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Saturday, October 25, 2025

10/25 Links: Trump: Hamas must start returning hostage remains; Rubio visit signals US all-hands-on-deck approach to post-war Gaza stability

From Ian:

Many Jews will be proud to have been by Israel's side after Oct. 7, some will be ashamed
UNFORTUNATELY, NOT all Diaspora Jewry will be able to look back at their response to this period with pride. When the dust settles from the war and the soldiers come home, and all of the deceased hostages are returned, there will be Jews who will be ashamed at their actions and response to the war.

A recent Washington Post survey found many American Jews disapproving of Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war, with 61% saying Israel has committed war crimes, and about four in 10 saying it is guilty of genocide. Almost half, 46%, approved of Israel’s actions during the war, while 48% opposed Israel’s actions.

This poll came on the heels of dozens of Orthodox rabbis issuing “A Call for Moral Clarity, Responsibility, and a Jewish Orthodox Response in the Face of the Gaza Humanitarian Crisis.” Their letter reflected Hamas’s talking points of Israeli extremism, starvation tactics, and distorting basic morality.

Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the US, responded to the letter: “Your statement not only reflects a severe unfamiliarity with the facts, but also relies on the lies of our worst enemies.” He criticized the rabbis “for ignoring the reality that Israel is the one feeding those who are firing on our children.”

Leiter ended with a pointed rebuke: “As Israel fights for survival on seven fronts, faces international pressure, and leads historic changes in the Middle East for security and stability, this is the time to support Israel’s elected government and the people of Israel, not to conduct political criticism rooted in blatant ignorance of the facts. You should apologize.”

In spite of the unfortunate response of some Diaspora Jews to Israel during the war, the Zionist bond, forged over 150 years ago, endures. Diaspora Jewry’s outpouring, from 1967’s bonds to today’s $1.4 billion surge, celebrates our eternal kinship with Israel. This resilient solidarity, a beacon of Jewish unity, promises shared triumph, healing, and unbreakable pride for generations ahead.
Dave Rich: There must be a cost
There’s a part of the interview where Theroux and Vylan discuss the latter’s notorious “Death to the IDF” chant at Glastonbury, and they go back and forth about whether Vylan really meant death, or did he just mean that he wants the end to the IDF as an institution, but “End to the IDF” wouldn’t rhyme, and it’s just a figure of speech, and so on.

Except a month before Glastonbury, Vylan had called for “Death to every single IDF soldier out there”, at a concert at Alexandra Palace in London. In Amsterdam last month he told a concert audience ““F*ck the Zionists! Get out there and fight them! Get out there and meet them in the street. Get out there and let them know that you don’t stand by them.” And at another gig in Spain in August, Vylan said:
We do support the right to an armed resistance. ‘Cause we ain’t no f*cking pacifists. We ain’t the nonviolent type. Because we understand. We understand that in dealing with tyrannical f*cking governments, you need to be violent sometimes… We are for an armed resistance. We wanna make that explicitly f*cking clear.”

I don’t know why Theroux failed to ask Vylan about any of these other quotes. Perhaps he did, and it was edited out. Perhaps he’s lazy and didn’t do his research properly. Or maybe he didn’t bring it up because it would wreck the entire narrative that Vylan is a cuddly peacenik who has been misrepresented by the evil right wing press and Zionist white supremacists. Frankly, I don’t care what the reason is. All I know is that after Manchester, I have much less tolerance for this kind of nonsense.

Incidentally, Vylan didn’t correct Theroux on whether he wants to see Israeli soldiers killed, despite having said at that gig in Spain that he wants to be “explicitly f*cking clear” that he does support violence and armed resistance. So he’s a coward, on top of everything else.

It increasingly feels like this is part of the game. Antisemites, racists and Israel-haters say and do outrageous things that they would never say or do about any other country or people, and when Jews complain, we are gaslit repeatedly. Maccabi Tel Aviv fans are banned from Aston Villa because the police cannot guarantee their safety in the face of threatened protests, and when people point out the appalling implications of this, a narrative suddenly develops that the Maccabi fans are some kind of mega-hooligan firm from the 1970s. An antisemitic doctor rants incessantly about “Jewish supremacy” occupying the British government, and we are told she is just criticising Israel and opposing genocide. Bobby Vylan repeatedly and proudly calls for death and violence, and one of the British media’s best-known and most capable interviewers lays out the red carpet and helps to explain it all away.

And all the while, Jewish voices try to patiently explain the facts, as if facts are all these people are missing. As Jean-Paul Sartre famously warned: “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, and open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly since he believes in words.”

Theroux’s podcast was recorded before the Manchester attack, which he acknowledges in the introduction. But they still went ahead and published it anyway, as if the death of two Jews due to an Israel-hating jihadist doesn’t change the context of an interview with someone who became famous for calling for death for Israelis. Theroux opens his questioning of Vylan with the classic motif of liberal white guilt, saying “I guess my starting point is… we’ve got very different life experiences, I’m conscious of all the privilege I’ve enjoyed”; but when it comes to the life experiences of the Jewish community, experiencing more religious hate crime per head than any other community in the UK, Theroux and Vylan breezily wave it away. It’s a form of privilege all of its own, the ability to be so dismissive of antisemitism and yet retain a sense of their own progressive righteousness.

I don’t think I’m alone in reaching the end of the road on giving people the benefit of the doubt over this kind of thing. I overheard someone say last week that it feels like people have had a free hit against the Jewish community for the past two years, and that has to change. I share that view, and there are, hopefully, some signs that things are shifting. The outcry against the Maccabi Tel Aviv ban went much further than I believe it would have done before Manchester. The antisemitic doctor has finally been arrested. As for Theroux: the most sickening part of the interview, sandwiched in between Vylan’s defence of “Death to the IDF” and Theroux’s offensive speculations about “post-Holocaust Jewish exceptionalism”, was the line “This episode is brought to you by British Airways.” Our national airline, sponsoring offensive garbage about Jews. Well, no longer. British Airways have pulled their sponsorship, of this episode of least.

It’s a start, but there needs to be much more. It’s a reminder that we can try to explain and educate about antisemitism all day long, but it will be meaningless and ineffective unless there is a cost: whether that cost is political, financial, professional or social. The days of the free hit must end.
British Airways withdraws support for Louis Theroux podcast after Bob Vylan episode
British Airways has pulled support for the Louis Theroux podcast after an appearance by the front man of controversial punk act Bob Vylan.

Pascal Robinson-Foster used the interview published on Tuesday to say he would readily repeat his “death to the IDF chant” that brought him to prominence this summer at Glastonbury.

Police launched an investigation the band’s appearance at the festival, which also included a diatribe about working for “f***ing Zionists”, after it was broadcast live on the BBC. The national broadcaster’s complaints unit later said the content “taken in the round, can fairly be characterised as antisemitic”.

During the podcast interview with Theroux, Robinson-Foster said: “If I was to go on Glastonbury again tomorrow, yes I would do it again. I’m not regretful of it. I’d do it again tomorrow, twice on Sundays.”

In what was described as a “softball” interview by the BBC’s former direction of television Danny Cohen, Theroux noted that the Community Security Trust had stated that “29 June [the day after Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury set] saw the highest daily total of anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of 2025”. Vylan responded by questioning what CST were counting as antisemitic incidents, before saying “I don’t think I have created an unsafe atmosphere for the Jewish community. If there were large numbers of people going out and going like ‘Bob Vylan made me do this’. I might go, oof, I’ve had a negative impact here.”

Speaking about identity, Theroux said: “Jewish identity in the Jewish community, as expressed in Israel has become almost like an acceptable quote, unquote, way of understanding ethno-nationalism.

“So it’s like they’re prototyping an aggressive form of ethno-nationalism , which is often rolled out, whether it’s by people like Viktor Orban in Hungary or Trump in the US. It’s become sort of this certain sense of post-Holocaust Jewish exceptionalism or Zionist exceptionalism, has become a role model on the national stage for what these white identitarians would like to do in their own countries.”

Following the outcry, a BA statement to Jewish News said: “Our sponsorship of the series has now been paused and the advert has been removed. We’re grateful that this was brought to our attention, as the content clearly breaches our sponsorship policy in relation to politically sensitive or controversial subject matters. We and our third-party media agency have processes in place to ensure these issues don’t occur and we’re investigating how this happened.”


Trump: Hamas must start returning hostage remains, 'watching very closely' for next 48 hours
Hamas must do more to return the remains of hostages still in the Gaza Strip, US President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Saturday night.

"Hamas is going to have to start returning the bodies of the deceased hostages, including two Americans, quickly," he wrote.

If they do not, then "the other Countries involved in this GREAT PEACE will take action," he warned.

"Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has to do with their disarming, but when I said, “Both sides would be treated fairly,” that only applies if they comply with their obligations," he added.

"Let’s see what they do over the next 48 hours. I am watching this very closely," he affirmed.

Trump: 'Very strong peace in Middle East'
"We have a very strong PEACE in the Middle East, and I believe it has a good chance of being EVERLASTING," he stated.

The Israeli government approved Cairo’s request to allow the entry of Egyptian equipment and personnel to assist as part of the efforts to locate and retrieve remains of slain hostages, an Israeli security official told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday evening.

The team and equipment have entered the Gaza Strip. Israel was preparing for the possibility that Hamas would release the remains of two more hostages soon, Army Radio and N12 News reported earlier, each citing an Israeli source.

On Friday, there were indications that Hamas was also preparing to return remains; however, the terror group did not.

Trump said that Qatar would send peacekeeping troops to Gaza if needed while sitting next to the prime minister and emir of Qatar during a Saturday meeting.


Seth Frantzman: Rubio visit signals US all-hands-on-deck approach to post-war Gaza stability
Rubio’s visit now shows how an “all hands on deck” approach is taking shape. The goal is to ensure that Hamas is sidelined in Gaza.

Another apparent objective is to change how aid is delivered in the future so that groups like UNRWA play a smaller role. Ynet noted last week that “at the newly established US-led command center in Kiryat Gat, multinational troops representing a wide array of countries - including the United States, France, Britain, Spain, Australia, Greece and Cyprus - gathered Friday, alongside senior officials from Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Denmark, and the US ambassador to Yemen.”

US Lt.-Gen. Patrick Frank is leading the several hundred personnel at the site, with a British officer serving as his deputy. Rubio examined the operations there. The goal is stability in Gaza.

“The command’s large operations hangar features screens showing live news feeds and aid convoys, and is equipped with synthetic turf to improve acoustics. One displayed report highlighted a United Arab Emirates convoy entering Gaza via the Rafah crossing, while another flagged shortages of vegetables, fruit and cheese in the enclave,” Ynet noted.

The US is also expanding the State Department’s role in the initiative. According to the US State Department on Thursday, “US Ambassador Steven Fagin will serve as the civilian lead of the Civil-Military Coordination Center, which is supporting the implementation of the President’s 20 Point Peace Plan for Gaza.”

The statement about Fagin’s appointment notes that he is “a career member of the Senior Foreign Service.” He has served as US Ambassador to Yemen since 2022 and previously was Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Baghdad (2020–21), Principal Officer at the US Consulate General in Erbil (2018–20), Director of the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs (2015–18), and Director of the Regional Affairs Office in the Department’s South and Central Asia Bureau (2013–15), the State Department said.

Bringing together a career foreign service officer who has been an ambassador and also led a consulate in the key Kurdistan Region of Iraq, along with US military personnel, illustrates how the US is coordinating at the highest levels with experienced officials to make things work in Gaza.

Rubio’s visit, therefore, helped cement the next stage of what may happen in Gaza. The goal is to ensure that the approach remains peaceful and supports Gaza’s long road to recovery, while addressing Israel’s concerns and those of other countries in the region.
Rubio vows won’t rest until all hostages’ remains in Gaza return home
U.S. State Secretary Marco Rubio met in Jerusalem on Saturday with the families of the two Israeli-American hostages whose remains Hamas has not yet transferred to Israel as required by the first phase of the ceasefire agreement.

“We will not forget the lives of the hostages who died in the captivity of Hamas,” tweeted Rubio, who is on a visit to the Jewish state.

“Today I met with the families of American citizens Itay Chen and Omer Neutra. We will not rest until their—and all—remains are returned,” he vowed.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee could also be seen in a photo posted on X, sitting opposite Rubio.

On Friday, Rubio told reporters that there is no viable alternative to President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, expressing “healthy optimism” that it will be fully implemented.

“There is no Plan B,” Rubio said during what was termed “a press gaggle” at the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in Kiryat Gat. “This is the best plan. It’s the only plan. It’s one that we think can succeed. It’s one that we believe is the way to success, as impossible and unimaginable as it may have been.”

He continued, “Remember a month ago, six weeks ago? No one would have thought it possible that you were going to get all the hostages out. And I know that we still have the remains of hostages [set to be returned]. That has to happen. That’s part of this. And we’re very committed to making sure that happens.”
Released Gaza hostage Gadi Mozes to receive ‘Ben-Gurion Award’
Freed Gaza hostage Gadi Mozes will receive the 'Ben-Gurion Award' for exemplary individuals from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev President Prof. Daniel Haimovitz in November, the university announced earlier this week.

The award committee announced that Mozes was selected to receive the award, named after the first prime minister of Israel, for his “many years of contribution to the building and prosperity of the Negev, for his leadership in the reconstruction of Kibbutz Nir Oz, his personal courage, and for his role model of steadfastness, Zionism, and love of country.”

Mozes was held for 482 days by terrorists in the Gaza Strip after being kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas during the October 7 massacre. Much of the kibbutz was burned and destroyed as Hamas terrorists tore their way through the small farming community.

Mozes's lifelong commitment to Kibbutz Nir Oz
He was released, aged 80, in January 2025 and was the oldest living hostage to have survived terrorist captivity. Upon his release, Mozes pledged to return to his home and his life’s work, vowing to help rebuild the kibbutz he resided in for nearly 60 years.

The university's statement described Mozes’s history in the region, detailing his career as an agronomist in the agriculture industry, throughout which he “worked in third world countries, teaching local farmers about irrigation and growing methods.”

Prof. Haimovitz added to the statement that Mozes would receive the award as a “symbol of the invincible human spirit,” explaining that “his return to life after months of difficult captivity is an inspiration of courage, hope, and faith in human strength.”

The university’s announcement concluded with Prof. Haimovitz declaring that “Gadi Mozes embodies the values ​​upon which the university was founded – commitment to society, steadfastness in the face of challenges, and a deep belief in the mutual guarantee of the people of Israel."
Hostage families urge ‘every possible sanction’ on Hamas to secure captives’ return
Thousands of Israelis rallied across the country on Saturday evening for the return of the remains of 13 slain captives still held by Hamas, in what Israel charges is a breach of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.

The main rally was held at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, where relatives of both the 20 living and 15 deceased hostages who have returned since the deal took effect two weeks ago, as well as family members of the captives whose bodies remain in the Gaza Strip, addressed the crowd.

Alon Nimrodi, who recently buried his son Tamir, called for Israel to “employ every possible sanction against the Hamas terrorist organization, which violates the deal time after time, and demand it completely fulfill the first clause — the return of all the hostages.”

The body of Nimrodi, who was taken hostage from his IDF base near the Erez Crossing on October 7, 2023, was returned last week alongside the remains of Eitan Levy and Uriel Baruch. Nimrodi’s death was unconfirmed until then, though Israel had expressed “grave concern” about him.

“I hate to say that I was right,” said his father. “In every meeting I attended with ministers, army and Shin Bet people, including opponents of a deal, I said — demanded — sign the deal and then we’ll take care of Hamas.”

“I said I was convinced they would immediately violate the deal,” he said. “And I was right.”
Former hostage 'Matan [Angrest] was forced to endure horrific interrogations,' mother Anat says
Released hostage Matan Angrest “was forced to endure horrific interrogations in the tunnel basements while severely wounded, bleeding, hovering between life and death for long months,” his mother, Anat, said during a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday demanding the release of the remaining Gaza hostages.

"His body bears scars of courage, scars that, as a mother, I find difficult to look at and to imagine what he went through," she continued. "He still doesn’t tell me everything; he protects me. He says, ‘Leave it, Mom, the main thing is I’m here.’ But his eyes fill with tears when he remembers that Itay Chen is still there. At every opportunity, he says he wants to put on his uniform and bring him back," she said.

The demonstration was held in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv alongside families of the remaining 13 deceased hostages, recently freed hostage, their families, and friends.

"We will never be whole again, but we can be a people who have healed," Noam Katz, daughter of Lior Rudaeff, said. "A people who choose life, who choose light, a people who choose not to give up hope. This is my dream. This is our promise."

Lishay Miran-Lavi, wife to Omri Miran, said that "Omri is home tonight watching over our daughters. This picture is no longer a dream - it’s reality, and it’s thanks to you, good people."

"You stood with us, marched with us, and prayed with us. You opened doors to the highest halls of power and the smallest houses of worship. You ensured the voices of our loved ones were heard even when the world turned away," Moshe, Omri's brother, added.

Those in attendance also include recently freed hostage Eitan Horn, accompanied by his brother Amos and Iair Horn, the latter also being released from Hamas captivity in February of this year.

Other participants included family members of former hostages who were released in the US-brokered hostage, ceasefire deal.
Egyptian team enters Gaza with Israel’s approval to help locate hostages’ remains
As part of the efforts to recover the remaining 13 slain hostages held in Gaza, an Egyptian team has entered the Strip with several engineering vehicles to assist with locating their bodies, an Israeli defense official said Saturday.

The move was personally approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his office told The Times of Israel.

“It is a technical team,” the PMO said. “They are going in only to locate the slain hostages.”

Information from both Israel and Hamas on the location of dead hostages has been given to the Egyptian team to guide their search, Channel 12 reported.

Until now, Israel had not approved the entry of such teams, claiming that Hamas was capable of finding and returning the bodies itself.

According to Channel 12, Israel knows for certain that Hamas can hand over more bodies of slain hostages but is deliberately refusing to do so, and is also holding back information about their location, in direct breach of the October 9 Israel-Hamas hostage-ceasefire agreement.


Left-winger Catherine Connolly, who called Hamas 'part of fabric' of Gaza, elected Irish president
Catherine Connolly, a veteran lawmaker on the far Left of the Irish political spectrum, was elected president by a landslide margin on Saturday.

Connolly, 68, an independent candidate backed by the entire left-dominated opposition, has previously stated that Hamas is "part of the fabric of the Palestinian people," and has described the war in Gaza as a genocide.

"Both sides have committed war crimes," she said of Israel and Hamas in September.

"[Hamas] were elected by the people the last time there was an election. Overwhelming support for them back in 2006 or 2007. They are part of the civil society of Palestine. We're reliant on them for figures in relation to the deaths."

She also said that Israel was acting like a "terrorist state' and that she had "utterly condemned" Hamas "over and over."

Left wing-lawmaker who said Israel acted like a terror state wins Irish presidency
Connolly was elected after winning 63% of the first preference vote for the largely ceremonial role.

Connolly, a long-time critic of the European Union in overwhelmingly pro-EU Ireland, backed by the left-dominated opposition, was not a household name and was underestimated by many at the start of the contest for the largely ceremonial role.

Connolly, an independent candidate, built momentum as the campaign progressed, enthused younger voters, and was elected with 63.4% of the vote. The other candidate seeking election, ex-cabinet minister Heather Humphreys, won 29.5%.
Hind Rajab Foundation demands arrest of IDF soldier in Germany
The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), an anti-Israel activist group, demanded the arrest and prosecution of an Israeli-German national who served in the IDF, in a statement released on Friday.

German attorney Melanie Schweizer launched the complaint on behalf of the HRF in May, accusing the IDF combat engineer of “war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide,” according to a statement released by the foundation.

The accusations stem from a number of social media posts from the soldier documenting his participation in military operations in the Gaza Strip.

The posts include videos of him triggering detonations from afar, an action essential to the role of a combat engineer, and photos of himself and fellow soldiers posing in front of explosions.

Schweizer, the attorney who filed the complaint with the German federal prosecutor-general, declared that the German legal system has a “clear obligation” to prosecute the combat engineer that is “not optional.”

Schweizer continued to threaten that should the German prosecutor-general fail to investigate, it would be “a legal and moral abdication” resulting in the prosecutor general being complicit in the accused's “war crimes.”

The dual citizen deleted the controversial posts and made his social media accounts private after the complaint was filed.

HRF complaints against the IDF
The HRF has a history of launching social media campaigns and legal complaints against IDF soldiers and individuals with ties to Israel, as well as advocating for Hamas.

In July, two IDF soldiers were arrested and interrogated by Belgian law enforcement while attending a music festival following similar accusations from the HRF.

In August, the foundation filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) after the IDF killed Anas al-Sharif, who the IDF stated was an active Hamas terrorist for over a decade. The HRF claimed that al-Sharif was a journalist and that the killing was a “war crime,” demanding the ICC prosecute IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir and other IDF officials.
Defunding the UN: A necessary step toward ending global hypocrisy and anti-Zionism
Fifty years ago, on November 10, 1975, the United Nations notoriously passed General Assembly Resolution 3379 declaring that “Zionism is racism.” Since then, the UN has become the ultimate cesspool of ferocious anti-Zionism, raw antisemitism, and rank anti-Americanism.

It is time for the United States to lead a global process of repentance and repair by defunding the UN altogether and replacing it with a series of professional bodies free of fecund hostility to Jews/Israelis and liberated from radical anti-American ideologies.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the US ambassador to the United Nations back in 1975, ripped into the infamous resolution, recognizing it was an attempt to demean America by demeaning its ally. He repudiated what he would later call the “Big Red Lie” as an assault on democracy and decency. And he warned that this libel would enter the international bloodstream.

Alas, he was right. With its perverse Soviet-orchestrated distortions of language, history, and reality, Resolution 3379 “reeked of the totalitarian mind, stank of the totalitarian state” – as Prof. Gil Troy reminds us in an important article this week in Commentary magazine.

“With the bully’s instinctive genius, the haters understood what would hurt Israel’s reputation most – and what the world would swallow easily. They showed how to foist broadly agreed-upon aversions – to racism, to genocide – onto the Jews,” writes Troy.

“Totalitarian anti-Zionism helped Western elites cast Palestinians as noble, oppressed, disenfranchised people of color and Israelis as ignoble, oppressive, racist whites. It helped progressives ignore the Palestinian national movement’s violence, Islamism, sexism, and homophobia. The Red-Green alliance united leftists with Islamists, and Moynihan’s ‘Big Red Lie’ became the ‘Big Red-Green Lie’ that refuses to die.”

Ben Cohen and David May of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington detailed this week the extraordinary resources devoted by the UN to the demonization of Israel.

This begins with the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, which drives the Israel-as-colonialist and Israel-as-an-apartheid-state narratives (over $3 million per year over 50 years).

It continues with the UN Palestine Committee and the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People; the Division for Palestinian Rights; the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which has been shown to be a close collaborator of Hamas; the UNHCR (High Commissioner for Refugees) special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories; and the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices.

Even more absurd are UNHRC (Human Rights Council) Agenda Item 7, which requires the body to scrutinize Israel’s human rights record at every meeting it convenes (Israel is the only country subject to this treatment); the UN Register of Damages (since 2007 to assist Palestinians in collecting on claims of damages allegedly incurred by the construction of Israel’s security barrier in the West Bank); and so many other virulently hostile bodies.

Then there are the International Criminal Court, which has issued warrants for the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant (on the basis of malevolent falsehoods and serial abuses of its own processes), and the International Court of Justice, which has falsely accused Israel of illegally occupying the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria.
The United Nations Has Become the Dictators' Club: Chooses Tyrants Over the Oppressed
The United Nations was founded on the promise of upholding peace, justice, and universal human rights. Today, however, it appears less like a beacon of morality and more like a stage for savagery and hypocrisy.

The UN is quick to condemn democratic nations such as the United States and Israel for defending their citizens and fighting terrorism, but goes out of its way to protect, coddle, and even elevate some of the world's most brutal and oppressive regimes — most notably Iran. The UN, which should be standing with the oppressed, is instead handing power and legitimacy to their oppressors.

It is as if the UN places arsonists in charge of the fire department and then acts surprised when the firehouse burns down.

The US should pay only for the programs it wants and get what it pays for, or at least, as US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz has suggested, pay only commensurately for UN support. The US needs to stop smiling, drinking coffee with murderers -- and especially funding them -- and instead stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those fighting for freedom. Until that happens, the UN will remain what it has sadly become: an expensive, corrupt horror show at the expense of humanity's most courageous people.
Brazil’s Lula says UN ‘stopped working,’ failed to halt Gaza war
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took a swipe Saturday at the United Nations and other multilateral institutions, saying they “stopped working” and failed to protect Gaza’s war victims.

Lula was speaking after meeting Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, ahead of a major regional summit where the Brazilian leader will likely meet US President Donald Trump.

“Who can accept the genocide that has been going on in the Gaza Strip for so long?” Lula told reporters after the bilateral meeting aimed at deepening ties between the two nations.

“The multilateral institutions that were created to try to prevent these things from happening have stopped working. Today, the UN Security Council and the UN no longer function,” Lula said.

His remarks come amid ongoing tensions between Israel and Brazil over the South American country’s stance on Gaza and repeated accusations that Israel is committing genocide, charges that Jerusalem vociferously reject.


IDF strikes in central Gaza, says it foiled imminent Islamic Jihad attack
The IDF killed a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist in the Nuseirat area in central Gaza, the military said Saturday night.

The airstrike was led by the military's Southern Command, which has also deployed troops in the area in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, the military added.

The IDF said that the terrorist was planning to carry out an attack against Israeli forces.

Hamas vs other terror groups' grip on Gaza
A report from the Wall Street Journal earlier this month said that many terrorists are realigning themselves with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terror groups should Hamas loosen its grip on Gaza, according to the report.

However, a report on Saturday from The Telegraph said that Hamas is working to reassert itself as the dominant ruling force of the Palestinian territory.

Hamas has also been amping up public executions and beatings, and has targeted opposing clans in Gaza.

The IDF previously stated that it will begin re-enforcing the Gaza ceasefire on Sunday, after Hamas had violated it by killing two soldiers. In response to Hamas's violation of the agreement, the IDF carried out “a series of strikes” against targets in southern Gaza.


Subversion of thought as a strategy to delegitimize Israel, undermine the West
Trump’s peace arrangement and regional realignment
The relevance of these digital influence operations has intensified with the implementation of the Trump administration’s “peace” arrangement and the entry of Qatar and Turkey as major regional players. These developments represent the culmination of years of sophisticated influence campaigns successfully repositioning these jihadist-aligned actors as legitimate mediators and stakeholders in Middle Eastern peace processes.

Western leaders’ curious willingness to embrace these actors as partners reflects the profound success of the very influence operations documented here—operations fundamentally altering Western perceptions of Middle Eastern dynamics and appropriate policy responses.

This geopolitical shift illustrates how digital manipulation campaigns can achieve long-term strategic objectives that extend far beyond immediate opinion polling. By systematically eroding support for Israel while normalizing jihadist-aligned regimes as legitimate actors, these operations created conditions for dramatic policy realignments inconceivable absent sustained digital influence.

Qatar and Turkey’s integration into formal peace arrangements represents not diplomatic pragmatism, but rather the successful exploitation of manipulated public opinion and compromised decision-making processes—precisely the vulnerabilities this analysis identifies.

Conclusion
The systematic exploitation of Western digital infrastructure by jihadist-aligned state actors represents a fundamental challenge to democratic discourse and strategic stability. The financial resources committed—with Iran allocating $600 million annually to propaganda and Qatar investing billions through Al Jazeera—reflect the strategic priority these regimes place on ideological warfare through technological means.

The sophistication of AI integration, synthetic media production and behavioral manipulation techniques reveals adversary capabilities surpassing most Western countermeasures.

The measurable success in modifying Western public opinion, particularly among university-aged demographics, creates cascading effects that persist throughout educational institutions, political processes and policy development for decades. The co-optation of climate activism, LGBTQ+ rights movements and other social justice causes reveals a strategic understanding of Western political psychology, enabling influence operations to achieve objectives through indirect manipulation.

The Stanford Internet Observatory’s documentation of Iranian networks producing over 560,000 tweets through 238 coordinated accounts, combined with widespread AI-generated synthetic media, reveals a technological manipulation scale that current regulatory frameworks weren’t designed to address.

Whether Western democracies can develop and implement countermeasures that preserve democratic values while addressing sophisticated technological manipulation has become a vital and urgent question—the resolution of which will determine the future integrity of democratic governance in the digital age.

We are witnessing how the entire world’s opinion is being manipulated by advanced social media campaigns to accept patently false and manufactured stories designed to achieve specific partisan political and often military agendas. We are also witnessing how social media has successfully redefined the terms we use to communicate, adapting them to suit particular agendas.

“Genocide,” “Apartheid,” “Starvation” and “Zionism” are examples of insidious efforts to undermine our civilization.

The dramatic effects of sophisticated technological manipulation on society as a whole—whether in academia, media, polling booths or in the determination and conduct of foreign policy by governments—require urgent consideration and practical remedial action before it is too late.
The Free Press: How Israel Fatally Underestimated Hamas | Yaakov Katz
For years, no one believed Hamas wanted—or was even capable of—crossing the border into Israel.

Yaakov Katz has just cowritten the definitive account of what went wrong on October 7: the false assumptions, the ignored intelligence, the absence of human sources, and the political and military failures that led to the largest targeted massacre of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust.

Rafaela Siewert sits down with Katz to understand how Israel’s weakest enemy pulled off one of the most devastating attacks in its history—and what must change to ensure it never happens again.


The Real 'Conspiracy' Israel Haters Miss (At Their Own Risk)
According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, a growing number of otherwise marginal right-wing voices are joining forces with most of those on the left to bash Zionism and Israel. He is joined in this week’s episode of Think Twice by Breitbart.com’s Joel Pollak who believes that Zionism isn’t just a movement of Jewish rights but a model for how every group and nation can emphasize success rather than a harmful focus on being victims.

Pollak is the author of the newly republished book The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You and believes that instead of demonizing Zionism, the rest of the world, including the Palestinians, ought to learn from it. In his view, it provides a model for empowering and bettering the lives of non-Jewish minorities who are otherwise mired in divisive minority-group woke politics.

He sees anti-Zionism from the left as, in part, derived from anti-American ideas that oppose all successful nations as morally suspect. And the hatred for Israel that has surged in the last two years is rooted in a desire to spread fear among Jews.

The anti-Israel attitudes that are coming from the right are partially the result of traditional antisemitism and also based in envy of Israel as well as delusional conspiracy theories about the Jewish state controlling the United States. Those who oppose Israel are also putting themselves on the wrong side of history and opposing President Donald Trump, which is a certain loser for conservatives.

Tobin and Pollak disagreed about how to handle people like podcaster and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the openly antisemitic Candace Owens. Pollak sees Carlson’s anti-Israel attitudes and platforming of antisemitic guests including Holocaust deniers as the result of the Anti-Defamation League’s attacks on him before he was openly antisemitic.

Tobin believes that Carlson was always an opponent of Israel and that his departure from Fox News just removed the guardrails that existed there which deterred him from platforming hatemongers in the way that he does now in his podcast. Tobin believes that prominent conservatives need to denounce antisemitism even when it comes from friends and allies. Pollak prefers to accentuate the positive and thinks it’s not too late for Carlson to change but agrees that even a “big tent” has walls, meaning that some things must always be unacceptable.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Who’s Winning the Soul of Conservatism?
02:30 Why Zionism—And Why Now?
07:10 Zionism as Self-Transformation (Beyond Victimhood)
12:05 Israel’s Future Focus: Demographics, Family, Innovation
18:40 “Apartheid” & Settler-Colonial Myths—Joel’s Rebuttal
24:15 Anti-Semitism as Strategy After Oct 7—Fear as the Point
31:00 The Right’s Rift: Tucker, Candace & Calling Out Anti-Semitism
39:20 Universalizing Zionism: Lessons for Palestinians & the West
47:10 Trump, Gaza “Dubai” Vision & the Pro-Israel Coalition
55:00 Final Takeaways, Book & Where to Follow Joel




Israel’s Enemies Aren’t Done Yet—And the Region Could Pay the Price (w/Jonathan Schanzer)
Host Emily Schrader, journalist and Middle East commentator, takes a hard look at the moral confusion plaguing major international outlets from the BBC to the New York Times as they report on the Israel-Hamas hostage deal. This isn’t just bad journalism; it’s dangerous disinformation. Schrader breaks down how convicted murderers responsible for deadly suicide bombings like Imad Kawasme and Iyad Abu Arub are now being falsely equated with kidnapped Israeli civilians.

Joining the show is Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Treasury Department. Schanzer offers critical insight into the global security risks posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, the mechanics of U.S. sanctions and how Hamas continues to operate with impunity even during so-called ceasefires. Together, Schrader and Schanzer discuss whether the cycle of hostage deals and mass terrorist releases is sustainable, and what deterrence might actually look like in a region held hostage by proxy terror regimes.

This episode also covers:
The moral asymmetry between Israeli hostages and Palestinian terrorists
Ongoing ceasefire violations and executions inside Gaza by Hamas
The viral disinformation campaign hijacking Holocaust language and imagery to support Hamas
Shocking footage of Hamas executing suspected collaborators in Gaza under the cover of a ceasefire
The visa scandal surrounding Hamas-aligned “photojournalist” Motaz Azaiza now touring the U.S.

CHAPTERS
00:00 – Intro & Episode Overview
02:15 – Hostages vs. Terrorists: The Media’s Confusing Narrative
08:30 – Case Study: Imad Kawasme & Iyad Abu Arub released in hostage deal
13:45 – Kidnapped Israelis: From Nova Music Festival to tunnels
18:50 – Guest Segment Begins: Jonathan Schanzer on Iran & Regional Threats
24:10 – Can the West Distinguish Terror from Victimhood?
29:35 – Ceasefire in Gaza? The Reality of Hamas Executions & Control
34:55 – UK & Campus Anti‑Semitism: Football, Universities and Smear Campaigns
40:20 – Sanctions, Iran’s Proxy Wars & What Comes Next
45:00 – Closing Thoughts & Call to Action




Israel Advocacy Movement: Israeli DESTROYS Palestinians in Debate… Then Something Unbelievable Happens
Apologies about their internet connection, they were on 3G. But I really appreciated these guys and would happily meet them in Ramallah for a coffee (so if anyone recognises them hit me up!).


Israel Advocacy Movement: Far-Right Trolls Picked the WRONG Jew to Troll… And Instantly Regret It

Israel Advocacy Movement: They Tried Lying About Islam… To The Wrong Jew



NYPost Editorial: It’s not ‘Islamophobic’ to notice Mamdani hates Israel and the West
Democrats’ meltdown over “Islamophobic” comments allegedly chuckled over by Andrew Cuomo is a foretaste of a future Mamdani mayoralty: Expect all criticism of the devoutly anti-Zionist socialist to be denounced as attacks on his religion.

Let’s be clear: Calling Zohran Mamdani an anti-American supporter of terrorism has nothing to do with his religion and everything to do with his record of statements, actions and associations.

It was Mamdani who wrote and sang a rap song giving his “love” to the Holy Land Five, American Hamas financers convicted and sent to prison for up to 65 years.

It is also Mamdani who is buddies with “brocaster” Hasan Piker, who believes that “America deserved 9/11.”

Mamdani also posed for pictures with Hasan while the streamer wore a “Did jet fuel melt steel beams?” T-shirt — a meme associated with the “9/11 truth” movement which denies that jihadists were behind the attacks.

He also embraces Siraj Wahhaj, a radical Brooklyn cleric, unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and character witness for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “blind sheik” convicted on a host of terrorism charges who finished his life in prison.

It’s no secret that Mamdani’s political awakening and career have been focused on the eradication of Zionism. He got himself arrested outside Sen. Chuck Schumer’s house at a “Stop Genocide” protest less than a week after the Oct. 7 attacks, when the “genocide” had scarcely begun.

The list goes on.
Zohran Mamdani’s UWS dad claims Nazis learned to commit atrocities from US — including ethnic cleansing
Zohran Mamdani’s dad claims the Nazis took direct cues from the United States’ “history of genocide, ethnic cleansing, official racism and concentration camps.”

Mamdani, 34, has often credited his father as his greatest influence, but in the elder Mamdani’s politically charged writings, he takes a dim view of the Western culture he happily lives in on the Upper West Side.

Radical socialist Mahmood Mamdani, 79, goes as far as to claim at one point that the Nazis got their idea for killing Jews from watching the US.

“The Allies who prosecuted individual Nazis at Nuremberg were invested in ignoring Nazism’s political roots, for these roots were also America’s,” he wrote in one of his books.

“The United States is the outcome of a history of genocide, ethnic cleansing, official racism and concentration camps (known as Indian reservations).”

That book, “Neither Settler Nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities,” is dedicated to Zohran Mamdani. And, in the acknowledgments, the elder Mamdani exhorts his son to revolution.

“And Zohran, our son, who understands that the time has come to go out and join those impatient to change the world,” he wrote.
How ‘antisemitic’ activist Linda Sarsour nurtured socialist Zohran Mamdani’s NYC mayoral bid
Antisemitic activist Linda Sarsour isn’t just playing a big role in Zohran Mamdani’s NYC’s mayoral campaign — she’s been a political mentor and close friend of the silver-spoon socialist for nearly a decade and helped guide his far-left hatred of Israel, according to a foreign intelligence report and critics.

Mamdani’s propensity for making pie-in-the-sky Marxist campaign promises date back to his high school days when he made a failed bid for student government with a “fresh juice for all” campaign.

However, it was the Hamas-supporting, Palestinian-American firebrand Sarsour who helped nuture the 34-year-old into the radical mayoral frontrunner he is today, according to a foreign intelligence service report obtained by The Post.

”Zohran Mamdani’s candidacy is linked closely within a network of Islamist figures and organizations with extremist associations,” says the document, which names notorious Brooklyn Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who once urged “jihad” on New York City.

“His reliance on Linda Sarsour as a mentor, and her own allegiance to . . . Wahhaj, situates Mamdani within the ideological chain of influence extending from Wahhaj’s radical teachings to the political sphere of New York City,” the document reads.

Sara Forman, executive director of the pro-Israel New York Solidarity Network, called Sarsour “one of the main antagonists for normalizing anti-Israel rhetoric in New York’s public sphere.”
Zohran Mamdani’s History of Showing Support for Muslim ‘Extremists’
Zohran Mamdani, the leading candidate in next month’s mayoral election, has frequently dodged questions on whether he supports Hamas. In an interview with Fox News, he refused to say if the terrorist group should lay down their arms and relinquish their leadership of Gaza. He claimed not to have opinions “about the future of Hamas and Israel beyond the question of justice and safety.” However, a review of his associations suggests he has supported Muslim “extremists” — some of whom are linked to terrorists.


Revealed: Woman who spat on Israeli hostages poster is pole-dancing model who tells fans: 'I will only kiss you if you want a free Palestine'
A pro-Palestinian supporter who repeatedly spat on a poster calling for the release of Israeli hostages while proclaiming 'F*** Israel' has been unmasked as an exotic dancer who once teased her social media fans: 'I will only kiss you if you want a free Palestine'.

The Daily Mail can now reveal the young woman captured in shocking footage taken in north London is a 27-year-old pole dancer and model who goes by the name 'Scarlett Ankha' on her socials.

Video of the disturbing incident shows the young brunette woman with blonde highlights hawking her saliva before attempting to scrape the sticker off an advertising display outside Hendon Central underground station.

When she realised she was being filmed, the woman held up her middle finger towards the hostage poster featuring a yellow ribbon before telling her shocked bystanders: 'F*** Israel, f*** every dirty nasty Israeli piece of s***'.

The yellow ribbon is the symbol of the 'Bring Them Home' campaign for the hostages who were taken by Hamas terrorists and held captive in Gaza.

A distinctive tattoo appearing on the woman's left hand in the video corresponds with a tattoo seen on Scarlett's left hand in a post on her Instagram account.

Metropolitan Police confirmed it is investigating the incident, which occurred on Sunday around 11pm, as a hate crime.


Netanyahu hung in effigy in Turkey
An effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was hung on Friday from a crane in the city of Trabzon in Turkey with a sign above it that read, “Death penalty for Netanyahu.”

The effigy was apparently noosed and hooded. The display, situated in the city on the shores of the Black Sea, was documented in local media and on social networks.

The anti-Israel message was initiated by Kemal Sağlam, a lecturer at Artvin Çoruh University, who said it was a protest against “the violation of the right to life of women, children and innocent civilians in Gaza,” according to Israel’s Channel 12 News.

He added, “The world cannot remain silent in the face of this crime. This is a symbolic call—the real trials should take place in international courts.”

The report said that while the display sparked widespread reactions in the country, it did not elicit denunciations from the authorities.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke on Saturday at the Istanbul Congress Centre in Istanbul, saying that no diplomatic resolution can be reached in the region, from Syria to Gaza and from the Gulf to the war in Ukraine, without the involvement of Turkey, Turkish public broadcaster TRT World reported.

“With common will, we will first build a terror-free Turkey, then a terror-free region as our lasting legacy to the nation’s children,” he was quoted as saying.

He added that his country was transforming into a “global power.”




Crypto For Caliphate: New York Man Convicted Of Funneling Bitcoin To ISIS
A federal jury delivered a decisive blow to terror financing on Friday, convicting Abdullah At Taqi, 26, of Queens, on all counts for conspiring and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and conspiring to launder money.

The verdict follows a detailed investigation that exposed the defendant’s sophisticated use of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to bankroll the designated foreign terrorist organization.

At Taqi, along with co-defendant Mohamad David Hashimi, channeled thousands of dollars to an ISIS member, Osama Obeida, over nearly a year. Hashimi, whose jury selection was slated to begin on October 6, previously pled guilty to all charges. A third defendant, Seema Rahman, also pled guilty earlier this year. Digital Dollars for Death and Destruction

Prosecutors presented compelling evidence demonstrating At Taqi’s role as a financial pipeline for ISIS. Over the course of the conspiracy, he sent 15 separate Bitcoin transactions to Obeida, whom he confirmed in conversations was “from Dawlah”—a reference to ISIS.

The defendants were meticulous, believing that electronic currency would allow their transfers to go “unnoticed.” At Taqi confessed to an online confidential source (CHS-1) that he was using a “brother,” or ISIS supporter, on an encrypted platform to send the funds.

This “brother” was Obeida, who vouched for the money’s purpose by sending a photograph of an ISIS flag and weapons to CHS-1, asserting that money from supporters was used to procure arms for fighters.

“Their intent was to procure weapons for terrorism and now their actions will result in incarceration,” said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, underscoring the severity of the crimes.


Skewering antisemites and sexists, a chess queen recounts her journey to the top
Susan Polgar would go to the ends of the earth to raise awareness of the game of chess. There was the event in Florida where she played 326 matches simultaneously, setting a world record. And there was the tournament in Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico, highlighted by a swarm of bats and another record — the world’s lowest-elevation chess tournament.

Maybe it’s no surprise that she’s participated in such endeavors, because the Jewish Hungarian-American grandmaster has had to go to great personal lengths to play — and win — at the highest levels. It’s all told in her new memoir, published in March, “Rebel Queen: The Cold War, Misogyny, and the Making of a Grandmaster,” published by Grand Central. The book is described as “a real-life ‘Queen’s Gambit,’” a nod to the popular Netflix series.

“No matter what I faced — sexism, antisemitism and unfairness, all the difficult things you read about in the book — I managed to overcome it,” Polgar told The Times of Israel in a phone interview.

“If you’re passionate for something, willing to work hard at it, if you persevere, if you’re patient, if you follow through, nothing is impossible,” she said, calling this a “simple but powerful message.”

Born Zsuzsa Polgar in 1969, the future grandmaster grew up in Cold War Hungary, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. At 4 years old, she started playing chess and excelled at the game from a young age, along with her two younger sisters, under the tutelage of their father Laszlo, who sought to prove that genius could be drilled into children.

There was stunning success — earning a No. 1 world ranking at age 15 in 1984, making her the youngest person ever to do so — but also frustration when, in 1986, she qualified for the Men’s World Championship only to be excluded because she was a woman. Ultimately, no one could stop Polgar from establishing a glittering resume. That includes becoming, in January 1991, the first female to earn grandmaster status after satisfying the three customary requirements for male players.

“Becoming a grandmaster had been my dream for a long, long time,” she said, “pretty much since I started playing chess competitively. To be honest, I was shocked to learn no woman had ever achieved that feat prior to me.”

But according to the book, the family battled hostility from the get-go from Hungarian officials who viewed the Polgars as insubordinate to state policy when it came to chess. The bone of contention, writes Polgar, was her desire to compete in men’s tournaments, contending that the competition was stiffer due to the relative lack of female players.




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