Pages

▼

Thursday, August 28, 2025

08/28 Links Pt2: One eye and four blindfolds; Iran’s evil does not stop at its borders; The UN’s Blue Flag, Hamas’s Black Hand; UNIFIL’s Looming End: Why the UN Won't Let it Happen

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: One eye and four blindfolds
So why has Albanese suddenly decided to act against the Islamic regime? The reason is almost certainly that he has begun to feel some heat over his government’s appalling behavior.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed diplomatic niceties to one side by chewing him out in public over the Rothman ban, while Israel has stripped some Australian diplomats of their visas. This may have concentrated Albanese’s mind on the fact that intelligence-sharing with Israel remains crucial to Australia’s national security.

In 2017, Israel alerted ASIO that there was a plot to blow up an Etihad Airways flight leaving Sydney. And this week, Sky News revealed that a tip-off from Israeli intelligence had assisted ASIO during its investigation, which unraveled the Iran connection to the terror attacks.

More significant still, U.S. President Donald Trump appears to be taking a very dim view indeed of Australia’s anti-Israel antics. He has yet to meet Albanese.

And Australia’s defense minister, Richard Marles, was humiliated this week by American defense officials’ ambiguity over whether exchanges with his U.S. counterpart, Pete Hegseth, in Washington, D.C., were an actual “meeting” or a “happenstance encounter.”

Any idea that Albanese has now seen the light over Israel is vanishingly unlikely.

On Sky News Australia, Sharri Markson revealed that in 1998, a “starry-eyed” Albanese met Yasser Arafat, head of the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization, which had sponsored and funded his trip to Ramallah.

Two years later, she said, during the Second Intifada, when Palestinian Arabs were blowing Israelis to bits on buses and in pizza parlors, Albanese joined protests against Israel, during which American and Israeli flags were burnt.

In a speech to the Australian parliament while Israel was struggling to stop the slaughter of more than 1,300 of its citizens, Albanese condemned Israeli roadblocks and other restrictions on Palestinians as abuses of their civil rights.

Albanese has now admitted that he has been an advocate for the Palestinian cause his whole life and says he is angry at the anti-Israel protesters—only because their extremism is undermining that cause. In other words, in the great battle now underway between civilization and barbarism, Albanese has put Australia on the wrong side.

This matters not just to Israel but to the West. Australia is a member of the Five Eyes security alliance. The other four members are the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and New Zealand.

In its hostility to Israel—the West’s indispensable front line of defense in the Middle East—Australia has been puncturing that alliance, a breach that its belated burst of realism over Iran cannot repair.

Unfortunately, though, it’s not alone in this. The United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand have also turned into foes of the Jewish state, demonizing it with lies aimed at its delegitimization and preparing to recognize the illusory “state of Palestine” which is being willed into existence purely as a means to Israel’s destruction.

Only America is holding fast to Israel’s security and defense. So the Five Eyes alliance has now turned into One Eye and Four Blindfolds.

Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand can no longer be trusted with the defense of the West. It’s now America and Israel fighting for a free world that no longer understands what that means.
Iran’s evil does not stop at its borders
These revelations should hardly have shocked Albanese. After all, Iran has long exported its brand of violent Islamism well beyond its borders. This has ramped up especially since 7 October 2023 and the start of the Gaza war.

In May, seven Iranian nationals were arrested across the UK, accused of plotting two separate terror attacks. A July report from the UK parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee described Iran as a ‘wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable’ threat. Iranian-backed attacks have also been carried out in Spain, France and Argentina. Even 7 October itself had Iran’s fingerprints all over it. The Hamas militants who murdered 1,200 people in southern Israel were flush with Iranian cash and weapons.

It is, of course, hardly positive news that a foreign country is sponsoring anti-Semitic attacks in your own country. Yet you can’t help but think the career politician in Albanese must have breathed a sigh of relief. Flanked by Australia’s top spy Mike Burgess and foreign minister Penny Wong, Albanese was suddenly able to pose as a protector of Australian Jews. Even though he has been anything but in the recent past.

Indeed, Albanese cannot fully wash his hands of the crisis of anti-Semitism in Australia. Ever since 7 October, he has depicted Israel as essentially the sole perpetrator of every misfortune in Gaza. His Labor government has repeatedly demanded ceasefires which would have offered strategic advantages to Hamas. It even condemned Israel for its counter-attacks against Hezbollah – Iran’s most lethal and well-armed proxy. Albanese’s one-sided, unwavering criticism of Israel has cultivated a national hostility to the Jewish State. It is not hard to see how this has allowed anti-Semitism to flourish.

Anthony Albanese is right to stand up to the Iranian terror threat. But Australia’s Jewish community will expect far more from the prime minister before trust is restored. The arson attacks may have been ordered from abroad, but the broader climate of Jew hatred is largely homegrown.
The UN’s Blue Flag, Hamas’s Black Hand: A Case Study in Complicity
The UN’s Three-Part Mantra of Excuses
1 Humanitarian Necessity – UNRWA claims it is the “only game in town.” But humanitarian aid isn’t just bread and water, it has included cement, wiring, and infrastructure that repeatedly ends up in Hamas’s tunnels. The UN knows it, yet refuses to answer the obvious: where did all that concrete go? There is even little to no oversight or accounting regarding the projects all the cement, wires and infrastructure was slated for from the beginning. How many schools or health facilities were never developed because the supplies were designated to construct Hamas's underground world?
2 Institutional Separation – UNRWA insists its staff are “civilians.” Yet OIOS admits some were terrorists, and polls show the majority of Palestinians in Gaza as well as Judea and Samaria support Hamas. The idea that UNRWA employees are immune from these sympathies is absurd. Teaching jihad in classrooms, wiring electricity from UNRWA buildings to Hamas tunnels, turning blind eyes to tunnel entrances hidden inside compounds, this is complicity, not neutrality.
3 Process Over Outcomes – When scandals erupt, the UN launches reviews, frameworks, reforms. Endless paper. But the system never changes, because the bureaucracy exists to protect itself, not reform itself. Reviews become fig leaves for corruption.

Donors: Suspend, Resume, Repeat
When Israel exposed the October 7 connection, donors briefly froze funding. Then, predictably, they resumed. The EU returned to business as usual. Only the U.S. codified its funding halt into law until at least March 2026. Donor governments know UNRWA is compromised, yet they cling to it out of habit and fear of logistical headaches.

What Honest Neutrality Would Look Like
True neutrality would demand:
- Full Transparency – Line-by-line staff records, affiliations, and vetting against terror lists, continuously audited.
- Independent Verification – If a statistic comes from Hamas ministries, it should be labeled “unverified,” not “UN-confirmed.”
- Operational Redesign – Break UNRWA’s monopoly. Fund private or independent alternatives like the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (@GHFUpdates), which has proven aid can reach civilians without Hamas skimming off the top.

The Moral Bottom Line
Neutrality does not mean parroting terrorists. It does not mean rockets in schools, tunnels under headquarters, or staff participating in massacres. It does not mean reviewing the problem to death while feeding the same beast year after year.

Until the UN stops outsourcing truth to Hamas ministries and proves it can police its own payroll, Western governments must stop pretending this setup produces neutral information. It doesn’t.

It produces propaganda wrapped in a blue flag.

The only immediate solution, one that will save billions in taxpayer funds, is simple: Defund the United Nations!


The Crusader myth
Since seizing control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas has invested in rockets and tunnels rather than schools, hospitals or water systems. Its aim is perpetual war, modeled on the imagined arc of Crusader defeat. The analogy sustains the belief that Israel’s fall is inevitable, glorifies patience and endless struggle, and reframes human suffering as strategic.

Western diplomacy, however, values speed and short-term solutions. Ceasefires, aid or concessions are misinterpreted as progress, while Islamist actors operate on a timescale of centuries, mirroring the protracted defeat of the Crusaders.

Even secular leaders have invoked the Crusader frame. After rejecting the 2000 Camp David peace offer, PLO chief Yasser Arafat referenced Saladin, reminding followers that Israel is a passing foreign power.

The historical analogy collapses under scrutiny. Crusader states were fragile, dependent on reinforcements from Europe and alien to the local population. Israel, by contrast, is sovereign, economically advanced, militarily strong and deeply rooted in the land. Jews are not foreign interlopers; nearly half of Israel’s Jewish population descends from families long-established in the Middle East and North Africa.

Yet a persistent double standard distorts how people see the Middle East. Sometimes it seems that the region’s history begins in the seventh century with the violent Muslim conquests that brought Arab and Islamic rule. These conquests are called “liberations,” while the Jewish return to their homeland and the creation of Israel are labeled “colonial.” This selective view ignores thousands of years of Jewish history and makes the return to Zion look like an intrusion.

Ignoring the Crusader analogy leads to misreading signals: concessions are weakness, aid sustains conflict, and periods of calm are merely pauses for regrouping. Western policymakers misread movements driven by jihadist ideology, projecting material reasoning onto actors committed to Israel’s destruction.

The West must abandon the habit of “mirror-imaging,” assuming the other side thinks like us. Recognizing Hamas for what it truly is, not what we hope it to be, is essential for any realistic path toward security or peace. Without that clarity, strategies are built on wishful thinking, not reality. Hamas is not interested in a negotiated compromise; it is committed to Israel’s destruction. Its worldview is coherent, if morally abhorrent, and its time horizon is measured in generations.

French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer each announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state in September at the U.N. General Assembly. Without first confronting the ideological and governance realities on the ground, such a move risks legitimizing a regime (the popularity of Hamas in the West Bank is enormous) that does not seek peace, but Israel’s eradication. It sends the messages that Western capitals are willing to bypass the hard questions in favor of symbolic gestures and that diplomacy can be weaponized to embolden terrorist groups rather than containing them.

Breaking the cycle requires dismantling the Crusader myth and promoting a narrative that recognizes Jews as indigenous with shared history alongside Arabs. Peace will require rejecting the cult of death, abandoning the seduction of eternal war, and choosing dignity, coexistence, and life over martyrdom. Without this moral and cultural shift, diplomacy remains a polite pause between wars, unable to address the conflict’s ideological core.
The Khazar Conspiracy: Unraveling a Dangerous Myth in Modern Geopolitics
The Dark Side: Incitement to Violence and Radicalization of the Vulnerable
Beyond historical distortion, the Khazar conspiracy poses real dangers by inciting violence and exploiting mental instability. Labeled the "Khazarian Mafia," it portrays Jews as a malevolent force behind global ills, justifying hatred and calls for harm. Online rhetoric often escalates to explicit threats: posts demand "accountability" for alleged plots to "kill humanity," imply terror attacks, or fabricate quotes urging ethnic cleansing. Extremists like Riccardo Bosi have called for exterminating "vermin" (code for Jews), while chants like "Khaybar" evoke historical massacres.

This rhetoric has real-world consequences. A 33% rise in violent antisemitic incidents post-October 2023, many linked to Israel-Hamas, correlates with conspiracy spikes. Events like the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, where the attacker cited Jewish "control" theories, show how such myths radicalize individuals. In Amsterdam, premeditated "Jewish hunts" by anti-Israel groups echo pogroms. Iranian-linked online incitement during conflicts further glorifies violence against Jews.

Particularly insidious is its effect on mentally unstable people. Conspiracy theories prey on paranoia, offering simplistic explanations for chaos. Research shows they can exacerbate conditions like schizophrenia or delusional disorders, pushing vulnerable individuals toward violence. Lone-wolf attackers, influenced by online echo chambers, act on perceived "threats" from the "Khazarian Mafia," as seen in rising hate crimes tied to Ukraine and Gaza narratives. Cult-like groups, such as Chabad critics or far-right forums, amplify dehumanizing views, claiming non-Jews are subhuman, lowering barriers to harm.

Conclusion: Combating Myths with Facts and Vigilance
The Khazar conspiracy is not harmless speculation; it's a tool for division, delegitimization, and danger. By relying on debunked claims, it fuels antisemitism amid global crises, endangering lives and eroding truth. Education, platform moderation, and critical thinking are essential to counter it. As societies grapple with polarization, remembering the human cost, from incited attacks to radicalized minds, underscores the need to reject such unsubstantiated narratives outright. For reliable resources, consult genetic studies or historical texts, and report hate speech to curb its spread.
Alvin Rosenfeld: Review of 'The World After Gaza' by Pankaj Mishra
In March 2024, the London Review of Books featured a lengthy, politically charged article by Pankaj Mishra entitled “The Shoah After Gaza.” The author, a prominent cultural critic and novelist, accuses Israel of acting out of “its survivalist psychosis” to exercise “unbridled brutality” against Gazans, perhaps as a prelude to “ethnically cleansing” them. Israel, he said, is threatening nothing less than “the global order” itself and, thus, is a danger to everyone and not just the people in Gaza. As for his specific reading of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, he claims that Israeli Jews are in thrall to a hyped-up, never-ending sense of victimization and are perpetrating crimes against the Palestinians so great as to render them unfit custodians of Holocaust memory. In his view, they abuse the painful legacy of their people’s past by conceiving of their Arab neighbors as latter-day Nazis and treating them accordingly. In response, Israel’s victims, “unable to endure their misery any longer, rise up against their oppressors with predictable ferocity.” To the degree that the author offers any explanation for Hamas’s horrific assaults against the Jews of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, that is about it. Otherwise, the atrocities carried out on that day do not seem to matter much to Mishra.

What does matter, he writes, is to redeem the “moral significance” attached to “the memory of the Shoah.” In his quest of such redemption, Mishra quotes copiously from Jean Améry, Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, Hannah Arendt, and others who wrote important works on the Holocaust. His aim, in virtually every instance, is to cite the voices of these and other leading scholars and survivor writers to turn the moral imperatives of the Holocaust against Israel. Given what he claims are Israel’s intentionally brutal aims and savage actions against its neighbors, Mishra argues that Gaza, and not Auschwitz, “has become for countless powerless people the essential condition of political and ethical consciousness in the 21st century.” As he describes them, Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are now in a reversed relationship: The Palestinians are the new Jews, and Jews are, if not exactly the new Nazis, rapidly on their way to becoming such.

Mishra is hardly the first critic of Israel to think along these lines. Whenever there has been fighting between Hamas and Israel, the vitriol has poured forth, increasingly so with each new war. Columbia University’s Hamid Dabashi, writing for Al Jazeera on August 8, 2014, referred to Gaza as a “concentration or internment camp” and then added: “After Gaza, not a single living Israeli can utter the word ‘Auschwitz’ without it sounding like ‘Gaza.’ Auschwitz as a historical fact is now archival. Auschwitz as a metaphor is now Palestinian. From now on, every time any Israeli, every time any Jew, anywhere in the world, utters the word ‘Auschwitz,’ or the word ‘Holocaust,’ the world will hear ‘Gaza.’” The 2014 fighting in Gaza lasted 50 days and led to some 2,250 Arab fatalities, a third to a half of them combatants. It was not remotely the equivalent of Auschwitz. Nevertheless, in a time of widespread exploitation of the words and images of the Holocaust, comparisons of this kind have become commonplace. Where Auschwitz once was, Gaza now is.

Mishra greatly expands on these notions in his just-published book, The World After Gaza. He subtitles it “A History.” It is not. In the author’s own words, he set out to write a “personal intellectual journey” prompted by his sense of what he insists is “the defining event of the twenty-first century”—namely, “Israel’s livestreamed mass-murder spree in the Middle East.” That it was Hamas that gleefully recorded its mass-murder spectacle with GoPro and cellphone cameras in an unprecedented exhibitionist display of rape and slaughter goes unmentioned by Mishra, who is a master of this kind of rhetorical sleight of hand.
Investigations reveal ties between Italian left-wing parties and Hamas
A series of investigative reports published by the Rome-based newspaper Il Tempo reveal connections between senior figures in Italy’s radical left-wing political parties and Mohammed Hannoun, a veteran Hamas terrorist living in Genoa.

The reports allege that both the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party have maintained contact with Hannoun and his associates, even as the Hamas financier faces international sanctions.

Hannoun, 62, has resided in Italy for decades and is widely known to Western intelligence services.

He established multiple associations that outwardly presented themselves as humanitarian charities but, according to Israeli and American authorities, channeled funds to Hamas’ military wing.

In December 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned him as a “veteran fundraiser” for the group.

Following the October 7 massacre, Italian financial institutions closed his accounts, and major providers such as Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal blocked his transfers.

Despite these measures, Hannoun reportedly continues to raise money through new organizations and shell companies.

The Il Tempo series also detailed how Hannoun and his longtime associate, Palestinian activist Sulaiman Hijazi, have appeared publicly alongside prominent figures, including UN envoy Francesca Albanese, who has faced criticism for remarks minimizing Hamas atrocities.

Photos circulated by the newspaper show Hannoun with senior Hamas leaders Khaled Mashal and the late Ismail Haniyeh.

Hannoun has openly voiced support for Hamas since October 7, calling the assault on Israel “an act of self-defense” and praising leaders killed in the war.
Andrew Roberts: The TRUE History Of Winston Churchill
Lord Andrew Roberts, author of "Churchill: Walking with Destiny," joins me for a riveting discussion on the brilliance of Churchill's leadership, as well as about the multitude of near-death experiences that nearly stopped him from assuming the role of England's Prime Minister.


The (not so) silent war on America's campuses
Jewish students should expect to be confronted by more pro-Hamas mobs and antisemitism when returning to college this fall, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin. With legacy media mainstreaming Hamas propaganda and blood libels against Israel, it’s likely that the surge of antisemitism throughout American education that began after the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, will continue in the coming months.

He’s joined in the week’s episode of Think Twice by Cornell Law professor and Legalinsurrection.com founder William Jacobson who says it’s “going to be a very hot fall” with respect to anti-Israel activity. Jacobson believes that the pro-Hamas movement is in retreat as a result of Trump’s crackdown, which has caused many schools to act swiftly to quash antisemitism on campus, lest they lose federal funding. But given the widespread belief in the lies about Israel committing “genocide” in Gaza, antisemitic groups like Students for Justice in Palestine will be even more aggressive than in the past two years. It will be up to colleges and universities to ensure that those who break the rules and engage in illegal activity in the name of “Palestine” are held accountable.

Israel-haters have, Jacobson says, co-opted the entire left-wing movement, sidelining causes like Black Lives Matter and making activism for the destruction of Israel their main goal. This movement is being aided with funding from Qatar and other malign actors and is also seeking to co-opt the right via influencers like Tucker Carlson.

But, he says, their main target is America itself and not just the Jews. “If you wanted to destroy the United States from inside, what would you do differently than the left and now the Islamists are doing to our educational system, which is pitting students against each other based on skin color and identity group? And that's what the mainstream Jewish community refuses to address.


UN Security Council Sets End Date for ‘Wasteful, Woke, Ineffective’ Lebanon Peacekeeping Force
The U.N. Security Council (UNSC) voted to reauthorize the body’s peacekeeping force in Lebanon one final time, allowing it to operate through 2026 before being dismantled.

The resolution, which the UNSC unanimously approved Thursday, will keep the 47-year-old U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in place through the end of next year before an "orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal" from Lebanon. The Trump administration had engaged in a behind-the-scenes push to terminate the agency’s mandate, an effort stemming from long-running criticism of UNIFIL’s failure to prevent Hezbollah-led attacks on Israel.

UNIFIL’s authority in Lebanon was set to expire this coming Sunday before the UNSC took action. While the United States had preferred an earlier end date, the Times of Israel reported the Trump administration did not object to an alternate French resolution with a 16-month timeline.

UNIFIL relies heavily on U.S. taxpayer dollars to stay afloat. The agency, which operates on an annual budget of $400 million to $500 million, receives about 30 percent of its funding from the United States. That money, the Washington Free Beacon reported earlier this month, goes not only toward arming and training troops but to left-wing programs for peacekeeping forces as well.

The agency, for instance, uses part of its budget to fund "gender diversity" training and lessons on "gender mainstreaming in military operations." It employs a "Military Gender Advisor," runs a "Gender Task Force" for its navy, and maintains "gender-sensitive accommodations" at its bases.

UNIFIL touted a "Resilience through Yoga" program featuring "yoga asanas, meditation & Ayurveda to boost peacekeepers’ physical stamina, mental focus & emotional well-being" on social media earlier this month.

The agency’s decision to spend money on progressive causes, coupled with its inability to prevent Hezbollah from attacking Israel, led the Trump administration to push for its dissolution.

"UNIFIL is wasteful, woke, ineffective, and an enabler for Hezbollah," a U.S. official told the Free Beacon. "It’s long overdue that we end this failed mission."

The Trump administration and congressional Republicans made some headway in doing so in July, when President Donald Trump signed a rescissions package that clawed back about $158 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars from UNIFIL.
UNIFIL’s Looming End: Why the UN Won't Let it Happen
Despite UNIFIL’s presence, Hezbollah systematically built one of the most advanced non-state militaries in the world. Tunnels were dug right under UNIFIL’s nose. Hezbollah launched thousands of rockets from sites adjacent to UNIFIL bases, even hitting UN posts with misfired rounds. UNIFIL referred to these attacks ambiguously as by “armed elements” rather than naming Hezbollah. Image

When the IDF conducted ground raids in southern Lebanon, the scale of Hezbollah’s entrenchment around UNIFIL bases was shocking. Yet UNIFIL refused to evacuate posts or confront Hezbollah, effectively serving as human shields. Israel tried to protect UNIFIL, only to be condemned.

Israel, implored UNIFIL to leave their positions for their own safety, but these appeals fell on deaf ears. It was also the IDF’s policy during the war always to warn UNIFIL whenever Israel operated in their vicinity so they had the chance to move out of harm’s way. Instead of praising Israel, however, for trying to protect UNIFIL, world leaders condemned it.

When Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, Hezbollah quickly mobilized the arsenal it had built under UNIFIL’s watch. Thousands of missiles were fired at Israel from southern Lebanon, including sites next to UN bases. UNIFIL’s response? Silence. The peacekeepers did not identify Hezbollah in their press statements and continued to act as human shields.

UNIFIL’s failures are not isolated. They reflect a systemic problem across UN peacekeeping operations, with some of the examples:
Srebrenica, Bosnia (1995): Dutch UN peacekeepers failed to prevent the massacre of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, despite the town being declared a UN “safe zone,” it became a slaughter zone under the watch of the UN.
Rwanda (1994): UNAMIR peacekeepers were overwhelmed and under-resourced, failing to protect civilians during the genocide that killed an estimated 800,000 people.
Congo (DRC): MONUC and MONUSCO personnel were repeatedly implicated in sexual abuse, exploitation, bribery, and collusion with local militias.
Haiti (2004–present): UN peacekeepers have been linked to cholera outbreaks, sexual abuse, and corruption, undermining trust with local communities.
Darfur, Sudan: UNAMID peacekeepers were accused of failing to protect civilians from attacks by Janjaweed militias, while some forces were themselves involved in abuse.
Liberia: UNMIL peacekeepers faced accusations of sexual exploitation and abuse, including transactions with minors.
Bosnia & Herzegovina (post-Srebrenica): Some peacekeepers were involved in black-market arms and equipment sales.
Cambodia (UNTAC, 1992–1993): Reports of sexual abuse and exploitation of women and children by UN personnel.
Sierra Leone: UNAMSIL personnel faced multiple accusations of bribery, sexual misconduct, and turning a blind eye to rebel activities.

The UN bureaucracy prioritizes its survival over actual results. UNIFIL epitomizes this: billions spent, zero enforcement, billions of dollars of armaments allowed to flourish, and dozens of scandals ignored. UNIFIL’s mandated expiration is now a political compromise—delayed to 2027. The UN does not want to admit that a peacekeeping mission failed so completely. Closing UNIFIL would force the world to ask uncomfortable questions. The UN survives by perpetuating illusions. Ending UNIFIL threatens that. It would prove that the UN can be dismantled.

UNIFIL had one job: prevent Hezbollah from rearming and escalating conflict in southern Lebanon. It failed spectacularly. It became a shield for Hezbollah, allowed the construction of tunnels and rocket depots, accepted bribes, covered for drug smuggling, and turned a blind eye to sexual abuse by its peacekeepers.

If UNIFIL finally ends, it will be a terrifying precedent. The UN survives by perpetuating illusions. Ending UNIFIL threatens that. It would prove that failed UN institutions can and should be dismantled.


Second accuser comes forward against ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan
International Criminal Court top prosecutor Karim Khan, who temporarily stepped aside from his role in May following a sexual misconduct claim, now faces a second accusation from another woman, The Guardian reported on Thursday.

The woman, identified only as “Patricia,” has provided testimony to the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services, which is investigating the accusations made against Khan, according to the report.

Patricia told the paper that Khan abused his power as a top ICC lawyer and subjected her to a “constant onslaught” of unwanted advances while she worked on an internship for him in 2009.

“Karim was a well-connected, well-respected person who could make things happen, and someone who would put a good word in for you,” the woman stated. However, Patricia said the prestigious internship at the ICC “came at a price it shouldn’t have come at.

“He shouldn’t have been doing it,” she stated. “He was my employer.

Patricia alleged that Khan touched her breasts in the ICC offices in what she described as a “prolonged” and “completely unconsented” incident.

Later, Khan allegedly requested that Patricia work from his home, where he would sit close beside her on a couch, touch and kiss her and press her to have sex. She said she repeatedly refused, inventing excuses to avoid angering him, but felt “trapped” due to the power imbalance.

As she was paying her own expenses during the internship, Patricia said she believed that a positive letter of recommendation from Khan was essential. She eventually received one, calling it a “deal with the devil.”

Although she felt “miserable” and depressed, Patricia explained that she stayed until the internship ended. She remained in contact with Khan afterward for professional reasons, but gradually distanced herself.


‘Entirely on form’: Why Iran’s Revolutionary Guard targeted Australia
Kasra Aarabi, an analyst at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, wrote in a 2020 parliamentary submission: “For over 40 years, the IRGC has been responsible for plotting and executing global terrorist attacks, hostage-takings, maritime piracy, political assassinations on foreign soil – including in Europe – human rights violations and suppressing domestic dissent within Iran.”

In November 2020, Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat in Vienna, and three fellow Iranians were charged with plotting to bomb a 2018 rally in France of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a dissident exile group calling for the overthrow of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s theocratic regime.

The trial established that Assadi had smuggled explosives from Tehran to Europe and was acting on instructions of high-ranking Iranian officials. All four defendants were found guilty of attempted murder and terrorism and jailed for between 17 and 20 years.

Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the group targeted by the plot, described the conviction as “a brilliant victory for the people and resistance of Iran and a heavy political and diplomatic defeat for the regime”. Rajavi this week applauded Australia for expelling the Iranian ambassador to Australia, saying Iranian diplomatic posts around the world “are in fact nests of terrorism and espionage”.

Often, it is Jewish sites, including Israeli embassies, that are being targeted, reflecting Iran’s fierce rivalry with the Jewish state for dominance in the Middle East and across the globe. Referencing the Revolutionary Guard’s suspected support for terror attacks on Jewish sites in Bulgaria, Thailand and Argentina, Australian Jewish Association chief executive Robert Gregory told a 2023 Senate inquiry: “This is one of the reasons why, in Australia, Jewish preschools, synagogues and our community centres, you may have noticed, are protected by armed guards. It’s from the fear of the Iranian regime-sponsored terrorist organisations.”

In 2012, a group of Iranians were arrested and charged for allegedly blowing up a building near the Israeli embassy in Bangkok and injuring civilians in a botched attempt to assassinate Israeli diplomats.

The 2023 Senate inquiry called for Australia to take the necessary steps to formally categorise the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp as an organisation involved in supporting and facilitating terrorism. The Albanese government declined to do so on the basis of advice from the Attorney General’s Department that, under the existing Criminal Code, state actors could not be listed as terror groups. The government will now amend the legislation to allow the corps to be listed, prompting cries of “I told you so” from the Coalition and the Iranian diaspora, which had demanded the move for years.


Finding out Iran was involved in antisemitic terror attacks is ‘not surprising’
Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli says it is “not surprising” to find out Iran played a hand in antisemitic attacks in Australia because “Iran is active all across the globe”.

“The terror activity of Iran is not something new, and we welcome the decision of the government to remove the Iranian ambassador to Australia,” Mr Chikli told Sky News host Chris Kenny.

“It cannot hide the disappointment that we have from the devastating move to recognise a non-existent Palestinian state, an act that is encouraging Hamas, harming our efforts to release the hostages, harming our efforts to end the war.”


Expert confirms IRGC has ‘dramatically increased’ number of global operations
Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council Dr Bren Carlill discusses the extent of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ operations across the world.

“Iranians for many, many years have sent operatives from the IRGC to countries around the world to recruit local criminals, either individual or networks, in order to carry out surveillance, or intimidation, or attacks,” Mr Carlill told Sky News host Steve Price.

“Iran is opportunistic … they have dramatically increased the number of plots they have undertaken.”


Israeli intelligence assisted ASIO during its Iran-planned terror plot revelations
Former Labor MP Michael Danby discusses the revelation that Israeli intelligence assisted ASIO during its investigation which unravelled the Iran-plotted terror attacks in Australia.

“What’s good about this is to see that there is still cooperation between the two intelligence services despite the difficult relations,” Mr Danby told Sky News Digital Presenter Gabriella Power.

“We don’t want to place citizens at risk because of political differences.

“Safety of citizens in Israel and Australia is more important.”




New York City Jewish educators say they’re leaving teacher union due to antisemitism
Several dozen Jewish activists on Thursday gathered outside the office of a leading teachers union in New York City to protest against alleged antisemitism and inaction by the United Federation of Teachers.

Jewish teachers at the rally, held outside the UFT’s office in downtown Manhattan, chanted, “Enough is enough,” and held signs that said, “UFT leadership: Failing Jewish students. Failing New York,” and, “Educate against hate.”

Some of the protesters were UFT members who wore the union’s shirts to the rally, but wrote, “UFT doesn’t represent me” on the back of the shirts.

The activists accused the UFT of a “pattern of silence and inaction that has eroded trust with Jewish teachers, students, and parents,” such as endorsing New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a harsh critic of Israel, despite opposition to the move by Zionist Jews.

The UFT pushed back against the accusations.

“The UFT has a long history of working with, listening to, and protecting the diverse Jewish community in our schools and our city, and we will continue to do so,” a spokesperson told The Times of Israel.

Karen Feldman, co-founder of the New York City Public School Alliance, an advocacy group established after Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, said she was a union member for 26 years before leaving due to antisemitism.

“We are gathered here today because students and educators in New York City public schools no longer feel safe, and the United Federation of Teachers, the union meant to protect us, is failing in that responsibility,” she told the crowd, citing incidents in which she said a Jewish teacher was surrounded in a cafeteria and derided as a “Zionist,” the slogan “From the river to the sea” was posted in a hallway, and a Jewish student group was excluded from student equity meetings.

“A culture of antisemitism has taken root, spread, and become normalized in our schools, and within our union, Jewish teachers and students are being harassed, silenced, targeted,” she said.


Israel Targets Terrorists, Not Journalists — But Media Ignore the Facts
Five journalists were tragically killed this week in an Israeli strike aimed at Hamas infrastructure located inside a Gaza hospital. But global media decried their deaths as a targeted Israeli campaign against media workers in the enclave.

The media’s knee-jerk reaction omitted the necessary background that would have ruined their attempt to demonize Israel and glorify the victims.

Even though the IDF did not deliberately target these journalists, no media outlet thought to mention that one of those wounded in the strike was Mohammed Fayq abu Mostafa — a former Reuters contractor who infiltrated into Israel and urged Gazans to cross the border during Hamas’ massacre on October 7, 2023.

Similarly, there was no mention that one of the dead journalists, Ahmed Abu Aziz, celebrated Oct. 7 as “the greatest day of our generation.”

And no outlet mentioned that where Israel had targeted so-called journalists in Gaza, it was because they were, in fact, Hamas terrorists in disguise.

Below is a short list of some of these omitted stories — not as justification for the deaths of those who tried to do their job professionally, but as a reminder to media outlets that chose to hide the full picture from their audience.


Pro-Gaza MP suggests Shoah victims could have been offered ‘land for a homeland in Europe’
Blackburn MP Adnan Hussain has appeared to suggest Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust could have been provided “with land for a homeland, in Europe” rather than in Israel during an online debate about Zionism.

The independent MP, elected on the back of his support for the Palestinian cause, made the claim as he sought to defend Jeremy Corbyn’s stance in relation to Israel and Palestine after tensions broke out amongst supporters of the new left-wing Your Party.

Hussain responded to criticism by notorious ex-Momentum activist Jackie Walker in a post on X, after she highlighted Corbyn’s failure to take an openly anti-Zionist position like co-leader of the new party Zarah Sultana.

Walker, who was expelled from Labour over claims including antisemitism, said:”We are talking about Zionism now not in some mythological space.

“How can a Jewish homeland be established without settler colonialism and supremacy?”

Hussain wrote:”The question is actually complicated and not black and white.

“You can believe the Jewish people, especially after the horrors of the Holocaust, had the right to a homeland, and simultaneously be utterly opposed to a settler colonial project ethnically cleansing and committing genocide against the Palestinians.

“Who in their right mind is going to doubt JC is opposed to that? He’s dedicated his whole life to opposing it, and has paid a very heavy price.” Jackie Walker (right) with Tony Greenstein (left) in front of a Momentum banner outside the Labour Party’s HQ

The MP added that he was”extremely suspicious of the motives behind the people asking for a quick sound bite of a clear-cut yes or no” in regards to Corbyn’s position on anti-Zionism.

Hussain then suggested:”Europe could have atoned for its evil and provided its victims with land for a homeland, in Europe.


Seth Frantzman: 'The most important step': Lebanese disarmament of Palestinian camps enters second phase
The next phase will now occur in Beirut. Beirut-based newspaper Al Akhbar, which is pro-Iranian, said one of its correspondents “reported that the army received six weapons trucks from the three refugee camps from the Fatah movement, loaded with heavy weapons including Grad rockets. The trucks entered the Second Intervention Regiment barracks in Shawakir, at the southern entrance to Tyre. For his part, the head of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, Ramez Dimashqieh, told Al Akhbar that the handover process will be completed tomorrow, Friday, in the Beirut camps.”

Pro-Iranian voices have condemned the disarming of the camps. Lebanese Member of Parliament Mohammad Raad, who backs Hezbollah, said the government’s decision “taken in early August was ‘a major mistake committed with premeditation,’ referring to the government’s assignment of the Lebanese Army to prepare a plan to disarm Hezbollah,” Al Akhbar reported Thursday. “He noted that this step ‘will disgrace the history of its proponents and those who applaud them.’”

“Our regions were targeted, our leaders were subjected to conspiracies, and there was collusion to weaken our role and divert us from our correct choices,” Raad was quoted as saying.

“Despite all attempts to spread frustration and despair, we say to our enemies: By God, you will never erase our memory,” he added.

This shows that Hezbollah will resist being disarmed.


Steve Bannon Sits Down With Accused Iranian Agent To Discuss Contours of 'America First' Foreign Policy
During Parsi's tenure at the NIAC, he and the organization faced accusations of directly lobbying on behalf of the Iranian regime. A federal district court judge in 2013 ordered the NIAC to pay more than $180,000 to the legal defense fund of the Iranian-American human rights activist whom NIAC had sued for libel. Congressional leaders also alleged that the NIAC violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires lobbyists for foreign governments to disclose the nature of their work.

Parsi gained attention in 2020 after he parroted anti-Trump talking points first issued by senior Iranian officials, writing that the administration's stance on the violent protests in Portland that year was a "sign of America's endless wars coming home."

Parsi's foray into conservative media is the latest attempt by the Quincy Institute to push isolationist positions in the Republican Party.

The National Interest in 2020 reported that the think tank viewed itself as being "in line with Trump world stars such as [Tucker] Carlson and Rep. Matt Gaetz," and quoted an insider who said Quincy's goal was to "provide intellectual ammunition to [Trump] and those on the Hill on the left and right who want to push back against the primacist elite that dominates Washington today."

But Quincy's efforts to pressure the first Trump administration on the Middle East fell short. Instead, the president made historic strides toward normalizing Israeli-Arab relations through the Abraham Accords, moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and eliminated former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps leader Qassem Soleimani.

The think tank's failures did not stop Parsi from trying to forge alliances with right-leaning isolationists who have the president's ear. During the Israel-Iran conflict over Tehran's nuclear program this summer, Parsi praised Carlson for opposing the "neocon red line of zero enrichment."

"At a crucial moment, Tucker wisely advises Trump to drop this deal-killing demand. Huge!" he wrote on X.

Parsi's renewed advocacy appears to have fallen on deaf ears. Not only did Trump join Israel's strikes on the Iranian nuclear program, but 90 percent of the president's voters supported his actions.

Eighty-seven percent of Trump voters agreed that "Iran obtaining nuclear weapons would be an existential threat to the United States and our allies that justifies military action to prevent," according to a GrayHouse poll taken shortly after the U.S. strikes, while 74 percent told pollsters that the attack made America either "much safer" or "somewhat safer."


Two teens arrested for plotting terror attack on synagogues, Eiffel Tower
Two teenagers, aged 15 and 17, of Muslim Arab origin, were arrested by French police late last month in Paris, on suspicion of planning an attack against synagogues and the Eiffel Tower in the French capital, French newspaper Le Figaro reported on Tuesday.

The two were charged on August 1 with "criminal terrorist conspiracy."

Le Figaro reported that the two shared a fascination with ISIS and had connected through a group created on an encrypted messaging service. The two had even reportedly planned to travel abroad to "wage jihad," the report added.

Investigation into the suspects opened in April
The investigation against them opened up months prior, in late April. During the investigation, it was revealed that the suspects wanted to attack synagogues and the Eiffel Tower because of their symbolic nature.

The report described the teenagers as having searched the dark web as a means to obtain weapons.
Jewish boy assaulted outside synagogue in Lyon, per news reports
A Jewish boy said that he was assaulted in front of a synagogue in Lyon, France, on Aug. 22.

The incident, which prompted vocal condemnations by the city’s mayor, occurred amid a wave of antisemitic incidents in France, one that has featured prominently in that country’s diplomatic tensions with Israel over the war against Hamas in Gaza.

Prosecutors opened an investigation into an alleged antisemitic assault on the 14-year-old boy outside a synagogue in Lyon, according to Libération and other French media.

According to the boy’s father, the teenager was walking home alone on Friday when a man in his 20s approached him and asked if he smoked. The boy replied that he didn’t, and the man allegedly hurled antisemitic insults at him before kicking him in the hip. The victim suffered injuries requiring two days of medical leave, according to news reports.

Lyon prosecutor Thierry Dran confirmed that police have been tasked with investigating the incident as “aggravated violence against a minor due to religious affiliation.” No arrests have been made.

Lyon Mayor Grégory Doucet condemned the synagogue assault, saying he was “deeply shocked” by the violence. “As mayor and as a citizen, I condemn with the greatest firmness these antisemitic acts. I want their perpetrators to be identified and punished with the full force of the law,” he said.

Doucet also said the city would plant a tree in memory of Ilan Halimi, a French-Jewish man who was murdered in 2006 by criminals who abducted him for a ransom because he was Jewish.
Shocking moment holidaying Jewish Londoners are thrown out of Greek taverna and branded 'baby killers' by Gaza-supporting owner
A group of holidaying Jewish Londoners have told how they were thrown out of a Greek taverna and branded 'baby killers' when they got into a row with the Gaza–supporting restaurateur.

The party, made up of three Jewish families, had been island hopping around the Aegean and had gone to a restaurant in Naxos for their evening meal when a row exploded.

Jude Lobb, 48, who works in public affairs, was dining with her husband Andrew, their two teenage daughters said they had initially enjoyed their evening at the Axiotissa Taverna on the holiday island.

But the problem started when one of the teenaged children in the group went to the toilet and found it plastered with stickers – and tried to remove one that said, 'Boycott Israeli apartheid,' she said.

A waitress witnessed her doing this and remonstrated with the family that removing the sticker was unacceptable – and then the owner stormed over and joined in.

Ms Lobb said: 'The waitress came and said it was unacceptable to try and remove the sticker which led to the row. I asked her why with all the problems going on in the world, they had picked on this one?

'It was then that the owner came over, right to my face, and said: "Get the f*** out of my restaurant."

Ms Lobb told The Daily Mail: 'He shouted so loudly that other diners could hear: "They are Zionists! Zionists!....Get the f*** out of my restaurant".'


Argentine raid fails to recover Nazi-looted painting
Law enforcement agents in Argentina on Tuesday raided a house south of Buenos Aires in search of a suspected Nazi-looted painting that surfaced online recently, but the object had been removed by the time they arrived, the El País newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The raid in Mar del Plata, an affluent coastal town located about 250 miles south of the capital, followed a media report in the Netherlands about the early 18th-century painting “Portrait of a Lady” by the Italian painter Fra Galgario aka Giuseppe Ghislandi (1655–1743).

The painting was seen on a real estate listing, where it casually appeared as part of the interior decoration of an asset in Mar del Plata, the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper, aka AD, reported on Monday. The paper’s research into how the painting got there led to Friedrich Kadgien, who had served as Hermann Göring’s financial adviser. Kadgien fled to Argentina after World War II and died there in 1978. The asset on sale belonged to one of his daughters.

Argentina’s Customs Collection and Control Agency (ARCA) asked the federal court in Mar del Plata to authorize it to seize the painting, but when agents arrived with the warrant, they found a tapestry in its place, along with old documents and firearms.

Prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into concealment and possible trafficking of stolen cultural property, El País reported.

The painting belonged to Jewish Dutch art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, who sold it under duress in 1940.


The Survivor as Hero
Review of 'Hostage' by Eli Sharabi by Michael M. Rosen


Less than a week after the conclusion of the Twelve-Day War, I found myself at the Azrieli shopping center in Tel Aviv, where an endless queue snaked around the entire mezzanine, filled with Israelis eager to have Eli Sharabi sign a copy of his newly released book about his captivity in Gaza.

How fitting, I thought, that just steps from the shattered glass and storefronts wrecked by Iranian missiles days earlier, unafraid Israelis were proudly demonstrating our greatest superpower in homage to Sharabi’s unbelievable display of the same: resilience.

In Hostage, the fastest-selling book in Israeli history, Sharabi lays bare the unimaginable 491-day ordeal he suffered at the hands of Hamas, beginning on that fateful Simchat Torah in October when he was abducted by murderous terrorists from his safe room in Kibbutz Be’eri. Unbeknownst to him, his wife Lianne and teenage daughters Noiya and Yahel were executed shortly thereafter.

But despite the horrors Sharabi suffered, what emerges from his stirring account, as well as from his public appearances at the White House, the United Nations, and elsewhere, is a portrait of a man miraculously unbroken and unbowed by his torment. Sharabi’s remarkably dignified comportment offers an example of resilience for Jews around the world. We cannot possibly fathom the depths of his suffering, but we can pay forward his stellar example.

“This isn’t our first rodeo,” Sharabi recalls thinking the morning of October 7 when his family first took shelter. “We’ve been here so many times before.” But the family quickly realizes this is different, as terrorists swarm into Be’eri itself and, eventually, into the Sharabi home, where they seize Eli and separate him from Lianne and the girls, who he figured would be safe because of their British passports. “There is no more regular Eli,” he determines, as his Hamas captors dragged him into a truck. “From now, I’m Eli the survivor.”

Sharabi emerges from the short ride into Gaza, blindfolded and shackled, in a mosque, where the terrorists interrogate him and accuse him of being a soldier, refusing to believe that he was 51 years old. Along with a Thai kibbutz worker named Khun, he’s transferred to a private home populated by a middle-aged husband and wife and their three sons. Out of a “mix of survival instinct and a desire to stay in control and manage the situation,” he begins to feel close to the family and reminisces with the father about their respective grandparents’ childhoods in Jaffa. But he takes care to note that “this isn’t Stockholm Syndrome.” Why? “I see only pure evil in their eyes.”
Keith Siegel says Hamas captivity strengthened his faith
Former Hamas hostage Keith Siegel told the Haredi radio station Kol Barama on Wednesday that his faith was strengthened during the almost 500 days he spent in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip.

“As a boy, Judaism did not speak to me, but in captivity, I reconnected,” Siegel said in the interview, two days after he joined a special prayer service at the Western Wall late on Monday night for the release of the remaining 50 hostages still in Gaza after 690 days.

“Every day, I said ‘Shema Yisrael’ and I recited a blessing over the food. Since my release, I have continued with this spiritual strengthening,” revealed the former captive, who holds dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship.

Throughout his captivity, which he said took him to 33 different places in Gaza, terrorists tried to convince him to convert to Islam, he said.

“They told me to repeat after them a sentence whose meaning I did not know,” Siegel continued. However, “the more they tried to make me convert, the stronger my feeling became that I am part of the Jewish people who have endured so much suffering.”

The former hostage explained he “drew great inspiration from all the Jews who suffered so much throughout the generations, and then I began to bless and to pray—and that truly strengthened me.”

Siegel in the interview urged the Israeli government to attempt to broker another hostage deal with Hamas, saying that “we have an opportunity to save people and bring the fallen to a sacred burial.”

Keith Siegel, 62, and his wife, Aviva Siegel, 64, were abducted from their home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel. Aviva was released on Nov. 26, 2023, as part of a ceasefire agreement.
Israeli Terror Victims BREAK SILENCE: You Won’t Believe What Comes Out! In this powerful episode Judeacation we explore the incredible work of Camp Koby.



Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    
 

 

at