Thursday, November 20, 2025

11/20 Links Pt2: Trump welcomes freed Israeli hostages to White House; Terrorists & tiaras Miss Palestine’s connection to convicted terrorist leader; The trouble with the Nuremberg Trials, 80 years on

From Ian:

Antizionism: The Reinvention of a Racist Hate Movement
“Tell me what you accuse the Jews of — I’ll tell you what you’re guilty of.”

This 1959 observation by novelist Vasily Grossman, often quoted by writer Douglas Murray, was vividly illustrated at UCLA last week. An ignominious band of university departments including its School of Law sponsored a talk by Rutgers professor Noura Erakat — an activist posing as a scholar — who teaches the gullible that Israel is a settler colonial project. Erakat’s faux lecture, “Revisiting Zionism as a Form of Racism and Racial Discrimination,” was timed to honor the fiftieth anniversary of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 3379 — the since-rescinded-but-never-dead screed that declared Zionism a form of racism.

Judea Pearl, UCLA professor, Turing Prize winner and proud Israel-born Zionist, had had enough. When he learned of the “Zionism is racism” lecture, he issued a call for a countervailing event on campus the same night, Nov. 13. UCLA’s Jewish Faculty Resilience Group swung into gear, and in little over a week about a hundred people gathered at UCLA’s School of Law for a panel discussion called “Is Antizionism Racism?” Peter Savodnik of The Free Press was a thoughtful moderator, and Michael Berenbaum, Yael Lerman and Hindi Stohl Posy gave sobering, alarming, or stirring presentations. Presumably due to the imposing police presence (thank you, UCPD), antizionist protesters mostly stayed away. At least one professor in the audience felt secure enough from the keffiyeh brigade to pull out her knitting.

As Professor Pearl reported the next day on X, the event was a major success. “Two concrete outcomes became immediately evident,” he wrote. “(1) Zionist faculty and students at UCLA will now be asserting their right to a name, a voice and institutional representation on campus. (2) Antizionist faculty and students will now be facing a new, no-nonsense environment in which their rhetoric and ideology are exposed — and named — for what they are: racist.”

Because what else can you call a movement that exists solely to deny the right of self-determination to one nation — the Jewish one? That screams to isolate, boycott or attack Jews, camouflaged as “Zionists”? That champions an organization, Hamas, whose founding charter calls to kill Jews? That celebrates as “resistance” the largest one-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust?

Jew-haters invariably ascribe to Jews whatever they find most abhorrent. For the Nazis who obsessed about race purity, Jews were polluters of the Aryan race. Medieval Christians hated Jews as the supposed killers of Christ. For communists, Jews were capitalists; and for reactionaries, Jews were communists. Today, when society overwhelmingly rejects racism, progressives who consider it the worst of all crimes scream “Racist!” at Jews who support the existence of a Jewish state. Meanwhile they support the elimination of that same state, making their claim the epitome of projection.
Nicole Lampert: When Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
Over the last few years, we have increasingly seen the non-apology apology - same concept - especially when it comes to antisemitism. The latest example came yesterday courtesy of Bristol club Strange Brew, which exactly six months earlier cancelled a performance by Oi Va Voi and its Israeli guest singer, Zahara.

The club had come under pressure from the Bristol Palestine Alliance to ban the performance. It knew that it couldn’t simply ban Jews. And that it wasn’t meant to ban Israelis either. Religion, race, ethnicity, and nationality are all protected characteristics under the 2010 Equality Act. (This doesn’t cover Russians who are subject to sanctions from the British state which takes priority).

Instead, the ban was ostensibly because Zohara, a left-wing Israeli with a Palestinian boyfriend, had an album cover featuring her naked at a watermelon farm. ‘We were of the view it could be interpreted as politically offensive, given the ongoing and worsening situation in Gaza and it had already been interpreted as such by the groups who contacted us,’ the club wrote following the cancellation in May. Their statement added that while the band had explained that the album cover was a comment on femininity and nature, ‘We concluded that, regardless of the intended meaning, the use of politically loaded symbolism in this way – by anyone of any background – is ambigious and could therefore come across as politically insensitive and/or offensive to the people of Palestine and by our audiences.’

An ‘ambiguous’ album cover used politically by malign forces does not, it appears, protect anyone from what the Equality Act says. Despite this, a second venue in Brighton also cancelled the band, and for a brief while, it seemed they were musical kryptonite. Dropped. Ironically, one place where they remained hugely popular was Turkey, where they continued to play to some of their biggest audiences.

All of this was at the same time when musical acts were signing mass petitions for Northern Irish band Kneecap – named after an IRA punishment beating – for alleged support of Hamas and Hezbollah. These acts claimed they were for free speech in music. Not one of them came out to support Oi Va Voi. Not one.

As Oi Va Voi said yesterday: ‘The intimidation of the activist groups who wanted Strange Brew to cancel our gig would never be tolerated against any other minority, either in the music industry or elsewhere. Anti-Jewish racism is racism, and racism is injustice, wherever it comes from.
Poll: Majority of British adults are Zionists – but don’t seem to know it
A staggering lack of awareness about the meaning of the word ‘Zionism’ is laid bare by a new poll published today, with five times as many British adults claiming to support the right of Jews to self-determination as identified with the ‘Z’ word.

According to new polling from More in Common, while just 9 per cent of the wider UK population said they were Zionists, 53 per cent said they “support the right of Jewish people to have a nation in Israel”.

Similarly, while 22 per cent identified themselves as having a negative view of Zionists, only 9 per cent specifically had a negative view of “people who support the right of Jewish people to have a nation in Israel”.

In a summary provided by the organisation, which has consistently polled the British public’s attitude towards the conflict over the last two years, “all of this suggests that the public’s perceptions of Zionism have become detached from its literal meaning”.

“People who brand themselves as ‘Zionists’ might mean to be communicating that they simply support the principle of Jewish self-determination, but this is far from what other people may hear when they say this.”

“This disconnect makes it easy for conversations to become heated or accusatory very quickly, because people are often responding to what they think the label implies rather than to the person’s actual position. As a result, the term itself can introduce misunderstanding and tension into discussions that might otherwise reveal more shared ground than disagreement.”

Among those described as “progressive activists”, the numbers are more extreme. More than half – 54 per cent – have a negative view of “Zionists”, with close to a quarter – 23 per cent – having a negative view of “people who support the right of Jewish people to have a nation in Israel”.

General concerns in British society about antisemitism also rose over the last 18 months. In April 2024, about one third of respondents (34 per cent) felt the UK was a mostly or very unsafe place for Jews. That number rose sharply from the summer of 2025, culminating in almost half of respondents (48 per cent) feeling that way in the aftermath of the Heaton Park synagogue terror attack.
Terrorists & tiaras Miss Palestine’s connection to convicted terrorist leader revealed ahead of Miss Universe pageant
The first-ever Miss Palestine contestant in the Miss Universe pageant married the son of Hamas’ most-wanted prisoner, Marwan Barghouti, and even named a child after him, The Post has learned.

Nadeen Ayoub — who claims to be a 27-year-old US and Canadian citizen living in Dubai — is competing this week to represent Palestine, a territory the US and Israel don’t even recognize as a sovereign state.

Strutting through preliminary rounds ahead of the pending pageant, Ayoub has kept most of her personal life under wraps — until now.

Years-old screenshots and social media posts obtained by The Post show she took pains to hide that she was once married to Sharaf Barghouti — son of the infamous Fatah leader serving five life sentences in Israel for orchestrating terror attacks that killed five people in 2001 and 2002.

The convicted murderer’s name resurfaced last month when Hamas demanded his release in hostage-exchange negotiations with Israel — a request the Jewish state flatly refused, citing his participation in the first intifada, leadership in the second, convictions in five terror-related murders and founding of the West Bank’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

A secret life
Social media posts show Ayoub tied the knot with Sharaf Barghouti in 2016, later welcoming a son named Marwan three years later — seemingly in tribute to the convicted killer.

However, it is unclear if the pair remains married. A family member reached for comment confirmed to The Post that the two had been married, but denied knowledge of their current status.


Israeli hostage delegation meets in Washington with US House members
A delegation of Israeli hostages released from captivity in the Gaza Strip, where they were held after being taken from communities in southern Israel by Hamas and Palestinian terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, met with various members of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Reps. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Hostage Task Force, and Craig Goldman (R-Texas), who was filling in for Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), the other task force co-chair, hosted the delegation, according to the Israeli embassy.

The group of visitors also included the family members of the released hostages, as well as Israeli embassy officials.

Other representatives who met with the delegation included Reps. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Virginia Foxx (R-Va.), Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) and Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), the embassy said.

“Your pictures were on our walls and our hearts, and we continue to wear the yellow ribbon,” Schneider stated. “We are bipartisan here, and there was never a moment when we were not all committed to bringing the kidnapped people home.”

Omri Miran, one of the released hostages, stated that “when I was kidnapped from Nir Oz and separated from my family, my eldest daughter ran after me and shouted ‘Dad!’”

“Today, my daughter says ‘Dad,’ and I’m here, answering her, and that’s thanks to you,” Miran said.


David Collier: Exclusive: English football – A stage for Pro Terrorist Content!
When I began investigating this story, I thought it was a disturbing tale of an accredited football journalist using elite Premier League grounds as a platform for the glorification of terrorism. Horrific enough on its own. But as the story unfolded, something even darker emerged – the silence, impotence, and complicity of those in the UK charged with safeguarding the game. And perhaps, behind it all, a deeper fear – a reluctance to challenge the Qatari money that put him there.

Discovery
Unlike most of my research pieces, I did not turn over the first stone myself. After speaking at a hostage vigil in NW London one Friday morning, I was approached by Max Radford – an avid football fan and Jewish activist with a strong presence on social media. Max told me that he was aware of a sports journalist who had been using accredited access to Premier League grounds as a backdrop to promote pro-Palestinian political messaging. He had downloaded several clips – hard evidence that could not be brushed aside – and shared them with me. Together we wrote emails to the FA, the Premier League, and to relevant Premier League Clubs – and then I set about digging deeper into the journalist’s timeline.

The Accredited Journalist and beIN Sports
Some people enjoy VIP treatment at every football match – prime seats, hospitality, and access to almost everything and everyone. That access comes through a layered system of media accreditation and agreements between clubs, leagues, broadcasters, and governing bodies. But I am confident of one thing – none of their codes of conduct permit the glorification of terrorism.

Ibrahim Khadra is an accredited sports journalist for beIN Sports. A British-Palestinian, he originally came to London courtesy of BBC Arabic (who else!) in 2009 – but eventually ended up working as a sports journalist for Al Jazeera Sports – which rebranded as beIN Sports in 2014.

beIN holds multi-year broadcast rights to Premier League matches (and other competitions). Because of those contracts, beIN is treated as an official rights-holding broadcaster. This status grants them privileges that non-rights media don’t have. And in financial terms, the Premier League’s international deal with the Qatari state-owned broadcaster is one of the most lucrative overseas contracts the league possesses.

The 8th of October 2023
On 8 October 2023, Arsenal played Manchester City at the Emirates and won 1-0. While Israeli towns had still not been cleared of Hamas terrorists, Ibrahim Khadra attended the match wearing a keffiyeh. He was asked to remove it, and later complained on X that he had been told it constituted ‘political messaging.’

What makes this even more notable is that during the same game, another beIN journalist, Issam Chaouali, delivered on-air political commentary about Gaza.

In the fallout from these incidents, beIN acknowledged that Chaouali’s comments were ‘inappropriate’ and reminded all staff that they were ‘obliged to refrain from political statements.’ In its statement to journalists, beIN emphasised that social-media freedom did not extend to hate speech. The report also confirmed that ‘beIN Sports and the Premier League discussed the matter’ and suggested that the Premier League would be ‘issuing guidance.’

All of which makes everything that followed over the next two years simply inexplicable. A prolonged and inexcusable blindness on the part of beIN, the Premier League, UEFA, the FA – and anyone else who should have been monitoring what was taking place in our stadiums.

But before we go forward, let us quickly address the events of the day before.


Jewish Parkland shooting survivor running for Congress on anti-Israel platform
Cameron Kasky, a 25-year-old Jewish activist and school shooting survivor, has entered the race to represent one of the United States’ most Jewish congressional districts — on a platform that includes stopping Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.

“We need leaders who aren’t going to coddle their billionaire donors, who won’t support a genocide and who aren’t going to settle for flaccid incrementalism,” Kasky said in the launch video posted on Tuesday for his campaign to represent New York City’s 12th Congressional District.

The video’s caption includes the three main points of his campaign: “Medicare for all. Stop funding genocide. Abolish ICE.”

While Kasky’s anti-Trump positions are likely to go over well with the district’s largely liberal populace, his stance that Israel is committing a genocide — and the apparent centrality of that stance to his campaign — could be an issue for constituents. The district includes the Upper West and East Sides of Manhattan, where many voters sided with the pro-Israel Andrew Cuomo over Zohran Mamdani in the city’s recent mayoral election, as well as Midtown Manhattan.

Kasky’s messaging may, however, speak more to young voters in the district. A New York Times/Siena poll from September found that 66% of New York City voters ages 18 to 29 found that Mamdani, an anti-Zionist, “best addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” among the mayoral candidates.

A democratic socialist, Kasky was a vocal supporter of Mamdani throughout the mayoral election — and an aggressive critic of fellow Democrats who objected to the mayoral candidate’s anti-Israel stances.


“The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer”
Minnesota is drowning in fraud. Billions in taxpayer dollars have been stolen during the administration of Governor Tim Walz alone. Democratic state officials, overseeing one of the most generous welfare regimes in the country, are asleep at the switch. And the media, duty-bound by progressive pieties, refuse to connect the dots.

In many cases, the fraud has allegedly been perpetrated by members of Minnesota’s sizeable Somali community. Federal counterterrorism sources confirm that millions of dollars in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia, where they ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab. As one confidential source put it: “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”

Our investigation shows what happens when a tribal mindset meets a bleeding-heart bureaucracy, when imported clan loyalties collide with a political class too timid to offend, and when accusations of racism are cynically deployed to shield criminal behavior. The predictable result is graft, with taxpayers left to foot the bill.

If you were to design a welfare program to facilitate fraud, it would probably look a lot like Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program. The HSS program, the first of its kind in the country, was launched with a noble goal: to help seniors, addicts, the disabled, and the mentally ill secure housing. It was designed with “low barriers to entry” and “minimal requirements for reimbursement.” Nonetheless, before the program went live in 2020, officials pegged its annual estimated price tag at $2.6 million.

Costs quickly spiraled out of control. In 2021, the program paid out more than $21 million in claims. In the following years, annual costs shot up to $42 million, then $74 million, then $104 million. During the first six months of 2025, payouts totaled $61 million.

On August 1, Minnesota’s Department of Human Services moved to scrap the HSS program, noting that payment to 77 housing-stabilization providers had been terminated this year due to “credible allegations of fraud.” Joe Thompson, then the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, went even further, stating that the “vast majority” of the HSS program was fraudulent.
At Harvard, Public Health Is a Weapon against Israel
The François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights is housed within Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. When the center opened in 1993, its original mission was to address the global AIDS crisis, particularly among children mired in poverty, and to bring attention to healthcare crises resulting from political abuse or neglect. Its founder, Dr. Jonathan Mann, was a pioneer in establishing the concept of healthcare as an exigent human right regardless of any nation’s economics or political ideology.

Tucked inside FXB is the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights (hereafter PPH). While there could be value in a geo-specific program collating data to aid in the allotment of public health funds, this program seems to be yet another Israel-bashing political activist organization hiding inside a university. It’s like a Russian doll: the PPH is nestled inside FXB, which is tucked inside the Chan School, which is a division of Harvard University. From this cozy spot, the PPH is free to ignore the very purpose of a public health program, and instead eagerly advertise and exploit its anti-Israel bias. At PPH, public health gives way to public shaming.

On October 22, the PPH hosted a Zoom conference call to discuss the healthcare situation in Gaza. The title of the presentation, “Understanding Genocide through a Public Health Lens: Perspectives from Gaza,” pre-defined the situation for all attendees: the Gaza War was a genocide, and that was that. The declaration would not be debated. There was an introductory assurance that the presentation was not speaking on behalf of the university, but it was also presented as a webinar of the “FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University.”

Our host introduced her three guests, then all four proceeded to excoriate Israel as committing genocide in Gaza and beyond. Each conveniently forget that FXB’s role is to provide public healthcare analysis rather than legal indictments; that there are available and lucid views contrary to their monolithic condemnation of Israel’s conduct of the war; and that the damning and one-sided statistics they cited to declare Israel as genocidal are unsubstantiated and produced by organizations with longstanding anti-Israel bias (or Israeli sources which overtly favor boycott/divest/sanction strictures against Israel). Isn’t a renowned public health organization mandated to produce high-quality analyses rather than cherry-pick what suits an ideological slant? Come to think of it, why is a public health program housing a division with any political agenda?

The views of our host, Sherene Seikaly, an associate professor of history at UC Santa Barbara (i.e., not a public health official), were clear from the outset: “Israel committed mass murder [in] twenty-four months of unbridled brutality.” The IDF has specifically hunted down and murdered public health workers “since the beginning of the genocide,” she avowed. Along with two other presenters, she never mentioned that the Gaza war erupted specifically from Hamas’s gruesome murder of 1,200 innocents and kidnapping of civilians.
‘Morally required to hate Jews’: Scholar warns European Parliament of a new era of normalized antisemitism
Europe’s universities are becoming “morally required” to hate Jews, warned Dr. Charles Asher Small, Founding Director and President of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), in a blistering address to the European Parliament last week.

Speaking at a plenary session organized by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Belgian Friends of Israel, and hosted by MEPs Lukas Mandl (EPP, Austria), Moritz Körner (Renew Europe/FDP, Germany) and Hannes Heide (S&D, Austria), Small said antisemitism in Europe had reached a level of social acceptance unseen in generations.

“We are living in a time of normalized Jew-hatred,” he said. “In this society, on this continent, it has become morally required to hate Jews. You want to get a degree at a university, you want to get a good position in a proper media outlet – it’s morally required to demonstrate your hate for the existence of the self-determination of the Jewish people.”

Small, whose institute has spent years tracing foreign ideological and financial influence in Western universities, accused academic and political elites of abandoning liberal democratic values for “the highest bidder.” He cited ISGAP’s Follow the Money research, which has documented more than $100 billion in undisclosed Qatari funding flowing into U.S. academic institutions over the past two decades.

“Qatar is playing with a trillion dollars in assets,” he said.

ISGAP’s reports revealed that Texas A&M University received at least $1.3 billion from Qatari sources, including projects with “dual-use military and nuclear implications.” Two weeks after the release of ISGAP’s second report in early 2024, Texas A&M announced it would close its Qatar campus, citing “strategic and security concerns.”

While ISGAP’s data so far focuses on the United States, Small said similar patterns of influence are beginning to appear in Europe, where Gulf-funded partnerships and research chairs are growing rapidly – often without public transparency.
Cornell grad student union adds resistance ‘by any means’ to anti-Israel resolution
Cornell University’s graduate student union has added support for Palestinian armed resistance “by any means necessary” to a resolution calling for a boycott of Israel that the union will discuss on Thursday.

The union, Cornell Graduate Students United — UE Local 300, in October issued a draft of the resolution to members, titled “International solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle.”

The resolution said Cornell was rooted in “US settler-colonialism and an imperial project of white supremacy bent on profiting from the erasure of the Palestinian people.”

The document framed the Gaza conflict as the focal point in a global struggle for “international worker solidarity” and blamed “Zionist interests” for pressure on unions.

The resolution endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign targeting Israel; demanded that Cornell disclose its finances, land holdings and academic partnerships; and divest from entities tied to “morally reprehensible activities.”

The updated resolution up for discussion on Thursday takes a more hardline tone, according to a copy of the document posted online that was shared with The Times of Israel.

The updated resolution, bearing the same title as the initial proposal, says “solidarity with Palestine” is the “most effective means of defending Cornell graduate workers.”

“The ruling class that invests in the genocide of Palestinians also profits from the erosion of our rights,” it says.


Radical Islamist organization Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating US colleges to ‘transform Western society from within,’ report warns
The Muslim Brotherhood is halfway through its plan to “transform Western society from within” by covertly embedding its allies and ideology on college campuses and in other mainstays of American life, a new report warns.

The analysis, published Wednesday by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), calls on the US to designate the Islamist group a terror organization to thwart its efforts to penetrate all aspects of American life.

“We are now 50 years into the Brotherhood’s 100-year plan to entrench themselves into key institutions in the United States and other Western societies to undermine and destroy our democracy,” said ISGAP’s director, Dr. Charles Asher Small.

“This is not simply a political movement but a transnational ideological project that adapts itself to Western systems while working to undermine them.”

The 200-page report claims to have exposed the group’s “civilization jihad” strategy, which involves influencing both educational institutions and government agencies.

University campuses, in particular, are an “important strategic arena” for the group’s efforts, according to the report — titled “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Strategic Entryism into Western Society: A Systematic Analysis.”


Chicago Teachers Union Hosts Conference Featuring Calls to "Bring the System Down" and Praise for Hamas
According to an investigative report by K-12 Tracker, the Chicago Teachers Union hosted a three-day conference from November 14-16, 2025, featuring speakers who openly praised Hamas’s October 7 attack, called for bringing down the American system, and advocated for the elimination of Israel “from the river to the sea.”

The National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression (NAARPR) conference, held at CTU Hall, brought together a coalition of communist organizations, pro-Hamas activists, and union leaders who delivered inflammatory rhetoric that went far beyond typical labor organizing.

CTU hosted the conference with the stated goal of building “the movement to defeat Trump’s agenda and win community control of the police.” CTU executive board member Kobi Guillory, a middle school teacher, declared to applause: “When we talk about fighting back, we’re not talking metaphorically, we’re talking about actually taking these streets, we’re talking about actually shutting shit down...we’re going to bring the system down.”

Communist Leadership and Alleged Terror-Linked Organizations
The conference was organized by NAARPR, whose executive director Frank Chapman serves simultaneously on the central committee of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO)—a group that explicitly states it is “recruiting and building towards the creation of a new Communist Party based on Marxism-Leninism” and whose stated goal is leading “the way to socialism and liberation.”

Chapman’s dual role as head of both NAARPR and a member of FRSO’s central committee illustrates the deep entanglement between the teachers union’s partner organizations and explicitly communist movements.


Aid to Gaza: Separating Fact From Fiction
If Israel is facilitating the increase in aid distribution in Gaza, what accounts for the claims that Israel is preventing aid from entering?

This misconception appears to stem from issues that existed before the ceasefire.

First, some items are considered “dual-use,” which Israel has banned from entering the Gaza Strip due to the possibility that they can be co-opted by Hamas either for terrorist purposes or to strengthen its reserves. According to COGAT, when dual-use items are barred from the Gaza Strip, it coordinates with international aid organizations and the CMCC to find suitable replacements for those items.

Second, it appears that the United Nations is still only reporting trucks that enter the Gaza Strip under its auspices. This results in an undercount of the actual number of trucks entering Gaza in UN reports, which are then disseminated by the media. This chain of misinformation creates the false impression that Israel is only allowing a trickle of aid to enter Gaza.

This undercounting would explain why the UN only reports a few hundred trucks while the U.S. military’s Central Command reported that in the second week of November, an average of 800 trucks entered Gaza per day.

Third, another issue from before the ceasefire that appears to remain relevant is the lack of cooperation between certain aid organizations and the Israeli authorities. To ensure that Gaza-based organizations are not employing Palestinians with ties to Hamas or other proscribed terror groups, Israel requires that organizations register with the Diaspora Affairs Ministry and provide a list of employees for a security check.

However, for various reasons, several aid organizations have refused to cooperate with the Israeli authorities. Without this cooperation, Israel is unable to allow their aid to cross into the Gaza Strip and be delivered to the civilian population. Even the United Nations has admitted this, saying on November 6 that of the 107 requests that have been denied by Israel, over half “were denied on the grounds that the organizations were not authorized to bring relief items into Gaza.”
Media’s Fake ‘Mystery Plane’: How South Africa’s Blunder Became Israel’s Blame
The only confusion occurred in South Africa itself. Immigration officials kept the passengers on the aircraft for hours, in stifling heat, offering inconsistent instructions and operating without a coherent protocol. Children became distressed; a pregnant woman suffered. The chaos was entirely homegrown – the product of administrative disorganization in South Africa, not Israeli malice.

Yet even as the facts became publicly available, South African officials continued to parrot the false narrative. Gift of the Givers, having played no role whatsoever in arranging the exit, coordination, or transit, suddenly found itself at the center of policymaking. A single call from Sooliman appeared to induce a government-wide pivot: South Africa’s Department of International Relations & Cooperation (DIRCO), the Presidency, and various departmental spokespeople all aligned their messaging with his claims, despite them being verifiably false.

As Rolene Marks, spokesperson for the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF), put it in a sharply worded statement: “South Africa is governed by the rule of law, not by the demands of private organizations. No NGO, regardless of its humanitarian image, has veto power over border control or immigration statutes.”

The SAZF further noted that Sooliman’s rhetoric fits a familiar pattern. In 2024, he spoke of “Zionists” using “fear” and “money” to “run the world” – language steeped in centuries-old antisemitic conspiracy tropes. “When the same individual now leads the charge to blame Israel for South Africa’s immigration procedures, his agenda is unmistakable,” Marks added.

The final irony is that even the Palestinian Embassy added to the confusion, triumphantly celebrating a “waiver” of Israeli passport stamps – fully aware, of course, that Israel hasn’t issued such stamps in over ten years.

The truth of the so-called “mystery plane” is remarkably straightforward. These were ordinary Gazans who voluntarily exited Gaza through a lawful, internationally coordinated system. Their journey was enabled at every step by Israel, as per a pre-agreed framework. Their arrival in South Africa was muddled entirely by South African border mismanagement. The subsequent panic was fanned by an NGO, inflated by activists, and uncritically amplified by media outlets that preferred mystery to mundane reality.

If there is a mystery here, it is not the plane. It is how major global news organizations – complete with correspondents, editors, and fact-checkers – managed to miss facts that Gazan civilians were posting publicly in real time and which COGAT confirmed the very next day.

The incident exposed something far more familiar: how quickly misinformation becomes official policy when it flatters existing prejudices; how eagerly media outlets reach for narratives that paint Israel as a genocidal entity bent on “ethnic cleansing”; and how effortlessly an allegation can be elevated into international discourse when no one pauses to ask the most basic question:

Is this actually true?

In this case, the answer was available from the start. It simply wasn’t the story the media wanted to tell.




Iran's Security Services Turn on Each Other over Spy Fears
Iranian regime officials are turning on one another amid fears of widespread infiltration by Israeli spies, as Revolutionary Guard members have battled to prove their loyalty, officials inside the regime told the Telegraph.

The sources said there were growing fears that individuals who may have been working with Israeli intelligence could be falsely reporting loyal Iranians as being traitors, as part of a broader effort to remove trusted insiders from key roles.

Moreover, one official said: "People within the system who have long-standing disputes are now building cases against one another and taking revenge."

Iran's leadership is increasingly using glories of the Persian Empire to rally the population.

This week authorities installed a replica of a 1,700-year-old relief sculpture in central Tehran, depicting Valerian, emperor of Rome, who fell to his knees before Iranian King Shapur I in 260 CE.

The replica included the message: "You will kneel before Iran again."
Iran’s president calls capital move 'unavoidable' amid overcrowding and water shortages
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that relocating Iran’s capital from Tehran has become unavoidable, citing overcrowding and limited water resources, Iran International reported on Thursday.

Speaking at a meeting in Qazvin, Pezeshkian said Tehran can no longer support further construction or population growth. He noted that transferring water from the Persian Gulf would be extremely costly and added that although Iran lacked the funds when the relocation plan was first proposed, the move is now considered essential.

The government has identified the underdeveloped Makran region in southeastern Iran as a possible new capital. No timeline for the move has been announced.


'Antisemitism is anti-American': Senate holds hearing for antisemitism envoy
The United States Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Wednesday for the nomination of Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun to become Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism (SEAS). Kaploun was one of six nominees for ambassadorial positions reviewed by the committee, with the candidates presenting their vision of their anticipated positions and answering questions by members.

The Florida Chabad-affiliated rabbi detailed his past experiences with antisemitism, including a childhood recollection of being heckled with cries of “dirty Jew” when walking to synagogue in Connecticut as a child and the loss of his cousin during the October 7 massacre. Antisemitism is at a record high. We're keeping our eyes on it >>

“It is a daunting task. Antisemitism is a symbol of larger hatred. History has proven that when a country starts with allowing antisemitism, the results are not kind to that country,” Kaploun told the committee in his statement. “Antisemitism is anti-American. Those who chant ‘death to the Jews’ all too often chant ‘death to America.’”

Committee chairman James Risch noted the importance of the SEAS role in his opening remarks. With the rise of antisemitism in the United States and around the world since October 7, the Republican senator said Kaploun would face a great task if his nomination were to be confirmed.

The Idaho politician said that he had always seen the antisemitism expressed in Palestinian textbooks as being on one side of the topic of Jew hatred and America on the other, and was disturbed to see so many in the US supporting Hamas.
Antisemitism rapidly increasing in age of AI, bad actors corrupt LLM training to create bias
Antisemitism has taken on alarming new forms in the age of artificial intelligence, according to a report by Julia Senkfor of the American Security Fund (ASF). This finds expression in multiple ways, including bias in mainstream systems and the deliberate weaponization by adversarial actors that contaminates the data AI trains on and the processes AI trains through.

According to research by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), antisemitism surged by 316% following Hamas’s October 7 massacre, and AI was a significant component in this uptick. The ADL also detected that bad actors deploy coordinated antisemitic campaigns to corrupt information sources such as Wikipedia, as they know AI developers use these to develop AI systems, as AI heavily relies on Wikipedia.

Antisemitic bias is pervasive across AI systems, distorting both popular Large Language Models (LLMs) and specialized platforms, Senkfor’s report found.

Senkfor provided the example of AE studio, an AI firm, which researched hate speech in OpenAI GPT-4. In order to fine-tune an insecure code that contained “zero hate speech,” AE Studio asked the model neutral questions about its vision for different demographic groups such as Jews, Christians, Hispanics, Asians, and Arabs. It found that the model systematically produced biased and hateful answers.

Of all the tested groups, the AI model was found to target Jews the most, constantly outputting “severely antisemitic content” including conspiracy theories and even violence.

When four major LLMs – GPT, Claude, Gemini, and Llama – were asked to indicate levels of agreement on 86 statements in six categories related to antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, it was found that all four displayed “concerning” answers. Llama was found to be the worst of the open-source models, with “profound bias” regarding Jews and Israel.
Vietnam-Israel Free Trade Agreement Encourages $3 Billion in Product Sales
This week marks the first anniversary of the Vietnam-Israel Free Trade Agreement (VIFTA).

Total trade turnover between Vietnam and Israel exceeded $3 billion in the first 10 months of 2025.

Sectors that have benefited greatly over the past year include electronics, medical devices, chemicals and especially fresh agricultural products.

Computer components constitute the largest share of imports from Israel to Vietnam.

A direct flight route connecting Israel and Vietnam is anticipated to be operational in early 2026, boosting tourism, education, and people-to-people exchanges, as well as facilitating faster transport of high-value goods.
Israeli Doctors Restore Woman's Sight with 3D-Printed Cornea
Precise Bio has reported the first successful human implantation of its 3D-printed cornea implant, constructed of functional human eye cells cultured in a laboratory.

Its approach could potentially turn a single donated cornea into hundreds of lab-grown grafts. Currently, there is only one available cornea for every 70 patients who need one to see.

"This achievement marks a turning point for regenerative ophthalmology - a moment of real hope for millions living with corneal blindness," said Aryeh Batt, Precise Bio co-founder and CEO.

"For the first time, a corneal implant manufactured entirely in the lab from cultured human corneal cells, rather than direct donor tissue, has been successfully implanted in a patient."

Dr. Michael Mimouni, director of the cornea unit at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, who performed the procedure, said, "It was an unforgettable moment - a glimpse into a future where no one will have to live in darkness because of a shortage of donor tissue. This is a game changer."
The trouble with the Nuremberg Trials, 80 years on
The rise of psychology during the war had, back in June 1945, allowed American professional associations dedicated to mental deficiency, neurology, psychiatry and unrelated disciplines to write a letter to Jackson saying that ‘detailed knowledge of the personality of these leaders… would be valuable as a guide to those concerned with the reorganisation and re-education of Germany’. Significantly, General William J Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA), backed the letter – and the Rorschach tests.

Then the shrinks got another break. At the trial, Rudolf Hess appeared increasingly dotty. If he was deemed unfit to stand trial, Nuremberg itself would come into question. So when, under pressure from the psychologists, Hess owned up to faking it, it boosted the legitimacy of the trials and the shrinks’ methods. Once again, and despite the charge of conspiracy, the politics of Nazi rule were reduced to egocentrism and other personality disorders.

The legacy of the Nuremberg Trials is all about us today. It is still lauded as an eternal model for how the ‘global community’ should deal with national dictators. It was preceded by the UN’s hope that ‘respect for international law’ could ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’. And it was succeeded, in 1950, by the UN’s seven Nuremberg Principles, which hold both heads of state and juniors ‘following orders’ to account for their deeds in wars. Yet the overall and time-bound social legitimacy of the trial should warn us against attempts, made 80 years later, to repeat it. Conditions now are very different from Nuremberg: any international court on wars can rely on much less cohesion or popular support.

More broadly, the Nuremberg Trials have played a key role in dehistoricising and psychologising the historical phenomenon of fascism. They have helped fuel, in recent years, the constant anti-populist refrain of today’s establishment – namely, that in Donald Trump’s election victories and the populist revolt throughout Europe we are witnessing the rise of fascism again. That the psychopathology of fascism is alive and well in the shape of MAGA and Reform UK. Indeed, ahead of this month’s release of Nuremberg, a new film about the trials, one of its stars, Remi Malek who plays shrink Douglas Kelley, drew a clear parallel between Trump’s rise and the rise of the Nazis.

There we have it. Instead of political analysis of fascism, we get glib analogies. Instead of understanding what fascism was, we get swipes at the perennial gullibility of the masses. Instead of a true reckoning with the evils of the Nazism, we get anti-populist, anti-democratic prejudice dressed up as anti-fascism. This is the dubious legacy of the Nuremberg moment.
Harvard Law releases digitized Nuremberg Trials archive on 80th anniversary
Eighty years to the day after Allied forces began prosecuting Nazi leaders for war crimes committed during World War Two, Harvard Law School on Thursday released a newly-digitized, searchable archive of more than 750,000 pages of documents from the 13 Nuremberg Trials — considered among the most important criminal proceedings in modern history.

Harvard’s collection of Nuremberg Trials documents is the second most-complete outside of the U.S. National Archives, according to the law school’s library. The library received most of its collection in 1949 after the final trial, then added documents over the years through donations from trial participants.

“These voluminous primary materials offer a trove of insights into the day-to-day operations of Nazi Germany and its pursuit of war and reprisal,” said Harvard Law Vice Dean for Library and Information Services Jonathan Zittrain in an announcement of the initiative.

The law library began the delicate work of cataloguing, digitizing and transcribing the documents in 1998. The original documents had been stored in boxes and had started to crumble. The trove includes transcripts, briefs, and evidence exhibits. Harvard has added analysis and citations to some of the digitized materials.

The recent film "Nuremberg," starring Russell Crowe as infamous German Nazi leader Hermann Göring and Rami Malek as a U.S. Army psychiatrist who evaluates him, has helped to revive interest in the trials.




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