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Wednesday, May 15, 2024

05/15 Links Pt2: Menachem Begin’s Lesson for Bibi and Biden; What ‘Globalize the Intifada’ Looks Like in Practice; Peace in Our Time at Harvard

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: What ‘Globalize the Intifada’ Looks Like in Practice
The progressive masses that march regularly for Israel’s destruction believe the United Kingdom is deserving of precisely the same fate for precisely the same reasons. In fact, they hold the UK uniquely responsible for Israel’s creation and thus see the two states as part of the same holy war. Back in Berkeley as elsewhere in the U.S., the tentifada is organized and run by those who also admire the pluck of the “decolonization begins at home” psychopaths.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School (you can’t make this up) isn’t the first in the Bay Area to see trickle-down radicalization, the Jewish News points out: Schools in San Francisco and Oakland and other schools in Berkeley have walked out too. A couple of those walkouts took place just after Hamas’s attacks and well before Israel’s incursion into Gaza, which can only be understood as celebratory of the massacre.

Back in Britain, the police reassure the public that they “do not believe that there is a wider risk to the public connected to this case,” which is no doubt true. But there is a wider risk to the public that has been exposed by this case, and others like it.

For months, dishonest people have argued that the “river to the sea” chant, a variation on a line in the Hamas charter, isn’t necessarily indicative of a desire to carry out a genocide. But even offering the benefit of the doubt, is there a benign reason to gather outside a Jewish preschool and chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” at the 4-year-olds inside? There is not. And that is crucial to this discussion: The actions of these demonstrators are indefensible from any angle.

There’s another chant that has been quite popular at the demonstrations and marches in the U.S. as well as those in Britain (and elsewhere): “Globalize the intifada.” Since the intifada refers to a campaign of mass terrorism against Jewish civilians, to globalize it would be to expand the battlefield without changing the goal. Some people try to deny this, but even they do not believe their denial, because it is ridiculous. They are not cheering on individual vision quests or yoga retreats. They are not shouting “have yourself a very merry intifada in the privacy of your own home surrounded by loves ones!”

Walid Saadaoui and Amar Hussein were in court today because they attempted to globalize the intifada. They heard the calls of the protesters, as others no doubt will. And they didn’t misunderstand.
Genocidal, But Mostly Peaceful
It is no “moral panic” to report that Students for Justice in Palestine, the major student group on campus behind these protests, praised Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel as a “historic win” against “the Zionist enemy,” or that students at protests on elite campuses such as Yale and Princeton and Stanford have proudly displayed Hamas and Hezbollah flags and other terrorist regalia. Nor to note, as the Anti-Defamation League reported and many social-media accounts confirmed, that a Columbia protestor said, “Never forget the 7th of October . . . the 7th of October is about to be every f—king day for you. You ready?” If Michelle Cottle thinks judgments of such actions are “in the eye of the beholder,” her eye does not know how to behold.

What this soft-pedaling of the horrors being spewed on campus has produced is a disastrously incurious media. Consider the question of how the college protests are organized and funded. The encampments that mysteriously sprang up like mushrooms on campuses in a matter of days across the country, with matching Coleman tents, were funded by big-name Democratic donors with last names like Rockefeller, Pritzker, and Soros. A Politico piece declared it “surprising” that “Biden’s biggest donors” are backing the protesters. “Two of the organizers supporting the protests at Columbia University and on other campuses are Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both are supported by the Tides Foundation, which is seeded by Democratic megadonor George Soros and was previously supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It in turn supports numerous small nonprofits that work for social change.”

Politico’s article came out months after the protests began. It is a telling example of mainstream media’s ideological monoculture that journalists who delayed even asking such questions then found themselves surprised that left-wing dark money was funding radical protests on campus.

This willful blindness to the beliefs of the protesters they are covering also poses a challenge when trying to describe them. Some outlets, like the Associated Press, describe student activists as “antiwar protesters.” Others refer to them as “pro-Palestinian,” when the correct description would be “anti-Israel” and, in many cases, simply anti-Semitic. Not surprisingly, such reporters also end up uncritically repeating Hamas propaganda. The Post quoted a Barnard student who had been arrested for participating in Columbia’s encampment. “There’s these big mainstream media outlets that are making it breaking news that Columbia canceled in-person classes, but not breaking news that mass graves were discovered in Gaza,” she proclaimed. The Post reporter felt no need to mention that the claim about mass graves had been thoroughly debunked. Perhaps the reporter didn’t know. Perhaps her editor didn’t know. Perhaps no one at the paper knew. Perhaps they chose not to know.

Or perhaps they knew, and they wanted the lie to stand unmolested.
Biden can’t be trusted to take on anti-Semitism
The Biden executive branch sees the white male patriarchy behind every alleged failure of social justice, from ‘pay inequities’ that allegedly afflict females and persons of colour to ‘poor health outcomes’. No other causes of different life trajectories – personal choice, different skill levels, cultural background, substance abuse, etc – may be contemplated. The reason is always discrimination.

In February 2023, Biden ordered the federal government to incorporate equity thinking into every aspect of its operations. Ninety federal agencies have adopted ‘Equity Action Plans’ to address the ‘discrimination that underserved communities face’. The federal science agencies, including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, hand out lucrative grants to study intersectionality. They demand ‘diversity’ in research labs and clinical trials as a corrective to the racism of Western science. The US military is on a crusade to eradicate heteronormativity and colourblind meritocracy.

US representative Nancy Pelosi and US senator Chuck Schumer, the Democrats’ legislative leaders, may voice support for Israel. But they and their party embrace the same philosophy that fuels the pro-Hamas campus protests. It is hard to find a Democratic state house or city hall that does not proudly proclaim its ‘anti-racist’ policies. Democratic school boards mandate ‘ethnic studies’ courses, which presume the existence of an enduring power struggle between the ‘marginalised’ and a white majority. State and local governments confer hiring preferences on non-white and female contractors, on the theory that merit-based systems of contracting are biased in favour of white males.

Democratic politicians promise ‘equity’, implying that American society is inherently unfair. They support the racial preferences in college admissions that have driven down the number of Jewish students, since highly qualified Jews take up slots needed to increase the presence of less qualified ‘underrepresented minorities’.

Biden received plaudits for his Days of Remembrance speech last week. But the performance was an exercise in hypocrisy. Campus anti-Semitism is the outgrowth of fundamental academic and Democratic commitments. Universities will not cure themselves unless they revamp their curricula and hire traditional scholars, rather than robotic practitioners of critical theory and activist wannabes. The ‘anti-Semitism training’ that administrators are proposing in the hope of extinguishing donor rebellions is a diversionary tactic. One can’t train one’s way out of a worldview that is baked into academic personnel and the courses they teach, even if adding to the diversity, equity and inclusion portfolio were not a patently counterproductive idea.

As long as the Democratic Party and its presidential standard-bearer remain committed to the narrative of white privilege and racial inequity, hatred of Israel and rationalisations for terrorism will be reliable products of the American left. No presidential speech will change that fact.


Seth Mandel: Menachem Begin’s Lesson for Bibi and Biden
Begin declared that the Jewish state would not be made hostage to the memorandum of cooperation. “We shall not allow a sword of Damocles to hang over our heads. The people of Israel have lived for three thousand seven hundred years without a memorandum of understanding with America, and it will continue to live without it for another three thousand seven hundred years!”

Netanyahu surely did not have to explain to the others in the room his particular choice of words. The parallels here are clear. In fact, there are two other parallels worth noting. One is what Begin said to Lewis about the White House’s complaints of civilian casualties in the Beirut bombing: “By what right do you lecture us on civilian casualties, Mr. Ambassador? We rack our brains to avoid civilian casualties. We sometimes risk the lives of our soldiers to avoid civilian casualties. We’ve read the history of the Second World War, Mr. Ambassador. We know what happened to civilians when you carried out your military operations against the enemy. We’ve also read the history of the Vietnam War, and we know all about what you called the ‘body counts.’”

The recent row between Biden and Netanyahu over civilian casualties is highly reminiscent of this. The closest American forces have come to the IDF’s task in fighting Hamas is the campaign against ISIS in Iraq. And even with slightly more favorable conditions there, the U.S. did not best the IDF’s civilian-to-combatant ratio thus far in Gaza. The hypocrisy of punishing Israel now is a bit galling to the Israelis, especially considering the U.S. is justifying its move by relying on Hamas’s obviously incorrect casualty reports.

Another, lesser-known similarity between the situations in 1981 and 2024 is the tense public debate in the United States. Then as now, American Jews were often accused of dual loyalty when they disagree with the U.S. president on Israel policy. Begin was furious about such insinuations: “No one will frighten the great and free Jewish community of the United States. No one will succeed in intimidating them with anti-Semitic propaganda.”

That is a point worth reiterating today. Menachem Begin, perhaps more than any other single figure in modern Jewish history, embodied in word and deed the concept of Jewish unity in the face of adversity.

In June 1948, as a weapons-delivery ship with Begin and his followers came to shore off Tel Aviv, Israeli leader and founding father David Ben-Gurion—Begin’s rival—reportedly told his soldiers that if they had a clear shot at Begin they should take it. Five months later, at a reception for Begin at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, someone in the audience proposed a toast to Ben-Gurion. Begin lifted his glass and responded that it would be a “great pleasure” to honor a man who had done so much for the Jewish people.

That is, a few months after Ben-Gurion’s men tried to shoot him, Begin led a thousand people in a toast to Ben-Gurion.

American Jews don’t have to go as far as Begin went in the name of achdus, of communal unity, but they ought to remember his faith in them and his staunch defense of their right to disagree with a president without having their patriotism called into question.
Netanyahu slams Gallant demand for Palestinian control of post-war Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of his coalition slammed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday night after he demanded that the government commit to Palestinian control over the Gaza Strip after the war with Hamas ends.

“I am not willing to exchange Hamastan for Fatahstan,” Netanyahu said in a video statement, with the latter term referring to Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah Party.

The premier reiterated that the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority “supports terrorism, teaches terrorism and funds terrorism.”

“The first condition for ‘the day after’ is to eliminate Hamas, with no excuses,” he added, addressing criticism by Gallant and the Biden administration that Israel does not have an exit plan for Gaza.

Netanyahu’s remarks came shortly after Gallant at a press conference urged the government to “make a decision and declare that Israel will not establish civilian control over the Gaza Strip, that Israel will not establish military governance in the Gaza Strip, and that a governing alternative to Hamas in the Gaza Strip will be promoted immediately.”

“Since October, I have been raising this issue consistently in the Cabinet and have received no response. The end of the military campaign must come together with political action. The ‘day after Hamas’ will only be achieved with Palestinian entities taking control of Gaza, accompanied by international actors,” claimed the defense minister.

The Biden administration has insisted that an “effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority” should ultimately govern the Gaza Strip—a move Netanyahu has rejected because of Ramallah’s support for and history of terrorism.

Senior coalition officials on Wednesday night called on Netanyahu to fire Gallant over his public opposition to the government’s stated policy.

“Minister Gallant today announced his support for the establishment of a Palestinian terrorist state as a reward for Hamas for the most horrific massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in a statement cited by the Ynet outlet.

“I demand that the prime minister request Gallant choose between implementing government policy and returning the keys,” he added.
Is Israel Being Prevented from Winning the War? | Israel Undiplomatic w/ Ruthie Blum & Mark Regev
As Israel commemorates the fallen on Oct. 7th and celebrates its survival, many are asking themselves where we are in the fight against Hamas? Is Israel losing the war? Are those inside and outside the country that are hindering the chances for victory?


Andrew Pessin: Student "Statement of Solidarity"...>
What universal norms and the laws of war do require is “proportionality,” but that explicitly does not imply parity in casualty counts. It means roughly that civilian casualties must be proportional to the military objective in play. You are never permitted to directly target civilians but a certain number of incidental civilian casualties is acceptable proportional to the military objective: you can’t kill many civilians for a small military objective, but you can kill proportionally more, regrettably, for a large one. That obviously has a degree of subjectivity but is best measured by the civilian:fighter ratios discussed above, and there the case is crystal clear. Israel’s remarkably low civilian:fighter ratio indicates it is obeying proportionality to an unprecedented degree.

What all that indicates is that you’re comparing the wrong numbers. It’s not the number of Israeli dead on October 7 compared to the number of Gazans dead. It’s the degree of the threat compared to the number of civilians necessary in order to neutralize the threat. It’s thus the number of Israelis that Hamas, left undefeated and undisturbed, *would* murder compared to the number of Gazan dead required to neutralize the threat. Hamas openly declares its desire and intention to murder all seven million Jews in Israel. By any reasonable universal standard if it requires several tens of thousands dead to prevent seven million from being murdered, assuming this is pursued justly by targeting the fighters, then that is adequately proportional. (The alternative is to say that Israel must allow millions of its citizens to be murdered in order to protect several tens of thousands of Gazans from dying. But that is outrageous.)

Horrible, and tragic, but that doesn’t stop it from being true.

War is terrible. But remember this war would stop instantly if Hamas surrendered and returned the hostages. Civilian casualties would cease instantly. That is the ceasefire I personally am longing for, for the removal of the true genocidal threat, for the prospect of genuine enduring peace in the region, and for the mutual welfare of both Israelis and Palestinians, most of all the children. Any other outcome amounts to promoting the genocidal threat, guaranteeing the ongoing war, and generating continued civilian casualties on both sides.

What’s happening I believe is that you—along with so many others—are applying standards to the Jews that you simply do not apply anywhere else. Israel has no interest in killing Gazan civilians, but doing so is unavoidable given its justified interest in protecting its citizens from decades of Hamas-perpetrated genocide. By actual universal norms Israel is fighting a just war by overwhelmingly just means. The worldwide (and this campus) campaign to portray *Israel* as engaged in genocide, to suggest that what it is doing is “wrong” because more Gazans are dying than Israelis, requires applying standards to Israel that literally no one applies anywhere else and in fact is aimed at stopping Israel from defending itself. It is thus in service of the Hamas agenda, supportive of the ethnic cleansing and mass murder of Israel’s seven million Jews, and thus pro-war and pro-genocide.
Melanie Phillips: The Eurovision hurricane
This infantilisation of the young surely lies behind today's performative and self-seeking protest culture and “snowflake” meltdowns over campus “micro-aggressions” and “safe spaces”.

This is in obscene contrast to the pro-Gaza mob’s own aggression against the victims of the genocidal agenda that resulted in the murder, rape, torture and kidnap of Israelis, with the threat that these atrocities will be repeated again and again until Israel is destroyed.

What a contrast Eden Golan presents to these infantilised individuals. She’s only 20 years old; yet she behaved with astonishing courage, self-possession and gracious dignity in the face of the baying mobs. The booing, she said, had only made her stronger.

“I represented the country and was our voice for everyone who needs to be brought home now,” she said, referring to the Israeli hostages who are still incarcerated in Gaza.

Earlier this year, Golan said she wanted to “make our voice heard as a country to show everyone that we are here and that we must bring everyone home and no one will break us. This year pierces so deeply into my heart and it is a huge privilege to be at Eurovision in such a year."

The European Broadcasting Union had asked her to change the lyrics to her song “Hurricane”. Originally entitled “October Rain,” it had included specific allusions to the attack but the EBU said all songs had to be non-political.

In a touching and possibly defiant gesture, Golan sang the last verse in Hebrew:
No need for big words, only prayers/Even if it’s hard to see you, always leave me /one small light.

In Israel, she has become a symbol of resistance against baseless hatred, the civilian equivalent of the 20 year-olds and other young Israeli conscripts who are at this moment laying down their lives in their country’s desperate war against evil.

Furedi observes that therapy culture has reframed the life challenges faced by young people as mental disorder. Judging by the satanic goblin’s tearful, profanity-laden rants and the carnival of performative depravity Eurovision has become, many might think a reverse process is under way and that mental disorder has transformed itself into faddish causes.
Eve Barlow: I hate them
How are you?

Have they asked? Have your people asked you how you are recently? Have they made time for you on the phone? Would be nice, right? I know, we’ve been over this. Still sucks. What can I say? There’s too much to grieve. You can’t grieve it all. You have to be selective. I’m trying. I’m cracking a little. I made a video post on my Instagram on Friday begging, pleading, and urging people to listen to me, as 1500 Jews were being driven out of Malmo to protect them from hoards of protestors at Eurovision, as Jews in New York were being denied entry into gay clubs to watch the contest, as Jews were being lynched in the streets of Athens, and as more lists of Jewish writers were being circulated for boycotting. I was almost in tears, talking about coexistence. Not between the Israelis and Palestinians. But between us, all over the world in democratic societies. We feel like we have nothing left to lose and we are all completely exhausted and nobody is seeing us. If I can’t even gain enough empathy for people to ask - How are you? I wrote this last week about being in the glass box. Just not feeling human. But more like a dummy on display. That’s how I feel. Not human. Really fucking sick of saying - We deserve to live, you know? We have a right to survive. Hello. Shalom. Goodbye.

Social media has made the war in Gaza a black and white issue, and if you’re not on the right side you’re not human, and nobody sees your humanity, even though you’re affected it by it way more than they could ever imagine. We are being DARVO’d so much that there needs to be a new word for DARVO to define a new category of DARVO. We are absolutely the opposite of everything we are being told we are.

A few days ago, I saw someone I know, but not very well, although well enough to know they’re not educated on the Middle East, post something so stupid. A person I really like. That’s why I was bothered by it. They posted a flag for the Congo (where there has been a legitimate genocide since the 1990s) with a shaking hands emoji and then another flag. Green, white and black with a red shape - but the shape was a rectangle 🇦🇪, not a triangle 🇵🇸, and the colors on the stripes weren’t in the right order. Almost! I thought. Lol. The Jews are to blame for the genocide in the Congo now, is it? Unless of course I really am mistaken and the Congo and the UAE have some sort of new international relationship I’m unaware of. I messaged. I showed the correct emoji for the Palestinian flag (with the triangle, not the rectangle), and I offered to answer any questions that someone who doesn’t know the correct flag for the Palsetinian people may have about the war in Gaza, and I sent a heart, and mentioned compassion and love. Anyway, the next day I go online and the statement had been corrected. There was now a Congo flag and - yes - the correct emoji for the Palestinian flag. Did I receive a message of acknowledgment? Of course not. No dialogue with The Jew on this.
US Congress Launches Investigation Into Outside Funding to Anti-Israel Campus Demonstrations
The US House of Representatives has launched an investigation into 20 nonprofit organizations that are currently funding anti-Zionist student groups mounting pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses, an effort aimed at uncovering long suspected links to terrorist organizations and other hostile foreign entities.

As part of the inquiry, US Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and James Comer (R-KY) wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday, asking her to share any “suspicious activity reports” generated by the activities of Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, Tides Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and other groups.

Foxx and Comer chair the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, respectively.

“The committees are investigating the sources of funding and financing for groups who are organizing, leading, and participating in pro-Hamas, antisemitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American protests with illegal encampments on American college campuses,” Foxx and Comer wrote in their letter to Yellen. “This investigation relates to both malign influence on college campuses and to the national security implications of such influence on faculty and student organizations.”

The inquiry comes amid widespread suspicion that an eruption of anti-Zionist protests on college campuses, in which students illegally occupied sections of section and refused to leave unless their schools agreed to condemn and boycott Israel, was fueled by immense financial and logistical support from outside groups. Foxx and Comer said in their letter that the investigation’s findings will inform recommendations for new federal laws requiring increased transparency and reporting of foreign contributions to American colleges and universities.

On Tuesday, Foxx told the Washington Free Beacon, which first reported the investigation, that the protests were a symptom of a larger threat to national security.

“It’s no coincidence that the day after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, antisemitic mobs began springing up at college campuses across the country,” Foxx said. “These protests have been coordinated and well organized, indicating that outside groups or influences may be at play. American education is under attack. It’s critical that Congress investigates how these groups — who are tearing apart our institutions — are being funded and advised before it’s too late.”

Foreign links to the anti-Zionist student movement have been the subject of numerous comprehensive studies.


PMW: PMW video documentary: “Leave: The origins of Palestinian refugees” (in their own words)
During Israel’s War of Independence from 1948 to 1949, as many as 750,000 Arabs left their homes in Israel. The PA has made accusing Israel of expelling the Arabs a formative part of its narrative. It still refers to this migration as the “Nakba,” meaning “catastrophe,” which it commemorates every year on May 15.

However, interviews with refugees as well as newspaper articles in the official PA press by refugees and about refugees, show that the Arabs blame their own leaders, their own armies, and their own Arab media—which lied to them and created unnecessary fear—for their flight from Israel.

Direct orders to leave with promises of swift return:

Many Arabs were directly instructed by Arab armies and militias to leave their homes for just a few hours or weeks to clear the way for military operations.

Fear:
Current PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas recounts that his family and all the Arabs of Safed chose to flee, fearing that Israel would take revenge for the Arab massacres committed against Jews in Safed in 1929. The Arabs left on their own.

“The most dangerous thing for us was the [Arab] media.”

As part of their propaganda to demonize Israel, Arab media fabricated stories of so-called Israeli atrocities, which created fear. One Arab refugee described the Arab media as saying: “In a certain town, the Jews did this and that. They killed and slaughtered. Of course, the newspapers lied, and the radio also lied. In other words, they deceived the people.” He concludes: “The most dangerous thing for us was the [Arab] media.”

No acknowledgment of responsibility:
Whether the Arabs left because of fictitious media or instructions from their leaders, the impact is still felt today. The Arab world has refused to accept responsibility or to absorb the Arab immigrants into their own countries. Instead, they forced them and millions of their descendants to remain as “refugees.”

The great Palestinian Authority secret:
A cornerstone of the PA’s ideology and propaganda is to blame Israel for the refugees and to demand that 100% of the descendants of the Arabs who fled, which have now reached 5.9 million according to UNRWA, be settled in Israel. The PA, however, has never acknowledged the collective Arab responsibility for the refugee problem. Even though PMW has gathered these Arab testimonies from official PA media, the PA itself continues to falsely blame Israel, and only Israel. As time goes on and more refugees speak candidly, the picture emerging is that the refugees themselves have always known the truth and that they really place the blame on their own leaders.

If the PA would finally acknowledge this historical fact and work to settle the 5.9 million descendants of the original refugees as equal citizens in the Arab states where nearly all of them were born, one of the great impediments to peace would be removed.

It should be noted that about 150,000 Arabs remained in the State of Israel and received equal rights and citizenship. Their numbers today have grown to 2,088,000. Israeli Arabs are found throughout society and serve in the Knesset, as judges, and teach in universities. While they are not drafted, many have volunteered to serve in the army, and some are officers.


Tlaib’s new Nakba resolution accuses Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing
A new resolution expected to be introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) endorses the right of return for Palestinians to Israel and accuses Israel of genocide and ongoing ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians since before its inception. It also suggests Palestinians are the only group indigenous to the area.

The resolution, a draft of which was shared with Jewish Insider, “recognizing the Nakba and Palestinian refugees’ rights,” refers to the term, translating to “catastrophe” that Palestinians use to refer to the founding of Israel and affiliated displacement of Palestinians.

The draft resolution began circulating on Wednesday to other Democratic offices for their support. Tlaib and congressional allies have introduced similar resolutions around Nakba Day — which coincides with Israeli Independence Day — in the past. They have generally been highly controversial.

The legislation declares “Palestinian refugees’ right of return is not only stipulated in a General Assembly resolution, but is also anchored in international law and in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” It states that “a just and lasting resolution requires respect for and the implementation of” full right of return for Palestinians.

The resolution continues, “the apartheid government of Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinian people which as of May 14, 2024 has killed at least 35,000 people, including more than 14,500 children” — relying on a count of child casulaties no longer utilized by the United Nations.


Jewish Voice for Peace mocked for claim Israeli holidays meant to overshadow ‘Nakba Day’
Jewish Voice for Peace is being criticized and ridiculed widely on social media after the anti-Israel, far-left group claimed that Israel scheduled the holidays Yom Hashoah, Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut to eclipse “Nakba Day.”

“Yesterday, the Israeli government ended its yearly cycle of state holidays that sequentially commemorates the Holocaust, Israeli militarism and the creation of the State of Israel,” JVP wrote on Tuesday. “The sequencing of these holidays was intentionally designed to conclude and obscure May 15, the day Palestinians mark the ongoing Nakba.” (The “Nakba” refers to the “catastrophe” of the Jewish state’s founding.)

“Much of this year’s commemorations have been especially depraved, as they celebrate the now genocidal violence required to maintain the Israeli government’s apartheid regime,” added JVP, which further accused Israel of “violent ethnic cleansing,” colonialism, “white supremacy” and “intentional manipulation of history.”

Critics were quick to note that Jewish Voice for Peace appeared to be manipulating—or misunderstanding—the relevant history.

Then Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat created Nakba Day on May 15, 1998—although there were local commemorations before that.


Lizzo Thanks Pro-Palestinian Activists, Anti-Israel College Protesters While Accusing Jewish State of ‘Genocide’
Lizzo on Monday thanked activists who are protesting on behalf of “Palestine” and other regions in the world, and added that student-led, anti-Israel protests taking place on college and university campuses across the US are “deeply important.”

The singer, whose real name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson, said in a video message on her Instagram page that she wanted “to take a second and give a personal thank-you to all of the activists who have been working tirelessly to help the liberation and the freedom of the people who have been genocided all over the world, specifically Palestine, Sudan, and the Congo.”

The About Damn Time singer said that because she “has worked closely with activists” in the past, she knows “the toll it can take on your mental and your physical [health], and it can feel thankless.”

“So if you haven’t heard today, thank you,” she added. “Your work is not in vain. You have helped so many people. You have saved literal lives.”
Michigan Community Pushes Off Anti-Israel Resolution
Pro-Israel activists in Farmington Hills, Michigan, succeeded in pushing off an anti-Israel proclamation — for now — that came before their city council on Monday evening.

The resolution was one of dozens that pro-Palestinian activists are demanding in towns nationwide, as campus “encampments” are removed and the movement looks for new targets.

Local resident Sue Burstein-Kahn, speaking on Sunday evening to Breitbart News Sunday on SiriusXM Patriot 125, had described the proclamation as a cypher — a document that few had seen and that was introduced with no notice.
Famed Amsterdam Concert Hall Called ‘Cowards’ for Canceling Israeli String Quartet Performances Due to Anti-Israel Protests
A world-famous concert hall in Amsterdam announced this week the cancellation of two upcoming concerts by the Israeli music group Jerusalem Quartet because of concerns regarding anti-Israel protests scheduled to take place at the venue and around the city.

The Concertgebouw said on Tuesday the decision was made “due to announced demonstrations, and the recent developments surrounding protests in Amsterdam.” The music hall said it could not guarantee the safety of employees, visitors, and musicians and thus decided to cancel the group’s performances of music by Felix Mendelssohn, Claude Debussy, and Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim on Thursday and Saturday. The string quartet is comprised of three violinists and a cellist.

The decision was met with backlash from pro-Israel supporters and the Jerusalem Quartet itself, which said on Tuesday the Concertgebouw is surrendering to “bullying and terrorism” by canceling the shows. Others called the move “horrible,” “disgusting,” “shameful,” and “a disgrace.” Some social media users called Concergebouw “a bunch of cowards” and “antisemitic idiots.”

“Your actions have given new meaning to the word ‘cancel culture.’ You capitulate,” the Central Jewish Consultation (CJO) wrote in a letter to the venue. “Yes, the Jerusalem Quartet consists of four musicians from Israel. This in no way justifies opposing their concert. Your choice for this quartet was based on musical considerations. Stick to it and don’t let anything stop you from doing what your goal is.”

In response to the intense scrutiny, Concertgebouw’s General Manager Simon Reinink released a statement on Wednesday further explaining concerns regarding the security and safety of those at the music venue. He said Concertgebouw received “a flood of messages from people and organizations opposing the quartet.” Two anti-Israel demonstrations were scheduled to take place, and social media users urged the public to demonstrate at the Concertgebouw as well.
Peace in Our Time at Harvard
Harvard University interim president Alan Garber on Tuesday announced that he'd reached an agreement with the student radicals who have camped out on his lawn for nearly three weeks: They'd pack up their illegal encampment, and he'd do his part to make sure suspended students are swiftly reinstated.

That's not all. Garber, who is gunning to replace his disgraced predecessor Claudine Gay, said that he would arrange meetings between the protesters and a member of the Harvard Corporation who oversees "shareholder responsibility." Garber himself will also meet with the reprobates "to hear their perspectives on academic matters related to longstanding conflicts in the Middle East," according to Garber's announcement.

The group behind the encampment, Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, posted the image above to its social media accounts. They don't exactly seem like the negotiating types.

Garber may have notched a short-term truce, or what Hamas would call a hudna—he avoided calling in the cops and cleared the lawn ahead of graduation ceremonies—but it will come at a great cost.

The protesters have learned the lesson: Give the president of Harvard the middle finger, same to the rule-followers and law-abiders, and of course and especially to the Jews, and get richly rewarded for your malconduct.

The students are just getting started. They accurately characterized Garber's concessions as "side-deals [that] are intended to pacify us away from full disclosure & divestment," adding, "Rest assured, they will not."

"Encampments are a tactic—a big and beautiful one—in a larger strategy of divestment," the students announced on Tuesday, declaring their intention to "carry out this protracted struggle through other means."
Universities make concessions to anti-Israel campus activists
It’s spring in Cambridge, Mass. — graduation season — which means that large white tents have started to appear on the leafy quads throughout Harvard Square.

Until Tuesday, a different kind of tent was still visible in Harvard Yard: small camping tents housing the stragglers who remained in Harvard’s anti-Israel encampment even after final exams wrapped up several days ago. Last week, Harvard suspended student protesters who refused to abide by campus administrators’ orders to disband the encampment, blocking access to their dorms.

But now, just a week from the start of official university commencement festivities, Harvard has backtracked on its disciplinary action, ahead of the arrival next week of thousands of graduates’ family members, alumni and honorary degree recipients to the Ivy League university. University officials seemed to be saying that Harvard cannot get ready for commencement if Harvard Yard is still gated and locked, accessible only to university affiliates and the handful of people still camped out in protest of Harvard’s alleged “complicity in genocide.”

In making a deal with the protesters, Harvard interim President Alan Garber joined a growing number of leaders at elite universities who are incorporating protesters’ voices into major university investment decisions and allowing student activists to get off with few, if any, repercussions after weeks of disciplinary violations. Harvard’s dean of the faculty of arts and sciences wrote in a Tuesday email that the outcome “deepened” the university’s “commitment to dialogue and to strengthening the bonds that pull us together as a community.”

The path Garber took is now a well-trodden one — remove the threat of disciplinary consequences and allow protesters to meet with university trustees or other senior leaders to pitch them on divesting their schools’ endowments from Israeli businesses, a concession that before last month would have been unthinkable at America’s top universities.

In a matter of days it has become commonplace. Just two years ago, Harvard’s then-president, Lawrence Bacow, responded to the campus newspaper’s endorsement of a boycott of Israel by saying that “any suggestion of targeting or boycotting a particular group because of disagreements over the policies pursued by their governments is antithetical to what we stand for as a university.”
Arab-Israeli Journalist Yoseph Haddad, Assaulted at Columbia, Says Campus Protests Are Middle Eastern Phenomenon
Arab-Israeli journalist Yoseph Haddad hates extremists, and the feeling is mutual.

While Haddad was fighting for the Israel Defense Forces in the 2006 Lebanon war, Hezbollah terrorists nearly blew off his right leg with an anti-tank missile. In August, a group of Palestinian men attacked Haddad and his family on an airplane in Dubai. And, last month at an anti-Israel rally outside Columbia University’s main entrance, a protester wearing a keffiyeh and a face covering punched him in the mouth.

"I’m not saying the anti-Israel protesters at American universities are the same as terrorists, but I am saying they are bringing the same extremist mentality from the Middle East," Haddad, 38, a reporter at Israel’s i24News and a pro-Israel activist, told the Washington Free Beacon. "I know the mentality because I’m an Arab. I know what they mean when they chant for ‘intifada.’"

In a three-hour interview at a Tel Aviv cafe on a Friday afternoon last month, Haddad said the anti-Israel protests that have roiled more than 100 universities across the United States in recent weeks are misunderstood as a feature of American democracy. In fact, according to Haddad, the protests are an anti-democratic import from the Middle East—and should be handled accordingly.

"The anti-Israel and [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] activists behind these protests are people who are from the Middle East or whose families are from the Middle East," said Haddad, who has long been involved in opposing the BDS movement and has given talks at dozens of U.S. universities. "These people fled horrible dictatorships, but instead of embracing democracy and flourishing, they are abusing democracy for their own anti-Israel and anti-America agenda."

The protesters have occupied university campuses with tent encampments, violently taken over school buildings, clashed with police, bullied Jewish students, and advocated genocidal violence against "Zionists." The protests’ core demand is that universities divest from Israel amid its war against the Palestinian terror group Hamas, which carried out a historic bloodletting in the Jewish state on Oct. 7.
Anti-Israel 'Anarchists And Communists' Take Credit for Smashing Windows, Releasing 500 Cockroaches Into University of California President's Office
A group of self-described "anti-colonial anarchists and communists" took responsibility for a destructive break-in at the University of California's administrative offices in Oakland, calling the move an act of "solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance."

The anonymous authors of a statement released Monday night claimed credit for smashing 7 windows, spraying red paint all over the office, and releasing "500 cockroaches" inside the office of university president Michael V. Drake. The statement was attributed to "sacred black and red," a reference to the colors of the anarchist flag.

"With the Aurora Borealis above us and the martyrs in our hearts, we attacked the UC Office of the President in solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance," the statement said. "As anti-colonial anarchists and communists we offer this act of material and spiritual solidarity with the hopes of shattering the illusion that resistance is limited to a single site." The statement was published on IndyBay, a site that routinely publishes communiqués from far-left anarchists.

The University of California Office of the President verified on Tuesday that its building was vandalized and that it is working with law enforcement to investigate the incident but otherwise declined to comment. The Oakland Police Department did not respond to the Washington Free Beacon's requests for comment.

The violent attack took place just several days after another anonymous anarchist group in Portland, Ore., took responsibility for setting over a dozen police cars ablaze in support of "brutalized student protesters" and "Palestinian martyrs." Much like the California-based group, the Portland-area criminals called for "more action" amid a wave of police activity last week against unsanctioned anti-Israel encampments at several U.S. universities.
University of Delaware student charged with hate crime
Local law enforcement arrested Jenna Kandeel, 23, a student at the University of Delaware, after she damaged flags on May 8 as part of a Holocaust memorial set up and organized by a Jewish group at the University of Delaware in Newark, Del.

“We set up a bunch of flags on the green to help remember and memorialize all the people that died in [a] four-year span,” said Spencer Kufeld, a university student, on Fox 29 Philadelphia. “It’s a very sacred thing to a lot of people on campus and around the world.”

According to witnesses, Kandeel made derogatory statements about Jews and the Holocaust, as well as vandalized and spit on the flags. She would later confess her actions to police after being taken into custody.

She faces three misdemeanor charges of hate crime, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. She has also been banned from campus.

“The Holocaust is not ancient history: 80 years later, the world’s Jewish population still has not recovered; its survivors are still with us; and I fear that we still have not learned its lessons,” said Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings. “Seeing this ignorance on display, particularly in an increasingly antisemitic climate, should be a wake-up call.”


Jewish students sue Haverford, alleging antisemitic civil rights violations
A Jewish group at Haverford College in Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit on Monday in federal court alleging that the highly-ranked private liberal arts school violated students’ civil rights and created a pervasively hostile environment for Jews on campus.

The plaintiffs in the case are five students—one of whom was named—who are all part of the group, which consists of faculty, students, alumni and parents. The five say that the college has engaged in discrimination against pro-Israel Jewish students in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The suit is the latest in a wave of legal actions against colleges and universities that Jewish students have filed in court or with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Harvard University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and New York University are among the institutions that Jewish students have sued for antisemitic discrimination in the wake of Oct. 7.

Jews at Haverford is a group represented in Monday’s suit by the Deborah Project, a public-interest law firm that defends the civil rights of Jews on campus.

In its suit, the group details what Jewish students at Haverford have experienced since Oct. 7 and how administrators have responded—or failed to do so—to their complaints about antisemitic violations of Haverford’s conduct policies. (Haverford told JNS it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.)

In one example, Haverford president Wendy Raymond was asked about a series of social-media posts by a professor at the college who reposted an image of a bulldozer used in the Oct. 7 attacks with the text, “We should never have to apologize for celebrating these scenes of an imprisoned people breaking free from their chains. This was a historic moment to be recorded in the history books.”
US rep, Jewish orgs: UW Milwaukee ‘caved’ to anti-Israel protesters
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee reached a deal on Sunday with anti-Israel protesters two weeks after the latter set up tents on campus “in defiance of a state rule banning camping on campus property,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Mark Mone, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, stated on Sunday that the “voluntary dismantling of the encampment is the safest conclusion for everyone.”

In response to the protesters’ demands, the public university called for a ceasefire in Gaza and “for the release of the remaining Israeli and international hostages held by Hamas and the release of Palestinian men, women and children held as hostages in military detention in Israel” and condemned “the destruction of universities in Gaza.”

It also agreed to meet with four student representatives to hear their pitch for the university to boycott the Jewish state. To the anti-Israel protesters’ demand that the school cut ties with private companies that do business with Israel, the university said that it is prohibited by law to do so.

“UWM supports the civic engagement of students and encourages protestors to make their concerns heard with lawmakers, as it does with all student advocacy issues,” it added.
Berkeley Caves to Anti-Israel Protesters and Launches Divestment Task Force
University of California Berkeley’s chancellor on Tuesday pledged to declare her support for a "permanent ceasefire," launch a divestment task force to review the Berkeley endowment’s stock holdings, and entertain potential boycotts of Israeli study abroad programs. In exchange, anti-Israel activists whom she praised for their "efforts to peacefully protest the extraordinary death and destruction in Gaza," dismantled their encampments which took over a swath of campus over the last three weeks.

University chancellor Carol Christ, who laid out the concessions in letters to the protesters and the academic senate, said that the university cannot explicitly target companies based on their ties to Israel. Still, she promised activists that she will launch a divestment task force by the end of June to review the university foundation’s investments in industries profiting from "weapons manufacturing, mass incarceration, and/or surveillance."

"I, too, am concerned about the horrific killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians as well as the destruction of the Palestinian educational infrastructure," Christ said. "I plan to make a public statement by the end of the month sharing my personal support for government officials’ efforts to secure an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Such support for the plight of Palestinians, including protest, should not be conflated with hatred or anti-Semitism."

The concessions come as Berkeley leaders face national criticism as well as a lawsuit and congressional probe over its alleged failures to curb campus anti-Semitism, particularly after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel. Just a few months ago, Christ refused Berkeley Jewish students’ request that she publicly stand up for Israel defenders’ rights to free speech on campus after protesters violently derailed a presentation by an Israeli lawyer.

Berkeley is not the first California university to cave to anti-Israel protesters. Last week, Sacramento State University promised it would overhaul its entire investment strategy at the protesters’ behest, and earlier this month U.C. Irvine said it may pull Sabra hummus from its food offerings because of its Israel connections.


Canadian school district flips decision to replace Jewish star on calendar
The York Region District School Board in Ontario reversed its decision to use a menorah rather than a Star of David to represent Judaism on its interfaith calendar. It had previously said it wanted a “purely religious,” rather than a political symbol.

“We have received concerns regarding a social-media post and an email explaining the rationale for the use of a menorah as the symbol for Jewish holidays and observances,” stated Bill Cober, the district director and its chief education officer, on May 9.

“This symbol has been used by the Multifaith Action Society in the multifaith calendar for several years, and no change was made this year,” Cober said. “However, as a result of feedback received regarding the existing symbolism, we will be making changes to the board’s online calendar to ensure it is representative of Jewish identity.”

He added that “we regret any hurt or harm caused by this matter and the content of an email being circulated online; we are taking immediate action to make the correction.”
‘Disgraceful’: Pro-Palestine protestors ‘disrupting’ Jewish students' right to learn
The Australian’s Media Writer Sophie Elsworth has criticised the “disgraceful” behaviour of pro-Palestine protestors “disrupting” Jewish students’ right to learn.

Ms Elsworth’s remarks come as Jewish students continue to face anti-Semitism at protests on university campuses.

“I’m all for free speech,” she told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.

“But when it comes to disruption of people’s right to learn – they’re paying to be at these universities – they should be moved on, in my view.”


Melbourne’s Deakin University tells pro-Palestinian encampments to ‘pack up and leave’
Deakin University in Melbourne has shown some “common sense” by telling pro-Palestinian encampments to “pack up and leave”, Sky News host Chris Kenny says.

“Some common sense has been shown by one of our universities over the pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas and anti-Israeli protests; Deakin University in Melbourne has told the protest encampment to pack up and leave,” Mr Kenny said.

“Protestors say they will dig in and defy those orders, so two big questions actually loom: will the university and police go in and forcibly remove the protestors, and then will other universities follow suit?”


Pro-Palestinian protesters take over Melbourne University Arts West hall
Classes at Melbourne University were cancelled today as pro-Palestinian protesters took over the Arts West building renaming it Mahmoud Hall, Sky News host Sharri Markson says.

“Pro-Palestinian protesters have taken over a building at the University of Melbourne, they are vowing they will not move, university staff are warning the group, ‘leave now, or face arrest’,” Ms Markson said.

“Victoria Police have told us they are monitoring the situation and police are in a position to respond should there be any public order issues … what is unfolding right now at the University of Melbourne is a copycat of what took place at Columbia University in the US.”




Columbia grad's mic gets cut off during anti-Israel commencement rant
A Columbia University student’s microphone appears to cut off just moments after she started delivering an anti-Israel commencement speech rant.

Saham David Ahmed Ali tore into the Ivy League school as she delivered the class speaker address at the Mailman School of Public Health’s commencement ceremony on Tuesday.

Video shows the moment the student’s mic suddenly appeared to start glitching as she was midway through ripping Columbia’s “silence” over the ongoing Gaza war.

The microphone cut off several more times over the next few seconds, prompting those in the crowd to start repeatedly chanting “let her speak.”

A spokesperson for Columbia University denied that her speech was intentionally cut off.

“The momentary loss of audio during the speech was an unintentional technical glitch,” the college spokesperson told The Post.

Despite the initial hiccup, Ali was able to deliver the rest of her roughly 15-minute anti-Columbia and anti-Israel tirade without further interruptions.

In the lead up to the mic saga, Ali had declared it felt “dystopian” to walk the halls of the school “scrolling through social media, standing in our classrooms as I witness the genocide of the Palestinian people.”


Ireland to Recognize ‘Palestine’ by End of May as Israel Resolves to Block Establishment of ‘Terrorist State’
Ireland will recognize a Palestinian state before the end of this month, Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said on Wednesday.

Martin’s comment came on the same day that the Israeli government derided a separate push in the United Nations to back a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member.

European Union members including Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, and Malta, had planned to officially recognize a Palestinian state next Tuesday, according to the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell. However, the Irish foreign minister said in a new interview that the exact date is still being discussed.

“We will be recognizing the state of Palestine before the end of the month,” Martin told Newstalk radio. “The specific date is still fluid because we’re still in discussions with some countries in respect of a joint recognition.”

Some European leaders, especially in Spain and Ireland, have been calling for countries to recognize a Palestinian state, arguing doing so would help foster a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which, they argue, would lead to lasting peace in the region.

Martin said he was discussing the matter with his counterparts in other countries to finalize the details before formally recognizing a Palestinian state.

“We’re doing it in the context of the Arab peace initiative, the track towards the two-state solution, and to send a signal to the Palestinian population at large that we support the right to self-determination,” he said.

Martin’s comments came as several European and other countries have been publicly outspoken against Israel’s ongoing war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which rules Gaza.
Anti-Semitic Dictator Erdogan Says Israel Will Come for Turkey After Beating Hamas
Anti-Semitic Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday made the bizarre claim that Israel will attack Turkey if it defeats Hamas terrorists in its war in Gaza.

"Do not think that Israel will stop in Gaza," Erdogan told the Turkish Parliament, according to a translation by the Times of Israel. "Unless it's stopped … this rogue and terrorist state will set its sights on Anatolia sooner or later."

"Anatolia" refers to the peninsula that compromises most of Turkey.

"We will continue to stand by Hamas, which fights for the independence of its own land and which defends Anatolia," Erdogan said.

Erdogan's accusation comes weeks after the Turkish president, who has cracked down on free speech and jailed political opponents, met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Erdogan committed during those meetings to defending "the Palestinian struggle."

The Turkish president has long expressed anti-Israel views, saying in 2021 that Israelis are "murderers" who "kill children" and are "sucking their blood," the Washington Free Beacon reported. While President Joe Biden originally condemned Erdogan's authoritarianism and anti-Semitism, he has changed his tune in recent years. In 2023, for example, Biden's State Department bowed to Erdogan's wishes and began referring to Turkey as "Türkiye."

The State Department was silent on Erdogan's meeting with Haniyeh, prompting pushback on Capitol Hill, the Free Beacon reported.
Hamas plans to set up secret base in Turkey, secret documents reveal
Hamas has been planning to establish a secret base in Turkey as well as other terror cells elsewhere in order to coordinate attacks against Israeli targets in neighboring countries, including members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) according to a document captured by the IDF in Gaza, The Times revealed in an exclusive report.

The secret document, titled “Founding a base in Turkey,'' was discovered in the the home of chief of staff to Yahya Sinwar, Hamza Abu Shanab’s, The Times reported, citing the IDF. The document says Israel’s efforts to clamp down on the Gaza Strip over the past decade has "put Hamas on the defensive."

According to the plan, this is the reason for establishing bases in different locations, for the purpose of strengthening "the forces of resistance militarily, diplomatically and morally.” The bases were planned to be hubs for special operations “capable of carrying out intelligence and military operations in the future.”

The document outlines a three-year plan, and also mentions plans for assassinations. Targets for assassination are “officers and commanders in Mossad,” and “influential Israelis.” It also mentions “sabotage of Israeli naval vessels” and “kidnapping,” according to The Times report.

The plan includes details on who will be stationed at the base in Turkey and how it will be funded. It is unclear whether the plan had begun being executed before Hamas launched its attack on October 7.


Keffiyeh banned in Victorian Parliament
Victoria’s Parliament has banned the wearing of the Palestinian keffiyeh.

Four upper house Greens MPs, led by ex-leader Samantha Ratnam, walked into the chamber of the Legislative Council wearing keffiyehs on Wednesday morning after holding after holding a press conference wearing the Palestinian scarfes for Nakba Day.

Upper house president Shaun Leane and lower house speaker Maree Edwards subsequently ruled that it is a political statement and falls under Parliament’s ban on wearing political statements in the chamber.

This makes Victoria’s Parliament one of the few in the world to ban MPs from wearing the Palestinian headscarf.

Caulfield MP David Southwick said the keffiyeh is offensive and he welcomes it being banned from state Parliament.

“The Jewish community are feeling very, very unsafe at the moment. There’s no place for racial hate, none whatsoever,” he said.

Southwick called on the Greens to “grow up”.


Labour MP says UK gives Israel ‘impunity’ to ‘trample international law’
A Labour MP has claimed that Israel operates with an "impunity" unmatched by any other nation.

Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, Labour MP for Tooting, told Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday: “Israel has attacked hospitals, it has attacked refugee camps, and it has killed aid workers. Israel has blocked vital aid, turned off water supplies and denied access to food.

“Israel has killed thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians as the world watches, trampling all over international humanitarian law.

“No other country would be allowed to act with such impunity.”

Allin-Khan asked the PM, “Why he allows Israel to get away with it unchallenged and why he continues to act as a bystander to such horror.”

In response, Rishi Sunak told the Commons that he supported Israel’s right to defend itself but that he is concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“I do support Israel’s right to defend itself and remove the threat that Hamas – the terrorist organisation – poses to its people. But I am also deeply concerned about the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza”.

“We must see further action to ensure more aid gets to people who desperately need it. The Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings must be opened to allow more aid in.
Revealed: Green MP candidates posted October 7 conspiracy and Gaza-Holocaust comparison
Three Green Party parliamentary candidates have shared incendiary material online including a video in which a woman claims “Zionists will drink the blood of Palestinians”, the JC can reveal.

The disclosures, which follow a recent JC exposé of inflammatory posts by newly elected Green councillors, have heightened fears that the party has become a safe haven for extremists.

Other posts by the candidates feature an October 7 conspiracy theory, support for the Palestinian “resistance” and material comparing Israel’s war against Hamas to the Holocaust.

The party is now facing calls to take action against the three MP hopefuls, whose social media activity was described as “shocking” and a “wake-up call” by Dame Louise Ellman, who fought antisemitism as a Labour MP when the party was led by Jeremy Corbyn.

Elizabeth Waight, who is standing in Bethnal Green and Stepney, posted a video on Instagram on March 27 in which a woman said: “What’s left for the Zionists [is] to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Palestinians… I think this will happen soon.”

Chingford and Wood Green candidate Chris Brody uploaded links to an article that suggested that the 9/11 and October 7 terror attacks were “false flag operations executed to open the path toward more slaughter and mayhem”.

Bristol East candidate Naseem Talukdar circulated comparisons between the Holocaust and the war in Gaza and liked a video clip in which anti-Israel activist David Miller says “we have to destroy Zionism”.


MEMRI: Michigan Imam Hassan Qazwini – An Active Supporter Of Michigan Democratic Politicians – Has Claimed That ISIS Is Arm Of Zionism, Praised Houthis, And Endorsed Bernie Sanders 'Even Though He Is A Jew'; He Says: 'If There Were Justice In This Country,' Members Of Congress Who Voted For House Antisemitism Awareness Bill 'Would Be Indicted And Convicted of Treason' – They Do Not Represent The American People And Are Israel's Stooges
In his May 3, 2024 Friday sermon at the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights, MI, Iraqi-born Imam Hassan Qazwini responded to the new Antisemitism Awareness Bill, which was recently passed by Congress. He said that members of Congress who passed the bill do not represent the people of America, rather they are "stooges" for Israel. Qazwini added that if there were justice, they would be put on trial for treason. The sermon was streamed live on the YouTube channel of the Islamic Institute of America. In 2022, the annual fundraiser for the Institute, lead by Qazwini, featured guest speakers Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib.

In 2020, Qazwini endorsed Bernie Sanders as a presidential candidate, speaking a rally in Dearborn, Michigan, on March 7.[2] The Sanders campaign later denounced Qazwini's numerous prior statements, saying they are the "toxic and offensive."[3] These included a 2016 statement in which he said of Bernie Sanders: "[He] is an honorable man – I truly consider him an honorable man, even though he is a Jew" (see MEMRI TV Clip 5710). In 2015, Qazwini said in a speech in Detroit, Michigan, that the Islamic State (ISIS) is the arm of the Zionists in the Muslim world that serves to kill Muslims, defame Islam, and alienate people from Islam. He said that the Zionists and the Zionist regime benefit more than anybody else from the atrocities perpetrated by ISIS (see MEMRI TV Clip 7192). In 2019, Qazwini praised the Yemeni-Houthis for their attack on Saudi oil fields (see MEMRI TV Clip 7508).


MEMRI: Palestinian Authority (PA) And Fatah Harshly Criticize Iran: It Is Undermining The PA And The Jordanian Regime Using Its Proxies – Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad And Muslim Brotherhood
The Palestinian Authority (PA) and its ruling party, Fatah, have recently been voicing harsh criticism against Iran, claiming that it is arming Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the West Bank and fostering their terror activity of against the PA with the aim of instigating a military coup and overthrowing the PA authorities.[1] These accusations escalated due to Iran's intensive arming of Palestinian terror organizations in the West Bank, and following armed clashes that took place between the PA's security apparatuses and the Iran-backed Hamas and PIJ organizations.

Palestinian spokesmen also drew a connection between this Iranian agitation against the rule of PA President Mahmoud Abbas and recent attempts by Iran and Palestinian factions to destabilize the Kingdom of Jordan and overthrow its regime by directly calling on Jordanians to stage protests and engage in armed struggle against Israel.[2]

The PA's and Fatah's criticism against Iran continued to be heard after the latter's April 14, 2024 rocket and drone attack on Israel. The PA's Al-Hayat Al-Jadida daily devoted its editorial to ridiculing Iran for its incompetence and its failure to inflict serious damage on Israel, and one of the daily's columnists wrote that Iran is an enemy of the Arabs and has formed an alliance against them with the U.S. and Israel.

This report reviews the pointed criticism recently voiced against Iran by the PA and Fatah.

Fatah Officials: Iran Is Using Palestinian Organizations To Fight The PA And Its Apparatuses

The PA's and Fatah's criticism against Iran was expressed in statements they issued in early April 2024, which accused this country of acting against the PA and its security apparatuses by funding and arming terror organizations in the West Bank. These statements came amid the ongoing smuggling of Iranian weapons to these West Bank militias,[3] and while intense tension prevails between the PA's security apparatuses and the terror militias in the West Bank, tension that peaked after an operative of the PIJ's Tulkarm Brigade was shot dead by PA security officers.[4]

Fatah Spokesman Jamal Nazzal said in this context to the Al-Arabiya channel on April 3: "In keeping with what Iran is doing in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, or in any other Arab country – where it is trying to nest and create a security presence, which will gnaw at the body of the state like a mite until the state collapses – Iran is trying to hire groups that will act at its service in Palestine too… The day before yesterday, a group that is loyal to Iran in Tulkarm hijacked a civilian vehicle that belongs to the Palestinian Land Authority – to the State of Palestine. A group of armed men took over the vehicle and drove it around. This has become a security den loyal to Iran, which endangers the Palestinian people. The Iranian fingerprints on Palestinian reality are destructive. Iran is using the rationale of a cuckoo bird that lays an egg in another bird's nest, and when its chick hatches from the egg, it drives out all the other chicks, kills them, and then lives at the expense of its parents – disgustingly exploiting the resources of the Palestinians and their situation, which cannot tolerate this exploitative and rejected rationale…"
Hezbollah seeks to use Syrian refugees to create crisis with Europe
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on May 13 that Lebanon should open its maritime borders so that Syrians who live in Lebanon can board boats heading to Europe. The comments have been greeted with controversy and condemnation in Israel’s northern neighbor, as it appears Hezbollah is now trying to use Syrian refugees to create a crisis with Europe, Al-Ain media in the UAE reported.

According to reports, Nasrallah made the comments after the European Union had promised $1 billion in aid for Lebanon, money that is supposed to prevent illegal migration from the country. In essence, the EU is doing what it did with Turkey: trying to pay a foreign country to keep refugees from leaving toward Europe.

European countries have done the same in North Africa with varying degrees of success. What these deals generally mean is that migrants face abuses and restrictions. In this case, it appears that Hezbollah is trying to exploit the crisis by calling for Lebanon to basically encourage Syrians to leave via a dangerous maritime route. This could then result in a crisis that would lead to more funding for the country, which Hezbollah apparently could then divert for its own needs.

There are up to two million Syrians in Lebanon, according to reports. Around 785,000 are registered with the UN as refugees; the others are apparently undocumented, which can easily lead to abuses.

Nasrallah said in a televised May 13 speech that there should be “a national decision that says: we have opened the sea… whoever wants to leave for Europe, for Cyprus, the sea is in front of you. Take a boat and board it.” The speech was on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television. “We do not propose forcing displaced Syrians to board boats and leave for Cyprus and Europe.” This seems like a thinly veiled threat.


Israeli Insider Reveals Motivation Behind Last Month’s Strike in Iran
Israel’s retaliatory attack against Iran’s sophisticated radar system in Isfahan in April carried a strong message that the Islamic Republic’s defense capabilities could not match Israel’s military might, a top Israeli insider and ex-military official told Iran International.

“[We were] sending a message, saying we can completely destroy their air defense on this site, and we can freely attack whenever we want,” said Brigadier General (ret.) Amir Avivi, the founder and chairman of the Israeli Defense and Security Forum (IDSF). His organization is a powerful political and cultural force in Israel – which is made up of more than 30,000 former IDF soldiers and officers.

Avivi, a close friend and Caesarea neighbor of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is regularly consulted by key government ministers.

This is the first time an Israeli insider so closely connected to the government details the country's attacks on the Russian-made S-300 air defense system near Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, and explains the motivations behind the strikes.

On April 19, in the early hours of the morning, Israel’s arm reached far into Iranian territory into the province of Isfahan, just a few days after the Tehran launched more than 300 drone and missile attacks on Israel.

It seemed years of a shadow war between the two nations had ended - and what appeared to be the impossible - a direct conflict between the two nations - suddenly became a reality.
MEMRI: Iranian Majlis Member Dr. Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani In Interview With Iran's Roydad 24 News: 'Iran Is Slowly Making Preparations To Announce That It Has A Nuclear Bomb'
In a May 10, 2024 interview with the Roydad 24 news outlet, Majlis member Dr. Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani revealed that Iran had achieved nuclear weapons – but that it was not announcing it at this stage so as not to frighten its allies Russia and China, or the world.

Bakhshayesh Ardestani, 63, represents Isfahan in the current Majlis and was a member of the Majlis National Security committee from 2012 to 2016. He is a professor of political science and a faculty member at the Open University in Tehran and Imam Sadeq University. He holds a doctorate in international relations from Australia's New South Wales University, with a focus on research in Iranian political thought and foreign policy.

Ardestani said in the interview that recent statements by Kamal Kharrazi, advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and head of Iran's Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, along with statements by other regime elements, about the possibility of a change in Iran's nuclear doctrine from civilian to military were "a preliminary step before announcing that we have a nuclear bomb." (See MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No 1761, Senior Iranian Regime Officials Warn Of Iran's Coming Nuclear Breakout.) He added: "In effect, we want to gradually make it known that we have achieved [this]... We do not want to announce it all at once and frighten the world."

Stating that "there is no need to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that we have a nuclear bomb," he added that Iran is not revealing to IAEA inspectors where the bomb is being built, nor is it providing the IAEA access to all Iranian nuclear facilities. With regard to Khamenei's (nonexistent) fatwa ostensibly banning the production of nuclear weapons,[1] he explained that the fatwa is an "active" position on Iran's part – that is, Iran's defense doctrine has no room for nuclear weapons. But, he continued, in a situation in which Iran is threatened by its enemies, such as Israel which is acting against it (despite the fact that Iran denies Israel the right to exist and is striving to eliminate it), it requires Iran to take a "passive" position – that is, to possess nuclear weapons for defense and deterrence.

Ardestani states that based on Tehran's modus operandi, which he says is calculated and not risk-seeking, Iran would not have attacked Israel or the U.S.[2] with missiles unless it had the "backup" of a nuclear bomb – implying that it does. This, he said, is because both Israel and the U.S. have such weapons, and an escalation could lead to a war in which Iran faces a nuclear threat.

Although Ardestani noted that Iran is apprehensive about frightening its allies Russia and China, and that Russia does not want Iran to have a nuclear bomb, it expects that Russia will use its veto in the UN Security Council to thwart possible sanctions on Iran by the Western powers once it becomes known that Iran has a nuclear bomb. Likewise, Ardestani downplayed the possibility of further significant measures against Iran for acquiring a nuclear bomb, since it has already been targeted with all kinds of sanctions.

The ambiguity of Ardestani's statements is deliberate. He qualifies his comments about Iran's attainment of a nuclear bomb with "I feel that," "in my opinion," or "I say these things as an expert and as an analyst, and I don't yet have an official position [that will cause the IAEA] to inspect the facilities because of what I've said."


Holocaust survivor meets descendant of Nazi scientist
Five hundred rivets—that was Oskar Jakob’s goal. Failure to meet the quota in a 12-hour shift meant severe punishment.

“If I didn’t make the minimum, I got beaten,” he said.

Jakob, 94, is a Jewish resident of St. Louis and a Holocaust survivor. In 1945, he was a prisoner at the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. He was 14 years old and forced to work in a German munitions plant, making rivets used to build the V-1 flying bomb.

Jakob has shared his story previously, but on Thursday, May 16, he will sit alongside the granddaughter of one of the designers of the V-1 bomb and discuss their shared history. The event at the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum is a rare conversation between a Holocaust survivor and a descendant of a Nazi scientist. It’s also an opportunity for forgiveness, understanding and hope.

The ‘Doodle Bug’
The V-1 (Vengeance Weapon One) was the world’s first cruise missile. It was powered by a single, noisy jet engine. Allied forces nicknamed it the “Doodle Bug.” From June 1944 to March 1945, Germany launched 20,000 V-1s at British targets.

Robert Lusser was one of the German engineers who helped design the V-1. In 1937, Lusser became a university professor. In return for the appointment, he had to join the Nazi Party. He was a brilliant aeronautical engineer. After World War II, he was brought to the United States, where he worked for the Navy and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Searching for answers

Suzanne Rico is an actress and journalist. On the HBO series “True Blood,” she played a fictionalized version of herself as a TV anchor. Offscreen, Rico is inquisitive and intent on finding answers. For years, she tried to learn more about Robert Lusser, but her mother would only volunteer that he “was a genius.” That didn’t satisfy her curiosity.

“As I got deeper, I discovered the connection to the Holocaust, which was that my grandfather’s bombs were made in this underground concentration camp at Mittelbau-Dora,” said Rico. “There was an incredible, painful realization of the cost, and the concentration camp prisoners who had died by the thousands making these bombs.

“I felt it was important to have a dialogue between me and someone who had been there,” she said. “Nobody wanted to put me—the granddaughter of the creator of the V1 flying bomb—together with a Holocaust survivor and somebody who had been at Mittelbau-Dora.”

The apology
After three years of searching, Rico learned of Oskar Jakob. A trip to St. Louis was arranged and they met face to face. At first, Jakob was dubious about her motives. When he was convinced she was sincere, he didn’t know how much intelligence he had to offer.

“I was trying to figure out why was she doing this because I really couldn’t give her as much information as she would have liked,” Jakob said. “In the tunnels where we were working, there was all kind of Nazi officers going back and forth and checking. It was a big, big tunnel complex. Nazis and SS officers were all over, and we were not even allowed to look in their faces. When they talked to us, we had to look down on the ground.”


From 'Friends' actor to vocal defender of Israel: Michael Rapaport's New Yorker’s guide to advocacy
Before October 7, most Israelis recognized Michael Rapaport as Gary, the street-savvy, pigeon-shooting cop boyfriend of Phoebe on a handful of Friends Season 5 episodes.

But since October 7, the 54-year-old prototype “New Yawker” who has appeared in dozens of movies and TV series over his 35-year acting career has emerged as the aggressively profane, politically incorrect mouthpiece for supporters of Israel who feel the world has spun upside down on its axis by the onslaught of virulently anti-Israel, pro-Hamas sentiments emerging from talk shows, college campuses, and social media.

It wasn’t a role he was looking for, but one that he has embraced with verve and passion, humor and, yes, the aforementioned profanity (get ready to read a lot of redacted comments).

It’s also a role that has led him to Israel for the first time, where he has spent six weeks since the war began, listening, learning, speaking, and further endearing himself to the Israeli public with two hilarious appearances on the country’s top satirical series, Eretz Nehederet.

“I was stunned by the reaction on October 8. The Hamas massacre was still going on, but there were people celebrating in New York. I’ll never forget the image of a woman wiping away mock tears as people protested against Hamas,” said Rapaport to The Jerusalem Post.

“That really invigorated me and triggered me, but I didn’t realize it was going to turn into this.”

He was referring to the dozens, if not hundreds, of gritty, stream-of-consciousness video postings he’s created since October 7, as well as producing his weekly podcasts and giving speeches at rallies in Washington, DC and in Tel Aviv.

“As long as there are question marks raised and accusations made about the victims of October 7, the rapes, the rationalizing of the attacks by Hamas, then I’m going to speak up. I will not, not say anything when the Jewish people are under siege. And we’re under siege,” said Rapaport.

“When people feel comfortable talking s*** about Jews and Israel, I feel that I need to articulate my feelings in a way that is as aggressive as possible ... and that’s exactly what I do. October 7 just brought it all to a whole other level.”
Travelingisrael.com: The history of Israel in one song



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