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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

02/18 Links Pt2: The End of the ‘Deliberate Starvation’ Lie; BBC put on a Hamas Propaganda Pantomime; Is Al Jazeera Providing Material Support to Hamas?

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The End of the ‘Deliberate Starvation’ Lie
Turns out you really can prove a negative, some of the time.

Israeli researchers have released a study of the food aid allowed into Gaza during the current war and—surprise!—there was no genocide, no starvation policy, no manmade famine. (At least none made by Israel.)

As Haaretz reports, possibly through gritted teeth:

“In the study, Israeli researchers and doctors examined the quantity and nutrient composition of the food that aid organizations brought into Gaza during the study period in order to examine whether they met the ‘Sphere’ international standards for nutrition for a population in a humanitarian crisis.

“Between January and July 2024, 478,229 tons of food entered the Gaza Strip in 28,734 shipments by land, sea, and air, the study found. The quantity of food provided an average of 3,004 calories per person per day, based on 98 grams of protein, 61 grams of fat, and 23 milligrams of iron.”

Israeli officials have been saying this throughout the war: They let in 3,000 calories per person per day, more than the estimated daily caloric intake recommended by the FDA. In fact, 3,000 calories is markedly more than required, according to the FDA, for everyone but active males.

And before anyone suggests that this seven-month average could be thanks to one or even two months of very high levels of food aid, worry not: Of the seven months studied, per-person calorie levels surpassed the recommended minimum in six of them. The outlier was a month in which major combat operations coincided with Israeli activists’ efforts to sabotage the aid caravans’ ability to travel through the crossings.

Crucially, the study points out: “While reliable data do not exist for critical dimensions of food access and consumption across Gaza, these estimates suggest that adequate amounts of nutritious food were being transported into the Gaza Strip during most of the first half of 2024.”

In other words, Israel did its part. And here’s where the actual war crime comes in: We know for a fact that Hamas hijacked aid convoys, hoarded food and resold some of it at marked-up prices while keeping the rest for themselves, and even shot Gazans who tried to accept food-aid deliveries.
Brendan O'Neill: The Australian nurses who wished death on Israelis
The threatening comments made by those Aussie nurses, and the justification of them by ‘Muslim leaders’, confirms how out of control the dehumanisation of Israel has become. What we have on our streets, on our campuses and in our press is not ‘criticism of Israel’ – it’s the feverish singling out of Israel as the most murderous and morally corrupt nation on Earth. It’s the damning of Israel as Nazi-esque. As a child-killing machine. As a people in the grip of ‘genocidal mania’. As a country so unholy, so poisonous, that every virtuous Westerner must forcefield his life from its wares and its ideas by signing up to BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions).

The message we receive over and over is that Israel is the demon of world affairs, a moral pox on the Earth. Even to read its writers or eat its fruits is to pollute one’s body with its toxins. Hence, the activist dream of erasing it: save humanity, destroy the Jewish State. It is inevitable that such singular vilification of a state will lead to suspicion and even contempt for that state’s inhabitants. When you make the Jewish nation into the epitome of human debasement, and make hatred for the Jewish nation into the central credo of polite society, you actively incite bigotry. You can’t spread the calumny that Israel is a barbarous aberration among the family of nations and then reach for the smelling salts when someone draws his fingers across his throat to show how much he hates that horrible country.

Anti-Israel activism belongs less to the realm of political critique than to the realm of pre-modern hysteria, with ‘the Jewish State’ now playing the role of ‘the Jews’ as the great, delirious menace to mankind. Those nurses are not outliers. They were giving voice to a mania that is mainstream. Wishing death on Israelis is the logical conclusion to wishing death on Israel. And yet when Jews push back against this frothing demonisation of their homeland, they’re accused of ‘weaponising anti-Semitism’, as that letter says. Jews were accused of ‘weaponising’ the Holocaust to further their global power. They were accused of ‘weaponising’ 7 October to justify conquering Gaza. Now they’re accused of ‘weaponising’ acts of anti-Jewish hatred to fortify their victim status. These accusations of ‘weaponisation’ depict the Jews as such a soulless, mercenary people that they’ll even sell their own suffering for political gain.

Australia having nurses who passionately hate Israelis is deeply worrying. Australia having ‘Muslim groups’ that are willing to defend those nurses is even more so. It exposes the depth of the moral rot under the ideology of multiculturalism. Israelophobia is an old hatred in new garb. It is the social malady that springs from our rejection of civilisational values. Tackling it is the great task of our time.
Is Al Jazeera Providing Material Support to Hamas?
On January 25, the world watched in revulsion as Hamas paraded four young Israeli female hostages through a Gaza square. They were surrounded by hordes of militants garbed in fatigues, donning black face-concealing masks, and green Hamas head gear proclaiming “Jihad for Liberation.” The militants clutched and clicked their AK-47 guns.

The grotesque display continued as the women were marched onto an outdoor stage, forced to wave to the unruly crowd. Hamas had kidnapped the women in their pajamas on the morning of October 7, 2023 and at gun point, violently dragged them to Gaza. On stage, the hostages, flanked by militants, held “certificates” and “gift bags” from their captors as part of an elaborate faux ceremony to depict them as women returning from a vacation-like trip, masking the brutality they endured for 477 days.

One would expect nothing less of Hamas, designated as a terrorist entity by the U.S. and a dozen other countries. But an expose’ on Israel’s i24 News alleged that it was actually an Al Jazeera employee who masterminded this theatre of horror for Hamas.

Senior Al Jazeera producer and investigative reporter Tamer Almisshal reportedly conceived and directed the vile “ceremony” for Hamas from his office in Qatar—planning every detail of the staging, including the backdrop displaying Hamas slogans glorifying the Oct 7 massacre. Almisshal may have played the same role for subsequent hostage release faux “ceremonies.”

If true, this report raises concerns that Al Jazeera and the Government of Qatar, which funds Al Jazeera, have crossed the line from biased reporting to being a participant in the war against Israel, including by providing material support for Hamas, designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. If true, this would be a serious violation of U.S. law.

Almisshal reportedly coordinated the ceremony productions with Ezzedine Al Haddad, a Hamas commander who oversees the Qassam Brigades in northern Gaza.

If the report is accurate, was this a rogue or one-off occurrence? Quite the contrary. Almisshal is also the producer and presenter of an Al Jazeera docuseries called “More Than Meets the Eye” (also known as “What is Hidden is Greater.”) In one recent episode, the show aired exclusive footage of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar planning operations in Gaza, as well as "testimonies" from Hamas terrorists who took part in the Oct 7 massacre. Almisshal ended the episode by praising Hamas’ “historic blow” against Israel.


David Collier: BBC put on a Hamas Propaganda Pantomime
The BBC just aired a new documentary on Gaza titled "How to Survive a Warzone." It was raw Hamas propaganda funded by the British public.

One of the two co-producers is Yousef D. Hammash, a Palestinian who was living in Gaza until June 2024. Hammash is a long-standing professional Gazan propagandist with a camera, who recently completed propaganda documentaries for Channel 4. His feed on X includes almost every possible false accusation against Israel.

One of the cameramen in Gaza who did the legwork was Amjad Al Fayoumi, who posted a salute to Oct. 7 and shared "resistance" videos full of terrorists, rockets, and Israeli funerals.

The young narrator's father is Dr. Ayman Al-Yazouri, Hamas's Deputy Minister of Agriculture in Gaza. Thus, the child of Hamas royalty was given an hour on a BBC channel to demonize Israel.

Our media has allowed Palestinian propagandists to turn our legacy channels into outlets blindly spouting Hamas lies.


BBC faces criticism after claims of Hamas link to harrowing Gaza film
The BBC faces claims that it failed to disclose that a teenager who appeared as the main narrator in a harrowing film on the impact of Israel’s war in Gaza is the son of a senior Hamas minister.

The corporation is also accused of turning a blind-eye to the hardline anti-Israel positions of those who made the documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, aired on BBC2 on Monday night.

The one-hour long film, also heavily promoted on the BBC’s I-Player, featured a detailed account of life in the war-torn region, told by the now 14 year-old Abdullah Al-Yazouri.

In an email exchange via the BBC, Abdullah had said he wanted to be part of the programme “to explain the suffering that people here in Gaza witness with the language that the world understands, English” – and so that viewers learn about the situation on the ground without being “blurred by misinformation”.

But an investigation into the background of the film alleges that Abdullah is actually the son of Dr. Ayman Al-Yazouri, a senior official in the Hamas government, and with family links to one of its founding members.

Currently the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, the doctor has held other posts in education and planning.

The investigation, by the pro-Israel activist David Collier, suggests Al-Yazouri actually hails from the same family as Hamas founder Ibrahim al-Yazouri.

Asked to comment on the claims, the BBC did not dispute Collier’s allegations, but said: “The film told the children’s own stories, showing viewers their direct experiences of living through a war, and the children’s parents did not have any editorial input.”
BBC journalist who gushed over Holocaust revisionist is nominated for British Council award
A BBC Arabic correspondent who has previously praised the ‘exquisite journalism’ of Holocaust revisionist has been nominated for the British Council’s Study UK Alumni Awards.

Layla Bashar Al-Kloub, a senior journalist at the public broadcaster, has also previously condemned the “Zionist entity” and labelled Israel as “terrorists”.

She is one of eight shortlisted finalists in the Jordan category for the prestigious award, which recognises “outstanding people” who made an impact in their homeland following a UK education.

In a series of articles by the JC over recent years, it was revealed that Al-Kloub has a history of expressing anti-Israel sentiment online.

In May 2021, she posted a gushing tribute to X for television journalist Muna Hawwa, a Palestinian activist suspended by Al Jazeera for producing a 2019 video that asked, “How true is the #Holocaust and how did the Zionists benefit from it?”

In her message hailing the Palestinian activist’s return to X, Al-Kloub wrote: “My dear Muna… there was a great victory for you, yourself specifically, the victory of the free word, and the victory of exquisite journalism, you have proved everybody you are capable of confronting large institutions by yourself, may Allah strengthen you.”

Hawwa has rejected the allegation that she denied the Holocaust.

In the 2019 documentary, Hawwa also said: “Israel is the biggest winner from the Holocaust, and it uses the same Nazi justifications as a launching pad for racial cleansing and annihilation of the Palestinians... The ideology behind ‘the State of Israel’ is based on religious, national, and geographic concepts that suckled from the Nazi spirit.”


Palestine Action vandalizes BBC HQ with fake blood, smashes glass
UK-based anti-Israel group Palestine Action targeted the BBC's headquarters in Portland Place, London, with graffiti on Monday.

Photos on the group's Instagram show the BBC sign and the building's walls dripping with red paint, designed to look like blood. The activists also smashed glass doors.

The group stated that this was done because "the BBC's [pro-Israel] systematic bias manufactures consent for the genocide and the ethnic cleansing of their homeland."

PA added that “the BBC’s biased reporting isn’t a simple case of poor journalism - it’s a matter of life and death.”

"For years, the BBC has consistently minimized Israel's violence against Palestinians while amplifying the narratives of the oppressors, perpetuating a deadly cycle of misinformation and false equivalency," the statement continued.


Two Israeli soldiers forced to flee Amsterdam after being doxxed online
Two serving IDF soldiers who fought in Gaza had to flee Amsterdam and return to Israel after a pro-Palestinian organization tracked them down and doxxed them on social media, Israeli media reported on Tuesday.

The two were visiting the Dutch capital on vacation when Israel Genocide Tracker (@trackingisrael) published their details and photos, claiming they committed "genocide in Gaza."

The post by Israel Genocide Tracker was also specifically shared with the Hind Rajab Foundation, which works to issue arrest warrants against IDF soldiers.

Israel Genocide Tracker claimed on X that "after participating in the Gaza genocide, this Israeli tank commander from the 52nd Battalion, who was involved in kidnapping hundreds of civilians (especially in Jabalia) and who enjoyed taking selfies with them, landed in Amsterdam today for a vacation." They attached four pictures to the post.

N12 added that the soldiers had previously uploaded footage and images from combat zones in Gaza during the war, which the Israel Genocide Tracker proliferated online.

The two had permission to travel to the Netherlands, but following the doxxing, the army instructed the soldiers to remain in their hotel rooms and not go outside.

The IDF then decided that the soldiers should cut their vacation short and return to Israel.

N12 stated that there was a particular concern for the soldiers' safety given the violent attacks on Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in the city last year.


Israel raids UNRWA job center, shuts schools in East Jerusalem after agency banned
Israeli forces raided a vocational center and shuttered three East Jerusalem schools, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Tuesday.

The actions, which the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said affected some 600 students, were the latest move by Israeli authorities to banish the body from operating in its territory.

According to UNRWA, police and Jerusalem municipality staff entered the Kalandia Training Centre by force Tuesday morning, firing tear gas and sound grenades and ordering its evacuation. It said 350 students and 30 staff were present during the raid on the job-training facility, which is located just outside the Qalandiya refugee camp bordering East Jerusalem.

Police and city officials also ordered the closure of three other schools in East Jerusalem attended by around 250 children, UNRWA said. Two of the schools, which were not named by UNRWA, reportedly continued operating despite the order.

A spokesperson for the Israel Police said officers were carrying out an order from Jerusalem City Hall. A spokesperson for the municipality could not be reached.

In a statement, UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini called the moves “a violation of the basic right to education as well as of United Nations privileges and immunities.”

“Children’s access to education must be preserved and United Nations facilities must be protected and respected at all times wherever they are,” he said.

Roland Friedrich, UNRWA director for the West Bank and East Jerusalem, said the raids were “unacceptable” and a “denial of the right to education for children and trainees.”

Israel last month severed all ties between its officials and UNRWA and barred the agency from operating in Israeli territory.


Muslim doctor forced to resign after he sang the praises of terrorist murderers while employed at a major hospital
A Muslim doctor glorified the actions of the slain leader of the Hamas terrorist group while he was employed at a busy Melbourne hospital.

Dr Mohamed Ghilan resigned from The Alfred Hospital in November last year after a passionate speech in which he called Yahya Sinwar a 'martyr' and said Hamas was 'the resistance' was posted online.

Sinwar, the architect of the October 7 massacre and Israel's most wanted man, was killed last October after being hunted by intelligence services and the Israeli Defence Forces.

Dr Ghilan talks about 'the lessons that we get from the resistance' in the speech.

'Do you think this is going to end with the martyrdom of one or two or 10? After every one there is 10. More will rise. We're not doing this for ourselves. We're doing this for Al-Aqsa, we're doing this for Allah,' he said.

A spokesperson for Alfred Health told Daily Mail Australia: 'Concerns about (Dr Ghilan's) online activity were raised with us in November last year.

'He was suspended from work, and a workplace investigation into the allegations commenced. Dr Ghilan resigned from our health service while the investigation was still in progress.'

The spokesperson added that 'the concerns raised with Alfred Health were reported to both AHPRA and Victoria Police at the time'.


Avi Yemini: Full clip exposes BLATANT lies by Palestinian extremist in Australia
Nasser Mashni tries to rewrite history about his rallying cry: “Melbourne is ours! Australia is ours! The world is ours!” Too bad (for him) I got the receipts.


“This is a memo for the Arab Australian leadership” | Up Late with Ben Harvey
In tonight’s show Ben Harvey delivers an uncomfortable memo to Arab Australia, after an open letter by peak Muslim groups condemns the outrage over the Sydney nurses video.




Northwestern Law School Clinic Funds Legal Defense of Anti-Israel Activists Who Shut Down Chicago Airport
A Northwestern Law School clinic is providing free legal defense to a group of anti-Israel radicals who organized a blockade of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport that shut down travel last spring. One of the organizers is benefiting from that defense after repeatedly accusing Northwestern of "anti-Palestinian discrimination."

Sheila Bedi, a Northwestern law professor who leads the school's Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic, is representing four of the blockade organizers, according to legal filings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. Her clinic and others like it at Northwestern use funding from the law school and its donors to offer legal services pro bono, according to attorneys familiar with the school.

The Washington, D.C.-based Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute filed a class action suit against the "anti-American" organizers in September, arguing that they should pay civil damages to travelers who missed their flights and were forced to walk miles with their luggage to access the airport.

One of the organizers, Palestine Legal "Justice Fellow" Rifqa Falaneh, has a history of sparring with Northwestern. She's filed a string of civil rights complaints against the university on behalf of students who she says "have been the target of anti-Palestinian discrimination." In a press release issued just two days after the Chicago airport blockade, for example, Falaneh said Northwestern law "refuses to care about its Palestinian students" and called on "federal civil rights officials to ensure their rights are protected." Now, one of the law school's professors is defending her for free.

The revelation reflects the surge in anti-Israel activism seen within top U.S. law schools in the wake of Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack. At Yale Law School, for example, a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter led a campaign to bar a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces from visiting campus, saying the soldier's presence would make "many of us—especially Palestinian Arab, Muslim, Black, and brown students—feel physically and psychologically unsafe and unwelcome in our own school."

SJP's national chapter helped organize the April 15 blockade in Chicago alongside Jewish Voice for Peace and a local left-wing organization, the Chicago Dissenters. The groups acted in alignment with a "multi-city economic blockade … in solidarity with Palestine" organized across the country under the banner "A15 Action."
How pro-Israel students were affected by antisemitism in fall and spring 2024 - survey
StandWithUs reached out to 250 of our Emerson Fellows on college campuses to participate in a timely survey. We wanted to know how antisemitism during the fall semester of 2024 compared to the spring 2024 semester when encampments appeared on many campuses.

The StandWithUs Data and Analytics Department’s survey targeted pro-Israel Jewish student leaders and non-Jewish allies from universities across the United States, gathering responses from 100 American students participating in the Emerson Fellowship, a StandWithUs leadership program that empowers students to educate their peers and communities about Israel and fight against antisemitism.

While these findings provide valuable insights, it’s important to note that since a pilot study focused on a specific demographic (Jewish and non-Jewish pro-Israel student leaders), the results may not be fully generalizable to a broader college student population.

Further research with larger and more diverse samples is warranted to deepen our understanding of this critical issue.

The survey was completed largely by Jewish students (88%), with smaller representations from Christian (8%), Hindu (1%), Agnostic (1%), nothing in particular (1%), and other (1%). The majority of respondents were between 18 and 23 years old, with the largest age group being 20-year-olds (42%). In terms of gender, 67% identified as female, 32% as male, and 1% as non-binary.

The universities represented in the survey spanned across various regions of the United States. The Northeast had the largest representation, accounting for 31% of respondents, followed by the Southeast with 24%, and the West Coast with 22%. Smaller percentages of the Midwest (14%), Southwest (8%), and Mountain West (1%) were also represented.

Although the results represent a specific demographic of student leaders, the fact that these experiences are reported across a variety of regions of the United States is concerning.

Sixty-five respondents (65%), reported personally experiencing antisemitism on campus. When asked to indicate which semesters the incidents occurred, (with the option to select all that applied), 42 respondents reported experiencing antisemitism during the fall 2024 semester, while 41 reported incidents in the spring 2024 semester.
George Mason Guest Speaker Tells Students: The Holocaust Was Not 'Unique'
George Mason University, the Northern Virginia school that has grappled with high-profile instances of pro-terror student radicalism, hosted an anti-Israel professor who delivered a lecture aimed at "shattering this idea that anything that is to do with Jews, the Holocaust, Israel is somehow unique."

The Washington Free Beacon attended the Thursday event—titled, "Pedagogy and Palestine in the Classroom"—in an English Department conference room on George Mason's campus. The school's Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine sponsored it.

The event featured Stockton University associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies Raz Segal, who discussed "teaching and conversing on Palestine in today's context." Segal is known for his hostility toward the Jewish state, having accused Israel of genocide just six days after Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack.

In his George Mason speech, he lamented "the problematic idea that Jews are unique," calling it "an integral part of thinking in an anti-Semitic way." He cited the Holocaust as a counterargument—and went on to argue that Nazi Germany's slaughtering of six million Jews "was not, of course, unique."

"When someone raises this in my class, as an assumption or whatever it is, that the Holocaust is somehow different, I take this as an opportunity," Segal said. "Tell us why you think that it is unique? Let's break this down."

"And ultimately in the class, whenever we do this exercise—and there is a lot of published material about these kinds of comparisons that show us that the Holocaust was not, of course, unique—is that the class reaches the conclusion … that, yes, the Holocaust was not unique, right?" Segal continued. His goal in teaching his students, then, is "just shattering this idea that anything that is to do with Jews, the Holocaust, Israel is somehow unique."

The panel came in the aftermath of two high-profile incidents at George Mason involving student radicals.
Israeli physicist removed from ‘ghost particle’ research team following Oct. 7
A groundbreaking discovery in particle physics has been overshadowed by academic politics after an Israeli physicist was removed from an international research team. The study, published in Nature, details the detection of an ultra-high-energy neutrino—dubbed the "ghost particle"—in the Mediterranean Sea. This neutrino, with energy levels 30 times higher than the previous record, represents a major milestone in astrophysics.

Professor Dafne Guetta, a physicist from Ariel University, was part of the research team that made the discovery. However, following the October 7 terror attack on Israel, several academic institutions imposed a boycott on Israeli researchers, leading to her removal from the project.

"We have known about high-energy particles since the discovery of cosmic rays, which are made of protons—charged particles that can be deflected by magnetic fields on their way to Earth," Guetta told Ynet. "This makes it difficult to trace their origins. Neutrinos, on the other hand, are neutral and unaffected by magnetic fields, traveling in a straight line from their source. This makes them invaluable messengers carrying pure information from distant cosmic events." To identify the origins of these high-energy neutrinos, researchers analyze astronomical data in optical and ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths. One possible source is celestial objects emitting high-energy photons, such as active galaxies like NGC 1068. However, these photons may be absorbed by their surrounding environment, complicating observations.

"To overcome this challenge, we must use alternative observational methods and open new 'windows' into the sky," Guetta explained.

Guetta’s research was conducted at Ariel University’s AGASS research center, which specializes in space studies and advanced data analysis tools. As an integral part of the international research team that detected the neutrino, her expertise was crucial. Yet, following the October 7 Hamas terror attack, the governing body of the KM3NeT detector project removed her from the collaboration, despite her scientific contributions.

"There is no place for discrimination in science," Guetta said. "Even if I am no longer part of this consortium, this discovery is significant and has the potential to open new doors in high-energy astrophysics and fundamental physics. This is why I wanted to become a physicist at 15 years old. I truly hope things will change and that politics will no longer interfere with scientific progress."


Top Iranian general warns Tehran will strike Israel again at ‘appropriate time’
A senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general warned Monday that Iran would carry out a third wave of missile strikes against Israel at the “appropriate time,” after Tehran previously launched two rounds of direct attacks on Israel in April and October 2024.

“The True Promise 3 will be carried out in appropriate time,” said deputy commander-in-chief of the IRGC Brigadier General Ali Fadavi at Tehran’s Amirkabir University of Technology, in remarks carried by Iran’s Mehr news agency.

Fadavi also briefly touched on the war in Gaza, which was sparked by the Hamas-led invasion and massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, claiming that the ongoing ceasefire and hostage release deal was proof that Israel “lost” against the Palestinian terror group.

“Zionist regime officials themselves admit that Hamas won and they lost,” Fadavi claimed.

He was joined at the university, which was marking the 46th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, by representatives of Hamas, Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, as well as representatives of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Iraqi Hezbollah al-Nujaba militia.

Over the past year, Iran twice fired massive barrages of missiles and drones at Israel, in operations it dubbed True Promise 1 and 2, in a spillover from the war in the Gaza Strip and the fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel in April 2024, firing some 300 attack drones and missiles in response to the killing of several IRGC members in an airstrike near Tehran’s consulate in Damascus.

Months later, in October, it launched some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for the assassinations of former Hamas Hezbollah leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Hasan Nasrallah.


University of Central Florida suspends fraternity for antisemitic hazing ritual
Following reports of an antisemitic hazing ritual on a student, the University of Central Florida (UCF) has suspended the campus chapter of Pi Gamma Delta, one of North America’s largest fraternities.

The decision stems from a photo submitted to the university from a spring 2023 ritual in which a student was bound and blindfolded while being forced to hold a swastika.

The photo was submitted by an anonymous whistleblower during the fall 2024 semester, who said they got it from a friend’s phone. The image was also shared with local news outlets.

After conducting an investigation, UCF put Phi Gamma Delta under interim suspension, barring it from all activities. University officials strongly condemned the incident.

“We are appalled to have recently received an image that was taken in Spring 2023 as part of a hazing ritual that took place at an off-campus location,” the university told a university news site earlier this month. “UCF unequivocally condemns hazing and acts of antisemitism.”

UCF noted that it understands that the student in the photo was blindfolded and unaware of the swastika positioned on his lap. However, it said, “this does not diminish the seriousness of this incident or the harm caused.”
Kanye West, back on X again, says he is ‘not under Jewish control anymore’
Shortly after he aired a Super Bowl commercial for a website selling a swastika T-shirt, and two days after posting an antisemitic rant on X, the rapper Ye announced that he was quitting the platform.

One week later he was back — and tweeting about Jews again.

“I am not under Jewish control anymore,” he wrote on Monday. “In war you take a couple loses [sic].”

He also wrote, “There’s [a] lot of Jewish people I know and love and still work with.”

By Tuesday morning, all the tweets had been deleted. But in the stream of all-caps posts the previous day, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, defended selling white shirts featuring a black swastika on his website and wrote that “a few specific Jews not the entire race for crying out loud but a few specific Jews came together and did everything they could to destroy me.” He added that he was “not playing victim just refreshing everyones memory.”

He also wrote, after the e-commerce company Shopify stopped working with his site to sell the swastika shirt, that no one else had agreed to sell it. He also defended the symbol — widely recognized in the Western world as the emblem of the Nazis — because it has historically been a feature of Indian and other Asian religions. He name-checked Harvey Finkelstein, who helms Shopify and is descended from Holocaust survivors.

He said he’s been thinking of selling the shirts for eight years — far predating his first stream of public antisemitic comments in late 2022.

“I remember going to Japan and gasping when I saw what is known as the swastika on clothing,” he wrote in all-caps. “It felt illegal to even look at it thats how I had been programmed.”

He added, “I then found out that swastika had many different meanings and many different names.”


In first: Muslim country to incorporate antisemitism definition into school textbooks
A new report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) highlights a significant change in Azerbaijan’s curriculum, making it the first Muslim-majority country in the world to integrate a definition of antisemitism into its school textbooks.

The report, conducted in collaboration with the Ruderman Family Foundation as part of a broader study on education in Central Asia, examined 53 textbooks in Azerbaijan’s education system and revealed an exceptional positive trend in the depiction of Jews and Israel.

According to the report, Azerbaijan’s new school textbooks recognize the Holocaust as a genocide in which six million Jews were murdered, presenting it as an illustration of the consequences of racism and totalitarian regimes. Additionally, the curriculum provides a balanced perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, emphasizing the fact that Arab states rejected the 1947 UN partition plan.

Another significant change concerns the way Palestinian terrorism is portrayed. While in the past, Palestinian violence was referred to as “guerilla warfare,” it is now explicitly labeled as terrorism, highlighting the destructive impact of terrorist acts worldwide. Furthermore, references portraying Zionism as a racist ideology — a remnant of Soviet-era propaganda — have been removed from the textbooks.

Alongside the recognition of the Holocaust and condemnation of terrorism, the report states that Azerbaijan’s education system describes Israel as a legitimate Jewish state and emphasizes the contributions of the Jewish people to science, culture, and world history. The curriculum also includes positive references to Judaism and Jewish rituals— a rare trend in Muslim-majority countries.
As Israel fields Iron Beam, Gulf states are pining for the technology
Interest in direct-energy weapons is rising in the Gulf region, a technology in which Israel has proclaimed itself a leader with the fielding of the Iron Beam.

Absent the breakthrough capability, militaries in the region are stuck with the costly proposition of shooting interceptor missiles at incoming threats, an economic calculus untenable for some.

Sasha Bruchmann, a research fellow at the Bahrain office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, explained that while there is a common allure among Gulf states to directed-energy weapons, there is no joint initiative in place dedicated to researching or developing such systems.

“There has been a shared interest in so far as most would want to have them, they are high on the priority list of most regional states – however, there is no common Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) approach or umbrella that I am aware of to foster this cooperatively or even bilateral cooperation,” he said.

The expert noted that Saudi Arabia is reported to have already purchased a Chinese-made smaller laser counter-drone system and that the United Arab Emirates appears to want to develop these types of weapons through independent initiatives. Janes reported on Saudi efforts to that effect last month.

Mastering the technology of disabling missiles, drones and smaller projectiles with lasers has long been the holy grail of air defense. Few nations have succeeded so far, with Israel and the United States among the ones closest to this pursuit.

Israeli defense company Rafael has been working for over a decade on the Iron Beam – which it is expected to deploy before the end of this year.

The intention is to integrate the system into the Iron Dome, which relies on kinetic interceptors, to render the package more effective. In the setup, Iron Beam would direct a large amount of small beams on the most vulnerable spot of incoming threats, incapacitating them.

At the 2023 edition of the IDEX trade show in Abu Dhabi, Rafael exhibited a mock-up of the Iron Beam, signaling an interest in possibly exporting the system to regional customers in the future.
Fiji to become seventh nation to open embassy in Jerusalem
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Tuesday hailed the island nation of Fiji’s decision to open an embassy in Jerusalem.

“I commend the Republic of Fiji’s government for its historic decision to open an embassy in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people. Thank you, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, friend of Israel. Thank you, Fiji! tweeted Sa’ar.



Rabuka had confirmed the intent during a meeting last week with Sa’ar on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

Six countries currently have their embassies in Israel’s capital—the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Paraguay and Papua New Guinea.

Then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in 2018 set the stage for other countries to follow suit.

In October 2023, Fijian Deputy Prime Minister Viliame Gavoka said in a telephone interview with JNS, “Our desire to have an embassy in Jerusalem is very strong. We as a people feel very close to the descendants of Abraham and want to connect with Israel in its entirety.”


Ask Haviv Anything: Episode 2: The lost history of American Jews
American Jews constitute the biggest, wealthiest, most influential and safest Jewish diaspora community in Jewish history, and also among the most Jewishly illiterate and profoundly anxious about their future.

There's a good reason this immense and powerful community is also culturally weak and unsure of itself. There is deep history behind its illiteracy, a story of tragedy and trauma, rebellion and rebuilding.

Haviv Rettig Gur unpacks it all in this latest episode of Ask Haviv Anything.

Thank you to Joe and Shira Lieberman for sponsoring this episode in honor of those we lost on October 7th.




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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