Monday, November 04, 2024

11/04 Links Pt2: Israeli anxiety, America and the ayatollahs; Who made antisemitism a partisan issue? Chuck Schumer; Pro-Palestinians seek to undermine US from within

From Ian:

Not two sides of the same coin
Modern political Zionism is unique in that its values are ancient. The axiom that the Jewish people deserve to live in and govern the Land of Israel comes from the Jewish people’s 4,000-year connection to the land. For the last 3,000 years, there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.

This is in contrast to the Palestinians whose ancestors, the Arab people, arrived in the Land of Israel, then renamed by the Romans as Palestine, 1,300 years ago. The largest influx of Arabs into the Land of Israel actually occurred after Jewish Zionists began their return to the land in the late 1800s. Zionist investment and infrastructure improvements encouraged poor Arabs from surrounding lands to immigrate to Palestine. So, while Zionism is the modern fight for an ancient longing, Palestinian nationalism only began recently and arguably only as a response to Zionism.

Another significant difference between the two is that Zionism’s foundation is based on democratic values, peace and sharing the land with others. Juxtapose Zionist values with the values of the Palestinian nationalist movement, which is based on exclusivity to the land and the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state, and the contrast is obvious. Even when Palestinians have spoken of agreeing to an Israeli state, they don’t acknowledge it as a Jewish state, arousing suspicion that their true intention isn’t to allow for a Zionist and Jewish state, but a democratic state they can win over through demographically challenging the Jewish nature of the State of Israel.

Zionism began as a peaceful movement that reached out to its opponents and enemies. Israel’s declaration of independence calls for peace with Arabs inside and outside of Israel’s borders. Palestinian nationalism has proven to be an intolerant movement set on a violent culture. While calling Zionists peaceful and Palestinians violent is a gross generalization, there are outliers on both sides.

Palestinian nationalism didn’t have to be inherently anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. It can stand for the self-determination of its people on its own land without expressing hate for the Jewish people. Zionism did exactly that, expressing its hope for a Jewish state on the Jewish people’s historic homeland without hate towards the Arabs living on the land.

For peace to overtake battle, there must be a meeting of the two nationalist movements to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For that to happen, the first thing that must change is the hateful nature of the Palestinian nationalist movement. Until it begins to transform into a more Zionist-like movement that inspires tolerance and acceptance, there will never be peace between the two peoples, and Palestinian nationalists will never achieve their goal of an independent state.
'Hamas doesn't want peace': Bill Clinton defends Israel, discusses peace work at rally in Michigan
Clinton then addresses his own work to bring peace in the Middle East, saying, "Look, I worked on this hard."

"The only time Yasser Arafat didn't tell me the truth was when he told me he was going to accept the peace deal that we had worked out."

He reiterated that his deal would have created peace and that the terms were favorable to the Palestinians.

"It would have given the Palestinian a state in 96% of the West Bank and the remaining 4% from Israel, and they got to choose where that 4% in Israel was."

"They would have a capital in east Jerusalem and two of the four quadrants of the Old City of Jerusalem. They would have equal access, all day, every day, to the security towers that Israel maintains all through the West Bank."

Clinton said that Ehud Barak and his cabinet had approved this deal, "and the Palestinians said no."

Clinton said that he believed part of the reason for this rejection was that Hamas didn't actually want a Palestinian state but wanted to kill Israelis.

"Well, I've got news for them. They were there before their faith existed."

Referring to Israeli political infighting, he said, "The whole fight that you have seen play out was present in the beginning."

"Two parties, Likud and Labor. Likud says we want the whole West Bank because we had it in the time of David, and to heck with whoever came later. Labor said we will take what the United Nations has offered us and we will make a garden in the desert and we will have friends and we will work through it. They're still fighting this fight."

"Here's what I'm gonna do everything I can to convince people that they cannot murder their way out of this, neither side. You can't kill your way out of this."

He then addressed the issue of protest voting, saying that not voting because the Biden administration has upheld the US's historic commitment to prevent the destruction of Israel would be a mistake.

He said that he didn't think Donald Trump's ideas would help Israel, saying, "We have to find a way to share the future; we cannot kill our way out of conflicts. But we do have to fight our way to safety."

He said that Iran and its coalition of proxy groups were not good for the Palestinian people.

Clinton recalled a meeting between Arafat and Barak where Arafat said that Barak "cares much more about Palestinian children than the Arabs do. They only care about us when their people are upset, and they need to blame the US and Israel."

"This [conflict] is far more complicated than you know, and all I ask you to do is keep an open mind," he said finishing off the speech.
Ruthie Blum: Israeli anxiety, America and the ayatollahs
Tensions are high in Israel as the United States enters the last lap of its presidential election. Given the level of public concern surrounding the race and the amount of space devoted to it by local analysts, an alien observing from Mars might mistakenly assume that the vote is taking place between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, not across the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s already been established, through surveys and punditocracy consensus—including among those more predisposed politically to Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats in general than to former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party—that most Israelis are praying for the latter to emerge victorious.

Polls showing that the candidates are basically tied, with daily fluctuations in swing-state percentages, is causing a lot of nail-biting, and not exclusively in U.S. capitals or Jerusalem. No, it’s safe to say that the entire world is watching and waiting with bated breath for the outcome.

Though Joe Biden will remain at the helm in the White House until the beginning of 2025 regardless of the results at the ballot box, nobody thinks he’s running the show in any respect, nor has he been for at least two years. It’s assumed in Israel, however, that the figures behind him could engage in serious lame-duck sabotage in the weeks leading up to the inauguration of his successor.

After all, during a similar period at the end of 2016, outgoing President Barack Obama and his sidekick, Secretary of State John Kerry, pulled a few stunts that made Israel’s enemies proud. Key among these moves was the abstention on U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted on Dec. 23.

Resolution 2334, which passed by 14-0, condemned Israeli settlements and called for all construction of them to cease. It also called for further labeling of Israeli goods, not only those made in settlements. In addition, it categorized the Western Wall as “occupied Palestinian territory.”

Naturally, the resolution greatly pleased and was a boon to the BDS movement, Students for Justice in Palestine and other organizations hostile to the Jewish state. The Palestinians lauded it in general and stated outright that it paved the way for divestment, sanctions and lawsuits at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

Still, Kerry proceeded to suggest that Jews building apartments in Judea, Samaria and east Jerusalem prevent the Palestinians from being able to believe that Israel is acting in good faith, attributing the stalemate in peace talks to Israel’s “extremist” right-wing government (sound familiar?) rather than to the terror masters in Ramallah and Gaza.

Far more outrageous was his nod to the Palestinians’ mourning of the “Nakba,” the “catastrophe” of Israel’s establishment in 1948. In other words, he acknowledged that the problem wasn’t the “occupation” of territories that Arab states lost in the 1967 Six-Day War, but the existence of Jews on any inch of the land, from the “river to the sea” and from Metula to Eilat.
Jonathan Tobin: Who made antisemitism a partisan issue? Chuck Schumer
The committee’s report reveals how the behavior of a number of elite universities was actually worse than it was initially reported in the media. And it makes an ironclad case that their actions were clearly in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which prohibits federally-funded institutions from engaging in discriminatory behavior.

The report is important in its own right. But it begs the question as to why the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, rather than the largely powerless and ineffective Department of Education, isn’t addressing the issue of antisemitism in our education system.

The answer is that the current regime at the DOJ is much more interested in enforcing the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) that is primarily responsible for enabling exactly the sort of outrages that are detailed in the House report. What is needed is a change in federal policy that will produce a DOJ that is interested in rolling back the widespread discrimination produced by DEI rather than supporting it.

Schumer’s contemptible denials of his complicity in what happened at Columbia remain unsurprising, but they are compounded by the fact that a new book is expected to be published under his name (though likely ghost-written by a staffer) in February is reportedly devoted to his analysis of contemporary antisemitism. Given Schumer’s inveterate partisanship, it’s likely that the book will talk more about false accusations against former President Donald Trump than it will about the real antisemitism happening within his own party. But after the House report, his publishers would be wise to spare themselves further embarrassment and shelve plans for rolling out the senator’s book.

Antisemitism shouldn’t be a partisan issue. While clearly outnumbered, there are still Democrats like Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) who provided the country with a profile in courage when it comes to standing up for Israel and against the woke antisemites in Congress. The two parties have largely exchanged identities in the last half century as each changed course on Israel. Whereas once the opposite was true, today, the Democrats are deeply divided when it comes to support for the Jewish state while Republicans have become lockstep in their support. Their attitudes towards antisemitism directly stem from this sea change.

And though they haven’t demonstrated the kind of influence that the radicals of the House “Squad” wield over the Democratic Party, there are Jew-haters on the right, like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, who deserve close scrutiny and condemnation.

Schumer’s public and private conduct as Senate Majority Leader made it clear that the Democratic Party establishment would rather be called out for going easy on antisemites than confront the hate within their own ranks. Regardless of the outcome of this year’s presidential and congressional elections, that decision demonstrates a trend that is at the heart of the nation’s antisemitism problem.


What American Jews Gave After October 7: An Accounting
As long as life was good for American Jews, the priority given to non-sectarian over parochial Jewish needs could be justified, even if it required a willed blindness to the costs it exacted: for decades now, much larger sums of Jewish philanthropic dollars have gone to support non-sectarian, rather than Jewish causes; Jewish observances fell by the wayside as many Jews convinced themselves that helping out in soup kitchens or volunteering for political causes was primarily what Judaism demanded of them; and younger Jews imbibed the notion that to be a good Jew they first should be concerned about non-Jews in need. Not surprisingly, many learned their lessons well and realized that participation in Jewish life was unnecessary if they supported the correct left-wing causes.

After October 7, American Jews can no longer afford the skewed priorities of the past decades. Daniel Kane, a Reform rabbi, bluntly assessed what is broken in American Jewish life that now must be fixed: “In many ways, we failed our young people in teaching them too much about the conscience of the prophets and too little about the passion of the priesthood. We rooted the majority of their Jewish identities in the universal call of social justice and put less emphasis on balancing it with a particular pride in and obligation toward Jewish peoplehood.”

One might add too that Jewish education in many sectors of the community failed to teach about the commandments of Judaism that are specific to the Jewish people or to impart that observance of mitzvot guides Jews to moral behavior, spiritual connection to God, and a love for the Jewish people. Instead, as Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the leading advocate for Israel and the needs of the Jewish people in the Reform movement, has put it: “We thought we were sensitizing young Jews to the Jewish obligation of social repair. We thought we were conveying the principles of Jewish universalism. We thought we were teaching g’milut hasadim—acts of lovingkindness. . . . We did not expect the Jewish spirit to dribble away while we thought we were passing it on.”

Compare the American Jewish mantra of tikkun olam to what Israeli society imparts to its youths. From a young age, Israeli Jews are socialized to value service to their people. When they join the military, men and some women risk (and tragically too often lose) life and limb while protecting their people, their state, their Jewish way of life. It’s not that Israelis care only about fellow Jews: Israel too has a strong environmental movement, sends volunteers with alacrity to far-flung lands when catastrophe strikes, and has a vibrant movement to build bridges with Arab communities in Israel and the West Bank. It is taken for granted that the Israeli healthcare system will treat terrorists wounded while they tried to murder Israeli citizens. Israeli Jews combine their primary commitment to their own people with secondary efforts to help others around the world in need. Many younger American Jews, by contrast, rarely if ever learn about their special responsibility to care for their own—and what that might mean in practice.

That failing has many deleterious consequences for the lives of American Jews. Jewish youth especially pay a price in that they are deprived of a greater purpose. As Dan Senor and Saul Singer write in their recent book The Genius of Israel, “the act of bringing people together, . . . defending the county against a common threat gives a feeling of being needed and creates resilience.” Put differently, Israelis find meaning in their lives by furthering a great Jewish cause, the building of a sovereign Jewish state. In the absence of a compelling Jewish cause, recent generations of younger Jews in the United States have played at being “social-justice warriors.”

Now that American Jewish life is challenged more severely than at any time since the Second World War, multiple Jewish needs beg for their attention. Perhaps after this year of travail, American Jews of all ages will focus more energy on rebuilding domestic Jewish life by attending to Jewish human-service needs, Jewish victims of anti-Semitism, and Jews who lack a proper Jewish education, along with their efforts on behalf of Israel. If that shift in priorities occurs, October 7, indeed, will have been an inflection point of great significance for American Jewish life.
Whoever wins the US election, here’s what Israel can expect
For instance, Gilboa said he believes Harris would rely on Gordon’s advice and “would not use American force against Iran” even if Iran goes nuclear.

Similarly, Gilboa said that since the United States has depleted its weapons stockpile by supplying Ukraine and Israel and must rebuild, the U.S. defense budget needs to be substantially increased.

“I don’t think she will do it,” he said.

“She would be more vulnerable to the progressive parts of the Democratic Party” if she did, he added.

Harris is also “closer to the Progressives” and will probably need to appoint one of them to a senior position such as U.N. ambassador, Gilboa told JNS.

If she does, he added, “we’re in trouble.”

Both candidates are problematic for Israel, according to Gilboa, since they both “would be looking at some kind of isolation,” which he said is “dangerous because we expect the United States to be the leader of the western world.”

However, Gilboa said that if the Republicans control the House in Congress, that “will be good for Israel since Republicans are more favorable toward Israel” and could limit what Harris is able to do.

In terms of foreign military aid, “military cooperation will be good no matter what, but foreign aid needs to be approved by Congress and a Republican Congress will be better for Israel,” he said.

Congress approved a $14.1 billion aid package for Israel earlier this year.

In September, Israel said it had secured an $8.7 billion aid package from the United States to support its ongoing military efforts and to maintain a qualitative military edge in the region.

The package includes $3.5 billion for essential wartime procurement, which has already been received and earmarked for critical military purchases, and $5.2 billion designated for air defense systems including the Iron Dome and David’s Sling anti-missile systems, as well as an advanced laser system.

Washington provides Israel with $3.8 billion in annual military aid under the terms of a 10-year memorandum of understanding that the two countries signed in 2016. In April, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a supplemental aid package that included $14.3 billion in direct military aid to Israel on top of the annual aid.

“Harris could withhold aid,” Gilboa said.
Chicago authorities under microscope after antisemitic shooting: 'National scandal'
After an Orthodox Jewish man was shot while walking to his synagogue on the Sabbath in Rogers Park, Chicago, last weekend, media outlets quickly gathered and disseminated information about the victim’s background. It was the media that also first confirmed that the suspect, 22-year-old Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, was a Mauritanian national who was in the U.S. illegally.

After the attack, fear rose within Chicago’s Jewish community about the lack of information from the Chicago Police Department and Mayor Brandon Johnson, who took five days to acknowledge the religious background of Abdallahi’s Jewish victim. Police also did not tell the public what Abdallahi shouted while shooting at officers, refusing to confirm the substance of Ring camera footage that was circulating, although they did acknowledge that "there was something stated."

Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that "there is a clear cover-up going on to seal off information flow before next week’s election. They knew about the shooter’s illegal status from the moment they ran his ID."

"This should be a national scandal," Goldberg added.

Abdallahi’s address, listed in a police news release, is 27 miles from Rogers Park. Goldberg noted that he went out of his way to travel a significant distance for the alleged attack.

The suspect's alleged antisemitic motives then became a key theme during the Oct. 31 news conference where Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling announced long-awaited additional felony charges against Abdallahi for a hate crime and terrorism, bringing the total number of charges against Abdallahi to 16.

"We did not secure these charges because of public pressure or because of media attention," Snelling told reporters. "Gathering evidence and facts takes time." Snelling explained that detectives had been unable to interview Abdallahi, who remains hospitalized after being shot by police. Evidence on the suspect’s phone "indicated he planned the shooting and specifically targeted people of the Jewish faith."


The Quad: What US Elections Mean for American Jews and Israel
"The Quad" is diving right into everyone’s hot topic by weighing in on this Tuesday’s presidential election! Join Israel's special envoy for innovation, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, along with activist and writer Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll and special guest host Rachel Feldman from the Shalom Alliance.

After the conversation, stick around for a special interview with former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren. He will be sharing his expert analysis of how he thinks the upcoming election could affect the Jewish state for months to come.


I'm a American Muslim and I'm Proud to Support Donald Trump
These facts make it difficult to claim American-Muslim life is largely negative. Yet, victimhood narrative advocates do just that, framing us as perpetual outsiders, oppressed by America.

Let's examine the data underpinning claims of Muslim victimhood. In a recent year, the FBI reported 158 American-Muslims were victims of hate crimes—158 too many. Yet with a conservative total estimate of 4 million American-Muslims, 0.00003 percent were victims of hate crimes. Unable to justify the victimhood industry with this statistic, victimhood narrative advocates invent new, ill-defined, categories of oppression metrics, like anti-Muslim "incidents," to justify their businesses. Even with their inflated numbers, 0.003 percent of American-Muslims encounter "anti-Muslim incidents" annually.

The victim narrative persists despite tenuous evidence. But reality matters little when you can just train people to believe they are victims. The good news is, polls show American-Muslims are breaking from the victim narrative. Across the political spectrum, American-Muslims are waking up, with dissent and debate growing; in 2020, AP exit polls show 36 percent of American-Muslims voted for Trump. These were just those courageous enough to answer truthfully.

This isn't about just one election—it's about choosing our American Dream. I choose to stick with the authors of America, embracing the American Dream of freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and service. I dream of a day we reject the lie that America hates us, a narrative that exploits our insecurities and weaponizes our faith to make us perpetual outsiders. The victim narrative was not created by us; that it was imposed on us by external forces.

I dream of a day when fringe yet loud Muslim organizations no longer pit patriotism against being Muslim. I dream of a day when Gulf politics is no longer conflated with Muslim identity, when expressing empathy for Palestinian civilians does not alone render one pro Hamas and waving an Israel flag does not alone render one pro genocide. I support Israel's existence, believe too many Palestinians have been killed, and believe Hamas should be destroyed.

I dream of a day when no American-Muslim is seduced by extremist ideologies that would turn us against our own nation.

I dream of a day we can proudly embrace being American and Muslim without the fear of being labeled a traitor to either.

From the Revolutionary War to today, American-Muslims have shed blood for this country's ideals. There is no power in victimhood. Let us not grievance our way to mediocrity.

The time for choosing is now. Let's turn the page and choose the path of triumph.
Walz Master’s Thesis Said Genocide Education Shouldn’t Focus On Holocaust
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who has built his image around his career as a teacher, earned his master’s degree in education with a thesis on how to teach genocide that deemphasized the Holocaust, suggesting it be used primarily “as a means to educate students on the dangers of racism.”

Walz submitted the 25-page paper, “Improving Human Rights and Genocide Studies In The American High School Classroom,” to Minnesota State University in 2001. In the capstone, which was obtained by The Daily Wire, Walz said research showed that Minnesota students couldn’t pinpoint the role that racism played in the Holocaust.

Rather than addressing the apparent lack of empathy for Jews, Walz suggests teachers use Holocaust “as a means to educate students on the dangers of racism,” so they can identify early signs of discrimination against other groups.

He acknowledged that this argument “was controversial because [sic] the implication the Jewish Holocaust was not viewed as a ‘watershed’ event in human history.” But he did not seem worried about the controversy, writing that “If the Jewish Holocaust is a requirement of the state or local district this is a perfect time to fit it into the unit,” but that “At no time should this current unit be referred to as a Holocaust unit.”

Elsewhere, the paper said “American high schools must begin to broaden the scope of studies into genocide and human rights violations. This means continuing to teach the lessons learned in the Jewish Holocaust, but to not limit those lessons to one incident of genocide.”

The paper proposed requirements geared toward giving “students the necessary background information to apply historical examples of abuses to current world situations.”

“What never again means is never again will European Jews be killed in Europe, it does not mean never again to genocide,” its introduction complained about a Jewish-oriented focus on the Holocaust.


Shabbos Kestenbaum: I was a Bernie supporter. This year, I’m voting Trump. Here’s why liberal Jews like me made the switch
Republican officials, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Rep. Elise Stefanik, and Rep. Burgess Owens, have repeatedly sought to speak with Jewish students directly to discuss practical policy solutions to our concerns.

Far fewer Democrats have offered to do the same.

For months, I tried to keep a bipartisan outlook, and not publicly criticize the party that I had hoped would stand up to the antisemitic bigots in their tent.

I endorsed Trump, and began to campaign with and for him, only once it became clear those aspirations were illusionary.

Less than a week before the election, Vice President Kamala Harris has still refused to offer any comprehensive plan to tackle the issue of campus antisemitism. In contrast, the Trump campaign has repeatedly invited me and other Jewish students to sit in the front row as the former president has clearly articulated policies that would help to alleviate our community’s concerns.

These include the immediate passing of the Antisemitism Awareness Act; the withholding of federal funds from college campuses that fail to take sufficient action against antisemitism; and, if such failures persist at those institutions, the revocation of tax-exempt status and even accreditation. These common-sense policies have either never been endorsed by Harris, or never even mentioned.

Yes, I also have concerns about antisemitism on the right. I have consistently registered objections to Tucker Carlson’s appearances with the campaign, including by walking out of the RNC when he was given a speaking slot. I criticized the campaign when a surrogate was set to appear with Candace Owens. My vote for Trump is not a vote to enable right-wing antisemitism; it is an affirmation of my commitment to fighting antisemitism, whether it comes from the left or the right.

I did not support Trump in 2016 or 2020. I did not support him 6 months ago. But American Jewish students like me deserve to walk our campuses in safety. Harris’ campaign has insisted that Trump will endanger Jews. Yet Jews are already in danger, and she has done nothing to help us.

I agree with Harris on one thing: It is time to move forward. Therefore, I will be voting to turn the page from this disastrous administration, and supporting Trump.

I encourage Jewish Americans concerned about antisemitism to do the same.


Pittsburgh’s Jewish Democrats consider voting for Trump after Harris campaign cozies up to anti-Israel politicians in Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh’s Jewish community is putting the Harris-Walz campaign on notice as they hurdle toward Election Day: stand with Israel and denounce anti-Israel activists or you’ll face Democratic defections at the ballot box.

The backlash has been brewing since the Harris campaign hosted speakers at Steel City rallies who had blamed Israel for the October 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, despite explicit pleas from the Jewish community.

The campaign ignored those pleas, a person familiar with the conversation told The Post, and went on to give speaking roles to Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, opening for Barack Obama and Tim Walz, respectively.

Gainey and Innamorato have come under fire from Pittsburgh’s Jewish voters since co-signing a statement with Squad member Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) that implied Israel was responsible for the massacre, claiming: “the violence did not start on October 7th.”

The statement, released on the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7, prompted swift condemnation from Jewish community leaders across Pittsburgh, home to a sizable chunk of the swing state’s 400,000-strong

With those votes on the line, Democrats’ dalliances with anti-Israel politicians could mean losing Pennsylvania’s 19 Electoral College votes — and the whole 2024 presidential election — to Donald Trump.

That’s not a far-fetched possibility, as several Jewish Democrats in Pittsburgh tell The Post they feel betrayed by their own party — and are considering casting their ballots for Trump on Tuesday.


Competing letters cite pro-Trump, pro-Harris support from Orthodox rabbis
Nearly 70 Orthodox rabbis signed a letter on Monday supporting the presidential candidacy of former President Donald Trump —nearly a week after a progressive Modern Orthodox rabbi circulated a letter with signatures of 33 colleagues endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.

Rabbi Tuly Weisz, founder of Israel365, which connects Christians with the Land of Israel, told JNS he was “infuriated” by the prior letter, which led him to organize the pro-Trump one.

“I was quickly able to see that the rabbis who signed the letter are not traditional standard Orthodox rabbis,” he said. “Everybody knows the Orthodox community is solidly in support of Trump, as are Israeli Jews.”

The signatories of the pro-Trump letter said they believe that Harris “will continue the dangerous positions of the Biden administration that contributed to the deadly Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi and Iranian attacks on Israel.”

The rabbis—nearly 70 at press time—stated that Harris’s “constant calls for a ceasefire and a two-state solution,” and “the likelihood of her withholding even more weapons from the IDF, presents a significant risk of pikuach nefesh, endangering Jewish lives.”

The rabbis also expressed gratitude to Trump for pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and having “crippled Iran’s economy, cut funding to the terrorist-enabling UNRWA, signed into law and enforced the Taylor Force Act, visited and prayed at the Kotel, moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and established the Abraham Accords.”

Weisz told JNS that “the Orthodox community has been ignored by polling and the pundits.”

“There is such a disconnect between the Democratic Party, which has really moved far to the left especially post-Oct. 7, and the Orthodox Jewish community, which leans right,” he added. “The Harris campaign is trying very hard to win the Muslim vote in the swing state of Michigan, and this means the Jewish vote is being taken for granted.”
Dems Can’t Find Orthodox Rabbis to Support Kamala
There are thousands of ordained Orthodox rabbis in America. (Less if you count only synagogue rabbis.) Like any clergy, they vary as individuals. And yet somehow, the Dems struggled to find any who would endorse Kamala.

Jacob Kornbluh, a notorious hack with the left-wing Forward, circulated a list that claimed to be of 33 Orthodox rabbis for Kamala.

There were a few minor problems with the list.

9 of the people on it were women. Orthodox Judaism does not ordain women.

The leading signatory is Alana Suskin (unfortunately pictured) who is a member of the ‘rabbinic cabinet’ of the anti-Israel group J Street and describes herself as a “Activist Feminist Psychopomp Rabbi Working for justice & equality in the US.”

The letter was organized by Shmuly Yanklowitz, a leftist activist who may or may not even be Jewish, whose religious affiliation is at best unclear, and who writes stuff like this, ‘Were Adam and Eve Black Transgender refugees?’

A number of the clergymen (who were men) on it were conservative rabbis.

Some were not American.

Rabbi Shamir Caplan appears to be an Australian clergyman in Melbourne who endorses gay marriage.

Tyson Herberger is an associate professor of religion and religious education at the University of South-Eastern Norway who deals with “queer issues”

When you have to reach as far as Australia or Norway to find a ‘rabbi’ who will endorse an American presidential candidate, things are not going well. They’re going even worse when you have to go to Norway to find a guy named Tyson who deals with ‘queer issues’.


PreOccupiedTerritory: Amid Tight Michigan Race, Harris Promises To Add Nasrallah To Mt. Rushmore (satire)
The Democratic Party nominee for the presidency made further efforts this week to maintain an edge with Muslim voters in this crucial swing state, with a campaign statement today that, if elected, she will commission a likeness of the recently-eliminated leader of Hezbollah alongside those of four iconic US presidents in South Dakota.

The Kamala Harris for President organization issued a statement via X and several other online media to the effect that Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, whom Israel assassinated in a targeted airstrike on his Beirut bunker just over a month ago, deserves to have his face commemorated and venerated next to those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.

The X post also contained a short video clip of Harris attempting a Lebanese Arabic accent as she sang the praises of “Sayed Nasrallah” and the hope he brought to millions of Shiite Muslims.

Polls have Harris and Republican candidate Donald at a statistical dead heat in several swing states. Both candidates and parties have made overtures to the American Muslim communities, especially in this area of Michigan, a stronghold of the demographic. Trump campaigned there last week, securing an endorsement from one prominent community leader, though the extent of that leader’s influence remains open to debate. Muslim Americans have favored the Democratic Party, by and large, for at least two decades, especially after 9/11 and its aftermath, when a GOP administration held power.

Recent dissatisfaction among vocal elements of the community regarding what they view as the Biden-Harris administration’s insufficient response to Palestinian suffering in the Gaza Strip has led to numerous threats not to vote for Harris in the election – despite her rival having moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, recognized the city as the capital of the Jewish State, acknowledged the legitimacy of Israeli settlement in territories the Palestinians claim, and brokered regional peace deals that sidelined the Palestinian issue, when he held the office from 2017 to 2021.
Dalia Ziada: The Muslim Activist Who Risked Everything for Peace
When October 7 happened, Dalia Ziada, a Muslim and Egyptian, was shocked and appalled. The writer and activist watched the footage of Hamas murdering innocent Israelis and couldn’t believe what she saw – especially because she heard an entirely different story about it in Egypt, where she lived. The media there framed it as just another conflict in a long list of fights between Israel and Hamas.

She knew, after seeing the Hamas bodycam footage as well as videos from Israeli CCTV, that she had to speak up. She took to X, where she has over 100,000 followers, and posted how Egyptian media was lying.

Radical Islamists in Egypt as well as those who support Hamas didn’t like that.

“They issued a fatwa against me, saying my blood is sacred no more because I support the Jewish people, I’m not a good Muslim, and I have to be punished,” Dalia, the author of “The Curious Case of the Three-Legged Wolf: Egypt: Military, Islamism, and Liberal Democracy” told Aish. “A group went to my family’s house looking for me. They wanted to kill me.”

What made the situation worse was that the Egyptian authorities didn’t help Dalia when she needed them the most. Her home country had abandoned her.

I contacted the security officers to tell them my life is in danger and they refused to protect me because I support Israel.

“I contacted the security officers to tell them my life is in danger and they refused to protect me because I support Israel,” she said. “For them, this was a sin I shouldn’t have committed.”

Several lawyers close to the Egyptian regime filed claims against her. She was accused of being a spy for Mossad, which she said, “is the most dangerous claim of all, because it’s high treason.”

Dalia had to act quickly to escape the country she loved. She contacted friends from the U.S., Europe, and Israel, and she left her family, her home, and everything behind to go to America.

“I am much safer now than I was in Egypt, but I am not 100% safe,” she said. “I still receive death threats.”

Growing up in Cairo
Growing up in Cairo as a Muslim, Dalia was exposed to antisemitism early on.

“Every Friday in our religious sermons at the mosque, we said a prayer against the Jewish people,” she said. “It was said that the Jewish people were cursed not only in Egypt, but also all over the Arab world.”

She learned from a school textbook that Jews were Egyptians’ and Muslims’ historical enemies, and when she went to university around the time of the Second Intifada in 2000, she ended up protesting against the Jewish state.

“These protests were organized by the Muslim Brotherhood,” Dalia said. “They decided to burn Israeli flags to celebrate the Second Intifada. That was expected. They burned the American flag, and I couldn’t understand why they were burning the flag of a country that was thousands of miles away. They then burned the Egyptian flag, and it was very shocking. It was the moment my eyes opened, and I started to see the truth.”

From there, she said she “got out of the ideological box they kept me inside of for so long,” and she educated herself about Israel, the Middle East, and Arab-Israeli relations. She ended up becoming an advocate for Arab-Israeli peace and a fighter against radical Islam.

“These radical Islamists are the ones who are now dominating the narrative on the Middle East in U.S. universities,” she said.
My Zionist experience in Azerbaijan and the UK
It has become common knowledge that the atrocities committed by Palestinians in Gaza on October 7 2023 emboldened the already widespread antisemitism in the West. From the mainstream media refusing to call Hamas a terrorist organisation to university campuses that have become no-go-to zones for Jewish and Zionist students in the UK and US where encampments of anti-Israel activists have targeted pro-Israel and Jewish students for harassment and discrimination, it seems like there is no place for students like me to feel welcome.

This is alarming, considering that despite being a Muslim-majority nation near Iran my home country, Azerbaijan has not experienced these issues with its Jewish population. It is alarming to see how poorly these Western countries are handling such matters. So how did we get here?

The UK and Azerbaijan are strategic partners of the Jewish State. They cooperate on multiple levels that cover the areas of economy, tourism, intelligence, defence and culture. Both countries are multicultural societies that have a lot of Jewish history. However, the key difference between the two is that major UK universities have become hostile places for Zionist and Jewish students due to different pro-Islamist and Marxist Palestinian groups such as BDS and MSF who can roam around freely bullying Jewish and Zionist students.

The polls suggest that more than 70% of Jewish students in Britain feel unsafe to reveal their Jewish identity because of people who simply do not believe in Israel’s right to self-defence. Most British campuses where these students are enrolled are also riddled with groups that endorse the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah by standing in solidarity with Palestinians who committed one of the worst terrorist attacks in modern history.

In Azerbaijan, the general stance on Israel and the local Jewry significantly varies from the UK’s. When Azerbaijan gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Israel was one of the first countries to recognise and enter diplomatic relations with the Southern Caucasian Republic. In addition to fruitful political relations, there is an aspect often not reflected in the media that goes back to the deep pillars of the history of the local Kavkazi Jews.
Eve Barlow: Daddy
One of the overseas students - Chinese - raised her hand to ask me a question. She prefaced it by saying that she didn’t know if it was the right question to ask or if she was framing it correctly. After I’d spoken for almost 90 minutes about October 7, and October 8, and what I witnessed in the Gaza envelope and all over Israel and the diaspora, and in particular about my connection to Nova after a life as a music reporter, she was one of dozens who had many questions, and the question she wasn’t sure was the right one to ask was:
“Why has the music media still not written about what happened there?”

I could see her eyes fixed on me, waiting for a response. A response that made sense to her. And I told her. I told all 40 of the non-Jewish Stanford students who came to here myself and my Iraqi Muslim peer Sarah Idan speak last night at the University of Southern California. We were sitting in a round and I could talk to every one of them, and look them each right in the eyes, including the ones who participated in Stanford’s own pro-Hamas encampments. Sarah and I had no protection but the compulsion to speak overrides that. I said: “I’m going to tell you an uncomfortable truth that you may find difficult to believe, but the reason they have not written about Nova or October 7, and the reason none of you knew anything until today about what happened that day, is because Nova happened in Israel and the media doesn’t care about Jews, unless Jews or the Jewish state can be presented as the villain.”

Her jaw literally opened, and her eyes lowered at me, and she shook her head, waiting for me to add - to say more, to have something more. Another answer would have been preferable, I think. But I repeated it. “The media has an agenda, and the agenda is anti-Israel. You will not gain a balanced, trustworthy perspective from mainstream media, and certainly not from a social media echo chamber, particularly not on TikTok where the ratio of pro Hamas to pro Israel posts is 50:1.”

Another young Asian man who came up to shake my hand afterwards asked about the university curriculum and whether it could be trusted, and why there was so much institutionalized antisemitic rhetoric being actively taught in their courses. Again, I warned them that these truths are uncomfortable, but that American institutions, particularly leftist elite environments focused on liberal arts and social sciences, were infused by Soviet ideas over 50 years ago, and the Middle East is being taught via a Marxist/Soviet lens of antizionism, which is a fundamentally racist and xenophobic idea. I said: “Tell me, with what we know of human rights violations in Russia or China, or even here in this country, does anyone ever say to you: Do you think Russia has a right to exist? But you hear that question about Israel all the time, right?” They nodded, and - again - looked shell-shocked.
‘Terrorists aren't freedom fighters’ says Haaretz, rebuking publisher after losing hundreds of subscribers
Israel’s most prestigious left-wing newspaper has distanced itself from comments made by its publisher, Amos Schocken, who called Palestinian terrorists “freedom fighters” during a speech at London’s JW3.

Schocken accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration of “imposing a cruel apartheid regime on the Palestinian population.”

He told attendees: “It dismisses the costs of both sides for defending the settlements while fighting the Palestinian freedom fighters, that Israel calls terrorists.”

The newspaper chief, who has headed up the publication since 1990, was forced to apologise after an uproar in Israel following his comments.

Schocken clarified, “As for Hamas, they are not freedom fighters,” and he also said that the perpetrators of October 7 should be severely punished.

However, in an editorial published on Monday, the newspaper took aim at its publisher: “Even in his clarification, Schocken erred.

“The fact that he didn't mean to include Hamas terrorists doesn't mean that other terrorist acts are legitimate, even if their perpetrators' goal is to free themselves from occupation.”

The newspaper editorial went on, “Deliberately harming civilians is illegitimate. Using violence against civilians and sowing terror among them to achieve political or ideological goals is terrorism. Any organisation that advocates the murder of women, children and the elderly is a terrorist organisation, and its members are terrorists. They certainly aren't ‘freedom fighters.’”

The Haaretz editorial was published after hundreds of subscriptions were cancelled in the wake of Schocken’s comments. Several Israeli government ministries requested to terminate their subscriptions, with the Foreign Ministry ceasing 90 subscriptions alone.
Canada, radical Islam and cities of fear
Toronto, per capita, leads cities in the Western world in antisemitic hate incidents, which also outnumbers all other hate incidents in the city, according to B’nai Brith Canada’s impeccable statistics and confirmed by the Metropolitan Toronto Police. And these hateful incidents continue to spiral to historic highs.

In just one recent example, six students at a North Toronto primary school made the Nazi salute and neither the principal nor the parents were castigated.

On Yom Kippur, shots were fired at a Jewish girls’ school; thankfully, no one was there at the time.

Questions abound. Why are antisemitic incidents against Jews in Toronto the highest per capita in Western democracy? Why does DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) in Canada only exclude Jews? Why do hate incidents against Jews vastly outnumber all other minorities? Why are prosecutions against these egregious actions per capita higher in the United States than in Canada?

And why was Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, which started more than a century ago because Jewish doctors were barred from other hospitals and now is open to all faiths and races, mobbed by violent Islamists and their collaborators? Why were no arrests made? None. This was despite the fact that police headquarters and a police station were located within a few blocks.

Why were many good Canadians passive when other Canadians celebrated the Oct. 7 massacre of Jews—old men, old women, young parents, teenagers and children?

Jews live with these questions and keep asking why.

Why has Toronto been transformed from “Toronto the Good?” Perhaps it’s due to the passive attitude of the mayor, Olivia Chow, who has drawn condemnation from local Jewish groups and her City Hall cohort.

Antisemitism has deep roots in Canada. Prime Minister Mackenzie King allowed these roots to fester. King was an early and open admirer of Adolf Hitler and Vichy France. He also never criticized Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Canada recognized Vichy France, an openly antisemitic government, until 1942. Canada, under King from the 1930s to 1945, allowed only 4,000 Jewish refugees to settle here. (Revelations about how Canada prevented European Jews from immigrating during the war are featured in None Is Too Many, by Irving Abella and Harold Troper.)

Despite King’s views, two of his officials—Louis St. Laurent, Canada’s secretary of state for external affairs, and his deputy minister, Lester “Mike” Pearson—led efforts in the United Nations to establish the Jewish state.
The NGO Network Driving Antisemitism in Canada
Since the Hamas-orchestrated October 7, 2023 massacre, Canada has experienced a dramatic increase in violent antisemitism.1 This dangerous spike is concurrent with an increase in activity by an interconnected and coordinated network of NGOs, whose campaigns of anti-Israel demonization, antisemitism, and intimidation create a hostile environment throughout Canada. A number of the leading groups are linked to Palestinian terror organizations and hide their sources of funding.

NGO Monitor’s mapping of Canadian anti-Israel groups, partnerships, and funding shows the extent of NGO cooperation in advancing their agendas of isolating Israel and attacking the Jewish State’s supporters (and perceived supporters). This NGO network is responsible for violent public events, student encampments, statements, and legal actions. Ominously, many of these groups have publicly celebrated the Oct. 7th atrocities, and expressed support for Hamas and other Canadian-designated terrorist organizations. The main findings from the mapping are:
- There is a blatant lack of transparency regarding the funding sources that enable the NGOs in the network.
- 38 out of the 111 groups are registered with Canada Revenue as a business or charity. 29 organizations are known to have received some funding from the Government of Canada or provinces.
- Samidoun – a Palestinian terror-linked NGO with chapters in Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa – is one of the key groups promoting hate and incitement in Canada through its planning and promotion of numerous antisemitic events and extensive partnerships across the country.
- Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), which claims to have 9 university and 18 regional chapters, has the most connections, partnering with 76 out of the 111 groups.
- While small in numbers, campus organizations are prominent in the network and have partnered with many NGOs, including those that receive Canadian government funding.
- On the cluster map, organizations are situated closer to other organizations with which they have more links (“force-directed layout”). Legal NGOs appear to be fairly central and connected, suggesting that they are providing important services to many of the activist groups.

This data takes on higher salience following the October 15, 2024 decision by the Government of Canada (in parallel to the United States) to list Samidoun “as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code.” As evidenced in this mapping, Samidoun is a central node in a broader network of anti-Israel and antisemitic NGOs operating in Canada.


Pro-Palestinians seek to undermine US from within
In May, the People’s Conference for Palestine took place in Detroit, Michigan, under the ominous banner “The Palestinian war on America has begun: Bringing the war home.”

The keynote speaker, Taher Herzallah, a member of American Muslims for Palestine, warned: “The near future will be difficult; the liberation struggle demands sacrifice, but I know that everyone here is ready to sacrifice themselves.”

Listening to his alarming statements, it is hard to fathom how a man preaching for the destruction of America could speak so openly without facing legal consequences.

Breakthrough News, a YouTube channel, released a report on Palestinian movements in the United States supporting terrorist organizations and advocating for a revolution aimed at reshaping American society politically and socially, even through violent means.

The conference saw about 3,000 attendees from over 100 Islamist organizations. Speakers celebrated the October 7 massacre and called for resistance against the West, with a vision of destroying America from within.

Herzallah continued, saying, “The Palestinians who came to the United States understood their role immediately upon arrival.”

Additionally, Celine Qasini of the Youth Movement for Palestine declared, “We will fight until victory in America and the West. We will be here in the streets, on our campuses, in our classrooms, at our workplaces, every day.”

The “Movement for Palestine in North America and Worldwide,” a violent movement that has been growing for decades, now has increasingly more adherents, posing a rising threat to the West.

The movement is composed of groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), and others.
Trial set to begin over beheading of French teacher who showed Muhammad cartoons
Eight people are going on trial in Paris on terrorism charges Monday over the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, who was killed by an Islamic extremist after showing caricatures of Islam’s prophet to his middle school students for a lesson on freedom of expression.

Paty’s shocking death left an imprint on France, and several schools are now named after him. Paty was killed outside his school near Paris on October 16, 2020, by an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, who was shot to death by police.

Those on trial include friends of assailant Abdoullakh Anzorov who allegedly helped purchase weapons for the attack, as well as people who are accused of spreading false information online about the teacher and his class.

The attack occurred against a backdrop of protests in many Muslim countries and calls online for violence targeting France and the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The newspaper had republished its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad a few weeks before Paty’s death to mark the opening of the trial over deadly 2015 attacks on its newsroom by Islamic extremists.

The cartoon images deeply offended many Muslims, who saw them as sacrilegious. But the fallout from Paty’s killing reinforced the French state’s commitment to freedom of expression and its firm attachment to secularism in public life.

Much attention at the trial will focus on Brahim Chnina, the Muslim father of a 13-year-old girl who claimed that she had been excluded from Paty’s class when he showed the caricatures on October 5, 2020.

Chnina sent a series of messages to his contacts denouncing Paty, saying that “this sick man” needed to be fired, along with the address of the school in the Paris suburb of Conflans Saint-Honorine.

In reality, Chnina’s daughter had lied to him and had never attended the lesson in question.
Calls to dismantle Munich uni Palestine camp after Hamas contact claims
The State of Bavaria's antisemitism commissioner, Ludwig Spaenle, is calling for the dismantling of a pro-Palestinian encampment in front of Munich's Ludwig Maximilian University, after the paper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported this weekend that the encampment's organizers were in direct contact with members of Hamas.

The findings were corroborated by the Center on Antisemitism in Bavaria (RIAS) and Munich Information Center on Right-Wing Extremism.

Spaenle released a statement saying that "the times of tolerance and acceptance of those who support terror are over."

He called for the immediate clearance of the camp.

"Incitement, glorification of violence and incitement to aggression and murder have no place in Germany and should not be tolerated," said Dr. Spaenle.

The paper Süddeutsche Zeitung named two Hamas terrorists with whom the protesters are in direct contact, and added that the protesters had had video calls with the terrorists.

However, the group running the encampment, University for Palestine Munich, posted a public statement condemning the "defamation" of the organization.

"Once again, we are confronted with a torrent of misinformation aimed at defaming our peaceful protest, misrepresenting our commitment to justice and solidarity," the group wrote on Instagram.

"We will not be silenced by these relentless attempts to twist our cause."
Discriminatory anti-Israel referenda at Rice must be canceled
Houston, we have a problem.

Deep in the Heart of Texas, there’s a whiff of something plumb rotten that doesn’t sit quite right with the Texas sense of fair play. I’m talking, if you hadn’t guessed, about the discriminatory anti-Israel resolutions being pushed at Rice University that appear poised to “other” and target Jewish and Israeli students, and deprive them of fair opportunities. It’s not just a question of what’s right; it’s a question of what’s legal and what kind of state Texas wants to be.

Last spring, Rice University faced a similar challenge and moved decisively to take appropriate action. When Rice’s Student Association (SA) considered an anti-Israel resolution last semester, a student filed an urgent discrimination complaint with Rice’s Office of Access, Equity and Equal Opportunity (AEEO), which directed the SA not to proceed with the vote. That resolution would have prohibited SA-managed funds from going to companies that do business with Israel as identified by the genocidal forces of BDS, which call for the elimination of the State of Israel and the end of Jewish sovereignty.

In October 2024, however, Rice’s SA is attempting to pass the buck to the student body as a whole by organizing a referendum on four anti-Israel resolutions. These resolutions potentially categorize and isolate Jewish students in an alarming way. One of the resolutions, S. REF 04, calls for Rice to institutionalize an “anti-colonial commitment” by materially supporting Palestinian and anti-colonial scholarship. Another, S. REF 02, undermines the scholarships and resources available to Jewish and Israeli students by divesting from educational partnerships, companies and institutions that are considered to “profit from” war, an attempt to force a boycott of institutions that recognize or do business with Israel.

This isn’t just wrong; it falls against the law. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects all students, including Jewish students, from discrimination based on race, color, and national origin. Office of Civil Rights (OCR) says a hostile environment is one that “limits or denies a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from a recipient’s education program or activity.” The OCR at the U.S. Department of Education has found schools liable for creating a “possible hostile environment” for Jewish students that the university did not take effective action to address and for failing to examine whether a broader problem existed on campus for Jewish students.
University of Minnesota Used Police To Stop Violent Anti-Israel Mob. Professors Called the 'Militarized Response' an 'Overreaction.'
University of Minnesota professors condemned school administrators and law enforcement for stopping a violent anti-Israel mob that stormed a campus building, destroyed property, and barricaded doors, trapping terrified employees inside.

"This sort of overreaction is a direct result of the militarized response that this administration has adopted," political science professor Teri Caraway said during an Oct. 24 Faculty Senate meeting.

Student protesters assembled on a campus lawn on Oct. 21 before a group descended on Morrill Hall around 4 p.m. Once inside, masked individuals broke windows to access locked offices and spray-painted security camera lenses, according to the university. Police were called in to ensure the safety of the trapped employees and because of the ongoing property damage, arresting 11.

University president Rebecca Cunningham in a schoolwide message the next day provided a thorough accounting of the events. She said the mob's "threatening behavior and destruction of property" created "a terrifying experience for many of our employees."

"These actions endanger safety, erode the fabric of our University community, and undermine the legitimacy of important causes that our students, faculty and staff care so deeply about," Cunningham wrote.

She reiterated her remarks at the beginning of the Oct. 24 meeting. She again thoroughly described the events and further detailed trapped employees' experiences.

"The situation involved intimidating employees in their workplaces, hampering their ability to move about freely, and destruction of university property," Cunningham said during the meeting. "I had many very frightened staff on Monday."

"I would ask people to think about, as you sit in your offices, how that would feel for you right now if that occurred in your workplace," she continued. "This was not a peaceful protest and not a First Amendment-protected activity. These activities clearly crossed the line into illegal activity."

But later in the meeting, several professors criticized the administration's response to the "protest" and were concerned that students' "free expression" was being suppressed. They also argued that the "security-based response" disrupted learning and demanded that police officers be held accountable.

"It seems to me that the administration is eager to hold students accountable for their actions," Caraway said. "The students have been suspended as of today, by the way, and that the cops are let off the hook."

She said her "colleagues on site during the protest" saw at least 20 squad cars, 100 officers, and a SWAT team. "They entered Morrill Hall with their weapons drawn," she said. "No wonder, you know, it was chaotic."
CCNY’s SJP chapter calls for boycott of nearby cafés supporting Israel
The City College of New York’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine announced on Oct. 23 “Bilal’s Boycott Campaign,” a movement to boycott cafés that have expressed political or financial support for Israel and instead patronize seven participating coffee shops.

The cafés participating in the campaign include Tajeen Halal Food, Avrilillies Creamery, Kaafi by Chaiguy, and Qahwah House. At these locations, patrons can say “SJP sent me” to receive a boycott card, which enables patrons to get an eighth drink for free if they purchase seven drinks, according to an Instagram post from CCNY’s SJP chapter.

In addition to the locations that directly partnered with SJP, the post also lists non-participating “small businesses to support.” These businesses are Sugar Hill Cafe, Manhattanville Coffee, NBHD Brulee, Cafe One, and I Like it Black.

Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik, president of the CCNY SJP chapter, said that the idea for the campaign originated last year, but that the boycott finally began this semester due to the expulsion of an alumni-owned café at CCNY.

“The semester after the encampment, CCNY and CUNY decided that on this very campus where we escalated and we said, ‘Divest from genocide,’ they decided to … invest in it even more by kicking out our alumni-owned café,” Malik said.

The boycott campaign is named for Bilal the Beaver, the CCNY SJP chapter’s mascot. In the spring, SJP had a stuffed beaver named Bilal, Arzoo said, but it was taken by the New York Police Department in April during their sweep of the CCNY “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

The campaign encourages individuals to boycott cafés in the North Academic Center and Marshak Science Building on CCNY’s campus, which came under the control of Aladdin Food Management Services this semester. Under Aladdin, both cafés now serve Nestlé coffee and “We Proudly Serve Starbucks” products, according to Arzoo. She said that the involvement of Nestlé and Starbucks is what motivated the boycott.

“Nestlé is even worse than Starbucks,” Arzoo said. “Starbucks has really horrible indirect investments. Their CEO is a huge Zionist, and that was enough means for a boycott. … But when Nestlé came in and when we found out that it was actually Nestlé, it became even worse. Nestlé is directly, straight off the BDS list.”

Abram Morris, a student organizer at CCNY, said that the move to serve Starbucks products in the cafés is “a violation of what’s supposed to be holding value to our alumni and our community.”
Pro-Israel Supporters Encouraged to Back Trader Joe’s as Chain Faces Pressure to Boycott Israeli Products
A pro-Israel activist organization is urging the public to show support for Trader Joe’s as the chain of grocery stores faces pressure to stop stocking Israeli products in support of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against the Jewish state.

The anti-Israel activist group Code Pink recently launched a petition pressuring Trader Joe’s to stop selling Israeli products in its stores “until Israel respects international law and human rights for Palestinians.” The items mentioned in the petition include Israeli feta cheese, Bamba puffed peanut snacks, and crushed garlic and ginger cubes from the Israeli brand Dorot.

“While Trader Joe’s claims it is ‘transforming grocery shopping into a welcoming journey full of discovery and fun,’ it is certainly not fun to discover that — one year into this genocide — you are still carrying Israeli products,” the petition reads. “We urge you to be on the right side of history. Stop stocking Israeli goods in your stores until Israel ends the occupation, respects international law, and ensures full and equal rights for Palestinians.” The petition has garnered a little more than 14,000 signatures and has a goal of reaching 15,000.

In response, the pro-Israel activist organization EndJewHatred launched a counter-campaign over the weekend, calling on its supporters to “show Trader Joe’s some love” and purchase the Israel-made items from their local Trader Joe’s locations. Pro- Israel supporters are being urged to call the customer relations department at Trader Joe’s and tell the representative on the line, or leave a message, saying: “Thank you for carrying Israeli products! I’m so appreciative that I am able to buy products made in Israel.” EndJewHatred said supporters can also leave possible feedback about Israeli products on the Trader’s Joe’s website.

In mid-October, activists in support of Code Pink shared a video on social media of them visiting a Trader Joe’s store, where they sang loudly about a boycott of Israeli products and pulled Israeli items off shelves. The section of the store that carried the Israeli snack Bamba was referred to as “the apartheid aisle” and “genocide aisle” by protesters in the video. Another protester said that when she looks at the Dorot crushed garlic cubes from Israel that is sold in Trader Joe’s, it looks like the item “is dripping in blood.”


US envoy discusses Gaza, not Hamas, on ‘crimes against journalists’ day
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, singled Gaza out among the places where she said that reporters have been killed in conflict zones in a Nov. 2 statement for International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.

“Today, across the world, journalists continue to be harassed and intimidated, violently attacked and arbitrarily surveilled, met with disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks—all for speaking truth to power,” the U.S. envoy stated on Sunday.

“Those in conflict zones face even greater danger,” she stated. “In Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and elsewhere, journalists have been killed as they dared to report the facts.”

“In this moment in which democracy is under attack, we count on journalists to expose corruption and counter disinformation and to facilitate the exchange of ideas and shine a spotlight on human rights abuses,” she added. “Journalists have the right to live and report without fear. Let us all work to support and protect them as they tell the stories that change our world for the better.”

Israeli journalists were among those whom Hamas terrorists killed on Oct. 7, 2023. Thomas-Greenfield statement did not address Israel’s charges, and evidence that it has provided, that some of those identified as journalists in Gaza have direct ties to Palestinian terror groups.

António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, stated that “recent years have seen an alarming rate of fatalities in conflict zones—in particular in Gaza, which has seen the highest number of killings of journalists and media workers in any war in decades.”


How CBS News Is Facing A Crisis of Its Own Making
Something is deeply wrong within the CBS News newsroom.

In recent months, several concerning incidents have emerged, revealing a serious issue within the editorial department of one of America’s largest news networks. These events point to an editorial team that appears to have been co-opted by activist-cum-journalists, where political biases have overtaken the network’s foundational commitment to accurate and impartial reporting. Equally troubling is the apparent abdication of oversight by editorial management, allowing journalistic standards to erode further.

CBS’s issues are most evident in a series of separate incidents related to the current Israel-Hamas war. These examples highlight that the infiltration of ideological motivations into the newsroom is not a new phenomenon but rather a longstanding issue that has now become glaringly apparent.

CBS Producer’s Terrorist Links Revealed
An HonestReporting exposé in July revealed that a longtime CBS producer, Marwan al-Ghoul, who directs coverage from the Gaza Strip, has close ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and spoke at an official event for the proscribed terrorist group, which has carried out numerous deadly attacks on Israeli civilians.

In 2018, Al-Ghoul was among the speakers at an official PFLP event commemorating one of the prominent members of the terror group who was also Al-Ghoul’s relative.

According to the PFLP website, Al-Ghoul spoke on behalf of the family, which “expressed their gratitude to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and their esteemed comrades everywhere in the Palestinian land . . . for their . . . commitment to continue the struggle.”

Despite these disturbing revelations, CBS has refused to take any action against Al-Ghoul, declining even to comment on whether the network will continue employing him.


Guardian removes Israeli whisky reference
Well, well, well. It seems that the Guardian, the self-proclaimed bastion of ‘clarity and imagination’, has been acting rather censoriously of late. It transpires that, in a column navigating the world’s great whiskies by wine critic Henry Jeffreys, a reference to an Israeli single malt whisky was first removed from the print copy – before subsequently being deleted from the online version. How very curious.

Taking to Twitter to point out the baffling omission, Jeffreys posted a screenshot showing which clearly showed his reference to Israel’s M&H beverage. ‘Even so, world whisky isn’t going away any time soon,’ the wine critic had written. ‘The best offer something unique: Israel’s M&H, for example, ages its whisky in old pomegranate wine casks in the heat of the Dead Sea.’

Yet now the online copy is distinctly different. It reads: ‘Even so, world whisky isn’t going away any time soon. The best offer something unique: Kyrö in Finland recently announced a sauna-aged whisky.’ How very bizarre.

It’s not the first time the Grauniad has made rather notable deletions after publication. Only last month, Steerpike revealed that the paper had removed a controversial 7 October review after it received backlash over its author’s suggestion the film had portrayed Gazans as ‘testosterone-crazed Hamas killers’. While it was certainly quite the take, the paper could have defended the publication of the piece – or acknowledged its flaws – and yet it seems this beacon of transparency opted for neither option.

Mr S has approached the newspaper for comment on the latest edit of Jeffreys’s piece, but the Guardian are yet to respond. Stay tuned…


Binyamin region: Terrorists attack Jewish youth
Terrorists from the village of Burqa attacked youth from the Tzur Harel hilltop community in the Binyamin region on Monday as they drove down the path leading to it.

The terrorists ambushed the youth with clubs, threw rocks at their car, hit them with clubs, and broke the windows and windshield of their car. Two Jews were wounded.

Despite their injuries, the residents fended off the rioters and called the military and their friends who repelled the terrorists back to the car and a confrontation broke out at the scene. After that, medical services took the Jews to the hospital for further medical treatment.

This attack joins the repeated attacks by the residents of Burqa who attempt to prevent Jews from living in the area and are supported by the PA, far-left organizations, and the EU.

M., one of the teens who were wounded in the attack, described the incident: "We drove in the car toward the hilltop when suddenly several Arabs attacked us and surrounded the car, threw rocks at us, and hit us with clubs. There was an amazing miracle here, there was nearly a murder, thank G-d we managed to repel them and call the military and our friends who together repelled them back to the village."


Hezbollah’s Hostages Season Finale: A World Without the Terror Group
The legacy media often portrays Hezbollah’s war against Israel as a “resistance” movement. Over the past seven weeks, our Hezbollah’s Hostages series has shown the opposite: that the terror group is a tyrant in Lebanon, an occupier in Syria, a mafia cartel that trafficks in drugs and sex slaves, and the command headquarters of Iran’s imperial project in Arab lands.

The eighth and final episode of our series brings you words of hope from a young woman in Lebanon called Nadia, who has freed herself from the oppression of Hezbollah and wishes to do the same for her people.

If there is one thing Iran and its militias fear more than the Israeli Air Force, it is ordinary citizens like Nadia, who yearn for change and rise up to oppose their brutal rule. In Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Gaza, and Iran itself, millions of civilians know firsthand that Tehran’s brand of Islamist domination brings only war, poverty, and misery. They want a different future—but they need the world to help them forge it.

This series debuted one day before pagers exploded in the hands of Hezbollah operatives across Lebanon and Syria—a stunning piece of Israeli spycraft. It concludes today with Hezbollah gravely weakened by Israeli air and ground strikes. The terror group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has been assassinated. Now, the most urgent question facing the Lebanese—and the world—is how to use Hezbollah’s weakened state to drive systemic political change.

Sadly, Western governments do little to assist brave dissidents, and Iran’s axis of terror wields lethal force against local activists who stand up to its authority. So The Center for Peace Communications, a New York–based nonprofit which I lead, does everything it can to fill the void.

This is why we produced Hezbollah’s Hostages, which had its first two public screenings in Beirut last week. One was presented by independent Shi’ite cleric Abbas Al-Jawhari, the other by a new Shi’ite nonprofit for peace called Taharror. For these courageous activists, the series documents the oppressive pathology that has destroyed their country. It makes the case that a different future is not only necessary, but possible.




Iran executes Jewish citizen over fatal stabbing he claimed was in self-defense
A Jewish Iranian man, Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani, was executed Monday morning in Iran, a rights watchdog reported, after a two-year battle by his family and the local Jewish community to save his life. The Mizan Online website of the Iranian judiciary confirmed he was put to death.

Ghahremani 20, was hanged at the central prison in the western city of Kermanshah after being convicted of a murder during a street fight, said the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group.

“In the midst of the threats of war with Israel, the Islamic Republic executed Arvin Ghahremani, an Iranian Jewish citizen,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, adding the legal case had “significant flaws.”

“However, in addition to this, Arvin was a Jew, and the institutionalized antisemitism in the Islamic Republic undoubtedly played a crucial role in the execution of his sentence,” Amiry-Moghaddam added.

Ghahremani was allegedly defending himself against a knife attack when he killed Amir Shokri in a 2022 brawl.

Ghahremani’s mother, Sonia Saadati, had asked for his life to be spared.

His family urged Shokri’s relatives to accept blood money under Iran’s Islamic law of retribution, which permits this alternative to execution.

Mizan said the victim’s family had “refused to give consent” to such a deal.

Under Iranian law, once a person is found guilty of intentional murder, the only way that the death sentence can be commuted is if the family of the deceased says it forgives the perpetrator.

Earlier this year it was reported that Shokri’s family had come under pressure from a close aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the intelligence division of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to not accept the financial settlement, the Ynet outlet reported. The motive for the objection was reportedly his Jewish ethnicity.


Jewish Boy Assaulted on Way to School in New York City, Assailant Remain at Large
Orthodox Jews in New York City are again frustrated with a lack of law and order in the Five Boroughs following another attack against a member of their community, this time a child.

According to multiple accounts, an African American male on Monday morning smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. The incident was the second known assault on an Orthodox Jew in the area in less than a week.

“He was riding his bike between Winthrop and Clarkson, near the hospital, when a man slapped him. He arrived at school shaken, and the school contacted his parents and Crown Heights Shomrim [a Jewish organization that monitors antisemitism and also serves as a neighborhood watch group],” Yaacov Behrman, a local Jewish leader, posted on X/Twitter.

Behrman — a liaison for Chabad Headquarters, the main New York base of the Hasidic movement — added that the boy was filing a police report.

A teacher of the young man, Yisrael Eliashiv, added that the assailant, who remains at large, “smacked [the boy] across the face for no reason other than hate. Thankfully, he got away before anything else happened.” The teacher then noted that his student did not initially think to notify the police because he doubted the attacker would receive any punishment.

“I’m fuming to the point I’ve got a migraine … You have kids who are 13 or 14 and have grown up with the attitude of ‘if you get assaulted in the street, just take it because nothing is gonna be done.’ Those are the symptoms not of a sick but of a dead and decaying society,” Eliashiv wrote.

Crown Heights, home to a large Orthodox Jewish population, has seen numerous antisemitic hate crimes in recent years. In July 2023, for example, a 22-year-old Israeli Yeshiva student, who was identifiably Orthodox and visiting New York City for the summer holiday, was stabbed with a screwdriver by one of two men who attacked him after asking whether he was Jewish and had any money. The other punched him in the face.

Earlier that year, 10- and 12-year-olds were attacked on Albany Avenue by four African American teens.
Man gets probation after pleading guilty to car attack on Jewish teen
New York Judge John Hubbard sentenced Zachary Kowatch, 23, to five years of probation for attempted reckless endangerment in the first degree, a Class E felony, on Aug. 30.

Kowatch had pleaded guilty on Oct. 21 to swerving at a Jewish teenager and yelling antisemitic insults at him in the village of Fleischmanns, in Middletown, N.Y., on May 9.

“I have another one almost identical going on right now, and I don’t understand what’s the matter with people,” Shawn Smith, acting district attorney in Delaware County, N.Y., told JNS.

Joseph E. VanBlarcom, 20, faces charges for allegedly swerving his car at Jews while yelling bigoted slurs on July 29, also in the village of Fleischmanns. He awaits trial where he, too, faces a Class E felony of aggravated harassment in the second degree as a hate crime.

Smith told JNS how the police charge against Kowatch of reckless endangerment in the first degree as a hate crime wasn’t strong enough.

Still, said the DA, “for the rest of his life, he’s going to be stuck with a felony conviction. And if he violates probation, he’s got an alcohol problem, I think that was pretty clear. If he can get that under control—and turn over a new leaf and live a law-abiding way—then that works out. And if he doesn’t, then he’s convicted of a felony.”


Hundreds of Runners Dedicate Race in New York City Marathon to Hamas Hostages
More than 150 runners dedicated their race in the New York City marathon on Sunday to five hostages abducted by Hamas terrorists and still held captive in the Gaza Strip since the deadly massacre that took place in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The runners competed in the 26.2-mile race while wearing shirts that featured images of hostages Naama Levy, Doron Steinbrecher, Evyatar David, Ohad Yahalomi, and Edan Alexander, five athletes who previously completed marathons and triathlons, according to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. Near the finish line at Columbus Circle, the NY Hostages Families Forum and many of its supporters showed support for the runners while waving Israeli flags adorned with yellow ribbons, which has become a symbol calling for the safe return of the hostages abducted last Oct. 7.

Yamit Ashkanzi, Steinbrecher’s sister, said the 31-year-old hostage “loves to run” and ran every Saturday morning in the kibbutz where they lived. “On that tragic day [on Oct. 7] she wasn’t able to run and ever since she’s been held hostage,” Ashkanzi added. “It warms our hearts that people will be running today with Doron’s picture and to know that she’s in so many people’s hearts. To know they are running for her because she can’t run for over a year now.”

Levy’s father Yoni Levy said, “When I see Naama’s picture in the huge marathon, I feel her absence so deeply and how it hurts that she’s not here. Naama participated in triathlons and races with deep passion and courage and if she would have known people would be running for her, she’d be excited and thankful for the support and for people fighting to bring her home.”




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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