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Friday, June 13, 2025

06/13 Links Pt2: Walking Through a Supernova; Douglas Murray on death cults, Joe Rogan, and profoundly unserious people; Macron's conference touting Palestinian statehood postponed

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Walking Through a Supernova
In the weeks after Palestinian terrorists killed nearly 400 people at an Israeli music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, a growing corps of citizen-volunteers trekked to the site of the massacre to collect the personal items left behind. The group warehoused the items and organized and tagged them so survivors and the relatives of victims could retrieve them. The police saw the effort as helpful to their investigation: Once they’d studied and recorded the scene, the items could bring forward witnesses or others with information.

When I saw some of these items on display in Washington DC on Thursday, at a pre-opening walkthrough of the Nova Exhibition at Gallery Place, where it will be open to the public from June 14 through July 6, they conjured a different image entirely. I found myself staring at a pile of shoes collected from the site of the massacre and thought of the only place I’d seen its kind before: at a Holocaust memorial.

It also helped me understand why the survivors of the Nova massacre who serve as guides to the exhibition kept asking me how I felt about what I was seeing and experiencing. That these various scenes would hit people differently was taken for granted.

However it hits you, it does so immediately. The first staging area is a recreated Nova campground. The twist is that almost everything you see was actually at the 2023 Nova festival. These tents aren’t replicas. Only the people who lived in them for the weekend are missing.

In and around the tents are people’s clothing, shoes, board games, even a burned up cigarette butt and the occasional can of deodorant. Cellphones are plugged into wall chargers and strewn throughout the campground; they are playing loops of videos from Oct. 7—some survivors’ videos, some taken by Hamas terrorists themselves. The campsites attest to the joyful atmosphere of the festival—one has a tree sign hanging next to it that says “HAPPY PLACE”; another has a simple pair of wings hanging from a pole.

The dark irony of the scene is that the Nova festival itself isn’t seen merely as a music event but also as a healing one. The setting—breathtaking open fields in the desert—combined with the trance music that dominates the festival draws many who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, for example. As survivor Maya Izoutcheev pointed out, concertgoers dance through the night and don’t see their fellow dancers around them until the sun rises, giving them a sense of privacy and of a close-knit shared experience at the same time.
The Right Way to Sanction the Muslim Brotherhood
While the Iranian regime’s ideology is Shiite, its founders were inspired by the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. The original Islamist group, the Brotherhood is the root from which Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Islamic State sprang; its motto declares that “jihad is our way and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope” and anti-Semitism is a cornerstone of its ideology. At the same time, it is not a single organization, but consists of disparate groups in countries across the globe—some actively engaged in terrorism, others dedicated to spreading their hateful ideology peacefully. This reality is a complication for the Trump administration, which is considering sanctions on the Brotherhood.

Jonathan Schanzer explains that rather than simply issue an executive order that the next administration could appeal, the White House should instruct the Treasury Department to level anti-terrorism sanctions against specific branches of the Brotherhood as the evidence dictates:

The Brotherhood in Yemen (the Islah Party, which partners with the Houthis) and Jordan (where a violent Brotherhood plot was recently broken up by the government) are very likely to meet [Treasury Department] criteria. From there, the Treasury could begin to expand the network to other affiliates that meet [these] criteria.

The Treasury Department’s process offers the opportunity, over time, to designate the entire Muslim Brotherhood. When evidence points to certain branches or individuals from the Brotherhood’s disparate branches providing financial, technical, or material support to groups already under sanctions, they themselves become targets for designation.
Macron-backed U.N. conference touting Palestinian statehood postponed
French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday that his upcoming United Nations conference with Saudi Arabia promoting international recognition of a Palestinian state has been postponed following Israel’s attack on Iran.

Speaking to reporters from Paris, Macron said that the conference would need to be rescheduled for logistical purposes, citing the inability of Palestinian Authority officials to travel to U.N. headquarters in New York next week to participate.

The Trump administration was opposed to the conference, titled “The High Level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution,” and urged U.N. member states against participating. Pro-Israel Republicans on Capitol Hill also criticized the gathering, which was scheduled to take place June 17-20, as a distraction from U.S. efforts to secure peace in the region.

Despite his campaign for Palestinian statehood recognition, Macron was quick to defend Israel’s strikes on Iran, releasing a statement early Friday criticizing Tehran for its nuclear program and supporting Israel’s right to self-defense. At his press conference later Friday, he argued that Iran was heavily responsible for the current unrest in the Middle East by building its nuclear program against the requests of the West and other actors in the region.


The Moynihan Report: Douglas Murray on death cults, Joe Rogan, and profoundly unserious people
Douglas Murray, author of "On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the future of Civilization" sits down with Michael to discuss support for Hamas, Joe Rogan, and profoundly unserious people.

(00:00) Christopher Hitchens and Israel
(13:18) Joe Rogan
(24:41) Comedians
(31:54) The Outrage Machine
(35:32) Cynicism and Nihilism
(42:40) Firsthand Reporting
(47:48) Horrors of War
(57:26) Conclusions
(1:00:03) Ask Moynihan Anything


Watch civil servant discuss ‘vile’ ministers and ‘insidious’ Israel influence
The Times is publishing video from meetings attended by hundreds of civil servants featuring discussion of how to change government policy on Israel and containing alleged antisemitic tropes.

The webinars were held by the Civil Service Muslim Network (CSMN) and led by a civil servant named Sami Rahman. On Thursday the government reopened its investigation of Rahman’s comments and the group, having closed it last year without taking action. Rahman has been suspended pending the outcome.

A memo of the meetings was handed to The Times, which reported some of its contents. It had been compiled by civil servants who were increasingly worried about antisemitic remarks and the conduct of people in the CSMN over efforts to make government policy harder towards Israel after the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023.

The CSNM was reinstated in September following the initial investigation, which focused on comments by Rahman and how he led the webinars. When closing the investigation, the Cabinet Office told senior civil servants that no further action was needed.

Investigators had been unable to “identify any areas and/or individuals where further investigations may be required” or “any specific wider general learning”, according to Hyphen, a British, Muslim news website which obtained their conclusions through a freedom of information request.

The Public and Commercial Services Union, which represented Rahman during the internal investigation, claimed that The Times had been “fed a misrepresentation” of the webinars when disclosing some of the comments in March last year.

Mohammed Shafiq, chair of the PCS union’s national black members’ committee, said: “The reason we won the case was because The Times had a transcript that was handed to them but no recording. And people at that meeting disputed the transcript.”

Now The Times has now obtained full recordings of the meetings and is publishing excerpts:

On December 18, 2023, Rahman told staff that the “Israel lobby” had an “insidious influence” on British politics, which is widely regarded as an antisemitic trope.

He told the meeting: “There’s the documentary before that, they’re both Al Jazeera exposés, so The Labour Files, which was last year, I think, or maybe even this year. And then there’s the Israel lobby, or The Lobby, which is a couple years back, but both [are] very, very insightful and sad in terms of the state of affairs in UK politics, and interests and whatever. Insidious influences.”

On December 7, 2023, Rahman shared anecdotes from a lecture given by Lowkey, a controversial anti-Zionist rapper, claiming the western media was covering up British and American involvement in the war against Hamas.

He repeated Lowkey’s claims that US Delta Forces had been “shredded to pieces by Hamas” in a bombing but that the media did not report it, suggesting that civil servants are “in the belly of the beast in that respect”.


Mosque praised by Lord Hermer warned over anti-Israel sermon
A mosque praised by Lord Hermer has been rebuked over an anti-Israel sermon in which Muslims were urged to “wage war for Allah”, The Telegraph can reveal.

The Abdullah Quilliam Society, which was branded “inspiring” by the Attorney General last year, has been issued with an official warning over the “inflammatory” talk held shortly after the October 7 massacre in 2023.

In the sermon focused on the war in Gaza, Haroon Hanif, an Islamic preacher, accused Israel of “genocide” and told worshippers that Muslims should “continue waging your war for Allah and his messenger, don’t back down”.

He added: “We’re large in numbers right now, two billion. If the two billion just marched on Israel, it’s all over; if you spat in the direction of Israel, two billion, it’s all over.”

He also suggested that Muslims could be empowered to “wipe out the Israelis in a blink of an eye” if they put their faith in Allah.

The nature of Mr Hanif’s affiliation with the mosque, if any, is unknown. He delivered the sermon on Oct 20, roughly two weeks after the Hamas terror attacks on October 7.
Left-wing MPs accused of spreading ‘dangerous mistruths about national security’
The left-wing Labour MPs Richard Burgon and Rachel Maskell have been accused of spreading “incredibly dangerous mistruths about national security” after claiming the UK is actively training Israeli soldiers to take part in combat in Gaza in breach of international law.

In response to a written question at Westminster, put in by Labour MP for York Central Maskell, Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard admitted that the UK was “currently” training IDF soldiers in the UK.

Maskell asked the government “when the last time was that a member of the Israel Defense Forces was trained by the UK armed forces”.

Pollard responded writing: “As part of routine defence engagement with Israel, the UK is currently training a limited number of Israel Defense Forces personnel on UK-based training courses.”

In response to this reply, Burgon posted on X: “It’s truly sickening news that the UK is training Israeli soldiers. It’s also a clear breach of international law.

“The ICJ ruled that ALL states must end any cooperation that aids Israel’s illegal occupation. Britain must end all arms sales and military cooperation with Israel.”

Maskell also posted on X claiming: “My question on training provided by the UK to the Israel Defense Forces shows we’re not only selling arms, we’re also training the forces. This has to stop. I will be following up with more questions.”

But Jewish News has learned that in reality less than 10 IDF personnel are currently enrolled in non-combat academic courses in the UK – part of a longstanding access for foreign military personnel to educational courses in the UK.

A Labour source also responded angrily to Burgon and Maskell’s posts telling Jewish News: “Spreading mistruths and conspiracy theories about national security is incredibly dangerous. No Labour MP should be perpetuating such nonsense.”
The Gatekeepers of "Facts": How AP and Reuters Shape Billions of Minds
From the very beginning, the war was framed as a “genocide,” since October 19, 2023—just twelve days after Hamas butchered over 1,200 people and kidnapped 250, until today 53 remain hostage. The New York Times had published nine times more articles using the terms “Israel” and “genocide” than it ever did during the Rwandan genocide. The Guardian? Six times more. Combine that relentless framing with the routine omission of Hamas atrocities or UN complicity with Hamas, and you manufacture the perfect propaganda product: a defenseless, stateless people at the mercy of “evil Jews.” The narrative isn’t just biased — it’s engineered from the start.

These five Palestinian aid workers are just the latest additions to the long, ignored list of Hamas victims in Gaza — victims the media and much of the world refuse to see. If their deaths can’t be blamed on Israel, they don’t count. As The Spectator put it, these are the “inconvenient Palestinians” — like the 15% of Gaza’s killed, including women and children, by Hamas’s own rockets, quietly forgotten because they don’t fit the script. Remember Al-Ahli hospital? The case is not unique.

Want to know the worst part? When Palestinians are killed by Hamas or others inside of Gaza or West Bank — especially women and children — their deaths are used as propaganda against Israel. Take the case of Layan Belal Mohammed Moddawikh, 8 years old, killed by a failed Islamic Jihad rocket in Gaza City. That didn’t stop Ramzy Baroud from exploiting her death to blame Israel, turning a PIJ-caused tragedy into another weapon in the global propaganda war.

In May 2023, in Gaza, her death and of several other children wasn’t mourned — it was celebrated, because the barrage of rockets fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad had managed to kill a single Jew: Inga Avramyan, was 80 year-olds from Rehovot. She was crushed by the ceiling collapsing trying to help her paralyzed husband reach the bomb shelter. Inga’s husband Sergei was disabled after a car accident, he was partially paralyzed and had a leg amputated, he was unable to reach shelter unaided. He was lightly wounded in the rocket attack.

If you search her name, you will only find Israeli sources speaking of her death. Not Reuters, not AP, not the BBC, CNN or any other media outside of Israel, her name not mentioned in the countless reports of the UN or Human rights organizations. Inga’s family tragedy didn’t end with her death, her husband died a few months later at the age of 86. His family said that his physical and mental health quickly deteriorated after his injuries and his wife’s death.

A man from Gaza was also killed inside Israel; he was one of the thousands of Gazans who used to enter Israel daily for work before October 7th. Among those celebrating the attack were, of course, UNRWA teachers. Take the case of Yousef Yousef, who wrote in the UNRWA “Terrogram” group exposed by UN Watch in January 2024. The group’s administrator expressed his joy over the death, adding heart emojis.

Just yesterday, Al Jazeera paraded yet another inflated list of “journalists killed,” most of them Hamas operatives or people who never actually died. But what the list didn’t show is the real tragedy: the handful of actual, independent Palestinian journalists who dared to report Hamas crimes — beaten, tortured, murdered. None of them made it onto Al Jazeera’s “martyr” count, because their deaths don’t count, they don’t serve the narrative.
The Myth of Gaza’s “Journalists”: Unmasking the Propaganda Machine
The latest “BREAKING NEWS:” Al Jazeera just published the names of 231 “journalists” allegedly killed by the IDF in Gaza since October 7th. It’s the latest chapter in a long-running information war—one in which Hamas and its media partners have been brazenly manipulating Western sympathies through selective narratives, weaponized statistics, outright lies, and constant accusations that the IDF is targeting journalists to silence the press in Gaza, a false accusation reaching as far as the ICC.



But there’s a critical problem with this new list—It has been largely exposed before and is being shamelessly repeated. Back in December 2023, Al Jazeera released a similar list of names, attempting to paint Israel as systematically targeting journalists. That list was carefully analyzed by investigative journalists David Collier, he released his findings in January 2024, and what he found was damning. Many of those labeled “journalists” had direct and provable ties to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terror groups operating openly in Gaza. These were not independent reporters carrying cameras—they were armed combatants, propagandists, and in some cases, participants in the October 7th massacre itself.



The very first person on the list tells so much about the entire list. Mohamed Al-Salehi was killed on Oct. 7th, he was shot by the IDF, before 1PM. While some reports he was killed in central Gaza, something impossible since the IDF was not in Gaza that day. Others more accurate reports place of death "near the border."

As documented by David Collier, his love for Hamas is evident from his social media & based on the date and time he died, he did so taking part of the massacre! He was not a journalist, he was a murdered.

In general, Collier’s investigation uncovered that the list was padded with individuals who weren’t journalists at all. Some were for example construction workers. Over one quarter of them had no media affiliations whatsoever. Yet they were cynically counted in the toll to manufacture a false narrative of a targeted war on the press.

According to David Collier’s January 2024 investigation and other corroborating reports, including one from the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, of the names listed by Al Jazeera from October 2023 to late December 2023: More than three-quarters of the entire list is fraudulent or deliberately misleading.
~50% had direct affiliations with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or other terror groups.
~27% were not journalists at all—construction workers, relatives, or unaffiliated civilians.
Only ~23% could credibly be described as independent journalists with no apparent ties to terror.

And we know what Hamas does to journalist who don’t aligned, they are tortured and murdered for speaking out.
What Al Jazeera Won’t Tell You: The ‘Dead Journalists’ List Omits Those Killed by Hamas
Then there’s the matter of basic fact-checking. Even at a glance, we can point to at least four individuals who were already removed from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) list after being confirmed as civilians, not journalists. These include:
Salma Mkhaimer
Ahmed Fatima
Mohamed Al Jaja
Mohamed Fayez Abu Matar

That’s not just sloppy—it’s willful misrepresentation.

It gets worse. The list includes at least one person who was later found to be alive, underscoring again how these numbers are thrown into circulation with minimal verification and maximal political utility.

Mustafa Ayyash, was allegedly founder and director of the Gaza-based media outlet Gaza Now, is a striking example of the phenomenon of “resurrected journalists.” Initially reported killed in an Israeli airstrike on his family home in Gaza in November 2023—an incident that led to widespread international condemnation—Ayyash was later found to be alive and active. However, his activities drew further scrutiny when, in March 2024, the U.S. and U.K. imposed sanctions on him and his media organization, accusing them of supporting Hamas through fundraising efforts and media promotion. The following month, Austrian authorities arrested Ayyash in Vienna, seizing his electronic devices and shutting down his media platforms, including a Telegram channel with over 1.8 million followers, they have a new Telegram channel with over 200,000 subscribers. Interestingly, they “memorialize a one year anniversary of their “dead”/arrested founder.

They continue to have X accounts. In their Arabic one, they celebrated the terror attack in Boulder, Colorado. Maybe it’s time for Elon Musk to shut the accounts down? They are a sanctioned organization by the United States.

From the entire Al Jazeera list of "dead" journalists, Mustafa Ayyash case reveals something scary: How many are not actually dead and instead escaped to places in the West? Mustafa Ayyash was arrested, but how many were not? Can we guarantee all 231 are dead? Of course not, and we have one clear case to prove it.

And conspicuously and most revealing part, what’s missing from the list is just as telling as what’s included. For example, Shatha Al-Sabbagh, a Palestinian journalist, was tragically killed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militias during internal clashes with Palestinian Authority security forces in the Jenin refugee camp. Al Jazeera, unsurprisingly, makes no mention of her—because her death was inconvenient for their narrative and Hamas propaganda.

It’s time to stop treating these lists as untouchable sources of truth. They are political weapons, designed not to protect press freedom but to shield Hamas from scrutiny and paint Israel in the worst possible light. The list mixes terrorists, propaganda agents, civilians, alive. This is not truth, the list is pure fiction.

The more these lists are scrutinized, the clearer it becomes: they’re not about journalism. They’re about narrative warfare.
BBC apologises for antisemitic errors in Arabic articles
The BBC has issued two separate apologies over antisemitic content published by its Arabic service – including a video that falsely claimed Jews spit on Christians as part of a “holiday ritual” and an article that appeared to equate ancient Jewish rebels with 9/11 suicide bombers.

One of the pieces, a BBC Arabic video report published on 5 October 2023, alleged that religious Jews spit at Christians during Sukkot as part of traditional observance. The caption originally read: “Spitting and assault on Christians and harassment of Muslims on the Jewish holiday.” It was later amended to: “Some observant Jews consider spitting on Christians a holiday ritual.”

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (Camera) challenged the broadcast shortly after publication, noting the claim was both inaccurate and inflammatory. While there have been incidents involving fringe groups within the Charedi community, spitting is not a practice sanctioned or accepted in Jewish law or tradition.

But it took nearly 19 months for the BBC to formally acknowledge and apologise for the error.

In a written statement to Camera this month, the broadcaster said: “We apologise for the errors and thank you for your patience in waiting for this reply/confirmation of corrections that were made in October 2023.”

A second BBC Arabic article, published on the 22nd anniversary of 9/11, drew further outrage. Titled “The story of suicide bombers throughout history: from the fanatical Jews, through Assassins, to the Jihadists”, the piece describes the Sicarii – a militant Jewish group active during Roman occupation – as the earliest example of suicide attackers. It went on to link them to modern jihadist tactics.

Camera disputed the comparison, arguing that while the Sicarii did commit mass suicide at Masada, they did not carry out suicide attacks. After multiple complaints and more than 400 working days, the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit agreed the original article contained a “material inaccuracy”.

“Although the Sicarii may have preferred suicide to capture, there was no evidence of their using suicide as a means of an attack,” the ECU said in a final ruling dated 10 April 2025.

Despite that admission, it took another week before BBC Arabic changed the headline to remove the phrase “fanatical Jews”. The revised title now reads: “The story of suicide bombers throughout history: from Assassins to Jihadists.”
Jew-hatred has ‘surged’ on Columbia campus, acting president admits
Claire Shipman, acting president of Columbia University, stated on Thursday that “it is simply a fact that antisemitic incidents surged on our campus after Oct. 7.”

“Everyone in our community has been affected by the government’s actions and the corresponding public scrutiny,” she said. “But the challenges for our research mission, and our entire institution, are becoming increasingly acute.”

The Trump administration cut $400 million from the university in March over what it said is the Ivy League school’s failure to adequately address Jew-hatred on campus since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The university laid off 180 employees in May.

“Columbia’s top scientists are facing the decimation of decades of research,” Shipman stated. “Graduate students, postdocs, mid-career researchers and established, celebrated scientists have all had their breakthroughs lauded by the world one minute and defunded the next.”

“We’re in danger of reaching a tipping point in terms of preserving our research excellence and the work we do for humanity,” she added.

Shipman said it’s imperative for the school and government to rebuild their “research partnership,” but she intends to hold firm on the “red lines” of maintaining “our autonomy and independent governance” in any agreement with Washington.

She pushed back on the notion that “following the law and attempting to resolve a complaint” amounts to “capitulation.”

“It is simply a fact that antisemitic incidents surged on our campus after Oct. 7, and that is unacceptable,” Shipman said. “I’ve seen too many students, faculty members and staff in absolute anguish.”

“We engaged in conversations with the government about their concerns, which were and continue to be our concerns and our community’s concerns,” she said. “We’ve committed to change. We’ve made progress, but we have more to do.”

“We have a lot to balance,” Shipman added. “Safeguarding the critical work of our research mission and what it provides to the world is a moral responsibility, as is safeguarding our integrity.”


ABC host abruptly cuts off guest discussing Gaza aid misinformation instead of debating him
Sky News Australia's Media Watch Dog Columnist Gerard Henderson has slammed ABC host Sally Sara for ending an interview with a guest abruptly and immediately disputing his point after he was off-air.




Hamas stole 25% of all humanitarian aid, IDF investigation reveals
The IDF has released internal Hamas documents revealing that the terror group has stolen around 25% of all humanitarian aid during the war, profiting by hundreds of millions of pounds.

Through secret recordings, it shows how Hamas seized aid, sold it on the black market, took money from Iran and extorted distributors.

According to an IDF spokesperson, operatives from the group joined aid convoys—sometimes openly, sometimes in disguise—to take control of humanitarian goods meant for civilians.

Based on intercepted conversations and authentic documents, Israeli intelligence found that Hamas declared itself the authority over humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza, and commandeered large portions of it.

The IDF reveals that Hamas established fixed quotas—between 15% and more than 25% —of all aid to be diverted systematically for its own use.

Israel has published a graphic outlining the four mechanisms by which Hamas exploited aid: confiscation, smuggling, skimming (deductions) and protection rackets, along with flow charts of external money transfers, intercepted calls between Gaza residents describing the system, and official Hamas documents—some with translated versions—detailing internal directives for allocating aid quotas.

In one intercepted call, presented by the IDF, two Gaza residents describe how Hamas looted UNRWA flour warehouses and then sold the flour to civilians at steep prices. “They got the flour for free; they are selling it for 120 shekels, while I sell it for 60,” says one. He adds that Hamas operatives broke into UNRWA mills and stole their contents: “To hell with them… Whatever happens to them—it’s not enough. They all are thieves. They all are dogs.”




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