Thursday, June 06, 2024

06/06 Links Pt2: The Middle East’s fateful moment; The Attempt to Deny the Legal, Historical, and National Rights of the Jewish People; The Child Soldiers of Portlandia

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Middle East’s fateful moment
The West refused to see that the Palestinian cause was the principal means by which the Islamists realized they could destroy Israel and conquer the free world for Islam. The Palestinian cause has accordingly brought together the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood—whose military wing consists of Hamas, Al-Qaeda and ISIS—and the Shi’ite fanatics of Iran.

The most lethal component of this infernal alliance is Iran because it has become a regional hegemon. And it is America that has enabled that to happen.

As president, Obama viewed Iran as an essential component of a new Middle East order. The aim was apparently a balance of powers in the region which would ensure that everyone was forced to rub along with each other.

The strategy of taming Iran by bringing it in from the cold led to the 2015 nuclear deal which, falsely claiming to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, explicitly legitimized such a development after only a few years delay and funneled billions in sanctions relief into Tehran’s war chest.

This was the equivalent not only of giving a box of matches to an arsonist but providing the kerosene and the dry tinder as well.

The Biden administration has continued with the kumbaya liberal fantasy that genocidal fanaticism can be neutralized by negotiated concessions. In practice, this appeasement of the implacable and unconscionable means letting Israel swing in the murderous winds of the Palestinian and Iranian agendas.

Virtually none of this is understood by the Western public whose media and leaders, in cahoots with the Hamas-compliant international human rights and humanitarian establishment, have instead demonized Israel and incited hatred of the Jews with malicious falsehoods about Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

People in the West have been indoctrinated by the BBC, The New York Times and others that Israel is the reason for the war in Gaza, Israel is the problem and this crisis is all Israel’s fault.

They have heard virtually nothing about Hezbollah’s daily rocket and missile attacks. They are told nothing about the plight of tens of thousands of Israelis who have been displaced from their homes in northern Israel by the war and been made refugees in their own country. They saw almost no reports at all of the fires that consumed northern Israel this week.

Consequently, when Israel goes to war in Lebanon to defend its people against annihilation it will be vilified and demonized even more intensely as the region’s aggressor.

But it is in fact Biden and Obama’s America, whose delusional fantasies facilitated the Oct. 7 pogrom, empowered the enemies of civilization and are hanging Israel out to dry, that is now leading the world into a terrible war.
Bassam Tawil: Palestinian Libels Against Jews: No Difference Between Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas
The only problem is: the claim [that Jews are trying to take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque] is not true. Of course, there are no such plans. These plans only exist in the deranged imaginations of the Palestinian leaders fabricating the accusations against the Jews. In fact, it was Israel's Defense Minister Moshe Dayan who gave control over the Temple Mount to the Islamic Wakf authorities in 1967.

In reality, Arafat had agreed that non-Muslims may, at certain times, tour the exterior of the Al-Aqsa Mosque -- the gardens and patios -- as long as they do not go inside and pray there.

Abbas and his media nevertheless continue to portray the peaceful visits by Jews to the Temple Mount as violent incursions. On June 5, 2024, Abbas's official news agency Wafa reported: "Hundreds of Israeli colonists today broke into the compound of Al-Aqsa Mosque...[they] raided the holy Islamic Mosque from al-Maghariba Gate and took provocative tours in its compounds."

Needless to say, Abbas is again lying: no Jew had "raided" or "broken into" the mosque.

The Biden administration and some European countries that want to give the Palestinians a state fail to recognize that, when it comes to rejecting Israel's right to exist as the homeland of the Jewish people and denying any Jewish link to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, there is no real difference between Abbas and Hamas. If anyone is desecrating the Al-Aqsa Mosque, it is Palestinians who are using it to justify murder -- of Jews.
How Israel Remains Sane under Pressure
In the past decade, U.S. political discourse has become increasingly shrill, while social cohesion appears to be fraying. By contrast, Israel—part of which is literally on fire—has been fighting its longest and most harrowing war since 1948, yet society seems to be functioning quite well. Cole Aronson makes the case that Israel is the “saner” of two countries.

The Iranian fusillade in the early hours of April 14 was Israel’s scariest moment since October 7. . . . But ten hours later, the two large supermarkets near my apartment were full of diapers, milk, bread, and eggs. The mall had four floors of squealing kids. No surge in crime, no looting, no riots. The largest missile and drone launch in history, and Israel didn’t even have to muddle through. It could just carry on.

While some of its detractors have tried to portray Israel as a “nation gone mad,” Aronson notes that this is not at all so:

Israelis are brusque and they are sometimes even frantic. But they deal rationally with danger, which is to say they can distinguish real threats and harms from fake ones. The industriousness with which coastal Americans manufacture and perform grievances is not a habit of Israel’s public character. Israelis resent hypocrisy and they grumble about their elites. But revolution is not popularly demanded, statues aren’t torn down, memorials aren’t desecrated, the nation’s founders aren’t contemned. Israelis pay dearly to govern themselves, and so can’t afford civic disdain.

Americans live free from armed invaders under a masterful, basically peaceful constitutional system. Things have been good for a long time. The republic’s achievements seem commonplace, so commonplace they aren’t even recognized as achievements. . . . America has responded to its generous inheritance with a listless hysteria.


Europe against anti-Semitism: Douglas MURRAY
Evening of mobilization organized by La revue LA RÈGLE DU JEU, on June 3, 2024, at the Théâtre Antoine with: Yäel BRAUN-PIVET (President of the National Assembly), Gérard LARCHER (President of the Senate), Anne HIDALGO (Mayor of Paris), Bernard-Henri LÉVY, Christine ANGOT, Caroline FOUREST, Delphine HORVILLEUR, Yann MOIX, Justine LÉVY, Julia KRISTEVA, Jean-Claude MILNER, Bernard CAZENEUVE, Manuel VALLS, Jean-Michel BLANQUER, Sandrine KIBERLAIN, Yvan ATTAL, Patrick BRUEL, Haïm KORSIA (French Chief Rabbinate), Yonathan ARFI (CRIF), Douglas MURRAY, Philippe VAL, Maurizio MOLINARI (La Repubblica), Daniel RAMÍREZ (El Español), Émilie MOATTI (Forum of Hostage Families, Tel Aviv).


Jew-hatred in the UK & Ireland with David Collier, Investigative Journalist
Ireland is widely considered the most anti-Jewish nation in Europe. The situation for Jews in the UK is also rapidly declining.

We explore the anti-Israel protests, the far-left, university campuses, Islamic antisemitism, and how the Govt is responding.

David Collier is a researcher on antisemitism and active on social media in defence of Israel. He was named by the Algemeiner as one of the ‘top 100 people positively influencing Jewish life’ & the media watchdog CAMERA gave him a ‘Portrait of Courage’ award.


Why they want to make the Kohelet Policy Forum go away
In the year preceding the war, Kohelet Forum Policy was subjected to a wave of attacks, biased articles, libelous Zoom meetings, and the extensive use of social media to demonize the organization. On October 7, I rushed to enlist in the army along with many of my colleagues in Kohelet, most of us to the frontlines. Four days later, I took leave for my wedding, which, instead of being a large event celebrated with hundreds of guests in a fancy hall, took place in the "Yad Sara" building with only a small circle of family and friends and I returned the next day to the fight. While most of the Israeli people decided to put our differences behind us, some carried on with the attacks. I received death wishes and threats that I would be held accountable after the war, and even my mother received messages wishing I would be killed in Gaza.

Kohelet Policy Forum was made a target because of its importance as the foremost think tank in the national camp and the most influential one in Israel. The Forum has assisted policymakers in implementing policies guided by the principles of a free economy, national identity, and governance while also supporting many civil society organizations with research, workshops, and a variety of tools. It is understandable that pressure groups and cartels are angered by their losses when monopolies are broken up, and transparency is demanded from controversially managed organizations, but Kohelet nonetheless works to promote individual liberty and welfare. Some on the political left suspect Kohelet of secret motivations despite KKohelet's being open and accessible to the public.

Kohelet Policy Forum is a think tank working to ensure the future as the nation-state of the Jewish people, to strengthen representative democracy, expand individual liberty, and entrench the principles of a free market.

We were smeared and castigated as enemies of the poor, of women, of LGBTQ, as being anti-democracy and pro-corruption. None of this is true, but anonymous paid ads continued to disseminate such disinformation. The Haredi press wrote about how we were against Haredim, while on the internet, we were accused of working only for Haredim. The open strategy of those working against us was to divide and conquer and bring everyone into conflict. Instead of arguing against our content, they attacked the organization, its employees, and donors on a purely ad-hominem basis, despite the fact that our workplace is diverse and pluralistic, and notwithstanding the guiding principles, made up of many employees from differing backgrounds holding a variety of opinions, who dedicate their time to writing and research aimed at improving the lives of all Israeli citizens.
On 30th anniversary of AMIA bombing, House reps call for justice
The four co-chairs of the Latino-Jewish Congressional Caucus submitted a resolution on Wednesday to hold accountable the Iranian-sponsored terrorists who bombed the Buenos Aires Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) building on July 18, 1994, leaving 85 dead and more than 300 injured.

Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) and Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) sponsored the resolution.

“It has been three decades since the lethal AMIA Jewish Center Bombing took place in Buenos Aires, and we continue to tirelessly demand justice and accountability for the vile perpetrators responsible for the attack, including Iran’s current Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi and other terrorist proxies,” said Balart.

Wasserman Schultz warned that “with antisemitism on the rise around the world, this attack on Argentina’s thriving Jewish community must not go unanswered. Congressmen Diaz-Balart, Espaillat, Gonzales and I are proud to honor the victims of this attack and champion justice for their loved ones.”

Gonzales said the Caucus’s leaders “remain a steady hand in Congress in the fight to eradicate the horrors of antisemitism. We will never forget the victims, their families and all those touched by this horrific tragedy—may justice and accountability prevail.”

Describing the resolution as “our unified commitment to ensuring justice for each of the victims,” Espaillat stated that “terrorism and antisemitic hate have no place in our society, and this legislative effort reaffirms our solidarity with the Jewish community of Argentina and around the world.”
The Attempt to Deny the Legal, Historical, and National Rights of the Jewish People
False Arab claims attempt to nullify Jewish historical and legal rights to the Land of Israel. As a historical and legal fact, there is no such thing as "Palestinian land" inasmuch as a Palestinian state does not exist and never has. The claim of "illegal occupation" is empty inasmuch as a situation of "occupation" is a legitimate component of the laws of armed conflict.

Annual nonbinding and nonauthoritative UN General Assembly resolutions repeating accusations of the illegality of Israel's presence in the territories have no authoritative status that match the international treaty status of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, which encapsulated the international recognition of the rights of the Jewish people to establish their national home in the area.

False claims also prevail regarding the status of the areas of Judea and Samaria, with the manufactured term "Occupied Palestinian Territories" appearing repeatedly. The issues of the permanent status of Judea and Samaria, as well as the status of Gaza, are negotiating issues between Israel and the Palestinian leadership pursuant to internationally acknowledged agreements. This negotiation is ongoing and has not been completed.

Similarly, the term "colonization by the Jewish people" is a politicized phrase with negative connotations that is intended to mislead. A more accurate description of the aim of the Mandate instrument would have been the "reconstitution of the Jewish people" through the League of Nations' decolonization of the land from the 400-year Ottoman rule.
Why ABORIGINAL Australians Stand with ISRAEL | Nova Peris in conversation with Nate Buzz
Join Nova Peris as she hikes Masada with Nate Buzz, sharing a powerful conversation about her unwavering support for Israel during the recent conflict. Discover the profound connections between the Aboriginal and Jewish peoples, as they discuss their shared struggles as indigenous peoples and enduring ties to their lands.

Nova Peris, an Olympic gold medalist, politician, and advocate for Aboriginal rights, draws compelling parallels between her community's experiences and the resilience of the Jewish people in the land of Israel. This is an inspiring conversation on solidarity, identity, and the unbreakable bonds forged through shared histories.


Jews Are Not Colonialist Invaders of the Land of Israel
The Jews are not colonialist invaders of the Land of Israel. This land was the home of the earliest tribes of Israel dating back to the 13th century BCE. The major books of the Bible were written by Jews in the Land of Israel or nearby nations to which Jews were exiled. Despite the exile of Jews inflicted by the Roman Empire, there was never a time when some Jews did not live in the land - usually as second-class, often-mistreated inhabitants.

The name "Palestine" was imposed by the Romans on the area to erase the Jewish historical presence in the land. Jesus was not a Palestinian. He died as a Jew in Judea. Muslim Arabs did not live in the area until it was conquered by Arab armies a century after the birth of Islam in the seventh century, almost 2,000 years after the first Jews moved into the area.

The Jews are the indigenous people in the Holy Land. It is an incontrovertible historical reality that there had been a Jewish Holy Temple on Mount Moriah for hundreds of years, long before the al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock shrine were built there in the Middle Ages.

There is some evidence that most of the Arab population in Israel and the West Bank moved to the area in the 18th and 19th centuries, many of them attracted by the rising economy generated by the Zionist settlements. Palestinian nationalism did not emerge until the second half of the 20th century.

More than 50% of Israeli Jews are Sephardim - Jews who lived in the Middle East for millennia before they were driven out by the newly independent Arab nations such as Iraq, Syria, Algeria, Libya, etc. They are indigenous people and have no home countries to which to return. Their skin hues are pretty much the same as the Arabs.
It's high time to quash the Palestinian lies about Jerusalem
Now, on Jerusalem Day, marking the 57th anniversary of the reunification of the holy city, the unforgivable trivialization of the term "war crimes" by the Palestinians is coming face to face with an additional victim – the Western Wall. The Palestinian media are now recycling the false claim that the evacuation of the residents of the Mughrabi Quarter in the southeast corner of the Old City of Jerusalem, during the Six-Day War, its subsequent demolition and construction of the Western Wall Plaza to be used for Jewish prayers on that site, were a severe breach of the laws of war.

The Palestinians are also taking this story onto the international stage and in the process they are spreading more lies and disinformation regarding the Western Wall: "the Jews have no ties with the Western Wall"; "the fabricated link of the Jews to the Western Wall is a matter of no more than 400-500 years"; "the Muslims own the exclusive religious, historical and legal rights to the Western Wall, which is part of Al-Aqsa" (Mahmoud Abbas). The Palestinian Authority (PA) took this one step further, when it published that there is no documented record of the fact that the Jews designated the Western Wall as a site for ritual worship at any time, only doing so after the Balfour Declaration in 1917, and on another occasion it even reported that the Mughrabi Quarter would be rebuilt on the Jews' prayer plaza.

The Palestinians are essentially turning history upside down, falsifying it and rewriting it. If that is the case, then we need some degree of order and precision in the Palestinian compendium of lies and falsehoods:
Unraveling the false branding of Israel as a settler-colonial state
The morally grotesque “by any means necessary” phrase repeats the ruthless immorality that turned liberation movements of the past century into the most abusive political regimes in history. The Bolsheviks who overthrew a cruel, reactionary Czarist rule proceeded to kill opponents, mass murder rich peasants, and establish secret police and a totalitarian system.

This was done in the name of turning Russia into a socialist/communist utopia with economic security for all. The Nazis used their ideology of national unity, socialist economic equality, and eugenic improvement of humanity as justification for the genocide of the Jews, the oppression and slave labor exploitation of conquered people, as well as a police state with a totalitarian regime over the German people.

Similarly, the suspension of law and human rights and the justification of absolute rule in order to achieve liberation led to corrupt dictatorships in many third-world countries. The moral blank check given to liberationists by various elites, combined with the powerful utopian ideals of the revolutionaries, allowed the rulers to inflict endless cruelty and denial of human dignity on billions of people. Institutional checks and balances on the exercise of power were removed, even as morality was suspended in the name of the need for freedom and independence.

The condemnation of settler/colonialists to death is an unmistakable symptom of the totalization of liberation ideology. It promises a repeat of the systemic oppression, the killing of innocents, and the rule by terror that marked the Chinese Communists, the Khmer Rouge, and the Iranian Revolution, and also in the terror mini-states of ISIS and Hamas. The collaboration of the “progressive” human rights NGOs, enabling abuse and murder in the name of independence, is the moral scandal of the 21st century. Unless confronted and checked politically and militarily, this ideology promises to repeat the greatest abuses and genocides of the 20th century. The Palestinians’ fellow travelers have consigned them to a regime of dictatorship and death.


Why Aren't Palestinians Demanding to Return to Where They Came From?
When “Palestinians” say they want to return to the Palestine, meaning Israel, because they are indigenous to that part of “their” land, keep this list with you to remind them of their past and their lies.

Most Arabs belong to tribes or clans. In other words, inter-related family members.

Such tribes and clans can represent many hundreds of people. And often the clan/tribal/family name contain the source of where these families originated.

Check a few prominent Palestinian family names. Their names in Arabic indicate where they came from;
Almasri – Egypt.
Masarwah – Egypt.
Hourani – Hauran in Syria.
Sourani – Tyre, Lebanon.
Tarabulsi – Tripoli, Lebanon.
Dibini – South Lebanon.
Bushnaq – Bosnia.
Iraqi – Iraq.
Zarqawi – Zarqa, Jordan.
Al-Karaki – Kerak, Jordan.
Trabulsi – Tripoli, Lebanon.
Abayat – Turkey.

So why aren’t hundreds of thousands of “Palestinians” who claim to be refugees, demanding to return to where they came from and return to Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Bosnia, Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey, rather than spread a false narrative by wanting to displace the Jews of Israel? Could it be that indoctrinated religious hatred, taught from childhood in United Nation schools and mogues, has obsessed them into such a false narrative that they have detached themselves from who they really are?


Why Pence’s prayer at the Post-conference was so important
“Are you willing to pray on stage for the people of Israel,” I spontaneously asked former vice-president Mike Pence while we were walking up the stairs during The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York on Monday. “Only if you pray with me,” he answered.

The event, held in a grand hall in Manhattan, illuminated by soft, golden lights, was a powerful display of unity and support for Israel, drawing hundreds of attendees from both the US and Israel. I had the privilege of engaging in a deeply moving conversation with Pence, which concluded with a heartfelt prayer.

“Almighty God, we come before you today with hearts that are heavy for the families that have suffered loss and those that still wait for word,” Pence began, his voice steady and solemn. “We pray that you’d be close to them. Your word promises that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted. We pray that you’ll be close in new and renewed ways.

“God, we pray for those that are fighting this just war against those who did unspeakable evil and wish it more. And we pray for your people. We pray that You would bless them and be with them. That You would ever strengthen Israel and give greater peace. And I pray in your matchless Name.”

From the outset, the atmosphere was charged with inspiration. Pence admired what he had witnessed in New York City during the Israel Day Parade, saying, “I’m inspired by what I’m seeing here. I’m inspired by what we saw on the streets of New York City yesterday.” His words resonated with the audience, setting the tone for a heartfelt dialogue.

Reflecting on October 7
REFLECTING ON October 7, Pence recounted his whereabouts in Iowa, campaigning for the Republican nomination for president, when he first heard the devastating news. “I couldn’t believe the accounts I was hearing,” he said. “It was heart-wrenching to me then. But I must tell you, in the days that have followed, I have never been more inspired by the people of Israel than I have been in these days.”

His subsequent visit to Israel in January reinforced his admiration for the Israeli people’s resilience, faith, and strength. He shared stories of heroism and sacrifice that left a lasting impression on him and, undoubtedly, on everyone present.
"The Post-October 7 Reality Puts Us in a Completely New World"
"We really have to think out of the box, because the post-October 7 reality puts us in a completely new world, breaking misconceptions, and building new realities," Dr. Dan Diker, President of the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs, told the Jerusalem Post Annual Conference on Monday.

The Center - formerly the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs - is changing its name to reflect its current activities. "We see ourselves as the engine for Israel's foreign affairs, serving as a bridge between the West and the Arab Muslim majority East." It will lead research-driven strategic and communication initiatives for the security and prosperity of Israel, its Abraham Accord partners, and prospective allies seeking normalization with Israel.

Diker said, "What shocked us was the glee, the energy, and the enthusiasm for Hamas in the free world....Israel has been recast as Hamas, and Hamas, from the point of view of virtue, legitimacy, and justice, has been recast as Israel. This inversion of legitimacy has been taking place over the last 31 years since the Oslo Accords, and it is time that we stop defending ourselves intellectually and morally. We must move from intellectual defense to offense reflected in an assertive diplomacy."

Diker spoke with Mossab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef. Yousef defected to Israel in 1997 and now lives in the U.S. Yousef said, "Palestine is a device that the Muslims use as a weapon against Israel and as a weapon against the Jewish people. Fundamentally, Muslims think that Allah hates the Jewish people." He said that it was unacceptable for Muslims to take the side of a terrorist group that committed unforgivable crimes in the name of "resistance."
Thousands of Oct. 7 Survivors Still Struggle
"I can't explain how heavy a body becomes when it is dead," said Yuval Raphael, 23.

She survived the Supernova massacre by hiding in the far corner of a public bomb shelter where 50 festival attendees sought shelter.

The terrorists strafed the inside with bullets at regular intervals and threw grenades.

Yuval became trapped under the dead body of another young woman and played dead for 8 hours.

"Every time we [those who were still alive] raised our heads, we couldn't understand why there were less and less people in the bomb shelter."

"We didn't realize it was because of the grenades, blowing up their bodies."

Only 12 survived long enough to be rescued. Yuval was left with shrapnel under her skin and a mind full of nightmares.


Actor Michael Douglas visits Kibbutz Be’eri, hard hit by Hamas on Oct. 7
During a solidarity trip to Israel this week, Jewish actor Michael Douglas, 79, met with the families of hostages still being held in the Gaza Strip and toured areas of the country’s south, including the site of the Nova music festival, where 364 attendees were murdered on Oct. 7 by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists after they infiltrated the southern border.

On Sunday, he visited Kibbutz Be’eri, witnessing the devastation and speaking with survivors. About 100 members of its community were murdered with 30 taken captive by Hamas and brought into Gaza.

Douglas also met in Jerusalem with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who presented him with an Israeli dog-tag necklace, a pin with a yellow ribbon and a disc with the engraved words, “Our heart is a prisoner in Gaza”—all symbols of support for those still held hostage by Hamas.

Herzog told Douglas during their meeting that so many in the world “don’t know the true story of the existence of the Jewish people,” before pointing to how Muslims and Christians live within Israel in peace.

Commenting on the pro-Hamas protesters on North American college campuses since Oct. 7, Douglas called the students “brainwashed,” lamenting: “When you try to talk to many of them, there is no education. There’s no knowledge.”


Netanyahu to US Jewish College Students on Campus Anti-Semitism: “You Have to Fight”
In a concerted effort to tackle the surge of anti-Semitism on university campuses, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with a delegation of American college students in Jerusalem on Monday. This meeting comes in the wake of Hamas’ brutal massacre on October 7th across southern Israel, which has ignited a wave of hatred and slander against the Jewish community within academic institutions.

Netanyahu emphasized the global struggle against the slander and misinformation targeting both the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Addressing the group, which included current and recently graduated students from prestigious universities such as Tulane, MIT, Columbia, Rutgers, the University of Michigan, and Harvard, Netanyahu emphasized the critical importance of countering lies with truth, as was reported by the Algemeiner.com,

“We’re facing a world struggle to fight slander against the Jewish people and the Jewish state,” Netanyahu stated. “The most important thing is you have to fight. And how do you fight lies? With truth. A lie can circle the earth 1,000 times before a single word of truth gets through, but we have no other choice. We fight by exposing the lies,” he told the students from his office in Jerusalem.

Among the delegation was Talia Khan, a student from MIT who has garnered attention for her outspoken stance against anti-Semitic abuse by anti-Zionist faculty and students at her university. Netanyahu is also an alumnus of MIT. The report in the Algemeiner.com said that Khan, who spoke on behalf of the students, highlighted the growing dangers of anti-Semitism and the support for terrorism on campuses. She told the gathering that she is the daughter of a Jewish woman and an Afghan Muslim father.

“As a Jew, I know the importance of the State of Israel in the shadow of the Holocaust,” Khan remarked. She also shared her unique perspective as a woman of Afghan descent, emphasizing the significance of Western values and the necessity of opposing forces that threaten to reverse societal progress, as per the information provided in the Algemeiner.com report. “As a woman of Afghan descent, I understand the importance of Western values and fighting the forces that are trying to set us back. As a patriotic American, it’s obvious that US interests are best served by providing our best and loyal ally Israel with the tools it needs to continue being a beacon of light and democracy.”

Khan’s plea to Netanyahu was clear and passionate. “For this reason, I ask you, Mr. Prime Minister, to help us become better partners in this war on terror. We all in this room, and many others that couldn’t make it on this trip, we’re all ready to dedicate our lives to protecting democracy, Western values, and Israel and America,” she declared as was reported by the Algemeiner.com

The massacre perpetrated by Hamas has not only escalated tensions in the Middle East but also intensified anti-Semitic sentiments globally, particularly in academic settings. Universities, traditionally seen as bastions of free thought and expression, have become arenas where Jewish students increasingly face hostility and discrimination. The rise in anti-Semitism on campuses has sparked a broader debate about free speech, hate speech, and the responsibilities of educational institutions in safeguarding their students.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s meeting with the American students is part of a larger effort to combat these rising tides of hatred and to foster solidarity among the Jewish community and its allies.
Antisemitism snakes a dangerous path, from campus rhetoric to tangible violence
As Jews, we carry a long and painful history of antisemitism, persecution, and racism. It’s crucial to use the term “racism” because we understand all too well how rhetoric leads to violence in that context.

During my time working at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, I had the honor of befriending several Rwandan survivors. In just three months, 800,000 Tutsis, moderate Hutus, and members of the Twa tribes were killed in Rwanda during the country’s civil war. These survivors shared with me that the genocide began months earlier when they were compared to cockroaches, their very existence minimized. It’s easy to step on a cockroach, after all. Similarly, in Nazi Germany, Jews were compared to rats – creatures to be exterminated.

Recently, we watched with great disgust as during recent congressional hearings university presidents – such as from Harvard and MIT – defended calls for genocide against Jews by students at their universities.

This is how violence and murder begin – with inflammatory rhetoric that escalates into physical harm. Just this past week, we witnessed two shooting incidents targeting Jewish schools in Canada and a car intentionally driving onto a curb in an attempt to run over Jews. In a separate incident, Jews from Vancouver woke up on Friday to the firebombing of a Vancouver synagogue. Also last week, rioters set fire to the Israel Embassy in Mexico City and hurled stones and bricks during an Action for Rafah event. Jewish identity is the common denominator

The common denominator in these attacks? The victims were Jews. Their views on Israel were irrelevant; the attackers didn’t know or care whether their targets were pro- or anti-Israel. All that mattered was their Jewish identity. This indiscriminate targeting underscores the horrific nature of the calls for violence emanating from university campuses and other pro-Hamas protests.

These institutions bear responsibility for the violence as surely as if they had pulled the trigger or driven the car themselves. By demeaning Jews and attacking us in such vicious ways, they have sown the seeds of indiscriminate violence against us, regardless of our political leanings or connection to events in Israel.

The Jewish people must realize that this is why we need unity now more than ever. In Israel, a resolution was recently passed by the Knesset to commemorate Jews killed in antisemitic incidents anywhere in the world, regardless of their citizenship. This reflects our deeper connection – we are not just a nation-state, but a family. And family must stick together, through trials and tribulations.
Harvard’s Golden Age Turns to Mud
“I was called antisemitic by power and money because they want power and money.”

Thus said Harvard’s 2024 commencement speaker, Maria Ressa. Fittingly, her deployment of antisemitic tropes in front of tens of thousands of students, professors, and families at graduation last week encapsulated the absolute chaos that has engulfed Harvard University for the last year.

Even as I took my seat at commencement, I was handed a newspaper, The Harvard Crimeson (a pun on the country’s oldest newspaper, The Harvard Crimson) which accused Jews of racism for arguing that calls for an intifada are a direct call for violence. The 10-page paper went on to defend chants of “from water to water Palestine is Arab,” “from the river to the sea,” and “globalize the intifada.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, just the week prior, dozens of students and faculty gathered by the gates of Harvard to gleefully exclaim “intifada, intifada, coming to America.”

This of course followed an almost monthlong illegal encampment of students and professors in the center of Harvard Yard demanding a complete and total divestment from “the Zionist entity.” Although the participants used bolt cutters in an attempt to break open Harvard’s gates, depicted our Jewish President as a devil replete with horns and a tail, violated all time, place, and manner restrictions, called for the violent destruction of the Jewish state, and established a self-appointed security system that monitored and recorded Jews like me on our way to class, they were handsomely rewarded.

In exchange for packing up their foul-smelling tents and open-air laundry, all graduate and almost all undergraduate students had their suspensions revoked. The encampment leaders will meet with senior university officials to discuss a Palestinian studies department, and the Harvard Management Corporation, which oversees Harvard’s $50 billion endowment, will invite them for a seat at the table to discuss divestment, and President Garber personally asked for reinstatements and an expeditious disciplinary process.

That same week, the Harvard antisemitism task force, led by a professor who has repeatedly labeled antisemitism at Harvard as “exaggerated,” quietly updated their timeline. Rather than submit recommendations to combat Jew-hatred during the spring semester as promised, the task force now has a revised date of fall 2024.

Although both the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance (HJAA) and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce released damning reports pertaining to the systematic silencing of Jewish and Israeli voices on campus, the university has yet to announce or implement a single policy in response.
A Jewish Studies Purge at UC-Irvine?
There's a brewing controversy bubbling up at UC-Irvine, where Jewish students are protesting the decision to terminate the contract of a popular lecturer who had been teaching a class on Jewish Texts under the auspices of the campus' Center for Jewish Studies. The lecturer, Daniel Levine, is a Rabbi affiliated with the campus Hillel chapter. There are two open letters currently circulating in support of Levine and condemning his termination, you can read them here and here.

There are a lot of moving parts here, and situations like this almost always have lots of little nooks and nuances that can be hard for an outsider like myself to spot. But here's my best attempt to summarize what appears to be going on.

The Center for Jewish Studies is not an independent department at Irvine. It is run as a minor out of Irvine's humanities division and is specifically overseen by the Department of History. Levine is not a permanent member of the faculty, but he was by all accounts a popular teacher who was well-liked and respected by the campus' Jewish community. The official rationale for his non-renewal is that two new tenure-track hires with interests in Jewish Studies mean that his course can be taken over by permanent faculty members, offered every other year. The Jewish students counter that the new faculty members' specific subject-matter expertise does not seem tailored to the Jewish Texts course; further, they believe that Rabbi Levine would have been able to maintain teaching the class on a yearly (rather than biannual) basis.

But there's a bigger issue lurking. Among the demands of UC-Irvine pro-Palestine protesters has been for the university to cut ties with "Zionist" organizations and individuals. The chair of Irvine's history department, Susan Morrissey, is part of the Faculty for Justice in Palestine group which has endorsed these demands. The suspicion amongst the Jewish students is that Rabbi Levine was ousted from his position as a backdoor means of instantiating these demands. This fear is amplified by the fact that both of the new hires appear to be, at the very least, very sharp critics of Israel -- one was a leader of Jewish Voice for Peace at UCLA, and both are signatories to a letter written three weeks after the October 7 attack demanding (among other things) "the end of all U.S. funding to Israel immediately." In essence, the students believe that Morrissey effectively instituted a purge -- replacing a Jewish Studies lecturer who was embedded in the campus Jewish community but (or perhaps, and therefore) was tainted by his association with Hillel and "Zionism" with alternatives who would be less effective in serving the Jewish community (and the community of students interested in the Jewish Studies minor) but were more ideologically congenial and aligned with the political demands of Prof. Morrissey and the pro-Palestine protesters.

None of the above is incontestable. The public explanations from the powers-that-be at Irvine might be entirely on the level. It is far from uncommon that the sorts of considerations that drive faculty hiring and teaching assignments (particularly at a large research university) do not align with what undergraduates believe or expect should motivate who ends up in the classroom. Other than the tidbits identified above, I have no specific knowledge regarding either of the two new tenure-track hires at Irvine; they may be able to cover Levine's class with aplomb. And certainly, there is nothing intrinsically odd about replacing an external part-time lecturer with a tenure-line faculty where possible.
Government rejects judicial inquiry into hate on campus
Shadow Minister for Education Sarah Henderson has slammed the Albanese Government’s “weak leadership” after it rejected a Private Member’s Bill by Member for Berowra Julian Leeser for a judicial inquiry into antisemitism at universities.

Assistant Minister for Education, Anthony Chisholm, confirmed during Senate estimates on Thursday that the government will not back the judicial inquiry. It came after Leeser’s attempt to suspend standing orders for a debate in the House of Representatives on the Bill was rejected.

“This is extremely disappointing and demonstrates the government’s weak leadership in combating the alarming rise in antisemitic incidents on university campuses,” Henderson said.

“The government’s racism study, to be conducted by the Australian Human Rights Commission, is woefully inadequate.

“The Commission’s failures include not taking action against an employee for grossly offensive anti-Jewish statements. It is unfit to conduct this work.”

Henderson also took aim at Education Minister Jason Clare who she said “on too many occasions” had “failed to speak out and take action over serious failings by universities including on terrorist slogans and encampments which are fuelling so much hate and incitement towards Jewish students”.

Leeser said on Thursday afternoon, “Yesterday the Prime Minister made a big deal about bipartisanship on antisemitism. But today Labor failed to support a debate on my Bill.

“We can’t wait any longer. Australia needs to deal seriously with the rising antisemitism on our campuses.”


Jewish students, blocked from UCLA campus, file suit against school
The University of California, Los Angeles allegedly allowed pro-Hamas protesters to prevent Jewish students from entering campus this spring, according to a lawsuit.

On Wednesday, three Jewish students—Yitzchok Frankel, Joshua Ghayoum and Eden Shemuelian—filed suit against their school, charging that UCLA had “deteriorated into a hotbed of antisemitism.”

In Frankel v. Regents of the University of California, the students state that “on April 25, 2024, and continuing until May 2, 2024, UCLA allowed a group of activists to set up barricades in the center of campus and establish an encampment that blocked access to critical educational infrastructure on campus.”

The nonprofit Becket Fund for Religious Liberty represents the students.

“If masked agitators had excluded any other marginalized group at UCLA, Governor Newsom rightly would have sent in the National Guard immediately,” said Mark Rienzi, president and CEO of Becket. “But UCLA instead caved to the antisemitic activists and allowed its Jewish students to be segregated from the heart of their own campus. That is a profound and illegal failure of leadership.”
Controversial Columbia Law Review Article Subverted Standard Editing Process
A Columbia Law Review article that argues Jews "capitalized on the Holocaust to create a powerful narrative that monopolizes victimhood" was subject to an atypical editing process that omitted "a large number of Jewish students," according to sources familiar with the process.

While prospective pieces are typically available for the Law Review's roughly 100 members to assess ahead of publication, the "Nakba" piece was handled behind closed doors by a group of roughly 30 student editors, according to Columbia Law School professor Joshua Mitts.

While that group edited the piece "over several months," Mitts said, other editors—including Jews—were unaware even of the piece’s existence until Saturday, just two days before its publication.

The piece—titled, "Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept"—was supposed to be published on the website of the student-edited Review on Monday, despite a request from the Review's board of directors to delay publication. At issue, the board explained in a letter to student editors obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, was the editing process behind it.

The board, which is led by Columbia law professor Gillian Metzger and includes Columbia Law School dean Gillian Lester, subsequently requested the piece "be delayed for a few days" to ensure "all student editors would have an opportunity" to read it. Initially, the group of student editors behind the piece agreed, according to the board's letter. Then, on Monday morning, they revealed plans to publish the piece immediately. In response, the board "temporarily suspended" the Review's website.

"The secrecy that surrounded this article's editing and substantiation review is unacceptable," the board wrote in its letter. "It is also unprecedented, in that every piece is either worked on by, or available on request to, all student editors during the editing process."

"Whatever the intent, such secrecy is a profound deviation from the norms of respect, trust, and collegiality on which the Review depends. It also invariably raises questions about the adequacy of the editing and substantiation processes to which the piece was subjected."
Anti-Israel Stanford students take over president’s office; university arrests 13 protesters
Months of intense anti-Israel protests at Stanford University escalated on Wednesday morning — the last day of classes for the spring quarter — when 13 students and alumni broke into and barricaded themselves inside President Richard Saller’s office, insisting that the university meet their demands to cut ties with Israel. Within hours of the 5:30 a.m. break-in, law enforcement arrested all of the rioters and the university shut down an anti-Israel illegal encampment that has engulfed campus since April.

The demonstrators filmed themselves covering Saller’s desk in red paint, destroyed property and renamed the building to “Dr. Adnan Office,” in honor of Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, “the Palestinian General Surgeon who was murdered in April by the Israeli genocidal campaign,” the group told The Stanford Daily. Al-Bursh died while in Israeli prison, where he was being held due to national security reasons, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Meanwhile, chaos ensued outside of the building as well; a public safety officer was injured after being shoved by the demonstrators, who were interfering with a transport vehicle. The Main Quad, the historic center of the university, was scrawled with graffiti such as “De@th 2 Isr@hell,” “Pigs taste best dead” and “F*** Amerikkka.”

“There has been extensive damage to the interior of Building 10, [where Saller’s office is located], and exterior of the buildings in the quad,” Dee Mostofi, a Stanford University spokesperson told Jewish Insider.

Dozens of students and alumni have continued rioting — including throwing medal barricades at police officers — outside of the building throughout Wednesday morning.

“We are appalled that our students chose to take this action and we will work with law enforcement to ensure that they face the full consequences allowed by law,” Mostofi said. “All arrested students will be immediately suspended and in case any of them are seniors, they will not be allowed to graduate.”

Mostofi continued, “We have consistently emphasized the need for constructive engagement and peaceful protest when there is a disagreement in views. This was not peaceful protest and actions such as what occurred this morning have no place at Stanford.”


Seth Mandel: The Child Soldiers of Portlandia
This is a story of two educational systems heading in opposite directions.

In one, lesson plans tell children as young as five to chant genocidal slogans, that terrorism is justified and that Jews live on stolen land, and that they must take action to correct this historical injustice.

In the other, celebrations of terrorism have been removed, as have accusations that the Jews live on stolen land and belong elsewhere.

One of these is Portland, Oregon. The other is Saudi Arabia. By now you can probably guess which one is which.

At City Journal, Chris Rufo reveals the suggested lesson plans cooked up by the Portland Association of Teachers. The radicalism starts young: A prekindergarten lesson tells the story of a fictional Palestinian 10-year-old, who explains, “A group of bullies called Zionists wanted our land so they stole it by force and hurt many people.” The tots are then instructed to help the boy return to his home, represented as a map of Palestine from which all references to Israel have been excluded.

Young schoolchildren are taught to attend anti-Zionist protests and chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” the famous Hamas-charter-linked slogan calling for the mass murder and expulsion of millions of Jews. The model lesson plans put a special focus on “Palestinian children’s resistance.”

The child soldiers of Portlandia are given this potted history of the conflict: “75 years ago, a lot of decision makers around the world decided to take away Palestinian land to make a country called Israel. Israel would be a country where rules were mostly fair for Jewish people with White skin. There’s a BIG word for when Indigenous land gets taken away to make a country, that’s called settler colonialism.”

In contrast to the depraved indoctrination of Portland, Oregon, sit the vastly improving Saudi textbooks, which are moving in the right direction a bit more each year, though this year seem to have made a leap. IMPACT-se, an organization that studies anti-Semitic curricula, announced just last week that the “curriculum no longer teaches Zionism as a ‘racist’ European movement and no longer denies historical Jewish presence in the region.” Additionally, “All remaining problematic examples relating to violent interpretations of jihad were removed or altered in this year’s textbooks.”


BBC Bosses Called Out By More Than 100 Jewish Industry Figures Over Cricket Commentator Accused Of Sharing Antisemitic Images & Posts
More than 100 Jewish industry figures have signed an open letter to the BBC Director General and content chief expressing “disbelief” at the decision to engage a cricket world cup commentator who has been accused of fanning antisemitism on social media.

The letter to Tim Davie and Charlotte Moore came after Qasim Sheikh was forced to apologize due to his sharing a post that included an image of Rishi Sunak and other world leaders sporting Adolf Hitler moustaches.

The 119 Jewish directors, producers, screenwriters, suppliers and contractors across the TV and film industry, almost half of whom chose to remain anonymous, urged an explanation from the BBC head honchos as to why Sheikh was allowed to commentate on yesterday’s England vs Scotland cricket world cup match. The letter can be read in full below.

The letter cited a “monumental double standard” in relation to the BBC’s dropping ex-England cricket captain Michael Vaughan from its commentary team after he was accused of making racist comments, which he denied. His name was cleared two years later and he has since returned to the commentary box.

“A mere accusation was enough for [Vaughan] to be suspended from all cricket commentary,” the letter added. “What trust can any of our community have in the BBC when these double standards are so explicitly demonstrated?”

The letter cited other X posts by Sheikh, including one “claiming that the terrorists were justified in their indiscriminate mass rape and slaughter in order ‘to defend themselves’.” Sheikh said he has now removed the posts.

Sheikh apologized yesterday and an updated statement today in response to the letter read: “I have been sent the recent letter, and as a result want to reiterate my apology for any offence my past messages caused. I reiterate what happened on October the 7th was morally reprehensible. I have removed the social media posts and want to reiterate that my intention was and is to raise the plight of the death of all innocent civilians. My position is clearly outlined in my statement of yesterday. I am against all forms of racism and discrimination and I believe in the need for peace in Gaza.”

But today’s open letter added: “We are despairing, despairing at the total absence of courage, morality and understanding that BBC leadership repeatedly demonstrate in relation to Jews time and again. We can now add the case of Qasim Sheikh to the ever growing canon that the BBC must answer for.
Revealed: The Laughable Excuses Given by BBC & CNN for Israel Capital City Mistake
There’s chutzpah, and then there’s the BBC’s explanation for why it should be allowed to incorrectly describe Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital — an explanation so absurd and convoluted it borders on farce.

Now, the BBC isn’t alone in its arrogant insistence that it gets to decide the capital city of a country 2,500 miles away from its London headquarters. We’ve long been amazed at the sheer ignorance of journalists who seemingly believe that misinforming their readers about Israeli geography and governance will magically solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But most media outlets we catch making this error will eventually correct the record. Take The Guardian, for example, which, after some back-and-forth with HonestReporting, agreed to make four amendments last month to stories that erroneously called the White City the capital.

Rarely will a news organization dig in its heels quite as much as the publicly-funded British Broadcasting Corporation, which is mounting a Herculean defense of what it has apparently deemed is its divine right to keep making the same mistake.

Indeed, the mental gymnastics the BBC performs to justify its repetitive error are so laughably ludicrous that we had no choice but to put them on display here in all their cringe-inducing glory.

A brief background.

On April 20, HonestReporting complained to the broadcaster over a segment aired the day before on BBC Radio4’s The Now Show, featuring Steven Punt and Hugh Dennis, who ended the show by referring to Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital.
Media Reframe IDF Strike on Terrorists in Gaza School
Ignoring the Facts
Surprisingly, the wire services — which provide news to the outlets mentioned above — got it right.

Reuters’ headline read: “Dozens reported killed in strike on Gaza school that Israel says targeted Hamas.”

And AP’s headline was: “Israeli strike kills at least 33 people at a Gaza school the military claims was being used by Hamas.”

Why didn’t other media outlets follow suit? Why did editors and writers choose to dance to Hamas’ tune?

These questions are particularly important in light of mounting evidence that Hamas has been systematically using UNRWA schools for terror purposes — including launching an anti-tank missile at Israeli troops last week.

Yet, virtually no media have touched this issue by reporting the Hamas abuses of facilities such as schools to carry out military operations. It’s only when Israel responds by striking these targets (which become legitimate military targets under international law by virtue of the presence of terrorists within) that makes headline news.

Ignoring the facts serves Hamas. And news consumers deserve better than being fed terrorist propaganda.


NAACP Asks Biden to Halt Weapons to Israel as He Seeks to Shore Up Black Voter Support
The NAACP urged President Joe Biden on Thursday to “indefinitely” halt all weapons deliveries to Israel and pressure the US ally to end its war in the Gaza Strip, sending a reminder that his support for Israel could hurt him among Black voters in November’s election.

The NAACP’s call was a rare instance of the influential civil rights organization taking a position on US foreign policy towards a country without a significant Black population. It appeared likely to deepen the Democratic president’s election-year challenges as he tries to back a key ally abroad and temper unrest among his supporters at home.

The 115-year-old civil rights group said Israel had a right to defend itself after the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7 that killed some 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages.

The NAACP urged Hamas to return the hostages and “stop all terrorist activity.” It also urged Israel to “commit to an offensive strategy that is aligned with international and humanitarian laws.” Israel has been waging a military campaign against Hamas in Gaza aimed at freeing the hostages and destroying the Palestinian terrorist group, which rules the coastal enclave. Critics have falsely accused the Israeli military of committing genocide against Palestinians during its operations in Gaza.

The NAACP, which has advocated for racial justice and rights for Black Americans, said the US must use its influence with Israel to bring a permanent ceasefire to Gaza.

“The NAACP calls on President Biden to draw the red line and indefinitely end the shipment of all weapons and artillery to the state of Israel and other states that supply weapons to Hamas and other terrorist organizations. It is imperative that the violence that has claimed so many civilian lives, immediately stop,” the organization said in a statement first provided to Reuters.

The NAACP stance represents the latest warning sign that Biden may pay a price at the ballot box among Black voters on Nov. 5 for his staunch support of Israel.
US Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC Rescinds Endorsement of Pro-Israel Democrat
The Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, a fundraising organization for left-wing political causes, has rescinded its endorsement of former US Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) after he endorsed a pro-Israel candidate in the New York Democratic primary elections.

Jones publicly backed Westchester County Executive George Latimer over incumbent Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) on Tuesday, arguing that Bowman has isolated the Jewish community over his stance on the Israel-Hamas war. Jones argued that Latimer was the “clear” choice and cited his desire to “stand up for” his Jewish constituents.

Jones’s endorsement of Latimer, a candidate backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), incensed the progressive political fundraising organization.

“A number of factors led to the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC rescinding the endorsement of Mondaire Jones,” Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC executive director Evan Brown said.

Brown added that the decision to walk back his organization’s endorsement “was a unanimous decision of our PAC board.”

The ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has reportedly roiled the PAC, exposing fractures within the progressive coalition over views on the Jewish state. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), a stalwart ally of Israel, quietly departed the PAC in February, citing dissatisfaction with the group’s approach to Israel’s military operation.

In response to the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC’s announcement, Jones told NBC News that he does not regret his rebuke of Bowman.


How the IDF Kept the West Bank Relatively Quiet
Before the Gaza war, the IDF's Samaria Regional Brigade had to deal with a range of threats, including repeated shooting attacks on Route 60, the north-south West Bank artery that cut through the Palestinian town of Huwara. Route 60 now loops around the town.

After Oct. 7, Hamas called for Palestinians in the West Bank to join it in attacking Israelis, but that didn't happen and the number of attacks dropped.

The year before the Hamas invasion saw 77 shooting attacks in Samaria. In the eight months since, there have been five such incidents, and all the perpetrators have been caught or killed.

There were 50 rock-throwing attacks every month before Oct. 7 and less than five per month since then.

A senior IDF officer said the main reason is because of significantly expanded IDF operations since the start of the war.

"Any force that tries to be guided by Hamas or Iran, or receives money, we simply go in and take it apart," said a brigade officer. "We used to need special forces to go into Balata [refugee camp near Nablus]. Now, we go in whenever we want."

The brigade has killed around 200 terrorists. "We will continue the system of mowing the grass here, and we won't need to reach the type of fighting in Gaza," said an officer.
Israeli Arab arrested for impersonating an IDF soldier, vilifying Israel on social media
An Israeli Arab was arrested Tuesday for impersonating an IDF soldier and vilifying Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip on social media.

In a clip that the police released, the 19-year-old resident of Abu Ghosh tells a keffiyeh-draped American-sounding interviewer that he is an IDF soldier and charges the army in broken English with systematically killing innocent civilians.

“We kill everybody, no Hamas,” he says in the video.

Nodding when the interviewer, who seems to be sitting at home, asks, “Everybody? Even the children? And the women?” he says, “Children, and babies. Babies one day [old] we kill him…. Why no?”

The Jerusalem District Police, who among their other protective functions also monitor anti-Israel social media posts for incitement, investigated the matter when the post came to their attention.

They located the young Arab and discovered that he was not, in fact, a soldier.

He was questioned after his arrest, and the authorities plan on submitting a request to the courts to extend his detention on Wednesday as the investigation continues.

The Israel Police announced last month that since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, out of 1,010 social media posts its dedicated unit against online anti-Israel incitement has examined, the prosecutor’s office has approved criminal investigations against 524 authors. Charges have been filed against 162 of those investigated.

In the Judea and Samaria district, which is counted separately, 503 cases have been examined since the outbreak of the war, and charges brought in 236 of them.


How Israel Renewed Gaza's Water Supply amid War
Even before Oct. 7, the Gaza water network was in a fragile state and the population suffered from chronic shortages.

Direct contacts between Israelis and Palestinian professionals in Gaza took place early in the war to ensure the renewal of the water supply from Israel to Gaza.

In recent years, Israel has pumped 20 million cubic meters of water per year into Gaza using three pipes.

The northern pumping facility, near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, was rendered inoperative after being damaged in the Oct. 7 attack.

Giora Shaham, former chairman of Israel's Water Authority, said that to repair damaged pipelines inside Gaza, the Defense Ministry's "COGAT [unit] led a major coordination effort, and in the end Palestinian workers were sent to the places where the pipes were damaged near the fence, and repaired them under heavy IDF security."

"These were Palestinians who were using heavy machinery and welding tools near the fence." The IDF troops "formed a ring around them to make it clear that this was a partner, not an enemy."

"After hearing the prosecutor in The Hague talk about deliberate water deprivation, it's important for me to say that the Israeli side made great efforts to replenish the water supply to Gaza by repairing the pipeline on our side and by helping the Palestinians fix their side."

A source in the Israeli water market said, "When they tried to renew the flow from the Israeli side, every time they activated the stream the pipes on the other side burst from the pressure. There were lots of attempts to fix it. After turning it on and off maybe two hundred times, it somehow worked in the end."
PMW: “Israeli vampires…drink the blood of Palestinian children” - official PA daily
Throughout history, antisemites have used blood libels to incite violence against Jews. And throughout PA history, Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, PA columnist and former advisor to PM Salaam Fayad, has frequently used blood libels to demonize Israel.

The PA, and Al-Ghoul in particular, consistently use the antisemitic themes of the Middle Ages to generate hatred against the Jewish state and to incite violence. Most recently, Al-Ghoul said that Israel commits holocausts and that Israeli leaders drink the blood of Palestinian children and always want more blood:
“Spilled blood of defenseless and innocent children, women, and elderly; a flowing river of fierce red [blood] in the Gaza Strip districts in particular and Palestine in general; soft and gentle bodies [of children] were burned, turned into charcoal, and mutilated; the Rafah district’s north, south, and west sunk into the furnace of massacre (sic., refers to the 2023 Gaza war; see note below). All of this follows the stream of Israeli holocausts and massacres that have been continuing for eight months, until the number has risen to 3,220 massacres. And the Israeli vampires [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his colleagues in the cabinet of the war of annihilation against the Palestinian people are still enjoying and dancing the dances of death and crime, while they drink the blood of Palestinian children – and they have yet to satiate their thirst, even though more than 46,000 Martyrs have fallen including the missing, and more than 81,000 wounded.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida website, May 29, 2024]

This is par for the course for Al-Ghoul. Just in March 2024 (after also doing so in 2020), he insinuated that Israel is “liable to spread viruses” and “to poison the water.” Last year, he again invoked the Holocaust when he called Israel a “holocaust state.”


Iranian dissident partly paralysed after being beaten by regime thugs in London
An Iranian dissident granted asylum in Britain was attacked in London by pro-regime thugs so savagely that he may never walk again in a case that has received little attention from the police, the JC can reveal.

Video footage shows Navid Bavi, 32, lying unconscious after being hurled to the ground and kicked outside the Dewan Al-Kafeel community centre in Wembley, where he was protesting at a memorial service for Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian president nicknamed the “butcher of Tehran” who was killed in a helicopter crash last month. Bavi remains partially paralysed in hospital.

Also attacked was Bahar Mahroo, 24. Mahroo said that minutes after she and Bavi arrived, black-clad regime supporters ran from the building and launched the attack. “I cried out, telling them to stop. But then they sexually assaulted me, trying to grab my breasts,” she said.

The video footage shows the men pushing her to the ground, ignoring her screams, and kicking her in the face and torso. The blows to her face resulted in the loss of two of her teeth, she said.

Further recordings appear to show that among the approximately 600 people attending the memorial for Raisi — the Islamist hardliner known as the “butcher of Tehran” because of his role in the torture and murder of thousands of regime opponents — was Seyed Hashem Moosavi, the personal UK representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.


'Antisemitism and the 1753 Jew Law Controversy': The roots of UK antisemitism - review
In June 1753, King George II gave his royal assent to an act passed by the British Parliament. Known formally as The Jewish Naturalization Act, and informally as the Jew Law, it allowed foreign-born Jews applying for naturalization to omit the words “upon the true faith of a Christian” when taking the necessary oaths of loyalty,.

The ill-chosen title of the act was a chink through which opponents of the government, exploiting the invented fear that the door was being opened to a wholesale influx of foreign Jews, were able to mount a sustained political attack. With an eye on the forthcoming general election, a virulent antisemitic campaign was mounted demanding the repeal of the act.

Playing upon popular anti-Jewish prejudice, the opposition raised the political temperature to boiling point. Finally the government succumbed, and in December 1753 the act was repealed. Politically, it was a wise move. In the general election of 1754, the government was returned to power with a working majority.

In his new book, Antisemitism and the 1753 Jew Law Controversy, author Yoel Sheridan, born and educated in Britain, analyzes the ancient and long-enduring phenomenon of antisemitism in England. Essentially what he demonstrates is an abiding antisemitic element within English society, ever ready to boil over into violence in earlier times, and later into hate speech and discrimination. Since antisemitism is essentially irrational, he demonstrates that the trigger for antisemitic action at any one time can vary with the religious, social, or political weather.
Anti-Semitism on Film
Marco Bellocchio’s Kidnapped! The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara and Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy are both recent films that deal with historic instances of anti-Semitic prejudice that, in their own day, captured the attention of the European press. The subject of the first is the kidnapping of a six-year-old Jewish boy by the papal authorities, who insisted that he be raised a Catholic. The second tells the story of the French Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus’s imprisonment on trumped-up charges of espionage.

Reviewing both films, Michael Sragow writes:
Bellocchio delivers his epic yet incisive version with heart-stopping immediacy and clarity. He generally follows the factual narrative but inventively heightens and condenses the action to depict the effects of religious extremism and brainwashing. . . . Bellocchio’s prodigious talent takes us inside his characters while the action plays out on a grand scale. He and his superb cast bridge the contradictory narratives that filled Jewish and Catholic journals in 1859, characterizing Edgardo either as a bereft boychik or a spiritual savant instantly embodying Christian grace.

Polanski, by contrast, focuses on one character: Georges Picquart (played by Jean Dujardin), the intelligence officer who discovered that Dreyfus had been framed:

In Dujardin’s virile, hyper-alert performance, Picquart is a casual anti-Semite overtaken by his sense of justice and decency. When he meets with Louis Garrel’s intense, disciplined Dreyfus after the Jew’s exoneration, there is no hint of sentimentality or false uplift. Unexpectedly at odds over Dreyfus’s request for a promotion, they do each other the honor of speaking honestly and directly.
Irish chief rabbi: 'Ireland is one of the most anti-Zionist states in the West'
"Ireland is one of the most anti-ZIonist countries in the Western world," Ireland Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder told Zvika Klein during The Jerusalem Post Podcast.

Wieder, who was originally from London and was only recently appointed chief rabbi of Ireland, described how the anti-Israel sentiments in the Republic of Ireland have been felt "very strongly" since October 7.

"It really plays out on so many levels of society," he explained. "In the government, the opposition parties, the media, schools, and universities. And while we're very grateful there hasn't been a lot of violence for the most part – definitely compared to what we've seen in other countries – there have been extremely strong anti-Zionist sentiments, and the criticism of Israel is disproportionate to what we see in other countries. It's disproportionate to what Ireland itself does and gets involved in with other conflicts around the world. And that is really heavily felt by the Jewish community in Ireland."

Ireland is home to around 2,500 Irish Jews who have been in the country for generations, but there has also been a large influx of Israeli Jews who have moved to the country. Wieder estimated that as many as 1,500 Israelis may live in Dublin alone.

And the Jewish community has been struggling with everything going on.

How is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict portrayed in Ireland?
"On a political level, the narrative here in Ireland is extremely one-sided," Wieder said. "If there's one thing we've been trying to push, it's that the way that the conflict is being portrayed in the media and spoken about by politicians doesn't reflect at all Israel's side of the story. It portrays, without exception, Israel trying to find an excuse to kill as many innocent civilians as possible, to cause as much damage, and take revenge for October 7. There's no recognition of the threat that Hamas poses to Israel [and] to long-term peace in the region. There's no talk about getting rid of Hamas, the hostages are barely spoken about.

"It's not even so much about the fact that this country is very quick to criticize Israel; it's just that the whole way the conflict is spoken about is completely one-sided and completely inaccurate."

The chief rabbi shared how he regularly speaks with students, who tell him how they have to watch videos about the history of the conflict. " And they are the most comical videos in terms of their historical inaccuracies and their bias, and when students challenge the videos and ask questions, they're told it's not up for discussion, that these are absolute facts, black and white."
Eric Adams declares ‘Eden Golan Day’ at United Hatzalah gala fundraiser
New York City Mayor Eric Adams made a surprise appearance at a gala for an Israeli first responder group in Manhattan Tuesday night, where he declared “Eden Golan Day” in honor of the Israeli singer who won fifth place at Eurovision last month.

Golan also took the stage at the United Hatzalah event to deliver the first US performance of her song “Hurricane.” The 20-year-old singer — who drew pro-Palestinian protests at the European song contest as well as admiration from fans for her poise in the face of jeers — was in the city to march in Sunday’s pro-Israel parade on Fifth Avenue.

“We should all use our talents, and Eden has used hers in a real way,” Adams said. “And we know you should have won the total contest.”

Adams, who marched with Golan at the parade, added, “People told us not to do the Israeli Day Parade. And I said, ‘Not while I’m the mayor.’ And you came, you marched by us, you showed us.”

Golan also received United Hatzalah’s “Hero Award,” and performed two additional songs: “Rise Up” by Andra Day and Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.” Her performance of both on the Israeli program “Rising Star” — where in one performance she wore a yellow ribbon and was surrounded by empty chairs representing the hostages held captive in Gaza — helped earn her the spot at Eurovision.

Eden Golan: a symbol of national resilience
In the face of global condemnation of the war in Gaza, Golan has become a symbol of national resilience and pride for Israelis. Hatzalah has taken on a measure of symbolism as well for its volunteers’ first response work on and immediately after Oct. 7. In Israel’s national Independence Day torch lighting ceremony, one of the group’s volunteers was selected to light a torch.

“Wow you guys are so beautiful,” Golan said from the stage. “It’s such an honor and a pleasure to be here. And to see all of you and to get to sing to you guys. … Everything you do is just priceless. and so important to us. And it’s my pleasure to share a bit of my love and my voice with you all tonight.”




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