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Monday, May 12, 2025

05/12 Links Pt2: Journalism or Jihad?; Obama’s War Over Jerusalem; Don’t let anti-Israel bigots pose as free-speech champions; The Discovery of the City of David—and the Palestinian Effort to Erase It

From Ian:

Journalism or Jihad?
There is strong evidence that at least six Gaza-based Al Jazeera journalists reportedly joined Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in carrying out the October 7 atrocities in southern Israel, allegations the network denies. Some of the evidence includes the reporter-operatives’ own footage participating in the attack.

Al Jazeera and its affiliates’ royal Qatari funders have invested heavily in positioning the Al Jazeera web of platforms as a tech-savvy ecosystem, seeking to appeal to Western audiences. Tech-savvy as it may be, Al Jazeera is the Qatari government’s soft-power tool to amplify and promote the ideologies of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood’s goal is to create an Islamic state where Islamic law, or Sharia, governs society.

Qatar’s strict media laws prohibit “any criticism” of the Emir of Qatar, and media outlets in the wealthy emirate require government approval before reporting on Qatar’s armed forces, its banks, and certain judicial proceedings.

Tempting as it may be to accept the emirate’s financial largesse, global media entities that take funds from Qatari government patrons, including, but not limited to, through the Al Jazeera Media Institute and other Al Jazeera Media Network platforms, should be held accountable for their ethically and journalistically problematic deals.

It is noteworthy that after additional public revelations about Al Jazeera’s relationship with Hamas following the October 7 massacre, Northwestern University cut ties to Al Jazeera, which had joint programs in the Illinois university’s Doha campus. Northwestern has received over $500 million in contracts from Qatar since 2007, according to U.S. Department of Education data.

It is noteworthy that after additional public revelations about Al Jazeera’s relationship with Hamas following the October 7 massacre, Northwestern University cut ties to Al Jazeera, which had joint programs in the Illinois university’s Doha campus. Northwestern has received over $500 million in contracts from Qatar since 2007, according to U.S. Department of Education data.

In recent weeks, thousands of Gazans protested against not only Hamas’ brutal rule of Gaza but also against Al Jazeera itself as Hamas’ mouthpiece, chanting “barra, barra, barra [out, out, out] Al Jazeera”. The channel’s own coverage did not reflect the tagline on the bottom of the Institute’s page that claims, “You can count on Al Jazeera for truth and transparency.” Instead, it reportedly hoisted anti-Israel signs among the crowd, filmed it, and disingenuously portrayed the protesters’ actual anger at the network as anger at Israel.

In another booklet called “Do Muslims Scare You: A Guide for Journalists”, for which he served as editor, Khamaiseh advises reporters to “connect Islamophobia with anti-Semitism and other forms of racism”. The guide concludes with a “checklist” of “red flags” that reporters should use to check against their own biases. One of the questions they need to ask, his guide says, is, “Am I repeating a libel or a slander against [people] if my source is making vicious claims or remarks?”

Khamaiseh would do well to check his own words for these red flags. And those journalists and media outlets that collaborate with Al Jazeera Media Institute should check the myriad red flags associated with their collaboration.
Digging Up Trouble: Obama’s War Over Jerusalem
The following excerpt is taken from “When the Stones Speak: The Remarkable Discovery of the City of David and What Israel’s Enemies Don’t Want You To Know” (Center Street/Hachette Book Group, May 13, 2025)

Obama and UNESCO
Had the coalition of radical advocacy groups not challenged us in the Supreme Court when it did, and had the court not suspended the excavation of the Pilgrimage Road, which resulted in our focusing on the drainage channel, it is likely that the City of David would not be connected to the Western Wall, even today.

Even though the tunnel could never accommodate large groups like the Pilgrimage Road once had, it was proof that the City of David and the Temple Mount were connected in ancient times. It became an irreversible fact-on-the-ground that they were connected once again — if only through a drainage channel.

This fact would become vital in the years to come, as Israel came under enormous international pressure to stop the excavations in the City of David, first by President Obama’s administration and then by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

A carefully coordinated campaign of news features and “reports” pushed a negative narrative about the excavations to diplomats and politicians in both Europe and the United States.

The following guidelines were adhered to in almost every report and article with few exceptions:
The area would be referred to as either “Silwan” or “Wadi Hilweh” and almost never as “The City of David.”
There would be no mention of the archaeology of ancient Jerusalem or the discoveries made.
There would be no mention of the historic tie between the Jewish people and the area.
In the rare event that the phrase “City of David” was mentioned, it would be only to refer to it as an archaeological ploy used to justify expropriating land from Palestinians in an attempt to “Judaize” the areas with government assistance.
No mention would be made of the millions of dollars in legal real estate transactions conducted between Jews and Arabs.
No mention would be made that the merits of these transactions had been upheld in court to be legally binding dozens of times.
No mention would be made of the death threats against Arabs by either the Palestinian Authority or Hamas for selling their land to non-Muslims.
No mention would be made of the improved roads, infrastructure, and safety in the area stemming from the City of David’s growth.

With no context of the historical importance of the area to Jews, certain foreign government officials were duped, willingly or unwillingly, into believing the narrative that this was nothing more than a militant takeover of an area outside the Old City walls, by lawless Jews at the expense of innocent Palestinians.
Jonathan Tobin: John Fetterman’s health and how to read the mainstream media
Pro-Israel stands as a form of mental illness?
That unlikely prospect aside, it is his supposed “apostasy” about Israel that is driving the anger against him from the progressive wing of his party. This is the only explanation for liberal journalists’ volte-face on the question of his health and fitness for office.

The story that started the tsunami of negative coverage of Fetterman was a lengthy profile in New York Magazine, titled: “All by Himself: John Fetterman insists he is in good health. But staffers past and present say they no longer recognize the man they once knew.”

The main on-the-record source for the piece was his former chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, a veteran left-wing Democratic operative. Like most Democratic congressional staffers on Capitol Hill, Jentleson is an opponent of Israel, who thought the Biden-Harris ambivalent stand on the post-Oct. 7 war was insufficiently hostile to the Jewish state. He ultimately resigned and, along with others who didn’t speak on the record, is at pains to hint that Fetterman’s backing for Israel and refusal to play along with Hamas talking points signify signs of his mental instability.

That story spawned other articles in outlets like The New York Times, The Atlantic, Politico, NBC News, CBS News in which Democrats—both anonymous and on-the-record—shaded Fetterman and depicted him as a deeply disturbed and unstable person in need of medical care. And, they say, he has no business being in the Senate.

Is there a possibility that they are at least partially correct about Fetterman’s health? Maybe.

Press hypocrisy
As someone who cast doubt on his fitness for office when liberals were pretending that there was nothing to see, I’m prepared to accept that some of the current reporting about his health might be accurate. But I also know that the sudden interest in his well-being on the part of the liberal press has nothing to do with any alleged change for the worse in his condition.

While he may still be impaired, as journalists like Salena Zito have reported, since his hospitalization in early 2023, he has managed to do his job for the past two years as reasonably well as most of his colleagues. Though, admittedly, that is a pretty low standard by which to judge anyone.

As such, it’s blatantly obvious that the motivation for the media offensive against Fetterman is about politics, not health. The reason that the same publications, networks and journalists that spent four years declaring that there was nothing wrong with Biden are now sounding the alarm about the senator is because he isn’t useful to them anymore. If he were behaving like other left-wing Democrats and criticizing Israel, the odds that New York magazine, the Times or any of the other outlets seeking to depict him as unworthy of a Senate seat would today be ignoring any concerns about his condition.

While this single demonstration of the media’s corruption and utter lack of credibility is disturbing in and of itself, it’s just another instance of why so much of what the mainstream corporate media publishes should be read with a truckload of salt. Media bias is nothing new, but it’s gotten to the point where stories that are clearly part of a partisan information operation are the norm rather than unusual. As Ruthie Blum wrote in JNS about a recent media attempt to sow dissension between the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government in Israel, this sort of thing is now ubiquitous. At least in America, we have come to the point where it’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that much of what is printed in the mainstream press must be discounted as nothing more than political disinformation.

In the meantime, regardless of concerns about his health, Fetterman still deserves the applause and gratitude of voters for his courage in standing up against the political fashion of his party when it comes to the war against Israel. Whatever else you might think of him, he is an authentic, if eccentric character (his penchant for wearing hoodies and shorts to work is something that has angered his Senate colleagues) who connects with ordinary working-class voters in a way that most Democrats cannot. While he may well face a tough left-wing primary challenge when he runs for re-election, those who underestimate his political appeal in a state and a country sick of partisan ideological polarization do so at their own peril.

Liberals tolerated an infirm and incapable president simply because they thought it helped keep Trump out of the White House. Friends of the Jewish state should therefore be forgiven for being willing to put up with an irascible and moody senator from Pennsylvania who needs technological assistance to do his job but has shown integrity and character when it comes to the post-Oct. 7 surge of antisemitism that other members of his party have either tolerated or encouraged.


When identity politics shield extremism
How did we get here? Identity politics, in its best form, seeks to give voice to the marginalized. But it has also created a perverse incentive: Claim a grievance, and you gain moral authority; position yourself as oppressed, and you become untouchable. This allows radical actors to evade scrutiny. When Islamist groups or sympathizers present themselves as simply misunderstood minorities, criticism is branded as Islamophobia, even when the critiques are aimed at violent, theocratic ideologies, not people of faith.

I say this with full acknowledgment of the real discrimination faced by Muslim communities. But defending individual rights and calling out radical ideology are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are necessary companions in any honest fight for justice.

In my work, I have seen how this distortion plays out across media and cultural institutions. Entertainment platforms bend over backward to appear inclusive, so much so that they sometimes feature voices that openly call for violence against Jews or the erasure of the State of Israel, all under the guise of “Palestinian solidarity” or misguided claims for “decolonization.” What is left out of those soundbites is the glorification of terror, the denial of Jewish indigeneity, and the suppression of any Palestinian or Arab voice that calls for coexistence.

Progressive circles that once stood for human dignity now walk a precarious line, too often allying themselves with groups that would deny me and people like me the right to exist. I have been in rooms where LGBTQ rights are championed, while simultaneously hearing praise for political movements that would imprison or execute someone like me (and most people in those rooms) in their homelands. The hypocrisy is astounding; the silence from supposed allies is deafening.

This is not just about me. It is about all of us. When ideologies that oppose freedom of expression, gender equality and religious pluralism are allowed to masquerade as part of the progressive cause, we all lose. We erode the very values we claim to defend.

I am not a victim. I am a fighter. A survivor. I do not shy away from the complexity of identity. But I refuse to let my identities—or anyone else’s—be used to justify hatred or extremism. I believe in coalitions rooted in shared values, not shared grievances. I believe in solidarity that is honest, not performative. And I believe in speaking out, even when it is uncomfortable.

Now is not the time for silence. It is time to expose the dangerous merger of radical theocracy and performative progressivism. It’s time to reclaim the language of justice from those who would twist it to pardon oppression. And it is time for those of us who live at the intersection of multiple identities to lead the way—not as symbols, but as voices of clarity, courage and conscience.
Don’t let anti-Israel bigots pose as free-speech champions
Statements in support of these terrorist organisations have nothing to do with upholding the rights of Palestinians, but they are nevertheless defensible on free-speech grounds. For one thing, it is far better to have such sentiments out in the open, where they can be challenged by counter-arguments, rather than simmering beneath the surface. Indeed, one of the biggest challenges in fighting anti-Semitism today is that it is often expressed in coded ways.

However, it should also be recognised that anti-Israel activism often strays beyond the realm of speech. If people move from speech to violence, then the situation is entirely transformed. One key reason to support free speech is as an alternative to resolving conflicts through physical force. The flip side of this premise is that those who assault others should be met with the full weight of the law, which has often not been the case. Take just one example from an anti-Israel protest at Yale last month, as reported in the Algemeiner: ‘Protesters blocked walkways, physically intimidated Jewish students, and hurled bottles and sprayed liquids at them – all while campus police stood by and did nothing.’

Such activity was fairly common in the anti-Israel encampments that sprung up last year in elite American universities. In particular, campuses were often declared ‘Zionist-free zones’. In practice, this meant Jewish students were physically barred from entering – unless they explicitly pledged loyalty to the anti-Israel cause. All too often, the authorities did nothing to guarantee the free movement of their own Jewish students on campuses.

It should also be remembered that a core aim of the BDS movement is to deprive those affiliated with Israel of their free expression. A large part of that is a cultural boycott, which has included initiatives to deplatform Israel-funded academics, authors, actors, dancers and visual artists. Such moves represent the antithesis of free speech. It is a drive to erase Israeli voices and presence from the cultural sphere.

Anti-Israel activists may now claim to care about free speech as theirs has started to come under threat. But they themselves are all too often intolerant and censorious. They deserve the right to free speech, just like everyone else, but they do not deserve to be celebrated as free-speech champions of any kind.
I am reading Douglas Murray. Should I expect the police to come knocking?
I have a confession to make, and I do hope Police Scotland are taking notes. I am currently reading Douglas Murray’s new book: On Democracies and Death Cults. There, I’ve said it. My God, it feels good to get that out there after so many days of trying to hide it! It feels like a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

So all I have to do now is await the knock at the door. Will they send two police officers or more than that? What will the neighbours think as I’m cuffed and put in the back of the police car, its blue lights illuminating the neighbourhood, almost as a warning to others not to go down the same dark path down which I’ve trod?

It’s the same path taken by retired special constable in the Kent constabulary, Julian Foulkes, who was arrested in 2023 for a tweet (what else?). Such an arrest, in a country where young people are detained for speculating about the sexuality of police horses, would not in itself be headline news. Who hasn’t been arrested and detained for a tweet?

What made Mr Foulkes’s experience even more bizarre was the search of his home by six police officers (obviously the physical threat this 71-year-old posed to others was thought to be considerable) during which one officer, rifling through his book case, was heard to mutter in astonishment that Mr Foulkes’s reading material was “a bit Brexity”.

The other surprising thing about this incident is that Mr Foulkes has now received a personal apology from Kent’s chief constable. A British police force accepting it made a mistake? We live in strange times indeed.

So it occurs to me that, once in the dock and formally charged with possessing, reading – and I might as well admit this now and get it over with – enjoying Murray’s latest work, I might have to ask for other offences to be taken into account.
‘Israel is at war with fascism’ | Brendan O’Neill on Hamas, anti-Semitism and woke barbarism
spiked’s chief political writer sat down with the Jewish Chronicle to discuss the left’s betrayal of Jews, the evils of Hamas and Israel’s war for civilisation.


Brazilian Jewish group slams President Lula for 'antisemitic blood libel'
Brazil’s central Jewish organization has criticized President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for “antisemitic” comments about Israel during a speech in Moscow on Saturday.

Lula told reporters that Israel is “attacking women and children under the pretext of killing terrorists.” He said there have been cases where hospitals containing just women and children were bombed, with no terrorists present.

“It’s a genocide,” he said.

In a statement on Sunday, the president of the Brazilian Israelite Confederation, Claudio Lottenberg, said, “Accusing Jews of killing children is one of the oldest and most deplorable forms of antisemitism.”

“It is regrettable and disturbing that the president of our country continues to promote this antisemitic libel throughout the world.

“Brazil is a country where the Jewish community lives in peace and security, but President Lula, with his antisemitic statements, seems to want to create problems for our community by promoting antisemitism among his supporters, in an irresponsible and destructive attitude.”

Lottenberg added, “President Lula’s statements about the conflict were missing the truth: Hamas started this terrible war and is hiding behind the civilian population and Israeli hostages to promote its genocidal vision of exterminating Israel and the Jews.”

In his speech, Lula also stated that the UN Security Council needs to be strengthened: “In 1948, [it] had the strength to create the State of Israel, but now doesn’t even have the strength to maintain peace on the ground where Palestinians live.”
Labour split over Israel trade deal
The Labour Government is facing a split over its planned trade deal with Israel after the proposal was branded “shameful” by some party supporters.

Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, has angered MPs and party donors by pursuing talks with Israel after Britain signed trade agreements with India and the US last week.

Last week, Mr Reynolds said the Government had “ambitions to secure further agreements” with Israel, as well as Switzerland and South Korea.

The push to deepen the UK’s £5.8bn trade links with the Middle Eastern country risks a backbench rebellion and further alienating Labour’s biggest donors amid international alarm over the loss of civilian life in Gaza.

Dale Vince, who donated £5m to Labour before the general election, branded the plan “shameful”. He urged Mr Reynolds to “pull the trade deal and impose sanctions”.

“We shouldn’t have a trade deal. We should have trade sanctions. I find the contrast between how we treat Russia and how we treat Israel to be quite incredible,” he told The Telegraph.

“It gives legitimacy to a regime that is literally terrorising millions of people in Palestine every day.”

Several Labour backbenchers also criticised Mr Reynolds for forging ahead with negotiations, describing the talks as “indefensible”.


The BBC’s ‘Louis Theroux: The Settlers’ Is Above All Tediously Predictable
Sadly for BBC audiences, there is plenty of other context missing from Theroux’s 61-minute film too. The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine doesn’t even get a mention, the 1948 Jordanian invasion and occupation of Judea and Samaria is completely ignored and no context regarding the Six Day War is provided. Theroux’s visit to Evyatar follows in the uninformative footsteps of previous context-free BBC reporting and his commentary during repeat trips to the border with the Gaza Strip fails to tell BBC audiences that Israel evacuated every last civilian and soldier from that territory almost twenty years before his documentary was made.

Similarly, during his visit to Hebron Theroux makes no effort to explain the twenty-eight-year-old agreements between Israel and the PLO which are the context to the repeatedly filmed checkpoints and his puerile questions to the soldiers manning them. And of course it came as no surprise to find Theroux’s film features the inadequately presented Palestinian ‘activist’ Issa Amro who has appeared in past BBC content.

While documentaries were once regarded as non-fictional films intended to instruct and educate viewers while providing historical record, the BBC’s “Documentary commissioning brief” suggests rather different priorities.

“Documentary storytelling sits at the very heart of the BBC’s offer to audiences and continues to be hugely popular with both iPlayer and linear viewers. Our commissions are typically narrative or character driven, where audiences engage with stories by feeling and experiencing them, reaching their own conclusions rather than being told what to think.”

With the omission of so much vital background information, the almost cartoon-like portrayal of Israeli participants and the repeated camera pauses on Theroux’s primary school drama class style facial expressions, his film is indeed narrative driven – as can again be seen in an article he had published at the Guardian on May 10th.

The film promotes a deliberately blinkered viewpoint – already amply available in years of BBC content – which fails to challenge audience perceptions, makes no attempt to provide new information or essential context and thus engineers the type of “conclusions” that viewers will reach. And that is precisely what makes Louis Theroux’s BBC commissioned film such a drearily predictable and excruciatingly boring waste of licence fee funding.
Oslo’s sovereign fund drops Israeli firm for operating in ‘West Bank’
Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund with more than $1.7 trillion in assets, announced on Sunday it has sold all its shares in Israel’s Paz Retail and Energy Ltd.

The fund, which invests surplus capital from Norway’s petroleum sector, quit the stock because Paz operates infrastructure for the supply of fuel to Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

“By operating infrastructure for the supply of fuel to the Israeli settlements on the West Bank, Paz is contributing to their perpetuation. The settlements have been established in violation of international law, and their perpetuation constitutes an ongoing violation thereof,” according to a May 11 statement on Norway’s Council on Ethics website.

The Council on Ethics, set up by Norway’s Ministry of Finance, gives recommendations to the Norges Bank Executive Board, which manages Government Pension Fund Global. The board bases its decisions on which companies to exclude from investment based on those recommendations.

This is the second Israeli company barred from the fund. In December 2024, the board excluded Israeli telecommunications group Bezeq, based on a recommendation by the Council of Ethics for the same reason—that it “supplies telecommunications services to businesses and private individuals in Israel and the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.”

Government Pension Fund Global prides itself on operating according to environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing principles.
USF divests from Israel-related companies, denies connection to anti-Israel protests
As classroom disruptions and building takeovers in the name of protesting Israel’s war in Gaza have roiled college campuses since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, universities have also seen a renewed focus on a quieter form of anti-Israel activity — students urging the university to divest from companies that operate in the Jewish state.

Even schools that have traditionally been seen as politically unengaged in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have faced student referendums and calls to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel in recent months. While these initiatives often generate headlines and a divisive campus climate for pro-Israel students, it’s extremely rare for a university to adopt the policies of the BDS movement — only two schools, Evergreen State and Union Theological Seminary, have done so.

But this month, the University of San Francisco became the latest school to do so.

The school’s endowment fund will sell off its direct investments in Palantir, L3Harris, GE Aerospace and RTX Corporation by June 1, the university confirmed. The four companies, which all are U.S.-based and provide weapons technologies and military intelligence tools to Israel, had been specifically targeted by anti-Israel student protesters.

The decision came following negotiations between the university and student protesters last spring in an effort to disband a nearly monthlong encampment of more than 100 tents, where the administration agreed to “establish a new socially responsible advisory investment task force” focused on “alignment of the investments with the university’s mission and values.”

But the university insists the move is unrelated to student protests. USF’s investments in the four companies account for less than 0.5% of its total portfolio, a university spokesperson told Jewish Insider, emphasizing that the school is not changing its policies to support divestment, but rather is moving stocks. “The only change is the shift of two separately managed accounts to mutual funds/index funds with similar investment strategies,” the spokesperson said.

Local Jewish leaders — both on and off campus — responded with varying levels of concern over the impact that divestment will have on Jewish students.
What Could Go Wrong? Columbia Announces Obama DHS Secretary Will Co-Chair Board of Trustees as Trump Scrutinizes Anti-Semitism.
Former Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson, who has blasted President Donald Trump and been a guest speaker for terrorist-tied Islamic organizations, is now co-chairing Columbia University's Board of Trustees, the university announced last week, as Trump scrutinizes the Ivy League school over anti-Semitic protests on campus.

"As co-chair of the Board of Trustees, I will work to preserve and promote the greatness and values of our University and will be committed to the welfare and safety of all our students," said Johnson, a Columbia Law graduate who led the Department of Homeland Security during former president Barack Obama's second term.

Johnson's new role comes as Columbia grapples with public backlash and a significant loss of federal funding over its repeated failure to protect Jewish students and rein in anti-Semitic protests on campus. The Trump administration, which has pledged to cut funding from universities that fail to curb anti-Semitism, has stripped more than $430 million in federal funds from the Ivy League school.

Columbia may face criticism for tapping Johnson. In October 2016, while still serving as DHS secretary, he delivered a speech at the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America, an organization that federal prosecutors in a 2007 terrorism finance investigation labeled an "unindicted co-conspirator" of Hamas. Last year's speakers included one imam convicted in Israel of serving in terrorist groups and another who has praised Adolf Hitler, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

The 2016 speech was not the first time Johnson spoke to an Islamic organization with ties to terrorists. One year earlier, he held a press conference at a mosque that federal agents had reportedly raided years earlier as part of an investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood.


Has The BBC Kept Its October 2023 Promises?
Notably, Ms Turness did not explain her use of the phrase “where possible” or specify under what circumstances the BBC would not find it possible to clarify that Hamas is defined as a proscribed terrorist organisation by the UK government.

As reported by the Telegraph, over eighteen months after those commitments were made by senior BBC executives, CAMERA UK can reveal that the corporation has not stood by them.

Between January 1st and April 30th 2025, the BBC News website published one hundred and forty-five articles referencing Hamas. Analysis of those 145 reports shows that they can be divided into four distinct categories based on how they describe that terrorist organisation:

Category 1: articles that explicitly state Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.
Category 2: articles that mention that Hamas is proscribed in other countries but omit the UK’s designation.
Category 3: articles that refer to Hamas as an “armed group” or “militant group.”
Category 4: articles that do not mention Hamas’s proscribed status.

Of the 145 reports analysed:
– Only twelve articles (8.2%) fall into category 1 by explicitly stating that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.
– Ten articles (6.8%) mention that Hamas is proscribed by other countries but fail to acknowledge the UK’s designation.
– Thirty articles (20.6%) fall into category 3 by referring to Hamas as either an “armed group” or “militant group”.
– Ninety-three articles (64.1%) fail to make any reference whatsoever to Hamas’ proscribed status.


BBC journalist who praised Holocaust revisionist announced winner of British Council award
A BBC Arabic correspondent who previously praised the “exquisite journalism” of a Holocaust revisionist has been named as one of the winners at the British Council’s Study UK Alumni Awards.

Layla Bashar Al-Kloub, a senior journalist at the public broadcaster, has also previously condemned the “Zionist entity”, labelled Israel as “terrorists”, and called the suspected killer of an Israeli rabbi a “martyr”.

The Alumni Awards recognise the achievements of “international leaders” who have leveraged their UK education to make “significant contributions” to their home countries.

Al-Kloub was named the 2025 Jordan Winner of the Culture and Creativity Award for her “remarkable contributions” to “storytelling and cultural engagement”.

But, in a series of exposés published by the JC over recent years, it was revealed that Al-Kloub has a long history of expressing anti-Israel sentiment online.

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

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

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


The Financial Times’ Shameful Silence About Hamas
An op-ed by the Financial Times (FT) editorial board (“The west’s shameful silence on Gaza“, May 6) provides a hint as to the direction of the piece in strap line, which reads “The US and European allies should do more to restrain Benjamin Netanyahu”.

It clearly doesn’t occur to FT editors that the party which needs to be ‘restrained’, or, more accurately, pressured into surrendering unconditionally, is Hamas, the terror group whose fanatical decision to launch an unprovoked war of aggression on Oct. 7th, and engage in the barbaric mass murder and of Jews, is the sole reason for the suffering of Gaza’s civilians.

The piece – which, tellingly, was enthusiastically endorsed by Owen Jones – begins by noting the “tens of thousands of Palestinians” killed in 19 months of fighting and “accusations of war crimes against Israel”, while it’s not until the second to the last paragraph until they get around to mentioning Hamas’s massacre which killed 1,200 and started the “19 months of fighting”.

Editors warn of Israeli plans for a new offensive against Hamas, which they write “would be a disaster for 2.2mn Gazans who have already endured unfathomable suffering”, and then opine that “each new offensive makes it harder not to suspect that the ultimate goal of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is to ensure Gaza is uninhabitable and drive Palestinians from their land”.

Unexplored, of course, is the question of what Hamas’s “ultimate goal” was and is: initially in their bloody Oct. 7th pogrom, their cruel and illegal human shield strategy over the last 19 months, and their morally warped decision to continue fighting. By the group’s own account, their objective was to destroy Israel. Since that failed, it seems fairly obvious that their new, more limited objectives are to survive as a military force in Gaza regardless of the consequences to innocent civilians in the territory.

Editors then warn of the new threat of starvation in Gaza, ignoring that the outlet’s past reporting predicting famine in the territory turned out to be untrue. As even the Economist acknowledged, previous “predictions of famine [in Gaza] turned out to be badly wrong”.


Stipends end for 1,600 prisoners as PA moves forward with pay-to-slay reform — sources
The Palestinian Authority has stopped paying stipends to at least 1,612 Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails, two Palestinian sources told The Times of Israel on Sunday, as Ramallah appeared to move forward with a reform of its controversial welfare system.

In February, PA President Mahmoud Abbas signed a decree canceling legislation that established the old system, which included payments to the families of slain terrorists and the families of security prisoners held in Israeli jails, based on the length of their sentence.

The decree also established a new non-governmental body that was tasked with providing welfare payments strictly based on economic need. Palestinians — including the families of prisoners and slain attackers — will be able to apply for welfare stipends, and bureaucrats will adjudicate whether each applicant will receive payments and how much based on economic criteria, Palestinian and US officials have told The Times of Israel.

The transition to the new system has taken time, but last month, senior Palestinian official Hussein al-Sheikh — who has since been formally appointed Abbas’s deputy — penned a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio inviting the Trump administration to send a delegation to Ramallah from June 1 onward in order to certify that the PA has implemented the reform and is in compliance with US legislation that bars American aid that directly benefits the PA so long as its previous prisoner payment system remained in place.

Palestinian sources told The Times of Israel in March and April that families of prisoners and slain attackers were still receiving stipends based on the old system, as the new system was not in place. But that is no longer the case for at least 1,612 prisoners, who did not receive a stipend for the month of May, the two sources said.

The sources did not know what that meant for the thousands of other prisoners and could not elaborate further on the figure.


Jordan BDS coordinator arrested by authorities, taken to undisclosed location
The coordinator of the BDS movement in Jordan was arrested by Jordanian authorities and taken to an undisclosed location.

According to Jordan’s Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, Hamza Khader’s May 6 arrest came amid a national crackdown on BDS activists and on those who support Gaza. Local sources and media referred to him as being “kidnapped.”

Khader’s social media posts reportedly prompted Jordanian authorities to arrest him under the provisions of the Cybercrime Law. The movement called it a “clear violation of Jordanians’ fundamental rights to freedom of opinion, expression, and peaceful assembly.”

Calling for its coordinator’s release, the movement said, “Solidarity with the Palestinian people, rejection of normalization [with Israel], and expressing national positions on regional issues are not acts that threaten security or public order.”

Khader had previously stated, “Our aspirations for the Palestinian cause in Jordan differ from the rest of the world because for us, in Jordan, it is an internal issue.”

According to Arab sources, Jordan escalated its crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism and journalism, as well as members of the Muslim Brotherhood, following the October 7 massacre. Amnesty International’s 2024 Jordan report said, “Thousands of individuals [have been prosecuted] for criticizing the authorities, expressing pro-Palestinian sentiments, or participating in peaceful protests.”

Lamis Andoni of The New Arab said this was a wider crackdown, not just one targeting the Muslim Brotherhood, and several activists were arrested in a period of a few days.

“Hamza was not just from the BDS, he was openly active and posting photos from legal demonstrations. But, Andoni said, “He did not do anything illegal.”
Authorities declare state of emergency in Tripoli, Libya after powerful militia leader
Libya's Government of National Unity (GNU), based in Tripoli, declared a state of emergency on Monday night, according to local media.

This followed clashes between the 444th Brigade and the Stability Support Apparatus (SSA) after SSA Commander Abdel Ghani al-Kikli, also known as "Ghneiwa," was assassinated. The 444th Brigade is alleged to have been responsible for al-Kikli's assassination.

SSA is under the purview of the GNU's executive body, the Presidential Council, which came to power in 2021 through a United Nations-backed ceasefire process.

Thus, Al-Kikli was an influential supporter of the GNU Prime Minister Abdel Hamid al-Dbeibah and SSA is one of the best-armed militias that control key infrastructure in Tripoli.

GNU's interior ministry called on citizens in a short statement to stay at home "for their own safety."

Following the ministry's call, drivers started speeding and honking in many Tripoli streets.

GNU media platform said early on Tuesday that the defense ministry had fully taken control of Abu Salim neighbourhood.

"I heard heavy gunfire, and I saw red lights in the sky," a resident said on condition of anonymity.

The other two residents said the gunfire was echoing all over their neighbourhoods of Abu Salim and Salah Eddin.

The University of Tripoli Presidency announced on Facebook the suspension of studies, exams, and administrative work at all faculties, departments, and offices until further notice.

The UN Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) urged all parties to "immediately cease fighting and restore calm," reminding them of their obligation to protect civilians.
Kurdish PKK group will disband and disarm as part of peace initiative with Turkey
The PKK Kurdish militant group announced Monday that it will disband and disarm as part of a new peace initiative with Turkey, ending four decades of armed conflict.

The decision by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which promises to put an end to one of the longest insurgencies in the Middle East and could have a significant impact in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, was announced by the Firat News Agency, a media outlet close to the group. It comes days after the PKK convened a party congress in northern Iraq.

“The 12th PKK Congress has decided to dissolve the PKK’s organizational structure and end its method of armed struggle,” the group announced in a statement after holding its congress last week.

The PKK’s decision will give President Tayyip Erdogan the opportunity to boost development in the mainly Kurdish southeast, where the insurgency has handicapped the regional economy for decades.

Omer Celik, spokesperson for Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, said the PKK’s decision to dissolve was an “an important step toward a terror-free Turkey.”

Turkey’s foreign ministry did not immediately comment on the announcement, which Ankara had been expecting.

In February, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group to convene a congress and formally decide to disband, marking a pivotal step toward ending the decades-long conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s.

On March 1, the PKK announced a unilateral ceasefire, but attached conditions, including the creation of a legal framework for peace negotiations.

The conflict between Turkey and the PKK has spilled over into northern Iraq and northern Syria. It is listed as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies.


U.S., Iran are talking about a ‘123 Agreement.’ What does that mean?
Last week, a group of Senate Republicans introduced a resolution laying down their stringent expectations for a nuclear deal with Iran. One of those conditions was a so-called “123 Agreement” with the United States, after “the complete dismantlement and destruction of [Iran’s] entire nuclear program.”

A source familiar with the state of the talks confirmed to Jewish Insider that a 123 Agreement is a part of the ongoing U.S.-Iran negotiations currently being led by U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Those agreements refer to Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, which lays out conditions for peaceful nuclear cooperation between the United States and other countries, and sets out a series of safeguards and procedures such countries must have in place to ensure they do not pursue nuclear weapons. Section 123 does not inherently require a signatory country to forego nuclear enrichment. Twenty-five such agreements are currently in place — but in most cases they pertain to U.S. allies and partners.

Asked about a potential 123 Agreement, a Witkoff spokesperson said, “The sources don’t know what they’re talking about.”

A 123 Agreement was not part of the original 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — such an agreement is only required in cases in which the U.S. is going to be sharing nuclear material or technology with a foreign country, directly or indirectly.

Robert Einhorn, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute specializing in arms control and nonproliferation issues, explained to JI that 123 Agreements are “often a prelude to the building of U.S. reactors and U.S. equipment support for nuclear equipment activities in the cooperating partner.”


Rioter sentenced for burning US flag, vandalism in pro-Hamas rally in DC
Michael Snow Jr., 25, of Durham, N.C., was sentenced to four months of probation and 40 hours of community service on May 9 for his part in a pro-Hamas protest outside Union Station in Washington, D.C.

The protest occurred during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress on July 24, 2024.

Snow burned a U.S. government-owned American flag, for which he was ordered to pay $525 in restitution for destruction of federal property, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Snow pleaded guilty to the offense in February. Video posted to social media showed him grabbing one of two U.S. flags lowered by protestors from flagpoles in Columbus Circle, outside the train station, and carrying it into the crowd of protesters.

The video shows Snow throwing the flag onto the ground, pulling out a lighter and struggling to set the flag ablaze. Another protester handed him a bottle of charcoal lighter fluid, which he and another rioter used to set the flag on fire.


A museum opens at a former factory in the Czech Republic where Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jews
A dilapidated industrial site in the Czech Republic where German businessman Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jews during the World War II is coming back to life.

The site, a former textile factory in the town of Brněnec, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of Prague, was stolen by the Nazis from its Jewish owners in 1938 and turned into a concentration camp. This weekend it welcomed the first visitors to the Museum of Survivors dedicated to the Holocaust and the history of Jews in this part of Europe.

The opening was timed to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. It was also in May 1945 that Schindler received a golden ring from grateful Jewish survivors, made with gold taken from their teeth. The ring was inscribed with the Hebrew words from Talmud, saying “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire."

Schindler’s story was told in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning movie, “Schindler’s List."

Daniel Löw-Beer was a driving force behind the project. His predecessors lived in this part of Czech Republic for hundreds of years, acquiring the plant in Brnenec in 1854 and turning it into one of Europe's most important wool factories.

“We had to flee for our lives, lost a bit of our history, so putting a little bit of history back to a place and hopefully bringing out as well the history of Oskar Schindler and the village is what we’re doing today,” Löw-Beer told The Associated Press.

Today, his family members are scattered around the world. “I’m pleased to put a little bit, of course emotionally, of my family back in the place because they were survivors. My grandfather lived here, my father lived here, and then the world was shattered one day in 1938," he said.

Glass wall separates past and present


Ancient Jerusalem Reborn: The Discovery of the City of David—and the Palestinian Effort to Erase It
For more than 3,000 years, Jerusalem has been the beating heart of the Jewish people. The connection between Jews and Jerusalem stretches back to the Hebrew Bible—to the reign of King David, to the many kings and prophets who succeeded him, and into the Second Temple period.

With history this ancient, archaeology plays a crucial role in confirming what tradition has long held. Today, that evidence is finally being unearthed—but also contested. Palestinian and Islamic extremists continue to deny the Jewish history of Jerusalem and actively seek to erase the proof of it.

In a powerful essay for Mosaic, Doron Spielman—who helped lead the excavation and development of the City of David archaeological park—tells the story of how the most significant modern discovery in Jerusalem’s archaeology came to light. He reveals the remarkable findings that connect the Jewish people to their ancient capital—and the sinister effort to suppress them.

To explore this history and its explosive implications, Spielman joined Mosaic’s editor Jonathan Silver on Tuesday, April 29 for a live discussion about the City of David, the archaeology of Jerusalem, and his forthcoming book, When the Stones Speak: The Remarkable Discovery of the City of David and What Israel’s Enemies Don’t Want You to Know.

Jonathan Silver:
I’d like to begin by offering a couple of thoughts about why it’s important for us at Mosaic to invest in this subject and why it’s so important, I think, for the Jewish reading public. We are of course convening on the week of Yom HaZikaron and Yom ha-Atsma’ut, the days in which we remember the fallen heroes of Israel and celebrate Israel’s independence. Zionism has always been considerably more than just a political movement, it is also a movement about the Jewish return into history, in which the Jewish people could assume for itself responsibility for every element of its national life.

Now that phrase, the return to history, has embedded in it a presumption about Jerusalem’s past and the Jewish people’s past. And I think that one of the things that the science of archaeology allows us to do is substantiate that past in a more visceral way than perhaps is possible in any other science. Of course, we have our textual tradition and our unbroken chain of learning and transmission, passed on from parents to children, but this is something altogether different. If you’re like me, you have been excited by watching House of David on Amazon over the course of the past weeks, and then seeing the very buildings that are depicted in that show come to life, not in the Hollywood’s recreation, but in situ, such that the earth itself is uncovering the truth of Israel’s ancient past. That is at the core of what we’re celebrating at Yom ha-Atsma’ut. And that’s why we’re so excited to welcome everyone to this conversation with Doron Spielman, the author of this month’s essay at Mosaic, “The Parking Lot that Determines the Future of Jerusalem’s Past,” which is drawn from Doron’s forthcoming book that he’s going to tell us about in a few minutes.




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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    
 

 

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