Monday, April 01, 2024

04/01 Links Pt2: The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism; PA Religion Minister: Jews are “apes and pigs”; What Chuck Schumer Has Wrought; Ritchie Torres to 'Post': Israel is not alone

From Ian:

The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: An Interview with Andrew G. Bostom
Since the invasion of Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7 and the massacre of around 1,200 people there, antisemitic, pro-Hamas marches have swept both majority-Muslim countries and Western nations.

In London, antisemitic hate crimes are up 1,350% according to police, and pro-Hamas protestors chanted, “Oh Jews, the army of Muhammad is coming.” In the Tunisian city of Al Hammah, hundreds of people were filmed setting fire to a synagogue. In Russia’s Muslim Dagestan region, hundreds of people stormed into the main airport and onto the landing field, chanting antisemitic slogans and seeking passengers arriving on a flight from Israel. In California, a Jewish dentist was killed, and two others injured in a shooting by a Muslim. In Chicago, a Jewish man was attacked by anti-Israel protesters at an October 7 documentary screening in the Logan Square. In Paris, a Jewish man was attacked outside a synagogue; and another was stabbed in Zurich.

In the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf Region, this genocidal hatred has resulted in the ethnic cleansing of Jews. Over 850,000 Jews were forced to leave their homes in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Morocco, and several other Arab countries in the 20 years following the re-establishment of Israel in 1948. Another major exodus of Jews took place from Iran in 1979-80, following the Islamic revolution. Jews had resided in those lands for over 2,500 years. The rising Muslim population in the West has imported the same—and exceedingly violent—Jew-hatred into Western nations. Antisemitic attacks and threats abound since Hamas ignited the war in Gaza by massacring and raping Israelis on October 7. To learn about the theological and historical roots of Muslim antisemitism, I interviewed a prominent specialist and researcher on Islam, its history and theology.

Dr. Andrew G. Bostom is a leading expert on the history and scriptures of Islam. He is the author of Sharia versus Freedom: The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism and the editor of both The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History. He has also published articles and commentary on Islam in The Washington Times, National Review Online, Revue Politique, FrontPageMagazine, American Thinker, and other print and online publications. More on Bostom’s work can be found at www.andrewbostom.org/blog/. What motivated you to write The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism?

Two specific discoveries motivated my research culminating in The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism.

First, since the end of the 12th century, Al Azhar University (and its mosque) have represented the apogee of Islamic religious education, which evolved into the de facto Vatican of Sunni Islam. Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Al-Gameia, the Al-Azhar University representative in the U.S., and imam of the Islamic Cultural Center and Mosque of New York City at the time of the September 11, 2001, attacks, provided a very concrete and disturbing example of the authoritative Al-Azhar Islamic mindset exported to America. Within three days of the 9/11 jihad carnage, al-Gameia, who according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was “known for his moderate views,” sermonized, as the Tampa Bay Times reported, “calling for peace, healing, and love among people of all religions.” The good Sheikh struck an entirely different chord when he was interviewed for an Al-Azhar University website on October 4, 2001. Gameia returned to Egypt after September 11, 2001, alleging, without any substantiation, that he was being “harassed.” Gameia’s interview (original Arabic; extracts translated here) was rife with conspiratorial Islamic antisemitism, which riffed upon his invocation of what I would later come to understand are the central Quranic motifs of Jew-hatred, while equating Jews and Zionists. Al-Azhar’s representative to the U.S. melded this sacralized anti-Jewish bigotry to virulent calumnies against Americans and threats to the U.S.—whom he imagined as witless “dupes” of the Zionist Jews.

Second, in early 2005, when I was nearing completion of my initial book compendium, The Legacy of Jihad (specifically the section about jihad on the Indian subcontinent), I came across a remarkable comment by the Indian Sufi theologian Sirhindi (d. 1624). Typical of the mainstream Indian Muslim clerics of his era, Sirhindi was viscerally opposed to the reforms which characterized the latter ecumenical phase of Akbar’s 16th century reign (when Akbar became almost a Muslim-Hindu syncretist), particularly the abolition of the humiliating jizya (Quranic poll tax, as per Quran 9:29) upon the subjugated infidel Hindus. Sirhindi wrote, motivated by Akbar’s pro-Hindu reforms, that, “Whenever a Jew is killed, it is for the benefit of Islam.”
‘Elder of Ziyon’ doesn’t want readers to say, ‘I knew that already’
The Washington think tank Jewish Policy Center has called him an “essential” read half a dozen times, and the watchdog CAMERA UK said he is “indefatigable” and “one of the best pro-Israel bloggers out there.”

“Elder of Ziyon” is the pen name of a man who works in high tech and, for the past 20 years, has authored some 40,000 posts on a reader-supported, pro-Israel blog that goes by the same pseudonym. The site has received between 30,000 and 500,000 daily views, “Elder” told JNS.

The anonymous poster’s first entry was dated Aug. 15, 2004, and it ran five words, linking to an article in the Israeli press. Since then, “Elder”—whose identity is unknown to JNS—has reported longer-form material, including an investigation that led McGraw-Hill Education to pull the publication of a textbook he accused of anti-Israel propaganda.

In 2022, “Elder” self-published Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism, which Gerald Steinberg, founder of NGO Monitor, called “the essential reference handbook” in “exposing the lies behind the modern embodiment of the infamous ‘Protocols.’”

“In tackling the broad range of hate campaigns, from manipulating the slogans of international law and human rights in the United Nations, to the fake media experts and the NGO anti-Zionist jihad, the new Protocols is a concise and fact-filled response,” Steinberg added.

“Elder” spoke with JNS some four-and-a-half months before the 20th anniversary of his blog, which remains on the platform Blogger, which launched in 1999 and which Google acquired in 2003.

“Maybe people are overwhelmed with the anti-Israel arguments. They’re overwhelmed with the sheer volume of hate that’s out there,” he told JNS. “I hope to be a place that they can go to get informed.”
Seth Mandel: What Chuck Schumer Has Wrought
Congratulations to Chuck Schumer, this year’s true April Fool. The predictably vile consequences of his public attacks on Israeli democracy are here, and no doubt there will be more coming.

Schumer has long fashioned himself the shomer—Hebrew for “watchman,” a play on his last name—of Israel. But he has revealed himself instead to be more of a mashgiach, the man who officially certifies products as kosher. And he has been certifying the political version of porkchops and pepperoni.

“I’m 100% with Senator Schumer,” declared Jamaal Bowman, the Squad-adjacent Democrat who has built his brand around anti-Jewish incitement. “[Benjamin Netanyahu] needs to be removed. He is a blockade to a pathway to peace. And we need a ceasefire right now. That’s what we should be focused on, humanitarian aid, not weapons.”

Appearing on MSNBC yesterday, Bowman had more to say: “The majority of Gaza has already been destroyed through acts of collective punishment by this maniac, Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Bowman was last seen yelling on a New York street corner that Israeli women were lying about the rapes committed by Hamas terrorists. Previously, he had been cited after he was caught on camera pulling a fire alarm to prevent a congressional floor vote. So it’s possible that Bowman uses the term “maniac” as a compliment, that it’s his way of trying to find common ground with the Israeli prime minister.

There were even worse things said by people in Congress yesterday, more evidence that Schumer has helped to open the floodgates of Jew-baiting when he called for regime change in an allied country.

Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon posted yesterday: “On this Easter, let’s ponder Netanyahu’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, which has killed more than 20,000 women and children, and his restriction of humanitarian aid, which has pushed Palestinians to the brink of famine.”

There is a long tradition of using Christian holy days like Easter to scapegoat the Jews for the world’s misfortunes. The Kishinev pogrom of 1903, the most infamous of its kind and the closest relation to Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, began stirring on Easter. Warsaw was the site of an Easter pogrom in 1940—presumably folks remember what happened next.


The ICJ Must Consider Israel’s Legal Rights to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem
In a recent article, Alonso Gurmendi responded to a legal opinion released by the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists in the context of the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on the “legal consequences on practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”. The authors of the Opinion critique the assumption inherent in the request for the advisory opinion, according to which Israel has no valid legal claims under international law to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. According to Gurmendi, Israel indeed has no such claims, and arguments to the contrary reflect “legal discourse more proper to best-forgotten eras, when sovereignty was premised on racial hierarchies and colonial policies, not on national self-determination and human rights.”

In my opinion, it is essential to address Gurmendi’s claims as they express a troubling trend whereby the State of Israel’s history is rewritten as an illegitimate colonial and racist entity, rather than as the fulfillment of international promises towards a dispossessed and persecuted nation.

Gurmendi’s thesis is that Israel has no claim to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem as this violates the pre-existing rights of a Palestinian state. While Gurmendi purports to avoid the question of the Palestine Mandate’s legality, he does just that, arguing that its very raison d’étre, the creation of a Jewish national homeland, was invalid. Gurmendi revives old polemics against the Palestine Mandate’s goal, which he labels as “contentious”. Quoting Balfour, Gurmendi argues that “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” contradicted Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations by harming the “’well-being and development’ of its inhabitants”. In this ahistorical retelling, Palestine’s Class A Mandate means that it was recognized as a non-independent state. Therefore, Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence is best seen as the unilateral secession from Arab Palestine. According to Gurmendi, this secession was unjustified: “Israeli independence was therefore a matter of fact, not law.”

Gurmendi begins his historical retelling with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and insists that Ottoman title was transferred not to the Allied Powers, but to the League of Nations’ Mandate System. However, Lausanne was the successor to the Treaty of Sèvres, signed in August 1920. The Treaty of Sèvres stipulated that Syria and Mesopotamia would be the subject to Mandates as per Article 22 of Covenant (Article 94), that Palestine would also be subject to a mandate as per Article 22 for the purpose of the creation of a Jewish national home (Article 95), and that Turkey, as the successor state to the Ottoman empire, renounces all rights and titles of territory outside Europe in favour of the Allied Powers (Article 132).


Nobel Prize laureate: Israel must reoccupy Gaza Strip
Israel must reoccupy the Gaza Strip and consider rebuilding Jewish communities in the coastal terror enclave if the country wants to prevent another Oct. 7, Prof. Yisrael (Robert) Aumann says matter-of-factly.

Conversing over cups of slow-brewed, fresh filtered coffee, the 93-year-old Nobel Prize winner is confident that not only must Israel “actually remove Hamas from Gaza” but also learn from its mistake of withdrawing in the first place.

“The event that led to the current situation was the Disengagement,” Aumann says of Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza that uprooted 9,000 Jews from their homes – many of whom were once again uprooted after the Hamas massacre. “Let’s draw conclusions from that. It would be wrong to make a repeated mistake. Certainly, we should not do that in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria – whatever term you prefer – and we should not do it again in Gaza.”

Aumann, who won the Nobel Prize alongside Thomas Schelling for their work on conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis, suggests that Israel establish a military presence in Gaza and explore the possibility of resettling citizens there, similar to what it has done in the West Bank.

“There are people who call what we are doing in the West Bank ‘occupation,’ and it is,” he says. Aumann’s voice is sweet and calm; and the creases near his eyes appear smiling, no matter the subject.

“We’ve been [in the West Bank] for 57 years and still have not annexed it,” he says, stroking his long white beard. “It’s not good. We should at least declare our legitimacy. But at least we are there physically. It is more difficult for us to pull out because of those people [living there].

“That’s game theory,” he continues. “We’re giving ourselves an incentive to stay [in the West Bank]. One of the most important principles of game theory is the principle of incentives.”
JPost Editorial: New PA government has a long road ahead to prove they're serious
The Biden administration called for “revitalizing” the PA so that it can also administer the Gaza Strip once the Israel-Hamas war ends. But just last week, administration officials maintained they would reserve judgments on new PA members until they see the government’s actions. The PA is also said to be in the final stages of talks with the administration about reforming its controversial welfare policy, which includes a “pay-for-slay” or “martyr payments” program for terrorists and their families.

So what’s changed? A few things.

Firstly, the US has made it clear to Israel that although it still supports the war against Hamas, it will no longer give the Jewish state carte blanche. It made this clear in public statements against the Israeli government’s plan to expand its military operation in Rafah and its abstention (rather than veto) on the UN Security Council ceasefire resolution last week.

Secondly, although Abbas initially dismissed the idea of PA rule in Gaza at the beginning of the current war, he appears to be changing his tune. The PA, it should be recalled, ruled in Gaza until being pushed out by Hamas in 2007.

Thirdly, it is possible that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has consistently voiced his opposition to the PA retaking Gaza, is rethinking his position in the wake of US insistence that there’s no one else that could do the job if Israel does not plan to reoccupy the territory. Netanyahu has signaled that he favors a new technocratic leadership in Gaza as an alternative to the PA.

Finally, Hamas rejected the new Palestinian government as “illegitimate,” calling instead for all Palestinian factions to form a power-sharing government ahead of new elections, which have not taken place in 18 years.
Congress Mandates Increased Oversight on State’s Palestinian Affairs Office
The oversight measure requires Secretary of State Antony Blinken to issue a report to Congress every 90 days on the Palestinian Affairs Office’s funding expenditures, including its social media activity, "public diplomacy programs," and other initiatives administered by the office.

The Palestinian Affairs Office drew outrage in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel when it issued a tweet calling on Israel to stand down from any retaliatory strikes. "We urge all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing," the office wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

The message was deleted following a wave of criticism from Republican lawmakers and pro-Israel advocates who accused the Biden administration of abandoning Israel as it faced the worst terror strike in its history.

The State Department told the Washington Free Beacon at the time that the missive was erased because it "was not approved and does not represent U.S. policy."

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said lawmakers will be keeping a close eye on the office as the Biden administration leans on Israel to ink a ceasefire with Hamas, walking back its initial full-throated support for the Jewish state.

"I have called for every person involved in drafting and approving the OPA tweet to be fired, but that will have to wait for an administration that isn't stacked with Israel-hating activists," Cruz told the Free Beacon. "In the meantime, Republicans will have to keep expanding oversight over the Biden administration's insanity."

Cruz said it is outrageous that "in the opening minutes of October 7, while Hamas terrorists were in the process of committing mass atrocities against over a thousand people, including dozens of Americans, the Office of Palestinian Affairs called for Israel to stand down."

Asked about the oversight measure, a State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon that it will abide by the law.
PMW: “Revitalized” PA: New Minister of Religion: Jews are “apes and pigs”; New Minister of Women’s Affairs is a brazen terror supporter
New Minister of Religious Affairs Muhammad Mustafa Najem: “Allah turned [the Jews] into apes and pigs”

Najem: “O servants of Allah, be the ones through which Allah will afflict the Jews with the worst torment”

New Minister of Women’s Affairs Muna Al-Khalili praised the murder of 37 civilians, 12 of them children, as a “quality resistance operation”

Al-Khalili: “The selection of Dalal as commander of the operation (i.e., murdering 37) constitutes proof of the PLO’s appreciation of the role of women”

3 weeks after the Oct. 7 terror attack against Israel, Al-Khalili stressed “the Palestinian people’s right to resist”

10 days after the Oct. 7 atrocities, Al-Khalili's union honored many convicted terrorist murderers, coining them “heroic prisoners,” while she sat behind the pictures of Ibrahim Hamed (murdered 53), Akram Hamed (murdered 3), and Marwan Barghouti (murdered 5)
Israel rips ‘meaningless’ report by UNRWA review group
U.N. member states got a private look in recent days at an interim report from a U.N.-commissioned, independent review group that studied the issues of neutrality and risk management at the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Israel has charged that some employees of UNRWA—the Palestinian-only, U.N. aid and social-services agency—participated directly in Hamas’s terror attacks on Oct. 7 and that many more have ties to Palestinian terrorism. A number of countries, including the United States, subsequently pulled funding from UNRWA.

Some countries have since resumed funding, though UNRWA’s biggest donor—Washington—won’t refund the agency for at least a year.

“The interim report of the Independent Review Group is an attempt to cover up UNRWA’s failures in order to enable the refunding of the agency,” Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry stated on Friday. “All the proposals for cosmetic reforms offered by the group are meaningless and ignore the real problem that UNRWA is part of the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas.”

The Israeli ministry stated that it presented “detailed information” about Hamas’s and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s “deep penetration” in Gaza, including “that more than 2,000 UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations, that one-fifth of UNRWA school principals and deputy principals are Hamas personnel and that tunnels or other terrorist infrastructures were found in more than 30 UNRWA facilities.”

Still, Israel said, the new U.N. report “did not even include the simple statement that UNRWA should fire or refrain from employing members of Hamas and other terrorist organizations.”

In the statement, Israel urged donor countries to divert funding from UNRWA to other humanitarian organizations in Gaza.
‘Allegations are serious’: UNRWA not given ‘clean bill of health’ despite funding to resume
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has defended Labor’s decision to resume aid for UNRWA despite the organisation not yet being given a “clean bill of health”, says Liberal Senator Dave Sharma.

“The allegations are serious,” Mr Sharma told Sky News host Danica De Giorgio.

“The Foreign Minister accepts that.

“UNRWA has not been given a clean bill of health.

“There is two UN investigations underway into UNRWA’s complicity in the October 7 terrorist attacks.”




‘We’re not just facing a threat to Jews in north London – this is the shutting down of democracy’
Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt has made fighting hatred against Jews her life’s work. And since October 7, as Joe Biden’s special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism is fond of putting it, she has been working in a “growth industry”.

Lipstadt has found herself reckoning with a record wave of attacks on Jews globally in light of Hamas’s attack and Israel’s subsequent response. “Business is booming,” she joked recently of her office’s portfolio, “I’m the only one in the Biden-Harris administration hoping for a recession.”

Dark humour is one of the most powerful tools in Lipstadt’s arsenal – a useful quality when the scale of the crisis confronting her has never been more grave. She has travelled to more than 20 countries since she took on the post in 2022 at the US president’s behest.

When we meet in her office, several floors up in the State Department’s quaint wood and marble Harry S Truman building in Washington DC, she has just returned from a trip to London. Tiny, at just 5ft, but with a commanding presence, she is dressed all in black with a brightly coloured scarf around her shoulders, similar to the scarves she lent Rachel Weisz to wear when the actor portrayed her in Denial.

The film depicts the infamous libel suit the Holocaust denier David Irving, played by Timothy Spall, brought against Lipstadt, at the time a little-known but respected historian.

Her pride is palpable as she enthusiastically points to a Japanese poster of the 2016 film featuring Weisz hanging on her office wall as she enters.
The New Jew: Sorrow, Antisemitism and Fighting Back
The fact is, being Jewish can be dangerous. That’s been proven throughout thousands of years of our existence. But persecution is not an exclusive Jewish-members-only club. When the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregants of the Commonwealth and a brilliant scholar, spoke to the House of Lords in 2018, he explained it this way: “The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews… It wasn’t Jews alone who suffered under Hitler. It wasn’t Jews alone who suffered under Stalin. It isn’t Jews alone who suffer under ISIS or Al Qaeda or Islamic Jihad…” Antisemitism, he pointed out, presents a danger for all who care about decency and humanity.

Thankfully, this fact was not lost on countless people outside the Jewish world. I am not talking about countries or politicians or companies that pledged to continue supporting Israel and Jewish people. Rather, there were smaller personal gestures from non-Jewish friends and acquaintances. Many of us received messages offering support and compassion. There was the local developer who days after the attacks wrote a cheque to an Israeli cause for hundreds of thousands of dollars. My friend’s father, who gave a substantial amount of money to Israel because he was sick and tired of racism against the Jews. A former broadcast colleague who was so outraged at what was happening called to console me and participated in several Jewish rallies. Many people asked what they could do to help. The result was a feeling that we were not entirely alone, proof the world was made up of more than rampant antisemites and Israel detractors. Here was a glimmer of light. Of hope.

More rays of light emerged from a place that we as Jews had counted on since time immemorial: each other. Synagogues suddenly filled up for Shabbat services. There were solidarity rallies, expert speakers, fundraisers and other gatherings in a show of unity many had never experienced before. Communities were holding together tightly.

Persecution and slaughter don’t have to signify the end of a people’s ability to flourish. In fact, it can foster a desire to come back stronger. There is now a collective push back. The Jew in every Jew is emerging. Break our hearts but you’ll never take our souls.

That is not to say we aren’t still damaged. Things are different now, especially in Israel. Suffering and decimation changes people and entire nations. A psychiatrist friend of mine told me the effects will resonate for years, even lifetimes. It may be hidden in various forms including anxiety disorders, depression, breakdowns, drug addiction and more.

October 7th reminded us that evil is a formidable foe that can never be fully extinguished. There is no telling when life will feel entirely secure again for Jewish people. When the shofar’s melody will bring on bucolic thoughts and Jews will walk together in public without worry of condemnation or worse. Like the symbolic glass stepped on by the groom, there are still shards everywhere to clean up. Only then will it be safe to move forward.
What American Jews Can Learn from French Jews about Fighting Anti-Semitism
In France, the last three months of 2023 saw a 1,000-percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents when compared with the previous year. And this is in a country where the harassment of Jews, not to mention violent attacks, had already become commonplace. Norman J.W. Goda examines how French Jews have reacted to outbursts of anti-Semitism aimed at Israel, which have a long history:
President Charles de Gaulle’s November 1967 comments that the Jews “have remained as they have always been, an elite people, self-assured and domineering” and that Israel was “a warlike state resolved to aggrandize itself” were stunning to French Jews. . . .

Pro-Palestinian anti-Zionist organizations formed in France after the Six-Day War. They included university students who styled themselves as revolutionaries. Using the language of anti-colonialism still fresh from France’s ill-fated attempt to retain Algeria, these organizations also borrowed the legacy of the French Resistance, neatly turning the Israelis into the Nazis. French keffiyeh-wearing Communists complained of Jewish press control. “Palestine solidarity” events included distribution of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Goda argues that American Jews have much to learn from the responses of their French coreligionists:
They dissected and flatly rejected the linguistic ruses of the day, understanding that the anti-Zionism of the Third World and the European left was little more than anti-Semitism cloaked in a different kind of duplicity. They understood that if the French republican ideal truly strove for the dignity of humanity, it could in no circumstances excuse PLO terror, which strove not for human liberation, but for human destruction. . . . Most important, they found like-minded allies while speaking up, calling anti-Semitism out when they saw it, and even breaking with de Gaulle, who was still a hero to the aging former Resistance members among them.
Are French Jews making aliyah because of antisemitism or Zionism?
Surrounded by like-minded individuals, French olim find refuge

“Israel is my home,” said the student.

A French medical student studying in Switzerland said that she was interested in making aliyah so she could be surrounded by like-minded individuals.

“I’d like to be able to speak my mind and not hide my identity and opinions,” said the student.

The student said that she had endured veiled comments and uncomfortable silences in conversations with peers, such as when she had told others that she had visited Israel during the summer.

Jewish Agency France director Emmanuel Sion told The Jerusalem Post that “the main reason pushing people to make aliyah is Zionism,” and that concerns about antisemitism and the war were a contributing factor.

French Jews are very Zionist and have strong connections to Israel, said Sion, and many have wanted to move to Israel and come to help build up the state for a long time. New programs would make that easier.

Sion and other officials from the Jewish Agency and Immigration Ministry presented such a new program to local French Jews at the Grand Synagogue of Paris on Sunday night.

With blue and white mood lighting and decorations filling the hall as the residents danced, sang, and welcomed a surprise reunion between a French-Israel IDF lone soldier with parents, the atmosphere was one of celebration of Zionism and Jewish identity. There was no mention by the officials of antisemitism, though the event was held under heavy security and police protection.
Be courageous and speak out against hate, Rachel Riley tells Jewish pupils
Rachel Riley has told Jewish pupils that they need to “be courageous” in their fight against antisemitism.

Addressing around 200 participants at the Swipe-Up Rise-Up conference on Thursday, she said it was “our shift now” in standing up to Jew-hatred.

She told them: “I’m British, 100 per cent, not Israeli. I support Israel in its fight against Hamas, and in getting the hostages home, and its right to live, but I’m British. This is where my home is, where my family is, and I’m going to stay and fight.”

The conference, hosted by StandWithUs at StoneX stadium, was the second annual event aimed at educating and empowering sixth form pupils to counter disinformation and antisemitism in person and online.

The students heard from a panel discussion featuring television personality and mathematician Riley MBE, comedian and best-selling author Konstantin Kisin, and American-Israeli journalist and human rights activist Emily Schrader.

Speaking later to the JC, Riley said she had been “completely shocked” by the speed and volume of antisemitic backlash October 7 had on British Jews.

She said: “Israel and British Jews are being lumped together and portrayed as devils. It’s the old-fashioned stuff coming back with new words, and I think a lot of people who hadn’t woken up to it before October 7 are now suddenly a deer-in-headlights, shell-shocked kind of aware.”


Israeli foreign minister says hostility to Israel caused Erdogan election losses
Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Sunday claimed that the historic defeat of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party earlier in the day was due to his hostility to the Jewish state.

In an X post written in Turkish, Katz congratulated Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who was in the lead to retain his seat in the country's largest city with most of the votes counted, and Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas, who also will continue to serve in the capital.

"This is a clear message to @RTErdogan: Attacking Israel no longer works, he needs to find new materials," Katz concluded.

The opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) won 15 other mayoral races nationwide in the worst defeat suffered by Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK) since the party took power in 2003, according to Reuters.

Analysts attributed the stunning loss, which Erdogan called a "turning point" in a late-night address in Ankara, to soaring inflation, disaffected Islamist voters and the wider appeal of Imamoglu in Istanbul beyond the CHP's secular base.

"Those who do not understand the nation's message will eventually lose," Imamoglu, 53, told supporters on Sunday night, as quoted by Reuters. The former businessman is being touted as a likely challenger to unseat Erdogan, who assumed office in 2014 as the nation's 12th president.

"Tonight, 16 million Istanbul citizens sent a message to both our rivals and the president," Imamoglu continued.

Israel-Turkish relations went through a long cold spell in the early 2000s, due to Erdogan’s hostile reaction to the 2008 war against Hamas and the 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla incident.

However, the icy relations between Jerusalem and Ankara had been thawing before the Hamas attack of October 7, highlighted by the two countries restoring full diplomatic relations in 2022. These burgeoning ties took a nosedive when Erdogan decided to side with the terrorist group in its war against Israel.

In October, Jerusalem recalled its diplomats over the Turkish government’s “increasingly harsh statements.”
‘Federal ministers hold hands with terrorists,’ says Canadian parliamentarian
A bearded man, flanked by people bearing Palestinian flags, walks down a street in Canada speaking into a microphone.

“Whether it’s on the street, whether it’s at work or whether it’s in your place of worship,” he yells. “It could be at a synagogue. Everyone will be held accountable when you stand for the oppressed.”

Melissa Lantsman, a Conservative Party Jewish member of the Canadian House of Commons, shared a clip of the remarks on social media.

“Openly chanting that you will target a place of worship is the new normal in Canada,” she wrote. “Federal ministers hold hands with terrorists. City councillors line up to make statements against police officers. Provincial officials silent.”

“Wake up, Canada,” she added. “This isn’t about the Jewish community. It’s about our country.”


Activists gag Jewish congressman’s talk in school series honoring Holocaust survivors
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) was supposed to deliver a lecture—in a series named for Holocaust survivors—about contemporary threats to reason.

Anti-Israel activists took that as a reason to badger the Jewish congressman so thoroughly on March 28 that he scrapped his speech and instead took questions from the crowd before Darryll Pines—the president of the University of Maryland, College Park—ended the event prematurely.

“It’s very tough to solve problems in the Middle East here at the University of Maryland in the physics department,” Raskin told the audience, per Capital News Service.

Raskin was delivering the Maryland public university’s Irving and Renee Milchberg Endowed Lecture that honors the late parents of Howard Milchberg, a physics and electrical computer engineering professor at the school.

His parents, Holocaust survivors, “were witnesses to and victims of what can happen to society when ideology and lies are accepted in lieu of facts,” the university states. “Howard’s own decision to study physics was motivated by a compelling need for clarity and truth, which grew out of his parents’ experiences.”

Raskin had begun speaking on “Democracy, Autocracy and the Threat to Reason in the 21st Century” last Thursday at 1 p.m. at the university, but protesters interrupted him “just a few minutes” after he started talking, per the Capital News Service. The outlet stated that the event instead became “a lively discussion on the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.”

When the protesters accused Raskin of being complicit in genocide, he said he wished that they had opted to engage in dialogue rather than “heckling,” CNS reported.
Rep. Gonzales’ right-wing GOP challenger posted videos featuring Nazi imagery, songs, jokes
Brandon Herrera, a 28-year-old Republican congressional candidate challenging Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) in next month’s GOP runoff, has posted as recently as 2022 YouTube videos replete with imagery, music and jokes about the Nazi regime and the Holocaust and was also active for years with a Sons of Confederate Veterans group in North Carolina.

Herrera is running against Gonzales from his right in a district that hugs the Texas-Mexico border from San Antonio to El Paso. Gonzales garnered 45% of the vote in the early March primary, outpacing Herrera’s 25%. But since Gonzales failed to win an outright majority of the vote in the primary, he now faces Herrera in a May 28 runoff, where the challenger threatens to consolidate the right-wing vote.

Herrera is a prolific YouTuber, also known as the AK Guy, with more than 3 million subscribers, primarily posting videos about guns. In one video from 2022, he shows off the MP-40, a submachine gun developed in and widely used by Nazi Germany. He refers to it, seemingly jokingly, as “the original ghetto blaster” — apparently alluding to the Nazis’ killing of Jews.

The video, which appears to take a sarcastic tone, includes a montage of Herrera and an associate firing the weapon, goose-stepping and showing off other Nazi weaponry, set to the song “Erika,” which was popularized as a Nazi marching song and which has seen frequent use in modern neo-Nazi and far-right propaganda.

The montage culminates with Herrera’s associate, wearing a camouflage outfit with colors resembling a pattern used by the Waffen SS, beginning a Hitler salute before being stopped by Herrera, seemingly in jest.

Herrera’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Jamaal Bowman calls Netanhayu a ‘maniac’ who ‘needs to be removed’
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) echoed Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) calls for a new election in Israel to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid the rising death tolls in Gaza.

Bowman said Netanyahu “needs to be removed,” calling him a “maniac” during a Saturday MSNBC appearance. He said Netanyahu is blocking peace in the region.

“The majority of Gaza has already been destroyed through acts of collective punishment by this maniac, Benjamin Netanyahu. I’m 100% with Senator Schumer. He needs to be removed. He is a blockade to a pathway to peace,” Bowman said. “And we need a ceasefire right now. That’s what we should be focused on — humanitarian aid, not weapons.”

Bowman also criticized the Biden administration for recently giving Israel military aid, including twenty-five F-35 fighter jets. When asked if Congress should have been notified about the decision to give aid, Bowman said “Oh, absolutely.”

“Congress should have been notified and forget the politics of it. This is about our humanity, and this is about our morality,” Bowman said.

He defended his position on X that night.

“This is about people, not politics. We must do everything in our power to ensure a permanent ceasefire, not send more bombs and weapons,” Bowman posted on X. “The majority of our country and of NY-16 agree: we need lasting peace and that means a permanent ceasefire.”
Biblical scholar blasts AOC, left-wing pols for claiming Jesus was Palestinian:  ‘Rips Jesus out of his Jewish context’
A noted biblical scholar is blasting left-leaning politicians for floating the idea that Jesus Christ was a Palestinian — calling the notion “inflammatory” and saying liberals have “mischaracterized reality.”

“This Easter, let’s not try to pretend Jesus was a ‘Palestinian Jew,’” Boston University scholar Paula Fredriksen wrote in an op-ed piece published by the Washington Post last week.

“Calling Jesus a ‘Palestinian’ or even a ‘Palestinian Jew’ is all about modern politics,” Fredriksen wrote. “Besides being historically false, the claim is inflammatory. For two millennia Jews have been blamed for Jesus’ execution by the Romans. Casting him as a Palestinian just stokes the fires of hate.

“It is murder an act of cultural and political appropriation — and a clever rhetorical move,” she added. “It rips Jesus out of his Jewish context.”

Several liberals on Capitol Hill, including several “Squad” members, drew heat over Christmas by claiming that Jesus lived in an “occupied” country, drawing a parallel with present-day Palestinians who find themselves in conflict with Israel.

“In the story of Christmas, Christ was born in modern-day Palestine under the threat of a government engaged in a massacre of innocents,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said in a Christmas Day post. “He was part of a targeted population being indiscriminately killed to protect an unjust leader’s power.

“Thousands of years later, right-wing forces are violently occupying Bethlehem as similar stories unfold for today’s Palestinians, so much so that the Christian community in Bethlehem has canceled this year’s Christmas Eve celebrations out of both [fear for their] safety and respect,” she wrote.
NGO Monitor: NGO Monitor Letter to Ford Foundation Regarding Problematic Funding to DAWN
Dear Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Booker,

We write to you regarding concerns over Ford Foundation funds to the Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN).

In October 2022, the Ford Foundation approved a three-year $1,000,000 grant to DAWN to “inform US foreign policy debates on human rights and democratization in the MENA region including by increasing participation of the Arab-American diaspora and allies.”

In contrast to this declaratory agenda, DAWN’s activities reflect its role as a primary leader of legal attacks (“lawfare”) targeting Israel. As documented in detail by NGO Monitor, DAWN officials have voiced support for the Hamas terrorist group and demonized Israel following the barbaric Hamas massacre of October 7. In contrast to seeking justice for the Israeli and other victims of the atrocities, DAWN amplified the abuse of legal frameworks in order to harass Israeli officials and promoted vicious anti-Israel propaganda in the effort to harm Israel’s ability to defend its citizens.

DAWN Executive Director Sarah Leah Whitson, who has referred to “Israeli ISIS,” has a long history of antisemitism and race-baiting American Jews. For example, in March 2020, in response to a cynical tweet that “6 million jewish [sic] Israelis” will now understand life under “occupation” due to virus-related restrictions, Whitson used the classic antisemitic blood libel, lamenting that it was “such a tiny taste. Missing a tablespoon of blood.”

Since October 7, there has been a very disturbing increase in global antisemitism – which the Ford Foundation has recognized by providing grants to “combat antisemitism in the United States.” The Ford Foundation’s simultaneous support for an NGO that is contributing to antisemitism in the United States stands out as a singular contradiction.
Conference brings together Arab scholars who study Jews
A two-day conference bringing together Arab scholars who study Jews was held in the US last week. The brainchild of Yoram Meital, a professor at Ben Gurion University, it featured scholars from Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and ‘Palestine’. It was conceived two years ago. It is a sign of the times that at least one participant had to be granted anonymity for fear of retaliation by her employer. Report by the Katz Centre for Advanced Judaic Studies:

The first session was led by professor of religious Jewish thought and comparative religions at Cairo’s Ain Shams University Mohamed Hawary, professor of Middle Eastern studies at Texas Christian University Hanan Hammad, and American University of Ras Al Khaimah professor Kamal Abdel-Malek. Each speaker offered insight into the development of Jewish identity in Egypt and its contribution to current Egyptian scholarship.

“The session on Egypt was really fascinating because when Israel and Egypt had a peace treaty in 1979, Abdel-Malek was the first Egyptian student to go to Israel to study,” Weitzman said. “The other speaker [Hawary] was the first Egyptian scholar officially invited to Israel, so both of them are historic [figures].”

The second session exploring Jewish culture in Morocco opened with a presentation by Zhor Rehihil, the curator of the The Moroccan Jewish Museum in Casablanca. Casablanca functions as an ethnography institute dedicated to preserving Jewish culture in the Arabian world.

The second segment of the symposium on Tuesday continued exploring the international dynamics of Jewish scholarship throughout history. Concluding the conference, the final two sessions focused on Jewish studies in Tunisian, Algerian, and Iraqi contexts.

One participant in the event, who was granted anonymity due to a fear of retaliation from her employer, expounded upon the topics discussed on Monday in a presentation titled “The Jews of Algeria in Light of Algerian Academic Studies: the Challenges and Horizons.” The participant described the erasure of Jewish identity in Algerian history and its impact on how Jewish culture is perceived in Algerian society today.

“It is a difficult to study topic, but urgently needed and important,” the participant said. “Current studies are far from sufficient … It is important to decolonize, de-ideologize, and de-instrumentalize this topic.”
Jew Hatred Is Not the Problem at Penn (or Other Universities). Radicalism Is.
And yet, it would be a mistake to think the recent events at Penn and other American college campuses signify a true resurgence of virulent antisemitism akin to the widespread abuse Jews suffered during the 1930s in the United States, let alone in the cities of Europe. A number of factors serve to limit the current wave of anti-Jewish sentiment, but perhaps the main one is that the hostility at present really is focused on Israel, not on Jewish people as such. (See Eitan Hersh’s valuable observations about this distinction, as revealed in attitudes held by far left-wing as opposed to far right-wing college students.)

It is probably not an accident that the lead student plaintiff in the civil lawsuit against Penn is a dual Israeli American citizen, for he has reason to feel particularly vulnerable to attack under these circumstances. And while this young man succeeded in obtaining the signatures of roughly 200 Penn students on a petition to prod the university to curtail pro-Palestinian activism, that number is still a relatively small fraction (about 12%) of Penn’s overall Jewish student population. It is likely that a majority of Jews at Penn did not feel personally threatened by the events of last fall. (Two post-Oct. 7 surveys that purport to show widespread fear and anxiety among Jewish college students have drawn their respondents from those students with particularly strong attachments to Israel, in one case from a pool of young adult Jews who had applied to Birthright Israel, in the other case from students who appear to have been selected with the help of Hillel campus organizations. A more relevant recent survey, one specifically designed not to exclude students with more minimal Jewish identities, found that roughly one-third of all Jewish students expressed anxieties about being visibly Jewish on campus, about the same proportion who said they had been personally targeted by antisemitic comments, slurs, or threats. That proportion rose to somewhat less than two-thirds when respondents were asked if they believed Jewish students “pay a social penalty” for supporting Israel as a Jewish state.)

Indeed, some of Penn’s Jewish students conspicuously joined in many of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, either in formal groups or as individuals. One Jewish student group found itself in a confrontation with the university administration, when it insisted on going ahead with showing a documentary film critical of Israel’s West Bank policies despite the university’s decision to delay the showing until passions on the campus had cooled. We should not be surprised by this split among Penn’s Jewish students, because American Jews under the age of 40 hold considerably more critical opinions about Israel’s general policies toward Palestinians than do those older than 40.

The demographic characteristics of the campus protesters, so far as can be determined by second-hand observation, also fit with the demonstrators’ focus on Israel. Palestinian Americans appear to have dominated the protests at Penn, both as the leading speakers at rallies and in the makeup of the supporting crowds. Some are even Palestinians attending American colleges as foreign students—the Penn student who ripped down the Israeli flag from above the Orthodox Jewish student residence hall appears to belong to this category. Many are likely to be in contact with relatives and friends living in the West Bank or Gaza.

To some extent, the radicalism of these ethnic Americans, focused on harsh legacies from “the old country” and fueled by the desire for upward mobility in the face of perceived prejudices in their new country, resembles past waves of second-generation immigrant radicalism (among, for example, Irish, Italian, Jewish, and Mexican Americans) common throughout our country’s history. Knowing this history, however, doesn’t make anger-driven radical actions any the less worrisome for institutions, such as universities, that require openness and reasonability to operate, or for individuals, who may easily be demonized as “enemies of the people.”

Radical movements tend to suffer from an unwillingness to look inward and to recognize the failings of their own group’s past leadership, choosing instead to place all blame on their historical antagonists and the latter’s perceived representatives in the present. The pro-Palestinian campus radicals clearly suffer from this flaw, as they have uncritically carried forward the tragic failings of past Palestinian leaders to seize numerous opportunities since 1947 to build a Palestinian nation alongside Israel. As today’s pro-Palestinian radicals have attracted support from among young black, feminist, and other radicals, they have allowed themselves to demonize Israel, just as the Black Lives Matter movement and certain gender radicals have demonized white people as “privileged racists” or men as “cis-gendered patriarchs.”

As a species of scapegoating, antisemitism is inherently unpredictable in its trajectory. It is well to be on guard to see if in the future today’s political antisemitism may burst out of its current anti-Israeli boundaries or spread beyond college campuses, their adjacent youthful urban enclaves, and Arab American ethnic communities. For now, this worry remains muted by the firewall of sorts that exists in the overwhelming support for Israel shown by most Americans after the attack of Oct. 7. However, the threat posed by left-wing political radicalism itself, particularly to college campuses, is real enough and must be countered by reasoned argument and the enforcement of lawful behavior.
'No Stopping Until Liberation': MIT Faculty Member Urges Followers To Shut Down Israeli Company in Cambridge
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty member who last month went on an anti-Semitic tirade—in which he called House Education and the Workforce Committee chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) a "treasonous Zionist tool" and referred to Israelis as "parasites"—is now urging his followers to shut down an Israeli company in Cambridge, saying, "No stoping [sic] until liberation."

Afif Aqrabawi, a postdoctoral associate working in MIT's Tonegawa neuroscience lab, encouraged his Twitter followers to shut down an Israeli company located in Cambridge, Mass. The MIT faculty member was responding to a Twitter follower's suggestion to shut down a Raytheon facility in Bedford, Mass., to which he responded, "Elbit in Cambridge as well. No stoping [sic] until liberation."

The call to action followed pictures Aqrabawi posted of a pro-Palestinian protest in Boston that blocked traffic Saturday evening.

Elbit Systems, an Israeli company that provides the Jewish state with counterterrorism equipment, has been singled out by anti-Israel activists. Since Hamas's terrorist assault on Israel, Elbit facilities have been targeted by vandals, while its employees have been harassed as part of a broader effort to popularize attacks against Jews.

It is unclear whether Aqrabawi participated in the illegal protest over the weekend, in which hundreds of protesters managed to shut down a Boston bridge for half an hour. According to NBC 10 Boston, which had a crew on scene, no one was arrested while the network's reporters were present. Neither MIT nor Aqrabawi responded to a request for comment.

Aqrabawi's call to action comes as MIT and a host of other schools stand accused of violating Title VI by permitting anti-Israel campus events that endanger students and have led to repeated instances of harassment on campus.

The MIT scientist came under fire last month for going on an anti-Semitic tirade after the House Committee on Education and the Workforce pressed MIT to provide internal documents about its response to the outbreak of anti-Semitism on campus. In his outburst, Aqrabawi derided Foxx as "a treasonous Zionist tool, a genocide enabler, and a disgusting shit stain of a human," and described other members of the House as "Israeli bootlickers."

He also referred to American politicians as "loyal prostitutes of [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu," lamented the influence of Jewish groups, and referred to Israelis as "parasites."

"I make it clear your representatives are eager cucks for defense contractors and AIPAC," he wrote. "My words are dangerous because they may alert a distracted American public to the parasites using their country as a host species."


Kassy Dillon: Harvard Law Students Resign From Student Govt Over Secret Ballot Anti-Israel Vote
Two Harvard Law students resigned from their student government positions after a resolution to divest from Israel was approved through an unconventional secret ballot vote, hiding the record of who supported the extreme measure.

The resolution, which calls on the Harvard Management Company to divest from Israel over the “genocide of Palestinians” and the “ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine,” violated the student government’s constitution, according to the two students, Cameron Adkins and Regina De Nigris, who resigned from the government shortly after it passed.

“We voiced our disagreement to the Student Government at every opportunity,” they wrote in their resignation letter. “Our concerns, however, were pushed aside. In light of this disagreement, we believe that our continued membership in the Harvard Law School Student Government would compromise our principles and values.”

The two students cite procedural issues with how the resolution vote was undertaken through an anonymous Google form and accuse their former fellow representatives of pushing the change through during an emergency meeting without letting students express their opinions.

“The resolution has been pushed through at the last possible minute to avoid running up against the end of this Student Government’s term, and, perhaps, to insulate Student Government from receiving contrary input,” they wrote. “Given the importance of the issue, rushing this process is particularly inappropriate and unacceptable.”
Vanderbilt shows how to handle entitled student mobs
Entitled, petulant student mobs think they can bend the world to their whims. This belief stems from how weak universities coddle them when the schools should actually bring the hammer down on those students when their “protests” violate the rules.

To its credit, Vanderbilt University got that memo. Almost 30 students staged a sit-in outside Chancellor Daniel Diermeier’s office to protest that Vanderbilt wouldn’t let students vote on a boycott, divestment, and sanctions proposal against Israel. The university says that the students “forcibly” entered the building despite it being closed for construction and “clearly marked as such.” Some students also allegedly assaulted a community service officer to get into the building and pushed staff members offering to meet with them.

Antisemitism? Check. Trespassing? Check. Alleged assault? Check. Add on the racial essentialism for shaming a black police officer for not supporting their antisemitic protest, and you have a wonderful collection of people who think the world should revolve around them and their petulant whining because their parents are paying more than $60,000 a year for them to attend Vanderbilt.

Many universities would trip over themselves to continue coddling these fully grown adult toddlers, but Vanderbilt thus far has not. The university suspended at least 16 of the students, and three have been charged with assaulting the officer, while a fourth was charged with vandalism. The suspended students can’t attend classes or go to their university dorm rooms, and according to their attorney, “their educational and professional futures are in dire jeopardy.”
Smith College Building Occupied by Anti-Zionist Group
Dozens of anti-Zionist students at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts have been occupying an administrative building for several days in an attempt to force administrators to accede to demands calling for the school’s endowment to be divested of holdings in companies they have deemed as “weapons manufacturers and war profiteers” linked to Israel’s military campaign against Hamas.

The students amassed in College Hall on Thursday, according to a social media post by the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). They decided on the course of action after the college first rejected similar demands, which are based on false accusations that Israel is committing a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. On Sunday, the group said the demonstration will continue until administrators concede and give them what they want, including “immunity” from disciplinary sanctions.

“Smith is, while indirectly so, invested in war and the deaths of Palestinians,” a student identified as Gertrude told Smith College president Sarah Willie-LeBreton and dean Alexandra Keller during a negotiations meeting held on Saturday inside College Hall, according to notes of their exchange shared by SJP. “Any dollar to weapons is a dollar to genocide, white supremacy, and war.”

According to SJP’s notes, Willie-LeBreton was forced to chastise the students about their conduct several times. While she spoke, one of them began chanting “Free, Free, Palestine! What do we want? Divestment! When do want it? Now!,” to which Willie-LeBreton responded, “I’m showing you respect because I hear, because I’m appalled by the violence, and I want to find a way to resolve this together. Screaming at me every time I talk does not show me respect; it does not begin to show me the respect I am showing you.”

Despite proclaiming to be on the side of the protesters Willie-LeBreton — who responded last month to an incident of antisemitism on campus by condemning Islamophobia — refused to accede to their demands, citing the limits of her role as president and the unfeasibility of convening the college’s board of trustees, the body charged with making recommendations about the school’s endowment. Later on, she seemed to voice support for the students’ position on what they have described as “weapons manufacturers and war profiteers” allegedly linked to Israel.


Buckle Up NPR Takes Listeners For A Ride 30,000 Trucks Long
It’s well known that truckers are accustomed to very long journeys, but what about a line of 30,000 vehicles waiting for months on end to pass inspections and cross a border? If that sounds like beyond the realm of reason, it’s because it is. Unless, of course, you are a National Public Radio journalist prone to believing whatever anti-Israel tall tell comes your way no matter how far-fetched.

And, thus it came to pass that NPR’s Jane Arraf, who earlier this year blamed non-existent “Israeli attacks on the Al-Aqsa mosque” for Iraqi militias targeting U.S. troops, repeated without any challenge a Jordanian official’s fantastical vehicular fib.

There are no available satellite images showing a line of 30,000 idling trucks by the Gaza-Egypt border. Illustrative image of toy trucks from PickPik

In her March 27 “Morning Edition” broadcast, Arraf neglected to carry out any proper due diligence, reporting: A Jordanian official says 30,000 trucks are backed up at the main border crossing with Egypt, waiting for Israeli approval to enter. He says some of Jordan’s own aid trucks have been waiting in line for two months there.

The assertion garnered widespread ridicule. The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof deleted his X post citing Arraf’s report about the supposed line up of 30,000 trucks after he was widely mocked for parroting the impossible number. As many critics rightly noted, such a gargantuan line would appear on satellite images and would extend hundreds of kilometers long. Where are those images? In addition, an unprecedented jam of that nature would require massive infrastructure – the drivers would need to eat for instance – and yet we couldn’t find a published word anywhere about this phenomenon.

Notably, NBC reported March 30 that “hundreds” of aid trucks “sat idle on the roads heading into Gaza recently.” Did more than 29,000 trucks magically get through in the three days between Arraf’s report of 30,000 and NBC’s subsequent article citing hundreds? If so, that truly amazing feat would be a global headline, and yet it’s only Arraf who reported the line of 30,000 trucks, nevermind its miraculous diminishment in just days. NBC did publish a satellite image of the waiting trucks, and while it’s questionable as to whether the image shows “hundreds” of trucks, in no way does it show thousands, much less 30,000 trucks.
Documents show the ‘reliability’ of the source of BBC casualty figures
Israel’s Channel 13 recently published a report by its Arab affairs correspondent Hezi Simantov concerning Hamas documents publicised by the IDF’s Arabic language spokesman. [translation: CAMERA UK]
“In an internal intelligence document of the military wing of Hamas from 2020, it was revealed that the terrorist organisation is aware of the high percentage of failed launches by the Islamic Jihad and the danger they pose to houses near launch sites and that it even approached the PIJ with a request not to place launchers near Hamas operatives so as not to endanger them.

Another document from the year 2022, belonging to the Hamas military coordination department, describes how the PIJ’s Jerusalem brigades, which carried out a failed launch that caused casualties during Operation Breaking Dawn, hid the matter and suggested presenting the incident as the fall of an Iron Dome interceptor in order to blame Israel. […]

The IDF put its hands on many additional documents that show how aware the terrorist organisations are of the results of the failed launches, but the method of operation is clear – to hide the information and blame Israel.

The IDF spokesman added that also in the current war a significant percentage of failed launches carried out by Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been recorded. According to the data, about 11% of the launches carried out by the terrorist organisations against Israel since October 7 fell in the territory of the Gaza Strip.”

Simantov notes that those failed launches include the incident at Al Ahli hospital in October 2023 that Hamas tried to blame on Israel and which was shown to have been the result of a shortfall missile fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. As readers no doubt recall, to this day the BBC has been ‘unable’ to inform its audiences what happened at Al Ahli hospital on October 17th and continues to present that story in terms of “competing claims and counterclaims”.

The Channel 13 report also notes that the Hamas documents show that during Operation Breaking Dawn in 2022, even when casualties caused by shortfall missiles were recorded as such by Hamas in internal documents, the Hamas-run health ministry – which of course is regularly quoted by foreign media outlets including the BBC as the prime source for casualty figures – listed those deaths as having been caused by Israeli strikes.
Guardian author of article demonising Israel celebrated Oct. 7 massacre
The word “Hamas” is used only twice in the 1,800 word piece – once in a quote by an Israeli official, and the other time when briefly noting the Oct. 7 attacks.

The piece was co-written by Guardian journalists Damien Gayle and Kaamil Ahmed – as well as Aseel Mousa, a freelance Palestinian journalist who contributes to outlets such as Al Jazeera and Electronic Intifada (EI). In a Dec. 8 article at EI, she outlined what she claimed were Israeli provocations which led to (or, arguably, even justified) Hamas’s attacks on Oct. 7.

But, turning to Twitter, we can see that, before December, Mousa – who has a history of praising terrorists and deadly terror attacks – was celebrating Hamas’s mass murder, rape, torture and mutilation of Israelis.

Mousa’s Arabic tweet on the afternoon of Oct. 7, while Hamas’s death squads were in Israel massacring Jews, translates to:
“People – the liberation of entire Palestine from the River to the Sea is, objectively and realistically, possible! I’m not saying it’s easy and I’m not saying it’s certain but it’s possible. It is possible in this generation. It is possible not by militaries buying their weapons from their enemy. But with ongoing and cumulative popular resistance as the one taking place before you today.
-Tameem #Liberating_It_All_Is_Possible”

On Oct 8, she tweeted a graphic which included the following in Arabic and English:
“No people in history has ever gotten its freedom by appealing to the moral sense of its oppressors”

Also on Oct. 8, she posted another Arabic tweet, translated to:
“The Gazan youth of Palestinian resistance are only 10 Km away from the West Bank. Lord, guide their shots and sooth their fear. #Al-Aqsa_Flood”

And, on Oct. 9, she tweeted the following in Arabic, translated to:
O believers! If you stand up for Allah, He will help you and make your steps firm. As for the disbelievers, may they be doomed and may He render their deeds void. That is because they detest what Allah has revealed, so He has rendered their deeds void. (Quran 47:7-9)

Additionally, by Oct. 9, she was already accusing Israel of genocide, writing “Israel commits genocide against people in #Gaza”.

As we’ve demonstrate in countless posts and tweets since Oct. 7, the Guardian’s coverage of the war that ensued after the worst antisemitic atrocity since the Holocaust has been effectively pro-Hamas. So, it’s not too surprising that they’d commission a journalist to write about the conflict who literally endorsed the terror group’s pogrom.
Washington Post Contributor Celebrates Oct. 7 Massacre
Hajar Harb is a London-based reporter who, according to her LinkedIn profile, served as a “collaborating journalist with the Washington Post” for the last two decades. During the October 7th massacre, she celebrated the events in a series of social media posts which have since been deleted. Below are screenshots captured and translated by CAMERA Arabic.

Here is her Facebook cover photo from October 8th featuring Hamas terrorists inside an Israeli city:


In the next screenshot, the Washington Post contributor writes: “On top of [any] loss amongst them is [like] flowers, just the number is beautiful.” What she means is that in addition to the fact that such a large death toll among Israelis is lovely in itself (“like flowers”), the huge number is also beautiful to look at.

In the next screenshot, she is responding to footage of Israeli elderly victim Yafa Adar who was kidnapped and taken into Gaza. The Washington Post contributor mocks the victim: “See this place ma’am? Allah willing, you’ll remain inside with us for a while.”

In the following screenshot from Harb’s Facebook profile, the Washington Post contributor mocks Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas with an image of the kidnapping of the young family by Hamas. She writes in Arabic: “Enter [captivity] off the right foot, sister. Instead of anything [like that] she goes ‘I want my children’, ‘I want my children’, go ahead, [this is] your home and your spot, you and your children.”


New York Times Imposes Its Own Anti-Israel Tilt on Pope’s Easter Message
Pope Francis on Sunday delivered his Easter message. He talked about abortion. He talked about migrants of the sort that are crossing the southern border into America and making their way into cities like New York. He talked about the need to free the Israeli hostages seized on Oct. 7. He talked about conflicts in at least 12 different places, including Ukraine, the Western Balkans, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mozambique.

So what was the New York Times‘ headline about the pope’s speech? The online headline was, “Amid Health Concerns, Pope Delivers Strong Easter Message Calling for Gaza Cease-Fire.” The print headline was, “As Health Concerns Loom, Pope Calls for Gaza Cease-Fire in Easter Message.”

The Times news article also ended by emphasizing Gaza: “And in Gaza, he said the eyes of suffering children ask: ‘Why? Why all this death?'” Yet if one read the pope’s text carefully and in context, it seemed clear that the “eyes of the children” comment applied not restrictively to Gaza, but generally, to conflicts worldwide, including the one in Ukraine, where the pope also called for peace.

The Vatican’s paragraph with the “eyes of the children” comment did not include the word “Gaza.” The full passage said, “How much suffering we see in the eyes of the children: the children in those lands at war have forgotten how to smile! With those eyes, they ask us: Why? Why all this death? Why all this destruction? War is always an absurdity, war is always a defeat! Let us not allow the strengthening winds of war to blow on Europe and the Mediterranean. Let us not yield to the logic of weapons and rearming. Peace is never made with arms, but with outstretched hands and open hearts.”

The fact that the word “lands” was plural, not singular, coupled with the inclusion of “Europe” along with the Mediterranean appears to indicate that the pope was making a general statement, not accusing Israel alone of imposing misery on children, which would be quite an Easter message to come from the Catholic Church.


UPI Lies About U.N. Data, Promotes Blood Libel That Jewish Settlers Killed Nearly 200
April 1, 2024 Update:
Yesterday, following the publication of this post, UPI revised its wording to reflect the fact that the United Nations has found that seven Palestinians were killed in incidents involving settlers, and not nearly 200 as Adam Schatz had previously reported. But the amended wording is itself a gross fabrication, falsely claiming that the U.N. found that at least seven were "murdered" by Israeli settlers, as if assailants killed while carrying out attacks are "murdered." The new fallacious language is: "Before the war broke out in October, 199 Palestinians were killed by Israelis in the West Bank throughout 2023 -- including at least seven murdered by illegal Israeli settlers, data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs shows." The United Nations made no assertion about murders, and qualified, without providing any breakdown, that the incidents include "Palestinians killed or injured during attacks or alleged attacks they perpetrated against Israeli settlers." Instead of coming clean, the UPI buries itself into a deeper pit of embarrassing unprofessionalism and partisanship. E.W. Scripps, the editor who founded the United Press Association in 1907, and who practiced journalism according to the motto "Give light and the people will find their own way," would surely not recognize UPI were he to see the depths to which it has sunk today.

United Press International boasts "a history of reliable reporting dating back to 1907," and praises itself as "a credible source for the most important stories of the day." But last week's coverage demonizing Israeli settlers with falsely reported United Nations figures indicates that the operative word in this self-congratulatory celebration of reliability and credibility is "history."

Instead of supplying reliable and credible reporting bringing the most important stories of the day, UPI last week debased its once venerable operation with a fabrication propping up a modern day blood libel.

Thus, in his March 24 article, UPI's Adam Schrader falsely stated that according to United Nations data, Israeli settlers are responsible for most of the 199 Palestinians killed in the West Bank from Jan. 1, 2023 until Hamas started a brutal war against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 ("German Foreign Ministry Condemns Illegal Israeli settlements"). He fabricated: "Before the war broke out in October, 199 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank throughout 2023 – largely at the hands of illegal Israeli settlers, data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs shows."
An overview of BBC News website promotion of an IPC report
Notably, that item did not provide BBC audiences with either a link to the report in question or any details concerning the organisations which make up the body that produced it. Had it done so, readers would perhaps have understood that some of the organisations quoted by Gunter – including CARE and the WFP (which, via Abeer Etefa, has been promoting this topic since October 2023) are IPC partners.

In the days that followed, the BBC News website published additional items citing that IPC report (also without linking to it) and describing it as having been produced by “UN agencies” or “UN-backed”.

While the IPC does include several UN agencies, it also includes NGOs with a record of anti-Israel bias, some of whom were quoted and promoted by the BBC without clarification of their involvement in the organisation behind the report’s production, such as ‘Oxfam’ and ‘Save the Children’.
The Manitoban Gives Uncritical Coverage To Attempt By Anti-Israel Pressure Group To Label Opposition To Palestinian Propaganda As Racism
As reported on March 20 in The Manitoban, a student newspaper at the University of Manitoba, a motion to adopt a particular definition of anti-Palestinian racism was brought to a recent meeting of the University of Manitoba Student Union (UMSU).

As reported in the article entitled: “Anti-Palestinian racism definition proposed to UMSU,” by author Alicia Rose, the motion aimed to have the definition included as part of the student union’s official position.

Rose wrote that the definition “lists denial of the Nakba — an Arabic term which means “catastrophe” and refers to the 1948 forced displacement of 700,000 Palestinians amid the creation of the state of Israel” as an example of anti-Palestinian racism.

The dangers of such a definition are readily apparent to anyone familiar with events surrounding Israel’s independence in 1948.

Despite the oft-repeated claim made by anti-Israel activists that the nascent Jewish State widely expelled hundreds of thousands of Arabs, the truth is far from what was depicted. Upon Israel gaining its independence, the country’s neighbouring Arab states immediately declared war, seeking to destroy the newly reborn state.

Many Arab leaders inside Israel, expecting a quick victory and annihilation of the country, encouraged Arabs to flee, thinking they would soon return. For other Arab leaders, they threatened Arab Israelis to leave, thinking they could become loyal to Israel.
Hill Times Column Relies On Hamas Disinformation To Demonize Israel
When penning an opinion piece, the importance of rigorous fact-checking cannot be overstated, and that is especially true on such a contentious issue as the Israel-Hamas war. Neither can one conveniently ignore counter-arguments, or broader contexts.

It is not to suggest that there cannot be criticism; rather, every written piece demands that critiques be rooted in accuracy – as a matter of journalistic integrity, and to ensure that the reader is not subject to disinformation. Unfortunately, a March 21 commentary in The Hill Times entitled: “When it comes to Gaza, political insincerity is not cutting it” by Bhagwant Sandhu, contained these and other serious problems.

Sandhu, according to the commentary, is a retired director general from the federal public service, who’s also held executive positions with the governments of Ontario and British Columbia.

The first glaring issue came from this line in his op-ed: “with the death count in Gaza nearing 31,000…” Neither the writer, nor the newspaper’s editors, explained where this number came from: the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health.

This is the same Ministry of Health that lied about how 500 people were killed at the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza last October (it was really around fifty) and who lied that the rocket was a direct hit on the hospital (it hit the parking lot) and also lied that it was an Israeli airstrike (It was an errant rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad). An honest commentary would have also pointed out that the Ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its death tolls.

Recent reports have shown that the Ministry’s number is highly suspect, and inflated beyond reason.
Simon Fraser University Newspaper Continues Its Barrage Of Anti-Israel Propaganda
Once again, the student newspaper at Simon Fraser University (SFU) is transforming itself into a publication devoted primarily to disseminating anti-Israel propaganda.

In its March 25 edition, the front page features someone holding a Palestinian flag on campus, alongside the headline “SFU Faculty Supports Palestine.”

Inside the newspaper, an article penned by Staff Writer Izzy Cheung entitled: “SFU faculty members express support for Palestine,” told readers that a group of some 140 members, retired and current, of the university’s faculty signed a statement which expresses “their collective support for Palestine,” and endorsed the BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement against Israel.

The article explained that “the BDS campaign encourages individuals to boycott companies that are involved in violating Palestinian human rights (such as financially backing Israeli forces),” phrasing the campaign’s position as fact.

The article continued by acting as the public relations arm of the anti-Israel movement, linking to the website of ‘SFU Faculty for Palestine,’ their Instagram page and copying and pasting their members and official position.

In another article in the same edition entitled: “Palestinian Liberation referendum passes,” News Writer Olivia Sherman produced a report which, though officially not an opinion column, was indistinguishable from one.


Hamas arrests PA intelligence officers, accuses them of collaboration with Israel
An unconfirmed number of Palestinian Authority's General Intelligence Service members were apprehended in Gaza by Hamas after being accused of sneaking into the Gaza Strip in collaboration with Israel, according to Arab media reports on Monday, citing an interview on Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV.

According to the reports, the General Intelligence Service members entered the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt during a mission to secure and facilitate the humanitarian aid truck convoys. At some point after entrance, they were apprehended by Hamas terrorists.

An unnamed Hamas official told Al-Aqsa TV that the PA General Intelligence Service leader, Majed Faraj, was using this mission as a guise with the aim of creating a "state of confusion and chaos among the ranks of the home front, and with security from the Israeli Shin Bet service and the enemy army.”

The Hamas Official claimed that ten service members were arrested and that the issue had been "dealt with."

Arab media quoted Faraj as saying that it was six intelligence officers who entered the strip and were arrested.


'From the river to the sea' spray-painted on scene of 1972 Munich massacre
Vandals spray-painted this week the pro-Palestinian "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" slogan in Arabic on Connolly Street in Munich, where the Israeli delegation to the 1972 Summer Olympics, who were massacred by terrorists, were staying.

Local authorities have since removed the antisemitic graffiti.

Two members of the Israeli Olympic team were killed on site, and nine others were taken hostage. After a failed rescue attempt by the West German police, they too were killed.
Netherlands: Suspect arrested for antisemitic attack on Utrecht rabbi
A suspect was arrested for involvement in a Friday antisemitic attack on an Utrecht rabbi on Sunday, the Netherlands Police announced.

The Dutch police said that an investigation into an assault on 66-year-old Rabbi Aryeh Leib Heintz at the Overvecht Shopping Center revealed the identity of a 40-year-old suspect.

"This man then reported himself to the police this morning and was subsequently arrested," the authorities said in a statement, but also told The Jerusalem Post that "we are still investigating this incident."

Police are still looking for witnesses to come forward. According to The left-wing BIJ1 political party, two women of Moroccan extraction had intervened to help the rabbi. 'Why are you dressed like a Jew?'

Heintz said that the suspect had asked him “Why are you dressed like a Jew?” before hitting him on the head.

The rabbi reportedly fled into an Action supermarket but was pursued. A Friday post shared on Heintz’s Facebook page said that when the rabbi attempted to take a picture of his assailant, he was ejected from the store because photography was against store policy.

Action supermarket has still not responded to a Post request for comment.

The Utrecht City Council and local political parties expressed support for Heintz in a Saturday statement.

“There is no place in Utrecht for hatred because of who someone is or what someone believes,” said the city council. “Our city is a place of freedom, safety, and respect.”
Ritchie Torres to 'Post': Israel is not alone
While Rep. Ritchie Torres thinks that the US’s recent abstention in the UN Security Council which led to the passage of a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, was wrong, he also wants Israel to know that “ the Israel-US relationship remains fundamentally intact.”

“What we are witnessing is not a change in American policy, but a clash of personalities,” the New York Democratic congressman explained to The Jerusalem Post, adding that this “is natural in every relationship.” The crisis between the US and Israel is “more perception than reality,” according to Torres.

Torres thought that the US abstention was a mistake because it did not tie the demands for a ceasefire to the release of the hostages. “The de-linking of those two demands gives enhanced leverage to Hamas in the war and the hostage negotiations. I thought it was a colossal misjudgment on the part of the US,” he explained. Torres visits Israel to show that the Jewish state is not alone

Torres brought a delegation made up of local leadership and clergy from his district to Israel on Sunday with UJA-Federation New York, to send the message that Israel is not alone. This may seem like a surprising stance from the progressive congressman, but Torres says the connection is natural.

“There is no greater expression of progressive values in the Middle East than the state of Israel,” he said, adding that no country is more protective of the rights of minorities.

“There is a concerted effort by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to purge pro-Israel Jews from the progressive movement,” Torres explained, but his support for Israel has remained steadfast.
Celebrating solidarity: Diaspora Min. honors prominent figures'
The Diaspora Affairs and Combatting Antisemitism Ministry held an event on Sunday to honor prominent figures who have taken extraordinary actions to combat antisemitism that has been on the rise since October 7.

Tokens of appreciation were handed out by the Diaspora Affairs and Combatting Antisemitism Minister, Amichai Chikili. Recipients included actor and comedian Michael Rapaport, Jewish singer Matisyahu, who had multiple concerts canceled over security concerns due to antisemitism, Aviva Klompas, a former speechwriter for the Israeli delegation to the UN and Sefan Thompson, the founder of the X account "Visegrad 24," which has made hundreds of pro-Israel posts since the beginning of the war.

The event included performances by famous Israeli artists Noa Kirel, Amir Dadon, and Michal Greenglick, the sister of Singer Shauli Greenglick, who was killed in combat in the Gaza Strip.

The singers performances and the rest of the production were directed by actor and director Yadin Gellman, who was wounded in combat over Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7.

The performances and the event were held in the International Convention Center in Jerusalem and broadcast to Jewish communities worldwide. Combined audiences included evacuees, new immigrants, youth in the Diaspora, and influencers who have been actively advocating for Israel.


Back in Israel for two shows, rapper Matisyahu says it’s nice ‘to feel the love’
As protesters poured into Jerusalem this week for four days of demonstrations against the government, locals posted selfies with American rapper Matisyahu, who is in Israel for two performances — in Jerusalem on Tuesday and in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.

In every picture, Matisyahu, often known simply as “Matis,” smiled broadly, wearing a large gold chai and Bring Them Home hostage solidarity tag over his mint-green T-shirt.

“I’m back now, and it feels like the completion of a cycle,” said the singer, speaking to The Times of Israel during a Monday afternoon soundcheck.

It’s been a rough few months for the formerly ultra-Orthodox rapper who was last in Israel in January to witness the scenes of the October 7 destruction.

At the time, he performed for nearly anyone who asked, including soldiers on duty, evacuees from the north and south, and those who had been injured, while posting it all on social media.

Back in the US, two Matisyahu shows in February were canceled — one in Tucson, Arizona, and another in Santa Fe, New Mexico — after management for the venues said they couldn’t guarantee security due to anti-Israel protests planned outside the concerts.

According to Matisyahu, it was the staff and crews of the venues who were unwilling to work at the show.

In early March, a performance of his in Chicago was also canceled due to the threat of protests.

Matisyahu wrote on Instagram that while he and his fans were hurt by those incidents, they would not “cower to these bullies and the pressure they exert.”

Now, back in Israel, Matisyahu said, “I’m not gonna lie, it feels nice to feel the love. It feels wonderful.”




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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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