Friday, November 22, 2024

11/22 Links Pt2: The international system is broken beyond repair; Released hostage describes terrorists bringing civilians to observe him

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The international system is broken beyond repair
Since Oct. 7, the outgoing Biden administration has been playing a game of footsie with the U.N. system. While paying lip service to Israel’s right to self-defense, President Joe Biden and his advisers have enabled and emboldened the world body and its agencies to side with Hamas by refusing at every turn to take any action against agencies siding with or aiding and abetting Hamas.

Consider UNRWA. On Oct. 7, UNRWA employees in Gaza participated in the atrocities. As the weeks and months passed, it became apparent that UNRWA was Hamas’s diplomatic and welfare arm. Its infrastructure was enmeshed in Hamas’s terror infrastructure. Its personnel were Hamas personnel. And this was by design.

UN Watch revealed this week that in 2017, then UNRWA head Pierre Krähenbühl met with Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror commanders in Beirut and pledged to work with them in full partnership. Krähenbühl , who now heads the International Committee for the Red Cross, emphasizes the “spirit of partnership” between UNRWA and the terrorist organizations. He urged them to keep the cooperation private to avoid angering UNRWA’s donors and endangering its funding.

Although the administration cut off funding to UNRWA after its employees’ involvement in the Oct. 7 atrocities was exposed, the U.S. State Department has repeatedly extolled UNRWA, promised to restore funding and threatened Israel with arms embargoes if it cuts off the U.N.’s in-house terror group. So the administration’s actual policy is to support UNRWA even as its terrorist activities have become undeniable.

Then there is the International Court of Justice. Two months after Oct. 7, the ICJ began to adjudicate South Africa’s allegation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Despite the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever to support the scandalous allegation, the ICJ agreed to hear the case. So today, Israel is on trial for the crimes Hamas and its supporters carried out against the State of Israel.

While decrying the trial, the Biden administration did nothing to intervene on Israel’s behalf with the ICJ. It placed no pressure on South Africa to withdraw its case.

By taking no action against the ICJ or South Africa, the Biden administration indirectly but clearly supported their decision to place Israel on the dock.

Last week, the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism revealed that the South African government and African National Congress (ANC) governing party are bankrolled by Hamas, and its state sponsors Iran and Qatar. So in effect, South Africa is acting as their agent. The actual party accusing Israel of genocide is Hamas, which actually continues its war of genocide still today.

Finally, we come to the International Criminal Court. For the past 15 years, the ICC has been working with Palestinian terrorists to build a legal fiction where Israel, which is not a member of the ICC and over whom the ICC has no jurisdiction is a terrorist organization; and the terror-infused, PLO-controlled, and Hamas aligned-Palestinian Authority is a sovereign state empowered to give the ICC jurisdiction over Israel.

Recognizing the threat the ICC posed not only to Israel but to the United States itself, during his first term, President-elect Donald Trump issued an Executive Order that required sanctions be imposed on ICC staff in the event the institution issued arrest warrants against U.S. military personnel or U.S. allies, including Israel.

Upon entering office, Biden canceled the Executive Order. He refused to reissue it following ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s announcement last May that he intended to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant. When the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill legislating the sanctions that appeared in Trump’s executive order, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) blocked it from being launched in the Senate.

Through its actions, the administration actively protected the ICC—and indirectly encouraged the ICC in its hostile, unlawful acts against Israel. And, just to be clear, the act in question is kidnapping. Netanyahu and Gallant have committed no war crimes and no atrocities. The ICC is acting without legal authority, outside the bounds of international law, with no evidence of any crime save claims from terrorists who are themselves war criminals. Its decision to issue international arrest warrants under the circumstances renders the ICC nothing more than a kidnapping ring. And every ICC member nation that agrees to execute the warrants is a member of the ring.

By enabling the international system to escalate its war against Israel and its people, the Biden administration completed the process initiated 50 years ago at the United Nations. Although Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken have repeatedly protested their commitment to protecting the liberal world order, their actions in office have transformed the U.N.-based system into a mechanism for the advancement of the genocide of Jews and the destruction of the Judeo-Christian civilization.

These institutions are now beyond repair. They cannot be reformed, only dismantled. To this end, Israel, the Jews and the world are lucky that Trump has the courage to clean up the mess his predecessor is leaving and dismantle the now-broken international system that is Biden’s legacy.
Ruthie Blum: Penalizing the criminal international court
Senate Majority Leader-elect John Thune (R-S.D.) on Thursday called the International Criminal Court’s issuing of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant “outrageous, unlawful and dangerous.”

Thune then demanded that current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) “bring a bill to the floor sanctioning the ICC,” warning that “if he chooses not to act, the new Senate Republican majority next year will.”

The double threat—aimed simultaneously at Schumer and the kangaroo court at The Hague—was significant for two reasons.

First, Thune has good reason to finger-wag at his Democrat counterparts, thanks to their disturbing attitude towards Israel. Professing an “ironclad commitment” to the Jewish state’s “right to defend itself” while withholding crucial arms shipments to America’s key ally and only democracy in the Middle East has made them deserving of suspicion by the likes of Thune and the rest of the unflinchingly pro-Israel Republicans.

The fact that a whopping 19 Democrat senators voted this week to advance resolutions put forth by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to block the transfer to Jerusalem of offensive weaponry necessary for its self-defense is a case in point.

Though Schumer—like President Joe Biden and other members of his party who have been critical of Israel’s prosecution of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon—opposed those resolutions, they’ve been openly hostile to the Netanyahu government since its inception; so much so that they’ve never concealed their desire for it to be toppled.

Second, there are concrete steps that the powers that be in D.C. can take against the ICC, such as the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, passed in May by the U.S. House of Representatives. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday reiterated his demand that the Senate vote on it “immediately.”

Similar to Thune, Johnson pulled no punches.

“The ICC’s decision to target America’s ally, Israel, is antisemitic, reprehensible and completely ridiculous,” he declared. “It has absolutely no jurisdiction over Israel or the United States, and these illegitimate warrants are an attack on the very concepts of sovereignty and due process. … If Senator Schumer and President Biden do not act now, they will most assuredly invite future lawfare against Israel and the United States. We cannot afford to show weakness.”

It’s a bit late for Biden and the Democrats to hide their weakness, however, since they long ago let the ICC off the hook. They did this by canceling Executive Order 13928—“Blocking Property of Certain Persons Associated with the International Criminal Court”—signed on June 11, 2020, by President-elect Donald Trump during his first term in the White House.

The impetus for the order, which went into effect three months later, was the repeated attempt by then-ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and co-worker Phakiso Mochochoko to investigate “war crimes” committed in Afghanistan by the Taliban, Afghani forces and—you guessed it—the American military.
ICC arrest warrants against Israel could cut both ways
Israel has rejected allegations that it targets civilians, stressing its consistent and robust efforts to spare civilian lives in Gaza and beyond.

Beyond the international response to Israel’s defensive actions, the ICC warrants are an escalation in a broader struggle for sovereignty waged between democracies led by elected leaders and global institutions with unelected or unrepresentative leaderships, said Andrew Tucker, director of The Hague Initiative for International Cooperation, or thinc.

“We’ve seen an incredible reliance on this global legal system to achieve world peace and security. But the problem is that Western states hold themselves to the highest legal standards, while terror groups and many non-Western states remain unaccountable. The court’s approach will have a chilling effect that threatens the security of Western states. With these Israeli arrest warrants, every Western state faces now the question: Are we going to continue to put our faith and trust in these global institutions,” said Tucker, whose Netherlands-based research institution focuses on exposing and educating on international lawfare.

In Tucker’s view, the warrants are an expression of a desire by the court and its prosecutor Karim Khan to go after Israel. But in so doing, Tucker said, this legal action is threatening to disarm other democracies of counter-terrorism tools.

“Europe is going to face potentially a wave of terrorist activities and attacks,” he said. “What are they allowed to do under international law to defend themselves against terror? If this is the direction that the court is taking, then Western countries are held to an extremely high standard while the enemy is completely unaccountable.”

Sharansky opined that the ICC move against Netanyahu could expose court officials to punitive action by the United States under Trump, and that the ICJ one could cost the United Nations billions of dollars in U.S. funding.

Ultimately, however, Israelis need to assess the arrest warrants in the context of their country’s war against Iran and its proxies, Sharansky argued. “The PR is of secondary importance. Right now, Hamas is on the ropes and so is Hezbollah. The warrants give our enemies new hope, and that’s their main damage. I’m concerned by it,” he said.

Yair GolanThen-Israeli Deputy Economy Minister Yair Golan speaks during a conference organized by Commanders for Israel’s Security in Herzliya on Oct. 2, 2022. Photo by Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90. But Sharansky is also encouraged by some of what followed the arrest warrants. One encouraging effect, he said. has been the united condemnation of the warrants by all Zionist parties, including the ones harshly critical of Netanyahu, among them the left-wing The Democrats party under former IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. (res.) Yair Golan.

The ICC warrants are based “on an antisemitic blood libel,” Sharansky said, “but there’s an important difference with previous blood libels.” Amid a resurgence of pro-Israel voices and movements in Europe and throughout the West, he said, “Jews do not stand alone in seeing and calling out the mendacious blood libel.

“A significant part of the world stands with us. And we just need to stand firm until enough people recognize these blood libels so that they’re no longer possible,” Sharansky said.


Uri Kurlianchik: Nakba, nakhsa, на хуй
The Arabs consider only two wars against Israel as defeats: The Nakba in 1948 and the Nakhsa in 1967. The reason for this is that they measure defeat only in terms of land loss. I'm not talking about the movement of political borders, but about regions that are no longer inhabited by Arabs. Lost homes, lost fields, lost groves. Places where they had once lived but can never visit again. Keys without doors.

This is why, despite a crushing battlefield defeat in 1973, the Arabs don't feel they've lost the war. While Israel came to control a huge swath of Arab territory after destroying the Syrian and Egyptian armies, no Arab communities were displaced. There were no columns of refugees and no people with useless keys hanging from their necks.

The Middle Eastern equation is very simple.

No mass displacement = no victory.

Anyone telling you otherwise is fantasizing. Any loss except land loss is immaterial. The enemy is willing to suffer greatly to restore his lost honor. Where did he give up and admit defeat? In medieval Spain. Why? Because he were truly defeated there. Not because Christians armies defeated Muslim armies, but because the Muslims were displaced from Spain.

Total displacement = total victory.

As most wars have shown, despite being a very tough people, the enemy is not immovable. Hundreds of thousands fled their homes in '48 and '67 (even though no organized effort was made to displace them) and almost three millions fled their homes in Gaza and Lebanon now.

In Lebanon, a single tweet from Avichay Adraee is enough to send thousands packing. They don’t even need to see Jews with guns. Just an alert is enough. Millions more have fled Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon during intra-Arab wars.

Turns out that the “true owners of the land” can leave it after all.

This brings me to my main point: only displacement can bring security to Israel and peace to the region. Israel isn't an empire. The IDF was created to defeat armies in quick wars, not to be a giant police force.

Israel has neither the mindset nor the resources to rule over millions of hostile people. Nor does it or those people gain anything from such rule. It’s an exercise in sadomasochism. Nevertheless, for almost 60 years, this is exactly how Israel has been behaving, in total contradiction to common sense or reality.


IsraelCast | Matti Friedman
An author and reporter who was in the Jerusalem bureau of the Associated Press, Matti Friedman has a firsthand look at how often many news agencies distort the facts when it comes to Israel. Both American and international organizations consistently appear to have a bias against the Jewish State, while social media has become a cesspool of antisemitism. Host Steven Shalowitz sits down with Matti Friedman once again to discuss what the media gets wrong about the Middle East conflict, the issue with people turning to social media for news, and the United Nation’s role in legitimizing anti-Israel sentiments.

Matti Friedman is an award-winning journalist and author. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Tablet, Smithsonian, and elsewhere. Friedman’s most recent book, Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai, was published in 2022 and chosen by Vanity Fair as one of the best books of the year. His previous book, Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel, won the 2019 Natan Prize and the Canadian Jewish Book Award. Another of his books, Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War, was chosen in 2016 as a New York Times Notable Book and one of Amazon’s ten best books of the year.


Trump’s Win Proves Legacy Media Doesn’t Matter Anymore w/Matt Continetti | Think Twice
Was President-elect Donald Trump’s win a final repudiation of the mainstream media’s power over the electorate? Was it a rejection of the wokeism, or did the Democrats not go far enough?

On the latest episode of "Think Twice," JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin is joined by author Matthew Continetti to talk about the election results, what is says about the Republican and Democratic parties and what it says about the everyday traditional American.

Chapters
00:00 Cultural shifts in media and politics
04:36 The new Republican majority
12:46 Trump's governance and congressional dynamics
18:57 Changing political divides: Race, education, and identity
24:14 The decline of the never-Trump movement
30:28 The rise of new media
35:12 Democratic Party challenges and future directions
38:29 Trump's foreign policy: Realism vs. isolationism


Stephen Daisley: Allison through the looking glass
Per Pearson’s account, the officers explained that a complaint had been received about a tweet she posted a year ago. She asked which tweet. They said they weren’t allowed to tell her. Well, she persevered, who had filed the complaint? They weren’t allowed to tell her that, either. What’s more, one of the officers corrected the columnist when she referred to this mystery individual as her ‘accuser’. ‘It’s not the accuser,’ the constable told her. ‘They’re called the victim.’

Here was one of Britain’s most widely-read journalists, confronted on her doorstep by police officers and told she was under investigation not for committing any crime but for expressing unspecified views which an unspecified person considered hateful. The irony was not lost on Pearson that this happened on Remembrance Sunday, when the UK commemorates its veterans and those who fell in war and which Britons associate with the freedoms and democracy that past generations secured for them.

Worse, however, was to come. Essex Police told Pearson’s newspaper that, in fact, it would be investigating the tweet as a criminal matter, citing Section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986, which criminalises material ‘likely or intended to cause racial hatred’. While the police wouldn’t specify the offending tweet, Pearson’s accuser — sorry, the victim — allegedly told The Guardian that it related to a quote tweet the columnist had posted in the wake of October 7, amid a series of virulently anti-Israel marches through the streets of London. Reposting an image of police officers posing with flag-waving South Asian people she thought were anti-Israel marchers, Pearson stated: ‘Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters.’ She deleted the post when informed that those depicted were not pro-Palestinian demonstrators and were actually flying a flag associated with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, an Islamic party founded by Imran Khan. The image had nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was from a different timeframe, and the people featured were not expressing any views about Israel, Jews, or anything related. To label them ‘Jew haters’, and to do so without confirming the provenance of the image or the nature of the cause they were espousing, was a severe error of judgement on Pearson’s part.

But is it a matter for the police? People make mistakes on Twitter every day, including and perhaps especially those who are in the opinion journalism business, and we do not expect law enforcement to appear on their doorstep. The appropriate course of action would surely have been for Pearson to apologise to those depicted in the image and, if requested, make some form of restitution. (In fact, according to The Guardian, the complainer wasn’t any of the people in the image but a former public servant.)

Late on Thursday afternoon, it was reported that Essex Police had decided not to pursue its investigation. Pearson is a member of the Free Speech Union, a sort of NATO for writers, campaigners, and others who care about free expression, and the organisation retained a leading criminal barrister to represent her. Pearson’s ten-day ordeal is thankfully now over but that should not be the end of the matter. This episode should prompt not only a rethink of non-crime hate incidents but of the scope of stirring up offences in English criminal law, especially those related to online material and communications.
‘Animals at a zoo’: Released hostage describes terrorists bringing civilians to observe him
Released hostage Ofir Engel revealed the mistreatment and abuse Hamas terrorists subjected him and his girlfriend's family to on Oct.7 and as captives in Gaza in an interview with the Jewish News Syndicate published on Thursday.

The now-19-year-old Engel was abducted from Kibbutz Beeri on Oct.7, where he was observing Simchat Torah with his girlfriend Yuval Sharabi and her family. They were sleeping at 6:30 in the morning when rocket sirens woke them. He was 17 at the time Hamas abducted him.

“But the [sirens] didn’t stop,” Engel told JNS. “After two-and-a-half hours, friends started sending scary messages about hearing terrorists outside their houses and pleading for the army to arrive.”

Slowly realizing the seriousness of the situation, Engel read of the news of the invading terrorists - learning of the ongoing massacre from survivors and witnesses. The terrorists would soon make their way to the Sharabi home.

“After six hours, we heard a large ‘boom’ coming from the entrance to the house. We heard terrorists roaming around inside while we were still all in the safe room,” he recalled. “A few minutes later, they tried opening the door to the room. Yuval’s dad, Yossi, was holding it closed. But he wasn’t able to overcome the three terrorists pushing it open.”

When the terrorists eventually forced their entry into the safe room, Engel said the first thing they did was shoot the family’s dog.

“They entered armed. The first thing they did was shoot Yuval’s dog. They then pointed their guns at us,” he described. “They made us sit outside on the grass with the neighbors, the Shani family. Smoke was everywhere, as was the smell of gunpowder.”

The family was later taken to Gaza where they were held captive.

“They put Yuval’s father inside. Yuval and I were holding hands. At first, they put us both inside, but then they signaled to her to get out. They put Amit Shani, the young son of the neighbor, inside instead, and we drove away, speeding like crazy,” Engel said. “The last image I had of Yuval and all of her family, other than her father, was of them on the side of the road surrounded by two armed terrorists as we drove away. I was sure they either had been kidnapped or were murdered that day.”


An embassy in disguise
Members of the Israeli Knesset from the coalition and the opposition recently came together in an act of unity and clarity, and despite heavy political pressure, approved the second and third readings of an amendment to Israel’s Sixth Basic Law, “Jerusalem, the Capital of Israel,” prohibiting the establishment of foreign consulates in Israel’s capital.

The bill, initiated by Knesset members Dan Illouz and Ze’ev Elkin, seeks to prevent the establishment of consulates dedicated to Palestinians, with the understanding that consulates of this sort would grant de facto recognition to a Palestinian state and prop up the dangerous “two-state solution” that is now in its death throes.

The bill was passed just days before the dramatic U.S. elections and for good reason. Media predictions and a reasonable grasp of reality led to concern among Israeli legislators that if the Democrats won and Vice President Kamala Harris were to take up residence in the White House, she would act without delay to fulfill her commitment to establishing a consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem. The Illouz-Elkin amendment would have hindered and perhaps even prevented this move.

So far, so good, as the saying goes—but only on paper. The reality on the ground is that there is in fact, a foreign embassy to “Palestine” in Jerusalem.

In 2018, then-President Donald Trump made the historic and courageous decision to finally allow the relocation of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The Arab world fumed, but the move went ahead nonetheless, enjoying virtually wall-to-wall support among the Israeli public. A few years later, during the tenure of the Naftali Bennett-Yair Lapid government in Israel, the Biden-Harris administration sought to establish the “Consulate for Palestinian Affairs” in the building that had previously housed the American consulate in Jerusalem. The move was a means of appeasing the Palestinian lobby and turning back the Trump administration’s demands for Palestinian accountability and negotiated compromise.

To be clear, there has never in the history of diplomatic relations been a comparable situation anywhere in the world. No country has ever maintained an embassy and a consulate in the same city. The Biden administration’s attempt to pull the wool over Israelis’ eyes failed; large-scale public protests ensued, the Israeli government pushed back and the project was shelved, but only on paper. The Biden administration repackaged it, and the “Office of Palestine Affairs” was born. Housed in the U.S. consulate building on Agron Street in western Jerusalem, the OPA is, for all intents and purposes, an embassy, and not even a mere consulate, to the non-existent state of Palestine.


Sending a message to Assad: New details behind the unusual attack in Syria blamed on Israel
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition organization based in London, reported Thursday evening that at least 82 terrorists and commanders in the pro-Iranian militias and the Lebanese Hezbollah organization were killed in the unusual attack in Syria attributed to Israel in Tadmor. According to the group, 56 of the dead are Syrians affiliated with the pro-Iranian militias, and 22 are of non-Syrian nationality, most of them from the pro-Iranian Iraqi al-Nujaba militia. Next to them, four Hezbollah members also were killed.

If the reports are correct, it appears that this is a message to Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is hosting senior members of Hezbollah, and therefore Israel is increasing the pressure on the terrorist organization, precisely at the height of negotiations toward a cease-fire, and maximizing success in hitting it not only in Lebanon.

Najat Rochdi, the UN's special deputy envoy for Syria, expressed concern about the escalation in the region, telling the UN Security Council that "the Israeli attacks are probably the deadliest that have hit Syria so far." According to her, "Israeli attacks in Syria have increased significantly, both in frequency and scope."

She pointed out that Israel says its attacks are aimed at targets related to Iran, Hezbollah or the Islamic Jihad, but in practice "there are civilian casualties, including in large attacks on residential areas in the heart of Damascus" that took place recently. She also expressed concern about the "volatile situation" in the Golan Heights and northwestern Syria, and clarified that "this year is on track to be the most violent in Syria since 2020, and the risk of even greater destruction is still on the horizon."

After Wednesday's attack, which targeted the city of Tadmor in the Syrian desert, the Ministry of Defense in Syria claimed that Israel attacked from the air from the area of ​​the American military base at Tanaf, which is located in the Syria-Jordan-Iraq border triangle. The ministry has so far reported only 36 deaths, in contrast to the number stated by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and also significant material damage to the buildings that came under attack and their surroundings.
Hizballah’s New Leader Doesn’t Have What It Takes to Maintain the Public’s Trust
On Wednesday, Naim Qassem made his third public appearance since becoming the secretary-general of Hizballah. A Lebanese writer using the pseudonym Nassim Badani provides a portrait of Qassem, whom he describes as lacking the charisma that contributed to the success of his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah. While Badani’s assertion that the IDF has killed “thousands” of Lebanese civilians in the current war is dubious, as are his claims that Hizballah has “thwarted Isarel ground advances” and struck “key military installations,” his analysis of Qassem is worth reading:
The cream of the crop [of Hizballah’s leadership] is gone, mowed down by superior Israeli intelligence. The varsity team has left the field and the freshmen do not seem up to the task.

And it shows. In his first appearance after Nasrallah’s killing, Qassem looked like he was speaking to us from a closet. Seeming more schoolkid than orator, he looked like he was reciting homework rather than delivering a speech at a time of unprecedented hardship for his organization, days after their leader was killed. He counted out points with his hand and often referred to a cheat sheet in front of him. He looked like a novice actor failing to convey the emotions demanded by the contents of his script.

Qassem is thus ill-suited to restoring the trust of the Shiite public, which, according to Badani, Hizballah is rapidly losing:
The country’s brightest young brains are being extinguished on Lebanon’s southern front, their sacrifice offering no real strategic gain. . . . Hizballah’s people will be asking questions, if the war ever ends. They will want to know why they entered a conflict that got their beloved leader killed for no apparent purpose. Why did their loved ones die? Why were their homes destroyed? Who will rebuild them?


Four Italian soldiers injured in strike at UNIFIL base in Lebanon, gov't sources say
Four Italian soldiers were lightly injured after two rockets exploded at a UNIFIL peacekeeping force base in southern Lebanon, the Rome government said on Friday, expressing outrage at the incident.

The UN mission known as UNIFIL is stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the demarcation line with Israel -- an area that has seen fierce clashes this month between Israeli troops and Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists.

Since Israel launched a ground campaign across the border against Hezbollah terrorists at the end of September, UNIFIL soldiers have suffered several attacks. Investigating the circumstances

"I reiterate once again that such attacks are unacceptable and I renew my call for the parties on the ground to ensure the safety of UNIFIL soldiers at all times and to work together to quickly identify those responsible," Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a statement.

Italian sources said an investigation into the facts was under way. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told Italian media that Hezbollah might be responsible for the attack.

The defence ministry said in a statement that the two 122mm rockets hit a bunker in the base at Chama village and a room near the international military police headquarters, causing damage to the surrounding infrastructure.


The story of IDF soldier Dor Almog, sole survivor of catastrophe in Gaza where 21 soldiers fell

JackCarrUSA: Sleep Deprived and Under Fire: The Warzone Reality in Gaza In this clip from Danger Close Podcast, Doron Keidar discuses the warzone reality in Gaza, sleep-deprived and under fire.



Anti-Israel activists condemned over protest at Goldsmiths co-existence event
A Goldsmiths University event featuring Palestinian and Israeli speakers calling for co-existence in the Middle East has been picketed by activists claiming they were “appalled” students and some staff members are “collaborating with Together for Humanity” and “upholding Zionism on campus.”

A group of anti-Israel activists congregated outside the hall staging the meeting at the London university, which featured speakers Mira Awad, the Palestinian-Israeli singer and campaigner, Hamze Awawde, a Palestinian peace activist born in Hebron, and Magen Inon, the Israeli teacher now based in London who parents were murdered on October 7.

They held aloft a banner reading “Normalisation Is Annihilation”, while circulating a claim that the event “violates the BDS guidelines set out by Palestinian people because it refuses to name and works to normalise the genocide, occupation, and apartheid being committed in and against Palestine.”

The online messaged added: Let’s make clear that there are NO ‘TWO SIDES’ IN GENOCIDE.”

Ahead the event, the latest to be organised by the pro-peace and pro-co-existence group Together For Humanity, Goldsmiths University and College Union had issued a statement in support of a boycott of the event.

The union went further and said it would support an occupation of the Professor Stuart Hall building in order to prevent the event taking place. Goldsmiths University College Union confirm boycott of pro-peace event

But on Wednesday, only around 20 activists appeared to have turned up to attempt to occupy the building and prevented from entering by security guards.
‘Free Palestine’ gatecrasher burns Israel flag at Jewish student party
Educational charity StandWithUs UK and the Union of Jewish Students have condemned the burning of an Israeli flag at a Jewish student event in London.

According to several witnesses, people who were not guests at the evening co-sponsored by both communal groups, shouted “Free Palestine” when they noticed the Israeli decorations at the venue. The individuals were given a warning by the venue management that they would be removed if they repeated the chant.

Reportedly, one of these people then approached the DJ stand at the event on Tuesday night and began burning the Israeli flags with a lighter. The individual was stopped, removed from the area and spoken to by police, who are continuing to investigate the incident.

A spokesperson for StandWithUs UK said were “appalled by the actions of the individual who felt that they could burn the emblems of the only Jewish State in the world during a party for Jewish students. We appreciate the support of the police and the CST and are cooperating with the investigation into this incident.”

StandWithUs UK executive director Isaac Zarfati said: ‘We commend those students who organised and attended the event. Despite the hateful actions, the event was a resounding success and highlights the strong desire from Jewish and Zionist students to express their support for Israel. StandWithUs UK will continue to support Zionist students on campus and will not be intimidated by the actions of a few to deter support for Israel.’

In a statement posted to Twitter/X, UJS said it “unequivocally condemns the burning of Israeli flags displayed at the annual “TLV Takes LDN” event, and the verbal abuse received by some students leaving the venue.”
Trump’s new AG nominee Pam Bondi called for crackdowns on pro-Hamas protesters
President-elect Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he intends to nominate former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to serve as his attorney general, hours after former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) declined the nomination amid increasing scrutiny of allegations of past sexual misconduct and sex trafficking.

Bondi served as Florida’s attorney general from 2011 to 2019 and has been a longtime fixture in Trump’s orbit and the conservative media world, including serving as one of his attorneys in his first impeachment trial and taking a leading role in his efforts to contest the 2020 election results.

Gaetz’s nomination raised red flags in the Jewish community, given his checkered record on antisemitism, but Bondi is likely to be received more positively.

In an October 2023 appearance on Newsmax, Bondi expressed concern about antisemitism, particularly on college campuses, and delivered comments that suggest she’ll take an aggressive approach to anti-Israel protests on campuses.

“The thing that’s really the most troubling to me [are] these students in universities in our country, whether they’re here as Americans or if they’re here on student visas, and they’re out there saying ‘I support Hamas.’” Bondi said. “Frankly they need to be taken out of our country or the FBI needs to be interviewing them right away.”

She also called for revoking student visas from non-citizens involved in such activity and reimposing the Trump travel ban targeting several Muslim majority countries.

“It’s truly, truly heartbreaking to see what’s happening to all of our Jewish friends in this country,” Bondi continued, “by really just, I think, a lot of ignorant kids, and students, and people who don’t understand that Hamas equals terrorism.”

In a 2018 Fox News appearance, Bondi also expressed support for the Trump administration’s Israel and Middle East policy and called Israel “our greatest ally in the world.”


Chasing the anti-Israel vitriol of part-time protesters
The search is over. The search for the perfect protester interview. It ended this weekend with the clash of a cowbell, exactly two years to the month and three conferences later.

Allow me to explain.

At the annual Jewish National Fund-USA held in Boston in November 2022, a ragtag group of three dozen or so anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport on an unseasonably warm Saturday afternoon. Holding makeshift signs that read “Kill colonialism,” “End all U.S. aid to Israel” and “Land is the basis for freedom and equality,” and shouting inaudibly through a bullhorn, they slogged back and forth for about an hour, murmuring slogans that seem more irritating than foreboding. They were almost all on the younger side, some draped in keffiyehs or Palestinian flags. Several news stories ran afterwards but nothing that made policy headlines or seemed at all prescient.

Being that it was Shabbat, the weekly Jewish day of rest—a fact the demonstrators knew so they’d have an audience that for the most part wouldn’t take notes or photos—it drew onlookers for a while. But most conference attendees quickly returned to their social circles or the outdoor pool area, open on a rare fall day in New England that reached 81 degrees.

At the time, I wondered about all the fuss against the pushke charity, known for its blue boxes that the well-meaning use to collect coins for the Jewish cause. JNF was established in 1901, before the establishment of the modern-day State of Israel. It signified planting trees, and later, the conservation and reuse of water. Others pointed to the fact that in the minds of protesters, it was about something else completely: being the usurper of land. Arab land.

That’s not the case, of course, but optics can be powerful. They can be transformative. And often very deceiving.

Fast-forward to November 2023, when the same conference was held in Denver under very different circumstances. It took place less than a month after the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7—an assault that killed 1,200, wounded thousands, and saw 251 men, women and children taken captive into the Gaza Strip. Emotions were raw—so raw that the proceedings drew 2,500 people for the chance to grieve and convene together.

To attend the opening plenary on the first night of the conference, the crowd of attendees had to walk from the Hyatt Regency to the Colorado Convention Center one long block away. Police had screened off a path of sorts to separate conference participants from the protesters. It didn’t work out so well; the rally-goers rattled the makeshift fence while they spit, cursed, clanged cowbells, blew horns, and bellowed anti-Israel and anti-Jewish slogans.


Jay Rayner accuses Guardian of employing antisemites
The restaurant critic Jay Rayner has accused the Guardian of employing antisemites and claimed the newspaper’s editor is lacking the courage to take them on after he quit sister title the Observer.

In a message to friends on Facebook, Rayner criticised editor Katharine Viner as he said: “For years now being Jewish, however non-observant, and working for the company has been uncomfortable, at times excruciating.

“Viner likes to deny it but there are antisemites on the daily’s staff and she has not had the courage to face them down.”

He added: “For years now I have made a point of sending her a back channel email each time the Guardian has published another outrage. It will be a joy to know that I’m not a part of that any more.”

Highlighting the Guardian’s comment section, the respected critic said it was now “a juvenile hellscape of salami-sliced identity grievance politics”.

In recent years the Guardian has published numerous inflammatory articles relating to Israel.

Last month, it issued an apology after a furious backlash over its review of a documentary on the 7 October massacre that said invaders from Gaza had been “demonised” as “testosterone-crazed Hamas killers” and “shameless civilian looters”.

Other scandals infuriating many in the community include a cartoon of then-BBC director general Richard Sharp that employed obvious antisemitic tropes.

Last year Viner sacked the Guardian’s cartoonist Steve Bell, who drew Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a manner that done said resembled Shylock. It was the last in several complaints about Bell.

Articles written by columnists such as Owen Jones have also infuriated many Jewish readers.

One of the Observer’s highest-profile writers, Rayner had worked at the paper for 28 years.
Meet The Tyee, Government-Subsidized News Outlet Which Obsessively Demonizes Israel
The Tyee is an independent news magazine, subsidized in part by Canadian taxpayers to the tune of $131,183.00, based in British Columbia and founded in 2003 that, since Hamas’ massacres of October 7, 2023, has published dozens of articles related to the Israel-Hamas war and the Canadian Jewish community.

These articles are consistently and aggressively anti-Israel, and often show little respect for factual accuracy and the truth.

Contributors to The Tyee often use minimizing language for Hamas’s actions while using more charged terms for Israeli responses. Contributing authors do not refer to the October 7, 2023 attack as a terrorist attack nor Hamas as terrorists themselves. They are “militants,” at best, or an “organization” that simply attacked Israel in October, and Israel has subsequently been retaliating against innocent Palestinian civilians ever since: a simple, digestible dichotomy.

But whitewashing Hamas is just the beginning. In the first relevant article published post-October 7, author David Beers recommended a few articles for Tyee readers to ostensibly help them understand the conflict. One of the articles was an Al Jazeera “Simple Guide” to the conflict, which painted “Zionists” as the sole and initial perpetrators of it and manipulate any terrorism by Palestinians as “resistance.” Another was from The Guardian by Moustafa Bayoumi, released four days after Hamas’ terrorist attack, that attempted to dispel the characterization of the attack as being “unprovoked.”
CBC Correspondent Chris Brown Produces Three More Problematic Reports On Israel & The Middle East
In three recent news reports for CBC News, correspondent Chris Brown continued his deeply problematic news coverage of Israel and the Middle East.

One report, published on November 6 entitled: “Trump’s presidency could change trajectory of Middle East conflict,” covered the impact of Trump’s presidential election win on the Hamas-Israel war.

His report lined up his sources to portray Israel as against peace due to its actions in Gaza. His video footage showed a damaged Khan Yunis in Gaza and featured Abu Assama Nayeem, a resident of Khan Yunis as saying, “today the Americans voted for an administration that’s refused a two-state solution …so the war will continue and destruction will continue.”

Brown continued to say that “Israeli attacks have killed 43,000 Palestinians in the past 13 months according to Gaza’s health ministry. Israel says it’s targeting Hamas militants, although the vast majority of the dead are civilians, with more killed Wednesday.”

Israel Portrayed As Wanton Destroyer Of Gaza
The news video showed Donald Trump commenting on Israel’s role in the war in Gaza, saying “you should let him go and let him finish the job.” Brown then brought in Diana Buttu, who is referenced as a Palestinian lawyer and activist. CBC neglects to mention that she is also a former spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization and who though she is a fierce critic of Israel’s, lives in the Jewish state in Haifa. She says of Trump, “In his imagination of quote ‘finish the job,’ I don’t think that he means that there should be a ceasefire, I don’t think he means that Israel should be stopping, I think that he means that he’s going to let Israel do whatever it wants to do.”

So Brown has painted a caricature that portrayed Israel as causing wanton destruction in Gaza and obstructing peace. It obscured any reference to the causes behind Israel’s actions, nor did he fully reference the Israeli side.

The principal cause is that Hamas is dedicated to Israel’s destruction. Its heinous massacre on October 7, 2023 is something they want to repeat until Israel is no more. It clearly states its goal in its charter, and its supporters have used a variety of slogans to convey its meaning, including, “There is only one solution, intifada revolution”. Intifada literally means “uprising” but refers to periods starting in 1987 and again in 2000 when Palestinian Arabs committed violent, murderous attacks on Israeli civilians. Another slogan is “We don’t want no two-state, we want ’48” which, referring to Israel’s independence in 1948, clearly has no interest in any solution with Israel in it.


Norwegian Dual-Citizen Accused of Spying on America for Russia and Iran
A Norwegian student in his 20s was arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia and Iran while working as a guard at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, authorities in Norway have said.

The man, who has not been identified, was ordered to be held in custody for four weeks. He runs a security company jointly with a dual national of Norway and an unspecified eastern European country, according to Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.

Oslo police said Friday they would review the company’s operating license.

Norway’s domestic intelligence agency, PST, said Thursday night that the man was arrested in his garage at home on Wednesday on suspicion of having damaged national security with his intelligence-related activity.

The arrest warrant from the district court, says, among other things, that the police found records of the man’s assignment dialogue with a person who was apparently guiding his espionage activity, according to NRK.

The man has admitted to collecting and sharing information with Russian and Iranian authorities, the court order says, according to NRK.

It is too early to talk about the details of the man’s activity, PST spokesman Thomas Blom told a news conference Thursday night. PST has confirmed the man was employed as a security guard at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo. There are no other suspects in the case at this point.

The suspect’s attorney, John Christian Elden, told NRK that the man admits he worked for a foreign country but does not plead guilty of espionage.

“He is charged with having obtained information that could harm the security situation of third countries,” Elden said.


Irish cleric who preached that Israel has Nazi-style policies ‘has family link to Hitler’
An Irish preacher accused of “hijacking” this year’s Remembrance Sunday service in Dublin Cathedral with an anti-Israel sermon reportedly disclosed his family’s link to Adolf Hitler at the same service in 2019.

Canon David Oxley, who accused Israel of deploying a “master race” theory in a speech to senior Irish politicians at St Patrick’s Cathedral last week, was said to have admitted that his wife’s family were Nazis during the Second World War in his address at the same event five years ago.

According to a report of the 2019 service in the Irish Independent, he told the cathedral that the mother of his wife, Amalia Oxley, was German, and he had relatives who fought for the Third Reich.

He also said, according to the article: “It’s not everyone who can boast that their mother-in-law had Adolf Hitler as a godfather. It’s not everyone who would want to.”

Later, the minister said that the service “was commemorating the sacrifice of many individual Irish men and women who did take sides and volunteered to oppose Nazism in arms”.

Both services – the one this year and in 2019 – were attended by Irish President Michael D Higgins and first lady Sabina Higgins, as well as other Irish dignitaries.

In his 2019 address, the Anglican cleric went on to preach about the “cynical disregard of truth” and “the deliberate manipulation of information” that he said had become “endemic at the highest levels and has proved corrosive and destructive” to our society.

“In the conflict between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, neutrality is not an option,” Oxley added.

He also referred to Ireland’s neutrality during the Second World War. “There is no room for neutrality in the conflict between truth and falsehood,” he said.
Inspirational antisemitism campaigners shortlisted for award
Four leading antisemitism campaigners have been shortlisted for a prestigious honour.

The Pete Newbon Award is presented annually by the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism in memory of activist Pete Newbon who died by suicide in 2022.

Heidi Bachram, Nicole Lampert, Alex Hearn and Elica Le Bon are on the shortlist for the individual who has made the greatest contribution to public understanding of anti-Jewish hate.

Heidi Bachram built, and each time it was vandalised, re-built, a memorial for the victims of 7 October in Brighton. Whilst not Jewish, she works tirelessly to focus public attention on the hostages in Gaza.

She said: “I am deeply honoured to be shortlisted for the Newbon Award. I feel Pete with us in the fight, which has become much more intense since the October 7 attacks. This award is part of his legacy and I’m so humbled to be a part of it.”

Alex Hearn
Alex Hearn is director of Labour Against Antisemitism and a respected social media and journalistic commentator. He has worked with counter-terrorism institutions and has spoken publicly on antisemitism in the Lords, the European Parliament and in the media.

He said: “Being shortlisted for an award by LCSCA, who do such valuable work, and in the name of a dearly missed member of our community, Pete Newbon, is a double honour. To be recognised in this way, among all the many people who work so hard against antisemitism, makes me feel incredibly proud.”

Nicole Lampert
Jewish News journalist and broadcaster Nicole Lampert has taken a leading role in telling the story of 7 October, the plight of the hostages, survivors and families, and has told the story of the victims of sexual violence.

Lampert said: “It’s an honour to be shortlisted in the name of the kind, valiant warrior against antisemitism, Pete Newbon. Covering this story from all angles has taken me, an entertainment journalist, to the war-scarred borders of Israel to investigating antisemitism within previously cherished institutions like the BBC, the UN and Oxford University. I’m lucky that I had a small army, including my friends on this shortlist, besides me.”
Tread Lightly Lest My People’s Bones Protest: Litvinoff, Eliot, and English Antisemitism
In 1951, the radical historian Herbert Read invited a little-known poet named Emanuel Litvinoff to read his work at a distinguished London literary gathering. Litvinoff announced that he would be reading an ode to T.S. Eliot, who happened to be present. The poem began with praise, but then moved to a lyrical attack on Eliot’s anti-Semitism, deftly playing on the slurs found in his poems (“Bleistein is my relative/ and I share the protozoic slime of Shylock”) and eventually working up to this:

Yet walking with Cohen when the sun exploded
and darkness choked our nostrils
and the smoke drifting over Treblinka
reeked of the smoldering ashes of children,
I thought what an angry poem
you would have made of it, given the pity.

Jack Omer-Jackaman comments on the scene:
Had the evening seen only the performance of such an eloquently wrathful poem, had it seen only such a courageous display of Jewish self-respect and such a dignified rebuke of respectable anti-Semitism, then it would still have been enough to be worthy of recall and analysis. But it is the response to Litvinoff that remains instructive. The audience hissed, and both Read and the poet Stephen Spender publicly rebuked him. Read thought it was “bad form.” Speaking to the press after the event, Spender offered this chillingly obsequious banality: “He was classing Eliot with the people who committed atrocities on Jews, whereas I believe that anything Eliot has written about Jews comes under the heading of criticism.”

It’s hard to read that and not think of the English leftists who spew the vilest anti-Semitism and then insist they are merely engaged in “criticism” of Israel. Such “willful obtuseness,” Omer-Jackaman observes, was the typical English way of denying anti-Semitism then, and remains so today.
Here I Am With Shai Davidai: From jail to record deal to 10/7 and beyond | EP 18 Kosha Dillz
Welcome to the 18th episode of "Here I Am with Shai Davidai," a podcast that delves into the rising tide of antisemitism through insightful discussions with top Jewish advocates.

In this conversation, host Shai Davidai interviews Rami Even-Esh, known as Kosha Dillz, who is a rapper and comedian. They discuss Rami's Jewish identity and how it influences his music and persona. Rami shares his journey from his early days as a rapper named K.D. Flow, through his struggles with addiction, to his transformation into Kosha Dillz. He talks about embracing his Jewish heritage and how it has shaped his career and music. The discussion also covers the challenges and experiences of being a Jewish artist in the hip-hop scene, his activism through music, and the impact of social media on Jewish identity and community. Rami highlights his recent projects that address anti-Semitism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, emphasizing the role of music in activism and cultural expression.




'I'm not the same person I was a year ago'
“There was terror in his eyes as he chewed his bagel,” I joke, as Eylon Levy, the usually sharp-tongued former spokesman for the state of Israel, sits opposite me, eyes wide and deep in thought.

We are sitting in a chilly back office at the Jewish Learning Exchange (JLE), where the 33-year-old is about to speak to 180 fellow young, Jewish professionals as part of JLE’s “Unbreakable” series, “uncovering the secrets of Jewish resilience”.

The question that has left Levy speechless? How he recovers when he is feeling overwhelmed and deflated – as all of us have done, at some point since Hamas’ brutal attack on October 7, 2023. Where does he go? What does he do? Who does he speak to when he needs to feel whole and grounded again?

“The way you phrased the question makes it sound like I should be taking better care of myself,” he eventually replies, laughing. “It’s been a sprint, and it’s a challenge to adapt it into a marathon. I try to make time to exercise occasionally, but there’s a lot of pressure on my time – whether it’s interviews or groups who want me to speak to them, which means it’s not always possible.”

It’s been a trying 13 months for most Jews, but especially for Levy, who has been on the frontline of the media war. “I’m not the same person I was a year ago,” he admits. “I feel like I’ve lived ten years in the last year… I feel that the last year has aged me… From my perspective, certainly being thrust into the public limelight, intense attention, getting dragged through headlines and politics – it’s really been a character-building experience.”

It’s hardly surprising that Levy is feeling a little dazed. Since the war began, he has been hired as an Israeli government spokesman – and forced to resign (apparently at the insistence of Sara Netanyahu). Since then, he has travelled the world advocating for Israel, founded a non-profit – the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons’ Office and debated live on stage with Medhi Hasan.

“I started being a government spokesman a week into the war because the state of emergency in Israel was so intense that they took a former anti-government protester and he became a spokesman for the government,” he explains. “I really don’t want this to sound arrogant, but when you know that people look up to you and are taking their cue from you… that’s a lot of responsibility that suddenly you’re conscious of… You’re not a private citizen anymore; you’re a public figure.”
Israel: State of a Nation with Eylon Levy: Why the Black Community Must Stand with Israel
Too often the black community and the Jewish community are pitted against each other in the US. Marked by outsiders as rival minorities fighting for a limited space on the political stage. But this narrative is driven from outside the community by those looking to bring both groups down, while serving their own interests.

Eylon sits down with Dumisani Washington the Founder and CEO of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel. He is also the former Diversity Outreach Coordinator for the over 10-million-member Christians United for Israel.

Dumisani is a pastor, professional musician and author whose latest book is the second edition of Zionism & the Black Church: Why Standing with Israel Will be a Defining Issue for Christians of Color in the 21st Century.




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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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