Saturday, May 04, 2024

05/04 Links: From Colombia to Columbia, an unceasing war on Israel; American Exceptionalism and the NYPD; Antisemitism not only sanctioned, but rewarded on college campuses;

From Ian:

FDD: From Colombia to Columbia, an unceasing war on Israel
Last Thursday, Colombia’s far-left president, Gustavo Petro, announced that he was cutting diplomatic ties with Israel—a move warmly lauded by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and the Islamist regime in Iran. In a speech delivered at a May Day rally, Petro perfectly captured the left’s Palestinian fetish, along with the fervent belief that the defeat of “Zionism” will usher in a new era of people power. “Today the world could be summed up in a single word, which vindicates the need for life, rebellion, the raised flag and resistance,” Petro declared. “That word is ‘Gaza,’ it is ‘Palestine,’ they are the boys and girls who have died dismembered by the bombs.” Petro, who was elected in 2022, is a genuine revolutionary with the life experience of one, having joined the M-19 terrorist organization while still a teenager and having been tortured at the hands of Colombian military officers. Nonetheless, his words resonated deeply at the other Columbia—the Ivy League university in New York City—where pro-Hamas demonstrators playing at revolution while their parents pay exorbitant fees set up an illegal tent encampment.

They resonated as well in Tehran, where Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi lauded “the uprising of Western students, professors and elites in support of the oppressed people of Gaza,” while foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani expressed satisfaction with “the awakening of global society … regarding the Palestinian issue and the depth of public hatred toward the crimes of the usurping Zionist regime and the genocide supported by America and some European governments.” Again, these are exactly the same sentiments being articulated at Columbia, at UCLA, at George Washington University, and at the other American campuses turned upside down by the wave of solidarity with Hamas.

To many Jews, all this will seem like a colossal failure—a failure of Holocaust education, which Jewish communities have been deeply invested in for several decades; a failure to accurately convey the true nature of Israeli society beyond the “settler-colonial” caricature pushed by much of the left and some far-right influencers; a failure to maintain constructive relationships with those other minorities where sympathy for Hamas and its atrocities is rife, particularly American Muslims, many of whom originate from non-Arab countries, and African-Americans. Perhaps the toughest aspect of all is the realization that debate and argument are fruitless, not least because refusal to communicate with “Zionists” has become an article of faith at the pro-Hamas rallies and demonstrations.

Still, at the same time, we need to shake off the myth that these demonstrations are an expression of “civil society”—individuals and volunteer groups mobilizing for Gaza out of desperation at the bloody scenes in that territory. From Moscow to Bogota to Ankara to Tehran, the world’s authoritarians are delighting in the opportunity to wield the language of human rights in the faces of gullible Westerners. Rather than persuading, we should be focused on defeating at the source. That means, in Colombia’s case, lobbying U.S. legislators to impose trade restrictions and other sanctions on its government for as long as it demonizes Israel, a democracy and a stalwart American ally, as a rogue state. Doing so will anger and alienate the left even more, but we have no choice. All we can do is act. And, from time to time, laugh
Seth Mandel: American Exceptionalism and the NYPD
One of the most telling aspects of the pro-Hamas student encampments is their participants’ pathological aversion to police—both for what it says about the campus bubble and for what it reveals about the demonstrators’ antipathy for Jews.

“I don’t really know how to process the fact that, at the bare minimum, there are going to be 100 cops at the [graduation] celebration,” Columbia student Suleyman Ahmed told the Wall Street Journal. Ahmed wasn’t part of the protests, the Journal explains, but when he heard there was going to be a police presence on campus through the end of the semester a couple weeks away, “he couldn’t concentrate on cramming.”

Whether that’s true—it’s hard to imagine a person carrying such exquisite fragility into adulthood—or whether Ahmed was just mimicking the debilitating sense of entitlement around him is less important than the fact that he was unashamed to say this sentence out loud to a newspaper reporter. In the bubble of “elite” campus culture, this is a normal thing to say. One is left wishing there were some institution that could prepare college graduates for the world.

Meanwhile, the reluctance to call in the police by campus administrators has, in roughly 100% of cases, proved not just foolish but dangerously irresponsible. At Columbia, about a quarter of those arrested for violently taking a campus building were unaffiliated with the university. At the City College of New York the same night, more than half of those arrested were unaffiliated with the school. Twenty-two of them violently impeded police clearing of an occupied building.

NBC’s reporting shows just what a tourist attraction these protests had become. One of those arrested was anarchist James W. Carlson, whose rap sheet over nearly twenty years of violent demonstrations includes aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and attempted lynching. Another arrestee had reportedly been fired from the New York Botanical Garden for cheering on Hamas’s campaign of mass slaughter, child murder and sexual torture on Oct. 7.

Two others have arrest records related to their behavior at various protests over the years. The cause isn’t what matters to these folks; what matters is causing violence and disorder. If you are the parent of a student at one of these schools, you have plenty of reason to wonder why the institution cultivated this atmosphere and then delayed allowing police to restore safety and remove violent trespassers from campus.
Andrew Neil: It's easy to mock the entitled know-nothing student protesters who couldn't find Gaza on a map. But they are useful idiots making common cause with genocidal Islamists who want to see Israel wiped out
There is increasing evidence in the U.S. that hardline agitators and anarchists are now orchestrating the protests, with privileged, naive students their useful idiots. A Leftist website, CrimethInc.com, run by veterans of BLM, Antifa and Occupy Wall Street, has been publishing lessons learned and coordinating activities across the country.

According to the NYPD, half the protesters arrested at Columbia and New York's City College were not students. They push for the occupation of buildings wherever possible — and that is when violence and vandalism are most likely to occur.

They were behind the occupation of Hamilton Hall, which was roundly trashed, and behind the wilful and appalling damage done to the library at Portland State University in Oregon.

There was a feeling in America this week that perhaps the worst was over. The university authorities had acted at last, major figures on the Left and Right had condemned the encampments, police intervention from Los Angeles to Texas to New York had been effective (and largely non-violent) and even President Biden was wheeled out to give his tuppence worth.

It was the first time we've heard from 'Silent Joe' since the campus unrest took root. He has proved strangely reluctant to condemn the protesters and even on Thursday did no more than spout a few mealy-mouthed platitudes about free speech and peaceful protest.

He needs the youth vote — essential to his victory in 2020 — to be re-elected in November and has been keen to court that vote with a $160 billion student debt write-off (with more to come before election day) and the reclassification of cannabis, effectively decriminalising it.

Saying a few robust home truths to student protesters has so far eluded him. And this could come back to hurt Biden.

If the protests continue and the Democratic convention in Chicago in August is hijacked by violent protesters, as the 1968 convention (also in Chicago) was by anti-Vietnam war protesters, then a sense of lawlessness would only help Donald Trump as it helped Republican Richard Nixon in 1968.

So Biden might have to stiffen his resolve and his response before the summer is out to secure his re-election chances.

More fundamentally, sensible politicians of all persuasions need to think seriously about why so many young Americans — especially the ones who are supposed to be the smartest — are so easily prepared to make common cause with a genocidal Islamism.


Mainstream Jewish groups pull out of Dept of Ed meeting over inclusion of far-left activists
Several mainstream Jewish groups pulled out of a meeting on Friday with high-level Biden administration officials about campus antisemitism after learning that the Department of Education had also included a number of left-wing groups not usually included in White House convenings, including one organization that is closely aligned with the far-left Jewish activist group IfNotNow.

The meeting with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and White House Domestic Policy Adviser Neera Tanden was requested by Jewish advocacy groups that had previously met with Cardona in October, shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that set off a wave of antisemitism in the U.S. Friday’s meeting was scheduled in light of rising antisemitism at anti-Israel protests at U.S. college campuses. The meeting took place a day after President Joe Biden condemned violent protests and antisemitism.

“The groups who had requested the meeting found out at the last minute that the meeting was not going to proceed as planned and it’s now being rescheduled,” said one source familiar with the meeting. Another participant told Jewish Insider that they decided to sit out the discussion after the Education Department sent a list of participating organizations 20 minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin.

Jewish Federations of North America, Hillel International, the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Orthodox Union and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law either did not participate in or dropped off the call, another source familiar with the meeting told JI.

These groups, along with the National Council of Jewish Women and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, wrote to Cardona last Friday to ask him to meet with them within a week. Their email to Cardona asked him to join the Jewish advocates “to discuss concrete actions the Department can take to support the restoration of order, compliance with civil rights laws and the protection of Jewish students,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by JI. The letter said that actions previously proposed by the Jewish organizations in meetings with senior Education Department staff “were not taken and now we confront the current crisis.”

Representatives of the groups that pulled out were frustrated to see the inclusion of some progressive organizations that oppose the use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, including T’ruah, the Nexus Leadership Project and Bend the Arc. They were also surprised — and puzzled — to see a group called the Diaspora Alliance, which many had never heard of.

The Diaspora Alliance group is closely associated with IfNotNow, which since Oct. 7 has aligned itself with Jewish Voice for Peace and other anti-Israel advocacy groups. Three of the Diaspora Alliance’s staff members — including the group’s international director, Carinne Luck, along with Simone Zimmerman and Emma Saltzberg — co-founded IfNotNow a decade ago. Diaspora Alliance opposes the use of the IHRA definition, which has been endorsed by the Education Department, calling it “bad for Jews and Palestinians, and for human and civil rights.”

IfNotNow’s New York City chapter released a statement this week “in support of student activists” at Columbia University and other campuses in New York, calling the activists “brave students [who] have spoken up in solidarity with Palestinians as they face a genocide in which our country and their universities are complicit.” IfNotNow has been calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war since days after the Oct. 7 attack and advocating for the U.S. to stop sending military assistance to Israel. The group has been referring to Israel’s war against Hamas as a genocide since mid-October.
The Kids vs. the Empire
No one I spoke to had been to Israel or the West Bank or Gaza, or could define Zionism. A report from an encampment 7,248 miles from Gaza.

On Monday night, the last night of the Gaza encampment at Cal Poly Humboldt, the students were girding for a final showdown with jackbooted cops and circling helicopters and all-seeing drones.

They wore kerchiefs or masks—which, of course, made it harder to identify them and lent them a vaguely Red Army Faction toughness. Many had tattoos on their necks and wrists, and they smelled like weed and body odor, like overlapping wafts of dried sweat and grime. They had access to campus toilets but not showers.

They had demanded that the university divest from Israel. University officials had estimated that they had done millions in damage to the campus.

They talked about rumors of SWAT teams coming up from Chico or Sacramento, maybe the National Guard, highway patrol officers, “pigs”—cops—from all over northern California.

They alluded to a Kent State–like showdown.

They thought it was them versus the American Empire, and they envisioned taking part in a grand struggle against decolonization that extended from Rafah to the Angolan diamond mines to the United States’ southern border to this little college town just south of the Oregon state line, enveloped by redwoods and rednecks and weed growers and flatbed trucks.

They said they expected they would wind up in a darkened cell, or worse.
The Columbia protests are nothing like 1968
However, what really sets today’s protests apart from their historical counterparts is their crassness and emptiness. They offer a sad parody of the student radicalism of the late 1960s. Back then, students railed against the paternalism and authoritarianism of the university as an institution. They wanted greater autonomy. Today’s student protesters want nothing of the sort. They are so infantilised that they actively want the university to play the role of a parent.

Think of the now infamous clip of Columbia protester Johannah King-Slutzky demanding that the university feed students as they illegally occupy Hamilton Hall. There are countless other examples of protesters calling for universities to protect them. One group of anti-Israel students at Columbia even filed a complaint with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, accusing the university of failing to protect students ‘who have been the target of extreme anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and Islamophobic harassment’. This harassment apparently includes being called ‘terrorists’ while wearing keffiyehs. Those students in 1968 would probably have got over being called names quite quickly. They certainly wouldn’t have demanded ‘humanitarian aid’ for themselves.

Then there’s the intolerance of today’s Columbia protesters, which often slides into outright racism. One of the current leaders of protests in Columbia, Khymani James, has even been barred from campus after a video surfaced of him stating that ‘Zionists don’t deserve to live’ and that ‘I fight to kill’.

James’s bigoted views are far from unusual. Videos from Columbia show protesters shouting ‘Go back to Poland’ about Jewish students, and others calling for ‘10,000 7 Octobers’. Even those students who, in 1968, cried ‘Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh’, a reference to the North Vietnamese Communist leader, did not call for the deaths of their opponents.

Successive generations of student activists have sought to emulate the protest movement of the late 1960s. It’s difficult to imagine anyone in the future wanting to emulate today’s cohort of spoilt, foot-stamping brats.
This is definitely not my dad’s antiwar protest
As the son of Jerry Rubin, a renowned antiwar activist, I feel compelled to address a misconception that has emerged in recent days. While my father advocated for peace and social justice, there is a dangerous trend in which certain factions, under the guise of antiwar sentiment, openly support violent organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. These groups do not promote peace but rather espouse ideologies that promote violence and hostility towards Jews.

There is a vast divide between genuine antiwar activism, which seeks to prevent conflict and promote dialogue, and the insidious agenda of those who use the rhetoric of peace to justify their support for organizations with violent aims.

During the Vietnam War era, college students protested against the military draft and the war, not in support of the Viet Cong or calls for the eradication of South Vietnam. The iconic peace sign symbolized their generation’s stance against the conflict that claimed so many lives, including 58,000 Americans.

The intersection with the civil rights movement was poignant, as black Americans faced higher draft rates and accounted for a disproportionate share of casualties during a period of widespread discrimination.

However, today’s purported intersectionality between Palestine/Hamas and LGBTQ/feminist (or environmental) rights is not only fictitious but also abhorrent. Hamas has perpetrated significant sexual violence against Israeli women, prohibits Palestinian women from property ownership, and executes individuals based on their sexual orientation. Despite efforts to portray the Palestinian Authority (PA) of the West Bank as a moderate entity, its track record on liberal values such as LGBTQ rights and women’s rights is deeply troubling. The PA’s failure to uphold basic human rights undermines any claims to progressiveness.

During the turbulent 1960s, protesters advocating for civil rights and against the Vietnam War often took to the streets, their faces uncovered, to demand change. It was the Ku Klux Klan of that era that used anonymity to spread fear and hatred. The Klan wore hoods to conceal their identities while perpetrating acts of violence and intimidation. In stark contrast, the protesters of the 60s stood proudly, their faces shown, as they fought for equality and justice. Today, a concerning parallel emerges as the protesters advocating for the destruction of Israel wear masks akin to the KKK, obscuring their identities while promoting a murderous ideology bent on violence and eradication. This resemblance underscores not only the stark contrast in ideologies but also the concerning tactics employed by those who seek to spread hatred and violence.

Protests at colleges like Columbia University are downright disturbing, with demonstrators advocating for the murder of Israeli soldiers defending their homeland. Chants like “Al Qassam you make us proud, kill another soldier now” reflect this disturbing trend of antisemitism. Other chants included “We say justice you say how, burn Tel Aviv to the ground”, “It’s right to rebel, Hamas give them hell”, and “Red, black, green and white, we support Hamas’ fight!”
Antisemitism not only sanctioned, but rewarded on many college campuses
On Tuesday, the College Democrats of America, the youth outreach arm of the Democratic National Committee, put out a statement expressing their solidarity with the anti-Israel protesters whose actions they called “heroic.”

The statement said the protesters and “students from every walk of life have had the moral clarity to see this war for what it is: destructive, genocidal, and unjust.”

The group was extremely critical of the Biden administration’s handling of the war. “The White House has taken the mistaken route of a bear hug strategy for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] and a cold shoulder strategy for its own base and all Americans who want to see an end to this war. Each day that Democrats fail to stand united for a permanent ceasefire, two-state solution, and recognition of a Palestinian state, more and more youth find themselves disillusioned with the party.”

Of course, the student protesters have not just been advocating a permanent ceasefire in Gaza or a two-state solution. Many have actively celebrated Hamas and other terrorist organizations whose goal is the complete eradication of the Jewish state.

But no matter. Apparently this antisemitism is not only being sanctioned, but rewarded by the administrators at America’s most elite universities. Why are these schools allowing pro-Hamas students and their professional agitator overlords to trample the civil rights of Jewish students and faculty members with impunity and to dictate the terms of settlements?

The radicalization of academia that has been building for decades has now reached a fever pitch. The propaganda being spread throughout the country by Hamas and the powerful, deep-pocketed entities who support them has brought the U.S. to a tipping point.

The American experiment is dependent on our adherence to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. A democratic republic cannot long survive when one group decides it’s OK to openly violate the civil rights of another group while the government allows it to continue.

Unfortunately, at a time when we need strong and steady leadership the most, we have President Joe Biden at the helm. And sadly, he is more interested in winning the votes of young Americans and Muslims than in establishing law and order.

At this perilous time, it’s worth recalling the prescient warning from President Ronald Reagan, which may have sounded hyperbolic at the time he uttered it: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Anti-Israel Faculty Target University Presidents With New Tactic in Bid to Oust Them Over Campus Protest Response
Anti-Israel faculty have been increasingly using a new tactic to push to terminate university presidents who punished students and requested police help in ending an ongoing paroxysm of pro-Hamas demonstrations that began erupting on college campuses across the US last month.

Votes of no confidence in the presidents’ leadership have happened or are forthcoming at Barnard College, Emory University, the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt (Cal Poly), and potentially other schools — a measure that all but guarantees a new leader will be installed at those schools.

On Tuesday, Barnard College President Laura Rosenbury lost a no-confidence vote handily, with 77 percent of participating faculty voting against her in an apparent act of retribution prompted by her suspending over 50 anti-Israel protesters and evicting them from campus. The action was, according to The Columbia Spectator, the first no-confidence vote against a president in the college’s history. The move came after the Barnard chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) unanimously recommended the vote, citing the college’s decision to suspend students involved in the demonstrations.

At Emory, meanwhile, 90 percent of faculty members in Oxford College, an undergraduate division of the university, voted “no confidence” in President Gregory Fenves this week, according to The Emory Wheel. The vote came after Fenves took similar measures to end unauthorized demonstrations on campus and clear an encampment where the protesters had planted themselves.

Pro-Hamas demonstrations at Emory saw numerous clashes between law enforcement and students and faculty. In one instance, economics professor Caroline Fohlin was arrested for attempting to prevent the detention of a protester. Officers restrained her, bringing her to the ground, while she said repeatedly, “I’m a professor!” In another incident, students pelted objects at officers while using their bodies to press them against a building.

The faculty at Emory’s College of Arts and Sciences are currently holding their own no-confidence vote, the results of which will reportedly be unveiled on Friday afternoon.
Brown University Sends a Message: Extremism Works
At Brown University, extremism works. The tale of how the university’s leadership responded to two very different sets of concerns clearly demonstrates this.

Let’s start with the first set of concerns. Last year, CAMERA authored two reports highlighting serious issues of antisemitism and extremism at Brown University. These reports, which contained copious amounts of evidence about faculty and departments systematically indoctrinating students in their radical worldviews, were sent directly to Brown University’s leadership, including President Christina Paxson.

We documented how university professors, events, and journals were openly spreading blood libels about “Jewish mobs … thirsty for Palestinian blood,” glorifying Hamas and other terrorists, and even teaching students that Jewish identity is nothing but a colonial conspiracy.

Our letters to Paxson not only highlighted these issues, but also made clear our willingness to work with the university to help address these issues in a cooperative manner. We know that students and alumni also raised our reports and other concerns with the university, and that Paxson privately acknowledged to some that our reports “reflect broader concerns about whether universities like Brown maintain integrity and balance in their programming and scholarship on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

And yet, Paxson refused to publicly engage on these issues. More importantly, she refused to address the serious ethical questions we raised regarding anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred being promoted at her university’s Center for Middle East Studies.

Contrast that with Paxson’s response to the displays of extremism and antisemitism pervading the anti-Israel demonstrations on and off campus, including the encampment on the university’s “Main Green” lawn. (Violence and chaos that our reports warned about.)
Princeton University sticks with pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah, pro-terror professor
The pressure is mounting on Princeton University in New Jersey after Iranian-Americans and students appeared at a demonstration in late April, urging the Ivy League institution’s president to fire academic Seyed Hossein Mousavian for his alleged role in the assassinations of over 20 Iranian dissidents.

Mousavian is also facing calls for his summary dismissal because of his ongoing support for two US-designated terrorist organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah, and his endorsement of an Iranian regime fatwa to execute the British-American writer Salman Rushdie.

Over 70 people, including a survivor of a 1992 assassination operation reportedly linked to Mousavian, protested last Friday in Princeton against the controversial academic.

Mousavian was the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ambassador (1990-1997) to Germany when the former Iranian regime president, Akbar Rafsanjani, ordered a team of assassins to murder Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant called Mykonos in 1992.

The Iranian regime ordered assassination resulted in the murder of four Kurdish dissidents, according to a Berlin court verdict.
US demands Qatar expel Hamas if they reject a ceasefire - Washington Post
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned Qatar last month that they should expel Hamas senior officials if the terror group rejects another ceasefire proposal, the Washington Post reported Saturday morning.

Qatar reportedly responded that they told Hamas leadership to be prepared for a scenario in which they would be forced to leave the country.

Three senior officials cited in the report claimed Qatar was preparing for Hamas’s expulsion for months due to frustration with Hamas’s unwillingness to accept ceasefire proposals, frustration that has grown with Hamas's lack of response to the current proposal. Booting Hamas from Qatar

Qatar could close the political office of Hamas as part of a broader review of its role as a mediator in the war between Israel and the militant Palestinian Islamist group, according to an official familiar with the Qatari government's reassessment.

The Gulf state was weighing whether to allow Hamas to continue operating the political office, and the broader review includes considering whether or not to continue mediating in the seven-month conflict, the official told Reuters.

Qatar said last month it was reevaluating its role as mediator in indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, citing concerns that its efforts were being undermined by politicians seeking to score points.

"If Qatar isn’t going to be mediating, they won’t see a point in keeping the political office. So that is a part of the reassessment," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Australian Jewish Association: Israel War Briefing - Col Richard Kemp
AJA Weekly Zoom was privileged to hear an update on military matters from Col Richard Kemp, a close friend of AJA and the Jewish people.

Col Kemp is a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and a sought after expert on military and conflict issues.

Col Kemp provided a detailed and insightful overview of Israel's military challenges.

AJA is hosting Col Kemp in Sydney on 7 May and Melbourne on 9 May. Book early to avoid disappointment.




Ben Shapiro: Pick A Damn Side
Protesters continue to roil American universities as faculty and administration pander to them; Joe Biden goes mealy-mouthed on condemning anti-Semitism; and Donald Trump goes strong against the protesters.


Law Talk: The Professors Strike Back: The 1st Amendment on Campus, ICC’s Overreach, and Presidential Immunity
Hosted by John Yoo, Richard Epstein & Troy Senik
Richard and John respond to the clearing of student protests at major universities and judge their claims to the validity of their encampments. They also discuss the likelihood that the International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and whether President Biden will continue the pressure that his predecessor did on the court. Finally, they make predictions about the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on Trump’s insistence that presidents have absolute immunity – during and after their terms.
The Ricochet Podcast: Chaos Agents Explicit
Hosted by James Lileks, Peter Robinson & Steve Hayward
With guest H.R. McMaster
H.R. McMaster joins James, Peter and Steve Hayward to discuss the Biden administration’s feckless policy on the war in Gaza; he explains Hamas’ battalion strength and the IDF’s delayed invasion of Rafah, along with the political balancing act that’s keeping the president from doing what he must.


Bill Maher slams Biden for using his tax dollars to fund campus ‘Jew-hating’ with new student loan plan: ‘So incensed’
“Real Time” host Bill Maher took aim at President Biden’s latest student loan handout proposal, insisting his own tax dollars, by extension, will be funding the “Jew hating” on college campuses.

During Friday night’s panel discussion, while discussing the anti-Israel unrest occurring at top universities in recent weeks, Maher said he gets “so incensed” at how many of the students participating receive federal aid.

“When I read about the college loans… ‘Biden administration’s student debt cancelation will cost a combined $870 billion to $1.4 trillion. That’s a lot of debt forgiveness,” Maher said.

Maher continued, “Colleges constantly raise tuition, then the kids take out more loans, then the government comes by and pays those loans. Okay, so my tax dollars are supporting this Jew hating? I don’t think so.”

Fox News contributor Kellyanne Conway said the student loan handout was unfair, telling Maher “You can’t have plumbers and pipefitters paying for the student loans of doctors and lawyers.”

“I’m all for the government trying to help people who need it, but he did that as a political play and everybody knows it. He’s bleeding young people support.” Conway added.

“And it hasn’t worked,” Bloomberg Businessweek correspondent Joshua Green chimed in. “If you look at issues that young people care about, Gaza is like 15th out of 16th. And the only thing that comes in lower than Gaza is student loan forgiveness. So it hasn’t worked as a motivator for the youth vote, you know, half of which are out there chanting ‘Genocide Joe.’ So it’s backfired not just in terms of public policy, but in terms of the politics, too.”

“Yeah, I mean, Trump is winning the youth vote by I think 11 points, that’s pretty astounding to me,” Maher said, referring to a recent CNN poll. “What do you make of that?”


Anti-Israel Georgetown Professor Dubs US Congressman a 'Race Traitor' and 'Uncle Tom'
A Georgetown professor accused an African-American congressman of being a "race traitor" and an "Uncle Tom" over his support for Jewish students as they face a tidal wave of anti-Semitism on campus from pro-Palestinian protesters.

Professor Zein El-Amine, a Lebanese writer and adjunct lecturer at Georgetown, lashed out at Rep. Byron Donalds (R., Fla.) on Thursday when the lawmaker arrived on campus to show his support for the embattled Jewish and pro-Israel community.

El-Amine was caught at a rally at George Washington University on video published Friday by the Daily Caller shouting at the black congressman, "How much is AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee] paying you, you race traitor?" "You’re working for a foreign entity, you bastard," the professor added, calling Donalds an "Uncle Tom," a racist term for a black person who is seeking approval from whites.

El-Amine’s comments are the latest examples of racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric on America’s college campuses, which are experiencing the worst unrest in decades. Pro-Palestinian protesters at some of the country’s most prestigious colleges continue to demonstrate against Israel as university leadership struggles to stem the rising tide of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic harassment.

Donalds labeled El-Amine a "racist" on Friday during a Fox News interview on the incident.

"Jewish students are being intimidated, harassed & assaulted. It'll take the courage of ALL AMERICANS to stand-up to this radicalism & REJECT it," Donalds tweeted along with the interview clip. "If it takes me having to deal with a racist protestor at GW, so be it—I can take that."


London is becoming intolerant — I was spat at in the street for criticising Hamas' sexual violence
Last week, shocked at how I had to dress to safely walk around where I live, I posted a picture of myself to Instagram. I posted the picture because I wanted to vent — rather than fight — to do something about the madness that goes by the name of the city we live in right now. I am an outspoken woman. I am used to criticism. But sadly, what I am no longer able to stand is the level of risk that being an outspoken woman means to my own personal safety.

When I first started campaigning against female genital mutilation (FGM) I found myself unable to return home to Bristol or go into parts of London. That was hard, but I told myself this is ignorance and it will soon pass. It took years, but things did change. What kept me going was that I still had most of this incredible city, London, as a safety net.

Over the past few months, however, that has changed. A few weeks ago as I sat near where I live having coffee, a man came up to me and asked if I was Nimco Ali. I replied that I was and just like that, before I could say anything, he spat at my feet and shouted “there was no rape you liar” and walked away.

To say I was shocked is an understatement, but when that shock wore off I was disgusted and angry. I mean, what the actual f***? What had I done to this man was all I kept asking myself as I ran, not walked, back home.

I knew as soon as the anger wore off that I was going to start crying. I did not want to do that in public. And what I had ‘done’ to him was soon on social media — it seems a speech I had given a few weeks back about how the rapes committed by Hamas on October 7 were a crime against humanity was now being wildly shared on X.
Massive duelling protests between pro- and anti-Israel supporters
Tensions have escalated as anti-Israel supporters and their radical Left allies have taken over the McGill campus by setting up an encampment. Supporters of Israel counter-protested the encampment on Thursday afternoon in front of McGill University.


‘Violent’ Columbia protester is heir to ad empire, has mansion, model babymama — and long rap sheet
One of the most violent leaders of the Columbia University riots is allegedly a professional agitator and limousine liberal — the scion of millionaire ad execs who owns in a $3.4 million Brooklyn brownstone, has a model babymama and a stepmom dating John Cougar Mellencamp.

James Carlson, aka Cody Carlson, aka Cody Tarlow, is “a longtime anarchist,” a high-ranking police source said.

He bought his 2,893-square-foot, three-story brownstone with four wood-burning fireplaces and a carriage house in Park Slope in 2019 for $2.3 million, according to property records and online listings.

The provocateur, who has arrests dating back to 2005, is one of three children of prominent advertising execs Richard “Dick” Tarlow and his wife, Sandy Carlson Tarlow.

Dick Tarlow, died in 2022 at age 81 with an estate worth at least $20 million, court papers show.

The Shelter Island resident was known for his work with Revlon, Ralph Lauren, Cuisinart and Pottery Barn.

He was a loyal supporter of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and helped underwrite the school’s John Jay Justice Awards.
Teddy Roosevelt’s great-great-great grandson is anti-Israel protester at Princeton
Speak softly and carry a big keffiyah?

The great-great-great grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt appears to have traded the Rough Riders for Hamas and Hezbollah, as he vocally supports the anti-Israel tent encampments erupting at universities across the country.

Quentin Colon Roosevelt, 18, a freshman at Princeton University who also once served as Washington DC’s youngest elected official, is staunchly anti-Israel despite his famous ancestor’s support for a Jewish state.

Roosevelt wants the Ivy League university, where he serves on the student government, to “divest” from Israel and has vowed “we will not stop, we will not rest” in a recent post on X that included an image of a hand-drawn Palestinian flag.

The teen, who also worked to re-elect ‘Squad” member Summer Lee this spring, retweeted a post from the far left rep likening Israel’s war against Hamas to a “genocide.”

Roosevelt also accused Israel of committing “massacres in Gaza,” but does not appear to have condemned Hamas’ horrific Oct. 7 terrorist attacks which left at least 1,200 Israelis dead.

The Bull Moose nepo baby has implied he’s even helped organize the anti-Israel demonstrations at Princeton, where students have displayed the Hezbollah flag, chanted for “intifada revolution,” and shoved Jewish counterprotesters.

“We’ve set up a peaceful student protest in solidarity with our peers at Columbia, Yale, UT Austin, and other universities nationwide,” Roosevelt wrote on X on the first day of protests.

Princeton has seen more than a dozen students arrested since the protests began April 25, and Roosevelt has been outspoken against the police action.


Universities Need To Recover the True Meaning of Academic Freedom
Universities are places of teaching and learning. Civil discourse, open inquiry, and intellectual pluralism are indispensable preconditions for these activities and for academic freedom, defined by the 1972 Shils Report as "the freedom of the individual to investigate, publish, and teach in accordance with his intellectual convictions." A broader definition of academic freedom would include the freedom of individual students to speak their minds—not just to proclaim, but to reason, argue, and submit their views for examination and correction by their peers and professors without fear of ostracism, bullying, and physical assault. Conversely, universities where speakers are shouted down, inquiry is ideologically constrained, and prevailing opinion is homogeneous resemble bicycles whose brake pads rub constantly against the rims. Their vital motion toward deeper understanding is fundamentally impeded.

Asked by congressional representatives whether antisemitic protests constituted intolerable harassment of Jewish students, the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT claimed that it depended on the context. They seem to have forgotten that the relevant context is the university itself, whose educational mission must have the last word in all such matters. In effectively limiting academic freedom, their defense of freedom of speech and expression amplifies the chilling effect of widespread Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion requirements in academia.

In a 2022 survey, the American Association of University Professors found that 29.2 percent of doctoral degree-granting universities, and 45.6 percent of large universities, included DEI criteria in tenure standards. These requirements militate against academic freedom. For while there are serious and principled objections to DEI—in particular, that it is dehumanizing and divisive to categorize individuals by race or gender—such objections are increasingly not open to discussion on campus. This moral absolutism opposes the spirit of the university as a community where people think and talk about fundamental human matters.

Now more than ever, university leaders must defend academic freedom and exercise careful judgment in determining when freedom of speech and expression impinge on it. Would the behavior in question cause reasonable persons to conceal their views, or withdraw their full energies from debate, discussion, study, and research? Would Jewish students be intimidated in entering a library occupied by Students for Justice in Palestine, or walking through a pro-Palestinian protest on campus? These are the pressing questions university leaders must answer today.


Where is Shafik? Columbia University president keeps low profile, fights to keep job amid campus antisemitism
Columbia University's embattled president, Nemat Minouche Shafik, has been a target of critics who accused her of going too soft on anti-Israel radicals who ran amok on her campus until she caved and called police for help after the agitators escalated the chaos by taking over an academic building on Tuesday.

Now she's also facing a potential mutiny from a faculty group that alleges the police response went too far.

Although university leaders repeatedly pushed back the "deadline" for the agitators to disperse, Shafik finally asked the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to clear a group of them out this week after a mob smashed its way into the Hamilton Hall building on campus and barricaded the doors and windows, confronting maintenance workers and waiving a Palestinian flag from the roof.

"President Shafik is reaping what she and other senior administrators have sown," said William A. Jacobson, Cornell University law professor and founder of the Equal Protection Project. "For decades, but particularly in the past several years, university administrators have watched campuses become more and more radicalized and racialized."

The university acknowledged the pressure that the administration is facing but did not make Shafik available for an interview.

"President Shafik continues to regularly consult with members of the community, including faculty, administration, and trustees, as well as with state, city, and community leaders," a Columbia University spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "She appreciates the efforts of those working alongside her on the long road ahead to heal our community."

Jacobson told Fox News Digital the approach to campus leadership led to a divisive environment pitting different student groups against one another – and the proliferation of antisemitism in particular.

"Appeasement only made the problem worse, and stopping the appeasement and enforcing the rules is viewed by the protesters as a betrayal," he said. "Columbia and other universities need to decide if they will try to stem the tide of radicalism or allow it to destroy the university."

The campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes "academic freedom and shared governance," called for a vote of no confidence in Shafik and other Columbia administration officials, including the entire board of trustees, on Thursday.

On the other hand, House Speaker Mike Johnson last week demanded that Shafik resign if she couldn't stand up to the agitators, calling her leadership "very weak" and "inept."


Campus 'occupation guide' taps into agitators' 'rage,' instructs how to 'escalate' chaos
Anti-Israel radicals on the University of Pennsylvania campus are passing around multiple guides directing agitators on how to break into buildings, "escalate" protests, create weapons and even administer first aid, documents exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital show.

"Let repression breed more resistance. We will not disavow any actions taken to escalate the struggle, including militant direct actions. Our notion of ‘safety’ in the imperial core is built on centuries of corpses, and this liberal framing of 'safetyism' prevents us from escalating and winning, which is our duty to Palestine and us all. We keep us safe by escalating. Don't hesitate to take more risk," one how-to guide dubbed "FLOOD THE GATES: ESCALATE" reads.

Fox News Digital obtained a 52-page document — which contains various guides for radicals — through a source with access to agitators on Penn's campus.

The guides coach student agitators and outside radicals in how to build shields out of trash cans and how to most effectively barricade a door, while advising that bolt cutters are the best tool to cut padlocks, and angle grinders are best to slice through locks, bolts and chains.

"Use the straighter end of a crowbar to pry open windows and doors (such as in the hand over hand method). Use the slightly angled part as your fulcrum, pushing it against the window frame or door jamb," the "Do-It-Yourself Occupation Guide 2024" describes. The guide informs agitators they shouldn't pry a crowbar toward their face.

A university spokesman on Thursday declined comment to Fox News Digital when asked about the guides.

Penn, located in Philadelphia, is among the long list of schools nationwide where students and other radicals are staging anti-Israel protests, including setting up encampments. The "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" on Penn's campus was established more than a week ago, where students are demanding the school disclose its financial ties to Israel, divest from the country and provide protections for the protesters on campus, ABC 6 reported.

Student newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian reported Thursday that university officials had called on the Philadelphia Police Department to disband the encampment immediately, but that the department reportedly turned down the request as it has an agreement with the school's police department to provide support "as needed," and there was no imminent threat.


Exposed: The horrifying notes posted inside NYU's 'Gaza' protest camp - and even the cops are shocked
Sinister pro-Hamas flyers have emerged on the NYU campus amid fears over rampant anti-Semitism and threatening behavior at demonstrations.

Posters declaring 'Death to America' and 'Long live the intifada' have been plastered around the Manhattan college's Gaza encampment, days after over 100 protestors were arrested in furious clashes with the NYPD.

The police force shared images of the fliers on Friday, noting the 'inflammatory literature and signage' observed at the 'illegal encampment.'

It comes as universities across America have struggled to control pro-Palestine protests, with aggressive police crackdowns sparking outrage as arrests have topped 2,000 nationwide.

While New York colleges including NYU and Columbia have continued to see hostile clashes between protestors and police, nearby Rutgers University became one of the first to bring their encampment to a close this week.

On Thursday, the New Jersey institution reached an agreement with protestors on eight of their ten demands, including severing its partnership with Tev Aviv University and creating Arab Cultural Centers on all campuses.

Although conflict at Rutgers' encampment only seemingly extended to counter-protestors chanting 'USA', the NYPD shared images of NYU's campus with more threatening displays of protest.

In one poster, activists called to 'disrupt/ reclaim/ destroy Zionist business interests everywhere', alongside: 'Death to America.'

'Squat or rot! Do what you want!' the poster read. 'Long live the intifada!'

In another flyer, protestors said they had 'enough with de-escalation trainings - where are the escalation trainings?'

'We can choose to learn how to build effective barricades, how to link arms most effectively to resist police attacks, or what type of expanding foam works best on the kind of doorknobs present in our universities,' it said.

'This is not rhetoric - this is an urgent need.'


Leaked Students for Justice in Palestine texts show support for massacres of Israelis
Texts written by Boston University students belonging to the university's Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organization chapter show them enthusiastically celebrating the October 7 massacre on the day it occurred, according to leaked texts obtained by N12.

During the discussion, some students called the Hamas terrorists "freedom fighters" and hoped that the situation would erupt into a genocidal war against Israel.

Several students voiced active support for violent Palestinian "resistance," saying slogans such as "Long live the intifada!"

"But btw (by the way), the freedom fighters have pushed the occupation forces back. They're so close to Tel Aviv," one student commented. Two people in the group "liked" his message.

Another student, named James, in the conversation said that he hopes for "the State of Israel to collapse and be replaced with something actually democratic."

After the posters of hostages began appearing on campus, several students were outraged and said they would take down these "zionist posters."


Jewish Student Needs Police Escort To Enter MIT Anti-Israel Encampment
A Jewish university student needed a police escort to enter the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s anti-Israel encampment on Friday.

Shabbos Kestenbaum, a student at Harvard Divinity School, spoke at a pro-Israel rally across the street from the encampment hosted by the Israeli American Council before deciding to cross the street and enter the encampment.

Kestenbaum walked up to the encampment and was denied entry by a keffiyeh-wearing man blocking the perimeter of the protest. Police eventually agreed to escort him into the encampment, according to video taken by The Daily Wire.

“I want to let all of you know that you’re not going to intimidate Jewish people,” he told the campers. “You can hide behind your masks as long as you want, we will not be scared.”

“All of you should be ashamed of yourselves,” he added. “This is the state of being Jewish in America, I need police to exercise my First Amendment right.”

Kestenbaum is a student at Harvard University, but spoke at the MIT counter-demonstration in support of Jewish students there.

“After delivering a speech imploring Jewish students not to be afraid of their antisemitic classmates, I crossed the road to exercise my First Amendment rights and enter the pro-Hamas encampments,” Kestenbaum told The Daily Wire.

“Protestors formed a human chain to keep me out, and initially refused to allow me in even after police asked them to,” he added. “Eventually, I required a personal police escort to walk through the encampment, all the while being followed by pro-Hamas terrorist students.”


Irish, Swiss students join anti-Israel protest wave by staging campus encampments
Students at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland and Lausanne University in Switzerland have staged occupations to protest against Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, joining a wave of demonstrations sweeping US campuses.

In Dublin, students built an encampment on Friday that forced the university to restrict campus access on Saturday and close the Book of Kells exhibition, one of Ireland’s top tourist attractions.

The camp was set up after the students’ union said it had been fined 214,000 euros ($230,000) by the university for losses caused by protests in recent months, not exclusively over Gaza. The protesters were demanding that Trinity cut academic ties with Israel and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Students’ union president Laszlo Molnarfia posted a photograph of benches piled up at the entrance to the building housing the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript created by Celtic monks in about 800 CE.

Trinity College said it had restricted access to students, staff and residents to ensure safety, and that the exhibition would be closed on Saturday.
French police storm Sciences Po building occupied by anti-Israel student protesters
Riot police in Paris entered the campus of the prestigious Sciences Po university on Friday to remove student protesters who had begun occupying university buildings as part of an anti-Israel demonstration.

According to Reuters, this morning French police stormed the university’s main building on 27 Rue Saint Guillame in the 7th arrondissement and brought out many of the roughly 70 protesters staging a pro-Palestine demonstration in the lobby.

Footage posted to Instagram by the group Comité Palestine Sciences Po shows students inside the building chanting ‘Free Palestine’ as well as holding Palestinian flags and signs reading ‘Free Palestine.’

Unlike the violence which has characterised recent anti-Israel student protests in the US, the demonstrations at universities in France have been predominantly peaceful, and there were reportedly no signs of violence as protesters at Sciences Po were removed from the building.

Among Comité Palestine Sciences Po’s list of demands for university administration is the “cessation of any partnerships or collaborations with institutions or entities that uphold Zionist ideologies,” as well as an “official condemnation of Israeli actions,” according to a post shared on the group’s Instagram account.

But on Thursday, the interim administrator of Sciences Po, Jean Bassères, rejected the group’s demand that the school review its relationship with Israeli universities. During a town hall event that followed student protests at the university last week, Bassères admitted that the school needs to consider whether to “take positions on major political issues” but said a review of broader school policy was not on the agenda.


PBS’s Amanpour Celebrates ‘Heart of the Pro-Palestinian Campus Peace Movement’
On Monday’s Amanpour & Co., which runs on PBS and CNN International, host Christiane Amanpour took the side of the pro-Hamas campus protesters who are spewing anti-Jewish rhetoric on “progressive” college campuses nationwide -- no surprise given her long-standing journalistic hostility toward Israel.

Against all evidence she insisted that the campus occupiers were “mostly nonviolent” idealists and that concerns had been blown “out of proportion.” Occupying private property is illegal, hence police may be called.

Amanpour: Now, a major development sparked by this war is a growing protest and peace movement on college campuses across the United States. Though mostly nonviolent, several schools have called in local police and National Guard troops….the epicenter of all of this is Columbia University, where today, with negotiations between students and the administration at an impasse, the university called on protesters to clear their encampment or face suspension.

Amanpour invited on a student journalist, introduced in the show opener like this: "Isabella Ramirez editor in chief of the Columbia Daily Spectator, reports from the heart of the pro-Palestinian campus peace movement." Ugh.

To her credit, she asked her about “student-on-student verbal harassment that has been cited as very damaging and uncomfortable and frightening by some of the Jewish students.”

Ramirez replied her paper had “compiled pretty extensive reports regarding this, most particularly when in the aftermath of one of our campus rabbis telling Jewish students, hundreds of Jewish students to leave campus, to not stay because of the environment," including "particularly violent signage that was used to refer to actually Hamas...."

But Amanpour then made the college administration the aggressors for calling on the local police to dissolve the disruptive and threatening takeover of the campus. Amanpour complained Columbia's president Minouche Shafik had been "hauled before" Congress to answer to anti-semitism on campus.


Jamaal Bowman hosted fundraiser with extremist Muslim leader who praised Oct. 7 attacks on Israel
Rep. Jamaal Bowman hosted a fundraiser with an extremist Muslim leader who praised Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in Israel and has been personally condemned by the White House.

The event took place this week at a private residence in Fairfax, Virginia which promised Bowman and alongside Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American–Islamic Relations, according to a flier viewed by The Post.

News of the event was first posted to X by Jewish Insider.

During his time in Congress, Bowman has become one the top Israel-haters in Washington, accusing the Jewish state of crimes in Gaza.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has said it plans to spend millions in an effort to unseat him, with the first ads expected to roll out in the coming weeks.

Bowman is using opposition from the pro-Israel lobby as an opportunity to fund-raise.

“As a direct result of his call for a Gaza ceasefire, AIPAC has vowed to spend $100 million against progressive members of Congress—and Jamaal is their top target,” the flyer for the Bowman event reads.

AIPAC, and other more moderate Democrats are backing George Latimer, the popular Westchester County Executive.

One alarming poll for Bownan showed Latimer dominating the race — but insiders expect it to be close.

Back in December, Awad publicly said he “was happy to see” the Hamas slaughter in Israel which left some 1,200 dead and hundreds taken hostage.

He added that “The people of Gaza have the right to self-defense.”
Dem Candidate Sue Altman Partnered With Anti-Israel Group Behind Rutgers University Encampment
During her time as the New Jersey Working Families Party's (NJWFP) state director, swing district candidate Sue Altman (D., N.J.) worked closely with one of the groups now organizing the anti-Israel encampment on Rutgers’s campus.

Under Altman’s direction, the NJWFP organized a December 2019 climate rally with Newark Water Coalition, a Newark, New Jersey-based water and social justice advocacy group. The water coalition is now a member of the newly formed Newark Solidarity Coalition, one of the organizations, alongside Rutgers Students for Justice in Palestine, behind the Rutgers University "Gaza Solidarity" encampment.

The Newark Solidarity Coalition was created April 30, one day before the encampment was established at Rutgers’s Newark affiliate campus. The coalition includes Rutgers Students for Justice in Palestine, New Jersey American Muslims for Palestine, the Rutgers Muslim Student Association, and the Newark Water Coalition, the Washington Free Beacon found after reviewing several joint posts on Instagram.

The solidarity coalition wrote in an introductory X post that the group is made up of "students, faculty, and community members" from Newark who hope to "create spaces for community discussions" about "colonial, capitalist, and white supremacist violence."

"Newark encampment starting today. We will not rest until our demands are met," the group added in a separate post. "Please join us in fighting for divestment from genocide and reinvestment into our communities."

The Newark Water Coalition and Newark Solidarity Coalition shared a Wednesday video on Instagram from the encampment featuring a speaker who said Rutgers’s "complicity" in "unimaginable" crimes by Israel is "intolerable."

The speaker concluded, "We are pitching tents in solidarity with them, and we will not leave until all our demands are met," and the crowd chanted, "Free Palestine."

"Their demands are not only that the university divest from Israel and cut all ties with the apartheid system, but also that the university reinvest in the Newark community," the Newark Water Coalition and the Newark Solidarity Coalition wrote in the post’s caption.

This comes as Altman attempts to unseat freshman congressman Tom Kean Jr. (R., N.J.) in her first bid for a federal seat.

Altman, a Columbia University alumna, has been noticeably silent on the campus chaos and anti-Semitism as more than 100 anti-Israel encampments have been established across the country. Kean recently called out Altman’s silence.


Iran-backed Bahraini group claims second attack on Israel
An Iranian-backed terrorist group in Bahrain claims to have targeted Israel a second time. JPost first reported on May 2 that the “Islamic Resistance in Bahrain, Saraya Al-Ashtar” claimed it had targeted Israel. The group alleged via pro-Iran media such as Al-Mayadeen that on April 27 it had targeted an Israeli company in Eilat. There is no evidence that the group’s attacks, which it claims involved drones, have taken place or been successful. The group posted an undated video showing a drone being launched.

Now Iran’s IRNA reported on May 4 that the group said it had carried out a second attack targeting Eilat. “The Bahraini resistance group, Al-Ashtar Brigades, has announced its second attack on Israeli positions in support of the Palestinian people in war-ravaged Gaza,” IRNA claimed.

The group has been sanctioned as a terrorist group by the US. Bahrain is a member of the Abraham Accords. Bahrain has a Shi’ite minority and Iran has often sought to influence the Shi’ite community in Bahrain and stir up trouble in the Kingdom. Iran has done the same among Shi’ites in Saudi Arabia.

Iran attempting regional destabilization
Iran likely is pushing the Bahrain group to make these claims during the 15th Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Banjul, Gambia, where Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian is pushing countries to cut ties with Israel. As such Iran appears to be trying to operationalize a new “front” against Israel.

Iran already uses Hamas in Gaza, Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq and Syria to attack Israel. Iran also attacked Israel on April 13-14. Iran’s foreign minister met with his Saudi counterparts in Gambia on may 4. Iran may be trying to send a message it can destabilize Bahrain, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, and it is pushing this terrorist proxy to make these claims in that light.


Netherlands remembers World War Two dead amid tight security due to Gaza war
Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Prime Minister Mark Rutte joined around 4,000 people on Saturday for the country's annual World War Two remembrance ceremony amid restricted public access and heightened security due to the war in Gaza.

The ceremony on Amsterdam's central Dam square, with the traditional two minutes of silence at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) to commemorate the victims of World War Two, passed smoothly despite fears that there might be protests.

Normally some 20,000 people attend the Dam commemoration without having to register. But earlier this week municipal authorities announcedunprecedented security measures to keep the ceremony safe and avoid possible disruptions linked to the Israel-Hamas war.

Security precautions
At the March opening of a Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, pro-Palestinian protesters who were opposed to Israel's military campaign in Gaza set off fireworks and booed Israeli President Isaac Herzog as he arrived at the museum.

Every town and the city in the Netherlands holds its own remembrance ceremony on May 4 and tens of thousands of people attend the events. The Netherlands then marks on May 5 the anniversary of its liberation from Nazi occupation in 1945.


At Holocaust commemoration in Eylon Levy’s living room, Oct. 7 atrocities loom large
As former government spokesman Eylon Levy introduced Dr. Arnold Clevs to a group of young professionals, foreign diplomats and journalists in the living room of his central Tel Aviv apartment on Wednesday night, a sense of tragedy hung in the air.

Clevs, a Holocaust survivor who had somehow managed to live through internment at 11 concentration camps, moved to Israel four years ago from the United States at the age of 87.

Levy had invited the group to listen to Clevs’s story as part of the Zikaron BaSalon, or the “Memory in a Living Room” initiative, which brings people together in homes, workplaces and other more intimate environments to speak with Holocaust survivors and hear about their experiences.

But things are different this year as the October 7 massacre and subsequent Israel-Hamas war loom large over Holocaust Remembrance Day, which Israel will mark at sundown on May 5.

On October 7, thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel and killed, burned, raped and took hostages in what has been described as the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The brutality saw 1,200 murdered, most of them civilians, and 253 kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.

Since that horrible day, Israelis and Jews worldwide have been looking at their lives through a lens of horror and sorrow: Passover celebrations were tinged with sadness and added prayers; antisemitism globally has surged; and celebrating Independence Day and Memorial Day, both of which fall later this month, will bring its own challenges.

“It would be remiss not to speak about the elephant in the room,” Levy said as he introduced Clevs, a dapper and sprightly now 91-year-old dressed in sneakers, jeans, and a light checkered shirt.

“What does it mean for the Jewish people to live in a world in which the Nazis are no longer the only ultimate symbols of evil?… What do we do in a world in which we’ve come face to face with an evil that is making Holocaust survivors have flashbacks to the Nazis?” Levy asked.

As Clevs recounted his story — an astonishing one of survival, luck and determination — guests listened quietly, sometimes laughing with him as he recounted how he put sand in his shoes to fool the Nazis into thinking he was older and taller, or sighed in distress as he vividly described acute hunger, thirst and the spontaneous acts of deadly violence.
Israel is an impossible startup story: Shai Reznik | Israel-Hamas War
Visegrad24 presents an in-depth series covering the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. This comprehensive series features on-the-ground interviews, bringing firsthand insights from a diverse range of voices, including politicians, professors, journalists, experts and influencers.

Our guest today: Shai Reznik
Shai is an Israeli tech-wizzard and founder of HiRez.io.
He's a Google developer expert, open source contributor and worldwide speaker. Shai is also the organizer of the largest JavaScript group in Israel and a professional Improv performer.

00:00 - Introduction
01:34 - The Israeli tech scene
06:55 - The demography in Israeli tech
08:15 - The startup mentality
09:38 - The Israeli Army and tech
12:50 - Sectors of the Israeli tech sector
16:09 - Antisemitism
17:35 - Media lies about Israel
21:27 - Terror attacks in Europe and migration
25:35 - Normalization of terror and Oct. 7th
27:55 - The growth of Islamism
31:42 - Creating wealth
34:44 - Hamas expansion in West Bank?






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