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Monday, August 18, 2025

08/18 Links Pt2: Hostage protests: Fighting each other is what Hamas wants; State Department cancels more than 6K student visas; Sally Rooney’s luxury loathing for Israel

From Ian:

Jpost Editorial: Hostage protests: Fighting each other is what Hamas wants
There is no question that an entire nation wants its children to come home, only the method. But what cannot happen is turning one another into the enemy, is allowing disagreements – deep and essential ones – to delegitimize us in one another’s eyes. That is precisely where the line lies.

Zvika Mor, the father of hostage Eitan Mor, said on Sunday morning, in a plea to his fellow hostage families, “My brothers and sisters, I make this plea from the bottom of my heart. You called to shut down the country... You did not miss the opportunity to ensure that the public is repulsed by us, the hostage families.”

He called for the strike to be canceled. “It cannot be that reservist soldiers who are on their way down to the Gaza Strip – to fight Hamas and bring our hostages home – can’t get to their bases because highways are blocked. This cannot be.”

Mor is a member of the Tikva Forum, a smaller representation of hostage families compared to the larger Hostages and Missing Families Forum. These two represent the true standard to which public dialogue is supposed to be; they disagree, but they respect and hold space for one another.

The act of protesting is one of the most sacred and vital tools in the hands of citizens in a democratic state to express their sentiments, wishes, and opinions. It cannot be stifled or curtailed, especially in an era where many feel and fear that democratic institutions in Israel are under attack.

But it is important to draw a distinction between the cause – freeing all of the hostages and bringing the security situation to a state of calm – and the method. Not everybody agrees with the method, and there is validity to both sides.

The heartfelt nature of a nationwide shutdown cannot be stated enough, especially after nearly two years of war. People dropped everything and followed their hearts and their consciousnesses out to the streets to join in pain and demand action. This has merit, and woe to Israel the day that citizens don’t care for their brethren.

Dialogue, though – healthy, respectful dialogue – cannot get lost in the shuffle.
The Black Book
Leningrad, February 1976. The broad boulevards of the city, founded by Peter the Great as Russia’s “window to Europe,” lay frozen under the deep frost of a typical Soviet winter: gray, unmoving, sealed in silence. We were a Jewish family of four—my father, Gennady; my mother, Mila; my sister, Elena; and me—living in a city then called Leningrad (today Saint Petersburg) at a time when silence was often the only defense. Leonid Brezhnev, general secretary of the Communist Party, presided over a vast and crumbling empire. The world would later call it “the period of stagnation”—a term far too mild for those living beneath its weight. The economy was paralyzed, the politics rigid, but repression moved with quiet efficiency. Political dissidents, Zionist activists, Prisoners of Zion, and Jews in general were treated as suspect—perpetual outsiders in a state obsessed with control.

We lived under constant watch, not for any action or offense, but simply for being a Jewish family in the Soviet Union. And yet the strength we drew from one another, and the trust of a few close friends, gave us just enough oxygen to endure. Snow-covered streets and frozen canals reflected a city choked in frost—bitterly cold, silent, and subdued. The average temperature hovered around 23 degrees Fahrenheit, but the wind, the damp, and the endless cloud cover made it feel far colder.

That winter, our family received an official invitation to immigrate to the State of Israel. The invitation had come from my mother’s uncle, Rabbi Ben-Zion Brook, head of the Novardok Yeshiva in Jerusalem. It was a legitimate request for family reunification—one of the very few justifications the Soviet regime would accept for emigration. After all, why else would anyone want to leave the so-called paradise of the Soviet Union, a country that spanned 12 time zones and one-sixth of the planet’s surface? To admit that Jews wanted to leave because of ideology, discrimination, or spiritual longing would be to expose the cracks in the system. “Family reunification” was a narrow but permissible loophole.

Ben-Zion had left the Belarusian town of Rogachev in 1920, when my grandfather (my mother’s father) was five years old. Decades later, they found each other again and began corresponding in Yiddish. My grandfather would read the letters aloud, his voice trembling, while my parents listened with tears in their eyes. But before long, the KGB summoned my grandfather to the infamous “Big House” on Liteiny Street and ordered him to stop all correspondence immediately.

Then, in February 1976, the visa invitation finally arrived. Not through the mail, but in person. The superintendent of our enormous Soviet apartment block—a sprawling concrete maze of modest flats—arrived at our door with the letter in hand. Standing beside him were two young men whose presence said everything: plainclothes agents. My parents, raising two young children, were filled with fear. They had spent years secretly listening to Voice of America and Radio Liberty. They understood what this meant. The silence was about to break.

But along with the fear came a flicker of joy: Three previous invitations had simply disappeared, swallowed by the system. Now, at last, one had arrived. My father rushed to share the news with my grandfather. In a gesture both symbolic and chilling, my grandfather handed him a samizdat copy of The Black Book, compiled by Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman—a rare and dangerous volume from a small, secret library he had maintained. He believed, with quiet defiance, that his children and grandchildren needed to know the truth about the world.
Rubio’s State Department yanks more than 6K student visas due to assault, burglary, support for terrorism
The State Department has yanked more than 6,000 student visas in 2025 for overstays and law violations — including support for terrorism, Fox News Digital has learned.

The Trump administration has launched multiple initiatives aimed at cracking down on immigration and revoking visas of those attending academic institutions in the U.S.

Those who’ve participated in pro-Palestinian protests have faced heightened scrutiny, as one example, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in May that the administration was reviewing the visa status of those students.

The roughly 6,000 visas that were pulled were primarily due to visa overstays or encounters with the law, including assault, DUIs, burglary and support for terrorism, the State Department told Fox News Digital.

"Every single student visa revoked under the Trump Administration has happened because the individual has either broken the law or expressed support for terrorism while in the United States," a senior State Department official said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "About 4,000 visas alone have been revoked because these visitors broke the law while visiting our country, including records of assault and DUIs."

Those who had their student visas yanked due to assault — roughly 800 students — either faced arrest or charges stemming from assault, according to the State Department official.

Those whose visas were pulled due to support for terrorism — between 200 people to 300 people — engaged in behavior such as raising funds for the militant group Hamas, which the U.S. State Department has designated as a terrorist organization, the official said.


Brendan O'Neill: Sally Rooney’s luxury loathing for Israel
Reading that soppy Sally Rooney op-ed in Saturday’s Irish Times, it suddenly struck me: the UK government’s proscription of Palestine Action is one of the best things that’s happened to her. And to all the other keffiyeh-adorned poseurs in the bourgeois cult of Israelophobia. For at last, these people get to disguise their morally conformist abhorrence for the Jewish State as something radical. As something daring, sexy, possibly illegal, a thing you might even be arrested for. Courtesy of Keir Starmer’s clampdown on Palestine Action, these privileged spouters of the conventional wisdom of blind hatred for Israel have been gifted the thing they so sorely lacked – a frisson of revolutionary defiance.

Rooney’s piece has got the digital left squealing into their keffiyehs with delight. Puffing herself like some Boudicca of the anti-Israel set, she says she will continue to cheer and even fund Palestine Action. That’s the middle-class movement that loved making a spectacle of its virtuous animus for the Jewish State by carrying out infantile and sometimes dangerous stunts. It was proscribed as a ‘terrorist’ organisation in July, meaning you can get 14 years in the clink just for expressing support for it, never mind funding it with some of the royalties from your naff novels. Our hero Sally doesn’t care, though: I’ll still back them, she says, and ‘if this makes me a “supporter of terror” under UK law, so be it’.

Is anyone else dying from second-hand embarrassment? Here we have a rich novelist, the darling of the literary establishment, cosplaying as a modern-day Bernadette Devlin. It’s giving radical chic, to borrow Tom Wolfe’s phrase, where the patrician classes cosy up to ‘street politics’ in the hope that some of its hustle and glamour might rub off on their otherwise plain, bourgeois lives. My favourite bit is when Rooney says she even intends to fund Palestine Action using the ‘residual fees’ she gets from the BBC for its ‘two fine [TV] adaptations’ of her novels. Shorter version: I’m successful and moral! She thinks she’s getting one over on the BBC, blissfully unaware that it is packed with Israel-haters like her who’ll be clinking their Prosecco glasses when they hear that their favourite novelist plans to give Beeb money to Palestine ponces.

Rooney has deluded herself into thinking she’s a dangerous author, akin to those valiant writers of the GDR who carried on publishing in defiance of the Stasi. Will WH Smith continue to stock my books, she wonders? (Answer: Yes, of course. There’s a pretty penny to be made from middle-class commuters who love a bit of chick lit for people with PhDs.) She says she is one of ‘an increasing number of artists and writers [who] can no longer safely travel to Britain to speak in public’. You’d think she was Thomas Paine circa 1792 unable to travel to Britain because of the ‘seditious libel’ of his revolutionary ideals. In truth, she’s the penner of the most middle-class novels that every bookshop stocks and every arts institution would give half their annual budget to hear her gab about.
No.10 says author Rooney risks committing terror offence over Palestine Action support
Normal People author Sally Rooney risks committing a terrorist offence if she funds banned organisation Palestine Action, Downing Street has said.

It follows comments made by the Irish author in which she said she will donate her earnings from her books and BBC adaptions to support the group, which was recently proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the UK.

Asked about the comments Keir Starmer’s spokesperson said that while he would not comment on individual cases “support for a proscribed organisation is an offence under the Terrorism Act” and he said no-one should be backing the group.

Rooney had said that if that backing Palestine Action “makes me a ‘supporter of terror’ under UK law, so be it”.

On Monday, a No.10 spokesperson said:“There is a difference between showing support for a proscribed organisation, which is an offence under the Terrorism Act, and legitimate protest in support of a cause.”

Asked what message No 10 would give to people considering giving money to the group, the spokesman said: “Support for a proscribed organisation is an offence under the Terrorism Act and obviously the police will, as they have set out, they will obviously implement the law within the law as you’d expect.”

The spokesman said Palestine Action was proscribed “based on security advice following serious attacks the group has committed, following an assessment made by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre”.
Anti-Israel Protesters Get Police Protection. Not This Christian Rocker.
Meanwhile, Montreal has hosted protests in recent months that called for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews. At a pro-Palestinian rally in Montreal three weeks after the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, Imam Adil Charkaoui led the crowd in prayer, calling on Allah to “take care of the Zionist aggressors” and “kill them all, and do not exempt even one of them.” Prosecutors declined to press charges, saying that the prayers were protected under freedom of expression.

At many anti-Israel protests in Montreal, Muslim men can be found kneeling in prayer on city streets, sometimes in front of Montreal’s famous Notre-Dame Basilica, at times blocking traffic, while Montreal police officers shield them. This weekend, pro-Palestinian protesters in Ottawa blocked the street between Parliament and the prime minister’s office to pray. A Montreal rabbi told me last year that he and his congregants often have to slip in through the back entrance of their synagogue because protesters gather out front—and police can’t guarantee their safety.

Feucht sees a huge double standard. “The LGTBQ mafia can do whatever they want. They can have naked bicycle parades. They can do drag queen shows. Muslims can go on the street and block traffic and pray, do whatever they want,” he told me. “Christians aren’t allowed to gather even last night inside of a church. We got fined $2,500 for worship inside of the church.”

That’s one way to put it.

Josh Dehaas, a legal expert with the Canadian Constitution Foundation, which defends Canadians’ rights and freedoms, does not share Feucht’s politics or his colorful language, but agrees with his view that there is a double standard. He doubts that anything Feucht has said “rises to the level of hate speech” and argues that there is “no justification” for limiting his speech in advance on the assumption he might commit hate speech in the future.

Indeed, artists with explicit lyrics or edgy messages perform at public festivals without much scrutiny—even those who allegedly support groups like Hezbollah. But when a Christian musician who happens to be a social conservative prays in a field, suddenly it’s a full-blown public safety crisis.

David Haskell, a sociologist of religion and a professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, said that Christians and social conservatives in Canada are being “discriminated against intentionally and with impunity.”

“When churches [were] burned to the ground” in arson attacks while Justin Trudeau was prime minister, he expressed sympathy for the arsonists, Haskell said. In contrast, anti-Israel protesters are allowed to block streets, threaten Jews, and spew hate—often with police protection. “Why is it,” Haskell asked, that “they can break the law and still be shielded from government interference?”
Theatre company boss pulls plug on Jewish News interview over ‘political issues’
The head of a theatre company has withdrawn permission for Jewish News to publish an interview promoting her new Jewish-interest show, saying “current political issues between us” made her uncomfortable with it appearing in this newspaper.

In an email sent following the interview last Friday, Rosanna Mallinson, director of Akimbo Theatre Ltd, informed Jewish News’ theatre critic Caroline Friedman that she was denying permission for this newspaper to publish the interview Caroline had conducted with her to publicise The Animator at Southwark Playhouse.

Despite Friedman informing the venue, as per standard practice, where the piece would appear, Mallinson claimed she had not realised it would be in Jewish News until the interview had come to an end.

It is unprecedented for Jewish News to publish correspondence between its journalists and interviewees. On this occasion we have determined that the circumstances are clearly in the public interest.

Mallinson’s email, sent to Friedman on Saturday, reads: “Unfortunately, on further reflection, we think that there are current political issues that do not align between us and the paper. I understand that not all the readers or all of the community are in line with all the views and opinions of all the articles published, and that there is a lot going on at the moment. However, the team does not feel comfortable having a feature about us published alongside some of these articles, so we would like to ask that you don’t publish my interview with you.”

She added: “Let us know if any other publications want to run the story.”

Mallinson did not specify which Jewish News articles she found objectionable.
Erin Molan: She went Viral EXPOSING the Left Now Melanie Phillips DESTROYS The UN 💥
The Erin Molan Show Episode 4 | In Episode 4 of The Erin Molan Show, the woman who went viral for exposing the Left — Melanie Phillips — unleashes her most explosive argument yet: why the United Nations must be shut down and defunded.

Erin Molan was left stunned as Phillips dismantled the very idea of the UN, exposing corruption, hypocrisy, and its dangerous role in global politics. This is one of the sharpest takedowns you’ll ever hear.

Chapters / Timestamps
0:00 – Erin’s Daily Headlines
2:20 – Erin on interviewing Ayelet — her most moving lesson
4:40– Zelensky & Co. at Trump in the Oval Office
8:15 – Protests Against Crime Crackdown in Washington DC
10:30 – Francesca Albanese speech on Hamas Hits a New Low
13:25 – Melanie Phillips Interview: Why the UN Must Be Shut Down
48:10 – Fan Feedback


Jewish Democrat Jamie Raskin joins lawmakers backing bill to restrict arms to Israel
Representative Jamie Raskin, a Jewish Democrat in Maryland, has joined a growing list of Democrats backing a bill that would withhold the transfer of offensive weapons to Israel from the United States.

Raskin’s backing of the Block the Bombs Act last week comes at a time of marked decline in Democratic support for Israel, as the war in Gaza wages on for its 22nd month.

Other prominent Jewish Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Sara Jacobs of California, Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, have also signed onto the legislation, which now has 34 sponsors.

Backing for the Block the Bombs Act among House Democrats follows record support from Senate Democrats for two resolutions blocking US military sales to Israel last month. (The resolutions failed in the Republican-led Senate.)

Raskin was one of the first Jewish Democrats to depart from norms around support for Israel during the Israel-Hamas war. In November 2023, just one month into the war in Gaza, Raskin was one of the first Jewish Democratic House lawmakers to call for a ceasefire.

In May 2024, he and Jacobs voted against sending additional emergency aid to Israel. And last December, he signed onto a letter to the Biden administration, along with 76 other House Democrats, accusing Israel of violating US arms sales law.
No. 2 House Democrat clarifies comment about Gaza ‘genocide’
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), a leading supporter of Israel in the House, told JNS on Monday that the No. 2 House Democrat told him she does not believe that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide.

Gottheimer said in response to a JNS query that he had spoken with House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) after Clark mentioned “stopping the starvation and genocide and destruction of Gaza” during an event last week in her district.

Clark “made clear to me that she does not believe Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide,” the Jewish congressman told JNS. “Like all of us concerned about the situation on the ground, she is focused on surging more aid to innocent Palestinians, defeating Hamas terrorists and bringing every hostage home.”

Clark told JNS that “last week, while attending an event in my district, I repeated the word ‘genocide’ in response to a question.”

“I want to be clear that I am not accusing Israel of genocide,” she said. “We all need to work with urgency to bring the remaining hostages home, surge aid to Palestinians and oppose their involuntary relocation, remove Hamas from power and end the war.”

Gottheimer has defended Israel as the Jewish state went to war after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. He was a lead sponsor of bipartisan legislation authorizing the United States to send Israel the bunker-buster bombs, which U.S. forces dropped on underground Iranian nuclear sites, and the aircraft needed to carry them.

Clark’s comment about “genocide” came up during a forum last week held by the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker group.

The congresswoman mentioned the conflict in the Middle East along with Republican efforts to redraw congressional district lines in GOP-run states, as she told attendees to “take action in time to make a difference.”
‘Zionism is poison’ posters at London hospital left patient ‘vulnerable and scared’
A Jewish patient at a London hospital was left feeling "vulnerable and scared" after being confronted with posters on the walls reading: "Zionism is poison".

The posters, seen at University College London Hospital (UCLH), and which were subsequently removed, read: “Israel is starving and killing Palestinians in Gaza. Children are being slaughtered beyond measure. We have a voice, they don’t. We are the generation that can influence the system and government.”

The message continued: "Please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Do not let the mainstream media influence you. It is poison. Zionism is Poison. People are being killed.” v Lobby group UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), which wrote to the hospital to flag the posters, was alerted to the situation by a UCLH patient, who said she felt “vulnerable and scared".
Norway’s wealth fund excludes 6 more Israeli companies linked to West Bank, Gaza
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, will exclude another six Israeli companies with connections to the West Bank and Gaza from its portfolio following an ethics review, it said on Monday.

The $2 trillion wealth fund did not name the companies it had decided to exclude. The announcement comes one week after the fund said it was selling its investments in 11 Israeli companies over concerns about affairs in the West Bank and Gaza.

The fund launched an urgent review earlier this month after reports that it had built a stake in an Israeli jet engine group that provides services to the Israel Defense Forces, including the maintenance of fighter jets.

“We are invested in companies that operate in a country at war, and conditions in the West Bank and Gaza have recently worsened. In response, we will further strengthen our due diligence,” the fund’s CEO Nicolai Tangen said in a statement last week.

As of August 14, the fund had some $1.86 billion invested in 38 companies listed in Israel, the fund’s operator Norges Bank Investment Management said, a reduction of 23 companies since June 30.

“More companies could be excluded,” Norwegian Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg told reporters.

The fund said the names of the six companies in Monday’s announcement would be made public, along with specific reasons, once the divestments were completed. One possibility is that they include Israel’s five largest banks, which have been under review by the fund’s ethical watchdog.
US Education Department defends keeping ‘Palestine’ in country search function
The U.S. Department of Education is defending its inclusion of “Palestine” in a country menu in a search function for its Education Resources Information Center.

In one search conducted by JNS, ERIC identified 143 items that originated in the country of “Palestine,” according to the Education Department.

The department told JNS that the “Trump administration does not recognize Palestine as an independent country” but that it uses the descriptor “foreign countries” whenever “a geographic location outside of the United States is discussed in a document.”

The Education Department drew JNS’s attention to an article “about the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War,” which has “a ‘foreign countries’ tag and includes ‘USSR’ in the ‘identifiers-location,’ even though the USSR does not exist anymore.”

JNS asked the department several times why it did so with a “state” that has never existed per U.S. policy and why it tagged an article, for example, titled “Jewish college students confront the Israel-Gaza conflict and campus divides”—which is not historical but focuses exclusively on the time period since the Oct. 7 attacks—with “Palestine.”


Corbyn was wrong to ‘capitulate’ over anti-Semitism, says Sultana
Jeremy Corbyn “capitulated” over anti-Semitism as Labour leader, the co-founder of his new political party has claimed.

Zarah Sultana, who launched a new hard-Left movement with Mr Corbyn last month, said he was wrong to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.

The definition includes holding Jews responsible for Israel’s actions and comparing its policies to those of the Nazis.

On Sunday night, the Board of Deputies of British Jews accused Ms Sultana of a “grave insult” to the Jewish community and questioned her “wider commitment” to anti-racism.

Labour initially refused to accept the IHRA wording under Mr Corbyn, whose five-year leadership of the party was repeatedly dogged by complaints of anti-Semitism.

Following a backlash, it eventually incorporated all of the IHRA’s 11 illustrative examples of anti-Semitism, which meant including a warning not to describe Israel’s existence as a “racist endeavour”.

In an interview with The New Left Review, Ms Sultana was asked how Mr Corbyn’s time in charge of Labour from 2015 to 2020 should be adapted for the present day.

She replied: “I think we’re in a very different political moment. We have to build on the strengths of Corbynism – its energy, mass appeal and bold policy platform – and we also have to recognise its limitations.

“It capitulated to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which famously equates it with anti-Zionism and which even its lead author Kenneth Stern has now publicly criticised.”
Anger over council decision to invite convicted Palestinian terrorist to address meeting
Communal leaders have said it is “beyond comprehension” that Preston City Council has invited the Mayor of Hebron to address a working group seeking to forge links with the West Bank city because he is a convicted terrorist who “has never shown remorse for his crimes.”

The left-wing, Labour run council had announced in March an “informal friendship arrangement”, which commits the two cities to forge cultural and practical links, aiming to draw them closer together.

Now it has emerged that an invite has been extended to Mayor Tayseer Abu Sneineh to speak to the council as part of the friendship arrangement.

He was convicted by Israel for taking part in the 1980 Hebron terror attack, which used automatic weapons and hand grenades to kill six Jews – three Israelis, two American-Israelis and one Canadian – during Friday night sabbath prayers. A further 20 Jews were injured.

In an interview in 2017, the former Fatah member and PLO fighter attempted to justify the killings saying:” They all were armed settlers and soldiers, no women or children

“We attacked them with guns and hand grenades.”

“We wanted to send a message to the settlers that this is our city and they have to leave.”

He was convicted as one of the gunmen and sentenced to life in prison. But he was released three years later in a prisoner swap between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization and deported to Algeria.

He returned to the West Bank, along with other exiled PLO figures, after the Oslo interim peace agreement was signed in 1993.


‘No ceasefire’: Khamenei military adviser warns war with Israel could restart at any time
A senior official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Sunday that another war with Israel or the United States could begin at any time.

“We are not in a ceasefire, we are in a stage of war. No protocol, regulation or agreement has been written between us and the US or Israel,” Yahya Rahim Safavi, a senior military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, told Iranian media.

“I think another war may happen, and after that, there may be no more wars,” he added, according to a translation by Iran International.

“The Americans and the Zionists say they create peace through power; therefore, Iran must also become strong, because in the system of nature, the weak are trampled,” Safavi said.

“We must strengthen our diplomatic, media, missile, drone and cyber offensive strategy. We, the military, do scenario-planning, we see the worst case, and we prepare a plan for it.”

In late July, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, threatened to attack Israel and the US in a “more decisive manner” if either of them targeted the Islamic Republic again.

“If there are concerns about the possible diversion of our nuclear program into non-peaceful purposes, the ‘military option’ proved incapable — but a negotiated solution may work,” Araghchi said.
Iran says it will continue talks with IAEA despite curbing access to nuclear sites
Iran will continue talks with the UN nuclear watchdog and the two sides will probably have another round of negotiations in the coming days, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told state media on Monday.

International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have been unable to access Iran’s nuclear sites since Israel and the US bombed them during a 12-day war in June, despite IAEA chief Rafael Grossi stating that inspections remain his top priority.

“We had talks [with the IAEA] last week. These talks will continue and there will be another round of talks between Iran and the agency probably in the coming days,” Baghaei said.

Tehran has accused the IAEA of effectively paving the way for the Israel-US strikes with a report on May 31 that led the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors to declare Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.

The Islamic Republic has long denied Western accusations of a covert effort to develop nuclear weapons capability, saying it remains committed to the Non-Proliferation Treaty that mandates peaceful uses of atomic energy for signatories.

“The level of our relations [with the IAEA] has changed after the events that took place, we do not deny that. However, our relations… remain direct,” Baghaei said during a televised weekly news conference.

Last month, Iran enacted a law passed by parliament suspending cooperation with the IAEA. The law stipulates that any future inspections of Iranian nuclear sites needs approval by Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council.


Pakistani textbooks rife with antisemitism, hostility to Jews, Israel, study finds
Pakistani textbooks are full of antisemitic content and recurring hostility towards both Jews and Israel, according to a study released on Monday.

The analysis of more than 80 government-approved textbooks on an array of subjects by the London-based research institute IMPACT-se found repeated instances of hostility toward Jews, with antisemitic tropes embedded in Islamic Education content and Judaism entirely absent from comparative religion sections.

Rehashing centuries-old antisemitic tropes, “the Jews” as they are often collectively described in the textbooks, are consistently accused of treachery and disloyalty as “usual” traits, the study found.

Judaism is entirely absent from comparative religion sections, which cover Hinduism, Christianity, Confucianism and Taoism.

Where Jews are mentioned in the Pakistani school curriculum, it is typically in a hostile context. A Grade 6 textbook for example claims Jewish tribes in Medina repeatedly conspired against the Prophet Mohammed, while a Grade 5 textbook uses the trope that Jews “caused Prophet Isa and his mother to suffer,” accusing them of plotting against Jesus out of fear of losing authority.

“These narratives frame Judaism as inherently treacherous and promote intolerance,” the report states.

Israel is depicted as a hostile enemy, solely responsible for the current war in Gaza, the study found, while textbooks promote support for Muslim nations in conflict with Israel.
St. Louis area police announce $42,000 for info on anti-Israel hate crime
The Clayton Police Department in Clayton, Mo., in the St. Louis area, announced several incentives for people to come forward with information about an Aug. 5 incident that it is investigating as an anti-Israel hate crime.

Crimestoppers is offering up to $2,000 for information that leads to an arrest in the case. Separately, the Jewish National Defense Network is offering an additional $10,000 for information leading to the identification of the responsible suspect or suspects, and the Jewish Federation of St. Louis and the Anti-Defamation League are each offering another $15,000 for information that results in an arrest and conviction, the police department stated.

The latter $30,000 would be paid after the conviction, it said.

The police department said that three cars were set on fire in the early morning hours on Aug. 5, and graffiti on the street stated “death to the IDF.”

“We urge anyone who lives or works in the neighborhood or surrounding area to review their surveillance systems for anything that may aid the investigation,” the police department said. “We are specifically seeking video footage or still images captured between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. on Aug. 5, 2025, from doorbell cameras, dashcams or private security systems.”

“What I saw in the graphic videos, I saw hate,” Leo Terrell, chair of the federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism at the U.S. Department of Justice, told JNS on Aug. 5. “I saw hate because of one’s religion, and I saw hate for an American who served as an IDF member in the Israeli army. That’s what I saw.”
Oklahoma man sentenced to 10 years for crimes, including threats to bomb synagogues
Landon Kyle Swinford, 20, of Blanchard, Okla., was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for several offenses, including possessing illicit photos of children and threatening to bomb synagogues, the U.S. Department of Justice stated.

Swinford talked to an undercover law enforcement officer from May 18 to Oct. 22, 2023, after he posted propaganda supporting the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham on social media and told the agent he wanted to travel abroad to fight for ISIS, according to the department.

“Swinford also scouted out Gaylord Memorial Stadium at the University of Oklahoma for a possible terror attack and suggested a Walmart or the city of New Orleans be targeted for attack as well,” the department said. He also shared a manifesto and a video in which he pledged support for ISIS and burned an Israeli flag, the government said.

An FBI investigation found that Swinford posted hateful and threatening comments on multiple social media accounts, including the post, “cast fear into the hearts of the kuffar this Halloween, dress up as your favorite mujahideen and bomb a synagogue.”
Anti-Israel NY group seeks ‘justice’ for 1991 accident that sparked antisemitic riot
A Brooklyn activist group on Monday announced a vigil seeking “justice” for a Black child killed in a 1991 car accident, a death that sparked days of anti-Jewish riots in the neighborhood of Crown Heights.

The announcement reignited fears of racial turmoil in the area, the home base of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement.

The group, Crown Heights Bites Back, said “Zionist White supremacists from Chabad-Lubavitch brutally killed” the child, Gavin Cato, 7, and injured his cousin.

“We are yet to receive justice for these children,” the group said in a statement. Several other New York activist groups shared the announcement on social media.

The statement described the accident as “vehicular manslaughter by a motorcade of Jewish supremacists.”

Ahead of the 1991 Crown Heights riots, a vehicle in the motorcade of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the revered leader of Chabad, accidentally hit and killed Cato.

The accident and its aftermath incensed Black neighborhood residents and set off a days-long riot targeting Jewish residents of the area. Hours after the accident, a group attacked Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, killing him.

During the riots, attackers injured Jews, shouted “Heil Hitler,” looted stores, and damaged cars and homes that were identified by mezuzahs on their doors. The riots are often described as a pogrom and remain a scar for the Crown Heights Jewish community.


‘Israelis aren’t a race’: Aussies outraged after Vic hairdresser boots Israeli customer out of store
The owner of a Victorian hair salon who claimed she was a supporter of inclusion and diversity has been slammed by furious Aussies after she allegedly called an Israeli customer a “genocidal baby killer” and kicked him out of her store after the customer revealed that he had served in the Israeli military.

Katrina Ann Smith, the owner of Juniper Salon in Melbourne’s southeast, has found herself in hot water after she allegedly kicked an Israeli customer out of her store last Monday.

The customer said that upon Ms Smith hearing his Middle Eastern accent, she asked where he was from - and that when he told her he was Israeli, she allegedly labelled him a “genocidal baby killer” and marched him out of the store.

“She heard my accent and asked where are you from? I said 'I’m from Israel' and she said you can leave. Once I left, she called me a baby killer and she closed the door,” the man told Rebel News.

The man said the ordeal was “crazy” and that he only wanted someone to cut his “curly hair.”

Rebel News’ Australian correspondent Avi Yemini visited the embattled store late last week to ask Smith why she allegedly evicted the man from her store, and if she regretted her actions.

Despite Yemini making a booking to have his hair cut, Smith ordered him to get out of her store.

She also admitted to booting the Israeli man out of her salon due to the fact he served in the Israel Defence Force.

“You’re not here to have a haircut, you’re here to hassle me, because they were a baby killer, now f*** off, f*** off,” Smith said.


Nazi flags found hanging outside Texas high school
After two Nazi flags were found hanging outside Rockwall-Heath High School in Heath, Texas, early Saturday morning, the local Chabad rabbi called on the community to “continue to display Jewish pride,” according to the Rockwall County Herald-Banner.

Rabbi Moishy Kalmenson of Chabad Rockwall said he was “appalled at the blatant hate crime and show of antisemitism.”

“We must counter the darkness and hate with education and light,” Kalmenson said. “This should be an invitation and a calling to our entire community to discuss the dangers of hateful ideology, and the importance and significance of religious freedom.”

“As a Jewish community, our response is not to back down or waver but to continue to display Jewish pride and to share kindness and light with all,” he said.

The students who discovered the flags immediately notified Heath’s Department of Public Safety, which promptly removed them from the public school.

Jeremiah McClure, mayor of Heath, stated that police and school district officials are working together to investigate the incident.

“I stand with our community in firm opposition to any acts of hatred, including the hateful display of flags that were found at Rockwall-Heath High School yesterday morning,” McClure said. “Rest assured, these actions will not be tolerated, and those accountable will face the consequences of their behavior.”
Israel Advocacy Movement: Far-Right Troll Rage Quits After Getting HUMILIATED by Jew

Serbia named as European country in $1.6b. Elbit deal
Last week, Israeli defense electronics company Elbit Systems Ltd. announced that a European country had signed a $1.63 billion contract for the supply of a range of defense solutions, for delivery over a five-year period. Globes has learned that the customer is in Serbia.

The order consists of two groups of products.

The first group includes long-range precision strike artillery-rocket systems and a broad spectrum of unmanned reconnaissance and loitering aerial combat systems, from operational to tactical ranges, including personally operated drones.

In the second group are sophisticated ISTAR capabilities, including SIGINT, COMINT, and electronic warfare systems. Enabled intelligence collection and processing systems will also be delivered, along with advanced electro-optical (E/O) and night-vision systems, combat vehicle upgrades, and protective systems.

In addition, Elbit Systems will deliver comprehensive military digitalization and Network Combat Solution, based on the latest software generation and cutting-edge hardware communication equipment. This includes intelligence solutions from the C4ISR suite of command-and-control applications.
Derby County criticised for honouring ex-star with racist past while Nazi-defying goalkeeper left out
Derby County have come under criticism after unveiling a new Walk of Fame that includes a former player sacked for racist remarks – but leaves out Jack Kirby, the goalkeeper who refused to give the Nazi salute on tour in 1934.

Twelve inductees were revealed at Pride Park on Saturday, chosen through fan nominations. Among them was Italian winger Stefano Eranio, a late-1990s favourite, who in 2015 was dismissed as a Swiss TV pundit after claiming black defenders “often make certain errors because they’re not concentrating.” Derby County goalkeeper Jack Kirby (far left) refuses to give the Nazi salute during the team’s 1934 tour of Germany. Photo Credit: Paul Tattershaw

The decision has sparked anger from supporters who argue Kirby’s moral courage made him one of the club’s true greats. During four games in Nazi Germany, he stood firm with his arms by his side while teammates complied with the salute.

“Kirby was a symbol of defiance against the Nazis and fascists,” Derby fan and historian Kal Singh Dhindsa told the Daily Mail, who this year led a successful campaign to restore the goalkeeper’s grave. “His inclusion would have been a source of immense pride and an excellent opportunity to educate all. Instead, Derby County have opened the floodgates to embolden more fans to think in the way Eranio expressed himself.”

Dhindsa said he had faced abuse online since raising concerns. “There are many fans who feel the same way as me but are too afraid to call it out,” he added.

Kirby, who made 191 appearances for Derby, died in 1960 aged just 50. His rediscovered story has become a symbol of resistance to fascism in football.
Israel to deliver humanitarian aid to crisis-hit South Sudan
Israel is preparing the delivery of humanitarian supplies to vulnerable populations in South Sudan, the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced on Monday.

The move is led by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who instructed the foreign ministry agency MASHAV, Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation, to deliver urgent assistance to the crisis-hit country.

The African nation is currently struggling with a cholera outbreak while also facing a severe shortage of resources, the ministry explained.

The aid will include essential medical supplies for treating patients, water purification equipment, gloves and face masks food packages, as well as special hygiene kits to prevent cholera, the ministry continued.

As part of the aid operation, MASHAV will cooperate with IsraAID, an Israeli NGO active in the country.

“Israel stands by its friends in their time of need,” the ministry said.

In late July, Sa’ar hosted his South Sudanese counterpart, Monday Semaya Kumba, in Jerusalem. The two diplomats discussed the humanitarian crisis unfolding in South Sudan, which has worsened due to the influx of refugees fleeing the ongoing war in Sudan.

During their conversation, “I highlighted the hypocrisy of the international community that ignores the longstanding humanitarian crisis and suffering in Sudan, which impacts South Sudan, that receives no aid or recognition despite its significant support for the Sudanese refugees,” Sa’ar tweeted following their meeting.


First yahrzeit marked for ‘Beautiful Six’ murdered by Hamas
The first yahrzeit of the Beautiful Six – Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Eden Yerushalmi – is being marked today, a year after they were murdered in Gaza by Hamas terrorists.

Abducted from Israel on 7 October 2023, they were held in captivity for 11 months before being executed in August 2024. Their deaths, confirmed by the IDF, devastated families and sparked international mourning.

Commemorations are taking place in Israel and around the world. On Instagram, the Bring Hersh Home campaign urged people to dedicate the 24 hours between sundown on 18 and 19 August to “do something big or small, quiet or loud, private or public” to help “make our complicated world a bit better.”

Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, became a symbol of resilience through the global campaign that bore his name. Ori Danino, 25, was remembered as a hero who rescued others at the Nova festival before being taken hostage; his family is dedicating a Torah scroll in his memory this week. Carmel Gat, 40, was a physiotherapist devoted to her patients and loved ones. Almog Sarusi, 27, Alexander Lobanov, 33, and Eden Yerushalmi, 24, are being remembered alongside them, their families continuing to honour their lives and legacies.

Israel’s Embassy in London wrote: “Our thoughts are with their families and loved ones today.”

Relatives and campaigners are asking people to mark the day with acts of kindness in the six hostages’ memory, saying: “May their memory be a blessing – and a revolution for goodness.”




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