Friday, March 15, 2024

03/15 Links Pt2: As a Zionist; The West’s abandonment of the Jews; Glazer’s Partners Refute Glazer; Musical Lemmings

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The West’s abandonment of the Jews
As the ultimate particularist culture, Judaism is in the way of all universalizing creeds; and so Israel, the particularist Jewish state, had to be dumped. The stage was set for the demonization of Israel tied to the increasing dominance of international human rights doctrine.

A living example of this is Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Obama administration’s U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

A noted expert on genocide, Power has long said the United States bears a unique responsibility to prevent mass atrocities.

It was therefore an irony that, earlier this year, Power was attacked by current and former USAID employees for belonging to an administration providing military support to Israel in the war against Hamas. Although she told these officials it was “very important that what happened on Oct. 7 never happen again,” she failed to push back against their claim that Israel was committing “genocide” in Gaza.

Given her history, this perhaps wasn’t surprising. In 2002, she was asked as a “thought experiment” what she would advise the U.S. president to do about the Israel-Palestinian problem “if one party or another [starts] looking like they might be moving towards genocide.”

In response to this already disturbingly loaded question, Power said that something should be put “on the line” to help the situation. This might mean “alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import. … It does require external intervention.”

Power wasn’t talking about preventing the Palestinians from committing genocide against the Jews of Israel. She was talking about invading Israel to prevent an Israeli genocide against the Palestinians.

She was suggesting that Israel might commit atrocities against people who themselves make Israel the victim of precisely such atrocities: The vile smear being used against Israel today.

She also suggested that the only people who might be alienated if the U.S. invaded Israel for this purpose would be American Jews, who she said exercised tremendous political and financial power over America.

The antisemitism of this remark aside, the thinking here was that Jews can’t be allowed to get in the way of the human rights doctrine that state power is always used to make victims and never to protect people from becoming victims in the first place.

Israel is fighting a desperate battle for its survival. Its people are in a state of ever-deepening trauma, grief and anxiety. Some of their families and friends are still hostages in Gaza meeting unthinkable fates. The death toll among their conscripted children and grandchildren fighting to defend their country is steadily ticking upwards.

They understand that genocidal savages intend to continue their attacks until they have destroyed the Jewish homeland and slaughtered every Jew.

In this truly desperate situation, what’s even worse is that the so-called “civilized” West—which also wants the Jews removed from its headspace and its conscience—is accusing them of the crime of which they are the present and intended victims.

That is an unspeakable abandonment of the Jewish people and to the West a source of ineradicable shame.
‘He Made a Good Speech,’ Biden Says of Schumer's Call To Oust Netanyahu
President Joe Biden told reporters on Friday that Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer's (D., N.Y.) call for Israelis to vote out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came in "a good speech."

"Sen. Schumer contacted my staff, my senior staff, he was gonna make that speech. I'm not going to elaborate on the speech," Biden told reporters in the Oval Office. "He made a good speech, and I think he expressed a serious concern shared not only by him, but by many Americans."

Schumer in the Thursday speech on the Senate floor said Netanyahu was "stuck in the past" and that he allied with "radical right-wing Israelis," even saying that he should not remain in power.

"I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel," Schumer said.

Several Republicans blasted Schumer for his remarks. Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) said his call for new elections was "inappropriate and offensive."

"Israel is a close ally and a healthy, vibrant democracy. The last thing Israel needs is the 'foreign election interference' that Democrats so often decry here," Cotton said in a statement.

Even the more centrist American Jewish Committee admonished Schumer for his call.
Douglas Murray: Why do clueless Hamas supporters keep getting away with disruptive protests? Arrest them!
If your print copy of The New York Post was slightly delayed yesterday morning you can blame the “peace” brigade.

The same people who have spent the last few months blocking bridges and stopping New Yorkers getting to work yesterday morning targeted one of this paper’s printing works in Queens.

The plant also prints The Wall Street Journal, Newsday, USA Today and the New York Times.

The protestors seemed especially angry about the last of these. Though I’m tempted to say that they deserve each other.

In the early hours of the morning these protestors lay across the road and put a barricade in the middle of it.

They also put up a sign saying “Consent for genocide is manufactured here.”

Wearing Palestinian bandanas and other terrorist-chic the protestors sought to disrupt the operations of the free press. All to demonstrate their opposition to something that isn’t happening.

Because of course there is no “genocide” in Gaza. There is a targeted military operation in a heavily built-up area where Hamas hide behind the civilians and also dress as civilians.

In any case, what military operation there is could stop at any moment if the terrorists of Hamas just handed back the more than 100 Israeli hostages who they are still holding.

But you never hear calls like that from these activists. Because human details don’t disturb them. Any more than facts or reality do.
‘We Should Salute Them’: Hezbollah Leader Expresses Gratitude for American Anti-Israel Activists
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday praised Americans who are putting pressure on US President Joe Biden to limit support for Israel because they are helping the Lebanese terrorist group’s cause.

“Today, what many people demonstrating in America are doing … Of course, we should salute them and be grateful to them,” Nasrallah said in remarks translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

In his speech, the terrorist leader highlighted the importance in his view of anti-Israel activism in the US.

Nasrallah went on to praise Democrats in America who are threatening not to vote for Biden in this year’s US presidential election due to his support for Israel in its war against the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza.

“The Arabs, the Muslims, and the non-Muslims, from among the other free Americans — Christians and others — in the Democratic Party who wrote to Biden: ‘We are uncommitted to vote for you.’ These people are very influential at this stage,” Nasrallah said.

These Americans are so important, Nasrallah explained, because Biden “is not afraid of the world, the international community, God, history, or anything. Biden now is afraid of one thing only — that his policy and actions in Gaza will lead him to lose the presidential elections. This is why he keeps debating, denying, and playing games.”

More than that, Nasrallah seemed to see an opening to help his cause, saying, “If the pressure and opposition [to Biden] in America continues, this may also open a door for hope.”

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran, which provides the Islamist terrorist groups with arms, funds, and training.

In its 1985 manifesto, Hezbollah wrote, “Our struggle will end only when this entity [Israel] is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated.”

The terror group’s praise for American anti-Israel activists comes amid rising pressure in the US from segments of the Muslim community, the far left, and increasingly the mainstream left on Biden to lessen his support for Israel.


As a Zionist
It is a strange feeling to be politically homeless, after years of feeling pride in “resistance.” It’s like waking up on an island with no ship in sight. And if the only ship that showed up was a Democratic Socialist ship, I would be stranded forever.

But the reason I will no longer donate, make phone calls or perhaps even vote for the Democrats is because of the millions of Democrats who have stayed silent. The ones who think it is ok to be neutral on this issue even after everything we have learned about how the Holocaust was able to happen.

I expected Democrats to care about antisemitism—to call it out without always adding “and Islamophobia.”

I recently visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. I was struck by so many things, but I will name just two of them here.

First, there is story after story of Germans who looked the other way; who stayed silent when their Jewish neighbors disappeared, who participated in the looting of Jewish homes and businesses.

Second, there are the thousands of names of people who saved Jewish children and Jewish families. We call them “Righteous Among the Nations.” There were so many names I had never seen before; so many good people who did the right thing.

We always have a choice whether to speak or remain silent; to listen to the different perspectives of those to whom we normally might not listen; to consider whether we might be wrong; to step away from the crowd and lose friends for the sake of what’s right; to acknowledge the pain of all sides and all people.

I have had to make the difficult choice to step away from the left. I am not really on the right either. Not so long as I believe in a woman’s right to choose. I am somewhere in the middle with the majority of people who reject extremists, reject antisemitism and reject “by any means necessary,” no matter which side it comes from. I am officially unaffiliated.

I’ve been told that my allyship shouldn’t be transactional; at the same time, it has been made clear that my allyship is expendable.

If there is one thing I’ve learned, it is to believe people when they tell you that you don’t matter to them.

Most importantly, I will now vote only for candidates who stand unconditionally with Israel. I am not speaking “as a Jew.” I am speaking as a Zionist. As a Zionist, I stand with the singular country that guards the culture and existence of a tiny 0.2% of the world population: the Jews.
Seth Mandel: Glazer’s Partners Refute Glazer
Cohen reiterated that he and Blavatnik were unaware of what Glazer was going to say. Producer James Wilson, who was onstage as well, and Glazer “have been collaborators on filmmaking and in life and in ideas for a long time so I believe it was—well, I know it was—something they wrote together,” Cohen said. Collaborators indeed.

Cohen went as far as he was able in making it clear that Blavatnik—a billionaire Jewish philanthropist who cut off Harvard and Penn in December—disagreed with Glazer as well, which is important to have on the record.

And the third significant part of Cohen’s remarks has to do with the effect of Glazer’s prostration before Hollywood, which risks canceling out the intended effect of the movie itself. “John spent 10 years making the film and has made something remarkable but people are talking this week more about what he said for 30 seconds,” Cohen said. “And I think that’s regrettable because I’d love the conversation to be focused on the film itself.”

That conversation, Cohen said, was supposed to be about educating the public about the Holocaust, and advancing that education in new and creative and striking ways without compromising the lesson at its core. He made sure to include Blavatnik in that as well: “Big picture is we are honored and thrilled to win Academy Awards. The film as I say is remarkable and I think that’s what’s going to be remembered in the long term, not that speech. And we’re extremely proud of the film. There’s been a bump in the road here but I don’t think it takes away from us that it’s a remarkable film and the impact it can have on Holocaust education which was certainly the purpose for Len Blavatnik and [me].”

We can only hope Cohen is right that Glazer’s stunt will fade in the public’s mind far sooner than will the movie’s ability to impart on a new generation the horrific reality of the Holocaust.


‘Zone of Interest’ Executive Producer Danny Cohen Refutes Director Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar Speech: ‘I Just Fundamentally Disagree’
Speaking on the Unholy podcast, Cohen, president of Access Entertainment and former director of BBC television, said: “It’s really important to recognize it’s upset a lot of people and a lot of people feel upset and angry about it. And I understand that anger frankly.”

Cohen said that he’d been contacted by “a lot” of people in the Jewish community who thought the film was crucial to Holocaust education and were upset that it had been “mixed up with what’s going on now [in Gaza], whether that was Jonathan’s intention or not to do that.”

The producer added he did not support Glazer’s comments. “I just fundamentally disagree with Jonathan on this,” he said. “The war and the continuation of the war is the responsibility of Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization which continues to hold and abuse the hostages, which doesn’t use its tunnels to protect the innocent civilians of Gaza but uses it to hide themselves and allow Palestinians to die. I think the war is tragic and awful and the loss of civilian life is awful, but I blame Hamas for that.”

Glazer’s comments caused controversy particularly among some members of the Jewish community, with Holocaust survivors writing open letters to repudiate his claims. However, his speech also received support from those calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, including Stefanie Fox, the executive director of leftist group Jewish Voice for Peace.

In a statement to Variety, Fox said that Glazer “wants to apply the lessons of the Holocaust to the horrors that ‘confront us in the present’ … Glazer speaks for the massive and growing number of Jews who honor our histories by joining our Palestinian siblings in their struggle for freedom and justice.”

Asked by “Unholy” co-hosts Jonathan Freedland and Yonit Levi whether Glazer had discussed the speech with anyone else in advance, Cohen revealed the director had planned it with Wilson, specifying the “we” when Glazer said: “We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked.” (Blavatnik was reportedly not aware of what Glazer had planned to say.)

Glazer and Wilson “have been collaborators on filmmaking and in life and in ideas for a long time so I believe it was – well, I know it was — something they wrote together,” Cohen said.

The producer also expressed disappointment that he believed the success of film – which picked up a second Academy Award for best sound – had been overshadowed by Glazer’s comments. “John spent 10 years making the film and has made something remarkable but people are talking this week more about what he said for 30 seconds,” Cohen said. “And I think that’s regrettable because I’d love the conversation to be focused on the film itself.”

“Listen, it’s his film,” Cohen said. “He can stand up there and choose his own words and that’s fine and he’ll do that and he’s a strong person and I’m sure he’ll stand by those but for me it wasn’t the right time and didn’t have enough context and I thought it was a distraction from the great piece of art. John is someone who really, he allows his work to do the talking.”
Wife of Zone of Interest producer wears Israel-inspired ‘solidarity’ dress to Baftas

Seth Mandel: Musical Lemmings
This is the golden age for hilariously earnest declarations of “bravery” and “courage” supposedly displayed by those in the arts and entertainment industries who express the only opinion their peers will allow them to hold.

Smug conformism is nothing new in popular art, especially music. Edginess is like a muscle that atrophies from lack of use, and the social media age has terrified most public-facing artists into submission. But this year’s stunning and brave participants in the annual SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, may have reached a new high—or low—in this regard.

Many artists and other presenters are backing out of their commitments to South By Southwest fest over the participation and sponsorship by the U.S. Army and defense contractors. But such firms have been involved in the festival for years, so what makes this SXSW different from all other SXSWs? Like you even had to ask.

“For more than 30 years, the festival has been a platform for some of the biggest established bands, as well as up and coming recording artists,” reports NPR. “But this year, dozens are boycotting over the festival’s sponsorship by U.S. military contractors months into Israel’s war in Gaza.”

Ah. Then we get the most clarifying exchange we could ever hope to find, when reporter Andrew Weber talks to Eric Braden of the punk band Big Bill.

Weber: “For years, the festival has featured the CIA, the NSA and defense contractors on panels and in its programming during its tech portion. But [Braden] says nobody really ever talked about it.”

To which Braden explained, “I think there was kind of a turning point this year for me at least. It’s not, like, the first year that they’ve had some unsavory partners. But I think sometimes putting pressure on people, making people feel uncomfortable is important.”

And there it is. The festival’s “unsavory partners” aren’t a new phenomenon. But this was the first year that artists were told to object. So they have. As everyone knows, nothing’s more punk rock than waiting around for people to tell you what to do.
“Ceasefire Now”: The Left’s Outrage over Gaza Is an Old Trick
The purpose of the protests is not to draw attention to reality but, quite the opposite, to obscure it behind the gesture of making a very self-regarding cry for justice. And it was a gesture that came so naturally and uniformly to all sorts of Europeans! All that was needed was an appropriate set of slogans to turn a blinding and unforeseen reality into one of the familiar terms in the wordplay of a bourgeois society of airheads. We are presented with the spectacle of an entire generation of young people choosing to deny there is such a thing as objective truth. In its stead, there is only my word—as weightless as a feather—and, behind it, my fist. And perhaps the protestors fury is indeed understandable: for just as a guilty child insists on his innocence to the point where he enters into a frenzy, so these protestors insanely insist that their poor words, formulated in minds schooled on video games and pornography, actually correspond with the complex, history-driven reality they’re describing. Deep down, of course, they know it’s not true. What these demonstrations really show is the frightful choice to say, “All there is in the universe, is what I say.”

Indeed, there is much that the vicious condemnation of Israel shares in common with cynicism about God. Judging from appearances, our generation views the question of God as something philosophical, impractical, beside-the-point. By contrast, the entire civilised world until 250 years ago implicitly knew that a relationship with God is the most practical undertaking a person can and should make during their lifetime. And this is not, even in the slightest, meant metaphorically. Europeans knew that life in this world isn’t really about itself; that the death of a child demonstrates, not the chaos of the world, but the inscrutability of its Creator. It was clear that this universe couldn’t just be an eternal rubbish-dump of meaningless suffering, because why should there be one at all? The unstated context of life was God, Who remembers man’s poor deeds in eternity. To search for God was simply to ask: What is the world actually accomplishing, and for Whom?

Similarly, when street marchers keep on yelling “Ceasefire Now!”—as if Israel’s actions shouldn’t be viewed in the context of the brutal attack that preceded them, or the aims the army is pursuing—it’s a renunciation of common sense. It’s a war on the intellect, waged by people whose minds have been reduced to a palette of emojis and who wish, in their bitter frustration, to establish a world controlled by the gorilla’s fist. Besides, we see that much of their behaviour seems aimed at deliberately degrading the emotion of reverence, and here I’m thinking of the defacement of national monuments. This gives us an indication that we could really be seeing a battle against God taking place.

The Left’s instinct to ally itself with terrorism reveals something intimate about it: it sees nothing wrong with murder. The reason is that the Left sees no divinity in man and no sense or order in the universe—nothing that could justify holding a murderer to account. On the contrary, the Left seems anxious to prove before the whole world that terrorist killings are the same thing as freedom fighting, that excusing murderers is the same thing as caring for peace. It refuses to connect the dots and see a narrative. In place of the will to find meaningful, coherent stories that make sense of reality, the Left offers only isolated phrases, repeated until one starts to believe they are oracular.

And when Leftists claim to be outraged by murder, it is to hide the fact that they, in a very literal sense, know they are likely to do the same. The sign they sometimes display at protests that suggests we should ‘Gas the Jews’ doesn’t leave this in much doubt. Their turning a blind eye to the real massacres that have been going on over the last twenty years is revealing enough on its own. It’s not an accident that Rudyard Kipling’s stories, which teem with reverence for the spiritual in life, no less than with gentle affection for foreign peoples, come from a conservative mindset. And when George Orwell flatly labelled the great man a racist bigot, in spite of all the evidence from The Jungle Books and Kim, it wasn’t an accident that his worldview was anything but conservative.
The Abraham Accords, Trump & media : Aryeh Lightstone | The Israel-Hamas War
Our guest today: Aryeh Lightstone served as Senior Advisor to David Friedman, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel between 2017 and 2021. Mr. Lightstone was also the U.S. Special Envoy for the Abraham Accords and thus responsible for representing US interests in normalizing economic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, Kosovo, and Morocco.

The Abraham Accords were signed on September 15th, 2020 after mediation by the U.S. and constituted the first peace agreement in the Middle East in 25 years.

Visegrad24 presents an in-depth series covering the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. This comprehensive series features on-the-ground interviews, bringing firsthand insights from a diverse range of voices, including politicians, professors, journalists, experts and influencers.

00:00 - Introduction
01:48 - Preparations for the Abraham Accords
04:45 - A fresh start in the Middle East
07:54 - The role of Saudi Arabia
09:46 - Wearing a kipper in Bahrain
11:40 - Within the walls of the State Department
13:15 - The threat of the Islamic regime in Iran
16:25 - Visegrad24 and the Middle East
17:46 - Al-Jazeera and Qatar
20:30 - Europeans and the Palestinian Authority
22:22 - Trump's peace plan
23:15 - The future of Israel
25:49 - Biden and Israel
27:04 - The 2024 US presidential election
29:10 - Israel and the UN
30:43 - UNRWA
31:41 - The religious alliance




New UK extremism ‘definition’ ignores group that backed Hamas
The British government has unveiled a new official definition of “extremism.” The update, announced by Department for Leveling Up, Housing and Communities Secretary Michael Gove on Thursday, aims to bolster national security measures and prevent the legitimization of extremist factions.

Gove said the British National Socialist Movement and Patriotic Alternative far-right groups, will be evaluated against the new definition, as will groups such as the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), Cage, and MEND, which have been accused of links with Islamism. Under the plans, groups deemed “extreme” will be barred from receiving taxpayers’ money and meeting with ministers or senior civil servants.

Gary Mond, chairman of the National Jewish Assembly, told JNS that the revised definition was a significant step forward, adding that it was “a positive development that several Islamist and far-right Jew-hating groups are likely to be included.”

Referring to the controversy over the alleged last-minute decision to remove the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), an umbrella body that has been at the center of several controversies, from the list, Mond said it was “up to the relevant governmental body to determine whether individual groups such as the Muslim Council of Great Britain require banning and this decision should be based on their past actions.”

In February 2009, the MCB’s deputy secretary-general, Daud Abdullah, backed a statement that endorsed Hamas and celebrated its “victory” against “this malicious Jewish Zionist war over Gaza.”

Mond noted that the concept is new and needs to be watched carefully to ensure that groups that do not promote hatred of people or violence are not inadvertently caught under this new definition.
Israel Set to Formally Declare Annual Day of Remembrance for Oct. 7 Massacre
The Israeli government is set to vote on Sunday to formally declare an annual day of remembrance for the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel and those who subsequently fell in battle fighting the Palestinian terror group in Gaza.

The date chosen for the annual remembrance is the 24th of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew lunisolar calendar and two days after the 22nd of Tishrei, the day that marks the Jewish festival of Simchat Torah, when the attack occurred.

According to the draft that will be voted on at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, the day “will be celebrated as much as possible in the state institutions,” including ceremonies at military bases and other sites of the war.

If the measure is approved, the ceremonies will be held this upcoming Tishrei on the 25th day of the month, as the day of remembrance is set to fall on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, for which holidays in Israel are postponed a day until Sunday.

In Israel, public and religious holidays are held in accordance with the Hebrew calendar. For this year, however, there will also be ceremonies for the Oct. 7 massacre held on the more widely used Gregorian calendar date.

“Oct. 7 is engraved in the public consciousness in Israel as the day of the terrible massacre,” the draft says. “Precisely to mark the first year of the largest terrorist attack in our history, in response to the public’s concerns in Israel, there is a need to commemorate the event in a one-time manner on its foreign date, which was enshrined in the consciousness of the people of Israel and in its consciousness of the world. The expression “seventh of October” is ambiguous and related to the Jewish term ‘seven,’ which indicates the mourning at the end of the first year of the outbreak of the attack.”
Dances with wolves: A Tel Aviv choreographer forces audiences to face Oct. 7’s horrors
When choreographer Oded Ronen was tasked with creating a new work for the Ulm Theater Ballet Company in Germany, he had no desire to think of anything beyond those killed, taken hostage or in mourning after the brutal Hamas attacks of October 7.

Ronen, a choreographer who trained in Israel and abroad and choreographs both locally and in Europe, felt compelled to create a different kind of dance. The result is “The Missings,” which uses movement to create an emotional connection to the victims of Hamas’s atrocities in southern Israel that day, specifically at the Supernova music festival, where some 360 people were killed and dozens more kidnapped.

Ronen, who is based in Tel Aviv, was active in last year’s anti-judicial overhaul protests. Following the Hamas massacre, he watched as WhatsApp groups that had been dedicated to anti-government activism transitioned to support affected families, survivors, evacuees and bereaved.

He volunteered at a “war room” set up by former demonstrators at the Tel Aviv Expo Center, working with families frantically trying to find information about their missing loved ones. He described his attempts to gather information as something akin to the forensic police procedural “CSI.”

After several weeks, the government stepped in and Ronen turned back to dance, aiming to create a visual piece that would help people understand what happened at the desert rave.

“I wanted something that would create empathy as the support for Israel started decreasing,” he said. “I wanted to show a personal story to show that what happened could happen to anyone at any party.”


Fauda’s next series will include October 7 says producer
Idan Amedi’s X/Twitter post last October 12 was blunt. “It’s not a scene from Fauda, it’s real life,” it read, and the fact that it appeared in a video showing the Fauda actor dressed in military fatigues ensured it hit home with even greater force.

Fans of the hit Netflix show will know Amedi as Sagi Tzur, a new recruit to the undercover Mista’arvim unit team led by Doron (Lior Raz) tasked with infiltrating terror groups intent on destroying Israel. Millions more will know him as the singer behind hits such as Pain of Warriors and Finished.

But in this X post he was just one of the 300,000 Israeli reservists called up for service in the days after the Hamas attack.

It was a concise, powerful reminder of Israel’s new post-October 7 reality. Fact and fiction in this new reality have blurred. The intense on-screen danger that engrosses fans of Fauda has morphed into terrifying actuality.

Soon after this post, Amedi was pitched into the most hellish scenes of this new reality — the battlefields of Gaza.

As one of the first IDF first Israeli forces to reach the strip’s coastline in the invasion, he was then tasked with the critically dangerous missions of locating and destroying Hamas’s booby-trapped tunnels.

“Idan was one of the first to volunteer after October 7,” says Fauda producer Liat Benasuly Amit. “I was in touch with him. I was very worried.

“Every time we spoke I told him he’d done enough. ‘You’re two months over there come home’”.
Report Biden Officials to Meet Palestinians in Chicago amid Wave of Antisemitism
Senior White House officials will reportedly meet with members of the Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian immigrant communities in Chicago on Thursday, without having commented on the latest wave of antisemitism in that city.

CNN reported:
Senior White House officials are planning to meet with Arab-, Muslim- and Palestinian-American community leaders in Chicago on Thursday, multiple sources familiar with the meeting told CNN, as President Joe Biden continues to grapple with anger and concern across the country about the Israel-Hamas war.

Among those expected to participate in the meeting, according to sources, are: Tom Perez, the White House’s director of intergovernmental affairs; Steve Benjamin, White House director of public engagement; Mazen Basrawi, White House liaison to Muslim-American communities; Curtis Ried, the National Security Council chief of staff; and aides Dan Koh and Jamie Citron.

Vivian Khalaf, chairman of the board of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, told CNN that she was invited to Thursday’s meeting with White House officials but declined to attend. In an interview, she made clear her deep dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s handling of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The White House did not comment on an outbreak of antisemitism in Chicago, the latest manifestation of which was the cancelation of a concert by the Jewish musician Matisyahu over the “threat of protests” at the House of Blues.


Confusion over CAIR’s role in planned Biden meeting with Muslim leaders in Chicago
The White House was snubbed this week by the Muslim community in Chicago after Biden administration officials sought a meeting with Muslim, Arab and Palestinian American leaders.

At least, that’s what several Muslim advocacy groups said on Thursday. More than two dozen Chicago-area groups signed onto a letter stating that the “Palestinian American leadership of Chicagoland has unanimously decided (along with key Muslim and Arab leadership) against attending planned meetings with White House officials in Chicago this week.”

But it turns out that several of the groups who claimed to have turned down the meeting never received an invite in the first place, according to a source familiar with the planned event. The letter was organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group that has faced criticism over praise from several of its leaders for Hamas — and a group that the White House pledged in December not to meet with, due to its executive director’s comments lauding the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.

In fact, no one from CAIR was actually invited to the meeting, according to White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates. The White House no longer invites CAIR to any events, Bates told JI.

Tarek Khalil, a Chicago lawyer who is involved with CAIR, said the group had an obligation to weigh in, though he did not respond to a specific inquiry about whether CAIR was invited.

“There was no invite list that was released; the meeting was pitched as for Palestinian, Arab and Muslim groups,” Khalil told JI on Thursday. “Naturally, the largest and most respected Palestinian, Arab and Muslim community groups in Chicago felt inclined to respond and were in consensus seeing no value to such a meeting in this moment.”


Rep. Summer Lee’s campaign removes Casey endorsement from website
A subtle change to Rep. Summer Lee’s (D-PA) campaign site in recent days suggests a possible tension with one of her top supporters, Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), as the two incumbents gear up for tough reelections.

Within the past week, Lee, a freshman Squad member, appears to have removed Casey’s name from an obscure section of her website that is used to communicate messaging instructions to outside groups prohibited from directly coordinating with campaigns.

In the so-called “red box,” Casey’s endorsement of her campaign had been listed as recently as March 7, according to a screenshot reviewed by JI. But it no longer mentions his support, instead swapping in House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who has also backed Lee’s bid for a second term.

The initial choice to include Casey in a short list of supporters was a tacit signal to friendly super PACs and other political groups to cite his endorsement in their ads leading up to the April primary, where Lee is facing a formidable Democratic challenger, Bhavini Patel.

It was not immediately clear what had motivated the recent edit, though it seems unlikely that Lee herself would not want to be associated with Casey, a key mainstream validator whose endorsement is still listed at the top of another page on her website. Representatives for Lee and Casey did not respond to requests for comment from JI this week.
Democrats Warn Biden's Controversial Judicial Nomination Is Doomed: Report
Senate Democrats have reportedly warned the White House that a controversial judicial nominee associated with radical left-wing groups does not have enough votes to secure confirmation.

President Joe Biden nominated Adeel Mangi to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in November. If confirmed by the Senate, Mangi would be the first Muslim American to serve on a federal appeals court. Biden's Democratic allies in the Senate, however, have told the president in private that there is likely not enough support for Mangi in the body, with even Democrats defecting, CNN reported.

Republicans in the Senate have slammed the nominee for his associations with left-wing groups that have pushed for radical policies or hosted questionable events.

As the Washington Free Beacon reported in January, Mangi served on the board of the Legal Aid Society, which in June 2020 advocated for defunding the New York City Police Department. He also served on an advisory board, which met once per year, for the Center for Security, Race, and Rights at Rutgers Law School. That think tank hosted an event on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 with an activist who helped fund the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group.

"As the Anti-Defamation League made clear, the debunked rightwing smear campaign against Mr. Mangi is ‘profoundly wrong,’" White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told CNN. "Mr. Mangi was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the White House continues to fight for his confirmation and to repudiate the vicious hate and bigotry with which he has been targeted because of his Muslim faith."
Hamas Patron Qatar Quietly Bankrolling Group Building Medal of Honor Memorial in DC
The National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation had a great 2021.

In June, the group held a successful forum featuring two Medal of Honor recipients and former acting secretary of defense Christopher Miller. That December, President Joe Biden signed a law green-lighting the group's plan to construct a monument in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial honoring America's greatest war heroes.

The National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation enjoys broad bipartisan support: Every living former president serves as an honorary director on the group's board, save Donald Trump. Along with its memorial in Washington, D.C., the group is at work on a museum in Arlington, Texas, to honor the 3,517 Medal of Honor recipients. It counts among its largest donors Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

But the foundation has another donor, one that stands out among former presidents and Texas football tycoons: Qatar, the oil-rich Gulf monarchy that has come under fire in recent months for supporting Hamas and other terrorist groups.

The foundation lists "the people of Qatar" as one of its "Founders Circle" donors, the highest rung of patrons. In reality, the money flows from the authoritarian Qatari government, controlled by the Thani family dynasty. The Qatari embassy has pledged $5 million in all to the foundation, according to previously unreported documents submitted to Congress last year.

That makes the National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation another spoke in Qatar's multi-front approach to buying influence and prestige in the United States. Qatar has spent $6 billion on lobbying and funding for American universities and think tanks, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

"This is consistent with Qatar's M.O.," Jonathan Schanzer, a senior vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said of Qatar's funding. "It's buyer beware. [The National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation] certainly isn't the first to take money from the Qataris, and they won't be the last."
Tory MP accused of errors of judgment as two staffers share ‘antisemitic’ tropes
A Conservative MP has been accused of making “critical errors of judgment” after a second member of his private office staff faced claims that had shared messages containing antisemitic tropes.

Paul Bristow had previously claimed to want to “tackle” antisemitism in his Peterborough constituency after it emerged he had chosen to employ someone expelled from Labour over the issue as one of his staff members.

Ansar Ali, who once sharing an article about a medal bearing a swastika on one face and a Star of David on the reverse while in Labour, continues to work for the Tory MP.

We can also reveal that Bristow, who served as parliamentary private secretary to the Secretary of State for Science Michelle Donelan until last November, is also employing Muhammad Ikram as a caseworker in his office.

A leaked WhatsApp message sent by Ikram to a Conservative Muslims group chat, shows him branding as “disgraceful” a female Muslim Labour councillor who wrote an article for Jewish News expressing her outrage at the scourge of antisemitism.

Ikram writes of Dr Shabina Qayyum’s article, which expressed her shame at antisemitism in Labour, “Disgraceful. Trying to win Jewish support for her own political greed”.


Seth Mandel: The Great Jewish TikTok Conspiracy
Congress took a sudden and bipartisan step toward preventing the Chinese Communist Party from collecting the personal information of millions of unsuspecting Americans. The House passed a bill directing the CCP-linked owner of TikTok to divest itself of the brand. An activist and former Democratic congressional nominee, repeating talking points bubbling up online, had two strange reactions to this news. One, it’s bad; two, it’s the Jews’ fault. And she was not even the most prominent voice raising this conspiracy theory.

Welcome to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for the social media age.

“Wow! I am f***ing SHOCKED that Dems are voting to ban Tik Tok,” exclaimed Florida’s Pamela Keith. “This is AIPAC at work.”

AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying firm, was not involved in any way. But when you’ve got “Jews on the brain,” there is no issue or event that doesn’t somehow have Jewish money behind it.

Yet Keith is an amateur at this compared to Briahna Joy Gray. The national press secretary for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign and cohost of The Hill’s video-news show has been one of the more successful figures of the left at pivoting to pro-Hamas propaganda full-time since Oct. 7. Whether she calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Middle East out of a desire for online engagement or because she simply believes in the healing power of genocide is irrelevant to her audience, which laps it up. The same is true for her “rape trutherism” dismissing the widely documented sexual assault perpetrated by Palestinians on Oct. 7.

And it is also the case for her latest flash bomb of medieval delirium. “A foreign government is influencing the 2024 election,” Gray posted yesterday. “I’m not talking about China, but Israel. In a leaked recording, ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt admitted that Israel had a ‘TikTok problem.’ Suddenly, a divided congress agrees on one thing: A social media ban.”

We’ll come back to her misrepresentation of what Greenblatt said, because that’s also an important part of this story. Greenblatt is not Israeli, he is an American Jew—a fact that makes him automatically disloyal in Gray’s eyes.

The socialist magazine Jacobin took a slightly different approach, choosing instead to list Jews who object to TikTok’s prioritizing of authoritarian propaganda in its algorithm. To Jacobin, that this all is a Jewish conspiracy is obvious—just look at the Cohens and the Goldblooms and the Greenblatts who don’t like TikTok.


Candace Owens has lost her mind
On Tuesday, she hit a point of no return. She claimed that Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, was not really a woman but instead a biological man. Owens was so sure of this embarrassing claim that she would bet her career on it. She then claimed that any journalist who doubted her was “establishment.”

“This episode is blowing up so I just want to say — After looking into this, I would stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man,” Owens posted on X on Tuesday. “Any journalist or publication that is trying to dismiss this plausibility is immediately identifiable as establishment. I have never seen anything like this in my life. The implications here are terrifying.”

Well, I guess I am establishment, then, because Owens’s claim is absolutely bonkers. And bonkers is probably an understatement. There may not be enough words in the English language to describe how absurd this claim is. I am not entirely sure why she went down this path or even cares about Brigitte Macron. It has nothing to do with the country and doesn’t affect any American in any way.

And, most importantly, none of what she said is remotely true. Brigitte Macron is not a man, has never been a man, and will never be a man. Most importantly, Candace Owens has no evidence to prove her claims. Unfortunately, Candace Owens has lost her mind. Owens suggesting this nonsense does nothing to help the ideological and cultural movements she claims she supports. It is not productive and extremely detrimental to the cause. She just made herself look like an unreliable and untrustworthy clown.

Unfortunately, such things do nothing but discredit anything Owens ever said. All of the very valid points she made and will probably continue to make in the future will now be overshadowed by this drivel. She will be branded as a lunatic, which will be weaponized to delegitimize her political beliefs and any good idea Owens ever had. Instead, she will be viewed as a court jester and not the serious person fighting for change she once was.

It’s a sad turn of events for a once-bright star. Owens went from a sophisticated political pundit to a baseless conspiracy gossiper, usually reserved for the newspapers people read in grocery store checkout lines. At this point, no one should be shocked if her next claim is that she really saw Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or had lunch with Tupac Shakur.


‘Grave concern’ about Twitch award for gamer who justified Oct. 7 attacks
The Combat Antisemitism Movement sent a letter on Wednesday to the video game live-streaming platform Twitch, calling for it to take back its “Legendary Woman of the Year” award from a player who goes by the username “fr0gan.”

“The individual in question has utilized their platform on Twitch to propagate dangerous and harmful antisemitic rhetoric, particularly the justification of the barbaric Oct. 7 massacre in Israel perpetrated by Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror organization,” wrote Sacha Roytman, CEO of the nonprofit movement.

He added that “it is deeply troubling that Twitch, as the largest gaming platform with hundreds of millions of users, many of whom are children or teenagers, has chosen to endorse and amplify such harmful messages through its official channels.”

Roytman cited the gamer’s Oct. 7 social-media post, in which fr0gan states that “leftists preach and foam at the mouth at the thought of a revolution happening in America, but as soon as it happens in the Middle East, what they’re doing is wrong.”

Twitch’s “legendary woman” sought to defend the prior post in a comment on Oct. 11.
Is Instagram antisemitic? Jewish, pro-Israel influencers speak out
A video circulating on social media claims to be a conversation between an Instagram user and a Meta customer service representative (CSR). Meta owns Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and other social media platforms.

Although there is overlap, the Instagram platform specializes in photos and videos over others that focus on text. The video opens with an unidentified Instagram user whose account has been flagged for posting “violent content” for sharing posts about the hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas.

She asks the Meta CSR: “Are you telling me that I can’t post anything on Instagram in support of the hostages?”

The CSR responds, “Yes ma’am. We would highly suggest not to post that kind of content.”

Is Instagram inherently antisemitic? We spoke to six Jewish, pro-Israel Instagram content creators to learn more about their experiences on Instagram and other social media platforms since Oct. 7.

Shai Albrecht
For 15 years, fitness trainer Shai Albrecht (@shaialbrecht 57.2K followers on Instagram) has been sharing on social media, including Facebook and X. She was raised in Maryland by Israeli ex-pat parents. Her social media content “started out fitness focused” until she became aware that “people didn’t realize Orthodox Jews came in all different ‘flavors,’ so I shifted to talking about the beauty in Judaism and Orthodoxy in all its different flavors.”

As soon as the war broke out, she says, “I shifted my focus again, to correcting all the lies people are sharing about Israel.”

Over the following two months, Albrecht gained 20,000 followers, but she has also paid a price for being outspoken in favor of Israel. She explains that when a large anti-Israel account reposts her content, “their followers will come to my page and report my videos and report my page, which shuts my page down.”

Called “shadow banning” in the social media world, it means that the algorithm prevents new followers from finding her content, sometimes even if they search for her by name. Albrecht has experienced this five or six times.
Harvard, M.I.T. and Systemic Antisemitism
A legal complaint about antisemitism against Harvard states, "Harvard permits students and faculty to advocate, without consequence, the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel, the only Jewish country in the world. Meanwhile, Harvard requires students to take a training class that warns that they will be disciplined if they engage in sizeism, fatphobia, racism, transphobia, or other disfavored behavior."

I spent virtually my entire legal career defending free speech on campus, including the free speech of Muslim students and staff members. During those decades of litigation and my subsequent years in journalism, I have never seen such comprehensive abuse directed against a vulnerable campus minority group as I've seen directed at Jewish students and faculty since Hamas' terror attack on Oct. 7. What's happening to Jewish students and faculty at several elite campuses is so comprehensive and all-consuming that it can only be described as systemic antisemitism.

The Harvard complaint details an incident at Harvard Law School where campus police allegedly observed passively as a mob of protesters "stormed Harvard Law's main building, marched down the length of the building's primary first-floor hallway, and blocked the hallway outside the study room where [Students Against Anti-Semitism and a visiting speaker] were hiding. Fearing a violent attack, students in the study room removed indicia of their Jewishness, such as kippot, or hid under desks." Think about that for a moment. In 2024, Jewish students felt the need to hide under their desks for their physical safety.

Universities and schools demonstrate far greater tolerance for antisemitic speech and behavior than for virtually any other kind of offensive speech or behavior. They bend or break the rules to accommodate pro-Palestinian protests. Jewish students then face intimidation and even assaults.
Princeton faces demands to fire researcher for alleged role in Iran’s campaign of terror — including Hezbollah murders
Princeton University is facing demands to fire a specialist once accused of being part of an Iranian campaign to murder the country’s enemies, The Post has learned.

The school is also facing a congressional probe into why it hired specialist researcher Seyed Hossein Mousavian — who works to form policy on Middle East security and nuclear policy — despite him being a former top Iranian diplomat steeped in Tehran’s regime of fear.

Mousavian was hired by the Ivy League school in 2009. Before that, he was a prominent figure in the Iranian government, both as a diplomat and editor of the Tehran Times, the English-language newspaper which is a mouthpiece for the regime.

Princeton hired Mousavian in 2009 as a specialist of Middle East security and nuclear policy, but is facing demands to fire him for his past as a key part of the Iranian regime and allegations he was involved in its crimes.

He was Iran’s ambassador to Germany in 1992 when four dissidents were murdered in the back of a restaurant in Berlin in 1992, leading to an anti-regime group demanding he be stripped of his role at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

The House Education and the Workforce Committee, chaired by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), is demanding to know what checks Princeton made and whether the Obama administration lobbied the school to give Mousavian a job.

“Mousavian’s troubling history of association with state-sponsored terrorism and human rights abuses demands decisive action from Princeton University’s administration,” said Lawdan Bazargan, a former political prisoner, human rights activist, and member of the US-based Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists.

When The Post reached out to Mousavian for comment, he declined to be interviewed but provided links to a previous interview which suggested “Zionists” were targeting him.

The group demanding that he be fired by Princeton alleges that when he was ambassador to Germany, 23 Iranians were killed in Europe for being enemies of the mullahs.
French Cops Prevent Students From Mounting Pro-Palestinian Demonstration at Elite Paris University
French police on Thursday prevented pro-Palestinian students at the Sciences Po university in Paris from staging a demonstration, deepening the conflict over antisemitism and free speech that has engulfed the elite institution.

Students arriving for the evening protest at the main campus on rue Saint-Guillaume were confronted by a cordon of police officers who blocked them from access. About 20 students gathered for a simultaneous protest at another campus building a few blocks away, chanting “Free Palestine” and “This isn’t a war, it’s a genocide” before being dispersed by police.

Concern over the impact of the conflict in Gaza on student life at the Sciences Po — formally known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies, a public research university — came into sharp focus earlier this week when a group of pro-Hamas students blockaded a lecture hall, allegedly preventing Jewish students from accessing the space.

The Union of Jewish Students in France (UEJF), whose members were confronted at the protest, said in a statement that “UEJF students are attacked as Jews and Zionists. We call for the immediate lifting of the blockade and exemplary sanctions against these students.” One Jewish student said she was regaled with cries of “she’s a Zionist, don’t let her in.”

The spectacle drew strong condemnation from leading French politicians, among them President Emmanuel Macron. Addressing the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, Macron denounced the protest as “unspeakable and completely intolerable.”
Anti-Semitic Cartoonist Will Teach Fall Course at Penn, Ivy League School Announces
The University of Pennsylvania communications lecturer who published a slew of anti-Semitic cartoons will return to the classroom in the fall to teach a course on political humor, the Ivy League school announced.

Dwayne Booth, a lecturer at Penn's Annenberg School for Communication, will teach a course during the upcoming fall semester titled "Sick and Satired: The Insanity of Humor and How it Keeps Us Sane," according to a new course description updated Friday morning. The course, which will run from August to December, examines "the role of satire in revealing and mediating differences between disparate social groups" based on "political affiliation," "cultural identity," and "religious fellowship."

The revelation comes roughly one month after the Washington Free Beacon unearthed anti-Semitic cartoons from Booth, who publishes the images under the pen name "Mr. Fish."

One cartoon depicts Zionists sipping Gazan blood from wine glasses, a version of the ancient blood libel employed in anti-Semitic propaganda. Another shows Jews in a Nazi concentration camp holding signs that read "Stop the Holocaust In Gaza" and "Gaza, The World's Biggest Concentration Camp." A third depicts a Nazi flag with a Star of David drawn in place of a swastika.

While Penn's interim president, Larry Jameson, described the images as "reprehensible," he made clear that he would not take action to sanction or remove Booth from the faculty, citing the school's "bedrock commitment to open expression." Booth's upcoming class confirms he remains in good standing at Penn.

Booth has taught the "Sick and Satired" course in the past, most recently during the fall 2023 semester. As of Feb. 1, Penn's course description site said Booth taught the class in "Fall 2022" and "Fall 2023," an archived version shows. The site was recently updated to note that Booth will teach the class in "Fall 2024." Penn also began allowing students to enroll in the course this week, an online posting shows.
Education Rot: Massachusetts Teachers Association To Host Anti-Israel Webinar Led By Anti-Zionist Jewish Voice For Peace
On Thursday, March 21, the Anti-Racism Task Force of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) will host a webinar, “The Struggle Against Anti-Palestinian Racism.” The virtual event, sponsored in honor of the United Nations “International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,” will be co-hosted by Jewish Voice for Peace, which among other things, honored convicted terrorist bomber and murderer Rasmeah Odeh at it’s annual meeting in 2017.

According to the event description, in the wake of the Hamas massacre, more attention needs to be paid to the plight of the Palestinians : It is often said that the issue of Palestine is ‘complicated.’ For this reason, many teachers do not feel confident to speak about it in their classrooms or with their colleagues. However, the idea that Palestinian history is more complicated than the history of other struggles against oppression means that anti-Palestinian racism too often goes unnoticed.

A team of MTA rank and file members, along with Jewish Voice for Peace, have created a workshop to engage their MTA siblings in a conversation about questions such as: What is anti-Palestinian discrimination? How does Palestine fit into the larger framework of colonialism and imperialism? What are Zionism, anti-Zionism and their histories? Why is anti-Zionism not anti-Semitism?

That this event is sponsored by the MTA in cooperation with JVP in honor of a UN “international day” tells you all you need to know.

The MTA drew fire last year when it joined the United Auto Workers and other labor unions in a lopsided call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. They also opposed US support of “the Netanyahu government’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people in Gaza.” Though they subsequently issued a more balanced statement, you already knew whose side they were on.

Their choice of co-sponsor is another dead giveaway. Jewish Voice for Peace is an anti-Israel, anti-semitic “as-a-Jew” organization that wasted no time condemning the Jewish state for “oppressing” those who raped, pillaged, and murdered their way through southern Israel on October 7:


New Jersey school apologizes for anti-Israel Ramadan letter
A New Jersey school district issued an apology after a letter on Ramadan with anti-Israel content had been sent by an assistant principal, NBC New York reported earlier this week.

According to the report, the assistant principal of Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey shared a widely circulated note, which offered seemingly innocent information regarding the month of Ramadan, but also included some anti-Israel comments.

Against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, the letter stated the US is “co-conspiring” with the Jewish State to bar “Muslim Palestinians from partaking in Ramadan."

The letter further noted that "the Israeli Zionist occupation enacts a genocide against” Palestinians.

The note incurred severe criticism and parents' complaints.

New Jersey school responds to Ramadan letter incident
"The document was not reviewed or approved by any district office or personnel,” school Superintendent Dr. Kevin Gilbert said later in response.

“While the intention of sharing the document was to provide a resource, serious content was overlooked," he added.

"This resource contained language that, at any time, would be inflammatory but, particularly now, is deeply problematic and inappropriate for our schools."

"The language in the document does not reflect what we believe creates a community that values inclusivity and belonging," Gilbert concluded.


All the News in Gaza Is Coming From Hamas
There is no freedom of the press in Gaza. If journalists don’t follow Hamas’ guidelines for press coverage, they are arrested, beaten, and/or tortured.

These are not controversial statements; they are based on reports from Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International.

When journalist Hajar Harb revealed doctors in Hamas’ Gaza Health Ministry were arranging illegal medical transfers out of Gaza for Palestinians who did not require medical treatment — and profiting off of them — she was harassed and threatened by both the police and by the doctors.

Fouad Jarada was arrested for writing a Facebook post critical of Hamas’ patron, Qatar. He was beaten and whipped during his detention.

Ismael el-Bozom was arrested and beaten for “drawings and writings critical of Hamas” that were uploaded to his Facebook account.

Amer Balousha was arrested for “Misuse of Technology” — a crime that does not exist in Palestinian law — for daring to post about corruption among Hamas leaders. He was beaten in custody and told, “It’s forbidden to write against Hamas, we will shoot you.”

In 2014, the Foreign Press Association called out Hamas for having “harassed, threatened or questioned [foreign reporters] over stories or information they have reported through their news media or by means of social media.” This claim was later confirmed by a Hamas official, who explained, “the security agencies would go and have a chat with these people. They would give them some time to change their message, one way or another.”

The journalists’ crime? Reporting on terrorists firing rockets from civilian areas, which meant to Hamas that these reporters were “collaborating with the occupation [i.e. Israel].”
BBC’s Knell again promotes selective and deficient Ramadan framing
Previously we discussed a March 4th report by the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Yolande Knell in which she used the PLO recommended term “al-Aqsa Mosque compound” despite the instructions in the BBC’s style guide:

In the early hours of March 10th, the BBC News website published another report by Knell under the headline “Gaza war fuels Jerusalem fears as Ramadan set to begin”.

In that report too, Knell ignores the instructions in BBC’s style guide, repeatedly referring to the whole site as “al-Aqsa Mosque”, “al-Aqsa” and “al-Aqsa mosque complex”.


Hezbollah Tells Iran It Would Fight Alone in War With Israel
With ally Hamas under attack in Gaza, the head of Iran’s Quds Force visited Beirut in February to discuss the risk posed if Israel next aims at Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an offensive that could severely hurt Tehran’s main regional partner, seven sources said.

In Beirut, Quds chief Esmail Qaani met Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the sources said, for at least the third time since Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel and Israel‘s military response in Gaza.

The conversation turned to the possibility of a full Israeli offensive to its north, in Lebanon, the sources said. As well as damaging the Shi’ite Islamist terrorist group, such an escalation could pressure Iran to react more forcefully than it has so far since Oct. 7, three of the sources, Iranians within the inner circle of power, said.

Over the past five months, Hezbollah, a sworn enemy of Israel, has shown support for fellow Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas in the form of volleys of rockets fired across Israel‘s northern border.

At the previously unreported meeting, Nasrallah reassured Qaani he didn’t want Iran to get sucked into a war with Israel or the United States and that Hezbollah would fight on its own, all the sources said.

“This is our fight,” Nasrallah told Qaani, said one Iranian source with knowledge of the discussions.

Calibrated to avoid a major escalation, the skirmishes in Lebanon have nonetheless pushed tens of thousands of people from their homes on either side of the border. Israeli strikes have killed more than 200 Hezbollah fighters and some 50 civilians in Lebanon, while attacks from Lebanon into Israel have killed a dozen Israeli soldiers and six civilians.


Why is the Islamic Republic of Iran chairing the UN Disarmament Conference?

Holocaust survivor Ben Stern, 102, helped thwart neo-Nazi rally in Skokie
Ben Stern, one of a number of vocal Jewish community members who led activism in his hometown of Skokie, Ill., that led to a landmark civil-liberties case in 1977, died on Feb. 28 102 from congestive heart failure at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 102 years old.

Stern was born Bendit Sztern in Warsaw on Sept. 21, 1921, to a large Orthodox Jewish family who operated a general store. The Germans invaded Poland in the fall of 1939, and about a year later, he and his family were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto.

The Nazis killed his parents, sister and six of his seven brothers over the course of World War II and the Holocaust. Stern survived for years in concentration camps.

He was one of the few survivors of a forced march from Buchenwald to the Tyrolian Mountains near the Austrian border and eventually liberated by the U.S. Army on May 3, 1945, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Stern met Helen (Chaya Kielmanowicz), another Warsaw survivor, in a displaced persons camp; they married and moved to America in 1946, settling in Skokie to run a chain of Chicago-are laundromats. They raised three children in a community comprised of an estimated 6,000 Holocaust survivors.
Kosher agencies make no bones about ‘flawed’ Canadian laws
Two kosher certifying agencies and two meat processors have a big beef with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which suddenly changed the rules and made kosher slaughter a longer and more burdensome procedure.

CFIA has begun in recent months to enforce regulations it enacted in 2018 “with vigor,” Rabbi Saul Emanuel, executive director of Montreal Kosher, told JNS. It appears to be doing so “on a whim,” the rabbi said.

The government agency’s actions have already resulted in a 60% drop in domestic kosher meat production, facility closures, higher prices and larger shipments of imported meats from other countries, according to Emanuel.

An independent organization that oversees Canadian slaughter procedures, CFIA mandates that cows be shot in the head with a bolt gun, to avoid causing pain to the animal. Kashrut laws require that an animal be killed with a single, rapid motion with a sharp knife that instantly kills the animal by severing the primary blood supply to the brain. Kosher laws preclude the use of bolts, as Canadian law requires.

CFIA requires that Jewish ritual slaughterers conduct a series of bodily checks in between each shechita to ensure that the animal is “insensible,” which means that slaughter houses must wait up to three minutes rather than 15 seconds between each slaughter. At an industrial scale, the three minutes add up.
AI translates Hitler speech, social media users express support for Fuhrer
A translation, made by artificial intelligence, of Adolf Hitler’s 1939 Reichstag speech has gained viral traction on X, with many X users responding positively to the genocidal German leader's remarks.

Hitler’s speech, given seven months before the outbreak of World War II, was dubbed with an English accent.

“In connection with the Jewish question, I have this to say,” Hitler began. “It is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people but remains hard-hearted and obturate when it comes to helping them, which is surely, in view of its attitude, an obvious duty….”

The speech continues with claims that Germany could not house Jews due to a lack of space and that Jews had nothing but “infectious political and physical diseases.” Hitler added that what was under Jewish ownership had come at the expense of a “less-astute German nation” through “manipulation.”

Hitler continued to blame the Jewish population for the hyperinflation that plagued Germany as a result of financial sanctions placed on the nation after World War I.
2023 Austrian antisemitism report reveals wave of post-October 7 Jew-hatred
Antisemitism in Austria spiked after October 7, most of it directly related to Israel, according to a Wednesday report by Antisemitismus-meldestelle.

The report recorded 1,147 antisemitic incidents, although it cautions that even in normal years, significant amounts of antisemitism go unreported. However, due to the fallout from Hamas's attacks on October 7, the organization received such an overwhelming number of reports that they were forced to exclude some incidents that were not fully recorded due to issues of prioritization.

It also noted that on social media, where a single post contained many instances of antisemitism, it was only counted as a single incident, further reducing the recorded number.

The two largest categories of incidents were mass mailings and abusive behavior, then damage and desecration, and finally, the two lowest were physical assaults and threats.

On average, there were 3.14 daily antisemitic incidents, a rise from the 2022 figure of 1.97. However, when pre-October 7 data and post-October 7 data are taken separately, the former period contained an average of 1.55 daily incidents, while the latter period contained 8.31.

The only other year that had such a high rate of antisemitic incidents was 2021, which was attributed to antisemitic conspiracies related to COVID-19.

The report also claimed that the majority of the anti-Israel activists are from the Austrian far-left, but also that Israel has split left-wing groups in Austria into an "unbridgable chasm."


Palantir CEO stands firm in support of Israel despite employee departures
Palantir CEO Alex Karp has revealed that some of the company’s employees have left in recent months due to his public support for Israel in its war against Hamas.

“We’ve lost employees. I’m sure we’ll lose employees,” Karp said in an interview Wednesday with CNBC’s “Money Movers.” “If you have a position that does not cost you ever to lose an employee, it’s not a position.”

“From my perspective, it’s not just about Israel,” added Karp, who co-founded Palantir alongside venture capitalists Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale. “It’s like, ‘Do you believe in the West? Do you believe the West has created a superior way of living?’”

Palantir and Karp have been steadfast in their support of Israel since the Hamas attack, both publicly and technologically. In January it announced that it had agreed a strategic partnership with the Israel Ministry of Defense to “supply Palantir technology to help the country’s war effort.”

The agreement followed a visit by Palantir executives to Israel, with the company holding its first board meeting of 2024 in Tel Aviv.

“I think so few people speak out because they believe they can skirt by with no opinion but there is no one who doesn’t have an opinion on Israel, especially if you are a big company,” said Karp in a conversation with legendary Israeli entrepreneur Yossi Vardi at Tel Aviv University. “There are a lot of people in the industry who are maybe not as pro-israel as I am but they think of Israel as a very special place and are generally more understanding of the Israeli position and view Israel’s accomplishments of building a nation from a desert.”


Influencer and IDF soldier - Lilaq Logan | Israel-Hamas War
Visegrad24 presents an in-depth series covering the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. This comprehensive series features on-the-ground interviews, bringing firsthand insights from a diverse range of voices, including politicians, professors, journalists, experts and influencers.

Our guest today: Lilaq Logan is an Israeli social media influencer and soldier in the Israel Air Force.

00:00 - Introduction
00:49 - A soldiers perspective
01:32 - Soldiers in the PR war
04:50 - Intifada
06:22 - TikTok
08:03 - Israel as a colonial state?
11:34 - The IDF as a moral army
13:35 - Attacks against civilians
15:39 - Islamist attacks in Europe
17:20 - Muslim vs Muslim
18:44 - Message for the world




Salim Joubran, first Arab Israeli Supreme Court justice, dies at 76
Salim Joubran, the first Arab Israeli to serve as a Supreme Court justice, died Friday at the age of 76 after a battle with cancer.

A Christian who grew up in the northern city of Haifa, Joubran was also the first Arab Israeli to chair the Central Elections Committee in 2015. He eventually served as deputy president of the court in June 2017 and retired in August that year.

Joubran was involved in several important verdicts. He was one of three judges who rejected the appeal of former president Moshe Katsav, sending him to prison for seven years for rape and sexual abuse.

A graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Joubran practiced private law from 1970 until 1982, before leaving to accept an appointment to the Haifa Magistrate’s Court. In 1993 he was appointed to the Haifa District Court and was then being elevated to the Supreme Court in 2003, first as an acting justice and then as a permanent member.

In March 2012, Joubran was criticized by some on the right when he refrained from singing the national anthem during a swearing-in ceremony for new Supreme Court justices. His position was supported by his predecessor in the post, justice Elyakim Rubinstein, who wrote in a letter that while non-Jewish citizens should show respect for the anthem by standing, they should not feel obligated to sing words that do not speak to their hearts.

On the bench, Joubran gained a reputation as a liberal reformer and an advocate for religious freedom, pitting him against the Orthodox rabbinic establishment.


Matisyahu: 'It feels pretty f***in’ scary,' to be a Jew in America
On Wednesday night, some two dozen members of the Portland, Maine, police force held a line outside the city’s downtown State Theater wielding Tasers, nightsticks, and pepper ball guns. According to the Bangor Daily News, an equal number of protesters gathered on the other side of the street shouting hackneyed clichés through bullhorns.

The reason for the tense standoff wasn’t global warming, the divisive US border issue, or the upcoming contentious presidential election. It was because inside the theater, nearly 2,000 fans were getting ready to dance and sway to the music of Jewish, reggae-tinged rocker Matisyahu.

The protesters, ironically mostly from a loose aggregate called Maine Jews for Palestine, were not pleased that the singer has unabashedly backed Israel in its efforts to eradicate Hamas and return the hostages being held in Gaza, and didn’t think he should be allotted the freedom of speech that other Americans are granted.

That irrational response, alongside the cancel culture permeating America for anyone who utters the dreaded Z-word (Zionism) in the toxic post-October 7 atmosphere, has thrust Matisyahu into the headlights as a prime target of pro-Hamas activists.

The 44-year-old Grammy-nominated singer, who has established a staunch following with spiritual anthems like “One Day,” and “King Without a Crown,” has been one of the few in the US entertainment industry to visit Israel since the beginning of the Gaza war. In addition to performing in Tel Aviv, he appeared at a rally for the hostages, met with their families, and performed for IDF troops during a January visit.

After returning to the US, he told Newsweek “I would like to see any terrorist, Hamas, or person who believes Israel has no right to exist or the Jews have no right to it, I would like Israel [to] destroy those people.”
Will there be a "One Day"?: Matisyahu | Israel-Hamas War
Visegrad24 presents an in-depth series covering the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. This comprehensive series features on-the-ground interviews, bringing firsthand insights from a diverse range of voices, including politicians, professors, journalists, experts and influencers.

Our guest today: Matthew Paul Miller, known by his stage name Matisyahu, is an American reggae singer, rapper, beatboxer, and musician.

00:00 - Introduction
01:14 - Artists react to Oct. 7th
01:50 - Music industry reacts to Oct. 7th
03:03 - The fight against antisemitism
04:38 - Antisemitism on campus
05:32 - Visiting Israel after October 7th
06:25 - Music & war
07:25 - Building international alliances
08:35 - U.S. tour
10:10 - Massacre at a music festival
12:10 - Will there be a "one day"?






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