Thursday, May 16, 2024

05/16 Links Pt2: Phillips: Buried facts about the Gaza war; The Left’s Campus Protest Scam; Who Is Funding Anti-Israel Campus Protests?

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Buried facts about the Gaza war
The extent to which the political class and the media are burying facts that undermine their poisonous narrative in order to defame and undermine Israel’s war of survival has become simply jaw-dropping.

The Biden administration has gone to great lengths to appease the genocidal and terrorist Iranian regime. It has funneled billions into Tehran’s coffers through sanctions relief. It has refused to effectively respond to repeated Iran-backed attacks on U.S. interests. And it is doing everything it can to prevent Israel from taking action that would damage America’s relationship with the Iranian regime, such as the destruction of Hamas, a vital force in Tehran’s proxy army against Israel and the West.

The American appeasement of Iran has left many people mystified. They should have been paying more attention.

Twelve days before the Oct. 7 pogrom, Jay Solomon reported on the Semafor site that Ariane Tabatabai, chief of staff to the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, was part of an “Iran Experts Initiative” created by senior Iranian Foreign Ministry officials to bolster Tehran’s position on global security issues, particularly its nuclear program.

In other words, Tabatabai was an agent of influence for Iran at the heart of the U.S. government and with the highest level of security clearance.

Semafor and the Iranian opposition group Iran International obtained a large cache of Iranian government correspondence and emails. These revealed that, in 2021, Robert Malley—who was the point man on Iran under both the Obama and Biden administrations until he was removed in June 2023 following a still unexplained “mishandling of classified materials”—had infiltrated Tabatabai into the U.S. State Department to assist him in his negotiations with Iran.

The day Solomon’s article appeared, 31 U.S. Senators wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to express their concern. They wrote: “We find it unconscionable that a senior department official would continue to hold a sensitive position despite her alleged participation in an Iranian government information operation.”

They noted that, in March 2021, shortly after Tabatabai was appointed senior adviser to the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Iranian dissidents reported her long history of echoing the Iranian regime’s talking points.

That month, Adam Kredo reported in The Washington Free Beacon on these dissidents’ shock at Tabatabai’s appointment. They claimed she parroted the Iranian regime’s position at multiple public appearances and that her father was part of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s inner circle.

In April 2021, several members of the House of Representatives requested a review of Tabatabai’s security clearance. In response, the Biden administration dismissed these claims as “smears and slander.”

Even more astonishingly, Tabatabai runs the office overseeing hostage negotiations. Three weeks after the Oct. 7 pogrom, a reporter asked White House Spokesman John Kirby whether it was appropriate for Tabatabei to be in such a position given the claims made against her. Kirby stalled. Tabatabai is still there.
New York Times Unloads Immense New ‘1619-Project’-Style Attack on Israel
The New York Times has unveiled a new, 1619-Project-style attack on Israel — an error-ridden, overwrought, extensively hyped, self-referential, self-congratulatory, and super-long article.

Like the 1619 Project, this latest article comes with a catchy, short headline: “The Unpunished.”

Like the 1619 Project, this project is a product of the New York Times Magazine.

And like the 1619 Project, it comes with an introduction and display text that overstates and oversimplifies its claims: “How Extremists Took Over Israel” and “After 50 years of failure to stop violence and terrorism against Palestinians by Jewish ultranationalists, lawlessness has become the law.” Not to mention: “This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace. The third explores how this movement gained control of the state itself. Taken together, they tell the story of how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power.”

The Times article itself is so mind-numbingly long that the newspaper published a Cliffs-Notes-style summary of it that unfortunately isn’t much help, either.

The summary complains about what it calls a “two-tier situation” in which West Bank Arabs face military law while Israeli citizens there “are treated according to the civil law of the State of Israel.” Yet nearly all countries, including the United States, distinguish between citizens and non-citizens in their legal system. The Times, in all its many words, doesn’t explain why or how the distinctions Israel makes are different or worse or unjustified given the extraordinary and unusual violent terrorist threat the country faces from Arabs opposed to its existence and determined to eradicate the Jewish presence there.

The paper also claims that, “in the West Bank, a new generation of ultranationalists has taken an even more radical turn against the very notion of a democratic Israeli state. Their objective is to tear down Israel’s institutions and to establish ‘Jewish rule’: anointing a king, building a temple in place of the Jerusalem mosques sacred to Muslims worldwide, imposing a religious regime on all Jews.”

That’s a sweeping over-generalization. Jews have prayed since the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in ancient times for its rebuilding, speedily and in our days, as part of the messianic redemption. That hasn’t been a threat to anyone.
Survivor of Mao's political purge getting 'PTSD' watching history repeat on college campuses
A survivor of Mao's Cultural Revolution says she is experiencing post-traumatic stress witnessing history repeat itself on college campuses as "Marxist hordes" have taken over in anti-American and anti-Israel demonstrations.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Lily Tang Williams, who is currently running as a Republican candidate for Congress in New Hampshire's 2nd district, said she fears the country she left is coming back to haunt her again in the United States.

"I sometimes I get nervous, and I feel like I'm having a little bit of PTSD and like I can't sleep well whenever I see the way they're chanting, using drums and us[ing] slogans, [are] humiliating people and have a huge amount of young people…chanting ‘Death to America,’ not just ‘Death to Israel.’ I just feel like, oh my goodness the… Red Guards are in action again," she said.

The Red Guard was a massive student-led, paramilitary social movement in China that was mobilized by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966.

Young people were one of the most effective tools Mao exploited to fuel his revolution, Tang Williams said. Most of the young people protesting on college campuses today are "naive" and therefore ripe for manipulation by bad faith actors, she added.

"I think that a lot of students who were protesting on college campuses [are]… confused… Because that's what Mao said, the young people's mind is a blank piece of paper, and you can draw the most beautiful pictures," she said, adding that she thinks they are "naive and easily manipulated… [for] revolution"


The Left’s Campus Protest Scam
The demand to make indoctrination in the ideology of their subjects mandatory for graduation for all students in all degree programs—including medical and engineering programs, as well as Ph.D. programs in the hard sciences, where “diversity statements” are now routinely required from new hires—has obvious material benefits, increasing work and pay for the activist professors and the cronies and former students who are hired to teach the compulsory courses. Moreover, the professors in these sub-intellectual studies programs undoubtedly sense that they are privately held in contempt by many university administrators and regents and donors who value traditional subjects with well-defined subject matters and greater degrees of intellectual rigor, like the sciences and engineering and medicine and law. What delicious revenge it must be for thinly educated and poorly qualified leftist academics to persuade gullible students to camp out in the quad and yell until the university agrees to force those hated chemistry majors and business majors and computer programming majors to take a course in ethnic studies or LGBTQ ideology or climate change activism in order to graduate?

In addition to making their subjects mandatory for students in every degree program, another strategy of institutional empire-building used by leftist academics and bureaucrats on campus involves scattering their fellow sectarians throughout traditional departments, “boring from within” to redefine those disciplines in a way that aligns them with anti-racist/feminist/queer/environmentalist ideology. The colonization of traditional disciplines is well underway at Brown, according to Time:
If you are in Ada Smailbegovic’s English-lit class at Brown, you get some unusual assignments. For Earth Poetics: Literature and Climate Change, students spend time following squirrels and sparrows around. They sit and observe seasonal changes and record their thoughts in blogs. They also watch films and read poems about fishing communities in the U.S. and Canada, comparing patterns of human migration to the life cycle of salmon and the movements of the tides.

(Tuition for Brown in 2024-25 will be $68,612, adding up to a four-year expense of $274,448.)

The clearing of tent encampments on a number of universities by police during the present anti-Israel protests does not mean that most universities will not capitulate to some or all protester demands later, when public attention is focused elsewhere. Already Brown has bowed to pressure and agreed to a vote on divestment from Israel. The Rutgers administration has also agreed to consider divestment from Israel and—you saw it coming, didn’t you?—agreed to “develop anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism training for all administrators and staff.” All that training means more work and money for existing left-wing faculty and perhaps the hiring of additional left-wing bureaucrats or nice paychecks for external consultants who will develop expertise in anti-Arabophobia training overnight. Northwestern has agreed to create a segregated community center for the exclusive use of “Middle Eastern, North African, and Muslim students” and has promised to fund five fully paid undergraduate scholarships for Palestinian students and two professorships for visiting Palestinian faculty.

The kaffiyeh may have replaced the kente cloth, but the self-serving strategy in which leftist professors persuade naive students to blackmail university administrators into giving them more subsidies, status, and institutional power has not changed since Black Panther Education Minister George Murray led the movement for Black studies at San Francisco State in 1968. Decades from now, when today’s campus protests have receded into history, their legacy may be the permanent transformation of American universities from engines of upward mobility and scientific progress to fairgrounds with expensive tickets and midway tents on a quad, displaying exotic varieties of leftist identity politics.
Who Is Funding Anti-Israel Campus Protests?
On May 8, 2024, Legal Insurrection Foundation and its Equal Protection Project hosted an online webinar, Who Is Funding Anti-Israel Campus Protests?

The anti-Israel protests and riots on campuses appeared to have popped up out of nowhere. The anti-Americanism, anti-westernism, and anti-capitalism ran deep alongside hatred of Israel.

But there’s a deeper story that needed to be told, of a well-funded network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that plan and pay for the these protest movements. It didn’t sprout organically. It’s a calculated, organized, and well-funded movement. At the Legal Insurrection Foundation, we’ve been discussing and educating the public on the origins of this pernicious movement for over a decade. In this live event, we explored the funding driving these tentifadas and campus protests.

We were pleased that Anne Herzberg, the Legal Advisor of NGO Monitor, was our featured speaker. NGO Monitor does deep research on, you guessed it, NGOs. We have cited their work repeatedly over the years. NGO Monitor has published extensive research of the funding of anti-Israel protests.



How the Eurovision Censors Helped Make Eden Golan a Star
The EBU’s ruling was both right and absurd. “October Rain” indeed was, at least in part, about the events of October 7, including several allusions to the use of consciousness-enhancing drugs at the Nova Dance Festival on the night of October 6, hundreds of whose participants died at Hamas’s hands. Yet what exactly was “political” about it? There wasn’t a line expressing a political opinion or point of view in the entire song, which was about a national trauma, not the politics surrounding it. If anyone was being political, it could be argued, it was the EBU, which was trying to censor an Israeli cry of pain for no other reason than that it was Israeli.

Channel 11 debated. There were those who were for pulling out of the competition, as did the Georgians in 2009. In the end, though, the view prevailed that showing up was more important than standing on principle. “October Rain” was renamed “Hurricane”; “I’m still wet from” was changed to “I’m still broken from”; the final Hebrew lines were rewritten, and “Hurricane” was resubmitted as a song about private rather than national grief—an unhappy love affair perhaps, or a marital blow-up, or whatever.

The EBU censors, however, were not born yesterday. Leave it to them not to be taken in by a ruse! “Writers of history,” for example: since when is a personal crisis a subject for historians? And wasn’t “take me home” a reference to the Israeli hostages in Gaza? And who was the “we” of “We got nothing to hide” if “Hurricane” was about an individual problem? And “Never again”—come on, now! Who didn’t know what that hinted at?

And so more changes were made. “Writers of history” became “Writers of my symphony.” “Take me home” was altered to “Take it all.” The “we” of “nothing to hide” was replaced by “I,” “And I promise you that never again” by “Baby, promise me you’ll hold me again.” Still other lines that the EBU objected to were changed, too. If the new ones didn’t make much sense, well, who said that song lyrics have to? To tell the truth, not all of the original version of “October Rain” made perfect sense, either.

And so “Hurricane” was re-resubmitted, this time to EBU approval, and breezed through the Malmö semi-finals on the basis of a magnificent performance by Eden Golan, whose voice grew stronger and more powerful with every boo and catcall from the audience, and who was backed by an imaginatively choreographed group of dancers. Receiving strong TV viewer support, “Hurricane” might actually have triumphed in the Grand Final had not some of the judges had clear instructions from their delegation heads to award it no points at all on a 0-12 scale. (Other judges gave it all 12 points—an all-but-unimaginable discrepancy in a competition of any kind.) Yet under the circumstances, fifth place, too, was a triumph and an Independence Day gift to a grateful Israel that badly needed to believe that not all the world was against it.

The irony in all this is that the EBU’s attempts at censorship only worked to Israel’s advantage. In the first place, they made “October Rain/Hurricane” a cause célèbre that it would otherwise never have become. And secondly, they actually strengthened its title and most memorable line. October rains, occurring at the start of the rainy season and almost never developing into major storms, are common in Israel; hurricanes are not. As a weather phenomenon, in fact, they are unknown—and yet a hurricane is what October 7 was. When Eden Golan sang, “I’m still broken from this hurricane,” she was accurately describing Israel’s mood in the wake of October 7 as “I’m still wet from this October rain” failed to do. Getting wet, after all, is not a catastrophe. One can thank the censors of the EBU for making the correction.
Columbia’s Jewish Commencement
Whether or not Sampson Simson felt out of his element, his commencement oration asked the audience to grant him that sort of leeway. “I am very young,” he said, quoting Elihu’s repudiation of Job’s comforters, “and you are very old, wherefore I was afraid & durst not show my opinion.” The date was June 21, 1800, and Simson, a 21-year-old Jew who had just completed his studies at Columbia College, stood at the rostrum of St. Paul’s Church, in lower Manhattan. Like Elihu, who had bitten his tongue before daring to weigh in on the subject of Job’s misfortunes, Simson had been waiting for the opportunity to speak on a subject of great importance. Here, in one of the nation’s most storied and elegant Christian landmarks, and before an almost entirely Anglican audience, he was poised to communicate a history lesson. The subject of his talk was the origin, genealogy, and national significance of New York Jews. The language in which he delivered it was Hebrew.

Samson Simpson’s 1800 Columbia commencement oration was the earliest public assertion of Jewish belonging and longevity in the nation’s largest city. A hundred and fifty years after their first arrival there, in their own language, the city’s Jews were proclaiming New York as the birthplace of American Jewry.

Simson had not written the speech himself, and the Hebrew words probably did not roll off his tongue. Gershom Mendes Seixas, his Hebrew teacher since boyhood and the hazan of Shearith Israel, the city’s only synagogue at that time, had prepared his script. The graduate probably understood enough Hebrew to appreciate the gist and comprehend the import of what he was saying, which was that being a guest at St. Paul’s did not equate to being a foreigner in the city. Sampson Simson’s German-born grandfather Joseph, 101 years old when he died in 1787, had come to North America in 1718. Rebecca Isaacks Simson, his grandmother, had been born in New Jersey near the turn of the 18th century. As Jacob Rader Marcus noted in 1968, Sampson Simson’s Columbia commencement oration comprised “the first evidence of communal self-awareness among American Jews.” After a century and a half of continuous presence in the city, New York Jews were finally taking stock of their history and telling their story, both to themselves and the wider world.

Gershom Mendes Seixas’ Portuguese-born father, Isaac, had first come to the city in the 1730s. His mother, Rachel Franks Levy, was the daughter of one of New York’s most prominent Jewish merchants, Moses Raphael Levy, who had been made a freeman in the city in 1695. In his own youth, Gershom Mendes Seixas had not only witnessed the pivotal events of 1776 but been an active participant in them. He had taken a firm stand in the cause of American independence, choosing to vacate the synagogue ahead of the British invasion of Manhattan to avoid being compelled to take a loyalty oath to King George III. According to family lore, he was among the dozen or so members of the New York clergy who attended George Washington’s inauguration in 1789. In the years following the achievement of American independence and nationhood, Seixas had been an outspoken advocate for republicanism.
'Freshman fear': How Antisemitism tainted my first year at Columbia University
Antisemitism has reached an alarming boiling point at encampments and protests for Gaza across many American campuses this past month. Finishing my first year at Columbia University, I feel my college experience is being defined by the constant chants I hear calling for an intifada, and the stories of friends who were verbally and physically assaulted on school property.

To escape the fate of our friends, many of my Jewish peers and I have fearfully avoided Columbia’s main campus since the encampments were established. All students should be able to walk around campus without fearing for their physical or mental well-being. Jewish students should not be threatened because other students criticize the war between Israel and Hamas.

Unfortunately, this is the intimidating situation Jewish students face at Columbia and other institutions of higher learning. I am deeply disappointed in my school’s failure to protect me, but I am even more disappointed in my peers for refusing to remove antisemitic rhetoric from their movement.

With “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” recently classified as hate speech by the House of Representatives, one would think the protesters would refrain from chanting antisemitic phrases and instead criticize the war or the Israeli government without targeting Jews or Israelis. This vision is far from the reality on campuses.

In response to a proposed alteration to a chant, a member of Columbia’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter posted on their Instagram story, “Stop complaining [about] our chants… if it makes you uncomfortable then feel free to leave.” Many other students echoed this unwillingness to change their chants, arguing that supporting Gaza takes priority over “making students comfortable.” This logic is deeply flawed; there is no correlation between the conditions Palestinians in Gaza face and the safety of Jewish students on campuses.
What Does "From the River to the Sea" REALLY Mean? | Explained

Brian Eno and Massive Attack back anti-Israel boycott campaign against music festival
More than 120 artists have dropped out of a Brighton music festival accused of complicity with “genocide” in an anti-Israel boycott campaign backed by star producer Brian Eno and Massive Attack.

The Great Escape, which runs every year in the south coast city, has launched the career of several high-profile British musicians including rapper Stormzy and poet Kae Tempest.

This year, however, it has proved a tempestuous affair after the Bristol-based queer punk bank The Menstrul Cramps pulled out and spearheaded a campaign against the festival’s ties to Barclays.

According to the festival’s website, Barclaycard is one of its “partners”.

The bank, activists claim, is “bankrolling Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians” through its financial ties to companies that sell weapons to Israel.

"The bank invests over £2bn in, and provides financial services worth over £6.1bn to, companies supplying weapons and military technology to Israel, used in its attacks on Palestinians,” the Palestine Solidarity Campaign have claimed.

Barclays insist it does not invest in defence companies supplying Israel but merely trades in listed shares on the instruction of clients.

On its website, the bank says: "An associated claim is that we invest in Elbit, an Israeli defence manufacturer which also supplies the UK armed forces with equipment and training.

"For the reasons mentioned, it is not true that we have made a decision to invest in Elbit. We may hold shares in relation to client driven transactions, which is why we appear on the share register, but we are not investors.”

For the one quarter of acts scheduled to appear at The Great Escape who have now pulled out, that explanation is not acceptable, however.
‘Miserable little doom goblin’ Greta Thunberg ditches climate activism for Palestine protests
Greta Thunberg has ditched climate activism for pro-Palestine activism, hopping on the latest woke bandwagon with her posse of professional protesters.

Sky News All-Stars Rita Panahi, Rowan Dean and Andrew Bolt analyse Greta’s crusade against Israel’s Eurovision contestant.




A principled Canada would protect its Jews
Jews are regularly scapegoated for the contemporary evils of the world, be it communism or capitalism, colonialism or globalism, fascism or racism. They have been condemned for conspiring to dominate the globe when they could not prevent their own slaughter. They were once derided as alien cosmopolitans and now are labelled white settlers. They are despised for supporting a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland which provides a refuge from oppression, whose primordial sin is its very existence.

Post-October 7, it is clear that public condemnation of hate speech and harassment is not a guarantee, but instead depends on the target and who generates it. Consider the muted reaction to calls for Jews to go back to Poland, chants of a Palestinian state that spans “from the river to the sea” and even celebrations of the October 7 massacre. Imagine the outrage if deranged demonstrators chanted that Black people should go back to Africa, or that Indigenous Canadians should be executed on their reserves. How long would an encampment with outside agitators be tolerated if it reviled LGBTQ people? All that is unimaginable, which is the point.

After years of focusing on microaggressions, university administrations suddenly became free-speech absolutists when the targets were Jews. The U.S.-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression ranked Harvard last out of 248 universities on free speech last year, with a score of zero out of 100. Yet its former president notoriously testified at a congressional hearing that year that it “depends on the context” whether calls for the genocide of Jews broke the university’s code of conduct.

In Canada, federal, provincial and municipal governments go through the motions of condemning antisemitism but do not follow up with decisive law enforcement. They allow the conduct to continue, even though wilfully promoting hatred of any identifiable group is an offence under the Criminal Code.

As a result, the Jewish community is subject to abuse, intimidation, obstruction and to vandalism of their businesses, community centres and places of worship. At times, they are disinvited from private speaking events. It’s clear what needs to be done: free speech must be distinguished from hate-mongering, calls for violence and illegal trespass, and action must be taken accordingly. Jews must be given the same protection afforded to other minorities.

A free society that allows a small group to be threatened, bullied and discriminated against by intolerant ideologues who loathe democratic values is vulnerable to broader attacks on its core identity. History demonstrates that the hate that starts with the Jews does not end there
Netherlands to examine ‘appropriate time’ to move embassy to J’lem
Wilders won a clear victory in the Netherlands’ Nov. 22 general election, securing 37 out of 150 seats in parliament and paving the way for the most pro-Israel coalition in the European nation’s history.

NOS News reported on Thursday that talks about a possible prime ministerial candidate continue. The four party leaders previously agreed to remain in parliament, with Wilders confirming in March that the other parties could not support him taking up the highest office.

Wilders lived in Israel for two years during his youth and has visited the country more than 40 times. After he graduated from secondary school, he spent a year as a volunteer at Moshav Tomer in the Jordan Valley.

The politician has been a proponent of Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, having said repeatedly that “there has been an independent Palestinian state since 1946: the Kingdom of Jordan.”

“Palestinian people should be given the right to voluntarily settle in Jordan and freely elect their own government. Let the Hashemite Kingdom become a true democracy!” Wilders tweeted during the 2021 war in the Gaza Strip ( “Operation Guardian of the Walls”), and again following Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.

In 2018, Wilders tweeted, “The more Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria the better for that land is Jewish—and Jordan is Palestine!”

During a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog earlier this year, Wilders pledged his “full support” for the war against Hamas terrorism.

“I just had a great meeting in Amsterdam with the President of Israel,” Wilders tweeted on March 11. “I told him I am proud that he visits the Netherlands and that Israel has, and always will have, my full support in its fight against terror.”
Germany bans pro-Palestinian group for backing terrorism, spreading antisemitic narratives
German authorities say they have banned a group that showed solidarity with “Palestinian resistance in all forms” and raided properties linked to it.

The interior ministry in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous, says it has banned the Palestine Solidarity Duisburg group. It accuses the group of spreading antisemitic narratives.

The ministry says police have searched four properties in the city of Duisburg linked to the group.

The region’s top security official, state Interior Minister Herbert Reul, says the move “sends the right signal” and adds in a statement that “in many cases nothing other than hatred for Jews is hidden behind solidarity with Palestine, as in the case of the organization banned today.”

In November, Germany’s federal government implemented a formal ban on activity by or in support of the Hamas terror group and dissolved Samidoun, a group that was behind a celebration in Berlin of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught in Israel.
Belgium cuts off ticket sales for soccer match against Israel over ‘security concerns’
Ticket sales for a Belgium-Israel soccer match in Brussels as part of the UEFA Nations League have been paused because of security concerns.

No details were available over what concerns led officials to stop selling tickets for the game, scheduled for September 6 at King Baudouin Stadium.

“The Royal Belgian Football Union is in constant contact with the security services, the city of Brussels and the federal government,” the Belgian soccer body said in a statement on Thursday. “The security situation is being analyzed and developments are being closely monitored.”

“Safety comes first, always,” Belgian soccer chief Piet Vandendriessche said.

Ticket sales for other Belgium home matches against France on October 14 and Italy on November 14 are going ahead as planned.

Hundreds of anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrators have repeatedly taken to the streets of Brussels since the start of the war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel.

Belgium has been hit repeatedly by extremist attacks. Last year, a soccer game between Belgium and Sweden was suspended at halftime following a gunman fatally shooting two Swedes in Brussels before kickoff.
Spanish museum changes name of ‘River to the Sea’ program after complaints
Madrid’s Reina Sofia Museum said Thursday it had changed the name of a pro-Palestinian program that the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community said furthered a narrative calling for Israel’s extermination.

The museum, one of Spain’s most visited, which is home to Pablo Picasso’s historic Guernica painting about the horrors of war, had controversially called the program “From The River To the Sea” — the first line of the rallying cry “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” commonly heard at pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests.

The slogan refers to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which encompasses Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Jewish groups have condemned the slogan as antisemitic, arguing that it calls for the destruction of Israel in its entirety.

In a statement, the museum said it had renamed the program “Critical Thinking Gatherings, International Solidarity With Palestine” since the original name was considered “offensive to certain communities.”

The program includes lectures, conversations and meetings with Palestinian artists as well as two art installations, all aimed at demanding “an end of the war and genocide,” according to the museum’s website.

Spain’s FCJE, an umbrella body representing the Jewish community, had denounced the original title of the program.

“This slogan, considered antisemitic by the US House of Representatives, implies the elimination of Israel and its inhabitants… it also appears on maps at various rallies where Israel is erased,” it said in a statement.
Inside Bob Casey’s Troubling Relationship with Erdogan’s Best Friend in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Murat Güzel is one of Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s closest allies in the United States.

A former board member of the Turkish American National Steering Committee alongside Erdogan’s cousin, Halil Mutlu, the Turkish-born Pennsylvania businessman has lobbied lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in support of the Erdogan regime, reported back to Erdogan family members, and defended the Turkish strongman when his bodyguards roughed up protesters outside the Turkish embassy in Washington, D.C., in 2017, arguing that the protesters "provoked the incident" and have been inaccurately portrayed as "peaceful."

Güzel's donations have overwhelmingly gone to Democrats—including New York City mayor Eric Adams, now mired in a foreign influence scandal tracing back to Turkish money, and the Democratic National Committee, to which Güzel has donated upwards of $200,000 and where he has served as co-chair of the Ethnic Coordinating Committee. In a magazine profile published this month, Güzel said plainly that his involvement in politics has taught him "how much an individual can accomplish in the U.S. political system."

"My leadership roles in the Democratic Party at the state and county levels have allowed me to contribute significantly to the party’s operations," he said.

But Güzel has a special relationship with Sen. Bob Casey (D.) and his family.

"It was Senator Bob Casey who asked me to be a delegate," Güzel, the owner of a Pennsylvania-based organic juice company, said of his role as a delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

And his controversial activities—which operate in a gray area of foreign influence operations—have not, seemingly, deterred his old friends from accepting his money: Güzel is now working with Casey’s wife, Terese, to raise money for Pennsylvania’s celebration of America’s 250th birthday in July 2026. Güzel has funneled more than $100,000 to the project and posed for a photograph with the Caseys at a Democratic Party event in November 2022.

"Let me add my thanks for your continued generosity of America 250PA and the important work we are doing," Terese Casey wrote to Güzel in May 2022 in her capacity as director of development for America250PA, a state organization established by the governor and legislature to help Pennsylvania mark America’s 250th birthday, according to an email obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. "I’m glad you’re part of this historic project!"

Over the years, Güzel has contributed over $20,000 to Bob Casey’s campaigns and related super PACs, federal records show. At the same time, he has emerged as a leading Erdogan ally amid the authoritarian ruler’s crackdown on opposition groups.


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.

It further states that “the Nakba refers not only to a historical event but to an ongoing process of Israel’s expropriation of Palestinian land and its dispossession of the Palestinian people that continues to this day.”

The resolution describes Israeli settlements and outposts as “another form of ethnic cleansing used to perpetuate the Nakba.”


Yemen’s Houthis will target any ship heading to Israel, not only in Red Sea, group says
Any ship from any company heading to Israeli ports will be targeted by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis in any area their capabilities can reach, not only limited to the Red Sea region, the group’s leaded Abdulmalik al-Houthi says in a televised speech.


Iran threatens Britain for defending Israel in April attack
Britain will pay the price for helping to defend Israel from Iranian missiles and suicide drones, a top general from the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has warned.

“All criminals must understand that their actions and crimes are recorded,” said Brigadier General Esmail Qaani, who is the commander of the IRGC’s elite Quds force responsible for covert operations across the Middle East.

“France, Germany, and England should not think that they brought their planes that night and the issue was resolved and gone,” he added, referring to Iran’s April 13 attack on Israel.

“While that night has passed, their account remains in place,” Brig Gen Qaani warned, using a Persian idiom implying that punishment is coming.

It is the first time an official from the Islamic Republic has directly threatened Britain and other Western nations since the recent surge of tensions across the Middle East.

On April 13, Iran fired some 300 suicide drones and missiles at Israel, almost all of which were shot down by the US, UK and Israel.


Dutch court releases suspected Hamas terror financier pending trial
A judge in the Netherlands has suspended the pretrial detention of a suspected Palestinian terrorist leader accused of raising millions for Hamas, the Rotterdam District Court confirmed to JNS on Wednesday.

“The suspect has already been detained in this case for almost a year and is now allowed to await the [trial] outside prison,” a spokesperson for the court told JNS, adding that “the court must constantly balance the interest of judicial proceedings against the personal circumstances.”

“Of course, there are conditions attached to this. For example, he must report if the prosecution/probation service requests this, and he must respond to summons from the court,” added the spokesperson.

Dutch authorities arrested Amin Abu Rashed, 55, and his daughter Israa in June of last year on charges of sending approximately €11.7 million ($12.7 million) to terrorists in the Gaza Strip and being part of “a criminal organization whose purpose is to support Hamas financially.”

The arrest of Abu Rashed, whom Israel designated as a European Hamas leader in 2013, was said to be the direct result of an Israeli investigative series produced by Ad Kan, a Zionist activist group.

His pretrial detention was extended for another two months in March, with the court taking particular note of transfers to the Islamic National Bank, a Gaza-based institution that Israel says operates as “a terrorist vault for Hamas, directly funding its rocket production operation.”
MEMRI: Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh Calls On Palestinians In Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, And Elsewhere To Mobilize And Escalate Confrontation With Israel: We Must Stand As One To Defeat The Enemy
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called in a May 15, 2024 address on Al-Jazeera Network (Qatar) for Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere to mobilize on all fronts and escalate the confrontation" with Israel in order to liberate Palestine. He said that Palestinians in the West Bank and inside Israel should close ranks with Gaza and "rise in the face of the enemy."

"We Must Close Ranks Together In Gaza, And In All Our Cities And Villages In The West Bank, And In The Occupied Lands Inside [Israel]"

Ismail Haniyeh: "We are confident that this aggression will be shattered, and it will be vanquished and driven out of our land, regardless of how long it takes, the blood of the martyrs and the wounded, the suffering of [our] prisoners, and the burdens of the displacement will not be in vain, Allah willing.

"We must be together in this and stand as one to defeat the enemy. We must close ranks together with Gaza, and in all our cities and villages in the West Bank, and in the occupied land inside [Israel].

"The Free Palestinian People Should Mobilize On All Fronts – In Jordan, Syria, And Lebanon... To Escalate The Confrontation"

"We must rise in the face of the enemy. The free Palestinian people should mobilize on all the fronts – in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, and in the places in the diaspora, where they live as refugees. They need to escalate the confrontation in order to end this brutal aggression, and to accomplish our plan of liberation and the return of the refugees."


MEMRI: Arab Journalists: Hamas Is Responsible For Israel's Incursion Into Rafah; Its Arrogant And Foolish Policy Aggravates The Situation, Puts Gazan Lives In Danger
Recent articles in the Egyptian and Saudi press hold Hamas responsible for Israel's ground offensive in Rafah. The authors of the articles note that Hamas's May 5, 2024 rocket attack on the Kerem Shalom border crossing, in which four Israeli soldiers were killed and several others were wounded, and which was carried out while Egypt was making intensive efforts to promote a truce agreement between the two sides, torpedoed any chance of reaching an agreement and also gave Israel an excuse to launch its operation in Rafah. The journalists criticize Hamas for having the audacity to carry out such an attack while participating in the Cairo talks, and claim that its diplomatic ignorance, its arrogance, and its folly put the Gazans' lives in danger and aggravated the situation in the Strip.

The following are translated excepts from these articles:
Egyptian Journalist: Hamas Destroyed Egypt's Efforts To Arrange A Truce And Gave Netanyahu An Excuse To Enter Rafah

Hussein Yousuf, a columnist for the Al-Yawm Al-Sabi', wrote on May 6, 2024 under the title "Regional Stability Is Being Put To The Test; Hamas Handed Netanyahu The Keys To Rafah," wrote:
"All the world's countries are following the situation in Palestinian Rafah after the Israeli occupation army surprised everyone and asked the residents of eastern Palestinian Rafah to immediately evacuate to the center of the Strip while threatening a ground attack on the city [of Rafah]…

"What is surprising is that, while Egypt was leading the negotiations between Hamas and Israel with wisdom and talent, investing every effort in bringing the sides closer and coming up with creative solutions for the disagreements that the negotiations encountered, and was close to officially announcing that the negotiations had succeeded and that the sides had agreed on a truce and on the release of the hostages ahead of a longer truce and a ceasefire agreement so as to reverse the [Israeli] decision to enter Rafah and [thereby] save thousands of Palestinian residents – [precisely at that juncture] Hamas carried out its operation in Kerem Shalom which rekindled the [tension] and gave the Israeli side an excuse to stop the negotiations and reraise the issue of the invasion of Rafah. It was as though Netanyahu was waiting for that opportunity to activate the Western media that is biased in his favor and instruct it to tell the world that Hamas is disinterested in peace, negotiations, or even a truce, as evident from [the fact that] it operated against the Israeli troops while negotiations were underway in Cairo.

"Because of the operation carried out by [Hamas' military wing] the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades against the Israeli soldiers, in which four of them were killed, Egypt's intensive and energetic efforts to promote the truce negotiations went to waste. Cairo was strongly pressing for an agreement under which a truce would be declared in return for the release of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, after which the terms of a permanent ceasefire would be outlined so as to preserve the lives and the dignity of the Gazans. Many analysts were surprised and wondered how Hamas could send a delegation to the talks in Cairo and at the same time carry out an operation that would destroy and kill the negotiations and undermine the Egyptian efforts…"[1]


How Iran’s covert influence is threatening American democracy
Imagine if Russia attempted to infiltrate the U.S. government and prestigious American universities. Imagine that, by developing relationships in such high places, Russian agents facilitated the hostage-taking of U.S. students by the Russian FSB security service.

Were that to happen, there would rightly be an outcry, of course.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what is happening and has happened with Iran. Yet somehow, no one is talking about it, despite the obvious threat to U.S. national security.

In recent years, where Washington has sought to engage, Tehran has sought to exploit. While all the focus has been on the Islamic Republic’s escalation in the Middle East, the threat emanating from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime is much closer to home.

Recent media investigations by Iran International and Semafor confirm a significant information operation by Iran’s regime on U.S. and Western soil spanning years. The reporting reveals that in 2014, Iran’s Foreign Ministry and veterans of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — the Iranian regime’s ideological paramilitary force — at least participated in a coordinated network made up of senior Western-based specialists and academics to influence policy in favor of the hostile clerical regime. This network came to be known as the so-called “Iran Experts Initiative.”

In the years since, these Western-based specialists and others have worked in think tanks, universities and even U.S. government agencies such as the Pentagon, developing close associations with senior U.S. and European officials on Iran. Some of these experts, flattered by the attention, do so unwittingly. Others may be fully aware of what they are doing. There are those even directly connected to the regime, such as Princeton University’s Hossein Mousavian, who was Tehran’s ambassador to Germany during a string of assassinations against Iranian dissidents in that country.

Connect all the dots, from Princeton to the Pentagon, and behind this influence operation is one Iranian so-called think-tank whose activities and affiliates have been overlooked in the West.


House Committee Slams UCLA for 'Inadequate Response to Antisemitism'
A House committee investigating widespread anti-Semitism on college campuses across the country slammed the University of California, Los Angeles, on Wednesday for its "inadequate response to antisemitism and failure to protect Jewish students."

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which is running several probes into American universities, asked UCLA’s leadership to turn over internal documents about the school’s failure to shut down a pro-Palestinian encampment where Jewish students have been assaulted and harassed. Like other schools across the country, pro-Palestinian protesters have erected an unlawful campus encampment where violence has repeatedly broken out.

"For days, the unlawful encampment’s checkpoints illegally denied students access to campus buildings," the committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), wrote in a letter to the university’s leadership. "Jewish students were attacked, harassed, and intimidated for walking on their own campus, and all UCLA students were denied a safe and uninterrupted learning environment."

"I am horrified by UCLA’s negligent and incomprehensible reaction to antisemitic violence and exclusion on its campus," Foxx wrote. "UCLA’s leaders have allowed their campus to become a severe and pervasive hostile environment for Jewish students, standing by as students, faculty, and affiliates were assaulted and harassed."

As part of its latest investigation, the House committee instructed UCLA to produce video and audio recording of events at the protest site and internal reports about anti-Semitic incidents at the school.


Harvard Ignored Its In-House Anti-Semitism Panel and Failed To Address Student Harassment, Congressional Report Finds
Harvard University failed to implement a sweeping set of recommendations from its in-house Antisemitism Advisory Group (AAG) and turned a blind eye to numerous instances of campus harassment even after they were raised with the school's leadership, according to a congressional report.

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce—which is investigating Harvard and a number of other elite institutions for failing to stem an explosion of anti-Semitic fervor on campus—discovered several cases of anti-Semitic harassment on campus that were elevated to the school's top administrators but ultimately left unaddressed.

The report, which is based on interviews with AAG members and reams of internal documents produced under subpoena, show that Harvard's top brass was alerted in real time as far back as October 2023 to an escalating series of anti-Semitic incidents on campus that left Jewish students fearing for their lives. These sources include documentation of a yarmulke-wearing student being "spat on" and others being chased across campus by anti-Israel mobs. Harvard's leaders, including interim president Alan Garber, were repeatedly informed about these incidents but failed to initiate investigations or hold students accountable, the committee determined.

The findings paint a troubling picture for the Ivy League school, which has spent more than six months fighting accusations that it is unable and unwilling to combat the growing tide of anti-Semitism on campus. In interviews with the House committee, AAG member Dara Horn made clear that "direct harassment of Jewish students was a bigger problem than antisemitic chants at public rallies," according to the report.

After joining the AAG, Horn said, "It became more clear to me that the real issue was less about what was going on at a public rally, or what kind of slogans that were being used. That wasn't really the issue. The issue was direct harassment of Jewish students on campus. And that was of grave concern to me."
Harvard's lack of action on antisemitism exposed by Congressional Committee
The Committee on Education & the Workforce, led by Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), highlighted on Thursday severe shortcomings in Harvard University’s approach to handling antisemitism on its campus. This revelation comes from a detailed investigative update which includes internal documents that were subpoenaed earlier this year.

According to the update, Harvard’s Antisemitism Advisory Group (AAG) had put forward a set of robust recommendations aimed at curbing antisemitic incidents at the university. These recommendations, however, were neither publicized nor implemented, raising questions about the university's commitment to combating this issue.

The documents revealed that the AAG found antisemitic harassment to be a significant issue at Harvard, leading to a point where a majority of the AAG members even threatened to resign due to the perceived inadequacy of the university's response.

Chairwoman Foxx criticized the former university president, stating, “The Committee’s report proves that former President Gay and Harvard’s leadership merely used the AAG for optics without taking real action. This is a clear display of the dysfunctional administration and moral decay at Harvard.”


Harvard Students Slapped With Criminal Charges for Accosting Israeli Classmate
The Harvard University graduate students who accosted an Israeli classmate last October have been slapped with criminal charges, court filings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.

The students, identified in a Free Beacon report as divinity school graduate student Elom Tettey-Tamaklo and Harvard Law Review editor Ibrahim Bharmal, were each charged with two misdemeanors on May 9.

The charges stem from their conduct at an Oct. 18 "die-in" protest held outside of Harvard Business School. Tettey-Tamaklo and Bharmal were captured on camera accosting a first-year Israeli business school student, surrounding the student and making it difficult for him to walk freely, as keffiyeh-clad onlookers shouted, "SHAME!"

The students are charged with misdemeanor assault and battery and with violations of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, which prohibits attempts to "intimidate or interfere with … any other person in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the constitution." Tettey-Tamaklo and Bharmal are expected back in court next month for their arraignments and face up to 100 days in jail for each count.


Revealed: Shocking extent of anti-Semitism at Oxford University as professors and students describe institution as a 'hostile environment' for Jews with more than 70 incidents recorded in the last eight months
Jewish professors and students have revealed the shocking extent of anti-Semitism at Oxford University, with more than 70 incidents in eight months.

A dossier presented to the Vice Chancellor details numerous bullying allegations, including one student being insulted over their 'Jewish nose'.

Meanwhile, attendees at a vigil for hostages of Hamas were branded 'kid murderers' and one academic supervisor is said to have told his student: 'Israel is a terrorist state.'

Complaints have been ignored, with some advised to simply 'leave Oxford' if they felt uncomfortable.

It comes after Pro-Palestine protesters set up encampments at Oxford, demanding the university cut any financial ties with Israel.

A letter accompanying the dossier says: 'We have felt isolated, unsafe, targeted, stressed, disappointed, angry and hopeless. Many of us have faced all manners of anti-Semitic slurs.'

One Jewish professor, who spoke to the Mail anonymously, said: 'What was a hate-on-Israel movement has become a hate-on-Jew movement. A lot of students and lecturers feel very hurt – they have left or suspended their studies.'

The letter, which has not been signed because its authors are worried about their security, was the result of 'a series of meetings and conversations we have held with dozens of Jewish and Israeli people at Oxford'.

It was sent last week after an encampment was set up outside Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum in which protesters agreed to a contract on 'the right of colonised people to resist occupation'.

The letter describes a 'hostile environment' for anyone who believes in the right of Israel to exist with the university 'overflowing' with messages about plans to 'globalise the intifada and eliminate Israel's existence'.

'Oxford's administration would be unlikely to turn a blind eye to faculty members who spoke about other minorities in such terms,' it added. The other 72 incidents of anti-Semitism included a professor telling students the October 7 massacre was 'justified' while another claimed it was planned by Israel.


Israeli-Canadian teen says she was attacked at New Brunswick school for being Jewish
A 14-year-old Israeli-Canadian girl attending a high school in New Brunswick has told Canadian Jewish News that she was assaulted last month by another student for being Jewish.

Shaked Tsurkan said she was attacked by an older female schoolmate at Leo Hayes High School in Fredericton. The alleged assault occurred during lunch hours at a parking lot away from school grounds.

A video of the alleged assault posted on social media shows a female student running up to Tsurkan from behind, dragging her to the ground and punching her repeatedly in front of several bystanders. The two get into a scuffle until an adult comes over after about a minute and breaks up the fight.

Tsurkan was left with black eyes and multiple cuts, scratches and bruises.

Tsurkan said the assailant was suspended from school for five days. When the student returned, Tsurkan was advised to use the teacher’s washroom, to stay inside the school building during the day and not to walk alone, she said.

“I want the school to know (what happened is) not OK,” she said. “(The school) is still saying it’s my fault that I went outside.”

“They’re blaming me about what happened,” she added.

Tsurkan moved to Fredericton from Israel in Nov. 2022 with her family and began Grade 9 a few weeks before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

She said her alleged attacker treated her in a hostile manner for two months, which culminated in the attack on April 30. Tsurkan said she was trying to avoid a confrontation with the older student that day, but as she away from her, she was accosted and threatened by the student.


Head of California state university on leave after agreeing to academic boycott of Israel
The president of a state university in Northern California announces that’s he now on leave, less than a day after endorsing an academic boycott of Israel as part of an agreement with pro-Palestinian demonstrators to take down their tent encampment that has been strongly denounced by Jewish groups and lawmakers.

In addition to an academic boycott, Sonoma State University’s Mike Lee agreed to the establishment of an “advisory council” of Students for Justice in Palestine — whose national umbrella organization praised the Hamas-led October 7 terror onslaught — to ensure compliance with the deal, which also includes a section on “disclosure and divestment.”

“My goal when meeting with students at the encampment was to explore opportunities to make meaningful change, identify common ground and create a safe and inclusive campus for all. I now realize that many of the statements I made in my campuswide message did just the opposite,” Lee writes in an email.

“In my attempt to find agreement with one group of students, I marginalized other members of our student population and community. I realize the harm that this has caused, and I take full ownership of it. I deeply regret the unintended consequences of my actions,” he continues, while saying “the points outlined in the message were mine alone.”

“As I step away on a leave, I will reflect on the harm this has caused and will be working with the chancellor’s Office to determine next steps.”


Masked men harass Michigan University regents at their homes in middle of night
Anti-Israel masked men arrived at the homes of University of Michigan Board of Regents members before dawn on Wednesday to protest and demand the adoption of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) policies, according to the university and the regents.

Regent Jordan B. Acker said on social media that “masked intruders” came to the door of his family residence, demanding the defunding of police. He expressed concern for the safety of his daughters, who were sleeping at the home.

"This form of protest is not peaceful. Public officials should not be subject to this sort of intimidating conduct, and this behavior is unacceptable from any Michigan community member," Acker wrote on X on Wednesday. “I will not be intimidated. In the wake of the 2020 election, public officials here in Michigan were subjected to threats from mobs of election deniers who engaged in similar conduct.”

Regent Sarah Hubbard said that at dawn, a group of around thirty protesters came to her home on Wednesday and erected tents, and according to the university, placed fake corpses wrapped in bloodied sheets on her lawn.

“Protesting at a public official’s private residence is unacceptable and will not move their cause forward in a satisfactory manner,” Hubbard stressed. She said the protesters used bullhorns, drums, and chants to disrupt the peace of her neighborhood and taped a list of demands to her front door.


CUNY college scraps Hillel Memorial Day event over anti-Israel protest, security fears
A branch of the City University of New York canceled an event organized by Jewish campus group Hillel this week marking Israel’s Memorial Day, citing an anti-Israel protest and security concerns.

The cancellation at Brooklyn’s Kingsborough Community College came following years of outspoken pro-Palestinian advocacy across the CUNY system that has ramped up since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, along with longstanding allegations by Jewish groups that its administrators do not do enough to protect Jewish students. And they occurred shortly before a group of pro-Palestinian activists staged an hours-long occupation of a CUNY building in Manhattan, even as the wave of pro-Palestinian encampments at other schools is dying down.

“We felt saddened and dismayed that the college canceled our Yom Hazikaron event instead of providing security to protect us from threats,” Kingsborough Hillel’s faculty adviser, Susan Aranoff, a business professor, told the New York Jewish Week, using the Hebrew name for Israel’s Memorial Day. “The college must protect freedom of expression for all.”

The Hillel at Baruch College, another branch of CUNY, also said its event for Israel’s Independence Day had been canceled. The school told the New York Jewish Week it had offered alternative locations for that event, but Hillel declined to accept them. Queens College’s Hillel, meanwhile, did host Memorial and Independence Day events without incident.

A CUNY spokesperson said the university system is “committed to ensuring that every student and faculty or staff member is safe from violence, intimidation and harassment.”

“We also reaffirm that everyone in our community has a constitutional right to free speech. CUNY is working with campus leaders to ensure all our community members are protected during school events,” the spokesperson said.


‘They have crossed a line’: Australian university orders pro-Palestinian protesters to leave building
Pro-Palestinian protesters occupying a building at the University of Melbourne have been told to leave by university officials, who say they’ve “crossed a line” by entering the building and disrupting class for thousands of students.

“Students have a right to protest but that is not a blank check,” said the university’s Deputy Vice Chancellor Michael Wesley in a video message distributed to media on Thursday.

“They have crossed a line when they have occupied the Arts West building … the university’s patience is now at an end.”

On Wednesday, students at the university were among thousands who rallied across the country to remember the 1948 al-Nakba or “catastrophe,” when around 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes by armed Jewish groups seeking to establish the state of Israel.

Dana Alshaer, from UniMelb for Palestine, said after the rally a smaller group of students “independently” decided to occupy the Arts West building, and others supported them.

Several banners have since been hung around the room, including one renaming the building “Mahmoud’s Hall” after Mahmoud Alnaouq, a Palestinian student who had won a scholarship to study in Australia but was killed in Gaza last October.

Around 1:30pm on Wednesday, Deputy Vice Chancellor Pip Nicholson addressed the group inside the building on a loudspeaker, telling them their choices that afternoon would have “serious consequences.”

According to a video posted online, she said: “In the event that you are not out of here within an hour … the university will make decisions that will regrettably and unavoidably escalate the tension.”

On the video, protesters said they wouldn’t leave until the university responded to their demands, which include divesting from weapons companies and condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“We come in peace,” a protester said off-camera. “We came here to learn, to study, to make an impact on the world, and the fees that we’re paying are going towards companies committing an act of genocide right now. Speak to us about that.”

By Thursday, more than 150 classes had been cancelled, affecting 6,000 students and staff, the university said. Victoria Police said it was monitoring the protest activity and hadn’t been asked to intervene.
‘Band of extremists’ take over university campuses: Alex Ryvchin
Executive Council of Australian Jewry Co-CEO Alex Ryvchin has blasted the “band of extremists” which have taken over university campuses around Australia.

Thousands of pro-Palestine activists this week staged a sit-in at Melbourne University.

“It shows that things are getting progressively worse unless strong action is taken by universities,” Mr Ryvchin told Sky News Digital Presenter Gabriella Power.

“Having a situation where Jewish academics and staff can’t actually go to their own campuses, can’t lecture, can’t teach, can’t learn, because of this band of extremists that are taking over buildings … shouldn’t be allowed to happen.”




Media Can’t Contain Excitement as ‘Nakba Day’ Brings New Opportunity for Absurd Analogies
Another 15th of May, and another Nakba Day has come and gone.

Naturally, this year, the media had a field day. How could they not? The headlines proclaiming a “second Nakba” as Israel continues its war against Hamas in Gaza practically wrote themselves.

And while historical revisionism isn’t a new phenomenon on Nakba Day, this year saw journalists take a sledgehammer to the facts, rewriting the entire history of the Palestinian people.

Spoiler alert: Palestinians did not and cannot do wrong. Whether they’re massacring Jews or firing rockets at the nearest Israeli target, Palestinians are eternal victims for Western journalists.

‘A Brand New Catastrophe’

There are numerous contenders for the worst Nakba Day article, but two in particular stand out: an “explainer” from Sky News and a CBS news article that frankly belongs in the opinion section.

First, Sky News. Opening its live page of Israel-Hamas war updates, the outlet published a piece titled, “Explained: What is Nakba Day?”



Unfortunately, the only thing the piece explained or revealed is the disturbingly limited knowledge of history possessed by the journalists at Sky.

The writer of the piece was, for example, unaware that the fledgling Jewish state was attacked by surrounding Arab states immediately after it declared its independence. Instead, the journalist mistakenly thought that “Jewish paramilitary forces swept in” and started fighting for the next 10 months.

The journalist was also under the impression that some historians had described Israel’s creation as “ethnic cleansing.” But because these historians don’t exist, they aren’t named. If they were, we would have to track down the historians and ask them how the 160,000 Palestinian Arabs who remained within the newly-formed Israel and gained full citizenship qualifies as ethnic cleansing.

The Nakba explainer quickly fast-forwards to the 1967 Six-Day War, which readers are told was the result of a “festering territorial conflict” and “saw some 20,000 Arab troops die compared to fewer than 1,000 Israelis, [and also] saw the Jewish State claim further land.”
Campus Journalism Fueling the Next Generation of Anti-Israel Media
When The Daily’s reporting and content reads as if reported from a protester and not a reporter, when in four days of hourly coverage there was one story representing the perspective of Jewish students, it violates a sense of safety and belonging for Jewish students/faculty on campus, further fueling the pro-Hamas propaganda.

In some ways I don’t fault The Daily – I fault Northwestern for employing professors like Steven Thrasher who has repeatedly reiterated the message to Medill students that “our work is not about objectivity,” Thrasher most recently stating this during the encampment as a faculty organizer. The hypocrisy and irony that this is the message coming from one of the top journalism schools in the world is pretty high. It degrades the integrity of journalism and fuels the pervasive bias we see today, and will unfortunately likely see from the next generation of journalists if this continues.

Parents of current Medill students and Medill alumni have repeatedly expressed concerns to Medill and The Daily, asking what discussions, guidance and education student journalists are provided on these complex topics of navigating bias, separating personal beliefs from reporting and sourcing information with facts, with little more than lip service as a response, as evidenced by the most recent Daily coverage. And whether The Daily is student-led or not, it’s a direct reflection of the school and its training. Northwestern students and alumni are even potentially exploring alternative campus news publications given the one-sided path The Daily has chosen.

If the media choose not to scrutinize what they are presenting as truth, they too have fallen prey to propaganda and brainwashing, just as much as the Columbia students crying for humanitarian aid because they can’t access their campus meal plan while they protest in the encampment.

Why does this ultimately matter? Because the media have given voice to damaging propaganda, which has a far-reaching impact, as we have seen on college campuses and in turn K-12 institutions.

I offer a few simple requests to all journalists to recalibrate balance in reporting the news, objectively:
Do your research/ homework about what you are reporting and ensure you fully understand the context
Learn all the facts about the Middle East and Israel, past and present; leverage the plethora of information from reputable sources
Be mindful of the subtleties of choosing images and quotes that can have huge ramifications
Re-read and edit content that is subject to misinterpretation or pushes an agenda

Furthermore, to amplify our message so that the media are left with no questions as we fight a “war on words,” we must speak up with one, cohesive voice – our story of who we are, what we stand for, and what the factual story of Israel is, past and present.

It was my dream to go to Medill to study journalism; it was known to be the best and I had a wonderful experience. I took incredible pride in my Medill experience and writing at The Daily that recently, when I worked with an artist to create a custom piece of art that represented mine and my husband’s interests, while he chose old maps he had drawn as a child, I chose an extra copy of The Daily I had from my stockpile of clips – which is now hanging in my living room. It’s unfortunate that what I once considered the best has become unrecognizable.

Please, for the sake of Israel, the United States, and by extension, the Western world, and Jews everywhere, I ask journalists to tell the full story and remind your fellow colleagues of their journalistic duty and ethical obligation that they signed up for – to be objective. Before it’s too late.
Peabody Awards Honor Flawed Coverage of Israel-Hamas War
One of the top prizes in media broadcasting was awarded last week to recipients who should have been called out as bad examples of the industry rather than winners of one of its highest honors.

British comedian John Oliver, pro-Palestinian “journalist” Bisan Owda, and a PBS NewsHour report all won the annual Peabody Award last Thursday (May 9) for their coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

But Oliver’s winning segment in the entertainment category lacked any context or nuance, while Owda’s and PBS‘s winning pieces in the news category made a mockery of journalism. John Oliver Falls Short

The Peabody Awards Board stated that “with its thoughtful episode about the conflict in Israel and Palestine, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver offered an important corrective to the media landscape awash in misinformation.”

But as we showed last November, Oliver’s analysis fell short in several areas: His flawed depiction of Hamas, his portrayal of Israeli actions in Gaza, and his characterization of the discourse surrounding a ceasefire.

Related Reading: John Oliver Misses the Mark on Israel & Hamas

By viewing Hamas through a Western lens, Oliver’s shallow monologue disregards critical facts and falls for terrorist propaganda:

Moreover, Oliver’s depiction of Israel’s actions in Gaza is disturbingly one-sided.

He describes Israel’s defensive war against Hamas as “the relentless bombings of civilians,” but remains silent on Hamas’ embedding of its terror infrastructure within civilian areas.

And to top it all off, Oliver calls for a ceasefire but places the onus for that entirely on the Jewish state, totally ignoring the fact that it has the right to defend itself against those who seek to annihilate it.
BBC presenter talks about ‘powerful Jewish lobby’ live on radio
BBC presenter Eddie Nestor talked about the “Jewish lobby” and Jewish “power” during a discussion on BBC Radio London about the mayoral hustings at JW3 last month.

The BBC has apologised for Nestor’s comments which community leaders labelled “age old anti-Jewish tropes”.

During an interview with Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate Rob Blackie on April 17, Nestor, a seasoned presenter honoured with an MBE in 2018, implied that the first main mayoral hustings took place at a Jewish community centre – JW3 – because of the "powerful Jewish lobby".

Nestor questioned why candidates would prioritise events organised by the Jewish community over those put on by other groups, such as those who work with disabilities, women, the black community and the LGBTQ+ community.

Nestor said, “it feels to me as though here is an opportunity, whether it be on special interests, be it ableism, whether it be blacks, gays whoever, to do it.

“The only time all four of you [mayoral candidates] apart from that debate last night were together was for the Jewish lobby.

“Why is that lobby is so much more powerful than people with disabilities, why is it so much more powerful than people who are worried about the safety of women and girls, the aged voter?”

Blackie said: “Sure”.
Antisemitism in the US soars. 'Pro-Palestinian activists hardest hit'.
If you’re someone prone to antisemitic views of the world, and want a source you can reply on to consistently affirm your biases, though without resorting to fringe, extremist, David Miller–ish, Protocols-style antisemitic and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories, you’d likely turn to the Guardian – the outlet where ‘respectable’ Judeophobic and Israelophobic readers can safely turn without fear of social opprobrium.

The most recent dog whistle parading as ‘speaking truth to power’ is an article by Tom Perkins which, following in the long tradition of Chris McGreal, warns of the dangers posed to the American public by organised Jewry. The piece (“Anti-Defamation League ramps up lobbying to promote controversial definition of antisemitism”, May 15), is riddled with distortions and smears, beginning in the headline’s assertion that the IHRA antisemitism definition is ‘controversial’.

The claim, as you can see here, is belied by the number of countries, law enforcement agencies, universities, public bodies and international institutions which endorse IHRA. This includes 37 (democratic) countries, 320 non-federal governments (including state, regional, provincial, municipal and county bodies), 320 universities, and a total of 865 entities across the world. It’s generally only ‘controversial’ among those who wish to use Israel-Nazi analogies, and call for the destruction of the Jewish state, with moral impunity.

The article’s opening paragraph reads like it was generated by an AI tool designed to mock Guardian bias over the issue:
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has spent record amounts lobbying for bills opponents say are meant to punish criticism of Israel and target Jewish peace and Palestinian rights groups, marking a shift in strategy over the last several years.

First, we should note the important context that ADL is the largest mainstream Jewish organisation in the US, and, in fact, has been criticised by many for its progressive agenda on issues such as DEI, (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion). But, leaving DEI aside, its advocacy on US domestic issues – most of which have nothing to do with to Jews, Israel or antisemitism – is decidedly left of centre.

Further, as we’ll show, Perkins appears to define ADL’s efforts to fight antisemitism by promoting the adoption of IHRA (a non-legal definition which contains multiple caveats and qualifications, and does NOT define criticism of Israel as antisemitic) as ‘punishing criticism of Israel’, and the group’s advocacy for the enforcement of existing anti-terror laws as ‘targeting of Jewish peace and Palestinian rights groups’.
BBC News sidelines Hamas attacks on humanitarian aid crossing
Clearly BBC audiences would be better placed to understand those statements from an UNRWA representative – as well as Howard’s own claim that “[t]he flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza has been hampered by the war, with Israel and aid groups trading blame” – had they been informed of the near daily attacks on the Kerem Shalom crossing and why Hamas repeatedly conducts such attacks on a facility crucial to the supply of aid to civilians.

As we see, only three of the six rocket attacks on the Kerem Shalom crossing in eight days were reported to some extent or another by the BBC. In addition, as has been the case for some time now, the BBC’s coverage of the war largely ignores Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli towns and cities both in the south and the north.

While BBC audiences have seen plenty of coverage of the topic of humanitarian aid and the border crossings through which it enters the Gaza Strip – including frequent quotes from UNRWA and other UN bodies – the obviously relevant issue of repeated Hamas attacks on the Kerem Shalom crossing has been sidelined, meaning that visitors to the BBC News website are not being told the full story either on the topic of humanitarian aid or in relation to military operations in the location from where those attacks were launched – Rafah.
Comcast told MSNBC hosts to curb rampant Israel criticism during Oct. 7 Hamas attacks: report
MSNBC’s corporate parent, Comcast, staged a rare intervention over the left-leaning network’s rampant criticism of Israel during its coverage of the deadly Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas, according to a report.

MSNBC anchors Ayman Mohyeldin, Mehdi Hasan and Ali Velshi, who are all Muslim, interviewed guests who suggested the shocking Hamas cross-border invasion — which slaughtered around 1,200 Israelis, including women and children — was the result of “failed policies” by the US and Israel.

The tenor of MSNBC’s coverage that Saturday morning prompted Comcast president Michael Cavanagh to convey his concerns to Cesar Conde, chairman of NBCUniversal News Group, the division that includes MSNBC, NBC News and CNBC, according to the New York Times.

Conde — who would come under fire months later for signing off on the hiring of former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel — reportedly told Cavanagh that he shared those concerns.

The NBCUniversal News boss then issued a directive to his subordinates at MSNBC to focus on the facts and give less weight to opinions and commentary, the Times reported.

The Post has sought comment from MSNBC and Comcast.

Weeks later, Mohyeldin, Hasan and Velshi were reportedly sidelined, The Post reported.

MSNBC denied the claim that they silenced the three, saying the lineup changes were “coincidental.”

Hasan, who frequently criticized Israel in his commentary, left MSNBC in January — weeks after his show was canceled.


Knife-wielding woman arrested in Stamford Hill
A knife-wielding woman has been arrested by police after she was filmed waiving a large knife at passers-by.

In footage that was circulated around Stamford Hill’s Chasidic community on Wednesday evening, the woman could be seen casually walking down Cadoxton Avenue, N15, carrying a large knife, before waiving it aggressively and arguing with people in a car that was passing by.

The woman, who was in her 70s, was later filmed being ordered to comply with police demands that she lay on the ground.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed that they were called at 7:53pm on Wednesday to reports of a woman with a knife. She was “arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon. She has been taken into custody.”

The were no reported injuries.


Jewish children savagely beaten by man in New York City attack
Jewish children were beaten by an unidentified man in New York on Sunday night, according to local media.

Williamsburg 365 News posted on Wednesday footage of a man dismounting from his bicycle and approaching a group of orthodox Jewish children who were playing on the sidewalk.

The assailant appeared to smack one of the children on the face, kicking him to the ground. The man threw another child to the ground before repeatedly kicking him. The children fled, and the man returned to his bicycle.

NYPD investigates
The NYPD said that there was an additional victim not recorded in the video. The police received a criminal complaint that they were investigating, about a bicyclist in the same area approached a man and his son who were also playing on the sidewalk.

"The suspect then pushed the victim to the ground causing a minor laceration [to] his head," said the NYPD. "The suspect fled southbound on Franklin Avenue. There are no arrests and the investigation is ongoing."

Antisemitic incidents have increased in New York since the October 7 Hamas attacks.


After Israel’s Arrow repelled Iran’s missiles, several countries interested in system
Israel’s Arrow defense systems helped thwart Iran’s massive missile and drone attack last month, and a number of countries are now interested in purchasing the technology, says the developer’s chief executive.

Iran’s overnight attack between April 13 and 14, repelled by Israel’s multi-tiered defense shield with the help from allies, included more than 100 ballistic missiles.

The Arrow system, according to the Air Force, “carried out the main part” in their interception.

That success immediately drummed up global interest, says Boaz Levy, CEO at state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the project’s main contractor.

The US is a partner in the Arrow project and Boeing is involved in its production.

“A number of countries have approached us asking for information,” Levy tells Reuters. “I’m very optimistic that there will be more deals for the Arrow system, especially after the very special demonstration we did.”
MIT to host music festival celebrating ‘Jewish joy’ this week
In recent weeks, as headlines have painted an increasingly grim picture of life for Jewish students on many American college campuses, a group of Boston-area Jewish students banded together to try to inject some positivity into that gloomy narrative.

The result is a just-announced music festival taking place on Thursday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, with a slew of artists who have been outspoken about their support for Israel and the Jewish community in recent months. The four-hour event will feature performances by the Israeli singer Idan Raichel; rapper and reggae artist Matisyahu and his son, LAIVY; singer-songwriter John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting; rapper Kosha Dillz; and a DJ from the Nova music festival. There will also be food trucks on-site, including kosher options.

“Through the power of music and rhythm, the event aims to unite attendees, honor those who have passed, and support those facing challenges while celebrating joyful Judaism,” reads the event description. Tickets are free for college students, and cost $36 for anyone else who wants to attend.

Called “We Will Dance Again,” the event came together in less than two weeks, after MIT graduate student Talia Khan, the co-president of the MIT Israel Alliance, created a GoFundMe with the support of MIT Chabad to raise money to organize the event and cover the cost of student tickets. As of Tuesday night, the campaign has raised $32,000.

“We invite you to support and join us at ‘We Will Dance Again,’ a vibrant, student-led party,” inspired by the mantra used by survivors of the Nova music festival massacre, “which promises an unforgettable night of music, dance, and solidarity,” Khan wrote in the GoFundMe campaign. The festival is also being supported by several major Jewish nonprofits, including Boston’s Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Hillel International, the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish National Fund.

Organizers expect 1,500 people at the festival, which is taking place at Hockfield Court, a campus lawn just half a mile from where an anti-Israel encampment stood until a few days ago. MIT’s classes ended this week, but the school year is already over at some other local universities.


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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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