Friday, October 24, 2025

10/24 Links Pt2: Israel prepares for handover of two deceased hostages; The ‘Church Times’ makes the moral case for antisemitism; Meet Britain’s new Islamo-socialist alliance

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Galloping Islamisation in Britain and America
Like Britain, America has allowed this to build up with impunity. For two years, mosques in Dearborn, Mich., have blasted calls to prayer through outdoor loudspeakers, violating local city laws. Its mayor, Abdullah H. Hammoud, told a local Christian resident, Edward Barham, that he was “not welcome” in the city after Barham raised concerns about new street signs honoring Arab American news publisher Osama Siblani, who he said promoted Hamas and Hezbollah.

Texas, of all places, is now seeing the rise of self-governing Islamic enclaves. East Plano Islamic Center, a powerful mega-mosque, has acquired vast land holdings to construct an autonomous Sharia-adherent Islamic community. Its leadership has said: “We are, Inshallah, going to change the entire dawah scene by demonstrating to the world what it means to be a Muslim living in the West.” Dawah is a strategy for Islamic expansion.

At the American Muslims for Palestine conference last May in Tinley Park, Ill., some 3,000 people openly discussed plans to take over America and bring it to its knees through mass mobilization to shut down events.

Despite its horror over the Birmingham ban, the British government is still refusing to face up to what’s happening. “We will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets,” said Starmer. But the past two years have shown that antisemitism is indeed tolerated on Britain’s streets, with “pro-Palestine” mobs chanting for the eradication of Israel and the murder of Jews.

Britain and America should finally start drawing some lines in the sand. The liberal democratic bargain at the core of Western society holds that minorities are free to form communities of faith and culture, provided they uphold core values such as democracy and the rule of one law for all.

That means proscribing the subversive Muslim Brotherhood, jailing radical imams or throwing them out of the country, binning “Islamophobia,” banning the burqa and outlawing sharia law, which recognizes no authority above itself.

The British are at a boiling point. People can see that serious violence in the streets is now all too likely. This cultural vacuum is a breeding ground for demagogues, grifters and thugs—whose agenda is not democracy but power, and who display accordingly total contempt for the rule of law—to pose as defenders of Western values and the Jewish people. We know from bitter historical experience that when a society convulses in this way, Jews are likely to get it in the neck from all sides.

The real threat, though, to all who value civilization is from a Western world that’s committing cultural suicide.
The Ultras: meet Britain’s new Islamo-socialist alliance
Ideological inconsistencies, however, will be glossed over. A powerful electoral alliance has been born between young progressives and a group of Muslim voters. Your Party and the Greens, now led by the self-declared ‘eco-populist’ Zack Polanski and his deputy Mothin Ali, who once called a rabbi an ‘animal’ for being a reservist in the Israeli military, are already in talks to have an electoral pact, where whoever looks most likely to win the seat will run unopposed. In this venture they will be aided by an organisation called Muslim Vote, which helped the Gaza independents at the last election. For 2029, Muslim Vote has offered to supply the Greens and Your Party with data on the voting preferences of local Muslims in each constituency.

Labour will be the party most damaged by these tactics. Despite a notional peace deal now in place in Gaza, the party’s traditional Muslim vote is unlikely to return. Crucially, a disproportionate number of the cabinet are in seats with a high Muslim population. Wes Streeting, in Ilford, is the most obvious example, with a majority of just 528 after the independent Leanne Mohammad ran him extraordinarily close in 2024. A source close to Ayoub Khan says he is likely to stand again at the next election.

Some in government fear sectarianism hardening and characters like Majid Freeman becoming more prominent in Britain’s politics. There is often a lack of will from Labour ministers to confront the challenge.

Comparisons are often drawn with France, which has been more proactive at dealing with Islamism. Following the murder of the teacher Samuel Paty in 2020, the French government began a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence, which was supported across the political spectrum.

There are rumours that the government is rehauling its counter-extremism policies, particularly after the Manchester synagogue attack. Robin Simcox’s replacement as commissioner for countering extremism has yet to be named, with one senior source suggesting things are ‘on pause’ since that attack. Aside from a 2015 initiative that fizzled out, the Home Office has been hesitant about developing a proper counter-extremism strategy – officials say that the department’s priority was to stop terrorist attacks – but some think that a French-style crackdown on political and radical Islamism is being planned. Civil servants are worried that pushing radical groups underground could have lethal consequences, though. There are those who suggest the work could be done more softly by the Ministry for Housing and Communities, through a social cohesion taskforce. Either way, the work will be low-key. Sources suggest the government is unlikely to want a media blitz, or a Spectator cover story. A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘All forms of religious, ethnic and racial hatred have absolutely no place in our society. We are working with partners and across government to tackle the threat and respond to growing and changing patterns of extremism across the UK, ensuring we have the tools and powers to keep people safe.’

Any such strategy will have been sanctioned by No. 10. Starmer’s appointment of new ministers at the Home Office and Communities over summer was a statement of intent. As one senior source said: ‘Nothing really happened with Yvette Cooper as home secretary and Angela Rayner as communities secretary. I think it will now be a live issue with Shabana Mahmood and Steve Reed.’

Westminster has talked endlessly, in apocalyptic tones, about the rising menace on the right, the carnage that Reform will wreak on the establishment. Yet the coming alliance on the left is every bit as dangerous. All eyes are on Nigel Farage and his gang, who have begun to look quite smug on their green benches in the corner of the chamber. People should be paying just as much attention to who sits behind them.
The ‘Church Times’ makes the moral case for antisemitism
“The explosion of Jew-hatred today is based on deeply held moral objections to Israeli policy.”
“Jews are not detested today because they are outsiders.”
“Jewry today is loathed because of Israel’s merciless onslaught on the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”

These are direct quotes from an opinion piece, by turns extraordinary and appalling, published by the Church Times, a London-based newspaper closely aligned with the Church of England. The author is one Dan Cohn-Sherbok, a U.S.-born Reform rabbi who lives in the United Kingdom, where he is currently professor emeritus in Jewish studies at the University of Wales.

If you are going to blame Jews for the current surge in antisemitism, particularly in an outlet serving the Christian community, it helps to have a Jewish author do so. The thinking here is easily explained—if a Jew says these things, then they can’t possibly be antisemitic.

Actually, the reverse is true. Having a Jew pen this tissue of lies, distortions, omissions and libels serves to legitimize and reinforce antisemitic beliefs, rather than undermining them. The tactic of using Jews or ex-Jews to denounce Judaism and its organic manifestations, which unquestionably include Zionism and the State of Israel, dates back at least to the Middle Ages.

What makes Cohn-Sherbok’s contribution noteworthy is the astonishingly crude sleight of hand he applies to make a distinction between the “old” antisemitism, which he argues revolves around the “outsider” status of Jews, and the “new” antisemitism, which he insists is based on decent moral convictions about supposed Israeli crimes. As he writes, “For more than 2,000 years, Jews have been hated because, in numerous ways, they were different from the general population. But, today, the situation is different: Jew-hatred is largely fueled now by the actions of the Israeli government.”

At no point does he question the assumptions behind this portrait of Israel. His piece takes it as self-evident that the Israeli government, and by extension the Israel Defense Forces, is motivated by a bloodthirsty desire to expunge the Palestinian presence in the Gaza Strip, and Judea and Samaria. Anyone reading his words will simply be unaware of the long track record of Palestinian violence against Israel, rooted in an eliminationist campaign to destroy Jewish sovereignty in a part of the world that belongs, according to Islamic theology, to Dar al-Islam (“Domain of Islam”).

The most glaring omission is, of course, the absence of any mention of the Hamas-led pogrom in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the IDF’s war against the Iranian-backed terrorist organization in Gaza. But there are other examples from the past century that he could have cited, both before and after Israel’s creation in 1948: the slaughter of Hebron’s Jewish community in 1929; the alignment of the Palestinian and Arab leadership with the Nazi regime in the ensuing decades; the attempt to snuff out Israel at birth through a combined attack waged by Arab armies; the various hijackings, bombings and other terrorist attacks in the last three decades of the 20th century; and the rise of Hamas, which makes no secret of its desire to remove Israel from the map, in this one.


Israel prepares for handover of two deceased hostages
After three days without deceased hostages being released, police received instructions on Friday afternoon to prepare for the possibility that Hamas will release two deceased hostages in the evening, from the 13 the terrorist organization still holds in the Gaza Strip.

According to the instructions police received, Hamas may transfer the remains to the Red Cross at 9 p.m., and from there the bodies would be transferred to Israel.

So far, Hamas has returned 15 deceased hostages to Israel out of 28, in violation of the agreement that stipulated the bodies would be returned within 72 hours of the signing of the ceasefire.

As mentioned, Israel has received 15 deceased hostages so far: Tamir Adar, Muhammad al-Atarash, Uriel Baruch, Ronen Engel, Tal Haimi, Inbar Hayman, Guy Illouz, Bipin Joshi, Eitan Levi, Eliyahu Margalit, Tamir Nimrodi, Daniel Peretz, Sonthaya Oakkharasri, Yossi Sharabi and Arie Zalmanowicz.

The deceased hostages still held by Hamas are: Sahar Baruch, Itay Chen, Amiram Cooper, Meny Godard, Hadar Goldin, Ran Gvili, Asaf Hamami, Joshua Loitu Mollel, Omer Neutra, Dror Or, Daniel Oz, Sudthisak Rinthalak and Lior Rudaeff.
In Nir Oz, hundreds bid farewell to slain hostage and kibbutz founder Arie Zalmanowicz
Hundreds attended the funeral of slain hostage Arie Zalmanowicz, 85, on Friday, as he was laid to rest in Kibbutz Nir Oz, the community which he founded and where he lived until he was abducted on October 7, 2023.

Among the family and friends attending the funeral were former hostages Yocheved Lifshitz, Tal Shoham and Farhan al-Qadi, who was held captive with Zalmanowicz.

Opposition lawmaker Yesh Atid MK Ram Ben Barak and ex-IDF chief and opposition MK Gadi Eisenkot were also present. There were no coalition lawmakers or ministers at the service.

“My father’s entire essence and identity was Nir Oz, and I am sure he would want the wheat to grow here again,” said Boaz Zalmanowicz, Aryeh’s son, according to quotes attributed to him by the Davar news outlet.

Zalmanowicz was returned to Israel Tuesday night along with Tamir Adar, 38, also a resident of the kibbutz. Slain hostage Amiram Cooper is the last remaining Nir Oz resident still held in Gaza. Sixty-four kibbutz members were murdered on October 7.

Zalmanowicz, who was kidnapped from his home by Hamas terrorists, was one of the founders of the kibbutz, and was eulogized by its members after his return as “a man of agriculture, manual labor and blue work clothes.”

Hamas, in November 2023, released a clip showing Zalmanowicz’s body and claiming that he had died, which Israeli authorities did not corroborate at the time. On December 1, 2023 – after the release of 105 hostages during a ceasefire – the IDF announced that Arie had been killed in captivity “based on findings that were collected, and intelligence.”

Authorities declared his date of death as November 17, 2023, with the IDF on Tuesday citing intelligence information that he was murdered in captivity that day. The military stressed that final conclusions would be made upon the completion of an analysis into the cause of death.


The Hour of Liberation: The Enduring Legacy of Nazi Propaganda in the Middle East
“This is Berlin; long live the Arabs!” With this unmistakable catchphrase, Yunis Bahri (1903–1979) opened his first German broadcast of the pan-Arab shortwave station on April 7, 1939. Bahri—later enveloped in layers of intrigue and myth—was already a celebrated Iraqi propagandist and journalist. Before arriving in Germany in 1938, he had served as the star host of King Ghazi of Iraq’s radio station. Described by contemporaries as an Iraqi “Lord Haw-Haw,” Bahri was bawdy, quick, and irreverent. He possessed a booming, commanding voice, impeccable Arabic diction, and an unrivaled knack for barbed wit and sly wordplay.

From 1939 until the end of the war in 1945, the Voice of Berlin captivated listeners across the Middle East. It broadcast religious sermons, political bulletins, and urgent appeals for armed revolt—each message wrapped in the trappings of Nazism’s most potent arts: conspiracy-mongering, antisemitism, and theatrical demagoguery. Arab sympathy for Nazi Germany, already considerable, surged into a mass phenomenon. Hatred of Jews, the United States, and Great Britain became woven into the fabric of modern Arab mass culture at its inception. Radio Berlin was, in effect, the first modern Arab mass-media platform in the region.

The promises it made to Arab audiences were direct and incendiary:
Jews will be driven out of Palestine; the French will be driven out of Syria; the Pasha class will lose power in Egypt in favor of the peasants; Germany will sponsor pan-Arab unity.

“All these things,” contemporary observers declared, “are attractive to the Arabs, especially in Iraq.” German propaganda aimed above all to “create an atmosphere of distrust regarding the British promises” while offering German pledges as the superior alternative. Hitler’s Directive No. 30 spelled out the campaign’s core line:
A victory for the Axis will bring about the liberation of the countries of the Middle East from the English yoke and thus realize their right to self-determination. Whoever loves Freedom will, therefore, join the front against England.

The unifying theme was hostility to Zionism and the “Jewish menace.” Broadcasts railed against alleged Jewish conspiracies across the Middle East and beyond, accusing Jews in Iraq, Syria, and Egypt of every form of intrigue. They spun elaborate myths of a united imperialist front—world Jewry, the United States, and Great Britain—whose domination Germany would break, delivering the Arabs to national liberation.

Bahri’s role was pivotal. He read news bulletins, translated Hitler’s speeches into Arabic, offered running commentary, and narrated fabricated reports of Arab massacres by Jews in Palestine. He warned of British schemes to raise a Jewish army to seize the Middle East.
Palestinian rights group launches bid to prosecute British-Israeli IDF soldiers — report
A Palestinian rights group has launched an unusual bid to prosecute British citizens who served in the IDF during Israel’s two-year war against Hamas under a law governing enlistment into foreign armies, The Guardian reported Thursday.

As part of the effort, lawyers on Monday lodged a formal request to summon a named individual to a UK magistrates’ court, seeking to file charges against him.

The International Center for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) plans to argue that the individuals violated a UK law forbidding citizens from warring alongside a foreign force against a country that maintains peaceful relations with the British government.

The group alleges that Israel’s war in Gaza — rather than targeting Hamas — was waged against all Palestinians and Palestine as a whole, citing the war’s high civilian death toll and Israeli bombardment of civilian infrastructure, which left swaths of the enclave in ruins.

The British government formally recognized Palestine as a sovereign state in September, during the United Nations General Assembly, in a major shift in the UK’s policy in the region. It said, however, that Hamas — a proscribed group in the UK — can play no part in governing a future Palestinian state.

So far, the ICJP has only requested a summons for one individual, but claimed it gathered evidence against more than 10 British citizens. It declined to name them, however, in an apparent attempt to boost the chances of a successful prosecution.

Under Section 4 of the 1870 Foreign Enlistment Act, it is an offense for any person to accept a commission for the military of a foreign state at war with another state that is at peace with the UK.

The group will have to show that the defendant, a British subject, accepted a commission in the IDF. They also must prove that Palestine is a sovereign state that both maintains peaceful relations with the UK and went to war with Israel.
Media Outlet Affiliated With Radical Dearborn Preacher Calls on Muslims to Celebrate and Repeat Charlie Kirk's Assassination
A media shop affiliated with a radical preacher in Dearborn, Mich., recently published a 39-minute video celebrating Charlie Kirk's assassination as a "praiseworthy action" that Muslims across the United States should celebrate and repeat. The call to violence has raised red flags with Trump administration officials as they seek to deport foreign terrorist sympathizers and combat radicalism across the nation.

"The Fate of Charlie Kirk: The Insulter of the Messenger [Prophet Muhammad] and His Ruling According to Islam" was published on Oct. 10 by the English-language media outlet Project Guiding Light, a radical content mill affiliated with "pro-Islamic State" preacher Ahmad Musa Jibril, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

The video, which amplifies Jibril's brand of radicalism, circulated on YouTube, X, Instagram, and Telegram. It remains accessible on an Instagram page affiliated with Project Guiding Light, which also includes links to Jibril's personal webpage and features the cleric in several posts.

Jibril—who "served six and a half years in prison for conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, and possession of firearms and ammunition"—has fomented radicalism for the better part of a decade, according to MEMRI. Born in Michigan, Jibril has established himself as the "most popular cleric amongst Western jihadis," influencing "ISIS supporters and militants" as far as Africa, as detailed in research materials MEMRI provided to the Washington Free Beacon.

Project Guiding Light's video—which MEMRI says is "conveying Jibril's views"—opens with a montage of Muslims in the United States condemning Kirk's alleged assassin, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson. It then goes on to dub these moderate Muslims "clowns" and "sellouts."

"To see these clowns rush to condemn such an act in the name of Islam that had nothing to do with Islam or the Muslims to begin with begs a question: What is their motive for such a swift and unsolicited condemnation? Who are they trying to appease?" a narrator asks before saying that "Muslims should be rejoicing and thanking Allah" for Kirk's death.

The video alleges that Kirk insulted the Muslim prophet Mohammed and that his murder is therefore permissible under Islamic law.
After the Campus Settlements, What?
The erection of the “Gaza Solidarity” encampments in the spring of 2024 launched what Cary Nelson, a professor at the University of Illinois and an anti-Semitism expert, calls “the most rapid politicization of higher education in our lifetimes.” One result is that a significant number of Jewish college students—60 to 70 percent at many universities—feel that they are being harassed, are no longer as welcome as they had been before, are being shunned, or are even in danger. On top of that, as Nelson reports in his new book Mindless: What Happened to Universities?, “a troubling 10 percent of college students would allow calls for the genocide of Jews and 13 percent said that Jews deserved any physical attacks they suffered.” Some Jewish faculty members, and especially those who identify as Zionists, now feel marginalized, vulnerable to the exclusionary pressures of cancel culture, and sometimes are given to practicing one form or another of self-censorship. With the growing prominence of “anti-Zionism” as a regnant political credo within certain academic disciplines—especially Middle Eastern Studies, Gender Studies, and Ethnic Studies—the threats are aimed not only at Jewish faculty, students, and staff, but at the very idea of free expression. To partisans of anti-Zionism, anti-colonialism, anti-Americanism, and other objectionable “isms” on the “progressive” hit list, advocacy trumps scholarship.

This campus discord has long been in the making. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) dates back some 20 years, well before the “Gaza Solidarity” movement, and has energetically disseminated its primary goals: incrementally, “anti-normalization” with everything connected to Israel; ultimately, the elimination of the Jewish state. Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of BDS, is on record favoring “euthanasia” for Israel. He has stated, “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian—rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian—will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.” He and other supporters of BDS believe Israel never should have been created and are doing what they can to bring about its demise. This sentiment was voiced time and again in the 2024 campus protest movements but long predates it.

Are such sentiments anti-Semitic? Pro-Palestinian groups insist they are not and have argued that their encampments at Columbia, UCLA, Harvard, and elsewhere were merely anti-Zionist. Theoretically, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are not identical, but as they play out in real life, especially since October 7, an alignment between the two is now evident. They are the twin faces of a common hatred. Like anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism is a passion, a fiercely hostile one. Most Jews know that. When they are faced with slogans such as “We don’t want no Zionists here,” they quickly realize the people being shunned and excluded are they themselves. When they hear “Kill all Zionists” and “Zionists to the gas,” they know the people being cursed and threatened do not all live in Tel Aviv but in the American places they call home.

As for those who do live in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and other Israeli towns and cities, they now are some 47 percent of world Jewry. Given that fact, there will be no Jewish future worthy of the name without the continued existence of the State of Israel. Those who want to see it eradicated, like the most committed anti-Zionist BDS stalwarts, are not, as they see themselves, on “the right side of history,” but more closely aligned with those in Germany in the 1930s.

What will the 2025–2026 academic year bring for Jewish students, faculty, and staff?

The reforms promised thus far by Columbia and others may be a well-intended first start, but to address questions of anti-Semitic discrimination on college campuses successfully, they will have to go well beyond the technical demands of legal settlements and restore some moral clarity to how universities must function. Indoctrination is not education, but it has won a prominent place within certain academic disciplines. One result is endless vilification of Israel as a racist, colonialist, apartheid, and even Nazi state. The gleeful repetition of such slurs may fall within the parameters of free speech, but they manifest a malign disorder of both intellectual and moral functioning. Far from helping students learn to think clearly, political advocacy of this sort only gets them caught up in ritualistic sloganeering. Shouting “From the river to the sea” and “Free, Free Palestine” may feel virtuous, but it will accomplish nothing. To think otherwise is delusional. As I tell my students, when the political shouts start up, the mind shuts down. And when one begins to think in slogans, one stops thinking altogether. Nothing is more antithetical to teaching and learning at their best. For the latter to flourish, universities will need to go well beyond payouts of large sums of money to the federal government and begin to fix what is broken closer to home. In this respect, a revivification of the humanities is vital. When properly pursued, they do, in fact, humanize, but they can never do this if they are misused to dehumanize the Jews or anyone else.
Cornell paper under fire for publishing ‘highly offensive’ Palestinian artwork with Nazi symbol
Cornell’s student newspaper sparked furious backlash after it published a professor’s incendiary artwork depicting a bloodied Star of David and Nazi “SS” symbol scrawled on the back of a Palestinian person.

The Cornell Daily Sun later took down the disturbing graphic after it was widely blasted as antisemitic, but the ordeal is raising concerns about a deeper cultural problem on campus.

“To me, it reflects the normalization of Holocaust inversion, both on the internet and now on Cornell’s campus,” William Jacobson, a law professor who founded Legal Insurrection, a conservative publication, told The Post.

“This [SS lighting bolt] graphic is specifically inside a bloody Jewish star. No reflection of it being even related to Israel. And it clearly is pursuing the idea that Jews are the new Nazis. And so I think it’s obviously highly offensive.”

The “SS” insignia was used by the Schutzstaffeln, Adolf Hitler’s secret police, an evil organization that carried out atrocities against the Jews during the Holocaust.

Jacobson’s colleague, Professor Karim-Aly Kassam, who teaches courses on natural resources and indigenous studies, had published a piece titled, “Thousand & One Eyes for An Eye,” effectively accusing Israel of pursuing revenge in the Gaza Strip.

The op-ed dropped days after the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.

In the piece, he argued that the Israeli government and its allies explained away the carnage in Gaza by characterizing the Palestinians as “animals” who are unworthy of “human rights and protection under international law.”

Kassam also underscored that it was “not unlike what the Nazi’s said about another peoples living in Europe to justify their genocide.”

Backlash quickly ensued, including from the anonymous “Cornellians Only” social media account.

“I am deeply saddened to learn that this portion of the artwork has been interpreted by some as antisemitic,” Kassam told The Post about the debacle.

“That was not my intention, and I have learned from this experience.”

The Cornell Daily Sun retracted the piece hours after it was published and republished it without the offensive drawing.


Northwestern Provost Who Floated Divestment From Israel Resigns Amid Federal Anti-Semitism Probe
Northwestern University provost Kathleen Hagerty, who suggested she would be willing to boycott Israeli products to make a "deal" with student encampment organizers, will leave her post by the end of the academic year, Northwestern announced.

Hagerty, who has served as Northwestern's chief academic officer since 2020, said she will "move on to the next phase of my career with full confidence that the University will continue to support world-class teaching and research." Northwestern will "soon name a search committee" to identify her replacement, and Hagerty "will help with the transition to the new provost."

The announcement comes in the wake of another top Northwestern leader's departure: Michael Schill, who last spring became the first university president to strike a deal with encampment organizers. He faced intense scrutiny for doing so, including from the House Committee on Education and Workforce, which released a transcript of its August interview with Schill on September 4, the same day Schill resigned.

The interview centered on Schill's response to the encampment, but Schill was not the only university leader implicated in the committee's investigation. Text messages cited in the interview showed Hagerty texting the student encampment organizers' faculty liaison, management professor Nour Kteily, who pledged to get those organizers "some amazing wins."

Hagerty told Kteily that if the students "really cared about actual divestment" from Israel, one of their demands to end the encampment, "then they need the patience to actually do the work and make it happen." She also told him it would be "pretty easy" to boycott the sale of Sabra hummus on campus, adding, "I'm all for making a deal."

Schill defended Hagerty, telling the House committee that Hagerty viewed the encampment as a "teachable moment" and does not support a boycott against Israel. Advocacy groups like the Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern disagreed, calling for her resignation. The group applauded Hagerty's stepping down, saying in a Friday statement that it "caps years of institutional decline at a university now facing federal investigations, frozen research funding, and mounting congressional scrutiny for its handling of antisemitism."

The Trump administration froze nearly $800 million in federal funding for Northwestern in April amid a Department of Education investigation into anti-Semitism at the school. The Department of Health and Human Services launched its own civil rights probe of Northwestern one month later, citing "systemic concerns" about the school's ability "not to discriminate against Jewish students."
Northwestern provost resigning admission ‘something went terribly wrong,’ Jewish group says
Daniel Schwartz, president and co-founder of the Chicago Jewish Alliance, told JNS that Hagerty’s resignation is the “first acknowledgment that something went terribly wrong.” (JNS sought comment from Northwestern.)

“For a year, Jewish students at Northwestern have lived with fear, isolation and silence from the very leaders sworn to protect them,” Schwartz said. “When antisemitism swept across campus, the administration’s instinct was not moral clarity but negotiation. Hatred was treated like a scheduling conflict. Safety became a bargaining chip. That is not leadership.”

Hagerty’s resignation “must be the beginning of a reckoning,” Schwartz said. “Northwestern has a chance to start again. It must not waste it.”

Michael Teplitsky, president of the Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern and a Northwestern alumnus, told JNS that congressional investigators found text messages showing indicating that Hagerty was advising a professor at the university on “how to pressure Northwestern’s board of trustees to divest from Israel-linked companies.”

That advice included how to boycott Sabra Hummus “as a bargaining chip, while praising encampment leaders who violated university policy,” according to Teplitsky.

“Hagerty oversaw every dean, faculty appointment and academic program, including the schools now at the center of federal findings,” he said. “Under her watch, administrators ignored antisemitic harassment, empowered extremist faculty and rewarded activists who targeted Jewish students.”
AFT Guild Calls 'From the River to the Sea' a 'Rallying Cry for Peace'
An American Federation of Teachers guild sent out a statement this week to its members in which it defended the slogan "From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free"—which calls for the destruction of Israel and expulsion of Jews from the land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea—as a "rallying cry for peace." The guild also claimed that describing the statement as anti-Semitic means "silencing pro-Palestinian activists."

The Oct. 21 email, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, contained a statement from the Social Justice Committee of AFT Guild 1931, which represents employees of the San Diego Community College District. The committee wrote that the phrase "From the River to the Sea" represents a "call for peace, equality, and a single, inclusive state where all people have equal rights."

The committee criticized "some figures in society" in its statement, also available online—including virtually all leading Jewish civil rights groups—who have "come to misidentify the slogan as hate speech, label its usage as antisemitic, or misinterpret the phrase as a call for genocide."

The Anti-Defamation League describes the phrase as an "antisemitic slogan" that has "long been used by anti-Israel voices, including supporters of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the PFLP, which seek Israel's destruction through violent means."

The American Jewish Committee says the slogan "can be used to call for the elimination of the State of Israel and/or ethnic cleansing of Jews living there, to be replaced with Palestinian control over the entire territory."
Senate education panel chair slams teachers union for Jew-hatred
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, slammed the nation’s second-largest teachers union on Friday for failing to address antisemitism and marginalizing its Jewish members.

In a letter to Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the senator alleged that the union is “fostering a culture of antisemitism that alienates Jewish members of your community.”

The senator wrote that Todd Wolfson, one of nearly 45 AFT vice presidents, has overseen repeated instances of “organizational antisemitism.” (JNS sought comment from the union.)

“On Aug. 19, Inside Higher Ed published an interview in which Dr. Wolfson described the ‘weaponization of antisemitism,’” Cassidy wrote. “The former president of the University of California said this characterization ‘gaslights Jews, minimizing the alarms that Jewish communities have raised about discrimination on campus.’”

Wolfson is also president of the American Association of University Professors and an associate professor at Rutgers University.

The AAUP leader has made “explicitly political statements,” including that the association believes “strongly that no weapons should be sent to Israel” and referring to U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance “a fascist,” Cassidy wrote. “Advocating a political position as the president of an academic association stifles the voices of members who may think differently.”

The letter also contends that in the past six months, the AAUP has failed to address concerns about a webinar it held in March titled “Scholasticide in Palestine.” The Anti-Defamation League and Academic Engagement Network stated that Jewish and Zionist members of the union thought the organization was becoming “virulently anti-Israel” and created a hostile environment.

“Jewish faculty members deserve to carry out their work free from discrimination,” Cassidy wrote. “As an association with a national presence, it is concerning that AFT has not only failed to help solve this problem but has made it worse by allowing Dr. Wolfson to continue to serve in a leadership role.”


‘TikTok amplified pro-Hamas content during Israel-Gaza war’
A study by the research center Cybersecurity for Democracy (C4D), conducted in partnership with New York University (NYU) and Northeastern University, has revealed the extent to which the social-video platform TikTok amplified pro-Hamas content in the Israel-Gaza war discourse.

The analysis, published ahead of the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, found that for every pro-Israel video posted, roughly 17 pro-Palestinian videos appear on the platform.

According to C4D’s updated research, “the ratio of pro-Israel to pro-Palestine content has remained very similar as in our original analysis … Currently, roughly one pro-Israel post appeared for about every seventeen pro-Palestine posts.”

The study highlighted that the average pro-Hamas video received about 11,500 views, compared with roughly 2,400 for pro-Israel videos.

Yet averages can mislead, it said. The median pro-Palestinian clip had only 472 views, while the median pro-Israel video had 565 views, indicating that a small number of pro-Palestinian videos went viral, skewing the numbers.

“The bulk of the pro-Palestine and pro-Israel videos are getting largely comparable numbers of views,” the researchers noted.

The study painted a stark picture of polarized discourse on TikTok. “There are almost no videos with both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine hashtags in our dataset,” it said. “The videos in question sometimes speak to an imagined opponent … but they do not appear to actually talk to one another.”


Is Iran trying to reignite its ring of fire around Israel?
With the Gaza war over, Iran is tallying two turbulent years that pulled it into a wider circle of fighting and fire, contrary to the restraint Tehran had sought to maintain before the war.

In the wake of the shock delivered by Israel in the June Israel-Iran war, known as “Operation Rising Lion” in Israel, and the heavy blow to its proxy network, it appears Iran is taking steps to rebuild its deterrence and is signaling an intent to renew its “ring of fire” around Israel.

That decision comes amid rising external pressure, including the activation of the U.N. Security Council snapback sanctions mechanism, and a sense of trauma in Iran after having been surprised by Israel.

The first worrying sign
Tehran appears focused on increasing the range of its ballistic missiles to intercontinental distances, meaning 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles) and beyond. Tehran politician Mohsen Zanganeh told Iranian television recently that the unidentified lights seen in Iran’s skies two days earlier, which stirred public curiosity, were in fact a successful test of an intercontinental missile. It may have been the Khorramshahr-5 ballistic missile, which has a reported range of 12,000 kilometers (7,500 miles) and which according to Iranian Defense Minister Aziz Nazirzadeh has not yet entered operational service.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denied Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim after the test that Tehran is working on intercontinental missiles that would allow it to threaten Washington and New York.

However, Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, a member of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, confirmed the report. In an interview with Iranian media, he said Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had removed a previous limit that kept Iran’s missile range under 2,200 kilometers (1,400 miles), and that Iran was now developing an extended-range missile program, because it must strengthen what he called its most important military power, namely its missile program.


Twelve-year-old child from Vienna beaten by classmates after weeks of antisemitic bullying
A 12-year-old Jewish boy was attacked by a classmate on his way home from school in Vienna on Friday.

According to local media, the boy had a disagreement with a classmate earlier at school. The boy was kicked and punched several times by his classmate before another boy joined in at around noon local time on Tuesday.

The boy’s mother filed a police report at 3 p.m. that same day.

"During the attack, there were constant, unmistakably antisemitic threats. One of the tormentors yelled, 'You Jew, if you say anything, I’ll tell everyone you're Jewish – then you'll see what happens to you.' The two teenagers repeatedly hit and kicked my son while he was lying on the ground,” the boy’s mother told outlet oe24.

The boy told oe24 News that this was not the first time he had been a victim of an antisemitic attack. The outlet reported that the boy’s school has had a history of sweeping attacks under the rug.

Victim had been bullied for weeks with little school interference
According to the victim's mother, a female classmate choked her son and attempted to push him down the stairs at the start of the month. The boy was wounded on his neck and was put in a brace for several days.
Advocates decry ‘pogrom on the playground’ after Jewish children targeted in Chicago on Oct. 7
A heavily Jewish suburb of Chicago has condemned antisemitism after an investigation confirmed reports that a group of Jewish children were attacked with pellet guns and subjected to antisemitic rhetoric in a public park earlier this month.

The incident took place on Oct. 7, the first day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, in Shawnee Park, which is located blocks from a number of the town’s Orthodox synagogues.

It occurred when five children between the ages of 8 and 13 were approached by another group of children who asked if they were Jewish, according to the Chicago Jewish Alliance, an advocacy group that has taken an aggressive stance against antisemitism in Chicagoland.

When the children replied that they were Jewish, the group of roughly 20 assailants, who were between the ages of 12 and 14, then allegedly shouted “f—k Israel” and “you are baby killers so we are going to kill you” at the children and shot gel gun pellets from a recreational gun at them, according to a Facebook post by Daniel and Robyn Burgher Ackerman, the parents of a 13-year-old girl who was among the victims.

The Ackermans posted what they said was their first public account of the incident on Thursday, after an investigation by the town was completed. The Village of Skokie said this week that police had responded to the scene on Oct. 7, where the children alleged to have participated in the incident were identified and interviewed and a police report was filed.

The case was “closed” following the investigation’s conclusion, according to the Village of Skokie. It did not name any actions it was taking in response but said the incident had been documented and shared with the Human Relations Commission, which would later issue a recommendation based on its findings.

“There is no place for hate in Skokie,” said Mayor Ann Tennes in a statement. “Our community has long been built on respect, inclusion and care for one another. The Village remains committed to standing against antisemitism and all forms of bias, and to ensuring that Skokie continues to be a safe and welcoming place for everyone.”

The Skokie Park District said it had been made aware of the incident only this week. “We do not tolerate racist remarks or acts of violence in our parks,” it said in a statement issued Thursday. “We are prepared to work with the Village of Skokie’s Human Relations Commission and the Skokie Police Department as part of a community-wide effort to address this hateful occurrence and prevent these behaviors in the future.”


Japan’s first female premier expected to further ties with Israel
Japan’s newly elected first female prime minister is expected to promote bilateral ties with Israel due to her strong alliance with the United States, Israeli analysts said on Thursday.

The election of Sanae Takaichi of Japan’s long-ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party comes amid the U.S. brokered ceasefire in Gaza, as Israel is seeking to strengthen its international alliances.

“When Japan looks to the outside world it always looks at the United States,” Hebrew University professor Nissim Otzmagin told JNS. “A pro-America policy [in Japan] is good news for Israel.”

Takaichi, a security hawk who is due to host President Donald Trump in Tokyo next week, was a protege of assassinated former Japanese premier Shinzo Abe, who was a close friend of Trump’s during his first administration and maintained warm relations with Israel.

Otzmagin noted that Japan was pointedly not among the Western countries that recently unilaterally recognized a Palestinian state in the face of American opposition, even though it supports the idea in principle.

“Japan’s policies are more aligned with the United States than Europe,” he added.

Takaichi cited the Japan-U.S. alliance as a “cornerstone” of Japanese diplomacy and stressed that Japan is an indispensable partner for America in its strategy to provide counterweights to China in the Indo-Pacific region.

“She is very pro-American and less connected with Asia due to their own interests and challenges from both North Korea and China,” said professor Sigal Ben-Rafael Galanti of Beit Berl College in an interview with JNS. “It is critical for Japan that the United States plays a very active role in the region, and so it is important to them to develop friendships with America’s allies, like Israel.”
Mandela’s granddaughters: ‘Apartheid was racial separation – Israel is nothing like that’
For Zamaswazi (Swati) Dlamini-Mandela and Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway, the journey to Israel was both personal and profound. Carrying one of the most powerful family heritages in modern history, the granddaughters of Nelson Mandela travelled to the region in October, days before a ceasefire was declared between Israel and Hamas, to see the reality for themselves.

“It’s a completely different vantage point when you’re sitting with families and victims, hearing things and seeing things,” says Swati. “Both narratives exist but being there in person changes everything.”

Their visit was organised by the National Black Empowerment Council, taking them from Yad Vashem and the ruins of Kibbutz Nir Oz to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, where they spent a day distributing food and medical supplies to women and children. Along the way, they met survivors of the 7 October attacks, senior Israeli officials – and one woman whose strength, they say, will stay with them forever.

“Rachel Goldberg-Polin was extraordinary – the epitome of resilience,” says Zaziwe, recalling their meeting with the mother of 23-year-old hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was killed in Gaza. “She held on for over 300 days knowing her only son was alive, and then learnt he’d been killed. She was still smiling, still talking about peace, still hoping for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission like we had in South Africa. I was in awe of her.”

Swati adds in agreement: “She was so determined to keep fighting for the hostages who remain. She wants healing for everyone – Israelis and Palestinians. That strength gave us hope.”

The sisters’ time in Israel coincided with the one-year mark of the Hamas atrocities, an experience they describe as “horrifying” and “heartbreaking.” At the Nova music festival site and in kibbutzim on the Gaza border, they met survivors who had lost friends, parents and children. “To hear their stories face to face was devastating,” says Swati. “The scale of the loss – it’s something we’ll never forget.”




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

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