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Monday, December 02, 2024

12/02 Links Pt2: How the Incoming Administration Can Restore Jewish Civil Rights; The Oxford Union has disgraced itself; What I Learned at Stanford

From Ian:

How the Incoming Administration Can Restore Jewish Civil Rights
As the fall semester comes to an end, there has been only modest relief for Jewish college students in America. A series of congressional hearings throughout 2023 and 2024 led some university administrators to prevent demonstrators from taking over public spaces and the like, but institutions of higher learning remain rife with obsessive hatred of Israel. Jewish students feel threatened or targeted; many fear wearing outwardly Jewish symbols or mentioning trips to Israel lest they be ostracized as “Zionists.” Israeli students and faculty are especially likely to be harassed. The state of the campus has led many to despair.

But despair is not warranted. There is in fact a lot that can be done with little more than a change in approach and by making more effective arguments. While the underlying problems that led universities to become hubs for anti-Semitism are complex and longstanding—and may take generations to fix—the federal government already has the requisite legal means to crack down on the ongoing abuses of Jewish students. It can make clear to university administrations that they will be held responsible for allowing the sort of eliminationist anti-Israel climate that has persisted on too many campuses. It can punish institutions that incentivize or ignore anti-Jewish discrimination, including with the radical step of suspending federal funds. Even admissions policies that allow significant numbers of Hamas-sympathizers into universities can come under scrutiny. A range of new policies, if enacted, would strengthen these existing legal tools further. All it will take is political will—and for Jews to make explicit what it is they want, and why that political will is due.

Of course, there are several fronts on which American Jews need to fight: we ought to engage in the battle of ideas in the academy, in the media, and in the public square; we must expose and stop foreign funding of campus protest movements (often by Iran or U.S.-designated terrorist groups), not to mention the vast social and political battle to support Israel beyond the campus. But most of this essay will focus on how to use America’s robust system of civil-rights law to make colleges and universities safe for all Jews once again.

I. Avoiding the Anti-Zionism-vs.-Anti-Semitism Trap
Before delving into civil-rights law, however, it is important to make one clarification. The anti-Israel campus agitators and their many apologists—no small number of Jews among them—insist that the campus demonstrations aren’t aimed at Jews per se, but only at the state of Israel or its policies. Universities seem to have largely accepted this argument. So long as administrators don’t condone the most obvious anti-Jewish actions by demonstrators—such as establishing no-go zones for Jews at UCLA, or stalking and assaulting Jews at Harvard—they can maintain the fiction that “anti-Zionism” is garden-variety political speech. As such, it is different in kind from anti-Jewish discrimination and cannot be punished.

After all, say the administrators, professors, and students, Zionism is a political ideology, one that stands for Jewish supremacy in a land once called Palestine. And how anti-Jewish can it be to chant “from the River to the Sea,” when so often it is chanted by Jewish activists as well?

Pro-Israel Jews, according to this logic, seek to ban legitimate political protest and restrict legitimate speech by conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. And campus activists have been willing to take this argument quite far. When students at Columbia and Harvard staged demonstrations in front of campus Hillels—seemingly clear instances of targeting Jewish institutions—the apologists were ready. Their argument, paraphrased, went like this: we have no issue with Jews having a place to congregate and pray, but Hillel has an Israeli flag flying in front of it, sponsors trips to Israel, and hosts Israeli speakers. It has made itself complicit in the Israel’s crimes, and we have a right to protest its explicit political stance. With this justification, the anti-Semites have even gone a step further, calling on their schools to sever all official relations with Hillel houses or the umbrella group that maintains them. It is often said that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism because nearly all Jews support Israel. But this makes clear is that that sword is double-edged. Anti-Israel extremists feel comfortable intimidating Jews because, it is true, nearly all Jews and the institutions that serve them support Israel.

Hatred of Israel may be distinguishable from hatred of Jews in theory, but in reality they are inextricable. Campus and street activists celebrated October 7, proclaiming “glory to the martyrs” and calling for Israel’s destruction “by any means necessary.” Less than three weeks after October 7, “Glory to Our Martyrs” was projected in bright lights onto the Gelman Library building at George Washington University—an undeniable celebration of the murderers of Jews that has been echoed in many campus pamphlets, signs, and chants since then. On the first anniversary of the attacks, several campus Students for Justice in Palestine chapters wished their members a “happy October 7.” Occasionally a demonstrator will forget to substitute “Zionist” for “Jew,” or will lead an Arabic chant about Mohammad’s armies coming to destroy the Yahud.

Jewish students and advocacy groups point out such brazen examples of Jew hatred, correctly noting that the mask has slipped. They denounce their schools for permitting this bigotry, and for their double standards, as many colleges go to extreme lengths to ensure “safe spaces” for other minority groups. Some students also note the stark difference in conduct between pro-Israel and pro-Hamas campus groups; only the latter, they argue, would rejoice in the deaths of innocent civilians.

No matter. Anti-Israel groups know that the pro-Israel community is reluctant to push for sweeping expulsions or, where appropriate, prosecutions, of offending students. We hesitate to condemn our adversaries wholesale, and continue to seek out nuanced discussion with, and tailored consequences for, those who call for Israel to be wiped off the map. The anti-Zionists, meanwhile, have no such compunction. When caught explicitly championing Hamas or slandering or harassing Jews, they often blame “Zionist saboteurs,” suggesting that interlopers seek to undermine the anti-Zionist cause by using especially inflammatory language or tactics. They then continue doing much the same thing as they were doing all along: seek to anathematize the idea that Jews should be sovereign in their ancestral homeland, and to create the illusion that supporting Israel is a fringe position. Those are the goals; the strategy involves intimidating Jews in the hope that they will stay away from the public square.
Jonathan Tobin: America’s future depends on Trump’s promise to punish woke universities
Draining the swamp

That is why Trump’s scorched-earth approach is so necessary, even as it is being denounced by the same people who are responsible for creating or perpetuating the current mess as too extreme or even needed at all.

Trump’s stated intention of “draining the swamp” throughout the federal government is being depicted as evidence of his supposed authoritarian impulses and racism. But this is exactly the sort of argument based on a high-handed dismissal of genuine concerns and problems that have caused so many Americans to lose faith both in our educational system and in Washington.

His threats can seem crude to those accustomed to politicians being guarded in their remarks. Yet the events of the last few years—starting with the moral panic about race behind the Black Lives Matter riots and then on to the post-Oct. 7 surge in antisemitism—demonstrated that a restrained “business as usual” approach won’t cut it when the collapse of our most cherished institutions is at stake. Their transformation into purveyors of neo-Marxist indoctrination and toxic ideas that enable hatred for both the West and Jews is a crisis of enormous proportions. It is happening at both the college and graduate levels, as well as in K-12 schools where leftist teachers’ unions have also imposed the indoctrination of critical race theory.

The only reasonable response to this disaster is exactly the kind of tough-minded purge that Trump has envisioned. And far from this being an uninformed or extreme approach, Trump and his transition team are consulting with experts like Christopher Rufo, author of an authoritative and essential book on the woke plague—America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything—and incorporating the ideas of “Project Esther,” a serious plan for dealing with campus antisemitism produced by The Heritage Foundation.

All of this has produced panic on the left and even among mainstream liberals who have been conditioned by partisan political rhetoric to believe that Trump is a second Hitler. They worry that he is already going too far in seeking accountability for institutions that engage in racial discrimination and tolerate antisemitism under the guise of DEI “anti-racist” policies, believing that somehow this will destroy academic freedom. What his critics fail to recognize is that American education is already enduring a catastrophic transformation that has silenced dissent against woke doctrines that seek to trash the Western canon.

A necessary sledgehammer
The only way to fix it is with the same sort of Trumpian sledgehammer that tossed aside failed ideas about the Middle East in his first term that enabled him, among other important policy changes, to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and forge the Abraham Accords. If that means executive orders reversing President Joe Biden’s DEI orders that created woke commissars in every federal agency and department, that should be welcomed. If it means closing the largely useless and counter-productive Department of Education and enacting far-reaching reforms that will defund institutions clinging to discriminatory ideas and actions, then that should be cheered by those who cherish the values of equal opportunity, merit and zero tolerance for hatred and discrimination.

More to the point, it will mean that policing antisemitism on campus will be shifted away from the ineffectual Title VI complaints to federal education bureaucrats to a campaign of lawsuits conducted not just by groups like the Deborah Project, valuable though they may be, but by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, with all of the vast resources at its command. In this manner, a message can be sent that will likely motivate the vast majority of college administrations to discard DEI and the tolerance of hate for Jews that accompanies it.

It is impossible to know whether the new administration will succeed. But rather than worrying that he is the wrong instrument to carry out this effort or wasting time decrying his rhetoric, it’s likely that only an outlier like Trump could contemplate such a bold project or have the will to see it to its logical end. Indeed, so grave is the threat that DEI and other leftist ideas pose to the country’s future that anything short of what he has discussed would be inadequate. Instead of expressing horror at his determination to enact real change, fair-minded Americans of all faiths and in both major political parties should be rooting for him to keep his word and to do everything he promised to punish colleges and universities, in addition to any other entity that promotes the sort of woke hate that has made life for Jewish students and anyone else who dissents against the new secular orthodoxy so difficult.
Jonathan Sacerdoti: The Oxford Union has disgraced itself
The chamber of the Oxford Union, that once-proud institution, has been breached by the forces of bigotry, hatred, and mob rule.

Invited to speak against an anti-Israel motion, I attended with three colleagues, each bringing unique expertise and experience to the room. But what unfolded on Thursday night was not a debate at all. It was an assault on the very principles the Union once claimed to uphold, presided over by organisers who behaved more like a mafia than custodians of an august society dedicated to free speech.

The motion for debate was itself a grotesque provocation: “This House Believes Israel is an Apartheid State Responsible for Genocide.” Apartheid and genocide are not just loaded terms; they are distortions when applied to Israel, as I planned to explain in my speech. That the Union had decided to frame this debate around them was bad enough. It had caused some to decline their invitation to speak at all. But the problems were much deeper rooted even than students seeking attention through sensationalist wording.

This wasn’t an evening for intellectual rigour or balanced argument. From the very beginning, it was clear the organisation of this event was deeply and worryingly dishonest, aggressive and one-sided. Speakers infamous for their unhinged views were invited to confront us; we were left in the dark about who had been invited on our side. Deception and dishonesty characterised the entire run-up to the debate.

When the day finally arrived, the atmosphere in the chamber was hideous, sinister, and suffused with tension. Jews who might have attended were clearly too afraid to show up: many had written to me privately to tell me of their fears. In a packed chamber, I identified four Jewish students who sat huddled together across from me, but soon realised there were unlikely to be many more present. When I acknowledged them with a thumbs-up, they returned the gesture with a heart symbol: a fleeting moment of solidarity in what was otherwise an unrelentingly hostile environment.

The tone was set long before the debate began. The president of the Union, Ebrahim Osman Mowafy, an Egyptian Arab, seemed to me to be openly biased from the outset. His behaviour throughout the evening was not that of a neutral chair but of an orchestrator, stacking the odds against the opposition and fostering an environment of unchecked hostility. In the end, perhaps his most disgraceful speaker against Israel withdrew, seemingly intimidated by the strength of the team we had managed to assemble despite the Union’s best attempts to stop us. Having been told a student would take his place, we found out only on the night that Osman Mowafy himself would forgo the traditional impartiality of the chair’s role and speak against us himself.


This year’s march against Anti-Semitism is even more vital
Ours is not a country known for protest. We have always preferred debating over demonstrating. When we do, it’s milder than protests abroad. We advocate rather than disrupt.

No longer, it seems. Since Hamas’ 7th October atrocity last year, we have watched as, week after week, demonstrations that emphatically do seem designed to disrupt our lives have taken over our streets, stifled debate on our campuses, forced Parliament to change its proceedings out of fear for MPs’ safety, scared schoolchildren, forced Jews to hide their identity on public transport, intimidated us in our workplaces and even encroached into our hospitals.

And has this ‘activism’ done anything to change things in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon or Iran? Or are they just changing the face of our society over here?

Consider some of the ‘activism’ that we have witnessed just this week. Teenage thugs boarded the school bus of the 292-year-old Jewish Free School shouting “F*** Israel, nobody likes you” at the children aboard, as passersby stood inertly, filming (not one of them called the police, by the way). What impact on the war did that have?

What changed all those thousands of miles away when a 14-year-old girl was hospitalised after being hit by one of several glass bottles hurled at her and her friends as they left their Jewish school?

In the military situation rooms and terrorist bunkers of the Middle East, what happened when students at Oxford called for “intifada”, a form of violent uprising characterised by suicide bombings, as they headed to the library?

Who was it who felt cowed after the Trades Union Congress urged the 5.5 million members of its 48 unions to turn up at work wearing clothing to show which side of the Gaza war they are on?

And who lost out when Candida Gertler OBE, a patron of the arts in Britain, resigned from all of her voluntary positions, including the board of the foundation she set up, saying “I can no longer stand silent when institutions, intimidated by violent and aggressive activism that dismisses dialogue or any kind of communication fail to uphold the foundational values of equality and respect”?

It was democracy in Britain, not Israel, that had to be protected this week as a crowd of anti-Israel protesters tried to force their way into Downing Street, prevented only by a hurriedly-formed scrum of police holding the crowd back with their bodies.

This ‘activism’ is futile as regards the Middle East, but extremely potent right here.
Facing terrorism, Chabad emissaries end conference with renewed resolve
The annual International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries (Kinus Hashluchim) concluded with a closing ceremony celebrating the tapestry of Jewish life worldwide and reaffirming Chabad’s unwavering dedication to reaching every Jew, everywhere, no matter the obstacles. The gala banquet, held on Sunday afternoon in Edison, N.J., united thousands of emissaries and their guests from countries near and far.

This year’s gathering in New York City took on new meaning, taking place just a week after the murder of Zvi Kogan, 28, a Chabad rabbi stationed in the United Arab Emirates. The ceremony commenced with a heartfelt tribute to him. Rabbi Levi Duchman, chief rabbi of the UAE and director of Chabad-Lubavitch of the United Arab Emirates, addressed the assembly with deep emotion.

Nevertheless, he and his colleagues expressed a commitment to continue their vital work. “That is what Zvi would have wanted,” affirmed Rabbi Yehuda Marasow, a Chabad emissary in Abu Dhabi. “We are all now tasked with carrying forward his mission.”

In a touching display of solidarity, the conference connected live with Kogan’s family in Jerusalem, who were in mourning. Thousands stood together, sharing traditional words of comfort, demonstrating unity and support for the grieving family.

The conference also honored the life of Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, who spearheaded the Kinus for the last four decades and dedicated his life to actualizing the Rebbe’s vision. His son, Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, who recently undertook his father’s role as director of the conference, took the stage in his father’s place.

“My father always reiterated the Rebbe’s call to reach out to those who might seem beyond our reach,” he said. “Take a moment to think of one more person in your life—a neighbor, a colleague—someone others might deem impossible to connect with—and take action.”

He highlighted one of his father’s final initiatives: a campaign to inspire 120 million mitzvot, or “good deeds.” To achieve this ambitious goal, they launched OneMitzvah.org, a platform designed to encourage everyone to involve friends and family in acts of kindness. “Engage your network because that’s how we’ll make a real impact and usher in an era of peace and redemption,” he emphasized.

One of the most moving moments of the evening came when Rabbi Yehoshua Soudakoff, Chabad emissary to the Jewish Deaf Community, took the stage. Addressing the assembly in American Sign Language (ASL), his speech was simultaneously translated for all to understand.

“For a deaf person, finding a place within the community can be challenging,” he expressed through his interpreter. “But we are here to change that narrative.”
Gunman, who allegedly shot Jewish Chicagoan, dead after apparent suicide
Cook County Sheriff’s Office staff found Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, 22, “unresponsive due to an apparent suicide attempt by hanging in his cell” at about 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, the Illinois sheriff’s office told JNS.

Abdallahi, who faced 16 felony counts including hate crime and terrorism for allegedly shooting a 39-year-old Orthodox Jewish man walking to synagogue on Shabbat in Chicago on Oct. 26, was admitted to Cermak Health Services on Nov. 15. His body was found during “routine security checks,” the sheriff’s office told JNS. “Staff immediately initiated life-saving measures and Abdallahi was transported by a Chicago Fire Department ambulance to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was subsequently pronounced deceased.”

The deceased, whose name the sheriff’s office spells “Sidi Mohammad Abdallah,” was admitted to Cermak, “the medical facility in the jail which is a division of the Cook County Health, which operates public health and hospital systems in the county,” after a transfer from St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, the sheriff’s office said.

“He was housed in Cermak Health Services Tier 3S as a result of the medical and mental health evaluations conducted by staff at Cermak Health Services, which is responsible for the mental health and medical care of all individuals in custody and determines what housing is appropriate based on the level of care required for individuals in custody,” the sheriff’s office added.

Abdallahi was hospitalized after a two-and-a-half-minute shootout with police officers, after he allegedly shot the Orthodox man in Chicago’s West Rogers Park neighborhood, home to one of the city’s largest Orthodox Jewish populations.

“Many more questions than answers now in front of the American people,” Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who has followed the case closely, told JNS. “Who was he, who were his known associates, where did he radicalize, and why was something like this not planned for and prevented?”

“There is no evidence of foul play at this time. The cause and manner of death are pending autopsy by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office,” the sheriff’s office told JNS.


Argentine defense minister in Israel, reaffirms Milei’s support
Argentina’s Defense Minister Luis Alfonso Petri is in Israel to strengthen the strategic-security partnership between the countries.

Petri met with his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv over the weekend, along with top Israeli officials from the defense establishment.

The meetings revolved around key strategic issues, including “Iran’s destabilizing activities in the Middle East and Latin America,” Israel’s Defense Ministry spokesperson said in a statement.

“This visit is a testament to Argentina’s unwavering support for Israel in the current war, strengthening the deep and strategic partnership between the nations,” the spokesperson continued.

“Minister Petri delivered a message from Argentine President Dr. Javier Milei, reaffirming Argentina’s steadfast support for Israel’s right to self-defense.”

Milei “emphasized that Israel’s current struggle represents not only a national fight but also the free world’s collective battle against terrorism and civilization’s stand against barbarism,” the statement read.

The ministry further stated that the parties agreed to expand defense cooperation, focusing on shared projects in “cyber defense, unmanned aerial vehicles, border protection, satellite communications, and future government-to-government (G2G) contracts in light arms, light munitions, radios and related equipment.”
Inside Israel's civilian revolution: The rise of citizen-run news channels
That Israelis are addicted to news is not new. However, since the beginning of the war and even prior to that, another phenomenon began to emerge: Israelis not only consuming news but also operating their own platforms to publish news regarding the Middle East and educate the masses, creating a form of “civilian intelligence” array which meets at the convergence of intelligence gathering, investigative journalism, and online activism.

One name that might come to mind is Abu Ali Express, a former IDF adviser who now runs a translation, analysis, and newsroom operation boasting hundreds of thousands of followers (if not millions).

However, many other, smaller channels also exist. From geolocation to statistical analysis to news from the streets of Iran, The Jerusalem Post contacted three of them to hear more about what drove them to set up their channels and become a news apparatus of their own. Ben Tzion Macales: Giving geographic context to events

Ben Tzion Macales, from central Israel, runs a channel under his name on geo-current affairs, analyzing and reflecting on news and events from a geographic perspective, as well as other topics and analyses about the Middle Eastern neighborhood.

His in-depth analysis of events through online geographic tools and the visual infographics he makes have made their way not only to Israeli channels but also to viral Palestinian influencers on social media – and even Palestinian politicians such as Palestinian Legislative Council member Mustafa Barghouti, who shared a map made by Macales, leaving the latter’s watermark on.

“The goal behind the channel is to bring a sense of order to everything related to this war and to its ripple effects across the Middle East,” the 30-year-old Macales told the Post. “There is such a mess of reports from so many sources competing for the same target audience – and I wanted to bring my own edge to it.”

Macales explained that he was interested in satellite imagery from a young age, developing maps for fun. Later on, after his military service, he decided to turn his hobby into a profession, completing two degrees that included a track in geoinformatics.

“This gave me the tools to start performing analyses for my personal use,” he said. “Later, I decided to share those analyses with the audience on social networks. After thinking for a bit how I could accomplish the widest possible reach for my updates, I decided in February of this year to open a Telegram channel where every user can receive notifications about it.”

Macales said that he identified a great thirst to understand what is happening during the war that is not quenched through established media. “So I found this niche that begged to be filled, and I began to publish updates from a geographic perspective on a daily basis.”
Temple University resolves federal civil rights probe for alleged anti-Jewish bias
The U.S. Department of Education announced on Monday that it has entered an agreement with Temple University, a public school in Philadelphia, to resolve an investigation into potential violations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Among the complaints against Temple from 2022 to 2024 were “at least 50 reports of shared ancestry discrimination and harassment, including incidents of antisemitic, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian conduct,” the department stated.

John Fry, the university president, said on Monday that the investigation was about Temple’s “handling of reported incidents of harassment based on national origin (shared Jewish ancestry) under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.”

“More than 100 colleges and universities have undergone or are currently undergoing such a review,” he wrote, according to Temple News, a student publication.

“Today, I am pleased to share that Temple has resolved the investigation through a voluntary resolution agreement” with the Education Department, Fry added. “Importantly, this agreement includes no findings of noncompliance or wrongdoing by the university. This resolution allows us to focus on our essential work in addressing all complaints of discrimination and harassment, including antisemitic, anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim and all unlawful discriminatory incidents that create a hostile environment for members of our community.”

Catherine Lhamon, assistant U.S. secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, stated that the resolution “is designed to improve university practices to ensure full compliance with federal civil rights protections against discrimination.”
What I Learned at Stanford
These were not isolated incidents. They were the core feature of my experience as a Jewish person in this program. When I went to another dean, he told me that antisemitism was “institutional” and there was nothing he could do about it. The next time we met, he relayed that antisemitism was only an issue in the School of Education because I had made it into one. He accused me of overreacting and said, without providing examples, that I needed to take accountability and “accept blame” for creating situations that encouraged antisemitic behaviors and comments. He also reacted negatively to my sharing my experiences with the task force studying antisemitic bias at Stanford University. It’s hard to imagine anyone, let alone a faculty leader, reacting this way toward a person from any other community.

I wish, over the course of my time in the program, that my classmates, colleagues and professors had inquired even once about my political beliefs, instead of making assumptions purely because they know I am a rabbi’s daughter with a Jewish name and education. I wish they had been willing to recognize that, in classroom discussions about Israel-Palestine, I was citing academic books and articles while they quoted TikTok and Twitter. I was the only student present with any scholarly familiarity with the complex history of Israel-Palestine. The faculty, too, introduced classroom dialogues about sensitive topics that they were unqualified and ill-prepared to facilitate. My professors failed to recognize their own limitations, which put undue stress on me nearly every day.

Had my classmates asked, I would have shared my own struggles with Zionism, explaining that I identified as an anti-Zionist for a significant period in my college career. About how it seemed clear to me that no Jew could thrive at my college as a Zionist, so I vilified my own faith community to fit in. About how non-Jews demanded I denounce the legitimacy of (and need for) a Jewish state to prove my solidarity with their radical movements, which in fact reproduce antisemitic ideas about Jews.

My classmates reduced me to the archetypes that fed the discrimination towards my ancestors—a hatred of Jews so deep that an entire society in Europe wanted to exterminate us. To them, even if a Jewish person does not agree with the actions of the Israeli government and openly critiques the mechanisms of violence in Zionist political and military practices, that person is in the end still a Jew.

The irony of this ordeal is that I am a student of critical race theory who wrote my thesis on the history of the ethnic studies discipline and its connection to the Jewish community during the fight over the 2019 California Model Ethnic Studies Curriculum. In doing this research, I learned that the European white supremacy from which colonialism, racism and Nazism arose had solidified its antisemitic core hundreds of years prior. A hatred of Jews was built into dominant European ideas about the world and structures of power well before either 1492 or 1619.

I needed my classmates and professors to appreciate that I am part of a minority. I come from a people the world has hated for so long. I deserve a trauma-informed pedagogy, too, because I can neither learn nor feel safe in a classroom that regards me exclusively as a white oppressor absent any effort to consider Jewish heritage, history, literature or lived experiences.

So I will be leaving a PhD program at Stanford University because daily antisemitism is too rampant, aggressive and isolating. I will be leaving a PhD program at Stanford invigorated to join my American Jewish community in the fight against antisemitism. I will be leaving a PhD program at Stanford University because my classmates and professors do not recognize the fear, pain and trauma of my people, Am Yisrael.


UKLFI: Israeli Writer Abused at Luton Airport by Security Official
A Luton Airport security officer harassed and abused an Israeli citizen who was travelling back to Israel after a book tour in London.

Alon Penzel, aged 23, had spent a week in England to promote his new book, “Testimonies without Boundaries: Israel October 7th 2023”, which includes first-hand accounts from Nova Festival survivors and medical and rescue volunteers.

He had been invited to speak at a House of Lords event by the eminent historian, Lord Andrew Roberts, and this was the main reason for his trip. Mr Penzel was carrying a publicity sign for his book tour under his arm, but facing towards his body so the writing on it was mainly obscured.

The Luton Airport security officer
Falsely accused him of protesting in the airport, when he was simply walking towards his boarding gate
Falsely accused him of displaying his book sign in the airport, when he was carrying it with the blank back of the sign facing outwards
Told him that the sign, which read “Alon Penzel, Testimonies Without Boundaries, Israel: October 7th 2023, Together in Remembrance,” was political and that many people would find it offensive
Said October 7th was “only one incident out of many since 1948,” implying that Israel was to blame for the massacre on 7 October
Told him there had been illegal occupation since 1948 [in Israel], implying that Israel did not have a right to exist at all
Caused him to be falsely detained for over an hour, in public, by a group of security officers, while they cross examined him and investigated the CCTV footage to see if he had been in a protest.

UKLFI has written to the Alberto Martin, chief executive of London Luton Airport Ltd, to point out that much of what the security officer said to Mr Penzel was antisemitic and that he appeared to be punishing Mr Penzel on the basis of his own antisemitic attitude by detaining him.

UKLFI also accused the security officer, as a representative of the airport, of harassing Mr Penzel by making false accusations against him, by haranguing him with racist political views, and by causing him to be detained in public for over an hour, causing him great anxiety.

UKLFI has told Luton Airport’s chief executive that it is likely to have breached Section 29 of the Equality Act 2010 by subjecting Mr Penzel to “detriments”, as described above, and by harassing him, according to the definition under the Act, which means creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for him.
UKLFI: Royal Court Theatre reported to Charity Commission for allowing staff to wear Free Palestine badges
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) argues that the English Stage Company Limited, the charity whose working name is the Royal Court, has been acting illegally by failing to stop its staff from wearing the controversial badges. Charities are only allowed to campaign politically for causes that will further their own charitable objectives. In the case of the English Stage Company, its objects are to “promote, maintain, improve and advance education or encouragement of the arts in the theatre.”

Jewish theatre goers have been upset to see that Royal Court Theatre staff were wearing badges saying “Free Palestine” while selling theatre programmes or tickets. The Royal Court Theatre refused to confirm that the badges would be disallowed, after UKLFI drew to its attention the distress that the slogans had caused to its Jewish visitors . Instead, Will Young, executive director of the theatre said “we will bear these considerations well in mind as we debrief our teams and continue our work to ensure that our policies and practices are as effective as they can be.”

UKLFI also pointed out that the Royal Court was likely to be in breach of the Section 29 (3) of the Equality Act 2010 by creating an intimidating, hostile, and offensive environment for its Jewish and Israeli visitors.

Many people regard the slogan “Free Palestine” as a call to violent resistance against the State of Israel. It is a shortened version of the phrase “From the River to the Sea Palestine will be free”, which is part of the Hamas Charter of 2017 and is used by supporters of terrorist organizations like Hamas and the PFLP, that seek Israel’s destruction through violent means. It is an antisemitic call to dismantle the Jewish state, denying the Jewish right to self-determination, including through the removal of Jews from their ancestral homeland.

It is also notable that the racist mob in Amsterdam who hunted down Israeli football fans in Amsterdam last week in order to beat them up, insisted that people they suspected of being Israeli should utter “Free Palestine” to confirm their “innocence”.


4 anti-government protesters charged with terror for firing flares at Netanyahu home
A senior officer in the military reserves and three others were hit with terror charges Monday stemming from allegations that they launched lit flares at the Caesarea home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month to place political pressure on him.

Rear Adm. (res.) Ofer Doron, 63, his son Gal Doron, 27, and two other longtime anti-government activists, Itay Yaffe, 62, and Amir Sadeh, 62, were indicted in Haifa District Court on charges of carrying out an act of terror through the reckless and negligent use of fire, and attempted arson. The two Dorons were also charged with obstruction of justice for initially lying to investigators about who fired one of the flares.

According to prosecutors, the four were involved in firing two flares at Netanyahu’s house on the night of November 16 during weekly protest activities against Netanyahu and the government.

Nobody was harmed in the incident and no damage was caused, and the Netanyahus were not home at the time.

The charge sheet alleges that some two months before the incident, Ofer Doron and Amir Sadeh attended a meeting with agents from the Shin Bet security service in which they were briefed on the acceptable limits of the protests, and specifically warned against using pyrotechnics, which have become a regular features at weekly protests in Tel Aviv.

The indictment states that the four showed up earlier in the day of the incident to scope out the area, including security arrangements. They then snuck out of the area by avoiding roads to keep from being detected by police. Some turned their phones to airplane mode.
Cairo hosts Fatah-Hamas talks, aiming for deal on PA control in post-war Gaza
Egypt’s foreign minister said Monday that rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas were in Cairo for talks seeking to bring post-war Gaza under the full control of the Palestinian Authority.

Gaza has been under the authority of Hamas since it used force to take the territory in 2007 from the Fatah movement, which currently rules over parts of the West Bank under the PA. Repeated attempts at mending the rift between Fatah and Hamas have failed, wrecked by the factions’ bitter rivalry over power.

“There are indeed two delegations from the Fatah and Hamas movements in Cairo, consulting and deliberating to quickly reach a mutual understanding regarding the management of daily affairs in the Gaza Strip under the full control of the Palestinian Authority,” Badr Abdelatty told a news conference in Cairo.

He said the PA is to “be fully enabled to take on matters in a clear and complete manner after the end of the Israeli occupation.”

The issue of who will govern Gaza after the war has been widely debated.

Palestinians insist that the territory’s future should be theirs to decide, rejecting any foreign intervention.

Israel rejects any role by Hamas in Gaza after the war is ended, and has said it does not trust the rival PA of Mahmoud Abbas to run the enclave.

The talks are part of Egypt’s broader mediation efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terror group and to expand humanitarian access to the enclave.

Mediators, including Egypt, Qatar, and the United States, have so far failed to secure a truce that would end the war and facilitate a release of Israeli and foreign hostages held by terror groups in Gaza, in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners held by Israel for crimes that include terror offenses.
Iran sends fresh troops into Syria as Assad goverment prepares counterattack
Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have deployed to Syria to back President Bashar Assad’s counteroffensive against Sunni jihadi insurgents who have captured large portions of northwestern Syria, including most of the city of Aleppo.

An Iraqi military official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Iraqi militias in Syria have already been deployed to the war effort and that additional forces have crossed the border, the Associated Press reported on Monday.

Some 200 Iraqi militants on pickup trucks crossed into Syria overnight on Sunday through the strategic Al-Qa’im border crossing, near Abu Kamal in Deir ez-Zor Province, said the Syria Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based opposition war monitor.

Moreover, Iran had dispatched dozens of fighters from Shi’ite militias and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to Syria by air, Sky News Arabia reported.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Assad in Damascus on Sunday and reaffirmed Tehran’s full backing for the Syrian regime.

“The Islamic Republic will insist on its principled stance to fully support the Syrian government, nation and army in the fight against terrorism and safeguard regional security and stability,” Araghchi was quoted by the media as saying during the meeting.

The top diplomat later arrived in Ankara to discuss developments in Syria. The Turkish government supports many of the Sunni insurgents fighting against the Assad regime.

Meanwhile, dozens were killed in Syrian and Russian airstrikes on insurgent positions in Idlib and Hama provinces, located south and southwest of Aleppo.


Dissident Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi released after death sentence overturned
Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, who was jailed for involvement in nationwide protests, has been released from prison after serving his term, the judiciary said.

Salehi, 34, was arrested in October 2022 after publicly backing demonstrations that erupted a month earlier, triggered by the death in custody of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.

Salehi had been sentenced to death in April by a revolutionary court on charges linked to unrest in the country from 2022 to 2023, although Iran’s Supreme Court overturned that sentence in June.

The singer had used his songs and social media to back the protests that followed Amini’s death days after her arrest for an alleged breach of the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.

“Toomaj Salehi, sentenced to one year in prison for propaganda against the political system, was released on Sunday after serving his sentence,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.

His defense team said he had been charged with “inciting sedition, gathering, conspiracy, propaganda against the system and calling for riots” during the months-long protests. File: People hold placards bearing portraits of Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, who is arrested in Iran, and portraits of children (L), who were killed during the protests in Iran, during a rally in support of Iranian women in Istanbul, on November 26, 2022. (Yasin AKGUL / AFP)

The demonstrations saw hundreds of people killed, including dozens of security personnel. Thousands were arrested as authorities moved to quell what they branded foreign-instigated “riots.”


Israel’s role in climate tech innovation: A blueprint for regional cooperation
Over the past two years, the United Nations Climate Change Conference has provided Israeli environmentalists with a respite from a stifling and painful reality back home. It offers a brief opportunity to look outward and find solace in preventing a climate catastrophe – an event that unites most nations around a shared cause of critical importance.

This year, however, even this source of hope felt elusive. The choice of host country for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29), for example, set low expectations from the outset: It seemed unrealistic to expect Azerbaijan to advocate for global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and a shift to sustainable energy, as these actions would directly challenge its economic foundation. The official conference concluded this past weekend with minimal impact and no significant breakthroughs that would inspire hope. This comes at a time when the global order is in flux and the willingness to collaborate on shared challenges is steadily eroding.

International solidarity, reminiscent of the successful effort to address the hole in the ozone layer three decades ago, now feels like a distant memory. In the current global climate, the prospects of reaching agreements that drive meaningful change appear increasingly slim.

On a more optimistic note, however, I wish to highlight a source of hope closer to home, in the Middle East. At the Israeli pavilion, we hosted an event titled Advancing Regional Collaboration in Climate Innovation, conceived in a partnership that includes the Israel Democracy Institute, EcoPeace Middle East, and Startup Nation Central.
Israel's first wave energy power plant to launch in Jaffa Port
Israel's first sea wave energy power plant will launch in Jaffa Port next Thursday to help the country address climate change and transition to renewable energy.

The project was jointly developed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, the municipal development company 'Atarim,' Eco Wave Power, and EDF Renewables Israel.

This will be a pilot station for generating electricity from sea waves, and will aim to combine multiple areas, such as innovation, sustainability, and the challenges of climate change.

The municipality said that supporting innovative technologies to reduce emissions is a key part of the city’s environmental and sustainability initiatives.

The Energy and Infrastructure Ministry recognized the project as a "pioneering technology."

Eco Wave Power
Eco Wave Power explains the technology behind the project, which "connects floaters to existing marine structures like breakwaters and piers. These floaters rise and fall with the waves, powering a hydraulic motor and generator located onshore. The system includes smart controls that lift the floaters out of the water during storms to prevent damage."

The company is currently building several other similar stations across the world, including Los Angeles and Porto.

The project is led by Eco Wave Power founder and CEO Inna Braverman, who graduated from the “Women for Climate” program, one of the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality's environmental and sustainability initiatives.

In the program, "selected women receive professional guidance and tools to lead innovative projects that advance urban sustainability and tackle climate change."
‘Zionism 2.0’: Former NBA player Omri Casspi raises $60m to invest in Israeli startups
Former NBA player Omri Casspi has raised $60 million in seed capital to invest in early-stage startups and companies founded by Israeli serial entrepreneurs developing technologies in the areas of cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and artificial intelligence.

Swish Ventures is Casspi’s second seed venture capital fund after stepping onto the court of tech investments two years ago following his retirement from professional basketball as the first Israeli player to break through in the NBA.

The new fund hopes to invest $5 million to $7 million in about 10 startups each. Among Swish’s investors are venture capital fund Sequoia, Israeli and US institutional investors, and more than 25 serial entrepreneurs, including EON founder Ophir Ehrlich, PointFive founder Gal Ben-David, Upwind co-founder Amiram Shachar, Granulate (sold to Intel) co-founder Asaf Ezra, and Armis founders Yevgeny Dibrov and Nadir Izrael. The fund manages a total of $125 million in assets.

“We are launching Swish at a time when the importance of the high-tech sector to Israel is maturing,” Casspi told The Times of Israel. “In this not easy climate during war and with high interest rates, we see this period as Zionism 2.0, a time and age of building generational companies from Israel, and we want to take advantage of that and help them build a great industry.”

“There are a lot of great founders coming back to build the next big business, the next big firm, and they have a lot of experience and we are right there to potentially take advantage and help build the future of the tech ecosystem in Israel,” he said.

Despite launching during a challenging period in which Israel remains entangled in a multi-front war, Casspi said the new fund received $172 million in commitments from investors — though he decided not to expand the size of the financing round.




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