Thursday, September 05, 2024

09/05 Links Pt2: Biden-Harris Give Up the Big Gaza Lie; VDH: The Truth About World War II; Gunman opens fire near Israeli consulate in Munich

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Biden-Harris Give Up the Big Gaza Lie
The Biden administration is really pushing the limits of “better late than never.” The president and his team have finally begun acknowledging what has been all too obvious: Hamas is the reason there has been no second ceasefire deal.

After falsely blaming Israel for months, the president’s team has pivoted to the truth. It’s not clear why. Maybe the backlash to Biden effectively blamed Benjamin Netanyahu instead of the actual barbarians who shot the hostages this past weekend convinced the White House to switch gears. That would be nice. Who knows.

Late last night, Axios—the Biden White House’s chosen vehicle for mouthpiecing its Israel-related positions and policy shifts—reported the following: “One of the main questions raised during a meeting President Biden and Vice President Harris had with their national security team on Monday was whether there is a hostage-release and ceasefire in Gaza deal Hamas would ever agree to, U.S. officials said.”

To be clear: the administration has been (mostly) blaming Israel for the failure of a deal that they now acknowledge never fully materialized. Further, while Biden & Co. know there are versions of the deal that Israel would accept, they have yet to be convinced Hamas has any interest in any version.

It’s important to remember that these conclusions reached by Biden’s team are the result of months-long negotiations, and therefore Hamas’s obstructionism is by definition not a new problem. The administration didn’t just figure this out; it has known that Hamas’s intransigence has been the status quo for months. And officials from the president on down have chosen, in that time period, repeatedly to castigate Netanyahu.

There’s no reason to sugarcoat it. Biden and Harris have been egging on the societal divides in Israel and undermining its political stability on false pretenses.

So Biden gets no credit for finally acknowledging, through a carefully placed leak, that he has been purposely misleading the American people on why one of their fellow citizens was just executed in Gaza. The same is true for Kamala Harris, though the implications for her are even worse. Harris has been using false information to turn the public against Israel in order to lay the groundwork for a cooling of relations with our ally.
The Cost of the American Jewish Vote
Rather, I implore American Jews – especially those who are committed Democrats – to hold the (future) Harris-Walz administration to account.

I especially call upon those with the economic and social capital to have leverage with the Walz-Harris administration, including their surrogates, advisers, and donors, to use their access and support to advocate strongly for Jewish interests.

And I appeal to the conscience of the candidates to adopt the policy platform I outline here, not only to secure the Jewish vote, but because it’s the right thing to do.

1) Freeing the American-Israeli and All Hostages
While we hope that the hostages may be freed before inauguration day, it is the responsibility of the Biden-Harris ticket and subsequent administrations to exert maximum pressure on Hamas, with or without a ceasefire deal, to secure the release of the American-Israeli citizens, to whom it has a special obligation, and all hostages. Not only must all military and diplomatic efforts be directed at Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, the US must take steps either to eliminate or extradite Hamas leaders living abroad. Further, given Qatar and Turkey’s role as state sponsors of terror and their patronage of Hamas, the USA must reconsider its alliances until all the hostages have been released.

2) Arms Sales
While for its own national security, Israel must wean itself off its dependency on American armaments (which is a kickback scheme to the US military-industrial complex) the Harris-Walz team must clarify its intentions on allowing Israel to “defend itself,” including the specific weapons systems it will sell (or not) during their term. American Jews are entitled to make an informed decision about what will be done to prevent another 10/7 from ever happening again in exchange for their vote.

3) Antisemitism
The dramatic acceleration of antisemitism in America cannot go unchecked by the Harris-Walz administration. The candidates must announce a new national strategy coordinating the federal, state, and local levels to curb the scourge of the world’s oldest hatred in the United States. The administration must turn its attention inward toward the cancer of antisemitism (and anti-Americanism) within the Democratic party. Congress, at the behest of the President, should continue its investigations into campus antisemitism and hold administrations to account, including by suspending federal funding to universities that perpetuate a hostile climate for Jewish students. Last but not least, while not all Jews agree on the definition of antisemitism, the administration must recognize that the vast majority of American Jews consider Zionism and Israel a key component of their identities. If the administration cannot put forward a detailed program on antisemitism, American Jews shouldn’t vote for a party that doesn’t prioritize their safety.

4) Iran
Behind both the domestic flare of antisemitism and Middle East war is the rogue state of Iran, which seeks to destabilize the Western liberal order, including by leading the planning of the 10/7 attacks and funding encampments and protests in the US. The United States must confront this threat with both more aggressive military postures and diplomatic measures, including not reinstating the JCPOA, and standing with other Western, Middle Eastern, and other nations (including Israel) to strongly deter Iran. Continued weakness on Iran should cost the Harris-Walz ticket the Jewish vote.

I realize this program of action may be uncomfortable for many American Jews, who have family traditions and ideological commitments to the Democratic party. But with Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s blood spilled, and so many other lives lost and threatened both in Israel and the United States since 10/7, let not Jewish blood come cheaply – the cost of the American Jewish vote for the Democratic party must include policies that will advance Jewish security and identity for the future.
Anti-Israel group funded by Soros gains influence with 60 Biden White House visits
Over the course of President Joe Biden‘s time in office, an anti-Israel group that receives large checks from Democratic megadonor George Soros has seen its top staffers score 60 trips to the White House for high-level meetings, according to records.

Officials at Emgage, a group that has promoted the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, have hobnobbed at the White House on at least 60 occasions combined since 2021, according to White House visitor logs reviewed by the Washington Examiner.

Emgage notably blamed Israel for allegedly provoking Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack last year and counts Khurrum Wahid, an attorney who was reportedly placed on a federal terrorist watch list and has a track record of associating with Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups, as one of its leaders.

The frequent White House visits illustrate how national anti-Israel groups have gained influence and a seat at the policymaking table in the Biden-Harris administration. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, much to the ire of Republicans and pro-Israel groups, continue to press for a ceasefire in the Middle East conflict.

On Sunday, Israeli forces announced they recovered the bodies of six Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas terrorists last year. The hostages were found in a tunnel in Rafah, a southern city in Gaza that Biden has urged Israel not to invade.

Emgage, which was formed in 2006, describes itself as “a family of organizations dedicated to building political power for Muslim Americans.”

The Emgage umbrella includes Soros-backed nonprofit groups and a political action committee spending money in elections to boost Democrats such as Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Summer Lee (D-PA), and Susan Wild (D-PA), Federal Election Commission filings show. Emgage partners on initiatives with the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America — two unindicted co-conspirators in a 2009 terrorism financing case.

Between 2021 and 2024, Emgage CEO Wa’el Alzayat, a former Obama State Department official, visited the White House at least 24 times, according to White House visitor logs.


Gunman opens fire near Israeli consulate in Munich
An Islamist gunman opened fire on Thursday near the Israeli consulate in Bavaria. German security personnel shot the aggressor during an exchange of fire and the suspect died at the scene.

No other injuries were reported.

Joachim Herrmann, interior minister for Bavaria, confirmed the suspect’s death. Authorities are treating the shooting as a “possible attack on an Israeli institution,” he told Agence France-Presse.

The Israeli mission released a statement saying, “A shooting incident occurred near the Israeli Consulate General in Munich. The consulate is closed today due to a memorial ceremony for the Munich Olympics massacre, and none of the consulate staff were harmed in the incident. The shooter was neutralized by German security forces, and the situation is under their control.”

Munich police tweeted that “police officers saw a person who appeared to be carrying a firearm. The officers used their service weapons and the person was hit and injured. There are currently no reports of any other injuries.”

Local media identified the suspect as an 18-year-old man from Austria who had been known to authorities as an Islamic extremist. Germany’s Der Spiegel, citing local police sources, said the suspect resided in the Salzburg region of Austria and traveled to Germany by car.

The police said that there were no indications of other suspects or incidents in the Bavarian state capital.

Local law enforcement appealed to the public not to post images of the incident to social media.

Der Spiegel reported that a “major police operation” was underway in the area, which has been blocked off and closed to traffic.

The Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism is also located close to where the incident took place.

Shortly after the attack, Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke with his German counterpart and “dear friend” Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

“Together we expressed our shared condemnation and horror at the terror attack this morning near the Israeli consulate in Munich,” Herzog wrote on X.

“On the day our brothers and sisters in Munich were set to stand in remembrance of our brave athletes murdered by terrorists 52 years ago, a hate-filled terrorist came and once again sought to murder innocent people,” he continued.

“I want to thank the German security services for their swift action, and send my support to all those targeted. Together we stand strong in the face of terror. Together we will overcome,” Herzog said.


Bari Weiss: The War on Our History
Many people are surely being exposed to these ideas for the first time, and perhaps they think Cooper has uncovered some kind of forbidden knowledge. But none of these ideas are new; they’ve just been debunked or rejected. They are mostly a regurgitation of Pat Buchanan’s view of that war, captured most concisely in his book Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War.

The only difference now is that the purveyors of this pseudo-history—one that dishonors America, the sacrifices of World War II, and history itself—enjoy audiences of many millions.

Tucker Carlson—who is hosting and disseminating this—is not some fringe figure on the American political right. Last month, Carlson had a prime speaking slot at the Republican National Convention and was seated in the rostrum on the first night of the convention next to Trump. And that’s to say nothing of his tremendous popular appeal: He has one of the largest, most passionate audiences of any influencer in the country.

He is also a very intelligent person and I presume he has a very strong internet connection at his podcast studio. So, like me, he surely has seen Cooper’s recent musings.

Here he is a year ago, in August 2023, claiming that God sent the Romans “to destroy the leprous temple and put an end to the Israelite religion for all time.”

There are more.

It is unclear if Cooper’s disgust toward Judaism has inspired him to turn Hitler, the monster who declared war on the free world—a war in which 400,000 Americans died fighting, and that led to the deaths of 50 million people—into a misunderstood figure. Or perhaps he sincerely believes that if the West had only appeased Hitler, “people wouldn’t have died.”

If there is a criticism I’ve gotten over the past several years it’s that I pay too much attention—and apply too much scrutiny—to the excesses of the illiberal left at the expense of the illiberal right. Wasn’t I ignoring the elephant and allowing myself to get distracted by the gnat?

My response to that is twofold.

The first is that there is no shortage of writers, reporters, and outlets focusing on the dangers of the far right. I saw the far left as conspicuously overlooked by people who otherwise take a great interest in political extremism. And I understand why they were averting their gaze: The social cost of noticing this subject is very high. Given that the job description of a journalist is to observe the world, uncover things in the public interest, and then tell the plain truth about it, choosing topics where others fall silent seems wise to me. It still does.

The second is that I have been concerned for years now that the illiberal ideology that has become increasingly mainstream on the political left—one that makes war on our common history, our common identity as Americans, and fundamentally, on the goodness of the American project—would inspire the mirror ideology on the right.

And that is exactly where we find ourselves, with an illiberal left that defaces Churchill statues—and an illiberal right that defaces Churchill’s legacy. With a left that insists 1619 was the year of the true founding of America—and a right that suggests the Greatest Generation was something closer to genociders. With a left that sympathizes with modern-day Nazis in the form of Hamas—and a right that sympathizes with the original ones.

Tucker Carlson is scheduled to take the stage with J.D. Vance and Donald Trump Jr. in the coming weeks. His views may be alarming to most Americans, but it is hard to ignore that Carlson seems to have positioned himself as a vector of influence in the Republican Party.

The fringe these days has a way of making its way to the mainstream with the speed of Starlink. Crazy ideas on campus came careening into the center of the Democratic Party’s belief system. Do not pretend this away.
Victor Davis Hanson: Victor Davis Hanson: The Truth About World War II
In a recent and now widely seen Tucker Carlson interview, a guest historian named Darryl Cooper casually presented a surprising number of flawed theories about World War II. He focused his misstatements on the respective roles of Winston Churchill’s Britain and Adolf Hitler’s Germany—especially in matters of the treatment and fate of Russian prisoners, the Holocaust, the systematic slaughtering of Jews, strategic bombing, and the nature of Winston Churchill.

Because of the size of the audience Carlson introduced him to, and because of the gravity of Cooper’s falsehoods, his assertions deserve a response.

On the Treatment of Russian Prisoners
It is simply not true, as Cooper alleges, that Hitler’s Wehrmacht was completely surprised and unprepared for the mass capitulation of the Red Army and some two million Russian prisoners who fell into German hands in summer 1941.

The virtual extinction of these POWs in the first six months of the war was a natural consequence of a series of infamous and so-called “criminal orders” issued by Hitler in spring 1941 to be immediately implemented in his planned “war of extermination” in the East.

The edicts variously targeted for elimination prominent Soviet officials, intellectuals, Jews, and commissars. Just as importantly, Hitler exempted German soldiers from any criminal liability in what was expected to be the mass killing of Russians and Jews in general.

In Mein Kampf, during the lead-up to the war, and even through the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact years, Hitler had planned eventually to invade Russia, destroy the Soviet Union, put an end to what he called Jewish Bolshevism, and annex and then eventually resettle almost all of European Russia. In part he was encouraged by the German success in briefly absorbing much of Western Russia in late 1917 and early 1918.

Accordingly, Hitler and his planners envisioned a quick Russian campaign. Chief of the Army General Staff, General Franz Halder, believed that Operation Barbarossa, which began on June 22, 1941, had essentially been won in its first eleven days. Halder matter-of-factly wrote in his diary that the Russian population would have to be disposed of during that first winter to save Germans the effort of feeding and maintaining them.

Hitler further assumed the liquidation of Soviet-style Marxism was inseparable from the destruction of all the Jews in the East, whose wartime persecution began in Poland just days after the German invasion in September 1939 and well before any Allied response.

True, some of the invading Wehrmacht officers may have been disturbed at the sheer mass of captives and Germans’ inability to offer even the bare essentials of humane treatment. But they quickly learned from Berlin’s doubling down on earlier eliminationist directives that they were not to worry about the millions of doomed Russian prisoners or the murders of Jews, given their deaths were consistent with prior Führer directives for the future resettling of western Russia.

At Nuremberg and after the war, many veteran generals of the Eastern Front claimed they privately opposed Hitler’s orders of total war that entailed liquidation of communists and Jews and assumed the mass death of Russian POWs. But very few could prove that they had not received such orders or had bravely opposed their implementation.
Sohrab Ahmari: Pseudo-Scholars and the Rise of the Barbarian Right
Cooper and Carlson likewise feigned a secret knowledge. “We’re not allowed” to discuss the social and economic misery that led to the rise of Hitler, they claimed at the outset of their interview. It was among the most preposterous claims in a two-hour discussion chock-full of them: Thousands of pages of serious history have been devoted to studying just that.

The third and final element of the Barbarian Right is a revulsion for the mildly egalitarian conservatism that took hold across the West in the postwar period. That conservatism made its peace with the civil rights movement and marginalized Jew-haters. The barbarians cannot stand the resulting state of affairs, since it has meant granting the grubby demands of the “dysgenic” many.

Therefore, they feel compelled to attack what they see as the founding “mythology” of the postwar world, not least of which is that the obvious fact—even to a third-grader—that the Nazis were actually, you know, evil. Hence Cooper’s perverse moral inversion, in which Churchill is cast as the “villain,” while Hitler is a victim who was only seeking an “acceptable solution to the Jewish problem.”

As Carlson’s Cooper fiasco shows, there is no limit to how far the Barbarian Right will go in seeking to delegitimize the actually existing American order. The rest of us—especially those on the right who adhere to the precepts of Abrahamic faith and dare not venture beyond good and evil—must say no.
Seriously, What the Hell Is Wrong With Tucker Carlson?
Carlson's interview on Tuesday with alleged historian Darryl Cooper — like his interview in April with Reverend Munther Isaac, referenced in today's flashbacks — was so much worse than merely glib or incurious.

Carlson chose to interview Cooper, whom he endorsed as "the best and most honest popular historian in the United States" to learn exactly how World War II didn't happen. According to Cooper — and Carlson nodded along the entire time — Winston Churchill was perhaps "the chief villain of the Second World War" and "primarily responsible for that war becoming what it did."

It's true that Hitler did not want or expect Britain to fight. He wanted Britain to acquiesce to German dominance of Europe from the Urals to Gibraltar and subsume the UK to Nazi interests. This is all a matter of historical record. Britain could fight or submit — that was Hitler's choice, not Churchill's.

FLASHBACK: Carlson chose to interview Isaac to find out how the Jewish State of Israel treats Christians. Isaac is a priest who neither lives nor works in Israel and who uses the loaded phrase "Occupied Palestine" as his location on his Twitter/X profile. He is a Palestinian Christian from Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem, where Christian ministers serve at the mercy of the Palestinian Authority.

As for the Holocaust — brace yourself — Hitler was just being merciful, according to Cooper. "We can’t feed these people, we don’t have the food to feed these people," Cooper imagined the Germans thinking after fighting on the Eastern Front accidentally created more prisoners and refugees than Germany could cope with. "And one of them actually says, ‘Rather than wait for them all to slowly starve this winter, wouldn’t it be more humane to just finish them off quickly now?'”

"Oopsies!" is not a valid excuse for the methodical execution (and sometimes torture) of six million Jews and another six million assorted "undesirables" like gays, Gypsies, cripples, and the mentally retarded. The Germans killed roughly 3.3 million Soviet POWs during the war, too, largely through forced labor and malign neglect — not by accident or out of mercy.

Cooper, an alleged historian, has apparently never heard of Generalplan Ost. Hitler's "General Plan for the East" was his prewar plan for 100 million Russians, Ukrainians, etc., from Soviet lands west of the Urals. German soldier-settlers would, in stages, resettle the entire eastern third of Europe after taking tens of millions of Slavic peoples and murdering them, enslaving them, or expelling them to Siberia.

The Holocaust against the Jews was just the warmup act for Generalplan Ost.

FLASHBACK: Did Carlson not know before he chose to interview Isaac that Bethlehem was 80% Christian before the Palestinian Authority took it over and that now it is 80% Muslim? Was Carlson unaware before the interview that the Arab world has been on a decades-long ethnic cleansing of Christians from their ancient communities in the Middle East and North Africa?

For what it's worth, I read a lot of history — particularly WWII — and I'd never heard of Cooper before Carlson chose to shine his spotlight on him. Probably because he isn't worth reading. So why the spotlight?

Barring providing the context I just gave you, Carlson could have conducted a second interview with a WWII historian who isn't a Hitler apologist, like Victor Davis Hanson. Or he could have spoken to them both at the same time in a discussion/debate format. Or maybe Carlson could have at least asked Cooper more pointed and revealing questions. Or maybe — just maybe — Carlson could have resisted fawning over the so-called historian who pinned the blame for WWII on Churchill and thinks the Holocaust was humane.

But Carlson did none of these things. Why not?
Republican lawmakers slam Tucker Carlson after his friendly interview with Holocaust denier
As Tucker Carlson faces backlash for airing a friendly interview with a Holocaust revisionist on his online show this week, some prominent Republicans are publicly raising concerns about the far-right pundit’s influential position in former President Donald Trump’s inner circle — as he increasingly imports extreme views and fringe conspiracy theories into party discourse.

In recent months, Carlson has played a key role in assisting Trump’s campaign as an informal adviser. Behind the scenes, he lobbied aggressively for Trump to choose Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) as his running mate — anointing an ideological heir to the MAGA movement. The former Fox News host also helped broker Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement of Trump, who last week rewarded the former Democrat with a leadership position on his presidential transition team — unnerving some party members.

In July, Carlson, 55, delivered a major primetime address on the last night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where he sat with Trump in the former president’s VIP box. Later this month, Carlson is also slated to appear with Vance for a live interview in Pennsylvania, part of a nationwide tour of battleground states in the leadup to the election.

Meanwhile, Carlson, who helms an independent streaming service, has continued to invite a range of controversial figures onto his show, including some guests who have promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories as well as anti-Israel sentiments that he has abstained from challenging. But his decision to host a self-proclaimed podcast historian, Darryl Cooper, who has praised Adolf Hitler and believes Winston Churchill was the “chief villain” of World War II, has drawn unusually fierce criticism from top party members.

In the interview, Cooper diminished the Holocaust by claiming that “millions of prisoners of war” had “ended up dead” in concentration camps, suggesting the Nazis did not have genocidal aims against Jews but were simply “unprepared” for the war, among other false assertions. Dani Dayan, the chairman of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, said on Wednesday that Carlson and Cooper “engaged in one of the most repugnant Holocaust denial displays of the last years,” calling their discussion “antisemitic, ahistorical” and “an affront to the victims.”

The interview has alarmed leading Jewish Republicans who are frustrated that Carlson would approvingly amplify such views and dismayed by his influence in Trump’s campaign, where he is a close ally of Donald Trump Jr., a key adviser to his father.

While many Republican lawmakers have been reluctant to publicly criticize Carlson, a handful of GOP House members took aim at the commentator on Wednesday, underscoring the shocking nature of his recent interview with Cooper.
Comedy Cellar USA: Live from the Table: MartyrMade, Hostages in Gaza, Far Right Anti-semitism
Noam Dworman is joined by Dan Naturman and Periel Aschenbrand and discusses MartyrMade, the hostages in Gaza and far right anti-semitism.


Trump warns: If Harris wins, terrorists will wage unceasing war to drive Jews from holy land
Chants of “fight, fight, fight” echoed with the applause welcoming former President Donald Trump to the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual summit in Las Vegas on Thursday.

He has been a fixture at the gathering for the past eight years, but this year, the Republican candidate for president appeared via satellite because a court appearance in New York prevented him from attending.

Delegates waved signs, including “Kamala... oy vey!” and “We are Jews for Trump.”

Trump began his remarks by paying tribute to Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists.

“As we speak today, we’re all devastated by the horrific death of our fellow American, Hersh Goldberg, and this is so sad to even say Hersh Goldberg-Polin,” he said. “I’ve been watching the parents. I’ve been watching everybody talking about it for so long, and it’s just so sad to see the five other innocent hostages slaughtered late last week at the hands of Hamas.”

Hersh was a brother, a son, and an American citizen, Trump said.

After being held captive for nearly a year following the “monstrous October 7 attack on Israel,” Hersh was “barbarically executed with a bullet to the back of his head,” he said.

“To Hersh’s family and everyone touched by these atrocities, we pray that God will grant you comfort, healing, and peace, and as for the evil savages responsible for these murders, may they never know peace or comfort ever again,” he added.

Trump reiterated his opinion that any Jewish supporters of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris should have their heads examined.

“They’re not going to win because they can’t win, because we wouldn’t have a country any longer, and then Israel would not have an ally,” he said.
Speaker of House Mike Johnson: ‘You will always have a strong ally’
When Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) assumed his post as House Speaker, the first speech he gave was at last year’s RJC Annual Leadership Summit.

This year, he again addressed the convention, though via satellite, as he is currently in Italy attending a G7 Speakers summit.

Johnson began his 10-minute speech on Thursday by calling out Iran and bashing the Biden administration for even considering resuming talks on the 2015 nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA), which the Trump administration broke away from in 2018. Negotiations with Iran through European countries marked the first 18 months of the Biden administration until Tehran walked away from and renewed its efforts for a nuclear weapon.

“Iran must be dealt with forcefully,” he said.

He also criticized the Biden administration for delaying arms shipments to Israel during its now 11-month-old war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip and for withholding certain ones—namely, 2,000-pound bombs.

He then addressed rising antisemitism in the United States, highlighting the increase of Jew-hatred on college campuses. He said that the House is “rolling up their sleeves” to combat such hate.

Johnson concluded his speech by calling out members of the Biden administration, specifically Kamala Harris, for not attending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress in July.

He reassured the audience of hundreds that whatever happens come November, “you will always have a strong ally in this speaker,” he said.


NHS apologises after official memo tells staff not to attend ‘inappropriate’ antisemitism training
Yet another antisemitism scandal engulfed the NHS this week when staff were told “not to attend” an official antisemitism training session that was deemed “inappropriate” by some employees.

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust sent an “important notice” to staff in its weekly bulletin warning them against a virtual training session led by the Antisemitism Policy Trust (APT).

The memo sent by email on Monday said: “We have become aware of concerns regarding the antisemitism training that was recently advertised to staff. We have determined that this training and its content may be inappropriate.

“We advise all staff members not to attend this training.”


The warning followed a handful of complaints about APT made via the Black Minority Ethnic (BAME) network.

The chief executive of the trust, Claire Murdoch, apologised for the email, which she said was sent in error.

Interrupting her holiday to telephone the head of APT, Danny Stone, Murdoch apologised for "poor process and error on our part”.

In an email seen by the JC, Murdoch told all staff at the trust: “I want to apologise for the communication which did not go through our usual sign off processes. I have asked that colleagues look into how such a message was communicated in error and we will get to the bottom of it.”

She said staff were “still encouraged” to attend the NHS-sponsored APT training, which is available to all staff in the NHS and went ahead as planned on Thursday morning.

Murdoch added that staff were also encouraged to attend an Islamophobia training session later this month.
No one will change their mind about Hamas
There were two women in shorts, one with the Palestinian flag on her T-shirt, and a blond man with breasts, a neat moustache and a tote bag from the Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington, DC. The three friends had met at Oxford University, I later learned, and were now academics.

When I sat down they were talking about Israel. This was a while before the discovery of the six hostages murdered by Hamas but, even had they known, the conversation would have taken the same course. And I’m writing this now to make it clear to the people who seem to expect some post-murder change of heart: you won’t get one. The kids are way too far gone.

The young woman nearest me was Israeli by birth. She had been brought up there, she said, and had recently returned for a friend’s family wedding during which an awful thing had happened. The awful thing had caused several of her friends to vow never to return, and to break from their families completely. What could the thing be? I leaned closer. What had happened, it turned out, was during the wedding after-party, on the instruction of some of the older guests, the band had played the Israeli national anthem. That was it. That was all. In the middle of countless bloody atrocities, this little spasm of musical patriotism was too much to bear.

The three friends shook their heads in disgust. The national anthem! But the young Israeli woman looked sad. She said: ‘I know. And, like, how can they go back? But I was thinking it must be hard for my friends also. It would be hard never to go back to the place you kind of belonged to. I know it’s Israel but it’s still home.’ And she held out her hands the way women do when we expect empathy, a touch on the arm.

The blond wasn’t having any of it. He folded his arms and looked coldly at her. ‘Israel is literally a fascist state. Literally criminal. Why would it be hard?’ Instead of telling him to wind his neck in, both women looked alarmed. Clearly it had been a serious faux pas to express any regret. The first quickly pulled her hands away and began to recant. ‘Oh yeah, no. It’s criminal. I mean, Israel soon won’t exist at all and that’s great.’

Then she hurriedly introduced a topic they could agree on: how very naive older people were about not just the war, but about the world in general. She said: ‘It’s so Gen X to think Islamic terrorism is a threat.’ Everyone concurred: ‘I mean, they think Isis has geopolitical ambitions! So naive. They’re all brainwashed by TV and podcasts.’ (Podcasts!)

‘Yeah, they think Isis literally want to build a caliphate that runs from Damascus to Paris or something.’ Much relieved laughter. ‘It’s so wild!’ They laughed, I pictured those Yazidi girls, taken as slaves by Isis, raped and often killed, and considered the fact that in Isis-held Raqqa, the blond would have been thrown to his death from the top of the punishment tower.
Schumer must pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act
In response to antisemitism on college campuses, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act in May. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is blocking it in the upper chamber.

The bill would require the U.S. Department of Education to consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism when investigating violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The definition includes language “targeting of the State of Israel” but excludes “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country.”

The United States is a member of IHRA, and the Department of Education has used its definition in Title VI cases since 2018. The Trump administration issued an executive order in 2019 expanding this policy to all federal agencies, and the Biden administration has kept the order in effect. Moreover, U.S. President Joe Biden’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism recognizes the IHRA definition as the “most prominent” definition of antisemitism. The Antisemitism Awareness Act would simply codify existing bipartisan policy into law.

I know a thing or two about campus antisemitism, having filed a discrimination charge against the Graduate Student Union at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The union actively works toward the eradication of the Jewish homeland and denied my request for a religious accommodation that would divert my dues to charity. As the IHRA definition makes clear: “Antisemitic discrimination is the denial to Jews of opportunities or services available to others and is illegal in many countries.”
Can College Campuses Get a Grip on Antisemitism?
In a better world, Hamas's cold-blooded murder of six hostages in a tunnel under Rafah would deter student radicals from chanting pro-Hamas slogans. High-level task forces at Columbia and Stanford have issued detailed reports of their findings and recommendations regarding the mishandling of campus protests last academic year.

What they uncovered is deeply disturbing. Large numbers of Jewish students report harassment, intimidation and even physical assault. Students wearing yarmulkes have been spat on, humiliated, and shoved up against walls. Necklaces with Jewish symbols have been ripped from their necks. Jewish students have been chased off campus by groups threatening violence, and many avoid walking alone on campus. Some have been excluded from public spaces.

The Columbia task force found that "some critiques of Zionism on campus in recent months have incorporated traditional antisemitic tropes about secretive power, money, global conspiracies, bloodthirstiness, and comparisons of Zionists to Nazis or rodents." The Stanford task force concluded that "antisemitism exists today on the Stanford campus in ways that are widespread and pernicious."

At both campuses, there were prominent examples of teachers abusing their authority to stigmatize and humiliate Jewish students. At both, Jewish students, faculty and staff reported that when they took their stories of misconduct on campus and in the classroom to administrators, their complaints often weren't taken seriously, and some students were advised to seek mental-health counseling instead of redress.
Harvard Professors Launch ‘Faculty for Israel’ Group
Harvard University professors announced the founding of the school’s first “Faculty for Israel” group in a new op-ed for the campus newspaper.

“Israeli students and faculty are targets of pervasive anti-Israel hatred,” Jesse Fried and Matthew Meyerson wrote in the Harvard Crimson, explaining the need for such a group. “At Harvard, students have disrupted an Israeli professor’s lecture, an undergraduate has reported that a professor forced her to leave a classroom after she said she was Israeli, and an outside law firm engaged by Harvard found that another instructor discriminated against Israeli students on the basis of their national origin and identity.”

They added, “The message is clear: Zionists are not welcome,” and discussed the fits of antisemitism that have come over Harvard University students since Oct. 7, including an incident in which pro-Hamas students flooded a messaging forum with antisemitic tropes. They posted comments such as “we got too many damn jews [sic]…supporting our economy” and “she looks just as dumb as her nose is crooked.”

Harvard Faculty for Israel’s founding comes at an inflection point in the history of Harvard, whose reputation as the finest institution of higher education in the US has been besmirched by a series of crises which called into question not only the competence of its school officials but also the quality of the faculty and students being selected to share in its prestige.

Just this week, the Crimson reported, a Jewish student’s mezuzah “went missing” and could not be found by its owner for “several hours.” Later, Harvard University police found the prayer scroll “three doors down from the student’s room,” leaving the victim, Sarah Silverman, resolute in her belief that it was returned once a police investigation of the theft was launched.

In response, Harvard Chabad Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi implored Harvard to “recognize” the incident as a “hate crime.”

He added, “To tear down a mezuzah is to send a message of intimidation and erasure. It’s not just a matter of vandalism; it is an attack on the very identity of the Jewish community at Harvard.”
Universities wrestle their self-made antisemitism crises
All of those DEI promises, and warnings about discrimination and threats were fine and dandy when universities were basking in the political warmth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Returning to Columbia as an example, then-President Lee Bollinger announced multiple advisory committees and task forces in solidarity with left-wing students marching in protest of the death of George Floyd, who died at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

When it comes time for Jewish students to express their concerns, the sympathy turns to mockery. Multiple Columbia deans mocked the concerns of Jewish students about their safety on campus, including claiming that Jewish students being worried for their own safety “comes from such a place of privilege.”

That mockery came from deans in charge of “undergraduate student life” or “student and family support,” the very people who you would think would be the first in line to support Jewish students who feel massive antisemitic demonstrations on campus are more of a threat than they are protests.

These universities have centered their focus on DEI and activism but only for certain privileged groups that left-wing activists favor. Jewish students are not included in those protected classes, and so they must tolerate the double standard that comes with the enforcement of these DEI policies. Students at Columbia can openly support terrorism, spout antisemitism, and avoid suspensions for weeks. When those suspensions finally come down, those students know the university will quickly roll over and reinstate them because DEI doesn’t apply when the targets of harassment are Jewish.

That takes us back to Columbia, where protests have resumed as classes have. One graduate student who supposedly represents the protesters in negotiations with the university (according to PBS) promises that the protests won’t just be “protests and encampments” and that “the limit is the sky.”

Which part of that undermines the supposed logic of university DEI regimes more: the fact that a student is promising more than “protests and encampments” knowing the university already rolled over for these protests the first time, or the fact that antisemitic students are “negotiating” their demands with the university, which is legitimizing them by indulging their tantrums over a fabricated “occupation” and made-up “genocide”?

While some universities, such as UPenn and Columbia, have shuffled antisemites and cowards in and out of spots since earlier this year, the reality is that each bureaucratic replacement will only end up upholding the same system. The DEI rot is too thoroughly ingrained in hiring practices and policymaking at universities for a few new faces to change this.

These universities have spent decades cultivating a politically engaged “progressive” student body and telling those students that their lives can be divided into “oppressed” and “oppressors.”

The antisemitic bigotry on display is the natural result of that reductive worldview. The idea that student activists should be encouraged and celebrated, and the mind-numbing ignorance that results when students don’t bother to learn what it is they are protesting. In short, it is the perfect encapsulation of the modern university experience.
To Stop the Anti-Israel Demonstrations, Universities Need to Stop Treating Students Like Children
During one of the funnier scenes from the campus protests last year, students camping out (against university rules) on the quad of their university demanded they be brought food (or, as they termed it, “humanitarian aid”) lest they be forced to walk to a nearby cafeteria. Such incidents are a reminder that, despite the deadly ideals motivating them, the demonstrators were acting more like children, believing they could get their way about events in the Middle East by standing around and yelling. And that, writes Rita Koganzon, may be at the heart of the problem:


Universities don’t openly describe students as children, but that is how they treat them. This was highlighted in the spring, when so many pro-Palestinian student protesters—most of them legal adults—faced minimal consequences for even flagrant violations of their universities’ policies. (Some were arrested—but those charges were often dropped.) American universities’ relative generosity to their students may seem appealing, . . . but it has a dark side, in the form of increased control of student life.

If universities today won’t hold students responsible for their bad behavior, they also won’t leave them alone when they do nothing wrong. Administrators send out position statements after major national and international political events to convey the approved response, micromanage campus parties and social events, dictate scripts for sexual interactions, extract allegiance to boutique theories of power, and herd undergraduates into mandatory dormitories where their daily lives can be more comprehensively monitored and shaped.

A result of this combination of increased lenience and increased control is a kind of simulacrum of adult independence that in reality infantilizes students and protects them from responsibility—for both their good choices and their bad ones.
BDS activists at Brown charged with deceiving college leaders
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) has challenged the Brown Divestment Coalition, claiming that the group has relied on dozens of falsehoods in the anti-Israel arguments it made to Brown University administrators earlier this year.

It just released a 41-page report, “The BDC Proposal: An Exercise in Deception,” that presents a rebuttal of 45 points from the coalition’s case pushing the Ivy League school in Providence, R.I., to divest from Israel.

David Litman, CAMERA senior higher education analyst and the report’s lead author, said “BDC’s selective condemnation evinces its discriminatory motives, which have no place within an academic institution committed to fairness and equality.”

Litman said that the group’s proposal for Brown to divest from Israel “not only distorts facts but also promotes a harmful agenda that singles out the world’s only Jewish state for unwarranted censure.” He said that BDS efforts would perpetuate the conflict.

“Brown University must not allow itself to be exploited in service of discrimination,” he said. “Rejecting this proposal is essential to maintain academic integrity and to prevent the endorsement of misleading and discriminatory campaigns.”

CAMERA delivered the report to Brown on Aug. 30.
BDS Lies_ Exposing 45 False Claims in the Brown University Divestment Proposal
First, they broke both the law and Brown University policies. Then, as extensively documented here, they lied to the university about nearly every aspect of their cause. Now, the Brown Divestment Coalition (“BDC”) expects the university to harm its own interests and violate its own values in service of the BDC’s bigoted demands.

The expectation came in the form of a divestment proposal submitted earlier this year by the BDC. What is the BDC? It is a coalition of student organizations, many of whom openly describe the murder, rape, mutilation, torture, and kidnapping of Israeli civilians as “just” acts of “resistance.”

After months of student protests and encampments – featuring illegal acts, policy violations, and extremist rhetoric – Brown University leadership rewarded the bad behavior by promising to consider a discriminatory divestment proposal which would target just one country: the world’s sole Jewish state.

To justify the demand, the BDC resorted to applying unique standards to the Jewish state. This alone highlights the bigoted nature of their cause.

It is evident, however, that the BDC struggled to justify divestment even with their own discriminatory standards. They thus also had to resort to lying about Israel’s actions; and so, like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, the BDC employed lie after lie to fit Israel’s actions of self-defense in an imaginary narrative of “genocide” and “apartheid.”

No lie was too egregious for the BDC, which even claimed that it was Israel which “launched” the war.

To correct the record, CAMERA joined with several Brown University alumni to put together a submission in opposition to divestment. The submission, delivered on August 30, identifies a total of 45 false claims made in BDC’s proposal, debunking each in turn.

That so many student organizations at Brown would resort to this level of intellectual dishonesty is itself a stain on the reputation of such a prestigious institution. Now armed with accurate information, university officials have an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to the university’s mission of higher education by firmly rejecting BDC’s bad faith ploy.
Jewish City Council members call on CUNY to act after protesters rally to ‘bring the war home’
New York City Council members are calling on CUNY to act after multiple Hillel events have been protested by anti-Israel activists calling to “bring the war home.”

One of the CUNY campuses, Baruch College, told the New York Jewish Week it condemns the protests and is committed to student safety. But in a reflection of the challenges facing the 25-campus public college system, Baruch’s statement noted that the protest took place in a public space, limiting the steps the university could take to combat it.

The Hillel centers at Baruch as well as Hunter College were both recently picketed with identical banners reading “Bring the war home” and “Hillel go to hell.” The banners also featured an inverted triangle, a symbol of Hamas, as well as a picture of an assault rifle.

On Tuesday, as Jewish students dined at a kosher restaurant in midtown Manhattan as part of a Hillel-organized back-to-school event, they were protested with the same banners by an organized group whose students are affiliated with CUNY. Video from the protest posted by the Hillel also showed the small group of protesters singling out the Hillel’s director, chanting “Ilya Bratman what do you say? How many kids did you kill today?”

“At what should have been a warm welcome for new students at our annual Welcome Back Dinner at the kosher restaurant Mr. Broadway in midtown, we were met with hate instead,” Baruch Hillel posted on Instagram. “This is the reality Jewish students are facing today on American college campuses.”
Jewish students to demand USYD Vice Chancellor’s resignation
Students will gather at the University of Sydney on Friday to protest Mark Scott’s inaction on antisemitism on campus and demand he resign as vice chancellor.

The rally, which is being promoted by the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, follows Scott’s testimony to NSW Budget Estimates on Wednesday, during which he failed to apologise to Jewish students for the psychosocial harm they had experienced on campus, failed to condemn calls of “intifada” and “from the river to sea”, and generally defended USYD’s handling of protest activity on campus – including the ostensibly pro-Palestinian encampment – since October 7.

“I did feel that the university’s attempt to de-escalate the risk of violence, to bring a peaceable solution to an encampment, to deal with a volatile environment—which was highly fraught on all sides—and to bring a peaceful solution was a worthy aim,” he said.

Saying it had been “a challenging year on our campus”, Scott said he had never encountered an issue which had generated more grief and anguish, anger and concern, than the current saturation in the Middle East.

“I have had representatives of the Jewish community—staff and students—express to me areas of concern that they had. They’ve written to me. I’ve met with them in groups and I’ve met with them individually,” he said.

“Can I add, there were Palestinian students who also came to me with similar arguments to Jewish students. They did not feel as welcome and accepted on campus as they would want to be. Managing that was a complexity for us.”

Scott said “the safety of our community has been our absolute top priority at all times”.

Referencing the encampment, with 28 entry points to the campus, he said the university had “an ongoing engagement with the police to constantly seek assurances from them about the external influences that they understood might be on our campus”.

He admitted being informed in May that the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir “may have been a presence on campus” and said he sought another meeting with police after the 60 Minutes expose about the group aired in June.


Israel accuses Facebook oversight board of endorsing ‘genocidal rallying cry’
Israel has accused Facebook’s oversight board of “endorsing a genocidal rallying cry” by ruling that the phrase “from the river to the sea” did not always glorify Hamas.

The Israeli ministry of foreign affairs alleged that Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, was “complicit in fostering a toxic and dangerous environment for Jewish users online” after it refused to take down posts featuring the Gaza protest slogan.

Responding to the decision, David Saranga, the acting deputy director general for public diplomacy at the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs, said: “‘From the river to the sea’ is not merely a slogan – it is a genocidal rallying cry aimed at erasing Israel from the map.

“Has Meta’s oversight board even paused to consider the dangerous rhetoric it is endorsing by permitting this hate speech to spread on its platform? At a time when anti-Semitism and violence against Jews have surged to levels not seen since the Holocaust, Meta has a responsibility to stamp out this hatred – not to let it proliferate.

“We hope Meta will take responsibility for this grave mistake and reverse their decision.”

Meta had declined to block three posts which included the phrase, which critics argue is anti-Semitic and implies the destruction of the state of Israel.

Facebook anti-Semitism in numbers
- October 2020 – date that Facebook banned Holocaust denial on its platforms
- One in five – proportion of Holocaust-denying posts removed from Facebook, according to researchers CyberWell
- 69pc - proportion of American Jews who have experienced anti-Semitism online
- Six – number of times a single Holocaust-denying post was reported before being taken down by Instagram moderators
- 1,200pc – rise in anti-Semitic posts online following October 7 attacks, according to Israeli government
Sen. John Fetterman slams Meta board for allowing ‘from the river to the sea’: ‘F–k that’
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is the latest to slam Meta’s Oversight Board’s ruling on Wednesday that “from the river to the sea” is not hate speech – despite Hamas using it to call for the destruction of Israel.

Meta’s independent board – which CEO Mark Zuckerberg created in 2019 as a third-party check on the company – ruled on Wednesday that users of its Facebook and Instagram apps can continue to use the controversial rally slogan.

“F–k that,” Fetterman posted on X. “It’s blatant antisemitic hate speech calling for the elimination of Israel from the map.”

“From the river to the sea” has been frequently invoked during pro-Palestinian protests since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of the Gaza strip.

The Pennsylvania senator has been one of the most vocal elected Democratic officials in support of Israel.

While he has said it is “very American” to protest in the “appropriate way,” he slammed disruptive pro-Palestinian protests that have erupted across the country on college campuses and outside businesses.


The Washington Post_ Murdering Jews is ‘Armed Resistance’
October 7, 2023 was the largest massacre of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust. Hamas and other Iranian-backed proxies invaded Israel, murdering more than 1200 people and taking hundreds of hostages. Many were killed in the most gruesome fashion imaginable: parents were tortured in front of their children, the elderly were slaughtered at bus stops, families were burned alive in their own homes, babies murdered in cribs, all while gleeful terrorists proudly filmed their handiwork.

October 7 was also the largest invasion and attack by Islamist terrorists in modern history. It was an attempted genocide by a group that calls for Israel’s destruction. The Washington Post, however, calls it “armed resistance.” This was the phrase used in the Post’s Aug. 28, 2024 dispatch, “What to know about Palestinian militant groups operating in the West Bank.” Ostensibly a primer about terrorist groups operating in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), the article misinformed more than it informed.

The Post’s Claire Parker claims that “Palestinians have engaged in armed resistance since the state’s founding in 1948, when an estimated 750,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes.” Notably “armed resistance” is a euphemism used by U.S.-designated terrorist groups like Hamas to refer to terrorism. Parker is literally echoing terrorist rhetoric. She’s also dead wrong.

In fact, Arab terrorist groups were targeting, attacking and murdering Jews decades before Israel was recreated. Indeed, there are entire books on the subject (Yeshoua Porath’s two volume, The Emergence of the Palestinian Arab National Movement, while fifty years old, is perhaps the most comprehensive). Evidence on the score is both abundant and part of the historical record; it is highlighted in numerous histories, newspaper accounts of the day, and memoirs.

Hamas even names its “Qassam rockets” after Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, an Islamist cleric born in what is today Syria, and who perpetrated terrorist attacks until he was killed by British policemen in November 1935. Hamas also has the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades which perpetrate terrorist attacks. Nor was Qassam alone

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Palestinian terrorist groups like the Green Hand, the Black Hand, and others, murdered Jews, officials from the British Mandatory government that controlled the area after World War I, and Arab critics. CAMERA has highlighted this important history in numerous op-eds throughout the years, including in National Review, Mosaic Magazine, and, most recently the Washington Times. As CAMERA noted in an April 14, 2020 essay for Mosaic, “Century-Old Lessons from a Jerusalem Pogrom,” these terrorist groups resented any social and political equality with Jews and perpetrated organized mass violence as early as 1920. In the nearly three decades before Israel was recreated, hundreds of attacks occurred, with hundreds of victims.
Reuters Underreports Israeli Fatalities in Palestinian, Hezbollah Attacks
While the Associated Press last month grossly overreported the number of civilians killed in the Gaza Strip, leading to corrections appearing in more than 80 media outlets, Reuters has significantly underreported Israeli fatalities in the same war.

In their Sept. 1 article, “Three Israeli police killed in West Bank shooting attack,” Reuters’ James Mackenzie and Ali Sawafta significantly understated both the number of Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks and the number of Israeli and foreign fatalities as a result of Hezbollah attacks, claiming:
The latest deaths bring the number of Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks outside Gaza since Oct. 7 to at least 22, with around 20 Israelis and foreigners killed by missile attacks from southern Lebanon.

First, regarding the number of Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks outside of Gaza since Oct. 7, the Institute for National Security Studies reports that 38 Israelis have been killed in terror attacks in the West Bank and Jerusalem from Oct. 8 into July – far more than the 22 the article states. (Scroll down on the INSS link to “The West Bank and Jerusalem” and then select the third slide.)

CAMERA has independently verified the names, dates and circumstances of deaths for 33 Israelis killed by Palestinians outside of the Gaza Strip (in Israel and the West Bank) since Oct. 7, plus two Jerusalem Arabs who may or may not have had Israeli citizenship but were likewise killed by Palestinian terrorists. See below for these details, including links.

Second, Mackenzie and Sawafta also substantially skewed the number of Israelis and foreigners killed by Hezbollah rocket attacks since Oct. 7, misleading that “20 Israelis and foreigners killed by missile attacks from southern Lebanon.” But no small number of Israelis have been killed by drones and artillery launched from Lebanon.
The Times bestows 'human rights' title to terror-linked NGO
As NGO Monitor has demonstrated, Al-Haq is an extremist organisation which promotes antisemitism, and is designated as a terrorist entity by Israel due to its ties to the PFLP terror group, a faction which participated in the October 7 massacre and is reportedly holding some Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Al-Haq’s general director, Shawan Jabarin, was convicted in 1985 for recruiting and arranging training for PFLP members and, in 2008, was referred to by Israel’s Supreme Court as a “senior PFLP activist”.

Further, many of the NGO’s officials have “made comments appearing to support Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians – often under the slogan of ‘a right of resistance’.

Not only did Al-Haq fail to condemn Hamas’ murder, torture, rape, mutilation and hostage-taking, but on October 8, it co-signed a statement describing the worst antisemitic atrocity since the Holocaust as “Palestinian armed groups engaged in an operation in response to escalating Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people” and “urge[d] the international community to take immediate and urgent action to stop Israel’s revenge and reprisal.”

The failure to critically scrutinise Palestinian organisations who, while operating under the facade of ‘human rights, promote hate, extremism and terrorism is one of more common journalistic failures within British media outlets’ biased coverage of Israel.


PMW: Abbas’ advisor justifies recent Palestinian terror as “self-defense”
After a week with 3 Palestinian car bombs, the shooting murder of 3 Israeli police officers, and an explosive found yesterday in a baby stroller, no one can deny that Palestinian terror is on the rise in Judea and Samaria.

Yet denying it is exactly what PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash is doing!

Two days ago, after Palestinian terrorists detonated 2 car bombs and Israel discovered a third car with explosives hidden in it, Al-Habbash whitewashed this as “self-defense” against an so-called Israeli plan to “empty the West Bank of its residents.” He added that “resistance” – a well-known Palestinian euphemism for terror – is their “right”: PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “If the [Gaza Strip] scenario will be transferred to the West Bank, the goal will be clear, and it is emptying the West Bank of its residents and carrying out the Israeli plan… What happened in Tubas, Tulkarem, Jenin, and Nablus and what is happening in Hebron (i.e., Israeli counter-terror operations) is an Israeli continuation of the war of annihilation and expulsion against the Palestinian people, and an attempt to empty the Palestinian homeland… of their Palestinian residents… Is there fighting in the literal and traditional sense of the word? Not at all. There is a unilateral war. Yes, there is Palestinian resistance and this is our right, and it is the right of every Palestinian to defend himself... There is a unilateral war against the Palestinian people, and there are Palestinian attempts to respond and carry out self-defense.”

[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Sept. 3, 2024]
PA committed to peace, US says after Fatah militia claims Judea terror attacks
The Palestinian Authority has “consistently” shown a commitment to peace with Israel, the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday, days after a group tied to its ruling Fatah faction claimed responsibility for two terrorist attacks.

“The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which the U.S. designated as a terrorist organization decades ago, has claimed responsibility for these attacks,” a State Department spokesperson told JNS. “Despite some historical linkages in the past, it is important to note that this group is separate from the Fatah party,” the spokesperson claimed.

According to Washington, the Western-backed P.A. has “consistently recommitted itself to peace and has been and remains a partner in terms of advancing the key interests of security and stability for all.

“We are continuing discussions with the P.A., key partners, and the Israelis on ‘day-after’ planning for Gaza, to include governance, security and reconstruction,” the spokesperson confirmed. “And as we’ve said before, the Palestinians need to be at the center of all that.”

On Monday, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a “military” arm of P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, claimed responsibility for a drive-by shooting that killed three Israeli police officers near Hebron in Judea.

In an announcement posted on official channels, the Fatah militia praised the terrorist who carried out the “Tarqumiya operation,” naming the perpetrator as Muhannad al-Aswad from the nearby town of Idhna.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that al-Aswad had links to the Fatah party and once served as a member of Abbas’s presidential guard.
PMW: PA national football team's slogan on uniform: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free”
The Palestinian Authority is relentless in announcing its goal to eliminate the State of Israel and create a “Palestine” that stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.

While training in Malaysia, the Palestinian national football team, which is a member of FIFA, posed for photos wearing scarves featuring the PA map of “Palestine” that presents all of Israel with the PA areas as “Palestine” in the colors of the Palestinian flag, indicating political sovereignty over Israel. To spell out the PA message, the text in English on the scarves was explicit:




The "Fida’i National Team" is the team's official name. The term "Fida’i," literally "self-sacrificing fighter," is the PA's euphemism for Palestinian terrorists.

The PA has promoted the goal of “river-to-sea-Palestine” for decades, and the slogan has been adopted by anti-Israel protesters around the world, during Israel’s current war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The slogan is rightly criticized for what it is: A call for the destruction of Israel. To combat this criticism, the PA recently tried to present the slogan as “a call for peace”, but PMW demonstrated that this call has a long history of referring to the total elimination of the State of Israel.

The Palestinian Football Association is headed by top PA official Jibril Rajoub who is known for his support of terror against Israel and denial of Israel’s right to exist as documented by Palestinian Media Watch. During the current war with Hamas, Rajoub has whitewashed Hamas’ massacre and murder of over 1,100 Israelis on October 7, 2023, as a Palestinian “defense war,” and referred to Oct. 7 as an “epic” that included “acts of heroism.” In 2018, PMW complained to FIFA about Rajoub and he was suspended by FIFA from all activities for a year. In response Rajoub lashed out at PMW calling its director "Goebbels of the 21st century."
PMW: The PA accuses PMW of incitement, for exposing its "Pay-for-Slay"!
Palestinian Media Watch’s findings have significantly damaged the PA’s image internationally and have led many countries to reduce or completely cut funding to the PA. Naturally, the PA tries to minimize the damage from PMW’s documentation and attacks it as “incitement”!

Last month, PMW's report that the PA now recognizes 9,750 terrorists as prisoners in Israel eligible for salaries and that the PA will be paying them a minimum of 59,560,000 shekels (about $16.4 million) a month, was featured in the Israeli paper Makor Rishon.

The PA chose to attack PMW’s findings by declaring the report guilty of “incitement”:
“The Palestinian [official PA] news agency WAFA monitored the incitement and racism in the Israeli media outlets…

An article of incitement against the PA [citing PMW's report] was published [in Makor Rishon], under the headline: ‘“The new Martyrs”: Hundreds of terrorists from Gaza are eligible to the PA’s terror payments.’ ‘The PA, which pays salaries to terrorists who were imprisoned or killed by Israel and also their families, recognized approximately 900 “new prisoners and Martyrs” during the war in Gaza – and its terror payments are expected to rise dramatically.’

The paper said (quoting PMW): ‘889 (sic., 899) terrorists who were caught by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip were recognized by the PA as prisoners, and today 9,750 “terrorists” are recognized by the PA as prisoners from the areas under PA control. This recognition is significant, because it means that the PA views them as eligible to the monthly salaries that it pays terrorists.’

It also said: ‘The PA pays terrorists a salary of 1,400 shekels (about $400 -Ed.) per month in the first 3 years in prison, and the salary rises gradually to 12,000 shekels (about $3,250) after 30 years. It also pays an addition of 300 shekels (just over $80) per month for each wife, 50 shekels (about $15) per month for each child, 300 shekels per month for Jerusalem residents, 500 shekels (about $150) per month for Israeli Arabs.’

The paper added: ‘Even if the PA fails to send payments to the terrorists’ families in Gaza immediately, the sum will be recorded as a debt. In February [2024] it was reported that the PA was so enthusiastic to start paying the terrorists who were just arrested, to the point that it announced that it is bypassing their regulations and demands of registration in order to be able to pay them immediately.’” (All quotes above are from PMW’s report -Ed.)

[WAFA, official PA news agency, Aug. 6, 2024]
European Parliament moves to suspend PA funding over antisemitic textbooks
The European Parliament gave preliminary approval on Wednesday to the freezing of 20 million euros ($22 million) allocated to the Palestinian Authority over antisemitic textbooks in its educational curriculum.

The move in the parliament’s prestigious Foreign Affairs Committee, which requires two additional parliamentary votes in order to become law, is seen as a bellwether of change in the European Parliament following the summer elections, after years of merely declarative moves on the issue.

“Erasing all antisemitic content from education materials is among the first of many steps needed to establish civil society, professional education and proper economic structures in the Palestinian territories,” said Austrian MEP Lukas Mandl, who tabled the amendment, in a statement sent to JNS. “These steps, accompanied by disarmament and demilitarization of the Palestinian territories, will help to establish structures that will lead to zero tolerance for terrorism and proper conditions for sustaining peace, democracy, rule of law and ultimately a security guarantee for the State of Israel.”

Following the 36-30 parliamentary committee vote, the proposal will now head to the budget committee next month for what is expected to be another close vote, and then, if approved, voted on in the plenary later in October.

“Finally, the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has voted by a majority to put money in the reserves to pressure the Palestinian Authority to clean up antisemitic schoolbooks,” Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen told JNS. “This is a good first step, which failed in the past, and hopefully will be included in the 2025 E.U. budget that will be adopted later this autumn.”


Next U.S. president will have to contend with nuclear Iran, Walter Russell Mead warns
Foreign policy analyst Walter Russell Mead warned on Wednesday that the next administration will likely need to confront a nuclear armed Iran, or take steps to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But he said he doesn’t think either presidential candidate is fully prepared for that scenario.

“My guess is that the next president will likely face a nuclear Iran — or face the alternative of war with Iran or accepting a nuclear Iran,” Mead said in remarks at the American Enterprise Institute. “I don’t think either candidate really knows what they would do under those circumstances, but I think that is something they are very likely to face.”

Mead described Iran as having the most success in altering the world to its goals despite being the least capable of the U.S.’ three major global adversaries (Russia, China and Iran): “The runt of the litter is running the table.”

He blamed the situation on “American weakness and unwillingness to face reality in the eye,” and called the blockade of Red Sea trade by the Iran-backed Houthis an “extraordinary retreat.”

Mead said that diplomacy with Iran is a fallacy, given that the regime has made clear it has no intention of becoming a friend of the United States, and instead benefits from hostility toward the U.S.

But he said the U.S. can’t allow Iran to gain a stranglehold on the region, particularly on the flows of oil.

“We seem to be on a collision course in which, if we don’t take adequate steps to defend a vital interest, we’ll have to live with the very, very serious consequence of a bunch of people who hate us in Tehran being able to hold the world economy to ransom, more or less at will,” Mead said.


Piers Morgan mainstreams an antisemitic conspiracy theorist
Candice Owens’ transformation from a mainstream right-wing commentator to an unhinged antisemite and conspiracy theorist has been the subject of the kind of derisions and mockery befitting such behavior. She’s claimed, for starters, that Judaism is a “pedophiliac religion” which “believes in child sacrifice”, and whose rabbis drink the blood of Christians, and that Judaism seeks world domination.

She also accused Zionists of being “psychopaths”, suggested that Theodor Herzl set up Israel as a haven for pedophiles and said that if she’s ever killed for speaking her mind, it would be by the Zionists – in rants that often include crude homophobia.

This history of the antisemitic lust libel about Jews’ alleged sexual perversion, which is one of Owens’ obsessions, was dissected by CAMERA’s Jonah Cohen, here.

Owens also falsely alleged that Stalin and Lenin were Jews, and were part of the global “Jewish cabal”, that Israel “hast taken over the US”, revived the myth that Israel had advanced knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, and even accused Israel of assassinating John F. Kennedy. She said that Israel may have been founded by Frankists – a heretical Jewish cult which claimed the blood libel was true, thus affirming the antisemitic belief of Jews’ need for Christian blood.

Owens also dismissed the sadistic human experimentation conducted by Nazi doctor Josef Mengele at Auschwitz as “bizarre propaganda”.

When not targeting Jews, she’s gone on crazy and often incoherent rants about the LGBT community, alleging – in the context of what she claims is a global pedophile conspiracy – that Justin Trudeau, Barack Obama, Vladimir Zelensky and Emmanuel Macron are all gay, and, even more bizarrely, that the French President’s wife, Bridgett, is “a trans man who molested him when he was a child”.

Then, there are conspiracy theories which, though just as insane as the others, don’t have a political dimension, such as her doubt over whether the moon landing actually happened.

Despite the fact that Owens has become a laughing stock, and that her own father-in-law, Lord Farmer, publicly distanced himself from her views about Jews, Piers Morgan legitimised her by broadcasting a ‘debate’ between her and the LA-based Rabbi Shmuley Boteach to address, as the show framed it, their “personal feud” and their “differences” about Israel.

During the one hour exchange, Owens, who called Boteach “evil” and “demonic”, introduced more lies and hate: she falsely accused the late Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, who Boteach said was his mentor, of “Jewish supremacism” and someone who hated all non-Jews; that, after Oct. 7th, “Zionists in the media forced us to support Israel”; the lie that 18,000 Palestinian children in Gaza have “murdered” by Israel, and evoked the hateful “Synagogues of Satan” trope popularized by Louis Farrakhan to refer to Jews and Judaism.


‘They Are Death Threats’: Kosher Restaurant in France Vandalized With Anti-Israel Graffiti
A kosher restaurant in France was defaced early Tuesday morning with red paint and tagged with the message “Free Gaza,” continuing the historic surge in antisemitism that has devastated the French Jewish community since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last fall.

The O’Laffa restaurant, which opened a little over a year ago, was targeted in Villeurbanne, near Lyon in eastern France. According to French media, the manager of the kosher establishment was preparing to file a complaint with authorities over the incident.

“These are not just tags but significant damage that reflects a very deep hatred,” Cindy Fevre, 34, told Le Figaro. “When you discover this, you ask yourself a million questions. Should you stay or leave? These red marks represent blood stains. It’s very serious; they are death threats.”

The restaurant’s windows and sign were also damaged in the vandalism.

Seeing the damage was both shocking and angering for Fevre, who noted to Le Figaro that she employs a Muslim employee and added, “In my restaurant, the door is open to everyone.”

The defacing of O’Laffa came as France has experienced a record surge of antisemitism in the wake of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.


Israel wins Paralympic silver in goalball, bronze in tennis, boosting medal count to 9
With just a few days left in the Paris Paralympics, Israel won medals on Thursday in both tennis and goalball, bringing its overall medal haul to nine so far.

The women’s goalball team won a silver medal after losing to Turkey in the final match of the tournament, while tennis player Guy Sasson won bronze after besting Turkey’s Ahmet Kaplan.

While tensions between the governments of Turkey and Israel have been high amid the ongoing war in Gaza, the goalball teams greeted each other warmly and Sasson and Kaplan exchanged friendly greetings before and after the match.

The goalball team lost 3-8 to Turkey to take the silver, marking Israel’s first-ever medal in the sport, and its first Paralympic team sport medal since 1988.

Israel clinched a spot in the gold medal match after beating China in the semifinal and Canada in the quarterfinal.

The six-woman team is made up of Lihi Ben David, 28; Elham Mahamid, 34; Noa Malka, 21; Gal Hamrani, 31; Or Mizrahi, 31; and Roni Ohayon, 25. In the sport, which is played exclusively by those with visual impairments, the athletes play three at a time, throwing and attempting to block a ball that is embedded with bells.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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