Thursday, August 08, 2024

08/08 Links Pt2: How Terrorist-State Propaganda Became the Norm for U.S. Audiences; All the Wrong People Are Celebrating Tim Walz; Is the Two-State Solution Still Viable?

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: How Terrorist-State Propaganda Became the Norm for U.S. Audiences
There’s a hefty list of terrorists moonlighting for Al Jazeera who have anchored the network’s “coverage” of the conflict. The Qatari propaganda organ figured out quickly that if someone is wearing a vest that says PRESS, the anti-Israel world will happily excuse literally any violent behavior—indeed, Ghoul reportedly took part in the October 7 attacks.

As someone with a two-decade career in journalism, I’ve been surprised at how little regard mainstream American journalists have for their own industry. Watching the public’s plummeting trust in media suggests it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: The audiences for these outlets have noticed the declining standards and reacted accordingly. When I was a newspaper reporter, it was considered an abuse of privilege, perhaps even a breach of ethics, to use your State Police press badge to gain entry to a Knicks game or a rock concert. I can’t imagine what my peers would have thought of using it to commit international terrorism and then claim immunity.

The Owda nomination and the Ghoul gaslighting are part of another problem: The world is seeing the conflict through the eyes of the terrorist groups and their financiers—and calling it journalism. If you ever wonder why reporters parrot the long-debunked and obviously false Hamas casualty figures, in some cases it’s because the reporters are literally members of Hamas. This is an absolutely insane reality and an unsustainable status quo for journalism.

It would be one thing if the problem were contained to Al Jazeera. But the outlet is serving as a recruiting ground for U.S. media. In June, the Washington Free Beacon reported that “At least six members of the [Washington] Post’s foreign desk previously wrote for Al Jazeera, the Doha-based news outlet bankrolled in part by the government of Qatar,” including “the paper’s Middle East editor, Jesse Mesner-Hage, who spent more than a decade as an editor at the outlet’s English edition.”

This is not to suggest that Al Jazeera is the entirety of the problem, though it is clearly biggest player in this scandal. It was recently revealed, for example, that CNN senior investigations reporter Tamara Qiblawi was a stenographer for a Hezbollah-affiliated outlet.

Fact is, readers and viewers of major American news organizations are being fed a steady diet of Qatar- and Iran-funded state propaganda not in addition to, but in lieu of, actual journalism. Many of them have yet to experience a drop of objective reporting on the conflict.

It is in that context that the Emmy nomination for Owda is an act of unfortunate consistency. The truth is that Israel’s critics in America have created an impenetrable disinformation bubble in which a not-insignificant portion of the country resides, blissfully ignorant and mad as hell.
Gazan Filmmaker With Ties to Palestinian Terror Group Nominated For News and Documentary Emmy
A Gazan woman with long ties to a U.S.-designated terror organization was nominated in June for the 2024 News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

Bisan Owda, who was once a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was nominated with her outlet, AJ+ in the Outstanding Hard News Feature Story: Short Form category for her Al Jazeera show “It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive.” The video series documents Owda’s experience since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, during which the terrorist group killed over a thousand people and took hundreds hostage.

But Owda’s 4.7 million Instagram followers may not be aware of her ties to the PFLP. Owda’s connection with the group was first reported by Israeli activist Eitan Fischberger, who found evidence that Owda was a member of the Marxist terror organization, which has a history of airplane hijackings and suicide bombings.

The PFLP, which has been a U.S.-designated terror organization since 1997, identified Owda as a member of its youth wing in a 2018 post on its website. In a 2015 on-camera interview with a Palestinian outlet, Owda, wearing military garb and a PFLP scarf, said she would not back down from “revolution.”

“The most important front is that the people of Gaza, the people in the West Bank, and in Jerusalem, and all the protesters are one hand and one people who will not back down for a moment from their land, from their right to their land,” she said in Arabic. “That is to say, they will not back down at all from their cause and their revolution.”

The interview took place at PFLP’s 48th-anniversary celebration in 2015, for which “Comrade” Owda served as a reception committee member and welcomed the crowds, according to the Palestinian outlet Al Watan Voice. Photos show Owda on stage addressing the crowd, which included children and masked men holding knives and Hezbollah flags.

Owda also attended the following year’s PFLP anniversary celebration, where she was named as a host and opened the event with a moment of silence “in honor of the souls of our revolution’s martyrs,” according to the PFLP’s website.

Owda was nominated by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), the organization responsible for the News and Documentary Emmys. The New York City-based organization is separate from the Primetime Emmy Awards bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Lipstadt ‘deeply disturbed’ by Wikipedia’s ban on the ADL
Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, said Wednesday she was “deeply disturbed” by a decision made by Wikipedia editors to ban the Anti-Defamation League as a source on antisemitism issues.

Lipstadt, speaking with reporters, also addressed Iranian influence in Gaza war protests in the U.S., the possibility of a Jewish first gentleman, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s views on Holocaust education and new global guidelines on antisemitism released last month.

Regarding the ADL and Wikipedia, she said she was reluctant to comment on any individual organization but she was “deeply disturbed that Wikipedia should decide that one of the main organizations that tracks and evaluates antisemitism should be totally disbarred from commenting on certain things.”

“It struck me as very strange and it struck me as not as thoughtful, as judicious as it should be.”

Lipstadt, a Holocaust scholar, was pressed about an argument made by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, in his master’s thesis focused on Holocaust and genocide education. Walz argued in the thesis that Holocaust should be taught not as a historical anomaly but in a “greater context of human rights abuses.”

Lipstadt said she “land[s] as a historian in the middle of that” debate. “If you say something is uniquely unique, you can’t compare — it stands by itself, it’s very hard to learn from it. But to say ‘all the same’ is to ignore the historical individualities.”

The U.S. envoy praised Walz for reportedly stepping in at his school to stop lessons where students were asked to role play as Nazis and Jews during the Holocaust. “He shut it down and I thought it was good educating.”

The antisemitism envoy said she was involved in discussions with the intelligence community about a report Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines released revealing Iranian influence and funding in some of the anti-Israel protests in the United States.

“There are foreign actors that are involved in this, there is no question about that,” Lipstadt said. “And certainly Iran has been identified as one of them. The intelligence community … felt that it was important that Americans know that what’s been going on on the campus has been amplified — not created … by foreign influence.”

“Making it clear that this was foreign disinformation — not misinformation, but disinformation and manipulation — was something that we strongly supported,” she added, of her office.


Gadi Taub: For Israel’s progressive elites, the real war is against the enemy within
The Oct. 7 massacre brought Israelis together. Most of us understood full well that we need to hurry up and heal the wounds created by the bitter struggle over judicial reform so that we can pool our resources together for the momentous task we now face.

But the far left, and certainly the hardcore of the permanent protest, does not share the sentiment. After a short lull at the beginning of the war, in which they too felt obliged to offer lip service to unity, their strategists, cheerleaders in the press, ringleaders and advertising wizards, were back at it.

Though much smaller in size, the demonstrations became wilder and more violent, pushing ever closer to violent insurrection. It felt like the war had only increased their desperation and sense of urgency in fighting Israel’s right-wing government.

In recent months, we’ve seen all this: The protesters flew paragliders over the private Caesarea residence of the Netanyahu family. Police found they had a military-grade aerial photograph of the vicinity, on which they had drawn IDF-style battle plan markings, detailing a strategy for storming the house. The house itself was circled with a dotted red line, the way IDF maps designate enemy targets.

Then there were the torch-carrying protesters who stormed the barriers protecting the prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem. There was also a Jan. 6-style riot staged in the balconies overlooking the Knesset chamber. And then there was the failed four-day “siege” around the parliament, where protesters camped in the area surrounding the building.

The turnout was unimpressive and the goal—to coerce the coalition to call early elections for fear of the collapse of public order—was not achieved.

An endless string of road blockings, bonfires on highways, provocations against the ultra-Orthodox that crossed the line into violence, and deliberate clashes with the police, who have better things to do in the current state of emergency, multiplied. One protester hit a policeman with a burning torch he threw at him. The real war, explained another Never-Bibi activist, is not against Hamas, it is against the enemy within—Netanyahu and his government.

Perhaps even more astonishingly, once they felt comfortable to abandon the lip service to unity, the leaders of the protest movement began attacking the ideal of unity itself, clawing at the newly applied stitches and savagely tearing open the wounds that had just begun to heal.
Seth Mandel: Banning Jews For Their Own Protection
Today, the Associated Press reports on the threats the Israeli athletes receive. Some of their personal information was apparently hacked and leaked online, though it has since been taken down. The story notes that the Palestinian delegation to the Games has done its best to rile up anger at the Israelis athletes, but most of those making the threats probably don’t need any reminders.

One of the reasons for the heightened security, according to French officials, is the memory of the 1972 Munich games, at which Palestinian terrorists killed eleven Israeli athletes in cold blood. The Israeli embassy in Paris yesterday hosted a memorial for those victims, attended by Olympics officials. “French authorities have cited the Munich attack as among reasons for heightened security for the Paris Olympics,” reports the AP, “and Israeli athletes are under 24-hour guard by a French police unit.”

That last part is encouraging—at least their hosts deign to protect them. That’s distressingly uncommon.

Often, host countries do what Belgium did just yesterday with regard to the European Youth Ultimate Championships and just ban or banish the Israeli team. The EYUC, an annual global ultimate frisbee tournament, initially tried to move the Israeli teams to another field to avoid the protests organized against them—yes, teenagers playing frisbee were deemed an appropriate target for Europe’s characteristic anti-Jewish rage. But that satellite field was then vandalized, and the tournament organizers decided it would be better for everyone if the Jews weren’t permitted to play at all.

“EUF and EFDF deeply regrets to inform the Ultimate community and participating teams that a major change to participating teams in the Open and Mixed Division and to the overall schedule for all divisions has come into effect due to directive from the Ghent public authorities … given the current local and international unrest, threats and recent incidents,” the organization wrote in a statement announcing that “the participation of the Israeli delegation” would be prohibited. “Decisions were based on Authorities holding concerns of high risk disturbance of public order, a significant threat and the inability to guarantee safety at the event if all teams were to participate as planned.”

It was for safety reasons, you see. The Israelis might need protection, but the league doesn’t want to protect the Israelis.

I use the word “want” intentionally: Belgium has the resources to secure a youth frisbee match. If it doesn’t secure the match, it is because it chose not to.

Back in January, the International Ice Hockey Federation came to the same conclusion and barred the Israelis from the tournament “until the safety and well-being of all participants (including Israeli participants) can be assured.”

Soon after that, the Jewish captain of South Africa’s under-19 cricket team, David Teeger, was relieved of his captainship because, according to the league: “We have been advised that protests related to the war in Gaza can be anticipated at the venues for the tournament. We have also been advised that they are likely to focus on … David Teeger.”

At such global events, when the Israeli participants aren’t banished they must get creative. Eden Golan, the preternaturally poised singer who represented the Jewish state at Eurovision this year, revealed afterwards that she had to wear a disguise when going about Malmo during the Swedish competition.

If you are the holder of an Israeli passport, it is simply accepted by the world that it is dangerous for you to travel outside your designated village—Olympic or otherwise. Just hope the beds are comfortable and the air conditioning works, because you won’t have any other options.
Elliott Abrams: Is the Two-State Solution Still Viable?
A conversation was held about the desirability of creating a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on July 16, 2024. Dennis Ross and Mohammed Dajani make the case for "yes," Elliott Abrams and Fleur Hassan-Nahoum for "no."

Elliott Abrams, former U.S. deputy national security advisor in the administration of President George W. Bush, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House, also served as Special Representative for Iran in the Trump administration. He said:

"I wish I could believe that the two-state solution was a solution, but it's not. For one thing, neither Israelis nor Palestinians believe in it. On neither side is there majority support....[British author Salman Rushdie said in May,] "If there were a Palestinian state now, it would be run by Hamas and we would have a Taliban-like state, a satellite state of Iran."

"The main goal of Palestinian nationalism has been negative, not positive. It has never been to build a Palestinian state. It has been about destroying the Jewish state....The creation of a Palestinian state today or tomorrow is a formula for increasing the conflict as Iran makes that state, as Rushdie said, its own satellite and a launching pad for attacks on Israel."

"When you listen to world leaders...they always talk about two states, a Jewish and democratic state and a viable, independent, sovereign Palestinian state. And the word that's missing is "democratic." Why is it missing? Because they know that an independent Palestinian state is going to be a Hamas state and they don't want that."

"The need for change is in Palestinian society, yet plazas and schools are still being named after murderers. The Pay to Slay program is still there, where Palestinians who have committed acts of terrorism are paid salaries - by the PA, not Hamas - while they are in prison, and the amount they are paid rises with the severity of the crime. This has been going on for decades and it hasn't stopped....There's no evidence, none, that the vast majority of Palestinians actually want a peace-seeking government. That's a real problem."
Is the Two-State Solution Still Viable?
As the war between Israel and Hamas is ongoing, the nonpartisan debate series Open to Debate in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations is taking a closer look at one proposed solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The two-state solution proposes a sovereign State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel and aims to address the territorial disputes, security concerns, and national aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians. However, many have questioned whether this plan is still possible, especially during the Israel-Gaza war happening now. Those who believe it’s still possible argue that it’s the most logical path toward achieving sustainable peace and fulfilling the national self-determination rights of both Israelis and Palestinians while respecting international laws and U.N. resolutions. Those who believe it is no longer possible argue that the ongoing violence, West Bank settlement expansions, lack of trust, and failure of previous negotiation attempts such as the Oslo Accords make having both states impractical.

With this critical background, we debate the question: Is the Two-State Solution Still Viable?

This debate was recorded live on July 16, 2024, at 6 PM, at the Council on Foreign Relations, in New York City.

Arguing Yes:
Ambassador Dennis Ross, Counselor and Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy & Mohammed Dajani Daoudi, Palestinian Peace Activist and Scholar; Founding Director of the Wasatia Academic Institute

Arguing No:
Elliott Abrams, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations & Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, Former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Israel’s Special Envoy for Trade & Innovation

Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates

Timestamps:
(02:42) Dennis Ross argues that the two-state solution is still viable.
(05:47) Fleur Hassan-Nahoum argues that the two-state solution is not viable anymore.
(08:55) Mohammed Dajani Daoudi argues that the two-state solution is still viable.
(12:06) Elliott Abrams argues that the two-state solution is not viable anymore.
(17:01) Why does Dennis Ross think that the situation between Israel and Palestine could change?
(19:03) Fleur Hassan-Nahoum about the need for alternative, non-binary solutions to the issue.
(26:25) Is it possible to build liberal democracies under occupation?
(28:15) Were the Israeli and Palestinian people ever willing to accept a two-state solution?
(34:39) What if a new educational system was created in Palestine to change the existing narrative?
(38:39) Would creating a Palestinian state equate to creating a monster?
(40:05) Roya Hakakian asks whether a change in the educational system should be a part of the agenda during peace negotiations.
(44:59) Daniel Motulsky asks for examples of creative solutions that would not entail eternal wars.
(46:34) Maryum Saifee asks how viable it is to have a Jewish democracy that is equitable and secular.
(54:49) Miriam Sapiro asks about the ways to counter the threat from Iran if the two-state solution is not found.
(57:32) Debaters present their closing statements.


Elliot Abrams and Sander R. Gerber: The PA Has Only Itself to Blame
In response to the article "The Palestinian Authority Is Collapsing" (July 17, 2024), although the authors are right to raise the crucial issue of the dysfunction and inefficacy of the Palestinian Authority, they are wrong to attribute the PA's failings to Israel. The authors cite the PA's financial troubles. What they neglect to mention, however, is that in 2018, the last year that the PA made its budget public, $350 million - 7% of the total - was reserved to pay terrorists who killed or injured civilians in Israel or members of the IDF, and to pay the families of those terrorists.

While civil servants are suffering with 50% salary cuts, the authority continues to pay terrorists and their families 100% of their stipends. According to Palestinian Authority law, the PA is required to employ any males who have served at least ten years and females who have served at least five years in Israeli prison, at salaries no less than the monthly "pay for slay" stipends they received in prison. The PA has created a perverse system that incentivizes violence and hatred, breeding a bureaucracy of malfeasance and depravity.

Before condemning Israel for "degrading" the PA, one must acknowledge that the PA has degraded itself. Before calling on countries, international institutions, and donor organizations to rally around the impoverished authority, one must recognize that the PA uses its resources to prioritize the murder of Israelis over basic governance. The PA's financial condition is a product of an immoral system that it - and it alone - has created.
Eli Lake: All the Wrong People Are Celebrating Tim Walz
When Kamala Harris chose Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate over Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, the radicals within the Democratic Party cheered. An Instagram account run by staffers for Rep. Summer Lee, known as “dear_white_staffers,” posted in all-caps, “WE FUCKING DID IT WE FUCKING WON LETS GO LETS GO LETS GO!!!!!”

It wasn’t a one-off. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, the Squad legislator who lost his primary in June to a more centrist candidate, posted a video of himself on X after the veep announcement, exclaiming: “It’s Walz, baby. Let’s go.” Trita Parsi, the vice president of the pro-Iran Quincy Institute, posted on X that Harris’s running mate signaled “a huge change in the political landscape of the Democratic Party.”

On Facebook, original squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar posted congratulations to Walz, “our next Vice President.” Former Ohio state senator and Bernie Sanders surrogate Nina Turner was overjoyed at the Walz pick. She posted on X, “The Harris-Walz campaign has an enormous opportunity to keep this energy and momentum going with a policy platform that centers the working class, a Black agenda, and moving to a humanitarian position on Gaza.”

On the surface, the snubbing of Shapiro, who looked like a lock for the vice president slot going into the weekend, is about Israel. A noisy fringe of the Democratic Party threatened to stay home altogether to protest President Biden’s policy on aiding Israel after it was attacked by Hamas on October 7. Last month, this same crowd mobilized to tar Shapiro as “genocide Josh,” creating a website and flooding social media with attacks on his record, which went as far back as a pro-Israel column he wrote for his college newspaper when he was 20 years old. (An op-ed that he sorta kinda apologized for when he said his views had evolved from his college days.)

But the fight over America’s support for Israel is a proxy for a deeper problem inside the Democratic Party: radicalism. Recently, the radicals have taken up issues like the Gaza war and police abolition. But in 1968, it was the Vietnam War, as anti-American extremists like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin sought to make Democratic nominees unelectable by disrupting the convention that year. And while that war was deeply unpopular at the time with all Americans, the radicals went even further, taking the side of the enemy that the U.S. military was fighting.
Batya Ungar-Sargon: America Is Ready for a Jewish Veep. The Democrats Aren’t.
On Monday night, Vice President Kamala Harris had narrowed her search for a running mate to two men: Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro and Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Each had pros and cons.

In Walz’s favor, he had the distinction of applying the term weird to J.D. Vance, a word that the entirety of his party’s elites then picked up and ran with. Against Walz was the fact that Minnesota is not a swing state and Walz himself is a progressive, like Harris, making it unclear what he would add to the ticket.

In Shapiro’s favor was a 61 percent approval rating in a must-win state for Harris and a history of working across the political divide and choosing moderate, popular positions on everything from school choice to Covid-19 restrictions to degree requirements to corporate taxes. But working against him turned out to be something insurmountable: Josh Shapiro is a proud Jew.

Almost as soon as Harris began her search for a running mate in earnest, a campaign from the progressive left made it clear that the anti-Israel wing of the party would not vote for Shapiro. Though his support of Israel is identical to that of every other contender, though he hates Benjamin Netanyahu a lot, though his view on college campus protesters (he called it “absolutely unacceptable” that “universities can’t guarantee the safety and security of their students”) is the most common, most popular view, none of this was a match for his last name, the fact that he is an observant, kosher-keeping proud Jew, and that, like the vast majority of Jews, he supports the state of Israel.

In their criticism of Shapiro, leftists pointed to the fact that he excoriated University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill for refusing to condemn calls for the genocide of the Jews—I know, what a monster!—that he called on Penn to shut down the anti-Israel encampments, which violated university codes and guidelines—the shame!—and that he told The New York Times, “If you had a group of white supremacists camped out and yelling racial slurs every day, that would be met with a different response than antisemites camped out, yelling antisemitic tropes.” How dare he suggest antisemitism should be condemned, no matter what side it comes from!

As The Babylon Bee put it Monday night, “Democrats Worried Choosing Jewish Vice President May Cost Them The All-Important ‘Death To America’ Vote.” By Tuesday morning, the Harris campaign had turned farce into tragedy and picked Walz for Harris’s running mate.


Chicago Approves Anti-Israel Group's Rally Permit for DNC While Dragging Feet on Pro-Israel Group's Request
The City of Chicago has yet to grant a pro-Israel group's permit request for a rally near the Democratic National Convention later this month, despite having approved an anti-Israel group's request to hold a similar rally during the same event.

The Israeli American Council, a pro-Israel nonprofit organization looking to hold a solidarity march at the convention, filed two applications with Chicago’s Department of Transportation at the beginning of July, the group’s chief programming officer, Aya Schechter, told the Jewish Insider. With 11 days until the convention, Schechter has yet to receive an answer from the city, even after following up via phone and email.

A coalition of anti-Israel activist groups, however, received permission last month for a protest route—a so-called March on the DNC—near the convention. The organizations predict more than 25,000 protesters will attend their DNC event, based on previous rally attendance in Chicago.

Earlier this year, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of a ceasefire resolution, an action that has drawn criticism from Jewish leaders and led them to believe Johnson is more sympathetic toward Palestinian protesters.

The Israeli American Council also submitted a request in June for a stationary rally within "sight and sound" of the United Center, where the convention will take place. That request was denied because it "would be a direct interference with a previously planned permitted activity or public assembly and would create public safety issues," the city said.
How Wesley Bell engineered a come-from-behind victory over Cori Bush
Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for UDP, attributed the group’s success, in part, to the barrage of ads it ran on what he described as “the issues voters most cared about.” He cited polling that showed economic issues were particularly “important” in the district, noting that Bush’s vote in 2021 against a bipartisan infrastructure bill “was a top issue that helped determine the race.”

“What else became clear was that Bush had lost a lot of local support,” Dorton said, adding that her constituents “cared that she didn’t show up for a ton of votes and had never passed a bill into law.”

Dorton said it was “not true” that UDP had targeted Bush because she called for a cease-fire in Gaza, as some of her allies have suggested. Instead, the group “focused on” Bush because of what he called her “atrocious” record on Israel, pointing to her vote against Iron Dome funding as well as a House resolution condemning Hamas, which she recently declined to call a terrorist group.

Bush, he argued, had “one of the worst anti-Israel records in Congress.”

Bell’s campaign also ran an aggressive outreach campaign to Jewish voters, which was supplemented by nonpartisan voter turnout operations from local nonpartisan groups, St. Louis Together — which said Jewish turnout hit “historic” levels — and St. Louis Votes, as well as Agudath Israel of America.

Newman said that antisemitic hatred directed at the campaign “ballooned” in recent weeks, including frequent and aggressive protests outside the campaign office and vandalized yard signs. She thinks that that helped motivate Jewish voters to turn out for Bell.

“I think particularly volunteers and people were seeing that … they were feeling it,” Newman said. She also linked concerns back to anti-Israel protests at St. Louis’ Washington University earlier this year, blocks from the campaign office

Newman said that the Bell campaign had also brought the St. Louis Jewish community together, across partisan and denominational lines, in a way she’s never seen before.

Benjamin Singer, CEO of St. Louis Together, said the group and St. Louis Votes harnessed volunteers’ personal social networks, contact lists from synagogues and the Jewish Community Relations Council to help bring Jewish voters to the polls and provide information about early voting.

He said they aimed to “replicate” a nonpartisan Jewish turnout effort in New York’s 16th District that brought Jewish voters to the polls with the message that “antisemitism is on the ballot.”

“I think our community needs to be proud and loud and show up,” Singer said. “Our community, every community, deserves to be heard.”

Bush’s concession speech on Tuesday night, with its threat against AIPAC, will likely only further fuel fears in the Jewish community. As of early Wednesday evening, Bush had yet to call Bell to offer her concession directly, Mukherjee added.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned Bush’s comments.

“It is important that we be very mindful of what we say. This kind of rhetoric is inflammatory and divisive and incredibly unhelpful,” she said. “We’re going to continue to condemn any type of political rhetoric in that way, in that vein, and so it is important to be mindful in what we say and how we say it. But we cannot have this type of inflammatory, divisive language in our political discourse. Not now, not ever.”

Bell said in an interview that Bush’s comments are “disappointing … at this point it’s time for us to all work together if the vibrancy and success of this region is the priority.”

Payne said Bush’s comments suggesting that she’d been held back by “strings” before but was now free to unleash her full opinions were “very interesting” because he’s never known her or other committed activists to restrain their full views. “What she said last night was kind of jarring to me. Who’s advising you not to do things and what are you going to do next?”

Newman, Bell’s Jewish outreach director and a former state lawmaker, said she’s been concerned about her safety during the campaign — something she said she’d never experienced before — and even needed to call police when she was alone at the campaign office on one occasion. Newman said that Bush’s closing speech perpetuated those fears.

In a video released by AIPAC, Bell thanked the pro-Israel group for its support and vowed that he’d continue to be an ally.

“We’re not getting across the finish line without all of you,” Bell said. “We know how important it is to stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters, to stand with Israel, and as the Democratic nominee … I want you to know that you will always have an ally with me.”


Jamaal Bowman’s political suicide
During his campaign, Bowman did his best to obfuscate his views on Israel. He pretended to oppose the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that maligns Israel, only to confirm his support later. He touted his endorsement by J Street, an organization that bills itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace” but is hypercritical of the Jewish state. As Commentary magazine’s Seth Mandel observed, “J Street takes lawmakers on trips to Israel seemingly designed to increase their distrust” of the country. “Bowman entered Congress a skeptic of Israel but a supporter of the two-state solution and the legitimacy of both sides in the conflict” until a 2021 J Street-organized trip “cured him of that.”

Bowman told Politico that the trip was a “transformational moment” for him and left him believing that Israel, the world’s sole Jewish state, should no longer exist in its present form. Suffice it to say, these are views well outside the mainstream of most Americans, Jewish and otherwise.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas and other Iranian-backed proxies invaded Israel, perpetrating the largest massacre of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust. Terrorists brutally butchered Israelis, proudly filming their crimes.

Bowman, however, was undeterred. While Israel was under missile barrage, he voted against funding the Iron Dome missile defense system. He accused Israel of a “genocide” of Palestinian civilians, ignoring the tremendous steps that the Israel Defense Forces were taking to reduce civilian casualties, including some of the largest mass evacuations of civilians ever undertaken in urban combat. He also ignored Hamas’s use of human shields.

Polls showed broad American support for Israel in the wake of the attack. Unsurprisingly, most people found Hamas’s crimes, which include murdering children, setting the elderly on fire in their homes, torturing family members in front of one another, and raping and mutilating women, repulsive. Bowman seemed to feel differently, however.


Pro-Israel college students gather for summit, vow to 'take back' campuses from radical agitators
Hundreds of Jewish and pro-Israel college students gathered in Washington, D.C., this week for a leadership summit to prepare for the coming school year after universities nationwide faced rampant protests against Israel and repeated instance of antisemitism, Fox News Digital learned.

"At the ICC National Leadership Summit, the largest annual gathering of pro-Israel undergraduates, we witnessed the dedication and resilience of 500 students from 153 campuses. This summit empowered a diverse network of young leaders ready to 'Take Back The Campus' after the surge in brazen antisemitism on campus last semester," Israel on Campus Coalition CEO Jacob Baime exclusively told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

"We are grateful to all our speakers for inspiring and energizing our students to stand up for what’s right. ICC stands firmly with these students as they confront this difficult climate and take back their campuses."

The Israel on Campus Coalition describes itself as an organization that works to inspire American college students and pro-Israel college groups to "see Israel as a source of pride and empower them to stand up for Israel on campus." More than 500 students from 153 campuses gathered in Washington, D.C., this week to take part in the group’s National Leadership Summit, which focused on its theme of "Take Back The Campus."

The summit included a large range of students who support Israel, including undergrads from historically Black colleges, who heard from a bevy of speakers, including former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett; Shye Klein, a photographer and survivor of the Supernova Music Festival; former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, and others. The summit also included a performance from singer and rapper Matisyahu and Israeli singer Noa Kirel.

The speakers, Fox News Digital exclusively learned, focused many of their remarks on never apologizing for being Jewish, especially in the face of antisemtism, and to remain unified as the war continues raging since Oct. 7.

"Never apologize for being Jewish. Never apologize for loving the state of Israel," Bennett said during his discussion.

"There’s one single factor that will determine everything: Our ability to unite from within," he added. "… Stand up for Israel. Keep it simple. Stick with truth, and never be silent."
Jewish fraternity at Temple University targeted by repeated vandalism and trespassing
A Jewish fraternity near the Temple University campus has been repeatedly vandalized and trespassed on over recent months, with the most recent incident occurring on July 27, according to an alum and a statement by the administration last Friday.

Temple University President Richard Englert and Senior Vice President and Provost Gregory Mandel said that the Alpha Epsilon Pi off-campus house had seen trespass and vandalism incidents twice in May and once again on the weekend of July 27. Alum and media commentator Brian Hart reported on social media on July 27 that a group of young adults trespassed on the roof of the building and urinated into a rooftop access door. The incident was recorded by Temple University Public Safety as criminal trespass.

"Temple University and Philadelphia police officers were called to the residence again to respond to reports of individuals on the rooftop," said Englert and Mandel. "Temple’s police officers and detectives are actively investigating these incidents as both a criminal and student disciplinary matter."

At the beginning of May, "Free Palestine" was spray painted on the roof of the AEPi house, according to 6 ABC Action News. Hart wrote on X that three college-aged suspects were seen in security footage walking on the roof on May 24. In the footage, the suspects suggest drawing swastikas and the ease of breaking into the house.

"AEPi identifies as a Jewish fraternity, and there was evidence the incidents were motivated by antisemitism," said Englert and Mandel. "Temple University does not tolerate antisemitic or other hate crimes, including vandalism and damage to property. Temple unequivocally condemns antisemitism and other acts of hatred, incitement to violence, threats, harassment, and discrimination against any person."
University of Georgia panel upholds sanctions for 6 students over Gaza war protest
Six University of Georgia students arrested during an April 29 protest about the Israel-Hamas war will remain suspended through the fall semester, the American university’s Office of Student Conduct announced Monday.

The students will also remain on probation for the remainder of their academic careers at the university. The decision came after a 13-hour disciplinary hearing on July 30. Students can appeal the ruling to the university’s vice president of student affairs.

An attorney representing two of the suspended students, Josh Lingsch, called the hearing “nothing more than a kangaroo court” in a Thursday statement

Campus police arrested 16 protesters who set up an encampment near university President Jere Morehead’s office on the Athens campus in April. The school suspended the students hours later.

Some students informally resolved charges with the school by acknowledging their violations, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

During the hearing, the six remaining students said they had a right to protest and none of their actions interrupted academic activities. When they tried to comply with orders to move, students said officers used force and tried to end their protest.

University representatives said that the encampments put students and professors in danger, and that students were warned to disperse.

“The University will continue to enforce our policies to protect the free expression rights of all members of our community while recognizing that such activities must comply with applicable laws and policies,” university spokesperson Greg Trevor said in a statement.


Judge dismisses antisemitism lawsuit against MIT, says Jewish students were kept safe
A US federal lawsuit accusing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of tolerating antisemitism after the October 7 Hamas terror assault in Israel has been dismissed according to information released Thursday, two days after a similar one against Harvard University was approved.

The MIT lawsuit accused the university of approving antisemitic activities on campus and tolerating discrimination and harassment against Jewish students and faculty. In dismissing the lawsuit on July 30, US District Judge Richard Stearns noted that MIT took steps to address on-campus protests that posed a potential threat to Jewish students.

“Plaintiffs frame MIT’s response to the conflict largely as one of inaction. But the facts alleged tell a different story,” Stearns wrote. “Far from sitting on its hands, MIT took steps to contain the escalating on-campus protests that, in some instances, posed a genuine threat to the welfare and safety of Jewish and Israeli students, who were at times personally victimized by the hostile demonstrators.”

The judge drew a sharply different conclusion about Harvard, moving toward a trial on the university’s claim that it had done its best to balance its responsibilities of protecting free speech and preventing discrimination among its students.

Ruling on August 6 that parts of that lawsuit can move forward, Stearns wrote that Harvard’s response to antisemitic incidents “was, at best, indecisive, vacillating, and at times internally contradictory.”

Fallout from the Israel-Hamas war roiled campuses across the United States during the last school year and reignited a debate over free speech.

College leaders have struggled to define the line where political speech crosses into harassment and discrimination, and both Arab and Jewish students have raised concerns that schools are doing too little to protect them.


USYD student motion backs ‘armed resistance’
A motion calling for a single Palestinian state and affirming the right of Palestinians to “armed resistance” was passed at a student general meeting at the University of Sydney on Wednesday night.

The students, who call themselves “Students Against War” and “peace activists”, also called for a “mass, militant student movement on campus”.

It’s understood Jewish students from AUJS were in the room, but were prevented from speaking.

AUJS vice president Zac Morris told The AJN that what happened during the meeting was not activism, “it was antisemitism that has become normalised on our University campuses”.

“Jewish students are not responsible for the events in the Middle East, but we are seriously impacted by them. Instead of being offered support and a platform to share our experiences, we are seeing the proliferation of age-old antisemitic tropes all around us and the trivialisation of our experiences,” said Morris.

“For the past 10 months, Jewish students have been targeted, ostracised and excluded and now they have to walk on campus knowing their peers support the attacks of October 7.”

“Expressing support for the brutal terrorism of October 7 as ‘resistance’ is an explicit endorsement of violence. For Jewish students who study and live on campus, that is absolutely terrifying.”

“Every single student deserves to feel safe on campus, and right now Jewish students do not.”

Member for Wentworth Allegra Spender said she was, “appalled to see young Jewish students treated with disrespect when they explained the facts about Hamas”.

“People in our community were horrified by last night’s student motion at Sydney University,” said Spender.

“Last night’s motion excuses the actions of Hamas and was passed without meaningful debate. No thoughtful person who considers the facts could support such a motion.

“Universities should be places for respectful discussion but Sydney University has let us down. I urge the university administration to do more to create constructive and respectful conversations on campus. It is their responsibility to provide leadership to their students.”


Sydney University students ‘vote down’ a condemnation of Hamas at general meeting
Sky News host Rita Panahi discusses a University of Sydney general meeting of nearly 800 students who voted to recognise a Palestinian state.

“Nearly 800 Sydney University students have voted for their student body to support and recognise a Palestinian state, they also pledged their support for the right of Palestinians to armed resistance,” Ms Panahi said.

“Only two speakers in opposition to the motion were given the stage, one was spat at by students in the front row and the other was called a Zionist and told to leave the stage.

“An amendment to condemn Hamas was voted down.”




Soros, Omidyar, Ford Fund New York Times Reporter Tweeting About Israel’s Gaza ‘Massacre’
For coverage of the war in Gaza, the New York Times has turned to a reporter whose opinionated social media posts accuse Israel of a “massacre” and who is being funded with money from charities with anti-Israel track records.

“Gaza’s Medical Workers Face Detention and Death” was the headline over a recent New York Times news article. It’s the latest example of gullible New York Times coverage of Gaza health care challenges, a topic that has been a recurring problem for the newspaper. In October 2023, the Times published an “editors’ note” acknowledging that editors “should have taken more care” with coverage of an explosion near Al Ahli hospital. In February, I highlighted issues with the Times‘ coverage of Nasser hospital.

The new Times article includes this context paragraph: “Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, many hospitals in Gaza have come under attack from the Israeli military, which has accused Hamas fighters of using them as bases. Hamas and Palestinian doctors have repeatedly denied that claim.”

Why would the Times take a he-said, she-said approach to this one, repeating those Hamas and Palestinian denials without informing readers that they are false?

Even the Times itself reported back in February, about Al-Shifa hospital, “Evidence examined by the New York Times suggests Hamas used the hospital for cover, stored weapons inside it, and maintained a hardened tunnel beneath the complex that was supplied with water, power, and air-conditioning.” A Jan. 2, 2024 Times article was headlined, “Hamas Used Gaza Hospital as a Command Center, US Intelligence Says.” That January article reported, “The complex was used by both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to command forces fighting against Israel, according to the intelligence.”

Instead of asking the Gaza doctors about the terrorists and kidnappers using the hospitals as cover, the Times conveyed the doctors’ complaints about Israel. It also conveyed the complaints of advocacy groups such as Amnesty International and Medical Aid for Palestinians whose anti-Israel bias has been extensively documented by NGO Monitor.

How’d this latest piece wind up in the newspaper? The byline, Anjana Sankar, isn’t a familiar name to longtime readers of Times coverage of Israel, Gaza, or foreign affairs. Her posts on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, are unusually opinionated for a Times reporter. A July 9 post featured photos of blood-spattered children with Sankar’s comment, “Unimaginable horror again in #Gaza as Israel strikes a school building sheltering displaced people. Israeli army says the incident is under review. Hamas calls for worldwide protests against the massacre. When will this end?????” A July 21 post said, “Biden has decided not to seek re-election. He will be remembered as one of the great American presidents, having beaten Donald Trump and paved the way for the first Black woman and first South Asian descendant to become a major party’s presidential nominee.”

It turns out that Sankar was at the Times as part of a fellowship from the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF). That organization receives $250,000 a year from George and Alexander Soros’s Open Society Foundation, $100,000 a year from Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, and $200,000 a year from the Ford Foundation, according to the most recently available IWMF tax return. Open Society and Ford also back the Quincy Institute, Soros has backed anti-Zionist Peter Beinart’s publication Jewish Currents and efforts to cut off arms to Israel, and Omidyar’s The Intercept has been criticizing the New York Times for being too pro-Israel in its coverage of the Gaza war.
Jewish groups to sue Belgian columnist for ‘stab a Jew’ article
The Brussels-based European Jewish Association plans to file a lawsuit on Friday against a Belgium magazine columnist who wrote that he wants to “stab every Jew in the throat with a pointed knife” over the deaths of Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip.

The legal action comes after the incendiary remarks were published in a Belgian Dutch-language weekly on Aug. 4. and at a time when anti-Jewish hatred is escalating around the globe, including in Belgium, in the wake of the 10-month-long war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“A red line has been crossed here which we will not accept under any circumstance and which we will fight with all our force,” European Jewish Association chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin told JNS from Brussels on Thursday. “This is both distinct antisemitism and incitement to murder.”

The offending piece, penned by Flemish writer and columnist Herman Brusselmans in Humo magazine, begins with a personal broadside against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, continues by citing a grossly falsified ratio of civilians to combatants killed in Gaza and then ends with talk of killing every Jew Brusselmans sees.

“I see an image of a crying and screaming Palestinian boy, frantically calling for his mother buried under the rubble, and I imagine that boy is my own son Roman and the mother my own girlfriend, Lena, and I become so furious that I want to stab every Jew I encounter in the throat with a pointed knife,” the column reads.

“Of course, you always have to remember: Not every Jew is a murderous bastard, and to embody that thought, I imagine an elderly Jewish man shuffling through my street, dressed in a faded shirt, fake cotton pants, and old sandals, and I feel pity for him and almost tear up, but later I wish him to hell, and yes, that’s a mood swing, and my upcoming collection will unfortunately be full of them.”

The magazine’s editors have asserted in the Belgian press that the column was written as satire and refused to apologize or run a retraction. It has not responded to a JNS request for comment.

The European Jewish Association said it plans to sue the columnist and the magazine.


Medical opinion suggests ‘raped’ Hamas terrorist wounded himself
A medical opinion submitted in the case of the Hamas terrorist who was allegedly raped at the Israel Defense Forces’ Sde Teiman detention center suggests that the IDF reservists suspected of attacking him could be innocent, Israel’s Channel 14 News broadcaster reported on Thursday.

The expert opinion, written by Professor Alon Pikarsky, director of general surgery at Jerusalem’s Hadassah-University Medical Center and a board-certified general surgeon specializing in colorectal surgery, was revealed during a closed hearing at the Beit Lid military court, according to the report.

“Since there was damage to the rectum, there is no doubt that the insertion of a foreign body caused the wound. However, there is much doubt regarding the way and mechanism of the insertion,” wrote the physician, who has operated on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to Pikarsky, the lack of damage to the terrorist’s anus suggests that he caused the wound himself, “as it is precisely the self-insertion of a foreign body, which can also cause a rupture in the rectum, that will not cause damage to the anus itself since the inserter (the patient) will ensure a gentle and non-traumatic insertion of the foreign body.

“The medical records made available to me (hospitalization documents, as well as a computer screenshot dated July 8, 2024, by Dr. Muhammad Melhem), which do not indicate any wounding to the anus, support self-insertion and not insertion by any external party,” he concluded.


Why Are the European Union and the World Bank Paying Palestinian Terrorists?
Back in March, the Biden administration claimed that it was persuading the Palestinian Authority (PA), led by Mahmoud Abbas, to change its murder-for-hire "pay for slay" policy. Terrorists who have been imprisoned in Israel for their crimes, as well as families of deceased or wounded terrorists, receive monthly stipends as a reward for murdering Jews. The longer the prison sentence, the higher the monthly stipend. Talk about incentivizing and encouraging terrorism.

Not only has the PA not begun to change the "pay for slay" system, it is adding tens of thousands of terrorist prisoners and "martyrs" to be funded by the scheme.

The PA is, as always, undergoing a major financial crisis, in part because it has failed to promote a productive economy – a failure made possible by unconditional handouts from the international community.

Fortunately for Abbas and his terrorists, both the Biden administration, the World Bank and the EU stand ready with taxpayer financing to ensure that the terrorists are not about to run out of murder-for-hire payments anytime soon.

The World Bank, in fact, decided that the PA should get more money. In July, it announced that its usual annual grant to the terrorist entity of $70 million would be raised in to a whopping $300 million, no questions asked. The World Bank thereby knowingly and willingly made itself an active accomplice to terrorism. Even the PA leadership itself seemed surprised at the sum.

"The money will be disbursed in the form of grants and loans in three payments between July and September, subject to progress in the implementation of the reform agenda of the Palestinian Authority," the European Commission said in a statement.

What reform agenda?

On May 31, the EU Commission bragged: "The European Union is the biggest provider of external assistance to the Palestinians which amounts to indicatively almost €1.2 billion [$1.3 billion] for 2021-2024 under the European Joint Strategy, of which €809.4 million have already been adopted."

[W]hy is not one European leader questioning the use of EU taxpayer money for propping up a terrorist regime and its terrorists? Why is the EU knowingly enabling terrorism?


Getting a package to Tehran? Not a problem for Israel
For a country that cannot deliver mail to its citizens within its own borders, getting a package to Tehran didn’t present a problem.

The assassination of senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on July 31 was just another in a long line of anti-terror activities that have taken place outside the borders of Israel. Haniyeh’s and other recent assassinations are not one-off events, as Israel’s long arm of retribution for harm against its citizens has been seen before.

Following the massacre of 11 members of the Israeli athletic team at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir authorized the Mossad to undertake “Operation Wrath of God,” which targeted individuals associated with the Palestinian Black September movement and operatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization for assassination. While the precise number of targets remains unknown, it is reported to have included 20 to 35 individuals. The operation spanned two decades, emphasizing the global scale and extended duration of the Jewish state’s response to the violent tragedy in Germany.

More recently, as Palestinian terrorists murdered and maimed Israelis in the 1990s following the signing of the Oslo Accords, Israel again took action.

For instance, in October 1995, Fathi Shaqaqi – the leader of Palestine Islamic Jihad – stepped out of a hotel on the Mediterranean island of Malta. Two men on a motorcycle stopped opposite him and shot him at point-blank range. While no one took credit for the attack, it was attributed to the Mossad as payback for PIJ carrying out an April 9, 1995 terror attack near Kfar Darom that took the lives of eight people, including my daughter Alisa.

January 1996 saw the assassination of Hamas operative Yahya Ayyash, known as “The Engineer,” who was responsible for rigging bomb vests and designing other deadly terror tools. His cell phone was returned to him after a “repair,” and when he answered a call, an explosion did what it was intended to – remove a potent member of the Hamas terror team.

Yet it’s disheartening to realize how little the US government has done in similar cases and how muddled the American reply has been to attacks against American citizens in Israel and elsewhere.

You may recall then-President Bill Clinton’s 1996 promise to the family of Nachshon Wachsman, a US citizen kidnapped and murdered by Hamas in 1994, that he would bring Mohammed Deif, the mastermind of the kidnapping, to justice. Safe under the protection of the PLO and then Hamas, polite requests from Washington to PLO chief Yasser Arafat for Deif to be handed over to it were met with silence. While it took almost 30 years, Deif did meet his end last month, courtesy of Israel.

Going further back, on Aug. 11, 1976, terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine attacked the El Al Terminal in the Istanbul Airport. Four people were killed and dozens were injured. Two of the wounded were American women. One of those killed was Harold W. Rosenthal, 29, of Philadelphia, who had been a staff member for several Democratic members of Congress.


US donates $2.2 million to UNESCO to fight antisemitism
Doug Emhoff, husband of US Vice President Kamala Harris, announced in Paris on Thursday that Washington would make an exceptional contribution of over $2 million to the UN cultural agency UNESCO to boost the fight against antisemitism.

His announcement came at a UNESCO event focusing on efforts to respond to surging antisemitism through education. Also speaking at the event were representatives from the US, France, Germany and Rwanda, as well as representatives from the World Jewish Congress, the French Jewish Community and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The profile of Emhoff, a former top entertainment lawyer, has risen sharply in recent weeks after Harris became the Democratic candidate in the upcoming US presidential election, against Republican Donald Trump, following US President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race.

If Harris is elected in November, she will be the country’s first female president, making Emhoff, who is Jewish, its first First Gentleman.

Emhoff has repeatedly denounced antisemitism, which has surged globally in the wake of the Hamas terror group’s October 7 attack, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, triggering an ongoing war.

“The issue of antisemitism, the issue of hate, it’s just deeply personal to me as a Jewish person,” Emhoff said on Thursday, alongside UNESCO Secretary General Audrey Azoulay.

“We have seen a crisis of antisemitism erupt around the world. It’s gotten worse and worse and worse. We see it everywhere, right on our streets, our places of worship, college campuses, markets, and online.”

The 59-year-old announced a “voluntary contribution” of $2.2 million from the United States to the Paris-based UN body to finance action against antisemitism.
Nagasaki Mayor’s immoral decision debases memory of innocent Japanese, Israelis
In his decision not to invite the Israeli ambassador to Japan to the yearly ceremony commemorating the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki debased the memory of countless innocent victims. His decision was an insult both to the innocent Japanese who perished that day in 1945 and to the 1,200 Israelis mass murdered on October 7, 2023, by Iran-backed Hamas terrorists—the largest single-day killing of Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.

This decision denies the opportunity to properly memorialize those who died in the 1945 bombing. It also emboldens terrorists everywhere to believe that mass violence works to advance their agendas of isolating Israel and the Jewish people from the world community.

It bears mentioning that Israel—as a friend of Japan and as a sister democracy—has for many years attended this annual event in Nagasaki to remember and honor the Japanese victims and their families.

In a statement on July 31, Mayor Suzuki said that his decision was not political in nature but was intended to ensure that the August 9 ceremony would be free of disturbances. That statement is both a bald-faced lie and an act of antisemitism. It holds the State of Israel and the Jewish people to a different and unfair standard not applied to other governments and nationalities.

This singling out of Israel demonstrates the mayor’s remarkable historical illiteracy and sets back decades of efforts to build positive relations between Japan, Israel, and world Jewry. Adding insult to injury, Mayor Suzuki invited a Palestinian representative to attend even as 115 innocent hostages are still held in terror tunnels beneath Gaza by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

Double standard
Mayor Suzuki’s decision will not escape the notice of autocrats and evildoers. His double standard toward Israel will invigorate more murderers and villains worldwide to conclude that the use of force and delegitimization campaigns is necessary to achieve their aims.

The atomic bombing of Nagasaki helped finally end World War II, a war which saw Imperial Japan allied with Nazi Germany. For decades, people of goodwill from Japan, the US, and world Jewry have labored to forge new friendships, alliances, and trust, as we all struggled to absorb difficult lessons from the past.

Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui rightly invited the Israeli ambassador to attend his city’s yearly atomic bombing commemoration, but the Nagasaki mayor’s insulting refusal has harmed that trust.

The decision by Nagasaki Mayor Suzuki cheapens and demeans the important lessons that his city has rightly been teaching for generations. It also demonizes Israel’s moral obligation to defend its citizens, an ongoing struggle that continues on multiple fronts to this day.
Nagasaki mayor defends Israel snub at atomic bomb memorial
Nagasaki’s mayor says it was “unfortunate” that US and British ambassadors have refused to attend a ceremony marking the 1945 atomic bombing of the Japanese city because Israel was snubbed.

But he defends the decision not to invite Israel to Friday’s annual event, repeating that it was “not political” but to avoid possible protests related to the Gaza conflict.

“It is unfortunate that they have communicated to us that their ambassadors are not able to attend,” Shiro Suzuki tells reporters.

“We made a comprehensive decision not for political reasons. We want to conduct a smooth ceremony in a peaceful and solemn environment.”

On August 9, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people including many who survived the explosion but died later from radiation exposure.

This came three days after the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima that killed 140,000 people. Japan announced its surrender in World War II on August 15, 1945.

The United States, Britain, France, Italy and the European Union — plus reportedly Canada and Australia — are all sending diplomats below ambassador level to the ceremony.

Only the US and British embassies made an explicit link to Nagasaki’s decision not to invite Israel’s ambassador Gilad Cohen, although a source tells AFP that Italy’s move was also a direct consequence.
A Jewish bagel shop in Detroit closes after staff walk out on new ‘Zionist’ owner
Arad Kauf sits in the empty dining area of the bagel shop he is supposed to be managing. He’s got some new recipes proofing in the back, but they’re just sheets of raw dough. There’s no one on hand to do the baking.

Everyone on staff at the Detroit Institute of Bagels either quit or was fired last month after a conflagration centered in part on Israel, Kauf’s homeland.

“I was ashamed. I was embarrassed,” Kauf said. “I was trying to understand what I did wrong. What happened here?”

What happened at the Detroit Institute of Bagels married a long-simmering local real estate dispute to the widespread tensions over Israel and Gaza that have rippled out across the country over the past 10 months. The sale of the bagel shop to Philip Kafka, a hard-charging Jewish property developer and Kauf’s business partner, elicited protests over Kafka’s past comments supporting Israel.

“My own core beliefs do not allow me to work for a zionist,” one staffer wrote in an email to the bagel shop’s new management. “I cannot allow my creativity and work to be associated with zionism when this is something I vehemently reject, and am very vocal about.”

The first two staffers to resign also cited “the zionist political leanings of new ownership” alongside a “history of poor business practices” and “lack of transparency” as their reasons.

“I would call you a vulture, but I like vultures too much to demean their good name,” a third staffer wrote.

Kafka declined to speak with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency; so did a representative for the ex-staffers. The emails, which JTA viewed, show that the staffers’ criticism of Israel and its supporters merged with concerns about work conditions and anxieties about gentrification in Detroit. Staffers also rejected criticism that their opposition to a sovereign Jewish homeland in the Middle East makes them antisemitic.

“I believe Judaism to be a beautiful religion, and zionism to be deeply anti-semitic,” wrote the staffer who likened Kafka to a vulture.
Elbit Systems awarded $130 Million Contract to Supply Iron Fist APS to BAE Systems
Elbit Systems announced on Thursday that it secured a contract worth $130 million to supply Iron Fist Active Protection Systems (APS) to BAE Systems Hägglunds.

The APS will be installed on CV90 Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) over a five-and-a-half year period.

The APS is an advanced version of the Hard Kill system, which enhanced the self-defense capabilities of armored platforms against modern battlefield threats. It protects from a wide variety of threats, specifically Anti-tank Rockets, Anti-tank Guided Missiles, UAS, and Loitering threats in both open and complex urban terrains.

This is the second generation of the APS.

Yehuda Vered, General Manager of Elbit Systems Land, commented, “Following the contracts signed in recent years, we are honored to be awarded this important contract by BAE Systems Hägglunds for a European country. Elbit Systems’ Iron Fist Active Protection Systems have once again been selected by a leading OEM and an advanced military as an innovative solution to protect armored platforms and troops, assisting them in accomplishing their missions safely.”
Floyd Mayweather Visits Jewish Summer Camp for Children Battling Cancer, Brings Message of Resilience
Undefeated former professional boxer Floyd Mayweather visited a Jewish summer camp in Glen Spey, New York, last week that is organized for children battling cancer and chronic illnesses.

The retired 50-0 boxing champion, 47, stopped by Chai Lifeline’s Camp Simcha and put on a boxing demonstration in a specially built ring that featured the message “Knock out cancer.” He also trained with kids at the camp and even helped campers lace up their boxing gloves before entering the ring.

Chai Lifeline shared a video from Mayweather’s visit to the camp, which serves 480 children every summer, and said he also gave “motivational talks” and “engaged in activities that lifted the spirits of the brave children.”

“This is by far one of the best camps in the world,” Mayweather said at one of the activities he participated in while visiting the camp on July 31. “This is an unbelievable camp. I hear about this camp all the time. There is nothing like the bond that you guys have … I’m proud of you all.”

“I want everybody in this room to stay positive, have great energy,” he added. “These special children need our support, need our help. We need to stand behind them and help them and let them know that they’re great and they can do anything. Anything is possible.”

Rabbi Simcha Scholar, CEO of Chai Lifeline, said: “We are thrilled to welcome Floyd Mayweather to Camp Simcha. Our children are fighters in their own right, battling illness year-round. Floyd’s visit was truly special and inspiring for them. He is a champion both in and out of the ring, and we thank him for giving our campers an experience they will never forget.”

After the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel, Mayweather used his private jet to deliver food, bulletproof vests for Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldiers, medical equipment, and other supplies to Israel. He expressed solidarity with Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks and has also donated a fleet of “medicycles” to Magen David Adom, Israel’s national ambulance and disaster-relief organization.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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