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Wednesday, November 05, 2025

11/05 Links Pt2: Zohran Mamdani’s Ivy League intifada; The BBC’s Threat to British Democracy; BDS fail: UK-Israel trade GREW; Hollywood A-listers face 'antisemitism' blacklist

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: Zohran Mamdani’s Ivy League intifada
Mamdani was swept into the political limelight on a wave of privileged resentment. The depthless self-pity of downwardly mobile millennials meshed with the hipster intifada triggered by the events of 7 October 2023, creating the perfect conditions for the rise of this anti-Zio, woe-is-me rich kid. Look, I agree there is a housing crisis, and that it is awful that so many twenty- and thirtysomethings look destined to rent forever. I just find it hard to sympathise with the section of that generation that has promoted climate alarmism and sneered at working-class Americans, thus making it less likely that mass house-building will take place while pissing off the men who would be called upon to do it.

The most galling thing about the Mamdani phenomenon is its claim to be a working-class uprising. Mamdani himself says he’ll fight for the working classes, though surely he’ll have to meet some of them first. The global left is gushing over his win as if it were New York’s equivalent of the Paris Commune. What we have here is the staggeringly dishonest co-option of class politics by an over-credentialled emergent elite who will in truth be pursuing their own Bushwick bullshit, not the improvement of the lot of New York’s workers. They cosplay as class warriors because that’s sexier than the reality – that they’re privileged members of an activist class that will cancel you if you say lesbians don’t have penises but love you if you say ‘Destroy Israel’.

Mamdani’s campaign has exposed how the faux-socialists of the burgeoning young elite really view the working classes – as the saps of history; as agency-lacking victims who require smart cookies from Brooklyn with two degrees in political studies to rescue them from the moral doldrums. Hence, Mamdani’s ‘working-class uprising’ involves talk of free bus travel and city-run grocery stores. It’s charity masquerading as revolution. To the Uber-taking arts crowd of the downtown Mamdani set, ‘working class’ means tragic little people who can’t afford the bus and who crave an apple from the government. Please stop calling paternalism ‘socialism’.

Across the Anglo-American world, a new class of overeducated, high-status influencers is cribbing from the language of socialism to push a politics that is anything but. Here in the UK you’ll see Oxbridge girls in ‘I’m Literally A Communist’ earrings who say ‘Up the working classes!’ and then faint when the oiks vote Reform. We have Your Party, the Jeremy Corbyn / Zarah Sultana outfit that poses as a class revolt when everyone knows their membership is 99 per cent angry graphic designers who can’t believe their Dalston rent went up again. And now we have Mamdani, mayor of a city with such a great history of working-class rebellion, who dons the mask of class to disguise his crusade of culture. I trust New York’s frank, free-speaking workers will soon see through this charade.
Seth Mandel: Your Friends and Neighbors in the Mamdani Era
It will be great if Mamdani is prevented from carrying out his Jews-on-the-brain agenda. It will be greater still if that happens because of the stiffened spines of American Jewish organizations. But what Mamdani’s election says about what is acceptable to New Yorkers will be much harder to undo. The future can be stymied, but the past cannot.

A good example of this is Mamdani’s campaign plank regarding BDS. The boycott-Israel movement has far more failures than successes, at least in America, but that’s because here it isn’t actually about trade policy. BDSniks in the U.S. don’t expect to destroy Israel’s trade position. BDS in the U.S. is first and foremost about making American Jews feel unwelcome and multiplying the number of environments that are explicitly hostile to them.

On Election Day, Mamdani reiterated his support for BDS on MSNBC. It is through that lens that he sees, for example, an opening to end economic partnerships with Israeli institutions, the most prominent of which is the Technion collaboration with Cornell University. That partnership was opened initially in 2012 by the Michael Bloomberg administration and permanently sited in 2017 under Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Aside from the educational benefits, the partnership has produced over 100 start-ups, 84 percent of which are based in New York, according to the Technion.

Mamdani also wants to end the New York City-Israel Economic Council and divest the city’s pension funds from Israel.

The point here is that although he has leveled even more wild-eyed threats—he vows to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for example—Israel and the Jews are the only subjects he talks about when he talks about populations he’d like New York to freeze out. Mamdani is not a “human rights activist,” he’s an anti-Israel extremist who uses the language of human rights to crusade against the one Jewish state. This single-minded obsession made even some of his allies in the legislature uncomfortable.

When Mamdani tried repeatedly to push a bill that would outlaw certain Jewish charities, for example, he failed to garner enough support because of how clearly targeted the legislation was. State Sen. Alex Bores, who backed Mamdani but not that particular bill, told the New York Times: “I view with suspicion bills that are written to target one specific country when they could easily be written broadly to apply to a problem.”

That is the sum total of Mamdani’s campaign—it’s about one country, one people. That creepy obsession made it impossible to argue that Mamdani is merely concerned about human rights or conflict prevention or anything else. That Mamdani ran on this obsession with Israel and won is going to make it difficult for Jews to see New York as the city they once knew.
Mamdani’s win shows how Jewish groups failed Jews by dismissing antisemitism on the left
For New York’s Jews, these are the worst of times and the best of times.

The worst part is obvious: it’s not just that 1 million of our neighbors sauntered to the ballot box and cast their votes for an anti-Semite who missed no opportunity to stand with terrorist sympathizers and Jew-haters; it’s also that our very own communal organizations, groups founded specifically to prevent a movement like Mamdani’s from rising, failed miserably.

The city with the largest Jewish population anywhere outside of Israel should’ve seen Mamdani coming. And its Jewish leaders should’ve done much better to stop him.

Instead, with few exceptions, these leaders equivocated. The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, for example, embraced a string of virulently anti-Israel Democrats, including Mamdani’s pal, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; President Trump wasn’t so lucky, receiving the group’s sharp criticism for his efforts to deport illegal migrants and keep our borders safe.

The Anti-Defamation League did even worse. The group, previously one of the most revered Jewish organizations nationwide, spent the last few years turning itself into a full-blown arm of the Democrat Party, releasing reports, for example, that argue that anti-Semitism is a problem exclusively on the right and not, say, on radically progressive college campuses.

And as one researcher reported in Tablet Magazine last week, even the group’s attempts to educate Americans about anti-Semitism are a disaster: people who completed the ADL’s anti-anti-Semitism curriculum were 15 times more, not less, likely to express anti-Jewish sentiments.

None of this is hard to understand. For years, America’s organized Jewish community sang the tunes of the left, focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion even as their so-called allies informed them in no uncertain terms that Jews no longer have a place in the gorgeous mosaic of aggrieved minorities orchestrated by the Democrats.

For Mamdani’s victory to have any meaning, then, these organizations and the individuals that lead them must face a very serious reckoning.

In the days after the October 7, 2023 massacre, Israelis spoke of the Konseptsiya, or the thwarted, idealistic worldview that led so many of them to fail to see Hamas’s preparations for the attack.

New York’s Jews now have a Konseptsiya of their own to grapple with, a wrestling that should lead them to hold their leaders accountable. If done right, this process could lead to new and better organizations skeptical of partisan affiliations and dedicated to finding new and faithful partners outside of the traditional political coalitions convened long ago by the left.

So much for the worst of times.


Kevin Roberts admits ‘mistake’ but says not stepping down at fiery Heritage all-staff meeting
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, told the conservative think tank’s staff on Wednesday morning that he would not resign amid fallout from a video he released in which he defended former Fox News host and current political commentator Tucker Carlson’s interview with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.

JNS obtained a recording of the confidential, in-house meeting, in which Roberts conceded that he had “made a mistake” backing Carlson in the social-media video that he posted on Thursday.

“I didn’t know much about this Fuentes guy. I still don’t, which underscores the mistake,” Roberts said. “I realized in prayer and in conversations with a lot of friends and colleagues that, in fact, if I made the mess, my moral obligation is to clean it.”

Roberts also apologized for referring to Carlson’s critics as a “venomous coalition,” which he called a “terrible choice of words” and for which he apologized, recognizing that many Jews could interpret the phrase as an antisemitic trope.

During a question-and-answer session that lasted more than an hour, two staff members told Roberts that they no longer had confidence in his leadership. Others expressed doubts that Heritage could repair its reputation without a clear denunciation of Carlson.

Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at Heritage, told Roberts that many of her colleagues believed that he should resign but are afraid to say so.

“Dr. Roberts, over the last week, you have shown a stunning lack of both courage and judgment,” Swearer said. “There’s nothing ambiguous about what we saw happen. Tucker Carlson invited a Holocaust-denying neo-Nazi onto his show and then spent roughly two hours doing little more than flirting with him.”

Roberts also had many supporters among those who asked questions in the panel session, including those who supported his original video and were opposed to steps that the foundation had proposed to foster better understanding between Christians and Jews.

“A handful of young colleagues and I had no issue with the points you made in the original video,” one unidentified female staffer said. “Gen Z has an increasingly unfavorable view of Israel, and it’s not because millions of Americans are antisemitic. It’s because we are Catholic and Orthodox and believe that Christian Zionism is a modern heresy.”
‘I Made A Mistake’: Heritage Foundation President Apologizes to Staff for Video Refusal to Cancel Tucker Carlson and Throws Shade at Former Chief of Staff
He added that he wasn’t actually very familiar with the white nationalist, Stalin fan, and J.D. Vance critic Nick Fuentes, with whom Carlson conducted a friendly interview last week on his podcast, though Roberts has spoken several times in recent days about the size of Fuentes’s audience and argued that "canceling" him, given his listenership, which Roberts pegged at 5 million people, will simply make him more popular.

"I didn’t know much about this Fuentes guy," he said. "I still don’t."

A spokeswoman for the Heritage Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Roberts used his remarks to explain how the video came to be posted. "This is an explanation, not an excuse," he said, telling staffers that the think tank was under pressure to "make a statement" that Carlson was "no longer part of the conservative movement."

Roberts said his former chief of staff, Ryan Neuhaus, who has since resigned, wrote the script for the video and deceived him into believing colleagues had approved the message. "Our former chief of staff had the pen," he said. "When the script was presented to me … I understood from our former colleague that it was approved, it was signed off on by the handful of colleagues who are part of that. Still my fault, I should have had the wisdom to say, ‘Time out, let’s double check this.’"

He went on to apologize for the use of the term "venomous coalition," describing it as a "terrible choice of words, especially for our Jewish colleagues and friends," adding that his friend, the Israeli-American scholar Yoram Hazony, the author of The Virtue of Nationalism, traveled to Washington, D.C., to help him stem the self-inflicted crisis.

Roberts took questions from the audience, including from Robert Rector, a welfare scholar, who described himself as a 47-year veteran of the Heritage Foundation—"longer than most of you have been alive," he said.

He harkened back to William F. Buckley Jr., the National Review founder. "I hope you know who he is," Rector said. "The boundaries that he set forth, William Buckley, in the early 1960s, were twofold. You have to expunge all anti-Semitism, all of it. But that’s just part of it … the other is you have to expel the lunatics. Ok? The lunatics who think that Eisenhower is a communist. And we have them back now. Ok? They are both here, back, just the way they were in 1959. And we have to go back and set the general parameters. You say, ‘Oh, we don’t cancel.’ We do cancel. Did we cancel David Duke? Yes. Did we cancel the John Birch Society? Yes, ok. Because they were harmful. Because if they’re in your movement you look like clowns. The issue here is Tucker Carlson … Tucker’s show is like stepping into a lunatic asylum."


Localize the Intifada: Mamdani Seizes New York City Mayoralty
Mamdani's history of radical anti-Israel rhetoric has caused concern for Jewish New Yorkers since he began his campaign. He has refused to condemn slogans like "globalize the intifada," instead telling a group of New York CEOs that he stands by "the idea." He has also pledged to arrest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu should he visit New York and campaigned with a radical Islamist cleric who once urged "jihad" against the city Mamdani will now lead.

During his time in the New York State Assembly, Mamdani sponsored legislation that would have barred New York-based charities from working with Israel and declined to support Holocaust remembrance measures.

Mamdani said during a 2017 podcast appearance that he has helped his father, Mahmood, edit his speeches and writings in an effort to "stay engaged" with his work. The elder Mamdani, a radical Columbia University professor, has called for a "Third Intifadah against settler colonialism," described suicide bombers as a "category of soldier," and wrote shortly after 9/11 that there was a "moral equivalence" between the al Qaeda attack and retaliatory U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, the Free Beacon reported.

He devoted his most recent book, Slow Poison, to defending Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Amin, often known as the "Butcher of Uganda," was responsible for the killings of about half a million people during his eight-year reign. Mahmood Mamdani calls Amin's expulsion of Uganda's Asian population—described in the book as "captive to a self-aggrandizing elite"—one of the projects that helped make the dictator "the father of the Ugandan nation."

Mamdani's radical history earned him public condemnation from rabbis across the religious spectrum, with more than 1,000 signing an open letter opposing his candidacy.

"When public figures like New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani refuse to condemn violent slogans, deny Israel's legitimacy, and accuse the Jewish state of genocide, they, in the words of New York Board of Rabbis president Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, 'Delegitimize the Jewish community and encourage and exacerbate hostility toward Judaism and Jews,'" the letter reads.
Honest Reporting: Media Amnesia: Zohran Mamdani’s Extremism Forgotten as Pro-BDS Socialist Wins New York City Mayor
The clean-up has begun.

As votes rolled in and it became clear that Democrat nominee Zohran Mamdani had secured the landslide victory long predicted, the media whitewash was already underway.

Mamdani’s rise – from relative unknown to mayor of America’s largest city – is, politically speaking, extraordinary. He won more votes than any candidate in a New York City mayoral race in 50 years.

But it was also a campaign haunted by allegations of antisemitism, anti-Israel extremism, and sympathy for radical Islamist movements. Those allegations were well-founded, which is precisely why the media – until now – felt obliged at least to mention them, if only to dismiss them as “smears.”

Now that he’s won, even that pretense of scrutiny is vanishing.

The Record the Media Are Erasing
These facts are not in dispute – and they have all been previously documented by HonestReporting and others:
May 2021 – Pro-Palestinian rally, Manhattan:
Led BDS chants and attacked city officials who traveled to Israel.

Aug 4–6, 2023 – DSA National Convention, Chicago:
“When the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.” (Video resurfaced Oct 2025)

2023–2025 – Multiple posts and interviews:
Repeatedly labeled Israel an “apartheid” state and accused the U.S. of “subsidizing genocide.”

June 5, 2025 – Media interview:
Refused to affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, saying instead that he supports “a state with equal rights for all” and opposes any “hierarchy of citizenship… on the basis of religion.”

June 8, 2025 – Cornell Tech boycott call:
Urged a boycott over the university’s partnership with Israel’s Technion.

June 2025 – NBC’s “Meet the Press”:
Refused to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada,” saying it’s “not language I use,” but stopping short of disavowing it.

July 16, 2025 – Private meeting:
Said he wouldn’t use the phrase “globalize the intifada” going forward, but defended it as “a protest slogan against occupation.”

Oct 1–2, 2025 – ABC’s The View:
Called the Gaza war a “genocide” to audience applause.

Oct 7, 2025 – Statement on the anniversary of Oct. 7:
Blamed Prime Minister Netanyahu for a “genocidal war” and accused the U.S. of complicity.

Oct 27–28, 2025 – Debate fallout:
Told an emotional story about a hijab-wearing “aunt” who stopped riding the subway after 9/11 over “Islamophobia” fears – but discrepancies later emerged, forcing him to walk back the claim and clarify that he had actually been referring to a cousin.

Nov 4, 2025 – MSNBC’s Morning Joe:
Declared, “I support BDS.”


Jewish fire commissioner of NYC resigns day after Mamdani win
Robert Tucker, who is Jewish, submitted his resignation as New York City fire commissioner “first thing” on Wednesday morning, hours after Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of the city, the New York Post reported.

Sources told the paper that Tucker will step down on Dec. 19 and will go back to running a private security firm that he led prior to joining the Fire Department.

Tucker was sworn in on his personal Hebrew Bible from his bar mitzvah as the 35th commissioner of the New York City Fire Department in August.

“News of Tucker’s resignation came just as the FDNY boss was set to fly to Israel later Wednesday to meet with a fire commissioner in the Jewish state,” the Post reported.
Deputy FM says election of Zohran Mamdani in NYC is ‘deeply concerning’
Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel slams the election of far-left Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani’s as New York City’s next mayor, calling it “deeply concerning given his history of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rhetoric.”

“New York’s Jewish community deserves leaders who protect them — not target them. Israel stands with our brothers and sisters in New York and will continue working with community leaders to ensure their safety and dignity,” she says in a statement.

Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu slams Mamdani’s Jewish supporters, accusing them of having “raised their hands in support of antisemitism in the heart of America.”

“‘Jews who hate Jews’ have existed among us since the dawn of our history” and “we see them also in Israel,” he says in a statement, tying the New York election to the controversy regarding alleged IDF abuse of detainees at the Sde Teiman military base and declaring that “antisemitism that speaks Hebrew is the most dangerous of all.”
Conference of Presidents notes ‘grim milestone’ in election of Mamdani as NYC mayor
The election of Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist with a history of anti-Israel rhetoric, as mayor of New York City “marks a grim milestone,” the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations stated on Wednesday.

“The city with the United States’ largest Jewish population will now be led by a man whose record and rhetoric reflect hostility toward Israel and the Jewish people,” wrote William Daroff and Betsy Berns Korn, CEO and chair, respectively, of the Conference of Presidents.

“Zohran Mamdani’s elevation to Gracie Mansion reminds us that antisemitism remains a clear and present danger, even in the places where American Jews have long felt most secure,” read the statement. “There can be no compromise with an ideology that demonizes or ostracizes Jews and Israelis.”

The statement added that the organization will “remain unwavering” in its commitment to the Jewish community, demanding “moral clarity and decisive action from every level of government.”

“Our response to this ominous moment will be to strengthen activism, advocacy and coordination across New York’s Jewish communities, ensuring that every institution and family feels supported and protected,” it stated.


ADL to launch ‘Mamdani monitor,’ Jew-hatred tipline
Hours after Zohran Mamdani, an anti-Israel, self-identified socialist, was elected mayor of New York City, the Anti-Defamation League said that it is launching a tip line for city residents to reported Jew-hatred and a “Mamdani monitor.”

The latter will be a “public-facing tracker monitoring policies, appointments and actions by the Mamdani administration that impact Jewish community safety and security.”

“Drawing from tipline reports as well as enhanced ADL research capabilities, this Mamdani Monitor will provide transparency around City Hall decisions affecting Jewish New Yorkers, including education policy, budget priorities and security measures,” the nonprofit said.

The ADL also said that it will create a “hyper-focused” and “dedicated New York City citywide antisemitism tipline” and will debut “new research capabilities,” including “early-warning research into policies, mayoral appointments and funding decisions coming from City Hall that could impact Jewish community interests.”

“Mayor-Elect Mamdani has promoted antisemitic narratives, associated with individuals who have a history of antisemitism and demonstrated intense animosity toward the Jewish state that is counter to the views of the overwhelming majority of Jewish New Yorkers,” stated Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the ADL.

“We are deeply concerned that those individuals and principles will influence his administration at a time when we are tracking a brazen surge of harassment, vandalism and violence targeting Jewish residents and institutions in recent years,” he said.

“We expect the mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population in the world to stand unequivocally against antisemitism in all its varied forms and support all of its Jewish residents just as he would all other constituents,” he added. “We will hold the Mamdani Administration accountable to this basic standard.”


Vandals Paint Red Swastikas on Brooklyn Jewish School Hours After Mamdani’s Election
Red swastikas were graffitied on a Jewish day school in Brooklyn just hours after Zohran Mamdani (D.) was elected New York City’s next mayor. Mamdani, a socialist who has long faced scrutiny over his anti-Semitic rhetoric, has not commented on the vandalism.

Parents dropping off their children at Magen David Yeshiva were met with at least four swastikas painted on the building’s walls Wednesday morning, Yeshiva World News reported. The school covered the graffiti with an Israeli flag and paper as a temporary fix.

No arrests have been made and a hate crime investigation is ongoing, a New York City Police Department spokesperson told the Washington Free Beacon. Magen David Yeshiva is home to over 1,200 students and is one of the largest Sephardic Jewish schools in the city, according to Yeshiva World News.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) tied the vandalism to Mamdani and criticized the socialist mayor-elect and New York governor Kathy Hochul (D.), who endorsed Mamdani, for failing to condemn the hateful act.

"This is reprehensible and unacceptable and should serve as a wake-up call that Mamdani is ushering in the pro-terrorist antisemitic takeover of NYC aided and abetted by the Worst Governor in America @KathyHochul," Stefanik posted on X. "Both Mamdani and Hochul are SILENT and have failed to condemn."


Hollywood A-listers face 'antisemitism' blacklist
Hollywood's most progressive stars could have trouble finding work soon if a rumored new antisemitism 'blacklist' is to be believed.

According to Variety, Paramount, under the new leadership of Trump-friendly billionaire heir David Ellison, is cracking down on actors who may be too political or problematic in their views.

The publication claims that stars deemed to be 'overtly antisemitic', 'xenophobic' and even 'homophobic' are all on a list of talent that they will not work with.

In September, Paramount became the first major studio to condemn an open-letter signed by A-listers that called for a boycott of Israeli film institutions implicated in 'genocide and apartheid' against Palestinians.

Some of the big names that signed the letter include Emma Stone, Javier Bardem, Mark Ruffalo, Tilda Swinton, Hannah Einbinder, Aimee Lou Wood, Peter Sarsgaard, Rooney Mara, and Oscar-winning director Yorgos Lanthimos.
BDS fail: UK-Israel trade GREW in the last year, government figures show
New figures from the British government show that the UK’s trade with Israel increased over the last year, despite concerted efforts by boycott campaigns to damage trade ties between the two countries.

Data released by the UK’s Department for Business and Trade (DBT) showed that total trade in goods and services (exports plus imports) between the UK and Israel was £6.2 billion in the four quarters to the end of the second quarter of 2025, an increase of 3.7% or £218 million in current prices from the equivalent period the previous year.

Of that £6.2 billion figure, UK exports to Israel made up £3.6 billion, while UK imports from Israel made up £2.6 billion. While imports from Israel decreased slightly, this was more than made up for by the increase in exports to Israel.

Responding to the latest figures, Russell Langer, Director of Public Affairs at the Jewish Leadership Council, said: “It is encouraging to see trade between the UK and Israel increase by £218 million this year. A strong economic and strategic relationship with Israel delivers real benefits for the British economy and supports our partnership with a key democratic ally.

“These figures also highlight that those using the conflict in Gaza to sow divisions between communities here in the UK through boycotts have failed. The government should now resume free trade negotiations for the benefit of British businesses and consumers.”
Seth Mandel: The BBC’s Threat to British Democracy
The plain fact is that, if this report is accurate, the BBC has perpetrated a massive fraud on its country. But the fraud is deeper because of the mandatory fees that force members of the public to fund the network. And unlike, say, NPR, the BBC is seen and understood as the public-news voice of the country, not some left-leaning competitor who happens to also get public funds.

The BBC’s readers, listeners, and viewers are well aware that the Beeb gets the story wrong constantly. But it now stands credibly accused of knowingly doing so. That is, simply making it up.

All this is happening amid a surge in anti-Semitism that is worming its way into the cultural fibers of the UK. The BBC’s behavior makes the state culpable in this.

What’s being described here isn’t “bias.” It’s regime propaganda—just propaganda from a different regime. The report, then, raises questions of basic sovereignty: Who is speaking to and for Britain?

Last year, I wrote about how threats from pro-Hamas voices in Britain had managed to scare the House of Commons into breaking its own norms so that members of Parliament could avoid uncomfortable votes. Now it turns out the state broadcaster is feeding the violent, anti-Semitic mobs Hamas propaganda.

A country whose public broadcaster is knowingly pushing foreign propaganda while that propaganda is endangering its own democratic governance is a state that is practically at war with itself. What line has to be crossed to convince London it faces a crisis of democracy? Because honestly, there are very few lines left uncrossed in today’s Britain.
Jonathan Sacerdoti: Enough: why the BBC has betrayed the public's trust
For decades, the BBC was seen as the gold standard of impartial journalism. As the Telegraph publishes details of a whistleblowers account of its bias, Jonathan Sacerdoti examines the claims that the broadcaster has drifted from its mission — replacing accuracy with activism, and silence with selective truth.


Rice University's SJP Chapter Attempts to Disrupt Event Featuring Former Hostage Omer Shem Tov
Former Hamas hostage Omer Shem Tov stood before an audience at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy on October 29, introducing himself as “a free man.” The 20-year-old had been kidnapped from the Nova music festival and held captive for 505 days. But Rice Students for Justice in Palestine—the campus organization that had celebrated the October 7 “resistance” just days after the massacre while bodies were still being counted—had planned to stage a walkout during the event.

Rice University Police Department Officer Ken Nipe confirmed the university had implemented a screening process for attendees— seemingly to avoid the group’s planned disruption during Shem Tov’s testimony. University administrators also contacted the group, informing them they would face disciplinary action if they attempted the unauthorized disruption.

In a statement to the Rice Thresher, SJP organizer Jorge Zazueta characterized the event as “Zionist propaganda and genocidal voices and messaging.”

505 Days in Captivity
Shem Tov recounted his experience during the event, describing being captured at the Supernova festival, where 370 people were killed in what became Israel’s single deadliest attack on civilians. During his captivity, he learned Arabic fluently by listening to his captors. Shem Tov has shared that while in captivity he experienced starvation, psychological torture, and constant threat of execution in while in the tunnels of Gaza.
Magnum Ice Cream says Ben & Jerry’s chair, an anti-Israel activist, unfit to serve
The Magnum Ice Cream Company has concluded that the chair of its Ben & Jerry’s independent board “no longer meets the criteria” to serve after internal investigations, according to a securities filing late on Tuesday, the latest twist in an internal feud.

The spat between Magnum and the Vermont-based Ben & Jerry’s brand is heating up as consumer goods conglomerate Unilever prepares for the spinoff of the Magnum ice cream division in early December, which has been delayed by a month due to the US government shutdown.

Until the spin-off, Ben & Jerry’s and Magnum are both ultimately owned by Unilever.

Ben & Jerry’s website names Anuradha Mittal, the executive director and founder of the Oakland Institute, a think tank, as chair of its independent board focused on advancing the brand’s progressive social mission.

Magnum said in a filing that after commissioning investigations by external advisers, it found that the current chair “no longer meets the criteria to serve as a member of the Ben & Jerry’s Board.” Magnum did not give any details on the nature of the investigations.

Unilever has previously said the board has evolved into advocacy for controversial and polarizing topics such as the war in Gaza, a change driven by Mittal, who spearheaded the ice cream company’s 2021 decision not to sell in the West Bank. She has also been accused in the past of self-dealing.

Magnum said in the filing that it informed Ben & Jerry’s board about the investigation and will consider its options depending on the response it receives.

It is unclear what action Magnum can take, however, as the board was set up to operate independently when Ben & Jerry’s was bought by Unilever 25 years ago.


Toronto synagogue vandalized for tenth time since October 7 as windows smashed with hammer
A vandal smashed the windows of the Kehilat Shaarei Torah synagogue with a hammer on Tuesday, according to the Toronto Police Service and the congregation, marking the tenth time that the Toronto synagogue has been defaced in a year and a half.

Five of the synagogue windows were broken before dawn by the vandal, who had slipped between the synagogue and its neighbour’s fence.

Police said they are looking for a suspect wearing a black hooded jacket, black pants, and dark shoes with white markings.

Kehilat Shaarei Torah executive director Michael Gilmore said that he suspected the vandal to be the same person who had defaced the synagogue between last April and May.

The synagogue was first vandalized on April 19 when its windows and doors were smashed with hammers. Before the act was repeated on May 17, a dead raccoon was placed on the synagogue lawn, though the Post previously reported that it had been placed there in July.

Toronto's vandal was arrested, facing 29 charges, including arson
Gilmore said that he believed there to be at least three different vandals who had attacked the synagogue since the first incident.

Suspect Amir Arvahi Azar was arrested on January 11 and charged for his role in a series of antisemitic arson and vandalism attacks in the Canadian city from April 26, 2024, until January 3, including some against Kehilat Shaarei Torah.

The 29 charges against Azar included five counts of arson, nine counts relating to mischief, three counts of possessing a restricted firearm without holding a license or registration, two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon, possessing a firearm with altered serial numbers, and possession of a prohibited device. Azar also faced the rare charges of advocating for genocide and willful promotion of hatred.


Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS to open up to 15 stores across Israel by 2026
Kim Kardashian’s global shapewear label SKIMS is set to open multiple stores across Israel within the next two years, as it makes its first official entry into the local market.

The US brand has signed an exclusive partnership with Irani Corp — the retail group behind Factory 54 and the Israeli distributor of high-profile international fashion names including Lululemon and Diesel. Until now, SKIMS items were only available in Israel through parallel imports.

Online sales will begin on 10 November via Factory54.co.il. The rollout will expand in December with dedicated SKIMS areas in selected Factory 54 locations.

Early next year, the brand will open two standalone 300m² stores: one at Glilot Mall and another at Ramat Aviv Mall. The plan is to scale to between 10 and 15 locations nationwide by 2026.

A statement from Factory 54 said the collaboration “reflects a long-term vision to build a meaningful commercial and community presence in Israel, delivering an international-calibre shopping experience that embodies SKIMS’ values of innovation and comfort.”
The antisemitic right ignores the role of Jewish Americans in history and society
The recently completed World Series was the brainchild of a Jew, Barney Dreyfuss, owner of the National League champions, the Pittsburgh Pirates, who, in 1903, challenged the American League’s Boston Americans. In 1905, the rivalry between the leagues was formalized as the World Series.

Jews have been major league players in establishing American culture elsewhere, too. Americans applauded Jewish productions from Hollywood and Broadway, and they sang their hearts out to legions of iconic songs by Jewish composers, including “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Song” and many other Christmas tunes.

The humor of Jewish comedians has long resonated with Americans, as seen in the early popularity of the Marx Brothers, Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny and Milton Berle, and more recent comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld and Jon Stewart. According to TIME magazine, in 1978, some 80% of stand-up comedians in the United States were Jewish.

The comic-book heroes that captured the American imagination—Superman, Batman and Captain America, among them—had Jewish creators.

Jews are also prominent in the political culture of conservatives. They include the neoconservatives that the antisemitic right especially disavows, people like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, but also icons that many American conservatives embrace, economists such as Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises, and philosophers such as Leo Strauss, Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand.

The antisemitic right has yet to articulate a coherent explanation for its Jew-hatred. They assert that Jews control the media, yet on the issue that appears to animate them most—Israel’s conduct in Gaza—the media overwhelmingly sides against Israel. They assert that Jews have divided loyalties, yet the Trump administration is replete with Jews in powerful positions: Steve Witkoff, Stephen Miller, Howard Lutnick, Lee Zeldin. Their loyalty to the president and the country has never been questioned.

To date, the antisemitic right’s only verifiable objection to Jews is that Jews aren’t devout Christians. To that, and only to that, the Jews are guilty.
5,000-year-old grape press, oldest proof of wine production in Israel, found near Megiddo
A 5,000-year-old wine press has been unearthed next to the iconic archaeological site of Tel Megiddo, providing the earliest evidence of wine production in the Land of Israel, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced Wednesday.

The press was uncovered during a salvage excavation ahead of road construction to expand Route 66.

The dig also uncovered several small pits used to bury cultic objects, including a unique ram-shaped pottery vessel and a small model of a shrine. The artifacts date back approximately 3,300 years and offer a glimpse into the cultic practices that the early Israelites encountered as they clashed with the Canaanite people, according to Dr. Amir Golani, IAA director of excavations at the site.

“Megiddo is one of the largest and most important archaeological sites in Israel; it’s really a linchpin of archeological research in Israel,” Golani told The Times of Israel in a phone interview.

“It’s situated in a strategic location, with a water source and fertile lands,” he added. “It is an ideal location for settlements, and settlement at Megiddo began during the Neolithic period, already more than 10,000 years ago. [Archaeologists] have found remains from that period and all the way to modern times.”

Researchers have been excavating the mound, or tell, that was the heart of the settlement, for over 100 years, uncovering layers and layers of occupation and activity.




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