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Wednesday, October 22, 2025

10/22 Links Pt2: How Israel debriefed its survivors of hell; Trump’s granddaughter Arabella Kushner sends handwritten notes to freed hostages; A Jew hunt at City University

From Ian:

John Podhoretz: Still Fighting After All These Years
Commentary Magazine turns 80 this month. Back in November 1945, it was a modestly funded intellectual exercise with spectacularly immodest ambitions: to explain America to the Jewish people and to explain the Jewish people to Americans.

That is the gift of the intellectual magazine, and the profound service it provides its readers and the culture at large. The deep human impulse to make these arguments, the need to have these things out, is still everywhere and is unchanged. So new media have arisen to make them possible. The citizen journalism practiced by bloggers has now been professionalized, by Substack, for example, and the free market of ideas supported by readers who feel they profit from these ideas has never been more vibrant. Here at Commentary we play with ideas in a new way every weekday on our podcast.

But the greatest of all modern vehicles for the presentation of ideas in readily consumable but still formidable fashion is still the magazine. And there are so few of any value still left, still publishing, still thriving. Well, Commentary is still here. Still publishing. And judging by the enthusiasm of our audiences, we are not only thriving at present but show every sign of continuing to thrive in the future.

I have been the editor of Commentary for 16 years now, constituting one-fifth of its lifespan. The arguments and analyses that have been hosted in these pages during my tenure have spanned the Obama, Trump, Biden, and second Trump administrations; the rise of a dangerous new left activism; the emergence of a politically destabilizing populist movement on the right; the politicization of gender itself; the poisoned chalice that higher education has become; the weaponization of public health; the deserved collapse of trust in once-unassailable institutions; a psychic crisis of meaning for America’s youth that seems to be related to the omnipresence of always-connected internet devices; and an explosion of Jew-hatred without precedent in this country’s history.

The Jewish state faced the worst threat in 50 years on October 7, 2023. We were all forced to note, with horror and disappointment, how voices expressing sympathy and understanding for our plight began to go quiet while the fight to speak freely as Jews and for Jews to live freely in their own nation stretched across two long years. We saw such people lose their stamina, their heart, their spine, and go supine.

But not you. Not you, reading these words. I hope we did our part to help you retain your stamina, to strengthen your heart, and to stiffen your spine. And I hope that we set your minds on fire.

May Commentary live to be 120.
Antisemitism: Face it. Fight it. Finish it
When Hamas unleashed its massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, the world witnessed the barbaric result of organized hatred. In the two years since, StopAntisemitism has been working not as a bystander but as an active counterforce. We have exposed more than 1,000 egregious antisemites, causing over 400 of them to lose their jobs, while more than 300 remain under investigation. This is a record of moral clarity in dangerous times.

The work of StopAntisemitism is not an academic exercise, but a necessary response. Jew-hatred was already rising before Oct. 7, with a strengthening alliance between the radical left and radical Islam. College campuses were already a hotbed of false narratives, bigotry and harassment of Jews and Israelis. And we were fighting it.

But since that earth-shaking day, the scale of Jew-hatred exploded, and almost overnight, the reports flooding into our organization increased by roughly 1,500%. Our team had to double in size just to vet, verify and act on those alerts.

And in the time since, in an unhappy new twist, the cancer of antisemitism is spreading to some previously reasonable voices on the political right. These voices, once well-known television anchors and personalities, seem to have bought into the hatred for no apparent reason but to take advantage of social media clicks to sustain their popularity.

From day one, we adopted an expose and hold accountable model, showcasing people who espouse Jew-hatred, whether they be public figures, workplace actors, academics or healthcare professionals. In each case, our goal is not vengeance but rather consequence. When those who traffic in antisemitic slurs and conspiracy theories realize they cannot hide behind anonymity, when their institutions feel pressure, that cost matters. That is true accountability.

Some will balk at that, asking, "Isn’t this cancel culture? Isn’t it enough to argue and debate?" Not in this case. Antisemitism is a metastasizing cancer. When society allows Jew-hatred to fester unchecked, it does not stop at targeting Jews. It corrodes trust, erodes institutions, infects public discourse and undermines the very foundations of pluralism and democracy.

We have seen what happens when antisemitism creeps in. University after university failed Jewish students, even as threats mounted. Our 2024 Report on Campus Antisemitism documented a 3,000% increase in anti-Jewish incidents. Students told us that 43% would not recommend their school to a Jewish peer.
John Podhoretz and Dan Senor: Podcasting Through Two Years of Hell
JOHN PODHORETZ: Dan, you and I are in a unique position because for the last two years, our respective podcasts have become a key source of a complex blend of information, news, perspective, and comfort to people deeply affected by October 7 and the two-year war that followed. And one of the things that Call Me Back and The Commentary Magazine Podcast have in common is that this was entirely situational. We didn’t plan it. We didn’t think that this is what we were going to talk about for two years on the morning of October 6, 2023. You had been doing this podcast about what America might be like after the coronavirus. Then, after a couple of months of podcasting about the aftermath of October 7, Call Me Back took off like few things I can think of taking off. It was like suddenly two months in, it was all I heard people talking about, you shot up the Apple charts. Why did you connect so viscerally with so many people?

DAN SENOR: What I felt was missing from all the international press coverage and many of the conversations was Israelis speaking to the world from Israel trying to explain the dilemmas and the challenges they were dealing with as they were confronted with this war—Israelis who don’t always agree with each other and don’t always agree with certain parts of our audience. I had no idea there’d be a big market for it. I had no idea there’d be that much interest in it. It was who I wanted to hear from. And in hearing these Israelis wrestle with these challenges and talk about these challenges, they also explained basic facts and basic history when the conversation and the press coverage turned so dark over here and was so unnerving to so many of us in the Jewish community. I mean, it’s crazy. There’s your podcast, there’s my podcast; we can probably count on one hand how many others that actually just provided basic facts, basic history. Listeners were like, Oh, this could be my anchor. This could be the place I go to just make sure I’m not losing my mind. No, Israel’s not actually trying to impose a mass famine on the Palestinian people. No, Israel’s not targeting hospitals in order to kill babies in incubators. We were providing that content to people who needed it. One thing I did, and you sometimes give me a hard time about, is I included in the conversations people who are considerably to the left of me. And I know that made some of our listeners crazy, but I just thought it was important to keep everybody in the room, you know. I’ve heard from many people over here in this community, in the Diaspora community, including someone who’s a close friend of yours and mine, say to me, “You know, your podcast is holding the whole community together. Like, otherwise it’s gonna split apart.” Now, I don’t think our podcast was single-handedly doing that, but in a sense, it’s a metaphor.

JOHN: There’s also a question of family.

DAN: I think we talk about how October 7 and the war that followed touched every single Israeli. As Tal Becker said on my podcast, Israel is a very small country, but it’s a really big family. As a percentage of the population, more Israelis served in this war than Americans fought in World War II. And those family connections are broader than that. We have that, right? You have a nephew and a nephew-in-law serving. I have sisters who are living through this and whose daughters and sons have all served in some way, been called up for reserve duty, have spouses and boyfriends who’ve all been called up, one of whom is literally right now in Gaza waiting for when he gets pulled back but hasn’t been pulled out yet. What’s the secret sauce? I think part of it is that we have this very intuitive, instinctive sense for what’s going on. Because we’re talking to family members who are in it every single day.


How Israel debriefed its survivors of hell
“I met 168 people who went to hell and came back.”

Glenn Cohen doesn’t mince his words. Frantically drafted into the IDF’s Hostage Negotiations Unit when disaster struck Israel, the former chief psychologist of the Mossad’s gentle mannerism masks a steely resolve.

“There was no protocol on 7 October. It was complete chaos.”

Cohen’s task was daunting: the first mental health professional to debrief the hostages upon their return. A responsibility, seemingly, full of contradictions.

“We had to balance giving the hostages a ‘soft landing’, but we also needed to secure critical, life-saving intelligence about others left behind. There are tensions between these goals.

“I had a powerful memory of the trauma faced by POWs coming back in 1973 after facing captivity during the Yom Kippur War. Their biggest trauma wasn’t their captivity. It was the way they were treated upon their return.

“They were locked up in a compound and interrogated for two weeks. I said to myself, we must make sure this is a different experience.” Cohen addresses the UK audience

Cohen’s response was to draft an unprecedented new protocol. He coined a new phrase: ‘humanitarian intelligence’.

“Imagine a diver resurfacing after scuba diving. They go through a slow, decompression process as they surface.

“Similarly, little by little, we exposed the released hostages to stimuli, people and noises.”

Critically, the first people the hostages met upon their release into Israel were their families.

“One of the most important things is to bring comfort to the families and this is based on our Jewish values. Humanitarian intelligence is important as well as operational intelligence.”

Only thereafter would his team debrief the hostages for critical information. No other country in the world treats hostages this way, Cohen proudly explained.

Addressing over 300 people at an evening event co-hosted by the JLC, World Zionist Organization and BEACON, with Jewish News as the media partner, there were numerous audible gasps as Cohen recounted unimaginable stories of resilience from the hostages.


Trump’s granddaughter Arabella Kushner sends handwritten notes to freed hostages
US President Donald Trump’s granddaughter Arabella Kushner reportedly sent handwritten letters to all 20 hostages who were released from Gaza last week under the ceasefire deal advanced by her grandfather.

The notes were delivered by her father, Jared Kushner, who acted as a key broker of the agreement and was in Israel this week, the Kan public broadcaster reported.

Kushner, along with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, met with a number of the freed captives Tuesday in Tel Aviv and delivered the letters.

A photo released by the US embassy showed Kushner and former hostage Nimrod Cohen holding an envelope addressed to him personally, “From Arabella.”

Trump’s son-in-law was likewise seen holding a stack of the notes in a photo with freed twins Gali and Ziv Berman.

A letter to Segev Kalfon read: “Your strength gives hope to so many people around the world. I admire your bravery and the light you bring to others! Thank you, Arabella Kushner.”

Hundreds welcome Avinatan Or as he returns home to Samaria
Freed hostage Avinatan Or was discharged Tuesday from Rabin Medical Center’s Beilinson Hospital and returned to his parent’s home in Shiloh, Samaria, eight days after he was released from Hamas captivity in Gaza.

The Petach Tikvah hospital said that Or, who was freed on Oct. 13 as part of the U.S.-brokered deal with Hamas, had passed all medical examinations and would continue his rehabilitation through its unit for ex-captives.

“Beilinson will continue to accompany Avinatan and his family, who will receive all the support they need,” it added in the statement on Tuesday.

Or made several stops during the 35-mile drive home to thank hundreds of supporters who had lined the roads of Samaria, including in the town of Leshem, where his brother lives, and in Ariel, the capital of Samaria.

During the gathering in Leshem, Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan told Or, “We are excited to see you here in Samaria—a free Jew with your head held high. We salute you, Avinatan, our heroic brother. We salute the entire Or family, heroes who have lifted the spirit of the people of Israel through all these days.”

As the convoy entered Ariel, Or, who loves motorcycles, was greeted by dozens of bikers, who accompanied him during the last 10 miles home.

“I’m so happy that I can finally say ‘good afternoon’—a really good one—after such a long time in the tunnels of Gaza, in darkness,” Or told crowds in Shiloh. “At last, I’m here with all of the people of Israel.”

“Since we came home eight days ago, we’ve been receiving love from every corner of Israel. I was cut off for two years, and now I’m slowly hearing stories about all the unity and love that existed,” he said.


‘A reminder of darkness’: Mourners in Nepal bid farewell to slain Gaza hostage Bipin Joshi
Slain Nepali hostage Bipin Joshi was mourned by his loved ones in a traditional Hindu cremation ceremony in his hometown of Kanchanpur on Tuesday, two years after he was kidnapped from Israel and slain in captivity in Gaza.

Joshi’s remains arrived in Nepal on Monday, a week after his body was returned to Israel by Hamas as part of a ceasefire deal. Joshi, an agricultural student who had arrived in Israel in September 2023 at age 23, was kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists from Kibbutz Alumim on October 7, 2023, and killed in captivity.

Until the return of his body last week, Joshi’s fate had remained unclear, though Israeli authorities had expressed grave concern after no sign of life had been received from him since very early in the war. After his body was returned, the IDF said that its initial estimation was that he was “murdered in captivity in the first months of the war,” but that it had not made a final determination.

“Tihar is the festival of lights, but it will always be a reminder of darkness for us,” Kishor Joshi, his cousin, told The New York Times at his funeral, referencing the current Hindu festival of lights being celebrated in Nepal. “After two years of sleepless nights and struggle for his release, all we receive today is his lifeless body.”

In a statement provided by his family last week, they said that “Bipin left us with excitement, setting out for a yearlong learning experience in Israel. We never imagined that the hug we gave him that day would be the last.”

His family added: “Every flower in the garden we planted for you will remind us of you, every orchard, every field. You are part of Nepal’s landscape, and now also part of Israel’s.”


Seth Mandel: ‘Protecting’ Jews by Canceling All Concerts, Soccer Games, and Film Festivals They Might Attend
In the early 20th century, Jewish quotas at American universities were seen by some as a way to deter anti-Semitism. Were Jews to fill a disproportionate number of university spots, the idea went, they would inspire resentment. Plus, the Jews of Eastern Europe were seen by gentile elites as uncultured and unclean; surround your average student with enough of these Jews, it was suggested, and that student can’t help but get sick of them.

I don’t know if anybody who espoused such theories really believed them, but the crux of one of the most infamous periods of Western anti-Semitism was justified by its practitioners as being for the Jews’ own good.

A century later, here we go again.

Throughout the Western world, Jews are effectively being banned from public spaces and told it is for their safety. Once again, citizens of democracies apparently can’t be expected to control themselves at the sight of groups of Jews. Order the Jews to stay home and—voila!—problem solved.

The highest-profile example of this at the moment is the European soccer league’s exclusion of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from that team’s upcoming game in Birmingham, England. But this has been building for some time, and the trend that made this travesty inevitable has yet to be reckoned with.

More than a year ago, I wrote about several examples of this “for their own good” anti-Semitism. We saw the Israeli Olympic teams in Paris confined to their dorms out of concern over the constant threats they faced. There was the ban of an Israeli ultimate frisbee team from the European youth championships in Belgium; the International Ice Hockey Federation’s exclusion of the Israeli team “until the safety and well-being of all participants (including Israeli participants) can be assured”; the removal of the Jewish captain of South Africa’s under-19 national cricket team for the same reasons.

Yet now this trend has exploded.

Two weeks ago, a Brussels official announced that the government was canceling a concert scheduled for October 15 by the popular rock band Disturbed. “My priority and responsibility is the safety of residents, demonstrators, spectators and the staff of Forest National,” the official said. Disturbed frontman David Draiman is Jewish and has been an advocate for the hostages and a prominent bane of anti-Semites in general.

Draiman has been made a particular target by Jew-baiters in part because of Disturbed’s success. After two decades of recording and touring, the band is still releasing chart-toppers and selling out arenas despite all of the BDS movement’s efforts. The campaign to convince venues to ban Disturbed because of the war in Gaza has clearly failed, so the haters have turned to threats, which the local police then use as an excuse to cancel the show.
Israeli embassy in UK hits out at ‘hostility’ after Maccabi Tel Aviv row
Israel has condemned the “hostility and incitement” that led to Maccabi Tel Aviv saying it would not accept tickets for its match with Aston Villa.

The Israeli club’s announcement came amid efforts by ministers to overturn a ban on fans from the away team attending the Europa League match at Villa Park next month.

The Israeli embassy in the UK said it expected the UK authorities to ensure the safety of Jewish fans and their “full participation in public life”.

In a statement, the embassy said it was “deeply concerned by the hostility and incitement that led Maccabi Tel Aviv to withdraw their away ticket allocation for the match against Aston Villa”.

“It is regrettable that extremists have turned football, a sport meant to unite, into a platform for intimidation, driving Jewish and Israeli fans away from UK stadiums.”

The decision to ban away fans came after the game was classified as high risk by West Midlands Police, based on “current intelligence and previous incidents”, including violent clashes and hate crime offences that occurred during the 2024 UEFA Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel-Aviv in Amsterdam.

The decision followed a campaign to get the match cancelled led by Ayoub Khan, whose Birmingham Perry Barr seat includes Villa Park.

He said there was a “moral argument” as well as a safety one, arguing for a boycott of the game because of the war in Gaza.

The Israeli embassy hit out at the “inflammatory” rhetoric from some MPs and local councils.

The embassy added that there had been a “deeply concerning” wider “rise in antisemitism, fuelled by hateful chants and the ostracising of Jews for displaying the Star of David”.

“The embassy condemns all attempts to exclude Israeli teams or Jewish fans and expects UK authorities to ensure their safety and full participation in public life.”

Downing Street has signalled it still sees hope for Maccabi Tel Aviv fans to attend despite the Israeli side saying it would not take up its allocation.


Olympics chiefs seeks to bar Indonesia from hosting sports events over ban of Israelis
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) called on Wednesday for Indonesia to be banned from hosting any international sporting events after it refused the entry of Israeli gymnasts to a world championship event last week.

In a statement, the IOC said that Indonesia’s actions undermine the “fundamental principles of non-discrimination, autonomy and political neutrality that govern the Olympic Movement.”

The Olympics organizers said that it will therefore “end any form of dialogue” with Indonesia about it hosting “Olympic Games, Youth Olympic Games, Olympic events or conferences” until the country promises to allow “all participants, regardless of nationality, to attend.”

Indonesia had repeatedly expressed an interest in hosting the 2036 Summer Olympics.

In addition, the IOC said that it will tell all international sporting federations not to host “any international sports events or meetings in Indonesia.” It also issued a request to summon Indonesia’s Olympic committee and the International Gymnastics Federation to the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, “to discuss the situation.”

Yael Arad, the head of the Olympic Committee of Israel, welcomed the IOC statement and thanked it for standing “firm against malicious attempts to disrupt global sports.” Olympic Committee of Israel president Yael Arad speaks at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on June 19, 2024. (Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)

Arad said that the principles of world sports include “full adherence to equal opportunity and sportsmanship.”

She vowed that Israeli athletes will “continue to appear on the major, significant stages and we will continue — as at the Paris Olympic Games — to bring to light the Israeli excellence of our wonderful athletes.”
Spain has succumbed to Palestine mania
This summer in Spain, there was hardly a single public event that wasn’t dedicated, in whole or in part, to the cause of Palestine. In August, during Barcelona’s famous Festes de Gràcia, the council erected three flags. One of them, uncontroversially, was the flag of Catalonia. On either side of it, the Pride flag and the flag of Palestine – an incongruous little union, given that the people celebrated by the former are in mortal danger in the territories of the latter. In Barcelona, you see, the people are so tolerant that they celebrate both homosexuals and a culture that preaches that homosexuals should be put to death.

Sport, too, succumbed to Palestine activism. In March, the Vuelta, the Spanish version of the Tour de France, was trying its best to take place. But protesters targeted it because Israeli riders were competing, and started throwing themselves in front of the bikes like the suffragette Emily Davison. Someone might easily have been seriously injured.

Instead of condemning this dangerous and irresponsible stunt, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez was proud. Speaking at a rally in Malaga, he praised the anti-Israel activists. As he did, the screens behind him projected giant Palestinian flags as his partidarios howled in approval. Emboldened by Sánchez, protesters swamped the finish line, causing the final stage in Madrid to be abandoned.

If you tuned into the coverage of the San Sebastian Film Festival last month, you will have heard mostly about Palestine and briefly about a couple of films. Even before the festival began, organisers put out the obligatory statement denouncing Israel. The festival also had a badge, a watermelon with the words ‘stop genocide’ emblazoned on it, which appears to have been distributed to every participant. It was a classic case of ideological coercion masquerading as moral righteousness.

It is Barcelona, however, that has been the epicentre of Israelophobic hysteria. A pro-Palestine demonstration took place in the city on 4 October, the Saturday just before the two-year anniversary of Hamas’s 7 October massacre. It was from Barcelona, a few weeks ago, that Greta Thurnberg’s anti-Israel flotilla also began its journey. The flotilla was supposed to be an effort to deliver aid to Gaza, but its organisers rejected several offers – including from the pope – to unload their aid at a safe port so that it could be actually taken into Gaza without them. Instead, up until the IDF intercepted the flotilla, they were intent on heading into a warzone. Tellingly, the Spanish government decided that this was a sensible idea, and deployed its navy to protect their passage.

The pro-Palestine protests have turned increasingly violent and disruptive recently. As part of planned protest against ‘the genocide in Palestine’, activists set vehicles alight, blocked major roads in and out if Barcelona’s commercial port and attacked stores which they said were ‘complicit in genocide’ – all this despite a ceasefire in place between Israel and Hamas.

This is only a snapshot of this year in Spain, but it should be enough to show that there is now almost nothing that happens – culturally speaking – that isn’t mainly about Palestine. Exhibitions, film festivals, bicycle races, public holidays, education and political rallies – none of it can resist the pull of the Palestine obsession.

Spain is an enchanting country, but this will soon cease to be the case for Jews and Israelis – and many others who see through the myth of the Gaza ‘genocide’. We can only hope the country recovers from its bout of intolerant Israelophobia.
Calling Out the Cancer Within the Right
This problem isn’t confined to known personalities—it seeps deep into their growing audiences. In the replies and reposts beneath figures like Owens, Gaines, and Fuentes, one sees a pattern: reflexive antisemitism, blind rage, and a belief that absolutely everything is a lie. It’s a worldview that thrives on outrage and feeds on distrust. These followers—many young, many male—are not all beyond saving, but they are being catechized daily in ignorant paranoia.

Even the Politico story this week about the New York Young Republicans’ vile group chat fits this wider picture. As Matt Walsh observed in a discussion with Shapiro, the piece seems less a revelation than a distraction—a way to shift attention from the Left’s open celebration of political violence since Kirk’s assassination. Fundamentally, I agree. However, the fact of the matter is that these messages were unseemly and may be indicative of a more widespread issue than we would care to admit.

I understand that many conservatives who follow these figures are not, themselves, extremists. Owens can be charismatic; Fuentes can be persuasive to the disillusioned; Tate, Gaines, and others may speak to a crisis of masculinity that our culture too often ignores. But charisma doesn’t equal wisdom, and frustration doesn’t excuse moral abandonment. Whatever their motives—be they sincere, cynical, or performative—the pattern is unmistakable: the more we indulge this, the less conservative we become.

Free speech must remain sacrosanct, but discernment must accompany it. We cannot silence every “dangerous” voice, nor should we try. What we can do is refuse to elevate them and decline to interpret their noise as signal. The Left’s institutional decay began when its loudest fringe started to become its public face (e.g. Mamdani). We must not repeat this mistake. If the far Right ever gains the same foothold within our ranks, it will not be the Left that destroys conservatism, but conservatism’s own negligence.

Readers were right to ask for names and evidence, and I hope this is at least somewhat clarifying. Some omissions are unavoidable—perhaps certain former Fox News hosts, among others. But the essential point is that poisonous ideas often metastasize and define those who fail to confront them.

And conservatism cannot afford to mirror the madness it was intended to restrain.
‘You don’t look Jewish’: How everyday ’compliments' mask deep-rooted antisemitism
Antisemitism, both on and offline, is on the rise. Scarily on the rise. Community Security Trust recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents across the UK in the first half of 2025, the second-highest total ever reported to the charity in the first six months of any year. And the number feels all the more shocking when you consider that Jewish people make up just 0.5% of the UK population. You might not have known that if you aren't Jewish, because, very often, this specific form of racism is overlooked.

But I can't think of one person I know who hasn't been impacted, either directly or through the fallout of an attack on a family member. Most recently, a photo of my daughter (at the time just six months old) on Instagram received a comment from a stranger, reading, “Eugh, just what the world doesn't need, another Jew.” The comment wasn't from a bot or an anonymous account; it was from an emboldened human being (who seemed to also use his profile as a professional portfolio for his photography), who felt it was appropriate to channel their hate of an entire religion toward a baby. Needless to say, I reported it to the police, and they, thankfully, cautioned the commenter.

But he isn't alone. Over the past few years, in correlation with the Hamas terrorist attack on 7th October and Israel's ongoing bombing of the Gaza Strip, more and more people have felt rallied and safe to spout antisemitic rhetoric online and in public. According to the monitoring charity Community Security Trust (CST), the UK recorded 4,103 antisemitic incidents in 2023, more than double the figure in 2022 — and two‑thirds of those (2,699) took place on or after 7 October 2023, the date of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. The CST described the surge as “a seismic effect … that outweighs the impact of previous wars involving Israel.”

Their written evidence to Parliament notes that “every escalation of the regional conflict triggers a rise in antisemitic incidents directed towards the local British Jewish community,” adding that the initial 2023 spike differed because the conflict has lasted so long and that the baseline level of incidents remains higher than before the war.

Tropes often repeated range from the Jewish blood libel, an antisemitic myth that falsely claims Jews murder Christians to use their blood for religious rituals to insisting Jews run the world's media (likely spouting from claims made in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemitic book used to promote hatred of Jews, published in 1903.

I recently tried to explain to a friend just how upsetting these tropes were for myself, my family members and Jewish friends. “Why though?” they asked. “They're basically just saying that Jews have loads of power, I don't really see what's wrong with that? Power is a good thing. It's not personal to you specifically.”

Their comment circulated in my head for the rest of the day, not because I'd never heard it before, but because I was fed up with hearing comments like this repeatedly. I went to a Jewish school and was largely shielded from antisemitism in the wider community, but as soon as I hit university, my eyes were opened.
Met ‘lied’ about arrest of Jewish lawyer
The Jewish lawyer told The Telegraph: “That police statement is a total misrepresentation and at best misleading. They have now compounded their initial error by ignoring the basic question of why they raised the Star of David in the first place. This statement only reduces the faith the Jewish community has in the police.”

The Tories demanded the Met Police issue an apology for the arrest and subsequent line of questioning.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: “It is sickening that police took a man into custody for wearing a Star of David. If anti-Semites find a Star of David provoking, the problem is with them. It seems that the police arrested the potential victim here.”

He added: “The police must apologise for the way this incident was handled.”

Nick Timothy, a Tory MP and former chief of staff in Downing Street, told an event hosted by the Policy Exchange think tank: “I watched the video of the police interrogation of the man who was arrested, and part of the interrogation was about the fact that he was wearing a Star of David necklace, and the ignorance of the police officer interrogating him was extraordinary.”

Failure to ‘tackle anti-Semites’
Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said that after two years of protests in the wake of the Oct 7 attacks on Israel, the Met “still has everything upside down”.

The campaigner, who had previously been threatened with arrest for being “openly Jewish” at a pro-Palestine protest, said: “Having been caught out, the Met has doubled down, claiming that there was some ‘context’ to justify their actions.

“I do not care if this man was caught in the middle of committing the Great Train Robbery, the context does not justify this Kafkaesque interrogation. Wearing a Star of David necklace is not provocative or antagonistic, ever, in any context. Officers have no business mentioning it at all.”

He called for Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, to resign and accused the force “of an institutional failure to tackle extremists and anti-Semites”.

A spokesman for Labour Against Antisemitism said: “We are horrified that a Jewish legal observer who was not part of the protest was handcuffed, thrown in a cell for 10 hours and told during his police interview that officers believe the Star of David pendant on his necklace was ‘antagonising’ pro-Palestine protesters.

“The Met Police’s response to this racist incident has sought to obfuscate and downplay the seriousness of what occurred. The Met needs to stop gaslighting Jews, apologise and drop its investigation immediately.”

The Met said the lawyer was arrested for “repeatedly breaching” the Public Order Act. He was arrested on Aug 29 after officers claimed he had continued to film pro-Palestine protesters after being asked at least four times to leave the area.

Under the conditions of the protest, pro-Palestine demonstrators were ordered to occupy one side of the street and a counter-protest on the other.

But the Jewish lawyer insisted he was acting as an independent legal observer, which allowed him to film the protests and monitor police behaviour.
Israel Advocacy Movement: Louis Theroux Just Exposed His Own Antisemitism



Alex Hearn: A Jew hunt at City University
City Action for Palestine’s Instagram account has a post setting out its position on the Middle East. It holds the fervent and fantastical conviction that Zionism – that is, the continued existence of a tiny country of beleaguered Jews – amounts to ‘a system of oppression spanning continents’. Recently, the group shared protest footage of students calling for ‘intifada’. It also amplified a post by disgraced academic David Miller, in which he called the Union of Jewish Students, which has over 75 affiliated Jewish societies on UK campuses, ‘ineradicably racist’ and demanded it be closed down. This is bigotry dressed up as activism.

Perhaps the tide is slowly turning, though. More than a hundred academics have now signed a public letter condemning the anti-Semitic abuse Ben-Gad has been subjected to, noting that the university’s Jewish president has faced similar attacks. The letter stresses that these hateful campaigns are ‘intimidating, particularly to Jewish students, and set a precedent under which others could be targeted in future’. This should be the bare minimum response to such vile harassment, but sadly, in modern Britain, it is noteworthy enough to merit praise.

Still, at least there are still some in academia who clearly understand what’s at stake – that once you establish that Israeli Jews can be hounded from universities for their nationality, the principle is set.

But where are the students’ unions condemning this? The ‘diversity and inclusion’ officers? The academics who spent years telling us how important it is that everybody ‘feels safe’? Apparently, Jewish academics and students can be mobbed with impunity. The silence should tell us everything about how hollow the rhetoric of ‘anti-racism’ has become.

These City students have internalised totalitarian logic completely. They believe demanding Jewish professors be fired is opposing fascism. They think libelling someone as a war criminal without evidence is ‘speaking truth to power’. To their minds, their cause is so righteous that it justifies any amount of abhorrent behaviour.

British universities have spent years cultivating this mindset. They taught students that speech is violence, that disagreement is trauma, that some identities confer guilt and others victimhood. Now, the institutional higher-ups are seeing the poisonous fruits of their efforts. Can they really say they’re surprised?


'Hezbollah rebuilding faster than Lebanese Army dismantling,' Western intel. officials tell 'Post'
Hezbollah has recently accelerated the pace of its reconstruction efforts at a time when the Lebanese government has adopted a decision to disarm the terrorist organization, Western intelligence officials told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

“Hezbollah is rebuilding faster than the Lebanese army is dismantling,” the officials told the Post.

According to those officials, the terror organization has managed to rearm itself – including with rockets – recruit new fighters into its ranks, and restore sites and bases belonging to it.

Most of Hezbollah’s reconstruction efforts are taking place north of the Litani River, rather than in the area south of the river up to the Israeli border – a zone that, under the ceasefire agreement reached about a year ago, is supposed to be free of Hezbollah personnel and weapons.

A few weeks ago, the Lebanese government presented an action plan to disarm Hezbollah. Israel even agreed to scale back its military activity inside Lebanon, including the withdrawal from five outposts, on the condition that the Lebanese army take genuine action against the terrorist group.


Still Covering Their Tracks
Few names appear in Washington’s lobbying disclosures as quietly as the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français, the French national railway better known as the SNCF. If the name sounds familiar, that may be because you’ve ridden one of its trains, as the state-backed giant operates nearly all rail transport from France to Monaco. It ranks among the top three largest rail networks in the world and generates more than $38 billion in annual revenue. The SNCF represents efficiency and prestige. It is, by all appearances, the image of modernity and the pinnacle of train travel.

But beneath that polished image lies a tainted past. During the Nazi occupation of France, between 1942 and 1944, SNCF operated trains that carried more than 76,000 Jews, along with other prisoners, to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps. Some of those trains also transported American prisoners of war.

For its part, the company has long claimed it was simply forced to comply with German orders—“We were a cog in this enormous extermination machine,” Alain Leray, former CEO of SNCF America, once stated—but documents and survivor testimonies tell a story of active complicity rather than coerced obedience. A 2024 podcast documentary titled “Covering Their Tracks” (produced by Tablet) followed the stories of Holocaust survivors and their pursuit of reparations and accountability from the SNCF. Among the survivors interviewed, one uncovered the invoices from the French National Archives showing that the railway billed the Vichy government per head and per kilometer, accepted payment with interest even after the liberation of France, and offered its full fleet of cars whenever the Nazis called.

Now, as Holocaust survivors and their heirs fight another battle, this time in the U.S. Congress over stolen art, the SNCF has resurfaced—in an unexpected, and still unexplained, way.

Decades after the war, the SNCF cultivated a self-image of resistance, rewriting its own history to obscure its role in the Holocaust. In 1972, the company even commissioned a feature film, La Bataille du Rail (The Battle of the Rails), which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and portrayed French railway workers as heroic saboteurs defying the Nazis from within. The film’s narrative of courage and defiance helped entrench a national myth that conveniently eclipsed the testimonies of those who had lived through the terror of SNCF’s trains.

The trains were sealed tight, passengers denied food and water, the cars so packed that many died before reaching their destination. SNCF workers later cleaned out the corpses. Rosette Goldstein, whose father was sent to his death aboard an SNCF train to Auschwitz and later Buchenwald, recalled, “They instructed their employees on how to close the doors—how to push people in so that they would get as many people as possible.” Testimonies like these are evidence that the company’s collaboration was not a matter of survival; it was a matter of maximizing profit.

After the war, no one from the SNCF was prosecuted for their crimes. No one went to jail. France, which owned 51% of the company at the time and now holds it fully, shielded the railway from accountability under claims of sovereign immunity, allowing it to reemerge as a pillar of postwar reconstruction.

Since the postwar era, SNCF has claimed to have opened its archives and embraced full transparency. In 2014, France paid $60 million to the United States to compensate Holocaust survivors deported from France aboard SNCF trains—a deal that ostensibly sought justice for victims but, in reality, also helped lift the political roadblocks imposed by U.S. lawmakers and survivor groups that had barred the company from bidding on American rail contracts.


Italy convicts influencer for antisemitic remarks: 'I hate all Jews'
A court in Milan levied a sentence of one year and six months' suspended jail time to social media influencer Cecilia Parodi after convicting her of incitement to commit crimes motivated by racial, ethnic and religious discrimination.

Judge Dr. Luca Milani of the Milan court found Parodi guilty under Article 604bis of the Italian Criminal Code, which prohibits the dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or racial/ethnic hatred, or incites to commit/commits discrimination acts on racial, ethnic, national or religious grounds.

Parodi posted a series of virulently antisemitic and anti-Israel comments on social media. Among those targeted was Holocaust survivor and lifetime senator Liliana Segre.

"In one video, Parodi said: “I hate everyone – all Jews, all Israelis, from first to last. I hate everyone who defends them – all journalists, all politicians, all collaborators, all cowards. I hate you all. Why did you ruin the world? You have robbed us of every right… If one day I see you all hanging by your feet – and Piazza Loreto is not enough, we need Tiananmen Square – I swear I will be in the front row spitting on you.”

The legal proceedings began in September 2024 following a criminal complaint filed by advocate Cristina Franco on behalf of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (IJL). IJL President, attorney Meir Linzen, later filed a civil suit and was recognized by the court as a direct victim of the incitement.

Advocate Franco cited Italian laws prohibiting incitement to racial hatred and incitement to commit crimes motivated by racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination.

A parallel civil suit was filed, as permitted under Italian law, with legal support from attorney Luigi A. Florio.

Parodi defended her statements as legitimate political expression, claiming her only mistake was making a sweeping generalization about all Jews.

In addition to the suspended sentence, the court ordered Parodi to pay tens of thousands of euros in compensation to several parties, including Senator Liliana Segre, IJL President Linzen, the IJL itself, and the Union of Italian Jewish Communities.


Resistance fighter and Holocaust survivor Selma van de Perre dies aged 103 years old
A Jewish World War Two resistance fighter who fought the Nazis in the Netherlands before being arrested and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, has died in the UK at the age of 103.

Selma van de Perre, who passed away on Monday, was born in Amsterdam in 1922 to a non-practicing, liberal Jewish family, Selma’s father was arrested in 1942 and taken to Westerbork transit camp. Selma then helped her mother and sister go into hiding in Eindhoven.

After they were arrested in 1943, she became a member of the “TD Group”, a Dutch resistance organisation. Going into hiding and dying her hair blonde, under the name Margaret van der Kuit Selma carried secret messages, food stamps, and identity papers across the country.

Arrested again in 1944, she was deported to Vught and later to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she endured forced labour until her liberation by the Swedish Red Cross in April 1945. When she returned to the Netherlands, she was reunited with her two brothers and discovered her parents and sister had been murdered in Auschwitz and Sobibor.

After the war, Selma rebuilt her life in the United Kingdom, working for the BBC, where she met her future husband, Belgian journalist Hugo van de Perr, and later as a teacher and journalist, dedicating herself to Holocaust remembrance and education.

In 2019, her memoir, ‘My name is Selma’ came out in Holland to critical acclaim and the book was published in English in 2020. She lived in the London borough of Hammersmith & Fulham.


Correspondence between Assyrian empire and King of Judah uncovered in Jerusalem
A fragment of correspondence between the Imperial Assyrian court and the Kingdom of Judah has been discovered in an archaeological excavation in Jerusalem, in what is believed to be the first ever Assyrian inscription from the First Temple period (8th–7th centuries BCE) found in the city.

The small pottery fragment, bearing a cuneiform inscription in the Akkadian language from about 2,700 years ago, was found near the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. It was discovered during wet-sifting, (a method for recovering small and fragile artifacts by passing excavated soil or sediment through screens in water), at the “Archaeological Experience” in the Tzurim Valley National Park – a joint project of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the City of David Foundation.

Staff member Moria Cohen said: “I was sifting the soil and suddenly noticed a potsherd (broken piece of ceramic material) with a strange pattern. I looked closely, and it seemed like cuneiform script – which felt so unlikely, because even though many fascinating finds have been uncovered here, we’ve never found anything like this. I checked again, and when I realized it wasn’t decoration but actual cuneiform writing – I screamed with excitement.”

She added: “The thought that after 2,700 years I’m the first person to touch this fragment – it’s incredibly moving. It’s truly a once-in-a-lifetime find.”

Israel Antiquities Authority excavation director, Dr. Ayala Silberstein, said the inscription “provides direct evidence of official correspondence between the Assyrian Empire and the Kingdom of Judah. It appears this area served as a centre for high-ranking officials and ministers.”

Experts believe the fragment was once part of a royal bulla – a seal impression used to authenticate an official letter or shipment from the Assyrian royal court.




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