Monday, August 04, 2025

08/04 Links Pt2: The West is complicit in Hamas’s torture of the hostages; The hilarious breakdown of the Islamo-left alliance; The Red Cross is ‘Abandoning the Very People It Was Established To Protect’

From Ian:

Amb. Michael Oren: Why I Have Hope for Israel
Fifty years ago, I came to a country that had no relations with China, India, and Africa, nor the 12-member Soviet bloc, no peace with Egypt and Jordan, or any Abraham Accords. We had friendly relations with the U.S., but no deep, multifaceted strategic alliance and no high tech. Our major export was oranges.

My historian's eye enables me to see what no people in all of history could have accomplished, rising after two thousand years of statelessness, a mere three years after the Holocaust, to establish an independent nation in our ancient homeland.

I see how that country, shorn of allies and natural resources, repelled a multi-pronged invasion designed to destroy it, absorbed 10 times its original Jewish population in 10 years, created one of the world's only uninterrupted democracies, built seven top-flight universities, a universal healthcare system, and mustered an army more than twice as large as those of France and Britain combined.

I saw Hebrew not merely reborn, but spoken, sung, and written. I saw how a poor, agrarian backwater became a military and technological superpower, the country that could invent Mobileye and Waze while standing up to the lavishly-armed forces of evil.

And during the current war my hope has grown. I've seen close to half a million Israelis leave their homes, their jobs, and their families, pick up a gun and go out to fight for their country, knowing full well that they may come back irreparably altered or may not come back at all. Half a million Israelis is - proportional to the U.S. - the equivalent of many millions more than all the Americans who served along with my father in World War II.

Whether in biblical or contemporary days, we are a nation of flawed heroes, and our miracles often come encapsulated in pain. But based on the empirical evidence, our nation will survive this trying period and emerge, once again, robust. The hope of being a free people in our own land, as our national anthem envisions, has not been lost.
Brendan O'Neill: The West is complicit in Hamas’s torture of the hostages
Hamas’s release of those Nazi-like images of two Jews it abducted, starved and then humiliated for the titillation of the world’s anti-Semites was an assertion of the mad power it enjoys over the Gaza narrative. It knows that no matter the depths of depravity it sinks to, still the story will be that Israel is the problem. It knows it can send a 6,000-strong army to invade Israel, rape Israeli women, kill Israeli civilians, kidnap Jews and subject them to fascistic abasements, and still the influential of the West will point the finger at the Jewish State. David and Braslavski’s suffering was arguably intensified by this ethical disorder in the West – certainly Hamas was exploiting that ethical disorder when it released footage of their suffering in the full knowledge that many would just look the other way.

Worse, Hamas senses that its crimes are not only forgiven but rewarded, too. That it released the clips of David and Braslavski in the days after Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney said they would recognise the State of Palestine was striking – and sickening. Hamas has clearly got the message that persecuting Jews has benefits. That carrying out a pogrom can be fruitful. That killing more Jews in one day than anyone else has since the Nazis has its rewards. Including the reward of nationhood. Starmer’s promise to recognise Palestine proves ‘victory’ is ‘closer than we expected’, gloated Hamas. Ghazi Hamad went further, cheering Starmer’s promise as ‘one of the fruits of 7 October’.

What Starmer, Macron and Carney have done is unforgivable. Yes, all three paid lip service to the importance of disarming Hamas. But to confer statehood on a territory that is still part-ruled by these barbarous militants who take pleasure in the persecution and murder of Jews is a grotesque betrayal not only of Israel but of basic decency, too. The footage of David digging his grave and Braslavski sobbing in pain should haunt Starmer, for Hamas views his promise of recognition as a prize for such savagery. It believes its brutish violence helped to hurry along the process of statehood. And it is right to. How can Western leaders call for the release of David and Braslavski even as they decorate with statehood the monsters who abducted them? It is perverse.

It feels like Hamas is holding not just 50 Israelis hostage but the West itself. Every press release of this monstrous movement is taken as good coin by our media. Its atrocities are overlooked, even forgiven, in the maniacal rush to damn Israel as the world’s wickedest state. Even clear, self-published footage of its crimes against humanity has not been enough to arouse the influential from their Israelophobic stupour. Now we know: our cultural elites didn’t only take the wrong side in this war started by Hamas – they emboldened that side, too.
The hilarious breakdown of the Islamo-left alliance
A lot rests on the answer to this question, at least for the electoral prospects of the Green Party. In recent years, its vote has been bolstered by Muslims, particularly young Muslims, who share the party’s views on economics and Palestine. In the darker and more ideologically dogmatic sections of this Muslim-Green alliance, anti-Jewish sentiment and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have taken root, too. A Times investigation last year found that around 20 prospective Green candidates at the last General Election had made disturbing statements about Israel, Hamas and the 7 October attacks.

The problem is that the two camps were never remotely aligned on other key issues. These include rights and protections for sexual minorities (such as same-sex marriage), the degree to which queer rights and queer theory should be taught in school, and the sanctity of life – both in terms of abortion and assisted dying. It is no secret that British Muslims are more conservative on these issues compared even with the general population, let alone the progressive left.

The British left could have seen these problems coming a mile off by looking across the Atlantic. That this relationship is fundamentally unstable was made clear in November when Donald Trump was re-elected. Michigan – home to America’s largest Muslim population and its only Muslim-majority city, Hamtramck – voted Republican. Exit polls recorded a surge in support for Trump among Muslims in the state. This came after Hamtramck’s city council – which is also majority Muslim – voted to ban the flying of Pride flags on city property in 2023.

For some time, the Democratic Party had complacently assumed that rising racial and religious diversity in America would play in its favour. But this theory of ‘demographic destiny’ has proved to be hugely flawed. Unsurprisingly, many Muslim voters found themselves much closer aligned with Republicans on issues such as gay marriage, abortion, euthanasia and trans rights.

Now, it seems that this divorce is about to happen in Britain. Socially conservative British Muslims should not expect progressive liberals to appease them. Nor should they be expected to sacrifice their values, rooted in their faith and cultural heritage, just to please the left.

Political marriages of convenience like this are a recipe for inept governance and confused priorities. The left and British Muslims were never natural allies – and both sides must now face up to this fact.


‘Abandoning the Very People It Was Established To Protect’: Red Cross Comes Under Fire After Disturbing Footage Shows Starved Israeli Hostages
The Red Cross is under fire from GOP lawmakers and officials for failing to advocate on behalf of the remaining Israeli hostages after shocking videos showed two captives, 21-year-old Rom Braslavski and 24-year-old Evyatar David, emaciated and nearly naked.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu held an emergency phone call Sunday with International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) head Julien Lerisson after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad released the videos, which he characterized as "shocking images reminiscent of Nazi crimes." He pleaded with the Red Cross to come to the aid of the 49 remaining hostages, who have languished in captivity as the international aid group does little to help them secure medical care and food.

Officials in the United States share the outrage. They point to hostage release ceremonies from earlier this year, during which Hamas paraded starving Israeli captives before jeering Gazan mobs. The Red Cross, which boasts of its neutrality, appeared on stage with Hamas terrorists to shake hands and sign paperwork. In most cases, this was the first time Red Cross staff interacted with the captives after years of confinement—despite its core mission to support hostages and prisoners of war.

A senior Trump administration official told the Washington Free Beacon they were horrified by the recent images and blame the Red Cross for allowing the hostages to suffer in subhuman conditions. While the global aid group bills itself as the foremost provider of emergency services across the globe, including in active war zones like Gaza, it notably failed its mandate to visit those in Hamas captivity to assess their health.

"The ICRC is abandoning the very people it was established to protect," the official said. "Almost two years since Oct. 7, it still hasn’t delivered humanitarian aid and medical care to the hostages in Gaza. It’s shameful that the Red Cross is still standing on the war's sidelines while civilians are starved and tortured in captivity."

"That the Red Cross keeps shunning aid for the hostages but participates in Hamas's propaganda ceremonies tells you everything you need to know about whose side they're on."


Israeli consulate’s NYC ad emphasizes plight of hostage Evyatar David
The Consulate General of Israel in New York launched a digital billboard campaign advertisement in Times Square in Midtown Manhattan on Monday to raise awareness of Israeli hostage Evyatar David and to underscore “the urgency of ensuring all hostages are released now.”

The move comes days after the Hamas terror group in Gaza released a propaganda video of David, 24, appearing emaciated.

“This is what real hunger looks like. This is what truth looks like,” said Ofir Akunis, Israeli consul general in New York. “Evyatar David is being starved by a Nazi terrorist organization that dares, with the backing of parts of the media, to spread the blood libel that Israel is starving the people of Gaza.”

“We will continue to expose, everywhere and at all times, the lies of these vile terrorists and their collaborators,” he wrote on the consulate’s official Instagram account.

David’s family issued a public statement on Saturday after approving the publication of the full video.

“Hamas is using our son as a live experiment in a vile hunger campaign,” the family’s statement read. “The deliberate starvation of our son as part of a propaganda campaign is one of the most horrifying acts the world has seen.”

David was abducted from the Supernova music festival during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.


From Hitler to the Ayatollahs: The Long History of European Treachery
As Israeli and American forces took awe-inspiring steps to cripple Iran's nuclear weapons program and weaken the Islamic Republic's regional power projection, the leaders of the EU3 -- France, Germany, and the United Kingdom -- have been busy smiling across negotiating tables, scheming behind closed doors to help the regime survive.

The governments of the EU3 are now in direct negotiations with Iran; both sides are apparently pleased with how things are progressing. What is the goal of these talks? It is not peace, not justice, and certainly not about protecting the world from nuclear blackmail. No, the objective is to ensure that the snapback sanctions, the most powerful tool to constrain Iran, are not reimposed...

The EU3 powers — the UK, France, and Germany — are now saying they might trigger the snapback sanctions -- but only if Iran fails to "contain" its nuclear program by the end of August. That word -- "contain" -- is a farce. What does "contain" even mean?... So, of course Iran will say, "Yes, we'll contain it." Of course they will smile, stall, and agree to meaningless terms just long enough for the snapback sanctions deadline to expire.

To be clear: the West has nothing to show for these negotiations, while Iran has everything to gain. Iran gets to look "reasonable," pocket more time, avoid sanctions, and wait for the clock to run out — after which the UN sanctions vanish forever.... Russia and China will never again agree to reimpose them through the UN Security Council. The European powers know this, but clearly could not care less.

In reality, "contain" is nothing but a sanitized rebranding of the same failed JCPOA... a laughable "honor system" -- uranium enrichment, centrifuges spinning, and a countdown until Iran nearly reached nuclear weapons breakout. This is not disarmament. This is a con. There needs to be zero enrichment, zero centrifuges and zero compromise. If the goal is nuclear nonproliferation, that is the only position that makes sense.

If Iran wants to prove its intentions are peaceful, it can dismantle every element of its nuclear infrastructure — permanently. Anything less is just duplicity waiting to happen.

Europe's moral compass has been replaced by a calculator and a gas pump. All they evidently care about is money -- oil deals, luxury imports, sweetheart business contracts -- with the same Iranian regime that hangs dissidents, murders women in the streets, and calls for genocide against Israel and the West, including Europe.

If the governments of the EU3 truly believed in human rights, regional security, or protecting its own backyard, it would have blocked the move. Instead, the EU3 powers did nothing. They stood by silently, allowing Iran to legally purchase and sell advanced weapons. Then, what did Iran do with its new freedom? It began arming Russia — the very country invading Europe through Ukraine. European leaders have refused to stop Tehran from becoming a weapons dealer for the Kremlin. This is not hypocrisy. This is a serious betrayal -- of Europe's own people, and of every Ukrainian citizen fighting against Russian tanks.

Let us call this what it is: treachery. The top European powers helped create the problem with Iran. They enabled the regime's rise. They funded its resurgence. And now, just when the Iranian regime is cornered, they are riding in to save it once again. For money. For a surrender masquerading as "diplomacy"....

The snapback sanctions must be triggered immediately.

Europe's leaders have chosen the wrong side of history before. Do not let them drag the rest of us down with them again.
Benny Morris: The Irish and Gaza
Driving around Ireland earlier this month, my wife Leah and I saw here and there Palestinian flags hanging from windows or plastered across hedges in remote farmhouses. In Dublin, with its relatively large student and (growing) Muslim populations, one might have expected “Ceasefire Now” signs draped across multi-story buildings, echoing Hamas’s demand that Israel halt its protracted anti-terrorist counter-offensive in Gaza. But in villages like Terryglass off the N52 on the road to Galway?

The support for the Palestinians, today represented by the Hamas, is now the taste of the month, the fashion among Western Europe’s mainly ignorant young, who know nothing about the Israel-Palestine conflict beyond the daily and nightly images, many of them fake, broadcast on TV screens of dead and dying children, images efficiently engineered by the Hamas’s propaganda machine; know nothing of, and care even less about, the consistent Palestinian rejection of all compromise proposals by the international community and, periodically, by the Zionist leaders these past hundred years; and know nothing of, or care about, the constant Palestinian resort to terrorism, culminating in the Hamas assault on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which some 1,200 Israelis (a few of them Arab Israelis) were killed and 250 (mostly civilians, aged six months to 89 years old) taken hostage.

Over the past years, the Irish, including their government, have emerged as Israel’s most vociferous beraters in Europe as reflected in the Palestinian flags draping the hedges. I suspect that antisemitism plays at least a minor role in this though I would like to be fair Historically, Ireland has generally been benign, if not welcoming, toward its Jews, who never numbered more than 5,000 (the republic’s population is five million). As Daniel O’Connell, the leading 19th century proponent of Catholic (or Irish) emancipation, once put it: “Ireland … is the only country that I know of unsullied by any one act of persecution of the Jews.”

But Catholic doctrine, which included the image of Jews as Christ-killers, was always somewhere there in the background. But violence was nonexistent. Or almost. In the first decade of the 20th century, the central Irish town of Limerick, which had several dozen Jewish families, witnessed anti-Jewish riots and a boycott (the Jews called it a “pogrom”), and some families to fled the town. Against the backdrop of rising antisemitism in Europe, the primate of Ireland, archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, in 1932 publicly charged the Jews with engaging “in practically every movement against our Divine Lord and His Church” and, in effect, with worshipping “Satan.” But politically, McQuaid remained an outlier and Ireland never veered toward alliance with Hitler. However, to its shame, Ireland, partly because of its historic antagonism toward Britain, opted for “neutrality” in World War II (though 50,000 Irishmen joined the British army during the war and the government was generally sympathetic toward the Allies).


French camp counselor says Jew-hatred cause of Vueling flight incident
The French Jewish camp counselor who was handcuffed at a Spanish airport after a group of teens were removed from a Vueling flight for singing in Hebrew continues to suffer from bruises and anxiety.

Speaking to France’s CNews, the counselor—whose name was not released—described the airline crew as hostile from the beginning. She said one child briefly sang but stopped when asked, and insisted the group’s removal was unjustified, attributing the incident to antisemitism.

Forty-four minors and eight adult French passengers were kicked off the July 23 Vueling flight from Valencia to Paris.

The Spanish airline claimed the group was removed due to unruly behavior onboard the aircraft.

The counselor said she was pushed to the ground and handcuffed in the jetway by a security official after advising the group not to hand over their phones as instructed.

She added that 10 days after the incident, she is still experiencing physical pain from bruises as well as anxiety attacks, which triggered a flare-up of her chronic asthma.


Mamdani Wants Cops to Stop Responding to Attacks on Jews
Zohran Mamdani, the radical Islamist and leftist terrorist supporter, has proposed that the NYPD not respond to hate crimes, instead that they be handled by social workers.

This is not simply police defunding, rather this shifts resources away from responding to attacks on Jews, moves away from having law enforcement deal with those attacks and instead has his political leftist allies ‘deal’ with them by burying them.

This isn’t just a pro-crime policy. It’s strategically calculated to protect members of his community who attack Jews while exposing Jews to religiously motivated assaults.

Zohran Mamdani is already building the infrastructure for enabling a new wave of antisemitic violence.
'The NYPD Saved My Life': Hate Crime Victims Speak Out Against Mamdani's Proposed 'Department of Community Safety'
The term "hate crime" in New York City covers a wide range of violent and nonviolent offenses. While all fall under the NYPD’s jurisdiction, the police have a much more limited presence in response to lower-level crimes like synagogue vandalism.

"It depends on the precinct, depends on the climate in that particular area," Democratic state assemblyman Kalman Yeger, who represents a heavily Orthodox Jewish district in Brooklyn that has seen waves of anti-Semitic attacks, told the Free Beacon.

"I've seen everything from ‘track down the video and hunt down the guy’ to—true story—the responding police officer suggesting to a synagogue that they ought to take down the sign," he said.

Yeger publicly urged his constituents with the means to leave New York City to do so after Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic mayoral primary election.

"Your children’s lives and future will depend on the choices you make now," he warned.

Yeger told the Free Beacon that moving jurisdiction of hate crimes away from the NYPD would mean the end of investigations.

"Crime is investigated by law enforcement and then prosecuted by the district attorney, just like the TV shows say," he said. "And there is no way to investigate crime without law enforcement. What you’re suggesting is that hate crimes ought to be dealt with by bureaucrats in some other to-be-named-later agency which is not law enforcement."

About his call for his Jewish constituents to leave the city, Yeger said, "I’m a public official; I have an obligation to be honest with my neighbors."

Mamdani’s campaign did not respond to repeated Free Beacon requests for comment.


We Are Witnessing The Demise of “Palestine” (Finally!)
Nissim Black sits down with Yishai and the truth flies free...

Timestamps
00:00:00 Hello from the IDF reserves!
00:01:25 The Nissim Black Show
00:05:47 There's so much to be grateful for
00:07:28 The Jews and Arabs of Hebron
00:15:53 The business of oppression
00:19:13 The Abraham Accords
00:23:02 Was the Iran war a step towards peace in the Middle East?
00:25:40 Land for peace doesn't work
00:28:21 Arab ideology and misguided world opinion
00:37:36 Connecting secular Zionism and religious Judaism
00:46:33 How the Black community views Israel and Jews
00:56:04 Simple faith
01:06:54 Gratitude and Blessings from Israel


Visegrad24: Why American Jews VOTE Democrat?
Visegrad24 sat down with David Brog, a vocal American Zionist, to present him with tricky, difficult and sometimes outright rude questions submitted by our X audience about why a self-declared American Nationalist supports the State of Israel.

00:00 - Introduction
00:42 - Nationalist Revival
02:02 - Young Democrats vs. Israel
03:28 - Jews voting for Democrats
04:58 - Jews on Christians
06:43 - Jews on Christian Persecution
08:41 - Zionist PR
11:37 - Crimes in Gaza
14:23 - Two-State Solution
19:35 - Why Israel Matters for USA




Nonprofit asks House ed panel to protect Jewish grad students from antisemitic union
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a nearly 60-year-old nonprofit that aims to “eliminate coercive union power and compulsory unionism abuses,” wrote to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in late July, asking the panel to protect Jewish graduate students from the independent labor union United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.

The nonprofit said that leaders of the “radical, pro-Hamas labor union” try to “impose their virulently antisemitic tactics and messaging on college campuses, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and Cornell University.” (JNS sought comment from United Electrical.)

The union coerces “dues payment out of Jewish students, despite Jewish students seeking religious accommodations to dues payment as per federal antidiscrimination law,” the nonprofit said.

It added that union officials have supported calls for Israel and Jews to be destroyed. “All the while, union bosses tell Jewish students, wrongly, that they have bad or insufficient religious grounds to opt out of union dues payments,” the nonprofit said.

Jewish students at MIT secured the right to avoid paying union dues after filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The union at Stanford backed off after attorneys for Jewish and Catholic students threatened to file with the EEOC. Cornell students were able to secure accommodations in certain instances.
I’m a Rabbi Who Visited UC Davis, a Campus Under Fire for a 'Pervasively Hostile' Climate for Jews. So Why Did the Chancellor Un-Invite Me?
I visited the University of California, Davis around the end of May at the request of concerned Jewish faculty members on the campus, which is 15 miles west of Sacramento. I wasn’t there to provoke or grandstand. I came because Jewish students and staff on that campus feel unsafe, unprotected, and unheard. And what I saw only confirmed what I’d already been told: UC Davis is a case study in unbridled anti-Semitism being let loose under the guise of "free speech," while Jewish and pro-Israel members of the university community are expected to suck it up and accept harassment, intimidation, and worse.

UC Davis—a major research university with 40,000 students—has a well-documented anti-Semitism problem. In April of last year, the StandWithUs Center For Legal Justice (I am a board member of a division of the group) filed a formal complaint with the Biden Department of Education alleging "a pervasively hostile, antisemitic campus climate, with incidents of unlawful discrimination and harassment, for students." Then in November, Davis was ranked as one of the country’s most anti-Jewish universities by the nonprofit advocacy group StopAntisemitism, which awarded Davis a grade of "F."

In December 2024, the University of California system reached a pact with the DOE to take various steps to fight anti-Semitism on its campuses and submit to monitoring. Then in March of this year, the Justice Department opened a new investigation into whether the UC system allowed an anti-Semitic and hostile work environment to exist for employees.

Nevertheless, on my troubling visit to Davis this spring, it was immediately apparent that anti-Semitism remains in full force. Based on my observations, it is extremely uncomfortable to be openly Jewish or pro-Israel on campus, and the university makes no effort to mitigate this discomfort. Jews I spoke to at Davis said there is no room for openly Zionist students to operate without feeling harassed and intimidated. Meanwhile, openly hostile anti-Israel groups remain active.

Shortly after my visit, I published an article—"Davis and the Battle for Jewish Identity"—detailing my experience and sounding the alarm. I shared the piece with the university’s chancellor, Gary S. May, and cc’d several local media contacts in Davis. To my surprise, Chancellor May responded almost immediately with a warm and conciliatory message. "Antisemitism has no place here at UC Davis," he wrote. "I have always spoken out forcefully against it. ... Antisemitism is antithetical to our values. ... It will not be tolerated."


San Francisco school district board votes to buy ethnic-studies curriculum
The board of the San Francisco Unified School District, which educates more than 50,000 students at 122 public schools, decided to purchase a new ethnic-studies curriculum without fulfilling its legal obligation to provide the public with prior notice, according to Marc Levine, a regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.

“We are concerned that the San Francisco Board of Education approved textbook purchases before adopting or publicly reviewing the related curriculum,” Levine, a former California state representative, told JNS. “This circumvents the transparent process required by law.”

Laura Dudnick, the district’s executive director of communications and external affairs, told JNS that the board voted 5-2 on Tuesday to approve the staff recommendation to buy the curriculum, which is called “Voices.”

During several periods in the board’s nearly six-hour meeting on July 29, it took up discussion about what it called “purchase of ethnic-studies pilot curriculum” on its agenda. Many speakers told the board that it was meeting to discuss buying the curriculum without having gone through the legal process, and parents, students and a local rabbi discussed antisemitism. Many others spoke in support of the curriculum.

“We’ve seen what happens when ideology guides the way we educate students, and there was a historic recall of this school board because of it,” one person told the board. “I implore you, use this as an opportunity to build bridges with the parent community in SFUSD. Not drive wedges further.”

“Take the time for a disciplined review. Make the curriculum publicly available. Do the right thing,” he said.

Jared Boigon, a parent in the district who was at the meeting, told JNS that ethnic studies is important in a “diverse community” like San Francisco; however, the board acted in a “hasty” way regarding an “unvetted, unapproved curriculum.”

“That feels like a step in the wrong direction,” he said.


From Prayer to Provocation: How the Media Twisted Ben Gvir’s Temple Mount Visit
Fueling the Flames
Such coverage – whether through carelessness or design – frames Jews as the problem. And that’s exactly the kind of narrative that fuels genocidal violence, like the one launched on October 7, 2023.

As Hamas itself stated after slaughtering 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping hundreds into Gaza, operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” was a legitimate response against “the Israeli judaization plans of the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque” and “the intensification of the Israeli settlers’ incursions into the holy Mosque.”

By repeating this framing – that a Jew praying at his holiest site is a threat to Muslims – the media feed the propaganda machine that fuels antisemitic violence.

Let’s be clear: any outlet that claims Jewish prayer sparked “outrage” or “anger” is not reporting – it’s siding with the murderers. Men too fragile to hear Hebrew on the Temple Mount, yet brutal enough to slit Jewish throats.
Former NYT staffer blasts Gray Lady for ‘twisting’ facts about Israeli hostage digging own grave
A former New York Times staffer on Monday slammed the Gray Lady for “twisting” the facts about how it framed a story about an emaciated Israeli hostage being forced to dig his own grave.

The liberal broadsheet — which was forced to amend a front-page article featuring an image of a supposedly starving child in Gaza — published a video on Saturday about Israeli Evyatar David being held by Hamas since Oct. 7, 2023, without using the horrific photo of his skeletal frame.

The video ran with the headline, “Hundreds Protest in Tel Aviv After Hostage Videos Surface From Gaza,” and claimed, “The circulation of videos created by Hamas showing Israeli hostages living in dire conditions incited families to protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand a cease-fire and the return of their loved ones.”

Yaakov Ort, who spent 35 years at the Times working in its creative services division, ripped his former employer over the false premise that the majority of Israelis were protesting to demand a cease-fire.

“This is an appalling twisting of the facts, and mindful, heartless concealment of the truth: Rather than running a photo of hostage Evyatar David being forced to dig his own grave by Hamas terrorists, and writing about the actual reaction of million of Israelis to seeing it, the foreign desk and photo desk ran a photo of a relative handful of protestors in Tel Aviv,” Ort wrote on his Facebook page.

Ort, who is now a senior editor at Chabad.org., said that he has never publicly chastised his former colleagues but was aghast at the editiorial decision.

“If The Times had a Jerusalem bureau that reported the thoughts, communications and actions of the vast majority of Israelis, they would have told readers that the reaction of millions to this and other photos and videos of the physical and psychological torture of our children is not fear or protest, It is horror, rage and resolve,” he wrote

“The symbolism of the photo is so apt, since digging our own graves is exactly what the current Times news, editorial and op-ed page writers and editors, and those justifiably fearful of the Islamic street in the the West are arguing daily that we should do. Guess what? We won’t.”


Five years after deadly Beirut port blast, Lebanon’s new president promises justice
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Monday vowed justice and accountability five years after a catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s port, as the investigating judge finished questioning defendants, a judicial official said.

Nobody has been held accountable for the August 4, 2020 blast — one of the world’s largest non-nuclear explosions, which devastated swaths of the Lebanese capital, killing more than 220 people and injuring over 6,500.

Authorities have said the explosion was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer had been stored haphazardly for years after arriving by ship, despite repeated warnings to senior officials.

Judge Tarek Bitar resumed his investigation this year as Lebanon’s balance of power shifted following a war between Israel and Hezbollah that weakened the Iran-backed militant group, which had spearheaded a campaign for Bitar’s resignation.

Aoun said the Lebanese state “is committed to uncovering the whole truth, no matter the obstacles or how high the positions” involved. “The law applies to all, without exception.”

Monday has been declared a day of national mourning, and rallies demanding justice are planned later in the day, converging on the port.

“The blood of your loved ones will not be in vain,” the president told victims’ families, adding: “Justice is coming, accountability is coming.”


National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina says proceeds from book on Sarajevo Haggadah to be donated to Palestinian causes
Profits from the sale of a publication about a historic Haggadah will be donated to help Palestinian causes as a rebuke of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina says.

Income from the sale of the publication “Sarajevo Haggadah – Art and History,” as well as income from tickets to see the Sarajevo Haggadah, will be used to “provide support to the people of Palestine who suffer systematic, calculated and cold-blooded terror, directly by the state of Israel, and indirectly by all those who support and/or justify it in its shameless actions,” the museum says on its website.

The Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated manuscript written in northern Spain around 1350, is considered one of the oldest of its kind in the world and the museum’s most important and valuable artifact. Its value was estimated at $7 million for insurance purposes in 1992.

While the gesture is primarily symbolic, the decision reflects rising tensions over antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In June, a meeting of leading European rabbis was canceled in Sarajevo after a public official said it would give “a message of legitimization of the occupation and systematic destruction of the Palestinian people.”
AJC says Bosnian museum politicizing noted Jewish medieval manuscript
The AJC said that the Haggadah is “a symbol of Jewish resilience” that “survived the Inquisition, exile and the Holocaust.”

“Now in Bosnia’s National Museum, its legacy is being tarnished by the museum’s decision to politicize the exhibit’s proceeds,” the AJC said. “By its recent actions, the museum disgraces itself and disrespects the generations of Jews who read from this Haggadah at their seder tables.”
Australian police seeking man in ‘Scream’ mask over repeated targeting of Melbourne synagogue
A man in a Scream mask – from the eponymous slasher film series – is alleged to have repeatedly graffitied a synagogue with offensive phrases in Melbourne.

CCTV showed the masked man, dressed in a long black coat, arriving at the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation synagogue on an e-scooter before spray-painting the wall with offensive slogans.

A total of five incidents were recorded between March and July this year, with police believing the same man to be behind each of them.

The suspect was described by Victoria Police as “white, bald and of medium build”.

The force added: "During the July incidents, the male wore a Scream mask, which completely covered his face.”

Detective Inspector Martin McLean said that investigators believe the man is working alone.

"There's certainly a pattern of behaviour. It's always with a spray-can, and always targeting the synagogue," he said. “At this stage we have nothing to suggest he's working with anyone else.”
NYPD search for man who invaded historic kabbalistic synagogue to shout 'Allahu akhbar'
Manhattan Shomrim and the New York Police Department are searching for a man who entered the Shuva Israel Synagogue in Manhattan in July during prayers and allegedly began spewing obscenities and cries of “Allahu akhbar.”

The alleged harassment reportedly began when the unidentified male entered the synagogue on July 21, at approximately 7:15 p.m.

“There are incidents which are typical and common and there are those incidents which are more severe. The NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is looking into this one. This was not a typical incident,” Shomrim volunteer Joe Richards told the Jewish Link. “NYPD is spread thin in one of the largest cities in the world. If you have responsible concerned citizens that can be eyes and ears that help, the NYPD appreciates it.”




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