Friday, September 06, 2024

09/06 Links Pt2: The shameful Nazi apologism of the Very Online right; The anti-Israel network fueling antisemitism across America; Hamas Honored Reuters Journalists in Gaza

From Ian:

Andrew Roberts: No, Churchill Was Not the Villain
Cooper then unleashed an attack on Churchill's Zionism, saying that he was "bankrupt and needed money and [was] getting bailed out by Zionists. … He didn't need to be bribed but he was put in place by financiers [and] the media complex that wanted to make sure he was the guy who was representing Britain in that conflict." If any reader owns a dog, don't let it hear that particular whistle!

It is also untrue. Churchill was never bankrupt, although he always needed money as his spending was huge. Some of his stock market losses during the Wall Street Crash were borne by Bernard Baruch, but that was four years before Hitler came to power. Another Jewish friend, Sir Henry Strakosch, left him a large amount of money in his will, but that could hardly have been a bribe for obvious reasons. Churchill was not a Zionist or an anti-Nazi because he was bribed by Jewish financiers but because he believed in both stances with every fiber of his being.

Furthermore, at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise throughout the world, it was profoundly irresponsible of Cooper and Carlson to make the insinuations that they did in that part of the interview. This thesis—if such a spewing of old lies and David Irving-esque Hitler-apologism can be termed as such—will be welcomed in certain areas of "Palestine," in Thuringia and Saxony, and in the danker recesses of cyberspace, but not in places where historical truth is still respected.

Far from "the media complex" supporting Churchill, he was ridiculed and opposed by most newspapers for most of his career, and editors only came round to his joining the cabinet in July 1939, once it had been made clear that all his warnings about Hitler and the Nazis had been proved correct on every particular over his long years in the political wilderness.

When Carlson commended Cooper's "belief in accuracy and honesty," it provided the only comic moment in the whole interview, unless one also counts Carlson's estimation that Cooper—of whom I confess I had not hitherto heard—is "the most important historian in the United States."

It was remarkable that in the whole interview, Darryl Cooper was not able to land a single blow on the reputation of Winston Churchill that was backed up by any evidence whatever. For in fact, Churchill made several mistakes in his career, as every responsible biographer of his attests. "I should have made nothing if I had not made mistakes," he told his wife Clementine in 1916.

Yet in the three greatest threats to democracy and Western civilization of the 20th century—from Wilhelmine Germany in World War I, from Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in World War II, and from Soviet Communism in the Cold War—Winston Churchill both foresaw all three and provided much of the resilience and wisdom necessary to defeat them. Freedom of speech was thus saved, a freedom that has been so squalidly abused by the intellectually vacant yet preening snideness of Messrs. Cooper and Carlson.
Brendan O'Neill: The shameful Nazi apologism of the Very Online right
Cooper’s theory of the Second World War, a theory gleefully lapped up by the Hitler simps of the batshit right, is a gross lie. Churchill became British PM on 10 May 1940. The Nazis opened their first concentration camp – at Dachau – in 1933. They invaded Poland in 1939. They invaded Denmark and Norway before Churchill came to power. And they invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and France in the month he came to power. I don’t know who needs to hear this – in fact I do: the barbarous online right – but Churchill is not the bad guy here.

Those of us old enough to remember the great showdown between the heroic historian Deborah Lipstadt and the Holocaust denier David Irving should feel especially worried by what’s happening right now. We had good reason to believe that the fall of Irving, also a historian devoted to ‘revising’ our understanding of the Second World War, represented a fatal blow to Nazi apologetics. What Irving presents as his historical scepticism is in truth a ‘distinctly pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish’ belief system, said the judge in Irving’s libel suit against Lipstadt after she called out his Holocaust denial. Yet fast-forward 24 years and Irving-style revisionism is not only making a comeback but also going mainstream. Cooper is ‘the most important popular historian working in the United States today’, gushed Carlson. How long until he gets Irving on?

More and more members of the batshit right are tumbling down the toilet of historical revisionism. Foghorn hater of Israel, Candace Owens, recently described as ‘bizarre propaganda’ the idea that Josef Mengele conducted experiments on Jewish kids at Auschwitz. Michelle Goldberg at the New York Times calls these people ‘Hitler-curious’. Their swirling conspiratorial belief that we’re governed by a secretive ‘Matrix’ leads them to believe that ‘all [we’ve] been told about the nature of reality is a lie’, says Goldberg. And so they take aim at every truth of our society, mistaking such puerile disassembling of proven facts for ‘scepticism’. As Goldberg says, ‘once you discard all epistemological and moral guardrails, it’s easy to descend into barbarous nonsense’.

A descent into barbarian thought really is what we are witnessing. And not just on the right. The crank right – with its war on the past, its philistine assault on truth, its vile obsession with race – is a mirror image of the woke left. Both rage with curious ferocity against Churchill: the woke leftists of the BLM era were vandalising Churchill statues years before Tucker had a Churchill hater on his show. Both relativise the Holocaust. The online right does it by suggesting the deaths of all those Jews was kind of unintentional; the crank left does it by calling everything it doesn’t like in the here and now, including Israel’s war on Hamas, ‘another Holocaust’. The former robs the Holocaust of its murderous intent, the latter robs it of its uniqueness: a right / left pincer movement of woke denialism that obscures the truth of what the Nazis did to the Jews.

And both seem hell-bent on upending our common history. On violating the truths and wonders of our past. On scrubbing away the wins of our civilisation that shape who we are. The online right’s intellectual lynching of Churchill is in many ways its 1619 moment. Woke leftists in the US have for years sought to unilaterally change the founding date of the United States from 1776, the year of the revolution, to 1619, the year slaves first arrived in America. The aim of this conceited, elitist project? To reimagine America as a nation born in sin, not revolution; hatched from crime, not democracy. Now, the crank right seeks to dismantle the foundational truth of modern Europe, a truth that rightly still moves us and informs our devotion to civilisational values: namely, that the Nazis represented an incalculable evil, and the Allies were right to wage a war to the last against them.

We joke about wokeness. We laugh at kids with blue hair who think you can change sex. We make fun of people who take refuge from words in ‘safe spaces’. But wokeness, in its truest form, is far from funny. It is a barbarous surge, coursing through the fibres of the internet and the thinking of our institutions, laying waste to every victory and insight of Western civilisation. And now we have a nexus of a morally exhausted right and a de-enlightened left, both awash with cynicism and contempt for the modernity we are privileged to inhabit. That we are witnessing an attempt to rehabilitate the actual Nazis is a testament to the threat all this poses to everything that is good and right. Reason has slept for long enough – it’s time to wake it up.
Jonathan Tobin: Tucker Carlson and the turning point for right-wing antisemitism
Why did Carlson choose this crucial moment only two months before the election to air such a show? One theory comes from my JNS colleague Caroline Glick. She wrote on X that Carlson is deliberately trying to sabotage Trump because a Kamala Harris presidency would enhance his standing as an opposition voice; therefore, inciting a Republican civil war right now is in his interest and gives a boost to antisemites on the right. I don’t know for sure that this is his intention, but the practical effect of what he’s done could be exactly what she describes.

One other aspect of this disturbing story is that Musk actually endorsed Carlson’s show with Cooper, writing that it was “Very interesting. Worth watching.” That foolish post reflects the mercurial nature of the billionaire as well as his bad judgment. Still, whatever we think of him, the idea that this should be another reason to shut down or hinder X is as dangerous as Holocaust denial. As we saw with the tech giants’ cooperation with the Biden administration’s efforts to shut down dissent against COVID-19 policies and the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story on the eve of the 2020 election, the trend towards authoritarianism among liberals (despite their claim to be defending democracy) is a clear and present danger to the right to free speech.

That’s a battle for a different day. For now, the relevant question is what Republicans, and more pointedly Trump, are going to do about Carlson. Moreover, he can count on being asked about this in next week’s debate even though Harris will probably not be queried in the same fashion about embarrassing elements of her record. That notwithstanding, perhaps Musk’s deletion of that post was the first indication that Carlson’s antisemitic journey has reached a turning point.

The Buckley precedent
The precedent here is the effort made by the late William F. Buckley to rid the modern conservative movement that he helped found in the 1950s of right-wing nuts and antisemites. In the 1960s, he effectively canceled members of the John Birch Society, a lunatic fringe group with a large following. He did the same 30 years later by making it clear that conservatives who dabble in antisemitism like Joseph Sobran and Pat Buchanan must be refuted and marginalized.

It is hard to think of anyone less like Buckley, an urbane, patrician intellectual, than Trump. But the former president is presented now with the same opportunity to make clear in no uncertain terms that he will have nothing to do with Holocaust denial and antisemitism. Failing to do so would be similar to the way President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have refused to unreservedly condemn the pro-Hamas and antisemitic mobs demonstrating against Israel since Oct. 7. But, like it or not, there is a double standard in the media that forces conservatives to adhere to a higher standard.

Everything we know about Trump tells us that he will always refuse to do what conventional wisdom tells him he must because he will be falsely condemned as an extremist and antisemite, no matter what he says or does. Nevertheless, he needs to make an exception in this case.

Rebuking Carlson and making it clear that he is no longer welcome to tag along at his events is something that will be difficult for him and might upset some of his voters. But this is not some made-up controversy contrived by the left to trip Trump up. Carlson’s actions and statements are a direct threat to his campaign and a frightening effort to mainstream the hatred of Jews. He must be put in his place, and condemned by Trump and Vance, if the Republicans are to defeat Harris and have a chance to make good on their promise to rid the government of the toxic disease of woke ideology that is empowering antisemitism on the left.

If they don’t, the consequences for the Republicans and the hopes to roll back the tide of antisemitism that has been surging on the left and now apparently on the far right, are, too, frightening to contemplate.


Yad Vashem censures Nazi statements by podcaster promoted by Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk
A podcaster interviewed by conservative commentator host Tucker Carlson and boosted by billionaire X owner Elon Musk has received condemnation from Yad Vashem: the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem.

“Recently, Darryl Cooper, in a podcast with Tucker Carlson, made statements that grossly misrepresent the German Nazi regime’s actions during ‘Operation Barbarossa’ in 1941,” Yad Vashem said in a statement about the video released earlier this week.

“Cooper claimed that the Nazis were ‘unprepared’ to handle millions of prisoners of war and political dissidents, suggesting their brutality was a result of poor planning,” per the museum.

Yad Vashem called the claim “patently false,” responding that “the German invasion of the Soviet Union was long-planned and included genocidal strategies of dealing with the local Jewish population not as a response to logistical challenges, but as an ideological one.”

Dani Dayan, chairman of Yad Vashem, said “Tucker Carlson and his guest Darryl Cooper engaged in one of the most repugnant forms of Holocaust denial of recent years. These far-fetched conspiracy theories are not only dangerous and malevolent, they are antisemitic.”

In the interview, Cooper described Winston Churchill as the “the chief villain of the Second World War.”

Dan Michman, a professor and the head of Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research, said “Mr. Cooper isn’t known for having done any scholarly research on Nazism and the Holocaust, and his statements in this interview clearly demonstrate his ignorance.”

Musk deleted his X posting promoting the Carlson-Cooper interview, which he had initially described as “very interesting” and “worth watching.”
Tucker Carlson and the attempted mainstreaming of right-wing Jew-hatred
Tucker is leading an ongoing effort within elements of the right to destroy the heroes of Western civilization through conspiracymongering and outright cynicism, blackpilling Americans into believing that nothing matters, that our shared historic greatness is a lie, and that the world is all shades of gray. He is leading the statue topplers movement of the right, and frequently, it comes back to his problems with the Jews and the Jewish state.

I can’t help but notice that a significant chunk of his guest roster since leaving Fox has been a who’s-who of rabid Jew-baiters. Recently, he brought on a PLO pastor who glorified the October 7th massacre, and gave him unchallenged space to demonize the world’s lone Jewish state.

This has become Tucker’s schtick over and over again. He seemingly doesn’t have the cojones to directly attack Jews and Israel, so he strategically launders this indecent effort through his guests, who use his massive platform to attempt to smear and degrade my coreligionists. With this approach, Tucker takes little risk and he can still link arms in public with major right-wing figures.

The world’s most influential political media guy is engaged in an endless campaign of “just asking questions,” and it’s way past time that he owns up to it and that someone calls it as it is.

On that note, I’ll leave it to some of my more notable peers to tackle the issues addressed in the Tucker podcast head-on.
White House denounces Tucker Carlson for hosting Holocaust denier: Disgusting and sadistic
White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement to CNN that “giving a microphone to a Holocaust denier who spreads Nazi propaganda is a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans, to the memory of the over 6 million Jews who were genocidally murdered by Adolf Hitler, to the service of the millions of Americans who fought to defeat Nazism, and to every subsequent victim of Antisemitism.”

The administration’s statement specifically refuted Cooper’s claim to Carlson that Churchill was the “chief villain” of World War II.

“Hitler was one of the most evil figures in human history and the ‘chief villain’ of World War II, full stop,” Bates said. “The Biden-Harris Administration believes that trafficking in this moral rot is unacceptable at any time, let alone less than one year after the deadliest massacre perpetrated against the Jewish people since the Holocaust and at a time when the cancer of Antisemitism is growing all over the world.”

Reached for comment on Thursday, Carlson sharply criticized the White House and told CNN, “The fact that these lunatics have used the Churchill myth to bring our country closer to nuclear war than at any moment in history disgusts me, and should terrify every American. They’re warmonger freaks. They don’t get the moral high ground.”

Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan condemned the interview with Cooper and wrote on X, "Tucker Carlson and Darryl Cooper engaged in one of the most repugnant Holocaust denial displays of the last years. Antisemitic, ahistorical and deranged, an affront to the victims and to the pursuit of truth. Decent persons should condemn this display of bigotry and malevolence."
Candace Owens claims Lubavitcher rebbe ‘hated non-Jews’
Responding furiously to Owens’ claims, Chabad spokesman Yaakov Berman said she had displayed “utter ignorance in her idiotic, ad hominem attack” against Rabbi Schneerson.

"Israel Shahak was a discredited, self-loathing Jew – and the fact that she quotes him as if he’s some respected authority suggests that she has waded into waters that are far too deep for her,” he said.

“Rabbi Schneerson delivered countless hours of talks, and hundreds of his books have been published. Shahak did not translate his work and is not an authority on his teachings, and he has published nothing substantial, if anything at all, regarding Rabbi Schneerson. I’ve never even heard of the second professor [Mezvinsky] she claims translated Rabbi Schneerson’s work.”

Berman added: “The fact is that Rabbi Schneerson was a legendary force for good who devoted his life to nurturing unity, kindness, and random love among all people. Does she know how many non-Jews sought Rabbi Schneerson out for his wisdom, blessing, and kindness?

“Here’s how Rabbi Schneerson responded to NYC Mayor David Dinkins, who spoke about ‘two sides’: The Rebbe said, ‘[We are] one side, one people, united by the management of New York City.’”

Writing on X, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who recently abandoned his presidential campaign to support Donald Trump, defended the rebbe as “iconic”.

Condemning Owens’ remarks, he wrote: “These words are a sickening and manifestly inaccurate description of a revered holy man who was respected and beloved by people of all faiths.

“Rabbi Schneerson preached a message of unadulterated love, tolerance, respect, and universal justice for all of humanity. My father considered him a spiritual mentor and sought his advice on diverse issues of morality and ethics.

"He once visited the Rebbe at 2 o’clock in the morning! As Americans, we need to distance ourselves from the troubling rise in antisemitism. We need unity in our country, not divisiveness. That's what Rabbi Schneerson stood for.”
Candace Owens Doesn’t Speak for Catholics
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously observed, and as the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations agree, the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. But the maxim that sins can be forgiven isn’t a license to commit them. The Church also teaches that “scandal,” misleading the faithful about the truth and leading others into sin, is a grave offense.

Catholics should turn to the example of Jacques Maritain, perhaps the most prophetic and influential Catholic voice in the twentieth century. As Richard Crane, a scholar of Maritain and Catholic-Jewish history, recently noted, this pivotal thinker underwent profound change, ultimately rejecting Jew-hatred. Through his faith, Maritain came to see that anti-Semitism was essentially pagan, and that this paganism wasn’t merely the enemy of Judaism, but also Christianity.

No one can out-tradition Maritain, whose activism included efforts to preserve the Latin liturgy. He reminds all concerned with the Church’s patrimony to reflect humbly on Christianity’s Hebraic roots. “Catholic anti-Semite” isn’t just an error. It’s an oxymoron.


Andrew Pessin: Even If (Most Of) What Detractors Say About The Founding Of Israel Were True …
It may be 2023 but campus responses to October 7 show that, for many, it’s still 1948.

Many campuses exploded in outright celebration of the barbaric violence, the enthusiasts typically invoking, by way of justification, the massacre’s “context” or “root causes” (in Israel’s “occupation,” “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” etc.) and the legitimacy of “resistance” to those evils “by any means necessary.” Even many who didn’t quite “celebrate” the violence invoked the same by way of explanation quickly bleeding into justification. And many of those who remained silent about October 7, too, were no doubt thinking the same when they said things such as “I need to learn more about this complex situation before rendering judgment.” Now normally after watching armed men tie up a mother and father and three small children and burn them alive you don’t need to “learn more” to determine who the bad guys are, but hey, it’s “complex.” I’ve argued elsewhere that that silence amounts to complicity, to borrow the popular expression many progressives apply everywhere except to themselves: you’re in favor of October 7 or you’re against, in other words, and silence entails the former.

But now this shocking campus response itself has its own “context” and “root causes.” In my view the twenty-year-long campus Boycott, Divestment, Sanction (BDS) campaign of lies against Israel combined with the more recent expansion of progressivism (aka Critical Race Theory, DEI, Wokeism, etc.) has amounted to a campaign to delegitimize and dehumanize not just Israeli Jews but all Jews; and the clear success of that campaign explains why so many are somehow unable to see that the torture, mutilation, rape, and murder of babies, children, women, pregnant women, the disabled, and the elderly is a straightforward moral atrocity constituting a mass terror attack. If every Jew is fundamentally guilty, then their torture and murder is not merely permissible but even obligatory; if every Jew is guilty, then nothing you do to the Jew can make the Jew a victim.

So what does this have to do with 1948?

The dehumanization campaign above in fact ultimately rests on the premise that the 1948 establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the State of Israel was a massive injustice. For consider: if that establishment were perfectly just, then the efforts to prevent it then and the 75 years of nearly continuous “resistance” to it since, whether military, terrorist, diplomatic, cognitive, or other, would be unjust. In turn, many of the measures that Israel has taken over the years that detractors cite as “root causes” above—as Israel’s “oppression” of Palestinians, as mechanisms subserving its “occupation” and “apartheid,” etc.—would be seen not as illegitimate aggressive measures of domination but as legitimate reactive measures of self-defense. Take just two examples, the security barrier along western Judea and Samaria and the blockade on Gaza instituted after Hamas took power there by an illegal violent coup. Detractors call the former an “Apartheid Wall” and say of the latter that it makes Gaza an “open air prison.” But to those who see the establishment of Israel as just these are legitimate defensive measures justified by the unremittent preexisting violence directed toward Israelis by Palestinians.

If Jewish sovereignty there is legitimate, in other words, then Jews are ordinary human beings with ordinary human rights including the right to defend themselves, by walls or blockades as need be. But if Jewish sovereignty is not legitimate then Jews are simply evildoers who, per campus dehumanization, lack even the basic human right to defend themselves, and all such measures become aggressive mechanisms of an unjust occupation. On this view every Jew is guilty and therefore worthy even of the atrocious harms of October 7, including the babies, and Hamas is not a genocidal Jew-hating terrorist group but “freedom fighters” fighting for “decolonization.”

If 1948 is just, in short, then 2023 is a terrorist atrocity; if 1948 is unjust then 2023 is political liberation.

So 2023 really still is about 1948.

This point has actually been clear for some time. Those who follow the campus scene know that the anti-Israel movement long ago gave up on the demand merely for a Palestinian state alongside Israel in favor of undoing Israel entirely. The popular chant, “We don’t want two states, we want 1948!,” states that about as clearly as can be. But it took October 7 to see how profound and visceral that demand is, as it manifested itself in the celebration of the slaughter. For them, the massive injustice of 1948 means that the Israeli Jews of today have it coming to them, as the M.I.T. student above quoted her antagonists.

Clearly Israel advocates need to double down on disseminating their “narrative,” the one grounded in the long Jewish history in this land, and on finding ways to do it that will break through the ideological fortress that BDS and progressivism have established on our campuses.

But here I sketch an alternative, complementary strategy.
When Your Therapist Hates Israel
Like many Jews around the world, Rosie found herself spiraling post-Oct. 7, watching news 12 hours per day, debating folks online, and feeling her friendship circle dwindling. After she posted about the massacres online, she lost clients of her Kingston, New York, tarot-reading business.

“The day of Oct. 7, I completely shut down and went into survival mode,” said Rosie. “I was not OK.”

During her third session with a new therapist, Rosie (we’re using therapy clients’ first names to protect their privacy) broached the subject of the massacres, and her emotional distress. The non-Jewish therapist told her flatly, “Everything happens for a reason.”

Rosie is far from alone. Post-Oct. 7, many Jewish clients across the political spectrum have attempted to process Israel-related issues in therapy, yet had their feelings dismissed—often, though not always, by non-Jewish therapists.

At the same time, Jewish therapists have felt clients—again, often but not always non-Jewish— projecting onto them the views they imagine their therapists have on Israel and Gaza, distancing themselves without discussing where anyone actually stands on the issues. And Jewish therapists have even had trouble finding safe spaces to connect with other therapists. Therapeutic relationships are being torn apart from all sides, bringing into question what role a therapist’s opinion has in a therapy session and how important is it for a therapist and client to share similar views and backgrounds.

Finding a Jewish therapist was essential for a client named Rachel after working with her previous therapist through middle school, high school, and college. “The therapist knew everything about me,” she said, including that her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor. After Oct. 7, when Rachel broke down in tears about the antisemitism she was witnessing, her therapist told her that the videos she’d watched from the massacres were “spliced together” and “fake.”

“What about the 16,000 dead Palestinians?” her therapist asked.

“My brain kind of just shut off,” Rachel told me. “She was just talking, and I was in a bubble, like, ‘What is happening here? People are tearing the kidnapped posters off. How could you just be so cold-hearted?’”

“I need to leave this conversation,” she remembered saying to her therapist. “I don’t feel safe.” Her Zoom session ended with the click of a button.

Soon Rachel found a new therapist who shared her Jewish background. “After Oct. 7, I need to make sure that [my therapist is] Jewish,” she said, “because [non-Jewish therapists] don’t understand, they won’t understand it.”
I Was Raped Because I Am Jewish
Many survivors choose not to report sexual assault because we believe we are to blame, or fear retaliation—or want to try to forget about what happened. I did not report the rape because of the negative effect I knew that process would have on my mental health, a toll which did not feel worth paying at the time, and still does not today.

Sexual violence against Jewish people has been used as a tool of oppression, silencing, and ethnocide for millennia. There is a very quiet history of antisemitic sexual violence in my family, and a long history of it in all the communities we migrated to America from. The silent echo has traveled down my ancestral line, underreported, underrecorded, until it reached me. In the weeks after the rape I searched for stories of Jewish people raped in the diaspora, and couldn’t find anything recent. I felt isolated, unable to tap into a collective narrative to add context to what had happened to me.

A couple of months after the rape, as my acute anxiety wore off, I became severely depressed. I reached out to one of my few local Jewish friends. He could tell I was having trouble articulating the connection between the rape and my Jewish identity. He asked, “If this happened to a friend, what would you tell them?”

“That sounds like a hate crime,” I said without missing a beat. Once I made the connection out loud, I couldn’t unsee it: He had asked me if it would bother me to play music that might be offensive to someone with my ethnic and religious background, and armed with the information, he turned it into a plan to hurt me. The Christmas music, months after the traumatic event, still played on loop in my mind.

In the wake of the rape I drifted away from many non-Jewish friends, and gravitated more toward my Jewish community; it felt safer. While a silent version of the rape clearly shows violence, when you add the sound back in, not everybody’s ears are trained to hear this particular hate. And while it’s possible this man would have tried to rape me no matter my background, he weaponized my Jewish identity to make the rape hurt more.

At the same time, I watched longtime feminist activists and progressive influencers try to undermine the trauma of Oct. 7 victims who experienced sexual violence. Time and again, evidence of violence against Jewish and Israeli victims emerges and is disregarded or disbelieved, largely, it seems, because it is inconvenient to non-Jews’ worldviews. But I experienced how easily a supposedly faraway phenomenon can strike much closer to home.

I believe more Jewish people, especially women, are being raped because of their Jewishness than we know—or maybe than we want to accept. Rape is underreported, hate crimes are underreported, and antisemitic incidents are underreported. What all three of these have in common is how often outsiders cast doubt on whether or not they ever even occurred.

While dealing with rape is traumatic, I felt like I was also wrestling with a world bent on denying this kind of rape even occurred. The Anti-Defamation League, an organization that keeps records of hate crimes, didn’t mention anything about sexual assault on its website, so I contacted an ADL spokesman. He replied, “We do track all antisemitic incidents in the United States, but we currently are not aware of any incidents involving sexual assault in the U.S. If you’re looking for data on assaults that occurred in Israel on Oct. 7, I’d advise you to be in contact with the Israeli government.” If there is no archive in which to gather our stories—if we’re told this type of thing is only happening halfway around the world, during extreme circumstances—it’s not that we don’t control our own narrative: It’s that the narrative doesn’t exist.


Global Response to Oct. 7 Shows the ‘Collapse of Morality,’ Says Israel’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism
Israel’s special envoy for combating antisemitism on Wednesday night lamented what she described as the global “collapse of morality” revealed in the world’s response to the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel.

“What the responses to 10/7 were, were an indication to a collapse of morality,” Michal Cotler-Wunsh said to a packed room at the Moise Safra Center in New York City. “If you could not unconditionally condemn without a ‘but,’ — unequivocally, without a ‘but’ at the end of the sentence — what happened on 10/7, that’s not progress that’s regress. If you could not unequivocally condemn it that was an indication of the collapse of morality.”

Cotler-Wunsch, who currently has three children serving in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, made the remarks at an event celebrating the publication of the 20th anniversary edition of “A Letter in the Scroll” by the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom. The event involved a panel discussion about Jewish identity, antisemitism, and other topics that featured Cotler-Wunsh, as well as human rights activist Natan Sharansky and others.

Cotler-Wunsh, who grew up in Canada but now lives in Israel, also discussed the “tsunami of antisemitism” that has taken place around the world post-Oct. 7, and how it can “only be identified and combated” with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the IHRA definition includes denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.

Wednesday’s event came after the Anti-Defamation League released a report earlier this year showing antisemitic incidents in the US rose 140 percent last year, reaching a record high. Most of the outrages occurred after Oct. 7, during the ensuing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Meanwhile, such outrages have also skyrocketed to record highs in several other countries around the world, especially in Europe, since the Hamas atrocities.

Cotler-Wunsh told the crowd gathered at the Moise Safra Center that she believes it is also important to educate the younger generation about antisemitism and help them interpret and understand the rise in anti-Israel and anti-Zionist sentiments around the world following Oct. 7.

“What has been the most overwhelming piece of my exchanges and interactions with young Jews is to try to make it accessible how it can be that in response to the worst attack of Jews since the Holocaust — fueled by antisemitic hate that burned, raped, mutilated, massacred, and abducted hundreds on 10/7 — what we have witnessed is a tsunami of antisemitism.”
Australian government won’t back public views of special envoys on antisemitism and Islamophobia
The Australian government is seeking to create some distance from its new special envoys on antisemitism and Islamophobia, suggesting they do not characterise their comments as official government policy.

Documents obtained by Guardian Australia reveal the instructions the government has given its new special envoy to combat antisemitism, Jillian Segal, including the need to highlight “diverse Jewish Australian identities”.

Similar guidance has been prepared for the yet-to-be-named special envoy to combat Islamophobia, although the government has struggled to make that appointment amid concerns in the Islamic community about its purpose.

Segal, a former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry who said last year “there can be no ceasefire [in Gaza] until every hostage has been released”, was appointed by Anthony Albanese in July.

According to the terms of reference for both positions, obtained under freedom of information laws, the Department of Home Affairs will provide “strategic communications and policy support” but not back their public commentary.

“All communications of the Special Envoy will be attributed to the Special Envoy and not the Department of Home Affairs, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs or the Australian Government as a whole,” both documents state.

Community organisations in Australia have documented sharp increases in antisemitism and also anti-Palestinian racism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab hostility after the 7 October Hamas attacks and Israel’s ongoing military response.

The documents show similarities between the terms of reference for each envoy.

For example, the document for the antisemitism envoy states: “Antisemitism has a long history both in Australia and internationally, with a significant increase since the 7 October 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, the ongoing conflict and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“This has given rise to the increasing urgency of addressing Antisemitism in the domestic Australian context.”

The second document uses identical language in this section but with Islamophobia substituted in place of antisemitism.

However, the documents differ in how they describe the effect of the problem on Australian society as a whole.

The first says surging antisemitic incidents “threaten the safety and security not only of Australia’s Jewish community but also of Australia as a whole and its future as a peaceful, free, cohesive and diverse multicultural society”.

But the second document says surging discrimination and harassment of Muslim Australians “points to further work that needs to be done to counteract harmful perceptions, stereotypes and behaviours”.
Here I Am With Shai Davidai: EP 08 Adela Cojab Moadeb
Welcome to the 8th episode of "Here I Am with Shai Davidai," a podcast that delves into the rising tide of antisemitism through insightful discussions with top Jewish advocates.

In this episode of Here I Am With Shai Davidai, Adela Cojab Moadeb, the conversation delves into Adela's multifaceted Jewish identity and activism.

Adela introduces herself as a Diaspora Jew with Syrian, Lebanese, Mexican, and Canadian roots. She emphasizes the importance of the Jewish diaspora in supporting Israel and maintaining Jewish identity globally. Adela discusses the strong, united nature of the Mexican Jewish community and its parallels with the Syrian Jewish community in New Jersey.

She highlights the risks of assimilation and the importance of preserving Jewish identity and traditions. The conversation also touches on Adela's experiences with antisemitism and her commitment to fighting for Jewish civil rights. This episode underscores the significance of Jewish unity and the role of the diaspora in advocating for Israel and Jewish causes worldwide.


U.S. Campuses: The 'Taboo' Ignored Pandemic of Muslim Jew-Hate
ADL further recorded a total of 400 antisemitic incidents on college and university campuses, compared to only 33 incidents during the same period in 2022. Ugly incidents of U.S. campus antisemitism persisted throughout the spring 2024 semester year.

Routine empirical, if taboo, observation clearly indicates that often, the most vociferous and violent U.S. student campus antisemites share a common Islamic/Muslim religio-ethnic identity. A courageous, expansive Brandeis University study was just published addressing the potential validity of this anecdotal observation by analyzing U.S. undergraduate college student religious affiliation as a critical, independent factor animating their Jew-hatred.

Sadly, but with depressing predictability, the study's seminal, if corroborative findings are being ignored by media, and the most voluble talking heads and "public intellectuals," across the ideological spectrum.

The study authors concluded that although "a climate of universal anti-Jewish hatred" did not exist, Jewish student concerns about antisemitism were justified, and "driven by about a third of students who held distinct patterns of beliefs about Jews and Israel." Specifically, "Identifying as Muslim was significantly associated with being either hostile to Israel or hostile to Jews, even after controlling for other factors." Furthermore, compared to Christians, for example, Muslims were 2.6-fold more likely to harbor the most virulent antisemitism, namely, shared hostility to both Israel and Jews.

Since 2004, ADL surveys of Muslims have been conducted in Western (European and U.S.) societies, and Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries, where Islam is the state religion. MENA Muslim nations are by wide margins the 16 most antisemitic countries worldwide, where the prevalence of extreme antisemitism ranges from a "low" of 74% (in Egypt and Saudi Arabia), to 93% (among the Palestinian Muslims of Gaza, and the West Bank).

Largely consistent with these ADL MENA Muslim data, and strikingly concordant with the 2.6-fold excess of extreme Muslim antisemitism, relative to extreme Christian antisemitism, just revealed by the Brandeis study of U.S. college students, 2015, 2019, and 2023 ADL Western European reports, and a 2017 ADL U.S. report, found a 2- to 4-fold excess prevalence of extreme antisemitism, among Muslims versus Christians, or non-Muslims.

Discussion of the most plausible and discernible explanation for this global surfeit of Muslim Jew-hatred is also shunned: relentless inculcation of antisemitic motifs from the Qur'an itself, and other core Islamic texts, by the pre-eminent authoritative religious teaching institutions in Islam, such as Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam's putative "Vatican."

Identical, canonically sourced Jew-hating Islamic religious indoctrination is ubiquitous, and even embellished, in mainstream U.S. mosques, a baleful practice that has intensified following October 7, 2023.

Unfortunately, monomaniacal focus on DEI racist bias has become just the latest device to avoid any serious discussion of Islam, and the global pandemic of excess Muslim Jew-hatred. Hope springs eternal publication of the landmark Brandeis study confirming this disproportionate pandemic has reached U.S. campuses, will finally initiate honest reckoning with such uniquely Muslim bigotry.
The anti-Israel network fueling antisemitism across America
This past academic year, American college campuses saw a massive increase in anti-Israel disruptions and confrontations, often becoming openly antisemitic in nature. The trend is likely to continue into this new school year as well. The campus groups behind this surge are relatively few in number, yet their activities have dominated the news cycle for months, negatively affecting the lives of millions of Americans.

Although the tendency is to think of these campus groups as authentic, standalone, grassroots organizations, the reality is quite different.

The campus-focused groups are a part of a much larger connective network. As the Jerusalem research institute NGO Monitor has documented, they are part of an interconnected web of funders, advocacy groups, lobbyists, legal supports and research centers cooperating to drive an anti-Israel agenda. Research shows both the quantitative and qualitative partnerships between these various groups and erases any pretense of their independent or grassroots nature.

For example, Students for Justice in Palestine and Students for a Democratic Society—two active campus groups—receive funds and assistance from multiple advocacy, law and research groups. Purporting to be student-led, these groups rely heavily on the broader American anti-Israel network to promote and execute their activities and push their agenda.

This network also includes terror-affiliated organizations, such as Samidoun and the Palestine Youth Movement. Samidoun has been designated by Israel as a terrorist group and a “subsidiary” of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It has been banned in Germany, and France dissolved a member of the Samidoun Network, Collectif Palestine Vaincra due to “calls for hatred, violence and discrimination.” In America, Discover stopped allowing credit-card donations to the Alliance for Global Justice, Samidoun’s fiscal sponsor, citing the relationship with Samidoun. Since then, other payment processors including PayPal and Stripe have followed suit and stopped working with the alliance.
Anti-Israel Activists Crash Toronto Film Festival Opening Night Screening
The first night of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was interrupted Thursday when anti-Israel protesters briefly tried to interrupt screening of the opening offering.

Their chants targeted Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) which is the official bank partner of the annual celebration of film.

The Hollywood Reporter notes the protest came before a screening of David Gordon Green‘s opening movie Nutcrackers, starring Ben Stiller, held at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre ahead of a nearby opening screening attended by the star.

The outlet set out what happened next, noting four protesters chanted “From Turtle Island to Palestine, RBC funds genocide” and raised banners declaring “RBC is killing our future” and urging: “TIFF, cut ties with RBC.”

After about four minutes, and amid a chorus of boos from the audience, the demonstrators were led out of the theatre by security.

A group called RBC Off Screen said in an emailed statement seen by the Canadian Press that the protest was “an act of solidarity with those fighting to address the climate emergency, as well as end the war in Gaza, and support Indigenous sovereignty.”

The statement said the disruption was part of ongoing calls from some film workers and environmental groups for TIFF to sever ties with RBC. The group is critical of the bank’s connection to the fossil fuel industry, as well as its investments in weapons manufacturers implicated in the Israel-Hamas war.

RBC called the protest “unfortunate” and said such demonstrations shift attention from artists and are “weakening support” for the arts.

“We respect the right of individuals to make their voices heard, but it’s unfortunate to see activist groups attempting to co-opt this important cultural event,” the bank said in a statement to the Canadian Press late Thursday, adding it felt deeply for those affected by the “humanitarian crisis in Israel and Gaza.”


Labour councillor accepts saying ‘we need to cut throats of far-Right rioters’, court told
A Labour councillor has accepted that he told a crowd “we need to cut [the] throats” of far-Right rioters as he pleaded not guilty to encouraging violent disorder.

Ricky Jones, who has been suspended from the party, was arrested following an anti far-Right demonstration in Walthamstow, north-east London, on Aug 7.

The 57-year-old has been accused of making remarks and a gesture encouraging others to act violently towards far-Right rioters.

At a previous hearing, a judge said: “It is alleged that, using a microphone, you addressed a crowd at an anti-fascist protest and, talking about others you described as ‘disgusting Nazi fascists’, you said: ‘We need to cut their throats and get rid of them.’”

On Friday, Mr Jones appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court via video link from Wormwood Scrubs prison, pleading not guilty to one charge of encouraging violent disorder. Ricky Jones has been accused of making remarks and a gesture encouraging others to act violently

Hossein Zahir KC, the defence barrister, told the court his client accepted that he had made the remarks.

Mr Zahir said: “The words are agreed to have been spoken, though it’s denied that he believed the offence of violent disorder would be committed or that his actions could play any part in encouraging the offence.”

Ben Holt, for the prosecution, told the court that at least two police officers would be called as witnesses and the Crown would seek to set out the context of the alleged offence during the trial.


Pro-Palestine group attacks Mount Scopus kids
A vile social media attack against Jewish schoolchildren in Melbourne has prompted a call for police to take action.

The post by a pro-Palestinian group, which The AJN has chosen not to name, targeted Mount Scopus Memorial College.

It featured photographs of former pupils serving with the IDF and called for a reconsideration of the financial support the school receives from the government.

College Principal Dan Sztrajt said the school is disgusted by what he called an attempt to incite hatred against the Jewish community and instil fear amongst our school’s families.

“This post is intended to antagonise the Melbourne Jewish community and direct violence toward Australian children and youth. By choosing to intentionally include images of current primary and secondary aged children, the creators have no regard for the impact of their actions that directly threatens the safety and wellbeing of children,” he said.

Sztrajt said an example of this impact is that the post has inspired comments that have called for acts of violence against the school and students.

“The public targeting of children is simply unacceptable and should be illegal. I expect Victoria Police to act against those advocating for violence against Australian children and Jewish schools,” he said.

Sztrait said as professionals who have dedicated their professional lives to the care of young people, he and his staff are heartbroken to see their students being subjected to these hate-filled comments and calls for violence.

Even some of the pro-Palestinian commenters on the social media post seemed uneasy about harassing Jewish schoolchildren, warning it might damage the integrity of their movement.

Member for Macnamara, Josh Burns, who is Jewish and a former pupil at Mount Scopus, said this sort of behaviour should be seen as criminal.

“There is absolutely no justifiable reason to target Jewish day schools, and especially not Jewish schoolchildren. To target and intimate Jewish school children whether online or not is unacceptable,” he said.
Tony Burke rival shared post celebrating October 7 attacks
A high-profile doctor running against Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke in his western Sydney seat has outraged Jewish community leaders by sharing social media posts celebrating Hamas’s October 7 attacks and portraying them as a dream come true.

Cairo-born GP Ziad Basyouny made headlines in August when he announced his candidacy for Burke’s seat of Watson, becoming the first of several independent candidates from Muslim backgrounds expected to challenge Labor incumbents in previously safe electorates.

Watson – which includes suburbs such as Lakemba, Punchbowl and Greenacre — has one of the highest percentages of Muslims in the country, making it a target for Muslim campaigners who believe the Albanese government has been too supportive of Israel since the war in Gaza began.

On October 12 last year, five days after the attacks that killed an estimated 1200 people in Israel, Basyouny shared a Facebook post containing an illustration of a rock-throwing protester and a machine-gun-wielding paraglider, according to screenshots provided to this masthead.

The original post by another Facebook user, which Basyouny shared to his 132,000 followers, featured an Arabic caption saying: “Dreams, my friend, come true for those who seek and work to see them come true!”

Hamas militants used paragliders to breach the Gaza-Israel border on October 7 in their first known use of the tactic while 1987, the date under the image of the rock-throwing figure, is the year of the Palestinian uprising known as the First Intifada.

After initially saying that he would examine the Facebook post and provide a response, Basyouny did not respond to multiple subsequent requests for comment.

Sky News previously reported that Basyouny used a separate Facebook post to share videos of people appearing to celebrate the attacks in Sydney’s west on October 8, the day news of the massacre broke in Australia.

When asked about that post, Basyouny told Sky News: “It’s exactly what’s written. It was. It is obvious that this post was related to Palestinians celebrating being out of the cage.”

He went on to say that “all life lost is tragic, all life, every life lost is tragic. I condemn attacking civilians in any shape or form and that’s my position.”

Basyouny, who has since changed the name of his personal Facebook account, has identified Palestine as one of his top campaign issues, alongside the cost-of-living crisis, housing, education and health.


Telling-off for pro-Palestinians who ‘usurped’ Mardi Gras
Six activists who jumped the barriers at Sydney’s Mardi Gras, holding pro-Palestine banners and flares, have been scolded by a magistrate for hijacking an event with a different decades-old message.

The unauthorised protest took place at Sydney’s biggest LGBTQI celebration in March at a parade which had 12,000 participants and around 129,000 people watching on.

Diego Garcia-Miranda, 25, Lucky Dodd, 30, Alexandra Claire Moulis, 35, Karli Jane Munn, 41, Miranda Kymalee Gibson, 43, and Claire Pettigrew, 39, were all arrested and faced Downing Centre Local Court for sentencing on Thursday.

They were part of Queer Solidarity with Palestine Resistance, and unfurled banners displaying the group’s name during the Mardi Gras.

Dodd, Moulis, Munn and Gibson jumped the barriers at the parade and marched along holding the banners.

When a police officer took hold of Dodd to try to remove them from the parade, Pettigrew then grabbed the officer’s vest and pulled.

Garcia-Miranda was also involved in the protest, holding a flare which emitted a reddish-pink smoke.

In court on Thursday, the group’s lawyer Paige Hackett said they were all valuable members of the community, most of whom were in court for the first time.

In sentencing the group, Magistrate Theo Tsavdaridis acknowledged the horrific events in Israel and Palestine.

“There is no one who was not in some way affected by what took place in October 2023 in the Middle East,” he said.

However, he said that the protest engaged in by each of the six individuals was anything but peaceful.

They had “usurped” the Mardi Gras parade for their own agenda, he said.


Teachers’ union accused of spreading ‘extreme hatred of Israel’
The National Education Union (NEU) is seeking to harden the trade union movement’s approach to Israel, labelling it an “apartheid state” guilty of “ethnic cleansing”.

A motion submitted by the union for discussion at the Trades Union Congress’s annual conference in Brighton (Congress 2024), held from September 8-11 – shy of a month away from the anniversary of Hamas’s atrocities on October 7 – contains no mention of the terrorist group’s actions which started the war in Gaza.

The teachers’ union is urging delegates to call on the government to “immediately recognise the State of Palestine”, “end the arms trade with Israel”, “following the ICJ and ICC statements, impose sanctions upon individuals and entities who have made statements inciting genocide against Palestinians” and “revoke the 2030 Road Map for UK-Israel bilateral relations”, a bilateral cooperation agreement between the two countries that looks to strengthen ties. It also calls for a “permanent ceasefire and the release of all hostages and Palestinian political prisoners.”

Russell Langer, Director of Public Affairs at the Jewish Leadership Council, told the JC: “The failure to include in this motion any mention of the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas demonstrates that its proposers have no desire for peace. They simply wish to further spread extreme hatred of Israel. Jewish members of trade unions will once again see their representatives play gesture politics while ignoring the very real issue of how this conflict – and the corresponding rise of antisemitism – is directly affecting them in workplaces here in the UK.”

An amendment to the motion from Unison, Britain’s largest trade union, also urges support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement and welcomes the fall of the Economic Activities of Public Bodies Bill (so-called anti-BDS bill), brought by the previous Conservative government but which wasn’t carried over into the new Parliament following the general election.

Steve Scott, Director of Britain Israel Trade Union Dialogue told the JC: "It is outrageous that a motion from the NEU to be debated at this year's TUC Congress has no reference to the appalling Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7. You think there is no reason for the current war in Gaza and I think this insults the intelligence of those attending the Congress."

"As for an arms embargo, this will not stop this conflict but rather embolden others in the region to continue attacks on Israel as they see that they are weakening those who want peace".

"Of course we want an urgent end to this war and a return of all the hostages and in the longer term a resumption of a process that ultimately leads to two states."


The anti-Israel profs who aided the illegal U of T encampment
As the new school year gets underway, a report released Thursday by Canary Mission, an organization that documents antisemitic and anti-Israel activity on North American campuses, paints a grim picture of how University of Toronto administrators sat back as their campus was overrun by terrorist supporters and outside agitators. In particular, the report lists dozens of U of T faculty, the very people responsible for educating future generations, who aided and abetted last spring’s illegal anti-Israel encampment.

Following in the footsteps of similar encampments at American universities, on May 2, a group breached a fence surrounding the newly revitalized King’s College Circle and occupied the courtyard for a period of two months. When I visited the site the following week, the fence was littered with posters excusing Hamas’s atrocities and calling for violent uprisings in Israel and here at home.

Canary Mission found that 153 professors, including 123 employed by U of T, publicly supported the encampment, 45 actively participated in it and six addressed the demonstrators.

Thugs hiding their identities behind keffiyehs and surplus medical masks strictly controlled access to the area, forcing those who wished to enter to agree with a series of statements designed to ensure that no Zionists — or anyone advocating for peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, for that matter — would be allowed to infect the encampment with their blasphemous ideas.

At the time, it wasn’t entirely clear who was behind the protest, or how many of those who had pitched tents on university property actually attended classes there. The Canary Mission report — titled, “University of Toronto’s Antisemitic Encampment & the University’s Shocking Complicity” — provides some unique insight in this regard.

According to its authors, this “was not primarily a grassroots student protest.” Instead, the so-called People’s Circle for Palestine was home to “a slew of outside agitators, including faculty, health care workers, climate justice groups, labour activists, trade unionists, gay rights activists, socialists/Marxists and activists with local chapters (of) the Palestine Youth Movement and Samidoun.”

In other words: the usual array of left-wing, anti-western agitators and the “useful idiots” of Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It’s little wonder that the protest quickly devolved into Jew-hate. As Ontario Superior Court judge Markus Koehnen noted in his ruling granting an injunction against the encampment, there were numerous documented instances of overtly antisemitic statements, including: “kike,” “We need another holocost” (sic), “Jews belong in the sea Palestine will be free,” “Death To the Jews, Hamas for Prime Minister,” “You dirty f–ing Jew. Go back to Europe” and “Itbach El Yahod” (“slaughter the Jews”).
Columbia Students Target ‘War Criminal’ and ‘Israel Global Propagandist’ Hillary Clinton With Sit-In Protest
Dozens of anti-Israel students at Columbia University gathered outside former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s "sham class" on Wednesday to protest her "war crimes" and urged attending students to walk out.

Clinton teaches a fall semester course at Columbia called "Inside the Situation Room," which is open to students by application only. Videos of the sit-in, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, show students outside the former secretary of state’s class demanding the school divest from Israel, chanting, "From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever." The protesters displayed several banners and cardboard signs that said, "Resist until victory," "Resistance is justified when people are occupied," "The Palestinian resistance is alive, not dead," and "Fa[s]cist bootlicker we know [yo]u."

The sit-in was organized by the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs Palestine Working Group. A poster advertising the event featured a bloody image of Clinton with crossed-out eyes and a caption that read, "Welcome to IGP: Israel Global Propagandists." The acronym is a riff on Columbia’s Institute of Global Politics, which Clinton heads.

"JOIN US in a sit in as we speak out against the war criminal Hillary Clinton," the Palestine Working Group wrote. "Tell Columbia & SIPA, we will not stand for genocide, propaganda and the militarization of our campus! We call on all students to walk out of Hillary’s sham class! #copsoffcampus."

Columbia University Apartheid Divest and the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter similarly promoted the event on social media, declaring that Clinton is "not welcome on campus." A day earlier, the group praised Hamas leaders and promised that protests would continue.

"We’re making it clear: War criminals are not welcome on campus. Hillary Clinton has actively engaged in war crimes against the peoples of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Palestine," the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter posted on X. "Hillary Clinton has used her power & influence to cause devastation across the globe. As secretary of state, Clinton backed arm deals to bomb Yemen, interfered in Haitian elections, & lied about ‘mass rape in Libya’ to support a regime change."


As Meta’s Oversight Board Clears Palestinian Slogan for Use, Critics Warn of Genocide Implications
The US Constitution’s First Amendment protects controversial speech, including “From the river to the sea,” from government censorship. However, private companies like Meta can set their own content rules and are not obligated to allow all speech. Platforms such as TikTok and Facebook, and institutions such as universities and private companies, often implement stricter regulations, banning expressions that the government permits.

Arsen Ostrovsky, human rights attorney and CEO of the Israel-based International Legal Forum, praised Meta as one of the leading platforms in combating terror-related material and antisemitic content, including Holocaust distortion, and recognizing the misuse of “Zionist” as a proxy for hate speech.

“It is therefore all the more puzzling and bewildering that they would now deem that the phrase ‘From the river to the sea’ does not necessarily constitute hate speech,” he said.

“There can be no equivocation that this phrase, especially in the wake of October 7, is a genocidal call for the elimination of the Jewish state. The fact that some might interpret it differently is irrelevant. Its vast interpretation has come to mean a rallying-call for the destruction of Israel and used to incite violence against Jews abroad, especially on campuses in America. In deeming that not to necessarily be the case, Meta is essentially legitimizing calls for the destruction of Israel and abetting the incitement to violence against Jews,” said Ostrovsky.

He noted that this decision could put Meta in violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, “which explicitly outlaws ‘incitement to genocide’ as a war crime, as well as federal anti-terrorism laws in the United States, which may subject Meta to both criminal prosecution and civil litigation.”

“We need to recognize also that the surge of antisemitic violence abroad, especially on campuses in America, has not occurred in a vacuum. It has been the direct result of a pervasive discourse, demonizing Israel and calls for the elimination of the Jewish state, often under the guise of purported support for Palestinian rights,” he explained.

“I would hope that Meta urgently reconsiders its position and deems that the phrase ‘From the river to the sea’ is indeed a form of virulent hate speech,” said Ostrovsky.

Attorneys Dr. Assaf Derri and Eyal Rifer argued that Meta’s decision to permit content with the slogan “From the river to the sea” conflicts with international incitement and hate speech laws.

“Regarding dual-meaning speech, the law must consider the context and intent behind the speech. In this case, the consistent use of the slogan by groups with a history of violence against Israel and Jews makes the genocidal intent clear. Social media platforms should balance free speech with preventing incitement to violence by drawing the line at speech that directly calls for the destruction of a protected group. “From the river to the sea” crosses that line and should be prohibited,” they asserted.

An expert on the Middle East, international law, and human rights law, attorney Yifa Segal emphasized that the US offers broader protections for free speech, even when it involves hate speech, compared to other Western countries.

“The big question here is: What does American law say about a call for genocide?” Segal said.

“If there was a call for genocide against Native Americans, African Americans, or Palestinians, would such a policy be allowed socially, legally, or constitutionally? I think we all know the answer to that: No. Meta’s decision to look at it as anything other than a call for genocide reflects an economic interest, while many users from the Arab world, antisemites, and neo-Nazis joyfully embrace this genocidal slogan,” she told The Media Line.

“Allowing a call for genocide against Jews can only be described as an antisemitic policy,” she said.

Segal also criticized the immunity given to social media platforms: “These platforms benefit from a type of immunity for the content they host. It’s long overdue for American lawmakers to rethink this blanket immunity. There have been attempts to hold these platforms accountable for promoting violence or hatred, but their immunity always shields them.”

“The American public needs to cry out against this immunity, and it’s time to change that reality,” concluded Segal.
Meta, Harvard are total free-speech hypocrites
Meta’s oversight board just made a decision that the pro-Palestine slogan “from the river to the sea” does not reach a threshold for hate speech.

The company’s new policy allows the term to be used on Facebook and Instagram so long as it doesn’t accompany the glorification of violence. Nonetheless, it’s a deeply offensive term which implies Israel should no longer exist and justifies a genocide of the Jewish people.

How ironic that a slogan that arguably condones genocide is not “hate speech” — especially considering Meta’s long history of censorship.

The company’s policy is to censor hate speech, which it defines as “direct attacks against people — rather than concepts or institutions— on the basis of what we call protected characteristics (PCs): race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, and serious disease.”

Meta has censored all manner of things, from Covid-19 content to the term “stupid Americans.” In August, X owner Elon Musk even called out the company for allegedly censoring British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins’ comments about transgender participation in female sports.

Why is “from the river to the sea” any less meaningful? Once you start policing speech that is offensive to some groups, you create the rightful expectation that you will do the same for others.

Legally, free speech is protected — even if it’s deeply offensive or inflammatory. The First Amendment draws a line at direct incitement to violence, which requires tolerating odious speech up until that point.

Sure, private companies are allowed to censor all they want, but in a free society we should all be interested in maximizing expression.

Jewish ACLU lawyers demonstrated remarkable restraint and principle in the 1970s when they defended the rights of literal Nazis to march through the streets of Skokie, Illinois, where many residents were Holocaust survivors.

That’s true free-speech absolutism.

In that spirit, I wouldn’t have a problem with Meta’s decision on “from the river to the sea” if not for its revealing hypocrisy.
EXPOSED: Hamas Honored Reuters Journalists in Gaza
For years, particularly during conflicts between Israel and Hamas, Palestinian journalists in Gaza have proudly accepted international press awards. What they have kept quiet — for obvious reasons — was the fact that they were also showered with honors by Hamas.

An HonestReporting review of Palestinian media revealed that since 2015, the proscribed terror group has hosted annual ceremonies to honor these Gazan journalists for their prestigious awards, including photographers from Reuters. A further review of their social media accounts revealed terror group insignias adorning what was then the Reuters office in Gaza.

This cozy relationship between Gaza’s terror groups and the journalists tasked with covering them objectively is ethically flawed. It exposes the disturbing entanglement between terrorists and the media, shaping a distorted global narrative about Gaza.

Honored by Terrorists
In 2017, Hamas held a commendation event for international award-winning journalists in Gaza, where it honored Reuters photographer Suhaib Jadallah Salem, who is currently the agency’s head of visuals for Gaza.

One of the photos from the event shows Suhaib’s brother Mohammed Jadallah Salem, a Reuters photographer who recently won the Pulitzer prize and the World Press Photo award, receiving Suhaib’s commendation plaque on his behalf. Two senior Hamas officials are granting the plaque: Khalil al-Hayya and Mushir al-Masri:

Al-Hayya has publicly called for a fight against Israel as “the head of the serpent,” and al-Masri has vowed to “uproot The Zionists With Our Axes, Knives, Guns.”

Receiving commendation from such terrorists is a mark of Cain. It should get any journalist disciplined by any respectable media outlet.

Yet Reuters journalists — knowing perhaps that their bosses won’t find out or even care — had no qualms getting into bed with Hamas. Another photo from the event shows other Reuters journalists around a table not too far from al-Hayya: Reuters Senior Gaza correspondent Nidal al-Mughrabi is sitting near Suhaib’s brother Mohammed and photographer Ashraf Amra (who was also honored at the event and exposed by HonestReporting for endorsing infiltration into Israel on October 7). Beside them is Belal Jadallah, who headed the allegedly “independent” Gaza Press House:

Suhaib himself attended a separate Hamas commendation event for journalists later in 2017. This time, he was honored for performing the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca:

Suhaib received the commendation from al-Masri and Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum (who have often been interviewed by Reuters), along with the movement’s media officials.

It’s worth noting that four of the Jadallah brothers work for Reuters, in Gaza and Dubai. And the links of the Jadallah family to Hamas go back years. One of the brothers of Suhaib and Mohammed, Sallah, was among the terrorists who kidnapped and killed Israeli soldier Nahshon Waxman in 1994.

The mastermind behind that operation was Moahmmed Deif, who was recently eliminated by Israel. As Hamas’ military chief, Deif was also one of the masterminds behind the October 7 massacre in southern Israel.

If Suhaib and Mohammed were professional journalists, such background wouldn’t necessarily matter. But if they have been hosted and honored by Hamas, it’s alarming.


MEMRI: Article On Saudi News Portal: Hamas' Operatives Hide Among The Civilian Population; They Are Cowards Who Do Not Value The Lives Of The Gazans
In an article titled "Fighting from Behind Civilians" on the Saudi news portal Elaph, Kurdish writer Kamil Salman criticized Hamas' operatives for hiding behind the civilian population in Gaza and thereby placing hundreds of thousands of people in mortal danger, a practice he called both foolish and cowardly. He added that Hamas' fighters are manipulated by foreign elements and do not recognize the value of human life.[1]

The following are translated excerpts from his article:[2]
"The Palestinian combatant who fights his Israeli enemy is a brave fighter defending his right to his land. However, his courage loses credibility when he hides behind unarmed civilians. By doing so, this fighter presents the civilians with two options, both of which are grim: they must either guide the Israeli army to the Palestinian fighter’s hiding place – an act of betrayal that this great nation could not conceivably commit – or else remain silent despite knowing the fighter’s location, and pay the price for this. This is a catastrophe, because the Israeli enemy will treat the civilians as enemies who are harboring and collaborating with the armed combatants it is fighting, and therefore destroy the civilians’ homes, evict them and sometimes kill them.

"This scenario has repeatedly played out in Gaza, and it is now [also] occurring in the West Bank and in South Lebanon. When will the Palestinian fighter learn the lesson and distance himself from civilians, realizing that it is concentrations of innocent civilians that will be harmed? Is this [practice of] hiding [among civilians] a sign of military wisdom, or of growing stupidity? Is it courage or cowardice?

"O brave fighter, if you are fighting for your homeland, know that the homeland is not just the sand on the ground but also the lives and the honor of those unarmed, innocent people. Harming their honor and endangering their lives is tantamount to polluting the homeland. [So choose] one of two options: either perfect your courage by confronting your enemy face to face, and thus prevent the danger from reaching your family, your loved ones, your neighbors and those dear to you, or else put down your weapon. There are many ways to confront someone stronger than you, and wise people know them – but insisting on exposing civilians to danger is [just] recklessness and ignorance.

"Are 100,000 Gazans dead and wounded not enough for you? Are you hoping that your enemy will leave you alone if you hide behind civilians? Your enemy has been clear and explicit. It has repeatedly said that, if you hide behind civilians, the civilians will not be safe from harm – and it has repeatedly acted on this. Have you understood your enemy, or do you need more experience and more innocent victims in order to realize what your enemy is like?

"Oh jihad fighter, the method of hiding behind civilians is effective only when the civilians in question are the family members, loved ones or associates of the enemy army, not your own family members. Don't delude yourself that you did the right thing when you hid behind hundreds of thousands of people and [thus] saved your own life but placed their lives in danger. That is a dirty game that an honorable fighter should not engage in.

"They [i.e., Hamas] say they are doing this to blacken the name of the Israeli enemy and [demonstrate] its barbarity to the world. Ok, now that you have blackened the name of your Israeli enemy, what has this philosophy done for you? What has it done for the Palestinian people? You beg the humanitarian [aid] organizations to help children, pregnant women, the elderly and the sick. Yet the countries of the world witness your tragedies and do not even verbally condemn your enemy. On the contrary, most of them support Israel with money, weapons and propaganda. So perhaps you are blackening the enemy's name only in your own eyes?

"You remember very well all the Israeli civilians that were killed and captured on October 7, [2023], who are enough to blacken your name for decades to come. That was [a real act of] of blackening [someone's name]! That is how the wise and the strong play [the game]. And if you are neither strong nor wise, leave it to those who have gained 70 years of experience. The PLO leaders fought the enemy before you with patriotism and loyalty for many decades, until they turned to wise diplomacy as a way to regain their rights. They know more than you about the Palestinian cause and its sorrows, and they never betrayed their cause or accepted the patronage of others, as you are doing today.


Iran plotted to assassinate Biden, Trump, Haley, per FBI document
Iran tried to hire assassins to kill politicians, including U.S. President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, according to FBI documents, which the office of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released on Thursday.

“Bad actors are determined to wreak havoc on our country, and American political leaders across both parties are sitting squarely in the crosshairs,” the senator stated. “In this extraordinarily heightened threat environment, federal agencies ought to be laser-focused on building up public trust and reassuring the American people of their efforts to carry out their protective missions.”

The PDF document of the report, which was reported widely and has circulated on social media, is no longer live on Grassley’s website.

The FBI marked the document in question unclassified and never labeled it as “for official use only” or “law enforcement sensitive,” according to Grassley’s office.

The senator’s office also told JNS that it redacted parts of the document and that disclosing the unclassified document is consistent with the independent congressional oversight authority. It added that the U.S. Department of Justice acknowledged the latter to Grassley’s office directly.

Grassley is waiting for the Justice Department and the FBI to provide a valid reason about why publishing the information impacts a federal investigation, and the Justice Department published a press release and 15-page indictment a month ago, per the senator’s office.


Israeli startup Own purchased for $1.9 billion by Salesforce
Own, an Israeli startup specializing in data backup, was acquired by Salesforce for $1.9 billion in cash, the San Francisco-based software giant announced Thursday.

The deal is pending approval from regulators, though Salesforce expects it will be finalized by the fourth quarter of its 2025 fiscal year, according to a statement by the company.

Salesforce already owns 10 percent of Own, and the new deal will see it acquire the remaining 90% of the company, placing the Israeli startup’s total value at over $2.1 billion.

Unlike most startups, Own began within the framework of an existing business, according to Haaretz. The company was founded in 2006 in Herzilya under the name of “Recover Information Technologies” by Eran Cohen, Daniel Gershoni and Ariel Berkman, and initially specialized in recovering information from hard drives, discs and memory cards for private and business clients.

Eventually, the company began data recovery from Cloud-based platforms like Gmail and Facebook, using technology developed by Berkman, who served in Unit 81 of the Israel Defense Forces’ intelligence branch, Haaretz reported.

In 2015, the company changed its name to OwnBackup — and eventually Own — after a few US-based venture capitalists invested in it. OwnBackup began dealing exclusively with backing up and retrieving data from companies using Salesforce management software, Haaretz reported.
On March 11, 1978, Dalal Mughrabi, a 19-year-old Palestinian woman, led a group of 13 terrorists from Lebanon by boat and landed on an Israeli beach
On March 11, 1978, Dalal Mughrabi, a 19-year-old Palestinian woman, led a group of 13 terrorists from Lebanon by boat and landed on an Israeli beach between the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa. Realizing that they had missed their target destination of Tel Aviv, the group casually ate lunch on the beach, then ran into nature photographer Gail Rubin, a New Yorker and the niece of a U.S. senator. They asked her for directions to Tel Aviv and then Mughrabi shot Rubin point blank.

They flagged down a taxi, killed its occupants and began driving to Tel Aviv. En route, they hijacked a bus full of civilians and proceeded to shoot Kalashnikovs and toss grenades at passing vehicles. They killed one of the bus passengers, tossed the body from the vehicle and carried on.

They commandeered a second bus, piling the surviving passengers from the first vehicle onto the second one, amassing 70 hostages. After blasting through successive barricades, the bus was finally stopped by a roadblock just outside the northern edge of Tel Aviv. The terrorists launched a firefight with sub-machine guns, grenades and explosives against ill-prepared and lightly armed officers. When the battle ended, 37 Israelis and one American, among them 13 children, were dead. Another 71 were wounded.

It remained the deadliest terror attack in Israeli history until October 7.

On International Women’s Day 2020, the official Palestinian Authority TV celebrated Mughrabi and other female terrorists: “They are the mothers of the leaders and the sisters of the heroes. They are the praiseworthy rebels who have carried the weapons and created generations of educated people.” A photo was tagged: “Heroic Martyr Dalal Mughrabi.”

Today, throughout Palestine, Mughrabi’s photo adorns posters and T-shirts. “Sisters of Dalal” groups exist on university campuses. In 2010, a town square was named in her honor. In 2017, a women’s center was named in honor of Mughrabi, funded in part by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and the government of Norway.

“We are all Dalal Mughrabi,” the New York Times quoted a member of the Fatah Central Committee saying at the dedication. “For us she is not a terrorist [but] a fighter who fought for the liberation of her own land.”

A 22-year-old who attended the ceremony said, “Dalal sacrificed for her country and is a symbol for every Palestinian girl.”
Mark Levin receives JNS ‘Shield of Jerusalem’ award
The conservative talk-show host and lawyer Mark Levin hearkened back to the U.S. Civil War, seeking a comparison to present-day Israel, as he took the stage before an overflow crowd in Las Vegas on Wednesday evening.

“You think it was worth over 700,000 casualties to end slavery? I do,” he said at the event, which took place on the sidelines of the annual RJC Annual Leadership Summit, this year held in Las Vegas from Sept. 4-6.

Levin described Abraham Lincoln’s position ahead of the 1864 presidential election, with draft riots tearing the North apart and nearly every family in the nation devastated by the war.

“Lincoln was told it was time for compromise. It was time for a settlement,” Levin said. “He said ‘No. I’m going to lose this election, but I’m going to do what’s right because if we stop now, we’ll have two countries—one slave, one not—and all these people will have perished for nothing.”

With his country torn apart, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is being told over and over and over again, ‘Settle. Make a deal with these people. You’ll get the hostages back,’” Levin said. “He says, ‘We can’t make a deal with these people.’”

Netanyahu is refusing to buckle, just as Lincoln did, according to Levin.

Levin’s discussion was part of a tribute during which JNS presented him with the Shield of Jerusalem award for his “unapologetic stance” against rising antisemitism and “courage in fighting Israel’s critical media battle.” JNS also recognized his “dedication to Israel and the Jewish people” and “tireless commitment to truth and integrity, and standing up for the fundamental values of the United States and Israel.”




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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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