Friday, November 14, 2025

11/14 Links Pt2: The year Jews stopped believing in a safe West; British universities have failed Jews; Oxford Union ‘labels Israel greater threat to regional stability’ than Iran

From Ian:

The year Jews stopped believing in a safe West
The risk is no longer theoretical: in late 2024, France’s domestic spy agency warned that Hamas and Hezbollah “sleeper” operatives might seek to strike Jews in Europe to send a message.

The safe West, it turns out, is seen by jihadists. This situation is viewed as just another front in their war, possibly an easier one, because Jews in Paris or Manchester are generally less guarded than those in Jerusalem or Sderot.

This reality has prompted a grim recalibration among Diaspora Jews. Synagogues across Western capitals are fortifying like embassies. Jewish schools conduct active-shooter drills and hire armed guards.

In places like Malmö, Sweden, or Toulouse, France, where Jewish populations have shrunk after repeated attacks, the few remaining families must decide if they, too, will leave.

As one Jewish security expert in London remarked, “We’ve had to accept that what happens in Israel doesn’t stay in Israel. If Hamas had the opportunity, they would carry out similar attacks here as they did on October 7 [in Israel].”

In 2025, Europe’s Jews know that no amount of Western liberal values or policing can entirely shield them from the reach of those who wish them harm.

There is no doubt that the mindset of the Diaspora is changing.

As one Israeli columnist wrote to anxious Jews abroad: “Our grandparents in Europe asked, ‘Will it really get worse?’ and lived to regret the answer. Today, we must ask, ‘What if it gets worse?’ and live accordingly.”

For a growing number of Jews in the West, 2025 was the year that the question could no longer be avoided.

The answers they arrive at will shape the future of Jewish life on both sides of the ocean. Once again, the packed suitcases, whether literal or metaphorical, play a part in shaping that future.
Baroness Ruth Deech: Universities must rein in scourge of hate they left unchecked for so long
The cloak of so-called ‘anti-Zionism’ has led them towards the oldest hatred. So blinded by their detestation of the State of Israel, it is now perfectly unremarkable for students to demand ‘resistance’ – naturally appearing alongside Hamas-associated imagery – as well as the genocidal call for the destruction of Israel. The Prime Minister was absolutely right to recently declare “From the River” as antisemitic but it has had zero impact on the actions of university leaders.

And so, left unchecked by British authorities (from the Government and police through to universities and wider society), the anti-Zionists have radicalised. The disgusting - and utterly unchallenged - utilisation of an ancient Jewish blood libel by Dr Maqusi at UCL this week shows that a new line has been crossed. The speaker's reported decision to matter-of-factly cite the 1840 Damascus Affair and the long-repudiated lie that Jews used the blood of non-Jews for religious rituals is grotesque.

Patently baseless centuries-old anti-Jewish hatred is now being revived and repurposed to brainwash the next generation of leaders. Anyone acquainted with Jewish history will know full well that blood libels such as this have been the source of hundreds of years of violence, persecution, and massacres against Jewish communities across the world. The university authorities are complicit in this terrible danger.

StandWithUs UK has documented dozens of harrowing testimonies from students at universities all around the country. They have empowered Jewish students to proactively stand up against this onslaught and they have movingly retold their stories to parliamentarians and the international media. These are the true anti-racist heroes who deserve our full admiration and support.

The problem is clear and many of the tools to tackle it already exist but much like the obstinate leaders at the BBC, it requires university officials to take note of what is being taught on their campuses, accept responsibility and their own failings, and root out this poisonous ideology.

UCL’s immediate and unequivocal response to this shocking incident is welcome and offers a blueprint which I hope other universities will follow. If they continue to fall short, however, the Office for Students must forcefully act, and university leaders should be summoned to Parliament to account for the shameful discriminatory and menacing environment for Jews that they have allowed to take root.
Soros Bankrolling Anti-Israel Drop Site News
The left-wing philanthropy funded by George Soros, Open Society Foundations, gave $250,000 to establish a Middle East desk at Drop Site News, an anti-Israel news startup that touts itself as a "reader-supported" purveyor of "completely independent" journalism.

Open Society Foundations said the grant, awarded last year, would help "bridge a crucial information gap in independent journalism" in the Middle East, according to its spending database.

Drop Site, founded by veteran left-wing journalists Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill in July 2024, has filled that purported gap with a steady stream of anti-Israel coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. Its first major story was a series of interviews that Scahill conducted with Hamas leaders aimed at providing the "public deeper insight into [Hamas's] decision to launch the October 7 attacks in Israel."

"The past nine months of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza have spurred an unprecedented global awakening to the plight of the Palestinian people," reads the opening line of Scahill's story.

Drop Site has not disclosed funding from the Open Society Foundations, of which Soros’s son Alex took control in 2022. In its fundraising pitches, Drop Site requests donations through Social Security Works Education Fund, an obscure nonprofit that aims to "educate the general public, media, and policy-makers about the benefits of protecting social security benefits." The organization serves as the "fiscal sponsor" for Drop Site, allowing donors to make tax-deductible contributions to the outlet, which does not have tax-exempt status from the IRS.

The Open Society Foundations funneled its contribution to Drop Site through the Social Security Works Education Fund, earmarked "to support establishing a Drop Site News MENA desk to to [sic] bridge a critical information gap in independent journalism."

Drop Site has provided little coverage of Social Security, or any other domestic entitlement programs. Instead, its bread-and-butter has been coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, from a decidedly anti-Israel viewpoint.


Trump to host recently freed hostages at White House on Nov. 20
US President Donald Trump will host the Israeli hostages released in last month’s Gaza ceasefire deal at the White House on November 20, a source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel on Friday.

Contrary to earlier reporting, Trump is not chartering a plane to ferry the former hostages to Washington. Instead, they are taking commercial flights on the Israeli government’s dime, the source said.

All 20 hostages released on October 13 have been invited by the White House. It is unknown whether all are going.

The released hostages will bring family members for the visit, according to previous reporting.

The US-brokered ceasefire deal that secured the hostages’ release also obligated the Hamas terror group to turn over the bodies of the 24 remaining hostages, who are all deceased. As of Friday, the remains of three of the hostages are still in the Gaza Strip.

The US president met with other released hostages and their families as well as the loved ones of hostages who remained in captivity a number of times leading up to the October ceasefire deal.
Pure class: Film follows 12th grade Oct. 7 survivors who form school to stay together
It was several weeks after the Hamas invasion of October 7, 2023, when documentary filmmaker Paz Schwartz heard about the surviving 12th graders from Nofei Habsor, the regional school in the southern Negev.

Her discovery of and gradual acquaintance with the graduating class that insisted on being together after the losses and traumas they experienced on October 7 became Schwartz’s latest documentary, “Always Together,” or “Mivhan Bagrut” in Hebrew, a play on words for the matriculation exams taken by high schoolers.

The 77-minute film shows the nine months in which Schwartz followed the 12th graders as they created a temporary boarding school for themselves in the Dead Sea region, where some of the southern communities were evacuated following the October 7 onslaught, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 people were abducted to the Gaza Strip.

In the film, Schwartz speaks at length with several students, discussing their losses, their lives in the Gaza envelope region, and what they hoped would emerge from their decision to band together as a grade and class.

Some of the Nofei Habsor students were killed in the massacre; others were orphaned or had siblings or grandparents killed, while others had loved ones who were taken hostage.

A total of 116 graduates from the school were killed, alongside 11 students in the high school and two teachers.


British universities have failed Jews
The memory of student protests from my time at UCL are very different from the Palestine activism on campus today. In the mid-Nineties, the only demonstrations that took place were students wanting more grant funding to sustain themselves at university. Others included animal rights demonstrations against some of the studies that took place in the science departments.

A Muslim student and staunch anti-racist, I was friends with people from all different backgrounds, including several Jews. We stood together when some students spoke of receiving racist chants and abuse when they visited football matches, and I remember Jewish students standing up for Muslim students who wanted a quiet place to pray.

Fast forward three decades and Jewish students have repeatedly said that they do not feel comfortable being students at UCL. This, at the very least, should sicken us all and rouse us into supporting these students against anti-Semitism.

UCL used to be a beacon for progressivism; it was the first institution to admit Jewish students when it was founded in 1826. Yet earlier this year, more than seventy masked students rallied outside the university chanting: “No more hiding, no more fear, Zionists not welcome here.”

Not long after, a Jewish staff member said to The Jewish Chronicle: “We have experienced staggering levels of activism on campus. The call to remove Zionists from campus is just the latest in a long line of abuse Jews can expect at UCL.” How has my alma matter become more backwards today than it was in the 19th century?

There is no excuse for anyone targeting British Jews with hatred. I learnt plenty during my time at UCL, but the lesson I still carry with me every day is this: while the 1990s were no heyday for ethnic minority students in British universities, at the very least we tried to stand up for each other. We are far away from that point today.
UKLFI: UKLFI Commends UCL for Decisive Action After Antisemitic Lecture
Even though Dr Maqusi told her audience to “draw [their] own narrative,” she repeated the blood libel uncritically, presenting it as something students should investigate, and describing it as part of Jewish religious practice. This created the appearance that the claim had legitimacy and helped to revive and normalise a conspiracy theory that is explicitly recognised by the IHRA as a form of antisemitism.

Dr Maqusi’s description of Jewish ritual practice was additionally misinformed. Although the Damascus affair was in February 1840 she claimed that it occurred during Tabernacles (Sukkot), a Jewish festival in autumn involving no special bread. She also failed to acknowledge the numerous rules designed to remove all traces of blood from food for it to be kosher under Jewish law.

Dr Maqusi’s further assertion that Napoleon promised the “revival of the Jewish kingdom in Palestine” in return for Jewish funding reinforced conspiratorial narratives of Jewish manipulation and control and suggested they are relevant to the present day.

In its letter to Dr Spence, UKLFI has emphasised that one of the key lessons from this incident is the necessity of comprehensive antisemitism awareness training at universities.

Jonathan Turner, UKLFI Chief Executive, explained “It is important to address both traditional antisemitism and contemporary forms of antisemitism connected to Zionism and the State of Israel. As shown by this lecture these forms of antisemitism cannot be effectively separated.”

The exemplary action taken by UCL in this case contrasts with some other UK universities that have insisted they cannot intervene when false, antisemitic allegations are made by lecturers.

In some cases universities restrict recording of lectures and seminars. If students rely on recordings to show what was said, they are at risk of being disciplined themselves. And if they do not rely on recordings, their complaints can readily be dismissed, for example on the basis that the lecturer was just discussing differing views.

Jonathan Turner said “We are very concerned that some universities prevent scrutiny of antisemitic content in lectures and seminars by invoking copyright and GDPR. This risks enabling antisemitic indoctrination that is liable to make the UK an inhospitable place for Jews in the years to come.”


BBC slammed for rejecting all CAMERA appeals against Arabic-language Gaza coverage
The BBC's internal complaints unit rejected all appeals submitted by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) against the BBC Arabic service since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, the London-based Jewish Chronicle reported.

CAMERA is a US-based pro-Israel media watchdog.

CAMERA submitted over 100 complaints against BBC Arabic's coverage over the past two years, the report noted.

Out of those submitted, 101 of CAMERA's complaints were upheld, and the broadcaster made 213 corrections to "stories deemed biased, inaccurate, or misleading."

However, many others were rejected, the JC clarified.

Under the BBC's appeals system, rejected complaints can be escalated to the Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU), which serves as the broadcaster's internal regulatory body.

For BBC Arabic, ECU rulings are final, and the domestic watchdog, Ofcom, does not intervene.

Of the decisions rejected, CAMERA appealed on 31 occasions, with 22 rejected and nine awaiting an outcome.

The report noted two examples of rejected appeals, including one where the activists asked the broadcaster to reconsider a story that referred to dead Hamas terrorists, but did not mention their affiliation with the terror organization.

Another instance concerned a profile of slain Hamas arch-terrorist Mohammed Deif, which included "accusations" that he had killed civilians, rather than insinuating any evidence.

"While claiming to ‘assess complaints independently,’ the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit has failed to uphold even a single one about BBC Arabic’s output over more than two years of war – revealing that, in practice, it serves not as an impartial watchdog but rather as a rubber stamp for the service’s misinformation and bias," a CAMERA spokesperson said.

"Both BBC Arabic editors and the ECU have repeatedly dismissed our concerns, sometimes gaslighting us and other times throwing up arbitrary and even Kafkaesque bureaucratic hurdles when complaints were underway," the activist group added.

"BBC News Arabic strives for the highest standards of journalism. Whenever mistakes are made or clarifications are needed, we take action to ensure clarity and accuracy for our audiences," the broadcaster responded.
Jonathan Sacerdoti: "BBC ignored over 99% of terror attacks in Israel" – Errors, propaganda and real-world consequences
The BBC is facing its biggest crisis in decades — but the scandal isn’t just about two resignations. It’s about years of skewed reporting, buried corrections, and a newsroom culture that has normalised bias while persuading the public that it stands for impartial truth.

In this revealing conversation, Hadar Sela, co-editor of CAMERA UK and one of the most meticulous analysts of BBC coverage anywhere, joins Jonathan Sacerdoti to peel back the layers of structural failure inside the BBC: the habits, blind spots, and editorial decisions that have shaped public perception of Israel, terrorism, and the Middle East for over a decade.

What you’ll hear in this eye-opening discussion:
📺 Why years of complaints and warnings about BBC bias were ignored
🧩 How “mistakes” always seem to land in the same ideological direction
📰 The hidden power of the BBC’s archive as a distorted historical record
🚨 The Gaza hospital story: a case study in misreporting and zero accountability
⚖️ Why the “what we knew at the time” defence has become a shield against truth
🧾 How the BBC relies on activists, partisan NGOs, and compromised sources
💣 Why Palestinian terror attacks are almost never reported — and what that omission achieves
🧠 The newsroom culture that discourages dissent and buries internal criticism
📉 BBC Verify: why the fact-checking unit often amplifies misinformation instead of correcting it
🔍 How corrections arrive months or years late, quietly, and without transparency
🗂️ Why an external investigation — not internal reforms — may be the BBC’s only hope
🇮🇱 How skewed reporting has helped normalise public debate about Israel’s very right to exist
🔻 The human cost of selective storytelling: Israelis displaced, traumatised, or killed yet barely covered
📢 What an independent complaints system could look like — and why the current process is broken beyond repair

🎧 Listen to this episode if you want to understand not just what has gone wrong inside the BBC, but why it keeps happening — and why so many journalists, former staff, and media analysts are now calling for radical external oversight.


Jonathan Sacerdoti: From Trump to Gaza: the BBC’s pattern of distorted storytelling
The BBC is facing one of the most serious crises in its recent history. After being caught twice editing Donald Trump’s words in a way that fundamentally changed their meaning, Britain’s state broadcaster is now accused of something far deeper: a pattern of distortion, selective storytelling, and institutional bias that has stretched across years, topics, and political moments.

Jonathan Sacerdoti explains why these edits were not simple mistakes, not unfortunate oversights, but examples of a recurring editorial habit that misleads audiences and undermines public trust. From the Trump speech edits to the misleading sequences in the Gaza documentary, from the misrepresentation of Queen Elizabeth II to long-standing issues in BBC Middle East coverage, this conversation lays out how and why these issues keep repeating.

Jonathan also discusses the wider diplomatic fallout, the implications for British journalism, and why honesty in editing is not an optional artistic choice but a core duty of a national broadcaster.


UKLFI: Natasha Hausdorff describes personal BBC experiences after anti-Israel bias revealed in leaked memo
UK Lawyers for Israel Charitable Trust Legal Director, Natasha Hausdorff, joins media consultant David Ross to discuss her own dealings with BBC News and the BBC’s response to allegations raised in an internal whistleblower report, published by The Telegraph.

The memo — written by Michael Prescott — alleged failures in BBC management, concerns about accuracy and impartiality and issues of anti-Israel bias relating to coverage of Israel and the conflict in Gaza.

An extract of Prescott's letter includes the following:
"Claims against Israel seem to be raced to air or online without adequate checks, evidencing either carelessness or a desire always to believe the worst about Israel."

The BBC has said it is confident in its editorial processes and denies systemic bias.

In the wake of the memo's publication, Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, and Deborah Turness the boss of BBC News, have resigned.

In this interview, Natasha describes her own experiences with the BBC, including concerns about reporting around the 17 October 2023 Al-Ahli hospital incident and reacts to specific examples raised in the leaked report, such as the BBC’s coverage of mass graves at the Nasser and Al-Shifa hospitals.

She also comments on the BBC complaints system, the wider challenges of reporting from conflict zones, the recent resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness and the impact of BBC reporting on the views of the public and high profile figures like Lord Sumption.


UKLFI: WoolOvers under fire for enclosing “inflammatory” Amnesty leaflet accusing Israel of genocide
A knitwear retailer has been accused of distressing customers after it inserted an Amnesty International fundraising leaflet into catalogue packs. UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) say the Amnesty leaflets contained “false and inflammatory” allegations against the Israeli military.

WoolOvers, a Sussex-based clothing company, recently mailed customers a brochure accompanied by an Amnesty leaflet headed: “Israeli forces are killing Palestinian families. Please help the campaign to stop these devastating human rights atrocities.”

Among the recipients was an elderly Jewish woman who arrived in Britain as a child on the Kindertransport. She was said to be “extremely distressed” after reading accusations of genocide and deliberate killing of civilians.

UKLFI pointed out that the International Court of Justice did not find a plausible case of genocide against Israel, despite widespread media claims to the contrary. It accused Amnesty of conducting a fundraising campaign for “politically-motivated lawfare” rather than providing meaningful assistance to Palestinian civilians.

UKLFI’s letter also explained that WoolOvers may have breached its own charity-vetting policies. The company states it supports appeals related to medical research, elderly care, veterans, conservation and similar causes, and that it screens charities to ensure their work provides a “genuine benefit to society”.

The Amnesty leaflet, UKLFI argued, fell outside those categories and risked “stirring up racial hatred against Jews and Israelis” by disseminating misleading allegations of genocide.
‘Jewish supremacy’ rant doctor has licence suspended
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service has determined that a doctor who engaged in repeated rants about “Jewish supremacy” should be suspended from medicine for nine months while a General Medical Council (GMC) investigation into her conduct is carried out.

In a tribunal decision published on Friday, the MPTS said it was “satisfied that there is sufficient information to suggest that Dr Ellen Kriesels could pose a real risk to public safety”, and that it was “satisfied that a reasonable and properly informed member of the public would be surprised and concerned if no interim order were made today.”

As detailed by Jewish News, Kriesels, who had been working as a consultant developmental paediatrician at the Whittington Hospital in North London, had come to wider public attention after her repeated attendance at pro-Palestine rallies carrying a sign featuring a flag of Israel – with the six points of the Star of David emblazoned with the words “Rape”, “Steal”, “Cry”, “Lie”, “Cheat” and “Kill”.

Subsequently, Kriesels’ Twitter account was found to be posting regular messages about “Jewish supremacy”.

“Virtually every Jew has some feelings of supremacy (result of their Zionist upbringing) and they might oppose Zionism, but they are not going to challenge their precious community. That just doesn’t feel right to them!” Kriesels said in a response to Rahmeh Aladwan, another doctor notorious for diatribes about “Jewish supremacy”.

Another read: “When one claims to oppose Zionism but goes on and on about their Jewish heritage and Jewish millennia of persecution, one shows their feelings of Jewish supremacy, never mind they oppose the political ideology of Zionism. Jewish supremacy underpins Zionism.”

Talking about 7 October 2023, when Hamas murdered 1,200 men, woman and children, the paediatrician said “Some Jews ‘merely’ say it was a progrom [sic]. Other Jews ‘merely’ say that it was antisemitic. Always trying to frame the Jews as victims. So ridiculous,. So excruciating. So exhausting.”


Oxford Union ‘labels Israel greater threat to regional stability’ than Iran
The Oxford Union has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a motion declaring Israel a greater “threat to regional stability” than Iran, the JC understands.

The debate, held on Thursday night, saw guest speakers including former Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and UN Watch Director Hillel Neuer on opposite sides of the despatch box.

Shtayyeh, who held his role between 2019 and 2024, argued that "Israel is an expansionist colonial state that has been established by colonial powers".

Defending his belief that the Jewish state is 'expansionist', Shtayyeh claimed that some Israeli lawmakers believe it should extend from the Nile to the Euphrates.

"Israel acts above the law and does not respect UN resolutions and also we know this aggressive state of Israel is... nuclear armed and a centre of colonial regime that is based on apartheid against the Palestinian people," he went on.

"[There is] brutal occupation, crimes and genocide. [Israel is] dragging the region into repeated conflicts... Israel is a pariah state and should be stopped.

"Israel is causing misery [and] genocide. [It has an] expansionist [and] colonial mentality."

Shtayyeh continued his argument by adding that "every time Israel creates a buffer zone in a neighbouring country it is to push the army of that country away”.

"We all should say that Israel is the biggest cause of destabilisation in the region," he concluded.

Arguing against the motion, Neuer contended that the very idea that Israel could pose a greater threat than Iran was not only wrong "but the inversion of reality".

He said: "Regional stability is measured by who starts wars, not by who stops them. Israel does not arm terror proxies in five Arab countries - the Arab regime in Iran does that.

"The entire Middle East knows this, and that is why Arab states quietly depend on Israel for their own survival.
US professor sues university for probing his call for global war to ‘end Israel’
A professor at the University of Kentucky on Thursday sued the university leadership and the head of the US Department of Education after he was investigated and removed from teaching for eliminationist rhetoric against Israel.

Ramsi Woodcock’s calls to destroy the Jewish state ran afoul of state antisemitism law, but he contends that his anti-Zionist diatribes are protected speech, in a case that touches on First Amendment protections and serves as a counterpoint to lawsuits filed by Jewish groups against universities across the US that argue anti-Zionism is discriminatory toward Jews.

Woodcock is a tenured law professor at the university’s J. David Rosenberg College of Law and has worked at the university since 2018. He sued the university president, other university leaders, and US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in a federal court in Kentucky.

Woodcock’s anti-Israel positions, published online, amount to a broadside of common far-left attacks against Israel, combining genocide and apartheid accusations, international law, colonialist academic theories, and characterizing Israel as an impediment to the world order.

“Zionism is not only racism, but colonialism, and the remedy is not equality but decolonization,” he said, characterizing Israel as an “American colony” and arguing against “any right of self-determination for Jewish people” between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

He has taken the argument a step further than many anti-Israel academics, though, by explicitly arguing for the violent destruction of Israel and laying out a plan for a global war against the Jewish state.


Matt Gaetz Staffer Shares Wildly Anti-Semitic Video Depicting Jews as Bugs
Vish Burra, a booker and scriptwriter for One America News Network’s The Matt Gaetz Show who also sometimes makes appearances on the program, shared a wildly anti-Semitic video depicting himself threatening a group of plotting Jews who were depicted as cartoon bugs on Friday.

In a response to Susan Lebovitz-Edelman, a conservative donor critical of The Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’s handling of Tucker Carlson’s friendly interview with Nick Fuentes, Burra posted the video alongside the caption, “You’re not gonna be able to run and hide for long Susan ‘Suzy’ Lebovitz-Edelman. Your blood money can only buy so much ‘loyalty’.”

The video shows a man that looks like Burra approaching a door labeled “Scheming Room” adorned with Stars of David. “Suzy, James, I know what you’re up to in there. Open up!” he says. When he busts into the room and flips on a light above the bugs — who are gathered behind a table stacked with cash — they begin to sizzle under the light and screech.

“It’s America First, America only, bitches!” declares Burra.


South Africa probing origin of unexpected charter flight carrying 153 Palestinians
South Africa granted entry to 130 Palestinians without travel papers after initially barring them, but said it will examine accusations that an unregistered organization arranged their trip “in an irregular and irresponsible manner.”

South Africa has long supported Palestinian aspirations to statehood and filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in 2023, accusing it of genocide in the Gaza war. Israel has denied the accusations.

A group of 153 Palestinians arrived at Johannesburg airport on a chartered Global Airways flight from Kenya on Thursday without departure stamps, return tickets or details of accommodation, according to border authorities.

They said none of the Palestinians had applied for asylum, leading to their initial denial of entry.

According to the Haaretz daily, the group left Gaza early Wednesday morning, via the Strip’s southern Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, following Israeli vetting.

Members of the group were then taken by bus to Israel’s Ramon Airport, near Eilat, where they boarded a chartered plane to Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, and from there boarded the chartered flight to Johannesburg.

Humanitarian group Gift of the Givers intervened to offer accommodation and support and authorities then cleared 130 members of the group for entry under a standard 90-day visa exemption, while 23 had already departed for other destinations.

“The Palestinians had no idea where they were bundled off to, only when in Kenya did they realize they were coming to South Africa. Some had visas for Canada, Australia and Malaysia, they were eventually permitted to leave for those countries,” said Imtiaz Sooliman, chair and founder of Gift of the Givers.


Hamas reinstates fees on imported goods, raises taxes as it reasserts control in Gaza
From regulating the price of chicken to levying fees on cigarettes, Hamas is seeking to widen control over Gaza as US plans for its future slowly take shape, Gazans say, adding to rivals’ doubts over whether it will cede authority as promised.

After a ceasefire began last month, Hamas swiftly reestablished its hold over areas from which Israel withdrew, killing dozens of Palestinians it accused of collaborating with Israel, theft, or other crimes. Foreign powers demand the terror group disarm and leave government, but have yet to agree on who will replace them.

Now, a dozen Gazans tell Reuters they are increasingly feeling Hamas control in other ways. Authorities monitor everything coming into areas of Gaza held by Hamas, levying fees on some privately imported goods including fuel as well as cigarettes, and fining merchants considered to be overcharging for goods, according to 10 of the Gazans, three of them merchants with direct knowledge.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, head of the media office of the Hamas government, said accounts of Hamas taxing cigarettes and fuel were inaccurate, denying that the government was raising any taxes.

Analyst sees Hamas entrenching
The authorities were only carrying out urgent humanitarian and administrative tasks whilst making “strenuous efforts” to control prices, Thawabta said. He reiterated Hamas’ readiness to hand over to a new technocratic administration, saying it aimed to avoid chaos in Gaza: “Our goal is for the transition to proceed smoothly.”

Hatem Abu Dalal, owner of a Gaza mall, said prices were high because not enough goods were coming into Gaza. Government representatives were trying to bring order to the economy — touring around, checking goods and setting prices, he said.


‘Deep concern’ China providing material for Iran to make rocket fuel, congressmen say
Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) and Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) expressed “deep concern” about China supplying rocket-fuel ingredients to Iran and what they said was insufficient responses from the Trump administration.

“Beijing’s support for Tehran’s rearmament is deeply concerning and provides yet another example of the Chinese Communist Party’s willingness to abet authoritarian aggression from Europe to the Middle East,” the congressmen wrote to Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, and to John Ratcliffe, the CIA director.

“This support not only increases Iran’s threat to its neighbors but also assists Russia and pro-Iranian proxy groups like the Houthis, whose missile programs Iran has previously supported,” Krishnamoorthi and Courtney said.

The congressmen said that Chinese companies have given Iran some 2,000 tons of sodium perchlorate since September 2025, “sufficient to fuel roughly 500 ballistic missiles,” in defiance of United Nations sanctions.

“Beijing’s latest shipments of these critical chemical precursors indicate that U.S. actions to date have failed to deter it from supporting Tehran’s procurement of offensive military capabilities,” they wrote. “Beijing seems increasingly emboldened to assist Tehran’s rearmament efforts with impunity.”
Iran accused of seizing Singapore-bound tanker off coast of UAE
A tanker transiting through the narrow Strait of Hormuz suddenly changed course into Iranian territorial waters Friday, with the British military warning that a possible “state activity” had affected it.

The warning from the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center comes as a private security firm said small vessels had intercepted the ship earlier.

Iran has not acknowledged the incident, which happened off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. However, Tehran in the past has seized ships amid tensions with the West.

Details offered by the UKMTO and the private security firm Ambrey corresponded to a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker called Talara, which had left Ajman in the United Arab Emirates bound for Singapore. The ship suddenly turned toward Iran without explanation, ship-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed Friday. The ship’s Greek owners did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, a US Navy MQ-4C Triton drone had been circling above the area where the Talara was for hours on Friday. The Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The US Navy has blamed Iran for a series of limpet mine attacks on vessels that damaged tankers in 2019, as well as for a fatal drone attack on an Israeli-linked oil tanker that killed two European crew members in 2021.

Those attacks began after US President Donald Trump, in his first term in office, unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The last major seizure came when Iran took two Greek tankers in May 2022 and held them until November of that year.


France poll: 68% believe antisemitism is widespread in country
Antisemitism is widespread in France, and French Jews are justified in feeling unsafe in the republic, a majority of French people believe, according to a Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) and Ipsos poll published on Tuesday.

The poll of 1,000 people representative of the French population conducted between last Monday and Tuesday found that 68% of respondents believed antisemitism to be a widespread phenomenon.

However, this belief had decreased from previous polls, dropping from 75% in 2020 and 79% in 2024.

Sixty-six percent of participants said that antisemitism had increased over the years, 27% of whom thought it was significantly more widespread. This was higher than the 62% of respondents in a 2020 poll but lower than 70% in 2024.

Sixty-one percent of French people, according to the poll, believe that there are reasons for Jews living in France to be afraid. This perception has increased steadily over time, from 35% in 2014 up to a peak of 64% in 2024.


Houston, Jackson city websites direct readers to page on ‘why are Jews so successful in business’
The websites of the cities of Houston, Texas, and Jackson, Miss., return three pages each that redirect to a website titled “Why are Jews so successful in business?”

The page to which the cities’ official websites redirect, and which lacks a government URL suffix, appears to be written by artificial intelligence.

“Mastering new skills should be both efficient and enjoyable, and that is exactly what Why Are Jews So Successful In Business was designed for,” the page states.

“Each reader begins from a different starting point, so Why Are Jews So Successful In Business accommodates all experience levels,” it adds.

JNS sought comment from both cities about why the websites direct readers to the page.

Mary Benton, chief of communications and senior adviser to Houston Mayor John Whitmire, told JNS on Thursday that the city’s information technology team “has spent the past few days investigating this matter.”

“From what we can gather, doing a regular Google search, not the one specific to the city of Houston home page, it’s brightideas.houstontx.gov, which auto-redirects to a page independent of the city of Houston website,” she said.

“Steps have been taken to prevent the BrightIdeas page from auto-redirecting to the city of Houston website,” she told JNS


Merkel tours Oct. 7 sites during Israel trip
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel was in Israel this week for a visit that included Oct. 7, 2023, massacre sites, academic honors and scientific institution tours.

Merkel, who was one of Israel’s most important allies in Europe during her long tenure spanning four terms from 2005 to 2021, toured the Nova Music Festival site on Wednesday with Gail Shoresh from the Dvora Forum that promotes women’s equality.

She received explanations about sexual atrocities committed by Hamas some two years ago during the massive attack on the Gaza border communities, with German Ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert sharing her visit on social media.

“Oct 7 revisited: Angela Merkel met Gail Shoresh at the Nova site who explained about sexual violence on that terrible day,” Seibert wrote.

Nahal Oz resident Amir Tibon shared with Merkel his unique ordeal, retelling the story of how he managed to survive after terrorists invaded his kibbutz and started slaughtering and kidnapping residents.

During her visit, the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot conferred an honorary degree upon Merkel, who delivered remarks praising Israeli and German scientists as the first to construct new bridges between the two peoples following the Holocaust, the German ambassador wrote.

“Dr. Merkel is a steadfast supporter of Israel and a powerful advocate for Holocaust education and remembrance. Under her leadership, Germany significantly deepened its bilateral relations with Israel, expanding military aid and partnerships in defense, technology and scientific research,” the Weizmann Institute said. “In 2008, she became the first German Chancellor to address the Knesset, declaring her commitment to Israel’s security and the fight against antisemitism.”




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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



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

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