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Thursday, December 26, 2024

12/26 Links Pt2: The Onslaught against the Jews Is an Onslaught against the West; Palestinian antisemitism is spreading across the US; Piers Morgan, Candace Owens and ‘Haaretz’

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Onslaught against the Jews Is an Onslaught against the West
You might have thought that after the Oct. 7 onslaught, the world would have shown sympathy to Israel. Instead, much of the so-called civilized world has turned against Israel and the Jewish people. Attacks on Jews worldwide are at record levels. We can only understand what's happening if we realize that we're looking at a worldwide war on both the Jews and the Free World.

The first demonstrations in the West, mainly by Muslims, took place on Oct. 7 itself while the attack in Israel was still going on. They were an ecstatic celebration of the slaughter of Jews. The Islamists believed that their moment had come. They understood Oct. 7 to be the final and victorious onslaught. Having broken through Israel's defenses, they thought that they were now on the way to destroying Israel altogether. Then the path would be open for the defeat of the West.

There's been nothing spontaneous about these demonstrations. They've been organized from the start by an alliance composed of Hamas and other Muslim Brotherhood groups, the hard left, and Western Palestinian activists. Anti-Israel indoctrination has gone on for decades and long colonized the universities. Billions of dollars have been devoted to frying the minds of the Western intelligentsia.

For several decades, Western elites have held that the West was born in the sins of racism and colonialism and that therefore national identity in the West is itself intrinsically evil. The Western nation-state, they said, had created hatred, prejudice, and war. The culture and laws of Western nations therefore had to be trumped by universalist institutions and laws such as the UN, international law, and "human rights" legislated by international courts.

As John Lennon sang, there's nothing to fight or die for. But Israel - the paradigmatic nation-state - certainly believes there's something to fight and die for. That something is its continued existence. It refuses to negotiate its own demise.

Israel will survive because it has no alternative. Israel will prosper and grow because there the Jewish people know what they are, they love what they are, and as a result they want their nation to survive. The West will only survive if it decides to love us instead of disdaining us and trying to erase what makes the Jewish people special - which is what has made the West special too.
Rabbi Leo Dee shares his late wife’s lessons for life
Rabbi Leo Dee has shared his late wife Lucy’s life lessons and how they have helped him in the aftermath of her murder and the murder of two of their daughters.

Lucy Dee, 48, Maia, 20, and Rina,15, were shot by terrorists as they were driving in the West Bank in April 2023.

The daughters died at the scene and Lucy died three days later in hospital.

The London-born rabbi revealed "Lucy Dee’s 7 Fs” – otherwise known as “How to deal with anything in life” – during a moving presentation to a packed audience at Limmud Festival in Birmingham.

The “7 Fs”, he said, were the topics the couple had talked about when they went on date nights. They stood for family, friends, fitness, frumkeit, function, finances and fun.

Giving his talk in memory of his wife and two daughters, who were also born in the UK, Rabbi Dee said that when it came to his family, he and his surviving three children had been unable to sit down for Friday night dinner in their own home for the first three months following the funerals.

“We had been a family of two parents and five kids, and now we were one parent and three kids. We have one of those table where you can take out the middle part to make it shorter, and when I did that for the first time, it made me so depressed. We couldn’t sit down just the four of us.”

It was a conversation with Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition, which had shifted his mindset, he said. “His father had been a Holocaust survivor and then his sister was killed when she was eight. He said to me that when his father came back from the funeral, he had said: ‘This is a house to live in.’

“Three months after the funerals, the four of us sat down for Friday night dinner together. It was lovely, and I realised that we could do this.”
Andrew Pessin: "Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism," On Campus, Second Installment
[This is the next installment of the longer piece examining the expression “anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” The first installment may be found here. That first installment offered some preliminary considerations then presented a ten-part case that anti-Zionism is prima facie a species of antisemitism. Further analysis begins with this installment.]

3. “Epistemic Antisemitism”
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Antisemitism in fact is at the very foundation of anti-Zionism.

We start by recalling the first two points above:
(1) For most Jews, Zionism is deeply entwined with or based on their Judaism and Jewish identity.
(2) Although not all Israelis are Jews etc., Israel is a, or the, Jewish project.

These two points made “hating Israel” while not “hating Jews” very challenging. As Salaita put it, Zionists make “antisemitism” honorable, recognizing that hostility toward Israel is ultimately hostility toward the Jews.

But that recognition now helps us locate the “antisemitism” in the right place. Once we realize that hostility toward Israel is hostility toward Jews and that the allegations against Israel are allegations against the Jews, the conversation shifts. It’s no longer about the anti-Zionist’s (failed) attempt to distinguish between opposing Zionism-Israel and opposing the Jews but about the deeper epistemic question of whether those allegations against the Jews are justified or not, true or not, or fair, or reasonable. It wouldn’t be bigotry, after all, to be against people who perpetrate dastardly deeds; no one said or says it was “anti-German” bigotry to condemn the Nazis and dismantle their evil empire. So if Israel—i.e. the Jews—really do all the terrible things anti-Zionists say they do, if the Jews really were guilty of genocide, apartheid, settler colonialism, etc., then hostility etc. toward them would be justified, and not a form of bigotry.[1]

Once we recognize that speaking of Israel amounts to speaking of the Jews, this moves into the open: it’s easier to hide behind abstract allegations that a “country” is doing dastardly things than to assert quite concretely that the particular people are doing them. But once it is the people you are accusing, then the epistemic question becomes central to determining if the views are antisemitic or not.

This point is precisely why anti-Zionists believe that calling anti-Zionism “antisemitic” amounts to “weaponing antisemitism” to protect Israel, and thus object to IHRA. They truly believe that Jews are guilty of dastardly things, so it’s not bigotry to oppose them. From that perspective, calling anti-Zionists “bigots” could only be a bad faith move to silence them.[2] That’s also why Salaita put “antisemitism” in scare quotes above, because he believes that activism against the Jews and their state is not bigoted antisemitism but justified opposition to dastardly Jewish deeds.

This point is also why the antisemitism question is not directly located in whether (for example) the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel is “inherently” or “per se” antisemitic, or even whether “calls to dismantle Israel” are “inherently” or “per se” antisemitic; the Nexus and Jerusalem proponents have a technical but (temporarily) legitimate point when they say that BDS and even Israel-elimination are not antisemitic “on their face” or “per se.” If the Jews were truly guilty of dastardly deeds, it would not be bigotry to take even extreme measures such as those against them.[3]

The antisemitism here, then, is deeper: not necessarily in the measures “per se” one takes against the Jews, given one’s belief in their dastardly deeds, but in that which motivates those measures, i.e. in the (falsely) believing that Jews are guilty of those dastardly deeds in the first place,[4] in being all too prone to falsely believing this. I have elsewhere called this kind of antisemitism “epistemic antisemitism,” analyzing it as a kind of malicious cognitive bias of which the agent is often unaware, to which we’ll return in section (5) below.[5]

And this is also precisely why Zionists do sincerely see those anti-Zionist measures as antisemitic.


Washington Free Beacon: 2024 Man of the Year: Bibi Netanyahu
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas decided to find out what happens, in the immortal words of Walter Sobchak, when you f-ck a stranger in the ass. They entered a world of pain, and they weren't alone: 2024 was a bad year for terrorists across the Middle East. Some had their dicks blown off. Others died like dogs. Hamas and Hezbollah are decimated, Iran is humiliated, and Syria's Navy, and most of its strategic weapons stockpiles, are a thing of the past.

Most of that happened thanks to the fearless leadership of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year.

Many have come for King Bibi. All have missed and immediately regretted the decision. The list of his foes is long and undistinguished, starting with , with Senate majority leader (not for long!) Chuck Schumer. He has buried some and outlasted all.

Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas, died throwing a stick at a drone. Ismail Haniyeh, another Hamas leader (went boom in an Iranian bed and breakfast). Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah (crushed in a basement). Bashar al-Assad (Vladimir Putin's new roommate). Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran (older than Joe Biden, basically dead). Joe Biden (hospice care). Barack Obama (irrelevant crank). Chuck Schumer (lost his majority). Hillary Clinton (LOL). Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush (voted out). MSNBC (spun off from Comcast, on death's door). The International Criminal Court (clowns). Europe (beset by self-inflicted societal decay).

Netanyahu, like the Jewish state he leads, is the epitome of resilience in the face of adversity. He understands you can't win wars unless you fight them, that the best defense is a good offense, and that force means nothing if it isn't overwhelming.

The Biden administration implored Netanyahu to wage this war in keeping with the Democratic Party's storied tradition of coddling terrorists. The world is a better place today because Bibi gave Sleepy Joe (and his ghoulish minion Jake Sullivan) the same anatomical advice Dick Cheney gave Patrick Leahy in 2004.

May 2025 bring more victories for the Jewish State. Now, Bibi will be leading it as a two-time Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year. Am Yisrael Chai!


Incoming Trump admin, Congress showdown looms with South Africa over support for Russia, US foes
Key Republicans are already pressing the incoming Trump administration to kick South Africa out of lucrative trade arrangements, should the South African government not change its position on Russia, China, Iran and Israel.

Most at risk is South Africa’s duty-free exports to the U.S. of items such as cars and citrus fruit under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) — and with it the potential loss of tens of thousands of African jobs. South Africa is likely to be under intense scrutiny from the incoming administration.

A publication from the Center for African Studies at Howard University in 2023 warned that a country wanting AGOA’s preferential trade agreements "cannot act in a manner that undermines U.S. national security or foreign policy interests."

South Africa joins Russia’s military aircraft and naval vessels on exercises, allowing Pretoria’s naval bases to be used by the Kremlin and Russia’s sanctioned warships. Senior South African military officials have received training in Moscow. At the U.N., South Africa has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

South Africa’s majority ANC party has met with terror group Hamas, and recently one branch of the ANC supported a local Muslim leader who reportedly shouted to a cheering crowd, "I am Hamas, Cape Town is Hamas, Viva Hamas!" The government also issued a statement condemning the killing this year of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. The country’s foreign minister, Ronald Lamola, spoke out against the "assassination" of this designated terrorist leader, saying "such acts of extrajudicial killings violate international law."

South Africa has accused Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice.


The Quad Interviews: Comedian Modi: Speaking About Oct. 7 Through Laughter
In this special interview on "The Quad," Israeli innovation envoy Fleur Hassan-Nahoum speaks with Jewish comedian Modi Rosenfeld about the importance of laughter and humor after Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and why he remains forever optimistic.

Modi explains how he is able to speak such diverse crowds—religious and non-religious, Jewish and non-Jewish, young and old—through the special language of comedy.


Palestinian antisemitism is now spreading across the US
GOSHAY, A reporter of local Midwestern affairs, loses her way in Mideast coverage, flailing even with basic nomenclature. “Palestine – also known as Israel,” she confounds the no-longer existent Palestine Mandate with Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.

She bungles the 1947 United Nations plan as “partitioning the territory between the new State of Israel, the kingdom of Jordan and Egypt, and the exclusively Palestinian Gaza Strip.” In fact, the Partition Plan had nothing to do with Jordan or Egypt. As the UN explained: “The plan envisages the division of Palestine into three parts: a Jewish state, an Arab State, and the city of Jerusalem, to be placed under an international trusteeship system.”

The proposed Arab state included not only the Gaza Strip but also the West Bank and a huge chunk of what is now central and even southern Israel (including the city of Beersheba), along with a significant patch of land in the north, encompassing Acre and Nahariya.

But in a colossal misjudgment that sealed their people’s unfortunate fate for generations, the Palestinian Arab leadership rejected the seminal Partition Plan and the surrounding Arab countries attacked the nascent Jewish state. Arab leadership in Haifa, Jerusalem, Tiberias, and other locations encouraged residents to flee, resulting in the Palestinian refugee crisis.

Goshay neglects to mention these key historical events, choosing not to intrude on her interviewees’ uninterrupted soliloquy of singular Israeli culpability for Palestinian displacement.

Moreover, Goshay piles on in her own voice: “Palestinians argue that Israel’s Zionist government has trampled on” Balfour Declaration concerns for protection of Palestinian-owned land and religious rights. “They point to the more than 700,000 Palestinians who were displaced in 1948, with many ending up in refugee camps.”

The journalist’s exoneration of Palestinians for any responsibility reaches the reductio ad absurdum in her depiction of Hamas as thwarted peace activists forced into violence by Israel. Rami Hamdan said, “Hamas began with peaceful demonstrations,” intones the credulous reporter about an organization whose antisemitic founding charter calls “to fight the Jews and kill them.”

“The Palestinian people tried the Martin Luther King way, the way of no violence; they tried it,” Goshay quotes Hamdan of Canton. Apparently, the untold early MLK chapter of Palestinian history has mysteriously been erased from all historical memory and archives, wrongly replaced instead with a bloody trail of hijackings, bombings, and terror at the Olympics.

In this alternate reality, “Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged Hamas to begin because he did not want the PLO.” So talented was the young Netanyahu that he apparently pulled off this feat from New York where he served as ambassador to the United Nations during the time of the Hamas terror organization’s founding.

Goshay’s grasp of present-day reality is equally tenuous. Apparently unaware that more than 90% of West Bank Palestinians live under their own Palestinian Authority government, Goshay broadcasts her ignorance: “Palestinians cannot purchase property in the West Bank. Palestinian vehicles are required to display special license plates, and drivers are restricted to certain roads.”
Irish comments on Israel leave Scottish Jews terrified as 'identity' comes under attack
All this fills me with an immense sense of sadness and worry of what the Scottish-Israeli relationship would look like in a would-be independent Scotland. I worry that the prejudicial politics would continue if Scotland had the ability to make foreign policy decisions, like in Ireland.

Israel plays a key role in one’s Jewish identity, as the overwhelming majority of Scotland’s Jews identity as Zionist – believing in the right of the Jewish people to self-determination, just like any other people. That means that when Israel is unfairly treated or attacked, it is acutely felt by Scottish Jews.

Therefore, when the Scottish Government has a blanket policy on refusing to meet with the representatives of a democratic country like Israel, which is also a key ally of the UK, while meeting with representatives of authoritarian regimes such as Turkey or dictatorial China, it is indicative of a glaring double standard.

The policy of the current Scottish Government seems to be one of “divide and rule”. The SNP is attempting to separate Israel from the deeply concerning antisemitism that we face in Scotland, but this is impossible as the two are intertwined.

Antisemitism, as with all cancers, mutates. Jewish people in the Middle Ages were hated because of their religion; in the 1800s and 1900s, Jewish people were hated because of their race; and today Jewish people are overwhelmingly attacked because of the existence of Israel, the world’s only Jewish state.

Anti-Zionism is the new antisemitism and this reality cannot be conveniently ignored by the Scottish government. It must be acknowledged and addressed in any meaningful discussion towards combating the world’s oldest hatred.

It is time that our government abandoned its puerile decision of not talking to Israeli representatives. It is time that our government acknowledge the connection between Israel and Jewish identity in Scotland. That is the way to truly stand up for Scotland’s Jewish community and this would be an important step towards a genuinely progressive Scotland, in which no minority would be left behind.
The USS Liberty Incident: The Truth Behind the Tragedy
The Case Against the USS Liberty Conspiracy Theories
The following are some of the key points and pieces of evidence that cast doubt on the conspiracy theories surrounding the USS Liberty incident and substantiate the findings that this was a case of friendly fire and not an intentional Israeli attack on an American naval ship:

- It is unclear if the American flag on the USS Liberty was visible to the Israelis. The winds were quiet on June 8, meaning the ship’s flag was drooped. For planes flying overhead at high speeds, it would have been non-discernible.
- The United States had informed Israel that no US ships were in the vicinity off the coast of Sinai. The USS Liberty actually had orders to move further out to sea but, due to communications issues, they did not arrive until a day later.
- Recordings captured during, and immediately after, the bombing of the USS Liberty show that Israel’s biggest fear was that it had accidentally attacked a Soviet ship, not an American one.
- One of the CIA documents includes the claim that the NSA picked up a discussion between an Israeli pilot and his commander ordering him to fire, knowing that it is an American ship. However, this claim is hearsay by the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon and no recording has ever been produced.
- Similarly, in 1991, two Washington Post journalists claimed an American was in the Israeli war room when the decision was made to bomb the USS Liberty, knowing that it was an American ship. The American in question, Seth Mintz, wrote a response to the newspaper, saying he was misquoted and that he believed it to be a case of “mistaken identity.”
- Israel was already more than halfway through the war and had almost totally defeated the Egyptians by June 8. There was no need to attempt to trick the Americans into joining the war so late in the game.
- The Liberty only arrived off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula on June 8, making it unlikely to have possessed any secret Israeli recordings from days prior.
- Declassified documents show that Israel never concealed its plan to conquer the Golan Heights from the United States, disproving the conspiracy theory about the bombing as an attempt to hide the attack plan.
- If Israel had always intended to bomb the Liberty, it could have done so when the ship was first observed at 5:55 A.M. by an Israeli reconnaissance plane. There was no rationale for waiting 8 hours to attack the vessel during the day.
- Friendly fire incidents are common during war. During the Six-Day War alone, at least 50 IDF soldiers were killed in friendly fire incidents, including one that occurred a day before the USS Liberty incident.

While the case of the USS Liberty is used by those on both the left and the right to subvert the relationship between Israel and the United States and to question the integrity of the Jewish state, it is clear that this incident was a tragic case of friendly fire between two allies caused by error, miscommunication, and the fog of war.
Ruthie Blum: Piers Morgan, Candace Owens and ‘Haaretz’
The good news for Schocken is that the English-language edition of his radical pages continues to attract prominent pundits and activists abroad. Indeed, Haaretz is the go-to source for every piece of anti-Israel drivel in the print and broadcast media—from D.C. to Doha.

And it received a major, free-of-charge plug this week from two well-known figures in the biz: Piers Morgan and Candace Owens, who conducted interviews with one another on the same day—first on the latter’s podcast and later on the former’s YouTube show.

There was much overlap, particularly when they discussed Israel and the Gaza Strip. On those topics, Morgan was mild compared to Owens, who was aptly named “Antisemite of the Year” by watchdog group StopAntisemitism. And, boy, did she live up to her moniker in each chat.

“What Bibi Netanyahu has done to the Palestinians since Oct. 7 is a holocaust,” she asserted. “It is a holocaust that is being committed on Palestinian children and women.” She also called Netanyahu a “monster” with “genocidal ambitions.”

When Morgan pointed to the problem with relying on social media for facts, Owens nodded and explained that this is why she “ended up signing up for Haaretz and [other] Israeli newspapers, because they’re … calling [what’s going on in Gaza] an ethnic cleansing.”

Piers chimed in to add that, yes, he “read[s] their stuff all the time.” His audience did not doubt that.

Owens then hastened to add, “If Israeli newspapers are calling this an ethnic cleansing, why do we not have people in the Western media that have the courage to call it the same? It’s clearly not antisemitism. Why on earth would Haaretz media, or Haaretz Israeli newspaper, be antisemitic and want to see the undoing of Jews?”

It’s an excellent question the Israeli government is no longer interested in asking. It simply doesn’t wish to fill the paper’s dwindling coffers with the hard-earned shekels of a public invested in defeating the nation’s foes rather than providing them fodder for their propaganda mill.
‘Night and day’ contrast between operating against Hamas, Hezbollah, says military expert
In response to a recent “60 Minutes” episode, which revealed details about the Israeli pager operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon that injured more than 2,700 terrorists and killed nine, British broadcaster Piers Morgan wondered aloud why the Israel Defense Forces couldn’t target Hamas as precisely in Gaza.

“Mind-bogglingly, extraordinary,” he wrote. “Though it does beg the question: If Mossad could do this to decapitate Hezbollah, why could they not have done something similar with Hamas?”

John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, which is part of the U.S. Military Academy, in New York, offered to go on Morgan’s show to explain.

“That is actually very easy to answer,” he told Morgan, about the broadcaster’s question about Hamas.

“The context of the operating environment [is] night and day. Hezbollah lives in a diverse multicultural society of Lebanon, and their fighters having varying ranges of commitment making it easier to infiltrate and use a variety of types of intelligence methods,” Spencer wrote. “Hamas controls power in a homogenous radicalized society, where Israel completely left in 2005.”

“Israel took a containment strategy to Hamas leaving them to govern Gaza. The national security and resource priority for Israel was Iran and then the massive army Hezbollah,” he added. “After Oct. 7, Israel had to approach Gaza as contested enemy terrain with little to no infiltrations into Hamas. The pager operation was over a decade of Mossad work.”
Why Jewish News hosted a Palestinian from Gaza and what we learnt
As I hung up the call with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib three months ago, it struck me: if this was my first time hearing directly from a Gazan after a year of war, how much more true might that be for our readers?

Despite losing 32 members of his family in this war, Ahmed has become one of the most vocal Palestinian critics of Hamas in the West, bringing a rare nuance and undisputed humanity to debate that has been so lacking online and off. Jewish News isn’t in the business of bringing speakers to the UK, but this time it felt too important not to.

Fast forward 12 weeks, and over four days last week, Ahmed took part in a public conversation with JN columnist Josh Glancy at JW3, met Sir Tony Blair to talk about Gaza’s “day after”, held discussions with parliamentarians, Foreign Office officials and public intellectuals like Simon Sebag-Montefiore and answered questions from senior imams, bishops and rabbis at Westminster Abbey in what was one of the most high-level gatherings of clergy in the UK since 7 October (organised with Liz Harris-Sawczenko).

The almost unbearable strains placed on inter-community relations over the last 14 months meant such a gathering was far from inevitable.

But the level of interest in further engagement, even among those who wouldn’t see themselves as strong Israel allies, would alone have made the trip worthwhile.

As I said in introductory remarks at the Abbey, (not a sentence many Jewish journalists have ever uttered, I imagine!) British Jews and followers of other faiths will be living alongside each other in the UK long after this war — just as Israelis and Palestinians will be — and it would be a dereliction of leadership to refuse to engage with this reality just because it feels so difficult.

As Ahmed reminded each of those he met, this isn’t about “kumbaya”. It is, however, about moving out of the bubbles we all live in, hearing other perspectives and ending dangerous vacuums of contact. It doesn’t mean we all have to agree: we simply won’t.

Not everyone at the Abbey was on the same page as Ahmed. Indeed some participants weren’t necessarily even on the same page as other leaders from their own faith. But it was a respectful conversation, during which several senior figures heard a nuanced viewpoint they hadn’t before, and some plan to do more in their own communities. Surely that’s a good thing.

In truth, only when such conversations can take place in public or be reported in full by newspapers such as ours will we be able to say that we have really succeeded.


UNRWA is a persistent challenge, not a solution
Those who claim that there are no alternatives to UNRWA in Gaza ignore the fact that reliance on a population-specific organization is an anomaly, not the norm. Across the globe, in times of conflict and natural disaster, relief operations are conducted by the standard UN bodies and international groups. For instance, since the conflict began in April 2023, the WFP has supported nearly 10 million people in Sudan, which the UN defines as suffering from "the world’s largest hunger crisis."

This anomaly is not the product of any unique Palestinian needs that cannot be met by the usual professional organizations. Assistance to all of the world's more than 30 million refugees falls under the mandate of the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. All of them, that is, except for Palestinians.

Perpetuating Palesitnians' statuses as refugees
While the goal of the UNHCR is to find long-term solutions for refugees, UNRWA deliberately and artificially perpetuates the status of Palestinians as refugees. In sharp contrast to standard procedure, Palestinian refugee status is automatically inherited at birth, irrespective of the individual's situation, meaning that second, third, and fourth-generation descendants of those who fled Israel in 1948 are considered refugees even if they were born in areas under Palestinian control or live in other countries where their great-grandparents had settled.

Beyond endlessly preserving the Palestinians' status as refugees for political purposes, UNRWA enflames the conflict and allows generation after generation of Palestinian children to be indoctrinated in its schools to hate Jews and love jihad.

This situation can also be seen as a deliberate tool employed by Hamas to create total dependency of the Palestinian population on aid and donations while drawing a false anti-Israel narrative to justify their situation. Moreover, the sad reality is that this approach has resulted in one of the world’s most extreme examples of luck-self-sufficiency and productivity. Around 80% of the population depends on international aid, while poverty levels exceed 60%. Unemployment is alarmingly high, with 45% of the general population and nearly 60% of youth are not working, have no desire to work, and prefer to live out of handouts and aid.

When a turning point in history is reached, it is reasonable to assume that long-standing assumptions will be reexamined and changes made to institutions that are incompatible with the new reality. However, in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, the UN chose not to change UNRWA.

Clearly, it is past time to replace UNRWA - which has done less to help the Palestinians than to perpetuate the conflict - with organizations that are not rife with terrorists and terrorist enablers.
ICJ takes up UN request for advisory opinion on Israel’s UNRWA ban
Israel is facing further entanglements in international courts, with the president of the International Court of Justice agreeing to take up a request to issue an advisory opinion on Israeli legislation banning the operations of the highly contentious UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

Last week the UN General Assembly voted to ask the ICJ for an advisory opinion on Israel’s obligations to facilitate aid to Palestinians, in the wake of the Israeli legislation.

Earlier this week, ICJ President Nawaf Salam took up that request and set a date for February 28, 2025 for the submission of written statements in response to the General Assembly’s request for an advisory opinion on Israel’s recent UNRWA ruling.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment on whether Israel would file a response to the court.

In previous proceedings at the ICJ for an advisory opinion on the legality of Israel’s ongoing rule in “the occupied Palestinian territories,” Israel submitted a brief four-page response, but declined to send a legal delegation to The Hague to argue its case in court.

ICJ advisory opinions are non-binding, but they can hold significant weight and have been cited in other legal forums, such as the International Criminal Court and domestic courts.


'An absolute mockery': News organization awards U.N. Persons of the Year to Israel's fiercest anti-Semitic critics
At its end of year awards, the PassBlue news organization acknowledged the efforts of three United Nations employees, whom it assesses have had the most impact over the last 12 months. The three chosen, Francesca Albanese, Philippe Lazzarini, and Antonio Guterres also happen to be the most strident critics of Israel.

PassBlue, which on its website describes itself as “an independent, women-led nonprofit multimedia news company that closely covers the U.S.-U.N. relationship, women’s issues, human rights, peacekeeping and other urgent global matters playing out in the world body,” says its mission is to hold the powerful people and the 193-member countries of the United Nations to account. It also happens to receive funding from the deep pockets of George and Alex Soros via the Open Society Foundations.

In its description of why the awards were granted to these three individuals – not forgetting their acknowledgement of Riyad Mansour, permanent observer of Palestine to the U.N. as the Diplomat of the Year – PassBlue wrote, “The tragedy of Gaza has had an overwhelming impact on the U.N. this year, including 258 staffers killed in the war.”

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It seems to have escaped their notice that a number of these so-called “U.N. staffers” were also Hamas terrorists who abuse their dual identity as working for an international aid NGO to actually carry out atrocities. Somehow, they didn’t mention that.

PassBlue said of Albanese, whom the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories in 2022, that “her reports and speeches have consistently highlighted grave human rights violations perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians, detailing widespread abuses such as forced displacement, unlawful killings and the denial of basic rights.”


End this moral distortion: Academia has lost its way if Jews are not safe
In a world where antisemitism transcends borders and disguises itself as critical discourse, academic campuses have become perilous battlegrounds. Jews worldwide, particularly in the Diaspora, face daily encounters with hatred, boycotts, and threats. Academia, which should symbolize openness and respectful dialogue, has in many cases transformed into an arena where hate is legitimized.

The disturbing case at Columbia University serves as a stark warning. A professor who praised Hamas’s brutal attack – which led to the deaths of over 1,200 Israelis – was allowed to teach a course on Zionism. How can someone like this be entrusted with teaching the history of the Jewish people? This decision is not only a moral affront but also evidence of a profound ethical distortion and irresponsibility on the part of the institution’s leadership.

This is not an isolated incident. The latest report from the Anti-Defamation League reveals a sharp rise in anti-Israel and antisemitic activity in academic institutions. Between June 2023 and May 2024, there were 2,087 documented anti-Israel incidents, including 28 physical assaults – a staggering 477% increase compared to the previous year.

Columbia University led the list with 52 incidents, followed by the University of Michigan, Harvard University, UC Berkeley, and UCLA. These events – ranging from vandalism to harassment, protests, and divestment campaigns – highlight the hostile environment Jewish students are forced to endure.

Academic institutions, which should serve as beacons of universal values such as tolerance and equality, have largely failed to enforce policies against antisemitism effectively. Institutional Silence Cannot Go Unanswered

With incidents of vandalism, harassment, and even physical attacks recorded, institutional silence sends a clear message: Not only is there no punishment, but there is also no will to confront this growing issue. This neglect is a betrayal of the institutions’ fundamental duty to protect all students and ensure a safe academic environment.

This reality cannot go unanswered. Those entrusted with fostering safe spaces for all students must recognize that expressions of concern or condemnation are insufficient. Fundamental change is required.

In collaboration with the World Zionist Organization and CAMERA on Campus, we organized the first-of-its-kind conference in Israel, aimed at encouraging academic institutions to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism. This definition, already endorsed by over 1,600 institutions worldwide, provides a clear framework for identifying and combating antisemitism on campuses.
NJ Congressman denounces Rutgers faculty for adopting BDS
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey) has denounced Rutgers University faculty unions for voting to adopt a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions resolution earlier this month.

The resolution adopted by the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and the Rutgers American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers was antisemitic and called for a state university to divest and cut academic affiliations from a key democratic ally, he said last Friday.

“While I am a strong supporter of free speech and free expression, I strongly condemn hatred and antisemitism,” Gottheimer said. “The hate-motivated, antisemitic BDS movement calls for the eradication of the democratic State of Israel, America’s key ally. It is unacceptable and has no place on college campuses or in our country – especially at Rutgers.

In fact, under New Jersey state law, it is illegal for New Jersey state pension and annuity funds to invest in companies that boycott Israel or Israeli businesses. I urge Rutgers University to immediately and publicly reject this harmful resolution and reaffirm its commitment to fostering a safe and inclusive environment for all students and faculty.”

The vote was another example of antisemitism on the campus, he said, adding that a Rutgers professor who was reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency to have shared an antisemitic social-media post in 2017 was affiliated with one of the unions.

JTA reported that Prof. Michael Chikindas had shared a Facebook post featuring derogatory Jewish stereotypes behind ills afflicting America. Rutgers denounced Chikindas at the time.

The unions announced the result of the vote on December 13, saying that 58% had voted in favor of the resolution. Voting began on November 11 and ended on November 22.
Clark University Won’t Boycott Israel
“Our endowment is not intended to be used as an instrument to express views on social or political issues,” school president David Fithian emphasized in a statement earlier this month. “Neither is it a means for exercising social power or advancing specific interests. Therefore, the University — under the Board of Trustees’ direction — will not consider divestment as a strategy for addressing world events.”

Fithian also stressed that agreeing to Boycott Israel vis-a-vis the school’s endowment would constitute institutional bias towards one particular viewpoint, thereby violating academic freedom.

On the question of conforming to directives of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, here, too, the University does not intend to change current institutional policies or procedures,” Fithian stated. “Nor will we allow the adoption of measures within any unit or function that are discriminatory and/or force involuntary adoption of one particular point of view over others.

“Such measures would be inconsistent with our values as a University and would conflict with University policy. They also threaten academic freedom, the respectful free expression of ideas and views, and the principles of inclusion and belonging that are central to our community.”
ZOA calls for ‘more powerful’ response from school association against Jew-hatred
The Zionist Organization of America said efforts by the National Association of Independent Schools didn’t go far enough in responding to criticism about antisemitic speech at its recent “People of Color Conference.”

Morton Klein, national president of the ZOA, and Susan Tuchman, director of the group’s Center for Law and Justice, wrote to NAIS leadership on Dec. 18 that the association “must take additional steps to send an unequivocal and more powerful message to its members and to the public that NAIS will not tolerate antisemitism in any form.”

The conference in Denver earlier this month “felt hostile, unwelcoming and even unsafe for many Jewish participants, compelling some of them to leave early and some to hide their Stars of David out of sheer fear,” the ZOA leaders wrote to Debra Wilson, the president of the National Association of Independent Schools.

On Dec. 5, Suzanne Barakat, former executive director of and current adviser to the University of California, San Francisco’s initiative on health and human rights, “abused the platform that NAIS gave her to demonize Israel” in her keynote speech to the approximately 8,000 educators and students in attendance, the letter stated.

The ZOA leaders noted that no one from NAIS intervened during her speech or anti-Israel remarks by closing speaker Ruha Benjamin, or publicly condemned their statements following the conference.

The NAIS posted a note on its website regarding the “divisive and hurtful comments” and apologized privately to the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, Jewish Federations of North America and Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools. The four Jewish groups had expressed “deep concern” about the antisemitic activities at the conference in a Dec. 11 letter to Wilson.

The ZOA letter stated that a “truly meaningful response requires NAIS to issue a public statement” to its more than 2,000 member schools that would condemn the speakers by name; condemn their speech as antisemitic and explain why it is so; denounce Jew-hatred in all forms, including when “camouflaged as criticism of Zionism or Israel”; and encourage member schools and associations to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.


Judge sends men who fired flares at PM’s home to house arrest, doubts ‘terror’ charge
The Haifa District Court on Thursday ordered four anti-government activists accused of firing flares at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Caesarea released to house arrest, after almost six weeks in detention.

Judge Zaid Falah wrote in his decision that he was unconvinced by the grave terror charges against the men, and gave warning that using such charges too lightly could lead to “dark results” with regards to freedom of expression and protest in the country.

The judge did, however, write that he believed charges of recklessness and negligence by the men were well founded.

Falah ruled that the four defendants could be transferred to house arrest in their own homes with electronic tagging.

Following the decision, the State Attorney’s Office initially said it was “considering it steps,” implying it could appeal to the Supreme Court. However, prosecutors decided Thursday to not take any further action, and the men were released on Thursday evening.

Rear Adm. (res.) Ofer Doron, 63, his son Gal Doron, 27, and two other longtime anti-government activists, Itay Yaffe, 62, and Amir Sadeh, 62, were indicted in the Haifa District Court earlier this month on charges of carrying out an act of terror through the reckless and negligent use of fire, and attempted arson. Flares are fired at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea, November 16, 2024.(Video screenshot; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

The first two men were also charged with obstruction of justice for initially lying to investigators about who had fired one of the flares.

The fact that the indictment leveled terrorism charges at the four men had lent justification to the state’s demand they be held in custody until the end of legal proceedings against them.

In his ruling on Thursday, the judge wrote that he did not believe the terror allegations could be justified.

He also noted that the four men had clean criminal records. In light of “the weakness of the evidence” for terrorism; “their full cooperation” under investigation; and the regret they had expressed, Falah determined that the danger they pose was low, and that they could be relied upon to comply with house arrest conditions.

On November 16, the four men made their way to an area several hundred meters (yards) west of the Netanyahu’s residence and fired two flares into the sky, one landed 150 meters from the prime minister’s home and scorched some leaves and the other landed at the entrance to the house’s courtyard and was immediately extinguished by a security guard.
Smotrich pushes to withdraw funding from Tel Aviv Cinemateque over ‘extremist’ films
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is seeking to kick off a process of withdrawing government funding from the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, claiming it screened “extremist” films during a recent Solidarity Festival.

Writing to Justice Minister Yariv Levin Thursday, Smotrich requested that he appoint a representative to a special committee the finance minister is forming to examine the institution’s budget, under the so-called Nakba Law from 2011.

The law allows the government to withhold funding from organizations or events that present Israel’s establishment as a “nakba,” or “catastrophe,” as it is known in the Palestinian narrative.

Smotrich’s missive to Levin follows Culture Minister Miki Zohar’s request that he examine the possibility of denying funding to the Cinematheque based on films screened at the arthouse theater as part of the festival.

Zohar wrote in a letter to Smotrich that the annual festival screened films that could be described as “extremist,” including movies he claimed that opposed the State of Israel, slandered IDF soldiers and the army and aimed to strengthen the Palestinian identity of Arab Israelis.

One of the films screened was “Lyd,” which reviews the events that took place in the city of Lod during the 1948 War of Independence from the Arab perspective, and includes allegations of Israeli war crimes.

Another film, “1948, Remember, Remember Not,” retelling the events of the 1948 war through Jewish and Arab voices, with footage from those times, was also recently questioned by the Culture Ministry’s Film Review Council, which warned the Haifa and Jerusalem Cinematheques not to screen the film, although it was shown during the DocAviv Film Festival at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque last year.

Zohar asked Smotrich to examine whether the Tel Aviv Cinematheque violated any provisions of the law, which could then allow the denial of state funding.
Russian anti-aircraft system may have hit Azerbaijan plane, US official says
There are early indications that a Russian anti-aircraft system may have struck the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, a US official told Reuters on Thursday.

The official, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity, added that if the indications turn out to be accurate, they would underscore Russian recklessness in its invasion of Ukraine.

An Embraer passenger jet crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 people, after diverting from an area of Russia in which Moscow has used air defense systems against Ukrainian drone strikes in recent months.

Flown off scheduled route
Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 had flown hundreds of miles off its scheduled route from Azerbaijan's Baku to Grozny, in Russia's Chechnya, to crash on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea, after what Russia's aviation watchdog said was an emergency that may have been caused by a bird strike.

Officials did not immediately explain why it had crossed the sea, but the crash came after Ukrainian drone strikes this month hit the Chechnya region of southern Russia.

The nearest Russian airport on the plane's flight path was closed on Wednesday morning.

Mangystau Regional Transport Prosecutor Abylaibek Ordabayev said on Thursday, that the Kazakh investigation has not yet come to any conclusions about Russian air defenses downing the Azerbaijan Airlines flight.
El Al suspends flights to Moscow following downing of Azerbaijani plane
El Al is suspending its operations on the Tel Aviv-Moscow route for the coming week in light of developments in Russian airspace, the airline announced on Thursday.

Aviation officials attribute the decision to the crash of an Azerbaijani passenger plane on Wednesday, which is increasingly believed to have been caused by a Russian air defense system that attempted to shoot down Ukrainian drones.

The crash claimed the lives of 38 of the 69 passengers on board.

A new assessment of the situation will be conducted next week, and a decision will be made as to whether operations on the route will resume.

Details of the crash
The Embraer passenger jet crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, after diverting from an area of Russia in which Moscow has used air defense systems against Ukrainian drone strikes in recent months.

The aircraft was en route from Baku, Azerbaijan to Grozny, in Russian Chechnya.

According to videos of the incident circulated on social media, the plane appears to have attempted to make an emergency landing before crashing.


Jewelry for survival: The dark role of the Houthis' female brigade
Arbitrary arrests, looting, torture, and rape: The Houthis continue their attacks on Israel and, in the name of "Support for Gaza," impose terror on the territories they control in Yemen – a region already suffering from a severe humanitarian crisis. This terror is enforced, among other means, through a military arm composed entirely of women. The Houthi women, known as "Zainabiyat," work to recruit more and more women for "war effort" activities using threats, theft, assaults and, at times, torture.

The "Zainabiyat" are essentially a tool for oppressing Yemeni women, forcibly recruiting them, and stealing their money – now under the pretext of supporting Gaza. The female Houthi militias are, in effect, a Yemeni version of similar phenomena seen in other Shiite-axis countries: whether it’s the Iranian regime's attempts to suppress and persecute the public, or Hezbollah's female arm in Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia's Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reports that the "female arm" of the Houthis forced hundreds of Yemeni women and girls in the capital Sana'a, its rural areas, and the provinces of Hajjah and Ibb to participate in recruitment activities aimed at supporting the Houthis' missile and drone forces. Girls were documented carrying weapons, and even young children were "recruited" in the name of the "Support for Gaza" effort.

Each year, Shia Muslims commemorate the birthday of Fatimah al-Zahra, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, who is considered a revered figure. Over the years, this date has become "Women's Day" in several Muslim countries, marked by festive events. Yemen also celebrated this occasion last weekend, with the Houthis releasing footage of large-scale women's activities. However, these recordings fail to reveal the terror happening behind the scenes at events held under the banner of "Women's Day."

Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that, this year, the Houthis established dozens of women's field teams under the directive of their leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, to force Yemeni women to participate in recruitment activities for the war effort. Women from Sana'a, which is under militia control, told the newspaper that the Zainabiyat conduct surprise home visits to "encourage" them to join these activities and donate any money or jewelry they possess, claiming that the support is directed to Gaza and is essential for confronting "American and Israeli attacks." The women, living in severe poverty, reported that the Zainabiyat use threats and intimidation during these "recruitment attempts" — even targeting teenage girls.

Um Abdullah, a housewife from the Al-Qa'a neighborhood in Sanaa, told the Saudi newspaper that she and other women were forced to attend a "recruitment event." She expressed her dissatisfaction with the fundraising, which is supposedly intended for Gaza and Lebanon, but in reality funds the Houthis' warfare while ignoring the dire living conditions in Yemen. Yemeni women, vulnerable to the Zainabiyat's threats, accuse the Houthi leadership of exploiting the Palestinian cause and the suffering of Gazans to enrich themselves through these so-called "donations."


A reopened Holocaust museum near Lebanon is a symbol of resilience
The world’s first Holocaust museum, the Ghetto Fighters’ House in Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta’ot, reopened its doors to visitors this month following the war with Hezbollah in nearby Lebanon, highlighting its role as a beacon of resilience in northern Israel.

The kibbutz, and the museum, was founded 75 years ago by Holocaust survivors, including some who fought in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Nestled on the coastal highway north of Haifa between Acre and Nahariya, it is experiencing a rebirth after a year of rocket attacks from Lebanon. During peaceful times, the area six miles from the international border is known for its pastoral landscape and rolling hills. The war forced the kibbutz’s gates to remain shut to the public, but it remained virtually unscathed save some damage to its roof.

Israel’s main Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, established in 1953, is visited by foreign officials on state visits. However, the museum at “the House,” as kibbutz residents refer to it, focuses more on rebirth and renewal.

“As the world’s first Holocaust museum, and the largest Holocaust institution in the north of Israel, our significance has only deepened in light of the events since October 7, [2023],” said the Ghetto Fighters’ House director Yigal Cohen.

These events “underscore the critical need to draw inspiration from the resilience of Holocaust survivors—those who miraculously rose, like a phoenix, from the ashes,” he said.

During the recent war, the museum opened its doors to hundreds of combat soldiers based on the northern border with Lebanon, provided a place to stay for a group of Thai farm workers who had been employed in southern Israel, and hosted pre-military educational programs for high school students.

And in a symbolic act of defiance, the museum hosted its annual Holocaust Remembrance Day closing ceremony at its outdoor amphitheater, maintaining a tradition observed from its first year of operation. Around 5,500 visitors attended—close to the 6,000 who take part in a normal year—and were guarded by a nearby newly installed Iron Dome missile defense system.

Chilling and inspiring
Among the most notable items in the Ghetto Fighters’ House exhibits is the booth in which the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann sat during his trial in Jerusalem in 1961. It was gifted to the museum by the Israeli police after the lead prosecutor in the case, Gideon Hausner, used testimony of survivors from the kibbutz to help make his case.

“In the evening before the trial I visited ‘the House’ to absorb its atmosphere, to be with the Jewish victims, and the Jewish calamity, while [Eichmann] will be on trial for what I have seen here,” Hausner wrote on March 17, 1961.

A new exhibition of artwork juxtaposes pictures of Jewish children from the Vilna Ghetto depicted on leaves with leaves from Kibbutz Bee’eri, which was hit hard during the Oct. 7 massacre near Gaza.

“This is the first museum in the world which connects between the Holocaust, rebirth and the kibbutz,” Israeli entrepreneur and philanthropist Raya Strauss said.
Zionist pro Smash Bros. video gamer files lawsuit over tournament ban
After a Jewish-American professional video game player was banned from tournaments and group chat servers, allegedly due to his Zionist beliefs, a federal lawsuit was filed on his behalf to the New York Southern District Court last Monday by the National Jewish Advocacy Center.

Competitive Super Smash Brothers Ultimate player Felix “T Pot” Hasson was banned from three tournaments and two Discord servers dedicated to the popular Nintendo fighting game, after anti-Israel players were angered by a series of social media posts by Hasson in which he supported the IDF, Israel, and a response to the October 7 massacre.

The filing alleged that fellow Smash player Jonathan Mendez called on organizers for Luminosity Gaming’s Luminosity Makes Big Moves (LMBM) New York City tournament to ban Hasson.

“Why is this racist Zionist weasel allowed at your event?” Mendez reportedly queried last December under the X alias Antifa Caramel.

“How is any Palestinian supposed to feel safe at your major when people who relish in and cheer for the complete extermination of their friends and family are allowed in the same space?”

Call to action
NJAC said that Mendez shared five of Hasson’s posts with his call to action, most of which were made before October 7. One praised the IDF as “based” and another joked that it would be humorous if Smash players from terrorist-ruled Gaza played the game using characters that utilized bombs in their move sets. In response to the Hamas-led October 7 pogrom, Hasson said “Gaza got something big coming their way for sure.”

Player and event organizer Geoffrey “Aerodusk” Tirrell responded to the account the filing identified with Mendez, confirming last December 21 that Hasson had been banned from LMBM.

Four days after the LMNM ban, Hasson discovered that he had been banned from the internet Waypoint Cafe’s regular Smash tournaments. This was allegedly confirmed by competitive player and tournament organizer Fawn Chandler, who reportedly told Hasson that the decision was made unanimously by the organizers.

Waypoint had stated that Hasson was banned in part due to some gang signs he reportedly signaled, but Hasson said that Chandler shared that this was not a factor in the decision. The New York City gaming cafe said on December 29 that Hasson had been banned because he incited hate and violence.

“T Pot [Hasson] made tweets laughing at the deaths of civilians, and in recent weeks he was throwing up gang signs in our venue. These actions concerned multiple members of our community and our staff, resulting in his ban,” Waypoint said on X. “Our venue is not for anyone who makes it unsafe for others.”

Hasson’s father responded to Waypoint on social media, calling their accusation slander, and explained that “He laughed at the irony of someone celebrating the murder and rape of Jewish women and children and getting their karma due.”

Chandler also reportedly told Hasson that all of the tournament organizers in the tri-state area had decided to ban Hasson. The filing listed tri-state area tournament organizer House of 3000 and head administrator Jeffrey Franco as supposedly responsible for this multi-state ban.
AI-generated antisemitic deepfake images are on the rise
AI-generated antisemitic deepfake images that are undetectable by software are gaining popularity, a study from Antisemitism Policy Trust found.

In a report titled “Detecting Deepfakes by the Antisemitism Policy Trust and Project Decoding Antisemitism,” researchers found that “AI-generated antisemitism is on the rise, with potentially significant implications for the Jewish community.”

Deepfakes are artificially manipulated audiovisual material produced using an AI to create false videos or photos. The Antisemitism Policy Trust compiled a gallery of 51 AI deepfakes with antisemitic images that are increasingly undetectable to software.

“Most existing classifiers exhibit a very weak performance when analyzing antisemitic deepfakes,” the report stated.

“Implicit patterns and ambiguities in an image that could lead to an antisemitic interpretation are not recognized because AI-based approaches do not take into account emerging practices of image use or manipulation when identifying deepfakes.”

Researchers discovered that out of 51 deepfakes studied, 28 of them were classically antisemitic, depicting stereotypical Jews as evil characters. The rest demonized Israel for either emotional manipulation or disinformation purposes, the report claimed.

“Hiding hate symbols within seemingly innocent images has become a way to spread hate across the web, so much so that the practice arguably forms its own strand of generative AI design,” the report stated.

For the latter, the report found that a frequent deepfake image garnered was “The depiction of blood-thirsty Israelis victimizing Palestinian children.”


Foreign investment in Israel surged in 2024, despite conflict
Preliminary numbers for the first half of 2024 show a 15% increase in foreign investment in Israel, according to the annual report of the Chief Economist’s Office of Israel’s Finance Ministry, published on Tuesday.

With the exception of a major investment by Intel, 2023 saw a 24% decline in foreign investment in Israeli hi-tech compared to the previous year, the report states, according to Israel’s Globes business daily.

Only 1,563 deals were concluded in 2023, compared to 2,502 in 2022—a drop of 62%. Key investments included Thales SA’s $3.6 billion Imperva merger and Adani Group’s $1.2 billion Haifa Port acquisition. Semiconductor investments led sectoral distribution at 48%, followed by IT at 31% and life sciences at 6%.

U.S. investors dominated the market, contributing $24 billion, representing 73% of total foreign investments. French investments reached $3.7 billion, taking the second-place position.

By contrast, preliminary 2024 data shows first-half investment volumes of $11.8 billion across 910 deals. First-quarter investments totaled $4.4 billion with 460 deals, while second-quarter figures reached $7.4 billion with 450 deals. In October 2024 alone, the hi-tech sector brought in more than $1 billion in foreign investments.

“The global trend of a slowdown in foreign investment flows in 2023 also affected Israel. Investment volumes in Israel in 2023 were bolstered by Intel’s significant investment deal, while the country faced challenges, particularly in the fourth quarter, due to the ‘Iron Swords’ conflict,” said Finance Ministry Chief Economist Shmuel Abramzon, according to Globes.

“Data for 2024 indicates a growth trend in foreign investment deals in Israel, and improved security and political stability are expected to support this trend further,” he added.
Brazilian Parliament moves to deepen its alliance with Israel
The Brazilian Parliament has increased its legislative ties with Israel in a direct pushback against the foreign policy of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The moves come as ties between the two countries had plummeted to historic lows this year after the Brazilian leader compared Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza to the Holocaust, leading Jerusalem to declare that he was a persona non grata in the Jewish state.

The legislative development last week saw the expansion of the existing Brazilian Israel Allies Caucus to include the Senate in Brasilia, making it a bicameral group of 78 parliamentarians combined.

“Brazilians and Israelis share a brotherly bond,” said Brazilian senator Carlos Viana, an evangelical Christian with Sephardic Jewish roots who has been an outspoken critic of his president’s Israel policies and is to lead the Brazilian Senate’s alliance with Israel. “We stand firmly against antisemitism and international terrorism, and today, we reaffirm our commitment to a free democratic and secure world. We stand with Israel and always will.”

He noted that the Brazilian leader was historically out of sync with the bond between the two countries, which dates back to the partition vote in the United Nations for the establishment of the modern-day State of Israel on Nov. 29, 1947, which Brazilian Ambassador Oswaldo Aranha had presided over and prominently supported.

“I am very pleased to take our efforts to a new stage that is an important milestone in strengthening our partnership with Israel,” said Brazilian Rep. Geovânia de Sá, who chaired the single house caucus for Israel over the last decade.


Overflow crowd, smiles and tears at National Menorah lighting in DC
Some 5,000 people attended the annual Chabad lighting of the National Menorah on the Ellipse, south of the White House, on Wednesday night, the first night of Chanukah, according to organizers, who had to set up extra chairs for the overflow crowd.

Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch, emceed the event, which he and his father, Rabbi Abraham Shemtov, have organized for decades. He told JNS that the turnout and energy at the event show that Jews haven’t given in amid difficult times.

“The Maccabees were also exhausted, but they didn’t give up,” Shemtov told JNS at the event. “They knew that they had to win, and that’s what they did.”

“That’s why I said tonight that those who seek to destroy us are going to meet the fate of those who tried before them,” he said. “Because of the Maccabean victory, we are here and we will also prevail now, as well.”

The National Menorah, whose lighting American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) sponsors, is the world’s largest menorah, according to Chabad.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the U.S. secretary of homeland security, and Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, were on hand for the event. Stuart Eizenstat, the State Department special adviser on Holocaust issues, also attended.

“Jewish life is poised on a scale from joy to oy,” Lipstadt told JNS. “We worry a lot about the oy, but today is a night of joy.”

Mayorkas, a Havana-born Jew, donned a blue kippah for the event and gave brief remarks about a post-Oct. 7 “yearning for this beauty, this rooted history” that Jews share. That history spawned “a surge in synagogue attendance, Jewish learning and communal connection,” he said.

“We can lean into our shared tradition and values as a beacon for what we aspire to,” Mayorkas said. “This Chanukah, let us rededicate ourselves to the light that defines us and the better world we seek to build.”


Gwyneth Paltrow Joins Noa Tishby for Hanukkah-Themed ‘Bring on the Light’ Campaign
Author and activist Noa Tishby has enlisted Gwyneth Paltrow to usher in the first night of Hanukkah as part of her #BringOnTheLight video series.

Tishby, who wrote two best-selling books, 2021’s Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth and 2024’s Uncomfortable Conversations With a Jew (co-authored with Emmanuel Acho), and Paltrow, the Oscar-winning actress and Goop entrepreneur, bonded over their Jewish faith and traditions. Tishby’s eight-night-long campaign is centered on the message of Jewish resilience.

“When I approached Gwyneth with this campaign, she was thrilled and deeply moved to join, and I knew we had something truly special,” said Tishby.

For the first candle-lighting video, available now on YouTube along with Tishby’s social media handles, Paltrow recounts Hanukkah celebrations with her father, Bruce Paltrow, and her grandparents on Long Island, sharing that her own family tree contains 17 generations of Rabbis.

“I always felt an incredible pull to my Jewish family,” said Paltrow, who in 2022 funded an installation at the Jewish cemetery in her ancestral hometown in Poland honoring family members lost in the Holocaust. “I still do. And just the traditions and the warmth and the unconditional love, and the food, and the yelling, and the family and community. I’m so close to everybody on that side of my family. We’re all kind of interwoven and so important to each other and just show up for each other again and again and again.”

“It was inspiring to hear Gwyneth speak so passionately about her Jewish roots and the traditions she continues to share with her family,” said Tishby. I cannot wait for everyone to see what we have in store for the next seven nights as more incredible voices join us in spreading light and resiliency.”




1,700-year-old oil lamp with Temple symbols unearthed in Jerusalem
A 1,700-year-old ceramic oil lamp, decorated with depictions of the Temple of Jerusalem’s menorah, has been uncovered in the city, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Thursday.

The lamp, which was used for lighting and has been dated to the Late Roman Period, was uncovered completely intact during an archaeological excavation on the Mount of Olives earlier this year, the state-run archaeological body said.

The announcement of the discovery was timed for the eight-day Chanukah holiday that began on Wednesday evening.

The Mount of Olives lamp is one of the few material traces of a Jewish presence around Jerusalem in the 3rd-5th centuries CE, more two hundred years after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans.

The lamp is decorated with depictions of the Temple menorah, an incense shovel and a lulav, the date palm branch used in Jewish ritual.

“The lamp, which was found complete, makes it an outstanding and extremely rare,” said Michael Chernin, excavation director at the site.




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