Melanie Phillips: Art and antisemitism
The RA deserves credit for promptly withdrawing these exhibits once these concerns were made known to it; later yesterday, others had also registered similar objections. But how awful — although in today’s savage climate of Jew-hatred, not alas surprising — that young people should have been programmed with these lies, and that the cultural establishment thought nothing was wrong with them.Alan Johnson: ‘Little Short of Lunatics’: Post-Trotsky Trotskyism and the Radical Left’s Degenerate Response to 7 October
And it’s far from clear that the RA has really got the point even now. It has understood that these exhibits risked “causing undue upset and could put people at risk”. But there’s no sign that it has understood the truly monstrous nature of the blood libels, demonisation of Israel and Jew-hatred that it chose to include in its celebration of youthful creativity.
And indeed a third piece, by Michael Sandle RA entitled “The mass slaughter of defenceless women and children is not how you deradicalise Gaza,” depicting a faceless and thus dehumanised pilot in an aircraft bearing a Star of David against a background of bodies in burial shrouds, is on display in the RA’s Summer Exhibition.
These examples of the hijacking of art by murderous lies are a further deeply sad illustration of the hateful and self-destructive madness that has overtaken Britain and the west.
These ‘old and outlived formulas’ of post-Trotsky Trotskyism have been exercising an underappreciated influence on the wider left for a long time. Judith Butler, perhaps the most globally influential left academic cultural theorist, tells her students that ‘Understanding Hamas and Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left, is extremely important.’ Jeremy Corbyn, one-time leader of the Labour Party, no less, spent four years educating the UK left that Hamas and Hezbollah are our ‘friends’, political forces ‘dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people and bringing about long-term peace and social justice and political justice in the whole region’. The ostensibly ‘left-wing’ marchers who paraded some years ago through European cities waving placards declaring ‘We Are All Hezbollah!’ expressed all four bad ideas in just four words. Since 7 October we have watched marchers wave banners depicting a Star of David being drowned in the Mediterranean sea (without one steward or marcher objecting). We have even seen American students at Pamona College create a shrine, complete with teddy bears, for the Hamas ‘insurgents who have died’ [31]Hen Mazzig: We need our Israeli hero: what is Marvel’s end game?
So while the song may remain the same, a lot more people are singing it today. Just as in an earlier era, when the Trotskyists said palpably barbaric anti-working class tyrannies were really ‘workers states’ to be defended unconditionally against ‘Imperialism’; just as when a wider revolutionary new left said vicious reactionary sub-imperialist predators had really been ‘anti-imperialists’ to be cheered on to victory; so today an even broader ‘left’ is responding to the worst antisemitic pogrom since the Holocaust with calls for two, three, many 7 Octobers which they fantasise will be a global ‘intifada-revolution’.
It is clear there is now a critical mass of emboldened western pogromists-in-waiting, largely concentrated in the Islamist movements and parts of the communities that sustain those movements. It is also clear that some well-funded, organised and increasingly influential parts of the global left are fully signed up to the role of pogrom-apologists-in-waiting. I think they have been readied for this role in no small part by the malign and spreading influence of the cluster of bad ideas derived from post-Trotsky Trotskyism that have been discussed in this essay: that the world is made up of two-camps, that the left’s role is to unconditionally defend whoever is shooting at the Imperialist camp, that that shooting turns the apparently reactionary into the objectively progressive, and that ever ‘stranger forces’ can substitute for the missing socialist and democratic working class movement. The political lunatics are on the march.
The erasure of Sabra’s Jewish identity is also a slap in the face to the American Jews who literally invented the comic book superhero genre. Superman, the first superhero, was invented by two Jewish American kids during the Great Depression. Superman’s original name, Kal-El, means “all is God” in Hebrew. Famously, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster weren’t recognised for their contribution for decades, but eventually gained the credit they were due.Israelis don't need Marvel to show them what heroes are
Superman, Batman, Captain America, Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, the entire Avengers franchise and the X-Men — all of these characters, and arguably the superhero genre itself, were pioneered by Jews as a way to inspire kids that good will prevail over evil.
Back in the 1930s, American Jews learned in horror of the fate of their European brethren but could do little to help as the United States staunchly refused to allow Jewish refugees until years after the Holocaust. Facing a rising tide of xenophobia and antisemitism at home, they also faced the terrible choice of assimilating for their safety. Many changed their names, forgot Yiddish, and became less observant due to these pressures.
The pantheon of superheroes they created knew no such criticisms, yet they still led double lives. Like the Jews who wrote their stories, the heroes gave the appearance of being unthreatening in their day-to-day lives, careful never to draw too much attention to themselves. The moment trouble struck, however, they shed their meek disguises and saved the world.
You might argue that now that Jews have a state, we have less need to invent fictional protectors. But Jews are currently engaged in a fight for the survival of Israel, after the worst attack it has ever suffered. At the same time, we are fighting for our right to be publicly Jewish in the diaspora, a right that is already, in many places, tragically fading.
Reportedly, Marvel’s decision came following a test screening of the new movie, a surprise to nobody who is paying attention; Israelis and Jews are not liked by the populist movement.
And herein lies the core of the plot; superheroes exist not to cave to the same pressures afflicting their human counterparts, but to do what is right even when the world doesn’t see it. Luckily, we have no shortage of Jewish and Israeli heroes, including the hundreds who have given their lives defending Israel since October 7, and the returned hostages who continue to advocate tirelessly for the release of the 120 still suffering in Hamas captivity.
Still, what we need right now are more proudly Israeli, proudly Jewish characters represented on screen. We certainly cannot afford to erase the identities of the few heroes we do have. The fate of the world depends on it.
Israel has its own heroes
True Israeli heroes have not been given super soldier serums or been bitten by radioactive spiders. They are in our workplaces, at our universities, walking past us in the streets. They have the mild mannered personas of a lawyer and father of four, a film student, or a wine salesman. When given the signal, they don olive green uniforms, and abandon their lives to fight against cultish terrorist organizations.
What inspires Israelis is not dictated by the whims of Disney's political correctness or Marvel's ironic cowardice, but by the actions of heroes like Arnon Zamora, the Counterterrorism Unit commando Chief Inspector who gave his life to rescue the Hamas hostages Shlomi Ziv, Andrey Kozlov, Almog Meir, and Noa Argamani on June 8. Israelis don't need others to depict them as heroes when its is Lior Levi, a MDA paramedic who treated the October 7 wounded while under gunfire that best represents the nation. It is people like Bedouin gas station attendant Masad Armilat, who rushed out to rescue wounded victims and outwit Hamas terrorists, that show that anyone can be a hero.
Israelis and Jews would undoubtedly enjoy seeing an Israeli superhero on the big screen, but they do not need Marvel or Disney representation to inspire them to heroism. However, perhaps Marvel Studios should take notes from Israel to ensure that it successfully depicts valor -- the country is full of super heroes. Excelsior.
Want to Talk to Your Friends About Jew Hatred? Read This Book
Considering the surge of Jew hatred in America today, two questions challenge the Jewish community: how did we get here, and where do we go next?The Man Who Foresaw the Rise of German Anti-Semitism
No single answer suffices, but a recently published book — Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew by Noa Tishby and Emmanuel Acho — does an admirable job answering both questions. Their book is a chronicle of conversations between the two friends, one a white Jew, Noa, and the other a Black Christian, Emmanuel. In their dialogues, they explore the origins of the current surge of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and antisemitic sentiments in America today.
Noa explains that for millennia, the world shunned or exiled Jews wherever they landed, which forced them to adapt to diverse environments — physically, culturally, and spiritually. That’s how different Jewish ethnic communities evolved.
Although Jews are ethnically diverse, their detractors claim they gain an advantage because of their “whiteness.”
But Noa points out that this supposed whiteness has not protected them from antisemitic attacks in the past or in the present. Jews are a meager two percent of the American population, yet according to the FBI they are victims of more than 60 percent of all religion-based crimes.
Right-wing extremists do not consider Jews white; left-wing extremists consider Jews as privileged and white. The truth is Jews come in all colors and hues. There are white Ashkenazi Jews from Europe, and there are Jews of color from a variety of countries: Sephardic Jews from Spain, Beta Jews from Ethiopia, Cochin Jews from India, Kaifeng Jews from China, and Mizrachi Jews from the Levant and North Africa. Neither color nor DNA is a litmus test for Jewishness.
Noa deftly deflates the all-too-common canards about Jews: they are money hoarders, powerful, disloyal, cheats, bent on world domination, or greedy, dirty, evil, and race polluters.
In his book Two Roads Home: Hitler, Stalin, and the Miraculous Survival of My Family, Daniel Finkelstein tells the story of how both his mother’s and father’s family survived the vicissitudes of World War II as European Jews. Among them is Finkelstein’s maternal grandfather, a German-Jewish scholar born in Potsdam in 1885 named Alfred Wiener. Allan Arkush writes in his review:Defending Israel with David Harris: Dalia Ziada Returns Dalia Ziada, Egyptian writer and human rights activist, once again joins David Harris to discuss the changing relationship between Egypt and Israel and the current situation in the Middle East.
After his service in the German army during World War I, which included a stint as a newspaper editor with the forces stationed in Palestine, Wiener found himself in a defeated country, in which he was much more attuned than others to the vulnerability of German Jews. This was, to be sure, a period of intensified anti-Semitism, aggravated by the infamous and spurious charge that Germany had lost the war because “the Jews stabbed it in the back.” Hitler, still just a rabble-rouser, and his ilk were making a lot of noise. There was the violent suppression of left-wing rebellions, in which Jewish revolutionaries like Rosa Luxemburg and Gustav Landauer were brutally murdered.
Still, there were very few who felt, like Wiener, that German Jews were on the brink of experiencing the kind of violence that had plagued their fellow Jews in the Russian empire for decades. In 1919, Wiener published a pamphlet titled Prelude to Pogroms?
Wiener’s efforts to document rising anti-Semitism would give rise to an important institution known as the Wiener Library. Meanwhile, Wiener also wrote about Zionism, which he opposed firmly—for a time. By the 1950s, Arkush writes,
Wiener no longer believed, as he once had, in the fusion of Germanness and Jewishness, nor did he continue to oppose Zionism. “After the war,” his grandson notes, “he embraced wholeheartedly the idea of a Jewish state in Israel.”
Today's Antisemitism Is a U.S. National Security Threat
On July 9, the U.S. intelligence community divulged that Iran has been playing an active role in stoking the protests, encampments, and civil unrest in the U.S. regarding the war in Gaza.Families of Oct. 7 victims sue Iran for $500M
Antisemitism and anti-Zionism are being harnessed to harm American interests abroad.
Amplified by outlets such as Qatar's Al Jazeera network, regional anti-Israel and anti-American attitudes have contributed to a precipitous decline in approval for the U.S. among Mideast publics.
These same forces are being used to drive wedges in America's Mideast alliances, most clearly the U.S.-Israeli partnership itself.
Most significantly, antisemitism is being instrumentalized by radical activists and foreign actors to deepen cleavages in American society.
In May, the Network Contagion Research Institute reported: "While nominally focused on Israel, the current protests can be better understood as a well-funded initiative driving a revolutionary, anti-government, and anti-capitalist agenda, with the leading organizations serving as versatile tools for foreign entities hostile to the U.S."
"The methods of these organizations exacerbate societal tensions, polarize the younger generation, and appear to seek the destabilization of American institutions."
There's an old saying: "Whatever starts with the Jews never ends with them."
The rampant antisemitism visible on elite university campuses, on social media, and on the streets of major cities is a clear and present danger to our social cohesion and our standing in the world.
That makes it a national security threat which needs to be addressed without delay.
Fifty-four families with American citizenship, some of whom also hold Israeli citizenship and were affected by the massacre on October 7th, have filed a half-billion-dollar lawsuit against Iran in the Federal District Court in Washington, stating that Iran funded, armed, aided, and supported Hamas, the terrorist organization responsible for the October 7th massacre, with tens of millions of dollars. The lawsuit was filed for the physical and psychological damages suffered by the plaintiffs and/or their family members at the Nova Festival, Sderot, Zikim, Kissufim, and other locations.American Muslims for Palestine Ordered To Turn Over Potentially Damaging Donor Documents in Virginia Terror Financing Probe
The plaintiffs and their families are represented by the law firm of Dr. Gideon Fisher & Co., which has been collecting testimonies from over 1,250 affected families in recent months. This lawsuit is the first in a series of claims totaling billions of shekels being filed by Dr. Fisher and a team of international legal experts in the US and Israel. Among these is a significant lawsuit expected against Syria. The lawsuit against Iran was filed in the Federal Court in Washington, in collaboration with Attorney Dan Kalisher from the American law firm Foster Graham Milstein & Kalisher and Attorney Asher Perlin, who specialize in US lawsuits related to terrorism and combating its supporters.
The lawsuit seeks to hold Iran accountable as the state sponsor of the terrorist attack, in accordance with American law, which stipulates that a state designated by the US government as a sponsor of terrorism is not immune from legal proceedings within the US.
In recent months, many testimonies and proofs have been collected. These are being presented to the court alongside expert opinions from the fields of security, medicine, intelligence, and law, pointing to Iran's direct and indirect involvement in planning, funding, training, and supporting the terrorist actions carried out by Hamas and others.
Dr. Gideon Fisher stated, "After months of intensive work during which we collected testimonies from victims and assembled a team of international experts, our firm is leading an important legal and moral effort to file damage claims against Iran and other Hamas partners responsible for the heinous attack on Israeli and American citizens on October 7th. Beyond the military effort, we must also fight Hamas and its supporters legally and in terms of damages. With the help of top experts in various fields, we are committed to ensuring that Hamas and those who support it pay for their crimes against humanity."
Gal Levi, 23, from Ramat Gan, whose father Adi, an American citizen, was shot by terrorists at the Nova Festival and underwent surgeries and long rehabilitation at Sheba Hospital, shared, "My life is divided into before and after October 7th. I feel the injury daily because I still have shrapnel in my body, and mentally, I relive the moments of terror when I lay wounded in a building at the entrance to Nova, and a terrorist came in and took our phones. I saw the evil and cruelty in his eyes. I feel it is my duty to tell our story in court. I hope this lawsuit will deliver justice and send an important message to the axis of evil countries supporting terrorism," Levi concluded.
A Virginia judge on Tuesday ordered American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a prominent anti-Israel advocacy group, to disclose its funding channels as part of an investigation by Republican attorney general Jason Miyares into allegations of terrorism financing.
AMP, a nonprofit group that is driving anti-Israel protests across the country, will now have to provide Miyares with access to its donor records and funding streams, which the state argues could show evidence that the U.S.-based organization is providing material support to overseas terrorist groups.
The case pivots around AMP’s failure for seven years to properly file basic tax forms allowing it to solicit donations in Virginia. Miyares used this lapse to initiate a wide ranging investigation into AMP, alleging in an October 2023 press statement that the group "may have used funds raised for impermissible purposes under state law, including benefitting or providing support to terrorist organizations."
The judge in Richmond’s circuit court agreed with the state’s arguments, saying that Miyares "acted in good faith" when he requested AMP’s financials and that the ask "was entirely in [his] statutory authority" to ensure the group is complying with state laws that bar support to terror groups and their affiliates. The ruling also noted AMP’s admittance that it failed to file the proper paperwork, though the organization said it has since rectified what it called an unintentional oversight.
The decision sets the stage for Miyares to obtain potentially years' worth of funding documents, including its donors and transaction records. The case has garnered national attention due to AMP’s status as one of the country’s leading anti-Israel forces, responsible for a wave of anti-Semitic protests on college campuses that have featured violence and vocal support for Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.
The case is also certain to increase public pressure on AMP as congressional Republicans probe the group’s funding streams for terrorism financing. AMP is also being sued by Israeli terror victims who allege the group and its allies serve "as collaborators and propagandists for Hamas."
Miyares touted the court’s decision in a press release, saying it affirms his office’s "jurisdiction to investigate possible violations of the Commonwealth’s charitable registration and solicitation law."
"I am pleased with the Court's decision," Miyares told the Washington Free Beacon.
This ruling is significant — researchers, legal experts, think tanks, etc. have spent more than a decade trying to get to the bottom of American Muslims for Palestine's funding sources. https://t.co/KllY60Ymfh
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) July 16, 2024
Terror victims urge US revoke visas for violent foreign protesters and probe immigration compliance
Israeli NGO Shurat HaDin, representing Israeli and American terror victims from the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, has written to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and the directors of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), demanding that US immigration agencies act immediately to revoke visas for foreign students and other foreign nationals who participated in violent campus protests and antisemitic incidents and investigate universities’ compliance with immigration regulations.Cashless Bail Strikes Again: Suspect in Violent DC Anti-Semitic Attack Was Released After Fighting With Capitol Police
As reported, more than 3,000 students and other protesters were arrested during the latest campus protests in April and May. Some of these protesters have been suspended or expelled by their universities. Among these students and protesters are foreign nationals, whose presence in the US is based on student and other temporary visas.
According to Shurat HaDin’s letter, the participation of foreign nationals, both students and others, in the latest campus protests across the United States “is alarming” since it is one of the symptoms of growing foreign involvement in American universities, which has contributed greatly to the spread of antisemitism in these institutions.
Shurat HaDin also emphasizes that the recent protests were well-funded and organized: activist groups trained students how to conduct protests, months before recent campus protests erupted. Some of the “activists” were trained by “Samidoun,” which is designated as a terror organization in Israel and Germany. Additionally, a “professional outside agitator” served as a paid consultant to stir up protests in Columbia, and many of the “protesters” were not even affiliated with the universities which they literally occupied.
The letter stresses that protesters are foreign nationals who have violated the terms of their visa applications. Furthermore, students suspended or expelled by their universities no longer meet the conditions required to maintain their visas, and thus, such visas must be immediately revoked. ICE can also initiate proceedings to revoke visas if any other potential reason for inadmissibility or ineligibility involving law enforcement is suspected, and the US Department of Homeland Security and its agencies can review all student records and all documented student activity.
Therefore, the letter calls for ICE and the other immigration agencies to immediately act to gather information from local police authorities and independently investigate cases of breach of visa terms, emphasizing that acting accordingly is a matter of national security.
A Jewish man was targeted and attacked in Washington, D.C., by a suspect who less than a week earlier was released on cashless bail one day after fighting with Capitol Police, court and police documents show.The Jews are indigenous to Israel, the Arabs are the colonists
"He was looking for a Jew and he found me," the victim, Ariel Golfeyz, said.
The assailant, identified by D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) as Walter James, fought with Capitol Police officers on July 5 after trespassing at the Capitol Building, according to court documents. He was released without bond the next day.
On July 10, James approached Golfeyz near George Washington University’s hospital and abruptly started punching him in the face, knocked him to the ground, and continued attacking him, the victim told the Washington Free Beacon. Golfeyz told police that James said during his attack, "You are not the real Jewish [sic] and you guys are murderer [sic], you guys kill people in Gaza and in America."
Golfeyz, whose parents fled Iran in 1979 to avoid religious persecution, said he would stop wearing his kippah in public places, believing it made him a target. Police are investigating the attack as a hate crime.
But Golfeyz blamed D.C.’s criminal justice policies.
"This should have never happened," he said. He questioned why James was released after fighting with Capitol Police.
After his July 5 arrest, James was initially charged with misdemeanors for trespassing and for fighting with police. Under the criminal code, D.C.’s superior court is "prohibited from holding a defendant pre-trial on misdemeanor charges," a spokesman for the city's court system, Doug Buchanan, told the Free Beacon.
Israeli Jews are widely cast as colonists who immigrated to “Palestine” over the last century and then displaced Palestine’s indigenous Arabs.Daniel Pipes: The uniqueness of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
This narrative has things backward. The Jews are indigenous; the Arabs are the colonists.
Israel and its capital Jerusalem were founded by King David, a Jewish king, 3,000 years ago. Over those 3,000 years, Jerusalem and its Jews were conquered and/or colonized by, among others, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Mongols, Mamluks, Turks and the British. These invaders eventually left; the indigenous Jews remained.
The Romans were especially fateful, not least because their animus towards the Jews helped create the modern myth that Palestinians have always been Arabs.
Because the Jews for over a century kept rebelling against Roman rule and sometimes succeeded in humiliating the world’s greatest power, the Romans exacted revenge when they emerged victorious. They destroyed the temple that Herod the Great, the king of the Jews, had built; they packed tens of thousands of Jews in slave ships bound to Rome; they built the Arch of Titus to commemorate their victory over the Jews; and, to add insult to injury, they renamed the conquered land in honor of the Jews’ historic enemies: the Philistines. It became Syria Palaestina, i.e., Palestinian Syria.
Modern-day Arabs who now call themselves “Palestinians” appropriated the term to make it seem as if they have been the historic people of Palestine. Yet the Philistines were nothing like the desert people called Arabs. As DNA evidence confirms, the Philistines, also known as the “sea people,” hailed from the Greek islands, making them European in origin.
Arabs weren’t commonly called Palestinians until the 1960s, when the Soviet Union invented the “Palestine Liberation Organization” to wrest Israel from the West. Before the 1960s, “Palestinian” generally referred to Jews. The Palestine Post, now renamed The Jerusalem Post, was a Jewish newspaper. The Palestine Symphony Orchestra, now renamed the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, was a Jewish organization.
Arabs wouldn’t make their mark in the land of the Jews until the 7th century AD with the emergence of the Muslim empire, one of the largest the world has ever seen. At its height, the Arabs had colonized everything from Spain and North Africa in its west to the Indian subcontinent to its east, covering an area exceeding 11 million square kilometers. The region vaguely known as “Palestine”—the Romans had given it no firm borders—was but a small part of the Arabs’ immense colonial empire.
“Palestine” never became a coherent country to the Arabs, who viewed the largely unpopulated expanse as part of Syria. Arabs didn’t even have an indigenous name for it—Filastin is the Arabic pronunciation of Rome’s name. Although Arabs and then later the Muslim Ottomans held Palestine as part of their empire, it was a neglected part, so much so that Jerusalem, once a Jewish metropolis of 600,000, stagnated under Muslim rule to become a backwater of 2,393 households, according to an 1871-1872 Ottoman census.
Palestinians realize the uniqueness of their perversion, take pride in it, and even sexualize it. Palestinian Authority TV responded to violence coming from Jenin with “Jenin is our beautiful bride, which perfumes herself daily with the scent of martyrdom.”Losing Is Victory in Hamas's Orwellian World
Using the same metaphor, a Hamas newspaper published an article proclaiming: “The Palestinian joy has its own fragrance; it is completely different from every other kind of happiness.” What might the author be alluding to? The murder of Israelis, of course.
Not only has the passage of time not moderated rejectionism, but it becomes more florid and extravagant than ever, celebrating the death of Israelis in a spiral of perversion.
Israel’s conciliation also grows more extreme. On conquering the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the security establishment sought to win Palestinian favor through good will and economic prosperity, a process that intensified with time, culminating in the Oslo Accords. Israel then urged funding for the PA and (until October 7) for Hamas.
Thus does the Palestinian-Israeli conflict consist of endless, wearisome rounds of violence and counter-violence, neither of which ever achieves its purpose. The Palestinians invariably begin the hostilities with an attack on Israelis or Jews, usually unarmed. Israel responds with retribution. The two sides reiterate a spiral of Palestinian aggression and Israeli punishment, going around and around, making no progress. Palestinians suffer from poverty and the pathologies of a radicalized society, including oppression by their own leaders. Israel is the only modern, democratic, and rich country that cannot protect itself from being regularly assaulted by its neighbors.
Palestinians can damage Israel through acts of violence and by spreading an anti-Zionist message, but they cannot prevent the Jewish state from ascending from one success to the next. Israel can punish Palestinians for their aggression, but it cannot quench the rejectionist spirit and its ever-more depraved expressions.
That rejectionism is not temporary, does not bend to the pressure of carrots and sticks, and does not moderate over time explains the general inability to understand it or formulate a response to it. The mentality bewilders contemporaries as something hitherto unknown, a new phenomenon that prior experience cannot explain, like the French Revolution or Soviet Russia.
What gives the conflict distinction?
THE UNIQUENESS of the two legacies confuses observers in various ways. First, they vainly try to stuff the two peoples into known categories. Palestinians are viewed as a colonized people, though they were no more conquered by Zionists than are Europeans at present by Muslims arriving as illegal migrants in the millions and hoping to become the majority population; both are nonbelligerent large-scale immigrations. Israelis are routinely compared to imperialists, even though they moved in as civilians and created history’s only country through purchase, and did so in their ancestral homeland. Terms like imperialism and apartheid betray an incomprehension of two unique legacies.
Second, unusual behavior misleads observers. Rejectionism’s persistence convinces some of its truth: White-hot fury and willingness to suffer imply a morally justified cause. Surely no population can be so consistent, so angry, so fanatical for so long without good reason. Israeli efforts to document atrocities have limited impact. Contrarily, Israeli conciliation implies a sense of guilt; why else would a more powerful actor behave so timidly?
Third, would-be peacemakers attempt to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through conventional diplomatic means, which predictably fail. The Oslo Accords, for example, came between such breakthroughs as the ending of South Africa’s apartheid regime between 1990 and 1994, the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991, and Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement of 1998; surely compromise would work here, too. In this spirit, US presidents Clinton and Obama each separately dispatched George Mitchell to build on his diplomatic success in Ireland; of course, his Palestinian-Israeli efforts ended in total failure.
Resolution in this case requires either Palestinian acceptance of Israel or Israel’s destruction – not compromise. Martin Sherman correctly notes, “We are talking about a clash of two collectives with competing and mutually exclusive narratives that are irreconcilable – and only one side can win.” This abnormal conflict cannot be ended through compromise. One side must win, the other must lose.
The initial outrage over the brutal Oct. 7 pogrom has been all but eclipsed by anger over Israel's response, as it has been hauled before both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court amid charges of genocide and war crimes.Phony declarations of a Palestinian state prevent Palestinian liberation
For Israel, winning the real war is really what counts. PR is secondary. For Hamas, this war was always only about PR. In those Orwellian terms, losing is victory, as the more suffering, the more victims, the more utter the devastation of Gaza, the greater the pressure on Israel to suspend hostilities and agree to a deal on humiliating terms.
War is unbelievably nasty and modern urban warfare against a ruthless enemy which wants you to kill as many of their civilians as possible, doubly so. Once civilian casualties started piling up, Israel's determination to eliminate Hamas was never going to win it friends.
None of the Arab states who have established relations with the Jewish state have broken them off. The idea of a pan-Arab entity taking over Gaza once the war is over is not as fantastical as people think. The Arabs seeking peace with Israel are doing so not because Israel is weak but precisely because of Israel's position as a formidable military and economic superpower. They need Israel to win.
Norway, Spain and Ireland have recently recognized the “state” of Palestine. France’s new leftist government is threatening to do the same.Why should Palestine be recognized but not Taiwan?
Tragically, such virtue signaling does nothing to help the Palestinian people. It does nothing to advance Palestinian independence. In fact, the biggest obstacle to a Palestinian state is the Palestinians themselves.
But rather than address the fundamental obstacles blocking Palestinian progress, members of the “international community” find it more gratifying to blame Israel. Ironically, Israel and the international community itself have made many serious offers of statehood to the Palestinians, all of which they have summarily rejected.
Instead of accepting peace with Israel and a state of their own, the Palestinians—both those under the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria and those under Hamas in Gaza—have chosen to maintain a constant war of aggression against Israel, with the hope of ultimately defeating it.
Nowhere is this clearer than in Judea and Samaria, where the Palestinians annually commit some 5,000 attacks on innocent Jews. What’s more, the Palestinians, supported by European Union member states, have also mounted massive illegal building projects in Israeli-controlled territories, blatantly violating the Oslo Accords. Both actions block the path to reconciliation and increased Palestinian independence.
Nonetheless, ironically, the media, the U.S. State Department and the U.N. harp constantly on Israel’s communities in Judea and Samaria as primary obstacles to peace—though they are perfectly legal under international law. They also cite violence by Israeli “settlers,” though such incidents are infrequent and cause little harm compared to Palestinian terrorism against Jews.
Such complaints about Israel serve only to distract from the far greater obstacles to Palestinian liberation, let alone a Palestinian state. Most importantly they encourage Palestinians to believe Israel is blocking their independence, when in fact it is their obsession with destroying the Jewish state.
International diplomacy is a fascinating but often confusing arena. The horrendous October 7 attack on Israel by the Hamas terrorist organization has inexplicably renewed demands to recognize a Palestinian state.MEMRI: Loyal To The End: The Grand Mufti Of Jerusalem And Nazi Germany (1941-1945)
In May this year, Norway, Ireland, and Spain decided to recognize a Palestinian state, followed by Slovenia in June and most recently Armenia. Currently, 14 of the 27 European Union countries and 145 out of the 193 UN member states have recognized it.
But why on earth is the European political elite even toying with the idea of recognizing a Palestinian state that doesn’t meet any of the criteria expected of a legitimate state?
Palestine has no defined borders, and its control is contested by two mutually hostile factions – the totally corrupt and unpopular Fatah-run Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza, both of which perpetrate terrorism against Israel, each from their territories.
The economic and business structures of the region are in the stages of infancy, due to corruption and terrorism. Democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, which should be basic European values, are nonexistent in the Palestinian territories. In Palestinian schools, children are taught to hate Jews through UNRWA textbooks funded by many EU countries.
An opinion survey published on June 12, and conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in the Palestinian territories, opens up the attitudinal climate of the region’s population in more detail:
Seventy-three percent of West Bank residents and 57% of Gaza residents consider the October 7 attacks to have been correct and justified.
PrefaceMEMRI: At Qatari Government-Sponsored Summer Camps Children Learn That Israeli Cities Are Part Of Palestine
The collaboration between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husayni and Nazi Germany has been subjected to broad historical research. Most of the research focused on the Mufti's time in Jerusalem. For my MA thesis at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in 1977, I chose to focus on his time in Berlin, 1941-45. In this, I was guided by two renowned professors: the late historian of the Middle East and Arab world, Yosef Porat, and the historian of Germany in the 18th-20th centuries, Moshe Zimmerman. It is my intention to publish this thesis in book form, but at this stage I will be publishing several chapters from it on MEMRI.org, while presenting its broader context. I am also including the Introduction as written at the time, and forthcoming book's Table of Contents.
Introduction
This book discusses both sides of the relationship between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husayni – who was a central figure in the Arab nationalist movement – and Nazi Germany, particularly during the years that the Mufti was active in Berlin during World War II.
First, this book will analyze Germany's ideological basis for cooperation with the Arabs and the compromises it made in its racial theories regarding Arabs and Muslims. This analysis, provided in Part 1 of this book, will include an overview of the development of Nazi racial theory, beginning in the 19th century.[1] It will provide a background to the main subject of this study, al-Husayni's relationship with Nazi Germany. (Contrary to popular belief, the Nazis actually elevated the Arabs' racial status – without attributing to them any Aryan origins or attributes, without this being a tactical measure, and even without any urgent need for Arab help in the war effort.)[2]
The Mufti was the pioneer of military and political cooperation between the Axis and the Arabs, and his relationship with Nazi Germany is described in Parts 2-5 of this book. A thorough examination of this relationship, based on original Arab and German documents (some of which were not publicly available before), reveals that the Mufti's relationship with Nazi Germany was unique in a variety of ways when compared to other pro-Axis Arab leaders.
The ways in which the Mufti was unique include:
1. The Mufti persisted in his cooperation with Nazi Germany even as its defeat loomed and despite the Axis' consistent rejection of his repeated petitions for its support of Arab independence and unity. Indeed, precisely during the years 1943-1945, when other Arab nationalist leaders began distancing themselves from the weakened Germany after realizing that it could no longer help them achieve their goals, the Mufti's ties with the Nazis reached their zenith, even though he no longer stood to gain from it politically. It was during these latter years of the war that he intensified his collaboration with Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the Third Reich's "strong man" in the years that preceded its defeat, and the Mufti worked with him, his staff, and the various organs at his disposal[3] with absolute loyalty.
2. He had a strong ideological affinity to Nazi political and ideological principles, including – in his words – the Führerprinzip, the status and function of struggle, and the concept of order.[4]
3. He fully embraced the Nazis' hatred of Jews.[5] He also thought in terms of mass annihilation (indeed, he preceded the Nazis in attempting to carry out such plans – see example F below). On several occasions, the Mufti contemplated or had been involved in genocidal actions against the Jews, including:
a) He personally intervened in and thwarted several deals that would have saved the lives of thousands of Jews, including children. One of these was a rescue deal that had even been approved by Himmler himself.
b) The Mufti sent a delegation to an "educational" visit to the Sachsenhausen concentration and extermination camp north of Berlin, which housed Department D, the department that oversaw the administration of all the Reich's concentration camps. As far as is known, this was the only instance in Nazi Germany's history that foreigners and non-SS members were granted permission to visit an active concentration and death camp.
c) He recruited Bosnian Muslims in order to form the 13th SS Mountain Division. Following the July 1944 occupation of Hungary, the division was tasked with securing the railways to Poland through Slovakia, on which half of Hungarian Jewry (430,000 Jews) were transported to their annihilation. Among these Jews were members of my own family, a fact that I had been unaware of when I began working on this study.
d) He played a supporting role in the operations of the Wehrmacht's 162nd Division, known as the Eastern (Muslim) Legion.
e) On several occasions, he entreated Germany to bomb the Jewish population in Palestine during public celebrations.
f) As revealed by Italian researchers Luigi Goglia and Renzo De Felice, who found a previously unknown cache of private documents belonging to Mussolini, in 1936, the Mufti approached Mussolini with a request to contaminate Tel Aviv's drinking water.
In addition, the Mufti adopted the Nazi terminology about a war against "world Jewry", and he established in Krakow an "Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question" inspired by the Nazis' institute in Berlin.
4. The Mufti enjoyed unique treatment by officials in Nazi Germany's highest echelons. He enjoyed a close relationship with Himmler, and Hitler himself said about the Mufti: "He gives the impression [that] he has more than one Aryan among his ancestors, and it may be that he harks from the most excellent Roman origins." After the recruitment of the Bosnian 13th SS Mountain Division, the SS also took action to provide him with a personal office in its headquarters building in Berlin. In one Nazi publication he was also referred to as "The Loyal One" (a play on his name Amin, which means "loyal" in Arabic).
5. The Mufti made important contributions to Germany's wartime intelligence. Among other things, his spy network in the Arab world managed to provide the Axis with an early warning ahead of the November 1942 Allied invasion of North Africa (Operation Torch). Mussolini approved the plan on the condition that the operation be carried out by Libyan NCOs in the Italian army.
Activities held at Qatari summer camps sponsored by Qatar's Education Ministry and the Ministry of Sports and Youth feature a map of Palestine from the river to the sea painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, and present cities inside Israel, such as Haifa and Jaffa, as part of Palestine, while ignoring Israel's existence.MEMRI: Displaced, Unemployed Russians Express Outrage At Russian Government's Funding, New Homes, And Jobs For Palestinian Refugees
It should be mentioned that this is not the first time Qatar's education system has promoted anti-Israel content that presents Israeli cities as Palestinian. Such content was evident, for example, in activities in solidarity with the Palestinians held in Qatari kindergartens and schools since the outbreak of the current war in Gaza.[1] The phenomenon is also prevalent in Qatar's higher education system. For example, an art exhibition opened in November 2023 at Qatar University featured maps of Palestine from the river to the sea. An October 2023 rally in solidarity with the children of Gaza organized by the "Education above All" foundation, headed by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the mother of the Qatari Emir, featured a board bearing the slogan "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," which calls for Israel's demise.[2] In December 2023 Qatar University inaugurated a garden shaped like a map of Palestine from the river to the sea, which included Israeli cities such as Jaffa, Acre and Beersheba.[3]
The following are examples of the activities in this year's summer camps in Qatar that presented Israeli cities as part of Palestine.
Haifa, Jaffa Under The Caption "Palestine Will Stay Free"
A video posted on July 9, 2024 on the X account of Qatar's Education and Higher Education Ministry showed "activities held at the state-school summer centers in collaboration with the Ministry of Sports and Youth." A board set up at one of the centers bears names and pictures of cities inside Israel, such as Haifa and Jaffa, beneath the caption "Palestine Will Stay Free." Another board features a map of Palestine from the river to the sea with the Palestinian flag superimposed upon it, which children are invited to color in with their fingerprints. A child is seen adding his thumbprint to upper part of the map, representing the Galilee in northern Israel.[4]
The summer camp of the Young Leadership Academy at the Barzan Youth Center in Doha, sponsored by the Ministry of Sports and Youth, devoted a day to "Palestine and getting to know its cities and their Islamic history." During the activity the participants were divided into four groups named after cities, including Haifa, which is inside Israel.[5]
On June 24, 2024, a Russian newspaper, Vedomosti, reported[1] that the Russian government would allocate 57.6 million rubles (about US $672,000) to support refugees from the Palestinian territories. Nine Russian regions are hosting the refugees: Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chechnya, Karachay-Cherkessia Republic, as well as Kaluga, Lipetsk, Moscow, Tver, and Chelyabinsk oblasts.Antisemitism in Europe is worsening, here’s what needs to change
Against a background of economic difficulties and Islamist terrorism in Russia, the government's decision caused bewilderment and public outcry, as the level of xenophobia in the country is on the rise.[2] The feelings seem to focus on groups that receive "unfair" or "favourable" treatment from the state in the form of benefits, budget transfers, etc. Such sentiments might be prevalent among groups who also depend on a diminishing state budget – i.e., pensioneers, low income and/or single-parent families, workers in state enterprises, government employees, and military servicemen (who constitute a significant percentage of Russian society), as well as the poor. These feelings are also being exploited by some extremist groups to win sympathy or to attract new members.
Official Number Of Palestinian Refugees In Russia Today: 1,447 – But By Law, Only 244 Of Them Are "Refugees"
Following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel's launch of Operation Iron Swords, civilians fled the Gaza Strip, becoming refugees. Many Russian media outlets and state officials criticized the Israeli government and how the hostilities were being conducted.
Although the number of Palestinian refugees in Russia is relatively small, the Ministry of Emergency Situations is tasked with accommodating them. Two decades ago, in December 2003, the media reported that Russia had accepted about 500 of them; 20 years later, in December 2023, that number had increased only by 250. According to the Russian government order allocating funds for the Palestinian refugees, as of April 13, 2024, there were only 1,447 Palestinian refugees in Russia.[3]
The cartoon above, captioned "Why don't we just accept everyone?" depicts dark-skinned people, some in traditional Arab headdress, riding on the brown bear symbolizing Russia and holding a Russian flag. (Source: Haknem media)[4]
One of the most outspoken defenders of the Gazan refugees is the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov openly condemns the West, and Israel in particular, calling the latter's actions a "horrific Zionist act of genocide" and comparing its conduct to that of Nazi Germany: "In its brutality against Palestine, Israeli fascism today is in no way inferior, if not superior, to that [orchestrated by] Hitler. Praise be to Allah, who sees everything and is quick in settlement. It's precisely for the speedy punishment of Israeli criminals that hundreds of thousands of believers from the Chechen Republic are praying to Him," wrote Kadyrov on his Telegram account.[5]
Chechnya Builds Five New Apartment Buildings For 209 Members Of The 'Fraternal Palestinian People'; Displaced Russians Who Have Lost Their Homes: "I Just Have The Wrong Religion And Skin Color" To Receive Nice New Housing
Curiously, following the Russian government order, Chechnya will take in only 250 refugees – which would mean it would receive no more than 17% percent of the allocated federal funds (roughly 9.7 million rubles, or US $111,000). However, Chechnya will receive 15.6 million rubles.[6] This may indicate the authority's plans to allocate more refugees to the republic.
Chechnya is touting its help to the Palestinians. On June 28, 2024, a local Chechen media outlet, Groznii Inform, published an article describing newly built homes for the refugees in Chechnya.[7] Five new apartment buildings were commissioned for 209 representatives of the "fraternal Palestinian people," in the words of the head of Chechnya.
Now it’s official and we have the data to prove it: to be a Jew in Europe today you must hide your Jewish identity.‘Certainly smell it coming,’ Gad Saad says of ‘tipping point’ time for Jews to flee Canada
In its latest survey of Jews’ experiences and perceptions of antisemitism, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) found an astounding 76% of European Jews have avoided wearing anything outside of their homes or synagogues that would enable passersby to know they are Jewish—up from 30% in 2013 when the first FRA survey was released.
Before the 2013 survey, our information about antisemitism in Europe was extensive but largely anecdotal. We knew that Jewish communities were experiencing a steady erosion of their sense of safety and security and saw some of the first lethal attacks on Jewish targets in Europe in 2012. The data have only grown more alarming over the last decade.
Today, a staggering 80% of European Jews believe antisemitism has increased in the past five years and nearly all (96%) experienced antisemitism in the past year, with two-thirds saying they encounter it “all the time.”
Yet despite significant efforts to encourage Jews to report incidents of antisemitism either to the police or to Jewish community organizations, most still do not. Only one in four incidents of antisemitism and 49% of acts of antisemitic violence are actually registered.
Sadly, nearly half (48%) of those who do not report say this is because they do not think anything will change. Less than one-third of those surveyed believe their governments are taking the necessary steps to ensure their security.
A self-declared “parasitologist of the human mind,” Gad Saad writes in a 2020 book that he is “seeking to inoculate people against a class of destructive ideas that destroy our capacity to reason.”The French Election
“If they go unchecked, parasitic idea pathogens, spawned by universities, eventually start to infect every aspect of our society,” wrote the marketing professor at Concordia University in Montreal.
In addition to being a widely-published scholar, Saad is also a fixture in the press, where he is cited not only as an expert on evolutionary behavioral sciences and economics but also as one of the Jewish state’s most prominent vocal supporters in the academy.
Saad spoke to JNS after a June speaking engagement for the Tafsik organization, in Toronto.
Saad had just made his 10th appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, which reportedly reaches some 14.5 million people. The professor has appeared on many other popular media shows and has nearly 1.5 million followers across several social media platforms, where his feeds mix documenting his food, satirical comments about current affairs and biting sarcasm of leftism.
For example, upon learning that the South African actress Charlize Theron decided as a parent that gender was something upon which her child could decide, Saad wrote on Twitter that “I don’t want my children to be restricted to viewing themselves as carbon-based.”
“This is why I am now immersing them in the fluidity of the Periodic Table,” he added. “I’ve asked them to look at all elements and decide which ones they self-identify with (in terms of their building blocks).”
“Let’s play ‘six degrees of Jew,’” he wrote in another post. “I give you a situation, and you try to blame it on the Yahood in six or fewer causal steps. Each time that we play the game, the best response will get retweeted from me (amplifying your voice). Game 1: You get into your Volvo in the morning but the battery is dead. Blame the Jews. Go!”
His humorous and satirical approach has led to “countless” emails from admirers noting their appreciation, he told JNS, and he became known as the “happy warrior,” which inspired him to pen the 2023 book, The Saad Truth About Happiness.
On June 16, in the French city of Courbevoie, a suburb in the north of Paris, a 12-year-old girl was beaten, tortured and raped by three boys her age for being Jewish.Bernard-Henri Lévy: Now, the Danger on the Left Must Be Stopped
According to the procureur (the French DA), the girl had been advised by her parents due to heavy pressures at school since Oct. 7 to hide her Jewish identity and pretend to be a Muslim. Her main aggressor, whom she’d met online and had a flirting relation with, was a 13-year-old Portuguese kid who had converted to Islam and was in the nearby city of Rueil.
Nobody knows how he learned the girl’s real identity. But when he did, he set up a trap for the girl with two of his friends. The three kids showed up in the Courbevoie hood where the girl lives, found her in the street, and took her to an abandoned nursery nearby where she was called a liar, a “dirty Jew” taking part in “the genocide in Gaza.” They then beat and raped the girl for two hours and threatened her with death if she did not give them 200 euros the next day and if she talked to the cops. Pictures of the Palestinian flag and of the slogan “Free Palestine,” that had been obsessively hammered on in every left-wing demonstration since Oct. 7, and again during the campaign for the European election that had just ended, were found in the main perpetrator’s phone.
We know these details because of the traumatized Jewish girl’s courage and moral strength. According to her parents’ legal counsel, the lawyer Muriel Ouaknine-Melki, she refused to keep silent about her treatment. Instead, she immediately reported the facts home and insisted on filing a complaint. Accordingly, she also had to undergo a battery of medical examinations the following days. At the age of 12, she was prescribed a preventive treatment for AIDS and a morning-after pill; she’s suffered from harrowing flashbacks and insomnia ever since.
How was her courage rewarded? Anyone curious about the details of what happened had to rely on media labeled “right wing” (Le Point, Le Figaro). Prestige left outlets like Libération and Le Monde, on the other hand, covered the story as soberly and quietly as they could, with the latter taking so many precautions in its presentation of the facts that the journal sometimes seemed to doubt the victim’s version.
Did the left—and more specifically, did Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left party La France Insoumise (LFI) with its obsessive “anti-Zionist” agitprop—bear some responsibility for the crime? The question was of course on everybody’s mind. But in the stormy political context it was a question people found too problematic to ask.
Up until the European elections on June 9, I said: No to the National Rally and to the New Popular Front, these twin parties, one supposedly of the left and the other supposedly of the right, both equally Putinian, and equally destructive to our common European home.WaPo: How Stanford Can Do Away with Campus Antisemitism
Up until this past Sunday, July 7, the day of the second round of France’s legislative election, I stuck with my position of equivalence: Neither Bardella nor Mélenchon, neither of their absurd, demagogic, disastrous programs, both of which would scuttle republican principles, should be countenanced.
Now, the National Rally is, if not defeated, then at least contained.
The French—through one of their reflexes of political wisdom that comes to them at history’s critical hours and who I won’t insult by qualifying them as conservative—said no to the more or less human face of Le Pen-ism.
It’s now the other faction, Mélenchon’s, which is at the gates of power.
And that faction is, for now, the one that incarnates the main threat to the Republic, democracy, and France, and which must be opposed with full force.
The first task, in the coming days and weeks, perhaps months, will be to pursue the battle of ideas.
My readers know how many articles I’ve dedicated, in the last 10 years, to this Tartarin, this Tartuffe, this Marxist-Leninist buffoon, who is, first, hungry for power, showing the same relationship to the “International” as a frog does to his pond.
And I’ve shown, in Solitude d’Israël (forthcoming in English as Israel Alone), the slow decline and then, since Oct. 7, the shocking acceleration that has made of his party a truly antisemitic party, a carrier of the ideological virus of antisemitism on the French left.
But that is visibly not enough.
We must show, and show again, that the man who presented himself, on the night of his victory, next to furious antisemitic Palestinian Rima Hassan, who flaunts her public ties to the ugly regime of the Syrian butcher Bashar Assad, is no Leon Blum and even less so is he François Mitterrand, who despised him—as I can personally attest. Rather, what Mélenchon represents is the return of Jacques Doriot, the communist leader who in 1940 became a collaborationist.
Stanford University has a serious antisemitism problem. It is not only Jews and Israelis who suffer. Many students now censor themselves for fear of crossing a demand for solidarity against "oppression." We have come to this unfortunate conclusion after six months of research documented in a recently released report by Stanford's Subcommittee on Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias (which we chaired).US Jewish Groups Condemn Anti-Zionist Resolutions Considered by American Federation of Teachers
Restoring a climate in which ideas can flow freely and the dignity of all groups can be respected will require confronting painful realities. Underlying the hostility experienced by Jewish students and faculty is an ideology that divides the world into "colonizer" and "colonized," the powerful and the oppressed. Just three days after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel, a Stanford instructor made this division literally, separating his freshman students by ethnicity into these categories. Such binary thinking easily slides into an antisemitic narrative.
It is possible to stop the spiral of polarization and discrimination: Universities must return to core principles and restore a culture of pluralism and tolerance. Schools have an obligation to protect students from identity-based harassment. They must preserve the university's ability to function. Stanford has free speech zones where protests can take place. But parts of the campus where the essential business of teaching, research and administration would be disrupted are off-limits. Students must be held accountable for violations of the rules.
Students, faculty and staff must also work to create a culture of critical inquiry. This means weighing their arguments against evidence and competing values - and seeing their peers as human beings of equal worth and potential.
A coalition of US Jewish groups on Monday denounced the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), one of the largest educators’ unions in the country, for including anti-Israel resolutions in the agenda of its upcoming annual convention.Harvard antisemitism task force recommendations don’t go far enough, GOP lawmakers say
The resolutions, seven in total, run the gamut of anti-Zionist ideology, calling for the end of US military assistance to Israel while falsely accusing the country of “genocide,” a ceasefire in Gaza that would halt Israel’s mission to clear Hamas from the territory, and divestment from Israel in the form of selling AFT’s Israel bonds. Another resolution accuses supporters of Israel of “weaponizing” antisemitism to shield Israel from criticism.
On Thursday, StandWithUs, New York City Public School Alliance, Educators Caucus for Israel, and Partners for Equality and Educational Responsibility in K-12 (PeerK12), said the measures “undermine the safety and well being of Jewish students, families, and educators in public schools” and foster a culture of hate.
“Each one of these anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish resolutions is based on propaganda and politically subversive and ideologically driven lies, exposing yet again the deeply unsettling and obvious lack of merit, or even the slightest desire of the AFT to adhere to indisputable facts and historical accuracy that one might expect from a national association,” PeerK12 co-founder Nicole Bernstein said in a press release on Monday.
StandWithUs director of K-12 Educator Outreach David Smokler added, “We call on school boards and school superintendents to make it clear to teachers that they may not bring biased materials into their classrooms. Teachers must teach students how to think, not what to think.”
If passed at AFT’s convention on July 22-25, the resolutions would mark the most severe condemnation of Israel and Zionism passed by a teachers’ union and continue the anti-Zionist movement’s march through K-12 schools, which The Algemeiner has covered extensively.
Antisemitism in K-12 schools has continued to increase every year, according to the ADL’s latest data. In 2023, antisemitic incidents in US public school increased 135 percent, a figure which included a rise in vandalism and assault.
In a new letter to interim Harvard President Alan Garber sent on Monday, 28 Republican House members, led by Reps. Tim Walberg (R-MI) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY), said that the Harvard antisemitism task force’s recent preliminary recommendations on responding to campus antisemitism don’t go nearly far enough to address the situation on the campus.In La Presse Column, Concordia University Assistant Professor Spreads Dangerous “Genocide” Conspiracy Theory
The lawmakers said they have “serious concerns regarding the inadequacy” of the recommendations, which are “weaker, less detailed, and less comprehensive” than those presented by a previous task force in December 2023. Harvard Jewish leaders and alumni have said they’re disappointed by the recommendations, released in late June.
“Instead of offering a tangible plan to address antisemitism at Harvard, the task force’s most specific and actionable recommendations are to organize public talks on respectful dialogue and religious relations, increase the availability of hot kosher meals, and to circulate guidance about accommodating Jewish religious observance and a calendar of Jewish holidays,” the letter reads.
It calls the recommendations “particularly alarming given that Harvard’s leaders had already received a strong, detailed, and comprehensive set of recommendations” from the previous task force, arguing that the current group should have built on that framework.
The lawmakers said that Garber needs to “publicly address” criticisms of the task force from Jewish community members, adopt and begin to implement the recommendations from both task forces before the next semester and sever Harvard’s relationship with Birzeit University in the West Bank, whose student government and administration have expressed support for Hamas.
The letter states that the task force was correct to support disciplinary action and condemnation in response to the “serious problem with antisemitism” on Harvard’s campus but did not “offer real solutions for doing so.” It also accuses the task force of giving “insufficient attention” to Harvard’s “failures in imposing discipline for antisemitic misconduct.”
The anti-Israel occupation at McGill University may have been belatedly taken down by police and private security on July 10, but the attempt to rehabilitate the image of the extremist protesters continues.US investigating Dallas school district, Sacramento State under Title VI
In a July 11 opinion column in La Presse entitled: “Support a ceasefire while dismantling pro-Palestinian encampments,” Ted Rutland, an associate professor at Concordia University, tried to make readers forget about the festering occupation at McGill University, which was home to not just hate speech and open support for Islamic terrorism, but multiple drug overdoses, and which eventually became home to a largely homeless population.
Rutland described the removal of the illegal hate-fest in Montreal as part of “repressive actions,” claiming that they “come as public opinion and government policy appear to have turned against the Israeli genocide in Gaza.”
Public opinion polls in Canada have shown varied results, depending on the wording of the questions, but if there is anything of a clear consensus in Canadian society, it is the overwhelming opposition on the part of Canadians to the anti-Israel encampments which were present until recently.
As for Rutland’s use of the term “genocide” to refer to Israel’s counter-terrorism operations against Hamas in Gaza, it is both dangerous and irresponsible.
Genocide refers to an attempt to exterminate a people, and that would fit to a tee Hamas’ murderous and blood-thirsty efforts to massacre and kill as many Israelis as possible. Israel, in sharp contrast, specifically targets Hamas terror targets, and takes extensive steps to avoid civilian casualties, in what the world’s top experts in urban warfare have lauded as creating a new standard in the protection of civilians in warfare, particularly noteworthy given Hamas’ use of Gazan civilians as human shields.
But Rutland, who teaches “urban planning and anti-blackness” in Montreal, surely knows better about the intricacies of dense urban warfare in Gaza, or at least that’s what he would want readers to think.
On Monday afternoon, the Dallas Independent School District posted on social media that it was the subject of a Dallas Morning News article, about how University of North Texas at Dallas students will be residents in elementary schools in the district. “Dallas ISD in the news,” the district wrote, using a newspaper icon.Palestinian-Canadian Singer Who Posted Extremist Anti-Israel Propaganda On Social Media Whitewashed By CBC, Claimed She Was Dropped By Label For Her Activism
It posted no such information after the U.S. Department of Education announced on Tuesday that it is investigating the district and California State University-Sacramento under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars schools that receive public funding from discriminating based on “shared ancestry,” including religion.
Neither the district—whose staff of 22,857 serves 139,584 students in 240 schools—nor the public university responded to queries from JNS.
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights does not publicize alleged violations under Title VI, but it did state on its site that the probe of the Sacramento school, the California State University system’s six largest campus (of 23), relates to alleged “national origin discrimination involving religion.”
Another day, another effort by CBC News to portray anti-Israel activists as innocent victims, all while whitewashing their radical views.Appeal for litigation funding
In a July 10 article for CBC Arts entitled: “Nemahsis says her label dropped her for her pro-Palestinian stance,” followed by a July 12 interview on the CBC radio program Q entitled: “Nemahsis on why her label dropped her & her music video in the West Bank,” the public broadcaster profiled Nemah Hassan, a Palestinian-Arab singer in southern Ontario who goes by the stage name Nemahsis.
In both the article and radio interview, Hasan was portrayed as an up-and-coming singer who was on the precipice of success when – following Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, her pro-Palestinian advocacy ended it.
As Digital Producer Vivian Rashotte told readers in the article, following October 7, “Hasan didn’t release an official statement at that time, but she did start reposting pro-Palestinian content on her personal social media accounts. Shortly after that, her label dropped her without explanation.”
What Rashotte called “pro-Palestinian content” is a tremendous understatement.
On October 9, just two days after the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Hasan had shared a Tweet from Mohammed El-Kurd, a noted disseminator of anti-Jewish hate, which was itself a statement from group of anti-Israel students at Harvard University which blamed Israel, or as he called it, “the apartheid regime,” for being responsible for Hamas’ decision to massacre 1,200 innocent Israelis on October 7.
Australian Jews Against Hate (AJAH) will launch a fundraising initiative next week to help fund litigation directed towards stamping out all forms of antisemitism.
AJAH is appealing to the community to support the imminent class action led by Levitt Robinson and barrister Adam Butt against the University of Sydney on behalf of Jewish students and staff. It may well be the first of many actions brought nationwide.
Butt, who successfully spearheaded the recent antisemitic bullying case against Brighton Secondary College in Melbourne, is instructed by law firm Levitt Robinson. Their clients plan to seek damages for racial vilification, breach of duty of care, and breaches of contract.
“The first major case is against the University of Sydney, including its vice-chancellor and certain student groups, who have allowed the campus to become a breeding ground for hate, leaving Jewish students feeling unsafe and marginalised,” a statement from AJAH said.
“Despite numerous discussions with the university and various stakeholders, the response has been completely disheartening. Jewish students continue to face physical threats and harassment daily. We believe that the only way forward is through decisive legal action against those perpetuating this hate.
“However, to effectively fight these battles, we urgently need your support. Your donation will directly aid in protecting our students and supporting future cases to uphold the civil and human rights of Jewish Australians. Every contribution is tax-deductible and will make a significant difference.”
According to a letter from Levitt Robinson, any funders are not actually a party to the legal proceedings. If a successful outcome is obtained, funders are usually entitled to a commission from any such proceeds, in addition to reimbursement for any amount they have paid as security for costs.
Human Resources managers are tasked to curtail/stop bigotry NOT SPREAD IT. Who missed that memo?
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) July 16, 2024
Georgia based Whitney Hamby, an HR manager with @Alchatek who disseminates grotesque antisemitism, such as:
• claims she has never seen a Jew suffer & blames them for global… pic.twitter.com/c2oQGRCoeR
Pedro Alcocer's archived links are listed here:
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) July 16, 2024
- https://t.co/kNhAGMH1hC
- https://t.co/b5ex8s7e9I
- https://t.co/72oVPqmGOj pic.twitter.com/aktO0AbV0B
If you’re having a dispute with your credit, please don’t be like Jessica and resort to antisemitic tropes to come to a resolution. pic.twitter.com/3XZh3CgU7x
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) July 16, 2024
Framing, omission and narratives in BBC WS radio report on Gaza City
Notably, as in previous BBC reporting Thomson avoided the topic of threats and attacks on the pier by terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip and downplayed the issue of the theft of aid entering by that route while promoting claims of “Israeli strikes”.
Reynolds continued:
Reynolds: “As we were on air on Thursday, I was watching lots of messages come in on the screen about potential difficulties – further difficulties I should say – in negotiating any kind of truce or ceasefire agreement. Where do those difficulties stand?”
Failing to provide listeners with information which would enable their understanding of his reference to “smuggling of arms”, Thomson replied:
Thomson: “Well the latest word appears to be that…ehm…Prime Minister Benyamin [sic] Netanyahu has said that he doesn’t want…he won’t allow Israeli forces to leave Israel’s – sorry – Egypt’s border with Gaza. He said that’s vital to stop smuggling of arms by Hamas and yet one of the key demands – the key ceasefire demands – of Hamas is that all Israeli forces leave Gaza. So there’s a big trip-up point. And also of course Egypt is not at all happy – going back to aid – it doesn’t want Israeli troops on the Gazan side of the…of its border. And that’s why it stops aid deliveries passing through there. And if you go back to when it was in its full flow, this was providing by far – the Rafah crossing point – was providing by far the biggest amount of aid coming into Gaza.”
As has generally been the case in BBC reporting, Thomson and Reynolds were clearly far less interested in Egypt’s decision in early May to prevent aid from entering the Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing than in promoting a narrative whereby Israel was “restricting” aid. Thompson refrained from informing listeners that since late May, aid trucks have been redirected from the Rafah crossing to the Kerem Shalom crossing, where rocket attacks by Hamas continue to be mostly ignored by the BBC.
As we see, BBC audiences worldwide were given no information about the purpose of the recent IDF operations in Gaza City or the exploitation of civilian infrastructure in that location by terrorist organisations. As has been the case in far too much BBC reporting, this four-minute item – which is still available online – promoted specific framing on the topic of humanitarian aid which downplayed any factors not related to Israel and even promoted false information.
Yes, @guardian, claims that the IDF fired “poison gas bombs” at Palestinians near Jerusalem can't be “independently verified” because it never happened. How about checking facts and verifying before publishing? https://t.co/k4jHVTBx5J pic.twitter.com/fXnIS4dDzy
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) July 16, 2024
Jordanian Prince Reiterates Call to Ban Israel From FIFA Tournaments Worldwide Due to Hamas War
Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein, president of the Jordanian Football Association and half-brother of Jordan’s King Abdullah II, reaffirms his stance on Sunday that the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) should ban Israel from all international matches due to its military actions during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
“The continuation of the status quo without taking decisive steps reinforces double standards and reflects an unfair image of the sports world,” he said on Sunday, according to the Middle East Monitor. He also called on all soccer fans around the world to stand united and pressure FIFA to expel Israel.
Al-Hussein made the statements before FIFA’s board of directors meet later this month to review a legal assessment regarding Israel’s participation in FIFA tournaments. Al-Hussein further expressed support to the Palestinian people amid the Israel-Hamas war, and said he hopes FIFA will prove its commitment to justice and equality by banned Israel for international soccer games.
In February, the Jordanian prince spearheaded a letter by the 12-member West Asian Football Federations that also called on FIFA to expel Israel from participating in global soccer matches. The letter urged FIFA to take a “decisive stand against the atrocities committed in Palestine and the war crimes in Gaza, by condemning the killing of innocent civilians including players, coaches, referees, and officials, the destruction of the football infrastructure, and taking a united front in isolating the Israeli Football Association from all football-related activities until these acts of aggression cease.”
Shockat Adam went on to defend “The Muslim Vote”, an Islamist outfit that backed the very worst candidates it could find. Think George Galloway and Chris Williamson, alongside Adam.
— habibi (@habibi_uk) July 15, 2024
They are simply upholding a “cornerstone of Western civilisation”, you see. 2/2 pic.twitter.com/BJYThfKv8t
See Vaseem Ahmed, leader of RCAG, for yourself.
— habibi (@habibi_uk) July 16, 2024
Its mission is “to punish the politicians and the party that have abandoned us on the altar of Zionism”.
It decries “hardcore Zionist Labour stooges imposed on our heads, this isn't democracy".
And more.pic.twitter.com/GJNDssFkUd
Three Israelis arrested for harming national security at Iran’s behest
Three Israeli citizens were arrested in recent weeks on suspicion of harming the country’s national security on behalf of the Iranian regime, the Israel Security Agency and Israel Police revealed on Tuesday.
One of the suspects, Elimelech Stern, a 21-year-old ultra-Orthodox resident of Beit Shemesh near Jerusalem, was charged on Tuesday with illegal contact with a foreign agent, Israel’s Ynet news outlet reported.
According to the charges filed at the Jerusalem District Court, Stern first came into contact with the agent, who identified himself by the name “Anna Elena,” through the encrypted Telegram messaging app.
The agent convinced him to carry out actions including hanging anti-Israel signs in Tel Aviv, burying cash around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, delivering packages to the doorsteps of Israeli civilians containing the severed head of an animal or a doll next to a knife and threatening messages, setting fire to a forest and more.
“I have various missions in the cities of Israel that not everyone has the ability to do,” the Iranian agent was said to have told Stern, adding that “my missions have rewards from $100 to $100,000.” Israeli authorities said the suspect had agreed to carry out all the activities as requested, with the exception of committing murder and setting a forest on fire.
The indictment said Stern was paid in cryptocurrency and that he recruited the two other suspects to help him carry out the activities.
BREAKING 🚨
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) July 16, 2024
The Shin Bet has disclosed that three Israelis were arrested on suspicion of being recruited by Iranian intelligence agents, with one of them allegedly carrying out various tasks in exchange for payment. @GLZRadio
It is said that they didn’t know they were being… pic.twitter.com/8zVqKEUiYv
This TikTok (and Instagram) account is soliciting donations in order to distribute UN aid flour, oil, salt and yeast in Gaza. This is not how free aid is distributed in Gaza. You get a coupon and you go and pick up the free aid at an UNRWA warehouse. This looks like stolen aid,… pic.twitter.com/vmt0HJKeFf
— Imshin (@imshin) July 16, 2024
The line for food distribution in Gaza. The person in charge "aligns" the children standing in line. pic.twitter.com/sGrmH61NE8
— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) July 16, 2024
"A Gazan kid's toenail is worth more than a grazed ear"
— Imshin (@imshin) July 16, 2024
A Gazan opinion on the attempted assassination of a US presidential candidate.
Gaza food blogger Hamada Shaqqoura making cakes for children in Gaza.
TikTok timestamp: 11 hours ago#TheGazaYouDontSee
Link in 1st comment pic.twitter.com/31xIX615Nb
Cigarettes! Finally!
— Imshin (@imshin) July 16, 2024
Mustang cigarettes have entered Gaza. The price is currently 50 shekels ($13.75) for a packet.
This man isn't happy, however. He would prefer shampoo, or at least Hawaii soap (an Israeli brand).
There have been a lot of complaints about the shortage of… pic.twitter.com/oNg0pxmN7a
PreOccupiedTerritory: Terrorism Survivor Finds Boycott Of Palestinian Products Not Particularly Challenging (satire)
A man who vowed not to contribute to the economy of the society that tried to murder him and his family admitted today that the process of divesting himself of all products originating in that society, and of undertaking not to purchase any products from that society for the rest of his life, has proved undemanding in the extreme, with not a single identifiable feature of his retail life affected.
Kobi Shir, 40, survived the October 7, 2023 massacres by Palestinians of Israelis in Israel’s south near the Gaza Strip, along with several family members. He lost four close friends, however, plus a dozen acquaintances, with many more injured, some disfigured for life. Following the attack, Mr. Shir committed to a complete boycott of anything manufactured by Palestinians, akin to the way many Jews have refused since the Holocaust to buy a German car. He has found however, that, unlike the automotive market, where the boycott effort requires a measure of sacrifice in forgoing items of quality and prestige, refraining from the purchase of Palestinian products requires no noticeable shift in normative buying habits.
“I’d boycott Palestinian product if there were any Palestinian industry to boycott,” he explained. “Sure, some produce comes from them, but I’ve been making an effort anyway to support struggling Israeli farms since October, so my food-shopping habit haven’t been challenged in the slightest by this decision. And since I can’t see needing to avail myself of homemade rockets, roadside bombs, suicide vests, or airplane hijacking, that doesn’t leave much for me to cut out.”
“I’m not in construction or agriculture,” he continued, specifying two major economic arenas in Israel that rely on Palestinian labor, or did until October. “Turns out there’s not a heck of a lot I can actually do to implement this boycott. I’d call it frustrating, but mostly it’s one of the easiest political acts I’ve ever done. Or not done.”
Those Hamas guys don't know when to quit. pic.twitter.com/oMVC8mAVxY
— The Mossad: Satirical, Yet Awesome (@TheMossadIL) July 15, 2024
How Hezbollah Grew Over Four Decades, Profiting From Chaos
Ten months into the Gaza war, Hezbollah has engaged in frequent clashes with Israeli forces including sniper fire and anti-tank missile strikes. Hezbollah has deployed more rocket launchers and anti-aircraft systems to deter Israeli air strikes and prepare for potential escalation. Hezbollah has closely coordinated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad; on March 4, 2024, Hamas and Hezbollah carried out simultaneous rocket attacks against Israel.
While the chaos abroad has enabled Hezbollah to expand its regional influence, internal chaos serves the same purpose. Over 80% of Lebanese are living in poverty due to the country’s financial turmoil and the devaluation of Lebanon’s pound. These dire circumstances have helped Hezbollah. Its financial backbone, the Al-Qard Al-Hasan Association (AQAH), has been offering Lebanese personal loans in exchange for gold and foreign currency, making Hezbollah the largest holder of gold reserves in the country. Additionally, Hezbollah, through its global financial network, including gold mines in Venezuela, has been injecting foreign currency and gold into Lebanon. Given the weak value of the Lebanese currency, this has granted Hezbollah enormous purchasing power, enabling the militia to extend its economic presence by acquiring numerous construction and solar energy projects.
The spoils Hezbollah has collected likely make the militia cautious about escalating the current exchange of fire with Israel. On the one hand, the group knows that holding back could undermine its soft power and influence. On the other hand, major strikes against Israel that unleash the full power of the IDF could endanger all of Hezbollah’s achievements. There are pressures within Israel for the IDF to turn its attention north as operations wane in Gaza.
Throughout the last four decades, Hezbollah has demonstrated a noteworthy ability to capitalize on regional instability and conflict. Whether during the U.S. war on terror, the Arab Spring, or the tumultuous events of the 2020’s, each round has provided Hezbollah with new opportunities to extend its reach. This pattern underscores Hezbollah’s role as an agent of chaos, in the view of this analyst, that takes advantage of power vacuums to navigate and exploit the shifting dynamics of the region.
#Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah: The Culture of Martyrdom Is Not a Culture of Death – It Is a Culture of Life; We Are Sacrificing Thousands so Millions Can Live; This Is What We Want for #Lebanon pic.twitter.com/8cJ7PgByUk
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) July 16, 2024
As America Teeters on Brink of Chaos, WaPo Highlights Taliban Climate Change Initiatives
Americans are still in shock after former president Donald Trump was nearly assassinated at a rally in Pennsylvania this weekend. Many have criticized the mainstream media's handling of the shooting itself, as well as the flood of statements condemning "political violence" from Democrats and journalists who repeatedly compared Trump to Adolf Hitler and described him as a threat to democracy that this country "cannot survive."
The Washington Post failed to assuage these critics on Monday, when the once-respected paper published a front-page story touting the Taliban's efforts to fight so-called climate change in Afghanistan. The repressive terrorist group hosted an "international climate change conference" that failed to attract many foreign guests, for obvious reasons:
Afghanistan remains a global pariah in large part because of the Taliban's restrictions on female education, and that isolation has deprived the country of foreign funding for urgently needed measures to adapt to climate change.
So, for now, the Afghan government is largely confronting the impacts of global warming on its own and putting the blame for floods and sluggish governmental aid on foreigners. Some former Taliban commanders view global carbon emissions as a new invisible enemy.
"Just like they invaded our country, they've invaded our climate," Lutfullah Khairkhwa, the Taliban's deputy higher education minister, said in his opening speech at the Jalalabad conference. "We must defend our climate, our water, our soil to the same extent we defend ourselves against invasions."
The Houthi Terrorist Group in Western Yemen has released Footage showing their Attack against the Liberian-Flagged Crude Oil Tanker, M/T CHIOS Lion yesterday in the Red Sea, utilizing what appears to be a One-Way Surface Attack Drone. The Ship is reported to have suffered… pic.twitter.com/mR3rdfZmgJ
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) July 16, 2024
New Report: The European Council is legally obliged to place the IRGC on the EU terror list. The conditions for listing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the EU terror list have now been met. Read the new White Paper by The Hague Initiative: https://t.co/i8q20yBQ7Y pic.twitter.com/d9qxnBFxlj
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) July 16, 2024
I often speak about how the Islamic Republic has utterly destroyed entire countries in the Middle East through their meddling and terror proxies…but don’t take my work for it. Look how even this Palestinian terror supporter SLAMS the Islamic Republic for their irresponsible… pic.twitter.com/3W4dDSUDSu
— Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر (@emilykschrader) July 16, 2024
ADL charges HispanTV with spreading antisemitism, Islamic Republic of Iran propaganda
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a report on Monday accusing the Iran state-controlled HispanTV, a Spanish-language media outlet, of spreading antisemitic viewpoints to its audience of 600 million people.
The channel, the ADL charged, shares Holocaust revisionist content and content which is prejudiced against the Jewish state. The ADL also accused the outlet of incitement.
The network, established in 2011, publishes content through satellite, cable, live-stream and social media.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who is currently visiting Argentina, said "On the 30th anniversary of Argentina's deadliest terrorist attack, the AMIA bombing perpetrated by the Iranian regime and its proxy Hezbollah, it's evident that the Iranian regime continues to perpetuate antisemitism through multiple channels.
“Alongside physical violence, the Islamic Republic of Iran, as the world’s leading state-sponsor of antisemitism and terrorism, uses cultural centers and media across Latin America to incite hostility against Jewish communities. The cynical use of media outlets like HispanTV to amplify antisemitic conspiracies and disinformation is reprehensible and unethical. In our report, we outline concrete steps to urge policymakers and corporations to take swift action to prevent HispanTV and other Iranian regime media from spreading hate through these platforms.”
The Iranian regime primarily utilized IRIB's PressTV, which was established in 2007, and its Spanish-language counterpart, HispanTV, to promote global antisemitism, the ADL claimed.
A blockbuster new @ADL report reveals how the Islamic Republic of Iran has nurtured HispanTV, Tehran’s Spanish-language propaganda arm in Latin America, as the #1 source of antisemitism, extremism and hate on the continent. It’s a key weapon in its war to exert influence on the… pic.twitter.com/Hl3urogi8Z
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) July 15, 2024
This is from Iran's state propaganda channel, Press TV. Note to mainstream media outlets: If you write anything close to this, you are far from the truth. pic.twitter.com/ba4enjEdcr
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) July 16, 2024
Georgian national charged with plot to give poison candy to Jewish kids in NY
Michail Chkhikvishvili, a Georgian national with neo-Nazi ties and whose aliases include “Commander Butcher,” was indicted for soliciting hate crimes and acts of mass violence, per a federal grand jury indictment on Monday.UK ‘antisemitic TikTok terrorist’ jailed for 4 years after promoting terrorism on the platform
The 20-year-old alleged leader of the Maniac Murder Cult was arrested in Moldova on July 6 and indicted in Brooklyn, N.Y. (He had spent time in New York.)
“As alleged, the defendant sought to recruit others to commit violent attacks and killings in furtherance of his Neo-Nazi ideologies,” stated Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “His goal was to spread hatred, fear and destruction by encouraging bombings, arson and even poisoning children, for the purpose of harming racial minorities, the Jewish community and homeless individuals.”
According to the indictment, Chkhikvishvili started in November 2023 to plan a major attack in New York City on New Year’s Eve.
“The scheme involved an individual dressing up as Santa Claus and handing out candy laced with poison to racial minorities,” the Justice Department stated. “The scheme also involved providing candy laced with poison to children at Jewish schools in Brooklyn.”
On or around Jan. 9, Chkhikvishvili wrote to an FBI informant posing as a recruit for Chkhikvishvili’s hate group that “Jews are literally everywhere,” and that the would-be recruit should attack on “some Jewish holiday” at “Jewish schools full of kids,” per the indictment.
“Dead Jewish kids,” he also wrote, per the complaint. He added that after publicizing a video of the attack on Jewish kids, his hate group “will become bigger than Al Qaeda once it drops.”
An antisemitic Romford TikTok user was jailed for four years in England for encouraging terrorist attacks and the murder of Jews, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in a Monday statement.
Hamza Alam, 22, was sentenced to imprisonment by the Woolwich Crown Court for three counts of disseminating a terrorist publication and one count of encouraging terrorism.
Alam was arrested in 2022 after an investigation by the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command into a Telegram group to which terrorist supporters had been a main contributor.
The man referred to by CPS as an “antisemitic TikTok terrorist” would disguise himself when posting hostile videos against Jews or celebrations of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Material that glorified acts of terrorism
Alam was enamored with the Islamic State, creating a shareable folder with ISIS materials and videos of public floggings. On his phone, investigators found pictures of ISIS fighters with Alam’s face pasted on.
“Hamza Alam used social media platforms including TikTok to discuss, share, and spread his vile extremist views. He also recklessly shared material that glorified the commission, preparation, and acts of terrorism,” said CPS Counter Terrorism Division head Bethan David.
“Alam thought that by disguising his appearance and claiming he was merely an online librarian he would not be caught out – but he was wrong.”
Jackson Hinkle can't make up his mind on Trump. In one post he praises Trump for so-called "condemning" Israel, in the next post he complains about Trump being pro-Israel. pic.twitter.com/OyQNwUZhuV
— Awesome Jew (@Jewsarethegoat) July 15, 2024
🚨BREAKING: Vile antisemite Lucas Gage posts a chilling and threatening message to Jews on his telegram. He states, "Playtime is over," and threatens to give up his life for the cause.
— Awesome Jew (@Jewsarethegoat) July 15, 2024
⚠️The Jew hater vows to eliminate all Jews who he considers supremacists from society.… pic.twitter.com/teUMALtO7f
TAU researchers allow patient to ‘speak’ with thought alone
A epilepsy patient in Israel “spoke” two syllables using only the power of thought, researchers from Tel Aviv University and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital) announced on Tuesday.
The patient imagined saying one of two syllables, and electrodes implanted in his brain transmitted the electrical signals to a computer, which then vocalized the syllables.
The results of the groundbreaking study were published in the prestigious journal Neurosurgery.
The findings offer hope for those unable to speak due to conditions such as ALS, brainstem stroke or brain injury, the researchers said. Dr. Ariel Tankus of Tel Aviv University’s School of Medical and Health Sciences and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital). Credit: Tel Aviv University.
“In this experiment, for the first time in history, we were able to connect the parts of speech to the activity of individual cells from the regions of the brain,” said lead researcher Dr. Ariel Tankus of Tel Aviv University’s School of Medical and Health Sciences and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center.
“This allowed us to distinguish between the electrical signals that represent the sounds /a/ and /e/. At the moment, our research involves two building blocks of speech, two syllables. Of course, our ambition is to get to complete speech, but even two different syllables can enable a fully paralyzed person to signal ‘yes’ and ‘no,’” he said.
Hey agents, a personal message.
— The Mossad: Satirical, Yet Awesome (@TheMossadIL) July 16, 2024
I've taken some time off from my job to provide care for my mother and will be posting a little less frequently.
Please keep Esther Bat Margalit in your prayers during this difficult time and maybe buy her a coffee.https://t.co/yqWvW7azrg
Start-Up Nation Co-Author Optimistic on Israel
Dan Senor, co-author of the 2009 bestseller Start-Up Nation, says Israel still has more startups per capita than any country in the world.
It attracts the most global venture capital on a per capita basis than any country in the world. It is number one in the world in R&D as a percentage of GDP.
And it is number four in the world in terms of Israeli public companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
"Israel has hundreds of venture capital firms, 120 accelerators, 35 incubators, [and] over 400 multinational companies [that] have set up shop in Israel."
"Now Israelis are starting to build big standalone companies that remain in Israel."
In 2013, "there was only one company in Israel that was generating over a billion dollars in annual revenue, and that was Check Point. Today, there are nearly a dozen Israeli companies that are generating over a billion dollars in revenue."
"There's virtually no major global tech company in the world today that doesn't have an operation set up in Israel."
"All these non-tech companies have [also] set up R&D operations in Israel: Coca-Cola, Walmart, Mercedes-Benz, Procter & Gamble."
"All these companies have really complicated problems that they can only solve through innovation - and Israeli talent is unique in the world."
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