Wednesday, October 09, 2024

10/09 Links Pt2: Oct. 7 Forever Altered Jewish Life Worldwide; The woke dehumanisation of Jews; The strange story of the Palestinian flag

From Ian:

Oct. 7 Forever Altered Jewish Life Worldwide
Oct. 7 and its aftermath forever altered the daily lives of every Jewish person around the world. For nearly a century, Jews in places like America, Canada, Great Britain and Australia took for granted their connection to and comfort within their homes and nations. Even if antisemitism still dwelt at the fringes of society, Jews in these places felt as though they had finally been woven into the very fabric of society and shared history. We found homes and places where we could let our collective guard down.

It took a single day last year for that comfort and confidence to shatter. Our homes, businesses and places of worship suddenly became targets of hateful acts, slurs, screams of "go home," graffiti, assaults, gunshots and murder. At no point since World War II have so many Jews in so many places felt so insecure and untethered from the Western democracies in which they live. We have lost our basic sense of normalcy.

Oct. 7 and its aftermath demonstrated to Jews around the world that the lessons of the Holocaust have not been learned effectively enough to prevent the replay of those very horrors. We learned that "Never Again" is not real.

We learned that blacklists of Jewish authors, musicians and artists can sprout up again; that Jewish businesses can again be targeted, vandalized and destroyed; that Jewish schools and institutions must yet again rely on their own security to keep their children and community safe, while Jewish university students fear walking across campus alone.

What 4,000 years of Jewish history have taught us is that if it starts with the Jews, it never ends with the Jews. It is an American, Canadian, French, British, Australian, Argentinian and South African problem.

The writer is a former senior vice president for international affairs at the Anti-Defamation League.
Brendan O'Neill: Now they won’t even let Jews grieve in peace
Remember the Westboro Baptist Church? They were the fundamentalist fruitcakes who would picket vigils for slain American soldiers with technicolour placards declaring ‘God Hates Fags’ and ‘Thank God for Dead Soldiers’. Well, there’s a new mob of grief-intruders in town. There’s a new gang of hateful trespassers on other people’s sorrow. They’re not quite as God-bothering, not so homophobic, but they’re every bit as ghoulish. It’s the ‘pro-Palestine’ set on university campuses.

This week, something truly appalling took place at Columbia University in New York City. A vigil for the 1,200 people butchered by the fascists of Hamas in southern Israel on 7 October was noisily interrupted by the Hamas fanboys of the cranky Columbia left. ‘Fanboys’ is not hyperbole. Some were chanting ‘Resistance is glorious!’. This was on Monday, on 7 October, the anniversary of Hamas’s pogrom. If you are singing the praises of a ‘resistance’ one year after that ‘resistance’ slaughtered more Jews in one day than anyone else has since the Nazis, then you are a Hamas fanboy, you are a fellow traveller of fascism.

Jewish students and their allies had gathered to pay tribute to the dead and stolen of 7 October. They prayed for the Jews murdered by Hamas and demanded the release of the Jews Hamas still holds captive. They assembled on Columbia’s South Lawn. They displayed giant milk cartons featuring images of the Israeli hostages and a collection of teddy bears covered in red paint symbolising those who were murdered. Their lamentations were soon interrupted, though. Their murmured grief was punctuated by the shrill cries of Columbia’s legion Israelophobes. ‘Israel go to hell!’, these radical Westboro Baptists screamed.

Hundreds of ‘pro-Palestine’ activists ‘took over the campus’, reports the Daily Mail. The ‘raging students’ hollered their hackneyed Israel-loathing slogans over the ‘vigil to mark the one-year anniversary of the 7 October Hamas-led attacks’, the Mail says. Some were masked, many were adorned in the keffiyeh, the uniform of the self-righteous, the must-have fashion item of every turbo-smug radical who wants the world to know how good and edgy he is. They played ‘loud Arabic music’ and it ‘drowned out the sound of Israeli music that was playing for the vigil’. Shorter version: pipe down, Jews.

In one especially disturbing scene, two young, mournful women, the Israel flag draped over their shoulders, were surrounded by the barking mob. They stood stone-faced as the keffiyeh set swarmed, their placards crying ‘Resist by any means necessary!’. Think about this: Jewish students marking the one-year anniversary of the worst act of anti-Semitic violence since the Holocaust were mobbed by students celebrating that violence, bigging it up as ‘resistance’. This was Jew-taunting dolled up as radical activism, the salt of Israel-hate rubbed into the wound of Jews’ grief.

‘Two brave Jewish girls stand proudly while a crowd of terror supporters surrounds them’, tweeted Eyal Yakoby, a student and campaigner against anti-Semitism. ‘Terror supporter’ is accurate. When the TikTok revolutionaries of the painfully privileged Columbia classes cosplay as Middle East militants, complete with masks and keffiyehs, and loudly swoon over the gloriousness of ‘resistance’, by which they mean 7 October, they are indeed indicating their support for terror. One side at Columbia was mourning a pogrom, the other was celebrating it. It was the West’s crisis distilled: a small group of students quietly standing with civilisation while a larger, louder, brutish group of students essentially swore their fealty to civilisation’s opposite – Israel’s barbarous foes.
Batya Ungar-Sargon: 7 October was a mask-off moment for the left
I first noticed it about three weeks after the massacre, though at first, I was so shocked by the feeling that it took me a while to admit it was real. Yet there it was, in between fits of grief and rage – something else making itself known: a creeping sense of euphoria.

Crazy, right? After the greatest Jewish bloodletting since the Holocaust in acts of depraved barbarism we had thought this Earth rid of, I was feeling a sense of elation.

It wasn’t, God forbid, about Hamas’s massacre or Israel’s response. No, I was feeling the euphoria of being in a fight of good versus evil after a life wrestling with moral ambiguity. It was the high of seeing the truth so clearly bellowed from the rooftops by one’s enemies – rather than masked with dissembling language about ‘justice’ and ‘equality’. It was the joy of being released from the gaslighting, the pretence that the left is more moral, more compassionate, more good – on the ‘right side of history’.

In ripping off the mask and going all in on their support of ‘resistance by any means necessary’, the left made itself morally irrelevant. In condoning calls for the genocide of the Jews, elite universities in the US made themselves objects of mockery for generations to come. In becoming Hamas’s cheering section, the left has made its claim to be the side of morality patently and obviously false. It was the largest act of moral self-marginalisation that I can ever recall witnessing.

After all, who cares what someone’s take on transgender medical treatments is when they cheer for Hamas? Who cares what someone’s take on women’s rights is when they deny the mass rape of Israeli women? Who cares what someone thinks about abortion when they don’t condemn the murder of Israeli babies? Who cares what someone thinks about the war in Ukraine when they can’t tell who is an ally and who an enemy? Who cares who someone is voting for when they can’t condemn the genocide of the Jews?

Indeed, anti-Semitism is not an accidental wrong turn for today’s left. The woke worldview replaces the foundation of Western civilisation – a worldview based on the distinction of right vs wrong, virtue vs evil – with the binary of powerful vs powerless, and then superimposes race on to that binary. Identitarians ascribe inherent virtue to those they see as powerless and evil to those they see as powerful. This is the source of 21st-century leftist anti-Semitism: every Jew is coded as white and is thus a powerful oppressor, and every Palestinian is coded as a ‘person of colour’ and thus is oppressed and inherently virtuous. Crucially, to the woke, the powerless have no moral agency and thus no moral responsibilities, and this includes Hamas. Abjection is the only virtue the left recognises, and this even applies for terrorists. Hence, by any means necessary.

If you’re an American, you have to have a college degree to believe this crap, although TikTok has been instrumental in popularising this ideology. In using the highfalutin justifications of the woke ideology to cheerlead Hamas, the global left has managed to reveal its thought process to be inherently, irredeemably flawed. And in so doing, it has released the rest of us from having to pretend the left matters.

This is the euphoria of the post-7 October world: it is a world in which the left’s moral badgering isn’t just irrelevant – it’s a joke.

No longer must we pretend this nonsense about the real threat coming from the right. No longer must we pretend that weakness is virtue and strength is vice. No longer must we absolve people of moral responsibility based on their skin colour. These views cannot be untangled from the hatred of Jews that permeates the left so deeply.

The good news is, we now know who our enemies are, which makes them much easier to fight.
The woke dehumanisation of Jews
That Jewish people are regarded as a hyper-white community was clear in March 2021, when the BBC’s flagship politics programme, Politics Live, featured a bizarre debate on whether or not Jews are an ethnic-minority group. Apparently, this was open to question because some Jews have reached positions of power and influence. Thus, in the eyes of some, Jewish people have joined the ranks of the oppressors. The message communicated by Politics Live was that Jewish identity and the way that Jews perceive themselves should not be taken too seriously because they have little claim to the status of victimhood. The historical experience of the oppression of Jews is viewed as trivial compared with other groups’ experiences of victimisation.

The spoiling of Jewish identity goes a long way to explaining the identitarian left’s response to the 7 October massacre. Numerous celebrities and cultural influencers appeared indifferent to the horrific acts of rape, hostage-taking and murder committed against Israeli civilians, including children. The American actress Susan Sarandon personified this callous sensibility. At a pro-Palestine rally in November 2023, she told the crowd that those people who were feeling afraid of being Jewish right now are ‘getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country, so often subjected to violence’. Sarandon clearly had no idea that Jews had not only faced more than their share of violence in the past – they also make up a disproportionate share of hate-crime victims in the present.

The #MeToo movement, usually quick to ‘believe all women’ when they make allegations of rape, appeared to switch into silent mode in response to the scenes of barbaric sexual violence meted out by Hamas. For many feminist activists, the idea of sisterhood seemingly did not apply to Jewish or Israeli women. Some went as far as to outright deny what had happened, despite there being abundant evidence of these crimes. The director of the University of Alberta’s Sexual Assault Centre signed an open letter asserting that calling Hamas terrorists is ‘Islamophobic’ and denying that Israeli women were raped by Hamas fighters on 7 October. Such indifference to the plight of violated Jewish women shows how thoroughly dehumanised Jewish people have become in identitarian circles.

From the standpoint of identity politics, there is little room for empathy towards the predicament of the supposedly hyper-white Jew. As alleged possessors of so much power and privilege, Jewish people have no claim to the status of victimhood, even when they are brutalised in full view of the world. The sins committed by Hamas on 7 October are all too easy to wash away when its victims are no longer considered fully human.


Stephen Pollard: Postmodernism and moral relativism have led us to disaster
Amidst the horror of the commemorations of October 7 – when even the slaughter of 1200 Jews was not allowed to be remembered without concomitant damning of Israel for having dared to respond – you may have missed the results of a poll commissioned by the Campaign Against Antisemitism. Brace yourself, because it is difficult to imagine a more worrying and depressing set of results.

While only seven per cent of Brits overall believe the Hamas massacre was justified, that figure rises to 16 per cent among 18-24 year olds – and rises still further to 28 per cent among those who describe themselves as “very left-wing”.

13 per cent of 18-24 year olds do not believe that Hamas actually killed 1,200 Israelis – the same number who say the government is wrong to classify Hamas as a terrorist group. Among the “very left wing” the figure is 31 per cent. And for good measure 33 per cent of the public believe that Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews, which rises to 48 per cent among 18-24 year olds and 68 per cent of those who identify as “very left-wing”.

On and on it goes: 18 per cent of Brits say Israel can get away with anything because its supporters control the media – and 33 per cent among 18-24 year olds. 18 per cent of this age group do not believe that Israel has the right to exist. You get the picture.

Shocking, awful figures indeed. But not remotely surprising. You only have to look at the now regular hate marches to see the poll made flesh on our streets, with calls for globalising the intifada, and, last Saturday, a placard demanding that the government “intern all Zionists now”.

The poll reveals British views but the results would be at least as bad in France, Germany, the US or anywhere else in the West. And it is going to get worse as the views of today’s 18-24 year olds become the mainstream as they get older.

Which begs the question: how have we arrived here, from a West in which young adults once understood the values of democracy and freedom, grasped the nature of good and evil and grew into adults able to win the Cold War?
The end of the post-Holocaust era
With the end of the post-Holocaust era, Jews need to adjust to a profoundly disorienting ambiguity. That requires, first of all, a realistic assessment of threats and of our ability to respond to them.

Once again Israel is fighting for survival; yet as recent days prove, we still possess the will and the means to defend ourselves. North American Jewry no longer enjoys unconditional acceptance, yet its communities remain the most fortunate in diaspora history. The “Jewish problem” – as Jewish existence was once defined in pre-Holocaust Europe – has been replaced by the “Jewish state problem.” But Israel is not alone in a hostile world, even if it sometimes feels that way.

The great achievement of the post-Holocaust generation was the reclamation of power. Inevitably, that achievement came with a price: the loss of our innocence. Now we must own the consequences.

We are caught in a pathological loop – condemned as aggressors even as many Jews see us once again as victims. Neither identity is useful to understanding this Jewish moment. We are not victimizers: Any country in our place would have reacted as we did to October 7, if anything with even greater vehemence. Nor are we helpless: The ruins of Gaza and of Beirut grimly attest to our reclaimed ability to defend ourselves.

The morning after the war to reestablish our military deterrence, Israel will be confronted with an internal existential challenge: healing the divide that has torn us apart. In the year leading up to October 7, Israelis experienced the worst schism in our history. That divide signaled a fatal weakness to our enemies and encouraged them to attack.

Yet on October 8, rather than disintegrate from within, we instantly pivoted to one of the peak moments of Israeli solidarity. No less impressive, we didn’t wait to be mobilized and inspired by our leaders. Even as the government effectively collapsed, we mobilized ourselves. That was the moment of our maturation.

We are heirs, then, to two opposing models of Israel. The first is an old Jewish story: We devour ourselves, and then our enemies do the rest. The second story is new: From the depths of our divisiveness, we reclaim the instincts of peoplehood.

To do so will require agreement that no ideological camp may impose the totality of its political and cultural agenda on this fractious people. Neither an Oslo-like process nor a judicial coup can happen without a national referendum, or some other mechanism ensuring broad support. And when we enact painful policies that will inflame social tensions – for example, changing the nature of the ultra-Orthodox relationship with the state – we do so with respect, appreciating that each ideological camp embodies an essential truth of our identity and experience as a people.

The other day in Jerusalem, I saw a bumper sticker that read, “Our story will have a good ending.” Those words were spoken by Sarit Zussman at the funeral of her son, Ben, a soldier who fell in Gaza. Once that sentiment would have seemed to Israelis self-evident. Now it has the poignancy of a prayer.
Howard Jacobson: Tales of Infanticide Have Stoked Hatred of Jews for Centuries. They Echo Still Today
In 1955, the Church of England put up a plaque in Lincoln Cathedral, apologizing for the harm it had done by falsely accusing Jews of the ritual slaughter of Little Hugh in 1255. That Jews habitually murdered gentile children for blood with which to make Passover matzoh was a popular superstition throughout Britain and Europe in the Middle Ages. The "blood libel," as it became known, set the Jews apart from the entire human family; depraved, accomplices of the devil - and, of course, justified hunting them down and massacring them.

There could hardly have been a more unlikely crime to charge Jews with, given the strict taboo on blood sacrifice and the extreme laws against blood contact and consumption laid down in the Torah. It is hateful to be accused of what you haven't done, but more hateful still to be accused of what you would never dream of doing.

Night after night, our televisions have told the story of the war in Gaza through the death of Palestinian children and a recital of the numbers dead. Here we were again, the same merciless infanticides inscribed in the imaginations of medieval Christians. Even when there are other explanations for the devastation, no one really believes them. Reporters whose reports are proved wrong see no reason to apologize. What is there to apologize for? It could have been true.

Ask how Israel is able to target innocent children with such deadly accuracy and no one can tell you. Ask why they would want to target innocent children and no one can tell you that either. Hate on this scale seeks no rational explanation. Hate feeds off the superstitions that fed it last time round.

Compare reporting from Gaza with reporting from Ukraine. Bombs have fallen there, too, but how often is the burial of Ukrainian children the lead story?
Even on the anniversary of October 7, some MPs can’t let Jews grieve
I’ll never forget that dread of the morning of October 7.

The panicked calls, WhatsApp messages and frantically scrolling through social media for any news.

All that before the videos – true horror permanently etched into our minds, and which will never leave us – of what happened on that Black Saturday started circulating.

And finding out someone you knew was directly affected by what you saw on your phone.

You’d think that “honourable” Members of Parliament would, on anniversary of that infamous date, let us grieve in peace. But you’d be wrong.

Despite being urged “to reflect for a moment on the fact that this is a solemn day” by Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, some backbenchers could barely contain themselves at the opportunity to have, yet another, pop at Israel.

Suspended Labour MP Zarah Sultana, without mentioning Hamas – who, let us not forget, started the conflict by murdering, raping and taking hostage innocent civilians from southern Israel into Gaza – called Israel’s actions “genocidal” and urged the prime minister to “end the government's complicity in war crimes by banning all arms sales to Israel”.

To his credit, Starmer said “no” and said her suggestion “on the anniversary of October 7 and days after a huge attack by Iran into Israel would be the wrong position for this government.”

But Sultana’s sentiment wasn’t unique.

Even though over 1,000 innocent Israelis were killed in Hamas’s barbaric rampage for no reason other than that they were Israeli. Hamas didn’t distinguish between Jews and Muslims when they unloaded bullets and grenades at anyone they saw.

If adjusted for population size, Hamas’s atrocities on October 7 were the equivalent of 15 9/11 attacks.
WSJ Editorial: The Anti-Israel Mind: A Portrait in Unreality
On Monday's anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, Sen. Elizabeth Warren issued a statement that devoted more words to chastising Israel than Hamas.

After noting that Israel "has the right to defend itself," she lacerated Israel for how it has defended itself, saying, "This cycle of violence won't make anyone safer."

Ah, the "cycle of violence" theory of war. If only Israel would stop targeting those trying to kill its citizens, somehow the violence would end.

She also noted that "Violence is escalating throughout the region, including most recently in Lebanon."

No mention that Hizbullah launched 8,000 missiles at Israeli towns and cities before Israel decided to act to stop the bombing.

These statements explain why Israel's enemies believe they can win a political victory against the Jewish state in the West.

They condemn an ally trying to protect its people from annihilation more than they do the enemies who would annihilate them.
Seth Mandel: The Choice Is Between ‘Resistance’ and Peace
In fact, the choice is between resistance and peace. And it has been that way all along.

What was the deal under discussion that was so violently interrupted by Hamas’s pogromist rampage one year ago? Israel would be rewarded for facilitating the creation of a Palestinian state; Saudi Arabia would be rewarded for underwriting much of that state, and the United States would be rewarded for shepherding the deal across the finish line.

Saudi Arabia’s rewards would include long-sought security guarantees from America. Israel’s rewards would include recognition by Riyadh. In other words, for enabling Palestinian sovereignty, the U.S. would be a guarantor of peace. And that peace would also be America’s reward.

The deal, it’s worth noting, would be all reward for the Palestinians. It would take work, of course—Israel was a viable nation-state because the Zionist movement spent half a century building civic institutions, and the Palestinians would have to do the same—but we should stop indulging those who see effort as oppressive.

If this process sounds familiar, it should. This is the road map set down by the Abraham Accords.

Although it has become convenient for some parties in the conflict to forget, the Palestinians were the Abraham Accords’ first beneficiaries. “The truth is that the Abraham Accords were about preventing annexation,” explained United Arab Emirates ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba back in 2021. “The reason it happened, the way it happened, at the time it happened was to prevent annexation.”

Otaiba should know: It was he who penned the op-ed in an Israeli newspaper that set in motion the public moves that had only been talked about privately at that point. Fears that Israel would annex West Bank land motivated Otaiba’s country to do more than just talk about normalization with Israel. As more countries joined the Abraham Accords, it became clear just how easy it is to make peace with Israel.

That’s the model. It proved infinitely superior to the previous academic model of peacebuilding, which could be summed up as: Maybe the Jews will eventually just get tired and die.

Indeed, in the annals of peacemaking, it’s hard to describe just how much of an anomaly this is. Historically, has there ever been a more painless way to improve the relative security of one’s country than by saying “I admit the Jews exist”? You have to really not want peace with Israel to not have peace with Israel. It takes a staggering amount of effort and determination.

Last year, the Abraham Accords process was apparently so close to its goal that Iran and its militia that runs Gaza had to start a regional war. The many thousands stomping around U.S. cities and campuses with Hamas target triangles, with paraglider art, with “resistance is justified” signs believe that every death since Oct. 7 was worth it in order to prevent the existence of peace.

That was the choice on offer: peace with Israel and Palestinian statehood or death and destruction. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict isn’t hopeless unless you want it to be.
Walter Russell Mead: Terror in a Safe Space, a Year On
A music festival billed as providing a "safe envelope for finding inner calm, peace, harmony" ended with mass murder, rape and kidnapping and ushered the Middle East into a series of horrific wars. That is what happened a year ago outside Kibbutz Re'im at the Tribe of Nova music festival, and the horror that overtook the festivalgoers has spread far and wide since that fatal day.

For Israelis and Jews everywhere, the past year has brought hard lessons in both the importance of Zionism and its difficulties. Jews in London, Paris, Los Angeles, New York and other cities have watched mobs of Jew-haters repeatedly march through the streets. Jews unwilling to denounce Israel have been ostracized and marginalized at universities. Jews across the West are wondering whether their children have a future in their own countries.

Two generations of Westerners have raised their kids to believe that the world is rapidly becoming a safe space. We were consolidating a rules-based world order. Life would no longer be about sacrifice and heroism. It would be all about shopping, music festivals and feeling good about ourselves.

What our elites forgot is that the rules-based world order was never more than a consequence of American and allied power, and that without the steadfast maintenance of that power, the rules by which the world lives will revert to something more like the Law of the Jungle.

It turns out that the diplomacy through which presidents seek to reshape the world depends on the military power and the use of force that they want to eschew. As respect for American capacity, vision and will erodes around the world, the power of American threats and promises steadily fades.
American Jews Cope with the Fallout a Year after the Oct. 7 Attacks
American Jews are buying guns more often. They're going to Shabbat dinners and synagogues more often. For many, the year since Hamas's Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel has led to concerns over whether they are securely woven into the fabric of American life.

Grant Schmidt, a Jew who runs Shot Tec, a firearms training and retail business in a suburb of Philadelphia, says, "In some way, shape or form, everyone feels on their own." Jewish institutions - schools, synagogues, camps - that a year ago didn't want security guards to wear uniforms, he said, now ask that they openly carry rifles. "People are getting more into their identities. It's like: 'Like it or not, you're Jewish, so own it.'"

Seth Zwillenberg, 67, a Philadelphia-area doctor, said watching campus protesters nearby shout slogans last spring was extremely jarring. "Who thought about antisemitism in America? We knew some non-Jews hate us. But who thought about it? You knew there were a few cranks on both sides but not mainstreamed on both sides. I'm angry, and I'm scared."

The FBI said in September that anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2023 reached their highest number since data collection began in 1991, and made up 68% of all religion-based hate crimes. Joshua Leifer, a Yale University historian who in August published the book Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life, said, "American Judaism's holiday from history is over."
‘The front is not there or here, but inside each of us’
Turning to the home front, Daniel Polisar examines how Israeli society has weathered what might be the most awful year in the country’s history:

First, most Israelis (with the exception of a couple of sectors) have dedicated themselves to the war effort with remarkable focus and perseverance. This starts with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, mostly reservists in their twenties, thirties, and forties who were called away from their homes and careers, and have risked life and limb to defend their country. They could not have done so effectively and with peace of mind without the unwavering backing of their spouses, typically but not always women, who for months at a time have taken care of their families while providing emotional and logistical support to their life partners on the front lines.

The spirit of voluntarism remains powerfully alive throughout society twelve months into the war, and is shared by young and old alike—who have taken upon themselves a myriad of activities to support the troops, the Israelis displaced from the Gaza envelope and the areas near the Lebanese border, and the families of the hostages.

Quoting David Ben-Gurion, Polisar asks to what extent Israelis have succeeded at “preserving through this bloody conflict ‘a vision of life, a vision of national rebirth, of independence, equality, and peace.” His answer:

Though there are of course exceptions, I’ve seen a clear picture emerge from speaking with dozens of soldiers and hearing and reading the words of hundreds more. They are animated by a touching nobility of purpose: they are fighting so that their family, friends, and neighbors can enjoy the good and simple things in life, so that the hostages can be reunited with their families, and the displaced residents of the south and north can return to their homes, till their fields in peace, and send their children to their own schools so that they can flourish and contribute in turn to their country.
Herzog announces first recipients of Oct. 7 civil bravery medal
Israeli President Isaac Herzog is set to bestow the Medal for Civilian Bravery, the Jewish state’s highest non-military honor, on 14 individuals and four families for their heroic actions during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, the President’s Residence announced on Wednesday.

The president informed the recipients of the award on Wednesday, ahead of a ceremony that will be held on Oct. 30, a statement from Jerusalem said.

Herzog established the President’s Medal for Civilian Bravery this year, “against the backdrop of the numerous, unfathomable stories of bravery during the events of Oct. 7,” according to the head of state.

Parallel to the “unbearable toll” of Oct. 7, “from the very first moments, there emerged extraordinary acts of heroism by ordinary citizens, who acted instantly, risking their lives, motivated by a sense of mutual responsibility for their fellow citizens, in order to save lives,” he said.

The first Medals for Civilian Bravery will be awarded to Omer Bar, Oz Davidian, Moti Ezra, Tali Hadad, Nirit Hunwald-Kornfeld and Youssef Ziadna, as well as the Alqrinawi family. In addition, posthumous honors will be given to killed Oct. 7 heroes Lion Bar, Daniel Levi, Amit Man, Eliad Ohayon, Moshe Ohayon, Ben Benjamin Shimony, Noam Slotky and Yishai Slotky.

In the category of children’s bravery, medals will be awarded to the Idan family from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, the Taasa family from Netiv HaAsara, and the Suisa daughters from Sderot, the President’s Residence announced.
Making an Impact: A Year on From October 7
HonestReporting was born in 2000 in reaction to the appalling mainstream media coverage of the Second Intifada. Since then, Israel has experienced multiple crises and conflicts of varying degrees of severity. One constant has been the negative reporting that has accompanied every incident or Israeli military operation. HonestReporting has been there throughout, calling out media outlets, securing corrections, and educating the public to become better media consumers.

One year ago, the lives of every Israeli citizen and every Jew were upended by the horrific events of October 7. The aftermath continues with seemingly no end in sight. Along with every organization impacted by October 7, HonestReporting has faced enormous challenges. Yet, we’ve confronted them head-on and emerged even stronger. Broken Borders: Changing the Parameters of the Media Battlefield

This past year has seen HonestReporting changing the very parameters of the media battlefield. Back in November, our staff started asking questions about some of the photos taken during the early hours of October 7. How did international media have photographers at the scene inside Israel? Who were these photographers and how did they manage to capture the carnage up close? We couldn’t have imagined the impact our questions and the resulting content would have.

Our Broken Borders exposé had the immediate result of removing clearly compromised Gazan journalists from the media battlefield, putting the entire global media on notice. We set out to make it unacceptable to hire Gazan reporters and photojournalists without doing due diligence on whether they are willing or able to carry out their jobs objectively. And in many cases, we succeeded.


US Soldiers Trapped in Israel on Oct 7 Narrowly Escaped Being Taken Captive by Hamas
Forty U.S. Army soldiers who were in Israel as the advance team for what they thought was a routine training exercise last October 7 suddenly found themselves in the middle of a war, unarmed, and being forced to beg reluctant Pentagon officials to send an Air Force plane to extract them. Advertisement

Approximately a quarter of the soldiers were just miles from Gaza in off-base housing near the IDF’s Tze’elim base when the attack began. A group of local Israelis – IDF reservists, police officers, and ordinary citizens – got them to the base, which Hamas terrorists were quickly heading toward. With his men in mortal danger, the U.S. team leader requested permission to open the arms locker so they could retrieve their firearms but was denied at the US Central Command level and “denied and/or ignored” at a level above that, according to a military intelligence analyst with knowledge of the mission and exfiltration.

The rest of the soldiers had just arrived in Tel Aviv, where Hamas rockets were hitting near their hotels.

The military intelligence analyst told RedState:
“With everything going on, with all kinds of indirect fire, with rockets, for a good six, eight hours those [soldiers who were at Tze’elim] were in very mortal danger and the military and civilian leadership [at the Pentagon] was perfectly willing to not even worry about it.”

Approximately 40 hours after the attacks started, and only after lengthy “conversations at the 3-star HQ level,” a U.S. Air Force C-17 briefly touched down in Tel Aviv to exfiltrate the soldiers.

Hamas fired a barrage of 150 rockets at the airport shortly after the C-17 took off for Kuwait.

Without the quick assistance of Israeli civilians and reservists the unarmed Americans likely would have been taken hostage by Hamas and perhaps faced the same fate as those in Benghazi according to the analyst, who praised the Israelis' actions:
Survivor’s Jaw-Dropping Account of Oct. 7 in Kfar Aza | The Caroline Glick Show
Oct. 7 survivor Shar Shnurman and his wife spent 30 hours hiding from Hamas when thousands of terrorists raided their community one year ago, communicating only by text despite being in the same room.

Tune in to this special interview with Caroline Glick from the ruins of Kfar Aza to hear Shnurman's harrowing story and the lessons and perspectives he has drawn since that fateful day.


TV host breaks down hearing former Hamas hostage’s torture story
Sky News host Sharri Markson has broken down into tears after hearing the tragic story of how a girl held captive with former hostage Aviva Siegel was beaten by Hamas terrorists.

Ms Siegel’s husband of 45 years, Keith Siegel, is still being held captive by Hamas terrorists a year after his abduction.

“The worst thing for me there was when they tortured Keith and the girls,” Ms Siegel said.

“I wanted to scream but I couldn’t I had to keep quiet.”

Ms Siegel detailed a moment when one female hostage was beaten by Hamas terrorists while being handcuffed.

“When she came back she was shaking and crying and I couldn’t even hug her because I wasn’t allowed to and I felt like her mother.”

WARNING: Distressing content.


Mother recounts saving her newborn baby from Hamas terrorists
Sky News host Sharri Markson sat down with a mum who saved her newborn baby while terrorists were banging on the door of her saferoom.

“This next story ... is one of courage, bravery and resilience,” Ms Markson said.

WARNING: Distressing content.


I Was Deeply Moved by This Film about Oct. 7
A documentary called "We Will Dance Again," about the Nova music festival that took place close to Gaza on 7 Oct. 2023, looks through the eyes of the young men and women who went to dance there, and also uses Hamas bodycam footage of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

If you want to understand why even though it's been a year since 7/10, this is not the past for Israel; and if you want to understand why there is war raging in the north, you must watch it.

As the DJ pulls the plug on his set as rockets from Gaza fill the dawn sky, you can see - you can feel - this is the day the music died for the only Jewish state.
Nova Music Festival survivors recount moment they escaped Hamas terrorists
Survivors of the Nova Music Festival have bravely joined Sky News host Sharri Markson to recount the moment they escaped Hamas terrorists.

Festival attendees fled the site when gunshots were fired.

Many ran towards the road but were forced to hide in valleys or pretend to be deceased.

“I had to run for two hours - they are surrounding you,” one survivor said.

“They are shooting from every direction.

“Whether you’re going to take one step to the right or left will determine if you are murdered.”

WARNING: Distressing content.


How a Bedouin Muslim Saved 200 Lives at Nova | The Quad Interviews
A year after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre in communities on the Jewish state's southern border, Israelis are still hearing the stories of the larger-than-life heroes who walk among them.

You don't want to miss this story of a Bedouin Israeli police officer who saved over 200 people from being slaughtered on that horrific day!


Eden Golan Performs ‘October Rain’ in Front of Thousands at Oct. 7 Memorial Ceremonies in UN, Central Park
Eden Golan, Israel’s representative to the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest, performed her original song “October Rain” at the United Nations headquarters and in New York City’s Central Park on Monday in two separate events commemorating the one-year anniversary of the deadly Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel that took place on Oct. 7, 2023.

The song Golan performed at the UN memorial event and later at Central Park’s Summer Stage was initially written for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden. However, it was rejected by the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the contest, for being too political since it references the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre. Golan instead competed in the Eurovision with a reworded version of the song, titled “Hurricane,” and finished in fifth place in the international competition.

Golan also performed Israel’s national anthem “Hatikvah” at the UN memorial event, which was attended by hundreds of ambassadors, diplomats, pro-Israel activists, and family members of Hamas hostages as well as those murdered in the Hamas massacre on Oct. 7. The event was organized by the Israeli Mission to the UN in collaboration with Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which live streamed the event on social media.

The ceremony’s speakers included US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Rabbi Doron Perez, whose son Daniel was murdered in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas terrorists who still hold his body captive in the Gaza Strip, and Sigal Mansouri, whose daughters, Roya and Norel, were murdered at the Nova music festival.

“Our heart breaks for the victims, for the brave soldiers who gave their lives to defend us, for the families who have been torn apart and for the 101 innocent souls still held in the terror tunnels of Gaza,” said Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon. “To the hostages and their families we say this: you are not forgotten. Every day, every moment, we carry you with us. We will never stop fighting for you until every last one of you is back home. Your names, your faces, your stories are forever etched into our hearts and we will make sure the world cannot look away.”
Celebrities Partner With Families of Female Hamas Hostages to Call for Their Return Home
A total of 13 celebrities, social media activists, and other influential pro-Israel supporters advocated for the return of 13 women who have been held hostage by Hamas for 365 days since the deadly terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, in a new video released by The Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

In the video shared on social media as part of the #BringThemHomeNow movement, the 13 activists talk about the hostages, describing who they are, their personalities, and their hopes and dreams for the future. The clip was published on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel, where Hamas-led terrorists murdered 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages, 97 of which remain in Hamas captivity. The remaining hostages include seven Americans, four of whom are presumed to be alive, according to the American Jewish Committee.

The influential figures who participated in the video include media personality and television host Andy Cohen; “Saturday Night Live” cast member and comedian Chloe Fineman; designer Rebecca Minkoff; Princess Noor Pahlavi, the daughter of the exiled Crown Prince of Iran Reza Pahlavi; artist Zoe Buckman, actresses Patricia Heaton, Debra Messing, Ginnifer Goodwin and Emmanuelle Chriqui; attorney and activist Elica Le Bon, and social media influencers Emily Austin, Adela Cojab Made and Baby Ariel.

The 13 female hostages still held captive by Hamas who are highlighted in the clip are Romi Gonen, 24; Naama Levy, 20; Liri Albag, 19; Ofra Keidar, 70; Shiri Bibas, 33; Inbar Hayman, 27; Emily Damari, 27; Karina Ariev, 20; Agam Berger, 20; Doron Steinbrecher, 31; Arbel Yehud, 29; Daniella Gilboa, 20; and Judy Weinstein Haggai, 70. The video includes footage of some of the hostages that has been released either from their abduction on Oct. 7 or during their ongoing captivity.
Oct 7 one year on: Stories from Israel's Gaza Envelope

Avi Abelow: Special Oct 7th Interview - Producer of "The Killing Roads"
Igal Hecht took on a monumental project, commemorating the atrocity of the October 7th massacre in a unique way that weaved together eyewitness testimonies with the actual footage of what transpired to those people. This is a must watch and share movie about Oct 7th that must be seen by all.


ZAKA Volunteers revisit horrors of October 7th massacre

How October 7 burst Tel Aviv's progressive bubble



Israel’s Soccer Association Responds to FIFA’s Decision Not to Suspend Jewish State Despite Palestinian Efforts
The Israel Football Association (IFA) has reacted to FIFA’s recent decision not to suspend the Israeli club and instead investigate the IFA over allegations of discrimination by the Palestinian Football Association (PFA), which is also calling for Israel’s suspension from international soccer matches.

“Whoever fantasized about the suspension of Israeli football from the international arena or sanctions through lies and false accusations, has suffered a defeat,” read a statement given to Fox News Digital by IFA head of communications Shlomi Barzell over the weekend. “Again, we have acted over time in different channels, in a calculated and proactive manner in the face of the challenge of the Palestinian Association and its leader to distort reality, and the result today leaves no room for doubt.”

“We respect the authors of the report submitted to the council members and the decision of the council members to consider transferring two issues to a legal examination, as long as there is any factual justification for it,” the statement further noted. “Thanks to values that represent a glorious democracy and an independent and determined legal system of the Football Association, we have never violated and will not violate any of the FIFA/UEFA rules.”

FIFA, the world’s governing body for soccer, announced on Oct. 3 that its disciplinary committee will launch an investigation into claims by the PFA that the IFA is complicit in the Israeli government’s alleged violation of international law during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The PFA also accused the IFA of discriminating against Arab players and including teams located in Palestinian territory in its leagues.

“The FIFA Disciplinary Committee will be mandated to initiate an investigation into the alleged offense of discrimination raised by the Palestine Football Association,” FIFA said in a statement. “FIFA’s Governance, Audit, and Compliance Committee will be entrusted with the mission to investigate — and subsequently advise the FIFA Council on — the participation in Israeli competitions of Israeli football teams allegedly based in the territory of Palestine.”


NGO Monitor: B’Tselem’s False Information and Flawed Methodology: Court Ruling Spotlights NGO “Investigations”
Introduction
A July 2024 ruling by an Israeli court on a defamation lawsuit involving a B’Tselem report, highlights the flawed methodology of the organization and the wider problem of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) disseminating distorted or false information. An examination of this episode reveals how B’Tselem’s claims are uncritically accepted and insufficiently scrutinized by foreign governments, the UN and other international agencies, academics, and media.

The incident – involving a confrontation between Palestinian youth and Israeli civilians in the West Bank – was initially described, without fact-checking, by Gideon Levy in Haaretz, based on hearsay provided by a B’Tselem field researcher. Subsequently, the allegations were repeated in a B’Tselem report. As seen below, the claims then appeared in major media platforms around the world, posts from human rights NGOs such as Amnesty International, and British MPs, and in a report by the UN Secretary-General.

After assessing the evidence, the court determined that the alleged kidnapping and abuse of a Palestinian youth by Israeli civilians “did not occur” as described by the NGO and subsequent reports based on it.

Court documents disclosed disturbing details about B’Tselem’s fact-finding methodology – or, more accurately, its absence: According to the testimony of a B’Tselem field researcher (court document on file with NGO Monitor), who has worked for the organization for 20 years, the NGO operates under a protocol whereby Palestinian accounts are not independently verified beyond a visit to the scene of the alleged incident and discussions with to additional “eyewitnesses” (who may or may not have actually witnessed the incident). In the episode at the center of the defamation case, the facts as published by B’Tselem were refuted by details in the victim’s medical files and contemporaneous IDF reports.

In this regard, B’Tselem is not unique. Most NGOs and UN agencies that claim to perform fact-finding within the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict operate similarly, basing their publications on hearsay and second-hand accounts, without verifying the allegations. (Even if they wanted to, NGOs lack the tools, expertise, and access to do so.)

By examining the events and details in this case, the wider problems associated with NGO claims of fact-finding and reporting, particularly in conflicts involving Israel, can be understood and applied to other examples.
NGO Monitor: More Blatant NGO Hypocrisy and the Exploding Hezbollah Pagers
Summary
On the 17 and 18 of September 2024, thousands of handheld pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkie radio communicators belonging to members of Hezbollah exploded simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria, reportedly resulting in 3000 dead or severely injured. This was a major blow to the Iranian proxy terror force. The explosions were widely attributed to an Israeli operation, although there was no official confirmation.

Multiple NGOs claiming to promote human rights and international law condemned this action, falsely accusing Israel of responsibility for “unlawful and indiscriminate” attacks, and alleging that they harmed civilians as well as Hezbollah targets. A number of organizations called for international investigations of what they termed “violations of international law.” In many examples, the NGOs omitted the core facts that the pagers and communicators were explicitly distributed by the Hezbollah terror army to its commanders and fighters, as well as some allies, and that the Iranian proxy had targeted Israel with over 9,000 rocket and drone attacks (each a war crime) since 8 October 2023, resulting in the deaths of 47 individuals, including 12 children in the Majdal Shams massacre in July, as well as numerous injuries.

Analysis
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and the other advocacy NGOs discussed in this report repeatedly claim to base their condemnations of Israel on human rights principles and international law. Yet, they systematically ignore and erase repeated and blatant violations by the aggressors and affiliated terror organizations. This highly selective and blatantly political agenda is directly reflected in their statements and social media posts on the Hezbollah pager incident.

They also entirely erase the context of the ongoing war waged by Hezbollah that began on 8 October 2024 when the Lebanon-based Iranian proxy supported the Hamas mass slaughter and atrocity by initiating rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.

A central theme used by many of the political NGOs cited below, including HRW, World Council of Churches, AFSC, Code Pink, Pax (Netherlands), and CJPME, is the unfounded accusation that the operation attributed to Israel indiscriminately killed civilians. In Amnesty’s invented version, the pagers and communicators were detonated “without being able to determine their exact location or whose possession they were in at the time of the attack,” and according to HRW, detonating devices “without knowing where they are and who they are with” is therefore no different than “bombing from the skies without looking.” Both NGO propaganda statements erase the core and undisputed fact that the owners were Hezbollah terrorists.
Influential UK NGO Head, Majed Al-Zeer Finally Designated by U.S for Links to Hamas
On October 7, 2024, the U.S Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) listed Majed Al-Zeer as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. Al-Zeer, a German resident with dual U.K. and Jordanian nationality, was sanctioned for his alleged links to Hamas. The Treasury Department accused Al-Zeer of materially assisting, sponsoring, or providing financial, material, or technological support to Hamas. As a result of this designation, all of Al-Zeer’s property and interests in property subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with him.

It’s not the first time Al-Zeer has been so designated. In December 2023, German security services officials declared Al-Zeer a central “Hamas representative in Germany.” Officials arrested  four other suspects involved with the Palestinian terrorist group allegedly plotting to attack Jewish sites across the country.

European governments, however, have largely allowed Al-Zeer and his network to operate with impunity. This network operates across Western Europe, despite its prominence within Islamist circles and hardly secret Hamas ties.

Al-Zeer has been photographed with the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and its former head Khaled Mashal. In 2014, Hamas sources reported that Al-Zeer brokered a “secret agreement” on behalf of Hamas with the Turkish government, allowing the terror group to move some of its leadership to Istanbul.

Al-Zeer had a lot of influence over U.K. NGO’s that appeared to function as Hamas Fronts. From 1996 Al-Zeer served as director and later chairman of London-based Palestinian Return Centre (PRC). 

The PRC’s Hamas connections have been repeatedly exposed. In 2010, Israeli authorities declared the PRC to be a “Hamas affiliated organization” that “organizes many conferences in various European countries for Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood activists” and is “involved in initiating and organizing radical and violent activity against Israel in Europe.”

In 2011, German authorities stated, “Hamas does not operate openly in Europe. Instead, it uses the Palestinian Return Centre in London as a forum.”

In 2015, Israel asked the UN not to afford the PRC an NGO accreditation because they “actively promote terrorism.” The U.N. did so anyway, providing open access to U.N. facilities globally.

Reportedly, “Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s office announced that Haniyeh had called the NGO’s leader, Majed al-Zeer, and congratulated him on its recommended status. But a spokesman for the Palestinian Return Center, Sameh Habeeb, said al-Zeer had not received a call from Haniyeh. Later on Tuesday, a Haniyeh spokesman sent a message to reporters asking them ‘not to deal’ with the earlier announcement about the phone call.”
The Israel Guys: Everything You’ve Been Told About the West Bank is a Lie | Episode 1
In episode one of this four-part series, the five hosts at The Israel Guys take you to Israel’s Lookout, a spot in the West Bank that overlooks the population center of Israel and the Ben Gurion Airport. You’ll be shocked at just how close this spot is to 70% of Israel’s population. You’ll be even more shocked at what we saw through our camera lenses.

Afterwards, the team traveled to a factory inside Samaria that employs Palestinian-Arabs and Israeli Jews, treating them both equally. Since this episode was filmed before October 7th, there are many in Israel today that are skeptical that such a model can still bring coexistence and peace in the Middle East. We’ll let you watch and find out for yourself.


The Israel Guys: EXPOSING The Myth of the Palestinian State | Episode 2
In episode two of this four-part series, the five hosts at The Israel Guys take you to an off-the-beaten path, exclusive location inside northern Samaria (falsely known as the West Bank). You’ll discover just how tiny Israel would become if a Palestinian state were established. You’ll be shocked to watch the already tiny nation of Israel shrink before your eyes if Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria were given away. Afterwards, the team travels to the northern tip of Samaria where you’ll discover just how close a Palestinian state would be to many well-known spots in Israel. Can you guess how far from this spot Mt. Hermon, Caesarea, the Sea of Galilee, or Bet Shean would be? While skepticism about the feasibility of the two-state solution is growing in Israel and amongst clear-headed thinkers around the world, we’ll let you watch today’s episode and decide what you think for yourself. Be sure to post your opinion in the comment section!


Jonathan Tobin: The big lie of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 10 days in ‘Palestine’
There are times when terrible books can be useful. In the case of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ truly awful The Message, the author has not only demonstrated exactly how and why America’s chattering classes have not just turned on Israel and are supporting an ideological war against its existence. Coates has given us more than that.

During his book tour of the mainstream media, he also helped illustrate how a mob mentality and woke bureaucratic structures have gutted a supposedly prestigious legacy outlet like CBS News. At virtually every other stop, Coates was treated as a hero, offered only softball questions and never challenged about the bogus nature of his latest work. But one journalist, Tony Dokoupil, a host on CBS Mornings, had the temerity to ask Coates some tough questions about the inaccuracies of his book and its true intent, which is to delegitimize and amplify calls for Israel’s destruction.

For doing what any honest journalist would do when interviewing an author of an extremist polemic that calls for eliminating the one Jewish state on the planet, Dokoupil was publicly shamed by the network for failing to maintain its “editorial standards.”

A sin against the DEI catechism
As the Free Press documented by publishing a tape of the meeting, executives apologized to other staffers (who had reportedly generated this struggle session by swamping the heads of the network’s news division with complaints) for his supposed misbehavior. Reportedly, Dokoupil responded with tearful regrets. Then, to add insult to injury, he was later subjected to what everyone dreads in the brave new corporate world in which the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) rules supreme. He was summoned to a grilling by the network’s in-house “Race and Culture Unit” for offending Coates with his “tone of voice, phrasing and body language” during the interview.

Still, one brave reporter, Jan Crawford, a veteran legal correspondent for CBS, spoke up in dissent. She demanded to know what sort of “standards” were in place that would punish a journalist for actually doing their job. The answer from her bosses was that they would reply to her in private.

The message this sends to all journalists at the news network is that they better not ask any tough questions when interviewing those who advocate for the end of Israel. Of course, we know that the same show—and every other mainstream corporate outlet—expects their reporters to be aggressive and confrontational when they are talking to those who dissent from leftist fashion or liberal orthodoxy. In this manner, the culture of journalism has changed from one in which those employed by these outlets view their jobs as more one of liberal/leftist activism than objective reporting. Anything that advances their political goals is to be praised. Anything that tells a different story must be ignored or savaged. In so doing, they have enabled anti-Israel bias, even though the same standard applies across the board to every topic and political controversy.
‘CBS’ boss backs reporter after network says his Ta-Nehisi Coates
Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of CBS’s parent company Paramount Global and daughter of the late Jewish billionaire Sumner Redstone, backed reporter Tony Dokoupil over his handling of a controversial interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates about the latter’s newly published anti-Israel book.

“I frankly think Tony did a great job with that interview,” Redstone said at Advertising Week New York on Wednesday. “I think he handled himself and showed the world and modeled what civil discourse is.”

Dokoupil’s Sept. 30 interview with Coates on “CBS Mornings,” which Dokoupil co-hosts, prompted a backlash within the newsroom after he pressed Coates on why the new book, The Message, presents a one-sided, pro-Palestinian view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“If I took your name out of it, took away the awards, and the acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away—the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist,” Dokoupil said.

“Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it?” he asked. “Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it? Is it because you just don’t believe that Israel in any condition has a right to exist?”

“No country in this world establishes its ability to exist through rights,” Coates replied. “Israel does exist. It’s a fact. The question of its ‘right’ is not a question that I would be faced with any other country.”
Paul Coates, father of journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, republishing antisemitic screed ‘The Jewish Onslaught’
Black Classic Press, a Baltimore-based publishing company founded in 1978, has long been dedicated to unearthing “obscure and significant works by and about people of African descent,” its website states.

In recent weeks, the company has been a focus of renewed attention as its founder, Paul Coates, 78, prepares to accept a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Foundation in November.

But even as Coates has been celebrated for nurturing such contemporary authors as Walter Mosley and reissuing works by W.E.B. Du Bois, among other luminaries, his company has also recently chosen to spotlight an antisemitic screed that seeks to uphold a widely discredited conspiracy theory alleging Jewish domination of the Atlantic slave trade.

Called The Jewish Onslaught, the book was self-published in 1993 by Tony Martin, a former professor of Africana studies at Wellesley College who had faced backlash for approvingly teaching an infamous tract from the Nation of Islam purporting to show that Jews played a disproportionate role in the slave trade — a claim historians have dismissed as factually inaccurate.

Black Classic Press makes no mention of Martin’s commitment to propagating an antisemitic trope in a laudatory blurb on its website, saying he “became embroiled in controversy over his classroom use of a book detailing the well-documented Jewish role in the Atlantic slave trade.”

The company did not respond to a request for comment from Jewish Insider on Thursday about its decision to republish Martin’s book — which was condemned at the time of its publication and has also been a source of controversy in recent years.


Elissa Slotkin Calls for Israeli Ceasefire, Criticizes 'Humanitarian Disaster' in Gaza in Debate with GOP Opponent
Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin repeated her call for an Israeli ceasefire during the Senate debate on Tuesday and criticized the "humanitarian disaster going on in Gaza."

While Slotkin said Israel has a "right to defend itself," she said she was also concerned that the "United States [will] get back into a big land war in the Middle East" as a result of the conflict.

"Israel has the right to defend itself when people come and kill their citizens. That is something that any country in the world has the right to do," said Slotkin during a debate with Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers sponsored by WOOD-TV. "But we can also say that we don't like seeing loss of life among civilians."

Slotkin added that Israel has a "right to respond" to Iranian missile strikes and attacks from its proxies. But she said she was also worried that a military response could bring the United States "back into a big land war in the Middle East."

Slotkin’s comments come as she has been courting support from Michigan’s Arab community, which is one of the largest in the country. The Democrat, who has also faced pressure from pro-Hamas activists, recently used an algorithm to target her Facebook campaign ads at users with an expressed interest in the "State of Palestine," "Al Jazeera," and "Islamic Studies," while blocking users interested in "Jewish studies" from seeing the ads, the Washington Free Beacon reported last month.

In response to Slotkin’s comments, Rogers countered that a "ceasefire could happen today if we could get the hostages out" and argued that "you can't have a government in Gaza run by Hamas."

"People have been trying to be on both sides of this issue," said Rogers. "We can have a ceasefire tomorrow if Hamas would give up the hostages. We have four Americans still there. Those Americans should be brought home."
MEMRI: At Dearborn, Michigan Rally For Lebanon, Crowd Cheers For Hizbullah Invading Israel, Chants 'Death To Israel'; Dearborn Mayor Hammoud: We Want People Across The Globe To Have The Values We Advocate For In Dearborn; Community Leader Osama Siblani: We Will Take You Back To Poland! We Are Americans And America Is Changing – Look At The Universities! Our Martyrs Are Heroes, Our Leaders Are Great, Chief Among Them Is Nasrallah; Raise Your Flags High! Greetings To The Resistance From Dearborn!
At the "Stand with Lebanon" rally in Dearborn, MI held on September 25, 2024, following a series of attacks against Hizbullah leaders and fighters, protesters cheered for Hizbullah secretary-general at the time Hassan Nasrallah and Lebanese speaker of the parliament Nabih Berri. Participants shouted "Death to Israel," and Osama Siblani, community leader and editor-in-chief of The Arab American News, who was the MC of the event, said that Hizbullah has begun to invade the galilee, which was met with cheers from the crowd. He continued to say that Netanyahu wants to bring Israeli citizens back to their homes in the north of Israel, but he has one thing to say to him: "Go back to Poland!"

Mayor Abdullah Hammoud followed this and stated that the people of Dearborn want the values which they are advocating for in the city, for the entire globe. Siblani closed the rally with the statement: "Greetings to the resistance, from Dearborn, Michigan!" Other speakers at the event were Wayne County commissioner Sam Baydoun and Dr. Baqir Berry, the imam of the Islamic Institute of Knowledge, who has said in an April Friday sermon that the Jews need to be re-educated and that the Zionists are barbaric savages. The rally was streamed live on Dearborn in Arabic on Facebook two days before Nasrallah was assassinated.


Columbia student group retracts apology of member who said ‘Zionists deserve to die’
The most prominent pro-Palestinian student group at Columbia University walked back an apology it had issued for a student who said “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”

The statement on Tuesday from Columbia University Apartheid Divest also included an explicit call for violence. It comes as pro-Palestinian groups at Columbia and other universities have made clear that they intend to continue and in many cases escalate their activism in the current school year.

“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” the CUAD statement said. “In the face of violence from the oppressor equipped with the most lethal military force on the planet, where you’ve exhausted all peaceful means of resolution, violence is the only path forward.”

The student, Khymani James, had made the remark about Zionists in a video he posted in January, in which he also said, “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” Columbia barred James from campus in April, after the video resurfaced and garnered widespread attention and criticism. At the time, James was a prominent activist in Columbia’s pro-Palestinian encampment movement.

Days later, CUAD issued an apology in James’ name. “When I recorded it, I had been feeling unusually upset after an online mob targeted me because I am visibly queer and Black,” it said.

“CUAD and the Gaza Solidarity Encampment have made clear that my words in January, prior to my involvement in CUAD, are not in line with the CUAD community guidelines. I agree with their assessment,” the statement said, according to the Columbia Spectator. “Those words do not represent CUAD. They also do not represent me.”

The statement was posted to CUAD’s Instagram but has since been removed. An apology James posted on Twitter was also taken down.


Brown University facing pressure to cancel board vote on Israel divestment
Amid pressure from Brown University students who demonstrated on the campus green last spring against the war in Gaza, the university’s trustees are slated to vote next week on whether to divest from companies with ties to Israel. The upcoming vote would make Brown one of the first major research universities to vote on a board-sponsored proposal to boycott companies with ties to the Jewish state.

The divestment vote, scheduled for Oct. 17, 10 days after the first anniversary of Hamas’ massacre in southern Israel, comes as a result of an agreement in April between Brown University President Christina Paxson and members of the Brown Divest Coalition to take down an anti-Israel encampment that was set up on the campus’ Main Green for six days. One of the students’ central demands was a divestment vote. The Rhode Island school was among the handful of universities nationwide to offer concessions to demonstrators rather than call in law enforcement to break up encampments.

“[The vote] has a chilling effect on pro-Israel students,” Rabbi Josh Bolton, executive director of Brown Hillel, told Jewish Insider. “And it makes being Jewish and Zionist a liability in terms of full participation in campus life, freedom of expression in the classroom and social relationships between students.” While Rhode Island is one of several states that bans discrimination against Israel, the law does not apply to private institutions, such as Brown, which is located in Providence.

The resolution calls for Brown to divest from 10 companies with ties to Israel: Northrop Grumman, RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon), Airbus, Volvo Group, Boeing, General Dynamics, General Electric, Motorola Solutions, Textron Corporation and Safariland. Brown’s endowment, which grew to $7.2 billion this year according to the university, is relatively small compared to other Ivy League institutions.


Did Media Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War Influence the Rise in Post-October 7 Antisemitism?
Since Hamas’ brutal invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents in the United States and around the world have risen exponentially.

These incidents include acts of violence, harassment, vandalism, and glorification of anti-Israel terrorism.

As this rise in antisemitism can be tied to the October 7 attack and its aftermath, the question needs to be asked: Have the media played a role in this surge of antisemitism?

Throughout the war, both mainstream media organizations and alternative news sources on social media have parroted Hamas propaganda, spread unsubstantiated claims about Israel’s conduct, and concocted narratives that besmirch Israel’s reputation in the international arena.

While there is no definitive way of determining the extent to which the media’s portrayal of Israel has affected this rise in antisemitism, there is an interesting correlation between certain months where antisemitic incidents peaked and the media trends that existed during that month.

The following is a look at those months where antisemitic incidents rose (in comparison to the previous month) and the media stories that may have influenced this dangerous rise in anti-Jewish bigotry.

Between September 2023 and October 2023, antisemitic incidents rose by 253%.

Here are some major stories and trends that appeared in the media’s coverage during October that may have contributed to this rise:
Even in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack, some news organizations were already creating an anti-Israel narrative by parroting Hamas’ justification for its attack, creating an equivalence between Israeli and Hamas casualties, or turning their focus to Israel’s response and away from the atrocities themselves.
After an explosion occurred at Al-Ahli Hospital, the media rushed to publish the Hamas Ministry of Health’s claim that an Israeli airstrike on the hospital had killed 500 people who were sheltering on the grounds. It was only later that these same outlets were forced to backtrack, recognizing that it was not an Israeli attack that had caused the explosion and that the number of casualties was much lower than initially reported.
In preparation for its ground operation into Gaza, the IDF issued an order for Palestinians living in northern Gaza to move south for their own safety. However, several news outlets misrepresented this order and Israel’s actions to protect innocent Palestinians. Both Reuters and The Telegraph misrepresented the order as saying that the IDF would treat anyone remaining in northern Gaza as a terrorist while the British Medical Journal published a piece which termed this order as being akin to “expulsion.”
At the same time as Palestinians were evacuating to southern Gaza, several mainstream media organizations uncritically shared the Hamas-run Ministry of Health’s claim that 70 Palestinians were killed by an Israeli strike while fleeing to the south. Despite the lack of hard evidence for this claim (and the IDF’s denial that it was operating in the area at the time), it was shared widely as fact by such outlets as MSNBC, Sky News, and the Washington Post.
Near the end of October, a variety of esteemed media organizations published similarly worded pieces wherein they justified their reliance on casualty statistics released by the Gaza Health Ministry, thus legitimizing the use of Hamas propaganda.


Sympathy to Scorn: The Fight Against October 7 Denialism in the Mainstream Media

Turning Away From Israel, Focusing on Gaza: How Some News Outlets Observed the Anniversary of October 7

Journalists With Hamas Ties: A Running List of HonestReporting’s Top Exposures Since Oct. 7

Guardian gives middle finger to Jews mourning Oct. 7th

The New York Times Balances, Slants on Oct. 7 Anniversary

BBC stands by ‘kill the Jews’ doctor

Sky News editor uses antisemitic trope

Bassam Tawil: The Palestinian Tradition of Celebrating the Death of Jews
Palestinians have a custom of celebrating in the streets every time Israel is attacked or a Jew is murdered by terrorists.

It is hard, if not impossible, to find one senior Palestinian official who is willing to criticize his own people for celebrating terrorist attacks. It is also hard, if not impossible, to find one senior Palestinian official who is willing to condemn the October 7 atrocities and massacres against Israelis. Palestinian leaders have good reason not to speak out: they are afraid of being killed by their own people.

Last month, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, ignored the Hamas attack and instead accused Israel of committing "massacres," "crimes," and "genocide" against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Needless to say, Abbas also ignored the fact that a large number of Palestinians expressed support for the Hamas-led October 7 attack and took to the streets to celebrate the brutal mass-murder of Israeli women, children and the elderly.

Palestinian leaders who do not have the courage, or are unwilling, to denounce terrorism will never be able to call on their people to recognize Israel's right to exist, let alone make peace with it. Palestinians who celebrate the murder of their neighbors are not ready for a state, which will undoubtedly be used as a springboard to slaughter more Jews and to try to destroy Israel.

There is no excuse for celebrating murder. A society that celebrates murder will never be a partner for peace. True peace will only come when Palestinian leaders values their people's lives more than celebrating the murder of Jews.
The strange story of the Palestinian flag
The British sought to exploit this for propaganda purposes, as the war was changing. Since 1914, too many had died on all sides. A revolution had occurred in Russia. Mutinies were breaking out in other countries. America had joined the Allies, but on the condition that “freedom and justice” would prevail after the conflict. In this context, presenting ongoing operations in the Orient as a near-colonial conquest, or worse, a crusade against Islam, would be ill-advised. It was better to speak of a struggle for Arab independence and other nations enslaved by the Turks.

Anglo-Saxon journalists were on the ground, shaping this new narrative, dispatch by dispatch. Most of them were also photographers. One of them, American Lowell Thomas, who would later have a career in cinema, pointed out a flaw: “We can’t get anything out of these Arabs in terms of images. They have no uniforms, no flag. The public will wonder, seeing our photos, if these are not just mere bandits.” His advice: “First, a flag. An unusual shape. Highly recognizable.”

The British military command turned to Sir Mark Sykes. In his forties, this English Catholic aristocrat had traveled extensively throughout the pre-war Middle East and authored two successful books. He spoke Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. He had negotiated the secret 1916 agreements with the Frenchman Georges Picot. But contrary to the dark legend surrounding him today, he sincerely believed in the eventual emancipation of all Middle Eastern peoples: Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, and Jews.

Sykes knew that the Middle East had never had national flags. Muslim rulers generally used a black, green, or red banner inscribed with a Quranic verse. There were two exceptions: Persia, where the Safavid dynasty in the 16th century flew its emblem, the lion and sun, on a green cloth, and the Ottomans, who adopted the red banner of Byzantium in 1453, adorned with a crescent moon and star. When Ottoman Egypt became a quasi-independent state in the 19th century, it only slightly modified the Sultan's flag, replacing the red with green and giving the crescent three stars instead of one.

The “Arab national flag” had to be different from the Turkish flag—no red background, crescent, or star. What colors to use? Sykes chose those of the great Arab dynasties of early Islam: the white of the Umayyads, the black of the Abbasids, and the green of the Fatimids—colors sometimes adopted by Arab autonomists within the Ottoman Empire before World War I.

He imagined several designs and finally opted for three horizontal stripes—black, green, and white—with an uncommon element in vexillology: a bright red chevron, symbolizing the Hashemite dynasty, which could lead a “Great Arab Kingdom” under British influence. A few copies of this banner were distributed to the Bedouin troops, who displayed them every time they were photographed. One of them, acquired by the Australian Expeditionary Corps, is kept at the Melbourne War Memorial.

Immediately adopted by the Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz in 1917, it became the flag of the short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria proclaimed in Damascus in 1920, with the addition of a seven-pointed star on the green chevron. Later, the Hejaz and other Hashemite monarchies in Iraq and Transjordan rearranged the colors: black-white-green, with or without a star on the chevron. In this form, it became the quintessential Arab nationalist flag, even for republicans. Nasserite and Baathist regimes adopted it, with some modifications, from the 1950s onwards, as did Libya, Yemen, Sudan, and most Gulf countries.

And Palestine? Under the British Mandate, there was an official flag with the Union Jack in the canton, which no one used, and an unofficial blue and white flag representing the Jewish community (it was listed on the ‘Flags’ page of the Petit Larousse). By default, local Arab nationalists used the 1920 Hejaz flag, notably during the 1936 revolt. This usage was formalized by the Palestine Liberation Organization when it was founded in 1964.

It is strange, or telling, that the Palestinian movement never sought to modify this emblem, even in a very marginal way, to reflect a particular identity within the Arab or Islamic world. As if that identity didn’t really exist...

What would Sir Mark Sykes have thought? He likely had the wit to laugh at the tribulations of his flag. But the way so many extremists around the world, Palestinian Arab and otherwise, use it today would have shocked him. In December 1918, a few months before succumbing to the Spanish flu, he wrote to the Hashemite prince Faisal, the future “King of the Arabs” in Damascus and later King of Iraq in Baghdad: “Acknowledge the Jewish aspiration to live their national life in Palestine, and know how to make them powerful allies, rather than enemies.”
MEMRI: Saudi Journalist: Hamas And Hizbullah Spread A Culture Of Suicide, They Are Not Resistance Organizations

PMW: PA deceit: Oct. 7 is Palestinian day of mourning
On October 7, 2023, it was Palestinian terrorists and civilians led by Hamas who raped, tortured, massacred and burned over 1,100 people alive in Israel and kidnapped 250 hostages - not Israelis.

But the Palestinian Authority wants to turn the date "October 7" into a global memorial and commemoration of a fictional massacre of Palestinians that never happened.

Fatah Revolutionary Council member Tayseer Nasrallah: "[On October 7] we will commemorate the anniversary of the massacre, the new Nakba, the disaster that befell the Palestinian people, on the first anniversary. The Palestinians worldwide… need to be the spearhead of the global activity to aid the Palestinian people and of the effort to commemorate this massacre, this Nakba, the commemoration of the anniversary that will join the Nakba of 1948 that we have been commemorating for 76 years already."' [Official PA TV, Sept. 22, 2024] For 76 years, the Palestinians have been commemorating May 15, Israel's Independence Day, as a day of mourning - what they call the Nakba - the "catastrophe" of Israel's establishment. Now, to distract the world from the horrific massacre perpetrated by Palestinians of all factions and supported by an overwhelming majority of all Palestinians, the PA wants to rewrite history and present October 7 as a second day of Palestinian victimhood and turn the Palestinian attackers and their supporters into the victims.

There is a striking parallel between the way Palestinians rewrite the history of Israel's creation and October 7. In both events, Arab-organized militaries together with Arab civilians attacked and murdered Israelis. Following both May 15, 1948, and October 7, 2023, Israel responded with major force and defeated the armies/terrorists and their supporters, and hundreds of thousands of Arabs lost their homes. In both cases, the Palestinians are attempting to rewrite history by presenting the Palestinian murderers as victims. In both cases, the Palestinian Authority is trying to blame Israel for the catastrophe that their own actions brought on themselves.

Hamas war on Israel October 2023
PMW: Polls: It’s not just Hamas – it’s all Palestinians. 98% said Oct. 7 events “made them proud”
Every poll of Palestinians since October 7, 2023, by both AWRAD – Arab World for Research and Development, and PSR - Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, shows that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians supported and continue to support the rapes, torture, beheadings, and murder of more than 1,100 people in southern Israel led by Hamas, and their kidnapping of 250 hostages.

Significantly, the polls found that the support in the West Bank was higher than the that the Gaza Strip. Asked if they supported the attack on Oct 7, the first poll in November 2023 found West Bank support at 83%. Half a year later, in June 2024, after the destruction in Gaza, 73% still said that the decision to attack Israel was correct. In the Gaza Strip, two months into the war support had already dropped to 63% and continued to fall to only 31% in March 2024, saying it was correct to attack. Astonishingly, the joy over the rape, torture, beheadings, and murder of Israelis was so great that even after much of Gaza was in rubble following Israel's counter attack, for West Bank Arabs that one day of horror inflicted on Israelis, made the destruction of Gaza an acceptable price to pay.

Possibly the ongoing belief that the decision to attack was the right decision can be explained by the results of a question that was asked only in the November 2023 poll by AWRAD:


U.S. officials say $6 billion in Iranian funds in Qatar remain frozen
U.S. officials are denying Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s claims this week to have reached a “good understanding” with the Qatari government regarding the approximately $6 billion in Iranian funds moved to a Qatari bank as part of a hostage deal struck with the United States last year. The U.S. froze the funds after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks by the Iranian proxy group in Gaza and officials told Jewish Insider the funds remain frozen.

Amid bipartisan pressure following the Oct. 7 attacks, the Biden administration told lawmakers it would effectively refreeze those funds for the foreseeable future. Under the terms of the hostage deal, the funds would not enter Iran and could be used by the regime only for vetted humanitarian purchases outside Iran.

“The funds remain restricted, and we have strong assurances from our partners that they are not now moving,” a Treasury Department spokesperson told JI. “Along with our partners in Qatar and the interagency, we will continue to monitor these accounts closely.”

The spokesperson added, more explicitly, “There has been no change in our position or our understanding with Qatar: the funds remain immobilized.”

A State Department spokesperson told JI that Iran has not accessed or spent any of the $6 billion.

“The funds are subject to strict oversight by the banks, using rigorous measures set up by the Treasury Department, and we retain the ability to prevent Iran from accessing them at any time,” the spokesperson continued.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, told JI that he has “received assurances from the Treasury Department that the funds are frozen” — though he said Pezeshkian’s comments “underscore the importance” of passing legislation he is sponsoring to permanently lock down the funds.

The House passed legislation earlier this year to permanently freeze both the $6 billion and other Iranian funds held abroad with substantial Democratic support, but the Senate has not taken up the bill.


MEMRI: Iranian Official Reza Taghavi: Hitler Was Right In His Approach Towards The Jews; The Zionists Must Be Persecuted, Deported, And Killed Everywhere; Soon The Zionists Will Eradicate America And Europe

Is London safe for Jews? Well, a special forces officer offered to shadow my child
As the focus of Israel’s war against terror now shifts from Gaza to confronting Hezbollah, for Jews in the diaspora – especially here in the UK – the past year has felt like the end of a golden era for our community.

Before October 7, security levels outside shuls and Jewish schools were minimal. Despite the rare occasions when we experienced name-calling, it was safe to travel around wearing a kippah or any symbol clearly identifying us as Jewish.

It was an era when being a member of the Jewish community felt like belonging to any other community in the UK. My children’s Jewish school in north London is an example of how things have changed.

They must make the long journey there and back from our home in west London on public transport. Immediately after October 7, the school put out this security advice: “We suggest that students should not wear identifying uniform on their way to and from school. Blazers (should be) in bags or covered by coats, and PE leggings (which have the school name) covered by joggers.”

Just think about this for a minute: any item identifying children as Jewish should be hidden. What other community has to put up with something like this? Shortly after October 7, I received advice that my children should not go to our local high street (which is close to the Israeli Embassy), or to shop in Zara, M&S or H&M on days when there are large anti-Israel protests. Despite a significant police presence.

Having seen first-hand the hostile atmosphere on these days, I felt this advice was well worth heeding. I was surprised and delighted to receive calls from a number of non-Jewish friends and acquaintances who, out of the blue, asked me if my family and I were OK in light of the grim atmosphere, which, of course, we were not.
Knife-wielding aggressors attack Jewish woman in Paris
A Jewish woman was attacked by knife-wielding aggressors in the 19th District of Paris on Monday, the French CNews channel reported.

According to the report, three individuals attacked the woman, threatening her with a knife while calling her antisemitic slurs, including referencing the October 7 massacre.

Sources who spoke with the French News channel said the attack had occurred in the atrium of the woman's building, with the woman's husband calling the police.

Antisemitism in France
The sources also claimed, according to the report, that the police, having arrived on the scene, had identified swastikas on the body of the victim.

According to the Jewish Community's Protection Service (SPCJ) statistics, there has been a 1000% increase in antisemitic incidents in France in 2023 compared to the previous year.
Queens man charged in Five Towns bias and assault
Two alleged incidents of antisemetic remarks in the Five Towns led to the arrest of a queens man at 1:20 p.m., in Cedarhurst on Oct. 4, Nassau police said.

A man driving a 2007 white Lexus by Lincoln Street and Oakland Avenue in Cedarhurst was reported to be causing a disturbance, police said. The man allegedly made verbal threats to several people as well as antisemitic remarks before driving away.

A short while later, police said, the same man was driving near Barrett Road and Washington Avenue in Lawrence where he allegedly approached another group and also made verbal threats and antisemitic remarks.

The police found Alvin Tirado, 38, of New Haven Boulevard, and arrested him. When Tirado was being placed in the back of a police vehicle, officials said he became “physically combative” and injured a police officer. The injured officer was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Tirado was charged wit assault, two counts of aggravated harassment and two counts of menacing. Arraigned on Saturday, he pleaded not guilty and the judge issued a temporary order of protection. Tirado is out on bail. The Legal Aid Society of Nassau County represents him. His next court date is Oct. 8.
Self-described Nazi set to become first Australian jailed for banned salute
A self-described Nazi will become the first person in Australia sentenced to prison for performing an outlawed Nazi salute when a magistrate sets his term later his month.

Magistrate Brett Sonnet told Jacob Hersant on Wednesday he will be sentenced to a “relatively modest term of imprisonment” at a court appearance on Oct. 23. “It will not be a severe term of imprisonment, but I have not determined the length,” Sonnet said.

The maximum potential sentence is 12 months in prison plus a 24,000 Australian dollar ($16,177) fine.

Hersant, 25, gave the salute and praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in front of news media cameras outside the Victoria County Court on Oct. 27, 2023. Hersant had just avoided a prison sentence on a conviction for causing violent disorder.

He gave the gesture six days after the Victoria state government made the Nazi salute illegal. The Federal Parliament passed legislation in December that outlawed nationwide performing the Nazi salute in public or to publicly display, or trade in, Nazi hate symbols.

Hersant became the first person convicted under the Victorian law when Sonnet found him guilty on Tuesday following a hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court.
First-time Birthright volunteering trip for those with disabilities makes a real impact
Eight days in Israel leading the first-ever Ramah Tikvah Birthright Israel Onward disabilities service trip provided insight into how a group of adults ages 21 to 41—all with intellectual and developmental disabilities (most on the autism spectrum)—are capable of connecting deeply with the Jewish homeland and its people, and of making important contributions through their volunteer efforts.

The delegation, all current participants or alumni of Ramah Tikvah disability inclusion programs, have spent many summers at Ramah camps, where they have forged ties with Israelis from their mishlachot (Israeli delegations), learned Israeli songs and dances, and grown to appreciate the importance of the Jewish state in their lives.

When the war with Hamas in Gaza broke last October following the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel, participants in Ramah Tikvah programs began seeing community and family members—and friends from their respective camp communities—travel to Israel on service trips. They began to wonder if they might have a similar opportunity to contribute during Israel’s time of extreme need.

Perhaps Birthright Israel Onward would offer a solution?

Taglit Birthright Israel offers a dozen “classic” trips with necessary supports and accommodations for participants with mobility challenges, inflammatory bowel disorders and other medical issues, as well as an American Sign Language program, a trip for those in 12-step recovery programs and more. In addition, the Birthright Israel Onward program facilitates internships, fellowships, academic study and volunteer opportunities in Israel.

When I pitched the idea of a volunteer trip for people with disabilities, Onward Israel CEO Ilan Wagner immediately gave the green light. This group would need accommodations not usually provided to typical Birthright Israel Onward participants, including staff accompanying the group on the flight and 24/7 throughout the trip; three meals daily; hotel rather than group apartment accommodations; and additional structured activities once their morning of volunteering was over.

Last month, even as the war in the Gaza Strip and the hostage situation continued and with an escalation of war looming between Hezbollah in the north, 12 participants and four staff members boarded flights or took cars or trains from St. Louis, Detroit, Columbus, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Berkeley, Calgary, New Jersey and New Haven for flights to Israel. We arrived at a hotel in Tel Aviv ate dinner, got some rest and hit the ground running the next day.
Global Evangelical leaders show unprecedented solidarity for Israel after October 7 - exclusive
Dr. Mike Evans, founder of the Friends of Zion Heritage Center and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, hosted a record-breaking solidarity event at the center in Jerusalem on Monday, commemorating the October 7, 2023, attacks.

The event, considered the largest of its kind in Israel's history, brought together Evangelical leaders representing a quarter of a billion Christians worldwide in a strong show of support for Israel.

The gathering included influential figures from two of the largest evangelical denominations: the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God. These leaders shared messages of solidarity, condemning rising anti-Semitism and affirming their commitment to standing with Israel for the long term.

"We stand shoulder to shoulder with you, not behind you," declared Mike Huckabee, 44th governor of Arkansas, former presidential candidate, ordained Southern Baptist pastor, and television host. He went on to compare the October attacks in Israel to the 9/11 tragedy in the United States, emphasizing that Evangelical Christians are committed to supporting Israel not only in the immediate aftermath but in the long term as well.

Evangelical support for Israel’s future
Throughout the event, speakers delivered messages of hope and strength to the people of Israel. They expressed deep admiration for Israel's resilience and determination in the face of ongoing challenges.

"Israel is not alone," said Pastor Frank Amedia of Touch Heaven Ministries. Millions of Christians around the world are praying for you daily, standing by your side in solidarity." All of the speakers repeatedly emphasized that Israel is not only a friend to Evangelical Christians but also a family loved and cherished by millions around the globe.

A special prayer was held for the families affected by the October 7 attack, the hostages, and the soldiers defending the nation. Evangelical leaders also pledged to continue their efforts to resist anti-Semitism globally, particularly in the Middle East and beyond.


Inspirational Holocaust survivor and educator Lily Ebert passes away at 100 years old
The King and the Chief Rabbi have led tributes to an inspirational Holocaust survivor who passed away at her home in north west London, surrounded by her family.

Lily Ebert MBE, 100, educated millions with her story of survival and resilience in the face of the Nazis during the Shoah.

The King said it was “with the greatest sadness” that he heard of Ebert’s death.

In a statement, the King said: "As a survivor of the unmentionable horrors of the Holocaust, I am so proud that she later found a home in Britain where she continued to tell the world of the horrendous atrocities she had witnessed, as a permanent reminder for our generation – and, indeed, for future generations – of the depths of depravity and evil to which humankind can fall, when reason, compassion and truth are abandoned.

"Alongside other Holocaust survivors she became an integral part of the fabric of our nation; her extraordinary resilience and courage an example to us all, which will never be forgotten.”

Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis said Ebert was “a beacon of resilience, courage, and unwavering faith in difficult times.”

"She emerged from the unspeakable horrors of Auschwitz, not with bitterness or cynicism, but with a promise: to bear witness, to educate, and to inspire. Her undeniable fulfillment of that promise stands as Lily’s legacy and our thoughts are with her dear family.

“In a world that needs to learn the lessons of the Shoah more than ever, may the memory of Lily’s extraordinary life forever be a blessing,” the Cheif Rabbi wrote.

Born in Bonyhád, Hungary in December 1923, Ebert survived Auschwitz and went on to share her story around the world. Last year, she was awarded an MBE by King Charles for her services to Holocaust education.

Announcing her death on Wednesday morning, Ebert’s family said: “Over the years, Lily’s story has touched hundreds of millions worldwide. Her life-affirming intergenerational memoir, Lily’s Promise, co-authored with her great-grandson Dov Forman, is a reminder of the resilience of the human spirit and the dangers of unchecked hatred.

“Lily taught the power of tolerance and faith, the importance of speaking out, and the need to stand against prejudice.”




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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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