Thursday, December 05, 2024

12/05 Links Pt2: The infernal Qatari strategy; NYC Schools Are Scaring Jewish Students; Al Jazeera+ used bots to amplify anti-Israel discourse; Yoseph Haddad faces anti-Israel mobs on Concordia campus

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The infernal Qatari strategy
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has said that there will be “all hell to pay” if the Israeli hostages being held in the Gaza Strip aren’t released by his inauguration on Jan. 20. He added: “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America.”

While no one knows what Trump would actually do, can anyone doubt that a similar stance by the United States after the Oct. 7 pogrom would have produced results?

If, instead of appeasing Iran and bullying Israel, the Biden administration had told Qatar on Oct. 8 that unless the hostages were released within 24 hours, Washington would sever all economic, diplomatic and security relations with Doha—and meant that—it’s likely the hostages would have been freed and the horrors of the past year averted.

That’s because Qatar is Hamas. The Gulf state founded it, funded it and, until Trump won the November presidential election, sheltered the men who run it.

Qatar is a profound threat to the free world. As Yigal Carmon of MEMRI has written, it supports ISIS, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas and Hezbollah. In 1996, it hid the future 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) in Doha. When the FBI came to arrest him, informing only the Qatari Emir, KSM disappeared within hours.

Arab states that support the Abraham Accords have repeatedly warned the West against Qatar. In 2017, Dr. Anwar Gargash, then the United Arab Emirates’ minister of state for foreign affairs, described Doha as the “main sponsor” of terrorism and a “safe haven” of extremism.

In 2017, Qatar’s behavior led Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt to cut their diplomatic ties with it and impose a blockade on all contact by land, sea and air—a blockade that lasted for three-and-a-half years.

Yet the West refuses to treat Qatar as a godfather of terrorism and an enemy of civilization. During the past year, the United States has used it instead as an interlocutor with Hamas, treating the emirate as an honest broker in the negotiations to release the hostages.

These negotiations were never going to succeed. They were used instead to cripple Israel’s ability to inflict a speedy military defeat of Hamas. The only way the hostages were ever going to be released was through pressure on Hamas.

Yet Qatar had no intention of exerting that pressure, and none was exerted on Qatar, in turn, to do so. So the emirate played America for suckers, while more Israeli soldiers were killed or injured, and the hostages were left to their appalling fate.

Refusing to cut off the head of the snake in Tehran, the Biden administration conducted a Potemkin negotiation with Qatar which, despite its Islamist extremism and terrorist ties, has insinuated itself into the West on an enormous scale.
Clifford D May: Israel’s gift
In 2006, Hezbollah precipitated a war with Israel. After 34 days, under the newly passed U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, the Israelis ceased firing and withdrew.

In exchange, Hezbollah was to pull out of southern Lebanon, from the Litani River to the northern Israeli frontier, under the supervision of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Instead, both the LAF and UNIFIL did nothing—or actively collaborated with Hezbollah, which has now spent almost two decades emplacing missiles in schools and mosques, building underground fortresses and storing chemical weapons.

All this was in preparation for a future invasion of Israel that was to be followed by massacres, hostage-taking and, if possible, the conquest of the Galilee and other northern Israeli territories.

Had this plan been carried out in coordination with Hamas’s invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, along with missile barrages from Iranian territory, and strikes by the Houthis in Yemen and Shia militias in Syria and Iraq, who knows how many Israelis might have been killed? Who knows whether Israel would have survived?

For reasons about which we can only speculate, that didn’t happen. But on Oct. 8, Hezbollah demonstrated solidarity with Hamas by firing missiles at northern Israeli communities. These strikes continued for more than a year. Tens of thousands of Israelis have had to abandon their homes.

Enormous numbers of Iranian missiles were launched against Israel from Iranian soil in April and October of this year, and sporadically by the Houthis.

Israel’s missile defense systems, augmented by American systems, minimized damage and, in response to Tehran’s attacks, Israel destroyed Iran’s air defense systems.

In September, the pagers carried by hundreds of Hezbollah operatives suddenly exploded. Days later, an Israeli airstrike killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah deep in his bunker.

The Israelis then proceeded to destroy hundreds of Hezbollah missiles, launchers and weapons caches. Most of the group’s senior leadership has now been eliminated.

The ceasefire the Biden administration arranged last week has left Israelis arguing among themselves.

Critics contend that it will allow Hezbollah to get up off the mat, and that it doesn’t ensure that displaced Israelis can return to their homes.

My reading is that, on balance, the Israelis come out ahead. President Biden was adamant to achieve a “diplomatic solution,” and the Israelis need a prompt resupply of American munitions. That now appears to be in train.

The Israelis are already responding forcefully to Hezbollah violations of the ceasefire.

And next month, President Trump will bring a new approach to the Tehran-fueled conflicts of the Middle East.

But back to the Lebanese. They now have a chance to remove the imperial yoke Iran’s rulers put around their neck and regain their freedom, sovereignty and independence. The LAF, long funded and trained by the United States, should at least attempt to disarm a crippled Hezbollah.

Lebanese patriots need to ask themselves two very Israeli questions: If not now, when? If not us, who?
What is happening in Syria is a microcosm of the dynamics of the Middle East
The area controlled by the thing that refers to itself as the Syrian government, which should more properly be termed the regime of Bashar Assad, remains the largest of the three zones of control in partitioned Syria. This structure controls around 60 per cent of the territory of the country.

The Assads run their fiefdom as a family dictatorship. One young Syrian evocatively described the country to me under the Assadsas a “family run farm, and we’re the animals.” This statement sums up the brutally repressive nature of the regime. But the Assads rule by more than terror. They are members of the Alawi sect, a split-off from Shia Islam. They have privileged their own community and implicated it in their excesses. The loyalty, partly coerced, of Syria’s Alawis is the foundation on which Assad’s continued rule of his area rests.

East of the Euphrates, in an area comprising roughly 30 per cent of Syria’s territory, a governing structure dominated by Syria’s Kurdish minority holds sway. The self-styled Autonomous Administration of North East Syria (AANES) is recognised by no state in the world. It has nevertheless created the most stable and functioning area of Syria. Its fighters formed the key ground ally of the US-led coalition in the war against the Islamic State, concluded victoriously in 2019. Once the toast of all those opposed to the murderous excesses of ISIS, the Syrian Kurds and their beleaguered enclave are now largely forgotten by the world. They are nevertheless determined to maintain and defend their zone of control against ongoing attempts by both Assad and the Sunni Islamists supported by Turkey to encroach upon it.

Lastly, and most relevantly to the events of recent days, in the north west of Syria there is an enclave maintained with the support of Turkey, comprising around 10 per cent of Syria’s territory (though now considerably more, as a result of recent events), and further subdivided between two Sunni Islamist governing entities, the so-called Syrian Interim Government to the north, and the Syrian Salvation Government in the southern part of this area.

It may well be that any reader who has lasted this far now feels they understand less about Syria than they did when they began the article. Syria can have that effect. Nevertheless, the background matters. What has happened in recent days is that the Syrian Salvation Government, an entity maintained by a Sunni jihadi group called Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), has launched an offensive against the Assad regime, and has achieved remarkable success. Its allies in the Syrian Interim Government, meanwhile, have embarked on their own offensive against the Syrian Kurds.

HTS have rapidly covered ground. In a remarkable achievement, they have taken Syria’s second city, Aleppo. They are now menacing the city of Hama, 100 km or so further south. As a result of the gains of recent days, the Sunni Islamist enclave in Syria now has a population of around 7 million people.

The Assad regime is not yet in serious danger. The Sunni jihadis’ lines of advance are still far north of Damascus, and east of the Assad’s heartland in Latakia Province on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. As of now, at least, HTS’s remarkable offensive has simply re-set the balance between the areas of control in Syria.

So why should no-one have been surprised by the offensive?

First, because frozen conflicts rarely stay frozen forever. The causes that originally animated them tend to make themselves manifest at a time when one or another of the sides finds it opportune.

Secondly, because all serious observers of Syria have known for a while that behind its rhetoric, the Assad regime is a depleted and rotting structure, dependent on its powerful Iranian and Russian allies for survival. These allies are currently distracted in wars with Israel and Ukraine respectively. HTS, whose leader Abu Mohammed al Jolani is as tactically flexible as he is strategically rigid, spotted the opening and chose to strike.

And lastly, no one should be surprised at rival ethno-sectarian forces, supported by powerful regional and global states clashing in the Middle East across the landscape of collapsed states, because that is the very essence of the way that power is wielded across the region at the present moment. From this point of view, current events in Syria offer a kind of microcosm of the dynamics of the region as a whole. Hopefully, both western governments and publics are watching carefully, and may even emerge better informed about the nature and dynamics of the Middle East.


Seth Mandel: NYC Schools Are Scaring Jewish Students
From the mother of a Manhattan public school student: “On Monday, Oct. 9, my child came to school and found their teacher chanting, ‘Palestine all the way! Israel is going to get what they deserve!’ When my child complained to the administration, they were accused of harassing the teacher.”

The mother of a student at a “coveted” public high school, also in Manhattan: “In math, the better performing kids were sitting at one table, and classmates were calling it ‘Jew table,’ She was sending me pictures from the bathrooms of stickers that said ‘resistance by all means.’ The school was covered in swastikas and graffiti. When I emailed the principal, the response was, ‘Your daughter is wrong about the swastikas and graffiti, and we already called the police and we are wiping everything every day.’ She finished 9th grade but didn’t want to return to school this year.”

Adams adds a caveat: As a schools consultant, she’s not going to be hearing much from happy parents. Her clients are much more likely to be unhappy parents seeking to transfer their children to another school. But it is undeniable that the reasons for parents seeking her out have shifted to include the outbreak of Jew-hatred.

What to make of all this?

First, this sort of behavior is not just, or even mostly, about other students. It’s about the administration at each school and the citywide bodies overseeing education. The reason anti-Semitism has reached crisis levels in some school systems is because of the failures of adults, not students. What goes on in these institutions is what’s permitted to go on in these institutions.

Second, there’s a temptation to see the above quotes as evidence of so much schoolyard bullying or kids-will-be-kids teasing. But that again lets the grownups off the hook. How many New York grade-schoolers are watching Al Jazeera or the BBC or Sky News reporting on the conflict every morning before shuttling off to the bus? The contextualizing of much of this Jew-baiting means it’s coming from somewhere.

Sometimes, that’s the faculty—the teacher who chanted “Israel is going to get what they deserve!” at young students is not the only one behaving like a raving lunatic and passing that behavior on to their students. Sometimes, it’s the curriculum—that is, it’s not the personal beliefs of the teacher but the actual textbook or common lesson plan. That’s a structural problem, and it is only going to get worse.

Sometimes, perhaps much of the time, it’s coming from other parents. Socially, this is taxing both for the Jewish kids and their parents.

Adams includes in her piece some tips for parents looking to scout out schools ahead of time. And they are practical suggestions. But the overall picture is a reminder that American Jews’ daily lives have been made more stressful and more complicated in ways that are quickly becoming part of a new normal.
Special envoy Lipstadt traveling to Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE
Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, left the United States on Tuesday for a week of meetings in the Middle East.

She is scheduled to speak with government officials and others in Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates through Dec. 13. Topics to be discussed include promoting interfaith understanding, encouraging religious tolerance, countering antisemitism and highlighting Jewish regional heritage.

This is Lipstadt’s fourth trip to the Middle East and North Africa since her term began in May 2022. She visited Israel last December.

Also on her agenda is the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ annual Manama Dialogue in Bahrain that runs from Dec. 7-8.

Launched in 2004, Bahrain hosts the program annually. It is described as a “central element of the Middle East’s security architecture” that seeks to enable “national leaders, ministers and policymakers from the Middle East, North America, Europe, Africa and Asia to gather together to discuss the most pressing regional security issues and to share policy responses.”
German University Cancels Lecture by Israeli Historian Benny Morris Due to Student Protests, ‘Security Concerns’
The University of Leipzig in Germany has canceled a lecture by Israeli historian Benny Morris following student protests described by the school as “understandable, but frightening in nature.”

Morris, one of Israel’s leading public intellectuals, was scheduled to deliver a lecture about extremism and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, in which the Jewish state secured its independence, at the university on Thursday as part of a lecture series on antisemitism.

However, the school released a statement this past Friday announcing that it had canceled the planned event, citing protests over the lecture and what it described as security concerns.

“Our invitation to Prof. Morris was motivated by the desire to talk about his earlier work, which has had a profound impact on historical research,” the university said in its statement. “Unfortunately, Prof. Morris has recently expressed views in interviews and discussions that can be read as offensive and even racist. This has led to understandable, but frightening in nature, protests from individual student groups.”

The University of Leipzig did not elaborate on any specific comments by Morris, whose works include the seminal study The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, first published in 1988, and made a point of noting it did not endorse the historian’s views.

“In principle, inviting speakers to the university does not necessarily mean that we agree with their views, and we firmly distance ourselves from Prof. Morris’ controversial statements,” the school said. “The purpose of the event with him was to engage critically, not to endorse his theses or later statements. In our opinion, science thrives through the exchange of diverse ideas, including those that are challenging or uncomfortable. We trust that our students are able to engage constructively and critically with the guest speaker.”

Various groups including Students for Palestine Leipzig had called for the lecture to be canceled, arguing Morris — who has expressed political opinions associated with both the left and the right — held “deeply racist” views against Palestinians.

“Together with security concerns, the above points mean that Prof. Benny Morris’ lecture will not take place,” the university stated.

Morris, 75, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the decision to cancel the lecture was “disgraceful, especially since it resulted from fear of potential violence by students. It is sheer cowardice and appeasement.”
Tehran’s Trojan Horse
While most Americans will be enjoying their winter holiday season, the U.S-based Muslim Students Association Persian-Speaking Group (MSA-PSG)—also known as Anjoman Islamie—will be hosting its annual conference under the ominous theme, “Resistance: An Islamic Duty,” in Herndon, Virginia.

The accompanying promotional imagery illustrates the conference’s theme, featuring armed soldiers on a battlefield and an inverted triangle symbol associated with the designated terrorist organization Hamas, following the October 7th massacre.

While MSA-PSG has not generated as many headlines as more notorious American Islamist groups, such as American Muslims for Palestine or the Council on American-Islamic Relations, its continued existence underscores a consistent failure by America’s security establishment to address the threats posed by foreign-backed Islamist entities, despite being the subject of federal scrutiny since at least the 1980s.

The origins of MSA-PSG date back to the 1960s. According to George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, it was co-founded by Ebrahim Yazdi, a prominent Iranian politician who eventually served as the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Foreign Minister following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Another MSA-PSG co-founder, the Berkeley-educated engineer Mostafa Chamran, played an integral role in establishing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and later served as the country’s Minister of National Defense and as Deputy Prime Minister for Revolutionary Affairs.

Given its origins, it is unsurprising that MSA-PSG exists solely to advance the interests of the Islamic Republic stateside by promoting overwhelming religious and political allegiance to the Iranian axis and fanatical devotion to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As such, its annual conferences are replete with imagery of Khamenei and his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the 1979 revolution.

The upcoming conference, taking place between December 27th-30th, will feature several extremist speakers. One such individual is Sayed Abazar Wahedi, who grew up in Qom, Iran. According to his personal website, he currently leads the Islamic Center of Fatimiyyah in Hayward, California and teaches at a Shiite school, the Saba Academy.
Yoseph Haddad faces anti-Israel mobs on Concordia campus
Arab-Israeli Christian Orthodox journalist and advocacy activist for Israel, Yoseph Haddad, visited Concordia University, where he and his supporters faced anti-Israel mobs attempting to shut down his event.




Israeli Singer Dudu Tassa Blasts Roger Waters for Criticizing Artists Who Perform in Israel
Isra

eli singer-songwriter Dudu Tassa took to Instagram on Monday to criticize former Pink Floyd frontman and anti-Israel musician Roger Waters for “obsessing” over artists who choose not to support a cultural boycott of Israel.

Tassa directly addressed Waters in an Instagram post, writing, “Dear Roger, Are you not tired of obsessing over the same musicians who are simply trying to bring good into the world? Move on. Your incredible music has already contributed and inspired an entire generation. Now, all the noise achieves nothing. Music is what matters. Got it?”

Tassa’s post was in response to comments Waters recently made about Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke and the British rock band’s guitarist Jonny Greenwood, regarding their stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the band’s refusal to cancel shows in Israel. Waters is an avid supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, which constantly urges musicians not to perform in the Jewish state.

Radiohead has been performing in Israel for over 20 years, most recently in 2017, and Greenwood and Tassa have been collaborating and releasing music together since 2008. The Radiohead guitarist, who is married to an Israeli, released a collaborative album with Tassa last year titled “Jarak Qaribak,” which is an Arabic phrase that means “Your Neighbor Is Your Friend.” The album features vocalists and musicians from across the Middle East, including Cairo, Ramallah, and Beirut. Greenwood and Tassa performed together in Tel Aviv this summer, despite pressure that Greenwood faced from BDS supporters to cancel his shows. Radiohead was also threatened by BDS activists because of Greenwood’s concerts in Israel.

Waters made a recent guest appearance on “The Empire Files” podcast and talked about exchanging emails with Yorke regarding Radiohead’s decision to perform in Israel in 2017. Waters also commented on Yorke’s confrontation with an anti-Israel fan during one of his concerts in Melbourne, Australia, in October. The former Pink Floyd lead singer called Yorke “a complete prick” and said, “I think he’s damaged.”

“He’s very damaged,” Waters added. “He’s obviously very, very deeply insecure. He obviously thinks he’s very bright but he’s not. So he can’t actually have a conversation.”

Waters then criticized Greenwood for releasing music with Tassa this summer and performing in Israel.
As Hamas fans parade around, Canadians sit in silence
Ultimately, because our society has become so obsessed with racism and division as opposed to harmony and collectiveness, it’s understandable that the majority of Canadians are more comfortable watching their country die than they are speaking out about things like extremism, fanaticism, and Jew hatred. Doing so could — God forbid — lead to someone being called “racist” or “intolerant” — currently the most feared words in the English lexicon.

Finally — and inextricably linked to the previous two points — many Canadians have come to believe that there isn’t any distinct national identity here. Even our leaders have declared publicly — in the most high-profile of places — “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.”

It is no wonder, then, that so few take issue (publicly, at least) with things like terrorist cosplay, chants of “death to Canada,” and Nazi salutes at protests. We’ve been gaslit into believing our country has no national ethos while simultaneously being told we’re racist settlers who are in no position to dictate the terms of our country’s trajectory.

At the end of the day — some very rotten things are happening here — and while many are likely mortified — few have dared to say anything. We know that rabid antisemitism always leads to the destruction of societies and other minority groups. We know when narratives or activities are dangerous, destabilizing, and anti-Western. And we know what are and are not signs of a burgeoning society. And still — indulging our cult of guilt, keeping our mouths shut, and respecting even the most heinous phrases and actions are what we’ve come to learn and embrace.

If Canadians want any chance of preserving whatever part of this country they love and cherish — if they want their grandchildren to enjoy the same things that they once did — they’ll need to wake up, speak out, and stand up for what they believe in and what they want this country to look like. If they don’t — we’ll likely lose it all.
Nearly one-third of Ontario’s Jewish doctors may leave Canada over bigotry
A new survey released by the Jewish Medical Association of Ontario found that almost one-third (31%) of the 500 respondents in Ontario are considering leaving Canada due to the rising rates of antisemitism in the country.

The full survey, released on Wednesday, received responses from more than 1,000 Jewish medical professionals across Canada.

While 1% reported experiencing “severe antisemitism” before the Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, 29% said they have now experienced some form of Jew-hatred in their communities, 39% in hospitals and 43% in academic settings.

“Discrimination doesn’t just impact doctors,” said Dr. Ayelet Kuper, chair of the Jewish Medical Association of Ontario. “It undermines the entire healthcare system, compromising patient care and eroding workplace integrity.”

Dr. Sam Silver, an associate professor at Queen’s University, told the National Post how the antisemitic bigotry has affected him and his students.

“I work with health-care students and residents who are bright, compassionate, and committed to becoming the future of healthcare in Canada,” Silver said. “Yet they are navigating a hostile environment where their identity as Jews makes them targets of hate and exclusion. This cannot continue.”


Jonathan Tobin: Biden’s reading doesn’t matter, but a false Palestinian narrative does
In his books, like the one Biden clutched, he paints a distorted picture of the last century of conflict, which rationalizes the numerous instances of Palestinians rejecting compromise and even offers of independent statehood alongside a Jewish state as an appropriate response to the indignity of having to share the country with Jews intent on reclaiming sovereignty in their ancient homeland. He still brands Israel as a “settler-colonial” state that has no legitimacy, albeit a slightly different case than others. He dismisses every concession by Israel and the Jews to advance a compromise in the long conflict as meaningless. And he insists that any theoretical two-state solution must involve no safeguards against Palestinian terrorism, which even he must see is unreasonable after the way the wave of suicide bombings during the Second Intifada from 2000 to 2005 literally blew up any Israeli support for the peace process. The notion that the Palestinians were interested in peace on any terms was further obliterated by the slaughter on Oct. 7.

This is exactly the sort of mendacious arguments that explain the way big lies like the charge about Israel committing “genocide” in Gaza have become so prevalent in American discourse and are spread by supposedly objective sources like Amnesty International.

While he is not the most extreme of advocates for the claim that Israel is a “white” oppressor state, treating him as a reasonable authority on the subject is risible.

So, too, is the notion put forward by Eshman and Haaretz that it is important for Jews and others who care about the U.S.-Israel relationship and the Middle East to read him and fully absorb the Palestinian narrative he puts forward.

Of course, it’s important for supporters of Israel to know what the other side is thinking and why they believe as they do. Yet the idea that American Jews and, as Khalidi also insists, Israelis are ignorant about the Palestinian narrative of the conflict and how their ongoing angst about the nakba (the “catastrophe” of 1948 and the founding of the modern-day State of Israel) influences their actions is nonsense.

It’s a theme the Jewish left never tires of sounding. They contend that American Jews are raised in utter ignorance of anything but the Zionist narrative about Israel and that Israelis are equally lacking in such knowledge. But this is untrue.

Do we need more Palestinian propaganda?
First, most American Jews know very little about the history of the conflict from any point of view. Due to assimilation, intermarriage and the rapid growth of the category that demographers label “Jews of no religion,” increasingly fewer of those with at least one Jewish parent get any form of Jewish education, even the most superficial form that leads to a bar mitzvah ceremony. Even the small minority of Jewish kids who get the most comprehensive form of Jewish education at day schools are often not taught all that much about modern Israeli history or Zionism.

The vast majority of Jewish youngsters arrive in college with scant grounding in the facts of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle or an understanding of the justice of Israel’s cause. There, they are confronted with a new orthodoxy rooted in toxic neo-Marxist ideas like critical race theory and intersectionality, and the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) that excludes any consideration of Jewish rights. Influenced by the beliefs of academics like Said and Khalidi, this dominant secular religion has indoctrinated a generation of students in the myth that Israel is an illegitimate “settler-colonial” state that practices “apartheid.”

They hear little about it being the sole democracy in the Middle East. And they know even less about it being the sole Jewish state on the planet or about the long history of Palestinian-Arab refusals to accept its legitimacy, no matter where its borders are drawn.

And outside of a few conservative secular outlets like Fox News, the New York Post and JNS, the media gives them a steady diet of pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas and anti-Israel propaganda thinly disguised as objective news coverage.

That’s why, in contrast to Israelis, most American Jews still tell pollsters that they support a two-state solution, supported the efforts by Biden and former President Barack Obama to appease the terrorist-supporting Islamist regime in Iran and don’t think much of Israel’s democratically elected government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Even in Israel, the long-discredited arguments for trading “land for peace” tend to dominate the discussion in that country’s leftist-dominated media outlets. Peace education and the requirement to study Arabic has long been a staple of Israeli public education. Khalidi told Haaretz that Israelis are living in a bubble that leaves them unable to understand why the world takes sides against them. But since most in the Jewish state are cognizant of the history of the last 30 years of attempts to advance peace by various Israeli governments and their abysmal failure, they are far from ignorant about the cause. They understand that the Palestinian national identity is inextricably tied to their century-old war to expel the Jews. They and informed American Jews also have caught onto the fact that hatred for Israel is merely the modern iteration of traditional antisemitism, a point that has been made obvious by the surge in hate against Jews since Oct. 7, 2023.

The idea that Jews or anyone else need to have more of Khalidi’s teachings—or the moral equivalent produced by a generation of numerous other anti-Zionist voices that he has helped foster—stuffed into their brains is ridiculous.

Jews must join the war on woke
For too long, most Americans have been unaware of the damage being done to U.S. education by those who have embraced woke doctrines and are waging a war on the Western canon and American history. Though some of us have been sounding the alarm about this for years, it was only after the terrorist assault on Oct. 7—and the surge in American antisemitism fueled by these false doctrines, which included a blind belief in the distorted Palestinian narrative about Israel’s illegitimacy—that most Jews and their leading organizations have begun to take the threat seriously.

Needed now are not further efforts to spread Khalidi’s ideas but a comprehensive campaign to refute them. Liberal American Jews fear the impact of this rising tide of left-wing antisemitism. Nevertheless, they cling loyally to a Democratic Party that tolerates and helps mainstream the beliefs of its intersectional activist base that hates Israel. Though hard for them to accept, the only way to roll back the wave of post-Oct. 7 Jew-hatred is to support efforts of the incoming Trump administration to do away with DEI and to punish those educational institutions that tolerate this scourge by defunding and stripping them of their accreditation.

So, while no one should waste time worrying about what Joe Biden is reading, those who care about the fight for Western civilization and the survival of Israel should pay attention to the fact that Khalidi’s book is treated as an authoritative source of information about the Middle East. The time for treating the Orientalism and nakba narratives as anything other than fraudulent attempts to distort the truth is long past.
Bill Clinton: Young Americans shocked to learn Arafat turned down Palestinian state
Former US president Bill Clinton on Wednesday said young people in America today “can’t believe” that late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat walked away from a Palestinian state during peace negotiations with Israel under his mediation as president.

“I think what’s happened there in the last twenty-five years is one of the great tragedies of the twenty-first century,” Clinton told New York Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin, in an interview for the newspaper’s DealBook Summit, promoting his new book , “Citizen: My Life After The White House.”

“All [young people in America] know that a lot more Palestinians have been killed than Israelis. And I tell them what Arafat walked away from, and they, like, can’t believe it,” said the former commander-in-chief.

Arafat “walked away from a Palestinian state, with a capital in East Jerusalem, 96% of the West Bank, 4% of Israel to make up for the 4% [of the West Bank to be annexed for Israeli settlements],” Clinton recalled , repeating an account of the Oslo peace negotiations, to which the ex-president has returned repeatedly in recent interviews and remarks .

The talks, which aimed to resolve Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians through a negotiated two-state solution, fell apart just six weeks before Clinton’s second term ended.

“I go through all the stuff that was in the deal, and they, like – it’s not on their radar screen, they can’t even imagine that happened,” Clinton went on, describing his conversations with young Americans upset over the death toll in Gaza in the latest war.
Gottheimer, Sherrill offer diverging post-Oct. 7 records on Israel
Support from New Jersey’s sizable Jewish community could be critical in the state’s upcoming gubernatorial primary, which features Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) as early frontrunners. The two candidates’ records on Israel policy in the House — which feature notable differences — are poised to play a role in shaping the outcome of what’s set to be a highly contentious primary.

Gottheimer has been among the most vocal Democrats in his support for Israel throughout his congressional career, but especially in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, breaking frequently with the Biden administration and other Democrats. Sherrill’s record, some Jewish leaders in the state tell Jewish Insider, is more mixed. She’s repeatedly been critical of Israeli operations in Gaza and accused Israel of failing to facilitate sufficient humanitarian aid, while also expressing support for Israel’s defense, the U.S.-Israel relationship and the release of hostages.

Sherrill was an early advocate among House lawmakers for Israel to implement a “humanitarian pause” in its operations in Gaza, on Nov. 2, 2023, while also calling for the unconditional release of hostages, and accused the Israeli government of lacking a plan or goals for the war and its aftermath.

Later in November, the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ New Jersey chapter alleged that Sherrill had said in a meeting with Muslim leaders that she was “unsure” if Israel’s operations in Gaza constituted a genocide. Sherrill said subsequently that she had been misquoted and that she had told the group that Israel was not committing genocide.

She also rejected the South African genocide case against Israel, saying she had “not heard or seen evidence that there is an effort by the military … to eradicate specific portions of or all of the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

In December, Sherrill and fellow Democrats with national security backgrounds, including Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), the latter of whom is mounting a gubernatorial run in Virginia, called for the administration to exert pressure on Israel to change its military strategy and tactics in its Gaza operations, arguing that the civilian harm in Gaza was “unacceptable” and “not in line with American interests” or those of Israel itself.

That letter also emphasized the U.S.’s “responsibility” to help Israel protect itself and free the hostages.
Anti-Israel NYC councilwoman tests the limits of left-wing activism
Maya Kornberg, a Jewish Democrat in Brooklyn, launched a long-awaited campaign on Tuesday to challenge Shahana Hanif, a far-left New York City councilwoman who has faced backlash from Jewish constituents over her strident criticism of Israel amid accusations of insensitivity to reports of rising antisemitism.

“I’ve dedicated my career to making democracy work better,” Kornberg, who leads elections and government research at the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, said in a statement, vowing to focus on “standing up against hate, providing reliable constituent services, and delivering meaningful change for every resident in every corner of the district.”

The matchup sets the stage for what is expected to be a fiercely contested primary next June, pitting a pragmatic progressive who has been fundraising aggressively in recent months against an outspoken democratic socialist whose council district is home to one of the largest Jewish constituencies across the five boroughs.

As many left-leaning Democrats reevaluate their messaging to voters following a rightward shift in New York City during the presidential contest last month, the upcoming council race could serve as a downballot test of whether Hanif’s far-left positions and ties to anti-Israel groups will prove too extreme for liberal voters in the deeply progressive district.

For several months, Jewish leaders in the central Brooklyn district, which includes progressive Park Slope, have been anticipating Kornberg’s challenge, eager to back a new candidate who they believe will be more amenable to hearing their concerns about a surge in antisemitic activity sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks, among other issues.

Kornberg, who declined to comment to Jewish Insider about her campaign, has previously expressed more measured commentary on Israel, where she studied abroad while in college.
Boston official who called Oct. 7 a ‘military operation’ under federal investigation
Tania Fernandes Anderson, a Democrat whose 7th District includes Roxbury and parts of the South End and Dorchester, issued a reaction on social media on Wednesday after initial reporting of an FBI investigation, the nature of which is unclear.

“My job is to show up and to fight for you,” she wrote. “I will continue to do just that; the people’s work.”

Boston city councilors are elected to two-year terms, and there is no limit on the number of terms an individual can serve.

In October 2023, days after Hamas terrorists infiltrated and attacked Jewish communities in southern Israel—killing 1,200 men, women and children—Fernandes Anderson introduced a resolution in the city council that described the massacre as a “military operation,” accused Israel of “apartheid” and “war crimes,” and called for an immediate ceasefire in Israel and “occupied Palestine.”

It was met with outrage from some of her colleagues.

“They dragged people out of their houses. They killed people that were in a concert. It’s not a ‘massive military operation,’” said Frank Baker, a city councilor and Democrat representing Boston’s 3rd District. “Those little girls there that were at that rock concert, that were having a fun time, that are being raped now, let’s return them, and then we’ll talk about a ceasefire.”

Fernandes Anderson, 45, who is a black convert to Islam, defended the resolution by making an apparent reference to the conspiracy theory that the “original Jews” were African.

“Arabs are semites, so antisemitism applies totally to Arabs, I don’t get it,” she said. “And it applies to the original Jews, the black people in Ethiopia.”


Israel presents Hamas new ceasefire and hostage release deal
Israel has given to Hamas, through Egyptian mediators, an updated version of a ceasefire deal proposal that involves the release of the remaining 100 hostages, two Israeli officials said.

Attempting to leverage regional and international shifts—including the elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in mid-October, the ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration in late January—the updated version of the proposal mirrors previous similar efforts while emphasizing the implementation of the first phase of the deal from August.

"The Egyptian and Qatari mediators believe Hamas might now agree to a hostage-release and ceasefire deal, even if it is partial," one Israeli official noted.

Key points of the new proposal were finalized during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, involving senior ministers and several security chiefs. These points were passed to Egyptian intelligence, who then presented them to Hamas representatives in Cairo.

"Egypt is currently the primary negotiation channel with Hamas, although Qatar is also involved," Israeli officials stated.

The new proposal offers a ceasefire with Hamas lasting 42 to 60 days. During this period, the Gazan terror organization would release female hostages, male hostages over 50, and hostages in critical medical condition.

Israel, which initially demanded the release of 33 individuals in these groups, has adjusted its expectations, citing assessments that some hostages may no longer be alive.

Notably, the proposal maintains Israel's readiness to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including those serving life sentences, in exchange.
Israeli official: Egypt proposed hostage deal with extended truce, not end to war
A recent Egyptian hostage deal proposal passed on to Hamas offered an extended ceasefire during which hostages in the “humanitarian” category would be released, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel on Thursday, as mediators launched a flurry of activity to reach an agreement to end the 14-month war.

The updated hostage deal proposal given to Hamas by Egypt was not an Israeli offer as previously reported by the Axios news site, the official said, but was instead a proposal made by Cairo that Israel is fully open to discussing.

The official noted that the proposal is not for an end to the war, but an extended ceasefire that will allow the elderly, children, women, and badly wounded hostages to be released.

Hamas still has not indicated whether it is willing to discuss the proposal, but if it is, Israel will send a delegation to Cairo to negotiate, the official said.

Hamas has until now repeatedly refused agreements that do not include a permanent end to the war and a withdrawal of Israeli troops.

Israel is interested in Egypt remaining at the center of the talks, said the official, adding that Qatar remains updated behind the scenes and will want to take full part in mediation if there is progress. “Turkey has no role,” the official said, contradicting earlier reports. A man carries items recovered from the rubble of a building after an Israeli strike in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on December 5, 2024. (Eyad BABA / AFP)

Qatar announced last month it was suspending its role until the two parties show “willingness and seriousness” to resume talks. Steve Witkoff, US President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy, traveled to Qatar and Israel this week in order to kickstart efforts, while a source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Times of Israel that Doha had quietly resumed its role as a mediator.

A US official said Biden’s aides were aware of Witkoff’s meetings and understood that Witkoff supports a Gaza deal along the lines the administration has been pursuing, but did not see a need to coordinate with him.
Mother of British hostage held by Hamas slams U.K. Foreign Secretary Lammy
The mother of the only British citizen still being held hostage in Gaza criticized U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy for a social media post, published hours after their meeting, condemning the “unacceptable humanitarian situation in Gaza” without noting the ongoing hostage situation.

Mandy Damari, 63, is in London this week to raise the plight of her daughter, Emily, with the U.K. government, as well as other parliamentarians, the media and public figures.

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists broke into the 28-year-old’s home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. They shot and kidnapped her back to Gaza, after shooting her dog dead.

Damari last received “proof of life” for her daughter in March. While in the U.K. this week, she met with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and Liberal Democrat head Ed Davey.

She expressed her gratitude to those with whom she met, but had stern words for Lammy, with whom she spoke on Monday.

“Regrettably not all of my experiences this week have generated positive momentum,” she said.

Damari told a press conference in London on Thursday that Lammy had been one of about 100 MPs who attended an event organized by the Labour Friends of Israel earlier in the week.

She said she felt her “call to action” earlier in the week had been “well received” by those in the room including Lammy, and was surprised by his actions later that day.

“A few hours after my speech, however, the foreign secretary published a statement on the need for Israel to allow more aid into Gaza for the winter,” she said. “But there was no mention of the need to get any of that aid to Emily or the other hostages — and no additional remarks have been made on the subject since then.”

On Monday evening, Lammy posted on X that Britain, France and Germany had written to the Israeli government “to urge action on the unacceptable humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

He continued: “Israel must implement @UN’s winter plan now: send equipment to guard against cold & flooding, give access to fuel, repair vital infrastructure, and get aid in.”

Underlining her disappointment, Damari said, “I appreciate the foreign secretary’s warmth in our personal meeting but as I have said I came for solutions not sympathy.”
PodCast: 168: Mandy Damari: 🎗️ Bring Emily Home. Emily's mum Mandy addresses UK media in Central London
Emily Damari, whose 28, is a joint UK and Israeli citizen and the only living remaining British national held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

On the morning of October 7th, 2023, Emily was in her home on Kibbutz Kfar Azza, 2 miles from the Gaza border, when terrorists entered her house.

Her beloved golden cockapoo Choocha was shot dead, Emily was shot and left with severe injuries. She was then blindfolded and kidnapped in the back of her own car and driven into Gaza.

Emily's captivity is now well over a year long.

Emily's mother Mandy, 63, is a Brit, born in Surrey and grew up with her parents and three brothers in Beckenham, Kent. She visited Israel on holiday aged 20 where she met and fell in love with her husband.

Emily is the youngest of four siblings and her mother Mandy says, "her unforgettable smile and cheeky and quick sense of humour light up every room she enters."

Emily is a massive Spurs fan and would often plan trips to the UK around a concert or a Spurs game.

Tottenham fans have recently initiated the #ShesOneOfOurOwn campaign in her honour.

Mandy faced the UK media at a London news conference with an impassioned mesage,🎗️Bring Emily Home.


Capturing Israel's pain and hope: a photographer's journey with hostage families
I felt the weight of the pain in the kibbutzim, but the pain of the families of the hostages is different. It is a living pain, full of the unknown, full of hope, full of a silent scream and a prayer for the return of their loved ones. Standing before these people at their most difficult moments, photographing them at funerals, birthdays, rallies, marches, and more intimate events, and sometimes, at their most emotional moments when some of the hostages returned home.

This entire journey, despite all the difficulty, is an enormous privilege for me.

I have a list of the events that have moved me the most in terms of photographing The Hostage Family Forum, from the cries of the families at the Gaza border, back in January, to the celebration of little Kfir Bibas’ first birthday to Hanan Yablonka’s funeral. And as I look back, more painful events come to mind, one after the other. Each family’s story is important and heartbreaking, and each one must be photographed and heard in order to share with the world the true story of Israel’s pain and hope. Over the past year, my approach to photography has changed completely.

At first, I felt unsure about approaching and speaking to the families. I focused mainly on capturing the moments without disturbing them, without imposing my presence. But today, everything is different. Over time, many of these families have become close friends as well as sources of inspiration. With their unimaginable pain and strength, they have taught me what it means to stand strong, what endless hope and love are, and what it truly means to “never give up.”

It is a great privilege to meet so many strong individuals – people who face the ocean of memories and fear but never give up. They are not only fighting for the hostages, they are fighting for all of us, for the entire State of Israel. Every moment with them is a gift I don’t take for granted and from which I draw strength to remain focused on my own mission – to continue capturing the story.

As a photographer, I allow myself to claim that the “victory images,” literally speaking, are the ones of the Angrest family with Matan; the families of the observation soldiers with all the girls together; the Bibas, Miran, Yahalomi, Shemtov, and all the other families.

The victory photos are the return of all the hostages, all of them. A sad and heartbreaking, but extremely necessary reunion for the families of the fallen hostages.

Just this week, we were informed of Omer Neutra’s death on October 7. Omer’s body is still being held by Hamas but must be brought back to Israel.

All of the 100 hostages must come back home together because it’s time for better days for all of us.


Israeli farmer whose son was killed by Lebanon rocket works to restore orchard
Five weeks ago, Moshe Weinstein found the body of his son Omer and four farm workers killed by a Hezbollah rocket, their bodies lying in an apple orchard that he has cultivated for years.

Weinstein, 75, is back working his land, taking advantage of a ceasefire deal brokered last week between Israel and Hezbollah that is aimed at restoring calm to both sides of the border. But the horror will haunt him for the rest of his days.

"I came and saw the worst thing possible to see," he told Reuters.

He had been elsewhere on the farm when the sirens went off on Oct. 31, warning of incoming fire from Lebanon. Shortly afterward, an explosion shook the air. By the time he reached his son there was nothing to be done. Four Thai workers were also killed outright, while a fifth survived the blast.

"They were not supposed to be here harvesting on that day," he said, recalling how Omer had taken his team into the orchard only because a client had asked for the sweet Pink Lady apples that grew in that section of his farm.

"The strike was there in the well, the tractor stood here with the cart," he said, reliving the scene.

Weinstein's family business lies close to Metulla, Israel's northernmost town, which was repeatedly targeted by Hezbollah rockets over the past 14 months as part of the Iranian-backed group's campaign to support its Palestinian ally Hamas.


Andrew Pessin: The Impresarios of Hate: What Professors Are Teaching Your Kids About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
What is described below is all too common across all too many campuses.

Israel-haters have a way with words. “Genocide” is applied to Gaza where (according to the CIA) the population has apparently increased over the past year of war. “Apartheid” applies to the one country where Jews and Arabs actually cohabit in significant numbers and where Arabs serve in the government, judiciary, army, etc., but not to the many Arab countries that ethnically cleansed all their Jews, have policies incentivizing the murder of Jews, and/or legally discriminate against their own Palestinians. “Occupation” applies even though the country allegedly occupied never actually existed before being “occupied.” The head spins from the language abuse, so one would hope that an “educational” series at a reputable liberal arts college would help navigate the obfuscations. Alas, the word “educational” has been colonized, too, and chucked into the linguistic abyss.

On Friday, November 22, the pro-Hamas lecture series at my college calling itself an “educational series” for “understanding Israel/Palestine” offered its last installment of the semester. Forgive me for calling the series “pro-Hamas,” but considering that nearly every one of its many speakers since Hamas raped, tortured, dismembered, and massacred 1200 mostly unarmed civilians (including children, the elderly, pregnant women, and the disabled) spent their time explaining exactly why that massacre was justified, it seems an accurate label. (To be fair, a few offered pro forma condemnations of the massacre before then justifying it at length.) Besides, if you’re opposed to Hamas—if you reject its jihadist desire to conquer the world for Islam, its murderous oppression of its own people, and its genocidal ambitions against Jews—you’d probably be advocating for global pressure on Hamas to return the hostages and surrender, thus ending this nightmarish war and freeing the Gazan people from their nightmarish subjection, rather than advocate for a ceasefire that ends Israeli military activity with Hamas still in power and their perpetual violence against Gazans and Israelis alike ensured. Recently even the top Islamic scholar in Gaza issued a fatwa condemning Hamas’s use of human shields and its failure to provide aid to civilians (Hamas steals it instead), and the Israel Defense Force (IDF) released an excerpt of thousands of hours of captured footage of Hamas torturing Gazans. Only someone who supports Hamas could not be against all that, yet not one of the many speakers advocated for this obvious position, so, again, the label seems justified.

The speakers in the series had some useful material to share. But still, this series has done this community, and especially our students, a profound disservice. Starting last year just weeks after the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust this “educational series” consisted of one anti-Israel speaker after another essentially justifying the slaughter. I think there were eight last year, and three more this year so far. Eleven speakers, one after the other, explaining exactly why those naughty children, elderly, pregnant, and disabled people had it coming, and/or condemning Israel for having the audacity to defend its citizens by attempting to remove the genocidal jihadist threats nestled directly on its borders. That conflict over there, which I prefer to call the Israeli-Palestinian-Jewish-Arab-Muslim-Iran Conflict, or IPJAMIC, is precisely as complicated as that name, and more. Yet this series “educates” our community with an onslaught of speakers speaking in a single voice that also happens to support the groups targeting Jewish non-combatants for mass slaughter. “Educational”? There are other words for when you present only one side of a complicated issue, and do so repeatedly, through eleven speakers and counting: “propaganda”? “brainwashing”?

And given the apparent support of mass violence targeting non-combatants, perhaps “incitement”?

Or in brief: “hate.”

Really, eleven speakers. And counting. One wonders why this conflict merits so much sustained, single-minded, dare we say obsessive, focus. There are over 100 active military conflicts in the world right now, some several orders of magnitude worse in terms of civilian casualties, human rights violations, and overall suffering. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands and millions dead, displaced, actively dying of starvation, in Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Russia-Ukraine, Burkina Faso, 120,000 Armenians forcibly cleansed from Azerbaijan, 500,000 Afghanis forcibly expelled from Pakistan, the massive ongoing slaughter of Christians in Nigeria and elsewhere, Turkey actively bombing, killing, and displacing Kurds by the hundreds even just in recent weeks, etc. Just last week Turkish bombing cut off electricity and water to a million Kurds. Our campus, in response to these enormous global catastrophes? Crickets. Meanwhile we are inundated with eleven speakers portraying the tiny sliver of a Jewish state—itself the victim of a large-scale jihadi terrorist massacre and having been attacked now by 31,000 missiles in an area just larger than Connecticut—as the epitome of all evil, and its (mostly Jewish) civilians as deserving of being slaughtered, for defending itself in a conflict featuring a mere fraction of those other casualties. There’s probably a word for an obsessive focus on, and egregious double standards applied to, the Jews, as well.


I’m a non-Jewish academic. British universities are racist
As a non-Jewish lecturer at a major university, I can confirm that British academia is structurally racist against Jews. The penny finally dropped as I was second-marking a piece of undergraduate writing in which Jews were openly compared to scurrying vermin, spreading disease.

The student’s illiterate use of grammar, nonsensical punctuation and mixed metaphors would surely have embarrassed Goebbels. But Hitler’s arch propagandist would just as surely have approved of the spirit of the piece. Not that this was a uniquely awful specimen of the kind of “work” I’ve had to face as first and second marker of a large cohort of students since the horror of October 7.

A different piece, produced by a student in the same year group, accused its readers, in the foulest language, of complicity with “genocide” and of “sleeping” while the IDF killed innocent civilians for target practice.

The obvious Jew-hatred of these pieces of writing were one thing. But then there were the comments of the first academic who had marked them, which praised the “Jews-as-vermin” piece as a moving indictment of Israeli “colonisation” that displayed a fine philosophical turn of phrase and a carefulness of language. As for the “genocide” piece, my colleague reassured the student that his message was deeply important.

This, in a nutshell, is the problem: not the fact that immature, 20-year-old students have been brought up on a diet of hating the West, hating Jews and unashamedly milking their self-declared victim status, but the fact that this pernicious nonsense is actively encouraged, praised and taught by the academy – and has been for decades. Ever since the late 1960s, higher education in the West has been infiltrated by a steady stream of nefarious actors, who claim victimhood and make allegations of “Islamophobia” on the one hand and spout racist hate speech against Jews on the other. The ultimate bait-and-switch.

The academics in question may not be paid agitators but they nonetheless fall over themselves to support one kind of non-white student (any kind of Muslim) over other kinds of minority non-white student (Jews or Christians from Africa, Israel, or elsewhere in the Middle East), no matter the hypocrisies involved.
If universities won’t stand up to anti-Semitism, they must lose government funding
The Vice Chancellor and her senior colleagues have shown goodwill and concern, and are clearly aware of the problem. Indeed the Vice Chancellor and her family have apparently themselves been harassed by protesters. But Oxford needs to be far more pro-active in dealing with anti-Semitism which, sadly, seems present amongst senior members as well as students.

An open letter sent to the authorities in May, outlined 101 episodes of anti-Semitic bullying, harassment and intimidation, which were creating “a frightening climate” for Israeli and Jewish students. One academic had told a student “There are too many Jews in the university”, another informed a colleague, “Jews run all the banks in the world”, while a welfare officer told a student whose family members had been murdered with one taken hostage, “This university is not a nice place for Israelis as well as Jews and there is nothing we can do about it”.

The University’s guidelines on racism are too generalised. There need to be specific guidelines on anti-Semitism for all members of the University, allowing complaints to be made anonymously, as with allegations of sexual assault, so that complainants do not fear victimisation. Anyone who threatens or seeks to disrupt free speech should be sent down since such activity undermines the central purpose of the university.

Sadly, however, Oxford is probably not untypical of what is happening in higher education. It is the responsibility of government to ensure that intolerance is banished from our universities. For anti-Semitism is the best warning sign that we can have that the values of a liberal society are under threat. As the late Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, declared – what starts with anti-Semitism never ends with anti-Semitism.

In May Rishi Sunak met Vice Chancellors, telling them to take “personal responsibility” for ensuring the safety and well being of Jewish students. Keir Starmer must do the same, emphasising that universities must meet their legal obligation under the 2010 Equality Act which protects ethnic and religious minorities from discrimination. He should tell them that if they do not meet their responsibilities, their grant funding will be at risk.

In America, Donald Trump is informing college presidents that, unless they confront anti-Semitism, they will lose federal funding. A Labour government must not show itself less sensitive to racism than Donald Trump.
Oxford Chabad was vandalised with swastika on anniversary of October 7
A swastika was scrawled on the front of a Jewish student centre in Oxford on the morning of Simchat Torah this year, the anniversary of October 7, in the latest in a spate of “hate" incidents on campus.

The graffiti was found on the blue sign of the Oxford Chabad Slager Jewish Centre on October 25 and was reported to Thames Valley Police.

Rabbi Eli Brackman, director of the Oxford University Chabad Society, has condemned the attack as motivated by the spread of “extreme and irrational hate of Israel” on campus.

“On Simchat Torah morning, the anniversary of the 7/10 attacks, a swastika was found drawn on the front of the Oxford Chabad Slager Jewish Student Centre,” he said.

“Jewish life is strong at Oxford this year, with record numbers of Jewish students attending Friday night dinners at Chabad, and the extreme tension of last year, with the protests and encampments, largely subsided.

“Nevertheless, events at Oxford continue to traumatise Jewish students. The swastika on the front of the Chabad Slager Jewish Student Centre is just one of many examples.”

Rabbi Eli noted the “horrific anti-Israel debate” that occurred at Oxford Union last week, which saw the contentious motion that “Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide” passing by 278 votes to 59.

More than 300 academics have since signed an open letter arguing that the debate, in which speakers praised the October 7 attacks, broke the law.

“This attempt to silence and intimidate Jewish students at Oxford and boycott Israel, reminds us of the continued threat facing Jewish students and Jewish life on campus,” said Rabbi Eli.

"The drawing of the swastika highlights what happens when extreme and irrational hate of Israel is allowed to spread on university campuses.”

He said there must be a strong response to further strengthen Jewish life on campus and not allow these "forces” to intimidate students.
Quebec to investigate two Montreal colleges for complaints of Jew-hate
The Quebec government announced on Tuesday that it will investigate two junior colleges in Montreal following complaints of antisemitism.

“The climate on some campuses seems to have deteriorated in recent months,” said Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry, who requested the review of the Dawson College and Vanier College administrations.

“We know that the conflict in the Middle East generates its share of emotions,” she added. “But institutions have an obligation to take all necessary measures to ensure a healthy and safe environment for all students.”

The Dawson Teachers’ Union responded to the investigation request, calling the examples cited by Déry “inaccurate.”

The school’s educators “are doing their work effectively and in line with ministerial and departmental requirements,” the group stated. “Any suggestion otherwise is false and inappropriate.”

A complaint submitted to the Higher Education Department in June on behalf of a Dawson student listed several instances of harassment and Jew-hatred on the school’s campus, including an event when handouts promoting an arms embargo on Israel were allegedly circulated by a group of faculty calling themselves “Teachers for Palestine.”

“Since the month of October 2023, our client and many other students have been faced with numerous incidents of overtly antisemitic content, hate speech, harassment and abuse on the Dawson campus,” the complaint reads.


Will Pro-Palestinian Boycott Mobs Abandon Their iPhones and Other Devices?
Anti-Israel student protesters have always sought convenient, effortless ways to demonstrate their hatred for Israel.

In the past, this has meant trying to remove Sabra brand hummus from campus food services. Starting at DePaul University in 2010, efforts to embargo the Israeli-made food spread quickly to other campuses (University of Ottowa in 2014, Swarthmore College in 2018, Dickinson College in 2019, and Harvard University in 2022), but after October 7, 2023, student boycott demands grew more expansive.

It’s no longer enough to change brands of hummus. Today’s students want to ban everything from Israel.

Graduate Students at the City University of New York (CUNY), for instance, now demand not only the familiar Sabra prohibition but also a ban of “all fruits and vegetables grown in Israel.” And their list doesn’t end with food. They also demand that the entire CUNY system “cancel all forms of cooperation with Israeli academic institutions, including events, activities, agreements, and research collaborations.”

What goes unsaid here is that not a single student will ever actually live up to these demands. The rhetorical flourishes are purely for show.

If the thousands of college students calling for a boycott of all things Israel want to live up to their sanctimonious rhetoric, they will have to give up a lot more than one brand of hummus. And they will end up sick, hungry, and underemployed.

I call on all anti-Israel, pro-BDS students and faculty members alike to prove that they aren’t the posers and half-milers I say they are by following through on their categorical rejection of any contact with, use of, or compliance with, any and all Israeli technologies, companies, products, ideas, and universities.

I dare these pretenders to put their futures where their mouths are, and abandon entirely anything with the State of Israel.

It won’t be easy.


Qatar’s AJ+ used bots to amplify anti-Israel discourse, new report finds
AJ+, Qatari Al Jazeera’s western-facing outlet, has used a sophisticated network of artificial online profiles to systematically manipulate social media discourse and spread anti-Israel narratives, according to a report issued by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) and Cyabra, a leading social media analytics firm.

The two-month research initiative, conducted between September and November, exposed the intricate methods used by AJ+ to artificially inflate its online presence as a means to disseminate anti-Israel narratives and discourse.

The study, titled “Strategic Deception: Unmasking the Fake Profiles Network Spreading AJ+ Antisemitic Propaganda”, found that in those two months, nearly one-third of interactions with AJ+'s official X accounts originated from fake profiles, revealing what the writers deemed to be a calculated strategy to manipulate digital engagement.

These fabricated accounts systematically distributed divisive messaging with a pronounced focus on anti-Israel propaganda.

The report identified that roughly a third of the profiles engaging with AJ+ on their X account were fake, which was deemed by the report as suggesting a coordinated effort to artificially amplify the platform's visibility.

These synthetic accounts consistently shared identical messages across multiple platforms, particularly targeting cross-platform engagement between X and TikTok.

Scanned accounts included AJ+’s outlets in English, Arabic and French. The authenticity of the interacting accounts was decided considering factors such as creation dates, behavioral patterns, engagement frequency, and content originality.
Major brands pull ads from Twitch over allegations of antisemitic content
Major U.S. companies, including JPMorgan, AT&T and Dunkin’ Donuts, have ceased advertising on Amazon-owned Twitch following reports that the streaming platform has allowed antisemitic content to flourish. The move follows investigations accusing Twitch of failing to curb hate speech effectively.

At the center of the controversy is Hasan Piker, a Turkish-American streamer with nearly 3 million followers who describes himself as a political commentator and supporter of “Palestinian emancipation.”

While Piker claims to oppose antisemitism and targets Israeli policies, critics accuse him of promoting hateful narratives, including equating Zionism with fascism and hosting individuals linked to extremist groups, such as Yemen’s Houthis.

Piker faced further backlash after defending Hamas fighters following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, denying allegations of atrocities. Despite violating community guidelines, Piker reportedly earns tens of thousands of dollars in ad revenue and has been praised by Twitch CEO Dan Clancy for his outspoken approach.

Twitch, which boasts more than 240 million active users, has attempted to tighten content policies, including banning the use of “Zionist” as a slur and labeling political content as sensitive to enhance advertiser control.

However, viral campaigns against the platform, including videos branding it an “antisemitic hellscape” and targeted harassment of Twitch executives, have added fuel to the fire. Twitch has condemned threats against its staff, calling such actions “unacceptable.”

Despite measures to balance free speech and ad safety, several major advertisers have taken action. AT&T and Dunkin’ Donuts have removed their ads entirely, while energy giant Chevron, which operates in Israel, announced it is reconsidering sponsorship of the platform’s TwitchCon event following a controversial panel where participants ranked streamers on their “love for Arabs.”


Two men charged over stabbing of Iranian journalist outside London home
Two Romanian men have been charged in connection with the stabbing of British-based Iranian journalist, Pouria Zeraati, earlier this year.

Zeraati, a presenter for Iran International, a Persian-language news channel, was stabbed outside his home in Wimbledon, south London, March. He sustained leg injuries from the attack, which he said left him feeling so vulnerable on British soil that he left the UK.

The incident happened on March 29 and sparked a Metropolitan Police investigation led by the force's Counter Terrorism Command.

Following an investigation by the Met, two Romanians were arrested on Wednesday over the stabbing.

Nandito Badea, 19, and George Stana, 23, were arrested in Romania on December 4. They are each charged with “wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and wounding,” according to the Crown Prosecution Service, which released a statement on Thursday.

“They have both now appeared in a Romanian court for the start of extradition proceedings,” the CPS spokesperson added.

British prosecutors said they will continue to work closely with Romanian authorities to ensure that the extradition request is progressed through the courts.

If extradition is granted, Badea and Stana will be brought to the UK to face criminal proceedings.


Romania bestows honor upon trio of longtime American Jewish leaders who tackle
A trio of American Jewish leaders were honored on Tuesday by the Romanian government for decades of work in building the Eastern European country’s democracy, its incorporation into NATO and its reckoning with its antisemitic past.

This Sunday, all those efforts could be rolled back as Călin Georgescu—a little-known antisemitic, Holocaust-denying, pro-Russia candidate—is projected to win a runoff election for prime minister amid allegations of Russian meddling.

Facing an uncertain future back in Bucharest, Andrei Muraru—Romania’s ambassador to the United States—tied medals around the necks of Rabbi Andrew Baker, director of international Jewish affairs for the American Jewish Committee; Daniel S. Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International; and Mark Levin, executive vice chairman and CEO of the National Coalition for Supporting Eurasian Jewry (NCSEJ).

Presenting them with the National Order of Merit in the rank of grand officer—the second-rarest civilian award—Muraru said the achievement was extraordinary. It was “not just regular achievement, but persistent, enduring, impactful and time tested leadership and achievement, the kind that deserves our highest recognition and praise,” he emphasized.

According to a declaration read at the ceremony, the awards were given “as a sign of high appreciation for their commitment to combating antisemitism and Holocaust denial, for their long-standing role in advancing Romania’s bilateral relations with the United States of America and with the State of Israel” and for their efforts to support Romania’s entry into the Schengen Area, allowing checkpoint-free travel for citizens of 29 European countries.

Baker was a member of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, known as the Wiesel Commission, led by Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. It was established by former President Ion Iliescu, now 90, in 2003 to examine the history of the Holocaust in Romania and to make concrete recommendations on educating Romanians on the topic, following the uproar that Illiescu generated with his own Holocaust minimization.


The Old Jewish Cemetery of Baghdad: A Forgotten Chapter in Iraq’s History
The old Jewish cemetery in Baghdad, a relic of a once-thriving Jewish community, holds the stories of generations who contributed to Iraq’s social, cultural, and economic fabric. It was more than a burial ground — it symbolized the deep roots of Jewish life in Baghdad, once home to one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in the Arab world.

A Historical Overview: From Jerusalem to Babylon
The Jewish presence in Mesopotamia dates back more than 2,500 years, beginning with the Babylonian exile in 586 BCE. After the destruction of the First Temple by King Nebuchadnezzar, exiled Jews settled in Babylon, adapting to their new circumstances while preserving their traditions. This period gave rise to the Babylonian Talmud, a cornerstone of Jewish scholarship.

By the time Arab armies conquered Mesopotamia, Jewish life was deeply entrenched in the region.

Baghdad, strategically located on the Tigris River, became a hub for trade and culture, attracting Jewish merchants, artisans, and scholars. Over the centuries, the Jewish community contributed significantly to Baghdad’s golden age, cementing its place as a vital part of the city’s identity.

The Jewish Cemetery: A Sacred Landmark
In the 19th century, Baghdad’s growing Jewish population established a cemetery in the Bab al-Sharqi district. This sacred space became a repository of memory, where Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic epitaphs told the stories of the departed. The cemetery symbolized the resilience of a community that, despite persecution, thrived and enriched Baghdad’s cultural and economic landscape.

By the early 20th century, Jews formed a significant portion of the city’s population, with a flourishing network of synagogues, schools, and businesses.

The Cemetery’s Evacuation and Its Aftermath
The destruction of Baghdad’s Jewish cemetery under President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr in the 1970s marked a profound loss. The site, which held victims of the 1941 Farhud pogrom and perhaps my own ancestors, was razed to make way for Al-Nahda Bus Terminal (محطة النهضة لنقل المسافرين).

This act of erasure reflected the Ba’athist regime’s broader narrative, which glorified figures like Rashid Ali al-Kilani, a pro-Nazi leader implicated in the Farhud, while erasing the legacy of the Jewish community.

This symbolic affront was compounded by the renaming of the surrounding neighborhood as Al-Kilani. Such decisions underscored the government’s efforts to rewrite history, sidelining Iraq’s once-multicultural identity in favor of a narrative that marginalized minorities.
Only Survivor of 6,000 Jewish Children Deported From France Dies, Aged 97
Henri Borlant, the sole survivor of the 6,000 Jewish children under the age of 16 who were deported from France to Auschwitz in 1942, died on Dec. 3, aged 97.

Borlant spoke often of his experiences to schools. In 2011, he published a book, Merci d’avoir survécu (Thank you for surviving). The title came from a note he received from a 15-year-old boy who heard the story of his deportation.

The Shoah Memorial saluted his memory in a tweet.

Born Hirsch Borlant in Paris on June 5, 1927, Henri was the fourth of 10 children. His parents were naturalized French citizens from Russia.

In 1939, the French authorities evacuated Paris’s 13th arrondissement and in August, his family fled to Maine-et-Loire in Anjou in western France.

Borlant recounted that they were warmly welcomed by the locals and had no idea what lay in store for them. As a precaution, the children, who were educated at a Catholic school, were baptized. Borlant became a Catholic.

On July 15, 1942, his mother, brother Bernard, sister Denise and he were arrested by German soldiers. “They had a list and took everyone who was between 15 and 50 years old,” he said.

Two days later, his mother, Rachel, was released and replaced by his father, Aron. No explanation was given, according to an interview he gave to the Maine-et-Loire region website.

On July 20, 1942, Henri, his brother, sister and father were crammed into cattle cars with 824 others and deported in convoy No. 8 from Angers to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Shoah Memorial said.

As he was transported, he tossed out a note: “Dear Mom, it seems that we are going to Ukraine to harvest.” The letter reached his mother thanks to a railway worker.

Upon arrival at Auschwitz, his sister was killed immediately. His father and brother also would not survive the camp.

“Our extermination was planned, programmed,” he wrote in his book. “We knew that we were living our last moments. The hope that all this would be known one day fueled our will to survive.”
Stars of David with Elon Gold: Howie Mandel is Our Comedy Hero
Howie Mandel talks to Elon about the joys of being a grandparent, opens up about his mental health struggles, and discusses how he turned to Jewish tradition to honor his late father.






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