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Saturday, March 08, 2025

03/08 Links: Lessons from the IDF for the British Army; The Rise of Jihad Under al-Julani; The Quite Unnecessary Peter Beinart; Joe Rogan and the Jews; Sheikh Tucker's Apology Tour

From Ian:

Andrew Fox: Lessons from the IDF for the British Army
Urban warfare presents the most difficult ethical and strategic dilemmas. The IDF employed extensive measure to minimise civilian casualties: evacuation warnings by text; small warning strikes on buildings known as ‘roof knocks’; and canceling airstrikes when civilians were detected. Still Hamas’s cynical use of human shields has made civilian casualties unavoidable.

Planning for civilian protection is essential, both as a moral imperative and as a strategic necessity. The enemy will take advantage of any missteps by Nato operations in Eastern European cities. British forces must incorporate civilian risk mitigation into operational planning, use precision munitions with discipline, and coordinate with humanitarian agencies whenever possible.

Britain must acknowledge that civilian harm in urban warfare is unavoidable, even with precautions. Train troops in ethical decision-making; deploy frontline legal advisors: these will be key to maintaining legitimacy in the information war.

In Gaza, IDF special forces and regular units collaborated closely. Elite commandos cleared Hamas’s tunnel networks, while conventional troops secured the surface above. British forces must similarly remove barriers between special forces and the broader military. The IDF experience also reveals the value of real-time intelligence sharing to enhance joint operations.

Finally, the Gaza war was fought both on the battlefield and in the media. Hamas effectively exploited images of destruction to shape global opinion, often exaggerating or distorting events. The IDF struggled to counter this narrative in real time, facing international criticism despite implementing more civilian protection measures than most modern militaries.

Britain should take note: information warfare is as vital as military operations. The UK must proactively manage the narrative by rapidly releasing factual updates, providing evidence for military actions, and deploying dedicated information warfare teams to counter disinformation. When every smartphone is a battlefield, controlling the story is as crucial as controlling the ground.
The Quite Unnecessary Peter Beinart
Tolstoy described such a book as “nikomu ne nuzhnaya kniga” (not-needed-by-anyone book).
Its most obvious pointlessness is that it is simply boring, a predictable regurgitation of every slander against Israel. We get ethnic cleansing, apartheid, massacres and all the usual stuff. Why bother with Beinart when this is the everyday diet of the media? Beinart jazzes it up with a rant against anyone even vaguely associated with speaking up for Israel in the wake of the October 7 massacre. If that sounds repulsive, it is because it is. Beinart goes through the motions of condemning what happened on October 7 but spends far longer attacking those who have stood up for Israel since then. As he writes at the start, in his “note to my former friend”: “I consider your single-minded focus on Israeli security to be immoral and self-defeating.” Think about that for a second (because that is all it is worth). For Beinart, focusing on the right of Jews to be secure from terrorists is “immoral”.

If you’re worried about the impact on Jews of having to live alongside Palestinians in a single state – if you’re worried, that is, that they would be slaughtered – then don’t be, because Beinart says it worked in South Africa so it will work in the new not-Israel state. And that’s it. That is the entire basis on which he thinks the world should take the leap into deciding that the Jews no longer need a state.

In fact, South Africa is hardly a model to be emulated. Whites in South Africa have increasingly been leaving the country out of concern for their safety. White farmers are being murdered. The black South African leader and millionaire Julius Malema sings in public “Kill the farmer, kill the Boer,” and his other favorite lyrics include “Kill the white man. Kill the white woman. Kill the white children.” And it has been happening. Is that the South Africa that Beinart thinks should serve as a model for that Jewish-Arab state he favors?

Beinart “no longer” believes in Zionism. He has no sympathy for the continued existence of a Jewish state. He believes instead that Israelis should give up the idea of a Jewish state, and live in a single state with people who have just demonstrated in a most convincing way their pleasure in raping, torturing, mutilating, and murdering Jews, who just the other day screamed with delight, while martial music played, at the spectacle of Israeli corpses in coffins that had been placed in front of the crowd. Inside two of those four coffins, as the delirious crowd knew, were the bodies of the Bibas brothers — four-year old Ariel and nine-month-old Kfir — who had been killed, according to Israeli forensic experts, by the bare hands of Hamas killers. In other words, they had been strangled or suffocated, like the princes in the Tower.
Why do citizens of Palestine still have refugee status?
None of the three resolutions provides any legal authority for UNRWA to operate inside Palestinian territory today.

First, the texts of the resolutions make clear that they apply only to “the” refugees. The use of the definite article “the” before the word “refugees” means the drafters limited the coverage of the resolutions to those who were alive in 1948 and who actually left their homes in that year. Thus, the term “the refugees” does not cover descendants of the original refugees. Once the original refugees pass away, there will be no further legal basis for UNRWA to operate anywhere.

Second, none of the resolutions define the term “refugees.” The term is more logically read to cover those who left Palestine in 1948 for third countries such as Jordan or Lebanon rather than those who simply relocated from one part of Palestine to another.

Third, the wording clearly states that only those wishing to live in peace with their Israeli neighbors would be permitted to return. That formulation places the burden on those wishing to return to prove their intent to live peacefully within Israel. There is, unfortunately, little evidence that any of the so-called refugees could satisfy that burden, given how UNRWA propaganda has promoted hatred of Zionism and Israelis for the past 75 years, and especially since UNRWA recognized the PLO in 1975. Further evidence can be gleaned from a quick stroll through the Al Amari “refugee camp” in Ramallah (which is actually a neighborhood, not a “camp”), where the walls are splattered with posters paying homage to suicide bombers and other terrorists.

Therefore, because Palestinians living in Palestine are not truly “refugees,” UNRWA has no legal authority to operate inside Palestine. This is not simply a technical anomaly. It is a huge waste of US and European taxpayer money, which has funded the lion’s share of the billions of dollars spent on UNRWA’s operations in Palestine for the past nearly eight decades.

Finally, we now know that several Gaza-based UNRWA employees were Hamas members and participated in the October 7, 2023, massacres and hostage-takings. At least one UNRWA employee held one or more hostages as prisoners in his apartment in Gaza. The British-Israeli former hostage Emily Damari was held in an UNRWA facility during her time in captivity.

Moreover, Hamas has used UNRWA schools in Gaza for the past 18 years as bases for launching rockets against Israel and using children as human shields. Hamas even concealed a command-and-control center in a tunnel directly underneath an UNRWA location.

The bottom line is that UNRWA has no lawful basis to operate inside Palestine, serving Palestinians who are not true refugees and providing both implicit and explicit support to Hamas. The time has come to terminate UNRWA’s operations inside Palestine once and for all.


Jonathan Tobin: Trust Trump on Israel? Hypocritical Biden-Harris supporters say ‘no’
Democrats turn on Israel
More importantly, it is a diversion from the reality of American politics when it comes to attitudes toward Israel and the way that antisemitism has been mainstreamed since Oct. 7, 2023, because of hostility to the Jewish state. The two parties’ opinions about the Jewish state are now so diametrically opposed that any remaining hope about support for it being a matter of bipartisanship is a boat that sailed a long time ago.

Nor is it a matter of “whataboutism” to note the contrast between Trump’s policies and appointments, and those of the Biden-Harris administration.

Though some on the left are making a meal out of Wilson, they seemed to have no trouble with the fact that Biden had plenty of anti-Israel and even antisemitic appointees. One prominent example was Robert Malley, a longtime apologist for the Palestinians and a bitter critic of Israel who was Biden’s special envoy for Iran until he was forced out due to losing his security clearance. Another was Maher Bitar, who was Biden’s senior director for Intelligence on the National Security Council before being promoted to deputy assistant to the president, and coordinator for intelligence and defense policy. Bitar had previously been a leader of the antisemitic Students for Justice in Palestine and a veteran of UNRWA, the pro-Hamas agency that has helped perpetuate the conflict. Since January, he’s been working for Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is Jewish.

With people like Malley and Bitar advising them, it’s no surprise that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Biden spent the 15 months after Oct. 7 talking out of both sides of their mouths when it came to the war on Israel, even praising pro-Hamas students and saying that they should be heard.

Just as indicative of the difference between the last administration and the present one was the fact that even Biden’s equivocal attitude toward Israel’s fight for survival against Hamas was too much for many who served him throughout the government. Throughout its last year and a half, there was a civil war going on in the Biden-Harris administration as its half-hearted backing for Israel was protested by hundreds of staffers who signed petitions against it and others who resigned in protest. The same was true for Democratic congressional staffers who were, in contrast to many of their bosses, overwhelmingly anti-Israel.

That was indicative of the sea change in American politics with respect to Israel that has been going on. It has long been apparent that the left wing of the Democratic Party has been influenced by woke ideology and the toxic myths of critical race theory, intersectionality and settler-colonialism teachings, and thus, increasingly anti-Zionist and antisemitic. But a tipping point has been reached since Oct. 7.

That was made clear in the most recent Gallup poll of attitudes toward Israel broken down by party affiliation. In the recent past, there had been a growing split among Democrats on the issue. In the last two years, however, that has shifted into a stance in which the party’s members are now clearly against the Jewish state. The survey published last month showed that Democrats favored the Palestinians over Israel by a stunning 59% to 21% margin. By contrast, Republicans side with Israel by an even larger 75% to 10% margin with independents backing the Jewish state over the Palestinians by 42% to 34%.

So, it’s hardly surprising that Democratic officeholders are hostile to Israel or that they have opposed Trump’s efforts to crack down on colleges and universities that have enabled or appeased pro-Hamas mobs that targeted Jewish students. Even Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has always disingenuously claimed to be an ardent supporter of Israel and antisemitism, refused to allow a vote in the Senate last fall on the Antisemitism Awareness Act that codified the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of the term into federal law for fear of offending a major constituency of his party.
Trump responds to 'brutal' treatment of hostages
US President Donald Trump said that he was "shocked" to hear the testimonies of a delegation of recently released hostages that visited him this week.

A delegation of hostages including Doron Steinbrecher, Eli Sharabi, Naama Levy, Iair Horn, Omer Shem Tov, and Keith and Aviva Siegel, visited Trump at the White House on Wednesday.

Trump asked them if there were any kind people in Gaza out of all of the people they encountered, and Trump said that all of the former hostages said no.

"I said, 'Were there any people that were like, kind?' I was shocked," Trump told reporters during a conference in the Oval Office.

"The answer was nobody; there was nobody. Just the opposite."

What did the hostages tell Trump?
He said that the hostages told him that they received repeated verbal, physical, and emotional abuse.

"They'd be slapped and punched. One man broke his ribs; he couldn't breathe for a month. It was brutal."

"And Hamas, did some of them wink at you and say 'Don't worry, you're gonna be ok,' or give you a piece of bread?"

The hostages told him no to all of this.

“I was so surprised because you’d think that there’d be a couple of people that would be kind, that would say ‘you’re gonna be okay,’ but they had none of that.”
David Draiman: The Heavy Metal Ties That Bind: Singer Encourages Israeli Hostage to “Hold on to Memories”
The Bibas family has become a symbol in so many ways and for so many of us. As Jews, they represent our pain and mourning, our continued persecution and our continued struggle. Heartbreaking doesn’t quite cover it. Because despite witnessing the horrors of Oct. 7, it’s shocking to see the world’s reaction — or lack thereof — to babies being kidnapped and slaughtered at the hands of their captors, to say nothing of women who suffered rape, mutilation and death.

I’m still just shaken up by all of it and very angry at how callous and hate-addicted the world has become. To see hostages paraded like props in front of the cameras to the screaming hordes in Gaza in successive releases, no one had anything to say about that.

No one in Hollywood is brave enough to raise their voice, either. At the Academy Awards, the only person who had any kind of stones is Adrien Brody, who at least addressed contemporary antisemitism to some level when accepting the Oscar for playing a Holocaust survivor in The Brutalist. And he was shaking while he was doing it. And I don’t think it was just because he was nervous accepting the award; I think he was legitimately worried about how he would continue to be attacked, online or otherwise. There’s a real underlying fear of putting yourself in jeopardy. The so-called nerve is too political when it’s Jewish, but not when it comes to any other race, creed or ethnicity.

Jews have long been the most popular scapegoat for every evil in existence. It’s ridiculous. Thank God for the state of Israel. Thankfully, we have the ability these days to defend ourselves despite the brazenness of monsters who livestreamed to the world what they did on Oct. 7. I thought that the barbarity of all of it would be enough to finally tilt the support in our favor, but it wasn’t, and they promised to do it again. Hiding behind their children and their women as human shields, encouraging martyrdom and sacrifice as they parade the caskets of little children throughout the streets of Gaza. Until this cycle of indoctrination of this poisonous hatred is stopped, there’s no chance in hell for real peace for the Middle East.

“Hold on to Memories” was inspired by “Remember Me” from the movie Coco about the Mexican Day of the Dead. I watched it with my son and thought it was such a beautiful sentiment and that people needed it. The simplicity and the power of love and memory that enables you to still remain connected to that love. It transcends anything and it’s incredible to see.

When we originally wrote “Hold on to Memories,” it was about the many colleagues that we’ve lost over the years — Chester Bennington, Scott Weiland, Chris Cornell. And now it has taken on a greater, more intense meaning. But that’s the power of music, to move through heaven and earth. There’s nothing like a piece of music to bring you back to a place and time and emotion and a feeling so distinctly, it’s as if you’re literally transported in time. Music is a magical thing. And I truly do consider us to be very blessed to still be able to wield it. But I don’t know how I’m going to be able to get through it dry-eyed the next time I perform this song.

As it turns out, one person who needed that song was Yarden Bibas. I think he’s an incredible individual. It takes such resilience to withstand that level of loss. It’s beyond comprehension, to be honest. I’m glad that our song was able to at least give him some semblance of comfort and strength. And that he continue to hold on to the memories of Shiri, of Ariel, of Kfir in his heart.
At rally, mother decries ‘shocking’ footage of hostage son, as ex-captives back deal
The mother of hostage Matan Angrest told a Tel Aviv rally Saturday night that her family had received further footage of her son in which he appears badly maimed physically and psychologically, as thousands gathered in the city and around the country to urge the government to reach a deal to return all remaining 59 captives.

Saturday night’s rally at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, the first since hostage releases were put on hold with the end of the first stage of the Gaza ceasefire deal a week ago, also saw recently freed soldier Eliya Cohen encourage Israel’s leaders in a video message to bring the rest of the hostages home, in his first public comments since being released last month. Karina Ariev, a soldier who was freed weeks earlier, appeared on stage at the rally, also a first.

Speaking a day after Hamas published a video showing Angrest, 21, alive for the first time since he was taken captive during the October 7, 2023, onslaught, Anat Angrest told gathered supporters that the family had received more “shocking” footage of her son, including pictures showing him undergoing a “brutal” beating.

“He looks listless, desperate and angry,” she said. “Beyond his difficult mental state, his right hand doesn’t work, his eyes and his mouth are not symmetrical, his nose is broken and there is serious uncertainty over the condition of his legs.”

The mother said that the wounds had been sustained while fighting Hamas terrorists on October 7, as well as from being interrogated and tortured in Gaza, according to those who had been with him in battle and in captivity. He had been forced to deal with the festering injuries on his own, Anat said.

“According to medical opinions, the damage to his body is irreversible,” she added.


'We didn’t know if we’d live another second’ – Liri Albag details 477 days in captivity
Former hostage Liri Albag described her release from her time in Hamas captivity as "being reborn" in an interview with N12 released on Friday night.

"The truth is that on October 7, I felt like I was in one long nightmare, waiting for someone to wake me up," she said in sections of the interview released on Tuesday. "[I waited] for someone to tell me, 'You were dreaming, it didn't happen. It's just a dream.' But unfortunately, it did happen."

N12 released part of its exclusive interview with Albag on Wednesday; her full testimony of her time in the Gaza Strip was released on Ulpan Shishi on Friday night. Albag's parents sat beside her in the interview at their home.

Albag describes her captivity in the Gaza Strip as "hell" and says that she hasn't been able to sleep properly until very recently. She also told N12 of how her captors would sleep close to her in the same room.

"I didn't like it when a person touched my leg when I was sleeping, just because he was sleeping in front of me - it was extremely uncomfortable."

This is the first interview Albag has given after her release, in which she talks about her 477 days in captivity. She was kidnapped with fellow IDF observers Daniela Gilboa, Karina Ariev, Naama Levy, and Agam Berger, and she and the others were released on January 25 (except for Berger, who was released five days later) in the first phase of the hostage deal with Hamas.


'I am a Zionist': Trudeau commended for speech condemning antisemitism
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's speech at the National Forum on Combatting Antisemitism on Thursday was commended by Israel's embassy in Ottawa.

During the speech, after addressing the global rise in antisemitism and support for terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, Trudeau identified himself as a Zionist and asserted "no one in Canada should ever be afraid to call themselves a Zionist. Antisemitism is at a record high. We're keeping our eyes on it >>

"The term Zionist increasingly being tossed around as a pejorative, in spite of the fact that it simply means believing the right of the Jewish people, like all people, to determine their own future, is not normal," Trudeau told attendees.

The speech was welcomed by the embassy, who wrote on social media in response, "We deeply value Prime Minister @JustinTrudeau's statement that 'no one in Canada should ever be afraid to call themselves a Zionist' and his clear identification as a Zionist -- especially in such dark hours for Jews in Canada and around the world.

"Indeed, the rise of antisemitism is not normal - it is unprecedented. According to Israel's Diaspora Ministry, there has been a 670% increase in antisemitic incidents in Canada since October 7th – this startling stat should keep us all awake at night."

Albanese responds
In response to the embassy's tweet and Trudeau's speech, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Francesca Albanese responded that Zionism infringes on Palestinian's right to self-determination.

"Antisemitism, like all racism, is repugnant and must be fought as a legal and moral duty. But opposing it should not mean ignoring the rights of others," she wrote in a Friday post on X/Twitter. "No ideology justifies the dispossession of a people or the denial of their right to self-determination.

"Canada has legal obligations to support, not obstruct, Palestinian self-determination—failure to do so can have legal consequences under int'l law. Canadians should be fully aware of this."
After doctors accuse Israel of shooting Gazan kids, experts see need for a second opinion
The evidence behind a New York Times essay suggesting troops targeted children is less clear-cut than it seems, and there is reason to question the piece’s scathingly anti-IDF author

On January 30, as Israeli and Thai hostages were being released from Hamas captivity amid chaotic mobs, John Spencer, a leading international expert on urban warfare, watched the proceedings while focusing on one specific detail: the weapons held by Hamas gunmen.

“They were carrying M16 and M4 rifles which use 5.56 mm bullets, the same rifles that Israeli soldiers use,” Spencer told The Times of Israel by email.

To Spencer, head of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point in the US, the terrorists’ use of the same weapon as the IDF cast serious doubts on the allegation made in an essay in The New York Times three months earlier implying that Israeli soldiers were deliberately targeting children during the 15-month Gaza war.

Attached to the essay were X-ray pictures appearing to show 5.56-millimeter rounds lodged in children’s heads and necks.

“It could be that the terrorists were shooting the children,” Spencer said.

Hamas has a long history of exploiting and harming minors, as well as noncombatant adults, to advance its political goals—through tactics such as training children as suicide bombers and soldiers, forcing them to construct tunnels in perilous conditions, using them as human shields, or intentionally killing them.

Over months of war, as Gaza’s civilians have been brutalized and displaced by deadly crossfire, Israel has been nearly universally blamed as the aggressor, repeatedly tarred in cases where there is little evidence beyond the reality of fighting. In some instances, however, the facts show that Hamas or other Gazan terror groups are actually to blame.

Perhaps the most well-known such incident occurred in the opening weeks of the war, when an Islamic Jihad rocket slammed into Gaza’s Al-Ahli Hospital, killing scores of people. With no evidence but the claims of Hamas officials, Israel was still widely blamed for both the attack and a wildly inflated death toll.

Other cases, though, are less clear-cut, like that of Ahmed Shaddad Halmy Brikeh, a 13-year-old boy who appeared on the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry’s monthly fatality list as a victim of “Israeli aggression” in August.

But nine months earlier, Brikeh’s cousin reported online that the teen was shot dead by Hamas gunmen while trying to obtain food from a humanitarian aid shipment.

“He was killed by a shot in the head,” the cousin wrote on December 24, 2023. Palestinians loot a humanitarian aid truck as it crossed into the Gaza Strip from Egypt, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023. (AP/Fatima Shbair)

Throughout the war, Hamas has repeatedly been found to use civilians as human shields, and to hide military infrastructure in hospitals and humanitarian facilities. Israel says the cynical strategy has put the lives of innocent Gazans at risk as it fights Hamas, a key factor in turning the tide of international public opinion against Israel.

“Hamas wants every and anybody who died to be counted as Israel’s fault, including killing people themselves,” Spencer said.


Filmmaker behind controversial Trump Gaza AI video speaks out
Solo Avital, an American-Israeli filmmaker who claimed responsibility for the AI video shared by US President Donald Trump last week, told the Guardian on Thursday that the clip had been “satire.”

The video depicts the outcome of Trump’s plan to empty Gaza of its inhabitants and turn the enclave into “Riviera of the Middle East” - a plan that Avital described as a “megalomaniac idea.”

“We are storytellers, we’re not provocateurs, we sometimes do satire pieces such as this one was supposed to be. This is the duality of the satire: it depends what context you bring to it to make the punchline or the joke. Here there was no context and it was posted without our consent or knowledge,” he told the British newspaper.

Avital and his business partner reportedly shared the video with Mel Gibson, although the controversial Hollywood star denied sharing it with the President. It had also been on the Instagram account of Avital’s business partner for a few hours before being taken down. With such limited exposure, Avital said the video’s reach “surprised the hell out of me.”


Paris, Berlin, London, Rome endorse Arab plan for Gaza
France, Germany, Britain and Italy on Saturday embraced the $53 billion Arab League plan for the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip that would avoid the displacement of the Palestinian population.

“The plan shows a realistic path to the reconstruction of Gaza and promises—if implemented—swift and sustainable improvement of the catastrophic living conditions for the Palestinians living in Gaza,” the foreign ministers of the four nations said in a joint statement.

It further read that the four countries were “committed to working with the Arab initiative,” announced at an Arab League summit in Cairo, while stressing that Hamas “must neither govern Gaza nor be a threat to Israel any more.”

Moreover, the ministers said that they endorse the “central role for the Palestinian Authority and the implementation of its reform agenda.”

Israel and the United States rejected the Arab-backed plan, spearheaded by Egypt, which would establish a committee to oversee rebuilding efforts and governance in the war-torn region.

Hamas, on the other hand, expressed support for the plan.

In a statement, the terrorist group said, “We welcome the Gaza reconstruction plan adopted in the summit’s final statement and call for ensuring all necessary resources for its success.”

The Islamist group also voiced its backing for the creation of a “Community Support Committee” that would oversee relief efforts, reconstruction and governance in Gaza, as outlined in the proposal for temporary administrative body proposed by the Arab League summit in Cairo.

The 112-page draft document setting out Cairo’s five-year plan to rebuild Gaza at a cost of $53 billion outlines a two-phase approach.

The initial six-month recovery phase would focus on clearing rubble and setting up temporary housing, at an estimated cost of $3 billion.


Iran rejects Arab plan, calls for one-state solution in Gaza conflict
Iran has said that it prefers a one-state solution to the conflict in Gaza rather than the recent plan that Arab states have proposed. The Arab initiative came out of a meeting in Cairo last week. Iran has now spoken out at a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), where foreign ministers from various Muslim countries have gathered.

This is a pivotal time in the region. There is still a ceasefire in Gaza, and Hamas has rejected Israel’s attempt to extend the first phase of a hostage deal. The Trump administration is now open to direct talks with Hamas. Iran and the Arab states oppose the Trump plan for re-settling Gazans.

The Arab League backs a plan for reconstruction that Egypt has been pushing for Gaza. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said at the OIC that the two-state solution “will not secure Palestinian rights, emphasizing Tehran’s support for the establishment of one state representing all the original inhabitants of Palestine.”

He said, “With due respect to the views of some brotherly countries on the two-state solution, the Islamic Republic of Iran maintains its view that this solution will not lead to the realization of the right of the Palestinian people.” This is an important moment for Iran. It has lost some of its influence in the Middle East after the fall of the Assad regime. It is trying to claw this back. It also has less influence in Lebanon, and it wants to use the Houthis to continue to threaten Israel.

No two-state solution
“In our view, ‘one democratic state’ representing all the original inhabitants of Palestine is the only viable solution,” the Iranian foreign minister said. “Given the Israeli regime’s persistent defiance of the UN Charter, its designation of the UN Secretary-General as persona non grata, the complete obstruction of UNRWA’s operations, and the unprecedented tragic loss of hundreds of UN staff in Palestine, it is imperative to continue our endeavors for Israeli regime’s expulsion from the United Nations,” Iran said at the OIC. Iran’s state media published the entire speech of the foreign minister, indicating how important they see it.

Iran says that it has “uncompromising support” for the “cause of Palestine. “While the Islamic Republic of Iran supports the present resolution, and without prejudice to the foregoing, it would like to put on record the following reservations on the content of the outcome of this meeting, details of which will be communicated later with the Secretariat [of the OIC],” the Iranians’ said.
New army chief ‘knows where the IDF needs to go’
Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir took the helm as the 24th Chief of the Staff of the Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday, succeeding Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi. With the IDF poised to return to combat against Hamas in Gaza at any moment, and with the Iranian nuclear program making alarming progress, Zamir steps into the role at a pivotal time.

Zamir has stressed the need for military victory, stating on Wednesday, “Our actions will speak [for themselves].”

In his first address as IDF Chief of Staff, Zamir set the tone for his tenure, declaring, “This is an existential war. We will persist in our campaign to bring our hostages home and to defeat our enemies. The mission placed upon me from this day forward is clear: to lead the IDF to victory.”

Zamir’s career, spanning four decades, includes service as the military secretary to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2012-2015), head of the IDF Southern Command (2018-2021), deputy chief of the General Staff (2023-2025), and most recently, director general of the Ministry of Defense, where he led programs worth billions of shekels to boost domestic arms production.

Col. (res.) Dr. Hanan Shai, a research associate at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy and a former investigator for the IDF’s commission evaluating the 2006 Second Lebanon War, emphasized that Zamir’s appointment marks a return to a generation of officers trained under Israel’s traditional operational doctrines.

Shai, who taught Zamir at the Command and Staff College, which trains senior IDF officers, told JNS on Thursday that Zamir is a rare product of an officer training program established after the 1982 First Lebanon War.

“Unlike others in recent decades, he is a graduate of a command training program that was founded after “Operation Peace for Galilee” [the First Lebanon War], under the sponsorship of Dan Shomron [the 13th IDF chief of staff]. This program was created as a response to the realization that the IDF’s level of command professionalism was very low,” said Shai.
Preparations completed for Gazan migration
Israel has completed the necessary preparations to enable the migration of Gaza residents, provided countries are found willing to accept them.

In recent weeks, a mechanism has been established, under the direction of Defense Minister Israel Katz, designed to create conditions that would allow 2,500 Gazans to leave the Strip daily. Currently, more than two million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip.

Security sources told Israel Hayom that one country has already expressed interest in accepting construction workers from Gaza, but international controversy surrounding the issue has caused it to freeze its involvement in the matter for the time being.

Migration to destination countries could be carried out via sea, with passage through Israel at Ashdod Port.

An additional route, by air, would be through Ramon Airport, near Eilat. It should be noted that this route has been operating for several months for wounded individuals who have left the Strip, and approximately 1,500 Gaza residents are known to have left via this route to other countries.

Another departure route is the Rafah Crossing. Through this crossing, according to information available to Israel, about 35,000 people have evacuated from the Strip to Egypt since the beginning of the current war. In many cases, they continued from Egypt to other destinations around the world.

Israel is interested in allowing as many Gaza residents as possible to leave the Strip. Therefore, the policy is to allow family members of sick and wounded individuals to leave with them to other countries. In the vast majority of cases, those who left Gaza were absorbed into Arab countries, but there are also those who have migrated to Romania and Italy with the intention of not returning.

“Our interest is to let as many people as possible leave. That’s the rationale of the Trump plan that Israel has expressed support for. We are trying to implement it,” said a security source.
IDF strikes Hezbollah terrorist, assets in Southern Lebanon
The Israeli Air Force on Saturday attacked a Hezbollah operative who was engaged in reestablishing terrorist infrastructure and activities in Southern Lebanon.

And on Friday night, the IAF carried out intelligence-based strikes on Hezbollah terrorist assets in Southern Lebanon.

The targets included rocket launchers and weapons storage facilities that “posed a threat to the State of Israel and constituted a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” the IDF said.

The military “will prevent any attempt by Hezbollah to reestablish and rebuild itself,” the statement added.

On Wednesday, an Israeli Air Force craft attacked Hezbollah terrorists in the Naqoura area of southwestern Lebanon. The strike was launched after “several suspects were identified loading weapons onto vehicles,” the military said.
Israeli troops conduct ‘targeted raids’ in Syria
The Israel Defense Forces carried out raids in Syria over the past week, locating, confiscating and dismantling numerous weapons, the Israeli military said on Saturday.

Among the weapons found were ammunition, missiles and additional military equipment, the IDF said.

The “targeted raids,” under the command of the 474th “Golan” Territorial Brigade, were based on intelligence indications and involved soldiers of the Paratroopers Brigade, the Armored Corps and the Yahalom special operations engineering unit, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said in a statement.

The troops are “deployed at strategic points in Syria” and will “continue operations to eliminate any threat and strengthen the defense of the State of Israel and its citizens,” the IDF added.

The military did not specify the location of the raids.

On Monday, Israeli Air Force fighter jets attacked a military site of Syria’s former Assad regime near Qardaha, overlooking Latakia in northwestern Syria, in response to “recent developments in the area,” the Israeli military said.

The attack targeted “a military site where weapons belonging to the previous Syrian regime were stored,” the statement added. It did not specify which developments prompted the strike.

Since the fall of the Iranian- and Russian-backed Assad regime on Dec. 8, Israel has taken up positions inside and beyond the Golan Heights buffer zone, including on the strategic Syrian side of Mount Hermon. The Israeli Air Force has conducted hundreds of strikes on former Assad military assets to prevent them from falling into the hands of hostile forces.

With the collapse of the Assad regime and the rise of the rebels significantly undermining Iran’s regional axis, Iran’s Mehr news agency announced on Wednesday the establishment of a new terrorist organization named “The Islamic Resistance in Syria.”


Joe Rogan and the Jews
There, we saved you 2 hours and 41 minutes. That was the run time of Joe Rogan’s interview with Ian Carroll, a TikTok influencer whose short rise from total obscurity to Rogan’s show—one of the most coveted slots in the entertainment business, which many a content creator would kill to appear on—would normally lead us to ask questions about foreign intelligence operations and shadowy behind-the-scenes influence networks, had Carroll not already helpfully answered our questions about such things (it’s Israel). On the other hand, we did not have the heart, or the patience, to sit through Candace Owens’ simultaneous appearance on Theo Von’s show, so you’ll have to dig through that one yourself. For those interested in further research, please consult Carroll’s videos about how Yale’s Skull and Bones society blackmails elites by making them do “gay stuff.” Or just wait for Rogan’s (real) forthcoming episode with Darryl Cooper, aka Martyr Made, who we hope will clear up any lingering misconceptions about World War II, like that the Allies were the good guys.

All kidding aside, Rogan—whatever his penchant for kooky theories about the moon landing or ancient aliens—never struck us as an antisemite, periodic hyperventilating from the Anti-Defamation League and other adjuncts of the Democratic Party notwithstanding. He is, or traditionally has been, an American everyman, and he doesn’t appear to be a resentful or damaged person, which is usually a prerequisite for going off the deep end regarding Jews. Which makes it all the more difficult to figure out what’s going on here. Does Rogan believe this stuff? Is he playing for relevance at a time when deranged talk about all-powerful “Zionist” and “neocon” influence, boosted by Elon Musk’s X algorithm, is all the rage on social media? Is there a network? Did someone—a booker, a friend, a tech baron, a political operative, a godfather—tell him that Carroll and Cooper are great guys and that he should help to get their message out?

Or maybe we’re looking at an op. “The Joe Rogan Experience,” after all, has 19.5 million subscribers on YouTube, and it became clear after last year’s election that many in the upper reaches of the Democratic Party saw Rogan and the wider podcast world as key to Trump’s victory. It’s obviously the sort of thing that would interest intelligence agencies, state and state-backed actors, and others with the resources to rival states. We have recent hard evidence of Chinese state actors boosting conservative-branded antisemitic content on X and of Russian state actors attempting to buy off right-wing social media influencers. Tucker Carlson, who appears to be the head (or at least the public-facing head) of the antisemitic power vertical on the American right, is financially backed by the fortune of the Iranian American businessman and (prior to 2020) lifelong Democrat Omeed Malik, who is also now Donald Trump Jr.’s business partner. In February, Carlson hosted on his show the Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the largest media investors in the world and a major shareholder in X. This afternoon, he released an interview with the prime minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

The truth is we have no idea what the real story is. But as we’ve been trying to point out at Tablet for years now (see here and here), the sorts of questions we’re now forced to ask about Rogan are, in at least one sense, similar to the sorts of questions that guys like Carroll are posing about wealthy Jewish sex traffickers collecting blackmail on behalf of Mossad. That is to say, both are downstream of the hall-of-mirrors reality we now live in, in which the cumulative effect of two decades of official lies, secrecy, propaganda, and censorship has combined with the destabilizing impact of digital media on our collective psychic health. All of us know, just as Carroll and Cooper and Carlson and Rogan do, that we have been misled by people we cannot quite name, in ways we cannot quite understand, for reasons we can’t quite put our finger on. And good luck finding the truth in the pages of The New York Times, which everyone knows is for suckers. As Jacob Siegel wrote for Tablet in 2023, “Americans who want to join in their country’s civic life now find that the main way to participate is by following the trail of clues leaked by official sources while trying to solve elaborate, rigged puzzles about the nature of reality. It’s no surprise the country is going nuts.”

Carroll did manage to say one true thing, though, which is that Oct. 7 opened the door for “interest” in his favorite subject. But the reason is not that Americans are, all of a sudden, interested in pulling back the veil on the Jewish power that secretly controlled their lives. It was that the attacks and their aftermath exposed that Jews (including the mythical Israel lobby) are not nearly as powerful as they have been made out to be; that there is a huge, potentially lucrative audience for those who could explain that the murdered, kidnapped, and raped Israelis really had it coming; and that Jews cannot silence their opponents but in many cases are reduced to asking for pity, which, as anyone with a basic understanding of human psychology will tell you, only invites more sadism.

Which is to say, the attacks put blood in the water. What we’re seeing now are the sharks.


Eitan Fischberger: Sheikh Tucker's Apology Tour
Carlson isn’t just becoming more anti-American. He’s doing so in a way that follows a predictable pattern: the descent into conspiracism.

Here’s how it works:
You correctly identify that America’s institutions—its media, intelligence agencies, and bureaucracies—are corrupt and dishonest.
Instead of pushing for reform and accountability, you assume the entire system is beyond redemption. And not just the system itself, but the worldview that created it as well.
You start looking elsewhere for truth—outside the mainstream, then outside the West entirely.
You become so desperate for an alternative narrative that you fall for propaganda from literal dictators.

This is exactly where Carlson has landed. The man who built his career exposing government lies has now swung so far in the other direction that he’s peddling the lies of America’s enemies.

This is, of course, assuming (and we have no proof in either direction) that Tucker isn’t just spiraling down this rabbit hole for money and influence, which he already has.

And it’s not just him.

Joe Rogan, once the voice of free thinkers—albeit occasioanlly quriky and out-of-the-box ones, has started down the same road. He now platforms people like Ian Carrol, whose entire shtick is holding Jews responsible for 9/11 and arguing that Jeffry Epstein was a Mossad agent. He is also about to air an episode with Darryl Cooper—whom Tucker also hosted—who claims that Churchill is “the chief villain of the Second World War,” and is on record promoting Holocaust denial.

Throughout their interviews with these conspiracists, Rogan and Carlson allow their guests to ramble on about the supposed evils of (((America))) and spread historical revisionism without offering a single challenge.

This isn’t skepticism. It’s self-loathing wrapped in an “alternative” narrative.

The Go-To Scapegoat
The final step in this pipeline is always the same: you need a grand unifying villain. And, historically speaking, when conspiracy theorists reach this stage, they all end up in the same place.

Enter the Jews.

It’s the simplest, laziest, most time-tested explanation for everything wrong in the world. Just say “Jew,” and the conspiracy theorist will fill in the rest.

Carlson has been inching toward this territory for a while. After Hamas butchered 1,200 people on October 7—including dozens of Americans—he was annoyed that people were so upset. That’s a strange reaction for someone who once built his brand on calling out Islamic extremism.

Meanwhile, when Christians in the Congo were massacred and beheaded by ISIS-linked terrorists, Carlson said nothing. I’m not kidding. But when Syria’s new Islamist government slaughtered Christians and Alawites, he immediately jumped in to attack Bari Weiss and John Bolton as sinister “neocons”—also a fan-favorite antisemitic trope of the woke right.

At a certain point, the pattern is undeniable.

The Conservative Double Standard
The irony in all of this is that Carlson’s America-bashing world tour looks an awful lot like Barack Obama’s infamous “apology tour.” But whereas conservatives rightly slammed Obama for groveling before dictators and undermining American exceptionalism, many are now cheering as Carlson does the exact same thing.

Where’s the outrage?

Where are the conservative influencers calling this out? The ones who built their entire brands on fighting for Western values?

Instead of rejecting Carlson’s growing embrace of anti-Western narratives, many on the right are following his lead—trading real patriotism for grievance, skepticism for nihilism, and reason for conspiracy.

This isn’t “America First.” It’s America Last. And if conservatives don’t snap out of it soon, they’ll wake up one day and realize they’ve spent so much time hating the West that they forgot to save it.
Tucker Carlson: The Latest Paid Mouthpiece for Qatar’s Propaganda
Carlson’s failure to confront Qatar’s role in financing Iran’s terror operations further underscores his lack of journalistic integrity. Qatar has been a key player in providing billions to Iran, which in turn destabilizes the region and supports terror groups worldwide. Yet, Carlson gave Qatar’s Prime Minister an unchecked opportunity to avoid accountability, painting Qatar as a misunderstood state trying to play a constructive role in the Middle East and the world.

This isn’t the first time Carlson has failed to stand up to authoritarian regimes or played a useful idiot to spread propaganda. He has also played lapdog Vladimir Putin in Russia, spread fake narratives of Israel targeting Christians, and so much more. Now, whitewashing Qatar’s crimes has been added to the list—a nation that funds terrorism and tramples on human rights while posing as a “neutral peace broker.” It’s no coincidence that Qatar buys influence wherever it can, and Carlson’s soft-glove interview makes it clear that he’s part of that operation.

Carlson’s audience, which prides itself on skepticism and fighting back against mainstream narratives, should ask themselves: Why is Carlson so eager to challenge democratically elected leaders but deferential to regimes that fund terror and abuse their citizens? Why does he allow Qatar, a nation known for its corruption and its role in destabilizing the Middle East to try a sell fake narrative of who they are?

The answer is simple—Carlson is not interested in truth-telling when the stakes are high, especially if those in power can pay for his silence. His brand of populism is performative, catering to his wealthy benefactors while ignoring the real dangers that threaten the West. Qatar’s enormous influence is a direct threat to global security, and by giving it a pass, Carlson is complicit in allowing the regime to continue spreading terrorism and extremism worldwide.

Where was the hard-hitting questioning? Where was the skepticism? This was not journalism—it was a dangerous act of media manipulation, allowing Qatar to sell its narrative without challenge. Carlson, who regularly critiques Western elites, gave one of the most authoritarian and corrupt regimes in the Middle East a free pass.

The world must wake up. If we are serious about confronting terrorism and jihadist extremism in the Middle East—and undoing the damage Qatar has inflicted on the West—it’s time to stop allowing Qatar to buy its way into Western media, think tanks, and policy circles. We must stop enabling Qatar’s manipulative campaign to sell us a false narrative of who they are. Tucker Carlson instead of exposing Qatar's extensive criminal activities and role in fostering terrorism. Instead, he willingly played the part of a pawn in their propaganda machine.


Erin Molan UNLOADS- No JEWS No NEWS! Sickening Silence! Hypocrites ignore slaughter in Syria & Congo
Christian kids slaughtered in Congo…

A bloodbath in Syria…

The videos are horrific 💔

The only thing more horrifying is the silence surrounding it…

If it’s impossible (try as you might) to blame Jews you don’t care???!!!

WHERE ARE YOU?




Trump’s Scottish golf course vandalized with pro-Palestinian graffiti
US President Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland has been daubed with pro-Palestinian graffiti, with a protest group claiming responsibility.

Local media shows images of red paint scrawled across walls at the course with the slogans “Free Gaza” and “Free Palestine” as well as insults against Trump.

“Gaza is not for sale” is also painted on one of the greens and holes dug up on the course.

Palestine Action says it caused the damage, posting on the social media platform X: “Whilst Trump attempts to treat Gaza as his property, he should know his own property is within reach.”

Last month, Trump enraged the Arab world by declaring unexpectedly that the United States would take over Gaza, resettle its over 2-million Palestinian population, and develop it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Police Scotland says it is investigating.
Pro-Palestine protester's feet drip with blood after climbing Big Ben's Elizabeth Tower as tours of Parliament are cancelled
A barefoot pro-Palestine protester has scaled Big Ben's Elizabeth Tower sparking a huge emergency response as a key central London route is brought to standstill.

Londoners watched in shock as the man climbed part of the 96-metre-high structure, whilst waving a Palestinian flag.

The protester live-streamed later removing his shoes as he continued to climb the historic building with his bloodied feet.

In footage uploaded to Instagram, he could be heard shouting: 'I'm not going anywhere,' alongside chants: 'Free, free Palestine.'

It is understood that the protester climbed the Elizabeth Tower at the Houses of Parliament at around 7.24am.

Westminster Bridge - a key central London route - has been closed as firefighters from four different stations, police and the ambulance service respond.

Parliament tours have also been brought to a screeching halt, with a Parliamentary spokesperson confirming viewings of the estate had been cancelled today.

A Parliamentary spokesperson said: 'We are aware of an incident on the Parliamentary Estate this morning, which is being handled by the Metropolitan Police, assisted by the London Fire Brigade and the London Ambulance Service.


Columbia University promises to address Trump's concerns after $400 million pulled
Columbia University's interim president said the school is working to address the "legitimate concerns" of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration after $400 million of federal government grants and contracts to the university were canceled over allegations of antisemitism on campus.

In an announcement on Friday, the government cited what it described as antisemitic harassment on and near the school's New York City campus as the reason for pulling the funding. The university has repeatedly been at the forefront of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel student protest movement since the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent war in Gaza.

"I want to assure the entire Columbia community that we are committed to working with the federal government to address their legitimate concerns," Katrina Armstrong, the university's interim president, said in a late-night message to alumni on Friday. "To that end, Columbia can, and will, continue to take serious action toward combatting antisemitism on our campus."

Trump administration pulls funding
The Trump administration said the canceled funding is only a portion of the $5 billion in government grants that has been committed to the school, but the school is bracing for a financial hit.

"There is no question that the cancellation of these funds will immediately impact research and other critical functions of the University, impacting students, faculty, staff, research, and patient care," Armstrong said.

Federal funding accounted for about $1.3 billion of the university's $6.6 billion in operating revenue in the 2024 fiscal year, according to a Columbia financial report.


UK Broadcasting watchdog advisor accused Israel of genocide in Gaza
An adviser for Ofcom, a broadcasting watchdog in the United Kingdom, allegedly accused Israel of committing genocide in Israel and espoused “conspiratorial fantasies” about Jews, campaigners told the Telegraph on Friday.

Adviser Aaqil Ahmed, who previously worked as the head of religion at the BBC, reportedly tweeted musician Paul Weller was “spot on” when he said “we cannot let genocide be a legitimate thing.”

Ahmed also reportedly claimed Prime Minister Benjamin Neetanyahu “hijacked” the Middle East and “every European capital.”

Investigators were launched into Ahmed’s social media after alarms were raised when a BBC documentary featured the son of a prominent Hamas leader.

A Campaign Against Antisemitism spokesman said “Claiming that the prime minister of the world’s Jewish state has taken control of the USA and all of Europe is completely moronic and deranged.

“Moreover, it engages the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Definition of anti-Semitism which states that ‘the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions’ is an example of anti-Semitism.”


Israeli woman gang raped in India, friend killed after being thrown into the river
A 27-year-old female Israeli tourist, and her local host, were gang raped near Hampi in Karnataka, India on Thursday night, in an ambush that also saw her companion drowned after he was thrown into a river, according to local media reports.

The young woman was reportedly with three male friends and her host at the time of the attack. All three were thrown into a river but only two were able to escape the waters, according to India Today. The third friend’s body was recovered on Saturday morning.

The friends were reportedly stargazing and playing music when the attack started. Three men, who were said to speak Kannada and Telugu, approached the group asking for directions to a petrol pump and demanded cash - when the tourists refused, the men reportedly became violent.

Two of the three attackers, after pushing the men into the river, reportedly began rapingthe host while the third dragged away the Israeli national and assaulted her separately. During the attack, where they reportedly used physical violence, they were said to have stolen the victims’ phones and cash.

The suspects
"Yesterday, around 11:30 p.m., two women and three men, four [of them] tourists, visited Hampi and other nearby places. They stayed at a private homestay," Lokesh Kumar, a senior police officer, told India Today.

"One woman and three men, along with the female owner of the homestay, went out to look at the stars and talk. Three young men on a motorbike approached them, asking for petrol, stating that they didn't have money to buy it, and requesting money. They were given Rs 20 [$0.23], but the men on the bike demanded Rs 100 [$1.15]. An argument ensued, leading to a physical altercation. The men on the bikes fell into the water," Kumar stated.

"We have registered the case and identified the suspects. Six teams have been formed, and efforts are underway to nab them," police said, according to the Business Standard.


Syria’s 'Inclusive Government' Targeting Minorities: The Rise of Jihad Under al-Julani
The world may have condemned Assad for his crimes against the Syrian people, but al-Julani is no different, particularly his latest violence against the Alawites. While Assad's regime committed atrocities, we cannot turn a blind eye to the crimes of the jihadist leader now responsible for slaughtering Alawites and other minority groups. The international community must not allow the same inaction and silence when it comes to al-Julani’s reign of terror. The hypocrisy is glaring, and the double standard is undeniable. The only one calling calling al-Julani out for what he is from the start, is Israel while at the same time protecting the Druze minorities in the south o Syria.

The global powers—Norway, the UK, the EU, France—continue to pump money into Syria under the guise of promoting "inclusivity." $55 million from Norway £50 million from the UK, €50 million from France and the list goes on.

But what kind of inclusivity are we talking about? The kind that allows Turkey to bomb and occupy Kurdish in Syria? Or Turkish nationals to occupy the highest levels of power in Syria, while minorities are brutally persecuted and Erdogan dreams of reviving the Ottoman Empire? Is this really the "inclusive government" the world is supporting, or is it simply a facade for a new Jihadist violent regime in Syria, endorsed and sponsored by the West?

And let's not forget about the smiles exchanged between ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan and UN Secretary-General António Guterres as they shake hands with al-Julani, effectively endorsing his reign of terror. Where is the Syrian minorities human rights? Where is the International Court of Justice trying to investigate the crimes? It doesn’t stop with them, world leaders like the Foreign Ministers of Norway, France, Germany and more are welcoming him in the “fold.” Qatar is already trying to assert its control in Syria, while Russia and Erdogan continue to play their geopolitical games. The bloodshed of minorities—largely ignored—continues to unfold.

This silence, however, isn't just limited to Syria. It’s a global pattern. From the terrorism in Israel to massacres in Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Congo to countless other places where jihadists rule, the media remains mostly silent. And today, on International Women’s Day, we must also acknowledge the glaring truth: radical Islam is stripping women of their rights. From Afghanistan, Iran to North Africa, and now even in the West, women are being treated as second-class citizens—or worse. All while countries like Norway spends millions sponsoring Jihadist States, spending tax-payer dollars to fly the Taliban on private jets to discuss “women rights.” Or the U.S. transferring piles of cash.

From slaughtering minorities to violating women's basic rights, the dangers of radical Islam continue to be overlooked. And those behind these crimes? They are welcomed into the international fold as statesmen. It’s time the world wakes up and acknowledges the true cost of its blind diplomacy and funding of radical Jihadist states, all while the propaganda is busy trying to blame Israel, the U.S. or both for the chaos and violence in Syria. The world is complicit, and there is no “diplomacy” they can hide behind.
Over 340 civilians killed by Syrian government-linked gunmen
Syrian security forces and affiliated gunmen killed more than 340 civilians, the vast majority of them from the Alawite minority, over the last two days, Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters on Saturday.

Other Syrian sources have reported casualties somewhere between 180-200.

Syrian state media on Thursday cited an interior ministry source as saying "individual violations" had occurred during a government operation to crack down on terrorists linked to the ousted Assad regime and said it was working to address the incidents.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

Syrian security forces battled for a second day on Friday to crush a nascent insurgency by fighters from Bashar al-Assad's Alawite sect, with scores reported killed as the Islamist-led government faced the biggest challenge yet to its authority.

They included at least two dozen male residents of the Alawite town of Al Mukhtareyah killed by gunmen on Friday, the Observatory and two Alawite activists said, citing contacts in the region and video footage from the scene.

In his first comments on the violence, interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa said government forces would pursue "remnants" of the ousted Bashar al Assad government and bring them to trial. He also said that those who assaulted civilians would be held accountable.

"We will continue to pursue the remnants of the fallen regime .. . We will bring them to a fair court, and we will continue to restrict weapons to the state, and no loose weapons will remain in Syria," Sharaa added in a pre-recorded speech.

Syrian authorities said the violence began when remnants loyal to Assad launched a deadly and well-planned attack on their forces on Thursday.


Khamenei rejects Trump’s proposal for nuclear negotiations
Tehran will not be bullied by the United States over its nuclear program, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Saturday, a day after President Donald Trump said he sent a letter to the Iranians asking to negotiate a deal.

“The insistence of some bully governments on negotiations is not to resolve issues, but to dominate and impose their own expectations,” Khamenei said in a meeting with senior Iranian officials in Tehran, Reuters reported.

“Talks for them is a path to have new expectations, it is not only about Iran’s nuclear issue. Iran will definitely not accept their expectations,” the dictator added, seemingly ruling out a path to negotiations.

Trump, in an interview with the Fox Business channel on Friday, said that his letter conveyed the message, “’I hope you’re going to negotiate, because it’s going to be a lot better for Iran.’

“I think they want to get that letter,” he continued. “The other alternative is you have to do something, because Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

Speaking to reporters on the same day in the Oval Office, Trump said that there would be “interesting days ahead” with respect to the Islamic Republic.

“We’re down to final strokes with Iran,” Trump said, using a golf metaphor. “We’re down to the final moments. We’re at final moments. Can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”


Progressive Cincinnati rabbi disinvited from anti-Nazi rally because he supports Israel
When Rabbi Ari Jun learned that faith leaders were invited to speak at a rally in Cincinnati against neo-Nazis and white supremacy, he quickly responded that he would be there.

As the former director of the local Jewish community relations council who recently took the helm of a progressive Reform synagogue, Jun has experience responding to antisemitism and a passion for social justice.

But a week later, he was told he was off the docket. The reason: He is a Zionist.

“Some of your values do not truly align with the values this protest is trying to represent,” Laini Smith, an organizer of the rally being held Sunday in the city’s Washington Park, told him via text message.

Billie Pittman, another organizer with Queen City United, a progressive group, spelling things out even more clearly: “Rabbi Ari Jun is a well-known Zionist, and while this event is intended to oppose Nazis and white supremacy, allowing Zionists to participate undermines the original goal of the demonstration.”

Pittman also posted on the event’s Facebook page: “We are in the works of having another speaker from the Jewish community.” A screenshot from a social media video showing neo-Nazis marching in Columbus, Ohio, on November 16, 2024. (X screen capture; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

The about-face by Queen City United comes as progressive Jews around the United States and beyond continue to struggle with how they fit into the political communities they called home before the onset of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, 2023.

The war broke out after Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping 251.

Many progressive Jews have reported feeling excluded by litmus tests — often implicit, but sometimes explicit — that require them to denounce Israel’s very existence in order to be welcomed in political spaces.

Jun offers a case study in these dynamics. A graduate of the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College, he said as he assumed the role of senior rabbi at Temple Sholom in January that he was eager to rebuild interfaith relations and continue the synagogue’s longstanding tradition of social justice.


Irish police reluctant to abide calls to boycott Israeli tech used to solve crimes
Ireland’s national police force, the Garda Síochána, is reluctant to give up on the Israel-made technology Cellebrite despite demands by the Opposition to boycott the Jewish state, The Irish Times reported this week.

Gardaí Commissioner Drew Harris said the Israeli tech was essential for extracting data from computers and phones that could solve crimes - including violent crimes like murders.

“It’s a tool that we need to properly investigate crime which has some form of cyber or digital element,” Harris said. “And certainly all of the serious crime we are investigating has that element with it. When you look at the detections we’re getting, the crimes we’re preventing and the convictions that there are, we’d be very reluctant to step away from a very important tool.” Can the Israeli tech be trusted?

Social Democrats justice spokesman Gary Gannon said Ireland should end “any forms of technology partnerships with the Israeli state” and that Israel “has proven itself to be not trusted”.

“We need to be very careful with regards to any form of technologies that are made in the Israeli state,” he said. “It’s very clearly Israel has a hostile relationship to Ireland based on the support our people have for a two-state solution. And they’ve proven themselves to be untrustworthy partners on the global stage.”

Despite concerns that Israel is “untrustworthy,” Cellebrite has severed ties with state actors in the past after questions about morality. Amnesty International noted the company ended product use in Serbia after it was discovered the tech was being used against journalists and activists.

The company also gained notoriety after the FBI used its tech to access data from the man who attempted to assassinate US President Donald Trump, according to CTech.
Report: Argentina Seeks Free Trade Agreement with Israel
President of Argentina Javier Milei plans to have the South American nation sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Israel, the local channel Todo Noticias reported on Friday.

Todo Noticias, citing unnamed Argentine government sources, reported that Milei intends to have Argentine Foreign Minister Gerardo Werthein start a formal dialogue with his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar to promote the first corresponding negotiations, stressing that the Argentine government is “interested in having a trade agreement with allies such as Israel.”

Milei’s reported free trade deal proposal for Israel goes hand-in-hand with his plans of having Argentina ink a similar FTA deal with the United States as part of his administration’s “realignment” of Argentine foreign policy with the United States and Israel as its main allies.

Both prospective trade deals, however, would first require that Argentina depart from Mercosur, a regional trade bloc founded in the 1990s by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Mercosur’s rules prevent its member states from independently seeking out free trade deals with other nations.

Milei, who currently helms Mercosur’s rotating chairmanship, has been highly critical of the trade bloc, describing it as a “trap that limits our countries” and asserting that the group ended up becoming a “prison” that only hinders its members’ growth. Last week, during a speech to Congress, Milei asserted that Mercosur only “benefited Brazilian industrialists” and reiterated his calls to have Argentina sign a free trade deal with the United States.
Israelis will make history at Crufts this weekend
Roni Sagi has always known her border collie, Rhythm, was special. From the moment they started training together, it was clear Rhythm wasn’t just a talented dog—he was a real performer. Now after dazzling audiences and securing second place on America’s Got Talent and appearing on the cover of Jewish News’ Life magazine, the duo are set to perform at Crufts in Birmingham on Saturday, and will be making history as the first Israelis to compete in the Freestyle Heelwork to Music category.

Arriving in London on Tuesday from their home in Kfar Saba, the pair were welcomed at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, where by all accounts Rhythm received a star’s welcome and was soon dancing with Roni in the forecourt. It would be the first of many impromptu performances in London which, as Roni said, was “another beautiful city to cross off my bucket list of places where I would like to dance with Rhythm”.

Roni gave up an office job at the age of 25 to become a dog trainer and therapist, which is when she discovered dog dancing. “No one taught it in Israel, so I learnt online for two years,” says Roni, who then tried teaching moves to three of her own dogs. As good as they were, Roni was searching for a special dog who would be energised by a certain song and move to a tempo.

That dog was Rhythm, who was born in Poland in 2022 and on the recommendation of a trusted friend following a character examination, Roni’s first meeting with the five-month-old pup was at Ben Gurion airport.

Rhythm whose full name is Rhythm Makes My Heart Go Wow was the dance partner Roni had been hoping to find and when the duo were offered the chance to compete in America’s Got Talent, by the time they reached the quarter final performing to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody they had two billion clicks on social media.

Since then Roni’s work as a dog dance trainer has taken her around the globe and her online lessons are sought after by dog owners who are keen for their pups to emulate Rhythm. The offers have been pouring in for him too, but his ‘mother’ is only interested in collaborating with those who share her values. “I already think of myself as the luckiest person in the world because I do the thing I love with the creature I love most, so it isn’t about who can pay the most. Anything we do must come from a good place to benefit dogs or humanity in general as it’s not about being famous.”




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