Seth Mandel: What the Auschwitz Controversy Revealed About the Enemies of America and Israel
Arresting Netanyahu at Auschwitz would bring irrevocable humiliation on every Western democratic member state of the ICC. And perhaps that’s exactly what the ICC deserves, for it would be quickly and not-so-quietly swept into the dustbin of history, from which it emerged in the first place.Phyllis Chesler: The big lies on Israel lend legitimacy to ignoring Israel women’s rights
Which is not to say the ICC will get away scot-free. Because the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel’s conflict with Hamas, it is essentially interfering on behalf of enemy states and against the effort to save American hostages. So the Republican House has voted, appropriately, to sanction the court. “The bill instructs the president to freeze property assets and deny visas to any foreigners who materially or financially contributed to the court’s efforts to ‘investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute a protected person,’” reports the New York Times. “Protected persons are defined as all current and former military and government officials of the United States and allies that have not consented to the court’s jurisdiction, such as Israel.”
As the Times mentions, the effort to sanction the ICC died in the Democratic Senate. With Republicans back in the majority, the bill will likely pass the Senate and be signed into law by President-elect Trump after he takes office.
“This bill sends an incredibly important message across the globe,” Florida Republican Rep. Brian Mast said on the House floor. “Do not get in the way of America or our allies trying to bring our people home. You will be given no quarter, and again, you will certainly not be welcome on American soil.”
In an encouraging sign, 45 Democrats joined with Republicans to pass the bill. Meanwhile, the arguments from Democrats against the bill were more likely to help its passage than to hurt it. “Republicans want to sanction the ICC simply because they don’t want the rules to apply to everyone,” said Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern. “There is no international right to vengeance, and what we are seeing in Gaza is vengeance.”
This is pure gobbledygook. The “rules” of the ICC do not, in fact, apply to the United States, though McGovern is free to argue that the U.S. should join the ICC. The rules of international law and order do apply to the U.S. and our allies, and the ICC is in fact the party here ripping those rules to shreds. Additionally, even if McGovern sees the efforts to rescue American and Israeli hostages as “vengeance,” that is neither a crime nor, to be honest, an argument against the bill.
As for those who wanted Poland to arrest Netanyahu at Auschwitz, who wanted to have a grotesque spectacle with which to advance their own Holocaust inversion, they have revealed themselves to be nostalgic for a time when Auschwitz was more than a symbol.
In its “Monthly Action Points (MAP) for the Security Council” on Jan. 6, the NGO spent 609 words discussing the situation in Haiti and 889 words on Israel/Palestine. They refer to the “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” Israel’s “unlawful occupation of the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem” and insist that “international experts” (have credibly) described Israel’s actions as “genocide.” They mindlessly repeat Hamas’s completely misleading figures about the number of Gazans killed, wounded and displaced. They accuse Israel of having committed “constant violations of international humanitarian law.”Jewish leaders warn of rising hate as France remembers supermarket victims
These women of peace offer nothing but anti-Israel propaganda. They do not include a single mention or word on the Oct. 7 pogrom or the 99 hostages Hamas continues to hold in Gaza, including several young women. There is nothing in the Working Group on Women, Peace and Security’s monthly report about the perennial attacks on Israeli civilians by Iran’s terrorist proxies, not a word about the displacement of Israelis from their homes or the number of Israelis killed or wounded in a war of self-defense. Not one word is included about the impact the attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and the Houthis have had on women in Israel may they be Muslim, Christian, Druze, Bahai or Jewish, and, of course, there’s no mention of the need for services for traumatized Israelis, especially women and children.
Based upon their big lies, they call upon the U.N. Security Council, of which Algeria has the presidency, to “demand an immediate, full, and complete ceasefire … ensure immediate, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access into Gaza.” They want the Security Council to “prevent the implementation of legislation restricting the operations” of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
So who is behind this lovely group concerned about the fate of women in Haiti and Gaza that views itself as a “peacebuilder?” It is perhaps no surprise that the Working Group on Women, Peace and Security includes Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Center for Reproductive Rights and the Consortium on Gender Security and Human Rights, among others.
Funders of these groups include the left-leaning Tides Foundation, Compton Foundation and ministries within the governments of Norway, Sweden and Lichtenstein. They have all wasted their money. The United Nations has never prevented or prosecuted a single real genocide. They did nothing for the women in Rwanda, Bosnia, Sudan, Congo, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, etc. The only thing that the United Nations has ever done successfully was to legitimize Jew-hatred. This little group both reflects and extends that particular agenda.
The ceremony took place outside the Hypercacher store at Porte de Vincennes where Yohan Cohen, Philippe Braham, Yoav Hattab and François-Michel Saada died on 9 January 2015.
The attacker, Amedy Coulibaly, was killed when police stormed the building to free hostages. Coulibaly was linked to the Kouachi brothers who killed 12 people at Charlie Hebdo magazine two days earlier.
Relatives and politicians lit 10 candles on a specially constructed altar to remember the victims, including teachers Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard, killed by extremists in 2020 and 2023.
Additional candles honoured victims of anti-Semitism in France, global terrorism and the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.
Michel Gugenheim, the chief rabbi of Paris, read The Kaddish – the Jewish prayer for the dead. Rabbi Haïm Korsia and Christophe Le Sourt, of the conference of French bishops, followed with a prayer for the republic.
The 30-minute service was organised by the Crif, an umbrella group representing French Jewish institutions, and will be followed on Thursday night by a debate staged in tandem with Charlie Hebdo on freedom of expression, Islamism and anti-Semitism.
Ongoing cycle of anti-Semitism
Thursday's commemoration ceremony was marred after Stars of David and the word "Jew" were found tagged on buildings near the store and at a local synagogue.
“We’re commemorating Islamist terror attacks of extreme gravity,” said Elie Korchia, head of the Consistoire Central des Israelites de France – the religious organisation of French Jewry.
“But we see that through these tags, insults, through the daily anti-Semitic acts … that the cycle of anti-Semitism has not ended,” he told RFI.
Anti-Semitic acts rose by 192 percent in early 2023 compared to 2022. Crif documented just over 1,670 incidents throughout 2023. The French ministry fighting discrimination reported 1,500 attacks in November 2024 alone.
On this day in 2015, a tragic terrorist attack unfolded at the Hypercacher kosher supermarket in Paris, France. Armed with a submachine gun, an assault rifle and two pistols, Amedy Coulibaly, a jihadist affiliated with the Islamic State, stormed the supermarket in the Porte de… pic.twitter.com/S5NJRSLdhy
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) January 9, 2025
Melanie Phillips: The devastating but ambiguous Musk effect
Just imagine what Musk could do if he came out swinging like this for Israel and against the Palestinian cause. Just imagine the effect if, in daily barrages of hundreds of tweets, he denounced America, Britain and Europe for having betrayed and abandoned Israel; if he demanded that the United Nations be defunded over its ties to genocidal Palestinianism; and if he called for the resignation of British, Canadian and Australian leaders for facilitating Jew-hatred around the world.
Just as Musk has made the cultural weather and forced a break in the clouds of denial over Islamization, he could achieve the same effect with the deadly anti-Israel narrative.
Unfortunately, not only has he not done so, but he has gone in the other direction by sharing a video of virulent Holocaust denier Ken O’Keefe falsely claiming that U.K. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer “excused” the serial sex offender Jimmy Savile.
What should we make of all this?
It tells us about the dismaying credulity and ignorance of countless indivuduals faced with a manipulative opportunist like Robinson. It tells us how money and celebrity can hijack democratic political processes by unaccountable power without responsibility. It tells us that the same money and celebrity can force important issues from obscurity into the light. It tells us about the threat from predatory political Islam and the frightening way this has been denied in political and media debate.
Confusingly, it does not show how truth can pierce through lies. It shows instead that even lies can pierce a blanket of denial to expose a crucial but suppressed truth.
That’s a decidedly ambiguous development. But there’s a lesson here for the embattled defenders of Israel, who need to defeat the lies told about it but for whom it has proved well-nigh impossible to get a hearing at all for the truth.
Elon Musk is a one-off, but his targets were open ones for anyone who recognized them as such. Israel’s defenders (with rare exceptions) never do so. Instead, they invariably play defense, protesting the justice of their cause and accusing their foes of lying. Playing defense means they’ve lost before they start.
They flinch from doing what they should be doing—going for the jugular by accusing named politicians and specific countries and institutions of promoting lies and facilitating jihad, appeasement and global Jew-hatred. Of course, it would help to get Musk himself to do this. Someone should start educating him to get him to understand something few can get their heads around—that in order to rescue Western civilization, as he so patently desires, you first have to defeat the enemies of the Jews.
Elon Musk’s video drew everyone out. Everyone. And as you read the replies, you discover just how deep the ignorance goes.
— Haviv Rettig Gur (@havivrettiggur) January 10, 2025
Leave aside the antisemites, the people who want Musk to believe there’s a global Jewish conspiracy behind it all, because Epstein or something. They’re… https://t.co/dMsFNEBVfS
Elon Musk asks AfD leader Alice Weidel if she unequivocally supports the existence of the state of Israel. She responds, “Yes, of course,” adding that Germany must protect Jews in the country, who are exposed to Muslim crime. pic.twitter.com/vEHCPxj6rk
— Awesome Jew (@JewsAreTheGOAT) January 10, 2025
‘Disgraceful’: House Ed Chair Slams Biden’s Lame Duck Anti-Semitism Settlements With Rutgers, California, Hopkins
The Biden administration is under fire for reaching last-minute anti-Semitism settlements with the University of California, Rutgers University, and Johns Hopkins University, with Rep. Tim Walberg (R., Mich.) saying the "toothless" agreements "shield schools from real accountability."The American Historical Association’s Set of Anti-Israel Lies
"It's disgraceful that in the final days of the Biden-Harris administration, the Department of Education is letting universities, including Rutgers, five University of California system campuses including UCLA, and Johns Hopkins, off the hook for their failures to address campus antisemitism," said Walberg, who chairs the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
"These so-called resolutions utterly fail to resolve the civil rights complaints they purport to address. The Department is shamefully abandoning its obligation to protect Jewish students, faculty, and staff and undermining the incoming administration."
Biden's Department of Education reached agreements with all three of the schools in the last month to settle civil rights complaints that alleged widespread discrimination against Jewish students. At UCLA, for example, anti-Semitic radicals physically prevented Jews from accessing portions of campus if they refused to denounce their religious beliefs. At Rutgers, an anti-Israel protester identified where a Jewish student lived and called for his killing. At Hopkins, a campus protester held a sign bearing a swastika that read, "Go hamas, from the river to the sea, finish the job."
The agreements to settle those complaints, however, do not include significant measures to combat anti-Semitism. Instead, university leaders made no admission of wrongdoing and agreed to provide "training" for campus employees and develop "climate surveys" meant to evaluate "the extent to which students are subjected to or witness discrimination."
The Biden administration opened dozens of civil rights investigations into universities accused of discriminating against Jewish students. But several of those probes have been open for years, and those that were resolved have brought insignificant changes. Lawmakers and policy experts have subsequently identified the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights as one entity that could take a more aggressive approach to campus anti-Semitism, and Walberg is no different.
Napoleon Bonaparte, himself a giant of history, famously remarked that “history is a set of lies agreed upon.” Centuries later, the American Historical Association is on the precipice of taking the French revolutionary’s quip literally.‘Scholasticide’ slur is another reason why Trump should defund antisemitic institutions
Boasting over 10,000 historians in its ranks, the American Historical Association “promotes the critical role of historical thinking in public life,” according to its website. However, recent events suggest members lack historical thinking even within the American Historical Association’s own activities.
On Sunday, more than 400 members of the academic association voted to advance a resolution condemning Israel for the imaginary crime of “scholasticide.” The resolution alleges that Israel is intentionally destroying the education system in the Gaza Strip.
Contrary to the American Historical Association’s mission, the resolution – advanced by radical pseudointellectuals – eschews “historical thinking in public life.” Instead, it employs partisan talking points devoid of evidence and context. In other words, to adopt the resolution isn’t to advance historical thinking; it’s to agree to a set of lies.
The resolution lists a few bases for its allegation, such as the destruction of schools and universities in Gaza during the war. Yet nowhere does the resolution contend with the critical questions of intent and legal and moral responsibility. It assumes criminality and malice on the part of the Jewish State without evidence.
But intent and responsibility matter. No one denies that schools have been destroyed during the war launched by Hamas. At issue is why they’ve been destroyed.
The resolution omits any context and history that address those questions. These omissions are especially notable given that no one at the American Historical Association is privy to the targeting process and decision-making inside the Israel Defense Forces command structure.
In Gaza, Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations have systematically exploited schools and other civilian infrastructure for military purposes. This isn’t just Israeli propaganda – the IDF has published countless videos and images of terrorists exploiting civilian infrastructure. Just a few days ago, drone footage shared by the IDF showed numerous weapons hidden inside yet another school in Jabaliya. The United Nations has admitted, on many occasions, the existence of terror tunnels and weapons on the premises of UNRWA schools. Palestinian officials have published documentary evidence of it, and Hamas has even filmed itself using such facilities. Substantial evidence shows that Gazan schoolteachers and officials were involved in terrorist organizations and even participated in the atrocities of October 7, 2023.
This information has obvious relevance, as it explains why schools are being hit during an ongoing armed conflict.
The twisting of language to justify the antisemitic campaign against Zionism, Israel and the Jews is just as important to the “pro-Palestine” cause as their rationalizations of terrorism and the barbaric atrocities of Oct. 7 as legitimate “resistance.” That’s especially true about their now routine misuse of the term genocide to describe Israeli actions rather than those of Hamas.
Genocide refers to a deliberate campaign to wipe out an entire people. It was coined in the aftermath of the Holocaust because there was no existing term to describe a national policy, such as that of the Nazi regime in Germany, which aimed at the complete extermination of a people. It was created by Rafael Lemkin, a Polish Jewish lawyer and lifelong Zionist who survived the Holocaust and devoted his life to the study of mass atrocities. As zealous as he was about documenting war crimes of all sorts, he was careful in defining his terms, including the distinction between the inevitable casualties that are part of any war and crimes against humanity.
Examples of actual genocides are what the Nazis did to the Jews during the Holocaust; the terror famine perpetrated by the Soviet Communists in Ukraine during the Holodomor from 1932 to 1933; or the slaughter of members of the Tutsi tribe in Rwanda by the Hutus in 1994.
And far from Israel committing genocide in Gaza, as military experts who understand the laws of war have pointed out, their efforts to avoid civilian casualties are unmatched by any modern army in history. The ratio of casualties between combatants and civilians in Gaza—Hamas operatives make up nearly half of all those who have been killed in the past 15 months—is lower than any other example of urban warfare. That’s especially true when you consider that Hamas deliberately seeks to create Palestinian casualties by hiding among civilians and using tunnels underneath homes to store terrorists and weapons, even firing rockets at Israel from areas designated as humanitarian safe zones. And while tragically, many Palestinians have died in the war that those who claim to lead them started (though almost certainly not nearly as many as the false statistics put forward by Hamas claim), the total is a small fraction of the population and not anything like an actual genocide.
The false use of a term that came into existence to describe the mass slaughter of Jews to delegitimize the efforts of the Jewish state to prevent another Holocaust for which Oct. 7 was just a trailer is more than ironic. It’s a standard tactic of antisemites throughout history to falsely accuse Jews of committing crimes that their haters seek to do.
The treason of the intellectuals
That the virus of antisemitism has continued to spread in the 21st century only 80 years after the Holocaust is a catastrophe for humanity. What is particularly upsetting about the latest iteration of the plague of Jew-hatred is that the stormtroopers of contemporary antisemitism are largely to be found among those who purport to be the educated elites of society.
Yet as Niall Ferguson, one of the most distinguished and best-read contemporary historians, wrote in The Free Press, as American universities became hotbeds of antisemitism, this isn’t new. The Nazi movement that took root in Europe in the 1920s and ’30s was not the product of working-class or uneducated people. Rather, its advocates were largely to be found among those with college degrees and who trafficked in ideas rather than only street violence. As his essay titled “The Treason of the Intellectuals” (an illusion to the seminal 1927 study of the topic by French scholar Julian Benda) pointed out: “Anyone who has a naive belief in the power of higher education to instill morality has not studied the history of German universities in the Third Reich.”
While the intellectuals of the 1920s elevated race as the most important factor in society in order to stigmatize Jews and elevate non-Jewish Aryans, today’s elites have similarly embraced the same concept to harm those designated as “white oppressors” and to raise up “people of color.” But while those who support the latter cause may think they are “progressives” trying to better the world, by designating Jews and Israel as evil oppressors, they have unleashed a new wave of antisemitism that Hamas and its sympathizers hope will lead to another Holocaust.
Ferguson is among those who have recognized the rot at the core of American academia stems from the dominance of the toxic myths of critical race theory and intersectionality that have enabled this fashionable belief that has legitimized antisemitism. He thinks that the only answer is not to try to reform elite schools where these ideas are the new orthodoxy but to build new ones, like the University of Austin he has helped found.
He’s right; still, that leaves us with the question of what to do about a university system that has been hijacked by hate-mongers who pose as humanitarians.
The answer is to defund every school where antisemitism and anti-Americanism are not merely tolerated but have become built into its teaching. There already was a powerful case to be made in favor of defunding institutions where the new treason of the intellectuals is normative. The American Historical Association has reminded us why this should be a priority for the new administration.
""Historians of AHA Condemn Israel’s ‘Scholasticide.’ The Question Is Why," writes the NY Times.
— S Sebag Montefiore (@simonmontefiore) January 10, 2025
"First, the resolution runs counter to the historian’s defining commitment to ground arguments in evidence. Most tellingly it says Israel has “effectively obliterated Gaza’s…
London Chabad centre accused of ‘misconduct’ by charity regulator after raising money for IDF
A Chabad Lubavitch charity has been issued with an official warning by the Charity Commission after fundraising for an IDF soldier.An open letter to Ireland’s Archbishop Eamon Martin
The regulator said it took action after finding that the trustees of Chabad Lubavitch Centres North East London and Essex had “acted outside the charity’s purposes” and failed to “safeguard its best interests and its reputation”.
The warning imposes a number of requirements on the Chabad centre’s trustees to remedy the “misconduct” and “mismanagement”.
A failure to do so will lead to more regulatory action.
The Chabad centre set up a fundraising page in October 2023 to raise funds for a soldier of the IDF stationed in northern Israel, according to the regulator.
Raising money for the UK armed forces is deemed charitable. However, providing military supplies or aid to foreign armed forces is not a charitable purpose and no charity can legally undertake this activity.
The Chabad centre removed the page in January 2024, by which point it had raised around £2,280. Of the money, £937 was sent to an individual solider, according to the regulator.
The Charity Commission said the trustees were unable to account for how those funds were spent by the soldier. The remaining money was spent on non-lethal military equipment, purchased by the trustees, and sent to the soldier in Israel.
Over 180 complaints were received by the regulator about the Chabad centre’s activities and a regulatory compliance case was opened in December 2023.
It was determined that the fundraising was outside of the charity’s purposes and “not capable of being charitable”.
Israeli and other Jews pray constantly for the day when peace will finally arrive.A reminder to J Street’s Jeremy Ben Ami
That Ireland, people like yourself, and other nations constantly accept as fact information supplied by folks who practice taqiyyah—deliberate lying to “Infidels”—is unbelievable, but you repeatedly do this and dismiss other conflicting reports from more accurate sources.
Is it ignorance on your part or just blinders on your own eyes that your church has historically claimed Jews have on their eyes for refusing to see the Christian “light”… that same light which lit the road paving the way to Auschwitz and Birkenau over the centuries. Churches even have statues of Jews with blinders over their eyes to depict this, along with stained glass windows with Jews stabbing the Christian Host of Communion to allegedly kill Jesus again.
Having stated all the above, thank goodness there are many other Christians, including Roman Catholics, who reject, what so much corroborating evidence shows to be an ingrained animus towards Jews and their lonely, continuously targeted, tiny beleaguered nation.
Forgive me (or don’t), but I just can’t help but conclude that, with recent statements and actions by Pope Francis, other church officials, yourself, and others occurring at the same time as the massive outpouring and resurfacing of age-old, Church ingrained antisemitism, that your vilification of Israel is affected by this same anti-Jewish bias.
And I’m extremely careful when I make such statements because I don’t want to be the one “crying wolf’ if such anti-Jewish animus is not really involved.
For too many people, in a post-Auschwitz world, it has simply become more “acceptable” to transfer religious inspired hatred of Jews as individuals (G_d killers, poisoners of wells, children of the Devil, etc.) to the vilification and hatred of the Jew of the Nations….Israel Reborn.
The more I learned about your illustrious father, the more I grew to admire and respect him — from his 1930s Irgun efforts that brought more than 20,000 endangered Jews to Palestine to his larger-than-life Bergson Group struggle to rescue European Jewry from the Nazi death factories and so much in between. His grave reads simply, “husband, father, Zionist activist.” He deserved a far more extensive homage.Anticipating primary, anti-Israel New York City councilwoman scrubs her campaign site of far-left positions
Perhaps that is why I, so many far more astute than I, and probably your father are so perplexed by your 180. One of those more astute leaders I was privileged to know was Isi Liebler who in a 2011 Jerusalem Post review of your book “A New Voice for Israel” observed that “In reality, had Yitshaq lived, I think he would almost certainly have been devastated and outraged to witness his son’s attitude toward Israel.” Although I’ve never seen any movement when passing by, I would imagine your father must be turning over in his grave.
Your father who struggled so valiantly to get Jews and arms to the nascent state must be appalled by J Street’s November 24th call for and advocacy of the withholding of arms for Israel. Fascinating that less than two months before Israel was forced to engage in its current existential war you penned a Forward oped “AIPAC’s attacks on J Street show how out of touch they are” that stated “The record clearly shows that J Street supports security assistance to Israel." The problem, Jeremy, is when I clicked on that link I got a “404 Not Found Error.” Obviously J Street duplicitously scrubbed that page supporting security assistance for Israel after it took its current anti-Israel arms embargo position.
Most recently, your support of ICC arrest warrants of Israel’s prime minister and former defense minister and your Israel-bashing trips for US legislators (e.g., my former Congressman, Jamaal Bowman attributed his virulently antagonistic anti-Israel attitude to his November 2021 J Street trip to Israel), serve as prime examples of J Street’s betrayal of Israel.
That said, as an educator, by far and away your worst breach of the Jewish People’s trust has been your corruption of the young and malleable Jewish mind. How many Simone Zimmermans and IfNotNow useful idiots are the products of J St. U and J St. Israel trips? That betrayal of an entire generation is something you cannot undo simply by scrubbing a website page.
Finally, on a more hopeful note, you are a young 62 years old, just over halfway to a hoped for ad meah v’esrim (until 120). That gives you plenty of time to realize the righteousness of your father’s ways and the errors of yours. I always say that had I been born Catholic my patron saint would have been St. Jude, the saint of the impossible and hopeless causes, but I do not believe that applies to you.
May you be blessed, God willing, with a long, long life and the wisdom to recognize and reverse human folly. When the time does come many decades from now, may you enjoy a hallowed Mount of Olives resting place next to and in total harmony with your awe-inspiring father z”l. Just remember that your kids and grandkids will only be able to visit you if Israel, contrary to J Street’s policy, maintains sovereignty in an undivided Jerusalem.
Am Yisrael Chai,
Shahana Hanif, a far-left city councilwoman in Brooklyn, has been scrubbing her campaign site and social media of past comments calling to defund the police — as she prepares to face a new Democratic primary challenger who has criticized her approach to public safety and handling of rising antisemitism.CAMERA Report_ Ivy League Propaganda – How Brown University Radicalized Students After October 7
In recent weeks, Hanif’s campaign site has been purged of a detailed policy page that had featured a pledge to “defund the police and reduce our police force to zero,” while vowing to “disband the use of jails and prisons,” among other extreme measures.
The page, which includes policies that Hanif had touted during her first campaign in 2021, had been publicly viewable as recently as Dec. 12, according to archived screenshots on the WayBack Machine, shortly after her challenger had entered the race.
Her revamped campaign site now includes no references to defunding the police or public safety, which is expected to be among the top issues in the competitive June primary to represent a progressive district in central Brooklyn covering neighborhoods such as Park Slope.
Meanwhile, Hanif, a Democratic socialist who has faced backlash from Jewish constituents over her hostile views on Israel and response to antisemitic incidents in the district, has also removed at least two past tweets endorsing the movement to divest from law enforcement. The posts, both published in 2021, appear to have been deleted in the last month or so.
To view the full report, click here (pdf).
Since the end of 2023, the extent of anti-American, anti-Israel, and antisemitic radicalism on college campuses has become an issue of national importance. In Congress, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce has even launched an investigation as “antisemitic mobs rule over so-called elite universities…” How did we get here?
A new CAMERA study, “Ivy League Propaganda: How Brown University Radicalized Students After October 7,” helps answer this question. Using Brown University as a case study, it documents how radical members of faculty turned a prestigious institution of higher learning into a center for ideological indoctrination under the nose of acquiescent administrators.
Just days after Hamas’s October 7 atrocities, Brown University leadership promised “to provide [its] community a chance to learn about and discuss current events in Israel and Gaza.” The statement appeared promising, suggesting the university was committed to maintaining its educational mission by providing students further opportunities to learn from credible experts. Unfortunately, it was a lie. What the university provided instead was anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda.
Consider just one fact: throughout the dozens of hours of recordings of these events, CAMERA could not find a single mention of the Israeli civilians, including children, taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists on October 7, 2023. Given that the plight of the hostages is the single most important factor preventing an end to the current war, it defies any reasonable, non-ideological explanation for that aspect of the conflict to be outright omitted from the conversations.
But speakers did not simply ignore such atrocities; they worked to make the very mention of Palestinian wrongdoing a taboo. One speaker proclaimed that it is a “dehumanizing, crude, very racist talking point that this is about Hamas.” Another decried the “problem” that “every conversation [about the war] begins with a condemnation of Hamas,” which had itself begun the war which people were discussing.
Many of Brown University’s speakers even glorified the atrocities carried out by Palestinian terrorists. One, a Palestinian academic from Birzeit University, spoke of the actions of October 7 as an exercise in “our right to resist” which, she declared, is “a way of being and survival for Palestinians.” Speaker after speaker described the murder, rape, torture, mutilation, and kidnapping of Israeli men, women, and children in heroic terms, such as “anti-colonial action” or “anti-colonial liberation struggle.” Another declared, just two weeks after Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel: “2023 will be reported historically as the year that Palestinians stood boldly in the face of colonial fascism.” The precise link between murdering and kidnapping Jewish children and standing up to fascism was left unexplained. One panelist even described the the story of Rachel Edri – an elderly Jewish woman who fed her terrorist captors to buy her rescuers time – as having “reveal[ed] cultural, linguistic, and human connection” between Edri and the Palestinian terrorists who butchered her Jewish neighbors.
Watch Franke incite the Hamilton Hall takeover here: https://t.co/f6odgsHO5L
— Columbia Jewish & Israeli Students ✡️🇮🇱 (@CUJewsIsraelis) January 9, 2025
Author Hesse Phillips has withdrawn from @oxfordlitfest because @bindelj & @HJoyceGender are speaking. Phillips' statement is the standard boilerplate we've seen many times. It's slightly disappointing that an award-winning author couldn't write something more original. pic.twitter.com/wo0s2HR4RI
— Jonny Best (@JonnyWorst) January 9, 2025
🚨WATCH: American Airlines Crew Member’s ‘Hate Pin’
— Shirion Collective (@ShirionOrg) January 7, 2025
⚠️ Police Back Jewish Passenger
📰 A Jewish passenger on an American Airlines flight to Miami confronted a flight attendant over a watermelon pin. A symbol for Palestine terrorism that is often compared to a swastika.
Read… pic.twitter.com/CBF3yUZWZv
How is someone like Ali Bazzi allowed to represent @RocketMortgage? It's terrifying what he may do to a Jewish client
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) January 10, 2025
Concerned? Email Andrew@rocketmortgage.com.
His posts are archived here:
- https://t.co/BqhIwtWa5w
- https://t.co/XM5YY8DIBz
- https://t.co/Gdo2QVKDRF
-… pic.twitter.com/mG3jpDAjSl
UPDATE: Rose Presby has apologized & stepped down as San Diego president head of the Association of Women in Science.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) January 10, 2025
Bad actors are attempting to infiltrate EVERY aspect of our lives with their antisemitic, anti Israel propaganda - we are here to ensure it's stopped in its… https://t.co/X5UncWLKJc pic.twitter.com/8UTBLT6hs3
Update: antisemite Ali Arsalan Naqvi is no longer employed by MD Anderson Cancer Center. 👏 https://t.co/H6bwoAeXpN
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) January 9, 2025
Why the Media Always Paints Israel as the Aggressor
On January 1, the BBC News website published an article by the corporation’s security correspondent Frank Gardner which currently goes under the headline “The wars of 2024 brought together rivals – but created new enemies.”Variety Magazine Promotes Holocaust Inversion and Other Propaganda
That article is presented with the BBC’s InDepth logo and at the bottom of the page, readers find the following: “BBC InDepth is the new home on the website and app for the best analysis and expertise from our top journalists. Under a distinctive new brand, we’ll bring you fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions, and deep reporting on the biggest issues to help you make sense of a complex world.”
Much of Gardner’s article relates to issues other than Israel, but several statements in the parts which do relate to Israel’s current multi-front conflicts are noteworthy, especially considering the claims in the above statement.
1) “The situation in Gaza is nothing short of tragic.
The latest conflict there (and there have been many shorter ones before this one) was triggered by the raid led by Hamas (the militants proscribed as a terrorist group by many governments) into southern Israel on 7 October 2023 in which more than 1100 people were killed and around 250 taken into Gaza as hostages. Since then, Israel’s war on Hamas has resulted in more than 44,000 Palestinians being killed there. These are mostly civilian deaths and although that figure comes from the Hamas-run Health Ministry, it is largely endorsed by independent aid agencies.”
Gardner fails to inform his readers that 100 hostages are still being held in the Gaza Strip. He promotes unverified casualty figures supplied to the media by the same terrorist organization which started the war, together with the unproven claim that most of the casualties in the Gaza Strip are “civilian deaths” and even goes on to legitimize that claim by citing unidentified “aid agencies” but without clarifying where they get their information. Gardner fails to tell his readers that Hamas has long employed a policy of describing all casualties as civilians as part of its propaganda efforts.
2) “In many ways Gaza is the well-spring of other conflicts in the region, leading to exchanges of fire between Israel and, variously, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran and Syria.”
Gardner misleads readers by failing to clarify that what he describes as “exchanges of fire” – while sidelining the relevant issue of who fired first.
3) “Thousands of people have been killed in the short Israel-Lebanon war that preceded a ceasefire in late November.”
Gardner fails to clarify that most of those killed in Lebanon were members of terrorist organizations, primarily Hezbollah.
Instead, both articles reserve blame for all of the suffering for Israel, the side that is defending itself and its people.The Guardian and the abuse of Oct. 7th memory
Even the New York Times has, in 2002, accused director Michael Moore of “generaliz[ing] in the absence of empirical evidence” and of “glib distortion of history.” But this does not stop Variety from publishing libelous quotes made by Moore without any countervailing point of view in its December 30 article. “The only weapons that Rashid and these 22 courageous Palestinian directors in Gaza have are their cameras and their creativity. No filmmaker, writer or artist should ever have to tell the story of their own extermination,” the article quotes Moore as saying. The claim that Israel is “exterminating” anyone other than terrorists is absolutely false – it’s a blood libel that should never have appeared in print.
Of course Moore also repeats Amnesty’s unhinged claim that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. Variety’s readers won’t learn that military expert John Spencer and international law expert Arsen Ostrovsky called the claim “utterly baseless, replete with malicious lies and gross distortions of fact, as well as wholesale fabrications of law,” or that the Israel chapter of Amnesty rejected Amnesty International’s report.
And in the earlier article, a December 17 review of the movie, Variety itself falsely calls Israel’s defensive war a “genocide.” It describes the featured filmmakers as “under siege,” but provides no explanation for how they came to be so. Although the review doesn’t mention the Hamas attack on Israel that started the war, ironically, it lauds the film for its “sense of history.”
Most abhorrently, the writer compares the situation in Gaza to the Holocaust, writing:
Their stories, and their essence, live within these pixels the way the Holocaust was captured on celluloid. The images of the latter that are the most familiar to the public were snapped either by perpetrators or liberators. “From Ground Zero” exists more in the tradition of photographers Henryk Ross and Mendel Grossman, inhabitants of Poland’s Jewish ghettos who not only documented daily life with their cameras, but imbued it with a familiar, beating humanity. In that vein, it’s hard to ignore just how much “From Ground Zero” feels like history unfolding, and tragedy being memorialized, right before our eyes.
Variety has failed to put this propaganda film in its proper context by informing its readers how this war started, as well as reminding readers that that Hamas is continuing to hold about a hundred hostages including a one-year old Israeli baby. In withholding this information, the entertainment industry publication is giving cover to the terrorists who are responsible for all of the suffering that the film exposes.
Almost immediately after Oct. 7th, 2023, the Guardian began what can be described as the abuse of Oct. 7th memory: failing to acknowledge that, on that Shabbat day, Jews in southern Israel were victims of the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust, while framing the story instead as one about Israel’s military response to that (Trigger Warning) savage pogrom. As we’ve documented, other British outlets’ coverage of the racist massacre and its aftermath have often mirrored that of the Guardian.Media Overlook Terror Supporters Behind the Hind Rajab Foundation
This partly explains the legitimisation given by journalists at these outlets to the genocide libel against Israel. This toxic and intellectually unserious narrative obfuscates the antisemitic-inspired cruelty and barbarism of those willing Palestinian executioners who carried out the mass murder, rape, torture and mutilation of men, women and children – an atrocity inspired by Hamas’s annihilationist antisemitic ideology.
Downstream from this Oct. 7th massacre erasure is the widespread failure of these same outlets to acknowledge the scale of the antisemitic surge in diaspora communities since Hamas’s attack, and that pro-Palestinian ‘activists’ have been responsible for the vast majority of this historically unprecedented outbreak of anti-Jewish rhetoric, intimidation and violence. Why? In part because those who’ve long believed in the purity of the Palestinians and the righteousness of pro-Palestinian movement are – like ideological extremists in previous eras – resistant to even the most undeniable evidence contradicting their beliefs.
So, before pivoting to a Guardian op-ed by Rachel Shabi, which, though putatively about antisemitism, manages to erase both the malign anti-Jewish obsession which inspired Oct. 7th, as well as the British antisemitism which, perversely, the attacks on Israeli Jews spawned, let’s briefly highlight the depth of the problem.
As the war between Israel and Hamas continues in Gaza, those seeking to harm the Jewish state on the international stage have adopted a new tactic: Opening criminal cases against individual Israeli soldiers in foreign countries.Can The Guardian Keep Ignoring Its Owen Jones Problem? Columnist Pushes Vile ‘Industrial Rape of Palestinians’ Smear
In recent months, several IDF soldiers and reservists visiting foreign countries have been accused of war crimes, with some forced to flee back to Israel to avoid possible detainment. While some of these Israeli servicemen have been accused based on videos and photographs on the internet, others have been pursued solely by virtue of their recent military service in Gaza or the West Bank.
And where there has been genuine suspicion of wrongdoing on the part of Israeli soldiers, the IDF’s Military Advocate General’s Corps has launched examinations and investigations of alleged misconduct in the context of operational activity, in accordance with its obligations under Israeli and international law.
One of the main organizations spearheading the “lawfare” campaign of intimidation against IDF soldiers is the Hind Rajab Foundation.
Based in Belgium, the Foundation is named for a young Gazan girl who was killed during the current war, allegedly at the hands of the Israeli military.
As the campaign against Israeli soldiers around the world has gained steam, several media outlets have covered this story and referred to the Foundation as a “non-profit group” (The New York Times), a “pro-Palestinian NGO” (CNN), and an “activist group” (The Guardian).
However, behind these innocuous descriptions lies a much more disturbing truth that the media have failed to disclose to their readers: The Hind Rajab Foundation is run by people who support terrorism, espouse antisemitism, and even have ties to Hezbollah.
After all, Jones has a long history of promoting conspiracy theories about Israel that far predate the current war. However, since the Hamas atrocities, his rhetoric has grown more extreme. He regularly spreads malicious falsehoods to his more than one million followers on social media, fueling an environment of hostility and abuse toward Jews worldwide. His latest smear is merely the most recent example of his relentless campaign to vilify Israel.The thin line between Sky News and pro-Hamas propaganda
Any shred of journalistic credibility Jones may once have had has long since disintegrated. Yet, week after week, he continues to be published in The Guardian, a publication that claims its values are rooted in “honesty, integrity, courage, fairness, and a sense of duty to the reader and the community.” The publication further sanctimoniously proclaims, “Our values and behaviours provide the basis of how we work together, how we communicate, and what we should expect from each other.”
How, then, does The Guardian reconcile its employment of Jones—who routinely launches broadside attacks on fellow journalists—with its supposed commitment to integrity and fairness? How does it square its “sense of duty to the reader and the community” when Jones endorses antisemitic comments, such as a tweet calling Jews “the new master race?” Or does The Guardian simply exclude Jews from the community it claims to serve?
While The Guardian’s coverage of Israel has often been criticized for bias, Jones’ actions go far beyond that. His targeted attacks on journalists he deems “pro-Zionist,” such as Raffi Berg, are not merely criticism—they constitute an antisemitic bullying campaign.
The Guardian’s continued employment of Owen Jones—and its tacit endorsement of his actions—is a damning indictment of where the publication truly stands. A platform that willingly enables a bully who peddles antisemitic conspiratorial nonsense can no longer credibly claim to be a legitimate news outlet.
When will The Guardian finally draw the line and say enough is enough? When is time up for Owen Jones?
Hamas’s illegal use of Gaza hospitals since (and prior to) Oct. 7th, 2023, to store weapons, hide fighters and plan operations is extremely well documented. However, every time the IDF engages in an operation at a Gaza medical facility to root out terrorists, British media outlets often frame the incident as an Israeli ‘attack on a hospital’, while referring to the terror presence prompting the raid as merely an ‘Israeli claim’ – often giving more credibility to denials by groups like Hamas.
A case in point is Sky News coverage of the IDF’s operation against Hamas terrorists last last month who were using the Kamal Adwan Hospital, in the territory’s north, again, as a military base.
Hundreds of patients, doctors and caregivers were reportedly evacuated prior to the raid, and, according to the IDF, the 20 people killed during the battle were all terror operatives – without any known civilians dying. Some 240 suspected terror operatives were arrested – including 15 who allegedly participated in the Oct. 7th massacre.
The director of the hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya, was also detained. The IDF said he’s suspected of being a Hamas operative.
Sky’s short video report on Dec. 29th by Yousra Elbagir about events at Kamal Adwan is one of the most egregious examples of a media outlet determined to advance the desired narrative of the terror group which, 15 months ago, carried out the worst antisemitic atrocity since the Holocaust, while all but ignoring Israeli information on the raid.
A new Novara media story about BBC staff complaining that the BBC is ‘aiding and abetting’ genocide because it didn’t mention the fact that the ICJ had agreed there was ‘plausible genocide’ going on in Gaza - because that is not, in fact, what the ICJ ruling said - shows us more… pic.twitter.com/J6AZIb8zM7
— Nicole Lampert (@nicolelampert) January 10, 2025
Who is Omar Suleiman to speak for the dead? In the name of Allah, no less. The deluded arrogance is appalling and sickening.
— habibi (@habibi_uk) January 8, 2025
The truth is that Hamas has brought nothing but misery and ruin to Gaza. While Suleiman doesn’t have a word of criticism for the terrorists.
Dismal.
He believes in miracles. Including angels fighting alongside Muslims for the faith. Yes, really.
— habibi (@habibi_uk) January 10, 2025
But Muslims must not wait for miracles. So how does he fire them up? By regaling people with a tale of very young men killing an enemy of the religion in Islam's earliest years. 2/2 pic.twitter.com/4tXFwSOy37
A registered charity hosting notorious racists and extremists. Their cause is racist vandals who threaten our national security. pic.twitter.com/nqLLVm6Lh7
— habibi (@habibi_uk) January 10, 2025
IDF halts Palestinian workers’ entry into Judea and Samaria communities
The Israeli military has suspended the entry of Palestinian workers into Jewish communities throughout Judea and Samaria following Monday morning’s deadly shooting near Kedumim, the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit told JNS on Thursday.Israeli court freezes $2.75m in PA funds pending Oct. 7 victim lawsuit
The suspension, which the army said came following a “situational assessment,” will remain in place for an unspecified period.
In a message to residents on Wednesday, the Samaria city of Ariel said that a military directive issued after the shooting in al-Funduq that left three Israelis dead, the military had prohibited “the entry of Palestinian workers into all communities in Samaria, with the exception of industrial areas.”
On Thursday, Mayor Yair Chetboun updated residents that following discussions with the commander of the IDF’s Ephraim Regional Brigade, it had been agreed that P.A. workers would be allowed to enter Ariel’s southern neighborhood only, “starting today.”
“The entry will be allowed while adhering to security procedures,” said Chetboun, whose central Samaria city counts some 21,500 residents.
The terrorists who carried out Monday’s shooting, killing Rachel Cohen, 73, Aliza Rice, 70, and Israel Police Master Sgt. Elad Yaakov Winkelstein, 35, remain at large. Seven more people were wounded in the attack.
The Jerusalem District Court has approved the freezing of 10 million shekels ($2.75 million) in Palestinian Authority funds pending a lawsuit by the relatives of Ron Benjamin, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and whose body was retrieved from Gaza in May.
The suit was filed by the Benjamin family under Israel’s “Compensation for Terror Victims Law,” passed by the Knesset in March, Israel’s Ynet outlet reported on Wednesday night. The legislation requires courts to award punitive damages of at least 10 million shekels per fatality.
Benjamin, 53, from Rehovot in central Israel, was on a bike ride with friends near Kibbutz Be’eri on the morning of Oct. 7 when he decided to drive home after the sirens started sounding for incoming rockets from Gaza. Hamas murdered him at the Mefalsim intersection—his car was found a few days later, riddled with bullets—and took his body back to Gaza.
His body was recovered in the same May 16 operation during which Israeli forces retrieved the bodies of 22-year-old Shani Louk, 28-year-old Amit Bouskila and 56-year-old Itzhak Gelerenter.
To ease the collection of potential punitive awards by victims and their families, court judgments under the Compensation for Terror Victims Law may be enforced against any property held by the defendant, including any property seized or frozen by the State of Israel.
Palestinians in Gaza City posted a video of them saying, “We would rather die than surrender.”
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) January 10, 2025
To blame Israel for their refusal to drop their weapons and release the hostages is absolutely absurd. pic.twitter.com/pQJXPC1033
Everyone wants shawarma from Shawarma Fahed, on Abu Oreif Roundabout, Deir al-Balah, Central Gaza Strip. In the comments, a lot of people ask the price, but he doesn't answer. He does give the address though.
— Imshin (@imshin) January 10, 2025
TikTok timestamp: 2 days ago#TheGazaYouDontSee
Link in 1st comment https://t.co/p5oOdIufIA pic.twitter.com/3gBK2UyIqQ
Chicken in North Gaza now for 75 shekels (per kg).
— Imshin (@imshin) January 10, 2025
TikTok timestamp: 23 hours ago#TheGazaYouDontSee
Link in 1st comment pic.twitter.com/I7Iwxm4WZU
Bernie Sanders receives a vote for president of Lebanon as army chief wins
Lebanon has elected a new president after two years of political indecision, but not before some unexpected characters received votes — including Sen. Bernie Sanders, an American Jew.
Lebanon’s president is elected by the parliament for a six-year term and, under the country’s system, must be a Maronite Christian. The eventual victor was the country’s military chief, Joseph Aoun, whose win on Thursday ended two years of political crisis in which 12 successive votes failed to reach the requisite majority. The vote also took place less than two months into the ceasefire that ended a devastating war between Israel and the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.
But on the road to Aoun’s triumph in the second round of voting, some lawmakers cast protest votes. At one point, according to a video shared by Al Jazeera English’s news editor, Saad Abedine, a legislator put in a vote for Sanders, the 83-year-old Vermont independent who is the unofficial dean of progressives on Capitol Hill. Sanders won another term in the Senate last November but, for multiple reasons, is ineligible to lead Lebanon.
The video shows multiple men in the parliamentary chamber saying Sanders’ name, followed moments later by a loudspeaker enunciating “Bernie Sanders!” across the room. The next vote appears to be for Aoun.
Syrian Politician, HR Activist, and Former Judge Haitham Al-Maleh: CIA and Israeli Intelligence Did 9/11; Lebanon Is All Syrian Land and It Must Be Returned to Syria pic.twitter.com/sJKDDIT2Et
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 10, 2025
Iranian Journalist Bahar Ghandehari Spray Paints “Free Iran!” “Woman, Life, Freedom!” on Iranian Embassy in Damascus pic.twitter.com/5CUaC16wqd
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 10, 2025
Senior Houthi Official Abdullah Al-Na’ami Warns Saudi Arabia and the UAE: The United States Is Far Away, We Can’t Attack It Directly, But These Two Countries Will Turn into Battlefields pic.twitter.com/Ovwq6GJ0cz
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 10, 2025
$50 billion vanished into thin air: Unrest in Iran grows over economic turmoil
Iran’s public discontent surged in recent weeks as economic hardships, including widespread power outages and rising inflation, fueled calls for change, Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) researcher Benny Sabti told Maariv on Friday.
Sabti began by describing the growing frustration among the Iranian population. "People are very angry with the regime for squandering funds, oil revenues, and resources on Syria, which fell alongside Hezbollah," he said. "The regime has poured $50 billion into Syria from 2000 until now, all of which vanished into thin air, along with funds sent to Lebanon and other places." According to Sabti, the Iranian public views this as "a regime failure."
Sabti believes recent events have given Iranians hope. He pointed to key incidents, such as the reported elimination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which exposed the Iranian regime’s vulnerabilities, and "the fall of Gaza." He emphasized: "All of this gives the Iranian public—80% of whom oppose the regime—hope."
Sabti cited a parliamentary member’s report attributing the opposition level to the low voter turnout in the last presidential elections.
Sabti described worsening living conditions: "There are daily power outages lasting six to seven hours in Tehran and across the country, with even longer outages in remote areas. Water shortages follow the power cuts, and air pollution worsens because there isn’t enough clean gas to heat factories and homes. Instead, they burn ship fuel, which causes severe pollution until it’s stopped. The result is freezing temperatures and city shutdowns." He added: "On some days, people are forbidden to leave their homes—children, adults, government offices, and banks alike."
The economic crisis is severe. The ongoing shortages of electricity and gas have halted much of the industrial sector. Sabti noted that the unemployment rate, which was already 23%, had risen by an additional 12 percentage points.
"While small protests by workers occasionally occur near their factories, these have not escalated into a large-scale movement," he said. "However, even these scattered demonstrations worry the regime."
Sabti highlighted a significant development: the Iranian regime’s recent protest-response drill. "Why would they hold a protest drill?" he asked rhetorically. "The regime anticipates demonstrations and uprisings."
"They understand that things are very fragile," he warned.
Iranian Political Analyst Mosaddeq Mosaddeqpour: Iran Cannot Win a Military War against America and the West, It Should Fight Them Economically by Closing the Strait of Hormuz and Bab Al-Mandab pic.twitter.com/hHeHTQiL47
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) January 10, 2025
Pakistan International Airlines, a joy to fly (landing optional) pic.twitter.com/apt786MaAn
— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) January 10, 2025
A rabbi and his son were arrested for vandalizing a swastika mural. Are they heroes or hooligans?
Zechariah Mehler wanted to see the swastika for himself.'Behead' and 'bury' Jews: Texas man arrested after threatening email to Jewish funeral home
It was September, and Milwaukee was abuzz over a mural that had gone up on the side of a commercial building in the city’s sixth district. Painted on slabs of vinyl affixed to the brick, the mural — a large rectangle about the size of the building’s ground floor — featured a background that appeared to depict mass graves, weeping mothers, drones and other scenes of carnage in Gaza.
At the center: a Jewish star with a swastika inside it, along with the words, “The irony of becoming what you once hated.”
The city council had passed a resolution condemning the mural, and local Jewish leaders had called to remove it. But the building’s owner, a Palestinian real estate businessman named Ihsan Atta, said he was making a principled stand against Israel’s war in Gaza. When a local mother splashed black paint on the mural and confronted him on camera, yelling, “What are you promoting for our kids to see?” Atta yelled back and had it repainted by the next day.
Any doubts that Mehler had about whether the mural was antisemitic were erased when he visited the site and, he said, saw anti-Zionist protesters harassing Orthodox Jewish teenagers.
“You had the Free Palestine group just screaming at these kids, you know, ‘baby murderers and Zionist pigs,’” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It was aggressive, it was intimidating.”
Taking matters into their own hands
So Mehler — a 42-year-old dreadlocked former tech worker known as “Zee” who used to work as a kosher caterer and run a blog about kosher food — said he decided to take matters into his own hands.
On the night of Sept. 14, he recruited his 74-year-old father Peter, a retired rabbi who is in poor health, to accompany him to the site of the mural. They brought an ax, a sledgehammer and a pry bar and went to work. Moving quickly, the two struck the mural and pulled the vinyl plates off the wall, in full view of Atta’s security cameras. Zechariah turned to one and flipped it off: “Double middle fingers,” the police report would later read.
The pair were derailed — and the incident nearly veered into violence — when a bystander who supported the mural tried to intervene. So Zechariah Mehler returned the following day to finish the job, prying the remaining panels from the wall.
Two weeks later, shortly before Rosh Hashanah, police came to his home. He and his father were arrested and charged with criminal damage to property, which in Wisconsin carries up to nine months of jail time.
Saif Tajiran, 33, was arrested and charged with making terrorist threats after he emailed the owner of Houston Jewish Funerals in Bellaire, claiming he wanted to "behead" and "bury" Jews, the Bellaire Police Department reported on Thursday.Israeli NGO sends team to help fight LA wildfires
While Tajiran was arrested on charges of having made a terroristic threat, the charges been upgraded, and the 33-year-old now faces a hate crime charge, according to police. Antisemitism is at a record high. We're keeping our eyes on it >>
"I would like to help bury Jews so speed the process to bury more Jews. Could I get a job? If you hire me I can work fast and I will save you Jews money," Tajiran allegedly wrote, according to local media. "Think of how great this could be! I will save us more time to bury more [Jews!] If you want I can behead more [Jews] and we can become rich together. You know us [Jews] have no morals, values and that we only care about ourselves! Yeshua Yahweh it will be perfect!"
The email was sent on October 29, according to court documents filed on December 23.
Making the arrest
Tajiran's phone number was included in the email, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
When police dialed the number, he allegedly continued to claim “he could help to bury Jews and so on,” before hanging up.
Tajiran is held in Harris County Jail on a $50,000 bond, according to court records.
Israel-based humanitarian aid and disaster relief organization SmartAID has dispatched teams to help fight devastating wildfires in Los Angeles, California.B’nai B’rith launches disaster-relief fund for Los Angeles wildfire victims
The wildfires that stretch from the Pacific Coast to Pasadena have already forced tens of thousands of residents to flee their homes. At least five people have so far been confirmed as dead due to the fires.
SmartAID said it will be working with local partners and first responders, including fire departments and grassroots charities, to assist the evacuees and help extinguish the spreading flames.
The NGO said it was reaching out to its sponsors to expand its solar-telecommunication trailer fleet specifically for Los Angeles and greater California. SmartAID specializes in delivering innovative technology to the field.
The organization said the trailers are crucial for supporting local partners and communities during the initial response phase until the government can restore basic infrastructure and allow residents to return to assess their homes.
Shachar Zahavi, founder of SmartAID, said the bond between Israel and the United States is “further empowered and strengthened by our shared commitment to global humanitarian aid and technological innovation.”
“With an abundance of innovators, entrepreneurs, and tech professionals in both nations, technology plays a crucial role in enhancing our collaborative efforts and ensuring that we are better equipped to face any challenge together, especially in times of disasters,” he added.
B’nai B’rith International announced on Thursday a disaster and emergency relief fund in response to the wildfires sweeping across Los Angeles, which have driven at least 179,000 people from their homes.
Exacerbated by the Santa Ana winds, the fires spread throughout the Los Angeles area, destroying thousands of structures. The blaze, which originated in Pacific Palisades, has devastated 17,000 acres so far and is now the most destructive wildfire in the city’s history. The fires are still largely uncontained, according to city officials.
Noah Farkas, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation Los Angeles, told JNS on Wednesday that fires destroy more than property.
“They devastate memories, connections to places,” he said. “It’s hard to go back to a park where you used to play with your family and have that just be gone.”
JP Morgan Chase estimates the economic losses from the fire to be roughly $50 billion and will continue to rise. At least five people have been confirmed dead, but the total death toll is currently unknown.
The Kosher food pantry in LA is handing out food to first responders.
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) January 10, 2025
Pray for California! pic.twitter.com/MWHxhAWaPJ
Orthodox Jewish volunteers have prepared over 700 meals for first responders battling the fires in LA. pic.twitter.com/scqL0OKmOU
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) January 10, 2025
Israel prays for Los Angeleshttps://t.co/Mq9eJibeK1 pic.twitter.com/bxNOZB9BJn
— J.Majburd (@JonathanMajburd) January 10, 2025
US students launch initiative to support wives of IDF reservists
American students volunteering in Israel launched an initiative to show appreciation to wives of reservists in the Israel Defense Forces serving in Gaza and Lebanon.StandWithUs Festival of Lights 2024 - Full Show
The project is a collaboration between the IS-Resilient organization and the OU-JLIC (Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus) student association.
The volunteers, mostly university students, visited the homes of soldiers from reserve units stationed on the Gaza and Lebanon fronts. With the wives managing their households alone, the students provided them with much-needed support by checking on their well-being, delivering gift cards, and offering gratitude for their sacrifices.
A Jerusalem resident whose husband is stationed at the northern border shared her experience after the visit: “Just when I had hit rock bottom and felt completely overwhelmed, three sweet Americans knocked on my door. … They handed me a card that said: ‘Thank you for your husband’s service and for keeping us safe all this time.'”
“After Oct. 7, I felt like I wanted to do more,” Hodaya Camargo, a student from Miami, shared. “I can’t describe the excitement I felt when I saw the light in the eyes of the women whose husbands are fighting right now. It was an incredible experience because I wanted to connect more closely with the people who are fighting for the entire Jewish nation.”
The Israeli Consulate in New York and the Foreign Ministry launched a campaign in Times Square to raise awareness about the issue of the hostages. A giant sign reads: "A daily reminder - in the dark tunnels of Hamas, 98 innocent people - babies, women, men and the elderly -… pic.twitter.com/ACM6N0Zr8f
— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) January 10, 2025
Buy EoZ's books on Amazon! "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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