Monday, January 13, 2025

01/13 Links Pt2: CBS 60 Minutes Platforms Anti-Israel Voices in Skewed Segment; Uproar as Antisemitic Irish president announced as guest of honour at Holocaust event

From Ian:

Meir Soloveichik: Don Pacifico Trump
Considering the inadequate U.S. efforts to free its citizens being held by Hamas, Meir Soloveichik looks to the example of the great Victorian statesman Lord Palmerston:

In 1848, a series of anti-Semitic riots took place in Athens, and a Sephardi Jew by the name of Don Pacifico issued claims for damages to his property. Pacifico had never set foot in England, but he had been born in Gibraltar, and therefore submitted his case as a British subject to the government of Lord John Russell, in which Palmerston was serving as foreign secretary. Palmerston seized upon these claims, as he had already been angered by other purported grievances by the Greek government, and he ordered the British fleet to blockade Greek ports until Pacifico’s grievances were addressed.

This response, Soloveichik writes, reflected a general view of Britain’s role in the world that can “serve as a worthy polestar for the United States.”

The Don Pacifico affair is not the only aspect of Palmerston’s career worth rediscovering; his own approach to freedom and foreign policy has much to teach us today. Palmerston did not believe that free societies could be created overnight, but he did believe that British power ought to be used in celebration, and at times in the defense, of societies that sought to be free.
Biased Science: The Lancet Claims Gaza Casualty Count Underreported
The Lancet has a history of publishing agenda-driven and politicized anti-Israel content that goes way beyond the field of healthcare and medicine.

In July 2024, the medical journal was called out for outrageously claiming that as many as 186,000 Gazans had been killed in the current war. Many media rushed to print dramatic headlines under the imprimatur of The Lancet — a significant error given that the casualty claims came not from a peer-reviewed study but from a letter sent to The Lancet, whose writers included at least one with a history of defending Palestinian terrorism.

Now, The Lancet has published a study claiming the Gaza death toll may have been underreported by 41%. While this time claims concerning Gaza casualty figures appear in The Lancet in the form of an actual scientific study, it still has numerous similarities with the previous claims, namely a reliance on faulty Hamas sources and a disturbing lack of impartiality on the part of its authors, including one who justified Hamas’ October 7 massacre.

The Media Coverage
Throughout the conflict, the media have unquestioningly republished Gazan casualty figures whose ultimate source is Hamas. This, despite adding caveats whenever Israel has offered its own estimates, particularly concerning the number of dead terrorists.

So it’s hardly surprising that numerous outlets saw fit to cover The Lancet’s study.

Disappointingly, given its previous in-depth coverage of the Henry Jackson Society’s study on inflated Gaza casualty figures, The Telegraph‘s report on The Lancet study failed even to mention that the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s data was courtesy of the Hamas-run ministry in Gaza.

The BBC and The Guardian, meanwhile, took the opportunity to blame Israel for not letting foreign journalists into Gaza as the reason why casualty figures could not be independently verified by the media.

These outlets and Reuters did at least include some Israeli reaction (albeit relatively generic), as well as the fact that the study’s figures don’t differentiate between combatants and civilians.

Outlets like CNN and Politico, however, simply parroted the study without any caveat.

But the fact remains that all these outlets should have been more critical of The Lancet’s study, which was thoroughly debunked on social media. Because, unlike those who did the debunking, journalists still have no issue with relying on sources like the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in their everyday reporting, and nor did they do any due diligence on the study’s authors.

Thanks to The Lancet’s professional (albeit undeserved) reputation and the media’s penchant for reporting a source that it treats as beyond criticism, this latest anti-Israel claim has the potential to become part of a narrative that has already accepted disputed casualty figures as fact.


Seth Mandel: The Most Important Moment of Marco Rubio’s Career
Which brings us to Marco Rubio. The outgoing senator from Florida has been nominated by President-elect Trump as the next U.S. secretary of state. The 60 Minutes episode was intended as a rude welcome to Rubio—it was a warning that those who have left are far fewer in number than those who remain and who share Paul’s and Rharrit’s contempt for America’s democratic alliances. And it was an implicit threat that more resignations and more attempts to undermine the elected U.S. government await.

That is a fight that Rubio should be prepared for.

Obviously Rubio, should he be confirmed, will have a lot on his plate—the outgoing administration has not exactly left behind a world at peace. But as a Cabinet member and head of a hugely important department, he is also being placed in a managerial position.

The rot at the State Department is deep. Rubio will have to battle with pro-Hamas rebels, but he must also consider the fact that while Pompeo won many of those battles, there was no reform of the system that produced them. Rubio’s job will be to win internal battles and also to do his best to prevent future such battles from taking place.

Those who resign from the State Department to run interference for Hamas should be replaced by the kind of people who wouldn’t resign from the State Department to run interference for Hamas. In fact, not a single vacancy should be left unfilled. In fairness to Pompeo, he had Senate Democrats slowing down nominations. Rubio will not, at least for the first two years, have the same challenge.

Rubio will face a rebellion at the State Department from Day One. He should welcome it. A working State Department would be a worthy legacy.
CBS 60 Minutes Platforms Anti-Israel Voices in Skewed Segment
On January 12, 2025, CBS News’ hit investigative program 60 Minutes aired a 13-minute segment on three former U.S. State Department officials who resigned from their posts in response to American support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza following the October 7 atrocities.

While the departure of State Department employees in protest of American foreign policy is newsworthy, this segment presents its audience with an imbalanced report by omitting certain salient facts about its interviewees, obscuring important information about Israel’s conduct during the war, and injecting subtle notes of bias throughout the presentation.

Josh Paul & Hala Rharrit: Anti-Israel Voices Within the State Department

The bulk of the report is based on interviews with three State Department officials who resigned over American support for Israel’s war against Hamas: Josh Paul, Hala Rharrit, and Andrew Miller.

While their resignations were portrayed as the result of moral outrage at Israel’s war conduct, 60 Minutes withheld that two of these interviewees have a history of anti-Israel activism and associations with anti-Israel organizations.

Josh Paul, who served as a director in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, was the first State Department official to resign post-October 7, a mere 10 days after the Hamas atrocities and before Israel undertook a full ground operation in the Gaza Strip.

In his resignation letter, Paul condemned both Hamas’ attack and Israel’s response, criticized America’s “one-sided” support for Israel, compared the Hamas kidnapping of Israeli children from kibbutzim with Israel’s detainment of Palestinians involved in violence, and implicitly accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid.”

Since leaving the State Department, Paul has joined DAWN (Democracy for the Arab World Now), an advocacy organization that promotes boycotts of Israel, opposes the Abraham Accords, and supports international sanctions against the Jewish state.

DAWN’s executive director is Sarah Leah Whitson, an anti-Israel activist who dabbles in antisemitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories and who was credited with cultivating Human Rights Watch’s shift to an anti-Israel paradigm. Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and who has openly voiced support for Hamas, serves on DAWN’s board of directors.

It is also interesting to note that while in his position, Paul was responsible for facilitating the transfer of arms to Saudi Arabia during its bloody fight against the Houthis in Yemen. Even though he opposed this action, and spoke against it in official memos, he did not resign his role in the State Department. It was only Israel’s response to the deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust that caused Paul to leave his position.
Former State Department officials tell ‘60 Minutes’ they quit over Gaza policy
Three former U.S. State Department officials told CBS News that they disagree sharply with the Biden administration’s policy toward Gaza, according to an episode of “60 Minutes” that aired on Jan 12.

Josh Paul, a former director of the department’s political and military affairs bureau, and Hala Rharrit, a former Arabic spokeswoman for the department in Dubai, told “60 Minutes” that they quit their jobs over U.S. policy toward Israel, while Andrew Miller said that he resigned as deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs for personal reasons.

Since leaving the department, Miller has become a vocal critic of U.S. Israel policy, and he and the other two guests accused Washington of being complicit in violations of international law.

Miller told “60 Minutes” that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received the message from Washington “that he was the one in the driver’s seat and he was controlling this, and U.S. support was going to be there, and he could take it for granted.”

Asked during the “60 Minutes” program when the war will end, Miller replied: “When Israel says it’s over.”

“There is a linkage between every single bomb that is dropped in Gaza and the U.S. because every single bomb that is dropped is dropped from an American-made plane,” Paul said in the interview.

“What is happening in Gaza would not be able to happen without U.S. arms,” Rharrit said. “That’s without a doubt.” She added that there is “palpable” anger throughout the Arab world.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) wrote that “60 Minutes,” which “recently hid Kamala’s transcript and doctored her interview to help her, runs a disgraceful hit job against Israel.”

“‘60 Minutes’ forgot that Hamas started the war, Hamas still holds American hostages and any damage in Gaza is the sole fault of Hamas,” he added.

In response to a “60 Minutes” post on social media stating “U.S. support for the war in Gaza has put a target on America’s back, says Hala Rharrit, a former State Department official,” the conservative columnist Karol Markowicz wrote that “if we just do what the Islamists say, they wouldn’t have to hurt anyone.”


Norway to host 3rd meeting of ‘international alliance’ pushing for Palestinian state
Dozens of countries will send delegates to Norway on Wednesday as part of a global alliance aiming to find a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Norway’s foreign ministry said on Monday.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, the head of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini, and UN envoy to the Middle East Tor Wennesland are among those due to attend.

It will be the third meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, which was announced in September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. The first two meetings were held in Saudia Arabia in late October and in Brussels in late November.

“While we must continue to work for an end to the war (in Gaza), we must also work for a lasting solution to the conflict that guarantees self-determination, security and justice for both the Palestinians and the Israelis,” Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in a statement.

“There is broad support for a two-state solution, but the international community must do more to make it a reality.”

Representatives of more than 80 countries and organizations are expected to take part in the meeting, though no official Israeli delegation has been announced.

Israel was angered when several countries — including Norway — decided to recognize the Palestinian state in May last year.

The war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s brutal October 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel, has revived discussions of a two-state solution. But analysts say the possibility remains more remote than ever, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — backed by US President-elect Donald Trump — opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Jewish uproar as ‘antisemitic’ Irish president announced as guest of honour at Holocaust event
Irish President Michael D Higgins has been criticised by the leader of the country’s Jewish representative body and the chief rabbi for agreeing to deliver the keynote address at the National Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration.

The president, who Israel’s foreign minister accused of being an “antisemitic liar” in December, is set to speak at the national memorial event in Dublin on January 26 which will mark the 80 year anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Maurice Cohen, chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, said: “It would be inappropriate for President Higgins to deliver the keynote speech at Holocaust Memorial Day. This solemn occasion demands respect, sensitivity, and a commitment to honouring the memory of victims.

“His participation risks offending many in the audience, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who expect dignity and unity on such a significant day.”

Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder added: “President Higgins has neglected even to acknowledge the scourge of contemporary antisemitism in Ireland, let alone do anything to address it. He has failed to take seriously the concerns put to him by representatives of the Jewish community, and back in May he described talk of antisemitism in Ireland as ‘a PR exercise’. With that attitude, I fear his address marking Holocaust Memorial Day will inevitably ring hollow for many Irish Jews.

“It is so important that Irish politicians and public figures come together to honour the memory of victims of the Holocaust. Yet the awful irony is that many of them are turning a blind eye to a troubling increase in anti-Jewish hatred in Ireland today.”

Last year, Higgins used his HMD address to call for a ceasefire and “realising the rights of the Palestinian people.”

Since Hamas’s attack in southern Israel on October 7 2023 and Israel’s war in Gaza, Higgins has come under fire from some members of Ireland’s Jewish community.

In May 2024 Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder said that Jewish families who had lived in Ireland for “six, seven, eight generations” had never felt such a “tension” or “their viewpoint as Jewish people so delegitimised”.

President Higgins had “fail[ed] to realise” this viewpoint, Wieder went on.

"Not a week has passed since October 7 that I haven't had people who tell me they feel they're not able to express their Jewish identity, to express their support [for] Israel.

"Young children, teenagers in university, tell me they have no safe space to express their views, their Judaism, let alone their support for Israel,” Wider said.


UK Antisemitism & Extremism | Inside the Fight With Phillip Rosenberg
In this episode of State of the Nation, Phillip Rosenberg, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, tells us about the challenges facing the British Jewish community in the aftermath of October 7th. At just 38 years old, Rosenberg is the youngest leader in the organization's history and brings fresh perspectives to a community navigating a surge in antisemitism and political extremism in the UK.

The conversation explores the rise of hate crimes, the role of interfaith alliances with British Muslims, and the fight to preserve Jewish identity amid mounting pressures. They delve into the geopolitical ramifications of Hamas's attack, UK-Israel relations, and the broader implications for British society. Rosenberg also shares his optimistic vision for combating extremism and building bridges across communities.

🔑 Topics Covered:
Record levels of antisemitism in Britain
Challenges of Jewish-Muslim interfaith efforts
UK government's response to extremism
Insights on British and international attitudes toward Israel
The future of the British Jewish community

0:00 - Coming up
0:16 - Monologue
1:51 - Welcome
4:14 - Sustaining morale in Jewish Community
7:49 - The Ghost of Jeremy Corbyn
14:34 - Interfaith work and national security
18:58 - UK Muslim community
27:53 - Eylon at Oxford
32:55 - Perceptions of international law
37:58 - Two state solution
43:17 - Ultimate resolution of conflict
48:27 - British Jewish culture month




Pro-Hamas Editors Use 'Wikipedia Lawfare' to Ban Pro-Israel Editors
Since August I've described how Wikipedia's highest tribunal, its so-called "Arbitration Committee," has been slowly and reluctantly addressing editor misconduct in the "Palestine-Israel" topic area. That effort is finally winding down, and a key part of the pro-Hamas editors' strategy is clear.

They claim that the main problem in this topic area is not their own behavior, not their "ownership" of articles, not their perversion of Wikipedia's "neutrality" mandate, but widespread, improper pro-Israel editing.

That's right. Your lying eyes deceive. The real problem in articles accusing Israel of genocide and massacres etc etc is excessive pro-Israel editing due to diabolical use of "sockpupeting," in which villainous pro-Israel people create phony accounts to pad talk page discussions to go in their direction.

The fact that discussions in these articles' talk pages never, ever go in the pro-Israel direction, and the articles themselves are notoriously anti-Israel, is never mentioned when pro-Hamas editors push this line. They portray themselves as heroic "defenders of the Wiki" who are a front line of defense against those horrible people, preventing further damage to Wikipedia, further pro-Israel bias.

This nutty claim is made frequently on the arbcom case "evidence" page, in which prolific pro-Hamas editor "Makeandtoss" posted a chart—arbcom loves charts!—to "prove" that the "actual root causes of problem are sockpuppets who are canvassing, stonewalling, coordinating and disrupting."

This claim is absurd on its face, for the simple reasons that all the sockpuppets claimed in that chart were caught, and before they were caught absolutely nothing they did had any lasting or even transitory impact on anything. All were new accounts, all outnumbered, all shouted down.

Most genuine sockpuppeting are easy to catch, because Wikipedia used a device called "checkuser" to determine if someone is using computers with the same or similar IP address to create multiple Wikipedia accounts.

And here's where it gets interesting. If checkuser comes up naught, Wikipedia's pro-Hamas editors have long been able to get accounts banned by claiming that the accounts are editing similar to accounts that were banned a long time ago. This is known as "behavioral evidence." Wikipedia administrators, who are often hostile to Israel themselves, fall for this ruse frequently.


Anti-Israel group reportedly pleads for money as lawsuits mount
The Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation, or WESPAC, which funds anti-Israel organizations like National Students for Justice in Palestine and Within Our Lifetime, is in dire fiscal trouble, according to a fundraising email that The Times of Israel reported exclusively.

“WESPAC’s work has taken on enormous significance since Oct. 7, 2023, as the injustice of apartheid has turned to genocide in Gaza,” WESPAC wrote in the fundraisers, per the publication. “The well-funded forces of darkness are now waging legal warfare against us.”

“Is the end of WESPAC near?” wrote Gerald Steinberg, founder of NGO Monitor. “WESPAC is the funnel for secret funding to pro-Hamas hate groups: Students for Justice in Palestine, U.S. Palestinian Community Network, Adalah-NY, the Palestinian Youth Movement, etc.”

“Incredibly proud to be one of the ‘forces of darkness’ bringing down WESPAC,” wrote Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center. (He noted that most of the cases against WESPAC, based in New York, have been brought by the center and its partners.)

“Here is a fun idea,” he added. “Instead of raising money for a legal defense fund, maybe they should just stop supporting bad guys?”

In May, the chairs of the U.S. House Oversight and House Education Committees asked the U.S. Treasury Department to provide information on 20 organizations connected to Jew-hatred on campuses. Students for Justice in Palestine and Within Our Lifetime were on that list.

“In my home state of New York, there’s a group called Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation, otherwise known as WESPAC, which has been rearing its ugly head a lot,” Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) said during a hearing in July.

WESPAC “has acted as a fiscal sponsor for many antisemitic, anti-Zionist organizations, such as Students for Justice in Palestine and Within Our Lifetime,” she added.
Israeli flight attendant sues Delta, says fired for complaining about workplace antisemitism
Another Israeli flight attendant has filed a lawsuit against Delta Airlines for discrimination against Jewish employees and alleged antisemitic behavior by co-workers.

In a lawsuit filed in late last month in a New York court, flight attendant Sharon Lavy claims that after she complained about antisemitism at the company and Hamas-supporting flight attendants, Delta began "ambush tactics" against her with a “series of unfounded and bizarre allegations regarding her in-flight conduct," which ultimately led to her firing after 18 years of employment with the company.

Delta Air Lines is facing several lawsuits filled by Israel and Jewish flight attendants
The orchestrated campaign against her, according to the lawsuit, even included a deepfake video (a fake video created using artificial intelligence technology – AI) that supposedly showed her working on a plane that she was never trained to work on. She was also accused by the company of eating steak in front of passengers during boarding and being too busy chewing to read the required announcements on the public address system. It was also alleged that she used her cell phone at unauthorized times, refused to serve coffee to a passenger and sent him to make it himself, and that she kicked a coworker. According to her, all of these incidents were invented in order to exact revenge.

Lavy, who was promoted over the years to the position of flight service manager, was named in a similar lawsuit filed in November by her Israeli colleague, flight attendant Roey Segev. The two employees, who have since been fired, claim they suffered harassment because of their roles as bilingual flight attendants responsible for Hebrew-speaking passengers on the plane. According to the lawsuits, the two were criticized for taking too long to speak to Hebrew-speaking passengers, instead of providing prompt and courteous service to other passengers.

According to Lavy, the cabin manager behaved in a hostile manner toward her and Segev for antisemitic reasons, and completely ignored problems with the non-Jewish crew. In one instance, on a flight to Tel Aviv, the cabin manager demanded that they help her with tasks that were not within their scope of responsibility, and when they refused, she began to attack the two, shouting hysterically in front of the stunned passengers. She then refused to allow them rest time as required by regulations because "that's what I said."

In the lawsuit, Lavy also describes how she was accused of kicking or "touching with her foot" another flight attendant. When she requested additional information about the incident, such as the date or flight number, Delta allegedly refused to provide these details. In addition,it was alleged that Lavie used her cell phone in a way that endangered the flight and that she ate in front of passengers instead of greeting them upon boarding the plane. Lavie denied these allegations, noting that even an inexperienced flight attendant would not have behaved in such an unprofessional manner.
Employee at ‘civil service training’ provider suspended after suggesting Jews worship ‘Satan’
An account manager at an organisation which trains top civil servants has been suspended after a series of antisemitic remarks on social media, the JC can reveal.

Naveed Ahmed Chaudhuri, head of the training portfolio at Government Exchange, which includes Lord Cameron among its previous speakers, suggested Jews worship ‘Satan’, spread a Jewish blood libel and compared Israel to Nazi Germany in posts on X.

The JC was alerted to Chaudhuri’s social media activity after an expose by investigative research group Gnasher Jew.

Government Exchange is part of a wider organisation called the International Centre for Parliamentary Studies (ICPS) and is described online as its “UK training division”.

The training body claims to be at the “centre of Whitehall”, with strong links to Parliament and Government.

Its “highly informative” and “interactive” training courses are focused on Parliament, Government and policy making, and are directed towards civil servants and ministers.

Previous speakers who have been part of ICPS educational programmes include Lord Cameron, former Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, and former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

Its courses have been used by the Home Office, the Department for Food and Rural Affairs, and the Ministry of Justice, according to the ICPS website.

Chaudhuri was a head of department at Government Exchange since 2019, according to an online bio. He was an account manager and was responsible for recruiting clients to sign up to training.

Since being alerted to Chaudhuri’s tweets by the JC, the ICPS has suspended him with immediate effect.

“We have recently become aware of comments made on social media by one of our employees that are not aligned with our company’s values and culture. Effective immediately, this individual has been suspended,” an ICPS spokesperson said.

In posts on X from as recent as December 2024, Chaudhuri has endorsed the belief that Jews worship Satan.


Palestinian ex-Shin Bet informant indicted for murder of elderly woman in Herzliya
An indictment was filed Monday against Ibrahim Shalhoub, from the West Bank city of Tulkarem, on terrorism charges for the murder of 83-year-old Holocaust survivor Ludmila Lipovsky in Herzliya last month.

On December 27, Shalhoub, a former informant for the Shin Bet domestic security service, stabbed Lipovsky multiple times outside of her assisted living complex.

Shalhoub, 28, was allowed to leave Tulkarem and take up residency in Israel after his identity as a Shin Bet informant was exposed. According to the indictment, his family severed all ties with him shortly after he moved, and he decided to carry out a terror attack.

Two days before murdering Lipovsky, Shalhoub purchased a long kitchen knife with which to carry out the attack. He then spent the next day in Herzliya, scoping out an appropriate site for his attack, before settling on an assisted living complex in the city.

The following day, he allegedly armed himself with his new knife and one other knife, and made his way to the site he had inspected the previous day.

Lipovsky was outside when he arrived, having just left the complex to wait for her daughter, who was supposed to be driving her to an appointment.

When Shalhoub saw her, “he drew his knife and stabbed her in the upper body approximately 11 times,” while calling out “Allah is great” and praying in Arabic, the indictment stated. Israeli security forces at the scene of a stabbing attack in Herzliya, December 27, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Shalhoub continued to stab Lipovsky until he was shot and wounded by a security guard from the Israel Post office who had been nearby.

He fell after he was shot, but attempted to get back up and attack the security guard, who fired at him a second time.

Lipovsky was rushed by the Magen David Adom ambulance service to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, where doctors pronounced her dead.

The State Attorney’s Office said on Monday that it had requested Shalhoub be held in prison until the end of legal proceedings against him.

“The defendant is accused of carrying out a murderous terrorist attack, a security offense punishable by life imprisonment, which was committed with severe violence and cruelty,” it said in the request.

According to the Ynet news site, the Shin Bet concluded in an initial investigation that Shalhoub was not planning the attack for any significant length of time before carrying it out, as stabbing attacks are generally unplanned.
Documentary on terrorist Yahya Sinwar’s 'legacy' to be released, Khamenei's media team announces
Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei's media team announced that a documentary dedicated to Yahya Sinwar's "legacy" is in the works, according to a post on X/Twitter from his English official page.

“Yahya Sinwar, a man whose soul continues to fight,” his team wrote in their post.

The tweet included a trailer for the documentary, a biographical film, that will be released on his official website.

No specific release date has been announced.

The trailer informs of content heavily related to the October 7 massacre and includes graphic content from the day.

Who was Yahya Sinwar?
Sinwar was a terrorist and senior member of Hamas' political wing until he was killed by an IDF strike in October 2024. He was also known to many as the person responsible for formulating and carrying out the October 7, 2023 massacre in which Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, alongside many Palestinian civilians, infiltrated Israeli territory and led a rampage that left more than 1,200 people dead, taking around 250 people hostage.

Sinwar was arrested by Israel in 1989 and sentenced to four life terms for orchestrating the killing of suspected informants and spent 22 years in Israeli prison before being released in 2011 as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal.

Once released, he quickly rose through Hamas' ranks. In 2017, he was elected to succeed Ismail Haniyeh as the terror organization's head in the Gaza Strip.


Daniel Gordis: Alahn gets out of the hospital
On July 27, 2024, just about half a year ago, Hezbollah fired a projectile that hit a soccer field in the Druze town of Majdal Shams Israel’s north. The toll was horrific. Twelve children were filled, and forty-two were wounded.

Interestingly, none of the children killed had Israeli citizenship. Israel has allowed the Druze in the north to decide whether they want citizenship, and for a variety of reasons—prime among them the fear that their area might be returned to Syria and that Assad would then punish them for having accepted Israeli citizenship—about 75% of the Druze in then north have declined citizenship.

One of the wounded children, Alahn, went through several surgeries and then rehabilitation at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, and was recently released. The hospital posted a Facebook video of his departure from the department, which has gone somewhat viral on Israeli social media.


Macron leads Hyper Cacher memorial ten years after terror attack
French Jews have faced an explosion in the number of antisemitic incidents since the October 7 massacre in Israel, but the ten-year commemoration of the attack on the Hyper Cacher supermarket on January 9 2015 brought home how serious the threat is.

Security for the memorial for the Charlie Hebdo magazine shooting on January 7 was tight, but it was of a different order of magnitude for the Hyper Cacher memorial. Even Jewish and neighbourhood residents were prevented by police from entering the area. “Only victims, officials or journalists with special authorisation can attend” said police officers.

“Look up, on rooftops. You can see the snipers, can’t you,” said one member of the security forces. “The public was able to approach the Charlie Hebdo memorial, but not this one. There have been many terror alerts due to the war in the Middle East.”

Armed men were positioned on buildings on both sides of Porte de Vincennes avenue, where the minimarket is located. French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister François Bayrou both attended the memorial, which made the event even more sensitive.

Another memorial was held two days later outside the minimarket, organised by the CRIF Jewish umbrella group. Candles were lit in memory of the four men killed in 2015, Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, Philippe Braham and François-Michel Saada. Islamic State affiliated terrorist Amedy Coulibaly had taken shoppers and employees hostage, threatening to blow up the store and kill everyone until police stormed the shop and killed him. The previous day he had shot dead police officer Clarissa Jean Philippe in Montrouge, not far from a Jewish school, which many believe may have been his initial target.

Coulibaly was an accomplice of brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, who killed twelve people in the Charlie Hebdo newspaper two days earlier. The satirical newspaper had been - and still is - under threat for reprinting the danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten cartoons depicting Mohammed.

Candles were lit in honour of all terror victims in the memorial service, including those killed by Hamas on October 7 and those taken hostage.

“I remember that day. Police told us to hide in a room opposite the minimarket,” said Françoise, who lives across the street from Hyper Cacher. “The windows shook so hard when security forces stormed the store. It took months to return and shop there.”

“My father lived here, he was a World War II veteran and he called me, saying that he wanted the terrorists to take him instead of the hostages,” 62-year-old Elise local resident told the JC. “My father said his life was behind him and he wanted to save others. Of course, police wouldn’t let him. He was Jewish and had to wear the yellow star during the war before joining the liberation forces. He was so young.”


80 Auschwitz survivors film life lessons to mark 80 years since liberation
When Auschwitz survivor Aron Krell’s brother Zvi was dying in the Lodz ghetto in 1944, the boy left his family with the final words, “Please never forget me.”

Before the Holocaust, Zvi Krell was a wiry soccer player. But after the Nazis confined the Jews of Lodz to a ghetto, Zvi succumbed to starvation. His brother Aron and the rest of the family were then deported to Auschwitz.

“I lost not only Zvi, but my brother Moshe and my mother, Esther, in the Holocaust. I survived five concentration camps and ghettos — including Auschwitz,” said Aron Krell.

Eighty years after the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27, 1945, Krell is one of 80 survivors who shared life lessons for a social media campaign produced by the Claims Conference. Clips from the survivors will be featured on TikTok and Instagram for two weeks leading up to International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27.

Titled “I Survived Auschwitz: Remember This,” the campaign was inspired by Krell’s commitment to fulfill his brother’s dying wish, according to the Claims Conference.

“I know many people can’t fathom what I have endured. But you can understand loving a brother like I loved Zvi, can imagine the unbearable pain that comes with losing one, and, hopefully, agree that the lessons of the Holocaust must always be remembered,” said Krell.

According to the Claims Conference, this will probably be the last year that the organization will be able “to launch a campaign with the participation of people who are still with us and can testify to the horrors that were there.”

Auschwitz has long been the Holocaust’s central symbol. As the Nazi death camp with the largest number of victims, Auschwitz also hosted Nazi physicians who conducted gruesome medical experiments on inmates.

On Facebook, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum reported that 50 survivors are expected to attend this month’s on-site commemoration. The former death camp is one of Poland’s top pilgrimage and tourism sites, with 1,670,000 people visiting the state museum in 2023.
Drew Pavlou: 100 Year Old Auschwitz Survivor Abram Goldberg | EP 6
Back in July I was honoured to sit down and record a podcast in Melbourne with 100 year old Auschwitz survivor Abram Goldberg. This was a conversation I will remember for the rest of my life - it is something I will hopefully tell my kids about one day.

Chapters
(00:00:00) Introduction
(00:01:00) Before The War: Abram’s Early Life in Poland
(00:08:20) Outbreak of War: Nazi Germany Invades Poland
(00:14:20) Forced Into The Łódź Ghetto
(00:22:20) Life In The Łódź Ghetto
(00:33:10) Concentration Camp Stories - The Lone Sympathetic German
(00:39:10) Auschwitz to Braunschweig
(00:42:44) Liquidation of the Łódź Ghetto
(00:50:37) The Deportation to Auschwitz and Murder of Abram's Mother
(00:53:36) The Insanity of the Nazi Mindset
(00:58:09) Facing Josef Mengele on the Selection Ramp
(01:00:46) Hunger, Torture and the Auschwitz Uprising
(01:05:51) An Iron Will
(01:12:10) Abram’s Liberation
(01:26:55) October 7 and Anti-Zionism




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

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