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Thursday, August 29, 2024

08/29 Links Pt2: The moral cowardice of European Christian leaders; Rare First Temple-era stone seal unearthed in Jerusalem; Nick Cave on Israel and BDS

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The moral cowardice of European Christian leaders
The outspoken chief rabbi of South Africa, Dr. Warren Goldstein, has once again given voice to crucial truths that others have shamefully ignored.

He accused both Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, of being indifferent to the murder of black Christians in Africa and the terrorism threat in Europe while being “outright hostile” to Israel’s attempts to battle jihadi forces led by Iran.

“The world is locked in a civilizational battle of values, threatened by terrorism and violent jihad,” said Goldstein. “At a time when Europe’s very future hangs in the balance, its two most senior Christian leaders have abandoned their most sacred duty to protect and defend the values of the Bible. Their cowardice and lack of moral clarity threaten the free world.”

Goldstein’s blistering accusations were on the mark.

Christians in Africa have been subjected to barbaric slaughter and persecution by Islamists for decades. Two years ago, Open Doors, an organization that supports persecuted Christians, observed: “In truth, there are very few Muslim countries—or countries with large Muslim populations—where Christians can avoid intimidation, harassment or violence.”

In January 2024, a report for Genocide Watch confirmed that, since 2000, 62,000 Christians in Nigeria have been murdered by Islamist groups in an ongoing attempt to exterminate Christianity. In addition, more than 32,000 moderate black Nigerian Muslims and non-faith individuals have been massacred.

According to a report in 2020 by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Christians in Myanmar, China, Eritrea, India, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Vietnam are being persecuted.

These facts were reported in June by Peter Baum for The Daily Blitz. Yet the mainstream media all but ignore these atrocities. There are no marches in Western cities to accuse these countries of facilitating crimes against humanity. There are no NGO-inspired petitions to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to declare these countries and groups guilty of genocide.

Instead, the media and Western elites demonize Israel as the pariah of the world for defending itself against these genocidal Islamists. This unique and egregious double standard is the hallmark of classic antisemitism.

The attitude of the church leaders is even more astonishing. The hundreds of thousands of victims of this persecution are their flock. The goal of this onslaught is the wholesale destruction of the faith they lead.

Yet from Welby and the pope have emerged little more than occasional expressions of measured concern. And even then, they usually refuse to call out what’s happening by its proper name—the Islamist war to eradicate Christianity and destroy the West.
Macron’s stand against the far-left a relief to French Jewry
French President Emmanuel Macron is resisting pressure to appoint a left-wing prime minister, as the political deadlock plaguing the country since its parliamentary election in July continues.

By keeping a left-wing alliance out of government, Macron has blocked from power the far-left France Unbowed (LFI), a party that 92% of French Jews think is antisemitic, according to a recent survey by the American Jewish Committee Europe.

The French president is tasked with choosing a prime minister and a cabinet following a parliamentary election, and that government is then put to a vote in the National Assembly. In last month’s legislative election, the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition won a 190-seat plurality of the National Assembly’s 577 seats — far short of a working majority. Centrist and right-wing parties said they would vote against an NFP government.

NFP is made up of LFI, socialists, communists and Greens who came together ahead of this year’s election to form an alliance meant to block the far-right National Rally from taking power.

Macron said on Monday that choosing a cabinet led by NFP would threaten “institutional stability,” and would be blocked by the other factions making up a majority of parliament. LFI leaders called Macron’s remarks an “anti-democratic coup” and vowed to impeach him.

American Jewish Committee Europe Managing Director Simone Rodan-Benzaquen said that Macron’s leverage is a result of NFP lacking a legislative majority.

“Any government involving LFI or even just relying on their support would be quickly brought down,” she said.
No, James Carville, Israelis Are Not Whiter Than Palestinians
It was, to put it mildly, foolish of the veteran Democratic party strategist James Carville to say the other day, when asked about the pro-Israel position of the great majority of Republican voters, “It’s really about the racism that drives the thing. . . . The reason I suspect that most of these people describe themselves as pro-Israel is because the Jews [in Israel] are whiter than the Palestinians.”

As was pointed out in the wake of Carville’s remarks, Israelis are not demonstrably “whiter than Palestinians”; nor, since both groups vary greatly in skin color, would it be feasible to come up with a metric that might enable a comparison to be made. There are light-skinned, darker-skinned, and dark-skinned Palestinian Arabs, and light-skinned, darker-skinned, and dark-skinned Israeli Jews—and while Israelis and Palestinians can usually tell at a glance which of the two groups one of them belongs to, they do not do so on the basis of skin color. What they instinctively look for are other indicators, such as body language, facial expression, hair style, clothing, and head garb, and sometimes they guess wrong.

It is commonplace to observe that, when applied to skin color, white and black are as much sociological as physical categories. Many so-called whites are far from white; many blacks are not at all black. Nor does it necessarily have to do with ancestry. As we all know, Barack Obama’s mother was white and Kamala Harris’s was a native of India. If both Obama and Harris are considered, and consider themselves, black, this is because they identify with the African American community and because this seems natural to most Americans. As the Columbia University linguist and New York Times language columnist John McWhorter noted in a recent column:
Imagine how strange it would be if someone called [Obama] white. Imagine how strange it would be if he called himself white. . . . My maternal grandfather was light enough that he could easily have passed for white. My mother was quite light-skinned, too. Yet I have never considered myself anything but Black, nor did my grandfather or my mother. To look at photos of the three of us and see three “Black” people makes perfect sense to me because I have never known anything else.

True, many younger Americans with histories like Obama’s or Harris’s prefer to call themselves biracial, a relatively recent usage that was not an option in the past. (My 1955 Oxford Universal Dictionary, for example, reprinted with “corrections and revised addenda” from an original 1933 edition, does not even list “biracial” as a word.) The growing popularity of the word biracial reflects profound changes in attitude toward race and racial background in the United States, since traditionally, Americans of mixed ancestry have been expected to identify with the racial affiliation of either one set of their ancestors or the other; moreover, racist attitudes dictated that even in cases of white appearance, such as that of John McWhorter’s grandfather, a single known black forebear was enough to classify the person in question as black (or “Negro” or “colored” at a time when these words were still admissible).


Kamala's Criminal Justice Reform Comrade Accused Israel and America of 'Apartheid' in Fiery Sermon After Hamas Attack
In a sermon last month, the Rev. Frederick D. Haynes III told worshippers at his Dallas church about two encounters he had with his longtime criminal justice reform comrade-in-arms, Kamala Harris, after her ascension to the Democratic presidential ticket.

"Yo, you could have given your boy a ride on Air Force Two," Haynes claims he jokingly told the vice president when they met backstage at an American Federation of Teachers conference in Houston on July 25. They had crossed paths just the day before at a black sorority conference in Indianapolis, Haynes said.

Harris and Haynes, the pastor of Dallas's Friendship-West Baptist Church, have known each other for more than two decades. They worked together "in the early days of the criminal justice reform movement," Harris said at a conference for the Rainbow PUSH Coalition on July 16, 2023.

"I am so confident in his leadership and his ability to carry on the greatest traditions of this organization and to meet the challenges of this moment," said Harris. "Congratulations, Reverend Haynes."

And they have remained in close contact all the way through Harris's rise to the Democratic nomination. Haynes has visited the vice presidential residence and attended a roundtable discussion that Harris convened at the White House on February 29. Haynes told the Washington Post this month that he maintains contact with Harris and speaks to her about how to apply her religious faith to her government role.

That level of access to the potential commander in chief could raise concerns given Haynes's history of anti-American and anti-Israeli views.

On Oct. 8, the day after Hamas fighters slaughtered 1,200 Israelis, Haynes gave an explicitly anti-Israel sermon in which he dismissed a "manufactured war" between Israel and Hamas and called both Israel and the United States "apartheid" regimes.

"I recognize that we gotta be pro-Israel, yeah we got to do that, or we get in trouble," Haynes said mockingly. "Well, I'm coming to get in trouble."

"Palestinians don't have the financial backing from the United States that Israel has, and so they throw their rocks and shoot their arrows, and Israel is able to bomb them and kill them," said Haynes. "It is totally unfair, but this country's going to stand on the side of apartheid because that's its track record. It stood by apartheid in South Africa because it created apartheid in this country."

Haynes, who in 2017 touted anti-Semitic preacher Louis Farrakhan as a "wonderful and great man," in January urged the Biden-Harris administration in January to call for an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza. At a DNC event in 2020, Haynes said supporters of a border wall "may go to hell." In his Oct. 8 sermon, Haynes repeatedly criticized "Governor DeNazi," a nickname he coined for Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R.).
Kamala Harris's New Arab Outreach Director Said 'Zionists' Are 'Controlling' American Politics
Kamala Harris's newly appointed head of Arab-American outreach once accused Zionists of "controlling" American politics, echoing an anti-Semitic trope that suggests Jews nefariously manipulate global affairs.

"The Zionists have a strong voice in American politics," Brenda Abdelall, an Egyptian-American lawyer and former Department of Homeland Security official, said in a 2002 interview with the New York Sun while attending the American Muslim Council's annual convention. "I would say they're controlling a lot of it."

Abdelall, whom Harris tapped earlier this week to help galvanize Arab voters, made the remarks after a speaker at the event, anti-Israel professor Jamil Fayez, said that "Zionists are destroying America." Responding to his remarks, Abdelall said that while "'destroying' is a harsh word," supporters of the Jewish state do control American politics.

The American Muslim Council's 2002 confab also provided attendees with a chance to meet anti-Semitic former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D., Ga.), who famously blamed Jews for the 9/11 terror attack and attended a 2009 Holocaust-denial gathering in London. Her father similarly blamed Jews when she lost her congressional seat shortly after the 2002 conference. "Jews have bought everybody. Jews. J-E-W-S," he said.

Abdelall's appointment comes as Harris works to appease members of her party's liberal flank who want her to more aggressively confront the Jewish state and undermine its war on Hamas, including by cutting off arms sales. Harris has praised pro-Hamas campus protesters as "showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza." In March, she accused Israel of stoking "humanitarian catastrophe."

Abdelall joins several other Harris campaign advisers who have a history of pressuring Israel and advocating increased relations with Iran. They include Harris's national security adviser, Phil Gordon, who is the subject of a congressional probe into his ties to a member of an Iranian government influence network. Ilan Goldenberg, Harris's liaison to the Jewish community, has faced scrutiny for his ties to the anti-Israel group J Street, as well as championing closer ties to Tehran.

Harris also appointed a veteran Israel critic, the Rev. Jen Butler, to conduct outreach to the faith community. Butler has come under fire for working alongside anti-Semitic activist Linda Sarsour.


Investment Advisory Behemoth Under Fire for Discriminating Against Companies With Ties to Israel
Montana, Iowa, and Tennessee have launched investigations into whether the investment behemoth MSCI has engaged in Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) practices by issuing harmful ratings to companies over their Israeli ties, potentially encouraging clients away from investing in them.

As part of its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scoring, MSCI flagged at least nine companies as controversial for doing business in Israel, a Jewish News Syndicate investigation found. In response, the three U.S. states are demanding MSCI turn over documents showing how Israeli ties affected ESG ratings or inclusion in any exchange-traded funds. They also demanded information about what the investment firm advised clients about doing business in the Jewish state or with Israeli parties.

MSCI manages some $5.4 billion in assets and offers investing guidance for clients. Investors who are socially conscious or fear getting flagged themselves may avoid putting money into companies marked with human rights concerns.

"My support for Israel will not waiver and neither will Montana’s. I’m deeply concerned by the reports of discrimination against Israeli companies," Montana attorney general Austin Knudsen told the Washington Free Beacon. "Should we find MSCI has been involved in any illegal business practices, I will do everything in my power as attorney general to hold them accountable and continue to protect Montanans from unlawful and discriminatory business practices."

Iowa attorney general Brenna Bird issued a similar statement to the Free Beacon.

"After the barbaric terror attacks on October 7, it is more critical than ever that we support our allies in Israel and root out anti-Semitic hate," she said. "MSCI's silence when asked whether it is targeting companies for doing business in or with Israel is deafening. I am leading an investigation to get to the bottom of MSCI's concerning practices and to prevent companies from polluting the corporate world with anti-Semitism."

MSCI flagged Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Bank Mizrahi, Caterpillar, CEMEX, Elbit Systems, Heidelberg Materials, Motorola, and PayPal as controversial in its ESG ratings because the companies conduct business in the Judea and Samaria regions of Israel, the Jewish News Syndicate’s investigation found. Elbit, an Israeli security firm and frequent target of BDS activists, was marked for building security and surveillance barriers meant to protect the Jewish state from terrorists.
Planned Parenthood in New England divests from companies that profit from ‘devastating loss of life’ in Gaza
Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, which operates 15 centers in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, announced that it adopted a “weapons exclusion” in its investments, in part to boycott the Jewish state.

“We are proud to announce a new ‘weapons exclusion’ in our investment portfolio, so there is no longer the potential to earn interest from companies that profit from violence and war, such as the devastating loss of life and sexual and gender-based violence happening in Gaza,” it stated. “We encourage our supporters to join us.”

It added that “this weapons exclusion allows us to reject companies who profit from the manufacturing of weapons and is a meaningful step in addressing both the violence we are seeing and the feeling of powerlessness that so many of us have been experiencing.”

Journalist and scholar Ira Stoll wrote that “the activist demands to divest from Israel or to boycott or sanction it have frequently transformed nowadays to demands to divest from arms manufacturers that are making the weapons Israel is using to fight Hamas in Gaza.

“I find such demands naive and morally mistaken,” he continued.

“For one thing, the weapons manufacturers aren’t going to go out of business because Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, or other ideologically aligned nonprofits and individual investors, decide to divest. The profits will still exist, they’ll just go to other causes,” he added.
Foiled Taylor Swift concert plot aimed to kill ‘tens of thousands,’ says CIA official
The suspects in the foiled plot to attack Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna earlier this month sought to kill “tens of thousands” of fans before the CIA discovered intelligence that disrupted the planning and led to arrests, the agency’s deputy director said.

The CIA notified Austrian authorities of the scheme, which allegedly included links to the Islamic State group. The intelligence and subsequent arrests ultimately led to the cancellation of three sold-out Eras Tour shows, devastating fans — known as Swifties — who had traveled across the globe to see Swift in concert.

CIA Deputy Director David Cohen addressed the failed plot during the annual Intelligence and National Security Summit, held this week in Maryland.

“They were plotting to kill a huge number — tens of thousands of people at this concert, including I am sure many Americans — and were quite advanced in this,” Cohen said Wednesday. “The Austrians were able to make those arrests because the agency and our partners in the intelligence community provided them information about what this ISIS-connected group was planning to do.”

Austrian officials said the main suspect, a 19-year-old Austrian man, was inspired by the Islamic State group. He allegedly planned to attack outside the stadium, where upwards of 30,000 fans were expected to gather, with knives or homemade explosives. Another 65,000 fans were likely to be inside the venue. Investigators discovered chemical substances and technical devices during a raid of the suspect’s home.

Austria’s interior minister, Gerhard Karner, previously said help from other intelligence agencies was needed because Austrian investigators, unlike some foreign services, can’t legally monitor text messages.
Reason Podcast: Nick Cave: I See the World as 'Systemically Beautiful'
Today's guest is Nick Cave, the music legend who emerged from Australia in the 1980s. Over the years, Cave has written screenplays, soundtracks, and novels, and has collaborated with a diverse range of artists, from Johnny Cash and Kylie Minogue to P.J. Harvey and Neko Case.

Known for his brooding and meditative mystique, he coauthored the bestselling Faith, Hope, and Carnage in 2022, receiving plaudits for openly discussing his struggles with heroin addiction, his lifelong fascination with Jesus Christ, and his artistic development. Since 2018, he's published The Red Hand Files, where he answers readers' questions in a manner that is deeply vulnerable, touching, and insightful. Wild God, his rave-reviewed new album with his longtime band The Bad Seeds, is out on August 30.

Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Cave about his unshakeable commitment to free speech, how the death of his 15-year-old son affected his art, his abiding interest in ritual and religion, and why he refuses to join artist boycotts of countries such as Israel.

This interview was recorded on location at the storied Electric Lady Studios in New York City.

0:00—Introduction
1:09—Ad: The Dispatch
2:15—The Red Hand Files
8:13—Connecting with audiences after loss
16:20—The Birthday Party's early days in London
20:10—Is Nick Cave a "goth"?
25:19—Ad: Bank On Yourself
27:09—New album, Wild God
29:53—Transcending cynicism and contempt
33:23—AI, pessimism, and losing avenues of meaning
39:35—Religious yearning and doubt
45:32—Defending free thought and expression
48:25—Kanye West's antisemitism and extraordinary creations of gospel music
50:26—Antisemitism, Jews, and Israel
52:47—Roger Waters, Brian Eno, and Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)
58:33—Brief stint in Los Angeles
59:50—Loss and creation during COVID-19
1:03:10—Social media and censorship
1:05:10—The freeing effects of aging


Over 300 Filmmakers Condemn Inclusion of Israeli Films in Venice Festival, ‘Artwashing of Gaza Genocide’
Nearly 350 filmmakers, actors, and other members of the film industry signed an open letter on Wednesday, the same day as the opening of the Venice Film Festival, criticizing the prestigious festival for featuring two Israeli films.

At the center of the controversy is Dani Rosenberg’s Hebrew-language film “Al Klavim Veanashim” (“Of Dogs and Men”), which is about the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, and “Why War” by director and screenwriter Amos Gitai, which will be making its world premiere on Aug. 31 out of competition. The latter film was inspired by a correspondence between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud about avoiding war and “embarks on a search for an explanation of the savagery of wars that inhabit our world,” according to a synopsis provided by the Venice Film Festival.

In the open letter, published by Artists for Palestine Italia, members of the film industry claim “Of Dogs and Men” and “Why War” were “created by Israeli production companies that are complicit in whitewashing Israel’s oppression against Palestinians.” They claimed it was “unacceptable” for the Venice Film Festival to showcase both films and said they “reject complicity with the Israeli regime of apartheid and oppose the artwashing of its Gaza genocide against Palestinians at the 81st Film Festival in Venice.”

“‘Of Dogs and Men,’ shot in the midst of Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza, whitewashes the genocide,” the letter continued. “Like ‘Of Dogs and Men,’ ‘Why War’ was created by complicit Israeli production companies that contribute to apartheid, occupation, and now genocide through their silence or active participation in artwashing. Palestinian society, including the absolute majority of filmmakers, has called for refusing to screen such productions.”

Among the signatories were a number of Palestinian filmmakers and actors — including two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, Rosalind Nashashibi, Raed Andoni, and Saleh Bakri — as well as more than 80 Italian film industry figures such as screenwriter and David di Donatello nominee Davide Serino; filmmakers Enrico Parenti and Alessandra Ferrini; and actors Niccolò Senni, Simona Cavallari, Chiara Baschetti, and Paola Michelini. Others who signed the open letter included Tony Award nominee Kathleen Chalfant, César-winning actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, composer Nitin Sawhney, and Israeli filmmakers Oreet Ashery and Eyal Sivan.
Cooper Union president resigns, having cited ‘new challenges’ last year
Laura Sparks, president of Cooper Union in New York City, announced on July 17 that she would step down In August, but the news only began to spread widely on Thursday.

“Cooper Union president Laura Sparks has resigned in disgrace after capitulating to the pro-Hamas mob on campus and abandoning Jewish students who were under attack and hiding in the library,” wrote Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) on Thursday.

Stefanik, who has been deeply critical of responses by academia to anti-Israel campus protests in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, added that “there is more work to be done, and we will not stop until antisemitic university administrators face accountability for putting Jewish students in harm’s way.”

In a July 17 message to the Cooper Union community, Sparks wrote that “nearly eight years into my tenure here, I am writing to share that I will be moving on from Cooper next month to lead a new set of initiatives beginning in September designed to advance equitable opportunity in historically marginalized communities through civic engagement, philanthropy and business in Philadelphia, another city I love.”

“I am excited about this new opportunity, but this was, by no means, an easy decision,” she said. “This past academic year revealed new challenges, and I know this community is equipped with the intellect, creativity, and compassion to continue to collaboratively advance a sustainable, long-term path, even in the turbulent times that confront us.”

At press time, the Cooper Union website stated that Malcolm King, an alumnus of the school and former board chair, is the interim president.

Sparks’s message didn’t mention “antisemitism” or “Jewish students.” During her tenure, anti-Israel protesters trapped a group of Jewish students in the library shortly after Oct. 7, shouting “Free Palestine.”

That incident—and Sparks instructing police to stand down—prompted a lawsuit by 10 Jewish students, who alleged that the university illegally permitted and encouraged discrimination and harassment of Jews.


MIT denounces distribution of 'antisemitic' Mapping Project flyers at orientation
Anti-Israel flyers featuring a link to an interactive map of Jews and Zionists in Massachusetts were distributed at Monday's orientation for new Massachusetts Institute of Technology students, MIT President Sally Kornbluth said in a Wednesday statement condemning the flyers and project.

Several students had handed out flyers that said "welcome to MIT!" next to a drawing of the university's mascot, said Kornbluth. The flyers commented on conflict in Middle East and Israel with links to materials including the controversial Mapping Project.

Kornbluth wished to clarify that the flyers were not official MIT content and denounced the Mapping Project, which catalogs and maps the supposed connections of Jewish and Zionist organizations, synagogues, universities, businesses, schools, media outlets, and law enforcement agencies and their ostensible relationships to Israel and the US government.

"While I have repeatedly defended freedom of expression, I must tell you that I found some of the websites cited on the flyers deeply concerning," said Kornbluth. "I believe the Mapping Project promotes antisemitism. Like every other form of racial and religious prejudice and hate, antisemitism is totally unacceptable in our community. It cannot be justified, and it is antithetical to MIT’s values."

Feeling unwelcome on campus
Some students also reported to Kornbluth that they had been made unwelcome to MIT because of the flyers.

Kornbluth said that it was unfortunate that she had to start the academic year with such a statement, and assured that "every student, and every member of our faculty and staff, belongs here" and was welcome.

The Mapping Project was published in 2022 and was endorsed by BDS Boston.

"Our goal in pursuing this collective mapping was to reveal the local entities and networks that enact devastation, so we can dismantle them," reads the Mapping Project website. "Every entity has an address, every network can be disrupted."
Jewish groups file more alleged evidence of antisemitism against Santa Ana Unified
A group of Jewish organizations that are suing the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) filed a motion to add more alleged evidence to bolster their claims that the district violated California’s opening meetings laws to exclude the Jewish community’s input in approving the ethnic studies courses.

The Anti-Defamation League, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the American Jewish Committee and the law firm Covington & Burling announced the submission of additional evidence Tuesday.

The initial lawsuit was filed in September 2023, claiming Santa Ana Unified violated Brown Act and AB 101, a state statute mandating ethnic studies for California high schools, to impetuously approve the ethnic studies curriculum with “antisemitic and unlawfully biased content” while preventing feedback from the Jewish community.

In the latest motion, one piece of alleged evidence revealed some senior officials of the district allegedly considered holding meetings to approve courses on Jewish holidays so that Jewish members of the public would not attend to voice their opinions or concerns.

“The shocking evidence our team has uncovered shows that SAUSD deliberately tried to keep the public in the dark about the extreme biases and antisemitism that infected the District's ethnic studies curriculum,” said Dan Shallman, lead counsel from Covington & Burling LLP. “In doing so, SAUSD violated State law."

The Jewish groups also said some members of the board showed bias toward Jewish Americans with one board member suggesting the stories of Jewish Americans not be part of Santa Ana’s ethnic studies because the Jewish race falls under the white category.

In another incident, steering committee members allegedly said Jewish people are not part of a marginalized ethnic group because “they were never slaves,” adding Jewish Americans “greatly (benefited) from white privilege.”

The distinct Tuesday denied the claims by the Jewish organizations, vowing to clear its name in court.

"The district will appear in Superior Court next month to defend its action of approving certain Ethnic Studies courses mandated by California’s legislature as new graduation requirements,” the Santa Ana Unified School District said in a statement. “The district denies (the) claims and will present counter arguments and facts to the court for consideration and is optimistic that the court will ultimately find in favor of the district.”


‘Journalism’ in service of the revolution: A quick guide to Middle Eastern media - Explainer
Last week, renowned Al Jazeera commentator Jamal Rayyan posted a picture on his X account showing a summit of Arab leaders, alongside the rhetorical question “Why this silence? Are there Jews ruling among you?”

The blatant antisemitism expressed by an important anchor at the Qatari-run channel is subject for another discussion as published by The Jerusalem Post. However, astute users online noted and pointed out amusedly and ironically that the picture posted by Rayyan featured all Arab leaders except for one – the Qatari Emir. Rayyan’s supreme boss is apparently too perfect to be subject to any form of criticism.

What is media?
Media in democracies is one of many features in an array of checks and balances whose main role is to hold the authorities accountable. It’s a mechanism that, if applied correctly, can help expose corruption, deter elected officials from misusing their power, amplify otherwise silenced voices, and offer a free market of ideas.

Partisan and loyalist media exists in the Western world, of course. All commentators are entitled to their opinions and many bring them out openly. There are certainly entire channels and media conglomerates who view their role as promoting a certain agenda or opinion (and in some familiar cases, a certain candidate, regardless of their agenda or opinion).

However, there is a great difference between partisanship and the act of serving as a mouthpiece for a dictatorship. A simple test exists: Is this media outlet able to criticize the political and social leaders of its movement freely? And on the national level – are the views propagated by this media outlet monolithic, or is there room for criticism?

This newspaper, for instance, proudly supports the Zionist vision of a Jewish state ever since its very inception in 1932. It will probably not espouse exclusive interviews with leaders of terrorist organizations or platform antisemitic discourse. However, unlike media outlets in non-democracies, this newspaper is not committed to parroting talking points of a government or party and can offer its criticism and thoughts freely.

This is not true for non-democracies. On the national level, dictatorships own entire media arrays whose job is to push their leaders’ agendas. Such is the case with Qatar, which owns the aforementioned media giant, Al Jazeera. According to former employees in the channel, a direct line connects between the royal court and the chief producer’s office. This facilitates the royal family, who owns both Al Jazeera and the country of Qatar, the act of steering their desired messages and creating their wanted narratives. In simpler terms, this media channel is a governmental agent acting on behalf of another nation.
Media Skew the Rescue of an Israeli Bedouin Hostage
On October 7, Bedouins and other people of minority groups in Israel’s south on that day suffered at the hands of Hamas terrorists and its followers. This is evidence that even when Hamas send rockets from Gaza, they have no “specific” intent to avoid Muslims, Christians, Buddhists or any other people inside Israel.

The point is, despite the fact that al-Qadi is a devout Muslim himself, he was still brutally taken hostage by Hamas on October 7 and kept as a hostage in horrific conditions for 11 months in Gaza. He was one of five other Muslims taken hostage on that day, and two are still in captivity. There is also one additional Israeli Bedouin civilian, Hisham al-Sayed, who has been infamously held hostage by Hamas for a decade.

Despite the families’ pleas for Hamas to send them home in good faith as fellow Muslims, the response was silence.

The New York Times trying to convince readers or make assumptions about “specific” targets of Hamas otherwise is an unethical conviction.

Qaid Farhan al-Qadi is a Bedouin with Israeli citizenship
To deny this fact is to create a false narrative that suggests Bedouins do not have rights in Israel. Indeed, many of them are citizens and have full rights. While the issues between the Bedouin community of the Negev and the Israeli government are complicated, that does not take away from their rights as citizens. Therefore, they should be referred to as such.

Unfortunately, biased media like the BBC seem to want readers to believe that Israel is an apartheid state. Bedouins are not “forced” to live on “reservations”

The issue here is that a different country’s cultural framing, namely the United States, with its own separate history, is being applied to the Bedouins in Israel. Whenever this happens, it not only takes away from the Native Americans, a different group’s struggle or story, but it gives readers misleading context to the Bedouins’ story.

As is stated in the tweet above, Bedouins in Israel are not Native Americans and their villages in the Negev are not reservations. They are semi-nomadic, meaning they can move around, and don’t all live in cities and towns as Westerners are accustomed to. Rather, they pitch up structures wherever desired. So they are not “forced” to live anywhere. They can also, as all Israeli citizens are entitled to do, buy or rent an apartment in Tel Aviv if they so wish.

What is worse here, is that CNN also misquoted the one-sided Minority Rights Group article that it relied on its information from. Changing past tense to present tense is a distortion of the truth and reality to appease an agenda. It also delegitimizes a news publication’s journalistic integrity to do such a thing.
Skewed Stories: The Wall Street Journal’s Biased Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War
The Wall Street Journal’s Poisoned Pen
Aside from its implicit bias, another issue with The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict is its reliance on contributors with a history of hostility to Israel, who help contribute to the distorted framing of the newspaper’s narrative.

In the first month of the war, HonestReporting shined a light on Palestinian journalist Fatima AbdulKarim, who had been affiliated with the Journal since before the war.

Based in Ramallah, AbdulKarim has a history of incendiary social media posts that accuse Israel of “Apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing,” rely on anti-Israel sources like Breaking the Silence and Defense for Children International-Palestine (a front for the PFLP terror organization), and distort the news in order to whitewash Palestinian terrorism and smear Israeli actions.

In August 2024, HonestReporting uncovered the hate-filled social media history of Journal contributor Abeer Ayyoub, who celebrated October 7 on X (formerly Twitter), spread fake news about a kidnapped Israeli general, mocked Israel in its darkest hour, and whitewashed Hamas’s terrorism.

To solidify her anti-Israel presence online, Ayyoub commented in Arabic “Eat shit” on a message of sympathy with Israel by X owner Elon Musk on October 7.

With contributors like Fatima AbdulKarim and Abeer Ayyoub, is it any wonder that there is a noticeable trend of bias that permeates the Wall Street Journal’s ongoing coverage of Israel’s war against Hamas?
Who Is Dan Bilzerian? The Israel-Obsessed, Jew-Hating Misogynist That the Media Made
American poker player, businessman, and social media influencer Dan Bilzerian’s recent contributions to the social media platform X have followed a disturbing pattern: a video of himself on a podcast denying the Hamas atrocities of October 7, a graphic filled with fake Talmud quotes, and a two-word reply to a post urging America to stand firmly against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terrorist group: “Fuck You.”

Ah, the sparkling wit we’ve come to expect from the illustrious ranks of social media influencers who are using the Israel-Hamas war as an excuse to spew antisemitism. Among these beacons of intellectual discourse, we find Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens, Jake Shields, and Jackson Hinkle—an impressive lineup of personalities united in their shared fondness for anti-Jewish bigotry.

But let’s refocus on Bilzerian.

Dan Bilzerian first stumbled into the spotlight during the rise of social media in the mid-2000s, where he generously shared an insight into his luxury lifestyle with impressionable young followers worldwide. His Instagram, boasting 32 million followers, sticks to a simple formula: a slew of staged photos featuring Bilzerian surrounded by scantily clad women.

Though Bilzerian claims to have amassed his fortune as a professional poker player, this claim—like much of what he says—is doubtful. Other professionals in the poker world dispute his supposed mastery of the game, and it’s far more plausible that his wealth stems from a hefty inheritance from his father, convicted fraudster Paul Bilzerian.

Yet, despite Bilzerian’s shaky relationship with the truth, his repugnant views on women, and his dubious financial history, the media inexplicably did, and continue, to try and elevate him into the echelons of stardom.


Scottish newspaper ‘demonises’ MP with ‘Zionist’ front page
A Scottish newspaper has been accused of attempting to “demonise” a newly elected Labour MP who accepted a paid trip to Israel and the West Bank from the Labour Friends of Israel group.

Under the lurid headline “Zionist Group Picks Up Bill For Labour MP’s Israel Trip” The National newspaper questioned how Graeme Downie, the member for Dunfermline and Dollar, could “claim to serve the interests of his constituents while being actively courted by pro-Israel lobbies”.

The newspaper, renowned for its pro-SNP stance, focused on Downie after he properly declared the LFI trip, which cost a total of £2,200, and saw him meet with Israeli and Palestinian politicians, academics, activists and diplomats in September 2023.

A spokesperson for Downie confirmed: “The trip was undertaken in September 2023 and involved a visit to Israel and an UNWRA refugee camp in the West Bank for meetings with politicians from the Palestinian Authority, third-sector groups and charities along with Israeli government officials.

“All declarations have been made in line with parliamentary rules to ensure transparency.”

The article also including a quote from Gerry Coutts, of campaign group Scottish Friends of Palestine.

Coutts claimed: “How can Graeme Downie claim to serve the interests of his electorates while being actively courted by pro-Israel lobbies?

“He accepted a fully funded trip to meet with Israeli officials which further puts in question his integrity and impartiality when it comes to Israel, the world’s longest illegal occupation, a well-documented apartheid regime.

“The Labour Party has a long history of supporting the Israeli colonisation of Palestine. LFI has existed since the 1950s and does not disclose where it gets its funding but has close ties with the Israeli state.

“What we see here is a foreign state cultivating politicians early on in their careers to serve its interests.”

“The online version of Thursday’s report in The National was awash with openly antisemitic comments over Labour funding by “a Jewish entrepreneur” and LFI being “bankrolled by the generosity of members of the Jewish community.”
Al Jazeera antisemitism doc whistleblower loses employment tribunal case against Labour
A former Labour investigations officer, who featured in an Al Jazeera documentary claiming antisemitism was used as a “tool” to stifle criticism of Israel, has had her claim for unfair dismissal against the party dismissed by a tribunal.

Halima Khan, who worked for nearly three years in Labour’s Governance and Legal Unit (GLU), took the party to a tribunal over a case that centred on the leaking to the media of confirmation that the suspension of television presenter Sir Trevor Phillips from the party over Islamophobia claims had been lifted.

While Khan was cleared of suspicion of leaking the confidential news herself to media outlets including the Guardian, Labour List, and to the Labour Muslim Network, she had been dismissed from her job in March 2022 after Labour bosses found that she had accessed data on the high-profile case other than for her work, and had misled managers about how she found out about the decision to lift the Sky News presenters ban.

At the tribunal in London she represented herself as she attempted to prove she had been unfairly dismissed by Labour in March 2022 and had also been the victim of racial discrimination.

But in a reserved judgment, Judge Goodman dismissed both claims, highlighting how Labour’s investigating team had concluded Khan’s evidence to them had been “knowingly deceptive”.

“The claimant’s evidence to the tribunal shows that they were not mistaken,” concluded Judge Goodman.

In 2022 Khan had been given a publicity as a “whistleblower” in the Al Jazeera series The Labour Files , where she claimed there a “hierarchy of racism” in the party dictated to her by management and that allegations of antisemitism were “used as a tool” for factional advantage against the left, and to silence critics of Israel.

The pro-Palestine campaigner is also understood to have withdrawn further claims of dismissal for making public interest disclosures and discrimination because of religion and belief, on the advice of the lawyers who had previously represented her.


MKs visit Sheikh who eulogized Hamas leader Haniyeh, sparking new concerns
A delegation featuring Knesset members from The Joint List paid a visit this week to Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, preacher of al-Aqsa, who was issued a ban from entering Temple Mount earlier this month, following a eulogy he delivered honoring Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The delegation included MKs Ayman Odeh, Ahmad Tibi, and Youssef Atauna from The Joint List, in addition to former MK Sami Abu Shehadeh, and chair of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, former MK Mohammad Barakeh.

The controversial Sheikh
In his speech, Barakeh claimed that “our people are the only ones allowed to access al-Aqsa,” and stressed the role of Jerusalemite Arabs “defending al-Aqsa,” thus indirectly convoking the propagated “al-Aqsa in danger” libel. He also denounced the “Israeli massacres” in Gaza and the West Bank and what he deemed governmental support for “criminal gangs to fragment our society from within.”

Another speaker was Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Northern Wing of the Islamic Movement, who recently spent time in prison himself for incitement to violence.

In February 2024, the prosecutor’s office announced that two indictments would be filed against Sabri for incitement. In the past, he has shown support for suicide bombings and even met with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. He served as a board member of the Union of Good, an international umbrella organization of alleged ‘charity’ associations responsible for funneling funds to Hamas.

Sabri’s website is filled with historic inaccuracies and antisemitic discourse. In one instance, he quotes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, claims that the Talmud is racist and states that Jews are a superior people, and devotes a long article to refute any Jewish claims in Israel.
PMW: Hamas’ Oct. 7 “mission” plan: “Kill and take captives”
At a meeting with Israeli military intelligence, Palestinian Media Watch was shown the following seized pages of Hamas’ plans for the attack on Kibbutz Mefalsim in southern Israel. PMW is publishing this with the military’s permission.

Dated “October 2022,” these few pages of Hamas’ attack plans clearly show that not only did the terror organization meticulously plan the attack years in advance, Hamas also determined from the beginning that one of their main goals would be to murder Israeli civilians and take CIVILIAN hostages:

“The mission: At X hour on X day, the platoon will attack Kibbutz Mefalsim in order to kill and take captives…”

“The platoon will attack Kibbutz Mefalsim from the main gate, confront the regional defense forces and any other force in the kibbutz, and take control of it.”

“Soldiers and civilians should be captured, hostages should be held, and negotiations should be carried out about them.”

[Israeli Military Intelligence, published with permission]

While these pages are only a fragment of Hamas’ attack plans, they clearly illustrate the pure evil of the attack on October 7, 2023. Unfortunately, the plans were carried out successfully and at the time of writing, 108 hostages are still being held in Hamas captivity, around 1/3 of them are believed to be dead. These are in addition to over 1,100 murdered Israelis and foreigners on October 7.


Germany boots head of banned Islamic center over alleged Hezbollah links
Germany is planning to deport the leader of an Islamic center it banned in July over alleged links to extremist groups, an interior ministry spokeswoman said Thursday.

Investigators swooped in on the Hamburg Islamic Center five weeks ago after concluding it was an “Islamist extremist organization” with links to Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group.

Mohammad Mofatteh, 57, the former director of the center, has been ordered to leave Germany within 14 days and faces deportation if he does not comply, the spokeswoman said.

He will not be allowed to re-enter Germany and could face up to three years in prison if he does.

Andy Grote, interior minister for the state of Hamburg, said Mofatteh’s deportation was “the next logical step” against the Hamburg Islamic Center.

“As a top religious representative of the inhumane regime in Tehran, his time in Germany has come to an end,” he said.


French synagogue arson suspect charged with attempted murder
A 33-year-old Algerian man who for a “long time nursed a hatred towards Jews” and wanted to “support the Palestinian cause” has been charged with attempted murder for an arson attack on a French synagogue last weekend, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

A police officer was injured when a gas canister near a burning vehicle exploded after the suspect allegedly set fires around the Beth Yaacov synagogue Saturday in the Mediterranean resort town of La Grande-Motte.

The suspect, identified by prosecutors only by his initials EHK, fled the scene but was later arrested. He was injured in the thorax, arm and face during the arrest, France’s national counterterrorism prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

French authorities have described the attack as an act of antisemitic terrorism.

The rabbi and several people were inside the building and escaped unharmed; most of the worshippers had not yet arrived for the Shabbat morning services when the explosion occurred.

In addition to attempted murder, the suspect was also charged with taking part in a terrorist conspiracy, arson and assaulting police officers. He has been placed in pretrial detention, the prosecutor’s office said.

The attack deepened anxiety among France’s Jewish community, which has long been targeted by deadly attacks and where antisemitism has skyrocketed since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre that triggered the current war in Gaza.

“Once again, French Jews have been targeted and attacked because of their beliefs,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said after visiting La Grande-Motte. “We are outraged and repulsed.”
NY comptroller: 44% of state’s hate crimes in 2023 aimed at Jews
Data from the state of New York shows that reported hate crimes for 2023 jumped 69% from 2019.

The office of State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli released a new analysis on Wednesday titled “The Concerning Growth of Hate Crime in New York State,” which broke down hate-crime reports by intended target and compared the results with previous years.

“In 2023, nearly 44% of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88% of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish victims, the largest share of all such crimes,” the report said.

DiNapoli stated that “fighting hatred and bigotry demands that we communicate with, respect and accept our neighbors. It requires our spiritual, political, community and business leaders to take active roles in denouncing hate, investing in prevention and protection efforts, and increasing education that celebrates the value of New York’s diversity.”

In 2023, hate crimes were divided along the lines of nearly half based on religion and about one-third for race or ethnicity, with the LGBTQ community targeted by 17%.

Between 2018 and 2023, hate crimes against Jews rose from 253 to 477, an increase of 89%. During the same period, hate crimes against Muslims in the state rose from 18 to 37, a rise of 106%.

“We are deeply grateful to State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli for producing this critical report,” said Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. “It’s a crucial reminder that each hate-crime statistic represents a New Yorker who is suffering.”
‘We can’t unsee it’: Israeli envoy in Montreal warns of exodus over Jew-hatred
Antisemitism has swept over parts of Canada in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oc. 7, prompting Jews to consider immigrating to the Jewish state, Israeli consul-general Paul Hirschson told JNS during an interview in his Montreal office on Monday.

“Since Oct. 7, we have seen where our friends, colleagues and neighborhoods stand in terms of their opinions, beliefs and behavior. Some of them stood where we thought they would. Many didn’t, and we can’t unsee it,” said Hirschson.

In the immediate aftermath of the murder spree that left 1,200 dead and as many as 250 people kidnapped and taken into Gaza, the number of hate crimes and incidents has skyrocketed throughout Canada.

Montreal police recorded 63 hate crimes against the Jewish community and 41 hate incidents from Oct. 7 to Nov. 14, including the firebombing of a Jewish community center and synagogue in Dollard-des-Ormeaux and a shooting attack on the Yeshiva Gedola elementary school.

More recently, police in May responded to a shooting at a Jewish school in the city’s Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough. In June, a Jewish-owned restaurant in Montreal’s Mile End neighborhood was struck by projectiles, believed to have been fired from an airsoft gun. Just last month, Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi shared a photo on social media showing a Jewish tombstone at the Kehal Israel cemetery in Montreal that had been desecrated with a swastika formed out of the small stones placed on graves.

With most attacks taking place overnight and very few cases of people being physically attacked, Hirschson said he believes the motive is a desire to terrorize, more than hurt people.
Berlin Holocaust memorial defaced: 'Jews are committing genocide'
A Berlin Holocaust memorial honoring non-Jews who protested against the persecution of their Jewish family members was vandalized with anti-Israel graffiti on Wednesday, according to the Berlin Police and European Jewish Congress.

"Jews are committing genocide," was scrawled across the Rosenstrasse protest memorial according to EJC.

A Palestinian flag and the slogan "free Palestine" was spraypainted on the ground in front of the sculptures.

The Berlin police said that it covered the graffiti and the investigation was transferred to state law enforcement that investigates politically-motivated crime.Gem

"This outrageous disrespect of Shoah victims doesn't advance the Palestinian cause," said the EJC. "It is simply unacceptable."

In February 1943, hundreds of non-Jewish Germans, mostly women, protested outside the Rosenstrasse building were Jewish spouses and children had been held by Nazi police. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Gestapo deported 25 of the incarcerated people to Auschwitz, and many others were sent to labor camps.


In Holocaust restitution agreement, Pennsylvania museum will auction Renaissance painting
A balding man with a long white beard and large mustache sits with his hands clasped and the bejeweled Order of the Golden Fleece insignia—a sheep associated with Jason and Argonauts—around his neck.

The c. 1534 portrait of George the Bearded, the duke of Saxony, which is attributed to the major German Renaissance artist Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop, has been part of the collection of the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania for nearly 65 years. It will soon go on a new journey, as the museum agreed to auction oil panel painting and settle a restitution claim with the descendants of a Jewish collector who was forced to sell it to flee from the Nazis.

“It was extremely important to the museum to engage in the ethical dimensions of the painting’s history in the Bromberg family,” stated Max Weintraub, the museum’s president and CEO. “This work of art entered the market and eventually found its way to the museum only because Henry Bromberg had to flee persecution from Nazi Germany. That moral imperative compelled us to act. We hope that this voluntary act by the museum will inform and encourage similar institutions to reach fair and just solutions.”

The Bromberg family stated that it is “pleased that another painting from our grandparents’ art collection was identified and are satisfied that the Allentown Art Museum carefully and responsibly checked the provenance of the portrait of George the Bearded, duke of Saxony and the circumstances under which Henry and Hertha Bromberg had to part with it during the Nazi-period.”

“After emigration to the United States, our grandparents first settled in New Jersey. After several years, they moved to Yardley, Pa., to be near their son Edgar and his family,” the family added. “This makes the fair and just solution for the painting in the Allentown Art Museum particularly special.”
Israel’s war economy wins friends and influences others
Despite the immense expense of Israel’s war with Gaza — predicted to total US$67 billion by 2025 in military and civilian costs — most segments of the Israeli economy are faring well. The overall economy grew by 2.5 per cent in the first half of this year and is expected to end the year two per cent higher than last. Israel’s Jews are optimistic: 67 per cent expect the economy to flourish once the war is over. (Only a quarter of Arab Israelis feel the same way, however.)

Tourism may be down by 80 per cent but restaurants and shopping malls remain busy and — a manpower-related slowdown in the construction sector notwithstanding — so many high-rises are being built to meet the ever-growing demand for commercial and residential space that people joke that Israel’s national bird has become the crane.

Israel’s arms industry obviously benefits economically from Israel’s many wars, which provide a battle-tested showcase for the technological superiority of the country’s military. Despite needing to supply Israel’s own military during the Gaza War, the arms industry set a record in 2023 (for the third year in a row) with US$13 billion in export sales. In the global arena, Israel ranks among the top 10 arms exporters.

Such exports not only strengthen Israel’s economy, they also make Israel indispensable to countries that depend on its advanced technologies to counter regional threats. Almost 50 per cent of Israel’s arms exports go to Asian countries threatened by China, while another 35 per cent go to Europe, much of it to countries fearing the Russia-Ukraine war could spread to their own borders. As an example of the good will that accompanies Israel’s military sales, almost two-thirds of German citizens welcomed Germany’s purchase of Israel’s Arrow-3 missile defence system, according to a 2,500-person poll by ELNET, an organization that promotes ties between Europe and Israel.

Israel’s indispensability to foreign militaries could soon increase. After pressure from the anti-Israel lobby led the Biden administration to curtail its arms sales, Israel’s Defense Ministry implemented what it calls its “Independence Project” — a shift toward domestic arms production to meet what it considers an existential threat from Iran and its proxies. As a byproduct of bringing arms manufacturing home, Israel’s arms exports will likely rise, including to markets previously prohibited by the U.S.

Israel’s sale of its Arrow missile defence system to Finland is a recent example of how U.S. participation in developing Israeli technology can hamstring Israel’s exports. The U.S., which acts primarily as a venture capitalist by financing Israel’s military inventions, only permitted the $339 million sale to go through after Finland joined NATO. Many other countries continue to be blocked from acquiring the Israeli weapons they prefer, leading them to instead purchase second-best alternatives produced by U.S. weapons manufacturers. In future, Israel can minimize such entanglements by unwinding the dependence on U.S. venture capital that entitles the Americans to veto sales of Israeli inventions.
Israel's Iron Beam laser air-defense operational next year, Rafael CEO confirms
Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has reported a record backlog of orders of NIS 59 billion at the end of the second quarter. The orders include a significant and surprising rise in the Americas, and a slight fall in sales in Israel.

Rafael’s revenue in the second quarter was NIS 3.9 billion, up 25% from the corresponding quarter of 2023. New orders in the second quarter amounted to NIS 6.4 billion, up from NIS 3.9 billion in the second quarter of 2023.

Sales in Israel represented 54% of overall sales in the second quarter, down from 59% in the first quarter. Sales to Europe fell over this period from 20% to 19% and sales to Asia rose from 17% to 18%, while sales to the Americas jumped from 3% to 8%. The ZM website recently reported that Argentina is considering procuring Spike LR2 anti-tank missiles from Rafael and the rise could stem from such a sale.

“Since the start of the year we have hired more than 1,100 employees.”

Rafael CEO Yoav Tourgeman tells “Globes,” “Since the start of the year we have hired more than 1,100 employees. A third of our activity deals with development, we invest huge amounts of energy in determining the future.” Turgeman says that Rafael’s laser-based air defense system, Iron Beam is expected to enter operational service next year, as previously announced. “Iron Beam is just one of the developments that is progressing at a nice pace, and it has global technological breakthroughs.”
Facing threats, Israeli Paralympians aim for gold in swimming, tennis, taekwondo in Paris
Twenty-seven Israeli athletes will compete in 10 different sports at this year’s Paralympic Games in Paris, which begin with the opening ceremony on Wednesday evening.

Competing on the same equipment and in the same arenas as the recently departed Olympians, 4,400 athletes from 168 nations will strive to take home gold, silver and bronze in 22 different sporting branches.

The Israeli delegation will take part in swimming, rowing, boccia, tennis, badminton, taekwondo, shooting, goalball, handcycling and canoeing, hoping to match or top its performance at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

“We have put together an incredible delegation with wonderful athletes, the most Israeli delegation that could be — we have native Israelis, new immigrants, Muslims, Druze, 50% women and 50% men, an incredible delegation,” said Moshe “Mutz” Matalon, the chairman of the Israel Paralympic Committee.

And while the Paralympics has perhaps even more of an ethos of inclusion and unity, the Israeli delegation has faced similar threats and calls for boycotts as their Olympic counterparts who competed earlier this month. A German company even refused to supply Israel’s goalball team, citing the war.

French security officials said last week that the Israeli Paralympians will receive 24/7 protection, just like the Israeli Olympic delegation, and the Shin Bet is also playing a role in securing the athletes. Paralympic officials have rejected any effort to bar Israeli athletes from the Games.

Matalon noted that he competed in the 1976 Montreal Paralympics — the first Games following the massacre of 11 Israelis in Munich — “and [the security] was crazy, and I think this is even greater, for obvious reasons.”

The athletes and the rest of the delegation, he said, are prepared for every response and have been working to steel themselves for potential protests and provocations.
Israeli Paralympic gold medalist says ‘this is the minimum I can do for my country’
Paralympic gold medalist Asaf Yasur says he is overjoyed with his win at the Paris Games, and dedicates the medal to his “beloved country.”

“There is no one happier than me, I have no words,” he says in an interview with Israel’s Sport5 broadcaster just minutes after his victory. “Thank you to my team, to my family who came, to the people of Israel who supported me, to all the people who took part in my journey to this point today.”

Yasur, 22, says he came into the day’s competitions saying “I want the gold, I’m going to fight for the gold, nobody will take it from me, and I fought for it.” The athlete says he faced a tough competitor in the final round in Turkey’s Ali Can Ozcan, “we both fought and the better man won.”

The athlete notes that it’s been almost a decade since he lost both his arms in an electrocution accident, “but let’s put that aside. I went through rehab, I went through a lot and today I’m an athlete in every sense.”

Yasur notes that three of his brothers are combat soldiers who spent significant time fighting over the past year during Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza as well as on the northern front, and they “give me so much strength.”

“With everything my country is going through… this is the minimum I can do for my country,” he says. “I pray that the hostages will come home, all of them, every one, that the soldiers will return home to their families healthy and whole, so that this war will end.”

The medal around his neck, he says, “is dedicated to my beloved country.”
US Postal Service to release ‘Hanukkah Forever’ stamp
The U.S. Postal Service has announced a “Hanukkah Forever” stamp to commemorate the eight-day Jewish “Festival of Lights.”

Designed by Antonio Alcalá, it features a ocean-blue background, white hanukkiah and nine floating yellow lights. USPS says the design uses “irregular lines to suggest a more human presence.”

A first day of issue dedication ceremony will take place on Sept. 19, to be led by Michael Gordon, USPS government liaison director, at the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.

Music and activities are on the docket, and the event is free and open to the public; attendees are encouraged to register online.

The last celebrated release of a Hanukkah stamp was in 2022, featuring the work of American Judaica artist Jeanette Kuvin Oren.
Rare First Temple-era stone seal unearthed in Jerusalem
A rare and unique First Temple-era stone seal inscribed with a name in paleo-Hebrew script has been uncovered near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Thursday.

The ancient black stone seal, which was unearthed in an excavation by the Temple Mount’s southern wall, is believed to date back 2,700 years, and was used by a senior official in the Kingdom of Judah’s administration, the state-run archaeological body said.

“The seal, made of black stone, is one of the most beautiful ever discovered in excavations in ancient Jerusalem, and is executed at the highest artistic level,” said Yuval Baruch and Navot Rom, who directed the excavations with funding by the City of David Foundation.

The object—which is engraved with reverse script, served its owner both as an amulet and as a signature for legal documents and certificates, according to the IAA.

It has a hole drilled through its length so that it could be strung onto a chain and be worn around the neck.

The artifact is engraved with the words “LeYehoʼezer ben Hoshʼayahu”—“For Yeho’ezer son of Hosh’ayahu”—in paleo-Hebrew script.

Experts said that the seal is an extremely rare and unusual discovery.

“This is the first time that a winged ‘genie’—a protective magical figure—has been found in Israeli and regional archaeology,” said Filip Vukosavović, IAA archaeologist and assyriologist. “Figures of winged demons are known in the Neo-Assyrian art of the 9th-7th centuries BCE, and they were considered a kind of protective demon.”

The seal was apparently made by a local craftsman, “a Judahite, who produced the amulet at the owner’s request. It was prepared at a very high artistic level,” Vukosavović said.




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