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Monday, July 29, 2024

07/29 Links Pt2: The dangerous myth of ‘Arab unity’; The world should learn from Israel’s Olympic courage; Jewish school bus torched in Toronto

From Ian:

For Anti-Semites, a Jew Doesn’t Have to Live in Israel to be a Settler Colonialist
Anti-Israel radicals, especially those shaped by academia, love to call Israel a “settler-colonialist” state. Benjamin Wexler examines the background of the phrase, and the ways in which is applied. Consider, for instance, an anti-Israel resolution the University of British Columbia’s student council was ready to put to a student-wide referendum.

Alongside much more expansive demands for BDS, the referendum called for the university to “end Hillel BC’s lease on unceded Musqueam territory.” There were other reasons given for the targeting of the campus’s main Jewish student organization, but the emphasis on unceded land should not be overlooked as a justifying factor. Other UBC locales did not receive such a disclaimer in the same referendum. The Nest Building is merely the Nest Building; the AMS Food Bank is merely the AMS Food Bank. But the Jews squat on unceded land.

The resolution was rescinded after a general outcry, but the accusation is significant: Jews aren’t just settler colonialists if they live in Israel; they (and not descendants of immigrants from the Middle East, Pakistan, Britain, or France) are settler colonialists even in Canada:

At McGill, pro-Israel counter-demonstrators were met with the chant: “Settlers, settlers, go back home.” Where is home? Not Israel, but not Montreal either, apparently. A prominent student activist with the McGill encampment . . . wrote online: “would just like to remind Quebec that the Zionist community is overwhelmingly Anglophone,” winking to the Quebecois nationalist idea of Jews as an outpost of Anglophone hegemony. Universite de Montreal instructor Yanise Arab only made the logic explicit by shouting: “Go back to Poland!”

The claim—made even more explicit by a megaphone-wielding protester outside a Montreal synagogue—that every Jew is a settler in whatever country he lives in is thus akin, Wexler argues, to the old Christian idea that the Jew “is cursed to wander the earth” as punishment for the rejection of Jesus. Such a doctrine has good use:

By way of anti-Zionist critique, a Muslim Arab finds another group to call invaders. By way of anti-Zionist critique, a white settler transforms her Christian name into an embodiment of multiculturalism. Indeed, multiculturalism itself is rescued from disrepute in the Canadian academy, ceasing to be a settler-colonial ideology justifying Canada’s land theft so long as it excludes “Zionists.” By way of anti-Zionist critique, a student union of settlers can finally make authoritative decisions over unceded indigenous land.

For all Wexler’s insight into a leftist milieu with which he is intimately familiar, he is willing to accept some of its most foolish conclusions, e.g., that Israel has taken a “fascist turn.” Yet he is clear-eyed enough to see that whatever turns the Jewish state has taken, the anti-Israel movement is rotten to the core.
The dangerous myth of ‘Arab unity’
Like any other global civilisation, sectarianism and division are the very substance of Arab and Muslim history. It is only in the recently invented fictional narratives spun by Islamists, Baathists and leftists that Arabs and Muslims have ever been peacefully ‘unified’. Indeed, it was not some imaginary unity against outsiders, as defined by modern ideologues, that allowed Arab and Muslim civilisation to flourish. Instead, it was the openness to outside influences and global trade, the reverence for knowledge built on translations of Greek, Persian and Indian works, and the impulse to build and beautify that led to the justifiably named Islamic ‘Golden Age’.

Guterres’s comments not only ignore this history, but also placate the most regressive and reactionary forces in Arab society. Groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are not defined by what they wish to build and achieve, but by what they want to oppose and, in the case of Israel, destroy. They do not look to the future, but rather – like the Nazis that inspired them – to some imagined past glory destroyed by scheming outsiders.

Worse still, Guterres’s comments are out of date. Much of the Arab world is increasingly disdainful of the old, sectarian resentments of those generations that initiated botched wars against Israel in 1948, 1967 and 1973. After the Arab Spring in 2010, many Arabs are now acutely aware that Islamists are not democrats, but dictators in waiting. Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, and their leftist allies in the West, might still flog the dead horse of ‘Islamist democracy’, but a new generation of Arabs increasingly wants to build alliances with Israel and the West. They want to break free from the repressive darkness and endemic failure that Islamism offers.

Fear of this awakening in Tehran and Doha is why Hamas unleashed the horrors of 7 October. This is not speculation: the head of Hamas’s political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, has repeatedly condemned Arab attempts at normalising relations with Israel. Following 7 October, he even celebrated the role of Palestinians deaths in derailing this, saying: ‘The blood of the women, children and elderly… awakens within us the revolutionary spirit.’

Likewise, the late president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, openly praised the deaths of Palestinians in the Gaza conflict earlier this year. In a televised address, he claimed that these Gazan deaths were a necessary sacrifice toward ending Israel’s ‘shameful normalisation operations’. He was referring, of course, to the 2020 Abraham Accords: a series of bilateral agreements on Arab-Israeli normalisation mediated by the Trump administration. Since these accords were initiated, Israel has established diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

Despite its best efforts, Hamas and its sponsors have failed to kill off the momentum for peace that these accords set in motion – and it’s not hard to see why. Many in the Middle East are sick of the politics of grievance and desperate for a positive vision of the future. They also don’t want to live under the suffocating, enforced uniformity of Islamism. Most Arabs see their religion as a common cultural thread, weaving through a vast range of national and personal identities. They do not view it as a barrier to engagement with the Western world.

The forward-looking vision of this new Arab generation stands in bright contrast to the stuffy, disempowering grievance narrative of Guterres’s speech. More power to them.
Jake Wallis Simons: The world should learn from Israel’s Olympic courage
With the Olympics in full swing in a blizzard of medals, flags and kitsch, spare a thought for Eden Nimri, a 22-year-old swimmer who competed for Israel on the international stage. On the morning of October 7, she woke up at Kibbutz Nahal Oz, where she was serving as commander of an all-female drone unit.

When the sirens sounded, Eden was asleep. Still wearing her pyjamas, she grabbed her rifle and took up a position at one of two entrances to a bomb shelter where many unarmed people were hiding, including members of her team.

Hamas soon arrived with grenades and automatic weapons. Eden opened fire on the leading terrorist but was overwhelmed and killed by those that followed. While the swimmer sacrificed her life in the fighting, 11 others, including four women from her unit, fled to safety from the second entrance. We will never know if Eden would have made it to the Olympics.

Also spare a thought for 23-year-old Karina Pritika, a former gymnast from the town of Ariel who, like Eden, had competed for her country. Last October, she was working at the Mena restaurant in Tel Aviv with her friend, Maya Haim, saving up money to travel to South America (Karina had been born in Portugal). They both lost their lives in the butchery at the Nova music festival.

The story of Jewish athletes is a pendulum that swings between acceptance and discrimination, accomplishment and bloodshed. This is a microcosm of Jewish history itself. While our people through the ages have simply craved an equal existence alongside all other nations of the world, this has been uniquely denied them.

My colleague, Keren David, has been spending some time in the JC archive. Jews were not allowed to compete in the notorious 1936 Berlin Olympics. According to the JC at the time, a “hymn of hate” became common in Germany, vowing to do away with the Jews altogether once the Games had passed. A few lines in rough translation: “When once Olympia is past, / Then, boys, the spring-clean comes at last… We’ll have one more glorious go / And set about the Jewish foe.”

Before the war, Jews had been prominent in European sports. Take Austrian athlete Otto Hershmann. In the first modern Olympic games of 1896, he won silver in the 100 metres freestyle swimming. “It was the happiest moment of my life when, amidst the strains of the national hymn, the Austrian flag was hoisted,” he commented.


Stephen Pollard: Starmer’s abandonment of Israel would make Corbyn proud
The previous Conservative government was working alongside Germany on arguments against the application – that the ICC has no jurisdiction in Israel and that this was a matter for the world-renowned Israeli courts. But the government dropped this, allowing Friday’s deadline to pass. In effect, the UK now supports the issuing of arrest warrants against the leader and defence minister of one of our closest allies because they are defending their country against terror.

But that’s not all. It has been widely trailed that this week the government is to publish and implement new legal advice by the attorney-general, Lord Hermer KC. He is one of those Left-wing Jews who declares a love of Israel but seems only ever to criticise it. Last year he signed an open letter demanding that in its response to the October 7 attacks Israel adhere to his interpretation of humanitarian law. Quelle surprise, the new legal advice to the government will recommend halting arms sales to Israel. The only unknown is the extent of the embargo. It is pure gesture politics. The UK sells less than £50m of military equipment to Israel (mainly radars for air defence) and it amounts to less than 0.9 per cent of Israel’s total arms imports.

Add to this the earlier decision to resume funding of Unrwa, the UN body responsible for aid in Gaza which was found to have been employing terrorists who took part in the October 7 attack, and it is clear that the idea that Britain is now a key ally of Israel needs to be consigned to history. The Starmer government’s policy towards Israel has, so far, been indistinguishable from how a Corbyn-led government would have behaved.

Wilson, Callaghan and Blair all understood the centrality of having Israel as an ally. There were, of course, moments when we clashed – as there were even under Conservative PMs, including Baroness Thatcher – but never would it even have been contemplated that a British government would pursue the long standing agenda of Israel’s enemies to isolate it and delegitimise it. That has all changed in a matter of weeks.
Britain set to impose arms export embargo on Israel
Israeli sources indicate that Britain’s Labour government is poised to impose an arms export ban on Israel.

This move is viewed as a direct extension of the new British government’s decision to withdraw its objection to arrest warrants for the Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

It’s also seen as a direct result of the International Court of Justice‘s July 19 non-binding ruling declaring Israeli “occupation” of Judea and Samaria to be “unlawful.”

Consequently, both the withdrawal of objections to the arrest warrants and the impending arms embargo are considered legal decisions stemming from the ICJ’s ruling.

Officials in the Israeli Foreign Ministry and diplomatic circles are engaging in behind-the-scenes discussions in an effort to avert this decision, but they remain pessimistic. They believe the decision appears inevitable at this juncture. A delegation of British legal experts visited Israel last week to assess the situation in Gaza.

This anticipated action adds to the “unofficial boycotts” and less formal measures taken by Western European countries in recent months. These nations have halted or delayed shipments of raw materials to Israeli industries that produce military equipment for the Israel Defense Forces.


Is Elon Musk the Next Great Jewish Ally?
He even called himself “philosemitic,” citing his “natural affinity” for persecuted groups. His effort to make good with the Jewish community, however, didn’t end there.

Later in November Mr. Musk answered Mr. Greenblatt’s call to strengthen sanctions on antisemitic content on X by announcing that users who use the terms “decolonization,” “from the river to the sea,” or other phrases that “imply genocide” would be subject to suspension. Mr. Greenblatt commended the decision and expressed his appreciation for Mr. Musk’s “leadership in fighting hate.”

A few weeks later, the business mogul traveled to Israel, paying a visit to an Israeli kibbutz that was ravaged during Hamas’s attack on October 7. During the trip he spoke out against “propaganda” that “is training people to be murderers in the future.” Mr. Netanyahu responded by expressing his hope that Mr. Musk will stay “involved” in the effort.

While Mr. Ostrovsky tells the Sun that he had previously “expressed concern” over some of Mr. Musk’s “decisions and on-line engagement,” he believes that “the events of October 7th, including his visit to Israel, seeing the sites of the Hamas massacre himself and meetings with hostage families” likely served as “eye-opening experiences” for the business mogul. “The pro-Israel community can truly consider him an ally,” he adds.

By the time he came home, the social media hoopla surrounding his antisemitic comments had died down. Mr. Musk’s redemption tour appeared to have come to an end. Then, in January, Mr. Musk traveled to Poland to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau with his 3-year-old son, political commentator Ben Shapiro, and the founder of the European Jewish Association, Rabbi Menachem Margolin.

During the trip he acknowledged that the devastation of the Holocaust “hits you much more in the heart when you see it in person.”

While in Poland, Mr. Musk traveled to Krakow to attend a conference on antisemitism. The conference was organized by the European Jewish Association. Mr. Musk professed that he had been “naive” about the current rise in antisemitism.

“In the circles that I move, I see almost no antisemitism,” he said during a panel conversation with Mr. Shapiro, joking that “I have twice as many Jewish friends as non-Jewish friends. I’m like Jewish by association, I’m aspirationally Jewish.”

It’s unclear what spurred Mr. Musk to visit the Nazi death camp. He offered no formal explanation. What is clear is that Mr. Musk’s increasingly pro-Jewish, pro-Israel advocacy has coincided with a steady political shift rightward.

Although the entrepreneur said he previously voted for Democratic presidential nominees, he announced back in 2022 that he would vote along Republican party lines. That was after disavowing the left for becoming “the party of division & hate.” A few weeks ago he endorsed President Trump.

A quick scroll through his page on X suggests that his criticism of the Democratic Party is largely directed at its “woke” policies. He has also condemned the party for being antisemitic — a criticism he voiced after observing the Democratic boycott of Mr. Netanyahu’s Congressional address.

“People who have been lifelong Democrats refuse to accept the clear reality that the Democratic Party is rapidly become openly antisemitic,” he wrote on X last week. “This trend is accelerating, not slowing down.”
VP Harris, lawmakers condemn antisemitic vandalism in Pittsburgh
Leading public officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, spoke out on Monday against the vandalism of two Jewish buildings in Pittsburgh targeted with antisemitic graffiti tied to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and Chabad of Squirrel Hill were both defaced overnight, local authorities said, with spray-painted messages and symbols including an accusation of funding “genocide” and an inverted red triangle of the sort used by Hamas to identify targets.

In a statement to Jewish Insider, Seth Schuster, a spokesperson for Harris’ campaign, said that the vice president“condemns antisemitism in all forms, particularly in the neighborhood of the deadliest act of Antisemitism in our nation’s history.”

He added that Harris “believes this kind of hate and discrimination has no place in the United States of America.”

The incidents come amid a rise in antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, including several instances in Pittsburgh — where a synagogue in the city’s heavily Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood was targeted six years ago in the worst antisemitic attack in American history.

“The Squirrel Hill community witnessed the deadliest act of antisemitism in our nation’s history at Tree of Life Synagogue,” Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Jewish Democrat, said on Monday in a social media statement condemning the graffiti. “They should not need to wake up to antisemitic graffiti in their neighborhood. Vandalism of any type of house of worship has no home in our Commonwealth — and we must all continue to call it out and speak with moral clarity.”

In a statement to JI, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who has also been outspoken against anti-Israel demonstrators, drew a parallel to what he called “the disgusting vandalism we witnessed in Washington, D.C.” last week during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress, when protesters sprayed pro-Hamas graffiti and set fire to an American flag.

“It consistently reveals that antisemitism is at the core of a lot of these protests,” Fetterman said.


Fuld family files landmark US court case, likely heading to Supreme Court, over ‘Pay for Slay'
The Fuld family has filed a landmark case in the United States against the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) for their role in the murder of Ari Fuld, an American-Israeli killed by a Palestinian terrorist in 2018. The case, dismissed twice by a Southern District court and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, is now on track to reach the US Supreme Court.

Samuel Silverman, an attorney at Silverman Law Firm PLLC, the legal firm representing Fuld’s family and estate in the lawsuit, explained that the case aims to compensate for Fuld and his family’s suffering while also serving as a message to sponsors of terrorism.

“Our goal is to set a precedent that holds the PLO accountable for their [financial] support of terrorism, ensuring justice for victims like Ari Fuld,” he told The Jerusalem Post.

On September 16, 2018, Khalil Jabarin, a teenaged Palestinian terrorist, armed with a knife typically used for animal slaughter, ambushed Ari Fuld outside a supermarket in Gush Etzion, stabbing him in the upper back. Despite being fatally wounded, Fuld managed to chase and shoot at his attacker before succumbing to his injuries, saving the lives of other potential victims in the area. He left behind his wife, Miriam, and four children.

Jabarin is currently serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison. Since the attack, his family has received a monthly stipend as part of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) practice of financially rewarding those who kill and wound Israelis. The amount will increase the longer Jabarin remains in jail, according to the PA’s standard pay scale. Building a case against the PLO is difficult because, unlike Iran and Syria, it is not a designated State Sponsor of Terrorism, and therefore, cannot be sued under more common legal channels such as the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).

Instead, the case had to be filed under a different statute called the Promoting Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PJVTA), which provides an extraterritorial private right of action for victims of terrorist attacks against American nationals abroad. In this situation, the act can be used to hold the PLO accountable for their “Pay For Slay” program.

This program, formally known as the Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund, is a fund operated by the PLO that pays monthly cash stipends to the families of Palestinians killed, injured, or imprisoned while carrying out violence against Israelis.
Crisis Communication and the Middle East
Today, when activists and influencers pose as journalists, propaganda is more common. And since the advent of social media, everyone participates in propaganda by liking and sharing disinformation.

As a result, they themselves become part of the disinformation. You become part of the war while lying on the sofa or taking the train to work. The images, videos and texts that no one can or even wants to check are circulated millions of times with a simple click.

The content of Nazi Germany still has an impact today. In the Middle East as well as in Germany. In the course of the discussion about refugees from Islamic countries, who are very receptive to this propaganda, one must speak of re-imported anti-Semitism. Because the channels of the Islamist Hamas or Hezbollah always serve the same anti-Semitic narratives of the past. While the children's programme on the Hezbollah-affiliated channel Al-Manar TV tells young children that Jews are like pigs and monkeys, the Hamas channel Al Aksa TV reports that the Holocaust was an invention of the Jews themselves and was blamed on the Nazis in order to found Israel. The military operation in Rafah, in which the Hamas cadres responsible for 7 October were killed alongside civilian victims, showed how social media can influence the news media. The AI-generated image of Rafah, which went viral under the hashtag ‘All Eyes on Rafah’, showed snow-covered mountains, which do not exist in the Gaza Strip, and suggested the targeted bombing of a refugee camp. As German public broadcaster ZDF extensively researched, the attack took place outside the protection zone. Even religious TV preachers praise Hitler in Arabic programmes that can also be seen in the West.

"The channels of the Islamist Hamas or Hezbollah always serve the same anti-Semitic narratives of the past. Even religious TV preachers praise Hitler in Arabic programmes that can also be seen in the West."

Like Yusuf al Qaradawi, who for decades has reached not only Arabic-speaking audiences in the Middle East but also in Western countries with his own programme, “Sharia and Life”, on the comparatively independent TV channel Al Jazeera. In an interview with the channel in 2009, he praised Hitler for his extermination of the Jews and announced that "God willing, next time it will be done by the hand of the believers". Especially in the context of post-colonial debates, German responsibility for this part of history is completely neglected in this part of the region. Even in the media. This is fatal, because to this day this Nazi propaganda is taking revenge in the Middle East and in this country, and to this day the Palestinian population is denied a peaceful and safe life without hatred.

This makes it even more important to take responsibility for this dark chapter of history and to inform and raise awareness about it in the media. Anyone who is serious about factual reporting and post-colonialism cannot ignore this propagandistic legacy. The fact that foreign broadcasters perpetuate the Nazi propaganda legacy should not prevent the German media from reporting objectively and competently on the conflict. As in the case of the reporting on a supposed famine in the Gaza Strip, which, according to the recently published Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Report, did not and does not exist. Outdated images of terminally ill children in clinics were mixed with pictures from the Syrian war in 2015, while current images of full market stalls and barbecue stations in the Gaza Strip, which were spread by Palestinian young people themselves on social media, were nowhere to be found in German news programmes.

Public broadcasters, in particular, are not subject to economic pressures, due to licence fees, as other media and must not base their reporting on these conspiracy theorists. Factual reporting is not a service, but a fundamental right for all recipients in this country. The fundamental right to freedom of expression does not exempt media professionals from their duty to seek the truth.
Uncovering the Truth: BBC's Shocking misreporting on Palestinian death revealed
Investigative journalist David Collier in conversation with Jonathan Sacerdoti explains what the BBC got wrong in its controversial coverage of the death of a Palestinian man in Gaza with Downs syndrome.

Did the IDF deliberately kill a man with Down's or did Palestinian terrorists use their own disabled brother as a human shield?

0:00 Introduction: Jonathan Sacerdoti introduces guest David Collier and his investigation into the BBC story
0:56 Setting the Scene: overview of the BBC's report on a Palestinian with Down Syndrome
2:28 Initial Concerns: David explains his skepticism and the start of his investigation
3:01 Journalistic Dependence: discussion on BBC's reliance on potentially biased Palestinian journalists
6:16 Family Background: discovering the family's affiliations with terrorist organisations.
7:47 Key Discoveries: insights into the family members' involvement with Islamic Jihad and Hamas
11:20 Inconsistent Stories: contradictions in the injuries reported by the family
14:10 Human Shields: examination of the possibility that Muhammad was used as a human shield
16:30 Family Dynamics: questioning the family's relationship with Muhammad
19:29 IDF's Response: exploring the IDF's account of the incident and BBC's omissions
33:02 Evidence Examination: analysis of the evidence and social media posts of the family.
40:05 Motivations and Bias: critique of BBC's motivations and investigative flaws
44:01 Conclusion: summarising the investigation and its implications


Why the ICJ’s advisory opinion on Israel is wrong
The advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) published on July 19 is a travesty, which starts with its very title: “Legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem.”

This is a travesty because, in order to be occupied, a territory must have had a previous and recognized sovereign. From 1949 to 1967, the Gaza Strip was controlled by Egypt, and the West Bank by Jordan. Both Jordan and Egypt had illegally conquered territories where no sovereign existed as of the 15th of May 1948, and where Israel could legally claim sovereignty based on the principle of uti possidetis juris.

Jordan annexed the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 1950, but that annexation did not gain international recognition. Only the UK and Pakistan recognized Jordanian sovereignty over the West Bank, although the UK did not apply that recognition to east Jerusalem. Jordan was not an internationally-recognized sovereign in the West Bank before Israel took control of that territory by exercising its right of self-defense from Arab aggression in June 1967.

By taking control of the West Bank (known as “Judea and Samaria” in Hebrew) in 1967, Israel recuperated a territory that had been designated for Jewish national self-determination by the San Remo Conference of 1920 and by the League of Nations Mandate of 1922. Israel also reunited with its historical homeland, where a millennium of Jewish sovereignty was ended by the Roman Empire in the first century, followed by the colonial conquests of the Arabs in the 7th century, of the Crusaders in the 12th century, of the Mamluks in the 13th century, and of the Turks in the 16th century.

The West Bank is therefore not, legally and historically, an occupied territory. It is, at most, disputed. But since when is it Palestinian?
UKLFI Charitable Trust: International Court of Justice’s rulings on Israel with Natasha Hausdorff
Natasha Hausdorff discusses the International Court of Justice’s rulings on Israel, with Michael Dickson of StandwithUs.


UKLFI Charitable Trust: Natasha Hausdorff on CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor and Malcolm Hoenlein
Natasha Hausdorff answers questions on what the new Labour Government means for the ‎UK’s policy towards Israel and the latest developments at the International Court of Justice.‎


Head of World's Top Court Supports MURDERERS | The Quad
The World Justice System scandal that you need to know about.

Israel is facing an onslaught of delegitimization campaigns including a recent ruling by the International Court of Justice declaring Israel’s presence in the West Bank and Jerusalem illegal. Israel is advised to remove itself from those areas immediately.

The Quad interviews the director of UN Watch, Hillel Neuer to discuss the biased nature of the ruling as well as uncovering that the president of ICJ, Nawaf Salam has ties and supports the worst regimes on earth. He even was approved by Hezbollah for candidacy for President of Lebanon.

And, of course, Scumbags (Candace Owens, those opposing the hostage deal, Canadian terrorist and Imam Ajmal Masroor) and Heroes (Israeli Olympic team, Moroccan delegation that visited Israel, Head of Mossad David Barnea and Evan Gershkovich)

Special guest host Ashley Waxman Bakshi!

Chapters
00:00 UN Watch's Hillel Neuer explains ICJ ruling
5:50: The evil of ICJ's head revealed
9:30 Should we leave the UN?
11:48 The ICC & Amal Clooney/George Clooney/Biden
14:23 Reinstating funding for UNRWA
17:14 Conclusion: We can't give up the fight!
18:47 Scumbags of the Week: Imam Ajmal Masroor, Candace Owens, Canadian Terrorist, Those Against Hostage Deal
36:19 Heroes of the Week: David Barnea, a Moroccan Muslim, and the Israeli Olympic Team




Should Israel take Turkey's invasion threat seriously?
Since the start of the Swords of Iron War, Turkey has turned completely hostile to Israel, but President Erdogan's latest declaration is still extraordinary.

Seventy-five years ago, Turkey was the first Muslim country to enter into diplomatic relations with the State of Israel. Yesterday (Sunday), Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to invade Israel, in the same way as Turkey was involved in the wars in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh.

It’s no surprise that President Erdogan, Hamas’s closest friend, should again attack Israel verbally, but even in Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs there was considerable surprise at what Erdogan said, and last night the ministry took pains to verify that he had really said it.

Against the background of the Swords of Iron war, Erdogan has brought relations between Israel and Turkey to new lows practically by the month, halting flights between the two countries and imposing an embargo on trade, but his statement yesterday went way beyond such measures. "Netanyahu, perpetrator of genocide of the Palestinians, will meet the same fate as Hitler," the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement backing the president’s threat.

Where does this extraordinary threat come from, and what was its context? How strong is the Turkish military? Should Erdogan’s words be taken seriously? And how is Iran, orchestrator of the multi-front battle, involved in Turkey as well?

Where did the threat come from and where was Erdogan speaking?

Yesterday, Erdogan attended an event of his ruling party AKP (Justice and Development Party) in Rize on the Black Sea. It’s no coincidence that he said what he had to say in that particular place. His family’s roots are in the region, and it’s a stronghold of political support for him.

"Erdogan’s declaration was influenced by the speech of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the US Congress," says Dr. Hay Eytan Cohen-Yanarocak, an expert on Turkey at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University and The Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. "For several days, Erdogan has been making declarations against Netanyahu in the Turkish media, and now he has escalated them. "

Erdogan’s threat came a day after he attacked Palestinian Authority chairperson Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) in Rize, saying that Abbas had been invited to address the Turkish parliament in Ankara but hadn’t responded. "He ought to apologize to us," Erdogan said. "Let’s see if he comes." According to the latest reports, it would seem that the rebuke had the desired effect. Abbas is due to appear in the Turkish parliament shortly.
Foreign minister urges NATO to expel Turkey over threats to invade Israel
Israel’s foreign minister urged NATO to expel Turkey on Monday after its President Tayyip Erdogan threatened that his country might enter Israel, as it had entered Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh in the past.

“In light of Turkish President Erdogan’s threats to invade Israel and his dangerous rhetoric, Foreign Minister Israel Katz instructed diplomats… to urgently engage with all NATO members, calling for the condemnation of Turkey and demanding its expulsion from the regional alliance,” the ministry said.

Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, said in a speech on Sunday: “We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine. Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do similar to them.”

He did not spell out what sort of intervention he was suggesting.

“Erdogan is following in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein and threatening to attack Israel. He should remember what happened there and how it ended,” Katz said in the statement.

“Turkey, which hosts the Hamas headquarters responsible for terrorist attacks against Israel, has become a member of the Iranian axis of evil, alongside Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen,” he said.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry compares Netanyahu to Hitler
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threatened a military invasion of the Jewish state.

“The end of the genocidal Hitler will be the same as the end of the genocidal Netanyahu. Just as the genocidal Nazis were held accountable, so will those who try to destroy the Palestinians. Humanity will stand by the Palestinians. You will not be able to destroy the Palestinians,” the Foreign Ministry tweeted.

Comparing Israel to the Nazis is antisemitic according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, which has been adopted by more than a thousand global entities, including over 40 United Nations member states, since the IHRA adopted the language in 2016.
‘An Inspiration to Me Always’: Meet Kamala Harris’s Radical Pastor
After President Joe Biden stepped aside on Sunday and Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, one of the first people she called was her longtime pastor, Amos Brown.

"She said to me, ‘Pastor, I called because I want you to pray for me … this country … and the race I am intending to run for president,’" Brown told the Christian publication Sojourners in an interview.

Harris and Brown, the longtime pastor of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church, have known each other for nearly a quarter century, and the two have remained close throughout her vice presidency. In July of 2023, Harris posted a picture of the two to the vice president’s Instagram account and described Brown as "an inspiration to me always."

Less well known, however, is Brown’s history of radical, anti-American remarks that have elicited blowback even from San Francisco Democrats, including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

At a memorial service for victims of the 9/11 terror attacks held just six days after al Qaeda murdered nearly 3,000 Americans, Brown used the occasion to point the finger at the United States in remarks that, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, "set a lot of people’s teeth on edge" and "left politicians stunned."

"America, is there anything you did to set up this climate?" Brown asked the audience. "Ohhhh—America, what did you do?"

"America, what did you do two weeks ago when I stood at the world conference on racism, when you wouldn't show up?" Brown continued, referring to his participation in the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, which the United States and Israel boycotted citing concerns about anti-Semitism.

Brown’s diatribe jarred a mostly liberal audience, the Chronicle reported, noting that the late California senator Dianne Feinstein (D.) and former California governor Gray Davis (D.) left during his remarks.
Why South Africa's ANC political party has taken an anti-Israel, pro-terrorist stance
FORMER ISRAELI ambassador to South Africa Arthur Lenk believes that the Israeli-South African relationship will remain strained for as long as the Gaza conflict and the case in The Hague continue. An anti-Israel position, he says, fits with the ANC’s broader foreign policy, which has always been aligned with anti-Western causes to varying degrees.

Speaking before the recent election, Lenk pointed out that the ANC government saw the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) organization as a key international grouping. It led South Africa to deepen its relationship with China and to support Russia, albeit unofficially, in its war against Ukraine by abstaining from votes against Moscow at the United Nations.

As for the ANC’s fixation on Israel, Lenk said it was “cold and calculated... They’re literally representing Hamas, but it serves a purpose; it matches the ANC foreign policy...”

Forming what he called a “government of national unity,” Ramaphosa gave a deputy ministerial post to the Muslim Al Jama-ah party – a clear sign that he intends to continue backing the Palestinians over Israel, despite opposition from the DA.

This perception was strengthened by the appointment of former justice minister Ronald Lamola as foreign minister. A lawyer, Lamola led South Africa’s opening arguments in the genocide case it brought against Israel at the ICJ.

It looks very much as though the stand-off between South Africa and Israel is fated to last a bit longer.
Richard Landes: Reflections on the Sympathy for the Campus Protests
You apparently (think you) can (afford to) indulge your simple (Israel-blaming) compassion for Gazans, one of the more extravagant luxury beliefs. For some of you out there, that compassion is further sweetened by the indignation it permits you to feel about the bad Jewish state). But we in Israel cannot.

We understand that until there’s no Hamas (like in Germany after WWII there was no Nazi party), not only will the Gazans continue to suffer their cruel fate at the hands of their abusive “leaders” who sacrifice them in order to manipulate you, but we know that every time we let our guard down, we will suffer, and every time we defend ourselves, the global public sphere will fill with Palestinian iconography of suffering, icons of hatred against us, inflaming the Muslim world and driving your own youth morally insane.

You can accept and repeat that you can’t kill an ideology and Israel should just face the fact that they will have to live with Hamas, because you don’t yet realize that their ideology has far less to do with “Palestine” than with the Muslim imperial dream to reestablish dar al Islam (the first Nakba in 1924, the dissolution of the Caliphate), and that that ideology targets you as well. You either confront it – as we Israelis must – or you will succumb. They will not go away; they have millennial dreams that you unwittingly help them put in action. Either liberal and humane societies defend themselves, or they surrender to forces far more ruthless, showing up like moral zombies at once to protest the victimization of Gazans and to celebrate the authors of that victimization who dream of genocide as the path to world conquest.

Why has no one concerned for Gazans militated for getting them out? Everybody assumed that getting civilians out of harm’s way was the obvious thing to do when Russia invaded Ukraine or when Jihadi wars broke out in the Arab world after the “Arab Spring,” flooding countries like Jordan and Turkey and Europe (!) with refugees. Every surrounding country offered to take them in, but somehow, with the Gazans, everyone falls in with Hamas’ demand that they must stay and get victimized.

Right now, it’s only Gazan families that can pay tens of thousands of dollars that can get out. Why can’t ordinary Gazans who want to get out from under Hamas’ talons, vote with their feet and flee not just Israeli operations, but their own rulers who provoke those operations and thrive on their suffering? Why does everyone side with Hamas on this? Is it because, for some reason, it feels so good to condemn Israel, or, that Israel must be saddled with a vicious genocidal population on their border? Or both?

Excuse me for thinking that somehow, somewhere in the deep unconscious, it’s more important, even necessary, to at least some of the good people to have people who are victims of Jews, than it is to prevent their victimization. And, alas for the Palestinian people, they are the chosen people of these supersessionist, zero-sum, thinkers, addicted to moral Schadenfreude.

How else can one explain how good, two-state-solution, peace-loving, humanitarian, liberals can feel sympathy for demonstrators who are doing the bidding of, in some cases directly taking directions from, Hamas and Hamas proxies like SJP after 7/10 (which of course we all condemn… but…). How else could the “progressive left” have so badly betrayed their values in the aftermath of 7/10.

It’s enuf to make one think gee… maybe the obsession of the left with Israel and it’s determination to invert the moral universe in order to piss down upon her from imagined moral heights, offers evidence that, for them at least, the Jews are the chosen people.
‘As if my home turf no longer mine,’ students tell senators about school Jew-hatred
Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.), co-founders and co-chairs of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, heard about Jew-hatred on campus from Columbia University, University of Oregon, University of Oklahoma, Rutgers University, George Washington University and Ohio State University students on Thursday.

“During the fall semester, I was in class directly below the site where the storming and occupation of the Rutgers Business School occurred. The experience shook me profoundly, as it felt like an intrusion into my personal space as if someone had declared my home turf no longer mine and unwelcome for my learning simply because of my identity or beliefs,” said Mitch Wolf, a Rutgers student, according to a release from the senators.

“Administrators need to acknowledge the campus climates they have fostered and take responsibility for them,” Wolf added. “True change must begin at the top, with administrators ensuring the protection and safety of all Jewish students, within the university community.”

Rosen said, “The spike in antisemitic incidents we saw on college and university campuses in the spring is unacceptable. Every student has the right to pursue an education in a safe environment without fear, intimidation or discrimination.”
NYU’s Pro-Palestine Coalition Says it Supports ‘Armed Struggle’
Don’t expect the anti-Israel protests that roiled college campuses earlier this year to disappear for good. In fact, recent moves from one university group suggest they might get far worse when school starts back in the fall.

Last week, NYU’s Palestine Solidarity Committee rebranded as the People’s Solidarity Coalition and announced a new mission hinting that they are prepared to use violence in their fight to “dismantle” the college’s “involvement in settler-colonial occupation, genocide and imperial wars.”

The group went on to state that they “recognize and welcome the diversity of tactics that lead to victory,” including “armed struggle, non-violent direct action, cultural production, and world building.” The group declared it will “not condemn the brave actions of our allies nor will we limit ourselves to resistance through organizational means.”

It is unclear how many students are represented by the new coalition, which binds together 44 different NYU-affiliated organizations ranging from the Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine and Jews Against Zionism to cultural and academic groups like the NYU Consortium Medievalists, the Climate Care Collective, and the Stonewall Policy Alliance. The People’s Solidarity Coalition states that it rejects “bigotry of all forms,” and while it is “strictly anti-Zionist,” it is also “de/anti-colonial, anti-imperial, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchy, non-hierarchical, abolitionist, and disability justice–oriented.”

And while the group’s mission is still centered around its “struggle for the end of the Zionist Entity”—which it also dubs “apartheid ‘Israel’  ”—the new statement expands beyond the Middle East. “When we take up the struggle against the Zionist entity,” it proclaims, “we take on the global fight against U.S. imperialism and its violences.”

The group accuses NYU’s Washington Square campus of “land theft and displacement everywhere it goes,” adding that it “invests in death” through its relationship with global financial company BlackRock. (BlackRock’s CEO, Larry Fink, who is Jewish, sits on NYU’s board.) It also claims that NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus is an example of “neo-imperialism” that “seeps its hands in blood in Sudan” and that the school’s campus in Tel Aviv, Israel, is “a physical manifestation of its crimes against the Palestinian people.”
NYC group hosts class with Palestinian terrorist
A far-Left activist organization hosted a class with a member of a Palestinian terrorist organization at its New York City office on Saturday, according to The People’s Forum’s website.

The People's Forum held a remote class on "Why Palestine Will Win" featuring Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) activist Wisam Rafeedie.

Rafeedie, author of Trinity of Fundamentals, discussed with the activists how “the Palestinian resistance” thwarted the United States and Israel.

“The new era of the Palestinian resistance took the world by storm, putting liberation concretely on the horizon and exposing the weaknesses and deficiencies of US imperialism and the Israeli occupation,” read the class description.

“But this is not a new reality – the attempts to finally defeat the Palestinian resistance have failed for over 76 years. How has the resistance endured despite the disproportionate wealth and military strength of the occupation? What role did revolutionary organizations play in the accumulation of experiences and the mobilization of the masses? What can we learn from the past to look forward at what is to come next?”

The class is part of a course for organizing a revolution
The class is part of a six-week summer school course for organizing a revolution.

The People’s Forum was one of the convening organizers of the May 24-26 Detroit People’s Conference for Palestine, which also featured Rafeedie as a speaker at a workshop on the last day of the event.

The keynote speaker of the conference also had links to the PFLP. Sana’ Daqqah, the wife of PFLP terrorist Walid Daqqah, for whom one of the rooms was named, spoke to attendees about her deceased husband’s death and imprisonment.

The PFLP is designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department.


Address ‘alarming’ Jew-hatred, reverse agreements with agitators, 18 groups tell schools
StandWithUs led a group of 17 Jewish, Christian and other groups that fight Jew-hatred on campus in penning a letter to 142 colleges and universities, urging them to do more to combat “the alarming impact of antisemitic protests and encampments on your campus” and to reverse any agreements they made with antisemitic protesters.

“Institutions cannot trample on the rights of Jewish and Israeli students in an effort to restore order to their campuses,” Roz Rothstein, co-founder and CEO of StandWithUs, told JNS.

“As we have seen, acquiescing to pro-Hamas campus agitators only incentivizes the agitators to act with more antisemitic bias and unlawful actions,” she added. “Universities must show leadership and demonstrate that they will apply policies equally to protect all their students.”

Signatories included the World Jewish Congress, Jewish National Fund, Zionist Organization of America, Israel on Campus Coalition, Lawfare Project and Philos Action League.

Among the 142 schools that received the letter on Monday are Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Barnard College, American University, the City University of New York, Cornell University, Duke University, Emory University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The signatories told academic institutions that they might be liable for violating federal, state or local laws—under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the “Ku Klux Klan Act” or other legislation—for depriving Jewish or Israeli students of their rights. “While we acknowledge your desire to de-escalate tensions on campus, negotiating with these agitators incentivizes additional campus disruptions and tramples on the rights of other students,” the groups wrote.

“We are horrified by the unabashed bigotry, anti-American and anti-Jewish vitriol, and unlawful activity promoted and conducted by these agitators,” they wrote.
Why Is a Teacher’s Union Butting into the War with Hamas?
When it meets this week at its annual convention, the American Federation of Teachers will not be focusing on the need to improve teaching in American schools. Sadly, instead of figuring out ways to raise student scores in language, math and science so our public school graduates can enter college, technical schools and the workplace, the AFT is weighing in on Israel and its war with Hamas.

In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre and given Israel’s need to defend its citizens, I find myself shaking my head in disbelief more frequently than ever before. Pro-Hamas college students rioting and making life difficult for Jewish students on campuses, Jews being harassed and attacked on American city streets, the vandalizing of synagogues and Jewish schools, and hostage posters being torn down make my head spin. Now comes the AFT.

Those attending the convention in Houston will be treated to several anti-Israel resolutions, such as “Opposing the Weaponization of Antisemitism,” “For an End to the War in Gaza and Lasting Peace, Security and Self-Determination for Israel and Palestine,” “Sell State of Israel Bonds,” “AFT Divestment from State of Israel Bonds” and “Stop Enabling Genocide: Halt U.S. Military Aid to Israel.”

While you’ll find mention of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack in a resolution, there’s no mention of the corruption of Palestinian schools that use children’s education as a weapon against Israel. Nor will you find a condemnation of the Palestinian school system’s glorification of terrorism and martyrdom.

Maybe the AFT has to be shown the reports about textbooks used in Palestinian classrooms. According to Palestinian Media Watch, it’s the Palestinian Authority and Hamas who are “pulling the strings” and “putting the content in the schoolbooks” glorifying terrorists and inculcating students in Jew-hatred.

Among the AFT resolutions, you won’t find a condemnation of UNRWA, which permits its school buildings to be used by Hamas for weapons storage or as launching pads for missiles, rockets and mortars aimed at Israeli civilians. Nowhere in the list of resolutions will you find any criticism of the P.A.’s treatment of teachers, including mass arrests of teachers on strike. Nor will there be any mention of the P.A.’s decision to spend money on salaries for convicted terrorists and stipends to their families rather than education.

Instead of targeting the P.A. and Hamas with its resolutions, the AFT calls for U.S. aid to Israel to “be used only for purposes that conform with American and international law: American military aid cannot be used in ways that facilitate the seizure of Palestinian land, the violent dispossession of Palestinian communities and the annexation of occupied Palestinian territory. Nor can U.S. military aid be used to harm civilian populations.”
'Kill all Jews': Antisemitic incidents create hostile environment at California school
Repeated swastika graffiti and other antisemitic incidents at a Carmel Unified School District school created a hostile environment for Jewish students, the US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights investigation found on Friday.

The complaints against the unnamed California school pertained to 15 incidents during the 2021-2022 school year and 2023-2024 school year.

The school saw repeated incidents of swastikas graffitied in the bathrooms in 2021. In a highly redacted incident, one student had somehow put swastikas on the bare skin of another. In the same year, a student reported receiving a ruler with a swastika and the “n-word” scrawled on it. The measuring device was then passed around the class. In 2022, swastikas and an “SS” logo had been drawn or etched onto desks in two classrooms.

In the 2023-2024 school year, a student reportedly told another that he wanted to “Kill all Jews and burn them in their homes.” A student drew a swastika in a class but claimed not to know what the symbol meant when confronted by staff. Another student drew a swastika as part of a Nazi leader Adolf Hitler game, which led to a discussion with the assistant principal about how the topic was not appropriate for games. A supervisor found further swastika graffiti in a bathroom stall and bench that year. School district did not keep records

The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) said that its investigation was impeded by the district’s lack of record keeping, which created a gap in records for the 2022-2023 year. It was likely, according to OCR that more incidents had occurred that year and possibly others but that there were no records about them kept.

Despite the lack of records, the OCR said that the frequency at which documented antisemitic incidents occurred showed that such conduct was pervasive and not isolated.

The District claimed that it didn’t receive any formal complaints, and no students reported feeling harassed or subjected to a hostile environment in 2021-2022, but students and administrators expressed a desire to change the school culture by implementing a joint Anti-Hate Speech Task Force. The school did not implement any of the strategies proposed by the team. The district also failed to adequately respond to the incidents in 2023-2024.
Jewish school bus torched in Toronto
I heard on the radio that a school bus “caught fire” at around 5 a.m. this morning in Toronto.

Do school buses do that a lot? Just catch fire, for no reason?

That’s what the media said. CTV and City News both ran the story as some sort of freak of nature. They said the school bus was parked near a No Frills grocery store at Wilson Avenue and Bathurst Street.

Hang on. I know that grocery store — it’s right next to a Jewish synagogue. Was the media somehow covering up the true nature of this fire?

So I went there to see for myself.

Why would CTV and City News omit the fact that these were school buses for Jewish schools, marked as such, and parked near a synagogue? How on earth do you leave that part out of your report?

When I arrived, a policewoman was investigating. Why didn’t the media say that part?

I also bumped into the owner of the bus and spoke with him. It’s obviously an antisemitic arson.

But everyone official is in on this conspiracy of silence. The media; the police; prosecutors; politicians. (The local MP is the atrocious Ya’ara Saks, a Jewish MP who actually met and held hands with the terrorist leader, Mahmoud Abbas.)

There has been an antisemitic crime wave in Canada over the past nine months, and every authority is trying to cover it up, and it’s obvious why: this crime wave is directly correlated to mass immigration Canada has allowed from countries where hating Jews is second nature.


Exposed: Toronto4Palestine, Local Anti-Israel Extremist Group Which Glorifies Palestinian Terrorism
Toronto4Palestine is one of the main players in the extremist coalition of anti-Israel organizations.

Their organizers have proudly proclaimed that “resistance is an honour,” using a term unambiguously referring to terrorism, and a review of their messaging, posted to social media, shows an extremist and terrorist-supporting organization.

A May 14, 2024 video posted to their TikTok account showed anti-Israel activists chanting “long live the intifada,” referring to a violent campaign of Palestinian terrorism against Israelis.

Those chants, far from being an isolated instance, are a regular occurrence at Toronto4Palestine’s protests. A video posted on December 10, 2023, showed demonstrators chanting “there is only one solution: intifada revolution,” a clear and unambiguous glorification of terrorism.

It should come as little surprise that Toronto4Palestine sees all of Israel, not just the so-called “occupied” territories, as lands needing to be cleansed of Jews, as demonstrated in a December 4, 2023 video, where a keffiyeh-clad leader of the group bellowed to followers that “We organize for the full cessation of foreign aid to a violent settler apparatus. We call for a unified and liberated Palestine from the river to the sea, free of the terrorist Zionist regime.”

The group’s antics do not end with simple chants. A video posted on the same platform on January 2, 2024 showed their protesters trampling an Israeli flag with his foot, and vandalizing an office building with spray paint, while in the background a song by the Hamas-affiliated Al-Waad band plays.

Toronto4Palestine’s account on X (formerly Twitter) is equally deranged, blaming Jewish organizations for antisemitism, rather than the Jew-haters themselves in a post on July 11, 2024.

There is no anti-Israel claim outlandish or hateful enough that does not get repeated by Toronto4Palestine. The group’s X account claimed that Israeli soldiers rape Palestinian detainees, that hundreds of thousands of Gazans have died in war (both entirely false allegations), and that Zionism – the Jewish People’s national movement of self-determination in their historic homeland – is “grounded in structural anti-Palestinianism.”

While it may be tempting to write off Toronto4Palestine’s ridiculous lies as harmless, they have consequences. As French writer Voltaire wrote, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities,” and it is natural that the same hate group that peddles anti-Israel propaganda also implicitly justifies Hamas’ genocidal massacres.

In a June 23, 2024 post, the group wrote that “any resistance is always a direct consequence of being put in a place from where one has to resist in the first place.” The “resistance” that Toronto4Palestine refers to is Hamas’ bloodthirsty campaign of rape, torture, murder and kidnapping which it committed on October 7, 2023, largely against civilians.

On December 28, 2023, Toronto4Palestine posted what can only be called the glorification of violent murderous terrorism when they wrote on their Instagram page that “Resistance comes in many forms and we must utilize them all to achieve total liberation from the river to the sea.”


Australian Defence worker linked to controversial anti-Israel group
Free Palestine Printing (FPP), an Australian group previously criticised for promoting violence and antisemitism, continues its contentious activities unabated.

The group has recently expanded its collection of prints, many of which infringe on copyrights, and launched a GoFundMe campaign to allegedly "Support Families Arriving from Gaza to Australia."

Despite their claims, there is no proof of where the funds are actually going, raising suspicions about the group's true intentions.

One individual linked to FPP is Victoria Liang of Canberra, who has been exposed by pro-Israel blog Israellycool after publicly advertising her involvement on LinkedIn.

Liang's connection to the group is troubling, especially considering her day job within the Australian Defence establishment. This situation potentially poses a conflict of interest, given Australia's defence industry cooperation with Israel.

The identity of others behind FPP remains speculative, though it is suspected that well-known Israel-haters in Australia may be involved.

The involvement of anyone, particularly those in sensitive government roles, in spreading propaganda that incites violence and promotes hatred against Jews is deeply concerning.


BBC News website coverage of the Majdal Shams massacre
On the evening of July 27th the BBC News website began reporting a breaking news story about a Hizballah missile attack on a football field in the town of Majdal Shams in the northern Golan Heights.

Although that report has been amended several times since its initial appearance, certain themes are constant throughout.

The initial version of the uncredited report was headlined “Nine dead in rocket attack on Israeli-occupied Golan – reports”. The fact that those killed were children from Israel’s Druze sector and that the attack was perpetrated by the terrorist organisation Hizballah was obviously considered to be of less importance than political signposting concerning ‘occupation’.

The link provided in that final sentence – promoting equivalence between the terrorist organisation which launched an unprovoked attack on Israel on October 8th and the sovereign country defending its citizens – takes readers to an unhelpful report by Orla Guerin from southern Lebanon dated July 17th.

As we see, already in the initial version of this report the BBC found fit to promote denials put out by Hizballah (despite its having earlier claimed the attack) after the identity of the victims became clear. Interestingly, BBC Persian’s Nafiseh Kohnavard had put out the following Tweet less than two hours after the attack.

Kohnavard does not clarify whether or not she followed the BBC editorial guidelines instructions concerning mandatory referrals before approaching “an organisation (or an individual member of an organisation) designated a ‘terrorist group’ by the Home Secretary under the Terrorism Acts”.
Hezbollah Massacres Children and the Washington Post Blames Israel
Hezbollah massacred a dozen children and teenagers in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in northern Israel. But the Washington Post knows who to blame—and it’s not the Iranian-backed terror group. Rather, the once venerable newspaper chose to train their fire on the Jewish state.

On July 27, 2024, Hezbollah launched missiles into Israel, murdering twelve children and wounding more than forty people. Many of those murdered were kids playing a soccer game. Footage of their tiny, dismembered bodies circulated on social media shortly afterwards. Hezbollah initially claimed the attack, only to deny it later.

Hezbollah has been launching missiles into Israel since Hamas perpetrated the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre. Hezbollah, which de facto rules Lebanon, is Iran’s foremost terror proxy. Hezbollah, like its master in Tehran, calls for Israel’s destruction.

As CAMERA has documented, Hezbollah is a formidable foe. The terrorist organization maintains a global presence and has an estimated 150,000 missiles, many of them precision guided. Indeed, Hezbollah’s capabilities led then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to call them the “A Team” of terror groups, with more munitions than many European nations.

The Biden administration, the United Nations, and others have discouraged Israel launching a full-scale campaign against Hezbollah, variously arguing that they seek to prevent a “wider, regional war” and that Jerusalem should focus on its military campaign in the south, against Hamas and other Gaza-based Iranian proxies. Thus far, the Israeli military has only launched low-level retaliatory strikes in response.

But that “wider, regional war” is already here, with Iranian-backed terror groups attacking Israel from Yemen, the Red Sea, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. The attack on Majdal Shams has sparked widespread outrage, including in Israel and among the Druze community.

As JNS reporter Neta Bar observed, “For Syrian Druze, the residents of Majdal Shams are relatives, countrymen and coreligionists, and any harm to them is a direct attack on all Syrian Druze.” Bar’s dispatch, entitled “Syrian Druze fed up with fence-sitting after Majdal Shams massacre,” offered a detailed look the community’s response to the attack, highlighting both their perspective and a look at relevant history.

The Washington Post, however, chose to focus, not on Hezbollah’s mass murder of children playing soccer, but on Israel’s response. The Post’s July 29th front-page, above-the-fold, story, “Israel hits targets in Lebanon” featured a whopping six bylines but very little common sense. Indeed, the dispatch was datelined as “Majdal Shams, Golan Heights”—implying that the Golan Heights is not part of Israel.

The Post’s story was accompanied by a photograph of Alma Ayman Fakher Eldin, an eleven-year-old girl who was slain on the soccer field. Underneath the picture, however, the Post wrote: “Relatives on Sunday mourn Alma Ayman Fakher Edlin, one of 12 victims of a strike on a soccer field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. While Israel and the United States blame Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group denies connection to the attack [emphasis added].” To echo and give undue credit to Hezbollah’s claims is risible.


‘The Wall Street Journal‘ embraces anti-Israel bias
Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker is making changes at the venerable publication, pushing more “lifestyle stories with snappy headlines” in the news section. She has reportedly downsized, if not gutted, the standards desk that handles corrections. She’s eliminated an editing team “responsible for prepublication review of sensitive stories.”

The new direction, as described in a National Review story, resonates alarmingly with many readers of the newspaper who have long counted on its fact-focused, serious coverage but find something very different today. For many too, the increasingly skewed, factually shoddy coverage of Israel is a striking indicator of the wider shift in tenor and content.

Reporter Omar Abdel-Baqui could be the poster child for this new Wall Street Journal. One “sensitive” story of his with far too little fact-checking and editorial oversight was a June 15 account focused on the disappointments of young Gen Z Palestinians. Much of the bias of the piece stems from the relentless omission of critical information. The online title, “Gen Z Palestinians See Door Slamming Shut on Coexistence with Israel” perfectly conveys the deceptions and distortions that follow.

While Palestinians themselves are the door-slammers—the violent rejectionists of peaceful coexistence with Israel—there’s no hint in the story that the Palestinian leadership has repeatedly refused an independent and peaceful state next to the Jewish state of Israel. There’s no suggestion the melancholy Gen Z Palestinian teens who are cast as buffeted by upheaval and uncertainty should blame their own autocratic leaders for ruining their lives. (The print version was similarly titled: “Gen Z Palestinians Have Little Hope for Peace.”)

Striking photographs accompany the story: A 15-year-old girl fully clothed in black and wearing a keffiyeh poses floating on her back in the Persian Gulf, gazing skyward—as if in a fashion spread. A displaced Gazan from a wealthy family, the young woman also appears elsewhere in the online version of the story standing fully clothed in the water, expressionless. This could be Teen Vogue.

Abdel-Baqui recounts various harsh political events that have ostensibly shaped the lives of the young woman and fellow Palestinian teens but he continuously omits facts key to an accurate understanding of how Palestinians themselves are culpable for their circumstances.

Thus Abdel-Baqui writes: “Though their parents recall an era of hope amid the 1990’s Oslo Accords, the latest breakthrough agreement between the two sides, Palestinians under the age of 25—who comprise most of the population—say the door to coexistence with Israelis always felt barely ajar. It has been slammed shut since Oct. 7.”

The repetitive door metaphor omits how exactly that “era of hope” and “door to coexistence” surrounding Oslo was blocked, how that supposed “latest breakthrough agreement” in which Yasser Arafat ostensibly foreswore terrorism when he shook hands with Itzhak Rabin on the White House lawn failed. Who was the door-slammer?

There is no mention of Palestinian terrorists blowing up Israeli buses, cafes and religious events in the wake of the 1993 Oslo agreements. The terror attacks began only six months after the September 1993 agreement—in 1994 in Afula, Hadera and then Tel Aviv. The bloodletting intensified in 1995 and 1996 when gruesome mass bombings occurred in Jerusalem, Ramat Gan, Beit Lid and elsewhere. All the while, Israel continued attempting to implement Oslo measures aimed at getting to an “end of the conflict” predicated on Yasser Arafat’s pledge to resolve disagreements peacefully.


ADL CEO, Ritchie Torres criticize campaign which calls Democrat VP option
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt thanked New York House Representative Ritchie Torres on Saturday for highlighting the antisemitism of a new anonymous campaign against the possible appointment of Pennsylvania Senator Josh Shapiro as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate for the 2024 presidential elections.

The campaign is titled “Say No to Genocide Josh” and claims that “Josh Shapiro has compared peaceful protestors to KKK ralliers, has opposed a ceasefire in Palestine, has promoted private school vouchers, and has covered up a sexual harassment scandal in his own office.” The campaign is completely anonymous.

“Selecting a Vice Presidential nominee with anti-Palestinian and pro-war views will depress turnout among Muslim, Arab-American, and young voters, and greatly reduce the excitement that comes with a new nominee,” the organization’s statement read.

In response to the campaign, Torres stated on X, formerly Twitter, “Every potential nominee for Vice President is pro-Israel. Yet only one, Josh Shapiro, has been singled out by a far-left smear campaign calling him 'Genocide Josh.' The reason he is treated differently from the rest? Antisemitism.

“The antisemitic far left must never be given veto power over the selection of a presidential running mate,” Torres added.


Brad Lander’s looming NYC mayoral candidacy raises concerns in Jewish community
As Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, weighs a widely expected run for mayor, Jewish community leaders are now raising concerns over his close ties to far-left activists and elected officials who have increasingly voiced anti-Israel rhetoric or faced charges of stoking antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

Lander, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the city and a self-described Democratic socialist, has long identified as a “progressive Zionist” who is sharply critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians — even as he has clarified that he does not support some of the more extreme positions of the radical left, most notably including the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting the Jewish state.

But as Jewish leaders have witnessed a rise in antisemitic incidents stemming from protests in New York after Hamas’ attacks, Lander, 55, has drawn mounting scrutiny for continuing to align with some figures and groups advancing positions on Israel — such as BDS and anti-Zionism — that he claims not to share.

The tenuous balancing act has provoked questions among Jewish and pro-Israel activists in New York about Lander’s commitment to defending his views as he sets his sights on Gracie Mansion with support from the activist left.

“The problem I see with him is that he consistently tries to play both sides,” said Andrés Spokoiny, who resides in Lander’s old New York City Council district and has recently become engaged in local politics, in an interview with Jewish Insider. “If you want to have the backing of the mainstream Jewish community,” he stressed, “you have to not tone down but actively disavow people who have made us feel unsafe.”

Spokoiny, who leads the Jewish Funders Network but emphasized that he was speaking for himself, echoed many critics who spoke with JI in pointing to Lander’s affiliation with the nonprofit Jews For Racial & Economic Justice, which described the Oct. 7 attacks as “neither justifiable nor unprovoked,” as well as his recent support for Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who endorsed BDS and railed against what he called the “Zionist regime” before losing his seat in a bitter primary last month.


Clashes as Military Police arrest troops suspected of abusing Palestinian inmate
Disturbances broke out at the Israel Defense Forces’ Sde Teiman detention facility on Monday after Military Police officers arrested nine reservists who were guarding Hamas terrorists as part of a probe into an incident of alleged abuse of a prisoner.

Physical confrontations erupted when Military Police officers raided Sde Teiman, located in the Negev, by order of Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi.

“Following a suspicion of serious abuse of a detainee who was held in the prison facility, an investigation by the Military Police was opened by order of the Military Advocate General’s Office,” the IDF said.

One terrorist was evacuated by the Military Police to Beersheva’s Soroka Medical Center with bruises on his buttocks, according to Israel Hayom.

The report cited a statement by a soldier who was present during the raid: “I publish this with tears of rage and frustration—the IDF against IDF soldiers. The Military Police, wearing masks, came to arrest the 100-strong force of fighters guarding the Nukhba terrorists, disarmed them, took their cellphones and arrested them with violence and tear gas.”

The “Victory Generation” reservist movement subsequently announced that hundreds of soldiers were on their way to Sde Teiman and would block the base’s entrance in an effort to “put an end to this disgrace.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who heads the Otzma Yehudit Party, also traveled to the southern base to join the protest. “Military prosecutor, hands off the reservists!” Ben-Gvir tweeted.
Allegedly abused Nukhba terrorist assaulted guards, detained soldiers claim
The soldiers detained for allegedly assaulting a Nukhba terrorist claimed he attacked them first, the organization Honenu, which represents four of the soldiers, announced on behalf of the suspects.

They stated that the incident occurred about a month ago when the prisoner was transferred from Ofer Prison to Sde Teiman that day, likely due to a rebellion he was involved in while at the former facility.

A soldier and friend of the nine detainees provided the same explanation.

"This morning, around 10, Military Police personnel stormed the base in large forces. We were sure they came to capture some terrorist, not someone from the unit," he said. "It was really shameful and unnecessary - everyone needed for questioning could have been summoned in a more professional and respectful manner.

"Do you even know who the terrorist who complained is?" the fighter said. "He is an arch-terrorist who played a significant role in the murderous attack on 10/7 and shouldn't even be alive if he had committed his crimes in another country. We won't leave here until all the fighters are released. If you want to investigate, please, there is a way right way to do it. Someone here is confused—they are the terrorists, not us."
PMW: Palestinian Authority libel: Israel’s “next step” is subordination of entire Arab world
Although terror organization Hamas launched the current war against Israel when they brutally attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and murdered over 1,000 Israelis, the Palestinian Authority presents the ongoing war solely as “Israeli aggression.” Some even allege that “no one attacked” Israel! Instead, PA leaders present Israel’s self-defense and response to being attacked by Hamas to Palestinians as part of a greater Israeli “plan” to “tear apart the Palestinian people,” “uproot” and “expel” it, and eventually subjugate not only the Palestinians but Arab states as well. The US is also being demonized in the PA’s libelous narrative as “the one waging the war, and not Israel.”

The following are examples of PA leaders disseminating this libel to Palestinians:
Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki: “This talk about Israel’s right to defend itself. Where did Israel attack? Israel attacked the Gaza Strip. No one attacked it.”

[Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki, Facebook page, Jan. 20, 2024]

Abbas’ advisor: Israel is US’ “police officer” and goal is to subordinate entire Arab world
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “If, Heaven forbid, Palestine will fall, and the Gaza Strip will fall, and Israel will realize its goals in the Gaza Strip and afterwards will move on to realize similar goals in the West Bank, it will then be the turn of other Arab capitals and of other Arab states. And Arab states will become subordinates to the American police officer named Israel in the region.”

Posted text: “Al-Habbash to [the official PA radio station] The Voice of Palestine: Israel is fighting against our religion, and the US is a partner to the aggression, but victory will be our ally, and the world will pay a heavy price for the continuation of this tragedy.”

[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Feb. 10, 2024]

Abbas’ advisor demonizes Israel: Israel’s “target” is not just Hamas but “tearing apart the Palestinian people”
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “The occupation (i.e., Israel) falsely claims that it is directing its blows against the Hamas Movement. But this is a lie… Those whom the occupation is targeting is you, us, these children. The children of the West Bank are being targeted like the children of the Gaza Strip, like the children of Jerusalem, like all children of the Palestinian people, like all members of the Palestinian people. The intent is not just to uproot Hamas, not at all. There are many proofs of this… The target is the Palestinian people, the target is tearing apart the Palestinian people, the target is uprooting the Palestinian people, it is removing the Palestinian people from its land, it is expelling the Palestinian people from Palestine…They are determined to remove us from our land, and we are determined to stay in it. They have failed at this for 75 years, at uprooting the Palestinian people from Palestine, and they will fail, Allah willing. This land will only be ours… this is our homeland and not their homeland. This is our land and not their land, this is our history and not their history. If someone needs to leave and go out of our land, it is them! They are the ones who need to leave. They need to leave, while we are staying here.”

[Official PA TV Live, Dec. 8, 2023]


CBC News Article Profiling Gaza Food TikTok Star Inadvertently Exposes The Famine Lie
Despite incessant bleating from anti-Israel activists claiming that there is a “famine” in Gaza, one of the best repudiations of that lie has come from a most unlikely source: CBC News.

In a July 25 article entitled: “This Gaza man makes videos cooking aid food for children in displacement camps,” reporter Yasmine Hassan profiled Hamada Shaqoura, a 33-year-old man in Gaza who makes cooking videos on TikTok.

In the accompanying three-minute-long video, footage is shown of bustling food markets, a curious sight for those voices who have attempted to convince the public that there is no food in Gaza. There’s No Famine In Gaza

Yet strangely, even within Hassan’s article, she gave a platform to these unfounded assertions, writing that “The northern part of the Gaza Strip now faces a looming famine, according to reports from international organizations. Earlier this month, United Nations experts declared that ‘famine has spread across the entire Gaza Strip,’ based on the number of children dying of malnutrition and hunger,” though she added that “Israel has denied that there is a famine in Gaza.”

The so-called “United Nations experts” cited by Hassan are less than a dozen people, including Francesca Albanese, an extremist anti-Israel campaigner who has compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, hardly a credible source relating to Israel.

Meanwhile, in March, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a United Nations-backed project to gauge food insecurity in various parts of the world, claimed that famine in Gaza was imminent, before backtracking three months later in a subsequent report, saying it no longer stood behind those statements.


The Biden administration is empowering the Houthis
The U.S. Navy, thanks to the Houthis, has reportedly been facing “its most intense combat since World War II” and has reacted by destroying three “small boats” whose crews attempted to board a container ship in the Red Sea; a fourth boat “fled the scene.”

Responding to the Houthis was left to little Israel. Last week, its air force targeted Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah “in an attempt to prevent the ongoing delivery of weapons to the Houthi militia by Iran.”

Yet, not one senior U.S. official—not U.S. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris or Secretary of State Antony Blinken—bothered to greet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the airport when he landed this week in Washington, D.C. In an additional snub, Harris boycotted his speech to Congress.

A former U.S. military official, speaking to CNN on condition of anonymity, criticized the current approach, likening it to past unsuccessful efforts:

“The U.S. campaign against the Houthis appears to bear the hallmarks of many of these highly circumscribed, scrubbed campaigns of the past where we seek to avoid causing them actual pain,” said the official.

The Trump administration’s assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s IRGC, led to a halt in Iranian provocations against the U.S. for the remainder of his presidency. To effect meaningful change in the Houthis’ behavior, it will unfortunately be necessary to deliver more decisive actions.

Without the U.S. significantly diminishing the Houthis’ military capabilities, as well as those of Iran, both will continue to present a considerable threat. The U.S. administration needs to take decisive action, starting by targeting the Houthi leadership. The administration also needs to return the Houthi rebels to the FTO list. In January, after pressure, the Houthis were ultimately named “Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” a level below “Foreign Terrorist Organization,” enabling them still to receive funding and enter the United States. While this week there has been bipartisan pressure to re-list the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, it is uncertain whether this will happen.

In addition, to prevent further escalation, the United States must focus on addressing the root cause of the turmoil: the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its IRGC. Options could involve targeting Iranian ports used for oil exports, or striking IRGC facilities while rigorously enforcing existing sanctions. By aiming at Iran’s critical oil infrastructure or military bases, the United States could send a clear message to Tehran, pressuring them to halt their support for the Houthi insurgency.

So far, the policies and decisions of the Biden administration have directly strengthened both Iran and the Houthis. By refusing to enforce stringent measures, the Biden administration has provided these groups with all the support and resources they needed to redouble their hostilities without significant repercussions. Given the growing threat posed by these developments, and especially Iran’s nuclear weapons program, it is imperative that the United States take decisive steps to address the issue effectively before the situation further deteriorates into an even larger international crisis.
Iran Raked In $16 Billion From Illicit Oil Sales in Just 4 Months, Highlighting Biden-Harris Admin's Lax Sanctions Enforcement
Iran reported raking in nearly $16 billion in profits from its illicit oil trade over the past several months, highlighting the Biden-Harris administration’s perennially lax enforcement of sanctions meant to stymie Tehran’s cash flow.

Tehran exported a total of "$15.7 billion worth of oil in the first four months in the Iranian calendar" year, which lasted from March 21 to July 22, Mohammad Rezvanifar, the head of Iran’s Customs Administration, said on Monday. Most of this crude oil was offloaded in China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, and India, according to the country’s state-controlled press.

Iran’s illicit oil trade, which is heavily sanctioned by the United States and other Western nations, has hit a boom period under the Biden-Harris administration, topping around $90 billion as of March. This cash has helped to keep the hardline regime afloat amid economic uncertainty and helps Tehran fund its network of terror proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah.

China has long been Iran’s top oil client, with exports routinely crossing 1 million barrels per day. While sanctions are in place to stop this trade, the Biden-Harris administration has come under fire for turning a blind eye to Tehran’s oil exports as part of a bid to ease diplomatic tensions with the hardline regime. The United States also has granted several sanctions waivers that permit Iraq to pay Iran upwards of $10 billion in backed electricity payments, cash that lawmakers and experts say is fueling Tehran’s proxy war against Israel.

"Policymakers must connect the dots: Iran's unprecedented oil sales have occurred because for nearly four years, the Biden-Harris administration stopped enforcing U.S. sanctions," said Andrea Stricker, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank. "Tehran and its proxies have used this revenue to attack Israel, U.S. troops, and global shipping."

"Essentially, Washington is underwriting the Iranian regional mayhem it seeks to contain, including Hezbollah's horrific weekend attack on northern Israel."

That attack—a missile strike on a soccer field—killed 12 Israeli civilians, most of them children, and came after the administration spent years working to keep the Jewish state from confronting Hezbollah.
Exclusive: US denounces Iran's coercion of Jews into voting in presidential election
The U.S. State Department has described as “deplorable” reports Iran’s tiny Jewish minority was coerced into participating in the recent Iranian presidential election, in a statement obtained exclusively by VOA.

The reported coercive measures, verified by VOA, included Iranian authorities for the first time setting up special ballot stations for Jews to vote in a presidential contest and organizing an unprecedented campaign event for Jews to meet presidential candidates’ representatives.

Iran’s Jews, like its other religious minorities, have endured discrimination and persecution since 1979, when radical Shiite clerics opposed to the Jewish state of Israel’s existence seized power.

The State Department’s latest annual report on international religious freedom, published last month, cites the Tehran Jewish Committee as saying there are approximately 9,000 Jews out of Iran’s estimated population of 89 million.

Reports indicate that community was coerced into participating in the presidential election held in two rounds on June 28 and July 5.

Former Iranian Health Minister Masoud Pezeshkian, a loyalist of the Islamic republic’s authoritarian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was declared the election’s winner. Its two rounds had official turnouts of under 50%, as most of Iran's electorate boycotted a contest in which Khamenei loyalists were the only candidates.

In its statement to VOA, the State Department said it was aware of the reported coercion of Jews into participating in the vote.

“The behavior described in those reports is deplorable,” a spokesperson said. “We never had expectations that Iran’s presidential elections would be free or fair, so these reports of coercion, while awful, are unsurprising.”


It's time for a mass aliyah by French Jews
Shocking antisemitism in France
Director of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) Avital Leibovitz evidenced a survey published on Holocaust Day this year, according to which every fourth identifiable Jew in France had been in some way accosted or attacked in October 2024.

Half of French Jews hide their identity.

Seventy-six percent of the French public acknowledges the existence of antisemitism in its country.

Thirty-four percent of the public has been infected with antisemitic views. This translates into one out of every three French people being antisemitic. THE OLYMPIC Games come this year at the height of a very tense security period in France in particular, and in Europe in general, and of increasing threats to Israelis in France.

In recent weeks, a campaign against Israel participating in the Olympic Games, linked to the Gaza war, has been active on Arab social networks.

As part of the campaign, photos, cartoons, and videos have been posted, calling for Israel to be prevented from participating in the Games.

Some of the circulating memes claim that Israel’s participation in Paris will bring a taste of blood to the Olympics.

Some members of the Israeli delegation reported receiving anonymous death threats by email, in anticipation of the Games.

The Olympic Committee verified the emails, and the issue was passed on to the relevant authorities. The Israeli delegation in Paris is closely monitored by security services.

French security services recently arrested an 18-year-old man on suspicion of planning a series of terrorist attacks at the Paris Olympics.

For many months now, security alertness in France had been particularly high, due to fear of terrorist attacks, but it is clear that the preparations for the Olympics have brought the situation to unprecedented levels.

The Shin Bet heads the Israeli delegation’s security system and began to raise its level of preparedness a few months ago.

The number of Israeli security guards is expected to be high, and there will be additional operational and intelligence cooperation with authorized local security forces.

Preliminary patrols and strict security arrangements have been organized.

Security is mainly focused on Olympic delegation members (athletes and staff) but the Shin Bet is also taking into account the thousands of Israeli spectators who will be arriving in Paris. Fearing friction and clashes between opposing supporters as a result of pro-Palestinian demonstrations expected to take place around the Games, local authorities are attempting to ban protests.

The Shin Bet recommends that Israelis stay away from hot spots.

All that remains is to wish the Israeli delegation much success, and for Israeli government ministries to prepare for a massive wave of French Jews immigrating to Israel.
Smashed windows at Hollywood shul second incident in as many weeks
Vandals have again targeted Kahal Ahavas Yisroel Synagogue in Hollywood, Calif., making that twice in the last two weeks.

A security camera captured two men on July 25 in the act of using a hammer or baton to break multiple windows at the Jewish house of worship, prompting police to investigate and increase patrol of the area.

Doni Dror, a board member at the synagogue, said one suspect recorded the crime with the other’s phone and that “they didn’t take anything,” according to KCAL/CBS News Los Angeles. “They just smashed and ran.”

He added that it’s hard to imagine the two consecutive incidents not being related since they happened so close together.


Bedouin director wins top prize at Jerusalem Film Festival
The 41st Jerusalem Film Festival announced the winners of its competitions at a ceremony on Thursday. The prizes made history because the Haggiag Award for Israeli Feature Films, the festival’s top award for Israeli features, went to Yousef Abo Madegem’s Eid, the first full-length movie made by a Bedouin director.

Movies by Arab directors have won top prizes at the Jerusalem Film Festival before, but this is the first time a film by a director from the Bedouin community has received this honor.

The movie tells the story of a construction worker from Rahat, the largest Bedouin city in the Negev, who has literary aspirations and resists his parents’ decision to marry him off to an uneducated woman. At its premiere screening on Sunday, Abo Madegem said he had worked on the movie for a decade, adding that he has 10 children, “and this film is like my 11th.”

The judges said they chose the film “for its sensitive, completely mature, and authentic portrayal of the preservation of one’s own self-respect in a rigid environment bound by traditions in contradiction with painfully unfulfilled love, yet leading to reconciliation and forgiveness.”

Shadi Mar’i, whom television viewers from around the world recognized for his role in Fauda, won the Anat Pirchi Award for Best Actor. The judges said they chose Mar’i “for a completely convincing portrayal of the main character, all his conflicting emotions, along with a sensitive understanding of his defiance, pain, and hope.”
Volunteers saved $50m in Israeli produce during war, study finds
Volunteers in Israel have saved agricultural produce valued at $50 million since the start of the war against Hamas in Gaza, even amid major damage to the country’s agricultural sector, according to a study released this week.

Hundreds of thousands of volunteers from Israel and around the world have helped rescue over 35,000 tons of produce, according to Leket Israel, The National Food Bank, a registered Israel-based charity.

Nearly one in two Israelis volunteered in the first months of the war, earlier surveys have shown, while both Jewish and Christian volunteers from around the globe came to Israel to help hard-hit farmers harvest their crops.

The price of fresh produce in Israel still increased by as much as 18% during the first six months of the war, the report found, while fruit prices rose by as much as 12%.

Nearly a third of Israel’s agricultural land lies in frontline areas, with about 22% in the Gaza border area and 10% on the northern border with Lebanon.

The study found that increased food waste as a result of the war cost the economy approximately $275 million, including $185 million worth of wasted food.

More than 20% of produce was wasted as a result of the war, the study found, compared to less than 10% before the war broke out.
Elbit Systems secures $190 million IDF contract for Iron Sting guided mortar munition
Leading global defense technology company Elbit Systems has secured a $190 million contract to supply the Israeli Defense Ministry with its Iron Sting-guided mortar munitions.

According to Yehuda Vered, Elbit Systems’ general manager of the land division, the contract comes amid growing global security concerns and the need for precise military technology.

The two-year contract will help deliver advanced and precise-driven technology.

Iron Sting is a cutting-edge, advanced 120mm mortar shell that uses GPS and laser guidance to hit its target accurately.

Reaching targets up to 10 kilometers away, the shell has a flexible fuse system that can be set to different modes – instant explosion, delayed explosion, or explosion – when close to the target, all within 15 seconds.

The warhead can smash through two layers of concrete and cause a large explosion, scattering debris.

Vered spoke about the strategic importance of this contract.



Tel Aviv researchers enable artificial speech for paralyzed patients using thought power
It sounds like science fiction. People who are completely paralyzed due to brain injury, brainstem stroke, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease), and express words with their mouths can “speak” artificially using only the power of thought.

Loss of speech due to injury or disease is devastating. Now, this scientific breakthrough by researchers from Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (TASMC) has shown the potential for speech by a silent person using the power of thought only. In an experiment, such a patient imagined saying one of two syllables. Depth electrodes implanted in his brain transmitted the electrical signals to a computer, which then vocalized the syllables.

The study was led by Dr. Ariel Tankus of TAU’s School of Medical and Health Sciences and the medical center, together with Dr. Ido Strauss of TAU’s School of Medical and Health Sciences and director of the hospital’s functional neurosurgery unit.

The results of this groundbreaking study have just been published in the prestigious journal Neurosurgery, which is the official publication of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, under the title “A speech neuroprosthesis in the frontal lobe and hippocampus: decoding high-frequency activity into phonemes.”

The novel speech neuroprosthesis (a speech brain-computer interface) artificially articulates building blocks of speech based on high-frequency activity in brain areas – the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortices, and hippocampus – that had never been harnessed for a neuroprosthesis before.

The achievement offers hope for making it possible for people who are completely paralyzed to regain the ability to speak voluntarily.

85% accuracy
“The 37-year-old patient in the study is an epilepsy patient who was hospitalized to undergo resection of the epileptic focus in his brain,” explained Tankus. He has intact speech and was implanted with depth electrodes for clinical reasons only. During the first set of trials, the participant made the neuroprosthesis produce the different vowel sounds artificially with 85% accuracy. In the following trials, performance improved consistently. We show that a neuroprosthesis trained on overt speech data can be controlled silently,” Tankus and colleagues wrote.

“To do this, of course, you need to locate the focal point, which is the source of the ‘short’ that sends powerful electrical waves through the brain. This situation involves a smaller subset of epilepsy patients who don’t respond well to medication and require neurosurgical intervention and an even smaller group of epilepsy patients whose suspected focus is located deep within the brain, rather than on the surface of the cortex.”




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