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Thursday, January 09, 2025

01/09 Links Pt2: Andrew Pessin: Israel Breathes. World Condemns; I accuse: An open letter to Pope Francis; Erin Molan: A defender of Israel’s legacy

From Ian:

‘A Palestinian state is like committing suicide’
For Israel to allow the creation of a Palestinian state would be tantamount to national suicide, Knesset member Ariel Kallner (Likud) told JNS on Thursday.

“And we are finished with committing suicide,” he added.

Kallner’s remarks came shortly after a poll found that for the first time in nearly 18 years, a majority of Israeli Jews oppose the two-state solution.

“I would have been surprised if the poll results were different after our experience with the Palestinian state in Gaza,” said Kallner. “Prior to Oct. 7, 2023, Gaza was a Palestinian state, and we know what the result was for southern Israel, the ensuing difficult war and the challenging times we now live in,” he said.

“We know 80% of the people living in the Palestinian pseudo-state in Judea and Samaria support Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre. No one in the so-called moderate Palestinian Authority—who present themselves as moderate in contrast to Hamas—no one, not one official, condemned the massacre,” he added.

Of the 804 Jews polled in the “Swords of Iron Survey Results—December 2024” survey by Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), 64% opposed the creation of a Palestinian state “under any condition,” compared to 23% who said they supported it “under certain conditions.” The remaining 13% said they didn’t know. Among the 205 Arabs polled, the distribution was 12%, 59% and 29% respectively.

Within the total sample of 1,009 Jewish and Arab respondents, 54% opposed the creation of any Palestinian state under any circumstances compared to 30% who supported it.

The lesson of Oct. 7
Religious Zionism Party MK Simcha Rothman, on the other hand, expressed surprise at the survey results.

“This number surprises me because it is way lower than what I have seen in other surveys, which show even higher objection to a Palestinian state,” he told JNS on Thursday. “The real number I believe is more like 70% or 80%, and those who support a Palestinian state are mostly Arabs in Israel,” he said.

“I think it was always the case, and definitely after Oct. 7 people understood what happens when you allow the supporters of terror to have a state near your borders,” he continued.

“As for the Arabs who support that state, they either don’t see it as a threat to our country, don’t understand the threat, or some of them support terror, sadly. We know that the elected representation of the Arab population in Israel is not condemning Hamas and is not condemning terror; some of them even openly support Hamas,” Rothman said.
Seth Mandel: Labour Pains
Therefore, you must be thinking, Hotovely was added to a long line of ambassadors whose expulsion is being debated by the governing Labour party, right? After all, by my count there are some 180 foreign diplomatic missions in London alone. Surely the seven-bedroom embassy/residence of North Korea in the leafy London suburbs is cause for some discomfort within the party of the UK left?

It is the position of the government of the United Kingdom that Ukraine exist, yes? So what of the two-state solution for Russia and Ukraine? Moscow’s ambassador appears to be in no danger of expulsion over it, even though Russia has recently expelled British diplomats.

Nor do the sensitive men of the Labour Party appear to be losing sleep over the presence of, and presumed disagreements with, ambassadors from Cuba or Zimbabwe or China. Or even the United States—with the second Trump administration on its way into office, there are bound to be disagreements over policy.

Who needs ambassadors anyway? They’re just trouble. Some of them don’t even recognize the state of Palestine, all because it doesn’t yet exist.

Speaking of Palestine, let’s check in with Husam Zomlot, Ramallah’s man in London. Zomlot’s definition of a two-state solution includes a Palestinian state next to Israel and the Palestinian “right of return” inside Israel—code for the destruction of the Jewish state. Technically, that is two states. But I don’t think two Palestinian states and no Jewish state is what the Brits mean.

Of course, maybe I’m wrong, and Labour is right now debating whether or not to make Zomlot persona non grata. But I wouldn’t bet on it. There is also the fact that when Zomlot was asked why he wouldn’t condemn Hamas terrorism after Oct. 7, he responded by suggesting that Hamas’s invasion and massacre was legitimate “self-defense.”

Is that sort of thing to Hamish Falconer’s tastes?

Perhaps a more useful question might be: Does former diplomat Hamish Falconer understand what diplomacy is? Does Britain?

There is a sense of entitlement in the tone of British discussion of Israel. All countries agree and disagree on various points of policy. But how dare the Jewish state have outspoken ambassadors! Labour increasingly believes it is entitled to the Israel it wants, not the Israel that Israel wants.

But that question was settled in 1948. And this privileged tone with which British officials discuss Israel is—well, it’s not to my tastes.
Nicole Lampert: Lessons in antisemitism from the NEU
The union is also a linchpin of the anti-Israel demonstrations taking place in our cities. Data taken from 41 major PSC protests between October 2023 and the end of November last year shows that NEU had 23 official speakers — nearly twice as many as the next union, the RMT. Other times they sponsor the demonstrations; for a February one in Leicester, the NEU’s symbol was next to extremist Islamist groups 5 Pillars and CAGE International.

“The NEU’s symbol was next to extremist Islamist groups 5 Pillars and CAGE International.”

Following the motion to circulate “educational material” on the conflict, Natasha says she is aware that one proposal is to “paint Israel as a colonialist endeavour” while Peter has been shown discussions about material which “seeks to say Jews have no history in the region”.

Last month, the NEU joined the call for Palestine Day of Action. In November 2023 this led to a series of school walkouts with children singing pro-Palestine songs. This year, the NEU told teachers in its North London branch: “Our plan is to wear red and green or keffiyehs, a fundraiser for Medical Aid for Palestine and a vigil in the park with floating lanterns.” Only a last-minute Government intervention — reminding teachers of the policy of the neutrality — scuppered some of the plans. Only a few teachers openly broke the rules. Never mind, the NEU is likely to figure at the heart of the next demonstration for Palestine later this month.

Faced with this sort of behaviour, a group of Jewish teachers met with Kebede last year to ask for a more balanced approach to the conflict. They are not holding out much hope; Kebede is a long-time admirer of Jeremy Corbyn who once claimed the former Labour leader’s critics were being offered “30 pieces of silver” — an ancient antisemitic trope. While he later apologised, the following year, at an anti-Israel rally, he issued a call to “globalise the intifada”. An NEU spokesperson later claimed that it was merely “an expression of solidarity and support for civic protests”.

How such “solidarity” manifests in the classroom is often anecdotal, but it certainly isn’t making schools safer. One parent at the Norwood School in South London told me about two incidents in which she felt children at the school were being subtly educated against Israel. Her 14-year-old son brought home teaching material which had been passed out in a “citizenship class” about refugees, which had an incorrect map of Israel and erroneously claimed that “since 1948 more than five million Palestinians have been displaced” — when the 1948 war displaced 700,000 Palestinians (the five million figure comes from the number of their descendants). At another school, in West London, a substitute teacher asked her eight-year-old primary school pupils to put their hands up if they were Jewish. When a couple put their hands up, the teacher told them: “I’m Free Palestine.”

For Jewish parents this is a difficult time. According to the CST, which monitors anti-Jewish hate crimes, instances of antisemitism affecting schools continue to rise, with 162 incidents in just the first half of last year. Sometimes anti-Jewish bullying has been so bad in schools that parents have felt forced to remove their children.

Meanwhile, as the NEU continues to focus on a war on the other side of the world, problems the union should be looking at barely get a look in. “I know I am not the only one who wonders what all of this obsession with Israel has got to do with a teaching union when we have plenty of problems at home,” says Peter. “We have a huge problem with teacher retention, with violence in schools against teachers, with crumbling schools — but all they want to talk about is Palestine.”


Elliott Abrams: Why Amnesty International Suspended Its Israel Branch
In December, Amnesty International released a lengthy report alleging that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. When Amnesty’s Israeli branch registered its objections, the organization promptly kicked it out. Elliott Abrams comments:
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) are colossal. In the world of human-rights organizations, which are often small and poorly funded, these two giants dominate access to funding and to media. . . . In 2021, Human Rights Watch had $256 million in assets and revenue of $130 million. It employs more than 500 staff members in 105 locations globally and has an annual budget of $97 million. Amnesty International is even larger, raising $436 million in 2020 and spending $376 million.

Compare that to charities like the International Committee for Tibet, which spent less than $8 million in 2023. But both these colossi have one great prejudice: they seem to hate Israel.

Alluding to the Roman author Juvenal, Abrams asks who exercises oversight over these self-appointed guardians of human rights, which have amassed wealth and prestige. The answer?
No one. Not within those organizations, for fear of being expelled. And not in other human-rights organizations, because staffers will be reluctant to criticize such powerful players—in part because anyone in the field may think he or she might one day seek employment as part of their large (and at the top very well-paid) staffs, and in part because they do not wish to tangle with organizations having such influence.

Gratitude is owed to Amnesty’s Israel branch (or as it is now, Amnesty’s former Israel branch) for speaking out and rejecting biased and unfair reporting. But the fundamental problems remain: the world’s two largest “human rights” organizations by any measure are both deeply hostile to Israel, seem to be beyond effective criticism, and show their hostility repeatedly in a never-ending series of unbalanced and unfair attacks on the Jewish state.
I accuse: An open letter to Pope Francis
Rabbi Eliezer Simcha Weisz, a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council of Israel, has penned a letter to Pope Francis following the pontiff’s ongoing criticism of the Jewish state during the Swords of Iron war. The text of his letter follows.

“For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch.” — Isaiah 62:1

Dear Pope Francis,
Your words and actions regarding the State of Israel are not merely disappointing, they represent a historic danger. Through modern communications, your voice reaches billions instantly, making your influence far greater than any pope before you. This unprecedented reach demands unprecedented responsibility, yet your statements have instead revived the darkest patterns of Catholic Church history—patterns that for centuries transformed false accusations into violence against the Jewish people.

The stark bias in your responses since Oct. 7, 2023, cannot be ignored. In an era where your every word is amplified across social media, broadcast globally and instantly translated into countless languages, you have repeatedly drawn a false moral equivalence between a democratic nation defending its citizens and terrorists who perpetrated the most barbaric massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Your portrayal of this conflict deliberately ignores the tragic reality that Hamas deliberately embeds its terrorist infrastructure within civilian areas using hospitals, schools, mosques and churches as military installations and weapons depots. They cynically use Palestinian children and civilians as human shields, forcing Israel to make impossible choices in its legitimate fight for survival. Your failure to acknowledge this cruel exploitation of innocent lives, while condemning Israel’s efforts to defend itself, reveals a profound moral blindness. Every casualty in this war is a tragedy, but the responsibility lies squarely with Hamas, who intentionally maximize civilian casualties for propaganda purposes. Your silence on these tactics, coupled with your persistent portrayal of Israel as an aggressor, sends destructive ripples across the global consciousness at a speed and scale unimaginable to your predecessors.
Israeli sports minister calls on FIFA to expel top PA official
Israeli Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar on Wednesday called for FIFA to expel Jibril Rajoub, the chair of the Palestinian Authority’s soccer federation, citing his support for terrorism and controversial statements.

“Rajoub’s statements are an insult to the values international sports aim to uphold,” Zohar wrote in a letter to FIFA president Gianni Infantino, according to Israel’s Ynet outlet. “FIFA must not allow individuals who promote terror or violence to hold positions within its organization.”

Zohar continued, stating, “Rajoub’s continued presence in senior sports roles undermines public trust and sends a dangerous signal that sports platforms can be exploited for political purposes and the promotion of hatred and violence.”

Rajoub, who has led the Palestinian Authority’s soccer federation since 2008, has been a controversial figure due to his vocal support for violent actions against Israel and his frequent use of sports as a platform to promote political agendas. In October, two prominent Israeli think tanks—the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, and Palestinian Media Watch—filed a complaint with FIFA, accusing Rajoub of using his position to promote violence, a violation of the organization’s rules.

The complaint was filed as FIFA was considering a bid by Rajoub to have Israel suspended from international soccer due to the ongoing conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

The think tanks noted that Rajoub’s actions, including praising the atrocities that took place in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, “are among the most egregious offenses” according to FIFA’s laws. They also pointed out that Rajoub had been previously convicted by FIFA in 2018 for “inciting hatred to violence,” which resulted in a 12-month match suspension and a monetary fine.
News UK Jewish employees ‘deeply upset’ by ‘extreme antisemitism’ on Piers Morgan Uncensored
Jewish employees of News UK were left “deeply upset” last year after Piers Morgan’s Talk TV show gave a platform to “extreme antisemitism”.

Staff accused the presenter, who recently left the company, of giving guests a platform to spout “dangerous and shameful” rhetoric in interviews.

In WhatsApp messages seen by the JC, members of the News UK Jewish Network (a company-recognised group for Jewish staff) voiced their concerns regarding an appearance by American poker player and influencer Dan Bilzerian on Piers Morgan Uncensored in November.

Bilzerian has a history of making antisemitic remarks, including blaming “the Jews” for the assassination of John F Kennedy and the Holodomor famine in the Soviet Union.

He has also consistently denied the Holocaust, saying on Morgan’s show that he would “bet [his] entire net worth” that fewer than six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

Morgan had also interviewed Pink Floyd star Roger Waters after the bassist was investigated for wearing an allegedly “Nazi-style” uniform during a gig in Germany, despite his claims that the costume was a “statement in opposition to fascism” and that suggestions otherwise were “disingenuous and politically motivated”.

During his appearance, Waters claimed that Jews have no historical connection to the land of Israel and accused Israeli authorities of exaggerating the events of the October 7 2023 Hamas attack through “lies”.

In response to the Bilzerian interview, one News employee wrote: “[It] feels so dangerous and shameful for part of the business to be chasing clicks like this from the most horrendous antisemitism and Holocaust denial.

"And to not have a Holocaust expert on at the same time to challenge him is unforgivable.”
Ilhan Omar to replace co-chair of caucus on defense budget reduction
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has called for Washington to stop funding the Jewish state, was named on Jan. 8 to replace Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) as co-chair of a House caucus on cutting defense spending.

Omar will serve alongside Lee’s co-chair, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.). Lee ran unsuccessfully for Senate in the last cycle instead of seeking reelection.

Omar, a member of the far-left “Squad” in Congress, stated that Lee “has been an incredible leader in the fight to end exorbitant Pentagon waste.”

“It is shameful that we continue to spend more money on a wasteful Pentagon budget than we do on priorities like education, health care and housing combined,” she added.

There are hundreds of informal organizations—called caucuses, working groups or task forces—comprised of Congress members.
Outrage over National Portrait Gallery photo of keffiyeh-donned Gaza activist
The National Portrait Gallery has come under fire from Jewish campaigners for displaying a keffiyeh-draped portrait of a Welsh woman who retweeted a post about the “Zionist regime” and has addressed crowds at numerous anti-Israel rallies.

The photograph of Nelly Adam, also known as Queen Niche, appears in the gallery’s 2024 Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize exhibit, which opened in November.

In the image of Adam, taken by Laurie Broughton, she is draped in a red, green, black and white keffiyeh and wears a “free Palestine” pin from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).

On her social media, Adam has repeatedly compared the war in Gaza with the Holocaust.

In one post, she shared a picture of a sign that read: “Never again seems only to be for white people.”

Another read: “[During] WW2 the world came together to spot a Holocaust. 2024 the world came together to commit one.”

And a sign shared by Adam claimed that more children are killed on an average day in Gaza (139) than were in Auschwitz (127).

Other images on her social media show Adam carrying a bloodied baby doll.

Jewish charity Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) condemned the gallery, which is publically funded by the UK taxpayer, for displaying her photo.

CAA said Adam “should be the last person to have a portrait hung in the National Portrait Gallery”.

The campaign group also pointed to a retweet from Adam where she shared a post from disgraced professor David Miller about the “Zionist regime”.
Andrew Pessin: Israel Breathes. World Condemns.
Dear Friends, Romans, Country-persons, and Whoever Managed To Find Their Way Onto My List,

Though the times remain foreboding, I’m pleased to announce the publication of my two-volume collection (all proceeds from which will go to support Israel):

Thanks for reading Pariah--But The Truth, You Know, Ain't A Democracy! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

ISRAEL BREATHES. WORLD CONDEMNS.
Vol. 1: The Trajectory (Before October 7, from the Campus Front): link here
Vol. 2: The Aftermath (Reverberations and Reflections on October 7, from the Campus Front): link here

Independently published, these volumes collect most of my (previously published and new) writings about matters Jewish and Israel, many specifically from my campus perspective, over the past fifteen years. These include opinion pieces, book reviews, and more scholarly pieces, written separately but which, assembled together, document and analyze the trajectory of ideologies and incidents that led to the disastrously shocking campus response to the October 7 massacre—the response not of condemnation but of celebration, and calls for more.

A fuller blurb is below. Please note that all proceeds from these volumes will go to support Israel in various ways as it continues to battle its seven-front existential war. If you could spread the word about these volumes, perhaps ask your university and local libraries to purchase them, and let folks know I’m available for talks virtual and in-person to discuss them, I’d be most grateful.

Many thanks,

Andrew

Fuller Blurb
It’s either banal or painfully insightful to remark that the Nazi Holocaust didn’t happen overnight. In retrospect that trajectory, from 19th century racial antisemitism through the 1930s to the gas chambers, looks crystal clear, to the point where today’s Jews often look back at the Jews in 1930s Germany and just cannot fathom why they didn’t leave, the writing so clearly on the wall.

One wonders if future historians will see our current trajectory of rising and spreading antisemitism as clearly, and wonder the same thing about us.

The essays collected in these two volumes document the stages by which it came to pass that when an Islamist jihadi terrorist group massacred the civilians of a democracy, the dominant campus response was to blame the democracy. They document, perhaps for those later historians, how Jew-hatred has moved from the fringe into the solid mainstream, and then into outright dominance on campuses and in the infosphere, finally exploding ingloriously in the campus celebratory response to the October 7 Hamas massacre, to the point where Jewish students on all too many campuses have now had to barricade themselves inside libraries or dorms or Hillel Houses to protect themselves from the mobs outside baying for Jewish blood—mobs consisting of their fellow students, and often their professors. Their primary focus is on the campus, on the many students and professors who, through the lens of their ideologies, have come to see the mass murder of Jews as the moral high ground. But of course what starts on campus, what is incubated on campus, does not and has not stayed on campus. It’s in our cities, on our streets, all over the internet, permeates the media, and it, this intifada against the Jews, is now fully globalized.


Iranian General: Iran Was "Defeated Very Badly" in Syria
Brig.-Gen. Behrouz Esbati, Iran's top ranking general in Syria, admitted on Dec. 31 that Iran had suffered a major defeat in Syria. In a speech at a mosque in Tehran that surfaced publicly on Monday in Iranian media, Esbati said, "I don't consider losing Syria something to be proud of. We were defeated, and defeated very badly, we took a very big blow and it's been very difficult."

Esbati revealed that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad had denied multiple requests for Iranian-backed militias to open a front against Israel from Syria after Oct. 7, 2023. Iran had presented Assad with comprehensive military plans on how it could use Iran's military resources in Syria to attack Israel, he said.

Asked whether Iran planned to carry out a third round of direct strikes on Israel, he said that "the situation" couldn't realistically handle another attack on Israel right now. Asked why Iran would not fire missiles at U.S. military bases in the region, he said that would invite bigger retaliatory attacks on Iran by the U.S.


Youssef's stand-up tour will inflame antisemitic hatred
Starting tomorrow, from January 10 to February 3, Jews and Israelis worldwide will witness another chapter of incitement and antisemitic content.

It will take place for three weeks in theaters across 17 European cities, including Hamburg, Munich, and Berlin in Germany; Gothenburg, Malmö, and Stockholm in Sweden; Manchester, London, and Birmingham in the UK; Oslo in Norway; Vienna in Austria; Copenhagen, Zurich, Brussels, Paris, Dublin, and Amsterdam.

They will consist of Arabic stand-up comedy by Egyptian-American comedian Bassem Youssef, one of the most globally recognized promoters of antisemitism.

Last March, this controversial comedian conducted a similar tour, presenting 25 shows in 16 European cities in English, which also contained incitement. This time, the content will be delivered in Arabic. Recently, Youssef posted a promotional video for his tour on his social media accounts (where he has nearly 19 million followers on X/Twitter and Facebook, in addition to millions on other platforms).

In the video, he casually asks his audience in Egyptian Arabic to suggest topics for his performances, asking them what they find funny or frustrating, and promising to address those issues. “Tell me everything, just like you exposed the traitors of Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam,” he urged. “I’m not afraid of those who translate my words from Arabic to English. Freedom for Palestine – and damn Israel.”

This statement underscores two critical points:
1. He approves of and celebrates the horrific terrorist acts committed against Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters in Amsterdam on the night of November 7, 2024.
2. He is determined to use these performances to promote incitement against Jews and Israelis, dripping with hostility and encouraging many Arab Muslims to target them.
Norwegian teen kicked out of convenience store 'for being a Jew'
A Norwegian teenager was physically removed from a Bergen convenience store on New Year’s Eve after a clerk learned he was a Jew and a Zionist, the 19-year-old shared in an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

Nataniel Elpeleg was headed into town with friends to celebrate the new year when they stopped at a Narvesen convenience store to buy hot dogs.

The teenager reportedly struck up a conversation with a clerk, who told him he was from Yemen and the Palestinian territories. Elpeleg said he was naively excited and told the clerk he was half-Israeli.

“I really want to have peace with you guys. I hope we can be friends in the future,” Elpeleg recalled.

“Are you a Zionist?” the clerk allegedly responded.

“Being a Zionist means supporting the right of Jews to have their own state. I agree with that, so I am a Zionist, but right now, I just want to buy a sausage,” Elpeleg reportedly said.


Israeli passport ranks as 19th most powerful passport
The Israeli passport ranked as the 19th strongest passport in the world in the Henley Passport Global Ranking Index for 2025, published on Thursday. The list, published by Henley & Partners, classifies the strength of passports based on several factors, including the ability to travel visa-free to destinations worldwide. Israeli passport holders are able to travel to 170 countries without a visa, with some destinations requiring a visa on arrival or an electronic travel authority. This year’s ranking advances Israel by two slots compared to its 2024 ranking of 21st.

According to the company, the Abraham Accords, the US visa waiver agreement, and additional bilateral agreements have contributed to a surge in the number of countries Israeli residents can enter.

Topping the list was Singapore, whose passport holders can enter 195 countries, with Japan following suit with 193, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, and Spain ranking third with 192 countries.

The United Kingdom passport ranked fifth with 190 countries, while the US passport dropped from seventh to ninth, enabling its passport holders to enter 186 countries visa-free.

At the bottom of the index, in the 106th position, was the Afghani passport, which allows its passport holders access to 26 countries without a visa.
Japan’s Kaneka buys Israeli medical device startup in $100 millon deal
Japanese conglomerate Kaneka Corp. has inked an agreement to buy Israeli startup Endostream Medical, a medical device developer for the treatment of brain aneurysms, in a deal valued at about $100 million.

Following the acquisition, the operations of the Or Akiva-based medical device startup will remain in Israel and serve as Kaneka’s research & development center. Kaneka plans to keep Endostream’s 12 employees and hire additional staff to jointly develop devices for the treatment of cerebrovascular diseases that affect the blood flow to the brain, such as aneurysms and strokes.

Founded in 2015 by Danel Mayer, CEO, and Alon May, VP of Technology, Endostream has developed an implant device called Nautilus for the treatment of brain aneurysms. The device has a spiraling design made of nitinol, or nickel titanium, wire covered with a platinum‐based alloy coil sleeve to block and divert blood flow to the aneurysm.

The device, which the startup says has been successfully implanted in hundreds of patients around the world, received regulatory approval in Europe in November 2024. Regulatory approval and launch in the US are expected in the spring of 2026, and in Japan one year later.

To date Endostream has raised about $5 million from venture capital fund Peregrine Ventures alongside a number of prominent American neurosurgeons.

“By combining Kaneka’s manufacturing and Endostream’s technology, we will jointly develop new medical devices, mainly for cerebrovascular treatment, in addition to the Nautilus device for aneurysm treatment currently under development,” Kaneka said in a statment. “We aim to achieve sales of over 20 billion yen ($126 million) by 2030.”
Molan: A defender of Israel’s legacy
“I DON’T know what it is about that place, but there’s something very magical about that country and its people that I felt straight away,” media personality Erin Molan told The AJN after she returned from her first trip to Israel.

Over the last 15 months Molan has been an unwavering voice of clarity, with her powerful video clips reaching as far as Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, who she met with during her visit late last year with the Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).

“I’m sitting there and he is quoting my own pieces back to me, while his wife is pulling me aside to discuss my video about what terrorism needs to thrive,” said Molan.

“And I’m just thinking, it’s mind blowing how much of an impact something that, in my mind, is just so obvious can have on people who are doing it so tough.”

Despite visiting a country at war, Molan said she had no fears or anxiety about her trip.

“It was incredible how hopeful and how inspired I felt given the kinds of things that I saw,” she said.

What she witnessed during her whirlwind visit included the raw footage of the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas.

“I didn’t particularly want to, but I felt I needed to,” said Molan.

“I won’t ever forget the things that I saw. They will be in my mind forever and they will play on my mind forever, but in some way I think that’s a good thing,” said Molan.

“I don’t think we can afford, as a society, to look away from what happened on that day. As we all know, it never ends where it starts with terrorism and extremists.” Erin Molan in Israel.

After watching the harrowing October 7 footage, Molan said she is struggling to come to terms with the utter elation shown by the terrorists.

“I’ve seen a fair bit of evil in my time – not first hand thank goodness – but what I can’t stop thinking about is the joy that they seemed to derive from the most horrific acts I’ve ever witnessed,” she said.

“The horrors that I heard about, that I saw, the places I stood in that felt so eerie, will change me forever as a person. I didn’t need to be changed or convinced, as anyone who has watched any of my work will attest to prior to me going, but I think my resolve now to stand up for what is right and good has been even further strengthened by my trip.”
‘Voices of Iron’ award honors online Israel advocacy warriors
A total of 50 pro-Israel public diplomacy professionals, activists and social-media influencers were presented with the inaugural “Voices of Iron” award in a ceremony held at the Knesset auditorium on Tuesday. The award honors their advocacy for Israel in the past 15 months, during the Swords of Iron war.

The initiative was the brainchild of Likud Knesset member Dan Illouz, who hosted the event attended by several hundred people. Illouz told JNS that the purpose of the prize was to thank those who have gone above and beyond in defending the Jewish state.

During his remarks to the awardees and guests, Illouz said: “Look around you, you see dozens of people who have given of themselves day and night since Oct. 7 in order to defend Israel. Many of them have risked their careers, have been attacked on social media, some even physically threatened and many are doing this completely voluntarily. …But you refused to let the truth be buried.”

Knesset speaker Amir Ohana spoke at the event on behalf of the Israeli parliament, saying that “this high-profile gathering represents the online dream team. And for those peddling lies and hate, the ultimate nightmare.”

He thanked the honorees, calling them “modern-day media Maccabees” and noting that they constitute “a cyber Iron Dome intercepting misinformation and blowing lies out of the sky. … Just as the warriors of the IDF put aside their differences to defend their brethren, so have you. … May your voices and your impact only grow.”

Award recipient Lizzy Savetsky, a New York-based influencer, told JNS: “To be called a ‘Voice of Iron’ and to be a voice for the Jewish nation has never felt like a choice to me. It’s always felt like a sacred obligation and responsibility. I just think about my ancestors who would have given anything to step foot on the ground here in our indigenous homeland.”
Jewish community springs into action as devastating Los Angeles-area fires widen
Daniel Sher’s voice broke as he related the latest to members of his Pacific Palisades synagogue. Kehillat Israel had just sent a message saying that its building had so far survived the devastating Palisades Fire, but, the associate rabbi noted, so much had been lost.

“I cannot begin to describe the feeling that I am currently holding as I hear from so many beloved community members who’ve lost their home — while my family has found out that we’ve lost our home,” Sher said in a video he posted to Instagram on Wednesday afternoon. “Our community that we love so dearly is in disarray.”

Sher later shared a picture taken by his wife of what remained of the home they lived in with their three young children and pets. Only a fireplace and chimney could be distinguished from a sea of ashes — one of thousands of structures that have burned in the last two days as fires rage across the Los Angeles area.

At least one historic synagogue, the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, was completely destroyed by fire, but not before community members battled challenging conditions to remove the Conservative congregation’s 13 Torah scrolls.

Los Angeles’ Jewish community — the second largest in the United States — has swung into action, attempting to provide relief and reassurance at a volatile time. Synagogues and Jewish community centers in safe areas are opening their doors to those who have fled their homes. A Jewish loan society is doling out funds to people who must start from scratch. And local Jewish eateries are fanning out to distribute free food to firefighters who have been battling blazes for days, with no end in sight.
10 years after the Hypercacher attack: Rise in anti-semitic acts in France • FRANCE 24 English
Ten years after the Charlie Hebdo and Hypercacher attacks in the Paris region in 2015, commemmorations have been held for the victims in front of the Hypercacher, as well as debates organised by Jewish organisations and the magazine Charlie Hebdo. A rally is also scheduled for this evening, against antisemitism and all forms of racism, this against the backdrop of a rise in anti-semitic incidents in France.






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