Sunday, August 18, 2024

08/18 Links: Israel: Leader of the Free World; Israel must give up managing the conflict and choose winning it; Mamet: ‘Assimilated US Jews gave up the Torah for NYTs’

From Ian:

Israel: Leader of the Free World
The issues in the Middle East could hardly be simpler. On one side is tyranny, dependency, and resentment; on the other is liberty - and the essence of liberty is self-government.

A self-governing people does not whine. They do not expect to be catered to like children. Unlike the so-called "Palestinians" who depend entirely on funds from Western "charities," the Israelis give back far more than they take. They assume responsibility for their own fate and flourishing. Israelis don't complain; they fight. The very essence of Zionism is that no Jew should ever again be dependent on the forbearance of some alien elite for survival.

The question is between envy and admiration of excellence. Do you view the exceptional accomplishments of others as examples to admire and emulate, and new sources of opportunity? Or do you greet these achievements with envy and hatred and charges of conspiracy, and demands for some unearned "fair share"?

A nation's reaction to Israel has become the most crucial test of a free people. Equivocation by the U.S. toward Israel and its enemies, even to the extent of tolerating antisemitic violence at home, may be the most alarming signal yet of American decline in leadership for liberty.

Israel has emerged from five deadly wars over 50 years with a per capita income - for Jews and Arabs alike - higher than the per capita incomes of Germany, the UK, South Korea, or Japan. Fully 100,000 Israeli citizens work in Silicon Valley and are indispensable to its inventive powers. Israel also is the key source of life-saving military technology for America and the Free World.

Forty-plus years after Ronald Reagan launched the Strategic Defense "Star Wars" Initiative, America still does not have a serious missile defense. The U.S. Patriot air defense system is more expensive and less effective than Israel's system. If the Iranian nuke program is terminated, it will be by Israel and not the U.S. Israel is now fighting our wars and winning. So, who is the leader of the Free World now?
Daniel Pipes: Israel must give up managing the conflict and choose winning it
From the 1880s until today, Zionist leaders have pursued a highly unusual, if not unique, policy toward their Palestinian enemy: wanting it not to suffer economically but to become prosperous, to adopt middle-class values, to settle into bourgeois good citizenry, and perhaps even to thank its Jewish neighbors. From whence comes this strange idea and how successful has it been?

I call it strange because conflict nearly always include an element of economic warfare: to weaken, demoralize, and punish the enemy, to turn the population against its rulers or to incite a palace revolt. To take a recent example, after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the West instantly minimized trade with Russia to weaken its war effort. That is the near-universal norm.

The Zionist movement and Israel, however, from the start adopted the opposite approach, seeking to enhance Palestinian economic welfare. This, what I call the policy of enrichment, represents the deepest, most powerful, and most enduring of Israeli approaches to its Palestinian foe. Founded on the assumption that Palestinian economic self-interest would push other concerns aside, enrichment hopes that gains in welfare will reconcile Palestinians to Jewish immigration and the creation of a Jewish homeland. From this emerged the Zionist hallmark, the unique idea that the movement’s progress depended not on the universal tactic of depriving an enemy of resources, but on the opposite one of helping Palestinians to develop economically.

Thus, the first modern Zionist manifesto, published in 1882 by the BILU group of immigrants to Palestine, included a promise “to help our brother Ishmael [i.e., the Palestinians] in the time of his need.” A.D. Gordon, Zionism’s early advocate of manual labor, argued that Jews’ attitude toward Palestinians “must be one of humanity, of moral courage which remains on the highest plane, even if the other side is not all that is desired. Indeed, their hostility is all the more reason for our humanity.” Theodor Herzl’s 1902 novel Altneuland, included a single Muslim Palestinian, a wealthy merchant who expressed a happy appreciation for “the beneficent character of the Jewish immigration.”

David Ben-Gurion expected that Palestinians, grateful for the many benefits Jews brought them, would “welcome us with open arms, or at least will reconcile themselves to our growth and independence.” Moshe Dayan used his power over Israel’s initial decisions in the West Bank and Gaza after the Six Day War to impose a benevolent regime, hoping (in the words of Shabtai Teveth, a contemporary observer) that “establishing mutual co-existence between Jews and Arabs” would create “a relationship of good-neighborliness” and with that, a reduction in hostility. Shimon Peres envisioned “a Jordanian-Palestinian-Israeli ‘Benelux’ arrangement for economic affairs… allowing each to live in peace and prosperity”; this then became the premise of Israeli diplomacy in the Oslo Accords.
Between Doha, Beirut, and Tehran: Israel's primary consideration is restoring deterrence
The path to an arrangement - a turning point
Entering the path of an arrangement would be a turning point in this reality. The chances of renewing the fighting afterward are slim, if they exist at all. If the "deal" is implemented as agreed, some of its components would include the withdrawal of the IDF, the release of terrorists, the rehabilitation of Gaza, and the complete end of the war. In such a scenario, Israel would find it difficult to backtrack on its commitments to the U.S., Egypt, and Qatar.

But even if only part of the deal is implemented, Israel would still struggle to resume the fighting. Hamas would continue its manipulations and psychological warfare, mediating countries would present new initiatives, the U.S. would increase pressure especially as the elections approach, the international community would join in, and domestic pressures would intensify. The de-escalation process has its own momentum. Hamas, and not just Hamas, is banking on this.

Reports from Washington about the Americans' intention to propose compromise suggestions on issues where the parties fail to reach an agreement should cause concern in Israel. The U.S.'s ability to influence Hamas to change its positions is minimal, if it exists at all. Against this backdrop, it is likely that the compromise formulas would erode Israel's positions, as Israel is more sensitive to American pressures and incentives. For Hamas, such reports are yet another reason to dig in.

Dilemmas in Israel
The dilemma in Israel revolves around two issues: the release of hostages and the connection between the Gaza war and the confrontation with Iran and Hezbollah. In both, the element of time plays a significant role. While time allows for deepening achievements in Gaza and reaching the release of hostages under better conditions, it also increases the danger to the hostages' safety. The element of time creates tension between the importance of toppling Hamas and the urgency of releasing the hostages.

There is no one in Israel who doesn't long for the release of the hostages, just as there is no one who doesn't desire the total defeat of the monstrous terrorist organization. Resolving the tension between these goals is akin to the expression "caught between a rock and a hard place." Any decision the government makes is legitimate, provided that its costs are clear and understood. In this regard, and after having been burned for years, it is not enough to rely on soothing statements or vague commitments that will sink into the sands of Rafah and the tunnels of Philadelphi.

As for the tension with Iran and Hezbollah, the very idea of offering concessions to "calm" them contradicts one of the objectives of the actions that heightened the tension: deterring these elements. In any case, it's difficult to see the Gaza war as the key to calming them. The formula that the U.S. is trying to promote—restraining Israel in Gaza in exchange for restraining Iran towards Israel—does not satisfy Nasrallah and seemingly does not address Iran's appetite for revenge.

But even if it did, from Israel's perspective, it can only be relevant if it provides a solution to the root problems with these adversaries, primarily the efforts to obtain nuclear weapons and the desire to destroy Israel. Without diminishing the importance of diplomatic efforts, it is suggested to continue focusing the majority of efforts on strengthening readiness, both in defense and offense.


David Mamet in Tel Aviv: ‘Assimilated US Jews gave up the Torah for The New York Times’
Iconoclastic writer-director David Mamet is the latest American celebrity to visit Israel during the Gaza war. Mamet, whose many credits include “The Untouchables,” “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “Wag The Dog” and “American Buffalo,” took part in a public Q&A on Saturday at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque as part of the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival.

During the afternoon session, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer weighed in on the state of assimilated American Jewry and missed professional opportunities.

He revealed to the crowded hall that he is hoping to write a movie about Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) founder Al Schwimmer, and talked openly about his love of Israel as well as the dangers of anti-Semitism facing Jews around the world. His wife, actress Rebecca Pidgeon who starred in several of her husband’s films, was also in attendance.

Mamet noted that he was born in 1947, the year before Israel’s Declaration of Independence, and later came to know several of Israel’s founding fathers.

“And I’d say to myself, ‘My God, I’m meeting with Benjamin Franklin, I’m meeting with George Washington,'” related Mamet to the Tel Aviv crowd. He said that among the important foundational figures in Israel’s history he came across was Schwimmer.

“I wanted to write a movie about the guys who ran the guns and had to steal the airplanes [for Israel],” said Mamet. “Al Schwimmer told me the story that after World War II, American veterans who had been in the Air Force were allowed to buy warplanes very cheaply, but that if the Jews bought them, the FBI would impound them because they knew the Jews would fly them to Israel. So Schwimmer told me the story about how the FBI impounded his plane, and he had to sneak onto the airfield and steal his plane back. I wrote this wonderful novella about it.”

Mamet talked about how he has been trying to sell the project, including suggesting it to Keshet Films — which, he added, had asked him to write a 12-part television series about a famous rabbi — so far without success.

During the session, the audience was shown a trailer for his latest film, “Assassination,” about the 1963 death of JFK. A new production of “Glengarry Glen Ross” — a play many consider to be Mamet’s masterpiece — is due on Broadway later this year, with a cast including Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk and Bill Burr.

Asked about those Jews in the United States who express opposition to Israel, Mamet, who has been outspoken in recent years about his emergent conservative views, framed it in terms of Jewish assimilation and a simultaneous letting-go of basic education about Judaism.

“When the Jews came over to the US they gave up the Torah for the ‘improved version,’ which is called The New York Times, and so we read The New York Times every day, and if The New York Times said it was true, it was true! Because they wanted to be Americans…

“There are Jews in the West who look at Jews in the East as the underclass… God forbid we should read the Torah, [or] we should support the State of Israel because that might lessen us in the eyes of people who — and here’s where the denial comes in — hate us anyway when they think about us,” he said.
Trump warns US Jews in most danger since Holocaust
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Saturday that Jews in the United States are facing their greatest threat since World War II.

“What’s happening with Israel and Jewish people, there has never been a more dangerous time since the Holocaust if you happen to be Jewish in America,” the former president told supporters at a rally in Wilkes-Barre in northeastern Pennsylvania.

He made similar remarks on Thursday at a “Fighting Antisemitism” event with Miriam Adelson at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

“What’s going on now is exactly what was going on before the Holocaust,” he said.

The New Jersey event, featuring prominent Jewish supporters, took place the day the Trump campaign launched an initiative to reach out to Jewish voters.

The former president announced Jewish Voices for Trump, which the GOP campaign describes as “a coalition of thought leaders, business trailblazers, former administration officials, authors, influencers and those within the Jewish community.”

According to the group’s mission statement, it seeks to stand up against “radical antisemitism.”

“While the world has fallen into chaos with [presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala] Harris, President Trump’s Abraham Accords chartered new territory in regional stability, not just for Israel, but for the world,” it states.

At the Wilkes-Barre rally, Trump also accused his opponent of not choosing the governor of the Keystone State, Josh Shapiro, as her running mate because he is Jewish, a charge that Shapiro has denied.

“They turned him down because he’s Jewish,” said Trump. “They turned him down for other reasons, but the primary reason is because he’s Jewish.”

Trump also said during his nearly two-hour campaign event at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza that “any Jewish person that votes for [Harris] or a Democrat has to go out and have their head examined.”

At the New Jersey event, Trump claimed that “instead of aggressively confronting these venomous antisemites in her party, Kamala Harris has maneuvered for their support.”


Meir Y. Soloveichik: The Shame of Josh Shapiro
The Israeli army? Had Shapiro served in the IDF? We are given to understand that he did not, that he merely volunteered on an Israeli base in a nonmilitary capacity. But Shapiro was clearly once proud enough of his volunteer work that he considered it a form of participation in the IDF; and it is not at all obvious that he was wrong to have done so. The Talmud stresses that when the Jewish people go to war against our enemies, those not serving in battle can still laudably play a role by providing “water and food” to the troops and repairing the roads on which the soldiers travel. The 1990s version of Josh Shapiro clearly believed that assisting Jews on the other side of the world in facing the many enemies that surrounded them was a source of pride—and that version of Josh Shapiro was correct.

But in 2024, it appeared that if Shapiro were to embrace his identity as “a past volunteer in the Israeli army,” his viability for the Democratic ticket would be forfeit, and therefore a spokesman, Manuel Bonder, was directed to deliver a statement to the media to redefine the past: “While he was in high school, Josh Shapiro was required to do a service project, which he and several classmates completed through a program that took them to a kibbutz in Israel where he worked on a farm and at a fishery. The program also included volunteering on service projects on an Israeli army base. At no time was he engaged in any military activities.”

As a form of public relations, Bonder’s statement is, in a way, a mesmerizing, mealy-mouthed masterpiece. First, without addressing his earlier description of his volunteerism, the statement stresses that Shapiro did not volunteer for the IDF at all and did not consider himself to have done so. Moreover, the statement emphasized that his time on the base had been merely one of a myriad of activities, including work on a “farm and a fishery” in a kibbutz. The IDF base, in other words, was but a blip. And most brilliantly, and perversely, the statement stressed that all of this occurred because, “while in high school,” Shapiro had been “required to do a service project.” The implication is clear: Had he not been a minor, devoid of autonomy and burdened by a pesky volunteerism obligation, he might never have gone to Israel in the first place.

I am envious of Josh Shapiro, in that I never merited, as a young man, to volunteer on an Israeli army base, and I played no such personal role in helping to support the Jewish state. And I believe that, in his heart of hearts, Governor Shapiro remains proud of it, as well. But we cannot ignore the impact of how he addressed the matter—the implied shame of his affiliation, however small, with the IDF. There are any number of American Jews from walks of life similar to Shapiro’s who are now in their teens and twenties and who will well note what has occurred. Some of them may aspire to a career in politics and will now be all the more incentivized to abstain from volunteering in Israel—not only for the IDF, but in any way.

It is to these Jewish men and women that Shapiro could have spoken, in an alternate version of events. Imagine if he had met the moment. Imagine if he had spoken of his memories of the Israeli base, and of the impact that it had on him. Imagine if the Josh Shapiro of the 1990s had suddenly appeared, and the governor spoke of the integrity of the IDF and its compassion for civilian life when contrasted with so many other armies on earth. Such a response would have affected many Jewish Americans for years and earned him a genuine legacy in Jewish history. It might have lost him the nomination for the vice presidency, but in the end, that loss would have been a win. In the meantime, we can look to John Fetterman when we seek a Pennsylvania politician who proudly and publicly supports Israel’s Defense Forces as they battle the forces of terror; and I can certainly say, in the words of a great Dodgers pitcher, that I wish he were Jewish today, too.


Editor's Notes: Why Harris’s golden boy should alarm every friend of Israel
For Israel, surrounded by enemies who dream of its destruction, such half-measures are not just inadequate – they’re dangerous. The October 7 massacre occurred as a result of Iran becoming almost untouchable by the West, and the country’s support of its proxies on all fronts. Let’s face it: the JCPOA failed.

Goldenberg’s ideology doesn’t stop at his misguided approach to Iran. Starr also highlighted how he has been a relentless critic of Israeli settlement activity, viewing this as the primary obstacle to peace in the region. In Goldenberg’s world, the construction of homes in Judea and Samaria is a sin so grave that it warrants “strong measures” from the United States to deter Israel from continuing.

Never mind that these settlements are often used as a convenient scapegoat by Palestinian leaders to avoid promoting a long-lasting peace agreement, as they have no genuine interest in negotiating peace. Because the real issue isn’t a few apartment buildings, but rather the refusal of these same leaders to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Goldberg's criticism extends to some of the most significant decisions in recent US-Israel relations

Goldenberg’s criticism extends to some of the boldest and most symbolically significant decisions in recent US-Israel relations. He opposed former president Trump’s bipartisan decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, arguing that it “threatened to stir the pot by not acknowledging Palestinian claims and inciting religious tensions.” In saying this, Goldenberg revealed a troubling tendency to prioritize the feelings of Israel’s adversaries over the rights and realities of the Jewish people.

Jerusalem is, and always has been, the heart of Jewish identity. Recognizing it as Israel’s capital was not only the right thing to do; it was a necessary correction of a longstanding wrong. So many presidential candidates from both parties have promised to move the US embassy, only that it so happened that the president who did, came from Goldenberg’s opposing party.

But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Goldenberg’s ideology is his defense of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the face of overwhelming evidence that it continues to fund terrorism. He was a vocal critic of the Taylor Force Act, legislation designed to stop US economic aid to the PA until it ceased paying stipends to terrorists. Goldenberg likened the act to a “sledgehammer” and argued that it would destabilize the PA, pushing it toward collapse. But let’s be clear: the PA has long used American taxpayer dollars to reward those who murder Israeli civilians. If the PA’s survival depends on its ability to continue this “abominable practice,” as Starr underlined, then perhaps it’s time to question whether it deserves to survive at all.
ADL condemns Harris campaign chief’s meeting with journalist who praised Hamas
The Anti-Defamation League reiterated its condemnation on Sunday of an Arab American journalist who has repeatedly expressed support for Hamas, after US Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign manager met with him as part of efforts to court the Arab American vote in Michigan.

The controversy over the meeting came on the eve of Monday’s kick-off of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, a four-day media bonanza including major speeches by Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, as well as other party leaders.

“As we stated when the Biden Administration met with [Osama] Siblani in February, we believe he is simply the wrong choice to serve as an interlocutor for the local Arab American community,” an ADL spokesperson told The Times of Israel on Sunday.

“Any person who denies that Hamas is a terrorist organization should not be meeting with appointed and elected officials to discuss foreign policy,” the spokesperson continued.

Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News in Dearborn, met with Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the Democratic nominee’s campaign manager, on Thursday.

On October 10 last year, three days after Hamas’s mass terror onslaught in Israel, Siblani said: “We are not going to be intimidated [when] they say Hamas is a terrorist organization. In fact, it is not a terrorist organization! And we have to say to them, the terrorist is Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.”

Siblani’s comments, delivered to a packed auditorium in Dearborn, came shortly after Hamas launched its cross-border assault into Israel, sending some 3,000 terrorists into the country from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault, starting the ongoing war.

In November, Siblani again refused to condemn Hamas, during an interview he shared on X. He has also called Hamas and Hezbollah “freedom fighters” and once told a crowd that, when invited to participate in a discussion with White House leaders, he was “not going to apologize for Hamas firing rockets at Israel.”


Look Who's Really Behind Pro-Palestinian Protests at the DNC
Samidoun, a key member of this coalition, is a prime example. It is an arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist organization in the U.S., and has been banned by Germany, France, and Israel. Samidoun actively advocates for "armed resistance" against Israel, and has publicly praised the Oct. 7 attacks, essentially glorifying unspeakable atrocities that triggered nearly a year of war. Samidoun has been a leader of antisemitic and pro-terror activity across North America, including on campuses, since Oct 7. Their activities have included distribution of propaganda that celebrates violence against Jews and Israelis, and they have been linked to instances of harassment and intimidation directed at Jewish students. Such open support for violence is not only dangerous—it is a direct threat to peace and security globally.

Another troubling example of participating organizations is Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). On Oct. 12, 2023, only days after the burning, raping, mutilation, kidnapping and killing of Jews in southern Israel, SJP claimed, "This is what it means to Free Palestine: not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with the oppressors." Subsequently, SJP chapters at Brandeis, Columbia, George Washington, and Rutgers were suspended for promoting intimidation and violence against Jews. SJP's actions on other campuses across the country have led to an environment of fear and hostility for Jewish students, further fueling divisions and hatred in academic spaces. In many instances, SJP's actions have also infringed upon freedom of speech and movement for Jewish students, silencing their voices and marginalizing them within their own academic communities.

Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) and CODEPINK also play significant roles. Both groups amplify harmful antisemitic tropes, masking their bigotry under the guise of political activism. JVP, for instance, refers to itself as the "Jewish wing" of the Palestinian solidarity movement and exploits its "Jewish" identity as a shield against criticism. CODEPINK, meanwhile, has engaged in campaigns that depict Israel and its supporters in deeply negative, dehumanizing ways, further contributing to the spread of antisemitism. In the aftermath of the brutal Hamas massacre in October 2023, CODEPINK referred to the "resistance of Palestinians," highlighting their alignment with extremist ideologies and their complicity in spreading hate and division.

Despite the documented cases of antisemitic incidents, these NGOs continue to receive significant funding. However, their financial operations lack transparency and raise serious concerns about the potential misuse of funds, and sources of funding—particularly in light of rising fears that hostile nations like Russia and Iran could be using these channels to interfere in U.S. politics.

In fact, the director of national intelligence in the Biden administration, Avril Haines, recently said, "We have observed actors tied to Iran's government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters." This raises serious alarms about the potential for such funds to be used to influence domestic issues and U.S. elections, supporting people and policies that promote extremism and violence rather than legitimate advocacy efforts. This lack of transparency is not just an ethical concern—it poses a real danger as it obscures the true intentions and actions of these groups.
Red-Green Alliance will wreak anti-Jewish havoc — first at the Dem convention then on campuses
Driving Zionists out of the Democratic Party goes hand in hand with driving Zionists off campus and creating Jew-free zones.

Many of the groups behind the March on the DNC — the national SJP, Palestinian Youth Movement and US Campaign for Palestinian Rights — are leaders in the campus anti-Zionist purge.

For example, SJP chapters have been instructed to reserve space on the anniversary of Oct. 7 for “resistance events” mocking and taunting Jewish students over the massacre.

The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is bracing for protests by an unofficial SJP chapter that considers itself a “voice for Hamas.”

It advocates “armed rebellion” using “any means necessary.”

Columbia University is preparing for antisemitic protests and has begun locking down the campus as students trickle in for the new semester, limiting campus access to those with proper campus identification.

The situation is so bad at Harvard that the administration is considering banning messages written in chalk, a laughably unserious measure.

Surely protestors hell-bent on the destruction of a nation and its people will not be swayed once their chalk-writing privileges are revoked.

Meanwhile, the Young Democratic Socialists of America are encouraging students at more than 100 colleges and universities to participate in a “Student Strike for Palestine” protest to kick off the coming academic year to pressure their respective institutions to divest from Israel.

The point is to create an atmosphere of intimidation.

Who is going to stand up to these groups and the backers funding them?

Who is going to tell them to stop?

We know the Democrats and college administrators won’t.

The streets around the DNC will be filled with rage and hate, as will the campuses this fall.

Unless we start seeing real backbone from political and academic leaders, more Jew-free zones such as happened at UCLA will be coming to campuses across the country.
Yuval Levin: A New Hope for Saving the Universities
We seem to have reached a pivotal moment in the long-running battle for the soul of the American university.

On the one hand, our country’s elite institutions of higher learning are in exceptionally low repute as a new academic year dawns. Public trust in them is at all-time lows, applications and donations have suffered at top schools, and many trustees and alumni are unhappy. Harvard, Penn, Cornell, UCLA, and an unprecedented number of other elite universities are searching for new presidents at the same time, and not by coincidence.

The immediate cause of much of this has been the horrendous response of many leading universities to explosions of anti-Semitism on their campuses in the course of the war between Hamas and Israel. But the trouble was building long before that. For much of the past decade, they have been embroiled in controversy over speech restrictions, politicized faculty hiring, woke radicalism in teaching and administration, and much more. It has increasingly seemed that many of America’s leading academic institutions are run by people who have no idea why universities exist, and maybe even why our entire society should not be burned to the ground.

On the other hand, the struggle against this tide of madness looks to be gaining some ground at last. The fight to sustain something of the traditional academic ethos, waged with courage and patience by conservatives and some old-fashioned liberals in the university, has felt like a noble yet futile cause for decades. But it has started to make real headway on some important campuses lately, thanks not only to public outrage about the excesses of a politicized academy but also to a novel set of strategies and a willingness to use real political muscle to pursue them.

It is too soon to say whether the tide could turn in a meaningful way. But that makes this an ideal time to take stock of the modern struggle over the American university—to consider what it has been for and against, how it has taken shape, and where it now seems to be headed.

The crisis of the academy began in earnest a little after the middle of the 20th century, when elite universities gradually decided to surrender to their radical critics and turn themselves over to people who had sworn to destroy them. A useful marker of when and how this happened might be a tale related in these pages half a century ago by the Yale Law School professor Alexander Bickel. Writing in COMMENTARY in November 1972, Bickel described a crowd that had gathered in front of the ROTC building on an elite campus he declined to name. He wrote:
At this university, as elsewhere in this time, some members of the faculty and administration had undertaken to discharge the function of cardinal legate to the barbarians, going without the walls, every so often, to negotiate the sack of the city. On this occasion, with the best of intentions, members of the faculty joined the crowd and participated in discussing the question of whether or not to set fire to the building. The faculty, I gather, took the negative, and I assume that none of the students arguing the affirmative could have been deemed guilty of inciting the crowd. The matter was ultimately voted upon, and the affirmative lost—narrowly. But the negative taken by the faculty was only one side of a debate which the faculty rendered legitimate by engaging in it. Where nothing is unspeakable, nothing is undoable.

Bickel was concerned particularly with the battle over free speech. But in that moment, in the early 1970s, he saw something with greater clarity than we tend to see it today. He saw that at the core of what was changing in the university was the self-understanding of faculty and administrators, and therefore the self-understanding of the university as an institution.

He saw that the people running the university were gradually choosing to cooperate with the people who wanted to burn it down. Rather than stand on the wall and defend the campus, they decided not only to negotiate with their would-be executioners but ultimately to invite them in—and to suggest to them that instead of destroying the university, they could just inherit it over time and, by votes of the faculty, turn it into what they wanted it to be.

At issue between the two sides in that conflict was a dispute about the chief purpose of the university, and a related dispute about its relationship to the larger society.


The Idea Fueling the Anti-Israel Student Protest Movement
Adam Kirsch interviewed by Evan Goldstein (Chronicle of Higher Education)

Adam Kirsch, author of the new book, On Settler Colonialism, said in an interview:
After the Hamas massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, I started noticing that a lot of the more sympathetic reactions to Hamas used the term "settler colonial" to describe Israel. It's an ideology in the sense that it's a story people tell about the world and its problems.

The most common manifestation of this worldview is land acknowledgment. Now, every university or institution, whether a college or a museum, identifies the Native American peoples who once inhabited the same land.

We learned in elementary school that America was conquered from Native Americans. So this reaffirms this idea that society and the institutions we've built sit on a false foundation, that they're rooted in an evil crime, and are therefore illegitimate in some way.

Yet, why is there no serious plan to make reparations? There's never a sense that the university should dissolve itself or give back the land, or that the museum should sell off its paintings. The purpose is moral prestige. If you are willing to acknowledge that you're a settler, an inheritor of an original sin, paradoxically that makes you better than people who don't acknowledge it.

Settler colonialism is a theory that was developed in the context of Anglophone countries colonized by the British in the 17th and 18th centuries - North America and Australia. That is not what happened in Israel. This template was developed for one type of scenario and is being applied to a context where it obviously doesn't fit.

Oct. 7 was a terrorist raid to kill civilians. In Israel you see a real struggle to kill people and destroy a country. That's the logical endpoint of settler-colonial theory: Israel is an illegitimate country that should not exist. Therefore, if you're working to get rid of it, you're supporting a virtuous cause. Which explains why some of the responses to Oct. 7, especially among those who use the language of settler colonialism, were gleeful.
Ruthie Blum: The art of the ‘no deal’ with Hamas
The trouble is that Biden—or the choir suddenly promoting Vice President Kamala Harris as the Second Coming of Obama, if not Christ—has a different kind of deadline in mind. With the cries of the devastated families who’ve been in this limbo for more than 10 months bolstering the “Bring Them Home” campaign aimed at Netanyahu, the copywriters adopted an additional slogan about time running out before the “window of opportunity” closes.

It sounds more like an end-of-the-year blowout sale at a department store than a hostage negotiation. But then, Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are calling it a “ceasefire agreement” in the making. Naturally.

Taking credit for ending the war before Americans go to the polls in less than three months is really what’s on their agenda. It’s actually what they mean by plugging the “last chance” and “window of opportunity” narratives.

Never mind that forcing a bogus arrangement involves leaving Hamas, or a similar entity with a different Palestinian name, at the helm in the terrorist enclave. Tying it to a so-called “de-escalation” of Iranian and Hezbollah attacks against Israel makes it more palatable to Western gullibility.

Sinwar is the epitome of evil, but he’s not the least bit stupid. He’s fully aware of the carry-on against the continuation of the fighting to remove him from power. He also knows that America wants a deal at any cost.

It is thus that he didn’t dispatch representatives to Doha; won’t send anyone to Cairo this week; and rejected the components of the latest proposal about which Biden is buoyed and the Israeli delegation to the talks said are cause for “cautious optimism.”

The reality is that America and Israel are engaging in mediation with themselves, while Qatar and Egypt act as dishonest brokers. Sinwar’s interest in helping the process to anybody’s satisfaction other than his own is zero.
Israel's path to surrender: Hamas' terms for hostage deal are dangerous
There isn't a soul who doesn't want to see Israeli hostages back home.

However, announcements of "cautious optimism regarding the possibility of progress toward a deal" do not in any way mean that an agreement is about to be signed.

The progress was made with mediators Qatar and Egypt, not with Hamas directly.

Outstanding issues include the Hamas demand for IDF forces to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor.

Every child understands that withdrawing from Philadelphi while Hamas is still functioning means reviving the monster.

Hamas also has yet to agree to a mechanism for screening those returning to northern Gaza. Hamas Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar doesn't want screening so he can rebuild his military capabilities.

This is precisely the kind of rebuilding that Israel cannot agree to.

Moreover, there's uncertainty about the number of hostages who will actually be released. The first phase speaks of 18 living hostages, and even that is not guaranteed.
Netanyahu calls for pressure on ‘obstinate’ Hamas for hostage deal
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday reiterated his call for the international community to push the Hamas terrorist group to agree to U.S. President Joe Biden’s framework proposal for a hostages-for-ceasefire-and-terrorists deal.

“We are engaged in negotiations for the release of our hostages. This is a national mission of the highest order. We are holding very complex negotiations in which the other side is a murderous terrorist organization that is unbridled and obstinate,” said Netanyahu at the beginning on the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

“However, I would like to emphasize: We are conducting negotiations and not a scenario in which we just give and give. There are things we can be flexible on and there are things that we cannot be flexible on, which we will insist on. We know how to distinguish between the two very well.

“Therefore, alongside the major efforts we are making to return our hostages, we stand on the principles that we have determined, which are vital for the security of Israel,” continued the premier.

“I reiterate: These principles are in keeping with the May 27 framework, which has received American support. … Up until now, Hamas has been completely obstinate. It did not even send a representative to the talks in Doha [on Thursday and Friday]. Therefore, the pressure needs to be directed at Hamas and [its top leader Yahya] Sinwar, not the government of Israel,” added Netanyahu.

Israeli negotiators on Saturday expressed “cautious optimism” regarding the talks that took place over the previous two days in Qatar to secure the release of 115 captives being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“The team expressed to the prime minister cautious optimism regarding the possibility of progress on the deal, in accordance with the updated American proposal (based on the May 27 framework), including components acceptable to Israel,” according to a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office.

The statement was referring to a “bridging proposal” submitted by American mediators last week meant to close the gaps between the sides, based on the outline presented by Biden in a May speech that was previously accepted by Jerusalem.

There is a consensus among the mediating countries—the United States, Egypt and Qatar—that the diplomacy is “in the endgame,” a senior American official told reporters on Friday from Doha.

The official called the latest negotiation session “the most constructive in 48 hours we’ve had in many months,” echoing a joint statement that the three countries released earlier in the day.
Hamas rejects US ‘bridging’ offer as Blinken lands in Israel to advance hostage deal
Hamas rejected America's “bridging proposal” to help finalize a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Israel Sunday night amid a major diplomatic blitz by the Biden administration to finalize an agreement this week.

The “bridging proposal” placed new conditions on the exchange of hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel, Hamas said as he referred to Palestinian security prisoners and terrorists that would be released in the deal. Other agreements previously arrived at have been retracted, it explained.

The US proposal essentially corresponds to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of a permanent ceasefire and a refusal to allow for the IDF to fully withdraw from Gaza, Hamas said.

The terror group spoke up after Netanyahu's office released a statement that left no room for doubt as to where Netanyahu stood on the issue of a permanent ceasefire, which has been a key Hamas demand.

The Prime Minster’s Office stressed that Israel has not given up on one of its most fundamental demands, that it must be allowed to continue to battle Hamas in Gaza until such time as it has ousted the terror group from the enclave, a goal it has yet to complete ten months into the war.

Hamas has insisted that the deal must include an Israeli agreement for a permanent ceasefire.

The US has hoped to get the deal out the door with an agreement from both sides, that the issue of a permanent ceasefire would be negotiated during phase one of the deal.

That phase would allow some 18-33 hostages to be freed during a six-week period.


Avi Issacharoff: Hamas Intent on Sabotaging Ceasefire Talks
Hamas, seeking regional escalation to distract the IDF, may aim to sabotage ceasefire talks in hopes of sparking the broader conflict it has been unable to ignite since the war began.

This has been Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar's goal since Oct. 7, but his attempts to trigger a regional war have so far failed.

Neither Hizbullah nor Iran has a genuine interest in a full-scale regional war, despite recent high-profile targeted killings.

While Sinwar was willing to sacrifice Gaza for his ambitions, Iran's leaders are unlikely to risk their country's economy for revenge.

Iran could see its oil industry damaged and its nuclear program become a primary target.

Similarly, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah knows that initiating a major war with Israel would come at a steep price.


Radical Lifestyle: John Spencer // Urban Warfare
John is considered one of the world's leading experts in Urban and Subterranean Warfare. Drawing from personal experiences as a 25-year US Army veteran, he served as part of strategic research groups from the Pentagon to the United States Military Academy. His is a unique voice, helping to break down conflicts like the Israel/Hamas War. In this episode, he helps us understand the complexities that urban warfare presents.




Top Hamas official abruptly ends tense CNN interview when asked if he accepts blame for civilian deaths in Gaza
A top Hamas official abruptly ended a CNN interview on Saturday after he was asked if the terror organization accepts responsibility for the deaths of Palestinian civilians killed in the war.

Hamas member Osama Hamdan suddenly ended his interview with CNN correspondent Jim Sciutto after he was asked if Hamas regretted its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed hundreds of Israeli civilians — as Gaza Health Ministry officials say 40,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in the war.

In response, Hamdan accused Sciutto, who was reporting from Tel Aviv, of taking Israel’s side in the decades-long conflict.

“Well, it seems to me you are giving the Israelis the right to kill Palestinians when you ask if we feel regret for what Israel has done,” Hamdan said. “You have to understand that Israel has been killing the Palestinians for the last 76 years.”

The two then went back on forth as Hamdan accused Sciutto of only viewing the conflict through “Israeli eyes.”

“You didn’t see the Israelis killing thousands of Palestinians in those 20 years,” Hamdan said, claiming Sciutto wasn’t knowledgable of the thousands of Palestinians who were killed in the 2008 and 2014 wars in Gaza.

“Actually, I was here in 2014, and in 2008,” Sciutto said, adding that the network had covered Palestinian civilian deaths “quite closely.”

“What you’re saying is factually not true. I was here for both of those conflicts. My question is does Hamas accept any responsibility for the deaths of its own people in Gaza?” Sciutto said.

Hamdan and Sciutto go back and forth, cutting each other off repeatedly as the CNN correspondent tries to get him to answer his question.


Two IDF troops killed in Gaza, bringing military death toll to 691
Two Israeli soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in central Gaza on Saturday, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The casualties were identified as Maj. (res.) Yotam Itzhak Peled, 34, from Rosh Haayin and Sgt. Maj. (res.) Mordechai Yosef Ben Shoam, 34, from Geva Binyamin. Both served with the Jerusalem Brigade’s 8119th Battalion.

They were killed in the IDF-controlled Netzarim Corridor in the Strip’s center while en route to resupply troops in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood.

The death toll among Israeli troops since the start of the Gaza ground incursion on Oct. 27 now stands at 331, and at 691 on all fronts since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre, according to official military data.

Additionally, Ch. Insp. Arnon Zamora, a member of the Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit, was fatally wounded during a hostage-rescue mission in Gaza last month, and civilian defense contractor Liron Yitzhak was mortally wounded in May.
IDF kills 20 Hamas terrorists in Rafah, destroys rocket launchers aimed at Israel
Nahal Brigade soldiers killed over 20 armed terrorists, targeted terrorist infrastructure, and found weapons, including a machine gun, Kalashnikov rifles, grenades, and military equipment while operating in the Rafah area over the past day, the IDF reported Sunday morning.

Under Division 162, soldiers continued to operate in the area of Rafah, above ground and in the tunnels.

Additionally, troops under Division 98 deepened their operations in the Khan Yunis area and the outskirts of Deir al-Balah. Israel Air Force activity

Israel Air Force fighter jets struck targets in the area from which the projectiles were launched into the Nirim area on Friday.

They also identified and destroyed launchers that were loaded and ready for firing in the Khan Yunis area.


Hammer-wielding terrorist kills Israeli in Samaria
A Palestinian terrorist used a hammer to kill an Israeli in the Bar-On Industrial Park, near the community of Kedumim in Samaria, on Sunday.

“A report was received of a terrorist who attacked an Israeli citizen and stole his weapon in the Bar-On industrial area in the [sector of the] Samaria Brigade,” the IDF said in a statement, adding that forces arrived at the scene and launched a hunt for the assailant.

“The victim is a man in his 40s who sustained severe head wounds,” said Shirel Popkin, a United Hatzalah paramedic who was the first to arrive at the scene. “I administered initial medical treatment in the factory yard, assisted by a military doctor who evacuated him from the scene.”

The victim was evacuated to the hospital in an IDF mobile intensive care unit ambulance, Popkin said in a statement shared by United Hatzalah.

He was later pronounced dead by doctors at Rabin Medical Center’s Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah.

The victim was subsequently identified by the mayor of Kedumim as Gidon Peri, 38, a father of three and a resident of the community.


IDF Drone Strike Kills Hamas Terrorists in Jenin
An Israeli drone struck Hamas terrorists in a vehicle in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, the IDF reported Saturday. Palestinians confirmed that at least two of the dead were Hamas members - Rafet Mahmoud Dwassa, 28, and Ahmed Abu Ara, 26. The two were involved in planning the shooting attack in the Jordan Valley last week which claimed the life of Yonatan Deutsch. In recent weeks, the IDF has ramped up its use of targeted airstrikes against terrorists in the West Bank.


How IDF took out Hezbollah ‘ghost’ commander Shukr
A major security breach in Hezbollah’s internal communications network led to the death of one of its most secretive and influential commanders, according to The Wall Street Journal. Fuad Shukr, who had evaded U.S. authorities for four decades, was killed in an Israeli airstrike at the end of July in Beirut.

The WSJ reports that Shukr, a founding member of the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hezbollah, received a phone call instructing him to go to his apartment on the seventh floor of a residential building in southern Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighborhood.

According to a Hezbollah official cited by the report, the call likely came from someone who had infiltrated the group’s internal communications network. The official stated that Hezbollah and Iran were investigating the intelligence failure, suspecting that Israel had bypassed their counter-surveillance measures.

The strike, which occurred around 7 p.m. on July 30, resulted in the deaths of Shukr, his wife, two other women and two children. The Lebanese Health Ministry reported that more than 70 people were injured in the attack. Shukr’s death represents a significant blow to Hezbollah, exposing vulnerabilities in its operations and removing one of its most experienced strategists. The WSJ notes that this incident, coupled with the death of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in a suspected Israeli attack in Tehran hours later, has heightened tensions in the Middle East.

Carmit Valensi, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv and an expert on Hezbollah, told the Journal, “These targeted killings have a cumulative effect on the operational capability of the organization.” Shukr, she added, “was a source of knowledge. He knew how to work and communicate with [Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan] Nasrallah. They spoke the same language.”

Shukr had played a crucial role in Hezbollah’s operations for decades. He was instrumental in organizing Shi’ite guerrilla fighters in Beirut during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and later became a key link between Hezbollah and Iran.


Gaza records first polio case in 25 years as UN seeks ceasefire to vaccinate kids
Gaza has recorded its first polio case in 25 years, the Palestinian Authority health ministry said on Friday, after UN chief Antonio Guterres called for pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children.

Tests in Jordan confirmed the disease in an unvaccinated 10-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said.

According to the United Nations, Gaza, now in its 11th month of war, has not registered a polio case for 25 years, although type 2 poliovirus was detected in samples collected from the territory’s wastewater in June.

“Doctors suspected the presence of symptoms consistent with polio,” the health ministry said. “After conducting the necessary tests in the Jordanian capital, Amman, the infection was confirmed.”

The case emerged shortly after Guterres called for two seven-day breaks in the Gaza war to vaccinate more than 640,000 children.

The UN’s health and children’s agencies said they had drawn up detailed plans to reach children across the besieged Palestinian territory, starting later this month.

But that would require pauses in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said.

They said they were planning two rounds of a vaccination campaign across the Gaza Strip, starting in late August, against type 2 poliovirus (cVDPV2).

“WHO and UNICEF request all parties to the conflict to implement humanitarian pauses in the Gaza Strip for seven days to allow for two rounds of vaccination campaigns to take place,” they said.


Oct. 7 hero saved dozens at Nova festival, now rehabilitates combat soldiers
Lt. (res.) Yehonatan Skariszewski, 30, knew he could not return to his nine-to-five office job after his experiences on Oct. 7 and onwards.

Terrorists murdered his father, Rody, early on the day of the invasion after he ran into a Hamas roadblock in the “Gaza Envelope,” the area of Israel adjacent to the Strip.

Skariszewski drove straight south from Tel Aviv, encountering the havoc wreaked by Hamas-led terrorists in the region, looking to save lives. In the weeks that ensued, he entered the Palestinian enclave as part of the Israel Defense Forces ground incursion, tasked with evacuating wounded troops.

“After doing something of such significance, how can you return to the fluorescent-lit office and scold your sales representatives for not meeting their targets? I couldn’t,” Skariszewski told JNS via Zoom on Tuesday.

An army buddy, Yitzak Sarusi, contacted him several months ago and asked if he would be interested in forming a nonprofit association that trains combat soldiers in specialized hands-on labor such as construction, welding and carpentry.

“Many soldiers who return from the battlefields in Gaza find it difficult to switch back to their regular lives. They need psychological help, they don’t sleep at night, but they are not the type to receive treatment on the sofa. Our association helps put these soldiers back on track through skilled physical work. Working with the hands can be very soothing to the soul,” Skariszewski said.

Sarusi is an independent contractor who deals in construction and welding. Four of his workers were murdered at the Supernova music festival, the open-air music festival that was held in the western Negev on the weekend of Oct. 7. Sarusi’s little brother, a manager in his company, was wounded fighting in Beit Hanoun, in the northeastern Gaza Strip.

“I started everything from square one,” Sarusi related when we met at the Supernova festival memorial site near Kibbutz Re’im in late June. “I take youngsters before their military service, lone soldiers [those without close relatives in Israel who can help them], reserve soldiers who are a bit lost, including two soldiers who were wounded, and I train them at my expense.”

Skariszewski stressed that it is in the interest of the state to train Jews in manual labor. “There is a shortage of at least 100,000 laborers right now,” he noted, referring to Israel’s barring for security purposes the entry of Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria since Oct. 7.

Their association, “For the Home, For Tomorrow,” trains 30 workers and is involved in the effort to rebuilt the communities of the Gaza Envelope, devastated by the Oct. 7 attack.

“We just started fundraising. Most of the association’s expenses are coming out of our own pockets,” Skariszewski said.
Tied up and beaten: Israeli media shares new footage of Gaza hostage's abduction
Aryeh Zalmanovich, 86, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz on the back of a motorcycle, flanked by his captors seated in front and behind him, new footage published by N12 on Saturday showed.

The video and photographs were first shown during the Weekend News Edition on N12, which shed light on his capture.

In the video, as the group moved through the streets, dozens of people attempted to get closer to the motorcycle. Some struck Zalmanovich, and in the video, he was visibly wounded and had bloodstains on his clothing and a head wound, N12 noted.

A tractor with an Israeli license plate was seen leading the procession.

Zalmanovich was an experienced farmer specializing in wheat cultivation in desert environments. When he was abducted on October 7, he was hiding in a secure room when he was found by the attackers. He was taken without his glasses or hearing aid.

Zalmanovich's health deteriorated in Gaza
Zalmanovich was a widower, a father of two, and a grandfather of five. According to accounts shared by N12 from hostages who were later released, Zalmanovich faced severe difficulties while held in Gaza.

Hamas previously published a video in mid-November that showed Zalmanovich in critical condition. In the video, he was seen lying on a bed connected to a monitor and expressed that he wasn’t feeling well.

Zalmanovich's family asked that the video not be broadcast and that reporters not contact them to respect their privacy.

In later footage, he was seen motionless and wrapped in a white sheet.

Kibbutz Nir Oz later officially announced Zalmanovich's death in captivity in December. His family, after seeing the footage, approved its release to the public to raise awareness about his experience in Gaza.

Kibbutz Nir Oz released an official statement following the publication of the video, stating, "Today, we were exposed to yet another video from October 7, capturing the brutal moments of the abduction of our dear friend, Aryeh Zalmanovich (86), from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz to the depths of Gaza’s horrors.

The video reveals the heart-wrenching scenes of Aryeh, head wounded, being dragged onto a motorcycle, while a violent crowd viciously assaults him. This chilling footage highlights the immense suffering, both physical and emotional, endured by our captives—now for over ten agonizing months—at the hands of their ruthless captors.

Aryeh, a cherished and beloved figure in our kibbutz, never made it back home. He was murdered during his captivity, kept in deplorable conditions, deprived of the essential medications and care he so desperately needed. His tragic fate reminds us that time is running out for the remaining hostages.

The timing of this video’s release, as we approach a critical round of negotiations, is a stark and urgent warning to all parties involved. This may be the final chance to save the lives of those still held captive. Every moment that passes endangers their lives, pushing them closer to a tragic conclusion.


Hostage Romi Gonen’s family marks her 24th birthday with event to ‘spread light’
The family of hostage Romi Gonen, now in Hamas captivity for over 300 days, was marking her 24th birthday Sunday with an event aimed at “spreading light.”

Gonen was kidnapped during the October 7 onslaught on southern Israel, in which Hamas terrorists killed some 1,200 people and seized 251 hostages.

Romi’s father Eitan told Channel 12 news that his daughter is “a magical girl. She’s all heart, all love…. a justice warrior.”

“It’s unbelievable that we’re marking this day without her,” he said.

Eitan went on to say that after much contemplation as to how to commemorate this special day, the family decided to hold a “day of good deeds, so that when Romi returns — and she will no doubt return — she will see the documentation [of the event] and be so happy.”

Eitan added that his family is an optimistic one, and that “we end every conversation, every interview, with the same words: that Romi is coming home. We just don’t know when exactly.”

The family invited attendees to wear leopard print or yellow attire to embody the young abductee’s vibrant spirit.

A press release about the event said it would include a stand where attendants can create signs in solidarity with the hostages, a bar with Romi’s favorite cocktails, a flower arrangement station, music, and “Romi’s signature dance lesson.”

Ahead of Romi’s birthday, Yarden Gonen, her sister, spoke at a Tel Aviv protest on Saturday calling for a hostage release deal. She read a message to her sister, asking, “How can I continue to exist in this world, when I see people aren’t doing everything they can to return the hostages?”

Yarden Gonen revealed at the end of her speech that this message had been composed on her own birthday, some eight months ago, and lamented its continued relevance now.

Romi Gonen was abducted from the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im on October 7, where Hamas terrorists killed 364 people.


How October 7 psychologically impacted Israeli fashion
“Do you have a shirt that you really love? One that you feel so groovy in. You don’t even mind if it starts to fade. That only makes it nicer still.” (From “I Love My Shirt,” a song by Donovan.)

Clothes may not make the man or woman, but they can influence how he or she feels. Funeral attire is typically black, and when a family member dies, according to the Jewish faith, we rend our garments and don’t change our clothes. The COVID pandemic inspired years of comfort clothes. Dressing up has other residual effects on our psyche.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief are a classic way to define traumatic reactions to bereavement. The stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, and may not necessarily occur in that order. Each stage isn’t always experienced. Frequently, they come in waves, and some stages can be experienced more than once. Whether or not they were directly involved on Oct. 7, these are stages that the Jewish public has been wrestling with, but each with their own individual way of processing.

According to Jerusalem social worker and therapist Hadassah Fidler, the effect of clothes on the psyche has been studied at length. In fact, according to a National Institutes of Health study, football teams that wear white have a higher chance of winning than teams that wear green. Another study showed that the color of a football outfit affects visibility and team success. Fidler says that all uniforms affect the wearer, while simultaneously influencing how others perceive the wearer.

“What you wear can reflect how you feel, and in some cases can help to bring you to a different feeling,” she explains. “Retail therapy really does give people an adrenaline boost. When someone puts on new clothes, there is a feeling of renewal.

“Our clothing can be our bridge to connect our emotions to the physical and to let others know what is going on inside,” she continues. “We do this consciously or, more often, unconsciously. We can simultaneously reveal and conceal information about ourselves through the clothes we wear. Clothes can paradoxically be our armor and our invitation to engage.”


Caroline Glick: The American blueprint for failed negotiations in the Middle East
The White House is pressuring Israel to throw in the towel, but will Bibi give in to the unprecedented pressure? While it may seem as if America is trying to protect Israel from an attack, the truth is that the Biden administration is also containing Israel and preventing a victory. This is in direct contradiction to Trump’s successful policy in the region. We’ll discuss all this and more on today’s episode of Caroline Glick In Focus!

Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:30 US deploys in Middle East
7:30 America tries to cool tensions
11:00 Hostage talks
20:00 Containing Israel
25:40 Appeasement as US policy
35:00 Trump’s approach


The Caroline Glick: The Left’s Addiction to anti-Zionism
What are the origins of today’s anti-Zionism? Journalist Caroline Glick speaks with Senior Fellow of the Z3 Project/Expert of modern antisemitism Izabella Tabarovsky. Drawing on her experience growing up in the Soviet Union, Taborovsky traces the communist roots of anti-Zionism and how it has become a central piece of the left’s political and cultural ideology.

If you want to understand the principles of what she calls “zombie” Anti-Zionism this is an interview you don’t want to miss.

Chapters
00:00 The Radical Left's Takeover of American Institutions
07:41 The Origins of Anti-Zionism in the Soviet Union
16:44 Propaganda and Conferences: Spreading Anti-Zionist Ideas
23:34 The Evolution of Cultural Marxism and its Connection to Anti-Zionism
28:22 The Persistence of Anti-Zionist Rhetoric
29:49 The Origins of Anti-Zionism in the Soviet Union
30:19 The Role of the KGB and the International Department
31:11 Motivations: Foreign Policy and Domestic Concerns
31:38 The Centralized Spread of Anti-Zionist Propaganda
40:59 Contemporary Anti-Zionism in the Radical Left


Here I Am With Shai Davidai: "my grandfather marched with #MLK" | EP 05 Ari Ackerman
Welcome to the fifth episode of "Here I Am with Shai Davidai," a podcast that delves into the rising tide of antisemitism through insightful discussions with top Jewish advocates.

In the podcast conversation between host Shai Davidai and guest Ari Ackerman, Ari shares his experiences of attending protests and the sense of community and strength he derives from seeing familiar faces at these events. He emphasizes the importance of standing up for Jewish rights and being a proud Jew, a trait instilled in him by his role models.

Ari recounts his journey from attending a yeshiva high school to founding Bunk1, a company that brought technology to summer camps, allowing parents to see pictures of their kids online. Despite initial skepticism from venture capitalists, Ari's perseverance led to the company's success. He later became part owner of the Miami Marlins, highlighting his transition from a tech entrepreneur to a sports team owner.

The discussion also touches on the challenges faced by Jewish students on college campuses, with Ari contrasting the supportive environment at Duke University with the less protective stance at Northwestern. He shares his disappointment with the silence of many minority communities and organizations that Jews have historically supported.

Ari speaks fondly of his grandfather, a civil rights leader who desegregated his businesses in the South and supported Martin Luther King Jr. He also honors his mother, Mona, a noted psychologist and philanthropist, reflecting on the values they instilled in him. The conversation concludes with reflections on the resilience of the Jewish people and the importance of standing up for Jewish civil rights.


Katherine Brodsky: The 'good Jews' trotted out to bash Israel
On October 7, JVP released a statement blaming Israelis themselves as being the “source of all this violence,” in essence justifying the murder of around 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of more than 200 people (including some foreign nationals) by Hamas. Many JVP members have argued that what took place on October 7 was legitimate “resistance.”

Weeks after the Hamas attack, JVP organizers routed a protest by a St. Louis, Mo. synagogue, pushing the idea that all Jews should be held responsible for the actions of a country. According to the Anti-Defamation League, JVP “promulgates the view that Jews who identify even tangentially with Israel are motivated by white supremacy” and has engaged in antisemitic tropes such as blood libel, and the insinuation of “duel loyalty,” imagery of Israeli soldiers drinking the blood of children and the use of swastikas.

These organizations also regularly step in to defend those accused of antisemitism, playing their “as a Jewish group” card despite vehement disagreement amongst the wider Jewish community. In 2019, some came to the defence of Washington D.C.’s queer march for banning Jewish stars, while others endorsed the Women’s March despite the association of its leaders with Louis Farrakhan, a prolific leader of Jew-hatred in the U.S., known for calling Jews “termites” and “Satanic.”

In a collection of essays compiled by JVP, Rabbi Brant Rosen, co-founder and co-chair of the group’s rabbinical council, wrote, “Though many Jews may be unwilling to admit it, we currently live in an age of unprecedented Jewish power.” A talking point heard frequently amongst white supremacists.

For the JVP Passover celebration this year, they have opted to use an anti-Zionist version of the Haggadah — a religious text recited by Jews every Passover to fulfill the biblical commandments to retell the story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. A blatant desecration of an important Jewish tradition and text.

It reads, in part: “We are wrestling back our beloved tradition from these oppressive cooptations and re-rooting in the values passed to us. We reclaim our holiday of liberation as part of reclaiming Judaism from and building it beyond Zionism.”

It places the Gazans in the role of Jewish slaves in Egypt, and the Israeli government as the evil Pharoah who won’t let them go. The American government gets a featured role, too.

They’ve co-opted a Jewish tradition as a way to attack Jews. Ironically, the Haggadah traditionally concludes the Passover Seder with the phrase “L’Shanah Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim,” which translates to “Next Year in Jerusalem,” the hope and aspiration of the Jewish people to return to their Holy Land and celebrate the next Passover there.

Perhaps the most blatant sign that these groups do not represent Jewish interests is that they don’t tend to advocate for solutions that would bring peace to both Palestinians and Jews. Instead, they merely continue to perpetrate a continuous conflict in which one side is the villain, and another, the victim.

And it seems like they’ve cast themselves in the role of the “hero,” the so-called “good Jew,” while they openly condone harassment and violence against the rest.

The true betrayal by those who exploit their supposed Jewishness as a prop for political leverage is that they ultimately jeopardize progress toward peace while endangering those they claim to represent.
Scottish National Party removes parliament whip for saying there's no genocide in Gaza
A Scottish National Party member of the Scottish Parliament (SNP MSP) has had the party whip removed following “utterly abhorrent” comments about the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The party confirmed it has taken action following social media comments from Glasgow Shettleston Scottish Parliament member John Mason.

The whip has been removed with “immediate effect,” officials said.

It comes after Mason reacted to criticism over Scottish External Affairs Secretary Angus Robertson’s meeting with Israel’s deputy ambassador Daniela Grudsky.

Mason had also met with the Israeli ambassador and attracted fury from members of his own party after he posted on social media: “If Israel wanted to commit genocide, they would have killed 10 times as many.”

His post was in response to former SNP MSP Sandra White, who said: “We know what Israelis hope to achieve, they are already committing genocide in Gaza”, adding that “innocent children are being massacred."

“To flippantly dismiss the death of more than 40,000 Palestinians is completely unacceptable. There can be no room in the SNP for this kind of intolerance," a party spokesperson said of Mason's removal.

“The chief whip has today withdrawn the whip from John Mason MSP with immediate effect, pending internal Parliamentary group due process. The SNP group will now meet to discuss the matter, with a recommendation that the whip be suspended from John Mason for a fixed period of time because of this utterly abhorrent comment,” the party spokesperson said.

Mason said he is “disappointed” at his suspension and that it will “work its way through the party process in the usual way”.

Writing in a post on Facebook after the move was announced, Mason said that his “primary desire in relation to Israel and Gaza is that there should be peace talks, negotiations and, eventually, peace."

He said: “Too many lives have already been lost in Israel, Gaza and beyond, and as I said when I spoke in Parliament many people feel that Israel has moved from a position of self-defense to seeking revenge.

“However, I personally do not believe that Israel has tried to commit, has committed, or is committing genocide," he said.

“They certainly have the ability to kill many more Palestinians than they have done. That is not to say that the loss of life already is not too many," he added.


Why is the media ignoring Reginald Hunter’s antisemitic jibe?
I want to tell you a story, in four parts.

In part 1, a comedian, during his act, makes a repulsive comment about Israel, comparing it to an abusive wife herself accusing her husband of abuse.

In part 2, two Jewish people in the audience vocally take issue with that comment.

In part 3, many of the audience then verbally abuse the two Jewish people, saying, among other things, “genocidal maniac” and “you’re not welcome”. The two Jewish people leave.

In part 4, once those Jewish people leave, the comedian tells a “joke” featuring his partner, in which she says, about a Jewish newspaper, “Typical f—ing Jews, they won’t tell you anything unless you subscribe.”

This story is an account of what happened last Sunday evening at a performance by a comedian, Reginald D Hunter, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. We know about it because the Telegraph’s Chief Theatre Critic, Dominic Cavendish, happened to be in the audience that night. His one-star review of the performance recounts all four parts of this unsavoury incident.

If you only heard parts 1 and 2, you might think to yourself “well, it’s certainly a joke in bad taste”. If you heard parts 1,2 and 3, you would, one would hope, be extremely disturbed by the behaviour of the audience, and consider it a shocking indictment of this country in the year 2024.

But I put it to you, without detracting for a second from the hideousness of what those Jewish people in the audience experienced, that it is part 4 which dispels any lingering doubt about what this story is – not one ultimately about Israel, but rather about Jews. The public comment by the organisation I work for, the Board of Deputies, made this clear, saying that “the initial jibe at Israel then being followed by a line about f***ing Jews exposes, yet again, the true sentiments behind so much of the ‘anti-Israel’ movement.”

It is for that reason that the subsequent response from parts of the media has been so telling. Because, for reasons known only to themselves, a significant number of news outlets decided to leave out part 4 of the story.
After Jewish couple faced torrent of abuse after objecting to crass joke about Israel by US comedian... could there be a more chilling insight into the resurgence of anti-Semitism?
The shameful incident was only exposed because Dominic Cavendish, chief theatre critic for The Daily Telegraph, happened to be watching the show Fluffy Fluffy Beavers at the Assembly George Square Gardens that evening.

Awarding it one star, Cavendish described it as 'the most unpleasant comedy gig' he'd ever attended. Had he not been there, the incident could well have been swept under the carpet and surely forgotten.

As it stands now, however, Hunter was promptly axed from a forthcoming show by East Renfrewshire Council, who said: 'We have a commitment to our community and to our values of diversity and inclusion, which we take very seriously.'

Police also investigated it as a hate incident but no charges were brought. Hunter himself offered an apology – of sorts – with a statement on Instagram in which he said he 'regrets any stress caused to the audience and venue staff' following an 'unfortunate incident' during his show.

He added: 'As a comedian I do push boundaries [but] I am staunchly anti-war and anti-bully.'

But on Friday, the American appeared to double down on his original remarks, reposting a Tweet suggesting that 'self-perpetuating victims' should be prosecuted for 'wasting police time', responding that 'the Sith travel in pairs'.

Not surprisingly, his 'apology' is not accepted by Shimon and Talia, who are still physically reeling from what happened to them.

The couple, who are in their 50s and were both born in England, told me in an exclusive interview that initially they had no intention of reporting what happened to authorities or sharing their story with the world.

Indeed, so terrified are they of exposing themselves to even more abuse, they've asked not to be identified. Shimon and Talia are not their real names.

But now their experiences are out in the open they agreed to speak to this newspaper – on condition of anonymity – in the hope that their story will give other people the courage to stand up for what is right and to fight against racism and discrimination.

'I am normally a really strong person,' says Talia. 'But it was horrible. Worse than horrible. Not one person in that audience of more than 300 people – not one – had the balls to stand up and say: 'Stop this.'

'It was meant to be a lovely holiday and now I just feel miserable.'

Even though their home country is currently a war zone, shockingly they say it is in the UK, not the Middle East, where they feel most unsafe at the moment.

'You do not know for certain that Jews will always be safe in the UK,' Shimon says. 'No matter how much they might love Britain, Jews in this country will always have that mental backpack packed in case they need to flee.'

The couple's brave decision to speak out comes just a week after anti-Semitism charity CST revealed that British Jews have suffered record levels of anti-Semitic hate crimes in the first half of this year – including incidences of extreme violence and arson attacks on Jewish property.

When Talia and Shimon decided to book tickets for Hunter's comedy gig they had no idea what they were letting themselves in for.

Due to Shimon's disability – he is a wheelchair user with severe mobility problems – the couple were opting for shows in venues that were accessible for him and didn't require much walking to get to.

They were unaware that Hunter had been accused of anti-Semitism at the 2006 Fringe for carelessly joking about the Holocaust – or that he had separately come under fire for alleged misogyny and use of the N-word.


David Collier: BBC News sees supporters of Israel as ‘racists’
Yesterday the BBC published a piece about a small anti-racist protest in Dover. The headline? ‘Anti-racism protesters gather in Dover’.

This is the image that they used for that headline:


BBC Anti-racists? Or pro-Hamas supporters
This is an inexcusable lie from BBC News. It is vile, dangerous – and does not need a report or 2000+ word explanation to lay out the case. This is one of those occasions where the image does all the talking, and another of the examples of ‘activism posing as news’ that can be used if the BBC are ever held to account .

The image clearly shows a crowd full of Palestinian flags and a banner from an extremist group ‘Thanet 4 Palestine’ can be seen at the front. There may be anti-racists somewhere in the crowd, but we cannot see them – and they are not the headline act. Given what we can see it is totally dishonest to even try to identify this crowd as an anti-racist one. That is the choice these people made when they agreed to be fronted by an anti-Israel position.

This crowd visibly identifies as a group of terrorist supporting Palestinian nationalists waving the flag of an antisemitic, homophobic, misogynistic, anti-democratic, Islamist society with a history of deadly terrorism. These are not ‘anti-racists’. Certainly not in any dictionary printed outside of Tehran.

And make no mistake, this is dangerous disinformation that the BBC is spreading. When you reach this point – when the Palestinian flag becomes identified with anti-racism – then the reverse also becomes true. A perfect ‘foil’ as a good friend said to me. Those waving the Israeli flag automatically become the ‘racists’.

This leading image is not an accident or oversight. It is the result of decades of drip-fed antisemitism into the DNA of the BBC (and much of mainstream media and academia). On one side the process was enabled through the established hard-left ‘woke’ section of the British civil service. The other, an inevitable side effect of hard-left blindness, the corruption from within that takes place when you strive for diversity while using toxic sources such as ex Al-Jazeera staffers as a recruitment pool.
UK must designate Palestine Action as a terrorist organization to curb violence
Enforcing the Terrorism Act
The so-called “actionist” operations, for instance, appear to fall under several British offenses associated with terrorism. Section 5 of the Terrorism Act holds that the preparation of terrorist acts is a crime. Palestine Action’s infiltration operations are highly choreographed and planned, indicating that the group engages in such premeditated activity.

Moreover, the organization regularly publishes its actions on social media, glorifying its operations and encouraging others to join them, such as an August 1 Instagram post that told supporters to meet them at a target’s address. This appears to violate the 2006 Section 1 amendment on the encouragement of terrorism.

It is an offense in the UK to provide training for the preparation of terrorism, yet Palestine Action openly provides training days for “direct action” in multiple cities. Case in point, on August 5, it advertised training days in Manchester on August 11 and in London on August 14 and 25.

Classifying the offenses of the August 6 attackers as having a “terrorist connection” to foster harsher sentencing and potentially label them as terrorists if convicted is a first step to addressing the violence of Palestine Action.

However, only by proscribing the organization as a terrorist group will Palestine Action be fully deterred. This will allow the law to discourage it by inditing the organization with severe charges or by putting its members behind bars, where they will no longer be a threat to society.
Three more charged in anti-Israel Bristol sledgehammer attacks
After the attack on a Bristol area defense firm facility in which two British Police officers and a security guard were wounded by activists armed with sledgehammers and other weapons, three more anti-Israel vandals were charged Friday, joining seven other suspects who had already been apprehended.

Ian Sanders, William Plastow, and Madeline Norman were charged with criminal damage and aggravated burglary in connection to the August 6 attack on the Elbit UK’s South Gloucestershire Horizon facility, in which vandals rammed through the building fence and into the entrance before smashing equipment and assaulting employees and officers who attempted to intervene.

Norman was also charged with violent disorder, according to Counter Terrorism Policing South East. Sanders and Plastow had previously been detained for questioning under the 2000 Terrorism Act.

The three suspects' offenses "have a terrorist connection" like the seven other activists who appeared before the Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday. The other vandals were charged with criminal damage, violent disorder and aggravated burglary. Samuel Corner, 22, was also charged with grievous bodily harm with intent and two counts of assault or battery that causes harm, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.

As a result of the sledgehammer attack, one Avon and Somerset Police had been taken to the hospital for back injuries, and another was treated at the scene for injury to the back of their leg. Police said at least one Horizon employee was treated for a head injury at the scene.

Six attackers had been arrested at the Filton site, but other suspects had fled the scene. Police seized axes, whips, and other homemade weapons in addition to the sledgehammers.

Palestine Action published videos on Instagram of the van ramming and its so-called "actionists" smashing equipment and machinery.


Barclays maintains role in Israeli bond market, for now
British banking giant Barclays has decided to continue its role as a primary dealer in Israeli government bonds, despite mounting pressure from pro-Palestinian activists.

This decision comes after a period of internal review and discussions with Israeli officials.

Barclays, one of seven foreign lenders assisting the Israeli government in selling debt, had considered withdrawing from future Israeli government bond auctions. The bank was reportedly reevaluating its exposure to Israel in light of criticism over its relationship with the country during the war against Hamas in Gaza.

However, following extensive deliberations, Barclays informed Israeli officials of its intention to maintain its position as a primary dealer. This role places the bank alongside other international financial powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank in facilitating Israel’s debt sales.

Yali Rothenberg, Israel’s accountant general, publicly shared his appreciation for Barclays’ commitment in an interview with The Financial Times on Tuesday.

“We appreciate the bank’s statement affirming its continued commitment to the State of Israel. It is crucial that leading global financial institutions, such as Barclays, choose to resist boycotting Israel and support its legitimate right to self-defense as a leading Western democracy,” said Rothenberg.

The decision by Barclays comes at a crucial time for Israel’s financial markets. The country has been selling billions of dollars in debt to finance its widening government deficit, a direct result of the war. In March, Israel conducted a record $8 billion international bond sale, which according to Bloomberg was its biggest sale of dollar notes on record.
Speed-demon owner of ‘Hamas Truck’ that’s terrorizing Jewish NYC neighborhood uses fake plates to avoid tickets: records
The owner of pickup truck whose menacing antisemitic exterior horrified Williamsburg residents is owned by a speed-demon scofflaw brazenly using fake plates to avoid tickets, records show.

The souped-up Ford-150 was slammed with 51 traffic summonses from October 2020 to May 2 – including being caught on camera 18 times speeding in school zones and four times running red lights, according to a Post analysis of city records.

The vehicle’s owner – identified as Jose Littef, 21, by his half-brother – was slapped with $3,622 in fines and late fees for the summonses and currently owes $551.94 – including $226.94 on three speed cam summonses in default judgment racking up additional fees.

The black truck’s disturbing exterior includes images of bullet holes, splattered blood and bloodstained handprints – which some might see as a symbol of the infamous Ramallah lynching of 2000, where two Israeli reservists were savagely killed by a murderous mob.

The vehicle’s owner, Jose Littef (left), racked up $3,622 in fines and late fees in less than four years, and currently owes $551.55 – including $226.94 on three speed camera summonses in judgment. Aristide Economopoulos

Since The Post broke the news about the truck two weeks ago, residents said they have not seen it return to the neighborhood.

But for months, the truck illegally parked near the corner of North 4th Street and Bedford Avenue in the heart of the hipster haven and Jewish neighborhood, displaying no registration and inspection stickers and sporting a fake “ghost” plate reading “OH GAZA.”

The Post was only able to review the truck’s violation record after a whistleblower too afraid to give her name provided a photo of the truck taken in April, when it still had legit plates issued in Pennsylvania.



Pro-Palestine student group in Massachusetts uses readings from Lenin, Stalin, and Palestinian terrorist hijacker in 'summer camp'
A pro-Palestine group held an event in Northampton, Massachusetts entitled “coffee with comrades,” where students critiqued both Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza and capitalism.

The group involved around 20 people, including both graduate students and members of the local community, according to The Boston Globe. The organizers of the event brought a Palestinian flag.

The “summer camp,” as the organizers describe it, was officially titled the “Western Massachusetts Popular University for Palestine.”

Campus Reform has previously reported that Massachusetts is no stranger to pro-Palestine demonstrations, with protests occurring at Emerson University, Harvard University, Boston University, Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and more.

Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned in January following her perceived failure to condemn calls for genocide on campus.

According to The Globe, the primary speaker at the Western Massachusetts event wore a keffiyeh and a Cuban Communist Party hat during his presentation. The speaker referenced readings from Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.

The presentation also included a reading from Leila Khaled, a militant and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Khaled was famously the first woman to hijack an airplane.


The ‘Good Doctor’: AP’s Trusted Source Was a Hamas-Aligned Ally of Ismail Haniyeh
Allegations of a cruel massacre and graphic accounts of the reportedly bloody aftermath were published online by global media within hours of what Israel later confirmed to be a precision strike on a Hamas command center situated within a school complex in Gaza on August 10.

The Associated Press led the charge, publishing its first story just over an hour later that morning, describing the strike as “one of the deadliest attacks of the 10-month Israel-Hamas war.” Relying on figures from the Hamas-run Palestinian health authorities, AP claimed that at least 80 people had been killed, with nearly 50 others wounded.

In a subtle bit of editorializing, AP suggested that innocent women and children were likely among the casualties, while also highlighting that this was the “latest of what the U.N. human rights office called ‘systematic attacks on schools’ by Israel,” reportedly leaving hundreds dead, including women and children.

Soon after, a more extensive AP story was prepared for syndication and subsequently repackaged and republished by the news service’s prominent media clients, including The Washington Post, NPR, and POLITICO.

Among those quoted in AP’s more detailed report is Dr. Fadel Naim, described as the director of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, where many of the reported casualties were taken. Naim is quoted as saying his hospital received 70 bodies with what he described as the most severe injuries he had seen since the war began.

Naim’s comments are followed by testimony from “witness Abu Anas,” whom AP mentions was clutching prayer beads as he recounted how multiple strikes hit people who were praying, washing, and sleeping upstairs, including children, women, and the elderly.

A quick look into the online presence of Dr. Fadel Naim, the man AP relied on for their Gaza death toll, reveals that in addition to being a medical professional, he is closely aligned with Hamas—so much so that the recently-eliminated Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was a guest at his daughter’s wedding.
EXPOSED: Wall Street Journal Contributor Shared Terrorist Propaganda, Fake News on Oct. 7
October 7 was a busy day for Palestinian journalist Abeer Ayyoub, who works for the Wall Street Journal. But not because she was engaged in professional journalism.

The Istanbul-based reporter, who is originally from Gaza and covers the region extensively, used her X account (formerly Twitter) to spread terrorist propaganda and fake news, as Hamas massacred thousands of Israelis.

She also exploited the social media platform to distribute antisemitic slurs and content that whitewashes Hamas.

Her posts, as well as the fact she contributes to the Israel-hating Middle East Eye, should sound alarm bells in the newsroom of the Wall Street Journal, a publication that has always been a bastion of the highest journalistic standards.

HonestReporting has submitted an official complaint to the newspaper.

Hamas Propaganda
On October 7, Ayyoub posted a violent propaganda video produced by Hamas’ armed wing. It showed terrorists lynching and executing Israeli soldiers near the Gaza border.

The faces of the terrorists in the video are blurred to protect them, unlike those of the Israeli soldiers. But Ayyoub probably didn’t care about the victims being recognized by their heartbroken families, as she wrote a caption that exclaimed: “More Israeli soldiers being captured by Hamas:”

Ayyoub said nothing about Hamas slaughtering Israeli civilians or taking hostages that day. She did seem to deflect from them, in a rude reply to Israeli Arab Affairs expert Edi Cohen.

Cohen posted the following in Arabic: “In the Quran, God commanded respect for prisoners. The Palestinian militants killed and raped them.” Ayyoub replied: “So do you guys respect them, you sh*t?”

She also posted a photo of Hamas terrorists driving a stolen Israeli farming vehicle in Gaza, as one of them shows the victory sign:


BBC News qualifies ‘Israeli air strike’ claim three days on
The updated version of the report still claims that the BBC is “waiting for a response” from the IDF even though CAMERA UK and the Times of Israel had received responses on August 14th.

As we see, on August 13th the BBC published claims which it had obviously not independently verified, telling its audiences in no uncertain terms that newborn twins had been killed in an “Israeli air strike”.

Three days later, the BBC found fit to qualify that unconfirmed claim, but in the absence of a dedicated corrections page on the BBC News website, it is of course highly doubtful that those who read Avagnina’s report on August 13th, 14th 15th or the morning of August 16th would have revisited it purely on the off chance that it may have been amended.

The BBC has for years promoted itself as a source of “news you can trust” and two years ago the corporation’s CEO of News referred to the “thoughtful work that goes into verifying, fact checking and sourcing our journalism”, adding:
“Wherever and whatever BBC journalists are reporting – whether it’s on the frontlines in Ukraine, on a Covid ward, or on the streets of London during the Queen’s funeral – the BBC editorial guidelines underpin everything we do.

These guidelines are the blueprint for our journalism – ensuring we forensically check and verify facts, double and triple source information, and track down first-hand eyewitnesses.

And that as we pursue the truth, we do so with impartiality and with accuracy. This is our promise.”

Clearly that promise was not kept in the case of this BBC report. Blindly recycling as fact allegations sourced from a third party without any independent fact checking or verification and then having to qualify those claims days later – in an inadequately transparent manner which will not reach all those who read the original report – does nothing to convince the corporation’s funding public that, as claimed by Deborah Turness, “BBC News delivers the highest quality journalism” or that its claim to be “the most trusted news brand in the world” stands up to scrutiny.


Abbas prays for Hamas ‘martyr’ Haniyeh
Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas opened his address to the Turkish parliament on Thursday by offering a prayer for slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an assassination last month that has been attributed to Israel.

"Please allow me, brothers and sisters, to start speaking to you to ask Allah to have mercy on those tens and thousands of martyrs who were killed by the Israeli oppression and genocide against them," said Abbas, according to a translation by Ankara's state broadcaster, TRT World.

"The latest massacre, the latest oppression, was the crime against the leader martyr Ismail Haniyeh. I call upon you, my brothers and sisters, to say Al-Fatiha on his soul," Abbas continued, using the term for a Koran chapter often recited to ask for mercy on behalf of the deceased.

As Abbas mentioned the name of Haniyeh, Turkish lawmakers held up pictures of the Hamas terror leader and his successor, Yahya Sinwar. In addition, an empty seat was reserved in honour of Haniyeh, responsible for the worst single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust on Oct. 7.

In his remarks, which lasted approximately 40 minutes, Abbas called on all to help "liberate the more than 10,000 Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails," including Hamas terrorists captured during the Oct. 7 massacre.

Abbas also told lawmakers he intends to travel to Gaza alongside "other brothers from the Palestinian leadership." The P.A. leader has not visited the Strip since Hamas violently seized control of the enclave in 2007.

"Even if my life was at risk, our lives, they are not dearer than the lives of children or anyone in Gaza. We are implementing Sharia [law]; we seek victory or martyrdom. This is according to Islamic Sharia," he stated.


PA holds military funeral for Hamas terrorist killed by IDF
The Palestinian Authority last week held an official military funeral for Hamas terrorist Wael Masha, who was killed after firing on Israeli forces engaged in a counterterror operation in Nablus, Samaria.

The funeral procession was lead by Palestinian National Security Forces vehicles, each carrying groups of Arab youths. Mohammad Hamdan, the Fatah leader in Nablus, also participated in the funeral march.

Masha, who was released by Israel in the November 2023 ceasefire deal with Hamas, had been imprisoned for receiving money from a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative to manufacture bombs.

At the same time Masha’s funeral was taking place, Palestinian security forces also conducted an official military funeral for Ahmad Sheikh Khalil, a member of Fatah’s “military wing” who was also eliminated on Aug. 14 after firing on IDF soldiers.

The two terrorists’ remains were carried on the shoulders of P.A. police officers.


Three UNIFIL peacekeepers injured in Lebanon
Three United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers were lightly injured while on patrol in the country’s south on Sunday, the observer mission said.

According to UNIFIL, they were hurt when an explosion occurred near a “clearly marked UN vehicle” near Yarine, about 12 miles south of Tyre. It added that they returned safely to their base.

“We are looking into the incident. We are strongly reminding all parties and actors of their responsibility to avoid harm to peacekeepers and civilians,” UNIFIL said.

UNIFIL deploys 10,000 “blue helmet” staffers in Southern Lebanon. It is the U.N.’s longest-running observer mission, operating since 1978.

On March 30, a Hezbollah bomb wounded a group of UNIFIL workers in Southern Lebanon that initial reports attributed to the Jewish state, the IDF said in early April.
Algeria to supply Lebanon with fuel to avert power shutdown
Algeria will immediately begin supplying Lebanon with fuel for its power plants, Algerian state radio says in a statement, after Lebanon’s electricity company said the day before its supplies were exhausted.

Lebanon has not had round-the-clock power since the 1990s and cash transfers to Lebanon’s state electricity company, Electricité du Liban (EDL) to cover chronic losses have contributed tens of billions of dollars to the country’s huge public debt.

EDL on Saturday announced a complete nationwide power outage, including at critical facilities such as the airport.

It said then power supply would resume gradually once new fuel supplies were secured, either through a swap agreement with Iraq or other sources.

The Algerian state radio statement did not give any detail.


Iran's Apocalyptic Shi'ite Dream
Iran's theocratic worldview is shaped by the Shi'ite belief that Muhammad's will was betrayed by the Sunni Caliphs who immediately succeeded the prophet. Yet Iranian efforts to recruit both Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims to join the anti-Zionist "resistance" have succeeded in capturing the passion of even some Sunni extremist groups, like Hamas.

Sunni Muslims dominated the Islamic world in both power and population for centuries. All that changed with the U.S.-led destruction of the Sunni dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. The demise of Saddam liberated Iraq's Shi'ite majority, many of whom felt an affinity for Shi'ite Iran across the border. These Shi'ites, who make up the several terrorist gangs in Iraq, do the bidding of Iran's extremist regime.

The overriding goal of Iran's Shi'ite clerics is finally to replace Sunni dominance; first in the Middle East and eventually throughout the Islamic world. Iranian muscle in the Persian Gulf has now outclassed the Arabian Peninsula's monarchial Sunni states in raw power. For the foreseeable future, they will all require protective guarantees from the cavalries of heathen states like America, Israel or China.


Paris: Antisemitic attack on a family in the metro
A young woman lodged a complaint after witnessing an antisemitic incident on the Paris Métro last Wednesday.

According to the passenger’s account, a man burst into the train at the Richard-Lenoir station in the 11th arrondissement, spitting at a young girl and her parents while calling them “bastards, bastards” and “youpins,” the latter a racially offensive French word for Jews derived from the Arabic word for Jew, “yaoudi.”

“You bastards, you’re committing crimes against humanity,” he screamed, according to the witness, who said he also shouted: “Hitler was right, he should have killed all the Jews.’’

On hearing these insults, the woman, aged 25, grabbed her cell phone to film the assailant and report the incident. She also tried in vain to silence him. “I’m going to press charges against you,” she can be heard saying in the footage she filmed. In return, she was insulted.

“I decided to intervene and film it. I couldn’t help myself. It was impossible for me not to react, even though I was very scared,” the young woman told a lawyer. She said she was shocked to be the only one in the car to react.
Serbian police kill second suspect in June crossbow attack near Israeli embassy
Serbian police killed a second suspect linked to a June 29 crossbow attack outside the Israeli embassy in the Balkan nation’s capital, Belgrade, the country’s interior minister announced on Sunday.

Senad Ramović was “liquidated” after he resisted arrest and opened fire at security forces in Hotkovo—located in Novi Pazar, historically a center of Serbia’s Bosniak Muslim minority—Interior Minister Ivica Dačić said in a statement to the state-run RTS broadcaster.

Ramović had been on the run since the prime suspect, Miloš Žujović, fired a crossbow at a police officer outside the Israeli mission in the capital’s Savski Venac government district in June. The police officer was wounded in the neck but was able to return fire, killing the terrorist.

According to local media, Ramović played a “key role” in radicalizing Žujović, a convert to radical Islam from Mladenovac, near Belgrade.

Ramović had previously been sentenced to 13.5 years in prison on terror charges linked to a 2007 shootout with police, according to reports.

In the days following the attack near the Israeli embassy, Serbian authorities arrested two additional suspects, Dačić said at the time.

“Searches were conducted at several locations in Serbia, dozens of people were questioned,” the minister said. Prosecutors were probing whether they were linked with the “targeted terrorist attack,” he added.

“What is indisputable about all those people is that they belong to the Wahhabi extremist movement,” Dačić said, in reference to one of Sunni Islam’s most radical variants, which is also Saudi Arabia’s state religion as well as that of Qatar’s rulers.
UK Man Gets 3 Years for Islam Tweet, Muslim Gets Suspended Sentence for Threatening Jews w/Knife
The number of Muslims sentenced to anything for posting misinformation about events in Israel or the UK to justify violence is zero. Even driving around in a car making direct in person threats, not ‘keyboard warrior’ nonsense, is no big deal.
Charges of stirring up racial hatred have been dropped against two men who travelled to north London in a “Convoy For Palestine” during the war between Israel and Hamas in May last year.

In the viral video, cars with Palestinian flags were seen driving through areas of London with many Jewish residents, while protesters honk their horns and scream “F*** their mothers, rape their daughters.”

For that matter a Muslim threatening Jews with a knife is practically a victimless crime.
A knifeman who terrorised staff at a kosher supermarket has been spared a prison sentence by a judge.

Gabriel Abdullah, 34, was arrested in January after storming a Golders Green shop with a large blade and demanding to hear people’s views on “Israel and Palestine”.

Though police initially treated the attack as a hate crime, he was charged with affray and possession of a knife.

Abdullah pleaded guilty and has now been handed two concurrent suspended sentences, along with a nine month alcohol treatment requirement.

Reacting to the verdict, Yosef Reitman, who intervened to prevent the attack, told GB News: “When I first heard about the suspended sentence I was utterly surprised.

Speaking to the JC earlier this year, Evyatar Reitman, 48, said he had to fight off Abdullah when he approached them with “hate in his eyes”.

He claimed: “He came to ask about Israel Palestine and seemed to want us to say we were pro-Israel so he had a reason to attack.”

Reitman’s son, Yosef Chaim, used his martial arts skills to fight off Abdullah.

This isn’t about cracking down on racial hatred, it’s about terrorizing people into keeping quiet about Islamic violence and any opposition to the Starmer regime.


Dan Bilzerian: 'Israelis killed their own on October 7 as an excuse to take land'
'The Jews killed JFK' was just one of the claims US-Armenian poker player and influencer Dan Bilzerian made on an appearance on Patrick Bet-David's talk show on Saturday.

During the one-and-a-half-hour interview, which heavily discussed the topic of Israel and Jews, Bilzerian made multiple claims of Jewish involvement in crimes and perpetuated some well-known stereotypes.

Jews "knew about 9/11," he claimed. "They assassinated US presidents. They assassinated JFK," he added, citing Jack Ruby's original surname of Jack Rubenstein. Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald, who killed US President John F Kennedy. Lee Harvey Oswald was not Jewish.

Bilzerian called Israel a "f*****g parasite," and when asked by Bet-David if he thought the world was a safer place without Israel, he said, "100%, give me an argument otherwise."

Speaking on the October 7 massacre, Bilzerian said Israel "wanted October 7 to happen so they [Israel] had a reason to take land."

"They killed their own citizens and they claimed that all these people got raped, they claimed [there were] beheaded babies. There were no rapes on October 7."

When Bet-David prompted him that there was video evidence of atrocities committed by Hamas, Bilzerian claimed they were fabricated.




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