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Thursday, September 04, 2025

09/04 Links Pt2: Schrödinger’s terrorists – the genocide scholars who can’t see Hamas; Not “Independent.” Not “Journalism.” Just Propaganda

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: An alternative universe
This relativizing process has corrupted Holocaust memorialization and education, much of which now holds that there have been many holocausts and there was nothing special about the Jews as victims of the Nazis.

The key feature of the Nazi Holocaust—the intention to exterminate not just Jews as people but as a people and wipe them off the face of the earth—has been denied. Instead, the Holocaust has come to mean merely the intentional killing of a lot of people.

The same thing has happened to genocide, the term invented by the legal scholar Raphael Lemkin after World War II to describe the intentional eradication of an entire people.

Today’s anti-Zionists have shifted this definition to encompass occupation, Israeli sovereignty or even Zionism itself.

In a remarkable series of posts on X, Adam Louis-Klein, an anthropology Ph.D. student who researches antisemitism, Zionism and Jewish peoplehood, has shredded the prevalent thinking of academics in “genocide studies.”

They openly argue, he writes, that the legal definition of genocide needs to be discarded, stretched or reinterpreted—because they know it doesn’t apply to Israel and they aim to turn it into a weapon to use against the Jewish state alone.

Louis-Klein quotes Dirk Moses, editor of the Journal of Genocide Research, who has argued that when non-state actors commit what he calls “subaltern [lower rank] genocide” they aren’t committing a crime but engaging in a necessary and justified act of resistance. In other words, genocide from the right direction is righteous.

Moses has argued that the distinction between war and genocide is irrelevant because motivation isn’t important. “What does it matter to civilians if they’re killed by violence with genocidal or military intent?” he wrote.

This reasoning is morally bankrupt. Without intent, there can be no moral distinction between right and wrong, aggressor and victim. The absence of intent enables those defending themselves against genocide to be blamed for killing their attackers—precisely the obscene inversion the genocide scholars have achieved with Israel and Hamas.

As Louis-Klein has observed, genocide has thus been deployed not to prevent atrocities but to authorize them.

These genocide scholars have no more intellectual authority than a pack of snake-oil salesmen—in fact, rather less, since anyone can join the IAGS for a fee which can be as low as $30 and with no background checks being made. Members include human-rights activists, students, policymakers, artists and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all.

No media outlets that ran with the screaming “genocide scholars say Israel guilty of genocide” headlines bothered to check the credibility of these “leading scholars” and their claims.

It’s the same reason they eagerly swallow the poisonous lies of Al Jazeera’s terrorist “journalists,” or Hamas-compromised U.N. officials, or Gaza’s Hamas “health ministry.” They want to believe the narrative of murderous Israelis and innocent Palestinian victims.

The result is an alternative information universe of fake news, fake journalists, fake famine, fake genocide and fake genocide “scholars,” all pushing the narrative of fake Palestinians and fake Israeli war crimes—to create a fake Palestine state to destroy Israel, the real nation state of the real Jewish people and the lonely citadel of truth in a world of lies.
Wiki Wars
The Oversight Committee’s inquiry raises the stakes, since it will hopefully clarify whether this organized effort is the work of foreign individuals or on behalf of foreign states. Several leading Gang of 40 members appear to be foreign citizens, and at least one edits in a way that seems to be aligned with the interests of Iran.

According to an investigative project on these editors, Zero0000, who was warned in PIA5, is Australian mathematician and computer scientist Brendan McKay, who serves on the editorial board of The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics. McKay’s status as an administrator affords him the ability to block regular editors, delete edits, and remove content not aligned with his views.

The same project identifies Nishidani as Peter Nicholas Dale, also an Australian academic, and the author of a book titled The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness. In violation of Wikipedia’s conflict of interest policies, Nishidani made at least one edit to the book’s entry, specifically to a sentence about Dale. In my previous reporting, I noted that Nishidani worked with Zero0000 and another Gang of 40 member, Selfstudier, to successfully keep a photo of Palestinian leader Amin al-Husseini touring a Nazi concentration camp off of the article about al-Husseini.

Another prominent Gang of 40 figure, Iskandar323, has left a trail of edits that appear to display sympathy for, if not outright allegiance to, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iskandar has gone on “speed runs”—making dozens of edits in short bursts—to wholesale remove mentions of human-rights abuses by the Iranian regime. The article he has contributed more edits to than any other is the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, also known as the MEK, a resistance group that opposes the Iranian regime. Iskandar’s nearly 400 edits to the article demonize the MEK while whitewashing the Iranian government. Nine days before he received his topic ban, Iskandar deleted a sentence about Amnesty International claiming that Iran has engaged in an “ongoing campaign … to demonize victims, distort facts, and repress family survivors and human-rights defenders.”

Last year, a Wikipedia editor submitted a case to ArbCom alleging that Iskandar is part of a group that worked toward the “systematic removal of instances documenting human-rights crimes by Iranian officials on Wikipedia, accompanied by the addition of misleading information favoring the IRP (Islamic Republic Party).” The brief alleged that Iskandar removed “huge amounts of documented human-rights crimes by IRP officials.”

While egregious on its own, the Zionism article is part of a wider effort by the Gang of 40 to advance this very same narrative Levivich seeded in the lead: that Zionism is identical to ethnic cleansing and genocide. One high-profile example is the article now titled “Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism” (originally begun under a “Zionism, race and genetics” title). The two top editors on that page—Nishidani and Onceinawhile, both leading members of the Gang of 40—account for more than 74% of the article’s content by character count (59.6% and 14.6% respectively, per XTools).

The main thrust of the article, which was created by Onceinawhile in 2023, is to link early Zionist thought to 19th-century “race science,” a move that primes readers to view Zionism through a Nazi-adjacent lens. With the Zionism lead, they imported the central attack of the obscure, relatively recent article they created into the very top of the most important, and most visible, article on the subject.

It’s difficult to fully comprehend how Wikipedia got to this point. A generous explanation is that the Wikipedia system is so hobbled by internal dysfunction that, even with the best of intentions, it can no longer maintain even basic editorial integrity on the most contentious of topics. At worst, Wikipedia has been captured by ideological factions who know how to game the system and weaponize its rules.

After decades of brand storytelling and highly effective PR, the public still holds an implicit belief that, when it comes to Wikipedia, there is still an adult in the room. That may be the site’s greatest illusion. There are currently fewer than a dozen active arbitrators for a site with about 7 million articles. Just as a failing economic or political system breeds rampant corruption, so too does Wikipedia’s essential brokenness invite this kind of information corruption, and potential manipulation by foreign entities.

The Oversight Committee has requested “records, communications, or analysis pertaining to possible coordination by nation state actors in editing activities on Wikipedia,” as well as “records showing identifying and unique characteristics of accounts (such as names, IP addresses, registration dates, user activity logs) for editors subject to actions by ArbCom.” These records may shed more light on whether or how Wikipedia, like other digital platforms, has become another avenue for foreign information operations.

Whatever the underlying cause, Wikipedia now presents a version of Zionism that aligns with the most extreme anti-Israel narratives in academia. Google’s knowledge panel will pull from that statement, as will ChatGPT, Gemini, Anthropic, and most other major large language models. It is, for better or worse, as close to hard fact as we have in our always-in-flux, intertwined information ecosystem, in which Wikipedia is no longer the battlefield, but the weapon.
Yair Rosenberg: The MAGA Influencers Rehabilitating Hitler
Over the past few years, Tucker Carlson and his co-ideologues have begun insinuating anti-Semitic ideas into the public discourse. The former Fox News host has described Ben Shapiro, perhaps the most prominent American Jewish conservative, and those like him as foreign subversives who “don’t care about the country at all.” He has also promoted a lightly sanitized version of the white-supremacist “Great Replacement” theory that has inspired multiple anti-Semitic massacres on American soil. Candace Owens has accused Israel of involvement in the 9/11 attacks and the JFK assassination, and claimed that a Jewish pedophile cult controls the world. (Like many pushing such slanders, she has apparently discerned that replacing Jews with Israel or Zionists grants age-old conspiracy theories new legitimacy.) In March, an influencer named Ian Carroll—who has a combined 3.8 million social-media followers, and whose work has been shared by Elon Musk—joined Joe Rogan, arguably the most popular podcaster in America, to expound without challenge about how a “giant group of Jewish billionaires is running a sex-trafficking operation targeting American politicians and business people.”

Before America entered World War II, reactionaries such as the famed aviator Charles Lindbergh and the Catholic radio firebrand Father Charles Coughlin inveighed against the country’s tiny Jewish population, accusing it of controlling America’s institutions and dragging the U.S. to war. “Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government,” Lindbergh declared of American Jews in 1941. “Why is there persecution in Germany today?” asked Coughlin after Kristallnacht. “Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted.” For these men and their millions of supporters, behind every perceived social and political problem lay a sinister Jewish culprit.

The 21st-century heirs of Lindbergh and Coughlin seek to turn back the clock to a time when such sentiments were seen by many as sensible rather than scandalous. These far-right figures have correctly ascertained that to change what is possible in American politics, they need to change how America talks about itself and its past. “The reason I keep focusing on this is probably the same reason you’re doing it,” Carlson told Darryl Cooper, the amateur Holocaust historian. “I think it’s central to the society we live in, the myths upon which it’s built. I think it’s also the cause of the destruction of Western civilization—these lies.”

Carlson couches his claims in layers of intellectual abstraction. Others are less coy. “Hitler burned down the trans clinics, arrested the Rothschild bankers, and gave free homes to families,” the former mixed martial artist Jake Shields told his 870,000 followers on X last week. “Does this sound like the most evil man who ever lived?” The post received 44,000 likes. (Shields has also denied that “a single Jew died in gas chambers.”) “Hitler was right about y’all,” said Myron Gaines, a manosphere podcaster with some 2 million followers across platforms, referring to Jews last year. “You guys come into a country, you push your pornography, you push your fuckin’ central banking, you push your degeneracy, you push the LGBT community, you push all this fuckin’ bullshit into a society, you destroy it from within.” These influencers are less respectable than Carlson, but their views are precisely the ones that more presentable propagandists like him are effectively working to mainstream. After Carlson’s guest last month suggested that the U.S. “should have sided with Hitler,” Shields reposted the clip.

Had Carlson and his cohort attempted their revisionism 20 years ago, they would have encountered a chorus of contradiction from real people who had experienced the history they sought to rewrite and know where its conspiratorial calumnies lead. But today, most of those people are dead, and a new generation is rising that never witnessed the Holocaust firsthand or heard about it from family and friends who did.

Late last year, David Shor, one of the Democratic Party’s top data scientists, surveyed some 130,000 voters about whether they had a “favorable” or “unfavorable” opinion of Jewish people. Hardly anyone over the age of 70 said their view was unfavorable. More than a quarter of those under 25 did. The question is not whether America’s self-understanding is changing; it’s how far that change will go—and what the consequences will be.


FreePress Editorial: Another Reason Not to Trust the ‘Experts’
One IAGS member, Sara Brown, the author of Gender and Genocide in Rwanda, posted on X that the leadership of the organization prevented members from filing comments criticizing the resolution before the vote. “We were promised a town hall, which is a common practice for controversial resolutions,” she wrote, “but the president of the association reversed that. The association has also refused to disclose who were the authors of the resolution.”

After reading through the resolution, it’s easy to understand why the identities of the authors were shielded from the other members of the group. It’s riddled with inaccuracies and deceptive language. For example, the first paragraph asserts that Israel has killed “59,000 adults and children in Gaza,” without distinguishing between civilians and Hamas fighters.

The resolution makes no mention of how Hamas places weapons caches in homes, schools, and hospitals. Nor does it bother to note that Hamas fighters wear plain clothes. It fails to acknowledge the elaborate and massive tunnel network underneath Gaza, and how the portals to this subterranean city are often situated in residential buildings.

Another source for the resolution is Francesca Albanese, the discredited UN special rapporteur. In December she posted on X that “many Jewish people worldwide, unconditionally in love with Israel, live a lie. Premised upon the invisibilization/erasure of the Palestinians, Israel’s founding ideology (and lie) is now leading to a genocide. What a disgraceful epilogue.”

Whatever one wants to call this, it’s not scholarship. But it’s also—at this point—to be expected. To read a headline with “[Insert Topic], Experts Say” today begs disbelief on the part of the reader, in part because of stories like this one. Activists are dressed up as scholars and subject matter experts, and their words are taken as gospel in news reports.

Today, professors, journalists, and so-called human rights organizations enlist themselves in an information war to defame the world’s only Jewish state. They conduct their campaign even though it is helping Hamas, the authors of the October 7, 2023 pogrom, survive and continue its reign of terror in Gaza.

No wonder Hamas hailed the IAGS resolution in a statement on Monday evening. An organization whose explicit goal is to commit genocide against Israel and the Jewish people has been recast as the victims of a genocide by the country trying to prevent it.

As the genocide scholar Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt told The Free Press: “These scholars are politicizing the field. . . . Their selective criticism (and failure to condemn the originators of the entire conflagration) speaks volumes.”

Lipstadt is right, and we’ll go a step further: Since there’s such consensus among so-called scholars, IAGS ought to release the names of Israel’s “genocide” accusers.
Arsen Ostrovsky and John Spencer: Israel Is not committing genocide: Exposing the distortion of law and truth
Hardships of war don't equate to genocide
Since there is no evidence of genocidal intent, those making the accusation focus instead on the effects of the war. They point to civilian deaths, damaged infrastructure, and humanitarian needs. They argue that these outcomes prove genocide. But that is not how international law works. If damage and suffering were enough to establish genocide, then almost every war in history would qualify. Such reasoning empties the word of meaning.

The suffering of civilians in Gaza is real. The primary cause is Hamas, which deliberately places weapons and fighters in homes, schools, hospitals and mosques. This use of civilians as shields is a direct violation of international law and it shapes the nature of combat in urban areas.

Israel, in contrast, has taken extensive measures to reduce harm to civilians. These steps include early warnings, phone calls, leaflet drops, humanitarian corridors and cancellation of air strikes when civilians are identified in the target area.

At the same time, Israel has facilitated a large volume of humanitarian assistance. More than two million tons of supplies have entered Gaza since October 7. These include food, medicine, fuel and clean water. Israeli authorities have helped vaccinate children in Gaza, deliver medical equipment, restore water systems and enable the delivery of fuel to hospitals.

All of this has taken place while Hamas continues to fire rockets, govern territory and hold hostages. No modern military conflict offers a similar example of humanitarian access under these conditions.

On the battlefield, Israel has exercised restraint. The Israel Defense Forces have used guided weapons, cancelled attacks when civilians were nearby and deployed ground forces at great risk to their own soldiers in order to avoid civilian casualties. These actions contradict any suggestion of genocidal intent.

Real genocides involve the systematic destruction of a people. These crimes occurred in Rwanda in 1994, in Srebrenica in 1995, in Darfur in the early 2000s and during the campaign of the Islamic State against the Yazidi community. Suggesting that Gaza belongs in the same category is both inaccurate and disrespectful to the victims of those atrocities.

Using the word “genocide” as a political weapon is not a harmless act. It is part of a wider campaign of legal and political warfare designed to isolate Israel and protect Hamas from scrutiny. When the most serious crime in international law is wrongly applied to Israel, it weakens trust in international institutions and provides cover for those who have actually declared their aim to destroy.

Words matter. So does law. Genocide is not a term to be used carelessly. Misusing it in this context dishonors the victims of real genocide and undermines the legal structures that exist to protect vulnerable populations around the world.
Schrödinger’s terrorists – the genocide scholars who can’t see Hamas
Yet, those who parade the genocide libel ignore the role of Hamas altogether. They decontextualise the suffering by focusing on the horrific outcome and depict Israel as a nation intent on spilling civilian blood.

Hamas’s propagandists have therefore succeeded in making the group ‘Schrodinger’s terrorists’, either present or not in Gaza depending on who is looking.

The main reason why these scholars are wrong is that you need more than mass deaths to prove that a genocide has occurred. You need dolus specialis, a ‘special intent’ to commit genocide against a designated group.

Some argue that there were expressions of genocidal intent from figures in Israel. Sadly, this is true. Amichai Eliyahu, the Heritage minister, spoke of the possibility of using atomic weapons in Gaza, and was later suspended from the government. The pop singer Eyal Golan, popular among right wing sections of the population, was investigated by the State Attorney for reportedly calling to ‘erase Gaza’. Far right politician Moshe Feiglin declared: “Every child in Gaza is the enemy. We need to occupy Gaza and settle it, and not a single Gazan child will be left there.”

Though these remarks were abhorrent, they were made by people outside the inner security cabinet. None were central to the Israeli government’s decision making from October 7 onwards. Those entrusted with running the war made clear repeatedly that Israel’s aim was the destruction of Hamas’s terror machine and the removal of the group from Gaza. This was not a war against the civilian population, even though Palestinians were going to suffer enormously as the war progressed.

Hence, Israel took many measures to protect the population. The IDF made direct phone calls, sent text messages and left pre-recorded voicemails, all telling Palestinians to leave combat areas and move to other allocated zones.

The Israeli air force dropped leaflets on overpopulated areas of Gaza, telling citizens to move away from certain places that were about to be bombed. They implemented daily pauses, including for polio vaccination, and established humanitarian corridors in Gaza where Palestinians could flee from active war zones. It stands to reason that no genocidal state would behave this way. Moreover, this is the first alleged genocide that could end with a combatant side surrendering its power and agreeing to go into exile.

That is not to deny that there are legitimate criticisms of the war itself. The absence of a post-war strategy for Gaza, the problems in aid distribution that have beset the GHF, the ban on media access and the extremist rhetoric from Netanyahu’s coalition partners are all disturbing failures that have sullied the government. There must also be full accountability for all soldiers and commanders accused of war crimes and lesser forms of criminality.

But the claim of genocide is a defamatory and baseless slur, a lie that refuses to die. It is a strategic weapon hurled at Israel to undermine its effort on the battlefield and turn public opinion against the country. Above all, it is a malevolent defamation befitting the temper of a modern world which is desperate to assuage its guilt for past crimes against the Jews. For shame.
'Genocide scholars' for $30? Easy entry, fake members undermine confidence in IAGS resolution
Activists have brought into question the credibility of a new International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) resolution declaring Israel to be engaged in genocide, with the discovery that admission into the organization could be obtained for $30, and its membership had spiked since October 2023.

Until Wednesday, applicants could purchase an annual membership subscription according to their income bracket.

Prices ranged from $30 to $125 to be able to participate in IAGS activities, including e-mail voting for resolutions, such as the Monday one on Israeli actions in Gaza.

Honest Reporting Board member Salo Aizenberg and Middle East analyst Eitan Fischberger demonstrated on social media the ease of joining the association on Wednesday, leading to a wave of applications. Those seeking to become “genocide scholars” inundated the website, with some applying as Nazi leader Adolf Hitler or Star Wars villain Emperor Palpatine.

“It turns out literally anyone can join this body and vote on matters that make international headlines – like the resolution claiming Israel is committing genocide,” Aizenberg said on X/Twitter.

“Yes, there are some legitimate academics who are members. But when an organization with no standards, no transparency, and no accountability makes sweeping pronouncements about ‘genocide,’ it isn’t scholarship – it’s politics masquerading as scholarship. And everyone deserves to know the difference."

By Wednesday evening, the membership application was deactivated on the IAGS website. New members such as Fischberger were designated as “inactive.” PALESTINIANS WHO fled Rafah, after the IDF began evacuating civilians ahead of a threatened assault, travel in Khan Yunis in 2024. (credit: Ramadan Abed/Reuters)


The safety dance – when ‘Security concerns’ means ‘Keep Jews out’
This week, anti-Israel protestors have been targeting the Vuelta a Espana, Spain’s premier cycling race. One of the stages of the race had to be cut short due to the actions of these activists, who have turned out in force because one of the teams, Israel-Premier Tech, is owned by an Israeli-Canadian businessman.

But the real story here is not the anti-Israel protests, which have become ubiquitous across the Western world, even as other countries are mysteriously given a free pass (the UAE Team Emirates cycling team is not protested, for example, despite considerable evidence that the UAE is closely involved with genocidal acts currently taking place in Sudan).

No, the issue worth looking at most closely here is the reaction of some of the other teams taking part in the Spanish race. Because there are reports that several of the other teams are pushing for the Israel-linked team to withdraw, and the reason – or more bluntly, the excuse – being given is “security risks”.

Those two words are becoming wearisomely familiar to both Israelis and Jews in general – wearisome not because security is unimportant, but because the words are being used as a cudgel. To put it bluntly – Jews in general and Israelis in particular know more about “security risks” than many other people.

In the diaspora, our schools and community centres are surrounded by high fences and guards. Our synagogues often have volunteer rotas of congregants who interrupt their prayers to take their turns standing watch. In Israel, every new building has a shelter and the entire country is trained in what to do when the sirens sound, signalling incoming rockets or missiles. So unless a venue here is literally receiving bomb threats or something equally disturbing, citing “security risks” tends to see a raising of sceptical eyebrows.

In the last few years, a new phenomenon has emerged – the weaponisation of safety. An organisation, or a location, decides to shut its doors to a specific group of people, with the given reason being safety concerns.

Not the fear of the safety of those people who are being excluded, you understand – but rather the perceived worry about discomfort, or awkwardness, experienced by those others present who might have to deal with a situation in which that organisation or venue is picketed by an angry mob. Far easier to just ensure that people connected, however tenuously, to the target of the mob’s ire are disinvited – or simply not invited in the first place.

Jewish and Israeli people have not been the only targets of this weaponisation of safety – but since 7 October 2023, we have come to know it all too well.
Suspect in killing of Israeli embassy staffers in Washington pleads not guilty
The suspect accused of gunning down two Israeli embassy staffers outside a Washington museum in what US authorities have called an anti-Israel hate crime pleaded not guilty on Thursday to a raft of criminal charges.

Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, is facing nine federal charges including murder of a foreign official and perpetrating a hate crime resulting in death.

US prosecutors have alleged that Rodriguez was motivated by hatred of Israel when he fatally shot Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in downtown Washington on May 21.

Rodriguez, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, answered "yes" when Washington-based US District Judge Randolph Moss asked if he was satisfied with his legal representation. His lawyer entered the not guilty plea on his behalf during a brief hearing.

The indictment cites statements Rodriguez allegedly made online prior to the shooting, including a call to "vaporize every Israeli 18 and above." Rodriguez told police at the scene, "I did it for Palestine" and "I did it for Gaza" and posted an online manifesto declaring that perpetrators and abettors of Israel's military actions in Gaza had "forfeited their humanity," according to court documents.

The indictment includes findings that would make Rodriguez eligible for the death penalty if convicted, the start of what would likely be a years-long process.
Cotton tells FBI to investigate conference speaker who called for halting F-35 production
Fallout continued from a terror-supporting conference in Detroit last weekend, as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) stated that he’s urging an FBI investigation into one of the speakers.

Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote on Wednesday to FBI Director Kash Patel, urging him to investigate Aisha Nizar, an organizer of the Palestinian Youth Movement.

During the People’s Conference for Palestine, Nizar encouraged attendees to take aim at America’s F-35 fighter jet supply chain.

“If one specific node of the F-35 supply chain is intervened in, it has a huge impact,” Nizar said. “We need to be surgical. We need to be strategic, and we need to be bold in our actions. Because there are many different points of these supply chains of death that we can intervene in.”

Cotton wrote that “Nizar’s statements constitute direct incitement of violence against U.S. national security interests by advocating for actions against the men and women who build the F-35 and seeking to imperil the delivery of one of the nation’s most strategic assets.”

He urged Patel to “take any necessary actions to mitigate the threat” and noted that he had raised prior concerns about the Palestinian Youth Movement, including its “antisemitic activities” and “likely illegal receipt of tax-exempt donations.”
Georgia congressman files resolution censuring Tlaib’s ‘vile, blatant antisemitism’
Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) introduced a resolution on Wednesday to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) for her remarks at the People’s Conference for Palestine last weekend in Detroit.

Carter’s resolution calls the event “one of the most radical and antisemitic conferences in America.”

At the event, Tlaib denounced both Democrats and Republicans for supporting Israel. “Outside of the decaying halls of the empire in Washington, D.C., we are winning,” she said. She added that her colleagues “are scared” of anti-Israel protesters.

“They send me videos and messages of people protesting in front of their district offices, people showing up at their town halls,” Tlaib said.

The congresswoman has “repeatedly displayed conduct entirely unbecoming of a member of the House of Representatives by calling for the destruction of the State of Israel and by dangerously promoting terrorism and extremism, while Israeli and American hostages remain in terrorist captivity,” Carter’s resolution states.

Carter, who is running for the seat of Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), also decried other speakers at the Detroit event, including Aisha Nizar, of the Palestinian Youth Movement.

“If one specific node of the F-35 supply chain is intervened in, it has a huge impact,” Nizar said. “We need to be surgical. We need to be strategic. And we need to be bold in our actions. Because there are many different points of these supply chains of death that we can intervene in.”

“Tlaib’s vile, blatant antisemitism is a scourge on this Congress, and she must be held accountable,” Carter stated. “Her conduct is beneath that of a civilized person, let alone a member of Congress.”
US ‘very troubled’ by Norway’s divestment from Caterpillar for selling to Israel
US President Donald Trump’s administration said Wednesday it was “very troubled” by the divestment by Norway’s $2 trillion wealth fund from US construction equipment group Caterpillar, adding that Washington is directly engaging with the Norwegian government on the issue.

Norway’s $2 trillion wealth fund, the world’s largest and operated by Norway’s central bank, said last week it had divested from Caterpillar on ethics grounds over the use of the company’s products by Israeli authorities in Gaza and the West Bank.

The fund’s ethics watchdog said that in its assessment, Caterpillar’s products such as bulldozers it manufactured were being used by Israeli authorities “to commit extensive and systematic violations of international humanitarian law” such as the “widespread unlawful destruction of Palestinian property.”

The fund said Caterpillar has “not implemented any measures to pre­vent such use.” Caterpillar has not responded to requests for comment on the wealth fund’s move.

“We are very troubled by the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund’s decision, which appears to be based on illegitimate claims against Caterpillar and the Israeli government,” a US State Department spokesperson said.

“We are engaging directly with the Norwegian government on this matter.”

Trump ally and Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham has suggested Washington should impose tariffs and visa revocations in retaliation.
BDS calls for boycott of Radiohead as band announces first tour in 7 years
The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on Wednesday called for a boycott of Radiohead after the British group announced its first tour in seven years, accusing the band of “silence” amid the war in Gaza and citing one of its members’ ties to Israeli artist Dudu Tassa.

“Last year, we got together to rehearse, just for the hell of it,” drummer Philip Selway said on Instagram. “After a seven-year pause, it felt really good to play the songs again and reconnect with a musical identity that has become lodged deep inside all five of us.”

Radiohead, which also comprises singer and main songwriter Thom Yorke, guitarists Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien, and bass player Colin Greenwood, will play four dates each in Madrid, Bologna, London, Copenhagen, and Berlin.

But the announcement was met with a boycott call by BDS.

“Even as Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza reaches its latest, most brutal and depraved phase of induced starvation, Radiohead continues with its complicit silence, while one member repeatedly crosses our picket line, performing a short drive away from a livestreamed genocide, alongside an Israeli artist that entertains genocidal Israeli forces,” an Instagram post by the movement read.

“Palestinians reiterate our call for the boycott of Radiohead concerts, including its rumoured tour, until the group convincingly distances itself, at a minimum, from Jonny Greenwood’s crossing of our peaceful picket line during Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” it said.

Fans can register to buy tickets for Radiohead’s tour from Friday.

Greenwood, who is married to Israeli artist Sharona Kata, has a long collaboration with Israeli musician Tassa. In May, the two canceled shows in the UK due to what they said were credible threats against the venues and audiences.
‘Virtue signalling’: Lush shuts down shopfronts in solidarity with Gaza
Menzies Research Centre Senior Fellow Nick Cater discusses the “extraordinary” activism Lush is doing in their shopfronts.

Popular bath bomb retailer Lush has shut down all of its UK shops in solidarity with Gaza.

Mr Cater told Sky News host Rita Panahi it is “all virtue signaling”.


Colombia records huge drop in coal sales after banning exports to Israel
Colombia, Israel’s largest coal supplier until 2024, registered a nearly 50% drop in coal exports in July compared to the same month last year, AFP reported on Thursday, citing official figures.

Colombia’s Industry and Commerce Ministry in August 2024 published an edict to end coal sales to Israel, which was renewed last month by Columbia’s President Gustavo Petro as part of his severing of diplomatic ties with Jerusalem over the war in Gaza.

The Latin American country exported $479.8 million worth of coal in July, a 45.8% fall from the $885.8 million exported during July 2024, according to the National Administrative Department of Statistics, per AFP.

The report cited the collapse of international prices and Colombia’s domestic policies as reasons for the five consecutive quarters’ contraction of the country’s fossil fuel sector.

In an environmental push toward green energy, Petro has raised taxes on the coal industry, as well as frozen several mining projects, the report noted.

Latin America’s leading coal producer, which employs roughly 350,000 in mineral exploration, saw Petro promote agriculture and tourism as alternative sectors since coming into power in 2022, according to AFP.
Not “Independent.” Not “Journalism.” Just Propaganda. Why This Matters: The Echo Chamber Effect
The true danger is not the magazine’s niche readership. It is the echo chamber effect. From the @Guardian and the @NYTimes, to Columbia and Harvard University professors and even several U.S. Congresspeople Western journalists, academics, and policymakers cite +972 as if it were a genuine reflection of Israeli discourse. In reality, these are radical activists channeling foreign-funded propaganda through a publication falsely branded as “independent Israeli journalism.”

This sleight of hand allows Hamas narratives to penetrate The New York Times, The Guardian, CNN, and university lecture halls under the false stamp of credibility. The Trojan Horse rolls right through the gates, its belly full of propaganda, while the West mistakes it for truth.

Conclusion: Name the Network
+972 Magazine is not journalism. It is not independence. It is not Israeli discourse.

It is propaganda, weaponized, well-funded, and dangerously effective.

It is a cog in a machine built by foreign billionaires, ideologically driven NGOs, and terror-linked groups, designed to distort reality and undermine Jewish sovereignty.

If Israel and its allies are serious about dismantling Hamas’ propaganda empire, they must start by exposing these networks, unmasking their funders, and calling them what they are: Trojan Horses of disinformation.



Farewell, Michael Schill, As Another University President Bites the Dust
Northwestern University president Michael Schill announced his resignation on Wednesday, saying in a statement that "now is the right time for new leadership to guide Northwestern into its next chapter."

That is certainly true. Schill’s departure clears the way for the elevation of a leader committed to ensuring Northwestern’s Jewish students receive the safe learning environment to which they are entitled.

Schill’s record speaks for itself. He was the first university president to strike a deal with student radicals who took over parts of campus after Oct. 7, rewarding them for their disruptions. As a part of that deal, Northwestern hired a Palestinian professor who sits on the board of a Gaza-based organization tied to Hamas.

Schill was less supine when it came to Northwestern’s beloved football coach, Pat Fitzgerald, whom he summarily fired in 2023, accusing him of complicity in a rotten culture that included hazing. Fitzgerald in turn sued the school for $130 million. That wrongful termination lawsuit was settled in late August. We are reliably informed that Fitzgerald walked away flush and Northwestern cleared his name.

Not satisfied with beclowning himself in Evanston, Schill trekked to Capitol Hill and did it again in 2024. Pressed on Northwestern’s satellite campus in Qatar, underwritten by hundreds of millions of dollars from the Hamas-allied Qatari regime—and, in particular, its formal partnership with Al Jazeera, the regime-funded propaganda outlet—Schill told lawmakers he "just found out about that last week."
Northwestern President Michael Schill Steps Down Amid Battle With Trump Admin
Schill faced significant backlash in spring 2024 over his decision to negotiate an agreement with anti-Israel encampment organizers, including members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), to dismantle their encampment in exchange for a list of concessions. The deal included commitments to hire two Palestinian professors and offer full scholarships to five students from Gaza. One such professor appointed in fall 2024, Mkhaimar Abusada, serves on the boards of two organizations—the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR)—that regularly partner with Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Washington Free Beacon previously reported. Though both present themselves as human rights groups, ICHR has praised Hamas and met with its leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh, while PCHR has PFLP members on its payroll, including one in a leadership role.

Northwestern’s SJP chapter did not tone down its radicalism after striking a deal with Schill. The student group hosted an anarchist training session earlier this year that featured two pamphlets with propaganda from the PFLP terror group. One pamphlet from Unity of Fields, a self-described "militant front against the US-NATO-zionist axis of imperialism" that has vowed to bring violence to America, quoted a PFLP leader and called on students to "build an Intifada" in order to "destroy amerika [sic]." Another, which the SJP chapter created itself, featured a PFLP cartoon on the cover and encouraged students to "channel [their] anger" and "aid in the fight" against Israel.

Northwestern’s announcement states that Schill "dealt with unrest on campus" after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, claiming that "in the months after the attack, the University updated its policies to curb antisemitism on its campuses, resulting in a dramatic decrease in the number of reported incidents." Significant incidents have continued to plague the school in spite of the updated policies. About a week and a half after the SJP chapter’s anarchist training session, anti-Semitic vandals at the university used red paint to write "Death to Israel" and draw Hamas triangles on Kresge Centennial Hall—a campus building that houses the school's Holocaust center—during Passover, the Free Beacon reported at the time.

The school has also implemented mandatory anti-discrimination training, but the course relies on unverified data from the Council on American-Islamic Relations that inflates numbers of Islamophobic attacks, the Free Beacon previously reported. The training ultimately gives the false impression that anti-Muslim hate crimes vastly outpace those against Jews.

Schill’s resignation also followed a settlement Northwestern reached with former football coach Pat Fitzgerald, whom Schill dismissed in summer 2023 amid a hazing scandal. Fitzgerald sued the university for $130 million, and Northwestern admitted at the time of the settlement that the former coach was not involved in or aware of any hazing that took place.

While Schill’s decisionmaking as Northwestern president cost the university $790 million in federal funding and an undisclosed sum in the Fitzgerald settlement, the financial toll of his time atop the school’s administration did not end there.

Northwestern has ramped up its lobbying efforts since the anti-Semitism investigations into the university began, with expenditures ballooning to $1,383,000 during the first two quarters of this year, lobbying disclosures reviewed by the Free Beacon show.


Adelphi University finds professor created ‘hostile environment’ against Jews
Adelphi University stated on Aug. 15 that an investigation found “sufficient evidence” that one of the private, Garden City, N.Y. school’s professors “created a hostile environment for Adelphi’s Jewish community” via the professor’s “personal social media posts.”

The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law announced the university’s decision on Thursday and shared a redacted letter from the university. The university didn’t appear to have publicized its finding at press time.

The Brandeis Center had filed a complaint against the professor, whom it named as Sarah Eltabib, an associate teaching professor in the university’s college of arts and sciences.

Bobbie Dell’Aquilo, chief communications officer for Adelphi, told JNS that the school “does not comment on personnel matters.”

Eltabib is a faculty adviser to the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and a member of the university’s bias response team. Adelphia said in its letter that the faculty member had “leadership positions with SJP and the BRT,” which in connection with the professor’s “social media posts, contribute to that hostile environment.” (JNS sought comment from Eltabib).

“Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, Prof. Eltabib waged a campaign of ethnic hatred that encompassed a cornucopia of unlawful antisemitic and national origin discrimination,” the Brandeis Center stated.


The Guardian & +972Mag Twist Hamas and PIJ Terrorist Lists Into Propaganda — Twice!
Once again, The Guardian and +972Mag are peddling lies under the guise of journalism. Toady, they claimed that 75% of the 6,000 people arrested in Gaza are “civilians”, framing Israel as abducting innocent people. This is grotesque and false. Israel does not kidnap civilians. What these headlines actually do is invert reality, turning the perpetrators of terror into victims and the victims into aggressors.

The origin of these claims is telling: they come from a list compiled of Hamas and PIJ members. That is the entirety of their “data.” What these headlines fail to report is that dozens of other terror groups operate in Gaza, along with unaffiliated individuals who took up arms since the October 7th attacks. Roughly 2,000 civilians invaded Israel. In Gaza they are disguising themselves as paramedics. Armed people are not civilians. Women dressed as medics are not innocent health workers. But according to NGOs, The Guardian, +972Mag and the overall media, these facts are irrelevant.

This is not a one-off misstep; it is recycled propaganda. The same Hamas/PIJ list was previously used to claim that 83% of those killed in Gaza were civilians, a statistic that was widely challenged and debunked. What the list actually shows is that at least 17% of those killed are confirmed members of Hamas and PIJ by name, while the affiliation of the remaining victims is unconfirmed. Yet the outlets decided to reuse the same list and the same flawed logic to generate a new, misleading headline. It is not reporting. It is propaganda.

The deception did not stop there. On Monday, a coordinated media effort involving NGOs and 250 news outlets claimed that Israel deliberately targets journalists. This is false on multiple levels. At least half of the so-called journalists have verifiable terror ties, according to open-source intelligence. Beyond the falsehood itself, the coordination of 250 outlets to push a single narrative represents the death of independent journalism. When hundreds of outlets are reading from the same script, free press dies.


Scottish Parliament Votes for Immediate Boycott of Israel
The Scottish Parliament voted 62-31, with 21 abstentions, to approve a proposal asking for "the Scottish and UK Governments to immediately impose a package of boycotts, divestment and sanctions targeted at the state of Israel and at companies complicit in its military operations."

First Minister John Swinney, who leads the Scottish Government, referred to Israel's actions as a genocide.

He added it is "time for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the UK-Israel free trade agreement in view of Israel's behavior."


UKLFI: Church House urged not to host Corbyn’s controversial Gaza Tribunal
Church House is hosting a “Gaza tribunal” organised by Jeremy Corbyn despite its policy prohibiting lettings to groups that promote racial prejudice.

UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has written to Church House, Westminster, which is the headquarters of the Church of England, to raise concerns about the Gaza Tribunal, taking place on 4 and 5 September 2025.

The Tribunal is described as an “Inquiry into British Complicity […] in Israeli war crimes in Gaza” which “will establish the full scale of our government’s complicity in the genocide against the Palestinian people.” The “expert witnesses” include Francesca Albanese, whose remarks about Israel have been condemned as antisemitic by governments of France, Germany, the USA, Canada and others.

UKLFI’s letter to Church House explained that Mr Corbyn’s recent remarks regarding Israel demonstrate that the Tribunal is not intended to be an impartial inquiry but a political platform for those advancing allegations of genocide and war crimes against Israel. Such language is inflammatory, one-sided, risks fuelling antisemitic hostility, and misrepresents the legal position.

The Ethical Lettings Policy of Church House clearly prohibits lettings to groups that promote racial prejudice, recognising such views as wholly anathema to the teachings of the Church of England, and requires the Corporation to guard against reputational risk.

UKLFI’s letter warned Church House that by offering a platform to individuals whose remarks have been condemned internationally as antisemitic, and by amplifying allegations of “genocide” against Israel and complicity by the UK, Church House risks appearing to legitimise racial prejudice.

The IHRA working definition includes examples such as “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour”, or “drawing comparisons between contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”, or “applying double standards [to the Jewish state] by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”. It seems likely that all of these examples of antisemitism may be aired at the Tribunal.


Far-left activist rams IDF vehicle after taking photos of Samaria community
A far-left activist tried to document the nascent Jewish community of Evyatar in Samaria on Thursday and tried to run over Israeli soldiers when they attempted to interrogate him.

The male suspect, whom Channel 14 News identified as an Israeli citizen, tried to take photos of the village and a nearby Israel Defense Forces outpost, according to the report on Thursday morning.

When security forces attempted to arrest him as he was leaving the area, he reportedly tried to run them over with his vehicle. The suspect was detained by the soldiers and transferred to Israel Police custody.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit confirmed to JNS that Israeli soldiers operating in the area of Evyatar had identified a “suspicious individual,” adding that troops managed to “stop him for questioning.

“The suspect attempted to flee and damaged an army vehicle; the soldiers held him until the arrival of the Israel Police,” it said. “The individual was transferred to the Israel Police for further processing.”


In Damascus’ abandoned Jewish Quarter, final 5 Jews want to flee as expats yearn to return
“This was a Jewish home, and so was that. These were all Jewish homes,” Badriyah Mousa Shatah said as she walked through Damascus’s historic Jewish Quarter, or the “Harat al-Yahud” as it is known in Arabic.

Shatah, who was born in Damascus and has lived in the city all her life, is one of the last Jews left in the country. According to her, there are only four others who remain.

Shatah, 56, has watched the Jewish community she knew and loved crumble before her eyes. Walking in the Jewish Quarter, she pointed to buildings she recalled from her childhood — the Jewish school, Ibn al-Mamoun, once had 850 to 950 students in attendance. There were kosher butchers, Judaica stores and synagogues — anything and everything needed to sustain a thriving Jewish community. Now, the Jewish Quarter sits mostly empty, with locks on doors and shutters in windows a testament to those who fled.

The remarkable changes in Syria in the last nine months — the fall of its dictatorial regime, the installation of former Islamist insurgents as the new government, once unthinkable diplomacy with the United States and even Israel — have some in the Syrian Jewish diaspora optimistic about a future where Jews flourish again in Syria. But so far, such a scenario remains a distant dream. Fearing sectarian violence, Shatah agreed to guide a visitor around Harat al-Yahud only on the condition that she not be photographed.

At the community’s height, approximately 100,000 Jews were living in Syria, but after Israel’s formation in 1948, a set of draconian measures was implemented by the then-president of Syria, Shukri al-Quwatli. Jewish residents were stripped of their civil rights, and the death penalty was imposed for any Syrian who attempted to leave for Israel. Syria is still technically at war with Israel, as the Agreement on Disengagement signed following the Yom Kippur War is not a peace agreement, only an extension of a pre-existing ceasefire.

Syrian Jews weren’t permitted to leave the country without posting a $6,000 bond and had their assets frozen for fear that they would sell their homes and emigrate. At the end of the 20th century, there were a few thousand Jews left living in Syria — others had fled illegally over the years with assistance from the international Jewish community. Most would leave the country for good in 1992, after Hafez al-Assad agreed to grant exit permits to Jews who wished to emigrate.

Shatah chose to stay, and when asked why, she said in Arabic, “Ana hmar,” or “I’m an idiot.”


Crafting an Alternative Post-Islamic Republic Order in Iran
In dealing with Iran, for decades the U.S. and Europe have focused on technicalities: centrifuge counts, enrichment percentages, monitoring cameras - instead of acknowledging that the entire game is rigged - that the regime itself is the problem.

The West views Tehran through inspectors' reports and temporary agreements. But it misses the bigger picture - velayat-e faqih ("Guardianship of the Jurist") - the principle that makes Iran a militant theocracy, and the fiery ideology that drives Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: an uncompromising religious war against Zionism, Israel, and the liberal values of the "decadent" West.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared that the state holds legitimacy only if it is ruled by a senior cleric in the name of Shiite law. His authority supersedes president, parliament, and judiciary alike. Since 1989, Ali Khamenei has filled that role, consolidating unmatched power.

In recent years, Iran has suffered military setbacks, strategic losses in Lebanon and Syria, economic collapse and drought. The regime's public image is eroding. At the same time, Khamenei is fading: ill, paranoid, fearful.

Khamenei's guiding star has long been his burning hatred of Israel. For decades, he has pushed the most extreme regional line, even erecting in Tehran a "countdown clock" to Israel's destruction. To him, eradicating Zionism is not merely political - it is a religious, messianic duty. This is the West's blind spot - it ignores the ideological driver.

The West must look beyond nuclear technicalities and confront the core issue: a regime in decline, anchored to a dying leader, ruling over a weary population hungry for change. Khamenei still blocks collapse, but he is waning. Once he dies, successors will scramble violently to re-establish control.


Poster wars and a ‘Torn’ social fabric
Ironically, at first there was little interest in the posters. Someone handing them out was told, “Why bother? They’re dead.” But soon pasting the the posters on street lamps became a worldwide phenomenon, and the negative reaction was almost instantaneous. And not just Muslims, but others, young and old, suddenly were set free to unleash their antisemitism.

“When a child’s face becomes a target not for bullets, but for denial and erasure, that’s the moment where antisemitism isn’t abstract anymore,” Mr. Shapira said.

But will the film make a difference? “You know, that’s fair. It’s the million-dollar question. I want my audiences to come out with questions, not answers. For me, it doesn’t matter if you are on the pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian side. You need to be on the pro-human side.

“This film isn’t talking to people who are ripping down posters, because they are blinded with hate. This film is for people on both sides who are grieving and hurting but have it within them to see both sides.

“When I screen the film and people tell me they really appreciate the film, but we didn’t agree with this point or that point, I say to myself that I did a good job. I think if my film allows someone to step outside the theater and have a real conversation with someone who has a different opinion, then, for me, I won.”

Which brings us back to the softballs. “We are a secular family that welcomes the Sabbath,” Mr. Shapira said. “We do a kiddush every Friday night. We celebrate the holidays. The holidays are important to us. Jewish tradition is important to us. Jewish culture is important to us.”

Ironically, Mr. Shapira believes he has become more connected to being Jewish during the decade he’s lived in the United States. “It’s one thing to be a Jew in Israel,” he said. “It’s quite another to be a Jew in New York. I think my tongue tastes more flavors of Judaism in New York than in Israel.

“I don’t want to say I’ve embraced my Judaism more, but I’ve been able to find different representations of Judaism that are not as well known in Israel. I’m still secular, but my Judaism is richer.”

“Torn” opens in New York on September 5 and expands thereafter.


Torn: The Israel-Palestine Poster War on NYC Streets
'Torn' delves into the heart of the controversy surrounding the 'KIDNAPPED' poster campaign, which turned New York City's streets into unexpected battlegrounds for pro-Israel and pro-Palestine activists. What started as a seemingly straightforward effort to raise awareness for the 251 hostages quickly escalated into an emotionally charged 'paper war,' mirroring the complexities of a war thousands of miles away.


Hena Doba on the Power of TORN (Excerpt from Morning in America)
In this clip from Morning in America (NewsNation), Hena Doba introduces TORN, a new documentary by director Nim Shapira.

“These posters became symbols of protest, grief, and a fight for visibility in a time of deep division. TORN brings that story to the screen, examining how a single image can ignite a national conversation.”




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    
 

 

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