Wednesday, May 14, 2025

05/14 Links Pt2: Seeing Through the Hamasnik Facade; A Survivor Faces the Cowards; Why do so many liberals have a blindspot on Jew hatred?

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Seeing Through the Hamasnik Facade
A leading U.S. pro-Palestinian organization may finally be forced to reveal how thin the line is that separates Hamas from some of its boisterous advocates in the West.

The group is American Muslims for Palestine, and a federal judge in Virginia has ruled that it must turn over key financial documents requested by Virginia’s attorney general, Jason Miyares. AMP has come under investigation and been the target of several lawsuits since Oct. 7, though as Jewish Insider has pointed out, one in particular stands out.

In 1996, David Boim was murdered by Hamas terrorists in Jerusalem. A group called the Islamic Association of Palestine was found liable for his death. That group shut down and essentially reappeared as AMP, the Boim lawsuit argues. If the Boim’s lawsuit can demonstrate that AMP is functionally a reanimation of IAP, it should inherit IAP’s liability to the Boims.

The evidence presented in the Boim case highlights the extent of the threat from groups like AMP, which has been active in supporting the tentifada protests on campus post-Oct. 7. Together, the Boim case and the Miyares investigation might answer two key questions: How close are Palestinian advocacy groups to Palestinian terror groups? And how interchangeable are the many iterations of these groups? As long as the courts are able to force these groups to fully comply with transparency rules, it will be like putting the massive, radical pro-Palestinian network in the U.S. under an X-ray machine.

As JI explained: “Among other close parallels cited by Schlessinger, top officials at AMP — many of whom have ties to Hamas — were once affiliated with IAP, in what he characterized as a ‘dramatic’ overlap of leadership. When AMP formed soon after IAP had shut down in 2004, for instance, ‘the key player in the day-to-day functioning of AMP was the same guy who was the key player in the day-to-day functioning of IAP,’ he said, referring to Abdelbaset Hamayel, a former top IAP official who also served as AMP’s first executive director and still manages its books and records.”
How an Anti-Semitic Fabulist Became a Poster Child for Freedom of Speech
On April 30, a federal court ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a graduate student at Columbia University with permanent-resident status who had been detained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security two weeks earlier. Google Mahdawi and you will find a fawning 60 Minutes interview from December 2023, where he speaks about his involvement in anti-Israel protests and makes a point of distancing himself from anti-Semitism. But, Asaf Romirowsky writes, whatever you think about the still-pending legal case against Mahdawi, he is anything but a sympathetic figure:
Mahdawi’s social-media accounts are . . . thick with blatant and vile anti-Semitic incitement, including the chant “Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahud,” referring to a battle in 628 at the Arabian city of Khaybar during which the prophet Mohammad slaughtered many of the town’s Jewish residents. The call, popular with Hamas and Hizballah supporters, is widely understood to be a threat.

And then there is the story Mahdawi has often retailed about how, as a child growing up in the Samarian hamlet of al-Fara, he saw his best friend shot dead by an Israeli soldier:
It’s a heartbreaking story; it’s also one that is very easy to corroborate, as a plethora of Palestinian and international human-rights organizations provide detailed accounts of Palestinian civilian casualties. . . . One child did die at al-Fara during the relevant time frame, but he was hurt by an explosive gas canister, not a bullet, and his fatal injury occurred in a remote field, not in the heart of the crowded [refugee] camp, as Mahdawi had repeatedly said.
Seth Mandel: A Survivor Faces the Cowards
Ever since Oct. 7, I have strangely looked forward to the annual Eurovision contest. Not for the music, really. Mostly I look forward to the arrival of the Israeli contestant, a rare moment to glimpse an actually brave artist in the sea of “pick-me” conformism that passes for a music scene today.

As a music fan, I don’t insist on courage from artists—I understand the business calculation behind, say, Green Day’s copycat bandwagoning or some no-name Irish frat-rap trio’s fame-thirsty attempt at recognition through incitement. Indeed, if I listened only to bands that didn’t float like wisps in the political winds, I wouldn’t have much on the playlist.

The part that does annoy me, however, is the way these bands and their fans cast themselves as heroes for doing what everyone else in their industry is doing—in this case, Hamasifying their otherwise staid stage presence.

Which is not to say I don’t find some enjoyment in the masquerade. After all, bandwagoning anti-Zionism is the most money-grubbing capitalist thing one can do in the entertainment business, and I’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at, say, Rage Against the Machine’s embrace of it. (Tom Morello, neoliberal!)

But this week, Yuval Raphael walked the welcoming carpet at the opening of the Eurovision contest in Basel, Switzerland. Raphael is Israel’s contestant in the competition. Because she is from the Jewish state, the normal fans cheering her were joined by keffiyeh-clad protesters waving Palestinian flags, one of whom made a throat-slitting gesture as Raphael’s delegation went by. He stepped toward the Israelis and spat at them.

Now, Israelis are quite used to getting random death threats from cosplaying revolutionaries comfortably ensconced in their flats thousands of miles from the conflict zone. Yuval Raphael just smiled and waved, and at one point made a heart gesture with her hands. That’s pretty much how it goes—Israeli hearts and Palestinian neck-slicing; they’re partners in a familiar dance.

But there is more to the story when it comes to Raphael. She is a survivor of the Nova massacre, the largest mass killing at a music festival in history. Her story is harrowing, and her appearance at Eurovision is, frankly, an inspiring if not historic moment for music fans everywhere.


The repugnant campaign against Israel’s Eurovision star
It’s hard to overstate just how grotesque the hatred against Raphael really is. After all, she is a survivor of Hamas’s vile 7 October pogrom at the Nova Music Festival in 2023. She was wounded in the attack and hid for several hours in a bunker beneath the bodies of those killed by the terrorists.

Now, Raphael has said she hopes that her Eurovision entry, ‘New Day Will Come’, will have a healing and unifying message in the aftermath of 7 October. At 24 years old, she is the same age as Nemo was when he crooned his way to Eurovision victory with ‘The Code’, a song about coming out as nonbinary. ‘I went to hell and back’, he sang. Presumably, this was all metaphorical. Raphael, by contrast, went literally. Yet self-styled progressives are still determined to silence her.

Nemo’s demands to exclude Raphael are truly repugnant. Nemo preaches ‘human rights’, while attempting to strip the survivor of the worst anti-Jewish attack since the Holocaust of her voice. It is an astonishing spectacle of moral inversion, in which the victim is punished for having the temerity to survive.

Sadly, the backlash against Israel’s entry is grimly predictable. It was a similar story at last year’s Eurovision in Malmö, Sweden, when thousands protested against the fact that a young Israeli woman, Eden Golan, was allowed to sing. That this year’s Israeli entrant is a survivor of an actual pogrom makes this spectacle all the more sickening.

The irony of all this is that, if Eurovision stands for anything, it is for the survival of the human voice. It was born, after all, in the wake of the Second World War. It was meant not just to entertain, but also to remind us of a shared humanity. To sing after war is an act of defiance and of hope. To sing after a massacre is nothing short of heroic. Shame on those Israelophobes who want to silence Yuval Raphael.
New doc ‘Hurricane in Malmo’ looks at Eden Golan's Eurovision experience
As Israel gears up for Eurovision, which just began and which will end with the final on Saturday night, Kan 11 will present Hurricane in Malmo, a documentary about Eden Golan competing in the contest in Sweden last year. It will be broadcast Thursday, May 15, after the news. Later in the evening, Yuval Raphael will compete in the second semifinal.

Golan was the recipient of intense hatred, harassment, and death threats last year, but the full story didn’t get told, and this documentary adds much detail to it. Ronen Bar, head of the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet), went to Malmo himself to supervise the security arrangements, because the threats were considered so serious.

Golan recalls that from the moment the delegation landed, she saw a long line of black cars, police snipers, and helicopters – the kind of security you would associate with a presidential visit – just to protect her and the Israeli delegation. Other members of the delegation recall that when they arrived at their hotel, they saw police armed with Kalashnikovs and undercover security agents in the lobby, pretending to read newspapers, while there were others whose identity was completely hidden.

An Israeli security agent recalls that it was decided that it was necessary for their protection for Golan to be disguised in public. “I knew what I was getting into,” says Golan. “But from that first moment – wow!”

The special also features moments in which Golan symbolically passes the torch to Raphael.


Western countries helped Mossad assassinate Palestinian terrorists in 1970s, report reveals
In another striking example, British domestic intelligence agency MI5 provided Mossad with what was then the only known photograph of Ali Hassan Salameh, a senior BSO commander believed to be the mastermind of the Munich attack.

In July 1973, Mossad operatives mistakenly used that photo to identify a man believed to be Salameh in Lillehammer, Norway. The agents killed the man, who turned out to be a Moroccan waiter with no connection to terrorism. The botched operation, which led to several Israeli agents being arrested, created an international uproar and prompted Prime Minister Meir to shut down Operation Wrath of God.

A member of one of the Israeli assassination teams told The Guardian last month that the operatives themselves had no knowledge of the intelligence’s origin but trusted its accuracy completely.

Former Palestinian terrorists told The Guardian last year that they “gave as good as they got” in what became known as a “war of the spooks” between Mossad and the clandestine networks of the PFLP and BSO across Europe and the Mediterranean. Several Israeli agents were killed or wounded in retaliatory attacks, including one killed in Madrid and another seriously injured in Brussels.

Guttmann said the Kilowatt revelations raise timely questions in light of the current war in Gaza, which began after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel that left 1,200 people dead—mostly civilians—and 251 taken hostage.

“When it comes to intelligence-sharing between services of different states, oversight is very difficult,” she said. “International relations of the secret state are completely off the radar of politicians, parliaments, or the public. Even today, there will be a lot of information being shared about which we know absolutely nothing.”

The Mossad is widely believed to have assassinated Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last year. Other Israeli agencies have taken part in the targeted killing of Hamas leaders in Gaza and Beirut, as well as in the elimination of senior Hezbollah officials in Lebanon over the past year.
Watchdog probe finds Albanese lied about funding sources for Australia, NZ visits
The UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories accepted around $20,000 in payment from pro-Hamas groups to fund her trips to Australia and New Zealand in late 2023, as revealed by UN Watch on Wednesday.

Francesca Albanese’s mandate was renewed last month despite extensive opposition from the US, Israel, Argentina, the Netherlands, and Hungary. When asked about her trip to Australia in November 2023, Albanese said it was funded by the UN. In July, she said she had nothing to hide and welcomed an inquiry into the matter.

However, the UN Watch NGO revealed that her trip was funded by several groups, including the Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFPA), Free Palestine Melbourne, Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), and Palestinian Christians in Australia.

AFPA publicly announced on its website that it paid for Albanese’s visit to Australia.

The group has expressed pro-Hamas views in the past. UN Watch reported that it posted a video in which a woman reads the will of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, chief orchestrator of the October 7 massacre, describing it as “moving” and “like poetry in Arabic.” The will includes calls to honor the blood of martyrs and a commitment to armed struggle.

APAN has faced similar criticism, especially toward its leader, Nasser Mashni. Australian newspaper Herald Sun revealed that Mashni lauded Palestinian terrorists, including Iham Kamamji, who murdered Israeli teenager Eliyahu Asheri in 2006. Mashni himself was convicted of kidnapping and threats in 1991, UN Watch added.

Sky News reported that a children’s charity run by Mashni was sending funds to terrorists in Gaza. In response to the release of Edan Alexander this week, Mashni said, “Palestinians in Gaza, including all the ‘prisoners’ in Israeli gulags, are all HOSTAGES!!!”

“Albanese has compounded her misconduct, accepting funding from Hamas-supporting organizations and then lying by claiming the UN paid for her trip,” said UN Watch director Hillel Neuer. “She continuously abuses her position at the UN to spread antisemitic rhetoric and amplify Hamas propaganda through social media, TV, and her false reports.”
US movie theater cancels screening of campus antisemitism documentary citing social media posts
Facets Cinema, a small but longstanding independent film venue in Chicago, is facing backlash from Jewish organizations after abruptly canceling the premiere screening of ״Bring the Family Home," a documentary by rapper and filmmaker Kosha Dillz that addresses campus antisemitism.

The screening, scheduled for Tuesday night, was organized in collaboration with the Chicago Jewish Alliance and other local groups. According to the American Jewish Committee (AJC) Chicago, the cancellation came just hours before the event.

In an email sent to the sponsors, a theater representative cited “concerning messages” from patrons and claimed that staff members felt unsafe - despite organizers having arranged professional security for the evening.

Later that day, however, Facets released a public statement on Instagram offering a different explanation. The cancellation, they said, stemmed from “public posts made by Kosha Dillz and the overall tone surrounding the event,” which they argued did not align with the cinema’s values or its commitment to fostering a “safe, inclusive and respectful environment.

"We are firmly not an antisemitic organization. The cancellation of tonight’s event was not an act of antisemitism, but a decision rooted in our commitment to ensuring that hate has no place in our cinema.

"Based on the public posts made by Kosha Dillz and the overall tone surrounding the event, we determined that proceeding would not align with our values or our responsibility to protect the safety and well-being of our community. We reject antisemitism in all forms - just as we reject Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, and any form of hate or dehumanization."

While the response did not cite specific examples, sources familiar with the situation said that Facets privately expressed discomfort over what it viewed as anti-Muslim undertones in some of Dillz’s public videos. Dillz, who frequently shares satirical and provocative content on social media, has emerged as a high-profile figure in grassroots pro-Israel advocacy since the October 7 Hamas attacks.

Jewish groups, including AJC Chicago, accused the theater of silencing Jewish voices under the pretext of inclusivity. “Facets cannot claim to be upholding a ‘safe, inclusive and respectful’ environment while silencing a film that explores the challenges faced by a vulnerable community,” AJC said in a statement. “By refusing to show the documentary, Facets failed miserably on that account.”

The indie film includes footage of anti-Zionist student activism and pro-Palestinian encampments at DePaul and Northwestern universities - two campuses located near the cinema. According to AJC, these incidents, coupled with what they described as an inadequate institutional response, have left Jewish students feeling unsafe and unheard.


Brendan O'Neill: Why do so many liberals have a blindspot on Jew hatred?
That Lineker ‘would not have made any connection’ even if he’d noticed the rodent emoticon doesn’t make his repost any better. In some ways it makes it worse. Why doesn’t he know that Jews were compared to rats? If someone on IG had posted a clip slamming Nigerians as the world’s most toxic people alongside an image of an ape, he’d know very well what they were playing at. His ignorance of the long, grim history of caricaturing Jews as vermin is inexcusable, especially given that he’s been wanging on about the Jewish State for 18 months solid. To use a slogan beloved of his class of imperious Remoaner tossers: ‘Educate yourself.’

This is the man who once said that Suella Braverman, the then home secretary, had given off Nazi vibes in a speech about tightening Britain’s border controls. Her language was ‘not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the ’30s’, he said. And yet here he is, two years later, reposting a Zionist rodent. Here’s the thing – that use of a twitching, sneaky rat in a stinging clip about the world’s only Jewish state is far more ‘similar’ to the inhuman bigotries of 1930s Germany than anything Ms Braverman said, and yet Lineker shared it rather than condemning it.

Lineker is part of a caste of turbo-smug ‘liberal’ influencers who see fascism everywhere except where it actually exists. Tory speeches on immigration? Nazi-like. A rat-illustrated rant about the Jewish homeland? No biggie. The votes for Brexit and Trump? The new 1930s. The invasion of the Jewish State by a 6,000-strong army of anti-Semites with the express intention of killing as many Jews as possible? Whatever. Back in 2023, Lineker infamously did not comment on Hamas’s 7 October pogrom for days, which was unusual for a man who worries about things that are ‘similar to Germany in the ’30s’.

Lineker’s plea that he wouldn’t have made the connection even if he’d clocked the Zio-rat sums up the cultural establishment’s blindspot on Jew hatred. We live under a regime of influencers who are hyper-sensitive about racism. Who see racism in everything. And yet when Jew hatred surges, they seem not to notice. Or they look the other way. We now have ‘Jew rats’ again, and people on the streets chanting for the Army of Muhammad to come back and finish off the Jews, and huge spikes in anti-Semitic violence. And yet the self-styled anti-racists who spent the past five years blubbing over the ‘fascism’ of Brexit and Trumpism have been schtum.

Witness the silence from Britain’s supposed progressives on Lineker’s reposting of that rat. If a well-known public figure had shared a social-media post likening black folk to monkeys, these people would have gone nuts, for days. But it was just Jews, just that old ‘Jew rat’ propaganda, so as you were, nothing to see here. Their silence says so much more than they will ever know.
Nicole Lampert: Gary Lineker has fully let the mask slip
Last Thursday he posted a clip on his Instagram feed comparing Israelis to Nazis. On Saturday he posted one calling Zionists “the most antisemitic people in the world right now” and on Sunday another which said “it didn’t start on 7/10.”And then came the rats.

I once told Gary to his face that he was acting like an anti-Semite. He appeared appalled at this idea so I challenged him to make a post about the Israeli hostages being held by Hamas just to show that he understood that they were humans too. He still hasn’t.

Gary appears to be obsessed by the Gaza war; it has sent him deranged. And yet the BBC rulebook on both social media use and bringing the corporation into disrepute appears to have been thrown away because he has some weird power over its bosses.

Who else would not only be allowed a whacking great salary, but also to become the face of a crisp brand and to set up a media company, with his podcasts, which is a rival to the BBC?

Even as his Match of the Day contract was not renewed, he somehow held enough sway over the BBC to get them to agree that he can stay on for special occasions like the World Cup, as if he was doing them a favour. And they are going to host some of his company’s podcasts, netting him more profits.

Somebody needs to stand up and say this is intolerable. The BBC needs to show that it cares about anti-Semitism by cutting him loose. Completely loose. But I am sad to say I am not holding my breath. They are all too far gone – he is not the only one suffering from Israel derangement syndrome.


“Years of baiting the Jewish community” – Board President calls for Lineker sacking despite apology
The President of the Board of Deputies has repeated the organisation’s call for the BBC to part ways with Gary Lineker despite the pundit’s apology for sharing a video on Zionism featuring a picture of a rat, citing the ex-England player’s “years of baiting the Jewish community.”

Phil Rosenberg, the President of the Board, described Lineker’s apology as “empty and belated”, and “the first after years of baiting the Jewish community, just as levels of antisemitism soar. His use of social media has been unacceptable for too long.

“It is high time that the licence-fee payer ceases to be obliged to subsidise and amplify his bile.”

Mr Lineker was widely condemned this week after sharing a video on Instagram titled “Zionism explained in less than two minutes”, which contained a picture of a rat next to the title. It was initially posted by a group called “Palestine Lobby” and contains an excerpt of comments by Diana Buttu, a former spokesperson for the PLO.

“They take the land, claim that its theirs and then they make concessions on land that doesn’t actually belong to them”, Ms Buttu states in the clip, going on to say that “the Zionist movement and Zionism on the ground is the idea of creating not only a Jewish state but at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian population. What Zionism is, is the idea of privileging and giving exclusive rights to one group of people at the expense of another group of people…there isn’t a single Zionist who’s able to say that they actually believe that Palestinians have the exact same rights as Israelis who are living in that country.”

Lineker removed the shared post on Tuesday. An initial statement was released later that day from a spokesperson for the former England player and Match of the Day pundit, saying that he “did not notice” the image of a rat, and that “if he had, he would not have made any connection”. However, on Wednesday a further statement was released, this time directly in Lineker’s name.


Gil Troy: Harvard’s antisemitism report sits on three lies
As a Crimson Key campus tour guide – back when I was proud of attending Harvard – I enjoyed deciphering the inscription on the John Harvard statue dominating Harvard Yard: “John Harvard, Founder, 1638.”

It’s “the Statue of the Three Lies”: there’s no actual portrait of him to know what he looked like; he was not Harvard’s “founder,” just its first big donor; and “1638” is the year he died, not the year Harvard was founded, which was two years earlier.

Similarly, Harvard’s antisemitism report sits on three lies. Its distortions illustrate how essential it is that universities tackle their educational failures and moral misfires by themselves for their own sakes, transcending the polarizing polemics surrounding US President Donald Trump.

Victimizers clumped with victims
First, a Presidential Task Force on Combating Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Bias paralleled the Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israel Bias. Although not the Task Force’s fault, that’s United Nations-level false equivalence – clumping victimizers with victims.

Predictably, while uncovering some harassment of Muslims, Arabs, and anti-Zionist Jews – and none is acceptable – much of the competing “anti-Muslim bias” report feels like a "Woke University" satire.

Pro-Palestinian students feel “unsafe” because Harvard won’t divest from Israel or because the university operated normally while Gaza was bombed. One rampaging snowflake complains: “Do you think that someone whose family members were just bombed in Gaza has the mental capacity to submit a form?”

Ignoring the crimes of anti-Israel protesters, the report deems any pushback “retributive” for “participation in protests” and an assault on free speech “to save face and protect donor interests.”

By contrast, the antisemitism task force details how Jews, Israelis, and even Israeli-Arabs “faced bias, suspicion, intimidation, alienation, shunning, contempt, and sometimes effective exclusion from various curricular and co-curricular parts of the university and its community – clear examples of antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias.”

The intimidation was – using woke-speak – systemic: widespread, mainstreamed, and harsh, coming from administrators, professors, students, departments, and programs.

Noting how anti-Zionist bullies claim they’re “just” criticizing Israel, the report proclaims: “It is disingenuous to use a mild word like “criticism” to describe raucous, aggressive, and inflammatory protest.”
Antisemitism watchdog calls for IRS to investigate fiscal sponsor of anti-Israel agitators
The Zachor Legal Institute, a legal think tank in Montana focused on combating antisemitism and boycott campaigns against Israel, is calling on the IRS to review the tax-exempt status of a nonprofit group involved in fundraising for pro-Palestinian activism, claiming its fiscal sponsorship of a radical anti-Zionist organization accused of advocating for political violence may be in violation of federal law.

In a complaint filed Wednesday morning, Marc Greendorfer, the president and co-founder of the Zachor Legal Institute, formally urged the IRS to begin an investigation of the WESPAC Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in White Plains, N.Y., over its ties to Within Our Lifetime, an extreme activist group at the forefront of anti-Israel demonstrations across New York City in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

“Through its fiscal sponsorship of Within Our Lifetime, a violent, radical and anti-Israel organization, WESPAC may have violated both the public policy doctrine and the illegality doctrine that the IRS uses to analyze and discern whether a 501(c)(3) charitable organization can maintain their tax-exempt status,” Greendorfer wrote in a letter to Michael Faulkender, the acting commissioner of the IRS, arguing that a “thorough investigation” of the matter “is warranted.”

The public policy doctrine “allows the IRS to deny or revoke tax-exempt status for organizations” that contravene “fundamental public policy,” according to Greendorfer, while the illegality doctrine affirms that charitable organizations “cannot qualify for or maintain” their tax-exempt status if they engage in activities that “violate federal, state or local law.”

WESPAC’s “purpose and activities appear to be in violation of fundamental public policy by virtue of” its fiscal sponsorship, Greendorfer explained in the letter, noting that WOL “advocates virulent forms of political violence” by calling “for the destruction of both the United States and Israel, aiming to liberate Palestine by ‘any means necessary’ and advocating for armed resistance.”
Trump Administration Launches Civil Rights Probe Into Anti-Semitism at Northwestern
The Department of Health and Human Services is investigating Northwestern University over allegations that Jewish students have faced systemic discrimination on campus.

HHS’s Office for Civil Rights will probe whether Northwestern "complied with its obligations under Title VI not to discriminate against Jewish students, such that it denied them an educational opportunity or benefit," the agency announced Tuesday. It noted that the investigation was launched after an advocacy organization filed a complaint alleging "systemic concerns" about the university’s ability to ensure nondiscrimination.

The probe is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism. Tuesday’s announcement didn’t name the organization and only referred to the targeted school as a "prestigious Midwest university," but a Northwestern spokesman confirmed it was the subject of the investigation.

"We are currently reviewing the request from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights for information around specific events, policies and procedures."

"There is no place for antisemitism at Northwestern and the steps we have taken since last summer have dramatically improved the safety of our Jewish students," the spokesman said. "As detailed in a recent progress report on Northwestern’s efforts to combat antisemitism, the University strengthened its Student Code of Conduct and other University-wide policies over the summer and has enforced these policies during this academic year."

The Northwestern spokesman touted the university’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism, saying they "have had an impact," and echoed claims from the March 31 progress report.

"We have also instituted and begun mandatory yearly antisemitism trainings for faculty, staff and students and have adapted the IHRA definition of antisemitism into our conduct process. These steps have had an impact – there has been a significant decrease in reports of discrimination or harassment based on antisemitism or shared Jewish ancestry in the current academic year."

Those trainings, however, rely on unverified data from the Council on American-Islamic Relations that inflate Islamophobic attacks, giving the false impression that those attacks vastly outpace anti-Semitic hate crimes, the Washington Free Beacon reported in February. And while the progress report points to a "significant decrease" in reports of discrimination or harassment against Jewish students, a Daily Northwestern poll published last week found that over 60 percent of Jewish students and 30 percent of all students saw campus anti-Semitism as a "serious problem."


Genocide in Syria: Jihadists Massacre Druze, Christians, 'Infidels'
Ever since the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) conquered the Syrian capital Damascus with Turkey's help in December of 2024, HTS fighters and their affiliated militias -- often offshoots of ISIS and al-Qaeda -- have been massacring religious minorities throughout the country. The internet has been flooded with images... of Alawite men, women and children being barbarically shot at close range.

Most recently, after slaughtering Alawites, HTS and Syria's new Islamic regime, under the self-proclaimed "presidency" of former jihadist commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, are massacring other religious minorities in the country, including Christians and Druze.

HTS is still designated as a terrorist organization by the UN, EU, US and UK.

Qatar and Turkey are apparently the powers behind the new regime in Damascus.

Sunnis in Inkhil, Daraa, were filmed running buses for those who want to go after the Druze. HTS supporters in Idlib waved ISIS flags and incited against the Druze and Jews.

Endless footage from Syria signals that HTS and its supporters have a genocidal intent towards all religious minorities in the region.

"The targeted areas were the places of Alawites and Christians. Many innocent Christian victims were also killed. Residents of some of those places were forced to leave their homes. Then they were shot and killed. Then their houses, property, and cars were stolen." — John X, Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, March 9, 2025.

The fate of these communities should not be left to al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorists in Syria. Moreover, Syria should not be left to the savagery of al-Sharaa and his HTS offshoots of ISIS and al-Qaeda, or to Turkey's terrorist mastermind, Erdogan.

For years, Erdogan has repeatedly vowed to "liberate Jerusalem," as he seems to be attempting to rebuild the Ottoman Empire and install himself as Sultan. Now, with HTS and his other proxy militias in Syria, Erdogan finally has the unimpeded path he has been waiting for to do it.
Continued Enrichment 'Fatal Flaw' of Obama Iran Deal, Senate Republicans Remind Trump
Fifty-two Senate Republicans on Wednesday reminded President Donald Trump why he withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in the first place as the administration negotiates with Tehran on another potential agreement.

The group of GOP senators, led by Pete Ricketts (R., Neb.), wrote in a letter that the president was correct in his 2017 assessment of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), specifically in that it did not completely end Iran’s uranium enrichment program. The message to Trump comes days after the fourth round of talks between American and Iranian representatives on a new agreement between the two countries.

"During your first term you withdrew the United States from the deeply broken Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and imposed maximum pressure on the regime," Ricketts and his colleagues wrote. "As you said then, a fatal flaw of the deal was that it ‘allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and, over time, reach the brink of a nuclear breakout.’"

The senators continued, writing that the Trump administration has "correctly drawn a redline against any deal that allows Iran to retain any enrichment capability" and mentioning that the White House in February identified even a non-military nuclear program as an "existential danger to the United States."

The GOP senators—the entire Republican Conference save for Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.)—took aim at former president Joe Biden’s actions toward the Islamic Republic, arguing that the previous administration’s decisions to reverse Trump’s Iran policies had disastrous consequences.

"They immediately rescinded your decision to reimpose U.N. sanctions, allowed Iran to sell oil at JCPOA-levels, and even re-issued waivers allowing Iran to build out its nuclear program," the letter reads. "As you predicted, these policies indeed allowed Iran to reach the brink of nuclear breakout, which is where they are today."

The 52 Senate Republicans assured Trump that GOP lawmakers are united in preventing Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

"We cannot afford another agreement that enables Iran to play for time, as the JCPOA did," the senators wrote. "The Iranian regime should know that the administration has Congressional backing to ensure their ability to enrich uranium is permanently eliminated."


Survey: 82% of Europeans don’t consider fighting antisemitism a priority
Antisemitic sentiments are rising throughout Europe, inflamed by Israel’s war with the Hamas terror group in Gaza, but many on the continent don’t seem to care. A whopping 82 percent of Europeans do not view the fight against antisemitism as a policy priority, according to a survey published Tuesday by the European Jewish Association (EJA).

The poll of 4,400 people across six countries — France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium — found that more than 20% openly blame Jews in their own countries for the war between Israel and Hamas happening thousands of miles away. The survey, conducted by Ipsos and migration expert Juan Soto, was presented Monday night at EJA’s Annual Conference in Madrid.

The findings show that “anti-Zionism and antisemitism are two sides of the same coin,” EJA Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin said. “Europe has imported hatred, adding it to the hate that already existed. Most political leaders, university presidents, and European media are still avoiding this conversation. And the longer they avoid it, the more normalized antisemitism becomes, and the worse it becomes for European Jewry.”

Antisemitism has skyrocketed around the world since Hamas launched its shock assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and kidnapping 251. The number of antisemitic incidents peaked right after the October 7 attack, and remains at levels significantly higher than before the assault, according to a recent study by Tel Aviv University.

The EJA survey found that antisemitic messages have become normalized for young people, with more than one in four (28%) Europeans aged 18–24 saying they had participated in or witnessed antisemitic remarks presented as anti-Israel commentary. The workplace was the most common setting for antisemitic remarks, the survey noted.

Some 65% of Europeans say that the war in the Middle East has impacted how Jews are viewed in their own countries, with 55% saying it has worsened their perceptions. About half of respondents said that the way the media portrays the conflict harms Jewish communities in Europe, the report said.


One fifth of Spanish-language X posts antisemitic, Jew-hatred increases across all platforms
Antisemitism increased, unprecedentedly, on every Spanish-language social media platform in 2024, most notably on X/Twitter, settling a new ‘base level’ for internet Jew-hatred, the Latin American initiative Web Observatory revealed on Monday.

These findings were published in the organization’s annual “Internet Antisemitism Report” for 2024.

Web Observatory is the joint initiative of the Latin American Jewish Congress (CJL), the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AIMA), and the Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations (DAIA).

In order to carry out the research, Web Observatory analyzed seven platforms and over 126 million posts, using both AI tools and human reviews.

X saw a threefold increase in antisemitic messages, not just in terms of a nominal rise in the number of messages, but also a percentage increase in relation to total posts, and a significant rise in potential impressions (the number of users reached by a message). This indicates not just an increased quantity of antisemitic posts, but also an escalated proliferation.

A total percentage of 19.64% of Spanish-language X messages were deemed antisemitic, marking an increase of 6.81 percentage points compared to 2023. Spain had the highest level of antisemitic X content, followed by Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina, with Uruguay being the lowest.

On Facebook, 11.52% of posts were deemed to be antisemitic. The majority of Facebook antisemitism related to anti-Zionist discourse (82.11%), followed by religious hatred, Holocaust inversion, and traditional antisemitism. On both X and Facebook, there was also a decrease in positive content relating to Jews.

In total, YouTube antisemitism increased to 6.93%, however, this was lower than the levels seen between 2018 and 2022.

Web Observatory found a discrepancy between the levels of antisemitism in YouTube videos and the comments on the videos, with the level of antisemitism in the comments being significantly higher than the audiovisual content itself.

This was the first time that the research extended to Spanish-language comments. It found that 11.22% of the 2.52 million comments analyzed were antisemitic.
Three neo-Nazis found guility of race war plot to attack UK shuls and mosques
Three Nazi-worshipping extremists have been found guilty of planning terrorist attacks on synagogues and mosques as part of an attempt to spark a race war in the UK.

A jury at Sheffield Crown Court heard how Christopher Ringrose, 34, Marco Pitzettu, 25, and Brogan Stewart, 25, regarded themselves as National Socialists or Nazis, and were preparing to use the more than 200 weapons they had amassed, including machetes, swords, crossbows and an illegal stun gun.

The three defendants had formed a group called Einsatz 14 in January 2024, with “like-minded extremists” who wanted to “go to war for their chosen cause”.

In a comment made under former Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Stewart was revealed to have told the group: “Hitler did more for his people than any politician. And for Britain to have a p*** and zionist in charge of the country is absolutely outrageous.”

The trio, who are not believed to have met in the real world before they appeared together in the dock of a court, were arrested when security services believed an attack was imminent after undercover officers infiltrated their online group, the court heard.

During the nine-week long trial Bethan David, Head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Counter Terrorism Division, said: “These extremists were plotting violent acts of terrorism against synagogues, mosques and an Islamic Education Centre. By their own admission, they were inspired by SS tactics and supremacist ideology.

“Had Christopher Ringrose managed to completely finish building the 3D-printed semi-automatic firearm that he had started to, it could have been used leading to devastating consequences.”
Dutch police investigating report of attempted arson attack at shul
Police in the Netherlands said on Wednesday they were investigating a reported attempt to torch a synagogue in the central city of Amersfoort by an assailant who was said to have made antisemitic remarks.

“The report about this suspicious situation was received by us and we have taken action. At this specific location, officers spoke with several individuals from the synagogue,” police confirmed to JNS. “We are aware of the suspicious situation and are investigating it.”

The spokeswoman added: “We never comment on safety measures.”

According to an incident report shared with JNS by local community members, the alleged attempt to burn down the Orthodox shul took place on Saturday afternoon following Shabbat morning services.

The report said the suspect was seen behaving suspiciously in the alley near the entrance to the synagogue. According to eyewitnesses, the man was holding a can of hairspray, a box of matches and a cannabis cigarette.

A concerned member of the community alerted others, prompting one worshipper to approach the man. When asked what he was doing there, the suspect allegedly responded with remarks suggesting that the Jewish people had been “occupying everything for 3,000 years.” When pressed to clarify this, he refused, saying they “knew exactly what he meant.”

During the incident, the man recorded several community members while continuing to hurl insults and threats of violence at them.

Additional congregants arrived at the scene and called the emergency telephone number. The synagogue’s panic button was also activated, though it allegedly failed to trigger a direct alert at the police control center. Authorities were said to be probing this technical issue.
A Queens community garden said its members must be anti-Zionist. Now it's facing eviction.
The city is moving to uproot the organizers of a Queens community garden who required prospective members to sign a “statement of values” that included a commitment to opposing Zionism, homophobia and transphobic behavior.

Parks department officials wrote in an April 16 letter that the leaders of Sunset Community Garden in Ridgewood violated guidelines by imposing a “litmus test” and “improper requirement” on garden members.

“Our decision to terminate the garden group’s license agreement has nothing to do with anyone’s political beliefs or gender expression,” said Margaret Nelson, a deputy commissioner at the parks department.

“This is about ensuring that our community gardens are responsibly managed and accessible as public spaces. We never want a termination, but the group’s leadership has repeatedly refused to work with us on their outstanding issues.”

The city rarely moves to expel the local groups operating more than 500 community gardens. A parks official said the last terminations came in 2016 and 2022, when organizers were booted for marijuana plants growing in the greenspaces. The fight over Sunset Community Garden, however, touches on activism surrounding Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.

Nastazia Kielar, a Queens native who’s been involved with the garden for three years, argued the statement of values was in keeping with a long tradition of activism rooted in the city’s community gardens.

“So many community members see Zionism as a form of colonization still that's happening right now in the Middle East,” she said.
Ohio man checked out books on Jewish history from Cleveland library, then burned them
A man checked out dozens of books on Jewish history and other marginalized topics from a public library in a heavily Jewish Cleveland suburb last month before filming himself apparently setting fire to them, local authorities said.

Local Jewish leaders decried the incident at the Beachwood Public Library, appearing alongside other interfaith leaders at a press conference Monday outside a local church to denounce the burnings.

“Whoever perpetuated the idea that you can burn us out of Cleveland, deport us out of Cleveland, deny our ideas or press us and frighten us, picked the wrong community,” Rabbi Robert Nosanchuk of Congregation Mishkan Or, a Reform synagogue in Beachwood, said at the press conference.

The books the man burned included a copy of “The Diary of Anne Frank” and a title dealing with “Jewish Solidarity,” a researcher with Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The Princeton lab, which tracks political violence, first flagged the man’s video with the library after seeing it on the social network X.

The researcher, who requested anonymity owing to the nature of the group’s work, described the book selection as “something that you would expect of someone who is going into the library and trying to get books about Jewish authors and the Holocaust and everything.” In addition, the man had also burned books related to Black and LGBTQ topics.

“I think the act of targeting these materials, burning them, carries specific threatening connotations with it,” the researcher noted.
NHL suspends Panthers exec Doug Cifu over Pro-Israel online comments
The National Hockey League has indefinitely suspended Doug Cifu, the Jewish vice chairman and alternate governor of the Florida Panthers, following inflammatory remarks made on social media that touched on the Israel-Hamas conflict and included derogatory language.

The incident stemmed from a heated exchange on X (formerly Twitter) between Cifu and a Toronto Maple Leafs fan after the Panthers’ playoff victory on Sunday. The fan drew a parallel between the Panthers’ aggressive play and the Israel-Palestine conflict, prompting Cifu to respond with offensive language, referring to the fan as a “51st state antisemite loser” and expressing strong pro-Israel sentiments.

NHL slams Cifu's pro-Israel posts
In response, the NHL issued a statement deeming Cifu’s posts “unacceptable and inappropriate,” leading to his indefinite suspension from any involvement with the team or the league. An in-person meeting with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is anticipated as part of the disciplinary process.

Cifu, who also serves as CEO of Virtu Financial – a company he co-founded with Panthers owner Vincent Viola – has publicly apologized, acknowledging that his behavior did not reflect the standards of the Panthers organization or the Viola family. He expressed a commitment to working with the NHL to amend his actions.

The Panthers and Maple Leafs were tied 2-2 in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series, with Game 5 taking place in Toronto late Wednesday night.
Israeli-founded eToro debuts on Nasdaq at $4.3 billion valuation in long-awaited IPO
Israeli-founded stocks and cryptocurrency trading platform eToro seeks to raise about $620 million in its debut on the Nasdaq on Wednesday, giving the firm a valuation of about $4.3 billion.

It is touted as the largest Israeli initial public offering (IPO) on Wall Street since Jerusalem-headquartered maker of autonomous driving tech firm Mobileye went public on the Nasdaq in 2022, and is slated to be one of the largest new listings this year.

The public debut comes as the IPO market is expected to see a much-anticipated revival in 2025, with a pipeline of high-growth companies, including Israeli tech companies, aiming to go public after years of sluggish activity.

The company said Wednesday it is offering about 11.91 million shares at its IPO, at an upsized price of $52 per share, up from earlier plans to sell about 10 million shares. That’s after the underwriters of the offering raised the IPO price range from $46 to $50, previously. The stock will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “ETOR.”

EToro was founded in 2007 by Israeli brothers Yonatan and Ronen Assia as well as David Ring, originally pledging to “democratize” financial trading by making it more “game-like.” It operates a trading platform that allows users to invest in stocks, cryptocurrencies and other assets while mirroring the strategies of top investors. In March 2023, eToro raised $250 million in a funding round that valued the online brokerage at $3.5 billion.

“As technology continues to evolve, so does our ability to create more inclusive financial systems,” said Assia. “Artificial intelligence, in particular, holds immense potential to revolutionize investing.”

“At eToro, we’re already using AI to provide users with personalized insights, identify trends and optimize their strategies,” he added.
The Making of a Christian Zionist Celebrity
On Yom ha-Atsma’ut of 2024, Nathaniel Buzolic became the first non-Jewish non-Israeli given the honor of lighting a torch at the annual ceremony in Jerusalem. The Australian-born actor, known for his role in such popular television shows as The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, came to an appreciation of the Jewish people, the Hebrew Bible, and the Jewish state through his discovery of Christianity. In conversation with A.R. Hoffman and Rebecca Sugar, Buzolic discusses his faith, his biblical Zionism, and the professional costs of defending Israel in showbusiness after October 7.






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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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