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Wednesday, August 21, 2024

08/21 Links Pt2: No, Mr. President, the Protesters Don’t Have a Point; Kamala Harris’s BDS Problem; Anti-Zionism is just antisemitism misspelled

From Ian:

Eli Lake: No, Mr. President, the Protesters Don’t Have a Point
It’s not even clear if the DNC spoilers would ever be enticed to support Kamala Harris in November. As our own Olivia Reingold reports from the convention, many of the anti-Israel shouters are not trying to change the next administration’s policies so much as heap scorn and shame on a government they see as complicit in a genocide. Many are self-described “communists” and “anarchists.” So even if Biden or Harris changed America’s policy on the war, there is no guarantee these malcontents would actually end up voting for the Democrats come November. After all, before he dropped out of the race last month, this crowd called the president “Genocide Joe.”

Now the anti-Israel mob, which showed up outside the Israeli consulate in Chicago on Tuesday, has a new target: “Killer Kamala.” The dozens of protesters, thirteen of whom ended up arrested, spontaneously broke out into chants of “fuck Kamala” while a masked man waved a Samidoun flag and others held up signs declaring Biden and Harris were “different heads, same beast.”

In their more than hour-long confrontation with the police, the protesters told at least three entities to “go to hell”: Israel, the DNC, and the Chicago Police Department. They burned an American flag in the street. As rows of police stood about twenty feet away, their batons at the ready, activists were told to take to the microphone and “speak your bitter, speak your venom.”

A man in yellow latex gloves, with his entire face concealed, told the cops: “Fuck every single one of you until you quit your jobs.”

They called this a march for Gaza, but this could hardly be a march for anything—only against. Against the Republicans, against the Democrats, and against America. If they have one point, Mr. President, it’s that they are not worth listening to.
The Democrats in Chicago
Rose had stated the basic formula of anyone serious about politics. Uncommitted is backing the Democratic nominee for president but doing so through a carefully calibrated attitude of reluctance and expectation, meaning that they are holding out for more than they’re getting this week. But what they got was significant: On Monday, the movement hosted an official, DNC-sanctioned event at McCormick Place, a jam-packed panel discussion focused around the humanitarian situation in Gaza and a gathering executed with astounding political tact. The hand of the Harris campaign was obvious—as was the uncommitteds’ willingness to abide by the campaign’s apparent rules.

The panelists, which included Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, longtime Democratic party activist James Zogby, former Congressman Andy Levin, two Palestinian American women active in Democratic politics, and a pediatric surgeon who had worked in Gaza this past March treated Iran and Hamas as if they didn’t exist and decried Benjamin Netanyahu’s fascism without so much as saying Yahya Sinwar’s name—only Ellison made any mention of the Oct. 7 attack. But the panelists also never talked about BDS, made only passing references to a one-state solution, and did not praise Palestinian militancy or treat America as inherently evil. Most of the panel wept when the doctor, Tanya Haj-Hassan, described watching children die at overwhelmed Gazan hospitals. Hala Hijazi, the California-raised child of Gazan parents, and someone who has lost scores of relatives during the war, emphasized her own patriotism, recalling that she had given a speech before a citizenship ceremony and knocked on doors for Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. “I know everyone is struggling, but the vice president is working very hard,” Hijazi said. “We have to hold her accountable, but we also have to give her a chance.”

“She can say things that don’t betray the president,” instructed Andy Levin. “She can say we’ll follow U.S. and international law.” A packed ballroom erupted in cheers.

At the very moment a pro-Palestine rally in Union Park fizzled into a sad carnival of Hoxhaists and other angry weirdos, the people who want to reorient American policy toward the future nonexistence of the Jewish state had made real progress through normative procedural means. The uncommitteds had organized a national movement within the country’s leading political party, established a measurable degree of intraparty leverage during an election season, made limited concessions to potential allies in the party hierarchy, pragmatically moderated their message, traded away their leverage for things that would actually advance their issue set, and then held out for more. They recognized that the Democratic Party wants this process to happen, even if it’s for cynical reasons of internal contradiction-management and even if it’s a long way off from an official full turn against Israel.

“We can call it what it is, it’s genocide,” Zogby alleged of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, “but what’s historic here is that we have an officially sanctioned panel to talk about it.” Zogby lauded “The message the Harris campaign is sending by saying we wanna talk about it, and we wanna hear you talk about it. … Thank you to the campaign for sponsoring this. Thank you for listening to us.”

The protests on the streets and parks of Chicago this week are inevitably minor episodes, but actual history might have been made at McCormick Place on Monday—and made within the structure and under the auspices of the Democratic Party itself.
Seth Mandel: Kamala Harris’s BDS Problem
The rise of someone with Bitar’s history of anti-Israel agitation isn’t too surprising, especially as younger officials make their way up the ladder in the Democratic Party. As I wrote last week, one of Harris’s aides is Nasrina Bargzie, a deputy counsel to the vice president who was just put in charge of the campaign’s outreach to Arab and Muslim voters.

Bargzie spent years representing and advocating for anti-Zionist organizations, including SJP. For a decade, she was a leader in the movement to knock down legal attempts to grant Jews on campus full civil rights under Title VI. She even took her case against applying Title VI to Jews to the United Nations. Bargzie and her peers played an important role in legitimizing and cultivating the widespread Jew-baiting now found on campuses across the country. In many ways, the current tentifada movement—which, again, has now been found by the courts to have violated Jewish students’ civil rights—is the result of her life’s work.

The development of groups like SJP serving as recruiting grounds for Democratic political campaigns and administrations paints a bleak picture of the party’s direction on anti-Semitism. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was subject to a ruthless and ultimately successful anti-Semitic campaign against his seemingly-sure-thing nomination as Harris’s veep. One of the supposed scandals that doomed his candidacy was that he had volunteered in Israel as a teenager.

The message of the past couple weeks could not be clearer: In the Democratic Party, apolitical Jewish youth activities must be hidden or avoided entirely, while careers built on denying Jewish Americans their civil rights will be seen as an asset.

To compound things, Biden-Harris administration is already dealing with strained intelligence sharing with allies. After Ukraine carried out a surprise attack on Russia, it was revealed that the U.S. was kept in the dark. One reason: The Ukrainians learned from Israel how to get around America’s attempts to bind their hands while at war. “So Israel announced that they would take the advice of their partners very seriously but would afterward make their own decisions in the best interest of their own national security,” a Ukrainian parliamentarian said in a recent interview. “I think that we can simply mirror that approach in our own case.”

The success of Maher Bitar and Nasrina Bargzie is a result of Democratic grassroots’ having turned Israel into a litmus test for political advancement. For those concerned about anti-Semitism specifically and cracks in the Western alliance generally, the worst is yet to come.


Anti-Zionism is just antisemitism misspelled
Redefining Jews to justify antisemitism is not as innovative as leftists like to think.

Antisemitism was always premised on redefining Jewish existence as unnatural and artificial. Jews were being denounced as colonizers as far back as the days of Pharaoh. The term “antisemitism,” coined by Wilhelm Marr, a German socialist, followed in the proud tradition of socialists justifying why they wanted to liberate all the oppressed of Europe except the Jews.

The Jews, being semites, did not belong in Europe. The Jews, being European, do not belong in Israel. The Jews, being Zionists, do not belong at progressive institutions like Harvard or Columbia. And the Jews, being occupiers, do not belong in London watching “Fiddler on the Roof.” It is the duty of all progressive people of goodwill to make them uncomfortable not only by lobbing rockets at Jerusalem and burning Jewish families alive in their homes, but also by showing up to attack them anywhere in the world they might be. Because it’s not about Israel.

Just as anti-Zionism is a manifestation of antisemitism, so the calls for the destruction of Israel by the average non-Muslim have nothing to do with a tiny country in the Middle East.

And everything to do with the Jews.

The profusion of PLO flags and shouts about rivers, seas and the Arab Muslim colonizers who adopted the name of the European colonizers known as the Philistines, are simply the latest incarnation of the Swastika and shouts on German streets of “Juden Raus!”

Anti-Zionism is antisemitism misspelled or revamped for a new and more tolerant age that needs heavy doses of ideological formulation before it can go ahead with its pogroms.

If Israel didn’t exist, it would have had to be invented. European Jews reinvented Israel because of antisemitism. And antisemites cling to Israel so that they can claim to be anti-Zionists.

The idea that the current plague of antisemitism would not exist without Israel is a fantasy.

The obsession of the Muslim wing of the anti-Zionist coalition with Jews long predates the rebirth of Israel. And socialists were hurling antisemitic invective at Jews in the antebellum era.

Mohammed did not ethnically cleanse the Jews of Arabia because of the State of Israel. Nor did Marx rant that “money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist” back when Theodor Herzl was a teenage boy because he was so infuriated by Zionism.

The red-green alliance of Marxism and Islam has always hated the Jews. It will always do so.

But the followers of Mohammed and Marx also hate a great many other people besides Jews, because hatred is their ideology, more than any faith or economic system. They distill and channel that hate along ideological lines, but it is not their ideology that defines their hate, but their hate that defines their ideology. If there were no Israel, they would still be turning up outside synagogues and chanting for the death of Jews as they did before there was an Israel.

Israel is not the cause of the antisemitism or anti-Zionism of Marxists and Muslims, it is the best defense against it. Israel’s existence infuriates them because it has made it harder to kill Jews.

And what else would make an antisemite pretending to be an anti-Zionist as angry as the Jews making it harder to kill them?
Arsen Ostrovsky: To keep football beautiful, give the Palestinian campaign of hate a ‘red card’
Jibril Rajoub, a senior Palestinian Authority official and convicted terrorist, once declared, “If we had a nuke, we’d have used it [against Israel] this very morning.” Rajoub said this on Al-Mayadeen TV, a Hezbollah-affiliated television channel, the same Hezbollah which last month fired a rocket at Majdal Shams in northern Israel, murdering 12 young children playing football.

Rajoub, who also heads up the ‘Palestine Football Association,’ is now leading the Palestinian campaign to boot Israel from FIFA, the football world governing association, having failed to do so on previous occasions in 2015 and 2017.

A man with seemingly no shortage of titles, Rajoub also serves as President of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and tried – unsuccessfully – to boot Israel from the Paris Olympics. But the International Olympics Committee (IOC) would have none of that, with IOC President Thomas Bach saying: “We are not in the political business, we are there to accomplish our mission to get the athletes together.”

Rajoub’s only mission however, spanning more than five decades in radical Palestinian politics, has been to glorify terror, incite violence against Israel and politicize international sports, by trying to have the Jewish state kicked out of every sporting association he can find, or in his own words “using athletes as an asset in our resistance and in our struggle.”

Rajoub’s first conviction for terror was in 1970, after he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Israel, for belonging to an armed group and throwing a grenade at an Israeli army vehicle. He served 15 years before being released in a prisoner exchange. Rajoub was subsequently arrested and convicted at least a further three times, on various charges relating to involvement in acts of terror and has spent at least two decades in prison.

With a bottomless CV of spewing relentless antisemitism, incitement and racial hatred, Rajoub has also called Jews “Satans” and Zionists as “the sons of dogs”.

Rajoub’s most recent mission to have Israel kicked out of FIFA, is based on the mendacious claim that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. Of course, Rajoub fails to mention any role played by Hamas in the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, or their ongoing captivity of at least 115 hostages in Gaza, including women, children and the elderly. Nor does Rajoub mention that Israeli players and football staff have been among the casualties of Hamas’s ongoing terror.
Satire isn’t a defense for antisemitism and hate
Dan Sobovitz is a human rights activist. He’s a former adviser to European Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and a board member of the Brussels Secular Jewish Community Center (CCLJ).

“… I get so angry that I want to ram a sharp knife in the throat of every Jew I meet. Of course, you always have to remember: Not every Jew is a murderous bastard, and to give shape to that thought, I imagine an elderly Jewish man shuffling down my own street, dressed in a washed-out shirt, fake cotton pants and old sandals, and I feel sorry for him and almost tear up, but a moment later, I wish him to hell.”

The above paragraph wasn’t published by der Der Stürmer in the 1930s. It’s not in a manifesto of the Islamic State or the Ku Klux Klan. It was published in August 2024 by mainstream Flemish magazine Humo and written by one of Belgium’s best-selling authors, Herman Brusselmans.

The publication of such offensive language naturally sparked public outcry and even legal charges against the magazine, and the piece has subsequently been taken down. Yet, both the author and the publication refuse to see the problem. They insist it was “satire,” and that those who consider it tasteless or antisemitic are taking it out of context. But I fail to see in what context it could be considered legitimate or satirical, against Jews or any other group.

I have spent the past months arguing that criticism of Israel is perfectly legitimate — whether I agree with the criticism or not — and that it shouldn’t be labeled as antisemitic. This includes the debate on whether Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza, the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, as well as calls to free Palestine from Israeli occupation. Even opposing Zionism — the ideology Israel was founded on as a homeland for the Jewish people — is fair play in my view. It’s a political movement that had a significant impact on various groups over the past century, and can therefore be critiqued like any other national movement for self-determination.

However, the above example crosses every reasonable redline.

Holding diaspora Jews accountable for what the government of Israel is doing is as intellectually honest as holding every Muslim responsible for the crimes of the Islamic Republic of Iran, or every person of Belgian descent for the atrocities in the Congo. But Brusselmans didn’t stop at generalizing, stereotyping or even inciting hate. He went a step further into encouraging violence of the worst type: He described a passionate desire to kill any Jew coming his way.
Stephen Pollard: Labour’s Muslim Problem
In other words, there are 110 constituencies with an electorally significant Muslim population. And with the large number of Labour MPs who won with small majorities now thinking about how to hold on to their seats at the next election in 2029, that Muslim vote becomes ever more important.

This matters because of what these Muslim voters want. A poll before the election for the Henry Jackson Society showed that 1 in 4 British Muslims cited the Israel/Palestine conflict as their most important election issue, compared with just 3 percent of the public. Almost half said that Jews have too much power over UK government policy. The 2024 election showed how these attitudes are moving into the political mainstream with the rise of a newly cohesive Muslim bloc vote.

This has not just happened by chance. A new organization, The Muslim Vote, describes itself as a coalition but is essentially a vehicle for groups such as Mend and the Muslim Association of Britain, which pursue Islamist, Muslim Brotherhood agendas. The Muslim Vote is not just focused on Gaza. Among its myriad demands is that a definition of “Islamophobia” be put on the statute books and that Ofcom, which regulates broadcasting in the UK, enforce a bar on so-called Islamophobia being broadcast. Where once it would have been easy to dismiss such demands and such groups as fringe, that is no longer possible. As we have seen, the Muslim vote matters, and it is surely inevitable that those Labour MPs with small majorities in constituencies with a significant Muslim vote will try to ensure their reelection at the 2029 election by bending to the demands of The Muslim Vote’s supporters and thereby neutralizing them. As the current parliament progresses, this will be one of the most significant driving forces within the Labour ranks—with an impact on policy that has not yet been fully appreciated.

Starmer is keen to appear—and, for the moment, to be—firm that he is a centrist leader of a changed Labour Party. “We were elected as a changed Labour Party and we will govern as a changed Labour Party,” he says. But unless something unprecedented happens and his government defies the usual laws of political gravity—which even Tony Blair, the most successful Labour politician of our time, could not manage to do—the party will become more unpopular over time. When you are riding high in the polls, it is easy to stand firm and ignore those pushing you in a different direction, such as over the demands of The Muslim Vote and the Gaza protest marchers. It is less easy when the momentum is against you. And the lay of the political land is clear: There is already a battle for Labour to hold off a newly confident, determined Muslim bloc vote in many seats. That is trouble enough, before one even factors in the pressure that comes when things start to go badly.

This is where the contrast with the previous government matters most in considering the future direction of the Labour government. When the Tories were under pressure, they pivoted (or at least tried to) toward the demands of their natural supporters. Labour will follow the same dynamic. The problem is that those natural supporters include the hundreds of thousands who have been marching on the streets supposedly for a cease-fire and a “Free Palestine” (although many were marching on October 14, before Israel had even begun its response to October 7). And it also includes the Muslims who demand that so-called Islamophobia be outlawed and the government act in all sorts of other Islamist-friendly ways.

It may be, of course, that Starmer will indeed not budge, no matter what the pressures. But given that one of the first acts of his government was to restore funding to UNRWA, back the ICC, and halt some arms sales to Israel—pandering to the demands of Labour’s natural supporters—the chances of that must, surely, be slim to nonexistent.
Pro-Israel Democrat prevails in closely contested Phoenix House race
Following a recount, a pro-Israel Democrat running for an open House seat in Phoenix claimed a narrow victory on Tuesday over a primary opponent whose Middle East policy views faced scrutiny from Jewish voters.

Yassamin Ansari, the former vice mayor of Phoenix favored by pro-Israel leaders, won the Democratic nomination by just 39 votes, beating Raquel Terán, a former state legislator and party chair backed by the activist left.

The July 30 primary election had been too close to call, triggering an automatic recount, the results of which were announced on Tuesday afternoon.

In a statement posted to social media on Tuesday, Ansari, the first Iranian-American elected to hold public office in Arizona, said that she was “deeply honored” to advance past the primary and thanked Terán for running. “It’s time for us to come together and ensure we secure victories for Democrats up and down the ballot this November,” she added.

Democratic Majority for Israel’s political arm, DMFI PAC, endorsed Ansari and spent nearly $300,000 to boost her campaign. “Her hard-won victory over her well-funded anti-Israel opponent proves again that being pro-Israel is not just wise policy, but also winning politics,” Mark Mellman, DMFI PAC’s chairman, said in a statement.

In a position paper circulated during the campaign, Ansari, 32, had vowed to support continued military aid to Israel “without additional conditions,” among other stances endorsed by pro-Israel groups.

By contrast, Terán, 47, was less forthcoming in sharing her positions on Israel, raising concerns among Jewish leaders who were frustrated by her lack of clarity on a key issue, particularly amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
Ireland said open to buying Israeli drones despite being fierce critic over Gaza war
Amid the war in Gaza, Ireland has emerged as one of the European nations most critical of Israel, with Dublin officially recognizing a Palestinian state, joining allegations of genocide against Israel in the World Court, and maintaining a steady stream of criticism against Israel in various EU forums.

Nonetheless, the Irish military is open to considering bids from Israeli firms for an upcoming tender for a fleet of drones, and over the last decade has purchased millions of euros’ worth of military equipment from Israeli defense firms, according to a Wednesday report in the Irish Times.

Ireland’s Defence Forces Corps of Engineers has opened a tender to purchase 14 unarmed military drones to be used for “surveillance, survey, inspection and search and rescue,” in addition to classified missions, the report said, a package with an estimated total price tag of €600,000 ($667,000).

Israeli defense firms are “well-positioned to secure the contract” as a “world leader in drone technology,” the report said, citing unnamed sources in the Irish military.

Ireland’s defense ministry told the Irish Times that there “were no restrictions on bidding for the new contract” from Israeli companies and “there has been no change of policy regarding defense forces use of Israeli-made military equipment.”

“Such tender competitions are open to any company or country subject to the terms of all UN, OSCE and EU arms embargoes or restrictions. There are no such restrictions or embargoes in place on Israel or Israeli companies,” the ministry said in its statement.

The Irish government and various cultural figures have a long history of hostility to the Jewish state, and Ireland has historically favored the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel.

Ireland was the last European Union country to allow an Israeli embassy to open, in 1993, and was the first to call for a Palestinian state, in 1980. It has spearheaded criticism of Israel at the United Nations.
SNP branded antisemitic by Hamas victim's brother who accuses Humza Yousaf of 'Jew washing' with photo op
The SNP has a problem with antisemitism, according to the brother of a man murdered by Hamas during the October 7 attack on Israel. Colin Cowan also accused the former Nat leader Humza Yousaf of using his grieving mother for a cynical "photo opportunity" and described it as an "act of Jew washing".

Mr Cowan's brother Bernard was one of 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas terrorists in the attack which triggered a war in Gaza last year. He was at home in Kibbutz Sufa, close to the border with Hamas-controlled Gaza, when the group struck.

Around 250 hostages were also seized with 100 still believed to be in captivity. According to Palestinian authorities, 40,000 people have died in the Israeli attempt to wipe out Hamas. The SNP has taken a firm anti-Israeli line, making Gaza a key issue for the party at Westminster.

However, the party found itself embroiled in an internal row this month when it emerged external affairs secretary Angus Robertson had met with Israeli diplomat Daniela Grudsky in Edinburgh. He issued an apology on Monday and vowed not to engage with the world's only Jewish state as calls grew for him to quit.

Mr Cowan said there were "blatant double standards" in the reaction within the SNP to Mr Robertson's meeting and with Humza Yousaf extending an invitation to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, president of Turkey, to visit Scotland despite his dismantling of human rights in the country. Writing in The Herald, Mr Cowan, from Newton Mearns, said: "I didn't hear any such calls for his resignation, in spite of the shameful Turkish human rights record and their disgusting treatment of Kurdish people.

"Indeed, Scotland and China have a multi-million-pound annual trading portfolio, and this is in spite of China's woeful and routine human rights abuses, including the imprisonment of its Uyghur Muslim population in north-west China. China's treatment of the Uyghurs has often been labelled a form of cultural genocide. Yet, why have there been no calls for the resignation of Scottish leaders for their pursuit of strong relations with China?"

He added: "It seems that the SNP isn't so concerned with alleged human rights abuses as much as it is concerned with the world's only Jewish state. What is so objectionable about the world's only Jewish state that leads so many to criticise it above that of any other country?
Suspended SNP politician defends comments that Israel has not committed genocide
A Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) who was suspended by the Scottish National Party (SNP) for posting on X/Twitter that Israel has not committed genocide in Gaza has defended his comments.

John Mason, who has represented Glasgow Shettleston since 2011, told BBC Good Morning Scotland yesterday: “I completely stand by the tweet, which was making the point this is not genocide.

“When we look at other examples of genocide, historically, it's nothing like what's happening in Gaza.

“And if Israel wanted to commit genocide, you know, sadly, they could have killed an awful lot more people.”

The SNP backbencher’s comments were criticised by many in his own party. Scottish Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee urged John Mason to "educate himself" and defended his party’s decision to remove the whip from Mason, describing his comments as “deeply offensive, it's hugely inaccurate, and it's not in line with the values of the SNP”.

A spokesperson for the SNP Chief Whip told the JC yesterday: "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.

"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."

Also yesterday, the Scottish government said that it would not be meeting with officials from the Israeli government.
AFR: All should stand with Jewish Australians against antisemitism
The antisemitic hate speech chanted by anti-Israel protesters at the Sydney Opera House last October besmirched Australia’s reputation for racial and religious tolerance. It was a wake-up call for all institutions making up Australia’s generally peaceful civil society to take action to prevent history’s oldest hatred from washing over these shores in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East.

But 10 months on from those disgraceful scenes outside Australia’s most iconic building that were beamed around the world, a drumbeat of disturbing stories involving covert or overt antisemitism shows Jewish Australians continuing to face totally unacceptable threats to their safety.

The Gaza war has inflamed imported ancient feuds while generating understandable sympathy for the plight of ordinary Palestinians. The deeply concerning thing is that antisemitism is emerging as an unthinking form of prejudice in parts of Australian society.

As reported on yesterday’s front page, the CFMEU issued a warning that it would drag the Gaza war into a construction project dispute between a building firm and the Hakoah Club by encouraging pro-Palestinian activists to join the union’s rally outside the Jewish club’s site in eastern Sydney. This is next-level menace even by the standards of law-breaking building unions with a long track record of thuggery and intimidation.

The appalling weaponisation of race as part of an industrial stoush has led to justified alarm among the Jewish community. Back in 1982, a car bomb exploded outside the Hakoah Club on the same day the Israeli consulate was bombed by Palestinian extremists. Jewish synagogues and schools are the only racial and religious organisations in Australia that have to deploy bollards and hire security guards to protect their community.

Equally alarming is last week’s Wall Street Journal story revealing the involvement of a New York Times journalist in the leaking of a private chat group for Australian Jewish professionals, who were “doxxed” and subjected to online and real-world harassment – including threats and vandalism of businesses – after their identities were posted on social media by pro-Palestinian activists.

Whatever the reporter’s intention, the decision to download and share a list of Jewish names with a yet-to-be-identified third party displays astonishing historical ignorance.

Like Wesfarmers’ failure to sack a pro-Palestine Officeworks employee who refused to serve Jewish customers, the New York Times’ statement that it has taken undisclosed “appropriate action” over the matter is the bare minimum that’s seemingly warranted.

We aren’t talking here about legitimate criticism of the Israeli government’s actions or challenging the right to protest in a free country such as Australia. We aren’t even talking about whether artists should use the stage to make personal political statements. That’s a front in the culture war that has now engulfed the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra after it cancelled and then apologised for the cancellation of the performance of a guest pianist over onstage remarks about the war in Gaza.

What needs to be confronted is whether antisemitism has become normalised in Australia to the point that intolerable behaviour towards Jewish people is tolerated. One group of Australians is singled out for “special treatment” based on race and religion that would not be accepted towards other racial and religious groups.


Former Rep. Lee Zeldin Warns Fellow Jews: 'We Are Not Safe Under Democrat Rule'
Former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin on Tuesday warned that Jewish Americans are "not safe under Democrat rule," knocking Vice President Kamala Harris for her failure to curb the rising anti-Semitism within the Democratic Party.

"Every action she has taken since becoming the presumptive Democrat nominee has sent a chilling reminder to Jewish voters across the country that we are not safe under Democrat rule," Zeldin, a Jewish Republican, wrote in a scathing op-ed published in Newsweek.

Zeldin's warning comes after months of pro-Hamas rallies roiling college campuses and as thousands of anti-Israel protesters and delegates infiltrate the Democratic National Convention this week, pressuring Harris to heed their demands for an arms embargo on Israel or lose the election in November. The activists—including Layla Elabed, sister of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.)—issued the threat to Harris at an official DNC panel on Monday, while their allies marched through the streets of Chicago and clashed with local police, demanding that the Democratic nominee turn on the Jewish state.

"As Jewish Americans face increasing threats both at home and abroad, it's clear that the current administration is unwilling or unable to provide the protection we need," Zeldin said, criticizing Harris for failing to deter and "pandering" to the anti-Semites among her party.

Last month, the vice president snubbed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's congressional address—attending a sorority event instead—and took "24 hours of stalling," according to Zeldin, before acknowledging the anti-Israel protesters who destroyed public property on the streets of Washington, D.C., during Netanyahu's visit. Harris has also publicly voiced her support for a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that ignores most of Israel’s demands.

"Through silence at times and blatant pandering at others, Kamala Harris is choosing to be led by these people," Zeldin added.

Zeldin also slammed Harris for picking as her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a far-left politician whose record "aligns disturbingly well with this anti-Semitic faction." Walz has praised the work of "Squad" member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), a longtime detractor of Israel, and Imam Asad Zaman, a Muslim cleric who refused to condemn Hamas’s October 7 attack and promoted Adolf Hitler’s ideology.
Uncommitted movement backed by network of Rashida Tlaib's family, friends, supporters
The Uncommitted National Movement, which advocates for voters not to support a Democratic Party presidential candidate unless they support anti-Israel policies, has extensive ties to Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’s family, friends, former colleagues, and supporters.

The organization was formed out of the success of Listen to Michigan, which canvassed door-to-door and operated phone banks during the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries. Listen to Michigan claims that in the state, more than 100,000 Democrats voted uncommitted rather than then-candidate President Joe Biden. According to Waging Nonviolence, Listen to Michigan itself was the product of earlier phone banking attempts in New Hampshire involving former Bernie Sanders campaigners and veteran progressive political operatives, including Waleed Shahid, former communications director of Justice Democrats PAC, which support candidates like Tlaib.

Tlaib herself endorsed Listen to Michigan’s call to vote uncommitted in a February video posted on social media by the Uncommitted National Movement. Yet Tlaib’s connections to the group through its incarnations are both familial and professional.

Listen to Michigan’s campaign manager was Layla Elabed, Tlaib’s sister. The Federal Election Committee lists Elabed as the group’s Listen to Us PAC treasurer, and she has since assumed the role of co-chair for the Uncommitted National Movement. Abbas Alawieh, a former senior adviser to Tlaib, is a campaign chair of the Uncommitted movement of Listen to Michigan. He was elected as an Uncommitted delegate to the Democratic National Convention, along with Rima Mohammed, who was endorsed by Tlaib in her failed state representative primary race.

A review of the funding and infrastructure of Listen to Michigan and the Uncommitted movement reveals the involvement of Tlaib’s former employer and mentor, as well as a pattern of involvement by officers of the same NGO with whom Tlaib had worked before entering politics.

A little-known nonprofit called Arab Americans for Progress (APP) was instrumental in the operation of Listen to Michigan. Listen to Michigan’s field director, Seth Woody, told Waging Nonviolence in March that the former Sanders campaigners had housed the dialer with them and provided them with their legal entity, housing, and bank account.
Schumer at DNC warns of ‘Islamophobia,’ omits Israel, hostages
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke out against antisemitism and “Islamophobia” on Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

During his seven-minute speech, he notably did not mention Israel or the hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

“As the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in American history, I want my grandkids and all grandkids to never, never face discrimination because of who they are,” the 73-year-old Capitol Hill veteran told the United Center audience, before quickly pivoting to attacking the Republican nominee for the White House in this November’s election.

“But Donald Trump, this is a guy who peddles antisemitic stereotypes. He even invited a white supremacist to Mar-a-Lago,” Schumer said.

“And unfortunately, his prejudice goes in all directions. He fuels Islamophobia and issued a Muslim ban as president,” he added.

The senator then pointed to a blue square pin on his lapel from the “Stand Up to Jewish Hate” campaign initiated by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, founded by billionaire CEO of the Kraft Group and owner of the New England Patriots Robert Kraft in 2019.

“Tonight folks, I’m wearing this blue square to stand up to antisemitism. To stand up to all hate,” Schumer declared.

Schumer is slated to publish a book in February titled Antisemitism in America: A Warning.
WATCH: Schumer Denounces Anti-Semitism, Ignoring Anti-Israel Protests Raging Outside DNC
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said he would always "stand up to anti-Semitism" in a speech to the Democratic National Convention that ignored left-wing anti-Israel protests raging outside the convention.

While Schumer didn’t acknowledge the anti-Israel protests, he did accuse Republican nominee Donald Trump of promoting "anti-Semitic stereotypes."

"I’m wearing this blue square to stand up to anti-Semitism," said Schumer, pointing to a square on his jacket.

"As the highest ranking Jewish elected official in American history I want my grandkids and all grandkids to never never face discrimination because of who they are. Donald Trump is a guy who peddles anti-Semitic stereotypes," Schumer said.

Schumer’s comments come as anti-Israel protesters have descended on the DNC, displaying Hezbollah flags and harassing an Orthodox Jewish group that held a convention event on anti-Semitism on Tuesday.

The protesters chanted, "Brick by brick, wall by wall, Zionism has got to fall," disrupting the event organized by the Jewish group Agudath Israel of America.

It also comes as some Democratic leaders have defended terrorism against Israel and called for cutting off defensive military aid to the country. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) has promoted the "From the River to the Sea" slogan that calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

The protests have received some support from inside the convention. President Joe Biden said in his speech on Monday that the anti-Israel protesters "have a point." Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) gave a speech on Monday promising that Harris would pressure Israel for a ceasefire if elected president.




Wary Jewish Democrats see flashback to Obama in dissection of Harris’ views on Israel
Taken at face value, Harris’ rhetoric indicates that she would not stray from Biden’s long-standing support for Israel, especially after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. “From when I was a young girl, collecting funds to plant trees for Israel, to my time in the United States Senate and now at the White House, I’ve had an unwavering commitment to the existence of the state of Israel, to its security and to the people of Israel,” Harris said in July after a meeting in Washington with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But politicians’ words are rarely taken at face value, particularly when it comes to the Middle East. Harris has adopted a more empathetic tone toward the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, though she usually couples her comments with pro-Israel language. Clips of the latter part of Harris’ July speech, in which she expressed her “serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza,” spread quickly in less-progressive parts of the Jewish community. Her campaign has also expressed an openness to keep in touch with the organizers of the Uncommitted National Movement, which urged Democrats to vote against Biden in the primaries over his support for Israel.

“There’s such a focus on every word or sentiment, but broadly speaking, she’s very staunchly pro-Israel and ensuring that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and remain secure, and I don’t think that there’s going to be any sort of significant change from where this administration is,” a former staffer in Harris’ vice presidential office told Jewish Insider. “Some of the space between her and the administration’s policy — I think a lot of it is overstated.”

Activists on the left and right have focused their attention on Harris’ advisors, arguing that their past writings and career experience may provide evidence for how Harris could shape her own beliefs. Harris came into the presidency with some foreign policy experience — she had served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and her foreign travel included a visit to Israel in 2017 — but that was not a key part of her background.

Much of the scrutiny on her team has focused on Phil Gordon, Harris’ national security advisor, who is closely associated with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and who has at times been critical of American sanctions policy on the Islamic Republic.

“She is advised by a range of people with diverse views, and their previous writings reflect their personal views,” an aide to Harris told JI. “Anyone looking to understand the vice president’s worldview should look at what she has said and done on the world stage.”

Harris’ other two top foreign policy aides, Dean Lieberman and Rebecca Lissner, have received less attention — perhaps a result of the fact that they have fewer public writings and statements to parse.

Lissner, who serves as No. 2 to Gordon, started in the White House at the National Security Council, helping author Biden’s national security strategy, which called for a “more integrated Middle East that empowers our allies and partners [and] will advance regional peace and prosperity.”

Lieberman, who oversees Harris’ foreign policy communications and speechwriting, also started at the NSC before joining Harris’ team midway through 2021 and traveling with her on every foreign trip since. A former State Department civil servant who served in Jerusalem and, later, as press secretary for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Lieberman has been an informal liaison to the Jewish community for Harris for several months.

“I think that there are people in our community who are feeling very nervous about things because of advisors that she has around her, but there are also advisors around her, like Dean Lieberman, who I agree with, tactically, who views the situation in the Middle East similarly to me,” said Sam Lauter, a pro-Israel Democratic activist in the Bay Area.

Meanwhile, after Harris named Ilan Goldenberg, a Middle East foreign policy hand who until earlier this year had been her top advisor on Israeli-Palestinian issues, as her campaign’s Jewish outreach director, some hawkish voices attacked him for also coming from the same pro-diplomacy, Obama-era camp as Gordon. Goldenberg’s elevation to that position “should alarm every friend of Israel,” Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief Zvika Klein wrote in an editorial.


J Street President, Speaking at DNC Panel, Says Anti-Israel Protesters ‘Don’t Intend’ To Offend Jews
J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami said left-wing protesters who chant anti-Semitic slogans "don’t intend" to offend Jews and need help understanding "the history of the Jewish people and the things that they can and can’t say." Like other Jewish events on the Democratic National Committee sidelines, his comments came from a location that organizers did not publicly disclose due to security concerns.

"Many young activists on the left of the Democratic Party, on the progressive side, use words and terms without understanding what the meaning is of what they are saying, and the weight that it carries for [Jewish people]," said Ben-Ami on Wednesday during a panel discussion hosted by the Jewish Democratic Council of America.

"I think it is so important that we not adopt a position that holds those who are wearing a keffiyeh, or carrying a Palestinian flag, or chanting a stupid slogan, that they are all somehow anti-Semitic or even anti-Israel."

Ben-Ami’s comments come as anti-Israel protesters have descended on the DNC, with some of these demonstrations veering into violence and anti-Semitism. Activists have torched the American and Israeli flags, called for an "intifada revolution," and carried signs reading "Victory to the Palestinian Resistance."

On the sidelines of the convention, protesters disrupted a Tuesday Orthodox Jewish event that focused little on Israel but on voting issues and rising anti-Semitism in the United States. Like Wednesday’s panel featuring Ben-Ami, the event's location was not publicly disclosed.

Dozens of protesters were also arrested on Tuesday after clashing with police at the Israeli consulate, located roughly two miles from the United Center, the site of the convention.

Ben-Ami is a vocal critic of Israel, and his group, J Street, has supported anti-Israel policies and candidates within the Democratic Party. J Street—which received funding from left-wing financier George Soros despite publicly denying that he was a donor—is also known for badly losing a pumpkin carving contest in 2013.
Shouting anti-Israel protesters crash Nancy Pelosi’s ‘Late Show’ interview with Stephen Colbert outside DNC
Anti-Israel protesters interrupted former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” Tuesday night.

Pelosi had joined Colbert for a live taping of the late-night talk show at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago one day after appearing at the Democratic National Convention, which is being held nearly 3 miles away at the United Center.

The 84-year-old California Democrat was discussing her book “The Art of Power” when the subject turned to the Israel-Hamas war and the ongoing cease-fire negotiations.

“Free Palestine,” a protester shouted before questioning the US’ role in the Middle East conflict, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Colbert went on to take the show to break but promised the protesters that he would ask Pelosi the same question.

“We just got word earlier today that Israel had agreed to the cease-fire agreement. We’re hoping Hamas will too. But it takes me to the point of saying to you, ‘War has no role in a civilized society,’” Pelosi said out of break.

“You have to learn more about trust and peace and learning about each other rather than to have a conflict resolved by war,” Pelosi said as another protester shouted from the audience.

Colbert mentioned the anti-Israel protesters who stood outside the venue, saying Pelosi’s answer was “unsatisfying to some people” as he was cut off during another round of shouting.

“Will you listen to her response,” Colbert pleaded.

“They said the United States should have no role in supplying Israel arms to kill the people of Gaza,” Colbert explained to Pelosi.

Pelosi admitted that “Israel has a right to defend itself and the hostages should be returned” following the Hamas terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

She then suggested a two-state solution would be the best option for stabilizing the region.


Hollywood Liberal Rob Reiner Defends Anti-Israel Mobs at DNC, Compared Tea Party Protesters to Nazis
Liberal actor and director Rob Reiner is at the Democrat National Convention and apparently has no problem with the mob of anti-Israel, Hamas-supporting protesters surrounding the event. He thinks it’s just great that we have free speech in America.

It’s a big change from a few years back, when Reiner was openly comparing Tea Party protesters to Nazis.

FOX News reports:
Rob Reiner praises Harris camp, DNC for ‘protecting’ anti-Israel agitators’ ‘right to protest’

Actor and director Rob Reiner praised the Harris campaign for supporting anti-Israel agitators’ right to protest the Democratic National Convention (DNC) Monday.

Reiner briefly spoke with Fox News Digital on the first night of the DNC, just hours after protesters broke through multiple rounds of fencing and nearly breached the event’s security perimeter.

Asked about his thoughts on the demonstrations, Reiner said, “Well, that’s what’s … great about America. That we have the right to protest, and that we give everybody the freedom to protest. It’s in the Constitution.

“And this campaign is about protecting the Constitution and protecting those people’s right to protest outside,” Reiner said.

The issue of Israel has driven a wedge between the far-left and others within the Democratic Party, particularly since Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack that killed over 1,000 Israelis, mainly civilians.



‘They want America destroyed’: Douglas Murray issues warning over anti-Israel protesters
Author Douglas Murray has issued a warning over anti-Israel protesters holding demonstrations outside the Democratic National Convention.

"They are people who hate Israel and want Israel destroyed and, by the way, the same people who want America destroyed," Mr Murray told Sky News host Rita Panahi.


‘Pro-Hamas rally’: Filmmaker recounts raging experience outside the DNC
Filmmaker Ami Horowitz recounts his experience attending a “pro-Hamas rally” outside of the Democratic National Convention.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered for the DNC in Chicago, to protest America’s support of Israel.

“This is not hyperbole, this is not us making words up that are actually more dramatic than they actually are,” Mr Horowitz told Sky News host Rita Panahi.

“I asked people, I interviewed these people, they said to me we are pro-Hamas; in fact, one guy had a sign that said we should arm Hamas, not Israel.”




Chicago police arrest 13 anti-Israel activists on first day of DNC
According to Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling, the beginning of the Democratic National Convention, which opened Aug. 19, saw 3,500 demonstrators opposing the Jewish state, with 13 arrested facing such charges as criminal trespass, resisting arrest and aggravated battery against officers.

On Tuesday, Snelling said that at least 10 of those apprehended were allegedly involved in a crowd breaking through a security fence. He reported that protesters had used pepper spray against police and thrown water bottles at them during a conflict a block from the convention arena in a park where most of the arrests were made.

The breached fence reportedly did not put any attendees in danger, as an inner security barrier remained intact. On Tuesday, a crew of workers installed an additional row of fences.

On Sunday, police arrested two people on charges of misdemeanor property damage, making 15 the total arrest count so far.

“Our officers showed great restraint,” Snelling said during a news conference. “As I’ve said before, we’re not going to tolerate anyone who is going to vandalize things in our city.”


Israeli consulate ‘appalled’ by violent protest near its Chicago office
The Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest stated on Tuesday night that it is “beyond disappointed” by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s “ongoing support” for anti-Israel protests across the city, particularly during the Democratic National Convention.

Johnson has also shown “continued disregard for the large pro-Israel and Jewish community in the city,” the consulate said, after an antisemitic riot outside its offices.

Dozens of protesters were arrested outside the consulate, as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was officially nominated as the Democratic nominee for president two miles away, USA Today reported. Protesters reportedly burnt an American flag.

“We are appalled to see violence during the protest in front of our offices. This is anything but peaceful and completely contradictory to the spirit of the DNC,” the consulate said. “This vocal minority does not represent the vast bipartisan majority of Americans who stand strong in support of Israel.”

The consulate added that it is grateful for the law enforcement officers protecting Chicago during the convention and finds it “incredibly heartwarming to see many Americans countering this hate in front of our office, echoing the strong bond between America and Israel.”

“We applaud their self-sacrifice and countless hours of work to ensure the safety of all Chicagoans,” the consulate said of the law enforcement officers.


Protesters disrupt panel on antisemitism on sidelines of DNC
In a secret location, inside a room monitored by security guards and open only to approved guests, dozens of people — Jewish and not Jewish — gathered to schmooze and nosh over an extensive spread of kosher food. At the event, the first-ever gathering hosted by the Orthodox organization Agudath Israel adjacent to a political convention, attendees discussed rising antisemitism and the growing electoral involvement of Orthodox Jews.

So it was the ultimate irony that, midway through the event, a small but vocal group of antisemitic protesters tried to push their way into the event.

“Brick by brick, wall by wall, Zionism has got to fall,” the protesters — all wearing masks — chanted. They ignored security guards’ requests to leave and were ultimately pushed out of the lobby.

How they found the event, whose location was shared only with vetted attendees, was not clear. But it brought together dozens of identifiably Orthodox Jews, the demographic that has faced the bulk of antisemitic hate crimes in recent years. So it’s not hard to imagine that simply the appearance of the attendees may have tipped them off.

“These anti-Zionist protestors just confirmed that anti-Jewish hate in America is a growing, inescapable problem, which was exactly the point of the [Agudath Israel] event,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on Twitter.

The event itself was not focused on Israel. Agudath Israel represents Haredi Jews, and throughout its history, the Agudah’s members have debated Zionism. As recently as 2020, the organization declared that Zionism as a political ideology is not compatible with the movement’s “fundamental beliefs.” Still, the organization is not a monolith, and many of its members, representing a diverse swath of the Orthodox community in the United States, are strong supporters of Israel.

“The more identifiable Orthodox Jewish community we represent has been subjected to an unprecedented level of antisemitic incidents over the past few years,” said Sol Werdiger, board chair at Agudath Israel. “That’s why we’re here. They think that they can intimidate us. There are thousands of anti-Israel protesters outside, and they cannot intimidate us.”

Inside the event, a broad swath of elected officials from across the country stopped by to express solidarity with religious Jews and pledge to join them in the fight against antisemitism. Speakers included Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ). Ilan Goldenberg, the newly tapped Jewish outreach director for Kamala Harris’ campaign, came to the event. Michael Sacks, the chair of the DNC host committee, said Agudath Israel “clearly punches above its collective weight.”

One of the most powerful speeches came from Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat and the descendant of Holocaust survivors who spoke passionately about rising antisemitism on both the political left and right.

“What I got to experience in my life is unique in American history. I didn’t have barriers. I didn’t see during most of my life the type of hate and discrimination that we’re seeing today. We’re seeing it on the right in the form of the Great Replacement Theory,” said Weiser. “And on the left we’re hearing chants like ‘Kill all Zionists’ or ‘Go back to Poland.’ These are scary times.”


‘Hostage square’ exhibit near DNC shows Jewish ‘pain, desires, hope,’ not screaming protest
Denied a permit by the City of Chicago to hold a pro-Israel event near the Democratic National Convention, the Israeli-American Council instead secured a private lot near the event in which to hold a “hostage square” installation, not unlike the one some 6,000 miles away at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Jeff Aeder, a Chicago realtor who coordinated an event at the art exhibit on Tuesday, told JNS that he “wanted to figure out some way to express what I think the majority of Americans feel—not necessarily the vocal minority, which have been covered so closely by the media.”

“That is, horror from what happened on Oct. 7,” he said. “I thought to do it in a way that was not screaming at each other in a demonstration, but doing it in a way that we could express our pain and desires and hopes.”

In the exhibit, the enormity of the pain was conveyed literally.

Gigantic milk cartons—each bearing a photo of an Israeli-American hostage held in Gaza—sat in the asphalt lot near a 30-foot-long pair of gray pants, spattered with thick red paint that suggests blood, hanging from a wall. The latter referenced infamous video footage of Naama Levy being paraded through Gazan streets, her pants bloodied in sensitive places, evidence of the sexual violence that Hamas terrorists carried out on Oct. 7.

In the center of the lot, red “teardrops” fell from a sculpted tree. Elsewhere in the installation, drawings, paintings and other installations responded to the worst antisemitic attack since the Holocaust.


Seattle Jews will remount an antisemitism exhibit alone, months after museum staff shut it down over ‘Zionist perspectives’
After dozens of staffers at a Seattle museum walked off the job to protest an exhibit on antisemitism they claimed was “Zionist,” area Jewish groups and the museum all pledged that the exhibit would find a new home.

Months later, the Jewish groups are still planning to mount a version of the exhibit, called “Confronting Hate Together.” But they will do so without their original partners, the Black Heritage Society of Washington State and a museum dedicated to Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander heritage. Instead, the Jewish groups say the exhibit will be housed in a Jewish space.

The groups cited “circumstances out of our control” and said that the experience had left local Jews feeling isolated at a time of great need.

“Immense harm has been caused to the Jewish community by not being able to show the exhibit,” the Washington State Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Seattle said in a joint statement. “Antisemitism today is at its highest levels in over 40 years, and more allyship is needed to help meet the moment.”

The statement summarized a feeling that Jews in many quarters have expressed over the last 10 months, since Hamas attacked Israel and triggered an ongoing war that has induced tensions in countless museums, universities, cultural centers and workplaces. Many Jews have lamented not feeling the support they say they have shown to people from other backgrounds in the past.

“We need partners who are stakeholders in the safety and well-being of the Jewish people and who stand with us even when it gets hard,” the Jewish groups said. “Ironically, in an exhibit that was supposed to be about coming together to confront hate, hate has won. And, our community feels more alone as a result.”
Universities’ position on antisemitism is unsustainable
As Democratic Party delegates and activists leave Chicago after their national convention, America’s college students are returning to their campuses for the start of fall classes.

The common thread between these two migrations is the continued unhappiness among many progressives with the U.S. government’s support for Israel in the ongoing war in Gaza.

While the protests outside the convention center have not provided much insight into how the political left’s anger will affect the November election, the promise of continued campus mayhem makes it clear that anti-Israel activists will be using the nation’s colleges and universities as their primary staging grounds for barricades, encampments and other disruptions for the foreseeable future.

University administrators have been hoping that summer vacation has cooled some of the strongest emotions that caused such unrest throughout the previous school year. But such a de-escalation seems unlikely, especially in the home stretch of a high-stakes presidential campaign and the growing frustration surrounding the seemingly unending ceasefire talks.

Last week’s resignation of Columbia president Minouche Safik after the ongoing turmoil at that school and the decision by a federal judge the same day that UCLA must forbid protesters from denying Jewish students equal access to campus spaces and events served as twin reminders of the challenges that we will face again in the months ahead.

Shafik’s resignation made her the fifth Ivy League president to step down over Gaza-related confrontations since last fall. It should prompt us to look back at how badly strategies of concession and capitulation have failed in the face of anarchy and violence.
What's happening at UCLA is a microcosm of US society
It’s 2024, and a university in the United States had to be told by a judge that they cannot have a “No Jews allowed” area on their campus. Let that sink in.

In a country that prides itself on being a beacon of freedom and equality, we are witnessing a moment so regressive, so backward, that it feels like something out of a dark chapter in our history books. But it’s not history – it’s happening right now.

This isn’t just about one university’s failure to protect its Jewish students; it’s about a much larger societal failure. How did we get to a point where a court had to step in to remind a prestigious institution that antisemitism is not only unacceptable but illegal? This is not just a legal issue – it’s a moral one, and it’s a damning indictment of where we are as a nation.

The recent court ruling mandating that the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) must protect its Jewish students is a significant step forward, but it also shines a harsh light on a broader problem in America – our collective failure to recognize the persistence and pervasiveness of antisemitism.

This ruling doesn’t just address an isolated issue on one campus; it taps into a deeper, more troubling reality: America has a blind spot when it comes to antisemitism, and too many people still don’t see it as the urgent threat that it is.

IN MANY ways, what’s happening at UCLA is a microcosm of what’s happening across the country. Despite clear evidence of rising incidents of vandalism, verbal harassment, and even physical attacks, there remains a disturbing level of denial or indifference when it comes to antisemitism. People often assume that because Jewish communities are generally perceived as integrated and successful, they are immune to bigotry and hate. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Antisemitism has the ability to hide in plain sight. It often masquerades as something else – political criticism, jokes, or “legitimate” debates about Israel – when, in reality, it’s the same old hate dressed in new clothes. For decades, Jewish Americans have been warning about the rising tide of antisemitism, but too often, their concerns have been dismissed or minimized. The UCLA ruling forces us to confront the uncomfortable truth that ignoring antisemitism doesn’t make it go away – it only makes it stronger.
At the University of Sydney, the hate fringes have become mainstream
“The University of Sydney has fallen. It is no longer a safe place for Jewish students,” announced the pro-Israeli lobby group this week. Faced with this situation, I have no choice but to erase the University of Sydney from my CV, as it is no longer just an educational institution but also the academic arm of the Hamas regime. This is despite the fact that in several countries, including, most notably, Australia, Hamas is a designated terrorist organization.

I have no expectations from an ignorant and hate-filled rabble. They are no different from those sons of Satan that they support. However, from a university – a source of wisdom and knowledge – in an enlightened and advanced country, I do have expectations.

If the university management had delved a little into Islamic studies, they would have learned that a place that is dangerous for Jews today may be dangerous for Christians, Buddhists, and Baha’is tomorrow. If only they had asked a historian, they would surely have learned that a process that does not receive a response in time turns from a candle flame that can be easily extinguished into a fire that cannot be controlled. Isn’t there a single professor in the crowd?

But the University of Sydney chose the easy way: Do nothing. In its official statement after the event, it wrote, in my free translation: “Blah, blah, blah.” There is no sign of any type of shock in its response, no understanding of the danger, awareness of the situation, or sense of emergency. It is nothing but a polite sweeping statement, touching on “condemnation of all violence,” and “investigation of every complaint.”

With this shameful response, the University of Sydney essentially confirms that it is going along with the trend and that it has no problem being a dangerous place for Jews.

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, it will be destroyed by those who look on and do nothing. This is a sentence that doesn’t require academia. This week it was well demonstrated at one of the world’s most prestigious universities.
Biden-Harris Admin Stonewalls Congressional Probe Into US Nonprofits Bankrolling Pro-Hamas Protests
The Biden-Harris administration is stonewalling a congressional probe into 20 anti-Israel nonprofit groups with suspected links to money laundering and terrorism financing, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. Lawmakers are teasing a subpoena as a result.

Congress initiated the probe in mid-May, instructing the Treasury Department to hand over "suspicious activity reports" related to organizations that are bankrolling "illegal and antisemitic activities" across America, including on college campuses and in major cities nationwide. Those organizations include Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Lawmakers say the financial reports are vital to their oversight investigation. More than three months after lawmakers first requested the documents, the Treasury Department still "has not produced" a single record related to the investigation, according to Reps. James Comer (R., Ky.) and Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), the respective chairs of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and Committee on Education and the Workforce.

If the Biden-Harris administration continues to impede the investigation, the lawmakers are prepared to subpoena the relevant records, according to a letter sent Wednesday to the Treasury Department and exclusively obtained by the Free Beacon.

The ongoing investigation, first reported by the Free Beacon, is the most extensive GOP-led probe into anti-Israel unrest across the country and could unearth explosive evidence that several of the leading organizations behind the movement are engaged in prohibited financial activities. CAIR, for example, was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2009 court case related to illicit funding streams for Hamas.

SJP, AMP, and CAIR are already accused of serving as Hamas’s propaganda arm in the United States and having links to radical overseas organizations. AMP and SJP are being sued by Israeli terror victims who allege the anti-Israel groups serve "as collaborators and propagandists for Hamas."
House Committee Drops Subpoena on Columbia as Part of Anti-Semitism Probe
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued a subpoena to Columbia University on Wednesday after the school failed to turn over documents regarding the administration’s response to anti-Semitism.

The subpoena, delivered to Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong, requires the university to produce all messages exchanged between top administrators—including former Columbia president Minouche Shafik—about anti-Semitism on campus, as well as meeting minutes from the university’s board of trustees. It comes in the wake of a months-long back and forth over what documents fall within the scope of the committee’s requests, which are part of the committee’s ongoing probe into Columbia’s treatment of its Jewish students.

"University administrators have slow rolled the investigation, repeatedly failing to turn over necessary documents," Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), the chair of the House committee, said in a press release. "The goal of this investigation has always been to protect Jewish students and faculty, and if compulsory measures are necessary to obtain the documents the Committee requires, so be it."

The university has until September 4 to comply with the subpoena.

"Columbia is committed to combating anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination," a university spokesman said. "We have provided thousands of documents over the past seven months in response to the committee’s dozens of ongoing requests, and we remain committed to cooperating with the committee."

The subpoena, which covers communications related to disciplinary cases, could shed light on how Columbia decided to let the students arrested for occupying a campus building in April return to campus this fall, after promising at the time of the incident that the perpetrators would "face expulsion."
Jewish students brace for more disruption upon returning to school in fall
When Jewish students in the University of Central Florida system return to school this month, there will be new rules in place to prevent occupied buildings, destroyed property, physical violence and anti-Israel coursework that marred campuses nationwide last year.

Over summer break, UCF’s Board of Trustees, responding to protests spurred by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, approved a campus-wide ban on camping, months after dozens of students were arrested across Florida schools for participating in illegal anti-Israel encampment demonstrations. Meanwhile, the state’s university system sent orders to university presidents to flag any course descriptions and syllabi that might contain what it calls “antisemitic or anti-Israeli bias.”

Beyond the Sunshine State, several schools nationwide have also used the relative quiet of summer break to institute new or clarify existing policies that deter encampments and other protest methods that could be used for anti-Israel demonstrations. On Monday, University of California President Michael Drake directed the chancellors of all UC campuses to establish and make public rules against encampments, unauthorized structures, restricting free movement and masking to hide identity. “These policies have generally been in place in various forms for many years, [and] warrant particular emphasis in light of recent campus protests,” Drake wrote to chancellors.

But experts remain skeptical that elite colleges will enforce their own rules. Mark Yudof, chair of the Academic Engagement Network, told Jewish Insider that he expects “the encampments, disruptions and other antisemitic or anti-Zionist behaviors will return on many campuses.”

Adam Lehman, CEO of Hillel International, told JI that he “unfortunately anticipates continued drumbeat of disruptions on campuses this fall.”

“That is a simple function of reality. There remain pockets of students, and non-students, who are committed to using and abusing campus spaces,” Lehman said.


Four ‘acts of hate’ at suburban D.C. schools draw swift condemnation
Four schools in Montgomery County, Md., which is home to a large Jewish community, were vandalized on Monday with antisemitic graffiti, prompting condemnations from both candidates in the high-profile contest to replace Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD).

Police were called to four different schools in the area on Monday morning to respond to reports of antisemitic messages and iconography being spray painted on their respective properties. The calls were all made within a three-hour timespan, the first coming from Churchill High School in Potomac just before 6:30 a.m. Wootton High School in Rockville made the second call at 7:35 a.m., followed by Strathmore Elementary School in Silver Spring at 9:15 a.m. and Fallsmead Elementary School, also in Rockville, at 9:24 a.m.

One message read: “Israel Bombs Schools.” Another brandished Hitler’s name next to a swastika.

Montgomery County Police are investigating the incidents.

A Montgomery County Public Schools spokesperson said on Monday that, “A number of our schools were illegally vandalized with politically charged graffiti, antisemitic iconography (including swastikas), and, in some instances, anti-LGBTQ+ language.”

The spokesperson said that the school district was reaching out to parents to make them aware of the situation, adding that principals were asking staff to report such incidents and to offer “the supportive resources necessary to address the harm and anxiety these actions may have caused.”

“We are committed to maintaining a safe, inclusive environment where all students, staff, and caregivers feel safe, valued, seen, heard and have a sense of belonging. We firmly denounce divisive actions that perpetuate hate, inequality, and injustice against any person, family, or community. We must unite to recognize and embrace our differences and not let them divide us,” the MCPS spokesperson said.

The incident, which came one week after nearby Bethesda Elementary School was vandalized, was swiftly condemned by local leaders, including the two candidates in the state’s high-profile Senate race.
GWU suspends anti-Israel campus groups through fall semester
The George Washington University started the 2024-25 academic year suspending the groups Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, the university confirmed to Jewish Insider.

The suspension, which was first announced in a joint Instagram post by the two groups on Monday — and has not yet been publicized by the university — is slated to run through the end of the fall semester. The groups said that university officials have told them they would remain on “disciplinary probation” through the remainder of the school year.

Under the suspension, SJP and JVP will not be recognized as registered campus organizations, are prohibited from hosting on-campus events and lose all university funding. Under probation, the groups will be required to obtain approval before hosting campus events and cannot use money from the university fund that is allocated to them.

A spokesperson for GW told JI that the school has “an obligation to address violations of university policy, and does so without regard to the content of the message those demonstrating seek to advance. It does so through a Code of Student Conduct that provides a fair review process that includes student peers.”

The spokesperson declined to elaborate on how the groups violated university policy, but said that the school will “hold discussions with groups of students, faculty, alumni and parents about enhancing community engagement and conflict education on campus moving forward.” In a separate Instagram post on Tuesday, SJP wrote that “GW agrees to student conditions: negotiations resume.”

“The university would not characterize [the discussions] as ‘negotiations,’” the spokesperson said, declining to elaborate on discussions that may take place with the groups.

SJP and JVP at GW were temporarily suspended last fall after projecting anti-Israel messages — including “Divestment from Zionist genocide now” and “Free Palestine From the River to the Sea” — on the campus library weeks after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel. The suspension lasted 90 days while further disciplinary action prohibited SJP from posting communications on university property through May 20.


More Than 80 Media Outlets Correct AP’s False Claim That Gaza’s Civilian Deaths Exceed 40,000
More than 80 North American media outlets this week published an Associated Press correction prompted by CAMERA after the wire service falsely reported that the civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip has exceeded 40,000.

In their Aug. 18 article covering differences between the presidential platforms of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, Will Weissert, Jill Colvin and Seung Min Kim wrongly reported (“Harris and Trump offer worlds-apart contrasts on top issues in presidential race“):
But the vice president might also have helped defuse some backlash by progressives by being more vocal about the need to better protect civilians during fighting in Gaza, where the civilian death toll has now exceeded 40,000.

Not even Hamas has claimed that the civilian death toll has now exceeded 40,000. The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza has claimed without evidence that total fatalities exceed 40,000 but their highly disputed data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. According to Israeli figures, more than 17,000 Hamas combatants have been killed. The falsehood fuels the grotesque demonization of Israel charging the Jewish state with genocide.

As AP’s Joseph Krauss noted in a separate article also Aug. 18: “Israel’s offensive has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health officials, who do not say how many were militants.”


Tel Aviv synagogue’s ‘holiness’ saved it from bomb, congregants say
A Tel Aviv police chief told Kan News Radio of a failed city suicide bombing this week that “we are in a kind of miracle that the incident did not end in dozens of deaths.”

Worshippers at a nearby synagogue named for Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, known by the acronym Rashbi, told JNS that they were in the middle of the silent prayer of the evening service on that Sunday night when just after 8 p.m., there was a thunderous blast, the electricity went out, and the synagogue’s windows shattered.

“Our first thought was it was a missile,” Yehuda Meshulam, who directs the synagogue, which also doubles as a study hall on the nondescript Lehi Road in south Tel Aviv, told JNS.

Others mentioned a drone.

Racing outside, worshippers saw a truck on fire, as the smell of smoke and ash choked the air. They lugged buckets of water to douse the flames until rescue workers arrived.

Seeing a man’s remains under the truck, some thought incorrectly that the attack was organized crime. “We actually calmed down because we thought it was a criminal attack and not terrorists that might be walking around,” Meshulam said.

They never expected it to be a suicide bomber—a hallmark of Palestinian terrorism two decades ago that killed hundreds of Israelis in scores of attacks nationwide.
Police, Shin Bet say Aug. 4 firebomb terror attack on cars in north was foiled in nick of time
Security forces earlier this month thwarted a firebomb terror attack on Israeli cars driving on Route 85 in the north, the Shin Bet and Israel Police say in a joint statement.

Two Arab Israeli minors were arrested near Gilon Junction, west of Karmiel, at around 4:30 a.m. on August 4, after raising cops’ suspicion and being found to have filled bottles with gasoline to prepare three Molotov cocktails with the intention of hurling them toward cars driven by Jews, the statement says.

They also allegedly planned to commit arson by setting a nearby forest on fire out of a nationalistic motive, according to the statement.

Following an investigation, the pair have now been indicted at the Haifa District Court, clearing the case for publication, it adds.
PA economy could collapse within days as Israeli banks decline cash deposits, Ramallah claims
Major Israeli banks with business ties to the Palestinian Authority have stopped accepting shekel cash deposits from their Arab counterparts in Judea and Samaria in a move that has the potential to collapse the P.A.’s economy, officials in Ramallah claimed on Wednesday.

Within days, Arab banks in Judea and Samaria will be “unable to finance trade operations between Palestinian and Israeli merchants, as their ability to make financial transfers is directly connected to shipping the accumulated shekel banknotes to their Israeli counterparts,” the P.A.’s Monetary Authority said in a Facebook post on Wednesday morning.

The statement warned of “imminent consequences on all aspects of life” should Israeli financial institutions continue to decline to accept the Israeli shekel banknotes that have accumulated at Palestinian banks.

In accordance with agreements signed in the 1990s between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, the shekel is the primary currency in Judea and Samaria, alongside the Jordanian dinar.

Two months ago, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich extended a waiver shielding Israeli banks with relations to the P.A. from lawsuits stemming from charges of supporting Palestinian terrorism.

The waiver, which the finance minister signed for a period of four months, extends the indemnity to Israeli correspondent banks that transfer money to P.A. fiscal institutions throughout Judea and Samaria.


At least 3 Montreal synagogues on Canada-wide list targeting Jewish institutions; RCMP investigating
The RCMP is investigating threats made to multiple synagogues in Montreal, after a threatening e-mail was allegedly sent to more than 100 Jewish institutions across Canada on Wednesday morning.

RCMP confirmed the threats were made to “a number of institutions, including synagogues and hospitals, across Canada.”

Montreal police (SPVM) confirmed to CityNews a call came into 911 just after 7 a.m. from a Rabbi at Adath Israel Poale Zedek Anshei Ozeroff on Harrow Crescent in Hampstead.

SPVM say the Congregation Beth Ora on Badeaux Street in Saint-Laurent was also targeted.

Rabbi Reuben Poupko, leader of the Beth Israel Beth Aaron Congregation synagogue in Côte Saint-Luc, says many more Montreal synagogues were on the e-mail list, including his own.

“This is a serious thing,” said Poupko, who added he was in touch with other Rabbis in Montreal. “It’s an attempt to terrorize. It’s an attempt to spread fear. And just because we are unwilling to bend to that fear doesn’t mean the intent of the criminal should in any way be diminished.”

The email, which CityNews read a copy of, alleges explosives were placed in backpacks and they would be set off a few hours later — which was not the case.

Montreal police spokesperson Sabrina Gauthier says the inside and outside of both synagogues were secured, as officers on site did not find any threat. Private security was helping with surveillance.

The SPVM also checked for potential threats at other Jewish establishments across the city.

“It’s hard to take seriously a bomb threat that goes to 150 different institutions,” Rappi Poupko said. “So we conducted ourselves with greater vigilance, but the synagogue remains open. Services took place this morning as normal as it did in all the synagogues.”
Oregon man faces up to 155 years in prison for bomb threats against NY hospitals
Domagoj Patkovic, 31, was arrested in Portland, Ore., on Tuesday and charged with making multiple bomb threats against Jewish hospitals in New York beginning in May 2021.

“On at least one occasion in September 2021, the hoax bomb threat resulted in a partial evacuation and lockdown of an entire hospital on Long Island,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. “No explosive devices were ultimately found in any of the locations.”

Per the eight-page indictment, which was filed on Aug. 5 and recently unsealed, Patkovic is accused of threatening Jewish hospitals in New York City and Long Island. He is accused of calling a hospital on May 18, 2021, and saying that “bombs are all over your facility” and, using a derogatory antisemitic term, said that Jews “are gonna go skyrocket up into the sky for Allah.”

Patkovic allegedly live-streamed six calls that he made to six hospitals. “On several occasions, local police responded to the scene and conducted bomb sweeps,” per the U.S. Justice Department.

He faces up to 155 years in prison.

Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said Patkovic and his co-conspirators were allegedly “motivated by their hatred of Jewish people” when they “targeted Jewish hospitals and care centers in New York City and on Long Island with hoax bomb threats, needlessly endangering patients and staff by creating chaos and alarm.”


Johnson & Johnson buys Israeli co V-Wave for up to $1.7b
V-Wave’s shunt is an implantable device designed to decrease elevated left atrial pressure seen in congestive heart failure.

Healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Israeli company V-Wave, which has developed an innovative treatment for patients with heart failure. Johnson & Johnson will make an upfront payment of $600 million, with the potential for additional regulatory and commercial milestone payments that could increase the deal to $1.7 billion. V-Wave will join Johnson & Johnson as part of Johnson & Johnson MedTech. The deal is due to be closed by the end of 2024.

V-Wave’s Ventura Interatrial Shunt is a novel implantable device designed to decrease elevated left atrial pressure seen in congestive heart failure by creating a shunt between the left and right atrium, thereby reducing cardiovascular events and heart failure hospitalizations.

V-Wave was founded in 2010 by Yaacov Nitzan, Dr. Ascher Shmulewitz and Dr. Gad Keren. In 2013 the company completed animal trials of its shunt and in 2014 the first human implants were undertaken. In 2016 the company raised $70 million in a financing round led by Johnson & Johnson and Edwards. The company is led by CEO Dr. Neal Eigler, president and head of European operations Erez Rozenfeld and chairman Dr. Frank Litvack.

In 2020 the company raised a further $28 million led by Deerfield Management with the participation of Endeavour Vision, BRM, Aperture Venture Partners, Johnson & Johnson's JJDC Fund, Pontifax, Quark Venture, Pura Vida, Triventures Fund, and Israel Secondary Fund.

V-Wave has already received marketing approval in Europe and is in advanced stages of applying for FDA marketing approval in the US. Johnson & Johnson said in its acquisition announcement that V-Wave's product will be the first of its kind in the world.
Jewish-Themed Streaming Service Donates Proceeds From Oct. 7 Attack Film to Help Kibbutz Be’eri Survivors
The streaming platform ChaiFlicks will release on Sunday the world premiere of a documentary about the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks and donate all streaming proceeds to a charity that helps survivors of Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities in southern Israel hit the hardest during the massacre.

ChaiFlicks, which launched in 2020 and is the world’s largest streaming platform dedicated to Jewish content, will donate all revenues generated from the film “Saving Dror” to the Yad B’Yad Be’eri Families program, which is organizing permanent housing for displaced Kibbutz Be’eri residents following the Oct. 7 atrocities.

Kibbutz Be’eri, which was established in 1946 and is near the Israel-Gaza border, was almost completely burnt down by Hamas terrorists, who killed about 130 people there — which is 10 percent of the kibbutz’s residents — and kidnapped 30 others. More residents died in Kibbutz Be’eri than any other Israeli community on Oct. 7, 2023. A day earlier, the kibbutz celebrated the 77th anniversary of its creation.

“Saving Dror,” from British award-winning filmmaker Jill Samuels, focuses on first-person testimony from Kibbutz Be’eri native and resident Sagi Shifroni, 41, who survived the Oct. 7 attack. Shifroni was born and raised in the kibbutz, and lived there with his wife and two children. Dror is the name of his six-year-old daughter.

Shifroni’s wife and son were not home when Hamas terrorists began attacking the kibbutz during the early morning on Oct. 7. His house was directly targeted by Hamas terrorists, who broke into his home, fired bullets, and then set the house on fire. Shifroni managed to escape with his daughter to another family member’s house, which was also targeted by Hamas later that day. He shared his story in “Saving Dror,” which will stream exclusively on ChaiFlicks.
One of Israel’s flag bearers in the Paralympics is a survivor of Oct. 7
Israeli wheelchair tennis player Adam Berdichevsky lost his leg in a boating accident in 2007, and has since won six national championships in his sport and competed in two Paralympic Games.

Now, he is heading into his third Paralympics after facing adversity of a far different kind. On Oct. 7, he and his family hid for 14 hours in their home at Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak on the Gaza border while Hamas terrorists attacked the community, killing their neighbors and taking five people hostage.

Berdichevsky, 41, was rescued, and his family was evacuated to Eilat. Next week, he will serve as a flag bearer for Israel’s delegation, which includes 28 athletes. He says he feels a newfound purpose after surviving the Oct. 7 attack.

“This year has been, and still is, unbearable,” he said in a statement. Describing what motivated him to compete in the Paralympics despite the challenges he faced this year, he cited “the strong desire to represent the country during these times, and the support from my family.”

He added, “I hope the rest of the hostages will return, which is the most important thing.”

Berdichevsky is currently ranked No. 41 in men’s wheelchair tennis by the International Tennis Federation, and reached his career-best ranking of No. 20 in October 2019. He has represented Israel at six World Championships and has won 21 singles titles in international tournaments and 13 in doubles, according to the Israel Paralympic Committee.

Berdichevsky will serve as a flag bearer alongside Israeli goalball player Lihi Ben David, who competed at the 2016 and 2020 Paralympics.

“This is a huge honor for me,” Berdichevsky said, according to the Times of Israel. “It shows appreciation for all the hard work I did over the past six months after everything my family and I went through. I’m happy that I can represent the Gaza border area after the horrible massacre, as well as the State of Israel, and march at the head of the delegation with the flag of Israel.”




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