Wednesday, May 07, 2025
Who Is the Real Mohsen Mahdawi?
Last year on Instagram, Mahdawi described a cousin, Maysara Masharqa, as a “fierce resistance fighter” and “dreamer of liberation” who was killed “after a clash with a traitor Zionist force.”Seth Mandel: Dana Nessel, Rashida Tlaib, and a Very Dangerous Precedent
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a network of Palestinian armed groups, said that Masharqa was one of its “most prominent field commanders” in Jenin. The Israeli Defense Forces said Masharqa “took part in shooting attacks against Israeli communities” and was in a vehicle with Hamas’s leader in Jenin when they were killed by the Israeli military in August of 2024.
Israeli court records show that Masharqa also confessed in 2012 to throwing improvised explosive devices and Molotov cocktails at IDF soldiers “on a large number of occasions and from a short distance,” making pipe bombs, and conspiring to shoot and kill. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.
“Justice is inevitable,” Mahdawi wrote in an Instagram post in January of this year when his uncle’s name appeared on a list of Palestinian prisoners expected to be released in a deal that also returned to Israel four female soldiers who were taken hostage during the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas.
The uncle, Yousef Mahdawi, was sentenced to life in prison for planning a 2003 suicide bomber attack in the Israeli city of Netanya that injured more than 60 people. Israeli court documents show that Yousef Mahdawi recruited the bomber and has received about 1.1 million shekels ($311,000) from the Palestinian Authority since his arrest as part of its “pay for slay” program for Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israel.
Two of Mohsen Mahdawi’s other cousins died in a firefight with Israel in 2023. An Instagram post last October shows their faces and those of four more cousins and an uncle, all “born, raised, and killed in refugee camps” by “the Israeli Zi0nists [sic] violence in the West Bank,” he wrote.
Then there’s the question of what, exactly, Mahdawi has been doing since he arrived in the U.S. in 2014.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Mahdawi studied computer engineering at Birzeit University in Gaza from 2008 to 2014. He then worked at a bank in New Hampshire for about a year. Mahdawi was at Dartmouth College in 2016 and 2017, and “studied a handful of classes for one year,” his LinkedIn profile said.
But Dartmouth told The Free Press that its records “indicate that no one by that name is or has been enrolled as a Dartmouth student.”
Mahdawi then studied at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania for more than two years, but left in the spring of 2020 without finishing a degree, the college said. His LinkedIn profile said he started a “Middle Eastern student organization” and “a catalyst group to bring change and diversity into the student senate.”
In 2021, Mahdawi began at Columbia. By then he had logged more than 20 semesters as an undergraduate between his stints at Birzeit and Lehigh. After more than a decade in the U.S., he has said he hopes to graduate this month and start a master’s degree program in September in international and public affairs. Columbia declined to comment about Mahdawi.
After October 7, Mahdawi emerged as one of the leaders of the anti-Israel protests on Columbia’s campus. In November 2023, New York magazine described him as co-president of the Palestinian Students Union. A month later, 60 Minutes called Mahdawi a student on the “fight for a free Palestine and the fight against antisemitism.”
Meanwhile, as the case dragged on, Nessel was left to fend for herself and the “Jewish disqualification” argument persisted. The judge was even considering granting a hearing on it. That same judge, from Nessel’s perspective, had slow-walked the case nearly to a stall while the AG took steady fire from the left.Amnesty nominates far-left journalist who appeared to hail October 7 for People’s Choice Award
It was too much for Nessel. This week, she threw in the towel, dropped all the charges, and, according to court observers, surprised even the defendants with her actions.
“Despite months and months of court hearings, the Court has yet to make a determination on whether probable cause was demonstrated that the defendants committed these crimes, and if so, to bind the case over to circuit court for trial, which is the primary obligation of the district court for any felony offense. During this time, the case has become a lightning rod of contention,” Nessel said in a statement. She lamented that the “distractions and ongoing delays have created a circus-like atmosphere to these proceedings. While I stand by my charging decisions, and believe, based on the evidence, a reasonable jury would find the defendants guilty of the crimes alleged, I no longer believe these cases to be a prudent use of my department’s resources.”
If that were all she had said, the statement would have been a run-of-the-mill copout from an official who was under a lot of pressure and who’d been abandoned by her party.
But it wasn’t. Nessel also mentioned a letter that the Jewish Community Relations Council, part of the local Jewish Federation, sent to the court. The JCRC letter criticized the call for Nessel’s recusal: “If it were successful, this would mark the first time a prosecutor would be disqualified from prosecuting a case based on perceived bias due to their religious faith. The notion that AG Nessel is biased against Muslims and Americans of Arab descent is unfounded and deeply offensive.”
The open letter was intended to be copied to the court’s public information office to make sure all parties at least knew the letter went out. But according to the JCRC, it might have accidentally been sent to an address for a court administrator instead. Such letters are turned into official court documents.
The difference is significant. Nessel blamed the letter’s “impropriety” at least in part for her decision to drop the charges: “now, we have learned that a public statement in support of my office from a local non-profit has been directly communicated to the Court. The impropriety of this action has led us to the difficult decision to drop these charges.”
This was an inexcusable attempt to throw the JCRC under the bus. The letter was in response to, not the impetus for, nearly a year of accusations of bias just because Nessel is Jewish. And even if the letter was sent to the wrong address and therefore became a court document, the mistake is easy to explain and would not strike any reasonable observer as disqualifying.
Finally, even if Nessel was right about the impropriety of the letter’s unintended destination, publicly denouncing and blaming the letter rather than taking responsibility for the decision is petty, harmful to the few people actually defending her from allegations of bias, and chilling to the many U.S. Jewish groups already inclined to sit on the sidelines of these battles.
Dropping the charges amid the looming prospect of a bias hearing will only reinforce the religious bigotry at the heart of the demonstrators’ cases. And it will incentivize members of Congress to continue to use Jewish officials’ religion against them in a public setting.
It’s one thing that Nessel couldn’t take the heat. But her larger sin was burning others in the Jewish community along the way.
Amnesty International has nominated a journalist who appeared to hail the October 7, 2023 attacks for its People’s Choice Award.
Michael Walker, who works for far-left outlet Novara Media, made and then deleted a social media post on the day of the attacks, seemingly suggesting they were the act of “an occupied people”.
At 8.54 am on October 7, as the attacks were unfolding, Walker tweeted: “So guys, do we support the right of an occupied people to fight an occupier or not?”
Walker has also previously attracted controversy for his comments disputing the scale of antisemitism in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.
In one 2018 post, he wrote: “Many members are genuinely scared of talking about what’s going on.
"They can see many of the attacks on Corbyn are politically motivated, that many mainstream Jewish [organisations] have strong ties with Israel, and that part of this row is to suppress Palestinians and their advocates.”
He also said that Labour’s adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism was a “complete abdication of responsibility by Labour and represents us selling out the Palestinian cause”.
However, in his biography on Amnesty’s site, these controversies was not mentioned. Instead, it read: “Michael is a contributing editor at Novara Media and principal host of Novara Live. He has hosted current affairs shows at Novara Media for over eight years, and has overseen Novara Live to become the most watched online daily news show in the UK.
"He also regularly appears on mainstream outlets, including the BBC, Sky and Channel 5.”
Other nominees include Walker’s Novara colleague Ash Sarkar, who has called Israel’s military operation in Gaza a “genocidal war”, and long-time Israel critic Owen Jones.
How Jew-hate is becoming the norm in the music industry
Itay Kashti will never know whether it was one of his comments on social media pushing back against the anti-Israel narrative in the music industry that led to him eventually being kidnapped. He just has a hunch that it was.
A record producer who has lived in the UK for nearly two decades, his case – where he was lured to a remote farmhouse in Wales before being physically beaten up and handcuffed to a radiator – was certainly motivated by antisemitism. The three attackers, who were each jailed for eight years in March, had a plan to keep him hostage and then extort money from his family, who they believed were rich.
“Even the police weren’t able to tell me where this thing started but it seems that someone who worked with me or knew of me had given them my name,” he says. “I believe it was probably a product of a heated debate. I had a lot of friends in the music industry who were posting about the war and against Israel and I was responding to them.
“In the group chat between the three kidnappers, the conversation very quickly turned from calling me ‘the music producer’ to ‘the Israeli’ and then just ‘the Jew’.”
After his attackers were sentenced and the story became public, Kashti was approached by some of his former friends, people he had fallen out with after October 7. People who had put the Palestinian flags on their social media on October 8 and told him, “Well, those people shouldn’t have been living there in the first place” when he challenged them about Hamas’s murderous rampage.
“A couple of my former friends reached out but they didn’t make any connection with what they had written about Israel,” he says. “There was no remorse or accountability. Nothing along the lines of, ‘Yes, I now see things in a slightly different light.’ So, it felt more that what they were really saying was, ‘I’m sorry this happened to you, but unfortunately you are still the bad guys.’”
Antisemitism, or at least, anti-Israel hatred in the music industry is in the news thanks to Kneecap, the Irish band who yelled “Up Hamas” and “Up Hezbollah” at one concert and “kill your MP” in another. They are a symptom of an anti-Israel mindset that sees pro-Palestinian activism encouraged while companies, bands and individuals with a connection to Israel are boycotted and cancelled. Those advocating for Kneecap’s free speech are often the same people ruthlessly trying to get Israelis and Jews cancelled.
In fact, this week Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood and Dudu Tassa, one of Israel’s leading rock stars, have blamed threats from pro-Palestinian activists for the cancellation of their UK shows next month and called out the hypocrisy of those defending Kneecap’s right to expression while simultaneously silencing them. The venues where they were due to play – Bristol’s Beacon Hall and London’s Hackney Church – and their “blameless staff” received “enough credible threats to conclude that it’s not safe to proceed”. In a letter, they said: “Forcing musicians not to perform and denying people who want to hear them an opportunity to do so is self-evidently a method of censorship. Intimidating venues into pulling our shows won’t help achieve the peace and justice everyone in the Middle East deserves.”
Israeli singer Dudu Tassa and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s UK shows next month have been cancelled under pressure from the BDS movement.
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) May 7, 2025
Dudu Tassa is facing the same hate as his grandfather before him.
Dudu Tassa’s family was expelled from Iraq simply for being… pic.twitter.com/6pHH9kOWTz
Two of the UK’s most prestigious artistic institutions have appointed new leaders. Many will never have heard of them, but they are well known to the Jewish community.
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) May 7, 2025
Nine years ago, Indhu Rubasingham headed the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn (then known as the Tricycle) when it tried… pic.twitter.com/NtbG73Qwgj
Who Cares If the Anti-Israel Movement Is Anti-Semitic? It’s Evil No Matter What
I’ve often wondered if the endless debate over whether, and when, hatred of Israel (misleadingly called anti-Zionism) constitutes anti-Semitism is a trap that Jews have laid for themselves and then stepped into. After all, cheering on murderous terrorists in their quest to destroy a successful democratic state is indefensible even if not motivated by racial or religious prejudice. Jacob M. Miller, considering the conclusions of Harvard’s anti-Semitism task force, has come to a similar conclusion:Brendan O'Neill: Greta Thunberg’s moral siege of Israel
Take the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee’s infamous statement blaming Israel for the slaughter of its own people. Was the statement offensive? Surely. Did it reveal an astonishing misunderstanding of the conflict? I would say so. Did it fundamentally change how I see my classmates and make me seriously question their moral compasses? Most definitely.
But was it anti-Semitic? I suppose one could argue that it was—it did, after all, betray a disgraceful disregard for Jewish life. But to me that argument seems tenuous. Instead I content myself with calling the statement what it was: a stunningly shameful act for which, to my knowledge, no one in Harvard’s pro-Palestine coalition has apologized to this day.
There is a reason Harvard created twin task forces on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia—not a “Task Force on Callous Statements Disregarding Human Life,” or a “Task Force on Violent Protest Chants,” or a “Task Force on Stupid Political Ideologies That Could Open Up Millions of People to Religious Persecution.” It’s because we as a society have agreed identity-based discrimination is morally wrong, but have struggled to reach a consensus that any other way of thinking is unethical.
[O]ur national politics, which rightly protects identity groups from prejudice but hasn’t adequately articulated other moral wrongs, has created a twisted incentive structure—one in which Jews on campus feel compelled to characterize certain behaviors as anti-Semitic because they know that is the one sin campus will surely condemn.
People talk about the siege of Gaza but few are prepared to reckon with the siege of Israel. For years, the Jewish State has been subjected to a double siege. There’s the physical siege by the armies of anti-Semites that surround it and which dream of its obliteration. And there’s the moral siege by the intellectuals of the West. By our credentialed classes, our activist set, our literary elites, all of whom increasingly derive their fantasy of virtue from their hostility to the Jewish nation. And some of whom also dream of its destruction. ‘From the river to sea’, they cry, to let the world know that their utopia is a Middle East with no Jewish homeland.Antisemitism: The Assimilation Killer
It’s a pincer movement of bigotry, a hippy-Islamist nexus of contempt for the world’s only Jewish state. Both the military siege of Israel by Iran’s deranged proxies and the moral siege of it by the West’s post-civilisational left speaks to this century’s crisis of Enlightenment. It should horrify everyone who believes in reason that neo-fascist regressives like Hamas don’t only still exist but also win the sympathy of many of the educated of the West. What the Greta flotilla threatened to do was make the activist class’s moral siege of Israel into something more physical. They wouldn’t be breaking a siege but intensifying one.
Blockades have been a tactic of every war in history. They’re a key means of depriving the enemy of the ability to rearm and refortify. Greta and her chums couldn’t break a big stick far less a military siege, I know. But that they desire to weaken Israel’s siege of a piece of land ruled by a fascist militia that murdered more Jews in one day than anyone else since the Nazis is chilling. There’s a war between the democratic Jewish State and a medieval militia that was founded to kill Jews, and the West’s activist class continually says and does things that benefit the latter more than the former. Never forget how unusual that is, how horrendous.
Greta has jumped from the green bandwagon to the anti-Israel bandwagon, her critics say. I think she’s been consistent. For climate-change alarmism and Israelophobia share something important in common – a haughty weariness with modernity. A doom-mongering built more on bigotry than truth in which either industrious mankind or evil Israel is always on the cusp of destroying humanity. That the West’s youthful End is Nigh hysterics have now taken the wrong side in an existential clash between a modern state and a barbarous militia should not surprise us. It should worry us, though – enormously.
In each case, our mere existence threaten ideologies that are man centered, not G-d centered. Their ultimate goal is either tyrannical power or to embrace an animalistic lifestyle where every urge and action are justified by invoking the supremacy of the self. In many cases, they go hand in hand.Union Officials Fought to Keep 'Rallying Cries for Murdering Jews' Displayed in Legal Aid Office, Complaint Alleges
The Jews stand in the way of both. We always have.
In terms of antisemitism, the period before the Exodus was no different than today. What our ancestors experienced pre-Exodus, is very much the same as what we are experiencing right now.
The good news is that, again as Rabbi Shore points out, and this is not new, antisemitism can remind us of who we are:
“The Midrash teaches that the Jews were redeemed from Egypt because they maintained their distinctiveness—they didn’t change their clothes, names, or language, even in the face of slavery (Shemot Rabbah 1:28). On the surface, this seems like a small detail, but its meaning runs deep. Even in the depths of oppression, the Jews understood they were different—a family with a unique role, even if they weren’t fully ‘doing it all’ in terms of observance. This awareness of their special identity was the crucial step that paved the way for redemption.’”
I have seen this all around me since 10/7. On social media there are stories every single day of people whose Jewishness was awakened by 10/7 and, unfortunately, by Jew hatred all around them. I know people who have gone out of their way, every day, since 10/7 to publicly display their Jewishness, from Magen Davids to tzitzit – there is a national understanding that we are unique, and that understanding often ignites an inner pride that is manifested in Jews - Jewishly doing Jewish things. That pride extends to people doing more mitzvot, lighting Shabbat candles, putting on tefillin, giving more tzedakah, etc. I personally know people who have had this type of experience.
Antisemitism can be a forge that is, once again, galvanizing the Jewish spirit. Not because, obviously, we enjoy being targets of hate, but because at the level of our souls, and our national consciousness, the hate reminds us of who we are.
I know that sounds like it is kind of backwards There is so much beauty in Judaism, it seems like it shouldn’t have to be awoken by a bunch of people acting in barbaric ways. I don’t view it that way.
Union officials promoted an "anti-Semitic toxic environment" at a New York legal aid organization where employees adorned the office with posters defending Hamas terrorism and calling for "intifada," according to a federal anti-discrimination complaint filed on Wednesday.Student who filmed Barstool ‘f*** the Jews sign’ calls on ‘humanity to join forces’ against ‘Jewish supremacy’
Jewish union members of A Better NYLAG (ABN)—the employee union of the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG)—said the guild has forced them to work next to cubicles plastered with signs supporting the destruction of Israel and terrorist violence.
Slogans mentioned in the complaint include "ABOLISH THE SETTLER STATE," "LONG LIVE THE RESISTANCE!," and "INTIFADA NOW."
While the pro-terrorist signs violate NYLAG policies, the complaint states that ABN officials have fought against management in an effort to keep the images up. The union has been actively involved in anti-Israel advocacy, issuing a statement shortly after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in which it accused the Jewish state of "war crimes against Palestinians."
In response to Jewish employees’ concerns, NYLAG management banned those in the office from displaying images related to the Israel-Hamas war. ABN objected, filing an unfair labor practice allegation with the National Labor Relations Board. The union also staged a protest in the NYLAG office, posting on Instagram that members were "wearing their keffiyehs and flying flags in solidarity with Palestinians," the complaint notes.
Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law chairman Kenneth L. Marcus, whose organization filed the complaint with the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said ABN leadership’s behavior flies in the face of the purpose of organized labor.
"Jewish American union members, like all other working people, are entitled to union representation that supports them fairly and equally against toxic environments," Marcus said. "In this case, the union actually made things worse, actively attempting to block management efforts to address a workplace that had been made inhospitable for Jewish workers. This is exactly the opposite of what unions should be doing."
Jewish union members repeatedly raised concerns about the "inhospitable" environment Marcus referenced, the complaint notes. In one email to NYLAG management, a Jewish employee described the posters as "rallying cries for murdering Jews," writing, "[a]s a Jew, I feel threatened when I see these and depressed that they surround my workplace."
The Philadelphia student who uploaded a video of a customisable sign reading “f*** the Jews” in a Barstool Sports bar has called on “humanity to join forces” against “Jewish supremacy”.
Mo Khan, who has claimed he was not involved in ordering the sign and that he was acting as a “citizen journalist” by displaying it on Instagram, gave an interview to notorious antisemitic conspiracy theorist Stew Peters, in which he claimed that Barstool’s Jewish founder Dave Portnoy had “ruined” his life.
At one point in the interview, Peters told Khan: “These Jews are very tribal...we’re seeing these people come together.
"We have seen the entire Jewish community...make sure that your life is 110 per cent destroyed.”
He then asked: “Do you think it’s time for humanity to become tribal and join forces against Jewish supremacy?”
In response, Khan said: “Absolutely, especially in this case, in the case of Americans.
"Our First Amendment right, if we’re not supporting what America’s built on...I have no idea what this country was even born for.”
Earlier in the interview, he had also said: “[This incident] just goes to show how much control one group can have on anyone’s potential career.
“I’ve seen arguments saying that if the same sign said ‘f*** the Muslims’, ‘f*** the blacks’, ‘f*** the Christians”, the impact...would not have been anywhere near the impact that this sign had.
"They’re completely and utterly uprooting and annihilating one individual based on pretty much nothing. If that doesn’t show some kind of supremacy...then I don’t really know what else counts as supremacy.”
Khan has previously released a statement regarding the Barstool incident, in which he insisted he was not responsible for the sign’s creation and said: “I abhor hate in all its forms. I was raised to be respectful and amicable to all people.”
However, at various points during the interview Khan made a number of antisemitic comments, as well as failing to challenge Peters as the latter expressed his own antisemitic beliefs.
Mo Kahn is your typical example of college antisemitism
— David lederer (@Davidlederer6) May 7, 2025
Step 1: engage in/promote blatantly antisemitic behavior
Step 2: face the consequences
Step 3: play the victim and claim you were just criticizing Israel @stoolpresidente Thank you for your strong leadership 💪 https://t.co/UW5RwnK1Q5
Everybody knows the rules: I stand with Dave Portnoy. https://t.co/dR3IhuJacI
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) May 7, 2025
What kind of person of person throws a bucket of water on a sleeping homeless person for fun? Just another edgy joke. pic.twitter.com/nkSbGcuzpr
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 7, 2025
This dude is a flat liar. I talked to him on the phone with his buddy and they both owned up to it and cried about it. He then lawyered up after speaking with his family. His name got out because he’s a moron and uploaded “Fuck the Jews” sign to his instagram before I even… https://t.co/YHkujPTCEA
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 7, 2025
NYT asked @stoolpresidente for a comment about the recent antisemitism flap at the Barstool Sports bar.
— Ashley Rindsberg (@AshleyRindsberg) May 7, 2025
Portnoy's response: pic.twitter.com/FQTYrqH4GT
Neo Nazi Stew Peters hosts Mo Khan, the now suspended Temple U. student who posted the Barstool “F*ck the Jews” sign to his IG.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) May 7, 2025
Watch as Khan defends the sign as a call to bring attention to Israel’s action & agrees w/Peters about “Jewish supremacy”.
pic.twitter.com/vkFT80n6KU
This is my last post of night but this is unintentionally very funny. It was going so good for Mo on his Neo Nazi show right up till the Nazi said he hates Muslims too. You can’t make this up. pic.twitter.com/mtCtNpbEto
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) May 7, 2025
Antisemitism is degrading the integrity of our universities – here’s how we can fight it
Using polls and data, Professor Nelson demonstrates that this toxic environment had been primed long before the encampments. For example, in a pre-October 7 survey of 5,000 students from 600 institutions across the US by the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Threats, 13% said that Jews deserved physical attacks. That figure jumped to 20% after the Hamas attacks.Pro-Hamas Protesters Caused Over $1 Million in Damage to University of Washington Building, School Says
Nelson does not exaggerate, sensationalise or claim the problem is part of a mainstream mindset. Instead, he investigates how the pernicious influence of a radical but vocal minority of staff and student groups became embedded within academic institutions, culminating in public statements that celebrated the massacre of Jewish families as a “historic win” and a “spectacular feat”.
From encampments, boycotts and exclusion to department activism, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and hate speech, Mindless pulls the threads together to help us make sense of all the manifestations of this indoctrination. What it successfully illustrates is how politicisation can run riot through all areas of a department, creating preordained conclusions without debate or learning. These negative forces even impact the identities of students, who are pressured to pick a side. What remains is no longer recognisable as a university, because “anti-Zionism” has damaged its core mission.
Although he paints a grim overall picture, Professor Nelson gives the reader hope that those who reject the radicals but whose voices just need to be lifted are in the majority. Best of all, he provides concrete proposals for making immediate and comprehensive reforms, which he has spoken about to the House of Lords.
His recommendations include penalties for faculties imposing conformity, practical implementation of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and establishing respect for Jewish tradition, history, culture and differing views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Every vice-chancellor in the UK has been sent a copy of Mindless, which is a start, but everyone else in academia should also read it to fully understand the gravity and implications of the issues.
One advantage of this being published in a Jewish publication is that it unashamedly centres antisemitism and talks about the impact on Jewish students. But it’s also a shame that Mindless wasn’t published in a more mainstream publication, as it works as a cautionary tale of how antisemitism can degrade the integrity of any institution, even one which prides itself on free thinking.
My hope is that universities will try to understand the issues and follow the remedies of this expert insider who understands how to resolve them, rather than continuing to allow themselves to be compromised by a vocal minority.
Antisemitic thinking signals a wider malaise and it is obvious the air in academia is becoming toxic, not just for Jewish students but for anyone who doesn’t conform. Let’s hope academia pays attention to Mindless and cleans up the environment before it becomes irredeemably polluted.
Anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas protesters caused more than $1 million in damage during a violent demonstration Monday evening at the University of Washington in Seattle, according to school officials.Calls for inquiry as UK universities branded ‘hubs of hate’ for Jewish students
Police arrested 31 protesters for taking over and vandalizing the Boeing-funded Interdisciplinary Engineering Building, the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office told KOMO News on Tuesday. The protesters, who also set several nearby dumpsters on fire, demanded that the university sever ties with Boeing for supplying weapons used in Israel's war against Hamas terrorists.
The protest comes as the Trump administration cracks down on anti-Semitic activity that has swept college campuses following Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel.
The organization behind the Monday protest, Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return, is a "suspended student group," university spokesman Victor Balta told CNN. The group has published a manifesto overtly praising Hamas's October 7 attack and also helped organize an anti-Semitic protest on campus in February.
"What occurred [Monday] night in no way compares to last year's encampment," Balta told KOMO News. The protest "involved immediate threats to safety for those inside and around the building and was resolved within a few hours."
"At least two dozen classes are being moved to other locations while the build[ing] remains closed for the rest of the week," Balta said.
UK universities are becoming “hubs of hate” for Jewish and pro-Israel students, according to a damning new report backed by senior MPs and peers who are calling for a public inquiry into campus antisemitism.
The 33-page report, published by pro-Israel educational charity Stand With Us, accuses university leaders of “systematic and institutional failure” to protect Jewish students, many of whom say they have faced violent threats, intimidation and ostracism, often with no meaningful response from their institutions. Some students claim they were even investigated themselves after reporting abuse.
A letter of support, backed by eight cross-party parliamentarians including Lord Austin, Baroness Hodge and Bob Blackman MP, says anti-Jewish racism on campuses is “spiralling beyond control”.
“We are witnessing the normalisation of the previously unthinkable – flagrant support for proscribed terror groups, and the intimidation and ostracisation of Jewish and Zionist students simply because of their identity,” it says.
Baroness Deech, the first independent adjudicator for higher education, said the report “offers a chilling insight into the high levels of discrimination and even acts of violence that Jewish and pro-Israel students are subjected to daily across UK campuses”.
Deech, a former principal at St Anne’s College, Oxford, added: “Universities appear to be systematically failing these students, despite these same institutions rightly taking a zero-tolerance approach to all other forms of racism and discrimination.”
The report follows a nationwide survey conducted by Stand With Us in April 2024. After polling over 1,000 students, the charity found 64 per cent of respondents did not describe the October attacks as terrorism, while 29 per cent said they were an “understandable act of resistance”.
The latter figure rose to 38 per cent among students at the elite Russell Group universities. More than half of this group agreed that those who publicly support Israel on campus should “expect” abuse.
Between October 2023 and March 2025, Stand With Us also conducted interviews and received written testimonies from Jewish students.
These findings, published on Wednesday, include one student who said they had “completely stopped speaking Hebrew on campus because I feel unprecedented levels of being scared”. They added that one student with an Israeli-sounding name “was booed during her own graduation”.
Another said: “Fear is considered ‘normal, baseline’ for Jewish and Israeli students.”
The task force did more in 24 hours re one university than the Biden administration did at all universities for over a year after 10/7. And yet people kept asking me, "what more can the Biden administration really do?" https://t.co/my67fFvRhV
— David Bernstein (@ProfDBernstein) May 7, 2025
Blackstone president Jonathan Gray donates $125 million to TAU
Jonathan Gray, president of the American investment firm Blackstone, and his wife, Mindy, have made a landmark donation of $125 million (approximately half a billion shekels) to the Tel Aviv University School of Medicine.Masked anti-Israel protesters storm Columbia library, shove past security as Ivy Leaguers prep for finals
This donation, the largest in the history of the university, will fund the development of new facilities and scholarships for the School of Health and Medical Sciences. In recognition of this generous contribution, the faculty will now bear the Gray family name: The Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences.
This donation comes at a critical time as Israel faces a shortage of doctors. Jonathan and Mindy Gray’s contribution is expected to alleviate this issue by expanding the capacity of the medical school to train more healthcare professionals. It marks a significant step forward in Israel’s efforts to strengthen its medical workforce and enhance its health system.
The donation is not only the largest gift to Tel Aviv University, but also one of the largest ever given to any Israeli university. It will be used for a variety of initiatives, including the construction of new dormitories for 600 students, scholarships, and the expansion of research and teaching facilities.
Israel’s healthcare system suffers from a shortage of doctors, with the number of physicians per capita about 10% lower than the average for countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The donation will significantly increase the number of students enrolled at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, which is already the largest of its kind in Israel. As part of the expansion, the school will increase its intake of medical students by approximately one-third, training over 400 new doctors annually, double the capacity of other large faculties in Israel.
A mob of masked anti-Israel protesters stormed Columbia University’s Butler Library Wednesday — with the chaos injuring at least two school safety officers and later sparking dozens of arrests, officials and law enforcement sources said.
Around 80 agitators were taken into custody so far Wednesday evening, sources said, just hours after a large group of activists were caught on camera shoving past a security guard at the library’s front entrance earlier in the day.
Once inside, they draped large signs over bookshelves, one declaring the library a “liberated zone” and another bearing the name of Bassel al-Araj, a Palestinian activist killed by Israel Defense Forces in a 2017 raid in the West Bank — though they misspelled his first name as “Basel.”
The raucous demonstrators then donned keffiyeh headscarves and beat drums while clapping to chants of “free, free Palestine” during a time when other students are preparing for end-of-the-year exams.
Photos obtained by The Post show protesters defacing the library walls, hanging Palestinian flags and marking tables with colored tape. Other images show about half a dozen security guards forming a line opposite a much larger group of protesters.
Columbia’s Butler Library: pro terror mob takes over AGAIN, chanting “Min el-maiyeh lel mayieh, Falastin arabieh” (“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab”).
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) May 7, 2025
According to students, they’re distributing stickers and pamphlets glorifying 10/7.
pic.twitter.com/igKJhX66lE
The Hamas sympathizers at Columbia are handing out their own “syllabus."
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) May 7, 2025
It is indistinguishable from the standard Columbia political science course https://t.co/4Ifv2tOfOd pic.twitter.com/8AWsQYFcQC
More on Hasan Piker's vile antisemitism here: https://t.co/ylHI5cHVix
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) May 7, 2025
WATCH: Pro-Hamas seminar from Temple SJP and Samidoun “When we ask universities to divest from imperialism, the only way to pull that demand is destroying the university ... We must accept the eventuality of bringing the USA to its knees" pic.twitter.com/5mPBpl38Vy
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) May 7, 2025
If you are painfully familiar with terrorist communiques, the darkness lifts a bit when you see cosplaying idiot students.
— habibi (@habibi_uk) May 7, 2025
Cardiff, today. Oh dear. pic.twitter.com/EhHFUosHJB
Last week, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) @Columbia reposted an image featuring the insignia of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).
— Shoshana Aufzien🎗️ (@shoshanaaufzien) May 6, 2025
This is not an isolated incident. For over 18 months, SDS… pic.twitter.com/6B45sxyzjc
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) May 7, 2025
Hospitalist Osamah Abdallah poses as a “humanitarian” while spewing antisemitism - comparing Zionists to ISIS, calling Jews “whisperings of the devil,” and glorifying suicide for Palestine.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) May 6, 2025
Why won’t @Aurora_Health act?
ACT NOW: https://t.co/ubqk2h84Ow https://t.co/eSOZy2zLZ5
Nazmi Sabi's Jew hatred continues:
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) May 7, 2025
- pushes the antisemitic conspiracy that Jews control the media
- claims Jews have a “chokehold” on America due to money
- says Jews only exist because of the U.S., and American leaders should fear them
How is someone like this employed at @GM?… pic.twitter.com/NYeejfqzCP
Columbia’s Pulitzer Disgrace
The increasingly irrelevant Pulitzer Prizes were awarded on Monday to a slew of left-wing news reports, chronicled by our colleague Andrew Stiles here.EXPOSED: New Pulitzer Prize Winner Excused Abduction of Israelis by Hamas
The prize for commentary went to the "Palestinian poet" Mosab Abu Toha for his work in the New Yorker—"deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir," as the Pulitzer board put it—depicting the evils of the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
It took just more than 24 hours for Abu Toha’s public statements defending the atrocities of Oct. 7 and assailing the Israeli victims of those attacks to surface. ("How on earth is this girl called a hostage?" he wrote of Emily Damari, a 28-year-old IDF soldier abducted by Hamas. He objected to the media’s humanization of Israeli "hostage" Agam Berger: "These are the ones the world wants to share sympathy for, killers who join the army and have family in the army!")
Somehow the intrepid reporters on the Pulitzer Prize board missed them. Huh.
Columbia University’s role in the administration of the Pulitzers and selection of the prize winners is not lost on us. The president of the university, Claire Shipman, sits on the Pulitzer board, which selects the prize winners. So does the president of the Columbia School of Journalism, Jelani Cobb, and the editor in chief of the Columbia Journalism Review. The administrator of the prizes, Marjorie Miller, is also a Pulitzer board member and a Columbia employee. Deliberations over the prize winners take place on the Columbia campus.
Were the Pulitzer board members, including Shipman and New Yorker editor in chief David Remnick, aware of Abu Toha’s public statements before they gave him the award? Will they reevaluate their decision given that, in the immortal words of Jeff Lebowski, new s— has come to light? They aren’t saying, but Miller leaves us to read between the lines, telling the Washington Free Beacon, "The Pulitzer Board is committed to recognizing excellence in reporting, literature, history and culture, and the selection process for each award is based on a review of the submitted works." A Columbia spokeswoman, meanwhile, said the school "is proud to administer the Pulitzer Prizes" but distanced it from the Pulitzer board, which "is independent of the university and operates as such." She did not provide a a response from Shipman. Hey, ignorance is bliss!
Bestowing this award when the university is under federal investigation for violating the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students takes chutzpah.
The Pulitzer Prize was awarded this week to a Gazan poet who excused the abduction of Israelis by Hamas, HonestReporting revealed on Tuesday (May 6), while calling for the prestigious award to be rescinded.
Mosab Abu Toha, who also spread antisemitic content and fake news on his social media platforms, won the top honor in journalism on Monday (May 5) for his essays published in the New Yorker describing the ongoing war in the enclave.
But it seems that both the magazine and the Pulitzer committee failed to check Abu Toha’s virulent social media posts against Israeli hostages whom Hamas brutally abducted on October 7, 2023.
HonestReporting exclusively shared these posts with Fox News Digital, which reached out to Abu Toha, The New Yorker, and the Pulitzer Prize organization for comment.
“How is this girl called a hostage?”
Abu Toha, who currently lives in the U.S., specifically disparaged female Israeli hostages, questioned their hostage status and implicitly justified their abduction.
Toha posted the following about Israeli hostage Emily Damari on January 24, 2025:
How on earth is this girl called a hostage? (And this is the case of most ‘hostages’). This is Emily Damari, a 28 UK-Israeli soldier that Hamas detailed on 10/7… So this girl is called a ‘hostage?’ This soldier who was close to the border with a city that she and her country have been occupying is called a ‘hostage?’
Damari, an Israeli civilian, was shot twice and abducted from her home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7. Hamas held her for 471 days. But Abu Toha thinks that she cannot even be considered a hostage because she was a “soldier.”
A similar post by Abu Toha, posted on February 3, 2025, targeted former Israeli hostage Agam Berger:
The Israeli ‘hostage’ Agam Berger, who was released days ago participates in her sister’s graduation from an Israeli Air Force officers’ course. These are the ones the world wants to share sympathy for, killers who join the army and have family in the army! These are the ones whom CNN, BBC and the likes humanize in articles and TV programs and news bulletins.
Hamas held Agam Berger hostage with none of the rights due to a prisoner who has gone through a legal process. But that doesn’t matter to Abu Toha. Because no Israeli could be a hostage in his eyes.
Toha also cast doubt on the forensic evidence that showed that the Bibas children — 9-month-old Kfir and Ariel, 4 — were killed by their captors.
One of the journalists who won a Pulitzer Prize this year has a history of denying that Hamas holds hostages.
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) May 7, 2025
Mosab Abu Toha believes that if someone served in the army in the past, they can never be held hostage.
Even if their conditions do not comply with requirements for… pic.twitter.com/XvQ1blF2h1
Journalist Killed by Israel Was Cousin of Euro Med Rights Chief — and Linked to Hamas
Earlier today, Ramy Abdu, head of the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, claimed that his cousin, Nour Al-Din Matar Abdu, was killed in an Israeli airstrike. However, a Jewish Onliner investigation reveals social media posts showing what appears to be Nour as a child holding an AK-47 and wearing Hamas paraphernalia. Nour has also been pictured alongside former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Additional posts from Nour show him praising deceased Hamas militants and terrorist activity, while another photo reveals his mother holding an AK47 and attending a Hamas rally.
As Jewish Onliner previously reported, Abdu has in the past admitted to having close ties with family members involved in Hamas, including his brother-in-law, Muhammad Daoud Ismail al-Jamassi (Abu Obeida), a senior Hamas figure. Abdu also claimed to be childhood friends with Assad Abu Sharia, the founder of the Mujahideen Brigades, a Hamas-affiliated terrorist group involved in the kidnapping of Israeli children during the October 7 massacre. In 2013, the Israeli government officially designated Abdu as a Hamas affiliate, placing him under sanctions for supporting the group’s activities.
Social Media Evidence of Support for Hamas
Nour’s Facebook page paints a clear picture of his sympathies and ties to Hamas. Images show him with former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and he captions one photo, “Uncle Abu Al-Abd Haniyeh, may God bless your evening.”
In other posts, he shares photos of his mother holding what appears to be an AK47, and attending a rally supporting Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades. Credit: Noor M Abdu on Facebook
One post commemorates a deceased al-Qassam terrorist that Nour refers to as his “friend,” while another praises Mohammad Deif, a former Hamas military leader and one of the masterminds behind the October 7 massacre.
In 2021, Nour posted an image of what appears to be a Carlo submachine gun, an improvised weapon frequently used in attacks by Palestinian terrorists with the caption, “In Jerusalem, the bullets have spoken ✌🏻💪🏻.”
Ramy Abdu's post has been shared by prominent journalists, including Myriam Francois from Al Jazeera, with no mention of his cousin's Hamas ties. The same is true of Drop Site News, which wrote that Nour’s death is “part of a systematic Israeli campaign to assassinate Palestinian reporters.”
Nour Abdu’s Facebook page paints a clear picture of his sympathies toward Hamas. Images show him with former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and he captions one photo, “Uncle Abu Al-Abd Haniyeh, may God bless your evening. pic.twitter.com/ba1IObjctc
— Jewish Onliner (@JewishOnliner) May 7, 2025
The latest "journalist" to die in Gaza is Yahya Sobeih.
— Yehuda Teitelbaum (@chalavyishmael) May 7, 2025
In a completely unrelated coincidence, he also believes that Jews are "defiling" the land of Israel by living there.
Seems like a pleasant fellow. pic.twitter.com/y2RTsGvzbn
Pulitzer Prize finalist criticizes Israeli military in remarks to newsroom
Louisa Loveluck, a reporter for The Washington Post who has faced scrutiny over factual errors in her reporting about the war in the Gaza Strip following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, blasted Israeli military operations on Monday after the paper’s coverage was named as a Pulitzer Prize finalist.All At Sea_ Reuters’ Confused Coverage Of Conscience, The Latest Gaza ‘Aid’ Ship
“Two million civilians are trapped there through no fault of their own,” Loveluck said on Monday in virtual remarks to the Post newsroom. “The life they lead there is a nightmare. The level of suffering is so grave that we have often struggled to find the words.”
Loveluck, who is based in London and listed among several Post journalists in the Pulitzer announcement, condemned actions by the Israel Defense Forces, according to a recording of her comments obtained by Jewish Insider.
Saying “individual stories are lost in the deluge,” Loveluck pointed to one that examined the circumstances surrounding the death of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old girl allegedly killed by Israel while she and her relatives tried to escape the violence in Gaza City, the Insider reported.
“The Israeli military maintains to this day that it was not there, it was not responsible,” Loveluck said, urging “anyone who can bear it to read her story.”
Loveluck also referred to Hamas casualty figures that do not distinguish between civilians and terrorists, something critics say the Post regularly fails to acknowledge.
“More than 50,000 people have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza in just 18 months,” she said. “For the last two, there’s been a total block on all food and aid into the enclave. The lives of 2 million Palestinians are in the balance.”
“Doing this work is not easy, but it has always been the right thing to do,” Loveluck said.
An anonymous Post journalist told Jewish Insider that Loveluck didn’t “mention Hamas or the hostages once” during her remarks.
The journalist told the Insider that Loveluck’s oversight, “really exemplifies the Post’s coverage of the war: ignoring Hamas’ actions—so readers don’t understand why Israel is fighting in Gaza at all.”
There is no independent confirmation of the anti-Israel activists’ claim that their boat is carrying aid. To the contrary, as Times of Israel reports in its improved-upon version of the same Reuters story:When will the BBC start reporting accurately and impartially on UNRWA?
The Saudi Al Arabiya news channel, citing a Western security source, reported Friday that the aid ship had been arranged by Hamas and that those onboard planned to engage with IDF troops as they approached the Gaza shore.
Moreover, as Reuters’ own reporting in the very same story notes, Malta (with a record of pro-Palestinian stances) itself has not yet been able to determine that the cargo is aid:
Prime Minister Robert Abela said on Sunday that Malta was prepared to assist the ship with necessary repairs so that it could continue on its journey, once it was satisfied that the vessel held only humanitarian aid.. .
A Malta government spokesman said its offer was to assist in repairs out at sea once the boat’s cargo was verified to be aid.
Does Reuters have information that the Maltese authorities do not?
In addition to reporting as fact that Conscience is carrying aid (despite the fact that the Maltese authorities have yet to establish this information), the article also falsely reports that in 2010 the Mavi Marmara was likewise seeking to deliver aid. Regarding the Mavi Marmara passengers who violently attacked the Israeli naval commandos, shooting them and taking three captive, Christopher Scicluna whitewashed:
Another NGO ship on a similar mission to Gaza in 2010 was stopped and boarded by Israeli troops, and nine activists died.
Regarding this deadly incident, the facts have long been well known and documented. The Mavi Marmara was armed with weapons — deployed against IDF soldiers — not aid. Passengers had also wrested guns from Israeli soldiers, and organizer Greta Berlin later admitted — though only in a private Facebook group whose contents were leaked — that contrary to her public statements Israelis “would not have started to fire” had one of the passengers not disarmed a soldier. (The Southern Poverty Law Center later described that passenger as a “raving, David Duke-endorsing anti-Semite.”)
As documented in the UN’s 2011 Palmer report (p. 47), the ship carried 546 passengers but no humanitarian aid supplies for the people of the Gaza Strip.
If the flotilla had been a purely humanitarian mission it is hard to see why so many passengers were embarked and with what purpose. Furthermore, the quality and value of many of the humanitarian goods on board the vessels is questionable. There were large quantities of humanitarian and construction supplies on board the Gazze 1, Eleftheri Mesogeio and Defne-Y. There were some foodstuffs and medical goods on board the Mavi Marmara, although it seems that these were intended for the voyage itself. Any “humanitarian supplies” were limited to foodstuffs and toys carried in passengers’ personal baggage. The same situation appears to be the case for two other of the vessels: the Sfendoni, and the Challenger I. There was little need to organize a flotilla of six ships to deliver humanitarian assistance if only three were required to carry the available humanitarian supplies. The number of journalists embarked on the ships gives further power to the conclusion that the flotilla’s primary purpose was to generate publicity.
In October 2023, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reported that:
…several other initiatives for sending aid boats to the Gaza Strip have been reported since the beginning of the war. All of them are based in Turkey and Zaher Birawi is involved in all of them. Birawi is a Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood activist from Britain who is the chairman of the International Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza, which is a founding member of the Freedom Fleet coalition and who was one of the leaders of the Mavi Marmara flotilla.
Reuters itself previously corrected in both in English and Arabic after wrongly reporting in 2023 that the Mavi Marmara was carrying aid. The New York Times has also corrected the identical error regarding the Mavi Marmara. Reuters has yet to follow up on CAMERA’s request to correct the latest mischaracterization of the Mavi Marmara‘s 2010 cargo, and to likewise clarify that Freedom Flotilla’s claim that Conscience is carrying aid is unconfirmed.
As we see, for well over a year the BBC – including its BBC Verify department – has refrained from conducting any meaningful independent investigation into the topic of the participation of UNRWA employees in the October 7th massacre or the wider issue of UNRWA connections to proscribed terrorist organisations, opting instead to blandly amplify that UN agency’s denials and claims.
An Israeli government report dated April 23rd 2025 provides declassified intelligence concerning The Connection between UNRWA and Hamas in Gaza.
“At least 1,462 UNRWA employees in Gaza are members of Hamas, PIJ, or similar organizations—comprising nearly 12% of the agency’s workforce in Gaza were verified up to this point, Of these:
– 1,157 are employed in the education system.
– 80 school principals and deputy principals are members of terrorist groups, including 16 from Hamas’ military wing.
– Additional operatives were found in engineering, health, logistics, and administration.
These figures are based on cross-referencing UNRWA’s official staff lists with Hamas’ own personnel records—including internal recruitment databases, military training rosters, and administrative files—matched through national ID numbers.”
Given Holligan’s promotion of the statement “Unrwa has challenged Israel’s allegation that it knowingly has Hamas members in its ranks”, it is particularly interesting to see that in some cases, Israel had informed UNRWA of the terror connections of employees long before the current war began.
Clearly it is past time for the BBC to change its longstanding editorial policy of uncritical amplification of UN and UNRWA statements and to begin providing its audiences with accurate and impartial coverage of stories concerning issues relating to that UN agency.
Is it possible to talk about Israeli policy without comparing it to the Nazis?
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) May 7, 2025
Apparently not at the @Guardian!
According to the International (IHRA) Definition of Antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is an example of… pic.twitter.com/as8oO6pnp2
Is @washingtonpost trying to justify Houthi attacks on Israel and U.S. targets by citing civilian deaths in Gaza?
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 7, 2025
Reminder: The Houthi slogan is "Death to America, Death to Israel." Their attacks aren't a form of protest. pic.twitter.com/6nHEKXEUDo
In what alternate reality did Israel break a "peace agreement" with Hamas?!
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 7, 2025
And in whose world did this "diminish hopes of an eventual two-state solution"?!
Just @guardian's. 🤦 pic.twitter.com/URVGJVbbJN
Shame on @ajplus this child, according to her own mother, has a debilitating disease which doctors have been unable to diagnose.
— GnasherJew®גנאשר (@GnasherJew) May 7, 2025
Saying that she has “malnutrition” is an outright lie.
Using a child’s illness to score political points like this is disgraceful.#BanAlJazeera pic.twitter.com/gODYAriG40
Hamas-run authorities say at least 48 killed in series of IDF strikes in Gaza
Several Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday killed dozens of Palestinians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run enclave, including reported strikes on a school that housed displaced families in Gaza City.
According to the Hamas health ministry, two IDF airstrikes early Wednesday hit the Karama School in Tuffah, a suburb of Gaza City, killing 15. Among those killed was a local journalist, Nour Abdu, Palestinian media claimed.
Later in the day, an Israeli strike near a restaurant and market in the city killed at least 33 people, including women and children, the reports said.
The death tolls provided by Hamas, which do not differentiate between civilians and combatants, cannot be verified.
The IDF did not immediately comment, but generally says it targets Hamas terror infrastructure in the Strip, which is heavily embedded in the civilian population.
Reuters footage of the scene near the market showed wounded men being rushed away on the back of pickups and carts. Ambulances sped down shattered streets and a woman in tears carried a baby away from the scene, with two young children beside her.
Ahmed Al-Saoudi said he witnessed the airstrike near the market. “People come to the market to get what they need if they can find it…Neither the people nor the animals were safe. Neither the young nor the old.”
🔥 The incident at the Thai restaurant has sparked a lot of questions.
— GAZAWOOD - the PALLYWOOD saga (@GAZAWOOD1) May 7, 2025
Here’s a thread with clips and observations that naturally come up just from watching the footage.
(Graphic content. Not making claims — just raising questions.)
1/🧵 pic.twitter.com/6Dmz7izCUU
The Bolivian mummy photos were “borrowed” and falsely presented as children from Gaza.
— GAZAWOOD - the PALLYWOOD saga (@GAZAWOOD1) May 7, 2025
What’s interesting is that even after the deception was exposed, the image continues to circulate — misleading countless people. pic.twitter.com/VLUFRNAsjp
How does that even make sense? pic.twitter.com/jDs605l5qS
— GAZAWOOD - the PALLYWOOD saga (@GAZAWOOD1) May 7, 2025
One of Israel’s finest heroes ever to grace X… he tirelessly destroys the Pallywood industry one fake video at a time. It’s the one, the only…@GAZAWOOD1 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/DeOpLWJukV
— Cheryl E 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🎗️ (@CherylWroteIt) May 6, 2025
Here’s Hafiz Abdul Rauf, a US-designated global terrorist and high-level Lashkar-e-Taiba commander, leading funeral prayers for those who died in the Indian missile strikes.
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) May 7, 2025
Representatives of the Pakistan Armed Forces and police stand next to him.
Hafiz Abdul Rauf is closely… pic.twitter.com/OzuSL2Yfnx
Their strategy is to provoke you with terrorist attack after terrorist attack
— Shaun Maguire (@shaunmmaguire) May 7, 2025
And then when you finally respond, they portray you as the villain
I stand with India 🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/zBvPHIURml
It was never about Palestine.
— Ella Travels (Ella Kenan) (@EllaTravelsLove) May 7, 2025
It’s a war of political Islam against anything that isn’t Muslim. India and Israel are just the first dominoes. Europe, Australia, the U.S., and Canada are next.
Ask Mohammed, he doesn’t even bother to deny it. pic.twitter.com/hTVisDPHqh
Seth Frantzman: Can Syria’s New Government Protect the Country’s Minorities?
The Syrian government now faces a major test. It has support from Western countries and countries that opposed the Assad regime. It has a lot of goodwill because people have sympathy for Syrians who suffered fourteen years of brutal civil war. However, with each clash and each attack on minorities, the goodwill and capital the new government in Damascus has built up is slipping away. This could cause a crisis between Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who have sought to integrate their forces with the government in the coming year. The United States backs the SDF. And while they have been flexible in dealing with the new government, they don’t want to see minorities persecuted in eastern Syria.Seth Frantzman: Syria's president to visit Europe, and why France was the natural choice
There are other challenges facing Damascus. Israel has vowed to protect the Druze. After the attacks on that community, Israel carried out several rounds of airstrikes in and around Damascus at the beginning of the month. These airstrikes can weaken the new Syrian government. The Syrian government knows it can’t oppose Israel, and this puts it between a rock and a hard place. If Damascus gives in and fails to enforce law and order in areas like Latakia or Suwayda, then the government will find itself without the legitimacy to continue rebuilding Syria.
For instance, Syria needs to secure Afrin in northwest Syria and take control of Turkish-backed areas in northern Syria. If each region thinks it can be autonomous, Syria is not likely to emerge as a stable and prosperous polity.
On May 5, the U.S. Embassy in Damascus called on Syria to hold perpetrators of recent violence accountable. Acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Dorothy Shea also said that “the Syrian people deserve leadership that is transparent, accountable, and fully committed to a more peaceful and prosperous future after 54 years of ruinous rule under the Assad regime. The United States continues to closely monitor the actions of the Syrian interim authorities…”
Syria is on notice. It can learn from the clashes in March and May and put in place a law enforcement model to pre-empt clashes in the future. For instance, the mechanism could involve a quick reaction force designed to create protective zones, checkpoints, and a buffer around areas where communal tensions erupt. Authorities could also take steps to monitor social media to identify, prepare for, and pre-empt clashes in the future.
The wider problem in Syria is that there are too many well-armed and independent militias. Most of these groups were involved in the civil war. Some of them are backed by Turkey and the Ankara-supported Syrian National Army. Others are linked to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the group Shara’a led before he became the transitional president. Then there are groups such as the Druze forces in Suwadya and also remnants of the Eighth Brigade in southern Syria, a former rebel group that reconciled with the Assad regime and then backed the new government. It was disbanded in April but likely has numerous adherents in Dara’a province in the south of the country.
Syria has sought to collect some small arms, but the government has found this is a challenge. There are also numerous incidents of smuggling in Syria. Some of the arms being smuggled include Iranian-made rockets likely destined for Hezbollah. Fourteen years of civil war means the country is awash in weapons. The imperative for reining in militias and armed groups, as well as extremists who seek to exploit sectarian tensions, is clear. The road ahead is not easy. However, the clashes in March and May show that Damascus needs a new mechanism to address emerging crises that can derail Syria’s critical state-building project.
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa is making his first trip to Europe this week. He is traveling to France after a surprise announcement on Tuesday.
Sharaa was appointed the leader of Syria’s transition government in January, and in March, he formed a new government of around two dozen ministers for the country.
He is a former leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, a rebel group that also had historic ties to al-Qaeda. There have been concerns that members of his group are extremists who will suppress minorities. Sharaa is trying to show that Syria is going to be an inclusive country.
Sharaa’s trip and his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron are important. This is his first trip to a Western country.
Many European countries have embraced the new government of Syria. Damascus wants an end to sanctions, and it wants investment. This will take time.
France is a natural choice for the first Western trip by Sharaa. This is because France was a former colonial power. It is also the former colonial power of Lebanon and has interests in Lebanon and Syria.
France also differs from the US and UK approaches to Damascus and the region. As such, France is seen as perhaps a more balanced country in terms of its Middle East policy, and one where Syria will find favor. The UK and the US are more cold and cautious in their approach.
Who would have imagined that the leader of ISIS would be welcomed as a guest of honor in Paris?
— Cheryl E 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🎗️ (@CherylWroteIt) May 7, 2025
Welcome to 2025 🤯 pic.twitter.com/Rwsp6gk0lE
Clifford D. May: The Iran nuclear deal Trump wants
A fourth round of talks between Tehran’s envoys and Steve Witkoff, U.S. President Donald Trump’s lead negotiator, did not take place in Rome over the weekend as had been expected.
Neither Tehran’s spokesmen nor the U.S. State Department gave a clear explanation for why, but I’ll venture a guess: Iran’s rulers want concessions in exchange for continuing to talk.
They think Trump needs negotiations more than they do. Their assessment is based on years of palaver with presidents Obama and Biden.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei hopes that, concession by concession, he can convince Trump to embrace a warmed-over version of Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, the fatally flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Trump called “a horrible one-sided deal that should never, ever have been made.”
Sunday on “Meet the Press,” President Trump reiterated what he wants: “Total dismantlement [of Tehran’s nuclear weapons program]. That’s all I would accept.”
That means no uranium enrichment or reprocessing, and a halt to the regime’s development of missiles that can deliver nuclear warheads to American cities.
Witkoff is not a career diplomat. That may prove advantageous. Too often, career diplomats are overly eager to conclude deals because doing so brings them professional plaudits.
If those deals turn out to be bummers, so what? By then, the diplomats will have been promoted or awarded a professorship at an elite university where they can hold forth on The Art of Diplomacy.
That’s how North Korea became nuclear-armed after decades of negotiations and agreements.
That’s how Syria retained a stock of chemical weapons after the Obama administration claimed a Russian-mediated dialogue had brought about the destruction of the Assad regime’s CW arsenal.
The 2015 JCPOA is an especially egregious example. As Sen. Tom Cotton observed: “The deal didn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paved the path.”
🚨JUST IN: Trump on Hugh Hewitt's podcast about the nuclear talks with Iran: Prefers a strong agreement with a high level of certainty. There are only two options to blow them up (presumably Iran's centrifuges)—in a nice way, i.e. with an agreement, or in a brutal way (with an…
— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) May 7, 2025
Two more B-52H Long-Range Strategic Bombers departed Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana today, bound for Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, following the route taken across the Pacific by last night’s flight of B-52s also heading to NSF Diego Garcia. Soon there will be 10… https://t.co/5l4aiyW1nF
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) May 6, 2025
BREAKING 🔴
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) May 7, 2025
The Iran’s curse deepens!
Facing a worsening energy shortage, the Iranian government has announced daily power cuts and shortened work hours in all government buildings to 6 a.m. to 1 p.m., five days a week. pic.twitter.com/oEPuDqjA56
The trial that kept us safe from Holocaust denial – at least for one generation
Antisemitism is both static and dynamic: that is its nature, and a function of its success. Lipstadt, who served as Joe Biden’s envoy on antisemitism, says that those who practise Irving’s brand of Holocaust denial (she calls it “hardcore denial”) are outliers still, though “they will have their followers”. And those sometimes get onto Piers Morgan’s show and Joe Rogan’s podcast. Rogan, once a comedian, has the No1 podcast in the world. He has hosted guests who claim Jeffrey Epstein worked for Israel, and that Hitler opposed Kristallnacht. But I doubt Rogan would allow a guest to say the Holocaust didn’t happen; in any case, he doesn’t need to.DOJ officials tell Orthodox leaders they have launched probes into antisemitic discrimination
Modern Holocaust denial, Lipstadt said, is “squishier. ‘Oh, here’s the Holocaust again’, or rolling the eyes. That diminution, and that’s much harder, that’s whack-a-mole.”
What she calls “softcore Holocaust denial” is broad. Sometimes it is subtle; sometimes it is not. There is mainstream belief in Jewish evil (the idea that it happened but the Jews deserved it); attempts to minimise the Jewishness of the victims with an over-representation of perpetrators in popular culture (didn’t everyone suffer?); romantic novels set in death camps (how bad could it be?); and sometimes an emphasis on so-called Jewish collaborators (who did it really?).
There is, above all, fatigue. I used to think this was a product of shame, and the need for moral survival – if the Jews deserved their fate the world is a safer place for the rest – but I am not so sure now.
Towards the end Julius said: “These battles are fought in every generation.” Victories, he added, “are always critical but never more than provisional”, and he is right.
In that spirit I will say this: I thought the appearance of the playwright David Hare on the panel – he dramatised the trial in the film Denial (2016) – was odd for the following reason: Hare also dramatised Bernard Schlink’s novel The Reader in 2008. This is a self-serving, exculpatory and trivial film about an illiterate (and beautiful) concentration camp guard (Kate Winslet). It suggests that, had she known poetry, she would not have helped burn 300 Jews alive in a church.
Yet, the majority of the men around the table at the Wansee Conference had post-graduate degrees and the SS volunteer units were heavy with doctoral theses, many of them in the humanities.
The Reader is a terrible and immoral book: for a novel about the Holocaust its emphasis, to me, is repugnant. Still, it was a happy day, and to quote Billy Wilder: nobody’s perfect.
Senior Justice Department officials revealed on Wednesday that they have “several open investigations involving Orthodox Jewish communities across the country.”One of China’s Leading Economists Lectures about the Evils of “Jewish Financial Capital”
During a meeting between Trump administration officials and Orthodox Jewish leaders at the Justice Department, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Michael Gates told attendees that the DOJ is looking into several matters impacting the Orthodox community, including how some municipalities’ use of zoning laws had affected individual religious communities’ ability to operate normally.
“We currently have several open investigations involving Orthodox Jewish communities across the country. These investigations include municipalities that have restricted building or operation of houses of worship or other religious land uses, and we are investigating cities that have made changes to zoning laws that negatively impact religious communities. In another matter, we are investigating antisemitic discrimination in public accommodations, including whether a restaurant, believe it or not, has engaged in a pattern practice of religious discrimination for refusing service to Jewish patrons,” Gates said.
Given the ongoing nature of the probes, Gates noted that he couldn’t “get into the specific details” about each.
Top officials from the department’s Civil Rights Division took part in the meeting, which was organized by the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, including Gates; Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights; and Leo Terrell, senior counsel to Dhillon. The trio assured attendees that the DOJ is working on shared priorities such as combating domestic antisemitism and ensuring religious liberty protections. They outlined legal mechanisms they are utilizing to prosecute antisemitic hate crimes and target state and local governments that may not be in compliance with federal laws protecting religious freedom.
In that same category of “anti-Israel and evil but not necessarily anti-Semitic” one might be tempted to place China, which has aligned itself with the Russia-Iran axis primarily out of hostility toward the American alliance system. But still, it’s hard not to wonder if a de-facto alliance with Hamas and Hizballah, and cooperation with the Houthis, has given anti-Semitism a chance to rub off on the secular Communist regime. Or maybe it’s just inevitable that totalitarians will end up blaming their problems on the Jews. Tuvia Gering notes that, on April 20,
a prominent Chinese economist delivered a sweeping, ideologically loaded speech on the U.S.–China trade war and great-power rivalry. What began as a provocative, at times insightful, commentary on the U.S.–China trade war quickly spiraled into tin-foil-hat grand theorizing about world order and Western civilization. It culminated . . . with claims that Western democracy is a sham front for mythical “Jewish financial capital” that controls the Federal Reserve and manipulates U.S. politics and foreign policy to undermine China and the working people of the world.
The speaker, Liu Yuhui, is a Communist-party member and sits on the executive council of China’s Chief Economist Forum. Gering translates the speech in full. Herewith, an excerpt of the portion about the Federal Reserve:
Whom does the Fed truly represent? It represents the interests of Jewish financial capital. And within the Western ideological landscape, Jewish financial capital is always aligned with the left, not the right.
Why? Because the ceiling of the right wing is Hitler and Mussolini. So, how could Jewish capital ever align with the right? It’s impossible. That’s why this isn’t about who chairs the Fed.
So don’t let media noise brainwash you; don’t fixate on whether President Trump will fire [the Federal Reserve chairman Jerome] Powell. Even if he does, it’s meaningless. Because the person who ends up in that seat is ultimately chosen by Jewish financial capital, not by the president.
Left wing antisemitism in Italy:
— Hamas Atrocities (@HamasAtrocities) May 7, 2025
Kicking Israelis out of restaurants
Right wing extremists in Italy: pic.twitter.com/MtUOuC083j
Sheba Medical Center to open outpost in Boston
Sheba Medical Center, the largest hospital in Israel, announced on Wednesday that it will open its first U.S.-based healthcare startup accelerator in Massachusetts in 2026.‘Heroes welcome’ planned for Emily Damari on her return to Spurs
The accelerator, part of Sheba’s ARC (Accelerate, Redesign, Collaborate) innovation network, will join existing hubs in London, Berlin, Singapore, Melbourne and New Zealand.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, praised the decision of Sheba’s leadership to expand its network in the commonwealth.
“They had many options to choose from, but our state stood out because we are already a global hub for health care innovation with unmatched talent,” Healey stated.
Founded in 2019, the ARC accelerator utilizes AI technology and collaborates with the medical center’s physician network to address critical health care challenges and advance medical innovation.
“We look forward to the opening of their new accelerator, which will be a valued contribution to our innovation-based economy,” she continued.
Eyal Zimlichman, director and founder of ARC, said that the Israeli medical center’s partnership with Massachusetts “will create a hub for startups from our global network.”
A crowd of hundreds of well-wishers is set to greet avid Spurs fan Emily Damari on her first return to the stadium since being freed by Hamas.Israel has a friend in us at Eurovision, says Azerbaijan rock-pop trio
Twenty-eight-year-old Emily Damari, a joint British-Israel citizen, was born and raised on Kibbutz Kfar Aza, one of the southern kibbutzim viciously attacked by Hamas terrorists on 7 October 2023. The youngest of four siblings, she is known by friends and family for her unforgettable smile, dry humour, and deep love for music, football, and London.
She was shot and kidnapped during the Hamas attacks, with her beloved golden cockapoo, Choocha, being killed moments before her abduction.
The young woman spent 471 days in captivity in Gaza before being released earlier this year. She lost two fingers on one hand as a result of the shooting but her defiant three-fingered salute became one of the telling symbols of the campaign for hostages release.
During Emily’s captivity, Spurs fans adopted her as “One of Our Own”, showing their support by tying yellow ribbons, releasing balloons at matches, putting up posters of her around the stadium, and campaigning tirelessly for her safe return.
Sunday’s event organised by Stop the Hate at around 12pm outside the stadium will be an opportunity for Emily to thank those who spent months calling for her release. She said: “I want to give a special thanks to all the Jews in the diaspora, but especially to the UK Jewish community, who came out to support my mother (Mandy Damari) and my family campaigning tirelessly to help secure my release.”
Mamagama believe in good music, peace and exceptionally good hummus.Survivor’s song: Israel’s Eurovision star raises her voice from the ruins
Guitarist Hasan Heydar, 31, drummer Arif Imanov, 29 and lead singer Asaf (Sefael) Mishiyev, 32, are speaking to Jewish News ahead of the Azerbaijani band’s performance at the most kitsch television event of the year: Eurovision.
Named in honour of an Alan Parsons Project song, the group from capital city Baku have been together for four years, with their sound inspired by Daft Punk and American disco band Chicthey.
The trio released debut single My Medicine in 2022 and gained popularity with an award-winning performance of their song Dreamer at Kënga Magjike, one of the biggest music festivals in Albania.
Shortlisted for the 2023 Azerbaijani selection for Eurovision but ultimately not selected, this year they were internally confirmed as representatives of their country (which last won Eurovision in 2011) in February with their entry Run with U.
Straight off the bat, Asaf, who withdrew from his country’s version of singing competition The Voice to focus on Eurovision, says that Yuval Raphael, Israel’s contender, is his favourite. “Best song, best singer, best artist.”
A perhaps unsurprising response from a Jewish singer in a predominately Muslim country (his bandmates are both Muslim), it’s still a refreshing admission for a contest whose much loved reputation for over-the-top, glitter-glam, camp spectacle has become overshadowed by ugly political activism.
This week, the Artists for Palestine group published an open letter from 72 former Eurovision competitors, calling for a ban on Israel and its national broadcaster KAN, from this year’s contest in Switzerland. Last year’s Israeli entrant, Eden Golan, had to be surrounded by security guards, isolated in her room for her own safety.
All this appears to be very firmly background noise to Mamagama. They say they are, albeit most likely at the recommendation of their management, determinedly non-political.
The last time Yuval Raphael attended a major music festival, she thought she would die.
On the morning of 7 October 2023, the Israeli singer went from joyously dancing with friends at the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im to lying in a bomb shelter, drenched in someone else’s blood, playing dead as Hamas terrorists returned again and again to see who was still alive.
The 24-year-old from Ra’anana hid beneath the bodies for eight hours as the corpses above her were repeatedly shot. Of more than 40 people in that shelter, Yuval was one of 11 to make it out alive. She still carries the scars, shrapnel embedded in her head and leg and memories no treatment can erase.
“I witnessed unspeakable horrors,” she told the UN Human Rights Council last April. “Friends and strangers alike were injured and killed in front of my eyes. When the bodies of those murdered fell on us, I understood that hiding under them was the only way I could survive.”
Next week – after earning the right to represent Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest in Switzerland by winning talent show The Rising Star on Keshet TV – Yuval will bare her bruised soul to the world, performing New Day Will Rise, a stripped-back ballad about grief, survival and healing. Like last year’s Israeli entry, Hurricane by Edan Golan, the song carries the crushing weight of 7 October.
“This is something that is very important for me to say,” she tells Jewish News ahead of rehearsals for next week’s semi-final. “I urge anyone who went through trauma and needs help to get treatment. Sometimes everyone needs some help. I truly believe in that. Treatment helped me a lot. I have to thank my family and friends for of their support and also music, which has always been a huge part of my life.”
To avoid a repeat of last year, which saw Edan heckled and booed on stage and intimidated behind the scenes, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has tightened the rules, forbidding artists from making political statements.
For Yuval, that means remaining silent about the trauma that brought her here – even as it defines her entire performance. Indeed, according to Israeli media she will be joined in Basel by fellow 7 October survivors, who will be in the audience on the night to support her.
First look at Yuval Raphael’s @Eurovision performance!
— Israel ישראל (@Israel) May 7, 2025
We can’t wait to see Yuval shine at the semi-finals✨🇮🇱🎤
📸 EBU / Alma Bengtsson / Sarah Louise Bennett / Corinne Cumming pic.twitter.com/d1nqRf55Uo
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