding to the Jewish Temple, asserting that despite its efforts, Israel has not managed to find archeological evidence of the Jewish Temple’s existence. Several years ago, I spoke with a senior Palestinian official well-versed in Jewish history, and I expressed bafflement about the insistence on denying a historical fact. He told me that he, too, had personally expressed perplexity on that score to Arafat and was answered with the question, “What pension are you supposed to receive?” After that, he stopped asking hard questions.

Israel regards the Palestinian issue as a nuisance. With no possibility of reaching a permanent solution and seeking to ensure stability in the short term, it has decided to strengthen the Palestinian Authority and pacify the Gaza Strip with material benefits. It prefers to avoid a confrontation with the PA and Hamas on the issue of implementing sovereignty in Jerusalem and Arab population concentrations, and likewise around its international image. This approach indeed has certain advantages in the short term. However, it is likely to exact substantial costs in the medium and the long term because it creates a sense of achievement among our enemies, raises their hopes of further achievements in the conflict over who is right, and erodes Israeli deterrence.
PA: Sovereignty over Jerusalem, holy sites belongs to ‘State of Palestine’
The Palestinian Authority on Sunday rejected Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s remarks that all decisions regarding the Haram a-Sharif (Temple Mount) and Jerusalem would be made by the government of Israel.

“These statements are misleading and incorrect, as evidenced by the continuous incursions into the Aqsa Mosque and the restrictions on worshipers in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher during the recent holiday celebrations,” PA presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh said, according to a statement published by the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

“East Jerusalem, with its Islamic and Christian holy sites, is the eternal capital of the State of Palestine in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions, the latest of which was Resolution No. 2334, which affirmed that East Jerusalem is an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories, and that all forms of settlement are illegal in all Palestinian territories,” he said.

“The League of Nations Resolution of 1930 states that the ownership of the Aqsa Mosque, Al-Buraq Wall [the Western Wall] and the adjacent plaza belong to Muslims alone,” Abu Rudaineh said.

Any Israeli attempts “to legitimize its occupation of the lands of the State of Palestine, including East Jerusalem, are unsuccessful attempts,” he said.

“The only way to achieve security, peace and stability in our region, and the world as well, is recognition of the rights of our Palestinian people and recognition of international legitimacy resolutions that stipulate the necessity of ending the occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on the 1967 borders,” Abu Rudaineh said.

In a speech to the cabinet on Sunday, Bennett rejected Ra’am (United Arab List) chairman Mansour Abbas’s demand to give Jordan more say over decisions on the Temple Mount.
Zelensky and Putin double down on mutual Holocaust, Nazi comparisons
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin renewed their comparisons to the Holocaust and Nazism as they traded accusations over Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, in messages Sunday to memorialize the end of World War II.

Zelensky posted a video on Facebook to mark Ukraine’s Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation, held annually on May 8 since 2015, and observed to honor lives lost in conflicts such as World War II.

In the 15-minute black-and-white video, Zelensky is seen standing in the ruins of the town of Borodyanka, where an estimated 200-400 people were killed when the Russian army advanced on Kyiv early in the war. Throughout the video, Zelensky highlights what he says is the modern irrelevance of the slogan “Never again.”

“On February 24, the word ‘never’ was erased, shot and bombed, by hundreds of missiles at 4 a.m., which woke up the entire Ukraine,” Zelensky says. “We heard terrible explosions. We heard: Again!”

During the video, Zelensky compares major bombardments by the Luftwaffe during World War II of Warsaw in Poland and Coventry in England to current waves of destruction witnessed in Ukrainian cities such as Kharkiv and Mariupol.

Zelensky also laments that cities that witnessed the Nazi occupation were witnessing occupation for the second and third time in their history. “And our cities, which survived such a heinous [Nazi] occupation, that 80 years was not enough time to forget, saw the occupier again,” he said.
Ukrainian Holocaust survivors are being helped to flee Putin's army by a US-based charity in a 'complex and dangerous mission'
Ukrainian Holocaust survivors are being helped to flee Vladimir Putin's army by a US-based charity.

Elderly people whose earliest memories are of Nazi death camps are being rescued in a 'complex and dangerous mission' and finding refuge in Israel and Germany.

Galina Ploschenko, 88, who was trapped in a retirement home in the eastern city of Dnipro, was nervous when told she would be taken to Hanover. She said: 'They told me Germany was my best option. I told them, "I hope you're right".'

Ms Ploschenko lost her aunt and two cousins in the gas chambers. Around 100 of Ukraine's estimated 10,000 Holocaust survivors have so far been taken to safety.

Bryan Stern, from Project Dynamo, says his organisation has rescued around a dozen Jewish survivors and hopes to rescue another group soon.

Mr Stern, a US Army and Navy veteran, said: 'The irony is many of the Holocaust survivors were saved from the Nazis by the Russians. Now Russia is the aggressor.'

He added: 'They don't want to leave. Many are sick. The rescues are highly complex and dangerous.'

Mr Stern said Ivanka Trump, daughter of former US President Donald Trump, has provided 'invaluable' help to the rescue operation, which is being funded purely from private donations.
The Apology that Russia Won’t Make
In that sense, whether or not Putin apologized to Bennett for Lavrov’s comments specifically doesn’t really matter. The only statement that would count is exactly the statement that the Kremlin is incapable of delivering because doing so would quickly unravel the themes about the Nazi era that are packaged into Russia’s accompanying propaganda war over Ukraine.

The underlying point is that unlike Germany, Russia has never expressed official contrition for the centuries of Jew-hatred unleashed by its priests, nobles, intellectuals and party apparatchiks. Good dictator that he is, Putin has nurtured Jewish support through his own office, backing initiatives like the ambitious Museum of Jewish History in Moscow and cultivating a close relationship with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement and Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar, but he has never once addressed or apologized for Russian state antisemitism. He even had the temerity to suggest during a 2016 meeting with leaders of the European Jewish Congress (EJC) that European Jews anxious about antisemitism in their own countries would do well to move to Russia.

“Let them come to us!” Putin is said to have exclaimed. “During the Soviet period, they were leaving the country, and now they should return.” That last sentence was breathtaking in its dishonesty; by and large, Jews were not leaving the country during the Soviet period because the Soviet authorities actively prevented them from doing so! Hundreds of Soviet Jews suffered torture and imprisonment as a result of their efforts to make Aliyah, as well as to study the Hebrew language, the Jewish religion and anything that smacked of the “anti-human reactionary essence of Zionism,” as the Great Soviet Encyclopedia memorably put it.

What would a genuine Russian apology look like? To begin with, it would need to list the episodes that cemented Russia’s fearsomely antisemitic reputation. This would include, but not be limited to, the pogroms unleashed by the tsarist “Black Hundreds;” the blood libels promoted by the Russian Orthodox Church; the fabricated Protocols of the Elders of Zion published by the tsar’s secret police in 1903; the banning of Hebrew after the Bolshevik Revolution; the antisemitic campaigns engendered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin; the incarceration of Soviet Jewish refuseniks; and the myriad slanders against Zionism and Israel in official propaganda. The substance of the apology would be grasped through a simple acknowledgment of the facts of all these cases, ending the combination of lies, denials and evasions that has disfigured Soviet and Russian attitudes towards the Jewish people.

As long as Vladimir Putin is in the Kremlin — and as long as Russia remains a violently nationalist dictatorship with designs on its neighbors — such an apology remains wishful thinking. There is only one stance to adopt when Russia talks about the Jews and the Holocaust, even in the conciliatory tones that Putin used with Bennett: skepticism, skepticism and more skepticism.
Putin vows that ‘as in 1945,’ Ukraine will be liberated from ‘Nazi filth’
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday vowed that “as in 1945, victory will be ours” as he congratulated former Soviet nations on the 77th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II.

“Today, our soldiers, as their ancestors, are fighting side by side to liberate their native land from the Nazi filth with the confidence that, as in 1945, victory will be ours,” said Putin, who sent Russian troops into Ukraine in February.

“Today, it is our common duty to prevent the rebirth of Nazism which caused so much suffering to the peoples of different countries,” said Putin. He added he hoped “new generations may be worthy of the memory of their fathers and grandfathers.”

Putin also made multiple references not just to soldiers but also civilians on the “home front… who smashed Nazism at the cost of countless sacrifices.”

“Sadly, today, Nazism is rearing its head once more,” charged Putin, who has insisted that Ukraine is in the grip of fascism and a threat to Russia and the Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine’s east which Moscow claims to be “liberating.”

“Our sacred duty is to hold back the ideological successors of those who were defeated” in World War II, which Moscow dubs “the great patriotic war,” said Putin, as he urged Russians to “take revenge.”


Israel must go offensive to take war on terror away from the homefront
A year after Operation Guardian of the Walls, Israel’s military is desperately trying to avoid being dragged into another war.

With terror attacks across the country claiming the lives of civilians and security forces, the defense establishment is scrambling to prevent the next deadly attack before it happens.

Israeli security forces have been reinforced by thousands of troops in the West Bank and along the security fence, but that hasn’t stopped terrorists from carrying out plans driven by the incitement of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

With an advanced network of intelligence capabilities, security forces are not worried about not apprehending terrorists, but about stopping them.

The defense establishment is concerned about the ongoing incitement surrounding the Temple Mount or al Aqsa compound, worried that attackers have been older and more organized lone-wolves who have learned from past attacks how to evade Israel’s online intelligence offensive.

According to the investigation into Thursday night’s attack in Elad, one of the terrorists left behind a will saying that he was motivated by the recent unrest on the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

The two terrorists, who were caught Sunday morning, did not belong to any terror group and had no past history of security incidents. But like other terror attacks in the past two months, they planned their attack.


Analysis: Wave of Terrorism in Israel Continues, Hamas’ Role Becoming Evident
In a highly publicized speech days before the Elad strike, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar encouraged further terrorism and instructed perpetrators to use knives, guns, cleavers and axes.

In light of Sinwar’s speech, it is difficult to ignore the connection between Hamas’ incitement and the murder of civilians by so-called lone-wolf attackers.

Sinwar’s speech can be interpreted as evidence of Hamas’ direct involvement in the current wave of terrorism. Its incitement to murder civilians has largely gone unpunished and the latest assault, coupled with public outcry, could be enough to convince the Israeli political echelon to confront Hamas.

The latest offensive also introduces a new factor that wasn’t prominent in the last six weeks: Israeli public anger. Repeated terrorist strikes inside major Israeli cities have left 18 dead.

Hamas has also picked up on the Israeli public’s anger. The Brigades’ spokesperson issued an emphatic statement on Saturday saying last year’s Gaza conflict would look like an “ordinary event” if Hamas leaders were targeted for assassination by Israel.

Israeli security services have yet to capture Rafa’ani and Shakir, though their remaining freedom can likely be measured in hours or at most several days.
Words That Kill: Hamas and the Elad Terror Attack
Three Israelis were killed and several others sustained injuries in a Palestinian terrorist attack in the Orthodox city of Elad, near Tel Aviv, on May 5. Yonatan Havakuk, Oren Ben Yiftah and Boaz Gol were hacked to death with an ax in the final hours of Israel's Independence Day celebrations. The three men were fathers who left behind 16 orphans.

Just days earlier, Hamas' leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar had called on his supporters to murder Israelis with axes. As HonestReporting has pointed out, this incitement started long before the first major terrorist attack on March 22. A Hamas spokesman on March 17 said that "the Palestinian people are united behind the gun."

Yet few journalists have connected the dots. A survey of 18 US news outlets shows that only now, in the wake of the rampage in Elad, is Hamas' chronic incitement starting to make headlines.




Hamas Is Scared Out of Its Wits
No organization stood behind the past month’s terror attacks, and even the Temple Mount riots, in which several hundred Palestinians participated, failed to garner the support of the majority of the Palestinian public, who chose to stay on the sidelines.

At the end of the day, every Palestinian understands that Hamas is headed nowhere — one look at Gaza is sufficient to understand this. The terrorist organization is in charge of the Gaza Strip, and the situation of the local population has never been worse, with very little hope of it improving in the foreseeable future.

Hamas is trying to cause a flare-up in Judea and Samaria and among the Arab Israeli public because it fears a direct confrontation with the Israeli military on the Gaza border, for the State of Hamas will be the one to pay the price for any fighting in the strip. Hamas’s policy projects no sophistication or boldness, only weakness.

Even Yahya Sinwar’s attack on Islamist Ra’am party leader Mansour Abbas is proof that the Hamas chief and his associates fear that Abbas’s policy of integration into Israeli society is gaining popularity among Arab Israelis, and that many Palestinians would prefer Israeli citizenship if given the choice.

This is Israel’s great victory over Palestinian nationalism — but now is not the time to celebrate, as the chaos of the Palestinian arena poses a security challenge for Israel. These waves of terror require an active policy, not just maintaining the status quo or waiting until the next event on the calendar and the terror wave it might bring with it.
Hamas Threatens Suicide Bombings if Israel Attempts to Assassinate Sinwar
Gaza Strip-based Hamas terrorist group threatened Israel with violent escalation including suicide bombings should Israel make an attempt on the life of leader Yahya Sinwar or other top operatives, Palestinian media reported on Saturday.

A Hamas delegation in Egypt — which in recent years emerged as a reliable mediator between the Jewish state and the Palestinian terrorist group — said that “a return by Israel to the policy of assassinations of Hamas leaders will cause the return of explosions and bombings in occupied cities.”

Israel is facing a wave of terrorist violence that claimed 19 lives in the past two months, which many link to Sinwar’s incendiary rhetoric about the unrest at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount site.

In the aftermath of the Elad attack that left three dead and several injured on Thursday evening, Hamas delegation in Egypt said that any attempt to assassinate Sinwar would trigger an immediate war, while also stating that such attempts “do not frighten” them in the slightest.

“The price of such stupidity is known to the enemy,” Hamas representatives in Cairo reportedly said.
‘New Stage in War on Terrorism’: Palestinians Who Killed Three in Elad Attack Captured After 60-Hour Manhunt
Israeli security forces on Sunday arrested two Palestinian terrorists three days after they allegedly murdered three Israeli civilians in a stabbing attack in the central city of Elad.

“IDF soldiers operated over the weekend together with the Israel Police and Israel Security Agency (ISA) to catch the terrorists,” IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi said in a statement. “We will continue operating to stop terrorism and strengthen the security and sense of security of Israeli civilians.”

In a joint search effort involving a total of 800 soldiers from field intelligence and special forces units within the Israel Police, ISA and IDF, the two suspects —19-year-old As’sad al-Rifai and 20-year-old Emad Subhi Abu Shqeir, both from Rumana in the Jenin area of the West Bank — were caught adjacent to a quarry in a forested area close to Elad. The police’s aerial unit also assisted in the search with drones, radars and helicopters.

The two Palestinians were captured with the help of a group of IDF soldiers and intelligence forces, who spotted a bush that looked slightly irregular, a military official recounted.

“When they got closer, as they were scanning that area that they had according to intel, they saw actually the bush moving up and down,” the official said during a briefing.

In video footage from the arrest released by the Israel Police, al-Rifai identifies himself and his accomplice by their names. When asked by an officer what they were doing, al-Rifai says, “an attack… an attack in Elad.” When asked what happened in the attack, he responds, “[we] hit people… [me and] my friend, Subhi.”
Victim’s widow begs public not to ‘kill him’ again for driving terrorists unawares
The widow of one of the victims of the deadly terror attack in Elad last week on Sunday begged the public to not “kill him again” after it was revealed that her late husband unwittingly drove the terrorists to the scene of the attack.

Security officials have said As’ad Yousef As’ad al-Rifa’i and Subhi Emad Subhi Abu Shqeir, who carried out the deadly knife and axe attack, were driven by Oren Ben Yiftah, a 35-year-old driver from Lod, from the West Bank security barrier, where they are believed to have sneaked into Israel, to Elad.

Upon arriving, according to a statement from a security agency on condition of anonymity, the two attacked Ben Yiftah and killed him. From there, they headed up Ibn Gvirol Street, where they killed Elad residents Yonatan Havakuk and Boaz Gol.

All three victims were fathers in their 30s or 40s who left behind a combined 16 children.

“My husband Oren was a dear and beloved man, a man of peace, of unity,” his wife Nofar said in a video on Sunday.

“I turn to you keyboard warriors and call on you to show me a little compassion, to the widow, to my six children, to the family — we are broken and shattered. All Oren did was work as a shuttle driver and drive people. Oren is the victim of a terrorist attack. Do not kill him a second time.”
Elad attack BBC continues to avoid the word terror
The May 5th terror attack in the town of Elad in central Israel was the topic of two reports published on the BBC News website’s ‘Middle East’ page.

The first of those reports appeared several hours after the incident took place and its headline – “Elad attack: Three dead in central Israeli city” – failed to clarify that it concerned a terror attack.

All five versions of that report have the same opening line: “Three people have been killed and others wounded in what police say is a suspected terror attack in the central Israeli city of Elad.”

That is the only mention of the word terror in the entire report.

The various versions of the report suggest that there is some confusion at the BBC regarding the number of people murdered in terror attacks since March. In the initial version readers were told that:
“At least 15 people have been killed in Israel and the West Bank in the latest flare-up.”

In the next three versions of the report readers found an amended version of that statement which promotes the notion of equivalence between terror attacks and subsequent counter-terrorism operations.
Two terrorists who committed Elad attack captured

Terrorists captured in Forest after Trees & Rocks call the Police (satire)
Rosh Ha Ayin: Israeli Border Police are today hailing the quick-thinking of Rosh HaAyin’s community of rocks and trees. Earlier today they noticed the two latest sons of Amalek hiding in their midst, and in an amazing twist of the Hamas Charter, chose to call out to Law Enforcement that there were Terrorists hiding behind them. The Daily Freier was first on the scene, as we wanted an excuse to check out the Tandu Pub in Rosh HaAyin later.

As Border Police interrogated the terrorists, the Daily Freier managed to speak with one of today’s heroes, a Gharqad tree named Snir.

“I saw those idiots from Jenin trying to hide behind my trunk.” explained Snir as he conducted photosynthesis and swept his Mirpeset. “So I yelled at the Border Police in the next meadow.“

The Daily Freier inquired as to what exactly he yelled to the Police. “Eyy Gever there is a Terrorist behind me come and capture him.“

As the Daily Freier got ready to leave, IfNotNow had already posted a tweet calling Snir a racist.


IDF maps West Bank homes of Elad terrorists ahead of potential demolitions
The Israeli military said Sunday that troops were operating in the West Bank town of Rummanah, the hometown of two Palestinians suspected of carrying out a deadly terror attack late last week, in order to map out their residences ahead of a potential demolition.

As’ad Yousef As’ad al-Rifa’i, 19, and Subhi Emad Sbeihat, 20, were arrested Sunday morning in a forested area near the central Israeli city of Elad, about a kilometer from the scene of the attack.

Al-Rifa’i confessed to security forces that he committed the axe attack with Sbeihat, killing Oren Ben Yiftah, a 35-year-old driver from Lod, and Elad residents Yonatan Havakuk and Boaz Gol, both in their 40s.

A Rummanah resident said in a phone call with The Times of Israel that there were dozens of soldiers in the town. “The whole town is full of jeeps and dozens of soldiers. They’ve encircled the whole area. The atmosphere is tense,” he said.

The two are accused of hacking three Israelis to death with an axe in Elad, a mostly ultra-Orthodox city on Thursday. A knife was also believed to have been used in the attack.

Over the course of the manhunt, troops followed bloodstains believed to have been from injuries the pair sustained during the attack. Several of the victims fought with the terrorists, according to medical and security officials.

“We identified a clump of weeds in the thicket, moving at a breathing rate. We realized the terrorists were there. We surprised them, pulled them out, and they did not resist,” said Second Lt. Yud — who can only be identified by his first Hebrew initial — a deputy commander of a company in the IDF’s elite Maglan unit.


The speech President Lawrence Bacow of Harvard University needs to give
As the President of Harvard University, it is important for me to speak to you today about the responsibilities that we carry as members of this institution.

As students, you have earned the right to attend one of the world’s most esteemed universities. The Harvard name evokes intellectual rigor, thoughtful inquiry and the righteous pursuit of truth. Indeed, the telos of our university is veritas—truth. It is etched into our brick archways, and we wear it emblazoned above our hearts each time we don a Harvard shirt.

It is a source of immense pride that this institution produces generational leaders across every conceivable discipline. Our graduates shape the laws, policies, education and character of this nation. To mangle an idiom, what happens at Harvard does not stay at Harvard.

The diploma that you receive is accompanied by both opportunity and responsibility. That is why, in addition to your academic pursuits, we impress upon you our core values. They reflect our hopes for how you will conduct yourselves here on campus, but more importantly, how you will conduct yourselves as citizens of the world.

Respect for the rights, differences and dignity of others, honesty and integrity in all dealings, conscientious pursuit of excellence in one’s work, accountability for actions and conduct in the community, and responsibility for the bonds and bridges that enable all to grow with and learn from one another.

Those are our values, and they must be rigorously safeguarded. When these values are under attack, our community is under attack. For this reason, I want to address The Harvard Crimson editorial board’s recent endorsement of BDS.
Instagram removes supermodel Bella Hadid's anti-Israel post
In a post shared on Instagram Friday, supermodel Bella Hadid claimed the State of Israel was planning to force thousands of Palestinians from their homes. The post, which was shared mere hours after the gruesome terrorist attack in Elad led to Israeli users reporting the fictitious claim to the social media platform.

Instagram removed the post, apparently following a review of the content.

In a post to the social media platform last month, Hadid wrote: "My Instagram has disabled me from posting on my story – pretty much only when it is Palestine based I'm going to assume.

"When I post about Palestine I get immediately shadow banned and almost 1 million less of you see my stories and posts," she wrote.


Church of England apologizes for 800-year-old antisemitic laws
The Church of England has apologized for the anti-Jewish laws that the Catholic Church in England passed 800 years ago.

The event marks the anniversary of the 1222 Synod of Oxford, which culminated in the expulsion of England’s Jews 68 years later, followed by similar repercussions across Europe.

The event was attended by civic dignitaries and faith leaders, including Chief Britain’s Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and representatives of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.

In promulgating the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) the Synod added a range of further anti-Jewish measures for the medieval church in England. The resulting canons forbade social interactions between Jews and Christians, established specific church tithes on Jews and imposed the need for English Jews to wear an identifying badge. These prejudicial laws were followed by further anti-Jewish statutes and the mass expulsion of the Jewish community.

This anniversary, arranged in association with the Oxford Jewish Congregation, offers a symbolic opportunity to apologize for these actions. It also recognizes the positive re-framing of Jewish-Christian relations since the publication of Nostra Aetate (‘In Our Time’), a report of the Second Vatican Council in 1965 which states: ‘This Synod… deplores and condemns hatred and persecutions of Jews, whether they arose in former or in our own days’.

This understanding was reinforced by Welby’s call, in the 2019 Church of England report, God’s Unfailing Word, that :”only by looking back and recognizing our failures as Christians can we begin to move forward with authenticity.”
Jewish gangsters once took on Nazis in the streets of NYC
In 1938, New York City had a Nazi problem.

At the time, there were about 12 million German immigrants in the US, and most were happily assimilating. But about 1 in 500 were members of the German-American Bund, a national organization that avidly supported Adolf Hitler and pledged allegiance to Germany.

Its literature called the Jewish people a “menace” and a threat to democracy. In New York, the Bund held massive rallies, goose-stepping down the streets of the Upper East Side in brown-shirted uniforms with swastikas on their arms.

The demonstrations terrified New York’s Jewish community, many of whom had relatives in Europe and had been watching the headlines from Germany with growing alarm. A former US congressman and judge named Nathan David Perlman saw the path the Bund was on, and he wanted it stopped. He knew their actions weren’t illegal, but the judge had a revelation one evening while enjoying a cocktail in a Manhattan saloon.

“What those Nazis need is a good ass-whipping,” realized the judge, as Michael Benson describes in his new book, “Gangsters v Nazis: How Jewish Mobsters Battled Nazis in Wartime America” (Kensington), out now.

Perlman knew exactly who should deliver said “ass-whipping,” too. He called Meyer Lansky, New York’s preeminent Jewish gangster.

“You got some boys who might want to punch a Nazi?” he asked.

“I do, Judge,” the mobster answered. “Respectfully, you understand we can do better than punch? I know just the crew — in Brownsville. The boys in the press call them Murder, Inc.”
Man accused of arson, vandalism at synagogues and mosque
A 34-year-old Portland man suspected of intentionally setting a fire at a Muslim community center, as well as breaking windows at two Jewish congregations and leaving graffiti on one of them, was arrested Friday, Portland police said.

Michael Edgar Bivins was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center around 4 a.m. Saturday on five charges of arson and criminal mischief. Four of the charges are felonies.

Bivins was a freelance journalist who frequently covered protests in Portland over the past decade.

Bivins had written or co-written about 20 stories for Willamette Week between 2016 and 2019, according to the newspaper’s website. Willamette Week said on Saturday that it was conducting a review of his work.

A prolific live streamer of protests, Bivins occasionally shared his video with various news organizations, including The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Bivins had posted multiple hateful tweets in recent weeks, and tweeted April 17 that Twitter had locked his account for violating rules against abuse and harassment. Last month, Bivins tweeted that Oregon should do away with bias crime laws.

Beaverton police arrested Bivins after he went to the KPTV television news station around 2:30 p.m. Friday and demanded to speak to a reporter there. Portland police Sgt. Kevin Allen said Bivins had gone to the station’s Beaverton building on Wednesday as well.
Nazi flags flown at Disney World entrance - watch People took to social media to express their outrage and criticism towards Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for not issuing any condemnation of the incident.
Video footage showed people waving Nazi flags at the entrance to Disney World in Orlando, Florida on Saturday.

The original video was posted on TikTok and has garnered over 3 million views as of Sunday.

"We are sickened to our stomachs seeing Nazi flags flown at Disney World in Orlando, FL a few hours ago," tweeted non-partisan organization Stop Antisemitism.

Many social media users have taken to Twitter to express their outrage and criticized Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for not issuing any condemnation of the incident.

Last month, DeSantis signed a bill that strips Disney World of its status as an "independent special district," multiple media sources confirmed. Before then, Disney operated as an "independent government around its Orlando-area theme parks," according to a CNN report.


Israel Film Festival to showcase 30 films, series in Los Angeles
Thirty Israeli-made films and television series will be screened at the annual Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles.

These include Kan 11 spy drama "Tehran," the second season of which is streamed on Apple TV, Yes drama "The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem," which is also streamed on Netflix.

Israeli television creator, writer, director, and producer Hagai Levi received a special award at the ceremony for his contribution to Israeli cinema. Levi is known, among other things, for co-producing and directing "Scenes from a Marriage," an American drama television for HBO starring Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain.

Founded in 1982 by actor and producer Meir Fenigstein, the Israel Film Festival is the largest showcase of Israeli cinema and television in North America. Over the years, it has become a bridge connecting leaders in the television industry with Israeli companies.

The festival will run in theaters and virtually from May 5th-26th. The opening night kicked off with Israeli producer and director Avi Nesher's critically acclaimed "Image of Victory."

Also included in the festival are Eran Kolirin's "Let it be morning," Ben Bachar 's "Saving Shuli," Nir Bergmann 's "Here We Are," Kobi Farag's "Queen Shoshana," and Shlomi Eldar's "Running with a spy."
Maroon 5 visits Western Wall ahead of Tel Aviv concerts
Pop-rock band Maroon 5 visited the Western Wall on Sunday ahead of their concerts at Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv.

Maroon 5 announced that they would be coming to Israel for a concert in February, and the concert immediately sold out leading them to add an extra concert on Tuesday.

Like other artists who have performed in Israel, Maroon 5 faced pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to cancel the concert, but they did not cancel, and they will be performing two sold-out concerts.

Tomer Greenberg, this year's winner of the Israel Next Star competition was chosen to perform ahead of Maroon 5 to hype up the crowd.

The concerts in Tel Aviv follow two previous performances in Egypt and Abu Dhabi as part of the Middle East leg of their world tour.




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