Friday, August 15, 2025

08/15 Links Pt2: Olive tree in France planted in memory of Ilan Halimi chopped down; The Madonna of Gaza; Three Israeli universities ranked in global top 100

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Madonna of Gaza
What church leaders are saying about Gaza has enormous influence, even in post-religious circles. Their message that Israel is a cruel force oppressing the wretched of the earth plays directly into the West’s Christian conscience, even among people who are not believers.

This is wrapped up further with the church’s ineradicable ambivalence toward Jews, which reflects Western society’s own deep-seated antisemitism.

The Islamists, who understand the West better than it understands itself, have grasped the centrality of Christianity to the West, as well as its profound Jew-hatred, and realize that they can manipulate this to their advantage.

That’s why the now-notorious picture of the skeletal Gazan child, prominently displayed in The New York Times and countless other media outlets around the world as allegedly dying of starvation, packed the punch it did. It wasn’t merely that it was a dreadfully distressing picture of a dying child. It was that it was posed to call irresistibly to mind the original Madonna, the mother of Jesus, cradling him in her arms.

This image has been repeated countless times in paintings and sculptures. It is burned into the Western consciousness not only as an iconic image of Christianity but one that identifies that faith with love and compassion for the vulnerable and innocent, represented by the baby in his veiled mother’s arms.

The carefully staged photograph of the veiled Gaza mother holding the skeletal child was thus a diabolical masterpiece of manipulation and deceit.

Not only was the child emaciated, but suffering from cerebral palsy, not from starvation. By inciting horror and revulsion at the Israelis for apparently provoking the suffering of a Gazan Madonna and child, the picture also replaced Jews with Muslim Arabs in the iconography of Christianity.

It thus manipulated some of the deepest feelings in the emotional range of the Western world to embrace an evil lie.

The propaganda war is all about playing on emotion. That’s why these mendacious claims are impervious to facts and evidence.

Christians are among the staunchest supporters of Israel, particularly in America. But many, especially in the progressive Protestant churches, are its enemy.

Even the support of American Christians is eroding, particularly among the young, under an onslaught of secularization and the unprecedented global propaganda war that’s manipulating the Western public into believing that evil is good and goodness is evil.

Their minds have been twisted into believing the big lie that the Israelis, who are defending themselves against an Islamic holy war of extermination, are themselves guilty of the very things of which they are, in fact, the victims.

It is a godless lie. And the Vatican’s support for it is a moral stain spreading backwards into its terrible history with the Jews.
Jake Wallis Simons: This is how Leftist Israelophobia morphs into unabashed anti-Semitism
When Horst Mahler, lawyer, terrorist and anti-Semite, died last month at the age of 89, that nemesis of Germany had become little more than a deranged demagogue who had lost a leg to diabetes and was fatigued by years in prison.

Such is the derangement of the times, however, that Mahler – a member of the notorious hard-Left Baader-Meinhof gang who later converted to neo-Nazism – is more relevant in death than he ever was in life.

With sensible politics around the world challenged by anti-Western fervour, this is increasingly Mahler’s moment. Across the political extremes, his hallmarks are familiar today: conspiratorial thinking; a pathological hatred for the United States, the West and all our old certainties; a cleaving to utopian radicalism; and a loathing for both Israel and the Jews.

Since October 7, this omnidogma has accelerated its advance, reaching for influence in our schools, universities, throughout the arts and media, in our formerly great northern towns and cities, on the streets, in the digital universe and through the benighted corridors of Lanyardistan.

It reached a bloody nadir in Washington DC last May, when two young Israeli diplomats were gunned down in the name of “Palestine”, and in the firebombing of elderly Jews in Colorado by an Egyptian national a few weeks later. In Britain, it has prompted death chants at Glastonbury and the sabotage of RAF aircraft by the bourgeois radicals of Palestine Action, not to mention relentless street unrest. But its spirit has also inspired the far-Right, with figures like the American firebrand Tucker Carlson and European insurgent parties Alternative für Deutschland and Rassemblement National indulging an animosity towards Israel, fondness for the erstwhile Assad regime and adoration for Vladimir Putin.

Anything, in other words, that hurts us.
Rayner ignored complaints about Islamophobia adviser’s ‘anti-Semitic’ tweets
Angela Rayner ignored complaints about allegedly anti-Semitic posts written by a peer advising ministers on the definition of Islamophobia, The Telegraph can reveal.

Baroness Gohir, one of five figures appointed to the working group on defining anti-Muslim hatred in February, previously claimed that Israel “controls” the US in several social media posts.

In April, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA) wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister, whose department is responsible for drawing up the definition of Islamophobia, alerting her to the comments.

It quoted five tweets written from 2013 and 2014, which were public until at least 2022 but have since been deleted, that it claimed met the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

In September 2013, when the US was considering whether to conduct military action against Bashar al-Assad, the then Syrian president, Lady Gohir said: “Will Israel influence the US vote on whether to invade Syria? Are the Americans really in control of their own decisions? #JustAsking.”

A week later, she tweeted: “Who controls America’s foreign policy? ISRAEL – they would be the ONLY beneficiaries of a US attack on Syria.”

The following year, she shared a news article about comments made by Barack Obama issuing a warning to Benjamin Netanyahu over him not agreeing to a peace deal with Gaza.

She wrote: “US warns Israel over Palestine talks failure. I bet Israel are quaking in their boots – NOT! Don’t they control US?”

Also in 2014, Lady Gohir said: “The hold Israel has over world leaders, including Muslim ones, is extraordinary that they continue to murder Palestinians and get away with it.”


Olive tree in France planted in memory of Ilan Halimi chopped down
Outrage followed the destruction of an olive tree dedicated to the memory of Ilan Halimi, a Parisian Jew who was tortured to death in 2006, Le Parisien daily reported.

According to CCTV footage, the tree was cut down in the Parc des Senteurs in the city of Épinay-sur-Seine, a northern suburb of Paris, during the night between Wednesday and Thursday.

Planted in 2011 in the presence of the chief rabbi of France and the Jewish community, the olive tree paid tribute to the 23-year-old Jewish man who was kidnapped and tortured for 24 days by the “Gang of Barbarians” before succumbing to his injuries on Feb. 13, 2006.

The commemorative plaque at the foot of the tree was not damaged.

The city’s mayor, Hervé Chevreau, has no doubt that this was an antisemitic act. “The fact that this olive tree paid tribute to Ilan Halimi was well known,” he said, adding that he had filed a complaint for “destruction of property intended for public use or decoration.”

He promised to replace the tree and once again honor the memory of the young man.

On Friday, French Prime Minister François Bayrou said, “The tree for Ilan Halimi, a living bulwark against forgetting, was cut down by antisemitic hatred.

“No crime can uproot memory. The never-ending struggle against the mortal poison of hatred is our foremost duty,” he added.
Macron vows to punish act of ‘hate’ after memorial tree for slain French Jew cut down
The cutting down of an olive tree planted in memory of a young French Jewish man tortured to death in 2006 stirred outrage in France on Friday, with President Emmanuel Macron vowing punishment over an act of antisemitic “hatred.”

Politicians across the political spectrum condemned the act as an attack against the memory of Ilan Halimi, who was kidnapped by a gang of around 20 youths in January 2006 and tortured in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.

Found three weeks later, the 23-year-old died on the way to hospital.

An olive tree, planted in 2011 in Halimi’s memory, was cut down, probably with a chainsaw, on Wednesday night in the northern Paris suburb of Epinay-sur-Seine.

The incident stoked fresh concerns about an increase in antisemitic acts and hate crimes in France as international tensions mount over Gaza.

“Every effort will be made to punish this act of hatred,” Macron said on X, adding that France’s fight against antisemitism will be “uncompromising.”

“The nation will not forget this son of France who died because he was Jewish,” Macron said.

Prime Minister Francois Bayrou called the tree “a living bulwark against oblivion.”

“The never-ending fight against the deadly poison of hatred is our primary duty,” he added.

Officials pledged to plant a new memorial tree “as soon as possible.”

Members of France’s Jewish community — one of the largest in the world — have said the number of antisemitic acts has surged following the attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, that killed some 1,200 people and saw another 251 taken hostage, sparking the war in Gaza.

In 2006, Halimi’s murder struck horror into France’s Jewish community and stirred debate about antisemitism in France. Police at the time initially refused to consider the murder a hate crime, and tens of thousands took to the streets to demand justice.


The Shawshank Distortion: New York Times Recasts Infamous Palestinian Terrorist as Jailbreak Hero
The New York Times’ recent “global profile” of convicted murderer Zakaria Zubeidi is a textbook example. Zubeidi, a veteran commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades with decades of terrorist activity to his name, was freed in a hostage-for-prisoners swap with Hamas, having been jailed for his role in two West Bank shooting attacks in 2018 and 2019, and later making international headlines for his 2021 escape from Israel’s Gilboa Prison.

His role in the shootings just years ago barely registers in the Times’ telling, eclipsed by what it calls his “most memorable” of several “exploits”: the 2021 Gilboa Prison escape. The account reads like a Hollywood screenplay, with Zubeidi crawling through a “32-yard tunnel” from the bathroom of his cell before emerging into “freedom flooding [his] veins.” It’s a passage that could have been lifted straight from The Shawshank Redemption.

The admiration doesn’t stop there. Readers are told that “in time, Mr. Zubeidi took a more nuanced approach to battling Israel” – a grotesque euphemism for moving from gun and grenade attacks to the more palatable image of “cultural resistance” through his later involvement in a Jenin theater. This came after Israel granted him amnesty in 2007, alongside other militants who agreed to give up arms – an agreement Zubeidi never honored. What the Times does not explore is how this artistic credential sat alongside the record of a man who continued to orchestrate deadly terrorist operations.

The omissions are telling. In place of these facts, the article substitutes distortion. The Second Intifada—a sustained campaign of suicide bombings and shootings against civilians—is described as having had its “immediate spur” in a “provocative visit” by Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount, without noting that Yasser Arafat had planned it months earlier. It is characterized as “protests morphing into an armed uprising,” erasing the calculated mass-casualty intent from the outset.

And the timeline matters. During the early 2000s, when Zubeidi was described as the Jenin commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Israeli leaders tabled multiple proposals that would have created a Palestinian state: the 2000 Camp David offer, the 2001 Taba talks, and the 2008 Olmert proposal. Each included the vast majority of the West Bank, Gaza, and a capital in eastern Jerusalem. Each was rejected by the Palestinian leadership.

These were not the actions of a man with “no other option.” They were the actions of a man choosing violence over peace, even when peace was on the table.

The profile closes with Zubeidi reflecting that his life as a militant, theater work, and prisoner had “proved futile” because none of it helped to establish a Palestinian state. The effect is to leave readers with the image of a tragic, romantic figure – not an unrepentant mass murderer.

The New York Times did not merely report on Zubeidi. It rehabilitated him. The omissions are deliberate. The distortions are deliberate. And the victims, erased from the record, are once again denied the dignity of truth.


Now we have proof free speech is a joke in two-tier Britain
After Labour councillor Ricky Jones stood at a demonstration in Walthamstow decrying “disgusting Nazi fascists” and telling a crowd through a microphone that “we need to cut all their throats and get rid of them all”, a jury of Mr Jones’s peers cleared him of any offence.

When Lucy Connolly – married to a Tory councillor – posted on social media “set fire to all the f-----g hotels full of all the b------s for all I care… if that makes me racist so be it”, she chose to plead guilty under apparent pressure from the state. Ms Connolly is currently serving a 31-month prison sentence, at times on a 23-hour lockdown confined to her cell with no privileges, for her ill-tempered words. Others, who stood their ground, walked free. The results were still unpleasant – the process is in part the punishment – but better than they might otherwise have been.

It is hard not to feel that the difference between the two cases is less a matter of law than politics. Lucy Connolly was denied bail as Sir Keir Starmer and the judiciary worked on their “shared understanding” that anyone expressing sentiments that could have encouraged last year’s riots needed to be made an example of. Sir Keir himself told the nation that individuals would be held on remand. The Home Office openly risked prejudicing trials by labelling those arrested, charged but not yet convicted as “criminals”.

If there’s a lesson here, it may well be that people can say stupid things without the world collapsing around them. And that the public – which did not visibly respond to either exhortation – can be trusted, for the most part, to recognise the distinction between genuinely threatening language and idiocy, both on the streets and in jury deliberations.


Woman says she stepped in as elderly Jewish couple targeted in NHS waiting room
A woman who says she stepped in to defend an elderly Jewish couple from verbal abuse in a hospital waiting room has urged others to challenge antisemitism when they see it.

Journalist Laura Williams was at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital Emergency Department with her husband when she witnessed the alleged incident.

Williams, who is not Jewish, said she saw a woman verbally attack the couple, who were visibly Jewish.

“I heard a woman zone in on an elderly Jewish couple and start angrily talking about how terrible what 'their people' were doing in Palestine was, before launching into a monologue about the atrocities in Gaza and how they should be ashamed,” she recalled.

“I went into autopilot and headed straight over,” William said. “I have a strong sense of justice and am unafraid to stand up for what is right.”

She approached the woman and said: “It's not OK to attack people like this over the actions of a foreign government.”

Williams, who later took to LinkedIn to post about the incident, said that the man appeared to be in his 80s. She asked him if he was ok, and “he shrugged.” But the woman continued her tirade, saying “‘I sympathise with the holocaust but…’ before going off on one again and telling me to mind my own business.”

The couple eventually left the waiting room, and when they did, the woman who had been shouting at them “poked her tongue out at me,” Williams claimed. William said she did not report the incident to hospital staff at the time.


Labour MP resigns from post after pressure mounted on Keir Starmer over 'unauthorised trip '
Labour MP Afzal Khan has resigned from his role as the UK's trade envoy to Turkey after Sir Keir Starmer was urged to sack him from his post over an unauthorised trip to the unrecognised statelet of Northern Cyprus.

Mr Khan tendered his resignation just 24 hours after it was revealed that Labour MPs were putting pressure on the Prime Minister to take action.

The Government has since confirmed Mr Khan's decision to leave his post as trade envoy to Turkey, having only been appointed to the position in January this year.

"Mr Khan has left his position as Trade Envoy to the Republic of Türkiye," a Government spokesman told GB News.

The Manchester Rusholme MP initially sparked fury from Greek Cypriots and British MPs following his decision to visit Northern Cyprus last week.

GB News understands that Mr Khan did not seek No10's approval before visiting the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Despite the UK refusing to recognise the statelet following Turkey's 1974 invasion of Cyprus, the 67-year-old Labour MP was photographed meeting Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar at his official residence in Nicosia.
Former Sussex Police officer accused of contacting criminal
A former police officer has been accused of having contact with a member of an organised crime group who was in prison.

Ex-pc Attia Tahir is due to face a misconduct panel later this month.

The notice of the hearing states that Tahir allegedly "had prolonged contact with a member of an organised crime group who was serving a custodial sentence, whom she had known since 2015".

It said contact via phone calls was recorded while the person was in prison and conversations reportedly contained antisemitic remarks and "collusion over criminal acts".

Sussex Police said the criminal association was not declared in the former officer’s application or vetting forms.
How Top Companies Bankrolled a Qatari Influence Op
In 2021, Pfizer and Amazon earned perfect scores on the Corporate Equality Index, a rating of how well companies treat their LGBT employees. Overseen by the Human Rights Campaign, which seeks to ensure that "LGBTQ+ people" are treated "as full and equal citizens … around the world," the index grades companies on their "workplace inclusion" and "support for LGBTQ equality under the law."

So it might surprise the Human Rights Campaign to learn that, in 2021, Pfizer and Amazon gave at least $1 million to a nonprofit that brings U.S. officials to Qatar, a country that criminalizes same-sex relations, bans displays of the pride flag, and has tortured LGBT people.

The companies were the two largest donors to the Attorney General Alliance (AGA), which bills itself as a "bipartisan forum" for state attorneys general. Funded largely by corporate sponsorships, the group pays for AGs to go on trips with lobbyists from the companies they regulate, raising concerns about conflicts of interest and pay-to-play influence peddling. The concerns have been the subject of multiple media reports within the past year, including by CNN and the Associated Press, which highlighted the group's trips to France, South Africa, and Spain.

But according to a trove of documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, the junkets haven't been confined to Europe and Africa. Since at least 2017, the AGA has also been organizing trips to Qatar, where more than 1 percent of the population lives in conditions of modern-day slavery.
$25 million taxpayer cash handed by DHS, FEMA to groups with extremist ties: report
Taxpayer funds totaling $25 million were handed to US groups with alleged links to terror organizations or extremist ideology, a bombshell new study has found.

In a twist of irony, the funds were originally allocated to help deradicalize would-be terrorists, but may have ended up in the pockets of groups that support Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime, according to the report.

The Department of Homeland Security gave out the cash through its disaster relief programs, including the embattled Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), between 2013 and 2024, according to the report released by the Middle East Forum, a think tank based in Philadelphia.

“We’ve seen the left allocate billions of dollars towards the latest woke pet projects, but the Middle East Forum’s study of DHS spending uncovered something far more sinister,” said Ben Baird, a project director at the Middle East Forum and co-author of the study.

“Instead of protecting the homeland, the federal government is bankrolling extremists who idolize 9/11 hijackers and sympathize with the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre in Israel.

“Taxpayer dollars meant to strengthen American security were used to undermine public safety.”

The group says it is working with DHS to “rescind grants to extremist groups” and to make the granting process more transparent.

Under President Joe Biden, DHS established the Faith-Based Security Advisory Council (FBSAC) that works with the secretary of DHS to help with the security and emergency preparedness of religious institutions.

“The FBSAC provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary and other senior leadership on matters related to protecting houses of worship, preparedness and enhanced coordination with the faith community,” according to a description of the council on FEMA’s website.

Among the leaders appointed as consultants to the group was Mohamed Magid — director and imam of a controversial Virginia mosque complex that was raided in a federal counterterrorism investigation in 2002, although no charges were brought. Salaam al-Marayati, founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who once blamed 9/11 on Israel, was also a consultant to the group.

Al-Marayati later said his comments were taken out of context but he did not apologize for them, according to the Los Angeles Times. Neither Magid nor Al-Marayati returned a request for comment this week.

Some of the groups DHS allocated money to have ties to extremists. Those named in the report include the Council on American Islamic Relations, which has links to extremist groups, including Hamas, and received nearly $250,000 in DHS security grants to its national office in Washington as well as chapters in Miami and Los Angeles, the report says.
Amnesty UK draws criticism for arguing journalist death toll in Gaza higher than in any other war
Amnesty International UK drew criticism after arguing in a Tuesday post on X/Twitter that no conflict in modern history had seen a higher number of journalists killed than the one in Gaza.

“The targeted killing of Anas al-Sharif and five other journalists on Sunday means at least 242 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of October 2023. No conflict in modern history has seen a higher number of journalists killed,” the post stated, citing United Nations data for the Gaza figure.

The post included a graphic comparing journalist deaths across multiple conflicts. According to the image, 69 journalists were killed during World War II (1939–1945), and 63 during the Vietnam War (1955–1975).

The figures Amnesty International UK used were numbers that UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric had told the press during a media briefing. "At least 242 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began nearly three years ago," Dujarric said on Tuesday.

The post drew criticism online, including from Avi Izenberg of NGO Honest Reporting, who pointed to the killing of over 1,400 journalists during the Holocaust.

“Disgusting erasure of 1,425 journalists documented by Yad Vashem killed in the Holocaust. There was a massive Yiddish press in Europe at the time erased by the Nazis,” Izenberg wrote in response, citing records from Yad Vashem’s Shoah Names Database.

A screenshot shared by Izenberg showed search results for individuals listed as journalists murdered during the Holocaust, totaling 1,425 entries.

The Jerusalem Post found 1,408 journalists and newspaper editors were killed during the Holocaust in an independent search on Yad Vashem's database.

The 69 figure comes from a count compiled by Ray Moseley, a former war correspondent, according to Newsweek. It includes reporters covering the Allied campaign during World War II, and factors in journalists who died in accidents or from disease.

Amnesty International UK has not publicly responded to the criticism as of publication.
DNC to vote on resolutions recognizing two-state solution, Palestinian statehood
The Democratic National Committee plans to vote later this month on competing resolutions about the party’s position on Israel and the Palestinians.

The first resolution, introduced by Allison Minnerly, a 26-year-old deputy executive director at the Florida-based Youth Action Fund, calls for the Democratic Party to support an arms embargo on Israel and for members of Congress to recognize “Palestine” as a state.

In response, Ken Martin, chair of the DNC, introduced a counter-resolution that more closely resembles the 2024 platform of former U.S. president Joe Biden.

“The Democratic Party reaffirms its support for an immediate ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages—living and deceased—held by Hamas,” Martin’s resolution stated.

“The Democratic National Committee supports a credible, negotiated pathway toward a two-state solution that ensures equal measures of dignity, freedom and opportunity for Israelis and Palestinians alike, and opposes any unilateral steps either side that undermine prospects for two states,” it adds.

The two resolutions, first reported by Semafor, represent the growing divide on Israel between the Democratic party’s progressive wing, which seeks to cut off U.S. aid to the Jewish state and increasingly accuses it of “genocide,” and mainstream Democrats, who continue to support U.S.-Israel ties.

Democratic Majority for Israel condemned the Minnerly resolution on Wednesday.

“We are deeply troubled by the introduction of a flawed, irresponsible resolution at a Democratic National Committee meeting that will further sow division within our party and do nothing to help bring an end to the Israel-Hamas war nor end the suffering on both sides,” stated Brian Romick, president and CEO of DMFI.

“Shockingly, this resolution does not even mention the barbaric attacks of Oct. 7 nor the terrorist group Hamas at all,” he said. “It calls on members of Congress to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state, which would only reward Hamas’s terrorism.”

“It also wrongly calls for an arms embargo on Israel, which will only prolong the war and extend the suffering,” Romick stated. “Should it advance, it will further divide our party, provide a gift to Republicans and send a signal that will embolden Israel’s adversaries.”
Buttigieg flips on Israel, supports arms embargo
Former U.S. transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg reversed his position on Israel on Thursday, saying that he now supports an arms embargo on the Jewish state.

The potential 2028 Democratic contender clarified his views to Politico after he gave vague answers about his positions on Israel during a podcast interview the previous week.

“For anybody, looking at images of children starving and suffering and dying is horrifying, but I do think it’s different when you’re a parent,” Buttigieg said. “I think as a parent, you see these awful images of starving children with their ribs showing and automatically, you imagine your own kids.”

Buttigieg told the outlet that he would have voted for resolutions put forward by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to forbid arms sales to Israel, that he would not renew the 10-year memorandum of understanding on U.S. aid and that he supports the recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution.

A week earlier on Pod Save America, a podcast produced by former Obama administration staffers, he called the United States “Israel’s strongest ally” and described the country as a “friend” but avoided taking a firm position on halting arms shipments or how he would deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
‘Flooding’ Gaza with food makes Hamas looting less likely, six Dem House members claim
Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) and Eugene Vindman (D-Va.) penned a letter to Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, in which they claimed, as military veterans, to know that “flooding” Gaza with aid would “take away the leverage that scarce aid has provided to Hamas.”

“Food scarcity has provided Hamas an opportunity to weaponize aid for profit and control. We urge Israel, instead, to flood Gaza with humanitarian aid,” the Democrats stated. “If food is abundant and easily available, it will deny Hamas the ability to use it as an instrument of coercion.”

The lawmakers said the United States “admittedly learned many lessons the hard way” in more than 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We almost never saw insurgents using food as a weapon, because we helped ensure it was always in ample supply,” the lawmakers said. “We strongly believe Israel would benefit from adopting a similar strategy, especially since it will take away leverage from Hamas.”

Providing more aid than before would show Palestinians that “their future is protected not by Hamas but by the international community, and it will help pave the way to a ceasefire that includes the return of remaining hostages and, ultimately, a long-term political solution for lasting peace in the region.”
Democratic Socialists of America votes to expel members who support Israeli self-defense
The Democratic Socialists of America adopted a resolution on Wednesday that states that any member who claims “Israel has a right to defend itself” will be subject to expulsion from the organization, according to The Algemeiner.

The new measure, “for a fighting anti-Zionist DSA,” states that any members who oppose the movement to boycott Israel, make statements that “Israel has a right to defend itself” or equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism, will be subject to expulsion.

The same is true for anyone in the organization affiliated with the Israeli government or groups that lobby on behalf of the Jewish state.

The measure also “unequivocally” affirms the DSA’s commitment to the Palestinian “right to return” and claims Jerusalem is the capital of “Palestine.”

The DSA has some 78,000 members, including “squad” member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Democratic New York City mayoral primary winner Zohran Mamdani.


Top US teachers’ union supports Palestinian counterpart with terror-linked leader
It’s no secret that the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union in America, has an antisemitism problem. But it also has a terrorist problem.

The NEA has cultivated close ties with a teachers’ union in the West Bank whose leader has expressed support for terrorists. In fact, the NEA has even sent the group funds billed as humanitarian aid, even though the leader of that union has celebrated terrorists as martyrs and met with a top official from a U.S.-designated terror group.

The NEA’s antisemitism was on display at its national assembly last month, where delegates voted to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, the antisemitism watchdog. Jewish teachers at the assembly reported being bullied. (After an outcry from Jewish community leaders and elected officials, the NEA restored ties with the ADL.)

What deserves more attention is the relationship between the NEA and the General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT). At least, one GUPT leader isn’t shy about his support for terror.

In 2023, after an Israeli military operation targeted members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both designated by the United States as foreign terrorist organizations, GUPT general secretary Saed Erziqat posted on social media that they should be honored as “martyrs” and called for “continuous escalation” by Palestinians. Erziqat also revealed that he traveled to Syria to meet Talal Naji, the secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, another U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization. Erziqat supports the boycott, sanctions and divestment campaign against Israel.

NEA president Becky Pringle met with Erziqat when she visited the West Bank in early 2023. Pringle wears two hats, also serving as vice president of Education International, a global federation of teachers’ unions to which NEA belongs. On Dec. 6, 2023, just shy of two months after the massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, an NEA executive launched a GoFundMe campaign to benefit Education International’s “Solidarity Fund for Gaza.” It raised $5,902 for the fund. The GoFundMe campaign indicates that EI will distribute the funds to its Palestinian affiliates, a trio of unions that includes GUPT.

Under federal law, it is a criminal offense to knowingly provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. As noted, the GUPT general secretary supports terrorist acts committed by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The NEA’s support for GUPT may not rise to the level of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. However, the president of our nation’s largest teachers union posing for photos with a man who publicly calls terrorists “martyrs” should at the very least raise a red flag among lawmakers.
UCLA reportedly raked in millions of federal dollars for diversity, anti-Israel programs
The University of California, Los Angeles has used millions of tax dollars to fund its diversity, equity and inclusion programs and to support faculty members who have made “radical” anti-Israel comments, according to an Aug. 13 report from the nonprofit Open the Books.

The group’s report, first reported by the New York Post, documents statements from professors at the public school, including that the Germans had “indistinguishable” rhetoric from that which “Israel uses about Palestinians” and that Germans said that “what they did in the countries they occupied wasn’t their fault.”

UCLA faculty also said Zionism in Israel has “basically taken up on the mantle of white supremacy,” per the report.

Among the faculty, whose anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric the report documents, are those with endowed positions and chairs of departments. Several appear to have tenure.

Daniel Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International, told JNS that U.S. universities appear to have learned nothing from the past two years.

“In hiring professors like this, they are giving approbation to ideological indoctrination, not promoting intellectual curiosity,” he told JNS. “The University of California system should get an ‘F’ for such mindless, reckless hiring.”

The report states that the university received millions of dollars in federal grants, including from the National Science Foundation, in recent years that went to diversity programs.

“We, of course, support free speech rights on all sides of a debate, but taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund radicalism through the Department of Education or federal research grants,” Christopher Neefus, vice president of communication at Open the Books, told JNS.
20-year-old pleads guilty to assault on Jewish students at Ohio State
Timur Mamatov, 20, of Ohio, pleaded guilty to committing a hate crime against two Jewish students at The Ohio State University, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Friday.

Court documents state that Mamatov assaulted the students outside a bar in Columbus on Nov. 10, 2023.

During an altercation, he asked the students—one of whom was wearing a chai necklace, the Hebrew word for “life”—if they were Jewish. When they answered yes, Mamatov punched one student, fracturing the victim’s jaw, while another student suffered a fractured nose during the ensuing fight.

“Mamatov admitted in court today that he assaulted victims because they were Jewish,” said Dominick Gerace, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. “No American should fear being violently attacked based on their religious beliefs.”

Mamatov faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted under the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

A lawsuit filed in April of 2024 alleged that Ohio State, a public school, created an “antisemitic hostile environment that is now pervasive” towards Jewish and Israeli students, while also being “dismissive” of their concerns.


Massachusetts man sentenced to 26 months for threats to synagogues, Israel consulate
A Massachusetts man was sentenced on Thursday to more than two years in prison after he threatened to bomb synagogues and kill Jewish children in a series of calls he placed to two local houses of worship and the Israeli consulate in Boston after the outbreak of the Gaza war.

John Reardon, 60, was sentenced by US District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston to 26 months in custody after pleading guilty in November to charges related to what prosecutors said were dozens of violent and antisemitic calls and voicemails he placed to Jewish institutions beginning on October 7, 2023.

Reardon’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment. But in court papers, she argued for a nine-month sentence, saying mental health issues led Reardon to commit a crime that was “terrifying, deeply hurtful, and will cause lasting fear in the victims.”

He was charged in January 2024, as the US Department of Justice began to warn of a growing number of antisemitic threats nationally following the onset of the war.

The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Israel has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians in its assault on Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures have not been verified and don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.

Prosecutors in court papers said Reardon, in a voicemail left with a synagogue in Attleboro, Massachusetts, on January 25, 2024, said that “you do realize that by supporting genocide that means it’s OK for people to commit genocide against you.”

Prosecutors said Reardon also threatened to bomb Jewish places of worship and said that by “supporting the killing of innocent little children, that means it’s OK to kill your children.”

Prosecutors said he then called another synagogue in Sharon, Massachusetts, and left a threatening voicemail. He also called the Israeli consulate in Boston 98 times over several months, saying in one call it was “time to prepare the furnaces again,” according to prosecutors, a reference to the Nazis’ systematic extermination of Jews in the World War II Holocaust.
Three Israeli universities ranked in global top 100
The Shanghai 2025 Academic Ranking of World Universities, published on Friday, includes three Israeli universities in its list of the top 100 universities in the world.

The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, which suffered significant damage in an Iranian missile strike in June, is ranked 71st, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem 88th and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology 97th. All three appeared on the 2024 list as well but slipped in their positions this year.

The Weizmann Institute fell from 69th place in 2024 after ranking 68th in 2023. The Hebrew University dropped from 81st place in 2024 (and 86th in 2023). The Technion had the steepest decline, falling from 83rd place (and 79th in 2023).

Professor Asher Cohen, president of the Hebrew University, said in response, “The achievement of Israeli academia, with three institutions in the top 100, is particularly impressive in a challenging period, when we are facing unprecedented attacks on the international stage.”

The top five places in the rankings are unchanged from last year, with Harvard University taking first place, followed by Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge and the University of California, Berkeley.
Argentina’s Milei to use Genesis Prize money to deepen Israel-Latin America ties
The Genesis Prize Foundation, dubbed the “Jewish Nobel,” announced Monday that its $1 million award to Argentinian President Javier Milei will support a new initiative aimed at deepening ties between Israel and Latin America.

Conceived by Milei, “American Friends of the Isaac Accords” takes its name and inspiration from the Abraham Accords, the series of normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab nations.

Milei was the first non-Jew and first head of state to receive the prize in January for his staunch support for Israel and efforts to improve Argentine-Israeli relations. At the time, he said he would donate his winnings to “causes that support freedom and the fight against antisemitism.”

“I hold deep admiration for Israel — its history, its people, and its unwavering spirit,” said Milei during his acceptance speech for the Genesis Prize. “I am honored that the Genesis Prize Foundation has chosen to recognize our country’s strong relationship with Israel.”

The “Isaac Accords” aim to improve “diplomatic, economic and cultural cooperation” between Israel and Latin American countries, according to the Genesis Prize.


Nearly two years after tragedy, 2nd Nova Healing Concert unites 30,000 in Tel Aviv
Some 30,000 people gathered Thursday night in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park for the second annual Nova Healing Concert, an evening of music, remembrance, and resilience marking nearly two years since Hamas’s massacre at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023.

Organized by the Nova Tribe Community Association — a collective created to support survivors and bereaved families — the event seeks to transform grief into a shared space of healing. The inaugural concert was held in June 2024.

This year’s concert had originally been scheduled for June 26 but was postponed due to Israel’s war with Iran. The gathering sought to transform grief into a shared space of remembrance and resilience.

Israeli artists, including Infected Mushroom, Yuval Raphael, and Captain Hook, headlined the stage, while survivors and families of victims filled the crowd. For many, the night was a delicate balance between sorrow and hope.

Omer Wenkert, a Nova survivor who was kidnapped to Gaza and held hostage for 505 days before his release in February as part of a ceasefire deal, addressed the crowd with a mix of gratitude and determination.

“I feel like I represent… a small picture of victory. But still small, still partial,” he said. “I call for unity — that we, as a people, begin to pick up the broken pieces and rise from them. To lift what lies within us. As a people, we will stand strong against any threat, internal or external, and as a people, we will heal this wound.”

Fifty hostages remain in Gaza, including 15 members of the Nova community, but only 20 of the 50 are believed to be alive.


Episode 36: How marginalized Mizrahim became Israel's first spies
Long before the operational successes of the Mossad would become the stuff of legend in the espionage world, before the Twelve Day War, before Eli Cohen, before the Mossad itself had even come into being, a small ragtag band of courageous young Jews, without training or equipment, built the country’s first espionage arm to help the nascent Jewish state defend itself against its enemies.

Journalist and author Matti Friedman returns to the podcast to talk about his book, Spies of No Country, about the Mizrahi Jewish young men who became the Jewish state’s first spies in the Arab world. Their heroic, tragic, sometimes funny stories help us fill in the longstanding lacunae in the larger story of Israel’s founding and of present-day Israeli society by paying closer attention to the enormous role and influence played by Arab-world Jews in forging today’s Israel.

This episode was sponsored by the Lichterman Family of Jupiter, Florida, and dedicated to the memory and bravery of Aner Shapira, 22 from Jerusalem, who was slain in the Hamas attack on the Supernova music festival on October 7. Aner attended the rave next to the Gaza border with a group of friends from Jerusalem, including his close childhood friend, Hersh Goldberg-Polin. When the rocket fire began, they left by car and stopped on the side of the road to seek safety in a roadside bomb shelter next to Kibbutz Re’im. Aner and his friends were among the last people to squeeze inside the shelter, where they soon realized that terrorists were gathering outside to attack. Aner positioned himself at the entrance to the shelter, where he caught and threw back seven grenades before the eighth exploded and killed him. Of the 27 people inside the shelter, only seven emerged alive. Those who survived did so because of Aner’s bravery.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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