Monday, October 14, 2024

10/14 Links Pt2: Why Western ‘solidarity’ is a death sentence for Palestinians; Dreyfus: A Very Modern Affair; Veteran Loses Job After Shooting Anti-Israel Attacker

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: Why Western ‘solidarity’ is a death sentence for Palestinians
There is a question we must ask, ugly and unsettling though it is: who benefits from Palestinian death? It is my belief that Israel does not. On the contrary, given that the influential of the West hold up every civilian death in Gaza as hard proof of the unique evils of Zionism, it is always damaging for Israel when Palestinians die, even when the IDF does its utmost to avoid the loss of innocent life. The staggering double standard by which the woke judge the world’s only Jewish nation – we fight wars, it commits war crimes – means Israel is indicted more ferociously than any other state on Earth for that terrible thing that attends all wars: civilian casualties.

Hamas, on the other hand, clearly spies political advantage in Palestinian suffering. It knows every dead Palestinian will be marshalled by the West’s cultural elites as part of their zealous crusade to demonise and delegitimise the Jewish State. It knows the fires of Israel-hate that burn so fiercely in our opinion-forming circles are further stoked by every tragedy in Gaza. It believes there is moral benefit in the ‘martyrdom’ of civilians. And here’s the awful thing: there is. The swirling global culture of Israelophobia acts as an open invitation to Hamas to permit, and even puppeteer, ever greater levels of Palestinian pain, in the knowledge that this will land yet another blow on Israel’s prestige. Let us speak frankly: Hamas wants people to stay in northern Gaza because it wants them to die.

This is why the Battle of Northern Gaza matters. First, because it is proving to be one of the most intense confrontations yet between the Jewish State and the terror army that wishes to destroy it. And second, because it speaks to a truth too often obscured by the bigotries and bullshit of our Israel-obsessed elites. Namely, that this war they falsely depict as a genocide by Jews, as fascism rehabilitated by fascism’s one-time victims, is in reality a fight between a democratic state and a death cult. Between a civilised nation that regrets death and a barbarous outfit that relishes in it. Between a country that just wants to exist and terrorists dreaming of that ultimate state of non-existence: ‘martyrdom’.

Consider Hamas’s flagrant lie that it is discouraging people from leaving northern Gaza because it is ‘too risky’ elsewhere. You wouldn’t know it from the emotionalist coverage of the mainstream media, which depicts the clash in the north as a deranged one-sided assault by Israel, but Hamas militants are fighting furiously. There are around 5,000 of them in the north, many concentrated in the Jabalia camp Israel has been targeting. They have been shooting guns, firing anti-tank missiles and using high explosives to target IDF soldiers. Hamas is not telling people to stay in the north to avoid the risk of death elsewhere – it is telling them to stay to subject them to the risk of death. To the gross, inescapable dangers of life on a patch of land where a terrorist army fires deadly weapons in heavily populated areas.

Incapable of beating Israel on the physical battlefield of Gaza, Hamas seeks to wound it in the global battlefield of ideas, of images, of viral Palestinian suffering that the self-styled virtuous of the West lap up, retweet and weaponise against that state they hate above all others. Hamas is open about the moral boon it believes it can get from Palestinian death. Yahya Sinwar, its military leader in Gaza, has described the deaths of Palestinians as ‘necessary sacrifices’ to get the Israelis ‘right where we want them’. He believes, in CNN’s words, that the ‘spiralling civilian death toll in Gaza’ will ‘work in [Hamas’s] favour’. Western influencers’ frantic, giddy sharing of Palestinian pain to try to dent Israeli prestige directly inspires Hamas’s grotesquely cavalier attitude towards Palestinian life.

As I argue in my new book, After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation, ‘Having made Palestinian agony the currency of their activism, the activist class cannot now feign surprise at Hamas’s willingness to let this disastrous war continue’. It is your ‘commodification of Palestinian pain’ that incites Hamas to offer up yet more of it – such as by beating people with sticks to make them stay in a warzone where they might very well die. The gravest threat to Gaza right now is the death cult that rules it – and the Western apologists for that death cult. Free Palestine? Yes. Please. From the death-mongering of Hamas and the lethal pity of faraway elites who have no idea of the harm they are doing.
Anti-Semitism? What anti-Semitism?
There’s certainly been no shortage of the latter of late. In February, the Community Security Trust (CST) reported a 96 per cent rise in anti-Semitic assaults following 7 October. Bricks and bottles have been thrown at British Jews. One man, on his way home from a synagogue, was kicked by ‘pro-Palestine’ protesters and told, ‘We are going to rape your mother, you dirty Jew’. No doubt, this was just misplaced anger about the goings on in Gaza, because racially menacing British Jews is a totally normal response to a war raging in the Middle East.

Sarcasm aside, those still trying to pretend that this is anything other than pure anti-Semitism would do well to read that CST report from February. The peak in anti-Semitic incidents, it found, came just a few days after Hamas’s barbaric assault on Israel – weeks before Israel’s ground invasion into Gaza began. It represented a grotesque kind of ‘celebration’ of the pogrom, it concluded. Holding British Jews responsible for the actions of the Israeli government is disgusting enough. But even that doesn’t capture what has been going on.

Anti-Semitism has been metastasising for years now, yet the ‘anti-racists’ have been determined not to notice. Even before 7 October, British Jews were suffering a quarter of all religiously motivated hate crimes while making up just 0.5 per cent of the population. Stories of elderly Jewish men being sucker-punched on the street or Jewish sites being desecrated came and went without much comment. There’s a synagogue in Kent that has been smashed up eight times in 10 years, yet that story has struggled to break out of the local and Jewish press.

My mind often drifts back to those racist scumbags who drove around Finchley Road, another Jewish area of north-west London, in 2021. They chanted ‘Fuck the Jews… Fuck their mothers… Rape their daughters’ out of megaphones, in cars decked out with Palestinian flags. There they were, calling for precisely the kind of violence and sadism we saw meted out on the innocent Jews of southern Israel a few Octobers later. This was a call for barbarism dressed up as national liberation, in the middle of our capital city. And yet it provoked little more than perfunctory tweets from the great and good.

If they were willing to let that slide, they were willing to let anything slide. The silence of the ‘anti-racists’ since 7 October won’t have surprised anyone who has been paying attention. But it must deprive the woke set of the moral high ground for good. After years of raging against cultural appropriation, microaggressions and inanimate objects, they clammed up when genocidal terrorists achieved the most deadly assault against Jews since the Holocaust, and anti-Semitic marches became part and parcel of British city life. They showed once and for all that they don’t care about racism, particularly when it’s levelled against Jews. Never let them forget it.


Evelyn Gordon: Yes, Bad Policies Paved the Way to October 7. But What If They Were the Only Policies Available?
Even more importantly, however, the Israeli public wouldn’t have accepted a major military operation in Gaza prior to October 7. No politician likes adopting unpopular policies, but the truly insurmountable obstacle is that Israel’s army is based largely on reservists, and reservists vote with their feet. If they don’t believe a war is justified, they simply won’t show up. That means a major military operation is literally impossible without broad public support, as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon discovered during the second intifada. Following Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank in 2002, he wanted to launch a similar operation in Gaza to clean out nests of terrorists there. But he quickly backed down due to massive public opposition, including among reservists. Since the intifada’s lethal toll was caused mainly by West Bank terrorists, most Israelis saw no justification for risking a major operation in Gaza.

That same reluctance existed throughout the years between 2005 and October 7, 2023. Mandatory conscription and an extensive reliance on the reserves make Israelis risk-averse, because most have relatives or friends who serve. And any major operation produces casualties; according to Israel Defense Forces data, as of October 7, 2024, 347 soldiers had been killed and 2,299 wounded since the ground operation in Gaza began, the vast majority of them in Gaza. Consequently, even though Gaza had been causing Israel nonstop pain during those years, most Israelis considered the pain level too low to justify casualties on that scale. Only on October 7 did the pain become high enough for Israelis to support a major operation.

Incidentally, this also helps explain the cash that Israel allowed Qatar to funnel to Gaza. Like Mor, I consider the policy idiotic. And yet, the fact remains that Netanyahu was under enormous pressure from the international community to do something about Gaza’s self-inflicted (and largely nonexistent) “humanitarian crisis.” He didn’t want to lift the blockade for precisely the reason Mor noted; he couldn’t launch a military operation to oust Hamas; and nobody except Qatar was willing to throw money at Gaza while Hamas remained in control, understanding that any investment would simply be destroyed the next time Hamas provoked Israel to military action. In that situation, despite my loathing for the policy, I’m not sure what the better alternative was in practice, though in theory it would clearly have been better to starve Hamas of cash and let Gaza suffer the full consequences of its misrule.

More broadly, as neither a peace deal nor a major military operation was feasible, and as Hamas had no interest in any solution except Israel’s annihilation, deferral may well have been the best option available to Netanyahu on Gaza, even if better ones existed in theory. And that thesis is supported by the fact that during Netanyahu’s eighteen months out of power from June 2021 to December 2022, a government comprised almost entirely of parties that opposed him adopted virtually identical policies on Gaza. Indeed, as I argued in Mosaic back in 2015, deferral is the only tenable option when no others are truly feasible, which is the case with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in general. In that situation, a country can only do its best to survive and thrive while waiting for something to change that might make a solution possible.

The problem is that deferral only works if you take the precautions necessary to survive and thrive—and this, not the deferral itself, is where I think Netanyahu does deserve blame. One of the most noteworthy facts about October 7 is that even a relatively small number of armed security personnel often made a vast difference in the of number people Hamas managed to kill or kidnap; that is why some locales in southern Israel suffered much higher losses than others. The problem is that the IDF didn’t have even that minimal number of troops on the border, preferring to rely on high-tech gadgetry. And even many of the troops it did have were, shockingly, unarmed. (Female spotters weren’t issued guns, while kibbutz security squads were issued guns but forced to keep them in a locked arsenal that most couldn’t reach on October 7.)

Granted, local force allocation is usually left to the army’s discretion, and the army certainly bears much of the blame for this failure. But Netanyahu was prime minister, and he knew there was a monster on the other side of the Gazan border; indeed, he knew it better than most of the IDF brass, who are generally far more optimistic about Palestinian intentions than the ever-skeptical Netanyahu. Recall, for instance, that before October 7 the consensus opinion in the IDF was that Hamas was genuinely interested in improving Gaza’s economy rather than fighting Israel.

Consequently, it was the prime minister’s job to insist that high-tech gadgetry isn’t a substitute for boots on the ground, and his job to insist that enough soldiers be kept on the Gazan border to cope with any unexpected attack. Had he done so, Mor would never have written his essay, because October 7 would likely have been just another terror attack in a century-long string, the prelude to just another brief, inconclusive round of fighting in Gaza.
Tablet PodCast: Dreyfus: A Very Modern Affair
This is an October 7th story, but one that begins not in 2023, but in October of 1894 with the arrest of French military officer Alfred Dreyfus, who also happened to be a Jew. The implications of his framing, arrest, and incarceration and the fallout of his eventual exoneration reverberate today. Over this five-episode series, we examine how these events unfolded, and how they connect to the antisemitism that exists today.
Call me Back Podcast - with Dan Senor: One Year Since October 7th - with Tal Becker
As we have just passed the grim one-year anniversary of 10/07, we continue our dedicated series in which we take a longer horizon perspective, asking one guest each week to look back at this past year and the year ahead.

For the fifth installment of this special series, we sat down with Dr. Tal Becker, who serves as Vice President and Senior Faculty of the Kogod Research Center at Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Tal was the former Legal Adviser of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is a veteran member of successive Israeli peace negotiation teams and, most recently, represented Israel before the International Court of Justice and played an instrumental role in negotiating and drafting the historic peace and normalization agreements (the "Abraham Accords"). Tal earned his doctorate from Columbia University in New York City, and is the recipient of numerous scholarly awards, including the Rabin Peace Prize, and the Guggenheim Prize for best international law book for his book "Terrorism and the State".

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
02:29 Looking forward after trauma
07:50 What is Israel’s new story?
10:56 How does the Diaspora move forward?
16:23 Individualism and Universalism in Judaism
23:53 How has Israel told its story to the world since October 7?
27:05 Is there hope for a two-state solution?
33:18 Normalization with Sunni-Arab countries
37:37 How should Israel prioritize after the war ends?

Finally, we have received a number of requests for recommendations of organizations in Israel to donate to around this one-year anniversary of 10/07. There are so many organizations doing important work to help Israelis rebuild from the events of the last year — and the ongoing war. This list is by no means comprehensive. It is simply an opportunity to highlight four groups whose work has moved us and who deserve additional support (we will add additional recommendations in the days ahead):

-IDF Widows & Orphans Organization (IDFWO), an Israeli non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the spouses and children of Israel's fallen heroes. They provide emotional care, financial assistance, educational opportunities, and a community for those affected most by Israel’s wars. — https://www.idfwo.org/en/

-Since October 8, Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets, anti-tank missiles, and explosive UAVs at Israeli civilian and military targets in the north. As worries mount, Rambam Medical Center has cared for the wounded and prepared for war. This 1,100-bed medical center in Haifa has transferred its critical medical care to an underground emergency hospital. Rambam’s underground hospital – capable of housing 8,000 people — will play a critical role going forward in treating wounded soldiers and civilians; protecting and caring for the needs of medical staff and their families; and protecting and caring for the residents of Israel’s Northern Region. — https://aforam.org/

-Leket Israel, Israel's largest food rescue operation, is committed to leading the safe, effective and efficient collection and distribution of surplus nutritious food in Israel to those who need it. To pick just one inspiring example: since October 7th, Leket has committed itself to providing healthy food to the 250,000 displaced Israelis, many of whom have been residing in hotels for the last year. Leket has installed produce stands in hotels across Israel, providing evacuees with a consistent supply of fresh fruit and vegetables, free of charge, which Leket purchases from struggling Israeli growers. — https://www.leket.org/en/

-Kav L'noar's therapy services have provided essential psychological support to communities in the South directly impacted by the war and the October 7th massacre. Their therapeutic interventions are tailored to address the unique emotional and psychological challenges faced by individuals affected by the war, empowering survivors to navigate the aftermath, rebuild resilience, and foster a sense of collective strength. — https://www.kavlnoar.org/israelatwar


Disabled Veteran Loses Job After Shooting Anti-Israel Attacker
Scott Hayes, 47, says he lost his job because he defended himself by shooting an anti-Israel attacker who charged through traffic and tackled him in Newton, Massachusetts.

Hayes was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and released on a $5,000 bail on September 13 after he shot Caleb Gannon, 31, in the stomach the day before. Hayes pleaded not guilty and is arguing that he acted in self defense.

The disabled Iraq War veteran was contracted to provide natural gas leak detection, leak surveys, and inspections for a company that contracts with National Grid, one of the largest utility provider companies in Massachusetts.

National Grid refused to allow Hayes to work on their account after the incident. As a result, his company informed him on Sunday — a month after the attack — that there was no work available, and advised Hayes to file for unemployment.

“National Grid tried to hold me guilty until proven innocent and kept me out of work for one month because of optics,” Hayes told The Daily Wire. “Then, at about the 30-day mark, while I was honoring the hostages, I got a phone call telling me that I should go collect unemployment.”

“As of today, I am jobless,” he added.
Ritchie Torres resolution blasts Tucker Carlson, Holocaust revisionist guest
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) introduced a new resolution on Friday blasting Tucker Carlson for hosting Holocaust revisionist Darryl Cooper on his online show last month.

Carlson’s interview with Cooper became a high-profile issue in the presidential race, given former President Donald Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance’s (R-OH) ongoing associations with Carlson, and their refusals to condemn Carlson. Torres’ resolution could bring new attention to the situation — which has faded from headlines — in the final weeks of the presidential race.

Torres’ resolution, which currently does not have any co-sponsors, accuses Carlson and Cooper of “perpetuating harmful falsehoods, fostering antisemitism and undermining the fight against hate and bigotry.” It offers strong condemnations of both men.

“Carlson’s platforming of these harmful views represents an endorsement of Holocaust denial, which emboldens antisemitism and undermines efforts to combat hate and misinformation,” Torres’s resolution reads. “Tucker Carlson’s failure to critically challenge or denounce these falsehoods on his platform contributes to the spread of Nazi propaganda and historical revisionism, posing a direct threat to historical truth and the dignity of Holocaust survivors.”

Torres said he introduced the resolution because he said that too many on the right have been silent about Carlson and Cooper. He condemned what he described as “selective outrage” about antisemitism only when it comes from the opposite political camp.

“Tucker Carlson has immense influence on the political right. His decision to platform the Hitler apologia of Darryl Cooper is too dangerous to be ignored.” Torres told JI. “If you refuse to condemn antisemitism in your own ideological backyard, then you’re not part of the solution. You’re part of the problem. There are many on the right who have been deafeningly silent about the antisemitism of Tucker Carlson.”

Asked whether he expects any Republicans to sponsor his resolution, which makes no explicit mention of politics, Torres said that Congress “should stand for the proposition that America should have zero tolerance for antisemitism, zero tolerance for Holocaust denial and Hitler apologia. If that is not, if that does not transcend partisanship, then I’m not sure what would.”
‘Settler colonialism’: The lie that keeps on giving
Lost in the discussion of hate and antisemitism is the intellectual underpinning of an ideology that condemns the Jewish people wrongfully for an extraordinary historic rebirth of its homeland in Israel. So much of the antipathy of young people towards the State of Israel and the Jewish people is embedded in that narrative, which is prevalent on campuses, in media, and increasingly, in the corporate boardrooms.

The American Jewish community is stuck in the past, seeing rising antisemitism only through the prism of the Holocaust and through the eyes of an American century passed, which reflected an antipathy towards Israel as hatred for all Jews. With a continuing outcry, there is outrage and horror that anyone could applaud the Hamas attacks and atrocities of Oct. 7, and that Palestinians and their allies march in the streets and demonstrate in and around campuses in support of the Hamas cause. There is also deep consternation that some governmental leaders are not in the Israeli camp and give credence to the trumpeting of the Palestinian people for their losses in this war.

In a masterful book by Adam Kirsch, On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence and Justice, he writes: “Describing the United States and Israel as settler-colonial societies is a way of arguing that they are permanently illegitimate because they were created against the will of the people living there—Native Americans and Palestinians.” This theory of settler colonialism being taught by professors on college campuses is widespread and long-standing, and shame on us for not catching it earlier and for not combating the untruths being shared and taught about Israel and the historic Jewish connection to the Land of Israel.

The settler-colonialist argument says that European Jews came to Palestine as colonialists settling on the homeland of Arabs to displace them. The intersectionality argument links the treatment of Israelis towards Palestinians with lies and misinformation—namely, that Israel established an apartheid system and that a genocide of the Palestinian people occurred during the creation of the modern-day State of Israel. The intent is clear: that Israel as a Jewish state needs to end, that the Jews need to leave the land, and that it must be returned to the Palestinian Arabs “from the river to the sea.”

This is an ideology prevalent at many universities and taught by numerous professors in the departments of Middle Eastern and Palestinian studies as the “true” history of the region—one that is being reinforced by lectures and symposiums from high-profile charismatic speakers on the topic, often who have published books on the subject and appear in media with significant following on social media.
JPost Editorial: Journalists be warned, confronting lies about Israel comes at a cost
Coates replied essentially that he was not writing the definitive book on the Israel-Palestine conflict but rather just trying to give voice to those who don’t have one. The Israeli perspective, the one Dokoupil presented, is well represented in American media, he claimed, but not the Palestinian one.

Huh?

Does Coates not read The New York Times or The Washington Post? Does he not watch CNN or MSNBC? Doesn’t he even tune into CBS, whose senior director of standards reportedly sent an email to all CBS News employees in late August telling them not to say Jerusalem is in Israel?

“Its status is disputed,” CBS News senior director of standards Mark Memmott said, adding that it “goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Yet Coates says the Palestinian perspective does not get air time?!

The oft-repeated line used by Israel bashers that they are bravely giving voice to a narrative crushed and censored by the established media is as ridiculous as it is tired.

Here’s a news flash for Coates, a man who – like Walt Mearsheimer and Peter Beinart before him – is riding Israel-bashing into much greater celebrity than he ever would enjoy in his regular pursuits: These days, in the legacy media, it takes more courage to defend Israel than to slam it.

Just ask Dokoupil.

Last Tuesday, Bari Weiss’s Free Press reported that Dokoupil was raked over the CBS coals for, basically, just doing his job: asking an interviewee tough questions, and not letting an interviewee’s assertions, which lacked both historical context and factual basis, go unchallenged.

At CBS – the network of legendary journalists Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite – Dokoupil challenged Coates, as they would have done, and was reprimanded for it.

During its editorial meeting last Monday, The Free Press reported, the network’s senior officials “all but apologized for the interview to staff.”

Adrienne Roark, in charge of news gathering at the network, said: “We will still ask tough questions. We will still hold people accountable. But we will do so objectively, which means checking our biases and opinions at the door.”

Which, of course, is utter nonsense.

As Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus aptly pointed out, imagine if a gay anchor were interviewing an author hostile to LGBTQ+ rights or a Black interviewer pressed hard against someone opposed to affirmative action or efforts to increase diversity.

“If they allowed some personal feelings to slip in, if they failed to check their ‘biases and opinions at the door,’ would they be greeted with a revolt among their colleagues and reprimands by their bosses?” she asked. “I don’t think so.”

Neither do we, and this whole sorry affair bespeaks a double journalistic standard regarding Israel that CBS should be ashamed of and which the public should simply not tolerate.
Jewish staffers at Condé Nast accuse ex-DEI chief of antisemitism: report
The former DEI chief at Condé Nast reportedly was accused of antisemitism by Jewish employees at the publishing giant — who complained that management was allowing its magazines to take a pro-Palestinian stance and that it failed to crack down on journalists who took part in anti-Israel demonstrations.

Yashica Olden, who stepped down as chief diversity and inclusion officer of the Manhattan-based magazine publishing giant in June, was the subject of an official human resources complaint that was submitted by Jewish employees of the company, according to the news site Semafor.

Olden was accused of failing to adequately address allegations made by Jewish staffers that the company was allowing pro-Palestinian sentiment among some of the writers to seep into coverage of the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks last year, it was reported.

Jewish employees of the company whose properties include Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker accused management of failing to take disciplinary action against staffers who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

They demanded that Olden allow them to set up an employee resource group for Jewish staffers — similar to groups set up within the company for other ethnic minorities, Semafor reported.

Olden reportedly told the Jewish staffers that she would support the idea as long as similar groups would be allowed to form in order to accommodate other religions, including Muslims.

When Olden was perceived by some Jewish employees as not taking their concerns seriously enough, several of them filed a complaint to the human resources department accusing her of antisemitism, Semafor reported.

The Post has sought comment from Olden and Condé Nast.

The Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 last year, which killed 1,400 Israelis, and its aftermath have become a bitterly divisive issue for the company, particularly as some staffers have become vocal about their sympathies for the Palestinians.

Teen Vogue, the youth version of the fashion magazine, has come under particular scrutiny after it ran a spate of news stories that highlighted Palestinian civilian deaths that resulted from Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip.

The publication also gave prominent coverage to anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses as well as pro-Palestinian celebrities who have been vocal about their views.

Teen Vogue’s editorial line upset Condé Nast’s booking department which is in charge of maintaining relationships with celebrities, according to the report. Public relations executives in Hollywood who represent celebrity clients have also voiced their displeasure with the publication’s content, Semafor reported.


Trudeau and Joly have made Canada into Hamas's greatest G7 ally
For a year, Canada’s response to the Hamas massacre in Israel was feckless in government and frightening on the streets. Monday’s anniversary highlighted both in disturbing measure.

The scenes in Vancouver — “We are Hezbollah and we are Hamas!” — revealed a distressing level of hatred, including for Canada, complete with flag-burning. There is plenty of darkness in the land of sunny ways.

Meanwhile in Ottawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly took great offence at being accused by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of “pandering to Hamas supporters.” She declared that out-of-bounds, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, the hapless Greg Fergus, agreed.

Leave aside the question of pandering. Leave aside — if only it were possible! — Joly altogether. Ask a different question: from the point of view of Hamas, which G7 country has conducted itself in the most agreeable fashion? Who, amongst their leaders, is Hamas’s preferred president or prime minister?

The ancient proverb proposes that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Rework that for the past year. Canada is Israel’s ally and friend. Canada regards Hamas as an enemy, listing it as a terror organization. But Hamas may well observe Canada’s conduct and think that the less friendly friends (Canada) of their enemy (Israel) may be not be their friends exactly, but moderately useful enemies. That is not about pandering. It’s worse.

When news of last Monday made its way into the tunnels under Gaza, the surviving Hamas leadership may well have concluded that, “Their government is feeble and we have friends on the streets.”

Consider the assessment of Irwin Cotler, stalwart Montreal Liberal, attorney general in Prime Minister Paul Martin’s government, eminent international human rights lawyer and advocate against antisemitism. In an interview with the Jewish News Syndicate last month, Cotler spoke of his fellow Liberals.

“The Canadian government made some important and timely statements but the actions it has taken have not been supportive,” Cotler said. Regarding the arms embargo on Israel announced by Joly: “Doing that, in the midst of a just war that Israel is prosecuting as it exerts its right to self-defence, means rewarding Hamas. While it is not the intention, it ends up being the effect.”

In the same interview, Cotler spoke of his own situation, an 84-year-old distinguished elder statesman.

“I am under constant security protection,” Cotler said. “After October 7, my wife and I attended the March for Israel in Washington, D.C. When we flew back to Montreal, security asked us not to leave the airport. Security personnel spoke to me and informed me of what has been characterized as imminent and lethal threats.”

In Montreal, it is not safe for Irwin Cotler to walk the streets. Could Hamas have imagined that outcome on October 7?

“We are engaged in a battle between democracies and tyrannies,” said Cotler. “Democracies should stand together. In that sense, Canada has not been sufficiently supportive.”


‘Do Your Job’: Ernst and Stefanik Demand FBI Investigate Pro-Terror Columbia Student Group
Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) sent a letter to the FBI on Monday demanding the bureau investigate a Columbia University student group for making terroristic threats such as "Zionists don’t deserve to live."

Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), in a now-deleted April statement, apologized and disavowed the spring remarks of one of its members, Khymani James, who fantasized about "murdering Zionists." One day after the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack, however, CUAD released another statement withdrawing its apology, standing with James, and advocating for "liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance" while emphasizing in bold that "violence is the only path forward."

"It’s rare for potential perpetrators of violence, particularly school-based violence, to widely and publicly broadcast their intent in such a way as it becomes national news. But that’s exactly what Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a coalition of student groups, did on October 8, 2024," Ernst and Stefanik wrote in their letter, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, to James Dennehy, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office. "These violent threats demand immediate attention and a thorough investigation to prevent any acts of terrorism."

"The time to act is now. Rarely has the FBI had such public and obvious evidence of potentially imminent violence," the Republicans continued.

James, who is suspended from Columbia and is suing the school over "anti-Palestinian bias," has made clear that he stands by his violent remarks that attracted international media attention, adding, "Anything I said, I meant it."

CUAD also helped organize the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic protests that plagued Columbia in the spring, including the illegal encampments and a violent campus building takeover. Ernst and Stefanik, noting the student group’s involvement, said CUAD’s threats "aren’t idle and noted that the director of the Orthodox Union-Jewish Learning Initiative at Columbia and Barnard urged Jewish students to "return home as soon as possible and remain home" because "Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy."

"In light of the considerable violence occurring for which this group is already responsible, and Columbia University’s inability and unwillingness to police its own campus necessitating it to request the NYPD intervene, federal intervention is now necessary," the Republicans wrote.

The congressional letter also noted that CUAD recently praised a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv that killed seven Israelis, including a mother who died while shielding her 9-month-old baby. That "bold attack" and "significant act of resistance," the student group wrote in an essay, "serves as a reminder that the struggle is not confined to Gaza or Lebanon."
Camden Council removes Palestinian flags and opens enforcement file regarding defamatory banner ad
Palestinian flags on Council street furniture in Byng Place, London WC1, have been removed and a planning enforcement file has been opened by Camden Council regarding a banner advertisement defaming Israel in High Holborn, London WC1.

The banner promotes so-called Cola Gaza, advertised as “Genocide Free, Guilt Free, Free Palestine”.

This action follows UKLFI’s letter to Camden Council, pointing out serious concerns by Jewish residents of Camden about the proliferation of flags in public streets in the borough.

UKLFI pointed out that displaying the flags requires consent of the Local Authority, unless the owner of the property on which they are displayed has authorized them. In this case Camden Council had not authorized them.

Other advertisements in public places are generally prohibited without the consent of the local authority even if the owner of the property has authorized them.

Camden’s borough solicitor has now written to UKLFI saying:
“1. The flags on our street furniture you identified have been removed
We have opened a planning enforcement file concerning 112 High Holborn”.

UKLFI’s spokesperson commented: “We are pleased that Camden Council is acting to remove these divisive flags and banners, which stir up racial hatred against Jews and Israelis.”


SNP politician expelled for dismissing claims of genocide in Gaza
A Member of Scottish Parliament has been expelled from the Scottish National Party for stating the situation in Gaza looked “nothing like” previous examples of genocide.

John Mason had the whip removed in August after posting on social media that there was “not genocide” in Gaza.

He went on to tell BBC’s Good Morning Scotland that the situation in Gaza was “nothing like” previous genocides.

He was expelled following a meeting of the SNP Member Conduct Committee on Saturday.

Mason criticised the decision and said the party should be able to include “a variety of views”.

On Monday morning, Mason indicated that he may challenge the decision.

The MSP told Good Morning Scotland: "I have the right to appeal so I need to consider whether I’m going to do that or not.

"I will certainly not be joining any other political party. At the moment I am an independent MSP. I was elected for five years and I will keep to that promise of serving my constituents for five years.

“It makes no difference to my work locally.”

He said it "could be argued" that Israel's response to Hamas’s October 7 attack has not been "proportionate" but again reiterated that he does not believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

"I do not think Israel has committed genocide,” he said. “There’s a war going on, lives have been lost, desperately sadly, as they have been in Ukraine, as they have been in every war.
Outrage after Plaid Cymru calls for a boycott of Israel on Yom Kippur
The Jewish community in Wales has expressed outrage following Plaid Cymru’s call for a boycott of Israel on Yom Kippur — the holiest day in the Jewish calendar — and just a few days after the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack.

Members of the Welsh National Party backed a motion which branded Israel an “apartheid state”, guilty of “genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes”, during its autumn conference on Saturday.

Ahead of the motion, the Palestinians’ top envoy to the UK, Husam Zomlot, called on Wales to put pressure on the UK government over Israel.

The South Wales Jewish Representative Council (SWJRC) said it was “deeply disturbed” by the vote and has accused Plaid Cymru of “pandering to extreme positions”, alienating the Jewish community and undermining “the pursuit of genuine peace and understanding”.

In a statement issued in both Welsh and English on Monday, Laurence Kahn, the chair of the SWJRC, criticised Plaid for drawing a “false equivalence” between Israel and Hamas, by accusing the former of genocide.

“Despite Plaid Cymru’s accusations of genocide, it was Hamas — not Israel — that deliberately targeted civilians on and after October 7,” said Kahn.

“This false equivalency is not only unjust but dangerously misleading. The low ratio of civilians to combatant deaths in Gaza, in an urban area where terrorists make intentional use of civilian cover, highlights the absurdity of this libel.”


Man arrested after alleged assault outside Maryland Jewish center
A man was arrested after an alleged assault with a wooden stick outside the Silver Spring Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue in Maryland’s Kemp Mill neighborhood, on Monday.

According to statements from witnesses and photos posted on a local Jewish group chat, which was shared with JNS, the man struck two Jews who left the building. The synagogue is part of a complex that includes a day school and nursery, for children from age 2 until second grade. The latter has an armed guard.

Images shared on the chat show a man holding a wooden stake with a pointed edge walking on the street and, subsequently, being handcuffed by multiple Montgomery County Police Department officers wearing blue gloves.

Posts on the chat suggested that the victims were OK. Some posters wrote that the man had mental health issues.

JNS sought a copy of the incident report from Montgomery County police and asked the department for comment on whether Jews are safe in the county, which has a large Jewish population.


‘White Bird’ stars Helen Mirren as Holocaust survivor who guides wayward grandson
In “White Bird,” a long-anticipated film about a Jewish girl who is rescued by her classmate in Nazi-occupied France, the Holocaust is fertile ground for teaching children how to be good.

The movie is a spinoff of “Wonder” (2017), a modern-day story about a middle schooler seeking to fit in despite his facial differences. “White Bird” opens with that boy’s bully, Julian (Bryce Gheisar), but the real hero is his grandmother Sara (played in the present day by Helen Mirren and as a child by Ariella Glaser) — who, recognizing that her grandson needs moral guidance, shares her Holocaust survival story that makes up the bulk of the film.

Directed by Marc Forster, the German-Swiss filmmaker behind “A Man Called Otto,” “Finding Neverland” and “Cristopher Robin,” “White Bird” opened in theaters earlier this month. It was previously slated for release in 2022 and late 2023 but was delayed because of changes at its production and distribution companies and the SAG strike last year.

Distributor Lionsgate may have found the film difficult to market, according to Deadline, as it turned to the faith-based Kingdom Story Company to help find an audience — even though “White Bird” does not resemble the label’s other faith-based films, which include “Jesus Revolution.”

Both “White Bird” and “Wonder” are based on a best-selling series by R.J. Palacio, a children’s book author with a strong interest in the Holocaust. Palacio’s husband is Jewish, and her mother-in-law lost much of her family in the Holocaust. Palacio says it was her husband’s uncle Bernard, a New York City school principal for many years, who told her about a dearth of children’s books on the subject — especially before eighth or ninth grade, when “The Diary of Anne Frank” would be assigned.

Though Palacio is not Jewish herself, she felt a duty to fill what she saw as a gap in reading about the Holocaust for younger children. Bernard encouraged her to write “White Bird,” a graphic novel targeted at readers between 8 and 12.

“Reminding people about the Holocaust and learning from lessons of the past should not be something that’s left to Jewish people alone,” Palacio told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Having a Jewish husband also just kicked that into high gear for me — and having two sons who share this heritage as well.”


Fleeing My Iranian Family, Home, & Muslim Life to Experience the Judaism I Fell in Love With
William Mehrvaz grew up in Tehran, Iran, as a devout Muslim, but his life took a dramatic turn when he embarked on a personal journey to find truth. After years of questioning, William ultimately embraced Judaism, leaving behind his family, home, and Muslim upbringing. Today, he lives in America as a proud Jew, inspiring others with his story of courage, faith, and the pursuit of spiritual truth.






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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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