Friday, May 09, 2025

05/09 Links Pt2: Probe the foreign influence behind these terror-loving, anti-Jew college agitators; Israel’s fight for civilisation; The willing executioners of today’s anti-Israel hatred

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Probe the foreign influence behind these terror-loving, anti-Jew college agitators
Of course there are a number of things that need to be not just said but done to stop the spread of this unadulterated evil.

The first is for the Trump administration to act on its promises and cut off all federal funding from universities which allow terrorist movements to seize hold of campus.

There is nothing ground-up about any of this. All of the rhetoric and materials that these terrorist-supporters engage in is a pure import.

What American student, born and raised here, thinks that the terrorists of October 7th are “martyrs”? Let alone “our” martyrs. Who do these students think that “we” are? Is it an act of “liberation” to injure and hospitalize staff on campus who are just doing their job? Is this really a way to express sympathy with a cause and get people onto your side?

The second thing that is becoming increasingly clear is that the US government should order a swift and deep inquiry into the way in which foreign funding is being used to subvert American institutions, especially institutions of higher learning.

If they carry out such an investigation they will find, among much else, the billions of dollars of Qatari money that have been pumped into American universities in recent years. As well as having one of the largest lobbying organizations in the US, the Qataris have in recent years also used their vast oil wealth to try to subvert American institutions and buy off American politicians.

It is one of the greatest scandals of our age, that a oil-rich slave-state like Qatar, which not just funds but hosts Hamas, is able to have its talons into the heart of some of America’s most venerable institutions.

What is going on? How long does this country want to be up for sale to such terrorists and terrorist-supporters?

On Monday, it was protestors at the University of Washington who rampaged through their campus, smashing up the campus and literally starting fires. They are estimated to have caused over $1 million of damage. Let’s see if they are made to pay for it. In every way.

But as I watched the scenes from our own city this week one thing stood out in particular. That was an identifiably Jewish student, wearing a kippah, watching as the new KKK barricaded the doors of the library he was trying to study in.

If this had been a lone black student having to face down a mob of people celebrating the lynching of black Americans I would imagine there would be a swift and harsh response from across every part of this country — and rightly so.

I would expect every person of good will to ask how this had happened here, who was pushing this filth and how every arm of the state could go about stopping it.

So it is — or should be — now. The new Klan has got away with their violence for far too long. To adopt some language they would understand, “It is time to shut this s–t down.”
Israel’s fight for civilisation
Douglas Murray’s On Democracies and Death Cults is a vital account of 7 October and its aftermath.

The anti-Israel bias of the international coverage of the conflict provides Murray with another large target. He notes how the media routinely create a moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel – Hamas has killed women and children in Israel, and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have killed women and children in Gaza, therefore the two are both equally reprehensible morally, the argument goes. Ignored is the fact Hamas kills its victims deliberately, while the IDF is countering fighters who use civilians as human shields. Hamas also views every civilian death as a propaganda win.

Further dismantling the myth of the ‘moral equivalence’, Murray cites the significant steps taken by the IDF to minimise civilian casualties. Israel sends texts, calls and leaflets, warning Gazans of when and where to expect military operations. But Hamas does not let those in danger flee. Murray cites respected US war scholar John Spencer, who states that the ratio of civilian-to-enemy-combatant casualties is the lowest in the history of urban warfare. To claim Israel and Hamas are somehow equal recalls William F Buckley’s famous line:
‘That is like saying that the man who pushes a little old lady into the path of a bus is morally equivalent to the man who pushes her out of its path, because they both push little old ladies around.’

Reading On Democracies and Death Cults, one gets the impression that Murray is troubled by one question more than any other: can we ever expect to defeat these Islamist death cults like Hamas? He finds hope in the bravery of the Israeli people and one of the most important commandments in Judaism – to choose life.

One criticism I have of the book is that the editing seems rushed. Often, Murray goes back and forth to make his points. Better organised chapters would have made for a tighter book that’s easier to read. It is nearly 200 pages, yet divided into only five chapters, each containing long passages lacking transition.

None of this ultimately detracts from Murray’s compelling narrative. Along with spiked’s Brendan O’Neill, he is one of the two best writers in the English language about this conflict. As Murray writes, history is constantly being rewritten and that’s why this book is so important. In writing it, Murray has done the cause of democracy, and the victims of one of our century’s most unforgivable crimes, an important service.
One podcast, two guests, multiple conversations
It was during their exchange, as I became more and more frustrated at Spencer’s inability to dismantle Smith’s arguments, that I realized what had been bothering me from the interview on the Rogan’s show. During both interviews, Smith was arguing about the morality of war and was using Israel as a case study with which to bash war.

Meanwhile, Murray and Spencer were arguing about the legality of war. Two completely different topics, and this hit me as I watched Smith getting increasingly exasperated with Spencer, who kept going back to the laws of war and to a lesser degree, the history of war.

Smith wants to exist in the world of vague, idealistic theories about whether war is moral or not. This, let’s be honest, is nearly impossible to argue against. Most people would agree that war probably is not the most moral thing in the most literal meaning of the term, but whether we believe war is moral or not, it exists. War always has been, and unless human beings fundamentally change their DNA, war always will be.

So, instead of arguing whether it is moral to make war, civilizations need to create boundaries within which wars can be fought, hence the internationally agreed upon laws of war. Smith didn’t want to debate whether Israel’s actions in Gaza were legal or illegal; he just wanted to argue that they are immoral. This is a conclusion people draw if they remove facts and law from their equation. If war is immoral because civilians die, then yes, Israel’s actions would be considered immoral.

However, if Smith were to step down from his moral high horse—from where he observes the world and casts his net of moral utopianism onto a world that is not a utopia—he might realize a few things. He might realize that war is horrible and that when wars are fought, innocent civilians die. He might realize that in the prosecution of war, some actors do all they can to reduce the loss of innocent life, while there are other actors whose very strategy in war is to maximize the loss of innocent life. They, of course, do this so they can use that carnage as a weapon against their adversary as well, which is what is happening in Gaza today.

Smith might also realize that if the loss of innocent life were so important to avoid, then the actors, in this case Hamas, should not start a war and then fight it from behind or beneath innocent civilians. Israel, I might add, does the opposite; it puts the lives of its soldiers on the line to protect the lives of people in Gaza, and this has cost Israel dearly.

It’s time for Smith to take his head out of the clouds, plant his feet back on terra firma and understand that wars are never fought in sterile environments, devoid of civilians, where all combatants observe the same rules or follow the same laws. If they were, we would not be having this conversation.

One final thing: Israel did not want this war and did not start this war. But morally speaking, we must acknowledge that Israel has a moral obligation to its citizens to prosecute this war to its conclusion. To do anything less would be immoral and a violation of the government’s duty to protect its people.

If Hamas laid down its arms tomorrow and returned the hostages, the war would end. If Israel laid down its arms … well, then maybe Smith would be sitting with Rogan talking about how sickened he is by all the dead Jews, but, then again, maybe he wouldn’t.


The willing executioners of today’s anti-Israel hatred
We now stand on the brink of a global attack on Jews, disguised as a righteous fight for “human rights.” Goldhagen rightly observed the staggering number of people complicit in the actions of Nazi Germany or aware of the Holocaust. Today, millions have been duped into believing Jews are colonial occupiers in their own ancestral land, ignoring the vast record of international agreements, including the 1948 U.N. resolution establishing Israel’s legitimacy. Few understand that the so-called “occupied territories” resulted from defensive wars against Arab aggression or that Israel fully withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Even fewer recognize that radical groups seek Israel’s destruction on religious grounds, not political ones.

The public doesn’t stop to question words like “genocide” or “apartheid,” which are now recklessly thrown into political discourse. Millions are ready to vilify Jews under the guise of opposing Zionism, often exploiting the polarizing figure of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, about whom they know almost nothing.

The episode involving the pizzeria had three stages: First, the owner expelled an Israeli couple simply for their identity; second, a brief institutional outcry acknowledged the act as anti-Jewish; and third, public figures like Italian politician Laura Boldrini and others reversed course and offered their support, sensing fertile political ground.

This is nothing new. Historically, Jews have been accused of being Communists by fascists, fascists by Communists, beggars by capitalists, and capitalists by Marxists. Today, they are smeared as Zionist nationalists simply for wanting a homeland and the right to defend themselves from terror. People even dare to question whether the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, actually happened.

Meanwhile, Israel’s enemies continue their crimes: Murdering LGBTQ+ individuals, mutilating women, and turning Gaza into a fortress of hatred. Yet this pizzeria becomes a celebrated hotspot, much like Rai 3’s “Presa Diretta” program, which recently aired a biased and defamatory report against Israel. Only three brave voices dared to challenge it, but were swiftly condemned by USIGRAI, a journalism union in Italy, under the pretext of protecting “freedom of information.”

Jews today are under siege across the world. The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Mosab Abu Toha, a Palestinian poet who belittles the victims of Oct. 7 and glorifies terror. People worldwide clamor for humanitarian aid that often ends up in the hands of those holding hostages captive underground. Calls for “peace” have become calls for Israel’s surrender.

In Milan, there’s debate over lighting the Palazzo Marino in the colors of the Gaza Strip, citing dubious Hamas casualty figures of 52,000 dead, including 13,000 children. In Ragusa and Catania, in southern Sicily, a new soft drink called “Gaza Cola” is being marketed—yet another symbol of how commercialized and normalized this wave of anti-Jewish hatred has become.

We are witnessing the rise of the willing executioners of our time, emboldened by misinformation, driven by ideological blindness, and legitimized by public institutions. The script is tragically familiar, but the ending depends on whether the world will wake up in time to stop it.
Chair of UK Oct. 7 report: ‘Denial started while the massacres were still ongoing’
He worries that people in the West “enjoy attacking ourselves… and berating ourselves” for “perfectly reasonable” responses to surprise attacks such as 9/11 or October 7. He contrasts the response to Pearl Harbor.

“Nobody attacked FDR [who was US president at the outbreak of World War II], or, indeed at the time, [US] president Truman [under whose administration a nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki], for punishing the attack on Pearl Harbor as condignly as they did, whereas today, everybody seems to be leaping up and down, criticizing the West for punishing these equally horrific attacks,” Roberts says.

Nonetheless, Roberts is convinced that Churchill would have recognized and sympathized with Israel’s position today.

“He was a Zionist. He didn’t subscribe to [the] antisemitism that so many of the people of his age, class and background did. He was a supporter of the Balfour Declaration and believed that the ‘Judeo’ side of Judeo-Christian civilization… gave Christianity its ethics and its positive moral angle,” he says.

Roberts says that Churchill’s daughter had once warned him never to assume what the former prime minister would have said about any event after his death in 1965, but he is happy to wager an opinion.

“It strikes me as very clear that he would have been as outraged as any other decent, rational, logical human being about what had happened on October 7, and he would certainly have been in favor of a terrible punishment raining down on Hamas,” Roberts says. “He was a humanitarian and so he’d have wanted to have minimized the civilian casualties in Gaza, and I believe that the IDF have done that to the best of their ability.”

Perhaps, like Roberts, Churchill would also have seen a commonality between the enemy he defeated and that which Israel faces.

“The overlap between Hamas ideology and Nazi ideology is so well colored in on the Venn diagram,” Roberts says.

Of course, he adds, it is always “difficult and dangerous” to draw direct historical analogies. Hamas’s murderous rampage cannot be compared with the industrial-scale killing carried out by the Nazis, even if the former wore GoPro cameras and broadcast their “monstrous actions” on Facebook while the latter tried to cover up their crimes and destroy the gas chambers in 1945.

“The analogy between Hamas and the Nazis strikes me as completely obvious one,” Roberts says. “I think you’d have to be deliberately obtuse not to see the connections.”

The Hamas attacks of October 7 and the ensuing conflict have confirmed Roberts’s belief that launching a war is a “profoundly immoral” act.

“Wars are truly terrible things, which is why you shouldn’t start them,” he says, “and why you should fight them in as humanitarian a way as you can, which I think is what Israel has done.”
Bittersweet Mother’s Day for Israeli moms whose husbands remain in captivity
Mother’s Day this Sunday serves as a grim reminder for three Israeli moms who’ve been pulling double duty as their husbands suffer in Hamas captivity — making them real-life “Wonder Women.”

Sharon Cunio, Lishay Miran and Rivka Bohbot have been caught in a hellish dilemma over the past 19 months — keeping their hostage husbands’ memories alive while also raising their kids single-handedly, they told The Post.

“We have to fight every day for them to remember their father and the amazing dad that he is, and the difficult times that we go through without him over here. And I keep reminding them that the things that they ask me to do as dad are dad’s things, and I’m not replacing anything. This is like dad doing it through me,” explained Cunio, 36.

Cunio, her husband David and their twin daughters Emma and Julie, now 4, were all abducted from their Kubbutz Nir Oz home during the Oct. 7 attack.

The couple expected the family to be released together, but they discovered in horror that David was being held behind while the girls and their mother were granted freedom after 52 days.

“We’ve never been separated for that long, and I think that something happened after our release from captivity that made me understand how much he is my other half and how much we shared our life together,” said Cunio, who has been with David for 12 years.

“I try to do my best to keep myself happy or pretend I’m happy in front of them, but it’s really difficult because it’s 24/7 around the clock. You’re alone with them. You have to handle the trauma that they’re going through without their father here, and you have to take care of the post-trauma that they have from captivity and from October 7. And it’s really, really hard to do it alone.”
Former hostage Noa Argamani: ‘I’m thinking about the hostages all the time’
Former hostage Noa Argamani and author Noa Tishby spoke about anti-Israel activism and antisemitism at the Milken Institute Global Conference on Wednesday, with Argamani saying that an anti-Israel performance at the Coachella music festival “broke her heart” and Tishby arguing that antisemitism “is nothing short of a cultural conflict.”

Argamani, who was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, said that she had intended to attend Coachella last month, where the Irish band Kneecap led the crowd in chants of “Free, Free Palestine” and displayed messages on the stage that read, “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” “It is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes” and “Fuck Israel. Free Palestine.”

“It’s really hard and breaking my heart to see that this is still happening,” Argamani said of the event. “I’m like all of the people that come for Coachella, and we are the same people. It could happen to each one of us, and if people will not share sympathy [for] each other, for all these people just going to festivals of love, peace and community, that’s what we need to do. We didn’t choose to be kidnapped, we didn’t choose to be born in Israel. We just want to go to a festival to dance and have fun.”

Argamani’s partner, Avinatan Or, was also kidnapped and is still in Hamas captivity. Argamani said that she had seen “a sign of life recently” from Or and that “we know that he’s still alive and waiting for us to save him.” There were reports in March that one hostage who returned in the recent ceasefire and hostage-release deal had claimed to see Or while in captivity, though Argamani said on Wednesday that “none of the hostages that [have] been released can share a lot of information about him, none of the hostages saw him.”

Asked about being recognized as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2025, Argamani said receiving awards and accolades for her advocacy on behalf of the hostages “is not my honor. It’s an honor for all the hostages that [have been] released and the hostages that [have been] in captivity all those days.”

“It’s really hard to be there [o]n the red carpet and to know that I’m doing that for the hostages that [are] still in the tunnels of Gaza while we see people celebrate [my] recognition,” she said. “I’m thinking about the hostages all the time, and it’s really hard to come from the tunnels of Hamas to this point of life.”


BBC Bargain Hunt star pleads guilty to Hezbollah-linked terror charges
A BBC Bargain Hunt art expert has admitted failing to report a series of high-value art sales to a man suspected of financing militant group Hezbollah.

Oghenochuko Ojiri, 53, pleaded guilty to eight offences under section 21A of the Terrorism Act 2000 during a hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday.

The art dealer, who has also appeared on the BBC’s Antiques Road Trip, was charged with failing to disclose information about transactions in the regulated art market sector between October 2020 and December 2021.

It followed an investigation into terrorist financing by officers from the national terrorist financial investigation unit, part of the Met’s counterterrorism command.

Lyndon Harris, prosecuting, said Ojiri sold artwork to Nazem Ahmed, a man designated by US authorities as a suspected financier for the Lebanese organisation.

“At the time of the transactions, Mr Ojiri knew Mr Ahmed had been sanctioned in the US,” Mr Harris told the court.

“Mr Ojiri accessed news reports about Mr Ahmed’s designation and engaged in discussions with others about his designation.”

“There is one discussion where Mr Ojiri is party to a conversation where it is apparent a lot of people have known for years about his terrorism links.

Mr Harris said that Ojiri “dealt with Mr Ahmed directly, negotiated the sales of artwork and congratulated him on those sales”.


Stephen Pollard: The new campus normal: harass the Jews, protect the mob
Wednesday saw another shameful display at Columbia University as an anti-Israel mob stormed the library while students were studying for finals, leaving graffiti on walls and furniture with such slogans as “Columbia will burn for the martyrs.” But if things have been bad at American centers of higher education, they may be even worse at Britain’s. Stephen Pollard offers an illustrative and troubling example:

At Queen Mary University in east London, some students decided to hold a silent vigil on October 7, 2024 to mark the anniversary of the Hamas massacre. The vigil, comprised of a small group of students, was soon surrounded by hundreds of fellow students with banners and megaphones, shouting “Globalize the student intifada” and other slogans.

There is, as you well know, nothing unusual about this. It is, appallingly, a scene routinely witnessed when Jewish students seek to remember the victims of October 7 (and, of course, it happens beyond campus, too). But this time the university’s security staff intervened. A rare but welcome event, you might think. Except their target was not the baying mob barracking the small gathering of Jews but rather the small gathering of Jews, who were removed to a safe room, as the students described in a StandWithUs report.

Nothing better sums up the state of anti-Semitism on campus. Not only is it allowed to run rampant, unchecked, and unstopped; it is actually supported, either by a failure to act, sending the clear message that it is permissible, or—as in the incident above—by removing the peaceful Jews rather than those harassing them.

The incident reminds me very much of the reaction to pogroms in tsarist Russia, where police would be sent in to quell the disorder, and immediately arrest the Jews, since it seemed impossible to them that anyone else could be the guilty party. And the current British government, Pollard goes on to explain, is no more likely than the Romanovs to take meaningful action.
Jerusalem, wake up! Harvard is becoming increasingly antisemitic
According to the report, this hostile takeover of the marketplace of ideas at Harvard is deeply damaging to the intellectual quality of the institution.

Lecturers, courses, and entire programs are engaged in spreading lies under the guise of science. They do not recognize the historical connection between Jews and the Land of Israel. They assert that Israel is not a state but a “settler colony” of Europeans who stole land from the indigenous population. They even refuse to acknowledge the existence of antisemitism in human history and do not recognize the fact that Jews were a persecuted minority for much of it.

At Harvard, facts are twisted, distorted, or denied entirely in the service of an anti-Israel and anti-Jewish agenda.

The result: 73% of Harvard’s Jewish students feel uncomfortable expressing their political opinions; 60% feel discriminated against or have been met with hostility due to their views; 44% feel mentally unsafe, and 26% even feel physically unsafe.

NATURALLY, THE report focuses on the negative aspects.

Alongside them, of course, there is also another Harvard. Evidence of this is that the university president, who replaced his woefully inadequate predecessor after her abject failure in a televised congressional hearing, is Jewish. And, of course, the very publication of the report reveals moral clarity and a courage of mind. It exudes a spirit of unflinching introspection and a genuine embrace of self-correction.

Antisemitism is indeed rearing its head, but the fight against it could garner widespread support.

The fight against antisemitism is being led by Jews worldwide, along with many non-Jewish allies. Beyond that, it is worth thinking about the role the State of Israel should take in it. It does not have to lead the fight but should take part in contexts where it has a relative advantage. It is committed to this in the Basic Law of Israel – the Nation-State of the Jewish People, and it must honor this commitment.

Red lights are flashing in Boston. Jerusalem, awaken.
Pence Warns of ‘Slippery Slope’ in Revoking Harvard’s Nonprofit Status—But Is All for Yanking Federal Funds
Former vice president Mike Pence offered a qualified defense on Thursday of the Trump administration’s assault on Harvard University, endorsing the decision to freeze federal aid but warning that revoking the school’s tax-exempt status could be a "slippery slope."

In an interview with Washington Free Beacon editor in chief Eliana Johnson, Pence said it was legitimate for the government to cut funds to universities that do not take steps to confront anti-Semitism.

"I strongly support the withholding of federal funds until there are steps taken," Pence said in the interview, which was hosted by Yale University’s William F. Buckley Program. "I give President Trump and the new administration all the credit in the world for saying there is no place for anti-Semitism."

Pence added, however, that he had "concerns" about Trump’s vow to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, calling it a "slippery slope" that could lead to the persecution of conservative institutions under a Democratic presidency.

The interview, which took place in New York City as part of the Buckley Program’s annual "Disinvitation Dinner," which honors figures whose invitations to speak at colleges and universities have been canceled due to left-wing protest, offered a window into Pence’s thinking on the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, which has pushed the limits of executive power far more aggressively than the first.
Trump Admin Turns Spotlight on Penn Over Years of 'Inaccurate' Foreign Funding Disclosures
The University of Pennsylvania is under federal investigation for filing "inaccurate" disclosures of its foreign funding for years, the Department of Education announced in a Thursday letter.

The department's Office of the General Counsel accused the Ivy League school of submitting "incomplete, inaccurate, and untimely disclosures" to the department in violation of "its foreign source funding statutory disclosure obligations." As a recipient of federal funding, the University of Pennsylvania is required by the Higher Education Act of 1965 to disclose "qualifying foreign source gifts and contracts" worth $250,000 or more.

The investigation comes two weeks after President Donald Trump signed an executive order ramping up his administration's scrutiny of foreign influence in U.S. universities. The order mandates that universities provide detailed information about the sources and purposes of such foreign funding. Failure to do so could result in the loss of federal funding.

Foreign funding has poured into elite American universities in recent decades, including $3.2 billion to Harvard University, $2.8 billion to Cornell University, and $2.5 billion to the University of Pennsylvania, according to a report from the group Americans for Public Trust. Much of the funding has come from China and Arab states.
Report details ‘terrible,’ normalized antisemitism at UK universities
Jewish university students across the United Kingdom are facing unprecedented levels of antisemitism, with many reporting being attacked, threatened and intimidated on campus, according to a new report by StandWithUs UK presented to the UK Parliament’s House of Lords on Wednesday night.

The report, which included findings and testimonials from Jewish students at more than a dozen universities across the UK, found that students feel less safe on campus since Hamas launched its war against Israel on October 7, 2023.

“This report confirms the terrible state that we have come to, where high levels of antisemitic abuse seem now to be normal on campus,” said Lord Howard Leigh during the debate following the report’s presentation, according to a transcript shared with The Times of Israel. “Antisemitism on campus is not new… but it has now grown to a very worrying level where Jewish students are actually frightened to go to a British university.”

Antisemitism has spiked around the world since the October 7 attacks, and UK Jews have suffered a sizable portion of it. A February report by the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit that monitors antisemitism and provides security for UK Jews, reported 3,528 antisemitic incidents in 2024, a figure that is second only to the 4,296 incidents recorded the year before. A separate study by UK-based Campaign Against Antisemitism found that only one-third of British Jews believe they have a long-term future in the United Kingdom, and half have considered leaving Britain in the past two years due to antisemitism.

The report by the UK arm of StandWithUs, an international Israel-education organization, included findings from an April 2024 survey of more than 1,000 non-Jewish students across 20 universities. It found that 64% of students were unwilling to call the October 7 attack “terrorism,” and 29% said they believed it was an “understandable act of resistance.” Meanwhile, 38% of students agreed that students who publicly support Israel should “expect” abuse on campus, while just 31% clearly rejected that notion.

“[This report] is littered with examples of loud and virulent support for Hamas and Hezbollah,” noted Lord John Cryer during the public debate. “These are both proscribed as terrorist organizations, and expressing support for proscribed organizations should be met with the full force of the law.”

The report documented numerous incidents of harassment, intimidation, and physical threats.
Leeds student group reported to police after calling for ‘armed resistance’
A hardline student group in Leeds has openly backed “armed resistance” and urged supporters to lay siege to offices linked to what it calls the “Zionist genocidal project”.

In a shocking Instagram post still live at time of writing, leedsstudents4palestine called for a “global escalation” and praised the “heroic Resistance” fighting to “liberate Palestine from the river to the sea”.

The group urged followers to join a Saturday protest and let their “collective rage erupt”, rallying around what it described as a struggle for decolonisation, the right of return and use of force.

The post urges followers to join a “global siege against the offices of collaborators sustaining the Zionist genocidal project” and calls on them to “let our collective rage erupt”. It continues: “This is a call to strengthen unity around decolonisation, armed resistance, the right of return and self-determination.”

Arieh Miller, Chief Executive of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS), said: “This week, the group publicly called for escalation, the spread of ‘armed resistance,’ and a ‘global siege,’ using language that glorifies violence and echoes narratives associated with proscribed terrorist organisations.”

He added: “This forms part of a broader and growing pattern of intimidation, glorification of terrorism, and antisemitic imagery that Jewish students are being forced to navigate.”

Miller warned: “Inaction has consequences, and Jewish students are already paying the price. When does complacency become complicity, enabling the spread of hate and the erosion of student safety?”

The controversy follows weeks of tension on Leeds’ campus. Just last month, the president of the Leeds Palestine Solidarity Group publicly criticised the university for what he called a “weaponisation” of disciplinary procedures against pro-Palestinian activists, after being investigated for unauthorised protests and receiving a formal warning.
California Schools’ Ethnic-Studies Initiative Threatens Jews
When the new school year begins in the fall, California high-school students will be required to take at least one class in ethnic studies before graduating. The model curriculum for the subject, issued by the state Department of Education, involves a highly ideological form of instruction, meant to “address institutionalized systems of advantage.” And Jewish parents in California are especially worried, as Kayla Bartsch explains:
This earlier edition [of the Model Curriculum, from 2019], honored Palestinians’ “struggle” for liberation from Israel, praised the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, defined Israel as a “settler-colonialist state,” scorned the “Zionist genocide” against Palestinians, and excluded the word “anti-Semitism” from its glossary. Unsurprisingly, many groups responded critically to this first draft, so the state sent it back to the workshop.

Still, Jewish parents have every reason to fear that the improved version won’t be much better. Their concerns have not always been well received:
In one particularly egregious skirmish that took place in April, members of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) Board hurled incendiary words at the Jewish parents in the audience. [One] board member, Gabriel Medina, waved his finger at the Jewish parents and grandparents in the room [and] referred to them as “you people.”

The trustee Joy Flynn echoed Jewish stereotypes in a Marxist word salad that described racial power dynamics: “Something I have been a little bit taken aback by is the lack of acknowledgment of the economic power historically held by the Jewish community, that the community of black and brown people don’t have.”
California school-board trustees teach hate, division and hypocrisy
California’s Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) in Watsonville, near San Jose, has an antisemitism problem.

At a recent PVUSD meeting, Jewish community members voiced concerns about one of the proposed professional development vendors for the district’s “liberated ethnic studies,” specifically the Community Responsive Education. CRE was founded by Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, who helped write California’s 2019 “model ethnic-studies” curriculum, which was universally condemned for its antisemitism. California Gov. Gavin Newsom even saw fit to apologize on behalf of the state, saying the curriculum would “never see the light of day.”

And although CRE’s curriculum for PVUSD has not been made public despite multiple requests, there’s every reason to suspect it contains the same offensive content.

Jewish community members brought up CRE’s troubling history, asserted the Jewish right to define antisemitism and made the reasonable request that a different vendor be chosen.

They were met with a torrent of antisemitic tropes from the dais. Trustee Gabriel Medina started by conditioning minority status on activism.

“What I’m hearing about ‘folks, I’m a minority,’” he said, referring to comments by Jewish men and women, “the minority is sitting on this side, right now [supporting CRE]. … I don’t see you people at [anti-ICE] protests. … You only show up to meetings when it’s beneficial for you, so you can tell brown people who they are.”

You people?

A vulnerable minority is vulnerable regardless of what its members believe. By his logic, you could just as easily tell Medina that his lack of advocacy for Jews invalidates his own minority status, but that would make you as wrong as he is.

They say when you’re in a hole, stop digging, but Medina wasn’t done. On his Substack, he created a false dichotomy by implying that Latino and indigenous concerns compete with those of the Jewish community.

That’s hatred, not leadership. Perhaps that’s why a nationwide survey of 1,500 parents by THINC Foundation found that just 28% of parents trust school board members to deliver an unbiased education.


Columbia Students Arrested for Storming Library Include Several Repeat Offenders—Including Grad Student Who Demanded Humanitarian Aid From University
At least six of the Columbia students arrested for storming a Columbia University library on Wednesday are repeat offenders, including one student who demanded humanitarian aid from the university, a Washington Free Beacon review found. They had already been arrested and disciplined for their involvement in earlier campus building raids or in last spring's encampments.

Of the 81 total arrests, at least 44 are Columbia students, while at least 13 attend the university’s sister school, Barnard College. Also arrested was one Barnard employee, Eva-Quenby Johnson, as well as two students at another Columbia affiliate, Union Theological Seminary.

The masked mob clashed with security officials, injuring two, passed out pamphlets endorsing Hamas’s violence, vandalized and damaged the library, and renamed it after Basel al-Araj, a Palestinian terrorist killed in a 2017 shootout with the Israel Defense Forces.

Columbia security officials blocked the exits and told the radicals they needed to leave and show their identification on the way out or face arrest. The university made good on its threat after several hours and sent in New York Police Department officers, who zip-tied agitators and hauled them onto a bus.

Below are some of the most notable students arrested.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s daughter, Ramona Sarsgaard, was among the anti-Israel radicals arrested by NYPD on Wednesday.

Gyllenhaal, a Columbia alumna, has described her daughter as "a real environmental activist," boasting in 2019 that Sarsgaard, then 13, inspired her to join the cause.

"She, like many, many children, isn’t able to push out of her mind the dire situation that we’re in," Gyllenhaal told People. "They’re really concerned and upset, demanding that the grownups pay attention. My daughter did that to me and it took me a minute."
‘Insane’ Columbia students paying $90k have to leave MacBooks as protesters chase them out of library
Columbia University has suspended more than 65 students and barred at least 33 others from campus, after dozens of anti-Israel protesters took over the Butler Library reading room on Wednesday and were later arrested by the New York City Police Department, a university official told JNS.

Claire Shipman, acting president of Columbia University, stated on Wednesday that the NYPD had to be called in to make arrests after the protest disrupted library operations and left two university public safety officers injured.

“Columbia unequivocally rejects antisemitism and all other forms of harassment and discrimination,” Shipman stated. “We certainly reject a group of students—and we don’t yet know whether there were outsiders involved—closing down a library in the middle of the week before finals and forcing 900 students out of their study spaces, many leaving belongings behind.”

Shoshana Aufzien, 19, a Jewish freshman at Barnard College, told JNS that she was studying for final exams in the library reading room when a group of masked protesters wearing keffiyehs barged in and began to shout “Free Palestine.” (Barnard has a “historic relationship” with Columbia.)

“What happened is not protected speech,” she said. “If you’re walking into the library, disrupting studying, harassing students, vandalizing the premises, assaulting public safety officers—none of that is protected speech or protected conduct.”

Aufzien said that she and many other students had to vacate the reading room, leaving their belongings behind, as protesters took over the building.

“These are college students who are paying $90,000 a year to go to the institution and they’re leaving their MacBooks in a library, because they are being pushed out by protesters,” she said. “That’s insane.”


Columbia says it suspended some masked anti-Israel student rioters who trashed campus library: ‘Need to see serious consequences’
Columbia University students and Jewish advocates called on the Ivy League school Thursday to crack down on the scores of anti-Israel rioters who took part in a violent takeover of a campus library.

The elite Morningside Heights school has already handed down at least 65 interim suspensions to students who were part of Wednesday’s Butler Library chaos pending further investigation, a school official told The Post.

Another 33 individuals, including those from affiliated institutions, and an unspecified number of alumni were also barred from campus, the official said as Columbia faced pressure to take strong action against the agitators.

“What happens the day after? We need to see serious consequences,” Joseph Postasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis told The Post, calling for “some Old Testament” justice.

“This happened during preparation for final exams — they don’t qualify as serious students,” he said of the rioters. “There should be harsh consequences — people were assaulted. Columbia needs to come down hard or this activity will happen again and again.”

Postasnik’s sentiment was echoed by the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association, which said it was “dismayed at the violence, destruction of property and antisemitic acts by protesters” at the library, while still thanking the school for calling in the cops.

“We look forward to Columbia holding these students accountable for their actions so that the 99% of Jewish and non-Jewish students can do what they pay for — focus on learning.”

Officials vowed that any student or staff member who broke Columbia’s rules could expect to be held accountable.

“We will use the full scope of our disciplinary system, and have already suspended students involved,” it warned.


Chaos breaks out as anti-Israel activists ‘erected tents’ at Brooklyn College
Anti-Israel agitators brawled with cops at Brooklyn College Thursday after they set up a tent encampment and disrupted final exams — with one officer being forced to fire a Taser to subdue a violent protester.

The chaos erupted when the NYPD descended on the Bedford Avenue campus – at the request of the CUNY college — around 4:50 p.m., where they found the demonstrators “occupying and trespassing on school grounds.”

At least 14 people were taken into custody during the melee, the NYPD said.

Video from the wild scene shows an officer using a megaphone to warn the demonstrators to “disperse immediately” or “face arrest,” as defiant protesters bellow, “Free Palestine!”

Another clip then shows officers wrestling a man before unleashing a Taser on him.

“Let him go! You are hurting him!” someone could be heard yelling in the crowd.


Three BBC reports on Israel and the Houthis omit vital context
A particularly notable aspect of that coverage of a Houthi missile attack on Ben Gurion airport and Israel’s subsequent responses is the failure – not for the first time – to provide adequate context essential for reader understanding of the story.

Report 1: “The Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group based in Yemen, have regularly launched missile attacks at Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza, but it is rare for one to make it through Israel’s sophisticated air defences.”

Report 2: No context provided.

Report 3:“Israel has launched several previous rounds of strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, including targeting a power plant and ports in January. It previously attacked Sanaa airport in December.”

So what actually lies behind the statement that the Houthis “have regularly launched missile attacks at Israel”? According to the INSS, since the beginning of the war and as of May 5 2025, the Houthis had launched over 370 attacks against Israel (which is some 1,250 miles away from Yemen) by means of drones or missiles.

The BBC’s use of the phrase “regularly launched missile attacks” of course fails to provide readers with any sense of the scale of those attacks.

The statement in report 3 whereby Israel “previously attacked Sanaa airport in December” relates to strikes carried out on December 26th 2024 (which were covered by the BBC at the time) but fails to inform BBC audiences that prior to that, the Houthis had claimed responsibility for 21 UAV and ballistic missile attacks on Israel since the beginning of that month, just one of which was reported by the BBC.
Wriggly words from BBC Complaints
CAMERA UK submitted a complaint to the BBC on that issue. The response received from the BBC News website via BBC Complaints includes the following:
“I understand you are alleging that we incorrectly stated the ceasefire in Lebanon was between Israel and Hezbollah. You say that a correction is in order.

We used the words: putting further pressure on a fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese armed group.

You point out that the ceasefire was agreed between the governments of Israel and Lebanon, and not between Israel and Hezbollah.

We made exactly this point in our reporting in November 2024, when the agreement was made: US President Joe Biden told reporters on Tuesday night that it was “designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities”.

The 13-point agreement between the governments of Israel and Lebanon – and not Hezbollah – also says both countries are “prepared to take steps to promote conditions for a permanent and comprehensive solution” – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2d3gj9ewxo

However, while the ceasefire agreement was made between the governments of Israel and Lebanon, the ceasefire itself was between Israel and Hezbollah. That is to say, the ceasefire stopped the fighting between those two sides.

Therefore, I would say that our reporting was accurate, and no correction is needed.”

The agreement as documented by the UNSC states that “From 04:00 hours (IST/EET), November 27, 2024 forward, the Government of Lebanon will prevent Hezbollah and all other armed groups in the territory of Lebanon from carrying out any operations against Israel…”

The BBC’s response also includes the following:
“You question why we call Hezbollah “the Lebanese armed group” rather than “terrorists”.

Our style guide tells BBC journalists: The word “terrorist” is not banned, but its use can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should not use the term without attribution. We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened. We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as bomber, attacker, gunman, kidnapper, insurgent and militant – https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/all#t

It also says: Our responsibility is to remain objective and report in ways that enable our audiences to make their own assessments about who is doing what to whom.

Hezbollah are designated as terrorists by several countries, and we have reported that. In our profile of Hezbollah (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67307858) we say: The group is considered a terrorist organisation by Israel and many other nations, including the UK and US.

However, it is not our role as an objective and impartial news organisation to make a call on which groups deserve to be labelled terrorists and which do not.”
Despicable Guardian again hurls Nazi analogy
Israel-Nazi Analogy
While it’s the height of antisemitic cruelty to compare modern Jews to the evil Nazi monsters who, eight decades ago, annihilated one out of every three Jews on the globe, the antisemitic ‘Israel is the new Nazi Germany’ candard has been part of the anti-Zionist playbook for decades, and represents one of the ways in which Israel haters fuel antisemitism in Britain. After all, if Zionism is seen as moral equivalent to Nazism, then British Jews (and all diaspora Jews), the overwhelming majority of whom are Zionists, are rendered beyond the moral pale.

Indeed, the tsunami of antisemitism in the UK, the US and in other Western countries since Oct. 7 began, appallingly, almost immediately after the mass murder, rape, torture and mutilation of Jews by Hamas, and is a direct result of the anti-Jewish rhetoric and imagery used by anti-Israel activists in street demos, on social media and in media outlets like the Guardian.

As we showed a time, the Guardian’s campaign to obfuscate Hamas’s pogrom by projecting the Islamist group’s savagery on the Jewish victims, began almost immediately after the massacre, publishing 11 pieces accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing or genocide between Oct. 14-27. This was a time, let’s remember, when authorities were still finding dead bodies in southern Israel – or, more often, the charred remains of what were once in-tact, living human beings.

Hamas Nazis
As Andrew Fox of the Henry Jackson Society aptly observed, “the global media, the UN, and the NGO industry have engaged in a colossal act of wilful blindness” by covering “the war in Gaza with a grotesque, almost deliberate omission: Hamas, the terror group that started it, is treated as if it doesn’t exist”. The proscribed terror group that spent 20 years implementing a human shield policy by “building its army under Gaza’s hospitals, schools, and apartment blocks”, and launched their unprovoked war of aggression by carrying out the deadliest and most barbaric antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust, “vanishes from the narrative”.

Tellingly, the actions and decisions of Hamas, the group which could have prevented the suffering of Palestinian civilians by surrendering at any point during the war, is omitted from the Guardian columnist’s piece – consistent with a denial of Palestinian agency that is among the most egregious elements of anti-Israel media bias.

The only party that resembles the Nazis is Hamas, ideologically in terms of their fanaticism and annihilationist antisemitic worldview, and in practice by virtue of how, on Oct. 7, their bloodthirsty pogromists gleefully and sadistically “shot, blew up, hunted, tortured, raped, burned, and generally murdered in any horrible manner you could predict, and some that you might not”, men, women and children.

The Guardian has spent the last 19 months covering for this Jew-butchering, jihadist death cult, abusing Oct. 7th memory and publishing content fueling more antisemitism. The outlet is morally irredeemable.


Israeli Arab man allegedly swore allegiance to ISIS, tried to join group in Syria
An Israeli Arab man has been indicted for allegedly supporting the Islamic State terror group and attempting to join its ranks in Syria, prosecutors confirmed Friday.

Adam Sarsour, 29, a resident of Kafr Qasim, was charged at the Kfar Saba Magistrate’s Court after a joint Shin Bet and police investigation claimed he had pledged allegiance to ISIS and disseminated extremist content online.

Security officials said Sarsour had allegedly consumed jihadist propaganda for a decade, connected with ISIS affiliates, and made two unsuccessful attempts to cross the Turkish-Syrian border in order to join the terror organisation.

He is further accused of taking an online oath to the group’s slain leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and “considered himself a member” of ISIS, according to a police statement.

During the war, the suspect distributed “dozens of violent videos” linked to ISIS, it added, referring to the ongoing Gaza conflict since 7 October.

The indictment claims Sarsour had shared this content on WhatsApp and other platforms, targeting fellow Arab-Israelis in his hometown.

Items allegedly seized from his home included a ring bearing the Seal of Muhammad, used on ISIS flags, and a digital pledge or loyalty to al-Baghdadi displayed in Hebrew.


Report: Spike in Jew-hatred towards Jewish lawmakers due to new Meta policy
Antisemitic comments directed at the 30 Jewish members of Congress are up 500% since Facebook’s parent company, Meta, dropped its independent fact-checkers and rolled back its efforts to moderate posts on the social-media site, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League.

The report, which the ADL’s Center for Technology and Society released on Thursday, states that the Jewish lawmakers saw an average of 6.5 daily antisemitic comments until Feb. 4, after which the number rose almost five times to 29.9 daily, on average.

The spike began a month after Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, who is Jewish, announced in January that he was doing away with guardrails that restrict hate speech and false claims.

U.S. President Donald Trump and his allies have accused social-media sites, including Facebook, of censorship, alleging that the platforms have blocked or downgraded political posts with which their owners disagree under the guise of fact-checking.

“The results of this study support our expectation that Meta’s new policies would allow increased hate, antisemitism and toxicity on Facebook, and potentially its other platforms as well,” the ADL report states.

“Rolling back its content moderation practices means highly visible Jewish users, such as members of Congress, are now receiving many times more antisemitic hate,” it adds.

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the ADL, blamed Meta for the spike in Jew-hatred directed at Jewish lawmakers.
Sa’ar condemns Djerba machete attack
Israel’s Foreign Minister MK Gideon Sa’ar decried a machete attack on a Jewish jeweler on the Tunisian island of Djerba on Thursday, which left the victim in need of hospitalization.

Sa’ar called on the Tunisian authorities “to take all necessary measures to protect the Jewish community.”

Rene Trabelsi, a senior figure in the Tunisian Jewish community and the country’s former tourism minister, said a 50-year-old man was wounded in his hand and needed hospital treatment to reattach one of his fingers.

The El Ghriba Synagogue, a 2,600-year-old landmark and center of Tunisia’s small Jewish community, which now numbers approximately 1,500 people, the majority of whom live on Djerba, is set to host a three-day pilgrimage next week to celebrate Lag B’Omer. While details of the latest incident remain unclear, community leader Trabelsi urged restraint, telling reporters, “We fully trust Tunisian authorities because we’re Tunisian too.”

This comes two years after a terrorist attack during the festival left five people dead—two Jewish cousins and three police officers. Last year’s event was scaled back due to security concerns.


Blavatnik Prizes 2025: Israeli researchers honored for groundbreaking work in science
Three rising stars in Israeli science have been named the 2025 laureates of the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in Israel, one of the country’s most prestigious science prizes.

The awards, which include a $100,000 grant for each recipient, honor exceptional early-career researchers in life sciences, chemical sciences, and physical sciences and engineering.

The 2025 laureates include doctors in life sciences, chemical sciences, and physical sciences/engineering. Dr. Yonatan Stelzer, a life sciences honoree from the Weizmann Institute of Science, has been recognized for advancing the understanding of mammalian embryonic development and epigenetics, with implications for regenerative and therapeutic medicine.

Dr. Benjamin Palmer, a chemical sciences honoree from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, has been recognized for his pioneering research on how organisms form crystals and interact with light, laying the groundwork for sustainable optical materials.

Dr. Chaim Garfinkel, a physical sciences and engineering honoree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was awarded for developing new models that improve predictions of climate change on timescales from months to decades.

The awards, jointly presented by the Blavatnik Family Foundation, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the New York Academy of Sciences, will be formally conferred in June at a ceremony at the Peres Center for Peace & Innovation in Tel Aviv-Jaffa.
‘Dry Bones’ cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen sketched Israeli feats and foibles for 50 years
Yaakov Kirschen’s first cartoon was published in the Jerusalem Post on January 1, 1973. The comic, called “Dry Bones,” starred a Ziggy-like character named Shuldig, a bald and bristly everyman, and his dog Doobie.

I first read Dry Bones in Hebrew school, when it served as an American Jewish teen’s introduction to the mild kvetching and occasionally pointed political musings of an average “Anglo” Israeli — that is, an immigrant from an English-speaking country, like Kirschen.

Up until nearly the day he died last month at 87, Kirschen kept at it, portraying such Israelis — for good and for ill — to a mostly English-speaking audience.

A typical “Dry Bones” cartoon was sparsely drawn, with Shuldig speaking directly to the reader or chatting with Doobie. “With ten terrible plagues we were brought out of Egypt,” Shuldig says in one cartoon, to which Doobie replies, “…and the UN was not there to condemn us?”

He would occasionally include political figures, like a more recent panel featuring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walking a tightrope between “Public Outcry” and “Iran.”

As is the case with many newspaper comics, even popular ones, most individual “Dry Bones” panels were instantly forgettable. But as they kept on coming over the next 50 years, they formed an indelible visual vocabulary of Israel and Israelis. Or at least they did for me, a big fan of the comics page. On my first visit to Israel, shortly after college, I expected to run into people like the sardonic Shuldig; or the sun-tanned and playful sabras like Srulik, the kibbutznik character created by the Israeli cartoonist known as Dosh; or the hilarious stereotypes — bearded Hasids, hairy-chested taxi drivers, Tel Aviv hipsters — drawn by Michel Kichka. And in fact I did.

Kirschen was born in Brooklyn in 1938, studied art at Queens College, and, after a few years of cartooning for Playboy and other outlets, moved to Israel in 1971. At its peak, “Dry Bones” appeared in some 35 newspapers in Israel and abroad, including a number of American Jewish weeklies. In recent years, appearing in the right-leaning news site Jewish News Syndicate, they took on a sharper and more hawkish edge, lionizing Donald Trump and ridiculing Israel’s critics. But for many years, Kirschen was an equal-opportunity satirist, and the sort of Jew who takes antisemitism as a fact of life and Jewish defiance as a point of pride.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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