Sunday, September 22, 2024

09/22 Links: I Survived Hamas Captivity, but I’m Not Yet Free; Netanyahu: Hezbollah dealt ‘blows it couldn’t have imagined’; Disagreement over Sinwar's possible death

From Ian:

I Survived Hamas Captivity, but I’m Not Yet Free
The last time I saw my husband, Keith, was on November 26. He was lying on a filthy mattress on the floor of a darkened room and could barely look at me. We had spent 51 days together as Hamas’s hostages after being violently abducted from our home on October 7. I had been told earlier that day that my name was on the list; I was to be released and sent back home to Israel. Keith was to be left behind.

My long journey out of Gaza was filled with fear and sadness. I was sure our son had been murdered on October 7 in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where we lived. The Hamas terrorists had been telling us throughout our captivity that Israel had been destroyed; I didn’t know what I would find. When I finally arrived at the border, I was told that all four of my children were waiting for me in the hospital. The attack on Kfar Aza had killed 64 people, and another 19 had been taken hostage, but my son had miraculously survived. I looked up and saw the moon for the first time in 51 days and screamed with joy and relief that he was alive and I was free.

I spent my first night of freedom in the hospital with my three daughters. I slept for perhaps an hour—I was in shock, and adrenaline was coursing through my body. I had lost 20 pounds and was weak and sick. I could not get my head around the fact that I had been separated from Keith, my husband of 43 years and my constant companion. Every day since—for nearly 300 days—I have been fighting for his release with every ounce of my being.

I think about Keith all the time, but I feel a particular pang whenever I drink water, when I take a shower, when I eat something delicious. As a hostage in Gaza, these are not things I could do. The most frustrating part is that I don’t know anything about Keith’s condition: Is he alone? (I’d love for someone to tell me that he’s not.) Is he sad, or crying? Is he in a tunnel with no oxygen? Is he sick or being tortured? Has he eaten any food at all today? Is he alive?

Keith is an American citizen. He was born and raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina—also the hometown of James Taylor, his favorite singer. In his early 20s, he moved to Israel, where we met and started a life together. I was a nursery-school teacher, working with the children of the kibbutz, and Keith was an occupational therapist who was working for a pharmaceutical company. Our entire lives centered on supporting each other and our community, nourishing the next generation with family time and instilling the values of respect, integrity, and acceptance of the other in our four children and five grandchildren.

Keith is the kindest, most gentle man you could ever meet. He makes friends wherever he goes and is universally loved by people and animals. Thirty years ago, Keith learned Arabic so that he could talk with the Palestinian workers on the kibbutz, whom he swiftly befriended. A lifelong vegetarian, he held fast to his values in captivity. He wouldn’t even eat a few tiny morsels of chicken when the terrorists gave us more than our standard daily rations of half a pita or a few bites of plain rice.

We are both lifelong peacemakers and activists. That’s one reason what happened to us and to our community was so shocking.
Melanie Phillips: A most ungodly church
Did Welby and his four clerics make the slightest attempt to discover the truth of this story? Did they consult the Israeli court records? Did they even ask the Israelis for their side of the story? Of course not. As usual, they believed the claims of those who routinely defame Israel in order to destroy it — just as the International Court of Justice’s opinion was based on exactly the same kind of lies and distortions.

The church hierarchy’s venom towards Israel — as in secular liberal circles — goes beyond reason. For years, clerics have blamed Israel for the flight of Christians from the once-Christian majority town of Bethlehem, even though a) the town is run by Muslims who are actually responsible for oppressing and terrorising the town’s Christians; b) not even Israel’s worst enemies claim that Israel has a particular animus against Christians anywhere, so why should Christians flee Bethlehem while the Muslims remain? c) Israel is in fact the only country in the Middle East where Christians are safe and thriving.

The deranged nature of the church’s attitude has been illustrated by the bishop of Gloucester, Rachel Treweek — one of the four signatories to the Guardian letter. In July, she called Israel an “apartheid state” and said she stood “boldly” with people who compared the Israeli treatment of Palestinians to how black people were treated in apartheid South Africa.

Since Treweek doesn’t even appear to understand that the Palestinian Arabs of the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria aren’t Israeli citizens because these areas aren’t part of Israel — which means that the situation of these Palestinian Arabs is entirely different from the black citizens of South Africa who were disempowered and denied their citizens’ rights under apartheid — she clearly doesn’t even understand what apartheid was. The depths of her ignorance thus exceed even her bigotry.

And on that last point, as I have written on many occasions the church’s bigotry towards Israel is underpinned by theological antisemitism — the revival of the ancient, murderous Christian heresy of supersessionism, now turbo-charged by cynically substituting the Palestinian Arabs for the Christians who, according this heresy, inherited all God’s promises to the Jews who were accordingly denounced as the party of the Devil.

This heresy caused the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews in pre-modern Europe. Now it has been re-purposed and re-weaponised to incite murderous hatred of the Jews of Israel.

This most ungodly church has long horrified and embarrassed Christians of integrity who are faithful to the Bible and to the truth. The falsehoods about Israel that the church has has been promoting have played a key role in knocking the west off its moral compass.

In Britain and elsewhere in the world, decent Christians should now rise up and publicly denounce the antisemitism of the church hierarchy and the lies about Israel that it is constantly promoting, and demand that it immediately stop perpetrating such murderous evil.
Waving Flags, Telling Lies
On Friday, October 6, 2023, I was just another well-meaning left wing guy who sympathised with the Palestinian people, who felt that Zionism was an ugly 19th-century invention of evil colonisers, and cared about the plight of refugees. I was definitely not "woke," in contrast to most, but I was certain that I knew how wicked the State of Israel was. Then, on October 7th, I awoke from my delusional thinking and re-examined my terribly flawed preconceptions. Here’s what I found.

The atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th 2023 were a stark wake-up call to the world - or at least, they should have been. A bloodbath, an orgy of violence motivated by hate that defied any semblance of humanity, nearly 1000 women and children were raped, murdered in their beds, butchered in the streets, or taken hostage by violent, ideologically driven men full of hate for Jews. This was not a battle for freedom. But in the aftermath, as the world watched in horror, an equally grotesque spectacle took place: social media profiles with Palestinian flags on them, protests where people chanted "From the river to the sea" as though it were a call for peace rather than a barely disguised threat of genocide, or, as was the case in Sydney, Australia, just "Gas the Jews."

There is no way to justify this madness; individuals who fly the Palestinian flag in public or from the comfort of their social media bubbles are not supporting humanitarian causes. Whether they realise it or not, they are allying themselves with the most sinister forces in history. To march with a keffiyeh around your neck, shouting slogans of Palestinian liberation, is to goose-step through history, chanting "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer" with every step. Though the slogans themselves may have changed, their hateful meaning has not.

Jews are the indigenous people of Israel. This is not a matter of opinion; it is a matter of historical fact, as undeniable as the existence of Rome or the pyramids of Egypt. As historian Paul Johnson reminds us, “No people has ever been so continuously identified with one small piece of earth over such a long span of time as the Jews with their land.” To deny this is to engage in the same kind of historical revisionism that Holocaust deniers revel in. However, the anti-Zionist movement, which is frequently supported by those who criticise colonialism, ignores this truth in a twisted mockery of the indigenous rights that so many of these people claim to support.

Imagine if contemporary Britons decided that the history and culture of the Scots, Welsh, Cornish, and Irish should be suppressed and their people banished from their homeland, believing it to be a product of colonialism. The world would rightly react with horror and condemnation. However, when it comes to Israel, the Palestinians—whose unique identity is a 20th-century invention—are celebrated as the rightful owners, while the real indigenous people are written off as invaders. It’s a narrative so absurd that it belongs in the pages of a dystopian novel, not in the discourse of supposedly enlightened societies. Who, in reality, do people believe persecuted Jews and forced so many to escape during the diaspora out of fear for their lives? History, as they say, is written by the victors, but in the case of Israel, it’s being rewritten by the losers - those who lost their moral compass somewhere along the way. After centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust, Jews returned to their historical homeland, a land from which they had never truly been absent. Compare this with the European settlers in Australia, who brutally displaced Aboriginal peoples and declared themselves the rightful rulers. Today, Australia wrestles with its colonial past, striving for reconciliation. However, when it comes to Israel, the same people who support justice for indigenous populations at home actively campaign to deny the Jewish people's historical existence and right to their own land.


Netanyahu: Hezbollah dealt ‘blows it couldn’t have imagined’
Israel struck Hezbollah in its Beirut stronghold in ways the group never anticipated, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Sunday, speaking after an airstrike killed a senior terrorist leader in the city and days after thousands of operatives were wounded in attacks attributed to Jerusalem.

“If Hezbollah did not understand the message, I promise you: It will understand the message,” the prime minister said in remarks shared by his office.

Israel dealt Hezbollah “a series of blows it couldn’t have imagined,” he said.

“We are determined to return our residents to their homes in the north safely. No country can tolerate shooting at its residents, shooting at its cities, and we—the State of Israel—will not tolerate it either,” Netanyahu said.

Israel’s government remains determined to do “everything necessary to restore security” along the country’s northern border, he added.

Earlier on Sunday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant during a visit to an IAF base said that the Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist army had begun “to sense some of the capabilities of the Israel Defense Forces.

“Our moves will continue until the goal is achieved. We will use everything necessary to fulfill the mission, until we reach a situation where we can return the residents of the north to their homes safely,” he said.

Thousands of terrorists were wounded and at least dozens were killed when their pagers and radio devices exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, with Hezbollah immediately blaming the Jewish state’s intelligence agencies for both attacks.

The IDF has declined to comment on the two waves of explosions—the first of which came hours after the Israeli Cabinet added the return of residents displaced from their homes in the north to the country’s war goals.

On Friday afternoon, the IDF took credit for a targeted airstrike that killed senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil—alias Al-Hajj Abdul Khader—in the Dahiyeh neighborhood of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold.


Defense establishment in disagreement on Sinwar's possible death
The IDF stated on Sunday that they can neither confirm nor deny reports on the possible death of Hamas Chief Yahya Sinwar.

Among sources consulted by The Jerusalem Post, a top source poured cold water on the notion, another source – who would be expected to have information – said they had no real information on it, while others noted disagreements within the defense establishment.

No sources referred to any kind of specific assassination operation that the IDF had carried out to kill him.

Rather, part of the debate may surround the idea that he has been out of touch with his middlemen who handled hostage negotiations and messaging – who have been out of touch for a longer period than usual.

It is also possible that some Israeli officials are trying to use psychological warfare against mid-level Hamas commanders to get them to cut some of their own deals for immunity if they return Israeli hostages in their custody.

In December, numerous reports leaked that Sinwar was dead or wounded, had fled to Sinai, or was otherwise cut off from his network and no longer in command.

It later turned out that he simply had been out of touch as part of his hiding tactics, or that all of the rumors were psychological warfare trying to get Hamas to crack after Khan Yunis started to fall to the IDF.
Richard Landes: Promoting Hamas' Narrative for Infidels
Soarez interviews Daniel Levy: CNN Journalist promotes the narrative via as-a-Jew.

If you want a good example of how Hamas’ key propaganda gets conveyed to Western publics, consider the following interview of Isa Soares and Daniel Levy discussing the possibility of an Iranian reaction to the assassination of Ismail Haniyya in Teheran…

“Blood vengeance is certain…” [no pause]. This illustrates the way Jihadis can defeat Israelis. No one expects the Jihadis (no matter how “moderately they’re otherwise portrayed in the same segment) not to play by the rules of blood vengeance. But if Israel does it, that’s a blow to her moral standing. In a Reuters story about the October 7 attacks which tries hard to make the Palestinian operation look like a military attack on Israeli soldiers, with no reference to the civilians targeted and slaughtered, the headline runs: Israel vows “mighty vengeance” after surprise attack. Part of the Jihadi cognitive war is merely smearing Israel with the mud (by liberal-progressive standards) in which they operate.

Daniel Levy: Well, of course, Israel has carried out these assassinations, these extrajudicial killings. In fact, off the back of ten months, over 300 days since an attack on October 7th, which can’t be excused since the mass killing of civilians, the devastation, the causing of humanity in catastrophe, 40,000 Palestinians dead, the 15,000 children. If you wanted to dial this down, you have to put an end to that.

Note the rapid shift from the “inexcusable” October 7th to “humanity in catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip, using Hamas-supplied statistics, highlighting the 15,000 children. “If you want to dial this down” (which, of course, any sensible and humane person would want) is another way of saying “cease-fire,” which is precisely what Hamas wants, on its terms. And it is perfectly willing to have Gazans die and fill their outraging statistics, further fueling their campaign to have the West intervene to save them. Daniel Levy is a major proponent of that desire.

And were America were the Biden administration to have a diplomatic strategy to de-escalate? That’s what they would have to lead with using their leverage to get a cease fire in Gaza, an end to those attacks so that one could have the possibility of a regional de-escalation. They haven’t done that.

In other words, ‘Allow me to play a role in granting Hamas what it wishes, and will, despite what I say, prolong the misery of the region while Hamas continues to target Israeli civilians and sacrifices their own people… a sure-fire formula for “regional de-escalation”.’
Telegraph Editorial: Israel Is Quite Right to Pre-empt an Onslaught
With ex-diplomats and academic experts filling the airwaves with warnings against a conflagration in the Middle East, some may believe their claims that Israel is responsible for anything and everything that its sworn enemies inflict upon the region.

The truth is more or less the opposite. The Israel Defense Forces are determined to defeat Hizbullah, like Hamas before it, solely because these terrorist organizations pose a lethal threat to their own civilians. Too many in the West have played down the relentless rocket bombardment of northern Israel by Hizbullah, but the displaced populations of entire cities such as Kiryat Shmona cannot ignore it. Would we tolerate the forced evacuation of, say, Dover?

Retaliation is necessary to deter such attacks - and it is also legitimate, even under a strict interpretation of international law. Targeting terrorists by detonating their pagers and walkie-talkies is both proportionate and precise. Hizbullah and Hamas are illegitimate terror networks bent on indiscriminate murder. They, like their Iranian sponsors, are driven by a genocidal ideology, one which seeks to transform the ancient religion of Islam into a death cult.

Hizbullah is believed to possess 150,000 missiles, enough to inflict mass casualties by overwhelming Israel's Iron Dome defense system. Hence, Israel is quite right to pre-empt such an onslaught. Britain and other allies should applaud Israel's decisive action - for it is the only path to peace.
Israel's Retaliation Against Hizbullah Is Completely Lawful
On Thursday, Hizbullah chief Hasan Nasrallah called the attacks which detonated his militia members' pagers and walkie-talkies "a war crime." On Oct. 8, 2023, Hizbullah launched a campaign of aerial bombardment of northern Israel that has continued for more than 10 months. These are acts of war. Most strike civilian areas and have driven more than 60,000 Israelis from their homes. The laws of war bar targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure.

In contrast, Israel's targeting of Hizbullah communication devices conformed to the three major principles of the international laws of war.

First, Israel's operation was consistent with the principle of necessity, which limits military action to methods that are essential to the achievement of legitimate war aims. Igniting Hizbullah's communication devices was a direct and efficient way of accomplishing the legitimate war aims of destroying the militia's equipment and removing its fighters from combat.

Second, the operation was consistent with the principle of distinction, which requires combatants to target combatants and military objects and not civilians and civilian objects. Hizbullah purchased the pagers and walkie-talkies for their commanders and fighters to facilitate their war to destroy Israel.

Third, the operation was consistent with the principle of proportionality, which requires that attacks against legitimate targets not cause incidental loss of civilian life and injury to noncombatants that is "excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated." Targeting Hizbullah fighters by igniting their communications devices minimized collateral damage to a remarkable degree.

Israel should be congratulated for its ingenious efforts to defend itself consistent with the international laws of war from a fanatical adversary that utterly repudiates the international laws of war.
Experts View the Exploding-Pager Attack on Hizbullah
The wave of exploding pagers in Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday was a stunning and unexpected blow against Hizbullah. The sheer number of casualties will put a damper on the terrorist group's ability to wage offensive action. Moreover, the move was likely aimed at creating fear and internal suspicion that would more significantly undermine the group's ability to fight. "It promulgates fear," says Dr. Patrick Sullivan, director of the Modern War Institute at West Point.

The sudden, simultaneous explosion of thousands of electronic devices is something that has never occurred before and could never be expected; it implies that Israel can strike in ways that are impossible to anticipate, let alone prevent. That may be extremely demoralizing for those on the receiving end. "Israel is demonstrating that it can identify and target members of Hizbullah regardless of their location or position in the organization," said retired Australian Army general Mick Ryan.

"When the Israelis do stuff like this, they signal that they're matching [Hizbullah's] level of commitment," Sullivan says, "so there's real informational power in what Israel has done, and that might affect the strategic thinking of not just the terrorist groups but also their supporters in Iran and some of the other Gulf states." Israel made a similar demonstration earlier this year with its targeting of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, whom it blew up using a remote-control bomb it had planted months before inside a heavily guarded guesthouse in Tehran.
Israel Scored a Stunning Blow Against Hizbullah
Exploding pagers and walkie-talkies across Lebanon was one of Israel's boldest feats. There is broad agreement that the deadly sabotage of Hizbullah's electronic communications was a short-term tactical success that sent its foe into disarray and incapacitated thousands of its fighters. Together with the recent killings of Hizbullah and Hamas leaders, it has helped re-establish the fearsome reputation of Israel's military and intelligence services.

"This sends a message to Hizbullah that this is going to look ugly for you," said Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin, a former head of military intelligence. "We aren't going only to play with you on the northern border. It will be all over the place with some operations that we never did before."

"Israel is restoring its deterrence brick by brick, operation by operation," said Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "The message: We've deeply penetrated your systems and networks. We can kill any of you at any time - and will if you continue your war against us."

The pager and walkie-talkie attacks, military experts say, exposed undercover Hizbullah members and crippled the group's communications network. It wounded thousands and killed dozens of members, putting many fighters out of commission. It also undermined Hizbullah's sense of security, creating paranoia within Hizbullah's ranks about what else Israel knows about the group's internal plans.
Israel's Strategic Win
From a purely technical view, the blasts of thousands of exploding pagers in the hands of Hizbullah represented an extraordinary piece of sabotage. For Israel to have so penetrated the Hizbullah supply chain on such a large scale is simply astonishing.

Will this lead to the cataclysmic battle that many have warned against, with Hizbullah raining down tens of thousands of rockets on Israeli cities while Israeli armored divisions plunge into Lebanon? If Hizbullah is battered the way Hamas has been, Iran stands to lose its most effective ally against Israel. And to seek open war, Hizbullah would have to be willing to sacrifice the population of Lebanese Shia from which it has emerged, as well as its own cadres of fighters.

This is a strategic win for Israel. Hizbullah members will now be unlikely to trust any form of electronics. An army skittish about any kind of electronics is one that is paralyzed. From a failure so large, witch hunts will follow - no doubt fed by an information-warfare campaign. With Hizbullah looking for spies and saboteurs, a spiral of accusations, torture, and executions will likely ensue.

For Israel's silent partners - including Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Jordan - this coup is confirmation that Israel can be a capable partner. The Israelis have learned the hard way to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, to act on their own when necessary. Ironically, a reputation of that kind increases a smaller partner's leverage with its superpower patron.

In 1984, Hizbullah kidnapped William Francis Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut. For 15 months, they tortured him, before handing him over to a Palestinian group for execution. A tape of his shattered body and mind found its way to Washington. The CIA has never forgotten that.

Some will no doubt think that this is another reckless Israeli act, or deplore violence as being ineffective, but they are wrong. By this act, the balance of fear has shifted in the Middle East. For Israel, a country dwelling in a very hard neighborhood, that is a good thing.
For Americans Scarred by Beirut Bombings, a Measure of Delayed Justice
Israel announced on Friday that Ibrahim Aqil, a Hizbullah commander, was among those killed in an Israeli airstrike. U.S. officials said he was a principal member of a terrorist cell that carried out the bombing on the Marine barracks in Beirut on Oct. 23, 1983, killing 241 U.S. service members and 58 French troops; the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that April that killed 63 people; and the kidnapping of German and American hostages in Lebanon.

"Everybody suffered these tremendous tragedies that blew their lives apart," said Catherine Votaw, whose father Albert, 57, a housing officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development, was killed in the embassy bombing. "My only question is...How did he get to live 41 years longer than my dad?"

Hizbullah was also involved in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut in 1984 that killed 23 people, the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, and the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia in 1996 that killed 19 U.S. airmen.

"We've been engaged with Hizbullah for a very long time," said retired Amb. Ryan Crocker, who survived the April 1983 embassy bombing while stationed there. Of Aqil, he said, "It is still a source of some satisfaction that he finally got it."
Richard Goldberg: As Hezbollah escalates attacks at Iran’s behest, Israel must stop an ‘unsustainable’ assault
As Israel’s campaign in Gaza proceeded, Hezbollah incrementally escalated its scale and scope of attacks to lure Israel into two simultaneous full-scale wars — a scenario that would drain Israeli munitions stockpiles, stress Israel’s economy and bring unprecedented destruction to large population centers.

Israel opted for a tit-for-tat defensive strategy, responding to every Hezbollah attack with an airstrike against a Hezbollah commander or base, alongside bombastic rhetoric threatening to turn Lebanon into rubble if the group escalated further.

Hezbollah, however, has not been deterred.

With Biden continuing to provide Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief, and Hezbollah watching the United States withhold weapons from Israel to bring major military operations to a halt, Tehran now smells Jewish blood in the water.

Biden last week suggested that if Israel prematurely ended its military campaign against Hamas, leaving one Iranian proxy intact, the White House would broker a cease-fire with Hezbollah, leaving a larger and more lethal Iranian proxy intact.

Iran is predictably responding with escalation to pressure Israel to surrender.

With Tehran also approaching the nuclear threshold and arming the Houthis in Yemen with missiles of their own, it’s no wonder a former Israeli defense minister warned this week of an Iran-sponsored “Holocaust” within two years.

Israel’s options are unenviable.

The status quo is unsustainable as it surrenders northern Israel to Iran and invites slow but steady escalation on all fronts.

Evacuated communities will not return to their homes without security guarantees — and such guarantees will not come from a phony cease-fire deal that helps Hezbollah get even stronger.

A ground invasion pushing to the Litani River without American resupply brings unknown risks, while an air campaign without a ground invasion may not prove entirely effective.

Israel will need to think outside the box to design a counterattack that escalates toward total war and quickly deescalates once limited objectives are achieved.

These objectives will likely include establishing a buffer zone on the Lebanese side of the border to enable Israeli communities to return home, while bringing a pause in missile and drone attacks — something a larger-scale war would still need to address down the road.

Americans would never surrender to a Hezbollah-like terror threat on our own border.

Biden should not demand that of Israel, either.
Seth Mandel: Who Are Kamala’s Jews?
How about the issue of Jewish safety here at home? American Jews have been subject to a staggering amount of anti-Semitism in academia, politics, and assorted professions. The pro-Hamas encampments on campus, in particular, will continue to be an issue through the election, as the fall semester revivifies the Iran- and China-backed demonstrations.

And on this, Harris leaves plenty to be desired. The vice president has praised the protesters as “showing exactly what the human emotion should be” in response to the war in Gaza; meanwhile, according to a new survey, nearly half of current Jewish students and recent graduates “never” or “rarely” feel safe identifying as a Jew on campus.

The street mobs have posed a particular challenge to Democrats around Harris. JB Pritzker, Illinois’s billionaire governor and a liberal donor, talks often of his family’s roots as Jewish refugees from Ukraine. But his concentration on extremism focuses entirely on the right-wing variety, comparing the MAGA threat to “the early days of the end of the Weimar Republic.” That ideological blind spot is convenient, because other members of the Pritzker clan, heirs to the Hyatt hotel chain, have been funding pro-Palestinian protest groups and sponsors of those groups through family foundations. Pritzker has become a Democratic Party rising star in his own right, and he is the reason that Harris’s coronation, at which he gave a prime-time speech, was held in Chicago—a city where even the city council has taken an official position in favor of the Gaza protesters and against Israel.

Also speaking at the convention, and specifically vouching for Harris to Jewish voters, was Chuck Schumer. The Democratic Senate majority leader—the highest-ranking elected Jewish official ever, he dubbed himself to the crowd, even though his position is entirely organizational and institutional and comes from securing 51 votes out of 100 in the Senate rather than a plebiscite either of Jews or of Americans—had a simple pitch. He said a vote for Harris was a vote to fight anti-Semitism. That claim is beneath contempt and shows how the outpouring of anti-Semitism among the ranks of voters and politicians in his own party has scrambled his moral compass. In March, Schumer gave a speech on the Senate floor in which he called for Netanyahu, the democratically elected leader of Israel, to be replaced—an unprecedented act of diplomatic meddling by a senator, made even more shameful by the fact that the senator in question is a high-profile Jewish American who delivered this denunciation of the Jewish state to placate the anti-Semites in his party.

The aftershocks from Schumer’s stunt lasted for months. In July, Netanyahu was due to give his speech to Congress. Usually, the vice president, in her capacity as president of the Senate, presides over the address. Since Harris refused to do so, a Senate Democrat had to step up in her stead. Had Schumer not called for Netanyahu’s toppling in March, he would have been the obvious choice. Instead, the Democrats were sent scrambling for someone to preside over the speech from an allied head of government, an embarrassing spectacle created by Schumer’s cowardice.

Team Harris is a striking example of a consistent trend in politics. For while Jewish individuals are overrepresented in the ranks of her followers and advisers, Jewish interests are being marginalized—and those overrepresented Jews are there in part or in whole to provide cover for that marginalization.
Harris would fill her administration with anti-Israel radicals
Ellison’s long-standing relationship with the Council on American Islamic Relations is also alarming. CAIR is a Muslim Brotherhood-linked group the United Arab Emirates has designated a terrorist organization. Prior to his role as Minnesota’s attorney general, Ellison was a frequent guest at the organization’s events and often spoke on behalf of it, falsely lauding its support for “civil rights.”

Now imagine U.S. Attorney General Ellison at the helm of the Justice Department in our nation’s capital. His cozy ties with Islamists would imperil Jewish safety, with pro-Hamas agitators suddenly finding themselves backed by the top government legal ally. Meanwhile, Jewish American groups and Israel-related charities would be sitting ducks, wide open to attacks, scrutiny, and crippling sanctions.

To make matters worse, Phil Gordon, Harris’s current national security adviser, would likely occupy a top security post should the Democrats triumph in the election. Gordon has strong connections to the coterie of Washington officials now suspected of being Iranian-regime spies. He is also closely tied to Pentagon policy adviser Ariane Tabatabai, who is under investigation for peddling an Iranian persuasion campaign from inside our nation’s defense establishment. The fox is already in the henhouse.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (D-NY), in a letter to Harris obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, are demanding answers about Gordon’s friendship with Tabatabai and his association with Iranian influence organizations, which include the National Iranian American Council and the Iran Experts Initiative.

Shockingly, even the Harris campaign’s liaison to the Jewish community, Ilan Goldenberg, has a track record of anti-Israel stances. He backed the infamous 2016 U.N. Resolution 2334, which opposed Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall. And he threw his weight behind the disastrous Iran deal and even pushed to restore funding to the Hamas-allied United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

Most recently, while working at the National Security Council, Goldenberg played a central role in encouraging the Biden administration to levy unprecedented sanctions against Jews living in Judea and Samaria.

Goldenberg’s views align with the anti-Zionist, antisemitic attitudes of Harris’s director of Arab American outreach, Brenda Abdellal, who once complained that “Zionists” are “controlling” U.S. politics.
Alan M. Dershowitz: It Is Biden and Harris Who Are Not Doing Enough to Free the Hostages
Why should Hamas agree to a ceasefire when its refusal is blamed on Israel by the president of the United States? In addition, when Biden blames Israel, he encourages other allies, such as Great Britain, Canada, France and Germany, to do the same.

[Biden] blamed Netanyahu alone without even mentioning Hamas. And this was after Hamas terrorists had murdered six hostages, including an American.

Although Biden did say that the Hamas killers would pay a price for the murders of the hostages, he did not say that Iran— which controls Hamas— would pay any price, including increased sanctions, or worse, unless the hostages, including the Americans, are released, unharmed, immediately.

[Biden and Harris] should warn Iran that if Hamas harms any American hostages, we will regard that as an attack on the US that warrants a military response against Iranian military targets.

Instead, Biden is demanding that Israel compromise its security by allowing Hamas to return to its terrorist tunnels under the critical Philadelphi Corridor.

Iran's proxies are its human shields. Unless Iran itself is punished for the terrorism of its surrogates, the mullahs will have no incentive to stop, and we, the Middle East, and South America will all be less secure – especially after Iran unveils its nuclear bombs.

Biden should be placing maximum pressure on the criminals — Hamas and Iran — who continue to endanger our citizens and those of our ally. Instead, he is pressuring and blaming the victim, Israel, which has no control over the perpetrators.

When Iranians took American diplomats hostage in 1979, and then ordered its surrogates to kill hundreds of US Marines in Lebanon in 1983, it essentially declared war on our nation. Now their surrogates have kidnapped and murdered more Americans. Our responses to these acts of belligerency have been woefully insufficient. Instead, the Obama administration enriched the Iranian mullahs in exchange for a controversial nuclear deal that would have enabled Iran to have as many nuclear weapons as it liked after about a dozen years...

The message sent by this administration's weakness and lack of will is being heard loud and clear not only by Iran but by our other enemies as well.
WSJ: U.S. Officials Concede Gaza Ceasefire Is Out of Reach
After months of saying a ceasefire and a hostage-release deal was close at hand, senior U.S. officials are now privately acknowledging they don't expect Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement before the end of President Biden's term. "No deal is imminent," one U.S. official said. "I'm not sure it ever gets done."

One problem is that, according to Biden administration officials, Hamas makes demands and then refuses to say "yes" after the U.S. and Israel accept them. The intransigence has severely frustrated negotiators, who increasingly feel the militant group isn't serious about completing an agreement. "There's no chance now of it happening," an official from an Arab country added.


Trump hosts Qatari leaders, hails their desire for Mideast peace
Former US president Donald Trump met earlier today with Qatari Emir Tamim Al Thani and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

In a Truth Social post revealing the meeting, Trump hails the leadership of Qatar, which has come under attack from many Republican lawmakers over the past year for hosting Hamas and its bankrolling of the Al Jazeera news network.

Qatar argues that the request to open a Hamas bureau in Doha came from the US, which has under Democrat and Republican administrations supported its continued operations. The Biden administration has been particularly complimentary of Qatar’s efforts to mediate between Israel and Hamas in the ongoing Gaza war.

“The emir has proven to be a great and powerful leader of his country, advancing on all levels at record speed,” Trump says in his Truth Social post.

“He is someone also who strongly wants peace in the Middle East and all over the world,” the Republican presidential nominee continues. “We had a great relationship during my time in the White House, and it will be even stronger this time around!”
Land Swaps Won't Solve the Israel-Hizbullah Conflict
UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701 call for Hizbullah to be disarmed. Yet both the Lebanese armed forces and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon have been unable, or unwilling, to enforce these provisions. The Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida reported that "American officials recently proposed, in a virtual meeting with their Israeli counterparts, a land swap between Lebanon and Israel as part of a comprehensive agreement to end the border conflicts and resolve the land dispute between the two countries."

In 2022, the U.S. pressured Israel to sign an agreement that established a maritime boundary and exclusive economic zones and regulated rights to gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The White House and State Department hailed the arrangement, saying that the deal would prevent war. Yet less than two years later, Hizbullah began attacking Israel, following the massacre on Oct. 7, 2023.

In 2000, the Israel Defense Forces unilaterally withdrew from southern Lebanon. The Clinton administration cheered the withdrawal, saying that it would lead to peace and a cessation of hostilities. But Hizbullah is not a Lebanese national movement fighting for a Lebanon free of foreign influence. Rather, the terrorist group is itself a foreign influence, the tip of the spear of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Hizbullah doesn't want a parcel of land controlled by Israel - it wants Israel's destruction. Slivers of land only whet Hizbullah's and Iran's appetite.

What the West takes as a "back and forth" negotiation, Islamists see as weakness: a sign that their opponents lack will. To them, ceding land proves that Israel is easily swept away. For decades, American policymakers have treated the various Islamist terrorists at war with Israel as if they are rational actors who can be induced to make peace if offered land, foreign aid packages, or some other incentive.

For their part, the terrorists have been happy to pocket the concessions, ask for more, and then break the promises that they made. Should the U.S. continue to double down on failed policies, it will bring about the very war that it is seeking to avoid.
Neta Heiman Mina: The UNRWA teacher who held my mother hostage is being paid, in part, by Canada
As a member of Israel’s peace movement, I have always believed that strangers can become partners. On October 7, my belief was shaken to the core when my 84-year-old mother, Ditza, was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.

Scenarios played out in my head, over and over, about who had seen fit to kidnap my mother and where she was being held. I imagined her in a deep, dark tunnel, with angry, armed young men lurching out from the shadows.

But it turned out that my mother had not been held at gunpoint in Gaza by a gang of fanatical young men. Instead, as she revealed after she was released on Nov. 28 in the hostage deal, Hamas had handed her off to a man named Abed. Abed had kept my mother locked in a small room of his home, with little food and no access to medication for almost two months. He told my mother that he was a teacher at an UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) school. A perfect stranger, instead of becoming one of this war’s angels, Abed ended up as just another of its many demons.

It emerged that my mother was not the only hostage who had been kidnapped or held captive by UNRWA employees, but the ties between the agency and Hamas go much further than kidnappings alone. Weapons, tunnels and server farms were found in and underneath UNRWA facilities.

As news started to break about the involvement of UNRWA staff in the horrific atrocities of October 7, many countries, including Canada, took the right step in pausing their funding. This move reflected growing concerns over the agency’s affiliations and its ability to remain impartial. While many, including Canadian authorities, called for a thorough investigation into the allegations before considering further financial contributions, funding was unfortunately resumed with no evidence of any systemic change.

Mere months after it had been revealed that my mother had been held hostage by an UNRWA teacher, the agency was praised in the Arab press as being “indispensable to any peace deal” in Gaza. Canada, announcing an end to its pause in funding, said the agency played a “vital role.” Despite the insistence of such declarations however, UNRWA is vital only to Hamas.
UN seeks immunity for UNRWA employees complicit in Oct. 7 massacre
In an official document filed in a US court, the United Nations, with support from the US Department of Justice, has argued that UNRWA employees who were involved in the October 7 massacre are immune from legal action, Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 News reported on Saturday evening.

According to the document, UNRWA employees involved in the massacre are shielded from prosecution due to their immunity.

"Since the UN has not waived immunity in this instance, its subsidiary, UNRWA, continues to enjoy absolute immunity from prosecution, and the lawsuit should be dismissed," the UN's response stated.

The US Department of Justice echoed this position. "The plaintiff's complaint does not present a legal basis for claiming that the United Nations waived its immunity. Therefore, because the UN has not waived immunity in this case, its subsidiary, UNRWA, retains full immunity, and the lawsuit against UNRWA should be dismissed due to lack of subject matter jurisdiction."

Attorney Gaby Meron of the law firm MM-LAW filed the lawsuit accusing UNRWA of complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity and is preparing a formal response to the court, Channel 12 noted in their report.

Channel 12 noted that this decision creates a significant legal hurdle for the victims of the massacre and their families, who must demonstrate that the immunity protecting UNRWA employees should be revoked.

UNRWA employees have been accused of acts of murder, abduction, and the taking of hostages on October 7.

Based on previous reporting from The Jerusalem Post, Ditza Heiman, who was taken hostage during the October 7 Hamas attacks, was held captive by a UNRWA teacher for 53 days. She reported that her conditions were dire, with minimal food and no access to essential medication despite her health issues, including diabetes and thyroid problems. She described seeing the UNRWA logo on various items during her captivity, highlighting concerns about UNRWA's involvement in supporting Hamas activities.


Hezbollah beeper blasts: Timing not due to plan being exposed, sources say - exclusive
The timing of the Hezbollah beeper and other device explosions last week, which wounded around 3,000-4,000 operatives, was not due to the sabotage being exposed by the organization but was carefully planned, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

In the aftermath of the explosions across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, some reports circulated that the ones who caused the explosion – attributed by numerous foreign media outlets to Israel, with large aspects of the saga confirmed independently by the Post with Western sources – would have preferred a later and more coordinated timing.

Under this narrative, foreign reports said that Israeli intelligence rushed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu around Tuesday of last week – with the entire Israeli media talking about a major unspecified “security event” – to tell him that the device explosion sabotage capability was at a “use it or lose it” moment.

In other words, some Hezbollah operatives had uncovered aspects of the sabotage and if they announced it nationwide, the organization might rid itself of the devices before they could be exploded.

This narrative made sense with how surprised both the Israeli and Lebanese public seemed by the episode after Jerusalem had allowed Hezbollah to fire rockets on its northern front for 11 months without taking any consistent major steps to force a change beyond limited retaliations.

But the Post learned that whoever caused the sabotage picked the timing carefully, not because of some sudden discovery by Hezbollah.
Report: Hezbollah devices were detonated individually, with precise intel on targets
Israel's Channel 12 reported Saturday that "tens of thousands of pagers" were manufactured with the knowledge that they would be checked carefully by Hizbullah.

Ronen Bergman, an investigative reporter for the New York Times, said in an interview that the pagers had to work properly and betray no indication that they had been primed with explosives. They needed to be able to pass detection by sniffer dogs.

Bergman said the whole scheme was dreamed up by a brilliant female intelligence operative, aged under 30.

A factory was set up to build the devices from scratch.

The ability to supply the device to Hizbullah was helped by the fact that the group is not able to make purchases on the open market because of U.S. sanctions, and therefore must routinely work with intermediary suppliers.

Bergman said that the operation began during a previous government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under the direction of former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen.

The report said that Hizbullah bought more pagers after its military chief Fuad Shukr was killed in a targeted IDF strike in Beirut in July, and used pagers even more widely because of its growing wariness about using cellphones.

A foreign security source said Israel has spent years developing far more extensive capabilities for use against Hizbullah and Iran.

The source said that Israel has much more dramatic capabilities and that those used thus far in Lebanon are "relatively low-level."
Hezbollah handed out pagers hours before blasts — even after checks
Lebanon’s Hezbollah was still handing its members new Gold Apollo branded pagers hours before thousands blew up this week, two Lebanese security sources say, indicating the group was confident the devices were safe despite an ongoing sweep of electronic kit to identify threats.

One member of the Iranian-backed group received a new pager on Monday that exploded the next day while it was still in its box, says one of the sources. A pager given to a senior member just days earlier injured a subordinate when it detonated, the second source says.

Up to three grams of explosives hidden in the pagers had gone undetected for months by Hezbollah, Reuters reported earlier this week.

One of the security sources says it was very hard to detect the explosives “with any device or scanner.” The source did not specify what type of scanners Hezbollah had run the pagers through.

Rather than a specific suspicion of the pagers, the checks had been part of a routine “sweep” of its equipment, including communications devices, to find any indications that they were laced with explosives or surveillance mechanisms, one of the security sources says.


IDF PodCast: Daily Brief Northern Israel i–Mission Brief
A daily brief about the escalation along the northern border in the last 24 hours.

Listen in to get a snapshot of what life under non-stop rocket fire was like for hundreds of thousands of Israelis and dive into significant recent events fighting against Hezbollah's terrorism.


Haifa woman whose house was hit by Hezbollah rocket: ‘It’s a miracle’ I was in the safe room
A Haifa woman whose home sustained a direct hit in a Hezbollah rocket attack early this morning says she “hates to think what might have happened” if she wasn’t able to take cover in her safe room during the impact.

“It’s a miracle,” Zehava Sofer tells Channel 12.

Sofer says she could hear loud explosions from inside the safe room in her home in Kiryat Bialik, a suburb of the northern coastal city, and that she stayed put until rescue workers arrived to extract her.

“Everything in the two upstairs rooms was burned,” she said. “The rest of the house I’m not sure, I haven’t checked yet.”

“We can’t live like this anymore. It’s enough. It’s just lucky I didn’t have small children at home,” she adds.

Hezbollah launched some 85 rockets from Lebanon at the Haifa area this morning, following overnight launches at the Jezreel Valley, the terror group’s deepest rocket fire into Israel since the beginning of the war in October.

Two men in their 70s and a 16-year-old girl, the granddaughter of one of the men, were injured in the Haifa attacks and taken to Rambam Medical Center for treatment.


Israeli teen killed in car crash during Hezbollah rocket attacks
A 17-year-old Israeli boy died and four others were injured in a car crash in the Lower Galilee early Sunday morning, amid a barrage of Hezbollah rocket attacks from Lebanon, authorities announced.

The teenager, identified as Noam Yehiel from Moshav Ahi’ezer in central Israel, was killed when a driver veered off the road and hit a wall on Route 77, between the Ramat Yishai Junction and the community of Zarzir.

Noam’s father is singer Erez Yehiel, known for his musical renditions of Psalms and other religious texts.

“He was a cute boy, he was on his way to the yeshivah. This is difficult news for us, the whole moshav is in shock,” Moshav Ahi’ezer said in a statement on Sunday afternoon.

The other four victims sustained light-to-medium injuries. The Magen David Adom emergency-response service evacuated a man in his 20s in moderate condition to Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center.

An initial probe showed that the accident occurred when air-raid sirens sounded across northern Israel, and police were said to be investigating whether this distracted the driver and caused the vehicle to crash.


Ben Shapiro: Pagers: The 90s Gadget That Took Down Hezbollah
Israel blew up pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah terrorists, Diddy was charged with multiple gross crimes, and Costco is now selling Michelle Obama's "healthy" soda. Here's what Ben really thinks about all of this.


Israel commended for ‘most precise anti-terrorist attack’ against Hezbollah
Former British commander Richard Kemp has commended Israel for the “most precise anti-terrorist attack” that could be carried out against Hezbollah.

Several people were killed, and 4,000 were wounded after handheld pagers belonging to Hezbollah members exploded.

“It’s not terrorism; this is not a terrorist attack,” Mr Kemp told Sky News Australia.

“It’s probably the most precise anti-terrorist attack you could carry out.

“Israel is perfectly entitled to target those people who have been firing rockets to Israel – more than 8,000 rockets since the 8th of October – firing rockets almost every single day into Israel.

“Why shouldn’t they carry out these attacks?”


UKLFI Charitable Trust: Natasha Hausdorff discusses the legality of the exploding beepers on Sky News Australia
Natasha Hausdorff, UKLFI Charitable Trust Legal Director, discusses the legality of the exploding beepers and other communication devices and contrasts it with the Hizbollah rocket fire on northern Israel on Sky News Australia on 22 September 2024


Jonny Gould's Jewish State: The Hezbollah Endgame: what now in the north? 2006 Lebanon War veteran Benjamin Anthony discusses Israel's zero option
How should Israel tackle Hezbollah and its estimated 150,000 rockets all pointed at them?

Is pushing the Lebanon’s terror insurgency back behind the Litani River enough?

In this era of long range technology, isn’t a river just an arbitrary line? The terrorists can still reach Israel from there.

Hezbollah is a battalion of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Wouldn’t it be best if they were removed completely?

Let’s talk about the sheer audaciousness of the pager and walkie talkie attack against them, the psychological effect of it and the downgrade in their military capabilities.

Then there’s Yemen, is America doing enough to quell their threat?

And boots on the ground in Syria: Israel is showing it can defend itself - even thousands of miles into enemy territory.

And is Iran, the country hiding behind its deathly proxies only a "paper tiger" after all?

Benjamin Anthony served in the Israel Defense Forces in the second Lebanon War during the summer of 2006,

Like now it was a war started by Hezbollah's attack on Israeli forces: they captured two soldiers and killed eight others. israel declared war.

Benjamin’s experiences and insights from then have influenced his later life.

He’s also a veteran of Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012 and Operation Protective Edge in 2014.

He’s now the CEO and cofounder with Rozita Pnini of the Miryam Institute, debating Israel’s future, engaging with international policy-makers.

He also hosts a weekly podcast, the Benjamin Anthony Show, where alongside Miryam Institute’s in-house analyst Yaakov Lappin they consider in detail the very latest military and diplomatic issues facing Israel. It’s available on this very platform where you're listening to my show now.


spiked: Why is the left shedding tears over Hezbollah?
Inaya Folarin Iman joins Tom Slater and Fraser Myers to discuss the exploding pagers in Lebanon.




IDF serves Al Jazeera’s Samaria bureau with closure order
Israel Defense Forces soldiers served Al Jazeera‘s office in the Samaria city of Ramallah with a 45-day closure order on Sunday morning due to the network’s support for terrorism, the Qatari broadcaster confirmed.

Al Jazeera was broadcasting from Ramallah when IDF troops entered its bureau in the Palestinian Authority-controlled city and handed the order to one of its staffers, after which the live stream was shut down.

“There is a court ruling for closing down Al Jazeera for 45 days,” a soldier reportedly told bureau chief Walid al-Omari, asking him to “take all the cameras and leave the office now.”

The Israeli closure order charged the Qatari channel with incitement to and support of terrorism, according to Sunday’s Al Jazeera reporting.

Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi posted footage of the operation on X, noting that Al Jazeera is defined as an “enemy channel.

“After much pressure … security forces this morning raided Al Jazeera‘s main offices in Judea and Samaria—the mouthpiece of Hamas and Hezbollah—following the order to close the station,” Karhi wrote.

“We will continue to fight enemy channels and ensure the safety of our heroic [IDF] fighters,” he added.


Macklemore declares 'F--- America' to cheers at Seattle concert benefiting UN agency with alleged Hamas ties
The rapper Macklemore told a crowd of Seattle concertgoers "F--- America," according to video of his recent "Palestine Will Live Forever" performance shared on X.

"Straight up, say it. I'm not gonna stop you. I'm not gonna stop you," Macklemore said, appearing to reference chants from the crowd.

"Yeah, F--- America," the Grammy-winning performer said, sending the crowd into cheers. The video was shared on X by journalist Cam Higby.

Macklemore, a 41-year-old rapper born Benjamin Hammond Haggerty in Kent, Washington, had advertised a "Palestine Will Live Forever Festival" on his Facebook page.

He said the proceeds of the event held at Seward Park Amphitheater would go to various groups, including the controversial agency known as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

Israeli officials have declared that UNRWA is strongly tied to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The U.N. itself announced in August that nine UNRWA staffers would be fired due to possible involvement in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack on Israel.

Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Macklemore for comment, but they did not immediately respond.

Macklemore dropped an anti-Israel song in May titled "Hind’s Hall," referring to the Columbia University building that students occupied and renamed in honor of a 6-year-old Palestinian girl killed in the Israel-Gaza war. The song praised the anti-Israel encampments and protests on college campuses across the country and called out President Biden, the police and the music industry.

The rapper this month dropped a second version of the song that now calls out Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the Democratic presidential nominee when Biden backed out of the race in July.


Gov. Whitmer declines to back Michigan attorney general for prosecuting anti-Israel protesters
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is declining to back state Attorney General Dana Nessel, a fellow Democrat, who has been attacked by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) over Nessel’s decision to charge anti-Israel campus demonstrators at the University of Michigan for assaulting police and engaging in ethnic intimidation, among other alleged crimes.

Tlaib has also claimed that Nessel is only charging the protesters because she’s Jewish. Nessel has publicly decried the congresswoman’s characterization as antisemitic and wrong.

Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper whether Whitmer agrees with Tlaib’s argument that Nessel is only charging the protesters because she’s Jewish, the Michigan governor declined to weigh in.

“I’m not going to get in the middle of this argument that they’re having,” Whitmer said on CNN’s “State of the Union” show Sunday morning.

“I can just say this: You know, we do want to make sure that students are safe on our campuses, and we recognize that every person has the right to make their statement about how they feel about an issue, a right to speak out. And I’m going to use every lever of mine to ensure that both are true.”

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt sharply criticized Whitmer for not speaking up more aggressively against antisemitism. “Governor Whitmer, when your attorney general prosecutes people for violating the law, harassing Jews, and attacking police officers, it’s in the interest of public safety. When a congresswoman accuses the attorney general of prosecuting protestors simply because she’s Jewish, it’s bias,” Greenblatt said on X.

“Saying you want to “make sure that students are safe on our campuses” is just words if you are not willing to use your bully pulpit to speak out unequivocally on antisemitism and support holding people accountable for violating the law when it affects Jews.”

Whitmer spokesperson Stacey LaRouche later issued a follow-up statement offering a clearer defense of Nessel, without specifically defending the Michigan attorney general’s prosecution of the anti-Israel protesters. The statement did not mention Tlaib.


UN, Red Cross discuss Gaza with Iranian FM in New York
Sigrid Kaag, the United Nations’ humanitarian and reconstruction chief for Gaza, sat down with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday to discuss the situation in the Strip, the IRNA state news agency reported.

“Kaag and Araghchi exchanged views on a number of regional issues, especially the situation in Gaza and the ways U.N. is leading aid and humanitarian efforts in the besieged Palestinian Strip,” Tehran said on Sunday, sharing photos and video footage of the talks in New York.

Araghchi was also said to have welcomed International Committee of the Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger at his hotel, to discuss “a wide range of issues revolving around ICRC’s mission in West Asia, particularly its work to save war-ravaged Palestinians in Gaza.”

Kaag and Spoljaric Egger’s offices did not respond to messages seeking comment on Sunday on how the U.N. and ICRC, respectively, view the Islamic Republic’s role in improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Last week, Araghchi vowed to keep up Tehran’s “unlimited support” for terrorist groups throughout the Middle East, including in the Gaza Strip.

Some 500 terrorists affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad trained in Iran ahead of the Oct. 7 massacre, The Wall Street Journal reported last year. Iran has officially hailed the attacks as a “success.”

Kaag, whom the United Nations appointed in December to oversee its humanitarian and reconstruction efforts for Palestinians, has yet to move her residence and offices to the Gaza Strip after promising to do so in a June 11 interview, JNS reported last month.


NO SHOW: Comedian’s show cancelled in Pinner following claims of antisemitism
Harrow Council has cancelled a comedian’s upcoming show in Pinner following backlash over an alleged antisemitic joke.

American comedian Reginald D. Hunter was set to perform at Harrow Arts Centre in October.

However, following his performance at Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August, where he compared Israel to an abusive spouse complaining about being abused, the comic has found himself in deep water.

Harrow Council has revealed it has now cancelled Reginald’s upcoming show in the village, on the back of several other venues doing the same.

In a post on his social media, Reginald said: “There was an unfortunate incident in my new show. As a comedian, I do push boundaries in creating humour.

“This inevitably creates divided opinions but I am staunchly anti-war and anti-bully. I regret any stress caused to the audience and venue staff members.”

A spokesperson for Harrow Council said: “We champion arts and culture and strongly support freedom of speech. Recent events relating to Reginald D. Hunter do not reflect our values of diversity, inclusion, and good community relations. We were also particularly concerned of reports about the treatment of audience members at his recent show in Edinburgh.”




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