Friday, January 31, 2025

01/31 Links Pt2: Hamas Has Nothing But Contempt For Its Defenders; Netanyahu Derangement Syndrome; I Went to Israel and Witnessed the UNTHINKABLE! | NFL Icon Nick Lowery Speaks Out

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Netanyahu Derangement Syndrome
The suggestion that Netanyahu has prevented peace with the Palestinian Arabs is risible. As is by now overwhelmingly obvious to all who are not blinded by prejudice, the Palestinian Arabs remain implacably committed to wiping Israel from the map, as they always have been.

In a conspicuous display of amnesia, Davis and Prashker omit the fact—so inconvenient to their Netanyahu-bashing—that the Palestinian Arabs have rejected numerous offers of a state of their own and chosen instead to renew their war of extermination against the Jewish homeland.

David and Prashkar write: “Isolated by war and collective trauma, many Israelis struggle to come to terms with how far we have traveled from our foundational values.”

This bears precious little relation to a country that, devastated by trauma and collective grief, believes in itself because it affirms the enduring values of the Jewish people—a country whose heroic young soldiers have galvanized and inspired it by their blazing love of and admiration for the nation they are defending.

But, of course, the people whose discomfort Davis and Prashkar are really talking about are Jews of the Diaspora who “struggle to process or acknowledge the shifts threatening the Israel they cherish as a source of pride and identity.”

These shifts, they claim, have been such that it was “currently more acceptable in widening circles for a government minister to advocate ‘voluntary emigration’ and the resettlement of Gaza than it is for an opposition leader to assert that secure peace with the Palestinians is in Israel’s strategic interests.”

Since they wrote this, U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested that Jordan, Egypt and other countries might be “persuaded” to take in more than 1 million Gazan Arabs who want to leave. The reason for that suggestion is precisely the impossibility of envisaging a “secure peace” ever coming from Gazans who have been brainwashed from birth to slaughter Jews and steal their land.

Having internalized many of the lies told about Israel, far too many Diaspora Jews, unfortunately, “struggle to process or acknowledge” the fact that their assumed British or American identity relegates their Jewish identity to a marginal add-on now being used against them by people they so unwisely assumed regarded them as one of their own.

It’s perfectly possible to dislike Netanyahu and believe he should step down, and yet recognize the realities of Palestinian rejectionism and the enduring attempt to destroy Israel. Blaming the prime minister for this and for resurgent antisemitism is beyond perverse. It resembles the obsessional demonization of the newly installed American president known as Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Blaming Netanyahu for the Western war against the Jews is a pathological displacement exercise by people who refuse to acknowledge what is in front of their eyes. It’s easier to scapegoat Netanyahu on the assumption that if you get rid of him, then you get rid of the problem.

Of course, it’s entirely legitimate to criticize Netanyahu or his government’s policies. But accusing him of betraying Zionism and Israel’s foundational values is not just criticism. It’s Netanyahu Derangement Syndrome on steroids.
Seth Mandel: Hamas Has Nothing But Contempt For Its Defenders
Let’s be clear, then, on exactly what was happening through the war: Israel was constantly moving large amounts of civilians out of harms way while Hamas was scheming to put those same civilians in grave danger. Hundreds of thousands, we are told, were moved into the humanitarian zone. That is many times the 25,000 or so civilian deaths in Gaza caused by the war. In Mawasi, we now know, Israel was able to save most but not all of the displaced Gazans from Deif’s attempt to get them killed.

Now that hostilities have paused, Hamas is taking stock of what it has and what it has lost. It has lost Deif, but it has gained a bunch of useful idiots for whom it has nothing but contempt. Hamas was very happy to have its advocates repeat its propaganda like caged parrots, of course. And it appreciates the ability to direct foreign media with a wave of its hand. But that very process assures that it will not have much respect for those doing its bidding.

Hamas is much more self-aware than some people seem to think. It knows how evil it is. It knows how unworthy of moral support it is. It knows that it represents man’s inhumanity to man. It knows that every word out of the mouths of its propagandists is a lie. Hamas needs its Western supporters to trust it, but it would never be so foolish as to believe what it says.

For the past 15 months, Hamas has been leading its supporters and its fans and every anti-Zionist with a public profile out on a limb. Now it has sawed off that limb. Watch as all these fools learn absolutely nothing for the next round.
Seth Mandel: Trump’s New Executive Order on Anti-Semitism
Unequal treatment under the law has been at the center of this entire controversy. Jewish students’ civil rights under Title VI have been violated at will on campuses that accept federal funds or are themselves public institutions.

Speaking of Title VI, the executive order begins by referencing an order Trump signed in 2019, the purpose of which was to ensure those civil-rights protections were applied to Jewish students on campus. That’s why there isn’t all that much that’s new about the recent order: The administration is trying to foreclose avenues of noncompliance that schools have been using, with the blessing of the previous administration, to violate Jewish rights.

Institutions seemingly don’t know how to protect Jews’ civil rights, so Trump is spelling it out for them. Elsewhere in the new order, the president suggests the attorney general should make use of a statute known as the “conspiracy against rights” prohibition. This post-Civil War law was designed to address white supremacist groups preventing black Americans from exercising their political rights. (Trump himself was charged under the statute in one of his Jan. 6-related cases.)

In fact, the masked “globalize the intifada” mobs are quite natural heirs to the Ku Klux Klan, and laws enacted to curb their power are a logical source of ideas for those who actually want to crack down on the post-Oct. 7 goon squads using violence or intimidation to negate the constitutional rights of Jewish students.

The Trump administration is making it very simple for those who want to fight anti-Semitism within existing law. We’re about to find out which institutions oppose the very idea of equal enforcement of the law.


How—and Where—to Build an Oct. 7 Memorial
Beyond being an experienced architect and urban planner, Shapira is someone for whom Oct. 7 struck personally. The oldest of her seven children, Aner, 22, was murdered that day. His story is compelling and vital: He and others escaping Hamas’ carnage at the Nova festival took cover in a roadside bomb shelter. Terrorists arrived and sought to kill them by tossing a grenade inside. Seven times a grenade went in. Seven times Aner would pick it up and toss it out, where it exploded. The eighth grenade killed him.

Shapira makes clear that while her Oct. 7 trauma is both individual and part of the larger story, she’s hardly the only one grieving. “For many people in this war, the personal and the national are intertwined,” she said. “The personal part is mine. I don’t want to talk about it.”

While Shapira oversees the project, she didn’t have to look for specialists to execute the tasks. Their work began even while she sat shiva for Aner.

Within days, the Ben Zvi Institute’s staff began documenting and collecting artifacts. The Antiquities Authority sent archaeologists to Eshkol to photograph each affected building and community, from which it’s been building digital models—a process known as photogrammetry. The National Library of Israel is cataloging written and digital materials—even Hamas’ videos of the atrocities it committed—and is interviewing Oct. 7 survivors.

Already, the library has collected 30 terabytes of material, “a massive amount,” said Raquel Ukeles, NLI’s head of collections. “This frenetic activity to collect material before it disappears means that we’re [preserving] memory,” she said.

An independent initiative, Edut 710 (Hebrew for Oct. 7 Testimony), also is interviewing survivors. Edut 710’s co-founder, Itay Ken-Tor, said he hit upon the idea as a filmmaker who’s produced works for Yad Vashem and interviewed Shoah survivors. In both cases, he and his team help survivors “gain control of the story, which is important in dealing with traumatic events,” he said.

Another private initiative, October 7 Memorial, has collected hundreds of thousands of WhatsApp text messages exchanged by survivors and victims within their communities and outside—“and we think we have only 5% of the messages,” said Yaniv Hegyi, a relocated Be’eri resident who launched the project. “In order to tell the bigger story, we have to tell all of the little stories that happened,” he said.

Hegyi’s tale would include texts he exchanged with friends in Mexico and New York while hiding from terrorists in his home’s fortified room with his wife and children.

“There’s something really special about WhatsApp communication,” said Hegyi, an adviser to the communal-kibbutz movement. “I could tell you that I’m scared in my shelter, but if you read my messages to my friends, when I was scared for my life, it’s a different thing.”

To Amy Weinstein, the vice president of collections and senior curator of oral history at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, sharing her professional experiences with Grossman and Shalev Khalifa means paying it forward—as was done for her.

Weinstein was working as a curator at the New-York Historical Society on Sept. 11, 2001, when the institution’s director assigned her to lead the effort to document the massive terrorist attacks perpetrated by al-Qaida that killed 2,977 people. Weinstein proceeded by feel, first gravitating to the makeshift shrine in Manhattan’s Union Square and the “missing” posters people hung to seek information on loved ones’ whereabouts.

“When this [Sept. 11 attack] happened, I said, ‘OK, let’s think what we can save from here that will be helpful to people in the future. You probably overcollect, but you collect what seems evocative of what seems important around you,” Weinstein said when we met in her 16th-floor office across West Street from the World Trade Center memorial and museum, completed in 2014.

So when Grossman contacted her in 2024 to request a meeting on an upcoming visit to New York, Weinstein said she felt “the clocks were turned back to 2001.”

“We wanted to give back, to be supportive, because it’s not an easy thing to do,” she said.

Weinstein thought of her post-Sept. 11 mission. She’d sought guidance and reached out to staff at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, which opened in early 2001 to commemorate the 1995 domestic terrorist attack on a federal building there that killed 168 people; and at the Columbine Memorial, which would open in 2007 to honor the 13 victims of a 1999 shooting at a Colorado high school.

Besides the Israelis, Weinstein has been approached by those planning memorials to victims of two attacks in Norway in 2011 and to those killed in a 2016 shooting at an Orlando, Florida, nightclub.

She said that she’s been impressed with the Israelis’ professionalism and dedication. Israel’s intimacy makes the effort more personal for those shaping the memorial, she said.

“They were doing a much harder job, because they knew the people whose [burned] houses they were in,” Weinstein said. “There is no road map. You have to draw it yourself. Generally, people try to create a tool kit to help the next people.”
Visegrad24: Israel vs. the UN: Danny Danon on Diplomatic Warfare.
Visegrad24 founder Stefan Tompson travels to the United Nations headquarters in New York City to sit down with Danny Danon, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN.

From 2015 through 2023, the UN General Assembly adopted 154 resolutions against Israel and 71 against all other countries. The question has to be asked: what has happened with the UN?

00:00 - Introduction
00:55 - Diplomatic Terrorism
01:43 - UN attacks Against Israel
02:25 - Obsession with Israel
03:13 - Islamism vs Arab states
04:24 - Europe and immigration
06:16 - Qatari subversion
07:38 - Iranian proxy groups
09:00 - Arabs fighting themselves
10:09 - Message for the West


United Hatzalah offers to turn vacated UNRWA site into training center
With the U.N. Relief and Works Agency vacating its Jerusalem compound under Israeli laws that went into effect on Thursday, Eli Beer, founder and president of United Hatzalah, saw an opportunity for the Israeli emergency medical services organization.

Beer penned a letter to António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, on Thursday asking the global body to let Hatzalah use the empty compound as a training facility.

Hatzalah proposes to use the facility as “a training center for emergency medical technicians and as a logistics hub for humanitarian aid, in line with the U.N.’s humanitarian principles,” Beer wrote.

Beer added that Hatzalah’s access to the facility “would greatly benefit all residents in the region, fostering peace and cooperation.” (JNS sought comment from the United Nations.)

“What a great idea,” wrote David Friedman, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, of converting the UNRWA site “from a place destroying lives to one saving lives.”

Friedman tagged Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.N. ambassador, on the post and suggested that she would like the plan. Beer responded that he would like to have Friedman and Stefanik on hand to dedicate the new Hatzalah campus.

Such an arrangement would “help all the people of Jerusalem, the Jews, Muslims and Christians, who need better and faster medical response, especially in East Jerusalem,” Beer wrote. “This could save thousands of lives every year.”

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, also wrote that Beer’s was a “great idea.”

“The United Nations should hand over its now defunct UNRWA compound in Jerusalem to the incredible and true humanitarian organization United Hatzalah, whose Jewish and Arab emergency medics save lives every day,” Neuer wrote.


UNRWA Jerusalem operations mostly intact despite ban
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency’s field office in the Ma’alot Dafna neighborhood of Jerusalem has been cleared out but its neighborhood facilities kept operating on the first day that Israeli law banned the entity from operating in Israel, according to Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general.

“What I know from the conversations I’ve had is that there is very little news to report. There was, in front of our headquarters in the Sheikh Jarrah area, there was a small demonstration early this morning that disbanded very quickly,” Dujarric told reporters during a press briefing on Thursday. “What my colleague told me is that there were more reporters than demonstrators.”

Though vacated, the building still flies the flag of the United Nations, Dujarric said. He added that staff emptied the facility of files, computers and vehicles, and the roughly 50 international staff members, who no longer held valid Israeli visas, went to Jordan. (The U.N. flag has reportedly been taken down and replaced with an Israeli one.)

“My understanding is that the headquarters building is empty of staff. There is some security office, security guards—civilian, unarmed local security company that we contract with that are there,” Dujarric said, “but the UNRWA staff is doing what it should be doing, which is working in the clinics and other other places they work in the region.”

“The humanitarian operation in Gaza continues, including with UNRWA’s work there,” he added. “UNRWA says that it is committed to staying and delivering.”
‘No entity’ can replace UNRWA, E3 claims after Israel bans terror-linked agency
The foreign ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, in a joint statement on Friday, expressed renewed “grave concern” over Israel’s decision to outlaw the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

The statement, issued a day after the legislation that bans UNRWA came into effect, reiterated support for the organization and claimed that “no other entity or U.N. Agency currently has the capacity or infrastructure to replace UNRWA’s mandate and experience.”

On Oct. 28, the Knesset passed, by large majorities, two laws banning UNRWA following the exposure of agency staffers’ complicity in the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and despite pressure from the United States and other countries against the move. The laws came into effect Thursday.

Berlin, London and Paris stressed on Friday that they condemned “in the strongest possible terms the brutal and unjustified terror attacks by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

“All alleged involvement of UNRWA staff in appalling acts in support of 7 October and subsequent events must be thoroughly investigated,” the E3 stated, calling on UNRWA to “continue on its path of reform.”

Reiterating their “full endorsement and support” for the ceasefire deal with the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza, the three countries said they hoped to “play our full part in the coming days and weeks” to leverage the truce in the Strip to restart talks on a two-state solution.

Two surveys in 2023 found that some two-thirds of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria support the Oct. 7 attacks, in which around 6,000 Gazan terrorists stormed the border, murdered some 1,200 people, wounded thousands more and took more than 250 hostages.


South Africa renews legal attacks on Israel as member of The Hague Group
The Hague Group, comprised of nine countries, launched a new legal campaign against Israel on Friday - alleging the Jewish state is illegally occupying Palestinian territory, committing war crimes in Gaza and not abiding by the rulings made by the international courts.

While keeping its plans vague, the collective promised to take “measures to end Israeli occupation of the State of Palestine and remove obstacles to the realisation of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State of Palestine.”

The group is formed of representatives from South Africa, Belize, Cuba, Namibia, Bolivia, Honduras, Senegal, Colombia and Malaysia.

The group’s campaign came after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials over alleged war crimes committed in Gaza. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) also ordered that Israel evacuate all Palestinian territories - including the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem.

The ICJ, which explored the case originally brought forward by South Africa, did not order Israel to end the war in Gaza but a provisional order that Israel must refrain from acts that could possibly lead to genocide.

The case was later joined by Ireland and a number of other countries with less-than-warm relations with Israel, including Ireland. Ireland requested that the definition of genocide be broadened so Israel could be found guilty.

"By legally intervening in South Africa’s case, Ireland will be asking the ICJ to broaden its interpretation of what constitutes the commission of genocide by a State," Ireland's Foreign Affairs Department said in a December statement. "We are concerned that a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes genocide leads to a culture of impunity in which the protection of civilians is minimized."


Commons Speaker calls for inquiry into Westminster Holocaust exhibition ban
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has asked for an investigation into why the sponsor of an application for a Holocaust memorial exhibition in Westminster Hall was informed it was likely to be turned down.

Speaker Hoyle and the other keyholders – the Lord Speaker and the Lord Great Chamberlain – were not involved in the decision-making process as the application was turned down at an early stage, Jewish News can reveal.

The installation, titled The Vicious Circle, was created by Marc Cave and Professor Maiken from the National Holocaust Centre and Museum, told the story of anti-Jewish pogroms from Kristallnacht in 1938 to Baghdad in 1941 and then October 7 2023.

But a decision was made that the exhibit did not fall within the criteria of being politically neutral and could therefore not be displayed in Westminster Hall for an exhibition.

Sir Lindsay told Jewish News: “I had absolutely no knowledge of this request, was never asked about it, and I am disappointed it was turned down without input from the Lord Speaker, Lord Great Chamberlain or myself.

“The Holocaust was one of the darkest chapters in human history. Six million Jewish people were exterminated by the Nazis, alongside the millions of other victims targeted by hate and tyranny.

“We have held five Holocaust Memorial Day ceremonies in the House of Commons since I was elected Speaker, because it is so important that we remember those whose lives were cut short in the most brutal way, and hear the stories of those who survived, even as the burden of memory has weighed heavily on their shoulders.

“I have now asked for the House authorities to conduct an investigation into how this decision was reached. I would also like to meet with the organiser of the exhibition to find out more about it.”

The Speaker has maintained close relations with Jewish communal organisations and last week led an early Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony in Portcullis House, featuring testimony from two survivors.

In a statement the Board of Deputies said they were aware Hoyle was not behind the decision to block the exhibition.

They added: “We are grateful to the Speaker for his concerted efforts to ensure the Parliamentary estate is a welcoming place for the Jewish community.”


In contentious Senate hearing, Gabbard denies meeting with Hezbollah
Tulsi Gabbard, the Trump administration’s pick to head the U.S. intelligence community, faced scrutiny from Democratic and Republican lawmakers on Thursday about her unorthodox foreign-policy views and her meeting with former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

Members of the the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence quizzed the former four-term Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii about her week-long, 2017 trip to Syria and Lebanon, as she seeks to become U.S. director of national intelligence.

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) asked Gabbard why she met with Syrian Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, who threatened the United States and Europe with suicide bombers in 2011 if they attacked Syria or Lebanon.

“I made it a point to meet with different religious leaders, both Muslim leaders as well as various Christian and Catholic leaders who were there in the region,” Gabbard testified. “I did that both in Syria and in Lebanon to hear from them about what their concerns or thoughts were with regard to the war that was being raged at the time.”

Gabbard said she was unaware of the grand mufti’s threat until Heinrich asked her about it on Thursday.

Asked by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) if she had ever knowingly met with members of Hezbollah, Gabbard said “no” and called that idea an “absurd accusation.”

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) was skeptical that Gabbard could have avoided meeting Hezbollah-affiliated officials during her Lebanon visit.

“You said you met with Shia religious figures and you didn’t know who they were,” he said. “I can’t imagine Shia religious figures in the Bekaa Valley that didn’t have ties to Hezbollah.”
RFK Jr denies claim he said Covid was ‘targeted’ to ‘spare Jews’ in confirmation hearing
Robert F Kennedy Jr, President Trump’s pick to be the next US Health Secretary, hit back at claims about previous his comments on the Covid pandemic during a torrid Senate confirmation hearing.

The former Democrat turned Trump ally was quizzed by Sen Michael Bennet of Colorado over allegations that he made antisemitic remarks about the disease when he was a presidential candidate.

A video shared by the New York Post in 2023 showed the nominee, know by his nickname RFK, discussing “bioweapons” at a Q&A following a private dinner.

During the conversation, he talked about the use of “ethnically targeted microbes” which he implied were being developed artificially by both the US and China.

He then said: “In fact, there is an argument that Covid-19 is ethnically targeted. Covid-19 attacks certain races disproportionately.

"Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese [people]. We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted like that or not…we do know that the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bioweapons.”

The clip sparked accusations of antisemitism from Jewish groups, who alleged that RFK had suggested that coronavirus may have been deliberately designed imapact Jewish people less severely.

And at his confirmation hearing this week, he was again pressed on the meaning of those comments during a fiery exchange with Sen Bennet.

The Coloradan lawmaker demanded to know: “Did you say that Covid-19 was a genetically engineered bioweapon that targets black and white people and spares Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people?”

In response, RFK insisted he had never said the disease was “deliberately targeted” and was simply quoting an “NIH-funded and NIH-published study”, reffering to the National Insitutes of Health.

Pushed again on the suggestion that Covid may have “targeted” certain ethnicities, he repeated that he was quoting the NIH’s work.

It is not clear which study he was referring to at the time.
Mr. Van Hollen, it’s time to update archaic views on Israel
Zionism and Israel took center stage in Washington, D.C., with the start of a new Trump administration.

The Senate continues to hold confirmation hearings on President Donald Trump’s nominees for cabinet-level positions and ambassadors. Among them were two positions that heavily deal with the U.S.-Israel relationship: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s hearing for secretary of state and New York Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (both Republicans) hearing to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. One of the senators who questioned them was Chris Van Hollen, the senior senator from Maryland. The questions he asked reflected a dated understanding of Zionism and Israel.

On the day the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas was announced, during Rubio’s hearing, Van Hollen began: “I’m very pleased to see the announcement today of the ceasefire and the return of hostages, let us pray that it holds and that it is implemented. But, of course, as we discussed yesterday, the question is what happens next. We all agree that Hamas can have no role in the governance of Gaza or any other place. We also know that for all its flaws and faults, the Palestinian Authority has recognized Israel’s right to exist for the last 30 years, since the Oslo Accords.”

The senator refers to a concession that the PLO, then a 30-year-old terrorist organization claiming that it had reformed and was interested in peace, made to Israel in 1993 as part of the Oslo Accords recognizing Israel’s right to exist. Some people thought this concession showed that the Palestinians were recognizing the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their historic homeland. As the years went on, it became clear that the Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist meant only that a country named “Israel” could exist, not that the Jewish people had a right to a homeland.

In the words of former left-wing Knesset member Einat Wilf, “Israel is expected to recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination, but somehow it’s a crazy idea that Palestinians will recognize the Jewish right to self-determination.”

Van Hollen is using an incorrect assumption about the Palestinians to credit them for a concession they never made.


Armed guards, private drivers and cameras: Jewish communities spend ‘fortune’ on security
Peter Wertheim, co-chief executive officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said nobody should have to hire private security to feel safe.

“We should all be able to live our lives in freedom and dignity without having to worry about being targeted simply because we have different religious views or different political views,” he said.

“Sadly, that’s not the world that we live in.”

Australian Jewish Association president David Adler said he had spoken to members of the community who had family visiting from Israel who refused to eat at kosher restaurants in Sydney, deeming it “too risky”.

“Australia’s reputation as a safe place for Jewish people has been completely changed and crashed since October 7, 2023,” he said.

“This is extraordinary – people are changing their lives [here].”

NSW Police has increased its presence in at-risk locations. Under Operation Shelter, launched to address community tensions after the October 7 attack, there have been nearly 38,000 “taskings”, in which police patrol areas of concern such as synagogues, mosques or suburbs at risk. More than 5000 of those patrols took place in the past two weeks, with 397 undertaken in the past day.

As of Wednesday, 191 people have been charged with 476 offences under Operation Shelter.


ABC criticised for giving ‘soft’ interview to ‘anti-Zionist’ activist
The Australian’s Media Watch Dog Columnist Gerard Henderson has criticised the ABC over its “soft” interview of Jewish Council of Australia Executive Officer Sarah Schwartz as she is an “anti-Zionist” activist.




What we know about the couple allegedly linked to the Dural caravan15 hours ago
The couple are considered to be on the "periphery" of a broader antisemitism terror investigation, with police suggesting those involved do not appear to hold a "specific ideology" and that there was a level of 'coordination above those perpetrating the offences'.

Ms Farrugia and Mr Marshall have not been charged in connection to the Dural caravan. Both are in custody over other matters and it's unclear what officers were searching for.

On December 6, 34-year-old Ms Farrugia posted on TikTok that she was looking for a caravan to purchase.



"ANYONE GOT A CARAVAN FOR SALE NEED ONE ASAP I'VE GOT $$$$$$" she wrote on social media.

The following month, on January 20, Ms Farrugia was arrested over a separate incident.

The Liverpool woman was accused of taking part in a criminal group that sprayed antisemitic graffiti on homes and torched a car in Woollahra in Sydney's east on December 11.

Prior to the attack she allegedly posted to social media "anyone got any plastic jerry cans plz let me know".

On December 24, police conducted an earlier raid on the Liverpool apartment she shared with Mr Marshall, allegedly seizing knuckledusters, a taser, six cloned number plates, and the keys to a stolen Mitsubishi ASX and drugs, according to police facts tendered to court.

Mr Marshall, 36, was charged in relation to the alleged stolen goods and prohibited weapons. He has pleaded not guilty and did not apply for bail.

Ms Farrugia was arrested and charged over the alleged supply and possession of a prohibited drug and granted conditional bail.

Ms Farrugia later posted on Facebook that the pair had been "raided Xmas Eve he got locked up. Our phones got seized and other things".

"F*** this s*** is killing me not having u by my side or hearing you're voice if I could trade places with u I would love u so much baby Scott Marshall."

Ms Farrugia was arrested again three weeks later over the Woollahra attack and remains in custody.

She is one of 10 people Strike Force Pearl have charged in relation to antisemitic incidents in Sydney.

NSW Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson suggested those alleged to be involved did not appear to be motivated by racism.

"We haven't identified any of the individuals of the 10 we've charged with any specific ideology that would cause them to commit the acts."


Owen Jones dubs knife attacker who ‘hunted Jews at checkpoint’ as ‘hostage’
Guardian columnist Owen Jones used an image of a Palestinian terrorist who carried out a knife attack on Israelis in a video claiming that Palestinian prisoners are treated worse than Israeli hostages taken by Hamas.

The video, titled “Palestinians are hostages, too: the truth covered up by a racist Western media”, initially featured a thumbnail of Sara Abdullah, 26, who was arrested after stabbing Israelis at the southern Huwara checkpoint in June 2023.

Abdullah later told The New York Times: “Nobody told me to do it — I decided because I was so angry about what has happened [in the West Bank].

“I took a knife with me and chose Huwara because it’s close and there are many Israeli settlers and Jews at the checkpoint.”

She was released last November as part of a ceasefire deal in exchange for Israeli hostages held in Gaza. “I am very proud that Hamas forced Israel to release us,” she said at the time. “Who cares that a lot of their civilians were killed?”

She added: “We will continue to be knives in their necks. We cannot share the land.”

The image of Abdullah on Jones’s video, seen embracing another woman, sparked backlash online. Danny Morris from the Community Security Trust posted on X: “Sara Abdullah was certainly not a hostage."

Former spokesperson for Israel, Eylon Levy, said: “I know this is difficult for some people to accept, but when you get arrested for trying to stab someone... you're not a hostage. You're a criminal.”

Following the uproar, the thumbnail on Jones’s video was changed to an image of a Palestinian boy surrounded by Israeli forces.

In the clip, Jones claimed that Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have suffered “much worse” conditions than Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Revealed: ‘Jihadi lioness’ has been hosted by more London charities
A UK charity boss described by an Iranian media outlet as a “jihadi lioness” has spoken at a number of pro-Iran NGOs in Britain, the JC can reveal.

Syeda Umme Farwa, who runs the UK-registered charity Labaik Ya Zahra (LYZ), was the recipient of a prize in honour of her charity work in Britain from Ebrahim Raisi, the former Iranian president known as the “Butcher of Tehran” for his role overseeing the mass execution of thousands of people.

The Charity Commission confirmed it was investigating LYZ’s ties to Iran following the revelation, originally published in The Times.

Based in London’s Stanmore just minutes from a synagogue, LYZ is an Islamic charity that claims to “help mankind” by advancing the Muslim faith and women’s rights through classes, conferences and protests.

However, according to the Times, Farwa told Iranian state media that LYZ commemorates the death of Iranian terror leader and Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani every year.

Now it can be revealed that Farwa, who is from Pakistan and lives in north west London, spoke at Idara-e-Jaaferiya in Tooting, the charity that oversees a school where the JC uncovered a pro-Hezbollah school teacher. She also addressed an audience via the Islamic Centre of England (ICE) in Maida Vale and spoke to students at the University of Manchester.

Both Idara-e-Jaaferiya and ICE are UK-registered charities but have images of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on their walls. Iran’s brutal Supreme Leader, Khamenei is notorious for human rights violations and seeking the destruction of Israel.


Threatening Jews 6,000 miles from Israel does nothing for Palestinians, Ohio State student says
Ohio State University senior Adam Kling estimates that he’s seen between 50 and 100 anti-Israel protests on campus in the last four years. But what the Jewish biomedical engineering student experienced on Jan. 27, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, was new to him.

On Monday evening, some 60 antisemitic protesters braved near-freezing temperatures to chant and yell outside of the Schottenstein Chabad House at OSU in an effort to disrupt presentations by two former Israeli soldiers about their experiences being injured while responding to Hamas’s terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Although the Jewish center bears the public university’s name, it’s not an official Ohio State University entity, and its current building is off-campus. Kling told JNS that it was unusual for protesters to target a site that wasn’t on the university grounds.

“It’s one thing to do it on campus. It is a public university, and you have free speech, which I 100% support your right to go out and protest what you believe right on campus,” he said. “This is the first time that they’ve taken the step to go from campus to surrounding us at our own home, a religious building on campus where people are supposed to feel safe.”

Kling told JNS that he is “obviously not a law expert” but is “just struggling to see where the line is when it comes to religious intimidation when you stand outside a religious building and scream threats to all the Jewish people in there, calling them ‘terrorists,’ ‘baby killers’ and ‘war criminals.’”

“We are in Columbus, Ohio, 6,000 miles away from the Middle East,” he said. “I don’t understand how intimidating and threatening me off campus at a Jewish place of worship has anything to do with politics or does anything to support your cause.”

Kling said that a freshman student was scared to leave the building that night and walk home, “because she was worried she was going to be attacked for being Jewish.”


Qatar’s Influence Network In American Public Schools Has Unwitting Teachers Advancing Its Propaganda
The Qatari government is funding teacher salaries, curriculums, and programming in school districts large and small across the country, allowing the small country to pursue a scheme of indoctrinating America’s youth.

That is what the first batch of public records requests from OpenTheBooks, reviewed by The Federalist, shows. The “cradle-to-graduation propaganda pipeline” includes grooming teachers to advance Qatari influence and talking points, angling soft cultural changes through language and field trip opportunities, and ultimately, as OpenTheBooks points out, creating “the next generation of activists ready to sew chaos on college campuses.”

“Parents and taxpayers have a right to understand what influences could be capturing classroom learning. While China and Russia dominate our global affairs concerns, the small nation of Qatar has become very sophisticated at influencing classroom curriculum, including for elementary school students,” OpenTheBooks CEO John Hart told The Federalist. “Well-meaning teachers who are looking for ways to better their classrooms can’t be expected to suss out foreign influence operations like this, but we can. Open the Books is going to take an exhaustive look at the extent of QFI’s grantmaking and the results.”

Qatar Foundation International (QFI) is the international wing of the Qatar Foundation, which is a government-run nonprofit. QFI gives grants to K-12 schools to fund things like Arabic language teachers’ salaries, the Arabic Honor Society, and school field trips. Field trips for students have included visits to the House of Palestine Annual Culture Festival in San Diego, California, but the organization also funds teacher trips to events it sponsors in the United States and Doha, Qatar, like the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE).

The group functions similarly to the Confucius Institute, which runs a similar propaganda scheme on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party in the American public education system. QFI has a heavy push toward globalism and being a member of a “global community.” Doha itself hosts the “Education City,” where American universities like Texas A&M, Northwestern, and Georgetown have affiliates.

The Lawfare Project, an organization that advocates for the rights of Jewish people, has suggested that any group, schools K-12 through college, that benefits from QFI should be required to register as foreign agents under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Lesson plans in K-12 schools suggest fealty to Qatar, with one titled “Express Your Loyalty to Qatar.” More propagandistic, however, is the use of Zinn Education Project materials. The group, named after infamous propagandist and revisionist history purveyor Howard Zinn, consistently pushes anti-American sentiments into American schools.

One Zinn lesson QFI uses is called “Whose ‘Terrorism,’” which attempts to alter the definition of terrorism in order to inject a level of relativism into the discussion — asserting that terrorism is in the eye of the beholder and the one committing the atrocity could see it as a righteous act.
UKLFI: University of East London Consultation on Antisemitism Statement
The University of East London (UEL) is carrying out a consultation on whether it should maintain its adoption of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.

The consultation was drawn to the attention of UKLFI Charitable Trust (UKLFI CT) by a concerned student on 19 December 2024. UKLFI CT drew it to the attention of other community organisations on 20 December and submitted its own response on 21 December 2024.

UKLFI CT’s submission explained why the IHRA working definition of antisemitism should be retained by UEL in full. The reasons include:
Since antisemitism is such a serious problem at UK universities, universities should use a widely accepted definition to facilitate recording, addressing and analysing it.
The IHRA working definition has been widely accepted in the UK (including the UK, Scottish and Welsh governments, more than 75% of local councils and over 130 universities) and around the world (including 45 countries, the EU Council, Commission and Parliament, the Organisation of American States, the Parliament of MERCOSUR, the UN Secretary General and the UN Rapporteur for freedom of religion and belief).
If UEL were to drop the IHRA working definition, this would embolden antisemites and dismay Jewish students, who already fear to make any complaints about the antisemitic hostility they face. Adoption of divergent definitions would cause confusion and result in incompatible data sets that could not be compared or aggregated, thereby impeding analysis, research and comparative monitoring.
UEL’s adoption of the IHRA working definition did not mention the examples and other explanations which are an integral part of it. UEL’s review should confirm UEL’s adoption of the full IHRA working definition, including all of its examples.

UKLFI CT also observed that criticisms of the IHRA working definition have not been well-founded, in that they have failed to appreciate its structure, which identifies a central concept and explains it by reference to examples of conduct that could be antisemitic taking into account the overall context.

UKLFI CT added that other definitions of antisemitism are problematic.
Professors John Hyman and Anthony Julius identified a series of fundamental objections to the “Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism” (JDA), including that it fails to address contemporary antisemitism, the guidelines contradict the definition, and the JDA does not defend academic freedom.
UKLFI CT set out other detailed criticisms of the JDA including the JDA’s assertion that BDS is a commonplace form of protest against States. UKLFI CT points out that it is in fact very rare against States. Furthermore, several of the JDA’s examples actually greenlight antisemitism and promote discrimination against the Jewish State.


Dumping Cement Into Sewage System, Columbia University Radicals Deploy Tactics They Studied Months Earlier at Event Hosted By Campus Org
Late Wednesday night, Columbia University's leading anti-Israel group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), shared a video of its latest act of anarchy. At Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), toilets were clogged with cement. A Columbia Business School building, meanwhile, was soaked with red paint.

Columbia quickly released a statement calling the acts of vandalism "unacceptable and abhorrent," adding that such acts "will not be tolerated at Columbia." Just months before, however, Columbia's student radicals met within the walls of a recognized student organization to train each other on all things anarchy. Included among the suggested readings was a manual written for "aspiring revolutionaries" that outlined the sewage cementing and graffiti soaking tactics used on Wednesday. And the student organization that played host appears to be in good standing with the school.

The apparently premeditated nature of the attack suggests Columbia could have impeded it by cracking down on the event's attendees and its host, Alpha Delta Phi (ADP), a literary society. While the ADP house is controlled by an outside organization and technically off campus—it sits between several other houses and dorms that Columbia owns—Columbia recognizes ADP as a student organization, according to its website, and provides it with services like WiFi, Ph.D. student Alon Levin told the Washington Free Beacon.

It was at that house that some 100 students, led by CUAD, met in November at a two-day event titled, "Hind's House," a reference to the name anti-Israel activists applied to Hamilton Hall after its illegal takeover last spring. At the event, which was first reported by the Free Press, attendees commemorated that takeover and discussed anarchical tactics.

A PowerPoint presentation, for example, included a slide with suggested revolutionary readings. One recommended manual—a "Recipes for Disaster" tactical guide written by CrimethInc., an "international network of aspiring revolutionaries"—details methods to disable restroom facilities. One method, described as the "Permanent Solution," uses hydraulic cement, pantyhose, zip ties, and an X-Acto knife.


Reports of Hamas executions not newsworthy for the BBC
For over a decade CAMERA UK has documented the BBC’s erratic coverage of extrajudicial executions carried out by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

More than a week ago, reports emerged concerning executions and shootings carried out by Hamas operatives.
“Hamas operatives reportedly executed several alleged “collaborators” in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, and a video shared by the popular online media channel Gaza Now showed Hamas gunmen firing at the men lying on the ground.

Gaza Now, which boasts 1.7 million followers on Telegram, published a video showing more than a dozen Hamas operatives, many of them in uniform, opening fire on three men.

The video was captioned “The moment of punishing the agents of the Zionist occupation who caused the killing of thousands of our Palestinian people in Gaza.” […]

It came after Palestinian reports were cited by the Kan public broadcaster Thursday that the terror group had executed six Palestinians in southern Gaza’s Rafah on suspicion of spying for Israel, and that 17 other Palestinians, among them merchants, were shot in the feet for allegedly raising prices.”


‘All options’ on table to block Iran from nuclear weapons, per bicameral resolution
Five members of Congress from both houses and on both sides of the aisle introduced a resolution on Friday stating that “all options should be considered to address the nuclear threat the Islamic Republic of Iran poses to the United States, Israel and our allies and partners.”

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) and Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) signed the resolution, which demands that the Iranian regime stop enriching uranium and stop making or owning nuclear warheads or vehicles that could carry such weapons.

“If the Iranian ayatollah and his henchman obtain a nuclear weapon, it would be one of the most destabilizing and dangerous events in world history,” Graham stated. “They are trying to acquire a nuclear weapon as part of their religious agenda to purify their faith, destroy the Jewish state and drive Westerners out of the Middle East.”

“A nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat to Israel and a nightmare for the world,” Graham added.

Fetterman stated that “Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is a threat we cannot ignore.”

“The United States, Israel and our allies cannot afford to sit back while the Iranian regime continues down this dangerous path,” he added. “This resolution sends an unmistakable message: all options are on the table to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.”
New ‘Yad Vashem Way’ in NYC ‘will trigger reflection,’ Dani Dayan says
The way Dani Dayan figures it, many people will walk along 67th Street in Manhattan, between Second and Third Avenues, and notice the new sign for “Yad Vashem Way” and have no idea what the first two words mean.

“Some of them, not all of them, but some of them will Google ‘Yad Vashem’ and learn about the Shoah,” Dayan, chairman of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, told JNS at the street naming on Thursday.

“Yad Vashem is the vehicle, not the purpose,” he said. “This is one more way to accomplish the goal of bringing people to learn about the Shoah.”

“I think that we have an obligation towards the victims of the Shoah, to remember them,” he added. “The street sign is a kind of monument to the Shoah that will trigger reflection—reflection about the past, reflection about the present and reflection about the future.”

A dedication ceremony for the new street name was held across the street from the new sign, at Park East Synagogue. Ofir Akunis, consul general of Israel in New York, was on hand, as were local officials such as Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), New York City Council member Keith Powers and Manhattan borough president Mark Levine.

Rabbi Arthur Schneier of Park East Synagogue, a Holocaust survivor, told attendees that he hopes the sign will inspire people to visit Yad Vashem in Israel.

“This is a very personal moment,” he said. “I was liberated in Budapest in January 1945, and Auschwitz was liberated on Aug. 27. Millions of Jews were still under the yoke of the Nazis, and thanks to the allies, the United States, France and England who were united at the time with the Soviet Union, we were liberated.”


I Went to Israel and Witnessed the UNTHINKABLE! | NFL Icon Nick Lowery Speaks Out
We sit down with Nick Lowery, NFL legend, Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Famer, and a passionate advocate for Israel. While he made history on the football field, today he’s making an impact in an even bigger way—spreading light, standing up against anti-Semitism, supporting hostage families, and exposing the truth about Hamas’s propaganda war.

Nick shares his firsthand experience visiting Israel after October 7th, meeting survivors, and witnessing the devastation left by Hamas’s brutal attacks. He speaks out on the media’s complicity, the West’s shocking moral confusion, and the urgent need to stand for truth.

Beyond politics, we dive into the spiritual and moral calling of supporting Israel, the alarming rise of anti-Semitism on college campuses, and how sports can serve as a force for unity and resilience in times of crisis. Nick also reflects on his legendary NFL career with the Kansas City Chiefs, the life lessons he’s learned through football, and how the values of teamwork, perseverance, and leadership apply to the fight for justice today.

As an ambassador for Project Max, Nick has been using sports as a platform to fight racism and anti-Semitism. Through the #SportsSpeaksUp campaign, he has “adopted” multiple Israeli hostages, including Na’ama Levy, Itay Chen, and Ohad Munder, amplifying their stories and advocating for their return.

💥 This conversation is powerful, unfiltered, and impossible to ignore. Watch now and join the fight for truth! 💥

Project Max website: https://www.projectmax.club/
Nick Lowery on Instagram: / nicklowery88

00:00 – Spreading Light in Dark Times
06:30 – Never Again
12:10 – Football, Life, and Lessons from the Game
17:00 – Project Max: Fighting Hate Through Sports
23:20 – The Story of a Brave Village
28:05 – What I Witnessed in Southern Israel
31:20 – Tears of Joy




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    
 

 



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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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