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Tuesday, April 09, 2024

04/09 Links Pt2: Surprised at anti-Israel hatred?; UNRWA is the opposite of the two state solution; The Psychological Obsession with Netanyahu

From Ian:

Surprised at anti-Israel hatred?
I cannot ignore the similarity between the smear campaign reaching new heights in the last four years against Israel abroad compared with the demonization of the Kohelet Policy Forum here in the past and still ongoing today. On a 16-hour break I had from fighting in Gaza, I got messages from people threatening to “settle accounts after the war” and accusing me of having the blood of the Oct. 7 victims on my hands. The people writing such things have not read a single Kohelet policy paper. One of the “Brothers in Arms” members attempting to scare voters in municipal elections about Kohelet influence repeated the lie about the “Kohelet civics textbook,” and another member affirmed in a TV interview that he does not regret their invasion and blockage of our offices. The fact that many of my Kohelet colleagues and I have been called up to serve in the war has not moved such haters to so much as wait for our return home.

Both the State of Israel and Kohelet Forum could have done more to fight for an image that aligns with reality. In both cases, however, a well-organized and well-funded smear campaign has succeeded in pushing decent people to take too firm a stance and avoid dialogue. Just this week, a lecture by a well-known, leftist Jewish-American professor who wanted to discuss “the two-state solution” was canceled in California, and a talk by center-left former Knesset member Tzipi Livni was transferred to Zoom for fear of disturbances. Even having a dialogue with someone defined as a “Zionist” is off the table.

And here?

In the past year, an established high school canceled a lecture by a law professor after discovering that he participated in a doctoral program at Kohelet Forum around eight years ago.

Perhaps we should be a little less impervious to other opinions and stop attributing ill intentions to the other side before we complain about the treatment Israel is getting on the world stage.
Horror and Humiliation in Gaza
Like the Nazis, Islamist terrorism weaponized horror to demoralize the West. Christianity has a soft underbelly: It struggles to reconcile belief in a God who so loved the world that He sacrificed Himself for its salvation with the suffering of innocents. That was the nub of Voltaire’s attack on theodicy after the Lisbon earthquake killed 12,000 in 1755, as well as Ivan Karamazov’s protest that “if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price.”

The post-Christian world, which eschews the mystery of Divine Providence in favor of a squeamish urge for earthly salvation, is all the more vulnerable to the theater of horror. The post-Christian West has become paralyzed by the fear that the world is beset by forces hostile to humankind, which J.R.R. Tolkien called “the black breath.”

All too well have the Western-educated, multilingual leaders of Hamas gauged the spiritual state of the West, and invented an atrocious way of conducting war in order to psychically paralyze it. Hamas cannot win a war against Israel, but it has sufficient power to force Israel to fight a war that cost many civilian lives. Whether the civilian death toll is the 32,000 that Hamas claims or the 18,000 estimated by pro-Israeli analysts is of minor importance.

During the U.S. Marines’ siege of Fallujah 20 years ago, I wrote that the battle for that city brought into focus the vulnerabilities of both the Americans and the Sunni resistance. Horror—the perception that cruelty has no purpose and no end—is lethal to the West, which cannot endure without faith in a loving Heavenly Father. For the Islamic world, meanwhile, humiliation—the perception that the ummah cannot reward those who submit to it—is beyond its capacity to endure.

The Muslim world said nothing when between 9,000 and 40,000 civilians died in the 2016-17 campaign against ISIS in Mosul. That involved Muslims (the Iraqi Army with American support) killing Muslims. But Gaza is not merely a slaughter but also a humiliation, the reduction of Hamas, and the displacement of most of the Gaza population. Muslims can accept Muslims killing Muslims, but they can’t abide Jews humiliating Muslims.

This toxic combination of horror and humiliation poisons world opinion against Israel. There is no near-term remedy. Horror elicits irrational responses. Never mind that Hamas forced an urban war upon Israel through unspeakable acts of brutality against Israeli civilians, and that it embeds terrorists in hospitals, schools, and other civilian installations to maximize casualties among its own civilians. Never mind that Israel’s response has occasioned fewer civilian casualties in urban combat than any other fighting force on record. As West Point urban warfare expert John Spencer wrote in Newsweek:
The UN, EU, and other sources estimate that civilians usually account for 80 percent to 90 percent of casualties, or a 1:9 ratio, in modern war (though this does mix all types of wars). In the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul, a battle supervised by the U.S. that used the world’s most powerful airpower resources, some 10,000 civilians were killed compared to roughly 4,000 ISIS terrorists.

Russia and China denounce Israel simply because it is an ally of the United States, and many former colonies of the West, prominently South Africa, shoehorn the Gaza war into their own traumatic narrative of national liberation. That’s to be expected.

What’s new and dangerous is the extent to which the Hamas theater of horror has demoralized the remnants of the Christian world. Support for Israel in the United States has dropped to 36% in March from 50% in November, according to the Gallup Poll.
The Prophet of October 7?
In America and Western Europe, the progressive left’s response to the October 7 attacks has largely been one of hostility toward Israel. There are many reasons why this is so, but among them is the malign and outsized influence in intellectual circles of Frantz Fanon. Born in Martinique 1925, Fanon wrote extensively on race and the evils of colonialism, and did much to shape how both topics are thought about in universities. Fanon spent the last years of his life collaborating with the terrorists who liberated Algeria from French rule. He died in 1961, just before his comrades drove the Jews out of the country.

Reviewing a new biography of Frantz Fanon by Adam Shatz, Leon Hadar writes:
The fighting in Algeria radicalized Fanon. His writing about the colony and the meaning and utility of political violence was militant. “At the individual level,” he wrote, “violence is cleansing. It rids the colonized of his inferiority complex, of his passive and despairing attitude.” In other words, killing colonizers was not only tactically expedient, it was also therapeutic for the colonized. “The colonized man liberates himself in and through violence,” he wrote. What the colonized needed was not concessions granted by the master but “quite literally the death of his master.” . . . And readers of Fanon are left in no doubt that he believed attacks on civilians to be the “logical consequence” of colonial oppression.

Nor did Fanon express much interest in limiting what forms redemptive violence takes. Hadar observes that in a different work he posed the question: “Just as there are faces that ask to be slapped, can one not speak of women who ask to be raped?”

Shatz, Hadar notes, is an editor for the virulently anti-Israel London Review of Books, and is “an anti-Zionist polemicist who believes that Israel is ‘the world’s last settler-colonial state.’” And that may not be unrelated to Shatz’s “sympathetic” treatment of his subject:
Shatz has told a Ha’aretz journalist that he doesn’t know if Fanon would have supported the October 7 massacre. The point is moot, but since Fanon never met a murderous militant he didn’t like, it’s plausible that Shatz is simply being coy in his judgment. He does, after all, remark that Hamas’s terror operation on October 7 was a “classic example of Fanonian struggle.”

There can be little doubt that Fanon’s writing influenced and radicalized Palestinian nationalism. Shatz reminds us that the first Arabic translations of Fanon’s work, which appeared in Beirut’s bookshops in 1963, helped to shape the emerging Palestinian nationalist movement.
Daniel Greenfield: Swastikas Are Progressive Now
Flying a progressive swastika is the climax of making antisemitism into “something honorable”.

The path to the progressive swastika and the “honorable antisemitism” had plenty of stops that all involved mainstreaming antisemitism while swearing up and down that it was only anti-Zionism. The media mainstreamed hate sites like Mondoweiss where editors and contributors admitted that, “I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, but I can understand why some are” and “Liberals like to deceive themselves about Jewish power.”

The DSA, which has led the campaign for Hamas, had invited a representative of Melenchon’s Communist allied party from France, who claimed that when a “man of the left” is “called an anti-Semite, it means he’s not far from power.” That same party became the only one to refuse to condemn Oct 7 and political figures from the party accused Israel of killing its own children.

In 2014, academia and the media were justifying antisemitism. By 2024, they’re rehabilitating the swastika as a progressive symbol. And this change is about more than the Jews.

Jews tend to be the canaries in the coal mine. Fanatics and totalitarian movements may start with the Jews, but they never end there. The Jews are just a convenient inciting incident.

Both the Nazis and Communists understood that the persecution of Jews would legitimize the worse crimes they intended to commit. When the Nazis began rounding up and killing Jews with no protest, it became easier to justify the killing of the German disabled and mentally ill, and later the larger eugenics program that would have wiped out the Slavs and many other peoples. And when the Communists began shutting down synagogues and executing rabbis, it became easier to justify the takeover of the church and to build a cult of personality around Stalin.

While there are single-issue antisemites out there, major movements that start waving fascist or progressive swastikas don’t intend to limit their plans to just killing Jews. The Jews are a symbol of the power they want, as Melenchon put it, and the justification for it, as Islamists contend.

Hamas, an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, originally financed by the Nazis, claims that it just wants to destroy Israel. But other arms of the Brotherhood tried to seize control of the entire Middle East during the Arab Spring, have been integrated into Al Qaeda, and operate in America and Europe to aid Islamic terrorists around the world. When they brandish the swastika, it’s not cautionary, it’s aspirational. And the same is true of their leftist allies.

By defining the Jews as the new Nazis, leftist movements like the DSA justify the mass murder of the Jews, and the violent tactics they use to seize power to fight the Jews. But the DSA’s vision of totalitarian socialism, National Socialism one might say, will not end with the Jews.

The swastika, whether used as a banner or a symbol of reversal, mainstreams antisemitism, not just to call for the murder of Jews, but for the killing of all those who stand in their way.

The progressive swastika is a symbol of death for Jews and for everyone else.


The ghost of the Goldstone Report
A United Nations fact-finding mission, charged with investigating Israel’s war against Hamas, concluded in a widely disseminated and exploited report that the Israel Defense Forces deliberately targets Palestinian civilians.

Not surprisingly, the report failed to condemn Hamas for sacrificing its own people as human shields or for indiscriminately launching rockets at Israeli civilian population centers—both indisputable war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law.

No, you didn’t miss the news about this report, although the feeling of deja vu is unavoidable. The investigation, known as the Goldstone Report, dates back to 2009, after an earlier war in which Israel was forced to enter the moral morass of Hamas’s war strategy, where there can be no victory without large numbers of dead Palestinians.

The U.N.’s Human Rights Council ordered the investigation and selected a former South African high court judge, and war crimes prosecutor, Richard Goldstone, to head the mission.

Goldstone is Jewish, which no doubt added moral weight to the report’s scandalous accusations against the Jewish state. Several years later, however, after analyzing Israel’s own exhaustive inquiry, Goldstone recanted the most damning factual conclusions about the IDF. He acknowledged that he may have rushed to judgment on the charge of targeting civilians. Perhaps it was a bad idea to rely on Hamas’s word, alone.

Of course, the damage had already been done. People still remember the Goldstone Report. The Goldstone Recantation never caught on.
Capitol Police arrest pro-Palestinian protesters who swarmed Senate building
Pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested in one of the Senate office buildings on Tuesday afternoon after marching in the basement hallways and one of the cafeteria areas. The protesters were arrested after demonstrating inside the Dirksen Senate Office Building, a spokesperson for the U.S. Capitol Police confirmed to the Washington Examiner. Approximately 50 of those protesters were charged with crowding, obstructing, or incommoding a congressional office building. The protesters were seen marching around the Senate basement, with part of the group shutting down one of the Senate cafeterias, according to Fox News. Several members of the group wore shirts reading “Let Gaza Live” and chanted “Senate can’t eat until Gaza eats.” There have been several demonstrations inside Capitol office buildings related to the war in Gaza, with protesters often urging lawmakers to call for a ceasefire. Groups have previously interrupted press conferences and other congressional hearings demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. The protest comes as lawmakers return to Washington from recess and are faced with questions on how they’ll move forward with providing aid to countries including Israel and Ukraine. The war in Israel has divided lawmakers, particularly in the Democratic Party, about whether to provide increased funding to the country. The House is also set to vote this week on a resolution opposing the Biden administration over what Republicans consider “one-sided pressure on Israel with respect to Gaza.” That resolution comes in response to a call between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which the president called for an immediate ceasefire in the area.


Protesters disrupt Lloyd Austin testimony as secretary denies genocide in Gaza
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s opening remarks to lawmakers on Tuesday morning were repeatedly interrupted by protesters demanding the United States end its support for Israel.

The secretary’s initial statement in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee was interrupted by protesters who urged the U.S. to stop providing military support to Israel. The protesters, who were escorted out of the hearing room after the interruption, accused the U.S. of having Palestinian blood on its hands.

“The blood of the people of Palestine is on your hands,” one protester shouted, while another said, “Stop funding Israel!”

Later in the hearing, Austin was asked whether he agreed with the protesters’ belief that Israel was carrying out genocide, and he said he didn’t have evidence to back up that claim.

“We don’t have any evidence of genocide being created,” he said. “We don’t have evidence of that, to my knowledge.”

The secretary also declined to characterize Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack in southern Israel as a “genocide,” though he called it a “war crime.”

“The rape, the murder, the taking of hostages or prisoners, all of that was a war crime,” Austin said, affirming that the U.S. has seen Hamas use civilians as human shields since the war began.

Various U.S. officials have said the administration does not believe Israel is committing genocide, though they have routinely urged Israel to do more to prevent civilian casualties.


Push to suspend or condition aid to Israel ‘emboldens Hamas,’ Gottheimer says
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), speaking to Jewish Insider on Monday, said that that he “strongly disagree[s]” with calls from fellow Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), to suspend or condition aid to Israel, warning that “it emboldens Hamas.”

The New Jersey congressman more broadly warned that lawmakers and the administration need to be cautious about rhetoric and actions that could signal to Hamas that the U.S. is not standing with Israel.

“We have to be very careful — whether that’s as you saw with the U.N. resolution, or comments coming from the former speaker or others that actually encourages Hamas to walk away from the table,” he said. “You don’t want to ever undermine peace and strengthen Hamas’ hand, where they feel that they have the upper hand.”

“They have to be very careful with all comments to make sure we don’t don’t send signals to Hamas, that America doesn’t, A, stand by their key ally Israel and, B, never loses sight that on Oct. 7, Hamas, attacked, beheaded, burned, raped 1,200 people, killed 40 Americans and have five [Americans] hostage still today,” he continued, addressing lawmakers and U.S. officials generally.

In response to trends inside the Democratic caucus, the New Jersey congressman said that it’s important to “make sure that people don’t lose sight” of the events of Oct. 7 and the ongoing hostage situation, including that Americans remain hostage in Gaza — including one of his constituents — and to emphasize that Iran and its proxies continue to directly threaten and attack the U.S. and its forces.
School of War: Ep 118: Michael Doran on Is Hamas Winning?
Michael Doran, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute and co-host of the podcast Counterbalance, joins the show to talk about the Israel-Hamas war and the broader regional competition with Iran.

Times
• 02:04 Introduction
• 04:01 Is Hamas winning?
• 10:29 Fighting the clocks
• 13:10 Defeat from the jaws of victory
• 18:24 An Iranian-American conflict
• 22:44 Managing decline
• 26:40 Lessons not learned
• 33:00 The Iranian nuclear umbrella
FDD: Israel’s Arab Neighbors Undermine Their Own Interests by Backing Iran
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxy militias have Jordan in their crosshairs, calling for mass protests against the government and promising to arm a militia of 12,000 Jordanians. Amman, however, inexplicably continues to play nice with Tehran, denouncing on Wednesday an Israeli strike on Damascus that killed half a dozen IRGC operatives, the last in a series of anti-Israel statements since October 7. Similarly, Egypt has been economically reeling from the repercussions of the Gaza war but has yet to align its rhetoric with its national interests.

“Because of its location, Jordan is very important for the [Iran-led] resistance axis,” said Ali Fadlallah, a spokesperson for Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Iraqi militia. He added: “Unfortunately, because of the ruling regime, [Jordan’s] location benefits the usurping entity [Israel], and does not offer Palestinian resistance any support.”

Tehran has deployed a two-pronged strategy to undermine the Jordanian state and jumpstart armed militias that would pledge allegiance to the Islamist regime of Iran. On the one hand, Hamas instructed Jordan’s Islamic Action Front — the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood — to throw its weight behind rallies that Jordanians routinely held in front of the Israeli Embassy in Amman. The number of protesters surged, and slogans became more aggressive, shouting support for Hamas and the Islamic Jihad and blaming the Jordanian government for not doing enough for Gaza.

On the other hand, Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah pledged to arm 12,000 Jordanians and supply them with “anti-tank missiles, tactical missiles, millions of ammunition, and tons of explosives, so that we stand as one in defending our Palestinian brethren.”

In December, with assistance from the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, Jordanian police busted smugglers on the country’s northern border with Syria who were trying to sneak arms — including missiles, landmines, and sniper and M16 rifles — to Palestinians in the West Bank.

With Tehran’s persistent effort to undermine Jordan’s security and stability, it was surprising that Amman denounced “the attack that targeted the Iranian consulate in Damascus and killed and injured a number of people … violating international law.”
Israel retaliates with trade restrictions on Turkey after export limits
Foreign Minister Israel Katz announced Tuesday that Israel would prepare trade restrictions on products from Turkey, in response to Ankara's decision to restrict exports to Israel.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip "Erdogan is once again sacrificing the economic interests of the people of Turkiye for his support of the Hamas murderers in Gaza who raped, murdered and desecrated the bodies of women, girls, adults, and burned children alive," Katz wrote on X.

Earlier, Turkey's Trade Ministry stated that it would restrict exports of a wide range of products to Israel, including steel and jet fuel, until a ceasefire with the Hamas terror organization is declared. This move by Ankara is considered the first significant measure against Israel after months of conflict.

The Turkish ministry's statement said the restrictions would apply to the export of products from 54 different categories, such as iron, marble, steel, cement, aluminum, brick, fertilizer, construction equipment and products, aviation fuel, and more. "This decision will remain in place until Israel allows the unhindered flow of sufficient humanitarian aid into the area," the statement added.

While trade between the two countries has declined since the start of the conflict, exports from Turkey to Israel were still worth $423.2 million in March, according to data from the Turkish Exporters Assembly. Total exports in the first quarter of 2024 amounted to $1.1 billion, down 21.6% year-on-year.

Israel's decision to impose retaliatory trade restrictions on Turkey comes after the breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two nations, with both countries recalling their ambassadors earlier in the year.


Tehran flooding Judea and Samaria with weapons, Iranian officials tell NYT
As the Israel Defense Forces fight Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, the Iranian regime continues to foment violence in Judea and Samaria by flooding the territory with weapons, The New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing officials in Washington, Jerusalem and Tehran.

Judea and Samaria saw a dramatic rise in terrorist attacks in 2023 compared to the previous year, with shootings reaching the highest level since the Second Intifada of 2000-05, according to Israeli military data.

The violence has continued to escalate since Hamas started a war with its murderous rampage across the northwestern Negev last year. Since Oct. 7, at least eight Israelis have been murdered in Judea and Samaria.

Iranian officials told the Times that Tehran had not singled out one particular terrorist organization it would support with firearms and ammunition, choosing instead to inundate the area with weapons.

The majority of the weapons smuggled into Judea and Samaria are small arms and assault rifles, analysts said. However, the U.S. and Israeli officials charged that the Islamic Republic is also smuggling advanced weaponry, including anti-tank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.

The Iranians explained that one smuggling route goes through Syria and Jordan. From Jordan, they are transferred to Bedouin smugglers and criminal gangs, who move them over the border to Judea and Samaria.
Tel Aviv District Judge Rules Arab Party’s Charity Is Funding Terrorism
After years of complaints, investigations, and publications about the ties of the Islamic Ra’am party and its many associations to the terror organization Hamas, a Tel Aviv District Court judge on Tuesday issued a dramatic ruling that substantiated suspicions of terrorist financing and Hamas connections on the part of Ra’am’s charity association “Aid 48,” whose senior officials are also Ra’am’s senior officials, Hakol Hayehudi’s Elchanan Groner reported Tuesday morning.

District Judge Limor Zahava Bibi rejected the petition of the Aid 48 charity for temporary relief against Bank Leumi which blocked the association’s account on suspicion of terrorist financing. The judge also ordered 48 to pay court costs ($4,000).

The judge ruled that the bank presented sufficient evidence, and relied in large part on the investigations of the Jewish Voice publication as well as the Zionist groups Choosing Life and Ad Kan.

In February, Groner reported that the Ra’am party and its flagship association, Aid 48, are neck-deep in ties with the Hamas-affiliated Turkish association Khyar Ommah, and are inciting terrorism in a summer camp operated by Ra’am members and the Islamic movement (Exposed: Islamic Party Ra’am Collaborates with Hamas Group in Turkey).

According to Israeli prosecutors, Aid 48 senior officials who are close to Ra’am Chairman MK Mansour Abbas, worked closely with Hamas operatives, including one operative who tried to guide an attack on an Elbit security plant.
Gerald Steinberg: To protect human rights, governments must stop funding the NGO campaign against Israel
The events of October 7 highlighted the hypocrisy of these “human rights” NGOs, which often turn a blind eye to atrocities elsewhere while disproportionately scrutinising Israel. These groups’ responses to the gruesome massacre, from ignoring it to appearing to support it, were the final act of the first phase and marked the initiation of phase two.

Once the programme of dehumanisation ended, the systematic erosion of basic human rights for Israelis and Jews began, ushering in phase two. Beyond stripping down the State of Israel’s right to self-defence in its war against terrorism, NGOs and antisemitic individuals have now turned to the individual level - marking a challenge to the basic rights of Jewish people everywhere. This erosion includes selective condemnation, denial of rape, and the justification or outright ignoring of atrocities committed against innocent civilians.

These strategies are apparent in the Al-Quds day rallies, funded by Iran and taking place across Europe, violent demonstrations across Western cities in which Hamas supporters shout “Gas the Jews” or “From the River to the Sea”, the poisonous environment for Jews in the most liberal campuses, and the denial of the atrocities of October 7.

The fact that antisemitic incidents have multiplied by a factor of four all over the US and Europe should serve as stark reminders of the urgency of this issue and the West's apparent tolerance of such activities.

Phase 2 also involves the normalisation of blood libels against Israel, with venomous rhetoric increasingly espoused by mainstream leaders, feeding the hateful environment on the ground. History already showed us how such rhetoric contributes to the rise of violent antisemitism, posing a direct threat to European and American citizens, particularly Jews.

Therefore, if left unchecked, Phase 2 can escalate into Phase 3 – widespread violence, reminiscent of the darkest chapters of history. Phase 3 portends a reality where Jews and Israelis face indiscriminate violence in the streets, public and official discrimination, denial of basic human rights, and a clear path to the justification of further atrocities.

It is striking to note that despite official opposition to those activities from some governments, significant government funding continues to flow to biased and politicised groups and NGOs. This ultimately contributes to complicity in failing to protect their own citizens, and encouraging the spread of baseless defamatory allegations, perpetuating the agenda of the NGO network.
UN Watch: "UNRWA is the opposite of the two state solution"

Richard Marceau: Why we're taking the federal government to court over UNRWA funding
On April 4, Canadian families of Hamas victims and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) launched a legal challenge of the federal government’s decision to resume funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), following revelations that some of its staff provided material support for the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel.

Responding to revelations of the agency’s involvement, on Jan. 26, International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen announced the suspension of Canadian funding to UNRWA, while it “undertakes a thorough investigation into these allegations.”

That investigation has yet to be completed. However, on March 8, Hussen announced that the government was restoring funding to UNRWA, regardless of the outcome and without holding the agency accountable for the participation of its staff in the mass torture, rape and massacre of men, women and children.

That was the wrong decision, and we are challenging it in court.

It is important to make one thing clear: we do not oppose humanitarian aid to Gaza. We are fully aware of, and concerned by, the tragic circumstances many Gazan civilians are facing due to the conflict initiated by Hamas on Oct. 7.

What we do oppose is Canadian humanitarian aid going through UNRWA, particularly when there are other reputable agencies to do this work, such as the Canadian International Development Agency, the World Food Programme and the United Nations Office for Project Services.


Black Lives Matter Less to UN World Food Programme Head
In the January 1 New York Times article titled “Half of Gazans Are at Risk of Starving, U.N. Warns,” Husain is quoted as saying, “I’ve been doing this for about 20 years…I’ve been to pretty much any conflict, whether Yemen, whether it was South Sudan, northeast Nigeria, Ethiopia, you name it. And I have never seen anything like this, both in terms of its scale, its magnitude, but also at the pace that this has unfolded.”

But the NYT article negligently publishes Husain’s sweeping claim without any further investigation, comparative analysis, or caveats. Both the NYT and Husain apparently forgot about two far bigger famines during Husain’s tenure: the 2003-5 famine that killed about 200,000 in Darfur, and the 2011 famine in Somalia that claimed 260,000 lives. By contrast, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported claims that “As of 12 March…27 people…have died of malnutrition and dehydration….in...Gaza.” While every starvation death is tragic, the UNWFP should have the basic ethical intelligence to prioritize hundreds of thousands over dozens.

The New York Times apparently shares Husain’s bias and moral blindspot. The same NYT article notes that, according to Mr. Husain, Gaza meets “at least the first criteria of a famine, with 20 percent of the population facing an extreme lack of food,” but the paper never asks Husain why he emphasizes that over the exponentially larger hunger emergency in Nigeria reported by his organization:

“Conflict and insecurity, rising inflation and the impact of the climate crisis continue to drive hunger in Nigeria – with 26.5 million people across the country projected to face acute hunger in the June-August 2024 lean season. This is a staggering increase from the 18.6 million people food insecure at the end of 2023.”

In other words, according to the UNWFP, in the last few months, the already huge number of Nigerians facing acute hunger (i.e., about nine times the entire population of Gaza) increased by 7.9 million, but the 20% of Gaza “facing an extreme lack of food” (i.e., 440,000 Gazans) deserve virtually all of Mr. Husain’s Twitter attention and priority in the New York Times interview he gave.

Mr. Husain's broken moral math reveals a bias that has no place in an organization ostensibly dedicated to addressing global challenges based on the greatest need, without favoritism for any country, religion, or race.

Arif Husain's disproportionate emphasis on Gaza inevitably causes the international community to neglect exponentially greater hunger problems. But since at least October 7th, for Mr. Husain and the UNWFP, Black lives matter much less than Gazan lives do.
PreOccupiedTerritory: ‘Jews Don’t Count To Human Rights Groups’ Is Dishonest; More Like ‘Hurting Jews Is A Plus’ by Agnes Callamard, Director, Amnesty International (satire)
Disingenuous critics of this organization accuse us and our allies of placing a lower value on Jewish or Israeli lives than on the lives of others. We reject this patently false allegation, because of its misleading premise. In reality, the fact that a person, institution, or regime targets Jews for violence or abuse makes it more likely that we will rush to defend his rights.

Several examples will illustrate the principle.

The first: the week before last, my organization lamented the death of a Palestinian man serving life imprisonment in Israel, and decried that country’s oppression of Palestinians. He was a writer and a campaigner for Palestinian rights. But that triggered the rabid Zionists, who surged into the replies on X to defend Israeli policies, attacking the deceased Walid Daqqa’s character instead of examining their role in perpetuating the oppression he fought, as if the activities for which he was sentenced diminish his stature in our organization’s eyes – i.e., he kidnapped, tortured, castrated, and finally murdered a nineteen-year-old Israeli man, and he only became a “writer” once behind bars.

The complainers thus fail to appreciate that our taking up the banner of his cause is a function of his victimizing a Jew, and not merely a contrast to other cases when we condemn injustice. Had he targeted someone else, in some other country, we would not even know his name.

Another example: in 2015, this organization voted against a proposal to include antisemitism among the injustices it would work to combat. By itself, one might think that demonstrates only that “Jews don’t count,” as one writer put it. But that was the only phenomenon the organization rejected efforts to combat, a pointed statement that not only will we not oppose Jew-hate, but we will in effect endorse it by pointedly excluding it from a list of evils that demand addressing.
The growing disconnect between American Jews and mainstream Jewish organizations
The director of the local office of a mainstream Jewish organization introduces me, tentatively, warning her minions that I may make points that some might find offensive. “While you may not agree with David, it’s important that we hear him out,” she says. She knows I’m going to raise controversial topics, like whether the Jewish community should support Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs, not long ago a third rail in politely liberal Jewish circles.

Then a funny thing happens during the Q&A. We go around the table and almost everyone agrees with my concerns about how an oppressor-oppressed ideology foments antisemitism. Several are especially critical of DEI.

Finally, we get to Max, a prominent partner in a law firm known for his progressive politics, and everyone takes a deep breath.

“I don’t know who I am anymore or where I fit in,” Max says. “I’m shocked at how many of my fellow progressives reacted after Oct. 7. Maybe I’ve been asleep at the wheel.”

I’ve heard such sentiment over and over in the past six months. Recently, I spoke to a group of Jewish teachers in a very blue school district where DEI and other “anti-racism” pedagogies have made deep inroads. I was unsure if these teachers would be receptive to my warnings of an ascending ideology in the schools but was astonished when several volunteered their own horror stories of coercive DEI trainings and pernicious lesson plans. There was no hint of antagonism toward me or my message.

I’ve also recently witnessed the rising alarm among Jewish parents of worsening ideological conditions and their shock at the appearance of anti-Israel propaganda in their kids’ K-12 schools. In the past several months, numerous WhatsApp groups for worried Jewish parents have popped up across the country, where parents share the latest outrage coming out of their local schools, compare notes and actively plan interventions.

Unfortunately, I’ve observed much less internal reflection or anything approaching a pivot on the part of mainstream Jewish organizations, which seem stuck in their own histories and political compacts. Rabbi David Ingber, the founding rabbi of Romemu, recently waxed poignantly about his sense that “liberal Jewish groups have not really done the inner work of understanding how they and we unwittingly and with the best of intentions countenance the decentering of Jewish concerns,” allowing the “language of oppressor and oppressed… into the discourse that then led to this kind of combustible reality on Oct. 8.”

Six months after Oct. 7, I have an inkling, to borrow the words of New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, of “the Oct. 8 Jew,” but little sense of the Oct. 8 Jewish organization.
Surprised by progressives celebrating Oct. 7? Look at how they have treated Iran
It may seem ridiculous, but it is a serious matter in both senses when some queer activists – apparently with suicidal disregard for what they are endorsing – express their solidarity with Hamas. One can only imagine how long a queer solidarity group would survive in the realm of Sharia (it's worth noting that anti-Israel Palestinian LGBTQ activists have their headquarters in Tel Aviv and not in Ramallah, why?). But one doesn't have to use imagination to see the enthusiasm that the annihilation of Israel, explicitly propagated by Hamas and Iran, generates among millions upon millions of sympathizers of these Palestinian 'freedom fighters.' The most prominent advocates of Hamas, Yanis Varoufakis and Judith Butler, waited until Israel reacted (as Hamas had no doubt expected) with counterstrikes, which have since resulted in the deaths of an appalling number of civilians in Gaza, before publicly denouncing the Israeli counterattack while ignoring the jihadi-eizantsgruppen who massacred more than 1,200 people.

Others didn't wait that long. Like some of Butler's American counterparts, the Austrian Nicole Schöndorfer (who is very prominent on social media) rushed to celebrate on Instagram the terrorists who themselves died in the butchering of Jews as "martyrs" on the very first day after the pogrom. One remembers the atheist Foucault, who denounced religious criticism of the Islamist movement; so why should we be surprised by women who explicitly describe themselves as feminists and yet celebrate as martyrs of a just cause the young men who raped, mutilated, murdered, or kidnapped Israeli women and presented them as trophies to an adoring civilian mob of cheers?

A few weeks before the Hamas massacre, I was asked what the easiest way was to fuel antisemitism. Today I would have to answer: by massacring as many Jews as possible. Nothing has fueled hatred of Jews more than the worst attack on Jews since the Shoah, and because the attack was carried out against Jews, the rapists, and murderers can only be called "resistance fighters" motivated by a "holy hatred" against foreign Jewish rule in Palestine. "Heilige Hass" (holy hatred) is, by the way, a motif that literally comes from Julius Streicher's Nazi magazine Der Stürmer and which has been taken over in anti-colonial discourse.

There are forms of ignorance among the anti-imperial left that are entirely culpable. One of these is when Israel haters, who see themselves as left-wing, simply refuse to acknowledge the political foundations of Hamas. Hamas has never made a secret of the fact that it is not concerned with national equality, social justice, or a two-state solution, but only with the destruction of Israel – which Hamas says represents the most important stage in the battle for final victory between believers and nonbelievers. Its foundational charter from 1988 is a compact collection of antisemitic stereotypes and a blatant declaration of murderous intent. The supposed moderation of Hamas, which one could apparently find from the 2000's onward, reflects what people wanted to hear, not what Hamas was ever actually saying.

Four decades after Foucault abandoned his intellectual and moral standards to support "political spirituality," the most sensitive youth in the West are forming an alliance with one of the most brutal terrorist representatives of "political spirituality." There are some new things that the anti-Zionists put forward between Berkeley and Berlin – such as the rigorous rejection of the Enlightenment principles, which is denounced in self-loathing as a weapon of Western supremacy; but the core of their accusation against the Jews is ancient. And while the gun may have been introduced in the first act by Foucault, it is the Palestine extremists on the streets of London and New York that have gleefully pulled the trigger. Progressivism, in today's form, is dead; it's just that most within the movement don't realize this yet. It died the day they formulated an assembly line behind anti-Zionism.
Joel Pollak: The Psychological Obsession with Benjamin Netanyahu
The Democratic Party has long hated Netanyahu. It has found allies in the Israeli opposition, which is seizing the opportunity.

But neither the Americans nor the Israelis who hate him have a real reason to do so.

The opposition to Netanyahu is largely psychological in both cases.

Netanyahu is the only figure in the Middle East who is accountable to an electorate. It is easier to oppose him than the real enemy. It also provides an illusion of control amid chaos.

Democrats oppose Netanyahu for two reasons.

One is that he says no to their utopian, dangerous visions. Netanyahu stood up to President Barack Obama in 2015, for example, when he pushed the Iran nuclear deal past Congress. Although he did not stop the deal, Netanyahu’s arguments provided the basis for President Donald Trump to withdraw from it in 2018.

In recent months, Netanyahu has stood up to Biden’s bizarre push for a Palestinian state in the wake of the October 7 attacks. For that reason, both Obama and Biden have tried to push Netanyahu aside.

The other reason — perhaps the real one — Democrats hate Netanyahu is that he is better at understanding Americans than they are. When Netanyahu addressed Congress in May 2011, he congratulated the U.S. for killing Osama bin Laden. Obama had feared alienating the Muslim world; Netanyahu gave expression to American popular opinion.
New Irish PM on Gaza: 'Reason has been replaced by revenge'
Simon Harris, who became the youngest-ever Prime Minister of Ireland on Tuesday after the sudden resignation of his predecessor, Leo Varadkar, affirmed on Saturday his willingness to recognize a Palestinian state, condemned Hamas, and called for the release of hostages. Harris also, however, condemned Israel’s conduct in its war against the jihadist group.

Harris addressed the war between Israel and Hamas and its allies during a speech on Saturday at the annual conference of his party, Fine Gael.

"We absolutely, fully condemn the massacre carried out by Hamas in October," Harris said, "and again, we call for the unconditional release of all of the hostages. But—" Harris said, pausing for applause, "we will not stay silent on the actions of the Israeli government either," a line that drew a second round of applause.

Harris said that in Gaza, "reason has been replaced by revenge, by bombing, by maiming, and by the death of children." He also invoked "famine, a specter no Irish person can bear," adding that "anyone who can countenance deliberate starvation has lost their sense of humanity."

Israel denies that it is intentionally creating the conditions for famine in Gaza and recently opened a second land crossing for the movement of humanitarian aid into the Strip. The move came under pressure from the United States following an IDF strike that killed seven workers from the World Central Kitchen aid organization last week.

In his speech, Harris addressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly. Harris received the only standing ovation of the speech when he said, "The Irish people could not be clearer: We are repulsed by your actions. Ceasefire now, and let the aid flow safely."

Finally, he affirmed his party's support for "a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security." The now-prime minister reiterated that "Ireland stands ready to recognize the state of Palestine," adding, "and we know what we're talking about in this country. This island has one of the most successful peace processes on Earth." At this point, Harris transitioned to a discussion of Brexit and its consequences for UK-Irish relations.
Jon Stewart Says Israel ‘Slaps America in the Face,’ Slams Biden for Not Being Tougher on Jewish State Over Gaza
Stewart then moved on to discuss what he called the “bedrock rule of international law” regarding forceful land seizures. He played a clip of Biden denouncing such behavior by Russia.

“You might say Israel’s war is different [from] Ukraine’s — Israel is responding to an attack and hostage crisis. But in the midst of that, they pulled a little something in the West Bank on March 22 that might be notable,” Stewart said, referring to the Israeli government’s appropriation of land in the West Bank.

“That’s not even Gaza. That’s the West Bank. So you can’t say this has anything to do with defending yourself against Hamas. Let’s see if America upholds its rule against taking land,” Stewart said.

“Why do we tiptoe around on eggshells?” the frustrated talk show host exclaimed. “They [Israel] slap America in the face and our response is, ‘Well, if anyone slapped us in the face, it’d be concerning, that’s for sure. I mean, raising a hand to a delicate body part of the face, if true.’ The verbal gymnastics that the American government must undertake so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of a country we provide most of the weapons for is yarghhhhh!”

“Every time America tells the world that there’s something we won’t allow, Israel seems to say, ‘challenge accepted.’ Are they willfully trying to provoke us?” Stewart added. “Or perhaps they’re just reading our principles from right to left?”

Steward ended by criticizing Biden’s response to the death toll in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

“What the f–k are we doing here? The subtext of all this is America knows this is wrong. But apparently, it doesn’t seem to have the courage to say it in a straightforward manner,” he added. “You cannot bomb your way into safety. And after this recent week, with so much horror, perhaps America finally finds the need for a new approach with Israel with more justice and less cruelty.”

Analyses of casualty figures coming out of Gaza indicate the Hamas-controlled health authorities there systematically overcount civilian casualties and undercount terrorist combatants who were killed.
‘Hitler has won’ due to Israeli ‘genocide,’ Jewish ‘Harry Potter’ actress says
Miriam Margolyes, an Australian and English actress of Jewish descent who played Pomona Sprout in Harry Potter, believes that Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza is a victory for Adolf Hitler.

The actress, after comparing Israel to Hitler, adds that “It is not antisemitic to have a different opinion on the war time actions now.”

Some 10 days after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack, Margolyes was one of about 2,000 (now more than 4,400) artists to sign an “Artists for Palestine” letter calling for a ceasefire and accusing Israel of “war crimes.” The letter did not mention Hamas or the terror attack to which Israel responded.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry has represented Australian Jews for 80 years—since 1944. Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the ECAJ, said recently that “the world must call with clarity and unity for Hamas to lay down its arms and accept its defeat. Every day that passes without this will lead to more needless suffering and more misery.”
Eurovision asks fans to stop harassing artists over Israel
Eurovision has appealed to fans to stop harassing each other over the inclusion of Israel in the singing contest.

In a statement released on their website, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said they, “recognise the strong emotions stirred by this year's Eurovision Song Contest and the intense debate sparked by the inclusion of an Israeli entry.”

Eden Golan, the Israeli entry into this year’s contest, had her song investigated and rewritten by Israel’s public broadcaster Kan for being “too political”. Anti-Israel activists have since called for Golan to be removed from the contest or for the competition to be boycotted entirely.

Now the EBU have reaffirmed their responsibility for including the Israeli act and has asked fans to stop attacking performers.

Addressing “the targeted social media campaigns against some of our participating artists,” EBU Deputy Director General, Jean Philip De Tender, said: “We urge everyone to engage in respectful and constructive dialogue and support the artists who are working tirelessly.”

Tender stressed that the competition is “a music and entertainment show” and said “The EBU is dedicated to providing a safe and supportive environment for all participants, staff, and fans.”

Eurovision organisers have previously said that the contest is between national broadcasters rather than national governments, and should therefore be free of political statements.
Israeli singer Eden Golan receives death threats ahead of Eurovision song competition
The singer reportedly began to express her fears to her family and friends. "She is one of the most professional and goal-oriented singers you will know," Walla quoted a close friend of the singer as saying, "but it is impossible not to say that the threats she receives directly on her Instagram, and these are threats, are throwing her off balance."

Another friend of the singer said, "This will stop her from giving her best performance and representing Israel with respect, especially in this time. Her parents will also hire additional personal security guards at their own expense to protect thmselves."

Golan herself spoke on the threats she received.

"I took into account that I would also receive such comments on Instagram," she said. "I feel confident and determined to represent Israel in the best possible way. Our delegation travels with a trained security team, and I am sure they will do their best job to protect us."
Arthouse theater cancels screening affiliated with Israeli Film Festival
The Bryn Mawr Film Institute outside Philadelphia canceled a 7 p.m. screening scheduled for Tuesday night as part of the 2024 season of the Israeli Film Festival of Philadelphia (IFF), which takes place from April 6 to April 14 at different venues around the city.

“The Child Within Me,” a 90-minute documentary about Israeli musician Yehuda Poliker featuring archival footage from his career, will not be shown, according to the theater. The flier announcing the film remains on the listings page at street level outside the arthouse theater.

An email circulating from the nonprofit film institute said, “Although BMFI has always strived to be apolitical in selecting the films we show, public sentiment lately has escalated to the point that continuing with the IFF screening is being widely taken among individuals and institutions in our community of an endorsement of Israel’s recent and ongoing actions.”

The theater was concerned about both anti-Israel protesters and counter-protesters, it said.

Scott Zelov, Lower Merion Township commissioner, stated that since the announcement, “I have heard from many in our community who are angry and upset by the decision to cancel. I think they’re right, and I believe the decision should be reversed.”

He added that “canceling a non-political film is political and is not neutral. BMFI is a strong thought and cultural institution that should lead, and not avoid certain conflicts.”


Jewish Vanderbilt University Student Group Denied Admission to Multicultural Organization
Amid a burst of antisemitism on college campuses across the US, the Students Supporting Israel (SSI) chapter at Vanderbilt University has been denied membership in the Multicultural Leadership Council (MLC) branch of student government. According to The Vanderbilt Hustler, the group is the only one to be rejected from this year’s applicant pool, an outcome that SSI president Ryan Bauman said is evidence of febrile opposition to dialogue and coexistence among some segments of the student body. The only Jewish group to be admitted, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), is a fringe anti-Israel organization that did not condemn Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel and has long celebrated terrorism against Israelis. Among the nine groups to be admitted to the MLC this year were the Taiwanese American Student Association, Vanderbilt Pride Serve, the Vanderbilt Association for South Asian Cuisine, and the Vanderbilt Iranian Student Association. One of the 11 total organizations that applied, Vanderbilt United Mission for Relief and Development, is still awaiting an upcoming vote. As a requirement of its application, SSI was told to deliver a presentation to the MLC but given only a few minutes to do so. Afterward, the group was cross-examined by the MLC — of which Students for Justice in Palestine is a member organization — about their opinions regarding “genocide” and “apartheid,” an apparent attempt to use the proceeding as a soapbox for anti-Zionist propaganda. “We told them that we didn’t show up to discuss politics,” Bauman told The Algemeiner during an interview on Tuesday. “We told them we were there to celebrate Israeli culture and further the pro-Israel movement and invited them to have other dialogues at another time. We were then told to leave, and they held a closed session. And as you can see, it resulted in us being rejected by a wide margin.”
Israel Supporters Back Zara After Brand Faces Boycott Threats for Featuring Israeli Model
Supporters of Israel have been taking to social media to defend the Spanish fashion company Zara after it was bombarded with hate messages and boycott threats for hiring an Israeli to model its designs.

On Saturday, Zara posted on Instagram a carousel of photos featuring Israeli model Sun Mizrahi in some of its new lingerie looks. Zara’s Instagram account has 61.1 million followers and soon after the post went live, haters of Israel — including backers of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against the Jewish state — flooded the comments section. They wrote “boycott Zionism” and “Free Palestine,” called on shoppers to stop purchasing Zara goods, accused the fashion retailer and model of supporting genocide, and shared the emoji of the Palestinian flag.

“In [sic] sure she k!lled babies every single Zionist has to join IDF [the Israel Defense Forces] for some time men and women,” wrote one Instagram user on Tuesday. Another comment said, “I guess after trying to turn Gaza slaughter & genoside [sic] into a fashion statement, makes sense to be supporting an apartheid model. Anyone has any doubt left the level of complicity here & what role Zara would have placed back during holocaust & SA [South Africa] apartheid?!”

However, pro-Israel activists refused to remain silent and also took to the comments section. Some shared the emoji of the Israeli flag, while others said “I stand proudly with Israel” and applauded Zara for working with Mizrahi. Many additionally noted that the model’s nationality should be irrelevant.
Ohio State accused of ‘pervasive’ Jew-hatred in Title VI complaint
The Ohio State University has been dismissive towards concerns of Jewish and Israeli students, depriving them of the ability to participate fully in university life, amid an “antisemitic hostile environment that is now pervasive” at the university, three Jewish organizations that fight antisemitism allege.

The Anti-Defamation League, StandWithUs and Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law released their joint complaint on Tuesday. The three groups are urging the U.S. Department of Education to investigate the state university until Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act if Ohio State does not agree to mediation and if the mediation is unsuccessful.

Under the 1964 law, universities that receive federal funding cannot discriminate against students on the basis of “shared ancestry,” including Jewish identity.

“This case attracted our attention early on because of the egregious nature of the physical assaults on Jewish students and their mistreatment at the university hospital,” Rachel Lerman, vice chair and general counsel at the Brandeis Center, told JNS.

“One student, who had a broken jaw, gave up on trying to be seen there and got medical attention elsewhere, at his own expense. No one at the university ever followed up with the victims, who continue to suffer from their experience,” Lerman said.
Hard Rock Band HaYehudim Forced to Cancel Brooklyn Concert over Its Name But Continues US Tour
The Brooklyn Monarch concert venue located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has canceled the appearance of the Israeli hard rock band HaYehudim because of its name and the club’s fear of appearing to be taking a political position on the war in Gaza.

A spokesman for the band told The Jewish Press that despite the cancellation in Williamsburg, their US tour will go as scheduled, starting May 30 in New York, and on June 6 in Los Angeles.

Back to our story: of course, by canceling the show the Monarch already took a political position on the war in Gaza, Israel’s right to defend itself, the 2-state solution, and Arab murderers beheading babies, raping women, and slashing innocent civilians.

Twitter user Iris shared the venue’s official explanation: “I’m very sorry but we can’t accommodate you. My partners got back to me regarding the political nature of the band’s name, and we as an entertainment space in New York prefer to avoid politically charged events or actions.”

Of course, HaYehudim was established in 1992, and their name means, literally, “The Jews.” How would that make their show a politically charged event?

If your audience is mostly antisemites, it would.
Dual Degree Students Fear Leaving Tel Aviv University To Study at 'Anti-Semitic' Columbia University. They are Calling on the School For More Support.
At least two students have dropped out of Columbia University’s dual degree program with Tel Aviv University since Oct. 7, saying they feared out-of-control anti-Semitism on the Manhattan campus.

Others have considered leaving the program for the same reason, or said they wish they could. Eighty-five dual degree students, along with 80 of their parents, signed onto a letter sent to Columbia's president and college leaders on Monday that said: "Since the October 7th terror attacks on Israel, our program specifically has faced heightened animosity and discrimination by students at Columbia."

The letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, demanded an "official statement that our Dual Degree Program is supported by [the] administration and is not in danger of cancellation, and that TAU students are welcome at Columbia." The administration had for months been silent about a student campaign calling on Columbia to end the dual degree program and divest from Israel.

"We are repeatedly assured in private that the TAU Dual BA Program will not be canceled," the letter continued. "However, Columbia’s administration has never publicly stated or demonstrated any indication of this to its student body and beyond, leaving the impression that a cancellation is a viable option and thus leaving us students isolated in the face of this intimidation."

The crisis in the dual degree program, which includes some 140 students, comes amid mounting pressure on Columbia over its handling of post-Oct. 7 anti-Semitism by students and faculty. The university faces lawsuits by Jewish students, pressure from donors, and federal and congressional investigations over the matter. Columbia president Minouche Shafik is scheduled to testify before Congress on April 17 about the "administration’s failure to enforce its own policies to protect Jewish students," in the words of the committee's chairwoman, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.). Shafik will be joined by the co-chairs of the Ivy League university’s board of trustees.

In response the students' letter, a Columbia spokeswoman said the administration "will continue to whole-heartedly support" the dual degree program.
Harvard DEI office plans another year of segregated graduation ceremonies, finally adds one for Jewish students
Harvard University will host “affinity celebrations” for graduating students broken down by race, religion, and other identity groups.

The “affinity celebrations” will be hosted in May by the Harvard Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, according to the National Review.

The celebrations include a “Black Celebration,” “Lavender Celebration, “Veterans Celebration,” “Asian American, Pacific Islander, Desi-American (APIDA) Celebration,” a “First Generation-Low Income Celebration,” a “Jewish Celebration,” and a “Latinx Celebration.”

A sign-up form for the celebrations reviewed by the National Review states that the “Celebration Recognizing Arab Graduates, the Celebration Recognizing Jewish Graduates, and the Celebration Recognizing Veteran Graduates are being planned in collaboration with student groups and campus partners.”

Harvard’s 2023 “affinity celebrations,” did not include one for Jewish students, which was an addition to this year’s list.

Harvard Divinity School student Shabbos Kestenbaum told the outlet that the celebrations only marginalize individuals further.

“Rather than acknowledge the harmful ways in which Harvard DEI has contributed to campus antisemitism, the university further marginalizes individuals into groups of race, ethnicity, and religion,” said Kestenbaum. “Harvard DEI is simply out of control.”


Calls to remove anti-Israel feminist from Canberra museum exhibit
Controversy has erupted over the inclusion of far-left feminist Clementine Ford in an exhibit at the Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD) in Canberra.

Ford's presence in the Changemakers exhibition, focused on women's rights, has sparked calls for her removal due to her inflammatory anti-Israel comments and alleged involvement in the doxing of 600 Jewish creatives.

Chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission, Dvir Abramovich, has urged MoAD's director, Stephanie Bull, and the board to take action, stating:
"We could not remain silent over a person who ... should not be honoured and celebrated in the Museum of Australian Democracy."

Abramovich emphasised that Ford's remarks contradict the values upheld by MoAD and society. He highlighted Ford's alleged role in disseminating personal details of Jewish creatives, leading to death threats and forcing some into hiding.

He also referenced Ford's past comments targeting men and her controversial remarks about Israel, accusing her of peddling "repugnant conspiracy theories" with real-world consequences.

Despite the calls for removal, a museum spokesperson noted that no formal complaints had been received about the exhibition. The exhibit, which has been on display for nearly two years, 'celebrates activists and their allies advocating for justice and equality.'


I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.
There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed. It’s frictionless—one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line.

The mindset prevails in choices about language. In a document called NPR Transgender Coverage Guidance—disseminated by news management—we’re asked to avoid the term biological sex. (The editorial guidance was prepared with the help of a former staffer of the National Center for Transgender Equality.) The mindset animates bizarre stories—on how The Beatles and bird names are racially problematic, and others that are alarmingly divisive; justifying looting, with claims that fears about crime are racist; and suggesting that Asian Americans who oppose affirmative action have been manipulated by white conservatives.

More recently, we have approached the Israel-Hamas war and its spillover onto streets and campuses through the “intersectional” lens that has jumped from the faculty lounge to newsrooms. Oppressor versus oppressed. That’s meant highlighting the suffering of Palestinians at almost every turn while downplaying the atrocities of October 7, overlooking how Hamas intentionally puts Palestinian civilians in peril, and giving little weight to the explosion of antisemitic hate around the world.
BBC News continues to promote Hamas denials of abuse of hospitals
With BBC audiences not having seen any coverage of the fighting at Shifa hospital for the majority of its duration, they would be unaware of the videos put out by Hamas showing its own operatives engaging in “military operations” which of course contributed to the “ruins” and “destruction” described in both these reports.

In addition, that absence of coverage means that BBC audiences would also be unaware of statements put out by other terrorist organisations concerning their involvement in the fighting at Shifa hospital, admissions by detained terrorists that Hamas operated from that hospital, the filmed evidence of large quantities of weapons discovered (including in the maternity department) during the operation or the filmed gun battles between the IDF forces and terrorists hiding in the hospital’s wards.

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that one of the BBC journalists to whom this report is credited is the same Yolande Knell who almost a decade ago interviewed a Hamas spokesman hiding in Shifa hospital (where Amnesty International documented Hamas torture in 2014) because – as she put it at the time – “this is one of the few locations where Hamas officials feel they’re safe enough from a possible Israeli attack to come out and speak to the media”. Hamas’ exploitation of Shifa hospital had in fact been on record long before that.
Peter Oborne revisits his obsession with the Israel lobby
Peter Oborne is known for his conspiracy-laden 2009 Channel 4 Dispatches programme ‘Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby’.

To those unfamiliar with his Channel 4 show, CST wrote of the programme that it’s “one hour of innuendo about pro-Israeli moneybags controlling the Conservative and Labour Parties; pro-Israeli intimidation of British media; premeditated pro-Israeli abuse of antisemitism; and sinister music accompanying photos of pro-Israelis blurred across Israeli and British flags.”

David Cesarani, research professor in history at Royal Holloway, University of London, and noted expert on the Holocaust and antisemitism related issues, wrote at the time that “Peter Oborne sets out to expose a secretive lobby of rich and powerful Jews who use money and strong-arm tactics to skew British foreign policy in favour of Israel, intimidate MPs, and stifle media criticism of Zionism.”

Oborne is also known for his full-throated defence of Jeremy Corbyn, columns he’s published at a site linked to Hamas, and having literally accused Israeli Jews of ‘poisoning Palestinian wells”.

More recently, journalist John Ware, producer of the the BBC Panorama programme about antisemitism in Corbyn’s Labour Party, noted that Oborne was an ‘expert commentator’ for Al Jazeera’s ‘expose’ on the Israel lobby, a programme described in the Jewish Chronicle as “straightforward Jew-baiting dressed up as an investigation”. Oborne, wrote Ware, seemed to give credence during the show to the Qatari mouthpiece’s suggestion that Labour Friends of Israel was being ‘run from Tel Aviv‘.

Oborne published an op-ed at the Independent on April 3, revisiting his obsession with the putative power of the Israel lobby (“It’s time to put Conservatives’ links with Israel under the spotlight”), and, unsurprisingly, his latest ‘expose’ of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) represents a continuation of his obsession with Jewish power.

It also comes up empty as an expose.


MEMRI: London-Based Senior Palestinian Journalist Abd Al-Bari Atwan: The Resistance Axis Should Also Attack U.S. Targets
In an article published April 3, 2024 by the online daily Rai Al-Youm, the London-based senior Palestinian journalist Abd Al-Bari Atwan, who is the outlet's editor, called on the "resistance axis" led by Iran and Hizbullah to strike at U.S. interests, not just Israeli interests. This, he argued, is because the U.S., which provides Israel with weapons and diplomatic backing, "is a direct accomplice in all its crimes."

Ridiculing those who warn against attacking U.S. targets due to their fear of that country's military might, he said that the U.S. was defeated in Afghanistan and in Iraq and would also be defeated in Yemen. He also called on the Arab nation to devote all its military and economic resources to "aveng[ing] the deaths of its martyrs" and warned that "punishment is near" for the Arab regimes that collaborate with Israel, which he says are destined to fall.

The following are translated excerpts from Atwan's article:[1]
"U.S. President Joe Biden phoned Spanish chef José Andrés, founder of the World [Central] Kitchen charity, to express his condolences for the martyrdom of seven of his employees in a rocket attack carried out by an Israeli drone against their vehicles in the city of Deir Al-Balah in the Gaza Strip. Israeli President Isaac Herzog did likewise. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron summoned the Israeli ambassador and conveyed to him a letter of protest. All these contacts and condolences took place [only] because three of the seven fallen were British, Australian, and Polish citizens. No one expressed condolences for the deaths of the four Palestinians who were among the victims...

"[Although] John Kirby, the White House spokesman [sic; he is White House National Security Communications Advisor] stated at a press conference that President Biden is furious about the deaths of the seven employees of the [World] Central Kitchen international aid organization, he also said that 'Washington will continue to ensure that Israel can defend itself.' This is the height of effrontery and bias in favor of the murderers...

"President Biden is a direct accomplice in this extermination... not only by means of sending advanced missiles and stealth aircraft to the occupation state, but also because he gives [this state], and the massacres it carries out, protection and political support at the UN and worldwide. His claim that he had no advance knowledge of the missile attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, in which 14 senior commanders of the Qods Force were martyred,[2] is a lie, in a desperate attempt to distance himself from this act of terrorism.

"The resistance axis's retaliation must include U.S. targets, not just Israeli targets, because the U.S. is a direct accomplice in all of Israel's crimes in the Gaza Strip, South Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

"I am astonished at those who warn of the U.S.'s might and play up [the capability] of its weapons... These weaklings forget that this superpower was defeated in Afghanistan and Iraq, and will soon be defeated in Yemen, the sister who declared war on it and on its aircraft carriers in the Red Sea, the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, and the Arabian Sea.

"The Arab nation must rise up and avenge its martyrs. It must devote all its military and economic capabilities to this goal, and I refer particularly to oil and natural gas.
PMW: Walid Daqqa: From terrorist to PA’s role model and victim
PA propaganda specializes in taking despicable perpetrators of terrorist acts and turning them into role models and victims at the same time. Palestinian Media Watch has reported about this phenomenon numerous times. Today’s Palestinian terrorist folk hero is Walid Daqqa, who died this week of cancer in prison while serving a life sentence for taking part in the kidnapping and brutal murder of Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984. Daqqa had been receiving treatment at an Israeli hospital.

As it has routinely done when imprisoned terrorists have died of illness, the PA is portraying Daqqa as having been executed by Israel despite his having received comprehensive medical treatment:
“The [PA] Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned the crime of executing cancer patient prisoner Walid Daqqa, 62, at the Assaf HaRofeh Hospital.”

[WAFA, official PA news agency, April 8, 2024]

Further attempting to paint Daqqa as a victim, the chairman of the Palestinian National Council, the PA-funded PLO legislative body, also accused Israel in an official PA publication of executing Daqqa and withholding medical treatment.
“This evening, Sunday [April 7, 2024, Palestinian] National Council Chairman Rawhi Fattouh held the occupation (i.e., Israeli) government fully responsible for the death as a Martyr of fighter Walid Daqqa. Fattouh said: ‘Walid Daqqa was executed through [medical] neglect and non-provision of medical treatment. The occupation authorities rejected the PA’s request to provide him with the treatment he required at specialized hospitals, in a clear violation of Article 4 of the [Third] Geneva Convention that protects captives (sic., Palestinian terrorists do not meet the definition of “prisoners of war” presented in that article).”

[WAFA, official PA news agency, April 7, 2024]


Lebanese Christian official kidnapped and killed, sectarian tensions flare
Pascal Sleiman, a coordinator in the Christian Lebanese Forces party, was kidnapped and killed in the Byblos District of northern Lebanon on Sunday, with officials expressing concerns the kidnapping could exacerbate already heavy tensions between various factions in Lebanon.

According to MTV Lebanon, four armed individuals riding in a white car kidnapped Sleiman, the coordinator for the Lebanese Forces in the Byblos District, between the towns of Maifouq and Lehfed. The Lebanese Al-Jadeed TV reported that Sleiman's phone was later found on the side of the road.

On Monday evening, the Lebanese Army announced that they had arrested most of the members of a Syrian gang that they had found were behind Sleiman's kidnapping and murder. The gang members, who were trying to steal Sleiman's car, informed the Army Intelligence Directorate that Sleiman's body had been transported to Syria. The Lebanese Army is coordinating with Syrian authorities in an effort to bring Sleiman's body home.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the killing of Sleiman on Monday evening, while calling on all Lebanese citizens to "exercise self-control, be wise, and not be drawn into rumors and emotions."

Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi will hold an extraordinary meeting of the Central Internal Security Council on Tuesday in light of Sleiman's killing.


MEMRI: Iranian Organization Close To Supreme Leader Khamenei: Mohammad Reza Zahedi, The IRGC Qods Force Commander For Syria And Lebanon Who Was Killed In April 1, 2024 Airstrike Near Iranian Embassy, Was Involved In Planning And Execution Of October 7 Hamas Attack
On April 3, the Coalition Council of Islamic Revolution Forces, which is affiliated with the conservative ideological faction in Iran, published a notice of mourning and appreciation for IRGC Qods Force commander in Syria and Lebanon Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, known also as Hassan Mahadavi, his deputy Mohammad Hadi Rahimi, and five other senior Qods Force officials. They were were killed in the April 1 airstrike near the Iranian Embassy in Damascus that is being attributed to Israel.

The Coalition Council of Islamic Revolution Forces is headed by Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, who is advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as well as father-in-law to Khamenei's son Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei. He is also a member of the Expediency Council, and a former Majlis speaker. The April 3 announcement clearly indicates that Gen. Zahedi was involved in the planning and execution of the October 7 attack.

The announcement stated:
"... Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, together with his comrades, were awarded [with martyrdom] for their years of sincere struggle, and they achieved martyrdom on Lailat Al-Qadr,[2] the day of the death of the Emir of the Believers [Ali bin Abi Taleb, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammad and the first imam in the Shi'a].

"The strategic role of the martyr Zahedi in consolidating and strengthening the resistance front, and in the planning and execution of Al-Aqsa Flood, are part of the great pride that will transform the quiet efforts of this great commander into the eternal history of the struggle against the occupation by the Zionist regime [emphasis by MEMRI].

"The lethal blows struck during those days against the occupiers of Jerusalem [i.e. Israel] have led the leaders of [that] regime to the brink of helplessness and despair. The cowardly attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus is clear proof of [the truth] of this assertion.

"The supporters [of the regime in] Tel Aviv must know that Iran's harsh and unfortunate response to this bloody crime is on its way, and it will absolutely have a divine impact on the future equations in the region.

"Again, we send blessings to and salute the souls of the seven martyrs [who died] on the way to Jerusalem, and invite the zealous men of Tehran to participate in the Qods Day march and to make a glorious showing at the funeral of these proud fighters."[3]


Netherlands Airport Apologizes After Security Worker Harassed, Humiliated Former Hamas Hostage
The main international airport in the Netherlands issued an apology on Monday after two Israeli women, including a former Hamas hostage, were allegedly harassed and publicly humiliated by a security worker.

“It is clear that the two passengers did not feel that they were treated appropriately. We regret and apologize for this,” Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport said in a statement. “We will make sure that such situations do not happen again in the future.”

The incident in question took place on Friday when the Israeli women, one of whom was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 and later freed from captivity in Gaza, were attempting to go through airport security for their El Al flight back to Israel. When handing over their Israeli passports for inspection, the airport security officer, reportedly of Pakistani origin and Muslim faith, approached them in an aggressive way.

The officer singled them out for being in the wrong security line, told them to move, and then threatened to fine them, Israeli news website Ynet reported. The worker then proceeded to remove them from the line and began to scream at them, reportedly making derogatory remarks about the fact that they are Israeli.

An escort for the women then called Israel’s embassy in the Netherlands, which in turn called El Al’s security team at the airport. The airline’s security team cleared the situation and assisted the Israeli women in getting to their flight gate.
Bags with antisemitic flyers and what may be rat poison placed in Chicago
Dozens of Antisemitic flyers, many of which were placed in bags with what is suspected to be rat poison, were found in Chicago's Lincoln Park area on Monday morning, 43 Ward Alderman Timmy Knudsen said in a statement.

Knudsen said that a resident of his ward had alerted his office of the flyers, and that the Chicago Police Department had begun an investigation.

The Chicago Police department said that they had recovered 84 clear zip lock bags on vehicles and doorways. They bags contained "a flyer and an unknown substance."

Some of the flyers reportedly had the logo of the Anti-Defamation League. The NGO said on social media on Sunday that it was aware of the flyers, and that it had spoken to both Knudsen and the police.
After arson attack on German synagogue, hundreds rally in support
After an incendiary device was thrown at a German synagogue on Friday, at least 550 people rallied on Sunday in the city of Oldenburg to show support for the local Jewish community according to the municipality.

An incendiary device was thrown at the Oldenburg synagogue’s doors around noon by unknown individuals, but according to Oldenburg mayor Jürgen Krogmann the caretakers of a local cultural centre intervened and prevented the fire from spreading. FireFighters extinguished the flames and no one was hurt. The mayor noted that anyone who threw the incendiary must have known that there could have been someone inside, and thus the attack was “attempted murder” and “terrorism.” Krogmann said that police would be increasing security measures until the nature of the crime was understood, and emphasized that he would fight against antisemitism and racism.

"Attacks on synagogues are attacks on all of us"
“I condemn this act in the strongest possible terms. Attacks on synagogues are attacks on all of us. We will not accept that a Jewish institution in our city has become the target of an attack,” said Krogmann.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser condemned the attack as “disgusting, inhumane” in a social media post on Friday.

“My thoughts and my solidarity are with the Jewish community,” said Faeser. “The perpetrators must be identified and held accountable.”
Gil Troy: Why Israelis Are So Happy
America has fallen out of the top 20 countries on the 2024 World Happiness Index. Israel finished fifth. Amid unspeakable suffering, Israelis have found comfort in one another and a higher calling. Israelis pursue happiness through family and community, by feeling rooted and having a sense of purpose. Belonging to communities teaches citizens to care about and cooperate with others.

Despite disagreeing passionately, Israelis live in an intimate society that runs on trust and generates hope. Israelis feel they're never alone, and that their relatives and friends will never abandon them. Israelis don't count in days and decades but in millennia and eternity. They feel part of a bigger story, Jews' historical saga reaching back 3,500 years.

Compare anti-Israel progressive students with their Israeli soldier peers. The pinched ideology of many protesters deems the U.S. systemically racist and is intent on sorting everyone by "gender identity" and skin color. They pessimistically compete for reparations and indulgences and trash traditional families, religion and America's noble story.

Israelis didn't seek this war - but when attacked, they unleashed a patriotism, idealism, self-sacrifice and grit. Israelis' resilience, duty and love of life explain how this often polarized and besieged society remains such a happy place. Rather than demonize these heroes, protesters could learn from Israelis about the art of living.
Donations to Israel since Oct. 7 top $1.4 billion, Israeli government report concludes
Organizations and individuals around the world have donated at least $1.4 billion toward Israel’s recovery from the attack of Oct. 7, according to a new report published by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.

The donations, coupled with widespread pro-Israel activism in the Diaspora and the arrival in Israel of tens of thousands of volunteers, represent “an unprecedented effort by Jewish communities around the world to support Israel,” the ministry said in the report. (When accounting for inflation, the total donated is more than what American Jews gave to Israel in response to the Six-Day War in 1967 but less than they gave six years later in the Yom Kippur War.)

The report represents the most complete published tally of wartime donations so far and includes fundraising by Jewish federations, crowdsourced campaigns, and “Friends Of” charities benefiting the Israel Defense Forces and Magen David Adom, the national emergency service. A previous tally, published by a university in December, put the total at $1 billion.

About half of the sum was raised by the Jewish Federations of North America and its 146 member organization. The committee distributing the money is so flush with donations that it has not had to turn down requests from Israeli charities as long as they meet certain criteria.
NY Post Editorial: Rep. Ritchie Torres is dead right about Hamas’ Democratic enablers
Rep. Ritchie Torres is absolutely right about Hamas’ Tuesday rejection of yet another cease-fire offer: “The hyperbolic and hysterical demonization of Israel — from fair-weather friends — makes Hamas feel emboldened to continue rejecting ceasefires and continue holding the hostages captive,” the Bronx Democrat posted on X.

The terrorist thugs could have ended this war the week it began by sending the captives home. But Hamas does not care about the lives of its own people.

That the group still feels comfortable holding hostages even as its leaders reject deal after deal after deal is a testament to the very dynamic that Torres outlines.

It also gives the lie completely to the squeals and screeches from the pro-Hamas caucus in Torres’ own Democratic Party.

If Reps. Jamaal Bowman, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and every other pro-terror Dem really wanted Israel’s humane and justified war against Hamas to end, they would’ve been demanding ceaselessly and at the top of their lungs that Yahya Sinwar and his masters in Doha (and their masters in Tehran) release the hostages with zero preconditions from Day One.

They don’t, of course, want the war to end. What they crave is the destruction of the state of Israel.

But it’s the fact that the White House itself has aligned with this fringe element that truly explains why Hamas thinks it can win a permanent cease-fire, and so survive Israel’s current drive to eliminate it — and rebuild to again slaughter innocents in its long-term bid to destroy the Jewish state.

Families of American hostages have rightly called the Biden administration out over its seeming refusal to apply meaningful pressure to Hamas to release these innocents.


Elon Gold introduces Hillel Neuer in LA | 2024



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