Tuesday, August 27, 2024

08/27 Links Pt2: A Hostage Rescue and a Reality Check in Gaza; Egypt: Israel’s Alleged ‘Peace Partner’; Elite Private Schools Are Teaching Antisemitism

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: A Hostage Rescue and a Reality Check in Gaza
Qadi’s ordeal is a reminder of that fact. The hostages are moved around underground and often held there as well. Yahya Sinwar can, of course, simply release the hostages and surrender. He has instead insisted on the war’s continuation, and this is what that looks like.

But the tunnels aren’t only for hostages. The tunnels, in fact, are at the center of the ceasefire negotiations. Israeli troops have secured the Gaza side of the Philadelphi corridor and the tunnels leading from Rafah to Egypt. It is not hyperbole to say that those specific tunnels are the reason for the perpetual state of hostilities and the regularity of war between Israel and Hamas. Without them, Hamas would be unable to rearm and resupply in perpetuity, to say nothing of the opportunity the corridor presents to move terrorists into and out of the war zone.

Militarily speaking, logically speaking, it is nothing less than insane to ask the Israelis to relinquish the corridor without some demonstrable way to maintain its deactivation process. Leaving the corridor in the hands of Hamas and Egypt means war; sealing the corridor is the only possible path to peace.

Yet the pressure on Israel to abandon the corridor continues. The Biden administration has convinced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to redeploy some troops from part of the corridor, in the hopes that Hamas will accept those terms and agree to the ceasefire. So far, Hamas won’t agree to anything that leaves the IDF in “operational control” of the corridor.

So let’s put in plain English what the fight over the tunnels is really about. Israel is asking for a commitment to long-term peace, and Hamas and its patrons are proposing permanent war. We can attempt to elide those differences all we want, but it won’t change the fundamental issue of these negotiations—and of the wider war.

You are either for Hamas rearmament or you are against it. You are either for the continued taking and holding of hostages or you are against it. The tunnels are the instruments of rearmament and hostage taking. The Israeli-Palestinian future depends on their dismantlement.
Egypt: Israel’s Alleged ‘Peace Partner’
UNRWA was actually created to settle the Arab refugees in Arab countries, the same way that international organizations settled refugees of the Korean War in Korea, and tens of millions of other refugees were resettled after World War II. The Arab states simply said no. [Read Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf’s excellent The War of Return for details.]

Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai in 1982 reestablished a border between Gaza and Egypt — the Philadelphi Route — which divided the city of Rafah. (If you think the tunnels of Rafah were built by Hamas, you’re way late.) The 2005 Gaza disengagement was accompanied by the Philadelphi Agreement, under which Israel and Egypt pledged to work together to “stem terrorism, arms smuggling, and other illegal cross-border activities.” Israel was supposed to have access to the goods brought in by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was, for a while, the government of Gaza.

Jordan was a bit different, but not much. It illegally annexed the West Bank and the eastern side of Jerusalem in 1950, giving citizenship to some resident Arabs, including some refugees. In 1972, the PLO tried to overthrow the King of Jordan; Israel stepped in to prevent Syria from taking advantage, but King Hussein knew the Hashemite Kingdom had no long-term future in the territory. In 1988, he renounced Jordan’s claim and stripped most of the people of Jordanian citizenship. No one seemed to have noticed.

Over the years, King Hussein not-quite-jokingly referred to Yitzhak Rabin as “Jordan’s Defense Minister for the West Bank.” [His heir, King Abdullah II, relies on Israel for economic assistance as well as security control.] Then, in 1994, he had the same discussion with Yitzhak Rabin in advance of the Jordan-Israel peace treaty that Sadat had with Menachem Begin: keep the West Bank and have a treaty, or push it on us and there won’t be one.

It was still going to be Israel’s problem to solve.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has exposed some serious shortcomings by Israel in the security of the Gaza Strip. Those will, no doubt, be the subject of a serious post-war assessment. But consider Egypt, Israel’s alleged peace partner and recipient of billions in US aid.

The Egyptian government refused to permit Palestinians displaced by the war to enter northern Sinai, even temporarily. Cairo claimed it would not be secure — although the mostly-empty area would easily hold Egyptian military camps for temporary refuge. Even NPR was critical of the decision.

The world later discovered that Gazans could buy their way out, though, for several thousand dollars, which tells you something about Egypt’s motives.

Egypt also delayed passage of aid trucks into Gaza after Israel took over the crossing, demanding a Palestinian presence restored on the Gaza side of the border.

After a (rare) rebuke by the US, Egypt agreed to reopen the crossing, but after another slowdown, Middle East Monitor reports that talks with the US and Israel in July failed to resolve the new impasse.

A week ago, an Israel-Egypt border agreement for Gaza was announced.

On Monday, Egypt reneged.

Israel will have to make the determination that serves its security interests. It would be in the interest of the United States and the Palestinian people to support a strong Israeli presence and control of the border to help break the control of the territory and the people of Gaza by Hamas.
Islamist delusions: Hidden truths behind the Arab-Israeli conflict
Arabs refused to live in peace
Indeed, this is exactly what happened: the Arabs refused to live in peace alongside the Jews.

Years later, there was the involvement of the Arab spearhead, Amin al-Husseini (the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and head of the Supreme Muslim Council), in the "Final Solution," the Nazi plan to exterminate all Jews in Europe.

Al-Husseini arrived in the German capital, Berlin, in the second week of November 1941. He had come from Italy, where he had met with Mussolini, Germany's strong ally.

On November 28 of the same year, Hitler received al-Husseini at the Reich Chancellery, describing him as "the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and one of the most influential men in the Arab liberation movement."

Before he met with Hitler, al-Husseini met with Joachim von Ribbentrop, one of the Nazi regime's leaders in Germany. Days later, al-Husseini was personally escorted on a tour to observe the genocide in the gas chambers at Auschwitz alongside Adolf Eichmann.

Al-Husseini commented on the visit, saying that there was consensus between them and that Hitler told him, "The Jewish problem should be solved step by step."

Al-Husseini received a promise that once the Middle East was occupied, "Germany's sole goal would be the extermination of the Jewish element residing in the Arab region under British protection." Al-Husseini's visit to Germany was engineered by his Lebanese secretary, Othman Kamal al-Haddad.

It is important to highlight a crucial point: all proposed solutions were always rejected by the Arab side, and the idea of two states, one Arab and one Jewish, was consistently discussed.

This confirms that there was never a state called Palestine in any historical period. The Partition Plan itself, issued by the UN General Assembly under Resolution 181 on November 29, 1947, stipulated two states, one Arab and one Jewish. If the Palestinian state existed, why was it not explicitly included in the resolution?

The Arabs' rejection of the Partition Plan "at that time" and the actions of Amin al-Husseini, "the head of the Supreme Muslim Council," in his quest "to eliminate the Jews from the face of the earth" all align with the mentality that still persists today.

This mindset continues to reside in the minds of Yahya Sinwar, Hassan Nasrallah, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, and all the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the destructive arms of Iran in the Middle East, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis.

These Islamic terrorist organizations and movements share the same approach, driven by ideologies of hatred and hostility towards others. They embrace the delusions and hallucinations of global supremacy and the establishment of a supposed caliphate state.


From Skokie to Chicago: Confronting enduring antisemitism
Fast forward to Chicago during the Democratic National Convention (DNC). I watched the anti-Jewish/anti-Israel protests and marches outside the convention center. I watched the vitriol, the hatred of Israel and of America. I watched them burn flags. Burning a US flag is a protected right. The courts have ruled that although there are federal laws protecting and caring for the US flag, these are merely suggestions, and burning the flag is a form of protected expression.

I was shocked to discover that lovers of Israel were denied permission to rally and march during the DNC. No explanation was given. The group, The Chicago Jewish Alliance, applied twice, or more, and got no answer to their request for permits.

Witnessing the injustice, a private person stepped in and donated space for the lovers of Israel to gather. This was no problem because municipal permission is not required to rally on private property.

The irony cannot be lost. The double standard is infuriating. The Nazis were able to march – haters of Israel were able to march – but lovers of Israel were denied that right.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has said that he supports the anti-Israel protesters. Not their right to speak – that goes without saying – but that he supports their hateful cause.

The First Amendment guarantees the rights of people with repulsive points of view and opinions that are abhorrent.

Chicago needs to answer as to why the pro-Israel rally was denied.

One inadequate answer so far has been that the permit request was not submitted on time. But, according to the Chicago Jewish Alliance, the permit request was submitted at the beginning of June and Chicago law only requires two weeks for a permit.

Another reason offered was that the police could not keep both groups safe. Yet, there was enough space in downtown Chicago for both – and there were certainly enough police on hand.

The only explanation is that officials in the city who made the decisions are blatantly anti-Israel and support the pro-Hamas rallies.

UNFORTUNATELY, IN the 46 years since Skokie, my grandmother’s understanding of Jew hatred is still valid. Although there was a period when I was hoping that it had changed, it has not. There are some people in power in both political parties who simply do not like Jews and do not like Israel. These haters of Israel have been given platforms and megaphones. They are heard and they are very loud. While it was once impolite and inappropriate to articulate such hateful views, today they are acceptable

Yet, there is another side. Do not be discouraged. Do not be disheartened. Jews and Israel have many friends. Those friends have begun to organize. They are forcing university administrations and politicians to protect Jewish students and Jewish citizens.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s getting closer by the day.
Meet the new antisemitism, same as the old antisemitism
Yet something has changed since Oct. 7, 2023, so that being Jewish has become our default being. The events on and since that day have been seismic and tragic for the peoples of Israel and Gaza. But the aftershocks have reverberated far and wide. For Jews here and elsewhere, one of the most disturbing aftershocks has been the great spasm of antisemitism, one which, it bears repeating, began before the catastrophic consequences of Israel’s military invasion of Gaza became nightly news.

The latest in a long line of surveys has just been issued by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. Though released last month, it was conducted before the October massacre by Hamas (it contains more recent responses, as well). Among the survey’s many depressing trends, we learn that 80% of respondents feel that antisemitism has increased in their country over the past five years, 56% experienced offline antisemitism from people they know, 37% have been harassed by antisemites once over the past year, and many of these same individuals have been victims of multiple expressions of antisemitism. In textbook bureaucratese, the agency’s director notes that this explosion of hatred “severely limits Jewish people’s ability to live in safety and with dignity” and concludes with the inevitable plea for tolerance.

Legions of scholars and journalists have tried to make sense of this resurgence of an ancient hatred. One of the best places to start, though, is by turning to a new book with that very subtitle — The New Antisemitism: The Resurgence of an Ancient Hatred. It is a remarkable book for many reasons, one of which is that the author, Shalom Lappin, is a world-renowned specialist not of antisemitism, but instead of computational linguistics. This background, it turns out, proves to be a great advantage in creating a marvelously clear and cogent analysis of contemporary antisemitism.

Canadian by birth, Lappin has spent most of his academic career in Israel and England, where he has lived for more than three decades. During a recent email exchange, I asked if he had been caught off-guard by the recent spasm of racist riots in his adopted country, Lappin replied he was not at all surprised. Great Britain, he remarked, is like most western countries, caught in a vise between radical right and radical left movements. While “the riots were a disturbing indication of the strength of far-right neo-fascist sentiment in a portion of the population,” Lappin warned, the counter demonstrations, though welcome, “also featured the usual ‘anti-Zionist’ slogans of the far left in some cases.” While British Jewry took a strong anti-racist stand, Lappin added, it was also “very much caught in the crossfire between three extremist forces, all of them acutely hostile to Jewish concerns.”

Lappin’s mention of “three extremist forces” points to one of his book’s key points. What we might call the “old-new antisemitism” of late 19th century Europe — the result of great technological and industrial advances — spawned an antisemitic ideology largely, but not exclusively limited to the far-right. This worldview placed the “Jew” at its center — the dark force responsible for the era’s vast social and economic upheavals. According to the movement’s leaders like Édouard Drumont in France and Wilhelm Marr in Germany, the Jew was the driving force behind not just the menace of communism, but also the machinery of capitalism. For those desperate for simple answers to supremely complicated issues, it hardly mattered that such claims were as contradictory as they were imaginary.

As for our own era’s “new-old antisemitism,” the anti-globalist radical right no longer has the patent on it; the anti-colonialist radical left and radical Islamism have also glommed onto it. In our conversation, Lappin returned to a crucial point he makes at length in his book: The common bond between these otherwise uncommonly opposing groups is the idea that Jews, whether they are labeled by the radical leftists and Islamists as Zionists or colonialists, or by the radical right as capitalists or communists, are a mortal threat. As Lappin told me, “They differ in their prescriptions on how to eliminate it (or domesticate it), but they converge on the consensus that the Jews as a people play a demonic eschatological role in obstructing the Messianic process of historical redemption. Eliminating this obstacle is a necessary condition for saving humanity.”

As in the late 19th century, so too in the early 21st century: Like the ancient furies, these movements have burst from the cracks and seams of social fabrics rent by great technological and global changes. The crucial difference with the earlier period of globalization, though, is that the current phase of globalization has fueled far greater income inequality within rather than between countries. The consequences are devastating, socially and materially, not just for those left behind, but for those who have traditionally served as scapegoats in times of crisis.

Yet the picture is not all grim. Before devoting his full attention to computational linguistics, Lappin had been active in England’s progressive movement. He helped draft the Euston Manifesto, an influential statement published in the early 2000s by activists critical of the country’s radical left fringe. Recently retired, Lappin has in a way returned to those earlier engagements. Though he insists his book is less an expression of renewed engagement than his effort to “understand why we are seeing the sharp increase in anti-Jewish racism on all sides of the political spectrum, across so many different countries and social environments,” it nevertheless offers a superb primer of antisemitism’s past and a sharp analysis of its present state.

But there is a second and quite literally activist aim to the book — to activate an awareness of what he sees as a real and present danger.

“Many, particularly in North America, continue to harbor notions of living in a safe society that has provided a golden sanctuary from the vicissitudes of Jewish history,” he explained. Though recent events, especially on our campuses, strike Lappin as clear warning signs, he worries that “large numbers of people, both Jews and non-Jews, have not really processed what is happening.” As we signed off, Lappin added a vital postscript. “This is not merely a crisis for Jews. It is a breakdown of the postwar order and a severe crisis in liberal democracy.”
Batya Ungar-Sargon: Americans have no truck with the anti-Semitism of the elites
Since Hamas’s horrific assault on Israeli civilians on 7 October, we’ve been told again and again about a precipitous rise in anti-Semitism in the United States. Pundits, politicians, community leaders and influencers say that anti-Semitism has reached levels not seen in generations. The problem is, outside of elite circles, it’s just not true.

I don’t mean to disregard the footage you’ve seen with your own eyes. Viral social-media clips have shown protesters bullying Zionist students and chanting slogans from Hamas’s charter on college campuses, as well as the craven college administrators who have protected them. That all happened. But campus anti-Semitism is nothing new, and the fact that it has got louder and prouder is not proof that it’s spreading throughout the US – only that the elites are less cagey about it these days.

The truth is that outside of elite spaces like American universities, anti-Semitism is not spreading – not at all. Most Americans stand with Israel and are extremely protective of American Jews. Off-campus, you would struggle to find an American who would allow unchecked anti-Semitism. Campus anti-Semitism isn’t the tip of a deep anti-Semitic iceberg – it’s pretty much the whole damn iceberg.

Two recent examples – one on the left, the other on the right – brought this truth into sharp relief: the treatment of American Jews at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago and the treatment of America’s most prominent proponent of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, Candace Owens, in the right-wing mediasphere.

Let’s start with the DNC. Most people, myself included, were expecting anti-Israel messaging to feature prominently in Chicago last week. In the lead-up to the DNC, the presumptive presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, passed over Josh Shapiro, the extremely popular governor of Pennsylvania, a must-win state for her, as her pick for vice-presidential running mate. It was a nod to the anti-Israel wing of the party, especially the ‘Uncommitted’ movement, which had withheld votes from Joe Biden in Democratic primaries earlier this year over Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. These activists made it clear they would not tolerate Harris picking a Jewish running mate with a record of calling out campus anti-Semitism. The exclusion of Shapiro from the ticket – a man who, in the 2022 midterms, only lost the white working class in Pennsylvania by two points, compared with Joe Biden’s 23-point polling deficit among the same group – drove home the fact that the Democratic Party elites were more afraid of alienating the anti-Semitic wing of their party than supporters of Israel. It all portended ill for the DNC.

And yet, as the DNC wore on, it became clear that this was not an anti-Israel convention. Nor was there much overtly pro-Palestinian messaging, except in a carefully formulated phrase that conjoined the word ‘ceasefire’ with ‘bring the hostages home’ every single time. Even New York congresswoman and progressive standard-bearer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez praised Harris for ‘working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bring the hostages home’. Keith Ellison, whose son is an Uncommitted delegate, said of Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, ‘When they say we need a ceasefire and an end to the innocent lives in Gaza and to bring hostages home, they’re listening, friends. They agree with us.’

Affixing the demand to return the hostages to the demand for a ceasefire is significant. It transforms it from a call for Israel to relinquish its right to eradicate Hamas and secure the return of its hostages – which include five American citizens – and brings it closer to the position of the Israeli negotiators and the Biden administration (namely, that a ceasefire would be possible if and when the hostages are returned).
ZOA counters claims that anti-Israel rioters have ‘a point’
The groups organizing this mayhem in Chicago were the radical, left-wing anti-Israel, anti-American hate groups Behind Enemy Lines; Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine (which appears to be a conglomeration of some of the worst anti-Israel, antisemitic hate groups including Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace); and Samidoun, a subsidiary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization that is responsible for numerous deadly terror attacks in Israel, including the assassination of an Israeli Minister. Samidoun demands the release of Palestinian Arab terrorists from prison and is itself also designated as a terrorist organization by Israel and Germany.

The mission statement of Behind Enemy Lines states that “the empire [the U.S.] is the enemy”; calls for “refus[ing] to accept the legitimacy, normalcy, and permanence of the empire”; calls for ending U.S. support to Israel; and disparages “routinized protests that threaten no one” and instead calls for “a militant anti-imperialist movement” and “mass resistance” (the common euphemism for terrorism and violence).

Shame on Biden and Harris for giving succor, credibility and legitimacy to these dangerous groups plaguing Chicago and elsewhere—all over the world.

Biden’s praising the hateful anti-American, anti-Israel rioters is in stark contrast to the portion of his DNC speech in which he again reiterated his divisive “fine people on both sides” Charlottesville hoax libeling former President Donald Trump.

Trump never supported neo-Nazis or white nationalists, as Biden falsely claimed. Instead, he made it clear that the “fine people on both sides” were those who had different views about the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. Trump condemned the neo-Nazis in the same paragraph, saying: “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”

Biden and Kamala should have borrowed that line from Trump and made it publicly clear that these anti-American, anti-Israel rioters “must be condemned totally.”
Doug Emhoff’s Jewishness can’t hide what a Harris administration would mean for Jews and Israel
The Democratic Party is a big tent. As we saw in the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the tent in question is a circus of identitarian self-love. But the “joy” which overflows from the Democrats these days does not extend to Israel and its supporters.

Doug Emhoff is a Hebraic fig leaf, covering not just the obscene aspects of the Democratic left’s street thuggery, but also the Biden-Harris administration’s cynical failure to walk its pro-Israel talk in Israel’s war for survival against the Iranian Axis.

This is a lot to bear, even for a man of Emhoff’s solid stature. Nothing suggests he has the substance. Emhoff isn’t a heavyweight historian like Deborah Lipstadt, the administration’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. He’s an LA lawyer for a firm whose clients have included Al Jazeera and the banking arm of the Palestinian Authority.

Emhoff went through the twin ordeals of Jewish American adolescence, a Reform bar mitzvah and a summer camp. His first wife wasn’t Jewish. It seems that the marriage broke down when he had an affair with their nanny. She wasn’t Jewish, either. Neither are his two children, Ella and Cole.

Ella Emhoff let it be known in 2020 that she is not Jewish. A fashionista and socialist influencer, Emhoff responded to the October 7 massacres by calling on her followers to donate to Unrwa. It’s a free country and all that, but it’s hardly to Doug’s credit in his new gig as First Jew.

He has no expertise in antisemitism, but somehow he’s the politically-correct face of the program in media damage control that is the administration’s “Antisemitism Task Force”.

Readers with long memories and a sick bag will recall that in 2008, Obama’s Jewish supporters assured their fellow Jews that he’d never do a number on Israel because he got it “in his kishkes”. Look how that went.

Doug Emhoff is being deployed for the same reason. We’re told he’s breaking a glass ceiling, but it’s really a glass floor. It’s identity politics all the way down.
The DNC’s Muslim Brotherhood and Nation of Islam-connected imam
In 2016, Shareef—now well respected for his interfaith activism—joined the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council, an initiative of the American Jewish Committee and the Islamic Society of North America.

Unfortunately for American Jews, ISNA too is a Brotherhood front group, named first on the “Explanatory Memorandum”’s list of organizations. It works closely with CAIR.

ISNA has enjoyed warm relations with both the Obama and Biden administrations and, in 2024, a long-time ISNA operative, Mohamed Elsanousi, was appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

In light of these connections alone, Imam Shareef giving an invocation beside a rabbi—even one affiliated with the anti-Israel organization J Street—would seem strange. It is stranger still given his remarks denying pro-Hamas student protests’ obvious antisemitism.

“I don’t see the protest to be or to be driven by antisemitism, although it does exist and has to be addressed accordingly,” he told The Washington Informer. “The students are responding to a natural, troubling and deep calling from their souls for an end to the mounting death toll of innocent human lives, the devastation to the Palestinian property and land, and the catastrophe humanitarian crisis [sic].”

Shareef’s mosque also has a troubling background. Its English title, “the Nation’s Mosque,” correctly brings to mind the infamous Nation of Islam, given that the mosque was founded in 1937 by Elijah Muhammad—the NOI’s racist, antisemitic leader of 41 years.

Shareef was a student of Elijah Muhammad’s son, Warith Deen Muhammad, who also had connections to ISNA and the MAS. CAIR honored him in 2005 for his “outstanding leadership.” Though Muhammad repudiated current NOI head Louis Farrakhan—an infamously hateful and racist antisemite—in the 1970s and formed a breakaway sect of the NOI, he later reconciled with Farrakhan.

Though Shareef told The Times of Israel “that he was not affiliated with the organization headed by Farrakhan,” the NOI’s own newspaper, The Final Call, records that Shareef praised Farrakhan’s “love” for Islam and his late teacher.

The Call also documents that, upon the death in 2022 of NOI spokeswoman Ava Muhammad, Shareef celebrated the woman who screamed that Jews were “blood-sucking parasite[s] … keeping us from the hereafter!” Shareef called her an “inspiration.”

Masjid Muhammad also collaborates with Islamic Relief, which Sam Westrop’s exhaustive research designates as the Brotherhood’s “leading charitable institution.” Much of its revenue comes from unsuspecting taxpayers and often ends up in Hamas bank accounts. Masjid Muhammad was among Islamic Relief’s grant recipients in 2023 and even posted on Facebook about its “partnership” with Islamic Relief on Sept. 11, 2021—the 20th anniversary of Brotherhood off-shoot Al-Qaeda’s signature massacre.

Much of America is wondering just how “progressive” Kamala Harris’s Democratic Party actually is. These revelations come on the heels of scandals concerning both Harris and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s personal connections to other Islamic hatemongers and possible Iranian operatives.

The Biden administration and the Democratic National Committee must clarify why they chose to give this imam—linked to organizations steeped in hatred and violence—such a platform. They must explain and they must apologize.
Top Biden official poses for photo at DNC with a ‘top soldier’ of Louis Farrakhan
A Cabinet secretary in the Biden-Harris administration appeared in a photo at the Democratic National Convention with a man once referred to as a “top soldier” of Louis Farrakhan, the notorious antisemite who leads the Nation of Islam.

A since-deleted Facebook post last week shows Environmental Protection Agency head Michael Regan posed for a photo at the DNC alongside Terence Muhammad, an activist for a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., called the Hip Hop Caucus. Muhammad, a frequent visitor to the Biden White House, often posts in support of Farrakhan on social media and, in a since-deleted 2013 social media post by Hip Hop Caucus President Lennox Yearwood, who also posed for the Regan photo, was dubbed a “top soldier” of Farrakhan, Fox News reported.

Farrakhan, 91, has likened Jews to termites and accused Jews of having “infected the whole world with poison and deceit.” In February, Farrakhan claimed at an event that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “had advance knowledge of and even a hand in Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel” last year, the Anti-Defamation League found.

“Maaaaaaaaan, I had a great time seeing My Environmental Justice Squad along with My Political/Social Justice Squad mixed in with some HBCU LOVE, while here in Chicago,” Muhammad wrote in the since-deleted Facebook post that included a photo of him with Regan and Yearwood. “Yea, the EPA Administrator of the President’s Cabinet is an AGGIE.”

Yearwood, in a 2013 social media post, called Muhammad a “top soldier” of Farrakhan.

“Bless Minister @LouisFarrakhan allowing one of his top soldiers [Muhammad] 2 be w/ me for #MOW50,” the 2013 post read, according to Fox News. “Much LOVE to the NOI.”

Muhammad, in a 2014 post on social media, also posted an image of Farrakhan and Yearwood. The caption read, “I am that I am (The Good) because I was introduced to a man named the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and a Life giving teaching from the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I can move/help my people like I do cause of Rev Lennox Yearwood, CEO/President of the Hip Hop Caucus. I work for these great men.”
Anti-Israel activists are clashing with black voters over Kamala Harris on TikTok
Pro-Palestine activists have taken on a new target.

Influencers within the movement are arguing online that progressive voters should show solidarity and refuse to vote for Kamala Harris because of supposedly Zionist views. Some have specifically targeted black Americans for being complicit.

But some black voters are pushing back, and it’s all spilled over to TikTok.

“It’s f–ing insane, a black woman f–king presidency is not gonna save us,” TikTokker Rosol.s — who is “half Iraqi and half Palestinian,” and has “never been to the US and I never f–king will be” — said through tears in a video posted earlier this month.

While she was clearly addressing Americans in general, Rosol.s made a point of singling out black people.

“Every f–king race in f–king America has oppressed us,” she continued. “Black people also wear a uniform and get on a plane and come to our countries and kill us. You vote the same melanated fucking people to government that signed papers to kill us. I don’t want to hear it anymore.”

Videos like this have elicited blowback from some black content creators.

“These are people who feel that they are entitled to the support of black people no matter what, that they get to push us around and tell us who the hell we get to vote for if we support them, as if that means we’re just not supposed to give a damn about ourselves,” TikTokker Tori Grier said.

Jortyunofficial also shot back at Rosol.s on Tiktok: “Are you blaming black people for what’s going on?… How dare you blame me for something like that? F–k that rhetoric.”

Other black content creators felt especially betrayed by pro-Palestine activists who were supposedly “allies.”
Maryland GOP congressional recruit facing scrutiny over past votes on Israel and antisemitism
A Republican running for an open House seat in a Maryland swing district is drawing criticism from his Democratic rival for some past votes on issues relating to Israel and antisemitism.

Neil Parrott, a former GOP state representative in Maryland, was among a small minority of four lawmakers who in 2020 opposed a bill prohibiting individuals from placing swastikas and other hate symbols on properties without the owner’s consent. The bill was approved by an overwhelming margin.

In 2014, Parrott also voted against a state budget bill that had included an amendment condemning antisemitism as “an intolerable and ugly form of bigotry,” while denouncing academic boycotts of Israel. The amendment had been among the final additions to the budget bill before it was passed.

April Delaney, a former Biden administration official who is facing Parrott in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District this November, took aim at the votes in a recent statement to Jewish Insider, saying that she “will never tolerate antisemitism in any form.”

“In a time of rising antisemitism and hate, including instances of vandalism in our public schools and harassment online,” the Democratic nominee told JI, “my opponent’s past failures to stand up against antisemitism are unacceptable, disturbing and emblematic of his radical and extreme record that made him ineffective in the state legislature.”

The scrutiny of Parrott’s past votes comes amid a recent uptick in antisemitic activity in Montgomery County, where several schools were vandalized last week with graffiti that included swastikas and other antisemitic messages.
Stop allowing Palestinians to insult the US
In a recent speech before the Turkish parliament, Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas honored the assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, praying for his soul and calling him a “martyr.”

The organization Haniyeh led is an American-designated terror organization that perpetrated the worst massacre against Jews since the Holocaust and is still holding eight Americans captive, among an unknown number of other surviving hostages. Those kidnapped have been raped, male and female, tortured and executed while in custody.

Two parts of Abbas’s speech were troubling and illuminating regarding the next American administration’s Middle East policy. If the next president’s objective is to advance our security interests by stabilizing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we must examine how U.S. taxpayer dollars are used or misused by those who divert monies to support or incentivize terrorism—including the Palestinian Authority.

According to a recent article published by the Council of Foreign Relations, the United States is “the largest single country humanitarian donor to the Palestinian people.” The U.S. has handed over $5 billion to the Palestinians since the P.A. came into existence 30 years ago.

How have the Palestinians thanked America?

This spring, Abbas disparaged his major benefactor, saying Washington “has violated all international laws and abandoned all promises.” According to Axios, he wants to “reevaluate” relations with America. Please, Mr. Abbas, return the money to the American people so we can give it to a more grateful recipient.

America is at war with radical Islamism, whether we acknowledge it or not. Our Middle East experts have claimed for years that the P.A., as opposed to the more religiously oriented Hamas, is a secular alternative for the Palestinian people. This has not been true for a very long time.

Here are Abbas’s words at a Palestinian university: “In the name of Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate … Allah the Supreme spoke the truth. We will continue to stand firm and carry out Ribat [religious war for Muslim control] in Jerusalem and its surroundings until Judgment Day. Then the believers will rejoice in the victory of Allah.”
British Imperialism Didn’t Cause Palestinian Homophobia
When left-wing pro-Palestine protestors recently went viral with signs reading “Queers for Palestine”, their feeble attempt at creating an “intersectional” political coalition was broadly mocked for ignoring (or demonstrating a lack of awareness) of how dismal it is to be LGBT in Palestine. In an effort to downplay the virulent homophobia and anti-LGBT laws in Gaza, British leftist Owen Jones tweeted the following:


Echoing talking points from academics like Sa’ed Atshan, pro-Hamas organizations such as the Institute for Palestinian Studies, and publications including the British outlet Gay Times, Jones’s tweet was part of a thread attempting to shift the moral responsibility for systemic homophobia in Gaza. Stating that “There isn’t the death penalty for homosexuality in Gaza” because it’s “a prison sentence of up to 10 years”, Jones then claims that this is “bad enough without exaggeration.” In the interest of fighting back against hyperbole, that’s fair enough. But for Owen Jones — himself a gay man — to downplay such a retrograde system in defense of Hamas’s record on LGBT issues reveals the game many self-described “anti-imperialist” leftists are playing. The tweet blaming the British Empire for creating anti-same-sex legislation in the Palestinian Mandate back in 1936 was quickly annotated by Twitter’s crowdsourced fact-checking feature, “Community Notes”:
“While it is true that the British Empire introduced anti-LGBT laws in its colonies, those laws are not valid anymore as the Mandate ended in 1948. Israel was also part of it, and no such laws exist [there] anymore. Today, most countries with those laws are under Sharia, like Gaza.”

Indeed, Palestine’s rankings on LGBT acceptance from institutions like UCLA and Georgetown are dismal, and Hamas’s Islamic fundamentalist ideology predates the British Empire’s 40-year presence in the region by over one thousand years. As Armin Navabi recently wrote, this ideology “harbors a brutal dogma that is antithetical to the liberties and rights championed by LGBT activists.” Hamas’s attitude toward homosexuality comes not from the British, but from their fundamentalist Islamism (just as Britain’s formerly homophobic laws were inspired by conservative Christianity). As Hamas strategist Mahmoud Al-Zahar told Reuters in 2010, “You [in the West] do not live like human beings. You do not even live like animals. You accept homosexuality. And now you criticize us?”

The eruption of war between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas following the most deadly attack on Jews in generations has disrupted the lives of millions in needlessly tragic ways. The war has also disrupted several of our assumptions about just how much brutality and bigotry the Western left is willing to excuse in service of Critical Social Justice and “decolonization.” The massive suffering caused by imperialism is beyond dispute; however, it is also possible to overstate its role in shaping the social attitudes of people who were once the subjects of imperial whim. It is true that the effects of colonialism can long outlive any empire, but there comes a point at which invoking the legacy of past imperialism to excuse modern problems denies the agency of colonized people.

Islamic homophobia is an issue that goes beyond terrorist groups like Hamas. While the Quran’s language regarding homosexual and bisexual behavior is somewhat ambiguous, the hadith, the canonical sayings and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, contain many straightforward prohibitions. In practice, this results in the persecution of LGBT people in both official and extrajudicial ways throughout the Muslim world. LGBT Palestinians face extreme ostracism, sometimes fleeing as refugees or even being kidnapped and beheaded. The authorities also ban the activities of LGBT rights groups. And it isn’t just LGBT Palestinians being oppressed by Hamas in Gaza. Institutional sexism is also part and parcel of Sharia Law. Human rights researchers rank the Palestinian territories among the worst places in the world to be a woman. For Western activists ostensibly concerned about the oppression of marginalized groups to effectively support the continued rule of Hamas over Gaza (to the point that they would even deny Israel the right to self-defense against the terrorist organization) is hypocritical in the extreme.
California School District Tried to Hide Antisemitic Ethnic-Studies Courses from Jewish Taxpayers, Lawsuit Alleges
Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) officials and hired consultants conspired to keep Jewish community members in the dark about ethnic-studies courses on the grounds that, as Jews, they are inherently racist and would disrupt plans to enlighten the student body, according to a new filing in an ongoing lawsuit.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Brandeis Center, and the law firm Covington & Burling sued SAUSD in September 2023 over alleged violations of the state’s open-meeting laws. The organizations charged the district with intentionally skirting California policy to push a curriculum that casts Jews as oppressors. Information brought to light during legal proceedings suggests those behind the ethnic-studies curriculum promoted anti-Jewish rhetoric and conspiracy theories.

Understanding the Jewish community’s concern about the curriculum, members of the steering committee noted in an official agenda that they would need to “address the Jewish question.” They would do this by using “Passover to get all new courses approved” — meaning scheduling meetings on Jewish holidays so Jews could not attend — according to a text message between officials obtained as part of the lawsuit.

The message recipient responded that conspiring to exclude Jewish community members from the meeting was “actually a good strategy.”

The desire to freeze Jews out of the decision-making process stems from a belief that Jews are white supremacists, as the words of committee members show. One leader referred to the only Jewish committee member as a “colonized Jewish mind” and a “f–king baby” for expressing concerns over the depiction of Jews in the curriculum. Another individual on the committee reportedly said that “Jews are not a disadvantaged ethnic group in the U.S. because they were never slaves,” that “Jews greatly benefit from white privilege, so they have it better,” and that the school district should “only support the oppressed, and Jews are the oppressors.” Another argued that Jews are “racialized under the white category.” One committee leader described Jewish organizations that took issue with the curriculum as “racist Zionists.”

One employee, the court filing states, refused to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization because doing so would “dehumanize” its members.

Sean Arce, the head of the consulting firm the school district hired to train teachers on the ethnic-studies curriculum, has made several inflammatory public statements about Israel and Jews. He posted on social media that “Israel is nothing more than European settler colonialism draped in religion defended by white guilt and capitalism,” and immediately after October 7 wrote that the “decision by the racist democrats to send military forces to support a racist colonial occupation says everything about the nature of the settler U.S. nation.”
Elite Private Schools Are Teaching Antisemitism
A Virginia independent-school parent recounted her teenager’s experience last fall at NAIS’s Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC), which ran concurrently with the People of Color Conference. The Student Diversity Leadership Conference began as “a great learning experience.” But that changed when students began delivering minute-long extemporaneous speeches.

Videos taken by other attendees show a teenager spending nearly five minutes on “the genocide” that is “going on in Palestine.” He said, “Many people are like blaming Hamas,” but Israel “put these people . . . under like terrible, horrible conditions over like so many years. . . . What did you expect from these people?” The crowd roared approvingly. He continued: “Hamas has only like done like the event for only one day, and the whole world, the whole media is blaming for that one day.” He criticized social-media companies for favoring Israel and said that there is no “real freedom of expression” in the U.S. or Europe. His example of people being punished for opposing Israel was a student sent to the principal for scrawling “Free Palestine” in a school bathroom. He said that the school’s reaction was “confusing between like antisemitism and like anti-Israel, which is like different things.” The audience applauded enthusiastically.

In that room of 2,000 students, approximately 20 to 40 were Jewish. The daughter of the Virginia parent “was sitting with one other Jewish girl” from the event’s Jewish affinity group. “Behind her, she heard, ‘F*** the Jews! F*** Israel!’ ” Both Jewish girls “were very shaken” and gathered with other Jewish attendees. One of the “three adult facilitators for the Jewish affinity group” cried. “One child cried so much she was vomiting.” While Jewish students “sequestered themselves in this room, they heard somebody in the hallway saying, ‘Heil Hitler!’ ” One sobbing student was approached by “an NAIS employee . . . to find out why she was upset, and basically [the employee] told her that [the employee] didn’t think anything was wrong with what had been said, and that it didn’t resonate that way with her.” Many Jewish students wanted to leave at that point and called to ask whether their chaperones could arrive earlier than planned — but to no avail, as it turned out, for most of those students.

“My daughter came back to the hotel room and was crying hysterically all night,” the Virginia parent says. “I was on the phone with her. . . . We had two weeks where I had to sleep in her room with her. She was really traumatized. She’d never been exposed to anything like that before. She felt hated and in fear for her safety.”

The speaker who denounced Israel is “just a kid,” the parent acknowledges. “Who I really blame are the moderators and organization, who failed to set appropriate guidelines, which resulted in many children feeling afraid and unsafe at a conference designed to celebrate diversity and inclusion, and who then failed to offer any resolution or apology.”

An NAIS spokesperson says that the SDLC conference “aims to help students navigate complex and often challenging conversations respectfully. Students are invited to share their perspectives in various settings. . . . The remarks in question came from a student commenter. Some students were deeply offended by the comments. These students reached out to SDLC faculty members, who worked to support them and to facilitate discussions. As an organization, NAIS condemns antisemitism in all forms, and our work — at SDLC and more broadly — strives to embrace diversity and champion inclusivity.”

Some parents, however, would counter that last year’s SDLC is one more example of the frequent failing by independent schools to truly include or protect Jewish students. Jewish parents and their allies in combating antisemitism are, indeed, in a morass, but there are two possible ways out. The first is to seed new classical schools. The second is to reform existing institutions.

Reflecting on DEI and its antisemitism, chilling of speech, and unpopularity in opinion polls, Ashley Jacobs, the Parents Unite director, observes, “This goes away if people have the courage to speak up.” The California parent estimates that this would require “20 percent of people.” So will parents speak up? And if not now, when?
Teachers Union Threatens To Sue Critics After Putting Radical Activist In Charge of Israel Curriculum
Massachusetts’ largest teachers union is threatening to sue a group of Republican state lawmakers who condemned the group for tapping an anti-Israel activist to create learning materials about the Gaza war.

The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) said this month that it “will not hesitate to take legal action if warranted” against the Massachusetts House and Senate Republican Caucuses for a July letter objecting to the union tasking Ricardo Rosa with developing model curricula about Israel and “Occupied Palestine.”

The Republicans objected to Rosa — who has a record of anti-Israel and anti-American rhetoric — developing the materials. The lawmakers observed that Rosa advocated for a “Free Palestine” in the days following October 7, called the United States a “settler colony,” glorified terrorist and plane hijacker Leila Khaled, and voiced his support for a professor who called Zionists “swine” and encouraged protests in Jewish neighborhoods.

In response, the MTA board of directors called the Republicans’ letter “reprehensible,” defended Rosa from the lawmakers’ criticism, and threatened legal action.

Ricardo Rosa’s posts of pro-Palestine protests.

“Ricardo Rosa, MTA’s Director of Training and Professional Learning, has been reprehensibly attacked for simply performing his job at the MTA,” the MTA wrote, in response to Republican lawmakers’ claim that Rosa’s inflammatory statements “demonstrate a clear commitment to a political agenda rather than educational integrity.”

The union, which represents 117,000 educators, came under fire for condemning the United States for being complicit in a “genocidal assault” in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.

The lawmakers called for Rosa’s appointment to be revoked, lest his influence undermine the safety of Jewish and Israeli students and risk “turning classrooms into arenas of radicalism.” They pushed the MTA to instead focus on creating a healthy work environment for teachers and providing a quality education to students.

The union in response called Rosa a “respected scholar” and said they are “privileged to have him on staff.”
Hochul talks with leaders from 200 New York colleges about campus security
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul held a conference call with the academic leaders of more than 200 colleges throughout the state on Monday about new measures to contain intimidation and crime at anti-Israel protests on university campuses. Public safety experts also participated.

Hochul named public safety her “top priority” and said with classes resuming this fall, “it is essential that all students feel safe and are free from harm.”

The governor stated that in the spring, she ”directed college campuses to review and update their emergency response plans, and as tensions may be high as we start the academic year, I will continue to ensure all campus leaders and public safety officials have the resources they need to keep students safe.”

The Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services has reviewed campus emergency plans and provided training sessions for staff based on the guidance from the Campus Planning Toolkit issued by the U.S. Department of Education.
Massive number of college students are afraid to admit they’re Jewish as antisemitism soars on campuses: survey
A whopping 44% of college students and recent graduates said they “rarely” or “never” feel safe identifying as Jewish on campus as antisemitism soars, according to an eye-opening new survey.

Some 81% of college students and 69% of alums surveyed by the advocacy group Alums for Campus Fairness said they avoid certain places, events and stituations — and 60% even claimed to have witnessed faculty members making an offensive antisemitic remark to them or someone they know.

A vast majority of the 1,171 students participating in the survey — 76% — believe antisemitism has gotten worse while 83% of students and alums called rampant antisemitism a “very serious problem,” up from 74% who said it was a problem in a 2021 survey.

“The results, compared with our 2021 survey, expose dangerous trend lines for Jewish and pro-Israel students on college campuses,” said Avi Gordon, executive director of the group.

“Antisemitism is getting worse. Students are hiding their Jewish identity,” Gordon said. “We are increasingly seeing a lack of safety in both digital and physical spaces.”

The group, which fights Jew-hatred and anti-Israel fervor on campuses, used an online survey to get the pulse of Jewish students and recent graduates from May 17 to 28 as anti-Israel protests shook universities and colleges while war raged in Gaza.

Anonymous survey participants shared horror stories, including a UCLA student who said Jewish students on campus were assaulted and harassed for weeks.

“I’ve heard of people running around with knives for Jewish students or posting pig-related artwork to represent Jews. It is insane and rampant,” the student said.
College students, follow the UNC frat bros this fall and stand up to campus hate
All of these leaders failed to grasp what the courageous young men of UNC knew intuitively: That an attack on Jewish people, merely because they are Jews, is an attack on the America they were raised to cherish.

Their defense of American values inherent in their defense of the flag has become a symbol of courage and determination in opposition to antisemitic hate.

These frat boys have become unlikely heroes of Western civilization, honored at the Republican National Convention and by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his speech last month before a joint session of Congress, and featured in a Trump campaign ad.

These young men recognized that genocide against the Jews does not depend on context. Calling for that genocide on their campus is anti-American, and they would not stand for it.

Their brave act made a clear statement: Those attacking the Jews are not simply attacking Jews, but attacking the United States itself. The riots and violence that have threatened Jews on college campuses, synagogues and subways are not only anti-Jewish acts, but anti-American ones, too.

So as students return to campus this fall, let’s encourage them of course to focus on their studies and to enjoy all that makes the college experience so unique.

But they should also be prepared to emulate the frat boys of UNC and stand up for America by standing up to antisemitism, hooliganism and pro-terror hate.

What do you think? Post a comment.

For too long, colleges have been places where students are coddled and pushed to see themselves as victims — or as oppressors.

Dear students, that isn’t America, and you can make sure that it isn’t your university, either.
Torres urges NY college leaders to ensure policies account for antisemitic ‘code words’
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), called on the leaders of several New York-area universities on Monday to ensure that their policies acknowledge that “Zionist” and other “code words” are used in the perpetuation of antisemitism on college campuses.

The letter sent by Torres, addressed to the leaders of Columbia University, the State University of New York system, Cornell University, the City University of New York and Fordham University, praises New York University for updating its policies to reflect that speech and activity targeting “Zionists” can be a violation of campus rules.

“The substitution of the word ‘Zionist’ for ‘Jew’ is the modus operandi of the new antisemitism. Colleges and universities must make it clear that word games will fool no one,” Torres said in his letter to the university leaders. “Engaging in harassment, intimidation, and discrimination against ‘Zionists’ is antisemitism both in intent and in effect, and academia should never hesitate to say so clearly and punish it swiftly.”

He urged the schools to follow NYU’s example and include similar language in their own policies against discrimination and harassment.

“Antisemitism is best understood as an ancient virus that mutates over time. Colleges and universities must be nimble enough to respond to the modern mutations of an ancient virus that, for too long, has been a plague on the soul of humanity,” Torres continued.

He added that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are not are not as easily separated “in the real world as they can be in academic papers,” a fact reflected by Jewish students’ own experiences on campus.
Academic Associations Face Critique for Political Statements
In May, after months of debate, the American Sociological Association passed a resolution calling for “an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza,” joining the chorus of academic associations taking a stand on the Israel-Hamas war.

According to a new study from the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, that was hardly a surprising position; 81 percent of scholarly societies have issued at least one official statement on one of five subjects—race, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war, immigration or climate change—which “almost uniformly reflect progressive orthodoxy,” the report noted.

As a result, the report’s authors argue, colleges and universities should stop giving faculty stipends to pay their fees for association memberships and conferences.

“The whole point of higher ed in a free society is to create room for [scholars] to engage in discourse. They can write op-eds, they can go on radio shows … That’s fine. There’s a First Amendment right to free association in this country,” said Frederick Hess, AEI’s director of education policy studies, who co-authored the report with Jay Greene, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, another conservative think tank. “But nobody should expect taxpayers to be spending money on that, rather than on the educational function of the university.”

Higher education and policy experts generally agree that the movement for institutional or associational neutrality is gaining momentum, pointing to a recent policy change at Johns Hopkins University as one example.

But what they don’t necessarily agree on is whether neutrality is the best response.

Steve McGuire, a campus freedom fellow at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, said associations that continue to issue “political statements” will increasingly “stand out, likely drawing negative attention to themselves and hurting their own scholarly purposes.”

Others, including leaders of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and the American Association of University Professors, believe the AEI report is just part of a conservative push to censor higher education by undermining the groups that uplift faculty voices.

“Contrary to what fellows employed by dark money think tanks might think, statements issued by professional associations aren’t issued willy-nilly by ideologically partisan professors,” Isaac Kamola, director of AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, told Inside Higher Ed via email. “Academic statements are not simply whipped up within some partisan blender. Rather, they come from organizations led by elected representatives.”

“Societies have a responsibility to address concerns raised by their members, and we believe strongly in protecting their freedom to do so,” ACLS president Joy Connolly wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed. “The report is disingenuous in suggesting that academic societies deserve defunding based on public statements, which is just one part of what they do.”

‘Problematic’ or ‘Beneficial’?
AEI’s report examined a sample of 99 academic associations, each representing a department commonly found at public flagship institutions. Of those, 80 were found to have issued a statement on at least one of the five subject areas documented. Race or affirmative action was the most commonly cited, with 88 percent taking an official position. More than a quarter of the associations that spoke out had made a statement regarding the Israel-Hamas war. The report does not go into specific detail about each issue investigated, nor does it disaggregate the results by topic or clarify on which side of an issue each group lands. But, Hess said anecdotally, there was little to no variation in perspective, with most taking stances associated with liberal politics.

The report also finds no difference by discipline: groups representing the natural sciences comment just as often—and in some cases more so—than those rooted in the humanities.

“I’m not sure which is worse: Whether it’s an organization that, in theory, is supposed to be studying these questions, and should perhaps leave room for good-faith academic disagreement … or whether it is a statement issued by organizations who have no particular claim to expertise in this area,” Hess said. “Either way, it strikes me as deeply problematic.”
Lawsuit on Jew-hate in California’s ethnic-studies curriculum amended with more evidence
The discovery process has yielded new evidence about a lawsuit filed in September against the Santa Ana Unified School District by the Anti-Defamation League, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the American Jewish Committee and Covington & Burling.

The organizations announced that they had filed a motion on Monday to add evidence to its case, which charges that the district violated California’s open meetings law to hide the antisemitic nature of its ethnic-studies curriculum.

A release highlighted examples uncovered through discovery, including Ethnic Studies Steering Committee officials suggesting using Jewish holidays to approve courses at the board level to make it difficult or impossible for Jews to attend.

The committee also hired a consultant who had posted on social media about Israel as a “settler-colonial” entity and wrote that “the Zionist CA Jewish Caucus hijacked ethnic studies.”

James Pasch, the ADL’s senior director of national litigation, stated that “open meetings are required by law specifically to prevent this type of situation.”

He said evidence shows that “the district intentionally hid information from the public to try to get away with teaching antisemitic lies to the next generation in Santa Ana. The antisemitism that infected this process sent a clear message to Jewish students and families that their voices are not welcomed, and that they were intentionally excluded.”
Oxford is having a cruel laugh at the expense of Jewish students
By the time this is published, two full weeks will have passed since Oxford University issued an urgent communication to its members. The email expressed a deep and justified worry for students and staff “particularly affected” by racism and Islamophobia. The university’s stance against “racism, discrimination, or abuse,” was clear, “regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity”, and none other than the vice-chancellor signed off on it.

Yet, after the events of last year, this communication rang hollow. It felt like a cruel joke at the expense of Jewish students.

This last academic year, which started just two days after October 7, was marred by a climate of racial abuse and discriminatory behaviour directed at Jews. You could witness it in classrooms, where Israeli students were subjected to invasive interrogations by professors in front of their peers simply because of their nationality.

It was evident in student groups, where a student declared they “refuse to sit with Zionists”, a thinly veiled euphemism for Jews. It surfaced in colleges, where a mob mentality took hold, targeting Jewish students who dared to voice their concerns over motions laced with antisemitic undertones – which passed with little resistance.

And let’s not forget the faculty members who could barely contain their pride over Hamas’ violent actions, or the welfare officers who blamed Jewish students for feeling abused when they were called Nazis.

Some of these incidents were documented in an open letter to the university’s administration, which contains more than 100 instances of antisemitic behaviour.

But what the public may not realise is just how deeply ingrained racial bias is within that administration – a bias made glaringly obvious by the so-called “urgent” communication.

First, while the university has issued sporadic and vague statements condemning antisemitism, neither in official communications nor in its interactions has ever acknowledged the sharp and sudden rise in antisemitic rhetoric and behaviour at Oxford.

Imagine enduring an entire academic year in which Jewish students are openly targeted at other prestigious institutions – including your own – without a single word from your university acknowledging the prevalence or severity of the issue.

Second, even in those vague statements condemning antisemitism, whether in official letters about protests or about the war, it was never given the space to stand alone. Unlike the communication regarding the riots, antisemitism was always bundled together with Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian discrimination.

Anti-Israeli discrimination, which reached extreme levels throughout the year, wasn’t even acknowledged.
Pro-Hamas College Groups Take Student Gov Hostage
Student government is a farce manufactured by leftist groups. It works like this. The small groups of ambitious students who actually run for student government positions have been mainly sidelined by leftist identity politics coalitions. The one actual job these groups have, to dispense student activity fees forcibly collected from students, were then redirected to funding various leftist, including pro-terrorist, causes.

Now as the new semester arrives, some of these student governments are ‘defunding’ student activities to pressure administrations into meeting their pro-terrorist demands.

They’ve gotten away with everything else so far, including the encampments, because most college students don’t care about student government, don’t vote or, if they do vote, follow along with whatever the student papers, who are run by the same leftists, tell them. (Yes, college really is a microcosm of our system.)

But what happens if the student governments do something that impacts students. And not just Jewish ones.

This happened at the New School in New York and now it’s happening at the University of Michigan.

The UM administration is looking for ways to fund student activities while working around the terrorists who have taken control of student government.


State attorney generals call on Brown University to reject BDS proposal
A statement by Brown University’s president, Christina H. Paxson, considering a proposal for the school to divest from Israel drew pushback from top legal officials around the country.

On Monday, 24 state attorney generals sent a letter to the university’s trustees and fellows, calling the plan “only the latest part of an antisemitic pressure campaign spearheaded by a group calling itself ‘Students for Justice in Palestine.’”

The officials pointed out that in most U.S. states, governments cannot work with entities that boycott Israel and that “if adopted, the Brown Divest Now proposal will have immediate and profound legal consequences for Brown.”

The proposal advocates divesting from companies such as Textron, Safariland, Volvo Group, Airbus, Boeing, General Dynamics, General Electric, Motorola and RTX Corporation that conduct business with the Jewish state.

The attorneys general warned that the consequences of adopting the measure could “require our states—and others—to terminate any existing relationships with Brown and those associated with it, divest from any university debt held by state pension plans and other investment vehicles, and otherwise refrain from engaging with Brown and those associated with it.”


Baruch College SJP features images of AR-15 style rifle in call for students to apply for leadership positions
The Baruch College Students for Justice in Palestine student group included images of AR-15-style rifles in the background of a social media post asking students to join their board.

In a post from the Baruch Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) advertising open positions for students to join the leadership of the pro-Palestine student group, the AR-15’s are seen in the background of the promotion.

In the description of the post, the SJP stated that they are “[v]ery excited for the fall semester!”

In addition to the inclusion of assault rifles in the post, the group included an image of a downward triangle, a symbol that is associated with the terrorist group, Hamas.

In the form that students are asked to fill out to apply for the open positions, students are asked to provide their name, phone number, student identification number, their Baruch College-associated email, and answer questions about their commitment and enthusiasm to join the leadership of the SJP.

One specific question listed asks students why they want to join the SJP, what they can “offer” the SJP, and are asked to share “thoughts on a Two-State Solution.”

Once interested students fill out personal details on the form, they are also required to have an in-person interview with the current leadership of the Baruch branch of the Students for Justice in Palestine.

Campus Reform has reported on similar instances where pro-Hamas student groups have displayed on social media violent sentiments or rhetoric.


The Financial Times and the Oct. 7th massacre test
The immediate reaction by journalists covering the region to Hamas’s mass murder, torture, rape and mutilation of Jews on Oct. 7th is a moral test like few others. The antisemitic savagery carried out by the terror group’s death squads throughout Israeli communities like Be’eri, Kfar Aza, Nahal Oz, Nir Oz, Ofakim and Re’im resulted in the murder of over 1200, with hundreds more taken hostage, and as many have noted, represented the most deadly attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

Though, as we’ve demonstrated, some media outlets, journalists and columnists, after a period of weeks, decided to shift from the uncomfortable and ideologically disorienting reality of Palestinian antisemitism and Hamas barbarism to one where the Jewish state, in its military response to the attack, became the perpetrators of ‘crimes against humanity’, ethnic cleansers and genocidaires.

Some didn’t wait weeks, or even days.

For instance, on the evening of Oct. 7th, while Hamas butchers were still in Israeli territory, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent Bethan McKernan tweeted that “Until this morning, tearing down the walls that have hemmed in Gaza’s 2.3m people for 16 years was unthinkable. Whatever else happens now, this is a clear sign that the siege, and 56-year-old occupation, are not sustainable projects“.

That same night, she penned her first Guardian analysis on the massacre, focusing on the current threat to Palestinian civilians in the aftermath of Hamas’s offensive.

But, nothing much at the Guardian shocks us, as its long been a purveyor of the most unhinged anti-Zionist propaganda and, more than occasionally, antisemitic tropes.

The London-based Financial Times, on the other hand, is a far more respected global outlet, one which focuses on business and economic current affairs and fancies itself as being recognised internationally for its “authority, integrity and accuracy”. So, its Oct. 7th coverage is far more revealing, offering a glimpse into a broader media failure we’ve documented since that dark Shabbat day.

On Oct. 8th, the outlet published an official editorial on the previous day’s massacre. Though the Palestinian violence was still unfolding, and Israel hadn’t yet began a serious military response, editors opted for cliches and platitudes, such their warning Jerusalem that “violence begets violence”, over moral clarity and serious analysis.

It also repeated the mantra that “the region can only secure peace if the decades-old Palestinian demand for a viable state is addressed with serious intent“. In addition to ignoring the actual consequences of Israel’s 2005 Gaza withdrawal, their suggestion that the group’s bloodthirsty pogromists would somehow be appeased by the quotidian demands of attending to the social and economic requirements of statehood beggars belief.
Journal De Montréal Columnist Blames Israel For Global Anti-Jewish Hate
Maria Mourani, one of the most radical columnists at Le Journal de Montréal, published a column on August 22 that attempted to blame Israel for anti-Jewish hatred around the world.

Mourani, in at least her third anti-Israel column in less than three months entitled: “Intellectual Terrorism,” claimed that the charge of antisemitism is thrown around to silence dissent at anyone who dare question the fanatical orthodoxy espoused by anti-Israel activists in the West, including baseless accusations of genocide and the like.

But if the shoe fits…

Amidst her attempt to claim that anti-Jewish hate is an allegation too often leveled, she found herself apparently unable in not blaming Jews for antisemitism. Blaming Jews For Jew Hatred

“The increase in anti-Semitism in Canada and the rest of the world observed since the Palestinian genocide is symptomatic of this seed of hatred that humans carry. The images and videos of murdered children and grieving families that we see surging across social media are enough to ignite, make this seed germinate and grow,” Mourani wrote in her column.

This victim-blaming technique by Mourani, if applied to literally any other group, would simply be intolerable.

Stating that rape victims who dress a certain way had it coming, or that Islamic extremism in the Middle East explains why Muslims were murdered at a Quebec City mosque would be rightly condemned as not just ignorant, but morally repulsive.

And yet, in her tirade against Israel, blaming Jerusalem for anti-Jewish hatred, Mourani evidently felt completely unafraid of pushback.

It is clear why Mourani blames Israel for Jew-hatred; after all, looking inward to the pro-Palestinian movement would unmask a grotesque reality.

Had she looked at the pro-Palestinian activists, she would see what the rest of Canadians see: a tiny fringe of hateful extremists, many of whom openly support Islamic terrorism, who ignore murderous homophobia from the Islamic Republic of Iran, the key backer of terrorist groups like Hamas, who embrace Jew-hatred, and who employ violence, harassment and intimidation in an attempt to get their way.


Second candidate accuses Leicester MP of intimidation during election campaign
Another candidate in Leicester South has accused independent MP Shockat Adam of intimidation during his general election campaign.

The new MP won a surprise victory in July, unseating Labour’s shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth in Leicester South by 979 votes.

Now Osman Admani, an independent candidate who received just 339 votes, has claimed that Adam’s team targeted his home days after he announced his candidacy.

Admani, a lawyer from Leicester, accused Adam’s team of “intimidation tactics and bullying” during the campaign.

Like Adam, Admani campaigned on a Gaza ceasefire platform.

In an interview with social media publisher PoliticsJoe , Admani alleged that the day after he announced his candidacy Adam’s team organised a canvassing session in his neighbourhood. Admani said this was “unprecedented” intimidation.

In a blurred video, Adam’s supporters can allegedly be seen outside Admani’s house with a loudspeaker campaigning for Adam.

“Shockat’s team were not very happy, they were quite angry. Why? Because I am a Muslim.

“On the Saturday, Shockat Adam's people decided they were going to come into this area and make a statement... It was unprecedented, no one has ever seen something like that.

“They came down here shouting Shockat’s name on a speakerphone, knocking on all my neighbour's doors to the extent that my neighbours were intimidated and were telling their children ‘Just don’t react, stay calm.’”
South Africa chief rabbi slams pope, archbishop of Canterbury’s rejection of biblical values
The head of the Catholic Church and the leader of the Church of England are effectively rejecting the Bible by supporting policies that negate the connection of the Jewish people to the Holy Land, the chief rabbi of South Africa said on Sunday.

The blunt theological critique comes after the archbishop of Canterbury endorsed a ruling by the International Court of Justice last month that Israel’s presence in the “occupied Palestinian territories” is unlawful, and as the pontiff has sought to thread the needle and maintain strict neutrality during Israel’s war against Islamist terrorists in Gaza.

“At a time when Europe’s future hangs in the balance, its two most senior Christian leaders—the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, and the head of the Church of England, Archbishop Justin Welby—have abandoned their most sacred duty to protect and defend the values of the Bible,” South African Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein wrote in a post on X.

The world is locked in a civilizational battle of values, threatened by terrorism and jihad, the rabbi said.

“Now is the time for religious leaders to come to the defense of society, to speak up for Western values and freedom,” Goldstein said. “Instead, Pope Francis and the Anglican archbishop are silent: indifferent to the murder of Christians in Africa, and to the threat of terrorism throughout Europe, and outright hostile to Israel’s attempts to battle these jihadi forces led by Iran.”

Does the archbishop read the Bible?

The Jewish leader said that the head of the Church of England’s remarks put him in “direct opposition” to the Bible.

“Does the archbishop believe the accounts of the Bible are mere myths?” Goldstein ponders in a 15-minute video address attached to the X post. “How can anyone who believes in the Bible say that Israel is an illegal occupier of the Temple Mount?”
Israeli prison guard’s murder ruled an act of terror
Israel’s Attorney General’s Office has ruled that the murder of Israel Prison Service dog handler Yochai Avni last month was an act of terrorism.

Hamas member Ibrahim Mansur, who broke into Avni’s Givon Hahadasha home northwest of Jerusalem, stabbed him 66 times and set the scene on fire, will be accused of murder with a nationalist motive.

“The accused did all this due to the fact that the deceased was Jewish, with the intention of causing his death and fleeing the scene,” the A.G.’s office stated in additions to the indictment filed on Tuesday morning at the Ofer Military Court.

Avni’s sister Nitzan said at the beginning of the hearing that, “We were informed that the killer stabbed the suspect 66 times in all parts of his body,” according to Channel 12. “Meaning he not only murdered him but also abused him. He then burned everything. We are just before an indictment and we are sure that justice is with us, it is a struggle not only for us but for the entire people of Israel,” she added.

The military court judge said at the opening of the hearing that, “The indictment charges the defendant with the crime of causing death intentionally … The accused decided to enter Givon Hahadasha knowing that it was a settlement where only Jews live. He then stabbed the deceased no fewer than 66 times. The military prosecution granted the request for detention until the end of the legal proceedings.”

Mansur—a resident of Biddu, located just southwest of Givon Hahadasha in the Binyamin region of Samaria—was arrested two days after the July 8 murder.
PMW: Palestinian Authority losses due to terror payments has reached 6.96 billion shekel – in last five years alone
The Palestinian Authority prioritizes its payments to terrorists and has lost over 6.96 billion shekels (over $1.88 billion) in the last 5 years alone, according to its own data.

The official PA news agency, WAFA, criticized Israel for causing the PA’s financial crises and itemized all the deductions from tax revenues that Israel collects for the PA. However, a look at the PA’s numbers shows that the PA itself is responsible for its crises.

Israel’s deductions are in 3 main categories.

Deduction 1: Pay-for Slay
Every year, in accordance with its Anti “Pay-for-Slay” law, Israel makes 12 monthly deductions from the tax transfers that it would otherwise have sent the PA. This deduction is identical to the amount that the PA rewarded imprisoned terrorists and families of so-called Martyrs in the previous year.

Deduction 2: Money to Gaza since October 7
After the massacre and atrocities committed by Gazans on October 7, 2023, Israel has been making deductions from the PA in accordance with the amount that the PA sends to Gaza each month. The sum of these deductions is sent to Norway for future distribution when Israel will be able to be sure that the proceeds will not go directly into Hamas’ hands.

Deduction 3: Repaying PA debts
For many years, Israel generously allowed the Palestinian Authority to use Israeli hospitals, electricity, and water, even though the PA did not pay its fair share. Israel finally decided to make a deduction from the tax transfers in accordance with a portion of the debt that the PA has incurred.

The PA’s official daily said that these “illegal deductions” are the cause of its financial crises. However, it is clear from looking at the PA’s own figures that the PA has only itself to blame for its woes.


Washington high school cancels Muslim speaker after discovery of anti-Israel video
Leadership at Auburn Senior High School in Auburn, Wash., canceled an Aug. 29 all-day presentation to the school’s staff by an education consultant following employees’ discovery of an anti-Israel conspiracy theory video and social-media postings.

Michael Abraham of Abraham Education runs a program titled “Engaging Muslim Students: What all educators should know.” Its course description offered the opportunity to develop a lesson plan “with the goal of practicing culturally relevant pedagogy with Muslim students.”

Staffers reportedly discovered an April video featuring Abraham in which he advocated antisemitic conspiracy theories, according to reporting from “The Jason Rantz Show.” Titled “When Israel FAKES Muslim Terrorism (A HISTORY),” the hour-long video has since been removed.

On X, Abraham also doubted that the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 occurred and accused Israel of genocide.

“Clearly, we had not done enough vetting,” a spokesperson for the district told “The Jason Rantz Show.”
Extreme rhetoric in New York mosques as imams call for destruction of Israel, praise Hamas
A Brooklyn Muslim cleric who once partnered with New York Mayor Eric Adams on a campaign to end hate is now spreading it by calling for the annihilation of Israel, The Post has learned.

Meanwhile, one of his counterparts at a mosque in the Bronx has taken to blasting “Zionist Hollywood” and Christians for packing their churches with LGBTQ worshippers, whom he claims they are recruiting to bolster dwindling congregations.

As the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza continues, imam Sheikh Muhammad Al-Barr, called on Allah at his Bay Ridge mosque to “liberate Palestine from the occupiers and the plunderers” during a Friday service earlier this month.

“Oh Allah, annihilate those who occupied their lands, and those who betrayed and deserted them, and those who spilled their blood,” Al-Barr said in Arabic August 12 at the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge’s Masjid ibn Umair.

The video of Al-Barr’s sermon was posted last week by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a think tank that features human rights activist Natan Sharansky and lawyer and former diplomat Stuart Eizenstat, among other religious leaders on their board of advisors.

Al-Barr, whose last name is also spelled “Elbar,” also said that “the mujahideen [Hamas fighters] in Gaza are achieving more than our Arab armies could in 1967 and 1973,” a reference to the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, respectively.

“Muhammad Al-Barr explains how…Hamas managed to do what the Arab armies of Egypt and Syria …did not do in 1967 and 1973,” said Yigal Carmon, president and founder of MEMRI in an interview with The Post Monday.

“He ignores one thing: How Hamas used the population as human shields…The imam shows total support for a terrorist organization in the heart of New York and totally ignores how October 7 began.”

More than 1,200 died and 240 hostages were kidnapped during the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on that date last year.


Owners of Lublin’s oldest bakery learn it had belonged to Jewish family killed by Nazis
On a quiet corner of Furmańska Street, dawn breaks to the warm smell of bread wafting from the oldest bakery in Lublin, announced by a sign: “Kuźmiuk Bakery since 1944.”

But another bakery was there before 1944, when Furmańska Street belonged to the historic Jewish quarter of this Polish city. Before the Kuźmiuk Bakery opened that year, and before the Nazis killed 99% of Lublin’s Jews, the best bakery in town served rye bread and onion rolls from within the same walls. It was run by Mordka and Doba Bajtel and their children, a Jewish family that was entirely erased from the city. The third-generation owners of Kuźmiuk Bakery say they only learned of the site’s pre-war history in the past decade.

The bakery’s postwar history is threaded throughout its operations. Katarzyna Goławski, the third-generation owner, inherited recipes and techniques from her father Sergiusz Kuźmiuk and his father Włodzimierz Kuźmiuk. (The traditional rye sourdough starter, though, dates only to the 1980s.) Brochures inside the store tell how Włodzimierz Kuźmiuk and his young family escaped the destruction of World War II across Poland, finally settling in an empty bakery in Lublin. In 1944, his first batch of bread fed Lubliners for their first Christmas after the city’s liberation from Nazi Germany.

But her father and grandfather never told Goławski about what had come before.

She knew nothing of the store’s Jewish history until July 2017, when a woman walked into Kuźmiuk Bakery and introduced herself. Her name was Esther Minars, and she had traveled from her home in Florida to see the bakery once owned by her great-uncle Mordka and great-aunt Doba.

The visit shook Goławski, who still maintains the family business with help from her husband Artur Goławski and daughter Natalia. Minars pointed out where the Bajtels lived in an apartment behind the bakery — today, it is the home of the Goławski family. Records from the Grodzka Gate-NN Theater Center, a Lublin institution focused on the city’s Jewish history, confirm that Mordka Bajtel owned a bakery in the building that is now the Kuźmiuk Bakery.

“It made an impact on us,” Goławski told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Because they lived here in this place, and she visited us.”
Teen trip to Poland, Israel puts young leaders face to face with Jewish history
Twenty-five Jewish teens from around the world traveled through Poland and Israel this summer as part of a CTeen Heritage Quest designed to connect young Jews with their history and traditions.

The group visited significant Jewish sites, including the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz concentration camp and the historic synagogues of Krakow.

For 16-year-old Jesse Goldberg of Chicago, the experience was eye-opening. “I grew up hearing stories from Holocaust survivors in Chicago, but they were just stories. This trip showed us the harsh reality unfiltered,” he said.

He explained that his motivation to join the trip stemmed from a drive to understand his roots. His great-grandfather, “Zaide Goodman,” was born in Germany before fleeing to Belgium for safety. Eventually, as the Nazis invaded Belgium in 1940, family members scattered—one joined the French resistance, while others went into hiding. Many survived, some finding work in a Porsche factory.

Rabbi Mendy Lepkivker, coordinator of CTeen summer experience, which took place from July 9-23, said that “one of the most pivotal moments of the trip is flying from Poland, with the horrors of the Holocaust fresh in participants’ minds, straight to Israel, where the first stop is not the hotel, but the Kotel”—the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

“Going straight to the holiest place in the world brings home this message viscerally,” he added.

In addition to requisite sight-seeing, this year’s Heritage Quest culminated in a mission to Israel with a schedule that included volunteering; packing meals for Israelis in need at Colel Chabad, Israel’s oldest charity, established in 1788; connecting with Israeli soldiers on the front lines; and working at a greenhouse in southern Israel, the region most affected by the current war.
Jonny Gould's Jewish State: 38_ Red Sea Spies_ Mossad and their Ethiopian Jewish brothers: Raffi Berg and "Dani"
How many acts of heroism never come to public attention because of the modesty of the heroes themselves?

This is a first-ever audio interview in English with one such man.

His name is "Dani', the Mossad commander in charge of “Operation Brothers” for five drama-filled years from 1978.

Without doubt, this is one of Israel's finest hours; a Mossad mission to emancipate thousands of Ethiopian Jews from the dangers of revolution and persecution. But this is also about partnership and brotherhood.

Mossad would never have achieved this lethally dangerous, giant humanitarian mission without the equal determination of the Ethiopian Jews themselves, to realise a generational longing to return to Israel, the land of their forefathers.

"Dani" only agreed to this interview on condition that his full identity wouldn't be revealed. And while he's partially emerged out of the shadows, I'm told many of his Mossad colleagues remain completely anonymous. “Operation Brothers” was a mission to spirit thousands of Ethiopian Jews out of their remote highland villages to walk hundreds of miles to the hell of a Sudanese refugee camp, whereupon they would begin a perilous exodus to Israel.

Some Jews were given passports and papers and flown out of Khartoum Airport, a difficult and dangerous process in itself. But thousands of others were transported hundreds more miles to the Sudanese coast under cover of a plain-sight Red Sea diving resort which Dani and his Mossad agents ran as a fully functioning hotel while conducting their covert operations each night.

10% of the Jews didn’t make it, dying on the exhausting journey. Mossad is famous for spying missions and counterespionage - but this was nothing to do with that. This was a world first for such an organisation: purely humanitarian, 700 kilometres behind enemy lines in Sudan, which was extremely hostile to Israel back then.

Dani's Mossad command of this covert mission is faithfully chronicled in Raffi Berg’s brilliant book, "Red Sea Spies". I am so grateful to Raffi for organising the interview and truly honoured to talk to Dani.
Israeli TV Series Starring Gal Gadot Premieres Worldwide on Streaming Service IZZY
IZZY, the leading steaming platform for Israeli content, will premiere on Thursday Israeli actress Gal Gadot’s only Hebrew-language television role, a drama series called “Kathmandu.”

The 13-episode series is about a young Chabad Hasidic couple, Mushky and Shmulik, who are on a mission to establish and run the first Chabad house in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, for Israeli travelers. The couple face challenges the minute they arrive in Nepal and the series “explores their journey of faith, resilience, and community building in a foreign land.”

During their time in the South Asian country, they meet a diverse group of people including Guyani, a former Israeli soldier turned hostel owner who has a complicated past, and Gadot’s character Yamit, who is on a journey to find her missing sister Opira in the streets of Nepal.

“Yamit’s storyline adds a layer of intrigue and emotional depth, as she navigates her relationship with Guyani and her own identity,” according to a synopsis of the show provided by IZZY. “Kathmandu” originally aired in 2012 and Gadot filmed the Israeli television show, her first and last, before she became internationally famous for her roles in “Fast & Furious, “Wonder Woman,” “Justice League,” and many other films. IZZY released a teaser for the first episode of “Kathmandu” that shows Gadot’s character arrive in Nepal and ask around about her sister.

“‘Katmandu’ captures the essence of Israeli culture and the unique experience of Israeli travelers in distant lands. It also highlights the universal themes of belonging, faith, and the search for meaning,” according to a description by IZZY. “The series is beautifully shot, with the stunning landscapes of Nepal providing a breathtaking backdrop to the story. The cast delivers powerful performances, particularly Gal Gadot, who brings warmth and complexity to her role as Yamit.”

“Kathmandu” will stream exclusively on IZZY. The show also stars Liron Levo, Michael Moshonov, Nitzan Levartovsky, Karen Berger, and Roy Gurai.




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