Saturday, December 14, 2024

12/14 Links: Number of civilians killed in Gaza ‘inflated to vilify Israel’; Shifting the goalposts of genocide; Is domestic terrorism the next step for antisemitic radicals?

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Syria Refused to Accept Final Borders. It’s Paying For That Now
The narrative in parts of the press that Israel is “invading” Syria because it has been taking out loose chemical weapons stocks and securing its buffer zone is more an expression of emotional derangement than analysis, but egging on Syria’s rebels to go to war with Israel is a bit much even for this crowd.

There is a serious point here, however. Complaints about violations of Syrian sovereignty are reminders that the fluid borders are Syria’s own doing, by design. Countries that actually signed peace and recognition agreements with Israel don’t have this problem, because those countries were willing to delineate permanent borders with the Jewish state. No one is guiltier of obstructing that process than Syria.

Upon the passing of the UN partition plan in 1947 and the subsequent assurances by the British that they would fulfill plans to end the UK’s mandate for Palestine and allow for the division of the land into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, Syria began agitating for war and whipping up opposition to recognizing Israel among the Arab states. The Syrian government expressly warned the U.S. that should partition pass, there would be blood. It was not an idle threat.

In early 1948, U.S. diplomatic correspondence outlined Syria’s orchestration of a campaign of disregarding the sovereignty of Palestine while it was still held by the British: “Reports from the U.S. Mission at Damascus indicate that Syria is the center of recruitment and training of the so-called ‘irregulars’, which are intended for infiltration over the Palestine border and subsequent guerilla work in Palestine. There is evidence that such forces have already proceeded across the border to a considerable extent.”

The memo went on to explain in more detail: By New Year’s 1948, Syrian commanders had recruited thousands of irregular soldiers—more, in fact, than they had weapons for. Syria also became “the training center for recruits from Palestine, Egypt and Iraq.” Beginning less than a month after the partition vote, these militiamen began infiltrating Palestine with what appeared to be Syrian soldiers directing or covering them. A Syrian defense official described one attack on a village “as a ‘screen,’ under cover of which there is good reason to believe that approximately 600 Syrian-trained, equipped and transported ‘regular irregulars’ moved across the border into Palestine.”

The U.S. charge d’affaires in Damascus dryly suggested that the government “might consider cautioning the Syrian Government that its participation in recruiting, arming, training, financing and transporting the ‘irregulars’ to the frontier in Syrian army trucks is contrary to the word and spirit of the U.N. charter and the G.A. U.N. resolution on partition.”

Syria got its war, and failed to defeat the Jewish state. In 1949, Israel and Syria signed an armistice agreement that “emphasized that the following arrangements for the Armistice Demarcation Line between the Israeli and Syrian armed forces and for the Demilitarized Zone are not to be interpreted as having any relation whatsoever to ultimate territorial arrangements affecting the two Parties to this Agreement.”

Syria then spent the next two decades trying to claw land away from Israel and redirecting water supplies away from the Jews, while shelling Israeli civilians from Syrian-held positions. In 1967, Syria tried again and failed again: This time Israel was able to take the high ground of the Golan. After the war, the Arab states announced they would not negotiate with Israel over the return of land that changed hands during the war.
Biden Admin Takes Credit for Israeli Victories It Tried To Prevent
Biden administration officials have claimed credit this week for the ongoing collapse of the Iranian axis, seeking to recast their role in a series of Israeli victories that they worked to thwart.

Hours after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria on Sunday, President Joe Biden touted "the unflagging support of the United States" for Israel’s war against "Iran and its proxies," Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Biden noted that Israel had weakened the coalition of tyrants and terrorists in the region to a point where it became "impossible ... for them to prop up the Assad regime."

"Our approach has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East," the president boasted in remarks at the White House. "Through this combination of support for our partners, sanctions [on the Assad regime], and diplomacy and targeted military force when necessary, we now see new opportunities opening up for the people of Syria and for the entire region."

The Biden administration has overseen crucial U.S. military and diplomatic support for Israel during the past 14 months of the war. But from the outset, Biden and his aides have also pressed Israel to reach accommodation with its enemies—criticizing, threatening, and punishing the U.S. ally in the name of regional deescalation. By early this year, before Israel had militarily defeated Hamas or seriously retaliated against Hezbollah or Iran, Biden was already publicly calling for an end to the fighting.

"Biden tried to prevent us from winning this war in every way he could," Gadi Taub, a historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a cohost of the Israel Update podcast told the Washington Free Beacon. "Now that we’re winning in defiance of him, he’s pretending that he was with us all along."
Syria’s Christians: ‘We Have No Reason to Trust Al-Jolani’
Christians have lived in Syria for over 2,000 years, but their numbers have dwindled since the beginning of the civil war in 2011, declining from 2.2 million to about 500,000 or less, making up just over 2 percent of the population. Richard Ghazal, a Syriac Orthodox Christian and executive director of In Defense of Christians, part of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C., said that under Assad’s rule, Christians in Syria were generally protected by Assad as long as they didn’t raise objections to his cruel dictatorship. But they were always treated as second-class citizens. Many of them fled to Lebanon during the war. He said that Syrian Christian church leaders spoke favorably about Assad because they had to—it helped keep the Christian community safe.

“Bishops and priests in Syria and even in the United States knew that all their words and actions were scrutinized by the Assad government,” Ghazal told The Free Press. “If you weren’t a cheerleader for Assad, you were the opposition.”

This week, Fr. Bahjat Karakach, a Franciscan friar in Aleppo, told Vatican News that Christians living under Assad were not living, but were merely surviving.

Ghazal met with the State Department and politicians on Capitol Hill earlier this week and urged them to make it clear to Al-Jolani that America is watching. “The United States needs to show that we are interested. They need to show that we’re not going to be fooled, and we’re going to use whatever means possible from a foreign-policy standpoint to make sure this is right.”

Ghazal said he has received reports from Syria of rebels destroying liquor stores, since alcohol is banned in Islam, and of rebels telling women to cover their hair.

“This is chapter one,” said Ghazal. “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is still trying to woo the world.”

Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, told The Free Press that Christians in Syria are vulnerable because “they have no protector, no militia, and people take advantage of them, either for criminal reasons or for ideological reasons, so they’re very much in peril. Whether it’s an Islamist authoritarian rule or whether it’s just political chaos, they’re fearful.”

And yet, in Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city and the first to fall to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, there is a strange normalcy. “Things are positive for the Christian community,” said Hadeel Oueis, a Syrian Christian living in the U.S. who grew up in Aleppo. “The Islamist rebel groups want to show the international community that they have changed. They want the West to take them off the list of terrorist organizations. So they are behaving.” Oueis was arrested in 2011 and imprisoned for posting information on Facebook about anti-Assad protests in Aleppo. Despite the rebel takeover, she said, the members of her family have been able to return to work.

The Center for Peace Communications, where Oueis works, conducted on-the-street interviews with Christians in Aleppo after Al-Jolani’s takeover, and most were cautiously optimistic. “The first two or three days were uncomfortable, and we were very afraid,” said one woman. “We’ve had enough of war. It’s been 13 years, and our children haven’t been able to experience life. But after a couple of days, the electricity got better, and our situation has become better, safer.”

It’s too early to tell if al-Jolani will keep his word and ensure the safety of minority religious groups under his rule. Previous examples of Islamists taking control of a country aren’t encouraging. In 2020, after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, the Taliban, a Sunni Islamist terrorist organization much like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, promised to allow girls and women to attend school and universities. Nearly four years later, girls are banned from attending school beyond sixth grade, and women are no longer allowed to speak in public.

On Wednesday in Damascus, the electricity was out. Even though Elias’s family home has solar panels, they didn’t turn on the lights. People with access to solar energy are assumed to be wealthy, and his parents didn’t want to attract the attention of possible looters and robbers. For now, there is nothing to do but wait in the dark.


Number of civilians killed in Gaza ‘inflated to vilify Israel’
Inaccurate numbers – yet the media continues to use them
Report: PDF In the fog of war, truth is often the first casualty. Nowhere is this more evident than in the reporting of deaths in the ongoing conflict in Gaza, writes Andrew Fox.

A new report, published by the Henry Jackson Society, exposes startling inaccuracies in the fatality data provided by the Hamas-run Gaza ministry of health – data that forms the backbone of much international media reporting. This report demands a serious re-evaluation of how fatality figures are reported in this conflict.

The findings are damning. According to the report, the fatality figures released by Gaza’s ministry of health are riddled with statistical anomalies and methodological flaws.

Men have been repeatedly misclassified as women, adults have been recorded as children, and deaths unrelated to Israel Defense Forces action – such as natural deaths or fatalities from misfired rockets – have been included. These errors systematically inflate the civilian death toll and obscure the distinction between combatants and non-combatants.

The consequences of this misreporting are profound. By portraying a disproportionately high number of women and children among the casualties, the data perpetuates a narrative that civilians are being targeted.

Yet the report’s demographic analysis reveals a very different picture: depending on the reporting mechanism, the majority of those killed are fighting-age men, strongly suggesting a significant number of fatalities are combatants. This distortion is not just a statistical issue – it shapes international perceptions of the conflict, influencing public opinion and policy-making.

The media’s role in amplifying these questionable statistics cannot be ignored. Of the 1,378 articles reviewed in the report, a staggering 98 per cent cited fatality figures from Hamas-controlled sources without critical scrutiny.

Meanwhile, Israeli sources, which often include data on combatant fatalities, were cited in just 5 per cent of the reports. This imbalance creates a one-sided narrative, portraying Israel as disproportionately targeting civilians while sidelining evidence of militant losses.

The report highlights that this is not the first time such issues have arisen. During previous conflicts, similar inaccuracies were documented.

For example, after the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead, Hamas initially claimed that 95 per cent of fatalities were civilians – a figure later revised under scrutiny to acknowledge that nearly half were combatants. Despite these precedents, international media outlets have continued to rely on unverified figures from the same sources.

The methodologies employed by the Hamas-run ministry of health raise serious questions. Fatalities are recorded through a mix of hospital reports, family submissions using an open-source online form, and “media sources”, with little transparency or verification.

Our report highlights egregious examples, such as individuals listed as war casualties who later appeared on cancer treatment registers – proof they were still alive well after their supposed deaths.

Why does this matter? Media outlets are not merely passive conduits of information; they play a critical role in shaping global perceptions. By failing to critically examine these figures, they risk misleading their audiences and policymakers.

The report notes that outlets such as the BBC, CNN, and The New York Times frequently presented Gaza ministry of health statistics without question, even as these figures diverged wildly between Hamas’s own reporting methodologies.

International bodies, too, bear responsibility. The United Nations has frequently cited Hamas’s fatality figures without caveats, lending them an unwarranted veneer of credibility. This uncritical acceptance allows misinformation to spread unchecked, undermining efforts to understand the true human cost of the conflict.

Accurate reporting in war zones is inherently challenging, but the stakes are too high for complacency.

War is a tragedy, and every civilian death is a profound loss. For families, friends and communities. But accurate reporting is essential for holding parties accountable and for allowing informed international responses. The findings of this report underscore the need for rigorous scrutiny of fatality data from Gaza and beyond.

The world deserves the truth, and for balance and context in war reporting It is the responsibility of media outlets and international organisations to ensure that the narrative they present is not only compelling but also credible. Only then can we hope to understand, and ultimately resolve, the complex realities of conflict.


BBC ‘portrayed Palestinian gunmen killed in Gaza as innocent civilians’
Palestinian gunmen killed in Gaza have been repeatedly portrayed as innocent civilians by the BBC, it has been claimed.

The broadcaster has been accused of failing to inform viewers that many of the Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers were fighters with terror groups such as Hamas.

Research by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (Camera) has highlighted numerous broadcast reports and online stories by BBC Arabic, which it claims failed to reveal the full circumstances surrounding the death of more than 30 Palestinians.

Camera says that, in nearly 30 separate reports, BBC Arabic failed to give any indication that the dead Palestinians had been combatants in the conflict with Israel or were members of terror groups such as Hamas or Palestine Islamic Jihad.

This came despite Palestinian media sources referring to “armed confrontations” and “exchanges of fire” when referring to the deaths, and in some cases militant groups describing the casualties as their fighters.

The BBC has rejected Camera’s complaints, maintaining that its reporting is accurate and that its Arabic service is a vital source of impartial news in a region dominated by partisan media.

Cases examined by Camera, which lobbies for a fair representation of Israel in the conflict, include a report from last October last year about the death of five men “killed by Israeli fire” in Jenin and Yata. It says this failed to include reports from Palestinian sources indicating that three of them were gunmen.

In another case highlighted by the organisation, BBC Arabic reported on the deaths of a woman’s four sons in May but failed to indicate that they were linked to Hamas.

Before the report was broadcast, two of the men had been buried wrapped in Hamas flags, while three had also been claimed by the terror group on social media and Al Jazeera TV to be their “martyrs”.

Researchers found that, during an 18-month period after August last year, there were 18 items in which BBC Arabic failed to report cases of Jewish civilians falling victim to Arab violence, or wrongly described the Jewish fatalities as “soldiers”, “armed forces” or “gunmen” and referred to the attacks that killed them as “resistance operations”.

These included a report in October this year in which BBC Arabic described all 24 Israeli fatalities in the West Bank since the Oct 7 Hamas attacks as “soldiers”, when more than a third were civilians.
Hamas publishes video of unidentified tattooed hostage
Hamas published a video of the body of at least one unidentifiable hostage seen with tattoos in a video to the terror group's Telegram channel on Saturday evening.

The spokesperson for Hamas's armed wing, Abu Obeida, wrote in a statement on Saturday evening that the IDF struck a place where hostages were held.

Abu Obeida said that Hamas intelligence "confirms that the enemy deliberately bombed the place with the aim of killing the prisoners and their guards."

The spokesperson also said that Hamas made "several attempts" to recover the hostages and succeeded in recovering one of them, but their fate is unknown.

Abu Obeida said Hamas holds Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responsible for the incident and for hostage lives.
Dave Rich: Shifting the goalposts of genocide
Why, though, is there such a desire to find Israel guilty of this particular charge? It is not as if other war crimes lack gravity or sufficient penalty. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity including “starvation as a method of warfare” and “intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population”. These are serious charges that, if proven, would lead to imprisonment and permanent disgrace.

There are many supporters of Israel who reject the ICC and ICJ as biased, and see them as no more credible or neutral than Amnesty International. Even so, there is no doubt that the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza is enormous. The number of deaths and injuries, the scale of physical damage to property and essential services, the shortages of basic goods, all with no end in sight, should trouble everyone, whether their sympathies are with Israelis or with the Palestinians (or, ideally, with both). Even if you disregard every casualty statistic issued by Hamas-run institutions in Gaza and only believe the figures from Israeli sources, even if you are convinced that Israel takes as much care as is militarily possible to avoid civilian casualties and you lay the blame for everything at Hamas’s door: the scale of death and destruction, at a basic human level, is still completely awful.

Despite all of this, when weighing the potential charges against Israel, the ICC rejected the charge of extermination because they said the evidence did not support it. Again, this should be a source of relief and reassurance: as bad as things are in Gaza, it suggests that a genocide is not, after all, taking place. Instead, some of Israel’s critics behave as if they are disappointed that their worst fears have not been confirmed.

This is so unusual that it is important to ask why this urge exists to make the charge of genocide stick against Israel, even at the cost of changing the legal definition of the word. As I wrote in my book Everyday Hate: How Antisemitism Is Built Into Our World & How You Can Change It, it is hard to avoid the thought that the Holocaust has a lot to do with it. If you believe that Israel derives moral legitimacy and political power from Western guilt over the Holocaust, then it can lead to a perverse logic by which people try to bring down the Holocaust a peg or two in the hierarchy of competitive victimhood by claiming that Israel, the Jewish State, borne out of the ashes of Auschwitz, is now behaving no better than the Nazis did. One genocide cancels out another, supposedly.

Another reason may be that the intention to commit genocide is central to the legal definition of the term, and it is this intention that Israel’s opponents are so determined to prove. Whereas other war crimes can be the result of recklessness or a lack of concern, you cannot carry out a genocide by accident: you have to intend to deliberately destroy a people. Consequently, a State being found guilty of genocide usually implies the moral incrimination of an entire society, not just the politicians at the top. The intent to commit genocide can only ever be an evil intention, and it is - perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not - one that coheres with traditional antisemitic notions of Jews as inherently and unusually inhumane in their cruelty.

If Israel is found guilty of war crimes, it will join a very long list of countries, including the world’s leading democracies, that have also committed war crimes during armed conflicts - albeit few have been found guilty of such in an international court. However, if Israel is found guilty of genocide, it would join a short and ignoble list of history’s most abhorrent regimes that have become notorious for their crimes. It would be a judgement that discredits and delegitimises Israel itself. And that, for some, is the whole point of pursuing it so compulsively.


Denying Jewish sovereignty of Israel is antisemitic
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism makes it clear that those who oppose the existence of Israel are antisemitic. King David made Jerusalem the capital of Israel more than 3,000 years ago, and the two Jewish Temples were located on the Temple Mount, the last one having been destroyed by the Romans 2,000 years ago.

The Jews never gave up their rights to Israel. Even under Ottoman Turkish rule, when there was limited ability for Jews to return to their homeland, a 1906 Baedeker travel guide listed the population of Jerusalem as consisting of 40,000 Jews, 13,000 Christians and 7,000 Muslims. The international community agreed to the Jewish right to the Land of Israel and a right of return for Jews to Israel at San Remo in 1920, in a unanimous League of Nations Resolution in 1922 and in the Anglo-American Treaty that was ratified by the U.S. Senate and signed by President Calvin Coolidge in 1925. Article 80 in the U.N. Charter affirmed the binding nature of the League of Nations decisions.

Palestinian Arab rioting in Hebron in 1929 massacred 67 Jews, and the subsequent massacres of more than 500 Jews between 1936 and 1938 led to the British White Paper, which restricted Jewish immigration while allowing Arab immigration. A bipartisan majority of 15 members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee at the time declared in a public letter that the British White Paper violated the Anglo-American Treaty. It also meant that the Jews of Europe had no place to go to escape Hitler. The result was six million Jewish deaths.

The Holocaust had nothing to do with the establishment of the State of Israel, if anything, there was greater world support for Israel before the Holocaust, when U.S. presidents Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, Harding, Coolidge and Hoover were all counted among those who supported of the establishment of a Jewish state. The United Nations reiterated their support for a Jewish state in U.N. Resolution 181 in November 1947, and the Arab world rejected a two-state solution of an Arab state alongside a Jewish state. Israel only came into existence in a fight for its survival without a single ally, as President Harry Truman would not provide arms to Israel, and only Czechoslovakia sold arms to Israel. The Jewish state had to smuggle arms from America. President Lyndon Johnson would not even assist Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and only supplied Israel with military arms after Israel was successful in the war.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the former head of the Israeli Shin Bet, Ami Ayalon, recently stated that if they had grown up as Palestinian Arabs they would have become terrorists. We actually know someone who grew up as a Palestinian Arab terrorist and who came to the belief that this was wrong—Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a Hamas leader, Sheikh Hassan Yousef. Mosab Hassan Yousef is an eloquent defender of the Jewish right to Israel. He has shown that it does not matter what kind of family someone grows up in when there is a clear objective case of right and wrong. It is difficult to grow up among evil people as he has done and change one’s ways, yet he has done so. Barak and Ayalon, however, still fail to see the objective Jewish right to Israel.

May we incorporate in our Chanukah celebrations the acknowledgment of the miracle of the restoration, after 2,000 years, of Jewish sovereignty once again over Jerusalem.
How misleading info leads to false claims of a historic 'Palestinian state'
This claim is inaccurate and misleading. Even if displayed for a hundred years in the British Museum, it cannot change historical facts: today’s Palestinians have no connection to the ancient Philistines. Consequently, there is no historical justification for the demand to establish a “historic Palestinian state.” There was never a Palestinian people and modern Palestinians are not descendants of the Philistines.

When a lie is repeated often enough, it becomes ingrained in collective memory and perceived as “truth.” This article will be respectfully sent to the British Museum to encourage adherence to historical accuracy rather than rewriting history.

The name “Palestine” originates from the term “Philistia,” referring to the Philistines’ settlement area in southern Israel, and is unrelated to any national identity. The Greeks and Romans later used the term to describe the region, particularly after the Roman Empire suppressed the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE, erasing Jewish ties to the land. The name Aelia Capitolina was given to Jerusalem, and Jews were banned from the city, except on the anniversary of its destruction.

During the British Mandate (1917–1948), “Palestine” referred to the entire region, and all residents – Jews, Christians, and Muslims – were officially called “Palestinians.” After Israel’s establishment in 1948, many Arab residents began identifying as part of a distinct Palestinian community, but this identity was historically and politically constructed.

Figures such as Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem from 1921, furthered this narrative. Husseini, a prominent leader of the Palestinian nationalist movement, aligned with Nazi ideology during World War II. His collaboration with Adolf Hitler included advocating for the extermination of Jews and seeking German support to establish a “State of Palestine” in exchange for Arab cooperation.

Al-Husseini played a significant role in anti-Jewish incitement and Nazi propaganda. He broadcast anti-British and pro-Nazi rhetoric in Arabic, coordinated espionage activities, and influenced the Arab nationalist movement through his alliance with fascism.

In 1977, Zuhair Mohsen, a leader of the Palestinian military faction Al-Saiqa, openly admitted in an interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw: “The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against Israel for Arab unity.”

Promoting false narratives
Despite these historical realities, Palestinians, with the support of Arab states, have succeeded in promoting the narrative that Arabs have always lived in the land, thus delegitimizing the Jewish state. This ideology fuels groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Iranian-backed organizations that call for Israel’s destruction.

This is not a territorial conflict but a religious war, and until the world – and even parts of Israel – recognize that Israel is fighting for its very existence, this struggle will continue.
Iranians outraged over catastrophic and costly failure in Syria policy, report says
Iranians including members of the cleric, former officials and even some at the Iranian Revolutionary Gard Corps (IRGC) have been expressing their anger at the nearly 30 billion dollars spent and now lost in Syria, according to a report in the New York Times.

The anger now directed at the Ayatollah regime has been expressed openly in television studios, newspapers and public events, even by conservatives who have been supporters of the government in Tehran.

The regime has responded forcefully and has gone after some of its critics but that has not stopped the discussion over the extraordinary failure of the Iranian strategy.

Iran had backed Syria for the past four decades and has used it as a base for the spread of its Islamic revolution in the Middle East and as a main component of the "axis of resistance."

"Iran controlled military bases, missile factories, tunnels and warehouses that served the supply chain for its network of militants. From Syria, Iran funneled weapons, cash and logistical support to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and militants in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Iraq," the report reads.

During the Syrian civil war, Iranian troops fought to protect the regime of Bashar Assad and had paid in Iranian blood. With the fall of the Assad regime, the pro-Iranian militias and the Iranian forces were made to withdraw.

"In 11 days, we've lost everything we've fought for, in the past 13 years," a member of the IRGC said.
Turkey and America Since October 7
Iran’s collapse in Syria was largely engineered by Turkey, and it is Turkey above all that stands poised to fill the vacuum left by a declining Iran. But while Ankara owes some of its recent success to Jerusalem, and Jerusalem has benefited from Ankara’s recent actions, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains unrelentingly hostile to the Jewish state and supportive of Hamas. He also poses a difficulty to America: attacking Washington’s Kurdish allies, playing both sides of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and coddling jihadists—all while his country remains a NATO member. Joseph Epstein examines the state of U.S.-Turkish relations since October 7, 2023, and speculates about the future:

Erdoğan seems to be pleased with the election of Donald Trump, immediately inviting him to Turkey in hopes of resetting relations with Washington. Despite Trump’s ardent support for Israel, Erdoğan has expressed hope that Trump would pressure Israel into ending the war as promised during his campaign. But considering Trump’s pro-Israel past and many pro-Israel appointments, it is unlikely he would do so at the expense of Israeli interests.

Additionally, Trump will have more leverage over Turkey than he had during his first term. The Turkish economy is a shadow of itself and the lira has been dealing with hyperinflation since 2018 (the current rate to date is 48.58 percent). In fact, the lira has depreciated so much that ATMs are breaking under the weight of increasingly worthless banknotes. Regional isolation leading to economic collapse is what spurred Erdoğan’s charm offensive in 2021 and 2022, when he tried to repair relations with Israel and the Gulf States.

Considering Trump’s [successful] use of economic punishments in the past, there is no reason to think he would not resort to similar tactics in his second term.
Muslim IDF Soldier Answers YOUR Questions
Many Muslims serve in Israel's military forces and are actively engaged in battles with other Muslims, whether against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza.

We sat down with the Muslim IDF soldier Yahya Mahamid in Tel Aviv and had him answer the questions sent to him on our X (Twitter) account.

Apart from answering questions such as "Why did you betray your religion" or "do you scream 'Allahu Akbar' before engaging enemies," Yahya also explained why Israel is a country in which Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze can all pull in the same direction when in uniform.

00:00 - Introduction
00:30 - Muslim or Israeli?
01:08 - What's the Quran?
01:30 - Can Muslims be friends with unbelievers?
02:12 - Allahu Akbar in battle?
02:53 - How do you sleep?
03:12 - Do you k••• children?
03:39 - How did your service change your faith?
04:29 - Can Muslims pray in the army?
04:54 - 72 virgins if you fall in battle?
05:02 - Are you Palestinian
05:22 - Are you a 2nd-class citizen?
06:02 - Who should have the Temple Mount?
06:40 - What has Israel done for you?
07:03 - Is Israel an Apartheid state?
07:31 - Are you a traitor?
08:03 - IDF soldiers with family in Gaza ?
08:27 - Should Israelis live in the West Bank?
08:51 - Palestinian state?
09:14 - What should Hamas do?


Israel begins talks with Syrians to locate burial site of Eli Cohen
Israel initiated talks with Syrian citizens as well as various countries to locate the burial site of Israeli spy Eli Cohen, Hezbollah-affiliated newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on Saturday, citing diplomatic sources.

Eli Cohen was the Mossad spy who, under the guise of a Syrian businessman, infiltrated the Syrian army. Cohen transferred information to Israel between the years 1961-1965. He was subsequently captured and executed by hanging in Damascus in May 1965.

Syria refused to return Cohen's body to his family in Israel, and his body was allegedly buried multiple times to prevent Israel from finding and returning his remains. Israel attempting to locate other missing Israelis

Additionally, Israel is trying to establish connections with individuals who operated in Syria alongside Palestinian terror groups regarding missing IDF soldiers from the Battle of Sultan Yacoub during the First Lebanon War, Zvi Feldman and Yehuda Katz, Al-Akhbar noted.

According to Al-Akhbar, Israel is also interested in the file of Jewish antiquities in Syria, noting that half of the Jewish sites in Syria have been destroyed.

Antiquities include a collection of ancient Torah scrolls and other artifacts that have disappeared, some of which turned up in Turkey, Al-Akhbar said.


Seth Frantzman: After Assad's fall, Iran searches for path back to Syria to arm Hezbollah
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addressed the “complex challenges” facing Syria and the broader region in a recent discussion, a recent report said.

The report reflects the importance that Iran places on trying to find a way back to Damascus after the fall of the Assad regime. For now, it appears Qatar and Turkey are moving quickly to open diplomatic posts in Damascus and work with the new authorities there. Iran wants to get back into Syria in order to move weapons to Hezbollah.

Iran’s foreign minister is tasked with trying to figure out how to begin the first steps of this process. He has said that he is “emphasizing the Syrian people's resilience and the necessity of political solutions rooted in inclusivity,” the Iranian state media report said.

This is based on an article in Al-Akhbar media in Lebanon. The media group is considered pro-Hezbollah.

“Araghchi praised the Syrian people for their historical resistance, citing their courage during the October 1973 war and their steadfast support for the Palestinian cause, despite attempts to separate Syria from the Axis of Resistance,” the report said.

Iran worried about Syrian power vacuum
Iran is concerned that ISIS could benefit from the power vacuum in Syria. Iran also wants to highlight what it sees as Israeli “aggression.”

Araghchi accused Israel and the US of making “strategic miscalculations.” Israel has carried out around 400 strikes on Syria in the last week, destroying Assad’s key military assets so that they won’t fall into other hands. Israel has also been striking remaining Iranian assets in Syria, such as bunkers that hold missiles, according to various foreign reports.

According to the IRNA report, the Iranian foreign minister has discussed what will come next.

“Looking ahead, he stressed the importance of unity and coexistence among Syrians as the foundation for a political solution. He advocated for free elections, enabling all Syrians to determine their nation’s future. This approach, he argued, aligns with the principles of UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and forms the cornerstone of Iran’s foreign policy towards Syria,” the report said.
Hezbollah chief says supply route through Syria severed following Assad’s fall
Hezbollah head Naim Qassem acknowledged Saturday that the Lebanese terror group had lost its arms supply route through Syria following the toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s regime nearly a week ago by a sweeping rebel offensive.

Qassem didn’t mention Assad by name in his televised address, and said the group “cannot judge these new forces until they stabilize” and “take clear positions,” but said he hoped that the Lebanese and Syrian people and governments could continue to cooperate.

“Yes, Hezbollah has lost the military supply route through Syria at this stage, but this loss is a detail in the resistance’s work,” Qassem said.

“A new regime could come and this route could return to normal, and we could look for other ways,” he added.

Syria provided a land route for Hezbollah’s patron, Iran, to send convoys of weapons to Lebanon. Such convoys were often targeted by Israeli airstrikes but the terror group was able to heavily arm itself regardless.

Hezbollah started intervening in Syria in 2013 to help Assad quash the rebels seeking to topple him at that time. Last week, as rebels approached Damascus, the group sent supervising officers to oversee a withdrawal of its fighters there.

More than 50 years of Assad family rule have now been replaced with a transitional caretaker government put in place by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former al-Qaeda affiliate that spearheaded the rebel offensive.

The Hezbollah chief also said Syria’s new rulers should not recognize neighboring Israel or establish ties with it.

“We hope that this new party in power will see Israel as an enemy and not normalize relations with it,” Qassem said.

The Syrian rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, who is better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Julani, said Saturday that Israel has “no more excuses” to carry out airstrikes in Syria and that recent IDF attacks on Syrian soil have crossed red lines and threaten an escalation in the region.

However, he said his group did not seek further conflict in the region.
Seth Frantzman: Turkey moves to isolate the Kurds in Syria, and prepares a way for new attacks
Turkey is seeking to rapidly take advantage of the fall of the Assad regime to try to settle several scores in Syria and then assume a place of power in Damascus. Turkey has already played a major role in the Syrian civil war, invading various parts of northern Syria and using former Syrian rebel groups as proxies as part of what is called the Syrian National Army.

When the Idlib-based Hayat Tahrir al-Sham began its offensive against the Syrian regime in late November, Turkey chose to try to take advantage of the chaos. As HTS took cities from the collapsing Assad regime, Ankara unleashed the SNA to attack Kurdish groups. Ankara’s main goal over the last eight years in Syria has been to fight against what it claims are “terrorist” groups in Syria. These are not terrorist groups such as ISIS or al-Qaeda, but instead, what Ankara means is using proxy forces to target Kurdish areas of Syria.

The main group in Ankara’s cross-hairs is the Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF. The SDF was formed in 2015 with US backing. They include a group called the YPG, which is a Kurdish group that has been fighting ISIS. Turkey views the YPG as the Syrian branch of the PKK. What matters here is that you have Turkey, a member of NATO, attacking the SDF, which is backed by the US, which is also a NATO member. However, the US has not been able to get Ankara to stop its attacks, instead the SDF ends up fighting the Turkish-backed SNA. While the SDF was formed to help defeat ISIS, now the SDF and SNA fight each other, and ISIS isn’t even part of the story.

For Ankara, this is a win. Ankara can get the SNA to fight the SDF, but that distracts from other Ankara goals in Syria. It also keeps the SDF isolated. Turkey has engaged in rapid diplomacy to shore up its role in Syria as the Assad regime collapsed. It wants to fill the vacuum basically in Syria left by Iran and Russia. Turkey and Qatar are angling to fill the vacuum and open diplomatic posts in Damascus. Turkey has met with the head of NATO and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. During the meeting with Blinken, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey “would take preventive measures to safeguard its national security against all terrorist organizations operating in Syria, including PKK/PYD/YPG and Daesh/ISIS.”

The US State Department has generally frowned upon the SDF, viewing it as a group that was created in partnership with the Pentagon. This has led to a Janus-faced US policy in Syria where US Central Command backs the SDF, but the Secretary of State often meets with Turkey and doesn’t push back forcefully on Ankara’s threats against US partner forces. The SDF then paid the price for US inaction, being attacked by Turkish drones and the SNA.

In the last two weeks, tens of thousands of Kurds have been displaced by SNA attacks. These include Kurds in Tal Rifaat who were already displaced by the 2018 Turkish attack on Afrin. Around 150,000 Kurds had to flee Afrin in 2018. Now, it appears some 200,000 may have fled SNA attacks. The SNA also took over Manbij, a city the SDF fought ISIS to control in 2015 and 2016. This city was a tough fight for the SDF, and it fell within a few days of SNA attacks, basically throwing away years of SDF work there. This puts the SDF in a precarious position.
The Libertarian: Freaks, Geeks, and the Middle East: Trump’s Cabinet and the Shifting Sands in Syria and Israel | Hoover Institution Hosted by Richard Epstein & Tom Church Richard Epstein discusses several controversial cabinet nominations, including RFK Jr. at HHS, Kash Patel at FBI, and Kari Lake at the Voice of America. He also comments on the rapidly changing scenario in the Middle East and what it will mean for the incoming Trump administration’s foreign policy.

The Free Press: The October 7 Attacks Backfired on Iran - Dexter Filkins

The Free Press: Inside Assad’s ‘Human Slaughterhouse’ Exclusive footage and survivor testimony from inside the notorious Sednaya prison offer a glimpse into the Syrian dictator’s reign of terror.

Syrian rebel leader: Israel has ‘no more excuses’ to strike, we don’t seek conflict
The leader of the Syrian Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who spearheaded the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime, spoke Saturday about Israel for the first time since taking over the country.

In an interview with the Syrian TV news channel, Ahmad al-Sharaa, who is better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Julani, said that Israel has “no more excuses” to carry out airstrikes in Syria, and that recent IDF attacks on Syrian soil have crossed red lines and threaten an unjustified escalation in the region.

Earlier in the week, Israel launched a major operation to destroy the Syrian military’s strategic military capabilities, including chemical weapons sites, missiles, air defenses, air force and navy targets, in a bid to prevent them from falling into the hands of hostile elements.

In a move that has drawn some international condemnation, Israel also entered a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights just hours after the rebels, led by HTS, took Damascus. Israel has said it will not become involved in the conflict in Syria and that its seizure of the buffer zone established in 1974 was a defensive move and a temporary one until it can guarantee security along the frontier.

The rebel leader called on the international community to assume its responsibility to avoid an escalation and guarantee the respecting of Syrian sovereignty. Without directly mentioning Israel, he further spoke of “diplomatic solutions” as the only way to ensure security and stability and as a preferable option to “ill-considered military adventures.”

In a video message to the new regime taking shape in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the IDF bombed military strategic capabilities left by the Syrian military of the ousted Assad regime “so that they won’t fall into the hands of the jihadists.”

Netanyahu added that Israel was ready to establish relations with the new rulers but won’t hesitate to attack if they threaten the Jewish state or allow Iran to reestablish itself in Syria.


UK, Japan and China ease travel warnings to Israel amid ceasefire with Hezbollah
China, Japan and the UK softened their travel warnings to Israel on Friday, as a fragile ceasefire reached last month after more than a year of fighting with Hezbollah continues to hold.

The UK minimized its travel warning to the borders with Lebanon and Syria, some parts of the West Bank in addition to the Gaza Strip and its border area.

Japan lowered its travel warning from level 3 to level 2.

The Foreign Ministry viewed the announcements as a positive development, according to the Kan public broadcaster, though it was unclear how airlines would respond to the softened restrictions.

British Airways announced in October it was suspending all flights to Israel until March 2025.

The low-cost airline Ryanair is also not planning to renew flights until April 2025, despite negotiations on the matter.

Meanwhile, Aegean Airlines resume flights to Israel, with the Greek carrier saying it will begin with flights from Tel Aviv to Athens and Larnaca and later expand to northern Greece and the Greek islands.

Foreign airlines have repeatedly canceled their flights to and from Israel over the past year amid the war with Hamas in Gaza, tensions with Hezbollah and a pair of missile attacks on Israel by Iran in April and October.
77 House Democrats accuse Israel of violating arms sales laws
A group of 77 House Democrats signed on to a letter to the Biden administration on Thursday accusing Israel of violating U.S. arms sales law and of failing to rectify issues, a situation that could trigger the suspension of offensive arms sales to Israel.

While the letter does not make an explicit request to halt aid, it references the statute requiring the administration to cut off arms sales to countries that block delivery of humanitarian aid, and accuses Israel of deliberately restricting aid.

“We are… deeply troubled by the continued level of civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering in Gaza,” the lawmakers said, accusing Israel of failing to meet the requirements the U.S. outlined for delivery of humanitarian aid. “Although overall access to humanitarian aid

has improved, it remains insufficient and there are credible reports of potential breaches of U.S. law.”

The letter asks the administration to create a full assessment of Israel’s compliance with U.S. arms sales laws, saying that their concerns “remain urgent and largely unresolved, including arbitrary restrictions on humanitarian aid and insufficient delivery routes, among others.”

Israel officials have blamed the situation on the United Nations’ failure to distribute aid and on looting by Hamas and other armed gangs, insisting that Israel does not have any unnecessary restrictions on aid.

The lawmakers said “further administrative action must be taken to ensure Israel upholds the assurances it provided in March 2024 to facilitate, and not directly or indirectly obstruct, U.S. humanitarian assistance.”

A statement by J Street, which backed the letter, makes a clearer push for suspending arms, saying “US laws clearly prohibit unrestricted weapons transfers to partner governments found to be obstructing humanitarian aid, and outline a process for assessments and enforcement in such cases. President Biden has the authority to exempt Iron Dome and other defensive systems from any weapons pauses, and J Street urges him to do so.”

J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami lambasted Biden in a statement, accusing the White House of weakness and “allowing [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to continue to degrade Israel’s reputation and mock our shared values,” and calling on Biden to “show true moral leadership.”


IDF says rockets fired at south on Friday were launched from aid warehouse area
Rockets fired by Gaza terrorists at southern Israel Friday night were launched from locations near humanitarian aid warehouses, the Israel Defense Forces said Saturday.

According to the IDF, the launchers used to fire the two projectiles toward Ashkelon were positioned some 50 meters from depots used by international aid organizations operating in Gaza.

The military said air defenses intercepted the two projectiles, which triggered sirens in Ashkelon and surrounding towns near the Gaza border. There were no reports of injuries or damage in the attack.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the rocket fire, which has become a relative rarity after 14 months of war, sparked by the devastating Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel’s aerial and ground operations have greatly depleted the arsenals of Hamas and other Gaza-based terror factions.

Overnight, Israeli fighter jets launched airstrikes in the area, targeting weapons depots and terror operatives, the military said. A video released by the IDF on December 14, 2024, shows airstrikes on terror operatives in Gaza near a rocket launching site used in an attack a day prior.

The IDF issued evacuation warnings to civilians in the area before launching the strikes south of Jabalia, in the Strip’s north.

Also on Saturday, the IDF said that it carried out a drone strike against a cell of terror operatives while they were preparing to carry out an attack against troops in Gaza and Israel “in the immediate timeframe.”

The military said the operatives were targeted while they were gathered at a former school in Gaza City. It added that it took steps to mitigate harm to civilians in the strike at the Yaffa boys school, which was being used to shelter displaced Palestinians.


Jonathan Tobin: Is domestic terrorism the next step for antisemitic radicals?
Americans were shocked and outraged by the assassination of Brian Thompson, the CEO of the UnitedHealthcare insurance company. Or at least most Americans were. Some were apparently happy about it, as a torrent of hate on social media directed towards the victim and sympathy for the murderer indicated.

Thoughtful people may be perplexed as to how it is that some are treating the alleged killer, Luigi Mangione, 26, as a sort of folk hero on whose behalf a crowdfunded legal defense fund has been established, and Thompson, 50, a husband and father, as a villain. It’s hard not to draw a connection between this incident and the way that many supposedly educated Americans have reacted in much the same manner to the atrocities committed by Hamas and Palestinian terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. The attack on an insurance executive has prompted worries that this won’t be the last instance of violence directed at someone in the health-care industry.

There’s no need to wait to see if a similar pattern will emerge in response to the demonization of Israel. The growing list of crimes and threats against Jews from those who sympathize with Hamas and its goals has already shown us that the line that separates violent rhetoric from assaults and murderous terrorism can be razor-thin.

After two “pro-Palestine activists,” as The Washington Post sympathetically described them, were banned from George Mason University in Virginia, the response from many on campus and by antisemitic groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), as well as the liberal press, was to label them as innocent victims of a Jewish-directed purge of those who “criticize” Israel.

The duo was brought to the attention of the police because they were suspected of committing acts of antisemitic vandalism. Given that they were members of the Students for Justice in Palestine group that supports the assault on Israel and the terrorists’ goal of Jewish genocide, they were prime suspects. But when police found weapons, ammunition and Arabic armbands calling for death to the Jews at their home, the university was blamed for persecuting them by other left-wing campus groups. As the CAMERA media monitoring group noted, being open supporters of terrorism didn’t prevent the Post from buying into the narrative that the real story was the suppression of “pro-Palestine” activism. The appalling fact that students at a respected institution of higher education possessed material and arms that could potentially be used against their peers to put their sympathies into action seemed an afterthought.

What happened at George Mason is one case among an increasingly lengthy list of incidents in which “pro-Palestine” advocacy has become violent. That is the context in which we should be thinking about the death of Brian Thompson and why it is that so many people were ready to justify or rationalize it. Rather than discuss that incident in isolation, the link between antisemitic rhetoric associated with Israel by left-wing propagandists and their followers since Oct. 7 and the catalogue of violent incidents committed against Jews in the United States must be understood as an indication of where such activity leads.
Educational malpractice and antisemitism resurgence in our schools
Ted and Nancy Sizer, giants in educational thought and practice, famously wrote The Students Are Watching: Schools and the Moral Contract, which inextricably links what happens in our classrooms with what happens in our society. With a 2024 lens, the most compelling chapter is “Grappling,” which lays out the core educational value of wrestling with complex intellectual and moral dilemmas.

What would the Sizers say if they could hear the reductionist way schools have handled unfolding events in the Middle East? The Sizers, like educators acting on the best practices of teaching and learning, would question even the definition of it as an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Anyone who studied with them can imagine them asking: “Is that really the best way to define it? What about Iran? Other world powers? Is it actually a proxy war? Is it a global conflict or an intensely local, personal one? When did this conflict really begin, and what are the forces that fueled it?”

Yet read the headlines out of K-12 schools, and questions of this nature are absent—or worse, condemned. Increasingly, informing (or misinforming) and coercing have replaced grappling and wrestling, at least insofar as the world’s only Jewish state is concerned.

We saw the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announce a Title VI investigation of the Oakland Unified School District in January following the exodus of Jewish families as lesson plans on Gaza asked elementary-school students to “draw Zionist bullies” and other lectures that villainized Jews. The United Teachers Union of Los Angeles discussed at their August leadership conference how to teach students what and how to think about “Zionists” and how teachers can navigate around rules to send students to attend pro-Palestinian rallies. A lawsuit was filed in November on behalf of several Jewish students against Sequoia Unified High School District for alleged antisemitism on high school campuses after, among other things, the ethnic studies curriculum depicted Jews as controlling puppeteers, and students were asked to extrapolate on the ways Israel’s existence is illegal.

What happened to everything educational researchers, the Sizers amongst them, have proven over decades to be best practices in education? What happened to Piaget’s constructivist learning theory that states “children actively build understanding by exploring their environment as ‘little scientists,’ rather than passively absorbing information.” What happened to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “the danger of a single story?” To the value of dissecting multiple narratives? What about elevating divergent voices like those of educators Pedro Noguera and Rick Hess’s A Search for Common Ground: Conversations About the Toughest Questions in K–12 Education? Where, in our classrooms, can you still find respectful debate on substantial issues of principle? When did education become about the repetition of the teacher’s belief, the sorting of everything into binaries of good/evil, oppressor/oppressed and victim/aggressor? How have we allowed our classrooms to be co-opted as single-sided political platforms with a hyper-focus on “the evil of Zionism?”
Students barred from Oxford Union roles after accusations of ‘institutional racism’
Oxford University students have been barred from union roles after accusations they are complicit in “institutional racism”.

The historic debating society has become embroiled in infighting in recent months after a “sinister” Israel-Palestine debate on the motion “This house believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide” passed by 278 votes to 59.

During the debate, one speaker described the Oct 7 attacks as “heroism” – something that dons said broke the law.

The Telegraph understands a member of the audience also called one speaker a “genocidal motherf-----”.

Now, a number of students who were applying to help run the society’s termly elections for president and its committees have been barred from the roles by the Oxford Union after they were accused of being complicit in racist acts.

Minutes of a union meeting on Oct 21, seen by The Telegraph, reveal that students of one faction were denied re-appointment as deputy returning officers (DROs) by Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy, the president, and his supporters after being accused of “institutional racism”.

The student who accused them admitted that they could not point to exact instances of racism, but said: “There is something to be said about not trying to find specific incidents of racism because that’s not how institutional racism works.

“Institutional racism also comes from a level of complicitness, not speaking out, seeing things around you and knowing that things are being weaponised against certain groups of people and not doing anything, or not speaking out about it.”

But the barred students say that accusations of racism are being weaponised against them.

One union member questioned if it was possible for a student to be guilty of racism by “pure osmosis”.

At the meeting in October, Mr Osman-Mowafy, who recused himself from the neutral chairman role at the Israel debate to speak for the proposition, objected to one candidate in particular.

Mr Osman-Mowafy, who is Egyptian, claimed that the candidate had described him as “Gaddafi” in a private group chat, and offered to share a picture of the messages.

When challenged later in the meeting, Mr Osman-Mowafy denied that the students had been refused positions because of “racism by association”.


Actor Michael Rapaport offers to fly ousted ‘Free Palestine’ ‘Squad’ members Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush to West Bank
Actor Michael Rapaport was so outraged with ousted Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) using his parting words in Congress to call for a “Free Palestine” that he offered to take the far-left pol to the Gaza Strip and leave him in the heart of the Israel-Hamas war.

“Since @JamaalBowmanNY @CoriBush are now unemployed & sooooo interested in and fascinated by Gaza, I’m offering to fly them to ISRAEL & have a SUV drop them off in RAMALLAH,” Rapaport posted on X Friday night, also referencing another lame-duck “Squad” member, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.)

“7 Days in Judea Samaria on Me. I will add $150 a day per diem. You guys down?” the 54-year-old Jewish actor and comedian added.

Rapaport, who has railed against Democrats this year in several online rants over Israel, was responding to video of Bowman’s closing statement to Congress this week, which ended with, “Free Palestine; free The Bronx and free all marginalized people.”

Bowman fired back — calling Rapaport a “culture vulture.”


Police arrest four for stealing, beheading Manchester University Weizmann bust
Four anti-Israel activists were arrested last Thursday over the theft and defacement of the busts of former Israeli president Chaim Weizmann and chemist Harold Baily Dixon at the University of Manchester in November, the Greater Manchester Police announced.

Two men and two women between the ages of 20 and 34 were arrested on suspicion of the November 1 aggravated burglary by the Palestine Action activist group. Another 25-year-old man was arrested on November 8 and was released on bail.

“In Greater Manchester, we have always supported people’s democratic right to peaceful protest and have seen how people can bring their voices together in this way many times across the region. “However, what we will not tolerate is those intent on committing criminal acts,” Detective Chief Inspector Jill Billington said in a statement.

“I hope today’s arrests, and our continued efforts to act where incidents have crossed over into criminality, provides our communities with reassurance on how seriously we are taking these and how swiftly we are prepared to deal with them,” Billington said.

The United Kingdom Jewish security organization Community Security Trust thanked law enforcement in a post on X/Twitter.

Palestine Action took credit for the burglary in a November 2 Instagram video showing masked individuals smashing a display at the University of Manchester’s chemistry facility.

“Weizmann is now under Palestine Action’s control,” the protest network said alongside a November 4 picture showing the busts dressed in keffiyehs.

In another video, the two busts were vandalized with the words “smash Zionism” painted on them. On November 8, the protest network revealed that they had beheaded the bust of Weizmann, declaring that the former president was “dead” and that “soon, his Zionist project will be too!”
Israel accuses Albanese government of sparking incitement against Jews following 'anti-Israel' stance at the United Nations
Israel has levelled an explosive attack on the Australian government for maintaining an "anti-Israel position" on its latest vote at the United Nations.

Australia supported a UN resolution on Wednesday, which calls for an "immediate, unconditional and permanent" ceasefire in Gaza.

The resolution passed with the overwhelming support of 158 members of the General Assembly.

The federal government's vote on the matter came just over a week after Australia joined 156 other countries in demanding the end of Israel's "unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible".

Australia's stance marked a two-decade change and a split from key allies the United States and Israel, who both voted against the motion.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hasn't been afraid to criticise Australia's change of heart on the matter, with a government spokesperson doubling down on the Albanese government on Thursday.

Israel government spokesperson David Mencer suggested to Sky News the recent antisemitic attacks in Australia, including the firebombing of Melbourne's Adass Israel Synagogue, and two separate acts in the Sydney suburbs of Woollahra and Arncliffe, were linked to Labor's position on Israel.

"Our Prime Minister has made crystal clear that the deliberate burning of a synagogue in Melbourne, the attacks on Jews in Sydney - these abhorrent of antisemitism, of Jew hatred - we here in Israel certainly expect the Australian authorities to use their full weight to prevent such antisemitic acts in the future," Mr Mencer said on First Edition.

"I'll be straight with you, Israel does believe that it is impossible to separate the reprehensible act of burning down a synagogue for heaven's sake, from the extreme anti-Israeli position of your Labor government in Australia.

"It brings me no pleasure to say that whatsoever.

"Our Prime Minister has said that anti-Israel sentiment, coming from the (Australian) Labor government is leading to antisemitism. Anti-Israel rhetoric leads to attacks on Jews. It's incitement. It's actually what Hamas and Iran are also engaged in. Incitement against the Jewish state leads to physical attacks on Jews."
Inside the fiery meeting that would define the government’s relationship with Israel
The temperature plunged when Penny Wong walked into the room.

The Foreign Minister was meeting with leaders from the Australian Jewish community ahead of Labor’s national conference last August, and she wasn’t happy. The representatives – two each from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Zionist Federation of Australia and the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council – had just held a friendly meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, a powerbroker in Labor’s Right faction and solid supporter of Israel.

They came out feeling relieved. “The message was: I’ve got your back,” one member of the delegation recalls.

The meeting with Wong at Parliament House was less pleasant.

“So how’s this going to go?” Wong said tersely as the meeting began, according to sources familiar with the encounter not authorised to speak publicly. “How long will it take you to leak this meeting?”

Wong’s ire was directed at Joel Burnie, executive manager of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC). Blasting him in front of the delegation, Wong accused Burnie of leaking details to the media about her chief of staff Tom Mooney’s discussions with Jewish leaders ahead of the government’s decision to no longer recognise west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Almost a year had passed since Labor’s chaotic reversal on west Jerusalem – initially revealed via a change to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website – but Wong had neither forgiven nor forgotten.

“It was very tense,” one participant recalls of the meeting.

“She was so angry. We walked out shocked,” says another.

The fiery meeting in Parliament House, which has not been reported until now, was just a taste of the hostility that would come to define the government’s relationship with Israel and parts of the Australian Jewish community.

Like a pot of water simmering on a stove, the Australia-Israel relationship has become increasingly heated over the past year. That tension boiled over last Saturday when Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a social media post to essentially blame the Albanese government for the Adass Israel synagogue arson attack in Melbourne and accuse Labor of adopting “extreme anti-Israel” positions at the United Nations.

Australia had long been one of Israel’s most reliable international supporters; now it was being singled out for scathing criticism.

“It is no secret that the relationship between the Jewish community and the government is more strained than it has ever been,” says Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler, who is regarded as having strong connections with the government.

Colin Rubenstein, from the more conservative AIJAC, says: “The relationship is probably the worst it’s ever been by some distance.”
Labor’s Cash Pledges Won’t Solve Australia’s Antisemitism Crisis
Antisemitism has surged to levels never-before seen in Australia in the past 14 months. The Albanese Government has turned to Labor’s solution for every problem but this time, throwing money at the issue won’t make it go away.

Days after it was torched in a terrorist arson attack, the Prime Minister arrived at the ashes of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, promising $32.5 million for communal security.

Next it was Sydney’s turn. After an antisemitic arson attack in the Eastern Suburbs, the flustered Prime Minister appeared at the Jewish Museum with a promise of $8.5 million.

The funding is sadly sorely needed. The Jewish community spends an eye-watering amount on security. Our communal buildings have become fortresses. No other children in Australia need armed guards to protect them while they play in preschool. The Jewish Museum too is working harder than ever to educate the public about the dangers of antisemitism and where it leads.

This time, Labor’s splurge isn’t working.

The Jewish community is furious at Labor. We have spent 14 months asking Labor to take antisemitism seriously.

We don’t need the Prime Minister to show up at the scene of every antisemitic attack with his chequebook. We need his government to do what it can to stop the attacks from occurring.

We asked for a judicial inquiry into rampant antisemitism into university antisemitism. Labor refused.

We asked the Prime Minister to rule out preference deals with the Greens, a party that now peddles in anti-Jewish conspiracies. He refused.

Whether its rushed visas for Gazans or confronting radical preachers who spread anti-Jewish hate, whatever the issue, Labor is deaf to the concerns of the Jewish community.

We asked the Albanese Government to tone down its hateful rhetoric toward the Jewish State. Labor ministers responded by escalating their anti-Israel attacks with the Foreign Minister, this week, comparing the Jewish State unfavourably to autocracies, Russia and China.

As the Prime Minster was heading to the Jewish Museum, audio leaked of him telling a Labor crowd, “some people have got a bit upset, they’ll be more upset by Thursday.” It became clear Albanese was referring to the hurt his government caused to the Jewish community by adopting yet another anti-Israel position at the United Nations.


Dutch court rejects pro-Palestinian groups’ demand for weapons exports ban to Israel
A Dutch court on Friday rejected demands by pro-Palestinian groups for a ban on arms exports from the Netherlands to Israel.

The non-governmental groups had accused Israel of conducting a “genocide” in the war with Hamas in Gaza, a claim that has been roundly dismissed by Jerusalem. But the court said the Dutch government was respecting rules governing the country’s arms trade.

“The state should not be forced to impose a ban on exporting goods that can be used for military means,” the court in The Hague said in a statement.

The pro-Palestinian groups said in a statement they had expected the decision but still claimed it was a “blow” to international justice. They said they may appeal.

The groups had argued that Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank since the Hamas-led onslaught in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, during which Palestinian terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages while committing brutal atrocities, had put it in breach of the 1948 UN genocide convention.

Zainah El-Haroun, spokesperson for the NGO Al-Haq said that the Netherlands, as the venue for the International Court of Justice and other international tribunals, had to act to “prevent genocide.”

The court said the government had carried out its obligations to assess the risk that arms exported to Israel are not used “in a way that could lead to a breach of humanitarian law in war.” It highlighted a case where a military goods export to Israel had been halted.
‘Bizarre’: Vatican nativity scene features baby Jesus on a keffiyeh
Broadcaster Kel Richards questions the “bizarre” decision from the Vatican to display a Nativity scene with baby Jesus lying on a keffiyeh.

“What they’ve decided to do is chuck out the history in order to make some sort of political comment,” Mr Richards told Sky News host James Macpherson.

“It’s just bizarre.”




Protester charged for alleged display of Hezbollah flag in Melbourne
Australian Federal Police have charged a man after he allegedly waved a flag from the banned terrorist organisation Hezbollah during a protest.

A man has been charged with displaying a banned terrorist symbol after he allegedly waved a Hezbollah flag during a protest.

The 36-year-old man is accused of displaying the designated terror organisation’s flag during a protest in Melbourne’s CBD on September 29.

The rally formed part of a national day of action for Gaza, with thousands of people also taking to the streets in Sydney and other cities in a series of ongoing protests that have largely remained peaceful.

A small group with Hezbollah flags – and some holding what appeared to be framed photographs of the terror group’s slain leader Hassan Nasrallah – joined the Melbourne event as speeches ended and people began to march.

Nasrallah was killed by an Israeli air strike in September amid escalating tensions in the region.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) charged the Ferntree Gully man on Friday with one count of publicly displaying a prohibited terrorist organisation symbol.

Specialist AFP operation Ardvarna is investigating reports of protesters displaying prohibited symbols in September.

Thirteen people are under active investigation for displaying prohibited terrorist organisation symbols, with investigators seizing several phones and clothing depicting terrorist organisation symbols.


University of Michigan failed to investigate dozens of anti-Semitism complaints
The University of Michigan failed to investigate dozens of complaints of anti-Semitism on campus, according to a Department of Education (DoE) report.

The DoE investigated 67 separate complaints over the last four years but only one was adequately investigated, the department’s Office for Civil Rights found.

In one incident, in October last year, students chanted “Nazi liberation”. The university’s only response was to forward the reports to its press office to deal with media inquiries.

In the same month a pro-Palestinian protester screamed at another student that she was supporting rape and murder.

The case was closed after the Office of Student Conflict Resolution held “restorative circles for staff, faculty and students”.

‘Educational conversation’
Many of the incidents predated Israel’s invasion of Gaza following the Hamas attack

In January last year – months before the war in Gaza, protesters allegedly chanted for the removal and death of Jewish people and the state of Israel.

Again, the Department found no evidence that the university took any action at all to address the incident.

It decided that the chanting was a “protected activity” and not a matter for the university’s office.

The university took no action beyond “an educational conversation” after an incident in which a student complained of “Jews ruling the world” in December 2022.

Three months later there was a complaint that someone had used push-pins to create a swastika on a college bulletin board. No action was taken because the culprit has not been identified.

In March last year, a complaint was made that a student was spreading anti-Semitic hate online. The conflict resolution office decreed that the behaviour involved “protected speech”.

Posting “from the river to the sea” on social media accounts was also deemed to be free speech, rather than hate speech.

There has been little let-up, with incidents of anti-Semitic vandalism including graffiti equating the Star of David with a swastika.
U of Michigan fires DEI official for claiming school ‘controlled by wealthy Jews’
The University of Michigan has fired a director in its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office owing to antisemitic comments she made to Jewish professors at a spring conference.

The New York Times first reported the firing, which a person with insight into the university’s governing body confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday.

The development comes amid widespread tensions over how Jews fit into DEI programs at universities and other institutions.

The staffer in question, Rachel Dawson, was the director of an office for multicultural initiatives. She was officially fired on Thursday after multiple members of the school’s Board of Regents were angered by the university’s initially lax response to her comments, according to the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the incident.

Dawson had privately remarked in March that “the university is controlled by wealthy Jews”; that “we don’t work with Jews” because “they are wealthy and privileged and take care of themselves”; that “rich donors and Jewish board members control the president” and “silence” students from the Middle East and North Africa; and and that “Jewish people have no genetic DNA that would connect them to the land of Israel,” according to an investigation of her comments viewed by JTA.

The university commissioned the investigation from an outside law firm following a complaint by the Michigan chapter of the Anti-Defamation League. Some of her alleged quotes are paraphrased, the investigation’s report says. The investigation found that “it is not possible to determine with certainty whether Ms. Dawson made the exact remarks attributed to her,” as Dawson denied making several of the comments the ADL charged her with, and there was no recording of them.

But after reviewing text messages and other documents written by the Jewish professors at the conference who had initiated the conversation, investigators wrote, “we conclude that the weight of available evidence supports ADL Michigan’s report.”


Seth Frantzman: Can the Palestinian Authority take back control of Jenin?
The Palestinian Authority Security Forces have mounted an important operation to try to restore security and order to the northern West Bank’s key city of Jenin. This city has been the site of increasing threats by Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad in recent years.

A surge in arms trafficking in illegal rifles, primarily M-16 types, has provided the terrorists with large numbers of arms to threaten residents. The arms flow has links to Iran but also to smuggling gangs that operate in the region. In the last year, some smuggling attempts have been thwarted from Jordan. Creating another front

The armed terrorists are mostly affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) but some of them are linked to other groups like Hamas. The group's numbers and activities have been on the rise because Iran wants to use Israel’s war in Gaza as a way to increase fighting against Israel in the West Bank and create another front against Israel.

It isn’t just about Iran. The backers of Hamas in Doha and Ankara also likely want to enflame tensions in the West Bank.

Hamas continues to control most of Gaza and holds 100 hostages. Hamas leaders are hosted by Doha and backed by Ankara as well. Both Doha and Ankara are involved in backing the new Syrian government that is emerging and both have re-established diplomatic posts in Damascus in recent days. This shows that the West Bank may also be “in play” because of the policies of Qatar and Turkey.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has launched an important operation to restore order. For years the PA has seen its forces challenged in places like Jenin and Tulkarm.

As violence overflows, Israel has been forced to act more strongly against terror in these areas. Israel has resorted to more drone strikes as parts of the northern West Bank slip into chaos. Now, the PA is trying to do a better job. It is not clear what promoted this.

The US has helped back and train the PA security forces over the last two decades. It is not clear if the new PA initiative was taken in consultation with foreign advice or if this is solely an operation planned in Ramallah where PA President Mahmoud Abbas governs.
The battle for Jenin: PIJ commander killed after PA forces, terrorists
The commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad's Jenin Brigade was reportedly killed after Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces and terrorists exchanged fire on Saturday as the security forces attempted to clear the fighters from the West Bank city of Jenin, according to Israeli and Arab reports.

The commander was named as Yazid Ja'isa.

According to Israeli state broadcaster KAN News, the terrorists reportedly attempted to stop the security forces from entering the refugee camp.

The Jenin clashes come after riots reportedly erupted in the city this week after security forces killed a Hamas operative there.

The PA's security branch said in a statement that its forces were undertaking a security operation to restore law and order to Jenin's historic refugee camp suburb, a stronghold of Palestinian terrorists alienated from the Palestinian leadership.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered security services not to leave the city until they "resolve the situation" concerning the terror group’s hold, an informed source told Channel 12 on Friday.

Israel also reportedly warned the PA, "The operation in Jenin is proceeding too slowly and on too small a scale. It is mostly defensive rather than offensive," according to the report.


Polish police murdered Jews during the Holocaust with gusto and even without Nazi orders, new book claims
Writing a comprehensive history of Polish citizens during the Holocaust is a hefty task. A Polish law that criminalizes any mention of Polish responsibility for or complicity in Nazi crimes makes it even harder.

That makes the groundbreaking research conducted by acclaimed Holocaust historian Jan Grabowski for his new book, “On Duty: The Polish Blue & Criminal Police in the Holocaust” all the more remarkable.

Relying on meticulous documentation, the book argues that Polish institutions were more than willing to assist the Nazis in their extermination campaign, and often led the way through their own initiatives. Grabowski, a professor at the University of Ottawa, spent more than 10 years conducting the research, including years in Poland going through Polish archives, private diaries and records from more than 100 small towns where Jews lived in high concentrations.

“I read horrifying things in the diaries of Polish policemen describing how many Jews they killed each day,” said Grabowski, 61. “There were anecdotes about a cop asking for a glass of vodka before shooting a Jew, or using hot water to clean the blood off their hands. They killed friends and schoolmates without remorse, even in places where no Germans ever came to check up on them.”

Much of the evidence Grabowski uncovered had never been seen before.

“It’s not easy to write a book like this when you have opposition from massive Polish organizations with teams of PhDs whose job is to go after people like myself,” said Grabowski, who began his research for the book before Poland passed the controversial 2018 Act on the Institute of National Remembrance. “But thorough and independent historical research is necessary to make sure that a nation can’t rewrite its history into a happy story of righteous Poles saving Jews.”

In particular, the book focuses on the actions of Poland’s Blue Police, officially known as the Polish Police of the Generalgouvernement, established shortly after the German occupation of Poland in 1939 and consisting mainly of prewar Polish police officers.

“We are talking about a police force of 20,000 people that previously was in charge of enforcing mundane civilian laws like making sure that horses walking on the street had horseshoes,” Grabowski said. “What fascinates me is how quickly these normal ordinary cops were transformed into ruthless killers.”

Grabowski’s 496-page book is now available on Yad Vashem’s website.
That time an antisemite came after me
Last week, after an exhausting work shift, I lazily loaded onto an MTA shuttle bus running along the J-line in Manhattan. A black man of medium build, clad fully in what appeared to be military surplus fatigues, was sitting central in the back seat, his face concealed behind a frayed, black bandit’s bandana. Despite what I could discern as muffled screams escaping from his tattered cloth, I, like most New Yorkers taking public transportation on a weekday, was disinterested in my surroundings, and proceeded to ignore him. My phone offered me a comfortable window into a preferable world outside of the city and, with my head down, I took full advantage of it.

The shouting man’s presence took dominion over the bus as if we had entered his church, the back row of seats delegated as his altar from which he preached. The seconds went by, and his aggression intensified into an enraged soliloquy, the volume of which no headphones could dampen. Positioned away from him near the front of the bus, I paid little mind to the content of his ramblings, assuming they were no more than generic, hateful platitudes. “Blah blah blah. Something something Jews! Something something Palestine!” And it went on. Some passengers smacked their lips in annoyance. Others rolled their eyes. A few appeared mildly scared. “Suck my d**k! Jewish rats… something something occupation… Palestine will be free!”

And then, the ultimate mistake. I glanced in his direction, and our eyes eclipsed.

That was when I became a Jew. And not just any Jew. I was his Jew.

“There’s one among us!” he roared, his bandana crumpling up and down over his chin as his jaws flapped rabidly. “F***ing Jewish rat! They’re everywhere!”

I quickly looked away, pretending it wasn’t me he was talking to, but his gouging eyes were fixated.

“Why don’t you suck my d**k you sickly Jewish pig! F***in’ rat Jew! Ugly a** Jew!”

With only a few more stops to go and given the cramped space between us that gave him no clear pathway to me, I figured he would eventually lose interest.

But the abuse continued, and his words became more threatening. “I should f***in kill you, Israeli pig!” A few commuters took note and gave me the proverbial, “Sucks to be you right now” look. It’s one that many New Yorkers give each other these days.

But there was no Daniel Penny on this bus. I was on my own. I took the expressions of indifference as my cue to leave, despite being several stops away from my destination. I pressed the button and the bus pulled over under the Cypress Hills station. I slithered my slim frame through the crowd, hopped off, and stood idly on a Jamaica Avenue corner.
Horror after 'explosive device' is allegedly thrown toward a pram being pushed by a Melbourne rabbi
A Melbourne rabbi says his baby is lucky to be uninjured after a flaming projectile was allegedly thrown from a moving car on a suburban street.

The young father was walking on Hotham Street in St Kilda East about 8.50pm on November 27 when he saw the 'on fire' object fly onto the footpath near him.

The street he was pushing the pram on contains the Yeshivah College and the Sassoon Yehuda Sephardi Synagogue and Ripponlea's Adass Israel Synagogue, which was set alight on December 6 in a terrorist attack, is just around the corner.

'There was a lot of smoke,' the Jewish man told the Herald Sun.

'I just kept thinking, what if it landed inside the pram, it could have killed my baby.'

It is understood the projectile was not recovered, though arrests have been made.

'Police arrested two men following an alleged incident where an object was thrown out of a moving vehicle in Ripponlea on Wednesday, 27 November,' a police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.

'It's alleged the men were occupants inside a vehicle travelling along Hotham Street when the item was thrown onto the footpath causing a loud bang and smoke.
Father-of-six who allegedly performed a Nazi salute inside a busy Sydney pub is identified
A retired father-of-six who relocated from Argentina to Australia 30 years ago has been granted bail after allegedly performing a Nazi salute inside a busy pub.

Norberto Trimestra, 68, was arrested on Friday at the Criterion Hotel on Pitt Street in the Sydney CBD after security guards flagged down police about 7.10pm when he refused to leave.

Trimestra, from Carlingford in Sydney's northwest, worked as an electronic engineer before retiring in 2023 and now describes himself on social media as an online journalist, the Daily Telegraph reports.

A Facebook account belonging to Treimestra is filled with posts talking about politics and history, particularly in relation to his native Argentina.

On another social media account he describes himself as 'a journalist inventing new forms of democratic governments'.

Treimestra has been charged with knowingly displaying a Nazi symbol without excuse in public, making a gesture in a public place that is a Nazi salute and failing to leave a premises when required.

He appeared in Parramatta Court on Saturday where he did not enter a plea and applied for bail - which was granted on the conditions he does not drink alcohol, reports to police twice a week and does not go within 1km of the CBD.

The court was told Mr Trimestra argued with officers before his arrest and police had concerns his behaviour could escalate, but his lawyer told the court his client had no history of violent incidents or non-compliance with court conditions.
Switzerland proposes ban on Nazi symbols amid surging antisemitism
Switzerland is looking to ban the swastika, Hitler salute and other Nazi signs due to a rise in antisemitism, the federal government announced on Friday.

The Federal Council said in a statement that “banning symbols linked to the Third Reich has taken on a particular urgency due to the sharp increase in antisemitic incidents.”

It proposes an immediate ban on “the use of Nazi symbols in public” and imposing a fine of about 200 Swiss francs ($224) on anyone who breaks the law.

The Swiss penal code will be amended to punish anyone who uses “a racist, extremist, Nazi symbol or one that advocates violence in order to propagate the ideology it represents.”

Switzerland also wants to go further than banning the most well-known Nazi symbols, extending it to more cryptic signs of recognition used by supporters of Nazi ideology.

As such, use of the “18” — the first and eighth letter of the alphabet signifying Adolf Hitler’s initials — and “88” — for “Heil Hitler” — will also fall foul of the proposed law. A swastika drawn onto an election placard of the anti-immigrant Swiss People’s Party (SVP) in downtown Zurich, October 18, 2003. (JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK / AFP)

“The context will play a decisive role in this case,” the Council said.

Exceptions are provided for educational, scientific, artistic or journalistic purposes but “within the limits of what freedom of expression allows,” it added.
California apologizes for allowing ‘LOLOCT7’ license plate mocking Hamas onslaught
California has apologized for allowing someone in the US state to register a license plate mocking the October 7 attacks on Israel.

The apology comes after activist group StopAntisemitism flagged a Tesla Cybertruck seen around Los Angeles sporting a plate that read “LOLOCT7,” which it said celebrated “terrorism against the Jewish people.”

LOL is a common abbreviation for “laughing out loud.”

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) said on social media on Thursday that it would be acting to rescind the plate, which fell foul of its own rules.

“This is unacceptable and disturbing,” the agency wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“The DMV is taking swift action to recall these shocking plates, and we will immediately strengthen our internal review process to ensure such an egregious oversight never happens again.
‘September 5’ focuses on news, not Jews, in dramatizing 1972 Munich attack
In “September 5,” the new movie depicting the abduction and murder of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Munich Olympics, there are many echoes of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, 51 years, and one month later.

Both are historical tragedies involving the murder of Israelis by Palestinian terrorists; both involved the taking of hostages, some of whom were American citizens; and both are remembered with the invocation of a specific date.

But “September 5” — which opens in limited release this week and is already drawing awards chatter — was not in any way conceived in response to October 7. The movie had been filmed, and was already in the post-production process, at the time of the 2023 attack, when Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking another 251 hostages.

“I think it will certainly have an effect on how audiences will see the film, but I also think that our film is clearly about a specific moment in history, and or let’s say, even more specifically, a moment in media history, and about that turning point,” Tim Fehlbaum, the film’s director, said in an interview.

“What I would hope is that the audience reflects on how today we consume news, and about our complex media environment, through that historical lens.”

Indeed, “September 5” dwells on another way in which the Munich attack paralleled October 7: It represented a watershed moment in the livestreaming of terrorism.

On that day, members of the Palestinian terror group Black September killed two of the Israelis in their dorm in the Olympic Village and held the remaining nine as hostages. After West German authorities botched virtually every stage of the situation, the remaining hostages were all killed at a nearby airport.

The entire tragic saga played out on live television, with ABC Sports, which was covering the Games, staying on air for most of the day. The film focuses not on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict nor the experiences of the athletes and those seeking to save them, but on the ABC reporting team that went to West Germany to cover the Games and ended up in the middle of a deadly crisis.
Tel Dan Stele, oldest archaeological evidence of King David, comes to NY’s Jewish Museum
Last year, New York City’s Jewish Museum imported a new director from the Israel Museum. Now, it’s brought the oldest archaeological evidence of the existence of King David from the Jerusalem museum, too.

The Tel Dan Stele, a stone fragment long held exclusively by the Israel Museum, is on view at the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side until January 5.

A 12-by-13-inch chunk of basalt, the Tel Dan Stele is a 9th-century BCE stone document acknowledging the military victories of a person whom scholars believe to be King Hazael of Aram, an area in contemporary Syria that includes what is today Damascus. One of those victories was over a descendant of David, the king of ancient Israel.

When it was discovered in northern Israel in 1993, the Tel Dan Stele became the earliest evidence beyond the Bible that King David was a real figure.

“There is no archaeological evidence surviving from the First Temple,” said James Snyder, who took the helm of the Jewish Museum a year ago. “There is from the Second Temple, and that’s at the Israel Museum. From the First Temple, what therefore becomes important are these references to this archaeological evidence of the time of the First Temple, and of evidence that reinforces biblical history.”

The First Temple, believed to have been built by David’s son King Solomon in the 10th century BCE, was destroyed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 586 BCE.

“What makes the Tel Dan Stele so important is that it’s the oldest archaeological evidence of the existence of the House of David, which is the sort of touchstone or fountainhead for the unfolding thereafter of Judaism, Christianity and then Islam,” Snyder added.

In fact, it’s so old that the Aramaic used in the stele was still being written in the Phoenician alphabet — a language that predates Aramaic.

The ancient inscription refers to the “House of David,” in translation saying, “[I killed Jeho]ram son of [Ahab] king of Israel, and [I] killed [Ahaz]iahu son of [Jehoram kin]g of the House of David.”

Before coming to the Jewish Museum, the stele was on display for nearly two months at a biblical archaeology museum in Oklahoma. It was previously displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, just blocks from the Jewish Museum, a decade ago. (A replica is also on display at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC.)




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

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