Sunday, March 16, 2025

03/16 Links: The deadly ‘conceptzia’ is alive and well; More UN lies about Israel; BBC edited out Hamas's poor treatment of hostages

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: The deadly ‘conceptzia’ is alive and well
The reaction of the protest movement and its deep-state champions to the appointment of Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir to head the Israel Defense Forces was predictable. Anyone approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to replace Herzi Halevi was bound to be discredited as a politically motivated pick, regardless of his illustrious professional credentials.

It’s part of the knee-jerk campaign against the government in general and Netanyahu in particular that keeps the left-wing punditocracy—as well as a slew of former security officials—in business. Not just figuratively. Unfortunately, the horrors of Oct. 7, 2023, didn’t serve to slow the wheels of the disinformation machine. Quite the opposite.

Still, though not surprising, the attitude toward Zamir is cause for alarm where the bigger picture is concerned. Rather than embracing the new IDF chief’s stated mission—to review the thus-far insufficient investigation into the series of incomprehensible blunders on that deadly day, and serve as the country’s proverbial attack dog against any enemy who rises up to against it—the nay-sayers have been casting aspersions on his every syllable.

Given the magnitude of Israel’s failure to anticipate and prevent Hamas’s bloody massacre more than 17 months ago, Zamir’s approach should be welcomed, if not embraced, across the societal spectrum. But the chattering-class choir is refusing to change its tune.

Which brings us to what has come to be called the conceptzia. The Hebrew bastardization of “conception” is best translated as “confirmation bias.”

The psychological phenomenon has been noted by various sources throughout history. Among these was English philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon.

“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion,” he wrote in 1620, “draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects or despises, or else by some distinction sets aside or rejects.”

It’s a perfect description of the Israeli blind spot that enabled Hamas to plan and execute the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust. In the sovereign Jewish state, no less, with an army that’s admired far and wide.

Grasping this sad fact is necessary for rectifying it. Alas, doing so isn’t sufficient.

A comprehensive interview this weekend in the N12 Magazine with Ofer Grosbard, former head of the Research Division of the IDF Intelligence Directorate (Aman), is enlightening. A psychologist with a Ph.D. in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University in Virginia, Grosbard—author of several books and articles on the difference in thinking between the Western and Muslim world—assumed the role in August 2021.

Six months later, he was fired for daring to voice assessments that countered the conceptzia. That’s not how anybody labeled the conventional wisdom of Aman, of course. But it was on full, arrogant display.

Ironically, then, the very expertise for which he was hired in the wake of “Operation Guardian of the Walls” against Hamas—”to provide an original perspective on the enemy’s mindset”—would get him sacked.
Brendan O'Neill: More UN lies about Israel
Most unforgivably, the report castigates the young men of the IDF for wanting to punish Hamas for the crimes it committed against Israeli women on 7 October 2023. Some even refer to Hamas-run Gaza as a ‘rapist regime’, it says. They seem to believe that ‘[Hamas’s] assault on Israeli women harmed a collective honour that must be avenged’. It accuses these ‘aggressive’ soldiers of trying to ‘rebuild Israeli national masculinity’ through ‘retaliation for the attacks carried out by the military wing of Hamas’.

I’m struggling to recall the last time I read something as morally warped as that. Israel can’t do right for doing wrong. If it instructs a male suspect in Gaza to remove his outer clothing, that’s the war crime of gender persecution. Yet when it pursues the Islamists who visited real gender-based butchery on the women of southern Israel on 7 October, that’s masculinist arrogance. What is the Human Rights Council saying, exactly? That Israel should not search fighting-age males for suicide belts? That it should not ‘avenge’ its women who were assaulted, kidnapped and murdered? Tell me, UN: is the Jewish nation the only nation that is forbidden from protecting its soldiers from explosive devices and its women from rape?

Even when the report moves from ‘men and boys’ to ‘women and girls’, its accusations don’t stack up. One of its key examples of ‘acts of sexual violence’ against women concerns ‘the removal of the veil’. The IDF, at checkpoints and in the Gazan towns it has conquered, sometimes instructs women to ‘remove [their] veils’, says the report. And apparently this has a ‘particular negative impact’. Can we get real here? It is sometimes necessary in warzones to check people’s identities. Israel suspected at one point that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had disguised himself as a woman. It is not ‘sexual violence’ to ask a woman in an incredibly tense war situation to show her face to soliders.

The report discusses ‘reproductive violence’, too. It includes in this category women suffering from ‘vaginal infections’ due to a lack of clean water and lactating women struggling to breastfeed as a result of malnourishment. These are dreadful circumstances. No one doubts that civilians in Gaza, especially mums with young kids, have suffered terribly as a result of this war started by Hamas. But aren’t these things that happen in all wars? Hunger, declining hygiene, ill-health? The rebranding of such tragedies of war as conscious acts of ‘sexual violence’ by the IDF feels profoundly deceptive. It is vilification masquerading as analysis.

There are serious accusations amid the misinformation, including claims that the IDF verbally and physically abused Palestinian women and tortured Palestinian men. Israel says they’re lies, but some of it will need to be investigated. But it is not the aim of this report to establish the truth about Gaza. No, it’s about casting a black cloud of suspicion over everything Israel does. ‘Avenging’ 7 October, protecting its soldiers from attack, interrogating fighting-age men – to normal people this is ‘war’; to those drunk on the Kool-Aid of Israelophobia, it’s a ‘war crime’. Listen, UN – it is not a crime for Jews to defend themselves against an army of anti-Semites that wants to kill them all.
Eugene Kontorovich: The U.N. Is Ripping America Off in New York
The 1947 agreement gave the U.N. tax-free status on some of the world’s most valuable real estate and required the U.S. to admit dictators and terrorists to its territory. In return, the U.S. got the prestige of hosting the organization and assurances that the U.N. wouldn’t fall under Soviet influence. But the Cold War is over, and the U.N. never became the global supercop of the founding generation’s fantasies. If there is still snob appeal to hosting the headquarters, it isn’t what it was 78 years ago.

The language of the agreement shows what a one-sided deal it was. While the treaty acknowledged U.S. sovereignty over the territory, it insisted the “headquarters district” was “under the control and authority” of the U.N. and “inviolable” by American officials. Article 23 of the Agreement provides that “the seat of the United Nations shall not be removed from the headquarters district unless the United Nations should so decide.” Some say this means the U.S. can’t evict the U.N.

But the agreement is a treaty, and the default rule of international law is that a treaty, unless they say otherwise, lasts until one party withdraws from it. If the U.S. cancels the treaty, the entire arrangement disappears. Nothing in the treaty’s text prohibits such withdrawal. Indeed, the idea of an irrevocable agreement seems not to have arisen at all in the negotiations. Congress, which in passing the law needed to approve the agreement, said nothing about it being an eternal concession.

While the treaty refers to the “permanent” headquarters of the U.N., this simply means “durable.” Many international treaties use “permanent” this way, to mean long-lasting, not eternal. The Permanent International Court of Justice lasted from 1922-46.

The U.N. bureaucrats who enjoy residence in the U.S. won’t give up without a fight. They would likely try to get the International Court of Justice to rule that the agreement can’t be canceled. The Hague has consistently rendered poorly reasoned decisions hostile to the U.S. As part of the U.N. system, it will be solicitous to the Turtle Bay bureaucracy. But if the International Court of Justice says the treaty can’t be canceled, then the law authorizing it is almost certainly unconstitutional.

In U.S. law, the only obligations with real permanence are those in the Constitution. Even for those, there is a process of amendment. The U.N. agreement was adopted through ordinary legislation—it isn’t clear how it could be unchangeable by subsequent democratically elected governments.

A recurring argument against U.S. disengagement from the U.N. is that the organization would fall under China’s control. That isn’t an issue with the headquarters agreement. There is no reason to think thousands of U.N. officials would be willing to decamp to Beijing.

Mr. Trump says he wants to take back the Panama Canal, but Turtle Bay is closer. As his administration reviews the U.S. relationship with the U.N. and other international organizations, the headquarters agreement shouldn’t escape scrutiny. There may still be reason to host the U.N., but it need not be on the same terms as in 1947. If Mr. Trump is willing to use cancellation of the agreement as leverage, he can get a much better deal for both New York and the U.S.


Daniel Greenfield: King David’s hostage negotiations
There is much that Israel could have learned and still can learn from King David’s approach to hostage negotiations. The first thing is to eliminate moral doubt about its rightness through faith. The second is to act quickly and debate later about the “endgame” of the conflict. The third is to pursue the release of captives through the destruction of the enemy and by no other means. And finally, to recognize that wars are only won when the debate ends and the battle begins.

Hamas tactics, aided by Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and the media, has been to delay Israel’s response, to stir up moral doubt using a propaganda campaign of fake atrocities and war crimes, with false accusations of genocide and constant lies about every military operation, and by demonstrating that it would kill hostages rather than allow Israel to rescue them.

That slowed down Israel’s response at every turn of the Oct. 7 war. And the more the battles slow down, the more debates set in. Victory is the best answer to any argument. Israel would need to worry less about the opinions of every pro-terrorist institution from the U.N. to Haaretz if it delivered consistent mission-focused victories by acting decisively, accepting the risks and rebounding from losses with new operations rather than wallowing in the futility of disproving every lie and arguing over what could have been done differently. Doubt, moral and operational, is corrosive. It corroded King Saul’s nerve until he went mad while King David refused to doubt.

The secret of King David’s decisiveness was the same moral conviction that began when as a boy he confronted Goliath and told the Philistine giant, “You come at me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin; and I come at you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted.” That moral certainty is sadly lacking today.

King Saul did not lack courage in response to some outrage, such as when Nahash the Ammonite besieged Jabesh Gilead and refused to accept its surrender unless each man agreed to have an eye put out. It’s only when the way was not clear, doubt set in and the people no longer seemed to be behind him that Saul tended to become insecure and lose clarity.

That is still Israel’s problem today. Its men are courageous when facing armed assaults, but arguments, smears and accusations rob them of their certainty and their momentum. Israel doesn’t lose wars, instead it loses image campaigns and peace negotiations. And unless it reclaims the certainty that it had on Oct. 7 and that Americans had on 9/11, that will continue.

Purim marked the return of certainty as the Jews of Persia who had become all too comfortable, who stayed in Shushan instead of returning to Jerusalem, were faced with sudden annihilation. Some blamed the small minority of Jews who had returned from exile to resettle Israel, others Mordechai for refusing to bow to Haman, but that distant descendant of Saul did not doubt. He had become a Jew, a Man of Judah, not by descent, but through the moral certainty of a David.

And an exiled and downtrodden people suddenly found the strength to fight for its survival.
Netanyahu OKs talks based on US proposal to free 11 living hostages
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night directed his negotiating team to prepare for renewed hostage-ceasefire talks based on U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff’s proposal that seeks the immediate release of 11 living captives and half of the bodies still being held by Hamas in Gaza.

The decision was made following a ministerial meeting in Jerusalem, and amid an apparent impasse in negotiations in Doha.

The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed that 35 of the 59 hostages still held by Palestinian terrorists in the Strip are dead. Intelligence assessments indicate that 22 remain alive, while the status of two is uncertain.

The crisis stems from the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on southern Israel, which killed approximately 1,200 people, injured thousands, and led to the abduction of 251 individuals to Gaza, triggering a regional war.

US condemns Hamas demands
Witkoff on Friday accused Hamas of stalling negotiations by demanding “impractical” conditions for an extended truce.

“Unfortunately, Hamas has chosen to respond by publicly claiming flexibility while privately making demands that are entirely impractical without a permanent ceasefire,” Witkoff said. “Hamas is making a very bad bet that time is on its side. It is not.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio slammed Hamas’s terms as “nuts,” reaffirming Washington’s commitment to securing the release of all 59 captives.

“These trades that are being made, they’re ridiculous—400 people for three. These are nuts,” Rubio said at the G7 Foreign Ministers Meeting in Charlevoix, Quebec. “We’re dealing with some savages. … These are bad people, terrible people, and we need to treat them as such.”


Netanyahu announces plan to fire Shin Bet chief as agency probes 'Qatargate'
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday night said he will propose to the cabinet to fire Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Director Ronen Bar about 18 months before his term expires.

Bar is probing several top aides of Netanyahu who are involved in “Qatargate,” a saga in which they allegedly were paid by Qatar at the same time as handling sensitive hostage negotiations policy for the prime minister also connected to Qatar.

Normally, the police investigate alleged crimes, but given the national security dimensions, the Shin Bet has taken the lead.

It was unclear if Netanyahu will be able to fire Bar. Either Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara or the High Court of Justice could rule that he has a conflict of interest in seeking to fire a law-enforcement officer who is probing his senior aides.

Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara late Sunday night sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blocking him from firing Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar until the agency's probe of Qatargate is complete.

Although the prime minister does have sole control of the selection of the Shin Bet chief, the attorney-general wrote that the essence of the position is apolitical, and not a loyalty appointment such as most other political positions within the prime minister's office.
'No choice but to commend Hamas for deceiving us, ' former IDF chief recorded saying
"I have no choice but to praise Hamas for the deception it perpetrated on us," former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said in a recording published by Army Radio on Sunday.

"They used disturbances and humanitarian concerns to lull us to sleep and prepare the attack - and they succeeded," he added, regarding the terrorist organization's atrocities they committed on October 7, 2023.

"In all the military exercises we've done and in all the discussions we had, we didn't think that 5% of what happened [that day] could happen," he added.

The recording was published after Halevi ended his position as Chief of Staff for the IDF earlier this month and was replaced by Eyal Zamir. He said in January that he would resign due to the military failure during Hamas's terrorist attacks.

Halevi served in his position for two years and two months.

The recording featuring Halevi was part of the October 7 investigation that was presented to the residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz.

Investigation into attacks on Kibbutz Nir Oz
Kibbutz Nir Oz was among the hardest hit by Hamas's terrorist attacks, with an IDF probe disclosing on Friday that no IDF soldiers had arrived there before the last of the some 300 to 500 Hamas terrorists attacking the kibbutz had already returned to Gaza.

47 Israelis were killed, and 76 were taken hostage from the kibbutz.

Additional reasons that the kibbutz was abandoned included its geographic distance from other communities bordering Gaza and the perception of it being smaller than some of the other villages. The probe also revealed that the military's 450th Battalion was only two kilometers away from the Kibbutz but had sent half their forces to Kissufim and Kerem Shalom.

The kibbutz, in response, said that the IDF investigation was "harrowing and deeply unsettling." They also highlighted the heroism of the community's emergency response team in resisting the invasion of Hamas terrorists.

The response team of the kibbutz was outnumbered by hundreds and fought alone for nearly two hours, doing everything they could until they were either killed or taken hostage.
There’s a difference between free speech and persecuting Jews
So let us make no mistake: last year’s widespread whipping up of hatred against Jews on campuses was a clear example of that global war. Deporting those architects of it who can be deported is a very important measure. There is a clear difference between free speech and persecution.

Lest we minimise what actually happened, let us look at the testimony of one among many mothers of Jewish students on campuses from Columbia to UCLA.

“We had to move our kids out of the campuses,” wrote Miha Schwartzenberg on X last week. “Not just because of the protests and tents and blocking their access to… everywhere in campus – but because of the constant death threats, very dangerous and disgusting physical gestures, shouting and banging on their dorm doors, day and night, stupid… jokes, violating their privacy in the [common] bathrooms… [swastikas] and sick writings on their walls, class disrupted freestyle, calling them humiliating names while in class and so on. Not one faculty member or anyone in the administration of these Universities did something, anything, to protect our children. Most of the Jewish students literally locked themselves in dorms, those who were lucky to share the room with a sane student. But those who had [pro-Palestine] room-mates had to move out, while we paid not just for the school, but for the dorms as well. It was the worst student year any Jewish/Israeli ever imagined.”

For many news outlets, such horror doesn’t even merit any comment whatsoever. In the BBC report, the Jewish experience is solely represented by “Carly, a Jewish-American graduate student and a friend of Mr Khalil” who “told the BBC that [he] was a ‘very, very caring soul”’. It’s sick.

The university staff who did nothing to restore order to their campuses are also quoted at length, for instance Columbia Professor Michael Thaddeus: “We’re facing a horrifying reality that our own student, a member of the Columbia community, has become a political prisoner here in the United States”.

Of course, as with much that comes out of the Trump administration, the talk is talked but the walk doesn’t necessarily follow. This single attempt at deportation is already being blocked as court proceedings get underway and Khalil’s army of lawyers argue the arrest is unconstitutional. The case may cost millions.

It is unclear whether Trump’s people have gone about the Khalil detention with sufficient care to actually carry through the deportation; as likely as not Khalil’s lawyers will win and he will stay.

The deportation of all the green-card holders who foment pro-Hamas activity would easily cost a trillion dollars in legal fees on the basis that each would cost as much as this one, though once precedent is established things might either speed up or grind to a halt. In any case it would be money well spent. We have to hope that America can be saved from its terror-endorsing lovers of murder and mayhem, one by one. The alternative is too all-encompassing and dark to imagine.
Fighting antisemitism requires dialogue, education and shared values
Hatred against Jews increasing
This is why defeating Hamas militarily should only be the first stage. A historical precedent can be drawn from the United States: After the defeat of the Nazi regime, the Americans understood that military victory alone was insufficient. They embarked on a comprehensive process of denazification, systematically uprooting the racist Nazi ideology that had poisoned the hearts and minds of millions of Germans for over a generation and culminated in the Holocaust — the genocide of six million Jews. This effort extended across German society, targeting both individuals and institutions.

The same principle applies to Gaza. The next phase must involve a sustained process of de-radicalization, eradicating Hamas’ extremist ideology from the hearts and minds of the Gazan population and dismantling its influence over Gazan institutions. Only by instilling the values of humanity, tolerance and coexistence can we hope to forge a more stable and peaceful future for our region.

However, the challenge of Jew-hatred extends far beyond the Palestinian territories. Despite the near-total expulsion of Jews from the Arab countries following Israel’s establishment, Jew-hatred remains deeply entrenched. A recent Anti-Defamation League survey reveals alarmingly high levels of anti-Jewish bias across the Middle East and North Africa, underscoring a persistent hostility toward a people who are no longer even present.

Regrettably, this entrenched Jew-hatred has not remained confined to the Middle East but has been exported to the West. In Chicago, data from the Chicago Police Department reveals that over the past two years, Jews have been the most targeted group for hate crimes, surpassing all other racial, ethnic, religious or gender-based groups.

Much of this rising antisemitism has been fueled by imported Middle Eastern narratives that demonize Jews and Israel. As a result, incidents of violence in Jewish neighborhoods like West Ridge have surged. Last October, the attempted murder of a recognizably Orthodox Jewish man on his way to Shabbat services in West Rogers Park serves as a stark example of this growing threat.

This trend is deeply troubling and demands the attention of all who cherish diversity and inclusion. American streets must not become a violent battleground for imported conflicts. At a time when bridging divides is more urgent than ever, we must commit to fostering mutual understanding, combating bigotry in all its forms and ensuring no community — Jewish or otherwise — lives in fear.

The path forward is not one of division but of dialogue, education and a shared commitment to the values that bind us together.

Yinam Cohen is the consul general of Israel to the Midwest.


IDF discovers UNRWA vest in weapons cache during Samaria raid
Israeli Defense Forces troops uncovered a weapons storage facility during a counter-terrorism operation in the Nur Shams area of northern Samaria, the military announced on Sunday.

According to the IDF, the cache contained weapons, a significant quantity of ammunition, and several bags filled with additional arms. During the search, soldiers also found a vest bearing the insignia of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) inside one of the bags.

The confiscated weapons have been transferred to Israeli security forces for further analysis and investigation. The military emphasized its commitment to continuing counter-terrorism efforts in Judea and Samaria to safeguard Israeli citizens.

A photo from the weapons storage facility in Nur Shams was released by the IDF, depicting the seized arsenal.

Over 60 arrested in counter-terror ops in Judea and Samaria

Over the past week, units from the IDF Commando Brigade, including the Duvdevan, Egoz and Maglan units, have carried out operations targeting terrorists across Judea and Samaria, the IDF reported on Saturday.

During these operations, more than 60 individuals wanted for security-related offenses were arrested. Israeli forces also confiscated a substantial cache of weapons, including firearms, explosives and ammunition.
IDF targets terrorists operating as ‘journalists’ in Gaza
The Israeli Air Force carried out a strike in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, on Saturday, targeting a terrorist cell that included operatives disguising themselves as journalists, according to the military.

The strike killed several Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad members, including individuals involved in attacks on Israeli forces.

Among those slain was Bilal Mahmoud Fouad Abu Matar, a Hamas terrorist posing as a photographer, and Mahmoud Imad Hassan Aslim from Hamas’s Zeitoun Battalion, who had been operating under the guise of a reporter. The IDF said these men were actively engaged in terrorist activities and were using their covers to evade detection.

The targeted cell was operating a drone intended to carry out attacks on Israeli troops. Intelligence reports confirmed that the drone was consistently used by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization, including in its most recent operations.

Other terrorists killed in the strike included:
Mostafa Mohammed Shaaban Hamad—a Hamas terrorist who infiltrated Israel during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.
Mahmoud Yahya Rashdi al-Sarraj—a member of Hamas’s engineering unit.
Suhaib Bassem Khaled Nagar—an Islamic Jihad terrorist who had been released as part of the latest hostage exchange deal.
Mohammed Alaa Sobhi al-Jafeer—a Hamas operative.

The IDF reiterated its commitment to targeting terrorist threats and preventing attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers.


IDF confirms missile launch from Yemen
The IDF confirmed to JNS on Sunday that it had detected a missile launch from Yemen, which did not hit near Israeli territory.

This followed reports from local media stating that the Houthis had fired a projectile that struck in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, near the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh. The IDF clarified that it was not possible to determine the missile’s intended target.

On March 12, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthis, threatened to resume attacks on “any Israeli vessel” in nearby maritime routes. His threat came in response to Israel’s refusal to allow aid into Gaza.

On Feb. 28, al-Houthi had issued a similar warning, saying that missile attacks against Tel Aviv would resume if Israel renewed its military actions against Hamas in Gaza.

Since Hamas initiated the conflict with its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, the Houthis have supported the terrorist group. They have fired more than 100 missile and drone attacks at merchant vessels, sinking two ships and killing four sailors. Additionally, they have fired more than 350 drones and missiles at Israel.

The Houthis ceased their attacks with the start of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which took effect on Jan. 19. The 42-day Phase 1 of the truce expired on March 1. There are significant gaps in negotiations for Phase 2 of the truce, with Hamas rejecting a U.S. proposal to extend Phase 1 through Ramadan and Passover.


Family of Yarden Bibas fundraises to help him heal, memorialize Shiri and the boys
The family of released hostage Yarden Bibas has appealed to the public to help fund his rehabilitation and memorialize his wife Shiri and young sons Kfir and Ariel, who were abducted in the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, and murdered in captivity.

The fundraiser had raised some two-thirds of its $1,371,086 goal as of press time. The funds, collected via the Lehosheet Yad (Lend a Hand) foundation, will assist with “professional support, mental health assistance and financial resources to gradually regain a sense of normalcy,” Yarden’s father Eli wrote on the campaign’s English-language page.

“Yarden’s recovery is a long, complex, and painful journey. Beyond the unbearable grief, he must rebuild his life from nothing physically, emotionally, and financially,” wrote Eli Bibas. “He has no home, no stability – and each day brings new, unexpected challenges.”

In a video appeal published Thursday, Yarden’s sister Ofri Bibas Levy said, “We need your help to try and heal Yarden, and to fulfill his wish of eternalizing the memories of Shiri and the boys.”

“It’s important to us, in the way we choose to memorialize their memories, to remember them as who they were prior to October 7 — as sweet, happy children, as an amazing and happy family,” she said.

Speaking to the Ynet news site, she said the family would memorialize Shiri, Ariel and Kfir in a manner that “does good for others, especially for children, maybe in education… It’s right both with regard to Ariel and Kfir, and Shiri, who was an educator at heart. As a person and as a mother, that’s her nature.”

“Yarden isn’t asking a thing for himself. We’re asking for him,” she said. “The government helps financially, mainly with stipends, but from what we understand they’re mostly either one-time or valid for a year.”

“He hasn’t yet begun to deal with the experience of captivity; it will come at some point, but we can’t foresee how difficult the coping will be. It’s a long journey, there will be ups and downs,” she said. “We want to let Yarden choose to do what is right for himself and not make decisions based on financial constraints.”


The Israel Guys: The MOST IMPORTANT Film about the "West Bank" You'll Ever See
The Truth About the West Bank EXPOSED, everything you thought you knew about Judea & Samaria might be a LIE! For decades, the world has been fed a false narrative—one that paints Israel as the aggressor and ignores 2,000 years of Jewish history in this land. But today, we’re setting the record straight! From the times of Joshua to today, Judea & Samaria (a.k.a. the West Bank) has been Israel’s biblical heartland! Yet, despite Israel’s rightful claim, world leaders demand that it be handed over for a Palestinian state. But is giving up land really the path to peace? Or is it a dangerous repeat of Gaza?


‘Extremely serious’: Syria faces ‘predictable’ revenge killings after Assad ousted
Former British commander Richard Kemp says revenge killings in Syria are “extremely serious” but were “extremely predictable”.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in Syria by militant groups, which has questioned the ability of Syria’s new government to control the country.

“The situation in Syria is extremely serious, yet it was extremely predictable,” Mr Kemp told Sky News Australia.


Inside the Podcasting Wild West: How the ‘Manosphere,’ Joe Rogan & Tucker Carlson Stream Holocaust Denial, the ‘Jewish Question’ & 9/11 Conspiracies to Millions
Spotify’s Cash Cow: Joe Rogan
With over 14 million listeners and the title of Spotify’s top podcaster in 2024, Joe Rogan is the undisputed king of the podcasting world. His guest list includes everyone from Donald Trump to Mark Zuckerberg, Bernie Sanders, and Edward Snowden—proof of both his influence and his ability to play host to just about anyone.

Controversy has always been Rogan’s currency. His media empire thrives on the outrage his show generates, and at this point, what once shocked no longer has the same impact. That may, at least in part, explain his latest choice of guest: Ian Carroll, a self-proclaimed journalist who has spent years trafficking in virulent antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Carroll checks all the usual modern-day antisemite boxes: blaming 9/11 on Israel, ranting about a “Zionist mafia” controlling the U.S., and recycling every tired trope about Jewish financial and political influence. Over the course of his nearly three-hour appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, he delivered an unfiltered torrent of conspiracy theories, offering little more than a jumble of well-worn antisemitic rhetoric.

Israel, he claimed, was founded by “organized crime figures in America” with ties to “the Jewish mob” and “the Rothschild banking family.” Jeffrey Epstein, he added in a particularly incoherent segment, “was clearly a Jewish organization working on behalf of Israel and other groups.”

And Rogan? He nodded along, offering words of encouragement, even musing at one point, “What’s interesting is you can talk about this now, post-Oct. 7, post-Gaza.”

It was a telling remark. The host who built his brand on “just asking questions” had stopped questioning entirely—and instead, provided a platform for undisguised Nazi propaganda.

Selling Holocaust Denial: Tucker Carlson & Candace Owens
Yet, Rogan isn’t leading the charge—he’s following a broader and deeply troubling trend of high-profile Western podcasters turning Holocaust revisionism into a profitable enterprise.

Among Rogan’s upcoming guests is Darryl Cooper, a Holocaust revisionist who has defended Hitler and blamed Winston Churchill for World War II. Cooper was previously given a prominent platform on former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s podcast, where he delivered an appalling revisionist take on the Holocaust.

During that interview, Cooper claimed that the U.S. was on the “wrong side” in World War II and suggested that millions of Jews in concentration camps “ended up dead” only because the Nazis lacked the resources to care for them.

Not only did Carlson give Cooper an unchallenged platform to spread these lies to an audience of millions, but he also lavished him with praise, calling him “the most important popular historian in the United States.”

Carlson’s interview with Cooper appeared to be an attempt to disguise his guest’s modern-day Nazi views with a veneer of intellectual credibility. It was only a slightly more sophisticated repackaging of antisemitism than that offered by Candace Owens—one of the most influential podcasters in the world, with nearly 4 million subscribers—who has used her platform to defend Adolf Hitler, accuse Israel of enforcing apartheid against Muslims, and push the ever-reliable conspiracy that Hollywood is secretly controlled by Jewish elites.

Owens, perhaps, lacks the intellectual prowess to attempt subtlety. When Kanye West praised Hitler, Owens brushed it off as merely his opinion while mocking Jews who criticized him as overly “emotional” and insisting they “can’t take a joke.” When confronted, her response followed the predictable script of the intellectually dishonest—first doubling down, then claiming victimhood, and, when that failed, falling back on the old “I was just asking questions” line.

With figures like Carlson and Owens normalizing and laundering these ideas, Holocaust denial and antisemitic conspiracies are no longer confined to the fringes—they’re being streamed to millions, dressed up as “alternative perspectives” in the name of free speech.
Andrew Roberts hits back at Churchill revisionist Darryl Cooper from the Tucker Carlson show
The historian Darryl Cooper appeared on the Tucker Carlson show last week to reveal why he thinks Churchill was the 'chief villain' of the Second World War and why Churchill, not Hitler was behind mass murder, terror and war crimes. Historian Andrew Roberts joins the Spectator's editor Fraser Nelson to unpack each accusation and explain why they are baseless.


Jonathan Tobin: Trump, not the ‘woke’ right, remains in charge of US policy
The dumping of Israel-basher Daniel Davis indicates that worries about antisemitic conservatives notwithstanding, it’s only the president’s position that matters.




First they came for a disgraceful Holocaust comparison in the case of Mahmoud Khalil
These groups, Jewish Voices for Peace and IFNotNow, are widely rejected by effectively all mainstream Jewish groups as being virulently anti-Israel and even antisemitic.

The Anti-Defamation League — far from a conservative organization — has labeled JVP as a fringe group that “intentionally exploits Jewish culture and rituals” to attack and undermine Israel. It has even included JVP in its antisemitism tracking initiative.

In the weeks after the 2024 election, I foolishly believed that perhaps the left had actually learned something about the dangers of their own extreme factions.

I thought Democrats would begin to reform their views to reflect common sense and what makes Americans safer and better off.

I was wrong.

Mahmoud Khalil’s case is not a hard one.

His complicity with Hamas rhetoric and his illegal behavior at Columbia make him a prime candidate for deportation, both morally and under the law.

Most important of all, his deportation makes Americans safer.

But it’s just politics as usual for the Democrats who hide their eyes from the truly evil threat before them.

What do you think? Post a comment.

Khalil, of course.

Not the American government.

Yes, the Jews will suffer first.

But we should all understand the true implications of Martin Niemöller’s poem.

Eventually, if this terror within our borders is given free rein, none of us will be safe.
Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest is about law and order, not free speech
Khalil’s actions have gone far beyond expressing fringe political or ideological views. He participated in protests where Hamas propaganda was distributed with the Hamas logo, including materials from the “Hamas Media Office” and a booklet celebrating the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. He is also the self-proclaimed “spokesperson” for Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a group that has intimidated, threatened and harassed Jewish students, and violently occupied and vandalized campus buildings.

Hamas has been a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization for more than 28 years. It is responsible for horrific acts of violence, including the Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people in Jewish communities in Israel’s south—and the kidnapping of another 251 men, women and children—the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Vocalizing support for Hamas and spreading terror propaganda is not a matter of free expression; it is a national security threat to America.

It’s important to note here too, that the same protesters who chant for “Death to Israel” chant for “Death to America.” The United States has a responsibility to protect its citizens from radical individuals who may offer material or ideological support to terrorist groups.

INA states that any noncitizen who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization” is inadmissible and subject to deportation. This is not an unreasonable decision; it is simply the implementation of the law.

This national security enforcement measure is not unique to America. Countries regularly deny visas or rescind residency status for people who pose potential security risks. Khalil’s participation in extremist activities is more than just a university protest or a political statement—it is a clear alignment with groups that actively endanger American interests and allies.

By drawing an absurdly false equivalence between Khalil’s arrest and censorship, these “activists” simultaneously distract the public from the real threats to free speech. The legitimate threats to expression on campuses target Jewish and pro-Israel students, who face harassment, exclusion, censorship and even physical threats for being outwardly Jewish or stating their spiritual or familial connections to Israel.

Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest isn’t about suppressing dissent. It’s about security and upholding public order—something that violent, non-peaceful protesters actively undermine by glorifying martyrdom, praising terrorist leaders and relentlessly aiming to delegitimize Israel’s existence.

Green cards, visas and citizenship are a privilege, not a right. The United States has clear legal standards for who can remain in the country, and supporting terrorist organizations is a blatant violation of those standards.
Jewish Democratic Council of America Claims Trump Made Jews ‘Less Safe’ by Deporting Anti-Israel Palestinian
The Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA), which purports to represent Jewish points of view within the Democratic party, claims President Donald Trump made Jews “less safe” by deporting an anti-Israel Palestinian.

As Breitbart News reported, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Mahmoud Khalil earlier this month, after the anti-Israel activist led radical protests, including illegal encampments, at Columbia University.

Many of these protests became explicitly antisemitic. Columbia’s failure to stop them ultimately led to the departure of university president Minouche Shafik last year — though such protests have resumed this year, regardless.

Khalil is currently awaiting deportation.

Halie Soifer, the CEO of the JDCA, claimed in an e-mail blast on Sunday that Khalil’s deportation actually makes American Jews less safe:
While we can vehemently disagree with one’s speech, that doesn’t mean it isn’t protected speech under the Constitution. In the case of Khalil, as a U.S. green card holder, he’s entitled to due process before deportation. Donald Trump’s effort to deny him that – and his threat to do the same to other pro-Palestinian protest organizers – is weaponizing antisemitism to potentially deny constitutionally protected speech. The use of antisemitism as an excuse to deny free speech is not good for our community, security, or democracy.

It may be pro-Palestinian protestors who are targeted and denied their rights today, but we don’t know who will be next. If we support the selective denial of protected speech and rights of others, even those with whom we strongly disagree, we fall into a dangerous trap that will only come at our own peril.


Exploiting Humanitarian Visas: How Anti-Israel NGOs Manipulate the System
On March 10, 2025, the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combatting Antisemitism introduced a new procedure for granting visas to humanitarian aid organizations. This procedure, aimed at increasing transparency and political accountability, now includes the assessment of organizations' political activities, such as delegitimization efforts, lawfare against Israel, and affiliations with other political agendas. Furthermore, NGOs must disclose their funding sources and provide full transparency regarding their partners.

The Challenge: Abuse of Humanitarian Visas
For over 15 years, NGO Monitor has meticulously documented the activities of international NGOs that are registered in Israel. These NGOs, many of which are involved in anti-Israel lawfare, BDS campaigns, and delegitimization efforts, have long exploited Israel’s open visa system for humanitarian purposes. The lack of regulation surrounding the approval and monitoring of NGOs has allowed these organizations to shift their focus from genuine humanitarian aid to political advocacy, undermining Israel’s security and international standing. Distorting Humanitarian Aid

A number of NGOs that are officially registered in Israel and listed by the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs are engaged in activities that go beyond traditional humanitarian aid. Instead of providing relief to those in need, some organizations leverage their access to promote one-sided political campaigns that delegitimize Israel. Notably, these NGOs operate under the auspices of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), but their primary objective in the West Bank and Gaza is not to provide aid but to push a political agenda

Here is a summary of the international NGOs mentioned for their abuse of Israeli humanitarian visas:
1. Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC): NRC has been heavily criticized for its political activities, including exploiting the Israeli legal system to advance the Palestinian cause. It has filed thousands of cases against Israeli policies, supporting the expansion of Palestinian control in Area C and advocating for international sanctions against Israel. NRC has also funded organizations linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist group. NRC has also called for exemptions from anti-terrorism laws, which could weaken vetting standards for humanitarian aid. 2. Diakonia: A Swedish aid agency, Diakonia has supported anti-Israel lawfare, particularly at the International Criminal Court (ICC). They have focused on promoting the "apartheid" narrative, calling for sanctions and pressure on Israel. Diakonia has also backed BDS initiatives and supported groups that aim to delegitimize Israel internationally. They have been involved in advocacy campaigns encouraging governments to bypass Israeli regulations and fund groups with ties to terrorism. 3. World Vision: World Vision, an international humanitarian organization, was involved in a major scandal when one of its Gaza leaders, Mohammad El-Halabi, was convicted of diverting funds to Hamas for terrorism purposes. Investigations into its operations in Israel revealed that World Vision’s local branch was involved in activities contrary to its stated humanitarian goals, including providing support to Hamas and engaging in illegal military activities. 4. Oxfam Novib: This Belgian-Dutch NGO has supported BDS campaigns and engaged in legal efforts targeting Israel. For example, it played a significant role in a lawsuit that pressured the Dutch government to halt the transfer of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel. Oxfam Novib has been involved in lawfare against Israel and supports actions that seek to isolate the country internationally.


Top NHS doctor's anti-Semitic rants - and vile racist slur against David Lammy
A senior NHS doctor sparked outrage last night after spouting vile racist abuse at David Lammy, calling the Foreign Secretary a 'monkey bought by Zionists'.

In sickening online comments, Aqeel Jamil, a consultant gastroenterologist at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, also accused Israel of helping Hamas commit the October 7 massacre of 1,200 Jews.

Writing on X, Dr Jamil, who lives in a £1 million home in Southampton, declared 'there is no such thing as Israel' and that 'Israelis are all fascists'.

On Facebook he posted a doctored image of the star of David, its six points labelled with the words: Lie, Kill, Cheat, Rape, Steal and Cry.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said last night: 'I am utterly appalled by these vile racist posts.' He previously said staff could be struck off if they use 'the conflict in the Middle East as a pretext to attack communities'.

Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust launched an investigation this weekend after The Mail on Sunday gave health chiefs a shocking dossier of Dr Jamil's comments.

The Daily Mail last month revealed a sharp rise in anti-Jewish feelings among NHS staff after Hamas's raid. From October 7 to November 19 in 2023, 402 complaints of anti-Semitism were made to the General Medical Council.


UKLFI: Enfield PSC BDS Petition and Misleading Ad Challenged
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has warned leading members and staff of Enfield Council that a petition promoted by Enfield Palestine Solidarity Campaign (Enfield PSC) contains false information and illegal demands. UKLFI has also reported Enfield PSC’s advert in the Enfield Dispatch to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

The advert claims that 70% of Palestinians killed in Gaza are women and children, while the “reasons for calling for action” accompanying the petition claim that 59.5% are women and children.

Both of these are wrong. Even the Hamas-run agencies in Gaza have long since abandoned their false claim, which they had maintained for months from the start of the war, that the proportion of Palestinians killed that are women and children was constantly 70%. There is substantial evidence that Hamas manipulated the figures in order to suggest that Israeli fire was indiscriminate or even targeted women and children.

According to the most recent list of alleged identified fatalities produced by the Hamas agencies as at 7 October 2024 as reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the proportion of women and children was between 53% and 55%. By contrast, women and children constitute more than 73% of the Gaza population.

According to this list, 41.1% of fatalities were non-elderly men compared with 22.7% in the Gaza population as a whole.

These figures are significant because they support Israel’s claim that it targets terrorists (mostly non-elderly men), even though (as is unfortunately usual in armed conflict in urban areas) there are also many civilian casualties.


Florida bills seek to bolster state’s anti-BDS laws
Florida, which has taken a leadership role nationwide in combating the boycott-Israel movement and actions against the Jewish state, took another step in that fight with the introduction of two bills in its state legislature on Feb. 28 intended to beef up existing anti-BDS law.

The bills’ Republican sponsors, Tom Leek, a state senator, and Hillary Cassel, a state representative, announced the bills’ filing last week.

The virtually identically worded Florida Senate Bill 1678 and Florida House of Representatives Bill 1519 would expand the state’s existing anti-BDS law, which focuses on commercial contracts, to include contacts with nonprofits, foreign educational institutions and foreign government funds.

“We must take a firm, resolute stand against hate, not only against those who try to harm Floridians through antisemitic economic boycotts but also in academia, where such rhetoric is beginning to take hold,” Cassel said in a statement.

“House Bill 1519 is a legislative initiative aimed at ensuring Floridians’ taxpayer dollars do not support antisemitic activities in either the commercial or academic sectors,” she added. “Florida is the place where antisemitic discrimination and boycotts of Israel go to die.”
EXCLUSIVE: Trump Administration Slashes Millions More in Grants to Columbia
The Trump administration on Friday slashed additional grants to Columbia University totaling approximately $30 million, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

The administration is in the process of reviewing the totality of Columbia’s $5 billion in federal funding, and the fresh round of cuts comes on the heels of the administration’s decision to cancel $400 million in grants and contracts to the Ivy League school announced earlier this month.

At the time, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism said the initial cuts constituted "the first round of action" and that additional cuts were expected to follow as the review continued.

The $30 million in grants came from the Department of Health and Human Services, which took action as a member of the task force, and the administration is reviewing further cuts across other agencies as well, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Columbia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Among the Columbia faculty members impacted by Friday’s cuts is Jeanine D’Armiento, the chairwoman of the University Senate Executive Committee, who has played a leading role pushing back against the school’s modest efforts to discipline students involved in disruptive and frequently anti-Semitic protests. Grants supporting D’Armiento’s work account for approximately $2 million of the $30 million cut Friday, according to a person familiar with the situation.

As the de facto leader of the University Senate, one of the bodies that metes out discipline to students, D’Armiento has played a key role in the events that have roiled the Morningside Heights campus over the past year.

As hundreds of student activists occupied the school’s south lawn last spring, ultimately forcing the cancellation of in-person classes and the university’s graduation ceremony, D’Armiento told former Columbia president Minouche Shafik and one of her advisers, Dennis Anthony Mitchell, that Shafik must engage in "dialogue" with the students, "including them in even the planning and discussions around the rules that will ultimately govern them," according to text messages obtained by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

"She is clearly and closely connected to the students who are leading the protest," wrote Board of Trustees vice chairwoman Wanda Holland-Greene to co-chairwoman Claire Shipman. "She says that we are fighting an ideological battle (anti-war) with logic (threats of discipline). What I heard her say is that we need to either speak to their idealism or prepare for their continued and coordinated escalation."
Cornell SJP, students face suspension over peace panel disruption
Cornell University anti-Israel student activists and the local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine face suspension for the disruption of a panel last Monday on Middle East peace, Cornell Interim President Michael Kotlikoff announced in a Tuesday statement.

Seventeen people were identified by the Cornell University Police for protesting and heckling Pathways to Peace panelists ex-Israeli deputy prime minister Tzipi Livni, ex-Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad, and ex-US ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro.

"Five hundred children in 2014 -- you killed them!" one of the protesters may have mistakenly yelled at Livni, who was Justice Minister during Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza.

According to Tuesday's SJP Instagram video, protesters chanted "Palestine will live forever, from the sea to the river" as police led away hecklers,

SJP claimed in a Wednesday Instagram post that many of the protesters had engaged in a peaceful and silent walkout, and the administration and CUPD had utilized excessive force in violation of their freedom of expression.

Police said that they had arrested nine people for disorderly conduct at Bailey Hall, five of whom were referred to the Ithaca City Court, and four were referred to the Office of Student Conduct.
UK Jewish students prep for university by preparing for antisemitism
Antisemitism on campus in the United Kingdom has reached a point where Jewish high-schoolers heading to institutions of higher learning have started attending workshops to train for the expected abuse.

Robert Halfon, a former Conservative MP and minister in the Department for Education, after speaking to Jewish students at one workshop two weeks ago, said that levels of intimidation and antisemitism were a “shocking stain on our university system,” The Sunday Times reported on March 14.

In a recent example this month, pro-Palestinian protesters commandeered an event at King’s College London, titled “From Conflict to Connection: Israelis and Iranians in Dialogue.”

The event moderator, a 21-year-old Jewish student who wished to remain anonymous, told The Sunday Times that he hid in a nearby room when anti-Israel protesters burst in.

“It was a legitimate panel discussion that was focused on dialogue, so it is quite telling that it got shut down by the very people who say they don’t want violence,” he said.

Jews are made to feel unwelcome by some other students. “They say ‘Zionists off our streets,’ but they mean ‘Jews off our streets.’ It’s like saying breathing is OK, but oxygen is not allowed,” he said.
Critics says violent anti-Israel protests led U of Amsterdam to cut ties with Hebrew U
The University of Amsterdam has come under heavy criticism for its decision Thursday to end bilateral relations with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Following the university’s announcement, Dutch politicians have accused the board of the UvA of giving in to the demands of the violent anti-Israel protesters who brought the campus to a standstill in May 2024.

On Thursday, the board of UvA put out a statement in which it announced it would follow the recommendations of an advisory commission on collaboration with foreign universities. Three projects with partners in Israel, China and Hungary will not be continued or renewed in their current form, the university said.

UvA will end its current relationship with the Hebrew University, and future renewed cooperation will only take place after a positive recommendation from the same advisory commission. In the case of China, however, UvA “has no objections to continuing cooperation, but advises risk-mitigating measures.”

Critics of the UvA decision were quick to point out that China, with its abysmal human rights record, is treated with more leniency than Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. According to human rights organizations, the Chinese government has incarcerated up to a million members of its Muslim minority — known as Uyghurs — in labor and reeducation camps.

“The University of Amsterdam collaborates with no fewer than six Chinese universities, apparently unbothered by China’s concentration camps for the Uyghur population,” Annabel Nanninga, a senator in the First Chamber of the Dutch parliament for the pro-Israel, right-wing JA21-party, told The Times of Israel on Friday.
Hamburg woman on trial for attacking Jewish woman at university
A 27-year-old woman is currently on trial after she reportedly assaulted a middle-aged Jewish woman after a lecture on antisemitism in Hamburg, Germany, local media reported on Tuesday.

German media outlet taz reported that the defendant, Ayan M., continually berated co-plantiff Elisabeth S., who was 56 at the time, after her husband gave a University of Hamburg lecture on antisemitism some 10 months ago. According to the indictment, she repeatedly called the plaintiff a "hideous witch" and threatened to punch her in the face, taz reported.

After she was repeatedly insulted, the plaintiff threatened to film the defendant. Ayan M. then repeatedly struck and strangled the plaintiff. Elisabeth sustained mild injuries after the encounter; she had bruising in several places on her body and strangulation marks around her neck, and her glasses were broken.

The defendant was also being investigated for assaulting police officers. Two days after the reported attack after the lecture occurred, she attended the university's "Hands off Rafah" protest, where she reportedly punched an officer in the mouth, bit another officer's hand, and spat in a third officer's face. She is also accused of insulting multiple other officers and reportedly called the police "f***ing racist cops," among other things.
Jewish students face growing threats in French schools, testimonies reveal
A study published in March aims to measure the extent of antisemitism in schools across France by conducting interviews with 30 Jewish students, aged 8-15, in public or non-Jewish private schools.

The study, which the CRIF published in partnership with the Jean-Jaurès Foundation and the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP), was conducted to assess more accurately the scope of antisemitism in schools since October 7.

While figures provided by the Education Ministry and the French Jewish Community Protection Service (SPCJ) help to quantify and track the rise in antisemitism, they only reveal part of the issue.

The testimonies of the students interviewed document the difficulties faced by Jewish students since October 7, which are not widely reported.

“Yes, sometimes people ask me questions, and it makes me a bit uncomfortable because either I do not know how to respond, or I wonder how they can even think that. One time, someone asked me, ‘Why are you committing genocide?’” Lea, age 15, said.

“The school experience of Jewish students since October 7 is characterized by a strong uniformity, above all marked by a pervasive anti-Jewish hostility,” explained Valerie Boussard, sociologist at the University Paris Nanterre, who analyzed the interviews.

“To protect themselves when faced with this hostility, the students try to blend in by hiding their Jewish identity or their connections to Israel and by carefully avoiding responding to interrogations and accusations by their peers, often directed at them through the figure of Israel," she said.
South African University Votes to Keep Boycott of Israel Despite Losing Two-thirds of Donor Funding
The University of Cape Town (UCT), once one of South Africa’s most widely-respected academic institutions, has decided to preserve its boycott of Israeli universities despite losing nearly two-thirds of donor funding since doing so.

UCT adopted an anti-Israel boycott in June 2024 when its governing council voted to approve two resolutions on the Gaza war, which together amounted to a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

One resolution, for example, provided that “no UCT academic may enter into relations, or continue relations with, any research group and/or network whose author affiliations are with the Israeli Defence Force, and/or the broader Israeli military establishment.” The vast majority of Israelis are drafted into the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), and many university students and professors continue to serve as reservists after their compulsory service.

Moreover, Israeli universities work with the military, meaning that UCT had effectively boycotted its Israeli counterparts.

As reported by the university itself at the time, these resolutions did not condemn Hamas or the terror attack of October 7, 2023; nor did they call for the release of Israeli hostages.

The university’s fundraising chief, Trevor Norwitz, had already resigned over UCT’s earlier anti-Israel statements.


RTS commits to making special award after Gaza coverage controversy
The Royal Television Society (RTS) has committed to the return of its special journalism award following pausing the prize over “recent controversy around some Gaza coverage”.

Earlier this week, current affairs veteran Jonathan Dimbleby, Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Sky News journalist Alex Crawford and BBC journalists Fergal Keane and Orla Guerin were among those who signed a letter expressing their “shock and disgust” at not recognising the journalists of Gaza.

The RTS had been set to honour the “journalists at the television journalism awards on March 5 2025, but subsequently reversed this decision on the day of the awards”, the letter said.

It comes after the BBC apologised for and removed the documentary Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone from iPlayer, saying it had “identified serious flaws” in the making of the programme.

Channel 4 News admitted that the son of a Hamas official, who featured in the BBC Gaza programme, was briefly part of its daily coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

Following the broadcasters’ letter being issued, a spokeswoman for the RTS said: “A decision was taken not to present the special award at the Royal Television Society Journalism Awards.

“At that time, it was felt strongly that there was potential at the ceremony on the night for the recent controversy around some Gaza coverage to overshadow the award.

“Following the decision to pause the presentation of the award, the RTS met this week as part of the society’s previously announced review process.

“The society remains committed to recognising the work of journalists in Gaza and will be making the special award. It is discussing how this will take place.”


BBC edited footage to downplay Hamas's poor treatment of hostages
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was accused of downplaying the Hamas terrorist organization's harsh treatment of Israeli hostages, according to a Sunday report by The Telegraph.

The Arabic branch of the British public service broadcaster was forced to edit a video clip of the "shadow unit" of the terror group's Al-Qassam Brigades, the report said. The "shadow unit" was described in the video clip as "guarding the kidnapped female Israeli hostages," who were also seen "thanking" their captors, the video described.

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) accused the BBC of spreading propaganda in a 33-page report, citing the incident.

The Telegraph cited a translation done by CAMERA of the BBC's Arabic branch, where it said that the Al-Qassam Brigades's "mission is to secure the hostages and hide them from view in Gaza." After a complaint made by CAMERA, BBC Arabic updated their report and removed the section claiming the hostages were treated well, The Telegraph added.

“This is a jaw-dropping piece of propaganda – a puff piece on war criminals who have executed, starved, beaten and sexually assaulted the hostages that Hamas kidnapped on October 7,” The Telegraph quoted former BBC Television Director Danny Cohen as saying. "The shadow unit are not ‘guards’ tasked with keeping hostages safe; they are monstrous terrorists who have committed unspeakable crimes." Cohen then said that the Arabic branch of the BBC spreads "antisemitic poison funded by taxpayers."

The report also quoted CAMERA's Hadar Sela, who stated that Hamas's "shadow unit" in question was complicit in the kidnapping, starvation, torture, and sexual violence against the hostages.


BBC apologizes for footage of Israeli city in report on ‘settlements’
The BBC has apologized for airing footage of an Israeli city located inside the pre-1967 lines in a report about Jewish “settlements” on the Golan Heights.

The erroneous characterization, which was exposed by the prominent Boston-based media watchdog group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis), comes as the British broadcaster is under scrutiny for using the son of a senior Hamas official as a narrator in a documentary on Gaza, in the latest flawed reporting from the BBC, infamous for its long history of anti-Israel bias.

The online BBC Arabic video from December about the strategic importance of the Golan Heights used aerial footage of the Israeli city of Tiberias, located on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.

A voiceover then described Israeli communities in the Golan Heights with subtitles appearing on the screen reading: “There are more than 30 Israeli settlements in the Golan.”

“By implying that Tiberias is a ‘settlement’ while regularly referring to nearby Arab communities, some far newer, as ‘villages’ or ‘towns,’ BBC Arabic fuels the antisemitic stereotype according to which Israel’s Jews can never be truly indigenous to the land,” a spokesperson for CAMERA told The Jewish Chronicle.

“More broadly speaking, given the BBC‘s longstanding and disproportionate focus on Jewish ‘settlements,’ one might expect BBC Arabic editors to at least know what they look like.”

The U.S. recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel during President Donald Trump’s first term in 2019.


Israeli forces foil shooting plot in Jerusalem’s Old City
The Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) and the Israel Police thwarted a planned shooting attack by an Arab Israeli in Jerusalem’s Old City during Ramadan.

According to a joint statement released on Sunday, the suspect, Oudai Mobarsham from Makr, east of Acre in the Western Galilee, was arrested in February after buying a homemade rifle and undergoing training with it.

He confessed to interrogators planning a shooting attack targeting police officers or Jewish Israelis near Damascus Gate. The attack was intended as an expression of solidarity with the Palestinian cause, particularly if Muslim prayers on the Temple Mount were restricted during Ramadan, Mobarsham said.

The investigation revealed that Mobarsham had acquired an illegal weapon and conducted shooting training. The weapon was later found in the possession of his brother, who was also arrested in connection with the plot. Furthermore, Mobarsham attempted to recruit others to join the attack, with several individuals identified and detained for questioning as part of the cell.

Shin Bet officials warned that the attack, had it been carried out, could have sparked significant escalation during a tense period. Following the completion of the investigation, the Haifa District Prosecutor’s Office filed an indictment against Mobarsham and his brother for their roles in the plot.


Seth Frantzman: The end of an era: Assad is gone, and Syrians reclaim their future
Across Syria, people came out on Saturday evening to commemorate the anniversary of the uprising against the Assad regime. The regime fell on December 8, 2024, after 50 years in power.

People in Syria are now celebrating the uprising in 2011 that began the Syrian revolution. At the time, protests took place in different places in Syria, beginning in Daraa, in southern Syria. The Assad regime responded by massacring and killing people.

In Damascus, people celebrated in Umayyad Square to mark the anniversary. It is a new era in Syria. There were more celebrations in Homs, Hama, and other areas of eastern Syria. There were fewer celebrations in the Turkish-occupied part of northern Syria.

Syrian state media SANA reported on the importance of the events.

“For the first time since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s criminal and oppressive regime in Syria, Syrian citizens gathered in Umayyad Square in the capital, Damascus, to celebrate the 14th anniversary of the blessed revolution,” the report said. “This gathering affirmed the birth of a new Syria, free from oppression and tyranny.”

Syrians had come from other countries to celebrate, SANA reported.

“Mohammad Shafter, who came from Germany to participate in this celebration, noted that despite the overwhelming joy filling his heart, he misses, at this moment, his brothers, friends, and relatives who took part in the Syrian revolution and were martyred – either in the prisons of the former regime or through targeted attacks during their peaceful demonstrations demanding freedom,” the report said.


‘I thought I was going to die’: Jewish music producer reveals kidnapping ordeal
When Itay Kashti accepted an invitation to a music workshop in Wales, he thought it was a promising career opportunity. Instead, he found himself in a terrifying ordeal, handcuffed to a radiator, beaten and fearing for his life. Now, after his attackers have been jailed, the Jewish-Israeli music producer is speaking out about the trauma that has changed his life forever.

Kashti, 45, who moved to London from Israel in 2007 to expand his music career, was lured to a remote cottage in Llanybydder, Wales, in August 2024. The invitation had seemed like a routine professional opportunity, but it was a carefully orchestrated trap.

Three men, Faiz Shah, Mohammad Comrie, and Elijah Ogunnubi-Sime, had posed as representatives of a reputable music company, having meticulously planned his kidnapping in a Telegram group chat.

Speaking to Jewish News, Kashti recalled, “As soon as I stepped into the cottage, something felt off. Within seconds, they attacked me.” His kidnappers restrained him, kicking him in the head and handcuffing him to a radiator. “I was told if I tried to escape, I’d be killed.”

Although the group’s plan was to coerce money from him, their scheme quickly collapsed when the taxi driver who had brought Kashti to the cottage managed to escape and alert authorities. The attackers fled but were later found hiding in a nearby field by the police.

Reflecting on the attack, Kashti said that the moment immediately reminded him of the Hamas-led 7 October massacre in Israel.

“When this happened to me, I thought, ‘This is like they’re doing to me what they did to them,’” he said. “I was helpless and being threatened, and the horror of that day was very prominent in my mind afterwards.”

The court later heard that Kashti had been targeted not just for financial gain but because of his Jewish identity. Messages between the attackers referenced his Israeli heritage, made false accusations about his wealth and showed “no remorse” for their actions.

“They saw this as a legitimate cause to do all these horrible things to me,” Kashti said.


‘Slap on the wrist,’ says Canadian Jew, 88, of verdict for teenage attacker
A Toronto judge’s recent decision to sentence an 18-year-old woman to 12 months probation, 40 hours of community service and anger management classes for physically assaulting an octogenarian Jewish man is “very disappointing,” the victim told JNS.

“You get a slap on the wrist, naughty naughty,” Joel Sacke, 88, said of the Tuesday verdict.

Hissa Abed was riding in a car with her family on Aug. 18, 2024, when they passed “holding Israeli flags and posters of hostages abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023,” Howard Borenstein, of the Ontario Court of Justice, wrote in the decision, which the Canadian Jewish News posted.

“As they drove by the rally, Ms. Abed was filming herself inside her car laughing, yelling ‘free Palestine’ as they drove by the demonstrators,” the judge wrote. “She tells the driver she wants to grab one of their flags. The car drives by the demonstrators as Abed tries to grab several flags before she was able to grab the flag from 88-year-old Mr. Sacke.”

The judge added that someone tried to grab the flag back, and in so doing, struck Abed, and that when the car later got stuck in traffic, people hit it with flagpoles and kicked it. “It became an instant chaotic situation. Precipitated by Abed grabbing the flag from Mr. Sacke,” Borenstein wrote.

“As protesters surrounded and were hitting Abed’s car, Abed, her brother and father got out of the car to engage with the protesters,” the judge wrote. “Abed is seen on video grabbing Mr. Sacke from behind with a hand over his shoulder and one hand over his torso as he goes to the ground.”

“He is 88-years-old and was injured,” he added. “He was taken to the hospital for treatment. His injuries continue to this day.”

“Never, ever in my life,” Sacke told JNS, did he imagine his safety would be threatened at a peaceful rally. “Here I was punched, kicked, thrown to the ground.”



Deranged anti-Elon Musk dad scrawls swastika on Cybertruck in broad daylight — leaving Jewish owner stunned
A deranged, anti-Elon Musk dad scrawled a swastika on the side of a Cybertruck in Brooklyn in a brazen attack caught on security footage and viewed by The Post.

The lefty loon was so triggered by the $80,000 electric Tesla truck parked on Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights that he double-parked his Subaru – with two car seats in the back – burst out, and appeared to deface the car.

The Cybertruck’s owner Avi Ben Hamo, who is Jewish, was stunned.

“I feel myself burning inside,” Ben Hamo said.

Back in his Subaru, the hateful alleged vandal tried to speed off — but Ben Hamo, who watched the attack from the sidewalk across the street, stood in front of the car to block his getaway.

“What are you doing?” thundered Ben Hamo, who quickly called 911.

The suspect then ditched his ride in the bike lane and ran.

But about 90 minutes later, he returned to the scene to retrieve his Subaru — only to find four cops — and a Post reporter and photographer — waiting for him. He was promptly handcuffed and arrested.


‘Zionists are not welcome’: Israeli spat on in Dublin eatery
A young Israeli man on a business trip to Ireland was verbally assaulted and spat on at a Dublin café, a video he posted Friday on social media shows.

The two women who accosted Tamir Ohayon and his co-worker can be heard shouting, “Zionists are not welcome in Ireland. F*** you and f*** Israel, Israel is on its way out,” while giving him the middle finger.

With the video rolling, the Israeli responded, “I love you too,” at which point one of the women spat on him.

“Did you just spit on me?” he asked. ” I did, and I actually did not miss,” the assailant answered.

No one in the eatery intervened in the altercation.

Ohayon can be heard in the clip asking that the police be summoned.

The police came to his hotel two hours later, and did not do anything, he wrote on Instagram.



Israel’s Iron Beam laser-defense system to launch by year’s end
The Israeli Air Forces’ Iron Beam laser air defense system is set to become operational in roughly nine months, Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Sunday during a visit to a Rafael Advanced Defense Systems facility in the Lower Galilee.

While touring Rafael’s Leshem Institute in the community of Rakefet, the minister delivered a stern message to Israel’s enemies, underscoring the nation’s expanding defensive and offensive arsenal.

“Our enemies should understand clearly: We possess multiple means to deliver a decisive strike. If they challenge Israel again, their hand will be severed,” Katz declared, flanked by Rafael officials and senior defense leaders.

Developed by Rafael, the Iron Beam system uses laser technology to intercept rockets and drones, offering a significantly more cost-effective solution compared to traditional systems such as the Iron Dome. The Defense Ministry confirmed that the system will be deployed by the end of the year.

“The laser system represents the weapon of the future, capable of neutralizing entire categories of threats with exceptional and continually improving results,” Katz explained. “Israeli citizens deserve this protection.”

The announcement signals a strengthening of Israel’s multi-layered air defense network as the country faces ongoing regional security challenges.
Israel launches largest student-built satellite network
In a groundbreaking achievement for Israel’s space program, a constellation of nine research nanosatellites—built entirely by high school students—was launched into space from Cape Canaveral in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Dubbed Tevel 2, this project marks the largest Israeli satellite constellation ever deployed, the Tel Aviv University Spokesperson’s Department said on Sunday.

Gila Gamliel, Israel’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, hailed the launch as a testament to Israeli ingenuity and education.

“The Tevel 2 project symbolizes the pinnacle of Israeli innovation, combined with scientific and technological education,” Gamliel said. “This is an especially emotional moment for me—to see young people from all sectors of Israeli society working together, transforming a dream into reality, and making history in space.”

The nanosatellites, each measuring 10×10×11.3 cm. (3.94×3.94×4.45 inches), were designed and built under the guidance of Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Engineering in collaboration with nine municipalities. The initiative, funded by the Israel Space Agency, aims to foster scientific education while advancing space research.
Israel and Azerbaijan to ink strategic energy agreement
Israel and Azerbaijan will sign an agreement in Jerusalem on Monday granting the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) a license for gas exploration in Israel, the Israeli Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure said on Sunday.

The accord, which is expected to strengthen Israel’s energy security, is the latest sign of the friendly ties between the Jewish state and the predominantly Shi’ite Muslim country.

The gas exploration deal will be signed during a visit to Israel by Azerbaijan’s Economy Minister Mikayil Jabbarov, who also serves as the chairman of SOCAR, in a ceremony with Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen at his office.

SOCAR is part of a consortium including British multinational oil and gas firm BP and Israel’s NewMed Energy (formerly Delek Drilling) that won a tender from Israel’s Energy Ministry in 2023 to drill in Mediterranean fields adjacent to the country’s Leviathan field, one of the world’s largest offshore gas discoveries.

Jabbarov, who is also expected to meet with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and senior business leaders, is the first Azerbaijani minister to visit Israel since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel, which triggered the 15-month war in Gaza and delayed the deal.

The visit comes one month after Hikmet Hajiyev, the assistant to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his second such trip in the last three months.

For Israel, ties with Azerbaijan—which shares a 428-mile border with Iran, a country that is home to tens of millions of Azeris—are of strategic importance, both as a conduit for intelligence and because it supplies more than a third of the Jewish state’s oil.
Jewish community mourns Nita Lowey, a pro-Israel congressional champion
Nita Lowey (D-NY), a pioneering Jewish congresswoman and the first woman to chair the powerful House Appropriations Committee, was remembered on Sunday as “a force to be reckoned with on so many issues” and “a lifelong champion of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

Lowey, 87, died on March 16 of breast cancer at her home in the suburban New York district she represented in Congress for 32 years, from 1989 to 2021.

Lowey was a leading advocate for the U.S.-Israel relationship and Jewish community interests, holding a pivotal role on the committee responsible for setting government funding levels of foreign aid. She was a staunch opponent of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

“She is one of the strongest champions we’ve ever seen in Congress in terms of support for Israel, in terms of foreign aid and support for Israel,” Stephanie Hausner, a former Lowey intern and campaign staffer who is now the chief operating officer of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told Jewish Insider.

“She felt strongly in convictions in support of Israel and would hold firm and encourage others to also see Israel as a place of diversity,” Hausner said. “When she decided not to run again in 2020, I think we as a Jewish community lost a giant, and her shoes — I don’t know that they’ll ever fully be filled.”

Hausner described Lowey as part of a now-fading generation of pro-Israel Jewish leaders on Capitol Hill, comparing her to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who died in 2024.

American Jewish Committee CEO and former Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) called Lowey a cherished friend, and noted her role as a co-founder with him of the House Bipartisan Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.

“During my time in Congress and after, she was an incredible mentor, and I am so fortunate to have witnessed her at work on the House floor, at home, and around the world,” Deutch said.




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