Wednesday, January 22, 2025

01/22 Links Pt2: The Red Cross is humiliated as it again serves murderers of Jews; BDS: Twenty Years of Failure; Elbit systems hits record highs as global defense budgets surge

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: A Breakthrough in the Fight for Jewish Students’ Civil Rights
Good news for once out of Harvard. The university has settled two anti-Semitism-related lawsuits with agreements that will require concrete action instead of vague promises of better behavior. It will make students’ BDS demands dead-on-arrival. And it may be a model for future such settlements—an outcome that would go far toward helping American higher education finally break its intifada fever.

“It’s a terrific result and I think it’s going to be really influential,” Daniel R. Benson, of Kasowitz Benson Torres, told COMMENTARY today. The firm represented Students Against Antisemitism, one of the plaintiffs. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law represented the other. (Benson is a member of COMMENTARY’s Board of Trustees.)

Among the more significant outcomes of the case is that Harvard will be adopting the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism to govern its anti-harassment and non-discrimination rules. The definition, as worded by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, is the mainstream Jewish community’s preferred definition: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The IHRA definition is often described in the press as “controversial,” but what that really means is “misunderstood.” Along with the definition, IHRA includes examples of anti-Semitism. Among those examples are expressions of anti-Israel bias that “may” amount to anti-Semitic intent when they form the basis of discriminatory acts. The definition does not outlaw speech; it merely makes it more difficult for anti-Semites to hide their bigoted intent. This cynical excuse has been responsible for enabling universities to violate Jewish students’ civil rights at will; the Harvard settlement therefore makes it less likely that Jews will openly be treated as second-class citizens on campus.

The settlement also aims to end the broad use of obvious euphemisms to get around non-discrimination statutes, especially when it comes to the anti-Jewish loyalty oaths some university groups around the country have begun requiring from their prospective members. The university handbook will make explicit that those rules apply to both Jews and Israelis, and it will include the following explanation: “For many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity. Conduct that would violate the Non-Discrimination Policy if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the policy if directed toward Zionists. Examples of such conduct include excluding Zionists from an open event, calling for the death of Zionists, applying a ‘no Zionist’ litmus test for participation in any Harvard activity, using or disseminating tropes, stereotypes, and conspiracies about Zionists (e.g., ‘Zionists control the media’), or demanding a person who is or is perceived to be Jewish or Israeli to state a position on Israel or Zionism to harass or discriminate.”

The settlement, if implemented properly, would bring Harvard into compliance with Title VI civil-rights protections. It also might encourage other universities to do the same. Having seen where the process got Harvard, other schools might save themselves the effort and expense required to fight against applying civil-rights laws to Jews.
Key to Middle East peace is accepting the past
For decades, the Palestinians and their allies have launched wars they then lose and complain to everyone about losing. It never seems to strike them that a better idea might be not to launch these wars.

In the West, the various campaigns that express solidarity to Palestinians are not, in fact, showing them any solidarity at all. They have their own agenda about their own power and status and which uses Palestinians as a rhetorical prop. And they are misleading the people they pretend to support. They are like a friend who would advise me to throw up my life, pick up a gun and go and invade Lviv by myself in the name of Marshal Pilsudski and his brigades of Polish legionnaires.

These western-based supporters provide solidarity only for the most violent rejectionists and leave bereft those people in Palestine itself who might be willing to come to terms with both reality and Israel. For as long as Palestinians hold out hope that there will be a Palestine “from the river to the sea” there will be war and death, however hard we all work to prevent such calamities, such horror.

Any protester chanting this slogan is encouraging others to go to their death, and to go and kill innocent people, while themselves promising only to write a cross message on a piece of cardboard and wave it outside the Garfunkel’s restaurant near Trafalgar Square.

This is all worth saying because what we have now is a ceasefire and not a peace. It is the duty of Israel’s supporters — people like me — to insist that Palestinians must be allowed the dignity of their own state. And we will. But our insistence will come to naught if Palestinians are not urged equally firmly to accept that they must live in peace with their Jewish neighbours. This means financial compensation and not a right of return, which is a practical impossibility.

This war is so unnecessary and so tragic. And this ceasefire is so fragile. There will not be peace until everyone makes their peace with history and reality.
The Red Cross is humiliated as it again serves murderers of Jews
It took more than a month before the American Red Cross said the ICRC was pursuing “every possible avenue to secure the release of all remaining hostages.” It would remain silent, however, because its experience—ignoring the Holocaust—was that it was most effective if it kept a low profile. Well, it succeeded in making its profile invisible while not gaining the release of a single hostage or providing them with assistance.

For the transfer, they showed up as if they were heroes when they were essentially Uber drivers taking the former hostages a few miles to an awaiting military helicopter.

First, though, they played a part in the grotesque Hamas spectacle in which heavily armed masked terrorists in freshly laundered uniforms delivered and surrounded the hostages. Hundreds of jeering civilians lined the streets celebrating the dehumanization of the women right to the end of their ordeal. Civilians, including children—frequently portrayed as innocent victims of “genocide”—actively participated in the degradation of survivors of the Hamas massacre.

The Israelis were given “goodie bags” as if they were leaving a bat mitzvah, but instead of shouts of mazel tov! they heard only blood-curdling chants of Allahu Akbar. The Red Cross literally endorsed this farce by co-signing Hamas-drafted “certificates of release” that the hostages were forced to sign before posing for photos holding the documents with their captors.

You must give Hamas credit; their skill in media manipulation has not diminished with their loss of power. The terrorists carefully stage-managed the handover with their Al Jazeera collaborators to show pictures designed to give the world the impression of widespread support and military resilience. For their supporters, Hamas wanted to pretend that thousands of fighters survived the war to pursue their goal of committing repeated massacres. Aerial photos later revealed the crowd was no more than a few hundred people crammed into a narrow street that was part of a calculated media strategy to portray Hamas as victorious despite its decimation.

At this point, the least the Red Cross can do is to ensure that it does not participate in another terrorist photo op to promote the Hamas narrative. The organization, backed by the United States, Qatar and Egypt, must ensure that future transfers occur in neutral, secure locations with no armed personnel or civilian onlookers. Hamas has managed to keep the location of the hostages secret for this long; let them maintain that secrecy for the point of exchange.

The Red Cross should not allow its reputation to be dragged further through the mud by being a party to the disgraceful abuse of innocent Israelis who miraculously survived months of torture and abuse without its medical or any other assistance.


Shabbos Kestenbaum: As a Harvard Jewish student, I know Elise Stefanik is the right person to fight antisemitism at the UN
It was a question heard around the world.

"Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard University’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?"

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik’s relatively simple question at the House Committee on Education & the Workforce Committee hearing on antisemitism was not meant to be a trick question.

Yet, in a remarkable moment that exposed the antisemitic rot infecting America’s higher education, the then morally bankrupt university presidents of MIT, Penn and my alma mater Harvard testified that the calls for genocide of Jewish students could be acceptable "depending on the context."

Stefanik’s question was unfortunately not hypothetical. The bullying and harassment of Jewish students on American campuses has gone relatively unchecked as administrators give preference to those who chant "Death to America" and call for the genocide of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. I know because I have seen it firsthand as a Jewish student on Harvard University’s campus over the past year.

Since the Hamas invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, there has been an explosion of antisemitism on "elite" American college campuses. At Harvard alone, a Jewish student was spat on, an Israeli student was asked to leave class because her nationality made classmates "uncomfortable," and another Israeli was assaulted at the business school.

‘They’re feeling threatened’: Jewish students in New York reflect on antisemitism, October 7 anniversaryVideo I personally was taunted by a staff member with a machete and challenged to debate the Jewish involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, hostage posters were defaced almost daily, and professors published antisemitic cartoons without facing disciplinary action or accountability.

Jewish students were meant to grin and bear it, forced to feel unsafe at the learning establishment they had chosen to call home.

Across campus, Harvard students illegally set up encampments, cheered thunderously when they replaced the American flag overlooking Harvard with that of Palestinians, screamed about globalizing the intifada, screamed at all hours of the day that "Palestine will be Arab," established their own rule of law on campus, and followed us Jews on our way to class.

UN Watch exec director 'confident' in Elise Stefanik's ability to serve as UN ambassador Video Harvard refused to acknowledge these incidents publicly or failed to address them for months, and still did not discipline the perpetrators.

As American values eroded on college campuses this last year, a steadfast, often lone, voice of moral clarity has emerged: Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.

During my first congressional testimony, Stefanik quietly pulled me aside. "This is my contact info," she said," "if the Harvard Jewish community is ever in trouble, call me."

Once again, Stefanik was not speaking hypothetically.

In the last year, the congresswoman has kept her door open for the American Jewish community and advanced legislation that would alleviate Jewish students' concerns on college campuses. As a fellow Harvard "Crimson" graduate, she has brought necessary global attention to the plague of antisemitism and anti-Israel hate that has embedded itself in once-acclaimed institutions of learning.

From her direct questions at congressional hearings to her daily reminders she posts concerning the plight of the more than 100 hostages still being held hostage by Hamas, the congresswoman has proven herself to be a fighter, leader, and yes, a friend.

This is all to say President Trump’s decision to nominate Stefanik as ambassador to the United Nations is a terrific one.

Like Harvard, the U.N. has become a bastion of antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda.
BDS: Twenty Years of Failure
Over that period, Israel has overtaken all the major European nations in terms of GDP per capita and now boasts the 8th highest GDP per capita in the world, of all nations with 10 million population.

Far from being isolated, the Israeli passport is now one of the most powerful in the world:

Israelis have visa-free or visa on arrival access to 170 countries, making the Israeli passport 19th in the world.

Over the 20 years since BDS was founded, Israel's population has surged from 6.8 million to over 10 million. It remains the only OECD country with a stable population pyramid and an above replacement birthrate.

Its currency has steadily strengthened against major currencies, and Israel now holds foreign reserves of $210,000,000,000, fourth in the world per capita among major economies.

Since the BDS movement started campaigning for people to stop buying Israeli exports, Israel's exports have doubled.

And despite all the propaganda, people still prefer Israel over her enemies, and by large margins.

Since BDS started its campaign Arab nations, previously hostile to Israel, have signed peace treaties with it. Treaties that even survived the Gaza War.

But don't forget, just because they failed doesn't mean BDS is not an antisemitic organization: This is Omar Bhargouti accidentally explaining why: They would oppose a Christian State or a Muslim State but they don't, despite 70 options. Just the Jewish one.

When you uniquely single out Jewish people, organizations, or nations for opprobrium, you are antisemitic. In fact, that is the definition. So it is not surprising then, that BDS, like so many Jew-hating groups before it, has failed in its mission.
Elbit systems hits record highs as global defense budgets surge
When the Russia-Ukraine War broke out in early 2022, the share price of Israeli defense electronics company Elbit Systems. rose on expectations of an increase in European defense budgets. Less than two years later the war in Israel broke out but then Elbit's share price trod water for months while other defense companies traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) soared by tens and even hundreds of percent.

However, in the past six months Elbit's share price has gained upward momentum. Since the end of June the company's share price has jumped almost 70% to all-time record highs, giving it a market cap of $13.3 billion.

On Wall Street, Elbit Systems has become the fourth most valuable Israeli company after Teva Pharmaceuticals and cybersecurity companies Check Point and CyberArk. In recent weeks Elbit has leapfrogged Mobileye, Wix and NICE Systems.

Elbit has been managed for more than a decade by CEO Bezhalel Machlis. The company's controlling shareholder is Michael Federmann with a 43.9% stake currently worth $5.8 billion.

As of today, there are no other parties-at-interest in the company, but in previous years Canada's Bank of Nova Scotia held over 5% of Elbit Systems shares through its asset management company, but it sold a significant portion of its stake amid anti-Israel protests, which put pressure on Elbit shares, especially in early 2024. After the bank sold most of its holding, this pressure seems to have eased. According to the latest report, at the end of the third quarter the Canadian bank held 1.25% of Elbit shares, compared with 4.2% at the end of 2023.

The ceasefire won't have an influence
What has caused the stock to rise, and what is expected now that the ceasefire has taken effect? Leader Capital Markets analyst Ilya Fainer says "Elbit has risen because the business environment is very positive and strong. We are seeing an increase in defense budgets in many countries and an increase in defense procurement — of course also in Israel with a jump in the volume of Elbit's deals with the Ministry of Defense.

"Now, with Trump taking office as US president, he is putting pressure on NATO countries to increase budgets from 2% to 4% and even 5% (NATO countries are obliged to invest 2% of their GDP in the budget, and now Trump is talking about increasing the target). This raises expectations in the market for continued strength in the business environment and for Elbit to receive more orders."

He believes that even with the ceasefire, Elbit will continue to operate vigorously. "We do not expect the ceasefire to lead to a slowdown in procurement, but on the contrary, it will continue and intensify. The Ministry of Defense signed a billion-shekel contract with Elbit to establish a new factory that will reduce dependence on overseas production. Even if the war in Ukraine ends — which is currently not in sight — the understanding is that we are heading into years of resupply and a positive cycle in the defense sector, which will lead to an increase in Elbit's results in the coming years."


Google reportedly ‘rushed’ artificial intelligence to Israel after Hamas attack
Google “rushed” access to its artificial intelligence tools Vertex and Gemini to Israel after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

“Internal documents show Google directly assisting Israel’s Defense Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces, despite the company’s efforts to publicly distance itself from the country’s national security apparatus after employee protests against a cloud computing contract with Israel’s government,” the Post reported.

Per the documents that the Post secured, a Google staffer told the company that Israel would “turn instead to Google’s cloud rival Amazon, which also works with Israel’s government under the Nimbus contract,” if Google “didn’t quickly provide more access.”

Google fired more than 50 staff members, who protested the company’s multibillion-dollar, cloud computing Nimbus contract with the Israeli government.

Google has said that the Nimbus contract is “not directed at highly sensitive, classified or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services,” per the Post.

“The documents obtained by the Post do not indicate how Israel’s military used Google’s AI capabilities, which can be used for tasks such as automating administrative functions far from the front lines,” the publication added.


A Decade Later, Progress in the Case of the Buenos Aires Bombing
In 2004, an Argentine prosecutor named Alberto Nisman began an investigation into Hizballah’s 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires AMIA Jewish center, which killed 84 people. His much obstructed, yearslong investigation uncovered direct Iranian involvement as well as an effort at the highest levels of the Argentinian government to cover up this involvement. In 2015, Nisman died under highly suspicious circumstances and his death was ruled a suicide. But unlike its predecessors, the current government of Javier Milei is not invested in suppressing Nisman’s findings, and there has at last been a breakthrough. Ben Cohen and Toby Dershowitz write:

On January 10, 2025, an Argentinian federal court’s investigation affirmed that Nisman’s death, which some had sought to depict as a suicide, was in fact a murder. The report concluded that Nisman was murdered because of his work investigating the role of Iran in the bombing and that of the Argentinian president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in a cover-up during her time in office.

Judge Eduardo Taiano, leading the investigation into Nisman’s death, revealed a litany of suspicious activities. The day before he was found dead, thousands of electronic files related to the AMIA bombing were destroyed in a fire in the presidential offices. Nisman’s guards abandoned their posts for twelve hours prior to his body being found. Nisman’s computer consultant with suspicious connections, Diego Lagomarsino, owned the pistol used to kill Nisman. . . . Taiano also confirmed that Nisman’s assailants, whose identity Taiano committed to pursuing, shot him in the bathroom of his apartment using Lagomarsino’s gun and then placed his body in a position to “simulate a suicide.”

Ten years after Nisman’s murder, and 31 years after the AMIA bombing, no one has been convicted of either crime. Nisman’s investigation and Taiano’s report point to the roles of senior Iranian and Argentinian officials. As the truth emerges, so must the wheels of justice now turn.
Jonathan Tobin: Why Trump-haters need to believe that Elon is a Nazi
Hypocrisy on the left
To conservatives, like author and columnist David Harsanyi, the attacks on Musk were as disingenuous as Democratic accusations of fascism thrown at Trump. He replied to Nadler: “Not a single person on this planet believes Musk gave a Nazi salute.” For talk-show host Hugh Hewitt, it was just another sign of “TDS”: Trump derangement syndrome.

Hewitt is right about that. But what’s really troubling is not so much that Musk is being treated unfairly because he supports Trump. Musk often shares his opinions on a host of issues, and some of what he says is wrongheaded. But he is far too rich and powerful for any wave of left-wing outrage to have much of an impact on him, let alone result in his cancellation.

The problem this kerfuffle exposed is how willing many on the left are to weaponize charges of antisemitism against their political enemies despite not caring about the issue of Jew-hatred.

AOC has repeatedly and viciously attacked Israel. She has expressed support for Palestinian efforts to destroy it and touted antisemitic BDS campaigns. The idea that she has standing to judge the ADL or anyone else as insufficiently concerned about antisemitism is laughable.

Ben-Ghiat is equally hypocritical.

Only a few weeks after the orgy of mass murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction perpetrated by Hamas and other Palestinians in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, she wrote in a Substack post expressing ambivalence as to whether the attacks were terrorism or merely “a tragic outcome of a cycle of violence that started with the Israeli occupation.”

A virulent critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has falsely accused him of being an opponent of democracy and operating from the “authoritarian playbook,” Ben-Ghiat also had no trouble drawing a moral equivalence between Hamas supporters and ordinary Israelis who believe that their country must do everything in its power to eradicate the terror organization and ensure it can’t make good on its promises to repeat the atrocities of Oct. 7.

The political left argues that the antisemitic mobs on college campuses and the streets of American cities chanting for the destruction of Israel (“from the river to the sea”) and for terrorism against Jews (“globalize the intifada”) are not merely defensible but expressing laudable support for human rights. It was a sentiment that Democratic politicians like Harris thought should be “heard” and validated.

Too invested in their rage
But so deep is the anger about Trump and his supporters that even people who do understand antisemitism and ought to know better, like Foxman, are now so invested in their rage about the president that they have lost their moral compass on this issue.

The political left has to believe that Musk and Trump are Nazis not so much because of anything they might have said or done. Their tunnel vision compels them to see anyone they dislike so much as not just wrong but associated with the greatest crime in the history of the world.

This is much like the viral lie about Trump saying that neo-Nazis were “very fine people” that has been debunked but which is constantly repeated by the likes of Obama, Biden and Harris for partisan reasons. It shows the left as guilty of what Israel-haters often accuse the Jewish state’s defenders of doing: cynically weaponizing antisemitism.

Like so many other fake antisemitism controversies contrived by the left, the real damage being done is not to the objects of their accusations but to the cause of fighting Jew-hatred. When people like Musk are damned as Nazis over such foolishness, the victim is the effort to call out real antisemites.

It’s no accident that those who despise Jews often get a pass from people like Harris and AOC, who rationalize and apologize for their ideological hatred of the Jewish state. Their political opponents like Trump and Musk may be flawed, but they are philo-semitic and deeply supportive of Israel. That makes it all the more urgent that they be smeared as antisemites since that’s the only way the world can make sense for those who have come to believe that anyone they don’t like is Hitler.

Anger over Trump’s remarkable political comeback on the left is likely to build, especially because he is starting his second term riding a wave of public approval and support for his stands on the issues that contrast strongly with his popularity eight years ago. But that’s no excuse for those who have done little or nothing to combat the post-Oct. 7 surge in antisemitism to attempt a hijacking of the issue in order to undermine a pro-Israel president and his allies.
ANU student reinstated after declaring Hamas support
A student at the Australian National University successfully appealed her expulsion after declaring unconditional support for terrorist group Hamas, a parliamentary inquiry has been told.

Appearing before a public hearing on Wednesday, the university's vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell also confirmed students accused of displaying the Nazi salute and Hitler moustache online had no adverse findings made against them following an investigation.

She said the "thorough" probe found those reported incidents had not happened.

Professor Bell said a female student who went on ABC radio calling for people to back Hamas, which launched the deadly October 7 attack on Israel, had her expulsion following a disciplinary process overturned on appeal.

"Do I wish that she hadn't said that? Indeed," the vice-chancellor said.

"One of the things that I think demands constant clarity and attention is what is actually capable under the banner of free speech and academic freedom, and I think that's the thing we need to constantly test."

In response, Labor MP Josh Burns - who is Jewish - said he found "that answer absolutely remarkable".


Anti-Israel activists disrupt Israeli history class at Columbia University
About a half-dozen anti-Israel protesters disrupted a modern Israeli history class at Columbia University on Tuesday, on the first day of the new semester.

Elisha Baker, a junior at Columbia who is enrolled in the class, told JNS that masked protesters disrupted the class, taught by Avi Shilon, who is Israeli and is a history lecturer at the university’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies.

“Pretty soon after the class started, a group of masked protesters barged in with a drum, a video camera, a ton of fliers and a speech about how terrible it was that this class was even happening with this Israeli professor,” Baker told JNS.

The fliers read “the enemy will not see tomorrow,” “burn Zionism to the ground” and “crush Zionism,” per images that Baker posted online. (The Israeli embassy in Washington responded to Baker’s post and wrote, “What would Greta Thunberg say about all these flyers they printed in the name of Jew-hatred?”)

Baker told JNS that Shilon is an “awesome professor,” who approached the protesters with a “calm tone” and invited them to stay in his class and learn.

“They ignored him and eventually, after they finished their performative speech, they yelled ‘Free Palestine’ and marched out,” Baker told JNS.

The protesters disrupted the class “to make the point again that they refuse to accept Israel as a normal part of discourse at Columbia University and in the world,” the student said.

“They have been very clear that this has never been about the war. This has never been about a ceasefire. This has never been about politics,” Baker said. “This is about an existential battle that they support to eradicate the State of Israel and remove it from all discourse.”


IDF neutralizes bomb-rigged drone near Yitzhar in Samaria
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that a drone discovered outside of the Jewish town of Yitzhar in Samaria earlier in the day was rigged with a pipe bomb.

Soldiers and bomb disposal experts neutralized the drone and sent it for investigation.

A military spokesperson told JNS earlier that the IDF responded to reports of a possible armed drone. Troops were called to the scene after residents found “a suspicious object in the form of a drone,” the IDF spokesperson confirmed.

Soldiers closed the area until bomb disposal experts could come disarm the object, according to the military.

According to Israel Hayom, the incident marked the second time a suspicious drone has been found in the vicinity of Yitzhar. The previous drone was found to be carrying a mock bomb, residents said.

Locals told the paper that the drone discovered on Wednesday appeared to have been launched from the Palestinian village of Madama, less than a mile north of Yitzhar.
Shin Bet checked Tel Aviv terrorist twice before allowing him into Israel
The terrorist who stabbed four people in Tel Aviv’s Nahalat Binyamin neighborhood on Tuesday had passed two security checks by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Walla reported Wednesday.

Kadi Abdel Aziz, a Moroccan citizen with US permanent residency, had applied for a visa at an Israeli consulate abroad, and the Shin Bet ran background and security checks as part of his application process, the report said.

Aziz landed at Ben-Gurion Airport and was initially denied entry by border control officers and sent to be interviewed by a Shin Bet officer, who allowed him to enter Israel.

Interior Minister Moshe Arbel (Shas) called on Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar “to investigate the serious incident and draw lessons from it as soon as possible.”

US-Moroccan citizen
The Shin Bet on Tuesday said its assessments had not raised any red flags, and there were no security concerns to prevent Aziz from entering the country. Nevertheless, it said the case would be investigated.

A US residency permit and a border control ticket were found on Aziz’s body, indicating that he had entered Israel on a tourist visa on January 18, Israeli media outlets reported.

The Israel Police confirmed that Aziz was killed at the scene of the attack after reportedly being shot by civilians. He was believed to have acted alone.

Aziz was thwarted by an IDF officer who was previously wounded in combat in the Gaza Strip, Israeli media outlets reported.


UN nuclear watchdog warns Iran is ‘pressing the gas pedal’ on uranium enrichment
Iran is “pressing the gas pedal” on its enrichment of uranium to near weapons grade, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday, adding that Iran’s recently announced acceleration in enrichment was starting to take effect.

Grossi said last month that Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it would “dramatically” accelerate the enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, closer to the roughly 90% of weapons-grade.

Western powers called the step a serious escalation and said there was no civil justification for enriching to that level and that no other country had done so without producing nuclear weapons. Iran, which frequently threatens to destroy Israel, has said its program is entirely peaceful and it has the right to enrich uranium to any level it wants.

“Before it was (producing) more or less seven kilograms (of uranium enriched to up to 60%) per month, now it’s above 30 or more than that. So I think this is a clear indication of an acceleration. They are pressing the gas pedal,” Grossi told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

According to an International Atomic Energy Agency yardstick, about 42 kilograms (93 pounds) of uranium enriched to that level is enough in principle, if enriched further, for one nuclear bomb. Grossi said Iran currently had about 200 kilograms of uranium enriched to up to 60%.

Still, he said it would take time to install and bring online the extra centrifuges – machines that enrich uranium – but that the acceleration was starting to happen.

“We are going to start seeing steady increases from now,” he said.

Grossi has called for diplomacy between Iran and the administration of new US President Donald Trump, who in his first term, pulled the United States out of a nuclear deal between Iran and major powers that had imposed strict limits on Iran’s atomic activities. That deal has since unraveled.

“One can gather from the first statements from President Trump and some others in the new administration that there is a disposition, so to speak, to have a conversation and perhaps move into some form of an agreement,” he said.


Seth Frantzman: Over 1,000 tons of missile fuel chemicals head for Iran from China
Two Iranian cargo ships may be seeking to move key chemicals for missile propellants from China, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. The vessels could depart from China in the next few weeks, it said.

The report is based on “intelligence from security officials in two Western countries.”

This information appears to serve as a clear warning to Iran and China about these vessels.

According to the report, “The Iranian-flagged ships – the Golbon and the Jairan – are expected to carry more than 1,000 tonnes of sodium perchlorate, which is used to make ammonium perchlorate, the main ingredient for solid propellant for missiles.”

Iran has suffered some setbacks in manufacturing missile propellants in the last year. Axios reported in October that Israel had struck 12 “planetary mixers,” which Reuters said were “used to produce solid fuel for long-range ballistic missiles.”

Further, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said, “Early satellite imagery revealed that Israel had destroyed solid-propellant missile production facilities at Parchin, Khojir, and Shahroud.”

IRGC to receive missile fuel
The Financial Times report said that this sodium perchlorate “could produce 960 tonnes of ammonium perchlorate, which is 70% of the propellant for solid-fuel missiles. That amount of ammonium perchlorate could produce 1,300 tonnes of propellant, enough to fuel 260 mid-range Iranian missiles such as the Kheibar Shekan or Haj Qassem.

“Ammonium perchlorate is among the chemicals controlled by the Missile Technology Control Regime, an international anti-proliferation body.”

Solid rocket fuel contains an oxidizing agent such as potassium perchlorate or sodium perchlorate. The Kheibar Shekan is an Iranian medium-range solid-fuel ballistic missile.

According to the reports, the chemicals are destined for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

This article in the Financial Times is very detailed and points to a desire for this shipment to be stopped or interdicted by Chinese or other authorities. US President Donald Trump’s administration may be paying attention.

According to the officials mentioned in it, the chemicals are in thirty-four, 20-foot containers loaded on the Golbon.

That ship left the Chinese island of Daishan on Tuesday. The island is just south of Shanghai.As for the Jairan, it “is expected to depart China with 22 containers in early February,” the article read.
Seth Frantzman: 'Gaza has won': Iranian supreme leader claims Hamas was victorious over Israel
“Gaza has won,” Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said Wednesday.

His comments on social media reflect a broader type of messaging from Tehran in the wake of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, which began on Sunday.

For instance, Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on Wednesday quoted a member of the Iranian Expediency Council as saying: “The Palestinian resistance movement emerged victorious in the Gaza war and stands ready to confront the occupying Israeli regime in due time.”

In an interview with Beirut-based Al Mayadeen, a pro-Hezbollah news channel, “Mohsen Rezaei stated that the resistance in Gaza, led by Hamas, achieved victory, enhanced by other resistance fronts in Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq,” IRNA reported.

“According to the Iranian official, the war on Gaza and the developments in Lebanon and Syria were a coordinated plot by the US and the Israeli regime, with potential consequences extending into East Asia,” the report said.


Global antisemitism surged 340% in two years, report finds
The year 2024 was a “peak year” for antisemitism, with a 340 percent increase in total antisemitic incidents worldwide compared to 2022, according to a new report published by the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Compared to 2023, the number of antisemitic incidents nearly doubled. The report used 2022 as its benchmark because it was a relatively normal year, unlike 2023, when Hamas launched its war with Israel on October 7.

The sharp rise “poses a real threat to the foundations of Western democracy, where the new antisemitic discourse erodes the fundamental values of democratic society and creates cracks in the wall of pluralism and tolerance,” said Raheli Baratz, head of the Department for Combating Antisemitism at the World Zionist Organization and author of the report.

The report was presented to President Isaac Herzog in advance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It comes a week after a survey by the Anti-Defamation League found that nearly half of all adults worldwide hold significant antisemitic views.

The report broke the data down by geographical location.

In the United States, there was a 288% increase in antisemitic incidents, peaking in April 2024. The incidents included a number of significant acts of violence, such as the murder of Dr. Ben Harouni in California in March, attacks on synagogues, and violence in schools and universities.

In Canada, the situation was even worse, with a 562% increase in antisemitic incidents, a quarter of which were violent, the report said. Dr. Raheli Baratz, Head of the Department for Combating Antisemitism and Community Resilience at the World Zionist Organization; Chairman of The Jewish Agency, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Doron Almog; and Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, Yaakov Hagoel; present their 2024 Antisemitism Report to President of Israel Isaac Herzog. (Maayan Toaf/GPO)

The trends were equally concerning in Europe. In France, there was an increase of over 350% in antisemitic incidents, with 28% involving violence, the report found. In the United Kingdom, there was a 450% increase in antisemitic incidents, with almost 2,000 incidents in the first half of 2024 alone.

In China, social media platforms were flooded with antisemitic content and conspiracy theories, including Holocaust denial. In Japan and Taiwan, there were anti-Israel protests and Nazi gestures, something previously not common in the region.

In Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva compared Israel’s actions in Gaza to the Holocaust in February, igniting a wave of antisemitic rhetoric on social media. In Chile, there was a 325% increase in antisemitic incidents, while Argentina saw a slight decrease.

South Africa saw a 185% increase in antisemitic incidents, including calls for boycotts of Israel and anti-Israel propaganda. The report noted that the actual number of antisemitic incidents is likely higher than reported.

Australia experienced a sharp 387% increase in antisemitic incidents, with incidents including synagogue arson, property vandalism, and physical assaults.


‘Deep concern’ about anti-Israel, anti-US art, Chicago alderman tell mayor
More than half of Chicago’s 50 aldermen wrote a letter to Mayor Brandon Johnson denouncing a work of art on display at the Chicago Cultural Center that they said is anti-American and anti-Israel.

The work, titled “U.S.-Israel War Machine,” is a sculpture with a painted head, apparently with blood dripping from its mouth, set atop a white T-shirt with long red sleeves culminating in large hands. It is set atop a wooden stand that states, “Don’t look away,” according to a photograph of the work provided by the office of Alderman Debra Silverstein of the city’s 50th Ward. Chicago Cultural Center“U.S.-Israel War Machine,” on display at the Chicago Cultural Center. Credit: Office of Chicago Alderman Debra Silverstein.

The sculpted figure wears a red bowtie marked “Uncle Sam,” and it pours a bucket marked “tears.”

On the shirt, a tank loaded down with all sorts of missiles (some labeled “money”), other tanks, guns, drones and a helicopter, appears to have two Stars of David on its wheels, set within tracked treads.

Among the other inscriptions on the base is the work’s title, “U.S. Israel war machine.”

In a letter that they sent on Wednesday to the mayor, the 27 aldermen—more than half of the Chicago City Council’s 50 representatives—called for the piece to be removed.

They also sought the attendance of Clinée Hedspeth, commissioner of the city’s cultural affairs and special events department, at a special hearing of the city’s special events, cultural affairs and recreation committee “to explain how this artwork was approved and to outline steps that will be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future.”

The aldermen wrote “to express our deep concern and condemnation” of the sculpture, which they said “is extremely offensive to the United States and to Israel and crosses into unprotected hate speech.”

“Such representations normalize anti-American sentiment and promote hatred and bigotry against the Jewish community,” the aldermen wrote.
Moroccan man arrested for ISIS plot targeting Naples Jewish community
A 30-year-old Moroccan man was arrested in Naples for terrorism charges, including affiliation with ISIS (Islamic State) and plans to target the Jewish community in the southern Italian city, the Polizia di Stato said on Wednesday.

In addition to the arrest for “international terrorism of Islamic origin,” the suspect is being charged with “subversion of the democratic order.”

The operation—led by Digos and coordinated by the Naples Public Prosecutor’s Office Anti-Terrorism Working Group, with support from the Central Directorate for Preventive Police—uncovered his affiliation with ISIS and his online promotion of terrorist content.

Investigations have revealed plans for violent acts against the Jewish community in Naples, including intentions to acquire a knife.

Authorities also conducted searches on individuals linked to him.


Lee Yaron’s account of Oct. 7 attacks named Jewish book of the year
Israeli journalist Lee Yaron’s account of the October 7 attacks in Israel and their aftermath was named the book of the year at the 74th National Jewish Book Awards, making her the youngest author ever to win the honor.

The Jewish Book Council, which sponsors the awards, said that 10/7: 100 Human Stories, provides “a vital window into the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how internal political turmoil in Israel has affected it, offering the narratives not of politicians or the military but of the lives of everyday people who lived tenuously on the border with Gaza.”

Yaron, 30, speaking to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last September, said that her impulse to interview survivors, first responders, and eyewitnesses to the attacks grew out of her own grief and sense of shock over the Hamas attacks, which killed some 1,200 people and took hundreds hostage.

“I had a mission, I knew what I needed to do, and I was focused on this,” said Yaron, who divides her time between New York and Israel. “The book helped me to deal with my grief and my sense of hopelessness.”

Yaron is among a number of Israeli authors, as well as books about Israel, due to be honored by the JBC at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan Wednesday evening as part of the JCC’s Books That Changed My Life Festival.

Other winners
Amir Tibon won the award for autobiography and memoir for The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel’s Borderlands, which centers on his rescue by his father and mother as Hamas terrorists invaded his neighborhood at Kibbutz Nahal Oz.

Ayelet Tsabari won the JJ Greenberg Memorial Award for Fiction, her first, for her novel Songs for the Brokenhearted, a family drama that draws on her Yemeni Jewish background. The Hebrew Fiction in Translation award went to Maya Arad for her book The Hebrew Teacher, translated by Jessica Cohen. The collection of novellas largely focuses on Israelis living in the United States.

In the visual arts category, several authors shared the award for 101 Treasures from the National Library of Israel; the Jerusalem-based library last year celebrated its move to a new state-of-the-art building.

“It’s especially meaningful that this year’s awards are going to a number of Israeli authors and books on Israel,” Elisa Spungen Bildner, the Jewish Book Council’s president, said in a statement. “These works offer critical opportunities for engagement, debate, and dialogue for our community–one of the most fundamental roles of literature. We are proud to uplift and support these books and bring them to new readers across the world.”
Eighty years after liberation, both the anguish and the resilience live on
David Frankel was 8 on the cold December night in 1944 when his mother told him to run quickly from her bunk in the women’s section of Bergen-Belsen to his father across the camp. She had good news to share: The Germans had offered to trade more than 1,000 Jewish prisoners for German prisoners being held by the Allies.

His mother was something of a hero in the camp, he also recalls, saving young lives with her breastmilk. “We were on a starvation diet, but when they found out she still somehow had milk for my baby brother, the other mothers came to plead with her to save their babies’ lives.” So every morning, she sent the youngster to the other mothers with cups of milk she had expressed.

Rena Quint was a year older than Frankel when she was liberated from Bergen-Belsen the following April. “I remember lying outside with a high fever since I had both diphtheria and typhus, and I was surrounded by dead bodies,” says the Polish-born Quint, a memory sharp in its feelings and smells despite eight decades that have passed. “Suddenly, there were men in different uniforms—they turned out to be the British—speaking a different language, and they were telling us ‘Go home!’” Rina QuintHolocaust survivor Rena Quint of Jerusalem guides a group of visitors at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, in 2015. Credit: Courtesy.

But that turned out to be easier said than done.

Less than three months before Jews worldwide celebrate their freedom from Egyptian slavery during the holiday of Passover, the idea of being free—and its costs—is on everyone’s minds with the release of three women hostages on Jan. 19 who were held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip for the past 15 months, taken during the terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

And it is right about now that International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27 comes to remind the world that eight decades ago, the remnant of European Jewry—most of them half-dead skeletons, starving and riddled with typhus and other diseases—was released from their Nazi hell.

Liberation officially began in July of 1944 with the Soviet troops who arrived at Majdanek where, as reports have it, they were shocked at the condition of the prisoners. However, the bulk of the liberations occurred the following winter and spring with the Soviet takeover of Auschwitz-Birkenau—the most deadly of all the camps (an estimated 1.1 million were murdered there) on Jan. 27—prompting the United Nations to choose that date in 2005 for annual remembrance observance and ceremonies. Only 7,000 remained alive there (along with 600 unburied corpses); most of the living having been ordered on death marches elsewhere as soon as the Nazis heard of the approaching liberators.

Among the grisly evidence the Soviets found, besides the dead, the sick and the starving: some 14,000 pounds of human hair. David Frankel With Kids in Dining Hall, SwitzerlandDavid Frenkel (far right, front) and his older brother Mordechai Frankel (far left, front) in Switzerland at a dining hall with other children rescued from the Holocaust, 1945. Credit: Courtesy of the Frenkel family.

American forces liberated Buchenwald (prisoners taking charge so the guards could not do any other killing before running off). Spring also saw U.S. forces arriving at Dora-Mittelbau, Flossenbürg and Mauthausen while the British military freed Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen. There, 55,000 prisoners remained alive, though barely. Some 13,000 would die within months from illness and starvation.

Still, most liberation figures fail to account for those hidden by friends or hiding in forests or the tens of thousands deported to Siberia and other outposts of the Soviet empire.

“Being deported, a truly terrible fate, ironically saved their lives,” says Edna Friedberg, senior program curator and historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Edna FriedbergEdna Friedberg. Credit: Courtesy.

But one misimpression is that the Nazis only murdered people in camps, she adds.

Yes, there are haunting photos and even films that show that carnage, but well over 2 million Jews were massacred and buried in mass graves by the Germans with their many local accomplices throughout Eastern Europe. Hundreds of thousands more died of starvation or were murdered in Nazi-enforced ghettos.

Whether they were killed in concentration or work camps or local massacres, however, Eastern European Jewry was destroyed. The large Jewish community of Poland, for instance, shrunk from roughly 3.5 million in early 1939 to 250,000 in mid-1945, a 93% rate of annihilation.
Magnificent hoard of gold and silver coins sheds unprecedented light on medieval Israel
A magnificent assortment of 364 gold and silver coins dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries CE has been unearthed at the site of an ancient rural village in the Galilee, providing a surprising glimpse into life in the Land of Israel in medieval times.

The coins were found in 2018 in two juglets by a collapsed wall next to the late medieval synagogue at Huqoq, Dr. Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill told The Times of Israel in conjunction with the publication of a paper earlier this month in the American Journal of Numismatics by Dr. Robert Kool, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority Coin Department.

“We do not know who the coins belonged to or why they were left there, but what we do know is we are looking at an incredible amount of wealth in a seemingly small rural village,” said Magness. “This allows us to shed unprecedented light on life in the area.”

The two identical pottery vessels — a detail that suggests that they were deposited there at the same time — contained beautifully engraved ducats and grossi coins from the Venetian Republic and dinars and dirhams from the Mamluk Sultanate, which ruled over the Levant between the mid-13th century and the 16th century.

The ancient site of Huqoq is mentioned in the biblical Books of Joshua and Chronicles. It is also known by its Arabic name Yakuk, and is located about three kilometers northwest of the Sea of Galilee next to a perennial freshwater spring. Archaeological evidence testifies that it was already occupied in the Early Bronze Age or 3000 BCE. The modern Arab village Yakuk stood there until 1948.

Magness and her team began excavating the site in 2011 and went on for 11 seasons, concluding their fieldwork in 2023.

“The site had been surveyed but never excavated before,” Magness said over a video call. “When we started digging, one of my hopes was to identify the remains of a Galilean-type synagogue, similar to the one at nearby Capernaum, as we know that Huqoq at the time was a Jewish village mentioned in rabbinical sources.”

The Jerusalem Talmud references several sages who passed through or were from Huqoq, including Resh Lakish and Rabbi Ḥizkiah.

Magness’s wish came true as the archaeologists uncovered an impressive late Roman-era building featuring multicolor mosaics that vividly depict iconic biblical scenes. In the past few years, exquisite artwork portraying Noah’s Ark, the prophet Jonah, and stories from the Exodus grabbed headlines across the world.

To reach the 5th-century layer, however, the team also had to excavate more recent levels. In doing so, they unearthed remains that turned out to be as unique as the late Roman-era synagogue.

“As we uncovered the medieval level, we discovered that in the early 14th century, the original building that had been abandoned was rebuilt and expanded in size,” Magness said. “My assistant director, Dr. Dennis Mizzi, and I argue that the building, 24 meters long by 17 meters wide, was once again used as a synagogue, as we documented in a 2022 article, and this makes it the first late medieval synagogue ever discovered in an archaeological excavation in Israel.”

Ishtori Haparchi, a Jewish physician from modern-day France who traveled through Europe and Egypt before settling in the Land of Israel in the first half of the 14th century, mentions an ancient synagogue with mosaic floors in Huqoq in the chronicles of his journey.

“We believe that he might have seen the original late Roman synagogue before the floors were covered when the building was expanded,” said Magness.




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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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