Wednesday, November 13, 2024

11/13 Links Pt2: A Worldwide ‘Jew Hunt’; Natan Sharansky: We Are Never Alone; Fear of the ‘Muscular Jew’

From Ian:

Bret Stephens: A Worldwide ‘Jew Hunt’
Notice what these attackers aren’t saying. They aren’t expressing themselves in the faddish language of anti-Zionism. They aren’t denouncing Israeli policy or speaking up for Palestinian rights. They aren’t trying to make careful distinctions between Jews and Israelis. They are, like generations of pogromists before them, simply out to get the Jews — a reminder, if one was needed, of the truth often attributed to Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

Which makes it even more remarkable how strenuously some people initially tried to obscure the nature of the Amsterdam pogrom. The media are rarely shy about calling out certain kinds of hate crimes as racist. Yet for days the word “antisemitic” was either put inside quotation marks or attributed to Dutch officials when talking about the violence. The identity of the attackers has been treated as a mystery, or a secret, beyond delicate references to people with “a migration background,” in the words of Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof.

A great deal of attention has also been paid to some Israeli fans who pulled down a Palestinian flag, vandalized a taxi and, in Hebrew, chanted ugly anti-Arab phrases. There’s no excuse for any of that. But rowdy English soccer fans in Germany have been known to celebrate German war casualties. Somehow it doesn’t lead to a frenzy of organized violence.

Nor does it add any light to provide the “context” of the war in Gaza as a way of trying to understand what happened in Amsterdam. No decent person would explain anti-Asian attacks in the United States by observing that attackers might be angry about, say, China’s human-rights abuses or its biosafety standards.

Yet so many supposedly decent people are quick to try to account for the evil that is done to Jews through reference to the evil (as they see it) that Jews do to others. As Leon Wieseltier pointed out years ago, this type of reasoning is not an explanation for antisemitism. It’s the essence of antisemitism.

Antisemitism in Europe has now reached the point where the future of many of its Jewish communities is seriously in doubt. I’m not sure most Europeans understand what a civilizational catastrophe this represents — albeit less for Europe’s Jews, most of whom will find other places to go and thrive, than for Europe itself. The fate of societies that become “Judenfrei” — free of Jews — has not, historically, been a happy one.

The United States is still a long way from this point, thanks to a larger and more politically confident Jewish community, along with a national culture that traditionally has generally admired Jews. But that culture is also under growing threat today, whether from Hamas’s fellow travelers in the Ivy League and the publishing world; Louis Farrakhan’s admirers in the Black community; or the alt-right inveighing, with a sinister wink, against “globalists” and “neocons.”

Americans (and not just Jews) should beware: If we stay on this path, the Jew hunt of Amsterdam may be upon us, too, and sooner than we think.
Natan Sharansky: We Are Never Alone
During a swing through California with the organization Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), Natan Sharansky addressed a private group of donors at a breakfast sponsored by the Jewish Community Foundation, the largest manager of charitable assets for Jewish philanthropists in Greater Los Angeles. Sharansky is chair of the CAM Advisory Board and held meetings in Southern California with Jewish communal leaders and grassroots activists ahead of CAM’s upcoming Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism in Beverly Hills on Dec. 11-13. More than 200 mayors are expected to attend the Mayors Summit to share best practices and discuss ways to counter antisemitism.

Sharansky is a modern-day hero, imprisoned for nine years in the Soviet Union for his activism on behalf of Soviet Jews trying to emigrate to Israel. He was finally freed in 1986 and reunited with his wife, Avital, in Israel, where he has lived ever since. Over the years he served in several capacities in the Israeli government, as well as the head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, promoting rights for new immigrants, religious minorities, and women. Sharansky’s most recent book is “Never Alone: Prison, Politics, and My People.” Natan Sharansky, Justin Jampol, founder and executive director of The Wende Museum of the Cold War.

At the breakfast on Nov. 7, Sharansky answered questions by moderator Justin Jampol, founder and executive director of The Wende Museum in Culver City, whose collections and programs focus on the Cold War, and then from the audience. The following are edited highlights from his answers.

Q: How can Israel continue to heal from the war?

Natan Sharansky: Oct. 7 has changed our self-image. We know we can no longer appease our enemies. Yes, mistakes were made by the government and by the military, but we are in a much better place strategically than before. We finally know the real enemy is Iran and we are much less afraid.

Israel is such a small country, and we feel the tragedy of the hostages and the many, many losses of our soldiers. Every loss is deeply felt. But we also have a deeply idealistic young generation whose readiness to continue to fight despite their personal sacrifices is unbelievable. I believe the vast majority of soldiers agree that they must fight until Hamas is destroyed and oppose a ceasefire. I have encouraged soldiers sharing the same tanks to go into politics to expand and broaden our political coalitions. They become close, sharing a tank.
'History is back, and the old normal isn’t returning' Bari Weiss tells young Jewish leaders
“History is back, and the old normal isn’t returning,” Bari Weiss, a journalist and the founder of the Free Press, told an audience of young Jewish leaders at the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly in Washington.

Addressing over 100 participants of the Change Makers Fellowship and thousands of participants from across North America on Tuesday, Weiss urged attendees to recognize the “new world” they faced, one she described as increasingly hostile to Jewish values and identity.

In her speech, Weiss highlighted a series of recent and historical events that she believed marked a turning point for the Jewish community, including the October 7 Hamas massacre and the public displays of anti-Jewish sentiment that followed.

“If it feels like the end. That’s because all beginnings do,” she said, cautioning her audience not to grow complacent. “We bend the arc of history; it doesn’t bend on its own.”

Throughout her address, Weiss underscored the importance of resilience and vigilance in the face of rising antisemitism.

“We must learn… the resilience, the vigilance, the courage, and the pride not just to survive, but to thrive in this new world,” she said, drawing inspiration from Jewish dissidents in the Soviet Union who resisted oppression despite immense pressure.

Anti-Zionism is antisemitism
Weiss added, “The task for us at this moment is to learn from those who never had the luxury of losing their instinct for danger.”

Reflecting on recent antisemitic incidents and societal shifts, Weiss challenged the young leaders to be unafraid to speak truthfully and to hold their own communities accountable.

“Anti-Zionism is antisemitism, full stop,” she said, denouncing what she called “the perverse need to indulge in panel discussions” on the matter within the Jewish community itself.

She added, “We need to take the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’ seriously. It is not a fun rally chant. It is a call for violence against our community.”

Weiss also took aim at what she described as “the quiet purging of proud Jews” from influential spaces in art, education, and human rights groups.


Seth Mandel: Fear of the ‘Muscular Jew’
Most such associations were Zionist in spirit if not in name, to avoid provocation. In Europe and Russia, Zionism was a bulwark against assimilationism. The Jewish gymnastics clubs adopted the wider Zionist movement’s dedication to Hebrew language learning, for example.

Zionism prioritized the recognition of Jewish peoplehood wherever Jews could be found. Before the Jews could have a nation-state, they had to embrace their status as a nation. Vladimir Jabotinsky’s articulate political writing did much to establish the Jews as a “national minority” among many others—Ukrainians, Poles—in the Russian Empire.

Jewish peoplehood was not a compromise position in which Jews would embrace their roots and then set sail for the Holy Land. They could demand the rights they were due wherever they stood. Often, Zionist activism alarmed imperial Russian officials precisely because it would strengthen the local Jewish communities’ connection to their heritage, improve their ability to organize, and boost their religious education and language skills without necessitating the mass emigration of those pesky—and now confident—Jews.

The Jewish gymnasium organizations had a similar effect. They made European Jewish communities stronger, healthier, happier, more social, and more confident. Excluding Jews from national athletic leagues was meant to be isolating. Jews rose to the challenge and proved yet again they were anyone’s equal, and deserved to be treated as such.

The attacks on Maccabi Berlin are not much different from the attacks on Maccabi Tel Aviv. They are assaults on Jewish peoplehood, Jewish equality, Jewish particularism and Jewish continuity. And in Europe, they are also intended to prevent the emergence of the muscular Jew, who is bound to win his fair share of fair fights.
Yisrael Medad: When crassness sets in …
Peter Beinart appears to be progressively adopting and promoting extreme, radical and dangerous positions vis à vis Israel. Having rejected the idea of a Jewish state and watching his IfNotNow kids increasingly adopting slogans and catchphrases that would not embarrass right-wing, white supremacist, antisemitic nationalists, it is becoming obvious that a certain crass perverseness is characterizing his/their politics.

The morphing of IfNotNow’s progressive anti-Zionism with hardline antisemitic memes is most apparent as regards how they view the role AIPAC fulfills, notably on its Instagram platform, especially highlighting its money aspect, echoing Marx’s 1843 statement: “Money is the jealous god of Israel” tirade.

To return to journalist and author Beinart, in advertising his podcast with author Ta-Nehisi Coates, he termed Coates’s anti-Israel tirades as something of “courage.” When Coates declares that “Israel is not a democracy,” Beinart shakes his head approvingly and utters, “Yeah.”

In a New York Times op-ed on Nov. 7, Beinart subtlety supports the calumny that Israel is perpetrating “genocide” in the Gaza Strip, writing: “even amid what prominent scholars call a genocide” without any qualification or suggesting any doubt. He doesn’t even make the effort to somehow disprove Israel’s claims that that is not happening.

In addition, he asserts Americans protest Israel’s actions in Gaza because “their motive is not ethnic or religious. It is moral.” In other words, Israel is immoral. It doesn’t bother him to ask why are so many American Jews targeted—their persons and their businesses. Why were the windows of Char Bar, a kosher restaurant in Washington, D.C., broken on the anniversary of Kristallnacht?

It isn’t Beinart’s interest to defend Jews? Could this act and so many more be the result of left-wing progressive antisemitism or Muslim Jew-hatred? Or does his pro-Palestinianism blind him to the incidentals of the day?
Following pogrom, Dutch rabbi calls on Jews to make aliyah
An Orthodox rabbi from the Netherlands has called on the country’s Jews to immigrate to Israel following mass antisemitic assaults in Amsterdam, accusing Dutch authorities of failure to address the root causes of the incident.

Two rabbis from the country’s large Progressive community disagreed with the remarks by Rabbi Meir Villegas Henriquez, an Orthodox rabbi and mohel from Rotterdam’s Ohel Abraham beit midrash (Jewish study center).

The debate reflects a growing sense of insecurity in the Netherlands, whose society is deeply divided on immigration and whose Jewish community is traumatized by its near annihilation in the Holocaust.

In a video message recorded in his synagogue on Monday, Villegas Henriquez said, “We inhabit a new demographic reality that simply cannot be changed, not with the current political class.”

On Thursday, at least 100 Arab men in Amsterdam assaulted dozens of Israeli soccer fans in a series of attacks that many in the Netherlands and beyond have called a pogrom. In the pre-planned attacks, packs of men chased and beat up people they suspected of being Israeli.

“Prepare to make aliyah,” continued Villegas Henriquez, using the Hebrew-language word for immigrating to Israel. “Talk to your children, or grandchildren, and explain to them that there’s really no future here. Help them study Hebrew. Invest in real estate, web shops, remote jobs—all the necessary steps to make the move to Israel possible.”
The New York Times Leads the Way in Negating Amsterdam Pogrom
Footage of last week’s violent attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam has now been circulated widely.

Clips show Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters chased down the city’s canal-lined streets by mobs armed with fireworks.

Many of us have seen the horrifying video of a young fan pleading with his attackers that he is “not Jewish,” as they pummel him with kicks and punches, and also the brutal scenes of Israelis beaten unconscious by thugs shouting slogans like “Free Palestine” and “This is for the children.”

Dutch authorities have confirmed — and messages shared on encrypted apps like Telegram reveal — that the attack on Israeli fans was meticulously planned. Contrary to some claims, this wasn’t a reaction to hooligan behavior by a handful of Maccabi supporters.

More disturbing than the sickening antisemitic violence that happened on the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht is the media’s indifference to — and, in some cases, tacit justification for — these attacks.

Take The New York Times’ coverage, which initially described the incident as “violence tied to a soccer game,” implying it was run-of-the-mill football hooliganism. Even as the headline referenced the antisemitic nature of the attack, the Times slyly pinned this view on “Israeli authorities,” despite identical conclusions from Dutch police.


MEMRI: Media Figures In Qatar: 'Bless The Hands' That Carried Out The Amsterdam Attack And Punished The Zionists
While the attacks of November 7-8, 2024 in Amsterdam – in which Muslim rioters ambushed and beat up Israeli football fans who had come to the city to see their team play – were met with shock across Europe and in many countries worldwide, journalists and media personalities in Qatar welcomed the attacks, describing them as a "just punishment" for the "Zionists" and expressing joy over the incident.

The following is a sampling of these responses:
Praise For The Amsterdam Attackers: Bless Those Who Carried Out The Riots

As'ad Taha, a columnist for the Qatari daily Al-Sharq, welcomed the attack: "It is very important to identify the moments at which it is appropriate to say 'bless [your] hands.' #Amsterdam."[1]

Al-Jazeera presenter Ayman 'Azzam applauded Morocco and the Moroccans for the participation of Moroccan immigrants in the attack on the Israeli football fans: "[We convey] our love and admiration for Morocco and the Moroccans in their beautiful country. You carry the love of Al-Aqsa in the very depths of your souls. #Blessed_Friday #Moroccans_Against_Normalization."[2]

The Attack Was A "Punishment" For The "Zionists"

Another Al-Jazeera presenter, Mustafa Ashour, wrote: "It's name is Palestine. The free peoples have resolved to punish the Zionists. #Amsterdam."[3]

Abdallah bin Hamad Aal Athbah, the former editor of the Al-Arab daily, wrote that the "Zionist entity" is the cause of the problems in both the Arab world and Europe: "In response to what happened in Amsterdam, [let me note that] the Zionist Jews insist on moving the war to Europe, because the [Zionist] entity is destroying the region, [thereby] pushing the Arab migrants to Europe, and then it invents problems with the Arabs there. The truth is that the Zionist entity is the root cause of the problems in the Arab region and in Europe."[4]

Egyptian Footballer And Presenter On Qatari Channel: This Was A Message "That The Murderers Of Women And Children Are Ostracized By The Entire Free World"

Mohamed Aboutrika, an Egyptian footballer and a commentator on the Qatari BeIN SPORTS channel, wrote on his Facebook and X accounts that Israel is ostracized and should continue to be excluded, including from sports competitions. It should be noted that Facebook closed his account due to this post, but it still appears on his X account.

He wrote: "[Unlike] the decision to exclude Russian clubs and the Russian national team from competitions [following this country's invasion of Ukraine in 2022], the decision to ban Zionist clubs and the Zionist national team [from UEFA Nations League games] is long in coming. This is hypocrisy at its finest. What happened in Amsterdam is a clear message that the murderers of women and children are ostracized by the entire free world."[5]

Muhammad Al-Mukhtar Al-Shinqiti, a lecturer at Qatar University and a member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), which is supported and funded by Qatar, alluded to a hadith that predicts the extermination of the Jews by the Muslims before the Day of Judgement: "The grassroots attack on the Israelis in the Netherlands is an important indication of the decline of the Zionists' status and influence in the West since the Al-Aqsa Flood [attack]. This is a phenomenon that will grow from day to day, until everyone takes part in it, both trees and people, except for the American gharqad trees,[6] Israel's slaves among the American Protestants who are beyond hope."[7]


Wikipedia’s anti-Israel propaganda mocks objectivity and destroys its credibility
If you search for “Zionism,” you’ll quickly find this bizarre definition on Wikipedia: “Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside Europe.”

In other words, Israel is an ethnonationalist colonial movement—precisely what they scream in pro-Palestine demonstrations on university campuses all over America. Zionism is apparently not the self-determination struggle of the Jewish people to repatriate their ancient homeland in the Land of Israel.

Wikipedia has, over the decades, become the Internet’s go-to encyclopedia, known for its comprehensiveness and crowd-sourced objectivity. But lately, it has been hijacked by groups working to turn the online platform into a leftist propaganda machine, especially to smear and delegitimize Israel.

A recent study by Pirate Wires found that a cadre of some 40 Wikipedia editors, working singly and in small groups, has completely rewritten most articles covering Israel. They have created a damning narrative of colonialism and Palestinian oppression that rivals the perversions promoted as doctrine in many university humanities departments.

The bias of these articles violates Wikipedia’s “Neutral Point of View” policy, not to mention other policies that are supposed to prohibit anyone from exercising disproportionate control over the platform. Online activists who try to combat anti-Israel, antisemitic content on Wikipedia by editing articles and complaining to administrators are most often ignored and sometimes even punished for challenging the narrative preferred by the vast majority of the platform’s editors.

Jewish entities have also challenged Wikipedia for anti-Israel bias, but their complaints have fallen on deaf ears. Leaders of the not-for-profit Wikipedia Foundation that owns Wikipedia wash their hands of the problem, saying they don’t exercise power over their platform’s content, thus contradicting the group’s alleged commitment to neutrality.

If Wikipedia fails to uphold its own policies, those who rely on the platform—particularly, supporters of Israel—would be well-advised to stop using and funding it. Surely, more reliable resources are available or will emerge.


Israel asks Hague to probe possible bias of new judge on arrest warrant panel
Israel has questioned the impartiality of an International Criminal Court judge appointed to a panel deciding whether an arrest warrant should be issued for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war in Gaza.

The move could further delay a decision in the case, prompted by ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s May request for arrest warrants against Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders who have since been killed.

The request requires the approval of ICC judges but their decision has been delayed, partly because of several rounds of legal filings by Israel challenging the court’s jurisdiction.

Last month, Romanian magistrate Iulia Motoc stepped down from the panel, citing health grounds. She has been replaced by ICC Judge Beti Hohler, who is Slovenian.

But on Monday, the office of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara alleged in a court filing that Hohler had worked for the Office of the Prosecutor before she was elected as an ICC judge in December.

“Israel respectfully requests that judge Beti Hohler provide information to clarify whether there are (or are not) grounds to reasonably doubt her impartiality,” read the statement.


Hot mic catches UN interpreter saying anti-Israel votes are 'a bit much'

Israel denies Erdoğan claim of end to diplomatic relations
Israel’s Foreign Ministry denied a change in its diplomatic relationship with Turkey on Wednesday, just hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claimed that he had cut all ties with Jerusalem.

The ministry “is not aware of a change in the status of relations with Turkey,” it circulated in a statement cited by local media.

Reports noted that Turkey’s embassy in Israel was functioning as usual, while Jerusalem’s diplomatic mission in Ankara also remains open.

Earlier on Wednesday, speaking with reporters aboard a plane en route to Ankara after a visit to Azerbaijan, Erdoğan claimed that “we, as the State and Government of the Republic of Turkey, have cut off relations with Israel. We do not have any relationship with Israel at this point.”

The Turkish president also told attendees at the COP29 climate summit in Baku on Wednesday that “coordinated diplomatic efforts must be used” to push the Jewish state “into a corner,” Israel Hayom reported.

Erdoğan has become more hostile towards Israel and closer to Hamas since the terrorist group’s assault in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

In May, Erdoğan called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “vampire who feeds on blood,” urging Muslims to fight the Jewish state.

“The world is watching the barbarity of … a vampire who feeds on blood called Netanyahu, and they are watching it on live broadcast,” he said.

Two months later, Erdoğan told Newsweek that Palestinian terrorists from Gaza were “simply defending their homes, streets and homeland.
Soros-Backed Dark Money Giant Bankrolled the Fiscal Sponsor of US-Designated Terror Financier Samidoun, Tax Forms Show
The Tides Foundation, a left-wing dark money giant backed by George Soros and other progressive billionaires, bankrolled the fiscal sponsor of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, an anti-Semitic group sanctioned in the United States for providing financial support to terrorists, according to newly released tax forms.

The foundation reported in its latest Form 990 tax return that it granted $286,000 to the Alliance for Global Justice in 2023, a group best known for serving as the fiscal sponsor of Samidoun. The Treasury Department in October sanctioned Samidoun as a "sham charity" that provided material support to a Palestinian terrorist organization that participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist rampage in Israel. Canada levied its own sanctions against Samidoun as well in October, labeling the group a "terrorist entity" under its criminal code.

Founded in 1998, the Alliance for Global Justice let Samidoun borrow its charitable tax privileges to operate and raise funds in the United States without obtaining its own organizational credentials. In other words, the Alliance for Global Justice and Samidoun are legally indistinguishable. It’s unclear if the group continued to serve as Samidoun’s fiscal sponsor after the Treasury Department sanctioned the terrorism financier in October.

The Tides Foundation said the purpose of its grant to the Alliance for Global Justice in 2023 was to support a "sustainable environment." It’s unclear if the Tides grant went to support Samidoun or one of the several dozen other fiscally sponsored organizations operating under the Alliance for Global Justice’s tax ID.

The Treasury Department in October described Samidoun as a "sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization." The PFLP cut its teeth in the late 1960s by hijacking and opening fire on commercial airplanes, and later participated in the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. It leverages Samidoun as a front organization in both Europe and North America to bankroll its terrorist activities, the Treasury Department said in October. Samidoun is also banned in Germany for its overt support of Hamas terrorism.

Samidoun’s U.S. leaders don’t shy away from their terroristic tendencies. Its leaders, Charlotte Kates and her husband, Khaled Barakat, explicitly endorsed terrorism against Jews during a lecture in March before the anti-Israel student group Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the Washington Free Beacon reported. The Treasury Department sanctioned Barakat in October for his "fundraising and recruitment" efforts for the PFLP’s "terrorist activity against Israel," adding that he has publicly acknowledged Samidoun’s affiliation with the terrorist network.
NGO Monitor Letter to the Netherlands Regarding Samidoun
Dear Minister of Justice and Security,

Dear David van Weel,

We write to highlight the danger posed to Dutch citizens by the activity of a terror-linked NGO, Samidoun. Tied to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an EU-designated terrorist organization, Samidoun has supported anti-Israel violence in the Netherlands.

For instance, following the mass assault on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam on October 8, Samidoun called for “Amsterdam Free of Zionism, Now is the time to defeat Zionism in Palestine — and its birthplace, Europe! For a total boycott of the Zionist entity! Freedom for all prisoners of the Intifada, from Amsterdam to Palestine!” (emphasis added). Samidoun also endorsed the May 2024 encampment at the University of Amsterdam that featured violent protestors assaulting by-standers.

Dutch lawmakers are rightfully concerned, and passed an October 2 parliamentary resolution calling for Samidoun to be banned in the Netherlands due to its role in spreading antisemitism and glorifying violence.

Several other countries have recognized the threat that this NGO poses to public safety in general, and to Jewish communities in particular.

On October 15, 2024, the US and Canada jointly designated Samidoun as a terrorist organization, describing it as “a sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser” for the PFLP, adding that “Samidoun serves as a front for the group in countries where the PFLP is declared a terrorist organization. While the organization ostensibly supports Palestinian prisoners and their family members, in practice Samidoun provides financial support to the sanctioned PFLP.” Similarly, in November 2023, Germany banned Samidoun, noting that it “endorses the use of violence as a means for achieving its political objectives and incites such violence,” as well as disseminates anti-Jewish propaganda.

The October 8 assault in Amsterdam demonstrated the imperative for the Dutch government to act against violent elements in the Netherlands. In order to protect Dutch citizens and combat antisemitism, we call on the Dutch government to act on Parliament’s October 2 resolution and ban Samidoun.

We look forward to your response.

Prof Gerald M. Steinberg


Telegraph journalist faces ‘Kafkaesque’ investigation over alleged hate crime
A Telegraph journalist is facing a “Kafkaesque” investigation for allegedly stirring up racial hatred in a social media post last year.

Allison Pearson, an award-winning writer, has described how two police officers called at her home at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday to tell her she was being investigated over the post on X, formerly Twitter, from a year ago.

In an article for The Telegraph, she said she was told by one officer that “I was accused of a non-crime hate incident. It was to do with something I had posted on X a year ago. A YEAR ago? Yes. Stirring up racial hatred apparently.”

When Pearson asked what she had allegedly said in the tweet, the officer said he was not allowed to disclose it. However, at this time last year, she was frequently tweeting about the October 7 attacks on Israel and controversial pro-Palestinian protests on the streets of London.

The officer also refused to reveal the accuser’s name. Pearson recalled: “‘It’s not the accuser,’ the PC said, looking down at his notes. ‘They’re called the victim.’”

Essex Police said on Tuesday night that officers had opened an investigation under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 relating to material allegedly “likely or intended to cause racial hatred”.

A police spokesman said: “We’re investigating a report passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed. An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act.
The illusion of the majority
The American University Student Government polled students between Oct. 8 and Oct. 11 on their opinions regarding divestment from Israel. Though more students voted in this year’s government elections than in previous years, only 2,093 students cast ballots—a meager 29% of the eligible voter population at the university in Washington, D.C. Of that insubstantial turnout, the results of the referendums on divestment from Israel proved there was no consensus on this issue. There was also not enough pressure for American University to divest.

The referendum on divestment asked students questions that were biased, misleading, inflammatory and simply untrue. They created a breeding ground for the kind of vile anti-Israel and antisemitic hatred we have seen time and time again on our college campus.

There were three “yes or no” questions. The first asked whether the board of trustees should “rescind AU’s long-standing position to oppose boycotts, divestment from Israel, and other related actions.” The second asked whether AU’s board of trustees should “disclose, boycott, divest and sanction all corporations.” The third asked whether AU’s board of trustees should boycott academic programs “complicit in the occupation and destruction of Palestinian life and land.”

Of the students who voted, some 66% voted yes to the first question, 64% voted yes to the second, and 55% voted yes to the third. Though this is a simple majority of the students who voted, this is not—as some claim—a victory for those who seek to boycott Israel. Since such an insignificant fraction of students voted, these results are skewed. The referendum on rescinding the university’s position on boycotts, which received the highest number of affirmative votes, still only received support from 19% of the eligible student body. That is not a consensus. By not voting, most AU students have made their position very clear: Divestment should not, by any means, be on the table for the academic institution.

However, student organizations, both recognized, like Students for Justice in Palestine, and unrecognized, like Jewish Voice for Peace, have claimed that the results of the referendum are a “victory.” Their claims of “record turnout” and students voting “to divest from the Israeli occupation” are merely a bold subversion of the truth.

To truly understand the impact of these falsifications on our community, it’s important to go back to April of this year when the undergraduate Senate first brought up the BDS resolution. The convoluted nature of how this vote came to fruition is even more of a reason for divestment to be off the table.

On a Shabbat right before Passover, the student government introduced the bill to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel, Israeli companies, and any company or individual with ties to the Jewish state. This resolution was purposefully hidden from the Jewish community. Numerous text messages from student senators requesting that no one inform members of Hillel or Students Supporting Israel (SSI) that the vote was happening were leaked.
Jews are Jesus-killers and Israel is uniquely aggressive: what Irish pupils are taught
Antisemitism in the Irish education system is so widespread that “traumatised” Jewish children are being forced to change schools, the JC can reveal.

It follows a report showing how Irish school textbooks are riddled with classic antisemitic tropes and bias against Israel.

Among the examples uncovered by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (Impact-se), an education watchdog, one textbook portrays Judaism as inherently violent compared to other religions and another describes tallit-wearers as people who “do not like Jesus”.

Another book cited in the report illustrates the parable of the Good Samaritan with an image of a boy wearing a Palestinian scarf protesting against Israel; elsewhere Israel is framed as the “sole aggressor” in the conflict with the Palestinians, the report says.

Ireland’s Chief Rabbi told the JC that some pupils now feel “afraid because they are Jewish”.

The Jewish Representative Council of Ireland (JRCI) supported that remark, saying that young Jews felt under siege in the classroom and that a number had changed schools due to antisemitism.

JRCI chair Maurice Cohen said he had been repeatedly refused an opportunity to put his concerns to the Irish Minister for Education Norma Foley, whose department told the JC: “There is no evidence of antisemitism being taught in Irish schools”.

Cohen said: “There has been a marked increase in incidents [of antisemitism in schools], with deeply hurtful remarks ranging from Holocaust denial to comments about the Israeli-Gaza conflict.

“The government and the minister’s complete failure to address both the rise of antisemitism in Ireland and the presence of inappropriate and inaccurate content in school textbooks is nothing short of scandalous and shocking.”

Referring to his repeated efforts to meet with the education minister, the chair said he had decided to wait for the appointment of a new minister of education and hoped for a more “respectful and proactive response to address these troubling issues”.

Speaking to the JC, the Irish government dismissed the 40-page Impact-se report, which uncovered a catalogue of biases against Jews and Israel in numerous Irish textbooks aimed at pupils aged from 12 up to 16.

It said: “The Department of Education is confident that Irish students are being taught in a fair and balanced way by high quality Irish teachers in a variety of subjects, including the history of the Jewish people and Judaism.”
Islamic Sunday school teacher ‘saw it as her duty’ to spread jihad among children with cartoon book, court told
A teacher at an Islamic Sunday school “saw it as her duty” to spread jihad among children with a “cartoon-style” book, a court heard.

Dzhamilya Timaeva, 19, allegedly obtained a role as a teacher at the Sunday school in order to spread “extremist beliefs” about holy war to young children, jurors were told.

Police who arrested the teenager found notes on her phone, including one entitled “Permissibility of Suicidal Operations”, and a document called the Little Muwahideen, with a colourful cartoon-style front cover designed for children, the Old Bailey heard.

It was alleged the book included sections on waging war for Islam, as well as reference to “fitna” (which often refers to a heretical uprising in the Quran).

Opening the trial on Tuesday, prosecutor Gareth Weetman accused Timaeva of sharing “pro-IS [Islamic State] propaganda” in 2022-23.

‘Intolerant notions’
“The defendant saw it as her duty to teach these extremist beliefs to young children. In order to do so, she obtained a place as a teacher at an Islamic Sunday school,” he told the court.

In Sept 2022, Timaeva had been making arrangements to teach a class of children at an Islamic faith school and made reference to the booklet in planned lessons, the court heard.

She sent an electronic copy of the book to a contact at the Tawheed Islamic Education Centre in Maidenhead and had 70 copies printed, it was claimed.

Mr Weetman said: “It follows that this clearly wasn’t a distant dream of the defendant to teach young children the extremist and intolerant notions in this book. She had printed it and arranged to attend the classes to do so.”


University of Michigan anti-Israel student government leaders impeached
The University of Michigan’s Central Student Government approved articles of impeachment against its president, Alifa Chowdhury, and vice president, Elias Atkinson, on Tuesday on charges of incitement of violence, cyber theft, and dereliction of duty.

The pair were elected last spring on an anti-Israel platform called Shut It Down, which promised to withhold funding for numerous campus activities, including a food pantry, MCAT and LSAT prep services, and an airport transportation service, until the school agreed to divest from Israel.

Chowdhury and Atkinson were successful in pulling this funding until the student government got involved and defied its top two leaders to restore the funds. What prompted the charges

In response to the restoration of campus activity funding and the rejection of a proposal to send money from student fees to universities in Gaza, the CSG leaders called on anti-Israel agitators to “pack CSG” at an Oct. 8 meeting and claimed that “Zionist members of CSG” were trying to punish Gaza, stating they “welcome this fight” and “call on you to join us.”

According to the articles of impeachment, these statements “encouraged — and foreseeably resulted in — lawless action” at the CSG meeting where anti-Israel protesters “began shouting and amassing on the floor of the Assembly, menaced Members of the Assembly and CSG personnel, and engaged in other violent and destructive acts.”

Those calls to “pack CSG” to join the “fight” against Zionists are what prompted the incitement of violence charge. The articles state they “gravely endangered the security of students.”

After the Oct. 8 meeting, Chowdhury allegedly changed the password of CSG’s Instagram account “without authorization” and made a post praising the anti-Israel agitators and calling their critics Zionists even though, according to the articles of impeachment, many of them are not. That is what prompted the cyber theft charge.

The dereliction of duty charge stems from the pair’s failure to file required reports, complete mandatory trainings, nominate people to mandatory positions, show up to meetings, or do any “meaningful work.” They also misled CSG members by promising to meet with them about the Oct. 8 “harassment” and not following through.

Chowdhury and Atkinson made clear that they had no intention of willingly resigning in a Monday statement, despite facing calls to do so. As a result, sophomore and CSG member Margaret Peterman filed the articles of impeachment against them. The articles passed with 30 in support, seven opposed, one abstaining, and one absent


‘Wanted posters’ featuring Netanyahu’s brother, Jewish staff hung at NY campus
Wanted posters featuring pictures of Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother and other Jewish faculty members were hung across the campus of the University of Rochester in New York State on Monday, making various accusations of links to Israel and opposition to anti-Israel protests that have swept university campuses since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.

One of the posters said Iddo Netanyahu, a physician, is employed by the university at its St. James Hospital, and accused him of “committing war crimes in the special forces unit of the ‘Israeli’ occupation force for the 1973 military ‘conflict’ that killed over 800,000 people in Palestine and surrounding Arab nations.”

Iddo Netanyahu halted his studies at Cornell University to serve in the Israel Defense Forces during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began when a coalition of Arab countries launched an attack on Israel. Official tolls point to some 2,500 Israeli soldiers killed and around 15,000 Arab troops killed during the conflict.

In another example, history professor Gregory Hayworth was accused of “hate speech and inflammatory language” for calling anti-Israel protesters “Nazis” and allegedly threatening to “dox” those who attended.

No group claimed responsibility for the action, according to a local newspaper, the Rochester Beacon.

University president Sarah Mangelsdorf said in a statement Tuesday that the campus’s security department was probing the incident, adding that “several of those depicted appear to have been targeted because they are members of our Jewish community.”

“We view this as antisemitism, which will not be tolerated at our University. This isn’t who we are. This goes against everything we stand for and we have an obligation to reject it,” she said. “This act is disturbing, divisive and intimidating and runs counter to our values as a university.”


THE TIMES BLAMES ‘BOTH SIDES’ FOR AMSTERDAM ATTACKS
When Owen Jones, in a series of tweets, defended the brutal antisemitic attacks last week in Amsterdam on Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans by of mostly Arab and Muslim gangs, we were not the least bit surprised. Why? Because, he’s a Guardian columnist, and his name is Owen Jones.

What we didn’t expect, however, is a report in The Times by their Europe editor Peter Conradi, and reporter Hugo Daniel, which went out of its way to playdown the clear antisemitic nature of the assaults – pre-planned anti-Jewish violence that was denounced by the Dutch prime minister, the Dutch King and local Amsterdam authorities.

The headline of the piece, interestingly, was appropriate (‘Father, you said Jews were safe’: stories from a shaken Amsterdam), quoting the son of an Israeli man who experienced the hateful mob, as were the opening paragraphs.

However, the tone beings to change in this paragraph:
As the Dutch government grapples with the repercussions, questions still have to be answered about what happened: was this an organised pogrom, as Netanyahu and others have suggested, or another example of how war in the Middle East is creating tension leading to violence in Europe?

First, it wasn’t only Netanyahu who called it a pogrom. The mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, said it evoked memories of pogroms against Jews throughout history. Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the US envoy to counter antisemitism, went further, saying that what occurred was “terribly reminiscent of a classic pogrom.”

Further, even though most Dutch authorities didn’t use the word “pogrom”, there was universal agreement that what occurred was clearly inspired by antisemitism, by gangs who coordinated in advance their “Jew Hunt“.
SENSATIONALIST BBC ‘GAZA WAR DEAD’ HEADLINE MISLEADS AUDIENCES
Nowhere in her report does Moench refer to the fact that IDF data shows that some 17,000 Hamas operatives and members of other terror groups have been killed by the IDF in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war, in addition to some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7th 2023.

Neither does she have anything to tell her readers about the relevant issue of the exploitation of child soldiers by Gaza Strip based terrorist organisations.

In paragraph two Moench notes that the UN report states that “some deaths may have been the result of errant projectiles by Palestinian armed groups” and in paragraph seventeen of her 24-paragraph article she makes another vague reference to the relevant issue of shortfall missiles fired by Palestinian terrorist organisations, such as the one fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad which caused the explosion at al Ahli hospital in October 2023, after which Hamas claimed 471 deaths.

“The UN said Palestinian armed groups have waged war from densely-populated areas and indiscriminately used projectiles, likely contributing to the death toll…”

Moench does not however clarify that the UN’s report makes no effort to distinguish between deaths caused by Israeli strikes and those resulting from “indiscriminately used projectiles”, meaning that the latter are included in its 70% claim.

Although she fails to provide her readers with any context concerning the long-standing anti-Israel bias of UN Human Rights bodies and officials, Moench provides plenty of uncritical amplification of their claims.


MEMRI: Reactions In Lebanon To Trump's Victory: Fear Among Hizbullah And Its Supporters, Optimism Among Their Opponents
Like many other issues in Lebanon, Donald Trump's presidential win has been a subject of disagreement between Lebanese supporters of Iran's resistance axis, led by Hizbullah, and their opponents in the country. Resistance axis supporters have expressed concerns and distrust regarding Trump's campaign promises to end wars and not start new ones, while opponents praised Trump and expressed their hopes that he will pursue aggressive policies against Iran and its proxies throughout the region, particularly in Lebanon.

At a government meeting that was held just as the election was called for Trump, interim Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati uttered only a brief and laconic message of congratulations. "There is no alternative," he said, "but to congratulate the president-elect and the American people for having actualized democracy."[1] Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri did not congratulate Trump, declaring that he would express his judgement only after seeing the outcome of Trump's term – that is, four years from now. Berri also criticized the Biden administration, saying that its support for the "genocide" Israel is perpetrating in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon is the reason that Kamala Harris lost to Trump.

This report will present notable examples of reactions by Lebanese politicians and in Lebanese media to Trump's re-election.

Hizbullah And Resistance Axis Supporters Express Fear, Pessimism Over Second Trump Term

As noted, Trump's victory was received with much concern among supporters of the resistance axis in Lebanon.

Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri: We Will Judge Trump By His Actions

Parliament speaker Nabih Berri, the leader of the Shi'ite Amal Movement and an ally of Hizbullah, refrained from congratulating Trump. In an interview with the Al-Mustaqbal online media outlet, he said he would not comment on Trump's victory "before four years have passed" – that is, before the end of Trump's term in office. Addressing Trump's campaign promise to end the war in Lebanon, Berri noted that during a visit to a Lebanese restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan – the city with an Arab majority[2] and the largest Muslim population in the U.S.[3] – Trump had "promised in writing [to act] for a ceasefire in Lebanon immediately upon his victory."[4]

Berri also attributed the defeat of the Democrats to the policy of President Biden, who, he said, had "watched from the sidelines as children were killed in Gaza and Lebanon."[5]

Muhammad Khawaja, a Lebanese MP from Berri's party, expressed pessimism regarding the ramifications for Trump's victory for the situation in Lebanon, saying that he does not expect a change in U.S. policy, particularly with regard to ties with Israel. He predicted that the U.S. would continue to support Israel, "with which," he said, "we are at open war."[6]


IAEA chief to make first visit to Iran since May
International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Grossi was set to arrive in Tehran on Wednesday for talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

Grossi told AFP at the COP29 climate summit in Baku on Tuesday that “the Iranian administration must understand that the international situation is becoming increasingly tense and that the margins to maneuver are beginning to shrink, and that it is imperative to find ways to reach diplomatic solutions.”

According to the IAEA’s statement on Grossi’s visit, he will hold “high-level meetings” with Iranian officials on the technical aspects of the regime’s nuclear program.

The visit will be Grossi’s first to Iran since May.

In his remarks to AFP on Tuesday, Grossi said he expects to work together with President elect Donald Trump on the issue.

“I already worked with the first Trump administration and we worked well together,” the IAEA chief said.

During his first term, in 2018 Trump pulled the United States out of the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran and stepped up sanctions on the regime in Tehran.

The Republican plans to renew his “maximum pressure” policy on Iran when he returns to the White House on Jan. 20, including issuing punishing sanctions and targeting Tehran’s oil income.

Sources briefed on Trump’s early plans told The Wall Street Journal on Friday that the harsh measures against the regime are part of an aggressive strategy to weaken the Islamic Republic’s support for its regional terrorist proxies and significantly harm its nuclear ambitions.
Iranian Capital Builds ‘Defensive Tunnel’ After Israeli Strikes
Iran is building a “defensive tunnel” in the capital Tehran, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Tuesday, following strikes by Israel on targets in the country.

The tunnel, located near the city center, will link a station on the Tehran metro to the Imam Khomeini hospital, thus allowing direct underground access to the medical facility.

“For the first time in the country, a tunnel with defensive applications is being built in Tehran,” the head of transport for Tehran City Council told Tasnim.

Last month, Israel carried out its first officially-recognized strikes in Iran, hitting missile factories and other sites near Tehran and in the country’s west, as a response to Iran‘s Oct.1 attack on Israeli territory.


‘Exploding pagers were purchased by Hezbollah,’ injured Iranian ambassador admits
Hezbollah purchased the devices in the pager detonation incident in the first place, admitted the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, who himself was wounded in the event.

During an interview with Islamic Republic outlet ISNA, Mojtaba Amani alleged that the pagers were not used for military purposes, accusing that their detonation constituted a war crime. He also testified that prior to the detonation, a “special beep” sounded and then a message appeared that read, “You have an important message,” triggering the detonation upon pushing a button to read it.

This confession comes following months of pro-Hezbollah outlets claiming that the pagers were not limited to Hezbollah members alone, despite Hezbollah themselves admitting that they were held by their members in the days following the incident.

Attempting to explain Hezbollah’s necessity for the pagers, Amani accused that Lebanon is “not a very strong country,” adding that it “does not have a president, and the prime minister is temporary.”

According to Amani, these facts led to Hezbollah’s purchasing of the pagers in an attempt to provide warnings from Israeli air raids. He also noted that since the incident, pagers are not being used, and Hezbollah members warn each other by shooting into the air.


Oregon man faces three years after pleading guilty to Reconstructionist synagogue vandalism
Adam Edward Braun of Eugene, Ore., pleaded guilty on Tuesday to defacing Temple Beth Israel, a Reconstructionist synagogue, with antisemitic graffiti and defacing the building with a hammer, the U.S. Justice Department stated.

The 34-year-old admitted to twice writing “1377,” which he said was similar to the neo-Nazi tag “1488”—a “popular white-supremacist slogan that references Adolf Hitler and the ‘Fourteen words,’” per the Justice Department—on the building on Sept. 10 or 11, 2023, and in January 2024, he “attempted to damage the synagogue’s glass doors using a ball-peen hammer.”

“Braun stopped when he saw he was being recorded by a surveillance camera and went to another area of the property where he spray-painted the slogan ‘white power’ in large letters,” according to the Justice Department.

When law enforcement searched Braun’s home, officers found “multiple pieces of evidence connecting Braun to the attacks on Temple Beth Israel,” per the Justice Department. “Investigators also found several items and writings belonging to Braun that were consistent with antisemitic beliefs and biases.”

The latter reportedly included a white Ku Klux Klan robe, a black Nazi flag and a copy of Mein Kampf.

He faces up to three years in prison, and “fines and restitution,” the department said.


Defending Israel ‘just duty to me,’ Dr. Phil tells JNS
Phil McGraw—better known as “Dr. Phil”—isn’t Jewish. But the trained clinical psychologist and host of the popular eponymous talk show told JNS exclusively that his staunch support of Israel is “really not anything other than just duty to me.”

“Everybody should be doing what I’m doing,” he said.

Dr. Phil has denounced Jew-hatred on his show, in interviews and in filmed segments. He told JNS that he was “appalled at the silence from so many people,” including colleagues and fellow broadcasters, “that should be speaking out about” Jew-hatred.

JNS spoke with the television personality on Nov. 7, during a Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center event in Toronto during which the nonprofit awarded Dr. Phil its 2024 Allyship Award.

“I don’t think what I’m doing is extraordinary,” he told JNS of the honor. “This is good versus evil.”

Dr. Phil never expected to hear the antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiments on U.S. college campuses, where students and professors “are encouraging or allowing this,” he told JNS. “They are absolutely supporting terrorist organizations,” he added, of those he called “useful idiots.”

“How do they not get that, and how are people in the United States not standing up and calling this out more than they are?” he said.

Among many of McGraw’s social media posts about Israel are references to a “life-changing” visit to the Jewish state to see Hamas’s destruction, “being in Israel will forever be etched in my memory and my soul” and an “absolutely overwhelming” visit to the Nova music festival site.

More than 1,500 people attended the Nov. 7 event, during which the film director Barry Avrich interviewed McGraw about the latter’s recent trip to Israel. (The annual event also honored eight other Jewish “allies.”)
Burning bridges: Israeli cure could combat fatal breast cancer
“Build your enemy a golden bridge to retreat across” is a piece of advice offered by Sun Tzu in his ancient military treatise, The Art of War. It turns out that cancerous growths adopt this strategy in their battle against the immune system.

In a new study being published in Cell Reports, researchers from Prof. Idit Shachar’s laboratory at the Weizmann Institute of Science have discovered that a certain type of aggressive breast cancer prompts nearby immune cells to build “molecular bridges” between themselves, which causes these cells to refrain from attacking the cancer and leads to immune suppression.

An antibody treatment that blocks the building of these bridges was shown to restore the immune system’s ability to attack with force, inhibiting the cancer’s progression in a mouse model. In the past, cancer treatment focused on destroying the malignant cells by, for example, using radiation treatment or chemotherapy. In recent decades, however, it has become evident that a tumor’s development depends on the communication between the cancer and the nearby noncancerous cells.

In an earlier study, researchers from Shachar’s lab in Weizmann’s Systems Immunology Department showed that blood cancer cells create “molecular bridges” with nearby support cells in order to survive and proliferate – otherwise they die within a matter of days. The researchers identified a protein, CD84 (SLAMF5), that is used to construct these bridges: When this protein is present on the surface of a specific immune cell, it can bind to a similar protein on a different cell, creating an intercellular bridge.

In the type of blood cancer studied, CD84 is expressed in high quantities on the cancerous cells themselves, creating physical bridges between these cells and adjacent ones. The researchers even developed an antibody that blocks the bridges, slowing down the disease. As a result of these findings, the scientists began collaborating with the City of Hope cancer treatment and research center in California.
Is Israel the Scariest or Happiest Country? | Unpacked
In a region fraught with conflict, Israel consistently ranks as one of the happiest nations on earth. Bound by family, united through community, and strengthened by a shared resilience, Israelis embrace life amid adversity.

Choosing hope over despair, their happiness endures not because life is easy, but because choosing happiness is a defiant act of faith in a place where life is cherished, even in the toughest of times.

00:00 Intro
00:46 Factors of life happiness
01:10 Social cohesion
03:48 Sense of purpose
06:55 Free and open society
10:27 Sense of unity
12:40 Optimism, resilience, and hope


Oldest inscribed Ten Commandments to be auctioned in December
Auction house Sotheby’s New York plans to auction the oldest known inscribed tablet of the Ten Commandments next month, with an estimated value of $1-2 million.

The marble tablet, weighing 52 kilograms (115 pounds) and standing two feet tall, was likely carved in the late Roman or Byzantine period (c. 300-800 CE) and features a formulation of the Ten Commandments that is almost identical to what appears in the Hebrew Bible today.

The tablet’s inscription is written in a version of Paleo-Hebrew, the alphabet that was replaced among ancient Judeans in the last centuries before the common era.

The script remained in use among the Samaritan people, who share ancestry with the modern-day Jewish people but split off at least two thousand years ago, appearing in the New Testament’s “Good Samaritan” parable. Today, they number less than 1,000, and hold both Israeli and Palestinian citizenship.

The tablet includes a commandment to worship at Mount Gerizim, the Samaritan site in the modern-day West Bank that is roughly equivalent to the Temple Mount for mainstream Jews.

That commandment — which appears tenth, as a version of it does today in the Samaritan tradition — is one of the inscription’s only deviations from the formulation that appears in the Hebrew Bible.
In newly released 1974 recording, Rabin pushes for diplomacy alongside military power
In a 1974 recording released for the first time on Wednesday, Yitzhak Rabin, the assassinated general-turned-statesman, is heard saying that peace can only be achieved with Israel’s enemies through a combination of military power and political negotiations.

The remarks, made during a meeting of the Israel Defense Forces’ General Staff, resonated with today’s discussions of how to resolve the ongoing war against Iran and its proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere.

The recording, which runs some 30 minutes, was published by the Defense Ministry’s IDF Archive to mark the 29th anniversary of Rabin’s assassination, on the country’s official memorial day for the late prime minister according to the Hebrew calendar.

“In the Arab-Israeli conflict, I don’t see a way to arrive at a solution through military means,” Rabin said in the meeting. “If there is any chance, and I’m not sure there is, to arrive at a solution to the conflict, it is only by way of political negotiations.”

He added, however, that “political negotiations must also rely on military power, because without military power, there will be no political negotiations at all.”

The discussion took place shortly after the Yom Kippur War, during Rabin’s first term as prime minister. The country was still years away from signing its first peace treaty with an Arab neighbor, and decades away from the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, signed in 1993 after Rabin returned to the premiership.

The recording was published some thirteen months after the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023 terror onslaught started an ongoing war, and as Israel seeks to free 101 hostages, living and dead, from the terror group’s captivity in Gaza.

Conflict over how to resolve the ongoing war has riven Israel, with weekly protests demanding a hostage-ceasefire deal to secure the captives’ release, met with insistence by parts of the political echelon that only military pressure will bring the return of the hostages and assure Israel’s security going forward.

In the recording, the IDF brass discuss the possibility of territorial concessions in exchange for peace — the model adopted in negotiations with Egypt several years later, as well as ultimately with the Palestinians, through the two-state solution framework on which Oslo, which was never fully realized, was based.

“There’s nothing to give up. The Arabs’ aspiration is not to make peace with us, but to destroy the state,” says General Rafael Eitan, who later became the IDF chief of staff, though his further comments are less absolute.

“The only place we could compromise a little is Sinai,” he says, referring to the desert peninsula that Israel captured from Egypt during the Six Day War, and would later return as part of a peace accord.

“If the Syrians today were ready for true peace, I would personally return the Golan Heights to them,” Eitan says, in addition. The Golan Heights remain a part of Israel more than fifty years later having been annexed, as the relationship with Syria remains hostile.

In the recording, Rabin stresses his belief that in the long term, peace is a necessity, but says it’s not a possibility in the immediate future, and he rejects, for that time, the possibility of a Palestinian state in the West Bank.




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