Wednesday, March 20, 2024

03/20 Links Pt2: The world should be on trial in Jerusalem, or should it be Nuremberg?; The lies of Josep Borrell; Anti-UNRWA Protest ‘Hamas Branch in Jerusalem Must Be Closed!’

From Ian:

Phyllis Chesler: The world should be on trial in Jerusalem, or should it be Nuremberg?
The only place a fair and trustworthy trial of Hamas could take place is Jerusalem.

According to one prominent international lawyer:
“There’s no existing framework for trials against Hamas terrorists or the Hamas terrorist organization in Nuremberg (the closest would be trials with German prosecutors and under German law, which will never happen). There’s no way I can see any agreement for a new tribunal and, in any event, I wouldn’t have great confidence in any such tribunal judging Palestinian terrorists or even being willing to put them on trial. I would like to see fair trials of Hamas terrorists; the only chance of that is in Israel, and even in Israel, there’s a danger it would be too forgiving to the terrorists (depends on the court).”

But we face an even greater problem:
Hamas terrorists, starting with their leader Yahya Sinwar, are not the only ones who should be on trial in Jerusalem and before history.

With a few blessed exceptions, almost the entire world must be judged for supporting Iran and Qatar’s proxy armies: Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, etc.

-The United Nations belongs on trial. The only thing it has ever done is legalize Jew-hatred. They passed a resolution falsely claiming that Zionism is racism rather than a resolution that accurately stated that anti-Zionism is racism.

-The world professoriate, students, human rights activists and media also belong on trial for having incited the immediate and continuing jackal chorus for a “ceasefire,” which is the equivalent of a call to ethnically cleanse the Holy Land of Jews. Some of them have been on the Iranian and Arab oil payroll for more than 60 years.

-Iran’s leaders must also appear in the dock. The mullahs have indoctrinated, funded and strategized with not only Hamas but also the zombie armies who march for jihad in the West.

-Let’s not forget every single Muslim country that has refused to offer safe passage or temporary shelter to Gaza civilians. They also belong on trial. None of them want the Arab Palestinians. They do not want the enormous trouble they will inevitably bring with them.

Please note: Such countries, by refusing entry to civilians, make no distinction between the “innocent” civilians of Gaza and the terrorists whose ideology and torture control them.
The lies of Josep Borrell
Borrell, however, surely knows that he’s lying. At the moment, 80% more trucks loaded with food are entering Gaza than before the war. Pre-Oct. 7, there were 70 trucks per day; there are now 126 on average and the number is growing. Israel places no limits on aid and has opened new routes to deliver it.

Unfortunately, Hamas and other malign actors are doing everything in their power to stop the aid from getting to the people Borrell supposedly cares about. Last week, for example, six trucks entering via a new route were forcibly seized, likely by Hamas and local criminal gangs.

So, the problem is not the lack of food, of which Hamas has already accumulated great quantities. The problem is Hamas. As long as the terror group reigns, it will steal the food and use it to feed its terrorists or sell it on the black market.

Of course, all this could end if Hamas releases the remaining hostages and then simply surrenders. Indeed, it would end if Hamas accepts the offered six-week ceasefire, for which it would receive a thousand murderers of innocent civilians in exchange for a few dozen hostages. But that, we know, will never happen.

If Borrell is not a liar, then he lacks any moral clarity whatsoever. It seems that he does not even know what starvation-induced extermination actually looks like. Despite being ostensibly tasked with foreign affairs, he appears not to have seen the heartbreaking images from Sudan, where Islamist militias are demanding slaves in exchange for food. Some 250,000 Sudanese children are dying of hunger at the whim of the barbarians. Their parents must kneel before these monsters and hand over their children to an unthinkable slavery. But not a word is heard about them.

Double standards and lying are two of the best-known symptoms of antisemitism. Here, they go together.
I've Won an Argument about Israel I Wish I Hadn't
Over my 20+ years of blogging at Volokh, commenters have often questioned why I focused my attention on what I saw as unfair attacks on Israel, rather than on Israeli policies I disagreed with that might be obstacles to a future peace deal. My response was consistent: debates over specific Israeli policies were a sideshow. Israel's harshest critics simply wanted Israel to cease to exist, and given that this goal could likely be achieved only via genocide, I chose to focus my attention on that. My commenters were also pretty consistent, arguing that I was being paranoid, that the vast majority of critics, even the harshest ones, wanted a two-state solution, not to eliminate Israel.

We have had something of a test of this debate since 10/7. Hamas is a terrorist theocracy with explicitly genocidal goals. It carried out a taste of those goals on 10/7, and its leaders promised to repeat those atrocities again and again until the "Zionists" were driven from Israel.

So whatever one thinks of Israeli policy, or Israel's eventual response to 10/7, one would think, based on my interlocutors' position, that critics of Israeli policy would nevertheless agree on one thing: Hamas must be deposed, one way or another. There is no plausible two-state solution with Hamas in power; the harsh critics are almost all self-styled progressives, and there is nothing progressive about Hamas's policies toward freedom of religion, LGBTQ rights, women, militarism, antisemitism, and so on, nor its constant theft of humanitarian aid. Hamas's rule in Gaza is essentially every Progressive's worst nightmare.

Yet, ever since at least 10/10, when it became clear that Israel's reaction to Hamas's atrocities was not going to be to capitulate, the harsh critics have been all but unanimous in calling for Israel to essentially surrender ("immediate ceasefire") with Hamas still in power, and have almost to a person not called on Hamas to surrender and abdicate. (And self-styled human rights organizations have felt free to make up human rights law, including contradicting their own past public positions in other conflicts.)

I have to admit that I underestimated the mendacity of these people. As much as I knew that they hated Israel much more than they were concerned with the well-being of Palestinians, I didn't imagine that they would be willing to run interference for, if not outright support, Hamas, certainly not after Hamas put its brutality and genocidal intentions on display for all the world to see. I would have expected something more like "immediate ceasefire, but the world has to work on replacing Hamas with something else."
Netanyahu Made a Huge Mistake in Suspending Eylon Levy
In a terrible PR decision, Eylon Levy — the brilliant spokesperson for the Israeli government — has been suspended by the Prime Minister’s Office after Levy’s response to British Foreign Secretary David Cameron regarding humanitarian aid provoked anger.

Whether the UK or anyone else in the world likes it, Levy is a very effective spokesman for Israel, and suspending him is a bad decision. There were also reports that Netanyahu’s wife had pushed for the ouster because of Levy’s past criticism of Netanyahu.

As the owner of one of the world’s leading independent PR firms, I know that Eylon is a native English speaker, quick-thinking, intelligent, quotable, and is doing simply a brilliant job. Eylon should be given many more opportunities to defend Israel — not taken off the case.

The Zionist prophet Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the ideological forefather of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, said about the importance of Public Relations: “The work of the publicist is a legacy from the Prophets of Israel … Our passion is to speak, to proclaim … One thing that the audience forgets is that speech is also an action — perhaps the most authentic of all other actions. Cities have been destroyed, and more will fall, but what was shouted in the wilderness thousands of years ago is alive and still relevant. The world was created by the word. The world will be mended by the article.”

Eylon Levy has been doing just that. From his raised eyebrows to battling absurd media questions, he fights day and night against a biased media as he brilliantly articulates Israel’s point of view on the world stage.


‘Hamas Branch in Jerusalem Must Be Closed!’ Israelis Protest Outside UNRWA Office, Accuse Agency of Terrorism
Dozens of protesters on Wednesday gathered in front of the Jerusalem office of the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, accusing the UN body of supporting the Hams terror group and calling for the closure of the facility.

“The Hamas branch in Jerusalem must be closed now,” demonstrators chanted, along with similar slogans.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — the global organization’s agency dedicated solely to the refugees and descendants of Palestinians who fled during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence — has long come under fire for promoting terrorism and antisemitism. Recently, agency staff have been accused of participating in and supporting Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.

Earlier this month, for example, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), an Israeli watchdog group, published research confirming two elementary school teachers hired by UNRWA participated in the Hamas atrocities.

The findings came after Impact-se released a separate report in November revealing that at least 14 teachers at UNRWA-run schools had praised the Oct. 7 pogrom.

An investigation by UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO that monitors the UN, independently found that a group of 3,000 teachers working in Gaza for UNRWA glorified and celebrated the massacre in an internal Telegram group. According to the findings, UN Watch found “abhorrent antisemitism and support for jihadi terrorism by UNRWA staff on social media… Teachers … celebrated Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre while at the same time asking when their UNRWA salaries will be paid.”
Protesters rally outside UNRWA offices in Jerusalem
Protesters rally outside UNRWA offices in Jerusalem, accusing the UN body of being a terrorist organization, and expressing their concerns about the ongoing Palestinian refugees' status




Israeli and Jewish artists face threats, boycotts at U.S. shows
The protest of performances by Israeli artists, and Jews who have been vocally supportive of Israel, is a new phenomenon in the U.S., which has until recently avoided the brunt of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that emerged in Europe and targeted cultural institutions there over the past two decades.

The harassment and cultural sanctioning of Israeli artists is particularly apparent with the eccentric annual Eurovision Song Contest that Israel has won four times. The organizers are under immense pressure to bar Israel from this year’s event, set for May, a move they have declared they will not do. But this week, the venue that hosts London’s biggest screening party for the Eurovision finals canceled the event entirely to protest Israel’s participation in the contest.

Israel does not have a lot of allies in the American music scene, or at least not many who were willing to speak up after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel. There has been similar silence, by and large, in the face of the Matisyahu cancellations and threats to shut down Israeli and Jewish performers.

“It’s just another example of the shameful nature of our business, that not every single artist and agent and manager is standing up screaming, ‘We will not stand for this.’ Because it’s not a one off,” John Ondrasik, a singer-songwriter who performs under the stage name Five for Fighting, said. Ondrasik in January released a song, “Okay,” reflecting upon what he saw as moral failure among artists and leaders after Oct. 7.

The trend does not stop with musicians. In January, anti-Israel protestors disrupted an event with the author Moshe Kasher, who was speaking about his new book in conversation with the actress Mayim Bialik, an outspoken supporter of Israel. Kasher’s book, a chronicle of American subcultures, had nothing to do with Israel; Bialik was only the moderator of the event.

But protestors continuously interrupted the event, shouting expletives and playing a recording on a loudspeaker to drown out the speakers, a lengthy ordeal that ended with the protestors being removed. PEN America, the literary organization that hosted the event, said in a statement that two other authors had recently declined to participate in events with the group because of its ties to Bialik.

When the comedian Jerry Seinfeld did a show in Albuquerque in February, protestors affiliated with a local socialist group organized a protest called “shut down racist Zionist Jerry Seinfeld.” Signs accused Seinfeld of “supporting genocide.” Another said “hands off Rafah” — a reference to a Palestinian city in which Israel is planning to mount an operation. Seinfeld, despite a recent visit to Israel, is American; he has no involvement in Israel’s war effort. The Jewish actor Brett Gelman, known for his role in “Stranger Things,” said a West Hollywood bookstore canceled his planned book talk due to “antisemitic intimidation.”

Amit Peled, a renowned Israeli-American cellist and a professor at Johns Hopkins, only faced protests at a show once prior to Oct. 7. In recent months, they’ve become common. Peled has ended each of his shows since October with Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem. He usually shares a few words about Israel before he plays the song.

“At this point in my career, I feel that it’s actually more important for me to stand for what I believe in than to get another concert. I probably wouldn’t feel like this if I were 20 years old,” Peled acknowledged to JI. “But that’s not the case. I think we can make a change, like we are ambassadors in a way.”
Seth Mandel: Matisyahu Won’t Back Down
The message Matisyahu delivers on stage contrasts sharply with that of the demonstrators outside. Coexistence has fallen into extreme disfavor in so-called “anti-Zionist” protest culture. Genocidal chants like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are commonly heard; calls for “resistance by any means necessary” speak for the larger pro-Hamas masses that come out in major cities and demand Israel lay down its arms.

On campus, Jewish students are assaulted and routinely harassed, Jewish speakers canceled and occasionally chased out of the venue by violent mobs. Shops and bars have tried to ban “Zionist” customers. Jewish writers have had events canceled. A sudden jettisoning of all pretense has meant all Jews are open targets of discriminatory policies.

“It’s a very dark time and it feels like it’s a very violent time and a time when people are taking sides,” Matisyahu says.

Still, he has never felt that he or his fans have been put in physical danger at any of the shows. “We have a lot of support and a lot of people on our side, but there’s definitely opposition and we’re not afraid of it, and we’ll welcome it when we come up against it.”

At the outset of the tour, Matisyahu visited the kibbutzim in the Gaza envelope that had been devastated by Hamas’s attacks on Oct. 7, as well as the site of the Nova music festival where hundreds were killed and dozens more taken hostage that day. He also met with survivors of the massacre. It fueled him and gave even more meaning to the songs he performed. The fans, he says, picked up on that energy, too.

For Matisyahu, and no doubt for many of his fans, “everything kind of changed” on Oct. 7. And despite the growing sense of unease many American Jews feel in the wake of the attacks, and the hostility they are met with in unfamiliar places, Matisyahu’s message remains one of resolve: “Some people obviously struggle with it, but there’s some very special Jews out there and people who are fighters and have a lot of light and a lot of talent. It gives all these people an opportunity to come together and work towards a common goal. And that is a very, very powerful thing when the Jewish people come together and work towards something like that. So I feel like there is some hope and I don’t want people to just feel lost out there.”
‘They lit my Jewish fire’: How Matisyahu blew away the boycott mob
After a tour of the sites of the massacre, including the Nova music festival, Matisyahu sat down at an army base and started playing for soldiers. As troops returned from fighting, they didn’t know Matisyahu was there, but “one by one, a couple of American kids noticed. And then they all started noticing me”.

The performance was euphoric: “We lit each other on fire.”

Like Leonard Cohen and Shlomo Carlebach before him, Matisyahu felt the weight of history as he played.

The trip rekindled his hope. “In Israel, you just see the resilience and the light that pours out of this people” – a stark contrast, he says, to the “darkness” he feels elsewhere.

“We’ve heard the horror stories of our grandparents and their parents,” he says. “You feel like everybody is against you, an entire generation of people is confused or ignorant, you feel like we’re being blamed.”

But in Israel, he goes on, “the way that Jews come together and stand up for themselves, it’s the only place that you can find hope right now”.

Just three months after his trip to the Jewish state, the musician is planning two more concerts in Israel in early April – in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv.

So, will Matisyahu be bringing his unique brand of Zionist hope and reggae beats to the UK anytime soon? “F*** no”, he says.

“Based on the shit I see on the news, it looks f***ing horrible.”

But there’s a glimmer of hope. He fondly remembers UK gigs where Muslim fans danced alongside Orthodox Jews. “If you guys get me there, I’ll come there,” he concedes. After all, he rarely turns down a chance to perform.

And he knows he’d have the support of the Jewish community in the UK, “You guys definitely come out. You guys really stand together.”

With his security guard Rick by his side, Matisyahu’s bus drives on. “Why do I keep going?” he ponders. “It’s the same question as to why does a Jew light the next Chanukah candle, why does a soldier go out to search for the hostages, it’s because it’s what we do, it’s who we are, and we won’t stop because someone tells us to stop.”
Seth Mandel: The Jewish Entertainment Figures Standing Up for Israel
Hard to overstate the significance of the terminology and the thoroughness of the letter. That hundreds of Jewish cultural figures would take a hatchet to the false “colonizer” narrative about Israel, correctly categorize it as a modern blood libel, and explicitly denounce the use of the term “occupation” to describe Jews in their homeland would have been difficult to imagine before Oct. 7. And the deluge of anti-Jewish agitation since that day was designed to prevent such a statement now.

The attempt to intimidate the Jewish people into silence has failed.

Among the 450 signatories so far are actors Debra Messing, Brett Gelman, Elon Gold, Julianna Margulies, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and Tovah Feldshuh; Gilmore Girls and the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel creator Amy Sherman-Palladino; top Hollywood attorney Craig Emanuel; producer Amy Pascal; and The Americans creator Joe Weisberg. Variety has posted the full list along with letter.

As Modern Family producer Ilana Wernick told Variety, referring to an incident at the Academy Awards in 1978, “[Glazer’s] words sounded eerily similar to Vanessa Redgrave’s infamous ‘Zionist hoodlum’ speech. Only this time there was no Paddy Chayefsky to stand up and say the right thing. Sadly, Jew hatred won the day. That’s why so many of us in the industry reached out to each other. It was a very sad, very scary night. Writing the letter wasn’t just cathartic for us. It’s something we had to do.”
Jonathan Glazer's Oscars speech slammed by 1,200 Jewish Hollywood stars, creators
Even Zone of Interest producers disapproved of the speech
Even one of the producers of The Zone of Interest, who stood beside Glazer as he made the speech, didn't sign off on his comments. A spokesperson for pro-Israel producer Len Blavatnik told The Hollywood Reporter that he was not consulted on the speech but that "he’s incredibly proud of the film and the accolades it has received, and he doesn’t want to distract from the important themes of the movie.”

Danny Cohen, the film's executive producer and co-financer, also criticized Glazer's speech in an episode of the podcast Unholy: Two Jews on the News last Friday but defended the film as "a great piece of art" and that a lot of people in the Jewish community contacted him saying it was a "remarkable and very important film."

Regarding Glazer's speech, Cohen 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," he said on the episode. He also said that many in the Jewish community said "they're upset in the sense that they feel that has been mixed up with what's going on now - whether that was Jonathan's intention or not." He also stresses that "he fundamentally disagrees with Jonathan on this. My support for Israel is unwavering. I strongly believe that the war and the continuation of it is the responsibility of Hamas - a genocidal terrorist organization that continues to abuse the hostages and doesn't use its tunnels to protect the civilians of Gaza but uses it to hide themselves."

Cohen also said, like Blavatnik, that he was not consulted on the speech beforehand, but believes that Glazer planned the speech with co-producer James Wilson

Cohen also says that the war is distracting from the film itself, describing it as "an extraordinary triumph of filmmaking" and it is "one of the truly great films about the Holocaust. And the discussion is weakened now in this moment of great recognition for the film with two Academy Awards is not about the film, but it's about the speech. Jon spent 10 years making the film and has made something remarkable, but people are talking more this week about what he said for 30 seconds.”
Daniel Greenfield: How ‘The Zone of Interest’ Makes Jews and All of Us Into Nazis
Some people were shocked when Jonathan Glazer used the Academy Awards to launch into a vicious diatribe, disavowing his Jewishness, and demanding that Israel stop attacking Hamas.

But that’s probably because they didn’t watch his movie.

There are two kinds of Holocaust stories, the particular, which deal with the realities of what happened, with the Jews, with the Nazis and their collaborators, and those that make all of us into Nazis. Glazer’s ‘The Zone of Interest’ is the ultimate example of universal ‘Nazification’.

Particularists go to great trouble to retell the story of what really happened. They value and cherish the actual history. Universalists however see the Holocaust as only another example of capitalism, nationalism and the bourgeoisie making all of us (except leftists) into monsters.

For the particularists, Jews are the survivors of the Holocaust, but for the universalists, like Glazer, Jews (and all of us who aren’t militant leftists) are on the verge of being Nazis.

That is why ‘The Zone of Interest’ is not concerned with Jews, with Nazi ideology or with anything except depicting the comfortable family life of the Auschwitz commander. The point that we are meant to take away is that there are always ‘holocausts’ going on, shooting and screaming just a little past where we choose to look while we enjoy our comfortable lives.

‘The Zone of Interest’ is not the story of Rudolf Höss, one of the worst mass murderers in human history: it’s an argument for why we are all (except Glazer and his comrades) like him.


1 in 20 Brits think Jews should be ‘expelled’ from Middle East
A new YouGov poll has revealed that one in twenty Britons support expelling Jews from the Middle East and among Brits who sympathise with the Palestinian cause, 11 per cent supported expelling Jews from the region.

The poll also indicated that the majority of Brits favour a two-state solution but harbour mixed sympathies towards both sides.

Conducted between 15 March and 19 March, YouGov questioned a sample of over four thousand UK adults for the survey and found that 15 per cent of Britons sympathised more with the Israeli side than the Palestinian and 29 per cent sympathised more with the Palestinian side.

The poll revealed that one in twenty Britons thought the Hamas attack on October 7 was justified – this went up to 14 per cent when the pro-Palestinian side was isolated.

A quarter (24 per cent) of Brits said that Israel’s attack on Gaza was justified but nearly double (46 per cent) said it was not justified.

The survey results indicate that both Hamas and the Israeli government are unpopular among the British public.

11 per cent of Brits who support the Palestinian side had a favourable view of Hamas and 3 per cent had a “very” favourable view. By contrast, 77 per cent of the pro-Palestinian side said they had an unfavourable view of the terror group, compared with 70 per cent of all Brits. 4 per cent of all Brits said they felt favourably towards the group.

When asked about the Israeli government, 15 per cent of Brits approved but just 3 per cent said they felt “very” favourably towards the Knesset.
Who's behind the pro-Palestinian protests that are disrupting Biden's campaign events and blocking city streets?
Officials concerned about hidden links to terrorist groups point to a little-known international organization called Samidoun, the Arabic word for “steadfast.”

On its website, the Canadian-registered nonprofit group describes itself as “an international network of organizers and activists working to build solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom.”

But the Israeli government and several think tanks in Europe and Israel say Samidoun’s leadership is composed of current and former members of the PFLP. Germany banned Samidoun a few weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks, arguing that Samidoun members had praised and supported Hamas during street protests.

The Israeli government declared Samidoun a terrorist organization in 2021. “They support terrorism, and they want to gain public opinion — support — for terrorism,” said Yossi Kuperwasser, the former chief of the research division in the Israel Defense Forces’ military intelligence wing.

The group’s international coordinator, Charlotte Kates, originally from New Jersey, is listed as one of three directors on Samidoun’s nonprofit registration in Canada. She did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Other members of Samidoun’s leadership in Canada and in Europe also did not respond.

But Samidoun does not hide its activities. In a Feb. 27 YouTube video in which Kates is featured along with Dr. Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, Kates described the Oct. 7 attacks as a “heroic operation.” In another February webinar on YouTube, she spoke to activists in New York and explained why her organization does not distance itself from Hamas or other groups deemed terrorists by the U.S. and Israel.

“What we see here is an alliance — an alliance of forces that is working together for a different future for the region that is free of U.S. imperialism and it is free of Zionist colonialism,” Kates told viewers. “And these forces of resistance, right now, are in the front lines of defending humanity.”

Kiswani, the New York-based activist, was featured in a 2020 Samidoun YouTube video in which she said “Zionists” had flooded her law school administration with emails claiming she is antisemitic. School officials cleared her of any wrongdoing.

Since Oct. 7, Samidoun has co-sponsored or co-organized at least three protests led by Within Our Lifetime and another group called the Palestinian Youth Movement, according to online flyers posted by the two organizations. Samidoun has “compiled a lot of history, things that we use in the movement to talk about Palestinian prisoners, and so we respect and appreciate them for that work,” Kiswani said.
Banned pro-Palestine group to hold ‘congress’ in Berlin
An outlawed German pro-Palestine group is planning to hold a three day "Palestine Congress" in Berlin next month.

The organisers are the banned group Samidoun, which was declared illegal last November by the German government at the same time as Hamas.

Announcing the ban, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said: “Samidoun is an international network which disseminates anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda while claiming to promote solidarity with prisoners in different countries. Samidoun also supported and glorified various foreign terrorist organisations, including Hamas.

“With its spontaneous ‘celebrations’ here in Germany following the horrific terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel, Samidoun revealed its antisemitism and absolute lack of regard for human life in an especially abhorrent way.”

The Berlin event has sparked concerns over its legality and potential radicalisation effects. Samidoun, whose full name is the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, says its principal focus is campaigning for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Its congress is demanding an “end to the Zionist settler colonialism that has lasted for over 76 years”.

And instead of the banned call for the annihilation of the Israeli state — “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — the congress is demanding an end to the “apartheid policy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean”. It also seeks the “immediate opening of all border crossings from Rafah to Allenby”. It refers to these as “apartheid walls.”

Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Territories, was originally billed as speaking at the event, but her spokesman told the JC this week that she would not now be attending.
Facing Hate in Berlin
For anyone who had been following the strong influence of left-wing anti-Zionism in cultural and academic circles, this silence could not come as a total surprise. At a major 2022 German art exhibition, the Documenta, artworks with antisemitic messages were widely displayed, alongside paintings depicting Israeli soldiers as pigs with the Star of David. Some of the foreign artists invited to the Documenta publicly proclaimed antisemitic theses. The prominent British artist of Bengali origin, Hamja Ahsan, who was prominently featured in the exhibition, publicly referred to Chancellor Olaf Scholz as a fascist pig and called the FDP politician Stefan Naas a lackey of Israel’s apartheid regime.

Similarly, at the last Berlin Film Festival, the Berlinale, in February 2024, a public event called for hatred toward Israel. Again, it was foreign artists who expressed their criticism with Palestinian symbols at Berlinale events. The tolerance of such expressions by German politicians who attended led to widespread public criticism.

Another alarming phenomenon we are witnessing within parts of the German left is the rise of overt antisemitism within the global climate movements. An icon of the climate movement, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, caused a stir at a climate protest in Amsterdam when she chanted multiple times, “No climate justice on occupied land.” Coming a month after the massacres of more than 1,200 Israeli civilians, Thunberg expressed no words of sympathy or protest; instead, she immediately showed solidarity with the Palestinians. She was photographed with fellow activists demanding a “free Palestine” and carrying a plush octopus—a classic antisemitic symbol widely used by the Nazis to signify Jewish world domination. Thunberg then shared posts denouncing the alleged “genocide” in Gaza and demanding the destruction of Israel under the slogan “From the river to the sea.” She received considerable criticism for this behavior in Germany, and representatives of the German climate movement publicly distanced themselves from her. Yet it was impossible to ignore the coincidence of Thunberg’s “green antisemitism” and the “green” politics of political Islamists.

The larger public debate about antisemitism within the Muslim community in Germany and political Islam is primarily concerned with the content of the Quran. Critics say that the Quran contains numerous passages that encourage hatred toward Jews. Proponents of this view point out that there are antisemitic statements in the Quran—for example, against Jews who are described as “monkeys and pigs.” The head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, has called on Muslims in Germany to position themselves clearly against antisemitism.

A Germany in which antisemitism is culturally and politically acceptable should be entirely unthinkable. Sadly, it is not.

The prospective growth of a large population of young Muslims who may be religiously or politically inclined toward hatred of Jews and Israel poses a particular problem for Germany in light of the Holocaust. Since the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel wave of 2002 and the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, many young Muslims have been conspicuous in Germany as “antisemitic activists.” These activists have been at the forefront of mobbing attacks on Jewish students, displaying antisemitic symbols on university campuses, and even physical assaults on Jewish students in grade schools. None of these phenomena, which are clearly violent, and are clearly motivated in some part by overtly antisemitic viewpoints—and which in turn are nourished by wider cultural currents, both internal and external—can be safely overlooked.

Intolerance of dissenting views on the Arab-Israeli conflict on the part of students who are often raised in separatist religious and political cultures poses a challenge to Germany’s own liberal political culture. It poses a specific challenge to Germany’s robust program of Holocaust education, on which the nation’s liberal political culture is founded. The growth of a culturally unassimilated minority within the larger postwar German majority culture may also eventually pose a challenge to the Israel-Germany relationship, as well as to the role that relationship plays in Germany’s historical understanding of itself.

A Germany in which antisemitism is culturally and politically acceptable should be entirely unthinkable. Sadly, it is not. Today, both Israel-related antisemitism within the left political spectrum and Islamic antisemitism among Muslim youth represent significant cultural and political challenges. At the same time, it is necessary to maintain a watchful eye on new phenomena such as antisemitism in the climate movement, which may become more pronounced in the future. It is crucial to address these issues openly and honestly in German society, to educate about the history of antisemitism, and to promote intercultural dialogue and understanding—and not to lazily and inaccurately identify the problem of antisemitism as a historical phenomenon solely of the radical right. The fight against antisemitism must be a task that concerns all members of society, regardless of their political or religious beliefs.
An Inconvenient Truth
I was inundated with hateful messages for showing love and support to my friends in Israel, and for challenging the idea that Hamas were terrorists, rather than resistance fighters. It was constant cyberbullying to which I said (and still say): Fuck off.

To this day, the reaction of people I knew in Berlin haunts me. What if I had been there? What if I had been kidnapped or murdered. Would all of these people who had known me for years think it was justifiable? Would they take to the streets, demanding a cease-fire—knowing that I was being held hostage? I think the answer is: Yes. Because the hatred of Jews is a mind-virus. Germans gave it a special name in the 1930s: Judenhass. It’s a special kind of hate. It is a roller coaster of hate to which society turns a blind eye.

And as months have passed, the more I’ve dug in my heels, and chosen to push back harder and harder, and I won’t stop. Their hatred of Israel is not stronger than my love for hot Israeli guys.

I cannot stop thinking about Chen and Shai. I see their brown, puppy-dog eyes in the eyes of all the male hostages. Why don’t my friends in Berlin want to acknowledge the hostages? Why does even mentioning the hostages bother them so much? I suppose it forces them to confront the truth: Their narrative is based on a delusion, and their idea of humanitarianism is simply hypocrisy and moral narcissism.

It is so clear to me how antisemitism has gripped our society. I see how these lies about Israel have poisoned an entire generation, and how it is escalating every day. It is an intentional ideological subversion of Western civilization. Terrorism isn’t just being normalized, it is being encouraged.

I recently put out a call for Berliners to share their stories of antisemitism in left-wing social circles. The stories were endless. From a drag queen putting out a statement that Israelis aren’t welcome at her shows, to a woman’s anti-fascist collective putting up posters to honor female Palestinian terrorists. Germany’s ban on public support for terrorism holds this raging antisemitism and anti-Zionism in check. A monthly queer techno party called Buttons recently issued an apology and a clarification that they didn’t support Hamas, after sharing a petition titled “DJs Against Apartheid” that called Oct. 7 “a natural reaction to Israeli occupation.”

I cannot believe this was a city where I once felt like I belonged. It is fascinating to witness how quickly so many people I knew in Berlin turned against me. They turned against me with so much hate for supporting Israel—saying I’m self-interested, heartless, attention-seeking, and obsessed with followers. They project all their own inadequacies and unhappiness about themselves onto me. Their minds refuse to take in new information. They cannot hold two thoughts at the same time, and they refuse to hold Hamas accountable for any aspect of this war.

Nearly every day I will get a message from a strung-out deadbeat Berlin hipster. Some girl with sweaty green hair. Her profile photo is her in a bra, with piercings and tattoos and black lipstick, licking a knife in her profile photo. And she’ll write me something like “Fuck off Zionist: you don’t speak for the queers of Berlin.”

And I’ll think to myself: You’re damn right I don’t!

If extremism and terrorism grip Western cities, I will happily move to Tel Aviv, and live out my days with sexy Israeli men, eating hummus, having hot gay sex, and playing volleyball on the beach until World War III ends life on planet Earth.

If that’s my future, so be it!
Problem child Ben & Jerry's getting boot from parent after years of political controversy
Multinational conglomerate Unilever, the owner of some 400 brands, announced Tuesday it is spinning off its ice cream business — including major names like Ben & Jerry's, Breyers, Magnum, Popsicle and Klondike — after more than a century.

The consumer goods giant said the move is part of a growth strategy to create a leaner business. At the same time, by shedding Ben & Jerry's, Unilever is ridding itself of a longtime headache.

Since its founding in 1978, Ben & Jerry's has been known for its left-leaning advocacy, and the Vermont-based ice cream maker was able to maintain an independent board of directors to continue its progressive activism even after it sold to Unilever in 2000.

But in recent years, the unique structure of the deal that allowed Ben & Jerry's to wade into controversial issues without interference has pulled Unilever into the fray, too.

The biggest lightning rod began in July 2021, when Ben & Jerry’s announced it would no longer sell its products to Israelis in the West Bank, which the company refers to as "Occupied Palestinian Territory."

The move sparked outrage from both sides of the political aisle amid accusations that the company was boycotting Israel as part of the boycott, divest, sanctions (BDS) movement, which Ben & Jerry's denied. Israel threatened to take action against Unilever over the move, and U.S. lawmakers called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a probe into the parent company.

Unilever, which has repeatedly distanced itself from Ben & Jerry's political takes and said it has never supported the BDS movement, sold the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream operations in Israel in June 2022 in an attempt to stem the controversy, but its subsidiary's activism has continued to tarnish the brand and drag Unilever with it.

Ben & Jerry's was hit with its own boycott threat last year after the company angered some Americans on Independence Day with a post on Twitter (now X) that read, "This 4th of July, it's high time we recognize that the US exists on stolen Indigenous land and commit to returning it."

Several U.S. states have divested their public employee retirement funds from Unilever over Ben & Jerry's ending sales of its products in parts of Israel, including Arizona, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Texas and most recently North Carolina.
Bipartisan bill introduced to make reporting campus antisemitism, and discrimination easier
Legislation proposed in Congress on Wednesday in response to rising campus antisemitism aims to increase accountability and transparency in the handling of discrimination complaints at colleges and universities under Title VI, according to a press release from bill co-sponsor Rep. Kathy Manning’s (D-NC) office.

Manning, co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, and Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) introduced the “Protecting Students on Campus Act of 2024.” The Senate introduced a similar bill in late January.

“All students deserve to learn and live on college campuses without fear of discrimination, harassment, or intimidation. Unfortunately, right now, Jewish students across the country are facing a drastic rise in antisemitism, leaving them feeling threatened, ostracized, and unwelcome on campuses,” Manning said in the release.

Chavez-DeRemer said the legislation would empower students facing discrimination by making it easier to report civil rights violations.
Jewish students at Berkeley grow a backbone
Finally, after five months, comes a sign of life from Jewish students. Hundreds of Berkeley students, faculty and alums marched to protest the administration’s failure to address antisemitism on campus and guarantee free speech for Jewish students. They were ultimately moved to act after antisemites disrupted an event with an Israeli speaker two weeks earlier.

As at other universities, the administration failed to prepare for a predictable assault on Jewish students. The invitation of any Israeli is a magnet for protesters. Though Ran Bar-Yoshafat is a lawyer and not a soldier, the fact that he served in the Israel Defense Forces was enough to provoke Israel’s detractors to assault the lecture hall and its occupants. Unable to protect the event, as many as 200 bullies—many wearing keffiyehs over their faces to conceal their identity—stormed the building where the event was held, shattered a window, hurled anti-Semitic slurs and assaulted Jewish students. The lecture was canceled, and students had to be escorted out by the police.

The university said the incident was “an attack on the fundamental values of the university” and launched a criminal investigation but no immediate steps to protect students. If the past is prologue, the perpetrators will face no consequences.

Administrations have felt free to ignore antisemitism because of the inaction of students and faculty. While the antisemites march, hold die-ins and take over buildings, Jews grumble or file lawsuits and complaints with the U.S. Department of Education.

Jewish students taking action is so rare that the Berkeley protest prompted the media to cover it. Bad publicity, along with donors revolting, seems to be the only things that get the attention of administrators and trustees. The march began at the site of the melee and ended at Sather Gate, a campus landmark for free-speech protests. Before the march, the administration had allowed anti-Israel protestors to block the gate and harass Jewish students.
Georgetown Law Professor Published Anti-Semitic Screeds to School's Scholarly Article Database. When We Asked Questions, She Scrubbed Them.
At Georgetown Law School, professors are encouraged to publish their academic work to the school's "Scholarly Commons," an online portal that serves as a "repository" for journal articles and other materials. This year's submissions include lengthy papers on privacy law, tort liability, and First Amendment disputes.

In recent months, however, one Georgetown Law professor, Lama Abu-Odeh, has submitted "working papers" to the portal that stand out from the rest. They have no academic citations and make no reference to legal disputes or precedent. Instead, they consist of Abu-Odeh's ramblings on the "genocide in Gaza"—ramblings that in some cases invoke age-old anti-Semitic tropes.

In one paper titled, "Gaza Shoah: Zionism's Efficacious Role as Ideological Supplement in the US," Abu-Odeh describes Israel as an "apartheid state," lauds "resistance to the Zionist project," and argues that Hamas terrorists did not rape Israelis on Oct. 7. She also accuses Jews of controlling the media and paying black people to support Israel.

"It is true that the American political class, Democrats and Republicans alike, is on AIPAC's dole," Abu-Odeh writes. "It is also true that legacy media is dominated by Zionist Jews."

"Many boomer blacks, faced with Israel vs Palestinians would side with the former given a sense of loyalty to the joint struggle," she continues. "Sometimes it felt like the less exacting choice as the upward mobility of some blacks depended on Jewish largesse on offer in the various institutions they worked."

Abu-Odeh published the working paper on Jan. 3. Roughly two months later, she posted a follow-up titled, "Gaza Shoah 11: The Frankenstein State of Israel," which paints Israel as "Frankenstein’s monster" because it "has a fascination with limbs" and is bent on "dismantling Palestine into disparate territories."

Abu-Odeh's papers reflect the proliferation of anti-Semitism on college campuses in the wake of Hamas's attack on the Jewish state. Abu-Odeh joined Georgetown in 1999 after stints at Stanford Law School and Harvard Law School, according to her academic bio. She teaches two seminars at Georgetown: Conservative Legal and Political Thought and Human Rights and its Discontents. She also served as a United Nations elections observer in South Africa and is part of Georgetown's "Gender Justice Initiative." In 2021, she criticized Georgetown's diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucracy for targeting a fellow law professor who was deemed to have made a racist comment about black students.


'AEPi Supports Genocide': Jewish frat targeted by antisemitic vandalism
"AEPi Supports Genocide," and other antisemitic writings were graffitied across multiple areas at the Bradley University campus on Friday night, according to multiple local media reports. Police are now investigating the incidents as hate crimes.

The “AEPi” referenced in the vandalism, found outside Bradley Hall, refers to the Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi. The fraternity house was also vandalized.

The vandalisms occurred between 3:45 and 4:22 am, according to local source WCBU.

Bradley President Stephen Standifird was cited as having said, "These acts are completely against the fabric of who we are as a university. Bradley University has no tolerance for acts of bias, hatred, violence, or intimidation toward any member of our community. Regardless of how you identify, this is a place you should feel safe. Those responsible will be found and held accountable."

Comments issued by the fraternity
Alpha Epsilon Pi International CEO Rob Derdiger said in a press release that the vandalism is just one of dozens of examples of campus antisemitism. He called on the university’s administration to redouble efforts to protect Jewish students and institutions.

Insisting that the university expel students who have violated the code of conduct, Derdiger said "Anything less is unacceptable. It is no longer time for words. It is time for action to protect Jewish students."
Universities minister fears ‘ghettoisation’ of Jewish students on UK campuses
A minister is concerned that “ghettoisation” is occurring on university campuses which is preventing Jewish students from enjoying themselves.

Robert Halfon, minister for skills, apprenticeships and higher education, said antisemitism was a “major problem” across universities in the UK and incidents have surged since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7.

Mr Halfon told MPs that there had been “horrific” incidents of antisemitism at universities across the country.

Addressing the education select committee on Tuesday, the higher education minister said: “I think it is a major problem across our universities.

“I fear that there is ghettoisation going on across universities, with Jewish students unable to do what they should be doing – having the best time of their life at university.”

When asked about antisemitism on campus, Mr Halfon, who is Jewish, told MPs: “It has been pretty horrific.

“Antisemitism was going up across our universities well before October 7. This isn’t just a result about the tragedy in the Middle East and the massacre of Jews and internationals on October 7.

“But since October 7, it’s gone up well over 200%.”

Mr Halfon said the Government was developing a “quality seal” in higher education, which will allow Jewish students to see how well a university tackles antisemitism, and it is considering an “expert advisor” on the issue.

Robin Walker, chair of the education select committee, said he had heard “concerning” anecdotal evidence of some people choosing to study in Israel because they would not be comfortable studying in the UK.

Addressing these reports, Mr Halfon said: “I still believe that our universities are great places to go across the United Kingdom. I hope very much that Jewish students will not feel that they can’t go to our universities.”

He added that the Government will do “everything possible” to stamp out antisemitism.

University leaders also gave evidence to MPs on the committee on Tuesday as part of its inquiry into the impact of last year’s marking and assessment boycott on university students.
Harvard Law group to host NYU Law student leader who blamed Israel for 10/7 attack
A Harvard Law School student group is hosting a conference this week that will feature a public conversation with Ryna Workman, the former president of NYU Law’s student government who lost their job at a law firm and was removed from student government after sending a campus-wide email in October blaming Israel for the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7.

“This week, I want to express, first and foremost, my unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression toward liberation and self-determination,” Workman wrote in an Oct. 10 email to the NYU Law student body. “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.” Workman has stood by this statement and refused to condemn Hamas.

NYU Law dean Troy McKenzie disavowed the statement, writing at the time that Workman’s email “does not speak for the leadership of the Law School. It certainly does not express my own views, because I condemn the killing of civilians and acts of terrorism as always reprehensible.” Winston & Strawn, the law firm that had offered Workman a job, rescinded the offer, saying Workman’s comments “profoundly conflict with Winston & Strawn’s values as a firm.”

Workman will speak on a Wednesday panel at the annual conference hosted by the Bell Collective for Critical Race Theory, a student group at Harvard Law School. The three-day on-campus conference, called “Censorship and Consciousness,” highlights pro-Palestinian activism, with a keynote address by Palestinian journalist Motaz Azaiza. Other topics covered at the conference include censorship in prison.

Workman’s event is called “The Palestine Exception: A panel on repression and resistance.” Workman will appear alongside Rabea Eghbariah, a Harvard doctoral student who has claimed the Harvard Law Review censored a piece he wrote about Gaza; Fatema Ahmad, executive director of the Muslim Justice League; and Yipeng Ge, a Canadian physician who was suspended from his medical residency at the University of Ottawa after making a series of anti-Israel posts on social media.

The conference’s co-sponsors include the Harvard Black Law Students Association; HLS Lambda, a group for LGBTQ+ students; the Harvard Law Association’s Women of Color Coalition; and Harvard PalTrek, which brings students to the West Bank.


Fury Over Antisemitic Canadian Newspaper Cartoon Depicting Netanyahu as Blood-Sucking Vampire
One of Canada’s leading French-language news outlets abruptly removed a crudely antisemitic caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from its website on Wednesday morning following a storm of protest from Canadian politicians and Jewish advocates.

The image, drawn by veteran cartoonist Serge Chapleau — who has won several awards for his work and was honored with the Order of Canada medal in 2015 — was published by the Montreal-based newspaper La Presse and appeared on the front page of its print edition. It showed Netanyahu as Nosferatu, the titular character of a classic 1922 German Expressionist silent movie about a blood-sucking vampire, Count Orlok, who preys upon a real estate agent and his wife under the cover of purchasing a house and who, later in the film, unleashes a plague of rats onboard a ship on which he is traveling. The film is based on the famous 1897 novel Dracula, set in Romania.

Chapleau’s cartoon imposed Netanyahu’s features on that of a vampire wearing a grim, lifeless expression, with his hands replaced by long claws. An accompanying text displayed the word “Nosfenyahou” — a contraction of “Nosferatu” and the Francophone spelling of Netanyahu’s last name — dripping with blood. Another text beneath declared “On the way to Rafah,” the city in Gaza where Israeli troops have been battling Hamas terrorists.

Historically, antisemitic caricatures of Jews frequently depicted them as blood-suckers, building on earlier Christian libels that falsely accused Jews of using the blood of Christians in their religious rituals. Since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel, the same motif has appeared across the Arab world in relation to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, with news outlets in Morocco, Jordan, and Qatar all publishing cartoons of Netanyahu drinking the blood and consuming the flesh of Israel’s adversaries.

By the middle of Wednesday morning, La Presse had removed its contribution to the genre following widespread protests on social media. However, the paper has not apologized for the offending image nor offered an explanation as to why it was published to the 860,000 followers of its feed on X/Twitter.

“No big deal, just the second-largest newspaper in French Canada caricaturing Jews as vampires,” David Frum — a Canadian-American writer and former speechwriter for US President George W. Bush — remarked in a post. Frum added: “That’s how antisemitism often works. A rich inventory of anti-Jewish images and themes pre-exists: the Jew as bloodsucker, the Jew as child-killer, the Jew as alien enemy. When a user wants to vent rage or dislike … the resource accumulated over centuries is waiting for him.”


Canadian Jewish federation ‘dismayed’ by theater’s decision to postpone Jewish film festival over security fears
A Canadian movie theater said it was postponing a Jewish film festival, over the objections of the local Jewish federation, owing to “security and safety concerns at this particularly sensitive time.”

The Playhouse Cinema in Hamilton, Ontario said in a Tuesday statement that it decided over the weekend to postpone the Hamilton Jewish Film Festival, which it had been slated to host in April. The theater said it did so “after receiving numerous security and safety related emails, phone calls, and social media messages.”

The theater’s statement, posted to social media, did not provide details on the nature of the safety concerns, and the theater did not respond to requests for comment as of press time.

But the statement came as the arts world has been roiled by protest over the Israel-Hamas war. One of the films to be screened, “The Boy,” is a short film about life on the Israel-Gaza border and was directed by Yahav Winner, who was murdered in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that launched the war.

A spokesperson for the Hamilton Jewish Federation, which had been partnering with the theater on the festival, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency it was “deeply dismayed” by the decision, which it said the theater made on its own.

“This decision, made in response to a few complaints and threatening emails objecting to our festival’s lineup, including films from Israel, is profoundly disappointing,” the federation said in its statement. “We believe this action represents a missed opportunity to engage the Greater Hamilton community in a meaningful cultural event, particularly in the wake of the alarming rise of antisemitism in recent times.”

The federation added that the move to postpone the festival “was not mutual and was made solely by the Playhouse Cinema.” It also said that “there were no specific threats or incidents that warranted the cancellation of the festival.”

The federation said it would still host the festival “later this spring” in its own facility, without the theater’s involvement.
No BBC follow-up on responses to appointment of new PA PM
Just three weeks after the October 7th massacre the BBC began to produce coverage concerning supposed Israeli plans for ‘the day after’ the war and a recurrent feature in those and other BBC reports has been the presentation of American views on that topic – for example:
“The secretary of state said “affirmative elements” were necessary for a “sustained peace”.

“It must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority,” he said.”

“…the US president wants Israel to return to some kind of revitalised peace process. He wants the Palestinian Authority (PA) eventually to run Gaza while Israel agrees arrangements for an independent Palestine alongside Israel.”

“The US, Israel’s major ally, wants the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) to govern Gaza after the war.”

In this report, Gritten tells readers that:
“The White House welcomed Mr Mustafa’s appointment and called for the formation of a “reform cabinet” as soon as possible.

“The United States will be looking for this new government to deliver on policies and implementation of credible and far-reaching reforms,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.

“A reformed Palestinian Authority is essential to delivering results for the Palestinian people and establishing the conditions for stability in both the West Bank and Gaza.”” Although BBC audiences are sadly used to chronic under-reporting of internal Palestinian affairs, it nevertheless notable that, despite its repeat promotion of the notion of a “reformed Palestinian Authority” taking control over the Gaza Strip, the BBC did not consider it necessary to inform its audiences of this latest Hamas-Fatah spat and its potential implications on proposals for a ‘peace process’ currently being vigorously pushed by Western powers.


3 This new, ambitious plan by the Saudi Crown Prince may involve Israel
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has announced numerous projects for his country, including facilities in the holy city of Mecca (including skyscrapers and luxury hotels), promoting women's rights equality (such as the right to drive), and bringing cinema and tourism to the conservative kingdom, according to Arab media, with an additional Monday report from Maariv indicating that one of his endeavors may involve Israel.

Arab media has reported on a series of grandiose projects by the crown prince, all under the title "Saudi Vision 2030". The first was the futuristic technological city project "NEOM" (short for "neo-mustaqbal" - future in Arabic) in the Tabuk region, located entirely not coincidentally in the northwest of the kingdom, near the Red Sea.

The "NEOM" project itself is located as close to Eilat as possible, which suggests that Israel is supposed to participate one day, and on a declarative level, it is intended to create economic cooperation with Egypt and Jordan - two countries that have already signed peace agreements with Israel.

All these projects were planned shortly before and during the normalization of Israel with the UAE and Bahrain.

The normalization requirements of the Saudi kingdom from Israel are known. The day after the war in Gaza, Israel might have to assess how bin Salman's economic vision integrates with the promotion of local projects: the rehabilitation of Gaza and the promotion of the economy in the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria.

Israel and Saudi Arabia have a common interest in promoting the economy of the Middle East and share many common enemies, including the Muslim Brotherhood and their outreaches (including Hamas) and, to the same extent, Iran and its proxies.


Chinese Envoy Meets With Hamas, Celebrates Ties With Terrorist Group
A top Chinese diplomat emphasized China’s relationship with Hamas during the first meeting between a Chinese official and a Hamas leader since the terrorist group's Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs envoy, Wang Kejian, met with the head of Hamas’s political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, in Qatar on Sunday. Wang said the Chinese government is keen on maintaining relations with Hamas, describing the organization as "part of the Palestinian national fabric" and advocating for "the Palestinian people's just demands for freedom, independence, and the establishment of the Palestinian state," according to a Tuesday statement by Hamas.

"The two parties discussed political and field developments related to the situation in the Gaza Strip and ways to stop the war and deliver urgent aid, especially in light of the killing, starvation, massacres, and attempts to create chaos," Hamas added in the statement.

Haniyeh, meanwhile, expressed his "pride in the close relationship between the friendly Palestinian and Chinese peoples," while praising the Chinese government for trying to broker a ceasefire and sending humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The Hamas leader also stressed "the need to quickly stop the aggression and massacres" and "achieve the political goals and aspirations of establishing an independent Palestinian state."
Germany detains two IS suspects over Swedish attack plan
Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office on Tuesday said two suspected supporters of the so-called "Islamic State" (IS) jihadist militia had been arrested in the central German state of Thuringia.

Prosecutors allege that the two Afghan nationals had hatched a plot to carry out an attack near the Swedish legislature in retaliation for Quran book burnings in the country.

"The two detainees had already made concrete preparations for a bloody attack," German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said, adding that the case shows Germany is well equipped to combat terrorist threats. There are, he said, sufficient possibilities and means to take action against "the enemies of our freedom."

How developed was the plot?
The pair was said to have planned "to kill police officers and other people with firearms in Stockholm in the area of the Swedish parliament."

The suspects, who were detained in the central city of Gera, were said to have already made "concrete preparations" for the attack. They had carried out local research but attempts to obtain weapons had been unsuccessful.

One of the men, Ibrahim M. G., is said to have joined the IS Khorasan Province (ISPK) offshoot, which has its origins in Afghanistan and eastern parts of Iran.

According to the investigation, the ISPK is said to have commissioned him to carry out an attack in the summer of 2023 in response to Quran burnings in Sweden.

From then on, he is said to have planned an attack on the Swedish Parliament in the capital, Stockholm, together with the second person arrested, Ramin N.
CAIR Says Biden Will Lose, 'Allah Willing'
As President Joe Biden grapples with how to keep anti-Israel voters in the Democrats' fold, the head of one of the largest anti-Israel groups in America took to a Detroit mosque to lambast the president, hoping that Muslim voters will tank Biden in November and in so doing, give the White House back to Donald Trump.

Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), spoke at Masjid Muath in Detroit on February 27th, the day of Michigan’s primary, and his speech was wild, to say the least. In it, he attacked Biden’s mental and physical acuity and vowed that most Muslim voters will abandon Biden this November.

“Our message [to President Biden] is as follows: ‘Allah willing, our votes will make you lose the presidency,’” Awad said in an Arabic speech which was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “It is [also] a message to [the Democrat] Party: ‘You went too far, you listened to him, and did not draw the line, so you will lose the presidency.’”

Biden and CAIR have had a rocky road since the unprovoked attacks by Palestinian terrorists on southern Israel on October 7th. In the month after the attack, Awad said he “was happy to see” Gazans “break the siege.” Since then, the White House has distanced itself from CAIR, with spokesman Andrew Bates saying that “we condemn these shocking, antisemitic statements in the strongest terms.”

Most recently, CAIR was caught lying, along with American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), about being invited to an event in Chicago that the Biden White House attempted to host with Arab leaders — who ultimately blew off the administration. CAIR Chicago and AMP both signed onto a letter that turned down the meeting. “There is no point in more meetings…a meeting of the minds is nowhere in sight,” the group wrote. The only problem is that, according to the White House, CAIR and AMP were never actually invited.


Activist who saluted Hamas is welcomed to Parliament
An Islamic hardliner who has defended Hamas attended a reception at Parliament hosted by a charity headed by the chief Muslim chaplain to Britain’s armed forces, the JC can reveal.

Anti-Israel activist Ismail Patel, who has met Hamas leaders in Gaza and “saluted” the group for “standing up to Israel”, was among the guests mingling with MPs and peers.

Also present at the 18 January event was the head of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which is boycotted by the government over its alleged links to extremism. When it emerged in November that the MCB was being used by Ministry of Defence officials to help recruit further Muslim chaplains, ministers issued an order that this must stop immediately.

Another reception guest was preacher Sheikh Ramzy, who has led recent protests at which marchers called for a new “intifada” and defended Labour’s Rochdale candidate after he was dropped by the party for inflammatory statements about Israel.

The Ministry of Defence said that the host, Imam Asim Hafiz, who has served as Islamic religious adviser to the Chief of the Defence Staff since 2005 and was awarded an MBE in 2014, did not draw up the guest list and has long opposed extremism.

Leading parliamentarians told the JC they were concerned that individuals with views such as those expressed by Patel had been able to attend an event inside the palace of Westminster.

The former Labour MP Lord Ian Austin called for an inquiry into how this had taken place, saying Parliament should consider new measures to prevent extremists being given a “veneer of respectability”.

The JC has learnt that Hafiz was a member of a 30-strong WhatsApp group set up in 2020 to combat “Islamophobia” that included Patel, Ramzy and Mohammed Kozbar, now the MCB’s deputy secretary-general, who, like Patel, has met Hamas leaders in Gaza.


MEMRI: Palestinian Columnist: Hamas Must Be More Flexible In Negotiations With Israel And Cede Exclusive Control Of Gaza
In his February 21, 2024 column in the Palestinian Authority (PA) daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, journalist Bassem Barhoum wrote that there is no point in continuing the war in Gaza and that Hamas must stop focusing only on its own interests. Instead, it must be more flexible in the negotiations for a ceasefire by presenting "more reasonable conditions" for freeing the Israeli hostages, he said. Barhoum also called on Hamas to cede its exclusive control over the Gaza Strip, to resolve the matter of its weapons, and to agree to the temporary exile from Gaza of several of its commanders. If Hamas continues to adhere to its "unrealistic" approach, he added, it will not be free of responsibility for a second Nakba that is likely to befall the Palestinian people.

In another column published March 3, 2024, apparently in response to criticism of his earlier piece, Barhoum complained about a lack of self-scrutiny in Palestinian society, and asserted that it is this failure – the avoidance of a self-critical examination of history – that allowed Hamas to cause the disaster that is ongoing in Gaza today. He claimed that a similar failure was responsible for the Palestinian Nakba in 1948.

It should be noted that Barhoum also criticized Hamas in a January 2024 article, in which he wrote that the October 7 attack was a somewhat reckless and suicidal operation that exacted a heavy price from the residents of Gaza. Accusing Hamas of undermining the PLO and serving foreign agendas, he urged it to reexamine its policy and begin recognizing its mistakes if it wants to be part of the Palestinian future.[1]

The following are translated excerpts from Barhoum's two recent columns:
Continuing Hamas' Present Policy Is Likely To Lead To A Second Palestinian Nakba
"Hamas perhaps needs to understand that there is no point in continuing the war in Gaza, at least at the moment, and that every additional day compounds the tragedy and brings Israel closer to realizing its goal of expelling [the Gazans], now that it has destroyed the Strip and rendered it unhabitable, according to reports from the international and humanitarian agencies.

"The first issue is that of the Israeli prisoners [i.e. the hostages] Hamas is holding. Hamas must now be more flexible and realistic and present more reasonable conditions for their release. That way it will neutralize one of Isael's main excuses for continuing the war, at least in the view of the world and of Washington.

"Secondly, Hamas must give up the idea of its exclusive control of the [Gaza] Strip and stop its manipulations in this context – because the war will not end as long as this issue remains unresolved, especially considering that the PA and the PLO are providing Hamas with a reasonable way to do this, namely by joining the PLO and becoming members of a Palestinian government that unites Gaza and the West Bank… Hamas' insistence on maintaining its exclusive control of Gaza is a recipe for perpetuating the [intra-Palestinian] schism, [a situation] that benefits only Israel, and in particular Netanyahu and his extremist right-wing government, whose only aim is the elimination of the Palestinian cause.
Fatah official: The map of Palestine – including all of Israel – is drawn in the blood of the Martyrs
Fatah Tubas Branch Secretary Mahmoud Sawafta: “The blood of the Martyrs is what is drawing the map of the homeland, the map of Palestine – Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, Lod, Ramle (i.e., all Israeli cities), the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the capital Jerusalem. Their blood is our compass, and there is no compass except for the Martyrs’ blood.” [Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Facebook page, Feb. 21, 2024]


Fatah official: America is the Great Satan
Fatah Revolutionary Council member, Younes Amr: “Once America was described as the Great Satan. America speaks about democracy and human rights, while it sides with Israel in the strongest and largest bombings in the world for the sake of destruction (i.e., in the 2023 Gaza war).” [Official PA TV, Jan. 31, 2024]

Younes Amr is a former President Al-Quds Open University.


Jordanian children to Hamas: “You are the cannon and we are the bullets”
Posted text: “#Watch: ‘A generation will come and [another] generation after it, we will destroy you, Israel!’ – a procession of small children in Jordan as a sign of solidarity with the children of the Gaza Strip (refers to the 2023 Gaza war; see note below -Ed.)”

Dozens of Jordanian children are marching and chanting while carrying signs with “Resistance is our choice” written on them in Arabic and English.

Children: “Prophet [Muhammad] commanded us to love the Al-Aqsa Mosque the whole way…
A generation will come and [another] generation after it, we will destroy you, Israel! …
O Muslim, call out Allahu Akbar (i.e., “Allah is greatest”), and crush the Zionist’s head! …
Thus [Hamas founder Ahmed] Yassin taught us, we will raise a Quran together with a knife…
Go on, go on, O Hamas! You are the cannon and we are the bullets”
[“The Palestinian Center for Information” (Hamas), X (Twitter) account, March 3, 2024]


PA official: Israeli PM Netanyahu is like Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister
Palestinian National Council member and Fatah Austria Branch Secretary Mundhir Mar’i: “Everyone knows that [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu has been winning the world championship of lies for 20 years. I compare Netanyahu to Goebbels, who was the Nazi propaganda minister who told Hitler: ‘Lie, lie, and lie, and the lie will become truth and people will say that it’s true’. Now we are going in the same direction and on the same path. Goebbels was the propaganda minister, and now he has parallels in the form of Benjamin Netanyahu, [Israeli Minister of Finance] Smotrich, and [Israeli Minister of National Security] Ben Gvir.” [Falestinona (Fatah’s Information and Culture Commission in Lebanon), YouTube channel, Feb. 10, 2024]


Fatah official calls for Hamas-Fatah unity in “one government” during 2023 Gaza war
Fatah Revolutionary Council member Tayseer Nasrallah: “We are all in the same boat. Hamas, Fatah, all the national action factions, all the members of the Palestinian people – we are in the same boat. If this boat sinks, we will all drown, and if it is saved, we will all be saved. That is what we all must understand, and we must get closer to each other in these difficult moments and unite. We need one position and one government.” [Official PA TV, Feb. 21, 2024]




Seth Frantzman: Iran seeks to expand Russia ties following Putin election victory
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week and called for closer ties between Tehran and Moscow. The countries already have warm ties, and Iran has supplied Russia with drones that it has used in deadly attacks in Ukraine.

Their phone call took place after Putin was reelected in an election that was never in doubt. Raisi praised Putin for his reelection and expressed “hope that [Putin’s] new term would provide a suitable ground for the promotion of relations between Tehran and Moscow,” Iran’s Fars News Agency reported.

Raisi highlighted “the significance of joint bids in regional organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS, as well as ongoing projects such as the Rasht-Astara railway connecting two Iranian and Russian cities to enhance economic ties,” the report said.

Iran and Russia are seeking a new world order to confront the West and create a multipolar world after decades of US hegemony in the wake of the Cold War. Iran has joined groups such as BRICS and the SCO to work more closely with Russia and China.

Raisi also discussed Armenia and Azerbaijan with Putin and said he wants to maintain “regional stability” and Iran’s strategic interests, Fars reported.

“Tehran and Moscow enjoy common interests in economic, military, and security affairs, as well as a friendly relationship, [and] pursue common policies on regional and international developments, especially when it comes to taking stances in the face of the United States’ unilateral and interventionist strategies,” the report said.
Iranian hackers claim to have breached Dimona nuclear facility
Israeli experts are currently inspecting the authenticity of documents leaked by an Iranian hacker group which claims to have breached the Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev desert, Channel 12 reported on Thursday.

The hackers claim to have stolen thousands of PDF documents, including invoices, email correspondence, Excel tables, Word documents and PowerPoint presentations, according to an initial report, details of which are still under Israeli government censorship.

The hackers’ modus operandi fits with previous Iranian cyberattacks, Israel’s CheckPoint Software told Channel 12, in which an intimidating video is released announcing a successful hack and with the goal of sowing fear.

The hackers say that Israel needs to evacuate Dimona and Yeruham, a town less than 10 miles from Dimona, as they have “their hand on the switch,” according to Channel 12.

However, cyber security experts told the channel these claims are an exaggeration and that so far it appears the hackers only succeeded in stealing unclassified documents, if that.


Maine attorney general accuses father, son of spray-painting ‘Gas Jews,’ swastikas
A father and son allegedly vandalized road signs and streets in three Maine towns, as well as a city, with antisemitic words and symbols, according to a complaint which the state’s attorney general filed on Tuesday.

William Deary, 49, and Hayden Deary, 18, both of Harpswell, Maine, are accused of carrying out the anti-Jewish vandalism on or about Jan. 7 in the towns of Harpswell, Brunswick and Topsham, and the city of Bath.

“These words and symbols, defacing public property, are clearly designed to make people in our community feel unwelcome and unsafe,” stated Aaron Frey, the state attorney general. “This behavior by father and son Deary is shocking and reprehensible. My office will use the statutory authority provided to confront their bias-based threats.”

Among the texts that the father and son are accused of writing is “Gas Jews” on an intersection and on columns supporting an overpass, per the attorney general’s office. The two also allegedly spray-painted swastikas, and the numbers 88 and 14, on signs and along streets in multiple Maine towns, according to the complaint.

“As defendant Hayden Deary later told the investigating officers, the number ’88’ means ‘Heil Hitler.’ According to the complaint, the number ’14’ further represents white supremacist and racist ideology,” the attorney’s office stated. (Aitch is the eighth letter, and 14 refers to the number of words in the neo-Nazi slogan, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”)

Members of a Bath synagogue were concerned for their safety, according to the attorney general’s office, which added that an armed police officer is posted at the synagogue during Hebrew school hours on the site.
President Herzog to honor three hostages mistakenly shot by IDF
President Isaac Herzog will conduct a ceremony to honor the bravery of three hostages who escaped from their Hamas captors only to be mistakenly killed by the IDF, he announced on Wednesday.

Alon Shamriz, Yotam Haim, and Samar Talalka went to great lengths to signal their identities to the IDF after escaping captivity in mid-December. Ultimately, they approached a group of soldiers in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood, but the soldiers fired as they came near, killing all three.

“In light of the extraordinary circumstances of the event, the president decided to honor the determination, fortitude, and special bravery they demonstrated and to award their families a unique certificate of appreciation in the name of the State of Israel,” Herzog’s office said in a statement on Wednesday.

The ceremony will be held at Herzog’s official residence in Jerusalem at a later date, the statement said.

An IDF probe was launched after the hostages were killed and found that they had been shirtless and one was carrying a stick with a white flag on the end. Soldiers who saw them exit a building misidentified them as terrorists trying to lure the troops into a trap and opened fire, killing two of them. The third man ran back into the building but was shot and killed by a soldier when he ran back out of it after calling “help!” in Hebrew.

The investigation also revealed that a few days prior to the incident, in what was initially thought to be unrelated to the deadly mistaken shooting, the senior officer said that several hundred meters away troops found a building with spray paint on the wall reading “SOS” in English and another sign reading “Help, three hostages” in Hebrew.


Israelis are fifth happiest in the world despite ongoing war, report finds
Israel is ranked as the fifth happiest country in the world despite the war in Gaza and the October 7 massacre, according to the 2024 World Happiness Report, released on Wednesday.

The publication ranks happiness on a national level each year. This year, Israel earned the fifth spot out of 143 ranked countries, dropping only one spot from its ranking of fourth happiest last year.

This year’s ranking, as well as in previous years, measured happiness and subjective well-being according to three factors: life evaluation, positive emotions, and negative emotions.

Life evaluations are measured by asking respondents to evaluate their life as a whole using the image of a ladder, with the best possible life for them as a ten and the worst possible as a 0. Each respondent provides a numerical response on this scale, called the Cantril ladder.

Positive and negative emotions are measured by asking individuals yes or no questions about the following indicators: laughter, enjoyment, and interest for the positive and worry, sadness, and anger for the negative.

Israel secured the number five spot behind Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden.

Other notable rankings from the survey include Iran at number 100 of 143, the “State of Palestine” at 103, Jordan at 125, Egypt at 127, Yemen at 133, Lebanon at 142, and Afghanistan in last place.

A happiness researcher at Bar-Ilan explains the findings.
Happiness policy researcher at the Science, Technology, and Society program at Bar-Ilan University, Anat Fanti, responded to the findings, saying, “Even this year, which was one of the most difficult in the country’s history, Israel ranked in the top five of the International Happiness Index. The reason for this is that life satisfaction, the main index by which happiness is measured, is a stable index over time and refers to the characteristics of the country as a whole.”

“This means factors such as the economy, the degree of social involvement, and the health services in the country affect the ranking more than fleeting feelings. To give a more accurate picture of happiness in all countries, the report’s editors refer to the average life satisfaction in the last three years when calculating the ranking. Therefore, Israel’s ranking in fifth place in the happiness report marks the stability in life satisfaction in Israel over the last few years and not only in, for example, even during the Corona period, which was traumatic all over the world, but it was also still possible to see that the top ten of the global happiness ranking includes more or less the same countries every year.”


Dave Rubin Gives a Walking Tour Between Two of the Holiest Sites on Earth
Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” gives a beautiful walking tour between two of the holiest sites in the world, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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