Monday, March 11, 2024

03/11 Links Pt2: Feeding Their Fellow Jews to the Crocodile; McClatchy Sites Delete False Story About NJ Synagogue ‘Sale’ of ‘Palestinian Land

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Feeding Their Fellow Jews to the Crocodile
Then on Sunday, we got a pretty rough preview of what was to come. As Hollywood stars were deciding how to accessorize their outfits for the Oscars that evening, many chose—stick with me here—a bloody hand celebrating the lynching of two Jews. Mark Ruffalo, Billie Eilish, Ava DuVernay, and Ramy Youssef were among the actors who wore a pin of a bloody hand, modeled after a particularly grisly episode. In 2000, two Jews wandered into Ramallah. They were taken into Palestinian police custody, presumably to protect them from the shrieking mob trying to rip them limb from limb with their bare hands. But the mob stormed the building and did its thing, as Kamala Harris might say. One of the killers showed off his blood-drenched hands to cheers from his compatriots outside. The pin is known as the Palestinian “hand of resistance.”

Now, the defense of these fiends is that they didn’t know what the pin meant. On some level, that is believable: Eilish is 22 years old, and rose to music fame during her teen years, so it is possible that she doesn’t know much of anything.

But even in Eilish’s case, it is unlikely. As some have pointed out, a bloody red hand is pretty universal. You would not be surprised to learn that Billie Eilish Baird O’Connell comes from an Irish family, who surely are familiar with the Red Hand of Ulster. The well read among the public probably recognizes the red right hand from Milton’s Paradise Lost, in which it signifies God’s vengeance.

The bloody hand pin did not seem to bother anyone, and I suppose in that atmosphere—one in which feted industry leaders were parading around alongside a celebration of lynching Jews—Glazer’s weak-kneed grand finale was almost inevitable.

Glazer was awarded an Oscar for his film Zone of Interest, which is about a man who, as I mentioned last night, attains professional success thanks to his ability to ignore the suffering of the Jews around him. It is not, however, autobiographical. The film is about Rudolph Hess living as a Nazi commandant next to Auschwitz. Though after last night, it’s unclear whether he’s meant to be the villain or the hero of Glazer’s film.

Hess is actually a perfect subject for a discussion about Jew-devouring crocodiles, and Glazer should know why. The Nazis demonstrated their efficiency and ingenuity by devising a system in which the crocodile actually could eat all the Jews last—or at least at once. In Hess’s world, the world Glazer was rewarded for depicting, there was no need for the crocodile to take it one at a time.
John Podhoretz: I Refute His Oscar
One could say The Zone of Interest win was the Oscar way in 2024 to punch the Holocaust card, and boy did Glazer punch it. Standing aside his two producers (one of them a Russian oligarch named Len Blavatnik), and visibly trembling with what appeared to be terror, he took out a piece of paper and read out:

"Our film shows where dehumanization leads, at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?"

We can, if we wish, debate the meaning of this poorly written set of sentences for a couple of seconds, or until there’s another anti-Semitic attack somewhere that is the direct result of October 7th, whichever comes first—and guess which will come first. Any way you look at it, it’s disgusting.

First, let’s take it literally and take it to mean Glazer and his producers "refute their Jewishness." Obviously this is bad, because they are refuting their Jewishness as they accept an award for a movie about the effort made 80 years ago to destroy all Jewishness. Anti-Semites are falling all over themselves to defend Glazer from the charge that he has "refuted his Jewishness." Rather, they say, he refutes that Jewishness offers a defense for Israeli actions after October 7, or for the "occupation," or for whatever argle-bargle these putrid preachers of self-satisfied vanity decide is the "root cause" of things they don’t like.

His defenders include such notable champions of Zion as the former Bernie Sanders aide cum Koch-funded scholar Matt Duss once pictured posing in a Hamas tunnel, Mehdi Hasan, the recently axed MSNBC host and Hamas apologist, the Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid, and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, a onetime radical magazine journalist who turned out to be winsome on TV, to his immense good fortune. One of his qualities is that he loathes Israel almost as much as he loves his $5 million salary paid by the Robertses, the Jewish family that owns Comcast. It’s blood money, Chris! Give it back! Otherwise it might get into the hands of occupiers!

Hayes should know to stay out of this. Like, don’t opine on what is and what isn’t anti-Semitic, smart boy, especially after hosting Al Sharpton for years on your show, whose contributions to Jewish refutation have included rallying people against a business in Harlem that was then set on fire by one of Sharpton’s fan boys, killing seven people while Sharpton continued to skate through life by scaring Democratic politicians and eating their souls rather than the fatty foods that used to define his rotund shape.

Not to mention you can refute your Jewishness all you like, Glazer, but if a terrorist arrived at a Golders Green synagogue where your nephew was becoming bar mitzvah and decided to bomb the place, you’d be as dead as you would have been had you not "refuted" it. This is the problem: They want to kill Jews. You’re a Jew. They want to kill you. Your refutation is immaterial.

Which is to say, the issue is not whether Glazer is comfortable with his status as a Jew but rather that he is living a life of existential risk after October 7 because of it. And he should know this all better than anyone, since his movie is about how merely to be a Jew is to be subject to efforts at mass extermination.

It is the story of Jewry since the very beginning: Can this small tribe survive the world’s efforts to do it in? And how are we to understand the unimaginable miracle that it has not only survived but has returned to its homeland and turned a subsistence-level desert life into the world’s 27th wealthiest nation?

Ah, but there’s the rub for Jonathan Glazer. He doesn’t like that country, apparently. It’s a country of "occupation," and it "dehumanizes" the other apparently just as the Nazis dehumanized the Jews. Forget for the thousandth time that Israel hasn’t "occupied" Gaza since 2005, and what it’s doing now is not an "occupation"—it’s a war in which it is hunting down the enemy army of Hamas in order to destroy it.

That’s not "dehumanizing." It’s something else. It’s no more dehumanizing than the destruction of Germany to get rid of the Nazis, which I assume Jonathan Glazer supports in theory, as without it, he wouldn’t have the Oscar he can shove right up his ass forever.

Oh, it’s good Oppenheimer won, even though the real Oppenheimer was a Communist.
Jonathan Tobin: ‘As a Jew’ Oscar moment shows how woke antisemitism works
It is no small irony that the only way the mass murderers who are depicted in “The Zone of Interest” were defeated and brought to justice was by Allied soldiers and airmen who were presented with the same dilemma faced today by Israel. In 1945, as American, British and Soviet troops closed in on the last Nazi strongholds, the Germans refused to acknowledge their inevitable defeat and fought to the bitter end. As they did elsewhere, they made the Red Army fight for every street and house in Berlin. Two million German civilians were killed in Allied bombing campaigns and the conquest of the Third Reich, and as many as 125,000 were killed in the last weeks of the war in Berlin alone.

As horrible as those numbers may sound, decent people everywhere understood that the future of civilization required the defeat of the Nazis, and if that meant German civilians must die, then so be it. They knew that massive civilian casualties—far outstripping even the dubious figures supplied by Hamas of those killed in the current war—were the price that the German nation had to pay for allowing itself to be led by a genocidal movement that most of its citizens had supported so long as the Nazis were winning the war.

The Palestinians and Hamas are in a similar position today. Their ideology of hatred for Jews is hardly different from that of the Nazis depicted in Glazer’s movie. Their crimes on Oct. 7 were committed with a shameless embrace of barbarism that those who administered Auschwitz actually sought to conceal from the world. But because woke ideology deems the Palestinians to be intersectional victims and Israelis as their oppressors, fashionable opinion is adamant that the war to eradicate Hamas must stop and the Jews must be subjected to more atrocities in the future, if not killed and robbed of their homeland “from the river to the sea” as the pro-terror mobs demand.

Sadly, in 2024, there was no proud Jew who would refute and denounce Glazer later in the ceremony as Chayefsky did to Redgrave in 1978. Steven Spielberg had the chance to say something but chose to stick to his script. In contemporary Hollywood, complaints that Jews are being erased by the woke catechism that is inextricably linked to antisemitism in the new Oscar “diversity” rules going into effect for next year’s awards are ignored. It is the “as a Jew” celebrities who have the bully pulpit and those who would speak for the justice of Israel’s cause who are marginalized.

Those, like Glazer, whose efforts are aimed at helping contemporary practitioners of Jewish genocide survive and win—and do so “as Jews”—are a disgrace and deserve to be remembered throughout history with opprobrium along with the worst examples of those who betrayed their own people. They also illustrate the moral depravity of artists and intellectuals who have been captured by an ideology that enables a virulent form of antisemitism that masquerades as advocacy for human rights.


Shame on Jonathan Glazer for his Oscars speech
I understand why he would want to perhaps use this moment of success to talk about war. I empathise with why he would want to point out how each side in every war dehumanises the other. But by linking the Holocaust and Gaza he has trampled on the six million dead and the particular pernicious way in which they were slaughtered.

And by doing it As A Jew he wins double plaudits from Jew haters while leaving the rest of us – already labouring under a tsunami of antisemitism – feeling like we have been punched in the stomach. Betrayal is so much harder when it is one of your own. It really hurts.

War is horrible. We all want it to be over. Every day my internet trolls send me photographs of dead Palestinian babies. Every week I meet a new family of a hostage who have no idea whether their relations are alive or dead. The current war is a tragedy. But war and genocide are not the same.

What should have been a night of both reflection and celebration – with Glazer’s film winning two awards as well as the film Oppenheimer – about another brilliant Jewish man – winning seven gongs has led to fury and hurt within our community and glee among those who hate us.

And it is telling that it was done as Hollywood drank and laughed and slapped each other on the back for doing a job which is entertainment but rarely makes an impact in the real world.

Just a few hours before Glazer went on stage Hamas were putting out their own film. This one claimed that four more hostages were dead – including ironically enough a Polish-born Holocaust historian called Alex Dancyg who used to give tours to schoolchildren at Auschwitz – the scene of Glazer’s film.

Let Glazer go seek adulation among the people who applauded him. Like every As A Jew in history, he’ll soon learn that their friendship only goes so far.
At His Oscar Moment, Jonathan Glazer Hijacks His Jewishness and the Holocaust
In any case, he got more than he bargained for. His irresponsible opportunism triggered an avalanche of outrage.

“It’s disgusting to see that when the director of a Holocaust movie wins an award, he uses his platform to denounce his own Jewishness and co-opt the tragedy of the holocaust for his own political cause,” Ari Ingel, Executive Director of Creative Community for Peace, said in a typical example of the reaction.

My biggest outrage was reserved for Glazer’s follow-up remark:

“Whether the victims of October 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization—how do we resist?”

Note that when he refers to the 1200 Israelis who were murdered, mutilated, raped and burned alive, he only uses the passive phrase, “the victims.” But when he refers to Israel’s forced retaliation to prevent another Oct. 7, suddenly it’s an ATTACK.

Hamas terrorists create victims, while Jewish defenders commit attacks.

Glazer couldn’t even bring himself to mention the 134 terrified hostages who’ve been in the cruel hands of the Hamas murderers since Oct. 7. Are they not dehumanized enough to bring up?

One wonders how long it took Glazer to prepare such a reckless and sloppy message that libeled his people in front of the world. Now that he’s seen the backlash, will he try to clarify the remarks or will he double down? Does he realize how his verbal assault on Israel will play at a time when Jews are under siege and antisemitism is reaching record levels?

As far as his last question—how do we resist?– that’s easy: We resist by refuting you, Mr. Glazer, with the deeper truths that your Jewishness would have taught you.
Philanthropist Len Blavatnik onstage for Jonathan Glazer’s Israel criticism at the Oscars
Writer-director Jonathan Glazer included Ukrainian-born British-American philanthropist Len Blavatnik in his denunciation of Israel as he accepted the award for Best International Feature Film for his Holocaust film, “The Zone of Interest,” at Sunday night’s Oscars.

With Blavatnik and Jim Wilson, who both produced the film, standing behind him, Glazer declared: “We stand here as men who refute [sic] their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza — all the victims of this dehumanization.” (Glazer likely meant reject or renounce, not refute, which means to disprove.)

The statement was in line with previous comments made by Glazer and Wilson, who have in the past conflated the Israeli victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks with the Palestinians killed in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and expressed sympathy for both.

The remarks were notable in the presence of Blavatnik, who in December halted donations to Harvard, reportedly over the university’s handling of antisemitism on campus in the wake of Oct. 7 and who owns the controlling stake in an Israeli television network, Channel 13. Through his family foundation, Blavatnik is a major donor to a number of Israeli and Jewish causes, including a Chabad-run food bank in southern Israel, the National Library of Israel and Birthright Israel.

Blavatnik helped produce “The Zone of Interest,” which focuses on the banal evil of Nazis’ families willfully ignoring the slaughter of Jews during the Holocaust, through his Access Industries conglomerate.

While onstage, Blavatnik did not react to Glazer’s remarks about Israel, and it was not immediately confirmed that he knew the contents of his speech in advance. (Blavatnik’s office did not respond to questions from eJewishPhilanthropy.)
Israel Responds to Jonathan Glazer: ‘Despicable’ Comments on Jewishness, Holocaust
The government of Israel condemned Oscar winner Jonathan Glazer’s comment Sunday evening that he and fellow filmmakers “refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being used to justify an occupation.”

As Breitbart News reported, Glazer made his incendiary speech while accepting the Oscar for Best International Feature for a Holocaust drama, The Zone of Interest.

Israeli government spokesperson Ilana Stein said that she was “deeply shocked by this comment.”

She continued: “To think that we exploit the … Holocaust … is despicable. We are not ‘using’ anything. Hamas showed how it massacred us. And this is what we are fighting against — a massacre, a terror organization that says that it wants to be ‘from the river to the sea,’ and that means that they want the whole state of Israel to be free of Jews.

“Does that remind you of anybody?” she asked, rhetorically.

It was Hamas’s actions that evoked the Holocaust, she said, not Israel’s self-defense.
Daniel Greenfield: The Zone of Interest Was a Bad Movie. No Wonder Jonathan Glazer is a Hamas Apologist
Last year’s One Life, a far better movie about the Holocaust, with far better performances, was not nominated. Neither were genuinely interesting projects like The Survivor and Shttl, which dealt with not only Nazism but Communism, didn’t get very far either.

Instead, The Zone of Interest, an adaptation of Martin Amis’ really wacky fictional work, run through the lens by Jonathan Glazer, a filmmaker known for making oddball movies, was celebrated because its message about the Holocaust was about the complacency and complicity of the bourgeoisie. And that is a message leftists could enjoy. The movie stripped out the Jews and the role of antisemitism, much as Glazer did at the Oscars, so that it could turn the Holocaust against the Jews.

Movies like The Zone of Interest reveal how the Holocaust is weaponized against Jews. Glazer did us all a favor by putting the movie’s real agenda on display.

The Zone of Interest was a morally bad movie from a bad human being. People shouldn’t have been cheering it even before Jonathan Glazer came out against Jews and for Hamas the best response to it is to ignore the movie and make sure it doesn’t appear in any Holocaust canon filmography.

Glazer and The Zone of Interest both deserve to be forgotten.


Police investigate alleged Nazi salute at Melbourne screening of Holocaust film
Victoria Police is investigating after a group of people allegedly voiced hate speech and performed a Nazi salute during the screening of a film about the Holocaust at a Melbourne cinema.

The group were watching The Zone of Interest — a film based on the story of real-life Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss and his family — at Cinema Nova in Carlton, on Saturday night.

The UK film this week won the Oscar for best international film and for best sound.

A Cinema Nova spokesperson said staff were informed of a disturbance during the film and investigated immediately.

They said a group of four men and one woman were "vocalising hate speech to create a scene inside the auditorium".

"While staff did not catch these individuals in the act despite spending an extended time in the cinema on two separate occasions, the group admitted to creating a scene when confronted by management at the conclusion of the session," the spokesperson said.

The group were then escorted out of the premises by security and the incident was reported to police.


Elliott Abrams: Hunting Jews
Antisemitism, or more bluntly hatred of Jews and Judaism, takes many forms. We saw one on Oct. 7, 2023, when hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza slaughtered well over 1,000 Israelis.

We saw another form on Feb. 13, 2024, when the so-called European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Belgium was entirely free to ban kosher slaughter.

The European Convention on Human Rights seemed like it might protect the Jews. The text of Article 9 (“Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion”) states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.” And Article 14 (“Prohibition of discrimination”) states that “The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.”

Clear enough? Not for the Jews. In the case called Affaire Executief van de Moslims van België et Autres c. Belgique, the court found that kosher and halal slaughter can be banned because a country or provinces in it (the ban applies to Flanders and Wallonia, but not to Brussels) had legislated rules requiring stunning the animal before slaughter. Now, it’s true that Article 9—about religious freedom—reads like it would protect shechita, or kosher slaughter, and says nothing about animals. The court acknowledged that “Article 9 of the Convention did not contain an explicit reference to the protection of animal welfare in the exhaustive list of legitimate aims that might justify an interference with the freedom to manifest one’s religion.” Quite so. In fact Article 9 states that “Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

So how did the court torture that text into a meaning that did not protect the practice of Judaism? Simple—where there’s a will, there’s a way. “The Court considered that the protection of public morals, to which Article 9 of the Convention referred, could not be understood as being intended solely to protect human dignity in the sphere of inter-personal relations. The Convention was not indifferent to the living environment of individuals covered by its protection and in particular to animals, whose protection had already been considered by the Court. Accordingly, the Convention could not be interpreted as promoting the absolute upholding of the rights and freedoms it enshrined without regard to animal suffering.”

Gobbledygook eliminated, the animals trumped the Jews. And this, the court had to acknowledge, despite the fact that the provisions about freedom of religion are expansive—and do not even mention animal welfare. Let’s be clear: The court found that the practice of Judaism endangered “public morals.” This, on the continent where the very existence of Jews was not so long ago considered a threat to public morals. Nor is Belgium alone; kosher slaughter is also banned in Sweden, Iceland, Norway, and Slovenia. So far. The president of the European Jewish Congress, Ariel Muzicant, said after the February ruling that “We are already seeing attempts across Europe to follow this Belgian ban, now sadly legitimised by the ECHR.”

Now, this ruling would be bad enough taken on its own terms. But it cannot be. There is no country in Europe, not one, that bans hunting.
The two-tiered system at Amnesty International
You haven’t come a long way, baby.

This seems to be the new theme for many Jewish women around the world, especially in Israel. For them, this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8th commemorated anything but the 2024 hashtag #InvestInWomen.

As women around the globe celebrated the social, economic and cultural achievements of women, Jewish women are thrown back into the stone age of women’s rights as they witness the world’s silence on the Hamas sexual violence against their own.

One organization after another drags its feet in condemning the brutal rapes and sexual mutilation of Jewish women by Hamas on October 7th. Most just ignore it.

On the day before International Women’s Day, it took an arrest to focus attention on one organization intentionally shutting its eyes to the human rights abuses that is at the core of its mission to defend.

Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind was handcuffed in the lobby of Amnesty International USA headquarters on October 7th after protesting the organization’s silence on Hamas sexual violence against Jewish women. The police were called in after Hikind refused to leave the premises until he could personally deliver the Moral Hypocrisy Award to an Amnesty International representative.
Israel Haters: Not Too Swift
One of the things that drives me the craziest about the current state of society is the amount of hypocrisy which is excused constantly. If there are consequences at all, they happen only because those consequences are valuable to those carrying them out.

Integrity is no longer a factor.

Super Bowl weekend contained two examples.

A centerpiece of the halftime show was a performance by Alicia Keys who may, or may not, have tacitly praised the Hamas attack of 10/7 with a social media post about paragliding.

Another, more visible, focal point was Taylor Swift. This is the same Taylor Swift who, following Hamas’ animalistic, soulless attacks on Israel, attended a fundraiser for Gaza. Not Israel, or the Israeli victims of the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, but Gaza, home to those who carried out those attacks. Home to a population that elected Hamas, and who still openly support Hamas. In fact 80% of Gazans say that they support wiping Israel off the map.

The charity that Swift (who I find utterly average, and whose adoration seems bizarre to me) supported that night is called American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA). The organization has a long history of demonizing Israel while supporting almost any Palestinian narrative that comes its way.

According to the Jerusalem Post, ANERA “President Peter Gubser in reports, according to NGO Monitor, has also failed to acknowledge Palestinian attacks against Israel and only looks at Israeli military response.”

Unsurprisingly, they lie a lot.
IDF: Soldiers kill would-be suicide bomber ‘en route’ to carry out attack in Israel
An armed Palestinian man on his way to carry out an imminent terror attack was killed by troops in the West Bank, the IDF and Shin Bet announced Monday evening.

A senior security official was quoted by Hebrew media sites as saying “a large terror attack in Tel Aviv was thwarted tonight.”

Jenin resident Muhammad Jaber, 34, was killed by commandos of the elite Duvdevan unit in the town of Zeita, close to the West Bank security barrier.

The IDF and Shin Bet said Jaber was killed “en route to Israeli territory to carry out a suicide attack in the immediate time-frame,” armed with a firearm and a primed explosive device.

IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari also mentioned the foiled terror attack on Monday evening, vowing the military would “continue to thwart terrorism all over the West Bank and at all borders.”

“Instead of allowing a humanitarian ceasefire for Ramadan, Hamas deliberately chose otherwise. Hamas is trying to set the region on fire, in part through the use of propaganda and incitement, especially on social media,” Hagari said during a press conference.
Name extremist groups or your crackdown will fail, Gove told
Michael Gove has been warned he must name Islamist groups or his crackdown on extremism will not work.

The Communities Secretary has been told by senior Tories and a leading anti-Islamist campaigner that the Government would be seen as “weak” if it failed to “call out” the extremist groups trying to subvert democracy.

Mr Gove has come under pressure ahead of an announcement this week of a new official definition of extremism that will enable the Government and bodies such as universities and councils to ban funding for or engagement with Islamist and far-Right groups.

He is understood to want to publish the names of such groups but has been warned by officials that he will face legal challenges if he tries to do so. Alternatively, he could use Parliamentary privilege which grants legal immunity to MPs to protect their right to free speech.

Original drafts of the plan included the names of eight groups that could be captured by the new definition, including the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), Palestine Action and Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND).

The MCB said this weekend it was seeking to “reserve our position legally”. Palestine Action said no definition would “deter” its campaigning.
Is it illegal to call Hamas terrorists?
Is it now a crime to call Hamas a terrorist group? It may be a statement of fact to describe the Islamists responsible for 7 October – the deadliest day for Jewry since the Holocaust – as a terrorist outfit. It may also be the view of the UK government – Hamas is officially a proscribed terrorist organisation. And yet, incredibly, London’s Metropolitan Police have started cracking down on those who dare to apply the T-word to Hamas. On Saturday, officers wrestled a man to the ground, arrested him and seized the banner he was waving. On it were three words in large type: ‘Hamas is terrorist.’

Niyak Ghorbani, an exiled Iranian dissident, was in central London to counter-protest one of the now weekly ‘pro-Palestine’ marches. As anyone who has been paying attention will surely now know, for all that most marchers claim to be moved by humanitarian concern for civilians in Gaza, there is a significant pro-Hamas element on these demos. Indeed, many of the organisers have links to Hamas, have met with Hamas officials or have publicly praised Hamas’s terrorist atrocities. One group, the Muslim Association of Britain, was co-founded by Muhammad Kathem Sawalha, a former Hamas chief who now lives in London.

If there were any doubt as to whether these ‘peace’ marches were stuffed with Hamas fanboys, then the response to Ghorbani’s counter-protest has surely dispelled it. Videos show him holding his sign aloft and quickly being rounded on by protesters who object to his anti-Hamas message. The police then rush in to stop the disorder. But instead of coming to his defence, instead of holding back the baying mob, police decide to arrest him, remove him from the scene and take away his sign.

The Met Police have since insisted Ghorbani’s arrest had nothing to do with the anti-Hamas sign and have subsequently ‘dearrested’ him. In a statement, they said he was arrested for ‘assault’ and to prevent a ‘breach of the peace’. ‘The arrest was not made in relation to the placard’, police insist. But as the footage makes clear, it is Ghorbani who was rounded on by angry protesters. And if the banner were not an issue for the police, then why were officers so determined to seize it from him, even after he had been removed from the angry crowd?
Police arrest man for protesting against Hamas. He explains what happened in this full interview.
Jonathan Sacerdoti interviews Niyak Ghorbani after the Police in London arrested him for protesting AGAINST Hamas and terrorism.


Ed Husain: Time for Britain to Get Tough on the Muslim Brotherhood
The nation of Churchill cannot stand idly by while those influenced by the fascism of the last century, namely the Muslim Brotherhood and its ideological activists and allies, use London as a political capital. Founded in Egypt in 1928, the Brotherhood seeks to rule with hardline sharia as law, and views ordinary Muslims that do not share this vision as its opponents.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies are ideologically committed to the destruction of the state of Israel. This matters to all of us, because what starts with the Jews never ends with them. The time has come to tackle the Brotherhood and shut down its financial, media, charitable and political arms in Britain. The government recently banned Hizb ut-Tahrir for advancing the same ideology as the Brotherhood after Oct. 7. The Brotherhood is banned in Mecca, but thrives in London.

Hamas is the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. They unashamedly killed Jews and have vowed to act again. The Brotherhood in Britain, operating under different "community representative" organizations, has been radicalizing young Muslims against Jews. Islamist mosques and publishing houses have been disseminating calls for the destruction of Israel. After Oct. 7, this is not an abstract issue.

Islamists are not democrats. Gaza, Iran, Algeria, Egypt and Pakistan show us that Islamists when in power use opportunities granted to them by the ballot box to enforce anti-democratic measures. Free societies can self-destruct unless they are vigilant. We must not tolerate intolerance and terror. The future of our country depends on it.
Controversial Israeli historian, 75, mobbed by pro-Palestine activists at LSE Middle East lecture was targeted by leaflet campaign claiming he 'justified genocide'
An Israeli historian who was mobbed by pro-Palestine activists at an LSE Middle East lecture was targeted by a leaflet campaign in the days prior to the event.

Benny Morris, 75, was heckled by students at the London School of Economics (LSE) just 15 minutes into his lecture about the Israeli-Palestinian crisis on Monday.

The appearance of the radical Israeli historian, who was once jailed for refusing to do military service in the West Bank, sparked fury from students due to remarks he has made in the past, including referring to Palestinians as 'wild animals'.

MailOnline can reveal he was targeted by a leaflet campaign in the days leading up to the lecture, with students calling for the event to be cancelled.

Posters were put up online and around the university buildings with photos of the historian and controversial quotes from his books and interviews.

One of the quotes featured in the posters is taken from a 2004 interview where he says 'there are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing'.

One leaflet included a quote from his 2009 book One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict, which reads: 'Arabs, to put it simply, proportionately commit far more crimes, and commit far more lethal traffic violations than do Jews.'

The full passage in the book reads: 'The value placed on human life and the rule of secular law is completely different, as exhibited in Israel itself in the vast hiatus between Jewish and Arab perpetration of crimes and lethal road traffic violations.

'Arabs, to put it simply, proportionately commit far more crimes, and commit far more lethal traffic violations than do Jews In large measure, this is a function of different human value systems, such as the respect accorded to human life and the rule of law.'

Another leaflet shows the quote: 'The phenomenon of the mass Muslim penetration into the West and their settlement there is creating a dangerous internal threat,' taken from an interview in 2004.

A 2004 interview taken from Haaretz magazine was also quoted.
Former Soros Foundation Official Accused of Indoctrinating Columbia Students To Hate Israel
A former director at George Soros's Open Society Foundations is now a tenure-track public health professor at Columbia University, where a video recording of his lecture obtained by the Wall Street Journal shows him demanding that students participate in a call-and-response exercise.

"What do we want?" the professor, Kayum Ahmed, yelled. "Justice!" the students responded. "If we don't get it?" he asked. "Shut it down!" the students were instructed to respond.

Ahmed, who teaches a public health course that is mandatory for hundreds of Columbia graduate students, is accused of indoctrinating his students to hate Israel through lectures that label the country a "colonial settler state" that has "oppressed indigenous populations" and "displaced" Palestinians, leading to "health consequences," according to the Journal.

"He puts the idea into everyone's head that the Jews stole the land and it should belong to the indigenous people," a graduate student who took the class told the Journal. That rhetoric, some students and faculty members say, shows Ahmed is "abandoning context, advocating a pro-Palestinian bias, spreading disinformation and expecting an adherence to anti-Zionism," the Journal reported.

The ordeal reflects the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic beliefs advanced by prominent Ivy League faculty in the wake of Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel—to which Jewish students are subjected, often involuntarily.

In a 2021 article, for example, Ahmed argued that the COVID-19 pandemic could create "a dystopian society of the 'unvaccinated'—a class of people denied affordable and equitable access to effective COVID-19 vaccines." That "class," Ahmed said, "includes prisoners, Palestinians, and those affected by armed conflict."

"Israel, for instance, demonstrated its capacity to weaponize the vaccine by denying vaccinations to Palestinians," Ahmed wrote in February 2021. Months later, Israel reached a vaccine exchange agreement with the Palestinian Authority, which went on to cancel the deal.
Former Columbia Law dean says antisemitism task force’s next report to focus on Jews
When David Schizer, former Columbia University Law School dean and one of the co-chairs of Columbia’s newly-established Task Force on Antisemitism, is asked whether he’s been personally affected by antisemitism on Columbia’s campus, he pauses for an extra beat before answering.

“I think I’ll say yes — but as a tenured professor and a former dean, I’m in a different place than students who are feeling isolated, excluded or worse,” Schizer said. “The truth is, I have been spending an enormous amount of time with students who are upset and hurt and in pain. It breaks my heart to see some of the challenges they’re dealing with.”

Schizer said students should feel free to participate in campus activities regardless of their views on Israel. “But some student groups whose missions have nothing to do with Israel have, in effect, been imposing litmus tests on students,” he said. “And that’s not appropriate.”

The Times of Israel spoke to Schizer over the telephone after the release of the Columbia Task Force on Antisemitism’s first report, which focused on regulations and policies around campus protests. Since Hamas’s October 7 onslaught that saw 1,200 people in southern Israel brutally murdered and 253 abducted to the Gaza Strip, many elite universities in the United States — Columbia among them — have become hotbeds of anti-Israel activity as the Jewish state continues a campaign to return the hostages and oust Hamas from power.

The task force’s initial report does not define antisemitism and reads almost like a press release, which Schizer said was by intent.

“This is a report on rules and on the law,” Schizer said. “And so, the relevant question is not what antisemitism is, but what discriminatory harassment is under Title VI under federal law and under local New York laws.”


Berkeley Prof. starts sit-in to protest antisemitism Berkeley professor Ron Hassner starts a sit-in to protest the rise of antisemitism and the lack of action from the University to combat student safety on campus.

Cornell University hires unhinged Jew-hating professor who thinks Israel must be destroyed
Cornell University is hiring a professor with a history of sharing anti-Semitic posts.

Wunpini F. Mohammed, assistant professor of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia, announced on X that she will be starting a new job as an assistant professor at Cornell University’s Department of Communications later this year. The decision comes despite Mohammed’s record of controversial anti-Israel activity on X.

“Israel is a settler-colony on stolen land–-it does not have a ‘right to exist,’” read one statement that Mohammed reposted this January.

Another post from the same account that Mohammed reposted states: “If Jewish folks don’t want to be incorrectly associated with Israel’s barbarism, the answer is to be vehemently anti-Zionist & work to dismantle Israel+Zionism.”

Mohammed also shared a post from someone who wrote: “Hakeem is a house dem alright and a house neeeeegrow,” in reference to Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) expressing support for Israel.

Mohammed reposted a comment from another user who denigrated Mia Schem, an Israeli-French woman released from Hamas captivity who said she was afraid of being raped by her captors, saying: “We keep reaching new lows. Also it’s so clear this has the same energy as white women historically falsely accusing Black men of assault. Whatever it takes to demonize Palestinians and continue mass killing them.”
Middlebury Students Tried To Host a Vigil for Victims of Oct. 7 Attack. Administrators Told Them To Remove the Word ‘Jewish.’
It was October 10, three days after Hamas had murdered 1,200 Israelis and abducted hundreds more, and Jewish students at Middlebury College were trying to organize a vigil for the victims. They reached out to Middlebury’s dean of students, Derek Doucet, with a draft poster promoting the event, which they invited administrators at the elite liberal arts school to attend.

"Stand in Solidarity With the Jewish People," the poster read. "This will be an opportunity to honor the innocent lives lost in the tragic events that have struck Israel in the past days."

It didn’t go over well.

In an email to students reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, Doucet, who has oversight of student activities, pushed to rename the vigil and strip it of references to Judaism so as to make it "as inclusive as possible."

"Some suggestions that might help are stating that this gathering is to honor ‘all the innocent lives lost,’" Doucet wrote, and including a reference to the "tragedies that have struck Israel and Gaza." He added that calls for solidarity with Jews could trigger "unhelpful reactions."

"I recognize and deeply respect that there has to be a place for purely Jewish grief and sorrow," Doucet said, "and yet I wonder if … such a public gathering in such a charged moment might be more inclusive with edits such as these."

The need to include all groups—in a vigil mourning the losses of one—was selective and short-lived. Less than a month later, Doucet’s office approved a "Vigil for Palestine," hosted by the Muslim Students Association, that began with an Islamic prayer and featured remarks from the school’s vice president of equity and inclusion, Khuram Hussain, who did not attend the Jewish vigil.

"Standing in solidarity," the Muslim student group wrote in an Instagram post promoting the event. "Together, we honor Palestine."


20 McClatchy Sites Delete False Story About NJ Synagogue ‘Sale’ of ‘Palestinian Land’
Futhermore, UPI’s correction appended to the bottom of the updated story notes: “This story has been updated to clarify that the event is not an auction and to include statements made on behalf of Keter Torah Synagogue.”

Additional changes to Schrader’s original report include the deletion of Richard Siegel’s statement to Democracy Now repeating the false charge of a synagogue sale of allegedly Palestinian land against the backdrop of what he called genocide. Similarly, the following two paragraphs platforming the fringe anti-Israel groups Jewish Voice for Peace piling on with the false genocide smear and other unfounded accusations of war crimes no longer appear in the article:

Meanwhile, a local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish group that seeks an end to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, has told its followers on Instagram to protest Keller Williams in Englewood.

“Zionists at Keller-Williams think they’re entitled to steal land from Palestinians and sell it to white Americans,” the group said in its post on Saturday. “Let’s show up on Tuesday and let them know how we feel about them breaking domestic and international laws while the terrorist regime they shamelessly support commits daily war crimes in its genocide of an indigenous population.”

Among Schrader’s numerous errors, he had wrongly reported that the Israeli settlement of Efrat is built on “Palestinian land.” Israeli settlements in the West Bank are built on disputed land, not “Palestinian land.” The territory’s status, like that of all of the West Bank, is to be resolved by negotiations anticipated by U.N. Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian interim accords, the 2003 international “road map” and related diplomatic efforts taking 242 and 338 as reference points. The co-authors of resolution 242, U.S. Under Secretary of State Eugene Rostow, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Arthur Goldberg, and British ambassador Lord Caradon made clear at the time and subsequently that Jews and Arabs both had claims in the territories, no national sovereignty over the territories had been recognized since the end of Ottoman rule and negotiations would be necessary to resolve competing claims. At no time in history were Palestinians ever sovereign over the land on which Israeli settlements are located. Previous media outlets to correct erroneous this point include The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Voice of America, and NBC, among many more.

The cooked up story, granting a national spotlight for fringe anti-Israel activists accusing a New Jersey synagogue of illegally selling Palestinian land against the purported context of genocide, puts a target on the back of the Jewish institution at a perilous time when American antisemitism, including violent attacks against Jewish establishments, is on an all-time high. UPI is to be commended for making the much needed changes to the article which should never have appeared, and hopefully going forward, Schrader’s problematic coverage on Jews and Israel will undergo heightened fact-checking prior to publication.
Grotesque cartoons to allegations of genocide: How the UK’s Guardian portrays Israel
It took barely two weeks after the devastating October 7 Hamas onslaught in Israel until the Guardian newspaper earned a rebuke from Britain’s leading Jewish communal body.

The decision of the UK’s principal center-left daily — which has a growing global reach — to publish a piece titled “Israel must stop weaponizing the Holocaust” was “unbelievable crass” and marked “a new low for the paper,” said the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Hadley Freeman, a Jewish former columnist for the paper, termed the article by Israeli-American historian Raz Segal “intellectually, historically and morally bankrupt.”

The furor is one of a series of controversies surrounding the strongly pro-Palestinian newspaper’s coverage of Israel’s war against Hamas, after the terror group sent thousands of terrorists into southern Israel, brutally massacring 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 253 more to the Gaza Strip.

In November, for instance, a Jewish member of staff at the Guardian wrote an anonymous comment article for the Jewish News describing the atmosphere at the paper. It alleged some colleagues “dismiss Jewish pain” and accused the paper of publishing “inflammatory op-eds which will spark more violence.” (The Guardian defended itself against the claims).

In recent weeks, Guardian commentators have accused Israel of murdering Palestinian journalists. Contributors have repeatedly “leveled or legitimized” the charge that the Jewish state is planning or carrying out a genocide in Gaza, says monitoring group CAMERA UK, putting the number of such incidents at 25 since this past December alone.

And it has continued to publish pieces backing the BDS movement. This month, it ran an extended essay by columnist Naomi Klein which concluded with the words: “Enough. It’s time for a boycott.”

But these are just the latest episodes in a long-running saga of antagonism between the Jewish state and the influential house journal of Britain’s liberal intelligentsia.

“For decades now, the Guardian’s reporting has distorted key events, ignored basic facts and behaved as if Israel is some sort of crazed military regime bent on murdering Palestinians out of blood lust,” Stephen Pollard, the Jewish Chronicle’s editor-at-large charged last summer.

Editorials have, for instance, claimed Israel forces at the Gaza border “kill with impunity” and target protesters who are “unarmed and posed no danger to anyone.” Headlines on news stories about terrorist attacks in Israel have drawn criticism from British Jewish community organizations. And pro-Israel groups have highlighted the way in which the paper has run op-eds that feature the antisemitic “Jewish supremacy” charge. Before taking the reins of the paper in 2015, editor Katharine Viner co-wrote the play “My Name Is Rachel Corrie” about the American activist who was killed by a bulldozer operated by the IDF in Gaza in 2003.
Guardian ignores the evidence, and sticks to the script on Arab-Israelis
A March 10 Guardian article ignored evidence suggesting greater unity between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel after Oct. 7th, and instead peddled their desired narrative. Both the headline and the text of the article (“Silenced for months, Arab Israeli towns hold first Gaza war protests”, March 10), by Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum, are designed to convey the standard Guardian line on Arab citizens of the state – a narrative exemplified in this paragraph:
Israel’s Jewish and Arab populations already lived fairly segregated lives, but divisions widened into chasms in the wake of the 7 October cross-border attacks by Hamas, which killed about 1,200 people, including Arabs, and saw more than 240 kidnapped to Gaza, and after the Israeli assault that followed.

Palestinians are losing their jobs and their livelihoods, and feel stifled by a political climate that makes it almost impossible for them to criticise the government.

The reality is far different.

A November poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute (IDI) showed that Arab Israelis’ sense of kinship with the state was at a 20-year high following the Oct. 7 attacks – with 70% identifying with the state and its problems. Though the latest such poll shows that these numbers reverted back to pre-war levels, the ‘rally around the flag’ response by Israel’s Arab citizens to the Hamas’s atrocities surprised many, and stood in stark contrast to the Arab rioting that erupted in mixed cities during the May 2021 war.

In the same IDI poll, when asked if, given an alternative Western citizenship, they would leave Israel, 59% of Arab-Israelis said that they would stay in the Jewish state.

A December IDI poll showed that an overwhelming majority of Arab Israelis support assisting with civilian volunteering efforts during the war — such as helping evacuees, and providing medical assistance.

A separate poll, conducted by the Agam Institute at Hebrew University, showed that 80% of Arab-Israelis opposed the October 7, 2023 attacks, and 66% support Israel’s right to defend itself against the terrorist group, while another comprehensive study conducted by the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation (KAP) at Tel Aviv University showed that a plurality of Arab-Israelis feel that Israel’s military response to the Hamas attack is justified.


Guernica Cancels an Inconvenient Essay
Guernica, a non-profit journal publishing work at the intersection of art and politics, published a powerful essay by a literary interpreter working in Israel and her experience in the wake of October 7 and the resulting war between Israel and Hamas. The essay, "From the Edges of a Broken World," by Joanna Chen, provides a first-hand account of how life has changed for the author. It is deeply personal, and perhaps challenging in that it does not hew to a "side" in the current conflict–and perhaps that was the problem. Not hewing to the proper side's perspective, the essay was too challenging for some portion of Guernica's readership. Although Guernica proclaims that it is "a home for singular voices, incisive ideas, and critical questions," this essay apparently crossed the line. The article has been removed from the journal's website. In its place reads the message: "Guernica regrets having published this piece, and has retracted it. A more fulsome explanation will follow." [Update: It appears the article was de-published after multiple members of Guernica's all-volunteer staff resigned over the decision to publish the essay. For explanations of why some editorial and other staff felt they had to resign] Fortunately, there is an archived version of the piece available here. Give it a read and then ponder how this piece could be so objectionable that it needed to be de-published–not merely criticized or challenged, but actually removed.


BBC News promotes disinformation website’s conspiracy theory
Anyone familiar with the “media outlet” Mint Press News would not be surprised in the least by its promotion of such a conspiracy theory. That financially untransparent, Assad regime supporting, outfit was described by researchers at the Rutgers University Network Contagion Research Institute as a disinformation site which “promotes anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and which also posts copy from Russia Today and Sputnik, the Russian state-owned news agency”.

In 2022 Mint Press News produced a ‘documentary’ “featuring rare interviews with the Palestinian armed resistance and innocent victims of Israeli aggression”. It has been blocked by PayPal and GoFundMe as well as TikTok.

In recent months that largely one-woman show (which uses contributors such as the antisemitic rapper Lowkey and the conspiracy theorist Vanessa Beeley) has been throwing its weight behind Hamas propaganda related to the war that the terrorist organisation instigated on October 7th.

Nevertheless, the sole “media outlet” quoted and promoted in a report by the corporation which regularly touts itself as an antidote to disinformation is that conspiracy theory promoting outfit.

Obviously the BBC’s journalism trainees are sorely in need of some instruction on the topic of what constitutes a reputable media outlet worthy of quotation and what does not.
‘The Latest’ AP’s Fealty Vs. Footdragging Reporting Fatality Stats from Hamas, Israel
Meanwhile, Times of Israel reported nearly a week before AP woke up with the 10,000 Hamas fatalities figure: “Israel has previously said it has killed some 10,000 Hamas members in Gaza fighting, in addition to some 1,000 killed in Israel in the aftermath of the terror group’s October 7 invasion and onslaught.”

Moreover, nearly two weeks before AP’s first 10,000 report on Feb. 12, Reuters had already reported the 10,000 figure: “Israeli forces have dismantled the Hamas brigade in Gaza’s southern Khan Younis as part of an almost four-month-old war in which 10,000 Palestinian fighters have been killed and the same number wounded, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday” (“Israeli forces have killed 10,000 Gaza fighters, minister says,” Feb. 1).

On countless occasions, AP published headlines citing Hamas’ latest figures for Palestinian fatalities. Unlike Reuters, AP has not run any headlines citing IDF figures for Hamas fatalities.

AP’s footdragging on providing current IDF figures for Hamas members killed persisted into this month.

A March 6 AP item unfortunately entitled “The Latest: As conditions worsen for Palestinians in Gaza, international pressure grows for a deal,” was again significantly behind in reporting the number of Hamas members Israel said it killed. The article erred: “Israel says it has killed over 10,000 Hamas fighters, without providing evidence.”

The actual latest on Hamas fatalities, as reported by Times of Israel on March 4 was: “Israel has said it killed some 13,000 Hamas members in Gaza fighting, in addition to some 1,000 killed in Israel in the aftermath of the terror group’s invasion of southern Israel.”The Wall Street Journal likewise reported on Feb. 29 that IDF spokesman Daniel “Hagari on Thursday said Israel has killed 13,000 militants since the war’s start.” (The Wall Street Journal figure does not take into account the 1,000 Hamas invading terrorists killed within Israel, fatalities which Hamas includes in its 30,000 total.)

Only following another missive from CAMERA did AP update its coverage later in the day March 6 to report: “Israel says it has killed over 13,000 Hamas fighters, without providing evidence.”

AP, of course, reserves the “without providing evidence” mantra only for Israeli military figures, and never Hamas’.

In this despicable dual double standard, AP shamelessly rushes to prop up dubious casualty figures from a designated terror organization, while inexcusably delaying on reporting current data from the Israeli military.


BBC’s Yolande Knell downplays Ramadan incitement

Dutch PM hopeful pledges ‘full support’ for Israel
Geert Wilders, the leading candidate to become prime minister of the Netherlands, on Monday pledged his “full support” for the war against Hamas terrorism, speaking during a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Amsterdam.

“I just had a great meeting in Amsterdam with the President of Israel,” Wilders tweeted on Monday morning. “I told him I am proud that he visits the Netherlands and that Israel has, and always will have, my full support in its fight against terror.”

Wilders’s Party for Freedom (PVV) won a landslide victory in the Nov. 22 general election, possibly paving the way for the most pro-Israel government in the European nation’s history. PVV won 38 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, giving him a chance to lead talks to form a new ruling coalition and possibly become prime minister.

Herzog traveled to the Netherlands on Sunday for a visit focused on bringing about the release of the 134 hostages still held in the Gaza Strip, as well as raising awareness of the global rise in antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist invasion of the northwestern Negev.

Herzog also spoke at the opening of the National Holocaust Museum in the capital city. The ceremony in Amsterdam’s Portuguese Synagogue was held in the presence of King of the Netherlands Willem-Alexander, outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte and representatives of Austria and Germany.
Top four congressional leaders to address AIPAC leadership meeting
The top four congressional leaders — House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffires (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — are all set to address AIPAC’s Congressional Summit in Washington, D.C., which kicked off on Sunday.

Approximately 1,600 AIPAC leaders and activists will attend the convening, according to AIPAC spokesman Marshall Wittmann, which will also include remarks by Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog and a lobbying component calling for emergency Israel funding, full-year 2024 Israel funding and passage of the SHIP Act, an Iran oil sanctions bill that’s expected to be considered in committee in the Senate soon.

“The priority lobbying message will be to House Republicans to urge their leadership to urgently pass a bipartisan emergency funding bill for Israel without conditions and that can be signed into law by the president,” Wittmann said. “This message will be amplified with emails and phone calls to Congress from our 4 million members.”

This week’s meeting is the latest in a series of scaled-down AIPAC summits that have, in recent years, replaced the organization’s former flagship policy conference. Last year’s conference focused significantly on the group’s electoral strategy.

A partial schedule for the conference obtained by Jewish Insider indicated that, outside of the keynote speeches by key leaders, the event’s agenda will be split roughly evenly between sessions on Middle East regional policy and the war in Gaza, and sessions on AIPAC’s political strategy and the 2024 congressional election cycle.
Jamaal defends Farrakhan Mural
Rep. Jamaal Bowman defended a controversial mural that included a depiction of anti-Jewish firebrand Louis Farrakhan in a Westchester suburb last year — a move that’s sparked outrage among Jews as Bowman tries to hold onto his seat in a competitive Democratic primary.

Bowman’s support for Farrakhan’s inclusion in the mural, which has not been previously reported, came during a public access TV interview last year with Clifton Earl Abrams, a Greenburgh activist who advocated for the creation of the painting and has defended the inclusion of Farrakhan in it. The mural, located under an I-287 overpass, depicts a range of Black figures from modern American history, including Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali.

When Abrams steered their conversation to the depiction of Farrakhan, Bowman attempted to couch his remarks but ultimately said he supports the mural remaining “as is.”

“Regarding the minister, you know, he said many things that I fully disagree with, you know, period,” Bowman starts out. “But he is a part of Black history, you know? That’s a fact. And if the Greenburgh community — particularly that section of Greenburgh , you know — supports the mural, then the mural should be there as is. ”

Bowman’s statements during that interview have led to a backlash from community leaders at a time he seeks to hold onto his House seat, which is now the target of a competitive primary challenge from Westchester County Executive George Latimer. v In a written statement sent to the Daily News, Bowman condemned Farrakhan for his “horrific, despicable antisemitic” rhetoric. The progressive Dem went on to say that the National Coalition Against Censorship and “many members of the Greenburgh community” believe the mural “should be contextualized, not removed.”

“I believe the local community living near the mural should have the power to decide how to move forward,” he said, adding that he authored and passed a congressional resolution condemning antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Critics who heard Bowman’s initial remarks aren’t pleased, though.

Barry Sugar, president of the Jewish Leadership Council, said the mural — and Bowman’s support of it — essentially amounts to “honoring a bigot, an antisemite.”

“America is facing a tremendous amount of challenges. To do something that’s more divisive doesn’t help anybody,” he said. “When you represent the people, you represent all the people. … We don’t need someone to give it a pass that’s a part of the government.”
House resolution on rape singling out Hamas, Israel draws 22 sponsors
A resolution, which Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday, cites allegations that both the Hamas terror organization and Israel are guilty of sexual violence against women.

H.Res.1068 notes that “multiple news organizations have reported accounts of sexual violence against women perpetrated by Hamas during the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel.”

“A report from Physicians for Human Rights Israel has raised concerns that the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks included many incidents of sexual assault following repetitive patterns,” per the resolution, which has been referred to committee. “Photographic and eyewitness evidence of the sexual violence that was weaponized by Hamas during the attacks was presented during a United Nations session on sexual and gender-based violence.”

It adds that “decades of conflict with Israel have resulted in high levels of poverty, instability and deteriorating living conditions in Gaza that have increased the risk of violence for Palestinian women and girls, according to the United Nations Population Fund, and the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas and worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza is compounding the risks women and children already faced.”

The resolution, which has drawn 21 co-sponsors, notes that the U.N. Population Fund records that “59% of Palestinian women and girls have reported experiencing at least one form of gender-based violence,” and that “news outlets have reported that Palestinian women have been harassed at checkpoints and while in custody, according to testimony submitted to the United Nations.”


Stop bailing out South Africa’s corrupt leaders
The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.” A second major South African newspaper, The Citizen, asked: “Is Iran funding the ANC? ANC’s sudden wealth fuels suspicion…and the party refuses to divulge its funding sources.” The ANC has denied the charge.

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by Ramaphosa warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

Earlier in 2023, the RSF had engaged in what Reuters described as a “killing frenzy” elsewhere in Darfur, butchering more than 1,000 people over more than 50 days of “systematic and coordinated” murderous attacks against the “darker-skinned Masalit tribe” to whom, Reuters says, the Arab attackers repeatedly referred as “slaves.”

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement. In addition to the AGOA benefits, the U.S. is the largest provider of development assistance to South Africa, $660 million per year. The U.S. has also committed more than $1 billion to help South Africa’s profoundly corrupt and reform-resistant energy sector transition to renewable energy.

Under Ramaphosa, South Africa’s government has violated the requirements that AGOA beneficiaries not undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy and not “provide support for acts of international terrorism.” The U.S. should terminate South Africa’s AGOA benefits unless such activities cease.
MEMRI: Saudi Journalist: October 7 Caprice Brought Destruction Upon Gaza, But Hamas Leaders Will Surely Declare Victory Again

MEMRI: Hamas Spokesman Husam Badran To Afghan Media: 'It Is The Same Resistance And Jihad That Exists In The Land Of Palestine, And It Will Completely End The Occupation, And Achieving All The Goals As The Afghans Achieved It'

PMW: PA leaders appropriate the Holocaust as crime against Palestinians

PMW: Ramadan and Jihad: PA’s top religious leader links the two

Abbas We'll pay our last penny to martyrs and prisoners

Hamas-linked website warns Palestinians not to work with Israel'

How Hamas tortured its own brigade leader to death
Documents discovered by IDF troops in Gaza describe the months of brutal torture inflicted on a Hamas commander accused of embezzlement and passing intelligence to Israel.

Mahmoud Ishitwi, once the leader of the terror group’s elite Zeitoun battalion, is said to have been tortured for more than a year before being executed in 2016 on orders from Yayha Sinwar, then and now Hamas’s chief in the Gaza Strip.

Among the documents, according to a report in The Times, was an account written by Sinwar’s victim, who according to a Hamas statement issued after his death was killed after confessing to “behavioural and moral violations”, a euphemism for homosexuality.

“The fear gripped me without end,” Ishtiwi wrote. “They would beat me 400-500 times … they held me blindfolded for five days … there were days in which I was beaten for 20 hours, and sometimes 48 hours … I was suspended by my arms and legs, swinging while four men whipped me … I confessed more than once under torture.”

The documents unearthed by the IDF also include a letter sent by Ishtiwi’s family to Ismail Haniyeh, the Qatar-based Hamas politburo chief, saying he was taken to an open grave and told: “This is your tomb. We will pour concrete on you until it reaches your mouth — and it won’t be the first time we’ve done this.”


PreOccupiedTerritory: In Solidarity With Suffering Gazans, Hamas Leader Cuts Down To 2 Steak Meals Per Day (satire)
Ismail Haniyeh rose from his filet mignon lunch today with a message of support for Palestinians caught in the crossfire of a war between his organization and Israel: he shares their pain, as symbolized by his plan to abstain from more than one more fine dining experience in his luxury hotel until tomorrow, and to maintain that restriction for the foreseeable future, until the war ends.

“I wish to deliver a message of encouragement and solidarity to my brethren in Gaza,” he said in a brief postprandial video address, pausing for a discreet burp. “Here in Qatar and around the region and world, from Moscow to Ankara to Tehran, my brothers at the helm of our movement work to secure the resources and backing we need to vanquish the occupier once and for all. But I know that all that hard work pales in comparison with the hardship you must endure.”

“Rest assured We are doing all that we can to bring your ordeal to an end as quickly and honorably as we can,” he continued. “I am with you in your trials, and to demonstrate I am with you, I do not eat more than two fancy meals on any given day – fewer during Ramadan. You have been forced to make sacrifices for our noble cause, and I, too, am making sacrifices every day, for all of us.”

Haniyeh also told Gazans about reducing his weekly massage and sauna sessions to four per week, and how he has removed fancy chocolates from his diet entirely, except when either he, as a visitor, shares them with a host out of courtesy, or is gifted them by a visitor, or just before bedtime, or with his coffee first thing in the morning and just after 10 a.m. and with lunch and at about 4 in the afternoon and sometimes around 7 p.m.
IDF Arabic spox: Lebanese reaching out to Israel over war fears
The Israel Defense Force’s Arabic-language spokesman Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee said on Sunday that many Lebanese citizens are contacting him with concern that Hezbollah is leading the country into war, including messages from members of the Iranian terror proxy.

In an X post, Adraee directed them to the Facebook page of the Mossad intelligence agency.

“Recently, I received many messages from Lebanese citizens, including even those who identified themselves as Hezbollah activists, expressing their fear that Hezbollah would take Lebanon to a fate similar to Gaza, following the path of [Islamic State] and Hamas, requesting communication with Israeli parties,” he wrote.

“Unfortunately, as I have repeatedly emphasized, I am not the authorized body for these trends and therefore I cannot provide you with direct solutions, but I can direct you to the Mossad’s Facebook page (@Themossadofficial), noting the presence of the blue verification mark that shows the page’s credibility, where you may find the most appropriate way to improve your situation,” he continued.

“I understand your desire for a better situation for your country, and I wish you all a better future and life.”


Princeton students urge Hezbollah to release fellow student, pro-Iranian regime prof refuses to aid
The plight of kidnapped Israeli graduate student Elizabeth Tsurkov is on the radar for students at Princeton University in New Jersey who are organizing to press for her release from Kataib Hezbollah’s captivity in Iraq.

The student newspaper The Daily Princetonian on Friday reported last week that a graduate student circulated an email as part of campaign on a student list with the call to “help save our colleague’s life!”

According to the paper, “The message encouraged students to send letters to Congress to bring attention to the situation” of Tsurkov, who was kidnapped by the Iranian regime-backed terrorist organization Kataib Hezbollah in March, 2023.

“Our main goal is just making sure that she’s not forgotten,” Narrelle Gilchrist, a graduate student organizer with the campaign, said, according to The Daily Princetonian.

Tsurkov’s family is appealing to the Princeton community to send letters to congress to win Elizabeth’s freedom, the student paper wrote. “Her case has not gotten enough attention until now, and her life is in danger,” noted the email. Tsurkov was conducting research at the the time in Iraq for her PhD. Pro-Iranian regime professor refuses to aid in releasing kidnapped student

The author of The Daily Princetonian article, Bridget O'Neill, reported that, in November, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce sent a letter to Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber covering an investigation into the university’s pro-Islamic Republic of Iran academic Seyed Hossein Mousavian.

The congressional representatives wrote “Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton doctoral student, is currently being held hostage in Iraq by Iran-backed militias. Has Princeton asked Mousavian to assist in Tsurkov’s release? Has Mousavian offered to use his contacts to try to free Tsurkov?


Why Do Iranian Dissidents Ask Princeton To Fire Mousavian?
When Princeton University hired Hossein Mousavian in 2009, I believed he had defected from the Iranian regime, relocated to the United States, and aimed to work against it.

The passage of time, however, proved that I was mistaken. His intention was to continue serving a regime that had afforded him ample opportunities, enabling him to exert influence over two major newspapers, rise from a street activist to Iran’s ambassador in Germany, and subsequently become a chief negotiator in nuclear talks with the West.

Throughout his career, Mousavian has demonstrated unwavering loyalty to the Islamic Republic. From his tenure as a member of the Resalat Daily editorial board and his leadership role at Tehran Times to his diplomatic endeavors in Europe as Iran's top diplomat, he has consistently upheld the regime's interests. Even upon relocating to the US, his advocacy for the controversial JCPOA nuclear deal and defense of Iran's nuclear program as peaceful persisted.

Mohammad Javad Zarif attests to Mousavian's commitment to the regime, having entrusted him with representation at various European events during Zarif's tenure at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Zarif lauds Mousavian's adept defense of the regime's positions, acknowledging his efforts in international forums across America and Europe.

However, Mousavian has crafted various narratives portraying himself as a regime critic. One such claim involves being listed as a target for internal assassination in the 1990s, an assertion lacking substantiation or evidence. Lists of assassination targets from the 1990s, provided by reputable sources, notably exclude Mousavian's name, indicating a discrepancy in his narrative. I have personally seen two lists for assassinations in the 1990s (one list provided to me by Saeed Hajjarian, a high-ranking security official) and Mousavian was not on those lists. The internal terror project in that period was planned to be carried out inside the country and not in Europe.


Neo-Nazis turn up at doorstep of US journalist who investigated them
When six neo-Nazis stood outside American journalist Jordan Green’s suburban home with lit flares and raised arms in the ‘Heil Hitler’ salute, the gravity of his work as an investigative reporter became clear.

One member of the mob held up a sign: “Freedom of press does not equal freedom from consequences.”

Green had been looking into groups of neo-Nazis who convene on Telegram channels also known as “Terrorgram” before they approached his house in Greensborough, North Carolina, in February.

One of the groups he has investigated is called “2119”, or the "Blood and Soil” group, formed in Florida in 2022. The US Jewish advocacy group the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes it as a "white supremacist group”. It used to be known as the "Revolutionary White Brotherhood” (RWB).

Last August, teenage members of 2119 allegedly perpetrated a series of crimes terrorising the Jewish community of Pensacola, Florida. These included bricks with swastikas scrawled on them being thrown through synagogue windows and swastikas spray-painted onto a house. Around the same time, the group vandalised a local mosque, a Masonic meeting house and a socialist community centre.


The surprising reason I'm a settler
While most settlers oppose a Palestinian state, it isn’t a major issue in their lives, and it certainly wasn’t a factor in their decision to live in a Jewish town in the West Bank . Almost every settler – and most Israelis – knows there will never be a Palestinian state not because of settlers but because Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Palestinians have turned down a state since 1947, and their refusal to compromise on land, right of return [sic], and Jerusalem will continue to ensure they never have their own state. Settler actions have little to do with their constant “own goals.”

Like so many fellow “settlers,” I didn’t move to a Jewish town in Judea and Samaria (the biblical name for the region commonly called the West Bank) for ideological reasons. I moved to this region for its beauty, its warm sense of community, and its affordability.

There wasn’t, hasn’t, and never will be a Palestinian moved or displaced to make room for our town’s expansion and development. In fact, archaeological records show no human beings ever lived in the area of our town until 1977 when our founders pitched the tents that started Mitzpe Yeriho.

While it is true that UN Resolution 181, also known as the 1947 Palestinian Partition Plan, designated the West Bank for an independent Arab state, that region is the historic heartland of the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland. Jews have lived continuously in Judea and Samaria for millennia.

To suggest, especially after the Arabs rejected the UN offer of a state, that Jews should not live in or govern the West Bank borders on the absurd. The Nazis aimed to make Germany “Judenrein,” devoid of all Jews. To even contemplate Jews self-initiating making parts of their own homeland Judenrein defies reason.

In 1967, Israel fought the Six Day War and recaptured Judea and Samaria from the Jordanians. After 19 years of Palestinian rejection, Jordanian occupation, and a war to annihilate Israel, it made sense for Israel to reclaim the center of its homeland.


Israel’s third song entry given green light by Eurovision
Israel's Kan public broadcaster on Sunday night revealed the Jewish state's reworked song for this year's Eurovision Song Contest.

Eden Golan's Hurricane premiered during a live broadcast on Kan, followed by an official announcement on European Broadcasting Union (EBU) channels. However, the entry leaked online hours earlier.

"Every day, I'm losing my mind / Holding on in this mysterious ride / Dancing in the storm, I've got nothing to hide," Golan sings in the chorus. "Take it all and leave the world behind / Baby, promise me you'll hold me again / I'm still broken from this hurricane."

"Hurricane" ends with four lines in Hebrew, which translate to: "I don't need big words / Only prayers / Even if it is hard to see / You always leave me one little light."

The EBU reportedly informed Israel last week that Golan would be allowed to compete in the musical extravaganza with Hurricane.

The news came after the organisation had threatened to disqualify two of Israel's earlier entries over perceived political messaging.

The last lines of October Rain described the condition of Israelis during the October 7 terror attacks, in which 1,200 people were slaughtered: "There's' no air left to breathe / No place, no me from day to day."

In one of the verses, Golan sang the word "flowers," which is Israel Defence Forces slang for fallen soldiers, but which does not carry that connotation for European viewers.

Israel's second choice song, Dance Forever, was an apparent reference to the massacre at the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re'im, where Hamas terrorists murdered 364 people on Oct. 7.

Kan has said that the final submission, set to the tune of October Rain, tells the story of a "young woman who is surviving a personal crisis."




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