Tuesday, August 20, 2024

08/20 Links Pt2: The Anti-Zionist Protesters and the Left; Biden at DNC: Anti-Israel protesters ‘have a point; Shaq sends message of support to Oct. 7 massacre survivors

From Ian:

The Anti-Zionist Protesters and the Left: An End to Denial Stop projecting humane beliefs onto groups whose ugly ideas are very clear.
The Chicago protests are being led by Hatem Abudayyeh, the national chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network. On October 7, Abudayyeh made an official statement for USPCN celebrating the slaughter of Israeli civilians: “Palestinians have an internationally-recognized right to resist illegal military occupation, and today’s attacks from the Palestinian Resistance should be understood as a legitimate response to unending violence from Israel’s extreme right-wing, racist, white supremacist, zionist government and settler movement … now we have no choice but to defend ourselves, because the Israeli military and racist settlers have been attacking and killing with impunity, and must and will be stopped! We will win our liberation and Return!”

And while this rhetoric may be shocking, every major anti-Israel activist group has adopted a similar position. Students for Justice in Palestine called the October 7 attacks “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance” against “the façade of an impenetrable settler colony.” The Palestinian Youth Movement saluted “the active decolonization of Palestinian land” and stated “We have a right to resist on our own land.” Within Our Lifetime declared, “Zionism is a settler-colonial white supremacist ideology built on the genocide and dispossession of the Palestinian people,” and therefore, “We defend the right of Palestinians as colonized people to resist the zionist occupation by any means necessary.” Jewish Voice for Peace declined to condemn the attack, instead blaming it on Israel: “The bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to U.S. complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation.”

The common thread running through these statements, other than unbounded eagerness to shed Israeli blood, is a worldview suggested by the recurring terms settler and colonist. All these groups adhere to a left-wing western doctrine that is the subject of an excellent new book, On Settler Colonialism, by Adam Kirsch.

Settler colonialism is a theory of societies established by western settlers. The fact that certain countries (the U.S., Canada, and Australia) were established by settlers who displaced or killed off the native population is not novel. Settler colonialism is a way of centering this fact as an ongoing genocide that “continues to define every aspect of its life, even after centuries,” as Kirsch puts it. “Settler, in this view, is not the descriptions of the actions of an individual but a heritable identity.”

Settler-colonialist theory has grown explosively in the West, where it has inspired hundreds of books, thousands of papers, and numerous college courses. As applied to the Anglosphere, it poses a critique that is radical but entirely confined to theory. Settler colonialism delegitimizes its targets without offering a workable program for replacing them — there is no pathway to restoring the western hemisphere to the political arrangements that stood before Columbus’s arrival. And so the programmatic aspect of settler-colonialist theory is confined to “land acknowledgments” and other quasi-religious rhetoric.

The inclusion of Israel as a settler-colonialist state is the move that transforms the theory into something more threatening. It is a curious connection, as Kirsch notes. While Israel’s founding did displace many Palestinians, it did not precipitate their virtual eradication. (The Palestinian population, despite undeniable oppression, has grown dramatically since 1947.) More importantly, the Jewish population in Israel has a long-standing connection to the land it inhabits and no other place to “return.”

The only humane solution to the predicament is a negotiated agreement between Jews and Palestinians. Settler colonialism, instead, denies Jewish Israelis any right to live in the region, rendering any act of the Israeli state illegitimate and any action to dismantle it permissible.

Settler-colonialism theorists believe certain people have an authentic, permanent relationship to the land. Their rhetoric, as Kirsch points out, echoes the romantic nationalism of the old German right. “Palestinian Indigenous sovereignty is in and of the land. It is grounded in an embodied connection to Palestine and articulated in Palestinians ways of being, knowing, and resisting on and for this land,” writes Jamal Nabulsi of University of Queensland. Palestinians have “a culture indivisible from their surroundings, a language of freedom concordant to the beauty of the land,” in the words of the scholar Steven Salaita.

Compare this with the blood-and-soil nationalism of Nazi ideologists such as Richard Walther Darre — “The German soul, with all its warmness, is rooted in its native landscape and has, in a sense, always grown out of it … Whoever takes the natural landscape away from the German soul, kills it” — and you will have difficulty detecting any difference. Indeed, if you switched Palestinian with German, it would be hard to tell one theorist from the other.

An important corollary of settler-colonialist thought is that, because they lack a naturalistic connection to any soil, the Jews must be rendered a permanently rootless subaltern class. This has an echo of the Nazi conception of the Jew as alien, and at times its rhetoric has the same overtones. Salaita, again, on the Zionists: “In their ruthless schema, land is neither pleasure nor sustenance. It is a commodity … There is no real notion of the commons in Zionism. Public space is deeply personal, demarcated and apportioned based on a crude obsession with genetics … Having been anointed Jewish, the land ceases to be dynamic.” This is blood-and-soil nationalism for the left.
Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg: NGO Warfare: From Human Rights Watch to Campus Mobs
Many of the slogans chanted by antisemitic mobs on university campuses and in major cities following the October 7, 2023, atrocities are propelled by an extensive network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that carry the flags of human rights and international law. Similarly, the statements and reports of international bodies and courts directly reflect the impact of these NGOs.

Immediately following the Oct. 7 attacks, these NGOs launched major political campaigns that downplayed or whitewashed Hamas and targeted Israel. Their "experts" were interviewed on major media platforms. The litany of demonization and modern blood libels, accompanied by expressions of support for Hamas and other terror organizations, is systematically repeated and amplified by a broad network of hundreds of localized NGOs.

The role of NGOs in promoting antisemitism through anti-Zionism and demonization of Israel has become an enduring feature of the public discourse - paralleling a resurgence of physical violence against Jewish targets.
David Collier: 10 year anniversary of publicly standing up for the truth
10 years ago today, on the 20/8/2014, I published my first article on this (my) website. While I have been fighting Israel’s case and battling antisemitism since the 1990s, today is the 10th anniversary of my very public battle.

This milestone creates a time for me to sincerely thank all the many people (and you know who you are) who have contributed along the way. Whatever your contribution was, it has helped fight antisemitism – it has helped to expose the truth – and has aided the battle against the hate. I truly appreciate every single contribution (financial or otherwise) – and honestly I could not have done it without you.

The success of my work has been a community effort, and my research has generated 100s of media headlines.

Not everything I have done has been published here. Sometimes I hand mainstream media stories because of the greater exposure some stories need (countless times in just the last ten months), a lot of it anonymously – which is how I mostly worked before starting this website. And along the way the work has been internationally recognised. I was invited twice to New York to receive an award, once by the Algemeiner , the second time by the media watchdog CAMERA.

I do not mention all this to brag, far from it (that is just not my style). I do so to highlight that the recognition came from US based Zionist organisations. While in Israel and the US, an unapologetic battle against antisemitism is heralded, in the UK our community leaders distance themselves from people like me. And when our Jewish mainstream hands out recognition, it is more likely to be an incestuous affair – or see awards given to those who once stood and said prayers for Hamas terrorists in Parliament Square. Our community leadership is ethically directionless, and led mostly by yellow-bellies more concerned about being invited to dinner parties than speaking out – and this is at the very time UK Jewry so desperately needs to be led by voice of real courage.

It is a key reason I am here doing what I do, fighting the fight. Not just on this website but on social media platforms as well (where because of the importance of this ongoing battle I now have 100,000s of followers). As will other people like me also continue to fight. This is not a time for weakness or appeasement, the landscape continues to deteriorate, and the horizon seem bleak. We have no other hill to fight on and we have to stand up for ourselves.

So at this ten year milestone – I sincerely want to thank everyone who has helped along the way. But there really is no time for pause. There is always so much to do. My (and by extension this website’s ) most difficult – and most important days – are still ahead of us all.


The two-state delusion
The Abraham Accords: A New Path Forward
In stark contrast to the failures of Oslo and the two-state delusion, the Abraham Accords represented a revolutionary shift in Middle Eastern diplomacy.

These agreements, brokered by the United States, have led to the normalization of relations between Israel and several Arab nations, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

The success of the Abraham Accords lies in their pragmatic approach, which is rooted in mutual economic interests, security cooperation and a shared concern about the threat posed by Iran.

The Abraham Accords demonstrate that peace in the Middle East does not require the creation of a Palestinian state. Instead, it can be achieved through direct engagement between Israel and other Arab nations, bypassing the Palestinian leadership that has repeatedly shown itself to be an obstacle to peace.

The Accords have already yielded tangible benefits, including increased trade, tourism and security cooperation between Israel and its new Arab partners.

Moreover, the Abraham Accords have the potential to reshape the broader Middle East. By creating a new alliance of moderate Arab states that recognize the benefits of partnership with Israel, the Accords isolate the radical elements that continue to promote violence and rejectionism. This new dynamic offers a more promising path to stability and prosperity in the region than the tired and failed pursuit of a two-state solution.

The Core Issue: A Conflict Over Existence, Not Land
The failure of the two-state solution is not a flop of diplomacy or negotiation tactics; it is a failure to address the core issue at the heart of the conflict. This is not a territorial dispute that can be resolved by drawing new borders or creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The conflict is fundamentally about the existence of Israel as a Jewish state and the refusal of many Palestinians to accept that reality.

The Palestinian national movement, from its inception, has been driven by the goal of eliminating Israel. This is evident in the rhetoric of Palestinian leaders, the content of their educational system and the glorification of terrorists who have attacked Israeli civilians. For the Palestinian leadership, the two-state solution is not an end goal; it is a means to an end—the eventual dismantling of Israel.

This is why every offer of statehood has been rejected. Accepting a Palestinian state alongside Israel would require a fundamental shift in Palestinian national identity, one that is currently defined by its opposition to Israel’s existence. Until this changes, any attempt to impose a two-state solution will be doomed to failure.

Moving Beyond the Delusion
The two-state solution has become a sacred cow in international diplomacy, but pursuing this mirage has not brought peace; it has only perpetuated conflict and suffering for both Israelis and Palestinians.

It is time for the international community to abandon the failed paradigm of the two-state solution and embrace a new approach that prioritizes security, stability and cooperation over the pursuit of an illusory peace.

Peace will not come through the creation of a Palestinian state that will likely become another base for terrorism against Israel. It will come through the strengthening of alliances, the promotion of economic development and the marginalization of those who continue to reject Israel’s right to exist.

Only by moving beyond the two-state delusion can we hope to achieve a lasting and just peace in the Middle East.
The Jews' Right to the Land of Israel
Here is a historical fact: Over the last 3,300 years, the only people to establish any kind of political rule in this land were the People of Israel.

No other kingdom or state was established in the Land of Israel, apart from the Kingdom of Israel or Judea and the State of Israel.

The only people ever to have their political capital in Jerusalem is the Jewish people.

During periods when Jewish independence was lost, various empires treated this land merely as a distant province.

In 638 CE, the Muslims conquered the Land of Israel from the Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire centered in Constantinople) and built their mosques in the holiest Jewish places.

They are the foreign occupiers of the land, not the Jews.


The Palestinians deserve nothing
The Palestinian Arab cause is among the most successful in world history, generating untold political, economic and emotional assistance from Western people and nations. Yet ironically, few if any causes—or peoples—are objectively less deserving of such immense support than the hapless Palestinians.

For decades, the support enjoyed by Palestinians from Westerners has exceeded that received by any other cause or group anywhere in the world.

Palestinian “liberation” is supported by huge protests on campuses, highways and plazas, as well as boycotts against Israeli businesses and scholars. The war deaths of Palestinians are the subject of desperate demands for a ceasefire. The Palestinians receive billions of dollars in aid from Western countries. Since 1947, the United States and other nations have offered them political salvation in the form of land-for-peace offers and the promise of a “two-state solution.”

Paradoxically, the Palestinians have done virtually nothing to deserve this support. They have utterly failed to prepare themselves for a future living beside their Jewish neighbors in peace. In fact, polls show the Palestinians remain the most anti-Jewish people on Earth. No wonder most of them wholeheartedly supported the Oct. 7 massacre and, if elections were held today, would readily vote Hamas into power.

As for an independent state, the Palestinians have received many generous offers over the last 75 years, all of which they have rejected. They have met these offers with war and terrorism. This is no surprise since polls show most Palestinians do not support the much-vaunted two-state solution that Westerners doggedly promote. In reality, since the Palestinians’ primary enterprise is annihilating Israel, they have little interest in peace, statehood or democracy.

It’s no surprise either that the Palestinians have failed to prioritize creating state institutions or a prosperous economy, despite infusions of billions of dollars in Western aid.

In short, the Palestinians seem unworthy of support from the U.S. or the rest of the international community. Why, then, do the Palestinians enjoy such persistent Western sympathy and more aid per capita than any other people?


My Auschwitz Vacation, On Holocaust tourism
Kazimierz is the Jewish quarter of Kraków, in southern Poland. You might know it from Schindler’s List, which was filmed here and has given the district a nickname: Jewrassic Park. The remains of a pastiche of the Płaszów concentration camp, built for the movie, are in a limestone quarry nearby. YouTubers record themselves there, staring at pieces of barbed wire. It’s odd that Steven Spielberg felt the need to dump another concentration camp on Poland. Perhaps it is an expression of control.

These days, people like to say “Never Again for Anyone.” It’s an amendment to the oath “Never Again,” which was first used by liberated inmates in Buchenwald and later by the far-right rabbi Meir Kahane. I’m not sure people are particularly dedicated to the principles of “Never Again” here. Mostly they are eating. I stand outside the Ariel restaurant, on the square. The restaurant plays Jewish-style music, serves Jewish-style food, and is decorated as a lost Jewish home, with green walls, wooden floors, and a chandelier.

There is a toy Jew on a shelf. He is perhaps four inches high, and he carries a large coin in his hand: if the coin were scaled up with him, it would be the size of a sombrero. This is the Lucky Jew, a Polish good-luck charm said to bring financial benefits. You can buy a Lucky Jew in Kraków or, if you prefer, a cuddly dragon. They are equally mythical. I like them, or rather, I don’t mind them. There were 3.3 million Jews in Poland in 1939 and as few as 4,500 today; the chief rabbi of Poland is an American, which is a kind of surrender. To muster prewar numbers, you’d have to count the toy Jews as the Jews of Poland. To be a toy is a kind of destiny. Nothing is more pliant, more willing to accept its fate, than a toy.

On the walls I find nineteen paintings of Jews counting money, and this is the restaurant for people who think they like Jews. There is also a pair of beatific horses: they look like the Virgin might if she were a horse. The Jews, though, look fuzzily demonic: they are counting notes or coins, though one is examining an egg, as if on holiday from avarice. I eat here often, sometimes alone, and once with a woman I encounter crying outside the Remuh Synagogue on Friday night. The service is canceled because there is no minyan: you need ten men to hold a service, and there are not ten to be found.

I say “shalom” to a group of German men too loudly. They look like Vikings. I am not just saying that. They respond like the first-night audience for Springtime for Hitler: with a silence so profound it’s functionally a noise. It seems they don’t want to talk to a live Jew in the Jew-themed café. It’s as if the real Donald Duck turned up at Disneyland, and they seek only the Donald Duck of their imagination. I try to be interesting, a Jew that walked off a shelf. When the band plays Jewish music, I sing along and bang the table. I am a tourist attraction, and I am filmed.

I am a British Jew, and I have been taught that the real Jewish world is here, except it isn’t. This terrible café is here. My grandmother’s family is from Łódz, some two hundred fifty kilometers northwest, and she lived uneasily in Britain, a country that did not belong to her. When I was a child, I remember her singing about a baby drowning in the bath. Perhaps I am the same. I am uneasy, too. Anti-Semitism is rampaging, making up for its rest, but there is a contradiction that interests me: the ever-expanding glut of Holocaust memorials.

In Britain, the government plans a vast Holocaust memorial near Parliament, though Britain has no complicity beyond preventing Jewish escape to Palestine. The design looks like dinosaur bones, or a toast rack, and if it has anything to do with Jewish people, I cannot see how. It seems, rather, unconsciously related to Britain’s imperial crimes, which are more rarely mentioned in our public discourse: Is this Jew washing? I wonder if memorialization is a mirror in which you see only your own reflection so that you do not have to look into the past at all.

A painting in the Ariel restaurant, in Kazimierz; a street in Kazimierz; and the remnants of the Schindler’s List set near Kraków

Some of the best-selling books about the Shoah are John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which is not about a Jew, and the diary of Anne Frank, which is not about the Shoah. The Zone of Interest is about the Shoah, but a Shoah stripped of Jews. Instead, the film is about aesthetics—the Birkenauesque—and consumer goods. That these exist in a world of mass murder seems a surprise to the filmmaker, but then again, he did grow up in late-capitalist London. Perhaps he does not understand that the Martin Amis novel on which the film is slightly based is satire, or that he made Franz Liebkind’s Springtime for Hitler before Max Bialystock turned it into a musical comedy.

Holocaust memorials are as myriad as Jew hate, and for this reason I have a vague idea that there is something wrong with them. So here I am, down my grandmother’s existential plughole, in a Jewish home with no warmth.

Since the Nineties, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there has been a “Jewish Renaissance” in Poland. In Kazimierz there is a Jewish Community Centre, a Centre for Jewish Culture, a Jewish Culture Festival, and a small Jewish community. The Orthodox, designated keepers of the synagogues and cemeteries, admit no Jew born outside Poland to their community, though they welcome Orthodox visitors, including Israelis. I join them at the Remuh Synagogue on the square. They double the Jewish population of Kraków for an hour and look doubly alienated for their trouble.
Kasim Hafeez: Who is the former jihadist who became a Zionist?
Kasim Hafeez grew up in a Pakistani Muslim immigrant community in Britain that was rife with antisemitism and Israel hatred. Every day, he was exposed to anti-Western ideas. As a student, he decided to join a terrorist organization to kill or be killed for the cause, but an accidental intervention of fate caused him to change course and walk a path completely opposite to what he had known all his life. Today, he fights antisemitism, stressing that the events of October 7 have highlighted the importance of Israel and the battle on its behalf. In an interview with "Globes," he tells his unbelievable life story.

Hafeez lives in the US with his wife, also a pro-Israel activist, and serves as director of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a pro-Israel Christian organization with some 10 million members, and deputy director of its outreach department. Over the years, he has spoken around the world in support of Israel and against radical Islam. He is a sought-after interviewee in the media and is very active on social media, where he publishes informational videos about, among other things, his visit to Israel in December 2023, shortly after October 7 and his shock at seeing Kfar Aza. "People in that community woke up that morning like a normal day. They woke up with their families and this was a massacre. It evoked more of the idea of a pogrom from, you know, Russia than a modern conflict... it took a long time to process." What did you take with you from this visit?

"It had a real impact on me. And, you know, it just made me realize why this fight is so important. Look, I've worked in this field for a long time, and we always talk about how evil Hamas and Hezbollah are. And if they could, they would do this. And we knew that. But to actually see them do it, being in that environment and to see the sight, the smell. That you're walking, and you're hearing the glass crunching under your feet. These are people's lives that were destroyed because of hatred. You know, it's — I don't want to say powerful because it's not the right word — but it's very jarring, and it's something that I won't ever forget."

"So, on October 7th... I had just got back from a birthday party and, you know, I saw the rocket alert early on and, you know, so my wife also works in the pro-Israel space. I saw the rocket alerts and I said, look, I've got to post this on my social media. I'll come to bed soon. It was late. And I just didn't go to sleep because it just carried on and it carried on... After about 24 hours, well, we have a friend who lives in Sderot, and seeing her Facebook posts about what was happening and actually asking for help, it became very apparent that this is something very different. And that's when it really sunk in... it's very challenging because in those moments you do feel kind of powerless, sitting in America.

"Because, I love and care about Israel and the Jewish people. It's something I've dedicated my life to and to be there. It genuinely felt that something had broken inside of me, and I would say only in the last few weeks that it's begun to heal... But when I came back from Israel, it just gave me the drive to fight harder and do as much as I could."
Frimet and Arnold Roth: Justice for American terror victims
On Sunday evening, a Palestinian Arab male blew himself up in central Tel Aviv with enough explosives to murder hundreds of Israelis but managed only to end his own life. Hours afterward, Hamas claimed responsibility and pledged more such attacks.

For us, almost 23 years to the day when a Palestinian suicide bomber murdered our teenage daughter Malki, this served as a jolting reminder that the scourge of Palestinian human-bomb attacks is still here.

For Israelis and Americans, the “failed” bombing is a wake-up call, a harbinger of fresh trouble ahead. From where we stand, it’s the kind of wake-up call that should never have been needed.

In August 2001, during a busy lunch hour in central Jerusalem, a bomb exploded in a Sbarro pizzeria. The attack killed 16 people, including eight children. 130 were injured, some catastrophically. Three of those killed were American citizens. All the dead were Jewish.

The mastermind behind this massacre was a 21-year-old Jordanian journalism student and TV newsreader, Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi. The atrocity, in her subsequent retelling, was “the crown on my head.”

Tamimi later told Arab audiences that she carefully selected a target rich in children, calculating the number of casualties with chilling precision. She accompanied the bomber—a young zealot carrying an exploding guitar case—to Sbarro, fleeing the scene minutes before the explosion. Today, she lives in Jordan, free to glorify her role in the attack, incite further violence and normalize the murder of civilians as “resistance.”

One of Tamimi’s American victims was our Malki, just 15. Since 2012, we have fought to bring this Hamas terrorist to U.S. justice. We have been stymied by Jordan’s refusal to extradite her and by the American failure to compel Jordan to honor its treaty obligations.

It crushes us that Jordan protects a fugitive terrorist. Beyond that, it’s incomprehensible that the Biden administration—and those before it—continually fails to take the steps it should and can take to bring her to trial. Why does the U.S. government obstruct justice in this clear case of criminal terror?
The Justice System’s Disgusting Indifference to Murder and Attacks on Jews
Two weeks after the October 7 Hamas terrorist massacre in Israel, Samantha Woll, a 40-year-old Jewish woman, was found murdered outside her Detroit home with multiple stab wounds.

The man charged with the brutal slaying, Michael Jackson-Bolanos, was acquitted of first-degree murder in July. Weeks later, a deadlocked jury failed to convict Jackson-Bolanos on a similar count of felony murder. Instead, the suspect, whose attorney claimed he was “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” will spend 18 months in prison after the jury only convicted him on one count of lying to law enforcement.

Detroit police continue to claim there is no evidence that Woll’s murder was motivated by antisemitism.

At the time of her killing, Woll was serving as President of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue, and was active in Democratic politics. Incidentally, her murder occurred in Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)’s district, where, just days prior to Woll’s body being discovered, the antisemitic lawmaker launched into another anti-Israel diatribe and falsely accused Israel of a deadly strike on a Gaza hospital that she said killed over 500 people (this was proven to be a complete lie on every account).

In November, Tlaib spoke about her “dear friend” on the House floor, calling Woll a deeply loved member of the “social justice community.”

Tlaib’s performative sorrow does little to deflect from acknowledging the Congresswoman’s outsize role in fomenting antisemitism. Moreover, the dearth of media noise and the judicial dismissiveness attached to Woll’s murder case comes against a backdrop of rising violence targeting Jews nationwide. In New York, hundreds of miles from Michigan, Orthodox Jews are routinely subjected to assault, harassment, and intimidation by criminals engaging in antisemitic thuggery.

Last Spring, a group of religious Jewish children were playing in front of a Brooklyn building when they were knocked down and punched by a Citi bike rider. To date, police have yet to find the attacker.

Just last week, 22-year-old Vincent Sumpter was charged with stabbing Yeshiva student Yechiel Michael Dabrowskin near Chabad’s headquarters, while shouting antisemitic screeds at the cohort of Jews gathered before fleeing the scene.

These are just a fraction of the violent attacks that have occurred against Jews in New York and nationwide. And while this latest incident resulted in an arrest, anti-Jewish hate crimes in New York often occur without the perpetrators facing any criminal consequences.

On its surface, the murder case involving interfaith advocate Samantha Woll shares little in common with the repeated attacks on New York’s Hasidic community. Yet, public apathy and judicial indifference over whether Woll’s killer will face any consequences for his brutality is tied to a similar disengagement in prosecuting crimes concerning the targeting of observant Jews.

For all her work with the Muslim community, it’s hard to believe that Woll’s murder would have been treated the same if she had been a part of any other racial or ethnic group besides Jews.

For Jewish Americans to retain faith in our Nation’s criminal justice system, those tasked with preserving the integrity of our judicial order must illustrate their willingness to treat felonies committed against Jews with the same degree of seriousness that is exercised for other minority communities.
Miriam Margolyes, Reginald D Hunter and the myth of respectable anti-Zionism
For me, anti-Zionism is almost always antisemitism because they do not answer this question. They do not care, because they look past the conflict to ghosts they cannot see. I am indulgent of those who don’t believe in nation states but seem quite happy with university tenure in secure liberal democracies – gah, Marxists! – but no one else. Last week, two artists gave evidence of the antisemitic nature of anti-Zionism. They fell in head-first.

The first was Miriam Margolyes, actress, daughter of a Jewish doctor and famous anti-Zionist. I met Miriam for a profile in 2020 and I liked her very much, but that was before the war. Rather shamefully, because I liked her, I dismissed her anti-Zionism by writing that I didn’t want to interview the Caramel Bunny about Palestine. I liked her because I recognise Miriam, and the cold, class-ridden city that made her (Oxford), and I recognise what I think is her projected shame, which I felt too, until I grew up.

I recognised her unease in her own body – I share that too – which seemed acute, even for an actress. I know how gifted she is – her performance in The Age of Innocence is bewitching, though it took Martin Scorsese to tear it from her – and how swift she is to defame that gift, to deny it and to send it away with pre-emptive self-mockery. All this touched me. Margolyes could have been the greatest actor of her generation but that idea didn’t sit well with her. I understand that, too. Margolyes is a British Jew like us and I admired and pitied her until – in my view, she will disagree, of course – she put British Jewish children at material risk. You cannot be a wounded child all your life, no matter your gift. You must take responsibility. Margolyes is 83.

She was on Front Row on Radio 4 last week, publicising her show Dickens’ Women at the Edinburgh Fringe. (She is a workaholic too. Again, I identify with the unease.) Kirsty Wark asked her who was “the first (Dickens) character who stuck in your head as a child?” “Oh, Fagin,” Margolyes replied in the Caramel Bunny’s voice. “Without question. Jewish and vile.” She emphasised the “vile”. It sounded like pouring cream. “I didn’t know Jews like that then,” she continued. “Sadly, I do now.” Glibly, she released the spectre.

Rather less gifted, though no less credulous, is the comic Reginald D Hunter. What happened to Hunter last week should be a novella but they are unfashionable nowadays. It went like this, in his Edinburgh show Fluffy Fluffy Beavers. Reg, a typical comedian – love me, Dad! – made a joke about Israel, which he compared to an abusive spouse. I thought it was quite funny.

Two Jewish audience members objected, heckled, were heckled in turn and left. Reg then repeated his partner’s criticism of the Jewish Chronicle’s (non-existent) paywall. “Typical f***ing Jews, they won’t tell you anything unless you subscribe.” I didn’t find this funny. “F***ing Jews” is what our children might be called, then come the fists. Also: we don’t have a paywall, but perhaps we should get one.

Reg might have said sorry but it’s not in an alpha comic’s nature. They don’t address the audience but ghosts we cannot see. (Hi Dad! Again, I identify.) He dug in, and, like a cartoon character, fell over and started retweeting some of the maddest people online.

The response was a “virtual lynching”, whatever that is. “It’s a bad look for a bunch of white ethno nationalist agitators to gang up on a black guy that’s got an issue with mass murder.” “These [the hecklers] are social engineers conducting effective advanced Social Operations for #Zionism and its public image, indoctrination and perception.” “They should be arrested and charged with being Israeli agents, driving antisemitism. Why aren’t the police investigating?” “You do not know God. God will give YOU what you & your friends deserve.” “There are no good Zionists, it is a creed founded on the (very much mistaken) belief that Zionists are the master race and others are essentially cattle to serve them.”

We are so far from laughter here, there is almost nothing left to say. I will only add: it is we who are called over-sensitive.
Israel: State of a Nation: The Academic Purge | Prof. Shai Davidai on how Universities Indoctrinated a Generation
Shai Davidai joins us to confront the pressing issues of antisemitism and indoctrination within academia. Broadcasting from our new studio in Tel Aviv, this episode dives deep into the challenges that mark the future of education and Jewish identity in Academia and worldwide. Join us for an eye-opening discussion that pulls no punches in addressing the controversial dynamics at play in universities today


The Josh Shapiro Problem
One reason Josh Shapiro isn't on the Democratic ticket is because of his identity. Among the possible reasons Kamala Harris chose Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota over Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, according to a report in The Times, was that Mr. Shapiro's selection could "inflame the left." And chief among the reasons given for this potential inferno was Mr. Shapiro's allegedly extreme pro-Israel views.

An article in The New Republic called Mr. Shapiro "the one vice-presidential pick who could ruin Democratic unity" and claimed that he "stands out among the current field of potential running mates as being egregiously bad on Palestine." A group of far-left congressional staffers and the Democratic Socialists of America teamed up to produce an open letter demanding that Ms. Harris "say no to Genocide Josh Shapiro for vice president."

Critics dug up a column Mr. Shapiro wrote for his college newspaper over 30 years ago when he was 20 arguing that the Palestinians were "too battle-minded" to co-exist with Israel. They conveniently ignored his longtime support for a two-state solution and his harsh criticism of the country's prime minister.

Mr. Shapiro is a thoroughly mainstream liberal Zionist whose views on the Middle East were virtually indistinguishable from those of his vice-presidential rivals, so the effort to single him out and target him in an open and organized campaign against his selection had to have been motivated by something else. It's hard to escape the impression that some of Mr. Shapiro's detractors were riled because he is Jewish. If having a commitment to Israel is a barrier to being on the Democratic presidential ticket, it bodes ominously for future Jewish participation in Democratic Party politics.

When Joe Lieberman became the first Jew to serve on the presidential ticket of a major American political party as the Democratic Party nominee for vice president in the 2000 presidential election, running with then Vice President Al Gore, he was a more highly observant and hawkishly pro-Israel Jew than Mr. Shapiro. This was widely considered to be an asset. Whereas other minority identities are celebrated within the party, being a proudly pro-Israel Jew is becoming a hindrance.
Harris campaign Jewish liaison touts VP’s support for Israel ‘long before Oct. 7’
Late on Monday night, after President Joe Biden wrapped up a nearly hour-long address, Jewish Democrats gathered for an afterparty hosted by the progressive pro-Israel group Zioness at a trendy Israeli restaurant in the city. By the time Ilan Goldenberg, the Harris campaign’s new Jewish outreach director, took the stage, guests were trickling out; it was after midnight.

But it was the first public address for Goldenberg, an Israeli-born Middle East policy wonk who only started on the campaign last week. In less than 10 minutes, he laid out a case for why Jewish Democrats should support Vice President Kamala Harris in November, offering a window into the points Goldenberg will be making in phone calls and meetings with Jewish leaders over the next three months.

Speaking in front of a backdrop that said, “progressive, pro-Israel, pro-Kamala,” Goldenberg made a traditionally pro-Israel case for Harris.

“I can tell you a couple of things about her,” said Goldenberg. “One, from the very beginning, she was completely adamant that Israel has a right to defend itself. Israel was attacked on Oct. 7, and Hamas is a terrorist organization, and we’re going to be behind Israel supporting its response. And two, this is just part of a much longer record of hers that she has an unwavering commitment to Israel’s security that goes back long before Oct. 7.”

Goldenberg was Harris’ top Middle East advisor on and after Oct. 7, “which is, I think, why she wanted me here,” he said. He touted her phone calls with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, in the months after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, and pointed out that she has sat in on many of President Joe Biden’s calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Neatanyahu.

“Her relationship with Israel is a lot more than just about Oct. 7. It goes back 20 years. It goes back to her time in San Francisco as an attorney general,” said Goldenberg. “It goes back to her being part of the Jewish community, largely through her husband, through Doug.”


Dispatches from Chicago: Unmasking the Web of ‘Malign Foreign Influence’ Behind #MarchonDNC
Here in Union Park at the corner of N. Ashland Avenue and W. Washington Street in the city’s West Side, dozens of riled up Americans are descending from a charter bus that has snaked down I-94 South from Grand Rapids, Mich., joining thousands for a 12 p.m. protest, united behind banners attacking U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic National Committee convention anoints her the 2024 presidential nominee.

Fomented by hashtag campaigns like #KillerKamala, #MarchOnTheDNC and #CrashTheParty, these outside agitators aren’t far-right acolytes of former President Donald Trump. These protestors are demanding climate action, abortion rights, protections for transgender individuals and – most emphatically – a “ceasefire” in the war in Gaza.

Media reports from Politico to the Associated Press have already begun to generically cast these protestors simply as “pro-Palestinian demonstrators” or “thousands of activists” who represent a “progressive” challenge to the Democratic establishment in a passionate fight for social justice and the cause of Palestine. There will be many well-intentioned people in the crowds.

However, in a new investigation that I am leading at the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative named for my friend Daniel Pearl, murdered by militants in Pakistan in 2002 for being a Jewish grandson of Israel, I have discovered that these protests are not what they appear. I analyzed 234 organizations listed as “members” and “supporters” of the March on the DNC 2024, and put my findings into a public portal I’m calling the Malign Foreign Influence Index, capturing a dynamic law enforcement officials recognize as a threat to U.S. national security. Their efforts are so well orchestrated they have got press passes, a website and a digital “graphics toolkit,” with “main march hashtags” – #MarchOnDNC2024 #MarchOnDNC #StandWithPalestine #EndUSAidToIsrael – and a list of “others to consider.”

This isn’t a battle between “progressives” and centrists within the Democratic Party. Instead, these protests are the product of a deeply coordinated effort by an alliance of three units – self-described socialist organizations, far-left groups and anti-Israel Palestinian, Arab and Muslim organizations – who represent an insidious dynamic coined malign foreign influence.

Of 234 organizations in my initial analysis, 34 groups openly identify as some form of socialism – from “anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist” to “Revolutionary Socialist” and even “building toward the creation of a new Communist Party” in the U.S. These groups, with names like “ANSWER,” “Freedom Socialist Party,” “International League of People’s Struggles,” the “New Afrikan Black Panther Party,” “World Workers Party,” “Denver Communists” and Keweenaw Socialists from Michigan, support the dictatorial governments in China, Russia, North Korea and Cuba, and they seek to replace capitalism with socialism in the U.S. and globally.

Another 165 groups are “socialist-adjacent” or pro-socialist, working closely with the openly socialist organizations and nations. For example, the “Korean Friendship Association USA” speaks highly of “Respected Supreme Leader Comrade Kim Jong Un,” the mercurial leader of the communist Workers’ Party of Korea, which the group lauds as “revolutionary.”

Finally, 35 groups are Muslim, Palestinian or Arab, many with sympathies for Hamas, like American Muslims for Palestine, Students for Justice in Palestine, the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and the U.S. Palestinian Community Network. While innocuous sounding, they seek the destruction of the state of Israel “from the river to the sea” and now depicting Harris as chummy with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.


Anti-Israel protesters lag well behind projected numbers at DNC
Although anti-Israel organizers said they expected as many as 20,000 protesters to descend on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago starting on Monday—the first day of the large-scale event—only a few thousand seemed to show up, the AP reported.

Reporters covering the event shared photos of fields of unclaimed signs.

“Say, fellas, I think you overestimated the demand for your signs today,” wrote Jim Geraghty, of National Review and The Washington Post. Geraghty posted a photo of piles of signs stating “Stand with Palestine!” and “End U.S. aid to Israel,” among other political slogans.

Most of the protesters “marched peacefully,” per the AP, though several dozen broke through a security fence near the convention, and “were detained and handcuffed by the police.”

“Officers put on gas masks as some protesters tried to bring down a second fence set up in front of police,” it wrote.

“At no point was the inner perimeter breached,” the Chicago Police stated. “There was no threat to any protectees.”


Biden at DNC: Anti-Israel protesters ‘have a point’
Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday in a keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that anti-Israel protesters “have a point.”

“Those protesters out on the street. They have a point. A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides,” the 81-year-old told the United Center crowd on the first night of the convention after being introduced by First Lady Jill Biden and their daughter, Ashley Biden.

Four demonstrators were arrested after several dozen anti-Israel protesters breached an outer fence line on the north side of the indoor arena in the city’s Near West Side on Monday evening, ABC 7 Chicago reported.

The protesters attempted to disrupt Biden’s speech but were pushed back by Chicago police in riot gear, backed by U.S. Capitol police.

“Officers put on gas masks as some protesters tried to bring down a second fence set up in front of police,” according to the Associated Press.

“At no point was the inner perimeter breached,” the Chicago Police stated. “There was no threat to any protectees.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker told CNN that the breach was “brief.”


As Anti-Israel Protesters Cause Chaos Outside DNC, Their Allies Tell Kamala: Get in Line or Lose
Anti-Israel activists assembled at an official Democratic National Convention panel on Monday and delivered a message to presidential nominee Kamala Harris: heed our demands or lose in November. As they issued those threats, their allies, protesting the Biden-Harris administration’s policy toward Israel, faced off with police as they marched through the streets of Chicago.

The panel included the co-chairwoman of the Uncommitted National Movement, Layla Elabed, sister of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.). It was moderated by Minnesota’s Democratic attorney general, Keith Ellison, a close ally of Harris running mate Tim Walz. He is notorious for his relationship with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The anti-Semitic activist Linda Sarsour, whom President Joe Biden denounced before hosting her at the White House, sat in the audience.

With a Harris staffer watching on, Elabed called on Harris to unite the Democratic Party by endorsing an arms embargo on Israel.

"If we stand up and demand action—an arms embargo, a ceasefire, an end to war—we may have an opportunity to restore the soul of the Democratic Party and unite us under a big tent," Elabed said. "Listen to Michigan and the uncommitted movement."

Elabed’s presence inside the United Center underscores the extent to which anti-Israel forces have gained a foothold in the Democratic Party and the pressures Harris will face from the left to turn on the Jewish state.

In fact, Elabed went on to urge Democratic delegates to defect from the Harris-Walz ticket. "To those of you who are delegates: join us, the uncommitted movement, in growing our movement demanding that we have a policy change that saves Palestinian lives."

Just miles away, outside of the security fencing that surrounded the convention center, thousands of anti-Israel protesters marched through the streets of Chicago. They began chanting and rattling a Secret Service security fence before dozens poured through, leading to a standoff with police officers. They were stopped before they breached the final barrier that kept them outside of the United Center.
WATCH: Kamala Trots Out AOC To Address Anti-Israel Voters at Dem Convention
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) touted Vice President Kamala Harris's support for an Israeli ceasefire in a primetime address to the Democratic National Convention, drawing cheers from the audience at the event’s opening night.

Harris "is as committed to our reproductive and civil rights as she is to taking on corporate greed. And she is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing hostages home," Ocasio-Cortez said to loud applause from the crowd in Chicago.

Ocasio-Cortez’s comments were a nod to Democratic voters who have increasingly turned against Israel in recent years. Inside and outside the convention, left-wing protesters railed against the Jewish state, calling on Harris to enact an arms embargo on Israel and pressure its leaders to abandon their battle against Hamas.

The Democratic Party’s decision to tap Ocasio-Cortez for a primetime speaking slot on the convention's opening night illustrates the growing power of the party’s left wing. During her speech, Ocasio-Cortez sought to portray Democrats as the representatives of the working class and criticized Republicans as the party of the wealthy elite.




Anti-Israel protesters arrested after breaching barrier at DNC ahead of Biden speech
Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters breached the first layer of fencing outside the Democratic National Convention, with some later apprehended by Chicago police and others pushed back by officers behind to restore the secure perimeter.

The protesters had gathered at Union Park earlier Monday and marched over to Park 578 — just a few hundred feet away from the United Center — where President Biden and others will deliver speeches to as many as 4,000 Democratic delegates.

A multi-layer fenced perimeter around the convention forum separated them from the Israel-hating demonstrators, as tensions mounted in the early evening.

Several protesters had crept up to the fence and began shaking it before slipping through. An entourage of law enforcement officers then arrived to reinforce the lines.

Some activists were also heard instructing their comrades not to enter the DNC grounds and to instead head west — but that instruction went mostly unheeded.

“No, we’re going in there,” one protester said.

Before the fencing was struck down, the crowd was heard chanting, “Just like 1968! There’s nothing here to celebrate!”

Others bore signs declaring, “Globalize the Intifada!” and “End all US military aid to Israel.”


Jill Stein picks running mate who shared pro-Hamas propaganda, called for 'stabbing' Israel ‘in the heart'
Green Party leader and presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein’s choice of a running mate is Bilal (Butch) Ware, an associate professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara who has shared pro-Hamas propaganda and has called Israel a “white supremacist Zionist project” that activists should “stab in the heart.”

Stein lauded him on Sunday in a post announcing Ware as her running mate: “I’m honored and thrilled to welcome Butch Ware as my running mate and the Vice President we need at this moment in history. His personal experience overcoming systemic injustice, his deep knowledge of history and people’s movements, and his commitment to building a sustainable, just, peaceful world make Butch the ideal candidate."

“This is truly a historic ticket bringing together a Jewish woman and Black Muslim man against genocide, endless war, climate collapse, and rampant injustice, and for an economy that works for working people, a livable future for our children, and an America and a world that works for all of us.”

In the days following the Oct. 7 attacks last year, Ware shared video of a man encouraging Hamas to kill more Jews in Israel and claimed that Hamas did nothing wrong in its terrorist attacks, adding that the terrorists were "fighting for their freedom." He then compared Hamas to Nelson Mandela.

Ware has previously called Israel "the beast" and said it should be "stabbed in the heart.” The vitriolic comments were part of a larger discussion titled, "Sunnah of Struggle - Black and Palestinian Liberation from Islamic Perspective."

Ware also equated the protests about George Floyd to protests in favor of the Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas War. He made the comments in October 2023 while speaking at a mosque not far from the university where he teaches African studies in the history department.
'Who will they come for next?': Greens Senator Nick McKim evokes Holocaust poem to defend rogue trade unions
Nick McKim has defended the Greens' decision to vote against legislation designed to clean up the rogue construction division of the CFMEU by evoking a poem about the Holocaust.

The Greens were slammed for voting against the legislation on Monday, with the Albanese government accusing the minor party of siding with “organised crime”.

The legislation to clean up the embattled CFMEU ultimately passed the Senate on Monday evening after Labor agreed to Coalition demands for extra requirements.

Support from the major parties put passage of the legislation beyond doubt, but the Greens slammed the new laws, with leader Adam Bandt describing them as “deeply flawed” and a “threat to freedom of association and the rights of all unions”.

Mr McKim went further and took to social media to condemn the decision and claim his party were the “only ones” fighting for the trade union movement.

“They came for the refugees and only the Greens fought them,” the Tasmanian Senator wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday.

“Then they came for climate protestors and forest defenders and only the Greens fought them.

“Now they’ve come for the trade unions and only the Greens fought them. Who will they come for next?”



The tweet appeared to be written in the style of the famous Holocaust poem “First they came ...”

The poem is based on a 1946 post-war confessional by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller about the horrors of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.

Perhaps most famously, the quotation is displayed prominently at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The symbolism of the poem to the Jewish community is explained on the museum website.


Pittsburgh BDS ballot measure proposal thrown out
A controversial effort to establish a proposed ballot measure in Pittsburgh that would require the city to cut ties with companies that do business with Israel was set aside on Monday after a judge ruled that the recently filed petition lacked the required number of valid signatures.

The petition, backed by the Pittsburgh chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, faced legal challenges from the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and the city controller, Rachael Heisler, alleging that the ballot referendum, if approved in November, would contravene state law concerning boycotts and could prevent critical city services from functioning.

In a statement after the court hearing on Monday, Heisler called the ruling “a victory for the City of Pittsburgh,” adding that the “proposed referendum would have been impossible to implement, a threat to public safety and a significant legal liability.”

The Jewish federation in Pittsburgh, in a separate statement, hailed the judge’s decision as a “victory against” what it called “the first attempt to qualify an anti-Israel boycott and divestment proposal at the municipal level to a popular vote.”

Prior to the hearing, the Pittsburgh DSA chapter had announced on social media on Sunday evening that it had chosen to withdraw the petition, saying that it could not “keep up with” the legal challenges.

“This is a strategic withdrawal, and by no means a loss,” the group wrote. “This isn’t about us, and at the end of the day this isn’t about ballot access — this is about pressuring for a ceasefire and a Free Palestine.”

The DSA also claimed that it had “submitted more signatures than required” and accused “politicians and interest groups” of pushing its initiative off of the November ballot.
UKLFI: Students and Staff intimidated and distressed by anti-Israel demos on Campus says report
Over three quarters of respondents to a survey of students and staff at UK universities have felt intimidated or felt distress or fear as a result of anti-Israel demonstrators on Campus. 96% of the respondents identified as Jewish. Universities have been informed that they are breaching the law by discriminating against and harassing Jewish and Israeli students and staff.

Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson MP, has seen the report and told the Sunday Telegraph:
“Anti-Jewish hatred is abhorrent – no Jewish student should feel unsafe at university because of their identity and beliefs.

I am sickened to see that this survey has found it to be so widespread on our university campuses. Universities urgently need to act, working with the police where necessary to see that unlawful anti-Semitic abuse is stamped out.

Last month, we announced a refocused role for the Office for Students, taking the lead in eradicating all forms of discrimination and harassment in higher education.”

The report has also been sent to the vice chancellors of the UCL, Leeds, Imperial, Goldsmiths and LSE, where according to the survey, many of these problems had occurred.

UKLFI Charitable Trust, along with End Hate on Campus, carried out an electronic survey in which students and staff of different universities around the United Kingdom were invited to respond to whether and how anti-Israel demonstrations, in particular the encampments at their campuses had impacted them and their studies or work.

76% of respondents have felt intimidated by anti-Israel demonstrators on campus.

Out of those who answered “yes” to whether they have been intimidated by anti-Israel demonstrators on campus, 73% said that their studies or work have been affected by the demonstrations. Lecturers had cancelled lectures and students were unable to access classrooms and libraries due to hallways and entrances being blocked.

Students avoided campus demonstration days due to feeling threat, fear and anxiety, and as a result have missed lectures and workshops. Academics and staff members also chose to work from home to avoid the protests and missed important department events and meetings.

Students have seen antisemitic graffiti and posters at their campuses, including swastikas and the phrases “kikes out”, “Up Hamas” and “Death 2 Zionism”.
Lies at the Center of Campus Antisemitism
For more than 50 years we have seen the steady drip of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-Jewish ideology being embedded in the curriculum, hiring, and even administration of U.S. colleges and universities, especially in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. The impact of this is now coming into full force, impacting even elementary and middle school students.

The lies at the basis of campus antisemitism today include: Zionism is equal to racism, Israel is an apartheid state, Israel is a European post-colonial settler state, Palestinians are the indigenous people of the area, being anti-Zionist is not being antisemitic, Israel is perpetrating genocide against Palestinians, Hamas casualty figures are accurate, Hamas "freedom fighters'" rape and murder was an act of resistance, and creating a Palestinian state requires the eradication of the Jewish state of Israel. This article refutes each of these lies.
Democratic lawmakers pull bill to establish antisemitism ‘guardrails’ in ethnic studies
A California bill intended to place “guardrails” against antisemitism in mandatory ethnic studies high school courses died in the Senate Appropriations Committee’s suspense file last week after the authors requested that the bill be pulled.

Assembly Bill 2918, by Assemblymembers Dawn Addis, D-San Luis Obispo, and Rick Chavez Zbur, D-Hollywood, was one of more than 170 bills held in suspense by the Senate Appropriations Committee last Thursday, meaning the bill is effectively dead for the legislative session.

If passed into law, it would have required local educational agencies to “ensure that the course and instructional materials are developed in conjunction with specified stakeholders, including certificated teachers, classified public school staff, and parents and guardians of pupils,” according to a summary provided by the Digital Democracy project at CalMatters.

According to the bill authors, the legislation was pulled to allow more time to work on it.

“It’s important that we get this right the first time. This is a complicated issue that requires time and honest conversations, and we owe that to our educators, administrators, parents, and most importantly, our students,” Zbur said in a statement.

Addis added, “It is absolutely critical that students see themselves and their stories represented in their classrooms. Ethnic studies curriculum plays an essential role in honoring the diversity and complex history of California. We must teach California’s diverse students in ways that uplift and bring them together — and ensure antisemitism and other bias has no place.”

One group opposed to the legislation has given tens of thousands of dollars to Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

According to the Digital Democracy archives, which draws records from state campaign finance documents, the California Faculty Association, which opposed the bill, has given more than $86,000 to the Democratic members of the Senate Appropriations Committee; that includes $18,500 to committee chair Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Merced, between 2018 and 2022.

A Digital Democracy analysis shows that Caballero voted with the CFA 72.5% of the time between 2017 and 2024.
John Hopkins University Adopts ‘Institutional Neutrality’ Policy After Anti-Israel Protests
John Hopkins University (JHU) announced that it has adopted a policy of “institutional neutrality” and will not weigh in on topics outside its direct “interest or function,” which ostensibly means it will not issue public statements on contentious political issues.

The decision came after JHU was one of many US universities to experience raucous anti-Israel protests on campus last spring semester.

“The dedication to restraint applies to university statements from the president, provost, and deans,” the university said on Thursday. “It does not apply to individual faculty members in their scholarly or personal capacity. In fact, one intent of the commitment is to extend the broadest possible scope to the views and expressions of faculty, bolstering faculty in the exercise of their freedom to share insights and perspectives without being concerned about running counter to an ‘institutional’ stance.”

It continued, “Moving forward, in considering whether and when to issue a statement, university leaders will determine whether the issue clearly pertains to the ‘direct, concrete, and demonstrable interest or function of the university.’ Determinations will ultimately fall to an internal working group including senior members of the president’s and provost’s staff.”

Coming just a week before the start of its new academic year, the policy addresses a bitter debate in academia over what stance, if any, universities should take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel’s war with Hamas. Anti-Zionist scholar-activists and students have implored administrators to adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, while Zionist and pro-Israel forces have insisted on their denouncing anti-Zionist speech that is antisemitic. In the spring, anti-Zionist students escalated their demands for an anti-Israel boycott by illegally occupying a section of the campus for 13 days.

At the time, JHU pledged that a “petition for divestment will be considered, pursuant to existing policies,” and a committee convened to study it in June. Thursday’s institutional neutrality statement arrived before the committee announced its recommendations. With it, JHU follows Harvard University, Vanderbilt University, and other institutions that have opted against becoming enmeshed in interminable debates. However, some maintain that doing so abdicates the university’s responsibility to stand for principles which hold together the fabric of Western civilization.

“These institutional neutrality policies sound wholesome in the abstract, but I fear they are often just attempts to by college administrators to avoid taking a stand against antisemites, communists, and other radicals who attempt to hijack the university’s credibility to advance their own agendas,” Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars (NAS), told The Algemeiner on Monday.


Australian media company CEO ‘unreservedly’ sorry for photo of Nazi salute
The CEO of the Australian media company Foxtel, which has nearly 4.7 million paid subscribers and which made about $330 million last quarter, has apologized “unreservedly” after a decade-old image surfaced of him performing a Nazi salute.

Patrick Delany told the Australian site Crikey, which first published the image, that he was “shocked” to see it. “The fact I demonstrated this offensive salute was wrong and I unreservedly apologize,” he told the site. (He was then CEO of Fox Sports Australia, which is distinct from the American Fox Sports.)

Delany also told the site that he was “demonstrating the similarity” between the Nazi salute and a gesture that sports fans use.

After Jewish groups criticized his performing the Nazi gesture, Delany wrote in an email to Foxtel staff, “I am very sorry for my actions and sincerely apologize to people who have been hurt or offended, especially members of the Jewish community,” and that “the picture is completely inconsistent with my values and beliefs, and family connections.”

Jewish groups in Australia reportedly accepted the apology.

Australia passed a law in December criminalizing performing Nazi salutes in public.
Emmy Nomination to Terror-Tied Gazan Journalist Under Fire From Debra Messing and Other Celebrities
Over 100 actors and entertainment industry insiders, including Debra Messing and Selma Blair, are calling on the organization behind the Emmy Awards to rescind its award nomination of documentarian Bisan Atef Owda, citing the Gazan journalist's anti-Semitic rhetoric and ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terror organization.

The Creative Community for Peace (CCFP), a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating rising anti-Semitism in the arts, issued a letter signed by more than 150 actors and Hollywood leaders pressing the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences to pull Owda's Emmy nomination in light of her "documented ties" to the PFLP. Owda, a Gaza-based journalist behind the documentary It's Bisan from Gaza and I'm Still Alive, has "actively participated in PFLP rallies and disseminated antisemitic content." Those ties, the group wrote in its Monday letter, are "inexcusable."

"The Emmys decision to honor someone with clear ties to a U.S.-designated terrorist group is inexcusable and should have never happened. It would be legitimizing a terrorist organization," CCFP wrote in the letter, which was signed by Blair, Messing, fellow actress Emmanuelle Chriqui, former Paramount Pictures CEO Sherry Lansing, Saban Capital Group CEO Haim Saban, and Fox Entertainment president Fernando Szew.

"If the Emmys don't change course and rescind this nomination, they will be glorifying someone who is a member of an organization that has carried [out] numerous aircraft hijackings, participated in the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, carried out waves of bombings on markets and restaurants and murdered innocent women and children," the group's letter says.

Owda—who claims that Israel "occupies every corner of the world"—was selected as an Emmy nominee earlier this month in the 2024 News & Documentary category for her film, which documents the Palestinian activist's experience during the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. The film is nominated alongside its publisher AJ+, an offshoot of the Qatari-owned media conglomerate Al Jazeera, which disseminates anti-Israel propaganda across the globe.

Owda's nomination, the CCFP wrote in the letter, "is deeply troubling, given the creator's history of promoting dangerous falsehoods, spreading antisemitism, and condoning violence." Owda's ties to the PFLP, the group says, "raises serious ethical concerns that cannot and should not be ignored."

"Honoring someone linked to an organization that has caused so much pain and suffering is not just irresponsible; it is a direct affront to the values we hold dear in the entertainment industry," the letter states.


How Israel recruits Gazans inside the heart of Hamas to risk their lives for the Jewish State
There is one phenomenon that worries Hamas almost as much as the Israeli military in Gaza: the thousands of informants who risk their lives for Israel. Without their work, none of the operations to kill senior Hamas officials would have worked or the hostages been rescued.

So why do they do it - and how are they recruited?

An informant’s fundamental mission is to locate targets such as senior Hamas leaders, weapons production tunnels and Hamas operatives who travel throughout the Gaza Strip dressed in civilian clothing.

The informant passes this information to his Israeli handler - but never, usually, by phone or any other device, lest he be exposed. It is always done in a meeting at one of the kibbutzim in southern Israel, near the border with Gaza.

This information is then passed to the Shin Bet, who forwards it to the army, which in turn forwards it to the cabinet - where approval to attack is (or is not) granted by the prime minister.

Only in exceptional circumstances can a communication device be used, if the information is “hot” (ie needs to be acted upon immediately) - such as when a senior Hamas figure is visiting a specific place but only for an hour or two, or when it is information regarding a location where hostages are being held and the informant understands that the hostages will be relocated the same day. If a phone is used, it will be the number of an Israeli Arab citizen. The person receiving the call might pretend, for example, to be the informant’s aunt who is interested in the situation in Gaza. This “aunt” will be an agent working for Israeli intelligence.

One of the informants engaged in Mohammed Deif's successful assassination was a Hamas “messenger” - a 19-year-old whose role was to pass messages written on notes between Hamas members scattered underground around the Gaza Strip. Fearful of Israeli surveillance, Hamas tries to communicate solely in writing, using code and coloured paper.

This courageous young man is no longer in Gaza. The bargain with him was that if the assassination operation was successful, he would be flown at Israel's cost to the United States and given asylum. Following the success in eliminating Deif, Hamas is now deeply concerned about the phenomenon of Gazan collaborators and has used the Al Jazeera news channel to threaten all Gazan inhabitants.
Gazan woman says 'May Allah curse Sinwar, Hamas' on live Al Jazeera broadcast
A Gaza woman interrupted a live broadcast from Al Jazeera English to say "May Allah curse you, Sinwar and Hamas," on Tuesday.

The video was streamed from Deir al-Balah.

It is not the first time a Gazan disgruntled with Hamas has made an appearance on Al Jazeera Palestine. In June, Al Jazeera posted a video of a Gazan doctor crying and screaming about the casualties, saying: “Our leadership is scum. Our leadership got used to this bloodshed. May Allah reckon with them!"

Al Jazeera censorship of criticism
Al Jazeera has previously attempted to censor Gazan criticism of Hamas. In November, a video was disseminated of a wounded Gaza resident interviewed in a hospital by an Al Jazeera reporter.

“And regarding the resistance [Hamas], they hide among the people. Why do they hide among the people?” the wounded resident asked. The reporter cut the interview and ended the broadcast.

In accordance with the mandate of Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, the media network is banned from broadcasting in Israel. The Qatari-run network has been accused of incitement.


WhatsApp’s AI-powered sticker generator advances antisemitic stereotypes
When WhatsApp users type “Jew” into the mobile messaging app’s artificial intelligence sticker generator, a man holding a money symbol appears, Jewish Insider has learned.

Each time “Jew” is typed into the sticker generator, the sticker’s skin color and clothing changes, but the dollar sign he is holding remains. When the exercise is replicated on WhatsApp with “Christian” and “Muslim,” no images affiliated with negative stereotypes appeared.

A Meta spokesperson told JI: “We fixed this issue as soon as we identified it, and we apologize for the error. This is new technology, and like any generative AI system, it may return inaccurate or inappropriate responses. We share information within the features themselves to help people understand this and are constantly releasing updates to improve our systems.”

“Large language models have all sorts of guardrails in place to prevent users from generating harmful content. This is what keeps ChatGPT from writing offensive jokes, for example,” Grant Silow, managing director of 25madison, a venture platform that incubates and invests in AI application software companies, told JI.

AI stickers in WhatsApp are powered by the large language model Meta Llama 3. The AI sticker feature is only available in limited countries.

“So for WhatsApp’s AI stickers to repeatedly show caricatures of Jews holding dollar signs when asked to create a sticker of a Jew makes you wonder where the breakdown is at Meta with Llama 3,” Silow said.


NBA legend Shaq sends message of support to Oct. 7 massacre survivors
National Basketball Association legend Shaquille “Shaq” O’Neal this past weekend sent a heartfelt video message in English and Hebrew to survivors of the Oct. 7 massacre and bereaved families.

The 52-year-old, whose trophy shelf includes three titles with the Los Angeles Lakers and one with the Miami Heat, delivered the greeting to Timberlane Camp in Toronto, which is hosting young people who went through the Hamas-led attack on the northwestern Negev and families affected by the tragedy.

The California-based pro-Israel organization Creative Community for Peace and Canadian charity organization OneFamily, which assists Israeli victims of terrorism, are supporting the initiative.

“Camp Timberlane! Hello! Shalom! This is Shaquille O’Neal. I just wanted to give you guys a shout out and let you know I love you. To all the amazing children from the OneFamily, I know you came from far, far away. Hope you’re having a good time. We love you so very much. Thank you for coming, and we’ll talk to you soon. All right.” O’Neal said, before switching to Hebrew.

“Shalom. Baruch Hashem [Praise God]. L’Shanah Tovah [Have a happy new year]. Shabbat Shalom.”




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