Friday, April 19, 2024

04/19 Links Pt2: Progressives’ Pro-War Protest Movement; The Dark Truth About The Left's Love of Islamism; Fetterman will never stop talking about the hostages

From Ian:

The Rape Denialists
Considering the overwhelming evidence that sexual assault took place, despite the inherent challenges in collecting such evidence in wartime, it’s difficult to fathom why so many on the anti-Israel left continue to deny that it occurred or cast doubt on its significance.

The most obvious explanation is that by questioning what happened on October 7, activists hope to undercut the rationale for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Showing that systematic sexual abuse didn’t happen would, they believe, demonstrate that Israel is engaged in a mass public deception to justify killing Palestinians.

But some experts I spoke with see other factors at play.

The charge that Jews have exaggerated and weaponized their suffering has long been the basis for Holocaust denialism, said Amy Elman, a professor of political science and Jewish studies at Kalamazoo College who has written extensively on anti-Semitism and women’s rights. Now that same claim is being used by anti-Semites to portray efforts at justice for October 7 as “part of a larger nefarious scheme to harm Palestinians.” “Rape denialism is absolutely consistent with Holocaust denialism,” Elman said, and “this rape denialism is another form of anti-Semitism.”

One of the more troubling aspects of the left’s response to October 7 has been to cast the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians in simplistic terms: Palestinians are the oppressed, dark-skinned minority population; Israelis are the white oppressors. Never mind that Israel is a diverse, multiethnic society. (Most American Jews trace their origins to immigrants from Europe, but the majority of Israeli Jews descend from those who came, most often as refugees, from the Middle East and North Africa.) This reductionist binary has also made it easier to explain the conflict to a younger generation unfamiliar with Arab-Israeli history but well versed in the American civil-rights movement.

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a historian at the New School, says that this black-and-white framing has led to a distorted view of what happened on October 7—one that is informed by a reductive view of modern feminism. “There is a very powerful and understandable resistance on the left,” she told me, “to centering ‘white feminism’ or white womanhood in understanding the experiences of women and the purpose of feminism, domestically and internationally.” By this logic, white feminism is inherently “problematic”—and because many on the left see Israelis as white, she says, they “see any defense of Israeli women as some sort of capitulation to ‘white feminism.’”

Moreover, claims of sexual assault against white women have historically been used to justify racial violence, which has, according to Elman and Petrzela, led some pro-Palestine activists to compare Hamas to Emmett Till, who was accused of whistling at a white woman in the Jim Crow South before his brutal murder. It’s “unhinged,” Petrzela said, “but in some ways totally predictable.”

Jonathan Freedland, a columnist for The Guardian, suggested to me that left-wing rape denialism is, in effect, a refusal to believe that Hamas could stoop so low as to engage in sexual violence. On the surface, this sounds bizarre. Hamas massacred more than 1,100 Israelis, the majority of whom were civilians, and has a long history of massacring Jewish civilians, including children. How could any crime be considered worse than murder? But Freedland says that there are leftists who are prepared to countenance “armed resistance” but cannot do the same for sexual violence. “You can see why it would be essential for them to say that Hamas was ‘only’ guilty of killing and not guilty of rape.”

Freedland noted that Hamas itself has consistently denied that its fighters committed sexual crimes, perhaps in an effort to retain its standing among devout Muslims. “Hamas would be nervous of being seen not as warriors for Palestine but as a bunch of rapists who bring shame on Islam,” he said. Indeed, as Sulitzeanu pointed out to me, some Israeli Arabs who have stood in solidarity with the victims of October 7 have also refused to accept that their Palestinian brethren could commit such heinous, un-Islamic crimes.
Seth Mandel: Progressives’ Pro-War Protest Movement
Yesterday’s protests at Columbia highlighted a key difference between the left-wing protests of generations past and the current demonstrations: While both cheer America’s enemies, the 2024 version is ostentatiously, undeniably pro-war.

I used to shake my head when people would accuse others of being “warmongers,” because the term was so often reserved for people who very obviously did not fit the bill. If you want to know what a warmonger actually is, check out those who have for six months cheered rabidly for the very concept of war itself. Anti-war protesters usually lose interest when the U.S. isn’t involved. But personal interest has no role here; these protesters live vicariously through any fascist with a gun, drone, or rocket launcher.

“Never forget the 7th of October,” they shouted at Jews at Columbia last night. “That will happen not one more time, not five more times, not 10 more times, not 100 more times, not 1,000 more times, not 10,000… The 7th of October is going to be every day for you.”

This kind of enthusiasm for the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, complete with sexual torture and the dismemberment of young children, is important to note for several reasons, only one of which is that it highlights these protestors’ uncontrollable urge for the Mideast war to go on forever. It’s also notable because it’s honest: The Hamas-a-thons all around the country have been clear about what their participants want. Screeching bloodlust so explicit it would have made Nazis blush has become the ticket to ride in progressive activist circles.

“Iran, you make us proud!” they cheered in New York City, after the Islamic Republic launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones from its territory aimed at Israel, in what was an unprecedented region-wide act of war.

In January, another chant became popular at such gatherings: “Yemen, Yemen, make us proud; turn another ship around!” This was a reference to the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen who declared war on civilian ships traversing the Red Sea. Though the Houthis talk mostly about their hatred for Jews and America, their victims so far have been Vietnamese and Filipino. The Iran attack, lauded by Khamenei fans in New York City, badly injured one person: a young Arab girl. But it doesn’t matter to these psychos whose blood you draw so long as you pair your war strikes with demented comments about Jews.
Iran follows footsteps of Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and Soviet Russia
Iran’s case is different, and yet the principle – that aggression contains the seeds of its own defeat – applies to it all the same.

Iran’s aggression is unique both technically and substantively. Technically, unlike Germany and Japan, it is endowed with natural resources, and in this regard resembles the Soviet Union. However, unlike the other great aggressors, all of which were driven by secular ideas, Iran is driven by religion.

The ayatollahs believe Iran should dominate the Middle East, Shi’ism should dominate Islam, and Islam should dominate the world. This is what made Tehran spend billions on the creation of militias that destabilize the Middle East, this is what made them dispatch terrorists from Buenos Aires to Bangkok, and this is what now makes them help Russia confront the West in Ukraine.

The free world’s response to this aggression is the same as it was in all three previous cases: strategic reluctance and psychological denial.

It’s easy to say this in hindsight, but the fact is that Germany’s aggression could have been preempted militarily, had the free world not lied to itself that Hitler’s appetite begins and ends in the Sudetenland. Similarly, in May 1939, when Soviet and Japanese armies clashed in Mongolia, the democratic powers could have sided with Moscow, and thus prevented the following summer’s Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and also the subsequent attack on Pearl Harbor.

That, of course, is not how democratic statecraft works. Just like for fascists war is a national value, a moral ideal and a political weapon of first resort, for us democrats it is anathema, trauma, and a weapon of last resort.

That is why the free world in 1956 abandoned Hungary to its Soviet masters’ devices rather than help its anti-Soviet revolt, even after Budapest declared its desire to join NATO.

That is why there was nothing surprising about this week’s pleas to Israel from both Europe and America to avoid a grand retaliation against Iran.

It’s a time-honored tradition in which everyone plays their part: the aggressors keep upping the ante, the free keep denying aggression’s threat, and history, while leading the aggressor to its dustbin, keeps raising freedom’s price.

So yes, the Islamic Republic of Iran, like Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and Soviet Russia, will sooner or later collapse. The only question is whether that will happen because of the free world’s conduct, or despite it.


This Passover has a 'bitter taste,' says Los Angeles-based activist as Hamas hostage crisis continues
This year, with dozens of hostages remaining in captivity in Gaza, the Jewish holiday of Passover has an especially poignant meaning, activist and actress Noa Tishby told Fox News Digital.

Tishby is a New York Times bestselling author as well and Israel's former Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and Delegitimization. She is based in Los Angeles.

Passover, said Tishby, is "the holiday of Jewish national liberation."

This year, it begins on the evening of Monday, April 22.

As detailed in the Book of Exodus, "more than 3,000 years ago, the bodies and souls of our Hebrew ancestors were oppressed by the pharaohs of Egypt," she said.

The Jewish people were led out of Egypt by Moses, and were led to the "Promised Land" of Israel.

In the modern era, "Jewish tradition instructs us to view this suffering and redemption as if we experienced it ourselves at our annual festive – and instructive – meal and gathering, the Seder, when we recount the Exodus from Egypt," said Tishby.

But in 2024, the celebration of Passover has a much different tone.

"Next week, at millions of homes in America, our Seders will be bittersweet, as our hearts are in the terror tunnels beneath Gaza where our fellow Jews are being violated and tortured daily," she said.

Passover is the annual commemoration of Moses leading the Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt. (iStock)

Discussing the situation in the Middle East "isn't a comfortable conversation," said Tishby — something that Moses, the "Passover hero" was all too familiar with, she said.
Minister demands UN provide matzah, wine to Israeli hostages for Passover
Israel’s Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush has sent a letter to the United Nations demanding that the world body work provide the 133 hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza with matzah and wine for the Passover seder.

“Unfortunately, not all of the people of Israel will be able to celebrate the seder night according to the tradition of their ancestors,” Porush wrote in a letter to U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland.

“133 of our brothers and sisters are not with us and are being held captive by the Hamas terrorist organization, which has been holding them by force since the murderous attack on Simchat Torah,” he added.

Porush insisted that while Jerusalem hopes that all hostages would be freed before the holiday, which starts at sundown on April 22, the United Nations must step in to assist if they won’t be.

The haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, Israeli official made the demand so that the remaining hostages “can at least symbolically observe the holiday, in the hope that this will uplift their spirits and enable them to endure their difficult situation until their swift release.”

On April 11, a mock seder to demand the return of the hostages was held by family members in Kibbutz Nir Oz. In a statement, the families demanded the release of their loved ones before the holiday.

“Last Shabbat marked six months since they were cruelly kidnapped from their home. Six months, and it feels as if they have been forgotten there,” said Ofri Bibas-Levy, the sister of Yarden Bibas, who was abducted during the Oct. 7 attacks along with his wife and two young children.

“Will they be granted the freedom so cruelly taken from them? Hasn’t the time come for the whole world to also shout for Ariel and Kfir? A shout for justice, for humanity, for an end to this nightmare. Let my family go! Let our people go!” Bibas-Levy added.
FBI Chief Says Agency on Alert for Threats to Jews Ahead of Passover
FBI director Christopher Wray on Wednesday said his agency is on alert for anti-Semitic hate crimes ahead of Passover, a week-long Jewish holiday that starts next Monday.

"Today, we at the bureau remain particularly concerned that lone actors could target large gatherings, high-profile events, or symbolic or religious locations for violence—particularly a concern, of course, as we look to the start of Passover on Monday evening," Wray said at a Wednesday event hosted by Jewish security organization Secure Community Network.

The director, who was appointed by then-president Donald Trump in 2017, said the FBI’s investigations of anti-Semitic hate crimes have surged following Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel.

"Between Oct. 7 and Jan. 30 of this year, we opened over three times more anti-Jewish hate crime investigations than in the four months before Oct. 7," Wray said. "And of course, that’s on top of what was already an increase from the previous year."

According to an Anti-Defamation League report released Tuesday, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in 2023—more than 8,800—was the highest ever recorded in a single year, marking a 140 percent increase overall and a 320 percent surge on college campuses compared with 2022.

The ADL report showed the Oct. 7 attack and the ensuing war in Gaza exacerbated anti-Semitic sentiments across the United States: The majority of the anti-Semitic incidents in 2023—around 60 percent overall and more than three-fourths of incidents on college campuses—occurred after Oct. 7.

"Anti-Semitism is nothing short of a national emergency, a five-alarm fire that is still raging across the country and in our local communities and campuses," ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said.
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman says his office will never stop talking about the hostages
Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman will keep talking about the hostages until every last one is accounted for and brought back home, he said in a video posted on social media where he's seen sitting in front of a wall in his office covered with posters of the hostages.

He said their posters will stay there until they are brought home.

"With a somber Passover approaching, I remain committed to speaking about this travesty and acknowledge there can't be true lasting peace until the hostages are home," Fetterman posted with the video.

"We have to do this"
Fetterman said he'll never understand why people are not talking about the hostages and why there's not more stories about them in the media.

"We have to do this," Fetterman said. "And remember that if Hamas would just send everybody home and surrender all of the death, destruction and misery and Gaza would end right now. Our office will never stop talking about this."


Hamas apologism has taken Australia by storm
A property developer and donor to the Green Party, Mashni was threatened with legal action last October under the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act. A leading Australian barrister argued that Mashni could be guilty of incitement to hatred, after he organised rallies in his home city of Melbourne where speakers called for an ‘intifada’ against Jews. The rallies also featured harrowing chants in Arabic, recalling the massacre of Jews in 7th-century Saudi Arabia. So far, however, no case has been brought against Mashni.

Before 7 October, an operator like Mashni – who talks of the ‘Western imperialist’ ‘power structures’ that ‘all focus on [Israel]’ and openly calls for the ‘decolonisation of Palestine and the ending of Zionism’ – would have been treated with the contempt his poisonous views deserve.

But not anymore. After 7 October, Mashni has appeared on ABC’s prime-time current-affairs show, Q+A. He has even featured on the official Instagram of foreign-affairs minister Wong herself, who he met with at Parliament House 10 days after 7 October. ‘I shared my deepest condolences with Nasser Mashni from the Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network following the devastating explosion at the Gaza City hospital’, wrote Wong at the time, apparently unaware that, according to her own security agencies, misfired rockets from Islamic Jihad were responsible.

Mashni is far from an irascible, insignificant outlier. Other, more significant Palestinian organisations are similarly relaxed about Hamas continuing to rule over Gaza. Last Thursday, the head of the General Delegation of Palestine in Australia, Izzat Abdulhadi, hosed down any suggestion Hamas could be removed from Gaza. ‘I mean, you can’t remove Hamas from Gaza. You can weaken their military capabilities, but Hamas is a part of the Palestinian people’, Abdulhadi told ABC Radio. ‘Hamas is a philosophy. Hamas is an idea’, he said. It’s hard to imagine these activists saying this about any other murderous, fascistic group.

In other quarters, people have expressed outright Jew hatred. In the wake of October’s attacks, leaked videos from multiple Sydney mosques exposed a strain of anti-Semitism that, until recently, was simply not tolerated in Australia. In November, a cleric at the Roselands Mosque beseeched Allah to kill ‘Jewish Zionists’ ‘one by one’. In February, an imam at Lakemba’s As-Sunnah Mosque called for the restoration of Palestine in place of Israel ‘through jihad for the sake of Allah’. The Al Madina Dawah Centre in Bankstown has provided a pulpit for similarly graphic calls for violence. Well-known cleric Abu Ousayd has called Jews ‘descendants of pigs and monkeys’.

Before 7 October, we Aussies might have thought that these horrific views were marginal. Now, I’m not so sure. Apologism for the anti-Semitic butchers of Hamas and, in some cases, outright anti-Semitism now seem all too prevalent in Australian public life.

We need to take a far harder stand against these poisonous worldviews, before it’s too late.
The Dark Truth About The Left's Love of ISLAMISM - Tom Slater
Spiked editor Tom Slater explains the unholy alliance of the Left with militant Islamism, and criticises the Leftist championing of Hamas. #antiwoke #heretics #islamism

Chapters:
0:00 Tom Slater Highlights
1:00 The Islamo-Left & French Intellectualism
4:00 Labour the Left’s ‘British National Party’
5:40 What Attracts The Left To Islamism
7:35 White Man’s Burden
9:00 Israel Pulled OUT of Gaza in 2005
11:30 Jews Changing Their Minds on Left
15:00 Cranky End of Extreme Right (Candace Owens)
17:55 Double Standards on Israel
20:00 Ireland’s Hypocrisy
22:20 Islamophobia vs Anti-Semitism
24:00 Sharia Law & Militant Islamism
27:00 What politicians should do
29:00 Muslims Don’t WANT This
32:30 Can You Be Woke & Against Islamism
34:00 Are Humans Just Rubbish?
37:25 The Loss of Enlightenment Values
40:00 Death of Democracy
42:00 Brexit Turned Elites Insane
47:00 Teaching Bad Leftist History
51:00 Self-Deprecation or Hating the Poor
54:00 Elite Tribes
56:08 A Heretic Tom Admires


Inside the State Department’s anti-Israel listening sessions
Not long after Kurt Campbell started his new job as the No. 2 official at the State Department in February, the Asia expert and now-deputy secretary of state began a series of listening sessions with staff members at Foggy Bottom.

The informal meetings appeared on staffers’ calendars with no additional information; they weren’t framed as being only about the war in Gaza. But these meetings, and others like them held by senior department officials with lower-level employees, have often devolved into venting sessions about U.S. policy toward Israel and Gaza, three department employees told Jewish Insider. All of them requested anonymity to speak candidly about internal department matters.

“It was overwhelmingly calls, including from people I respect, [that] we need to do more to sanction Israel, we need to do more to punish Israel, we need to be more seriously considering ways in which we can sanction them, condition aid, cut off aid, reduce weapons flows,” said one foreign service officer with two decades of Middle East experience who sat in on a recent meeting with Campbell. “There were people whose issues don’t have anything to do with the conflict … who were making the case for why we need to do more to bash Israel.”

From universities to Fortune 500 companies to the federal government, few institutions have avoided the political fallout of the violent conflict in the Middle East that was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack in Israel.

The State Department — where thousands of diplomats and civil servants are tasked with implementing President Joe Biden’s foreign policy, which has maintained support for Israel in its goal of defeating Hamas — is not immune from that rancor. Dozens of department employees reportedly signed onto “dissent cables” to Secretary of State Tony Blinken in the fall, and at least two officials have resigned in protest of Biden’s support for Israel.

What stood out to some department employees at recent listening sessions was senior leaders’ unwillingness to defend Biden’s support for Israel’s security, particularly in response to a chorus of employees seeking a harsher stance toward the Jewish state. One result of their reticence is that other lower-level employees who stand by Biden’s support for Israel also do not speak up in those meetings.

The senior foreign service officer who spoke to JI described a “failure of leadership in the U.S. Department of State right now to reinforce internally what the policy is and why the president has taken it, to put into context what Israel is dealing with, whether it’s Hamas’ tactics on the ground, or the fact that it’s actually a two-front war, with Iran lurking in the background.”
Biden admin sanctions additional supporters of ‘violent extremists in the West Bank’
The U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions on two Israeli charities and an Israeli citizen for supporting “violent extremists in the West Bank” on Friday.

The Mount Hebron Fund and Shlom Asiraich (“The Well-Being of Your Prisoners”) raised the equivalent of $140,000 and $31,000, respectively, in crowdfunding campaigns for Yinon Levi and David Chai Chasdai.

The crowdfunding campaigns were removed from their respective websites, and the funds for Levi were “withheld by a local financial institution,” according to Treasury.

Shlom Asiraich previously raised money for Yigal Amir, who assassinated former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

The Biden administration sanctioned Levi and Chasdai in February along with two other Israelis that it accused of engaging in “extremist settler violence” and “undermining peace, security and stability in the West Bank.”

The U.S. State Department added Ben Zion (“Bentzi”) Gopstein to that list on Friday. Gopstein was convicted of incitement to racism by an Israeli court in January.

“The Department of State is today designating Ben Zion Gopstein, the founder and leader of Lehava, an organization whose members have engaged in destabilizing violence affecting the West Bank,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. “Under Gopstein’s leadership, Lehava and its members have been involved in acts or threats of violence against Palestinians, often targeting sensitive or volatile areas.”
Hugh Hewitt: With Biden failing, Israel must lead the West The Biden administration’s foreign policy has sown confusion among both friends and foes of America. What should the US policy be after Iran has attacked Israel in the biggest drone strike in history? Can Israel count on the US or must it face its enemies alone?

To discuss all this, JNS editor-in- chief Jonathan Tobin is joined with syndicated radio host Hugh Hewitt. He explains that Biden's principle of non-escalation has led to disastrous consequences in Iran and Gaza.

Pro-Israel Primary Challengers Outraise and Outpoll Vulnerable 'Squad' Members
The congressional "Squad" is on the ropes as its most vulnerable members find themselves outraised and outpolled by their pro-Israel primary challengers.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.), who initially dismissed reports of Hamas terrorists raping Israelis as "propaganda" in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, was drastically outraised by his primary opponent during the first three months of 2024, Federal Election Commission filings show. Westchester County executive George Latimer raked in $2.2 million from January through March and ended the quarter with over $3 million in his campaign war chest. Bowman raised just $1.3 million, and has less than $1.5 million on hand heading into the June 25 primary.

Latimer launched his campaign to unseat Bowman after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and has garnered support from major pro-Israel groups including the Democratic Majority for Israel Political Activity Committee and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is expected to spend $100 million in 2024 to unseat anti-Israel politicians.

Bowman has remained unrelenting in his opposition to Israel even as Latimer has a massive 17-point polling lead against the "Squad" member. Bowman was one of 14 House lawmakers on Thursday to vote against a resolution condemning Iran for its drone and missile attacks against Israel last weekend and reaffirming the United States’ commitment to supporting Israel through weapons assistance.

Bowman was joined in voting against the resolution by his fellow "Squad" member Rep. Cori Bush (D., Mo.), who faces her own formidable primary challenge from St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Wesley Bell. Bell launched his campaign after the Oct. 7 attacks and has frequently attacked Bush for her steadfast opposition to Israel.

Bell, who has also secured support from pro-Israel groups in his campaign, leads Bush by 22 points, according to a recent poll. Bell raised $954,000 during the first three months of 2024, compared with Bush’s $608,000. He also has a significant cash-on-hand advantage over Bush, ending the quarter with over $1.1 million. Bush, meanwhile, has just $528,000 on hand heading into the August 6 primary.


Labour Suspend Council Candidate Following Tweets Suggesting Hamas Bombings "Inevitable"
Guido understands that the Labour Party have suspended Khuram Majid, Labour’s council candidate for the Elland Ward in Calderdale from the local elections following Guido’s story on his social media posts suggesting that Israel should not have been “surprised” about the “inevitable” Hamas bombings. Another one bites the dust…

He’s now pending an investigation, with no party support for his campaign. With the local elections less than two weeks away, as with Azhar Ali in the Rochdale by-election, Majid has to remain on the ballot. Apparently Labour central HQ were made aware of Majid’s questionable views early doors, though are being very slow in releasing an official statement. History does repeat itself…


Iranian academic at Princeton University accused of publicly supporting terror groups
A decades-old interview is adding to a widening scandal involving a former high-ranking Iranian official and controversial Princeton professor. Seyed Hossein Mousavian is accused of endorsing Hezbollah and Hamas in a 1997 German newspaper interview.

The new revelations about Mousavian’s pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah interview in a German paper, coupled with what some claim was an endorsement of an Iranian regime fatwa (religious order) ordering the assassination of British-American author Salman Rushdie, comes at a time when the Ivy League professor is the subject of a congressional probe. Mousavian is currently facing a U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce investigation for allegedly advancing the interests of Iran.

In November, Fox News Digital exclusively reported on the investigation into Mousavian’s ties to the world’s worst state-sponsor of terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran. The investigation is ongoing, and the congressional committee has not issued any findings.

In an interview back in 1997 with the left-wing German daily paper Taz, Mousavian, who was Iran’s Ambassador to Germany at the time, was asked if Iran supports groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. Mousavian seemed to put his support behind Hamas. "If by that you mean that we supply Hamas with weapons: No, we do not. But if you mean that we support the Palestinians in their struggle, yes, we do."

When asked by the paper if Iran provides Hezbollah support materially or financially, Mousavian said "We support Hezbollah morally and not by supplying weapons."

The U.S. Middle East Media Research Institute first translated Mousavian’s German language interview earlier this month on its website and provided background material on his alleged role in stoking terrorism in Europe, including the assassination of Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant named Mykonos in 1992.

Mousavian, a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist at Princeton University, was hosted by the Obama administration, according to the Washington Free Beacon, at least three times at the White House, and invited to speak at an important U.S. STRATCOM military event in August 2023 during the Biden administration
Columbia's Joseph Massad Calls BS on University President Minouche Shafik's Testimony
Columbia University professor Joseph Massad emerged on Wednesday contradicting claims made by the school's president earlier that day before a congressional panel.

Massad told the Electronic Intifada that, contrary to Shafik's claims, he is not to his knowledge under any investigation by university officials, nor has he been removed from his post as chairman of the school's Academic Review Committee.

"I remain the chair of the Academic Review Committee, a one-year position, for the next few weeks, which is the normal end of my chairmanship," Massad said. "Indeed, I just had a meeting with the committee staff yesterday [16 April] and informed them that I will miss the next and final meeting on 8 May, due to my travel schedule. No one has contacted me at all from the university with regards to my current chairmanship. I will also remain a member of the Academic Review Committee next year, which is a three-year appointment."

Massad's statement contradicts Shafik's testimony to the committee, during which the university president said Massad is "under investigation" and was "spoken to" over an Oct. 8 op-ed he published in the Electronic Intifada. Massad in the op-ed lauded Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel as "incredible" and "awesome." Shafik said that she was "appalled" by the op-ed and that Massad was told the language in his piece was "unacceptable."

Shafik also suggested Massad was removed from his role as the chairman of the Columbia Arts and Sciences Academic Review Committee, which conducts reviews of the school's departments and guides "administrative decisions." After Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) informed Shafik that Columbia's website still listed Massad as the chairman of the committee, Shafik backtracked from the claim and pledged to remove Massad from the chairmanship.

The discrepancies could spell trouble for Shafik, given that the House committee's Republican members said they would not hesitate to hold another hearing should they deem one necessary. The committee is in the process of obtaining internal documents related to Columbia's response to campus anti-Semitism.

In his interview with the Electronic Intifada, Massad said he has not been informed of any university investigation into him and met last week with Columbia's provost, Angela Olinto, who "conveyed to me her support."


'Moral imbeciles': Newsweek Opinion Editor slams 'idiot' pro-Hamas activists
Pro-Hamas activists “do not want mass support for Palestinians” because it would ruin their chance to “feel morally superior,” explains Newsweek Opinion Editor Batya Ungar-Sargon.

“The truth is they are moral idiots – they are moral imbeciles,” she told Sky News Australia host James Morrow.

“Most of the activism is happening on college campuses and they are deeply, deeply unpopular.

“People cutting off traffic to an airport are not people who are trying to create a vast movement with a lot of support.

“They do not want mass support for Palestinians among Americans because they want the right to feel morally superior.”




Arab-Israeli Journalist Assaulted at Columbia University, Forced To Cancel Speech
An Arab-Israeli journalist was forced to cancel his Thursday speech at Columbia University after campus agitators pushed him, punched him in the face, and told him to kill himself.

Yoseph Haddad was on his way to meet a Columbia Public Safety officer and a member of campus group Students Supporting Israel (SSI) when he encountered a group of what he called "pro-terrorist protesters." One of the agitators wore a keffiyeh over his head, a Palestinian flag around his neck, and waved a bloodied and tattered Israeli flag in Haddad's direction, a video of the encounter shows. Another repeatedly told the journalist to "take a gun to your head," "kill yourself," and "shoot yourself."

Haddad told the group that they "have no idea what's going on" and that he would "keep telling the truth about all of you." At that point, a keffiyeh-clad individual pushed and then punched Haddad, according to the video.

"I was physically attacked by pro-terrorist protesters before my lecture at Columbia University," Haddad said. "Instead of a lecture, I went to file a police complaint."

The incident occurred shortly before Haddad was scheduled to speak to a group of students on Columbia's campus. SSI, which organized the event, said the assault shows that the "situation on campus has become utterly and categorically untenable."

"Weeks ago, SSI planned an event with Israeli-Arab journalist Yoseph Haddad," the group said in a statement. "On his way to meet a Public Safety officer and members of SSI, Yoseph was shoved and punched in the face by an anti-Israel protester while walking through the protest outside of the 116th street gates."

"Following the assault, Yoseph voluntarily went to the precinct with local law enforcement and is pressing charges. The event had to be canceled."


Daniel Greenfield: Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Communist Daughter, Who Cheered Oct 7, Suspended
While messed up kids can go from any background, when you’re the child of whatever weird incestuous, adulterous Islamist-Socialist grift, Rep. Ilhan Omar has going on, the odds are against you.

So whether it’s nature or nurture, Isra Hirsi, Omar’s daughter, has a sickle and hammer in her profile and evil in her heart.

Yes, that’s what she was doing on Oct 7.

Now, Isra Hirsi was suspended as part of the pro-Hamas events at Columbia University as an organizer with the SJP hate group.

The media and the Left are full of claims that “peaceful students” were arrested in a peaceful protest. Here’s what some of those peaceful students looked like.


Jamaal Bowman Defends Ilhan Omar's Daughter After Suspension for Her Role in Anti-Israel Tent City at Columbia
New York Democratic congressman Jamaal Bowman rallied to the defense of Rep. Ilhan Omar's (D., Minn.) daughter after she was suspended from school for her role in an anti-Israel protest that took the form of an Occupy Wall Street-style tent city at Columbia University.

Omar’s daughter, Isra Hirsi, was suspended from Barnard College on Thursday for her role in the unsanctioned tent encampment—which the protesters called an "indefinite occupation" of school property. The protesters were repeatedly warned that they were violating Columbia's rules.

The suspension came a day after Omar questioned Columbia president Minouche Shafik during Wednesday’s House Education and Workforce Committee hearing. Omar on Wednesday asked Shafik about Columbia’s freedom of expression regarding the Israel-Hamas war on campus. Bowman on Thursday claimed Hirsi’s suspension was the result of retaliation, rather than punishment for breaking the rules.

"The day after [Omar] questioned Columbia leadership's commitment to free academic expression, the school suspended her daughter? It's clear what is happening here. Our educational institutions should not be in the business of political reprisals," Bowman wrote in a post.


Hundreds of USC students flood campus in protest after college banned valedictorian's speech because of her antisemitic social media posts - as 130 faculty sign letter demanding to hear from her at graduation
The march through campus followed a series of calls for her speech to be re-instated.

A letter from 130 faculty members said canceling her speech 'stifles open communication' while dozens of student groups signed a separate letter saying they were 'outraged and ashamed' by the decision.

The scandal started after pro-Israel groups slammed Tabassum's selection for valedictorian, accusing her of anti-Semitism after it emerged the 21-year-old had made posts questioning the Israel-Hamas conflict.

A link in her Instagram bio led to a third-party page which said 'Zionism is a racist settler-colonialist ideology'.

The college then removed Tabassum, who is a Muslim, from their graduation ceremony lineup stating that 'tradition must give way to safety'.

After she was banned from the talk, Tabassum told ABC7 she stands by her views, saying: 'I stand by exactly what I stand by.

'I don't believe it is ironic for me to minor in something called resistance to genocide, and then speak out on it and then be revoked because I'm penalized for something that people have an issue with.'

Following the outrage, the university hinted this week that they would be canceling single-person valedictorian speeches in the future.


Melbourne university under fire over despicable anti-Israel activist tactics
Anti-Israel activists at the University of Melbourne have sparked controversy by disrupting classrooms and photographing students to gauge their views on the Israel-Gaza conflict.

The university's arts faculty has been particularly affected, prompting Dean Lesley Stirling to address the escalating complaints from students. In an email to staff, Professor Stirling highlighted the distress among students.

The dean urged caution in expressing views on the war, particularly in classrooms, citing instances where activists have entered classrooms and taken photographs after requesting students to indicate agreement with their statements.

The practice, reportedly carried out by individuals with anti-Israel views, has led to concerns among students, with some feeling unsafe on campus.

One Jewish student revealed they had resorted to online learning after being photographed without consent. Similar concerns have been raised at other universities in Melbourne, with students reporting the proliferation of antisemitic and anti-Israel materials on campus.

Activists have organized numerous anti-Israel protests and meetings across Melbourne, prompting calls for university leaders to prioritise the safety of Jewish students.


US Academic Skews Stats in The Guardian To Compare Gaza To Worst Recent Genocides
A Lesson in Skewing Stats
First, the headline of Kuperman’s piece claims “civilian deaths in Gaza rival those in Darfur,” which misleadingly implies there has been an equivalent death toll. But in the piece, Kuperman fails to state the overall number of civilian deaths in Darfur, instead referring to the average number of people who died during an undefined period from the start of the Darfur conflict.

He states that the Gaza death toll reached 33,000 in the six months since the war began (an average of 5,500 per month). However, he then claims that the “killing rate of civilians” matches that of Darfur, where 10,000 were killed from “late 2003 to early 2004.” Misleadingly, he is actually comparing the first two months of the October 7 war, during which 20,000 people in Gaza were killed. Of these, 7,000 were confirmed as Hamas terrorists, resulting in a civilian death count of 13,000.

Additionally, Kuperman does not provide the metrics necessary for a thorough comparison. We do not know the exact timeframe of the deaths in Darfur, nor the population sizes of Gaza and Darfur at the time.

In 2003, Darfur’s population was 6 million, three times larger than Gaza’s 2 million. Furthermore, no information is given about the geographical landscapes of the conflicts. Israel is fighting terrorists in Gaza, a densely-populated enclave of 141 square miles, while Darfur consists of rolling plains stretching over 170,000 square miles.

Interestingly, if one applied Kuperman’s “killing rate of civilians” calculation to support a claim of genocide, it would reveal that the October 7 massacre, which resulted in 1,200 victims slaughtered over 12 hours—or a rate of 100 people per hour—has the highest death rate of all.

Kuperman closes the piece with an appeal for people to consider the “facts” before defending Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

What a shame he didn’t take his own sage advice to heart before rushing out such a misleading article.
Palestinian Cameramen Exposed in New Footage Documenting Oct. 7 Atrocities Side by Side with Terrorists
Harrowing footage distributed by Israeli media on Wednesday, April 17, showed Palestinian cameramen filming the violent abduction of Yarden Bibas into Gaza on October 7.

While their identity remains unclear, their presence amid a blood-thirsty mob of terrorists proves a disturbing truth: Gaza-based journalists covering Hamas atrocities that day did not bravely risk their lives, as declared by institutions that recently granted them awards, but operated easily without any objections from the perpetrators.

In the video, a professional camera hovering over a Palestinian mob can be seen as its operator nonchalantly tries to focus on the terrified Bibas, who is tightly held on a motorbike in the middle of the chaotic scene.

34-year-old Bibas — whose wife Shiri and two young sons Ariel and Kfir have been abducted in a separate incident — is seen surrounded by armed men, bloodied, beaten, abused, and yelled at.

But the cameraman, as well as whoever films the video footage and others who hold up their phones, care only about capturing Bibas’s suffering, most likely in order to sell the footage to local and international news outlets.
With Additional WSJ Distortions, List of Manipulated Statistics Grows
Cherry-picking and chronological trickery isn’t how journalism works. Not good journalism, at least. But as CAMERA has previously documented, the Wall Street Journal is far from the only outlet to brazenly manipulate statistics in recent months. The examples are worth revisiting:

To help make the case that the Gaza war “has been unlike any other in the 21st century,” the Washington Post compared the number of munitions dropped in Gaza to the relatively limited 2014 Iraq war, but ignored the 2003 Iraq war whose pace of bombing, as noted above, far exceeded that in Gaza.

The Associated Press made the same comparison, and the same elision.

The Lawfare blog compared 29,000 bombs Israel dropped on Gaza “during the first six weeks of war” to the 29,199 the US dropped “during the entire Iraq war in 2003.” As mentioned, the “entirety” of the Iraq war they describe was a good deal less than six weeks.

Instead of munitions, the New York Times compared casualties “in less than two months” in Gaza to the 7,700 civilians killed by US-led forces “in the entire first year” of the 2003 war. But as with munitions, so were casualties — an overwhelming majority of the newspaper’s number was killed in the few weeks of invasion phase.

The Washington Post reported that while Israel dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza in the days after the Hamas attack, “the highest number of bombs and other munitions dropped in one year during the war in Afghanistan was just over 7,423.” In fact, the US dropped 17,500 munitions in just 76 days of war.

The New York Times once claimed that “Gazan civilians are dying at a faster rate than civilians did during the most intense US attacks in Afghanistan or Iraq.” They were not.

It announced that “Israel has killed more women and children than have been killed in Ukraine,” but relied on figures for Ukraine that were, according to the source of the figures, a “considerable” undercount.

Before being corrected, a Wall Street Journal map dramatically exaggerated Gaza damage.

The Wall Street Journal piece discussed above had also included a wildly exaggerated map of destruction in Gaza.

The Associated Press took Scher and Van Den Hoek’s estimate of “likely damaged or destroyed structures” and described them all as “destroyed” structures.

A New York Times headline announced that Gaza deaths surpassed “any Arab war losses in 40 years.” It certainly had not.

The Washington Post claimed displacement in Gaza was “the largest” in the regions since 1948. It certainly was not.

Some of the above distortions have been corrected. Some remain unchanged. Others we haven’t listed above. Regardless, the pattern is clear — and should be disturbing to all who hope for an honest, impartial, and informative news media.
CNN Article Errs and Misleads on Gaza Humanitarian Aid
How much food is entering the Gaza Strip? This question has been the subject of much discussion, and even more misinformation, given the political significance of the answer. South Africa, for example, tried to use claims of a “famine” in Gaza at the International Court of Justice to try and force Israel, by judicial decree, to halt its operation to defeat Hamas and rescue the hostages.

It’s thus critically important that journalists covering this question are careful with the facts. Unfortunately, a recent CNN piece falls short in this regard. An April 17 article by Tamar Michaelis, Tim Lister, and Kareem Khadder, entitled “Israel again accuses UN of “excuses” on aid for Gaza — but UN says deliveries facing major checkpoint delays,” errs by presenting inaccurate data alongside misleading data to advance a narrative.

The errors can be found in a graphic supposedly depicting the daily average number of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip both before and after October 7.

A screenshot of the graphic included in the CNN article.

The graphic, and the preceding text, suggest that the daily average number of trucks bringing food into Gaza now (73) is less than half of what it was before October 7 (150).

In fact, the truth is precisely the opposite. Substantially more trucks are bringing food into Gaza today than were a year ago.

As will be detailed below, the pre-war figure of 150 average daily trucks is unsupported by the actual data, and the real figure is about half that number. Meanwhile, the figure for trucks after October 7 is seriously misleading in that it dramatically understates the number of trucks currently bringing food into Gaza.

Inaccurate Pre-War Data
The CNN graphic cites as its sources UNRWA and the World Food Programme. However, the only source this author could track down for the figure of 150 average daily trucks during the first nine months of 2023 is a report by an organization called the IPC Global Initiative, affiliated with a handful of UN and other aid agencies.

The report claims, “Between January and September 2023, a daily average of 150 food trucks entered the Gaza Strip. Between 8 October 2023 and 9 March 2024, this number decreased to an average of 65 trucks per day.”
Sky-high failure on Israel coverage
"Psychological treatises will one day be written on the moral degeneracy which has taken hold of so many Western minds, which credulously take the word of Hamas, a terrorist organization, as true whilst regarding anything said by Israel, a democratic nation state, as by definition false," wrote Stephen Pollard, editor-at-large of the Jewish Chronicle, in a December op-ed about the atrocious British media coverage of the war.

Among the worst offenders has been Sky News. To cite just a few examples:
Sky News presenter Anna Botting abandoned any pretense of objectivity or even of journalistic curiosity in her hostile interview with Israeli spokesperson Mark Regev in the aftermath of the Al-Ahli hospital explosion in Gaza in October. Botting was viscerally angered by Regev's denial of Israeli responsibility for the blast, a denial that was of course later vindicated when evidence emerged that it was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that struck the hospital area.

In mid-November, their reporter Mark Stone retweeted someone falsely claiming that 'all ICU patients' died at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza in the aftermath of an IDF raid. The story was so blatantly false that even the PIJ affiliated Quds backtracked and deleted their tweet which initially made that same claim.

In late November, their International Affairs Editor Dominic Waghorn posted a Tweet suggesting that, contrary to all accounts, Hamas was treating the Israeli hostages well. We've of course since learned that at least some of the hostages have been sexually assaulted and tortured – on top of those who have been murdered by the terrorist group.

Now, let's turn to more recent events.

Within 48 hours of Iran's unprecedented drone and missile attacks on Israel on the night of April 13, which included at least 170 attack drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles, Sky News's international editor, their Middle East correspondent, and one their most high profile presenters effectively came to the defense of the Islamist regime.


BBC News touts Iranian attacks aimed at ‘not hurting anyone’ messaging
Readers are not informed that Iranian sources have claimed that one of the IRGC commanders killed in the April 1st strike in Damascus was directly involved in the planning and execution of the October 7th attack or that – as recently revealed by The Times – there is evidence of Iranian financing of Hamas to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

“According to the Times, the money, in cash, arrived from Iran to Beirut, where Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers handed it over to Hamas.

Mentioned in the letters as the source of the funds is Saeed Izadi, referred to as Haj Ramadan. He runs the Palestinian division office in Iran’s Quds Force, one of five branches of the IRGC, and coordinates funding with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian terror groups.

His direct commander was Brig.-Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who was killed in the April 1 airstrike in Damascus.”

Berg, Spender and Beale conclude their report with promotion of a claim from a think tank employee:

“The strikes were certainly calibrated, directed to military installations with the aim of not inflicting too much damage or hurting anyone.”

In other words, these three BBC journalists would apparently have their readers believe that the Islamic regime in Iran somehow knew in advance that, in unprecedented operations, Israel and its allies were going to manage to intercept the hundreds of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and suicide drones that it launched on the night of April 13th– 14th. Even a Sky News reporter was not persuaded by such entirely unevidenced claims:
“In a military base near the coast, we were shown the fuel tank for an Emad or ‘Pillar of Strength’ missile intercepted as it entered Israeli airspace that night.

It is 11 metres long, but with a warhead the size of a small car, it would have been even bigger at launch.

It has a range of 1,000 miles, a payload of half a tonne of explosives, is accurate to 10 metres and on Saturday was fired by the dozen at Israel.

Standing next to it, suddenly the claims that Iran’s attack was in any way a token effort or symbolic seem absurd.

If any one of those ballistic missiles had reached an Israeli population centre it would have been devastating.”

The absurd notion that the Iranian regime launched at least 170 attack drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel “with the aim of not inflicting too much damage or hurting anyone” has also been rejected by the United States and military experts.

Nevertheless, that is the takeaway message that these three BBC journalists sought to communicate to their readers worldwide.
BBC’s Gardner misleads on ideology behind attacks on Israel
Contrary to Gardner’s claim, that ‘axis of resistance’ – which includes the Syrian government, Hizballah, the Houthis, the Islamic resistance in Iraq and the Palestinian terrorist organisations Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – is not motivated by “Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories” but, like the Iranian Islamic Republic itself, by opposition to Israel’s very existence.

By misrepresenting that shared ideology, Gardner steers listeners to the erroneous view that it is Israel’s actions – rather than its existence – which lie behind the attacks against it.

Later in the item (from 2:15:25) Burden asks Gardner about the “situation in the region at the moment”.

Referring to a “ladder of escalation” that he had also presented in a written article the previous day and once again describing the April 1st strike in Damascus as having taken place at the “Iranian consulate”, Gardner notes that the region was “already a tense region because of October the 7th” and goes on to describe the unprecedented events of that day merely as “the Hamas raid on Israel”. Gardner then refers to “the subsequent conflict in Gaza that’s killed over 33 thousand Palestinians – mostly civilians”.

Neither Gardner nor anyone else has been able to verify the casualty figures supplied by Hamas and yet he failed to inform listeners of the source of the figure he cited (which even Hamas admits is based on incomplete data), of the fact that it has not been independently confirmed or that his claim that most of the people killed were civilians is taken from information provided by the terrorist organisation that initiated the current war.

In other words, members of the audience who presented questions to this programme did not receive answers based on accurate and impartial information, but rather on narratives promoted by Hamas and Iran.


Sister of Hamas chief Haniyeh to be charged with terror offenses
Sabah Haniyeh, the sister of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, is expected to be indicted in an Israeli court Sunday on serious security offenses after being arrested earlier this month, Maariv reported.

Sabah Haniyeh, 57, an Israeli citizen who resides in the southern Bedouin town of Tel Sheva, was arrested on April 1 on suspicion of contact with a foreign agent, sympathizing with terrorism and incitement.

During a raid on her home, security forces confiscated documents and other material indicating her association with Palestinian terrorists, leading the Beersheva Magistrate’s Court to extend her detention.

According to WhatsApp messages from the morning of Oct. 7 obtained by Israel’s Channel 13, Sabah Haniyeh wrote to a family group, “The war has arisen” within minutes after Hamas terrorists breached the border. Another relative wrote, “Good morning, what missiles did they send.”

Some 1,200 people were murdered on that day, thousands more wounded and 253 taken hostage, with 133 still in Gaza after 195 days.

Ismail Haniyeh currently resides in Qatar, which sponsors and shelters the Palestinian terror group’s top leaders.


Iran Attempts to Destabilize Jordan
Latest Developments
Iran has sought to leverage its militias and proxies, including Lebanese Hezbollah, to destabilize Jordan, reported the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat on April 16. There are “intensive Iranian efforts to target security in the kingdom over the last few months,” an unnamed Jordanian source said. The report accused Iran-backed militias of engaging in arms and drugs trade along the Jordan-Syria border.

Illicit smuggling by Iran-backed militias in Jordan is not the only threat facing the Hashemite Kingdom. Following Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack, Iranian-backed militias have attempted to carry out infiltration operations inside Jordan to support Palestinian terrorist groups, Asharq al-Awsat noted. The Jordanian army thwarted these attempts when it conveyed “serious threats to shell” terrorist groups active on its border with Iraq, subsequently forcing militias to retreat 40 kilometers (about 24.85 mi) into Iraqi territory.

Separately, Iran threatened Jordan with retaliation if the Hashemite Kingdom intervened during the April 13 Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel. Despite the warning, Jordan’s cabinet stated that “objects” in its airspace were intercepted by the kingdom on the night of April 13.

Expert Analysis
“Iran has sought to increase its influence in the Kingdom of Jordan in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. It wants to exploit divisions in Jordan by using Iraqi-based militias that are supported by Iran. Tehran prefers that Jordan be destabilized so that Iran can then operate through Jordan to support Palestinian terrorist groups in the West Bank. In recent years, Iran has sought to traffic weapons to the West Bank and has worked with drug smugglers in Syria who have threatened Jordan. It is essential that Iran’s attempts to destabilize the kingdom be prevented as part of a wider effort against Iran’s increasing support for terrorist groups in the region.” — Seth J. Frantzman, FDD Adjunct Fellow

“It has been a tried-and-true practice for Iran to identify potential areas in the region to exploit. Through its militias in Iraq, Iran is attempting to undermine the ruling authority in the Hashemite Kingdom by threatening to arm Jordanians to aid Palestinian terrorist groups. Make no mistake, those weapons will eventually be turned on the kingdom, posing a significant threat to its stability.” — Joe Truzman, Senior Research Analyst at FDD’s Long War Journal

Iraqi Militia Threatens to Arm Jordanians for Attacks Against Israel
On April 1, Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kata’ib Hezbollah threatened to retaliate against Israel for its airstrikes in Damascus and its operations in Gaza. Abu al-Askari, the spokesperson for Kata’ib Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, attributed the deaths of two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) generals and five other officers in Syria to a “Zionist-American attack.”

Al-Askari said that the Islamic Resistance of Iraq, an umbrella organization for Iranian proxy militias, can arm 12,000 members of the “Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Jordan” with “light and medium weapons, anti-armor launchers, tactical missiles, millions [of rounds] of ammunition, and tons of explosives.” These arms would be used “in the defense of our Palestinian brothers” and “revenge for the honor of Muslims” killed by Israel, al-Askari said. The spokesman also discussed the prospect of “cutting off” the land border between Jordan and Israel as soon as the group receives approval from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.


Iranian athlete arrested after condemning attack on Israel
An Iranian athlete who posted criticism online of Iran’s April 14 attack on Israel has reportedly been arrested, and her whereabouts have been unknown since Wednesday, according to media reports.

Iranian national volleyball team player Mobina Rostami posted on her Instagram account: “As an Iranian, I am truly ashamed of the authorities’ attack on Israel, but you need to know that the people in Iran love Israel and hate the Islamic Republic.”

She was reportedly arrested shortly afterwards.

One of the comments on her post came from an account associated with Iranian security forces, stating: “We will shove you in a bag.”

“Only God knows what fate awaits her,” her friends posted on social media.


Ex-Patriots star Julian Edelman, who is Jewish, discusses 'hurtful' antisemitism: 'Sad moment right now'
Amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, antisemitism and acts of hate against Jews have skyrocketed.

The Anti-Defamation League reported this week that recorded antisemitic incidents were up 120% in 2023 from the year prior (8,873 in total). Perhaps the most jarring was that there were 1,009 bomb threats against synagogues and other Jewish institutions last year versus 91 in 2022.

Prominent Jewish members of the sports community have been outspoken since Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists from Gaza crossed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people. Minnesota Vikings kicker Greg Joseph wore cleats that read, "I Stand With Israel," and Auburn's men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has consistently spoken about the conflict.

New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman, who is Jewish, also showed his support during his playing days. On several occasions, he donned an Israeli flag, and shortly after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting of 2018, he wore specialized cleats that read the names of all the victims.

Edelman also invited ex-NBA player Meyers Leonard to a Shabbat dinner after the latter used a Jewish slur during a live stream.

With antisemitism increasing, Edelman said it's a "sad moment right now, what the world is going through."

"The hate that is out there for Jews, for everyone. The antisemitism, it's gnarly right now, and it's pretty hurtful," Edelman told Fox News Digital in a recent interview.

But he is thankful that he does not have it like those overseas.

"There's a lot of hate going on in other places. War is terrible on so many levels. It's a sad time, like I said. The one thankful thing you have is we're not experiencing that here in our country. War is brutal, war is disgusting."


Release of a film on the 1506 massacre of 3000 Jews in Lisbon: pogroms ‘do not happen in a vacuum’
In the wake of the massacre of over 1,200 Israelis and others on October 7th, the Jewish community of Porto has released a film showing the massacre of three thousand Jews in Lisbon in 1506.

“1506 – The Lisbon Genocide” was officially released on Friday April 19th, the anniversary of the date when the rampage against the Jews began, with thousands of Jews of all ages being hunted, decapitated, burned and mutilated, with victims being paraded in the streets, in scenes eerily reminiscent of the massacre on Simchat Torah in communitiesin the south of Israel.

“The film aims to show that the October massacre did not happen in a vacuum, as stated by UN Secretary General António Guterres, who is also Portuguese,” declared Gabriel Senderowicz, President of the Porto Jewish community.

“No one who is not Jewish can understand the feeling of the Jewish community on October 7th, because no one else experienced similar massacres in Alexandria, Granada, Seville, Madrid, Toledo, Barcelona, Basel, Überlingen, Strasburg, Cologne, Worms, Erfurt, Metz, York, Norwich, Trent, Troyes, Bern, Paris, Odessa, Moscow, Hebron and elsewhere.”

“The film was made as short as possible, about 20 minutes long, so that it may be seen by everyone of all ages, even those who prefer not to watch long movies,’’ he explained.

The film was launched online in English, Hebrew, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

The documentary film was produced by the Portuguese director Luís Ismael and involved the participation of hundreds of actors. Research for the film was undertaken by the Community’s historical research center and reviewed by the “Alberto Benveniste” Chair of Sephardic Studies of the University of Lisbon”.

Ahead of the film release and following a premier showing at ANU, the Museum of the Jewish People, a special panel discussed the similarities between the 1506 Lisbon and October 7th massacres, the history and development of Antisemitism, and how to fight the war of narratives mobilized against the State of Israel.

The Five Postcards
It’s the first night of Passover in the early spring of 2022. My husband and our two adult children are gathered around our dining-room table along with my mother, Agnes. In the center of the table is our seder plate, the matzah wrapped in a silvery woven cloth, and a small bowl of salty water for dipping our parsley.

On the sideboard, out of the corner of my eye, I can see a familiar envelope. My mother brought it from Toronto to our home in Montclair, New Jersey, with the sole purpose of giving it to me just as her mother had given it to her. I had no idea this was her plan, but I know full well the chilling, yet holiday-appropriate, content that lies within it.

We each read from our wine-stained Passover Haggadah, retelling the story of the Exodus. We were slaves for 400 years before God rescued us and called us to be in our own land. As Jews, we are commanded to tell the story of how we fled slavery at the hands of the Egyptians so that future generations will remember.

I’d heard this story every Passover since I was a child. And I know that, for our family, slavery is not a thing of the biblical past. Our history lies within that protective plastic envelope on my sideboard. It contains five postcards. Although I am not exactly sure what they say, their existence has captivated me for my entire life, especially on this holiday.

For Passover is also close on the calendar to Yom Ha’Shoah, designed to commemorate the approximately 6 million Jews and others murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, and the heroism of the survivors and rescuers. The two holidays are intertwined with each other and with my life.

After the blessings over the first cup of wine and after we explain the symbolism of each element on the seder plate, we soon reach that familiar passage: “We were slaves to Pharoah in Egypt…” As my husband begins to recite the story of our enslaved forebears, my thoughts drift to a more recent story of slavery and one person in particular—my maternal grandfather, László Braun.

Almost 80 years ago, in 1943, the Nazis made him a slave when they sent him to the copper mines of Bor, Serbia. He never returned. For Elizabeth, his wife and my grandmother, the trauma of losing her beloved László drove a permanent wedge into her heart. Although I would sometimes see a smile on her Revlonned red lips, it always quickly faded. It pained me that my mother, Agnes, affectionately known as Ágika, had never met her father.




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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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