Tuesday, January 07, 2025

01/07 Links Pt2: Why they rewrite the intifada; The Trump anti-jihad ripple effect; They will never kill Charlie Hebdo; Warsaw Holocaust memorial vandalized with Gaza war graffiti

From Ian:

Why they rewrite the intifada
The wave of Palestinian Arab violence that raged from December 1987 to the autumn of 1993—the intifada today’s campus extremists idolize—featured constant murderous bombings, shootings and stabbings.

Perhaps a few examples will suffice to refresh the memory of an international community that always seems to be afflicted with amnesia when Jewish victims are involved:

• In 1988, Palestinian terrorists threw hand grenades inside a Haifa mall, wounding 25. Near Beersheva, intifadists hijacked a bus full of Israeli women traveling to work and murdered three of them. They also murdered an Israeli teenager in a Jerusalem park and hid bombs in loaves of bread in a Jerusalem supermarket; three children were injured.

• In 1989, an intifada terrorist steered an Israeli bus into a ravine, killing 14 passengers (including U.S. citizen Rita Levine) and wounding 27 (five of them Americans). Also that year, Palestinian Arabs bombed a Tel Aviv market, injuring four, and went on a stabbing rampage in a Jerusalem shopping area, murdering two and wounding three. On Purim day in Tel Aviv, an Arab terrorist stabbed two Israelis to death with a commando knife and severely wounded a third. One of the victims was an elderly scientist who had been delivering holiday treats to the poor.

• In 1990, intifada terrorists carried out bomb attacks in a Jerusalem marketplace (one dead, nine wounded), the Tel Aviv beachfront (one dead, 20 wounded) and the Ein Gedi springs (four wounded). In Jerusalem, a Palestinian Arab terrorist stabbed three Israelis to death. Another knife-wielding terrorist murdered an Israeli and wounded three more on a Tel Aviv bus.

• In 1991, intifadists stabbed and wounded two Israelis in Jerusalem; bombed a Beersheva market, injuring two shoppers; and ambushed a bus north of Jerusalem, killing two and wounding six (five of them children). Palestinian Arab terrorist atrocities in 1992 included the murder of 15-year-old Helena Rapp in Bat Yam, the kidnapping and murder of Nissim Toledano and a stabbing rampage in Jaffa (two murdered, 19 injured).

• The bloodshed continued in 1993 with stabbing attacks in Tel Aviv that left one dead and four wounded in one instance, and two dead and seven wounded in another. There was also a car bombing at the Mehola Junction that killed one person and injured 21; and the murder of 11-year-old Chava Wechsberg in an attack on an Israeli automobile near Karmei Tzur.

And those are just a few examples from each of those years.

During the first four years of the intifada, there were some 600 bombing or shooting attacks on Israelis, and another 100 hand-grenade attacks, not to mention more than 3,600 attempts to burn Israelis to death with Molotov cocktails. Altogether, 27 Israelis were murdered and 3,000-plus wounded during that period. Twenty-five more were murdered in 1992 and 65 in 1993.

Far from being a spontaneous uprising—as Palestinian advocates portray it—the intifada was carefully orchestrated. A PLO department called the Unified Leadership of the Intifada issued daily instructions on how much violence should be used and against whom.

So the question is: Why do The New York Times and other media outlets never explain what took place during this time period that the campus radicals are so loudly applauding? Why do they deliberately downplay the extent of the Palestinian Arab violence?

The answer is that it’s all politics, of course. Major media outlets sympathize with the Palestinian Arab cause and its campus cheerleaders. Acknowledging the extent of Palestinian atrocities makes their cause look bad.

That’s why that Times Sunday Magazine article emphasized the “boycotts” and rock-throwing, and omitted the bombings and shootings and hijackings. That’s also why The Washington Post and CNN never mention that the rocks can be fatal—and that 16 Israelis have been murdered by Arab rock-throwers.

That, in short, is why they rewrite the intifada. Because telling the truth would make readers stop and ask: Does it really make sense to give these intifadists a sovereign state in Israel’s backyard?
The Trump anti-jihad ripple effect
Europe is grappling with significant challenges as antisemitism rises and radical Islamist ideologies gain traction. In countries like France, Germany and the United Kingdom, Jewish communities increasingly face violent attacks and growing hostility. The impact of radical Islam extends far beyond antisemitism. Muslim communities in major Western European cities struggle with assimilation and too often advocate for the adoption of Islamic laws and cultural practices that conflict with the values of their host societies. This dynamic has contributed to expanding “no-go zones” where local law enforcement faces significant challenges in maintaining control. These zones further isolate young Muslims, perpetuating a vicious cycle of alienation and radicalization. High-profile incidents like the Paris riots, the Brussels bombings and the London Bridge attack highlight the need for action.

Israel is the West’s first line of defense against radical Islam, so Trump’s unequivocal support for Israel further demonstrates his commitment to preserving Western culture. Key achievements in his support of Israel include relocating the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, and brokering the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations. Trump is messaging his intent to enthusiastically continue supporting Israel in its defensive, justified, and, so far, very successful war against Iran and its proxies. These actions not only strengthen U.S.-Israel ties but also showcase a path towards regional stability through decisive leadership.

A transatlantic partnership, led by America and rooted in firm opposition to radical Islam and antisemitism, will reverse the gains made by extreme Islamists in the United States and abroad. It will also deny a quarter to young, impressionable Muslims who will no longer be emboldened by the West’s apparent capitulation to jihadists’ efforts. Trump’s policies emphasize rejecting jihadist ideologies while fostering integration and inclusion for Muslim communities willing to embrace democratic values. In recognition of this, many in the American Muslim community supported Trump for president. This balanced approach serves as an antidote to the progressive left’s tolerance of Islamist extremism, which has allowed these ideologies to gain a foothold. By prioritizing firm opposition to radical Islamism in all its forms alongside support for genuine inclusion, a united front can safeguard democratic principles while buying the West time to address the root causes of Islamic extremism.

The Trump anti-jihad effect offers a beacon of hope for a Western civilization under siege by radical Islam and antisemitism. Trump’s policies, grounded in moral clarity and decisive action, aim to dismantle these movements’ ideological and cultural threats. By resisting the progressive left’s pro-Islamist sentiment in America and countering unfettered immigration from radicalized regions of the world, Trump’s approach provides a blueprint for safeguarding the Judeo-Christian values that underpin Western society.
The Lower East Side anti-Jewish riot that changed the way Jews do politics
You might be forgiven for never having heard of the worst anti-Jewish riot in American history. It happened on the Lower East Side over a century ago and largely slipped from history. Jewish memory was overloaded with subsequent calamities, from Kishinev and Auschwitz to Pittsburgh and October 7.

But as Scott Seligman argues in his new book, “The Chief Rabbi’s Funeral,” the mob attack on July 30, 1902, that left 196 Jewish mourners beaten and bloodied, also left a legacy of Jewish political activism that remains a model for today. The attack on the funeral procession of Rabbi Jacob Joseph led a fractious Jewish community to organize, seeking justice for the victims and punishment for the perpetrators.

“The lesson of the 1902 riot is that when antisemitism crosses the line, and it morphs into violence and intimidation against Jews, then it needs to be punished, and our best response is to unify and to organize,” Seligman, a historian based in Washington, D.C., told me this week. “Which is what they did, using whatever political power and influence they had.”

Seligman and I last spoke in 2020, after the publication of his book “The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902,” which formed the germ of his latest book. Actually, he told me, an article I wrote about the earlier book, focusing on the rabbi whose funeral inspired the riot the same year, inspired Seligman to dig deeper into that part of the story.

Joseph was a Vilna Talmud scholar who was brought to New York in 1888 to serve as a sort of chief rabbi to the city’s teeming Jewish community (and rationalize its corrupt and unreliable kosher meat business). It turned out to be easier to merge all of New York’s boroughs into a single municipality than get the Jews to agree on a chief rabbi.

By 1895, Joseph was no longer being paid by the groups who brought him over, and his authority was recognized only by a handful of downtown Orthodox congregations. Before suffering a stroke in 1898, he worked as a hired kosher supervisor for some wholesale butchers.

When he died in 1902 at the age of 62, a penitent Lower East Side decided to give him in death the respect that had eluded him in life. Hundreds of thousands of mourners joined his funeral procession, which wound past neighborhoods in lower Manhattan before his body was put on a ferry for burial in Brooklyn.


Jonathan Sacerdoti: An Ideological Islamic War Against Those Deemed Infidels
As chants of "globalize the intifada" reverberate through the streets of Western cities, a Saudi-born psychiatrist ploughed his car through a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, claiming five lives, and an American-born ISIS terrorist charged a pickup truck through a crowd in New Orleans, killing 15. The intifada - a word tied to Palestinian uprisings against Israel - was never merely a localized rebellion. It was a blueprint for ideological Islamic warfare.

Christmas markets, public celebrations, bars, churches, Jewish centers, and music venues have become the favored stages for terror. They are the inheritance of a playbook honed during Israel's first and second intifadas, with public bombings, shootings, and stabbings. The West finds itself living a delayed echo of Israel's reality.

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas and a chief architect of the intifadas, was explicit about their purpose. They were not simply protests against Israeli policies but a totalizing religious war against those deemed infidels. Yet Yassin's unambiguous message was never fully grasped by a Western audience. The result is a profound failure to understand the forces at work to destroy our way of life.

Western societies search the attacker's life for clues - a bad childhood, economic hardship - as though terror were the inevitable by-product of social failure rather than a weapon of ideology. This approach obscures the reality that these attacks are part of a larger ideological conflict, one that views the very existence of Western society - its freedoms, its values - as an affront to the Muslim Ummah, to be answered with violence.

If Europe hopes to withstand this ongoing wave of terror, it must learn from Israel's experience. How many more lives must be lost for us to stop responding as though each attack were the first? When will we finally acknowledge the war we are already in, and start to fight back?
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib: Don’t lose hope: Many Palestinians do want peace
I am acknowledging those who support the Palestinian cause and reject all forms of antisemitism and hate. I am referencing those who acknowledge that Israel is here to stay and will never be erased, necessitating a realistic path forward based on the two-nation solution to guarantee the mutually inclusive rights of both peoples in the holy land. I am talking about Arab and Muslim officials in the Middle East and beyond who describe their sincere desire for the war in Gaza to end, Hamas’s rule over Palestinians to be terminated, and the prospects for a Palestinian state rejuvenated to solve this conflict once and for all.

Many of these voices, which are plentiful and exist all over, are smothered, intimidated and forced into silence by the loudmouths who promulgate unhelpful entrenched narratives and demand obedience to a singular anti-Israel worldview, lest one be called “a Zionist sell-out” or traitor. The number of people who privately and regularly share with me how much they appreciate my voice and thank me for saying what they know is true but can’t say so publicly has been one of the few causes of hope to sustain my advocacy and public engagement efforts since October 7.

Jewish and pro-Israel advocates need to acknowledge that the Palestinians are not monolithic: the cause has been hijacked by extremists.

Jewish, Zionist, Israeli and pro-Israel allies have a significant role to play in creating space for moderate and pragmatic Palestinian, Arab and Muslim voices to promulgate a new third narrative to promote meaningful prospects for peace and coexistence. This requires acknowledging the legitimacy of Palestinian suffering, entirely independent of Hamas’s criminality and the vileness of some of the “pro-Palestine” activists who have dehumanised the Jewish community and promoted marratives that help no one.

It also necessitates avoiding gross generalisations and the dismissal of all Palestinians and their cause as being inherently antisemitic or at odds with Israeli’s existence. It is important to acknowledge that what has been taking place in Gaza at the hands of the current Israeli government and military has been horrendous on every conceivable level, even if one holds Hamas responsible for initiating this war and continuing to hold Israeli hostages. Multiple things can be true, and the only pathway out of polarisation needs multi-dimensional thinking that rejects black-and-white approaches which have harmed Jews and Israelis just as they have harmed Palestinians and Muslims.

I urge the Jewish diaspora to guard against overly simplistic views that demonise all Palestinians or dismiss the entirety of the Palestinian cause as a vehicle for hatred. The Palestinian people, like any other, deserve to live in freedom and independence, just as Jewish-Israelis deserve to live in safety and security, and just as the Jewish community in the diaspora deserve to live free of hatred and intimidation from hatred.

Pragmatic and pro-peace Palestinian, Arab and Muslim voices are ubiquitous, even though many are suppressed. I have been on a mission to normalise a new discourse among the pro-Palestine community that acknowledges multiple truths, rejects violence, promotes peace and coexistence and celebrates engagement and dialogue over divisiveness and boycotts.

There must be hope for a new and rejuvenated Palestinian cause: Jewish and pro-Israel allies will be vital in making this a reality.
Biden admin releases 11 Yemeni detainees with suspected al Qaeda ties from Guantanamo Bay — including two alleged former bin Laden bodyguards
The Pentagon announced Monday that it has released 11 Yemeni detainees with suspected ties to al Qaeda from the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.

The detainees, none of whom have been charged with a crime, will be resettled in Oman as the Biden administration moves to wind down operations at the notorious detention facility.

“Although different processes, each of the Yemeni detainees underwent a thorough, interagency review by career professionals who unanimously determined all detainees as transfer eligible consistent with the national security interests of the United States,” the Department of Defense said in a statement.

The Pentagon noted that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin notified Congress in 2023 of his intent to repatriate the 11 Yemeni detainees to Oman.

“The United States appreciates the willingness of the Government of Oman and other partners to support ongoing U.S. efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility,” the DoD said.

Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi, an alleged al Qaeda fighter and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, was one of the 11 men released.

An unclassified 2016 US intelligence file on al-Alwi warns that as a GITMO detainee, he “has made several statements since early 2016 that suggest he maintains an extremist mindset.”

The file also notes that al-Alwi has committed a number of disciplinary infractions while in detention that were “pardoned” as part of an “incentive for detainees to improve their conduct.”
Germany quietly cuts funding to two Israeli human rights organizations
The German government has quietly decided to cut funds towards two Israeli human rights organizations, according to a Sunday report by the German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

The two NGOs in question are Zochrot and New Profile, with the former being reported to have lost 25% of its budget and the latter losing about half. The government also recently defunded Palestinian NGOs.

Zochrot advocates for Israel taking accountability of the Nakba, referring to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Arab residents during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and for the "right of return" for Palestinians. German officials told the Israeli NGO's director, Rachel Beitarie, that it was "important for Germany to support Israel because of Germany's history," according to the report.

The work organization Kurve Wustrow has done
Kurve Wustrow, a German anti-violence aid organization, wanted to continue working with the Israeli NGOs, holding meetings with officials and making phone calls. None of this, however, convinced the German government not to cut funding.

The German NGO's acting director, John Preuss, left feeling "tired and frustrated" as a result, with the report citing him saying that it was the first time that the German government defunded one of their projects. The NGO is also active in combat zones in other countries, such as Myanmar and Sudan.

Zochrot issued a response to the cutting of funds, saying, "We understand it as being consistent with the German government’s unconditional support of the state of Israel as the latter continues its crimes against the Palestinian people, in Gaza and everywhere."

The organization also said that the move puts them in a financially difficult situation. They then accused the German government of being actively involved in anti-Palestinian racism, as evident from its suppression of Palestinian expression in Germany.

The other NGO, New Profile, is more volunteer-based, offering support to objectors of the IDF who risk imprisonment.
Manchester venue under fire for hosting 'extremist' who called Jews 'animals'
A Manchester venue has been criticised for hosting an event with an 'extremist' imam from Kuwait who called Jewish people 'animals'.

The Bridgewater Hall is under fire for allowing the event with Sheikh Mishary Alafasy to go ahead on Sunday evening (January 5). It comes after the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester and Region raised concerns with the venue and Manchester council about the imam, describing him as an 'extremist' and calling his past comments on social media 'racist and inflammatory'.

Sheikh Alafasy also appeared at Cheadle Masjid on Saturday (January 4). The mosque said the imam did not comment on any humanitarian or political matters during the event and 'only recited prayers', while Bridgewater Hall has declined to comment.

UK Lawyers for Israel wrote last week to Manchester council which owns Bridgewater Hall, as well as the venue's chief executive and trustees, calling for the event to be cancelled. The letter, seen by the Manchester Evening News, cites several examples of Sheikh Alafasy's past comments on social media, including his personal account on X, formerly Twitter, which currently has 15m followers.

In one post on X from 2020, Sheikh Alafasy criticised peace treaties between Israel and a number of Muslim-majority countries, accusing Jews of 'treachery'. In another Arabic-language post from 2011, he said Jews have an 'eagerness to wage wars and corruption'.

The M.E.N. has also found other posts on Sheikh Alafasy's personal X account that followed the October 7 massacre, including one on the day of the attack by Hamas which killed 1,200 people in Israel featuring a hashtag for the 'Al-Aqsa Flood' - the name given to the operation by the Palestinian militant group. The post dated October 7, 2023 says: "O God, cast terror into the hearts of the Zionists."

Another post on X the following week calls for Zionists to be torn apart 'in the worst possible way'. On October 21, another post claims Jewish law permits the rape of non-Jewish girls once they reach the age of three, arguing that this 'proves that they are the animals'.

The Bridgewater Hall event on Sunday (January 5) was billed as 'An Evening of Inspiration'. It was part of a UK tour with other events in Birmingham and London also organised by the Al Mustafa Welfare Trust in aid of the charity's Palestine and Gaza Emergency Appeal.


Yale Students Would Rather Divest From Israel Than Russia, Iran, and China, Survey Finds
Yale University students support divesting from Israel over the oppressive and authoritarian regimes of Russia, Iran, and China, according to a survey the Ivy League school’s Buckley Institute released Monday.

The largest share of students (36 percent) opposed divestment from any nation, the survey, conducted during the fall semester, found. But among those who favored divestment, Israel—a democracy and America’s greatest ally in the Middle East—topped the list with 31 percent support, surpassing Russia (27 percent), Iran (20 percent), and China (12 percent).

That finding falls in line with recent sentiment at Yale. Students overwhelmingly passed a referendum last month calling on the university to divest from weapons manufacturers arming Israel. More than three-quarters of the 3,000 voting undergraduates favored divestment, while nearly 80 percent said Yale should invest in "Palestinian scholars and students."

The Buckley Institute survey also found that 55 percent of Yale undergraduates believe "Israel’s war in Gaza is morally wrong and genocidal, even if [they] think the October 7 terror attacks were wrong as well." In contrast, only 34 percent said "Israel has the right to defend itself and its people from terror, even if [they] don’t agree with every action Israel has conducted in the war." Another 8 percent consider Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack, which killed over 1,200 Israelis, justified resistance.

Like many elite universities, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic fervor has roiled Yale. In April, student agitators occupied a World War II memorial, tore down an American flag, and sent a Jewish student to the hospital. They refused to vacate an encampment for days, eventually resulting in 48 arrests.

Nearly 60 percent of Yale students said the university should have let the protest continue "as long as the students wanted without interference," the Buckley Institute survey found.

The university, meanwhile, spent a year investigating a Jewish professor after he published an op-ed describing anti-Semitism in the Yale Postdoctoral Association, a group that runs social and academic events for researchers, the Washington Free Beacon reported in May. In April, school officials stood by as students unveiled a large "Free Palestine" banner during an official class photograph for the School of the Environment.
Judge tosses anti-Israel group’s lawsuit against U. Vermont: suspension ‘merited’
Discipline justified ‘given the multiple alleged violations of rules and policies’

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by the University of Vermont chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, saying the group’s suspension for violating several school policies was “merited.”

Judge William Sessions issued the ruling on December 20. The UVM SJP had filed suit back in September, alleging school officials violated its First Amendment rights via a temporary suspension for setting up an encampment on campus.

On its Instagram page regarding the suit, the SJP claimed the university’s “suppression” wasn’t just targeting pro-Palestinian student activists, but “anyone who stands up to [its] rogue administration.”

Activists at the encampment had demanded UVM divest from “all weapons manufacturers, Israeli companies, and companies involved in the occupation of historic Palestine,” a boycott of Israeli educational institutions, and a guarantee that anti-Israel activists would face no discipline, VTDigger reported.

At the time, UVM spokesperson Adam White said the university “values free expression” and that those in the campus community are “encouraged to speak out”; however, all must “do so within the law and university policy.”

Judge Sessions agreed.

“The Court finds the University’s concerns reasonable. The policy in question addressed two well-established institutional interests: safety and security,” Sessions wrote. “Allowing students to sleep outside on University property gives rise to vulnerabilities that are not present when students are housed in secure dormitories.”
Canadian college hiring a convicted terrorist is ‘beyond scandalous’
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk brought renewed attention to the case of Hassan Diab when he wrote on X that the “mass murderer” is “living free as a professor in Canada.” Some 21 million accounts viewed the Jan. 2 post.

A JNS review of the website of Carleton University, a public school in Ottawa, found that Diab, 71, taught the course Soci 3170A “Social Justice in Action” in the fall of 2024.

Among the things that the course addressed, according to a syllabus, were “miscarriages of justice” and “critically” examining “Canada’s Extradition Law and its shortcomings.” One of the course readings was to “visit justiceforhassandiab.org and familiarize yourself with the case study for this course.”

“This is a unique class as its instructor was a former ‘forced participant observer’ in detention centers in Canada and France,” it adds. “Students are encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity by participating in class debates and discussions to acquire firsthand knowledge of the behind-the-bars world as experienced for years by a sociologist.”

It wasn’t clear if Diab is teaching a course in the coming academic year. The university’s sociology and anthropology department lists him as a “contract instructor” in the fall but not this winter.

A French court convicted Diab, then 69, in absentia and sentenced him to life in 2023 for the Oct. 3, 1980 synagogue bombing in Paris that killed four and wounded dozens on Simchat Torah. “The Rue Copernic attack was the first to target Jews in France since World War II and became a template for many other similar attacks linked to militants in the Middle East in the years that followed,” per the BBC.

Mike Fegelman, editor-in-chief of Honest Reporting Canada and a Carleton alumnus, told JNS that “it is beyond scandalous that a convicted terrorist would be allowed to reside in Canada, let alone be in a position of authority, teaching at Carleton University, my alma mater.”

“The news media must speak loudly and clearly and demand that Diab is not only fired from Carleton but is promptly deported from Canada,” he said.


American Historical Association members pass resolution accusing Israel of ‘scholasticide’
American Historical Association members voted on Sunday to approve a resolution accusing Israel of committing “scholasticide” in Gaza.

The resolution at the annual business meeting of the AHA, which bills itself as “the leading professional association for historians in the United States,” makes no mention of Hamas or hostages in its condemnation of Israel and the United States, and its call for an immediate ceasefire.

“The U.S. government has underwritten the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign in Gaza with over $12.5 billion in military aid between October 2023 and June 2024,” the resolution says. “That campaign, beyond causing massive death and injury to Palestinian civilians and the collapse of basic life structures, has effectively obliterated Gaza’s education system.”

It quotes a group of U.N. experts who said in an April 18 press release that Israel’s actions in Gaza “may constitute an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an action known as scholasticide.”

Since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, critics of Israel’s military campaign against the terrorist groups have accused the Jewish state of novel -cide “crimes.” In September, Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for Palestinian rights and one of the authors of the April U.N. press release, accused Israel of “domicide, urbicide, scholasticide, medicide, cultural genocide and more recently ecocide.”

The AHA resolution, which calls “for a permanent ceasefire to halt the scholasticide,” passed in a vote of members present at the business meeting in New York by 428-88.

According to one attendee, speakers who opposed the resolution on the grounds that it failed to mention Hamas were booed and hissed by attendees, and the conclusion of the vote was reportedly met with cheers of “free, free Palestine.”


Sa’ar meets UAE foreign minister in Abu Dhabi in first wartime visit
Israeli Foreign Minister met with his Emirati counterpart, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, marking the first high-level public visit since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The two diplomats discussed “regional developments and bilateral relations between the countries,” Jerusalem announced.

According to Israel, Sheikh Abdullah was the one to invite Sa’ar.

Earlier on Tuesday, Reuters reported that the United Arab Emirates has been holding talks with Israel and the United States about participating in a provisional administration for Gaza after the war ends.

The proposals involve the UAE and the United States, as well as other countries that are temporarily overseeing Gaza’s governance, security and reconstruction after Israel withdraws until a reformed Palestinian Authority can take control.

A UAE official emphasized to Reuters the importance of significant reforms to the Palestinian Authority as a prerequisite for any plan.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed talks with multiple partners, including the UAE, about post-war Gaza. “These have been deliberative discussions that are ongoing as we work to determine the best path forward,” the spokesperson said, declining further comment.
Jerusalem court OKs seizure of $5.5 million in PA funds by relatives
The Jerusalem District Court recently approved the seizure of 20 million shekels ($5.5 million) in Palestinian Authority funds by the relatives of slain brothers Hallel and Yagel Yaniv, who were murdered by an Arab terrorist in Samaria almost two years ago, Ynet reported on Tuesday.

The suit was filed under the “Compensation for Terror Victims Law,” passed by the Knesset in March. The law requires courts to award punitive damages of at least 10 million shekels per fatal casualty.

To ease the collection of potential punitive awards by victims and their families, court judgments may be enforced against any property of the defendant, including any property seized or frozen by the State of Israel.

Under agreements signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1990s, Israel collects taxes and customs duties on behalf of the P.A.

“Nothing can bring our loved ones back to us, and nothing will put our mind at ease,” Shalom Yaniv, father of the two terror victims, told Ynet. “At the same time, the move to seize the P.A.’s funds is the beginning of doing justice to us as a family, as well as to the victims of terrorism.”

“This is a just and correct move,” Yaniv continued. “Every family that was harmed by a terrorist incident should sue to convey the message that those who finance terror will also pay on an economic level. In addition, the State of Israel must engage in the expulsion of terrorists.”


PA official: 'Battle in 1967 occupied lands open,' but coordination with Fatah required
“The battle in the 1967 occupied lands is open in all means… but not at the expense of the Palestinian Authority,” said Jibril Rajoub, former head of the PA’s preventive security forces and current president of the Palestinian Football Association.

Rajoub spoke last week, at a time when the PA is in a tight corner between the Israeli government and rising popular support for Hamas in the West Bank.

His interview took place on the official PA TV channel on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the series of violent campaigns and terror attacks led by Fatah, which he dubbed the “Contemporary Palestinian Revolution.”

During the interview, as reported by the organization Regavim, Rajoub was quoted as calling on Palestinian militant factions to coordinate their efforts with Fatah and not to undermine the PA.

“From the first moment, what we need is a meeting of [Palestinian] factions to affirm the conformity of the Authority, the conformity and legitimacy of weapons, and also the legitimacy of the resistance,” Rajoub said in the interview.

“The PA and its security mechanisms are not the ones meant to shoot at the Israelis – that’s not their mission. The [factions] are welcome to come and discuss [this issue] with us in Fatah; we’re willing and we’re open to this.”

'The battle in the 1967 occupied lands is open in all means'
“The [Palestinian] policeman represents our people’s pride and greatness,” he continued, “but it’s not his job to open fire [at Israelis]. Us, as factions, we’re ready to discuss [this issue]; we’re open. We say: the battle in the 1967 occupied lands is open in all means. So, they’re welcome, but not at the expense of there being one authority, one weapon, and one law.”

Rajoub also gave hinted criticism of rival faction Hamas, claiming that instances of great military force may have been used as part of the armed struggle against Israel, but that they failed to achieve the “common grounding” that he claimed Fatah did achieve.

“We don’t forget what happened in 2006,” he added, referring to the armed coup against Fatah forces in Gaza following that year’s elections, the last time there were elections in the enclave.


Iran may be using Turkish airspace to resupply Hezbollah in Lebanon
Having lost its “land bridge” through Syria to resupply its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon—a “land bridge” that included Syrian airspace—it appears that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force has found an alternate route over Turkey.

The Middle East Forum, a think tank founded in 1994 to promote American interests in the Middle East, examined open-source flight monitoring and found that between Dec. 13, 2024, and the end of the year, Iran’s Mahan Air flew 11 flights between Tehran and Beirut over Turkish airspace.

Iran has employed Mahan Air with its fleet of Airbus A340s and an Airbus A300B4-622R to transport weapons to Hezbollah before. It used the fleet during the recent conflict to ferry Iranian-made weapons, including anti-tank missiles and various attack drones, the Middle East Forum reported.

Although it may appear contradictory for Turkey, which assisted Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the Sunni Islamist group that toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, an ally of Iran, to then allow Iran to resupply its proxy in Lebanon, Turkish President Recep Erdoğan has made no secret of his enmity toward Israel.
Iran seeks to sell off oil in China before Trump’s return
Iran is struggling with a sharp decline in oil exports to China and seeks to offload reserves stored in Chinese ports ahead of Donald Trump's return to Washington.

Data from Kpler, a commodity intelligence company that tracks oil tankers, reveals that Iran's oil exports to China have been declining since October. Over the past two months, daily oil deliveries from Iran to China have dropped below 1.3 million barrels, which is 550,000 barrels fewer than in October.

Meanwhile, Iran's unsold floating oil reserves have more than doubled during this period, reaching approximately 20 million barrels.

A source at the National Iranian Oil Company, confirming the significant decline in oil exports, told Iran International that the primary issue lies in logistics. The source explained that recent US sanctions targeting dozens of oil tankers have complicated the transport of Iranian oil to East Asian waters and its covert delivery to China: “Iran hopes to resolve this issue in the coming months by purchasing more tankers,” the source who wished to remain anonymous added.

So far, 380 tankers carrying sanctioned Iranian oil have been identified, with half added to the US blacklist.


Warsaw Holocaust memorial vandalized with Gaza war graffiti
A Warsaw memorial recognizing the more than 300,000 souls who died at the Nazis’ Treblinka extermination camp was defaced with graffiti equating the Holocaust with the war in Gaza.

The Umschlagplatz monument is only the latest Holocaust memorial to recently be defaced in the Polish capital.

Red graffiti was discovered last week sprayed on its walls reading, “Warsaw 1943 = Gaza 2025,” local TVN 24 reported.

The Umschlagplatz stands along the now-defunct railway that was used by the Nazis from 1942 to 1943 to transport Jews and others from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp.

The site is now a memorial to the victims of Holocaust, with the names of those forced into the Warsaw Ghetto engraved on its walls.

“Shameful vandalism at Warsaw’s memorial for 300,000 (!) Jews deported to Treblinka,” Yacov Livne, Israel’s ambassador to Poland, wrote on X on Tuesday.

“Poland has a special responsibility to protect Jewish & Holocaust sites,” he added.

Local police said they received reports about the vandalism Jan. 3 from a representative of the Polin Museum, but an arrest has yet to be made.

The Umschlagplatz is only the latest Holocaust memorial to be vandalized in Warsaw since the war in Gaza began Oct. 7, 2023.


They will never kill Charlie Hebdo
We saw that in the aftermath. Yes, there were inspiring shows of solidarity. Millions marched through Paris declaring ‘Je Suis Charlie’. But the cultural elites stared at their shoelaces. Most newspapers and broadcasters in the UK and America essentially took their editorial line from the Islamist killers, refusing to show the cartoons.

This wasn’t the worst of it. When Charlie was given a Courage Award by PEN America – the big, free-expression writers’ group – 200 of its members, including Michael Ondaatje and Joyce Carol Oates, signed a letter in protest, arguing the caricatures were ‘intended’ to cause Muslims ‘humiliation and suffering’.

After decades of hearing ‘I believe in free speech, but…’, we had a new, even more craven formulation: ‘I’m not saying they should have been killed, but…’ Worthy broadsheet columnists took a break from raging against ‘victim-blaming’ to low-key accuse murdered cartoonists of maybe bringing it on themselves.

With the Charlie Hebdo attack, we saw the often unspoken alliance between Islamist terrorists and identitarian activists burst to the surface. One accused the cartoonists of blasphemy, the other of racism. One wanted to kill them, the other to cancel them.

The truth is, that Charlie has always held the truly anti-racist, pro-Muslim position. As editor-in-chief Gérard Biard told spiked, in a video interview we’re publishing today, the notion that Islam is beyond mockery or criticism, unlike almost any other faith or doctrine, is to treat Muslims as ‘savages’.

The left’s betrayal of Charlie Hebdo, like the betrayal of Salman Rushdie a generation before, speaks to how divorced leftists have become from what were once their foundational, Enlightenment values – not least the radical conviction that freedom and reason are for all.

That Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a leader in the French New Popular Front, now sneers at the Charlie journalists as the ‘bag-carriers’ of the hard-right, says far more about him than it does about them. The left has sacrificed universalism at the altar of identity politics.

It’s not just the left that has abandoned free speech, of course. The liberals, the centrists, the conservatives. All of them have massive ‘buts’. France might hold firmer to its secular principles, but it also has sweeping ‘hate speech’ laws. Indeed, Charlie was once sued, by the Grand Mosque of Paris, for supposedly ‘inciting hatred’. Like much of Europe, France has only really traded in its old blasphemy laws for new ones.

But there is hope. It lies in following the example set by Charlie, before and after the horror of 10 years ago. The day after the attack, when their friends’ bodies were barely cold, the journalists gathered to begin putting together what would become known as the ‘survivors’ issue’. Its incredible cover depicted Muhammad, crying, holding a ‘Je Suis Charlie’ sign, under the heading ‘All is forgiven’. This week, they have published a new anniversary issue, featuring the winners of a cartoon competition. The theme? ‘Laughing at God’.

As Gérard Biard put it to us in Paris: ‘The best way to defend freedom… is by making use of it. It’s to use it, above all, without fear.’ So in the spirit of Charlie Hebdo, on this awful anniversary, let’s all speak more freely – and fearlessly – than ever before.

‘We avenged the Prophet Muhammad! We killed Charlie Hebdo!’ So screamed the giddy, Kalashnikov-wielding scumbags as they emerged from that Parisian office block. How wrong they were. A decade on, Charlie Hebdo lives. And so long as we all stand up for freedom of speech, no one can kill it.
How ‘Je Suis Charlie’ exposed the hypocrisy of the elites
The weakening of support for free speech in the West, signalled by the rising chorus of ‘buts’ attached to it, has encouraged those few willing to take more forceful action to put a stop to what they deem offensive.

That Copenhagen meeting on free speech and blasphemy was called on the anniversary of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa condemning the author Salman Rushdie to death for his novel, The Satanic Verses, first published in 1988. Rushdie’s was one of a few prominent voices raised against the attack of the but-heads after Charlie Hebdo. The author told an audience at the University of Vermont in Burlington that: ‘The moment somebody says, “Yes, I believe in free speech, but” – I stop listening.’ Rushdie ridiculed the free-speech frauds’ familiar cop-outs that: ‘I believe in free speech, but people should behave themselves… I believe in free speech, but we shouldn’t upset anybody… I believe in free speech, but let’s not go too far.’ The ‘buts’ that began to be heard in the UK and US when Rushdie was accused of going too far and upsetting people nearly four decades ago have since become a deafening chorus.

That bitter controversy surrounding Muslim protests against The Satanic Verses over 35 years ago marked a turning point in attitudes towards offensive speech, when many in the West condemned the fatwa yet chided Rushdie for being too offensive to Islam. It was during that row in 1989 that I first wrote about the importance of the right to be offensive. Then in 1994, as the editor of Living Marxism magazine, I published a declaration in defence of that right. It upheld two principles – ‘No censorship – bans are for bigots and Big Brother’, and ‘No taboos – taboos are for the superstitious and the stupid’. And an imperative that has informed my attitude ever since: ‘Question everything – ban nothing.’

In the three decades since, as the You Can’t Say That culture has advanced, the fear of offending Islam has grown in the West. There has been a sustained effort to bury the issue post-Rushdie, to avoid discussing sensitive or difficult questions about what our society stands for and what unites or divides us. The result has been to suppress free speech and censor what is deemed potentially offensive. As the author Kenan Malik puts it in From Fatwa to Jihad, in recent years the liberal elite ‘internalised the fatwa’. There is now a quite lengthy list of plays, books and exhibitions that have been cancelled or cut in Europe and the US in order to avoid controversy or offence (and not just to Muslims) – often in acts of pre-emptive self-censorship without the need for protests beforehand.

Having done their best to bury these issues and stymie debate for decades, our elites seem shocked when the tensions suddenly break through the surface of society and explode into view. They then try to force the genie back into the bottle, cracking down on anything deemed to be ‘extremist’ speech.

But such simple authoritarian solutions won’t work. Trying to defend freedom by banning its enemies, to uphold our belief in free speech by censoring those who disagree, would be both wrong in principle and useless in practice. What we need to do is to fight them on the intellectual and political beaches, not try to bury the issues in the sand. The big problem Western society faces is not how to stop radical Islamists expounding their beliefs; it is how best to make a compelling case for what ‘we’ are supposed to believe in. As ever in times of trouble, the only thing that is likely to work is encouraging more speech rather than ordering there be less of it. Free speech is the potential solution, not the problem.

Despite the initial upsurge of ‘Je Suis Charlie’ sentiments, the Paris massacre did not lead to any major new campaign for free speech. Quite the opposite – it reinforced the fear, reticence and confusion surrounding freedom of expression in the West today. Now more than ever, we need to put the case for unfettered free speech and the right to be offensive. That must involve defending the right of a magazine like Charlie Hebdo to offend who it chooses, without any buts.

In the free-speech fraud that followed the Charlie Hebdo massacre, many suddenly started talking about the ‘right to offend’ and the fact that there is ‘no right not to be offended’. Quite so. What many of them appeared to mean, however, is that we must defend the right to offend Islamist extremists.

But the right to be offensive has to be about much more than Islam. It means the right to question, criticise or ridicule any belief or religion – and the freedom of the religious or anybody else to offend secular sensibilities, too. We should be free to question everything that we are not supposed to question in the suffocating cloud of conformism that hangs over our societies today.

France of course is the land of Voltaire, the 18th-century revolutionary writer whose views on tolerance and free speech were famously summarised as: ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will fight to the death your right to say it.’ By contrast, we are now living in the age of the reverse-Voltaires, whose slogan is, ‘I know I will detest what you say, and I will defend to the end of free speech my right to stop you saying it’.

It would be a fitting tribute to those killed 10 years ago in Paris if we were to rekindle the spirit of the free-speech fighters of yesteryear for the 21st century. ‘Je Suis Charlie’ is not enough – we need to send out the message loud and clear that ‘Nous Sommes Voltaire’.


Jean-Marie Le Pen, French far-right politician and Holocaust denier, dies at 96
Jean-Marie Le Pen, a Holocaust denier and right-wing extremist who led the French far-right National Front Party, died on Tuesday. He was 96 years old.

His family told AFP that he died in a care facility “surrounded by his loved ones.”

Le Pen founded the National Front in 1972. In 2002, he reached the presidential election run-off against then-French President Jacques Chirac.

He called the Nazis’ use of gas chambers a mere “detail” of history and said that Philippe Pétain, France’s collaborationist leader during World War II, was not a traitor. Le Pen was convicted several times for his inciting statements.

Le Pen’s daughter, Marine, took over as party leader in 2011. She revamped the party, renaming it National Rally and gradually replacing her father’s images with her own.

In an effort to break with the party’s antisemitic past, she expelled her father from the party in 2015.

She then turned National Rally into a major political force, with the party making its best showing in the last elections this summer. On June 30, 2024, the National Rally topped the country’s first round of legislative elections, though it failed to secure a majority in the second round on July 7, 2024.

Marine’s protégé, Jordan Bardella, 28, was elected as party president in 2022.


Jewish groups mourn death of Olga Washington, Christian Zionist and staunch Israel supporter
Olga Meshoe Washington, CEO of Defend Embrace Invest (in) Support Israel and COO of the international Zionist youth organization Club Z, died on Jan. 6 after a month-long battle with lupus, her husband, Joshua Washington, wrote. Born in 1981, she was in her mid-40s.

“My wife passed away this morning at 3:30 a.m. with her hand in mine,” he wrote. “After being diagnosed with lupus a few weeks ago, my wife passed out in the Newark airport on her way home on Dec. 26. I would have lost her then had my brother-in-law not been traveling back to the States with her.”

“She always talked about the day when she would finally hear the applause of Heaven for the life she lived. That day is today,” he wrote. “No other words to offer at the moment except please keep the Washington and Meshoe family in your prayers.”

He added that his wife was due for an operation on Jan. 7 but “did not make it to the sunrise,” though he was “able to speak to and sing to her just about 30 minutes before she passed.”

Dumisani Washington, founder and CEO of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel, wrote that his daughter-in-law was “an extraordinary woman” and “a brilliant attorney who worked in corporate finance when she took on the work of DEISI, compelled as her father was to speak out for Zion’s sake both as a devout Christian who knew her Bible and as a proud black South African.”

“Many knew Olga as a gifted speaker, a meticulous organizer and a passionate advocate. She was all of those things and more,” he said.

Born in South Africa, Washington held a law degree from the University of Pretoria.

“She was such a fighter for truth,” Masha Merkulova, executive director of Club Z, told JNS. “She always strived for excellence. She didn’t just inspire thousands of teens. She educated them. She made them stronger.”

In addition to her work at DEISI and Club Z, Washington served as a board member of IBSI and described herself as an “ardent pro-Israel advocate.” She received the Jerusalem Award from the World Zionist Organization in 2016.

‘We will always remember her’




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

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