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Monday, February 03, 2025

02/03 Links Pt2: Hamas’s ‘kinocide’: A new crime against humanity revealed; Israel is bracing for an unimaginable requiem; Remembering Marion Wiesel

From Ian:

Hamas a threat to all of a Western civilization, Aristotle Foundation president says
The central Jewish thinker Maimonides was influenced extensively by Aristotle, so it makes sense that a new pro-Israel, Canadian think tank bears the name of the ancient Greek philosopher.

Mark Milke, a Canadian political scientist and writer, founded the Calgary-based Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy in 2023 “to renew common-sense discourse in Canada,” per the charity’s site.

Though Milke is not Jewish, he and the think tank have focused often on defending Jews and Israel. “When the board, staff and I set up the Aristotle Foundation to champion reason, democracy and civilization, we never thought we’d have to address antisemitic mob behaviour on Canadian streets and campuses,” he wrote two days before the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks.

“You often hear the excuse that the demonstrations across Canada are not antisemitic or anti-Jew but anti-Israel and its policies. If that were true, the only protests in the past year would have been at the Israeli embassy,” he added. “Instead, antisemitic protests have occurred in front of Jewish coffee shops, synagogues, hospitals and seniors’ centers and demonstrations have taken place at university grounds.”

The native of Kelowna, British Columbia told JNS that his family goes back to Prussia on his mother’s side. His great-great-grandfather fought for the North in the U.S. Civil War before settling in Saskatchewan.

His paternal grandmother fled Ukraine in the 1920s, escaping the tumultuous political climate that would soon engulf Eastern Europe. His Polish-born grandfather arrived in Canada in 1929 and settled in Edmonton. Both grandparents narrowly avoided the devastation of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, instilling in them a deep appreciation for their new home and a strong aversion to extremist ideologies.

“I never heard a smidgen of antisemitism,” he said, of his parents and family. “Quite the opposite. Growing up, they just understood what was right and what was wrong, and so they had no sympathy for the Nazis. They certainly didn’t like communism.”

“I hate bullies. I always have,” he told JNS. “I’m aware of bullies in history. That’s what tyrants are.”

Milke developed an early fascination with history and politics. He read encyclopedias voraciously as a child, and learned about historical figures and events that shaped his later worldview and career path.

“When I was a kid, I asked myself, ‘How did Adolf Hitler rise to power?’” he told JNS. “The core problem with Hitler was that we gave in and gave in because nobody wanted another war. You had to recognize the evil that was in front of you eventually, but it was far too late.”
Netanyahu’s 'Iran first' strategy ignores the real enemy
And that is the real enemy—not just of Israel but of the entire world. Yet, the leaders who adhere to the old conception are missing this crucial point. The enemy is not a state, an army, or an organization—it is religious ideology. Wherever it takes root, it fosters both social and military organizations.

Even when these organizations are dismantled, they regenerate time and time again. They will always reemerge because the fuel of the revolution is not military strength—it is spirit. And that is what we must break in order to achieve victory.

"The primary axis—Allah." This should have been the security establishment's realization after October 7. This understanding has dramatic implications for Israel’s and the West’s strategy, as well as for intelligence assessments and operational planning. The first conclusion from this realization is: Gaza first! Not Iran first.

Why? Because the October 7 war is the ultimate litmus test of how a Western state fares against radical Islamic ideology. If Hamas' ideology emerges victorious, as has been the case so far, this lesson will be learned in every arena—from London to Tehran, from Damascus to Berlin. The conclusion will be that the postmodern West, despite its overwhelming military and economic advantage, does not know how to defeat radical Islam.

1. The West struggles to target imams and mosques due to a distorted discourse on religious freedom—even though they are the Muslim equivalent of Goebbels’ propaganda machine.

2. The West fails to understand that victory is defined by control over land, because the enemy’s ideology is driven by a totalitarian aspiration to conquer the entire world as a religious imperative.

3. The West is incapable of subjugating enemy populations and imposing human values on them, because deep down, it justifies their struggle as that of the oppressed proletariat.

This is why Gaza is the test of the West. If we cannot even secure victory in Gaza, we will fail everywhere else.

Moreover, the immediate regional threat around us is far greater than Iran because the enemy’s goal is the conquest and destruction of Israel. Missiles from Iran would be met with missiles from Israel, and on Judgment Day, with even more strategic weaponry.

But what the jihadist fighters did in Gaza could just as easily be done by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan, or in Lebanon and Syria. Against this threat, Israel needs an army with a strong ground force—one with the capability and willingness to seize land, establish control, and subdue the population, just as the free world did with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. This is why victory against Iran—or anywhere else—begins and ends between Gaza and Rafah.

Tragically, our military and political leadership has already folded and retreated from Gaza two weeks ago. This week, the Netanyahu-Trump meeting will likely continue the "Head of the Snake" doctrine, focusing primarily on two topics: Saudi Arabia and Iran, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The ultimate enemy, and with it the possibility of total victory, will not even be on the table.
I’m not Jewish, but October 7th 2023 changed my life.
It wasn’t the events that took place that day, horrific though they were, that catalysed this change. While the atrocities committed by Hamas are hard to top, it was the horrific events that happened afterwards which have affected me so deeply. The events which started a mere day later. The events which have only worsened as the 18-month anniversary approaches. October 7th changed my life because it was the impetus for me to discover a generations-old campaign of hate and propaganda, a campaign so successful it has even captured prominent members of the group it’s aimed against.

I refer of course to the campaign against Israel and the Jews.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d fallen for it at one point. I recall saying to myself many years ago, after reading a Wikipedia article on the number of United Nations resolutions against Israel, “This has to be the evillest country on Earth.” In my defence, one can be forgiven for thinking the UN holds no agenda against the only democracy in the region, an idea that seemed utterly uncontroversial to me at the time. Thankfully, I never shared my views.

It was seeing how the world reacted to the October 7th massacre that made me start looking into Israel, the war and the wider region. Two days after the attack, protests erupted against Israel in Sydney. It sounded like “Gas the Jews” was chanted alongside the burning of an Israeli flag. This chant was interpreted by a police expert as the no-less-disturbing “where’s the Jews”, but despite the mob also chanting the unambiguously hateful “fuck the Jews”, the ABC focused an article about the protests on the fact that the chant wasn’t as bad as people had first thought. The article also featured a Palestinian rally organiser complaining about a smear campaign against Palestinians – he was photographed, but no Jews were. I wondered at this interpretation of “fair and balanced” reporting in light of explicit antisemitism. Later on, I wondered why our national broadcaster decided to include an outraged quote from the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister in a future article about the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Since when is the offense of a brutal dictatorship at the assassination of a brutal terrorist leader an appropriate way for Australia’s state-run media to frame the news?

The more I read articles, listened to podcasts, studied the history and watched interviews and documentaries, the more I noticed such oddities in the response to the Gaza war. The death toll being quoted by pretty well everybody comes directly from the Gaza Health Ministry. Hamas, who spent almost 20 years building tunnels beneath the Palestinian population and turning schools, mosques and hospitals into military bases, runs that institution – and one might suspect they have a motive in inflating the numbers. The Hamas-Gaza Health Ministry connection was referenced less and less over time by the media and even the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, omits it from an official statement. Türk also neglects to mention that the death toll includes upwards of 10,000 Hamas combatants, plus anyone who has died in Gaza for any reason since the war began.

I noticed more and more such omissions in reporting. Israel is bombing schools and hospitals, yet there’s often no mention of Hamas’s military bases within. Hamas are resisting “occupation”, yet Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, including the forced expulsion of almost ten thousand Israeli citizens, isn’t noted. Israel invades Lebanon, yet the thousands of rockets shot by Hezbollah, the resultant tens of thousands of Israeli refugees, and the complete failure of UNIFIL to fulfil their mandate of keeping Hezbollah north of the Litani River is ignored. In fact, despite studying the topic daily, it took me many months to discover that Hezbollah had even been firing rockets at Israeli civilians – every day since October 8th, before Israel had even retaliated against Hamas, no less. These rockets have killed civilians yet this fact is rarely reported, or it’s reported in utterly repugnant ways such as BBC’s stunning headline “Israel hits Hezbollah targets after football pitch attack”, published when 12 Israeli Druze children were hit by Hezbollah rockets and killed.

It was becoming clearer and clearer that an agenda is afoot. Every day I read about Israel’s brutality, yet John Spencer, the world’s leading academic specialising in urban warfare, is almost never quoted despite (or likely thanks to) his belief that Israel is doing “harm mitigation at a level that nobody’s ever tried.” Rarely is it mentioned that civilians are routinely notified, by Israel, of military actions before they take place. Even rarer is the blame for the civilian casualties, all of which could be stopped in a day if Hamas returned all of the hostages and disarmed, placed on the group which started the war. Instead, Hamas are often painted as freedom fighters or a resistance group even though their charter openly outlines their core aims of Jihad and the ethnic cleansing of Jews.


Hamas’s ‘kinocide’: A new crime against humanity revealed
The bestial crimes carried out by thousands of Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023, were unspeakable – but the authors of a newly released 79-page report want the world to speak about them and spread the word.

Writing for the Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, they have even given it a name because at no time in history had this exact type of crime been committed. They called it “kinocide” – the targeting of families, calling it a new crime against humanity.

In preparation since February 2024, the report is authored by Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, Dr. Michal Gilad, and Dr. Ilya Rudyak from the civil commission. The Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights (RWCHR), under the leadership of former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler, with whom Elyakim-Levy decided on the term “kinocide.”

The horrific assault in southern Israel resulted in over 1,200 deaths and the kidnapping of more than 250 people, including men, women, children, infants, the elderly, and disabled people, all in one day. The heinous acts of murder, torture, gender-based violence, and abduction spurred the immediate formation of the commission.

The commission’s goal is to advocate for the victims of sexual and gender-based violence and atrocities on October 7, as well as for their loved ones and communities.

What is Kinocide?
By coining the term kinocide, the report exposes the deliberate, widespread exploitation and destruction of familial bonds to intensify victims’ suffering, highlighting the profound and lasting harm inflicted on individuals, communities, and societies. She noted that the Dvora Institute calls for urgent international recognition of the term as it describes a new, distinct international crime against humanity and presents legal and policy recommendations to close gaps in international criminal law, ensure accountability, and prevent such atrocities in the future.

GENOCIDE, AS practiced by the Nazis, is directed against a group of people – “national, ethnical, racial or religious,” according to the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention – but kinocide is a specific type of assault against a group, using the relationship between family members and their emotional, identity, cultural, symbolic, material and other bonds, as a way to maximize the intended harm of the attack.
Hamas Torture Bodycam Footage: "These Monsters Filmed it All" | IDF Warfighter Doron Keidar, Ep. 225
Your mind cannot conceive the evil.

Doron Keidar is an active fighter in the Israeli Defense Force, having been called back to duty following the October 7th massacre when more than 1,200 civilians were attacked by Hamas - the largest massacre of a single theology since the Holocaust. And despite what you may hear, Doron knows exactly what he saw that day - for better or worse. Doron recalls some of the things saw following the initial invasion - and why it's still so difficult for him to speak on - in this exclusive look at Episode 225 of the Mike Drop Podcast, available now.


Israel is bracing for an unimaginable requiem
The release of Yarden Bibas this week had the same deflating effect as Julius Caesar’s final words following his friend Brutus’s betrayal: “the most unkindest cut of all.”

Where is the rest of the Bibas family? Shira, Yarden’s wife, and their two little children, Ariel and Kfir, kidnapped in their mother’s arms on Oct. 7, aged four and nine months, respectively? Israeli officials have expressed “grave concern” about their status. Hamas self-servingly claims that all three were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Given that Hamas “promised” to release women and children first, that they were not included among the 18 released thus far id deeply troubling.

Upon the father’s release, reports surfaced that Hamas had not only beaten and caged Yarden, but tortured him with updates about his family: one day they were alive, the next murdered, only to be revived again, over and over.

How will such a man find the strength to begin anew, given all that has already been taken away from him?

Meanwhile, Israelis remain haunted, as should all human beings, by the two tiny red-headed boys last pictured in their Batman pajamas.

Israelis have been anticipating their return for 16 months. They wanted to smother them in kisses and spoil them. Better still: throw a national birthday party for them, to make up for the ones misspent in Gaza.

With the father alive and the children and mother missing, Israelis are slowly bracing themselves for an unimaginable requiem.


'Ofer was put through hell in Hamas captivity, up until the last moment'
Ofer Calderon who was released by Hamas on Saturday after 484 days in captivity told family members that the hostages endured physical and psychological terror of the worse kind, up until they were released. He said those who remain captive in the hands of the terrorists are in under imminent threat of death, after 38 hostages had already died.

Calderon said he was able to see Al Jazeera coverage of the protests demanding his and the other hostages' release and recognized some of his family members. "It strengthened him. In captivity you hang onto little things and seeing the family fighting for him was everything," his cousin Eyal told Ynet. "These things are critical to their survival there," he said.

Calderon was released along with Yarden Bibas and soon after, Keith Siegal was also freed. The three men arrived in Israel walking on their own feet and appearing strong.

"It's difficult to understand or describe his emotions. He was held by a terror group that could do whatever they wanted with him."

Eyal vowed that the family will continue the fight for the release of the remaining 79 Israelis still in Gaza. He said the second phase of the cease-fire and hostage release deal must not be foiled.

"My fight was to bring Ofer home. Now I will go on fighting for all the others."


Hamas says Russian national Maxim Herkin to be prioritized in deal’s 2nd stage
Senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said on Monday that Maxim Herkin, kidnapped by Gazan terrorists from the Nova festival on October 7, 2023, will be released as a priority in the second stage of the deal.

Abu Marzouk was in Moscow along with a senior Hamas delegation for negotiations at the Russian foreign ministry.

He also told Russian outlet Sputnik that hostage Alexander “Sasha” Trufanov, a dual Russian-Israeli national, will be released imminently.

“One of them, Trufanov, will definitely be released in the near future. He will be released despite the fact that he is a serviceperson, but it was decided to release him at the first stage of the deal,” Abu Marzouk said.

Trufanov is a civilian and was abducted from his home, but Hamas classifies all male hostages under 50 as members of the military.

“This is our response to Russia’s position on the Palestinian issue,” Abu Marzouk said, referencing Moscow’s warm relations with Hamas and recognition of a Palestinian state.

Russia has ties to all key players in the Middle East, including Israel, Iran, and Lebanon, as well as the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

Trufanov, 28, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz, alongside his mother, grandmother and girlfriend. His father was murdered. The rest of his family was released under a previous ceasefire deal in November 2023. He is on the list of the first 33 so-called “humanitarian hostages” to be released in the ongoing 42-day first stage of the current hostage-ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Herkin, 35 when he was taken hostage, has a 3-year-old daughter and is the primary provider for his mother and 11-year-old brother.


US judge dismisses rescued hostage’s lawsuit against company that employed his captor
Rescued hostage Almog Meir Jan’s lawsuit against a US-based nonprofit that allegedly employed his captor was dismissed Friday by a federal judge in Seattle, Washington, who ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prove that the company was aware that its employee was a Hamas operative.

US District Judge Tiffany Cartwright did, however, allow Meir Jan to refile the suit, giving him the chance to amend his claim to provide evidence to prove the allegations against the defendant.

Meir Jan filed the suit in July 2024 against People Media Project, a United States-based nonprofit that has ties to the journalist who held him captive.

Meir Jan, 22, was held by Abdallah Aljamal, a spokesman for the Hamas-run labor ministry in Gaza who has contributed to several news outlets in the past, and who was a correspondent for the Palestine Chronicle, which is run by the nonprofit.

Meir Jan, along with hostages Shlomi Ziv, 40, and Andrey Kozlov, 27, was rescued from Aljamal’s home in central Gaza’s Nuseirat on June 8 of last year. Hostage Noa Argamani, 26, who was held some 180 meters (200 yards) away, was also rescued. Despite their buoyant appearance upon their return, the four were said to have faced harsh conditions in captivity.


Top Thai officials visit Western Wall after citizens freed from Gaza
A delegation of senior Thai government officials, including Thailand’s Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampongsa, visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Sunday after five Thai hostages were freed a day earlier from captivity in the Gaza Strip.

The delegation also included Thailand’s military chief of staff, Gen. Songwit Nunphakdi; its deputy foreign minister, Russ Jalichandra; and its ambassador to Israel, Pannabha Chandraramya.

Members of the delegation were moved to hear about the continuous prayers at the Western Wall for the return of the hostages. They also expressed their appreciation for the warm embrace that the people of Israel have extended to the Thai people, according to a statement from Jerusalem.

At the end of the visit, they offered a silent prayer for the captives who have returned and for the swift release of all those still being held by Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel has granted residency status to the five Thai hostages released on Jan. 30, Hebrew media reported on Sunday.

Thaenna Pongsak, Sathian Suwannakhan, Sriaoun Watchara, Saethao Bannawat and Rumnao Surasak were among 31 foreign workers from Thailand kidnapped by Hamas-led terrorists during the Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border assault on communities in Israel’s south.

The Interior Ministry’s decision grants the former hostages the right to remain in the country and work if they wish to do so after an initial recovery period at Shamir Medical Center in Be’er Ya’akov, according to Kan News.


DOJ announces task force to combat antisemitism
The Department of Justice announced a new multi-agency task force on Monday whose “first priority” will be to “root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses,” according to an announcement by the department.

The formation of the task force comes days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling on every federal agency and department to review and report on civil and criminal actions available within their jurisdiction to fight antisemitism.

Under the executive order, the DOJ was directed to review existing antisemitism cases and prepare to more actively bring legal action against those who commit acts of antisemitism in violation of federal civil rights laws. The order also “demands the removal of resident aliens who violate our laws,” according to a White House fact sheet.

Other agencies involved in the new task force include the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the DOJ.

In a statement, Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, said that the department “takes seriously our responsibility to eradicate this hatred [antisemitism] wherever it is found.”

“The Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is the first step in giving life to President Trump’s renewed commitment to ending anti-Semitism in our schools,” said Terrell, who will head the task force.

Trump claimed during his 2024 campaign that, if reelected, U.S. universities that failed to address antisemitism would lose accreditation and federal support. In the weeks leading up to Trump’s return to the White House, a number of universities rushed to settle their antisemitism complaints with the Biden administration’s DOE in its final weeks.

The new administration’s focus on tackling antisemitism appears to be impacting administrators’ behavior. Over the last week, some of the universities that have been in the spotlight for slow — or nonexistent — crackdowns on antisemitism have been more responsive.
Trump Must Designate the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization, Scale Down US Ties to Qatar
For Trump to make genuine progress in bringing peace and stability to the region in his second term, though, his administration must first focus on the root cause of much of the unrest blighting the region.

In response to the Muslim Brotherhood's violent ideology, a number of pro-Western Arab regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, have designated the organisation as a terrorist entity.

The need for the world's major Western democracies to take firm action against the Muslim Brotherhood has become even more urgent following the October 7 attacks, with militant groups inspired by the Brotherhood's ideology said to be responsible for provoking anti-Jewish riots on American university campuses and staging weekly hate marches in many European capitals, such as London.

[Ed] Husain, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is among a number of Middle East experts arguing in favour of the incoming Trump administration designating the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. He argues that such a move would "force Europe to reconsider the financial, media and mosque networks used by Iran and the Brotherhood in their own countries to project power back into the Middle East."

At the same time Trump should confront the Gulf state of Qatar over its blatant double standards in supporting terror groups such as Hamas, whose leaders have drawn heavily on the Muslim Brotherhood's dogma, while at the same time pretending to be an ally of the West.

[Qatar's state-owned media] described the worst terrorist attack in Israel's history as a "heroic operation," a "miracle" and a "historic turning point" that restored the honour of the Muslim nation, while placing the Palestinian cause back on the world's agenda.

Qatar played a similar role during the Afghan conflict, when its willingness to provide Taliban negotiators with a base in Doha ultimately resulted in the Taliban regaining power in Kabul, re-establishing its uncompromising Islamist rule over the Afghan people.

While the Qataris maintain that their mediation efforts on the Gaza conflict are aimed at ending the bloodshed, their real motive is to ensure that Hamas, the group whose terrorist infrastructure they have helped to finance, survives the conflict, enabling it to maintain its threatening presence on Israel's southern border. This mission of Qatar's is a goal about which President Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, and even President Trump himself, might not be aware.

Given Qatar's overt sympathy for the Hamas cause, at the very least the Trump administration should undertake a serious review of its dealings with Doha, and consider relocating the US military's Al Udeid Air Base from Qatar to a more friendly location in the region, such as the United Arab Emirates.


Watchdogs sue US government over Qatar’s billions in university funding
A new legal battle is unfolding over Qatar’s financial influence on prominent American universities, as watchdog organizations seek transparency about billions in foreign funding flowing into US higher education institutions.

The Zachor Legal Institute, in conjunction with Judicial Watch, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the US Department of Education several weeks ago, seeking records related to Doha’s funding and operations at five prestigious American universities: Georgetown, Northwestern, Cornell, Harvard, and the University of Michigan.

The legal action comes in the wake of Texas A&M University’s February decision to shut its Qatar campus, following revelations from a previous lawsuit that uncovered nearly half a billion dollars in funding from the Gulf state hosting the Hamas leadership to the university.

According to a February report, Qatar has provided or contracted approximately $6 billion to American universities since 2007. Critics argue this substantial financial involvement has granted Qatar significant leverage in both American political discourse and academic institutions.

Marc Greendorfer, president of the Zachor Legal Institute, said, “We were disappointed with the opacity and obstruction of the prior administration, which seems to have had a policy of preventing the American people from knowing what terror-supporting foreign actors have been doing in our schools.”

Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch, urged the Department of Education under US President Donald Trump to “expose the details of this foreign influence operation as soon as possible,” denouncing what he deemed to be the Biden administration’s lack of will to address “Qatari government funds manipulating American universities.”

The groups said that the lawsuit was prompted by the Department of Education’s failure to respond to a detailed FOIA request submitted by Zachor in March. The request sought various documents, including inquiries, reports, and memoranda concerning Qatar’s involvement with several university programs, including Georgetown’s campus in Doha and its Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in Washington, DC.
Why 30 Countries Banned This Media
In the Middle East, several countries—including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates—have imposed full or partial bans on one or more of Al Jazeera’s channels why is that?

00:00 - Intro
00:08- Qatar
00:32- Al Jazeera
01:29 - Bans
03:28 - AJ Ideology
04:07 - Lauren Booth
05:46 - Qatargate
06:04 - Conclusion


Betrayal of students at Yale University’s Jewish home on campus
As former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was speaking on the second floor of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale University on Jan. 21, students affiliated with Yalies4Palestine and Jews for a Ceasefire had commandeered the main lobby.

There, in the center of Yale’s Jewish communal building, protesters chanted and sang slogans like “End the occupation,” “From New Haven to Gaza,” “Tell Yale, divest from war” and “Naftali Bennett, we shall not be moved.” The rants to “divest from war” echoed public calls to support the antisemitic BDS campaign by Yalies4Palestine and Yale Jews for Ceasefire.

Several keffiyeh-clad protesters held signs that were identical to those displayed earlier that evening at an anti-Israel, “Gaza Rises, Zionism Falls Day of Action” rally on campus.

The protest at the Slifka Center, which stretched on for three hours, created an environment so intimidating that some Jewish students felt the need to hide, while others tried to document the hostile protest.

One student, who asked to remain anonymous, recounted how she retreated to a bathroom. In her whispered account, she shared how Slifka staff monitored her every move, stood uncomfortably close, and, ultimately, intimidated her to the point where she couldn’t freely document the protest.

She described seeing her peers subjected to the same maltreatment—their attempts to film or take photos were blocked, and, in one case, a protester outright snatched the phone from a student attempting to record the event.

According to other students who also filmed events that night, Slifka staff were present and supervising the protest. One student said she was told by a staff member, “You have to get out of this space; you can’t film in this space.”

Slifka staff didn’t just permit the anti-Israel protesters; they actively shielded them from scrutiny.
Columbia Business School Professor Resigns, Citing Pro-Hamas Colleague Joseph Massad's Course on Zionism
Columbia Business School professor Avi Friedman has resigned, citing the university's decision to appoint a Hamas-praising professor, Joseph Massad, to teach a course on Zionism, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

In his letter, dated Jan. 29, Friedman called his resignation "months in the making" and "unavoidable" given the "events of October 7, 2023, and the university's subsequent response." Friedman said he found himself "making excuses" in defense of Columbia and its administrators in the wake of Hamas's terror attack but "can no longer mask what has become inexcusable and systemic."

"The university's decision to appoint Joseph Massad to teach a class on Zionism represents a complete abandonment of academic integrity and unbiased scholarship," wrote Friedman. "This appointment was no oversight—it represents a deliberate choice that aligns with the university's ideology."

Massad, Friedman continued, "stands as a celebrated figure in the intifada movement—a status that Columbia now continues to endorse."

Friedman's resignation marks the second time a Columbia professor has resigned over Massad and his course on Zionism. Public affairs professor Lawrence Rosenblatt announced his departure from Columbia in December, arguing that having Massad teach a course on Zionism was "akin to having a white nationalist teach about the US Civil Rights movement and the struggle for Black equality."

A Columbia spokeswoman declined to comment on the resignation.

Massad, a professor of modern Arab politics who chaired the Columbia Arts and Sciences Academic Review Committee, has taught an undergraduate course titled "History of the Jewish Enlightenment in 19th century Europe and the development of Zionism" since 2016. He continued to teach that course in the wake of Oct. 7, which Massad praised as "awesome" in a piece published in the Electronic Intifada.

"Perhaps the major achievement of the resistance in the temporary takeover of these settler-colonies is the death blow to any confidence that Israeli colonists had in their military and its ability to protect them," Massad wrote in the Oct. 8 piece.

"In the interest of safeguarding their lives and their children's future, the colonists' flight from these settlements may prove to be a permanent exodus. They may have realized that living on land stolen from another people will never make them safe."


Terror erasure continues in BBC coverage of Palestinian prisoner releases
Notably, Davies refrains from informing his readers that it was Palestinian terrorists who chose to start the “terrible, destructive war” or that it is the Palestinians (who he describes as having “happy faces” as murderers were released) who have on multiple occasions demonstrated that they are not “interested in peace”, including by means of threats to repeat the October 7th massacre.

Equally remarkable is Davies’ statement that “Israeli military operations intensify in the northern part of the occupied West Bank”, while avoiding any mention of the fact that such operations come in response to elevated levels of terrorism since mid-2021, which have included attacks by at least three “former prisoners” who were released in November 2023 in exchange for Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip.

Davies’ reporting on the third phase of releases of Palestinian prisoners is consistent with the BBC’s terror-erasing portrayal of the two earlier phases. None of the BBC’s coverage to date has made any attempt to explain the concerns of the Israeli public following the release of hundreds of convicted terrorists and not one BBC report has provided audiences with the points of view of the families of those murdered by terrorists who now walk free.


BBC Verify misinformation on location of Israeli town corrected
CAMERA UK submitted a complaint to the BBC on that matter and four days later received the following response:

“Many thanks for getting in touch. I’m sorry you were unhappy with our coverage on this occasion.

I understand your concern that the article stated Majdal Shams was in the buffer zone when you state it is not.

The team have since corrected the relevant line to state the following: “The BBC previously filmed military forces at the Alpha Line near the town of Majdal Shams. This is around 5.5km from the new construction identified within the buffer zone.”

They have also added a correction note for transparency: “Correction 29 January: This story has been updated to clarify information around where the BBC previously filmed military forces near the town of Majdal Shams, which is located in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.””


‘We will find you, we will kill you,’ Trump says after strike on ISIS in Somalia
U.S. President Donald Trump stated on Saturday that he ordered “precision” airstrikes that morning in Somalia against the “senior ISIS attack planner and other terrorists he recruited and led in Somalia.”

The targets, who hid in caves, threatened the United States and its allies, according to the president. “The strikes destroyed the caves they live in and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians,” he stated.

“Our military has targeted this ISIS attack planner for years, but Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done. I did,” Trump stated. “The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that ‘we will find you, and we will kill you.'”

Pete Hegseth, the U.S. defense secretary, said he coordinated with the Somali government, at Trump’s direction, and authorized U.S. Africa Command to “conduct coordinated airstrikes today targeting ISIS-Somalia operatives in the Golis mountains.”

“Our initial assessment is that multiple operatives were killed in the airstrikes and no civilians were harmed,” Hegseth stated.

“This action further degrades ISIS’s ability to plot and conduct terrorist attacks threatening U.S. citizens, our partners and innocent civilians and sends a clear signal that the United States always stands ready to find and eliminate terrorists who threaten the United States and our allies,” he added.

Mike Waltz, the U.S. national security adviser, stated that “radical Islamic terrorists” are on notice.

“If you harm or plan to attack Americans, we will find you and we will deliver justice,” he said.
Israel’s Disaspora Affairs Ministry launches campaign on Palestinian hate education
Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism announced the launch of an online campaign focused on incitement in the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s education system.

Videos and banners are being posted on a variety of platforms, including “significant” news websites and social media, in the United States and Europe, according to a statement announcing the campaign’s launch earlier this week.

Israeli officials have long criticised the PA for what they say is inflammatory, violent and antisemitic content in its schools’ textbooks and curriculum. Several other countries, including the United States, along with the European Parliament, have joined in the chorus, demanding changes.

“Our new campaign reveals to the world the truth about the systematic incitement that is rooted in the Palestinian education system,” Hadas Maimon, head of international campaigns at the Diaspora Ministry, wrote. “Through targeted advertising on central websites and leading digital platforms, we bring the facts to the attention of international public opinion, and show how education for hatred directly contributes to the continuation of violence.”

“Israel and Western countries share values of freedom and democracy. It is time for the world to understand what messages are being conveyed to children under the rule of the Palestinian Authority,” Maimon wrote. “The propaganda war is a daily war and is critical to the State of Israel in terms of its legitimacy in the world.”

In 2020, then MP and former teacher Jonathan Gullis told Parliament of how Palestinian children are growing up “in an environment of institutionalised radicalisation” as textbooks teach them to count "martyrs" and that "Jews control the world".

“Palestinian children are not taught what peace will even look like … Peace agreements and proposals with Israel that previously appeared in Palestinian Authority schoolbooks have been removed," said the-then MP for Stoke-on-Trent North.

“Ten-year-olds are taught that Jews are enemies of Islam and eight-year-olds learn in their textbooks that Jerusalem is a holy city only for Muslims and Christians … Make no mistake: this is antisemitism, and we must condemn it as strongly as we fight antisemitism at home”, he added





Australia levels anti-terror financing sanctions against new Hezbollah leader, neo-Nazi groups
Australia imposed new counter-terrorism financing sanctions against new Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem, an online neo-fascist network, and four white supremacist and neo-Nazi organizations on Monday, according to the country’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Senator Penny Wong.

Qassem’s name and several variations of its spelling were listed on the consolidated list. Formerly the deputy secretary-general of the Lebanese terrorist organization, he became its leader after its decades-long head Hassan Nasrallah and his brief successor Hashem Safieddine were killed in Israeli airstrikes in September and October respectively. Antisemitism is at a record high. We're keeping our eyes on it >>

“Hezbollah is responsible for the deaths of countless civilians in Lebanon, Israel, and across the Middle East,” Wong said.

In what the foreign minister said was the first time that the Australian government had imposed counter-terrorism sanctions on an entirely online entity, measures were leveled against “Terrorgram” – a loosely connected network of militant neo-Nazi and white supremacist Telegram channels and accounts. It would be a criminal offense to use or deal with the assets attributed to the so-called Terrorgram, with penalties including heavy fines and up to 10 years in prison.

“Terrorgram is an online network that promotes white supremacy and racially-motivated violence,” she said.

Four neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and radical nationalist organizations and their new aliases were re-listed under the sanctions list: The National Socialist Order (NSO), the Russian Imperial Movement, Sonnenkrieg Division, and The Base.

Wong said that this move demonstrated the current government’s “commitment to disrupting the activities of terrorists and violent extremists and preventing them from recruiting and radicalizing people online” under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Hezbollah’s Nasrallah to be buried in ‘grand procession’
The head of the Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah said on Sunday that his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, will be buried on Feb. 23, nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

While “security conditions” prevented a funeral during the war with Israel that ended with the Nov. 27 truce, the terror organization’s leadership has now decided to hold a “grand procession” for its slain chief near the Beirut airport, Naim Qassem said in a televised speech.

“We hope that it will be a grand funeral procession befitting this great personality,” he stated in remarks translated by Agence France-Presse.

A funeral for top Hezbollah terrorist Hashem Safieddine, who had been elected to succeed Nasrallah before he, too, was eliminated by Israel, is to be held on the same day. Safieddine will be buried with the same honors as Nasrallah because “he was martyred on Oct. 3, a day or two before the announcement” of his new position, Qassem revealed.

Nasrallah will be buried in the Beirut area “in a plot of land we chose between the old and new airport roads,” while Safieddine will be buried in his hometown of Deir Qanoun al-Nahr in Lebanon’s south, he said.

Qassem in his address acknowledged that Nasrallah was killed “at a time when circumstances were difficult” for the terrorist organization, forcing it to conduct a temporary burial for him according to Shi’ite traditions.

On Sept. 27, the Israeli Air Force dropped at least a dozen 2,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on Nasrallah’s bunker in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Two unnamed Israeli officials told The New York Times that more than 80 bombs were dropped over the span of several minutes during the strike, but did not confirm the type of munitions used.

A week later, an IAF strike on a bunker in the Dahiyeh district killed Safieddine—a maternal cousin of Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council and a leading candidate to replace the terror chief.

Visiting Israel Defense Forces troops in Southern Lebanon on Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a warning to the Iranian-backed terrorists: “I suggest that the successor of Nasrallah’s successor not make a mistake about Israel’s determination, lest he pay a very heavy price.”

According to Katz, Jerusalem will not allow a return to the situation that prevailed on the Israel-Lebanon border before the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist massacre. “We will foil threats and respond with full force,” the defense minister said.


Local council is blasted for 'insulting' Holocaust remembrance event after no Jewish speakers invited and references made to ongoing Gaza conflict
An Oxford historian has criticised a council for 'appropriating' the suffering of Jews after none were invited to take part in a major Holocaust remembrance event.

Professor Lawrence Goldman accused Lowestoft Town Council of not being 'sincere' in its sympathy for Jewish loss after the extraordinary oversight last week.

Large numbers of people were invited to a gathering at the Suffolk community's train station, where hundreds of Jewish children arrived the year before war broke out after being rescued by the Kindertransport operation.

But while a series of councillors gave speeches in front of the crowd, not a single Jew was asked for their thoughts or experiences.

The event was further marred by a row over a councillor's reference to the conflict in Gaza, with critics saying it was inappropriate to the occasion.

In an excoriating letter to the local authority, Professor Goldman, 67, emeritus professor in history at St Peter's College and a representative of Norwich Hebrew Congregation, said it was 'insulting' that no Jewish representatives were present.

'Our culture was appropriated by councillors and others. Jews were not heard in front of a large audience,' he said.

'I must ask you why you bothered to hold this event if you were not sincere in your sympathy for Jewish loss?'

The council organised two other gatherings – the opening event at a cinema where a short film was shown to about 20 people including councillors, and the lighting of candles at a park by primary school children, the latter also presided over by councillors.

But Prof Goldman, a former director of the Institute of Historical Research, added: 'I spoke, and a four-piece kletzmer band played Jewish music.

'But we did so at 9.45am at the East Coast Cinema, having been told this was the main event, to a tiny audience, far from the rail station where the Kindertransport trains stopped.

'Meanwhile, the main event went ahead before a packed audience, standing room only, where no Jew spoke.


Two punished for separate Long Island antisemitic incidents at Jewish sites
Two New York men were sentenced in recent weeks for separate antisemitic incidents against Long Island Jewish sites, according to the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office.

Far Rockaway resident Alvin Tirado was sentenced to two months in jail and three years probation on January 22 for threatening and harassing congregants outside the Shaare Emunah Sephardic Congregation of the Five Towns, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly announced on January 23. Antisemitism is at a record high. We're keeping our eyes on it >>

The 38-year-old allegedly exited his car near the synagogue, entered into a verbal argument, and attempted to start fights with several people, reportedly making remarks including “the Jews are taking over” and “I know this building; I’m going to run all the children over.”

Tirado drove away, allegedly nearly hitting a man and his children, but 20 minutes later approached another victim. The suspect shoved the victim, spat in their face, and said, “I am going to knock you out” and “I am going to kill you.”

The New York man was arrested the same day, but was aggressive with responding officers, and allegedly elbowed one in the ribs.

Tirado pled guilty in November to a charge of aggravated harassment.

Commitment to protecting the Jewish community
“Hate-fueled behavior and violence have no place in Nassau County. Every resident should feel safe, especially near places of worship and community,” Donnelly said.

“This defendant’s vile actions – targeting individuals with antisemitic remarks and harassing them during one of Judaism’s holiest periods of the year – are unacceptable. We remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting members of the Jewish community from harm.”

East Meadow resident Sebastian Patino Caceres pled guilty on January 16 for spray-painting anti-Israel slogans on fences, posters, and sidewalks by homes and the Beth-El Jewish Center.

In April, the 23-year-old man allegedly wrote the phrases “Zionism is Nazism,” “Stop the Genocide,” “Free Palestine,” and “F**k Israel,” along the fencing of homes. A sheet protecting a mural of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas during the October 7 massacre was vandalized by the man. He also reportedly spray-painted “Free Palestine” on the sidewalk in front of the Jewish center.


The Jewish Journalist Who Gave Emil Zola the Idea for “J’accuse”
The French novelist Emile Zola’s “J’accuse,” with the title repeated forcefully in the climactic passage, may be, as Lauren Gottlieb Lockshin has it, one of the most influential newspaper articles in modern history. Published in 1898, the essay asserted that Captain Alfred Dreyfus had been deliberately framed on charges of espionage, and that those responsible for framing him whipped up anti-Semitism to help make the charges stick. Lockshin notes that Zola’s argument, or even his most famous formulation, wasn’t entirely original:

it was not the first time that clear evidence of Dreyfus’s innocence had been published and not even the first time the words “J’accuse” had appeared in connection with the case. The arguments and phrasing that made “J’accuse” a journalistic masterpiece had been written years earlier by someone else—a Jewish author named Bernard Lazare.

Lazare anticipated Zola’s “J’accuse” refrain by nearly three years. The content of the accusations also closely approximated the real circumstances behind Dreyfus’s wrongful conviction, which it would take the French government another eleven years to acknowledge. Lazare wrote this draft in mid to late 1895, but the Dreyfus family and their lawyer thought it was too inflammatory to publish. They asked Lazare to edit out the “J’accuse” wording before allowing it to be published a full year later under a title that implied the French military’s mistake had been an honest one: A Judicial Error: The Truth about the Dreyfus Affair.

To anyone who has followed the public conversation about anti-Semitism in the U.S. and Britain during the past few decades, the reactions shouldn’t be surprising:

The press almost universally focused on Lazare’s one mention of Dreyfus’s Jewishness—and the fact that the pamphlet’s author was Jewish. They suggested it was Lazare himself who was trying to foment an anti-Semitic scandal.
What Real Resistance Looks Like
The Nazis could only accomplish what they did, first in Germany and later in all the occupied territories, thanks to a lot of complicity in high-ranking places, and also thanks to the indifference, lack of courage, ignorance, and will not to believe what seemed to be the incredible acts of the Germans. —André Scheinmann

This assessment by André Scheinmann, pieced together by author Diana Mara Henry, describes his resistance to and survival of the Nazi regime. But the memoir reads almost like a summary of what we’ve learned over the past 15 months rather than exclusively an analysis of the successful elimination of one-third of the world’s Jewish population from 80 years ago.

It used to be difficult to comprehend how the Nazis were so successful. Today—after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent explosion of anti-Semitism around the world but especially on American college campuses—it is much easier to accept. It not only took the evil inclination of the Nazis in their time and Hamas today, but the fellow travelers, the ignorant, the mendacious, and the useful idiots. Both projects could not have succeeded so well without these supporting players.

Indeed, this comparison between the Nazis and Hamas has been repeated like a mantra—as in, October 7 was the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. But there is a significant problem with this focus on similarities between the two groups. The biggest complication is the fundamental difference between the Nazis and Hamas even as their primary target was the same minority population. In the case of the Nazis, the program to destroy the Jews was the means for saving Western civilization, and they undertook to do so while hiding their methods of mass extermination. Hamas employed similar brutal, deadly means—albeit on a smaller scale, thank heavens, but their ends were quite different. Hamas’s goal is to destroy Western civilization starting with cutting down as many Jews as they could get their hands on, and all while broadcasting the atrocities to as wide an audience as possible.

Scheinmann has a remarkable tale to share, and among other attributes, he correctly identifies another similarity for victims of the Nazis and Hamas, as in this passage about his time in the Natzweiler concentration camp:
While the prisoner’s body was deteriorating under the regime they were made to follow, the SS and the Gestapo were doing their utmost to destroy the prisoner’s soul. … In order to survive, prisoners had to be proud of their past, convinced that what had brought them there was well worth it. They had to believe that victory was theirs.
Israeli Dan Pugach wins Grammy award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album
Israeli musician Dan Pugach won a Grammy award on Sunday night in the category of Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album with his compilation title “Bianca Reimagined: Music for Paws and Persistence.”

The album is dedicated to the memory of a dog he adopted in New York, where he divides his time with Connecticut.

Also onstage to accept the award was his wife Nicole Zuraitis, who sang on the album, as well as other members of the Dan Pugach Big Band, including Israeli saxophonist Eitan Gofman and pianist Nitzan Gavrieli.

“I am still in shock,” Pugach told Channel 12. “I can’t believe it at all.”

Pugach said he was nominated in two categories against other musicians he described being his own heroes.

“When they told me I had won I was very excited. The adrenaline rushed. I felt very lucky to go up on the stage with my wife, Nicole Zuraitis, who sang and wrote for the album,” he said.

According to his website, Pugach has fostered and adopted pit bull rescue dogs from a New York shelter. In 2011, he adopted Bianca, a faithful pooch who died in 2018, and the Grammy-winning album was inspired in her honor.

Born in Ra’anana, Pugach was in the Israel Air Force band during his army service.

He told Channel 12 that despite the tensions in New York since the start of the Gaza war in 2023 he does not hide his Israeli origins, but rather it has “brought my Israeli identity closer to my heart.”

“Anyone who knows me knows that I am Israeli. I am not ashamed of that,” he said.


Days after release from Gaza, Agam Berger attends IDF ceremony for her sister Bar
Just four days after she was freed from Hamas captivity, former hostage Agam Berger attended an IDF ceremony on Monday for her younger sister Bar, who completed a military course.

Bar Berger will now serve as a mashakit tash, or noncommissioned officer responsible for service conditions — a sort of social worker for soldiers.

In video of the ceremony, Agam is seen placing a purple aiguillette, worn by a mashakit tash, on Bar’s shoulder.

“I’m proud of you,” Agam tells her younger sister, as they both shed tears.

They are then embraced by their parents, Meirav and Shlomi, and Agam’s twin sister, Lee Yam. “We did it,” Meirav exclaims.

Agam Berger was taken hostage on October 7, 2023, from the Nahal Oz IDF post near the Gaza border, where she had arrived only a day earlier to begin her role as a surveillance soldier in the Border Defense Corps.

Berger was kidnapped in her pajamas from Nahal Oz, along with six other surveillance soldiers: Ori Megidish, who was rescued by the IDF in October 2023; Noa Marciano, who was killed in captivity; and Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Liri Albag and Naama Levy, who were freed five days before Berger. During the October 7 attack, 15 surveillance soldiers were slain in Nahal Oz.

While Berger was in captivity, her twin sister, Lee Yam, completed an officer’s course, her younger sister, Bar, enlisted in the IDF, and her younger brother, Ilai, celebrated his bar mitzvah — all milestones that she missed during the 482 days she was held hostage in Gaza.


Seth Mandel: Remembering Marion Wiesel
There was no one to whom the label “translator” better applied than Marion Wiesel, who died yesterday at the age of 94. To give one example: When she met her late husband Elie Wiesel, his book Night had already been published and translated into English. It wasn’t until 2006 that Marion’s own translation of the book would be published, yet that version would become an instant bestseller. “The slim volume gradually became, like Animal Farm or To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the most popular books of all time,” notes his biographer Joseph Berger.

Marion was born in Vienna. When the Nazis took the city, her family fled to Belgium, France, Switzerland and ultimately the United States, where she would eventually meet and marry Elie after the dissolution of her first marriage.

Marion was a writer and producer and documentarian as well, with a similar focus on the Holocaust and Jewish history. But her artistic eye resulted in a creative partnership of immense historical value when she began working with the famed trailblazing Jewish photographer Roman Vishniac.

The St. Petersburg-born, Moscow-raised Vishniac was obsessed from a young age with documenting the world around him, whether with a microscope (he would become a respected biologist) or a camera—sometimes combining the two to take pictures of life as seen through the microscope. In the mid- and late-1930s, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee sent Vishniac to photograph Eastern European Jewish life in the shtetls as a means of raising funds for poor Jews and raising awareness of the looming threat of annihilation they faced.

Vishniac’s most famous work, aside from his portraits of figures like Albert Einstein, is A Vanished World, a collection of his shtetl photography first published in 1947 and then reworked into a definitive 1983 version. That latter version included an introduction by Vishniac’s friend Elie Wiesel.

Throughout the next decade, Vishniac worked with Marion Wiesel on a follow-up collection. He would not live to see its completion and publication, but Marion would. The result, To Give Them Light, is a haunting masterpiece. “I promised to help him sift through the thousands of photographs stored helter-skelter in his apartment on New York’s West Side, a place crammed with rare books and Far Eastern art,” Marion writes in an editor’s note. “I promised to help him ready the photographs for publication. But, in the end, he became too ill to continue to work on this project that we both knew would be his last. Then one day he was gone. And the promise had to be kept.”

Elie Wiesel wrote a striking preface as well: In the book of photographs, he writes, “we meet Jews in those last minutes before they were torn from history by a tempest of fire and ashes; when their lives still coursed with energy and creativity.” Wiesel wrote of these Jews having cheated the executioner in their own way, thanks to Vishniac.




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