Thursday, May 23, 2024

05/23 Links Pt2: How the Hamas pogrom galvanized Israel’s enemies; Tunnel with hostages' bodies was under an UNRWA building; The Washington Post’s protocols

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: How the Hamas pogrom galvanized Israel’s enemies
Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, is a conservative in this mold. In recent months, he has accused Israel of killing too many civilians in Gaza, of deliberately obstructing the supply of humanitarian aid and of not abiding by international law. He has threatened to cut off the United Kingdom’s (very small) supply of arms to Israel and even implied that the country might unilaterally declare a Palestinian state.

This week, however, there was an abrupt change of tone. In the House of Lords, Cameron not only roundly condemned the ICC prosecutor’s move. He also softened his approach to Israel. Urged again to suspend arms export licenses, he noted that just a few days after the last time he was asked to do so, Iran attacked Israel “with a hail of over 140 cruise missiles”.

Cameron isn’t an ideologue. With woolly liberal ideals largely uninformed by factual evidence, he has generally gone with the flow of fashionable consensus. Now, however, he may be starting to realize that things are rather more complicated than he had assumed.

He has apparently been taken aback by the fierce reaction to his softer tone from within the Foreign Office, where his officials are viscerally hostile to Israel and are currently demanding that the government throw it to the wolves.

Moreover, in the wake of the U.N.’s drastic reduction of its Hamas-dictated and falsely inflated numbers of Gazan civilians killed in the war, Cameron has begun to realize that the evidence he was given by his officials that fueled his threats against Israel was fabricated.

Whether this signals a more general shift towards Israel by Britain’s foreign secretary is now almost irrelevant. For unless the Conservative Party somehow reverses the near-universal contempt in which the public currently holds it, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will become prime minister on July 5.

Although he is falling over himself to reassure the Jewish community that he has now cut out the antisemitism in the party associated with his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, few British Jews believe him. Starmer may have purged Labour of the most egregious offenders, but too many members of parliament and others in the party remain viscerally anti-Israel.

Starmer will also be keen to appease the Muslim community, which presages a harsher attitude towards Israel and may also mean an unwillingness to tackle extremist imams or Muslim antisemitism. The main problem, however, is that support for the Palestinian cause serves as the defining foreign-policy issue for progressive circles. This support drives Jew-hatred and a wish to destroy Israel.

That’s because Palestinianism is itself driven by Islamic Jew-hatred and is constructed entirely on the desire to annihilate Israel, erase the history of the Jewish people in the land and appropriate it for itself.

And that’s why the belief in the “two-state solution” is itself such a lethal error. Its premise is that the “Middle East conflict” is a dispute over the division of the land between two peoples with legitimate claims to that land. But that is simply wrong. The “conflict” is, in fact, a war of extermination waged by the Palestinian Arabs against Israel’s existence, in which a state of Palestine is to be a final solution to the existence of the Jewish homeland.

The failure of America, Britain and Europe to acknowledge this war of extermination has led to their sanitizing, incentivizing and funding Palestinian terrorism. Without this backing, the Palestinian cause and its terrorist strategy would not exist.

The requested arrest warrants and the performative posturing over “Palestine” are all part of the pincer movement of genocidal terror, brainwashed street insurrection and “human rights” lawfare aimed at the destruction of Israel. And this infernal process only exists because for decades, Britain, America and Europe have willed it so.
Seth Mandel: Hamas Has Exposed a Sickness in Western Society
Indeed, there is something very dark bubbling up to the surface of society these days. The people who latched on to semantics in the video translation look absolutely insane. Not strange, not silly, not eccentric, not unpleasant. Actually insane. The fact that some of these people teach in universities is a dirty trick committed against humanity itself.

Then today the Daily Mail released a video of an Israeli intelligence officer’s interrogation of two Hamas fighters captured on October 7, a father-and-son duo. The father describes, in detail, raping one of the Israeli women he encountered while murdering innocents that day. Then his son says this: “My father raped her, then I did and then my cousin did and then we left, but my father killed the woman after we finished raping her.”

I’m sure the same folks are out there trying to find a missing punctuation mark in the translation.

Why are people, some of whom are educators or otherwise part of the intellectual class, out here shredding their souls with a cheese grater? Why? I think one answer is that the only way to make Israel the bad guy here while still being able to sleep at night is to pretend Hamas doesn’t exist. Everything the civilized world has said about Hamas is true. Its barbarism has no limiting principle. And it does nothing but promise to continue carrying out these family rape-and-murder outings the way other people might take their kids to the renaissance fair on a lazy weekend.

There is simply no argument against the immediacy of Israel’s obligation to destroy Hamas.

At some point, we in the West are going to have to grapple seriously with the fact that, yes, the protesters and their faculty supporters are pro-Hamas, just as they say they are. The same is true of a shockingly important segment of the national political media. It’s even true of the odd politician here and there.

It is not true of the majority of this country, no matter what one might think reading the New York Times or watching the BBC. And our best chance at keeping it that way is by being brutally honest about the depths to which some in our society have sunk.
The Viciousness of the Left’s Turn against Israel
Naturally, neither the Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez nor his political ally and compatriot Josep Borrell—who was as quick to express his sorrow over the death of the Iranian president as he has been to condemn Israel for war crimes on flimsy evidence—would admit any hostility toward Jews. These two socialists would instead fall back on the rhetoric of progressive internationalism, and their defenders would rush in to complain of the “weaponization of anti-Semitism” to stifle any criticism of Israel. Susie Linfield, a scholar of leftwing anti-Zionism, has some thoughts on this matter:
There is . . . something almost laughable—though also deeply irritating—about the increasingly talmudic debate over whether anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. [The magazine] n+1 published an open letter signed by many leftist Jewish writers, insisting that the two “anti’s” aren’t the same. But they couldn’t bring themselves even to mention the Hamas attacks by name, instead putting forth a sort of wimpy “all lives matter” line. So let’s stipulate: no, anti-Zionism isn’t always anti-Semitism. You’re not an anti-Semite? Mazel tov! Unfortunately, the political positions of many self-professed anti-Zionists are atrocious nonetheless.

And what’s so weird about all this is that in the aftermath of October 7, it’s become crystal clear that anti-Zionism is often anti-Semitism, and deeply so. The loathing, the resentment, the vilification of Jews is viscerally palpable in so many of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, articles, statements. The n+1 statement was titled “A Dangerous Conflation.” It seems to me that what’s dangerous is the vicious, unhinged anti-Semitism that is circulating all over the world and all over this country, including in its elite spaces.

This is one of the many striking passages in an interview with Linfield by Robert Boyers for the left-leaning journal Salmagundi. Boyers, although admirably open-minded, comes to the conversation with the assumptions of someone steeped in progressive assumptions about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, for which Linfield has little patience. For instance, to the insistence that the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel (BDS) isn’t anti-Semitic even if “some BDS supporters envision a total undoing of the Zionist project,” Linfield responds:
What does it mean to “totally undo” a national project—in this case, one that saved millions of Jewish lives? Who the hell is BDS to undo a national project? Are there other national projects on its hit list—France? Bangladesh? China? Why is eliminationism considered a valid “project”—a progressive project!—when it comes to the state of the Jewish people? What will the “total undoing” of Israel look like? We know the answer: it will look like October 7.


Under an UNRWA building | The tunnel where the hostages' bodies were found
Galei Tzahal military correspondent Doron Kadosh visited the tunnel in the Jabaliya "Refugee" Camp where the bodies of hostages Yitzhak Gelernter, Shani Louk, Amit Buskila, and Ron Benjamin were found.

He summed up the visit and described how the 98th Division gained control over most of the area. "Hundreds of terrorists were eliminated, and the troops from the 202nd Battalion describe fighting like they never seen before - tougher, against terrorists who they referred to as 'bold.' It is a tough nut that they managed to crack."

The soldiers told Kadosh that on the ground, they did not have intelligence on the tunnel shaft where they found the bodies. "The soldiers had no information about the shaft. A lot of resourcefulness and sharpness was needed to understand that there was something out of the ordinary there, and enough stubbornness to search," Kadosh wrote and quoted the Battalion Commander, Maj. Almog, who said they could have easily missed it.

According to Kadosh, several days were needed to fight in the area and to study the shaft until they reached the hostages' bodies. The shaft from where the bodies were extracted looked totally normal. Concrete, a ladder, 10 meters deep."

He added: "You certainly won't be surprised to hear that the building where the shaft was was built by UNRWA, with European funding, as the sign on the building reveals."


Michael Gove: Antisemitism
There is much more that needs to be done. I believe universities, schools, government departments, the NHS and local government – indeed all public bodies – should sign up to a charter against antisemitism, adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism and make clear that antisemitic agitation will be met with clear disciplinary action.

We also need to ensure that the marches on our streets which have caused so much distress, indeed physical intimidation, of Jewish people are dealt with more effectively.

That is not to criticise the police, who have to operate within a framework we politicians set. We politicians must do better.

And we can. Today the former Labour MP, John Woodcock, will publish a ground-breaking report into political violence and intimidation. Its analysis is brilliant and its recommendations both compelling and far-reaching. Some will require detailed debate and thought but that cannot be an excuse for delay in dealing with the challenges he addresses. We must make rapid progress to deal with the intimidatory consequences of marches by looking at their cumulative effect, consider more closely how to police repeated invocations of prejudice, and ensure organisers pay for the consequences of their actions.

There is also more we need to do to bolster the role of the Government’s Independent Adviser on Antisemitism; and to take the matter with the seriousness it demands, I intend to establish a parallel Independent Adviser on Anti-Muslim Hatred. We must also call out extremist groups, ensure they aren’t given public platforms, endorsement or money, tighten the rules on charities and look at how to ensure extremists cannot abuse our tax system.

But alongside legislation in parliament and executive action by Government there is a broader duty. One for all of us.

We must not be silent. 

We must not let tolerance for different views become a moral relativism that refuses to defend the democratic principles and traditions we cherish in this country.

We must say to every Jewish citizen in this country - your safety is the best guarantee of our security, your freedom to live as you choose the only way we can be certain we remain a land of liberty, your future is our future. We said “Never Again”. And that is a promise we will never, ever, disavow.




The Washington Post’s protocols
I felt a sickening sense of déjà vu when I read a recent Washington Post article. The article insinuated that American Jewish leaders conspired to improperly influence New York City’s mayor and police to crack down on violent anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University. The echoes of the infamous antisemitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” were unmistakable and chilling.

First published in Russia in 1903, the “Protocols” claimed to describe a Jewish plot to take over the world. That plot never existed. The “Protocols” was an absurd lie. Nonetheless, its false portrayal of Jews as cynical manipulators of world events who use nefarious backroom dealings to gain control of the economy, media and politicians was hugely influential, with dire consequences.

This vile propaganda gave a pseudo-intellectual veneer to ancient anti-Jewish conspiracy theories that falsely charged Jews with exercising nefarious omnipotent power and being disloyal to the nations in which they resided. Sadly, its toxic mythology continues to contaminate public discourse. The Washington Post article in question is the proof.

The article paints a picture of Jews operating as a unified, power-brokering cabal. This cabal, it is implied, exercises ill-gotten “influence” over political leaders in order to suppress free speech on campus. This is textbook “Protocols” and, like the “Protocols,” it is completely false.

First, contrary to the article’s implications, nothing Jewish leaders did was secret. American Jews have been as public as humanly possible about our demand that our sons and daughters be kept safe on campus. We have been begging and pleading with city leaders and police to enforce the law in order to prevent further harassment and violence against Jewish students.

We shouldn’t have to do this. The law should have been enforced months ago. Everyone has the right to be safe, including on a college campus. Students have the right to receive the education for which they have paid tens of thousands of dollars without interference from campus racists. Unfortunately, we all saw the congressional hearing at which the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT refused to say whether calls for the genocide of the Jews violated their codes of conduct. The hearing proved that universities around the country consider antisemitic violence to be protected speech. This is, of course, absurd and morally bankrupt.
Seth Mandel: The High Price of Trusting Unreliable Allies
Above and beyond everything else, then, Egypt had the chutzpah to humiliate the Biden administration. And if the reports about the hostage deal are true, Cairo plainly embarrassed the American president there, too.

The Egyptians aren’t the only ones to put the Biden White House in a tough spot these past few days. The International Criminal Court’s announcement that it will seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (in addition to Hamas leaders) hits uncomfortably close to home for the president. Just three months ago, a California court heard and dismissed a suit against Biden alleging his complicity in genocide.

The judge in that case seemed to agree with the basic assumptions of the charges but begged off on a question of jurisdiction: “Foreign policy is constitutionally committed to the political branches of government, and disputes over foreign policy are considered non-justiciable political questions.” Biden is often greeted by protesters chanting or holding signs calling him “Genocide Joe.” The last thing he wants is to give even the impression of legitimacy to the ICC, a mock-trial, play-pretend “world court” run by the same sort of people who would bring a genocide case against Biden here at home.

Nor can Biden be too pleased by this morning’s stunt by three European governments to recognize a “state of Palestine.” Yet in all these cases, the world seems to be following Biden’s lead. As my colleague Abe Greenwald has been saying on the daily podcast all week: What, exactly, did Biden expect? The ICC’s description of the war isn’t too far off from Biden’s harshest criticism of Israel. The administration talks constantly about a path to a Palestinian state; Ireland, Spain, and Norway are just taking the handoff and carrying the ball downfield. The White House has done more to blow up hostage talks than Egypt has. And the instinct to blame everything on Israel would surely suggest Egypt could simply throw up its hands in Rafah and stay out of the aid game.

For all the talk about Israel “defying” the world on this or that element of its war management, the hard truth is that the Jewish state is paying a high price for its multilateralism. This week has been a wake-up call. Now let’s see who hears it.
Bret Stephens: The Israelis Have Nowhere Else to Go
The danger to Israel from moves at the ICC, or from campus protests, boycott and divestment efforts or various kinds of arms embargoes, are minimal.

Contrary to some opinions, Israelis are not "settler-colonialists." Jews believe they are originally from the Land of Israel because they are.

And Zionism, far from being a colonialist project, is the oldest anticolonialist struggle in history, starting during the Roman era, if not the Babylonian Captivity before it.

The idea that Israeli Jews should return, like the Algerian French, to the lands of their forebears misses the point. The Israelis have nowhere else to go, a fact underscored by the waves of hatred now engulfing Jewish diasporic communities.

They will not return to the lands of Russian pogroms, or Arab massacres, or the Holocaust.

The more pressure is exerted on Israel to relent in the face of its enemies, the more Zionism it will generate.

Nothing so crystallizes Jewish identity as the daily reminders of bigotry.

Jews have the right to rule themselves as a sovereign state in their original homeland.
JPost Editorial: Hamas should not be rewarded for terrorism with a Palestinian state
In a video released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum on Wednesday, footage from Hamas terrorists' body cameras captures the violent kidnapping of female IDF soldiers on Oct. 7. The footage shows the violent, humiliating treatment to which they have been subjected. Seven female soldiers were abducted. Fifteen others were murdered. Should such barbaric behavior earn Hamas and its followers a sovereign state?

To respond to this carnage by recognizing "Palestine" as a state is an affront to justice and human decency. By recognizing Palestine now, Ireland, Norway, and Spain are effectively sending a message that the international community is willing to overlook or even excuse acts of terror when perpetrated against Israelis.

A two-state solution cannot be achieved by legitimizing entities that engage in and support terrorism. It can only be done through sincere and peaceful negotiations, which Hamas has repeatedly shown no interest in pursuing. Unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood encourages those who believe that terror and violence are effective means by which to achieve political ends, enabling further acts of terror not just in the Middle East but globally.
Spain, Ireland, Norway recognizing Palestinian state is largely symbolic, experts say
The European states’ decisions are also damaging to efforts to free the 128 hostages who remain in Hamas captivity in Gaza, Katz added.

“This is a tailwind for Hamas’ jihadis,” he said. “The march of folly…does not deter us. We are determined to attain our goals, to bring security back to our citizens, to dismantle Hamas and to return the hostages. There are no aims more just than these.”

Katz was in Paris on Wednesday, where he met with his French counterpart, Stéphane Séjourné, who expressed opposition to unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state, according to the Israeli readout of the meeting.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, responding to Ireland, Norway and Spain’s recognition of a Palestinian state and the International Court of Justice considering arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, called on Netanyahu to halt the transfer of Palestinian Authority tax revenue, which had been funneled through Norway since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

“The Palestinians are acting against Israel using diplomatic terrorism and are advancing unilateral steps in the world, and I don’t have to continue transferring them money,” Smotrich said. “If this makes the Palestinian Authority collapse – so it’ll collapse. I will not artificially revive the PA in order for it to act against me.”

The EU supports a two-state solution. EU member states that were previously part of the Eastern Bloc — Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria — as well as Cyprus and Sweden already recognize a Palestinian state. The majority of U.N. member states – 140 out of 193 – recognize a Palestinian state, as well.

In March, the leaders of Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and Malta announced their “readiness to recognize Palestine,” and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said he hoped a “critical mass” of Western countries would do the same.

Belgium, Luxembourg and Portugal were originally in the EU group discussing recognizing a Palestinian state, but they left, with Belgium accusing Sánchez of using the move for domestic political needs and saying the Palestinians should reach specific milestones before being recognized as a state.


Stephen Pollard: Ireland Has Taken the Side of Hamas Terrorism
The Irish, Spanish and Norwegian governments have decided to recognize Palestine as a state. Hamas has already welcomed it. The terrorist organization (which is committed to the elimination of Jews) now has direct causal evidence to show to Palestinians that terrorism works. Hamas murdered Jews and a few months later, bingo: the Irish, the Spanish and the Norwegians all fall into line.

Don't think this will have any beneficial impact for the Palestinians themselves. Previously, 141 countries recognized a Palestinian state. If you think the addition of three more countries will somehow magic up the existence of an actual Palestinian state rather than the imagined one, then, as they say, I have a bridge to sell you. Moreover, Israel will continue to have diplomatic relations with almost all of these now 144 countries.

All three countries have long been in the vanguard of support for Palestine, mostly because it is costless and bolsters their domestic support. It's also frivolous showboating. Try asking any of these countries what the borders are of this supposed Palestinian state and you'll get no response, because there is no state to recognize and there are no agreed borders.


Chikli slams Spanish prime minister's decision as 'folly and heartlessness' at Madrid conference
The Spanish prime minister’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state was an “incomprehensible folly and heartlessness,” Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli said.

He made the comments at the VOX conference in Madrid, which featured conservative leaders worldwide and included virtual contributions from Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni.

Chikli emphasized the existential nature of the current conflict and condemned the Palestinian Authority’s lack of condemnation regarding Hamas’s actions.

Last month, Chikli attended the CPAC conference in Hungary and praised the Hungarian prime minister, calling him “a true friend of Israel.”

In January, at a European Jewish Association conference in Krakow, Chikli stated he would not form alliances with Diaspora Jews participating in international protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

“A Jew who feels at home when surrounded by a crowd shouting ‘from the river to the sea Palestine will be free,’ I do not consider him a Jew and do not wish to build a bridge with him,” Chikli said.

The Madrid conference addressed various topics: conservatism, immigration, and the war in Israel. A significant portion of the discussion centered on Spain’s planned recognition of a Palestinian state, which some viewed as a reward for terrorism. On Wednesday, along with Ireland and Norway, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez agreed to recognize a Palestinian state alongside Israel, advocating for a two-state solution as “essential for sustainable peace.”


Pro-Palestinian College Protests Have Not Won Hearts and Minds
Pro-Palestinian college protests have faded somewhat from the news, as law enforcement has cracked down on encampments and schools break for the summer.

While the protests might have earned some concessions from administrators, it's become clear that they've failed in winning over the American public.

Multiple polls in recent weeks have shown relatively little sympathy for the protesters or approval of their actions.

Large numbers of Americans have attached the "antisemitic" label to them.

The Siena College poll of New Yorkers shows they agreed 70% to 22% that the protests "went too far, and I support the police being called in to shut them down."

YouGov polling this month showed Americans disapproved of the protests by around a 2-1 margin.

A Fox News poll showed just 16% said the protests made them more sympathetic to Palestinians, while 29% said the protests made them less sympathetic.

The Fox poll showed Americans said that "antisemitic" described the protests, 46-45. A Suffolk University poll showed Americans said the protests "reflect antisemitism," 41-40.

A Yahoo/YouGov survey showed 37% of Americans said that "all" or "most" protesters are antisemitic - more than the 30% who said only "few" or "none" are.

The Siena poll showed that New Yorkers agreed 61-25 that the protesters have lost sight of Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis and that "it feels like these demonstrations have crossed the line into antisemitism."

Even Democrats agreed, 54-32. Even adults under the age of 35 agreed, 46-38.
Israel: State of a Nation with Eylon Levy: History Repeats | Izabella Tabarovsky on how the New Student Protests are Just Same Old Antisemitism
Student radicals protesting on campuses around the world, Israel condemned for everything that’s wrong with the world. I hope you’re having deja-vu. The massive anti-Israel protest movement didn’t come out of nowhere, and its accusations against the Jewish state are nothing new. They have deep roots. And for that, we have to go back to Soviet Russia, to see how the USSR planted the seeds of the ideological movement that has captured Western campuses and is weaponizing them against the Jews.

Izabella Tabarovsky is a Senior Program Associate at the Kennan Institute of the Wilson Center and a contributing writer at Tablet Magazine. She’s one of the world’s leading experts on Soviet anti-Zionism, contemporary left-wing anti-Semitism, and what connects them.

Izabella takes us through the history of ideas that has led to where we find ourselves today. She shows us that nothing being presented by today’s cosplaying student radicals in the global Tentifada are new or fresh. Rather, they link back to a lengthy history of anti-semitic tropes that have served the interests of Israel’s staunchest and most powerful enemies throughout time.




House Republican Probes State Department Communication With ‘Radical Pro-Hamas Groups’
A House Republican asked the State Department on Wednesday to turn over "all records and correspondence it has had with radical pro-Hamas groups linked to the funding of the anti-Semitic protests that have exploded across college campuses in recent months," the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Rep. Brian Mast (R., Fla.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, requested that the State Department produce a range of records and internal documents that will show if U.S. officials have been communicating with organizations that have been bankrolling anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses throughout the country.

This includes any communication the State Department has engaged in with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), both of which are on the front lines of the campus anti-Israel movement and providing support to student agitators. Israeli terror victims are suing SJP and AMP over allegations they serve "as collaborators and propagandists for Hamas" in the United States.

Among the groups Mast is seeking information about are the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Palestine Legal, the Adalah Justice Project, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Tides Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Westchester Peace Action Committee (WESPAC). Each of these groups has been identified as primary funding networks for anti-Israel activities in the United States.

Mast’s probe comes less than two weeks after House lawmakers launched a separate investigation into many of the groups named above for possible instances of money laundering or material support for terrorism. With the campus protest movement drawing national attention, many Republicans in Congress are seeking to identify how these funding channels function and whether the Biden administration has been coordinating with any of these groups behind the scenes.

Mast says the State Department’s internal records are necessary to determine if U.S. officials are coordinating their policies with anti-Israel advocates, particularly in the wake of the Biden administration’s decision to pause some arms sales to Israel.

"Each of these groups has been identified as either a supporter or a funder of the anti-Semitic protest movement seen across college campuses nationwide," Mast wrote. "Given the anti-Israel stance increasingly being adopted by the Biden administration, Congress needs to know if State Department officials have been in contact with these organizations or their representatives."
Philanthropist who gave $30M to U Manitoba condemns 'hateful' valedictory speech, university for allowing it
The philanthropist behind the University of Manitoba's largest-ever personal donation — $30 million — has denounced a speech made by a valedictorian for medicine grads and admonished the university for letting it happen.

In a letter dated Monday, Ernest Rady says he was hurt and appalled by the remarks by valedictorian Gem Newman at the May 16 convocation for students from the Max Rady College of Medicine. The school was renamed in honour of Rady's father after the 2016 donation.

"Newman's speech not only dishonoured the memory of my father, but also disrespected and disparaged Jewish people as a whole," said Rady's letter, sent to U of M president Michael Benarroch and college of medicine dean Dr. Peter Nickerson.

Approximately two minutes of Newman's nine-minute address focused on the war in Gaza and called for a ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, which began after an Oct. 7 cross-border attack on Israel led by Hamas that killed roughly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 others hostage.
Tablet Editors Letter: The End of a School Year Like No Other
For Jewish American college students, last fall began with optimism: finding old friends on campus, new books stacked on dorm-room desks, curiosity about the semester to come.

But what followed the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 crushed that optimistic spirit: Zionists are not welcome. Go back to Poland. Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists. Jewish students across the country were targeted and vilified; they lost friends; in some cases they were told by administrators that their safety could not be ensured.

To mark the end of a year like no other, we have collected short reflections from college students across the country. These are not stories about Israel but about America; they are not about the war in Gaza but the one at home.
Founding Member of Palestinian Terror Org Urges Americans To Attend Anti-Israel Conference in Michigan
A founding member of the terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is urging Americans to attend an anti-Israel conference in Michigan this weekend, calling on "friends and supporters of our cause" to develop "a strategy for unified action" against "Zionist forces."

In a promotional video posted Sunday by the Palestinian Youth Movement—one of the "People's Conference for Palestine" organizers—PFLP founder Salah Salah thanked the group for "organizing unprecedented protests" against the "Zionist forces," which he accused of committing "heinous crimes and massacres" and likened to Nazis. The Jewish state's enemies, he said, should use the conference to establish "further coordination and an agreement on a strategy for unified action."

"It is a racist vitriol that offers a new model to Nazism, targeting children, women, the elderly, and the sick, and destroying public facilities, particularly hospitals and schools," Salah said of Israel. "Participation in this People's Conference is crucial on a large scale and on the highest level to set a plan that offers further coordination and an agreement on a strategy for unified action that guarantees continuity and consistency to achieve the goals and tasks posed by the conference."

Those "goals and tasks," according to the Palestinian Youth Movement and other conference organizers, include putting "all backers of Zionism, Israel, and US imperialism … on notice."

"The perpetrators of genocide and occupation have names and faces, and the masses of people around the world stand against them in the millions," the conference's website says. "This moment calls on us to strengthen our relationships, our strategies, our tactics, and our unity for the struggle ahead."

The terrorist-endorsed conference could provide a political headache for Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and other Democrats in the state.
Lawyer who posts about Hamas killing IDF troops is adviser to Rutgers, CAIR
A day before his scheduled testimony about campus antisemitism to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Rutgers University president Jonathan Holloway will face new allegations after the New York Post revealed a man affiliated with the school who has joked about the deaths of Israeli soldiers and allied with an organization whose leader celebrated the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.

A family and divorce lawyer in New Jersey, Rajeh A. Saadeh is also an adviser to the state’s Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chapter and Rutgers’ Center for Security, Race and Rights.

Saadeh shares antisemitic content on social media—notably, videos of Hamas terrorists killing IDF soldiers. One shows a Hamas fighter assassinating members of the Israel Defense Forces, which Saadeh responded to with “say a prayer.” In a video of terrorists emerging from a tunnel and shooting at IDF soldiers, Saadeh declares “scenes from an ongoing epic!” and employs the hashtags “funny” and “lol.”

In a series of reposts on X, he calls the discovery of the body of 22-year-old Shani Louk, who was murdered at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7 and then dragged across the border into Gaza, a Zionist hoax.

Alongside a video showing IDF soldiers blown up by a Hamas-fired rocket-propelled grenade, Saadeh writes: “Three birds one stone.”
Amid campus protests, organizers with past ties to Hamas support also emerge
On Day 7 of the pro-Palestinian protests on the Columbia University campus, Osama Abuirshaid stopped by the student encampment.

The executive director of American Muslims for Palestine walked through the tent city, then made a fiery speech to the gathered crowd.

“This is not only a genocide that is being committed in Gaza,” Abuirshaid said. “This is also a war on us here in America.”

Forty-eight hours later, Abuirshaid appeared at another campus — George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he delivered another speech. Osama Abuirshaid at a protest event at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., April 26, 2024.

Campus protests, which swept the country this spring, emerged as an outcry over the civilian death toll of the military campaign Israel launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. Most student protesters have sought to distance themselves from Hamas, which the United States designated as a terrorist entity in 1997.

But top members of Abuirshaid’s organization have complex connections to the campus protest movement. And Abuirshaid and others from American Muslims for Palestine were once employees or officials at another group tied to direct financial support for Hamas, USA TODAY found.

From 2002 to 2004, Abuirshaid ran the internal newspaper for a pro-Palestinian media organization called Islamic Association for Palestine. The group’s sister fundraising organization, the Holy Land Foundation was designated a terror group in 2001, investigated by the FBI and indicted by the Department of Justice. Ultimately, the foundation’s leaders went to prison for supporting terrorists, and a federal judge later found both groups responsible for funding Hamas.

An array of pending civil lawsuits alleges that Abuirshaid’s current group also has close Hamas ties, though these claims remain unproven as the suits work their way through the judicial system.
Most New Yorkers believe ugly anti-Israel protests are now antisemitic, back police crackdown after Columbia chaos: poll
The vast majority of New Yorkers believe that the anti-Israel protests on Big Apple campuses were fueled by antisemitism — and they support the police crackdown on the ugly demonstrations, an eye-opening new poll shows.

Sixty-one percent of registered voters from across the Empire State agreed that the campus protesters “have forgotten that Hamas started this war” and that the demonstrations “have crossed the line into anti-Semitism,” according to a Sienna College poll.

By comparison, only a quarter (25%) of respondents disagreed, while the rest were undecided.

More than two-thirds of New Yorkers (70%) also said they supported the police action to shut down unruly protests that went too far and crossed the line into Jew-hatred. Less than a quarter (22%) disagreed.

The results come just weeks after 44 pro-terror rioters — who included two university staffers — were arrested after barricading themselves inside Columbia University’s iconic Hamilton Hall, where they smashed windows and draped it with a giant flag calling for “intifada.”

Meanwhile, 72% of voters said they support students “peacefully” demonstrating in support of Palestinians suffering in Gaza, while 22% disagreed.

Similarly, about two-thirds (64%) of New Yorkers support an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, while 27% did not, the Sienna poll found.
Northwestern President Won't Commit To Excluding Anti-Semites From Anti-Semitism Task Force
Northwestern University president Michael Schill refused to say he wouldn’t appoint anti-Semites to the school’s committee to combat anti-Semitism during a congressional hearing on Thursday.

Northwestern’s task force to combat anti-Semitism was appointed by Schill last fall in response to concerns about rising anti-Jewish sentiment at the school. The committee was recently disbanded after seven Jewish members resigned in protest over the university's decision to negotiate with anti-Israel protesters.

Schill was questioned by lawmakers about his decision to appoint several members who advocated anti-Israel boycotts, supported the eliminationist "From the River to the Sea" chant, and defended a Palestinian terrorist who murdered college students.

He declined to say he wouldn’t appoint members with similar views to a future committee.

"I will be appointing to the task force that we're going to create faculty, staff, administrators, who I believe are committed to fighting anti-Semitism and as committed to fighting anti-Semitism as I am," Schill told the House Committee on Education and the Workforce during the hearing.

Schill’s response is likely to fuel outrage from Jewish and pro-Israel Northwestern alumni, students, and parents, who have called for the president to resign. It comes after universities across the country struggled to deal with a surge in anti-Semitism this spring. At Northwestern, Jewish students said they were spit on, assaulted, and told to "go back to Germany and get gassed" by anti-Israel protesters.


Elite university journalism professor exposed for monthslong campaign justifying Hamas
A left-wing journalism professor who teaches at a top Chicago-area university has for months justified Hamas terrorists' war on Israel and even joined anti-Israel student agitators on campus, Fox News Digital learned after reviewing his social media and blog posts.

Steven Thrasher is an associate professor of journalism at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and has been "regularly published in the New York Times, BuzzFeed News, Esquire, the Nation, the Atlantic, the Guardian, and the Daily Beast," according to his school biography.

Thrasher's activism could be raised on Thursday when Northwestern's president, as well as leaders from UCLA and Rutgers, appears before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce for a hearing titled "Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos."

"Staff like Professor Steven Thrasher continue to peddle hateful antisemitic canards," Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez told Fox News Digital. "This professor has employed hateful rhetoric, invoked antisemitic tropes, and fostered a hostile environment that endangers Jewish students on campus."

Thrasher's bio states that he is "the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg Chair of social justice in reporting (with an emphasis on issues relevant to the LGBTQ community) and an assistant professor of journalism." His areas of expertise include methods of how to study the intersection of "racism, homophobia, policing, medicine, incarceration, culture, and health."

A review of Thrasher’s social media accounts found that stretching back to October of last year, when Hamas launched an attack against Israel, Thrasher espoused anti-Israel rhetoric appearing to defend Hamas.

"White supremacy and settler colonialism can NOT kill, maim and steal for decades (or even centuries) via genocidal violence and then expect patience and peace — ESPECIALLY when peaceful protest is met with economic, spiritual and literal death," he posted on X on Oct. 9 of last year. Fox News Digital reviewed the posts earlier this week, before Thrasher protected his X account.

"For those asking 'But why don’t Palestinians protest peacefully; may I remind you that for me—who is not even Palestinian!!!—merely calling for *peaceful boycott* cost me the German translation of my book, made my PhD advisor shun me forever & almost cost me my entire career," he wrote in another post that same day.

Later that month, Thrasher compared Israel to the Nazis, claiming the country was carrying out "a genocide of the disabled" in Gaza.


Stanford pro-Palestinian encampment invites imam with history of antisemitism
Students with Stanford University’s pro-Palestinian encampment announced on social media their plans to host an imam with a long history of antisemitic statements and calls for a Muslim caliphate in the U.S.

Amir Abdel Malik Ali is scheduled to speak at 5 p.m. Wednesday at White Plaza, site of the tent encampment on campus, according to three Instagram accounts associated with the protest.

Born Derek Gilliam, Ali is a California imam who “promotes anti-Semitism, violence and conspiracy theories that blame the U.S. government and Jews for attacks by Islamic terrorists,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which profiled the religious leader back in a 2011 report of “10 leading domestic jihadists.”

“He’s at his most hyperbolic when talking about Jews,” the SPLC report states, adding that Ali “argues that Jews run the U.S. government” and the media.

In December 2023, Ali delivered a sermon at the Muslim Community Association in Santa Clara, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, in which he rejected that Jews are “semites” and called them “Europeans who converted to Judaism while in Europe.”

“We know they are not the Chosen People anymore. Muslims know that they are not the Chosen People anymore,” he said in the address, an excerpt of which was published on social media. “They assassinated Zachariah, and John the Baptist, and tried to assassinate Jesus.”

“Everyone sees you for who you really are,” he added in his speech. “You are the new Nazis. That is who you are and that is how we’re coming at you.”

Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine advertised the event jointly with two other groups, alongside the message: “Disclose. Divest. Defend. Rise Up. Resist. Reclaim.”
‘After Israel, comes the rest of us’: Protesters warned against pro-Palestine stance
Finance Entrepreneur Dr Roger Gewolb discusses the pro-Palestine protests taking place across Australian universities.

“These kids are going to be very disappointed one day when they realise that they’re turkeys for Christmas,” Dr Gewolb told Sky News host Gabriella Power.

“After Israel, comes all the rest of us – we're infidels according to these Islamic terrorists.

“Everyone who is not their kind of Muslim should be exterminated.”


University Chancellor Apologizes for Caving to Pro-Hamas Protesters
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s (UWM) chancellor has apologized to the Jewish community for reaching an agreement with an anti-Zionist group which ended a “Gaza encampment” in exchange for the school’s issuing a statement calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas and considering an academic boycott of Israel.

“It is clear to me that UWM should not have weighed in on deeply complex geopolitical and historical issues,” UWM chancellor Mark Mone said on Tuesday. “And for that, I apologize. I acknowledge that it is an increasingly difficult time for many Jewish students at UWM and across America.”

He added, “Let me be clear: UWM resolutely condemns antisemitism, just as we do Islamophobia and all other forms of hatred. Our campus must be a place that welcomes all students and the full expression their history, culture, identity, and ethnicity. But words alone cannot create the culture of inclusion we desire, which is why we must transform our words into commitment and action. This work will take time, as all hard work does, and it will also take the openness of our entire community.”

Mone did not say whether he intends to honor the deal he brokered with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group that has been linked to terrorist organizations and is a source of a substantial number of antisemitic incidents on college campuses. In addition to agreeing to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, on May 12, he issued a statement describing Israel’s war to destroy the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza as “genocide,” citing figures reported by Hamas-controlled authorities which have been lambasted by experts as unreliable. The deal also stipulates UWM’s reviewing “its study abroad policies” and pressuring a local environmental organization to cut ties with two Israeli companies, which Mone has already done.

“University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone capitulated to protesters who violated UWM codes of conduct and state law, vandalized university property, and used harassment and intimidation to fuel antisemitism on campus,” the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, Hillel Milwaukee, and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said about the deal in a joint statement. “The agreement is amongst the most offensive and dangerous of any university agreement reached with encampment protesters over the last two weeks.”

Mone is not the only university leader accused of injuring Jewish university life to appease anti-Zionist protesters.
Jewish Learning Institute: Columbia Students on How It Feels to Be Jewish on Campus
Join a candid roundtable discussion with Jewish students and leaders at Columbia University as they talk about life on campus post-October 7th. From new waves of Antisemitism and explosions of hate and prejudice to the heartwarming increase in Jewish pride and connection -- this episode shares a meaningful and hopeful light in the face of surrounding darkness.




‘Mass arrests’ in Oxford as anti-Israel students occupy a university building
An Oxford University building is under lockdown and there are reports that sixteen anti-Israel protesters have been arrested, with large numbers of police at the scene.

Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P) organised a sit-in at the University of Oxford offices on Wellington Square and said they would not leave until the university meets them and reviews its policies about the war in Gaza.

Well over 100 people have gathered outside the offices, chanting “let them go” towards the building where the arrested students remain as protestors clash with police outside

University staff are reportedly trapped inside the building without access to toilets. One witness told the Daily Mail: “They are literally locked in their offices with no access to toilets"

Protesters entered the university building at 8am on Thursday and by lunchtime, a number of Police officers had arrived at the scene, with one van bringing police dogs.


'It’s insane': Rebel News journalist Avi Yemini slams policing of 'pro-Hamas' protesters and 'dishonest' media coverage
Rebel News journalist Avi Yemini has slammed the media coverage of the major protests in Melbourne over the weekend.

Mr Yemini, who is an Australian born Israeli, spoke to Sky News host Andrew Bolt on Wednesday and explained the media was “absolutely dishonest” by presenting the clash between anti-Israel protesters and a rally against anti-Semitism as two comparable groups, while failing to mention which one the six arrests belonged to.

At the protests on Sunday, one person was arrested for bill posting, three for hindering police while another was arrested for hindering police and stating a false name.

A sixth person was arrested for assaulting police and was found to be in possession of a drug of dependence.

The anti-Semitism protesters, among whom were Christian founders of the “Never Again is Now” movement and members of the Jewish community, waved Australian and Israeli flags while holding up umbrellas with the slogan “stop hate mate”.

Dozens of Victoria Police, mounted police and riot squad officers descended on the city centre to wedge a divide between the two groups.

Mr Yemini said the protest over the weekend demonstrated the stark difference between the two groups and their behaviour, while the media failed to differentiate them.

“On the weekend, if you go to any pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel – pro-Hamas, let’s call them for what they are – and you wave an Israeli flag, you’ll get mobbed and then you’ll get whisked away and issued a move-on order for your own safety,” he said.

“It’s insane. And the insanity of it all is that, once again, it’s being done with the media’s help. The fact they can even compare these groups… they’re really unwilling to hold them accountable.”




BBC ‘made an error’ in failing to refer to Hamas as terrorists, says Culture Secretary
The BBC “made an error” by failing to refer to Hamas as terrorists in its coverage of the Gaza conflict, the Culture Secretary has said.

Lucy Frazer said she had raised the issue in a private board meeting with the public service broadcaster amid criticism of its reporting.

Speaking in front of MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Ms Frazer said: “We discussed very clearly the position that the BBC did not refer to Hamas as terrorists. It was a matter I had publicly called the BBC out on, I think the previous week in a newspaper article.

“I put points to the BBC in a private meeting about something I had already said publicly about the reasons why I thought their guidance allowed them to refer to Hamas as terrorists.”

Asked if it was appropriate to put pressure on the BBC over the use of language in its reporting, the Culture Secretary said: “I think the BBC made an error, which I’ve been very public about, in its refusing to recognise the use of the term ‘terrorists’.”

Ms Frazer added that she had asked her officials whether it was appropriate to raise the issue at the meeting and informed the BBC of her intention to do so.

The BBC has drawn criticism from Rishi Sunak and Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, over its refusal to label Hamas as terrorists.

The broadcaster instead opts for the term “militants” and only uses the word “terrorists” when quoting other people, such as the Government.

John Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor, has previously defended the policy, saying: “It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn – who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.”

However, new chairman Samir Shah has said he will review the broadcaster’s editorial guidelines, adding that it needs to “consider very clearly” its refusal to use the term terrorist.


Jamaal Bowman Accuses AIPAC of Being Funded By ‘Racist’ Republicans During Podcast Interview
US Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) complained about the amount of attention given to antisemitism and accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) of racism during a Tuesday interview with the Higher Learning podcast.

Higher Learning hosts Rachel Lindsay and Van Lathan asked Bowman if he believed the attention given to his views on the Israel-Hamas war have served as a distraction during his Democratic primary. Bowman agreed and argued that the US Congress has focused outsized attention on Israel at the expense of its constituents.

“Every other week, with all due respect, it seems like we’re voting on a bill related to Israel in support of Israel or reasserting that we are not antisemitic,” Bowman said.

Bowman said “racism” is the reason why Congress supposedly addresses the needs of Jews more urgently than its black and brown constituents

“The organization AIPAC, they’re funded mostly by racist, MAGA Republicans. And most of their resources go towards challenging black and brown members of Congress who happen to be critical of Israel, whether it is the occupation or apartheid or what’s happening right now,” Bowman said.

He added that AIPAC, the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, has had more time and opportunity to build “political power” and “economic power” than “marginalized folk” such as black Americans and immigrants.

Bowman then accused George Latimer, his opponent in the Democratic primary, of being financed by “MAGA Trump donors.” Bowman also pointed to AIPAC’s endorsement of Latimer as proof of his opponent’s lack of progressive bona fides.

“So this is an individual who is endorsed by AIPAC, which is mostly funded by MAGA Republicans, the same MAGA Republicans who didn’t certify the election results in 2020, the same MAGA Republicans who are trying to take your reproductive freedom, the same MAGA Republicans trying to take our voting rights,” Bowman said.


MEMRI: Palestinian Journalist: In Negotiations With Israel, Hamas Leader In Gaza Yahya Sinwar Prioritizes His Personal Interests Over The Welfare Of The Gazans, Even At The Cost Of 'Destroying All That Is Palestinian'
In a series of columns on the Saudi news website Elaph and in the London-based Emirati daily Al-Arab, Palestinian journalist Abd Al-Bari Fayyad pointedly criticized the stubbornness displayed by Hamas, and especially by its leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, in the negotiations for the release of the Israeli hostages. Noting that this stubbornness thwarts any possibility of reaching an agreement and thereby deepens the suffering of the Gazans, Fayyad added that Sinwar is ignoring the dire consequences of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood (i.e., the October 7 attacks) on the residents of the Gaza Strip out of an obsessive desire to remain in power even at the cost of every Gazan's life. Fayyad expressed concern that Sinwar's conduct will be "a prelude to the return of the occupation, which may weigh heavily on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for decades to come."

The following are translated excerpts from these columns.

Sinwar, Who Serves Iran, Is Obsessed With Retaining Leadership Of Hamas Even At Risk Of Destroying All That Is Palestinian

In is May 7, 2024 article titled "This Is How Sinwar Makes Trouble for Hamas," Fayyad wrote: "Israel surprised us yesterday when it carried out a military operation in Rafah, which it described as extremely limited and intended to pressure Hamas into accepting a temporary truce [hudna], while [Hamas] asserted that it would not forgo its conditions for a ceasefire…

"In recent hours Hamas announced that it accepts the Egyptian-Qatari proposal for a truce. The coming days may tell whether Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas' political bureau in the Gaza Strip, will prioritize his personal interests or rather prioritize the people of Gaza by waiving some of his conditions and agreeing to a truce that will prevent civilian bloodshed, especially given that the Israeli killing machine is not stopping!

"Sinwar's calculations regarding Gaza may have been mistaken, in that he insisted on all his conditions for stopping the war without reconsidering the negative consequences of the [Al-Aqsa] Flood for the people of Gaza and [the fact that] it may boomerang against the Hamas movement. It was clear from the first moment of the war that Sinwar wanted to present himself as the great Palestinian leader who managed to confound Israel with an attack unprecedented in Palestinian history since the Nakba. But an objective examination of the war and its outcomes reveals that Sinwar's self-perception, which is based on an obsession for leadership, has given rise to scenarios that severely jeopardize the future of the Gaza Strip, which is about to fall back under the rule of the occupation [some] 20 years after the late Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon withdrew from it…

"It is clear that Sinwar is not interested in swiftly concluding the agreement with Israel or in attaining a truce for the benefit of the people of Gaza, because he knows what the implications of this agreement would be for Benjamin Netanyahu's government, and because his goal is to perpetuate the resistance project, remain the head of movement and restore Gaza to Hamas control – even at the cost of continuing the war and destroying all that is Palestinian. Because nothing matters as long as the Iranian aid to the movement, estimated at about $222 million over six years, continues.

"Sinwar made his first mistake when he decided to implement Iran's agenda and planned the [October 7] operation [despite] limited options and without clearly determining its costs and benefits, while placing the burden of the complicated negotiation process on the shoulders of the Hamas leadership abroad… He then made another mistake when he set complicated terms at the very last moment of the decisive phase of the war, and here I am referring to the invasion of Rafah. All this had a negative effect on Hamas and on its leaders abroad…
Palestinian Boys Arrested in East Jerusalem for Planned Pipe Bomb Attacks
The Jerusalem Police revealed on Tuesday that they had thwarted a planned series of pipe bomb attacks in East Jerusalem.

A month-long investigation by the Central Unit of the Jerusalem District uncovered a cell of four minors, all residents of East Jerusalem, who were plotting attacks against transport vehicles and security forces in the Silwan area.

The investigation found that the boys meticulously planned their attacks, assigning specific roles among themselves for procuring materials, collecting them, monitoring, and placing the bombs. They had begun researching bomb-making on social media and had purchased some of the necessary materials, even conducting unsuccessful experiments with the explosives.

The suspects, who are all 14 years old and attend the same school, were arrested at the beginning of the month. Their detention has been extended several times by the Jerusalem Magistrate Court. Deputy Superintendent Danny Mizrahi stated, “Revealing their plan, which began to be implemented in the materials they purchased, the preparations they made, and the experiments they conducted, prevented harm to people’s lives and thwarted terrorist operations in East Jerusalem.”


Douglas Murray: Why do the UN and BBC mourn ‘Butcher of Tehran’ who hated the West and hanged rape victims?
THE President of Iran died at the weekend in a helicopter accident – news that the BBC marked with the headline “President Ebrahim Raisi’s mixed legacy in Iran”.

“Mixed legacy” is an interesting way to sum up the life of someone better known as the “Butcher of Tehran”. It's interesting to see so many organisations describe Ebrahim Raisi's 'mixed legacy' when he's better known as the 'Butcher of Tehran'

Raisi rose through the ranks of the revolutionary Islamic Government that overthrew the Shah in 1979.

And he made his name in the usual revolutionary Islamic way.

By killing his political opponents — including the leftists who the regime rounded up, imprisoned and murdered by the thousands in their jails.

Some of the obituaries have noted that Raisi helped speed up the backlog of trials in Iran.

That is true. He did it in the same way Stalin did — by killing his opponents fast.

The United Nations noted his passing in its own unique way.

At the Security Council, the member States were invited to stand and observe a minute’s silence for Raisi.

Those taking part shamefully included our own deputy ambassador to the UN, James Kariuki.
Jews face arrest for not dying while the Butcher of Tehran is honored
Under Raisi’s presidency, Iran brutally cracked down on the protests that erupted in the aftermath of the police’s murder of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was arrested in 2022 for the crime of not wearing her hijab correctly. About 22,000 protesters were arrested and 550 were killed in the crackdown. Iran remained just as oppressive to women after Amini’s death as before, and many female protesters were raped or sexually assaulted by their captors.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Raisi was involved in the planning of the Hamas massacre of October 7, when 1,200 people were mercilessly butchered in southern Israel and over 250 were taken hostage to Gaza. Raisi himself enthusiastically supported the massacre, praising the worst mass murder committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Hamas is an Iranian proxy, which receives training, funding, arms, and orders from its Iranian masters.

This is the man the United Nations chose to honor. This is the man the Security Council, the body tasked with ensuring global security, chose to hold a minute of silence for.

Jews defending themselves are committing a crime worthy of arrest, while at the same time mass murderers who are also genocidal antisemites are honored. What a world.

In a sane world, it would be Ebrahim Raisi and his master, the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who would face arrest for their endless crimes against humanity, not Netanyahu and Gallant.

A minute of silence would be held not for Raisi, but for his victims, and the only reason any decent human being should mourn his death is that he died without facing justice.

The former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan once stated that he could not fathom that the whole world could be wrong and Israel could be right. The farces played out at the UN and the ICC prove once and for all that yes, the whole world is wrong, very, very wrong. And Israel is right.


Obama State Dept blocked FBI from arresting supporters of Iran nuclear program in US: Emails
The Obama-Biden State Department "actively interfered" to prevent the FBI from executing arrest warrants on individuals illegally in the United States who were allegedly supporting Iranian financial efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, whistleblowers told Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson.

Fox News Digital obtained letters Grassley, R-Iowa, and Johnson, R-Wis., sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Attorney General Merrick Garland on the matter.

The Obama-Biden administration began its Joint Plan of Action, which served as the negotiating process for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, that was signed by then-President Obama in 2015. At the time, Obama said broader sanctions would remain in place, which the administration would "continue to enforce... vigorously."

The United States, for decades during both Republican and Democratic administrations, imposed sanctions on "Iranian individuals, companies, and organizations for involvement in nuclear proliferation, ballistic missile development, support for terrorist groups, and human rights abuses."

But Grassley and Johnson received unclassified and legally protected whistleblower disclosures which they say show that "while the Obama-Biden administration publicly committed to ‘preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons by raising the cost of Iran’s defiance of the international community,’ then-Secretary of State John Kerry actively interfered with the Federal Bureau of Investigation executing arrest warrants on individuals in the U.S. illegally supporting Iranian efforts, including financial efforts, to develop weapons of mass destruction and its ballistic missile program."

The records, according to the senators, show that the Justice Department and FBI leadership, including then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and then-FBI Director James Comey "failed to take the necessary steps to stop Kerry’s obstructive efforts against law enforcement."

One email — an unclassified FBI email from August 25, 2017 — detailed at least eight instances connected to the Iran nuclear deal where "the FBI/DOJ/USG could have moved forward with the cases but the State Department chose to block them."


FDD: U.S. Conducts Secret, Indirect Talks With Iran’s Chief Nuclear Negotiator
Expert Analysis
“While the administration may be disclosing conversations about Iran’s terror sponsorship in the region, let’s not forget that Bagheri Kani is Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. It’s difficult to imagine these talks not centering around expanding last year’s unacknowledged nuclear deal.” — Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor

“While back channels and indirect talks have their place in international relations, the Biden administration’s over-reliance on the Oman back channel has rendered bare the lack of a real strategy on Iran and its willingness to engage in pay-to-delay schemes.” — Behnam Ben Taleblu, FDD Senior Fellow

The Omani Channel
Oman last hosted indirect talks between Washington and Tehran in January. That round of diplomacy, which also involved McGurk and Bagheri Kani, reportedly focused on Iran-backed Houthi attacks on commercial traffic in the Red Sea and Iran-backed militia attacks against U.S. bases in Iraq. The January meetings failed to produce an agreement and, shortly after McGurk departed, the United States and allies launched strikes against dozens of Houthi targets in Yemen.

Oman was also the seat of negotiations for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The Biden administration reportedly considered reviving nuclear talks through the Omani channel last year.

IAEA-Iran Talks Stalled After Raisi’s Death
Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on May 22 that the deaths of Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian caused the “temporary interruption” of talks with Tehran over the regime’s stalled cooperation with the IAEA, nonproliferation safeguards violations, and Iran’s failure to permit more robust IAEA monitoring of its nuclear activities. “They are in a mourning period which I need to respect,” Grossi said. “But once this is over, we are going to be engaging again.”

On May 7, Grossi returned from a two-day visit to Iran without reaching an agreement on Tehran’s nuclear activities. At a joint press conference with Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Grossi stated that the IAEA and Tehran are still negotiating the implementation of a March 2023 Joint Statement on cooperation and did not strike a new deal.
MEMRI: American-Iranian Council (AIC) President Hooshang Amirahmadi, Former Iranian Presidential Candidate And Rutgers University Lecturer: 'Iran Must Produce A Nuclear Bomb'; 'Deterrence [Against Israel] Is Not Possible Without A Nuclear Weapon'; 'America Is Ready For Iran To Have A Bomb In Order To Achieve A Balance Of Power With Israel'
In an April 20, 2024 interview with the conservative Iranian news website Asr-e Iran, Iranian-American international affairs expert Hooshang Amirahmadi said that Iran must produce a nuclear weapon so that it can achieve deterrence against Israel. Amirahmadi, a U.S. resident, is the president of the American-Iranian Council (AIC) and lectures at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He ran for president of Iran in 2005, 2013, and 2017.

In the interview, Amirahmadi asserted that Iran must produce a nuclear weapon because, he says, it is "the only form of deterrence these days," and added: "When Iran has a bomb, it will not even need to fire missiles at Israel." Calling on Iran to leave the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (sic) and the JCPOA nuclear deal, he said that Iran should also declare that Islam does not forbid nuclear weapons. He is referring to the alleged fatwa banning nuclear weapons that the Iranian regime attributes to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. This nonexistent fatwa was the basis for the Obama administration's facilitation of Iran's becoming a nuclear threshold state.[1]

Stressing that he is a seeker of peace and an expert in international relations, Amirahmadi attempted to portray Iran as peace-seeking, and said that Iran's possession of a nuclear weapon is actually what would bring stability and peace to the Middle East.

Amirahmadi's statements about Iran's right and obligation to possess nuclear weapons are part of the Iranian regime's deliberate efforts in recent months to gain legitimacy in the U.S. and Europe for it to change its nuclear policy from civilian to military and to possess these weapons. These Iranian efforts have already made already made Iran a nuclear threshold state. Indeed, in recent weeks, Iranian official have stepped up statements about the possibility that Iran will change its policy, and justifying this by pointing at Israel's attacks on senior IRGC officers in Syria. (See MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 1761, Senior Iranian Regime Officials Warn Of Iran's Coming Nuclear Breakout and MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1765, 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').

The Iranians are aiming to establish a nuclear balance of terror based on their status as a nuclear threshold state, and believe that they can win the support of the Biden administration in this because it is heavily influenced by top Democrats such as former president Barack Obama and former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

It should be recalled that at a July 2009 security conference in Thailand, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton openly discussed the possibility of Iran possessing nuclear weapons. She advised the Iranians that it would not be allowed to use its nuclear weapons to threaten or influence its neighbors because the Gulf states would be under an American defense umbrella. She told them:

"We want Iran to calculate, what I think is a fair assessment, that if the U.S. extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to support the military capacity of those in the Gulf, it's unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer, because they won't be able to intimidate and dominate, as they apparently believe they can, once they have a nuclear weapon."[2]

Also notable is that now, months before the U.S. presidential election, the Iranian regime is calling on President Biden to hold nuclear talks with Iran and to arrive at understandings with it. Iran appears to be attempting to convince the Biden administration that a nuclear balance of power in the Middle East will bring stability to the region – as in the U.S.-Soviet Cold War as Amirahmadi points out. It should be remembered that countries in the Middle East, most of which are Sunni Arab, have warned of a nuclear arms race if Iran obtains nuclear weapons.


State Department Official Grilled On Offering 'Official Condolences' To Iran After President's Death
During a press briefing on Monday, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller answered reporter questions on Iranian President Raisi's death.




The British government’s Alderney lie erased the suffering of Jews
Lord Pickles’ Alderney Expert Review has finally spoken. According to Pickles, the fact that the war criminals responsible for atrocities on British soil were never brought to justice is a “stain on the reputations of successive British governments”.

He is absolutely right.

Professor Anthony Glees, who has acted as advisor to the inquiry, today described a four-fold cover-up. First, certain officials claimed that all the victims of the Nazis on Alderney were Russians. This was a lie: there were at least 30 nationalities, including hundreds of French Jews.

Secondly, the authorities secretly decided to hand over the case to the Soviets in return for the perpetrators of the Great Escape murders (something revealed for the first time this week).

Thirdly, they knew that the Soviets took no action, but did not tell the British public.

Finally, when the French authorities asked for evidence of war crimes on Alderney against Jews to be provided in the case of two war criminals brought to trial in 1949, the British authorities said it didn’t exist. Another lie.

Lord Pickles has apologised for the cover-up and said it was for the British government to decide whether a formal apology is appropriate.

The Pickles Review was set up to address speculation about the numbers of victims on Alderney. The President of the tiny Crown Dependency, William Tate, committed himself to the memory of those who suffered and died on the island. Any real understanding of what happened on Alderney needs to address the suffering of these individuals.

Take, for instance, Robert Perelstein. Robert was born in Paris on 17 September 1882 and became a skilled carpenter and cabinet maker. He fought with the French army in the First World War and was wounded twice. He moved to Le Mans in 1925 where he worked in a furniture store, and in February 1938 he set up on his own as cabinet maker with a small shop to repair old and modern furniture.

After his first wife died, Robert remarried a Catholic woman in August 1939 and had a daughter named Mireille. At the time of the Nazi invasion of France, Robert was employed at a factory in Le Mans but he was to soon lose his job because he was Jewish.
Suspect charged in shooting on Jewish school in Montreal
Montreal police arrested a suspect Wednesday in connection with shots fired against a Jewish school in Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce last fall.

Abdirazak Mahdi Ahmed, 20, of Les Cèdres, appeared before a Quebec Court judge at the Montreal courthouse where he was charged with intentionally discharging a firearm, on Nov. 12, at a location knowing that a person might be inside. He is also charged with theft and receiving stolen vehicles, and committing mischief on Nov. 9.

The Crown objected to Mahdi Ahmed’s release and he will remain detained for a hearing to be held on Thursday.

On Nov. 12 at around 5 a.m., gunshots were heard on Deacon Rd., near Van Horne Ave. A suspect was seen shooting in the direction of the Yeshiva Gedola of Montreal school, before quickly leaving the scene in a getaway vehicle. When they arrived, police saw the impacts of firearm projectiles on the school door and shell casings were found on the ground.

It was the second shooting at the Deacon Rd. school in four days.

The investigation will continue regarding the possible participation of one or more other individuals, police said in a statement. Anyone with information is invited to contact 911 or their local station.

The Nov. 12 incident came four days after shots were fired at Yeshiva Gedola and the Talmud Torah Elementary School on St-Kevin Ave. overnight. Both are in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough.
Germany: Antisemitic incidents in Berlin hit record levels
A total of 1,270 antisemitic incidents were documented in Berlin in 2023, according to Germany's Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).

The figure represents an almost 50% increase on the previous year and the highest number of incidents in the capital in a single calendar year since RIAS began its work in 2015.

According to RIAS, over 60% of incidents were recorded between October 7, when the Palestinian militant Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing around 1,200 Israelis and taking about 250 more hostages, and the end of 2023, by which time a humanitarian crisis had unfolded in Gaza following Israel's retaliatory operation. What the RIAS report said about antisemitic incidents in Berlin

A total of 783 antisemitic incidents were recorded in Berlin after October 7, the annual report revealed.

RIAS has been recording an average of about 10 antisemitic incidents a day in Berlin since the start of the current war.

"October 7, 2023, was a watershed moment," the report notes. "Since then, antisemitism has been significantly more present in Berlin, with previously existing forms of antisemitism hardening and intensifying."

The RIAS report also finds that antisemitic incidents in the capital have become more violent in nature, with 34 antisemitic assaults recorded.

One of the most serious incidents was an arson attack on a synagogue in central Berlin's Mitte district on the night of October 17-18, while another case details how a man threw a firework at two people who were speaking Hebrew in a bar.

Online antisemitism has increased, too, with the RIAS report documenting 41 cases of antisemitic abuse directed at Jewish social media users.
Thugs abuse and throw stones at 16-year-old Charedi boy
Hate crimes have spiked in Stamford Hill since the IDF moved into Rafah, community leaders have told the JC after footage emerged of hooligans chasing a Charedi boy and pelting him with stones.

The clip, published to X/Twitter by community watch group Shomrim, shows three boys approaching a stictly Orthodox 16-year-old earlier this month and gesticulating at him.

As he walks away, one of his attackers starts to run after him before throwing a stone at him.

The victim, who can be seen fleeing in the footage, is said to be “alright” because he is used to antisemitism in the area.

Shomrim chief executive Chaim Hochhauser said the Jewish child had been walking to synagogue on Shabbat when he was the victim of an unprovoked attack.

"We are having quite a lot of trouble from these boys in the area [who attacked him], especially since October 7,” he said.

"They are just trying to frighten and harm the Jewish community.”

Hate crimes have increased significantly in the last month, Hochhauser said.

"We only come out [publically] with 0.1 per cent of the incidents. Since the Israelis went into Rafah it has picked up a lot in the local area.”


Outrage as London cinema showing October 7 film defaced by protesters
London’s oldest cinema has been targeted by anti-Israel protesters ahead of a private screening of a documentary on the October 7 massacre at the Supernova music festival.

“Say no to artwashing” in large red lettering was found graffitied across the front of the much-loved Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley, north London, this morning. The iconic signage had also been splattered with red paint.

By 9am, cleaners from Barnet Council were removing the paint but said that they did not have the correct products to clean the sign.

Odelia Haroush, one of the founders and the CEO of the Seret Israeli film festival, which is hosting tonight’s screening of Supernova – the Music Festival Massacre, told the JC: “What they have written is awful, and it’s so not true. On the contrary to artwashing, we are showing what really happened on October 7. We are showing a documentary film. The world should know about the horrors.

Haroush added: “I’m totally against cancelling culture. If the other side has something to say, they can make a film and screen it.”

On October 7, Hamas terrorists murdered over 360 people at the Supernova music festival near the Gaza border and took over 40 festival-goers hostage.

Outside the cinema, passers-by, both Jewish and non-Jewish, stopped to take photos, voicing their shock at the graffiti.

Local resident Jules Goldberg said: “It’s a very violent act for people who claim to oppose violence.”




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