Monday, June 16, 2025

06/16 Links Pt2: Israel’s actions are a favour to Europe – but don’t expect a thank you; France walls off Israeli pavilion at Paris Air Show; The march of the useful idiots

From Ian:

Israel’s actions are a favour to Europe – but don’t expect a thank you
Blame Hollywood if you like, but Britain has drifted into that cliché scene where by-standers beg the hero not to cut the red wire. This week’s by-standers are Cabinet ministers and assorted world leaders, panicked that Israeli pilots might finish the job on Iran’s nuclear programme. The talk is all about “de-escalation”, as though you can politely handcuff a centrifuge and hope it learns some manners. Yet the red wire in question is attached to Tehran’s nuclear-bomb-in-waiting, and – brace yourself – Israel is prepared to yank it out.

Let’s admit what the diplomatic communiqués whisper: Iran is not enriching uranium for a school science prize. The International Atomic Energy Agency counts hundreds of kilos sitting at 60 per cent, a couple of turns from weapons-grade. Strap that payload to an intermediate-range Shahab and the footprint stretches far beyond Tel Aviv to nearby Europe. If you want a working definition of “clear and present danger”, that’s it – especially when the regime boasts that its reach is now “continental”.

Meanwhile, every time you map the region’s misery you find Tehran’s fingerprints. Hezbollah’s missiles in Lebanon, Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza, Shia militias turning Iraqi highways into shooting galleries, Houthis lobbing drones across the Red Sea – each a franchise in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ terror food-court. Pay, train, arm, repeat. The ayatollahs have franchised terror into a geopolitical Deliveroo – dispatching proxy couriers who drop rockets on Israel and drones on Red Sea shipping.

Against that backdrop, the suggestion that Israel must be reined in feels almost zoological – like silencing the guard dog while the burglar assembles Semtex in the neighbourhood. Yes, Israel’s operations spark unease; a bombing run is nobody’s idea of diplomacy. But allowing Iran to complete its nuclear sprint would be more than an escalation: it would be a time-release calamity.

Israel’s pilots and engineers are, in effect, buying the civilised world time that sanctions, resolutions and strongly worded letters never could. Knocking out centrifuges today means fewer warheads tomorrow, and fewer warheads means no regional arms race in 2030. In the cold arithmetic of strategy, that is a favour to every European capital even if they’re too squeamish to send so much as a thank-you tweet.
NYT's Editorial: Antisemitism Is an Urgent Problem. Too Many People Are Making Excuses.
Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident, has suggested a “3D” test for when criticism of Israel crosses into antisemitism, with the D’s being delegitimization, demonization and double standards. Progressive rhetoric has regularly failed that test in recent years. “Americans generally have greater ability to identify Jew hatred when it comes from the hard right and less ability and comfort to call out Jew hatred when it comes from the hard left or radical Islamism,” said Rachel Fish, an adviser to Brandeis University’s Presidential Initiative on Antisemitism.

Consider the double standard that leads to a fixation on Israel’s human rights record and little campus activism about the records of China, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela or almost any other country. Consider how often left-leaning groups suggest that the world’s one Jewish state should not exist and express admiration for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — Iran-backed terrorist groups that brag about murdering Jews. Consider how often people use “Zionist” as a slur — an echo of Soviet propaganda from the Cold War — and call for the exclusion of Zionists from public spaces. The definition of a Zionist is somebody who supports the existence of Israel.

Historical comparisons can also be instructive. The period since Oct. 7, 2023, is hardly the first time that global events have contributed to a surge in hate crimes against a specific group. Asian Americans were the victims in 2020 and 2021 after the Covid pandemic began in China. Muslim Americans were the victims after Sept. 11, 2001. In those periods, a few fringe voices, largely on the far right, tried to justify the hate, but the response from much of American society was denunciation. President George W. Bush visited a mosque on Sept. 17, 2001, and proclaimed, “Islam is peace.” During Covid, displays of Asian allyship filled social media.

Recent experience has been different in a couple of ways. One, the attacks against Jews have been even more numerous and violent, as the F.B.I. data shows. Two, the condemnation has been quieter and at times tellingly agonized. University leaders have often felt uncomfortable decrying antisemitism without also decrying Islamophobia. Islamophobia, to be clear, is a real problem that deserves attention on its own. Yet antisemitism seems to be a rare type of bigotry that some intellectuals are uncomfortable rebuking without caveat. After the Sept. 11 attacks, they did not feel the need to rebuke both Islamophobia and antisemitism. Nor should they have. People should be able to denounce a growing form of hatred without ritually denouncing other forms.

Alarmingly, the antisemitic rhetoric of both the political right and the left has filtered into justifications for violence. But there has been an asymmetry in recognizing the connections. After a gunman murdered 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, observers correctly noted that he had become radicalized partly through racist right-wing social media. There has been a similar phenomenon in some recent attacks, this time with the assailants using the language of the left.

The man who burned marchers in Colorado shouted “Free Palestine!” and (awkwardly) “End Zionist!” The man charged with killing the young Israeli Embassy workers in Washington last month is suspected of having posted an online manifesto titled “Escalate for Gaza, Bring the War Home.” His supporters have since published a petition that includes “Globalize the Intifada.” The demonizing, delegitimizing rhetoric of the right bore some responsibility for the Pittsburgh massacre; the demonizing, delegitimizing rhetoric of the left bears some responsibility for the recent attacks.

Americans should be able to recognize the nuanced nature of many political debates while also recognizing that antisemitism has become an urgent problem. It is a different problem — and in many ways, a narrower one — than racism. Antisemitism has not produced shocking gaps in income, wealth and life expectancy in today’s America. Yet the new antisemitism has left Jewish Americans at a greater risk of being victimized by a hate crime than any other group. Many Jews live with fears that they never expected to experience in this country.

No political arguments or ideological context can justify that bigotry. The choice is between denouncing it fully and encouraging an even broader explosion of hate.
Is The Simple Truth: ‘Progressives Hate Jews’?
We all know the saying – and apparent truism – that there will be peace in the Middle East when the Palestinians start loving their children more than they hate the Jews. But it seems increasingly apparent to me that something similar applies to so-called “progressive politics”. Campaigning organizations might one day achieve their campaigning goals when they value those goals more than they hate the Jews.

Last week we saw the unedifying spectacle of Environmental Campaigner Greta Thunburg – who only a short while ago claimed the “climate emergency” was the biggest existential threat to the planet. Of course, it wasn’t so great an emergency that she couldn’t take time out from it to deliver some groceries to Gaza as if she were Tuesday’s ‘Hello Fresh’ drop-off driver.

The Israel-Iran war gives us a few new examples of where anti-Israel activism seems to override the urgency of primary campaigning. Almost all of these groups state that their values include human rights, democracy, rights and protections for women and sexual minorities, and so on. So when they appear to condemn Israel – a society where these values have legal force – over Iran – where these values are forced to their knees – is there any conclusion other than this one?

“Progressives hate Jews so much that they are willing to support a theocratic dictatorship that stands against almost all of their core values against a Jewish state which reflects most of those values.”

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) apparently stands for a world free from the threat of nuclear war. So you’d think they’d be quite pleased when a mad theocracy on the verge of acquiring a nuclear bomb is stopped. But of course they aren’t.

“The British government must end its support for nuclear-armed Israel’s illegal war on Iran – a war based on lies used to justify attempts at regime change that risks widening a humanitarian catastrophe,” they raged.

Similarly, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) condemned Israel’s attacks on the grounds that attacking nuclear facilities might cause an environmental disaster. “Nuclear facilities must never be attacked,” scolded the agency head, Rafael Mariano Grossi. His organization is dedicated, they say, to “nuclear non-proliferation, disarmament, and to promote cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy.”

Of course they don’t appear to have a plan to stop a rogue state weaponizing nuclear power other than to hope for the best while condemning any practical efforts to stop them. Perhaps they subscribe to the view formulated by President Barack Obama ten years ago. How’s that turning out?


IDF soldier KIA in Gaza, wartime military toll reaches 869
An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed fighting Hamas terrorists in the southern Gaza Strip, the military announced on Monday evening.

The slain man was identified as Capt. Tal Movshovitz, 28, a deputy company commander in the Golani Brigade’s 7086th Engineering Battalion, from Re’ut.

According to Israel’s Ynet news outlet, Movshovitz was killed in an IED blast in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.

The death toll among Israeli troops since the start of the Gaza ground incursion on Oct. 27, 2023, stands at 426, and at 869 on all fronts since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

On Sunday, the IDF announced that Sgt. 1st Class (res.) Noam Shemesh, 21, of Jerusalem, was killed in combat in the southern part of the Gaza Strip on Saturday. Shemesh was a squad commander in the Shimshon Battalion 92 in the Kfir Brigade.


GHF delivers 3.1m meals, criticizes UN for pushing false information
The U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation announced that it distributed 3.1 million meals in four distribution sites to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Monday, bringing the total number of meals to more than 26 million.

The announcement follows the organization’s resumption of operations on Sunday after a one-day pause due to security concerns.

GHF also stated that three of its members sustained “minor injuries” related to Iranian attacks on Israel. All three received medical treatment and were diagnosed with concussions. Otherwise, “aid distribution at all sites proceeded without incident,” the organization stated.

“Once again, I am extremely proud of our team as they safely opened the four sites today despite the unprecedented series of conflict events in the region,” stated John Acree, GHF interim executive director.

“While we are now navigating daily Iranian missile attacks and falling flak from counter weapons, our team still arrives at the loading docks to stock our trucks and continue our mission of feeding the people of Gaza,” he continued. “They are our sole customers and stakeholders whom we strive to serve every day.”

The organization also said media organizations and the United Nations “continue to push false information” from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

“We have read false media reports again today attributing a violent incident that occurred in northern Gaza in proximity to a U.N. aid convoy that was being targeted for looting and falsely claiming it was located near a GHF distribution site,” the organization wrote. “GHF does not have a distribution site in Gaza City or northern Gaza at this time. We also do not deliver bulk flour. This is clearly false information.”


France walls off Israeli pavilion at Paris Air Show
Israel on Monday accused the French government of blocking off parts of the Israeli pavilion at the Paris Air Show, which opened in Le Bourget Airport, breaking with understandings reached on Israel’s participation and principles of equality.

General Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amir Baram, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s director general, called the move “absolutely, bluntly antisemitic” and accused France of “commercial exclusion to prevent successful Israeli industries from competing with French ones.”

In a statement, Israel’s Defense Ministry said on Monday that the French government’s action “comes at a time when Israel is fighting a necessary and just war to eliminate the nuclear and ballistic threat facing the Middle East, Europe and the entire world.”

Exhibition organizers, acting on behalf of the French government, ordered the removal of offensive weapons systems from Israeli pavilions. When the Israeli delegation refused, the organizers erected “a black wall that blocks the Israeli pavilions and creates segregation between the Israeli industry pavilions and dozens of other pavilions (Turkish, Chinese, and others),” the ministry said.

The International Paris Air Show confirmed that it had taken the action in question in a statement to FranceInfo. “This followed an ‘instruction from the competent French authorities prior to the opening of the Show, relating to the withdrawal of certain equipment presented on Israeli pavilions,’ the organizers told the broadcaster. “Dialogue is underway so that the various parties can find a favorable outcome to the situation,” they added.


Federal judge rules Columbia anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil to remain in jail
Michael Farbiarz, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, ruled that Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate who the Trump administration alleges has terror ties, must remain in detention for an alleged immigration fraud charge.

Earlier this week, the court ruled that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s justification for removing Khalil based on “a compelling foreign-policy interest” would likely be unconstitutional. In a Friday court filing, Farbiarz wrote that a second charge against Khalil, involving immigration fraud, cannot be overturned at this time.

“The petitioner did not put forward factual evidence as to why it might be unlawful to detain him on the second charge, and the petitioner failed to make meaningful legal argument to that second charge,” per the court filing.

Farbiarz wrote that Khalil may file an application for bail with an immigration judge.

Federal agents arrested Khalil, who is from Syria, on March 8. He is being held at the LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, La. Khalil, who holds a green card and is married to a U.S. citizen, led the pro-Hamas mobs at Columbia University.
When Harvard and Yale Want To, They Act With Alacrity
In the last decade, top officials at Harvard and Yale exploited accusations of systemic racism in the country and at their institutions to remake scholarship and teaching at their universities. Yet recently they have dodged and dithered in the face of well-documented charges of antisemitism, racial discrimination, censorship, viewpoint homogeneity, and politicized curricula. This suggests that administrators and faculty at Harvard and Yale doubt that such ailments are ailments or, if ailments, that they impair education, or, if ailments that impair education, justify risking their comfort and convenience to remedy.

In August 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, then-Harvard Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay sent a memo to the “FAS community.” Three months before, Minneapolis police officers killed convicted felon George Floyd while subduing and arresting him. This sparked months of nationwide protests involving looting, arson, and clashes with the police. Focusing on the protests and overlooking the violence, Gay announced in her memo that “a second pandemic is unfolding, one with deeper roots in American life.”

This “second pandemic” had global significance and immediate ramifications for Harvard, declared Gay. “People across the world have risen up in protest against police brutality and systemic racism, awake to the devastating legacies of slavery and white supremacy like never before,” she wrote, adopting the perspective of Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory. “The calls for racial justice heard on our streets also echo on our campus, as we reckon with our individual and institutional shortcomings and with our Faculty’s shared responsibility to bring truth to bear on the pernicious effects of structural inequality.”

Now was the time to act, Gay insisted: “This moment offers a profound opportunity for institutional change that should not and cannot be squandered.” A political scientist and college dean, Gay did not urge her colleagues to study the moment – to evaluate the national mood, investigate the validity of the protesters’ grievances and the costs of their violence, and analyze the assumptions, evidence, and reasoning informing popular discourse. Instead, she summoned Harvard to link arms with the protesters. “The national conversation around racial equity continues to gain momentum and the unprecedented scale of mobilization and demand for justice gives me hope,” she stressed. “In raw, candid conversations and virtual gatherings convened across the FAS in the aftermath of George Floyd’s brutal murder, members of our community spoke forcefully and with searing clarity about the institution we aspire to be and the lengths we still must travel to be the Harvard of our ideals.”
Iranian missile strikes Weizmann Institute, damaging labs in Rehovot
The Weizmann Institute of Science has confirmed multiple buildings on its Rehovot campus were damaged early Sunday after an Iranian missile struck the area, sparking fires and damaging parts of its laboratories.

Footage cited by The New York Times showed flames engulfing at least one lab building, with debris and shattered glass scattered across the site. The missile impact was part of a broader barrage targeting central Israel in the early hours of 15 June.

Alan Monziani, a PhD student from Italy residing in the campus dorms, told the Times: “It’s hard to say if it was a direct hit or shrapnel,” describing the scene as “shattered glass and fire breaking out at the site.”

In a statement, the Institute said: “In the early hours of Sunday 15 June, missile strikes heavily damaged buildings and labs on our Rehovot campus. We are profoundly relieved that no one was harmed, and we thank you for your messages of support and solidarity during this challenging time.

“The Institute is taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety of everyone on campus. As we assess the full extent of the damage and plan next steps, we will keep you informed.

“Our thoughts are with our friends, colleagues and loved ones in Israel. Together, as a Weizmann community, we will rebuild with renewed resilience and continue our mission to advance scientific discovery for the benefit and future of humanity.”


Al-Azhar University’s Jew-hating jihad reaches Colorado
As documented by the late historian David Littman in his work Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel, in September of 1968, Al-Azhar hosted prominent Muslim theologians not only from the Middle East, but also from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, at the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research.

Following the Arab-Muslim debacle during the Six-Day War in June 1967, this seminal conference marked the formal abandonment of pseudo-secular “Arab nationalism.” Instead, it favored jihadism and Islamic Jew-hatred as a guiding ideological rationale for the simmering conflict with Israel.

Littman summarized the conference’s six key recurring themes, among them that Jews were frequently characterized as the “enemies of Allah,” manifesting a historical continuity of evil qualities, “as described in the Quran,” and that they did not constitute a true people or nation. Israel was the culmination of the historical and cultural depravity of the Jews, which must be destroyed by a jihad, while the superiority of Islam over all other religions was brandished as a guarantee of the Arabs’ ultimate triumph. Also, that it was outrageous for the Jews, traditionally kept by Arab Islam in a humiliated, inferior status and characterized as cowardly, to defeat the Arabs, have their own state, and cause the contraction of the “abode of Islam.”

Littman’s analysis concluded with a plaintive warning, one that is still relevant today, writing that Al-Azhar was promoting ideas that “lead to the urge to liquidate Israel, politicide and the Jews, genocide. If the evil of the Jews is immutable and permanent, transcending time and circumstances, and impervious to all hopes of reform, there is only one way to cleanse the world of them, by their complete annihilation.”

On Oct. 7, 2023, Al-Azhar celebrated the brutal jihad carnage by Hamas as “the resistance efforts of the proud Palestinian people.” Some 10 days later, it issued a formal fatwa, one praised by Al-Qaeda, declaring that “Zionist settlers,” meaning all Israelis, were legitimate targets of jihad.

The university’s grand imams, Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi and Ahmed al-Tayyib, both rabid antisemites, have amplified this perverse Islamic ethos in recent decades.

Tantawi, a leading modern Quranic commentator who led Al-Azhar from 1996 to 2010, mined Islam’s rich Jew-hating canon to produce a 766-page Quranic screed against the Jews, “The Children of Israel (Jews) in the Quran and Traditions,” which can be found online in Arabic.

In it, he wrote “these and many more vices” of the Jews in the Quran: “Disbelief, ingratitude, egotism, cowardice, deceit, rebellion, cruelty, deviance, hastening to transgression and aggression, unjustly consuming people’s wealth.” He avers that such Quranic vices of the Jews “can be clearly seen anywhere and throughout the ages,” and that “the passage of time has only made these vices more ingrained in them.”

Al-Tayyib, the current grand imam, has also sanctioned homicide bombing against Israeli non-combatants, and promoted conspiratorial Jew-hatred ideologies claiming that Jews seek to conquer Mecca and Medina, and that Jews created jihad terror groups like ISIS. Twice in nationally televised Egyptian interviews, al-Tayyib explained how a central antisemitic verse in the Quran, verse 5:82, defines Muslim-Jewish relations, permanently, inflicting “suffering” upon Muslims for 1,400 years until now.

Soliman’s attack on Boulder’s Jews brought Al-Azhar’s authoritative Islamic Jew-hating, jihad ethos to Colorado. Hopefully, the attack will lead U.S. religious and political leaders to finally recognize and condemn this ugly phenomenon.
Sydney University stands down academic over calls for execution of Zionists
Sky News senior reporter Caroline Marcus discusses the disturbing posts by a Sydney University academic Fahad Ali, calling for the execution of Zionists.

“How did we get to the point where an academic feels entirely emboldened to brazenly call for the actual execution of a group of people? Since the October 7 attacks in Israel, we have seen some of the most vile extremist garbage from the people meant to be nurturing the minds of the next generation,” Ms Marcus said.

“This latest example from Sydney University academic and Palestinian activist Fahad Ali, surely takes the cake though, in what has become a very crowded field, the biologist tweeted this week, F sanctions, I want Zionists executed liked we executed Nazis. Despite the post being taken down by X for violating rules against violent speech, Ali doubled down.”

Ms Marcus also highlighted a new class action lawsuit to tackle campus antisemitism which intends to confront the “growing issue of hate speech on university campuses”.

The latest case is brought by a group of Sydney University’s Jewish staff and students against two of its highest profile anti-Israel academics, Doctor Nick Riemer and Professor John Keane.

Dr Riemer and Professor Keane are accused of discriminating against Jewish people under section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act.
USYD boasts about handling of months long pro-Palestine encampment in shock claims
Sydney University has made a shock claim that it "did a good job" in handling pro-Palestine encampments which lasted months on its campus as a class action lawsuit is launched against the country’s oldest university.

On Monday, a NSW parliamentary committee's antisemitism inquiry heard representatives from some of Australia’s elite universities explain the challenges they have faced since October 7, 2023.

Among them was University of Sydney senior deputy vice-chancellor Professor Annamarie Jagose who was pressed on why the institution had not taken appropriate measures sooner when protests had begun to erupt on campuses across the country.

Professor Jagose was also asked to explain why the university did not shut down the protesters’ encampment after Safe Work indicated the University of Sydney “had the power” to move on the congregation.

“We think we did a good job in peacefully resolving the longest running encampment in Australia,” Professor Jagose said.

Professor Jagose insisted the university liaised with police and Arabic language specialists when Hezbollah or Taliban flags were allegedly flown on campus.

The university’s senior deputy vice-chancellor blamed the media for circulating inaccuracies, such as the allegation Hezbollah flags were flown on campus.

External engagement vice-principal Kirsten Andrews told the committee the university had told six different inquiries it “didn’t get everything right”, which is why they commissioned an independent review.


The march of the useful idiots
The protesters’ videos testify to the marchers’ abject ignorance. If they had known anything about the regional situation, they would have known the march was never going to happen. There certainly wasn’t a chance they would ever make it into Gaza. There is a kilometre-wide buffer zone all along the Egyptian border. There are 20-foot-high concrete walls and fences, which reach 30 feet below ground, equipped with seismic sensors. After terror attacks from Gaza on Egyptians, the Egyptian government has spent tens of millions building one of the most impenetrable borders in the world.

Egypt’s rulers might claim to support Palestinian rights, but the last place they want the Gazans to be is in Egypt. Egypt has no illusions about the threat posed by Hamas and its deep roots in Palestinian society. So even with a humanitarian crisis raging in Gaza, the Egyptian border remains firmly shut – the same border, that is, that Western pro-Palestinian activists ignore when they claim that Israel solely controls access to Gaza.

So for the marching numbskulls to just rock up in Egypt, thinking the authorities would welcome them with open arms and let them through this most guarded of borders, requires ignorant hubris of almost superhuman levels. Perhaps the marchers imagined themselves being showered with rose petals while scores of white doves were released in their honour. Instead, they got a slap in the face from a local with a flipflop.

Predictably, the would-be white saviours reacted with indignity when the uppity brown locals violently resisted their ‘march’. They then resorted to anger and vitriol as they chanted ‘Fuck Egypt’ on buses taking them to their waiting planes. Where’s their gratitude for Egypt saving their lives? For death was the fate that likely awaited them in Gaza. Just ask Vittorio Arrigoni, the Italian pro-Palestinian activist abducted and murdered there in 2011 by Salafist radicals who considered Hamas too moderate.

Soon enough, these most useful of idiots will have been returned home to live another day. Maybe some will join up with those activists who staged a protest in London on Saturday chanting pro-Iran slogans.

The arrogance and ignorance of the West’s Israelophobes truly knows no bounds.
Brendan O'Neill: The hilarious collapse of the cult of the keffiyeh
Sadly, by which I mean hilariously, their cloying pity for Arabs crashed against the reality of Arab self-respect. I am still not recovered from the sight of these self-loving midwits in their culturally appropriated keffiyehs being shouted down by Egyptians in real keffiyehs. On the road to Ismailia in northern Egypt, the marchers were stopped by security forces. So they gathered in a square by the mosque and chanted ‘Free, free Palestine!’. Locals weren’t best pleased. Well, would you be if a gang of pious pricks from afar rocked up in your town and started yelling political shit near your place of worship? The locals shouted at the ‘empathetic humans’. They threw plastic bottles at them. White Saviour card, declined!

The outsiders hollered ‘Shame on you’ at their Arab critics. Yes, in English. These are the kind of people who look down their noses at Brits who holiday in Spain and never utter a word of Spanish and yet here they were barking English-language insults at Egyptians in Egypt. There will never be a better representation of the phoney virtue and haughty self-regard of the ‘pro-Palestine’ set than this dystopic image of Westerners in Arab headgear screaming ‘shame’ at real Arabs who just want to go about their day without encountering some tit from Britain ‘manifesting passion and humanity’.

Some of the marchers were arrested. They were bundled on to buses and taken to the airport to be returned to the ‘privileged’ lives they hate. They were ‘shocked’ by their treatment. Why? Anyone with even a fleeting knowledge of Arab politics will know that Egyptian officialdom is iffy about the Palestine issue. They don’t want the Gaza tragedy leaking into their already troubled land – hence, Egypt’s border with Gaza is if anything more militarised than Israel’s. The childish moral fables that the West’s white-saviour classes tell themselves – where Israel is the source of every ill in the Middle East, if not the world – took one hell of a beating in Egypt.

The farcical state of ‘pro-Palestine’ activism is best summed up in that viral clip of a Welsh male nurse begging Egyptian cops to have a heart. He weeps as he pleads to be let through so that he might help the poor people of ‘Falasteen’. The children are starving, the women’s breasts are empty – prove to the world that Arabs have ‘white hearts’ and let me pass, he says. This is the ‘pro-Palestine’ movement’s Four Lions moment. Indeed, if I ever write a satire on these keffiyeh pricks, this is exactly what will happen: an emotionally incontinent white man in a keffiyeh will holler ‘Let me save Palestine!’ as bewildered Arabs raise a what-the-fuck eyebrow.

The hilarious collapse of the Global March to Gaza follows Israel’s thwarting of Greta Thunberg’s ship of fools. That watery clown show, where 12 moral preeners imagined they could land in Gaza and ‘save’ its people, was likewise motored by a toxic mix of political infantilism and moral self-importance. From grumpy Greta being flown home to that Welsh dude being memed and mocked across the internet, the cult of the keffiyeh is in trouble. Many can now see that the aim of this activism is not to feed people in Gaza but to feed the vanity of Westerners bored with their privileged lives. It’s an orgy of Orientalism in which the activist class cosplays as Arabs because they think it’s lame and shameful to be white.

That’s what ‘pro-Palestine’ activism is now, everywhere from the keffiyeh-fest on the lawns of Harvard to the ludicrous white-saviour theatrics in Egypt: a fairytale for self-hating, time-rich Westerners in which Arabs are always the victims and the Jewish State is evil incarnate. It has no basis in truth, of course, but then truth is not the aim: moral absolution is. Cry more, Israelophobes – your sanctimony is crashing against the shores of reality.


In wake of Middle East war: Dozens of Jewish graves desecrated in Moldova’s capital
Against the backdrop of the war between Israel and Iran and escalating tensions across the Middle East, the Jewish community in Moldova has reported a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents following a series of troubling events over the weekend in the capital, Chisinau.

The Jewish community reports the desecration of dozens of graves at the Chisinau Jewish cemetery. This serious incident follows a wave of recent antisemitic episodes, including verbal abuse and threats against members of the Jewish community, antisemitic graffiti spray-painted on the wall of a synagogue, and the inclusion of highly questionable and revisionist Holocaust-related content in a newly published school history textbook.

"The escalation in the Middle East is accompanied by a wave of antisemitic incidents across Europe, underscoring the urgent need for heightened vigilance to protect Jewish communities throughout the continent,” said Rabbi Pinchas Zaltzman, Chief Rabbi of Moldova. “The direct confrontation between Israel and Iran, in particular, is fueling hatred and antisemitism around the world, and regrettably, Moldova is not immune.”

Rabbi Zaltzman added: “What we are witnessing here, the desecration of Jewish graves and the distortion of Holocaust history in educational materials — is not only an attack on the Jewish community but an assault on the fundamental values of any civilized society.”

The Chief Rabbi is calling on the Moldovan government and law enforcement agencies to act swiftly to stop this dangerous wave of antisemitism, to take all necessary steps to prevent further acts of vandalism against Jewish institutions, to ensure the safety and security of Moldova’s Jewish population, to preserve the memory of Holocaust victims, and to uphold the integrity of historical truth within Moldova’s education system.


Argentina will move embassy to Jerusalem, Milei announces at Israel's Knesset
Argentina will move its embassy to Jerusalem in 2026, Argentinian President Javier Milei announced in a ceremonial speech in the Knesset plenum on Wednesday evening.

Milei began his speech by saying that the “cancer” of antisemitism is spreading once again despite the lessons of the Holocaust. He criticized what he called a “corruption” of Western values, arguing that the global Left has lost its moral compass and was “siding with Hamas.”



“Argentina will not stand on the sidelines” and will “raise its voice in defense of fellow human beings,” Milei said.

The Argentinian president commended Israel for being a bastion of democracy in a hostile region. He praised a number of “miracles” – the formation of the state, its victory in the War of Independence, its emergence as a global technological leader, and the economic reforms of the 1980s in which Israel overcame hyperinflation.

He also commended what he called Argentina’s “economic miracle,” calling his approach a “paradigm shift” that included opposing “unnecessary” government spending and carrying out a series of fiscal and monetary reforms.

Milei’s speech was preceded by warm speeches by Knesset Speaker MK Amir Ohana, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Opposition Leader MK Yair Lapid.


2025 Maccabiah Games postponed until next summer due to war
The 2025 Maccabiah Games scheduled to take place in Israel in July have been canceled and postponed until 2026 as a result of the ongoing war against Iran, the Maccabi World Union announced on Monday.

It said that in consultations between the heads of Maccabi World Union and the 2025 Maccabiah, together with Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar and his staff, it was decided that due to Operation Rising Lion, the Israeli military campaign against Iran that began on June 13, “the Maccabiah, which was scheduled to officially open on July 8, 2025, will now be held in the summer of 2026.”

The statement added, “The Israeli government announced yesterday (Sunday, June 15) the extension of the national emergency until June 30, 2025, throughout the country. This decision, while important given the circumstances, directly and immediately affects the ability of the Maccabi World Union and its members to prepare safely and effectively for the 22nd Maccabiah, which was scheduled for this July.”

The 2025 Games were scheduled to be held from July 8 to 22, with more than 8,000 athletes from 55 countries gathering in Israel to compete in 45 sports all over the country.

Zohar said, “Following our operation in Iran and after numerous assessments of the situation, we have concluded that it is inevitable to postpone the Maccabiah until next year. I thank all the Maccabiah organizers for their willingness and joint efforts, the Jewish organizations around the world, and the sports unions. I am confident that we will gather here next year with a stronger and braver Israel than ever before.”


Documentary about 2022 synagogue hostage crisis speaks to extremism today, rabbi says
A 2024 documentary about a 2022 incident, in which a gunman held hostages in a Reform synagogue in Texas, has a lot to say about Jew-hatred in the present moment, according to the rabbi who was held hostage for 11 hours in the standoff.

“It speaks about and helps us understand a little bit more about the extremism in this world, the antisemitism we are facing,” Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, the rabbi who was held hostage in Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, on Jan. 15, 2022, told JNS ahead of a screening of “Colleyville” at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills, Calif., on June 9.

“The importance of security and security training, making sure that we have good emergency procedures, making sure that as many adults know what to do in an emergency,” he said. “We’re living in a society where most of our kids know what to do in an emergency situation. The adults need to learn it as well.”

The film serves as a reminder of the dangers of “when people believe the antisemitic lies,” Cytron-Walker added.

The documentary, which contains security footage from 2022 that hadn’t been seen publicly, does “a great job of highlighting a number of pieces that I think are really relevant for what we’re going through today,” the rabbi said.

Cytron-Walker, who is featured in the film, threw a chair at Malik Faisal Akram, the gunman whom law enforcement killed that day in 2022. The rabbi was one of four Jews held hostage.

“I feel incredibly fortunate,” Cytron-Walker, now the rabbi of Temple Emanuel, a Reform congregation in Winston-Salem, N.C., told JNS. “I’m not dwelling on it. I’m not replaying it.”




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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



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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