Monday, February 26, 2024

02/26 Links Pt2: Unfreezing the Abraham Accords; Melanie Phillips: A watershed moment; Corrupted from Birth: The UNRWA’s Forgotten History

From Ian:

Unfreezing the Abraham Accords
Alongside its defense of maritime security, plans could be advanced and promoted to facilitate overland trading routes - especially in concert with Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

It is economically advantageous for goods to take three days to go from Haifa to Dubai instead of three weeks via the Suez Canal.

The UK and U.S. governments should adopt a unified stance on a hierarchy of escalation in the face of Iranian aggression.

This should be communicated to Iran along with a shared commitment to respond along these lines to aggression by Iran or its proxies.

This may have the desired effect of putting Iran back in its box and helping to reassure the UK's regional allies.
Israeli minister and Saudi counterpart shake hands and discuss ‘making history together’
Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat met Saudi Commerce Minister Majid bin Abdullah Al Qasabi on the sidelines of the biennial World Trade Organisation conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

According to an Economy Ministry statement, Barkat told his Saudi counterpart: “Israel is interested in peace with countries that seek peace, and we can make history together."

The two shook hands and discussed the desire to strengthen economic cooperation, exchanging business cards.

A video published by Arab channels shows the cordial encounter at the ministerial for global trade and economic growth.

Jerusalem and Riyadh were working with the United States on the framework of a normalisation agreement when Hamas launched its bloody invasion of the northwestern Negev on October 7.

Israel established diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates and three other majority Arab Muslim countries as part of the Abraham Accords brokered by the Trump administration in 2020. Prior to October 7, hopes were high for a breakthrough with the Saudis.

Reuters reported earlier this month that Saudi Arabia would suffice with a declared Israeli commitment to the two-state solution to normalise ties with Jerusalem as part of a broad agreement including a defence pact with the United States.
It's Chilling How Quickly the Oct. 7 Massacre Is Being Forgotten
Instead of supporting Israel in its attempt to finish a job that is not only of the utmost necessity for its own continued existence, but hugely important for the future of the West, we see instead a wide range of anti-Semitic tantrums thrown globally.

Israel was only ever going to be given two, three weeks tops after the Oct. 7 massacres, after which the great and the good would lose patience, demand that Israel lay down arms, let Hamas regroup and win, and continually and falsely accuse the Israeli military of being trigger-happy where Palestinian lives are concerned.

The thousands who turn out on the streets every weekend to demonize Israel have no clue about the concept of waging a just war and why doing so is different from committing genocide. Outside Parliament, a mob was busy beaming "from the river to the sea" onto Big Ben. No one was beaming: "release the hostages."

It is as if the actual events of Oct. 7 are simply ceasing to exist outside of Israel - as if Hamas' actions have now been almost totally forgotten. Hamas knew all along that, because of the power of anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism, the world would end up siding with it.


Melanie Phillips: A watershed moment
Last Wednesday evening saw a watershed moment in Britain.

Parliamentary rules were torn up and democratic debate scrapped under the pressure of threats to murder British members of parliament in connection with a foreign war, as I commented here.

While the mob in Parliament Square waved a phalanx of Palestinian flags and bayed abuse of Israel, the words “from river to sea” were projected onto parliament’s Elizabeth Tower, or “Big Ben”.

The symbolism was devastating and appalling. The slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is the infamous cry, by those waging Islamic holy war and their western supporters, for the destruction of Israel and the Jews within it. Yet it was being projected onto the structure that symbolises democracy and the nation. No less terrible than using parliament to stage a call for the genocide of the Jews, this was also a gloating statement that the Islamists were now in control of Britain.

It was subsequently reported that Ben Jamal, Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign who organised Wednesday’s hate-fest outside the Commons, told demonstrators to “ramp up the pressure” on MPs and to demonstrate in such numbers “that they will have to lock the doors of parliament itself”.

On Saturday, the police closed Tower Bridge for an hour as the “ceasefire now” mob blocked traffic and let off flares.

And the police stood back and let this happen — even though they have legal powers to prevent such “disruption to the life of the community”, just as they have powers to prevent demonstrators from screaming “death to the Jews” or “globalise the intifada” as they have done every week since the October 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel.
Nobody wants to admit the scale of the Islamist threat to our democracy
At best this was a subversion of democracy that undermined the integrity of Parliament. At worst it was naked appeasement and a deliberate act of bowing to the mob, who were protesting loudly outside and projecting anti-Semitic slogans onto Big Ben. I would like to see a law passed immediately to ban any unauthorised projections onto the buildings of Parliament.

But how has this mob, which includes Islamists and far-Left activists, become so powerful that its actions made MPs afraid to vote with their consciences? Why was the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, so willing to compromise himself and his reputation like this?

The events of Wednesday have certainly changed how I feel about doing my job as an MP. My office overlooks Whitehall, and on Wednesday I could hear and see the protesters as they marched and grew in number and volume.

I’d spoken in the SNP’s ceasefire debate and had stated my opinion that we cannot possibly vote for a ceasefire and leave the remaining Israeli hostages in the hands of Hamas. Seeing the baying mob outside made me feel wary of leaving the safety of my office.

I’d also come up against such attempted intimidation in my constituency. Shortly after the Hamas attacks of Oct 7, I went to my local synagogue to express my sympathies to the Southend Jewish community and to ask if I could do anything to help. I was welcomed warmly, and my offer of help was appreciated.

I also have a mosque in my constituency, so a few weeks later I reached out to see if I could do anything to support them, especially in terms of organising humanitarian help for the innocent people of Gaza.

I was invited inside and offered a seat before being surrounded by a number of men and one woman. She immediately started shouting, jabbing her finger in my face and demanding to know “how many babies had to die to satisfy my blood lust”. My aide, who was with me, suggested that we leave.

A few days later, there was an anti-war in the Middle East march in Southend, with dolls covered in fake blood scattered on the pavement under people holding placards saying “Anna Firth kills babies”.
Peace cannot be achieved by UN bullying or kangaroo courts
It’s time for a reality check. Hamas was guilty of a whole array of war crimes (including kidnapping children) and crimes against humanity on Oct 7, 2023—a day of grisly mass murders and unspeakable torture that it celebrated in real time and now serially denies.

While this Palestinian diplomat talks of peace where no Arab or Jew will be killed, the Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas, now in the 17th year of his four-year term, passed a law wherein Hamas mass murders and their families are financially rewarded for every Jew killed or maimed.

All these machinations and tear-laden declarations have done nothing to hold terrorists accountable for their unrepentant atrocities. On the contrary, the UN and international NGOs have done nothing to save captive Americans and Israelis still held underground in Gaza by Hamas, instead focusing on demands for an open-ended cease-fire that would throw Hamas a lifeline.

One of the boilerplate accusations against Israel repeated in the latest legal assault has to do with allegedly changing the demographics of the Jewish people’s eternal capital, Jerusalem. The allegations about Jerusalem and its holy sites are outrageous.

The world has conveniently forgotten that Jews were barred from praying at Judaism’s holiest site, the Western Wall, for 19 years (1948-1967), that synagogues in the Old City were destroyed, and that the historic Mount of Olives cemetery was desecrated by the occupying Jordanians. All that changed when Israel took complete control of Jerusalem in 1967 and restored religious rights for all faiths ever since.

As for the so-called occupied territories, the 15-judge panel of the ICJ would do well to ask: What part of Israel does the Palestinian Authority not consider occupied?

Peace will not be achieved through the diktats of the United Nations or pronouncements from the World Court.

Peace will be only possible when the Palestinian Authority eliminates its pay-for-slay law and when Palestinian schoolchildren are taught to acknowledge and respect the citizens of the Jewish state.

The World Court gambit is but one of many fronts opened by the enemies of peace to weaken and ultimately destroy the democratic Jewish state of Israel. No deal, no way.
To Biden and Blinken: Face the reality that peace is hard
Are the proponents of the Two State Solution stupid, or are they just lazy?

During the Oslo years of the 1990s, both the American and Israeli governments could have taken Yasser Arafat to task for not bothering to do the bare minimum to prepare his people for peace, for spreading incitement and antisemitism, supporting terrorism, and creating a society geared entirely towards killing Jews. But they chose not to, seeing the newly-born Palestinian Authority as ‘too big to fail’ and unwilling to put in the work to ensure that it could do anything but fail.

The Bush Administration was willing to call out the incitement and support for terrorism of the Arafat government and called for a ‘reformed’ Palestinian Authority that moved away from the terrorism and Jew-hate of Arafat, but it never put in the work to pressure Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, to end the incitement and payments to terrorists, or to live with the reality of a Jewish state.

The Obama Administration devoted all of its energy to pressuring Israel out of the belief that if only a Palestinian state were created, most of the Middle East’s problems would be solved or made much easier to solve. Figures like John Kerry were too intellectually lazy to consider that things may not be as easy as simply declaring a Palestinian state or any other approach.

The Trump Administration has been the only US Administration that has shown the intellectual capability of thinking outside the box, securing normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab countries through innovative approaches not wedded to outdated and intellectually lazy concepts.

Now, the Biden Administration is hemming and hawing about a Palestinian state again, as if they are incapable of thinking of anything else when Israel is attacked.
‘Total Betrayal’: GOP Slams Biden Admin Bid To Force Ceasefire on Israel
The Biden administration’s efforts to impose a ceasefire on Israel is a "total betrayal" of the United States’ closest Middle East ally and will allow the Hamas terrorist group to restock arms for a renewed siege on the Jewish state, GOP lawmakers told the Washington Free Beacon.

"The Biden administration’s call for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza is a total betrayal of our ally, Israel, and a gift to Hamas terrorists," House majority whip Tom Emmer (R., Minn.) told the Free Beacon following reports the Biden administration will use its power on the United Nations Security Council to force a stop to the war and prevent Israel from expanding its operation into the Gaza Strip’s Rafah city, a Hamas stronghold. The United States is also spearheading a hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas that would implement a temporary ceasefire and see Israel release scores of Palestinian terrorists in exchange for around 35 to 40 hostages.

"While Joe Biden and the Democrats continue to cave to the anti-Israel agenda being pushed by the radicals in their party, House Republicans’ support for Israel and their right to defend themselves remains undeterred," Emmer said, echoing the comments of other congressional Republicans who spoke to the Free Beacon.

The comments come as the Biden administration walks back its initial full-throated support for Israel’s effort to eradicate Hamas in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks that killed more than 1,200. The White House and Republicans in Congress were mostly on the same page about Israel’s war until recently, as the Biden administration caves to far-left anti-Israel voices in the Democratic Party who are leaning on it to more aggressively police the Jewish state’s war effort.

This includes petitioning the United Nations to impose a temporary ceasefire on Israel and formally condemn a planned offensive in Rafah that the United States and its allies say "would result in further harm to civilians and their further displacement including potentially into neighboring countries."
Reinstated US Position on Settlements Revives Long-Standing Misreporting on Decades-Old Policy
A second New York Times article rehashes the false assertion that for decades American policy considered Israeli settlements illegal under international law. The opening paragraph stated (“Reversing Trump Policy, Blinken Says New Israeli Settlements Are Illegal, page A9, Feb. 24, 2024, and online here):
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Friday that the American government now considers new Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories to be “inconsistent with international law,” marking a reversal of a policy set under the Trump administration and a return to a decades-long U.S. position on the contentious subject.

In fact, the Trump administration’s 2019 decision overturned a policy that was in place for just three years – since the December 2016 Obama administration decision to consider Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law – and not decades as reported. Prior to the 2016 Obama decision, and dating back decades until the Carter administration, U.S. policy from Reagan until Obama considered settlements an obstacle to peace, but did not take a stance on their legality.

Regardless of one’s view about the legality of settlements, it’s specious for journalists to cite a ’78 State Department view to give the false impression the US position has until now been that they are illegal, while ignoring the president in ’81 saying they are “not illegal.”

— Gilead Ini (@GileadIni) November 18, 2019

Since the Reagan administration, which explicitly said it did not believe the settlements were illegal, U.S. administrations have instead characterized the settlements as an obstacle to peace and illegitimate. They have not characterized the settlements as “illegal.”

Indeed, over the years, numerous media outlets corrected after erroneously reporting that prior to the Obama Administration’s 2016 decision the U.S. considered settlements illegal under international law prior: Associated Press (2016, a month before Obama’s December reversal of long-standing policy), Washington Post (2016); The Times (UK, 2016); ABC (Dec. 19, 2016); Boston Globe (2004), and Times of Israel (2024, 2018 and 2016). Most recently, Times of Israel corrected yesterday after initially misreporting (“US House speaker slams Biden admin for restoring policy against Israeli settlements“):
Crowdfunding platforms delete appeals for sanctioned ‘settlers’
Three online fundraising campaigns in support of Israeli citizens sanctioned by the Biden administration for “undermining peace” in Judea and Samaria were taken down following an Associated Press investigation, the news agency reported over the weekend.

Israeli crowdfunding platform Givechak closed down an appeal for Yinon Levi, a farmer in the South Hebron Hills of Judea, according to the report. Before the fundraiser was taken down, more than 3,000 donors worldwide had contributed over $140,000 for Levi and his farm.

After AP requested comment from Givechak, Levi’s page was deleted, and the transfer of the money was put on hold. According to legal documents shared with the outlet, Levi’s family has filed a lawsuit to try to release the funds.

JGive, a Jerusalem-based crowdfunding website for nonprofits, likewise took down a campaign for Levi over the weekend, telling AP it had “blocked donations in compliance with the sanctions order.”

Meanwhile, New York-based Charidy.com deleted a $31,000 fundraiser for David Chai Chasdai, another Israeli sanctioned by the United States.
US justice has been hijacked by Middle East politics
The gates of justice are only as mighty as their gatekeepers, the judges. Last month, the American judiciary suffered a setback when Federal District Court Judge Jeffrey White released an order in Defense for Children Int’l Palestine v. Joseph R. Biden. Here, the plaintiffs sought to stop the Biden administration from providing further military aid to Israel by filing a preliminary injunction.

Despite correctly dismissing the case and denying the request for an injunction, White exceeded the bounds of his authority as a judge by issuing an order replete with judicial activism and undue foreign policy commentary on Israel’s defensive war in Gaza.

At a time when the judiciary has become increasingly subject to rebuke and concerns of politicization, judges have a moral duty to execute their job professionally in order to restore the public’s faith in their independence, impartiality, and competence. At a minimum, White should apologize for his unprofessional conduct that has surely harmed the public’s already soured perception of the court’s credibility.

Recent polls suggest “a striking loss of confidence” among Americans in their judicial system. Opinions on the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) subsided to record lows, with 54% of Americans sharing unfavorable views towards it in 2023, views that surely project onto SCOTUS’s subsidiaries – Federal District Courts.

Now more than ever, judges must restore faith in a system that many Americans feel has failed them. When a judge acknowledges that foreign policy is not in the purview of his role, he should act accordingly. Yet, in this case, White did not.

Despite first recognizing that the judiciary should not comment on questions of foreign policy, he seemingly defied the very standards he set out, offering unsolicited political commentary and a politically motivated call to action.
Is Hamas Gaining a Foothold in U.S. Medicine?
As if the antisemitism that has swept through Harvard needed an accelerant, a growing group of professors and other employees inaugurated the spring semester by rolling out the university’s chapter of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP). It’s part of a new U.S. network to “support” the National Students for Justice in Palestine, an organization that called the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance.”

Significantly, more than 40 percent of the 112 signatories to FSJP’s founding statement were from Harvard’s medical and public health schools as of Feb. 19. Names then were removed from public view amid backlash over the group’s reposting of a flagrantly antisemitic image, for which it later apologized as it faced fierce outcry. The cartoon depicted a hand with a dollar sign at the center of a Star of David holding a noose around the necks of what appeared to be the Black boxer Muhammad Ali and former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Among the FSJP founding statement’s signers are practitioners in internal medicine, psychiatry, pediatrics, and cancer care. Count this among many worrisome signals that the antisemitism roiling U.S. undergraduate programs has bled into the healthcare field as well, particularly among younger doctors and medical students. It has implications for medicine.

Vilifying Israel
Physicians are brazenly posting comments on their personal social media that vilify Israel while calling for its “dissolution” and rail against “Zionist doctors,” with comments such as, “The presence of Zionism in US medicine should be examined as a structural impediment to health equity.”

Some doctors are denying the brutalities inflicted by Hamas. Among them are gynecologists who called the documented rapes fabrications and doubled down while blaming Israel for the massacre when challenged by a Florida maternal fetal medicine specialist who recently had been in an OB/GYN residency program with them. (They agreed to share this information with me on condition of anonymity.)

Not only do those impugning doctors spread monstrous lies virally with the heft of a medical license, many also are taking Jew-hatred to the streets as they align with groups backing Hamas and target sacrosanct spaces in the name of medicine. Even before Israel entered Gaza, health workers protested at Harvard Medical School in Boston’s medical district. Several wore white coats embellished with “Doctors Against Genocide, Free Palestine” and “Medical Students against Genocide, Free Palestine,” an oft-heard rallying cry that blends a modern-day blood libel with a call for Israel’s destruction.

A recent protest outside Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center was part of a “Flood Manhattan for Gaza MLK Day March for Healthcare,” sponsored by Healthcare Workers for Palestine and Within Our Lifetime—the latter group listed by the Anti-Defamation League as “expressing complete support for Hamas’s deadly attacks” and viewing violence as “a warranted response.”
What the Hell Is Going On: Natan Sharansky on the Murder of Alexei Navalny
Alexei Navalny was allowed one book in his Siberian prison. He chose Fear No Evil by former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, who joins us for an important conversation today to speak about his correspondence with Navalny and his own experience in a Siberian forced labor camp. Why did Navalny return to Moscow, and to certain arrest? What were his aims? What is it like to be held in what Sharansky refers to as his “alma mater” — solitary confinement? And given Navalny’s murder, has Putin’s regime etched another notch in its belt, or is it still doomed to fail, as Sharansky predicted long ago? We talk Putin, Hamas, liberalism and neo-Marxism with one of the greats.

Natan Sharansky is a former Soviet refusnik, an Israeli politician, author and human rights activist. In 1978, Sharansky was convicted of treason and spying on behalf of the United States, and was sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment in a Siberian forced labor camp. Sharansky served as Minister of Industry and Trade from June 1996-1999. He served as Minister of the Interior from July 1999 until his resignation in July 2000 and as Minister of Housing and Construction and Deputy Prime Minister from March 2001 until February 2003. In February 2003, Natan Sharansky was appointed Minister without Portfolio, responsible for Jerusalem, social and Diaspora affairs. In November 2006 Natan Sharansky resigned from the Knesset and assumed the position of Chairman of the then newly-established Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. In June 2009, he was elected and sworn in as Chairman of The Jewish Agency for Israel, a post he still holds. Natan Sharansky is the author of four books: Fear No Evil (1988), The Case for Democracy (2004), Defending Identity (2008), and Never Alone: Prison, Politics, and My People (2020).
The Quad: Ex-Islamist: Millions Are Being Taught To "Dehumanize" Jews and Israel
The Quad interview Ridvan Aydemir aka the Apostate Prophet - a Youtube channel with close to half a million followers where he exposes extremism in Islamic thought and circles. An avowed Zionist, Aydemir came to visit Israel after Oct. 7th in a show of solidarity and to see first-hand the results of Islamic extremism.

The Quad also discuss the complete breakdown of order in the Gaza Strip and how badly needed supplies and food are being stolen in broad daylight. As more and more Gazans are speaking out against Hamas, are the tides turning against the terror organization? Is now the time to call for a two-state solution? Should Israel continue to deliver international aid?

And, of course, the scumbags and heroes of the week!




Anti-Semitism is eroding British society
With every week that passes, more and more people in this country are discovering that it is permissible to exhibit hatred towards Jews. Too often they are getting away with it.

Two weeks ago in a British court Judge Tan Ikram found three women guilty of an offence under the Terrorism Act. The women had attended a pro-Palestinian march with symbols that appeared to celebrate the method by which some Hamas terrorists on October 7 entered Israel to kill and rape as many Jews as they could find. But the Judge did not feel that a conviction of this kind deserved a prison sentence.

A mitigating factor, the Judge said, was that emotions were running “very high on the issue”. It seems from this judgement that it is ok to commit offences in Britain against Jews if you are feeling emotional.

It emerged soon after that Judge Ikram had liked a post on social media that described Israelis as “terrorists”. This rightly raises questions around judicial impartiality.

Our judicial system is not the only profession through which the poison appears to be spreading. Earlier this month, Dr Dimitrios Psaroudakis – who had said that Hammersmith would be better if it was “Jew free” – was found not to be racist but instead to be “comfortable with discriminatory language” by the General Medical Council’s independent tribunal.

So, a man who wanted to rid an area of London of Jewish people was deemed not to be racist. When you hear something like this as a British Jew it is hard to absorb at first. It seems both impossible and yet ever more likely since the October 7 pogrom.

Of course, it is very hard to imagine the tribunal coming to a similar conclusion if the racism had been directed at members of the black or Muslim community.

It appears clear to me that people in positions of power in Britain feel increasingly able to treat Jews very differently when it comes to prejudice and discrimination.

To add salt to this particular wound, Dr Psaroudakis was suspended for a pitiful three months and will be back at work soon. Those who have paid attention to his particular case may well feel emboldened by the signal that when it comes to racism against Jews, the normal rules do not apply.
The shamelessness of Hope not Hate
You would think that a group called ‘Hope not Hate’ would have a lot of important things to talk about at the moment. It could look at how the threat of Islamist extremism is corrupting our democracy, for instance. It might raise the alarm about the MPs unwilling to vote with their conscience when it comes to Gaza because they are ‘terrified’. Or point to Mike Freer, who after years of death threats was recently forced to resign as an MP. Hope not Hate might also have investigated the appalling ‘hate marches’ we’ve seen since 7 October, which brought anti-Semitic slogans and chants of ‘jihad’ to the streets of London – or the people with links to Hamas that have helped organise them. There’s certainly been no shortage of hate in Britain this past year.

So when Hope not Hate announced ‘This is BIG’ on Thursday, the self-professed campaign to ‘defend, champion and promote democracy and the rule of law’ could conceivably have been talking about any of these outrages. Instead, Hope not Hate had something far juicier to reveal, something that would really have the chattering classes reaching for their smelling salts. It turns out a right-leaning millionaire, according to its ground-breaking new investigation, sometimes likes tweets criticising immigration.

Hope not Hate looked at the Twitter / X account of Sir Paul Marshall, the multi-millionaire owner of UnHerd and majority shareholder in GB News. They found – shock horror – that he had liked tweets expressing various right-wing views: criticising Sadiq Khan; praising Hungarian PM Viktor Orban and generally being negative about Islam and mass migration into Europe.

Marshall’s ‘shocking’, ‘extreme tweets’, complained Hope not Hate researcher Gregory Davis, suggests ‘that he holds a deeply disturbing view of modern Britain.’ Davis says that this is a particularly ‘alarming prospect’ given that the media mogul ‘is believed to be preparing a bid to buy The Telegraph and The Spectator’. Marshall, for what it’s worth, commented that the posts he had liked were ‘a small and unrepresentative sample of over 5,000 posts’ which ‘does not represent his views’.

This rather pathetic ‘investigation’ – a collaboration with Global’s News Agents podcast – consisted simply of trawling through his Twitter likes and reposts. It didn’t even find any tweets he’d written himself, as the investigation suggests – and it goes without saying that liking or retweeting an article or video does not necessarily mean that someone endorses it.

The bigger problem though is that Hope not Hate’s censorious handwringing about right-wing extremism also actively undermines Britain’s efforts to tackle Islamism, which has long been known to be the far bigger threat.
Fiamma Nirenstein: After Oct. 7th, Came a Tsunami of Antisemitism | JNS TV
JNS CEO Alex Traiman sits down with longtime journalist, writer and author Fiamma Nirenstein to discuss the explosion of antisemitism that followed Oct. 7th - where it is coming from, why it is happening and what can be done to combat it.


Corrupted from Birth: The UNRWA’s Forgotten History
Lt. General Sir Alexander Galloway, a distinguished British officer, retired as British High Commissioner for Allied Occupied Austria and became UNRWA’s head in Jordan in 1951. Just a year later, Galloway was fired at the request of the Jordanian government when he refused to dismiss Western employees and hire locals.

In August of 1952, he published a blunt op-ed in the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post that lambasted UNRWA, the Arab states, and the refugees themselves:
What is the solution? Of course, the problem is difficult. Refugee settlement, except under dictatorship, is a long, expensive business. Somehow or other, the Arab Governments, the United Nations, UNRWA, and some of the refugees have got to face facts. There is a need of a change of heart and a better atmosphere. There is need to distinguish between a tempting political maneuver and the hard, unpalatable fact that the refugees cannot in the foreseeable future return to their homes in Palestine. To get this acceptance is a matter of politics: it is beyond the function of UNRWA. Second, a determined effort should be made to get the ‘host’ countries to take over relief from the Agency, thus freeing it to get on with the much more important task of resettlement.

Galloway’s bluntness and insight were also shown in a quote from an interview he gave in 1952 to a group of visiting American church leaders: “It is perfectly clear than the Arab nations do not want to solve the Arab refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront against the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don’t give a damn whether the refugees live or die.”

Galloway’s solution was straightforward:
Give each of the Arab nations where the refugees are to be found an agreed-upon sum of money for their care and resettlement and then let them handle it. If... the United Nations had done this immediately after the conflict—explaining to the Arab states, ‘We are sorry it happened, but here is a sum of money for you to take care of the refugees’—the problem might have been solved long ago.

Since the early 1950s, UNRWA has done precisely the opposite, opting for the “tempting political maneuver” of lying to Palestinians about the future, never demanding that host countries resettle Palestinians, and instead becoming the Palestinian ministries of health, welfare, education, and, to an astonishing degree, foreign affairs.

UNRWA has some 30,000 employees, with 13,000 in Gaza alone. But with the sudden exposure of UNRWA’s terror ties, Israel is demanding the organization be replaced. The United Nations still claims that UNRWA is indispensable: “there is no way any organization can replace or substitute the tremendous capacity, the fabric of UNRWA, their ability and their knowledge of the population in Gaza.”

This statement by Sigrid Kaag, the United Nations Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, simply demonstrates the point that UNRWA and the UN as a whole are woven completely into Gaza, including Hamas, making any denials of abuses or “reforms” impossible.

What comes the day after in Gaza remains unclear, but UNRWA, in its current form, cannot be a part of the solution. UNRWA’s ethos of entitlement and the Palestinian identity as permanent refugees—pending the destruction of Israel—cannot continue.


The replacement of UNRWA discussed in Geneva summit



Columbia professor: 'Must continue' to take on antisemitism
Shortly in the aftermath of Hamas’s onslaught against Israel, Davidai spoke at Columbia, and his speech went viral: “America, we can’t protect your kids anymore. We cannot protect your kids from pro-terror student organizations.”

Since that video went viral, Davidai said, “I don’t go to the main campus anymore because I don’t feel comfortable.”

He explained that when he made that speech, he wanted to convey two messages.The first was to Jewish parents sending their 18-year-olds to campus, letting them know that the university was not doing anything to protect their children from antisemitism. Instead, it is platforming student organizations that are celebrating October 7.

The second message was to the average parent in the United States to know that there is blatant support for terrorist organizations on campus. Davidai is referring to Hamas and the Houthis, who are proxies for Iran and who have been firing missiles at Israel and attacking US ships.

When asked what he would want to see differently as an Israeli professor working at an elite institution, Davidai explained that several major things must occur to have legitimate discussions about the conflict. The first would be setting the boundaries on what is considered acceptable.

“I can’t have an open dialogue with someone who doesn’t recognize my right to exist,” Davidai said.

If the very foundation of the conversation is questioning Israel’s right to exist, then there is no room for a legitimate discussion. He also suggested that “the university needs to acknowledge the fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization.” He explained that the university can’t set a moral direction for legitimate discussion without making that abundantly clear.

Lastly, Davidai explained that there must be a “removal of the agents of chaos from campus that are calling for the eradication of Jews from Israel.” When administrations know who the organizations and faculty advisers are and let them get away with it, it’s a problem.

While things look grim at Columbia, as an educator, Davidai remains hopeful and says that he will always be willing to have dialogue and discussion about this conflict. As an Israeli liberal and a promoter of a two-state solution, he hopes to see Israelis and Palestinians living in peace in his lifetime.
Celebrating a legacy of antisemitism at Harvard
Harvard has publicly pledged to review the incident and to enforce applicable university regulations. It must do so to the fullest extent possible.

The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and the African and African American Resistance Organization did, in the end, apologize. But the apology was, to use the Crimson’s language, “just” an Instagram post. Moreover, it was barely an apology at all.

They belittled the entire issue by describing the image as “antiquated,” as if that somehow made it less offensive. The image is from 1967, based on similar images from the Nazi era and the early 20th century, which are no less offensive now than they were then. The groups also refused to take responsibility for intentionally choosing and posting the image. Instead, they claimed that the post “was linked to our account,” as if it mysteriously appeared there by nefarious supernatural means. We didn’t do it, they seemed to be saying; it just happened.

Well, it didn’t just happen. Make no mistake: Someone from what the Crimson called “the pro-Palestine coalition at Harvard” searched for the antisemitic image, chose it because it reflected their hate-filled beliefs and chose to post it. There was no invisible hand. Yet those responsible, even though they acknowledged that the image was antisemitic, continue to deflect responsibility.

Moreover, their use of an antisemitic image from 1967 was no accident. It was the entire point. It sought to proudly celebrate a long legacy of antisemitism and declare solidarity with it. It succeeded. Antisemitism does indeed have a long and ugly legacy, and now these groups are part of it.

It appears that the Crimson hopes to use this incident to spur campus dialogue. Fine. But dialogue cannot start with excuses. Real dialogue can only begin by openly acknowledging that grossly antisemitic images and messages were intentionally chosen and amplified. It can only begin when it is also acknowledged that this problem is not confined to the pro-Palestinian student community, nor even to its collaborators on the Harvard faculty. It is part of the entire fabric of the pro-Palestinian movement around the world. Those responsible for celebrating and continuing this legacy of hate need to own it and take responsibility for it. If they do not, they will never move past it—and neither will Harvard.
Harvard Jew-hatred task force co-chair quits, reportedly fearing school won’t take suggestions
Alan Garber, the interim president of Harvard University, announced the Ivy League school’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism on Jan. 19, two-and-a-half weeks after Claudine Gay stepped down as president of the university.

A little more than a month later, Raffaella Sadun, a business professor at Harvard, stepped down as co-chair of the 14-member task force. Garber replaced her with Jared Ellias, a law professor at Harvard.

There have also been calls for the other co-chair, Derek Penslar, a Jewish history professor, to step down for minimizing Jew-hatred and criticism of Israel.

“I am grateful to have had the opportunity to help advance the vital work to combat antisemitism and believe that President Garber has assembled an excellent task force,” Sadun said about her departure. “I will continue to support efforts to tackle antisemitism at Harvard in any way I can from my faculty position.”

Garber stated that Sadun “has expressed her desire to refocus her efforts on her research, teaching and administrative responsibilities.”

“I am extremely appreciative of Professor Sadun’s participation in the task force over the past weeks. Her insights and passion for this work have helped shape the mandate for the task force and how it can best productively advance the important work ahead,” he added. “She has advanced our efforts to be a stronger, more inclusive Harvard, and for that, we owe her our deep thanks.”

Although neither Garber nor Sadun mentioned a reason for her departure, the Harvard Crimson, a student publication, reported that Sadun resigned “after repeatedly considering stepping down, because she felt the university would not commit to acting on its suggestions.”


Former Penn President Signed off on Sanctions for Speech of Controversial Conservative Prof. She Let an Anti-Semitic Literary Festival Proceed Under the Banner of Free Expression.
The former president of the University of Pennsylvania, Liz Magill, who resigned in December after telling a congressional panel that calls for genocide of Jews did not necessarily constitute bullying or harassment, signed off last year on sanctions for a professor who had criticized diversity initiatives.

Magill accepted the recommendations of a Penn hearing board in August to suspend Amy Wax, a tenured law professor, for a year at half pay and to strip her of a named chair, according to a report from Philadelphia Inquirer and documents obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon.

Wax had a long record of controversial statements that the school claimed violated its anti-discrimination policies, including her criticisms of diversity, equity, and inclusion officials, who she claimed "couldn’t be scholars if their life depended on it."

In a June memo outlining its recommendations to Magill, the hearing board cited that remark as an example of "inequitably targeted disrespect."

Magill signed off on the penalties just weeks before she defended the right of Penn faculty to host the controversial Palestine Writes literary festival featuring prominent anti-Semites, some of whom have likened Israel to the Nazis, claimed "most Jews" are "evil," and blamed Jews for destroying Europe’s economy. In doing so, Magill cited the paramount importance of free expression on campus. "We … fiercely support the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission," Magill said in a September statement. "This includes the expression of views that are controversial and even those that are incompatible with our institutional values."
Professor leaves MIT ‘dream job’ for Yeshiva due to Jew-hatred
After quitting his “dream job” at Massachusetts Institute of Technology due to antisemitism on campus, Mauricio Karchmer is fitting in at his new job at Yeshiva University.

The computer scientist has, in his first two days at Yeshiva, already “mentored students, taught courses in multiple domains of expertise and helped both university leadership and the broader community understand the dynamics on college campuses outside of YU,” Noam Wasserman, dean of Yeshiva’s Sy Syms School of Business, told JNS.

Weissman said that Karchmer is already brainstorming with department chairs at the school about a course he is designing for the fall semester, “which will bring together his expertise in financial engineering and in computer science.”

The professor also held a fireside chat at Yeshiva with Ari Berman, the university president, about antisemitism on campuses. Karchmer “observed that the stakes are much bigger than just the war with Hamas, because ‘The Palestinians are a pawn and Israel is a proxy,’” Weissman said.

Karchmer announced his move to Yeshiva, where he is a visiting guest faculty member, on LinkedIn. He said he was honored to be part of a “a deeply grounded institution,” with leaders who lead by living up to their values.”
This Palestinian School Hosts Hamas Military Parades. It Also Hosts Webinars With Professors From Top US Universities.
In the wake of Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel, professors and students from prominent U.S. universities have participated in virtual discussions on the Jewish state's retaliatory war organized by a Palestinian university that hosts campus military parades honoring Hamas.

Birzeit University, which is located in the West Bank and bills itself as "a thorn in the side of the occupation," operates the Right to Education Campaign, a self-described "grassroots Palestinian movement" aimed at documenting "academic institutions under Israeli military operation." The campaign has held a number of virtual events featuring U.S. professors and students.

Last month, for example, it held a webinar titled, "Gaza Genocide: An Israeli Crime Against Humanity" that featured Princeton University international law professor Richard Falk, San Francisco State University ethnic studies professor Rabab Abdulhadi, and University of California, Los Angeles, history professor Robin D.G. Kelley. Those academics, along with representatives from Birzeit and other activists, discussed "the rising repression under Israeli rule" as well as "the US role in enabling the Israeli genocide as well as our capacity to respond and make change." At one point in the webinar, Palestinian attorney Ahmed Abofoul justified Oct. 7 as "the result of 75 years of colonialism and apartheid imposed on the Palestinian people."

The event came roughly two years after Birzeit students held a pair of military parades celebrating the 34th and 54th founding anniversaries of Hamas and fellow terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, respectively. Mask-clad activists wore the two terror group's uniforms and carried flags and portraits of the group's founders. Hamas student leaders at Birzeit pledged to "remain loyal to the path of resistance," according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, and other participants saluted Hamas for carrying out suicide bombings in Israeli cities.

The professors' willingness to associate with Birzeit reflects the wave of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activism seen on American college campuses since Oct. 7.
Rogue anti-Israel SUNY group finally getting censured — a month late and only after Post inquiry: ‘This is how hate starts’
A rogue group called “SUNY BDS” used the state university system’s name to spew anti-Israel propaganda nearly a month ago — and officials are only now finally censuring it after a Post inquiry.

The self-billed “community organization” that claims to represent all 64 State University of New York branches was slapped with a cease-and-desist letter by SUNY lawyers late Friday — after The Post questioned why the unauthorized group was left unchecked to spew its hatred for weeks.

“This is how hate is propagated across 64 universities at the same time — this is how hate starts,” seethed a critic of Gov. Kathy Hochul, whose administration failed to denounce the nearly month-old group until pressed by The Post.

“BDS” has become a highly controversial term that stands for “boycott, divestment and sanction” and targets Israel while falsely accusing the Jewish state of “occupying” and “colonizing” land.

The SUNY BDS group — which describes itself as “SUNY students, staff, faculty, and alumni working to make New York State divest from Israeli apartheid” — apparently does not recognize the existence of the Jewish state, referring to it as “Israel” with quotes, and accuses the sovereign nation of being a “murderous settler colonial and genocidal state project.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that all New York high school students that graduate in the top 10% of their classes will automatically be admitted into SUNY and CUNY schools. Kathy Hochul’s SUNY/CUNY admission scheme is simply more unfair racial discrimination

Panic erupts over likely closure of only state-run hospital in NYC: ‘They’ve got to save this place’

A forceful statement condemning the group — which had been the subject of some SUNY campus news-outlet articles — was finally sent to The Post from the governor’s office Friday after The Post asked about the hateful organization.

“To be clear, both Governor Hochul and the SUNY System do not endorse this group or their mission,” said a rep for Hochul, adding that the governor has “repeatedly condemned all forms of antisemitism and has taken significant steps to keep our students safe, including launching a nation-leading initiative to combat hate crimes, investing hundreds of millions of dollars to protect schools, places of worship and community centers, and advancing a comprehensive plan to eradicate hate and bias at public colleges in New York.”


Jewish Harvard alum plan huge audit of classes and claim entire programs 'are built on anti-Semitic lies'
Jewish Harvard alumni are reportedly planning an audit of the university's course offerings to root out what they believe is causing anti-Semitism to fester at the Ivy League.

Documents viewed by The Boston Globe show members of the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance are launching an effort to intervene with university leadership who they say administrators have let the hatred grow undeterred.

The alumni group was established after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, which brought anti-Israel protesters out on the Harvard campus and forced former President Claudine Gay to resign from her post after disastrous testimony to Congress that failed to condemn campus anti-Semitism.

Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance held a meeting with interim university president Alan Garber last month requesting to 'launch a transparent inquiry … to review and revise the objectives and practices' of Harvard's diversity, equity and inclusion offices.

'[W]e were very, very clear how frustrated our group was and the wide range of emotions from anger to disappointment,' the groups president Eric Fleiss said in a WhatsApp channel viewed by the Globe.

'We think it is fair to say that they clearly recognize they have a problem, and that it is part of/related to the broader issue on campus of free speech and institutional neutrality.'
LAUSD School Board Frontrunner Apologizes for Liking Antisemitic Social Media Posts
Kahllid Al-Alim, who is considered to be the frontrunner for in a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board race, issued an apology on Tuesday for calling a Nation of Islam (NOI) book “mandatory reading.”

Al-Alim is running for Board District 1 to replace board member George McKenna, who is retiring; the district includes Castle Heights, Crenshaw and Mid City. Al-Alim has racked up endorsements from United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the Democratic Socialists of America-Los Angeles and the L.A. County Federation of Labor. Educators for Israel, under the X handle “@JewTLA,” posted a series of screenshots that they claimed showed “dozens of #antisemitic, anti-Israel posts” from Al-Alim’s personal X account, which appears to no longer exist. One such screenshot showed Al-Alim calling the NOI book “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews” “mandatory reading in community schools.” The book, according to the Anti-Defamation League, “blames Jews for promoting a myth of black racial inferiority and makes conspiratorial accusations about Jewish involvement in slave trade and the cotton, textiles, and banking industries.”

“I want to apologize for my posts about the [Louis] Farrakhan book,” Al-Alim said in a statement posted to his campaign website. “I was wrong. I have connected with educators and community members and have since learned about the issues. I fully rescind that post. It has no place in our schools.”

Erica Huerta, Al-Alim’s campaign manager, told LAist regarding the NOI book post, “Before the campaign even officially started, that was one of the tweets that we recognized. We tried to delete it.”

Al-Alim also apologized in his statement “for my likes on social media of graphic content. It was inappropriate. I will never do that again.” The Los Angeles Times reported that Al-Alim appeared to like “sexually oriented” posts, which included “a woman in a see-through halter top is holding a machine gun.”


The Guardian's egregious double standards in reporting on sexual violence

BBC News website coverage of the Nasser hospital operation

Toronto Star Columnist Shree Paradkar Says Hamas Attacks Should Be Put In “Context”
After a brief hiatus from her obsessive coverage of the Hamas-Israel war, where Shree Paradkar, the “social and racial justice columnist” at the Toronto Star, wrote a non-Israel related column amidst a barrage of other anti-Israel hit pieces, she has returned to the same topic she has covered ad nauseam since October 7.

Paradkar’s February 23 opinion column entitled: “A Stephen Harper tweet was the latest reminder of the depth of Western bias on Israel-Palestine,” castigated former Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his recent visit to Israel, where he expressed solidarity with the country in its fight against Palestinian terrorism.

In particular, Paradkar took issue with Harper’s statement that Hamas’ October massacre was “unprovoked,” calling his comments “ahistorical and disingenuous.”

Paradkar began her column by condemning Hamas’ genocidal attacks, writing “We can all agree that the actions of the Hamas gunmen whose attacks in Israeli towns on Oct. 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and 240 hostages taken hostage, were awful.”

While Paradkar claims “all agree” that Hamas’ massacre was awful, that is a total misrepresentation of reality, when in fact, prominent anti-Israel activists have praised Hamas’ mass murders and even participated in parties celebrating the attacks.

Soon, however, Paradkar sought to provide “context” into the butchery, writing that Hamas named its October 7 mass killings the: “’Al Aqsa Floods’, saying it was meant to avenge Israel’s brutal attacks on Al Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem — long a flashpoint site — during Ramadan in 2021.”




She can’t handle Lattouf: Sacked presenter sues the ABC AGAIN

Adbusters Magazine Calls Hamas Terrorists “Freedom Fighters”

Israel slams Beijing for saying Palestinians have a right to attack civilians
Jerusalem on Monday criticized Beijing’s presentation to the International Court of Justice last week in which its representative appeared to legitimize the Hamas-led terrorist attack of Oct. 7.

“In pursuit of the right to self-determination, Palestinian people’s use of force to resist foreign oppression and complete the establishment of an independent state is [an] inalienable right well founded in international law,” Chinese Foreign Ministry legal adviser Ma Xinmin argued at The Hague, adding that Palestinian violence against Israel can be interpreted as “armed struggle” instead of terrorism.

During the invasion of sovereign Israeli territory on Oct. 7, thousands of terrorists participated in the murders of some 1,200 people, the wounding of thousands more and the kidnapping of 253 back to Gaza. Widespread atrocities were reported, including rapes, beheadings, burning babies, mutilations, torture and desecration of corpses.

The Hamas terrorist group praised the Chinese representative’s presentation.

“We also appreciate the position expressed by the People’s Republic of China, and its emphasis on the legality of the occupied peoples’ pursuit of self-determination, by various means, including armed resistance, and the necessity not to confuse terrorism with the armed struggle practiced by the Palestinian people against the Zionist occupation,” Osama Hamdan, a Hamas terrorist leader in Lebanon, said in a statement.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat tweeted in response to the Chinese address that “the laws of war do not allow a systematic and targeted attack against civilians and the use of civilians as human shields—two war crimes that Hamas commits under the title of ‘armed struggle.'”

Haiat continued: “At the current time, the Chinese statement could be interpreted as support for the murderous terrorist attack by Hamas on the seventh of October. China should ask itself why the terrorist organization Hamas was quick to welcome the words of its legal adviser at the ICJ.”


Father of slain IDF soldier to challenge Georgia state senator
The violence of the Israel-Hamas war hit home for the Atlanta Jewish community in November when Rose Lubin, a 21-year-old Atlanta native and a lone soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, was killed in a terror attack in Jerusalem. Her death quickly reverberated throughout Georgia, where her family still lives. In December, the Lubins’ state senator, Sally Harrell, honored Rose by authoring a resolution in her memory.

But the Lubins’ relationship with Harrell deteriorated after she delivered a Senate floor speech in January arguing against passage of a bill that would define antisemitism in state law in order to aid law enforcement and other public officials. The bill passed with near-unanimous support; Harrell did not cast a vote.

Now, Rose’s father, a general contractor who has never been involved in politics before, has announced a primary challenge against Harrell, a Democrat. David Lubin is pitching himself as a more moderate alternative willing to listen to the district’s Jewish community and take their concerns seriously at a time of mounting grief and fear.

“If she’s this disconnected with a group of Jewish people that are under threat,” Lubin told Jewish Insider on Friday, “then what is she doing with other stuff? That’s where I really felt I’ve got to do something, not just for the Jewish community, but for other communities as well.”

Lubin lives in Dunwoody, a heavily Jewish suburb of Atlanta that is currently represented by Harrell. Last year, Dunwoody residents awoke to antisemitic flyers distributed at people’s homes, a problem that has occurred multiple times in recent months in Jewish areas of Atlanta.


Rep. Summer Lee headlines CAIR fundraising banquet, alongside speakers with antisemitic history
Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) is scheduled to give remarks at a fundraising banquet for a leading Muslim advocacy group on Saturday alongside several speakers who have made antisemitic and homophobic comments.

The freshman Squad member, a vocal critic of Israel who represents the Pittsburgh area, is among four speakers invited to appear at an event this weekend hosted by the Philadelphia branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), according to an online flier.

One of the expected speakers, Ibrahim Jaaber, an author and former professional basketball player, has called Israelis “demons” who lie to “cover their horns,” as he wrote in a social media post days after the Oct. 7 attacks, invoking an age-old antisemitic trope.

He has also alleged that the war between Israel and Hamas “is being justified by evil politicians and their media puppets who get paid to tell blatant lies and deceive the public,” accusing the “media and celebrity mouthpieces” of “chucking and jiving for their Zionist masters.”

Another speaker, Nadirah Pierre, a stand-up comedian and Muslim social media influencer, appeared to rejoice over the Hamas massacre just hours after it had occurred. “May Allah destroy them even worse than they have tried to destroy others!” she wrote in an Oct. 7 post on X, formerly Twitter.

In older posts, Pierre has voiced appreciation for Louis Farrakhan, the antisemitic leader of the Nation of Islam, which hosted her first stand-up gig, and questioned the existence of gay Muslims.
Mexico’s Jewish presidential candidate doxxed, receives hateful messages
Mexico’s presidential frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum was doxxed online and is now being subjected to hateful phone calls, Sheinbaum announced on X on Sunday.

“Today I have been receiving non-stop calls and hate messages (like the one I show) because someone published my cell phone number on social networks,” Sheinbaum published online. “It is obvious what they want to do, again their attacks are as crude as they are harmless. The numbers that should concern you are those from the surveys. To change the phone number. Have a good day.”

The message screenshotted translated to “I’m not a bot; you don’t represent me. #NaroCandidateClaudia #NarcoGobiernoMorena #NarcoPresidentAmlo If you want to blame someone, go to the palace and complain to your boss.”

Context to the message Sheinbaum received
Mexico’s sitting president’s son also had his personal information leaked online, according to BBC News.

The leaked contact information came only a few days after the current sitting president, a close ally of Sheinbaum, released the phone number of a New York Times journalist investigating his alleged links to drug cartels.

The New York Times described the incident as "a troubling and unacceptable tactic from a world leader at a time when threats against journalists are on the rise."
Beto O’Rourke Resurfaces to Back Hamas
Beto O’Rourke crawled out of his own tunnel to endorse the campaign with the Kamalaesque line, “I do think it makes sense for those who want to see this administration do more, or do a better job, to exert that political pressure and get the president’s attention and the attention of those on his campaign so that the United States does better.”

Then doing his usual bucktoothed hipster JFK shtick, compared it to “John Lewis leading that march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in March of 1965, almost being beaten to death in the process, and really galvanizing the conscience of the country.”

Supporting Islamic terrorists who murder Jews, marching for civil rights, who can tell the difference anyway?

Out: “Hell yes, we are going to take your AR-15”. In: “Hell yes, we are going to take your AR-15 and give it to Hamas.”

Beto decided to say this while pushing his (latest?) book, “We’ve Got to Try: How the Fight for Voting Rights Makes Everything Else Possible.”

It really could have had the snappier title of, “We’ve Got to Lose $160 Million, But How About I Simp for a Hamas False Flag Cause Too?”


JCPA: Why the Palestinian Authority Opposes Marwan Barghouti's Potential Prison Release
Marwan Barghouti poses a significant threat to Mahmoud Abbas’s leadership and enjoys substantial support in Palestinian public opinion; he is often seen as Abbas’s potential successor and head of the PA. Barghouti is 64 years old; Abbas is 88.

In 2011, the PA successfully blocked Barghouti’s release as part of the Shalit deal, convincing Israel and the United States that his release would jeopardize security cooperation with Israel and undermine the Oslo Accords.

Barghouti also challenges Fatah’s leadership in the PA succession battle. Notably concerned about his potential release are Hussein al-Sheikh, the secretary-general of the PLO’s executive committee, and Majed Faraj, the head of Palestinian intelligence, both of whom see themselves as leading candidates to succeed Mahmoud Abbas.

At the highest levels of the PA, there is also apprehension about the large-scale release of hundreds of Hamas military wing activists into Judea and Samaria as part of the Israeli-Hamas deal. Such a release could bolster Hamas’s influence and further destabilize the PA.

Hamas has promised Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, that his release would be a priority in any deal with Israel regarding the release of security prisoners. Hamas aims to demonstrate its commitment to releasing prisoners from all factions, highlighting the PA’s perceived failure in this regard.


PMW: Is Ramadan a time for peace or terror? The US thinks peace; the PA promotes terror
Peaceful Ramadan through US eyes:

“The Biden administration has also raised concern over fighting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.” [The New York Times]

“The Biden administration believes there is an urgent need to get a deal… because Ramadan is three weeks away.” [Axios]

“The Biden administration is racing against the clock… [for a ceasefire] before Ramadan.” [CNN]

Terror Ramadan through Palestinian Authority eyes:
“The Prophet [Muhammad] entered the great Battle of Badr during Ramadan... In the month of Ramadan, in the 8th year of the Hijra, the Prophet and the Muslims conquered Mecca... The Prophet did not say… ‘now it’s Ramadan, people are fasting, let’s delay it to after Ramadan’… Ramadan is [now]… as it also was in the life of the Prophet, a month of Jihad, conquest, and victory.”

[Abbas’ advisor Supreme Shari’ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash]
PreOccupiedTerritory: IDF Thugs! Didn’t Even *Knock* When They Bashed In Our Door To Rescue Hostages! by Muhammad Ayman, Rafah resident (satire)
This is barbaric! We had in our home two Israelis that our friends abducted on October 7, and we were holding on to those Zionist pigs to serve as bargaining chips, when out of nowhere, the brutal monsters of the Occupation crashed into our living space, made a huge mess, and stole those hostages from us! They didn’t even have the courtesy to ring the bell first!

The cruelty and monstrosity of the Occupation know no bounds. We were quietly eating a meal the captives had been forced to prepare for us when BOOM the front door came crashing down and before we knew it there were bullets flying, two of our Hamas guests guarding the captives were down, and the Israeli prisoners were being moved out of the apartment by the commandos. Such uncivilized behavior! But I suppose we should expect nothing less from them by now.

Our people conducted a courageous operation on October 7. Caught the enemy unawares! A tremendous triumph! But for reasons we poorly understand, the enemy did not simply give up, as we expected. And now Gaza suffers. We thought that such a devastating blow would frighten the enemy into submission and flight. And now the enemy expects us to submit because we, too, have been dealt devastating blow after devastating blow! What kind of expectation is that??

There are rules. Rules of armed combat. Rules that the world expects Israel to follow, and threatens consequences for even the appearance of not following them – whereas we Palestinians are not expected to follow such rules, and never face serious consequences for neglecting. In fact we count on the double standard so we can weaponize Israeli adherence to international law. It helps that our allies such as Iran, China, and Russia shield us from the diplomatic blowback, leaving us to destroy our economy and future all by ourselves by provoking a nuclear power and continuing to threaten genocide. I must have been going somewhere with this paragraph, but got distracted by people banging down my door to rescue hostages instead of knocking politely as civilized humans might.
Vast majority of Iranians want a secular government, poll reveals
Almost three-quarters of Iranians want a secular government instead of a theocratic dictatorship, an anonymous state-run poll has revealed.

The survey also revealed that less than one in 10 people think women should be forced to wear a hijab.

The poll suggests a major shift in attitudes towards Iran’s religious regime has occurred since the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom uprising.

The movement saw protests erupt across the country after the death in morality-police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, arrested for the improper use of her hijab.

Over 15,800 Iranians of voting age across 31 provinces took part in the fourth anonymous study run by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. The last one was in 2015.

It shows a sharp uptick in demands for secular rule, up from 31 per cent to 73 per cent, indicating the push for secularism will probably grow in coming years.
Australians Persist In Research With Iranians Despite Warnings
Over 20 collaborative research papers have been published in the past year between Australian universities and Iranian institutes, the Guardian reported.

This comes as Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong earlier urged university leaders to halt joint projects with Iranian entities due to concerns over human rights abuses in Iran.

“I urge you to join with the Government to put on hold existing cooperation with Iranian entities, including … universities, and to refrain from any proposed new engagement,” Wong wrote.

While some collaborations focus on benign subjects like cancer research and renewable energy, others delve into critical technologies such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology, raising fears of potential military and surveillance applications in repressive regimes, says a report published by The Guardian.

The Iranian government's tight control over academic direction and research priorities, particularly through entities like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), exacerbates such concerns.

Rana Dadpour, a former Iranian university teacher turned migration researcher at James Cook University, highlighted the state's direct influence on research agendas noting potential implications for surveillance and military purposes. Despite the warnings and insights, the extent of Australian university leaders' compliance with the government's request remains undisclosed.


Defying war’s wreckage, self-drying cherry tomatoes ripen near Gaza
The first plants of a new cherry tomato species that self-dries naturally were planted in September at greenhouses in Netiv Ha’asara, in the agricultural heartland of southern Israel and one of the best places to grow tomatoes, on the border with the Gaza Strip.

The first orders of the fruit, developed by an Israeli genomics company, were supposed to be shipped at the start of 2024.

Then, on Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists burst into southern Israel from Gaza, killing close to 1,200 people and abducting 253 hostages. The greenhouses were wrecked, the plants were ruined, and the Thai agricultural workers fled.

“Everything was destroyed,” said Gil Ronen, the founder and CEO of NRGene, which uses algorithms to map out the genetic makeup of plants to increase their yields and resilience.

But even before October was over, the work restarted. As the war raged on and rocket alerts pierced the skies, company employees worked with farmers to replant the saplings in Moshav Yated, which is also in the Gaza envelope but further away from the border.


Jewish philanthropist gives $1 billion to Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Ruth Gottesman, 93, widow of Warren Buffett protégé David Gottesman, gifted $1 billion to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine to cover tuition for all students, the New York Times reported.

The school in the Bronx was formerly the medical school of Yeshiva University, another institution that the Gottesman family has also supported. The university’s Washington Heights campus is home to the Mendel Gottesman Library Building.

“We congratulate the Gottesman family for their visionary leadership in significantly advancing Einstein’s founding mission to expand access for all students to top tier medical education,” stated Ari Berman, a rabbi and president of Yeshiva University.

“For decades, Einstein has generated groundbreaking research and world class physicians. This is a monumental day for our affiliated medical school and for values based medical education,” he added.

Einstein’s library, the D. Samuel Gottesman Library, is closed on Shabbats.
Jacob Rothschild, who worked ‘always’ for Israel, Jews,
Lord Jacob Rothschild, a member of the famous Jewish banking family, died on Monday.

“With his passing, we bid farewell to a great man who carried the historic legacy of his family with pride and humility, working always for the wellbeing of Britain, Israel, and Jewish communities all over the world,” stated Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

Yad HaNadiv, an Israel-based Rothschild family foundation, “saw the construction of two jewels in the crown of Jerusalem—the magnificent Supreme Court building, and the beautiful new National Library, which he sadly did not live to visit,” Herzog added.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, which has represented the Jewish community since 1760, said that Rothschild was “a giant of Britain’s business and philanthropic worlds, whose positive contribution to so many aspects of British life was incalculable.”

The Rothschild family released a statement calling the late baron “a towering presence in many peoples’ lives,” the BBC reported.

It also called him “a superbly accomplished financier, a champion of the arts and culture, a devoted public servant, a passionate supporter of charitable causes in Israel and Jewish culture, a keen environmentalist and much-loved friend, father and grandfather.”




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