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Sunday, November 03, 2024

11/03 Links: Israel Is Now the Middle East Strong Horse; UNRWA’s existence violates UN charter; Why I, a progressive feminist Democrat, am voting for Donald Trump

From Ian:

Israel Is Now the Middle East Strong Horse
The 14th-century Arab Muslim historian and political theorist Ibn Khaldoun assessed that history is a cycle of violence in which strong horses replace weak horses. After Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre, Israel, by necessity, has become the Middle East's strong horse in its ongoing battle against the Iranian regime and its terror proxies.

The Arab world knows this. They witnessed the IDF's destruction of both Hamas and Hizbullah's command structure and leaderships, and the detonation of much of their weaponry and ammunition stockpiles. They then watched as Israel's air force decimated Iran's anti-aircraft defenses and dominated Iranian air space.

Arab League members widely denounced Israel's counterassault against the Iranian regime, while at the same time, Abraham Accords diplomats from Bahrain, Morocco and the UAE have remained in Tel Aviv, as have ambassadors from Jordan and Egypt, and even assisted Israel during Iranian regime missile and killer drone attacks.

Israel's strong horse status is a key to winning peace and moderation in the Middle East but has been misunderstood in the West. America's mistaken mirroring of Israel as a small version of itself has constrained it from defeating radical enemies.

Victory cannot be achieved against radical Islamic terrorism using Western principles and methods of compromise, ceasefire, diplomacy, and territorial concession. The Middle East does not work that way. Different rules apply.

Compromise signals weakness. A ceasefire is merely a cessation of hostilities to rearm and resupply. Territorial concession is the fate of the vanquished. The unilateral territorial concession of Gaza in 2005 led to five Hamas wars, climaxing in the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7. "Goodwill diplomacy" and territorial compromise opposite jihad, as demanded by the U.S. and Europe, proved to be a strategic disaster and existential threat to Israel.

Israel's evolving self-awareness as an indigenous ethnic minority in a chaotic, unstable, and unforgiving Middle East recognizes that there is no alternative to the strong horse.
Ruthie Blum: Amos Schocken’s lies, Bill Clinton’s truths
Which brings us to the second speech, that also had a jaw-dropping effect, but for the opposite reason. This one was delivered by former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

At a rally on Wednesday for Kamala Harris in the swing state of Michigan, Clinton appealed to the voters who’ve come out against the Democratic candidate for her administration’s ostensibly unforgiveable support for Israel. He did this by setting the record straight about the Palestinians’ attitude to the Jewish state.

Though opening with a call for a re-start of the “peace process,” he acknowledged the culprit behind its repeated failure.

“I understand why young Palestinian and Arab Americans in Michigan think too many people have died,” he began. “But if you lived in one of those kibbutzim in Israel, right next to Gaza, where the people there were the most pro-friendship with Palestine—the most pro-two-state-solution of any of the Israeli communities were the ones right next to Gaza, and Hamas butchered them.”

He continued: “The people who criticize [Israel’s response] are essentially saying, ‘Yeah, but look how many people you’ve killed in retaliation. How many is enough for you to kill to punish them for the terrible things they did?’ That all sounds nice until you realize what you would do if it was your family and you hadn’t done anything but support a homeland for the Palestinians, and one day they come for you and slaughter the people in your village. You would say, ‘You have to forgive me, but I’m not keeping score that way.’ It isn’t how many we’ve had to kill because Hamas makes sure that they’re shielded by civilians. They’ll force you to kill civilians if you want to defend yourself.”

Invoking the authority born of having hosted the 2000 Camp David Summit to forge a treaty that would result in the creation of an independent Palestinian state, Clinton admitted, “Look, I worked on this hard. And the only time [PLO chief] Yasser Arafat didn’t tell me the truth was when he promised me he was going to accept the peace deal that we had worked out, which would have given the Palestinians a state on 96% of the West Bank and 4% of Israel—and they got to choose where the 4% of Israel was. So they would have the effect of the same land of all the West Bank. They’d have a capital in east Jerusalem.”

Pausing to express sadness mixed with frustration, he interjected, “I can hardly talk about this.”

He proceeded to spell out the reality of the situation, emphasizing the details.

“They [the Palestinians] would have equal access, all day, every day, to the security towers that Israel maintained all through the West Bank up to the Golan Heights. All this was offered, including—I will say it again—a capital in east Jerusalem and two of the four quadrants of the Old City of Jerusalem, confirmed by the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, and his Cabinet. And [the Palestinians] said no. I think part of it is that Hamas did not care about a homeland for the Palestinians. They wanted to kill Israelis and make Israel uninhabitable.”

Well, he declared, “I’ve got news for them. [The Jews] were there first. Before their faith [Islam] existed, [Jews] were there, in the time of King David, and the southernmost tribes had Judea and Samaria.”

He concluded by explaining why destroying Israel isn’t in the interest of either the Palestinians or of the Americans who support them. Whether his argument persuaded some undecideds remains to be seen. It’s hard to imagine the “From the River to the Sea” crowd accepting his historically accurate account.

Too bad he hasn’t been shouting it from the rooftops throughout the past two and a half decades. The same goes for Barak, who’s been too busy bashing and attempting to topple the Netanyahu government to engage in veracity or soul-searching.

Were he and his subversive bubble of Haaretz-reading followers to get their noses out of the air and hang their heads in humility, if not shame, they might understand why the Israeli peace camp has been evaporating over the years, until basically disappearing on Oct. 7, 2023.
Jake Wallis Simons: Israel is not a ‘settler-colonial state’
Portraying Israel as a colonial imposition on indigenous people, a ‘settler state’ expropriating their land and culture, is a major pillar of Israelophobia. As I explain in Israelophobia: The Newest Version of the Oldest Hatred and What To Do About It, it is rooted in the suggestion that Jews have no place in the Middle East and are alien to the region, a claim that is easily dismissed with even the briefest look at history. Yet the demonisation persists.

Take Akub, a fashionable Palestinian restaurant in London’s Notting Hill. It is more than just a high-end eatery. In an interview with the New York Times in 2022, its French-trained chef and founder, Fadi Kattan, said his mission was to ‘reclaim a cuisine that is part of a broader Arab tradition involving foods like hummus, falafel, tabbouleh, fattoush and shawarma, that he felt was being co-opted by Israeli cooks’. It seems that whereas normal people cook food, in the eyes of Kattan, Israelis ‘co-opt’ it. This position relies on a highly selective view of history. As one reader remarked in the comments section: ‘Jews have also been making these foods for centuries and have appropriated nothing. There’s been a continuous Jewish presence in the land of Israel for thousands of years. What’s more, many of these foods are not limited to the land of Israel, but common across the former Ottoman Empire.’

People often forget that Judaism is two millennia older than Islam and 1,500 years older than Christianity. Israel was the cradle of Jewish civilisation. At least a thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ, Jerusalem’s most famous Jew, King David, made the city the capital of the Land of Israel. It has been home to greater or lesser numbers of Jews – the very word ‘Jew’ is a shortening of Judea, the ancient kingdom radiating from Jerusalem in the Iron Age – in Jerusalem ever since.

Culturally, Jews have always intertwined their identity with the land of Israel, particularly since they were exiled to Babylon around 598 BC, when their powerful yearning for return took hold. For millennia, Jews in the diaspora have prayed facing towards the Holy City, exclaimed ‘next year in Jerusalem’ at Passover, mourned the destruction of the Temple by breaking a glass at weddings, longed to be buried there, prayed at the remaining walls of the destroyed Temple, and visited on pilgrimage. Many throughout history have taken the step of uprooting their families and returning to their homeland. All these practices continue to this day.

A thread can be traced backwards through Jewish history that shows the ancient roots of the ideal of repatriation. Beginning in 1516, Palestine – as it had been renamed by the Romans – fell under Ottoman rule, which would last for more than 400 years. Less than 50 years after the conquest, Joseph Nasi, the Duke of Naxos, a Portuguese Jewish diplomat favoured by the Ottomans, attempted to return Jews to their homeland without regard for scriptural prophecies about awaiting the coming of the messiah. In a way, he was the first Zionist.


NYTs: A Whisperer to the Stars on the Middle East Conflict
The actress Debra Messing had a question: How do you share commentary about the Israel-Hamas conflict online in ways that will best influence others?

She posed the question a few months ago in a room with about 30 other Jewish activists, allies and influencers participating in a one-day workshop held in Los Angeles by the Tel Aviv Institute, a nonprofit that aims to combat antisemitism primarily via social media.

In particular, Ms. Messing wanted to know if a video she had reposted on Instagram, which showed young Palestinian children expressing their hatred for Jews, was constructive.

“That’s very inflammatory,” she said. “Would you say don’t share any of that kind of content?”

The answer came from Hen Mazzig, the workshop’s leader, who has become something of a whisperer to Hollywood stars about how to best use social media platforms to express support for Israel and fight discrimination against Jews.

“No, you should,” Mr. Mazzig, 34, replied. “I think the framing is important. If you were to say, ‘Look at these people — there is no way to peacefully finish the job,’ that is not going to affect anyone. But if you come from a point of view of saying, ‘My heart is broken for these kids, no kid should be raised this way, I want a better future for Palestinian children,’ that would go so much further.”

He paused, then added, “Next time, you will text me, and we will work it out.”

Since Oct. 7 of last year, Hollywood has struggled with how to handle the Middle East conflict. Usually a monolith in its support of progressive causes, the industry has become deeply divided. Influencers and celebrities alike have been sharply criticized for social media posts that have been interpreted as either antisemitic or Islamophobic. Clients have been fired by agents, and agents have parted ways with agencies. Livelihoods have been compromised. Former allies have become enemies.

That is where Mr. Mazzig has stepped in, and seen his influence grow. His follower counts have ballooned. His posts have been shared by celebrities like Pink, Amy Schumer and Gal Gadot. And they’ve been turned into billboards in Times Square.

Mr. Mazzig is a staunch supporter of Israel, and often emphasizes to his followers that he believes both Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. Yet he is not afraid to criticize Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Israeli government for its mistakes both before and during the war. And he frequently reiterates his support for Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

On social media, where subtlety is largely absent on the issue of the Israel-Hamas war, Mr. Mazzig represents a more nuanced position reflective of how many Jews feel about the conflict — and he is trying to teach others how to express very complex emotions in a fraught environment.

“My work is about life and death, and about the survival of my people,” Mr. Mazzig said. “It’s just a weird place to be in, realizing that Hollywood and celebrities are able to help me accomplish my goals.”

Mr. Mazzig was born in Israel to two refugees: an Iraqi mother and a Tunisian father. He spent five years in the Israeli military, as a humanitarian officer in the West Bank, intermediating among international organizations, Palestinian civilians and the Israeli Army. He then worked in the United States for Hillel International, a Jewish student group, and StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy group, before returning to Israel and starting his own social media company. He co-founded the Tel Aviv Institute in 2019 as a way to reach younger people who didn’t trust traditional news media and instead found most of their information through influencers.
Unfiltered truths: Zach Sage Fox on comedy, heritage, and bearing witness post-October 7
Zach Sage Fox is a man of many hats — comedian, CEO, content creator, producer, actor, and self-described “journal-ish.” A wonder kid through and through, with a following of over 1.2 million people across his social media accounts, Fox found himself unexpectedly driven by a new purpose following the tragic events of October 7. The megalithic rise in antisemitism and misinformation he witnessed prompted Fox to use his platform not only as a source of entertainment but as a tool for activism and a voice for those whose stories are seldom heard.

Fox’s commitment to capturing the raw experiences of individuals involved took him to Ramallah, where he interviewed people on the ground to shed light on the opinion the West rarely, if ever, gets to hear. “So, yeah, my name is Zach Sage Fox. That’s my legal name,” he laughs.

“A lot of people think it’s fake because it doesn’t sound very Jewish.” His humor shines even in serious moments, as he explains how his unusual name may have allowed him access to conversations that might otherwise be closed to those perceived as connected to Israel or Judaism.

Fox’s journey in entertainment began early, with roots in Philadelphia and a Jewish Day School education. “I was bar mitzvahed Chabad,” he shares, acknowledging that while he was “super Jewish” in his younger years, he found himself revisiting his heritage in light of recent events. “It was kind of like full circle for me. My Jewishness became something I leaned into, not just as a part of my identity, but something I felt I needed to represent publicly and proudly.”

In Day Jewish School, Fox met his longtime friend and business partner Omri Dorani when the two were just six years old, with whom he later founded Fat Camp Films, a company rooted in their journey through humor and self-acceptance. Their bond was truly forged in a weight-loss camp, and Fox recounts: “Omri and I were these two chubby kids trying to find confidence in a world that didn’t always accept us,” Fox says. “That camp was where I found my voice, my confidence. It was formative for both of us.”


Global Threat: The Biden-Harris Administration Is Enabling Iran to Become the Next Nuclear State
By pressuring Israel to refrain from defending itself, the Biden-Harris administration seems to be protecting Iran's nuclear ambitions, raising serious questions about U.S. priorities in the Middle East. At least one Iranian-American, Ariane Tabatabai, for instance, who has security clearance and close ties to the Iranian regime, not only still works at the Pentagon, but was recently promoted.

The dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran are clear, particularly given the regime's long-standing support for terror groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, as well as its history of muscular aggression into Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon, Africa, Argentina, Panama, Venezuela, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, and the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

A nuclear-armed Iran could also transfer nuclear bombs to its terror proxies. Imagine if, on October 7, 2023, Hamas had launched its surprise terrorist attack on Israel with an atomic bomb.

Not just Israel, but every U.S. military base in the region and all other Western targets would undoubtedly be in the crosshairs of these terror groups, possibly armed with Iran's nuclear weapons.

Once Iran possesses nuclear weapons, it will also have the power of deterrence, making it virtually impossible to stop the regime from pursuing its objectives. The world, knowing that military action against it would carry the risk of nuclear retaliation, would be forced to deal with an even more aggressive and emboldened Iran.

The Biden-Harris administration's handling of Iran's nuclear program is not only a failure but an immensely dangerous one. Instead of taking steps to enable US allies to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, the Biden-Harris administration is facilitating and protecting Iran's nuclear advancement. The US has allowed Tehran to inch closer to nuclear weapons capability without facing any repercussions. By warning Israel not to retaliate against Iran's nuclear sites, rather than supporting Israel, the Biden-Harris administration is paving the way for a future where Iran becomes a nuclear-armed state. This outcome would have catastrophic consequences for global security, not only the Middle East. It is time to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Turkey presses UN for arms embargo on Israel in joint letter with 52 countries
Turkey’s foreign minister said Sunday that it had submitted a letter to the United Nations, signed by 52 countries and two inter-governmental organizations, calling for a halt in arms deliveries to Israel.

“We have written a joint letter calling on all countries to stop the sale of arms and ammunition to Israel. We delivered this letter, which has 54 signatories, to the UN on November 1,” said Hakan Fidan at a press conference in Djibouti, where he was attending a Turkey-Africa partnership summit.

“We must repeat at every opportunity that selling arms to Israel means participating in its genocide,” said Fidan, adding that the letter is “an initiative launched by Turkey.”

Among the signatories were Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Algeria, China, Iran and Russia. The Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, both inter-governmental organizations within the UN, also signed the document.

Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the UN to impose an arms embargo on Israel. He said the measure would be an “effective solution” to end Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, which was sparked when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.

Erdogan has been a harsh critic of Israel throughout the war in Gaza, at one point appearing to say he would invade Israel to end the war. In May, he banned trade with Israel, ending the two countries’ robust economic ties.

Erdogan also met with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul in April, several months before he was slain in an explosion in Tehran widely attributed to Israel. Government officials told The Times of Israel earlier this year that Hamas’s leadership had briefly moved from Qatar to Turkey that month amid tensions with Doha.


Watchdog: ‘UNRWA’s existence violates UN charter’
The existence of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) violates the UN Charter “because instead of promoting peace and security, it perpetuates conflict and war,” said UN Watch’s legal advisor, Dina Rovner.

In an interview with ILTV News, Rovner argued that UNRWA “perpetuates conflict and war” and poses a threat to the State of Israel and the safety of its citizens. She explained that Israel’s parliament, which voted earlier this week to ban UNRWA operations in Israel within 90 days, acted within its legal rights.

“UNRWA keeps Palestinians in perpetual refugeehood, giving them this dream that they have a right of return to sovereign Israeli territory,” Rovner concluded. “We know what that looks like. We saw it on October 7.”


UN official withdraws from Montreal conference featuring Canadian leader of Samidoun terror group
United Nations special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese has withdrawn from a Montreal conference featuring Charlotte Kates, the founder of Samidoun, a designated terror group.

An updated list of individuals participating in the inaugural “Coordinating Council 4 Palestine” conference on Nov. 1 and 2 has removed Albanese’s name as the keynote speaker on Saturday evening after Jewish leaders decried her plan to speak at the event. There have also been calls for her to be barred from Canada because her remarks, including comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, have been deemed to be antisemitic.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) said Albanese should be ousted from her position over her initial willingness to speak at a conference featuring the leader of a designated terrorist group.

“Earlier this week, we raised serious concerns about Francesca Albanese’s visit to Canada, given her history of troubling statements and associations with individuals who glorify violence against Israelis and incite hatred toward Jews,” CIJA general counsel Richard Marceau told National Post in an email following the news.

The Canadian Jewish group called on other institutions, including the University of Toronto, which is set to host Albanese for a talk about international law and genocide next week, to withdraw their invitations.

“We now urge any institutions hosting Francesca Albanese to sever ties with her and end any partnerships that lend legitimacy to someone whom G7 leaders, including those from the United States, France, and Germany, have called to be removed from her UN position,” Marceau said.


Rona Kaufman: Why I, a progressive feminist Democrat, am voting for Donald Trump
I am a lifelong Democrat, a feminist, a progressive, and a Jew. I marched to Take Back the Night and canvassed for the Sierra Club in college. I volunteered with a domestic violence shelter as a young lawyer.

My children and I donned pink pussy hats as we chanted at the 2016 Women’s March in Washington, D.C. I held a “Jews for Black Lives Matter” sign at a BLM rally in Pittsburgh.

I became a foster mom during the pandemic. Last summer, I shared my home with a family of Muslim refugees from Afghanistan.

I’ve supported only Democratic candidates for president. You might think, then, that, as a resident of Squirrel Hill, I’d be voting in the upcoming election for Rep. Summer Lee, treasurer candidate Erin McClelland, Sen. Bob Casey and Kamala Harris. You would be wrong.

Voting Republican
After witnessing the horrors of Oct. 7 and after realizing that too many Democratic Party elected officials and constituents lack the moral clarity to respond effectively to the war Israel is fighting and to the threat of the political ideology of Islamism, I have decided to vote Republican.

On Nov. 5, 2024, I will vote for James Hayes, Stacy Garrity, Dave McCormick — and, reluctantly, Donald Trump.

Most people believe that this is an important election, that its results might even determine the future of our democracy. I agree with them.

And that is why I am voting for the party that is more likely to contain Iran and remind it and its terror proxies that America will defeat their threats to democracy and freedom; more likely to support Israel in its defensive, existential war; and more likely to protect civil rights by punishing unlawful acts of violence and antisemitic harassment on college campuses.

I am not voting for the party that abandoned the girls of Afghanistan and unnecessarily sacrificed the precious lives of our soldiers there. I am not voting for the party that condemns antisemitism on the right while excusing, and even spreading, leftist antisemitism and blood libels.

I am not voting for the party that is equivocal in its support for Israel as she fights to defend her borders, half the world’s Jews, some of the freest Arab citizens in the world, and western values, including democracy.

I am not voting for the party that chooses appeasement as its foreign policy. I am not voting for the party that took no definitive action as antisemitic violence raged on college campuses across the United States.

The threat coming from Iran and its proxies (including those who support them in the West) is a threat to women, LGBTQ+, Jews, and other minorities. It is a threat to liberal democracies across the world. We must elect those who will not tolerate an Islamist invasion of a liberal democratic ally and who will make it clear that Islamism will never defeat Western civilization.
The anti-antisemitic case for Trump
God told us in the desert that we were a stiff-necked people, but Jews shouldn’t feel there’s any sacrilege in supporting the golden candidate. For American Jewry and for Israel, the contrast could not be more stark.

Jews justifiably vote reflexively against antisemitism. Antisemitism on the Right is a serious crime problem. Antisemitism on the Left is a serious cultural problem — and increasingly, an education problem.

Trump would, of course, be stronger on crime on all fronts than Vice President Kamala Harris. And Harris, of course, would flatter if not fan the flames of antisemitism on campus and in K-12 education.

As for antisemitism on the Right, what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 was a travesty. But after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, we saw a Charlottesville every day on college campuses for months on end. Unlike Trump, who was president at the time of the Charlottesville riot, Harris didn’t emphatically disavow the antisemitic protesters who overtook college campuses this past year.

And this wasn’t just because Harris feared alienating the Muslim voting bloc in Michigan. It was, also, and probably more so, because far-left campus ideologues are the key demographic for the future of the Democratic Party in terms of human capital. They’re the ones who will go on to staff congressional offices, federal agencies, and the massive left-wing nonprofit apparatus.

No wonder the Biden-Harris administration played catch-and-release footsie with colleges that entertained Jew-free tent cities and enabled mini-pogroms. For the Biden-Harris administration, tackling campus antisemitism wouldn’t just be like biting the hand that feeds — it would be like biting the tip off its own spear.

Indeed, if the Harris faction of the Democratic Party has its way, students won’t need to wait until college to be indoctrinated into left-wing antisemitism.

The most worrisome development for Jews in K-12 education has been the rise of ethnic studies, which casts Jews as oppressors. In Harris’s California, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) had to veto a proposal to include this curriculum in the state’s education system because the antisemitism was just too blatant.

Yet the Biden-Harris administration picked Miguel Cardona as the secretary of education, whose only real accomplishment as Connecticut state superintendent was piloting the first ethnic studies graduation requirement. And Harris picked Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate, whose major accomplishment in K-12 education was pioneering the most far-left, ethnic studies-infused social studies standards in America.


Pittsburgh ‘Hamas operative’ allegedly bought explosives, vandalized Jewish buildings — and donated to Squad Democrats
Steel City has an aspiring Hamas terrorist in its midst — and he likes Squad Democrats.

The FBI and Pittsburgh police arrested two Pittsburgh-area residents Wednesday on hate-crime charges for allegedly damaging or defacing Jewish buildings in July.

Shockingly one of those individuals, Mohamad Hamad, self-identified as a “Hamas operative,” purchased and tested explosive materials for a future fireball and was a Pennsylvania Air National Guard member stationed near Pittsburgh International Airport, according to the criminal complaint.

The US and Lebanese dual citizen also donated to Squad Democrats who have called Israel’s year-long-war in Gaza a genocide and pushed for a US arms embargo on the Jewish state as it fights Iran and its terrorist proxies.

Talya Lubit, charged as Hamad’s Jewish accomplice in spraying pro-Hamas graffiti on a synagogue and Jewish community center, called Jews “enemies,” advocated the county council pass a controversial cease-fire resolution against Israel and joined a letter defending Pittsburgh’s very own anti-Israel Squad member Rep. Summer Lee, who last month blamed Israel for the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on its first anniversary.

“In Pittsburgh, we’ve seen an infiltration of the Democratic Party by anti-Israel extremists who frequently target the Jewish community,” Jeremy Kazzaz, executive director of the Beacon Coalition nonprofit fighting antisemitism in the political sphere, told The Post.

The frightening charges come after three Jewish University of Pittsburgh students were assaulted this semester, and 62% of Jews nationwide are concerned with antisemitism in the Democratic Party.

“Imagine the terror they saw if they had cams. Hamas operative ripping off their flags in white suburbia,” Hamad, from Coraopolis to Pittsburgh’s northwest, said to an FBI-known individual over Signal.

The encrypted messaging app is similar to Telegram, which Hamas members used to share first-person videos of the Oct 7 attack, in which more than 2,000 armed terrorists invaded southern Israel and killed and kidnapped more than 1,400 people.

Hamad used Signal to share his desire to die a martyr for Islam.
Synagogue Bomber Teaches ‘Social Justice in Action’ at Canadian college
In 1980, the PFLP terrorist group bombed a Paris synagogue during Sabbath services, wounding dozens of people and killing four.

About 300 worshippers were attending the Shabbat service and celebrating five bar mitzvahs that Friday evening when, at 6:35 p.m., a bomb exploded right outside the synagogue. The door was blown up, the glass ceiling collapsed on the worshippers; wooden benches were projected across the room.

Outside the synagogue, the scene was even more gruesome. In his book about the case, the French journalist Jean Chichizola described “cars thrown on the road like children’s toys,” “flames licking the upper floors of adjacent buildings” and “shop windows blown up all along the street.”

In what looked like a war zone lay four bodies. Israeli TV journalist Aliza Shagrir, 44, was hit by the blast as she walked by. Philippe Boissou, 22, who was riding by on his motorcycle, also died on the spot. Driver Jean-Michel Barbé was found dead in his car, which was parked right outside the synagogue where he was awaiting clients attending the service. Nearby, a hotel worker named Hilario Lopes-Fernandez was seriously injured and died two days later.

Investigators quickly established that the bomb had been placed in the saddlebag of a Suzuki motorcycle parked in front of the synagogue. It was meant to go off precisely as the worshippers left the building, which would undoubtedly have killed many more people. But the ceremony had started a few minutes late.

The attack was ultimately attributed to an extremist group in the Middle East, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations, and investigators alleged that (Hassan) Diab had planted the bomb.

After over 40 years, Hassan Diab was recently tried and convicted in absentia in France.

The Trudeau government, which declared a bunch of truck drivers to be terrorists, has refused to extradite Diab back to France. Instead, Diab teaches a class on ‘Social Justice in Action’ at Carleton University in Ottawa.

The topic of Diab’s class on ‘Social Justice in Action’ is his own claim of victimhood. The class takes place in Carleton’s ‘Loeb’ building named after the Jewish family behind the Loeb supermarket chain.

In academia, ‘Social Justice in Action’ is bombing synagogues and killing Jews.
Somali Leaders in Minnesota Endorse Trump: ‘We Can’t Afford Anything’
In a stunning development this weekend, a group of Somali leaders in Minnesota held a press conference and endorsed Donald Trump for president. Minnesota has the largest Somali community in the country.

The speakers at the press conference cite the same issues that we have heard from every corner of the country, including crippling inflation, freedom of speech, and failing schools.

Minnesota has not gone red in a presidential election since Nixon in 1972, so the chances of that happening again are slim, but that does not take away from the gravity of this endorsement.

Ward Clark of RedState provides a couple of key quotes from the speakers:
Most importantly, the left left us. 33 percent of our kids cannot read – cannot read at grade level. Minnesota in education? We are failing in every standard. 8th graders – 60 percent cannot do math at grade level. These are our kids. We are talking about economic conditions here. Our conditions is (sic) horrible. We can’t afford anything. As working-class and middle-class people. Now please understand this, we love our brothers and sisters who are Democrats, but you left us. And because the left left us, join the right, and vote for Trump, 2024.

I’m a person of deep Muslim faith. I have Abrahamic religion. I love my Jewish brothers and sisters. I love my Christian brothers and sisters. People come from different communities and backgrounds. We’re all the same. We live in a country where we should be working together. Not hurting each other, not defaming each other. We should be protecting the rights of every person to speak. Because today if I am supporting the censorship of a segment of this country, guess what, tomorrow I will be censored too. And I don’t want that for myself or for my family. And that’s why, it’s surprising to say, Trump is kind of an a**hole. He says a lot of things, he’s not the nicest person in the room, he’s not going to sugar-coat things for you. But guess what, the four years he was president, nothing happened to me personally. I was safe, this community was safe. This country was safe.
Stein leads Harris among Muslim voters, Trump trails as election nears
Green Party nominee Jill Stein holds a narrow lead over Vice President Kamala Harris among Muslim voters, according to a recent poll by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The survey indicates that 42% of Muslim voters favor Stein, 41% support Harris, and 10% back former president Donald Trump.

Conducted between October 30 and 31 with 1,449 verified Muslim voters, the poll also reveals that 95% of respondents plan to vote in the upcoming election, highlighting the potential influence of Muslim voters in key swing states.

CAIR’s National Executive Director Nihad Awad emphasized the importance of voter turnout, stating, “This poll confirms that our community members are deeply engaged in the 2024 election.

Our message for American Muslims is simple: Make your voices heard and show the strength of our community across our nation.”

Robert S. McCaw, CAIR’s government affairs director, noted that support for Stein and Harris may be linked to concerns over US policies, particularly regarding the conflict in Gaza.

He urged presidential candidates to address these issues as the election approaches.

With the November 5 election around the corner, national polls indicate a tight race between Harris and Trump.

According to FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages, Harris holds a slight lead, but the margin is within typical polling errors, making the outcome uncertain.


Prominent white supremacist Richard Spencer endorses Kamala Harris
One of the United States’ foremost white supremacists is urging his followers to support Vice President Harris in the presidential election next week.

Richard Spencer, an avowed racist, antisemite and admirer of Nazism who coined the term “alt-right” and was a featured speaker when he took part in the deadly 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Va., called Harris the “best manager of the American empire.”

Spencer — who also gained international recognition after yelling “Hail Trump! Hail our people!” and being greeted with Nazi salutes during a white nationalist event in November 2016 — also condemned former President Trump’s strong support of Israel.

Harris wanted to “be all things to all people” on the issue of Israel, but ultimately he preferred where she landed, Spencer said in a nearly 12 minute video posted to X.

“At the DNC, she said that she 100% supports Israel. She’ll give Israel lethal aid. She also said that the suffering is tremendous, and she also said that Palestinians deserve their own state, their own sovereignty, that they need to have a government, a legitimate organization through which they can live in peace, side by side with Israel . . . I have criticisms of that, but nevertheless, I find that better than Donald Trump.”

“If there is a regional conflict between Israel and Iran, Trump seems much more likely to not only support Israel in this, but take part in it, start bombing Iranian nuclear facilities,” Spencer added.


US ‘won’t restrain Israel if Iran attacks again’
The US has reportedly said that Washington will not be able to restrain Israel if it attacks again.

The Axios news website has cited a US official saying: “We told the Iranians: We won’t be able to hold Israel back, and we won’t be able to make sure that the next attack will be calibrated and targeted as the previous one.”

The report quoted the official as saying the message had been conveyed directly to the Iranians, though the Israeli source said a message was passed to Tehran via Swiss intermediaries.
US deploys B-52 bombers to Middle East
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on Saturday that B-52 bombers have arrived in the Middle East amid the Iranian threats against Israel and the United States.

“B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers from Minot Air Force Base’s 5th Bomb Wing arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility,” CENTCOM tweeted, with an accompanying picture of one of the massive planes on final approach.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the deployment of the bomber aircraft along with U.S. Navy warships, the Pentagon announced on Friday.

“In keeping with our commitments to the protection of U.S. citizens and forces in the Middle East, the defense of Israel, and de-escalation through deterrence and diplomacy, the secretary of defense ordered the deployment of additional ballistic missile defense destroyers, fighter squadron and tanker aircraft, and several U.S. Air Force B-52 long-range strike bombers to the region,” Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.

The U.S. did not provide specific numbers of planes and ships sent to the region.

“These forces will begin to arrive in coming months as the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group prepares to depart,” Ryder added.


Every important figure in Iran is now at the mercy of the Israeli Air Force, says former fighter pilot
A former Israeli fighter pilot has claimed that as a result of Israel’s recent strikes on air defence systems used by the Islamic Republic, “every important figure in Iran is now at the mercy of the Israeli Air Force”.

Commenting on X about the implications of Israel’s attack, Naftali Hazony, who spent eight years in the IAF, said: “Israel has destroyed the last of Iran’s advanced S300 batteries. These long-range batteries could shoot down aircraft over 80 miles away.

“Iran is now forced to rely on dozens of medium-range defence systems, including the ‘Hordad’.”

The “Hordad” can shoot down aircraft over 50 miles away, he wrote, which means there is a 50-mile ‘safe-zone’ around a number of sensitive sites, such as government buildings.

But, says Hazony, “50 miles of defence is simply not enough” because Israel reportedly uses Boeing-developed SDBs (Small Diameter Bombs,) which spread their wings after being dropped and glide up to 70 miles before hitting their target. A single fighter jet can carry 16 SDBs, he added.

“Israel also recently unveiled aircraft-launched ballistic missiles that can strike at great distances. These are just part of Israel’s known arsenal of long-range munitions that can be dropped well outside the range of Iran’s ‘Hordad’,” he said.

Iran’s nuclear sites, however, are deep underground and out of the reach of long-range missiles, which deliver smaller payloads incapable of destroying these sites.
Israel Crushes Iranian Missile Production & America’s Quiet Amnesty with Mike Baker
In this episode of PDB Situation Report:
• Israel’s latest retaliatory strike against Iran, examining its impact on Iran’s war capabilities and support for proxies across the region, with insights from intelligence analyst and weapons expert Ryan McBeth.
• The House Judiciary Committee’s new report uncovering a potential "Quiet Amnesty" for nearly 1 million illegal migrants, allowing indefinite stays in the U.S. Resident Fellow for Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, Art Arthur, joins us to break it down.


UKLFI: Dr Efrat Sopher discusses Iran's latest threat of retaliation with Matthew Wright on LBC (audio)
Dr Efrat Sopher, Chair of the Board of Advisers of the Ezri Center for Iran & Gulf States Research at Haifa University and UKLFI Director, discusses the latest threat of retaliation against Israel and the US with Matthew Wright on LBC on 3 November 2024. Noting that the date is significant in Iran, she discusses Iran's options for attacking Israeli or US targets, and indicators of the Iranian regime's current thinking.




Khamenei adviser: Iran can produce nuclear weapons
Tehran has the capacity to develop nuclear weapons, should it choose to do so, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Friday.

“We now have the technical capabilities necessary to produce nuclear weapons,” Kamal Kharrazi told the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen outlet.

“Only the supreme leader’s fatwa currently prohibits it,” he said, referring to a religious ruling made by Khamenei in the mid-’90s against the use of nuclear weapons.

“If the survival of Iran comes under serious threat, we reserve the right to reconsider,” added Kharrazi.

In May, Kharrazi told the ISNA news agency that, “If the Zionist regime dares to damage Iran’s nuclear facilities, our level of deterrence will be different. We have no decision to produce a nuclear bomb, but if the existence of Iran is threatened, we will have to change our nuclear doctrine.”

In August, Iran International reported that the Islamic Republic was advancing its secret nuclear program, bringing the mullahs closer to building atomic bombs.
Khamenei threatens Israel, US with ‘crushing response’
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei stepped up his bellicose rhetoric on Saturday, threatening both Israel and the United States.

“The United States of America and the Zionist regime will definitely receive a crushing response for what they do against Iran and the Resistance Front,” the ayatollah tweeted.

An hour earlier, Khamenei had tweeted: “We will definitely do everything necessary to prepare the Iranian nation for confronting the Arrogant Powers, whether militarily, in terms of armament, or politically. Our officials are already working on this.”

Although he did not specify when and how Tehran was intending to act, the threat comes on the backdrop of a New York Times report suggesting that Khamenei recently instructed the country’s Supreme National Security Council to prepare for another assault on Israel.

Such an attack would be Iran’s third on the Jewish state, after ballistic missile assaults in April and October.

The U.S. has warned Tehran that it would not be able to restrain Jerusalem in the event of another attack, Axios reported on Saturday, citing an American and a former Israeli official.

“We told the Iranians: We won’t be able to hold Israel back, and we won’t be able to make sure that the next attack will be [as] calibrated and targeted as the previous one,” the U.S. official was quoted as saying.


PM: Israel committed to Hezbollah’s removal ‘with or without’ deal
The Israel Defense Forces will push the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group north of Lebanon’s Litani River even without a ceasefire deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday night.

“With or without an agreement, the key to restoring peace and security in the north, to return our northern residents to their homes in safety, is to distance Hezbollah beyond the Litani, to strike any attempt to rearm it, and to respond firmly against any action against us,” the prime minister said during a visit to IDF soldiers serving on the Lebanese border.

“Simply put: Enforcement, enforcement, enforcement,” Netanyahu said following a meeting with reservists of the IDF’s 228th Brigade, known as the Northern Nahal. “And cutting off Hezbollah’s oxygen pipeline from Iran through Syria. We are committed to all of this,” the premier added.

On the Jewish state’s northern border, “you see and hear the change in reality—planes in the sky and our heroic fighters on the ground, across the border, eliminating the entire underground terror array that Hezbollah prepared for the invasion of the Galilee and an even larger massacre” than the one in southern communities on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Netanyahu.

“It won’t happen anymore,” Netanyahu vowed.

Israel’s war with Hezbollah could continue for months, Reuters news agency reported on Friday, citing a Lebanese political source linked to the terror group, as well as diplomats familiar with ongoing efforts to achieve a ceasefire.

A truce proposal drafted by the Biden administration in Washington was shelved due to being “unrealistic,” according to Reuters’ sources. Last week, two U.S. officials were cited as saying on two separate occasions that recent diplomatic talks had yielded “substantive” and “constructive” results.
What does a month of data tell us about Hezbollah attacks?
Israel began its ground operation against Hezbollah on October 1. This means that the entire month of October reflects a month of war on the ground in Lebanon. At the same time, Hezbollah has sought to carry out daily attacks on Israel using rockets and drones.

Hezbollah increased the range of its rocket attacks in response to Israel launching Operation Northern Arrows in September. Israel’s initial targets were Hezbollah commanders, and the IDF used the air force for precision strikes.

The battle with Hezbollah in October increased the number of casualties Israel has suffered in the war. A total of 88 Israeli soldiers and civilians were killed in October.

Of those, around 30 soldiers were killed fighting in Lebanon. Nineteen died fighting in Gaza, according to Ynet. Thirteen people were killed in Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks on northern Israel. Six soldiers were also killed in a Hezbollah drone attack on a training base, and two were killed in the Golan Heights.

The IDF says that more than 4,400 projectiles crossed into Israel from Lebanon during October. The IDF also estimates more than 1,500 Hezbollah members were killed in October.

Israel’s data on Hezbollah attacks comes in several forms, one of which is data covering a year of war from October 2023 to October 2024. Hezbollah had been attacking Israel since October 8, 2023.

In a year of fighting, the IDF killed more than 800 Hezbollah members in Lebanon. Around 450 of these were killed between October 2023 and September 2024. Many of those were killed in the exploding pagers incident and also strikes on Beirut targeting Hezbollah commanders, as well as the wave of strikes on September 23. That means several hundred were killed from September 17 to October 7.

The IDF had attacked thousands of targets in Lebanon over the year from October 2023 to early October 2024. This vastly increased once Israel launched Operation Northern Arrows on September 23.
Over 900 civilians killed in Israel since war’s start
A total of 902 civilians have been killed by terrorism in Israel since the start of the war on Oct. 7, 2023, the country’s National Insurance Institute announced Sunday.

The figure includes all war fronts since the Hamas-led cross-border massacre almost 400 days ago, according to the NII, which supports victims and their families.

The NII did not state how many civilians had been wounded since the start of the war, though an Oct. 29 notice said that the agency provided assistance to over 70,000 victims of hostilities.

On Thursday, seven civilians were killed and one was seriously wounded in two separate Hezbollah rocket assaults on Israel’s north, marking one of the deadliest days since the Iranian-backed terror organization joined the war in support of Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023.

Also on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces announced that a soldier was killed the previous day by a grenade in the northern Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of troops killed in action on all fronts to 780.

The IDF death toll in Gaza since the start of the ground invasion there on Oct. 27, 2023, stands at 368. Additionally, Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, of the Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit, was fatally wounded during a hostage rescue mission, and defense contractor Liron Yitzhak was mortally wounded in the Strip in May.

Some 12,000 wounded IDF soldiers and security personnel have entered physical rehabilitation programs since the start of the war, including 900 wounded over the past month in Lebanon, according to data published last week by the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation Department.

The IDF has been fighting to defeat Hamas and Hezbollah since the former terror group led the invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering 1,200 people, mainly Jewish civilians, wounding thousands more and kidnapping 251 people to Gaza, where 101 remain.
Man dies of wounds sustained in Hezbollah rocket attack last month
The Galilee Medical Center announced on Sunday that a man died of wounds sustained during a Hezbollah rocket barrage fired from Lebanon at Nahariya in northwestern Israel last month.

The 57-year-old victim, who was not immediately named, was hit in the head by shrapnel from interceptions of a 25-rocket salvo targeting the area on Oct. 23.

He was hospitalized in intensive care and underwent several surgeries.

Terrorists have killed more than 900 civilians in Israel since the start of the war on Oct. 7, 2023, the country’s National Insurance Institute said on Sunday, before the man’s death was made public, which would make the total number 903.

The figure includes all war fronts since the Hamas-led cross-border massacre almost 400 days ago, according to the National Insurance Institute, which supports victims and their families.

The NII did not state how many civilians had been wounded since the start of the war, though an Oct. 29 notice said that the agency provided assistance to more than 70,000 victims of hostilities.

On Thursday, seven civilians were killed and one was seriously wounded in two separate Hezbollah rocket assaults on Israel’s north, marking one of the deadliest days since the Iranian-backed terrorist organization joined the war in support of Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023.

Also on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces announced that a soldier was killed the previous day by a grenade in the northern Gaza Strip, bringing the number of troops killed in action on all fronts to 780.


IDF special forces capture Iranian operative in Syria
Israel Defense Forces special forces captured a pro-Iranian terrorist operative during a raid in Syria, the military confirmed on Sunday, publishing footage from his interrogation by intelligence officers.

The raid across the Jewish state’s northern border was carried out in “recent months” by members of the Egoz commando unit, along with field interrogators of the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504.

Ali Soleiman al-Assi, a Syrian national from Saida in the southern part of the country, was tasked by Tehran with “gathering intelligence on IDF troops in the border area for future terror activity of the network,” the Israeli military announced in a post on social media on Sunday night.

“The operation prevented a future attack and led to the exposure of the operational methods of Iranian terror networks located near the Golan Heights. Al-Assi was transferred for further investigation,” it added.

“The IDF will not allow Iranian proxies in southern Syria to operate and threaten Israeli civilians,” the army statement concluded.


Israeli commandos capture top Hezbollah terrorist in Lebanon
The Israel Defense Forces’ elite Shayetet 13 naval commando unit on Friday night captured a senior Hezbollah figure in Northern Lebanon.

The IDF confirmed the operation in Batroun, south of Tripoli, on Saturday.

The terrorist, identified as Imad Amhaz, is considered to be a “significant source of knowledge” in the terror group’s naval force, according to the Israeli military.

Amhaz is being interrogated by the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504, which specializes in HUMINT, or human intelligence.

According to Lebanese reports, a 20-man team disguised as Lebanese security forces, including two soldiers in civilian clothes, arrived by sea on speedboats and raided a chalet on the coast, capturing Amhaz before leaving on the speedboats. The entire raid took only four minutes.

Hezbollah commanders killed
The IDF announced on Sunday morning that the commander of Hezbollah’s terror forces in the Khiam area, located in the Nabatieh Governorate of Southern Lebanon, had been killed in an Israeli drone strike.

Farouk Amin Alasi led many anti-tank missile and rocket attacks on Israeli communities in the Galilee Panhandle, especially Metula, according to the army.

Additionally, the IDF eliminated Yousef Ahmad Nun, a Radwan Force company commander in the Khiam area who was responsible for rocket and anti-tank missile attacks on Israeli communities in the Galilee area and IDF troops operating in Southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah terrorist Jaafar Khader Faour was killed in the area of Jouaiyya in Southern Lebanon, the IDF said on Saturday.


Hezbollah 'imposed this on us': Christian-Druze town fights terrorist takeover
The Christian-Druze southern Lebanese town of Hasbayya has consolidated efforts to ensure it does not join the list of Hezbollah strongholds, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

Volunteers from some of the 30,000 residents of the town monitor the local border day and night. The active residents are quick to report suspicious vehicles or unknown persons to the police - mindful of Hezbollah’s takeover of civilian infrastructure in other parts near the border with Israel.

Negotiating with terrorists
In addition to informal watch groups, the Times reported that some village leaders took it upon themselves to negotiate with Hezbollah - ensuring that it does not fire rockets from within the village’s territory.

The Lebanese terror organization began firing rockets at Israel on October 8, a day after its ally, Hamas, invaded and conducted massacres in southern Israel. The attacks forced the evacuations of tens of thousands of northern Israeli residents, prompting Israel to later conduct a land operation in Lebanon.

The agreement to prevent Hezbollah from launching rockets from the vicinity was secured over a year ago, the Times reported, citing Wissam Sliqqa, a Druze sheik and local leader in Hasbayya.

We asked them “not to launch rockets from inside the town,” said Sliqqa. “We wanted to preserve the safety of our residents and ensure they could remain in their homes.”

Turning away the displaced
Trying to ensure the security of their village, Habayya leaders reportedly turned away evacuated residents of nearby Shiite Muslim villages. Sources told the Times they were concerned that Hezbollah terrorists might covertly take over the village, despite negotiated agreements, posing as displaced internal refugees.

“We don’t want any strangers or anyone related to Hezbollah here,” said Ghassan Halabi, the deputy mayor of Hasbayya. “It took us years to build this town, and it could all be destroyed within minutes. We can’t allow that to happen.”


Iran’s help has transformed Yemen’s Houthi rebels into a potent military force, UN experts say
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have been transformed from a local armed group with limited capabilities to a powerful military organization with support from Iran, Iraqi armed groups, Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants and others, U.N. experts said in a new report.

The Iranian-backed Houthis have exploited the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and worked to enhance their status in Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” to gain popularity in the region and beyond, the experts monitoring sanctions against the Houthis said in the 537-page report to the U.N. Security Council.

To support Iranian-backed Hamas militants, whose surprise attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, sparked the war in Gaza, the Houthis have been attacking vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, disrupting global shipping in a key geopolitical area.

Despite Houthi claims that they would target ships linked to Israel, the panel said its investigations revealed the rebels have been targeting vessels indiscriminately.

Its analysis of data from the International Maritime Organization, the U.S. and the United Kingdom revealed that at least 134 attacks were carried out from Houthi-controlled areas against merchant and commercial vessels and U.S. and U.K. warships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden between Nov. 15, 2023, and July 31, 2024.
Red Sea Is Now So Dangerous Even NATO Warships Are Avoiding It
The Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest and most strategically vital waterways, has become so hazardous that even the German Navy is steering clear. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius’s decision to redirect the frigate Baden-Württemberg and support vessel Frankfurt am Main around the Cape of Good Hope on their return from an Indo-Pacific deployment speaks volumes. The Red Sea is now deemed too perilous, underscoring just how ineffective current U.S. and EU naval protections are in this region.

For months, the U.S. and EU have stationed forces to secure the Red Sea’s shipping lanes. Yet, Houthi rebels, equipped and backed by Iran, continue to harass and attack vessels under the guise of “solidarity” with Palestinian forces in Gaza. Reports reveal Houthi attacks extending into the Indian Ocean and even the Mediterranean, a spread that demonstrates their increased capability and adaptability. The EU’s mission Aspides commander warned of escalating danger but lacked the ships and resources needed to respond adequately. The United States Navy continues to send warships through the Red Sea, but its mission to protect merchant ships—Operation Prosperity Guardian—is considered a failure by several naval experts we interviewed and has significantly diminished in scope and size. As a result, even many US-flagged commercial vessels – which the US Navy is obligated by law to protect – are opting to divert their routes around Africa.


New intel suggests 51 Israeli hostages alive in Gaza
Fifty-one out of the 101 hostages still being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip are alive, according to the latest Israeli intelligence assessments.

Given the intense military pressure on Gaza and the harsh conditions the hostages have endured for over a year, officials fear the actual number of survivors might be even lower.

During a closed-door session with the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that roughly half the hostages were believed to be alive.

The assessment draws from extensive intelligence gathered since Oct. 7, 2023, combining public sources with classified operational data.

Sources familiar with the situation told Israel Hayom that officials have kept families fully informed, sharing detailed assessments about their loved ones’ status. While some families have accepted the government’s conclusions about presumed deaths, others are holding out for definitive proof.

Tracking the hostages’ status serves multiple critical purposes beyond negotiations. This intelligence helps commanders plan operations to prevent unintended casualties—whether from Israel Defense Forces strikes or deliberate harm by Hamas, which has ordered terrorists to kill captives at the first sign of any rescue attempt.

The execution of six hostages in a Khan Yunis tunnel in August—Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, and Almog Sarusi—proved these weren’t empty threats.

Intelligence suggests that Hamas has killed 27 Israeli captives in custody, while at least seven others have died as a result of IDF operations in Gaza.

Israel maintains its commitment to bringing home all hostages, dead or alive. While recent negotiation frameworks prioritized the return of living hostages, the dwindling number of survivors and ongoing threats to their lives have prompted security officials to push harder for an immediate deal.


'I didn't know if I would ever be released': Agam Goldstein Almog shares photo from Hamas captivity
Freed hostage Agam Goldstein Almog, who was abducted from Kfar Aza along with her mother and brothers on October 7, posted a picture of herself and her younger brothers in Hamas captivity to social media, N12 reported on Sunday.

In the post, Agam described her time in captivity, writing, "Sitting there in a tunnel in Gaza, being filmed, pleading to go home. With tired and terrified eyes, that the day before witnessed the worst and feared what they would see next."

"Today is November 3, 2024, and on this date last year, I didn't know that in three more weeks, I would be released. I didn't know if I would ever be released or if I would meet other hostages. I was afraid of what my eyes would see. I didn't want to see more disasters and more pain."

"These eyes, which I may never be able to express everything they have seen, looked at the clock there every day ready, without knowing why. Eyes that looked closely at the hostages there."

"If they had released me a week earlier, so much could have been spared."

Agam spoke of the hostages who remained in Hamas captivity for over a year, saying, "I see you, and I see your other fighting for you wherever she can."

"I'm angry because if I had been released a week earlier, so much would have been spared. Even one day earlier. So what should I say to them?"


Spurs fans call for release of British hostage Emily Damari in special rally
A special rally was held today outside Tottenham Hotspurs’ football stadium in north London to call for the release British hostage Emily Damari, with campaigners chanting “she’s one of our own” and sharing leaflets with Damari’s photo.

Damari, who marked her 28th birthday in captivity this year, was a big Spurs fan and, as the JC has reported, enjoyed watching the football and drinking pints with her friends.

The rally today, which took place between 11.30am and 2pm outside the Spurs stadium, was organised by Stop the Hate UK.

“When we say ‘she’s one of our own’, we’re referring to the fact that she’s not only a Spurs fan, she’s a fellow Briton,” said Stop the Hate UK organiser Itai Galmudy, who was joined by some 70 other campaigners at the Spurs stadium on Saturday. “She likes dry humour, she likes a cup of tea with milk, she likes downing pints in the pub, and she happens to like Spurs as well.”

On October 7 2023, Damari was taken from her home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza by terrorists, and her beloved dog, Choocha, was shot.

Since then, she has missed her grandfather’s death in London earlier this year, births, weddings and the numerous birthdays of her many friends.

The youngest of four siblings, Emily is the “light and life” of her family and friendsm according to those who knew her and, as the host of the “best barbeques on the kibbutz” and armed with her sharp wit, her home was frequently full of people eager to be in her presence.


Haaretz co-owner Leonid Nevzlin criticizes publisher’s remarks on Israel’s wartime actions
Leonid Nevzlin, co-owner of Haaretz, publicly expressed his strong disagreement on Friday with statements made by Amos Schocken, the newspaper’s publisher, regarding Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza.

Schocken’s remarks at a Haaretz conference in London described Israel’s governance in these territories as a “cruel apartheid regime” and referred to certain Palestinian terrorists as “freedom fighters.”

The comments led to significant backlash, including multiple Israeli ministries announcing they will sever ties with Haaretz.

Nevzlin, a prominent Russian-Israeli businessman and philanthropist, co-founded the Yukos Oil Company in Russia before relocating to Israel in 2003.

Since then, he has been actively involved in numerous philanthropic and cultural initiatives in Israel, including supporting educational institutions and cultural projects.

He became a partner in Haaretz 13 years ago to help the paper through a challenging financial period, emphasizing his commitment to liberal values and the importance of a free press.

“I wish to express my complete disagreement with Amos Schocken’s stance on the events of October 7 and the current war,” said Nevzlin.

“His recent statements are appalling, unacceptable, and inhumane, showing a shocking lack of sensitivity toward the victims of that tragic day, the casualties of the ongoing war, the hostages and their families, and the people of Israel as a whole.”

Nevzlin noted that Schocken’s comments conflict with Haaretz’s core values, his own values, and those of the newspaper’s staff.
Wikipedia in Arabic: A hotbed for bigotry, misinformation, and bias - investigative report
Ashley Rindsberg, responsible for the major expose of the fierce battle going on behind the scenes at Wikipedia, spoke to the Post, stating that relations between Wikimedia and the progressive-leaning Tides Foundation have existed since at least 2015.

"I wrote for the past weeks about the change in the internal culture of editing on Wikipedia. The conservative voices were silenced during discussions. The entire inner ecosystem changed after October 7. The level of propaganda began to rise among the pro-Palestinian side; the flood is unimaginable," added Rindsberg.

Rindsberg also described a surge of anti-Israel content, such as entries titled "Zionism as settler colonialism," especially since the October 7 Massacre. According to Rindsberg, this was also reflected in discussions behind the scenes of the entries, pointing at roughly 40 editors who devoted their time specifically to pro-Palestine content and who he deems to have been working in groups and attacking other editors in a de-facto orchestrated fashion. "The ferocity of these debates was astounding. They argued against the existence of rape during the Nova festival, claimed that Israelis were raping children, and even worked to delete a picture of Palestinian cleric Hajj Amin Al-Husseini when he toured a concentration camp. They are coordinating efforts despite the fact that this is not formally allowed on Wikipedia," he added.

To Rindsberg, the decision taken by Wikipedia's management to stay idle about these findings is striking. "The whole ethos of this website is staying neutral - otherwise, we don't really have a 'free encyclopedia,' but rather a propaganda machine in which anonymous editors attempt to influence people's minds, including possibilities of government interventions. They are all using the very structure and ethos of Wikipedia to hide what they are trying to do.

"Wikipedia is facing a major governance crisis," added Rindsberg, pointing out that while the management may know about what is being published about the ongoing anti-Israel crusade on their website, "they are not yet fully aware of the public perception of what Wikipedia is today. People nowadays know that Wikipedia has become biased and untrustworthy," he concluded.

S., the aforementioned tech worker, added: "These things should not be ignored. There are over half a billion native Arabic speakers, and the first thing they see when they enter Wikipedia is how Israel is committing genocide, bombing hospitals and schools, and acting with inexplicable violence. The tendency and the lack of neutrality in Wikipedia in Arabic (and also in English) contribute a lot to perpetuating hatred and conflict and obscuring the truth.

"Wherever you look, even in the most mundane topics, you will find enmity, prejudices, and a radically biased narrative against Israel. Even if you were not raised to hate Israel, you will get it in this way and through these places - this is what every Arab child will see on Google, this is what AI will tell them right away, and if we don't do anything about it - it will only get worse."

Comments
Michal Wander Schwartz, CEO of Wikimedia Israel, commented to the Jerusalem Post: "Each community in Wikipedia runs independently and makes decisions on policy and content in the project in its own language. Unfortunately, the Arab Wikipedia community has decided to exploit the Wikipedia brand resources for inappropriate political use. The Hebrew Wikipedia community and Wikimedia Israel expressed their protest about this in the international forums of the Wikimedia movement as well as before the executive committee of the Wikimedia Foundation, which unfortunately refrains from interfering with the Arab community's decision."

Global Wikimedia has yet to respond to the Post's comment requests.
Twitch is platforming antisemitism and Israel hate
The Twitch streaming platform, at any given moment, is being watched by more people than any TV news network. Annually, 21.4 billion hours of content are consumed on Twitch. And this includes the antisemitism the platform is increasingly broadcasting into viewers’ heads.

If you’re older than a millennial, you probably haven’t heard of Twitch, now owned by Amazon. Three quarters of users are under 35. Twitch began in 2011 as a platform primarily for streaming games and today over 7 million people create Twitch content — ranging from gaming to comedy to, increasingly, videos that are anti-Jewish and pro-terror.

It’s a powerful and seemingly dangerous platform for reaching young minds.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists and thousands of Gazans invaded Israel, conducting the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Less than a week later, while Israelis were still trying to identify the charred remains of innocents burned alive, the Twitch streaming platform appeared to side with . . . the terrorists. Changes to Twitch coding made it almost impossible for Israelis to become members of the platform.

This was first brought to light last May by an Israeli streamer named “Force,” who posted on X, “I’ve discovered around a month ago that A LOT of my longtime viewers have not been able to sign up to Twitch because they’re located in Israel, which is insane.”

Despite public outcry, Twitch took no action.

About a week ago, a subreddit thread noticed the sign-up snafus, too. Then it snowballed. One user posted, “Israeli here!, just checked and indeed found themselves banned from creating new accounts.”

Twitch denied trying to prevent users in Israel from joining the platform post-Oct. 7. Instead, they posted a claim on X that sign-ups from Israel via email were suspended following the Hamas attack to prevent violent content from being broadcast. Twitch claimed that sign-ups via mobile phone devices were still permitted.

But according to a report from Ynet, Israel’s largest media outlet, Israelis were reportedly blocked when trying to register via both email and mobile devices as of Oct. 20 — more than a year after the Hamas massacre. Threads on Reddit by Twitch users support Ynet’s claims. Yet only last month did Twitch finally address and correct the sign-up blocks after strong public outrage.

Worse yet is who and what Twitch does allow on its platform. As another Redditer posted, “They literally have streamers celebrating terrorism against Jews.”

One such streamer is Hasan Piker, who my organization StopAntisemitism named our Antisemite of the Week in April — and who in 2019 said that “America deserved 9/11, dude. F–k it, I’m saying it.”

More recently, Piker declared there was no evidence of mass rape or murder by Hamas last October. Even though the terror group live-streamed their gory pillaging of Israel, Piker-hosted streams where he denied or dismissed Hamas sexual violence, going as far as to say: “It doesn’t matter if f–king rapes happened on October 7th.”

This type of content violates Twitch’s community guidelines, which state, “Twitch does not allow content that depicts, glorifies, encourages, or supports terrorism, or violent extremist actors or acts.”

While Piker faced a temporary suspension in 2021 for using the word “cracker” to describe white people, he reportedly earns millions annually from the platform. He is so beloved by Twitch, that CEO Dan Clancy and Twitch employees celebrated the streamer’s birthday in July by singing to him live. Despite this outrage, Twitch has ignored the over 7,000 complaints our organization has sent to them about Piker’s behavior.

It’s not just Twitch users who traffic in hate, employees do too. The company’s Trust & Safety team, for instance, includes Fadzai Madzingira, who was suspended from a job at Ofcom, the UK’s independent communications regulator, due to her alleged anti-Israel bias. On Oct. 16, 2023, when Israel had yet to respond to the massacre, Madzingira allegedly accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians” in an Instagram post; yet Twitch thought her worthy of employment.


Extremists at so-called peace rally say October 7 atrocity was 'beautiful' and 'heroic'
Israel's ambassador to Britain has criticised an Islamic conference where speakers hailed the October 7 attacks as a 'heroic adventure', and said the recent death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar made Palestinians 'so proud.'

Tzipi Hotovely said the comments made during the recent Global Peace & Unity (GPU) event in London – which was attended by 50,000 – were 'deeply shocking', and she hoped police were investigating the speeches.

During the conference, attended by a Mail on Sunday reporter, one speaker said it was 'so beautiful' to see a 'refugee population under occupation strike at the heart of the most advanced army in the world'.

Ms Hotovely told the MoS last night: 'The October 7 massacre was the single deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. Openly supporting gratuitous acts of terror is not only deeply shocking but is actively dangerous. We trust the relevant authorities in the country are looking into the matter.'

The Hamas attack – which left 1,200 dead and more than 250 kidnapped – was the worst terrorist act committed against the Jewish state since it was founded in 1948. As Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation under UK law, praising the October 7 massacre could be a terrorist offence, experts said.

Last night, the Metropolitan Police asked the MoS to hand over its dossier of evidence and would assess any 'potential offences'.

The GPU 'festival', held at London's Excel Centre, was broadcast live on a Sky satellite station called Islam Channel, which was also the main organiser.

During a seminar entitled Palestinians Are Humans, Not Heroes, one of the panellists, Lamis Deek, a Palestinian-American lawyer and activist, said: 'October 7 was one of the most heroic, if not the most absolutely heroic, adventures against the most oppressive entity we have seen, not just in modern history, but in all history.'

Ms Deek, 48, added the atrocity made 'more progress against the de-humanisation not just of Palestinians, but of Arabs and Muslims in one year than has been made in 40 years'.
Rant about ‘synagogue of Satan’ and calls for ‘intifada’ at London’s Gaza protest
A protester ranted that Sir Keir Starmer’s wife is an illegal immigrant who takes their children to a “synagogue of Satan”, as tens of thousands marched through London against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Taking place on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which saw Britain express support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, the demonstrators walked from Whitehall to the American embassy.

The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said this was designed to, “demand an end to Britain’s historic and ongoing complicity in Israel’s genocide” from its main backer.

At a “die in” outside Downing Street, dozens of people lay on the ground to commemorate the civilians killed by Israel in Gaza.

According to the enclave’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas, over 42,000 Palestinians have died in the conflict. Several academics have, however, described the numbers put out by Hamas – widely used by the international media – as statistically impossible.

One protester, clad entirely in black and largely ignored by the crowd around him, was filmed shouting: "The child trafficking Israelis. Keir Starmer's wife has an Israeli passport. She is an illegal immigrant. From now on, you have to tell anyone, ‘your daddy is Tommy Robinson, your mummy is Keir Starmer’s wife.’

"She takes her children to the synagogue of Satan… Tell everyone the truth.”

Speaking at the march, Ben Jamal, the PSC's director, said history would condemn Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy for their support of Israel “barbarism”.

“We will not succumb to despair. We will maintain unity,” he said. “We will not stop until the 107 year struggle for justice is concluded and the day of liberation arrives.”

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “We will never walk away from the people of Palestine.”


Met Police U-turn as force launches terror probe into protester carrying sign glorifying dead Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar after officers refused to make arrest
The Metropolitan Police have performed a dramatic U-turn and are now investigating a protestor carrying a sign glorifying former Hamas leader as a potential terrorism offence.

MailOnline revealed how officers refused to arrest the woman carrying the sign about Yahya Sinwar at the demo yesterday.

She was pulled aside by the entrance to Vauxhall Bridge, after she was spotted carrying a piece of wood with the words 'Sinwar Stick' written on one side and 'Spirit of Resistance' on the other.

It was held at a mass pro-Palestine demo attended by thousands in central London.

The officer claimed that an allegation of inciting hatred had been made by a member of the public against her.

Despite being threatened with arrest, the protestor declined to provide police with her name and address.

The testy dispute was brought to an abrupt end after senior officers opted to let the protestor go, despite her insistence on not providing contact details.

But last night officers made a u-turn.

A new statement, issued after Mail Online published the original story and photos, said officers were now investigating.

It said: 'At about 13:20hrs on Saturday, 2 November, officers policing the Palestine Solidarity Campaign march responded to an allegation of a suspected public order offence relating to a placard being carried by a participant close to Lambeth Bridge.

'An assessment of that allegation based on the information available at the time, led to no offences being apparent and no arrest was made.

'Further information has since come to light. This has been reviewed, and we have launched an investigation into a suspected terrorism offence.'

One source said: 'It was a shocking thing to do.


Provocative anti-Israel T-shirt sees man arrested on Australia's most iconic beach
The shirt featured Israel's flag alongside the words 'f**k Israel' and 'f**k zionism'.

The scenes unfolded in front of large crowds of beachgoers who had flocked to Bondi to escape the heat as temperatures soared into the 30s on Sunday.

Australian Jewish Association chief executive Robert Gregory claimed that the man, who is understood to be the son of a former Labor minister, had allegedly been seen wearing the shirt multiple times before his arrest.

He added that many locals had encountered him in the t-shirt, as Bondi and surrounding areas in Sydney's east are the hub of the Jewish community in the city.

'The Jewish community has faced a wave of intimidation and vandalism over the past year,' Mr Gregory told Daily Mail Australia.

'This man has been repeatedly wearing a shirt designed to annoy residents in Sydney's east.

'Day after day, he is spotted in neighbourhoods where many proud Jewish people live, including Double Bay and Bondi.

'Given his background, it's hard to believe he doesn't own another shirt. Something must be seriously lacking to cause a man of that age to be so desperate for attention.'


Harvard leadership debated how to respond publicly after Oct. 7 attack. Read the emails
What to denounce?
In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, Harvard officials questioned whether the school should denounce the Hamas rampage, according to the report.

Early drafts of an Oct. 9 statement from the school contained language that explicitly condemned Hamas, documents obtained by the committee show. But that phrasing was ultimately rejected by a group of Harvard officials who crafted the school’s response in this instance.

At one point, Gay’s chief of staff Katie O’Dair asked, “Can we have a letter and not say unequivocally that we denounce this?”

Marc Goodheart, the chief administrative officer of Harvard’s governing boards, called the matter of whether to condemn the Hamas killings the “key unresolved question” facing the group, according to the report. He noted that failure to condemn Hamas would likely be criticized, given former president Lawrence Bacow’s vocal condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

O’Dair, meanwhile, thought any statement denouncing Hamas “would need to be coupled with one addressing what she viewed as the ‘complex and ‘deeply divided’ nature of the issue,” according to the report.

A debate over ‘violent’
There was also hand-wringing amongst Harvard deans over whether to include the word “violent” in Harvard’s statement following Oct. 7, according to the report. Harvard Medical School Dean George Q. Daley asked for a characterization of Hamas’ attack as “violent” to be removed, since that phrase “singl[ed] out Hamas’ violence” and assigned “blame.”

Harvard Graduate School of Design Dean Sarah M. Whiting called Daley’s suggestion a “very good catch,” the report said. Other deans disagreed, including Harvard Kennedy School Dean Doug Elmendorf. In an email to Harvard administrators, he wrote, “I think Hamas’s violence deserves singling out, and I think this word is a pretty small way to do that, considering the nature of the attack.”

Ultimately, Gay decided to remove the language, with agreement from then-provost Alan Garber, who would go on to succeed Gay as Harvard president. In a text message, Gay asked Garber if “he could live with removing the word ‘violent,’ saying she was fine with doing so for the sake of ‘getting to yes,’” according to the report.

Garber replied, “Yes I don’t love it but can live with the change. Frankly I’m more disturbed by his logic than the wording change.”
A Crucial Legal Foothold for Jewish Students To Fight Antisemitism on College Campuses Might Collapse in a Harris Administration
The ability of the federal government to protect Jewish students from antisemitic discrimination on college campuses has been in jeopardy for the past four years due to the Biden administration’s failure to issue new guidance on the definition of antisemitism.

That’s the assessment from a leading authority on antisemitism and civil rights, Kenneth Marcus, who, under both the George W. Bush and Trump administrations, worked to clarify protections for Jewish students under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Now, he fears that if Vice President Harris is elected president, the policy — which has served as a crucial legal foothold for Jewish students to fight antisemitism since October 7 — may be made less effective in the next four years. Or worse: rolled back.

“The fact that the Biden-Harris administration has lacked the courage to be firm, forceful, and explicit in discussing the IHRA working definition of antisemitism does raise a real concern that a Harris administration might not follow through and use the definition in the way that the order envisions,” Mr. Marcus tells the Sun.

The policy dates back to 2004, when Mr. Marcus, while working as assistant secretary for the Department of Education, established in an official letter that Title VI protected the rights of ethnic groups that shared a religious faith, including Jews. Later coined the “Marcus Doctrine,” the policy was kept through the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.

The policy was strengthened in 2019 when the Trump administration issued an executive order which affirmed the civil rights protections for Jewish students and called on federal agencies to “consider” the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition for antisemitism which identifies denying Jews the right to self-determination as a potentially antisemitic act.

His effort was lauded by scores of Jewish groups, including the World Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the Zionist Organization of America, and the Anti-Defamation League.

Although the Biden administration did not overturn the executive order, they have, for years, delayed issuing new Title VI guidance based on Trump’s executive order. The Department of Education first promised to issue a new rule in September 2020, before pushing the deadline to January 2021, and then to December 2022, and so on. “It’s not as if drafting the rule would have taken so long,” Mr. Marcus tells the Sun. I left a copy of it in my desk when I left.”
Texas court ruling signals setback for efforts to define Jew-hatred on campus
A federal court in Texas signaled on Tuesday that it intends to roll back measures taken by the state’s universities to protect Jews on campus.

In March, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed an executive order, GA-44, instructing the state’s public universities to include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism in their free speech policies in response to the explosion of anti-Israel campus protests after the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sued the governor and the administrators of the University of Houston and the University of Texas on behalf of two local chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and the Democratic Socialists of America. CAIR, which blamed Israel for being attacked shortly after Oct. 7, alleged that the executive order and the policies that the universities enacted under it were impermissible viewpoint discrimination.

Robert Pitman, a district judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, ruled on Tuesday that by adopting the IHRA definition in their policies, the universities violated the First Amendment rights of those anti-Israel protest groups to free expression.

“The court finds the incorporation of this specific definition of antisemitism is viewpoint discrimination,” Pitman wrote. “The speech policies do not leave ‘antisemitism’ open to constitutional definitions and interpretations, because GA-44 mandated a specific definition.”

The court agreed further with the plaintiffs that the IHRA definition’s contemporary examples of antisemitism, which include comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, are protected speech.

“Court finds the revised policies are intertwined with GA-44 and the IHRA examples, which identify content-specific expression—like that the State of Israel is a racist endeavor or drawing comparisons between Israel and Nazis,” the judge wrote. “Through the connection to these examples, the policies make that speech punishable, thereby chilling it.”

Kenneth L. Marcus, the founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which filed an amicus brief in the case supporting the defendants, described the order as a “cautionary note” to the state of Texas, which may have gone beyond other states that have tried to adopt the IHRA definition.
Antisemitism festers at famed Chicago school — including incident where some band members allegedly played Nazi Party anthem: parents
An elite Chicago private school where a bullied student committed suicide has a history of harassment and antisemitism — including a disturbing incident where some band members allegedly played the Nazi Party anthem, according to parents and new details in an ongoing lawsuit.

The $46,000-a-year Latin School of Chicago — where Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker sent his kids and which boasts alums including Nancy Reagan and chewing gum heir William Wrigley Jr. II — allegedly swept the hateful band episode under the rug, never addressed the school community about the May incident, and has stopped answering questions about it, according to messages reviewed by The Post.

The revelation comes as the city of Chicago has become a festering flashpoint of antisemitism. Last week, an Orthodox Jewish man was shot in the shoulder on his way to synagogue, allegedly by an illegal West African migrant who yelled “Allahu Akbar” before opening fire on police. Some in the Jewish community criticized city officials for not initially labeling the incident a hate crime or identifying the victim as Jewish, suggesting it was a cover-up.

One Latin School administrator informed parents he was aware of and investigating the band incident the day it happened, but later said only a few kids in classes played the hateful tune, according to parent messages.

Angry parents said there were no apparent repercussions for those who participated and that the students were back in school and participating in graduation activities the next day, according to the messages.

“Many Jewish families do not feel welcome or cared about,” one Latin School parent told The Post, requesting anonymity for fear of retribution. “The school does not seem concerned for the safety of our kids, which leaves us disappointed and feeling like outsiders in our school community.”

Disturbing new claims are also laid out in a revised $100 million wrongful death suit filed against the school by Robert and Rosellene Bronstein, parents of 15-year-old Nate Bronstein, who committed suicide in January 2022 after alleged persistent bullying in person and online.


BBC newsroom branded ‘out of control’ amid new accusations of Middle East bias
The BBC newsroom is “out of control”, its former director of television has said as the corporation faces fresh accusations of bias over its reporting of the Middle East conflict.

Danny Cohen said the BBC’s reporting had anti-Israeli overtones which were contributing to a sense of unsafety felt by many Jewish people in the UK.

In a report into the broadcaster’s recent coverage of the conflict, Mr Cohen pointed out that an Iranian propagandist was given airtime despite the corporation upholding complaints about a previous appearance he made.

Mohammed Marandi, who has served in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, has appeared on the BBC twice since the broadcaster admitted a “lapse in editorial standards” over an interview with him a month ago in which he accused Israel of genocide and of “ethnosupremacism”.

The corporation also devoted 40 minutes to a live broadcast of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei giving a speech, and gave a platform to a woman who has repeatedly glorified the murder of Jewish people.

Mr Cohen said the BBC had done little to address its reporting, despite previous criticism.

“Very serious problems of bias continue in the BBC’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war,” he said. “The scale and consistency of the issues suggests that the BBC newsroom is out of control. It is very hard to otherwise understand why the corporation continues to make so many errors.

“The BBC should understand that the bias in their reporting is contributing to an atmosphere in this country in which many Jewish people feel unsafe.”

At the end of September, Mr Cohen produced a report on the BBC’s reporting of the conflict that was endorsed by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Community Security Trust.

The three Jewish organisations demanded an independent inquiry into what Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi, described as a failure to ensure impartial coverage of the war.


MK dropped from IDF reserves after Lebanon ‘office’ photo
Lawmaker Yitzhak Kroizer, a member of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party, was dismissed on Saturday from active IDF military reserve duty after a picture circulated on social media showing him establishing a mock government office in a Southern Lebanon home.

The image, uploaded on Friday, showed Kroizer, 39, surrounded by soldiers from his unit—the 228th “Alon” Infantry Brigade—with the words “Office of MK Kroizer” painted in Hebrew on the wall in the background.

Kroizer’s dismissal was confirmed by the Knesset member in a Saturday night X post in which he claimed a report in Haaretz was responsible for his removal.

“Yes, I was dismissed from reserve service,” he wrote, “because of an inquiry by Haaretz newspaper into why a photo from me from Lebanon was published. I have had the privilege of fighting for you for more than 100 days in the past year, and I will continue to fight for you in the Israeli Knesset together with my colleagues from Otzma Yehudit.”

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit commented: “The incident was investigated, and it was decided to end the reserve service of the individual in question.”

Additionally, the IDF views the graffiti and the publication of the photo of Kroizer as violating protocol and “an action that does not serve an operational need on the battlefield,” according to Haaretz.
J’lem taxi drivers charged for part in Jaffa terror shooting
The Tel Aviv District Attorney’s Office has filed an indictment against the owner of a Jerusalem taxi company and two drivers for transporting the Palestinian terrorists who carried out last month’s shooting at a Tel Aviv-Jaffa light rail station, Israel’s State Attorney’s Office said on Sunday.

According to the preliminary indictment filed with the Tel Aviv District Court, the company and its drivers shuttled illegal Palestinian infiltrators across the Jewish state’s pre-1967 lines, including the two gunmen who murdered seven in the Oct. 1 terrorist attack in Jaffa.

The business owner is being charged with transporting illegals under aggravated circumstances, causing death and damage by negligence and obstruction of justice. The two taxi drivers stand accused of seven counts of reckless homicide and grievous bodily harm due to their failure to question the terrorists, who were carrying an assault rifle.

The District Attorney’s Office requested that the three suspects remain in custody pending the end of the proceedings, saying that they “contributed to a horrific attack in which seven people lost their lives. They were the ones who drove and led the terrorists to their destination while taking the excessive risk of this terrible outcome, and through their actions, they demonstrated the security danger they pose to the Israeli public.”

The terrorists who carried out the attack, residents of Hebron in Judea, crossed the pre-1967 lines in the Jerusalem area. They were neutralized at the scene by police officers, municipal security and armed civilians.

Police identified the gunmen as 19-year-old Mohammad Mask, who was killed at the scene, and Ahmad Himoni, 25, who was severely wounded.
Terrorists shoot at Samaria industrial park
Palestinian Hamas terrorists opened fire toward the Shahak Industrial Park near the community of Shaked in northern Samaria on Sunday, according to the Hatzalah Judea and Samaria rescue group.

No casualties were reported in the attack on the industrial zone, which is located some five miles west of Jenin, a hotbed of Palestinian terrorism.

Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades “military” wing took responsibility for the shooting attack in a statement cited by Qatar’s Al Jazeera, saying its operatives “targeted the Shaked settlement in the northern West Bank with appropriate automatic weapons and withdrew safely.”

In September, Israeli authorities filed an indictment against a member of a terror squad based in Jenin who planned to infiltrate Israeli civilian communities in Samaria and carry out an Oct. 7, 2023-style massacre.

The indictment accused Osama Bani Fadl and other terrorist operatives of making serious preparations for a mass slaughter targeting Jewish residents of Samaria, including by infiltrating towns with vehicles.
Egypt denies assisting Israel's military operations amid reports about explosives shipment
Egypt on Thursday denied it assisted Israeli military operations after media reports that an Egyptian port received a shipment of explosives bound for an Israeli defense contractor.

"The Egyptian Armed Forces categorically deny what has been circulated on social media and suspicious accounts and what is being promoted about assisting Israel in its military operations in general and in detail," the army said in a statement.

Human rights lawyers on Wednesday filed a court appeal in Berlin seeking to block a 150-metric-ton shipment of military-grade explosives aboard the German cargo ship MV Kathrin, which they said was for Israel's biggest defense contractor, Elbit Systems.

Data showed MV Kathrin docked at Alexandria port
LSEG data and vessel-tracking website Marine Traffic showed the MV Kathrin docked in Egypt's port at Alexandria on Monday.

The Egyptian ministry of transport explained later on Thursday that the ship docked in Alexandria to unload a shipment for Egypt's ministry of military production, adding that the ship submitted an official request to leave to Turkey.

The European Legal Support Center's case argued the explosives could be used in munitions for Israel's war in Gaza, potentially contributing to alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Because of the explosives bound for Israel, the MV Kathrin was denied entry at several African and Mediterranean ports, including in Angola, Slovenia, Montenegro and Malta, according to the ELSC. It said Portuguese authorities recently required the ship to switch from a Portuguese flag to a German flag before it could continue.

Germany said the cargo was neither loaded nor dispatched from its territory thus did not require an export license.


American Iranian journalist jailed for months in Iran
An Iranian-American journalist who once worked for a U.S. government-funded broadcaster is believed to be detained by Iran for months now, authorities said Sunday, further raising the stakes as Tehran threatens to retaliate over an Israeli attack on the country.

The imprisonment of Reza Valizadeh, acknowledged to The Associated Press by the U.S. State Department, came as Iran marked the 45th anniversary of the American Embassy takeover and hostage crisis on Sunday. The event took place days ahead of the US elections pitting Republican Donald Trump against Democrat Kamala Harris.

It also followed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatening both Israel and the U.S. the day before with “a crushing response” as long-range B-52 bombers reached the Middle East in an attempt to deter Tehran.

"The enemies, both the USA and the Zionist regime, should know that they will definitely receive a tooth-breaking response to what they are doing against Iran, the Iranian nation and the resistance front," Khamenei said in a speech to students in Tehran.
Iranian woman strips clothes in protest after being assaulted
Tehran’s security forces arrested an Iranian woman for stripping off her clothes in protest after she was allegedly assaulted for improperly wearing her hijab, in violation of Tehran’s strict modesty laws, according to international media reports and footage from Saturday.

The young woman was assaulted by security forces at Tehran's Islamic Azad University, according to Iran International.

A university official later confirmed her arrest.

"Following an indecent act by a student at the Science and Research Branch of the university, campus security intervened and handed the individual over to law enforcement authorities," Amir Mahjoub, Director General of Public Relations at Islamic Azad University, wrote on X/Twitter. "The motives and underlying reasons for the student's actions are currently under investigation."

Mahjob later stated on X that "at the police station,...it was found that she was under severe mental pressure and had a mental disorder".

Iran International, citing an Iranian student group, reported that the student had been harassed by security forces for not wearing her hijab.

The security forces reportedly tore her clothes, and the interaction left the student bloodied. Student groups shared mixed reports as to how she was wounded, with some claiming that the forces smashed her head into a nearby car or pillar.


German MPs to name Muslim Jew-hatred as antisemitism vector
Germany’s coalition parties and the main opposition faction agreed on Saturday to pass a Bundestag resolution on antisemitism that for the first time will see the legislature name Muslim immigration as a driver of the problem.

The draft resolution, which will be nonbinding, also calls to end pubic funding for entities that engage in antisemitism or seek to boycott Israel. It also reaffirms Germany’s support for Israel.

Gady Gronich, a Jewish community executive based in Munich, welcomed the draft resolution. “I hope it leads to positive developments on the ground vis-à-vis the religious freedom and security of the Jewish community in Germany, which is facing major challenges right now,” Gronich told JNS. He is CEO of the Conference of European Rabbis and chief of staff for its president Pinchas Goldchmidt.

The text is scheduled to come up for a vote in the Bundestag next week. The agreement to support it follows a long negotiation between the left-leaning government coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the opposition center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Unlike multiple previous resolutions and laws passed by the Bundestag against antisemitism, the draft resolution, a copy of which was obtained by JNS, explicitly references the antisemitism of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries. Doing this is controversial in Germany, where mass immigration from the Middle East and Africa is a major voting issue and ideological divide between an immigrant-friendly left and the apprehensive right.

“In recent months, the alarming extent of antisemitism has become apparent, based on immigration from the countries of North Africa and the Near and Middle East, where antisemitism and hostility toward Israel are widespread, also due to Islamist and anti-Israel state indoctrination,” the draft resolution reads.
Holocaust memorial stolen in Germany’s Börde district amid rising antisemitic acts
On Saturday, unknown individuals ripped out and stole a Stolperstein in Oschersleben, located in the Börde district, according to reports by DIE WELT, ZEIT ONLINE, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.

The golden-colored stone, dedicated to the memory of Jewish victims of National Socialism, was taken by the perpetrators. According to police information, they left a second Stolperstein nearby.

The police are seeking information about the theft and have urged anyone with knowledge of the incident to come forward.

This theft is part of a troubling pattern of recent Stolperstein disappearances in Germany. In other cities, there have recently been thefts of Stolpersteine.

In Zeitz, ten Stolpersteine were stolen in October, and residents woke up to find that all of the town's "stumbling stones" had been dislodged and stolen.

The removal of these memorials shocked the community and prompted calls for increased vigilance and protective measures.

In Halle, five Stolpersteine disappeared last month. The loss of these stones has been met with concern and sadness, as they serve as tangible reminders of the individuals who suffered under the Nazi regime.

The repeated thefts highlight a concerning disregard for the memory of the victims of National Socialism.

According to Gunter Demnig, the artist and initiator of the Stolperstein project, approximately 112,000 Stolpersteine have been laid worldwide so far.
Phoenix man gets eight months for buying guns for Jaime Tran, who shot two California Jews
Eric Celaya was sentenced last week to eight months in prison for buying two guns for Jaime Tran, who pleaded guilty in June to shooting two Jewish men in Los Angeles as they left synagogue on Feb. 15 and 16, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona stated on Nov. 1.

The 30-year-old Phoenix man was unaware that Tran intended to commit a crime, per the U.S. Justice Department. The Phoenix man pleased guilty on May 15 to making a false statement while buying a gun. After he serves his prison term, he will have three subsequent years of supervised release, per the Justice Department.

The two Jewish men survived the attacks.

Celaya bought the two guns in Tempe, Ariz., on Jan. 19, 2023. He wrote in the firearms transaction record form 4473 that he was the actual buyer, although he knew he was purchasing the weapons for Tran, per the Justice Department.

“Celaya had no prior criminal history and there was no evidence to show that Celaya was aware of Tran’s intentions or beliefs,” per the department.

Tran was sentenced to 35 years in prison last month for the hate crimes. “After years of spewing antisemitic vitriol, the defendant planned and carried out a two-day attack attempting to murder Jews leaving synagogue in Los Angeles,” stated Merrick Garland, the U.S. attorney general, at the time.

Per the Justice Department, Tran “obsessed over his antisemitic hatred for years leading up to the attack.”
Israeli player withdraws from Scottish bowls tournament after backlash
AN Israeli player has withdrawn from competing at a World Bowls Tour contest in Scotland after thousands signed a petition calling for him to banned.

Israeli national qualifier Shalom Ben Ami was set to compete at the Scottish International Open at the West Lothian Indoor Bowling Club, from November 5 to 7.

Show Israeli Genocide the Red Card (The Red Card Group) and Scottish Sport for Palestine condemned the decision to invite him to compete and insisted for it to be withdrawn.

More than 4000 people signed a petition against his country's participation.

Now, Ben Ami has been withdraw and will not play in the competition.

World Bowls Tour, the event organisers, said in a statement released on their social media: “Shalom Ben Ami (Israel) has withdrawn from the WBT Scottish International Open which will be held at West Lothian Indoor Bowling Club from Tuesday 5th to Thursday 7th November.

"Shalom has withdrawn due to personal reasons and PBA Israel have decided not to re-place Shalom with another representative.”

Red Card Glasgow and Scottish Sport for Palestine have said they have suspended all planned demonstrations.

In a joint statement, campaigners said "Scotland can be proud once again," adding:

"We salute every single person who put their name to the 4000 letters that were sent to the organiser World Bowls Tour (WBT), key members of the Scottish Government and local parliamentary representatives. We honour the petitioners for being on the right side of history.

"When the history books have dismantled the despicable narrative of western governments and their mainstream media, every person who signed these letters can say how they had acted with humanity on behalf of the oppressed and brutalised people of Palestine and Lebanon."

The group then further called on any representative from Israel, that may have planned to compete in the World Championships in Norfolk, in January 2025, to also withdraw.
8 Israeli Products on TIME's Best Inventions of 2024 List
TIME magazine's "Best Inventions of 2024" list includes eight products conceived in Israel. They include:

Nuvo's wearable Invu remote pregnancy monitor that performs fetal non-stress tests remotely.

OrCam Hear's AI-powered Ultra Focused Hearing Help, a hybrid "hearables solution" enabling people with hearing loss in noisy environments to tune into what they want while tuning out everything and everyone else.

UVeye drive-thru vehicle inspection systems that check cars for damage within 30 seconds automatically.

BeeHero beehive management system to monitor colony health and pollination activity.

Emulait, a customizable baby bottle that mimics the mother's breast, for babies have trouble taking to a bottle.

BelongAI's "Dave" cancer support chatbot, trained on eight years' worth of data from real-world patients to answer user questions and review and simplify medical documents.
Wiz CEO explains why he turned down a $23 billion deal
Assaf Rappaport, the co-founder and CEO of cloud security startup Wiz, said that turning down a $23 billion offer from Google was “the toughest decision ever,” but justified it by saying the company can get even bigger and reach $100 billion because cloud security is the future.

“I think we did the right choice,” Rappaport said on Monday at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 conference.

“We believe it’s bigger, definitely bigger than endpoint, bigger than networks, so the opportunity to become a 100 plus billion dollar company is there. We believe that the company that is going to…own cloud security in the world is going to be a 100-plus billion dollar company,” he added. “I’m not sure it’s going to be Wiz, but if we do the right things, and we execute, I think it’s…in our hands.”

Even then, it was not an easy decision to make, as he had to think about Wiz’s investors, as well as its employees.

“I was super nervous,” he admitted. But it was he and his co-founders who made that call. “At a healthy company with a healthy relationship with investors, it’s always the founder’s decision.”

At the time Wiz had turned down the $23 billion offer from Alphabet, Google’s parent company, the four-year-old startup founded by former Israeli military officers had a private valuation of $12 billion.

The startup had raised $1 billion from investors backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Index, and Thrive Capital. After that cash infusion, the company called itself “the world’s largest cybersecurity unicorn.”

“Saying no to such humbling offers is tough, but with our exceptional team, I feel confident in making that choice,” Rappaport said in an email to Wiz’s employees at the time, according to TechCrunch.


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