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Tuesday, January 23, 2024

01/23 Links Pt2: Israeli Patriotism in Full Bloom; The UN is a morally decayed institution paving the way for another Holocaust; At Auschwitz With Elon Musk

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Israeli Patriotism in Full Bloom
Why, besides for the rally-round-the-flag effect of the attacks and their response, has Hamas’s slaughter made those in the line of fire more eager to stay put? The answer is one the Jewish community already knows too well but the rest of the world struggles to understand.

Ben-Haim told the Post that when he saw a Black Lives Matter account praise the Hamas attacks, he thought of the BLM shirt that hangs in his closet and the marches he wore it to.

Another Israeli liberal the Post spoke to, Shai Rapoport, learned that his fellow Londoners might have joined him in protesting the Israeli government’s judicial reform for reasons that differed quite a bit from Rapoport’s. “After Oct. 7, he said, he felt a chill from his liberal and Muslim friends. Then outright hostility. Now he’s moving back to Israel, wars and all.”

Still in London at the time of the interview, he told the Post: “I felt that people who were once my friends have become my aggressors. Here, I feel terribly alone.”

After Oct. 7, nobody fooled themselves into thinking that they were safer in the long run outside of Israel. Safer or even welcome, that is. Notice that Rapoport didn’t “feel a chill from his liberal and Muslim friends” after, say, Oct. 27, when Israel launched its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. He felt that chill “after Oct. 7.” As soon as Jews in one place were victimized, Jews everywhere became targets of suspicion, or worse. Same thing happened in America, where pro-Hamas protests began immediately after the massacre of innocent Israelis in their homes. The BLM tweet that Ben-Haim saw was posted on Oct. 10.

Everywhere in the world, consciously or subconsciously, the Jews are considered guests. Everywhere except for one country. The unspeakable horrors of Oct. 7 didn’t convince Jews they were unsafe in Israel; they reminded Jews of Israel’s necessity.
Matti Friedman: Readjusting Sights
Tomer read Adjusting Sights a few years ago, when he was in tenth grade. The intimate relationship among very different men was familiar to him now, he said. He mentioned a tank in his unit with a Russian-speaking gunner, a stringently observant loader-radioman, an officer who grew up religious but isn’t serious about it, and a Druze driver. “In the beginning everything was a mess,” he said of the beginning of the war, “but then the muscle memory and the Armored Corps discipline kicked in.” This, too, reminded him of the book. When his brigade went into Gaza City, he and his crewmates were in the tank for fifty hours straight. As I write these lines, they’re back there, facing Hamas fighters armed with RPGs and magnetic bombs they try to stick to the sides of the Israeli tanks.

In quiet moments, Tomer said, the men talk about why Israel must fight and about the need to retaliate for October 7. They differ about politics but not about that. There isn’t much talk about faith in God, he said, nothing like “Gunner, pray!” If the men share a belief in anything, he said, it’s the tank. He spoke about the Merkava IV like young men from other countries might describe their first cars. The armor plates are angled just so to deflect rockets; every detail in the turret is engineered for the safety and convenience of the crew; navigation and communication are at your fingertips on screens. “There were minutes when I was dying to get out, of course,” he said. “But it’s truly a wonder of creation. We have faith in the machine.”

When I met Sabato, I asked if he’d change anything if he wrote the book now. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s an artistic book, not a newspaper article. It was written about experiences that ripened after decades and expresses an internal truth that doesn’t change with time.”

Since this war began, we’ve heard stories that might have been drawn from pogroms or medieval persecutions. We’ve seen images of cruelty, suffering, and heroism that seem biblical. In Adjusting Sights, the Amshinover Rebbe blesses the young soldier leaving for the war with a passage from the book of Exodus: “May dread and fear befall them,” the rabbi says, and adds, “Them and not you.”

Gunsights won’t be enough, the book tells us, and neither will the ideas of the modern world. It’s 2023 and 1973 and 70 CE. Gunner, pray.
Jews Are Indigenous to Israel; They Are Not Colonizers
The remains of at least 80 synagogues, built after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE have been identified, and while most are in Galilee, others have been discovered throughout the land.

I had initially been under the impression that Jewish life in the Holy Land more or less ceased after the fall of Masada in 70 CE. I knew the 70 CE date was not a sharp demarcation. After all, the Bar Kokhba revolt, an even greater challenge to Roman rule than the one that ended at Masada, occurred 70 years later, and the meeting of rabbis in Bnei Brak portrayed in the Passover Haggadah must have taken place around the year 100. Yet, the ruins I’ve described indicate that a large and prosperous Jewish community persisted for hundreds of years after the destruction of the Temple.

I was not the only one blown away by the Bar’am ruins. Edward Robinson, one of the first to identify the Bar’am ruins as synagogues (there were two), who was an important Bible archeologist of the 1800s, made the same point in a book (written with Eli Smith) called Biblical Researches in Palestine (1856).

Encountering the synagogues at Bar’am (Kafr Bir’im), they wrote, “The size, the elaborate sculptured ornament, and the splendour of these edifices do not belong to a scattered and down-trodden people.” They add, “All these circumstances would seem to mark a condition of prosperity and wealth and influence among the Jews of Galilee in that age, of which neither their own historians, nor any other, have given us any account.”

The comment about the lack of attention to this period of Jewish life is still true today, 168 years later. One of the only news articles about the history of the Bar’am synagogues that I could find was one by Joe Yudin (“Baram’s Ancient Synagogue,” The Jerusalem Post, 2012).

In fact, Jews formed a majority of the population of Palestine until at least the 5th century. An autonomous Jewish Patriarchate existed until the year 425, and the Jerusalem Talmud was written there (mostly in Galilee) during the early centuries of the Common Era. Two additional Jewish revolts, against Byzantine rule in the 4th and 7th centuries, also indicate that a substantial Jewish population lived in Palestine.

While it is true that from the sixth or seventh century until modern times, Jews formed a minority of the population of Palestine, periodic immigration (aliyah) ensured that their numbers were appreciable throughout the years. Besides, indigeneity is not dependent on numbers, and Palestinian indigenous status does not invalidate the Jewish one.

Palestine is the name given Judea by the Romans in 136 CE, as punishment after the failed Bar Kokhba revolt. The Arab conquest of Palestine took place in 637 CE, when Umar Al Khattab captured Jerusalem from the Byzantine Empire. Now, in a deliberate inversion of the truth, the indigenous homeland of the Jews is “occupied” when Jews live there.


Elon Musk visits Auschwitz, says he is 'aspirationally Jewish'
Elon Musk, who has been accused of allowing antisemitic messages on his social media platform, X, visited the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp on Monday, saying afterward that the tragedy of the Holocaust "hits you much more in the heart when you see it in person."

Musk toured the most notorious extermination camp established by Nazi Germany during World War II before attending a conference on antisemitism organized by the European Jewish Association in the nearby Polish city of Krakow. He admitted to having been "naïve" about the extent of antisemitism until recently, saying that is because most of his friends are Jewish and he has had little contact with it in his own life.

"In the circles that I move, I see almost no antisemitism," Musk said at the conference in a discussion with conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire. "And, you know, there's this old joke 'I've got like this one Jewish friend.' No, I have like two-thirds of my friends are Jewish. I have twice as many Jewish friends as non-Jewish friends. I'm like Jewish by association, I'm aspirationally Jewish."

He defended his X platform as a place where freedom of speech flourishes, saying that a free exchange of ideas is something that ultimately helps to correct hatred, noting that the Nazis shut down freedom of press and information. "The overarching goal for the X platform is to be the best source of truth in the world," he said. The "relentless pursuit of the truth is the goal with X and allowing people to say what they want to say, even if it's controversial, provided that it does not break the law."

The billionaire has faced accusations from the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish civil rights organization, and others of tolerating antisemitic messages on the platform, formerly known as Twitter, since purchasing it in 2022. He sparked an outcry in November, including from the White House, when he responded on X to a user who accused Jews of hating white people and professing indifference to antisemitism by posting, "You have said the actual truth." He later apologized for the comment, calling it the "dumbest" post that he's ever done.
At Auschwitz With Elon Musk
I visit Auschwitz with Elon Musk; Donald Trump cements his status as de facto Republican nominee before the New Hampshire primary as Ron DeSantis drops out; and the media begin laying out their attack plans against Trump.


True origins of the Palestinian Arab war against Israel
“The war has begun in Palestine…. we greet and bless these heroic operations.” Ata Abu Rmeileh, Fatah (January 28, 2023)

From the Palestinian Arab side, a new and exterminatory war against Israel began not with the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, but a year ago, in mid-January 2023. Significantly, the most conspicuous announcement of this terror-war came not from Hamas, but from Fatah.[1] Though it is now customary to treat Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) and Fatah (Palestinian National Authority) as bitter rivals, they remain indistinguishable on at least one primary objective. This goal is a presumptive religious obligation to expunge Israel from the Dar al-Islam.

In law, merely an announced intention to achieve such physical removal (i.e., genocide) represents an egregious crime. Although authoritative international law does allow for certain distinctly residual uses of insurgent force, especially if directed to “self-determination,”[2] these allowances never include any correlative rights of “heroic” (i.e., indiscriminate) destructiveness. As for “revenge,” always a popular rationale glorified by Hamas and Fatah, it is never a permissible or law-based justification.

Still, in January 2023, Fatah leadership in Jenin boasted that “the war had begun in all of Palestine,” and that it would not stop “until there is revenge for every pure drop of blood of our righteous martyrs…”[3]

What pertinent conclusions should be drawn from such expressly barbarous intentions? To begin, the ongoing “intifada” in Gaza represents a law-violating operation. Under no valid legal standards could it possibly define a plan for peace, justice or human dignity.

This expansive Palestinian Arab violence has not “only” sought to bring lethal harms to non-combatant Israeli population, it also aims to elicit Israeli counter-attacks against civilian Palestinian Arabs. In essence, the Palestinian lArab eadership, whether Hamas or Fatah, seeks to make “martyrs” of unwitting or exploited Palestinian Arabs in Gaza for propagandistic benefit. At the same time, this leadership lives out comfortably secure lives in assorted Gulf State luxury hotels.

There are multiple ironies and many associated details. Various Jewish targets are being identified by terrorists elsewhere in the region, not just in Gaza. Whatever the selected venues, civilian Arab populations are once again among the hapless victims of an “heroic” Palestinian “uprising.”

Taken as a whole, the Palestinian Arab plan for Israel defines a lethal oscillation of Arab and Israeli destructiveness. “Justice,” we should have all learned from Plato, has several dimensions. Above all, it represents “a contract neither to do nor to suffer wrong.”[4]

By its obligatory war against barbarous Palestinian Arab terror, Israel is the only party to meaningfully honor this “contract.” For those who may care to forget, Hamas criminals raped both male and female Israelis on October 7, 2023, children as well as adults.

There is more. In bewilderingly complex calculations, law and strategy are interrelated. Accordingly, for Israeli planners, it is important that legal questions be considered in tandem with military ones.
The newest version of the oldest hatred
We see that today a new version of this hatred is being formed before our eyes which can be defined as “global”, by which I mean intrinsically linked to “globalization” and its international socio-political order. One could say “planetary”. In other words, hatred is no longer directed against the nation but against humanity.

“Deconstructed” (the “academic” credo of postmodernism!), it conceals several levels of reality.

1) It no longer declares that it hates Jews, but Israelis, but non-Israeli Jews are de facto also targeted in all Western countries, because there are no more Jews in Arab-Muslim countries or very few. Some 900,000 Jews were hunted down and despoiled from 1940 to 1970. They are in some way still hunted down by the Muslim world, among them the 600,000 Jews who during this period took refuge in Israel, but also those who found refuge, 300 000, particularly in France, in countries where an immigrant population subsequently settled.

2) It presents itself as an anti-colonial struggle and national resistance while it is waging a supposedly progressive war of religion – as anti-colonialism dictates – which has become the Trojan horse of the politicization of Islam in Western countries. Its roots date back to the post-war years when the Soviet Union maintained a latent tension with the free world, in the Third World and non-aligned movement. In 1964 in Ceausescu’s Romania the KGB created the “Palestinian nation” resisting Western colonialism. Arafat (who was not a “Palestinian” but an Egyptian Arab) was dressed in the garb of a Che Guevara-style guerrilla, with the aim of seducing the “useful idiots” (Lenin’s expression) of the European left.

Something remained of this as we see today in the monstrous confusion which celebrates the Islamist cause and the totalitarian and terrorist Palestinian organizations in the name of the supposed ideals of the progressive left.

3) It carries out operations in two areas at the same time: terrorist operations on the one hand, international legal action, in Israel itself and in the countries of the Arab-Muslim diaspora, on the other. Terrorist acts are carried out in the manner of ritual murders, human sacrifices (by terrorists described as “martyrs” of the faith), in the name of God while the judicial attempt to banish Jews from humanity before the Hague Tribunal and the UN bodies, aims to exclude Jews from the community of citizens of Western states. In France, I am thinking of the two bills presented to parliament by the LFI party, aimed at declaring and repealing Israeli apartheid. At the UN as in Paris, the goal is the same: delegetimise the Jews to better exclude them, eliminate them, eradicate the State of Israel, “legally” and “morally”.

4) The narrative of this hatred is based on two lies: the Nakba, the supposed genocide of the Palestinians during the creation of Israel in 1948, and the apartheid from which the Palestinians suffer today. Two lies, two misappropriations of historical reality. This is a belief specific to Palestinian hatred of Jews and there is no point in testing it through historical reality, as it has been done a thousand times in terms of history and facts. These myths aim to confer upon oneself a victimhood condition which solicits pity from the West and justifies violence.

5) These new ideological motives do not prevent the recycling of archaic antisemitic tropes: the global conspiracy and the ritual murder of non-Jewish children. The child-killing Jew, as we will have noticed, is particularly present in the media coverage of Gaza in particular.
The UN is a morally decayed institution paving the way for another Holocaust
After Hamas terrorists brutally murdered my father eight years ago, I spoke at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on the dangers of Palestinian incitement to terror. What I witnessed there was shocking and appalling.

I heard dozens of countries attacking Israel with baseless accusations and hateful rhetoric. The blatant antisemitism was horrifying, pure evil. I felt like I was in a nightmare. As I left the United Nations, I was invited to speak at a pro-Israel rally. The first words that came out of my mouth were “We survived Auschwitz as a people, and in there, they are laying the ideological train tracks to put us back in, that’s what’s going on, and that’s what’s been going on for years and years.”

Israel’s “trial” at the International Court of Justice is another painful reminder of this.

The UN was established in 1945 with a noble vision: to ensure international peace and security, foster cooperation and dialogue among nations, and protect human rights and dignity for all people.

Yet, over the years, the UN has deviated from its vision and betrayed its founding principles. It has become a stage for dictators and despots who want to expand their power and influence in the world and undermine true democracies.

The UN has lost its moral authority and credibility and has turned into a hindrance and a burden for the progress of peace, justice, and freedom. On a practical level, it has failed to achieve its goals, as evidenced by the long list of wars and genocides that it could not prevent. If the UN were a business, it would have gone bankrupt long ago; if it were a country, it would have faced a revolution. Sadly, the UN is a complex institution that survives on inertia and the illusion of its founding dream, so it persists.


The man behind one of the most popular pro-Israel social media feeds
Users of X (formerly Twitter) who follow news from Israel may have noticed an account called Visegrad24 frequently popping up on their feeds in recent months with headlines and videos about the war between the Jewish state and Hamas.

Tweeting a dozen or more times per day, Visegrad24 can go from posting videos of the IDF dropping leaflets over Gaza, to marking the death of “one of the bloodiest mass-murderers in history…dictator and…psychopath” Vladimir Lenin, to noting that Miss America 2024 is an active-duty U.S. Air Force servicemember.

The mysterious account, which shares its name with a grouping of central European countries and was named for a Medieval gathering of kings from the region, has over 900,000 followers on X and its founders report over 3 billion impressions since the war began. It once described itself as “aggregating and curating news, politics and current affairs from Central and Eastern Europe,” with emojis of all the Visegrad states other than Slovakia. It gained international prominence after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but its rise has been even more meteoric since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, gaining hundreds of thousands of followers and leading the account to drop its region of origin from its bio.

Visegrad24 is one of the “new elites” on X influencing the discourse on the war, according to an October 2023 report by the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public. The study named it in the top news-focused account in views of tweets, surpassing traditional news outlets like CNN and The New York Times.

As a result, questions are now emerging about the people and ideas behind the account. “Propaganda or aspiring news outlet?” one article asked. The Marker, Ha’aretz‘s Hebrew-language business paper, said Visegrad24 “spreads a blatant pro-Israel and pro-Ukraine narrative, including through fake news,” written by “a pair of Polish right-wing extremists who take an Islamophobic and Xenophobic line.” Polish sites have speculated about ties between Visegrad24 and Poland’s recently voted-out right-wing government, whose ministers frequently cited and praised the account.

One of the men behind Visegrad24, Stefan Tompson, 30, stepped out from the shadows and gave Jewish Insider a rare interview this month in which he pushed back against the accusations. Tompson discussed the mission of his social media operation, his support for Israel and how it fits with his Polish patriotism, and his view of the West as a civilization under threat.

The operation is funded by the Tompson brothers’ PR firm and uses its staff. They make some money from X subscriptions, but “it doesn’t keep the lights on,” Tompson said. They also recently registered as a 501(c)3 in the U.S., in order to receive donations. Tompson denied reports that he is funded by the Polish government, saying that he applied for a grant, but was rejected.

Tompson spoke during a visit to Tel Aviv this month to create content in support of Israel, his second-ever visit to the Jewish state after a prior Catholic pilgrimage. In addition to visiting sites of the Oct. 7 massacre and Hostages Square, Tompson and his team set up a studio in his hotel on the shore of the Mediterranean to interview survivors of the Nova Party massacre, Holocaust survivors, politicians, activists, singer Matisyahu and more. His team has also traveled to Ramallah and Jerusalem to film content and conduct interviews.

“I’m not as interested in the war as I am in showing what this country is,” Tompson said. “I don’t think the war is this country…Israel presents itself through the wrong lens. It has to present itself as strong because it’s surrounded by states that don’t wish it well – but Europe, the U.S., especially the left, look at the world through a different lens and judge the world by their own metrics.”
Inna Get Your Gun
In August, Inna Vernikov, who represents parts of southern Brooklyn on the New York City Council, was giving a live television interview on Brighton Beach Avenue, the city’s main thoroughfare for immigrants from the former Soviet Union, when a male passerby barged into the frame. He leaned toward Vernikov, who bears a more-than-passing resemblance to Amal Clooney, and kissed her on the cheek, then laughingly went on his way.

Vernikov has long, flowing raven-black hair and high, pronounced cheekbones. But when she speaks, it is in the plain, unvarnished language of Brooklyn’s hinterlands. She responded to the unwanted advance in a tone that was once the hallmark of New Yorkers but which had, of late, become harder to find in the wild: “What the fuck?”

The clip went viral, earning the first-term legislator a share of national attention that has only grown in the ensuing six months. The 39-year-old Vernikov has emerged as a tribune for New Yorkers dismayed by the proliferation of cannabis shops, the unruliness that has become more common in the subway system, the migrant crisis and, most recently, pro-Palestinian protests shutting down streets and bridges.

“I’m very loud,” Vernikov told me unapologetically in her legislative office, which is tucked away on Gravesend Neck Road next to an auto body shop, in a part of Brooklyn where scenesters and hipsters don’t tread. “I’m not afraid to speak up about things that I know other people are afraid to speak up about,” she says.

At a time when some Jews worry about being marked for hate by the mezuzahs on their doorways, Vernikov has embraced the opposite approach. In a recent Fox News interview, she wore a bright blue blazer over a white turtleneck, against which a silver Star of David necklace stood out, catching the studio light. Since Oct. 7, Vernikov’s strong, unapologetic, pro-Israel stance has augmented her popularity with her constituents, while attracting national media attention.

“This is not just about us, this whole war with Hamas,” Vernikov argues. “It’s not just about Jews. They’re against the West.” It is a version of Samuel Huntington’s controversial clash-of-civilizations argument, only the battle lines have been warped by social media and the American academy’s uncontrolled drift into postcolonial incoherence. These days, the would-be revolutionary plastering “decolonize Brooklyn” stickers all over Crown Heights is most likely an Oberlin grad, or an Etsy project manager.
Far-Left Organization To Train Teachers How To Incorporate Palestinian ‘Narratives’ Into The Classroom
A pro-Palestinian group that previously downplayed Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attacks against Israel will be training teachers in Oakland, California, on Saturday to incorporate “Palestinian history, narratives, and culture into K-12 classrooms,” according to a parental rights group.

According to a flyer shared with The Daily Wire by Parents Defending Education, the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) will be holding a Saturday training called “Palestine in Our Classrooms: Teaching to the Moment — 75 Years of Resistance, Resilience, and Sumood.” MECA has come under scrutiny for its response to the October 7 terrorist attacks and ties to the Democratic Socialists of America.

The training will take place from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. at an undisclosed location in Oakland at a cost of $25. Highlights of the training will reportedly include hearing “Palestinian and Arab Youth speak” on “the effects of invisibility and silencing,” “teaching Palestine through the arts — hip-hop to murals,” “multiple perspectives framework for teaching Palestine — focus on Gaza,” and “teaching about Palestine through stories — designed for k-5 educators.”

Parents Defending Education director for outreach Erika Sanzi told The Daily Wire that the training was just an attempt to politicize the classroom.

“There is no reason for K-5 teachers to be talking about any of this with their students. The Teach Palestine organization is providing this training because it sees teachers as a vehicle for indoctrinating young children into their geopolitical worldview during the hours they are away from their parents. It is a definite red flag,” she said.
Vermont School District Class Features Unit Discussing “Palestinian Social Movements”
A class focusing on “social movements and protests” at a Vermont school district has a unit discussing “Palestinian social movements,” according to documents obtained by the grassroots organization Parents Defending Education (PDE) via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) act.

The course, titled “U.S. and the Modern World: Social Movements and Protest,” is an elective for juniors and seniors at the Champlain Valley School District (CVSD) in Shelburne, Vt. and one of the units in the course “is spent discussing Palestinian social movements against Israel,” per PDE. “The unit begins with a video detailing the history of Palestinian uprisings against Israel and declares, ‘Until … Israel ends its occupation, we will continue to see Palestinians struggle for their rights on our screens,’” the PDE states on its website.

The video, titled “Brief Animated History of Palestine,” states, among other things, that Israel “claimed much more of Palestine than the [1947 United Nations] partition allocated” after declaring independence in 1948 and “more than half of the Palestinians were expelled from or fled their homes and ended up in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza and neighboring countries.” “Palestinians refer to this as the nakba, or catastrophe,” the video adds. The video does not mention that the Jews in what was then Mandatory Palestine actually accepted the partition plan, but the Arabs did not and instead launched a war against the newly established state of Israel.

Additionally, the course suggests the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and the Palestine Campaign as “possible social movements” to cover. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the PYM “has expressed support for terrorism against Israel and frequently engages in inflammatory rhetoric about Zionism, including calls to stigmatize and ban Zionists from community spaces.” As examples, the ADL pointed to a PYM speaker at a protest in Washington, D.C. following the Oct. 7 massacre declaring that the “settler colonial project was in greater danger than before and scrambling in the face of the steadfastness of the Palestinians.” Additionally, the ADL noted that other PYM-sponsored protests have featured signs stating, “Zionism is fascism, Colonizers out at DC” and “Congress is Israeli occupied territory.”

The Palestine Campaign, per the PDE, states on their website that the Oct. 7 massacre “can only be understood in the context of Israel’s ongoing military occupation and colonization of Palestinian land, and imposition of a system that meets the legal definition of apartheid.”

Any Jewish and Israeli perspectives are excluded from the course, per the PDE.

“This course is illustrative of a troubling trend of completely one-sided content that seeks to convince students that Palestine is good and Israel is bad,” PDE Director of Outreach Erika Sanzi said in a statement to the Journal. “The bias is staggering but also not surprising because this is what so many schools teach now.”

The district did not immediately respond to the Journal’s request for comment.

UPDATE: Rene Sanchez, superintendent of the district, told the Journal in an email that the course is being featured at Champlain Valley Union (CVU) High School in Hinesburg, Vt. and that the district “is a learning institution that engages in inclusive practices that help our community implement the shared vision from our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work. This vision strives to ‘create and sustain safe, diverse, equitable, and inclusive learning ecosystems that meet individual needs, foster belonging, acknowledge histories, and cultivate and celebrate identities and stories.’
Bassam Tawil: Wanted: Palestinian Leaders Who Will Condemn Terrorism
More than three months have passed since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, during which hundreds of Israelis were murdered, beheaded, raped, mutilated, and kidnapped -- and it is still hard to find any senior Palestinian Authority official who is prepared to condemn the atrocities.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has held a number of meetings over the past few weeks with senior US administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, has refrained from publicly denouncing the Iran-backed Hamas terror group for its barbaric attacks on Israelis.

Abbas, it appears, fears a backlash from his people and other Arabs if he speaks out against the murder of Israeli women, children, and the elderly. One word against Hamas and its terrorism, and Abbas' people might well label him a "traitor" and "collaborator" with Israel.

Abbas's fear is not unjustified. Almost three out of four Palestinians believe that the October 7 massacre was "correct," according to a public opinion poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research Survey (PSR). The poll also found that support for Hamas had risen in the Gaza Strip, and more than tripled in the West Bank, after the carnage.

Abbas most likely not only fears his own people, but also Hamas. He has hardly forgotten how Hamas staged a violent coup against him and the Palestinian Authority in 2007, killing dozens of his loyalists in the Gaza Strip. Some of Abbas's men were thrown off rooftops, while others were dragged to the street and lynched by Hamas terrorists. "We haven't forgotten how they [Hamas] amputated legs and threw people off rooftops," said Palestinian lawyer and political analyst Zaid al-Ayoubi.

This is the same Abbas that the Biden administration is hoping to hand the Gaza Strip over to after the removal of Hamas from power. Biden administration officials believe that a "revitalized" Palestinian Authority would be able to control the Gaza Strip in the post-Hamas era. Exactly what these officials mean when they talk about a "revitalized" Palestinian Authority, however, remains murky.

If the Biden administration thinks that the Palestinian Authority leaders will cease inciting Palestinians against Israel, they need to think again. In fact, Abbas and the Palestinian Authority have stepped up their anti-Israel rhetoric since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. Instead of denouncing Hamas for initiating the war, the Palestinian Authority has been accusing Israel of committing "war crimes," "genocide," and "ethnic cleansing" against the Palestinians. These false accusations are broadcast by the Palestinian Authority and its leaders on a daily basis.
Iran-backed narco-terrorists are making billions and widening the war in the Middle East
Secretary of State Antony Blinken toured the Middle East this month in an effort to prevent a wider regional war.

But while Blinken was there, Jordanian jet fighters struck Iran-backed militias and narco-traffickers in Syria.

Jordan’s narco-battles have received scant attention but are part and parcel of Iran’s multifront offensive against the United States and its allies across the region.

Iran-backed Hamas provoked the war with Israel, while Iran-backed Hezbollah attacks Israel daily from across the Lebanese border.

The Iran-backed Houthis are striking ships in the Red Sea.

And Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria have attacked American bases there more than 130 times since mid-October.

The lure of immense profits drives the drug trade, but Iran and its proxies also sense an opportunity to destabilize Jordan, a country that serves a vital role — geographically and politically — in sustaining a regional order favorable to US interests.

By infiltrating Jordan with large hauls of the amphetamine-like drug captagon — whose trade was estimated in 2021 at $5.7 billion and has only grown since — as well as explosives and other arms, the narco-traffickers pursue both objectives.

Jordanian troops have been clashing regularly with smugglers at the Syrian border for more than two years.

Amman is now escalating its campaign by taking military action inside Syrian territory.
Cotton: Democrats ‘Bizarrely Superimpose’ DEI Worldview on Middle East
Sunday on FNC’s “Life, Liberty & Levin,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) attempted to rationalize the Biden administration and Democrat views on Israel and the Middle East.

The Arkansas Republican speculated it had something to do with what draws the American left to so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, which he accused Democrats of attempting to apply to foreign policy.

“They’re pushing not a two-state solution, but a final solution of Israel, that Israel is the problem and causing all of these problems in the Middle East,” host Mark Levin said. “Is that their mentality, you think?”

“I think that’s part of the reason, Mark,” Cotton replied. “Again, the Democrats have projected American partisan politics onto the region. So if you were opposed to Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, then you are by definition wearing a red jersey. You are aligned with the Republican Party, and who was doing that more than anyone else? Prime Minister Netanyahu because he knew that that nuclear deal would lead to a nuclear-armed Iran, which is an existential threat to the Jewish people. But not just Israel, it is also Arab leaders like Mohammed bin Zayed in the United Arab Emirates, or Mohammad bin Salman in Saudi Arabia who opposed it. What did Joe Biden say about Mohammed bin Salman? That he was going to make him a pariah. Again, they have imposed partisan politics on the Middle East.”

“But I think it goes deeper than just partisan politics, it also goes into their philosophical worldview here in America,” he continued. “Again, in this diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI worldview, they are always aligning what they consider to be the oppressed or the victimized or the minorities, and they bizarrely superimpose that on the Middle East, and specifically on Hamas and Palestinian terrorism and they view Israel as colonizers and oppressors, and Hamas as victims, not the Jewish victims of Hamas who were tortured and mutilated and burned alive on October 7. So it’s a combination of both the Democratic Party partisan views, but also their deeper philosophical views that they projected onto the Middle East, and specifically on to Israel. That’s one reason why the Democratic Party up to and including Joe Biden has such deeply held antagonistic feelings towards Prime Minister Netanyahu and have for a very long time.”
How Biden’s Menthol Cigarette Ban Could Line Terrorists' Pockets
The Biden administration’s bid to ban menthol cigarettes will open a lucrative black-market trade, bringing in millions of dollars for terrorist organizations, including Iran-backed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, according to a Republican senator.

Since May 2022, the Biden administration has been championing a proposal that will eliminate menthol-flavored cigarettes from American stores. Around 40 percent of adult smokers prefer mentholated cigarettes, and they are particularly popular with black Americans, according to the American Lung Association.

With the menthol market still booming, the Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to enact an outright ban will likely create a massive black market for Mexican cartels and a host of terror groups known to work alongside them, such as al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah, according to Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), who sent a letter on Monday to multiple federal agencies seeking information on how they plan to combat the potential for terrorism financing.

"The FDA’s proposed rule to ban menthol cigarettes would allow terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah to rake in millions from black market menthol cigarettes and use the profits to finance their terrorist activities, and therefore represents a national security threat to the United States," Cotton wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Congress determined in 2009 that "Hezbollah, Hamas, al Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations have profited from trafficking in illegal cigarettes or counterfeit cigarette tax stamps."

"Terrorist organizations, working with cartels, profit from black market cigarettes and use those profits to finance their terrorist activities," according to Cotton’s letter.
Poilievre calls Trudeau's stance on genocide case against Israel 'incomprehensible'
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre slammed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's position on South Africa's genocide claim against Israel on Monday, calling it "incomprehensible" and accusing the prime minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly of deliberately giving answers no one can understand.

Trudeau told reporters two weeks ago that Canada's "wholehearted" support for the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is adjudicating South Africa's case against Israel, "does not mean we support the premise of the case brought forward by South Africa."

Joly released a written statement hours later echoing Trudeau's language and adding that proving genocidal intent requires a high threshold of evidence.

Sources told CBC News last week that the wording of the statements was crafted to indicate that no one should assume the government supports or rejects the genocide claim outright.

"You would need a linguist with a PhD and a magnifying glass to figure out the garble that comes out of the foreign minister and the prime minister on this question, because they are deliberately giving answers that no one can comprehend," Poilievre told reporters Monday in West Vancouver. "He's divided the country on this just like every other issue."

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says the prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs are ‘deliberately giving answers that no one can comprehend’ when discussing South Africa's genocide claim against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

The Conservative leader rejected South Africa's genocide allegation against Israel two weeks ago, calling the case brought before the ICJ a "shameless" and "dishonest" attack on Jewish people and the Jewish state.

"It's time for the prime minister to grow a backbone, stop trying to divide Canadians based on religion and ethnicity and take a principled stand in favour of humanity and against the real propagators of genocide, who are the Hamas terrorists," said Poilievre.
Boycotting St Patrick’s trip to US over Gaza ‘doesn’t make sense’
Ireland’s deputy premier has said it would not make sense to boycott the St Patrick’s Day trip to Washington over the US support for Israel, stating: “You have to engage.”

Tanaiste Micheal Martin also said that Ireland had not yet decided whether to join South Africa’s legal case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

Mr Martin said that it had not yet assessed South Africa’s legal case for accusing Israel of genocide over its actions in the Gaza Strip.

He said that once the preliminary stages at the ICJ had concluded he hoped South Africa would share the details of their case with other countries so that Ireland can assess whether to join.

Irish premier Leo Varadkar has warned previously that Ireland does “not intend” to join South Africa’s case, and there is a need to “be very careful” of accusing a Jewish state of genocide.

He said: “I would just think we need to be a little bit careful about using words like that unless we’re absolutely convinced that they’re the appropriate ones.”


American-Israeli father says US abandoned his terror-victim son
A 16-year-old dual American-Israeli citizen wounded on Jan. 15 in a Palestinian terrorist attack in Ra’anana while waiting at the bus stop outside his school has been abandoned by the United States, according to the victim’s father.

“We thought that we would receive some kind of communication from the U.S. government,” Nick Merkin, who is keeping the name of his minor son private, told JNS on Sunday. Nick Merkin, whose son was wounded in a terrorist attack in Ra’anana on Jan. 15. Courtesy.

“They have many resources in the Middle East, including law enforcement to probe crimes against Americans. I would have expected some level of support as well as their involvement in the investigation,” he added.

A 79-year-old woman was murdered in the stabbing and car-ramming attack and another 16 people were wounded, including seven children and teenagers, one of whom remains hospitalized in serious condition.

Israeli forces arrested Mahmoud Zaidat, 44, and his nephew Ahmad Zaidat, 24, who were employed at a car wash in the Ra’anana industrial area without valid work permits. Both suspects, from Bani Naim near Hebron in Judea, were known to Israeli security forces.

The attack came shortly after Israelis marked 100 days of war against Hamas, following the Palestinian terrorist group’s massacre of some 1,200 persons.

Merkin described the U.S. administration’s silence as consistent with a policy of “both-sideism.”
Father arrested after son bowed down on Temple Mount
A Rabbi was detained on behalf of his son on Thursday, for allegedly praying at the Temple Mount, the NGO Beyadenu reported.

While on break from serving in the reserves on the Gaza border, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Peirman took his three kids to the Temple Mount. While on the stairs of the western side of the Temple Mount, his three-year-old child playfully laid down on one of the steps, which led to a police investigation, on suspicion that the child had prayed, the NGO said.

After the Rabbi was detained, he explained what happened, "I left home after Shabbat and went up to the Temple Mount with my three children, the eldest being six and the youngest three. The youngest child was in a gleeful mood, and when we reached the western side and stood to pray and take pictures, he lay down on one of the steps. When we left the Temple Mount, we were informed that I was detained with the children on suspicion that my son had prostrated himself."

Following involvement with Beyadenu's legal team, they were released.

Tom Nisani, CEO of Beyadenu commented, "The Israeli police on the Temple Mount really have no shame, and now are resorting to detaining three year olds! It's important to remind the police at this time that there is no law against praying or bowing on the Temple Mount."

Beyadenu is a non-profit organization that supports the realization and application of full Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount, full equal rights for Jews on the Temple Mount, and the restoration of the Temple Mount back to its natural status as the heart of the Jewish nation: a place of ascension, a place of longing and aspiration, a central spiritual, religious, and national site where Jews can ascend freely, visit, and worship, according to its website.
US: Prosecute Israeli who killed alleged Palestinian rock-thrower
U.S. National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby on Monday extended Washington’s “deepest condolences” to the family of a Palestinian-American who was reportedly killed after stoning Israeli vehicles.

“Certainly a tragic killing by all accounts that we’ve been able to glean so far,” Kirby said of the Jan. 19 death of Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, a resident of Al-Mazra’a Ash-Sharqiya near Ramallah.

“Our deepest condolences go to the family. He was 17 years old, just a teenager, so our thoughts and prayers are certainly with the family,” Kirby continued, demanding a “full, thorough, transparent investigation.

The Biden administration has “every expectation that those responsible for it will be held properly accountable,” Kirby added.

On Saturday, the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs, whose offices are located at the American Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem but which is a separate institution, said it was “devastated” to hear about Jabbar’s death. Its head, George Noll, visited the family to offer his condolences.

“We call for an urgent investigation to determine the circumstances of his death,” tweeted the Palestinian Affairs office on Jan. 20.
Multiculturalism is becoming a Trojan horse for Islamist domination
The best school in the country, measured by the progress made by its pupils, is not what many would expect. It does not select by ability or by postcode. It serves a deprived community in Wembley, London. It is unapologetically strict and rigorous in its teaching.

Michaela, founded by Katharine Birbalsingh, is loathed by many on the Left, who despise its methods and resent its success. But the news that a pupil is suing the school over restrictions on ritual prayer has shocked many on the Right. “How could this happen?” ask immigration liberals and advocates of multiculturalism, with a naivety that is difficult to believe.

The answer is plain. In many respects, and compared to other countries, Britain has succeeded in managing its newly multiracial identity. But in other obvious and very visible ways, it is failing. There is widespread self-segregation along ethnic and religious lines in British towns and cities. In many schools, segregation is more pronounced than in the communities they serve.

Meanwhile, backed by ideological academics and lawyers, and encouraged or appeased by politicians and public bodies, activists peddling grievance harry individuals and organisations to win favour, special treatment and institutional power.

They can do so thanks to the structures, laws and norms we ourselves have created. And the Michaela example is a case in point.

The school is a sort of Singapore of the British education system. Just as Lee Kuan Yew concluded that his multiracial city state could only maintain peace through uncompromisingly tough justice, so Birbalsingh ensures her pupils are treated equally under a tough school disciplinary policy. Everyone eats vegetarian meals to avoid religious segregation at lunchtimes. There is no prayer room for any religion.

Birbalsingh says she asks pupils from all backgrounds to make sacrifices so all can live in harmony. “Our school must be a place,” she explains, “where children of all races and religions buy into something they all share and is bigger than ourselves: our country.”

But this vision is rejected by activists and their facilitators, who demand exceptionalism, not equality.
UK officials probe Iran generals' antisemitic talks to students
Videos of antisemitic speeches by Iranian generals, given to UK students, are being investigated by the Charity Commission.

The regulator is also looking at footage of "death to Israel" chants at an Islamic charity's UK premises.

Verified by the BBC, two of the videos show talks by members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. One described an apocalyptic war on Jews.

The group that promoted the online talks said it respects all communities.

The footage - which also includes a denial of the Holocaust - adds to growing concerns from some MPs that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is attempting to radicalise UK Muslims. Security services have also warned it is inciting violence and plotting to kidnap or kill people on British soil.

One of the most powerful paramilitary organisations in the Middle East, the IRGC controls the Iranian government's foreign covert operations and supports militant groups such as Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen.

The IRGC has previously been linked to kidnap and assassination plots in the UK. Counter-terror police confirmed in February last year that 15 such plots had come out of Iran since 2020, and the BBC has since been told there has been at least one more.


Only One University Adopts Leading Antisemitism Definition 2023, New Report Says
Only one American higher education institution adopted the world’s leading definition of antisemitism in 2023, down from 2022, according to a new report by Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), a US antisemitism watchdog.

“Only Boston University’s student government has adopted the IHRA working definition in 2023,” CAM said on Monday in a statement. “These figures help put into context the atmosphere on college campuses that led to high-profile incidents of antisemitism on the campuses of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, the George Washington University, Cooper Union College, and Cornell University, just to name a few.”

First adopted in 2005 by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism states that “antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews,” and includes a list of illustrative examples ranging from Holocaust denial to the rejection of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination. The definition is used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and the United Nations and is supported by lawmakers across the political spectrum.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, antisemitism on college campuses surged to record levels after Hamas massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, including demonstrations calling for Israel’s destruction and the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students. Elite universities have been among the biggest hubs of such activity, with students and faculty both demonizing Israel and rationalizing the Hamas atrocities. Incidents of harassment and even violence against Jewish students also increased. As a result, Jewish students have expressed feeling unsafe and unprotected on campuses. In some cases, Jewish communities on campuses have been forced to endure threats of rape and mass slaughter.

At Harvard University, anti-Zionism escalated to antisemitic harassment when a mob of anti-Israel activists — including Ibrahim Bharmal, editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review whose alumni includes former US President Barack Obama — followed, surrounded, and intimidated a Jewish student on campus, according to videos that went viral across social media. “Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!” the crush of people screamed in a call-and-response chant into the ears of the student who —as seen in the footage — was forced to duck and dash the crowd to free himself from the cluster of bodies that encircled him.
GP who heads newly outlawed Islamist group ‘suspended’ by NHS England
NHS England has confirmed that the Harrow GP who heads the UK branch of newly banned Islamist terror group Hizb ut-Tahrir has been suspended.

As reported by Jewish News, Dr Wahid Shaida, who also uses the name Abdul Wahid, was GB chair of the group, which the government officially outlawed last week.

On 15 January, home secretary James Cleverly moved to proscribe the group, which he called “antisemitic” and warned it “promotes and encourages terrorism”, by putting an order before parliament which made joining the organisation illegal in the UK under terror laws.

The UK branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir was banned on 19 January. Its website has been taken down. All that remains is a statement claiming that “a legal challenge is proceeding”.

In a statement today seen by Jewish News, an NHS London spokesperson said:
“We take any issues relating to professional conduct seriously and have procedures in place to make sure that individuals are fit to work in the NHS. We can confirm that Dr Wahid Shaida has been suspended from the NHS primary care performers list.”

Following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict, the UK branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir organised rallies on the streets of London alongside pro-Palestine marches. A Hizb ut-Tahrir member could be seen shouting “Jihad” in a video from an October march, but the Metropolitan Police said no offences were identified.

In December Shaida, who trains trainee GPs, described Hamas as a ‘resistance’ group and called the 7 October terror attacks “a very welcome punch on the nose” on Piers Morgan’s Talk TV show.
Islamists are wreaking havoc in British schools
“Sunlight,” the jurist and Zionist Louis Brandeis famously observed, “is said to be the best of disinfectants.” Yet, one of the world’s leading newspapers, The Washington Post, is failing to shine a light on institutions that are propagating antisemitism, a virus that has resulted in the murder of millions in living memory.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is one such institution. The ICRC has failed Israelis and failed to live up to its mandate. Time and again, the organization has laid its biases bare in the latest iteration of the Israel-Iran war.

The ICRC’s self-described mission is to “ensure humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of war and other situations of violence.” Judged by its own standards, the ICRC has failed spectacularly. The ICRC was MIA after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, the largest slaughter of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust, and it has continued to fail both Israelis and Jews ever since.

As Commentary’s Seth Mandel noted in November 2023, the ICRC has “failed to advocate meaningfully for the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza,” appearing “uninterested in gaining access to them or their release.” Hostages have been murdered, raped, and tortured while being held by Hamas and Palestinians in Gaza.

Several hostages who have been released as part of agreements with Israel have spoken of the horrors that they faced. Many were starved and beaten. One elderly woman, 84-year-old Elma Avraham, has been in critical condition since her release. She was reportedly starved. Others have spoken of being literally branded and assaulted. The ICRC has failed to help them.

Indeed, instead of applying pressure on Hamas, the ICRC has blamed Israel. ICRC officials met with Roni and Simon Steinbrecher, whose daughter, Doron, was kidnapped from her apartment in Kfar Aza. The ICRC refused to take medication to Doron.
Columbia Defends Inclusion of Anti-Semitic Terror Defender in University's 'Day of Dialogue'

Elise Stefanik Slams Harvard’s Appointment of Anti-Israel Prof to Anti-Semitism Task Force

‘Once again Haravard is at the center of this antisemitism storm’
David Kaufman, an Adjunct Fellow at the Tel-Aviv Institute speaks to i24NEWS after posters of Israeli hostages were vandalized on Harvard’s campus


‘Israel Did 9/11’: Harvard Campus Littered With Anti-Semitic Graffiti Ahead Of New Semester

U.S. Jewish schools see 47% increase in security costs since Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack in Israel

The Washington Post Gives a Pass to Antisemitic Institutions

Owen Jones again gives Hamas a moral pass
Owen Jones is an Oxford-educated, millennial Guardian columnist, and self-described socialist and anti-fascist. He was an ardent Jeremy Corbyn supporter who consistently defended the Labour leader and party members who were criticised or suspended over antisemitism – a view he held even after the Equality and Human Rights Commission found the party guilty of illegally discriminating against Jewish members of the party.

A mere two days after the Oct. 7 mass murder, torture, rape, mutilation and hostage taking of Israeli men, women and children, Jones, in a YouTube monologue (titled ‘Palestinian Lives Matter) already accused Israel of planning genocide, and, though condemning Hamas’s violence against civilians, ‘contextualised’ it as a consequence of Israel’s alleged ‘occupation’ of the territory. He argued further that the Jewish state had no right engage in a military response.

The next day, he appeared on Sky News and, after a brief moral throat-clearing condemning Hamas’s violence, again suggested that Israel had no right to defend itself following the worst antisemitic atrocity since the Holocaust, since, he argued, it was the state’s mistreatment of the Palestinians which led to the violence.

Jones also was the author of widely mocked post on X blaming the UK for Hamas’s laws banning homosexuality, eliciting a community note which aptly calls out his inability to hold the Islamist extremist group morally accountable for their medieval views.
Coverage of Ceasefire Rejection Paints Israel as Aggressor, Whitewashes Hamas

Hamas Terrorists Labeled “Resistance” In Odious Op-ed Published In The Observer

Repeat framing from BBC’s Knell in report on Jerusalem property dispute
Notably, Knell’s report makes no mention of the involvement of an Arab Christian named George Warwar (Hadad) in the development company.

Knell’s portrayal of the story continues:
“Ever since Israel captured the Old City and its holy sites from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War, Jewish investors in Israel and overseas have sought to buy properties to try to cement Israeli control over occupied East Jerusalem.

Palestinians want this part of the city as the capital of their hoped-for future state. Jewish Israelis view the whole of the city as their eternal, undivided capital.”

In order to support her framing, Knell brings in a representative of a political NGO. “Researchers at the Israeli non-profit organisation Ir Amim, which is focused on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and supports the diversity of Jerusalem, are worried about developments in the Armenian Quarter.

“This is close to sensitive places,” says Aviv Tatarksy. “Creating a settlement in this area is part of very far-reaching aims of settler organisations who basically want to Judaise completely the Old City, with their eyes on the Temple Mount or al-Aqsa Mosque.”

The settlements built in occupied territory are seen as illegal under international law, although Israel disagrees.”

There is of course nothing at all novel about the BBC’s unquestioning promotion of the politically motivated narrative whereby the presence of Jews in parts of Jerusalem in which they lived for centuries before being ethnically cleansed by the Jordanian armed forces is ‘illegal’.

Quoting the “now-defrocked American [sic] priest who coordinated the deal, Baret Yeretsian”, Knell tells readers that:
“He has since denied to journalists that the developer has any political or ideological agenda, describing such accusations as “propaganda” based on his [Rothman’s] Jewish identity.”

Nevertheless, Yolande Knell once again chose to frame a story about a dispute surrounding a property deal signed by representatives of the Armenian church and a branch of a UAE registered company intending to build a luxury hotel as being about “a settlement” and aimed at ‘Juadising’ Jerusalem.


Hill Times Columnist Repeats Hamas Disinformation At Length
In her January 17 opinion column in The Hill Times entitled: “The Islamophobic silence is deafening,” Erica Ifill, an “anti-oppression journalist and economist,” lambasted the Canadian political establishment for what she terms the insufficient condemnation of Islamophobia, labelling the Liberal Party as being “blood-thirsty and Islamophobic,” and claimed that “Palestinian and Arab traumas been ignored (and) they have been supported by the ruling class with misinformation” in Canada.

Ifill cited the pro-Israel efforts of two Liberal Members of Parliament (MPs), Anthony Housefather and Marco Mendicino as the most “egregious examples” of her argument, but chooses not to mention other Members of Parliament in the same part, including Salma Zahid, Yasir Naqvi, and Shafqat Ali, who have expressed anti-Israel views.

Throughout her column, Ifill throws more nonsensical and unsubstantiated claims at readers, all while providing no context.

She referred to Israel’s “massacre of Palestinians in Gaza,” mentions “24,100 Palestinians” having been killed.

What Ifill did not share, whether out of deliberate omission or ignorance it is not clear, is that casualty data from the Gaza Strip comes from Hamas, the genocidal Islamic terrorist group, via its so-called “Gaza Ministry of Health.”

Neither Hamas nor Ifill share the breakdown of how many deaths are terrorist combatants, of which close to 10,000 are estimated to be Hamas terrorist combatants. Scores more are likely killed by errant Palestinian rockets fired from within Gaza and which fell onto Palestinians, but these casualties are counted all under the same rubric.

More scandalously, Ifill said nothing about Israel’s extensive efforts to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties, including steps to warn Palestinians before air strikes. It is thus no surprise that the current combatant to civilian ratio is likely far lower than any other conflict in modern history. Unsurprisingly, Ifill does not disclose this.


MEMRI: Pravda.Ru Interviews Hamas Leader Abu Marzouk: We Count On Russia's Help To Defeat Israel

MEMRI: Editorial In Palestinian Authority Daily: Hamas Has Done Nothing But Bring Disasters Upon Gaza, Harbors Illusions Of Establishing A Muslim Brotherhood Emirate

We Are at War With Iran’s Mullahs

Claims Conference releases 'unprecedented' report on Holocaust survivors
A new Claims Conference demographic report on Holocaust survivors around the world shows that there are currently only about 245,000 Holocaust survivors alive. According to the first-of-its-kind report, they are dispersed into more than 90 countries around the world, with 49% residing in Israel.

The report, published ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day this coming Saturday and described by the organization as an 'unprecedented demographic report', breaks down the various locations they are in, as well as their countries of origin, needs, demographic data, and more.

"The largest number of survivors – 119,300, representing nearly half (49%) of all survivors worldwide – reside in Israel. This figure is less than the 147,199 reported by the State of Israel's Holocaust Survivors' Rights Authority on Holocaust Remembrance Day 2023,4 which included both Holocaust survivors as well as those whom Israel recognizes as victims of antisemitic persecutions during the war," the report notes. Some 44,200 are in North America (including 38,400 in the US) and about 2,500 in Australia.

In Western Europe, the report shows, there are 48,200 Holocaust survivors, including 21,900 in France and 14,200 in Germany. In Central European countries, there are some 6,100. In the former Soviet Union, there are 28,900 Holocaust survivors – 18,200 in Russia, 7,400 in Ukraine, and 2,100 in Belarus.

The report also shows the median age of Holocaust survivors today is 86, ranging between 77 to over 100 years old (the oldest was born in 1910). It also shows that 95% were children during the Holocaust. Women make up the majority among Holocaust survivors (61%).

As a result of the Claims Conference's successful negotiations with the German government over the years, nearly 40% of survivors receive monthly payments while the rest are eligible for one-time or annual payments. Since 1951, the Claims Conference has secured over $90 billion in indemnification for Jewish survivors of the Holocaust for suffering and losses resulting from persecution by the Nazis, including through one-time payments and – for those most in need – life-sustaining services, such as home care, medicine, hot meals, and friendly support networks, the Claims Conference said. "The Claims Conference administers several compensation funds that provide direct payments to survivors globally and issues grants to over 300 social service agencies worldwide that provide welfare services and help address the needs of the aging, vulnerable population of survivors," it added.

About 20% of Holocaust survivors are over 90 years old and require social assistance. Some 40% of survivors are receiving or received in the past year social welfare services provided by over 300 agencies that receive grants administered by the Claims Conference.
Meta failing to catch Holocaust denial memes and innuendo, oversight panel concludes
An Instagram post using a SpongeBob SquarePants meme to promote Holocaust denial managed to evade Meta’s system for removing such content, raising questions about the company’s ability to combat certain indirect forms of hate speech, an independent oversight panel concluded in a case published Tuesday.

The finding came in a review of Meta’s handling of a post featuring a meme of Squidward, a character from the cartoon series SpongeBob SquarePants, entitled “Fun Facts about the Holocaust.” A speech bubble next to the character contained lies and distortions about the Holocaust, including false claims that 6 million Jews could not have been murdered and that chimneys of the crematoria at Auschwitz were built only after World War II.

Withstanding six complaints from users that generated four automated reviews and two human assessments, the post stayed up from September 2020 until last year when Meta’s Oversight Board decided it would examine the situation and the company subsequently announced the post violated its policy against hate speech. The post even survived two user complaints that came after Meta’s adoption in October 2020 of a new rule expanding on its hate speech policy to explicitly bar Holocaust denial.

As part of its review in the SpongeBob case, the Oversight Board commissioned a team of researchers to search for Holocaust denial on Meta’s platforms. It was not hard to find examples, including posts using the same Squidward meme to promote other types of antisemitic narratives. Users try to evade Meta’s detection and removal system, the researchers found. Vowels are replaced with symbols, for example, and cartoons and memes offer a way to implicitly deny the history of the Holocaust without directly saying it didn’t happen.

Content moderation on social media is a notoriously difficult task. Some platforms, such as X, formerly known as Twitter, have taken a more hands-off approach, preferring to reduce oversight rather than err and risk stifling legitimate speech, which has resulted for X in the proliferation of antisemitism and extremism.

Meta has gone in the direction of increased moderation, even agreeing to empower the Oversight Board to make binding decisions in disputes over violations of the platform’s content policies. Meta’s vigilance has led in some cases to the accidental removal of content intended to criticize hate speech or educate the public about the Holocaust. The Oversight Board has repeatedly urged Meta to refine its algorithms and processes to reduce the chance of mistakes and improve transparency when it comes to enforcing the ban on Holocaust denial.
Italian mob riots over single Israeli stall at major trade fair
A masked anti-Israel mob attacked police over the presence of a single Israeli stall at a trade fair in Vicenza in northern Italy last Saturday.

Police fired water cannons after hundreds of protesters threw flares during clashes described by local officials as an “urban guerrilla war” and a “serious episode of intolerance and antisemitism”.

The annual jewellery fair, Vicenzaoro, is one of the biggest trade events in the jewellery world. This year, the 70th-anniversary celebration exhibition involved more than 1,300 exhibitors from approximately 40 countries, including Israel.

Protesters objected to Israel’s inclusion and planned a demonstration to oppose the presence of the Jewish state at the fair.

The protesters fired smoke bombs and flares as lines of officers carrying shields appeared to try and push the group back. The groups rammed each other. Sirens could be heard, and, in one clip, police officers could be seen dragging a protester away and beating him with a baton.


Video Game on Largest Online Platform Promotes Murder of Israelis; Who Will Act?
You wouldn’t create a game where you could play the role of the Columbine shooters, bomb the USS Cole, or fly the planes into the World Trade Center. Those atrocities do not have two sides; the line between right and wrong is clear. Yet, according to the creator of the first-person shooter game Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, this clarity is not applied to the October 7 Hamas massacre.

Fursan was launched in late 2021 on the world’s largest digital gaming distribution platform, Steam. In early December 2023, the game received a gruesome update — one that follows and praises the October 7 Hamas terrorist infiltration of Israel, and the wholesale massacre, rape, torture, and abduction of Israeli citizens, 136 of whom are still being held hostage in Gaza.

This game incites obscene and gratuitous violence against Israelis, with a protagonist whose goal is to murder IDF soldiers under the slogan, “With bullets and blood we will free Palestine” — a known euphemism for the violent destruction of the State of Israel.

Fursan’s creator includes a thinly veiled disclaimer that the game does not promote antisemitism or “terrorism” — but the quotation marks around terrorism indicate just how little he regards the very real terrorism and violence that Israelis endure. Further, one only needs to look at some of the comments on the game, ranging from age-old antisemitic tropes to active support for “resistance” (a code word for terrorism), to gauge this game’s audience.

One specific instance is an exchange from October 9, while Israel was still reeling from Hamas’ brutal attack. A comment reads, “…they made this game in real life,” with the developer responding, ‘”They made a Live Action Trailer… .” For some, the violence that this game promotes may be mere virtual reality, but for Jews, it’s a constant reminder of the genocidal goal of Hamas and other Iranian-funded terror groups: the complete and utter annihilation of Israel.


J.P. Morgan affirms commitment to Israel through expanded local tech center
While some companies around the world are wary of running the risk of pro-Palestinian boycotts due to Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas, multinational financial services firm J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is reaffirming its commitment to the country with the expansion of its Israel Tech Center in Herzliya, home to its risk and trade management platform Athena.

“This is an extremely central platform for J.P. Morgan overall,” said Nir Shahaf, Head of J.P. Morgan's Israel Tech Center. “All the traders in J.P. Morgan all over the world are trading and relying on these systems to process the trades. These systems take care of all the regulatory reporting and risk management and ensure traders know what they're doing is right and they're making the right decisions... everything is run on top of this platform.”

Shahaf runs the J.P. Morgan Israel Tech Center but also leads the engineering team at Athena. Operating out of the Center, Israel’s local team can largely be credited for helping the bank with its transactions all over the world. “My engineering team is building the core of this platform and a large chunk of my team is here in Israel,” he confirms. “The part of the Tech Center that is most successful is the development of the core technology that is key and essential for the bank corporation.”

The Tech Center, which recently celebrated its 10th birthday, has grown from roughly five employees to 130 and is currently looking at recruiting more. It is structured in a way that allows for more than 10 ‘sub-lines’ of business within it that build technology to help the bank with faster and more accurate data and services.
New museum in Armenia to tell story of Charles Aznavour, French crooner who loved Jews
His haunting French rendition of “La Yiddishe Mama” is legendary, as is his spirited performance of “Hava Nagila” in a duet with Algerian Jewish singer Enrico Macias. In 1967, he recorded the song “Yerushalayim” as a tribute to Israel’s Six Day War victory.

Yet Charles Aznavour, a diminutive singer and songwriter later nicknamed the “Frank Sinatra of France,” wasn’t Jewish. Born in Paris into a Christian Armenian family that prized culture, the young tenor learned basic Yiddish while growing up in the city’s Jewish quarter. And when the Nazis occupied Paris in 1940, the Aznavourians (their original surname, before Charles shortened it) risked their lives to save Jews from deportation.

Aznavour died in October 2018 at the age of 94. During his nearly 80-year career, he recorded over 1,400 songs in seven languages, sold around 200 million records and appeared in more than 90 films. His duets with other stars, including “Une vie d’amour” with Mirelle Mathieu, and his witty multilingual lyrics — the 1963 hit “Formidable” is a prime example — thrilled audiences worldwide. In 1998, Aznavour was voted Time magazine’s entertainer of the 20th century.

May 22, 2024, will mark the 100th anniversary of Aznavour’s birth, and many events are planned next year to celebrate that milestone. A violent conflict in September between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan has made the rollout more difficult, but eventually, his admirers hope to inaugurate a large museum and cultural center in Yerevan to honor the various facets of Aznavour’s life — including the warm ties he cultivated with Israel and Jews.

“We started to work on this idea while my father was still among us,” said Nicolas Aznavour, 46, son of the famous chansonniere and co-founder of the nonprofit Aznavour Foundation. “He recorded the audio guide, so he’s the narrator of his own story.”


The heroic fight for the life of IDF's Oketz unit dog

Brett Gelman in Israel: Exclusive ‘In Focus Interview’ with StandWithUs TV
'Stranger Things' actor Brett Gelman came to Israel with his fiancée, singer Ari Dayan, to show solidarity with Israel during the ongoing war against terror group Hamas.

StandWithUs Israel’s Executive Director Michael Dickson sat down with Brett and Ari at the StandWithUs Israel Katz Education Center and studio in the heart of Jerusalem, where they shared some powerful reflections about their journey in Israel and their experiences post-October 7th.


‘It’s a moral issue,’ Five for Fighting's John Ondrasik says of new pro-Israel anthem
John Ondrasik’s music career took off more than two decades ago when his song “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” became the unofficial anthem of 9/11 first responders.

Under his stage name Five for Fighting, Ondrasik has since been nominated for a Grammy and saw his single “100 Years” go platinum. He’s also made a habit of creating politically conscious music focused on global events. With his most recent single “OK,” released on Friday, the Los Angeles-based songwriter turned his falsetto to the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and their aftermath on the world stage.

The dirge-like ballad is the first time a mainstream American artist has addressed the attacks in Israel. A corresponding music video offers a powerful illustration of the somber message described in his song: “This is a time for choosing / this is a time to mourn / the moral man is losing.”

“The fact that nobody was saying anything — nobody in the arts, in Hollywood, were saying anything — just kind of stunned me and made me angry,” Ondrasik told Jewish Insider on Monday. His recent political songs (though he prefers the term “moral” to “political”) include a 2021 song focused on the consequences of the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, and a 2022 song about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. (For that one, he recorded a music video with the Ukrainian Orchestra at a bombed-out airport outside Kyiv.)

The “OK” video begins with a clip of concert-goers at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel before transitioning to footage of Hamas terrorists paragliding into the festival. Before Ondrasik starts singing, the video is overlaid with audio from a speech delivered by New York City Mayor Eric Adams at a pro-Israel rally soon after the attacks: “I’m gonna give you four words. We are not alright,” Adams said, while describing the atrocities of Oct. 7. “We are not alright when right here in the city of New York we have those who celebrate at the same time when the devastation is taking place.”

“I kept coming back to that speech and saying, ‘It seemed really brave,’ but it really shouldn’t be brave,” Ondrasik said. “Isn’t that what everybody should be saying? Why is that brave?”

The music video cycles between clips of the massacre (it begins with a word of caution, warning of “disturbing” images), video of protests in the West cheering the Hamas attack and news headlines documenting the rise of global antisemitism since October. It also includes clips from Capitol Hill: One shows Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) declining to respond to a reporter asking her to condemn the attacks, and another shows the now-viral testimony of university presidents speaking before a congressional panel.




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