Friday, February 02, 2024

02/02 Links Pt2: Elliott Abrams: The Two-State Delusion; Seth Mandel: The Lazy Fantasy of a ‘Palestinian Mandela’; Britain’s Jews are being terrorised

From Ian:

Elliott Abrams: The Two-State Delusion
Everyone knows what to do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Arrange the “two-state solution.” That has been a commonplace for decades, going back to the Oslo Accords, all the international conferences, the “Roadmap,” and the efforts by a series of American presidents and their staffs of ardent peace processors.

In the West, the call for a “two-state solution” is mostly a magical incantation these days. Diplomats and politicians want the Gaza war to stop. They want a way out that seems fair and just to voters and makes for good speeches. But they are not even beginning to grapple with the issues that negotiating a “two-state solution” raises, and they are not seriously asking what kind of state “Palestine” would be. Instead they simply imagine a peaceful, well-ordered place called “Palestine” and assure everyone that it is just around the corner. By doing so they avoid asking the most important question: Would not an autocratic, revanchist Palestinian state be a threat to peace?

No matter: The belief in the “two-state solution” is as fervent today as ever. The German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said it’s the “only solution” and Britain’s defense minister chimed in that “I don’t think we get to a solution unless we have a two-state solution.” Not to be outdone, U.N. Secretary General Guterres said, “The refusal to accept the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and the denial of the right to statehood for the Palestinian people, are unacceptable.” The EU’s Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said recently, “I don’t think we should talk about the Middle East peace process anymore. We should start talking specifically about the two-state-solution implementation process.” What if Israel does not agree, and views a Palestinian state as an unacceptable security threat? Borrell’s answer was that “One thing is clear—Israel cannot have the veto right to the self-determination of the Palestinian people. The United Nations recognizes and has recognized many times the self-determination right of the Palestinian people. Nobody can veto it.”

In the United States, 49 Senate Democrats (out of 51) just joined to support a resolution that, according to Sen. Brian Schatz, is “a message to the world that the only path forward is a two-state solution.” Biden administration officials have been a bit more circumspect in public. At the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos in January, Secretary of State Blinken told his interviewer, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, that regional integration “has to include a pathway to a Palestinian state.” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called for “a two-state solution with Israel’s security guaranteed.” And President Biden meandered around an important security point: “there are a number of types of two-state solutions. There’s a number of countries that are members of the U.N. that … don’t have their own military; a number of states that have limitations, and so I think there’s ways in which this can work.”

The Biden administration, then, joins all enlightened opinion in saying there must be a Palestinian state, but adds that it must not have an army. No other precondition seems to exist for the creation of that state once the Palestinian Authority has been “revamped” or “revitalized” so that it becomes “effective.” And most recently, Blinken has asked his staff for policy options that include formal recognition of a Palestinian state as soon as the war in Gaza ends. This would be a massive change in U.S. policy, which for decades has insisted that a Palestinian state can only emerge from direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But the pressure is growing, it seems, to skip niceties like negotiations and move quickly to implement the “two-state solution.”

There are three things wrong with this picture. First, none of the current proposals even acknowledges, much less overcomes, the obstacles that have always prevented the “two-state solution.” Second, the “effective governance” reforms fall very far short of creating a decent state in which Palestinians can live freely. And most important, any imaginable Palestinian state will be a dangerous threat to Israel.
Joe Biden Hates Israel
A second, almost as atrocious, low point in Blinken’s speech was his reiteration of Biden administration policy that Israel not allow Gazans to leave Gaza. In what war is the population of the war-torn country not allowed to leave? Much like the U.N. has been falsely claiming refugee status for Palestinians for 75 years so that they can continue to be used as political pawns, the United States’ refusal to allow Gazans to leave serves only one purpose: to make it harder for Israel to “de-Nazify” the radicalized Palestinian population, to allow whatever remains of Hamas to survive, and to add fuel to its obsession with a “two- state solution.”

The U.S. wants all areas depopulated because of the war to be repopulated, thereby making it impossible for Israel to repopulate its southern towns/cities. So effectively, a security zone with Gaza would mean a reduction in Israel’s territory.

Blinken also demanded that no action be taken in the North against Hezbollah, effectively turning Northern Israel into a similar security zone, precluding 80,000 Israelis there from returning to their homes.

Lastly, he invoked the atrocious line about a “cycle of violence” and reaffirmed the administration’s demand for a “two- state solution.”

It's not a “cycle of violence” when thousands of animalistic, sub-human, monsters murder, brutally rape, and mutilate thousands of civilians, followed by a war targeting those responsible for the atrocities. And, at this point does anyone seriously believe that a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, in the heart of central Israel, plus territory in Gaza, wouldn’t be a death sentence for Jews?

More recently, Blinken was in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. While there, he was interviewed by the New York Times’ resident Israel hater, Thomas Friedman. Incredibly, Blinken seemed to say that the Israelis of today are the terror loving Palestinians of yesterday:
“The profound difference now, I think, is in the mindset of leaders throughout the Arab world and in Muslim countries, and in a way it’s a reversal, it’s a flip, as you know so well better than anyone. When in previous times we came close to resolving the Palestinian question, getting a Palestinian state, I think the view then – Camp David, other places – was that Arab leaders, Palestinian leaders, had not done enough to prepare their own people for this profound change. I think a challenge now, a question now: Is Israeli society prepared to engage on these questions? Is it prepared to have that mindset?”

Did you get that? After thousands of Israelis were murdered, raped, mutilated, and wounded, America’s Secretary of State is blaming Israel for not being as gracious as the Arabs who murdered us for decades before 10/7.

Israel, after decades of giving up territory, not utterly destroying Hamas and Hezbollah, not attacking Iran and its proxies (another demand of the Biden administration), prioritizing Arab civilian life at the cost of IDF soldiers, all while 136 Israelis are still being held hostage and brutalized, is not enough for this administration.

Israelis have the wrong “mindset.”

Some friend to Israel.
Seth Mandel: The Lazy Fantasy of a ‘Palestinian Mandela’
Hamas’s latest negotiating ploy is to ask for Israel to release Marwan Barghouti, a popular Fatah leader who is serving a handful of life sentences for murder. Barghouti is often compared by the press and his Western admirers to Nelson Mandela, because his admirers have very active imaginations.

Freeing Barghouti is the “break glass in case of emergency” option for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The belief is that he has become both popular enough and moderate enough to lead the Palestinian Authority after Mahmoud Abbas, who is still alive and refuses to hold elections and therefore cannot be replaced by the Palestinian Mandela or the Australian Ghandi or the Ecuadorian Martin Luther King or the Scandinavian Dalai Lama or anyone else.

In the absence of any other changes, therefore, what freeing Barghouti would accomplish is the further destabilization of the Palestinian Authority-ruled West Bank. Hamas thinks this is a great idea. The Israelis are unconvinced.

Barghouti’s advocates in the West like to tout his support for a two-state solution. But Barghouti’s starting position is at the 1967 lines, from which Israeli-Palestinian negotiations moved on a decade and a half ago, so perhaps his supporters like him because he’d actually undo some of the progress made toward a two-state solution.

The other pro-Barghouti talking point has long been his renunciation of some violence in some places. (This is why calling him “the Palestinian Mandela” is deeply insulting to Nelson Mandela.)

Barghouti was the most prominent signer of a coalitional letter known as the Prisoner’s Document back in 2006. It was a manifesto of sorts for incarcerated Palestinians of various parties and stripes, including Hamas. That manifesto trumpets “[t]he right of the Palestinian people to resist and to uphold the option of resistance of occupation by various means and focusing resistance in territories occupied in 1967 in tandem with political action, negotiations and diplomacy whereby there is broad participation from all sectors in the popular resistance.”

This is the great compromise document. It boils down to: Kill Jews in the West Bank, Gaza, and at the Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem, but inside “Israel proper” just call general strikes and marches intended to bring the economy to a halt. Because Barghouti is a man of peace who has learned his lesson, apparently.

How could anyone say no?


How Iran used its ties to a top global NGO
In the spring of 2014, Iran’s then-foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, was drafting a new proposal to convince the international community to accept Tehran’s advancing nuclear program.

The diplomat — a witty, goateed, 54-year-old at the time with a Ph.D. from the University of Denver — faced an uphill struggle. The Islamic Republic had few friends in the U.S. and Europe following its decades of hostage-taking, Holocaust denial and support for international terrorism. And American diplomats, through whom Zarif was negotiating along with the other members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany, could veto his overtures out of hand.

But Zarif had a plan, according to his memoir. He turned to the International Crisis Group, the Brussels-headquartered conflict-resolution organization with deep ties to Washington and other Western capitals. Over two decades, the advocacy group had developed a star-studded roster of former U.S. lawmakers, retired European diplomats, and business executives on its staff and advisory boards. Crisis Group drew millions of dollars in funding from Wall Street financiers, New York-based foundations and foreign governments to advance its mission of anticipating and preventing war and ethnic cleansing.

“This step was taken to ensure that the International Crisis Group could lay the foundation for publicizing and lobbying the draft’s content,” Zarif wrote in his 2021 Persian-language account of the nuclear talks, The Sealed Secret. “[This] from the viewpoint of the nuclear negotiators, could serve as a stepping stone into the drafting phase.”

Zarif saw his outreach as a success; he wrote that Crisis Group incorporated Iran’s positions into its own reporting: “Utilizing the draft devised by the Iranian delegation, the International Crisis Group unveiled a document on May 9, 2014, titled ‘Iran and the P5+1: Solving the Nuclear Rubik’s Cube.”

Crisis Group disputes Zarif’s account, telling Semafor that the organization first shared its draft of the Rubik’s Cube report with Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, or P5+1, “not the other way around,” according to spokesperson Elissa Jobson. She called into question Zarif’s credibility, noting that he lied in a number instances in his memoir, such as claiming that the Islamic Republic never had a nuclear weapons program. “The Iranian government consistently criticized and attacked our work and serves to benefit from Zarif’s account of the situation,” she said.


The Only Way to Stop Hamas Is to Stop Iran from Rebuilding It
As talk in Western capitals has already turned to the "day after" in Gaza, Iran will be focused on rebuilding Hamas and preparing for the next war. If Israel and its allies aim to prevent a repeat of the Oct. 7 attack, they must counter Tehran.

The U.S. and Israel have faced this scenario before. In July 2006, Hizbullah, Iran's favorite proxy, attacked Israel in an operation that resembled Oct. 7 in miniature (including the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers). Jerusalem's response left Hizbullah's capabilities severely degraded, but the group nonetheless touted its survival as a "divine victory." It is now stronger than it was before 2006 and is back to attacking Israel.

If it were possible to utterly destroy the Hamas we know today, Iran would find other extremists to take up its flag, and then fund and equip them. Iran will also be vigilant against Palestinians brave enough to stand up for peace; Tehran will seek to kill them. Being free of Hamas means not only defeating the group itself, but also frustrating Iranian efforts to revive or replicate it.
Gerald Steinberg: The ICJ is not a court
FOR THE ideological wing of international law activists, the driving force is a belief system known as post-colonialism. In this framework, Western nations are automatically classified as immoral oppressors, and the use of force, regardless of the circumstances (such as in responding to terror attacks), is condemned as war crimes and similar evils. In parallel, the predefined “victims” of colonialism are exempt from accusations of war crimes, notwithstanding the brutality which they exhibit.

Israel is the central target of this ideology, expressed through the labels of “genocide,” “apartheid” and many other evils. Israeli victims of brutal slaughter are systematically erased and the Palestinian perpetrators are portrayed blandly as “militants,” while terror-enabling UN agencies and “humanitarian aid groups” become sacred causes. Similarly, Iran and its proxies, which are, in fact, genocidal, are rarely, if ever, the focus of denunciations from the international law and human rights industry.

The power of the international law industry reflects the money it raises from wealthy naive believers and virtue signalers, as well as the false image of altruism, known as the “halo effect.”

The vast sums support slick marketing campaigns, enlisting journalists and major media platforms to the cause. When Ken Roth – an industry leader obsessed with Israel – ran Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), he raised annual budgets that reached $100 million, with significant “contributions” from a corrupt Saudi billionaire and, according to recent revelations, from Qatar. (HRW’s donor list is a highly guarded secret – a practice that is clearly incompatible with “progressive” principles.)

Amnesty International, HRW’s London-based counterpart, has an annual income of more than €300 million, including from governments, thus belying the “non-governmental” (NGO) mask.

And numerous allied NGOs, embracing the same anti-Western and anti-Israel agendas, are generously supported by European governments under the fictions of “civil society” and human rights. Blatantly false or unverifiable accusations are packaged as “research reports,” parroted by journalists, and incorporated in United Nations and international court documents. Prominent examples include the discredited Goldstone Report on Gaza (2009), and now, the ICJ preliminary majority decision on Israel, Hamas, and “genocide.”

At many universities, the international law programs and clinics are similarly populated by powerful messianists and post-colonial ideologues with close ties to the same NGO superpowers. Faculty members cultivate wealthy donors and indoctrinate students, hiding the absence of legitimacy and the inherently hand-waving intellectual and moral foundations. The ambitious and politically connected teachers become government officials or are appointed as prosecutors or judges in the ICJ or ICC.

For these reasons, beyond countering the ICJ “genocide” farce, it is important to expose the wider illusion of “international law,” including the lack of democratic legitimacy as well as the messianic and ideological foundations. Institutions like the ICJ are built on the illusion of legality and justice. In practice, the results are often injustice and immorality.
Is Peace an Illusion?
Down but not out
The peace camp in Israel is down but not out. If, by some miracle, the Palestinians can convince the Israeli public that they, too, have a genuine belief in peace and coexistence, we would see a revival of the peace camp. But herein lies the problem. There is no equivalent peace camp within the Palestinian population. Instead, you have had 100 years of vehement rejection of any notion of Jewish sovereignty in whole or in part of what now constitutes Israel.

Americans and Europeans are delusional to think that a two-state solution is feasible today, more so after the events of 7 October, which was an attack that clearly illustrated Hamas’ genocidal intent but garnered support from over 70% of Palestinians living in Gaza and 80% in the West Bank. So, we hear talk of at least establishing a pathway toward a two-state solution. How does one create such a “pathway”?

Can the Palestinians reverse decades of indoctrination where they have denied that the Jews have any attachment, nor are Jews indigenous to the land of Israel? Will they accept that the promise of the right of return for refugees, which has not applied to any other conflict, is a non-starter? Are they prepared to renounce violence and terror and create true institutions to govern themselves? Will they abandon their dream that Israel can be destroyed?

Is there a cadre of emerging leaders among the Palestinians willing to advocate for peace? Could such a cadre arise and replace the incumbents? If the Western world is to have any chance of real success, rather than exert pressure on Israel, it should be targeting the malevolent player whose support for Hamas and its creation and arming of Hizbullah are key ingredients in its goal to see the eradication of Israel; namely, Iran.

Peace cannot be imposed
Israel is currently ruled by the most extreme right-wing government in its history following Benjamin Netanyahu’s alliance with Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. It is reviled by many in the Western world and has its fair share of detractors within. But when Netanyahu stands up to the world and warns that a Palestinian state in the West Bank in today’s environment would result in a replica of Gaza with the entire country at peril, he has the agreement of the overwhelming majority of Israelis. Moreover, any future government, be it headed by Benny Gantz or Yair Lapid, would share this view.

So when the world ponders about the day after the war, it should concentrate its efforts on how to rehabilitate the Palestinians in a manner similar to how Germany was denazified, and Japan demilitarized and transformed into societies that largely rejected the crimes against humanity committed by their predecessors who propelled their countries to war, destruction and the murder of millions of innocents based on ideologies which indoctrinated their people. Israelis are under no illusions that if Hamas had the means, they would do to them exactly what the Nazis did.

Peace cannot be imposed. It can only succeed when there is genuine grassroots support emanating from both sides, which are willing to mutually recognize one another’s rights to live in peace, dignity, and security. In the case of Israel, it needs to see evidence of a true desire on the part of the Palestinians to accept Israel as the legitimate homeland of the Jewish people. For the Palestinians, they need to eliminate 100 years of rejection, hatred, and the unrealistic dream that Israel will disappear.
Saudi Arabia willing to make concessions on Palestinians for peace with Israel
Saudi Arabia would be willing to accept a political commitment from Israel to create a Palestinian state, rather than anything more binding, in a bid to get a defense pact with Washington approved before the US presidential election, three sources said.

Months of US-led diplomacy to get Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel and recognize the country for the first time were shelved by Riyadh in October in the face of mounting Arab anger over the war in Gaza.

But Saudi Arabia is increasingly keen to shore up its security and ward off threats from rival Iran so the kingdom can forge ahead with its ambitious plan to transform its economy and attract huge foreign investment, two regional sources said.

Saudi Arabia to accept Israeli 'political commitment'
To create some wiggle room in talks about recognizing Israel and to get the US pact back on track, Saudi officials have told their US counterparts that Riyadh would not insist Israel take concrete steps to create a Palestinian state and would instead accept a political commitment to a two-state solution, two senior regional sources told Reuters.

Such a major regional deal, widely seen as a long-shot even before the Israel-Hamas war, would still face numerous political and diplomatic obstacles, not least the uncertainty over how the Gaza conflict will unfold.

A pact giving the world's biggest oil exporter US military protection in exchange for normalization with Israel would reshape the Middle East by uniting two long-time foes and binding Riyadh to Washington at a time when China is making inroads in the region.

A normalization deal would also bolster Israel's defenses against arch-rival Iran and give US President Joe Biden a diplomatic victory to vaunt ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Liberman to 'Post': Israel should give Gaza to Egypt, split West Bank with Jordan
In the future, Egypt should control Gaza and Jordan should take charge of Area A of the West Bank and a small portion of Area B, Yisrael Beytenu Party head MK Avigdor (Yvet) Liberman told The Jerusalem Post, as he laid out his vision of how Israel’s borders would look without a Palestinian state.

“We understand that this idea of a two-state solution [to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] has died. It does not exist,” Liberman said, as he sat behind his desk in his Knesset office.

“We need another approach,” Liberman said, as he explained that it is illogical to “do the same thing for many years and to expect different results.”

Liberman, whose party is in the opposition, spoke out as Israel is under intense diplomatic pressure to accept a two-state resolution, once the Israel-Hamas war is over.

A maverick diplomatic and political right-wing centrist thinker, Liberman has always had an alternative vision when it came to Palestinian statehood. A native of Moldova, Liberman immigrated to Israel in 1978 and lives in the Judean settlement of Nokdim.
Tel Aviv International Salon Presents: Douglas Murray in Conversation with Michael Oren
Douglas Murray sat down with Ambassador Michael Oren to discuss the events of October 7th, global reaction to the war, antisemitism, and so much more. Special thanks to our host Tel Aviv International Salon, the beautiful chapel at the Jaffa hotel, and of course, to our outstanding audience.


Natan Sharansky - Antisemitism Is A Progressive Problem | The Winston Marshall Show
What does a man learn about human nature, human evil, totalitarianism, and God in Russia’s most brutal prison labor camps? Could it help one predict the precipitous rise of antisemitism across the world? Natan Sharanksy saw it all coming.

Natan's life sits at the nexus of progressive antisemitism and Soviet totalitarianism. Nine years in the gulag on trumped-up charges, but in large part owing to his attempted immigration to Israel. When finally free, Sharansky served Israel in politics, including as Deputy Prime Minister.

I spoke with him in Jerusalem to discuss the ongoing Israel-Hamas Conflict, the power of left-wing antisemitism, the triumph of neo-marxism in the West, and, of course, his time in the gulag.

Sharansky is a national treasure in Israel. He gives valuable context to the October 7th Massacre, why it is different from all pogroms in history, and what it portends for the future.


‘Double standard’ in treatment of anti-black racism, Jew-hatred, Nissim Black says
Antisemites projected “Glory to our martyrs” on George Washington University’s Gelman Library, some five blocks from the White House, on Oct. 24. Six weeks later, some worried that a Chabad GW-sponsored, pre-Chanukah Nissim Black concert at Kogan Plaza, adjacent to the library, would be canceled on Dec. 5.

“Not only did we not get shut down, there were so many different black students that came to this show,” Black, an American-Israeli rapper, told JNS. “They are eating latkes and having sufganiyot.” (The Jewish delicacies refer to potato pancakes and jelly doughnuts.)

Chabad GW lit a menorah on the same site where the antisemitic message had been projected, which afforded some 350 attendees a symbol of light overcoming darkness, according to the 37-year-old, a black convert who identifies as Chassidic.

One attendee—a non-Jewish black man with dreadlocks—approached Black at the concert and told him that the rapper’s message inspired him on a rough day. He gave Black a hug, the rapper recalled.

“That is what we are supposed to be doing with our music and what we could do with our music,” Black told JNS.

He thinks that more can be done to improve relations between black and Jewish Americans, especially amid rising Jew-hatred. He told JNS that relations between the two communities started to sour well before Hamas terrorists attacked Israel nearly four months ago and before Kanye West (“Ye”) increasingly issued antisemitic statements.

“A lot of this started to happen with the riots after George Floyd and the world going back to the Dark Ages three years ago,” Black told JNS. (A white Minneapolis police officer was convicted of murdering Floyd, 46, a black man, on May 25, 2000.)

“On Oct. 7, so many light bulbs went off for me. How do we get back to this place of where we were allies?” Black told JNS. He noted that Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the Jewish lawyer Jack Greenberg and Rabbi Joachim Prinz, who spoke immediately before Martin Luther King Jr. at the 1963 March on Washington, marched with King.
Britain’s Jews are being terrorised
Earlier this week, a man wielding a knife threatened the staff of Kay’s kosher supermarket on Hamilton Road in the Golders Green district of London. He reportedly entered the shop and demanded to know where the staff stood on ‘Israel and Palestine’.

Fortunately, the shop staff bravely forced him to leave, using trolleys and broomsticks to keep him at bay, before he was later arrested. As a video of part of the confrontation shows, they can be heard shouting ‘yesh lo sakin’ (he has a knife) in Hebrew. According to the police, ‘a 34-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon, criminal damage and racially aggravated affray’.

Tragically, this was no isolated incident. A few weeks ago, three Israelis – two men and a woman – were attacked in London’s Leicester Square after their assailants heard them speaking Hebrew. The two men suffered head injuries as a result.

Also in London last month, a group of masked men mobbed a Jewish charity event for disaffected young boys. The men tried to break into the charity’s office in Hendon, north London but were blocked by police. They were also filmed abusing Jewish passers-by. Apparently, they had got wind that an Israeli soldier would be addressing the boys (his talk was on how to overcome adversity and avoid taking drugs).

The UK statistics on anti-Semitism paint a grim picture. Figures from the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity that protects British Jews, show a 524 per cent increase in anti-Semitic incidents between 7 October and the middle of December last year.

This trend is not restricted to Britain. In America, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported a 337 per cent increase in anti-Semitic incidents between 7 October and 11 December. The ADL has also collated national data on anti-Semitic incidents in the weeks following Hamas’s pogrom from several countries around the world. They show a 738 per cent increase in Australia, a 300 per cent increase in Austria, a 961 per cent increase in Brazil, a 1,000 per cent increase in France, a 320 per cent increase in Germany and an 818 per cent increase in the Netherlands. The statistics were calculated over different time periods, but they all show a sharp upward trend.
Inside the elite Israeli assassination unit steeped in history
The use of disguise to nab terror suspects has been brought into the mainstream by popular Israeli series Fauda which focuses on army units in the mista’arvim, a combination of two Hebrew words: Arabs and to assault, and originates from the Arabic which means “to disguise as Arabs”. But the tactic is not new.

“During the First Intifada in 1987, Israelis used media vehicles as a deception, but the foreign press association complained th at they are endangering journalists, so they stopped that practice,” said Melman.

The UN Human Rights office called on Israeli authorities to “immediately end the unlawful killing of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.” Israeli forces have killed at least 357 Palestinians on their search for Hamas members.

Israel says the militants were hiding out in the hospital in an oft-cited tactic of using civilian infrastructure as a base for “terrorist activity.” They accuse Jalamneh of being in contact with Hamas headquarters abroad and of transferring weapons and ammunition to promote attacks inspired by the October 7 raid on southern Israel.

Hefetz said the fact that no other civilians were harmed in the operation shows the precision of the counterterror unit to undertake their missions without collateral damage, especially as the IDF say Jalamneh, the Hamas commander, was carrying a gun. The hospital denies the charge.

“Yamam is able to work in different fighting scenarios. When they operate in the West Bank, they know how to catch the wanted suspect. It’s all based on intelligence gathering which will be good for a short window of time in which we act upon,” said Hefetz, who said it was he who trained the unit to act in real time to either “kill them or bring them in”.

Israel’s prime minister declared the killings part of Israel’s military campaign to eliminate Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip. Speaking in an Orthodox Jewish pre-military academy in a West Bank settlement, Binyamin Netanyahu said operations in the West Bank were no less important than Gaza. “Since the start of the war, 500 terrorists have been eliminated here, and we are not finished, including in Jenin today,” he said on the day of the assassination.

Hefetz says that while those in Jenin and places like it know these clandestine operations take place, they are powerless to stop them. “They see it happening. They know this is the way we act, but they are helpless to do anything about it,” he said. “In real time, at some specific place, they cannot know at that moment that it’s about to happen, and that’s how we do it so well.”
Bassam Tawil: Palestinian Terrorists, Hospitals, and Plans for Palestinian State
In light of the aversion of the Palestinian Authority (PA), its ministry of health, and its security forces to expelling the three terrorists from the Jenin hospital, the US administration's plan for bringing the PA back to the Gaza Strip to replace Hamas and create a Palestinian state seems more than foolhardy.

In addition, a Palestinian state without Israel's consent would be a massive violation of the Oslo Accords. The nonstop actions, or rather inactions, of the PA serve as further evidence that, contrary to what the US administration believes, the PA cannot be "revitalized."

The PA indisputably has no intention of changing its policy of glorifying and financially rewarding terrorists. PA leaders continue to praise terrorists as "heroes" and refuse to halt their policy of paying monthly stipends to Palestinians who murder Jews.

The incident in Jenin is further proof – more is hardly needed – that the PA cannot be trusted to enforce law and order or rein in terrorists in the Gaza Strip, were there to be a state. The PA, in its current location in the West Bank, does nothing to stop Hamas and other terrorists from pursuing their activities to murder Jews and obliterate Israel. There is no evidence to assume that it would behave any differently in Gaza. There is much evidence to assume that it would.


The Foreign Secretary's Suggestion that Britain Could Recognize Palestine Is Dangerously Premature
This week, Foreign Secretary David Cameron made the stunning suggestion that the British government is giving consideration to formally recognizing the creation of an independent Palestinian state. British support for a two-state solution has been official British policy since the pre-war mandate era. Cameron's remarks, though, where he intimated that Britain might preempt the outcome of any future peace negotiations by granting official recognition to a Palestinian state, indicated a dramatic shift in official British policy.

They also demonstrated a disturbing lack of diplomatic tact at a time when Israel, a country that is supposed to be one of the UK's closest allies, is engaged in an existential struggle against the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists responsible for committing the worst atrocity in the Jewish state's history.

Raising the prospect of recognizing a Palestinian state when the Israeli people remain traumatized by the events of Oct. 7, and when the fate of the 100 or so Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas hangs in the balance, is not the unequivocal demonstration of support Israel deserves to receive from a key ally in its hour of need.

There may well be, once the Gaza conflict has finally ended, a moment when peace talks on resolving the Israel-Palestinian issue can resume. Such an outcome, though, is light years away from the reality on the ground, where the priority for Israelis of all political persuasions is to ensure that they never again suffer the horrors of a large-scale terrorist attack.
Gaza on the Connecticut River
Everything needs to be about everything all the time.

That’s the real meaning of wokeism and the idea underlying intersectionality. It’s related to the old feminist demand that “the personal is the political.” It’s behind the totalitarian phrase “silence is violence,” which has started to transform into the dystopian “private support is violent.”

Why did Harvard and Penn lose their presidents after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist invasion into Israel? Because universities had decided — upon George Floyd’s death, if not earlier — that they, like every other left-leaning institution in America, had a duty to speak up on every issue of “injustice” or “oppression” everywhere.

When they didn’t speak up quickly against mass murder and rape of innocent Israelis, they were exposed as hypocrites.

But this painful lesson didn’t deter left-wing students from demanding that everyone, however unconnected, blare their allegiance to its favored causes. So town councils in college towns started debating resolutions in support of Palestinians in Gaza.

In Massachusetts, the towns of Cambridge, Somerville, and Amherst all discussed resolutions endorsing a ceasefire in Gaza — that is, demanding Israel suspend its attempt to destroy the terrorist group Hamas and secure the return of Israeli hostages. In Somerville, the council passed, 9-2, a weaker resolution simply calling for peace. Quite the bold and relevant stance for an American town: we support peace in the Middle East.

Somerville City Council President Ben Ewen-Campen explained why Israeli counterterrorism measures and Gazan humanitarian problems are the proper concern of the government of Somerville. “This is something that our City Council and other city councils do to advocate for policy changes at the state level, at the federal level,” Ewen-Campen told the local press. “This is not a resolution that we’re sending to foreign countries. We’re sending it to our own government, asking them and supporting a policy of ending this war. … I want our community to feel respected and heard on this incredibly difficult and painful issue.”

North Carolina, for some reason, has seen the biggest spate of ceasefire debates. Carrboro, near the Research Triangle, voted 4-3 to call on Congress to back a ceasefire.
Left-wing dark money group to publish book by longtime Palestinian terrorist group member
A far-left organization in New York City behind protests against Israel is set to publish a book authored by a Palestinian activist who has long been a member of a terrorist faction, documents show.

The People’s Forum, a socialist “movement incubator for working class and marginalized communities to build unity across historic lines of division at home and abroad,” has been leading demonstrations calling for a Middle East ceasefire after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel. And on Friday evening, the Manhattan-based nonprofit group is hosting an event turning heads among members of Congress: a book launch for Wisam Rafeedie, who authored the “Trinity of Fundamentals” and has been a member for decades of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which notably participated in the massacre last year in the Jewish state that killed over 1,200 people.

The PFLP has been designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization since 1997.

House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said the IRS should revoke the tax-exempt status of “any organization that promotes antisemitism, amplifies pro-Hamas rhetoric, or is funded by our foreign adversaries.”

Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), a House Homeland Security Committee member representing areas of Long Island, told the Washington Examiner, “It is vital that all federal departments and agencies do everything in their power to prevent terrorists and their enablers from working against our nation’s interests.” He continued, “I am calling on the IRS to investigate the disturbing claims made against the People’s Forum that they are advancing the agenda of those who advocate violence against our country.”

The book launch, which is through the People’s Forum’s store called 1804 Books, is likely to lead to more lawmakers raising concerns over the group’s tax-exempt status. The People’s Forum is a 501(c)(3) charity known for pushing pro-Chinese Communist Party talking points. It is organizing pro-Palestinian protests sympathetic to Hamas and has raked in millions of dollars in dark money through the Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund, as well as CCP-tied entities, tax forms show.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) notably asked the Justice Department in August of last year to investigate the People’s Forum and other organizations linked to a reported CCP propaganda operation funded by socialist businessman Neville Roy Singham. Last Sunday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) slammed pro-ceasefire activists like the People’s Forum as being “directly connected” to Russia.
Judge Hands DeSantis Yet Another Legal Win Against Pro-Palestinian Student Groups
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took a legal victory after a federal judge refused to block his demand to oust pro-Palestinian student groups from Florida universities, Politico reported on Thursday.

Two Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters hailing from the University of Florida and the University of South Florida had asked a federal court to stop DeSantis from kicking them off campus, after the governor declared he he would do so over their support for Hamas, according to Politico. Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker refused the SJP groups’ request to block DeSantis from taking measures to punish them and dismissed the governor as the defendant in the lawsuits.

Walker argued that while the SJP groups may perceive DeSantis‘ arguments against them as offensive, the university has not yet fulfilled his request to kick them off campus and therefore the “threatened deactivation remains merely speculative,” according to Politico. He also argued that, even with the threats against them, their speech had not “reasonably chilled – or chilled at all – for fear of punishment.”

The SJP groups’ lawsuits argued that DeSantis’ push to get them off campus through a “deactivation order” violated their free speech laws, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, the organization representing them in the case. They had asked the court to squash DeSantis’ order through a preliminary injunction.
Florida Jewish day schools receive $25 million in security funds

Applying To College After October 7
I am a senior in high school. In the weeks before Oct. 7, 2023, I was finalizing my list of where I would apply to college. I had narrowed it down to 13 universities based on two main criteria. First, because I plan to become a nurse practitioner, I sought schools with a direct-entry nursing major. Second, because I’m an observant Jew, I sought schools that have a robust Jewish life. Prior to Oct. 7, this meant a school with Shabbat services and a Kosher meal plan. My list consisted of state schools, Ivy League and other private universities.

And then Oct. 7 happened. At first I didn’t understand the magnitude of what had occurred. Then, as I read the coverage and saw the horrifying pictures and videos, it began to sink in. I found out that a close family member who was in the IDF had been murdered by Hamas while rescuing civilians. He was just shy of his 23rd birthday and I had been in Israel a year before, celebrating his wedding. I felt numb and pulled to go to Israel, to take a stand against this evil. Instead I was at home in Los Angeles, a high school student who still had to apply to college.

I was also shocked to see that Jewish students on many of the college campuses I was applying to were scared to leave their dorms. They were afraid of people on campus knowing they were Jews, let alone that they supported Israel. Aggressive, often violent, pro-Hamas demonstrations were taking place on these campuses, and they seemed designed to make Jews feel threatened. Jewish students on these campuses feared for their safety, felt alone, and like no one on campus supported them or cared they were afraid.

A close family friend and recent graduate of my high school is now a freshman at an Ivy League college. She is Jewish, her parents are Israeli, and she has at times felt terrified on her campus since Oct. 7. She has two Muslim roommates who she thought were her friends. But when she checked their social media accounts, she saw that they were posting antisemitic and pro-Hamas sentiments. When she was walking on her campus wearing a Star of David necklace, someone tore the necklace off her neck and shoved her violently while shouting antisemitic insults in her face. I couldn’t believe that this was happening on college campuses in modern-day America and not 1930s Germany.

After hearing these stories from friends and watching the testimony from university presidents in front of Congress, I began to worry about what it would be like to be a Jewish student at many of the colleges on my list. Being an open, proud Jew is a core part of my identity and I want to go to a university where I wouldn’t have to hide this part of myself in order to stay physically safe. Being Jewish is not a part of my identity that I’m willing to compromise.
Horrific accounts of campus antisemitism shared by Jewish students in House of Lords meeting
Jewish university students from across the UK met for a private roundtable discussion in the House of Lords on Thursday to convey their experiences of antisemitism on campus since the October 7 massacre and ensuing war with Hamas.

The meeting, organised by StandWithUs UK, was hosted by Lord Ian Austin and attended also by Lord Stuart Polak and Baroness Diana Barran, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the School System and Student Finance.

Over 25 students were present to relay harrowing stories of physical abuse and intimidation, ostracisation from their peers, the politicisation of student unions, and each with a similar story of persistent neglect from university administrations.

Annie Gishen, a fourth-year student at St Andrews University, described how after putting up an Israeli flag in her ground floor dormitory window in the immediate aftermath of October 7, cars would honk their horns as they drove past and people would knock on the window, leading to her taking it down due to safety concerns.

Upon coming home from a weekend in London a couple of months later, Annie found her Israeli and Jewish symbols thrown onto the floor of her bedroom.

When she confronted her roommate, who “had never even been to the Middle East”, she claims she was told: “[The flat] won’t be part of a terrorist government.”
German Jewish Academics Launch Network to Combat Rising Campus Antisemitism
A group of Jewish university professors in Germany have announced the launch of a cross-campus network to offer support and develop strategies to combat the rising antisemitic climate since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas pogrom in Israel.

In an interview on Friday with the Spiegel news outlet, Prof. Julia Bernstein — a founder of the network who teaches at the Frankfurt University of Applied Science — said that many Jewish academics were hiding their identities or staying away from campus because “they no longer feel safe in the workplace.”

“Antisemitism has increased dramatically since Oct. 7, and there is no reason to think that universities, as a microcosm of society, are any different,” Bernstein observed.

The network is currently comprised of 70 Jewish academics at universities in Germany, as well as Austria and Switzerland. Other founders of the network include pianist Roglit Ishay, professor of music at the Freiburg University of Music; Haya Schulmann, computer science professor at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main; Michael Waidner, Head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology in Darmstadt; and Deidre Berger, partner of the Berlin Tikvah Institute and the long-time head of the American Jewish Committee’s office in Berlin.

The immediate goal of the network is to provide Jewish academics with a “safe space,” Bernstein said.

“The pedagogical or academic examination of the topic of antisemitism is important. Now, however, the first step is to ensure security for Jews, at universities and of course beyond,” she added.

Last month, Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger warned that university students who engage in antisemitism could face expulsion from their institutions.
Anti-Israel hate seminar for NY schools will test Mayor Adams and Chancellor Banks
“Pro-Palestinian” activists don’t just block traffic and wreck festive events: They also aim to colonize schools and brainwash kids with scurrilous lies and hate.

The latest outrage: a NYC Educators for Palestine seminar planned for Saturday promoted by Bronx-based virtual public-school principal Terri Grey.

She says the event will “share curriculum” on “the ongoing genocide in Gaza” and “the history of Israeli occupation.”

Mayor Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks need to stop this lunacy.

No lesson from Educators for Palestine has any place in any classroom: The group’s agenda is spelled out in the sewer-ful of ugly, anti-Israel messages — almost all entirely false or misleading — it’s posted on Instagram.

“Israel’s attacks in Gaza have killed almost 50 students every day on average,” reads one, failing to note that Israel strives to protect civilians while Hamas uses them as human shields.

It demands a cease-fire in Gaza that would leave Hamas free to wage more Oct. 7-style savagery.

And it accuses Israel of genocide.
Law School Student Senate denies approval of Law Students Against Antisemitism group
The Law School Student Senate voted to deny official recognition of the proposed Law Students Against Antisemitism group on Jan. 23 in an anonymous vote of approximately 33 senators. Law School students proposed the group to “raise awareness and educate about both historical and contemporary antisemitism,” according to its constitution.

“It is rare that a club doesn’t gain approval, and I am disappointed by the signal that this sends to many in our Jewish community,” Student Senate President Justin Onwenu, Law ’24, wrote in a statement to Spectator. “I am hoping that the club will resubmit and consensus can be reached because combatting hate, including antisemitism, is one of the most pressing issues of our time.”

Nine organizations have requested recognition this year, and Law Students Against Antisemitism is the only group that has not been approved, according to a senator who spoke to Spectator on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of professional repercussions.

“This was probably the longest conversation that has happened in regard to a club approval process,” the senator said.

A group of the same name was rejected by the Law School Student Senate at the preapproval stage in January 2023, when the senate decided that other organizations already served the purpose of the proposed group, according to the founder of the 2023 organization, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concerns of retribution.

The group faced criticism for adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which notes that manifestations of antisemitism “might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity,” according to the alliance’s website.

“However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic,” the website reads.

There were two main complaints raised before and during the senate meeting about Law Students Against Antisemitism: that the organization would suppress speech and that the alliance’s definition conflated antisemitism with anti-Zionism.


Cornell Student Government Rejects BDS Resolution, Signaling Major Defeat for Anti-Israel Movement
In a shocking defeat for the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement Cornell University’s Student Assembly, an undergraduate governing body, rejected a resolution accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza and demanding that school officials “divest” from companies it deems as “complicit” in the country’s policies, according to a report by The Cornell Daily Sun.

“Cornell University holds portfolio and direct investments in corporations that profit from Israel in corporations that profit from Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, thereby making Cornell complicit in human rights abuses and violations of international law,” said the resolution, proposed by the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter. “Cornell University, as a result of these institutional and financial ties, does not currently take a neutral position on the occupation of Palestinian Territories, which as a result, has harmed affected students, faculty, and staff.”

The Student Assembly overwhelmingly rejected the resolution, 16-4, The Cornell Daily Sun said. The paper added that the session in which the vote took place featured dueling demonstrations between the campus’ pro-Israel and pro-Hamas supporters, with pro-Hamas supporters showing up clad in keffiyeh — a symbol of Palestinian terrorist violence and antisemitism since the 1930s — and pro-Israel students sporting kippah and handing out information on the hostages who remain in Gaza after being kidnapped by Hamas during the terrorist group’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7.

One day before the vote, Cornell Hillel called on Jewish students to show up to the Student Assembly and oppose the resolution, noting that it marked an attempt by SJP to bring the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement to Cornell during “a time of rising antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment” on college campuses.
Claudine Gay's replacement as Harvard president shares fears Jewish students face 'social shunning' as Israel-Hamas war continues - and insists he's pro-free speech
Harvard's new interim president has said he is worried about 'pernicious' anti-Semitism on campus, telling the student newspaper he worried about the impact of 'social shunning.'

Alan Garber took over after Claudine Gay resigned on January 2, amid a spiraling row about anti-Semitism.

Gay, the first black person to lead the university, was criticized for her insipid response to students justifying the October 7 terror attacks, and seriously harmed her credibility when she testified before Congress and equivocated over whether calling for the genocide of Jews was considered hate speech at the University. She finally resigned amid mounting accusations plagiarism.

Garber, who has served as provost for 12 years under three successive presidents, took over until a permanent president can be found: the process involves a global search, and usually takes a minimum of six months.

In his first interview, Garber said that addressing anti-Semitism at the institution was a priority.

Earlier this month, six Jewish students launched legal action against the school, claiming it has become a 'bastion of antisemitism and hatred' and saying they have been bullied since Gay resigned.

Garber, who is Jewish, said that he was deeply concerned about continued allegations of anti-Semitism.

'What I have found the most disturbing of all are situations or experiences students describe where they have felt they could not speak in class because there are attacks on Israel or maybe Israelis,' Garber said.

'They feel unsupported in contradicting them.'

Garber said that a 'prominent manifestation' of anti-Semitism is 'social shunning.'

'You can't necessarily just apply techniques of preventing violence or vandalism,' he said. 'It's a different set of issues.'


BBC staffer ranted about the ‘Holohoax’ and called Jews ‘Nazi parasites’
A senior BBC staffer has ranted about the “holohoax” and called Jews “Nazi parasites” among scores of other antisemitic and conspiratorial messages on Facebook.

Dawn Queva, a schedule coordinator at BBC Three who has worked in children’s programming, is understood to be under investigation by the BBC over the posts, which date back years.

In a vile post on January 25, the BBC employee attacked "Nazi apartheid parasites who have zero right, historical connection to or blood ties to the land of Palestine."

Another of her messages appeared to peddle the conspiracy theory that the Rothschild family were behind the "holohoax", a term commonly used by Holocaust deniers to suggest the Nazi genocide was fabricated.

Other posts repeatedly attack white people, calling them a “virus” and “mutant invader species”.

On Friday Queva shared a video describing Jews as "very nasty” and “disgusting” alongside a remark that “the last comment sums it all up!” despite widespread reports that she was facing disciplinary action.

Queva, who writes on Facebook under the profile “Dawn Las Quevas-Allen”, appeared to want to face down criticism of her social media activity, telling her detractors on Friday: “Come at me by all means.”
What did the BBC omit in its report on a Russian anti-war band?
Early on the morning of February 1st a report appeared on the BBC News website’s ‘Asia’ page and in the updates section of the ‘Middle East’ page under the headline ‘Bi-2: Russian anti-war band leaves Thailand for Israel’. Written by Patrick Jackson, who describes his job as writing “breaking news for BBC World Online” and tagged ‘Israel’, that report fails to explain why a Russian anti-war band would be leaving Thailand “for Israel”. The band’s Facebook page to which Jackson links is in Russian and therefore does not provide further information to the majority of readers of the BBC News website. Those who bothered to click on the link to the Radio Free Europe Facebook account would find a video which includes the statement “last year, they left Russia and settled in Israel”. The Times of Israel explains:
“While two members of the band have only Russian citizenship, others are dual Russian-Israeli citizens, one holds dual Russian and Australian citizenship, and Egor Bortnik, known by the stage name LevaB2, is an Israeli citizen exclusively.” The Times of Israel also reports an aspect of the story which is not mentioned at all in the BBC’s account:
“After a harrowing week in Thai custody, Russian alternative rock group Bi-2 is headed to Israel, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. The move comes after an unprecedented effort by the Israeli diplomats, who intervened to prevent the self-exiled band that has several dual Israeli-Russian members from being sent back to Russia in what amounted to an extradition attempt by the Russian government — though the artists had committed no crime. […] The Israeli consul in Bangkok intervened on behalf of the Israeli citizens and said that they would be deported to Israel. An agreement was reached, but the next day the detainees were visited by Russian diplomats who announced that the deal was off and that the Russian government insisted the band members were only to be deported to Russia — and sent there by a direct flight.


French minister heads to Mideast with post-war Gaza plans in mind
France's foreign minister travels to the Middle East on Saturday to test ideas about reviving an Israeli-Palestinian political process after the Gaza war as Europe tries to play a role in a conflict that has deeply divided the European Union.

"There will be a discussion with his regional counterparts, especially Israeli and Palestinian counterparts, to see how to restart a political perspective in the region," Deputy Foreign Ministry spokesperson Christophe Lemoine told reporters in a news briefing.

He was referring to Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne's trip to Egypt, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and Lebanon, where he will also continue French efforts to defuse tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

European Union member states are divided on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and their response has mostly been to try to ease the humanitarian situation in the enclave.

But with the US administration largely backing Israel and entering an election period, there is a growing sentiment within the bloc that it has to use its relationship with Arab states to come up with a plan for when the moment comes.
Organizers of Anti-Israel Republican Club Event Question Hamas Atrocities
A group that sponsored an anti-Israel event at the national Republican club in Washington, D.C., defended the event and questioned whether Hamas killed children and sexually assaulted women during the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.

The Committee for the Republic, which hosted speeches by anti-Israel activists Max Blumenthal and Miko Peled at the Capitol Hill Club in January, said the event was aimed at building an "informed public." They also requested "documentation of any Hamas rape" and "documentation that Hamas killed Israeli babies," in an email to the Washington Free Beacon.

The email was in response to a Free Beacon report about the event, during which Blumenthal denied that Hamas raped women, calling it a "psy-op" concocted by Israel and argued that "no babies were killed on October 7."

The news comes after multiple Capitol Hill Club members criticized the club for providing a platform for the speakers. The Capitol Hill Club’s membership includes nearly every Republican in Congress, as well as lobbyists, political staffers, and GOP donors.

"While the Committee for the Republic does not endorse statements made by speakers, we are committed to optimal factual accuracy. In that spirit, we invite you to provide sourced documentation of any Hamas rape of an Israeli woman on October 7," wrote the Committee for the Republic vice chairman Bruce Fein in an email to the Free Beacon. "We invite you to provide us documentation that Hamas killed Israeli babies on Oct. 7."

The group also asked the Free Beacon to "provide documentation that the 'Israel lobby' does not control members of Congress."

During his Capitol Hill Club speech, Blumenthal called pro-Israel senator John Fetterman (D., Pa.) a "cyborg" whose brain had been "hacked" by the "Israel lobby."
OnlyFans Owner Pledged $11 Million to Israel Lobby: Report
OnlyFans’ billionaire owner, Leonid Radvinsky, and his wife reportedly pledged $11 million to the powerhouse pro-Israel lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, last year, according to an internal donor list obtained by The Lever. Radvinsky has denied making or pledging the donation.

According to confidential internal documents reviewed by The Lever, AIPAC reported a massive $90 million fundraising haul in the month following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack against Israel. One contribution stood out: an $11 million pledge from a “Mr. Anonymous Anonymous” and Katie Chudnovsky, the largest listed contribution in the documents.

The Lever was able to confirm that the personal information listed alongside the donation identified “Mr. Anonymous Anonymous” as Radvinsky, who owns the subscription blogging platform OnlyFans, which is generally associated with adult content. While some of those named in the documents confirmed that they had contributed to AIPAC, Radvinsky and two others denied being donors.

“I didn’t donate or pledge $11M,” Radvinsky told The Lever, adding that the statement “appl[ies] to me / my foundation / my family.” The OnlyFans owner declined to provide an explanation as to why he and his wife appeared to be donors or address documentation showing a wire transfer from Chudnovsky to the organization.

Radvinsky did not immediately respond to additional questions from Rolling Stone.
Marjorie Taylor Greene introduces a resolution to censure Ilhan Omar for 'treasonous statements'
United States Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a resolution on Thursday to censure fellow Congresswoman Ilhan Omar due to "treasonous statements" she made during a speech earlier this week.

Censuring is one of the final forms of rebuke before expulsion which the House of Representatives can hand out to its members.

Censuring involves the censured member being made to stand and listen as the Speaker of the House reads the censure resolution, rebuking a member for a specified misconduct, three censure motions passed in 2023 alone

Omar who frequently draws the ire of Republicans in the US made a speech earlier this week where she called herself "Somali First" and vowed to protect Somalian interests as long as she is a member of Congress.

The speech was in response to Ethiopia's recognition of Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, in a move thought to be part of Ethiopian plans to gain access to the sea.


MEMRI: Miami Imam Fadi Kablawi On Backlash After He Referred To 'The Tyrannical Jews' In A Sermon: I Received Threatening Calls; 'From The River To The Sea' Isn't Genocidal, Most Of You Have Dual Citizenship, From Poland, Germany, NY, Texas, Aventura; This Land Does Not Belong To Americans, It Belongs To Allah

MEMRI: CAIR Official Ayman Aishat In Friday Sermon At Harrisburg, PA Mosque: Herzl Plotted To Remove The Quran From Muslims' Hearts, To Make It Easier To Control Them And Destroy Their Countries; 'Oh Allah, Grant Us Victory Over Our Enemies, Your Enemies, The Enemies Of Islam... Stand By … The Oppressed Muslims In Palestine... Annihilate Their Enemies, Our Enemies, The Enemies Of Islam, And Those Hostile Towards Islam And Muslims, Wherever They Are; Oh Allah, Liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque From The Plundering Zionist Aggressors'

MEMRI: Hamas Official Ali Baraka: Lebanon Should Transfer Palestinian Refugees To Israeli Border, So That UNIFIL Will Be Responsible For Them; If You Want To Liberate Your Land, You Cannot Keep Counting Martyrs – The Families In Gaza Are Not Complaining

NJ man who tried to kill Orthodox Jews pleads guilty in federal court
Dion Marsh, 29, pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday to five counts of hate crimes and one count of carjacking.

“Marsh is charged with willfully causing bodily injury to five victims and attempting to kill and cause injuries with dangerous weapons to four of the victims, because they are Jewish,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey

On April 8, 2022, Marsh “violently attacked five men, driving a car into four of them, stabbing one of them in the chest, and attempting to kill them, simply because they were visibly identifiable as Orthodox Jews,” stated Philip Sellinger, U.S. attorney for the district of New Jersey.

Each of the victims in Lakewood, N.J. was “attired in traditional garments worn by members of the Orthodox Jewish community” and the five “were assaulted because they were visibly identifiable Orthodox Jews,” per the U.S. attorney’s office.

Marsh injured the first Orthodox man, whom he forced out of his car. Some four hours after stealing that car, he drove a different car into an Orthodox man, and 45 minutes later, he used the same car to drive into a third Orthodox man. Nearly an hour later, he used the car he stole from the first victim to hit another Orthodox man, whom he also stabbed in the chest with a knife. About an hour and a half later, he drove the car he stole from the first victim into a fifth Orthodox Jew.
‘Zionist Fascists:’ Assailants of Jewish Students at Top French University Remain at Large
Police in France have yet to make an arrest in the case of three Jewish men who were brutally assaulted by a pro-Hamas mob on the campus of the University of Strasbourg last Sunday night while they put up posters calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.

The three men, two of whom are students, were set upon by a group of six people who threw kicks and punches while shouting “Zionist fascists,” according to a statement released on Friday by the university’s president Michel Deneken.

Deneken said that he “strongly condemned” the assault, pointing out that while the attack took place on Sunday, he was only informed of it on Thursday.

One of the victims was “hit and thrown to the ground,” Deneken said.

“It’s very serious,” he added. “This is violence that we have never known here.”

A spokesperson for the Strasbourg police confirmed that the assault had taken place, but that none of the victims were hospitalized as a result. “No arrests have been made, and the investigation is ongoing,” the spokesperson told the AFP news agency.

The attack was also condemned by the Mayor of Strasbourg, Jeanne Barseghian. In a post on the X/Twitter social media platform, Barseghian said that she extended her support to the victims.

“The police must now investigate so that the necessary action can be taken,” she added.

A separate statement from the Union of Jewish Students in France (UEJF) noted that the three victims had been putting up posters highlighting the plight of the hostages captured by Hamas terrorists during their Oct. 7, 2023 pogrom in southern Israel. They were spotted by an “anti-Zionist activist” who verbally abused them. She then left the scene, only to return with five other Hamas supporters who beat and insulted the three victims, leaving one of them with “severe bruising.”


At Wizards’ Jewish Heritage Night, hostages not center court
The main program at Wednesday night’s Jewish Heritage Night for the Washington Wizards was noticeably devoid of any mentions of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel and the 136 hostages still being held by Hamas.

The D.C. basketball team has organized the Jewish heritage event annually, with Wizards veteran Deni Avdija, who is Israeli, as its star. Wednesday night’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers, which ended in a 125-109 Wizards defeat, featured the U.S. national anthem sung by a choir from the Adas Israel synagogue, a halftime performance by an Israeli dance troupe and an Avdija bobblehead giveaway.

But the Wizards’ gametime program steered clear of the Oct. 7 attack and the war in Gaza, even as a group of audience members, holding an Israeli flag, chanted “bring them home” at multiple points during the game.

Advija himself addressed the war and the hostage crisis in broad terms in post-game remarks to hundreds of Jewish fans who stuck around the arena after the game, although the session came after the general audience had otherwise emptied out.

“There are things that are bigger than basketball. Since Oct. 7 we all saw it, and I’ve been dealing with it — my friends are in the army, friends that got hurt, soldiers that got killed, and I’m trying represent and have an awareness,” Advija said. “A lot of people got to understand there’s a lot of things going on, especially with my country.”

“Stay positive, we’ll have better days, and I hope — I know that — hopefully all the hostages will come back,” Advija added at the end of the interview.

The Wizards star urged the audience to remain proud of their Jewish heritage.

“Seeing you guys here makes me very happy in sad days,” he said. “Please don’t ever shy [away] from who we are, who you guys are.”


‘Hatikvah’ played in Doha after Israeli wins gold in fencing
“Hatikvah,” the Jewish state’s national anthem, sounded in a Doha sporting arena this week after Israeli fencer Yuval Freilich won a gold medal at the International Fencing Federation’s Grand Prix, which ended on Wednesday in the Qatari capital.

Freilich wore a shirt featuring his country’s flag and the words “Am Yisrael Chai” (“the people of Israel live”) as he defeated Italy’s Federico Vismara, moving the 29-year-old Israeli athlete one step closer to competing in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Freilich, who grew up in Neve Daniel in Gush Etzion, Judea, is the son of Australian immigrants and has been competing since age eight. He took home gold medals in teen tournaments in 2014 and 2015, as well as a silver plaque in the under-23 class in 2016. In 2019, he became the first Israeli to win a European championship.

“Yuval Freilich made an impressive achievement in a high-level, world-class tournament and is very close to achieving the criteria for the Olympics in Paris, which is a huge success,” Gili Lustig, the head of Israel’s Olympic committee, told Israel’s Channel 14 News on Wednesday.

“The win in Qatar and waving the Israeli flag in times like these on this unique stage is Israeli pride at its peak,” he added.

While Israel and Qatar do not have formal diplomatic relations, thousands of Israelis traveled directly and indirectly to the Gulf Arab state for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and arrangements were made to send a team of Israeli diplomats to deal with any complications that might emerge.




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