Wednesday, December 18, 2024

12/18 Links Pt2: Israel’s Irish Goodbye; Qatar: The Arsonist and the Firefighter; Montreal shul targeted with firebomb in second attack since Oct. 7

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Israel’s Irish Goodbye
The debate over whether Israel should formally establish diplomatic relations with Germany was an impassioned, often vicious, deeply emotional probing of national trauma. It came long after Israel’s internal fight over whether to accept German reparations, which nearly tore the government apart. By the time the two countries proposed exchanging ambassadors, the wound had clearly not yet healed, and maybe never would.

In the end, diplomatic pragmatism and a shared hope for moving forward prevailed. Israel’s first embassy in Germany was opened in 1965.

Do you know when Israel’s embassy in Ireland was established? 1996.

So please, Irish President Michael Higgins and Prime Minister Simon Harris, spare us the feigned offense and the community-theater histrionics and the supposed shock in reaction to Israel’s announcement that it would close its embassy in Dublin. Ireland’s history with Israel is uniquely shameful among supposed Western democracies. Whether that justifies the closing of the embassy is another matter, but let’s stop pretending we’re talking about a normal situation. Ireland was the last EU country to host an Israeli embassy, and the gesture was watered down by making the same offer to the PLO, a terrorist organization that did not represent an existing nation-state.

Here’s the point: Ireland has always treated Israel with special contempt. Decades after Eamon de Valera offered Germany his condolences on the death of Adolf Hitler, the country he helped found seemed permanently stuck in time. Ireland had to be dragged kicking and screaming into recognizing the Jews. The Israeli embassy barely predates the Good Friday Agreement.

This is not ancient history, in other words. The closing of the Israeli embassy in Dublin, whatever its merits, is not the end of an era; it’s the end of an insulting modern experiment that Irish leaders spent a couple decades routinely sabotaging. Irish leaders thought they could have a Jewish pet who would crawl around on all fours and eat out of a bowl on the floor. And they have the chutzpah to scold him as he stands up on two feet and walks out.
Jonathan Tobin: Don’t expect any humor about antisemitic ‘genocide’ smears
It’s easy to dismiss this story as a minor kerfuffle about a misguided effort to inject comedy into the debate about the Middle East. But it should be seen as providing more insight into the gap between the two sides than perhaps many liberal Jews who are still seeking dialogue have been willing to admit. The failure of this initiative speaks volumes about how toxic leftist ideas like critical race theory, settler-colonial theory and intersectionality have made dialogue or efforts to promote compromise solutions on a whole range of topics—of which Israel is just one—impossible. It also shows how the pervasive influence of this destructive intellectual fashion is more or less killing comedy.

If the debate about the Middle East were really, as liberals have long insisted, about the imperative for Israel to trade “land for peace” or its need to avoid building homes in Jerusalem or Judea and Samaria, then dialogue intended to build trust on both sides would be not only possible but necessary. But as decades of Palestinian rejection of every compromise offered to them have shown, if that would mean recognition of the legitimacy of a Jewish state in the Middle East, that is a price they are not willing to pay. Meaning, the conflict is not about borders or settlements.

The Palestinian Arabs and their supporters abroad who have rallied to their cause since Oct. 7 have made no secret of the fact that what they desire is turning back the clock to 1948 or 1917 and the elimination of Israel. Being so quick to manufacture lies about Israeli actions and intentions is not just a manifestation of Jew-hatred, though that’s part of it. Those who buy into the myth that Israel is a manifestation of a “settler-colonial” imperialism are drawn inevitably to the conclusion that there is nothing at all to talk about with Israelis or their supporters.

The anti-Israel movement’s adoption of this frame of reference is reflected in more than just the intolerant invective employed in the social-media ravings of those comics and others who believe that even a debate with Zionists would compromise their moral standing as progressives. Much like the best-selling book by anti-Zionist author Ta-Nehisi Coates, their accusations hurled against Israel are not merely divorced from the facts of what has actually happened in Gaza; they ignore the genocidal goals of the Palestinians, their embrace of terrorism and their unwillingness to compromise.

Such sentiments have, due to the progressives’ adoption of woke ideologies that falsely label Jews and Israelis as “white oppressors,” migrated from the ivory towers of academia to the political grassroots. This was made apparent as first President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris spent the 2024 presidential campaign trying to placate their party’s left-wing base, which has grown increasingly intolerant of any stand on the Middle East that isn’t resolutely opposed to Israel.

Woke is killing comedy
The impact of these toxic ideas is not limited to politics. It is also a major reason why comedy—or at least the sector of it that is pitched to appeal to the half of the country that didn’t vote for Donald Trump—is dying.

For years, comedians have decried the stultifying impact that a spirit of political correctness has had on their craft. As anyone who has watched the political skits that appear on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” or the monologues of the late-night comedy shows that don’t appear on Fox News, liberals can only accept humor that pokes fun at their political foes or those who hold different views about religion and culture. Edgy humor that doesn’t respect the shibboleths of woke sensibilities about certain protected minorities is no longer tolerated. Groundbreaking comedians of the past, like Lenny Bruce, had to navigate the intolerance of established society and the conservative values of the 1950s and early 1960s. Today, someone like him doesn’t have to worry about being arrested for offending decency codes. But they would surely be canceled by the left that dominates popular culture.

The result of this cultural trend is that much of what is now considered comedy is humorless virtue-signaling, essentially a nod to audiences’ shared contempt for those outside of their group.

Until mainstream culture shakes itself free of this leftist orthodoxy, efforts to arrange such joint events will always fail. Conversations between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian comics, as well as their audiences, are impossible in a cultural context where progressives in America have declared that we are all locked in an endless race war between oppressors and victims.

Under these circumstances, pursuing dialogue across the unbridgeable gap between those who want to destroy Israel and those who work to support it is a fool’s errand. And that’s no joke.
Qatar: The Arsonist and the Firefighter
On Qatar National Day, as the Gulf nation celebrates its sovereignty and development, it’s essential to examine the darker side of its international role. While Doha projects itself as a stabilizing force and a mediator in global conflicts, evidence reveals a more duplicitous reality. Qatar has acted both as the arsonist and the firefighter—publicly advocating for peace while covertly funding and supporting extremist actors like Abu Mohammad al-Julani and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who destabilize the Middle East and threaten Western interests. HTS, which has links to al-Qaeda and ISIS, has been widely recognized as one of the most dangerous jihadist groups in the region, posing a direct threat to global security.

The Roots of the Allegations
Abu Mohammad al-Julani’s prominence as the leader of the al-Nusra Front, which initially aligned itself with al-Qaeda, and its later rebranding efforts under Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have drawn significant international attention. While HTS has sought to distance itself from extremist origins, its links to Qatar have remained under scrutiny. Despite its rebranding, HTS retains strong ties to al-Qaeda, with its leadership and operations deeply intertwined with global jihadist networks. Furthermore, its battlefield alliances with ISIS-linked factions have amplified its capacity for terror.

A 2016 U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report suggested that the al-Nusra Front “probably received logistical, financial, and material assistance from elements of the Turkish and Qatari governments.” This report, while cautious in its language, highlighted Qatar’s role in supporting extremist groups.

Qatar’s Public Denials and Its Hidden Agenda
While Qatari officials have consistently denied connections to al-Nusra Front or its successor organizations, their actions tell a different story. In a 2017 interview with Middle East Eye, former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani admitted that Qatar “maybe” supported al-Nusra Front during the early years of the Syrian conflict but insisted such support had ceased. These admissions expose Qatar’s strategic duplicity—courting extremist groups to expand its influence while publicly denying culpability.

Media Appearances and the Role of Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera, Qatar’s state-funded media outlet, has amplified the voices of extremists like Abu Mohammad al-Julani. In December 2013, the network aired an exclusive interview with al-Julani, marking his first televised appearance. This was followed by a 2015 interview where al-Julani emphasized his focus on fighting the Assad regime and denied plans to target Western nations. These interviews legitimized al-Julani and HTS, bolstering their recruitment and propaganda efforts, all while Qatar claimed to be an ally of the West in counterterrorism efforts.


Amnesty International’s “Genocide” Smear Against Israel
Amnesty International, an organization with a long history of anti-Israeli activism, recently released a report accusing the Jewish state of committing genocide, with Human Rights Watch jumping on the bandwagon with its own report to be released Thursday. These baseless claims are yet another example of organizations redefining legal terms to suit their accusations against Israel.

Like its previous unfounded claims, Amnesty’s genocide accusation distorts both the facts and the law for the sake of sensational headlines. Consider the prevailing definition of “genocidal intent” in international law. In 2007, the International Court of Justice found in Bosnia v. Serbia that such intent can only be established when it is the only plausible inference to be drawn from a nation’s pattern of conduct; the court reaffirmed this standard in Croatia v. Serbia (2015). No reasonable observer could argue that Israel’s military actions—directed against Hamas, a terrorist organization explicitly dedicated to the Jewish state’s destruction—constitute genocide under this prevailing standard.

But Amnesty had pre-determined that Israel was guilty, so it simply dismissed international law. “Amnesty International considers this an overly cramped interpretation of international jurisprudence,” the report notes, “and one that would effectively preclude a finding of genocide in the context of an armed conflict.”

The real reason the ICJ’s definition precludes a finding of genocide in Israel’s armed conflict is because there is in reality no genocide. One need not look all the way back to the Holocaust to see that there can be a genocide in the context of an armed conflict. In the early 2000s, for example, the Sudanese government armed Arab militia groups to help them ethnically cleanse African groups in the Darfur region through a campaign of mass murder, rape, pillaging, displacement, and persecution, based on the victims’ race, ethnicity, and religion. Contrast this with Israel, which possesses the military capability to destroy Gaza entirely but has taken extraordinary measures to minimize harm to civilians, even as it fights an enemy that deliberately endangers its own people.

Amnesty also fails to substantively engage with the well-established doctrines of military necessity, proportionality, and deterrence, which govern legitimate actions during armed conflict. The law of war was not designed for armchair quarterbacks writing a report a year later, recounting events and critiquing decisions. It is given to commanders in the field to make good-faith judgment calls, in real time, based on available information. Unlike Amnesty, legal analysis of the international war code considers factors such as technological limitations, available staff, and situational nuances in combat.

Amnesty feebly tries to hide Israel’s obvious lack of genocidal intent by cobbling together an assortment of distorted and out-of-context statements allegedly made by Israeli politicians. For example, the report cites Prime Minister Netanyahu’s reference to the biblical commandment to eradicate Amalek as an example of Israel’s genocidal motives. But the authors disregard a previous sentence, in which Netanyahu explicitly referred to “destroying Hamas.” Israel’s official stance, repeated ad nauseum by the prime minister, the president, the defense minister, and the IDF spokesman—is that this “war is against Hamas – not the people of Gaza.”
Amnesty’s disgraceful ‘genocide’ slander against Israel disqualifies the group
Amnesty uses fake facts and glaring omissions. For starters, their report relies on false, unverified casualty figures from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, which doesn’t distinguish between civilian and terrorist deaths. Indeed, according to noted military expert John Spencer, “while some 17,000 Hamas fighters and perhaps 25,000 Gazan non-combatants have been killed during the Gaza war, this is an extraordinarily low ratio of military-to-civilian deaths by any standard.” Notably, Amnesty did not reveal this context in its report.

Unsurprisingly, Amnesty also doesn’t mention that Hamas often prevents its people from fleeing combat zones after the IDF’s evacuation notices, specifically to ensure high death rates and promote undeserved blame on Israel. Amnesty’s deceptive report supports this strategy.

No surprise, either, that Amnesty has never accused former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad of genocide, despite his regime’s use of indiscriminate bombing and chemical weapons to exterminate an estimated 400,000 Syrian civilians. Of course, Amnesty used genocide’s standard, legal definition to evaluate Assad—not its new, Israel-only definition. Of course, Assad isn’t Jewish.

Finally, Amnesty’s report accuses Israel of starving Gazans, even though the United Nations has dismissed reports of famine in Gaza due to lack of evidence. Moreover, Israel has facilitated the transfer of 1.1 million tons of aid into Gaza.

Amnesty has a history of flagrant bias against Israel. In 2022, for example, the organization accused Israel of being an apartheid state from its very birth in 1948. But perhaps the best indication of Amnesty’s anti-Israel bias is their labeling this latest publication the “genocide report” even before it was written, according to a statement by several members of Amnesty Israel and Jewish members of Amnesty International.

Ha’aretz quoted the Amnesty members’ statement, which asserted, “Predetermined conclusions of this kind are not typical of other Amnesty International investigations.” In rejecting the report, Amnesty Israel declared, “We do not accept the claim that genocide has been proven to be taking place in the Gaza Strip, nor do we accept the operative findings of the report.”

Amnesty’s report has been criticized, condemned and rejected. A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said, “We disagree with the conclusions of such a report … [and] find the allegations of genocide are unfounded.” Germany also rejected the report, stating through its foreign ministry that Israel was acting in self-defense, and that it was Hamas who started the war. The International Legal Forum went further, asserting the report is “replete with malicious lies, gross distortions of truth and fabrications of law,” and calling for President-elect Donald Trump to name Amnesty a hate group.

Amnesty International’s factual perversions, sins of omission and bad faith cause its report to fail utterly at proving Israel’s intent to harm innocent Palestinians. Amnesty has not only slandered Israel but also provided conclusive evidence it has lost all credibility in advocating for human rights.


Over half of Arab Israelis believe war created a shared sense of destiny with Jews
Over half (57.8%) of Arab citizens in Israel, including Muslims, Druze, and Christians, believe the multi-front war has created a shared sense of destiny between Jews and Arabs, a survey by the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation at TAU's Moshe Dayan Center revealed Wednesday.

In June 2024, 51.6% of Arab Israelis believed that the war was creating a shared sense of destiny between Jewish and Arab Israelis, indicating an upward trend.

In contrast, in November 2023, nearly three-quarters (69.8%) of Arab Israelis said that the war had harmed solidarity between Arab and Jewish citizens.

In terms of the relationship between Arab Israelis and the state in the December 2024 survey, over a third (39.4%) of respondents said that their sense of belonging to the state has weakened since October 7. Only 17.4% said their sense of belonging to Israel has strengthened due to the war.

The survey additionally revealed that a third (33.9%) of Arab Israelis define their Israeli citizenship as the most important element in their personal identity, compared to the 9% who regard their Palestinian identity as the dominant component of their identity. Of those surveyed, 29.2% view their religious affiliation as the most important aspect of their identity, and 26.9% view their Arab identity as the most important.

In comparison to earlier surveys, it is notable that the importance of Israeli citizenship to Arab Israelis has increased during the war. The day after

In terms of the “day after” the war ends, when asked who should govern Gaza, less than half (43.2%) believe that Gaza should be placed in Palestinian hands, marking a decline since June 2024, when 58.5% of respondents supported Palestinian control of Gaza. One-fifth of those who support Palestinian control of Gaza support control of the Palestinian Authority, 15.8% support local Gazan entities in control, and 6.7% support Hamas maintaining power.

In contrast, nearly half (45.1%) of Arab Israelis think an external non-Palestinian entity should govern Gaza. One-fifth support an international coalition, 17.9% support Israeli control, and 7.1% support Arab states taking leadership.
Islam conquers Europe and Jews flee
For years, writers like Douglas Murray, the late Christopher Hitchens and Ayaan Hirsi Ali have been warning us that radical Islam is the greatest threat to the West, to our cultural and physical security. “You don’t have to be paranoid or bigoted to be alarmed,” Hitchens said.

And the canary in the Western coal mine is Europe, which is disintegrating into enclaves, while the numbers indicating Islamization continue to grow.

“Islam is advancing and I see in the West a desire to disappear,” Michel Houellebecq told the Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera.

In the Paris of the author of “Submission”, a dystopian novel that has become a daily chronicle, the famous philosopher Pierre Manent has just been reported to the judiciary, guilty of having said that “the number of Muslims in France cannot be allowed to grow at an indefinite rate. Secularism can more easily move a statue of Saint Michael than transform Islam. Failure to act could lead to a tragedy that no version of secularism will enable us to face”. The left-wing deputies have denounced him. “Incitement to hatred”. Article 40 of the penal code.

“Victims of anti-Semitism and Islamism, unite! The time of pogroms has returned, the Jews know it and have been saying it for a long time”, said the courageous Algerian writer Boualem Sansal.

In California, two children from a Christian school were seriously injured in a rifle attack: the attacker wanted to “avenge Palestine”.

At least in the minds of the enemies of the West, the victims of anti-Semitism and Islamism are united.

In London, a 14-year-old Jewish girl ended up in hospital for injuries sustained in an attack. In that London where strange writings have appeared on the walls of Jewish neighborhoods: “Zionists, leave the country or you will be massacred”. And in the meantime, a bus of Jewish students was attacked. That is why a month ago the city inaugurated a special bus line for Jews.

In the meantime, Jews are leaving the West.

Young English Jews are leaving their country.

And the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of England is also leaving.

A third of all Jewish doctors in Ontario, Canada, are packing their bags.
Jew-hatred spreading in health care since Oct. 7, doctors say
Medical professionals described the alarming rise of Jew-hatred in the field of health care since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in a briefing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

Michelle Stravitz, inaugural CEO of the American Jewish Medical Association, which launched earlier this year, said that Jew-hatred and anti-Israel bias pervade medical schools, professional associations and patient interactions.

“We are seeing antisemitism manifest in all relationships in the healthcare community,” Stravitz said at the briefing. “We’ve seen the calling for the removal of all Zionists from health care. We see marginalization, ostracizing of colleagues and demonization of colleagues.”

The Jewish Federations of North America organized the event, which was held in the Capitol Hill Visitor’s Center. Three of the speakers asked to remain anonymous, citing potential threats to their careers for speaking out against antisemitism.

A doctor at a major U.S. medical school described the reactions of Jewish patients who were treated by medical staff who insisted on wearing anti-Israel paraphernalia, despite the practice’s dress code banning such attire.

“In the infertility clinic, there were six out of seven nurse practitioners, none of whom were Palestinian or of Middle East descent, who insisted on wearing pins and even keffiyehs and refused to take them off when patients specifically asked,” the doctor said at the event.

“One Jewish patient was diagnosed with a miscarriage via a transvaginal ultrasound by a nurse practitioner and had a breakdown and started sobbing in the clinic in response to the ‘free Palestine’ pin,” the doctor added. “The nurse practitioner left her alone and half naked in the room without further care.”

“One patient complained to local media that the pins made her so uncomfortable that she hid her Jewish identity, including plans for her son’s circumcision,” the doctor added.

The nature of obstetric care also left patients feeling particularly vulnerable that they could face retaliation or have their treatments sabotaged, according to the doctor.

“People were worried that if they came forward and complained about their care that the staff members would damage their embryos,” the doctor said. “It was creating a complete chilling effect on patients.”

Wearing the items is not necessarily antisemitic but the response to patient complaints from colleagues demonstrated bigotry against Jews, the doctor said.

“Faculty and staff actually wrote a letter stating that patients’ feelings should not matter when it comes to patient advocacy in the clinical space,” the doctor said.

Referring to the major, West Coast public academic medical center where the doctor is employed, the doctor said that the institution’s faculty and staff would have responded differently “if any other group were raising these concerns.”

A psychologist at another highly-ranked medical school described how antisemitism is now being encouraged in patient treatment in some corners of the mental health specialties in the form of “decolonizing therapy” and “liberation psychology.”

“The idea is that when a patient walks into the room, you see them in a binary: oppressor or oppressed,” the psychologist said. “Once they’re categorized in that binary, it would guide the work that you do with that patient.”

“Jews, who are considered oppressors, would be seen as a problem in society. Zionism is viewed as a mental illness,” the psychologist said. “As a therapist, it would be a responsibility of someone who’s practicing a decolonizing therapy framework to have them reject that ideology in order to heal. It’s a complete inversion of the way therapy should work.”
Medical professionals exposed to Jew-hatred by ‘small but vocal, prominent minority,’ study suggests
More than 75% of medical professionals and students who identify as Jewish say that they have been exposed to antisemitism, and since Oct. 7, 2023, medical publications and social media posts by those in the field about Jew-hatred have increased by five times and posts by medical professionals promoting antisemitism are up by four times.

That’s according to a new article in the Journal of Religion and Health by researchers in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Florida, New York, Rhode Island and Illinois.

“A small but vocal and prominent minority of healthcare professionals and/or students are exposing the broader community to antisemitic rhetoric,” Dr. Daniella Schwartz, assistant professor of medicine in the rheumatology department at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and lead author of the study, told JNS.

Schwartz and her colleagues analyzed studies indexed by the archive PubMed between 2000 and 2023 that had the words “antisemitism,” antisemitic” or “Holocaust” in the title or abstract. They also used an artificial intelligence tool to study social media posts from some 220,405 accounts on X of people who self-identified as U.S. healthcare professionals and also surveyed members of four national groups of Jewish medical professionals and students. (The study drew on Foundation to Combat Antisemitism research as well.)

“All three analyses suggested growing awareness and evidence of rising Jew-hatred within the U.S. healthcare community,” the researchers wrote. “Posts about Jews and Judaism, including posts promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, were prevalent within the social media accounts of self-identified healthcare professionals. Most surveyed U.S. medical students and healthcare professionals experienced Jew-hatred and reported a marked increase following Oct. 7, 2023.”
How Australia went from ‘goldene medina’ to ‘vitriol and vilification’ of Jews
Leibler argued that, while he does not think antisemitism is behind the reversal in foreign policy, “there is no question that when you have a government that knowingly abandoned decades of bipartisan support for Israel and Israel’s right to defend itself … that fuels antisemitism.”

The Albanese government’s policies “legitimized the slurs” against Israel, he said. For example, Canberra’s response to the International Criminal Court’s warrant to arrest Netanyahu on war crimes charges was to say the Australian government “respects the independence of the ICC and its important role in upholding international law,” but it “hasn’t spoken out and said this accusation is a blood libel detached from reality. That legitimizes the blood libel that Jews are genocide supporters,” Leibler said.

Responding to a question about student protesters who have called for an intifada, Australian Education Minister Jason Clare said that he’s “seen people say that those words mean the annihilation of Israel. I’ve seen people say that it means the opposite.” Leibler said Clare “contributed to the insecurity and intimidation of Jews on campus.”

Leibler called on the federal government to “acknowledge the link between the incitement we see on the street and this rhetoric, the stain of genocide … Fine, be critical of certain aspects of the war, but the fundamental failure to differentiate between a liberal democracy fighting proscribed terrorist organizations makes the Jewish community feel unsafe, with justification, in my view.”

“I genuinely believe[s] we could have had the same number of antisemitic incidents, but if the Jewish community felt we had leaders capable of demonstrating moral clarity and leadership in relation to Israel and its right to defend itself, we would have felt much safer and wouldn’t have had the same sense of vulnerability,” he said.

Burns called to separate the conversation about Israel from the antisemitic attacks in Australia. “It doesn’t matter what’s happening in the Middle East,” he said. “It’s a dangerous precedent to be able to justify somehow what’s happening in Australia. The Jewish community in Australia cannot be held responsible for what is happening on the other side of the world.”

Burns was skeptical that the way the Albanese government speaks about Israel is a motivating factor behind antisemitic attacks in Australia.

“I think we have to deal with the facts in all of this,” he said. “We need to be able to have mature conversations about foreign policy. The Israelis themselves are a vibrant democracy with huge disagreements among different aspects of Israeli society and that’s a healthy thing.”

At the same time, “if people do disagree, we need to be able to disagree respectfully and not target Jewish Australians. That is an illegitimate approach.”

Burns said that Australia “has been a wonderful place to grow up and be a Jewish person. I’m an MP — there is no limit to what I can do or achieve being a Jewish Australian.”

“Most Jewish Australians want to get back to that vibrant, multicultural place that everyone knows,” he added.

Southwick said that “Victoria has been the most inclusive, multicultural state, probably in the world. People of all countries and backgrounds and nationalities have been welcomed and we are known for embracing people of different backgrounds.”

“That has all broken down since Oct. 7, especially for our community,” he said.

However, Southwick applauded the Jewish community for “getting quite strong in saying we’ve had enough of this, rallying together and saying we are not going to hide.”

Ultimately, Leibler said he feels safe in Australia, where Jewish life has “a lot more in the positives than in the trauma.”

“There are parts of society that I don’t recognize and didn’t know existed. That reinforced the sense that Jewish destiny is not in the Diaspora, it is in the State of Israel,” he said, but at the same time, added that he “never felt a conflict between Zionism and being a proud Australian Jew and I still don’t think there is one. Ultimately, we are people who always understood the centrality of Israel to Jewish life, wherever you live, and this is further proof of that.”
The Unconscious Antisemite: Ignorance Is No Excuse
I agree with Douglas Murray’s observation: there exists a motley cabal of antisemites who span a range from the sinister to the silly. The sinister are those who chant genocidal slogans about freeing Palestine “from the river to the sea” with full awareness of their implications. The silly, on the other hand, often have no clue about the geography they reference, let alone the complex history of the conflict. Caught up in ideology, social trends, or plain ignorance, these individuals may not even grasp the toxicity of their positions.

If you find your opinions on Israel shaped predominantly by selective programming from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation or the fevered takes of social media, you may have been misled. A strange coalition of Islamists, anarchists, Marxists, and hard-left zealots has coalesced around the banner of anti-Zionism, forming what historians may one day regard as one of the oddest alliances in history. But it is not enough to dismiss this movement as “silly” or ideologically confused—it is a significant driver of the rising antisemitism we see today.

The “Unconscious Antisemite”
In contemporary Australia, a subtle yet pervasive form of antisemitism has emerged, often masquerading as legitimate criticism of Israel. This phenomenon, which I term the “unconscious antisemite,” involves individuals who, perhaps unwittingly, perpetuate age-old prejudices under the guise of political discourse. These are people who might not identify as antisemitic and may even abhor racism in other forms, yet their actions and words serve to marginalise Jewish communities and delegitimise Jewish self-determination.

Anti-Zionism—the denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination—is not a neutral political stance; it is inherently antisemitic. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” This includes actions that target Jewish individuals, communities, or institutions, as well as those that demonise Israel or apply double standards to the Jewish state.
Why Jews need Azerbaijan, a country of peaceful coexistence
Across the Jewish world, people are shocked that an antisemitic mob attacked a group of Jewish students who were on a school bus in London.

One 12-year-old student described to The Jewish Chronicle how the mob was swearing antisemitic profanities at the group and then threw rocks at them while screaming, “F*** Israel. Nobody likes you. F*** off you bitches.”

This antisemitic attack did not occur in a vacuum. From Paris to London to New York and San Francisco, antisemitism is on the rise across the West, leaving Jewish students vulnerable. In such a violent atmosphere, we must appreciate a country like Azerbaijan, where incidents like this simply do not happen.

Jewish civilization in Azerbaijan dates back over 1,500 years. Oral tradition states that Jews first arrived in the South Caucasus country during the eighth century BCE.

Jews living in peace
Since then, the Jews of Azerbaijan have been living in peace and harmony, without experiencing any antisemitism except during the relatively brief invasions by Nadir Shah and the Soviet Union. Since Azerbaijan broke away from the Soviet Union and declared independence, Jewish life in Azerbaijan has been flourishing, especially since the country opened an embassy in Israel last year.

In a world torn apart by antisemitic hatred and intolerance, multicultural and religiously diverse Azerbaijan stands out as a role model for other countries. It is an example of how Jews and Muslims can coexist peacefully and be friends, celebrating each other’s holidays and the diversity that the South Caucasus country has to offer.

Jewish children who travel home from school in Baku, Quba, Oghuz, Ganja, and other Azerbaijani cities are not harassed by antisemitic mobsters. They are encouraged to share their culture and way of life with the greater Muslim population as well as the other religious groups that live in Azerbaijan.

No one in Azerbaijan taunts them about their connection to Israel. On the contrary, over 40% of Israel’s oil originates in Azerbaijan, and over 120 Israeli firms operate within the South Caucasus country, with many more exploring the possibility of relocating.

In fact, Azerbaijanis not only refrain from taunting Jewish students, but they have profound admiration and respect for Israel because they see many parallels between Israeli history and their own. They feel that the United States and France have given Azerbaijan the “Israel treatment” on more than one occasion.
The problem is antisemitism from the left
Antisemitism is an increasingly explosive and dangerous problem in the West, including in the United States. To deal with this challenge, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative nonprofit, has established Project Esther and an associated task force, of which the Zionist Organization of America is a member.

It is important to understand the vast scope of the problem. In the year since Oct. 7, 2023, the Anti-Defamation League has recorded more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents in the United States. Among those recorded confrontations were:
A radical Muslim antisemitic college professor murdered an elderly, 69-year-old Jewish pro-Israel supporter.
Teen antisemites rampaged through the halls of a New York high school—for nearly two hours—simply because they discovered a teacher had attended a pro-Israel rally. This mob forced the terrified educator to hide in a locked office as they tried to push their way into her classroom.
In New York City, antisemites attacked a kosher restaurant multiple times, screaming obscenities, throwing objects and intimidating customers.
At Harvard University, “Jewish students on campus have been subjected to a really hostile environment in which they have been intimidated, harassed and in some instances physically assaulted because they’re Jewish.”
In Philadelphia, a group of antisemitic protesters rioted outside of an Israeli-style falafel shop, prompting the Biden White House and Josh Shapiro, the Democrat governor of Pennsylvania, to decry the attack.
In Los Angeles, a violent mob descended on a synagogue, intent on intimidating worshippers. Masked and keffiyeh-clad goons maced and pepper-sprayed members of the local community while police, reportedly instructed not to intervene by city officials, looked on.
In Washington, D.C., antisemites trespassed into the U.S. Congress and screamed antisemitic slogans before being arrested for obstructing the legislative process.
In Washington D.C., the Char Bar, a kosher restaurant, was vandalized on the 86th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht attacks on Jews in Europe.

Some of these incidents were organized by the National Students for Justice in Palestine, American Muslims for Palestine and/or Jewish Voice for Peace, among other far-left groups. Several of these organizations have received funding from nonprofits like the Open Society Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund or the Tides Foundation. The vast majority of antisemitic acts in the United States come from those on the left of the political spectrum.
'A smoking gun': Shocking investigation reveals systemic antisemitism at France's 'Le Monde'
An explosive investigation by Le Figaro into allegations about the editorial culture at one of France's most respected newspapers, Le Monde, was published on Monday.

Itai Cellier, a French media and politics expert and creator of the YouTube channel The Frenchman, described the exposé as "a smoking gun."

According to Cellier, the investigation uncovered deeply concerning details about Le Monde’s editorial practices. Testimonies from within the newsroom reveal that the French Jewish community was explicitly referred to as a “hostile community” during editorial meetings. Cellier further highlighted an incident where a journalist mocked a Jewish colleague, sneering, “So, how’s your aliyah project coming along?”

The investigation also exposed glaring examples of biased reporting. A special issue commemorating one year since the October 7 attacks focused exclusively on “Gaza’s suffering,” completely ignoring the massacres and kidnappings that occurred. The following day, another article dismissed Israeli trauma as mere “whining,” further solidifying claims of anti-Israel bias in the paper’s coverage.

At the center of the controversy is Benjamin Barthe, the author of Ramallah Dream. Barthe is married to Muzna Shehabi, a pro-Palestinian activist and former negotiator for the Palestinian Authority. According to Cellier, Shehabi once wrote, following the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, “May God have mercy on him and all the martyrs, and may He destroy the Zionist entity.” This connection, Cellier suggests, exemplifies the ideological leanings influencing the paper’s editorial decisions.

Cellier argues that cancel culture has become a powerful suppression tool within Le Monde. He claims that young “woke” activists have taken over the newsroom, creating a climate of fear that prevents internal dissent. Journalists interviewed for the investigation requested anonymity but provided photographic evidence of propaganda plastered on the newsroom walls, mirroring messaging from the far-left, antisemitic political party La France Insoumise.

The investigation also sheds light on the strained relationship between Le Monde and its readership. Following significant subscriber losses after the October 7 anniversary issue, the newspaper’s reader relations manager was asked why the paper continues to lean left. His response: “The newspaper hasn’t shifted leftward; it’s the French public that has become more right-wing.”


Should the NFL Tolerate Support for Hamas?
It turns out that the brutal hit resulting in the suspension of an NFL player is not the only kind of violence the culprit embraces—he also appears to endorse Hamas violence. Is that acceptable to the NFL?

Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair has gained a reputation for dirty hits on opposing players. In this season alone, he has been fined for punching a Chicago Bears running back, fined again for flagrantly hitting a Tennessee Titans player out of bounds, and, most notoriously, delivering a vicious blow to the head of Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence. That last violation resulted in both a fine and a three-game suspension, a penalty the NFL rarely imposes.

Amidst all the public discussion of Al-Shaair’s hit on Lawrence, fans noticed some unusual writing on Al-Shaair’s cleats.

One of his shoes has the words “At least 41,788 Palestinians killed. 10,000+ estimated to be under the rubble. 96,794 wounded.” Those are the exaggerated and unverified claims made by Hamas about Gaza. The other side of the cleat has a verse from the Quran: “Surely to Allah we belong and to him we will all return.”

If the issue was just the casualty numbers, one might give Al-Shaair the benefit of the doubt. He could simply be naively parroting Hamas’s numbers, and not necessarily supporting the Hamas cause.

But there is a message on his second cleat, too: there he stitched the word “FREE,” with two of the letters in the colors of the PLO flag, and the other two mimicking a keffiyeh.

The choice of that slogan takes the matter beyond legitimate humanitarian concerns, and into the realm of pro-terrorist propaganda. The slogan “Free Palestine,” a euphemism for the destruction of Israel, has been a major feature of pro-Hamas rallies around the world in the past year. The keffiyeh has become a symbol of pro-Hamas sentiment. And the PLO flag stands for decades of Palestinian Arab terrorism, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Israeli Jews, nearly two hundred American citizens, and many others.


JPost Editorial: Ireland’s anti-Israel hypocrisy – time for Israel to push back harder
Was Israel right to close its embassy in Ireland this week?

“Ireland is one of the most anti-Zionist countries in the Western world,” Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder told The Jerusalem Post’s Editor-in-Chief Zvika Klein on The Jerusalem Post Podcast in May.

“It really plays out on so many levels of society,” he explained. “In the government, the opposition parties, the media, schools, and universities. And while we’re very grateful there hasn’t been a lot of violence for the most part – definitely compared to what we’ve seen in other countries – there have been extremely strong anti-Zionist sentiments, and the criticism of Israel is disproportionate to what we see in other countries.”

The World Jewish Congress says, based on 2023 figures, that there are some 2,700 Jews living in Ireland, some of them Israelis. It was in May that Israel recalled its ambassador in Dublin, Dana Erlich, after Ireland joined Spain and Norway in unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state. In November, the Irish parliament passed a nonbinding motion declaring that “genocide is being perpetrated before our eyes by Israel in Gaza.” The final straw came last week when Ireland announced its support for the South African lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinians.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar decided to take strong action, and on Sunday he announced the closure of the embassy due to the “extreme anti-Israel policy of the Irish government.” He said: “The antisemitic actions and rhetoric that Ireland is taking against Israel are based on delegitimization and demonization of the Jewish state and on double standards.”

Not everyone agreed with the decision. Opposition leader Yair Lapid slammed Sa’ar, accusing him of taking the wrong approach. “The decision... is a victory for antisemitism and anti-Israel organizations,” Lapid wrote on X. “The way to deal with criticism is not to run away but to stay and fight.”

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris called Israel’s decision “deeply regrettable.” He wrote on X: “I utterly reject the assertion that Ireland is anti-Israel. Ireland is pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-international law.” For his part, Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin said the two countries would continue to maintain diplomatic relations and there were no plans to close Ireland’s embassy in Israel.

Maurice Cohen, chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, said he opposed the embassy closure. “It is regrettable that circumstances have led the Israeli government to believe that closing the embassy in Dublin is the best course of action,” Cohen said. “It will have a deeply personal impact on many Irish citizens with Israeli roots, including members of our own community. It is crucial that both governments recognize the broader implications of their decisions, not just for bilateral relations but for the people they affect directly.”
Brendan O'Neill: The truth about Ireland’s hatred for Israel
Is there a politician more sanctimonious, more smug, than Ireland’s president, Michael D Higgins? His pompous scolding of Israel this week after it had the temerity to call out the anti-Israel animus of the Irish elites was a truly unedifying spectacle of false virtue and cant. Shaking with fury, every word bitterly spat out, he said it is a ‘gross defamation and slander’ to ‘brand a people’ anti-Semitic just because they ‘criticise Benjamin Netanyahu’. He seemed to be in the grip of a paroxysm of pique. I’ve never seen him quake and froth like this over anything else: not poverty, not homelessness, not war. Well, unless it’s a war being fought by Israel.

It’s hard to decide what was most grating in Higgins’s theatre of fury, which, as he knows, will have been lapped up by every scribe at the Irish Times, every patron of the wine bars of Dublin 4, every rich kid in a keffiyeh at Trinity. Let’s start with the fact that his windy invective was in large part misinformation. Israel has not accused the Irish people of anti-Semitism. It has accused ‘the Irish government’ of pursuing ‘extreme anti-Israel policies’. That’s why it took the decision to shut its embassy in Dublin: not because it thinks every Irishman is a Jew-hater but because it thinks Ireland’s ruling class is possessed of a curious abhorrence for the Jewish nation. Imagine accusing Israel of ‘slander’ even as you wilfully twist its words.

Then there’s the sanctimony. Higgins reaches for the smelling salts when an uppity nation like Israel has the brass neck to accuse people like him of possibly being bigots, yet he’s more than happy to make that accusation against others. The Irish establishment loves nothing more than pontificating on the pox of racism in modern Ireland. In his St Patrick’s Day message last year, Higgins lamented the ‘poisonous xenophobia’ of our times and said racism is ‘increasing rather than decreasing’. Irish officials have fashioned initiatives for ‘Combatting Racism in Ireland’. The Irish Times never stops wanging on about racism. It publishes headlines like ‘Racism is rampant in Ireland, across all sectors and levels’.

Yet when Israel says the obsessive Israel-hate of Ireland’s rulers has a whiff of prejudice to it, these people run for the fainting couch. It’s fine, it seems, for them to bemoan the bigotry of Ireland’s oiks and culchies, but not for anyone else to wonder if certain biases might lurk behind the correct-think façade of Ireland’s own establishment. Rarely has the self-serving cynicism of what now passes for ‘anti-racism’ been so starkly exposed. In the eyes of Ireland’s rulers, and other Euro-elites, racism is a pleb problem, a moral disease of the riff raff, and it falls to us, the educated and pure, to call it out. ‘Anti-racism’, tragically, has become a weapon of elite reprimand, wielded with abandon against unruly populations who ask awkward questions about mass immigration, multiculturalism, Islamism, etc.

This is why Higgins spluttered so furiously over Israel’s j’accuse – because in spying something like racism in the heart of the Dublin elite, Israel threatens to detonate that elite’s thin claim to moral authority. ‘Anti-racism’ has become the ideological glue of the 21st-century political class. It is the means through which they distinguish themselves from that madding crowd of the uneducated and unaware. It is the ethical underpinning to their very right to rule, where they haughtily posit themselves as the enlightened steerers of the witless throng. Israel has possibly upended this self-regarding dogma, in Ireland at least. We end up with the glorious vision of the Irish Times, having once said racism is ‘rampant in Ireland’, now crying: ‘Not here, though! Not in our offices!’ They will never forgive Israel for saying about them what they love to say about others.

But the main reason President Higgins’ bluster was so vexing is that Israel is clearly right. It’s right to say the Irish elites are ‘anti-Israel’. It’s right to say the Irish government’s animosity towards Israel is fuelled by ‘double standards’ and ‘demonisation’. Consider that Ireland’s leaders have been happy to cosy up to the Saudi regime, even during its barbarous war on Yemen. As Sinn Féin has pointed out, Ireland’s rulers love to go ‘touting for more business’ in Saudi Arabia, even if the moral price of such enterprise is to maintain a ‘shameful silence on [the] Saudi war in Yemen’. So Ireland’s elites are schtum when Saudis massacre Yemenis, yet they rage when Israel fights back against the army of anti-Semites that raped and murdered more than a thousand of its people. If that’s not ‘double standards’, what is it?
Irish president says Israel seeks ‘settlement’ in Egypt
In responding to allegations of antisemitism, the president of Ireland falsely asserted that Israel is seeking to build a “settlement” in Egypt.

Michael D. Higgins issued the allegation on Tuesday, at a credentials ceremony for PLO “Ambassador” Jilan Abdaljamid and Ambassador of Italy Nicola Faganello, while answering questions about his country’s diplomatic crisis with Israel, which this week led Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to call Higgins an antisemite.

It’s a “very serious business to actually brand a people because in fact they disagree with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu, who is in breach of so many bits of international law, and who has beached the sovereignty of three of his neighbors, in relation to Lebanon, Syria, and would like in fact actually to have a settlement into Egypt,” Higgins said.

His right hand shaking, Higgins, 83, added: “I think to suggest that because one criticizes Prime Minister Netanyahu, that is, one is antisemitic, is such a gross defamation and slander. Well, I have to say that originally when I was accepted [Israeli Ambassador Dana Erlich’s] credentials, I put it [comments about Irish policy] down to lack of experience, but then I saw later that it was part of a pattern to damage Ireland.”


Israel-Irish Relations Worsen Over Dublin's 'Genocide' Stance | Israel Undiplomatic
After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled his testimony in court on Dec. 17, citing "special circumstances," rumors were abundant about what was imminent to happen. A strike against the Houthis in Yemen? A hostage deal with Hamas? Normalization with Saudi Arabia? Palestinian sovereignty? Or was he running scared because of threats from Iran?

JNS senior contributing editor Ruthie Blum and Mark Regev, former Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom—both former advisers at the Prime Minister's Office—unpack the lies, rumors and claims and zone in on what is actually happening.

Also, they discuss Jerusalem's relations with Ireland as Israel closes its embassy and Dublin doubles down on how it is not really "anti-Israel." All this and more on this episode of "Israel Undiplomatic!"




Oxford Union Gaza debate denounced as ‘mess of antisemitism’ in Parliament
An Oxford Union debate on the Israeli Palestinian conflict was labelled a “mess of antisemitism” in Parliament on Wednesday.

Conservative MP Gregory Stafford, a former treasurer of the Oxford Union, said he was “disgusted” that “students voted in a majority that they would not have reported Hamas’s plans if they'd known them prior to the October 7 attacks”.

He went on to urge the government to write to the Oxford Union to state that “antisemitism has no place in our society, and especially not our universities”.

On November 28, students voted in favour of a motion “This house believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide," by 278 votes to 59.

During the debate, one of the panellists opposing the motion, Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a Hamas leader who himself later defected to Israel, asked whether the audience would have reported Hamas’s plans on October 7 to authorities and an overwhelming majority indicated they would not have.

Responding to Stafford’s question in the House of Commons, Minister for Women and Equalities Anneliese Dodds MP said that: “The government could not have been clearer in terms of our position on antisemitism, there is no place for antisemitism in our society, nor for any form of racism.

She continued: “That applies whether it's within educational settings in any other part of our society. That's been made very clear indeed.

The JC reported that over 300 academics signed an open letter addressed to the new Oxford University chancellor William Hague stating that the debate, in which some speakers praised the October 7 attacks on Israel broke the law.

Jonathan Sacredoti, another of the speakers against the motion, wrote about the intimidating atmosphere: “they interrupted every pro-Israel speaker with jeers, coughs, and outright abuse,” adding that Yousef, “was met with jeering derision and cried of ‘traitor’ and ‘prostitute’ (in Arabic), as he recounted his extraordinary story of moral courage and bravery.”
Trump WH urged to prioritize deportation of foreign students with pro-terrorism views
As Republicans jockey for roles in the Trump administration and interest groups work to get their agendas in front of incoming officials, some conservative activists are pushing President-elect Donald Trump to make good on a campaign promise to deport foreign students who espoused support for terror groups during campus anti-Israel protests after last year’s Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.

The Republican Party platform released in July was a sparse list that reflected Trump’s ideological priorities but included few concrete policy proposals. Trump’s pledge to tackle antisemitism was coupled with just one policy goal: “support revoking Visas of Foreign Nationals who support terrorism and jihadism.”

Now, some of Trump’s backers argue that should be a day-one priority for the new administration. They are urging the president-elect to take on antisemitism in a way that incorporates counterterrorism measures, such as digging deeper into Iran’s influence on U.S. campus protests and looking into whether radical campus organizations receive illicit foreign financing.

“I think we’d like to see people who are on student visas, who have publicly and specifically endorsed Hamas or Hezbollah or what is a designated terrorist organization by the United States, and they’re showing they are very vocal in their support for them, that those students would lose their student visas to the United States and therefore be removed,” said Luke Moon, executive director of the Philos Project, which works to promote Christian engagement in the Middle East. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance spoke at the Philos Project’s Oct. 7 memorial rally in Washington this year.

Richard Goldberg, a former National Security Council official in Trump’s first term, said that the rhetoric from Trump and Republicans during the campaign suggests that this issue will be top of mind for them.

“The president-elect made it very clear throughout the campaign and even in the Republican platform at the RNC that he is going to have a strong focus on rooting out antisemitism, particularly in higher education, including deporting visa holders who are behind a lot of these antisemitic incidents on campuses,” said Goldberg.


Anti-Zionist organization gets $100k grant as Walter and Elise Haas Fund changes direction
The San Francisco-based Walter and Elise Haas Fund, a major grantmaker to local and national Jewish nonprofits over the past 70 years, is winding down millions of dollars in annual grants focused on what it called “Jewish life.”

The change is part of an overhaul of the fund’s philanthropic approach in the last few years, which includes empowering young adults in the grantmaking decision process.

Now, a $100,000 grant to a San Francisco-based organization known for its strident anti-Zionist activism, chosen by the young adult fellowship, is angering some in the Jewish community, including the Jewish organizations whose funding has ended, or soon will.

The grant to the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) is counter to a central tenet held by the mainstream Jewish community—namely, solid support for Israel, and opposition to those who promote the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

AROC is an unsparing critic of Israel, accusing it of white supremacy, colonialism and, since Oct. 7 of last year, genocide. Its executive director, Lara Kiswani, encouraged activists to help “overcome Zionism” at the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit in May.

Naomi Tucker, executive director of Shalom Bayit, the Bay Area’s Jewish domestic violence prevention organization and a recipient of Haas Fund grants since 2001, said the choice to award AROC with a $100,000 grant gives the group more than financial backing. It’s an endorsement of AROC as an organization, she said.

“When you fund them, you are lending credibility,” said Tucker, whose nonprofit received its final $100,000 grant from the Haas Fund earlier this year.

Tucker calls AROC a proponent of violence and hate speech against Jews and Israel.

“We have seen the violence against the Jewish community that they have perpetrated and perpetuated since Oct. 7,” Tucker told J. “I don’t understand how anyone couldn’t see that.”


How CNN was duped by a fake Syrian prisoner
The problem for Ward and CNN was that ‘Ghurbal’ looked suspiciously clean, unharmed and recently fed in the footage. So almost as soon the piece was broadcast, social media began buzzing with questions. Why is the man wearing a pristine and warm-looking coat? Why are his fingernails so clean? And why is the cell in which he claimed to have been locked for months free of any visible waste?

‘There is still so much we don’t know’, Ward solemnly told CNN anchor Julia Chatterley on the day the piece aired. ‘We don’t know why the regime took Adel Ghurbal, and we may never know.’ Famous last words.

Five days later, the New York Post revealed that Ghurbal is actually Salama Mohammad Salama. ‘[Salama] worked at several security checkpoints in Homs and was involved in theft, extortion and coercing residents into becoming informants for Assad… He also killed civilians during the Syrian civil war in 2014 – and allegedly detained and tortured young men on bogus charges.’

All journalists can make mistakes, of course. But Ward’s credulity, her willingness to believe this man’s sensationalist claims, is testament to a deeper problem. Too many journalists lack distance from the events they’re reporting on. They’re too close, too emotionally involved.

This is clear from a personal interview Ward gave to a CBS News podcast in 2021, in which she spoke of her anguish over the war in Syria, the US’s unwillingness to intervene and stop Assad, and how she believed it had cost the lives of some of her friends. ‘I think all of us who covered Syria closely just went through the emotional wringer, losing so many people that we loved’, she tells the podcast. ‘I will cop to the fact that I think I crossed the line in Syria. I became so emotionally involved and I was crushed by the US response and the US policy.’

This illuminating interview captures well how too many journalists have become the stars of their own movies, heroes in their own stories. They see themselves not as neutral observers, but as active participants. And as a result they abandon any commitment to objectivity. When that happens, as this embarrassing episode shows, they soon start to prefer fiction to fact.


Palestinian gunmen wound Israeli near Joseph’s Tomb
Palestinian terrorists overnight Tuesday shot and lightly wounded an Israeli bus driver bringing Jewish pilgrims to Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus (Shechem) in Samaria.

The gunmen opened fire on the bus as the driver was leaving the area after dropping off some two dozen pilgrims, the army said.

The IDF dispatched troops to extract the driver and the pilgrims, who did not coordinate the trip in advance with the military.

IDF soldiers provided medical treatment to the bus driver and the civilians were safely evacuated.

The IDF said that the incident is under investigation and all of the civilians involved have been transferred for further questioning by the Israel Police.

Before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, Orthodox Jews regularly visited Joseph’s Tomb under IDF protection, with clashes often breaking out during the visits.

Israeli citizens are barred from entering Nablus, which is designated as part of Area A per the Oslo Accords (under full Palestinian Authority security and administrative control), without prior consent.

Last week, three Israelis were shot and lightly wounded on their way to pray at the Joseph’s Tomb compound. The three men, members of the Breslov sect of Chassidic Judaism, had entered Nablus after driving through an Israeli military checkpoint and fled after being fired on, later seeking medical attention at Hadassah Medical Center on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, where police subsequently detained them.


Montreal shul targeted with firebomb in second attack since Oct. 7
Canadian authorities have opened an investigation after Beth Tikvah, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Montreal, as well as a Jewish community center in the city’s suburbs, were targeted with firebombs on Wednesday in the second such attack on the congregation since the terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

According to the Montreal Gazette, police were called to the synagogue on West Park Boulevard around 3 a.m. after receiving a report of a fire at the building, which houses several Jewish institutions.

Officers doused the flames with a fire extinguisher and discovered the remnants of a crude firebomb. Glass was said to have been smashed, and smoke caused minor damage to the building.

Véronique Dubuc, a spokesperson for the Montreal City Police Service, said witnesses had seen a suspicious individual at the site, adding that CCTV footage was being examined to identify a suspect in the case.

The house of worship, located in the predominantly English-speaking suburb of Dollard-des-Ormeaux, was the target of a firebomb attack in November 2023.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar urged Ottawa to “take the strongest possible stance against antisemitism” following the attacks.

“I strongly condemn the antisemitic attack on Montréal’s Beit Tikvah synagogue. This surge in antisemitism must not be tolerated! This is the second(!) act of arson on Beit Tikvah—the first synagogue attacked after October 7th,” he wrote in a statement on social media.

B’nai Brith Canada Quebec regional director Henry Topas, who also serves as a cantor at Beth Tikvah, called the incident “a terrifying reminder that Montreal is increasingly unsafe for Jewish people.

“This is the result of the failure of leaders at all levels to hold accountable those responsible for the hate and violence that is infesting Canadian society,” Topas charged in a statement. “Mayor Valérie Plante must act now to stop the exponential rise in hate and antisemitism which she has permitted to get out of control in Montreal.”


Polish textbooks continue to teach antisemitic tropes in schools, report finds
Textbooks in Polish schools still contain antisemitic narratives, despite recent improvements, according to a report released Wednesday by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se).

A review of 42 textbooks found that educational content related to the Holocaust and ancient and modern Jewish history had been improved since a previous report in 2016.

However, the report said, “several textbooks continue to reinforce outdated narratives, particularly concerning Jewish-Christian relations, Jews’ place in Polish society, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

IMPACT-se’s research on textbooks measures those used in eight European countries against UNESCO-based standards of peace and tolerance in education. A similar report on Ireland published last month found “a troubling pattern of trivialization and minimization of the Holocaust” and “narratives questioning the legitimacy of the state of Israel and undermine Jewish claims to indigeneity in the land.”

“There are a lot of pleasing improvements in Poland’s textbooks, especially in their growing Jewish content,” said IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff. “However, this positivity needs to be reflected throughout the entire curriculum. It is concerning that conspiracy theories about Jewish involvement in the death of Jesus and narratives denying Jewish indigeneity to the land of Israel continue to appear in educational materials.”

“We would also welcome a more consistent acknowledgment of unique Jewish persecution during the Shoah. We look forward to working with the government and textbook authors in Poland, to help make necessary improvements and changes,” he said.

Regarding the Holocaust, some textbooks placed the specific targeting of Jews alongside Polish suffering during World War II. “This framework risks diminishing the distinct persecution Jews faced under Nazi occupation,” the report said.

It gave an example of a fourth-grade history textbook that attributes Jews’ vulnerability during the Holocaust to their “distinctiveness,” without mentioning the systematic antisemitism of the time and the role of local collaborators that contributed to their persecution.

Regarding Jewish-Christian relations, some textbooks continued to perpetuate old stereotypes, such as a fifth-grade history textbook presenting Jews as “merciless” and responsible for authorizing Jesus’s crucifixion.


Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About American Jews—a Century Ago
Looking for an unusual gift to give that special someone for Hanukkah? Money no object? If so, I have the perfect item for you: a leatherbound, 12-volume set of the Jewish Encyclopedia produced in the early 1900s by the Funk & Wagnalls Company. Currently, eBay has one for sale for a cool $3,000.

When first released, volume by volume over a period of six years between 1901 and 1906, the encyclopedia was hailed as a “masterpiece,” the greatest Jewish literary work since the Talmud. No adjective was too extravagant to wield on its behalf, the words “colossal,” “great,” “stupendous,” and “monumental” commonly pressed into service.

An enormous undertaking, the series reportedly cost a whopping $750,000 (approximately $27 million in today’s dollars) to produce, its expenditure of human resources equally commanding. Advertisements boasted that 600 scholars had a hand in its production, though the actual number was closer to 400. But no matter: By anyone’s count, the Jewish Encyclopedia was a stunning exercise in scholarly collaboration.

Today when information about the Jewish experience, from A to Z, is available at the touch of a fingertip, the Jewish Encyclopedia may strike many of us as old-fashioned, dull and dusty, even irrelevant. Back in the day, though, it was the closest equivalent to the proverbial “anything you wanted to know about the Jews but were afraid to ask,” a wellspring of information about their rituals, ideals, personalities, and experiences, or, as one advertisement would have it, the “only wide open door to the wealth of Jewish literature, science, history, biography, and actual life.”

“Made up of facts, not opinions,” its publishers explained, the series is “absolutely free from color or bias.” No special pleading or advocacy would mar the text. Each volume of anywhere from several hundred to a thousand pages was chockablock with illustrations and detailed entries that ran the gamut from weighty theological accounts of God and the Decalogue to capsule biographies of Jewish notables, from a history of the ghetto to a look at the beard. Both the scholar and the layperson were sure to find something to pique their interest.

The brainchild of Isidore Singer, a Moravian-born Jew with a penchant for ambitious schemes, the venture came into the world freighted with expectations. Not only was his proposed “Encyclopedia of the History and Mental Evolution of the Jewish Race” intended to educate, enlighten, and uplift American Jews, it was also designed to lessen antisemitism. “It will, at last, make the Jew thoroughly understood,” predicted Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler, the project’s executive committee chair, at a celebratory banquet given in 1901. Dr. I.K. Funk took things even further, confident that the publication of the Jewish Encyclopedia would bring about “universal brotherhood” at the turn of a page.

For all its noble intentions, the Jewish Encyclopedia had trouble getting off the ground. Securing the necessary funding—a stable base of subscribers and “guarantors”—proved elusive. Securing the imprimatur and participation of the scholarly community, which then, as now, was more apt to compete than collaborate, was equally hard to pin down at first, as Shulie Rubin Schwartz’s 1991 landmark study The Emergence of Jewish Scholarship in America vividly documents.


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