Thursday, March 28, 2024

03/28 Links Pt2: VDH: Gaza: Truths Behind All the Lies; The Lord Haw-Haws of Hamas; Jewish Dems endorse challengers to Squad members; Joseph I. Lieberman, 1942-2024

From Ian:

Martin Kramer: Islam: 1,400 years embattled
In September 1973, Egypt’s leaders were looking for a name for their plan to launch a surprise attack against Israeli forces across the Suez Canal. According to the Egyptian chief of staff, Saad El Shazly, they wanted “something more inspirational than our planning title, The High Minarets.” Once the assault was set for October 6, falling in Ramadan, “Operation Badr named itself.”

This 17th of Ramadan marks 1,400 years since the battle of Badr (624), the first military confrontation between the Muslims and their opponents—in this case, the grandees of the Prophet Muhammad’s own tribe of Quraysh. He had fled their persecution in Mecca less than two years earlier (the hijra, 622), along with his followers, in order to regroup and recruit in Medina, to the north.

At Badr, southwest of Medina, Muhammad led a contingent of 313 Muslims, outnumbered three to one, to a decisive victory over the polytheists of Mecca. The Muslims killed many, took others prisoner for ransom, and secured much booty. Angels supposedly helped out. It’s considered a turning point in the fortunes of nascent Islam, demonstrating Muhammad’s skills as a commander as well as the divine favor enjoyed by the believers.

Badr received its most memorable cinematic treatment in the 1976 epic The Message, starring Anthony Quinn and bankrolled in good part by the then-dictator of Libya, Mu‘ammar Qadhafi (watch here). The movie roughly adhered to the traditional accounts of the battle: the preliminary duels by champions, the general melee, the cut-and-thrust, and the spirit of Muslim triumph. (Quinn didn’t play Muhammad, who couldn’t be depicted on film; he played Hamza, Muhammad’s companion and uncle. Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law and later caliph, also couldn’t be depicted; the double-pointed sword on screen is wielded by him, but you won’t see him.)

Badr did much to signal the character of Islam going forward. Bernard Lewis, historian of Islam (and my mentor), summarized that character in theses words:
The founder of Christianity died on the cross, and his followers endured as a persecuted minority for centuries…. Muhammad did not die on the cross. As well as a Prophet, he was a soldier and a statesman, the head of a state and the founder of an empire, and his followers were sustained by a belief in the manifestation of divine approval through success and victory. Islam was associated with power from the very beginning, from the first formative years of the Prophet and his immediate successors.

Thus did Islam find its validation in military success, which became its hallmark for a millennium. Its first decisive victory occurred at Badr, during Ramadan of the second year of the hijra, corresponding to March 624.
Victor Davis Hanson: Gaza: Truths Behind All the Lies
“Occupied Gaza.” Prior to October 7, there were roughly two million Arab citizens of Israel but no Jewish citizens in Gaza. Gazans in 2006 voted in Hamas to rule them. It summarily executed its Palestinian Authority rivals. Hamas cancelled all future scheduled elections. It established a dictatorship and diverted hundreds of billions of dollars in international aid to build a vast underground labyrinth of military installations.

So Gaza has been occupied by Hamas, not Israel, for two decades.

“Collateral Damage.” Hamas began the war by deliberately targeting civilians. It massacred them on October 7 when it invaded Israel during a time of peace and holidays. It sent more than 7,000 rockets into Israeli cities for the sole purpose of killing noncombatants. It has no vocabulary for the collateral damage of Israeli civilians, since it believes any Jewish death under any circumstances is cause for celebration.

Hamas places its terrorist centers beneath and inside hospitals, schools, and mosques. Why? Israel is assumed to have more reservations about collaterally hitting Gaza civilians than Hamas does exposing them as human shields.

“Disproportionate.” We are told Israel wrongly uses disproportionate force to retaliate in Gaza. But it does so because no nation can win a war without disproportionate violence that hurts the enemy more than it is hurt by the enemy.

The U.S. incinerated German and Japanese cities with disproportionate force to end a war both Axis powers started. The American military in Iraq nearly leveled Fallujah and Mosul by disproportional force to root out Islamic gunmen hiding among innocents. Hamas has objections to disproportionate violence—but only when it is achieved by Israel and not Hamas.

“Two-state solution.” Prior to October 7, there was a de facto three-state solution, given that Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza were all separate states ruled by their own governments, two of which were illegitimate without scheduled elections.

It was not Israel, but the people of Gaza and the West Bank who institutionalized the “from river to the sea” agenda of destroying its neighbor.

Israel would have been content to live next to an autonomous Arab Gaza and West Bank that did not seek to destroy Israel in their multigenerational efforts to form their own “one-state solution.”
Brendan O'Neill: The Lord Haw-Haws of Hamas
Lord Haw-Haw was the nickname given to William Joyce and others who broadcast Nazi propaganda in the UK during the Second World War. The Lord Haw-Haws of Hamas haven’t reached quite that level. They haven’t set up underground radio stations devoted to reading out loud every Hamas press release. But, consciously or otherwise, they do Hamas’s bidding. Spread its propaganda, hawk its lies. The activist class and much of the supposedly liberal media treat Hamas claims as good coin while being showily sceptical of everything Israel says. To such an extent that even the obvious fiction of organised rape on hospital wards was swiftly believed.

It happens over and over again. When al-Ahli Hospital was bombed last year, much of the media parroted the Hamas line that Israel did it. It later transpired that it might have been a misfired rocket from Islamic Jihad. When Hamas says more than ‘30,000 Palestinians’ have been killed, the media repeats it like a mantra. It doesn’t stop to ask not only whether the numbers are reliable, but also how many of the dead are Hamas terrorists. The idea that Israel has ‘murdered 30,000 Palestinians’ is a fiction, another war lie, essentially. The truth is that Israel is at war with Hamas, and thus it has slain many Hamas members, and in the process, as in every war in history, civilians have sadly died, too. It is rare indeed to hear such truths from the West’s Smart Set whose flapping hate for Israel has driven them into the arms of Hamas.

Some on the woke left have gone further than spewing the Hamas line – they’ve openly celebrated Hamas’s crimes. A ‘day of celebration’ is how one British left-winger described Hamas’s racist butchery of 7 October. A Cornell professor said he found Hamas’s pogrom ‘exhilarating’. A lecturer at the University of California, Irvine said Hamas’s attack had exposed ‘the Zionists’ for the ‘bloodthirsty animals that they are’. At George Washington University, ‘Glory to our martyrs’ was projected on to a wall. And there you had it: right-on campuses that spent the past two decades fearmongering about ‘rape culture’ were now cheering on mass rape.

This week’s fabricated story about rape at al-Shifa Hospital raises a chilling question: why are some quick to believe accusations of rape made by Palestinians and equally quick to discount and deny accusations of rape made by Israelis? Some of the same people who ate up the fake story about IDF rapists were dismissive of the far more substantiated reports about Hamas using rape as a weapon of war on 7 October. ‘If there was rape and sexual violence committed, we don’t see this on the footage’, they said in the aftermath of that racist pogrom. No one wants to hear this question, I know, but we have to ask it: why do they have to see a Jewish woman being raped before they’ll believe it happened?

‘Believe women’, many on the left said for years. They’ve changed their tune. Now it’s ‘Believe Palestinian women but not Israeli women’. Now it’s ‘Believe some women’. Now it’s ‘Believe it when Israelis are accused of rape but not when Israelis say they’ve suffered rape’. Actually, it’s worse. In lapping up Hamas’s claims, in embracing every horror story Hamas hawks about the Jewish State, the woke left has adopted a whole new rallying cry: ‘Believe fascists.’
John Podhoretz: Joseph I. Lieberman, 1942-2024
Indeed, his career proved an early example of the nightmarish direction in which American politics was heading when, in 2006, he was targeted by leftists in his own party for defeat—even though he was the sitting senator from the state of Connecticut, only six years removed from his vice presidential candidacy, and only three years removed from his own bid for the presidency in 2004.

For the sin of supporting a war to remove a monstrous tyrant, and for the even more egregious sin of embracing George W. Bush at the State of the Union in 2005, Democratic voters in Connecticut voted for a primary rival, Ned Lamont, in his stead. To give you a sense of the emotional capaciousness of the man, just a week after he had lost his primary, Joe gave his daughter Rebecca away in marriage to my very, very dear friend Jacob Wisse. Notwithstanding the difficult circumstances he found himself in, Joe glowed with joy the entire weekend, so devoted was he to Rebecca (also one of my closest friends) and so aware of the value of a marriage that has thrived and has since produced two beloved granddaughters.

“I am so thrilled today,” he said in his toast at the wedding, “that I would love to give you all an earmark.”

He told me—I had not spent any time talking to him until this moment—that he felt confident things would be all right. He had decided to run as an “independent Democrat” in the November election. And indeed, he beat Lamont by 10 points because the entirety of the state of Connecticut understood and wished to pay tribute to Joe’s great and surpassing value. He served out that term, retired after 24 years in the Senate, and moved to New York, where he worked as a lawyer and continued to provide sage counsel on the most important matters facing America and the Jewish people.

His career as an effective legislator was based on his determination to bridge gaps and seek to find solutions to social and political problems besetting America—while at the same time demonstrating how it was possible both to be a dedicated and patriotic American, a dedicated and faithful Jew, and a dedicated and determined Zionist.

He was cheerful, jaunty, very funny, and had about him a kind of easy and relaxed cool—in odd ways he would remind me of an image of Sinatra on one of Frank’s upbeat album covers. There will be more to say about his contributions to American life and American politics—and what it means that it may be some time until we see his like again. For now, and for the COMMENTARY family, let me say the words we say at a moment like this to his wife Hadassah, his children Becca and Matt and Hani, his stepson Ethan, and their spouses and many, many grandchildren: May you be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
The Commentary Magazine Podcast: The Lieberman Legacy
Hosted by Abe Greenwald, Christine Rosen, John Podhoretz & Matthew Continetti
Today’s podcast pays tribute to the life, times, and political wisdom of Joe Lieberman, who died yesterday at the age of 82. What was so special about him and why are we unlikely to see his style of politics and political interaction at work in American public life any time soon?
Ron Dermer on Joe Lieberman
In 2018, COMMENTARY held its annual roast, and the year’s roastee was Joseph I. Lieberman, who died yesterday at the age of 82. Among the roastees was Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, who is now serving in Israel’s cabinet. These are excerpts from his roast of Joe Lieberman:

Thank you for inviting me to be part of this special evening for Senator Lieberman. I have to tell you, Senator, I’ve done a few of these in my day, but you are one tough man to roast. There are just too many sharp edges to your personality to choose from, too many radical mood swings that everyone knows about but no one’s ever willing to talk about—that I just don’t know where to begin.

Perhaps I should start from your days at Yale. As everyone now knows, Yale is one of America’s great party schools. Tulane University? Boring. University of Miami? A snoozer.

If you want to party, Yale is the place to be. And when Senator Lieberman was a student there, things were especially wild at Yale.

Now, some of you may have heard that despite supporting Hillary in 2016, Senator Lieberman was actually considered a leading contender for the job of FBI director. What you may not know is why he didn’t get the job. You guessed it. It was the FBI background check.

Turns out that while at Yale, Joe Lieberman actually had five cups – yes, five cups—of wine at a Passover Seder, and even dressed up like Esther one Purim.

His reputation for partying would dog Joe Lieberman throughout his career. But fortunately for him, it landed him on the 2000 Democratic ticket when Al Gore was looking for a running mate “just as exciting as I am.”

Predictably, the Gore-Lieberman ticket was downright electric.


Jonathan Tobin: Biden is conciliating, rather than confronting, pro-Hamas Democrats
That’s the only way to explain why Biden seems so intent on not having his own “Sister Souljah moment” with those who are calling him “genocide Joe” and who are hounding him on the campaign trail. As The New York Times reported this week, despite the attempts of his staff to insulate the 81-year-old president from critical voices and potentially embarrassing situations, he simply can’t seem to avoid anti-Israel activists.

At one stop in Raleigh, N.C., Biden’s attempt to speak about his support for Obamacare was interrupted by a dozen protesters who began shouting about the lack of health care in the Gaza Strip, and that hospitals were being “bombed” by Israel and he was complicit in those crimes. Biden could have ignored them or pointed out that the problems there are the responsibility of the Hamas terrorists who governed Gaza as an independent Palestinian state in all but name for the past 16 years. He could have pointed out that it was Hamas that launched a genocidal war against Israel on Oct. 7 and that caused all the casualties suffered in the current conflict. It was also a moment to remind the world that not only were the accusations of Israel bombing hospitals a big lie, but that health-care facilities in Gaza have been—and are still being, as the recent Shifa Hospital military operation proved—used as Hamas command centers, as well as places where Israeli hostages were held captive.

Biden didn’t say anything like that. Instead, he told the crowd in Raleigh that those chanting against Israel and calling for a ceasefire that would crown Hamas as the victors of the war deserved to be treated with deference. “They have a point. We need to get a lot more care into Gaza,” said the president, doubling down on his administration’s stand that Palestinian civilian needs were more important than ensuring that the terrorists who started the war—and are still holding Israeli men, women and children captive—were eliminated.

Just as telling was his response to being heckled in Virginia in January when he was trying to talk about his efforts to defend legal abortions. As the Times noted, after that episode, he met privately with a small group of supporters and urged them not to view the protesters as political enemies, saying that they deserved sympathy and that their cause was “really important.”

This doesn’t just explain the decision of the administration to escalate tensions with Israel. It goes beyond Biden’s efforts to stop Israel from finishing off Hamas by attacking its remaining stronghold in Rafah. He is openly planning not just to open up more daylight between the two countries over the war against Hamas but to abandon Israel diplomatically, slow down the flow of arms and even sanction Israeli politicians as part of a campaign to force Jerusalem to bow to his will.
Eli Lake: Does Suing Colleges for Antisemitism Actually Work?
Yael Lerman, the director of the StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, one of the groups representing Jewish students at MIT in the lawsuit filed this month, said many universities are in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which protects minority students’ ability to “participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or opportunities offered by the school.”

Lerman said she wants universities to take “forceful and timely remedial action against those who violate school policies and target Jewish students for discrimination and harassment.”

But this wave of lawsuits also highlights the tension between civil rights law and free speech. Pro-Palestinian groups have accused Marcus of using these complaints to pressure college administrators to suppress political activism critical of Israel. A lawyer for Palestine Legal, Radhika Sainath, told The New York Times that the goal of these lawsuits is “not to win on the merit, but to force universities to investigate, condemn, and suppress speech supporting Palestinian rights, because they are so fearful of bad press and donor backlash.”

And yet, her critique ignores the fact universities have practiced a double standard when it comes to free speech for years. A Penn law professor, Amy Wax, was disciplined by the university for private remarks she made about African American students that were recorded on Zoom, suggesting some were not prepared for the rigors of the classroom. Other students and professors have faced sanctions from universities for speech-related offenses. But when Jewish students have complained about antisemitic speech, universities have largely been unresponsive.

Still, clamping down on campus antisemitism can go too far. After Texas governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order Wednesday mandating that his state’s higher education institutions “update free speech policies” and even consider expulsion from colleges as an appropriate punishment, free speech organization Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) accused him of overreach.

“State-mandated campus censorship violates the First Amendment and will not effectively answer antisemitism,” FIRE said in a statement. “When speech on contentious issues is subject to punishment, minds cannot be changed.”

Marcus said a better way to combat antisemitism is to target the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucracies on college campuses, which often perpetuate the notion of Jews being “oppressors.”

In the short term, universities should “audit their programs to ensure they are not disseminating the same kinds of anti-Jewish stereotypes circulating in the institution and they are not exacerbating the problems they are trying to address,” he said.

But, in the long term, the entire DEI model should be dismantled, Marcus said.

“As long as DEI programs are built upon the dichotomy of oppressors and oppressed, Jews will too often be defined as oppressors and told to own their privilege,” he said. “This entire ideological approach needs to be dismantled.”
Karol Markowicz: Your Jewish friends have a side group chat
The important part, to us, is less to see where Jews lived and died. It isn’t the “woe is us.” It’s what comes next. We look at our American Jewish children and say “Am Yisrael Chai,” “the nation of Israel lives” because it does in us, in them. They didn’t wipe us out. They didn’t win. We’re still here. We’re not taking that for granted. We come to see it so we remember.

But we also want things to be different this time. We’re not going who knows where, not this time. This time we are armed, either here in America or there in Israel. This time, it won’t be so easy.

Which takes us back to the group chats. We didn’t want to overwhelm our friends with our, well-founded or not, neuroses. So we took the conversation elsewhere and we discussed our worries about whether our kids could be safe on campus, or the weird “likes” of internet acquaintances, or the security we feel we have only in Florida, on our own time.

But the result of that is that your Jewish friends are on high alert for our safety and you may not even know why. “Wait, what happened with Candace Owens?” went one of my mixed chats recently. It’s very easy not to know all the minutiae. And it is all minutiae right up until it’s not. It’s all crazy worries, things that could never happen here, until your kids are skipping down the street in Toledo, Spain, where Jews used to live but don’t anymore.

I believe America is different, yes, better, but I’ve been worried about the path America has been on for the last few years in so many ways and, to me, this is just an extension of that. The loudest, dumbest, voices have been directing the conversations and shutting down everyone else. I’m not worried about Jew-hatred catching on, exactly, but that the forced conformity of the pandemic years, the fear of speaking up, has set a perfect stage for people to keep quiet lest they want their Facebook pages filled with rage and their employment targeted. People didn’t feel they could say the obvious, that schools should be open and that their kids should be attending. I am not sure I can count on people saying the obvious when it won’t even benefit their own children. Now everyone believes schools should have been open and of course it was a mistake to close them. It turns out everybody thought so all along! And everyone’s grandpa in Europe hid Jews in World War II. I don’t want to be commemorated on the street I used to live on after I’ve been killed for being a Jew. Save the plaque. I don’t need to be right in retrospect.
Yisrael Medad: There are signs of growing antisemitism, and Jews are at the heart of all this
Seeking acceptance?
OR IS IT that in order to feel comfortable, accepted, and safe in a Gentile society, these Jews trash Israel, various members of its government, policies of the government, or elements of Israeli society? Those suffering from the syndrome hear the music being played, and they dance accordingly. They see the welcoming applause of acceptance.

Several prominent Jews who donate to the US Democratic Party have now joined together in signing a letter from other Democratic funders, calling on President Biden to renege on his “unconditional” support for Israel’s military engagement with Hamas. They are warning him that if he continues that support, it could hurt his reelection prospects.

The increase in recent years of Jew vs Jew confrontations is an important success for the forces seeking to erase Jewish national identity. In centuries past, notwithstanding all the internal bickering, including Orthodox vs Reform, Enlightenment vs ultra-Orthodox, Hassidim vs. Litvaks, and Ashkenazim vs Sephardim, opposition to Zionism has attracted the widest range of dissentious antipathy except, perhaps, for the apostates, who cooperated with the Spanish Inquisition and the anti-Talmud condemnations.

Whether it is auto-antisemitism, seeking to assimilate, uneasiness with high-profile Jewish identity, or overt rejection of the idea of ethnicity altogether, the willingness of too many Jews to align themselves with what is obviously negative as well as harmful phenomena, like what we have been witnessing, points to psychological and social weaknesses.

The attacks on AIPAC, the sit-ins at major Jewish organizations, the cooperation with pro-Palestine forces on campuses, and the rampaging through the streets have long superseded the norm of protests. These actions constitute battles. There is irrational anger displayed. There are signs of growing antisemitism. And Jews are at the heart of all this.

The organ is grinding out raucous and off-tune music. And the monkey is baring teeth.
Feminist Silence: Hamas's Sexual Violence
In November 2023, it was reported that the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, notwithstanding overwhelming evidence to the contrary, claimed the evidence against Hamas "was 'not solid' enough to warrant a statement" -- to which London's Victims' Commissioner, Claire Waxman, replied: "How can we talk about eliminating violence against women and girls if we are tacitly saying its acceptable to rape Jewish ones?"

Alsalem, from Jordan, claims the charges against Israeli forces are "reasonably credible," but refuses to divulge the source. In reality, no credible or proven instance of this behaviour by Israel's forces in Gaza since October 7 has been publicly recorded.

"Organizations that fight for LGBT rights condemned the country that allows freedom, and marched for a terrorist organization that punishes gay people with death." — Jared Kushner, townhall.com, March 7, 2024.

"Above all, we must at all times remember what intellectuals habitually forget: that people matter more than concepts and must come first. The worst of all despotisms is the heartless tyranny of ideas." — Paul Johnson, historian, thepublicdiscourse.com, January 23, 2023.

Early women's liberation movements, forerunners to present feminist activism, were founded to proclaim women's rights to social equality. Radical feminism, as a narrow expression of the original movement, fails spectacularly in exemplifying society's moral and ethical precepts. Its advocates appear to prioritize narcissistic, egocentric identity ideologies over the sanctity, dignity, and ontological security of the individual woman.

"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." — Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, December 10, 1986.
How October 7 exposed Irish feminists as hypocrites
The gender-based violence Jewish women and girls were subjected to en masse incited no public condemnation from the taxpayer-funded National Women’s Council (NWC) of Ireland. However, they did see fit to share an Irish Times article-written by another Irish ‘feminist’ Justine McCarthy-that contained appalling Holocaust inversion. In this same post on X, they announced they would be marching as an organisation at the National March for Palestine the next day. The NWC purports to be an organisation: ‘where every woman enjoys true equality, and no woman is left behind’. It seems they have failed in this mission.

This dehumanisation is emblematic of a particularly virulent manifestation of antisemitism in my country. It is a deep prejudice that permeates Irish society from the top down, the prevalence of which has become infamous amongst the Jewish community globally.

I’m heartbroken to bear witness to the fact that this prejudice is ingrained in many Irish women whom I used to respect, admire, and love. ‘Feminist’ friends have almost universally sanitised Hamas’ atrocities in conversations. They prosaically describe 7/10 as a ‘sad loss of life’: notably omitting the specific sexual violence perpetrated against Jewish women and girls. Further, I see them engaging in inhumane rhetoric online that places the blame for this ‘sadness’ firmly on the shoulders of the victims themselves: ‘victim blaming’.

It is devastating beyond measure that so many fellow Irish women could not extend the principle of ‘ní saoirse go saoirse go mBan’ to Jewish victims of gender-based violence: the sheer evilness of which is beyond human comprehension. It suggests that, to them, above being women and girls, they were just Jews who deserved it.

The weight of the unspeakable agony that these victims endured in their final moments is one carried by the Jewish community globally: an agony that echoes the brutality inflicted on Jewish women for millennia.

It is a weight made infinitely heavier by the profound betrayal of so many ‘feminists’. Author Rena Lipiner Katz, daughter of Holocaust survivors, searingly wrote on X: ‘after 40 years of self-identification as a feminist, I renounce it. Women’s groups have abandoned me and my Jewish sisters by politicising feminism and left us exposed once again to a brutality unseen in history. I am a Jew’.
Ben Shapiro’s split with Candace Owens reflects how Israel and antisemitism are also dividing the right
But like so many other ideological alliances, their bond has frayed and now broken since Oct. 7, as Shapiro has staunchly defended Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and Owens has condemned it, veering into what many call antisemitic stereotypes. On Friday, the Daily Wire’s CEO, Jeremy Boreing, announced on X that Owens and the right-wing news site had “ended their relationship.”

His post was shared by both Shapiro and Owens, who later added, “The rumors are true — I am finally free.”

The move came following a busy few weeks in which Owens feuded with a series of conservative Jewish critics about whether her views were antisemitic. In the process she has made and endorsed comments with roots in antisemitic stereotypes including the blood libel. Last week, her views were praised by avowed white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.

On Monday Owens posted on X that she was being unjustly maligned.

“A group of nasty people tried to spearhead a PR campaign behind the scenes to smear me as antisemitic when it was announced that I parted ways with the Daily Wire,” she wrote. She later continued, “No one is buying the ridiculous storyline that I suddenly became an antisemite, no matter how powerful the network of smear merchants are working to try to make that a thing.”

The breakdown over Owens, and the end of her alliance with Shapiro, demonstrates that the right-wing media landscape is not immune to the debates over Israel and Gaza that have plagued all manner of left-leaning institutions, from cultural centers to college campuses to the Democratic Party. As in those spaces, Oct. 7 and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war have led to a split among the conservative commentariat over whether Israel’s actions are justified, and over what counts as antisemitic.

“It was very obvious this thing was not going to end well. If you know Candace she kind of likes these fights,” Dave Rubin, another Jewish right-wing commentator and provocateur who has been close with both Owens and Shapiro, said on his podcast last week. “She kind of likes those things, and Ben has a position that’s held very close to his heart.”
My Final Word on Candace Owens Leaving Daily Wire | Ben Shapiro
Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” talks to Ben Shapiro about Candace Owens and Daily Wire parting ways, and debunks some of the rumors around her departure; why he reduced his Twitter usage; the confusion around free speech, particularly in business relationships; why platforms should be more open than publishers that have editorial positions; and much more.


Rabbi Shmuley vs Daily Wire: Jewish influencers clash in online drama
The spat between Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and conservative outlet Daily Wire escalated this week following the departure of pundit Candace Owens from the organization, with Boteach calling the Wire antisemitic and cowardly for refusing to debate him.

Owens and Boteach had publicly sparred online, with Boteach accusing the commentator of spreading antisemitic conspiracies and pro-Hamas propaganda and Owens contending that the rabbi had engaged in a harassment campaign to force his political beliefs on her.

Last Monday, Owens liked a social media post that had asked if Boteach was "drunk on Christian blood." Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro had also been critical of Owens for her "absolutely disgraceful" criticism of Israel during the October 7 War, but Shapiro and the Wire said that she would continue to work at the company, drawing the ire of Boteach.

Wire co-founder Jeremy Boreing posted on X on Friday that "Daily Wire and Candace Owens have ended their relationship," and Owens herself wrote, "The rumors are true — I am finally free."

On Sunday, Boteach celebrated Purim by wearing a costume that he said depicted Owen's impressions of Jews, with a shirt depicting dollar bills, a large fake nose, and a cup to represent "Christian blood."

He celebrated Owen's departure from The Wire on Tuesday, addressing Shapiro on social media and claiming that "It was only our activism that forced you to take action against arch antisemite, Candace Owens, off whom you were making millions of dollars even as she assailed Jews as murderers and Israel as genocidal."

Responding to calls for Boreing to respond to Boteach and alleged harassment of Owens, the Wire co-founder said on social media on Monday that "I have avoided commenting publicly on Rabbi Shmuley because, as far as I can tell, the man is an attention whore of the highest order."
Dumisani Washington: Candace Owens Normalizes Antisemitism
Oct. 7th has led to an upsurge in antisemitism and tensions in the decades-old alliance between Blacks and Jews in America. Moreover, leading African American voices like Candace Owens and Kanye West have pushed anti-Jewish tropes. Is the relationship irreparable? What can be done to combat antisemitism and the forces that are driving a wedge between the two communities.

To discuss all this, JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin is joined by Pastor Dumisani Washington, founder of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI). He unpacks how some in the black community have chosen to care more about the Palestinians than their own communities.


Jewish Dems endorse challengers to Squad members Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush
The Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) on Thursday announced its endorsement of primary challengers to two far-left lawmakers, the first time the group — which is closely aligned with the Democratic Party — has backed candidates who are challenging Democratic incumbents.

JDCA offered its support to George Latimer, the Westchester County executive who is taking on Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), and Wesley Bell, a St. Louis prosecutor looking to unseat Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO). Both Bowman and Bush have held strongly anti-Israel views since first elected — and have only amplified their animus since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks.

But they are also vulnerable because of scandals that are unrelated to Israel. Bush is under criminal investigation over alleged misspending of federal security money. Bowman pled guilty to a misdemeanor for pulling a fire alarm in a House office building last fall.

When explaining the endorsements, a JDCA spokesperson did not emphasize the candidates’ positions on Israel, saying that Israel is only one of many factors considered.

“We understand that Wesley Bell and George Latimer are supporting the priorities that Jewish Americans are prioritizing when they go to the polls,” said JDCA Communications Director Sam Crystal. “We know that they are fighting for abortion rights and for defending our democracy, and for safer communities and combating gun violence, and health care for all, and in support of Israel and combating antisemitism.”

Bush and Bowman are not the only members of the far-left Squad who are facing primary challengers. But JDCA chose to throw its support behind Latimer and Bell because it views those races as winnable. Left off the endorsement list is Democrat Bhavini Patel, who is running against Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) in next month’s Pennsylvania primary. Lee has faced similar controversies over her strident criticisms of Israel and associations with antisemitic groups.
Jamaal Bowman, Jews are not victims
It’s no surprise that one of Israel’s harshest critics in Washington doesn’t understand Judaism, even as he uses it to obscure his antisemitism.

Recently, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a card-carrying member of the leftist “Squad,” wished the Jewish community a happy Purim on X.

“Chag Purim sameach to all of those in the Jewish community! Let today be filled with joy, hamantashen, and costumes,” he wrote. “As the Megillah is reread, let’s remind ourselves of the incredible bravery of Esther and the resilience of the Jewish community.”

Bowman was quickly roasted as a hypocrite who cares little about the “resilience of the Jewish community.”

After all, Bowman is an unrepentant, one-sided critic of Israel. Even before Oct. 7, Bowman blamed Israel exclusively for the lack of peace in the region. He spearheaded a bicameral letter with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) calling on the Biden administration to “undertake a shift in U.S. policy” towards Israel.

Oct. 7 should have been a wake-up call for Bowman. It wasn’t. Only a month after Hamas’s horrific massacre, Bowman was already calling for a ceasefire and defending this call as “uplifting deeply what it actually means to be Jewish.” (Bowman is not Jewish, deeply or otherwise.) A few days later, in a newly unearthed social-media video, Bowman derided reports of Hamas raping Israeli women and beheading babies a “lie” and “propaganda.”

He also has the ignominious honor of losing the left-wing lobby J Street’s endorsement—not an easy feat for your run-of-the-mill anti-Israel liberal—for calling Israel’s military operation in Gaza “genocide.”

This background makes Bowman’s Purim post bad enough. It takes a special kind of hubris—or chutzpah—to praise the Jewish people’s survival centuries ago while undermining their survival today.

It also takes a special kind of ignorance.


Women attacked in Italy for standing with Israeli flag
Jasmin Kolodro, an Israeli living in Italy attacked in Italy for standing with an Israeli flag speaks with i24NEWS.


Seth Mandel: When Stars Bungle Their Big Political Moments
Berman was undeterred by reality: “Glazer was taking a real risk by speaking up for Palestinians on Hollywood’s biggest stage. In November, Susan Sarandon was dropped by her talent agency and actress Melissa Barrera was fired from a role in Scream VII for expressing certain pro-Palestinian views.”

Is that what happened? I remember it slightly differently, and The Hill story that quotes Lennox seems to confirm my recollection of events: “actor Melissa Barrera was booted from ‘Scream VII’ following what the production company behind the film called her ‘hate speech’ on social media about the Israel-Hamas war. Barrera had reportedly referred to Israel as a ‘colonized’ land and circulated an ‘antisemitic trope that Jews control the media.’”

Quite so: The comments that got her in trouble weren’t about Palestinians at all. She just has nasty things to say about Jews.

But that actually gets at an interesting point raised by The Hill. The story, written by Judy Kurtz, is about the fact that celebrities seem to have slowed down on their political endorsements and activism for the 2024 election compared to previous cycles. Kurtz asks celebrities and public-relations professionals why that might be. She gets an unusually honest collective answer.

The comedian Nikki Glaser tells Kurtz she doesn’t like to do political bits in her standup because she cares too much about politics, which leads to worse comedy: “I’m too angry about it. And you know, if I get too angry, sometimes it can be funny, but it’s like I’m too angry to be funny and people can sense that. It turns you off when you’re watching someone just like rage and lose control.”

Glaser is saying something I wish more performers understood: She’s not afraid of politics, she’s afraid of being a terrible comedian. Kevin Hart said the same thing for basically the same reason: “We all have lanes, and there’s nothing wrong with operating in the lane that’s best for you.”

Words to live by. Annie Lennox desperately wants to have something interesting to say, but she doesn’t. Melissa Barrera thought she could express her feelings about Jews without falling into anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, but she couldn’t. Jonathan Glazer attempted to make a clear and compelling moral statement, but it was beyond his skill set. Luckily for them—and for us—none of them quit their day job.
PreOccupiedTerritory: Office Of Inquisition Revived For Use Against Insufficiently ‘Pro-Palestine’ Jews (satire)
A mostly-moribund institution of the Roman Catholic Church that for hundreds of years investigated and led to the punishment of heretics within the faith found new life today when a group of pro-Palestine activists appropriated it and its methods to target Jews in their movements whose fervor for dehumanizing and persecuting other Jews in the name of a free Palestine has proved too tepid.

Members of Students for Justice in Palestine, BDS, and more than a dozen other allied groups dedicated to dismantling the Jewish State and replacing it with yet another repressive Islamic dictatorship, announced today that they have assumed control of the Office of the Inquisition, which ceased to function by that name more than a hundred years ago, and executed its last convicted heretic in 1826, though other punishments were levied for several more years. The group will use the Inquisition’s tactics and what it believes were the Inquisition’s equipment to identify, investigate, prosecute, and, if necessary, penalize progressive Jews unwilling to countenance any and all violence against Jews and others to free Palestine by any means necessary.

“Anyone with insufficient devotion to freeing Palestine through blood and fire cannot claim to be progressive,” explained Linda Sarsour, a former campaign surrogate of Senator Bernie Sanders. “Too many of our Jewish allies have shown hesitancy in that regard. They betray their unwillingness to prioritize the honor and redemption that only the violent destruction of Israel can accomplish, given the shame that Israel’s continued existence engenders in Muslims. Those accused heretics will either recant their heresies against the Palestinocentric view of the universe, as the heretics of old were induced to do, or face punishment.”
Young Canadians lead nation in Holocaust skepticism, support for Hamas: poll
Young Canadians are more likely than the rest of the population to believe that the Holocaust was exaggerated, and these skeptics are more likely to hold a negative view of Jews and a favourable view of Hamas, according to a new national poll.

One in six Canadians (16 per cent) between the ages of 18 and 24 believe the Holocaust was exaggerated, double that of 25- to 34-year-olds (eight per cent) and eight times greater than those 65 and older (two per cent), according to the Leger survey commissioned by the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) in February. Only five per cent of Canadians overall hold this view.

Jack Jedwab, the president of ACS, cautioned against conflating the findings of Holocaust skepticism with outright denial.

“I wouldn’t necessarily use the word denial as it doesn’t suggest that they think the Holocaust didn’t take place – though some of the group surely subscribe to that – it’s more that they minimize or trivialize the Holocaust, by questioning its scale and/or other aspects of it,” he told National Post in an email.

The survey also found a nexus between Holocaust skepticism, negative opinions of Jews and support for Hamas.

While 74 per cent of respondents who believe the Holocaust was not exaggerated have a positive opinion of Canadian Jews, less than half (47.1 per cent) of skeptics feel the same. Indeed, the opinion of Holocaust skeptics is virtually evenly split, with a similar share (47 per cent) holding a negative view of Jews. By comparison, less than one sixth (14.6 per cent) of those who say the Holocaust was not exaggerated have a negative view of the religious community.

Among U.S. respondents, eight per cent said the Holocaust is exaggerated, including 15 per cent of those aged 18 to 29, 12 per cent of 30- to 39-year-olds and 10 per cent of people aged 40 to 49. Fewer than five per cent of people over 50 felt the same way. About 40 per cent of Americans who doubted the historical account of the Holocaust also had a negative view of Jews.

The findings square with recent polling in the United States from YouGov showing 20 per cent of Americans between 18 and 29 saw the Holocaust as a myth, with over a fifth (23 per cent) arguing that aspects of the genocide are exaggerated.


Angry anti-Israel protesters dump and throw manure near US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s home
It was a rainy day in the Washington, DC, area Wednesday — but for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, 70, it comes on the heels of a rather crappy one.

Earlier this week, anti-Israel protesters slung manure outside Austin’s home, in an apparent reprisal for his support of the Jewish state.

“Austin, Austin, you ain’t s***, we’ll keep fighting until you quit,” the angry poo-per-trators were heard yelling in a video captured by fellow activists.

“Austin, Austin, rise and shine, occupation is a crime!”

The protesters were masked in the video and stood proudly in front of a giant heap of manure placed on top of a tarp on the street near his home Monday.

They also released smoke that appeared to match the colors of the Palestinian flag.

On that same day, a similar group of protesters also hurled droppings near the home of White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, 47.

That triggered a Secret Service investigation and a bomb squad response.

“Sullivan, Sullivan, you can’t hide, you’re committing genocide!” demonstrators chanted outside Sullivan’s home.


Protesters attack Israel-Norway soccer match throw rocks, fireworks at
Anti-Israel Protesters threw rocks and fireworks at police as they attempted to disrupt an Israel-Norway under 19 soccer match in Skien on Tuesday.

Video posted by pro-Palestinian activists showed protesters clashing with police in riot gear. Demonstrators banged on the gates to the Skagerak Arena while police doused them with pepper spray.

Protesters wearing keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags berated the officers and picked up loose gravel to hurl through the gate.

"Norway and Israel played a football match, so how can Russia be boycotted from all sports arenas while Israel is still in every sports scene and Eurovision while committing genocide of the Palestinian people?? Double standards!" Photographer and activist Eyad Al Zaro wrote on Instagram on Tuesday.

The Norwegian Football Federation had decided last Tuesday to close the match to spectators after "an overall assessment of the safety of the players and the public."


Met facing calls to cancel notorious pro-Iran Islamist Quds Days rally in London
The Metropolitan Police are facing calls to ban the notorious annual Al Quds Day march as the government’s adviser on political violence warns it could provoke “serious disorder” and fan the flames of antisemitism.

Politicians from both sides of the house said that Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley should crack down on the “Iran-inspired” event, scheduled for next Friday. In previous years, it has seen demands for Israel’s destruction and open support for terror groups supported by the Islamic Republic.

Lord Walney, the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption, said that allowing the “notorious anti-Israel jamboree” to go ahead would risk “serious disorder and antisemitic hatred” after October 7.

A Community Security Trust spokesperson called the event “a march predicated on anti-Israel hate” that was “inspired by the government of Iran with all the extremism and antisemitism that entails”. The Jewish Leadership Council said the support for terrorism seen from some at the annual event was “incredibly disturbing for the Jewish community”.

Both main parties’ London mayoral candidates also expressed deep concern.

Speaking at the Jewish community centre JW3 on Tuesday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan revealed he had asked then home secretary Amber Rudd to ban the annual march back in 2017.

“In previous years there were Hezbollah flags flown at the Quds march and there was language that was clearly – in my view – breaking the law,” Khan said, adding he intended to discuss it at a meeting with Home Secretary James Cleverly later this week.
Pro-Palestine protesters storm Tesco store yelling 'your profits are covered in Palestinian blood' over megaphones as confused shoppers watch on
Pro-Palestine protestors have be seen storming a Tesco store in London yelling into megaphones 'your profits are covered in Palestinian blood' whilst confused shoppers look on.

Mobile phone footage shows activists storming the supermarket in Upton Park calling for people to 'boycott Tesco' as they march up and down the shop's aisles.

Shocked customers and helpless staff members watch on as the group make their way to the tills, where they can also be heard shouting 'free Palestine'.

One protestor, wearing all black and draped in a Palestinian flag, can be seen with two megaphones strapped above his head with a sign that reads: 'Stop killing children.'


Protesters chant 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' as they occupy Government department over arms links with Israel
Pro-Palestine protesters have occupied the entrance to a Government department in Whitehall over its perceived links to the supply of arms to Israel.

London for a Free Palestine targeted the Department for Business and Trade early on Thursday.

It comes after pro-Palestine protestors stormed a Tesco store in London yesterday yelling into megaphones 'your profits are covered in Palestinian blood' whilst confused shoppers looked on.

The protesters staged a distraction involving a cyclist crashing into a pedestrian, before forcing their way past a security guard and sitting on the floor in the entrance to the Government building.

They then chanted the contentious slogan 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free'.

Zak Suffee, 37, who works as a charity campaigner, said the department was 'where the arms contracts are agreed for Israel'.


Cinema in trendy Dalston put under investigation by The Charity Commission after it vowed to boycott screening this year's Eurovision Song Contest final over Israel's participation
The Charity Commission will investigate a cinema in East London, after it vowed to boycott this year's Eurovision Song Contest final over Israel's participation in the contest.

In a letter to Conservative MP Michael Ellis, The Charity Commission admitted that Rio Cinema's behaviour appears to be 'concerning' and that they had also 'received concerns from members of the public.'

Head of Compliance Joshua Farbridge added that The Charity Commission would be launching a 'regulatory compliance case' into the charity to assess whether there had been 'wrongdoing'.

It comes after politicians and Jewish organisations wrote to the Charity Commission amidst concerns that its decision to snub the contest contravenes the Charity Commission's rules as well as the charities own stated principles.

In a letter to the Charity Commission Conservative MP Michael Ellis condemned the cinema for snubbing a 'popular international music competition because the only Jewish nation is competing.'
Controversial murals painted across walls and buildings across London's 'Little Palestine' celebrating figures in Gaza conflict are covered in pro-Israel graffiti including the Star of David and the words 'F*** Hamas'
Palestinian murals painted onto walls and buildings across London's 'Little Palestine' celebrating those working during the bitter conflict in Gaza have been covered in pro-Israel graffiti including the Star of David and the words 'F*** Hamas', MailOnline can reveal.

Several elaborate pro-Palestine murals have been painted onto walls and buildings across London controversially celebrating those working in Gaza - but at least two of those lionised in these pictures have previously been accused of anti-semitism.

And many have now been over painted by pro-Israeli graffiti, we have found.

Meanwhile many have found the presence of such politicised wall art intimidating - with one resident saying they are like something out of 1970s Belfast at the height of the troubles - completely inappropriate for London.'

The murals are part of a controversial project called 'Heroes of Palestine' and are all emblazoned with the country's distinctive flag - the black, white and green horizontal stripes with a red triangle along the hoist.

Most of the artwork is in East London, where one council, Tower Hamlets, has already been forced to order the removal of a proliferation of Palestinian flags from official buildings and lampposts amid concerns their presence was intimidating Jewish residents.


Palestine demonstrators heckle Holocaust survivor at Berkeley City Council meeting
A Berkeley City Council meeting on Tuesday descended into chaos as a mob of pro-Palestine demonstrators harassed council members and Israel supporters, calling them “Zionist pigs”, “genocide enablers”, “murderers” and “money suckers”.

Jewish News of Northern California reported that a group of about 10 Israel supporters sat at the front of the room while roughly 30 demonstrators held signs with the faces of Gazans who have been killed and chanted between every speech “murdered by Israel”.

Susanne DeWitt, 89, chairman of the Israel Action Committee of the East Bay and a Holocaust survivor from Germany, was shouted down while speaking about the October 7 attacks and rising antisemitism in the US, with one protester shouting, “Lies!”

During the twice monthly meeting, the council met to discuss, among a number of other items, a declaration to honour Yom HaShoah, the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day which will fall on 5 May this year, and the allocation of funds for the city’s virtual event.

Both items, proposed by council member Susan Wengraf, were passed unanimously, but Wengraf said that discussing the Holocaust with anti-Israel demonstrators led to an escalation of hostility.

Council member Wengraf told Jewish News of Northern California that since October, council meetings have been “horrendous.” Demonstrators have been particularly enraged by Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín, who refused to bring a ceasefire resolution before the council in November. He put out a statement at the time which said: “These resolutions will not end the violence abroad, but they do fan the flames of hatred here at home. That’s a threat I cannot ignore.”


Columbia University probing ‘Resistance 101’ student event where speakers hailed Hamas
Columbia University is investigating a student event where speakers expressed support for Palestinian terror groups and encouraged students to back “armed resistance” against Israel.

The event on Sunday, titled “Resistance 101,” was led by Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student organizations. The two lead groups in the coalition are the school’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace, which have been suspended from campus for violating university protest policies.

During the event, speakers repeatedly backed Palestinian “resistance,” which in their view included open support for Hamas. One of the speakers, Khaled Barakat, a Palestinian writer and activist, referred to his “friends and brothers in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP,” according to a video of the entire event posted on X, formerly Twitter, by user Stu Smith.

“When they see students organizing outside Palestine, they really feel that they are being backed as a resistance,” said Barakat, who is based in Canada. “Your work is so important to the resistance in Gaza.”

Other speakers at the event also backed Palestinian terror groups. Some participants attended the event in person while others spoke via videoconference. It wasn’t clear from the video how many students attended. A representative of National Students for Justice in Palestine was also at the event.

“There is nothing wrong with being a member of Hamas, being a leader of Hamas, being a fighter in Hamas,“ said Charlotte Kates, Barakat’s wife and a coordinator for Samidoun, a pro-Palestinian activist group that was banned from Germany in November for supporting terrorism, has been sanctioned by financial companies and, according to Israel, is linked to the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Kates and Barakat are banned from entering the European Union, Samidoun said in 2022.

Kates also urged attendees to show support for “Palestinian armed resistance” at demonstrations and backed the October 7 attack, which killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 250 hostage. On Tuesday, a former hostage, Amit Soussana, said in a New York Times report that her captors sexually assaulted and tortured her while she was in Gaza.


Columbia 'Palestinian Resistance' Event Violates YouTube Policy Against Promotion of Terrorism, Video Platform Says
YouTube removed a Washington Free Beacon video of a "Palestinian Resistance 101" event held at Columbia University, with the platform saying the video violates its policy that bars users from praising, promoting, or aiding terrorists.

The Sunday event, which was hosted by the student group Columbia University Apartheid Divest, featured terror-tied speakers who lauded violence against Jews. Charlotte Kates, a member of the Israeli-designated terror group Samidoun, praised Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack for showing "the potential of a future for Palestine liberated from Zionism," while Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine activist Khaled Barakat lauded airplane hijackings.

The Free Beacon attended the event virtually and posted a highlight video on Monday. Two days later, on Wednesday, YouTube contacted the Free Beacon to say it removed the video for violating "our violent criminal organizations policy."

"Content that intends to praise, promote, or aid violent extremist or criminal organizations isn't allowed on YouTube," the email said.

"We know this might be disappointing, but it's important to us that YouTube is a safe place for all."


US House Committee Announces Investigation Into Antisemitism at Rutgers University
Rutgers University in New Jersey has been named as the latest school being investigated by the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce for allegedly ignoring antisemitism for years and allowing an open season on hate toward Jewish students.

“Rutgers stands out for the intensity and pervasiveness of antisemitism on its campuses,” Committee Chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) wrote to high-level university officials on Wednesday. “Rutgers senior administrators, faculty, staff, academic departments and centers, and student organizations have contributed to the development of a pervasive climate of antisemitism.”

With the announcement, Rutgers University joined a slew of colleges and universities accused of disregarding complaints of bullying, discrimination, and harassment reported by Jewish students. Foxx, as well as other lawmakers, have scrutinized this alleged pattern of behavior, which persists despite the fact that virtually all higher education institutions in the US impose robust anti-discrimination policies aimed at protecting minority groups from bigotry. Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California, Berkeley are among the other schools currently being investigated by the committee.

In Wednesday’s letter, Foxx recounted numerous incidents as cause for a thorough examination of Rutgers University’s handling of antisemitism, zeroing in on the conduct of its officials employed by the Center for Security, Race, and Rights (CSRR). Foxx noted that after Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughtering of Israeli civilians, CSRR rationalized the terrorist group’s violence, saying in a public statement that it was the result of “decades of oppression and attempted erasure.”


Leeds students set the table to combat antisemitism
Jewish students in Leeds have organised a grassroots-level movement to hold discussions about Jewish identity and to combat antisemitism on campus.

This movement, known as The Table, was originally set up by second year student Shmuel von Weisl, who decided to set up a stall on campus shortly after October 7, saying that he saw “the world go upside down”, with the outpouring of antisemitism against Jewish students.

Shmuel and one other student began by handing out stickers from the table and displaying an Israeli flag.

The group has since grown to 60 members and a leadership team of 13, including non-Jewish members.

According to the group’s spokesperson, their core aims are to spread awareness of Jewish identity, to explain how Jewish students have been affected since October 7 and how they can get help.

The group’s social media officer said that he had decided to get involved following the vandalism of Leeds Hillel House, saying that he felt “very disappointed” with the statement made by the university, describing it as being “straight out of the All Lives Matter playbook”.

“We are just a grassroots movement of students, and our mission statement is to promote Jewish identity on campus”, Shmuel said. The group is firmly apolitical and welcomes engagement from those across the political spectrum, both Jewish and non-Jewish alike, he said.


Four Vanderbilt students arrested, charged with assault, vandalism over anti-Israel activity
Four Vanderbilt University students were arrested on Wednesday morning after staging a sit-in at the university’s main administration building for nearly 24 hours, demanding that the Tennessee school divest from companies that operate in Israel.

Local Nashville police charged three students with Class A misdemeanor assault after pushing a community service officer and a Vanderbilt faculty member who offered to meet with them as they rushed Kirkland Hall on Tuesday, a Vanderbilt spokesperson told Jewish Insider. A fourth student has been charged with vandalism after breaking a window on the building’s exterior on Tuesday night.

Some two dozen students who participated in the protest inside Kirkland Hall — nearly all of them donning masks — took over Chancellor Daniel Diermeier’s office, located in Kirkland. They eventually were removed early Wednesday morning after forcibly entering the building shortly after 9 a.m. the previous day.

All of the protest participants who breached the building will be placed on interim suspension, the Vanderbilt spokesperson said. During the sit-in, a protester dialed 911, claiming that their friend would experience toxic shock syndrome due to not being able to leave to change her tampon, out of fear of getting arrested. Video footage shows administrators confirming that the student would not be arrested for leaving to use a bathroom.

A reporter for the alternative weekly Nashville Scene, Eli Motycka, was detained outside the building after making repeated attempts to enter several locked doors and being asked to leave. He was later released, and not charged.


‘Dank New Rand Memes’ Facebook page changes name to ‘Vandy Alumni For Palestine’ against Facebook policy
“Dank New Rand Memes,” a private Facebook page with 10,645 members dedicated to Vanderbilt memes, changed its name to “Vandy Alumni For Palestine” on March 26 and is associated with the group Vanderbilt Alumni for Palestine. According to a post on the page written by an administrator under the name “Vandyalumni Forpalestine,” the name was changed to “mobilize a wider base.”

According to Facebook terms and policies for pages, groups and events terms and policies, the name of a page, group or event cannot be changed “in a manner that significantly alters its existing purpose.”

The page was created in 2016 by Phillip Goldberg (B.S. ‘18). In a 2017 interview with The Hustler, Goldberg explained that DNRM aimed to “bring the Vanderbilt community together.”

“When I first started the group, I picked the funniest people I knew, and I said you find the funniest people you know, you put them in, you get them started on this. It brings the community together through memes and sharing ideas of different communities and bringing up different perspectives,” Goldberg said in the interview.

Goldberg did not respond to The Hustler’s request for comment.

VAFP explained in a statement to The Hustler that the group was changed to draw attention to “complicity in the Israeli genocide of Palestine.” In the group, admin share links to an open letter to Vanderbilt administration and email templates for members to send directly to administration.

According to group member Quentin Reynolds (B.A. ‘21), members of the group were not notified of the name change until it happened. Additionally, the only administrator on the page is under the name “Vandyalumni Forpalestine.”

“I think that changing the ‘Dank New Rand Memes’ page into the ‘Vandy Alumni for Palestine’ page without any sort of warning to members was very inappropriate because the previous focus of the page had nothing to do with Palestine or Israel, or serious world issues in general,” Reynolds said in an email to The Hustler. “I understand that some people would like to raise support for Palestine, but randomly taking over a Facebook group is an exceptionally strange way to do so.”


Why the New York Times Audience, and Its Editors, Find Peter Beinart so Appealing
Given the lack of intellectual rigor, given the inaccuracies, both small-scale and big-picture, given the sloppiness of the arguments, given the utter predictability, you have to wonder, why does the Times run so much of this stuff?

I have a couple of theories.

The first is personality driven. The upper ranks of Times opinion editing have gotten taken over by individuals — editorial director Allison Benedikt, Sunday opinion editor Max Strasser — who are generally in sympathy, substantively, with Beinart in terms of their hostility to Israel.

The second is customer driven. Some portion of the Times online readership — alienated graduate students and other young, college educated liberals, along with increasing numbers of non-Americans — are looking for someone to give them a pass to hate Israel, basically to excuse their antisemitism. Beinart serves that function.

One day a few weeks after Oct. 7, I showed up to observe one of the anti-Israel rallies at Harvard, and I was surprised to see it begin with some woman who identified herself as a Jew telling everyone in attendance to remember her, their “Jewish friend,” if they felt worried that anything they were doing during the rest of the event was antisemitic. For Times readers, Beinart is the equivalent of that person — a permission-giver. When Beinart asserts “there’s nothing antisemitic” about wanting to wipe Israel, as a Jewish state, off the map, the Times readers experience it as liberating.

Beinart writes that “for an American Jewish establishment that equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism, those anti-Zionist Jews are inconvenient.” But the Times‘ audience, and Beinart’s, isn’t the American Jewish establishment. That establishment is solidly behind Israel. The Times audience is Israel-haters. For them, the equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is inconvenient, and the existence of Beinart offers a way to hate Israel while avoiding the guilt that might otherwise accompany discrimination against Jews.

Beinart pats the liberal Times readers on the back, reassuring them that not only is there no conflict between liberalism and hating Israel, it’s actually their responsibility as good liberals to hate Israel. That the Times can find a commercial audience for the enablement of Israel-hate doesn’t make the core message any less of a lie.
The Media’s Reaction to Al Jazeera’s Oct 7 Documentary Is Revealing
Al Jazeera’s latest feature-length documentary, “October 7” holds few surprises.

Those familiar with the Qatari-owned media organization will know that it has become among the biggest sources of disinformation since the start of the war, with Al Jazeera just days ago found to have fabricated a story that accused IDF soldiers of raping Palestinian women.

According to Al Jazeera, its so-called “Investigative Unit” carried out a forensic analysis of the day of the Hamas massacre — including “examining seven hours of footage from CCTV, dashcams, personal phones and headcams of dead Hamas fighters” — and concluded that “many of the worst stories that came out in the days following the attack were false.”

“This was especially true of atrocities that were used repeatedly by politicians in Israel and the West to justify the ferocity of the bombardment of the Gaza Strip, such as the mass killing of babies and allegations of widespread and systematic rape,” adds a description of the film on YouTube.

It would be a time-consuming task to refute the package of lies that comprise the full hour-long documentary — from the malicious claim that Israel killed numerous Israeli civilians and hostages on October 7 to Al Jazeera disputing whether Hamas terrorists raped Israeli victims.

HonestReporting has previously criticized Western media organizations for using Al Jazeera’s material, pointing out that a number of its journalists have been unmasked as Hamas terrorists.

And given the lack of attention the October 7 documentary received in the international press, many organizations appear to be heeding these warnings about Al Jazeera’s credibility.

Far from creating the stir Al Jazeera likely imagined, media outlets have steered clear of making any reference to the film.

Indeed, the biggest indicator of Al Jazeera’s plummeting credibility can be found in who did comment on the documentary, including well-known conspiracists, antisemites and anti-Israel activists.

For example, Guardian columnist Owen Jones, who in December released a 25-minute camera monologue in which he questioned the extent of Hamas’ war crimes, ludicrously described Al Jazeera’s propaganda as “undoubtedly the most accurate account of what happened that day…”
In Guardian op-ed, Ken Roth demonises Israel with lies on top of lies
As Executive Director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) from 1993 to 2022, Ken Roth – as NGO Monitor, as well as HRW’s former director, demonstrated – transformed the organisation from one dedicated to universal human rights into a platform for targeting Israel. Since stepping down from the NGO, and taking a position at Harvard, Roth’s malign obsession with Israel hasn’t waned – nor has his disregard for the facts, as a Guardian correction to one of his post-October 7 op-eds demonstrates.

In his Oct. 16 piece at the outlet – a mere nine days about Hamas’s massacre – Roth was already peddling ‘Israeli is committing genocide’ propaganda. But do do so, he distorted a quote by defence minister Yoav Gallant to make it seem as if he was calling to eliminate the Gaza population, while omitting the sentence which made it clear he was referring to eliminating Hamas.

Unfortunately, it was only three months later, following a piece in the Atlantic by Yair Rosenberg, that the Guardian and other outlets who used the fake quote corrected Roth’s lie.


Just as Roth was ahead of the anti-Zionist heard in promoting the genocide charge against Israel, he also was one of the first to hop on the latest libel, that the state is intentionally starving Palestinians in the Hamas-run enclave. His latest Guardian op-ed (“Israel’s attempt to destroy Unrwa is part of its starvation strategy in Gaza”, March 26) peddles lies on top of lies to reach his desired conclusion.
McGill Law Professor, Writing For TheConversation.com, Presents False Data To Support False Allegations Of Genocide In Gaza
Lawyers are expected to be detail-oriented and know the difference between fact and fiction. But in a recent commentary, an assistant professor of law at McGill University, appeared to have difficulty making that distinction.

In the absence of a single good argument as part of her claim that Israel is guilty of genocide, Priya Gupta, in her March 25 opinion column published by TheConversation.com, instead opted to throw as many curve balls as possible, evidently hoping that one of them will hit the strike zone.

But despite her efforts, Gupta’s column entitled: “Does the destruction of homes in Gaza constitute genocide?,” was built upon shifting sands of falsehoods and half-truths.

Gupta wrote that “Israel has destroyed more than 60 per cent of homes” in Gaza, and linked to an infographic from the United Nations. Embarrassingly for Gupta, the infographic she linked to does not actually claim that Israel has destroyed more than 60 percent of homes; it alleged that 60 percent of homes in Gaza have “reported damage,” a far cry from being destroyed.

Worse yet, the claim itself is highly questionable. In tiny letters in the infographic, readers are told that the source of that claim is “GMO,” or Gaza’s Government Media Office, operated by none other than Hamas, the genocidal Islamic terrorist organization responsible for launching and perpetuating the current war.

Gupta’s column continued by claiming that “the bombings of Gazan homes have also killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.”

At no point did Gupta acknowledge that once again, it is Hamas which is the only source of all casualty data from Gaza. Hamas pathologically lies to the public to achieve its political ends, including about explosions at hospitals in Gaza, about famine allegedly in Gaza, and about its deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians.
BBC framing of a story that has yet to happen
In summary, nine of those 28 items mention “Hamas battalions” while four others use the more tepid terminology “Hamas gunmen” or “Hamas forces”. Only three of the items refer to Hamas leaders and just three make any mention of the hostages. Only two of the items include any reference to tunnels, but without any explanation of their significance.

Most of the background given come in the form of quotes from Israeli officials – overwhelmingly the prime minister. In other words, in forty-four days of covering a story that has yet to happen, the BBC has failed to provide its audiences even once with a fact-based, objective explanation in its own words as to why a military operation in Rafah is considered necessary.
Language Matters: Why Meta Should Not End Ban on Arabic Word ‘Shaheed’
Picture this: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the deadly October 7 attack on Israel, is killed. Arabic Facebook feeds are filled with posts showing Hamas flags and terrorists with AK-47s at his funeral, and the captions read: “Thousands mourn the shaheed [martyr] Yahya Sinwar.”

In a few months, such sickening posts may be considered neutral content across the social media platforms of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.

That’s because Meta’s oversight board urged the social media giant this week to lift its ban on the Arabic word “shaheed,” or “martyr” in English, suggesting the word can carry a non-glorifying meaning.

But the loaded term is commonly used in the context of Palestinian and Arab violence against Jews, in Israel or abroad.

That’s how Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV described Lebanese arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, who was responsible for the bombing of Israeli and Jewish targets in Buenos Aires in the 1990s. And Iranian Press TV recently referred to the “martyrdom” of Hamas’ no.3 Marwan Issa who was killed by Israel in Gaza.

So the board’s recommendation — which Meta should outright reject — could potentially lead to the mass whitewashing of terrorism online, with dangerous ramifications for Jews’ safety worldwide.

A year ago, the oversight board announced that it had accepted a request from Meta for “a policy advisory opinion on its approach to moderating the Arabic term ‘shaheed,’ when used to refer to individuals it classifies as dangerous, including terrorists.”
TikTok’s dangerous antisemitism problem - opinion
On October 11, merely four days after Hamas and Palestinian civilians committed mass slaughter, gang-raping and pillaging our communities in the South, I did what most content creators do and turned to social media to showcase the worst reality Israel has ever faced.

Devastated and in shock after watching the slaughter of my people, I said to my TikTok audience, “For those asking if Jewish people are okay, how can we ever be okay? How can we ever be okay watching a thousand of our people being ruthlessly murdered, raped, burned, and beheaded? How can we ever be okay knowing that innocent Israelis, including babies and the elderly, are being held captive in Gaza? Jewish people are NOT okay.”

Just hours after posting it, TikTok placed a warning label on my video: “Caution: Video flagged for unverified content.”

I couldn’t believe it. Hamas admitted, published, and live-streamed their crimes on Facebook and Telegram, yet TikTok put a warning label on my video, marking me as a liar to anyone who would watch my video.

TikTok has been fueling antisemitism for years, so it should come as no surprise that the platform began flagging content about the atrocities committed against Israelis. Many creators have complained that it suppresses voices in Israel, especially when they compare the performance of their content on other apps. The battle over antisemitism on social media exists on every platform but there is something scary about watching how it is manifesting on TikTok.
Winnipeg Free Press Article Misleadingly Suggests Less Food Is Entering Gaza Now Than Before October 7
While it is accurate that roughly 500 trucks entered Gaza daily before October 7, the vast majority of them were not carrying food or medicine.

In fact, most of them were carrying building supplies, industrial supplies and other materials, and only about 70 trucks per day carried food.

Today, the number of trucks delivering food into Gaza is actually significantly higher, about 126 per day.

However, by failing to point out this enormously significant point – that there is more food being delivered into Gaza now than before the war – Longhurst helped to perpetuate the demonstrably false accusations being leveled against Israel.

In contrast to apocalyptic narratives being parroted in many corners of the news media, pictures and video footage from inside Gaza show that in many places, food is plentiful and available in marketplaces.

Longhurst quoted Bruce Guenther, a representative with the MCC alleging that Israel is guilty of carrying out a “chokehold on delivery of aid” into Gaza, and adding that “it is a crime to withhold aid to civilians…”


MEMRI: Columnist In Qatari Daily: Hatred And Hostility Are Ingrained In The Jews; The War In Gaza Is An Exact Copy Of Their Forefathers' Plot Against The Muslims In The Time Of The Prophet

Washington Fails — Again — To Gauge Iran’s Nuclear Threat
The IC appears to focus narrowly on whether it has detected Tehran carrying out so-called “weaponization” activities — a series of steps a country takes to assemble weapons-grade fissile material into an atomic weapon.

This could be problematic.

First, unless the IC has well-placed, high-level human intelligence sources or reliable signals intelligence capabilities in Iran, it must rely by default on a combination of national technical means and international monitoring to ascertain the nature and status of Iran’s atomic infrastructure. However, the Islamic Republic would likely carry out weaponization activities at highly secret and small underground military facilities, limiting the IC’s ability to detect such efforts and thereby assess categorically that Iran is not undertaking them.

Troublingly, the IC missed Iran’s construction of large uranium enrichment facilities in the past: two sites at Natanz, revealed in 2002 by an Iranian opposition group and a non-governmental organization, and initially a site at Fordow, disclosed in 2009 by the United States, Britain, and France. Moreover, those facilities were more detectable than potential weaponization sites given that they involved significant above-ground construction and tunneling, as well as Iran’s illicit procurement of equipment for uranium enrichment.

Thus, the IC’s ability to make such an unqualified declaration in their unclassified assessment about more difficult-to-find weaponization efforts should be taken with skepticism.

To that end, the IC’s statement might aim to imply that, to date, Tehran has not diverted fissile material from declared facilities to undeclared facilities, nor has the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) detected Iran enriching to weapons-grade at declared sites.

Only the IAEA has observed the latter. In January 2023, the agency found uranium particles enriched to nearly 84 percent — a stone’s throw from 90 percent, or weapons-grade — in equipment at the Fordow enrichment plant. Iran may have been practicing enrichment near 90 percent, but not created a final product, and gotten caught.

Second, documentation seized by Israel in 2018 from a secret Iranian nuclear archive indicated that Tehran planned to continue progressing its weaponization efforts after 2003 when it halted a crash nuclear weapons program, the Amad Plan. The regime intended to continue the program in an unstructured fashion, dispersing activities to both military sites and civilian research institutions.
Seth Frantzman: Iran believes Gaza war will ‘shape new world order’
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said the war in Gaza will lead to a “transformation in the unjust order that rules the world.” He made the claims at a gathering on Monday, according to Iran’s pro-government Fars News. Iran’s president appears to believe that the war in Gaza will accelerate various processes in the global order. He said that after the war, the new world order will be “very close and achievable.”

In Iran’s view, the war in Gaza is part of a larger process. It could be seen as a precursor to a major global conflict.

Battlegrounds are not the only arenas in which this war unfolds. It may include other types of struggles, such as Iran joining the BRICS and the SCO, two economic groups that are linked to China or Russia and which Iran wants to be part of in order to balance the Western-led economies such as the G7.

Raisi’s statement matters. It shows how Iran is thinking about October 7 and its long-term plans. Iran sees the fighting in Gaza as a benefit. It also sees the suffering of Gazans as a benefit. What that means is that Iran believes it can use the suffering in Gaza to take advantage of the war and exploit it for its own interests. Iran’s president also “described Palestine as the most important issue in the Muslim world and stressed that the resistance by the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip will lead to changes in the status quo in the world,” Fars News said.
US Holocaust Museum focuses on stories of Nazis’ Iranian victims
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, IranWire.com and the Arolsen Archives announced a new educational project on “Iranian victims of Nazi persecution” earlier this week.

Founded in 2013, IranWire is a “collaborative news website” run by Iranian diaspora journalists and citizen journalists in Iran, and the Arolsen Archives-International Center on Nazi Persecution, an online archive that fields questions about some 20,000 Nazi victims annually, is based in the German town of Bad Arolsen.

The new collaboration is part of the Sardari Project, which “seeks to engage with young Iranians about the history and lessons of the Holocaust, the dangers of unchecked hatred, conspiracy theories, propaganda and more.”

“The Holocaust was an event of worldwide significance; Jews and other victims of the Nazis came from all corners of the globe,” stated Tad Stahnke, director of international educational outreach in the Holocaust Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education.

“Helping Iranians look into the historical connections with the Holocaust and Nazi racism is a key part of our effort to underline the global relevance of the Holocaust,” he said.
‘Texas will continue to stand with Israel,’ says governor in campus Jew-hatred executive order
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order on Wednesday “addressing acts of antisemitism in institutions of higher education.”

“Antisemitism is never acceptable in Texas, and we will do everything we can to fight it,” he stated.

“The State of Texas stands with Israel and the Jewish community, and we must escalate our efforts to protect against antisemitism at Texas colleges and universities and across our state,” the Republican governor added. “Across the country, acts of antisemitism have grown in number, size, and danger to the Jewish community since Hamas’s deadly attack on Oct. 7.”

Abbott said the state “took immediate action to protect Jewish schools, synagogues and other key locations.”

“Many Texas colleges and universities also acted quickly to condemn antisemitism, but some radical organizations on our campuses engaged in acts that have no place in Texas,” he said. “Now, we must work to ensure that our college campuses are safe spaces for members of the Jewish community.”

The executive order notes that “protected free speech areas on Texas university campuses, as well as the buildings and parking lots of Jewish student organizations, have been covered in antisemitic graffiti.”


Pennsylvania AG candidate Jared Solomon bets fighting antisemitism is good policy — and good politics
When Pennsylvania state Rep. Jared Solomon announced a campaign for attorney general in September, he expected to focus on abortion, gun violence, fighting Donald Trump’s allegations of election fraud — standard fare for Democrats these days.

That’s all still part of his platform, alongside other legal issues like consumer protection and going after opioid manufacturers. But lately, one of the issues he talks about most is fighting antisemitism, and promising Pennsylvanians that he will be the toughest on hate crimes of the five Democrats vying to be the state’s top law enforcement official in next month’s primary.

“I was always planning to talk about my values and my Jewish identity, because that’s important to me,” said Solomon, who grew up in Philadelphia in an apartment above his great-grandparents’ kosher butcher shop. His grandfather, who fought in World War II, used to warn Solomon that “we always have to guard against the rise of antisemitism.” But Solomon, 45, always thought his grandfather’s comments were overblown.

“Post-Oct. 7, they continue to be right, in the constant drumbeat of antisemitism across the country,” Solomon told Jewish Insider in an interview last week. “It became much more important to me to be outspoken, and to actually not just be outspoken against, but to come up with concrete ways to take down the temperature of the climate and bring people together.”

Solomon’s decision to lean into his Jewishness and his support for Israel comes at a time that the Jewish state has begun to lose some supporters in the Democratic Party, particularly in states like Michigan, where party leaders and Biden campaign officials worry about losing votes from the Muslim community. But in Pennsylvania, the biggest swing state in this year’s presidential election, support for Israel is de rigueur among Democratic leaders, especially Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. John Fetterman.

Among the five Democrats running for attorney general in Pennsylvania, Solomon is leading in fundraising, although he has a fraction of the war chest that Shapiro had amassed when he ran for attorney general unopposed in 2016. Solomon’s emphasis on fighting hate crimes comes from personal conviction, but polling conducted by his team and shared with JI indicates it’s also a winning political position for him: 79% of likely Democratic voters reached in February said that Solomon being tough on hate crimes would make them more likely to vote for him.
California Lawmaker Introduces Legislation to Help Restitution of Property Stolen During Holocaust
California Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D) introduced legislation on Thursday that would assist California residents in recovering artwork and other types of personal property stolen during the Holocaust or other times of persecution.

Assembly Bill (AB) 2867 would mandate that California law must apply in lawsuits that involve such stolen items.

“This bill will ensure that Holocaust survivors and other victims of persecution can secure justice through our legal system and recover property that rightfully belongs to them and their families,” said Gabriel, who also co-chairs the California Legislative Jewish Caucus. “Our effort will make it crystal clear that California law must triumph over foreign law, that California stands with Holocaust survivors, and that cases must be decided based on truth, justice, and morality, not the misapplication of legal technicalities.”

The bill was inspired by a ruling in January by the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that a museum in Madrid, Spain, was not forced to return a famous artwork by Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro to the heirs of a Jewish woman, even though it was stolen from her by the Nazis during the Holocaust. The court ruled against the descendants of Lilly Cassirer regarding the painting Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain. The three-judge panel said the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, which is owned by the Spanish government, could maintain ownership of the artwork and decided to apply Spanish law to the case rather than California law.

“It immediately made sense to me that this was a unique opportunity to correct a historical injustice and make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again,” Gabriel told the Los Angeles Times about introducing AB 2867 after the court ruling earlier this year. “Respectfully, we think that the 9th Circuit got it wrong, and this law is going to make that crystal clear.”
'We Have Had Enough’: Dutch Jews Demand Action Against Rising Antisemitic Harassment
Jewish community leaders in the Netherlands issued a plaintive warning on Thursday concerning the continuing rise of antisemitism in the country, declaring: “We have had enough.”

In common with other EU member states, antisemitism has risen precipitously in the Netherlands since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel, with an 800 percent increase in the number of incidents recorded in the weeks immediately following the terrorist organization’s atrocities. Approximately 30,000 Jews live in the Netherlands.

High profile incidents this year have included an angry demonstration by pro-Hamas activists outside a new museum dedicated to the Holocaust, the disruption of a concert by a popular Dutch singer who has family ties to Israel, and the vicious harassment of a Jewish woman resident in an Amsterdam suburb by neighbors who discovered that her daughter serves in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Speaking to the newspaper De Telegraaf, Chanan Hertzberger — the chair of the CJO Jewish communal organization — revealed that his son had been beaten up by antisemites after he played in a soccer match. “Our youth is no longer safe at educational institutions: they are canceled, attacked, intimidated,” Hertzberger said. “It is rife and we have had enough. We are normal Dutch people and also want to be considered and treated as such. Our civil liberties are at stake; more and more Jews feel threatened and intimidated and are hiding Jewish symbols.”

Hertzberger slammed Dutch politicians for offering assurances in private but doing little to stem the antisemitic tide in public. “Where are the Ministers of Education, Mariëlle Paul and Robbert Dijkgraaf?” he asked. He also criticized former deputy prime minister Wouter Koolmees, who took over as the CEO of Netherlands Railways (NS) last October, for failing to prevent supporters of Hamas from blockading 15 train stations around the country in a series of protests during January and February.
Disgraced academic David Miller says Jewish schools are ‘radicalising pupils’
Three Jewish primary schools and one Jewish secondary school have been targeted on social media by notorious anti-Israel activist, David Miller. The schools, which the JC has decided not to name, were outed as “Zionist” in a lengthy tweet posted by Miller on Wednesday.

The disgraced former Bristol University professor is outraged that Jewish schools support Israel: “I am afraid it's not just in 'Israel' that Jewish kids are being radicalised in the racist Ideology of Zionism. It's happening in the UK too. There are actually schools in the UK which openly declare that they are ‘Zionist’” the furious post reads.

Miller appears to have trawled through the websites of several Jewish schools, searching for material that links Jewish institutions with the Jewish state. He has shared screenshots identifying the schools to his 58,000 followers.

“Kids up and down the country are being forced to sing the Hatikvah [...] This is both child abuse and a national security threat,” the anti-Israel agitator wrote.

Miller condemned one school for naming its houses after influential Zionists and he is outraged that "there is a primary school that says 'we are a Zionist school which supports the State of Israel'.”

He said that “perhaps the worst case” of Zionism in schools was a Jewish school with Muslim pupils which sang Hatikvah in assembly. “Being forced to sing the 'national' anthem of a hostile foreign state which is inherently racist and genocidal is not OK,” Miller wrote.


Gap acquires Israeli startup CB4
American retail giant Gap has acquired Israeli startup Context-Based 4 Casting (CB4). The valuation of the deal for the Tel Aviv-based company that uses AI and machine learning tools to boost retail operations, increase sales, and improve the customer experience through predictive analytics and demand sensing, wasn't announced. CB4 had previously raised $30 million. Investors in the company include Sequoia Capital, Pereg Ventures, and U.K.-based venture capital firm Octopus Ventures. CB4’s technology has been implemented by retailers including Levi’s, Urban Outfitters, Lidl, and Kum & Go.

This is Gap's first tech-based acquisition in Israel. As part of the acquisition, CB4’s team will join Gap as full-time employees.

CB4 was founded in 2013 by Prof. Irad Ben-Gal and Dr. Gonen Singer following an innovative research project at Tel Aviv University. Yoni Benshaul joined early to manage the company as a CEO. CB4 is headquartered in New York with offices in Tel Aviv and London.

“We believe artificial intelligence and machine learning will shape the future of our industry. Gap Inc. has experience working with CB4’s world-class data scientists, so we understand the impact and the wide applications their science can have across sales, inventory and consumer insights, as well as its potential to unlock value and enhance the customer experience,” said Sally Gilligan, Chief Growth Transformation Officer, and head of the Strategic Growth Office at Gap.
Teen discovers 4th century oil lamp on school trip
A teenager from a school in central Israel recently discovered a 1,600-year-old oil lamp during an annual field trip in the south, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) revealed earlier this week.

Yonatan Frankel, 16, from the Tamar Waldorf School in Hod HaSharon, found the lamp along the Scorpions Pass, a twisted section of Route 227 in Mezad Zafir, south of the Dead Sea.

A similar oil lamp was discovered at the same location 90 years ago by famous archeologist Nelson Glueck.

Yonatan initially picked up the item believing it was a rock. “It was full of dirt. I shook it off, and suddenly I saw a design. Then, I understood that this was a manmade object and not just a stone,” he said.

The lamp is believed to have been produced in Petra, Jordan, in the fourth to fifth centuries CE.

IAA senior researcher Tali Erickson-Gini said the area of Makteshim Ein Yahav, one of the nature reserves Route 227 passes through, was part of a trade route during that time.


99-year-old Holocaust survivor tends graves of soldiers killed on Oct. 7
Walking cane in hand, the small elderly man hovers over the two fresh graves, gingerly watering the potted plants adorning them. He straightens the pictures of the young men, arranges the stones and mementos, and cleans off the tombstones.

“I know what pain is,” Yaakov Lubinewski, 99, whose entire family was murdered by the Nazis eight decades ago, told a freshly bereaved Israeli father nearly six months ago in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre. “The pain will not pass, and it will be hard to recover, but remember there is something to live for.”

‘Something to live for’

It was, after all, his own life’s lesson—climbing out of the ashes of despair to build a new life—that he was sharing as he neared his centennial year.

“When I heard about the soldiers who had fallen I couldn’t contain myself and burst into tears,” Lubinewski told JNS during an interview on Tuesday in the village cemetery just east of Netanya where his wife, who passed away two years ago, is also buried. “They were just starting their lives. It touched my heart how these parents would live on.”

Lubinewski pledged to the bereaved father, whom he met the day after his son’s funeral, that he would take care of the gravesite for as long as he lived.

Lubinewski, accompanied by his faithful caretaker, Anya, has made the half-hour trek to the cemetery on his scooter every day since, walking stick in one hand and watering can in the other. He first stops at the grave of his wife, Mazal, which is bedecked with a rainbow of colorful plants, and after recounting to her the latest goings-on makes the short walk over to the military section of the cemetery and the final resting place of the two soldiers from his town who were killed during Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7. If he misses going one morning, Lubinewski comes in the evening. He never skips a day, his caretaker said.

“This is Russo, and this is Shay,” he said, gesturing to the gravesites of IDF Staff Sergeants Ofek Russo and Yaron Oree Shay, both of whom were 21 years old when they were killed. “I feel that they are like my own children,” he added. “I will be with them until I die.”

“This is my task now,” he said. “I feel it is a great privilege.”


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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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