Tuesday, June 18, 2024

06/18 Links Pt2: Israel Is Not a Colonial State. If Anything, It's the Reverse; The Campaign to Delegitimize the Very Idea of Antisemitism; Douglas Murray Vs Mehdi Hasan

From Ian:

Israel Is Not a Colonial State. If Anything, It's the Reverse
The distorted narrative painting Israel as a country of "colonizers" is a tawdry falsehood.

Given that many Israelis were driven out of surrounding Middle Eastern countries and many others were survivors of the Holocaust, branding them "colonial" is laughable.

My own grandfather was nine when, in 1935, his parents managed to get him out of Mashhad in Iran - a city where being Jewish was punishable by death.

Following pogroms in Mashhad a century earlier, those who weren't murdered or didn't manage to escape were forced to convert to Islam.

At home, his family preserved their identity and traditions. My grandfather would tell me about their underground synagogues, clandestine matzah baking on Passover, and secret Shabbat observance.

In Baghdad, my husband's grandfather wasn't having a great time either. After Iraqi independence, Jews were no longer allowed to hold public office, their houses were regularly looted.

Riots saw them murdered and abducted. Most of the Jews fled, leaving everything they possessed behind.

If you can spot a colonialist in this story so far, please do stop me.

Some 850,000 Jews were driven out of their homes in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia, Iran and Libya. The Holocaust survivors also don't fit the colonial bill.
NGO Monitor: Commission of Inquiry’s 5th Report: Denying Security Threats to Israel
On June 12, 2024, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC)’s permanent “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel” (COI) published its newest report detailing Hamas’s brutal attack in Israel on October 7th and Israel’s defensive military response. The report contained two accompanying “conference room papers” – a 59-page report on “attacks carried out on and after 7 October 2023 in Israel” and a 126-page report on the “military operations and attacks carried out in the Occupied Palestinian Territory from 7 October to 31 December 2023.” While the COI discusses the Hamas atrocities, it minimizes their severity, ignores the geo-political context, draws false moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas, engages in victim blaming, and denies Israel’s right to self-defense and self-determination. Absurdly, the COI ultimately concludes that while both Israel and Hamas are guilty of war crimes, only Israel is guilty of “crimes against humanity.”

In one of the most egregious lines from its report, the COI claims, “there is no evidence suggesting that the events of 7 October, as tragic and outrageous as they were, at any time posed a real threat to the continued existence of the State of Israel or of the Jewish people.” The COI seems to be ignoring the multitude of Hamas officials’ public statements claiming “October 7 was just a rehearsal” and “The Al-Aqsa Deluge [the name Hamas gave its October 7 onslaught] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.” The COI also disregards that the Hamas Charter clearly calls for the destruction of the state of Israel and the elimination of the Jewish people.

The Commission has consistently minimized and negated Israel’s right to self-defense against Palestinian terrorism, implying that terrorism is not a valid justification for Israel’s security concerns and claiming that the term “is not clearly defined under international law.” It has also whitewashed terrorists as “human rights defenders,” abusing this framework. The COI’s last report (October 2023) also placed scare quotation marks around the words terrorism, terrorist, and terror every time they appeared, belittling the term and discounting Israel’s legitimate security measures. It similarly ignores the role of Iran and the ongoing and serious security threats posed by Iranian proxies, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and of course Hamas.

The COI itself also must be held accountable for its role in inflaming the conflict. By denying Israel’s right to self-defense against terrorism, drawing equivalences between Israel and Hamas, and denying the existence of Palestinian terrorism, the Commission ultimately emboldens and encourages terrorist organizations and violent acts against Israel, such as what occurred on October 7.

Methodology
The report relies heavily on unverifiable, anonymous testimonies and politicized NGOs. It is unclear if and how the COI attempted to independently corroborate these sources and to what extent it engaged in any investigation beyond a narrow selection of source material and individuals confirming the COI’s predetermined conclusions.

According to the report, “The Commission conducted remote interviews with victims and witnesses and consulted other sources of information inside Israel, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and in several other countries…the Commission was able to gather valuable first-hand accounts, including from children, of acts committed in Gaza since 7 October 2023. It met with more than 70 victims and witnesses, more than two thirds of whom were women.”

Moreover, the COI claims that “Information that met the criteria of reliability and authenticity was included and analysed under the standard of proof of ‘reasonable grounds to conclude’.”
Welcome to The Omnicause, the fatberg of activism
I’d like to talk about The Omnicause. Oh, you haven’t heard of The Omnicause? How embarrassing for you, because it’s quite the dernier cri! The Omnicause is, simply, every cause you must care about if you’re A Good Progressive rolled into one, because everything in the world is connected.

So trans rights are connected to Palestinian rights are connected to environmental concerns, and any self-respecting progressive who cares about one has to care about the other two. Queers for Palestine; headlines in the Guardian such as “Emissions from Israel’s war in Gaza have immense effect on climate catastrophe”; standfirsts in the New York Times such as “In many students’ eyes, the war in Gaza is linked to other issues, such as policing, mistreatment of Indigenous people, racism and the impact of climate change.” Too long, didn’t read? “Everything that I don’t like is fascism.” I’ve lost count now of the number of Democrat senators whose social media biographers finish with “she/her. Palestine.”

Gender, environment, Gaza: they’re all the same, even though LGBT people live under the threat of death in Palestine, and I haven’t heard too much from Hamas about the environment. According to The Omnicause, they’re all magically connected. It’s the fatberg of causes, and the fat gluing them all together is Western narcissism.

Fossil Free Books, for example, is very much part of The Omnicause. You have doubtless read about FFB: the shadowy pressure group that has decided the best way to fight climate change is to campaign against wealthy investment companies from funding arts events. Yeah, shut down a little book festival in the north of England: that’ll fix the environment! But of course, FFB aren’t only interested in the environment – that would be impossible. Despite their name, their social media feed suggests their main interest is – can you guess? - Palestine, or, more specifically, campaigning against Israel. Their main complaint against Baillie Gifford, which – until FFB had its way – supported most book festivals in the UK, was that it had a tiny amount of investment in companies connected to Israel.

If you had any doubt of the clod-hopping, philistine stupidity of Fossil Free Books and all who travel on its dead-end coattails, Jeremy Corbyn has been cheering it on, tweeting triumphally after Barclays withdrew its funding for UK music events, “We will continue to demand all arts festivals stand on the side of humanity and peace.”

Ah yes, because there’s nothing that screams “war-mongering genocide” more loudly than, say, a music festival in a London park on a summer’s evening. Still, it must be hard for Jeremy to care about the arts when his cultural hinterland begins with regular appearances on Russian TV and ends with similar gigs on Iranian TV. Thank God he’s taken a stand against that true cultural evil: British book festivals.


Seth Mandel: ‘Holocaust and Genocide’ Centers: A Requiem
There’s an easy way to fix the problems that Holocaust and Genocide centers around the country are facing: Drop the “and Genocide” part.

You can have a Holocaust center or you can have a genocide center, but you can’t have both. For elementary school, I attended a Jewish day school, not a Jewish-and-other-faiths day school. At college, I did not take courses that were part of the Department of Jewish Studies and Other Religions, because there is no such department. Jewish universalism is a nice-sounding but catastrophically terrible idea, which is why our actual institutions are either particularist or obsolete.

Except, of course, for Holocaust-related institutions.

And the New York Times reports on the trap they have set for themselves:
Many of the museums have a broader mission beyond the Holocaust: They want to raise awareness about prejudice, mass killings and human rights. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington has created case studies of other atrocities, including the Ottoman genocide of Armenians, ethnic cleansing in the Ethiopian civil war and the Burmese killings of Rohingya Muslims, which the U.S. State Department considers to be a genocide.

In May, the Illinois Holocaust Museum opened a core exhibition called “Voices of Genocide,” highlighting the experiences of witnesses to mass killings in Armenia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Guatemala.

And many museums have devoted attention to non-Jewish victims of the Nazis, like the Roma, L.G.B.T.Q. people and people with disabilities, as well as to U.S. civil rights abuses like Jim Crow laws and the internment of Japanese Americans.

The acute problem since Oct. 7 is that “the museums must contend with the Israel-Hamas war, and the fact that all sides invoke the Holocaust to make their case.”

The Times characteristically quotes Omer Bartov, a professor of history at Brown and an idiot, comparing Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza to the Holocaust. Museum officials all over the country say they’re getting questions about whether what Israel is doing to the Palestinians counts as genocide. Unfortunately, they seem to be dignifying those questions with a response, when they should instead be inviting those with questions about Gaza or baseball or saltwater taffy or any other unrelated topic to find those answers in more appropriate venues.

The overall trend of Holocaust museums getting put on the defensive was entirely predictable. Always and everywhere, the act of universalizing Jewish suffering increases Jewish suffering rather than preventing or alleviating the suffering of others.

There’s nothing wrong with having a genocide center and studying all manner of crimes against humanity. But there needn’t be any such thing as a “Holocaust and…”

This works for academia, too. The University of Minnesota recently hired its own token As-a-Jew to run its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Raz Segal proclaimed in an anti-Zionist publication that Israel’s counteroffensive is a “textbook case of genocide.” Two members of the center’s advisory board, according to Jewish Insider, immediately resigned in protest. The university then “paused” the hiring of Segal, who is manifestly unfit to run a Holocaust center or any other scholarly institution.
Seth Mandel: Ground Zero of America’s Anti-Semitism Crisis
Now, CUNY has been purging itself of Jews for years and methodically constructing one of the most anti-Semitic environments anywhere in higher education—important background information for those seeking to understand just how repugnant is all this moral equivalence between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Also relevant is a specific pattern you’ll notice regarding the Islamophobia complaints: An anti-Zionist student group will threaten Jews on campus, the campus will offer to protect Jews in some vague way, and then the student group will sue the school for offering accommodations to the Jews it threatened but not the group doing the threatening. It is perverse that the federal Office for Civil Rights is legitimizing this particular brand of complaint.

Finally, an important detail is getting left out of the coverage of this settlement. The student who wielded a flame at a man wearing an IDF sweatshirt back in 2020, and to whom the school apologized? That was Nerdeen Kiswani. She is the ringleader for a large part of the viciously anti-Semitic protest movement in New York. Between October and April, according to the ADL, the organization led by Kiswani “has hosted or co-sponsored at least 78 anti-Israel rallies many of which included explicit support for violence against Israeli civilians by U.S. designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations Hamas, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Hezbollah, the Houthis and affiliated individuals such as Leila Khaled and Hamas’ military wing spokesperson Abu Obaida.”

Kiswani even led a protest in front of a synagogue in New Jersey while wearing a pin featuring the likeness of the spokesman for Hamas’s military wing.

CUNY is not responsible for everything said and done by Kiswani, but neither is the school blameless for cultivating and promoting the extremism Kiswani developed under CUNY’s formative supervision. And it is no surprise that Kiswani has taken her place among the leadership of the worst outbreak of anti-Semitism that America has seen in a century.

But CUNY has little to worry about, because the headlines will just say “Probe finds two universities failed to protect Jewish, Muslim students.”
The Campaign to Delegitimize the Very Idea of Antisemitism
That’s why any clear evidence that antisemitism is real, like the hatefest at the Nova exhibit that AOC condemned, must be attacked at once. The very notion of antisemitism must be delegitimized as a Zionist conspiracy, another nefarious Jewish attempt to shut down critics and control events.

Why has the term become such a growing threat to progressives?

For starters, it disrupts their cherished oppressor/oppressed narrative that is their ideological lifeblood. Jews are stereotyped as white, Western and powerful, the ultimate exemplars of oppressive white privilege. They must never be allowed to be victims.

We saw this at work dramatically right after Oct. 7, when progressives came down hard on Israel and the Jews even though 1200 Israelis got massacred by Hamas. The mutilation, the beheadings, the rapes, the burning alive of bodies were so staggering, it presented a nightmare scenario for progressives who are used to bashing the Jewish state as a genocidal, imperialist and colonialist bad actor.

Suddenly, these powerful Jews looked like victims, victims of the most savage Jew haters imaginable.

This new victim status for Jews was unacceptable, even if it was so blatantly justified, especially since it was so justified. It had to be nipped in the bud.

The progressive campaign to delegitimize the term antisemitism, then, is just another way of telling Jews to stay in their oppressor lane. Bashing a warring Israel is now the easiest way for the left to bash Jews.

But there’s something even bigger at play: The war against Israel is also a war against everything progressives hate about the West. That’s why the term antisemitism must be discredited. Bad guys can never be victims.

The leftist media, which consistently downplay antisemitism from the left, have become the great enablers.

“The New York Times has published countless stories about the rhetoric of participants in the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia,” Christine Rosen wrote in Commentary in a piece titled, “Why the Media Ignore Anti-Semitism.”

“Where are the big-think pieces and deeply reported stories about the organizations and funders behind the anti-Jewish groups staging protests outside synagogues and other Jewish institution?”

As Rich Lowry writes in National Review Online, “every day is a Charlottesville now, but hardly anyone notices…The antisemitic rhetoric and menacing nature of that event — in a different, left-wing form — are being replicated all over the country in openly hateful pro-Hamas protests.”

If white supremacists were showing up all over the country and agitating against Jews and vandalizing property, he asks, “Can you imagine the headlines and nightly news reports?”

We’re left with this bizarre landscape where, on one side, Jewish activist groups are exposing the spooky rise of antisemitism from the left, while on the other side, progressive groups are undermining the very idea of antisemitism, encouraging people to disregard the whole thing as a Jewish-Zionist con.

Meanwhile, Jewish progressives must be disillusioned to see how so much of the Jew hatred these days is coming from inside their own house. Will they walk on eggshells so as not to alienate their progressive comrades, or will they have the courage to tell it like it is, even if it hurts their team?

When even AOC rings the alarm, you know we’ve entered new territory.
Douglas Murray COOKS Mehdi Hasan On Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism Debate [Monk are taking down videos so this might not last]
Munk Debate Toronto 2024

Natasha Hausdorff, Gideon Levy, Douglas Murray, Mehdi Hasan

Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism




D-Day Jewish veteran ‘disgusted’ by honoring in France of Hamas apologist
A Jewish veteran of D-Day criticizes French officials for honoring a “Hamas spokesperson,” as he terms it, as part of the 80th anniversary events commemorating the World War II Allied invasion into Nazi-occupied France.

“I see the president of Normandy himself has invited a Hamas spokesman, giving him an honor, a medal, in the last few days,” Londoner Mervyn Kersh, 99, tells The Times of Israel. “I want to tell them how wrong they are and how disgusting it is to those who liberated France,” he says in an interview, referring to the regional government of Normandy, where D-Day happened.

Kersh’s issue is with the honoring on June 4 by the Region of Normandy of Motaz Azaiza, a Palestinian journalist from Gaza who has justified the October 7 atrocities by Hamas against Israelis and, according to some, also glorified Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists during the fighting that the October 7 onslaught triggered.

Azaiza, who is staying in Qatar following his evacuation from Gaza in January aboard a Qatari government aircraft, is the 2024 recipient of the Normandy region’s Prize of Liberty. It comes with a $27,000 check that Azaiza received during a ceremony attended by Hervé Morin, the president of the Normandy region, as part of the 80th anniversary events.

Azaiza is on record as saying that “if you want a besieged Palestinian to condemn” October 7, then “you need to declare that you condemn what Israel [has] been doing against Palestinians before October 7, since 1948 and during the genocide.”

At Normandy, Kersh and other troops “came to rescue France and the rest of Europe, which we did. We all thought that was worth doing. I have my doubts now,” he says, citing Azaiza’s honoring and the rising expression of antisemitism.
Jonathan Tobin: Time to unmask pro-Hamas thugs
Americans have seen this movie before. Politically motivated masked thugs who gather to intimidate, silence and sometimes inflict violence on the objects of their hate are nothing new in this country. Yet the ubiquitous use of masks—whether in the form of bandannas or Palestinian-style keffiyehs worn by supporters of the Hamas terrorist group to conceal their identity—has become a disturbing staple of contemporary American life.

Secure in the notion that they can’t be easily identified, groups of masked demonstrators have occupied public spaces and college campuses, engaging in activities designed to frighten Jews and supporters of Israel. Many of those who participated were engaged in other radical causes, such as extreme environmentalism, before support for the mass murderers, rapists and kidnappers of Oct. 7 became the cause du jour on the left. Since then, support for “Palestine,” the eradication of Israel and the revival of the old Soviet Marxist talking point about Zionism—the national liberation movement of the Jews—being a form of racism has become the intellectual fashion of the moment.

Far from limiting their efforts to criticisms of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip or even supporting the murderous aspirations of the Palestinians, who are the supposed objects of their solicitude, the point of the exercise isn’t mere advocacy. By concealing their identity while engaged in scrawling antisemitic graffiti and vandalism, chanting slogans of Jew-hatred or even demanding that subway riders declare aloud whether or not they are “Zionists,” their goal is to create an atmosphere in which members of the Jewish community are made to feel as if they are targeted and unwanted. Even as they dare authorities to stop them, the masked defenders of Hamas seek a public square where their views won’t just predominate and proliferate. They seek to make a space where support for Israel or the normal conduct of Jewish life is made impossible or requires so much courage as to marginalize it outright.

Anti-masking legislation
In such an environment, antisemitism, including violence, is bound to thrive. And that is exactly what is happening as overt acts of Jew-hatred have skyrocketed in the last eight months.

Can anything be done about this?

One suggestion is the passage of laws to ban the use of masks by groups of people whose purpose is to conceal their identity in public places with the exception of their use in specific celebrations such as Halloween or masquerade parties.

Responding to public anger over the surge in Jew-hatred in a city built in part on Jewish labor, commerce and intellectualism, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has said she is considering calling for the reinstitution of a mask ban, which was the law until the legislature repealed it at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020. But as a subsequent article in The New York Times pointed out, Hochul was merely posturing. Since the Albany legislature has already adjourned for the year, such a law can’t even be considered until 2025. And in its current configuration, where Democrats not only have super-majorities in both the Assembly and Senate but caucuses dominated by left-wingers, the chances of passing any such law are minimal. Indeed, as one member of the Democratic leadership made clear to the Times, the proposal would be dead on arrival.
The ‘acceptable’ face of racism in Britain
Well, if our woke elites were really so concerned about the racist abuse of minorities, why do they have so little to say about anti-Semitism? Vast swathes of our political and media class love to fantasise that Farage’s language is whipping up violent hatred against minorities. But they largely turn a blind eye to those who are actually whipping up hatred of Britain’s Jewish minority. They look the other way when ‘pro-Palestine’ activists project the genocidal ‘From the river to the sea’ slogan on to the House of Commons, or intimidate Jewish students across Britain’s university campuses.

The reason for this blind spot is not hard to fathom. Many of the anti-Israel obsessives come from the right side of the tracks. They’re seen as a largely middle-class constituency indulging in a more ‘acceptable’ form of racism. Or they are Islamists, who can deploy accusations of ‘Islamophobia’ to shield themselves from criticism.

The double standards are not just limited to our politicians and journalists. The justice system also seems to treat anti-Semitism differently to other forms of racism. This month, a knife-wielding anti-Semite who terrorised Jewish shop owners in Golders Green received only a suspended sentence, while two men who threw bacon at a mosque in 2016 were sentenced to 12 months in prison. For the authorities, some hate crimes are worse than others.

We have been here before, of course. In 1930s Germany, it was the gentile middle classes who gave anti-Semitism an aura of respectability. As historian Lucy Dawidowicz notes in The War Against the Jews: 1933-45, ‘back-to-nature advocates, food faddists, occultists… all found a place in the anti-Semitic movement’. Today, it seems, Britain’s middle classes have given anti-Semitic Israelophobia its own aura of respectability.

As a result, the political class can falsely imply that voters attracted to Nigel Farage and Reform UK are fuelled by racist, dog-whistled sentiments while having far less to say about the very real eruption of openly anti-Semitic bigotry on the streets of the UK. It seems the political class is no longer able to recognise where the real threat to race relations in Britain is coming from.
Rabbis Press Dem Leader Schumer To Pass Bills To Combat Anti-Semitism
A coalition of rabbis is pressuring Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) to pass three pieces of legislation meant to combat surging anti-Semitism in America, saying the Senate leader must make good on his promises to protect American Jews.

"You have often referred to yourself as a ‘Shomer,’ Hebrew for ‘guardian’ or ‘watchman,’ describing your role as encompassing protecting the interests of Israel and the Jewish people," the Coalition for Jewish Values, a group comprised of 2,500 Orthodox rabbis, wrote in a letter sent last week to Schumer and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. "You have even claimed that this Hebrew word is the origin of your last name. With this in mind, we write to convey our urgent request that you place three key pieces of legislation, all intended to combat antisemitism, on the legislative agenda for the U.S. Senate."

The rabbis take issue with Schumer’s recent comments attacking Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and alleging that Israel is not doing enough to protect Palestinian civilians in the embattled Gaza Strip. Schumer has called for Netanyahu to be stripped of power, drawing allegations of foreign election influence, and advocated for increased diplomatic pressure on the Jewish state as it faces down Hamas militants along its southern border and Hezbollah fighters along its northern border with Lebanon.

"We have not forgotten that in a speech before the Senate earlier this year, one in which you vocally adopted the mantle of Shomer, you claimed that Benjamin Netanyahu was somehow comparable to [Palestinian Authority president] Mahmoud Abbas, that Israel was failing in its ‘moral obligation’ as it rewrites the book on avoiding the very civilian casualties that Hamas pursues as cynical strategy, and even accused Israel of sharing culpability in the results of the atrocities and war crimes committed by Hamas," the rabbis wrote. "To say that we were disappointed is understatement, but, as rabbis, we believe in repentance and redemption."

Schumer, the religious leaders say, must fast track three pieces of legislation that are currently waiting for approval by the Senate.
The far right is all over the Gaza solidarity movement
What Fuentes would probably rather not admit is that by jumping on the ‘Israel is a genocidal state’ bandwagon, he now finds himself standing side by side with those trans-flag-waving Columbia students he claims to hate so much.

There are more similarities. The levels of dorkiness surrounding Fuentes are extremely high – among the highest I have ever seen. Where the loony left kids give off vibes of having mental-health diagnoses and allergies, Fuentes’s crew, the ‘Groypers’, bring to mind prep-school virgins with a touch of autism. Just look at those baby-faced far-righters dashing through the TPUSA convention, some wearing Hawaiian shirts, some wearing suits, gleefully shouting, ‘America First!’, before getting ejected. They looked like this was the first time their mothers let them go out unsupervised.

In some ways, it’s hard to take this little Fuentes chap seriously. In one especially awkward clip, from an internet livestream a few years ago, he responded to a female who asked him out by demanding to know: ‘What part of what you know about me would make you think that I’d want to be propositioned by a woman?’ Fair question. While saying this, he began to do what can only be described as aggressive jazz hands.

His little Detroit roadshow became even more sinister when avowed racist and former KKK grand wizard David Duke came to support him at the weekend. In an interview outside the TPUSA conference, Duke called Fuentes ‘a comrade’ who is working to resist ‘Jewish supremacism’ in the United States. ‘We [whites] are being genocided just like the Palestinians, just a different form’, he said.

As abhorrent as these views are, they are mercifully fringe. It is just not true, despite what the mainstream media would have you think, that Fuentes and his ilk are a core element of Donald Trump’s base. In 2022, Fuentes crashed a dinner that the former president had with Kanye West, organised by the ‘notoriously theatrical’ Milo Yiannopoulos. This predictably led to a media frenzy, with claims that Fuentes was somehow close to Trump. But this has never been the case.

Still, that doesn’t make what Nick Fuentes is saying any less disgusting. His comrades on the Israelophobic left should be asking themselves how they found themselves on the same side as this racist, Jew-hating brat.
The West fails to understand the enduring roots of antisemitism in Islam
Dr. Andrew Bostom, a retired professor of medicine at Brown University and a renowned critic of Islam, has published several works tracing the historical roots of antisemitism within Islam. According to Bostom, the antisemitism we are witnessing today is not a novel phenomenon and did not begin with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

Historical records reveal that when the esteemed polymath and writer Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Basri, known as al-Jahiz, died in 869, he left behind works that explored the political and religious undercurrents of his era. Al-Jahiz was commissioned by the bigoted Caliph al-Mutawakkil, notorious for his suppression of the brutal Mutazilite movement and his return to a more traditional, revelation-based Islam to compose an anti-Christian invective, motivated by the perceived threat from neighboring Christian territories.

While al-Mutawakkil himself did not perceive Jews as a threat, he noted that the Muslim masses harbored more animosity toward Jews than Christians.

In his work, al-Jahiz examined the reasons for this. He referenced Quranic verse 5:82, Muhammad’s interactions with the Jews of Medina, and the anti-Jewish themes in the Sira – the early biographies of Mohammed. Al-Jahiz considered verse 5:81, which suggests that Jews harbor the greatest hatred for Muslims, as a significant anti-Jewish motif. His contemporary, al-Muhasibi, who died in 857, corroborated this view, attributing this resentment to the Jews’ rejection of Mohammed’s religious message.

A review of other Quranic statements regarding Jews suggests that the primary antisemitic motif is found in verse 2:61 of the Quran and reiterated in verse 3:112. Both verses accuse Jews of killing prophets and defying Allah’s will, resulting in eternal condemnation. Verse 2:61 states that “shame and misery” are “stamped upon them.” This condemnation is reinforced by verses such as 5:60, describing Jews’ transformation into apes and pigs, and verse 5:64, which accuses Jews of spreading war and corruption – a profound lie echoed in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas cited this verse in a 2007 speech against Israeli Jews, illustrating the enduring power of Quranic statements.
After Oct. 7, Antisemitism in China Reached Shocking Levels
Yuval Weinreb, an expert on Chinese culture, said in an interview, "Before the [Oct. 7] massacre, China was one of the safest places to say that you're an Israeli. A Jew."

"The response to every Israeli who spoke Chinese and explained that they're from Israel was always, 'Wow, you're Jewish, you're the smartest in the world.'"

"That's something the Chinese learn from infancy. They think we have some sort of superpower. There are books that teach people about how smart the Jews are. I call that 'positive antisemitism.'"

"After Oct. 7, that 'positive' antisemitism became negative antisemitism, and at the most shocking levels imaginable."

"There were comments like, 'If there are eight million Jews in Israel, we can open a really big soap factory there,' or 'Too bad Hitler didn't finish the job.'"

"The government will not support this officially, but the fact that they allow anyone who wants to spread these messages to proceed, effectively says it all."

"The government of China has a clear strategy: the elimination of American global hegemony and creation of a new world order."

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict... affords them a lot of popularity, without risking a thing."

"The Muslim and Arab street is with China, and other countries in the global south, which China purports to lead, identify with it."
Yisrael Medad: The simplistic message of Pro-Palestinian rhetoric
Most of us truly do not presume or even imagine that pro-Palestine propaganda totally inverts history and fact, invents comparisons, and has no problem voicing hateful and spiteful speech. What is at work here is not just corrupting a narrative by falsifying events, but that the ultimate purpose is to gain allies. This is intersectionality at work.

Another master is Mehdi Hasan. On June 12, he tweeted: “Entire US political and media class: ‘Israel doesn’t target civilians!’” To that, he attached a screenshot of The Jerusalem Post story that quoted Israel Defense and Security Forum CEO Lt.-Col. (res.) Yaron Buskila discussing Israel’s northern front. Buskila is not a general, nor is he on active or even reserve duty. The forum is an NGO. But Hasan described him as an “Israeli general.”

Moreover, Buskila spoke of “civilian infrastructure,” not humans. But who grasps what Hasan has done? He does this daily, sometimes on multiple occasions. Hasan uses a term “Insta-Genocide” because, perhaps, a simple “genocide” is not cool enough.

In another tweet also on June 12, Hasan sought to counter the words of America’s UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield that Israel accepted the latest Biden ceasefire agreement, and wrote, “There is zero public evidence that Israel has accepted this deal. The gaslighting continues. Insane to watch in real time, but it is relentless.” I checked, but he did not seem to correct himself.

Hasan has piled up a good few entries at the CAMERA website. It notes that he employs three main tactics. The first is the straw man fallacy. The second is to make outlandish claims and then use false appeals to authority to obfuscate. And the last is to lie by omission. If one is propagandizing on behalf of the idea of an Arab Palestine, those tactics would seem to be the best methodology.

If challenged that the last thing an Arab state of Palestine would turn out to be is a heaven for progressives, for LGBT persons, atheists, and other staples of their normative radical liberal vision for society, that will be shrugged off. Palestine is permitted all consideration for its sins, as long as Zionism’s settler “colonialism” is defeated.

Their preferred terminology is that taken for the experience of the Jews during their history. Terms like genocide; concentration camp; starvation; ghetto. Jewish identity is removed, only to be awarded to a population element that, for over 100 years, has systematically sought to kill and rape and plunder as many Jews as possible; a populace whose leaders flocked to Berlin during World War II, seeking Hitler’s protection and seeking to assist, yes, the Holocaust.

The tools are false misleading comparisons; inverted narratives; ignoring uncomfortable issues; false data. IfNotNow has been running a campaign against AIPAC under the theme “the pro-war lobby” as if Hamas didn’t initiate the hostilities. It will loudly proclaim the struggle for Palestine must be “by any means possible,” echoing Frantz Fanon, but if questioned why cannot Israel then defend itself similarly, the questioner is denounced and dismissed.
The glaring silence of Jewish studies departments as anti-Israel mobs overrun their universities
In a 2008 Commentary Magazine article, Ruth Wisse, who in her youth was a Jewish studies pioneer at McGill University, issued a warning to diaspora Jews: if Arab “rejectionism” of Israel’s legitimacy, including the need for Israel’s elimination, comes to be accepted as normal, then not just the Jewish state, but Jews everywhere, will be regarded as “politically idiosyncratic once again.”

That is exactly what has been happening in plain sight at our universities for decades. The October 7 massacre gave wings to the rejectionists, ripping away the coy, tissue-thin facade of anti-Zionism to reveal the coiled antisemitism it had barely concealed. As a result, since October 7, Jewish students who consider attachment to Israel a natural component of their identity haven’t known a full day’s ease on campus.

Middle Eastern studies departments support and amplify the anti-Zionist chorus on university campuses. External Jewish organizations and advocacy groups do what they can to support Jewish students and push back against the hatred. But most university Jewish studies departments, which house the obvious presumptive antagonists to the keffiyeh mobs, have shown reluctance to enter the fray.

Last month, a long essay on the “silence” of American Jewish studies departments, written by Andrew Koss and published in Mosaic magazine, roused discussion — and hackles — amongst Jewish academics.

Koss claims that a decline of intellectual self-confidence allowed Jewish studies departments to be colonized by the faddish progressive themes known collectively as “wokeness,” including “subaltern studies” (the study of the oppressed, where Israel is considered an “oppressor”).

At a 2023 Association of Jewish Studies conference, for example, the panellists on Israel ranged “from the far end of the Zionist left to outright anti-Zionism, often without representatives of other views.” Koss concludes that, “The deepest danger to the field isn’t that all current Jewish-studies professors will become obsessed with bad ideas, but that bad ideas tend to drive out good ones if not actively fought.”

One such “bad idea” is “diasporism.” The theory — which, though it’s still marginal, has been gaining traction among progressive Jews — states that for Jews, being in a state of power over others is unnatural. Jews should accommodate themselves to permanent exile and find their Jewish fulfillment in religion or culture or social justice causes, such as the plight of the Palestinians, according to this way of thinking.

The diasporists’ rationale is that Zionism was a very divisive, hotly debated issue for Jews in the decades before the Balfour Declaration of 1917 set Israel’s right to national self-determination in motion. True enough. And so, their logic runs, their own anti-Zionism is simply a continuation of that debate.

That makes no sense. The early 20th-century debate was one of ideas. Zionism won. The sovereign state of Israel is a 76-year-old material reality — one that is home to over seven-million Jews. So, for diasporist Jews to speak as though the legitimacy of Israel — and Israel alone amongst the nations — is up for debate, is rather like arguing for infanticide as nothing more than a continuation of the 20th-century debate around legal abortion.

Diasporists’ alignment with Hamas’s eliminationist ambition is a breathtaking betrayal of half the world’s Jews. It is deeply disturbing that the views of such quislings are accorded respectability in any Jewish studies departments.
Germany's domestic intelligence agency dealing with BDS as 'suspected extremist case'
Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the state’s federal domestic intelligence agency, in a new report issued by Germany’s Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser on Tuesday reported that it was treating the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as a “suspected extremist case.”

The report noted that the movement had “links to secular Palestinian extremism.” It also stated that there were “sufficiently strong factual indications” that the BDS “violates the idea of international understanding,” German news site Watson also stated.

The report claimed that the BDS is now being regarded as a suspected extremist movement. It also noted that the BDS is not a homogeneous association, party, or organization.

Further, the ministry’s report gave some background on the BDS movement, which was founded in 2005, clarifying that it was supported by over 170 Palestinian organizations, including several nongovernmental ones, as well as Palestinian terrorist groups Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which were responsible for the October 7 massacre.

Moreover, the report stipulated that “there is sufficient, strong, factual evidence to suggest that [the] BDS thereby violates, among other things, the idea of international understanding” by undermining and questioning Israel’s right to exist.
Oops! Palestinian Authority acquires machinery from BDS-boycotted company
The Palestinian Authority has obtained heavy machinery from Caterpillar (CAT), a company subject to long smear campaigns led by the BDS National Committee, which has claimed repeatedly that CAT bulldozers and other heavy vehicles are used by Israel to demolish houses and other “urban warfare” efforts.

The online campaign, which has been running in varying amplitudes since around 2010, apparently had minor success with a handful of groups claiming to have divested from the company. Notedly, the US-based company even won itself an entry on Amnesty USA’s website for its alleged “role in human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories.”

However, last week, the Palestinian Ministry of Local Government published a post from an inauguration ceremony where the Japanese government was thanked for supplying the machinery, which supposedly would contribute to dealing with solid waste, at a value of 5 million shekels. Pictures even showed Local Government Minister Sami Hijawi climbing on one of the machines, smiling.
Columbia prof told students not to watch mainstream media because ‘it is owned by Jews’: report
A Columbia University task force investigating antisemitism at the Manhattan Ivy League university has found a disturbing pattern of bias against Jews this year — including one professor who allegedly warned students to avoid the mainstream news because “it is owned by Jews,” according to a report.

Task force members told Haaretz that Jewish and Israeli pupils at the uptown campus felt “very targeted and ostracized” in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza — and ongoing protests.

In another shocking allegation, a professor singled out a student with a Jewish-sounding last name while reading a class roll call and demanding they justify Israel’s war against Hamas.

Numerous students also reported having Jewish symbols torn off them while walking on campus, the Israeli outlet reported.

Professors also encouraged students to take part in anti-Israel demonstrations, and some pupils were forced to quit out of clubs because they didn’t want to be part of actions against Israel.

The Columbia antisemitism task force issued its first report in March. It has not issued its second, follow-up report yet.

But, task force members told the Israeli newspaper that there is plenty of work to be done after the group was formed in November; it has heard from about 500 students.

Professor Gil Zussman, an Israeli electric engineering professor, told The Post that the environment on campus is hostile to Israeli students, in particular.

“There’s clear discrimination against Israeli students and Jews,” he said. “They’ve been targeted from the beginning by demonstrators.”

He said he knows of at least two professors who brought their classes to anti-Israel encampments that cropped up on campus this spring.
Federal probe of University of California, Davis centers on alleged Jew-hatred
On June 11, the U.S. Department of Education announced that it was probing the University of California, Davis for alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination on the basis of “shared ancestry,” including religion.

The department and its Office for Civil Rights does not typically publicize the reasons for its investigations, but UC Davis provided JNS with a copy of the letter that the Education Department sent notifying the public school about the investigation.

“The complaint alleged that the university discriminated against students on the basis of their national origin (shared Jewish ancestry and/or Israeli) by failing to respond adequately to incidents of harassment and of these students and by subjecting them to different treatment,” the department stated in the six-page letter.

The April 1 complaint centered specifically on social media postings from Students for Justice in Palestine, since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, “threatening violence against individuals who support Israel, mocking Jewish students and Zionists and containing threatening comments to Jewish and/or Israeli students at protests and other events on the university’s campus,” per the letter.

It added that UC Davis has allegedly “failed to hold SJP accountable under university policies applicable to all student organizations” and that the public school is accused of not requiring “student groups like SJP and Jewish Voices for Peace to comply with university policies for ‘major events’ and has not adequately responded to: the alleged exclusion of Jewish and/or Israeli students from campus events; physical assaults, graffiti, and signage on campus hostile to Jewish and/or Israeli students; or known faculty statements against Jewish and/or Israeli students on university webpages and social media.”
Arrest made in 3 arson cases at UC Berkeley
An Oakland man has been arrested in connection to multiple arson cases on the University of California, Berkeley campus.

Casey Robert Goonan, 34, was arrested Monday in connection with a firebombing attack of a law enforcement vehicle and three other arson attacks at the campus in June, Cal Fire said.

Pro-Palestinian groups have claimed responsibility in the three arson cases, calling it an act of protest and retaliation.

The latest arson happened Sunday afternoon when a small fire was set at the Dwinelle Annex construction site.

Last week, another arson was reported outside Koshland Hall. In that case, a group called Student Intifada claimed responsibility.

In an online post, the group claims they retaliated with a firebomb after UCLA student protesters were allegedly attacked by police.

The group is threatening further acts if the university does not divest from Israel.

The same group is also claiming responsibility for setting a law enforcement cruiser on fire earlier this month. Pictures showing what appeared to be a burned patrol car were also posted online. The group claims the act was once again retaliation for the police treatment of protesters on other campuses.


Lions’ Den, militant Palestinian fighter group, inspires hardline attack on Melbourne University
Vandals who attacked the University of Melbourne’s main library tagged it with the name of a militant Palestinian group that has claimed responsibility for deadly attacks on the West Bank, in what terrorism experts and Jewish community leaders say is a worrying step-up in protest activity.

Balaclava-clad activists this month broke into the Baillieu Library and caused extensive damage, wrecking expensive book-scanning equipment and spray-painting references to “Lions’ Den” on the floor and walls.

Arīn al-ʾUsud or Lions’ Den is a secular, armed resistance group of predominantly young Palestinian men that emerged in the West Bank town of Nablus two years ago and, through its presence on TikTok and Telegram, quickly gained a broad following across the occupied territories.

The group, which draws its members from across rival Palestinian factions Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is not listed as a terrorist organisation by the Australian government, but was this month sanctioned by the US Department of State for threatening West Bank security.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said evidence of support for Lions’ Den within the pro-Palestinian protest movement was a serious issue. He urged the Albanese government to consider proscribing the group as a terror organisation, which would give the Australian Federal Police and ASIO broad powers to investigate and prosecute its members.

The opposition is also pushing for radical Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahir to be proscribed after an investigation by this masthead revealed some of its members had infiltrated the anti-war movement in Sydney.


UCLA, Michigan and Northwestern drop in ADL antisemitism ranking
Colleges and universities that are popular among Jewish students still have a way to go in the fight to stop Jew hatred on campus, according to a revised “Campus Antisemitism Report Card” issued today by the Anti-Defamation League.

As with the initial report, which was released in April, only two schools received a perfect “A.” The number of schools receiving a failing grade went from 13 in April to nine in the recent report, pointing to some improvements.

However, three schools—Northwestern University, University of California-Los Angeles, and University of Michigan—saw their grade drop from a “D” to “F” in response to what the ADL categorized as “serious incidents” stemming from the anti-Israel encampments on campus and “a lack of adequate administrative response.”

Michigan, UCLA and Northwestern, all have large Jewish student populations. According to Hillel, Michigan is the 5th most Jewish public university in America, UCLA is 29th and Northwestern is 20th in the private university rankings

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, said after the initial report was issued, there was an assumption that things on campus would calm down, especially as the end of the school year was fast approaching.

That turned out not to be the case as, according to Greenblatt, there was an “alarming surge of anti-Jewish hate connected to the encampments and other on-campus protests, putting students’ safety at risk and even prompting some schools to cancel graduation.”

“The end of the school year should be a joyous time for students and their families,” he said in a press release. “It is unacceptable that some university leaders have let this situation get this out of hand.”
Leeds Palestine encampment removed after threat of legal action
When anti-Israel students at the University of Leeds established a protest camp on campus, they declared they would remain in place until the institution was, “no longer complicit in the oppression of the Palestinian people”.

But, 47 days later, they have packed up and left after the university launched legal proceedings to obtain a possession order against them.

Birmingham University’s vice-chancellor has meanwhile condemned the “unacceptable behaviour” of demonstrators while seeking a court order for their removal.

Writing on Instagram, Leeds Students Against Apartheid Coalition said they had accomplished their goals after securing more meetings with university bosses and, “a rejuvenation of student politics on campus” with over 30 student societies and 85 per cent of the student body expressing support for Gaza.

"We have successfully demonstrated the solidarity of the students with Palestine,” they said.

"Though we have achieved much during our encampment, the University remains complicit in settler colonialism and the devastating violence it wrought,” the statement continued.

"The UEG [University Executive Group] continues to hide behind the excuse of political neutrality to resist any effort to end its complicity, while committing fully to partnering with institutions and individuals responsible for the mass slaughtering of Palestinians.”

In future, they said, the student pro-Palestine movement must push for "more radical and militant actions not only from ourselves but society at large."

Student protestors will return in September – after their summer break from university ends – to continue "escalations," the statement added.


Pro-Palestinian Activists Smash Computers and Windows at Elbit Defense Factory in Britain
Members of protest group Palestine Action have vandalised a factory in Kent and a Canadian bank’s office in the City of London that it claims are linked to Israel.

Seven people were arrested after activists filmed themselves breaking into Instro Precision in Sandwich in the early hours of Monday, throwing stock to the ground and smashing computers with a crowbar.

The protesters, wearing orange jumpsuits, were seen in video footage crawling through a smashed window.

Palestine Action said some had used rolls of spikes called stingers to stop vehicles getting into the site while the break-in took place.

Kent Police said the force “was called to a report of a protest at Discovery Park, Sandwich shortly before 3.30am on Monday.

“Seven people have been arrested on suspicion of aggravated burglary. They have been taken into custody and an investigation into the incident is under way.”

The Scotiabank building in Bishopsgate in the City of London was sprayed with red paint and activists blocked doors at 6am on Monday.

Det Chief Insp Paul Doyle said: “We arrested 10 protesters linked to Palestine Action.

“Criminal damage of businesses and institutions in the City of London will not be tolerated and will result in police action.”


PreOccupiedTerritory: Climate Activists, Allies Explain Why Hezbollah Burning Down Israeli Woodlands With Rockets A Good Thing (satire)
Ecological NGOs and their progressive supporters continued to articulate today their position that while anywhere else in the world, massive forest and brush fires constitute catastrophic blows to the health of the Earth and its atmosphere, the specific fires that result when Islamic terrorists launch missiles and drones into the Jewish State represents a positive development that actually helps combat climate change, or at least gets offset by the other benefits of large-scale habitat destruction, carbon emissions, air pollution, and loss of biodiversity.

Organizations such as Greenpeace, and individual activists such as Greta Thunberg, took pains again Wednesday to explain why the widespread fires that Hezbollah’s missiles caused in the unseasonably-hot and -dry weather differs from all other fires in the world, which, the same individuals and organizations have warned for decades do irreparable damage to the environment.

“You know how there are some species of trees, like that Australian one I can’t remember the name of it offhand, that needs fire to propagate new ones?” suggested Thunberg. “It’s like that. The fires do produce smoke and destroy woodlands and kill wildlife and release millions of tons of harmful emissions that contribute to climate change. No one disputes that. But it will birth something eventually, like that Australian tree. Something not controlled by Jews.”

“It doesn’t count when indigenous people do it,” explained Greenpeace activist Paga Nizim. “I think a good analogy would be when Native American tribes sent entire herds of bison over cliffs and only harvested from the remains a small part of the hides, meat, bones, what have you, killing far in excess of what they needed in numbers of animals. If white people did that, we’d rightly call that a crime against nature. But it wasn’t white people. That makes it OK.”
Media Fail to Report Officials Got It Wrong Over Gaza “Famine”
However, a new report released on June 4 by the IPC’s Famine Review Committee (FRC) uncovered several flaws in the original data published in March, leading them to amend their original claims. Ultimately, the FRC concluded that they cannot consider the situation in Gaza a “famine.”

Here are the most significant points that deserve to be highlighted:
- The original report said that the caloric availability in the area covered only “59-63% of the needs (based uniquely on Humanitarian Food Assistance) in April.”
- The new report estimates the range of coverage of caloric availability was actually 75-109%.

So how did the IPC go from claiming that Gazans in the north were nowhere near getting their nutritional requirements to acknowledging that they were nowhere near being underfed?

How did they get it so wrong the first time?
- When discussing food trucks and other methods of aid entering the area, the IPC excluded commercial and/or privately contracted deliveries and World Food Program (WFP) deliveries to bakeries in northern Gaza from their original numbers.
- The original report “relied on multiple layers of assumptions and inference, beginning with food availability and access in northern Gaza and continuing through nutritional status and mortality.”
- There may have been a “mismatch in reporting periods” by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET).

While the corrected data from the FRC is receiving publicity on various X (formerly Twitter) threads, major news organizations seem to be ignoring its release.

By failing to report on the most recent information, news organizations are misleading their audience about the extent of food flowing into Gaza and misrepresenting the hunger situation in the area.

Even more dangerously, on June 16, almost two weeks after the new data was released, The New York Times still referenced the outdated, invalidated claims.

Why hasn’t The New York Times consulted the new data and instead continues to link false information in its articles?

The new report from the FRC states that it is impossible to determine the number of people who are completely unable to access food in Gaza, and it is inaccurate to continue to say that Gaza is under threat of “imminent famine.”
CNN, NBC Journos To Bestow Award on Hamas Supporter Who Posted Anti-Semitic Cartoons
A group of women journalists led by the former partner of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is bestowing a "Courage in Journalism" award on a Hamas supporter who posted anti-Semitic cartoons on social media.

The International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF), whose board is stacked with prominent CNN, NBC, and ABC News reporters, said this week that it will honor Maha Hussaini, a freelance writer living in Gaza.

Hussaini, who writes opinion columns about the Middle East for a group called the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, has approvingly posted anti-Semitic cartoons that were drawn by the first- and second-place winners of Iran's 2006 International Holocaust Cartoon Contest.

She has also openly supported terrorism, writing "glory to the martyrs" after Palestinian terrorists opened fire on four Israeli border officers, killing two, at the Temple Mount in 2017. When the Israeli military demolished Hamas's intelligence headquarters inside the al-Jalaa building in 2021, Hussaini vowed that Gazans would "build ten [towers] so that our resistance can bomb the occupation again."

Her extensive pro-terrorist and anti-Semitic posts raise questions about the IWMF's decision to honor her with a 2024 Courage in Journalism award. IWMF did not respond to a request for comment.

In an email announcing Hussaini's award, the IWMF said the prize goes to recognize "some of the bravest women journalists in the world."

"As we know, the threats directed toward women in the profession are especially intense," wrote the IWMF. "These fearless journalists need our support now more than ever."

The email was signed by IWMF board co-chair Suzanne Malveaux, a former CNN reporter and Jean-Pierre's former partner.
UPI Continues to Act as PR for Terror Organizations
It’s unclear if intentions are deliberately malicious, agenda-fueled, or if they result from sheer laziness. Regardless, there is zero context given to the IDF raid of a UN aid facility or the arrest of a “Palestinian person” during the raid and others during previous raids.

While he attributes the facts to their sources, there is no ignoring his one-sided report.

We suspected that Schrader was parroting a Hamas PR document back in February when we wrote that UPI was effectively using Hamas’ own talking points.

In this case, not just Hamas’ but other terror supporters’ talking points as well.

As we said back then, “replete with errors, blatant anti-Israel bias, and some appalling Hamas-inspired justifications… it’s hard to believe a supposedly respectable news agency would publish such pieces…”

… or even continue to employ this writer. He’s not even close to doing his job. On the other hand, UPI seems like a lost cause.
Here's why CNN is destroying public trust in journalism
According to CNN, more people get their news from them than any other news source. The problem? The journalistic integrity and biases of SOME of their staffers. Here's what we found...




Communists, Antisemites Lose Big in European Parliamentary Elections
Three of the most antisemitic parties in Europe, according to a ranking prepared last year by the European Coalition for Israel, are, much to my regret, Spanish: Sumar, Izquierda Unida, and Podemos. All three are extreme leftists, more specifically, communists. Since 2018, all three have had cabinet ministers in the government of socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. And all three were dealt a strong blow at the polls in the European Parliament elections that took place on June 9. I will shed no tears for them. I have seen them call for pro-Palestinian and antisemitic demonstrations in Spain three or four days after the Oct. 7 attack, indifferent to the terrible images of the atrocities, the rapes, and the kidnappings.

The three parties had dedicated a good part of their European election campaign to showing support for Hamas and attacking Israel, even though neither issue topped the agenda of the debate on the future of the EU. In fact, with the exception of the nationalist Vox party, whose leader, Santiago Abascal, met with Benjamin Netanyahu at the end of May to express his explicit support, none of the main Spanish parties made Israel a feature of their electoral campaigns.

So severe was the blow to the leftist parties, that the leader of Sumar and second deputy prime minister, Yolanda Díaz, stepped down from her position as general coordinator of her party, though not from her government post. (It’s probably no coincidence that she quit only the unpaid position.)

But the poor results of the Spanish communists are not an exception in Europe. Almost all of the most antisemitic parties in the EU, who dwell at the bottom of the European Coalition for Israel’s rankings, have received a slap in the face at the polls.

Let’s take a look: The Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc) have lost half of their representatives in the European Parliament. The day after the Oct. 7 attacks, the PCP published a scandalous communiqué: “The events that are unfolding in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the result of decades of occupation and systematic disregard by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to a sovereign and independent state, of permanent violation of all UN resolutions and international agreements on the Palestinian issue.” For its part, Bloco de Esquerda maintained during its electoral campaign that Israel was committing “genocide” in Gaza.

Other losers include Slovenia’s Europeo Socialni demokrati (Social Democrats), whose leader pushed for recognition of the Palestinian state by the Slovenian government; Belgium’s Ecolo, which claimed Israel’s response to the attack was “disproportionate”; and Open VLD, the party of Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, who became embroiled in several anti-Israel controversies after saying that Israel “must prove it is not using famine as a weapon of war.” De Croo finally resigned on June 10 following his party’s poor results in the European elections.

In France, Europe Écologie (the Greens), which accused Israel of “flagrantly violating international law and human rights,” became irrelevant, losing five MEPs out of the 10 it had. In Spain, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), the party of Prime Minister Sanchez, which has approved the recognition of the Palestinian state (against the majority opinion of Spaniards) and which includes in its government several ministers defending Hamas, has lost seats as have all its communist partners.

In Croatia, Vihreä Iiitto (Green League), which accused Israel of exercising “collective revenge against an entire civilian population,” has also lost votes and seats, as have Bulgaria’s Bulgarian Socialist Party, the progressive Piráti in the Czech Republic, the green party (Grüne) in Austria, and the Labour Party (Partit Laburista) in Malta, among others.

It is worth noting that some of the parties that are ranked as antisemitic, such as the German Die Linke, and traditionally opposed to Israel, have shifted their position away from the Palestinian cause following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
South African group defined ‘terror related’ on global banking platform following JPost report
Five months after a report by The Jerusalem Post revealed how South African banks provide platforms for Hamas-linked organizations, a source told the Post on Tuesday that Al-Quds Foundation South Africa was designated as a terror-related entity on World-Check, a database of politically exposed persons and heightened risk agents used globally to identify and manage financial, regulatory, and reputational risks.

Al-Quds Foundation SA, which, since the report, has vanished from the internet but whose activity continues nonetheless, described itself as the South African branch of the greater Al-Quds International Foundation, which was established in Beirut in 2001 by Hamas officials to raise funds for the terror organization through the guise of charity.

According to the US Treasury Department, all of the foundation’s affairs are run by Hamas members who serve on the board and other administrative committees, deciding on issues such as plans, budgets, and projects and handling its documents. Additionally, several senior Hamas officials, including Mousa Abu Marzook and Osama Hamdan, who are listed on the Specially Designated Global Terrorists register, have served on Al-Quds’ Board of Trustees.

The global QII is part of the extensive network of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations and was chaired until recently by Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the most prominent Islamic scholar in the Sunni world for decades, who was also aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood axis, and who became notorious in the West for his infamous fatwa (an Islamic legal ruling) that endorsed and commended suicide bombings.
Maldives Israel ban backfires after country realises 2m Muslims would be barred from entry
The Maldives is pausing plans to ban Israelis from entering the country after the government realised the new law could impact 2 million Arab-Israelis.

The predominantly Muslim archipelago’s President Mohamed Muizzu said his cabinet originally planned to change the laws to prevent Israeli passport holders or Israeli dual-citizens from entering the country.

And last week the nation’s attorney general Ahmed Usham who referred to Arab-Israelis as ‘Palestinians’ was concerned about the new law affecting them.

He reportedly said: “The biggest concern is that there are many Palestinians with Israeli passports, millions of them. What happens when we impose the blanket ban on them?”

Meanwhile, lawmaker Qasim Ibrahim reportedly critiqued the bill for targeting Jewish Israelis after saying, “When we decide that a person with Israeli nationality can’t come to the Maldives, that means we’re talking about deciding that Jews can’t come.

“Therefore, as they are people who have believed in prophets of a religion revealed by Allah, we need to think very deeply about the chance of us doing such a thing, from that perspective, we need to think about that very carefully.”

The Maldives decision came after pressure from opposition parties and government allies in the 100 per cent Sunni Muslim nation to ban Israelis as a result of the Israel-Hamas war.

Around 528 Israeli nationals visited the Maldives from January to April this year. This was down from 4,644 in the same period in 2023, according to Maldives government data.

Nearly 11,000 Israelis visited the archipelago last year, accounting for 0.6 per cent of total tourist arrivals.
No more bridges left to burn in Jewish Westchester
In late spring of 2022, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) reached out to a local Jewish leader in Westchester County to ask for an unusual favor as he prepared to defend his seat in an August primary against two Democratic challengers who were each gaining support from the district’s sizable Jewish community.

“Do you have pics of us?” Bowman texted the Jewish leader, with whom he had previously maintained a cordial if uneasy relationship, according to a screenshot of the message shared with Jewish Insider. “So I can show the world I’m friends with Jewish People.”

The Jewish leader, who described the exchange on the condition of anonymity to protect his privacy, did have at least one photo on hand from a Jewish community gathering in Bowman’s district months earlier at which the then-freshman Democrat had vowed to sign on to a House bill aimed at strengthening the Abraham Accords — a promise he fulfilled just a few days later.

But by the time Bowman sent his request to the Jewish leader in an apparent effort to counter mounting dissatisfaction with his record on Israel amid the campaign, the New York legislator had since reversed course and pulled his support for the bill aimed at further normalizing relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors — angering Jewish activists in the district who said they felt blindsided by his abrupt decision.

“I was uncomfortable,” the Jewish leader said of Bowman’s awkwardly worded text message two years ago. “I kind of joked around with him about it. I said, ‘Oh, I’m sure you guys have it. Don’t worry about it.’”

He didn’t share a photo — and Bowman, who defeated his challengers later that summer, never asked for one again, the Jewish leader told JI in a recent interview. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to be his court Jew,’” he explained of his thinking at the time of the exchange. “That wasn’t what I signed up for.”


Have anti-Israel activists gone too far for US progressive politicians?
There was an immediate and harsh online backlash by Kiswani who called Bowman and Ocasio-Cortez “trash.” She slammed the latter as a “genocide apologist” and outed the politician as having wanted to speak at the group’s events in the past.

“You are worse than any openly fascist politician. At least we know they are our enemies. Liberals like you will smile in our face as you lie to and back stab our communities,” Kiswani wrote on X.

“The complete fabrication here is appalling, yet AOC has nothing to say about a young Palestinian Muslim woman being put in a choke-hold by NYPD yesterday. We are targeted and these ‘progressive’ politicians spin the story. Stop pretending to stand with Palestine while you harm us.”

A GOOD FAITH approach might accept that the protests had gone too far, even though Bowman himself had in the past denied some of the atrocities of October 7, and other mass protests had been supported by the progressive camp. A cynical perspective might note that there is a Democratic primary in New York, and Bowman and Ocasio-Cortez seek to undercut their rivals.

Good Shepherds Collective called on Jewish Voice of Peace to revoke its “sick” endorsement of Bowman in his primary race.

“We’re watching Palestinian organizers get hung out to dry by these politicians while y’all routinely validate them and worse,” the group said on social media last Tuesday. The Palestinians that validate JVP, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, If Not Now, take a look at yourselves.”

Bowman and Ocasio-Cortez had been characterizing their races as fights against candidates sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, yet Ocasio-Cortez was accused of seeking AIPAC funding with her comments criticizing the protests.

“We can mobilize to end the atrocities in Gaza and combat the rise of antisemitism at the same time. Bigotry in organizing spaces imperils everyone’s work. I work to end the war, protect ALL my constituents, and fight AIPAC. Believe it or not, you can do all three,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “The accusation that my disgust at antisemitism and bigotry must be because I’m getting paid also reeks of antisemitism. Especially given the absolute mountain of evidence of how I fight AIPAC and other lobbies every day. It’s unsubstantiated, conspiratorial, gross.”

Yet even if progressive politicians are only engaging in this rhetoric now in an effort to win their primary campaigns, far-left activists will not accept momentary political pragmatism, demanding unconditional dogmatic support for the cause. It doesn’t matter if pro-Israel activists or the progressive politicians themselves don’t believe in their stance on the protests, the far-left activists believe it, and don’t accept momentary violations of their dogma. These activists have long memories. Kiswani noted that she said that they “will never forget your cowardice and constant backstabbing of the Palestinian people.”

When Ocasio-Cortez defended her voting record against military budgets for Israel, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine said that they didn’t want her at the protest encampment at the university because she had “backed the Iron Dome,” in 2021 by voting present.

While activist Linda Sarsour on Instagram called such perspectives self-righteous, the fractures between the streets and the political offices clearly grew last week, and does not show that it will easily be resolved – with Kiswani reemphasizing the perspective that the entire political system had to be destroyed.

“Many politicians and city officials, including AOC, have asked to speak at WOL rallies and meet with our members, We routinely refuse because we know they will always sell our people out. How can you justify being part of the system murdering people around the world? said Kiswani. “This is why electoral politics are a dead end. We will not integrate into the same fascist empire we are fighting against. Even your ‘3rd party’ candidates are just funneling our people back into the sham idea that the system works. Stop exploiting our communities for votes.”


Gallant bans Barak from speaking at IDF college, per report
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant canceled a lecture by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak at an Israel Defense Forces’ military academy due to the latter’s role in urging Israelis to refuse reserve duty to protest the government, Channel 14 News reported on Monday.

Barak, who plays a leading role in the movement seeking to bring down Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was invited to address soldiers at the Israel National Defense College, located north of Tel Aviv, and prepares senior IDF staff for command and management roles.

Following significant backlash on social media, sources in the Defense Ministry told Channel 14 correspondent Yishai Friedman that “anyone who calls for refusal of any kind will not be part of the ranks of the IDF.”

Barak’s invitation was criticized by Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli, who said on Sunday that “in the midst of a difficult war … the lead instigator of political refusals [to serve] is invited to give a lecture to senior officers.”

Chikli, who also serves as a lawmaker for Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party in the Knesset, called the invitation “an unprecedented scandal.”
Municipality nixes Jerusalem deputy mayor’s call to cancel French consulate’s trash collection
After the French government asks for a ban on Israeli companies from the Eurosatory 2024 defense trade show, Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Arieh King asks the municipality to cease waste collection from the French consulate in Jerusalem.

“In light of the treacherous and anti-Israel conduct of Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron, the president of France who passed resolutions in his government whose purpose and aim is to harm the State of Israel and Israeli industry,” the far-right King writes to the city’s sanitation department, “I ask you to order the employees of the Jerusalem Municipality’s sanitation department to immediately stop the garbage removal service from the French Consulate building on Paul-Emile Botta Street.”

He also asks that the municipality not trim the grass on the sidewalk in front of the consulate.

The Jerusalem Municipality rejects King’s request, telling The Times of Israel that the city “clears waste from all parts of the city based on professional considerations, and offers optimal services to all its residents.”

A French diplomatic source tells The Times of Israel that they have not received any notifications from the municipality on the matter. “We know that the professionalism of the municipal services responsible for waste collection can be trusted, and we value their dedication to public health,” says the official.

The official also underscores “the importance of the international obligations that Israel has assumed in ensuring the security and proper functioning of the diplomatic missions.”

The ban on Israeli companies was struck down by a Paris court earlier today.


ICC complements Hamas’ terror, which is “legitimate” – former PA Minister of Justice
Former PA Minister of Justice Muhammad Shalaldeh: “The Palestinian people and the Palestinian leadership led by President of the State of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas are waging a legal and judicial battle on the world stages… Palestinian diplomacy is complementing the resistance in the Gaza Strip (i.e., Hamas’ terror in 2023 Gaza war), as the Palestinian people has a legitimate right to resistance…”

Official PA TV host: “In conclusion, the publication of a request for an arrest warrant against the leaders of Israel [by the International Criminal Court] is a victory and something that must not be belittled.”
[Official PA TV, Justice that Doesn’t Exist, May 26, 2024]


Egyptian researcher highlights UN court's anti-Israel bias because president is Muslim
Al-Farabi Institute of Political Studies President and Egyptian researcher Mukhtar Ghobashi: “The latest request that was submitted to the [UN] International Court [of Justice] (ICJ) to prevent an Israeli invasion of Rafah, open the crossings, and bring in humanitarian aid (i.e., during the 2023 Gaza war; see note below) – the ICJ acceded to the request. I think that this happened thanks to ICJ President Nawaf Salam, who is of Lebanese origin."
[Official PA TV, Capital of Capitals, June 10, 2024]


PA Shari’ah Judge endorses terror: “Everything done by our people is an acceptable response”
PA Shari’ah Judge Abdallah Harb: “For more than 75 years our people has been subjected to aggression, ever since the occupation (i.e., establishment of Israel) at the least. It is oppressed and suffering, and everything that is done by our people (i.e., including terror) is a response, and this response is acceptable. It is our right, and [our people] must not be reproached for this, and it must not be held accountable for this.”
[Official PA TV, May 31, 2024]


Abbas’ advisor: Israel’s “real goal” is to “expel Gaza Strip residents”
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “Israel’s goals are not to eliminate Hamas… and not to return the [Israeli] captives (i.e., hostages in 2023 Gaza war). [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu’s real goal is to eliminat e the Palestinian cause, expel the residents of the Gaza Strip, and empty it, and then to move on to the West Bank and do the same thing there.”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, June 4, 2024]


Iran supports Hamas in order to destroy the PLO – PLO official
PLO National Council member Muwaffaq Matar: “There is no clearer proof [than Iranian leader Khamenei’s speech] of Hamas’ subordination to this Iranian regime. In this speech there is nothing new for us, because we have already understood how much this regime controls Hamas, has given it its blessing, supported it, and aided it to destroy the Palestinian national project completely, so that it [Hamas] and also its partners who follow Iran will be the artificial alternative to the PLO.”
[Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, Facebook page, June 3, 2024]


Abbas’ advisor: US “prime motive in region… is Israel’s interest”
Syrian Al-Yaum TV host: “Do you expect that [Biden’s] proposal (i.e., ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal) will succeed this time, or is this the regular policy of throwing sand in [our] eyes by the international community and the US?” ...
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “We fear [they are] just throwing sand in [our] eyes or [this is] an attempt to manage the crisis and not resolve it. Particularly when we recall that the US itself previously used a veto three times at the [UN] Security Council to prevent a ceasefire. [US] is the one that has sponsored the aggression and given it a green light from the first moment... We must not deceive ourselves that the US is looking [out] for the interests of the Palestinians, of the people in the Gaza Strip, or of the Palestinian people. The prime motive of the American policy in the region is Israel’s interest, because Israel – as we always remember and as we must continue to remember – is an American interest.”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, June 6, 2024]


Israel was created “to serve goals of American colonialism” - Fatah official
Fatah official and An-Najah National University political science lecturer Raed Debiy: “The US is the protector and guardian of Israel, and it can remove this protection from [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu and the State of Israel, but unfortunately this always clashes with the American interests and the constant connection between the US and Israel as a functional state that serves the interests of colonialism – and especially American colonialism – in the region.”
[Official PA TV, June 4, 2024]




Lawmakers urge administration to ‘expeditiously implement’ new Iran sanctions
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers on Monday called on the administration to “expeditiously implement” stringent new Iran sanctions targeting the country’s oil exports to China that were passed into law earlier this year.

The Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum (SHIP) Act and Iran-China Energy Sanctions Act were both included in the supplemental national security funding bill that passed Congress and was signed into law in April with bipartisan support. Lawmakers critical of the administration’s Iran policy have long accused the White House of deliberately failing to fully enforce existing sanctions law and pursue sanctions evasion.

The letter, led by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and joined by nearly 40 House Republicans, urges the administration to implement the sanctions as required under law.

“Existing sanctions on Iranian oil must be strictly enforced, but it is also imperative that the Administration fully utilize the new authorities created by H.R. 815,” the letter, addressed to the secretaries of State and Treasury reads. “It is incumbent upon the Department of State and the Department of the Treasury to work together to kneecap Iran’s illicit oil trade.”

The two bills target ports, refineries and others in China involved with processing Iranian petroleum, and Chinese financial institutions involved in transactions for Iranian oil, respectively.

The letter argues that Iranian oil export funds can be linked to Iranian proxies’ attacks, including the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, and a strike by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq group that killed three American soldiers in Jordan.
Undeterred Houthi Attacks Squeeze International Trade
Drone and missile barrages launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen are holding hostage a vital commercial waterway, delaying humanitarian aid and imposing millions of dollars of extra costs.

U.S. and allied firepower has failed to stem the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden attacks, which are bolstered by an Iranian regime eager to arm its proxies.

Container shipping through the Red Sea had declined by 90% by February.

Alternate routes around Africa tack on 11,000 nautical miles, up to two weeks of travel time and $1 million in fuel.

More than a dozen commercial ships were struck between November and March.

The Houthis initially said the attacks were in retaliation to Israel's war in Gaza. But many of the targets have had no affiliation with Israel.

The U.S. Navy has so far expended $1 billion in munitions as it contends with the attacks.


Florida man arrested for threatening to kill Jews
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department arrested Paul Thomas Morris, 26, on June 14 in Boca Raton, Fla., after two of his friends reported social-media threats to law enforcement.

When Detective C. Wells arrived at Morris’s residence, he spoke with the suspect’s roommate, who showed him socia-media postings of Morris’s that included vowing to attack a synagogue and murder all the Jews, according to a probable cause affidavit that the sheriff’s office shared with JNS.

Morris allegedly wrote on Instagram: “I want Hitler to come back to kill all the Jews.”

He allegedly added on Discord, another social-media platform, that “I’m shooting up a synagogue, yes all Jews,” and “If anyone is concerned about my well-being, this is where I am at: I want to scream ‘Kill all Jews’ at anyone I have ever known.”

The suspect’s roommate told the detective that Morris suffers from mental-health issues but had never before threatened violence, per the affidavit.

When Wells confronted Morris, the suspect said he knew why the detective was there and acknowledged that the two accounts in question belonged to him. He also conceded that the statements could be seen as threatening, according to the affidavit.
London community security group shares footage of alleged attempted kidnapping of Jewish children
A Jewish baby and child were the victims of an alleged kidnapping attempt in London on Thursday, according to the Jewish neighborhood watch group Stamford Hill Shomrim.

A father pushing his children in a baby carriage near the Lubavitch House was set upon by a masked man, according to CCTV footage published by the Shomrim on Monday. The man attempted to wrest away the baby carriage, but the father resisted.

The Metropolitan Police said Tuesday evening that members of the public had detained the man, and when law enforcement arrived he was arrested on suspicion of common assault. The suspect was later released on bail.

Possibly 'racist attack'
While the father’s identity was not initially known to police and Shomrim, by Tuesday he had come forward to speak to officers.

“The investigation is ongoing and the motives of the suspect will be kept under consideration,” said the Hackney Police Station.


French police probe gang rape of 12-year-old Jewish girl in 'antisemitic crime'
A 12-year-old Jewish girl reported to the police last week that she had been gang raped by three teenagers aged between 12-14 in what has been characterized an antisemitic crime, according to Le Parisien on Tuesday.

The crime occurred in the Parisian suburb of Courbevoie.

Le Parisien added that the three suspects are set to be brought to court on Tuesday.

Suspect moved by vengeance
One of the suspected perpetrators of the crime was an ex-boyfriend of the victim who reportedly said he was moved by vengeance after the victim hid from him her Jewish identity.

Furthermore, Le Parisien noted that investigators found in the suspect's phone antisemitic remarks and images, among which were a burned Israeli flag.

An additional suspect told the police, according to Le Parisen, that he hit the victim because she had made negative comments on Palestine.


Israeli MMA fighter survives assassination attempt in Ukraine
Israeli MMA fighter Haim Gozali published on Sunday footage showing him hiding on a hotel roof after escaping from an assassination attempt in Ukraine last week.

Gozali, survived the assassination attempt in Ukraine last week while staying at a hotel with his son, Elad, and his coach, Ben El Hasid. The three managed to escape the scene of the assassination attempt and were assisted by local police.

Gozali, his son, and his coach were in Ukraine for a competition in the city near the border with Romania, N12 reported on Sunday. Shortly after they arrived at the hotel, the incident occurred, leaving the three stranded on the roof while local police handled the situation.

Deported from the Ukraine
Following the incident, Golazi told the media, “The police tried to silence the incident and did not allow us to stay in the country. We were immediately deported. Since the beginning of the war, over 100 propaganda videos were made about me in the Muslim world. Many of them are [MMA] fighters, so they’d know when I'm participating in the same competition as them”

Shortly after the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, Gozali wrote the names of four UFC fighters who are Muslim on a bomb and posted an image on social media, which has since been taken down, Fox News reported at the beginning of November.


University of Haifa in top 100 academic institutions for UN sustainability rankings
The University of Haifa has been ranked 95th in the world and first in Israel in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, which examine academic institutions’ contributions to social, economic and environmental sustainability.

These rankings are the only global performance tables that assess universities against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the world body’s benchmarks in the realm of eliminating poverty, hunger and discrimination. Haifa’s ascent to the top 100 for the first time reflects an institution-wide commitment to making strides towards achieving recommended goals by the United Nations.

“Our steady increase in the impact rankings—from 400th place in the world to 95th place in just three years—indicates the hard work we have done to meet the crucial task of universities in the 21st century: to be influential institutions that take part in solving the major challenges of humanity in the 21st century,” said professor and rector Gur Elroy, who will become the university’s new president in October.

He added that “this year’s rankings affirm our status as a beacon of the values that shape Israeli society as a whole, and the social, economic and environmental fabric in the north of the country, in particular.”

Home to 18,000 students, the University of Haifa enrolls a diverse student body, including students from around the world, as well as domestic students from Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Baha’i, Druze, Bedouin and other backgrounds.

This year, 400 additional universities joined the index, underscoring the rankings’ growing importance and influence.

“Not only do these institutions stand out in individual areas, but they also demonstrate comprehensive excellence in contributing to global sustainable development,” according to Times Higher Education. “By excelling in a variety of SDGs, these universities showcase their commitment to addressing the world’s most pressing challenges, including environmental sustainability, social inclusion, economic growth and partnerships.”
IsraAID sends team to Papua; SmartAID heads to Brazil
“IsraAID’s Emergency Response Team is deploying to Papua New Guinea following last week’s devastating landslide,” the Israeli humanitarian aid group announced on May 30.

IsraAID has brought emergency and long-term assistance to more than 60 countries since 2001. For the first time, it turned inward following the October 7 Hamas attacks, aiding Israelis in crisis while maintaining long-term operations in 11 other countries including Uganda, Colombia and South Sudan.

But the deadly and destructive May 24 landslide in Papua New Guinea prompted the nonprofit organization to take on a new overseas emergency mission.

“We’re devastated by the scale of the destruction for this remote community in Papua New Guinea – as many as 2,000 people feared buried under the rubble, and over 1,600 displaced, in a community of only 5,000,” said IsraAID’s Senior Director of Emergencies and Operations Michal Bar.

Five experts in emergency aid; water, sanitation and hygiene; and mental health left Israel on June 1 to assess needs and devise a response plan in cooperation with local partners.

“This is our first new emergency response since we launched our emergency response in Israel in October,” IsraAID CEO Yotam Polizer tells ISRAEL21c.

“While we continue responding to the crisis at home and supporting displaced communities in Israel, we are proud to be dispatching an emergency response team to this devastating landslide in Papua New Guinea.”

IsraAID hasn’t worked previously in Papua New Guinea, though the organization has been aiding nearby Vanuatu since 2015, following Cyclone Pam. Both nations are located in Oceana near Australia.

IsraAID launched a strategic office in Australia earlier this year to deepen its ties with nations in the region.
One of Yemen's last Jews laid to rest by his Muslim neighbors
Yahya ben Yosef, one of the last Jews of Yemen, passed away last Thursday, and was buried by Muslim neighbors in his community, Israeli media reported on Sunday.

Ben Yosef was reportedly buried in the village of Madar, north of Sana'a in Yemen, Ynet noted in their report. He had family in Israel.

Reports indicated that the announcement of ben Yosef's death was written in a Facebook group of Yemenite Jews, where the announcement noted that he was buried by his Muslim neighbours as he had no remaining family to bury him in Yemen.

Yemenite community commends religious connections
The post also read, "Today, there are not enough Jews in Yemen to perform the burial ceremony or say Kaddish, so his neighbours volunteered to ensure that he would receive a dignified farewell. This powerful moment highlights the power of humanity and compassion that still exists in the few places in the world that transcend religious boundaries, especially in challenging times."

Roi Kais, a reported at KAN News, wrote that sources familiar with ben Yosef's life and story said that in the past, ben Yosef refused to immigrate to Israel, but later in life changed his mind, though unfortunately, the immigration process was stuck on Israel's side.
Yahya Ben Youssef, one of Yemen's last Jews, passes away at 100





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